The ONLY way Norm Coleman can get the Courts to order a do-over would be if SCOTUS feels compelled to do so on equal protection grounds.  The state election contest statute does not contemplate a new election simply because the outcome is close, and I don't see the Election Contest Court ordering one.  It will finish its appointed task under the MN election contest statute, which may well end up increasing Franken's lead, and then certify Franken the winner.  Coleman will appeal, and the MN Supreme Court will almost certainly uphold the ECC decision, given the care with which the recount has been handled at all levels (imperfect though it may be).  If it does not uphold the ECC, then it will remand it back to the ECC with instructions on how to proceed given the areas where the lower court decision is reversed.  Declaring a do-over just not part of the remedial scheme, and would only come from the exercise of the Court's inherant equitable powers, but this is not the type of case where Courts exercise such powers (because nobody's life or freedom is at stake, elected office is a privilege, and not a right, and the statute provides an adequate remedy -- just because it's close does not mean a fair remedy is not possible).  If the MN Supremes affirm, then Coleman will presumably appeal to the SCOTUS on equal protection grounds, something their lawyer Ginsburg (who was one of Bush's main lawyers in 2000) is all too familiar with.

In Bush v Gore, a politically decided case if ever there were one, the 2 votes that swung the decision to Bush -- O'Connor and Kennedy -- relied on a novel equal protection argument that was uniquely applicable to a national presidential election -- and that was, in my opinion anyway, comeplete bullshit, see, e.g., four extremely well thought out dissenting opinions by Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer -- and even the majority itself recognized that it would be impractical to apply the decision outside of that one election (because every election, including that one, is conducted by humans, and is therefore inherantly flawed in any number of minor ways, including some inconsistency from precinct to precinct in how certain votes and voters are counted or handled).  So if they open the door to equal protection based election challenges in Coleman v Franken, they swing open the door to equal protection litigation every time there is a close election, which would be an exercise of judicial activism that represents a sharp break from precedent (in what is not that uncommon a situation).  That was not at all what the equal protection clause is about, and it represents the opposite of judicial restraint -- they themslves know it now, and knew it in 2000 when they decided Bush v Gore, which is why, in their ruling, O'Connor and Kennedy expressly held  that the decision would not have precedential effect.   

The MN case plays much better for Franken, in the sense that, although it is an election for a national office, it is still a state election, and if the MN Supreme Court upholds the decision of the State Election Contest Court, it is highly unlikely that SCOTUS will even review the case, much less reverse it.  The 5 conservative judges on SCOTUS are, for the most part, deferential to the states on such matters, and in this case, the US Constitution makes it clear that the Senate itself (and not SCOTUS) is the governmental branch with final decisionmaking authority regarding whether or not to seat Franken (assuming he wins at the State court level, which now appears likely).  SCOTUS will not interfere with that outcome despite their 5-4 tilt to the GOP (because it is not the 60th senate vote, the election was not for President, it cuts against the notion of judicial restraint that they profess to revere, and the precedent they estabished in 2000 was a bad one, and they know it).  And I doubt that the moderates on the SCOTUS would be any more inclined to second guess the state court decisions on this. 

Norm needs to get a grip, and accept defeat. He should read Elisabeth Kubler Ross and her theories on the stages of coming to terms with dying or deep grief.  He has been through shock, denial, anger, and is almost done with bargaining.  He needs to move on to sorrow/depression and acceptance.  "Go to the light, Norm, you are starting to get mangy!"  But his nature will probably prevent him from doing that before he completely destroys his political career forever. 

I believe that the Red/Blue polarity that came directly from the Florida fiasco in 2000 was the beginning of the end for the ultra-partisan conservative wing of the Republican Party, which is identified with the genial Ronald Reagan, but really best epitomized by the political style of Karl Rove and his mentor, the late Lee Atwater, and the views of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and conservative talk radio.  There are very few moderates left in the GOP.  I am old enough to remember when Reagan was Governor and then former Governor of Califormia, and considered to be a right wing extremist in his own party, and virtually unelectable in a national election.  Many of us thought Reagan would lose in 1980 despite Carter's weakness politically, because Reagan was seen as a reactionary prior to that election.  His presidency was a mixed bag which centered on tax cuts for the rich (and tolerated massive deficit spending -- sound familiar?), deregulation of business, and regressive social policies that were nothing less than a frontal assault on progressives -- round #1 of an assault that Dubya tried to finish, although in the end unsuccessfully -- and the collapse of the Soviet empire, for which he received largely undeserved credit from a fawning media (cheered on by an even more adoring right).   Somehow, in the aftermath of his presidency, because of his personal popularity and genial nature (and the weakness of his GOP successors in that office), Reagan was deified by his supporters (and by right wing pundits and politicians) as one of the great Presidents of all time, and the media bought into the notion that he was both a great President -- the Great Communicator -- and a "mainstream" Republican.  But the Atwater/Rove wing that made Reagan possible overstepped when it cheated in the 2000 election in order to force Dubya down our throats, and then used 9-11 to reinforce their political power and degrade our constituional rights, while handing out massive federal benefits (through deregulation, privatization and outright corporate welfare) to the most powerful corporate interests.  And although it took a while, thanks in large part to 9-11 (which helped Dubya politically), the consequence of piggishly overstepping the partisan divide was finally realized in the smashing Democratic victories in 2006 and 2008 (and will probably be realized again in 2010 when the Dems pick up another 5 or 10 Senate seats).

Norm Coleman's actions in this Senate race are an extension of the hyper-partisanship that has been slowly destroying the GOP since Reagan's presidency ended.  Every time the Republicans do this, they alienate moderates and independents whose support they cannot live without, and dig the hole they are in that much deeper.  In that sense, Coleman's contest is not a bad thing -- it is another opportunity for the GOP to show their true colors to the American people in a conspicuous way, and it ain't pretty.  And predictably, they are diving in head first.  But not to worry, it is only a matter of time before Senator Franken is seated, and former Senator Norm Coleman is thrown into the trash heap of history, where he belongs.

One line of thinking coming these days from the GOP and the so-called "traditional conservative movement" is the decision by many Republican members in Congress (and conservative pundits in the media) to oppose most or all future governmental intervention in the private sector, being proposed under the umbrella of the financial crisis, if and to the extent taxpayer money is being proposed to fund private companies.  The explanation for this opposition is the desire to adhere to a philosophy of favoring limited government and "free market" over governmental intervention and public-private partnerships for the common good.  Call it government investment, government subsidies, bail-outs or what-you-will, these people think that it is always wrong for government money to be used to fund any traditionally private enterprise, in part because it is always seen as wrong for government to dictate to the private sector how it should operate, and if government is supplying taxpayer money, that type of intervention is inevitable. 

For some, this means opposing all funding and all government influence over private companies, no matter what the circumstances.  For others, it means that some funding may be OK under extreme circumstances -- to avoid total collapse, perhaps -- but even in those cases, government should play a very limited (or no) role in how these companies (or financial sectors) are operated.  To anti-government movement conservatives, government playing a role in private operations is to be avoided at all costs -- actively discouraged (if not legally prohibited).  The philosophical roots of this perspective appears to come from the notion that private interests can do virtually everything government can do more efficiently, and that private companies are in the business of making money and can be relied upon to do what it takes to maximize profits and minimize inefficiency.  That this viewpoint ignores the reality of the decades of government subsidies in the internet, the telecomm industry, in biomedical research, technology and other financial sectors -- or for that matter the complete failure of the corporate world to manage its own business affairs -- is not surprising, but somewhat beside the point.  The folks always see government intervention as interfering with efficiency, a byproduct of political influence, and likely to promote the adoption of socially progressive policies that are anathema to the corporate world (like forcing greater compensation parity between senior management and the general workforce, or improving occupational safety at the expense of some additional costs, etc.)   This is a group that has never concerned itself with "root causes."

The political roots of the current trend are fairly obvious:  The GOP, facing a broadly based election defeat in which their approach to government was rejected by a wide majority, are trying to stake out a method of blaming the Democrats for any potential future fallout from this crisis, if the government funding that is now being implemented (and that is likely to continue to be implemented in the first year or two of an Obama administration) does not solve the problem, or causes other unanticipated problems along the way.  They can say "no" right now, despite the obvious magnitude of the problem and the corresponding need for governmental action, by claiming philosophical purity to a free market system, and an abiding concern for the taxpayers, and then score political points if it fails.  If massive governmental intervention works, the GOP will be hard pressed to take any of the political credit, no matter what, so there is little harm in staking out this space from the perspective of political strategy.  If the economy is slow to recover in the next two years, the conservatives who follow this approach believe that they will be well positioned to take political advantage of the situation, a situation from which they clearly don't deserve to score political points ever (since it represents the crowning achievement of failed GOP economic policies since 1980).  Given the dire need to intervene to minimize large scale human suffering, it may seem counterintuitive, but when ideologues can merge political ideology with political tactics, they generally cannot resist.  But it doesn't make it right -- and maybe it even adds fuel to a fire that will incinerate the GOP and the right wing political movement that started with Reagan before it is through playing out.  Only time will tell.

Needless to say, this line of thinking competely overlooks the critical difference between the type of government intervention that is taking place in the current financial crisis, and the type of government intervention that triggered the orthodox anti-government perspective that has come to dominate the GOP and the conservative movement since the 1980's.  In the current crisis, the corporate sector is coming to the government and asking for help -- in some cases, begging for help.  The taxpayers, and the Congress, did not ask for this opportunity to intervene.  In fact, the right-leaning corporate community first approached to the right-wing Bush administration, and asked for government subsidies almost unparalleled in scope in our history.  If a progressive had brought this out in the same way, the GOP and conservative outcry would have been deafening.  But it happened under their watch, so the reaction from teh GOP was much more muted.

By contrast, the regulatory expansion that took place from the mid-60's to the late 70's -- and which has been tapering off ever since, thanks to the strong deregulatory orientation of Reaganism and the current administration, the economic "centrism" of the Clinton era, and the media propagation of the myth that rampant regulatory abuse justified across-the-board deregulation, a myth that was related with almost religious intonations by the Chicago School of so-called "free market" capitalists, and its many followers in the media and in conservative economic and financial circles -- involved government intervention in largely unregulated industries, where regulation was needed (or perceived to be needed), in order to protect occupational safety, environmental protection, product safety, civil rights, etc., where the companies lacked a financial incentive to do so because the costs to be incurred to comply reduced profits and did nothing overt to increase corporate income.  In those cases, the governmental intervention involved was not proposed for the sake of a company's financial survival, but rather for some societal purpose that did not necessarily translate to the bottom line, so it was resisted (and in many cases actively challenged) by conservative economic forces and business interests (and lobbyists) as an inappropriate -- and in some cases unlawful -- intrusion of government into private business.  And now we are hearing some of the same voices expressing increasing discomfort with the expanded role of government is being asked to take in resolving this crisis, concern that the prescription for getting the economy back on track involves providing direct governmental subsidies, loans or loan guaranties to private businesses, with some say over how they would use the funds and operate going forward.

The huge difference in December 2008 is that it is the companies themselves -- traditional banks, investment banks, and auto manufacturers, to name just three (so far) -- all of which  traditionally oppose governmental intervention (or so we are told), who are the ones asking for handouts or investment.  This time, the largest companies in America are not asking to get government off their backs, they have come knocking on the government's door asking for large scale government funding and intervention.  They are unable to address their own problems (problems that are in many cases entirely of their own creation) through private sector solutions -- if they could, they wouldn't be asking for government assistance on such a huge scale -- and the only place left to turn is the federal treasury, the taxpayers who have been very hard hit by this crisis, the only source of liquidity that won't simply turn its back and say "no" because its interests transcend profits and extend the financial health of the nation as a whole.  It seems that the avenues for dealing with financial problems of this scale in the private sector -- Chapter 11 reorganization for example -- involve too much uncertainty, too high an administrative cost (cost which do nothing to promote the survival of the debtors being reorganized -- and in many cases, bleeds them dry until they are sold off in Chapter 7 liquidations), and bankruptcy offers too many attractive opportunities for well-funded foreign interests and other financial predators to make big bucks exploiting all of this financial turmoil, and to act in ways that promote their own narrow financial interests, at the expense of the companies being restructured (and their workers, investors, retirees and trade creditors, not to mention the greater societal good).  Bankruptcy and loan restructurings provide a much greater potential for the destruction of companies, lives and communities, at a much greater long term social cost to workers, retirees, communities and the economy as a whole (and to simply defer the problem until it is even bigger and requires even more nationalization and taxpayer funding).  So even some of the largest and proudest private companies in the nation have bit the bullet and come crawling to the government looking for financial help, that's how bad things have become under Bush's watch.

If a company came to a bank asking for a loan -- particularly a loan in the billions -- the loan would be underwritten very carefully, with the Borrower obliged to demonstrate its financial health, its capacity to repay the loan in full, and its capacity to provide collateral to secure repayment of the loan.  If it were approved, the Borrower would sign loan documents pledging security interests in all of its real and personal property, accounts receivable, intellectual property cash flow and other "assets", and obligating it to comply with a wide variety of different operating covenants concerning how it spends the money being loaned, how much it can borrow from other sources going forward, and otherwise concerning how it operates its business. In the private financial world, this process can (and does) include entering into loan and investment agreements which place limits on what the company can spend, including what it can pay out to its stockholders in dividends, and to senior management in compensation, before the loan is repaid or investment is repaid in full.

If such an investment were made in the form of equity, and not a loan, the investor would have less security for repayment, but in exchange, ot would have much greater day-to-day involvement in management of the business, in order to protect its equity investment (which is subordinate to third part lenders).  In other words, the equity investor can get wiped out if a bank which has loaned money to the Company is not repaid and forecloses.  As a result, the investor is given a much greater say in how the business is operated, including approval over most key business decisions, the requirement that the Company adopt and comply with a specific business plan, capital budget and operating budget, and the like.  Given the size of the investment the government is being asked to make here, and the weak financial condition of the companies that are asking it to make that investment, any prudent lender or equity investor making the same loan or investment would require considerable control over how the money being invested is spent, and how the company being invested in is to be operated, as an absolute condition to closing the loan or equity funding. 

There is absolutely no reason to treat taxpayer money that is invested or loaned by the government to a private company any differently from a loan or equity investment made by a bank or private investor to the same company -- quite the contrary.  As taxpayers, we are entitled to see to it that the companies in which we are being forced to invest (in order to save us from a more damaging economic collapse) are run in a manner that makes it likely that our investment will be repaid in full (and that the investment being made will achieve its intended effect).  The taxpayers are also entitled to some -- arguably, most -- of the "upside" that is achieved if these companies recover, since the money invested when a company is on the brink of disaster is usually entitled to the lion's share of the profit if the company turns around.  This emergency government funding is not a gift, or a no-strings grant, or an act of mercy.  It is an investment that we as a collective society are making to save companies that are on the brink of collapse and an economy that might also collapse if these measures are not taken.  The survival of these companies has been deemed essential for the national well-being -- either because letting them fail would be even more costly and socially devastating, or because the economy is simply too fragile to withstand another injury along these lines, so that letting it go unattended will lead to much too many adverse consequences.  Whatever the reasons -- even if this is corporate opportunism at its worst (i.e., a raping of the taxpayers brought on through the manipulation of a crisis by private interests looking to get cheap money from the government, that they get away with because  our senses have been dulled by the crisis (actually, especially if this is corporate opportunism at its worst) -- the taxpayers are entitled to be treated with the same contractual rights and "respect" that is given by these same companies to banks or equity investors when they seek loan money, or investment capital of a similar magnitude (especially in this type of situation).  Anything less that that, candidly, would be a breach of the government's fiduciary duty to protect its "depositors" -- the taxpayers -- and would constitute the antithesis of "conservative financial management."  And God forbid all of this government spending actually serves some broader social purpose, like forcing the auto industry to take steps what will have the effect of reducing global warming and reducing our dependence on foreign oil, right?  No, given the dire need for the funding, and viewed in the context of the shaky financial state of the companies involved (which makes this government intervention so completely essential, and has led these companies to ask for it with such desperation), the government should view the "financial instruments" it will be creating here as the equivalent of a loan or private investment, which is entitled to the same rights and privileges as any lender or investor would insist upon in a purely private, financial deal of similar scope.

That the movement conservatives do not see the difference between this governmental intervention and the other forms of regulatory oversight that they have historically viewed as objectionable governmental overstepping, or as unnecessary and uninvited intrusion into private business, speaks volumes to the backward looking and short sighted perspective of conservatives when it comes to financial matters (and the role of government in a financial crisis).  When deficits were completely unnecessary -- not needed to prevent a financial meltdown or national crisis, and capable of being eliminated through tax increases or reduced spending  -- the GOP gave us $500 Billion per annum (or more) in federal deficits that the children and grandchildren of the middle class will be stuck paying off in the future.  That deficit was created to fund an orgy of tax cuts for the ultra-rich (who could clearly have paid more in taxes without it being a problem) and an orgy of government funded corporate welfare paid to companies with insider political influence in the Bush administration (e.g., military-industrial complex, big oil, big pharma, etc.) and to fund a dishonest war that the administration lacked will and the basic responsibility to actually pay for through a call for sacrifice involving a meaningful war surtax that would have funded the entire cost of the war.  The deficits from 2001-2008 were totally unnecessary and irresponsible (in some sense, criminal), but the party in power -- the GOP -- supported them at every step of the way,  minimizing the effect they would have (structurally) on the economy, and lacking the will to either raise taxes on the wealthy or to cut federal spending as needed to stop the bleeding.  And now that we actually need massive government spending (funded either through deficit spending or tax increases on the wealthy) in order to avoid an even more devastating economic collapse (and an economic situation akin to the Great Depression in the 1930's), these same people are suddenly deficit hawks, protectors of the taxpayers and obstacles to getting anything done. 

Predictable?  Yes, absolutely predictable with this cast of characters.  Indeed, it is entirely consistent with past GOP practice, which is to talk a good game about the taxpayers and making government work better, but to act when the time comes in a manner that sees the only the interests of the wealthy as something worth protecting, and which undermines the government (and by extension the taxpayer) at every opportunity. 

Acceptable?  No, not by a long shot.  As a society, we can no longer afford to let the forces of deception and self-interest miss the critical point -- which is that this is not the government seeking to intervene in the private sector, but rather the private sector coming to the government and asking for financial help in order to survive, which justifies deviating from the principle that governmental intervention in the private sector is inherently undesirable and therefore to be resisted no matter what the circumstance -- and then have the corporate media let them get away with it.

My, my, what has John McCain gotten himself into this time?  It might be easy to say that the House GOP Caucus bears 99% of the responsibility (and it is absolutely correct to say that the "Pelosi gave too partisan a speech" excuse is lame and transparent politics -- I mean, if you listened to C-Span at all, many members on both sides gave speeches expressing outrage as they voted yes or no -- hers was no more or less partisan than many of the others. 

When did the Republicans become such a bunch of pussies?  Or is there another explanation -- the unbearable brain damage of being John McCain.  

When Obama said that injecting Presidential politics into the proceess could cause more harm than good, that was not abdication of leadership, that was true leadership done Obama-style.  You don't need to be the center of attention.  Amazing things happen when you don't care who gets the credit.  And terrible things can happen when someone hellbent on politicizing an issue for his own personal benefit does it in a very clumsy way.  Lets review the facts: 

1.  McCain tried to make himself the center of attention on this bailout for political reasons -- announcing with great fanfare his campaign suspension (a total fraud) and his not decision not to attend the debate until the problem was resolved (also a fraud), allegedly  for the sake of putting country over politics. 

2.  McCain then took 22 hours to get to DC, stopping for at least one interview, the Clinton Global Initiative conference (to give an address), several fancy meals, a political meeting with the Lady Rothschild, and of course stiffing David Letterman, before he actually got there.  Some crisis.

3.  Once in DC on Thursday, he sat in on a few meetings -- the one that Obama attended (at the White House), and a few more with variosu GOP house and senate members.  By late morning on Friday, he had decided to leave for Mississippi to attend the debate after all, the one he had cancelled for the sake of a nation, after little more than a few hours of contact with GOP members.  He never once talked to a Democrat except at the White House meeting from what I have read, and he said little at the White House meeting -- but he did indulge the GOP House Caucuses' weird tax cut, private government backed insurance and deregulation plan that Paulsen said would not work.

4.  Obama attended the White House meeting also.  He also was integral, four days earlier, putting his imprint in conjunction with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, on the 5-part Democratic plan to improve the Paulsen blank check plan -- adding oversight and judicial review, taxpayer buy-in and pay-back in the form of equity in companies whose loans were bought, and thus protection of taxpayer investment, more limited spending authority (with congressional approval required to exceed $250 Million and up to $100 Million capable of being pulled back), no golden parachutes to be paid for with tax dollars (weakened thanks to Paulson/Bush and the GOP), and provision for bankruptcy relief for struggling homeowners facing foreclosure (which the Democratic negotiators ultimately dropped to make the legislation palatible to Republicans) -- all features that were missing from the Paulsen Plan (which McCain had not even read by that point) a plan which represented Bush executive abuse at its worst. But Obama did NOT inject himself conspicuously into the process but to do it behind the scense, because his judgment was to try to de-politicize it.  He did call in constantly during the week with Paulson, Dodd, Frank, Reid and Pelosi -- not the center of attention, but by no means being passive either.  McCain actually suggested that Obama;s unwillingness to suspend his campaign and cancel the debate was political and the standing on the sidelines while others (i.e., McCain) led.   Obama was not being a big enough prima donna to satisfy McCain.

5.  Many pundits thought that McCain had in fact politicized things at the White House meeting by indulging the GOP House caucus, which was by then making serious noises like they were going to stick Democrats with approving this Bush administration fiasco and then run against them over it, clearly seeing their own political survival as paramount over McCain's need to be the White Knight who would sacrifice his most prized possession -- the presidency -- to secure support for the emergency legislation.  Others thought McCain and his Rovian strategists (or, more aptly, tacticians) were concocting a set up, in effect orchestrating what appeared to be a bigger problem than there really was, and then having Sir John twist arms to bring enough if the recalcitrant GOP members to the table to vote yes, and then claim credit for saving the nation in "selfless" devotion to Country First -- you can't script this stuff! Literally! 

6.  Then, sensing that his campaign suspension stunt was backfiring a little, McCain changed his mind and attended the debate after all (which did not go as well as he needed it to go, owing to his personality disorder, which is somewhere between PTSD, a generalized anger disorder or simply being a pure dick).  Post debate polls showed a statistically significant bounce for Obama, especially from independents.  And while much of that may be due to the drama queen act McCain was gambling on, and that looked contrived, it nevertheless set the stage for an even higher stakes Mccain campaign tactic on Monday morning.

7.  But first, Mccain then returned to DC after the debate, but according to numerous reports, he never actually left Arlington VA to come up to the Hill (where senior members were hacking out a difficult and painful deal that they all hated, but felt duty bound to pursue).  He and Cindy had dinner with the Liebermans at CityZen, an Asian Fusion Goumet Restaurant that is one of DC;s best, and most expensive, restaurants.  In the meantime, Barney Frank and 10-20 others were eating pizza and working for hours on end to get this done,  Barney Frank is one of the real heroes here, taking on an exceptionally difficult effort to take the 3 pafe pile of crap Paulson had brought to the Congress for approval, and making it halfway livable.  And at the same time, McCain (who was literally doing nothing) pretended that he was handling this crisis in a proactive way that demonstrated his leadership (and Obama's nadequaciy).  It turns out that this crisis, which supposedly compelled him to suspend his campaign, could be handled from his cell phone in an office at his campaign HQ (and from his penthouse condo) in Arlington VA -- "phoning it in" after all, after accusing Obama of being inadequate for merely phoning it in (instead of rushing to DC to follow his leadership).  Who knows, maybe seeing the Capitol Building from his hi-rise penthouse condo in Arlington gave him new insight into government regulation of the financial markets, like Palin's view of Russia from Alaska gives her foreign policy insights. 

8.  Then McCain left town -- before the vote on Monday -- to campaign in a swing state, claiming not only a victory for the nation's wellbeing, but a personal victory, a triumph of leadership.  He claimed leadership while asserting that Obama merely stood on the sidelines.  He touted his central role in delivering a bipartisan accord to address this emergency national crisis (and had several campaign surrogates making variations of the same boast -- all  variations on "Thank God for John McCain" -- on every cable network).  Except thsi time he celebrated the touchdown before actually getting into the end zone.  It's a bitch, celebrating too soon in a conspicuous way and then dropping the ball.  So when the GOP failed to deliver the 80 measly votes they promised -- less than 1/2 of their caucus (of which only 1/3 of the GOP members supported the emergency legislation, and McCain's high profile position) -- he was humiliated.  His own party stabbed him in the back.  The Democrats, by contrast, delivered 140 votes, which is over 60% support in a delegation that hated giving any quarter to Hank Paulson and George W. Bush, but did so for the sake of addressing a credit crunch that threatened to crush an already weakened economy.  It was supposed to be a bipartisan majority (where both parites had members opposed to the bailout who would  vote no).  Boehner promised 80 votes, and they scheduled the vote.   And they fell well short, and it failed.  And here is the most damning fact of all:  not one member of the Arizona GOP delegation -- McCain's home delegation -- voted in favor of the emergency legislation.  So much for Sir John, the White Knight. 

9.  So what did McCain do, now that he was trapped?  What else?  Cantor and Boehner and then McCain's chief advisors blamed a floor speech by Nancy Pelosi as the reason why a dozen GOP members pussied out and threw a temper tantrum and voted down a bill that upon which McCain's election was now completely dependent, and in doing so brought about a $1.2 Trillion loss of market value in a single day.  A lot of people saw their retirement plans get crushed yesterday,  They should think about that when they vote for Congress and for President this year.   Reckless John, the Maverick, had singlehandedly landed credit for fumbling a bailout that gave rise to an immediate $1.2 Trillion loss of value in the stock market.  The price of McCain's recklessness. 

10.  To make matters worse, McCain then had the chutzpah to blame Obama personally out of one side of his mouth while saying that we should not fix blame, we should solve the problem, out of the other side of his mouth.  I'm not sure when he found time to accompany Sarah Palin back onto Katie Couric's news show for even more humiliation.

11.  In the meantime, Obama, in his only public appearance today, sought to assure and calm  people down.  He implored them not to panic, pointed out that things get rocky sometime in Congress, and that it could still be worked out,.  And then he set back to work on solving the problem, again, outside the spotlight, without calling undue attention to his role in the process.  

12.  Just watch -- he will lead the Dems to pass a more modest bailout ($150 Billion, revisit in January) along the lines suggested by former Labor Secretary and Brandeis economics professor, Robert Reich on Monday, that will pass later this week, without the self-important fanfare that McCain could not resist -- the boasting and the self-congratulations, that ended with McCain's national humiliation.

OK, #12 hasn't happened yet, and it may never haoppen, but #1 - #11 have happened, and what they show is that there is one candidate who is without doubt unqualified temperamentally to serve as President.  A McCain presidency would be exhausting and corrosive to the US and our allies.  He is borderline delusional (mostly delusions of grandeur), in my opinion.  Not just a dick who has chosen to be guided by the biggest dicks in the business of politics, but unhinged, reckless, erratic, and ultimately dangerous.  He has terrible instincts -- see, e.g. Palin. Drama Queen, celebrate before victory, etc. -- and he is a reckless gambler, whose gambles (like this one) are thrilling in some very superficial way, but more often dangerous and exhausting to those he puts through the ringer, who have to live with the consequences of his bad bets. 

This is not about at all about any failure to lead by Obama, no matter what McCain's campaign babbles on TV.  No, this is "The John McCain Show" -- and if anybody votes for him, they'd better be prepared for a lot of this crap, because he clearly can't help himself when he wanders off the ranch like he has this past week.  I just hope my brain doesn't explode before  the next episode plays out.

I wrote the following comment in response to a blog entry sarcastically suggesting that Bill Clinton is officially campaigning for McCain now.  I don't think it's true, but I think there is a brader point Clinton himself has been making that we really need to come to grips with, and why we need to stop overreacting to some perceived sleight to Obama that seems to be coming from Bill Clinton:

If you look at his interview on The Daily Show a few nights ago (available on their website), it is crystal clear that Clinton wants Obama to win. I will grant you, there is this Clintonian way (maybe, more accurately, a Clinton-centric way) that he says it. But look at the end of the second part of that interview, and Jon Stewart's reaction to it -- there is no question whose side the Clintons are on in this election - Obama's.  And they know, as well as most of us do deep down inside -- even if we can't believe it -- that Obama is going to win in a "not nearly as close as some have been thinking" election, because you don't get to preside over 7 years of financial problems capped by a near total financial collapse and taxpayer bailout, and also behave as McCain has done recently (especially since he launched his dishonest negative mid-summer television campaign, then the Palin selection, then the bailout drama queen stunt, and now the angry, bullying and ultimately small debate performance, which clearly evidences his temperament problem for 57+ Million viewers, including especially independents) and still win. The GOP is toast, from top to bottom. Clinton is no fool - the writing is on the wall, and the polls that are now swinging dramatically in Obama's direction don't even come close to reflecting the Democrats' enthusiasm, registration and ground game advantages, which are huge.

So let's stop overreacting and making things up, like this ridiculous notion that Clinton wants McCain to win. It feeds a false narrative that we need to stop. Clinton is trying to attract the unconverted -- the voters who don't already want to vote for Obama. Havng him be more overtly partisan in his attacks on McCain does little or nothing to accomplish that objective. As he pointed out on Meet the Press, he is seeking to appeal to people who are not as antagonistic towards McCain as we are, but who like a lot of what Obama has to say, but don't fully trust him (or understand that McCain is, from a policy perspective, a continuation of the same bad government, favor the rich, approach they are hurting from now).

Don't mistake his Clintonian way of expressing himself on the mainstream media -- which is aimed at those voter -- with the true substance of what he is saying unreservedly, which is that the Republicans MUST be defeated in 2008, from top to bottom. Whether he likes or loves Obama is quite beside the point -- to Clinton, he is more than good enough and if Bill wants to credit Hillary for that (which is not entirely unfair -- her campaign sharpened Obama's skills considerably), so be it. As Obama says, it is amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care about who gets the credit. So instead of accusing Clinton for seeming not to want to go far enough to support Obama, let's credit both Hillary and Bill  for their extraordinary contributions to the campaign, and for doing anything they do to help. Keep the focus on winning, not who gets the credit.

Actually, the enduring impression of this debate is how inclusive, forward thinking and presidential Obama seemed, and how angry, dogmatic and old McCain seemed by comparison.  There are McCain supporters who no doubt saw that as strength and resolve, but to me, and apparently most independents and undecided voters who were polled in the immediate aftermath of the debate (or who watched on CNN), he looked unhinged, his anger and contempt clearly winning the battle over his inner bipartisan reformer to the point where he couldn’t even bring himself to make eye contact with Obama.  What I saw was Grandpa Simpson angrily ranting “Surge Surge Surge, Iraq Iraq Iraq Surge Surge Surge, You don’t understand You don’t understand You don’t understand” until Obama responded with knowledge and confidence -- a confidence which exuded not only that he did indeed understand, but that he understood better than McCain, that he could see beyond McCain’s one dimensional, Iraq-centric 20th century world view.   One, a cool, knowledgeable, inclusive and respectful leader with a 21st century world view, and the other, an angry arrogant and finally unhinged power broker, who has a 20th century world view, who sees the 21st century solely through the prism of Iraq and the surge, and who can’t even show his indeniably worthy adversary the respect of looking him in the eye.  Viewing that alone in the context of the Palin selection, and his prima donna Bailout stunt these past few days, it is obvious that what is emerging as the biggest issue in the campaign is not whether Obama has the experience and judgment to be President, but whether McCain’s lacks the temperament.  And that question answers itself all too easily.  In term of Presidential temperament -- and without doubt, in that sense -- this debate was a clear win for Obama, particularly with those few remaining voters who have not made their final decisions yet, who have issues with both candidates and whose decision will be based to a fair extent on whatever visceral feel they get for the candidate they ultimately choose (like the voters who swung to Reagan after the debate in 1980). Do not underestimate the importance of temperament and character with these remaining undecided voters.  The issues are well known, and most of them are probably closer to Obama's views on issues than McCain's.  The issue for them is temperament, ability to lead and command, the ability to inspire confidence and make more informed and better decisions.  It gets harder and harder to see anybody who is not a dyed in the wool Republicans being comfortable with another four years of GOP rule, led by an aging President who is clearly a militarist at heart, who makes clumsy, impulsive and reckless decisions, who says one thing (I am a reformer) and does another (he exists by, through and for lobbyists and special corporatist interests) and whose principal emotional compass appears to be anger.  Obama looked like our next President tonight.  McCain looked like our last one, only with an anger problem.

This debate wasn’t about McCain going “all in” on the Surge, although in a sense it was.  And it wasn’t about McCain going all in on earmark reform and tax cuts for the rich as the be all and end all of domestic fiscal policy, although in a sense it was that too. Since the two of them were more or less even on scoring points that their supporters would agree with, and Obama was playing this on McCain’s alleged home turf – foreign policy and national security – with Obama coming into the debate ahead in the polls, one might think that the fact that Obama held his own (and then some) spelled the victory "on points" that helps keep his campaign moving in a positive direction.  And that would be true also.  But that’s not it either.

This debate wasn’t about McCain going “all in” on the Surge, although in a sense it was. 

This debate wasn’t about McCain going “all in” on the Surge, although in a sense it was. 

I have been a commercial real estate lawyer in the DC area for 26+ years. I find it remarkable to hear conservatives repeat over and over how the American people are in some sense responsible for this meltdownm because they made all of these crazy loans that were beyond their means.  And on a very superficial level, that argument has some appeal.  But it is more propaganda by the forces that gave us this mess, and are now being baliled out of it at our -- the Amercian people's -- expense.

In the last great commercial real estate meltdown (1989-1991), what struck me more than anything was that banks had become so oblivious to risk in their zeal to place large loans with the (so-called) best borrowers of that era. Banks were always stuffy, conservative places when I was growing up. The post-depression era mandated strict banking regulation. By the 1980’s, the real estate developers I worked for after law school were risk-taking entrepreneurial capitalists. They were in the business of putting deals together and leveraging their own capital with money loaned to them to try and turn a relatively modest cash investment into a large profit. Well intentioned (and more than a few evil and dishonest) developers made mistakes (or worse, committed fraudulent acts) during that time period, which led to losses on a massive scale -- but what developers did was at least within the bandwidth of risk that one would expect from an entrepreneurial capitalist. By contrast, banks are and have always been fiduciaries to their accountholders – they are not risk-takers, they are supposed to act cautiously, make loans conservatively, based on sound underwriting and careful due diligence. In the late 80’s, the banks got caught up in a frenzy of short term profit making and rising bank stock prices – a premium was placed by management on churning loan placement fees, increased volume, increased year-to-year “sales”, etc. There was, of course, record high compensation and bonuses, and risk-taking took place on a scale that was, at that time, far outside what banking regulations ever allowed in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. Reagan had changed things forever, by beginning a movement towards broad deregulation of financial markets, often deregulation for the sake of deregulation. It was if the depression had never happened.

The GOP initiated deregulation effort of the late 90’s allowed banks to engage in high risk/high leverage investment businesses. And with the advent of the Bush era, we witnessed complete GOP abdication of executive branch and congressional oversight.  John McCain was a willing participant in both parts of that equation, by the way.  But putting that aside, this new hands off approach by those who were supposed to perform oversight greatly magnified “banking industry” risk-taking, taking it to levels far beyond any scale previously imagined. The fact that the most well known companies being bailed out this week range across several discreet industry types is a reflection of just how blurred the lines have become. But make no mistake about it, corporate giants pushed these loans out there, created the derivatives which made them possible, guarantied them, insured them and made short term profits off of them – let’s face it, they sold the crap out of them.

So the notion that middle class borrowers were doing something venal or un-American by making these loans – by seeking to get their share of the “low investment, high leverage” real estate boom of the 90’s and 00’s -- is a complete double standard. The borrowers were doing exactly what the lenders were doing, but the lenders were doing it on a much larger scale. Now many of these borrowers did not appreciate that their jobs might be at risk to a Bush economy, or that real estate values as a whole might be at risk, or that interest rate increases on ARMs would likely outstrip their ability to make the payments. Many were told that the rising real estate values would enable them to sell at a profit “long before” those loan rate increases kicked in. I’m sure there were more than a few who knew better and did it anyway. But in a society where people are encouraged to spend beyond their means by maxing out on high interest rate credit cards, the notion that they should have avoided easy loans being sold to them to buy new houses at seemingly very low interest rates is crazy. People want to improve their lives – this was not only predictable, it is why an industry was created for it.

Lenders are the ones who traditionally put the brakes on this, but they didn’t . . . because it was thousands of mortgage brokers placing loans funded from overseas or from large mortgage pools, where the borrowers all fit into some nameless, faceless “box.” It was easy money for all concerned. And it fueled a residential real estate boom that created income at all levels of the economy and made it seem like it all made sense. And once again, short term greed in the form of fees, bonuses, faceless funding sources, check the box underwriting, and a system that did not punish the failure to perform due diligence properly in the interests of short term corporate profits, conspired to make the people who are supposed to be fiduciaries for other people’s money into promoters and speculators. So the notion that the middle class people who got caught up in this whirlwind of the Bush-GOP economy and GOP economic theory in practice, are as or more culpable than the people being bailed out here, or the legislators and “regulators” who not only did nothing to stop it, but actually made it possible and facilitated it, when all of them they should have known better, is so wrong on so many different levels that it is nothing less than infuriating – a grievous insult to the intelligence. And the sad reality is that almost nobody is letting average people onto this big secret – that another generation of billionaires have been created out of what will likely turn out to be largest taxpayer funded bail-out in history, yet another GOP transfer of wealth and capital from the masses to the ruling class. And here comes John McCain advocating more tax cuts for the rich. Does anybody wonder why it so often feels like our heads are going to explode?

Given this year’s introduction to the Lower 48 of the term “Hockey Mom,” I was struck this morning by a hockey analogy that perfectly describes the current dynamic of the 2008 campaign.  In a year in which there is, for the third campaign in a row, a bitterly divided electorate, the campaign is almost exactly like the 3rd period of Game 7 of the final round of the Stanley Cup.  There is no tomorrow.  There is no Game 8.  On November 4, we are going to choose a President and a Vice President, and we are going to have to live with that choice for the next 4 years – indeed, when one considers the Supreme Court and our capacity for global self-destruction, we may have to live with the consequences of this election a lot longer than that.

As anybody who follows professional hockey knows, in the Stanley Cup playoffs, the referee’s don’t call as many penalties as they do in the regular season.  The players on both teams are generally playing more aggressively because it is playoff time, and the refs don’t want a close call (resulting in a 2 minute one man advantage) to influence the outcome of the game unless the penalty is pretty egregious.  Now for some types of penalties – like hooking, tripping, or interference  --  they start calling it only when it happens on a play where a legitimate chance on goal is directly frustrated by the infraction (whereas in the regular season, they might call it away from the puck, or completely outside of a scoring situation, up ice).  For other types of penalties – say cross-checking (which is blindsiding somebody in the back) or high sticking (where you can seriously lacerate an opponent’s face or neck with a sharp stick) -- it has to be especially flagrant (as in drawing blood, or knocking a player unconscious) or it must happen right in front of the ref (so it can’t be ignored) before they will call it.   Of course, the reality is that, in a close game, not calling a legitimate penalty can often influence the outcome every bit as much as giving one team a power play on a close call.  More aggressive teams can and do commit more penalties and if they get away with them, they will keep doing it, and like it or not, it usually influences the outcome of the game.  But for whatever reason, the refs clearly have a preference for influencing the outcome of games by refraining from making the call when they should, rather than calling the penalty and giving the victimized team a one man advantage when it isn’t flagrant, or is away from the action. 

As the playoffs continue into the later rounds, and as you get to the deciding game of a 7-game series, with the stakes that much higher, the playoff referee typically becomes even more “hands off”.  The desire not to influence the outcome leads to a situation where anything that isn’t completely flagrant, right in front of the ref, and in the area of the goal will not get called.  And in the third and final period of the deciding game of the final round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, with the score tied, anything short of a decapitation in front of the goal is not going to be called a penalty.  There is no other moment in a hockey season that the players play more aggressively than in the third period of Game 7 of the final round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, with the score tied, and it is tough and ugly, and the team that is willing to go over the line of decency and fair play without remorse often ends up the winner.    And that’s exactly where we find Campaign 2008 at this moment.  

This is the third and final period of the final game of the Cup.  The stakes have never been higher.  If we didn’t believe that before now, then McCain’s reckless judgment in selecting Sarah Palin, and his immoral decision to engage in a campaign built on of bald-faced lies, gross distortions, phony outrage, personal belittling, insults to the national intelligence and thinly veiled racist smears, has surely convinced us.  He has now shown us that. to win this election, he will lie about his record, his running mate’s record, and Obama’s record, and continue to do it even after being called out on it, and then he showed us that, to win this election, he would risk our future by picking as his running mate a person who might shake up a nearly dead campaign politically, but who is, at the same time, demonstrably unprepared to fulfill her most important responsibility – to become President, and to be capable of achieving a smooth transition in government at the height of a national tragedy (especially in the area of foreign policy and national security in a very dangerous and changing world).   If someone was to sincerely believe, at face value, that McCain really is a different kind of Republican, one who will be inclusive and non-partisan, who will not merely be an agent of special interests and lobbyists, who will work toward the middle and not put in place an ideological foreign policy agenda that the country does not support –if that’s what someone honestly believed –to vote for him now, they must also risk everything by electing at his side a VP who is , at best, unqualified and far out of her league, and at worst, dangerously shallow and unprepared (and a fanatical religious extremist to boot).    

Then consider the opponent in this race, Barack Obama, who is a very serious, articulate and inspiring candidate.  His life story is a model of the American dream, his devotion to grass roots, bottom up service to nation – to pursue a purpose higher than any individual – is revolutionary, and his intelligent, even tempered  and non-contentious way of dealing respectfully towards every issue and every person – including most of all those who disagree with him, or who hold different (but equally passionate) views -- has earned him the respect of everybody who voted for him in the primaries and caucuses, and  virtually every major Western world leader, and has inspired a generation (maybe two!) in ways that the Presidents we have elected since Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 simply have never achieved.  He is graceful in ways that few politicians ever achieve, and he is definitely the smartest person in the room.   Nobody speaks better for him than he does himself, and almost everything he says is measured, respectful, thoughtful and perceptive.  Most of us are amazed that he has made it this far, because people that good or talented usually get destroyed on the national stage for some idiosyncracy.  The fact that he had to run against Hillary Clinton -- an extremely talented and passionate public servant with a world of political chops, a very passionate following, and who was also seeking the opportunity to bring about change, but in a different, but no less legitimate way (by the mere act of bringing a progressive female perspective into the White House) -- made Obama an acquired taste for many Democrats (none more than Hillary’s most passionate supporters). But after Denver, the rest of us, even Howard Wolfson for crying out loud, finally saw in Obama what so many of us have come to see over the past 6 or 7 months – that he is literally a catalyst for everything that  we want to bring about when we say that we are seeking change in Washington.  

So confronted with facing a nearly perfect candidate in November, in the third period of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup of American politics, McCain took a huge gamble, and went dirty and political.  Integrity, honor and experience went out the window, and (ersatz) change became the GOP mantra.  The TV ads have been either dishonest or insultingly disrespectful, or both; the campaign rhetoric became belittling, personal, and completely detached from reality – lie after lie (followed either by lame defenses and stonewalling, or even more outrageous lies that replace the last set of lies).   They took on Rove-trained GOP political operatives, like Steve Schmidt.  They signaled to 527s – conservative political action committees – that it was OK to unleash a media campaign of hate and lies and smears (with the help of huge, unregulated financial support from America’s wealthiest and most reactionary right wing fringe – many of whom have made millions and even billions as a direct result of GOP economic and tax policies, and privatization of governmental functions ).  These tactics are often quite effective, especially with an inattentive electorate.  And, sadly, too many America’s are willing to make life and death decisions based on visceral personality judgments – “I just like her” or “he is so dedicated and honorable” rather than looking at what these politicians actually do.    And so McCain and his team did a total makeover – from experienced steady leader into a reformer seeking change.  Right before our eyes, in a matter of weeks, and assisted by his choice of Governor Palin, who is new, attractive, and feisty, and definitely outside the GOP box in ways that no other choice would have been, we have witnessed a born again John McCain.    

Now the effect of this, in the short term (and with the help of a compliant media) has been to energize right wing social conservatives – the middle class of the GOP – who had previously been moribund, and to create some “celebrity” of their own to help them achieve their own form of self-realization (of a very right wing, socially conservative kind).  This is not, as some would like to think, a wonderful development for the Obama campaign, or the Democratic national campaign generally, because the far right seemed resigned to defeat, to hold their noses and vote for McCain, or even to stay home or vote for Bob Barr or Ron Paul (if they happened to be on the ballot), so that a truly sweeping blue victory in Senate and House races really seemed possible.   Now that seems less likely, because in many areas where Republicans were vulnerable, that vulnerability was in some measure due to tepid support for the top of the ticket and a general weariness with politics in general.  Now, many of these people are pumped about the prospect of a social conservative like Palin being one brain aneurysm, or heart attack, or cancer recurrence away from the Presidency (and with it two or three socially conservative lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court --  after all, she’s “just like one of us”).   And as the horrifying truth of the Palin appointment and McCain’s sacrifice of integrity to move to the gutter sinks in for the rest of us, we stare in disbelief as it seems, in the television media anyway, that people don’t care, that Palin actually seems to be generating new and possibly winning support for McCain, and his tired old campaign, that wasn’t there before.  It is as if the last 7 years didn’t happen, and we are about to see a repeat of 2000 all over again. 

Yes, the GOP is playing this campaign like we are in the third period of game 7 of a tie game, determined to play as dirty as they can until the referees put them in the penalty box.  If they don’t get penalized, then they will keep doing it, even more aggressively, until the refs do something.  And if they finally do get called, they will back off only slightly, until the ref is once again looking somewhere else, and then they will do it some more until they get caught again.  If those penalties don’t get called, then they may well win the game, even though they are the inferior team, or so we think or fear.  And the press, thinking that it has an obligation to be even handed even when one side never lies, and the other side does nothing but lie, does not want to influence the outcome, even though, by failing to do their job, and point out lies when they occur, and by parroting false narratives spoon fed by the campaign in exchange for access and ego gratification, they are in fact influencing the outcome. 

Now, finally, in the past few days, the infractions have become so flagrant, and so “in the face” of the refs, that they finally are starting to blow the whistle.   But surveying the landscape of the mainstream media, it is hard to feel any level of confidence that they will “keep up the good work” rather than falling back into the usual pattern the next time the McCain campaign hurls a slightly different Molotov cocktail at Obama.  The good news is that the game is still tied.  Even thought the GOP is energized, and the playing field is not as one sided as it once seemed, the social conservatives are only a minority of voting Americans.  Whether it is only 20% or 30%, as some of us believe, or 40 or 45%, as the social conservatives would like us to believe, it is not enough, by itself, to win this election.  And the choice of Palin, and the sacrifice of integrity, has energized our base, and taken its toll on those Republicans who are less about social conservatism, and more about tax policy, national security and foreign policy.  Many of them are deeply concerned – and more than a few will not vote for McCain with Palin on the ticket.  I personally know several people who fall into this category, lifelong republicans who have never voted for a democrat (and who may not this time either – but they will not vote for McCain, period – they feel deeply betrayed by this).  And it is a slap into the face of Hillary Clinton supporters, to appoint (in some measure) a person who can better pander for their votes based on gender alone, but who is so thinly qualified, shrill and socially conservative – who stands against almost everything Hillary has stood for in her life as a public servant – that it is an insult to suggest you would sacrifice your intellectual honesty and integrity because of the sex organs of the candidate.   The refs are finally starting to see the mugging that’s taking place, and they are finally starting to call the penalties, but we cannot depend on them to regulate the game until the end.

What we must do is clear.  First of all, when a penalty is called, we need to take advantage of it.  We need to juxtapose the real life examples of hypocrisy, and the doubletalk and double standards, the almost frightening similarities that exist between McCain’s convention speech rhetoric in 2008, and Dubya’s convention speech rhetoric in 2000 – to expose it as empty words, cynical rhetoric whose sole purpose is to win an election no matter how despicable and dishonest the methods involved.  And to pin it on McCain, whose reputation for honor and integrity is now proven to be undeserved.   Second, we must take the game back to the other team.  We must still use our grace, and speed, and strategic genius – our ground game -- but we must also hit back, and hold, and push our game to the limit of the rules in order to play the game as it is being played, on the playing field that we have been dealt.   One of the two main reasons Obama defeated Hillary Clinton – the other being her vote on the war – was because Obama and his inner circle had a better strategic understanding of the contest at hand– which involved caucuses, and delegates in traditionally red states, and other approaches largely or completely ignored by mainstream, status quo democratic party thinking.    50-state strategy.  Internet mobilization.  It seems obvious now, but Howard Dean and then Barack Obama took these concepts to a new level, one that offers the potential of a long term shift towards a more progressive and less corrosive politics.

Now we find ourselves in a different game .  This game is one game, one period, for all the marbles.  It’s played in 50 states, but many of the 50 are already fundamentally decided.  So there are really only 10 or 15 states in which there is a contest, and in those states, we cannot let up on our aggressiveness.  The ads need to be sharpened.  The contrasts need to be sharpened.  The lies must be exposed over and over until the refs cannot ignore them.  We need to hit the streets to make sure everybody hears it and sees it – that we want our country back, that we want a better world, that we need to turn the page on history, and the tired old arguments of the past, into the future.  And the sum total of the McCain campaign’s despicable behavior needs to become a narrative of its own, just like the narrative the GOP used against Gore and Kerry (e.g., embellishment and inauthenticity for Gore, elitism, indecision and inauthenticity for Kerry, only our narrative is actually reality based).  We must follow our candidate’s lead on speaking truth even when it seems to be counterintuitive, because the imperative for truth (and the importance of contrasting integrity against sleaze) has never been greater.    We must use the tools – the internet (You Tube, the Blogosphere, etc.) and the street (grass roots organizing, registering voters, making sure they vote, and making sure the GOP doesn’t get away with preventing them from voting ) for everything it is worth, and we can never stop being vigilant. 

The graceful team does win the Stanley Cup every now and then – more often than you might think.  The thugs and cheaters win also, but not when the other team uses its powers and skills to fight back, to create the moment when the graceful superstar can score, or make a brilliant pass to the open man to nail down the winner.  Just ask Wayne Gretzky, who won the Cup many times not because he was  bigger, or meaner or dirtier, but because he took his exceptional gifts, and integrated them into a team game, a team effort, to win the top prize.

This is where we find ourselves.  It is time to stop worrying, and start fighting, but fighting with intelligence and razor sharp precision, and with all of our skills and passion.   My next post will explore a number of thoughts for how to do that, in concrete terms.  Love and peace to all. 

As mentioned in two posts I wrote to this blog over the weekend ("The "Insult to the Intelligence" Card" and "Dollargate: A Campaign of Deceit Takes Shape"), the corporate media for the most part continues to report that Obama played "the race card" first, when he said in a few campaign appearences last week that he would be attacked by McCain and Bush because he "doesn't look like those other Presidents on the dollar bills" -- and these major newspapers continue to report the story in this way even though there is now clear evidence that McCain had attacked Obama using that exact image -- his skinny head, oversized ears and mocha colored skin on a faux $100 bill -- in the campaign ad "Seal" on June 22.  In particular, I was appalled that this past Sunday, the Washington Post ran an editorial saying that Obama played the race card with that remark, and then this morning, the Editor in Chief of the Post's editorial page, Fred Hiatt, ran an op-ed piece in which he made essentially the same assertion, in both cases without mentioning that the McCain campaign had put Obama's image on a $100 bill in a campaign ad over a month earlier, which meant that Obama had not injected this into the campaign at all, he had merely referenced attacks that had already taken place. 

In response to this, I just sent off the following e-mail to Fred Hiatt:

"Mr. Hiatt:   I cannot express how disappointing it is that you have once again missed, in Sunday's editorial on the subject, and in your op-ed article this morning ("Answering McCain's Attacks"), a major salient fact about this controversy over whether Obama "played the race card" in his remarks last week, when he said, in effect (and in a very light-hearted and humorous way) that the McCain campaign would be trying to scare voters by pointing out that, among other things, Obama does not look the same as other presidents whose faces appear on dollar bills.    In your editorial on Sunday ("Dollar Bills and Paris Hilton") , you wrote:  "But Mr. Obama is not entitled to pin responsibility for this reaction on the McCain campaign, as he did on Thursday in saying that President Bush and Mr. McCain would try to scare voters: "You know, 'He's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name.' You know, 'He doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills.' " You stated this as a counterpoint to criticism you were making regarding McCain's ad which, as the Post reported, falsely stated that Obama snubbed the wounded troops when he found out that the media and cameras wouldn't be allowed to join him on his visit (in the course of making the seemingly balanced point that both campaigns are capable of doing better).   In your op-ed this morning, you wrote: "Critics of his performance last week (including some supporters) focused on his "dollar bill" comments -- his apparent invocation of race in saying that his opponent would try to scare voters because he, Obama, did not resemble previous presidents whose portraits adorn our currency."    However, it turns out that balance or equal time criticism is not what is called for here.  What is called for is the Washington Post doing a better job of its baseline function of reporting news.  By this past Friday, it was widely known (except in the mainstream media) that it was the McCain campaign which first used images of Obama's face on a $100 dollar bill -- in an ad entitled "Seal" that was released on June 22, 2008 (over a month ago):  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDTJDv4hevU&feature=related  Moreover, as pointed out in the Jed Report on Saturday (a website your political reporters should probably visit more often, since it contains a great deal of well sourced factual information that the Post constantly overlooks or disregards), the McCain campaign not only used this image in an official campaign ad over a month ago, they went much further than that:  The link they created on You Tube to call up the ad deliberately chose the caricature image of Obama on the $100 bill as the still image for the link on the McCain campaign's You Tube page:    See, e.g., http://www.jedreport.com/2008/08/setting-the-rec.html and http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=JohnMcCaindotcom   How do we know the McCain campaign chose this as its "still image" for "Seal" (as opposed to it being some quirk of You Tube)?  The answer is that, in You Tube, an mpeg defaults to the midpoint as its "still image", whereas in "Seal", the dollar bill image appeared 3/4 of the way through the ad.  So it had to have been a conscious choice by the McCain campaign to use that particular image as the still image for linking to "Seal", to put it out there as the image a web surfer would see whenever linking to the ad on You Tune.  Now why do you think they did that?  Why THAT image? 

Much more troubling than this initial release, is the fact that, when Obama made reference to the notion that McCain and the GOP would attack him because he doesn't look like those other Presidents on the dollar bill -- as they had already done at that point (when the McCain campaign, and not some fringe right wing attack surrogate, injected the image of Obama's face on currency in the "Seal" commercial over a month earlier) -- Rick Davis immediately hit the airwaves expressing complete outrage, crying "race card" (i.e., that Obama had injected this into the campaign) and calling it a "disgrace".  In fact -- and again, both your editorial and your op-ed piece the next day totally miss this -- "Obama's face on currency" as an attack tool originated in one of the McCain campaign's own ads, and not only that, it was an image they chose to accentuate in the link to that ad on You Tube.  So all of that outrage from Rick Davis, John McCain, and other surrogates (not to mention the right wing talk machine) was a fraud, a complete deception, deliberately intended to sandbag and mislead.  And you and others in the corporate media have fallen for it hook, line and sinker.  Your editorial on Sunday, and your op-ed on Monday, both say or imply the Obama was, in fact, playing the race card by referring to the fact that the other side would say that he doesn't look like those other presidents on the currency when, in fact, it was McCain's campaign that injected that very image into the public domain a month earlier.  The McCain campaign's professed outrage is a fraud and you have not only failed to call them on it, you have actually facilitated the deceit.   This is actually a very important story.  John McCain and his new Rove-school campaign managers are trying to put in motion a campaign, supported and facilitated by the mainstream corporate media, based on the dual notion that Obama has delusions of grandeur and is acting above his station -- all code words for "uppity" as David Gergen pointed out so forcefully this morning on ABC -- and that he is using a reverse race card.  And it's clear that they intend to rely on the mainstream corporate media to remind people that it was Obama who started it back at the beginning with that "dollar bill" remark (as you and they continue to do).  The only problem is that Obama didn't start it.  It's a deceit, a Rovian sandbagging, and you've got it dead wrong (and continue to get it wrong on a daily basis).     Your newspaper failed to investigate the swift boat attacks before it was too late, and look where that got us.  Your newspaper failed to ask the tough questions about pre-war intelligence before the Iraq invasion, and look where that got us.  Now you are not only doing it again (with regard to this "race card" theme), you are actually affirmatively helping McCain pave the way for another deceitful campaign in which substance falls victim to deceitful culture-war attacks.  By virtue of your editorial and op-ed article, both published days after information putting the lie to these false attacks first surfaced, the Post is now officially a party to the deceit.  I think you owe it to your readers to make a conspicuous correction, without any further delay.   Respectfully yours,   Mark T
[Address and Phone ##]
PS - I have one other bone to pick, and it's unfortunately another important one:  In both your editorial Sunday and your op-ed this morning, you were clearly attempting to suggest that both campaigns bear near equal responsibility for the negative turn in the direction of the campaign.  But as shown above, and as has been shown repeatedly in relation to the other recent campaign ads run by McCain which represent this new "low road" line of attack for his campaign (Seal, Troop Snub, The One, Brittany & Paris, etc.), the turn to the negative is coming almost entirely from one of the two campaigns -- the two campaigns are NOT equally responsible or equally guilty of crossing the line.   There has been a recent recurrent theme in many of the op-ed pieces the Post has published from authors like David Broder and Richard Cohen (and yourself, for that matter) -- this line of thinking insists that any criticism leveled against one campaign must be balanced with a criticism from the other side, leveled against the other campaign, and then anecdotally equating the two criticisms as more or less equal, two sides of the same coin.  For example (and as pointed out by the indefatigable blogger, Digby, in her blog "Hullabaloo"), "even if the conservatives who have been in charge of the government these past 7 years have run our country into the ground, they must always be allowed at least equal say in our governance because to do otherwise would let progressives and liberals call the shots --- and we can't have that.  Now that we are finally at a moment where the conservative movement's problems and deceits lie exposed to public view -- where progressivism finally has a chance to see some light after years of being smothered by deceitful conservative rhetoric -- the message people are getting from newspapers like yours is that "progressives and liberals are at least halfway to blame for everything that's gone wrong these last few years and that the answer is to split the difference." But that is not true, and its a discredit to what was once a fine newspaper that was different from the others.  As Digby sardonically predicts, given this bias, before it's all done "the progressive movement will no doubt be blamed for the whole damned mess caused by Bush and the GOP (and Bush will likely be resuscitated by the Village scribes as some kind of genial Harry Truman.)."  I share Digby's bewilderment over why like you are so predisposed to be critical of liberalism, but your editorial board's continued effort to create the appearance of "balance" by equating things that are anything but "equal" is little more than tilting the playing field in favor of the status quo, who have driven the bus into the ditch and have never needed to be held accountable more than they do today.  Please take a renewed look at your reporting, and see if you might concede that there is truth to my criticism.  Please remember that the press is the Fourth Estate, not "For the State".  It's never too late to do start getting it right.    Thank you."

Now I know in my heart that this is likely a pointless exercise, sending long letters like this to people like Fred Hiatt, but shining the light on deceit has to start somewhere, anywhere, and we can't stop until the media stops, or the inherant bias that is programmed into the system like DNA becomes so transparent that people stop taking it seriously. I might as well beat my head into a brick wall, but I can't take it anymore -- it is no longer acceptable for media to take an issue where 95% of the people (and 100% of the experts) see it one way, and 5% (consisting mostly of industry-paid lackeys) see it the other way, but the two sides are presented in such a manner that it appears that each side has valid arguments that are about equal in persuasiveness.  See, e.g., the oil industry's "scientist" attacks on the scientific rationale for concluding that global warming is real, and caused in large part by human activitiess. 

Balance does not require the media to discard all qualitative judgments and critical thinking in order to appear not to be biased in favor of one side over the other.  It is OK to call something that is dishonest a "lie" and to call something that is not true "false".  It is also OK to report more positively about someone who merits more positive reporting, and to report more negatively abount someone who merits more negative reporting.  You do not have to even the playing field when it is uneven because of qualitative differences that are real and legitimate.  As John Stewart pointed out on The Daily Show last week, when the Inspector General released a report concluding that Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson had violated the law by injecting political affiliation into the civil service hiring process at the Justice Department, Wolf Blitzer's headline was that The Inspector General had issued a report "suggesting" that Bush Administration Officials "may have" broken laws in hiring lawyers for the Justice Department.  Stewart's reponse was "NO, the Inspector General did not "suggest" that officials "may have" broken laws, they "concluded" that they "did" break laws.  I mean, what is that about??  Can't the media simply "tell people like it is", and stop sugarcoating reality for fear that honest reporters will be accused of bias by those who are criticized?

I do not know the source of the corporate media's compulsion to water down any criticism of the status quo in this way -- except perhaps the fact that they derive most or all of their income from companies which are firmly part of the status quo -- but whatever reason, it has got to stop, and ASAP.  A few weeks ago, 75% or more of the advertising in the front (news) section of the Washington Post consisted of full page ads or half page ads paid for by oil companies, defense contractors and other large scale corporte interests -- you know, the sort of corporate good citizen ads that those companies regularly put out there.   Call me cynical, but it occurs to me that it is not a coincidence that a large percentage of the Post's revenue stream comes from corporate interests, and that their new found "balance" has a decidedly corporatist bent to it.  But whatever the reason for it, it will never stop unless we continue to call them on it, and hammer away at getting them to live up to the level of unbiased reporting that once existed in the Fourth Estate. 

Yesterday I posted a link to the Seal commercial run by the McCain campaign in late June to TPM Cafe, under a post entitles "The "Insult to the Intelligence" Card""

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDTJDv4hevU&feature=related

Today, the Jed Report carried this same story, but pointed out something additional that was very important, which constitutes proof positive that the McCain campaign's cries that Obama played the race card when he pointed out the obvious - that the McCain campaign would attack him because he looks different than those other presidents on the dollar bills -- were craven and deliberate smears, intended to allow them to claim a free pass to hammer at this issue for the next 100 days:

http://www.jedreport.com/2008/08/setting-the-rec.html

As my prior post (and many mor elike it in the blogosphere) pointed out, this ad created teh image of Obama on currency a month before Obama spoke last weekl.  But as the Jed Report points out, the McCain campaign home page also chose this image of Obama on a $100 bill as the icon to link to the ad on its home page at You Tube:
 
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=JohnMcCaindotcom

Look at these images until you find the image for ad named "Seal"  (in my browser, it was the image in the lower right hand corner of the first page) -- this is the still image they chose.  How do we know they chose it (as opposed to being a quirk of You Tube)?  Because in You Tube, an mpeg defaults to the midpoint as its "still image", whereas in "Seal", the dollar bill image appears 3/4 of the way through.  So it was a conscious choice by the McCain campaign to use it as the still image for that ad, to put it out there as the image a web surfer would see when you link to the ad.  Why did they do that?  Why the choice of THAT image?  Yes, a rhetorical question.

More troubling, when Obama made reference to the fact (not a charge, but the fact) that McCain would try to scare people by telling them that he (Obama) doesn't look like all of those other Presidents on the dollar bills, and Rick Davis immediately hit the airwaves crying "race card" and calling it a "disgrace", when, in fact, it was an image from one of the campaign's own ads, and not only that, an image they chose to accentuate.  All of that outrage and hubris was a fraud, a deception, intended to mislead.  And the media fell for it.  For several days, the so-called mainstream media (I think "corporate media" would be a more accurate description) has been saying or implying the Obama was, in fact, playing the race card in that statement -- even the WaPo's
editorial this morning said as much (falsely, thanks once again to Fred Hiatt's tendency to buy McCain friendly meme's).  But it's a fraud.

This is a really important story.,  McCain is trying to put in motion a campaign, supported and facilitated by the MSM, based on the notion that Obama has delusions of grandeur, is acting above his station -- all code words for "uppity" as David Gergen pointed out so forcefully this morning on ABC -- and then they will rely on the MSM to remind people that Obama started it back at the beginning with that "dollar bill" remark.  Only Obama didn't start it.  It's a deceit, a sandbagging, and the MSM cannot be counted upon to get it right.  The fact that this is a deciet cannot be restated often enough, and in enough places.  The use of Obama's still image as the link for the video ad, and the campaign's immediate cry of foul -- of absolute outrage -- when Obama made reference to an image the McCain campaign itself put out there -- proves that the McCain campaign has launched a reverse race card campaign, another GOP campaign of deceit.  

There is no more powerful disinfectant than exposure to light.  And there is nothing that shows a crooked stick more effectively than placing a straight stick right next to it.  Obama's job in this campaign is to be the straight stick against which the deceitful McCain campaign is measured.  And our job in this campaign is to make sure that there is a light shining every time the McCain campaign, and its surrogates in the MSM, try to pull one over on us.  The corprorate media cannot be relied upon to do it.

Take a look at this. In late June, a month before the latest fracas over who is playing the "race card" in this campaign, the McCain campaign released a television spot, in what was perhaps a test run of the current ad campaign to smear Obama as a vacuous celebrity along the lines of Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton, and a presumptuous, self-appointed messianic figure. It was called "Seal" -- based on the Obama campaign's use of the Presidential Seal in its own podium graphics -- and it contained a very interesting image, about half-way through: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDTJDv4hevU&feature=related So here we have the GOP using images of Obama on a $100 bill in June to ridicule and attack him, and plant the seeds of the what has emerged as the central theme of the McCain campaign -- dissing Obama nonstop, and implying that his popularity (and everything else about him) is inauthentic and self-invented. And then when Obama takesa shot at this line of attack a month later, the McCain campaign and the GOP not only cry "Race Card!!!", they do it non-stop, 24/7, as if to say that they now have the right to play the race card themselves because, in this narrative, Obama started it. Now I have seen craven attacks, but this one is a real insult to the intelligence. Are we supposed to believe that the McCain campaign is above the right wing attack machine's "Barack Hussein Obama" rhetoric, and its "Obama is secretly a Muslim who hates America" rhetoric? Please give us an empirical basis to believe that. Because McCain says he is above it? The same man who said he would run a positive campaign of issues, that would raise America, but who now says he is "proud" of the Brittany/Paris ad?? The same man who says he will never exploit the troops for political putrposes, but then runs ads falsely attacking Obama for snubbing the troops? Do they really think the public is that stupid? The answer of course is "yes" -- McCain's campaign is run by the same people who have been the architects of the past several presidential campaigns, and if there is one thing that is absolutely clear about that school of political consultants, it's that they believe in (and depend upon) stupidity and ignorance to get their "point" across. These ads are an insult to the intelligence, and so is the accusation that Obama is playing the race card in response to them. So where is the so-called Mainstream Media on this? This spot was released almost a month before the GOP cried "Race Card!!" over Obama's sarcastic statement that he would be attacked because, among other things, he doesn't look like those other Presidents on the dollar bill. But not one major cable news network or television news network has picked up on this sequencing as far as I can tell. The McCain campaign has accused Obama of injecting race into the campaign. But over a month earlier, the McCain campaign did exactly what Obama was describing -- they attacked him by showing images of how funny he looks on a $100 bill. Is the story line about the race card just too juicy to let silly little facts get in the way? Now "Seal" was not an overt racial attack. The core purpose of the ad is to ridicule Obama based on the notion that he has delusions of grandeur, that he is trying to rise above his station. Of course, anybody running for President is, by definition, arrogant and presumptuous -- after all, every presidential candidate thinks that he or she is qualified to be the leader of the most powerful country in the world. McCain, who has been at this for 10 years, is hardly an exception -- indeed, one need only look at his self-image as reflected in recent GOP ads (i.e., a glowing god-like figure looking over us from the distance), and he repeated references to his own "courage" in supporting the surge, to understand that narcissism goes with the territory (even for those the media has annointed to be "humble" or different). Ronald Reagan was a celebrity before he went into politics -- his career in politics would not have been possible but for his celebrity as a movie actor. Even McCain rode his celebrity as a POW to political office. By contrast, Obama has achieved celebrity after he ran for political office. His celebrity is based on how people are reacting to him as a politician, a leader and now a national and international figure who is admired for his accomplishments, intellect, and his unbelievable ability to inpire people to be and do better. So one candidate is completely self-made, born into a family of modest means, orphaned as a child, who got into Harvard law school, and rose to the top of his class academically (becoming president of the Harcard Law Review, which is no small feat), who eschewed big Wall Street law firms and prestigious clerkships to practice civil rights law in a working class community, and has achieved every bit of celebrity he now has entirely on his own merit. And yet he is painted as the elitist, the presumptuous and vacuous celebrity who will say and do anything to be elected. The other candidate is the son and grandson of admirals, who was at the bottom of his class and spent his years at the Naval Academy drinking and screwing around, who probably would have been expelled but for this father's rank, who had an indistinguished military record (until being shot down), who committd adultery and dumped his first wife to marry into a rich and powerful Arizona family, and who used his celebrity and family status to gain political office. But he is not painted as an elitist, even though his life story is a classic account of an elitist. Now, I have no doubt that McCain's experience as a POW shows that, underneath the surface of an irresponsible underachiever, was a man of great personal character. It is why he is a credible candidate for President, and the best of the GOP candidates in this year (or most other years). But Obama is also somebody who has a record of profound personal accomplishments, whose celebrity is the result of, not the driving force behind, his political career. So this is truly a campaign based on insulting Obama and what he has accomplished. It depends on the voter to be ignorant of what Obama has done relative to what McCain has done. It has nothing to do with where they stand on the issues, it has nothing to do with the incredible challenges the next President will face. No, this is entirely about insulting somebody and planting in the minds of an inattentive (or intellectually impaired) public this notion that Obama is a phony, an empty suit who sounds nice, but has nothing going on under the surface (and that paints his supporters as vacuous cult worshippers). No, McCain's campaign is now a campaign that is officially based upon insulting our intelligence. They are playing the "Insult the Intelligence" card -- proudly, I might add -- and the mainstream media is not only letting them do it, they are facilitating it by running the ads over and over, and not calling them on the falsehoods, which are out there to be reported. And there is only one antidote to that type of attack. We in the blogosphere need to get the facts out there if the mainstream media won't do it. Call them on it. Obama needs to focus on letting voters know what he is going to do to deal with the great challenges that face us after the Bush presidency ends. It is our responsibility to carry the heavy water in responding to these insulting attacks.