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?

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.

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.

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?"

Very funny satire. Warning it uses adult language, so if words frighten and offend you, because they match up with the dirty meanings you have already stored in your dirty mind vault, then you should not watch the video. On the other hand, if you are not afraid of words,  give it a look. You will enjoy it, and have a good laugh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Euu_DMhsXQo

Lost in the uproar over the Democratic surrender on the FISA bill is any discussion of why there is one at all.  Can someone please point me to a reasoned discussion of exactly what ‘improvements’ this new bill makes to the existing FISA law … and more importantly, why those changes are necessary at all?

 

Look, I'm as irate about the unnecessary FISA deal by Pelosi/Hoyer as the next person. And equally as disappointed in Obama's unnecessary support of it. And equally in favor of calling the Dem leadership on its craven capitulation.

But, TPM editors, do you REALLY not see the problem with putting the word "cave" next to the name "Obama"?

Honestly -- if FOX had done this, you'd be featuring it prominently as another example of right-wing Obama-Osama conflation propaganda.

PLEASE change the headlines now and going forward.

Here's another weekly installment of my simulations of the general election results using polling data from Votemaster Andrew Tanenbaum's www.electoral-vote.com.

The usual caveats apply: it's still June, polling is unreliable, and many of the polls are quite old now anyhow. But to paraphrase our former secretary of defense, you analyze the data you have, not the data you'd like to have.

Again I'm running 10,000 trials of the election using two different margins of error:
4% Margin of Error
Obama wins 99.87%, averages 327 EV
McCain wins 0.10%, averages 211 EV
Electoral tie 0.03%

12.8% Margin of Error:
Obama wins 94.4%, averages 314.2 EV
McCain wins 5.3%, averages 223.8 EV
Electoral tie 0.3%

The 4% margin of error that reflects the statistical margin of error of most polls. 12.8% comes from a linear regression of polling errors in 2004 using days until the election as the independent variable. The former captures only sampling error for polls, and does not allow for movement of opinion in the electorate itself. The latter tries to allow for such movement by using a wider margin of error, although because I'm still treating each state's as an entirely independent random event, this doesn't reflect the likelihood that improving your vote in one state also improves it in others. So both of these simulations overstate the likelihood of Obama actually winning right now.

Obama is now trailing by just 4 in Alaska, he's closed to a single-digit deficit in Arkansas, and he's taken a 1 point lead in Virginia. Two recent New Hampshire polls both give Obama double-digit leads, he's now just 2 or 3 back in Nevada, and as Josh noted earlier this week, he trails by only 12 in Kentucky despite his lopsided primary loss. Not all the movement is in his favor: Minnesota has tightened to a 1 point race (this may be in part pollster differences: Survey USA's last previous poll had Obama up just 5, but in between two Rasmussen polls gave Obama double-digit leads); Obama is up just 2 in Colorado; and McCain has closed to 4 back in Iowa. Bob Barr gets enough support in Georgia that Obama was just down 1 in the last poll.

The huge change here is, of course, Florida. Rasmussen had given McCain regular double-digit leads earlier, and their latest poll still says he's up by 8. Quinnipiac had smaller McCain leads before of between 2 and 9 points, but now they show Obama up 4. ARG's first Florida poll, released this week, has Obama ahead by 5. So while Florida seemed perhaps a likely safe McCain state a week ago, it's now quite clearly in play, which greatly changes things. It's hard to envision McCain winning without Florida, so that's the biggest cause of his dropoff in my simulations.

Personally, I think expecting a 95% probability of Obama winning greatly overstates things, but this exercise does capture that he's showing increasing strength in more of the country. It validates the 50-state strategy: the more of the country you put in play, the more ways you have to win. Obama already was able to win without Florida and Ohio, but it would have been quite hard. With states like Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, and North Carolina potentially in play, he has much room to compensate if he's weaker in some areas.

This may not have been the best of weeks for the fourth amendment, but it's been a good one for Obama's polling numbers.

Before I launch into this, please allow a quick shout-out to Ben Hocking and m in athens for their contributions to my previous thread re Regina Thomas.  They brought their homework (in Ben's case) and local insight (in m's case) to the discussion of Regina's candidacy.  A tip o' the ol' fedora to the both of 'em.
A h/t to OpenLeft as well.  It was this OL post that brought Regina Thomas to my attention, and then this OL Quick Hit that introduced me to Cheryl Christ.
Per Populista's Quick Hit:

Pissed? We still can take down two Bush Dogs

If you want to do something instead of just ranting, there are still two Bush Dogs that face primaries.

John Barrow will face a primary from State Senator Regina Thomas on July 15th.

Donate now to Regina Thomas for Congress  

Brian Baird who is not only a Bush Dog but was the one who claimed the surge was working and undermined efforts to end the war last summer will face a challenge from activist Cheryl Crist.

Donate now to Cheryl Crist for Congress  

Time for action!

ActBlue!
And, actually, you know, before I launch and start opinin' on Cheryl Christ's candidacy, I'm gonna first ask for opinions on WA-3.  Thoughts?  Because, this time around, I think I'm gonna experiment with waitin' for yours before weighin' in with mine.
In the meantime, a couple more links before gettin' the party started:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=345978366

Ready to Go After Another Blue Dog?

When Hillary Clinton & Crew were incessantly promoting her as the most electable candidate, I kept saying: It's not just about winning; it's about governing. It's about YOU, Hillary; it's about US, the U.S.

Now that Obama has decided to turn down public financing -- despite the fact that he's been committed to campaign finance & electoral reform for some time -- I've had to revise my thoughts.

You can't govern unless you win.

The thousands of regular folks contributing time and money (many, like me, for the first time ever) to Obama's campaign helped him make it this far. If he had taken public financing, he would have had less money and flexibility to respond quickly to character attacks and other distortions. And more Swift Boatings, Willie Hortons or October Surprises are almost certainly coming. Since at least Nixon, Republicans have become the cynical masters of fanning people's barely suppressed fears, grudges and insecurities so they vote for the latest Protective Patriarchal Republican who will protect We American Children. Goebbels himself would be impressed with how Republicans -- and Clinton, too -- have clawed their way to the Presidency over the last 40 years.

To the critics who support public financing of campaigns: 

* Obama's Facebook-like donor system IS a new type of PUBLIC financing. Tell me how it isn't. And if he can raise more from the public this way, what's wrong with that?

To those who say Obama broke his word:

* Changing one's mind is a sign of a nimble intellect capable of continued learning and a wise leader able to respond to ever-changing conditions.

To those who say this decision shows he's just another calclutlaing politician:

* Good. The Republicans are masters of the politics-as-usual attack machine. Obama must be prepared for this year's Swift Boat and whatever else they throw his way.

Win first. Then govern.

Govern better than the emarassing bozo we've had for 8 years. And, yes, govern better than the slick cynic we had before that.

I can’t speak to Dunkin’ or Krispy Kreme, but in the bakery of our local Safeway they seem to be.  The Pershings are, I’d say, 40% smaller than they were only weeks ago.  The maple bars, obviously shorter.

Apple fritters have been shrinking for some time, so much so that I had to switch to Bismarks to meet my RDA for fruit.  Now, even the Bismarks seem smaller (though the filling portions may be about the same).

Our donuts used to be the envy of the world.  Now they are a mere shadow of their former greatness.

I'm disappointed he has signaled his support for the FISA "compromise", although I'm curious how much success he'll have in stripping out the immunity.

But, in the cold hard light of politics, I can't help but think about two things:
1.  I'd be surprised if anyone who is pissed at him for this is going to vote for McCain or stay home as a result.
2.  There just might be a group of independents who will see this as a willingness to reach across the aisle and compromise.

I personally fall into the first category, because I have taken great pride in supporting a candidate who is willing to take politically unpopular positions based on what is best for the country (it is sad that that quality is a differentiator), and I do see this pandering. 

So, I'm very disappointed by this action, but I'll get over it pretty quickly, and I suggest you do too.

I needed to pull back from it all. TPM, Huffington Post, Olberman/Meadow, all the Hillary demonizers.  Because I had doubts and suspicions about the character and motivations of Senator Obama and whether he was truly a new bred of politician and a genuine agent of change I expressed my concern. I was told by Obamamaniac's that HRC was a power hungry, Machiavellian politician who would do anything to win votes. How can you not hate her when we have before us a knight in shining new armor who will do things differently, who will bring about real change?  I had doubts. Strong doubts about the man. At the end of the day I was told I was a racist. That was a real cute moment, the progressive wing of the democratic party had become the evangelical wing of the Republican party. So I needed some distance from it all, backed away and shut out all the noise.  Hillary ( the devil ) lost, Obama ( the angel ) won. And now what do we have? I won't go through the entire list of Senator Obama's recent actions just his decision to opt out of public financing and going along with the FISA cave in. I know all the political reasons why it was a smart thing to do so spare me the list.  He is not an agent of real change, he is not a new bred of politician, he is not going to change the system. He is everything I thought he was...a politician, sly, slick, scheming, willing to do whatever it takes to win votes and power. Please understand, I have NO PROBLEM with that. But what was the point of hating Hillary? We got her anyway.
Johnny Pro  

at Political Cortex

excerpt:::

Until we as a nation begin to aggressively address the fundamental flaws that money in politics has grown into over the past few years, we are only going to continue to witness political pollution of an increasingly grand scale.

    Yes, presumed Democratic nominee appears to have gone back on his word.  But, the nominee from Chicago is only operating under an umbrella, a system that has relegated him to this unfortunate choice.   It is his political reality and it is ours.   We as a nation have yet to raise our collective voices and demand change in the way we pick our leaders.  

I was certainly disappointed that Senator Obama did not forcefully oppose the FISA surveillance bill that passed the House yesterday. His lack of action here helps keep a bad bill alive, one which, should it become law, would set the awful precedent of condoning illegal behavior simply because the President asked companies to violate the law. Certainly there is risk that the new surveillance powers, due to the lack of any meaningful judicial oversight in using them, will be abused by the present, and future, administrations. This is a case of codifying that Presidential request is a valid excuse for breaking the law.

Senator Obama has shown outstanding political instincts, however, and it is quite likely that his judgment of the politics here is far better than mine.
1. Vocally denouncing the compromise, which has significant Democratic and virtually unanimous Republican support (only one Republican, Timothy Johnson of Illinois, voted no), would work against his attempts to portray himself as a practical politician who can work across party lines.
2. As Congressman Rush Holt noted, the bill sunsets in four years. Obama may rationalize his tacit support by his belief that he will win in November and will not abuse the power this bill would grant, mostly to him. And if he, as president, doesn't try to renew or extend it, the law will expire quietly, lessening the negative consequences of passage.
3. He has stated (along with Harry Reid) that he will try to get the retroactive immunity pulled from the bill. It's still an open question how hard he would try, or how effective such attempts would be, but the bill has not become law yet, and it may yet be amended further.
4. There's little political gain from opposing it strongly, but larger risk. Those who most strongly oppose FISA are overwhelmingly likely to support Obama for many other reasons. McCain gives unqualified support to the bill, so people voting on this issue have nowhere to turn. Now that the primary is over, Obama is understandably shifting more to the center to try to win independents and moderate Republicans, some of whom might believe this bill is "vital" in our war on terror.

If Obama opposed the bill, it would certainly push the issue of anti-terrorism tactics more to the foreground, and there's also a chance that having a more open, overt debate about that could wind up helping Obama. Undoubtedly it would be a big risk, and with his current strong standing in the polls, it's reasonable to think the risk isn't worth the potential gain. If he were trailing, and seemed likely to lose in November, a risky strategy would be more appealing.

Obama's handling of this reminds me of his handling of the Florida/Michigan revote proposals: had he actively and strongly supoprted revotes, they likely would have happened, and he may well have gained  politically from the new elections. But they also risked a large, public defeat that might have sunk his candidacy. When you're leading, don't risk the big mistake.

Retroactive immunity itself isn't what I (and, by projection, I believe without evidence most immunity opponents) care most about. What has me more upset is the disregard for the law shown by the Bush administration: its manipulating intelligence to whip up support for war; its twisted justifications of torture; and its arrogance in asserting it is beyond oversight of any other branch of government. The telecommunications companies who collaborated with the government here were "only following orders", which at least somewhat does mitigate their culpability. If allowing retroactive immunity is the price one has to pay for a more direct, public repudiation of the Bush administration's conduct, I'd take that trade. Winning only on retroactive immunity itself would be like convicting Al Capone for tax evasion: it's better than nothing, but it's not really the point.

So yes, I'm disappointed that Obama didn't strongly oppose this bill. But I can understand why, and his judgment is probably tactically correct here.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905"This article from Dow Jones, celebrating that the telecom industry is completely off the hook as a result of this bill, has the full quote from Sen. Bond, which is even better (h/t C_O):

"I'm not here to say that the government is always right, but when the government tells you to do something, I'm sure you would all agree that I think you all recognize that is something you need to do," Bond said.

Even when the Government is wrong, even when it orders you to do something illegal, your role is not to question but to obey. That's what he is saying explicitly."

Americans are now truly a nation of sheep. And you can read all about it in this new book.

"In A NATION OF SHEEP, Judge Andrew P. Napolitano frankly discusses how the federal government has circumvented the Constitution and is systematically dismantling the rights and freedoms that are the foundation of American democracy. He challenges Americans to recognize that they are being led down a very dangerous path and that the cost of following without challenge is the loss of the basic freedoms that facilitate our pursuit of happiness and that define us as a nation.

Judge Napolitano reminds readers what America is all about, that the purpose of government is to protect freedom, and freedom is the ability to follow your own free will and not the will of government bureaucrats. He asks the simple question, which are YOU, a sheep or a wolf? Do you blindly follow behind where you are led, or do you challenge the government at every pass, forcing it to make decisions that will protect our freedoms?"

The destruction of American democracy as we know it, began over two decades ago in the fevered brains of men like Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz the fathers of the so-called "neo-conservative" movement. As the writings of Marx and Engel and the Weltanschauung view of National Socialism found true believers in Russia and Germany respectively, so too the "radical" new approach to political power and governance took hold among the true believers of the radical right in America.

If you read the article linked to the neocon movement above, it is some bizarre metamorphosis of political thought that actually began among left wing liberals from the 50's and 60's. Their primary view of America as the great spreader of democracy around the globe coupled with the religious element makes plain how the evolution of this movement has created the America we live in today.

And just like the other radical political philosophies cited above, the goals of the neocon movement can only be realized through the suppression and elimination of the democratic form of government and the the corruption of the Constitution.

Here's the good news. Those other political movements eventually crashed and burned both literally and figuratively through the opposition and intervention of average men and women who fought both with pen and sword to restore the Rule of Law and true democracy to the oppressed.

The destruction of the neocon political philosophy and practices will not take as long as the other two. Americans may be slow to awaken but once aroused are quick to act.

Remember the words of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto after his attack on Pearl Harbor, " I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

Bush and Co. have done just that.

You sit there in your heartache
waiting for some beautiful boy to
save you from your old ways
you play forgiveness, watch it now, here he comes
he doesn't look a thing like Jesus
but he talks like a gentleman
like you imagined when you were young...
           -- The Killers, "When You Were Young"

During the primaries, Barack Obama talked to us like a gentleman.  He may not have looked like Jesus, but nonetheless, he walked on water, healed the lame, drove the moneylenders from the Temple, and raised the dead. 

But that was during the primaries, when this political season was young.  Now the primaries are over, and Barack Obama wants all of us to know that he doesn't look a thing like Jesus, and if we're looking for a Messiah, we need to look elsewhere. 

Obama took us all badly aback when he recorded a radio ad supporting U.S. Representative Jack Barrow of Georgia, a white conservative Democrat much despised by the more liberal-progressive wing of the Democratic Party.  Obama's support for Barrow was especially hard to take given that Barrow is being strongly challenged for his seat by Georgia state Senator Regina Thomas, a strongly liberal-progressive black woman running in a district that is predominantly African-American.

Disappointment is perhaps inevitable when a mass of people look up to any political candidate with as much hope, admiration, and respect as we have showered on Senator Obama.  Even the best of us are only human, after all.  And it is a supposedly inevitable truth of how our political system works that a candidate cultivates the fringes of their own particular political base while seeking the nomination, and then moves back to the middle once they have it. 

Yet Senator Obama was supposed to be the candidate of change, the politician who was writing a new book, finding a new path, and forging a new political truth.  This was the package we were presented with, and that half or more of us bought eagerly and enthusiastically throughout the primary season.  Obama was the Prince of the Rising Tide, the King of Wishful Thinking, the New Hope.  

Well, now the Empire is striking back. 

There can be little doubt that Obama's support of John Barrow, as conservative a Democrat as any Democrat has ever been, over Regina Thomas, is an act of the most cynical political calculation.   Barrow is going into his third term in the House of Representatives, and his IOU is going to be worth more to President Obama than that of a freshman Representative with no seniority.  

Yet there's also a message in Obama's method here, and that signal is a strong one.  He's saying to all of us who consider ourselves to be his constituency and his base, especially those of us out here who may share his ethnicity -- don't count on me just because you think I'm one of you. 

This is, perhaps, a reassuring dog whistle to many white moderates -- Obama will not necessarily put the interests of an African-American first simply because they are African-American, like he is.  But it's a savage disappointment  to those of us who were hoping for transcendental decision-making from this man who would be President.

Hard though Obama's decision to support Barrow over Thomas may be for all of us, it's easy medicine to swallow compared to Obama's even more recent announcement of support for the travesty of a FISA bill that has just passed in the House.  At this point all those of us who, like Fox Mulder, still want to believe are clinging desperately to Obama's assurances that he "will work in the Senate to remove [retroactive immunity for the tel-coms] so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses". 

Yet those of us with any kind of ear for political parsing can already smell the weakness of this non-promise.  If Obama truly meant to do everything in his power to keep retroactive immunity from becoming law, he would have at the very least thrown in a 'hard' or a 'diligently' after the word 'work' to signal that intention.  As it is, it seems obvious that this promise is an empty one, intended only to provide political cover to Obama later on.

Anyone can run the numbers and see why Obama has made this decision.  With a majority of his own party backing this contemptible law for contemptible reasons of their own, hard opposition to it would only leave him vulnerable to accusations from the McCain campaign of being out of step with even his own base... something that might well hurt him, perhaps mortally, with those key moderates and undecideds that inevitably seem to decide every national American election in a nation as continually polarized as ours is.
. 
And yet, again... we were led to believe we could expect more than this from Mr. Obama of Illinois.  New directions.  Real leadership.  Change We Can Believe In.

Endorsing an undesirably conservative incumbent over a solidly progressive challenger in order to secure a political IOU is not change we can believe in.  Weak, blustering non-assurances regarding  lip service opposition to yet more utterly odious incursions into American civil liberties is certainly not a new direction or any sort of real leadership.  This is nothing more than coldly calculated compromise, and nothing less  than rank capitulation to the worst and basest elements in our current political discourse.

It's failure, pure and simple... which is, sadly and grimly, politics as usual for the Democratic Party.  The politics as usual that Senator Obama of Illinois keeps telling us we are leaving behind, once and for all... but apparently, not right now, and not real soon. 

Maybe Change We Can Believe In means no real change at all.

Ever. 

Or maybe there will be a new era of post partisan politics and government transparency, of new directions and real leadership... in a galaxy far, far away.

I still think Senator Obama was a better choice for the Democratic Party than Hillary Clinton, and is a better choice for the American people than John McCain.

But I'm starting to wonder if there wasn't, or isn't, a better choice than Senator Obama still out there somewhere. 

They say the devil's water
it ain't so sweet
you don't have to drink right now
but you can dip your feet
every once in a little while....

I’ll admit that I’ve had too much bourbon tonight, but here’s where I am.

It’s not been a great day for me politically. My guy, Barack Obama, said he would support the new FISA bill.

Crap!

I’d rather he be wholly against it, BUT …

He did say that he would work to remove immunity for the telecoms.

That’s good. He hasn’t voted yet and he’s committed to opposing amnesty for Verizon and AT&T.

PLUS, John Dean, no dumbass, says that his read of the bill indicates that amnesty may only apply to civil suits and criminal suits may still be possible.

With that, I’m reserving judgment.

My fantasy of Barack Obama would fix all this FISA shit.

But I’m voting for him regardless.

According to Akan language of Ghana, there is a term, Sankofa, which means we must go back to reclaim our past so we can move forward; so we understand why
and how we came to be who we are today. Let us take from the past what is needed to move forward as a nation and as a country. The one great example of this the United States Constitution. We use it--or try when Congress shows some back bone--to this very day; but cherry picking the parts we like or agree with leaves us a poorer nation.  If we fail to understand or choose to ignore where we have been how can we ever be sure that we have made any progress? We might want to jump around a bit to the of the middle of the journey but it is a precarious perch from which to begin. Sometimes the journey is perilous. It exposes us to a harsh but necesary truth. A truth that needs examination so that we may proceed with the process of becoming a more perfect union.

In this vein, Traces of the Trade by Katrina Browne attempts to take us to one starting point. She choose a very personal story. Her story is about her family's history. Her family's history is a story is about the history of how America came into existence. Through the use of genealogy she examines something painful and yet revealing about her, her family and us. Her genealogy is very fascinating and opens the door for conversation, a jumping off point from which we can honestly discuss these issues without recriminations. I appreciate her effort because she is earnestly trying to talk about what is most painful--almost taboo-- in the United States.

A resolution has been introduced in the House of Representatives calling for a naval blockade of Iran. The resolution (H.CON.RES 362) has gained at least 169 co-sponsors over the last 3 weeks. It demands that the President impose "stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains and cargo entering or departing Iran." A Senate resolution (S.RES 580) is moving with similar speed.

This resolution is a unilateral measure acting outside of the established international efforts to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions. It undercuts the effectiveness of those international efforts at a time when we can least afford to show less than a united front. In addition, a naval blockade is internationally recognized as an act of war. Such a blockade would leave Iran little choice but to attack, leading to a third war for the United States.

We must work within the international framework to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. If war is necessary, then we will need the support of the international community.

Call your congressman and your Senators, and tell them to oppose these resolutions!

To view the House Resolution, click here.
To view the Senate Resolution, click here.

I just sent this to the Obama campaign. I'd be interested to hear what people think. It may sound hyperbolic or overblown--I've noticed that many people who are outraged by Obama's support of this bill are getting flak for it in the comments on TPM. But rule-of-law issues like this are crucially important to me, so I wrote out this big letter. Thanks if you read the whole thing.

Dear Senator Obama,
I was deeply disappointed to hear of your support for the so-called FISA compromise bill. However, there is still time to oppose it. I am writing to urge you to filibuster this bill and prevent it from passing.
In your statement today, you mentioned only the retroactive immunity provision as something you would want to remove. It is important not to grant immunity to the telecom companies for abetting the Bush administration's crimes, but immunity is a few steps removed from the real issue. 
Opponents of this bill aren't in it to punish the telecom companies out of revenge, or to get some kind of settlement. We want to reserve the right to sue because it's our only remaining recourse to our 4th amendment rights. 
Going after the phone companies in civil court is all we have left.
We should be able to count on the Justice Department to follow the law and the Constitution, and pursue criminals and terrorists while protecting Americans' rights. But Justice doesn't care about our rights. It cares about Republican politics and litmus tests, and the rest of us had better learn to live with it.
We should be able to count on the FISA court to reject general, driftnet-style wiretapping. But the FISA court operates in secret, and has rejected only one wiretap request in its history. Its appeals court is also secret, and even less likely to act as a check on the government's wiretap power.
We should be able to count on Congress. In 2006, Americans returned the Democrats to power expressly to curb the President's relentless drive to dismantle our government's checks and balances and act with absolute authority. We put the Democrats back in power to end the war, to restore habeas corpus, to close Guantanamo, and to stop the warrantless wiretapping of thousands, if not millions, of innocent Americans.
But we can't count on Congress. You have failed us at every turn. All the outrages of the Bush administration continue unabated. The one glimpse of hope we had, the one example of a Democratic opposition party that actually provided opposition, was when you opposed the Protect America Act. Democrats stood firm and it died.
But then, yesterday, for no reason I can see, Democrats not only allowed the bill to come to a vote, but utterly surrendered on many of its worst points. This bill would not have prevented President Bush's program and will open the door to worse ones in the future. It will not make us safer, it will add to the towering haystack of signal traffic our intelligence agencies must digest (and in which real terrorists know better than to leave the needle), and it will render meaningless the Fourth Amendment. 
You may have polling data that suggests the immunity provision is the one most Americans hate. Please think about what this means. 
It means we've taken it for granted that there is no one left in the government who will fight for our rights under the Constitution. It means we've given up on hoping Congress will assert itself as a co-equal branch of government. It means we get it, the President really does have absolute power.
Please give us a reason to have faith in Congress, and you personally, as credible agents of change and reform. Please don't let this FISA bill pass the Senate.

In Darfur, it can be said that those caught in the crossfire of the current crisis lost their innocence a long time ago. But a new problem is coming to light - the systematic rape of women and children:

 

They say the situation has now become so bad that many women are now resigned to rape as a way of life and men are unwilling to accompany them because they fear that they will be killed if they try to defend them.

Although few aid workers dispute the extent of the attacks against women, they say survivors are unwilling to come forward. But the victims that do reveal shocking levels of abuse.

"She said they removed their scarves and used it to tie them up and were taking turns to rape them. One is 13 years old; the other one is 16 years," said Ajayi Funmi of the UNAMID police, who is trying to educate women, said after talking to two girls.

Workers like Funmi are working actively to combat the problem with education - but in the face of brute force, what are these women to do, really? Especially when the government says that "there is no rape in Darfur"? It pains me deeply that the world is standing idly by, relatively, while this transpires.

It's not just the children who are assaulted that are the victims. So are those conceived in these evil acts:

Making matters worse, aid workers say scores of babies conceived through rape are being dumped by their mothers.

"Abandoned babies are reported, but because of the stigma attached to it, there is no detailed report, because the women don't come forward," said Dr Naqib Safi of the U.N. children's body UNICEF.

As many as 20 babies a month are being dumped in one camp of 22,000 people.

When the Right claims they value life, remind them how little our current administration has done in Darfur. I applaud Mr. Bush's efforts to combat AIDS in Africa, but that is not enough.

I will be making the genocide a focus of what I write on my blog.  There, I use the alias "Invisible Man", a tribute to my favorite novel and to the concept of "invisibility" Ellison explores in it.

Today, there is no one more invisible right now than the women and children of Darfur. I know that I need to point my lightbulbs in their direction, so to speak, and I hope you all do the same.

Bob Gates was involved with Iran/Contra, "sources say".

Josh, how about another update to your Bob Gates entry?  Even a passing comment is better than nothing, and issues of this import need all the help they can get from "community memory"...

Some folks don't like Wikipedia. Well, sorry, but: here is link to the (footnoted) section that covers this in Bob Gates' Wikipedia entry...

Keep it between the ditches,

 -Scott

The Democratic Party's recent utter capitulation on FISA, illegal surveillance, and retroactive immunity for the tel-coms infuriates me.  Senator Obama's apparently willing, even enthusiastic collaboration with this craven compliance on the part of his party enrages me further.  But, honestly, I don't know why I really expected anything else...

Over here, back in December of 2006, some Democrat hack/policy wonk named Chris Bowers compiled a list of all the reasons why Democrats should not and will not try to impeach that idiot some Americans have been erroneously and gullibly referring to as 'President' for the last six years.

That was a year and a half ago, and careful observers will notice that  to date, the newly empowered Democratic majority in Congress had apparently treated this list as if it were Holy Scripture, handed down from on high by the very hand of God Itself.

It's an impressive list, certainly -- one that reeks of reasonableness, of 'reality', of compromise, of political expedience, of being cautious and preserving political capital and thinking long term and carefully mapping out the '08 campaign season and all that other colonic end product the Dems sob like little babies over whenever they somehow stumble, spasm, and/or drunkenly flail their way into a position to actually do anything that might make a significant difference as to how our country is governed.

::DEEP breath::

I cannot tell you how sick I am of this crybaby crap. "Oh, now that we're in a position where we can actually do something, we can't, we mustn't, we shan't REALLY do anything, because then, you know, we might not get re-elected and we'd have to find real jobs."

Why is it that the only politicians in America who have the balls to get into office and actively and effectively pursue an agenda are, you know, evil?

I know, I know. The Democratic majority is still razor thin, and the Republicans can and will be obstructive, and any kind of forward motion on a Democratic/liberal/progressive agenda will take very careful management, and there are no words to describe how tired I am of hearing this teenie-weenie L'il Rascals otay 'panky CRAP. The Republicans had a razor thin majority for ten years, and they have very nearly destroyed the entire planet, and gotten filthy frickin rich while doing it. Why can't the Democrats be similarly aggressive about their own agenda? Honestly, someone explain it to me. I really don't understand it.

Here's my list of just some of the reasons why those evil bastards Bush and Cheney SHOULD both be impeached --

* They aren't really President and Vice President of the United States of America. They were never actually elected; they committed the most brazen election fraud ever seen on a national scale in our country's history, they have no right to those titles or those offices.

* There are 600,000 dead people in Iraq right now who would be alive if Bush and Cheney hadn't decided to go break their country.

* They're spying on American citizens in explicit defiance of the law. They don't even deny it.  They're proud of it.

* They are holding American citizens for years without trial or even indictment, on no authority other than Presidential whim.

* They are torturing prisoners of war. They think it's fun.

* They have committed nearly innumerable counts of systematic fraud to enrich their corporate sponsors in shameful ways, mostly off mountains of bodies, of those both dead and living on in utter misery, here in America (see: New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina) and abroad (see, again, Iraq).

That last point could be broken down into literally hundreds of sub-points; I just don't have the time to actually compile a list of all the ways the Bush Administration has illegally funneled billions if not trillions of tax dollars into the private pockets of its corporate favorites over the last six years.

For that matter, the second point could be broken down into 600,000 plus bullet points, if I just knew the names of every single person who has died unnecessarily due to our illegal and immoral invasion and continuing occupation of Iraq. And the third and fourth points could have a great many victims' names attached to them, too, if we had the power to compile that kind of comprehensive list.

Against all of this, the learned Mr. Bowers weighs things like "the national image of the two parties", "keep(ing) our caucus close to united", and the fact that he is "not in the mood to blow all of our political capital" on, you know, something as trivial as actually doing the right thing.

Unprofessional though it may well be, the only word that springs to my mind when I read this kind of gutless sobbing and cringing and hand wringing on the part of someone whose party just won a huge national election they were overwhelmingly predicted to lose is, well, asshole. If Democrats are going to act like craven pissy assed losers even when they finally manage to win, what's the point in electing them in the first place?

I mean, I know why they're in it... the job pays pretty well and you don't have to work very much or very hard. But if this is how they're going to act after we vote them in, why do we even bother?

Do I have any positive, realistic, politically expedient advice to offer to these quivering masses of spineless humanoid gelatin? Yeah. Bush's popularity is in the low thirties. The Republican Party in general is foundering under a dinosaur killing meteor strike of multiple financial, ethical, moral, and sexual scandals. All that didn't just spring into existence to get the Dems into office, and it hasn't gone away.

Go after Bush. Nobody likes him anyway, it's the right thing to do, and guess what? A majority of the American people are desperately hoping to see their elected officials actually do what's right for once, instead of what's merely expedient.

Will the Republicans unite to defend Bush from impeachment? Maybe, but they're horribly vulnerable right now. There's a mountain of dirt to sling; the minute any of them open their mouths, start slinging it.

No matter what they say, here's what the Dems say back: Mark Foley. Katrina. Tom DeLay. Jack Abrahamoff. Would you like a page boy with that, Congressman? No? A gay hooker? Some meth? How about a nice fat campaign contribution from an Indian tribe trying to build a casino?

When Rush Limbaugh comes after you, go on his show. Take his calls. Whatever he says, whatever he asks you, you say "Percoset. Viagra. How was the Dominican Republic, Rush? Say, how's Mrs. Limbaugh? Which one? I'm not sure, how many have there been? Lately, I mean." When O'Relly comes after you, bring up loofahs, and ask if he's still sexually harassing his married associate producers. Play hardball. I mean, God agove, they do. Hammer them and hammer them and hammer them until they're as scared to open their mouths and take any kind of real position at all as... ...well, as all our elected Democrats are, actually.

Honest to God. You want to see every registered black voter in America for the next two generations vote Democrat? Stand up on live TV and impeach Bush using the words "depraved indifference to human life" while showing video of him playing his guitar at the exact same moment as people were drowning in New Orleans. That will do it. It's easy.

Seriously, why is this stuff hard? Why do Democrats continually let Bush and the Republicans walk away from things like the debacle in Iraq, the catastrophic cluster fuck that was Katrina, and, while we're at it, the goddam 9/11 attacks? Why does it take a gay page boy scandal to put the opposition party back in power, when the people who have been in power for years previous have monumentally messed up every single thing they have managed to get their hands in, and gotten rich doing it, and everybody knows it, too?

In 2006 the American people handed the Democratic Party  the keys to the country.  It's time they stopped sniveling and did the right thing. And the absolute top priority on that list is, get that murderous bastard the hell out of the Oval Office. And then, second, get our troops the hell out of Iraq. Well, not second, both are equally important. There are a few hundred of you in Congress; you can manage to do two things at once, right?

These things are the right things to do. They also happen to be things that the American people who elected you want you to do. It's a win-win.

Not, of course, that either the right thing to do, or the wishes of the people who elected them, mean anything to the Democratic Party.  Otherwise, they wouldn't have just voted overwhelmingly to give Bush vastly increased surveillance powers, and his corporate accomplices in the telecommunications industry retroactive immunity from all prosecution. 

Recommend and spread the word. Everything must have a price.

By ADAM SCHRECK, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK - United Airlines said Friday it will start requiring minimum stays for nearly all domestic flights beginning in October. It is also raising its cheapest fares by as much as $90 one-way.

The second-largest U.S. carrier said the moves are among a number of changes it is making to combat record high fuel prices. The Chicago-based airline has been among the most aggressive in the industry in pushing fares and fuel surcharges higher in recent months, and its latest policy could prompt other carriers to consider following suit.

Starting Oct. 6, most United fares will require a one- to three-night or weekend-night minimum stay, spokeswoman Robin Urbanski said.

This is a magnificent opportunity for Mr Hope to jump in and STAND UP. As was the Demo cave on FISA a great opportunity for Obama to STAND UP.

"Not this time!" Obama always says. It's now obvious that those words refer to all moments when courage is
required.

What we need:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-sIYl5C4mY&feature=related

What we have:

https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/countryilove?source=fe...

Go to www.drudgereport.com to see it on the home page.

It's the photo of Barack's new "seal."

 

What's this?  And what is its underlying purpose?

Image Courtesy of TheDrudgeReport.

MyBlog:  http://ProteanPerspectives.blogspot.com

Sorry folks, but "I will work in the Senate to remove this provision .." is a dodge, plain and simple.

1.  Immunity was already passed in a previous Senate bill.  It was the House that took a stand.  What shred of evidence is there to suggest that it will be stripped out this time?

2.  Sen. Obama failed to say "I will not support this compromise bill if it contains immunity".  Contrast that unequivocal stance against what he did say.

3.  The complete absence of any hyperbolic arguments (or any at all for that matter)  as to why having this bill go down in defeat is a sure indicator that nobody is worried about that outcome - especially the Repubs and the Blue Dogs.

It's a done deal folks. 

With Obama's statement on the FISA bill, there is much panic, stomping of feet, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments etc.

Can we please cool the doomsday talk long enough to actually look at what's being said and done and how it relates to Obama?

Obama hasn't voted on this thing yet. He's said he's willing to vote for the compromise, but wants to strip out the immunity. This is crucial. If he were successful in stripping the immunity, then it's a good thing, and all the handwringing and gnashing and whatnot will have been for naught.

Now, I don't know what's actually going to happen in the Senate next week. Neither do you. Maybe there'll just be some theater. Maybe there'll be some real changes. Maybe Obama will really fight hard for stripping immunity. Maybe he won't. Maybe he'll vote for the bill with immunity included, and maybe he won't. If he does, I'll join the outrage club.

But until then, panic is premature. I've been surprised before. I've also been disappointed before. We'll see what happens.

What we do know is the House passed the bill with the immunity included, and outrage is a perfectly acceptable response to that. Heap scorn upon Nancy Pelosi and the Blue Dogs and whoever else voted for this POS. It's too late to change their votes, but not to late to send the message that we're seriously unhappy.

More importantly, do your part to try to prevent a repeat in the Senate. Write and call your senators and Obama and Harry Reid and whoever else might be willing to listen. We need to make our voices heard.

Now, it might not work. There's no guarantee that activism will work on any given bill. But there is an iron-clad guarantee that doing nothing will get us screwed.

Obama got brave and endorsed John Barrow in the GA-12 Primary. John Barrow is probably the second or third most conservative dem in Congress with Nick Lampson and Jim Marshall - his Georgia homeboy. Barrow's district is D+3 unlike some of the other Blue Dogs or Bush Dogs as some progressives call most of them who sit in R+10's or higher.

I don't know much about State. Sen. Regina Thomas. But I do know she's a great deal more progressive than Barrow. This is a heavily populated African-American seat so she has a chance. Probably won't be as well funded as Denise Edwards and not a lot of time so I'm going ahead and offering some support. If nothing else this will push Barrow to get more in line with his district knowing that the challenge won't come from the right but from the left.

If you have a couple bucks Click Here and Donate

She does have a video up that has hit You Tube and you can find it other places around the net.

Finally! My two favorite things in the whole world have come together: Bill O'Reilly and mayonnaise. Well, not really. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do enjoy mayonnaise, but I don't typically enjoy Bill O'Reilly. He's not very good between two pieces of bread -- white bread ONLY, mind you. I prefer turkey, not bologna. But for once I did actually find some amusement in Bill O'Reilly.

The amusement comes in the form of O'Reilly's phony outrage and confusion over a Heinz mayonnaise advertisement airing in Great Britain only. In the commercial, two men share a kiss, thus making them evil mayonnaise-pushing homosexuals. It's the "gay thing" that confuses O'Reilly. He thinks the underlying subtext is not about mayonnaise but rather about tolerance and gender blending.
You've got to watch the video. O'Reilly is the only one who seems "outraged" by the commercial. Everyone else is just enjoying a good laugh...at O'Reilly's expense.

[source: Think Progress]

1. I am logged in - try to reply to a thread - and am ASKED FOR MY USERNAMe and PASSWORD (even though the system already has me LOGGED IN and ACKNOWLEDGED!!!!!)

2. I am able to post this BLOG without being queried - yet I can't reply to a friggin post?????

3. When I DO enter my SN and PASSWORD, the effing software says it is INVALID!!!!!!

Is there ANY competent software employee at TPM?????Are you EVER going to get the bugs out of this software? Never mind FISA - concentrate on the bugs that affect those of us HERE every day!!!!!

From all of those who are so upset at Obama for his choice in voting for this COMPROMISE, and who are upset because change is no longer happening, 1) what do you think he should have done? 2) Do you truly believe that laws, regulations, and everything that goes through Congress is anything shorter than a COMPROMISE?  Would you rather it any other way?  Would you rather Obama simply stated exactly what he wants and/or thinks is right and have that be the bill?  Would you rather he writes his own bill, which would not have a majority in Congress and therefore would not pass, but at least you agree with everything on that bill?  The fact is that the Government is not about what is right or what is wrong, but rather about COMPROMISE.  That is the way Democracy works, and that is the way it is meant to be.  It is not about every representative writting out the best piece of legislation and having it pass.  It is about representatives getting together, COMPROMISING, and writing a bill that gets enough votes to pass.  Democracy.  I think that no one should be shocked that Obama's priority will always be to protect the Constitution.  The Constitution as he understands it.  The fact is, however, that the United States of America is not a dictatorship.  Obama understands the importance of passing this bill before August, and also understands the importance of changing the law as it stands today.  So ask yourself the question, would you rather let the current laws expire, leave them as they are, or COMPROMISE.  For those who simply want Obama to "do what's right," you should look at the last president who thought he was simply doing what was right without feeling the need to COMPROMISE with anyone.  He shouldn't be that hard to find.

I was wrong about David Brooks.  He wasn't implying Obama was shiftless.  He was just calling him a corrupt politician.  Thanks to Shine and Elizabeth2 for straightening me out.

Billy,

The "Fast Eddie" David Brooks is referring to is not Fast Eddie Felson but "Fast Eddie" Vrdolyak, the 10th Ward Chicago Alderman and leader of The 29, the 29 white alderman who aggressively opposed Chicago's first (and only) black mayor, Harold Washington. Fast Eddie, as coined by columnist Mike Royko, was perhaps the last of a breed of Machine fixer-pols, a political who could make a problem disappear with a phone call or create headaches into perpetuity with a simple visit to an administrative office. He made much of his money by representing victims of an "El" train collision and derailment that happened right outside his offices, legend has it that he walked among the ambulances and paramedic trucks, passing out his business card to the paramedics (whom he knew would give that card to the victim if the victim would asked about lawyers, it's one of the first things a conscious victim will say to an EMT) and pressing his card into the hands of victims laying on gurneys.

Fast Eddie Vrdolyak was also effective. During after a blizzard that show down the City, Fast Eddie made a deal with the local Steel companies and steelworkers union, he conviced them to attach blows to their big trucks and clean the streets of the 10th ward. While the rest of the City choked, traffic in the 10th Ward flowed. He wasn't very principled, but he made sure the garbage was collected and the pot holes were filled and he was for a time, very popular.

He was also very, very corrupt.

Brooks used to work for City News Services in Chicago, so he understands Chicago politics. His juxtaposition of the Chicago Lakefront liberal reform politician vs. the hard-bitten Machine pol is purposeful, but it's not race-baiting. Brooks is saying Obama is the fusion of two specific and contradictory archetypal Chicago politicians, the Northwestern/University of Chicago educated reform candidate who typically lives on Chicago's North and South Side Lakefronts, and the sharp-elbowed opportunist from the working class and middle-class ethnic neighborhoods. He's not saying he's one or the other as much as warning Republicans that if they believe the Clinton campaign rhetoric of Obama as a Stevenson elitist, they are in for a hurtin'. I don't think Clinton campaign believed it, but they understood that that was they best way to run against him. The mistake for the Republicans is to mistake Clinton's strategic positioning of Obama for fact.

Posted by Shine
June 20, 2008 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink

Have to agree -- having lived in Chicago during the Washington years, I immediately recognized "Fast Eddie Vrdolyak," who was most definitly NOT black. ........ (but everything else Shine said.)

Of course, there's another model of savvy Chicago politician, with quite a few more principles, that isn't elite liberal or Fast Eddie skuzzy -- that's Harold Washington.

When I was there Washington refused to declare *primary* (not election) day a City holiday, for the first time in the memory of anyone in Chicago. Vrdolyk went bonkers!! He started ranting about Constitutional rights and all - threatening to Federal court to get an order requiring the City to let its workers off, etc.

Washington was asked about this by a TV reporter and broke up laughing, saying he was going to have to re-read the constitution because he simply couldn't recall any possible right that might be affected. And of course he was right and would be vindicated in th end.

But ... he didn't wait for the end. The next morning, it comes out that, while laughing his head off at the nonsense, Washington has *also* sent his own lawyers to Fed. court, ahead of Fast Eddie's, and gotten a declaration that there was no "Constitutional" right to take off work on primary day. Washington 1, Vrdolyak 0.
On that day and many others.

Obama spent a whole lot more time watching (and I suspect learning from) Washington during his days as an organizer in Chicago than he did "Fast Eddie." Maybe Brooks is just too much of an out-of-towner to get it quite right.

Posted by Elizabeth2
June 20, 2008 5:53 PM | Reply | Permalink

Thanks for the read and the correction.  Guess I'm living proof that if you look for something hard enough, you're bound to find it.

Apologies to Brooks.

What do we do now?  Both of the candidates for President look set to keep increasing Executive Power.

I was calling Obama's comment line, they acted like he cared.  He will not stop this monster.  He could have, but he won't.  He knows that the fundamental rights of American's were being killed, by him.

I am a Democrat, but I am not into hero worship, and 100% purity.  This shit stinks, I will rail against it because it could not be a more clear call to all of America.

"Wake Up" - US Government

Today our government, which was formerly known as "of the people, by the people, and for the people" has become fascist.  Our representatives voted overwhelmingly to enable crimes against every single one of their constituents.  They voted overwhelmingly for a handful of Corporations against ALL of their potential voters.

That is where we are at.  This kabuki theater and window dressing is meant to fool us into thinking we have any liberal representation.

I had hoped Obama was better than Bush, and he had a chance to DO something right.  It was an easy call that would have MASSIVE bipartisan support: "I stood up for the constitution!".  Most Americans like that from people who swear an oath to do so.  At my job I don't swear any friggin oaths, that shit sounds kinda serious.  However, it has been exposed as a joke.

America is so stupid as a country that we won't be out in the streets, hell - most folks won't even know what happened.  I bet this story will be

      "a compromise was reached in the House today allowing       FISA to cover new technologies.  The president spoke       out in favor "blah....blah...."  In other news...."


That will be the depth and framing the few who watch news will hear.  I bet Sean and Rush don't care about the constitution as far as they can throw their paychecks, and I want to bet you (heads I win, tails you lose) too.
  Thom Hartmann is on point as usual.  I'm just deflated.

This is why I always tend to take conspiracy theories more seriously than the official stories.

I think the Dems driving this steak through the heart of democracy  are covering up for themselves, as well  as their friends.  They will  go into lobbying together after they retire.  They've been talking about it for years now, and they have the telecos lined up to hire them for millions.

You just watch how many of these slimeballs (or their families) who voted YES today, and will in the Senate will get money and JOBS and favorable coverage from these Companies they just bailed out.  All of them will be on the take, they all already are I'm sure.

This is what needs to be done:

Corporations are not people, they cannot vote.  Therefore, corporations cannot have a lobbyist.

Corporations, and all of their officers cannot give money to PACs, 527s, or anything else with a political message.


Congressmen, Senators, and their senior staff will not be allowed to work as lobbyists, EVER.  Neither can their spouses.

Congressmen, Senators, and high level Judges must post their schedules, and who they meet with ONLINE.

I've got more, but none of this will ever happen.  I wouldn't be surprised now if Bernie Sanders voted for this.  OK, actually I would, maybe just him and Russ.

I called Clinton's office, and she was against it sort of, but didn't have a stance.  I honestly expected that.  Throughout the day today the Obama volunteers were much more encouraging.  But it was all a sham.  Our representatives bend us over on Fridays so that we don't notice as much in the "newscycle".

Not that that matters, because the same folks who own the "news" and the "newscycle" are the corporations that this crime gives full immunity to.

As a country we are lost.  Our Dem leadership has sold all of us out to either cover up for their own crimes, or for money.  Neither are good options, and it is likely because of both reasons.  This is the state of our union.

I'll save more for later.  Too upset now to really enjoy my weekend in the real sense of the word.  This post will be tapped by the fucking matrix, and put in my file.

Thanks Obama, thanks Pelosi, Reid, Hoyer, Reyes, Clinton, Bush, Boehner, McConnell.  It is like they are all together in some secret societies where they plot against all of our interests.  Like some pirates stealing our societal wealth, health, and peace.  Their flag might be like a skull and cross bones or something.  Ya know - keep it old school.

wouldn't that be something!


OK, one question: can we make a constitutional amendment and pass it w/ 75% or something, I'm a little rusty on how that works.

i get the feeling we're all screwed again with this "2 party" CHARADE

Obama's surrender statement today on FISA lays bare the lie of "change", "hope" and moving the country forward.  Anybody who buys that load of crap now is just a willing sucker who refuses to see what is plain as day: Obama's election doesn't mean "change" it means more of the same.  More capitulation, more servicing of the wealthy and powerful, more war, more excuses for why we can't provide healthcare, a decent education, mass transit and clean environment for all our people just to name a few items on the people's agenda that never get taken care of because we have to spend more than all the other countries on earth on the military instead of our people. 

The cowardice of the Democratic Party including quite clearly Sen. Obama on the issue of retroactive telecom immunity is shameful and an utter humilitating disgrace to put it mildly.  No amount of dodging, no amount of sugarcoating and no amount of bullshit spin can hide the fact that DC Democrats had and have the power to stop this abomination and instead they are taking yet another dive to accomodate the most disreputable tyrant ever to occupy the oval office.  True they don't really like the tyrant but they are doing this unconscionable thing  primarily because their true masters: the corporate powers that be, demand once again that their interests be served and the national interest be damned!  When the master snaps it's fingers these DC Democrats respond in Pavlovian manner like the poltroonish whores they are. 

I am ashamed and sickened to be a Democrat today and tired of the spineless cowardice of our alleged "leaders."  I tried to believe in Obama, but how anyone can be fooled by the litany of excuses offered up and those that are to come is beyond me.  Millions of us are tired of the same old trick (a favorite of DC Dems now for years) of announcing one's opposition while doing nothing to prevent evil's advance, lieing to the public about how this compromise is some sort of "best" deal we can get knowing that is false and knowing damn well it is the wrong thing to do.  This is simply intolerable.  This is a dark, dark day for democracy, for the United States and especially for the common people's liberties and rights.  We no longer live in a republic friends.  We live in an authoritarian, corporate controlled state where the alleged party of the people is just a decoy that mouths soothing platitudes to the public, promises change but is on it's knees servicing corporate wealth and power 24/7.  There is nothing the Democrats won't do to please and service corporate greed, corruption and as in this case: criminality.

Obama's embarassing surrender statement today is a perfect example of Helen Keller's wise words from long, long ago.  She said:

"We the people are not free.  Our democracy is but a name. 

We vote?  What does that mean?  It means that we choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. 

We elect expensive master to do our work for us, and then blame them because they work for themselves and for their class.

She was right then as now. 

At the very moment America needed Obama to demonstrate he wasn't just lucky about Iraq, he was genuinely courageous enough to oppose evil when it presented itself he proved that no, indeed, he just lucked out that he made a public statement against the war. 
Given the ease with which he has bent over and spread em for this galling circumvention of our laws and our Constitution, it is crystal clear now that had he been in DC he certainly would have joined his cowardly Democratic brothers and sisters in the Senate who voted for the war because they believed it to be politically "smart" and the "safe" position.  There is nothing more cynical and nothing that our people hate more than that.

What a load of bullshit we're being asked to swallow by Obama on this issue!   Does he think we are that stupid?  It appears that way.  Could he possibly even believe this garbage.  I think not. 

As far as I'm concerned, Obama should start returning all the money he's collected from all those suckers who thought he really was different and not just another craven, cowardly, calculating DC Democrat more committed to himself than to the nation or the people he allegedly represents.

I'm going to make this simple: Obama is on the verge of making a decision that could bring widespread disappointment to many of his supporters. His statements concerning FISA are so vague that I'm not completely sure what he means.

Is he going to fight to get the retroactive immunity out of the Senate version of the bill? Even if it's not out, will he vote for it anyway?

Barack Obama cannot vote for a bill that would grant such immunity to telecom corporations. It is inexcusible.

I contacted Barack Obama with the following message:

Dear Senator Obama,

You recently made a statement concerning the FISA bill, and concerning the retroactive immunity that such a bill grants to telecoms. It is my understanding that, though you'll fight to remove this immunity, you would vote for the legislation anyway. If I am wrong in my understanding, I urge you to clarify this point. If I am right in my understanding, I urge you to rethink such a thing.

I understand the idea of compromise. But I also understand the idea of integrity. Voting for a bill that grants amnesty to corporations that broke the law is inexcusable. You cannot, and should not stand for such a thing, and I can only hope that you will stand strong and vote against a measure that allows such a provision.

Senator Obama, I have been a strong supporter of yours for years, and this is the first time that I have seriously questioned your reasoning. I understand that no vote has taken place, but this is my letter to you in urging you and hoping to vote against such a bill, if that bill should come to the Senate in its current form.

sincerely,
your supporter,
Nathan Donarum

Here's to hoping Obama will do what's right...

Obama's statement in support of the FISA bill has dashed what hope I had that this just might be somebody different.  I feel played.

Sure he said he'd work to remove the immunity provision, but what he didn't say is that he would not VOTE for the bill if immunity remained in it.

The pattern of the last few days is the typical slide back into centrism, the morass from which the Dems have yet to extricate themselves.  The endorsement of Barrow in GA, the abandonment of his "...I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election" pledge as he never even attempted to pursue an agreement, and now caving in on FISA.

I'm familiar with all the arguments of how politically necessary (or astute) it was to take each of these positions, but taken together it's a clear trend of walking away from the people who so fervently supported him in the primary battles.  This is a slippery slope I expect to see the trend accelerate.

Against my better judgement I allowed my hopes to get raised.  And now it looks like it's turning out the same way it always does as people like me, who want to see somebody take on the status quo, or tossed aside into the gutter once our support has been used to advantage and is now taken for granted.

As I thought about the battle about to be waged between the Democrats and Republicans this election year, I realized that more than just who would lead our nation was to be decided. As Bush likes to remind us, we are at war (although you'd never know it from the course of our daily lives).

But the war in Iraq is not the war we will be voting for or against. We will be voting for who will lead the war to take back our country. More damaging than any threat from without in any conflict we have faced in the history of our nation has been the destruction and havoc wreaked upon American democracy itself. No foreign power or political system be it, fascism, communism, national socialism has ever succeeded in destroying the very foundations of America as have those who have ruled this country for the last seven years.

With the image of September 11, 2001 as their shield, they have systematically and intentionally begun the dismantling of the freedoms and rights guaranteed us by our Constitution. They have sneered at and called cowards those who would challenge them. They used fear as their weapon of mass destruction to annihilate those who would expose their perfidy. And what came to mind was Franklin Roosevelt's famous "Arsenal of Democracy" speech in the darkest days of World War II. So I read the whole speech for the first time. Some of the things Roosevelt said then are amazingly apropos of the war America now finds itself facing. The decision then as it is now for the American people is whether they will fight to save democracy; not just here but around the world.

Here are some excepts...

"Arsenal of Democracy" Speech, Franklin Roosevelt, 29 December 1940:
"Radio Address Delivered by President Roosevelt From Washington, December 29, 1940".

"This is not a fireside chat on war. It is a talk on national security; because the nub of the whole purpose of your President is to keep you now; and your children later, and your grandchildren much later, out of a last-ditch war for the preservation of American independence and all of the things that American independence means to you and to me and to ours...

Tonight, in the presence of a world crisis, my mind goes back eight years ago to a night in the midst of a domestic crisis. It was a time when the wheels of American industry were grinding to a full stop, when the whole banking system of our country had ceased to function...

I well remember that while I sat in my study in the White House, preparing to talk with the people of the United States, I had before my eyes the picture of all those Americans with whom I was talking. I saw the workmen in the mills, the mines, the factories; the girl behind the counter; the small shopkeeper; the farmer doing his spring plowing; the widows and the old men wondering about their life's savings...

I tried to convey to the great mass of American people what the banking crisis meant to them in their daily lives...

Tonight, I want to do the same thing, with the same people, in this new crisis which faces America...

We face this new crisis, this new threat to the security of our Nation, with the same courage and realism...

Never before since Jamestown and Plymouth Rock has our American civilization been in such danger as now...

The history of recent years proves that shootings and chains and concentration camps are not simply the transient tools but the very altars of modern dictatorships. They may talk of a 'new order' in the world, but what they have in mind is but a revival of the oldest end the worst tyranny. In that there is no liberty, no religion, no hope.

The proposed 'new order' is the very opposite of a United States, of Europe, or a United States of Asia. It is not a government based upon the consent of the governed. It is not a union of ordinary, self-respecting men and women to protect themselves and their freedom and their dignity from oppression. It is an unholy alliance of power and pelf to dominate and enslave the human race...

This Nation is making a great effort to produce everything that is necessary in this emergency and with all possible speed. This great effort requires great sacrifice...

I would ask no one to defend a democracy which in turn would not defend everyone in the Nation against want and privation. The strength of this Nation shall not be diluted by the failure of the Government to protect the economic well-being of all citizens...

We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice, as we would show were we at war.

We have no excuse for defeatism. We have every good reason for hope, hope for peace, hope for the defense of our civilization and for the building of a better civilization in the future.

I have the profound conviction that the American people are now determined to put forth a mightier effort than they have ever yet made to increase our production of all the implements of defense, to meet the threat to our democratic faith.

As President of the United States I call for that national effort. I call for it in the name of this Nation which we love and honor and which we are privileged and proud to serve. I call upon our people with absolute confidence that our common cause will greatly succeed."

Good stuff, eh?

So now those of us no matter how little or how widely read in the blogosphere must begin to build a new "Arsenal of Democracy". And our arsenal will not consist of guns or bombs or missiles. We will turn Bush-McCain's own words and ideas against them. And at the same time we will forge our own new weapons of words and ideas in our attack. It will be a formidable battle and truly a battle of good against evil. Let me quote another great president of the United States...

Abraham Lincoln's words in his February 27, 1860, Cooper Union Address:

"Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it".

I just finished sending copies of the U.S. Constitution to Steny Hoyer, Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel, Harry Reid & Jay Rockefeller.

Basically, my note in each packaged said, "You should try reading this sometime" with only a slight variation on each.

It cost $6.11 each, shipped from Barnes and Noble. They had to be shipped separately obviously, but it was, for me, well worth the cost.

Here's the link/book:

The Constitution of the United States: With the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation

I know it probably won't do jack shit, but I thought it was important to make a statement other than my usual fax or email rant.

Here are the addresses for these guys.

    Senator Jay Rockefeller
    531 Hart Senate Office
    Build.
    Washington, D.C., DC 20510

    Sen. Harry Reid
    528 Hart Senate Office Bldg
    Washington, D.C., DC 20510

    Rep. Rahm Emanuel
    1319 Longworth
    House Office Building
    Washington, D.C., DC 20515

    Rep. Nancy Pelosi
    Office of the Speaker
    H-232, US Capitol
    Washington, D.C., DC 20515

    Cong. Steny H. Hoyer
    House Democratic Majority Lead
    H-107, The Capitol
    Washington D.C., DC 20515

I'm sure there are others who need deserve to receive a copy, but I'll leave that to others. This is what I was able to do today.

You?

I had already given to ActBlue yesterday.

You?

I also had faxed Sen. Obama at his D.C. office, as well as at the campaign fax, also yesterday.

You?

    D.C. Office

    (202) 224-2854
    (202) 228-4260 fax

    Campaign

    (866) 675-2008
    (312) 819-2089 or 2088 (fax)

I'm so angry right now I'm dizzy.

digg this

crossposted at thejoshuablog

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/201032.php

Oh well. Telecom immunity is about more than just telecom immunity: it's about how Congress oversees presidential powers. It's about what happens when the president breaks the law. Apparently, the Democratic majority in both houses have decided that when the president breaks their laws, they forgive him. While I had been hoping that, as the leader of the Democratic party, Barack Obama would help to kill this bill, it turns out he's decided to capitulate to the law-breaking of the past eight years. Not only that, but he does so late on a Friday afternoon. It turns out Obama's just as much of a coward as the rest of the Democrats in Congress. As of today, I'll be saving any money I donate to candidates (Tom Udall, for example) who actually believe in our constitution. Sorry, Barack, I can't vote for you any more, either. It's hard to put into words how disappointed I am.

I just got off the phone with a nice representative in Senator Clinton's office.  She confirms that Senator Clinton opposes the current FISA bill and any retoractive immunity for telecoms.  I asked if she would appear in the Senate to oppose or filibuster and they said her schedule hasn't been released.  I pointed out that she has agreed to a joint campaign appearance with Senator Obama on Friday June 27th and the representative did confirm that Senator Clinton isn't unavailable on vacation or anything like that.  So, no promises.  But they admit that she isn't away on some post election seclusion retreat as some have implied.

Might be a good idea if more called Clinton and really push on the issue of her making a campaign appearance with Obama.  I'd like to see them make a far more important appearance together on the Senate Floor.

(202) 224-4451
Don't be afraid to call, they're nice.

Of course, Senator Obama (202) 224-2854 needs to take the leadership role on this since he's our leader as we head into battle with the McCaininites.

But, there were also two other Senators who ran for president who promised to oppose telecom immunity.  Chris Dodd (who made it an issue in the first place and can be thanked at (202) 224-2823) and Joe Biden (202) 224-5042.

Let's get the Democratic Primary Class of 2008 together in the Senate! That's true party unity.

We have all seen those poor desperate teenagers.  They walk the polished floors past the Footlocker, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Urban Outfitters, awkwardly making their way to the food court, breathing the conditioned air, and clinging along that friend who would give them a ride back home.  The private security guards surveil them, but at least Mom and Dad rest assured that they are safe, for they are not on the streets, not that there are any streets in any real sense in such an ex-urban existence.  Outside the building, acres of parking lot and miles of sidewalk-deficient roads separate this mall from other lesser strip malls, gas stations, golf courses and Walmart.  Walking is inconceivable, and Mom and Dad appreciate this.  In fact, Mom and Dad consciously invested in a home in such a pedestrian-hostile habitat precisely because they were suspicious of sidewalks and people walking down them, not to mention buses and bus riders.  School, football practice, home, and any other place to which Mom decides to chauffeur them in their Exxon-Valdez-sized vehicle are really, in her view, the only places safe and healthy enough for the kids.
 

Ironically, these miserable youths and their schools were the principal reason given for the flight from the city to their captivity in no-pedestrian’s land.  Starting in the late sixties and continuing throughout the seventies and eighties, following the obliteration of legally imposed segregation, middle class Americans found insularity in sprawl, and its enabler in the automobile.  As cheap fuel allowed these moonscapes to thrive at the expense of our once proud cities, the outflux was perpetuated always in the name of “better schools” although quite often the longer commutes led to less parenting time, even while much poor quality time was spent with chauffeur Mom.

As even the suburbs became more diverse, the better schools somehow spontaneously moved further out.  Thus, David Brooks’s romanticized exurban, the tax-hating libertarian whose telephone, cable, Internet, and other services were subsidized by the horrible city dwellers, now commuted four hours a day, waking up in the wee hours of the morning and arriving home in time to catch Leno, but of course this was better for the kids.
 

Meanwhile, some middle class people had had enough and started to gentrify the previously abandoned urban areas, although so many were dinkys who would flee to the suburb after that first pregnancy echogram.  Nevertheless our cities have been experiencing a comeback.  Buses are improving, light rail is emerging, sidewalks are becoming vibrant, and the concept of a public space is re-emerging as being of much better quality than the mall foodcourt.  We have come to the realization that European cities are so ahead of us, and we spend costly Euros enjoying their non-chain restaurants, fabulous sidewalk life, public parks and spaces, and realize that even though they are paying twice as much per gallon of gas, that they are in less agony over it than we are because they are not hostage to the automobile and to pedestrian-hostile environments and lifestyles.

Our challenges are enormous because our human habitat design has for too long been unrealistic, but we have taken the big step and accepted that change is inexorable.

I've been shamelessly spamming this comment from DairyStateMom everywhere I can and decided to post it here, too:

Okay, let me get this straight.  John McCain has 527s who he "can't control," and takes all kinds of money and help from lobbyists, is a good guy because he supports public financing -- except when he doesn't want to follow the spending limits in the primary season, even though he opted in to public financing so he could get a loan to spend more money than public financing would allow him to spend.   Barack Obama has a whole bunch of little donors, which is supposed to be the whole point of the public financing system, making little money more important than big money, and has expressly said he doesn't want 527 ads or lobbyists' money or help -- and Obama is the sharp-elbowed Chicago political operator who's throwing principle under the bus to get elected? I'm sorry, what planet are people living on?!?!?!?

We have all seen those poor desperate teenagers.  They walk the polished floors past the Footlocker, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Urban Outfitters, awkwardly making their way to the food court, breathing the conditioned air, and clinging along that friend who would give them a ride back home.  The private security guards surveil them, but at least Mom and Dad rest assured that they are safe, for they are not on the streets, not that there are any streets in any real sense in such an ex-urban existence.  Outside the building, acres of parking lot and miles of sidewalk-deficient roads separate this mall from other lesser strip malls, gas stations, golf courses and Walmart.  Walking is inconceivable, and Mom and Dad appreciate this.  In fact, Mom and Dad consciously invested in a home in such a pedestrian-hostile habitat precisely because they were suspicious of sidewalks and people walking down them, not to mention buses and bus riders.  School, football practice, home, and any other place to which Mom decides to chauffeur them in their Exxon-Valdez-sized vehicle are really, in her view, the only places safe and healthy enough for the kids.

As Nunn's name has been circulated I've seen a number of "leaders" in the gay community attack the idea, accompanied by the assertion that Obama's already throwing gays under the bus because of his lack of support for gay marriage.  So here's my response, in the form of a letter to our next Prez.

Dear President to be Obama,
     I think Nunn would be a great choice, and I'm an open, married (thanks Canada), non-self loathing gay man. I think he would be a great choice with one caveat. He would need to agree to do a mea culpa and turn around on the issue of gays in the military. And if he did, along with giving an impassioned explanation of why he was wrong, I think it would pave the way for that policy to finally be brought to an abrupt end.
     I like Nunn because he gives you strength in the areas the public has the most questions about now.  Also, he is old enough he won't be undercutting you as he looks at making his own run in 8 years.  He can instead play the supportive traditional role of VP.  Also, I expect that Sen. Clinton and her camp would support it because it would also mean she will have an open field in 8 hears.  
     If you do choose him, you'll need to keep him off of many domestic issues, but you know that already. So you can get the benefit and leave the old behind.
     On gay marriage, well, as one married man to another, please President Obama, stick to your position that its a state issue and that you personally are not in favor of it, but also completely oppose amending the U.S. Constitution on the issue and believe gays should have civil union rights. Stick to this postiion at least this go around because otherwise you will almost certainly lose. Also, its basically the strategy being used by the gay community of building victories and support state by state while staying out of the federal courts so it won't interfere with their work.  Meanwhile, it will allow you to bring an enlightened and cosmopolitan view of gays to the white house. I do expect you to really work on gay rights.  Your African American ancestors aren't the only ones who have faced lynchings in the past simply because of how they were born, and right now gays and blacks are probably running about even in bias motivated beatings.  So I need you to stick to the promises you made in Iowa and actually bring about some federal protections in the areas of jobs, credit, while also passing the necessary legislation to allow gays to protect their families with regard to medical decisions and financial matters.  
     So please continue to argue in support of expanding gay rights, but not to the point of gay marriage, because then you can actually be elected to work on these issues. And when some scream you are throwing the gays under the buss by not being in favor of federalized gay marriage, just know that many of us completely understand you are going as far as you can, and farther than any democratic nominee in the past, already. Also, personally, I can't stand the idea of what the Supreme Court would look like in a 5-6 years, when the federal cases that will result from out-of-staters getting married in Califnia make their way to that Court, if you let a Repub get in because you were stupid enough to throw the election away by coming out in favor of gay marriage. Instead let the gay community continue to build support for that particular issue, add Iowa to the list of states allowing gay marriage next year, and hopefully by the time you run for re-election you will have seen that gay marriage is really a good thing, and something you can support.  But don't even try to get there now.  You are great right where you are.
     And do consider Nunn. But only if he is willing to do an about face on his stance towards gays. I think you'll win pretty much whoever you pick but we could potentially carve out some significant victories in the South with Nunn. And in so doing bring along enough legislators to give you that working majority you've been talking about for the past 18 months.

The sheet draped right wing nuts are out in full force.

http://www.macsmind.com/wordpress/2008/02/27/obama-plans-to-disarm-america/

or

http://tinyurl.com/33lcss

Just imagine what the 527 script writers have in the pipe line.

Leading black Democrats who should know better from ethnic history than to give immunity from illegal wiretapping. One or two theoretically liberal Democrats who weren’t, on this.

 

All part of the 45 percent of Democrats who caved, or, “supercaved” based on how much Kit Bond likes this, all detailed at my blog.

Leading black Democrats who should know better from ethnic history than to give immunity from illegal wiretapping. One or two theoretically liberal Democrats who weren’t, on this.

 

All part of the 45 percent of Democrats who caved, or, “supercaved” based on how much Kit Bond likes this, all detailed at my blog.

On Tuesday, uber-conservative radio commentator/propagandist Rush Limbaugh said this about the Hurricane Katrina victims versus the victims of the recent Midwest flooding crisis:

I see devastation in Iowa and Illinois that dwarfs what happened in New Orleans...I see people working together. I see people trying to save their property . . . I don’t see a bunch of people running around waving guns at helicopters, I don’t see a bunch of people running shooting cops. I don’t see a bunch of people raping people on the street... I don’t see a bunch of people doing everything they can . . . whining and moaning, “Where’s FEMA, where’s Bush?” I see the heartland of America. When I look at Iowa and when I look at Illinois, I see the backbone of America.

Mark Twain wrote "To a main with a hammer, everything looks like a nail." To Limbaugh, who has a long history of racist comments, even natural disasters are just another reason to let loose with racial tirades. In Limbaugh's mind the mostly black, poor victims of Hurricane Katrina were “people raping people on the street,” while the mostly white, rural farmers of the Midwest are “the backbone of America.”

But these comments are nothing new to anyone who has listened to Limbaugh for more than five minutes. Which is why it's outrageous that a big company like Barnes and Noble continues to be one of the Rush Limbaugh Show Website's major advertisers. The money they spend to advertise on his Web site and show essentianly funds Limbaugh and his hate-filled rhetoric. Click here to send an e-mail to the executives. Ask them to stop funding Rush's racism and drop advertising on the Rush Limbaugh show.

David Brooks rips the "most split-personality politician in the country" (Obama) in today's NY Times.

Let's see:

He called him a "promise breaking" politician opportunist  "who’d throw you under the truck for votes," among other things. He goes on to list people and issues abandoned by Obama.

That's gonna leave a mark.

Read the article.

They are saying Scott McClellan can't exonerate Dick Cheney in the CIA leak case .. but can he be "Exxon" - erated?

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

"Party politics is driving up registration at unusually high rates," Project Vote Deputy Director Michael Slater said in Sunday's New York Times. Slater was referencing the surge of voter registration from both partisan and non-partisan drives "in an effort to change the demographics" of an imbalanced electorate. The flood of interest in the electoral process reportedly has election officials in Louisiana overworked and concerned over how many rejected voter applicants will show up in November thinking they are on the voting rolls.

Louisiana's drive is part of a growing trend of large-scale voter registration drives seen among many groups, including Project Vote and the Obama Campaign, "in an effort to change the demographics of the electorate."

"Nationally 39 percent of eligible blacks and 46 percent of eligible Latinos are not registered to vote, compared with 29 percent of eligible whites, according to a 2006 study by Project Vote, a nonpartisan group that promotes voting in low-income and minority communities," wrote Times’ reporter Shaila Dewan.

The Democratic drive produced 74,000 applications and "has raised complaints from registrants about large numbers of duplicate, invalid or incomplete applications," bringing forth an investigation by Republican secretary of state, Jay Dardenne," Dewan wrote.

The "biggest complaints about the drive have come from Republican registrars."

Considering the disparity in the electorate and the sudden influx of voter interest, one supporter of the Louisiana Democratic drive cautioned that "[i]nstead of throwing up complaints, they should be working to get as many people as possible registered."

About a third of the applications have not been processed and many require more information.

Slater said high numbers of incomplete applications are not unusual in large-scale voter registration drives. "[A]s a rule of thumb, 35 percent of voter drive applications were new voters, 35 percent were change of address, and 30 percent were duplicates or incomplete."

Partisans point the finger in different directions for how voter registration drives should be handled. "Democrats say the burden is on the registrars to double-check and verify application information," while the spokesperson for the secretary of state puts the burden on canvassers who should be "educated enough to leave the house until a card is in order."

With registrars concerned that there will be "utter bedlam" at the polls if the invalid cards represent real people who might try to vote, there are steps they can take to increase the likelihood that a voter applicant becomes a registered voter - even if the applicant made an error in the original form. Project Vote policy brief, "Correcting Deficient Applications" offers solutions, including keeping pending files of deficient applications and providing notice to correct the information.

I recently had a phone conversation with House Judiciary Chair John Conyers.  He was particularly interested in GWU Professor Jonathan Turley's conclusion that the Democrats in the FISA and impeachment cases are evidently guilty of "collusion".  Conyers did not dismiss or contradict the allegation.  He asked me to forward him references to Turley's argument.  

No there's Turley's even more damning assessment yesterday - of Democrats' conflicts of interest in their readiness to offer immunity for FISA violations.  In both the FISA and impeachment cases, Congressional leaders were silent accessories to the illegal behavior being charged.  

It's time to set aside partisan bias and admit that even Democrats shouldn't be allowed to rule on crimes they have witnessed, kept secret, or committed. 

Conyers, Wexler or Kucinich - or Senator Obama, whose staff says it is reviewing the new FISA proposal - needs to make that argument publicly in the capitol.

To see Turley's analysis on Olbermann, hear Conyers' phone call, and much more visit here.

I have an uncle who is deeply, deeply conservative.  He quite often sends me email forwards.  Usually these are just the standard Rush Limbaugh talking points stuff... Obama is a stealth muslim, Clinton is a dyke, etc, etc... and I just kind of shrug and hit the delete key after I read the first paragraph.

But sometimes he sends me something I just have to get into a little...

Here's the email forward:

Subject: College Liberals

Sometimes, extreme liberal ideals seem much different when their outcomes directly affect you...
==============================================
Father-Daughter Talk
A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and among other liberal ideals, was very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs, in other words redistribution of wealth.

She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school.

Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, "How is your friend Audrey doing?"

She replied, "Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties, and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over."

Her wise father asked his daughter, "Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA."

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, "That's a crazy idea, how would that be fair! I've worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!"

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, "Welcome to the Republican party."See, I think this is fabulous; a totally cogent summation of every loonie liberal fallacy, elegantly encapsulated in this one utterly brilliant parable near worthy of Jesus.

Still, I think it lacks... I don't know... verisimilitude. Or maybe it's just too brief. Anyway, I think it needs a little something to really bring the truth across. So, let me add just a little more to the narrative, for flavor, if nothing else...
Incensed, the young college student immediately retorted, "What, so you're equating my Grade Point Average, an objective assessment of my effort and abilities within the context of a college curriculum, with actual material wealth and property? You're saying that my straight A average is the academic equivalent of your vastly swollen bankbook? Is that it?"

"Of course," the conservative father said, nodding smugly. "It's exactly the same.  Remember how you insisted on not taking a dime from me because you wanted to get through college on your own? You worked hard for scholarships and got a work study job and studied hard for your grades and resent the idea that someone who hasn't done the same amount of work as you do should get a free ride on your superior talents and greater effort. Well, I've worked hard for the success I enjoy, and like all decent, right thinking, hard working men and women everywhere, I think it's just crazy that I should be expected to give up part of my just earnings to support those who are too lazy to go out and make the same effort to do as well as I have!"

The daughter raised her eyebrows. "Dad, you honestly see no difference between your status in life at the present time and mine? You think they are exactly equitable?"

"Exactly," her father said with assurance. "You've worked hard to get where you are, I've worked hard to get where I am. You deserve your success and I deserve mine. No freeloaders need apply for handouts around here. If your friend Audrey wants a 4.0, she can get off her lazy ass and work for it, just like you did."

"I see," the young woman said. "And similarly, if that homeless man living in a cardboard box in the alley behind the supermarket wants to own his own business like you do, well, he can build a time machine out of old tin cans, travel back to before he was born, and arrange for his mother to marry someone with a million dollar athletic shoe company, so he can start out there as a Vice President when he's 25 and assume control of the whole thing when his dad retires!"

"Wait," the father began to bluster. "That's not... young lady, I worked hard... my grades in college... I graduated near the top of my class... I went to the Harvard School of Business... my management skills when I came into this firm saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars the first year I was here..."

"Daddy," the daughter said, more or less patiently, "you got into Harvard because grampa bought them a new library, and they didn't throw you out when you kept getting drunk and high in your fraternity because grampa bought them three new dorms and a new gymnasium with a pool. You got high grades in most of your classes because you picked really easy classes and hired smart but poor kids to write your papers and take your exams for you. You saved hundreds of thousands of dollars for grampa's shoe company your first year by firing all your American workers and replacing them with kids from Indonesia who did just as good a job for 12 cents an hour."

"But," her father tried to say. His daughter was having none of it; she went on relentlessly, "Daddy, there is no comparison between the way I earn my grades and the way you've 'earned' your success in life. I got into a good school based only on my own grades and SATs, which I got the hard way, by working. I pay my own tuition. I get all As in college because I work my ass off. Remember how you offered to get me into Harvard by endowing some new faculty lounge for them? That's how you do things. I didn't need you to do that for me; I got into my school fair and square. And where you do things like send your hot new 25 year old trophy wife to sleep with Senators for government contracts, then sell shoes to the military for $2,000 a pair that cost you $1.50 each because they're put together in a South Korean sweatshop and made out of pressed cardboard, I actually study and actually turn in my work and actually get perfect scores on my exams because I'm smart and I work hard."

The girl's father looked up alertly as that. "Say, hon, speaking of sleeping with Senators for government contracts, you don't look so bad in a black cocktail dress yourself. I was wondering..."

The young woman flashed her father a furious glare which stopped him dead. She took a breath, then went on, "Plus, I can't understand why you get so pissy about so called 'high taxes on the wealthy' anyway, when you pay your accountant six figures a year to make sure most of your real income and property go through offshore accounts and you end up paying less income tax than a public school teacher!"

"It... I..." the father looked baffled for a moment -- then shrugged and spread his hands. "Honey, that's just how the real world works. Some day you'll understand."

"I understand now, dad," she said. "I understand that your wealth and success and social status all derive from the labor of other people who work for you, whom you pay as little as you possibly can to maximize your own profits. I understand that you cheat, steal, lie, bribe, exploit, and connive at every opportunity to maximize your own assets at the expense of everyone around you. I understand this very well, because I hacked your computer last weekend and have all of this on disc and in hard copy, and I've already sent it all over to the IRS and the FBI, and I think I passed a couple of guys with warrants on my way up to your office today. They should be knocking on your door any second now."

The father's eyes went wide. "What? What? Well... well, that's ridiculous! It's not fair! I have rights! That's an illegal search! You've invaded my privacy!"

The wise... far too wise... daughter sighed. "Yeah, dad. Welcome to the Democratic Party."
Now, there are people... and mind you, I know 'em... who would take enormous umbrage at this characterization of every hard working Republican as basically being inherently corrupt scions of privilege who started out with huge advantages due to the circumstances of their births, and who have employed any means, fair or foul, to advance their own personal agenda and maintain and increase their own personal wealth ever since.

Here's what I say to that : there may well be honest, hard working Republicans in America. However, when the leadership of the Republican party is indeed, and inarguably, almost entirely comprised of inherently corrupt scions of privilege who started out with huge advantages due to the circumstances of their birth and who have employed any means, fair or foul, to advance their own personal agendas and maintain and increase their own personal wealth for their entire adult lives and throughout their careers in so called 'public service'... well... the honest, hard working Republicans, whoever they may be and wherever the hell they may be hiding, are just going to have to sit down and shut up for a while. I have no sympathy.

If there are conservatives or Republicans out there who aren't corrupt, venal, evil, hypocritical sonsofbitches -- they need to stop voting for the corrupt, venal, evil, hypocritical sonsofbitches.

It's as simple as that.

I had these thoughts earlier this year, and I think the David Brooks Op Ed piece in the NYT is a good example of what I was talking about.

In the Democratic Primary, no one has played the "race card" yet. There have been a few claims, from surrogates and supporters, but not from the candidates themselves, that one side or the other is playing the race card or bringing race into the campaign, but both sides know that the race card is still in the deck. 

The race card, like the gender card, is a joker. It can't win the hand by itself. It has to be matched up with other cards.
The race card doesn't work just by evoking stereotypes. It works by smearing a candidate with those stereotypes in a specific way. It's not enough just to remind voters that there is something about a culture, gender or race they don't like. The attack machines have to convince voters that there is something about this particular candidate they don't like.
 
Saying that there are people who won't vote for a Black man is not playing the race card, even if it raises the question of Mr. Obama's electability in the general election. When someone plays the real race card, we'll know it, because they will go on to spell out exactly why they think some voters won't vote for a Black candidate like Mr. Obama.
 
The attack will be specific, and it will be about Mr. Obama, although it will come to us wearing the respectable clothing of political analysis, and it will probably come in the form of a question, not as a statement of fact.

The closest thing I've seen to a real race card played in this campaign is Bob Johnson's reminder that Mr. Obama did drugs when he was a kid, followed by the comment that Mr. Obama had adopted a Sydney Poitier persona for the campaign.  I think Mr. Johnson's comment was aimed at older Black women, an important segment for Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Johnson forgot that his inappropriate remarks were going to be heard by a much wider audience, an audience that may not have realized just how pointed Mr. Johnson's remarks actually were, but that instinctively and justifiably slammed him for it.

Ironically, though, to get a good idea of how the sophisticated attack machines are going to play the race card against Mr. Obama, we can look at the way they have played the gender card against Mrs. Clinton. The attacks have ranged from the subtle to the ham-fisted, but they have consistently pointed out how at this moment or that, Mrs. Clinton is doing or being something her detractors hope voters don't like about women.

To his great credit, Mr. Obama has not done it, and I have not seen Mr. Obama himself say or do anything to hurt or disrespect Mrs. Clinton. I think his comment about her being "likable enough" wasn't a slight. I think it was a rueful admission that she is a formidable opponent with a loyal base. And I think his supposed snub at the State Of The Union was nothing more than a tactful turning away so that she could have a moment with Senator Kennedy.

But the gender card doesn't have to be played overtly. Researchers tell us that women are at a real disadvantage in confrontations with men. Anger, for example, when displayed by a man is viewed as a sign of strength. When anger at exactly the same things is displayed by a woman, it is viewed as irrational.

The gender card is out there, and it is working to Mr. Obama's advantage. The question is: Is it reasonable to expect a candidate to repudiate attacks on an opponent, particularly subtle ones, when those attacks are working for him?

I guess we'll have to ask Mr. McCain that question now.

In 5 months, Americans will come to the polls and vote for who they think is best suited for the Presidency.  

In 5 months, Americans will make the final judgment on who is best suited to protect their children, their families.  

In 5 months, one of two very different men will be chosen to fulfill that job.

5 months is a long time.  

It was 21 days between the time the U.S invaded Iraq and "Bagdad fell."  43 days between the time Operation Iraqi Freedom began and President Bush stood aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared "Mission Accomplished."

5 months is a long time.

2 weeks ago, the Israeli military conducted a quite noticeable airstrike exercise.  "American officials say [it] appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran's nuclear facilities."  

"[A] second U.S. defense official said the maneuver could be taken as a demonstration to Iran and the international community that Israel is serious about the need to challenge Iran's nuclear program - and could be prepared to do so militarily.

Ray McGovern's take on it at Alternet is worth a read.

Amidst the rush and roar of the election, under the uproar over campaign finance, Bush may not go softly into the night.  We must not forget that he is still in the White House.  We must not forget that five months is a long time.  A lot could happen.  This time, we must stay vigilant.

Today has been a day of clear contrasts in the Presidential Race and the Texas Senate Race.

I just have a problem with the McCain flip-flop and spin on his support of the GI Bill. Especially when he knows better. The first part of my diary talks about this issue.

Rick Noriega leaves the campaign trail for the better part of two weeks for active duty and his opponent is hypocritically whinning about about politics as usual. The second part of my diary deals with this.

Let me preface this by saying that I am not paid by the Noriega campaign and have no official affiliation with them.  Nor do I with the Obama campaign either.

I've raised almost $1200 for Noriega and other candidates better for vets than what we have now with my Act Blue Page. I want to get to $1500 as soon as possible. Read my diary as I connect the dots and the contrasts. ACT Blue Page here

<strong>1.</strong>
McSame only supports the troops when it is just the right time. He showed his lack of judgement before on this issue considering his past as a war hero. There was more than partisan Democratic support behind the GI Bill that passed last month

I certainly find myself disturbed today that the Republicans including McSame are supporting the 21st Century Bill of Rights because it's tied to more funding for the war. These members of Congress dedide its time to support the GI Bill now. They claim its better now because of the provision that will transfer benefits to children and spouses.

Read McSame's statment.  <blockquote>

With the addition of the transferability provisions sought by Senators Graham, Burr, myself and others to give service members the right to transfer earned G.I. Bill benefits to spouses and children, we will have achieved in offering vastly improved educational benefit while also offering incentives for continued service by the most capable, experienced NCO’s and officers. Our courageous NCO’s and officers called for this option, and I believe that its inclusion in this bill will help maintain retention levels in all the Services where it needs to be for the well being of the All Volunteer Force and our Nation.”

</blockquote>

<a href="Full'>http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/06/mccain-now-supp.html">Full article</a>

Mind you that before we had all the veterans organizations and a bipartisan coalition supporting this bill. Now we get to listen to McSame posture himself as supporting the troops.

<strong>2. </strong>I can't write a Rick Noriega diary or blog without finding a way to get in a jab the incumbent "Big John" Cornyn. I haven't seen any statements from Cornyn on the GI Bill today  but I imagine he's going along with McSame.

Cornyn did say today about Obama (<b>From Fox News, yeah I know!!!</b><blockquote>Rather than sending a message that he’s about change or a new type of politics in America, it really looks and sounds like he’s about the same old ... type of politics in America,” Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn </blockquote>

<a href="Cornyn'>http://www.elections.foxnews.com/2008/06/19/republicans-hammer-obama-for-sidestepping-public-funds/">Cornyn on Obama today</a>

Contrast this to a comment by Rick Noriega,<a href="full'>http://www.theexaminer.com/npps/story.cfm?ID=2232">full diary by Rick</a> who says<blockquote> What occurred to me when I was in the field was the sharp contrast in what we were doing, my band of infantry brothers, preparing for combat, and what John Cornyn was doing in Washington, DC at the same time.</blockquote>

He goes on to say <blockquote>When I drove onto post on June 1st, gas was $3.78 a gallon. When I left training two weeks later it was $4.00 a gallon. In the meantime, Cornyn voted against tax incentives for renewable energy investment, leaving Texans high and dry at the pump and undermining efforts for America to achieve energy independence</blockquote>

Rick serves our Country while Cornyn serves his big oil buddies. That's what I get from that.

<strong>So let me ask you? Who is about the same old - type of politics? Rick Noriega and Barack Obama? or John McCain and John Cornyn?</strong>

Just when you thought the Bush Administration couldn't get sleazier, this delightful nugget.

Where this one becomes breathtaking in its appallingness is in its convergence of so many unthinkables. Well unthinkable if you have a Sept. 10 mindset, apparently. When you consider how many American Unthinkables are contained within this single story, all of it stemming from one amazingly terrible day.

It's fashionable to say we Canadians betray an irrational Anti-Americanism and like any lame stereotype, there's the grain of truth that comes from being a much smaller, much less-important country beside the world's only remaining superpower. That sort of knee-jerk reaction does exist here, but I'll let you in on a secret--deep down, despite all the resentment that's engendered to our bigger, richer, flashier neighbour Up Here, we always felt you were the good guys. America was the Statue of Liberty and Schoolhouse Rock animations of bills being passed into law. It was the other guys, the Soviets, who purged their own ranks of dissent, seized the levers of government by appointing 'loyalists' to positions of influence, detained people without charge, tortured them and locked them into gulags.

The Americans, on the other hand, had the Constitution, the Separation of Powers, a government of laws that may very well have been imperfect, but held out the possibility for citizen-initiated change.

How far we've come, America. How breathtakingly far. Let's recap:

1. An incoming Attorney General, the nation's top lawyer, basically fires a Justice Department lawyer for drafting a legal opinion declaring torture 'abhorrent'. Torture.

2. Because it's important to give a reach-around, the incoming AG offers the guy he's just canned a plum gig in Los Angeles, and

3. ... SNIP (from the ABC story)

...Just a few weeks before Levin was asked to leave, White House Advisor Karl Rove and Gonzales were involved in discussions over the dismissals of several U.S. attorneys. Nine were dismissed the following year, and the matter erupted into a scandal, with critics alleging the administration saw the US attorney posts as patronage positions. UNSNIP

Levin told the committee this happened in 'early 2005,' according to the story. For the record, Carol Lam, U.S. Attorney for Southern California was one of the seven U.S. Attorneys dismissed on Dec. 7, 2006.

So just to be clear on this, the nation's top lawyer canned one of his top legal minds because the administration didn't think he would 'come out the right way' on fundamental matters of basic justice like, whether its okay to torture. Habeas corpus. Warrantless wiretapping (ie: the right for citizens to be free of unreasonable search and seizure, and the right to privacy). At the same time, he was working with Karl Rove, perhaps the most amoral political operative ever (and that's saying a lot) to purge the US Attorney ranks and replace the purged with political loyalists and hacks. I doubt these turkeys would have gotten as far as they did, had it not been for 9/11.

It's bad enough they took advantage of their citizens' collective fear and trauma to so dramatically pervert the American body politic, but what really makes the blood boil is their cockiness. You can see the arrogance in Bush's smirk, in Gonzalez' last appearance before Congress. It's the arrogance of people convinced they have all their bases covered.

'We don't torture,' Bush famously said as the horrors of Abu Ghraib unfolded to the world. We now know better, of course, but because they shoved out the people who might have acted as a check on them and replaced them with Loyal Bushies, they managed to craft legal justifications for what they did, created euphemisms so they could say perhaps, in the narrowest legal parsing possible, it wasn't exactly torture.

From the people who promised to 'restore dignity to the White House' indeed. If anything, it's practically an identical twin to Bill Clinton's famous "It depends on what your definitition of 'is,' is" remark during the Lewinsky scandal, only with thousands more dead people and the most fundamental of human freedoms trampled.

America is more than just a country. It's an idea, an experiment. Who or more accurately what, has lost the most since The War on Terror began?

h/t: Andrew Sullivan

This Kos post that suggests that members of Congress could be held liable for the acts of the executive merely by virtue of being informed of those actions is ludicrous.  Members have an absolute privilege protecting them from any legal liability for wrongdoing, which is why the evidence seized from Congressman Jefferson's office was excluded from his criminal prosecution.
That the Democratic Congress (certain members, at least) may be covering their political flank would seem to be indisputable, obvious, and among the most craven, cowardly acts of the American legislature in my lifetime.  It should also be noted in passing that although the DNC and Obama's campaign have eschewed lobbyist and corporate contributions, the Democratic legislature has not.  Having it go around that leading D's signed off on this behavior in one way or another would be politically damaging.  
However, those legislators that have said "we were hoodwinked--shame on us" have not suffered any political price from the democratic base.  Admissions of error have served as badges of redemption for John Edwards (and John Cole).   Unless these members pay a political price for these kinds of votes, this activity will continue.  Every member is going to say "gee I didn't like the bill, but we had to fund the troops and get relief funds to those poor people in the Midwest."  

This makes me sick to my stomach.

As the New York Post's Page Six section put it today, "Tim Russert's body wasn't even cold in the ground" when Keith Olbermann decided to put pressure on MSNBC to annoint him as host of Meet The Press, according to an insider.

Chris Matthews was overheard jockeying for the job, too, during Wednesday's memorial service.

MSNBC denies the allegations.

This week talk of impeachment is building. Congressman Dennis Kucinich has stepped forward with official articles. As much as I love him, Kucinich simply doesn’t command serious attention (dude had a religious experience involving a UFO in Shirley MacLaine’s backyard… sounds like an SNL sketch, doesn’t it?). However, with the accusation of war crimes by General Antonio Taguba and the testimony of Scott McClellen, the process has taken a turn for the earnest.

I remember when Bill Clinton was elected. I was apolitical back then but I couldn’t help but notice. He was younger than any president that had held that office in my lifetime. His victory party blasted Fleetwood Mac. He had once smoked marijuana. My guitar teacher was ecstatic. Bill Clinton was going to be great. I remember thinking that anybody this great was poised for a great fall.

I had no idea that he might be impeached. On the day of the hearings, America dropped bombs on an obscure terrorist target. This distracted the media for about one news cycle. There were murmurs of a wag-the-dog motive, but little more. (I don’t think I’ve ever forgiven the man for those bombs.) In the end, the bigger scandal was the blow-job and the bigger scandal always sells.

There is a great line in Charlie Wilson’s War: “…as long as the press sees sex and drugs in your left hand, we can park a battle carrier group behind your right hand and no one’s gonna notice.”

Which brings me to my point: Americans are amoral, valueless turds with no integrity whatsoever. We’re not interested in justice. We’re interested in entertainment. If President Bush had dry-humped Dick Cheney’s leg and then lied about it, he’d have been impeached long ago. We would have demanded it. We would have clamored for it. Most importantly, we would have laughed ourselves silly with Colbert, cartoons, comic stand-up. It would have entertained us so to keep it present to mind and the bastard would have been impeached.

Unfortunate for everybody this side of Halliburton, George W. Bush didn’t dry hump his veep’s leg. All he did was take our nation to war under false pretenses, wipe his ass with the constitution and *yawn* endorse torture. Where’s the fun? Where’s the funny? (There ought to be line here about lapel pins but I can’t think of it.)

If President Clinton thought that bombing terrorists would distract us from his sex scandal, he was never more wrong. Lucky for President Bush, Americans don’t really give a damn about anything that doesn’t entertain us. …Perhaps if the Gitmo prisoners were guest on The View, we’d give a damn.

I was thinking that Sen McCain might have chance to beat Sen Obama.  I never thought it was likely but I got over confident in 2000 because I thought Bush was transparently lying his ass off like a slimy used car salesman.  Half of the American electorate saw it differently though.  I am trying to avoid that sort of over confidence this time.  John McCain is making this tough though.  Now I am beginning to worry that he might blow up so bad that he gets replaced at the convention.

He is acting batshit crazy.  Like he cannot remember basic facts, or even his own positions.  Can the people not notice this?  Will his poll numbers continue to crater?  And if they do will the GOP replace him?

I must tell you that, for the life of me, I still can't figure out, a: how McCain won the Republican nomination, and, b: why he is still polling those numbers. If we look at any of the major polls taken over the last six to eight months we find a consistent trend vis-a-vis opposition to the war in Iraq; dissatisfaction with the direction the country is going in; deep fears regarding the economy and employment; concerns about the cost of health care and the need for a viable universal health care program; a deep and abiding abhorrence of George Bush and what he has done to the country over the last seven years; and, most importantly, an almost visceral desire for change.

So if all of the above is true, how the hell does John McCain with his historical positions and current flip-flops on those issues even come close to being the candidate who could win in November?

I think he has two big things going for him that helps maintain his ability to gull the American people.

The first is the lingering images of 9/11/2001 which have been seared into our collective memory. The real "shock and awe" of that day coupled with Karl Rove's extremely effective co-opting of that catastrophe as a political tool keeps the fear of another attack and terrorism in general alive and well even today.This allows McCain to continue to insert that lingering fear into his political bio and create the illusion of being the only one who can keep the fight alive until "victory" is achieved. As I have noted in previous posts, his entire rhetorical bag of tricks always includes reference to his military and war experience. (And he never lets us forget the POW part.) This is one reason why he seems to continue to poll so closely to Obama. And more importantly, this allows him to continue his forceful support for an extremely unpopular war and the delusional quest for ultimate victory. He runs contrary to every issue noted above. But yet there he is.

And it is the second factor which is what makes the first one work. And that is the tone of reverence and respect with which the so-called mainstream media treats McCain. They have bought into his self-manufactured image of the "maverick", the guy who can't be bought, the guy who has the guts to go against his own party, the anti-politician politician. But the fact is that the mainstream media are as gullible as the Vegas audience at a David Copperfield performance. They ooh and aah over every thing he does forgetting all the while that the reality is that it's just smoke and mirrors.

This week's most under-reported story is Iran's pledge to "share their nuclear experience with Syria".  This is not a vague promise to be delivered in the future.  They plan to start this transfer of knowledge in July. 

This story underscores the danger of a nuclear-enriching Iran.   We're talking about rapid proliferation to other countries in the region.  Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan are all now talking about their own nuclear programs, and we can assume Libya will jump back in -- not to be left behind.  Given the political realities in that region, this is an ominous turn of events. 

Iran, no doubt, will tie strings to their support for a Syrian nuclear program, and that means absolutely no peace deals with Israel. 

What is clear is that the current sanctions and diplomatic pressure put on Iran is not working.  The international community has a window of time here to decide whether a nuclear arms race in the Middle East is good for peace and stability in the world.  It's going to take tough action to force Iran to back down.  Given the tepid int'l response so far and dubious support for sanctions by Russia and China, the situation is not hopeful.  Iran's autocratic government doesn't have to worry about their own domestic economic meltdown.  There are no internal brakes on their behavior, and they clearly believe there will be no serious consequences they can't manage.  The Iranian problem is going to be the most important foreign policy issue to resolve for the next President.  Let's hope and pray we make the right decisions to diffuse this situation. 

Fascinating Article In LA Times: Note the 'journalists"mentioned and how they approach obama (I'm looking at you Jackie Tapdance


The media portray him as a GOP maverick. He's really a die-hard conservative. By Eric Alterman and George Zornick
June 20, 2008 Like the vast majority of our 300 million or so fellow citizens -- but unlike most of the political reporters covering the presidential campaign -- your authors have never had the pleasure of meeting Arizona senator and Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

We've never sat with him in a semicircle on the red velvet couches of the Straight Talk Express downing Dunkin' Donuts and participating in endless bull sessions that long outlast our store of questions. We've never talked strategy with him over drinks or been fed information to use against his opponents. Perhaps even more regrettably, we have not enjoyed the pleasure of a sunny afternoon at Chez McCain, "swinging lazily back and forth on a tire swing strung up under a massive sycamore tree in a quiet Arizona canyon," as the candidate, according to a Newsweek reporter, "carefully monitor[ed] giant slabs of pork ribs on a smoking grill."

Perhaps if we had spent more time hanging with him, we too would call him John when speaking with him, as some journalists do. We'd appreciate his hospitality and his eagerness to speak his mind, and, let's be honest, we cannot be certain that, were he still running against George W. Bush, we would not fall into the habit of referring to the McCain campaign as "we" -- as in "I hope we kill Bush" -- which apparently happened with some frequency during McCain's unsuccessful 2000 run, according to Tucker Carlson.

But even though we might be taken with McCain personally, we like to think we would resist the urge to offer the sort of spontaneous testimonials to his character that have gushed from the pens of so many journalists. These would include calling McCain "a cool dude" (Jake Tapper, Salon); "an original, imaginative and at times inspiring candidate" (Jacob Weisberg, Slate); "the bravest candidate in the presidential race" (Dana Milbank, the Washington Post); "an affable man of zealous, unbending beliefs" and "the hero [who] still does things his own way" (Richard Cohen, the Washington Post). We certainly hope that we would not say, as Charles Lane did, writing in the Oct. 18, 1999, issue of the New Republic: "I know it shouldn't be happening, but it is. I'm falling for John McCain."

Believe us, we could go on (and on and on). But suffice it to say that no candidate since John F. Kennedy, and perhaps none since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, has enjoyed such cozy relations with the media.

Of course, there is no law against a journalist falling in love with a politician. There's also no question that before the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. became the most famous man in America, coverage of Sen. Barack Obama was also extremely favorable. And it's true that McCain's easy ride has hit speed bumps in recent weeks.

But years of devotion are not likely to be erased overnight, even in the event of an unlikely U-turn on the part of mainstream journalists. The reality is that McCain has enjoyed a degree of indulgence over the years that has made it almost impossible for most Americans to understand the kind of presidency he now proposes.

This is partly quantifiable. Consider this, for instance: During the nine-year period from 1997 to 2005, no one was invited onto the Sunday morning network shows more than McCain, who appeared 124 times, according to Media Matters, the progressive media monitoring group -- over 50% more than his closest competitor. What's more, he was accorded 86 solo interviews, also more than anyone else.

McCain's legendary diversionary walks from the path of the Republican straight-and-narrow so impressed his friends in the media that they appear to have passed a secret law among themselves never to refer to the senior Arizona senator without using the word "maverick." As David Brock and Paul Waldman demonstrated in their book "Free Ride," the words "maverick" and "McCain" appeared within 10 words of each other 2,114 times in 2000 -- a pace that also has been reflected in McCain's 2008 coverage.

What's the effect of all these years of loving treatment at the hands of the media? On issue after issue, and from every side of the journalistic political spectrum, a campaign of distortion has helped to ensure that the real John McCain -- and his extreme conservative positions and politically inspired flip-flops -- remain far from the consciousness of the average voter.

According to an extensive Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll taken in early May, for instance, only 27% of voters have positive views of the Republican Party. A clear majority of voters in the same survey said they wished for a Democratic president. And yet, in what the Journal reporters termed a "remarkable" finding, McCain remained in a dead heat with Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton in head-to-head matchups. The authors' explanation: "McCain's image is trumping negatives such as the war and the economy."

In a Pew Research Center survey from May, most voters described McCain as "a centrist whose views are fairly close to their own."

These voters might as well be visiting Casablanca for the waters. The reality is that McCain has repudiated virtually all of the moderate, supposedly maverick positions that liberal reporters and columnists used to find so admirable. He voted for President Bush's right to waterboarding; he now rejects his own immigration plan; he hopes to extend the tax cuts he once condemned; and he's fine with Bush's plan for domestic spying.

Today, McCain calls himself a thorough-going conservative, and he's got the statistics to prove it. He has voted with his party almost 90% of the time this term, which puts him ahead of 29 other Republicans. According to data analyzed at VoteView.com, McCain's voting record in 2005-06 would place him second in the contest for America's most conservative senator in the 109th Congress and eighth in the 110th Senate. McCain supported Bush in 95% of his votes in 2007 and has managed to achieve a perfect 100% score so far in 2008.

But voter ignorance of the "real McCain" is not the fault of the voters. They are simply consuming reports from the media that refuse to take McCain's politics seriously -- like the one by Slate's liberal editor, Jacob Weisberg, subtitled "Psst ... He's Not Really a Conservative," instructing voters that when considering a vote for McCain, it is necessary to "discount his repositioning a bit."

Sure, his plans for Iraq are even more aggressive, expensive and unlikely than are Bush's. Withdrawal, McCain believes, would be "morally reprehensible" and an "unconscionable act of betrayal." And yes, his tax plan is rather more regressive than that of the president. His views on social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage are as one with those of the Christian right, and his environmental policies are essentially a dodge. Yes, he's flip-flopped to the right on one issue after another as the presidential race has gotten underway. But so what? He is, after all, a really "cool dude," according to some of America's most thoughtful journalists.

And when, dear reader, was the last time one of these guys steered you wrong?

What to do if you can't say anything nice?

No? Well then, the answer is: don't say anything at all. I'm sick to death of all the knee jerk anti Hillary commetns that people keep leaving at the bottom of any post that mentions her.

I'm sorry to put it so bluntly but could you all just shut up? What is the POINT of carrying on with these sustained anti-Hillary diatribes? I mean seriously?

I voted for Obama in the primary, I worked my tail off for Obama in the primary, I called Hillary on it whenever I felt she went over the line in the primary, I defended Obama whenever I felt like she was attacking him unfairly in the primary, I don't think I need to prove my commitment to Obama's cause.

But for heaven's sakes, people! IT'S OVER.WE WON. Stop with the bitter, already! The continued attacks on Hillary Clinton are only doing three things right now, all of which ultimately HURT Obama in the general election.

1) They piss of Clinton supporters, millions of whom supported her, need I remind you, because they were every bit as inspired by her as we have been by Obama. How does it make you feel when you read Obama bashing? I don't know about you but it makes my blood boil. Why should Hillary supporters feel any differently? Is there anything constructive to be gained by making potential Obama voters hate and resent his supporters?

2) They take the focus off of John McCain. If you have any residual resentment or anger left over, why not spend it on the person who we actually disagree with and need to beat? And by the way, the person who - unlike Senator Clinton - opposes a woman's right to choose, wants permanent war in Iraq an dhas no interest in solving the health care crisis. It just makes no sense to let him off the hook while we continue to bash a woman in our own party who agrees with us about all the main issues. Get over it already.

3) It could drive a wedge between Barack and Hillary. Neither of these two people has shown any trace of the bitterness that their supporters seem to feel towards each other - and for a simple reason. They need each other. When Obama becomes President he has an aggressive legislative agenda to deliver - and Hillary Clinton as one of the nation's most powerful Senators will have a huge role to play in helping him to do that. Does it really make sense to foster animosity between two people who can should must be partners?

Can't we just agree that we disagreed about our preferred candidate but now that it is over there is nothing more to be gained from either side attacking the other?

In other words - MOVE ON PEOPLE! THERE'S NOTHING TO BE GAINED HERE.

I've written about how David Brooks gets it.  Well, his colleague at the WAPO doesn't.

In an OP ED posted today at the WAPO,  Michael Gerson argues that McCain is the true "moderate" because he's bucked his party on substantive issues in the past.  On its face, this seems like a fair point, but I would argue that the measure of one's "moderation"--depending on what you mean by that word-- is not limited to this manufactured metric.  I applaud McCain when he advocates "moderate" views.  For instance, he once challenged Bush on torture.  This was evidence, according to the likes of Gerson, that McCain is a "moderate" since he was kicking the goads, so to speak.  Now, not so much, since McCain has moved closer to Bush on the issue.

I applaud McCain when he advocates for a sympathetic "moderate" view on immigration.   This obviously angered the base of his party.  Now, not so much, since McCain would, as President, veto his own immigration bill.

I applaud McCain on his previous campaign finance positions.  These were fairly moderate in tone and he achieved bi-partisan consensus.  Now, not so much as we see how he cleverly exploits loopholes in his own campaign finance legislation, like using his wife's plane for campaign events at discounted rates.  Or his gaming of the public financing system.

What, pray tell, does Obama have to "support", in Gerson's mind, to break this party orthodoxy metric to establish his "moderate" bona fides?  Gerson alludes to Obama's support of "partial birth" abortion as a possiblity.  However, Obama has taken a pragmatic approach and made clear that he would support banning the procedure if it had sufficient safeguards for the health of the mother.  The legislation in question didn't.  I don't think Obama bucking his party to support legislation that didn't adequately protect the health of the mother as an appropriate jumping off point to be considered a "moderate", although Gerson disagrees.

Gerson points to Obama's opposition to John Roberts as missed opportunity to flex his "moderate" muscles, but that is hardly a policy issue, per se, rather then a concern about the temperment of a Chief Justice who will sit on the court for a lifetime.

All in all, Gerson's article is weakly argued and based on  false assumptions.  What he does demonstrate is how out of touch many republican party positions are that require a "moderate" John McCain to push back on.  This doesn't indicate "moderation" on the part of McCain, but common sense.  However, as time has shown, McCain has sacrificed his common sense for the GOP nomination. 

Barack Obama is the true moderate in this race.  He's advocating a sound energy policy.  His economic policies are fair, pragmatic, and timely.  His health care plan is comprehensive.  His approach to terrorism and the war in Iraq will make us safer. 

Michael Gerson simply doesn't get it.

This post is just a collection of odds and ends about stuff I am interested in and will be updated periodically. At the moment, I am following the Curt Weldon and Harry Sargeant III  stories.

 

Senator Obama -

I appreciate and have been moved by your calls for change, and I have supported your campaign both with my vote and with my money. I know it is important to change the direction our country has been on, especially the last seven years.

As a constitutional scholar, I'm sure you understand the erosion of civil liberties and the disregard for law shown by the current administration, and by promising to review its executive orders to repeal those that are not constitutional, you have shown that you intend to undo its excesses. For this I, and true lovers of our limited government Republic, applaud you.

But I have another particular request: please publicly denounce the FISA compromise bill announced yesterday. You had previously supported Senator Dodd when he filibustered an earlier bill. Yesterday's "compromise" bill may in fact be worse than the one Senator Dodd killed with your help.

This bill would dismiss any lawsuits against telecommunications companies that can produce a letter indicating that the President authorized them to engage in the wiretapping program. While it may not result in quite as broad immunity as the earlier bill (perhaps some companies cannot produce such a letter), this "justification" for granting immunity would set a terrible precedent: it would codify, in a law passed by our legislative branch, that the executive can authorize lawbreaking. De facto it means that the President is above the law, that breaking the law is fine when the President asks you to do so. We should not pass a bill that affirms that terrible precedent.

Opposing this bill is not without risk; certainly the Republicans will claim we must pass this bill to ensure our security, and such claims may resonate with many in the general public.

Yet this is a case where you should put principle before politics, and speak out strongly against this "compromise". It is not a compromise about the mundane details of intelligence gathering; it is a compromise of our fundamental value that no one, not even the President, is above the law.

I urge you to oppose it, by filibuster if necessary.

Respectfully,

A Committed Supporter

This interview comes as no surprise to those ofus in the blogs, who have gotten a heavy doseof Obama style persuasion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek-idgd8JJg

I remember people getting mad at Naderites in 2000 - why did they throw the election to Bush? And while I was a bit sympathetic - a few votes here and there could have made the difference - I also recognized that a few votes in a number of other areas made much more of a difference. As an example, Al Gore in the debates was asked what he would tell young people to make them vote for him. He launched into prescription benefits and social security. Which took me back to when I interviewed for my first real job, with the governent, a week before I turned 21. The guy who was showing me around (only mid-30's I think but feeling a bit older) started telling me about retirement benefits. Wow! I looked at him as if he was from Mars, though I guess I kept the green tint off my face and didn't let out any eep-oork-brrrups since I got the job and held it for a year before quitting from boredom.

But my point was that Gore had his chance on national TV direct-to-consumer, talk to this segment, and blew it. Sure, the media screwed him a thousand other times, but this was a slow ball mid plate and he fanned - no mention of internet, alternative fuels, world poverty, global warming, offshoring jobs - things that affect  and interest new grads. And I can imagine a good solid answer might have roused the campus bunch (who came out for Bush in droves) much more than the few people Nader got.

And most importantly - Nader's voters had the right to choose who they thought best. The candidates are the aspiring public servants. The voters are the customers. Say it slowly - "it's their choice". Don't like it? Say it slower: "Convince them". Yes, that's the American way. The customer is always right.

So now we've hit that funny point this year, with the election 5 months away and some of the Democrats don't seem thrilled with the current nominee. What to think? "It's their choice. Convince them." I have personal experience with 7-year-olds that tells me "You have to!" won't work. Trust me. It's easier to convince than to force, and people of voting age tend to be more stubborn than 7-year-olds when it comes down to it. They don't seem too convinced? Try harder! That's right, persistence, perseverance, spice up your reasons, relate them to the audience, to the customer, figure out their reluctance and reasons and core interests and relate them to your candidate. The ingredients are very simple even if the full answer or sales pitch might not be.

Imagine telling a potential customer that they have to buy a particular car, that they're obligated to. Fat chance. Consumers work on basic emotions, so you can use the "you'll be sorry" tack, but remember, getting their back up is counterproductive - "you'll be sorry, don't be stupid" works poorly as a combination. "Hey, you're really out there on the front edge with features, so I know this will interest you... Sure you can go with the other model, and it'll get you around, but this one's stylin' - check out the sun roof and the front trim.... Sorry, we don't carry the other model, it didn't sell so well, but you can check out something similar at our competitors' - I send a lot of retired folks their way though most of them come back. Theirs is okay, but ours is practically driving itself off the lots, it's This Year's Model."

For the last 40 years, America has lived George Orwell's worst nightmare.  It was a bit more subtle than Orwell had imagined, but our domination by powerful men was no less complete.  We have been fed propaganda instead of news for decades.  The interests of Wall Street replaced those of the American people.  

We are consumers, certainly not citizens and certainly not informed. 

This year represents the first year in my lifetime that a significant number of the electorate have shaken off their stupor all at once, despite the long national awakening since Bush stole the White House.  It took a full-on coup to wake us up and even now the media is trying to shove us back in the Us versus Them framework. 

Unity is bad for ratings. 

If that's the way it is going to be, I say fine.  Time for progressives to go on the offense.  This is the first legitimate shot we have had at the presidency since Jimmy Carter and it is with someone like Barack Obama.  He will be as liberal as the country allows him to be, but we need to first explain to the country why that is a good thing.  There are hearts and minds waiting to be won if we would quite being to afraid to speak our truth with the same conviction as those that speak nothing but lies.

I am tired of trying to offend stupid people.  I contend that they aren't bright enough to get a subtle argument, so why bother?  Those that have an open mind are usually willing to listen despite in-artful or inappropriate language.  I think they are every bit as angry as we are and are ready for some truth.  Perhaps it is only in our individual lives that we start preparing people for the truth that Barack will have to tell them.  Unless we get it at the grassroots and push our representatives to support massive changes in how we do things, Barack will be no more successful than Carter was in promoting a progressive America.

It is all on us.

Which brings me back to offense.  This is going to be a huge effort, that takes multiple generations.  We need to start, right now, speaking the language of winners.  The language of winners is positive and assertive and a tad bit arrogant.  Not arrogant in the sense that everyone else is wrong, but arrogant in that how can anything else be considered right.  That sort of conviction leads to converts.  It's why Barack won the nomination.  He was convinced America could be better and trusted the voter to see through the haze.  He was right.

I am betting on the same thing.  I am betting on more of us being in a place to hear hard-truths laid out in uncompromising language.  I also think we are more ready than ever before to contemplate big, bold initiatives that will take this country in a brand new direction.  I don't think it will be easy or that we solve 40 years of pain and misery with one election.  The journey must begin somewhere, though, so why not right here and now?  If the journey is to begin, we need as many people moving in the same direction as possible.  After all the shit we've been fed and continue to be fed, it will take shocking language and absolute certainty to break through the programming.

To do that, some people are sure to be offended.  Some people need to be offended.  Hell, I'm offended on a daily basis when and if I bother to watch five minutes of local or national news.  Given the nature of the People's enemy and the enormity of their resources to use against us, isn't time we had a good offense for once?  Isn't time we used the same uncompromising tone and moral certitude?  Americans respect that sort of bold communication style.  They can get their arms around it.  Nuanced discussions give the appearance of uncertainty, which is weak, which is un-American.

That's the feeling I get from speaking with friends who are conservative or former conservatives.  The thing they hate most about "liberals" is that they don't take a stand and fight to the death.  It's time we showed them a different type of progressive this year.  They need to see the capable, type-A progressive.  The need to see the Alpha Male progressive (even if you're female!) 

That's how we win back respect from people who have barely tolerated being in the same country as us for the last forty years.  To them we are still a bunch of hippies handing out in the park with our hand-painted signs.  The RNC convinced them they were right years ago and then didn't deliver on anything.  It's all bad.  Now it's our turn.  We need them to understand that not only are we right but we will prove it to them.

First, though, we need a good offense, because the people we want to convince don't respect a defensive strategy.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ti19VwLzkY&eurl

This is why we argue, this is why we stand up, this is why this election is important, this is why we spend hours on a message board discussing the issues.  It doesn't have to do with correcting the little problems, it has to do with the big problems.  We need health care, we need thoughtful leadership, we need to stop focusing on the divisions and focus on what makes us Americans.

I have been trying, clumsily I confess, to communicate the disquiet that Barack Obama produces in me, since several months ago, I noticed that the needle on my bullshit meter began to move alarmingly at every speech he made. 

Since my disquiet is first and foremost intuitive and pre-verbal: something I just know, I have been groping in the dark trying to express it. The exchanges here at TPM have both sharpened my intranquillity and the frustration at my inability to express it with sufficient coherence.

Today, to my relief, someone much more endowed then I at analysis and expression, David Brooks, of the New York Times has said most of it much better than I ever could. I invite you to read it.

The Two Obamas - New York Times
Abstract: As recent weeks have made clear, Barack Obama is the most split-personality politician in the country today. On the one hand, there is Dr. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting speechifier who spent this past winter thrilling the Scarlett Johansson set and feeling the fierce urgency of now. But then on the other side, there’s Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who’d throw you under the truck for votes. This guy is the whole Chicago package: an idealistic, lakefront liberal fronting a sharp-elbowed machine operator. He’s the only politician of our lifetime who is underestimated because he’s too intelligent. He speaks so calmly and polysyllabically that people fail to appreciate the Machiavellian ambition inside.(...) Back when he was in the Illinois State Senate, Dr. Barack could have taken positions on politically uncomfortable issues. But Fast Eddie Obama voted “present” nearly 130 times. From time to time, he threw his voting power under the truck. Dr. Barack said he could no more disown the Rev. Jeremiah Wright than disown his own grandmother. Then the political costs of Rev. Wright escalated and Fast Eddie Obama threw Wright under the truck. Dr. Barack could have been a workhorse senator. But primary candidates don’t do tough votes, so Fast Eddie Obama threw the workhorse duties under the truck. Dr. Barack could have changed the way presidential campaigning works. John McCain offered to have a series of extended town-hall meetings around the country. But favored candidates don’t go in for unscripted free-range conversations. Fast Eddie Obama threw the new-politics mantra under the truck. And then on Thursday, Fast Eddie Obama had his finest hour. Barack Obama has worked on political reform more than any other issue. He aspires to be to political reform what Bono is to fighting disease in Africa. He’s spent much of his career talking about how much he believes in public financing. In January 2007, he told Larry King that the public-financing system works. In February 2007, he challenged Republicans to limit their spending and vowed to do so along with them if he were the nominee. In February 2008, he said he would aggressively pursue spending limits. He answered a Midwest Democracy Network questionnaire by reminding everyone that he has been a longtime advocate of the public-financing system. But Thursday, at the first breath of political inconvenience, Fast Eddie Obama threw public financing under the truck. In so doing, he probably dealt a death-blow to the cause of campaign-finance reform. And the only thing that changed between Thursday and when he lauded the system is that Obama’s got more money now. And Fast Eddie Obama didn’t just sell out the primary cause of his life. He did it with style. He did it with a video so risibly insincere that somewhere down in the shadow world, Lee Atwater is gaping and applauding. Obama blamed the (so far marginal) Republican 527s. He claimed that private donations are really public financing. He made a cut-throat political calculation seem like Mother Teresa’s final steps to sainthood. The media and the activists won’t care (they were only interested in campaign-finance reform only when the Republicans had more money). Meanwhile, Obama’s money is forever. He’s got an army of small donors and a phalanx of big money bundlers, including, according to The Washington Post, Kenneth Griffin of the Citadel Investment Group; Kirk Wager, a Florida trial lawyer; James Crown, a director of General Dynamics; and Neil Bluhm, a hotel, office and casino developer.(...) Republicans keep calling him naïve. But naïve is the last word I’d use to describe Barack Obama. He’s the most effectively political creature we’ve seen in decades. Even Bill Clinton wasn’t smart enough to succeed in politics by pretending to renounce politics.

Anyone else notice this?

Our president is kind of a dick.

I mean, he has 7 months left in office, he should still at least try to lead the country.  But it seems more and more over the last few months that his behavior is more like the employee who has given 2 week notice and is now just going through the motions on his way out the door.  Instead of working with congress to get bills passed, there is more of an attitude of an upset 12 year old girl, a whining hissy fit of vetos and threats. He went for a photo op in one of the worst floods in US history and seemed like he couldn't be bothered by the people around him.

I think he has resigned himself to the idea that he will be seen as the worst president in modern history.  The last trait he has going for him, (wisdom is gone, intelect is gone, judgement is gone, unity is gone, ethics are gone) is stubborness.  And he has chosen to be stubborn, killing every positive piece og legistlation brought foward by congress.  Ithink he is just looking foward to the new home in dubai to avoid the hague. 

David Brooks' columns in the New York Times are a useful barometer of the Republican machine's worries. Brooks, author of several books on cultural criticism, is a master at projecting his and his allies' fears, whether consciously or not, and building attacks (not to say smears) on shadowy mirrors of what he would do, and what he is thus most afraid of.

His column today on Barack Obama is provides a fine example of Republican fears and perceptions, projected onto Obama. ( http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/opinion/20brooks.html?hp) )

Up to now, Brooks has been fairly careful to use measured, even positive language in describing Obama -- perhaps because he and the machine feared Senator Clinton, the enemy they recognized, more than the freshman senator from Illinois. But now that Obama is the Democratic party's candidate, Brook's restraint is gone. Instead, he lashes out at "Fast Eddy" Obama, characterizing him as a sanctimonious shell hiding a deceptive, oddly Republican-like politician.

Remember, Brooks is afraid of what he knows, so he projects the qualities he knows Republican candidates possess onto Obama. The column is thus unintentionally hilarious, since it utterly misses why Democratic voters ultimately settled on Obama.

It's worth noting that the evidence for a 'Fast Eddy' Obama is pretty thin gruel. Brooks naturally tries to build on existing memes, so 'present votes,' pastors, and now of course public finance are his leading points. As a state legislator, Senator Obama sometimes voted 'present' rather than aye or nay. Wow! Those hardball Chicago types! Today voting 'present', tomorrow the cement overshoes?

And, according to Brooks, Obama showed his duplicity by first expressing respect for, then rejecting his former pastor, J. Wright. Ignoring Wright's own behavior in the interval between Obama's steps, Brooks somehow sees Obama's trajectory as deep proof of duplicity. Wow....a former associate not only lashed out with fairly radical statements, he did it while pushing himself into the limelight and openly attacking Obama -- and Obama changed his mind. Go to the mattresses, boys!

In short, Brooks projects the Republican view of voters onto Obama's situation, as manipulable ideological robots whose buttons politicians are supposed to push. Brooks writes: "This guy is the whole Chicago package: an idealistic, lakefront liberal fronting a sharp-elbowed machine operator. He’s the only politician of our lifetime who is underestimated because he’s too intelligent. He speaks so calmly and polysyllabically that people fail to appreciate the Machiavellian ambition inside."

People inclined to vote Democratic, Brooks assumes, want bumbling idealists like the ones he mentions, Adlai Stevenson and Jimmy Carter.

The humor peaks at this moment. Without speaking for all voters, I'd say that those I know appreciate Obama not because he is some 'shining star for all to see', but exactly because he is ambitious, smart, tough....AND arguing for the kind of politics and government we favor. Already with Bill Clinton, Democrats learned that warm and fuzzy ideas only go anywhere when carried by smart ambitious politicians -- but Republicans like Brooks, it seems, either haven't noticed, or are pining for the days of 1970s liberals.  Thus, in attempting to smear Obama -- and his column is visibly intended to start the meme of duplicity -- Brooks in fact identifies several of Obama's greatest strengths from a Democratic perspective -- among them, the ability to inspire voters and to choose smart political tactics. We want a politician who recognizes the rules of politics that Machiavelli first recognized -- just as Machiavelli did, who dreamed of a united and renewed Italy led by a politician who knew how to obtain and to sustain political influence.

Like most Democratic voters today, I don't want a saint for president, I want a politician who can win -- but not at all costs, and who knows that the goal of politics is not just winning and rewarding one's patrons, but actually leading. 

Poor Brooks, being a Republican, simply assumes that being a winning politican means you must be deceptive and manipulative -- given the Republican party's recent history, he can't imagine any alternative. Thus, Obama appears to him what he fears most, now that Clinton is out of the way -- and he projects his own tawdry understanding of voters and politics onto Obama, complemented by his hope that Democratic voters are the naive sheep that he expects Republicans to be.

By the way, is there anything revealing about the fact that McCain, like Obama, tries to attack Obama by evoking politicians from the 1950s to 1970s. Adlai Stevenson is hardly a name to conjure with, and Jimmy Carter has been out of office for 28 years. Hardly figures to scare anyone under 50 with...but then, that's the McCain campaign!

Now that the Democratic primarise are over and all worthwhile content on this site has disappeared, I'd like to make an open post.

Today's open post theme: YouTube videos

Cats on a treadmill

In today's NYT's OP ED , David Brooks sum's up a rather brutal editorial with this gem:

"All I know for sure is that this guy is no liberal goo-goo. Republicans keep calling him naïve. But naïve is the last word I’d use to describe Barack Obama. He’s the most effectively political creature we’ve seen in decades. Even Bill Clinton wasn’t smart enough to succeed in politics by pretending to renounce politics."

This is something I've known since the beginning.  I've never thought the whole Maureen Dowd "Obambi" meme was particularly perceptive.  Obama has a killer smile and a killer instinct. 

The republican's are portraying Obama as "naive" and "inexperienced".  But this naif from Illinois managed to take down, seemingly effortlessly, the most ruthless brand in politics: The Clinton's.  If the republican's think they can paint Obama as Adlai Stevenson, or McGovern, or even the second coming of Jimmy Carter, then they've got another thing coming.

Obama is the most dynamic, intelligent politician to grace the stage in generations.   For all the hand wringing in the primaries that he won't be able to stand up to the republican slime machine is just plain wrong.  David Brooks gets it.  It's time for the GOP to get it too. 

As things stand, he's looking vulnerable:  according to current polling,  too many Americans have bought the right wing meme that global warming either doesn't exist or isn't man made.

Too many are also ignoring all rational arguments that any drilling started now is going to have absolutely no impact on prices and they want offshore drilling.

He needs to really focus on the dreadful climate impact that's going on now.  Thankfully at last today he's been given more ammunition:

Today's Science Daily: 
"Expect More Droughts, Heavy Downpours, Excessive Heat and Intense Hurricanes Due to Global Warming

Today showed Bush & McCain touring Iowa,  and McCain
maybe backing off from ANWR.

We need Obama to be touring and linking the heartbreak to just why  he's  not jumping on board the right wing rush to drill.  

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080619175522.htm

Somewhere in the White House, George W. Bush must be rubbing his hands together feverishly, laughing maniacally and roaring, “It’s all going according to plan!”

Sure, Bush’s approval levels have become Nixonesque, but the conspiracy theorist in me says there’s an increasingly good chance that, soon, he and fellow oilman Dick Cheney will settle in the Oval Office with a celebratory Scotch and declare their true mission accomplished.

What is their true mission? To position American oil companies --- already bloated with record profits --- to reap even greater profit for years and years to come.

To that end, The New York Times reports today that the war is, as far as Bush and Cheney are concerned, almost won. No, that doesn’t mean our troops are coming home or that fighting has ended. What it does mean is that the new Iraqi government is very close to agreeing with four western oil companies --- Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP and the French oil company Total --- on contracts that will allow them to drill in Iraq for the first time since Saddam Hussein nationalized the Iraqi oil fields 36 years ago.

What’s more, Bush has simultaneously begun a full-throated appeal to Congress to allow drilling on areas off the U.S. coastline that have been closed to such drilling since Bush’s father established a moratorium --- since renewed many times with the current ban in effect until 2012 --- in 1981. Bush’s appeal to open these areas to drilling comes despite the fact that the oil companies currently have valid leases on offshore tracts that aren’t being used. Bush argues the additional leases are needed to help provide relief for higher gas prices, despite experts saying that no oil would likely result from these new leases until 2030.

It’s almost an unreal and nightmarish thing we’re seeing happen. Two oil men assume the two highest offices of our government and, just before their terms expire, we see gas prices skyrocket, a war they started under false pretense result in American oil companies' return to one of the world’s most fertile oil fields after almost four decades, and a quarter-century-old moratorium on domestic offshore drilling possibly lifted. And all it cost were more than 4,000 American lives, the cooperation of a speculative oil market and much misery to Americans who must travel to work by car every day.

That’s a small price to pay to further inflate the profits of the most profitable companies in the history of the world, don’t you think?

The topic of this post may seem trivial to many TPMers.

I posted on John McCain's first national TV Ad in the General Election last week---it was a brutal review and concentrated more on the Form than the Content.

Obama's first ad, on the other hand, requires comment on both Form and Content.

Content:  The ad is autobiographical in nature, recapitulating, with the candidate as the narrator, Barack's life story with special emphasis on its Americanism. Still photos of Obama with his (white) mother and his (white) grandparents are shown as Barack credits them with his upbringing and instilling the values of the Kansas heartland in him.
It goes on the mention several political achievements, but the the finale is the final four words:  "The Country I Love."

The theme clearly reflects the thinking of the Obama organization that his "being an American" is an issue that must be met head-on and resolved, even if it is ridiculous on its face.


Form:  Barack's performance before the camera, especially the sincerity that comes across in his voice and his facial expressions would make Al Pacino proud: Totally believable, utterly natural delivery.

I mean no disrespect, an Academy Award winning performance by the candidate.

Barack's shoulders, neck and head, apparently seated before a "farmhouse-type" window are the sole image on the screen perhaps 40% of the ad (I have not timed it.) More than any other quality, Honesty comes through.

So far, there appears to be a mismatch between the talents of McCain's video Ad people and Obama's.

Score: [on a scale of 0-10] Mccain's First Ad:   2.0
                                          Obama's    "    "   :   8.8 

[My review of McCain's Ad is on my TPM Blog as well as my personal blog.]

MyBlog: http://ProteanPerspectives.blogspot.com

Dan Abrams broke this story on his show on MSNBC tonight where John McCain is shown saying a few years ago "I didn't really love America until I was deprived of her company."
The republican pundits on his show went into spin mode. it was classic. Someone on Kos posted it in a matter of minutes with the video.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/19/21162/6834/283/538737#c12

Yes he did.

On his show tonight, Dan Abrams drew attention to a quote from John McCain in an interview with Sean Hannity that flew under the radar for the past 3 months:

HANNITY: -- and then I understand you didn't get any medical help for nine days. You spent two years of this five-and-a-half-year period in solitary confinement. What does that do to a person, to spend that much time in solitary confinement?

MCCAIN: I think it makes you a better person. Obviously, it makes you love America. I really didn't love America until I was deprived of her company, but probably the most important thing about it, Sean, is that I was privileged to have the opportunity to serve in the company of heroes.

In light of all of the political hay that the repubs have made out of Michelle Obama saying that seeing such enthusiasm in this election cycle had caused her to be really proud of America for the first time in her adult life, I think it is worth giving a second look. Does anybody think McCain didn't love America before he was a POW? No. It's interesting that both McCain and Obama used the qualifier "really" in their statements... although Michelle's comments are oft repeated without the "really." It's interesting how when lines fit or don't fit particular scripts the are or are not noticed. Obama's comment were pounced upon almost immediately, while McCain's comment wasn't noticed for 3 months.

The latest INSIDER ADVANTAGE poll numbers from Georgia. Who says 3rd party candidates don't influence elections?

McCain: 44%
Obama: 43%
Barr: 6%
Undecided: 7%
5% +/- MOE (408 likely voters)

[...]

“Georgia is competitive for Obama for several reasons. First, it has a high African-American voting age population (VAP). Second, it has an unusually high percentage of younger voters (18-29). Both of these groups are more in the Obama camp, with black voters already at the 83 percent level and likely to climb.

“Equally important, like its neighbor Florida, Georgia has a high percentage of voters who consider themselves independent. Obama is carrying that critical swing vote by about 10 percent in the poll.

I keep hearing from Republicans that Obama's plan to roll back the Bush tax will result in an increase in the Capital Gains tax.  They also say that the biggest increase in Cap Gains tax rate will be for lower income households.  They also say that this is a broad increase because more than 50% of US households own stock, so it is not just about rich people.  This is all true.

But, and this is a big but, this is all crap.  Some Facts:

1.  Under the Obama plan, the long term cap gains tax will go from 15 to 20% for most filers and from 0 to 10% for low income households. 
2.  #1 doesn't matter because the vast majority of middle income and low income households who own stock own it in a 401(k), 457(B), 403(B) or IRA and all of these accounts are exempt from these taxes anyway.
3.  Obama's plan has lower income tax rates for lower income brackets.  This is the only rate that matters in retirement savings, since when you withdraw money from a retirement account (over age 59.5) this is the rate you pay.

This is very simple, not too wonky, and yet I have never heard this question put to any politician anywhere, nor have I heard any Democrat make this point.

Maybe we need to turn it into a bumper sticker...any ideas?

Well at first sight it looks like it   (today's Halperin):
The New York Senator pushes her former funders to throw their weight behind the presumptive Democratic nominee on Thursday evening conference call.

But wait..

Clinton also suggested she would soon be making public statements about media coverage of the campaign, as well as the ways “women were discussed.”

Great way to defuse her supporters' hostility and bring them in for Obama, doncha think?

This one ought immediately to galvanize all the Democrats with clout who contacted her after her disastrous non-concession speech and told her in no uncertain terms that it was over.

The question is,  will it?  Maybe the more important issue is how to spur them into action before she goes public with this divisive stuff?