This in today's TPMDC 

Pence's Travels Causing Presidential Speculation
Roll Call reports that Rep. Mike Pence's (R-IN) upcoming trip to South Carolina has caused some speculation about a possible presidential campaign in his future. "It's definitely a possibility," said Rep. Gresham Barrett (R-SC). "Mike is a compelling voice for conservatism. He conveys our Party's principles with an uncommon clarity that resonates with every audience."

In addition, I've been unable to turn on any of the cable news networks without seeing Pence somewhere in the frame
A-You heard it here firstB-Send everything you can turn up on Pence now so we can crank up the slime machine now. It's never too early

I've been following Mike Pence since that stunt that he and about 15 other GOP representatives pulled earlier this year. The one where they all stood in front of the Congress and demanded that the speaker call the House back in to session. 
He was one of that stunt and, in retrospect, that camera ready protest could  be regarded as genesis of the present right wing strategy in use today. I see that move as an early attempt to delegitimatize  the current administration and Proof that the GOP would rather tear the whole thing down than give even an inch.
Well, Pence is now starting to speak alot like Peggy Noonan is writing for him. Here's an excerpt from an article in yesterday's NYTimes that covered the Values Voters Summit:

"While some are prepared to write the obituary on our values and our movement, I believe we are on the brink of a great American awakening," Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, said at the summit, raising cheers from the crowd in the room. "I believe we are on the brink of a great American awakening. I can see it. I can feel it wherever I go."

It sound alot like "morning in America" all over again. Pence is photogenic, well spoken and comes across, in my opinion, as far more approachable than Eric Cantor. He'a a frequent guest on Morning Joe and it may just be that the 2 of them turn ou to be the  leading contenders for 2012
Here's another short excerpt from the article that gives you a feel for the direction the GOP is turning in: 

 The crowd rose to its feet to applaud Carrie Prejean, the former Miss California who caused a furor by denouncing same-sex marriage at the Miss USA contest, as she declared that "God chose me" to make the case she made (against gay marriage).

Kinda gives you a feel for who was there. 
Pence is definitely the man to watch, and I believe he'd ne a far more effective challenger than anyone else the GOP currently has out there.  Here's link to the piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/19/us/politics/19memo.html?th&emc=

This is from Slate Magazine's Today's Papers feature:
Lawmakers love to criticize corporations that fly their executives around in private jets while receiving taxpayer funds. But jets for federal officials who live off those funds? A totally different story, of course. The WSJ reports that House lawmakers added funds to buy eight jets to add to the fleet used by federal officials, for a total of $550 million. That is four more than what the Air Force requested for its fleet of passenger jets that are used by lawmakers, administration officials, and military chiefs on government trips. The Pentagon says it doesn't need the additional planes, but lawmakers perhaps think they do since foreign travel by lawmakers has been increasing lately and there is often a shortage of planes when Congress is in recess.
Am I missing something here? Is this somehow good for the country and I just don't get it. Help me with this.

Whether I agree or disagrre with her stances, I appreciate Peggy Noonan as a thoughtful Repulican politician. She is a voice of intelligence on the Right, and as eloquent a speaker & writer as I've ever experienced. She has a great essay in today's WSJournal. Here's a brief excerpt:

She was a gifted retail politician who displayed the disadvantages of being born into a point of view (in her case a form of conservatism; elsewhere and in other circumstances, it could have been a form of liberalism) and swallowing it whole: She never learned how the other sides think, or why.

In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read because she didn't read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could see no truth in any of it. She wasn't thoughtful enough to know she wasn't thoughtful enough. Her presentation up to the end has been scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence. "I'm not wired that way," "I'm not a quitter," "I'm standing up for our values." I'm, I'm, I'm.

In another age it might not have been terrible, but here and now it was actually rather horrifying.

She then proceeds to dissemble thePalin mythology one step at a time. Here's a link:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124716984620819351.html

Here's a short quote from a strong and timely piece by Tom Friedman in today's NYTimes:

"There is nothing more powerful than inspirational leadership that unleashes principled behavior for a great cause," said Dov Seidman, the C.E.O. of LRN, which helps companies build ethical cultures, and the author of the book "How." What makes a company or a government "sustainable," he added, is not when it adds more coercive rules and regulations to control behaviors. "It is when its employees or citizens are propelled by values and principles to do the right things, no matter how difficult the situation," said Seidman. "Laws tell you what you can do. Values inspire in you what you should do. It's a leader's job to inspire in us those values."

And here is a link to the full essay, which is, I think, a must read. I'm trying to feel and act optimistic but in my heart i believe that radical steps need to be taken and I wonder if anyone, anywhere has the heart and steel to tell the truth and do what needs to be done.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/opinion/22friedman.html?ref=opinion

There is an article in todays  NYTimes by Adam Nagourney that i believe is an important read. The piece is headlined:

Paul Krugman has a brilliant piece in today's NYT where he lays out the arguments for an inquest into the abuses of the Bush administration. His believe and I personally agree with him, it that while an investigation-and prosecutions-may be divisive, it is essential to do it to avoid having the same mistakes made in the future. And he gives solid, historical evidence to illustrate how it has happened before. Here's a short excerpt:

Why, then, shouldn't we have an official inquiry into abuses during the Bush years?
One answer you hear is that pursuing the truth would be divisive, that it would exacerbate partisanship. But if partisanship is so terrible, shouldn't there be some penalty for the Bush administration's politicization of every aspect of government?
Alternatively, we're told that we don't have to dwell on past abuses, because we won't repeat them. But no important figure in the Bush administration, or among that administration's political allies, has expressed remorse for breaking the law. What makes anyone think that they or their political heirs won't do it all over again, given the chance?
In fact, we've already seen this movie. During the Reagan years, the Iran-contra conspirators violated the Constitution in the name of national security. But the first President Bush pardoned the major malefactors, and when the White House finally changed hands the political and media establishment gave Bill Clinton the same advice it's giving Mr. Obama: let sleeping scandals lie. Sure enough, the second Bush administration picked up right where the Iran-contra conspirators left off -- which isn't too surprising when you bear in mind that Mr. Bush actually hired some of those conspirators.
Now, it's true that a serious investigation of Bush-era abuses would make Washington an uncomfortable place, both for those who abused power and those who acted as their enablers or apologists. And these people have a lot of friends. But the price of protecting their comfort would be high: If we whitewash the abuses of the past eight years, we'll guarantee that they will happen again.

As the country slouches ever closer to depression and it begins to appear that the US may not have any manufacturing base anymore (what else do we make her besides cars?), the  thieves who run our government continue with business as usual. From "Today's Papers" in slate magazine for 12/15:

The WP fronts a look at how a last-minute change in the language of the $700 billion bailout package may end up making it more difficult for the government to make sure that companies that receive money from the government adhere to limits on executive compensation. At the behest of the Bush administration, lawmakers changed a sentence in the plan to specify that only firms that received money through selling their toxic assets to the government would be subject to penalties for breaking the rules on executive compensation. Now that the Treasury Department has decided to inject capital directly into the troubled firms many worry that there is no enforcement mechanism to make sure companies stick to the limits on executive compensation.

Looking through both the lense of history and more recent events around the world, it's reasonable to hope that working people in America will reach critical mass and demand action. I wonder if this short piece from the AP, which was also featured in my local Sunday newspaper (the editorially conservative Orlando Sentinel, page 2) and on the NBC Nightly News, could turn out to be the rallying point:

 

December 7, 2008

Chicago workers' sit-in becomes rallying point

A sit-in by laid-off workers at a shuttered window factory in Chicago is becoming a cause celebre for those who want action to avert economic pain.

Politicians, community leaders and members of outside unions turned up Sunday at the Republic Windows and Doors company to support the 250 or so former workers occupying the plant.

Workers say they'll stay put until they're given severance and vacation pay.

Factory worker Melvin Maclin says the protesters expected to face arrest when they began the sit-in Friday. But he says spirits are high after all the backing they've received.

Supporters fill the lobby of the building, and workers take turns occupying the plant floor.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson met with the protesters Sunday

Kristof has a column in todays NYT that is typical of what fills newspapers on Thanksgiving and all through the holidays, and is still very much worth reading. He talks about the plight of several women in Pakistan and brings home the point that we are fortunate to live in America and as such, we have an obligation to reach out and share with folks from other lands and cultures. Here's a brief excerpt:

Sajida is a 29-year-old college-educated woman from a Christian family here (and a reminder that oppressive values in Pakistan are not rooted just in Islam). She scandalized her family by marrying a man she chose herself -- and then becoming pregnant.

The next step was brutal: Several women held Sajida down as a midwife conducted an abortion, while she struggled and wept.

Then her brothers weighed what to do next. Sajida's eldest brother wanted to sell her to a trafficker who offered $1,200, presumably intending to imprison her inside a brothel. Two other brothers just wanted to kill her.

The brothers fought for days over this question. So Sajida ground up sleeping tablets and baked the powder into chapati bread that she fed her brothers for dinner -- and then sneaked out as they slept.

 

What happens next illustrates how far we've come and how much work is left to do both here in the US and in other parts of the world. My best wishes to all for a day of peace, good friends and family and here is a link to Kristof's full essay:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/27/opinion/27kristof.html?ref=opinion

An excellent column, well wroth reading, from Gail Collins in today's New York Times. Here's A brief excerpt:

Thanksgiving is next week, and President Bush could make it a really special holiday by resigning.

Seriously. We have an economy that's crashing and a vacuum at the top. Bush -- who is currently on a trip to Peru to meet with Asian leaders who no longer care what he thinks -- hasn't got the clout, or possibly even the energy, to do anything useful. His most recent contribution to resolving the fiscal crisis was lecturing representatives of the world's most important economies on the glories of free-market capitalism.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As a bonus, the Pelosi presidency would put a woman in the White House this year after all. On the downside, a few right-wing talk-show hosts might succumb to apoplexy. That would, of course, be terrible, but I'm afraid we might have to take the risk in the name of a greater good.

Can I see a show of hands? How many people want George W. out and Barack in?

 

Here's a link to the full essay. Most people who read Collins think of her as a humorist or satirist and while there's a few chuckles along the way in this piece, her advice, in my opinion, is nothing to laugh at.

  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/opinion/22collins.html?ref=opinion

Some sound advice from Paul Krugman and an elaboration of reasons why the new administration should not be afraid to be bold. Here's a short excerpt from the piece in today's NYT:

F.D.R. wasn't just reluctant to pursue an all-out fiscal expansion -- he was eager to return to conservative budget principles. That eagerness almost destroyed his legacy. After winning a smashing election victory in 1936, the Roosevelt administration cut spending and raised taxes, precipitating an economic relapse that drove the unemployment rate back into double digits and led to a major defeat in the 1938 midterm elections.

What saved the economy, and the New Deal, was the enormous public works project known as World War II, which finally provided a fiscal stimulus adequate to the economy's needs.

This history offers important lessons for the incoming administration.

The political lesson is that economic missteps can quickly undermine an electoral mandate. Democrats won big last week -- but they won even bigger in 1936, only to see their gains evaporate after the recession of 1937-38. Americans don't expect instant economic results from the incoming administration, but they do expect results, and Democrats' euphoria will be short-lived if they don't deliver an economic recovery.

Here's a link to the whole essay. It's short, incisive and worth a read:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/opinion/10krugman.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin

 

Al Gore has an intelligent and well written essay in today's NYT that is worthy of your attention. He talks about real problems and offers real solutions that are workable and worthwhile undertaking. Above and beyond the practical angles, it also inspired. Here is a brief excerpt of a section near the end of the essay:

In an earlier transformative era in American history, President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon within 10 years. Eight years and two months later, Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface. The average age of the systems engineers cheering on Apollo 11 from the Houston control room that day was 26, which means that their average age when President Kennedy announced the challenge was 18.

This year similarly saw the rise of young Americans, whose enthusiasm electrified Barack Obama's campaign. There is little doubt that this same group of energized youth will play an essential role in this project to secure our national future, once again turning seemingly impossible goals into inspiring success.

And here's a link to the full text:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/opinion/09gore.html?pagewanted=1&ref=opinion 

 

It makes one wonder what might have been if only Democrats had fought harder in 2000

I love Patti Smith and have followed her since I was a teenager in NYC in the late 70s. I was lucky to see her and her original band at CBGB's a number of times. A film about her, called Dream Of Life is making the rounds of the film festivals and will be out on DVD in January. It was made in conjunction with PBS and will be shown by them during fund raising next year as well. The film covers almost 15 years of her life and has no narration-only the voices of Patti and the people surrounding her. I'm on the mailing list from her website and this morning and email with the subject line:

Patti Smith's Indictment of George W Bush  

was in my inbox. The email contained a link to a youtube clip. The clip is a 4 minute long section of the movie in which Patti reads an indictment of Bush for "befouling the name of our country"

I promise you it's worth watching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4UX6UNdLUM

1.From MSNBC's First Read:

From MSNBC's Adam Verdugo
Ken Duberstein, former Republican chief of staff to President Reagan, told MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell today that the pick of Palin has undermined John McCain's credibility.
 
"What most Americans I think realize is that you don't offer a job, let alone the vice presidency, to a person after one job interview," Duberstein said. "Even at McDonalds you're interviewed three times before you're given a job."

Duberstein joins a list of prominent Republicans to criticize McCain's running mate pick -- including former Secretaries of State Colin Powell, who endorsed Barack Obama, and Lawrence Eagleburger, who is a McCain supporter.

It was later reported that Duberstein will vote for Obama.

 

2. From NPR: Lawrence Eagleburger on Palin:

And what about the foreign policy credentials of McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin? They are not great, nor do they make everyone comfortable, Eagleburger tells NPR.

"I don't think at the moment she is prepared to take over the reins of the presidency," he says. "I can name for you any number of other vice presidents who were not particularly up to it either. So, the question, I think, is -- can she learn and would she be tough enough under the circumstances if she were asked to become president?"

"Give her some time in the office and I think the answer would be -- she will be adequate. I can't say that she would be a genius in the job," he adds.

Eagleburger was the secretary of state for George H.W. Bush, the undersecretary of state for political affairs for Ronald Reagan, and a U.S. ambassador to Yugoslavia.

 

3. Lincoln Chafee, Former United States Senator from Rhode Island

"As I look at the candidates in order who to vote for, certainly my kind of conservatism was reflected with Senator Obama, and those points are that we're fiscally conservative, we care about revenues matching expenditures, we also care about the environment, I think it's a traditional conservative value to care about clean air and clean water."

4. William Weld, Former Republican Governor of Massachusetts

"It's not often you get a guy (Obama) with his combination of qualities, chief among which I would say is the deep sense of calm he displays, and I think that's a product of his equally deep intelligence."

5. Arne Carlson, Former Republican Governor of Minnesota

"I think we have in Barack Obama the clear possibility of a truly great president. I would contend that it's the most important election of my lifetime."

6. Larry Pressler, Former Republican Senator from South Dakota

"I just got the feeling that Obama will be able to handle this financial crisis better, and I like his financial team of [former Treasury Secretary Robert] Rubin and [former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul] Volcker better."

7. Lowell Weicker, Former Governor and Republican Senator from Connecticut

"At issue is not the partisan politics of two parties, rather the image we have of ourselves as Americans. Senator Obama brings wisdom, kindness, and common sense to what is both his and our quest for a better America."

8. Christopher Buckley, Son of National Review founder William F. Buckley & former NR columnist

"Obama has in him-- I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy 'We are the people we have been waiting for' silly rehtoric-- the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for."

9. Andrew Sullivan, Columnist for the Atlantic Monthly

"Obama's legislative record, speeches, and the way he has run his campaign reveal, I think, a very even temperament, a very sound judgment, and an intelligent pragmatism. Prudence is a word that is not inappropriate to him."

 10. Scott McClellan, Former Press Secretary to President George W. Bush

"From the beginning I have said I am going to support the candidate that has the best chance for changing the way Washington works and getting things done and I will be voting for Barack Obama and clapping."