Step
back and summarize who McCain is. He's an old man from a military
family that says "we must win, we must win", in between his gaffs and
misstatements and saying "we are winning, we are winning." If we win in
Iraq and leave, then we are 'surrendering' is Senator McCain's baffling
call to keep fighting.

He can't lead on health care, the economy, taxes, jobs or ecology.
Saying he's for change is a contradiction to his upbringing, age, and nature.

He
is true to his roots when he repeats his single constant message: more
glory on the battlefield, more fighting, more war, any war.

I
like the patriotism and the majesty of a good Fourth of July parade as
much as anyone but votes are about so many more here-at-home issues.
Votes are questionable if cast only to advance the non diplomatic goal
of having the U.S. attacking more foreign countries to enforce
capitalism and old time vainglory.

The issues John McCain, in
his one-note campaign, and by his nature finds less attractive and
uplifting are good jobs, fairness in wages, equitable health care and
returning Washington to a bi-partisan, non lobbyiest controlled can-do
status.

Military might and patriotic pomp have their place
but the McCain Bush era mantra of "If you're not afraid, you're a
coward." needs to be put out to pasture.

I will not surrender, John McCain proclaims, as dramatically as he can.
Obama declaims, "John, John, John. What are you thinking about when you say I, or our military or anybody else, might surrender.
Militarily,
our American warriors have won all the battles required to end Saddam's
era and have free elections for the Iraqi people.
If John, your goal
is to occupy Iraq, then leaving would be simply relinquishing control.
It would be an exercise in letting go of these occupation goals. This
'letting go' is the goal of both Iraq and America. There is no
'surrender' in bringing home our troops from Iraq in this case. It's
just admitting that our troops are not fairly deployed for either their
sake or America's national security if they are being used as referees
and civilian police.
John, stop implying that America or our troops
are losing or losers. There is no surrender in coming home. Who would
we losing to Senator McCain? We've reached the time for us to leave the
bulk of the fight to the Iraqis.
The Shiites will fight amongst
themselves for power. They will fight Sunnis too and both will fight
criminal elements and religious fanatics who align themselves with
terrorists. This is the internal struggle facing Iraq for a long while
to come.
It's time for America to declare itself a staunch ally of
Iraq and Iraqi democracy and cease operations akin to an all out
occupying force. No one entity specifically wins when we leave. We lose
to no specific entity.
John, unless the pursuit of battle is an end
in itself, which is a scary prospect, step back and take bold stock of
the situation. There is no 'surrender.'"
"My America is not losing."

(This is the dialogue I wish to hear: by Craig Johnson.)

   

BAKER FLUMMOXES HANNITY: RIPS BUSH FOREIGN POLICY

.
Oct. 5, 2006, FOX NEWS, Hannity & Colmes, 9:00 PM EST
Click Baker Video Part II (two)
http://www.foxnews.com/hannityandcolmes/index.html Part II (two)

James
Baker, the globally accomplished diplomat and former GOP Secretary of
State under Reagan totally flummoxed the cartoonish GOP bagman, Sean
Hannity.

Point blank, Baker said that given the choice between
waging a war or a foreign policy solely restricted to establishing a
new democracy in the Mid-east or alternatively pursuing policies of
stabilizing the region, policies of stabilization were preferable.

Hannity
tried to parry this heretical bashing of Bush's core foreign policy
talking point with the usual GOP gobbledygook propaganda such as "this
is "World War III" and "this is a fight against Islamo Fascists." Baker
seemed uninterested in Sean's offer of GOP red meat talking points and
he continued.

Paraphrased as best I can, Baker said, "Given the
choice between engaging America's forces based on a principle (i.e.
'democracy') or based on establishing stability, stability is, all
things considered, the superior objective.

Not yet finished
shredding the inept Bush, Rice, Cheney foreign policy, Baker continued
by basically saying that engaging in talks with America's enemies is
not appeasement and not engaging in talks is sophomoric (my words). He
recounted that he personally visited Syria fifteen times and on his
next visit Syria abandoned their twenty-year-old policy towards Israel
and agreed to sit with Israel in negotiations, de facto recognizing
their existence.

Thank Video replays because this is political
theater of the highest order which everyone should have the opportunity
to see and hear once this episode is posted. Not only was Hannity
beautifully sandbagged, in my opinion, but Bush 41' had to know that
his son was going to get this political ass whumping.

This is an
important message. It is the old guard of Bush 41' and Reagan trashing
43's leadership and foreign policy. Hopefully this clear message will
help America return to some semblance of values, competence,
professionalism and honesty in its foreign policy.

Obama has embarked on a profound sociological and political gamble. He
gambles by offering the electorate a deep respect by quietly and firmly
telling truths. His campaign, to a degree unparalleled in normal
campaigning, constantly and repetitively gambles that voters of all
stripes, indeed, can handle the truth. It must be at times agony to
watch the 'gotcha' spin from opponents and the press while waiting to
see if the American citizenry can make intelligent decisions faced with
a cacophony of spin.

So
far the voters have proved Obama's respect for them to be well placed.
They have showed their common sense by ignoring mindless spin battles
and continuing to vote increases in Obama's winning lead primary
numbers.

Hillary has made
herself into the politician's worst nightmare, a caricature of the
pandering politician. This week I am against trade deals says she as
she enters a post-industrial state. This week I am a bird hunter she
advertises. Last week I was a policy wonk and before that Mrs.
Experience and whoops I find myself in rural hinterlands so fetch me a
shot and a beer.

Obama
was thoughtful, honest and a bit perhaps too cerebral last week. He was
thoughtful, honest and trusting of the electorate and a bit perhaps too
cerebral the week before. He said his white Gramma distrusted black
people and that she said bigoted things, which was honest, thoughtful,
respectful of his listener's intelligence and a bit too cerebral the
week before that. Pennsylvania's rural voters in the majority accept
that there is bitterness and a penchant to be angry over race, guns and
religion but Barack's delivery would have been better couched in more
palatable down to earth terms.

It
must be agony for Barack and Michelle to watch and listen to twaddle
gossip cast as news, waiting and waiting to see if common folks respond
with common sense to not particularly revelatory truisms, that
widespread unemployment encourages bitterness and that racism at
varying levels is part of America's culture.

I'd
like to think that the Obama family is actually in a "win-win"
situation. They will continue to rise above pandering political
showmanship and tell truths, although perhaps in a voice a bit too
cerebral. They will ask and tell the electorate that their
understanding is required to define and tackle America's open sore
problems in health care, job creation, a dollar driven Washington
culture and the USA's international posture. If Americans in a majority
can actually "handle the truth" we/they will stand with the Obamas when
they inherit the White House and begin a brutal slog to "change." If,
on the other hand, voters revert to distraction over race, religion,
sexuality and Annie Oakley panderings then Barack's quest for truthful
definitions to guide America will be seen as a bridge too far of an
endeavor; a bit perhaps too cerebral.

America's young men and women will now be marching South to the oil important Basra area.
The purpose of the next 200 deaths in this region will be to promote voter suppression against MqSadr's political party.
Maliki
and the central gov't are being paid well to follow US policy for
gaining control of the oil resources. Sadr represents the nationalist
interest for Iraq and our boys and girls must now squash his party.
So?, says Cheney.
Sadr has been taking Ayatollah lessons and is emulating Ghandi by calling for nation wide non violent demonstrations.
He is a wily fox from a legendary martyrdom family. Stay tuned. Will Bush/Cheney (McCain?) mow down his followers? Ugh!

This was written before MqSadr called for his million man march. This will be interesting.
The word is that it's a good time to be buying, Crescent Sea Develpoment Ltd. it's listed on the Iranian Stock Exchange and is reputedly a favorite of the Ayatollahs.

Buying and Selling Housing Accounts as a Commodity

What Greenspan (and Paulson) euphemistically call 'mis pricing risk' by the nation's financiers is more aptly described as their collective purchasing of 90% to 100% leveraged commodity accounts.
At the end of the day, homes are a commodity. There are laws regulating the purchase and financing of commodities; there are strict margin requirements and lots of bold print that purchasing a commodity carries a high degree of risk, to wit, you may lose your shirt.
Having thought about this for a moment, the question becomes who in their right mind would set out to purchase someone else's commodity position which had little or no equity, just the position holders' promise to pay interest on the borrowed funds?  
If you are a bank that has access to buyers that accept the premise that housing always increases in value, then by all means, create or buy this type of commodity mortgage account, warehouse them and resell them. It's a business plan. I package and sell, you package and sell, just be mighty careful when the music stops because at that point the bankers own these crap assets that they intended to sell off to others. Merrill Lynch got caught and burned warehousing several billions.
Gold is a commodity which has the flavor of always going up but yet there are margin requirements. Housing, given that the number of buyers always increases and they ain't making any more land you know, seems a sure bet "over time." Near term however it's a commodity, subject to rises and falls due to interest rate changes, recessions, speculative fevers and inflation.
The banks, etc are idiots for placing their firms' equity in jeopardy by creating and holding no equity housing accounts. It's not wholly new however. The banks crashed with excess lending to REITs, Latin America and experienced some hemorrhaging from the tech bubble.
But. And this is a huge but as we head into an election year. Imagine if Mr. Bush had wooed America into placing social security assets into private accounts (because the stock market always goes up ye brethren.)
What would have occurred is that the housing speculation bubble would have lasted considerably longer as Wall St. packaged and sold retail strips of near worthless housing accounts to the nation's social security network.
At least recognize in this last greed driven market bubble or market fever fiasco that the finance industry has wiped out its net worth repeatedly over the last forty years. Keeping Wall Street's mitts off of Social Security should now perhaps be a subject for a constitutional amendment.

Revote, no revote the Super D's still decide.
First I'll say I agree with the general pooh-pooh  sentiment regarding Greg Sargent's post about a new plan being floated in Florida.. Why someone would call this a new plan when it is patently unworkable and useless is over my head.
The answer to the Fla and MI issue already exists. Super delegates will each have an opinion at the end of the day what the reasonable probable results of a full out Fla/MI revote would add to Hillary's and Barack's total. For discussion sake say a range of Hillary 4 to 10 delegate uptick and 100,000 to 350,000 vote uptick.
If the high end of these numbers turns out to be crucial to the final national tallies, the super delegates can base their decisions on that perception. Conversely if it's clear that Barack wins the pledged delegate count and the total vote count, the super delegates can base their choices on that perceived data.
The point is, that the candidate who becomes the Democratic nominee will in all cases be called to compete with McCain by the super delegates. They know today what the probable results of a Fla/Mi redo would be and can cast their votes with an easy conscience. Additional polling which would include the mathematically modeled results that Barack always, always closes any Hillary advantage when he campaigns in a state could be purchased to clarify probable results.
I think that there is a 95% chance that the super delegates have more than enough reliable information on Fla/MI outcomes to cast their support to either Barack or Hillary comfortably and intelligently.
Revote, no revote, the super d's are get to call the eventual outcome. Move on.