President Obama has recieved a lifetime achievement award for the many accomplishments he's likely to make over a long career in public office. After being awarded the Noble prize for capturing, "the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said, "We felt it was time to reward him for the realization of that hope and that better future he's sure to create over his lifetime."

Appearing in the Rose Garden, Mr. Obama said he was ''surprised and deeply humbled" by the committee's decision.  "To be honest," the president said "I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who have been honored by this prize, men and women who've had to live to an old age and who actually accomplished the things they are honored for before getting the award."He said he would accept it as a, "self fulfilling prophecy."

I don't think what I saw tonight was Barack Obama. That's not who he is nor is it who he wants to be. Obama is a mediator, a conciliator, a compromiser, an appeaser. He wants to find common ground and have everyone come together feeling good. He still thinks its possible. He doesn't want to call people out on their lies, even when its absolutely clear they are lying. I think he's uncomfortable doing it.

But tonight he was hard. He called the republicans out in their own house, albeit minority house. He laid out their three most prominent lies before them and clearly explained them. He even called them "lies."

He came out strong for the public option. And you know, I don't think he wanted to do any of this. I think he did it for us, for the liberal bloggers and readers. For the progressives on the web and progressives in general. We pushed him into it. And now we really need to watch his back and get to work. We're not going to get anything better than this and we're down to the wire. 

I voted for Obama, but I didn't work for him or support him. I was hard core for Hillary, not going to say why, don't want to refight that battle. I'm for Obama now. He didn't say or do all I wanted tonight but for me, it was the first time he did enough. This is the final push. I'll work for him now like many of you did during the election. If this speech is going to pay off for him, and for us, we need to support him now.

Let's not get too sidetracked on Joe Wilson. That's useful to shine a light on how low the right has sunk, and to shame them into better behavior. But let's not lose sight of the goal, meaningful health care reform. We need to show our support, make some noise, in any way we can. 

In a recent speech President Obama reached out to those who want to shoot him and those who want him dead by any means by making a bipartisan offer to be critically wounded. The president has found a profession marksman who has assured him that he can shoot the president in such a way as to guarantee a 50% chance of survival. Obama said, "Those who want me dead are citizens too and have a right to have their views considered when forging a bipartisan compromise. I feel a 50-50 chance of survival is fair to all sides on the issue."

Senator Grassley responded, "While there are some parts of this offer I can sign onto, for example the part where the president dies, I feel the republicans in congress will need a few more concessions on the 50% chance of the president surviving. I don't see why we need to pass the whole bill at once. We can do this incrementally by passing the section where the president dies and sometime after his funeral see if we can work out a compromise on the other section."

A high level official in the Obama administration stated that Obama feels Senator Grassley is a republican he can work with and will continue to seek a bipartisan agreement. President Obama prefers the legislation include a 50% possibility that he will live but doesn't feel that is a necessary component in a bipartisan bill.

Prison rape is not funny. Prison rape is endemic in our prisons. From gang rapes in the shower to sexual slavery with inmates coerced into becoming "girlfriends" to more powerful inmates and being sold and traded. Its not only that we just ignore it or tolerate it. We as a society take perverse pleasure in it. We joke about it, laugh about it. We act as though its an acceptable part of punishment for a crime, to be used sexually by other criminals. I've seen a several of these joking comments here, especially recently in reference to Madoff's conviction. This is particularly shocking and disgusting to me on what is mostly a liberal site with mostly liberal bloggers and commenters. Every time someone makes a joke and every time others laugh along you are signaling your approval of this horrid practice. I am all for punishment for crimes committed but that punishment should be metted out by the system, not by inmates on other inmates. And that punishment surely should not include rape. Prison rape is not a joke, its torture. We should have zero tolerance for this practice in our prisons and I have absolutely zero tolerance for jokes about it.

I'm wondering if there is any way to make changes to your dashboard preferences, or making a suggestion about a possible change. I know some people like to follow many people. I prefer to keep my dashboard relatively clean and use it when I'm busy to keep up with a small number of people. Sometimes I just don't have time to do more than that. I wonder if there's is any way to remove someone you are following if you feel that their out put has lowered in quality and is just clogging up your dashboard. I really think a "stop following" option should be included, after all it is called "my TPM dashboard."

I saw Miles Davis a few times, the last about a year and a half before he died. It was the most incredible concert I've ever heard. I could go on for pages about that concert but there was one moment that stands out. You see, Miles was not just a great trumpet player and one of the most creative improvisers. He was like a guru of jazz and subsequently of life.

So the band plays the head and Miles riffs a bit with the bass player to set him up for his improvisation. The bass player begins to build on the head, chords, and the riffs Miles set him up with. After a bit he plays this really cool funky bass line and the people clap and make a bit of noise, like you know, its so cool.

For those that know jazz there are certain things a musician can do that will grab the attention of the crowd. A funky base riff, a gospel like organ line, easily recognizable cool sounding musical moments, cliches that many in the audience dig.

The whole band has radio mikes on their instruments and Miles waves and the band backs off a bit and gets quiet. The bassist stopped playing. Miles puts the bell of his horn where the mike is to his mouth and says, "What did you do that for?"

The bass player is silent and after 10 or so seconds Miles asks again, "What did you do that for?"

Finally the bassist responded, "I guess I wanted them to clap."

Miles walked over the the bassist and takes his hand and holds it up in the air. And, of course, the crowd yelled and clapped. Then Miles walked over to the sax player and holds his hand up in the air and again the crowd roars. The sax guy yanked his hand out of Miles' hand a little angry like and walked away.

You know, sometimes I wonder if I imagined this, because most of the people there were busy grooving on the sound and the show and didn't see it. But clear as sunshine to my eyes Miles was showing that young bassist:  Look, you don't have to do nothing and all I have to do is hold up your hand and the people will clap and cheer. Get serious.

Jazz is not about playing the cool riffs that everyone knows and loves. Its about coming up with some thing new and unusual and different than the same old lines that everyone has heard a thousand times before.

So why did I feel like posting this? Earlier today there was some discussion on a thread about who gets the rec's and who gets how much commentary putting someone down for not getting recced. Well I've seen many an interesting post generate a fair amount of dialog only to sink off the page with few rec's because it just wasn't one of the cool lines we all love hearing over and over again. And I've seen many of the same old same old bumped to the rec list with almost no comments because it said the things we love to hear.

Popularity and quality are not synonymous.   

Joe Wurzelbacher is not as educated as most of us here. He couldn't refute Das Kapital with quotations from Wealth of Nations. He couldn't explain Obama's or McCain's tax plans and how they would affect him. But that doesn't matter andit doesn't matter whether he would be better off under obama's tax plan or McCain's either. I think many here are making some of the same mistakes as Thomas Frank made in What's the Matter With Kansas. Its about values, working class values. And I'm really not all that sure how much similarity those working class values are to the liberal educated values.

Among the most left leading liberals there's a very real sense of compassion and a desire to take action based on that compassion. That's all good, imo, but so often the tendancy is toward some sort of welfare.

The thought of welfare rubs against the grain of working class people. You might call it the protestant work ethic, this belief that one should work for what they have and get to keep what they work for. Tax policy is progressive in this country and most accept that as generally fair. Obama's plan to raise taxes on the wealthest 5% is probably seen as fair given the benifits those same 5% have had over these at least last 8 years. But when obama so clearly says he is taking from the top 5% so that he can give to the lower 95% it smacks of redistribution of wealth, not progressive taxation. When Obama choses such an inept way of describing his tax plan, "spreading the wealth around" this is offensive to many working class people who don't want wealth spread around in that manner.   It simply does not matter that they're the ones getting something.

Let me give you an example. I grew up working class. I internalized those values. I still believe in them. I didn't make enough money to pay income taxes last year. In May I got all I paid in back. In August I got an extra few hundred dollars from the stimulis package. Certainly it helped me, certainly I was happy to get it. But ethically it didn't feel right. It was a welfare payment I didn't need and I didn't ask for. Now Obama and Pelosi are talking about what appears to me to be another stimulis package early next year, couched in terms of early rebates.

Working class people vote their values, whether those values are social or economic, and will vote against their economic interests based on those values. To be sure those who are struggleing and have a sense that they have not gotten their fair share of the economic pie want change, want to see a fairer economic society. There are liberal programs to move toward that goal and Obama does have some plans to move toward a fairer society. But each time Obama says raise taxes on 5% and lower taxes on 95% working class folks hear, as Joe said, Robin Hood, take from the rich and give to the poor. Hence shouts of socialism even from those who would likely benifit. To make such a direct connection rubs negatively against a core working class value, that one should work for, earn, what they get. This, I believe, is one reason that Obama is having trouble winning over working class voters. He's not speaking to their values.   



 

Forty one years after three civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi Edgar Ray Killen was found guilty and sentenced to three 20 prison terms. At the time he was tried but there was a hung jury. The government waited 38 years to retry him. There is no statute of limitations on the crime of murder and I agree with that. I was happy that he was finally found guilty. Forty one years was too long for it to happen but better late than never. Are you telling me it was too long ago to matter? That Killen shouldn't have been retried?

At the same time Ayers was setting off his bombs other people were bombing black churches in the south. What if one of the people who bombed a black church got off on a technicality and admitted he set the bombs multiple times, "Guilty as hell, free as a bird, America is a great country."  When asked if he regretted burning down black churches and killing people inside he said,  "I don't regret setting bombs, I feel we didn't do enough." If I kicked off my political career in the living room of this person who bombed black churches are you seriously telling me it would not matter to you?

Something else happened in  this debate that we're still analysing within  the campaign. First of all we're moving on to the final 35 days. But there were tears that melted people and those tears that Biden cried on that day clearly moved voters. He somehow connected with those voters. but those tears have to be analysed. They have to be looked at very very carefully in light of Katrina in light of other things that Biden didn't cry for particularly as we move to these final days. We saw something very clever in  this campaign. We saw a sensitivity factor something that Biden has not been able to do with voters that he tried in the debate. Not in response to Katrina not in response to other issues that have devastated the American people, the war in Iraq. We saw tears in response to his appearance. So his appearance brought him to tears but not hurricane Katrina, not other issues.

Are you suggesting it was a little bit affected, his tears, that it was staged?

I wouldn't say that, but I am saying that there are a lot of issue that we can be emotion about in this campaign. And I'm super sensitive to that. There are people without jobs, we're approaching a recession, the sup prime market is collapsing and people are losing their homes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNrlSn7ndAA&eurl=http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/01/09/jackson/index.html

There has been quite a bit of discussion on this board on the value of bipartisanship and many people extrolling Obama for his commitment to bipartisanship. In the final vote on the bailout bill 140 democrats and 65 republicans voter yes and 133 republicans and 95 democrats voted no. Looking at the percentages of democrats and republicans voting for or against this bill, I was struck by the large number of democrats that voted against the bill.

Exactly what is bipartisanship? I'm only asking because it really seems to me that there was bipartisan support to stop this bill from passing. Clearly the vote to block this bill was significantly more bipartisan than the vote to pass it.

So maybe someone can explain to me what they, and Obama, mean when they talk about the value of bipartisanship?

I admit I don't know much about economics. That said its hard for me to see how this changes anything. We were 10 trillion dollars in debt and all the candidates, except Paul, didn't have a problem with that. What is it about 11 trillion that causes the politicians and us to suddenly sit up and take notice?

No candidate promised to balance the budget in their first year, second year, third year, etc. By the time Obama or McCain finished their first term in office the debt would have been way over 11 trillion anyway, now it will be over 12 trillion. Is that the magic number that is just too much debt?

I'd like some genius of the economy to explain to me why we could afford all these tax cuts and all the additional spending at 10 trillion but it all becomes unaffordable at 11 trillion debt.

The whole scheme seemed like a bribe to people for their vote, income tax cut for the middle class financed from letting the Bush cuts expire, an energy rebate from a windfall tax on oil companies. This with a projected deficit next year of 400 billion. This is not just Obama, Hillary had her payoffs on the table too and so does McCain.

I understand you don't get elected by telling the American people we can't afford any tax cuts, not for anyone, not if we want to stop the exploding deficit and begin to pay it down. Not if we want to invest in rebuilding the infrastructure. Not if we want to reset our whole nation on a path away from fossil fuels and into alternative energies.

To all those people who thought we could afford all these tax cuts and new spending when we had 10 trillion in debt and thought Obama was so wonderful for proposing them and are now oh so worried that we can now not afford them. What is it about 11 trillion dollars in debt that changes everything while 10 trillion dollars in debt was just hunky-dorey?

Drug abuse is a problem in our society. A large number of the population has gone through a period of their life abusing drugs. As I was reading the Washington Post article on Cindy McCain's period of drug abuse I wondered about the relevance to the presidential campaign.

Perhaps you think its relevant. Perhaps you believe a detailed account of her drug use and abuse and the ways and means she used to illegally obtain them is important information that the public needs to know and consider when choosing a president.

If the drug abuse by the wife of a presidential candidate is of such importance that it gets front page coverage in the Washington Post it seems to me the drug abuse of a candidate for president is equally if not more relevant and important.

"Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though."

Frankly I think Obama's drug use was long enough ago to be irrelevant. I also believe Cindy McCain's drug abuse was long enough ago to be irrelevant. But the Washington Post disagrees, at least as far as Cindy's drug use.

Far be it for me to suggest that the Washington Post is in the tank for Obama and has turned its newspaper's front page into the liberal equivalant of faux news. As much as I disagree that a candidate's, or a candidate's wife's, long past drug abuse is news worthy I'm sure they think that they are serving the public's interest.

So what about a detailed front page story about Obama's drug abuse. How often did he smoke marijuana? Everyday, just on the weekends, several times a day? And for how many years? Blow would imply powder cocaine. How often was he able to "afford it?" Or was he also abusing crack cocaine? "No smack" he tells us, but are there any other drugs he didn't mention that he abused? Did he ever use the same drugs Cindy McCain used, vicodan and percocet? What about LSD or qualudes?

The means that drug addics use to illegally optain their drugs are often quite sordid. Again, not a topic I think worth discussing. But the Washington post thinks these details are front page news in the story of Cindy McCain. So how did obama get the illegal dugs he was addicted to? Did he ever sell them as well?

If this is "news" it seems to me its news not just about Cindy McCain, but news about Obama and Palin as well. I look forward to a fair and balanced front page story about them on this subject in the Washington Post.

There's been a lot of discussion about Obama changing his views on several issues, FISA, guns, abortion, off shore drilling, as soon as the primary was over. There was some upset, some anger, but the main reaction has been resignation, acceptance, an understanding that he must move to the center to win this election. I saw many posts expressing the sentiment that we all know what Obama really believes on those issue but he had to move to the center to win in the GE. Well we may be right, we may have correctly analysed what Obama really believes in spite of these moves to the center or we may be wrong. But we do pride ourselves on having a sophisticated enough view of the political process to not be shocked by the changes and to understand the necessity for them.

You might want to consider the possibility that the average voter is not a moron, that they've been watching this process for years too and have just as sophisticated and nuanced a view as we do. Conservative democrats, independents, and moderate republicans know that McCain has fought with his party over the years on immigration reform, the Bush tax cuts, torture, earmarks, even the power of the evangelicals.

Perhaps this is why McCain is staying even with Obama in spite of the overwhelming dislike of bush. Perhaps the average voters are saying the same thing many have said about Obama. We know what McCain really believes on those issues but he had to move to the right to win  in the primaries.

The average voters may have correctly analysed McCain's real views on those issues or they may be wrong. But that may be the reason the democrats have been unsuccessful in defining McCain as Bush's third term.

I've seen several posts here complaining, even horrified, by the chanting of USA at the RNC. I wasn't thrilled with it either. I hate pep rally politics. I just can't be part of a group and yell with them. I could see myself at either convention standing quietly with my back against some wall as people chanted USA, O-BA-MA, or Yes We Can. I'd look on mystified at what I perceived to be the antics of those extroverts. I could never be a part of it, not for anyone, no matter how much I admired her.

I'm an introvert, I know I'm different than most. We are a minority among the population. But most of you are not. Most of you who are offended by the chanting of "USA" found the chanting of "Obama" or "yes we can" to be a positive emotion experience, inspiring. So maybe you can explain it to someone who finds all the shouting and chanting mystifying, someone who can't be a part of that group energy no matter who or where its directed at.

Why is chanting "Obama" good and chanting "USA" bad?

There have been complaints about how boring the cafe has been since the primary ended. Oh there have been moments, like when it was announced Hillary would get a roll call vote, but mostly just that silly wonkish issue related blogs. Spiced of course with personal attacks on other bloggers not toeing the party line.

Good news people, our 2 minutes of daily hate are back. The blogs are bubbling with excitement. No no, Hillary hasn't done anything to undermine Obama, recently. (we'll be watching though) Almost better than Hillary, we've got a new Emmanuel Goldstein to slime and hate on.

Welcome to the monkey house Sarah Palin.