In a game that will be talked about for years, President Barack Obama pitched and hit his way to a 3-0 victory in a winner-take-all match-up against a squad of all-stars selected from the eight 2009 American and National leagues' playoff teams.  The President was allowed only one other player in the field, and he selected Detroit Tigers' catcher Gerald Laird as a battery mate (the Tigers missed their division's title, losing a one-game playoff to the Minnesota Twins.).

 

As the only batter in his team's lineup, Obama was forced to try to hit a home run in every at bat and swing at almost every pitch to avoid being stranded on base.  His hitting performance reflected this, with Obama getting only four hits in 31 at-bats, with no walks.  His hits consisted of three homers and a double when he was thrown out sliding into third.  "He didn't get a lot of hits but he made them count," said opposing squad manager, New York Yankees skipper Joe Girardi. 

 

On the mound, Obama threw 142 pitches over nine shutout innings, scattering six hits and two walks with one wild pitch.  Obama's shutout was in jeopardy when, up 3-0 in the bottom of the ninth, Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals hit a shot into the left field corner.  Retrieving the ball quickly, Obama chased Pujols down the third-base line, tagging him moments before he crossed the plate.  Asked if he felt Obama should have thrown him the ball for the tag, catcher Laird demurred, saying, "Pujols could have started a big rally, and in that situation you want your best player making the play."

 

As this year's World Series winner, Obama will next visit the White House where he will meet himself.  Asked if he will say anything to himself about national and world affairs, Obama said he didn't want to turn the event into "some kind of political spectacle - let's keep this about baseball."

As I type this sentence, a little red line appears under Obama.  Go ahead, try it in a comment.  Obama.  Obama.  President Barack Obama.  Hey, it's under Barack too!  Barack.  Barack.

Barack Obama.

Those are the only two words in this message that are indicated as misspellings.  Nobel Peace Prize winner, President Barack Obama.  "Nobel" is OK.

I can understand proper names being "misspellings" like Biden, Clinton, WHOA!  No red line under "Clinton."  Hillary.  See, that's OK, too.  Reagan.  NOW THAT'S JUST WRONG!

OK, I've had enough fun.  Please update the TPM dictionary.

I have been reluctant to post these ideas though I have harbored them for some time.  Recent events have only confirmed their continued applicability, however, and a post yesterday on Truthout.com by Eric Boehlert, "A President Was Killed the Last Time Right-Wing Hatred Ran Wild Like This," prompted me to respond to Boehlert with the below thoughts, and to submit them for the consideration of this community.

Basically, I thanked Boehlert "for catching up."  The rest of my statement follows:

"I've watched people I thought I knew well, including Republicans of seemingly high intellect, buy into the radical insanity, fearing -- and this is a direct quote - 'the end of representative democracy under Obama.'  Making sweeping generalizations goes against everything I believe in, but the sheer amount and intensity of irrational behavior leads me to conclude there is a pathological level of paranoia among the right wing and a huge amount of racism and 'christianized' extremism.  This is a Deep South, Great Plains, High Rockies movement -- regions that are historically the least open, the least tolerant, and the most xenophobic in the country.  Make no mistake: This country's 'Civil War' started with the '3/5ths Rule' in the Constitution, became a shooting war in the 1860s (when the radical Right claimed another President), a covert war until the Civil Rights Act, and has continued today under the guise of neo-conservativism, for whose adherents Muslims, the Taliban, and Iranian 'insurgents' provided a useful proxy for unification through violence.  The deep red converts are scary and dangerous, and they are seducers of many people we all know and, in some cases, even love."

Whether witch doctor, Stalin, Hitler, secret Muslim, or any other ludicrous comparison the Right wants to launch, the opposition to President Obama has completely lost its moorings from any reasoned political or social theory.  Radical federalists, neo-imperialists, or simply the super-rich hoping to avoid a fair tax share are all among those who freely exploit the paranoid as muscle against social progress.  The health care "debate" only confirmed for me the lunacy of the "other side" and demonstrated the willingness of empowered interests, this time in the form of the insurance lobby, to leverage blind hatred for narrow, parochial purposes. 

What I once wanted to tell a former friend whom I have lost in the course of this debate, a Republican I once held in some esteem, is that the intensity of the opposition that he emphasized on our past discussions does not equate to validity.  It is my experience that the most intense "believers" in any line of thinking operate detached from all facts and rely exclusively on faith in a special, shared truth that unites them and their fellow believers no matter how destructive that belief may be to the common welfare.  It's not the product of rational thought, it is the behavior of a cult and it defies logical discourse.  This was most evident previously in the Evangelism that propelled Republicans to power in the 90s until recently despite the fact that the Republicans so ensconced demonstrated a level of avarice, mendacity and immorality more befitting decadent Rome than seats of American government.  Now, we see this cultism in a Fox-fueled radical right that would, indeed, cheer at the death of a President they hate unreasoningly even though his policies (continuing some of the policies of his Republican predecessor) saved the world from a devastating Second Great Depression and certain economic anarchy.  Go figure.

I was hopeful that policy successes under President Obama, the best leader for our times, would cement a pragmatic government under Progressives for the remainder of my life (who, after all would turn down affordable health care?!).  That outcome is now at great risk.  Progressives are going to have to mobilize and defend their recent gains until the radicals are finally forced into permanent minority status and a more rational opposition emerges.  Do they have the will when there is no grand, unifying crisis at hand, only a low-level counter-revolution driven by hate, shaped by lies and energized by unthinking fear?  Time will tell whether we will participate in the next great victory over the forces of repression in America, or suffer yet another reversal that further delays our emergence as a truly rational society. 

God Bless the United States of America.

 

Go right to the top: Republican leadership.  This will require Democrats in Congress to do what Democratic voters are mobilizing to handle in their stead at the town halls on health care.

Get tough.

Democratic leadership in the House and Senate must lay down the law to Republicans to control their lackeys.  Either they get their followers to engage in a civil debate, or EVERY PROCEDURAL RULE, GIMMICK, TRICK AND MANEUVER will be used to shut the GOP out of absolutely everything in Congress, not just health care, but everything.  The deadliest way to fight back is often by the rules, and our side has the rule book.

This isn't trying to ram through a (Big D) Democratic agenda, it's trying to preserve the (little d) democratic process.  These idiots are not the second coming of Ghandi.  We all know this has everything to do with defeating the President and the Democrats and nothing to do with policy differences.  Polite won't cut it, it's what they count on.  Obnoxious is their bread-and-butter, page one of the playbook.

We ought to be twice as motivated as the chowderheads: We can get reform AND deal their team a crushing defeat.  Waterloo can cut both ways.  The GOP has been on the wrong side of Dunkirk the Little Big Horn and the Battle of the Bulge so far, but why stop?

Don't let them off the ropes, don't let them away from the wall, don't let them back in the game, use every sport metaphor you can find.  When they get violent, as they unfortunately will, we will know that we have won.

And on that strategy memo, it's too complicated.  A simple chant of "Let him speak" or "Let her speak" is easy, effective and democratic.

 

Forget ideology.  Forget vision.  Forget patriotism.  Forget pragmatism.  For the elected Republican officials in Washington, now more than ever before, everything is about votes.  There are only two sides to that coin: Keeping the votes of the diminishing Republican faithful and denying even more votes for Democrats driven by policy successes.

 

Certainly, some in the GOP are principled men and women, but these officials likely qualify as an endangered species.  This is a party that is in serious trouble.  A few with at least a modicum of courage recognize this is true.  Sen. George Voinovich spells the Republican problem out in five letters: S O U T H.  Sen. Mitch McConnell spoke memorably, and somewhat disconsolately this year in terms of the GOP as a "regional" party.  Some of slightly higher principles do what they believe is right regardless of the party line, like Sen. Richard Lugar and his attitudes toward lifting the Cuban embargo.  A very few, most notably former Rep. Tom Davis, just got fed up and quit.  Sen. Arlen Specter simply jumped ship.

 

For the Republicans who are left, electoral politics has become a zero-sum game.  The most reliable Republican voters are a base of, well, knuckleheads.  These are the 28% nationally who are certain Pres. Obama is not a natural-born American citizen and the 71% within the party who view the imbecilic ice queen Sarah Palin with favor.  For a Republican to stay in office, it has become essential to pander to voters who can't keep a rational thought in their head.  It has also become necessary to obstruct everything Democrats attempt at a national level, not on principle so much as to deny the Democrats any further gains.

 

Interestingly, the Democratic agenda makes it possible to both pander to the hardcore base and blockade social progress at the same time.  House GOP unanimity against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and near GOP unanimity in the Senate was an absurd joke.  Anyone with common sense knew that without massive government action, this country, and the world at large, was headed to a devastating depression.  In the short term, however, it was easier to appear to be fiscally responsible to the local yokels and save the problem of explaining away the success of the policy for another day, which now seems to be approaching.

 

On unionization, large swaths of American business pumped lobbying dollars into the anti-check card campaign, but even without that impetus, Republicans in office know that the more unionization in this country, the more reliably Democratic votes will result.  This is why Pseudo President Bush would not let Transportation Security Administration employees unionize - there is no more reliably Democratic voting base than unionized government employees.

 

Everyone in the Beltway with half a brain knows how badly our health care system is in need of reform.  Even the GOP admitted this in today's radio address.  But the whole idea of "getting government bureaucrats between you and your doctor" is a blatant canard, especially to someone like me who has dealt with HMO coverage for years.  If 40+ million Americans wake up one day able to go to a doctor when they are sick, who is going to take credit for this miracle on the campaign trail?  Eric Cantor??

 

The big one coming down the pike is immigration reform.  With guys like Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner leading the reverse suicide charge awhile back, the GOP ceded the Latino vote to the Democrats for the next 30 years at least.  Playing to the xenophobic nationalism of the radical right is simultaneously the perfect cover for trying to prevent several million more voters from swelling this demographic already decidedly in favor of Democrats.

 

But the trends are clear.  Unions will gain power, if nothing else, through proper enforcement of existing laws and regulations to permit organizing without employers' improper interference.  Any pro-unionization reform beyond that is gravy.  There will be health care reform of some kind.  Immigration reform in 2010 is also a near certainty.  There will be plenty of protestations, obstacles, and half-a-loaf approaches to these and other issues, many raised by Blue Dog Democrats (the ultimate in "cross-over vehicles" for 2009) but for Democrats who supported the stimulus package, things are already starting to pan out.

 

Eventually, supporting these and other game-changing reforms, like greater consumer protections in the financial services market, will be seen as a solid political strategy (there is really no reason for the over-abundance of caution in these areas, but that's life).  Meanwhile, demographics will continue to work against Republicans, who insist on being too White, too old, too rural and too Southern to matter much on the national stage.  Though he "gimmicked-up" his denial of the Commerce Secretary appointment based on Rahm Emanuel's involvement in the process, Sen. Judd Gregg saw the writing on the wall in the 2010 Census.  Next year's census will be highly inclusive, then followed up by Congressional redistricting which will be driven in largest part by Democrats or non-partisan methods - both anathemas to "the permanent Republican majority" in which prior redistricting played a huge role.  Small wonder he didn't want to preside over that large of a GOP coffin nail.

 

The icing on the cake for Democrats is that the GOP base and many of those they have voted into office are remarkably flawed humans.  This, however, should come as no surprise in hindsight.  We're talking about people who are among the most sexually repressed, violence indulging, religiously narrow and socially dysfunctional humans we could ever hope not to share a plane ride with - hypocrisy and psychological conflict rule their day.  This is the only way to explain the relentless wave of scandals tagged with names like Vitter, Foley, Craig, Sanford, Ensign, DeLay and so many others.  They are all birds of a feather.  If they weren't so dangerous, I could pity them.

 

At this point for elected Republicans, politics is a rear-guard action aimed at keeping their jobs.  There is no agenda to advance.  Republicans have no practical alternative other than to suck up (down?) to the lowest of the low, throw roadblocks in front of every useful idea, or both.  It's the only way I know of to understand how a political party can be "pro-life" and "pro-torture" simultaneously, though I'm open for other suggestions. 

 

There will be plenty of places in the country (nowhere I want to live) that will perpetually return legislators like Senators DeMint, Sessions and Inhofe to office, but not enough to dominate this country's governance.  While some Republican office holders truly share the beliefs of their radicalized constituents, the cynic in me says that the recent, nearly inexplicable anti-everything Republican gymnastics and ineptitude are actually easy to understand, if we tilt the picture in the right way.

 

Like so many things in modern society, it all comes down to the numbers.

 

Democrat angst seems to be building over the governorships in Virginia and New Jersey, but needlessly so.  Any Republican optimism about these elections signalling a change in forturnes is hugely misplaced.  The off-cycle Dem wins in both virginia and New Jersey governor elections in 2005 turned out to be bellweathers for the 2006 Blue Wave.  Even if (I'd say when) the GOP takes both the NJ and VA governorships this fall, that doesn't mean in any way Republicans are coming back.  Unlike 2005, these two elections are purely local.

The underlying dynamics of a rapidly rotting Republican party had a lot to do with the 2005 elections, especially in Virginia where Gov. Kaine's opponent made a grave mistake with a "Hitler ad" on TV.  Devout Catholic Tim Kaine said he would enforce but was opposed to the death penalty on religious grounds and, when asked, said that his position would hypothetically apply to Hitler.  The ad was a huge mistake, unnecessarily displaying GOP attack dog politics at a time when party credibility was in a national nosedive and the GOP candidate had a huge lead.  Right after that ad, the polls steadily reversed until Kaine, Lt. Gov. to the popular Mark Wagner, made up a deficit similar to what Creigh Deeds faces now and narrowly won. Bob McDonnell won't make that kind of error, and, at best, Virginia is still a swing state, probably ready to go back to a Republican governor after eight years with the Democrats.  But the demographics of Virginia continue to trend blue and that's not changing any time soon.

New Jersey hates its Democrats until they get re-elected, but the state has been an economic wasteland.  It's probably unfair to John Corzine who's greatest failure is not being a miracle worker.  The organ-trafficking scandal swept up local Dems, but that's all NJ has locally, so I don't think it's a factor.  There's just a lot of angry voters in New Jersey right now and Corzine is a convenient target. 

If the Dems retain either state, it's New Jersey, but if they lose both, it's not because of any underlying momentum swing against Democrats generally.  That won't keep Republicans from trying to make a sweep into some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, but it's just not in the cards.  Democrats have been remarkably scandal-free since November, keeping their promises (or at least attempting to), and overall, things are indeed getting better thanks to federal action and the natural business cycle.

There is nothing for the GOP to leverage in 2010 no matter how many times Michael Steele says "We're back baby!" (what an idiot; but I digress). The media will also be all over the wins in NJ and VA if they happen, simply because there won't be that much to talk about elsewhere in politics.  But ignore all of that -- positive change is just not there for the Party of Lincoln in 2010 no matter what happens on the Atlantic Coast in 2005.  But this is:

My GOP: Too old, too white to win
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/07/20/gop_math/

In the future, we will spell "GOP" with five letters: "S-O-U-T-H".

In today's column, "Obama could boast over auto bailout" Free Press writer Tom Walsh lists in detail just how amazing President Obama's handling of the U.S. auto manufacturers' crisis has been.  Admittedly, the Free Press is a liberal paper from a Democratic city, but it is unquestionably the "paper of record" for the automobile industry, the leading media specialist in that domain, and ready to put its perceptions of the industry's health ahead of feelings for any political figure.  Team Obama stared down auto executives, Wall Street and the UAW to get a solution that sailed through bankruptcy courts at an amazing pace, spread the pain as fairly as possible, and was in the interests of the common good.  The initial take is, the automakers will actually be able to make money pay us all back after this mass erasure of management, engineering and labor collaboration in huge mistakes.  Read it here:

 

http://www.freep.com/article/20090712/COL06/907120567/Obama-could-boast-over-auto-bailout

 

It's up to Chrysler and GM now.  Obama gave them a chance when he could have been "presidential," watching from afar and avoiding all risk of error.  Had he done so, the failure of two of the big three would probably have taken the legs out from under Ford because Ford's suppliers would have lost a huge share of their business with the other domestic automakers, and then Ford would have collapsed, too.  And Obama would have had the GOP howling at his inaction and clamoring for their only solution: more tax breaks.   Of course, these are useless to companies losing money by the, er, truckload. 

 

This would have been more than enough for an experienced President to tackle as a solo crisis, but years of misguided conservative government left the U.S. and the world with a laundry list of catastrophes all operating at once.  With the completion of the Chrysler and GM bankruptcies, a second item can come off the list.  I say "second" because item #1 was avoiding a worldwide depression, which was staved off only by federal intervention.  I have yet to see a conservative who understands or even acknowledges this historic feat of keeping economic anarchy at bay.

 

To spot-check some of the other hot spots, the banking industry did not collapse and is paying back federal aid by the tens of billions of dollars.  Obama arm-twisted the developed world into dramatically increased aid to the developing world.  Iraqis celebrated U.S. troops' withdrawal from their cities.  A renewed military response is ongoing in the forgotten war in Afghanistan, and the danger in Western Pakistan is no longer being ignored.  As for the other two-thirds of the "Axis of Evil" North Korea has shown again that it is internationally annoying but ineffective and Iran's government was exposed as contemptuous teaming with seething civil unrest when a rigged election was badly timed to follow an Obama speech, not bombs or bullets, directed to the Muslim world . 

 

Not everything is working perfectly; some things are still not working at all, like reforming the military's "don't ask don't tell" policy.  Other things will only work at a snail's pace, like reduction of unemployment because that's just the way it is.  The jury is still out on health care and carbon emissions but the pace of action is generally astounding by Washington's standards.  With such a full agenda the main obstacle to immigration reform is fitting it into the Congressional schedule. 

 

On more ambiguous issues, Obama is showing himself to be the "grown up in the room."  This is clear on matters like torture of prisoners, the Russian, Cuban and Venezuelan relationships to the world and Africa's internal challenges.  And he has ruled out a second stimulus to stand behind his first bill, which I always maintained was more disaster avoidance than a full-blown recovery program, which is fine with me.

 

Barack Obama has accomplished more in the first half of his first term than George W. Bush did in eight years, and anything Bush "accomplished" is dwarfed by horrendous domestic and foreign policies that will handicap us for years, killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced millions of others and savaged the Constitution and the rule of law in ways still being discovered. 

 

The whining Republicans refuse to see that when trillions of dollars simply disappear due to conservative stupidity and free market worship, government has no choice but to step in to avoid economic anarchy.  Yes, we had to "mortgage the future" but the only other alternative Republicans left us was a worldwide depression -- no thank you!  Meanwhile, the Republicans are left without any countermoves other than their own inexplicable self-destruction, without which we wouldn't even know they were still here.

 

President Obama gives me reason to wake up proud of America, and every Republican reason to be "green," not environmentally but with envy!

 

Mitt Romney should have been in a celebratory mood all weekend when one of his chief rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, darling of the right-iest of the right, Sarah Palin, inexplicably and incoherently quit as governor of Alaska.  Ed Rollins, a rare GOP speaker-of-truth, called the move "political suicide."  But before Millionaire Mitt starts counting down his steps to the White House ("One chicken, two chickens, three chickens ...") he needs to realize Palin's move is not suicide in isolation, but potentially a major kamikaze, and it's unwittingly targeted at the GOP.

 

Already running for the nomination barely below the surface, Mitt Rushmore has seen one potential challenger after another blow up politically without Mitt firing shot one.  President Obama took out possibly his own, and Mitt's, most competent foe, Utah Gov. John Huntsman.  A personable and capable chief executive, Obama dispatched Huntsman halfway around the world as U.S. Ambassador to China, but only after checking with NASA first for evidence of nationhood on other planets. 

 

Charlie Crist, soon-to-be-former Governor of Florida and a Gulf States version of Huntsman, looks headed for an ugly primary fight and a tough Senate election.  He'll probably prevail in both, but maybe not.  Either way, Crist and his war chest will be bruised and the GOP extremist base hates him.  Another former GOP Governor, Mike Huckabee, is a creationist of the first degree, but in his previous attempt at the nomination showed himself to be limited and more viable for the VP slot. 

 

I don't buy into a Newt Gingrich comeback.  If the economy is on the mend, I doubt he'd waste his time or money on a campaign to nowhere.  As for the rest, there is no need to repeat their well-chronicled foibles and fiascos.  What Sarah Palin does next, however, could have profound implications for Romney. 

 

Palin's appeal is to Americans who are best described as the relatives we have to invite to the holiday barbeque and try to ignore as politely as possible between saying "hello" and "thanks for coming."  Palin will have almost three years between now and the next GOP convention to dominate the media because everyone loves a freak show.  She may be  misguided enough to launch the most embarrassing campaign for the GOP nomination in prty history.  Or, her plan might be to become the Nega-Oprah.and cash in while there's mney to be made and a market for her diatribes.  Either way, her egotism will compel her to advocate her barely disguised themes of bigotry, violence, xenophobia and exclusion.

 

Any way it plays out, prima donna Palin will skew the Republican dialogue so far to the right, it will be tantamount to a dive-bomber steering towards the largest target in it's own battle group, and that's unquestionably Romney.  He will have to give up all pretense of being moderate just to compete for the base in the primaries, and if he does, indeed, become the GOP nominee, this will haunt him in November.  Or, he can kiss the base goodbye, run to the middle, and be just as damned by lack of numbers. 

 

Palin is Bob Barr with funding, Ron Paul with Christian soldiers, Bill O'Reilly with glam, Ann Coulter with government experience, and Rush Limbaugh without the smarts.  And now she has time on her hands.  Mitt shouldn't count his chickens before they hatch, but he should remember that they always come home to roost, and the GOP hatched a big, bad one in Alaska.

Narcissism.  Xenophobia.  Superstition.  Bigotry.  Sadism.  Cultism.  Denial.  Sexual predation.  Arrested development.  Delusion.  Bullying.  Dissociation.  Paranoia.  Repression.  Obsession.  Avarice.  Egotism.  Insecurity.  Pathological lying.  God complex.  Megalomania.  Misogyny.  Sociopathy. 

 

Do any of these words describe Republicans you know, either personally or as elected or appointed officials?  Perhaps more than one term applies in any number of cases.  I am not a psychiatrist, psychologist or sociologist.  But I do have common sense and a long memory.  I saw the seeds of many of these behaviors among Republican voters, commentators, candidates and office holders about the time Ronald Reagan came to power.  Now, these behaviors dominate Republican discourse.  They are mainstream.

 

Reasonable voices like Colin Powell and Charlie Crist are ostracized and subjected to ad hominem attacks from the "true" GOP, like Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney.  Others, like Richard Lugar and Lawrence Wilkerson, openly disagree with their more radicalized fellows to such an extent that Reagan's 11th Commandment is officially dead.  Still others that were arguably reasonable, like John McCain, have become increasingly shrill and strident.  Arlen "RINO" Specter changed sides.  The venerable Tom Davis just gave up.

 

Every month, lately every week, features the GOP in a new public relations disaster.  Jindal.  Cheney.  Specter.  Ensign.  Sanford.  Palin.  Each new incident brings out the gymnast in the GOP apologists and spin-doctors.  The latest and strangest occurrence was Sarah Palin's pouty and abrupt resignation as Alaska's governor.  Her ill-considered public ramblings equated continuing with quitting, quitting with winning, and leading with being driven from office - up-is-down, wrong-is-right Bizarro politics at its finest.  

 

A child would typically reject these absurd notions, but a swath of educated, credentialed and popular GOP role players have the temerity to call this move "shrewd."  Partially, this is institutional damage control, but a survey of various conservative blogs indicates an amazing degree of support and acceptance among some members of the rank and file who still love their Sarah.  Republican strategist Ed Rollins had the honesty to call it political suicide, but when Ed Rollins is the voice of sweet reason, something is seriously wrong in the clubhouse.

 

I have therefore been forced by events to come to a reluctant conclusion.  I say "reluctant" because it's so improbable, but, as A. Conan Doyle wrote for Sherlock Holmes, "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"  My conclusion is that the socio-pathologies listed above are not characteristics of Republicans, they are Republicans' characteristics.  To avoid being accused of sweeping generalizations, let me reel it in a bit and say that these are the characteristics of too many Republicans for the party's own good.

 

Any organization is an expression of the humans that make it up.  Leaders cannot lead and followers cannot gather in the absence of at least the perception of shared vision and values.  The men and women who lead the Republican party reflect various tendencies of their constituencies; this is axiomatic in the fact that they are the leaders.  And the remaining American men and women who self-identify as Republicans share characteristics of the leaders they have chosen; it's axiomatic in the fact that they are followers.

 

In the broadly construed organization of Republicanism, meaning elected officials, party members, operatives, commentators, contributors, and voters, some of these social pathologies have masqueraded as policy.  There is a strong strain of covert and at times overt bigotry in Republican thought on social programs.  On immigration reform, while Democrats have embraced the logical advantages of soliving a problem while expanding their base, xenophobia is a core aspect of the GOP's emotional and self-defeating reaction to the issue.  Unbridled avarice drives much of the GOP opposition to progressive taxation.  Other policies abound with emotionally unstable dynamics: paranoia is interchangeable with national security, denial is the handmaiden for global warming, and pathological lying passes for communication.

 

Other examples of emotional defects are found among some of the most visible Republicans in the country.  Sen. James Inhofe, who was "outraged at the outrage" over institutionalized torture of prisoners, has a strong streak of sadism.  Mark Foley was an archetype sexual predator; his fancy for young men could easily have been the substitute for a darker preference.  In its most extreme expression, Evangelical Christianity is not what Jesus Christ taught, but tantamount to superstition; see Alan Keyes, who in his debate with State Senator Obama cited religious faith as a cure for our problems. 

 

Cultism is in full bloom for Mike Huckabee and similar believers who despite unalterable proof in sciences from paleontology to physics peg the Earth's age at about 7,000 years (all probably displayed in an emotionally comforting time line at the Creationist Museum).  On the other hand, they dismiss evolution as a "theory" incapable of scientific proof.  Evidently, Huckabee and his fellows see no flaw in this contradiction, or in such a selective approach to applying their standards of proof to reinforce personal beliefs rejected by an overwhelming majority, including people of many faiths.  

 

Repression: Larry Craig, a tortured soul who deserves pity.  God complex: Rudy Giulianai.  Egotism: Tom Delay.  Narcissim: Gov. Mark Sanford.  Delusion: Sen. Jim DeMint.  Arrested development: Sarah Palin.  Sexual obsession: Sen. David Vitter.  Sociopath: George W. Bush.  Megalomania: Too numerous to list.  Paranoia, thy name is Cheney.  Sen. Jim Bunning and Rep. Michelle Bachman are, well, just nuts.  Yet every one of these miscreants boasts (or boasted) strong support in segments of the American electorate.  Clearly their voters saw something they liked, and some still do. 

 

Similarly, Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter and their like are reprehensible humans, serial liars and media bullies who are loved by misguided millions.  It all becomes a self-reinforcing feedback loop until one of the players cracks under the pressure (i.e., Craig, Palin) or is found out (i.e., Ensign, Sanford, Vitter).  Then the sparks fly and veteran observers, Republicans and Democrats alike, just shake their heads in bemusement. Democrats have their own scoundrels, but they are far fewer in number, do not dominate policy, and of late are quickly ejected, not defended (Rod Blagojevich, Eliot Spitzer, William Jefferson).  These are signs of an emotionally healthy organization.

I still am incredulous at this realization, but it potentially explains so very much.  The GOP isn't in deep trouble because of Iraq or demographics or scandals or recession.  These are contributing factors but they are all transitory.  The GOP is in trouble because a significant portion of the party's base, the party's leaders, and the party's most vocal spokespeople are slaves to identifiable social and mental disabilities.  They are not driven by ideology, but by pathology.  It's been festering for years, culminating in an ongoing, spectacular collapse due to their inability to maintain the façade, accept the failure of their beliefs and cope with a changing world.   

This is why so many Republicans are retreating to their comfort zone and preaching a "return" to core, conservative values even while the country as a whole is demanding the opposite and GOP leaders betray those values with stunning visibility.  This call has nothing to do with embracing true conservative political thinking as a strategy- it's a call to return to the cult of dysfunctionality under the delusion that repeating with greater intensity the same behaviors that produced monumental failure will instead produce success.  A belief that this approach will lead to national political prominence and the establishment of government doctrine is delusional in the highest degree.  Bush may not have been a "true" conservative but he was a "true" Republican while Colin Powell is not, and therein lies the GOP's problem. 

 

Scandals, outrageous remarks and ill-considered actions are not causes of the Republican downfall, but symptoms of deeper flaws.  The symptoms will recur as long as the issues remain.  This won't improve with new strategies - the GOP needs better, healthier people from top to bottom  When that happens, the extremists will be pushed to the fringe, where they used to be.  Until that happens, the Republican party will continue to be, at best, regionalized, marginalized, and comically disorganized, and, at worst, hateful and violent - their blogs seethe with venom and their farthest reaches include and condone political murderers and terrorists. 

 

The political contest today is no longer just about policies, ideas and personalities.  It's also about one side that proceeds from mental disorder versus one that doesn't.  Rational individuals would drive the most visible and vocal Republicans out of their party, into the sea and start all over.  Accepting these behaviors is dissociation from reality on a mass scale. 

 

Eliminate the impossible and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Unfreaking real.  Get ready for Romney-Huckabee as one target afer another rolls by and self-destructs.  If something untoward happens to Mitt Rushmore or Reverend Mike, Obama is going to have to run against the Washington Generals, whose sole purpose was to be beaten by the Harlem Globetrotters every night.

I'm listening now to her absurd, ridiculous speech while I keystroke this.  What the Hell is she saying??  And how utterly, completely, stupid does John McCain look now?  The words "politics of personal destruction" should have burned her mouth as she said them.

I can't write fast enough, I can't think fast enough to keep up with the GOP's self-destruction.  She's talking like an employee that a manager really wanted to fire, but she wasn't quite bad enough, and then she quits because she's all pouty over how the lunch breaks were assigned.

Oh, yeah, there it is, "Support for our troops" -- had to be in there somewhere.

Can David Letterman take his apology back now?

Should someone have told her that she was babbling?  Good Gawd what a blithering idiot.  "Some governors have fun as lame ducks."  I don't know about the "duck" part, but ...

Funny thing is, I'm going to miss her.

No I'm not. 

What a prize weenie.  Maybe she's another-other (another Nutter Butter?) woman in the Sanford affair.

 

I posted this earlier in the week on a site I discovered through Prof. Juan Cole: on-message.net, a venue with minimum "noise" and maximum discourse.  No offense to TPM, which is still light-years ahead of the degenerated DailyKos, but what on-message lacks in quantity it makes up for in quality as a nice TPM supplement. 

As my comment pulled together so much of what I've believed about current politics for some time now, I thought it was worth a re-posting here, with an addendum at the end.  It's a comment to a very intelligent piece about how President Obama's real intent is to achieve, essentially, a tectonic shift in American governance and that, despite a few stubbed toes, he's pretty much succeeding - at least at this early stage. 

Obama is playing the highest-stakes-possible political game, but playing on a board that he and his team are aware tilts increasingly toward his worldview.

For example, like the Republicans did in the 70s, the Democrats are grooming a "farm team" of very impressive future leaders, like Denver Mayor Hickenlooper who put on a showcase 2008 Democratic National Convention to launch the new President. Mayor Hickenlooper could easily replace Gov. Ritter, who is term-limited after 2010 or step up sooner and run for the Senate if appointed Senator Bennett falters. Another example is Florida's CFO (Treasurer) Alex Sink, now running aggressively for the Governor's office that Charlie Christ will vacate when he is likely elected to be the state's next Republican senator. While the odds are against Sink, she will put on a credible race that will make her a force in the future, either in Florida or as a potential cabinet nominee in 2012, to be formidable on her return.

The Republicans, on the other hand, have a leadership void, as long as the likes of Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin are projected as the party's "faces of the future." The GOP itself is silencing most of its own voices of reason, or we're seeing once-perceived reasonable office holders, like Sen. John McCain, join in the belligerence while others, like Sen. Lugar, are increasingly disagreeing with their own party. Sen. Specter's defection is the prime example.

President Obama is helping this leadership deficit along and showing his political acumen by bringing Republicans into the federal space through key appointments. Sending a credible 2012 GOP challenger, Gov. John Huntsman, halfway around the world to be U.S. Ambassador to China, elevating one of the "endangered" Upstate New York congressional representatives to Army Secretary, and coming very close to lifting New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg out of his seat to run Commerce should not be mistaken for bipartisanship. Meanwhile, the Democrats he nominated to senior posts came from Democratic "safe havens" like New York, emerging Democratic "leaners" like Colorado, or states that had powerful Democrats only as a fluke, like Arizona. All of this is contributing to the regionalization of the Republicans in the Deep South, the High Rockies or the Plains and Prairies.

 

Lots of demographic factors are going to weigh down the Republicans, too, like an electorate more driven by the young who are "owned" by Obama, and the Internet which is "owned" by the young, unions that will rebound with EFCA or without EFCA simply by stronger enforcement of existing unionization laws and regulations, a census that will be more inclusive (fairly or unfairly, depending on your party), Democratic-dominated redistricting, and, finally, delayed but inevitable immigration reform that will in all likelihood add millions of Democratic votes, placing California forever out of the national GOP's reach and seriously altering the electoral equation in Florida and Texas.

Amazingly, as much as the banks and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce may complain about "re-regulation" Obama has managed to make serious in-roads there, too. Trying to identify the new Democratic coalition he is assembling is a waste of time; counting the remaining reliably Republican noses is much easier.

This is a President who will "out-Clinton" Bill Clinton. He has the tools, the time, the battlefield is tilted in his favor and the dynamics both within and outside of his control are tilting it even more so. I think he's going to win the long-term game. If he does, the pendulum will inevitably swing back to the right, but not for a long, long time.

I received a reply from an astute observer who added that "unexpected events may derail this train, or ... an economic, foreign relations or domestic event might weaken the foundation upon which Obama plans to build this Democratic future."  This, of course, is absolutely correct, as is the fact that even strategies that look good and are well intended can disastrously fail (cf. "Operation Market Garden").  And, as the reply comment noted, failures on "minor issues of symbolic importance" can also have a disproportionate impact on perceptions. 

It is doubtful that North Korea is actually a threat to Hawaii, but given this is the President's birthplace and the site of the Pearl Harbor attack, the "symbolic importance" of the issue and the leverage that a misstep would provide Republicans is very high.  So is the symbolism of Iran important, as the country that humiliated America, humbled U.S. intelligence, and launched the modern era of institutionalized radical Islam.  No real missteps are evident thus far, however, and with great uncertainty of the future of the neo-revolution in Iran and what it might produce as well as the risk of "Americanizing" the movement, vocal support for a people's right of self-determination is probably as far as Obama should go - for now. 

While there will be tactical errors and sub-strategies that inevitably backfire or just don't pan out, President Obama has already achieved a singularly remarkable result: through policy decisions, political maneuvers, and an amazing amount of wit, charm and steely intellect, he has seized upon the national rejection of neoconservativism and theocratic policies to marginalize the most radical American political elements.  This is why the Republicans are in such disarray; the engine that drove them for the last 30 years has blown like an overextended NASCAR racer. 

This disarray is also seen in the increasing resort to or subornation of violent means by the American right's extremist wing.  Violence by the right is inversely proportional to political influence.  Now that the GOP can't deliver on Gods, guns and gays, the bomb-throwers (or church-shooters, home-invaders, and museum-attackers) are not liberals but bedfellows of the right (as an aside, this will be a growing challenge to law enforcement).  More Americans still believe in the efficacy of torture than reasonably should, but there are some things that might never change, or at least not in my era.

The bottom line for America is, for the first time in my adult life, I like the looks of the country shaping up that my children are inheriting and that my grandchildren will inherit.  I intend to do what I can to keep it that way.

 

I'm too tired to write anything profound, but lately I've had a profound revelation.  Conservatives have, as satirist Terry Pratchett might put it, gone straight through wrong and come out on the other side.  They are that fouled up.

Exhibit A: My conservative friend hammers at how scared I should be about closing Gitmo and letting Jihadis loose in our prison system to recruit more like the sicko who killed the Army recruiter.  I told him he was nuts and that I was more scared of the Russian mob. Within two weeks, a gynecologist is killed in his church, a guard is killed in the Holocaust Museum, and a nine-year-old girl who was dumb enough to be born to a drug dealer is killed along with her father in her home, all by ultra-right wingers.   I haven't heard back from my friend on Gitmo in a while.  I won't contact him because I don't have the heart to rub his face in it.

Exhibit B: Conservatives and John McCain want to bomb bomb bomb Iran.  Obama says "Let's talk" and vive la revolucione!

Exhibit C: Cheney says Obama policies make us less safe and more vulnerable to attack.  Well, then, what the Hell were he and Bush doing for most of 2001?  Anybody want to ask him that some fine Sunday morning?  Or are his post-VP 15 minutes up?

Exhibit D: Yet another GOP/christianist sex scandal.  Set 'em up, knock 'em down.  ThankyousirmayIhaveanother.

Are these people just friggin stupid?  Quick, let's go to their houses and tell them to give us all their money and we'll keep it safe and make it big, then we won't give it back.  It worked for the banks.

There is absolutely no point in any state, perhaps least of all Texas, even thinking about secession from the United States, were it remotely legally possible under the Constitution.

 

Texas can't afford it.

 

This just shows what fools there are among us as the core Republican Party dwindles down to the whack jobs and nutcases, and for Governor Rick Perry to not rule the absurdity of secession out immediately and forcefully just shows where he's pitching his tent.

 

Consider that, according to the U.S. Census Consolidated Federal Funds Report for Texas in 2007 (available at http://harvester.census.gov/cffr/asp/Geography.asp), the federal government sent over $171,000,000,000 into Texas through direct payments and obligations and a nearly equal amount, about $160,000,000,000 indirectly through loans, guarantees and insurance.

 

Let's say just for fun, we all sign the papers and Texas becomes the Lone Star Republic again.  After the last refrains of "The Yellow Rose of Texas" die away, here's what else stops:

 

Medicare

Federal Medicaid share

Food Stamps

Temporary Assistance to Needy Families

Military spending

NASA spending

University grants

Scholarships

Federal housing assistance

Federal jobs

Interstate highway maintenance

Airport operations under the FAA

Farm subsidies

Small Business Loans

Coast Guard operations

National park operations

 

Why bother continuing this list?  The very existence of Texas is part and parcel with the continuity of the federal government and federal spending before we consider dime one of the stimulus package.  Of course, all the wages that this generates, the purchases, the state and local tax revenues, well, that's got to stop of course. And that's just what stops NOW.

 

I think Texas owes us for those interstate highways my tax dollars helped build, plus the cost of relocating our military bases, not to mention NASA operations, and those independent Chuck Norris wannabe's better pay up if we're leaving those national parks behind.  Of course, there are also oil, mineral, and grazing rights on federal (sorry) FORMERLY federal lands but I'm sure we can work something out.

 

By the way, Texas, we'll be expecting you to keep that border secure with Mexico.  If you don't, we'll just have to secure your border with us.  And that super-duper truck highway from Mexico to Oklahoma City that was in the pipeline?  Fuggedaboudit.  Rail travel is going to be a little trickier, too.  And you'll have to secure your own seaports.

 

Social Security and Veterans programs will, of course, have to transition.  Over time, those who have already paid into the Social Security system will be taken care of, but any new enrollments stop.  Veterans are a slightly different category - would Texas veterans forego their rights to benefits?  Tough question, and I'm 50/50 on it right now.

 

I know, we're in a bit of a housing slump, but don't count on any federal support for a secondary mortgage market.  You'll have to build your own.  But it's going to be awfully tough to get Texas housing sales started again with 85% down payments.

 

On the subject of finance, no more FDIC insurance, PBGIC insurance, SEC coverage, well, the list gets awfully long awfully fast.  And since American Airlines would no longer be American Airlines if it stays in Dallas, maybe it can move up to Chicago where United is already, I'm sure they'd have lots to talk about. 

 

Not to mention Bank of America, Citibank, J.P. Morgan Chase, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, we know these guys "follow the money" and there's just not going to be as much in Texas anymore so don't expect the money center banks to remain there in strength.    That's OK - I'm sure the financial largesse of the First State Bank of San Antonio will pull you through.

 

Come to think of it, I don't think the NCAA has room in its charter for foreign country athletic teams, so goodbye to the UT-Oklahoma annual football clash and any other games with teams beyond your turf.  I'll grant that there is plenty of precedent in professional sports so the Pokes and the Redskins will probably still have their twice-annual tilts.  You'll have that going for you anyway.

 

I see a lot of advertisements "here up north" for vacationers to come to Texas.  Even if the U.S. is generous and doesn't slap travel restrictions onto your fair nation while easing those on Cuba (what delicious irony) I'm thinking that a lot of U.S. travelers will be spending their vacations in California.  "Remember the Alamo" will go from being a statement to a question.

 

By the way, have we come to the point of your new currency?  Good luck with that, folks.  I see you trading initially at 50 "Texas Stars" to the Ruble, but there's nowhere to go after that but up.  Maybe.

 

The scariest part of all this for Texans is that maybe Mexico is going to want you back.  I think they might still be pretty pissed off.  But that's OK because Dubya can come out of reitrement, suit up, and lead the Texas Air National Guard to repel the invaders -- Hollywood couldn't come up with anything better!  Oh, wait -- isn't that the basic plot of "Independence Day"? 

 

The notion of any state seceding can only be described as infantile, and for any political figure to indulge the idea even for a moment is idiotic, even if they're just trying to get some face time on Fox.  It's so remarkably stupid, I was able to dash this posting off in about 45 minutes, research included.  I'd really like to see experts take some time and dimension what it would involve to disentangle Texas from the United States.  Truth is, there won't be a lot left after We The People leave.

 

Hey, I don't hang around where I'm not wanted.

Come and listen to my story

'Bout a man named Todd,

He raced snowmobiles

But not Iditarod.

He married Sarah 'Cuda

She took his last name,

That opened up the door to

The Palin Hall of Shame!

 

Trash, that is - trailer parks, felonies.

 

The next thing you know,

Young Sarah runs the town.

Don't cross the lady mayor,

'Cause she don't mess around.

Bein' mayor is fine,

But Sarah wasn't done,

She ran for governor

And she easily won.

 

Alaska, that is - up north, real cold.

 

That was A-OK

Until 2008,

When Senator McCain

Had to find a runnin' mate.

Sarah brought some buzz,

'Till a man from Illinois

Tossed 'em both aside

Like a couple o' toys.

 

Landslide, that is - vote for change, not McSame.

 

Sarah blamed old John

For a campaign that flopped,

Decided that the White House

Would be her next stop.

Little did she know

Of the problems on the way,

This Northern Star dimmed

A little every day.

 

Issues, that is - scandal plagued, crazy in-laws.

 

Daughter Bristol Palin

Was in "the family way."

She sent the daddy Levi

Off packin' one day.

This all by itself

Would give any mother stress,

But then Levi's mom was

Nabbed for sellin' meth!

 

Controlled substance, that is - sounded like meth, anyway.

 

Diana Palin's edge

Was bein' Todd's half-sis,

But Diana had a plan

That she knew just couldn't miss.

She'd burglarize a house

In the land of snow and ice,

If she missed something good,

She'd break into it twice!

 

Scene of the crime - they all come back now, y'hear?

 

There's a whole lot more

But that's all we're sayin' now,

Alaska's GOP

Is about to have a cow.

Knowin' Todd and Sarah

It's bound to get worse,

Check in next week

And we'll add another verse!

 

THE ANCHORAGE HILLBILLIES!

I feel privileged to live in this time, when the world is changing.  We've all seen the numbers.  The GOP may be treading water with women, but they've lost the young.  They've lost Hispanics.  They're losing men.  They're losing the suburbs.  They lost the House, the Senate and the Oval Office.  The killer is, now they're losing big business, and Obama is sealing the deal by bailing out Wall Street.  They've lost territory - the geographical strength of the party is in the Deep South, the High Rockies and scattered among the plains - states that have checkered histories as the last bastions of slavery and separatism, home to a religious outlook that veers into the deeply superstitious.  We will see Texas become Democratic, with the possible election of a Hispanic governor in 2012.  Before then, the economic death spiral will arrest itself, and might start to grow again by 2011.  Stocks and home prices will edge up, gingerly.  Meanwhile, 40 million people will be able to go to the doctor again and millions more will see their tax burden reduced.

 

This is so over.  But the numbers don't show the worst problem the GOP faces: Denial, which is all the rage apparently at CPAC and has even infected the GOP rank-and-file.  For years I have debated politics and policy at great length with a conservative friend of mine and he does a great job of putting his positions forward.  But I stopped.  I just can't take it any more.  Not so much that we disagree on policy, I just can't take that he refuses to accept it is a terrible problem for the GOP that at least one-third of his party is made up of nuts -Rushites, Coulterans, Palinistas, and other assorted "neocultists" who will doom his party long before they get a chance to doom America. 

 

And there's absolutely no hope for the GOP as a national party in the near future. Based on the CPAC straw poll, we're looking down the road at Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and Mike Huckabee, none of whom could beat John McCain who couldn't beat an inexperienced Obama; Newt Gingrich, who already refused to take on this weak field who couldn't beat John McCain who couldn't beat an inexperienced Obama; Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal, proven liars, objects of national ridicule already and governors of small population states that go Republican anyway; Mark Sanford, arch-conservative from a small population state in a region that likewise goes Republican anyway; Ron Paul, unelectable nutjob; Charlie Crist, a moderate who is hated by the "basest" of the base; and ... Tom Pawlenty (crickets chirping).

 

"Someone else" finished in the high-middle, but who?  There may be whispers about Jeb Bush, who would be a formidable candidate but only to the extent of putting up the best fight, getting the most funding, and securing the closest loss - the U.S.A. has had its fill of the Bush family.  Maybe we'll see the emergence of a new candidate, but the only one of any possible strength at all might be Texas Governor Rick Perry, who will not wear well on the national stage and was so weak in Texas that his reelection-by-plurality featured competition from a Republican Texas State Comptroller who ran against him as an independent and singer-satirist Kinky Friedman, lead man for Kinky and the Texas Jew Boys.  All of this is somehow supposed to be tied into a force by Michael "hip hop bling bling" Steele, who has already alienated the three GOP Senators whose heads are closest to where America is now, and where it's going to be tomorrow.

 

Then will come the 2010 census, and the GOP is right to be in a panic.  What follows is redistricting, largely controlled this time by Democrats.  Eventually, immigration reform will come along, adding millions to Democratic voter rolls.  Republican representation in the House will continue to contract.  The Democrats will pass sixty senators.  States might remain about even in governors for awhile, but in this atmosphere, Democrats will control state legislatures, the "farm teams" of national party politics.

 

Someone please tell me where I'm wrong.  Watching the spasms of the GOP is sad, almost pathetic, and they won't bottom out until, as they say about abusive personalities, they admit they have a problem.  I haven't seen any indication this is happening, though.  They're still blaming others - their members who aren't "conservative enough,"  the good old liberal media, or their own inability to "get their message out" which translates into saying "Americans are too dumb to see how smart we are."  All the while they seem convinced that their party is poised for a rebound, that they are just in a down cycle.  This misreading of the American mindset is groupthink at a mind-boggling level.

 

I want two parties.  I want the GOP to survive and provide balance.  I want my conservative friend to understand that.  But until he is ready to admit that his party is on the precipice of national irrelevance, it's too painful for me to talk politics with him anymore.  He might as well be arguing for the existence of the Easter Bunny while I'm proving up traffic lights.  And the only reason I can think of that he remains in such oblivion, that he and his fellow travelers have allowed people to have the run of their party who are verging on the insane and violent, is because everything they were taught to believe about American society, economics, and politics by their fathers was wrong.  Today's GOP is so visceral on the one hand and so irrational on the other, that the only way I can explain it is that it's a reaction to a psychic attack against their core beliefs - it has made the mildly unhinged Republicans into radicals and pushed the level-headed ones deeply into denial.

 

Politics is as generational as following sports teams.  My parents were FDR Democrats who lived through The Great Depression.  That shaped how I looked at the world, until I became able to discriminate among theories of government and realized FDR was right all along.  My kids are Obama Democrats who are living through The Great Recession.  I am imprinting upon them while they are learning their own lessons.  I am sanguine about the loss of my investments because I know my kids and my grandkids are in line for a better world, one that they will continue to improve long after I'm dead.  Such is the price of victory.  The price of defeat, however, seems to be a psychological break with the rational.

 

Unless and until something happens to bring the party back to the real world, we will marvel at a GOP train wreck that continues to unfold and will do so for many years to come.  We can only wonder what will take its place.