Johnathan Martin at Politico has this piece on what John McCain should do about Cheney.  It discusses the sometimes rocky relationship between the two men and notes that Cheney has been helping McCain hunt down campaign contributions of late, but this is the money quote:

Of course, McCain hasn’t always been critical of Cheney.

In an interview he gave to the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes in 2006 for Hayes’ biography, “Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President,” McCain said: “I will strongly assert to you that he has been of enormous help to this president of the United States.”

Going further, McCain even told Hayes in comments heretofore unpublished that he’d consider Cheney for an administration post.

Asked whether he’d be interested in Cheney had the vice president not already have served under Bush for two terms, McCain said: “I don’t know if I would want him as vice president. He and I have the same strengths. But to serve in other capacities? Hell, yeah.”

This should set of major alarm bells for anyone who has even the slightest compunction with our Executive administration of the last seven and a half years.

Not surprisingly, there's been some recent discussion here about oil and gas prices here.  I'd recently seen a comparison of crude oil and gasoline prices, but I was unable to find it when I went looking for it again.  So, I decided I'd put one together quickly.  Here it is.

There are a couple of things to mention about the graph.  First off, the price of gas has been scaled by a factor of 20 so that it compares closely in the range of the oil price.  The data is from the DOE.  The crude price is listed as United States Spot Price FOB Weighted by Estimated Import Volume (Dollars per Barrel).  The gas price is U.S. All Grades All Formulations Retail Gasoline Prices (Cents per Gallon).

Disclosure out of the way, we can see that the retail gas price tracks pretty closely with the price of crude oil, but oil has departed from this trend with dramatic growth in the last year.  The price of gas at the pump has yet to catch up.

That's what the data looks like.  So what about the analysis?  Why has this happened?

There's been talk of speculation in the oil market.  I believe that's part of the story here, but this is almost certainly the case if we accept recent evidence that global oil production has peaked.  I know what I would be doing if I was a speculator in energy markets right now.  If we've passed the peak then we can expect for crude to get exponentially more expensive in the future.

As for regulation, we don't want to become too distracted with this.  Even if we indulged in trying to regulate the speculators, which may or may not help in the short term, we can't expect to be able to do this with a global market.  We also shouldn't be distracted with windfall profit taxes.

Regardless of whether you think that speculation is a cause or a symptom, there is little doubt that the wolves are about.

Consider also this analysis of gas price elasticities:

In other words, a 10% rise in petrol prices reduces petrol demand by 3% in
the short-term, and by 6-8% in the long-term. (Although the study isn’t clear on
this point, I’m guessing short term is <1 year, and long term is >1 year.)

If we are past peak, then perhaps the speculators have arrived harbingers of this fact.  However, this may not be all bad.  They may help us put the brakes on demand faster than we would otherwise.

Look out, it's another Billy Glad hit piece!

Just kidding.  I come not to bury Billy Glad, but to praise him.

Seriously, though, there have been a number of posts here recently directed at BG.  I don't want to get down in the weeds with drawing lines around what is and isn't going too far in terms of satire or lampoon.  After all, Billy is a big boy and I'm sure he can take it.

I would like to address a thought that I've had in reading all of this.  I'll preface it by saying that I might just be projecting my own psyche here, but it seems to me that there may be a sort of tacit assumption that we're all "on the same team" in this forum, so to speak.

I think that this causes us to have certain expectations about what we read here.  We assume, somewhere in our minds, that we're all more or less on the same team and pursuing the same goals.  It's not that we expect entire congruence, but that we expect a certain similarity of views.

However, it turns out that this isn't necessarily the case.  Sometimes the Democratic party is described as a "big tent" in that it values and pursues many dimensions of diversity.  This is an admirable goal, but it also makes the sort of monolithic, lock-step unity typically seen among the GOP a lot more difficult to achieve.

Billy Glad and I may have certain similarities in our views, but I've also come to understand that there are ways in which we just look at the world differently.  That's okay.  I value the contrast and I don't need to agree with (or even enjoy) everything that he writes.

I also think that this is something that might benefit us all if it were better understood (and I include myself in this).  We can't achieve unity in any meaningful sense if we focus on the small differences that seem to be a slap in the face of our tacit assumptions.  Instead, it seems to me that we ought to focus on the larger agreements that do indeed exist.  This won't always be possible between all individuals, but I think that this approach has merit.  Perhaps in doing so we can even find a way to disagree on the smaller issues without sacrificing larger unity.

I'm curious as always to know your thoughts.

Fellow reader-blogger clearthinker has observed before that the oil market is now in the hands of speculators.  Indeed, it seems to be the case that Saudi Arabia can no longer lend a helping hand at the President's behest.  It should come as no surprise then that Goldman-Sachs is predicting a "super-spike" up to $200/barrel in the coming months.

Let's try and consider this in the context of the recent talk of "relief at the pump".  Politicians and auto-makers alike are pandering to people who don't yet understand the scope of the problem that we are all facing.  All of the evidence indicates that we have passed the peak of global oil production.  It will only get more difficult to retrieve, and thereby more expensive, as we move forward.

When will we hear an honest treatment of these problems from our governmental leadership?  We will become serious, as a whole society, about re-organizing our infrastructure in order to meet the challenge of diminishing petrochemical resources while there is still some opportunity to mitigate the coming crisis?

Most of you are aware that I support Barack Obama for President, but I do not exclude him from these criticisms.  While I do think that he seems to exhibit a slightly better understanding of energy issues than either Clinton or McCain, this is not good enough.  I can hope that he's merely playing it close to the chest because of how politically volatile it could be to embrace the reality of peak oil, but I won't excuse him or anyone else in an influential position of leadership from stepping up on this issue.

Even though I would quibble with some of his details, Al Gore has been incredibly successful in bringing the scientific evidence to bear on the issue of climate change.  Perhaps what we need is an Al Gore for peak oil.  I'd like it very much if this could be Obama since he appears to be in position to assume the Presidency, but it doesn't necessarily have to be him.  However, whether or not Obama becomes the next President the issue will still stand.  Whoever assumes the office will, at the very least, need to be someone who is willing to listen and take the evidence into consideration.

Much like with the issue of climate change, there are a mountain of reasons for us to change the way that we live.  In fact, there's really only one reason not to change: We simply don't want to.  Even if carbon dioxide is not driving the current trend in global average temperature change it is still worthwhile to reduce (and hopefully eliminate) carbon emissions.  Likewise, even if oil does not run out as fast as Hubbert's curve would predict there are still many good reasons to conserve petrochemical resources.  Think of our industrial farming practices, heavily dependent on petrochemical pesticides, fertilizers, machinery, transportation and refrigeration.  Think of the necessity of plastics when it comes to sanitation, food storage and medical needs.

Burning oil in our inefficient automobiles is probably the single stupidest thing that we could do with such a valuable and versatile resource.  I don't like paying increasing prices for gasoline any more than anyone else, but perhaps this is what will be needed for the necessary sea change to take place.

Some are already busy speculating about who we might see as Obama's choice for a running mate.  I think that this will be a very interesting question in time, but as for right now I'm far more interested in who McCain might choose.

Many have offered up possible choices for Obama that might help him with the so-called "Reagan Democrats".  This may be likely.  I'd like you to consider Obama against McCain, sans running mates, for a moment.  I think it's safe to say that the top issue in November will be the economy closely followed by the war in Iraq (and hopefully not a war in Iran).  McCain is in a tough situation in that he's representing the party that can and will be blamed squarely for screwing both of these things up.  Also, in gaining the support of his party he's had to shed his centrist appeal as a "maverick" in order to proffer his status as a genuine Republican.  In my view, this means that he faces the difficulty of needing to distance himself from Bush to win the middle, but not so much that he alienates his party (though I'll admit that Republicans seem to live by a certain code of loyalty that may help him here).  In any case, it seems that he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

There is another dimension that should be considered.  Dick Cheney and David Addington have worked tirelessly to redefine the role of the Vice President, with Cheney going so far as to assert that this office lies neither within the Executive or Legislative branch, but rather within the "Go F*ck Yourself" branch.  Consider also that the VP must be willing to assume the office of the President should the need arise.  John McCain may not be in the best of health.

Taking all of this in total, I think that McCain's choice of running mate may indeed be a make or break decision in terms of being competitive.  The question then becomes: Who will it be?  I've heard Rice floated.  I consider this a relatively strong possibility even though she has stated that she has no desire to run for any elected office.  Not only would this choice give his ticket gravitas with the neo-con crowd, but it would also have the added bonus of trumping somewhat the historic implications of a Presidency by either Obama or Clinton.

However, I think there are probably some other choices around that may be even more well-suited to helping McCain be competitive.  On the one hand you might see someone that appeals very strongly to the conservative base which could potentially free McCain to don once again his "maverick" hat.  This could go the other way with someone who is meant to have more centrist appeal while betting on the essential loyalty of the party base.  Either way, I think it has to be someone who would make a strong Republican candidate in their own right since we  may well see McCain's age and/or health brought into question.  This may well mean one of the other candidates, perhaps Romney or even Huckabee.

I'd be very interested to hear thoughts that any of you may have on this topic.

I don't like to simply post articles here, but I think that this blog by Robert Reich concisely makes the proper points about the proposed gas tax "holiday":

When asked this morning by ABC News' George Stephanopoulos if she could name a single economist who backs her call for a gas tax holiday this summer, HRC said "I'm not going to put my lot in with economists.”

I know several of the economists who have been advising Senator Clinton, so I phoned them right after I heard this. I reached two of them. One hadn’t heard her remark and said he couldn’t believe she’d say it. The other had heard it and shrugged it off as “politics as usual.”

That’s the problem: Politics as usual.

The gas tax holiday is small potatoes relative to everything else. But it’s so economically stupid (it would increase demand for gas and cause prices to rise, eliminating any benefit to consumers while costing the Treasury more than $9 billion, and generate more pollution) and silly (even if she won, HRC won’t be president this summer) as to be worrisome. That HRC now says she doesn’t care that what economists think is even more troubling.

In case you’ve missed it, we now have a president who doesn’t care what most economists think. George W. Bush doesn’t even care what scientists think. He rejects all experts who disagree with his politics. This has led to some extraordinarily stupid policies.

I’m not saying HRC is George Bush. And I'm not suggesting economists have all the answers. But when economists tell a president or a presidential candidate that his or her idea is dumb – and when all respectable economists around America agree that it’s a dumb idea – it’s probably wise for the president or presidential candidate to listen. When the president or candidate doesn’t, and proudly defends the policy by saying she's "not going to put my lot in with economists,” we’ve got a problem, folks.

Even though the summer gas tax holiday is pure hokum, it polls well, which is why HRC and John McCain are pushing it. That Barack Obama is not in favor of it despite its positive polling numbers speaks volumes about the kind of president he’ll be – and the kind of president we’d otherwise get from McCain and HRC.

Haven’t we had enough of politicians who reject facts in favor of short-term poll-driven politics?

That's just it.  Either Clinton doesn't really understand that this policy don't work or she's basically saying that she's committed to pandering in spite of the facts.  Personally, I don't happen to believe that Clinton doesn't understand why her proposal can't work.  I'm forced to conclude that the latter proposition is the most likely.

I'm also forced to wonder just who a President that refuses to put her lot in with economists would appoint chairman of the Fed.

Or wait.. maybe it's fortitude.  From CBS:

During a campaign rally here in western Indiana, the president of the Sheet Metal Workers’ Union, Paul Gibson, said he supports Hillary Clinton because she has the strength to take on tough problems like NAFTA. Gibson characterized the strength necessary to be president as a person who has “testicular fortitude.” The pro- Hillary Clinton crowd began to laugh, as did Clinton who stood behind Gibson on the stage.

“If you’re thinking the next President of the United States should address and amend and convince people that here are the flaws with that law, and here’s what we’re supposed to do and it shouldn’t cause harm to either border,” said Gibson. “Well, you know what, then I truly believe that that is going to take an individual that has testicular fortitude, that’s exactly right, that’s what we got to have.”

Okay, so he's a salty union-type, but this still strikes me as a humorous situation given how the accusation of sexism has been thrown around during the primary.

I hope that you'll pardon my français, but I'm pretty much fed the fuck up with living in a country with an electorate than can be goaded into complacency with the flashing imagery of Osama bin Bogeyman.

I'm also fed up with politicians who want to exploit this reaction for their own political gain.  I was already tired of seeing the Republicans do it to the country at large and to the Democrats.  It's even more disgusting to see a so-called Democrat do it to their one of her own.

I'm sick of affluent, white-handkerchief, panty-waist buttholes like George Bush, Dick Cheney, Juan Williams and David Brooks tell me what I'm supposed to be afraid of.  You know what people in this country ought to be afraid of?  Cancer, heart disease, stroke, automobile accidents and falling.  In all likelihood, something on this list is what will kill you.

I'm concerned with my food, as in where it's coming from, what it costs and whether I'll still be able to get it in the future.  I'm similarly concerned with my water.

I'm concerned with a shrinking NCI cancer research budget that was already less than one percent of our annual defense budget to begin with.  My father and his younger sister were both diagnosed with grade IV brain tumors in 2006.  Do you know what the odds of this is?  For a single person in North America it's 1 or 2 in 100,000.

My father is now dead.  My aunt probably won't survive the year.  There isn't a doctor on this planet that can tell me what the cause of glioblastoma multiforme is or who can assure me that there isn't a genetic link.  Therefore, I don't know whether the same fate awaits me and <i>my</i> younger sister.

One in two North American males will be diagnosed with some form on cancer in their lives.  The rate for females is about one in three.

Meanwhile, politicians keep flashing good old Osama.  We don't even know if he's still alive.  Never mind that none of these talking heads ever bother to address the fact that Zawahiri is still at large.  Never mind that the Saudi Arabian Wahhabists who funded the attacks maintain a cozy relationship with the United States government and the First Family.  Never mind that we're facing an energy crisis that goes right to the heart of what United States foreign policy with respect for the Middle East is based on and <i>has been based on for decades</i>.

I'm sick of all the vapid morons who keep calling this bullshit "tough".  Tough isn't being afraid of the bogeyman.  Tough is using your own mind to question the endless mountain of shit that's raining down on your head day in and day out.  Tough is refusing to cower because impoverished religious fanatics in a cave somewhere might mean to do someone somewhere some harm someday.  Tough is using your head to try and stay sane amidst this mess, to try and keep a bead on what the truth is.  Tough is refusing to compromise the foundational principles of your country because the same people who were <i>incapable of ever protecting you in the first place</i> tell you that they can be trusted with carte blanche to spy on you, designate "enemy combatants" without due process and torture people in secret in illegal prisons.

Bush is not tough.  Cheney is not tough.  Rice is not tough.

Hillary Clinton is not tough.

I'm tough.  So are a lot of you.

And I'm not afraid of the bogeyman.

I like to avoid putting up posts that are nothing but links, but I think this one is entertaining enough to warrant it.

Feel free to flame me for being a an out-of-touch elitist if it is not.

Well, if you're a fan of Stephen Colbert and/or Hillary Clinton and/or Barack Obama AND/OR John "Have I mentioned that my father worked in a mill" Edwards, then you were in for a real treat tonight.  All three of them made appearances on tonight's Colbert Report.  WARNING: There be spoilers ahead.  Arr.





Hillary was on first and she showed up just in time with a much needed assist on some technical difficulties.  As she left, she let Colbert know that he can call her if he has any additional problems, even at 3AM.

Obama was on last via satellite and all of you who are still driving the porcelain bus and saturating the Recommended list with discontent will be happy to know that he put unnecessary political distractions on Notice.  I'm certain that this will help in the future.  (I'll say even as a supporter of Senator Obama that he probably garnered the least laughs of the three.)

The highlight of the evening was easily when John Edwards showed up to bring us The Word, with one vital twist: Tonight it was the Edwords.  I won't spoil it all for you, but I will say that he hinted at exactly what it's going to take to earn his endorsement and it may or may not have something to do with recreational watercraft.

I also have to give it up to Colbert for keeping it Even Stevphen by having on two Clinton and two Obama supporters during his four nights shooting on location in Philadelphia.  It's funny that often Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are both more balanced and more informative that the so-called news media.  Not to mention a hell of a lot more entertaining.

It was a great way to close the book on Thursday.  Happy Friday, everyone.

In the world of technology there is a very old saying (which has not surprisingly been reduced to an acronym).  RTFM: Read The Fine Material or, when delivered with derision to someone who should have done so in the first place, Read The F***ing Manual.  Richard Reeves has an interesting take on just why it is that the inevitability of the Clinton campaign went from inevitable win to inevitable loss: Obama and crew read the manual.  Specifically:

Last Thursday, about a year too late, I read the "2008 Delegate Selection Rules for the Democratic National Convention." Not a fun read, I must add, which may be the reason Sen. Hillary Clinton, or her people, and most of the press, did not read or understand its 25 dense pages.

He goes on to note a fact contained in these pages which is now well known:

"Seventy-five percent (75%) of each state's base delegation shall be
elected at the congressional district level or smaller ...

"Delegates shall be allocated in a fashion that fairly reflects the
expressed presidential preference or uncommitted status of the primary
voters or, if there is no binding primary, the convention and/or caucus
participants."

In other words, using terms of political art, the Democrats have
rejected "winner-take-all" elections in favor of "proportional
representation." The best example of that is what happened in Texas:
Clinton won 50.9 percent of the overall vote to 47.4 percent for Obama.
But because of the way the votes were divided by counties, Obama won 99
delegates to 94 for Clinton.

Of course, observing that proportional allocation is what has allowed Obama to capture and maintain an insurmountable lead is nothing new at this point in the game.  However, I think his final observation does forward an interesting idea on the possible difference in culture here:

This is not a new thing in presidential politics. In my experience, the
new guys, new managers, usually win. And Axelrod was the new guy, as Karl Rove was the new guy in 2000, and before him there was James Carville and George Stephanopoulos, Lee Atwater, Hamilton Jordan and Jody Powell.

The new guys win because they have to learn the rules from scratch. The
old guys play by old rules, run the same old campaigns that worked
before -- and it is often too late for them when they realize the game
has changed. Poor Hillary and her strategist Mark Penn just didn't get
it.

The full article is here.

You want working-class street-cred?  How about Bruce Springsteen:

Like most of you, I've been following the campaign and I have now seen and heard enough to know where I stand. Senator Obama, in my view, is head and shoulders above the rest.

He has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next President. He speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that's interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where "...nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone."

I feel like celebrating.  Think I'll have a shot of Crown Royal before I go outside to pull off a couple rounds of birdshot.

Advance warning: I've become pretty bored with the Democratic primary of late, so this post is about something else.  Also, I apologize for the blunt, crappy lede, but I'm not feeling well at the moment and I can't really think of a better way to say it right now.

Outside of the funhouse-mirror world that the Democratic primary has become restricted to, we've had some interesting developments in the last couple of weeks.  We had Petraeus and Crocker explaining that the surge, as it is called, has more or less been successful in reducing violence, but that this is a brand of progress which we may see reversed if the wind changes.  We were also given definitive documentary evidence that Bush and his NSC were directly involved in signing off on the selective application of the Geneva convention with respect for bringing the techniques of torture to bear against our designated enemies.

The Iraq war is now five years old and the Bush administration is well into its last year of pressing forward in its application of the theory of the unitary executive.  It has become perfectly clear that we will not see the Democratic opposition take any decisive or meaningful action on any of these fronts before the year is out.  There will be strongly worded letters.  There will be, perhaps, hearings.

There likely won't be indictments and so there won't be convictions.  Even if there were, they would be answered back with pardons.

There won't be impeachments.

So we can, I hope, start to see why Bush was so typically nonchalant about the startling revelation that he had green-lighted torture (as if we ever should have believed that such initiatives simply arose organically at the bottom of the hierarchy of command).  When Nancy Pelosi promised that there would be no impeachment under her leadership, when she took impeachment "off the table" as she said, what she was really doing was putting impunity on the table, a particularly comical concept when taken in consideration of the absolutely cavalier group to which her comment was addressed.

It would seem that I am somehow supposed to find solace in the likely prospect of increased Democratic leadership in the coming year.  I am told that impeachment or any proceeding with actual teeth would simply be a waste of time, but underneath it all is the implication that any such dealings would put at risk the prospects of further Democratic wins this November.

However, this is not comforting to me.  I am being made a sort of promise that leadership will someday arrive by the hands of those who refuse to take any risk in leading right now.  I am being told essentially that if I and others will only grant them more power then they will finally do what is right.

I do not like this bargain and I do not like the feeling that it gives me.  It strikes me as Faustian.  I particularly don't like that I have little other choice but to trust that these promises will be made good.  I remain weary of the taste that will arrive upon my tongue if it comes to pass that I've played the rube.

Happy Tax Day.

A few months back a good friend of mine, who is currently freelancing in Lebanon to research how weapons move into the hands of Hezbollah, pointed out to me that Bill O'Reilly has a selection of fine apparel for sale.  This revelation was not all that surprising in and of itself.  What was surprising was some of the stuff that he prints on this apparel.

Of course, there's the typical "No Spin" or the "The Spin Stops Here".  Ho-hum, but wait!  Take a run through some of these fine examples:

"Don't Be a Pinhead" - Okay, it's fun.
"Don't Be a Popinjay" - Alright, now we're getting warm.
"Don't Be a Ninnyhammer" - Yes, I like where this is going.

Seriously.  Popinjay?  <i>Ninnyhammer</i>?  What archaic dictionary is O'Reilly working out of?

Then there's these:

"Keep it Pithy" - This is the sort of irony I'm looking for.
"No Bloviating" - ...

No Bloviating?  <i>Bill O'Reilly</i> is setting the rules and his rules are, apparently, keep it pithy and no bloviating.

Bill O'Reilly.

This is like Keith Richards telling you that you need to cut back on the partying.

So, my question for my fellow TPM readers at this late hour is: Which Bill O'Reilly shirt should I acquire to wear ironically?  Also, what charity would you nominate for a tandem donation in order to offset the admittedly despicable act of giving Bill O'Reilly $20?  ACLU? NLG?  PFLAG?  I'll field any nomination for this second choice, but the more it would piss off the Big Guy the better.

I thank you in advance for your valuable input!

From the Too Awesome For Words Dept.:

When Senator John McCain was asked here this afternoon how he plans
to balance the budget, he said that he hoped to do so by stimulating
economic growth – and approvingly cited the example of President Ronald
Reagan.

There was one thing he did not mention during his response: the
deficit nearly tripled during the Reagan presidency, partly due to tax
cuts and increases in military spending.

Sometimes I just don't know what to make of stuff like this.  It's depressing as hell, on the one hand, because I know that a lot of people will buy this without questioning it.. despite the fact that the majority of the electorate was around to remember that this is a patently false revision of history.  On the other hand, it makes me insanely giddy because I don't know what else to do with the bone-crushing depression of this reality.

Yeah, I might need help.