Barack Obama's campaign was based partly on the idea that change is about what we the people do, and not just the candidate. We have been urged and given the opportunity to donate and to organize in our communities, and the results have been inspiring. Thousands of people, if not millions, are politically engaged for the first time or the first time in a long time. When I went to an Obama houseparty the other night, I felt a revived sense of community often missing in today's world. So, through Obama's leadership, America has started to get off it's collective butt, put down their computers, and come together. It's a very encouraging start. But we face a number of grave challenges that are unique and unfamiliar: global warming, an equity and financial crisis that we can't grow out of, racial inequalities that continue, and an increasingly prosperous and diverse global community that distrusts us. We cannot leave this up to the "experts" and the "professionals" as has so often been done in the past. An Obama administration, more than any other, promises to allow ordinary people to have a say in our future policy directions on critical issues. The news that Obama is asking people to host "Listening to America" events is a great sign that he understands the wisdom of crowds. In response, I am going to use my blog, Political Dissonance (http://politicaldissonance.blogspot.com) as a forum for a discussion of the issues that we think an Obama administration should take on. This is not meant to be an exercise in detailed policy formation, but rather advice and guidance for the administration to take to solve particular problems. I will be relying heavily on my friends and colleagues to send in their thoughts, and welcome anyone who wants to participate to email me here. Let's help Obama in the coming months to create a platform, and a policy infrastructure, that matches the kind of change he has promised and our nation sorely needs. Please check out my blog and contribute if you are interested!

We should all take a look at the very sad and very disturbing column by Bob Herbert that discusses the distress caused to ordinary Vermonters. Herbert based the column on letters written to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders by citizens of that state:

Senator Sanders asked his constituents to write to him about their experiences in a difficult economy. He was blown away by both the volume of responses and “the depth of the pain” of many of those who wrote.

A 55-year-old man who said his economic condition was “very scary,” wrote: “I don’t live from paycheck to paycheck. I live day to day.” He has no savings, he said. His gas tank is never more than a quarter full, and he can’t afford to buy the “food items” he would like.

His sense of his own mortality was evident in every sentence, and he wondered how long he could continue. “I am concerned as gas prices climb daily,” he said. “I am just tired. The harder that I work, the harder it gets. I work 12 to 14 hours daily, and it just doesn’t help.”

A working mother with two young children wrote: “Some nights we eat cereal and toast for dinner because that’s all I have.”

Another woman said she and her husband, both 65, “only eat two meals a day to conserve.”

A woman who has been trying to sell her house for two years and described herself as “stretched to the breaking point,” told the senator, “I don’t go to church many Sundays because the gasoline is too expensive to drive there.”

You can find more of the letters sent to Senator Sanders here.

Two thoughts: first, members of Congress should reach out as Senator Sanders has and let their constituents know that they have the space to vent and put forward good ideas for economic recovery. The second thought, echoed in this Boston Globe article about young people and gas prices, is that politicians must find a way to address the problems caused by high gas prices responsibly. We should not be trying to reduce gas prices. We should be finding ways to use govern to ease the problems prices are causing for us at the pump, something Democrats seen to be picking up on this year. Senator McCain's ridiculous call for a gas tax, on the other hand, demonstrates that he is not willing to press the American public to be serious about national sacrifice and environmental planning. Progressives should capitalize this fall, but still reach out to the majority who is hurting right now.

Cross-posted at http://politicaldissonance.blogspot.com

I watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth again the other night, and it gave me a strong and sober reminder of how important it is to take immediate and consequential action to reduce our contribution to global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently concluded that global temperatures are very likely to rise between 3.2 and 7.2 degrees F (3 degrees and 5.8 C). Global warming will also contribute to extraordinary weather events, a view buttressed by the horrific impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

This year's run ins with climate change have come a bit closer to home. Earlier this week, Boston experienced record high temperatures for this early in the summer, with temperatures in Boston in the high 90s. The heat took us by surprise because it has been relatively cool here throughout April and May.

More importantly, though, are the major flooding events that struck my family's homes in Iowa. Earlier this week, Decorah, home of my parents and Luther College, experienced major flooding after waters in the Upper Iowa (part of the Mississippi) flowed over and broke many of the levees. You can see some pictures here. The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported that Upper Iowa reached 17.9 feet, beating the previous record set in 1933 by 2 feet.

The residents of the city of Cedar Rapids, population of about 120,000, received more of a jolt when flooding broke levees there and put much of the city underwater. Waters there reached a stunning 29 feet, 17 feet above flood stage as the New York Times reported today. This broke the previous record by over 6 feet! “Usually if you break a record, you only do it by an inch or two,” said Jeff Zogg, a hydrologist for the Weather Service in Davenport, Iowa. “But breaking it by six feet? That’s pretty amazing.”

For me, the events in Iowa signal an urgent need to change our national priorities in order to prepare for rising temperatures and extreme weather events and to head off the worst global warming scenarios. This will involve a major cultural-mindset shift, where environmental issues displace traditional military priorities as the top national and international security issues. We have a long way to go. To give a quick preview, the current budget for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is $12.6 billion (see the Budget Details pdf), while the current budget for the Iraq War may end up being about $212 billion (the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars) costs about $9 billion per month). Mr. Gore says frequently that "political will" is a "renewable resource." If we hope to avoid a climate catastrophe, we're going to need a lot of it.

Yesterday, we witnessed a rare moment of consensus in this presidential campaign when the Presidential candidates Barack Obama, John McCain, and Hillary Clinton pledged the Sudanese government and its janjaweed militia fighters have been leveling villages in western Sudan as part of their battle with the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebels. The conflict has killed over 200,000 Darfuris and turned 2.5 million into refugees, a humanitarian crisis that shocks the conscience and seems unlikely to ease anytime soon. A recent report by the staff at Save Darfur demonstrates that a "systematic program of reprisals and retaliations conducted by the Sudanese government against Darfuris," including mass detentions, summary executions, repression of journalists, and looting, has in fact accelerated within the last month. The Joint Statement is an encouraging sign that the next President will take more definitive action to press the Sudanese government and its foreign clients to stop its campaign of terror. Here is an excerpt from the "We Stand United on Sudan" statement: Today, we wish to make clear to the Sudanese government that on this moral issue of tremendous importance, there is no divide between us. We stand united and demand that the genocide and violence in Darfur be brought to an end and that the CPA be fully implemented. Even as we campaign for the presidency, we will use our standing as Senators to press for the steps needed to ensure that the United States honors, in practice and in deed, its commitment to the cause of peace and protection of Darfur’s innocent citizenry. We will continue to keep a close watch on events in Sudan and speak out for its marginalized peoples. It would be a huge mistake for the Khartoum regime to think that it will benefit by running out the clock on the Bush Administration. If peace and security for the people of Sudan are not in place when one of us is inaugurated as President on January 20, 2009, we pledge that the next Administration will pursue these goals with unstinting resolve. You can see a video with Obama, McCain, and Clinton discussing their positions on the issue here. If you have a moment, check out the pledge and the video. While we know from our recent history that American political campaigns are not ideal forums for creating action on genocide, the pledge represents an important step forward for the candidates and signals the possibility of strong action to ease violence against the Darfuris. Perhaps, in these coming years, our government will take further steps to create a foreign policy that is consistent with our values and our interests. Cross-posted at http://politicaldissonance.blogspot.com/.

This week, the Senate passed an extension of the GI Bill that would pay full tuition for returning veterans at a public university and grant substantial subsidies for those going to private universities. Seems like a great war to honor the sacrifice of our veterans this Memorial Day. Here's what the chief author of the bill, Jim Webb said after its passage: "Today, the Senate took a historic step toward a modern and fair educational benefit for the men and women who have served honorably since 9/11," said Webb. "This bill properly responds to the needs of those who answered the call of duty to our country--those who moved toward the sound of the guns--often at great sacrifice. The New York Times editorial, however, notes that George Bush and John McCain opposed the bill: President Bush opposes a new G.I. Bill of Rights. He worries that if the traditional path to college for service members since World War II is improved and expanded for the post-9/11 generation, too many people will take it. He is wrong, but at least he is consistent. Having saddled the military with a botched, unwinnable war, having squandered soldiers' lives and failed them in so many ways, the commander in chief now resists giving the troops a chance at better futures out of uniform. He does this on the ground that the bill is too generous and may discourage re-enlistment, further weakening the military he has done so much to break. So lavish with other people's sacrifices, so reckless in pouring the national treasure into the sandy pit of Iraq, Mr. Bush remains as cheap as ever when it comes to helping people at home. Thankfully, the new G.I. Bill has strong bipartisan support in Congress. The House passed it by a veto-proof margin this month, and last week the Senate followed suit, approving it as part of a military financing bill for Iraq and Afghanistan. The Senate version was drafted by two Vietnam veterans, Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, and Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska. They argue that benefits paid under the existing G.I. Bill have fallen far behind the rising costs of college. Their bill would pay full tuition and other expenses at a four-year public university for veterans who served in the military for at least three years since 9/11. McCain, according to Matthew Yglesias, also has a long history of opposing increased spending on veterans. I am wondering if Democrats leadership and Bush's stinginess will affect/or are affecting how military members and their families view politics and the American political parties. Will it have a long-term impact on American politics?

Cross-posted at http://politicaldissonance.blogspot.com/

Senator Hillary Clinton reminded us that the 40th anniversary of Robert Kennedy's assassination is coming up on June 6th. In the midst of a bruising battle with Eugene McCarthy, Kennedy looked to have finally clinched the popular vote after the California primary, only to be killed by a deranged youth. It was a tragic end to the life of the politician who had come out so forcefully against "the mindless menace of violence".

I found Clinton's comments about Kennedy's death to be offensive, while I understand that she was not hoping for Senator Barack Obama to be hurt. The more important point is to remember that Kennedy, for a short time, managed to create a vision of justice and a coalition of hope that still inspires people today.

Senator Ted Kennedy summed up his brother's life best during his eulogy at St. Patrick's Cathedral after his death:

My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world. As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: "Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."

For a recording of the full speech, you can go here.

We should honor Robert Kennedy's legacy by thinking about how the likely Democratic nominee matches up to these standards and create lasting coalition that will allow us to dream a bit more.

This morning, the New York Times ran a piece about the problems that Barack Obama might have in the general election with Jewish voters in Florida, largely because of his skin color and rumors that he is a Muslim. On Monday, the Times wrote a piece about women and the problems that gender plays in presidential politics. Race was the central obsession after the West Virginia primary, and age has been a subject of significant analysis as well throughout the Democratic contest. All of these topics are legitimate subjects of inquiry, and create opportunity to test the political candidates and scrutinize important historical injustices and prejudices within American society.

The press, however, seems bent on keeping identity as the main focus of the election and it appears to be its primary criticism (and a shallow one at that) of Barack Obama (i.e. he can't win older white voters in key states). The media, popular, partisan, print, and television, must now move on to discuss the candidates in the context of the crucial national and international challenges that the nation faces. For at least the past two months, the immediate and long-term problems the Congress is grappling with and the president is ignoring have been largely banished from the headlines of major news outlets. 

Let's just pick three:

1) The house and mortgage crisis
2) Climate Change/Energy Security
3) Iraq

On each of these pressing matters of national and international importance, there are clear differences between the proposed plans of Barack Obama and John McCain and we should be pressing to hear more about them.  Now.

Race and gender are important topics and themes which citizens must continue to probe should we wish to improve justice and understanding within our society. But there are also important economic, environmental, and foreign policy challenges that cut across the divisions that the press has dwelled upon lately. Democrats will win in 2008 if they keep the discussion on the issues above and other substantive, material issues, rather than the character and identity tropes that the media prefers to talk about because Obama and the Democrats offer approaches that are more effective and more popular. Reality is a troublesome thing for the Republicans right now and progressives should unite and capitalize on that.

Originally posted at http://politicaldissonance.blogspot.com/.

We are currently witnessing two important and divergent trends during this early part of the election season. The first, and most significant, is the destruction of the Republican brand. In the three special House elections that have taken place this year, Democrats won convincing victories in "true red" districts in Illinois, Louisiana, and Mississippi. The loss in Mississippi particularly alarmed Republicans, as the district won by Democrat Travis Childers had given Bush over 60% of the vote in 2004. Retiring center-right Republican Tom Davis wrote in a memo, “The political atmosphere facing House Republicans this November is the worst since Watergate and is far more toxic than it was in 2006.”

Conservatism and the Republicans were steered into the rocks President Bush's reckless tenure in office and by the Republican Congress inability to respond effectively (or at all) to any of the major economic and environmental problems facing the nation. One could sense this in Washington in late 2005, as Republicans members of the House and Senate simply sneered at pleas for a change in course on Iraq, act quickly to rescue the Gulf Coast, or recognize the urgent threat of global warming. Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay iced the landslide Democratic victory in 2006, unthinkable just two years early. President Bush has the dubious distinction of being the most unpopular president in modern American history, according to a recent CNN survey.

George Packer, in an excellent article in this week's New Yorker, shows that there is much dissent within the conservative circles. He interviewed a number of conservative intellectuals, including former Bush administration policy advisor David Frum, New York Times columnist David Brooks, and National Review editor Rich Lowry. All of them believe that the conservative coalition of working class whites, evangelical Christians, libertarians, and the rich is coming to an end. The white lower and middle class mothers who rescued Bush in 2004 turned decisively against Republican policies in 2006. Their governing failures, from cronyism in war contracts to incompetence in Iraq and New Orleans to indifference towards income inequality and torture in Iraq and Afghanistan, played a major part in their downfall ( see Alan Wolfe's "Why Conservatives Can't Govern" for a good review of these failures).

The problem for conservatives goes deeper however than governance and managerial skill. The modern Republican party do understand or empathize with any of the major concerns of Americans today, especially young Americans, and they have no ideas, small or large for dealing with them. As one conservative public policymaker told Packer, “There’s an intellectual fatigue, even if it hasn’t yet been made clear by defeat at the polls. The conservative idea factory is not producing as it did. You hear it from everybody, but nobody agrees what to do about it.” David Brooks echoed their comments last Friday on the Lehrer Newshour:

Well, I think what they [the Republicans] should do is just totally re-brand themselves, but they haven't done that. I mean, they -- and I was struck. I've been meeting with Republicans for years. Five years ago, they knew the problem was coming. There's some immobility there that they're not adjusting to.

And they've tried to -- maybe the problem is we weren't conservative enough. But if they were more conservative, they'd be in worse shape. I mean, they really haven't adjusted to the post-Reagan era. It's still, who's the next Reagan? What would Reagan do? And I think it's just mental blindness.

The Republicans "mental blindness" presents progressives with a game-changing opportunity. Since the 1980s, we have been operating under the assumption that the majority of Americans want to vote for a conservative and probably a Republican, but Reagan's America is no more. Increasingly, Americans in all areas of the country, but particularly the growing urban and suburban areas in "red" Colorado, North Carolina, and Virginia appear quite ready to vote for a Democrat who believes in government provided-health care, government action to prevent environmental degradation, and a constructive foreign policy that would begin a withdrawal from Iraq and engage with our friends and talk with our enemies.

The second phenomena, which we're seeing in Kentucky as a I write, is the persistence of a split between liberal Democrats and white voters for rural and old industrial areas, particularly Appalachia. Analysts within and outside of the Democratic fold have been in heated debate over Senator Barack Obama's problems in West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania over the last few weeks. (Senator Hillary Clinton has openly courted the "white working class" in hopes of somehow, someway she can win the Democratic nomination). The "cultural" divide of Democrats from low-income whites is the only thing that appears to seriously threaten the Democrats creating a lasting transformation of American politics in a leftward direction. Many have questioned whether Obama can attract enough "working-class whites" to create a working progressive majority (even George Packer largely fell for this line in his blog).

These folks are asking the wrong question. No Democrat, especially not Hillary Clinton, can win a majority based upon the white working class vote. Unfortunately, urban progressives, white or black, just have not won the confidence of less affluent white voters across the country. What progressives should be asking is which Democrat can add the most voters to its existing coalition on the issues that matter? Democrats, as Packer points out, have been stuck between the electoral polarization of Nixon and Reagan (to some degree, the fault of the American people) and the stand-offishness of many liberal Democrats (the fault of the party). Progressives should not rely on a "coalition of conscience and decency," as Kennedy aide Fred Dutton once called for or the long defunct New Deal coalition of poor rural and urban whites. Hillary Clinton would have failed miserably to motivate young voters and failed to draw a contrast on the Iraq war. And she would have had a much bigger problem with conservative voters (Appalachia and elsewhere) than Obama will in the fall.

Obama offers a way out of past Democratic electoral conundrums by capturing the whites, blacks, and Latinos that Democrats have done so well with and adding hundreds of thousands of new young voters to the party. And as we have seen, this coalition has already flexed its muscles in three relatively conservative districts, especially in the South. He is probably the only candidate who can forge a working and lasting majority out of these disparate citizen groups in all parts of the Union.

More than coalition building, however, Senator Obama won the nomination because he affirmed the best in the Democratic Party, confidently, while modernizing it and expanding its appeal. Obama has been able to speak about national reconciliation and unity in a way that promotes social justice ("the American Dream"), strong pragmatic judgments (diplomacy as a tool of strength, not weakness), and a commitment to national service. He has sounded intelligent while speaking to a broad group of Americans on a wide number of important topics, particularly race. And he has revitalized the democratic process by reminding people that their voice, and not some consultants or bureaucrats, can be decisive in the today's cynical political world. Those who fear John McCain's appeal to white voters in West Virginia and Kentucky are fighting the last battle. Barack Obama will beat McCain in the fall and bring the first working progressive political coalition since the 1960s along with him.

http://politicaldissonance.blogspot.com

Quite a number of commentators are drumming up doubts about Barack Obama and his "hope" lately. David Ignatius of the Washington Post, who usually does better, stated flatly in his last column that "What Obama would actually do as president remains a mystery in too many areas." Do we even really have to take these arguments seriously? Obama has a health care plan, an energy plan, a tax cut plan, and Iraq withdrawal plan, an ethics and campaign finance plan, and an education plan.

(Perhaps Obama needs a section on his website called "The Specifics of Change and Hope for Journalists and Political Pundits").

Hope, though, should be taken seriously. I was Googling today and ran into a review from September 2001 of a favorite band of mine that included this conclusion: "If I had to describe [the band] to someone in only two words, those words would be, "beautiful hope". Not to put too fine a point on it, but we could all use a little beautiful hope right now. Even if there's not much to hope for."

And now there is. Maybe the news media should stop blaming Obama for all the excitement and do some soul searching for why it failed so miserably to see that Americans have been ready for a meaningful, people-oriented politics for 6.5 years instead. There's something to hope for.

Cross-posted at http://politicaldissonance.blogspot.com/

Centrism, however, is just an empty slogan. Pundits harp constantly on this notion of “centrism” without ever explaining what it means or what it proposes. Part of this is certainly just because the media feels uncomfortable with anything approaching vision and anybody who believes in ideas enough to fight for them strongly. So, an exploration of Democratic centrism is needed.

The only coherent definition of a Democratic “centrist” lies in the person of former President Bill Clinton. Governors like Tom Vilsack of Iowa, Bill Richardson of New Mexico, and Mark Warner of Virginia sought to associate themselves with the popular ex-president when running for office because the national Democratic Party offered them little. Clinton used the label “moderate” or “centrist” in order to position himself as a “new” type of Democrat in 1992 and then to save his skin in 1996. I would say that this New Democrat-ism entailed the following:

· a willingness to cut government and national spending in order to restore national confidence and rein in the debt problem created by President Reagan

· an indifference to national interest groups, such as labor unions and Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition, whom the public often viewed as corrupt (although DLCers have made strong partnership with the SEIU and public employees unions)

· a desire to “cross party lines” to solve national problems rather than just win partisan battles

· an openness embrace of Christian and more traditional social mores to blunt Republican wedge issues like abortion, guns, and school prayer

· a foreign policy that promoted international cooperation but also military force.

The rest is history. To some this will sound too positive, and to others too negative. Clinton used it fairly well to retain some level of political capital in the midst of scandal during his 8 years in office. Centrists though saw themselves as a new vanguard and did a fairly good job of ruining left-liberal unity and getting exactly nowhere on the majority of issues of national and international concern (National service, health care, and international treaties all went down in flames.). After 8 years of Clinton and George W. Bush’s election in 2000, liberalism lay wounded. So a host of governors fell back on “centrism” and won election in red states. Hence Tim Kaine’s supposed inheritance of the “centrist legacy.”

A closer examination of the Kaine campaign reveals that that path to reviving the Democratic Party hardly relies in simply “going to the middle” or talking like a “centrist.” Kaine went all over the map during his campaign. He proposed an enormously popular plan to extend pre-kindergarten to every four year old in Virginia, an idea put on the map by leftist Representative Dennis Kucinich. The governor-elect openly bucked real estate developers to support “slow growth” plans to bring development in northern Virginia under control. Kaine spoke of putting his government to work “for all Virginians” in his acceptance speech. He even supported Warner’s tax hike and spoke in Spanish during the campaign.

Taken together on sees an administration that embraces active government and collective action. Or, if I might be so bold, “liberalism.” Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana campaigned similarly and won in 2004 by promising government reform, better health care, renewable energy, while opposing gay marriage and gun control (Senator Barak Obama has sounded similar notes and openly reached out to Republicans even though he holds more traditional liberal positions on gay rights and abortion, which I agree with).

We should praise the the Warners and the Vilsacks for doing good things in extremely poor national political conditions. Unlike many DC Democratic organizations, they have recognized the importance of regional identity. We would do well to heed this lesson as well groom new candidates for office. Democratic governors also figured out how to appeal to different types of workers (social classes, really) who do not always realize that they share economic interests. Finally, each candidate brought the firm confidence to appeal to peoples hopes, rather than peoples’ anger (a surprisingly potent force in American politcs). Kaine blunted Republican Jerry Kilgore’s attacks because he stayed positive and did not flinch on his signature issues.

What the media has not caught up to is that its ideas about left, right, and center are antiquated. In today’s Democratic party, there is a new group of liberal idealists who care little for the squabbles between cynical and diffident “Leftists” and “Centrists.” This “new” Democratic movement generally embraces active but responsible government, the need to confront international threats cooperatively, and optimism about “the better angels of our nature.” Mr. “Centrist” Mark Warner told in Salon recently that the Democrats need a politics that presents an “aspirational, future-oriented, hopeful vision of America” not a feckless run to the middle. Barak Obama’s speech that electrified the 2004 Democratic Convention showed us how prominent (and popular) this type of politics is.

Democratic governors do a vital service to the national party by showing people that Democrats are caring and capable. The national party and outside voices, however, must do the heavy lifting to create a platform that will open up the space for broader progressive change in America. After all, there are some problems that only national action can achieve. These includes measures that confront the difficulties that nearly all Americans have with the perfidy of Corporate America, such as reducing work hours, reforms to the stock market, and new programs that enable people to save money. Creating a sustainable national health care system is essential. Longer term, progressives must grapple with fundamental reform our energy/environmental infrastructure that wastes resources and makes us insecure. We must also find ways to enable people to live as citizens in community, rather than just consumers. That stuff, mixed with a little backbone, is essential to a winning politics. Not the Centrism pundits love to talk about.

67% of New Orleans residents are black, with 28% of all people below the poverty line; the Gulf region of Missippi have greater portions of African-Americans than much of the rest of the nation. And no conversation. Many conversations about race and class are far too hypothetical, but the results will probably be pretty concrete about who got hurt the most. And America should be talking about it.

One thing that stuck out were the comments by Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff on the Today Show:

"The critical thing was to get people out of there before the disaster," he said on NBC's "Today" program. "Some people chose not to obey that order. That was a mistake on their part."

I think the quote is pretty offensive. It shirks the government's responsibility for the majority of people who wanted to get out but couldn't and the even larger majority that lot their whole property in the disaster. I think, however, that the statement says much about who the victims were. I can't help but think that Chertoff would NOT have said this about a group of white Washingtonians or Texans who were going to vote in the next election.

This should seem obvious. People are not computers and cannot be programmed. But our national dialogue about "freedom" in the world rarely incorporates such thinking. Even as I opposed the war, I didn't really imagine another scenario besides Iraq getting to be a democracy of some type. The Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds would cooperate after Saddam got taken out. That isn't what happned. Politicians and the media hardly even presented the possibility of the failure of Bush's new zeal for democracy promotion. Next time around we shouldn't make the mistake of assuming autonomous nations will act according to our wishes.

I have advocated liberal/progressives being more open about their patriotisim. Some national myths surely motivate people to work towards a better world, even if we (usually) fall short. But there are times when we have to break and expose the emptiness of certain American platitudes as well. I think that the war correspondent David Rieff argues in a recent book review in The Nation sums up America's problem well:

 For both their books illustrate and exemplify the extraordinary consensus about the duty to intervene that has arisen over the course of the post-cold war world. We have not yet begun to pay the price for this--not because we do it ineptly but rather because it rarely seems possible except on the far fringes of the political right and left, what with the "historic compromise" between the Bush Administration and the human rights movement over humanitarian intervention, if not over torture, rendition, the Patriot Act and myriad other issues, to have a serious conversation about whether the United States has any business trying to create democracies by force of arms. Instead, the consensus not just of these two writers and activists but of the great and the good from the Kennedy School of Government, to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, to the thirty-eighth floor of the UN, to 10 Downing Street seems to be that we--whether the "we" in question proves to be the United States, the UN or that mythical entity, the international community--must learn to do this sort of thing better, more effectively, perhaps more humanely. It is not only L. Paul Bremer who suffers from hubris.

This is a great step for states, and could provide a model for others to follow:

"We're not going to solve the problem of global warming in the Northeastern states," said Dale S. Bryk, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council who has been watching the regional effort since it was proposed by Governor Pataki in a letter to the other governors in April 2003. "but we're showing that we have the American ingenuity to do this and we're setting a precedent in terms of the design of the program."

California and Oregon are already discussing the possibility of a similar compact in the Northwest region. I could see the upper Midwest or the mid-Atlantic states of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland acting as well.

This is not ideal. The national government should have a plan for the whole country. But desperate times call for desperate measures. All signs indicate that if we don't act on global warming now, we'll be in big trouble in a few decades. Governors are realizing this and acting accordingly. Bill McKibben noted recently that environmentalism needs to evolve. Maybe focusing on global warming in the Upper West and South would be a good place to revive it.

Sheehan has emerged as a one-woman accountability machine for the Bush administration. The administration, intelligently if not coldly, has made a conscious decision not to admit mistakes or problems with the war/occupation in Iraq. But everyone knows that something was really wrong with the run up to the war and that "liberated" Iraq isn't necessarily headed on the right path. No serious public debate about the future of the U.S. role in the country has occurred for some time. But Sheehan put a courageous face to our discontent. Professor Todd Gitlin of Columbia argues that her act may be the turning point in allowing ordinary people to really focus on the war.

Sheehan's key problem, however, may be her close association with the media. I hope before the press gets tired of her, the most important point of her protest gets through: that unreasonably tough questions must be asked of the President and our national leaders. So far he's answered none. His speech today in Salt Lake City made the simplistic argument that "a policy of retreat and isolation will not bring us safety.” Probably true, but that isn't the point. The U.S. policy isn't working and new options, like an inevitable troop withdrawal, need to get on the table. The President's "cut and run" line is an idiotic Rove-one liner mean to appeal to people's toughness rather than their brains.

The conservative pundit George Will suggested on yesterday's "This Week" made the point that a meeting between Bush and Sheehan would be meaningless, listing all her apparently "extremist" rhetoric. Newsweek also just had a piece called "I'm So Sorry" about Bush's teary-eyed meetings with some of the fallen's families, with the subtle suggestion that Bush does grieve. Both hint at the Sheehan protests wouldn't really accomplish much: just an anger filled meeting. That's probably true.

The problem with this is that it assumes that our situation is rational and reasonable when it's not. Bush needs to be confronted with questions that neither he nor his more intelligent handlers can answer easily. The administration's deceptions and stupidity prior to and during the war were not reasonable or sane. The fact that a few soldiers are bearing the burden of a horrible, hasty decision is not fair or reasonable. Bush is being asked something totally unreasonable from a political perspective: to admit that he was wrong, that things aren't going well in Iraq (see our constitutional problems), and that he must publicly grieve and change course.

Cindy Sheehan seems to me to be the perfectly logical reaction to the administration's Iraq mess. A somewhat unreasonable, strong willed, shoot from the hip individual confronts an extremely unreasonable, uncritical administration. This approach has finally linked the administrations decisions with today's problems in ways that nothing has been able to thus far. Keep it up Cindy. We need you.

Some have been harsher than I have. Progressive blogger/activist David Sirota (aka the One Man Army) said simply "This is pathetic" when he say the Post article. And Lanny Davis, a former Clinton legal aide and party official, Democrats, told the Post that the Democrats have "either folded or procrastinated to the point where it [opposition] won't have any effect."

I like playing the nice, reasonable guy. I personally really dislike the Rove/Gingrich brand of personal politics. But the Democrats must find a way to challenge nominees that aren't frothing at the mouth but whose beliefs are just not right for the country or the world. The Democrats hanged tough on Bolton in the Senate, rabid pit bull that he is, but he got confirmed ANYWAY. People will respect an open, honest resistance to Mr. Roberts if the Democratic heavyweights in the Senate will go there. The attack, like during Bolton, should be partly about him but more about putting the conservative judiciary on trial. Bush v. Gore, Roe v. Wade, the role of religious in government, and voter disenfranchisement should all be talked about. Barring some nasty findings in Roberts old documents or in his personal life, the Senate will confirm Roberts. But we should take the chance to batter the far right's agenda for the future a little before he get on the bench.