In a story for tomorrow's Washington Post, writer Eli Saslow reveals that white supremacist groups opposed to Obama are attracting new members online. The story frustrates me to no end, because it is one small facet of a much larger and more insidious story that I've been trying to get the MSM to cover for months now. Here is the headline, byline and lead graf of the Post story:

Hate Groups' Newest Target
White Supremacists Report an Increase in Visits to Their Web Sites
By Eli Saslow
Washington Post Staff Writer


Sunday, June 22, 2008;
Page A06

Sen. Barack Obama's historic victory in the Democratic primaries, celebrated in America and across much of the world as a symbol of racial progress and cultural unity, has also sparked an increase in racist and white supremacist activity, mainly on the Internet, according to leaders of hate groups and the organizations that track them.

Big deal, you say. No. It's even bigger than that.

Everyone knows the GOP is trying to steal the election by swiftboating Obama. But how are they actually doing it? What are the mechanics of smearing played out now in real time? Where did the "Muslim" rumor start? Who's pushing the Rezko and Ayers smears? Who's trying to tie Obama to Hamas?

There is a media conspiracy you very probably don't know much about, but I have documented one small part of it and will tell you what I know. I believe it is the key to understanding GOP tactics in the coming general election.

First, you need to understand that I am no conspiracy enthusiast. I believe Booth, Oswald, Ray and Sirhan each acted alone.

The conspiracy I speak of involves a concerted effort by the Far Right to generate smears about Barack Obama and push them from fringe media into mainstream press accounts. It is a conscious effort involving hundreds of online websites, powerful players in the Christian Right such as James Dobson and willing pawns in broadcast and print.

I sent emails in late March to several prominent journalists. The recipients included Michael Isikoff of Newseek, Mike Allen of Politico, and Pete Jackson of the Associated Press bureau in Pittsburgh. All of them expressed an initial interest that soon fizzled and never resulted in a story. Isikoff, in particular, led me to believe I needed to do more legwork before he would look into it. This is the last email I sent him on the subject:

Michael,

Thank you for hearing me out.

WHAT THIS EMAIL CONTAINS:
1. My contact information
2. An overview of what I've found
3. A summary of what I think it all means
4. A specific example of the viral transmission of a malicious lie about Obama from its source in the extremist underground through three other media, where it finally emerged in the reader comments in the online Washington Post


-------------------------------------
1. My contact info
xxxxx xxxxxx
St Louis MO
314-xxx-xxxx

-------------------------------------
2. What I've found In short, I've traced one of the many conduits of manufactured paranoia about Sen. Obama from its source in extremist groups through Radical Right media to mainstream media. The individuals involved in passing along this particular lie include a Pennsylvania man who describes himself as running a private investigations firm composed of ex-military and ex-CIA but who, in fact, sponsors articles describing Muslims as "apes" and Sen. Obama as "Barack Hussein Osama Obama"; the host of a nationally syndicated Christian Right radio program available to 1,100 stations including U.S. military; and a conservative who describes himself as "currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police."

CONTINUED IN COMMENTS - PLEASE REC

Watching the so-called liberal media turn on Obama for rejecting public financing has been interesting. He has become a flip-flopper - change, they say, we can no longer believe in.

But from his supporters on-line, I see a new enthusiam, and a new willingness to donate that is far more fascinating.

For decades, presidents have been determined by which candidate did the best job of grovelling for rich people's money. Sure, George Bush won the presidency from inside the public financing system, but as soon as he got into office, he paid off the big business supporters who financed his primaries by eliminating regulations and installing lobby-types into jobs regulating the industries they used to work for. End result? $4 gas, stupid war, worthless dollars and financial markets a wreck. Biggest beneficiaries? Oil companies and defense contractors...the same industries for which the president and vice president previously worked. This does not speak well for the idea that public financing makes the system more responsive to the people. This is proof that the system is, indeed, broken.

The point of public financing is not to change where the money comes from. Its to change who the elected respond to.

Had Obama accepted public financing, he would now be spending his time trying to get big benefactors to give money to the DNC, to counter the big war chest the RNC already has. Along the way, he'd be racking up huge political debts to trial lawyers, health insurance and energy companies, eager to curry favor with the front runner. The likelyhood that his army of small donors could be switched over to a party aparatus that neither likes or respects them is very slim. So after the election, those fat cats would be first in line, doing all they can to keep energy and health insurance prices high, and Obama would owe them. It would be business as usual... a good man corrupted by the need to beg for rich people's money.

But since he flip-flopped on his public financing promise, he has stayed true to the vision of his supporters...the vision of a president who works for them, instead of the fat cats. Rich people are still free to give, but they do so knowing that this campaign doesn't belong just to them.

And what is the first thing we see him doing with this money? Opening up voter registration drives in all 50 states. He expects to win by getting more taxpaying little people to vote. He is scaring Republicans with the idea that more people and more states will be important in November. Pundits may see this as unfair, but how could politics be any more democratic than that? And odds are he will be more sucessful than most, because there is a huge army of little people who want to help. Students and grandmas who have more time than money, willing to phone bank and knock on doors. Obama plans to use his cash to channel their energy into votes.

And those little people are like little sharks, smelling blood in the water. They see the panic in the eyes of the fat fish who have been gobbling up all the political spoils, and using it to preserve a system that works better for Wall Street than on Main Street.

I am not sure Obama will be a good president or a great one. But I am sure he has awakened a real hope in regular folks, that if they get up off their butts, write a little check or spend a little time, they can make a difference. He will undoubtedly be ridiculed for having more money, just as we saw Hillary make fun of his crowds, as if there is something evil about a candidate that people actually want to support.

The road ahead will be difficult. On talk radio, corporate America's multi billion dollar free contribution to the Republican party, they are already comparing his movement to the Nazi's. Look for a campaign of fear that pulls out all the stops. But along the way, the little people have learned something. $20 bucks at a time, they toppled the strongest political machine the Democratic Party has seen since Roosevelt.

But that was easy compared to what lies ahead. It will be very interesting to see what happens in America, if little people really can conquer the big bucks. America's monied interests will not give up without a fight.

There have been many arguments that I have read and agreed with saying that Obama should appoint this or that Republican to the position of secretary of defense.  Matthew Yeglesias has defeated than all with just two sentences in a two paragraph post. 

If you find a moderate Republican with sound views on key environmental issues and make him or her head of the EPA, that says "climate change is an important issue and there's bipartisan support for taking action." If you put a Republican in charge of the Pentagon it says "Obama likes diplomacy, but even he knows that when the going gets tough you need to call in the GOP."

This made me think about the question in a new way.  Before I had seen the SecDef position as a job that a Democrat could trust a Republican to actually do and not try to undermine him.  It was the post I was willing to trust them with because I thought they would  mess up anything else.  Defense was the one area where I thought we are all on the same side of this issue.  I had not considered the fact that the GOP likes to paint Democrats as incompetent in this area.  Mr. Yeglesias convinces me that I had looked at this question from exactly the wrong point of view.  I wish that I could argue that concisely.

Crossposted at The Working Class Heretic

I pose this question to Obama supporters who both oppose the FISA bill and think Obama's statement on it was motivated by political expediency. Among this group, I see two general reactions here at TPM: either (1) I'm so mad at Obama for this I'm going to withhold financial support from his campaign or (2) Obama's position does not change the big picture and my support for him remains strong. Now, my question is, do you believe that (a) Obama is a typical politician who will always ignore ordinary people unless they exert constant pressure on him or (b) Obama has a progressive agenda but must deal with political realities, especialy during a presidential campaign? I think if you believe (1), then (a) might be a rational response (though I would still seek to persuade you otherwise). If you believe (b), it seems to me, then (2) is the ONLY reasonable response. What I'd really like to see is people arguing for (1) to not pretend that they believe (b), and people who do believe (b) to think really hard before letting anyone convince them of (1).

From a long article on CIA secret prisons and interrogation techniques in the International Herald Tribune of 6/20 or 6/21:

"Mohammed met his captors at first with cocky defiance, telling one veteran CIA officer, a former Pakistan station chief, that he would talk only when he got to New York and was assigned a lawyer — the experience of his nephew and partner in terrorism, Ramzi Yousef, after Yousef's arrest in 1995."

"Mohammed" is the infamous Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, who has proudly claimed the honor of sawing off the head of Nathan Pearl, the American journalist.

Assuming the accuracy of the Tribune's reporting, is there even one knee-jerk liberal TPM reader who would concede that the more (American) rights granted to legitimate terrorists, the less likely those terrorists are to relinquish information that could prevent the loss of innocent lives?

That's the sole question.

[It presupposes the fact that the individuals are terrorists, not in any narrow legal sense, but in the meta-sense. Example: If one of the hijackers who slit a flight attendant's throat on 9/11 survived, as did 3 passengers who witnessed the event, that throat slitter, prior to any trial, would be a terrorist.]

This question is not posed as a subtle defense of torture. It's posed because fairly soon Sen. Obama is going to face these real-world questions as the president....Perhaps his FISA position reflects the fact that he is much more realistic than many of his doctrinaire supports?

MyBlog:  http://ProteanPerspectives.blogspot.com

As a Hillary supporter, I've dealt with my share of disappointments this election season.  I know there are many disillusioned and angry Obama supporters right now who may appreciate some tips on working through the anger.  In the spirit of unity, here are my top 5 coping mechanisms:

1. Fleur de Sel Caramel Ice Cream - Haagen Dazs.  Instant nirvana.

2.  Run on treadmill with iPod set to ANGRY.  My personal faves are List of Demands (Reparations) - Saul Williams and Killing in the Name of - Rage Against The Machine set on repeat for 45 minutes (cool down to Eye of the Tiger as always :)).  Alternate with kickboxing class.  Instead of doing your usual visulaizations of the final battle scene in The Karate Kid, picture landing a roundhouse kick to Howard Dean or whomever has offended you most that day.  Bonus - this helps counteract overindulgence of #1.

3.  Come to TPM to express your anger and outrage.  Some would say we should just bottle up my disappointments and sweep them under the rug.  I respectfully disagree. So please engage others and tell them why your so pissed.  Please note engaging in actual dialogue means acknowleding and listening to other points of view so that you can tell them exactly why they are an idiot or assacious.  Verbal body slams and jousting helps us to vent our frustrations in a positive manner.  And sometimes even in disagreement we find common ground in our core beliefs.  Makes you realize that democrats are not as divided as we tought.

4.  Remember what this election is all about: NOT MCCAIN

5.  After you've vented your anger & come to the realization of what's most important, go back to your iPod to the mellow songs and play Love is Stronger than Pride.

I wont pretend that I intend to stop living
I wont pretend I'm good at forgiving
But I can't hate you
Although I have tried
Mmmm

I still really really love you
Love is stronger than pride
I still really really love you
Mm mm mm mm mm

Sitting here wasting my time
Would be like
Waiting for the sun to rise
Its all too clear things come and go
Sitting here waiting for you
Would be like waiting for winter
Its gonna be cold
There may even
Be snow

I still really really love you
Love is stronger than pride
I still really really love you
Love is stronger
I still really love you
Love is stronger than pride

Words: sade adu

Yes, I am pissed at the Democratic party for a host of reasons and this FISA crap adds another layer of outrage, but when it comes down to it I know my party can be better than this.  The FISA vote is a betrayal, but I'll be waiting for the sun to rise after we elect a democratic president and increase our majorities in the House & Senate.  Love is stronger than pride. 

There's a lot of conversation right now about FISA, and I'm glad we're having it.

I believe Obama (and Hillary, and all worthwhile Senators) should oppose the FISA revisions.  A simple "nay" vote is all that has to be done, but more than that would be great.  A "yay" vote or not voting is unacceptable.

Just to be clear, I'm not threatening to vote for McCain, or stay home (at this time).  What I am saying is that we should all be getting in contact with our Senators and letting them know what we think, and that goes double for Obama.

The FISA bill is awful, is a travesty, and the fact that more people aren't outraged about it saddens me.

Now let me tell you why.

There are things that make America great.  Those things are the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and all of the amendments.  A little guy, wronged by a big guy, can have his day in court and have the outcome decided by other little guys.

These rights are, however, not gauranteed.  God does not make sure that they are enforced.  Men do.  Our rights require the constant vigilance from us to ensure that we, and future generations have them.  Something as simple as the right to take someone to court, something we so often take for granted in America, is so precious that we cannot allow anything, be it political expediency or fear or Presidential bargaining, take it from us.

Some have argued that allowing FISA through will make getting universal health care or Social Security reform easier.  And they're probably right, but the best health care in the world, or the most fair and giving Social Security system do nothing for us if we fail to protect our rights.  The right to privacy, on which legal abortion hinges, would you give that up for a shot at universal health care?  The right to free speech, something that allows us to sit here and pen blogs, would you give that up for Social Security?  Is it okay to give up the right to take someone to court, just for the chance at either of these things?

It is not okay.  This is not a small issue.  Bargaining away liberties does not amount to "incremental change."

We can have it both ways.  We can stop FISA and get through universal health care.  Universal health care and Social Security will require some bargaining, and there will be much back and forth when its time comes, but our rights are too big of a chip to throw down on the table, especially when the health care and Social Security issues are not explicitly on the table.

Others have suggested that President Obama will only enforce the parts of the FISA bill that are "good."  This is not much different than hoping that the next king will be a benevolent one.  Obama will one day leave office, and if he leaves FISA intact, we will all wish he had stopped it back in 2008, when the chance was there.

We need freedoms, and we need rights.  America will not be America without them.  So please, contact your Senator and Obama and let him know that you want to keep America the great country that it is.

Thank you for reading.

The common mindset of US officials who presume American empire is acceptable and citizens who presume that abortion of other living beings is their right, is imperial exceptionalism. In both cases the death of others for our continued comfort, whatever the kind of comfort, is justified as "our due."

If the CRD's (constitutional democratic republic) citizens feel this way about their "right" to destroy the defenseless and dependent to insure their access to society's highest rewards, how much more may its officials justify imperial domination of relatively defenseless and weak nation states to insure access to energy's greatest rewards?

This is a domestic and foreign problem I'll call ED for lack of a better term. It's Empire Dysfunction, in which an imperial mindset of exceptionalism and unquestionability has set in and hardened the arteries and ear drums of the ethical mind.

ED is exactly that which causes the CRD to become flaccid and the once independent, responsible and spirited people that worked for a CRD to become one wobbling mass of fearful, manipulable rubber-stampers of all powers that do wrong yet leave them free to consume. This is ED at its worst. And it is systemic, so Mr. Obama may just as easily find his political genetics virally coopted by it as Mr. McCain, Ms. Clinton or anyone else who depended on its Proponents to get into office.

And among the Proponents, those whose bottom line is not human life, but dollars, can fairly be assumed to have a motive to leave ED in place. For those whose greatest interests are backed into a perceived corner and who can't humble themselves, the justified killing of others isn't far behind. It's their "due." And using other people's money (taxpayers) and other peoples' lives (children) to kill and be killed is the SOP of these business interests.

Why is it their "due"? Well, haven't their appointed justices over the past several decades left abortion intact? The tacitly agreed recipe: falsely justified right to kill in exchange for the falsely justified right to kill, add lots of useless words of indignation as propaganda, and pretend to lose as a pretext for getting elected tomorrow so that one can "win" and finally "end those imperial wars," or "make abortion obsolete."

Hopefully Mr. Obama, promising to reach common ground and common sense solutions to formerly intractible problems among us, and with other nation states, will work with his team to make both forms imperial domination of the weak and defenseless an obsolete and unnecessary evil.

Isn't it long past time that our wars be only those necessary to defend our lives from foreign and domestic aggression, and abortions to save the lives of moms?

Both of my parents were Kansas Republicans.  I have a vague recollection of some low-level animosity toward FDR and I knew at the time that Dewey was the candidate for whom my parents had voted, but, in genereal, politics and polemics of any knind were not part of my middle-class, middle-America life growing up. It was a typical *American*, small-town, church on Sunday, Jack Benny on the radio, ice cream socials in the summer, Saturday night movies in the main street theater or the drive-in existence.

So it was with some consternation and trepidation that I found myself, my two young children and my (now ex) husband headed for a post overseas.  To illustrate how long ago this was, we flew onthe long-defunct Braniff International Airways.  The coach cabin had four wide seats across, two on each side, and enough leg room that a 6'6" man was comfortable throughout the long flight.  The service and meals were five star (or nearly so it seemed to me at the time).  My year-old son took his steps inthe aisle which was much broader than airlinger aisles are today.

As the plane took off for points known geographically, but unknown in any other sense to me, I thought literally about the "amber waves of grain" we were passing over and wondered what I had gotten myself into.  The experience of living abroad was extraordinary, of course.  I loved it and quite naturally it broadened my worldview considerably.  In fact, I was not entirely thrilled with the idea of returning to the States after five years away. 

I long ago became an urban Democrat and I delight in finding people who like to discuss politics.  While I have moved in an entirely different direction, I still remember how it felt to be a *real (raised as a Republican) American*. My life was filled with pride of country and patriotism. You're thinking "how naive" probably and you would be right.  But you have to remember those were the days before cable television, and before the Kennedy-Nixon televised debate, and it was even before the Huntley Brinkley Nightly News.  Compared to today we were isolated.

Which brings me finally to an article by Mark Schmitt in The American Prospect: Can Identity Politics Save the Right?  According to Schmitt

[t]raditionally, the phrase "identity politics" has referred to the Democratic coalition's caucuses, interest groups and competitive claims of wrongs to be righted and rights to be granted. Identity politics on the left, according to this very conventional wisdom, opened the door to an alternative politics of national identity on the right.

Schmitt notes elsewhere that neocon pundit David Frum considers these traditional Democratic Party constituencies - what Frum calls the pluribus in e pluribus unum - to be parasites. Because the Republican Party is bankrupt of ideas he adds

[t]hat this year the Republican argument is reduced to its barest essence: Americans versus "pluribus", unprotected by the politeness of issues or safer symbolism,

which is the origin of McCain's slogan: The American President Americans Are Waiting For.

Schmitt concludes

if it works, it will be in part because we--by which I mean the media and many Democrats believe it will.  We are easily spooked by the confident swagger of the Republicans, who not so long ago were plotting permanent world domination.

So will it work?  Will we continue to be spooked by possible repercussions if we stand firm on principle?  Will Obama's rapid fire and firm rebuttals to GOP attacks keep them at bay?  Will the Republicans succeed in painting themselves as the only *real Americans*?  Will enough people fall for this shallow ploy? As a former *real American* I have hope that it won't work, but I'm not convinced we have enough self confidence yet to stop them.

The events of the last few days point to the futility of appealing to our Senators to  do the 'right' thing on the FISA bill.
The storyline that the Senators are in the back pocket of the telecom companies seemingly doesn't faze this congress.
Time to change the debate by flat out stating what many people really think... Senators, especially the leadership are being blackmailed by this Whitehouse to support the current FISA bill.
If your Senator votes 'YES' on this bill he/she is admitting they are being blackmailed. The Cheney cabal has personal information that would put your Senator's job at risk.
The vote next week needs to be framed this way:
A 'yes' vote means your 'dirty' and being blackmailed to betray the constitution.
A 'no' vote means you have nothing to hide.

I have read some of the responses to Obama's statement regarding the FISA compromise (which essentially said that he wishes more could have been done, will try to exclude telecom immunity, but is more or less satisfied with the compromise).

Many of the blog reactions accuse Obama of selling out, caving in, being weak, etc.  Nathan Donarum says that an Obama vote for the FISA bill would be inexcusable.  Oleeb says that Obama’s statement exposes him as a politician who is “more of the same.”  Vidalia wants supporters not to contribute to the campaign in the month of July.  Many commenters are promising not to vote for Obama in November.

Let's think about what would have happened if a FISA compromise were not reached.  If both sides stuck to their guns, nothing would have been accomplished.  Both parties could have claimed to hold to their principles and proclaimed the ideological/moral superiority of their position in the face of gridlock.  We would have all lamented the ensuing partisan spin as "politics as usual."

Instead, a bill was passed in which everyone got something.  What is wrong with that?  Does any one of us expect to get our way all the time?

Isn't Washington DC's “all or nothing, I'm right and they're wrong” approach one thing that we hate in politics?  Who amongst us has not lamented partisanship?  Who amongst Obama supporters (and I suspect those who didn't support him as well) didn't applaud when he said in 2004 the he didn't see Red States or Blue States, but the United States?  When Obama gives his passionate speeches, isn't he at his most moving when he paints a picture of an inclusive America?

If your responses to the litany of questions in the last paragraph were along the lines of "Yes," "I hate partisanship," "I clapped," and "he sure is," then I ask the following question:  Why are so many of you riding Obama when he expresses support for a compromise?

Think further down the road.  I like Senator Obama's plans for health care, social security, taxes, and energy.  Do you think that they will get passed and enacted as is with the widespread blessings of the country?  If you answered, “Yes,” then you are deluding yourself.  Remember:

-The Clintons pushed for health care in a “my way or the highway” fashion.  The result of their principled stand?  Nothing.

-The budget surpluses of the Clinton Administration would never have been accomplished without bipartisan support.

-For most of his tenure, Dubya ignored and dismissed the Democrats.  He governed on behalf of the Republicans.  He/they can claim their short-term victories.  However, look at what has happened in the long run.  Don’t you think that the clamor for change has largely been fueled by 43’s “I take no prisoners, I am right and they are wrong” governance?

Unfortunately, the media, politicos, and pundits have conditioned us to believe that all changes of positions or any concession is a sign of weakness.  They are wrong.  The ability to compromise is strength.  It means that given deadlock, factions are willing to surrender something for the sake of a greater goal.

I think this better explains what reactionaries are getting at.

 

People, pull your heads out of your blogs and think about the context of the Obama FISA vote.  The man is running for President.  Now is not the time for him to create political controversy with an out of step vote on FISA.  Better to go with the flow and move this along than to create an issue where there needn't be one.  Obviously, the fix is in on this bill or you wouldn't have the Democratic Congressional leadership showing this bill off.  There's no angle for the Nominee to go against the flow and fight this.  It isn't worth the risk of creating a larger issue that could play in the GE. 

This is not the time for Obama to stand on principles as 1 of 100.  Now is the time for Obama to manage the message, avoid land mines, and win the Presidency.  If you want an unelectable candidate who doesn't know when not to stand on principles, Ralph Nader's running again.  I'm sure he'd like your support.

I can't tell you how tired I am of the Bush Administration's crazy-making over the last few years.  

After the 2006 elections, I breathed a sigh of relief for many reasons.  One of the main reasons for my relief was the very sane and healthy prospect of resuming Congressional oversight of the Bush Administration's Executive Branch.

It shouldn't have surprised any of us that, as should by now be obvious, the Bush Administration would feel no shame in trying to keep its activities secret from the American people by employing any means necessary.  It's obvious that they believe their control and operation of our government is none of our damn business.  You see, they believe that they have the right to keep their activities secret, and executive privilege is their King's X, allowing them to tell us with impunity and without apology, "We do what we want and it's none of your business."

So when is executive privilege justified?  Reading about the power struggles and thinking about it has only made things murkier and more confusing for me.  Listening to the back-and-forth between oversight committees and the  executive branch provides little illumination.  

So far, the conversation goes something like this (using "shorter"-style translation):

Congressional Oversight:  (to Bush Admin. or Exec Branch Dept.)  We need documents from you.

(weeks/months pass with no response)

Congressional Oversight:  Hey!  Stop ignoring us.  We need documents from you.

Bush Adm/Exec Branch:  Huh?  Oh, sorry.  We've been busy.  Fighting terrorists, you know.  We'll get them to you.

(weeks/months pass with no response)

Congressional Oversight:  So where are the documents you promised?

Bush Adm/Exec Branch:  Well, here are a few
of them--mostly redacted.  But isn't it an impressive number of sheets of paper?  10,000!  We'll send the others once we find them.  If we find them.

Congressional Oversight:  You mean they're lost?

Bush Adm/Exec Branch:  Maybe.  We don't know.

----------------------------------

An interminable amount of time passes.  Finally, we get to this:


Bush Adm/Exec Branch:  We invoke executive privilege.

Congressional Oversight:  Now you tell us.  Why in the world do you think that applies here?

Bush Adm/Exec Branch:  Because we need to protect the valuable level of candor between the President and (fill in the blank depending on what they're covering up) in their deliberative communications, you know, especially on these politically charged issues.  (Are there any issues during the Bush Administration that aren't politically charged?)  Besides, you haven't demonstrated a real need for these documents.  And anyway, you're just engaging in phony political theater.

Congressional Oversight:  We're doing oversight.  It's our responsibility.  And you haven't proven a valid basis for asserting executive privilege.

And on and on and on and on.....

-------------------

So what the hell distinguishes where the line is drawn between these two--(1)  when the President does have a right to executive privilege that supersedes the citizens' right to know and (2)  when the people's need to know what the hell their government's doing is more important (not to mention the most valuable check on abuse of government power)?

I've been looking for a distinction that answers this question--something that's clear and concise and irrefutable.  Is it some ineffable, delicate balance that only someone much smarter than I can grasp?  I'd started to think maybe that was the answer--either that or I'm crazy and no longer possess the ability to use logic.

Then I found this on the Obsidian Wings site.

That makes sense.  God bless publius at Obsidian Wings.  That makes sense.  And I'm not crazy.

Will someone please tell me shat I am doing wrong?  I just posted a rather long blog and only the first paragraph appears.  What am I doing wrong?

Both of my  parents were Kansas Republicans. I have a vague recollection of some low-level animosity toward FDR and I knew at the time that Dewey was the candidate for whom my parents voted ,  but, in general, politics and polemics of any kind were  not  part of my middle-class, middle-America life growing up. It was a typical *American*, small-town, church on Sunday, Jack Benny on the radio, ice cream socials in the summer, Saturday night movies in the main street theater, or the drive-in existence.     

With all the focus on FISA the last few days, I want to draw your attention to an issue that we must focus on: Better treatment of Veterans. Last week I read two disturbing reports. One that there are discrepancies in female veteran health care treatment. The other was how veterans have been exeperiments for drug testing without proper knowledge of suicidal and violent side effects.

I've got an Act Blue fund Called Better Senators for Veterans.  I started this last month to help those candidates running against the incumbent republicans that voted against the Webb GI Bill. I have raised about $1200 and have more in pledges. I still want to get to $1500 this weekend and I've pledged some of my own money. Rick Noriega is a great candidate and needs your support against John Cornyn.

Well I've also taken an interest recently in the GA-12 house race. I know there is a lot of discussion about that race with Obama backing Barrow and I've got another diary on that.
I think Regina Thomas is certainly one to back there and add that to your list and I have an Act Blue page GA-12 Taking on a Bush Dog for that race.

However, I have not had the time to really dig and target those house races where we have incumbents that are bad for veterans. I would like to extend my efforts to the House. Please let me know who should be on this page. I will make an effort to blog on this issue also.

Thanks for your comments and assistance.

Good for Obama that he opted out of public campaign finance. Republican outrage couldn't be more entertaining, because they're going to lose, and they know it.

Republicans were quite happy with McCain-Feingold when they could effortlessly raise $250,000 at a dinner event, while Democrats had to struggle and contort and act like Republicans-lite, just to stay competitive raising $175,000 dinners.

McCain's problem is twofold. Republican donors don't like him because he's neither an hereditary member of the patrician class, nor a religious nut. He's a Navy man who married the wealthy heiress of a beer man, who The Base had to crush, in order to annoint W.

Also, the Bush Administration is such an unprecedented disaster that Republicans don't even like Bush any more. The religious nuts are openly threatening to sit this one out. The patricians must be thinking they had a pretty good run, but now it's time to lie low while Democrats clean up the mess.

So McCain has no choice but to accept public financing, and hope Obama plays the high-minded sucker by following suit. McCain's gamble failed. Good.

New. Different. Attractive.

That was how Keith Reinhard, chairman emeritus of DDB Worldwide, described Barack Obama in an April 2008 Fast Company article, “The Brand Called Obama.” But has the Obama brand become stale?

True to the American form of hip commercialization, the article reduced Sen. Barack Obama to essentially being a brand. The article went even further and reduced “Politics” as merely being “about marketing—about projecting and selling an image, stroking aspirations, moving people to identify, evangelize, and consume.” And what do people consume? A product.  

According to this mindset, it’s not about policies that affect people for better or worse.

It is interesting when one reads the newspapers or listens to radio, hearing about either John McCain (“Maverick”) or Hillary Clinton (“Experienced”) referred to as brands, or how what is known about them—their projected personas—their brand being confused or devalued by a message or an event that is unfamiliar, crowding out their message. In a commercial society where almost everything is reduced a cash nexus relationship, politics is essentially one of branding, or marketing.

This is the natural result of the techniques of advertising and marketing, of candidates being handled by professional campaign managers who know how sell people, market politicians as products. Joe McGinness noted it years ago in his book about Richard Nixon, The Selling of the President 1968. The “Tricky Dick” of yesteryear, the 1950s and early 1960s, was repackaged and sold as the tanned, rested and ready Nixon of 1968, ready to lead the nation during the dark days of Vietnam, assassinations, and social disorders. Nixon, with the help of advertising and television handlers, branded himself as new and improved. One of the grand masters of this style of politicking was Clem Whitaker, a former newspaperman who founded Campaigns Inc.

Campaigns, Inc. has been cited as being one of the first professional campaign/PR firms. It took over a candidate’s entire campaign, devised his or her strategy, replacing what a party once did: being an agent between the candidate and the electorate. (Whitaker successfully branded Harry Truman’s national health care plan of the 1940s as “socialized medicine,” undermining any chance of universal healthcare for the American people for the rest of the 20th century.)

Whitaker understood how things could be marketed to a certain base, the American consumer: “The average American doesn’t want to be educated,” said Whitaker. “He doesn’t want to improve his mind; he doesn’t want to work, consciously, at being a good citizen. But most every American likes to be entertained. He likes movies; he likes mysteries; he likes fireworks and parades…So, if you have to fight put on a show!”

Branding is pervasive in American politics. Think of the Republican Party and one immediately understands its brand: Strong Defense. Family Values. Free Enterprise. Pro-Life.

Democrats, as they have been defined or “branded” by the Republicans, are: Unpatriotic. Tax and Spend. The Enemy of Normal People. Weak on Defense. In short, Liberals.

“Change That You Can Believe In”. “Yes, We Can.”

These were the essential messages of Obama’s primary campaign, along with “a new kind of politics.” What is interesting to note about the Fast Company article is that it’s basically a horse-race article. Issues aren’t important; it is how Team Obama branded Obama the product, or how the game is played. Most of the article is about how Internet saavy Team Obama is: getting Facebook genius Chris Hughes on board, or how Obama mashups were viral and viewed as more authentic. Obama was readily available in the online world, but his brand was protected by keeping him way from those people who have a tendency to kick the tires and check underneath the hood of any suspicious four-wheeled brand: the press.

Yet Brand Obama was marketed tested by that new breed of 2.0 journalism, the citizen blogger. Blogger Mayhill Fowler, attending an Obama fundraiser in San Francisco, reported the Brand’s infamous “cling” remarks about lower-brand folks in the American hinterland.

So has Brand Obama lost its zing? It’s zip? It’s snazz? Put another way, is Barack Obama merely old wine in new wineskin? The gleam of this brand, spanking new model appears to have lost some of its luster. As the NYT noted in April, he had enjoyed a considerable lead among men in February over Hillary Clinton: “67 percent of men wanted the party to nominate him compared with 28 percent for Mrs. Clinton. Now 47 percent back him, compared with 42 percent for her.”

Undoubtedly, the wear and tear on this brand in the primary season, the trial marketing period, has been considerable, but not enough to prevent him from reaching the necessary delegate number to seal the deal for the nomination in Denver. But increasingly the fresh face of 2004 is beginning to look like “Fast Eddie Obama,” talking out of both sides of his neck, a trick not unusual for politicians.

There are three issues that potentially show how Brand Obama even before taking the oath of office as POTUS, even before getting the actual nomination to be the candidate as the Democratic standard bearer, has become a typical politician, undermining the freshness of the brand.

1. Suck-up politics

His statement before the American/Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) classically underscores that professed fealty to Israel is truly the third rail of American politics. Touch it and you fry. In order to prove that he’s even more loyal to Israel than the Likud wing of the Republican Party, more protective of its security than his own country’s national interest, and because there’s a on-going subterranean smear campaign regarding his Muslim heritage (despite being a professed Christian), Obama even promised that Jerusalem would be an “undivided city.” This was going beyond stated American foreign policy. This was, however, a typical case of overcompensation, in which an outsider has to be 110 percent more than whatever an insider is. (Note how Hillary Clinton had to act more “male” or “macho” than any of her Democratic Party rivals to belie the notion that as a woman she wasn’t up to being commander-in-chief.)

A new kind of politics would have made an attempt not to play the pandering game that American politicians engage in before specific audiences. Just as most politicians have to genuflect before AIPAC, most white politicians have to “We Shall Overcome” before black voters. (And it doesn’t help Obama that his national security advisory group contains Clinton retreads such as Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright. Has Samatha Powers been banished forever?)

2. More Money than God

Obama’s pledge to use public funding is now dead. Collecting more money than God ($272 million at the last counting) during the primary, Team Obama has decided not to seek $84 million available through public funding. Of course, this led Team McCain, which is lagging in that department, to condemn him as a “typical politician,” a classic flip-flopper. However, John McCain himself has been playing fast, loose, and furious with campaign spending laws, having had to jettison lobbyists from his campaign.

But is there a modicum of validity that while Obama talks good government he hides an iron fist in a very expensive velvet glove? Or, as a lobbyist mused about Obama before journalist Ken Silverstein, “What’s the dollar value of a starry-eyed idealist?”

3. FISA Capitulation

Nothing better sums up the gutless politics of utter capitulation than the House Democrats, for fear of being labeled weak on national security, by caving in on the most recent version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. A law in which the current administration broke by engaging in warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens without court supervision as specified by law, and then ordering telecommunication firms to do so; once again, breaking the law. Now the Bush administration seeks to codify the executive branch skirting the law and then granting telecoms immunity for breaking the law. Worse yet is Barack Obama, a constitutional law professor, going along with this wanton form of law breaking. Obama justifies supporting such a bill that undermines constitutional freedoms by invoking the same rationale that the Bush administration has used for years, namely “grave threats.”

By any reasonable examination, Barack Obama has embraced the politics of flip-flopping. Once sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians, he has now positioned himself as Israel’s next best friend. (And if he accedes to the White House, don’t be surprised if Israel smacks Iran in the first term of his presidency—if not sooner.) Arguing for a new kind of politics, “change that you can believe,” he breaks a pledge, uses a lawyer-like justification for eschewing public financing. Once denouncing a previous bad FISA bill that sought to codify the brazen lawbreaking of the Bush administration, he now backs a bill that his senate colleague Russ Feingold has termed as “capitulation.”

Obama’s appeal, his source of strength, seems to the emotional intelligence that he conveys through his charismatic appeal. This is his greatest branding strength: he makes people believe, which means that consumers have an emotional investment in Brand Obama as he is known now, or as he appears to be to them.

However, what Obama may truly be offering is a respite from eight years of hard-right Republican governing—war, corruption, incompetence— for a surface reality of change—post-racial, post-partisan—without the necessity of social reality or actual political change occurring at all.

Despite the excitement that Obama has generated, American politics may have morphed into one long advertising campaign: now it’s truly all about the marketing until the next production cycle. As Andrew Card once said of another product (the Iraq War), ``From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August.''

                    A Really Baaa…d Decision

         The Bill Press Show…

         …an interview with Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

       
Asked about the 2000 Gore v. Bush decision, Breyer admitted it was a
“bad” decision, but “one good thing” was that there was “no revolution”
and Americans generally “accepted the decision.”

        He’s kidding, right?

       
Is it really Judge Breyer’s view it’s a “good sign” that we seemed more
sheep-like as a “free” nation after a highly controversial decision? I
believe it a very bad sign. The protests against Nam, abortion,
and other highly controversial decisions and issues, are actually
healthy signs, in my opinion. Now how some behave during those protests
is another matter. But whenever you have controversy: especially one
where judges who are appointed by Democrats and Republicans make a
decision that hands a lot of power to their benefactor: damn straight
there should have been at least some modicum of revolt. Think of the
historical nature of the decision alone, then add in how there was no
way to make it anything but a highly partisan decision: no matter who
won.

        Note
that I phrased that so it doesn’t matter which party, or candidate,
benefited. If the Supremes had stepped in and decide for Gore I would
still feel the same way. I think they should have stayed the hell out.
For those Cons raising their middle digital fingers out there and
preparing to blast me, hold your electoral hearses while I continue to
beat this never quite dead horse. The next step in that election
should, and would, have been to bounce it back to the State: the
legislature and the Gov. You know what would have happened there: the same result.
Anyone who thinks how this was handled was a “good thing” apparently
also believes “good” is only defined as getting what one wants no
matter what the wider perspective: the overview, says about how we
handle such issues as a society. That’s a selfish, narrow minded, dare
I type unpatriotic way, to view what’s defined as a “good sign.” I can
understand the likes of Coulter, Bush, Limbaugh, Hannity, Scarborough
and their ilk claiming they view it this way. They have long tempered
their speech according to party demands and political correctness:
hence Limbaugh’s switch to a somewhat less anti-McCain style of
rhetoric as of late; content-wise. These are highly paid partisans
after all, who have counterparts on the Left who spin whatever into the
party’s position: kind of like how Barack’s change of mind is being
spun by some more Left oriented pundits. Please remember I’m neither
saying “good” or “bad,” here. I am simply saying “this is what they are
paid (far too damn well, in many cases) to do.”

        But, Breyer? He should know better. It’s his goddamn job to know better.

       
Nations with controversies that create a crisis should have to suffer
some revolt: even if just a little. It’s healthy. Nations who don’t
remind one of 1984, the Soviets, the Nazis, those who lived
under the Rouge, Bradbury’s 451, Gattaca, or even the highly compliant;
puppet-like, citizens of Dark City.
I’m even more concerned over the health of those who opposed this
decision over the past eight years: no matter what their party
affiliation. Their, basically, non-reaction is a damn good indication
that there is a inherent sickness residing in their minds and their
hearts. One doesn’t have to look long to see where this has led us:
think of how hard they tried to find anything to impeach Clinton and
the flimsy lie of a premise they used to impeach him: that answering a
question phrased in the present tense makes it perjury by pretending it
was asked in the past tense. Then think of all the opportunities
eagerly thrown away to at least look into the possibility of
investigating and prosecuting high crimes and misdemeanors… trashed
quietly by the likes of poor public servants like Pelosi.

       
Please remember, I’m not saying impeaching was, or is, “the answer.” I
am saying there should have been a serious attempt to investigate the
possibility of whether it was necessary given the circumstances. If it
had happened the same way but the results had been the opposite, damn
straight impeachment would have “been on the table,” and beyond.
Something is seriously wrong with that extremely dysfunctional dynamic.

        
Apparently a good portion of American public left of the Radical Right
consists of docile sheep willing to grumble at best while they are led
to slaughter. I include myself in that category. After all, I didn’t
use my fictional arsenal of bazookas, crossbows, ICBMs and Z-bombs
(think of “A” as the least powerful) to take my country back.

       Is it too late now?

       Damn, I think it is.

       Shame on me.

              Worse Than a Frail Premise

        
When you go to camp there should be nothing to do. Lackadaisical, lazy,
days should pass quickly… one after another in a blur of serenity.
Being one who always has to be doing something: tour life seems to have
infected me with that odd ADD-like virus that I don’t remember having
before I started touring, I’m amazed and happy this is a mere fallacy
when at camp… for me. Days are black holes: sucking in “busy” from what
seems to be mostly empty space.

        
Like this last visit when I spent some of my time watching two videos
provided by Jim and Pattie: fellow Beaver River-ites. You don’t
understand: a TV at camp, to me, is like owning the Book of Satan
in a church. Only when I become a permanent resident will I give in to
this temptation… I hope. No promises. Things change, thank God. Life’s
diaper would be rather stinky if they didn’t.

        
I was grateful for the entertainment, so multiple thanks to Jim and
Pattie no matter what my opinion is of either movie.

         The first VHS was Saving Grace:
a light romp through an elderly widow’s pot growing venture. Her
husband had left her holding nothing but bills and loans when he
decided to jump from a plane sans chute. Followed closely by “splat,” I
would assume. I used “chute,” because that’s what one might say on the
way down…

“Oh, chuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuteeeeeeeeeeee…”

         (Or worse.)

         The second movie, called Frailty,
I really didn’t care for. No, that’s too weak. It bothered me. That’s
still weak. I would never ban most movies but, if I was so inclined,
this might be at the top of my list. No, not because of “sex,” and
certainly not the mostly shower stall-like, Hitchcock-ian, nature of
this movie’s violence.

        
Matthew McConaughey plays Fenton Meiks, well… sort of, but mentioning
anything more than that would ruin a movie; and I really hate to ruin
even a bad movie for anyone. I like McConaughey, he does both “the good
man every gal wants to date,” and spooky, well: meaning he’s somewhat
more than just a character actor. That means he can “be” the role more
than someone like, oh, say Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito, or
Bruce Willis; who mostly play the same character over and over. In the
acting skills department sometimes it’s like climbing into the same
poorly working Pinto every day for the rest of your life… or having a
car that can be the perfect station wagon one day, a winning race car
the next, and an ambidextrous amphibian car too. They can do damn near
anything, the best ones, and it will take a while before you figure out
who it is. Mathew’s isn’t that good… but better than most character actors, in this regard.

        All the other actors did a fine job. The lighting, the editing, the shot values were fine.

        Premise?

       
Well, if you wish to encourage religious fanatics to follow their
impulse to hack apart supposed “demons,” then it’s a heavenly,
delightful premise. Personally? I think 180 degrees: the opposite, way.
The last thing I would ever do is play this DVD at a Fundamentalist or
Pentecostal church where I’m guessing there’s a higher percentage of
“God speaking to me and telling me to do crazy things” folks.

       
This is a dangerous flick that feeds even more sickness into minds
already caught up in a sick form of religious fever. Jimmy Jones and
Charles Manson would might point to this film and say, “See, see,
that’s what I was talking about!” This is Bin Laden type reasoning,
from a more Christian angle, though I suspect even he doesn’t believe
Allah is clouding the minds of others to keep him from being caught. I
suspect he may think George Bush was when he handed the job of catching
him over to some of his warlord friends, though.

       
Mr. Meiks visits an FBI agent and tells him he knows who the God’s Hand
Killer is. The first God’s Hand Killer was Fenton’s father who had
visions from angels giving him lists of demons walking here on Earth,
and offering a means to “dispatch” such demons: an ax. The problem with
this movie is that he really does see these visions and he has God’s
approval. God even blurs the vision of others and their equipment (like
security cameras) to prevent stopping the murders. Yes, they are
murders, no matter what the premise of the movie. The father brings up
the sons to follow in his footsteps but is stopped by one from
continuing his “holy mission:” where he sees all the evil the demon has
done just by touching it.

       Now one of the Meiks boys is carrying on the work of his Dad, after Pa was dispatched mid-slaughter.

      
Once again, if you want to see it anyway, I’ll be a gentleman and not
tell you more: though I had most of it figured out mid-movie. The only
thing I hadn’t figured out was that apparently whomever approved this
script likes to encourage the religiously insane to really think God
tells them how to destroy demons; and will cover up their tracks when
they do. Oh, maybe I’m being too harsh here. As we all know this is
biblically correct since Jesus hacked apart demons in his day, so
sayeth the bible.

         No, it isn’t. No, it doesn’t. And, yes, that was sarcasm. Duh!

       
Are there demons walking amongst us? Maybe. Maybe not. I tend to
believe “not,” but I have few absolutes, personally, just some things
that seem more likely than others. Some may seem to be very much like
demons: our Hitlers, our Stalins, our Dahmers, crazy Texans who nail
gays to fences, our Mansons, our Harris and Klebolds, Barney… haven’t
you seen all those bumpy green grave sites; one with the blood stained
purse on top, in what used to be known as “Teletubbyland?” Yes, that’s
right, God ordered Barney to oft the quirky creatures known as
Teletubbies. Baby Bop was his weapon of choice. (Hence, “bop,” kind of
like in the song, Bunny Foo Foo.)

       
But it was their belief in their divine “missions:” and that some deity
approved and helped them in some cases, that made them them into the
terrors they became in many cases: not God, Allah, or the biggest, most
powerful deity of all: the Easter Bunny. (How does that mammal-God lay
those colorful eggs, anyway? It’s magic!)

        
Oh, and I almost forgot, people who come to believe they really are
“God’s Hand.” This movie provides even more madness for those who
believe the Holy Spirit gives them power, provides them “gifts,” to
judge others.

       
This is a very personal issue for me. In the early 80’s a good friend
of mine was murdered by her husband who claimed God was telling him his
wife was a demon. She had offered me a job at the store she ran and I
came very close to starting that day… and perhaps too close to having
some of those bullets in me too.

        If you want a far better treatment on the theme of those who can see demons, try Dean Koontz’s Twilight Eyes,
where those who reveal demons risk arrest and death: often by these
very demons who have worked themselves into positions of power… or
goblins as the main character calls them. The neat addition is: these
demons are our own creation. Kind of like George Bush or Dick Cheney?

       
Sorry. Couldn’t resist, though I swear I can see the demon inside every
time they speak. Looks a little bit like Sam: the Fruit Loops
toucan. He’s speaking to me right now. “Yogi Bear is a ‘demon?’” I’d
better check that out. Hmmm… let me get back to you on that. No need in
making a… Boo Boo.

        The premise of Frailty:
a justification for this type of madness, has potential for creating
little good: and far too much evil. Those who would say, “it’s just a
movie, Ken,” are missing the point. For us, it is. For them it provides
approval of the kind of wickedness that has plagued humankind since we
first started worshiping deities.

       Frailty provides WMD-like manna for feeding the “crazy” in the minds of those who are quite theologically insane.

                                   -30-

      Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over thirty years. Inspection
is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the
unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and
philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to
venture.

What, exactly, in on-the-ground, day-to-day,
dollar-for-dollar terms would the reported, record-shattering, anticipated $500 million
dollar Obama War Chest mean?  Glad you
asked.  Here’s how I would break it
down if it actually comes about. 

Level 1: National media ad buys: The Obama campaign (seasoned, not weakened, by the repulsed Clinton assault) will seize the national media with the sharpest hidden persuaders available defining Senator Obama, the issues and, most deadly, Senator McCain.  Obama will not just control the debate, Obama will be the debate, ultimately attempting to frame the election until the only question left will be “Why not vote for Obama”?

Level 2: Saturation ad buys: The swing states, which Level 1 will help to multiply in number, will receive a campaign onslaught like none seen from a Democrat before.  Take it to the bank (so to speak) that many voters will be persuaded.

Level 3: Attacking the “safe” turf: Barack Obama will not win the electoral votes of Idaho, Kansas, Utah, Mississippi and many other states, but there will be enough media placement that the McCain campaign will have to use its scarce resources to defend its own backyards in the South, Southwest and the Rocky Mountain states.

Level 4: Core campaign: Researchers, analysts and pollsters working all the way down to local levels, fund raising experts, truth squads, travel, office space, telecom, tech support, internet strategists, all will be available in abundance to Senator Obama to an extent that John McCain can’t even imagine – in fact, the Obama campaign will be doing things McCain can’t imagine much less pull off (meet-ups, “mystery bloggers” and other things we cannot speak of).

Level 5: Boots on the ground: We’ve already seen the Obama campaign dispatch top-flight organizers to places like Florida and Virginia, the “new” swing states (see Levels 1 and 2).  In the battlegrounds, Obamanites will organize at the precinct level, sending in carpools, vans and buses to register voters and get those same voters to the polls later.  Obama can easily multiply himself through surrogates.  Need an appearance before an important women’s group in Vermont?  No problem – Gov. Napolitano will be on a plane tomorrow.  A speech to a military town in South Carolina?  Hello, Gen. Clark.  And on and on it goes.   

Level 6: Clintonistas: Paying off Hillary’s $20 to $30 million campaign debt ensures the filial alliance of what remains a powerful political camp.  ‘Nuff said.

Level 7: Collateral damage: Money will be left over for other Democratic candidates, not just to boost their fortunes but to harass state GOP committees and make the Republican Party, the only GOP organ fairly well off, spend to supplement the depleted coffers of its congressional committees.  Seeing the writing on the wall, corporations, which care mainly about access not ideology, will plug their money hoses into the Obama machine, sapping another source of reliable Republican money and giving Democrats an unaccustomed boost. 

Don’t mistake this as over-confidence.  I've legitimately tried to make the case for McCain, both substantively and strategically.  Substantively, he has nothing to say on domestic issues and his foreign policy is a cul-de-sac: if Iraq gets better, why stay, and if Iraq gets worse, why stay?  Strategically, being outspent by 3- 4- or 5-1 with probably no better than equal “soft money” money support and an electorate worn out on Republican lies and incompetence, I can only see a hemmed-in, defensive, drowned-out campaign.  If I could make the case for McCain, I would, and I invite those of greater acumen to try.

If it works (and that’s still an “if”) out this way, with sizeable Democratic majorities in Congress, a Democrat in the White House, state legislatures continuing a push toward the Democrats, more than 30 governorships in elections in 2010 with a chance to swing the balance blue, and then the Democrats taking their turn at redistricting, it is almost certain that we are seeing the “last throes” of the Reagan Revolution, which was sired by Nixon’s silent majority which was the progeny of the Wallace Democrats.  It is also very possible that we will see a radical diminishing of the GOP on the national stage for at least a generation.

This could be bigger than FDR but never forget the cost: Billions in wealth lost, millions of humans displaced, dispossessed, disabled or dead, two towers down, and a city drowned.  We have to make this worth all of that, somehow.

That’s where we get to the hard part.

I am not here to defend Obama's evident willingess to vote for a bill with telecom immunity if he can't get one without it.  I do, however, want to suggest that we owe it to ourselves to reserve judgment for a bit before we go loudly putting him onto our "dead to me" lists.  There will be plenty of time for recrimination later, if you're so inclined, and I  may be so inclined myself, eventually.  However, the commenter who wants to retain a reputation (deserved or not) for insight, would do well  to hang back for a bit and wait for this thing to play all the way out  before he or she starts the rending garments and throwing of dust into the air. 

I don't want to suggest we should have blind faith in him.  That's not a good thing, no matter what those who've caricatured his supporters these last several months say about us.  I'm also not foreclosing the possibility that he's about to fuck up hugely, albeit not in a way that will hurt him politiclly. 

There are, however, a few points that seem to have been overrlooked in all the emoting that may be worthy of consideration.  

First consider the likely reason for that a delay in saying anything. To those who live their lives on Internet time, it was infuriating and intolerable. Between the time when news of the compromise broke and yesterday, there was much indignant huffing and stamping of feet.  "What's the hold up?  It's all over the Internet that the bill has a transparently pretextual path that inevitably ends in telecom immunity built into it?  What more do you need to know?" 

Well, personally, knowing what I know about him, and about how he's behaved in the past, I think he wanted to know what else was in the bill.  That's a funny thing about lawyers, and particularly law professors.  Presented with law, or proposed law, they generally prefer to actually read it, or at least read over it, before making judgments about what it says.  I suspect he also wanted to elicit opinions from people he respects, and gather information from people who know stuff we don't--he's in a position get most  questions he has answered now, you see.  Obama has shown a certain sure-footedness in distinguishing what matters have to be dealt with in Internet near-realtime time frames, and what matters can be dealt with with the tradtional TV news cycle timeframe. 

That said, I do not claim I can see into his motives. This may be crassly political.  It could be that he sees he can't stop it and would rather be seen supporting it than be seen not stopping it.  It could be that he read the bill and decided that it gave the president powers that he wanted to have after he wins.  Possibly, his motives are more lofty.  It could be that, he read it and made a considered judgment a constitutional scholar that the provisions in the bill that required the president to get a warrent from the FISA court were more important than letting the telecoms off the hook for enabling warrentless spying.  He may even have decided that we really need the other provisions in the law, even if it costs us giving the telecoms immunity. 

There are two things about his motives, however, I do feel confident about.  One is that he's not doing this because he's scared of being characterized as "weak on terrorism" or because he's pandering to the middle.  I know that because I know a) that he knows that will happen no matter what and b) he's already shown that there is nothing they can throw at him in that vein that he cannot successfully turn back around on them.  Second, I am confident he's not kow-towing to the telecoms.  One thing the fundraising phenom has done is free him from the need to kowtow to anyone, including us, btw--we all give, but everyone's donation is a drop in the bucket.   The telecoms can't buy him the way they bought people like Jay Rockefeller.  The individual contribution limits, combined with the scale, make that impossible. 

I do believe we should consider whether opposition to telecom immunity has become such an integral part of the netroots orthadox catachism that we've forgotten what that fight is actually about. Let us refresh our recollections.  There are two components to this fight.  First, telecom immunity is wrong in and of itself because a federal court has already decided that they should have known what they were doing was illegal and an industry, especially a powerful one, should not be permitted to go to Congress and brazenly buy itself a law nullifying a court decision after the fact.   Let's not be naive.  Plenty of laws are bought and paid for.  All of our intellectual property law, for example, patent, trademark and copyright, is flat-out written by the industries it is supposed to govern and they flagrantly buy that power with campaign contributions.  Telecom immunity, however, is a whole different level of wrong and, in any case, is exactly the kind of thing Obama's movement is supposed to be about ending.

However, let us not forget why the telecoms put on their sensible shoes, grabbed their Visas and went immunity shopping in the first place.  The lawsuit they are trying to shut down was not started because people thought the telecoms needed to be punished for breaking the law--they're not really even seeking much in the way of damages or sanctions.  The lawsuit was started because the EFF and the ACLU decided it was the only means at their disposal to find out what Bush was up to.  Bush isn't demanding telecom immunity because he gives a rat's ass about the telecoms.  He's doing it because he wants to cover his own rat's ass. 

These are related, but separate, things.  Especially if you are Barack Obama at this particular moment in time.  See, the first thing, the wrongness of allowing an industry to buy itself ex post facto immunity will always be wrong, but as to the other, well the oddmakers are giving two to one that, in almost exactly seven months, Obama will himself know all that can be known about what Bush was up to.  So, I can see how, at this point, uncovering what Bush was up to just isn't as big a priority for him, or for that matter, for the Democrats in Congress, as putting some brakes on what he's doing now.  Possibly, he really thinks the inherent wrongness of telecom immunity is a nasty, bitter, pill that can be swollowed for the price of getting some Article III supervison back into the spying program.   

However, if that's what's really going on here, I'll puzzle out how I feel about after it happens.  For now, I'm simply choosing to not foreclose the possibility that there's more going on here than I know.  Time and again, Obama has shown us that he plays a deep damn game.  What he's about has generally been completely opaque to the Republicans and to Hillary's campaign.  What he's really doing has routinely gone right over the MSM Talking Heads, er, heads.  It has frequently eluded the most astute commenters on left-of-center blogs,  Sometimes it has not even been discernable by the most respected and prescient  bloggers.  This may be one of those times.

Or not.  He may just be fucking up royally.  He may even be finally revealing himself to be the Antichrist and this could be the beginning of the tribulation (though if the Rapture has already happened, it sure seems like a lot of fundementalist assholes got Left Behind).  I'm just saying that, for me, this is one of those times when I'd rather pass on an opportunity to tee up an emotionally satisfying "toldja" than risk saying something that will make me look and feel foolish later. 

I was disappointed by BHO's statement about the FISA compromise.  I am hanging on to the hope that he means what he says about removing retroactive immunity for the telcos, and that the stupid bill dies in the Senate.  Given Reid's track record, I am not hopeful.

But I am Keeping the Faith.  I posted a message to the Obama campaign explaining my disappointment, but I am not jumping off of the bandwagon.

We need Obama to win in November.  He needs our support.  I'm going to keep donating to the campaign and talking up the need to get off the one-way trip to fascism and international ridicule that the Chimpanzee in Chief has got us on.

In the end, I believe that Obama knows that his strength comes from the netroots.  I also know that 100% agreement about tactics and strategy between me and the campaign are not likely.  But I'll take 90%.  I've got -100% with the current guys.

So I'm listening to the radio yesterday and I hear one of the Republican leaders -- I think it was Boehner -- talking about the FISA "compromise."

It was something like, "I'd like to thank my Democrat colleagues for standing with us on this important bill, blah, blah."

Democrat colleagues.

In a parallel universe it goes like this:

"I'd like to thank Stinky McFlynn for giving me his lunch money once again. What? You don't like being called Stinky? Too bad, loser. See you tomorrow. Twelvish?"