U.S. Politics and History - AMoMaI

The Compromiser

2011-11-12T16:45:00.001-08:00

BA posted what seems like ages ago, "Disappointed with Obama?" back in December 2009. I must say that I am disappointed. Governing IS different, much, much different than campaigning; that much is clear for the Administration. But all the talk of being bipartisan and bringing the two parties together took his focus away from doing what is good for the country, or rather, doing what HE believes in.

Then again, what does Obama believe in? Does he not believe in universal healthcare that is not a silly auto insurance version of mandatory purchase from a private insurer? Does he not believe in regulating the excesses of capitalism? Does he not believe in a tax code that is progressive and pushing it through Congress? Does he believe in pushing his agenda through Congress? He gave too much credit to the Democratic and Republican leadership on Capitol Hill, which led to the 2010 losses in the House. He did not take full advantage of the Democratic control nor manage to fight off the obstructionist Repub strategy. Was he unable or unwilling or something else?

Meanwhile, his jobs bill sits at a time when the economy added only 80,000 job in October and the longtime unemployed are starting to lose their benefits. Are we seriously looking at a Carter "malaise" once again? I know, Obama didn't create the economic crisis, but he definitely took his left wing base for granted. But this ain't 1980 all over again, either. See my Republican presidential field post...

It is said that politics is the art of compromise. Is it really, and to this extent when the nation needs true leadership? I cannot help the feeling of disappointment and opportunties lost. Whither America?

Republicans who could win but GOP won't nominate

2011-11-12T16:34:00.000-08:00

Let's face it, folks. The GOP field is a sorry lot, and I'm not saying that just because I support the Democrats. James Carville wrote similar sentiments on CNN comparing the 2012 lot to the 1980 lot (I bet he had input from his GOP wife), and the whole much-ado-about-nothing for Chris Christie indicates the discontent among the conservative and the moderate Repubs.

From Mitt "The Flipflopping Mormon" Romney to Rick "Oops" Perry to Herman "Some of My Best Friends are Women who I've Never Harassed" Cain, the road to the nomination has been all about appeasing the far right Tea Party. Simply put, there are worthy Republican leaders who probably could actually have a shot at Barack "The Compromiser" Obama, but absolutely zero chance at surviving the nomination process.

It's fairly easy to think of two: Colin Powell and Rudy Giuliani. I, for one, would seriously consider voting for Powell. He is the most Reagan-esque candidate having the most centrist, moderate and independent appeal, and military credentials like Eisenhower. As for Giuliani, the recent tributes and re-tellings of the 9/11 10-year anniversary reminded me once again how his leadership skills were critical in the aftermath of the Twin Tower collapse, the obvious opportunities to earn political clout notwithstanding.

It's also obvious that it's too late in the campaign season to realistically consider a better GOP candidate entering the race for Iowa and New Hampshire. What a disappointing presidential campaign when compared to 2008. Am I right, folks?

The Faces and Names of the Price of Freedom

2011-02-12T20:47:00.000-08:00

Egypt Remembers

They're Baaack! 2012 Presidential Elections, of course.

2011-02-12T10:25:00.000-08:00

What goes around comes around, and here we go again. The 2012 presidential election season has already started. And we now have a blog to record our comments for posterity.

So, are ya ready for some football...I mean...Political Discourse?! Looking forward to your contributions.

The Egyptian Revolution

2011-02-12T10:12:00.000-08:00

Revolution will be and has been televised! Congratulations and Glory to the People of Egypt!!! Remember the date for the history lessons: February 11, 2011. The people of the world will refer to it as "2/11", and what ironic juxtaposition and extreme ends of the spectrum it is as it invokes inevitable connotations and reference to 9/11, and on so many levels!

The 18-day protest in Cairo's Tahrir "Liberation" Square has been nothing short of the most incredible history-making display of a people's movement that forced a monumental change in an Arab nation. "People united can never be defeated!" It had all the ups and downs, twists and turns of the newest and state-of-the-art thrill ride. Such liberation, freedom, hope and opportunity for the future of Egypt. And o so many questions, speculations, and topics to debate, to analyze and to discuss, so many things to say and to express as a mere observer of current events and world history. It cannot be overstated that the Arab world has rarely seen this type of protests for freedom and have succeeded.

I want to share in the celebration and the exuberance of the Egyptian people, but history does teach us to be cautious and humble observers, as all revolutions have been followed by hardships, shattered dreams and even cruelty. The French Revolution, the Revolutions of 1848, the Russian Revolution, the Iranian Revolution, Tienanmen Square, the 2009 democratic protest in Tehran. Even the American Revolution could not avoid a war to gain independence for the Thirteen Colonies. One had to wonder if Tahrir might become another Tienanmen (interesting to note that the word "Tahrir" keeps getting flagged by the Blogger editor as a misspelled word as it has not yet entered our common vernacular but that will change quite soon). And let us not forget that there were people who gave their lives and endured bodily harm in the early days of this revolution to bring this change to fruition.

All indications are that this was a true people's uprising in Egypt, not some extremist or subversive group, that demanded Hosni Mubarak to resign, but what now? Will Egypt become a democratic republic after nearly 60 years of dictatorship by military leaders? It is reassuring that the military has publicly stated its support for a lawful transition of power and for keeping the peace treaty with Israel. One can only hope to watch and pray for peaceful and non-violent events toward the building of a new democratic political infrastructure and governance. The saga continues...and next stop, Algeria!?

Tunisia Gloria! Onward to Egypt...

2011-02-12T09:53:00.000-08:00

Are we witnessing the dawning of a new age of democracy in the Arab-Muslim world, or will this wave of protest tip the scales and hand the balance of power to the radical Islamic fundamentalist movement?

The land of Hannibal and its people who fought three glorious wars against the Romans entered the limelight of the world stage! Glory to Tunisia that ushered in reform and a new government by the people protesting in the streets and sacrificing themselves in order to break free from 50 years of dictatorial rule. I must confess my ignorance to this fact. While they filmed "The Life of Brian", the Tunisian people were suffering under oppression. For a pop-culture nut like me, that puts things into perspective the fat and comfortable lives we enjoy in America.

And to think that it all began because of a desperate street vendor who resorted to self-immolation after he was stripped of his livelihood and dignity by the police state. To refer to his act as a "spark" would be an insult and a defamation of the man whose name I don't even know, not just a terrible and inappropriate pun. It appears now that this Tunisian Revolution may go down in history as the touchstone of Arab democratic revolt in the 21st century, in the same vein as the fall of the Berlin Wall brought down the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain of Eastern Europe in the waning years of the 20th. This case is even more remarkable because there is almost no democratic tradition in the Arab world.

Who would have even thought that this type of protest would spread 11 days later to Egypt? Is there any doubt that there are more demonstrations and protests to come?

‘‘Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act’’

2011-01-19T23:52:00.000-08:00

[Link to the pdf of the bill itself: Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act]

Gotta love the title of the bill, don't ya? You know, I'm not a fan of the enacted health care reform law since I believe in true socialized medicine, as in the single-payer universal health care. That's why it is even more annoying that the Repubs continue to slam "Obamacare" as socialism. Really? Socialism? Pardon the digression, but I still don't get how some of the Mad Hatter Tea Party-ers equate Obama to Hitler. Is it the Death Panel thing again?

Anyway, back to the point, what is the Republican alternative to repealing health care reform? Status quo? They do keep saying, "Let's scrap it and start over." Start over with what? What's your proposal or even an idea? I haven't heard it. Does it cover more Americans than the current law? I don't think so. Repubs would be happy to have people who "choose" not to have any health care coverage. What is it, then? Where is it?

House GOP should stop kowtowing to the Mad Hatters and get back to business at hand. Get people jobs and back to work. Plenty of new GOP congresspeople got new jobs. It's time to return the favor to the people who elected them into office. 2012 is not that far away, and the electorate certainly has a very itchy voting finger.

Trickle-down? Really?

2011-01-06T14:26:00.000-08:00

Why do the Repubs still back this "tax cuts for the rich few" notion? It is clearly bad for deficit and does nothing for the economy. Still hanging on to the Trickle-down Economics of the Reagan Years? Come on...

Tax Bill to add $857 Billion to Debt

by CalculatedRisk on 12/09/2010 11:10:00 PM

From Bloomberg: Senate Tax-Cut Extension Plan Would Add $857 Billion to Debt

The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, which estimates the revenue effects of tax legislation, said the provisions would cost the government $801.3 billion in forgone revenue over 10 years. Extending unemployment benefits for 13 months, another feature of the package, would cost $56 billion, the Obama administration has said.

It is important to remember the Joint Committee on Taxation assumed all the provisions will end as scheduled; the payroll tax cut after one year, and the other tax cuts after two years. That seems very unlikely, so the actual cost will be much much higher. As an example, if the tax cut for high income earners stays in place for the next decade that will add $700 billion alone to the debt!

Also, the vast majority of the impact is from extending the Bush tax cuts.

[AMoMaI] Disappointed with Obama?

2009-12-21T15:16:00.001-08:00

BA et al.:

Disappointed with Obama? Certainly not! He's been exactly what I said he would be, only less effective at it. His definition of "bipartisan" is - as I stated long, long ago - "Republicans should join us in what we're trying to do, or they should get out of the way and let us steamroll them." I must say, though, I didn't know he'd have as little stomach for the steamrolling as he turns out to have had.

In 1991 I looked closely at Bill Clinton to see if he would be a viable centrist candidate alternative to George H. W. Bush. Suffice it to say that I did not look long before I was determined to do all I could to keep him out of the White House. I would have rather said, "I was wrong" than feel vindicated after two terms, but he was exactly the President I thought he would be only worse.

In 2006 I looked closely at Obama to see if he would be a viable centrist candidate alternative to what the GOP might put up. I read his first book and loved it. I started to read his second book and hated it. It's not the Audacity of Hope...it's just Audacity, and his administration has reflected it. Not merely such wasted opportunity to move forward, we have moved backward in our politics and in our safety in the world. I think if I were invited to the White House for another Beer Summit (c'mon, are we serious?!), I would enjoy greatly dialoging with the President and First Lady. I think my kids would enjoy playing with their kids. I am so proud of our country for breaking the color barrier in the White House (though this is NOT the same thing as race not being an issue in the election, with so many more people voting FOR Obama because of his race than voted AGAINST him because of his race, neither one being a legitimate reason to cast a vote). And I do not toss out the same "He's not MY President" stuff that so many Bush-haters spewed about GWB. Obama is my President; I just didn't vote for him, and I wish he had not won. He's done some good things, but more often than not I range from displeased to really upset in response to his rule. It is not simply that he is pursuing an agenda that drives me nuts - granted, I know it's one that you guys like muchly - but he is doing it so poorly and messing up so many things domestically and internationally in the process.

I think Brian's Jimmy Carter allusion may be a good one. Obama apologists blamed Obama's early missteps on "the right wing" who wanted nothing but for him to fail. At this point, still so early in his term, it's tough even for the apologists to defend him. The key to it all for me remains what has bothered me for so long: He is air, "sizzle without the steak" as David Gurgen wrote nearly two decades ago in the NYT magazine about White House communications, empty rhetoric that more and more people are coming to realize they cannot believe because there is nothing behind the speech but the speech. As BA's piece says, as soon as controversy arises he makes like Dennis Miller on SNL's Weekend Update and says, "IIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMOUTTAHERE!!!" But that's how it's been since campaign days. Friends with everyone without discretion, and shame on someone for impugning the integrity of his friends, until a friend gets inconvenient and then he gets thrown under the bus. Even Grandma got thrown under the bus.

Forgive the rant...haven't had much opportunity to do so. Thanks, BA, for the invitation. Now, have at it, guys!

Merry Christmas to all. May it be a blessed holiday for your families, and as Tiny Tim said, "Tip-toe..." No, wait, wrong one. "God bless us, everyone."

-BRM

RE: [U.S. Politics and History - AMoMaI] Disappointed With Obama?

2009-12-21T15:05:00.000-08:00

Email response from MLB...

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Michael Busick <misterb_46@hotmail.com>
Sent: Mon, December 21, 2009 3:05:48 PM

I'm not disappointed at all, actually.

Given the mess he's only begun to clean up (and I agree with him when he said it's the biggest mess left for a new president to deal with since FDR took office in 1933)

Just look at how Dubya spent his first 11 months. How many days were spent on vacation? What did he even try to do to help the average American? And he was left with a much smaller mess than Obama. :)

Obama's working his skinny behind off and trying to get things done despite obstructionist, contrarian Republicans and cowardly Democrats (Pelosi and Reid included). He's starting out more like Lincoln than he wanted to, unfortunately.

No way do I regret voting for him. I'll end with a passage I left on a friend's blog:

He's a veggie burger in a steakhouse, a Spock on a ship full of Kirks and a Rubik's Cube in a store of Chinese finger puzzles. And I couldn't be happier about it.

And I agreed with another article on HuffPost that said that Republicans don't want to govern, they just want to criticize. All I'm seeing from them is more of the same (which is how we got here in the first place). Obama should make up things to approve just to see how far FOX News and the GOP will go. The GOP is already twisting themselves in bunches over Medicare's role in the new health-care plan. They can't decide whether to protest its expansion or its existence.

Democrats need to get behind him sooner rather than later or the ones up for re-election in 2010 will find themselves without Congressional health care or their current high-paying jobs.

Disappointed With Obama?

2009-12-21T13:07:00.000-08:00

Well, after a long hiatus - I'd like to finally come clean and say that I'm Disappointed in the Obama Administration. Drew Westen captured my feeling succinctly in the Huffington Post, today. Please let me know what you all think? Is is too early to label the Obama Administration a failure? Is anyone sorry that they voted for him? Is it too late for this President to avoid being the Ghost of Jimmy Carter and Christmas past?

Go a head, Brian M. and say, "I told you so." And Young and Mike, looks like you guys were right about Obama's lack of executive experience - - Perhaps, it has made a difference...

Drew Westen: Psychologist and neuroscientist; Emory University Professor

Posted: December 20, 2009 09:34 PM

"As the president's job performance numbers and ratings on his handling of virtually every domestic issue have fallen below 50 percent, the Democratic base has become demoralized, and Independents have gone from his source of strength to his Achilles Heel, it's time to reflect on why. The conventional wisdom from the White House is those "pesky leftists" -- those bloggers and Vermont Governors and Senators who keep wanting real health reform, real financial reform, immigration reform not preceded by a year or two of raids that leave children without parents, and all the other changes we were supposed to believe in.

Somehow the president has managed to turn a base of new and progressive voters he himself energized like no one else could in 2008 into the likely stay-at-home voters of 2010, souring an entire generation of young people to the political process. It isn't hard for them to see that the winners seem to be the same no matter who the voters select (Wall Street, big oil, big Pharma, the insurance industry). In fact, the president's leadership style, combined with the Democratic Congress's penchant for making its sausage in public and producing new and usually more tasteless recipes every day, has had a very high toll far from the left: smack in the center of the political spectrum.

What's costing the president and courting danger for Democrats in 2010 isn't a question of left or right, because the president has accomplished the remarkable feat of both demoralizing the base and completely turning off voters in the center. If this were an ideological issue, that would not be the case. He would be holding either the middle or the left, not losing both.

What's costing the president are three things: a laissez faire style of leadership that appears weak and removed to everyday Americans, a failure to articulate and defend any coherent ideological position on virtually anything, and a widespread perception that he cares more about special interests like bank, credit card, oil and coal, and health and pharmaceutical companies than he does about the people they are shafting.

The problem is not that his record is being distorted. It's that all three have more than a grain of truth. And I say this not as one of those pesky "leftists." I say this as someone who has spent much of the last three years studying what moves voters in the middle, the Undecideds who will hear whichever side speaks to them with moral clarity.

Leadership, Obama Style

Consider the president's leadership style, which has now become clear: deliver a moving speech, move on, and when push comes to shove, leave it to others to decide what to do if there's a conflict, because if there's a conflict, he doesn't want to be anywhere near it.

Health care is a paradigm case. When the president went to speak to the Democrats last week on Capitol Hill, he exhorted them to pass the bill. According to reports, though, he didn't mention the two issues in the way of doing that, the efforts of Senators like Ben Nelson to use this as an opportunity to turn back the clock on abortion by 25 years, and the efforts of conservative and industry-owned Democrats to eliminate any competition for the insurance companies that pay their campaign bills. He simply ignored both controversies and exhorted.

Leadership means heading into the eye of the storm and bringing the vessel of state home safely, not going as far inland as you can because it's uncomfortable on the high seas. This president has a particular aversion to battling back gusting winds from his starboard side (the right, for the nautically challenged) and tends to give in to them. He just can't tolerate conflict, and the result is that he refuses to lead.

We have seen the same pattern of pretty speeches followed by empty exhortations on issue after issue. The president has, on more than one occasion, gone to Wall Street or called in its titans (who have often just ignored him and failed to show up) to exhort them to be nice to the people they're foreclosing at record rates, yet he has done virtually nothing for those people. His key program for preventing foreclosures is helping 4 percent of those "lucky" enough to get into it, not the 75 percent he promised, and many of the others are having their homes auctioned out from right under them because of some provisions in the fine print. One in four homeowners is under water and one in six is in danger of foreclosure. Why we're giving money to banks instead of two-year loans -- using the model of student loans -- to homeowners to pay their mortgages (on which they don't have to pay interest or principal for two years, while requiring their banks to renegotiate their interest rates in return for saving the banks from "toxic assets") is something the average person doesn't understand. And frankly, I don't understand it, either. I thought I voted Democratic in the last election.

Same with the credit card companies. Great speech about the fine print. Then the rates tripled.

The president has exhorted the banks, who are getting zero-interest money, to give more of it to small businesses. But they have no incentives to do that. There are too many high-yield, reasonably low risk investments to make with zero-interest federal loans. I wouldn't mind a few billion to play around with right now myself, and I can't say I'd start with some guy who wants to start his own heating and air company, or an existing small business owner who is hanging on by his fingernails in tough economic times. I'd put my money in something like emerging markets, or maybe Canada. (Have you noticed how well Canadian equities are doing lately?) Or perhaps Chinese wind turbines. (Oh, we're investing there already with stimulus funds.)

The time for exhortation is over. FDR didn't exhort robber barons to stem the redistribution of wealth from working Americans to the upper 1 percent, and neither did his fifth cousin Teddy. Both men told the most powerful men in the United States that they weren't going to rip off the American people any more, and they backed up their words with actions. Teddy Roosevelt was clear that capital gains taxes should be high relative to income taxes because we should reward work, not "gambling in stocks." This President just doesn't have the stomach to make anyone do anything they don't want to do (except women to have unwanted babies because they can't afford an abortion or live in a red state and don't have an employer who offers insurance), and his advisors are enabling his most troubling character flaw, his conflict-avoidance.

Like most Americans I talk to, when I see the president on television, I now change the channel the same way I did with Bush. With Bush, I couldn't stand his speeches because I knew he meant what he said. I knew he was going to follow through with one ignorant, dangerous, or misguided policy after another. With Obama, I can't stand them because I realize he doesn't mean what he says -- or if he does, he just doesn't have the fire in his belly to follow through. He can't seem to muster the passion to fight for any of what he believes in, whatever that is. He'd make a great queen -- his ceremonial addresses are magnificent -- but he prefers to fly Air Force One at 60,000 feet and "stay above the fray."

It's the job of the president to be in the fray. It's his job to lead us out of it, not to run from it. It's his job to make the tough decisions and draw lines in the sand. But Obama really doesn't seem to want to get involved in the contentious decisions. They're so, you know, contentious. He wants us all to get along. Better to leave the fights to the Democrats in Congress since they're so good at them. He's like an amateur boxer who got a coupon for a half day of training with Angelo Dundee after being inspired by the tapes of Mohammed Ali. He got "float like a butterfly" in the morning but never made it to "sting like a bee."

Do you think Americans ought to have one choice of health insurance plans the insurance companies don't control, or don't you? I don't want to hear that it would sort of, kind of, maybe be your preference, all other things being equal. Do you think we ought to use health care as a Trojan Horse for right-wing abortion policies? Say something, for God's sake.

He doesn't need a chief of staff. He needs someone to shake him until he feels something strongly enough not just to talk about it but to act. He's increasingly appearing to the public, and particularly to swing voters, like Dukakis without the administrative skill. And although he is likely to squeak by with a personal victory in 2012 if the economy improves by then, he may well do so with a Republican Congress. But then I suppose he'll get the bipartisanship he always wanted.

No Vision, No Message

The second problem relates to the first. The president just doesn't want to enunciate a progressive vision of where this country should be heading in the 21st century, particularly a progressive vision of government and its relation to business. He doesn't want to ruffle what he believes to be the feathers of the American people, to offer them a coherent, emotionally resonant, values-driven message -- starting with an alternative to Ronald Reagan's message that government is the problem and not the solution -- and to see if they might actually follow him.

He doesn't want to talk about social issues, even though they predictably have gotten in the way of health care reform and will do the same on one issue after another. Abortion? You don't advance a progressive position by giving a center-right speech at Notre Dame that emphasizes cutting back on the number of abortions without mentioning that sex education and birth control might be useful means to that end, mumbling something about a conscience clause that suggests that pharmacists don't have to fill birth control prescriptions if it offends their sensibilities, and allowing states to use health care reform to set back the rights of women and couples to decide when to start their families based on somebody else's faith. If you believe that freedom includes the freedom to decide when you will or won't have a child, say it, say it with moral conviction, and follow it up with action. Perhaps something as simple as this: "I won't sign a health bill into law that forces women and couples to have a child they did not intend and are not ready to parent because of the dictates of someone else's faith or conscience." You know what? A message of that sort wins by 25 points nationally, and you can speak it in Southern and win with evangelical Christians in the deep south if you speak to them honestly in the language of faith. That shouldn't be hard for a president who is a religious Christian.

Gays? Virtually all Americans are for repealing don't ask/don't tell (except for conservatives who haven't yet come to terms with their own homosexuality -- but don't tell them that, or at least don't ask). This one's a no-brainer. Tell Congress you want a bill on your desk by January 1, and announce that you have serious questions about the constitutionality of the current policy and won't enforce it until your Justice Department has had time to study it. Don't keep firing gay Arabic interpreters. But that would require not just giving the pretty speech on how we're all equal in the eyes of God and we should all be equal in the eyes of the law (a phrase he might want to try sometime). It would require actually doing something that might anger a small percentage of the population on the right, and that's just too hard for this president to do. It's one thing to acknowledge and respect the positions of people who hold different points of view. It's another to capitulate to them.

Immigration? Joe Wilson yells, "You lie." So instead of acting like a man and going after Wilson on the spot (the man just attacked him in front of the entire nation in a joint session of Congress), he accepts his apology the next day, and a day later rewards Wilson for his incivility and bigotry by tightening the rules so that illegal immigrants can't even buy insurance themselves on the health care exchange the Democrats are creating sometime between 2013 and 2025 (depending on how many seats they lose in the meantime, and hence how long, if ever, it takes for the exchange to get set up).

Good policy? No. Not only is it inhumane -- can you imagine being really sick or in terrible pain but being too afraid even to go to a clinic because you might be deported? -- but it's a public health hazard for sick people not to get care and spread their illnesses, a drain on American taxpayers as illegal immigrants who finally have no choice but to find their way, when they're incredibly ill, to emergency rooms or public clinics, and a despicable policy toward their children, many of whom are American citizens, but who in either case shouldn't have to be sick, in pain, and without preventive care as their bodies and minds are developing, no matter where their parents come from.

Is it good politics? No. During the election I tested messages on just this issue, and a strong progressive message beat the most convincing anti-immigrant message we could throw at it by 10 points. Two weeks ago, I tested messages on just this issue as it applied to health care, and that margin had doubled.

If you just talk sensibly with Americans, they are sensible people. But ask them one-dimensional polling questions like, "Do you think illegal immigrants should get health care?" and you'll entirely miss the art of the possible.

Jobs? Watch for a $25 billion plan that makes good political theatre and that every economist I know says will move the unemployment rate from 10.0 percent to 9.95 percent. Not enough to save 30 seats in November. And not enough to save a generation of families from financial ruin and lower education, higher unemployment, and poorer health for the rest of their -- and their children's -- lives.

The problem with the president's strategic team is that they don't understand the difference between compromising on policy and compromising on core values. When it comes to policies, listen all you want to the Stones: "You can't always get what you want" (although it would be nice if the administration tried sometime). But on issues of principle -- like allowing regressive abortion amendments to be tacked onto a health care reform bill -- get some stones. Make your case to the American people, make it evocatively, and draw the line in the sand. That's how you earn people's respect. That's the only thing that will bring Independents back.

And that's where the problem of message comes in. This White House has no coherent message on anything. The message on health care reform changed even more frequently than the interest rates on credit cards last Spring, and turned a 70-30 winning issue into its current 30-50 status with the public. Last week on the Sunday news shows, I remember watching in disbelief as Larry Summers smugly told the 15 million Americans out of work that the recession was definitively over and that all economists agree. Then Christina Romer, another of the President's chief economic advisors, announced on the next show that the recession is definitely not over.

That's simply inexcusable. The least two members of the economic team can do before they fan out on the Sunday morning shows is to agree on whether we're in a recession, how it relates to joblessness, and how to talk about it sensitively without seeming out of touch. That's the job of the White House messaging team, which has been AWOL since at least the start of the health care battle last Spring.

It's the same problem we've seen with messaging the deficit. Are deficits good -- we're supposed to deficit spend our way out of a severe recession, right? -- or bad -- they're a drag on the economy and stealing from the next generation. So which are they? How about telling the American people, at the very least, when they're good and when they're bad, not flipping back and forth in the same sentence between deficit spending and deficit reduction.

To be honest, I don't know what the president believes on anything, and I'm not alone among American voters. He introduced his recent job summit by saying that even in these times, the role of government should be limited. Really? That was a nicely nuanced reinforcement of the ideology of limited, ineffective government promulgated by Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Unfortunately, it runs against all the available data and everything Democrats have stood for since FDR.

Abortion? Who knows. Gays? I suspect intellectually he believes in equal rights but deep down he thinks they're icky. Something is sure holding him back from doing the obvious. Immigrants? He probably has an opinion, but he's not going to waste political capital on them; he sold them out in 15 seconds on health care. Foreclosures? Nice speeches, and I'm sure it really concerns him when he hears the stories of families firsthand. But not enough to divert the cash from the lenders to the borrowers. And the problem is, the average American knows it. Job creation? Would be nice, and I presume he believes that people who want to work ought to be able to work. But when 700,000 people were losing their jobs a month in his first few months of office and over millions have lost their jobs on his watch (a process, of course, initiated by his predecessor, whose name, to my knowledge, he has not uttered since entering office), three letters should have come to mind: W - P - A. President Roosevelt had no legs to stand on, but he sure had spine.

The Politics of the Lowest Common Denominator

And capping off all of these aspects of the president's leadership style is his preference for the lowest common denominator. That means you don't really have to fight, you don't have to take anybody on, you don't take any risks. You just find what the public is so upset about that even the Republicans would stipulate to it if forced to (e.g., that excluding people from health care because they have "pre-existing conditions" is something we can't continue to tolerate) and build it into whatever plan the special interests can hammer out around it.

Unfortunately, what Democrats just can't seem to understand is that the politics of the lowest common denominator is always a losing politics. It sends a meta-message that you're weak -- nothing more, nothing less -- and that's the cross the Democrats have had to bear since they "lost China" 60 years ago. And in fact, it is weak.

Want health care reform? Let Congress work it out, and whatever comes out, call it a victory. It's telling that when the Senate triumphantly announced that it had the 60 votes for cloture on Friday, insurance stocks hit a 52-year peak.

Energy? Okay, if you don't really want to mess with the oil and coal industries, let the caps slip higher and higher and industry will cut pollution around the edges. It won't really solve the problem, but it's the golden mean between the right thing to do and the wrong thing to do, which is the essence of Obampromise. It also hamstrings you in Copenhagen, but oh well, they could use a little global warming there this time of year anyway. Have you noticed it's cold as hell over there?

Financial regulation? The president's all for the good stuff: regulating derivatives and other fancy financial products no one but the people making bundles off of them who crashed the economy (and now run it) understand. Tell bankers the days of wine and roses are over. But if we have to have half-reform so Goldman Sachs is willing to keep sending its best and brightest through the revolving door at Treasury, that's okay; the Dow is up. So jobs are bleak and the average American is enraged that Wall Street had a bumper year -- with record bonuses -- as they're losing their homes. But you know the old adage about a half a loaf.

That's in fact what the health care debate is over. We shouldn't have had to settle for half a loaf. If the president had simply placed appropriate blame on the health insurance industry for its pre-existing conditions, it's cutting off care for breast cancer victims in the middle of treatment, and its doubling our premiums and co-pays during the Bush years, he would have harnessed populist anger and pushed this bill through six months ago, and it would have looked like the change we were told to believe in. But if you cut backroom deals with every special interest who is part of the problem and offer the American people no coherent message while the other side is messaging straight out of the messaging memo written by Frank Luntz ("government takeover," "a bureaucrat between you and your doctor"), you can expect half a loaf. And the other half will be paid for by middle class taxpayers, as in the Senate bill, which includes provisions like taxing good middle class tax plans like PPOs, which will disappear as soon as insurance companies and big businesses have the excuse of the missing tax break. Remind me, when we've just had the largest transfer of wealth to the upper 1 percent of the country from working and middle class Americans in a century, why it would be such a terrible thing instead, as in the House bill, to ask people who make over a million dollars a year to pony up for the health care of their (and their friends') housekeepers, instead of taking away health care plans union workers traded for salary increases?

The president's biggest success has been on the international stage: He's not George W. Bush, and he's eloquent to boot. He's done a great deal with that eloquence to speak to Muslims around the world and to make clear to others in the international community that America is back -- mostly. But that international community is just starting to learn that his eloquence doesn't always have much behind it.

Am I being too hard on the president? He's certainly done many good things. But it would be hard to name a single thing President Obama has done domestically that any other Democrat wouldn't have done if he or she were president following George W. Bush (e.g., signing the children's health insurance bill that Congress is about to gut to pay for worse care for kids under the health insurance exchange, if it ever happens), and there's a lot he hasn't done that every other Democrat who ran for president would have done.

Obama, like so many Democrats in Congress, has fallen prey to the conventional Democratic strategic wisdom: that the way to win the center is to tack to the center.

But it doesn't work that way.

You want to win the center? Emanate strength. Emanate conviction. Lead like you know where you're going (and hopefully know what you're talking about).

People in the center will follow if you speak to their values, address their ambivalence (because by definition, on a wide range of issues, they're torn between the right and left), and act on what you believe. FDR did it. LBJ did it. Reagan did it. Even George W. Bush did it, although I wish he hadn't.

But you have to believe something.

I don't honestly know what this president believes. But I believe if he doesn't figure it out soon, start enunciating it, and start fighting for it, he's not only going to give American families hungry for security a series of half-loaves where they could have had full ones, but he's going to set back the Democratic Party and the progressive movement by decades, because the average American is coming to believe that what they're seeing right now is "liberalism," and they don't like what they see. I don't, either.

What's they're seeing is weakness, waffling, and wandering through the wilderness without an ideological compass. That's a recipe for going nowhere fast -- but getting there by November."

Drew Westen, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University, founder of Westen Strategies, and author of The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.

Steele's Take on Obama Health Care Speech

2009-09-10T19:43:00.000-07:00

Wow, socialist power grab, you say? What the hell? I better get off my butt and donate to the RNC! "Are you now or have you ever been a socialist, President Obama?" You can't trust an Obama Democrat as far as you can throw one, am I right, people?

Seriously, is this what conservatives are truly worried about, a socialist power grab? How does health care reform benefit the gov't and elitist liberals by providing insurance for those who don't have it? Let's see...The public option could allow more people to get lower-cost health insurance so that insurance company profits could go down, which in turn could mean dwindling political donations and lobbyist monies to the RNC and others who are pro-insurance companies...Damn it, we better stop them now!

Steele's Response to Obama Speech via HuffPo

Fwd: The False Hope of Bipartisanship - BRM

2009-09-10T08:06:00.000-07:00

Apologies to BRM as the article below (and others which I will post here shortly) had been stuck in our Google Groups site since Feb. Doh! And for some reason, I did not have email forwarded from that site, so I never received it. Since we don't really check that site, please post to our blog, not that we're "crazy go nuts" blogging all the time. ;-) Appreciate your support.

Thanks, BRM, for the article. I think this is quite telling and topical even months later, given the current health care debate, distortion and disinformation. More comments to come after reading the article more thoroughly.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Brian Menard" <brian_men...@hotmail.com>
Date: Feb 16, 11:05 am
Subject: The False Hope of Bipartisanship
To: AMoMaI Group

Friends:

Great piece by political scientiest Alan Abramowitz, from Larry
Sabato's Crystal Ball (see Sabato's Crystal Ball - Vol. VII, Iss. 6 -
SENATE 2010 UPDATE - @ Larry J. Sabato
<goodpolit...@virginia.edu<mailto:goodpolit...@virginia.edu>>).

In it, a not-by-any-measure-conservative academic argues effectively the point that is the source of great frustration with President Obama for conservatives like me. I disagree soundly - though not surprisingly - with Abramowitz's suggestion that we stop pretending to be bipartisan and just push the socialist agenda. I agree soundly, though, that President Obama is trying to push two incompatible rhetorical lines. To put my own priority in place of Abramowitz's preference for the abandonment of bipartisanship, I echo his essential point that you can't claim you want bipartisanship without being willing to make concessions to bipartisanship. I wrote an unpublished op-ed (after Senator Obama announced formally his candidacy on the steps of the Springfield Capitol two years ago) that argued his bipartisan/postpartisan appeal essentially said, "Hey, all you Republicans, if you would just join our left-wing socialist agenda and get out of the way, we could work together to do great things for the country." While I had the audacity to hope the new administration would prioritize its rhetoric pushing bipartisanship over its rhetoric pushing leftist policies, President Obama seems to dismiss the moderates who helped elect him and conservatives like me who didn't but nonetheless want to work with him on a truly bipartisan basis. As Newt Gingrich stated a couple weeks ago on ABC's "This Week", you can't bake the cake yourself and then write the other side's name in the frosting on top to call it a bipartisan effort. "We won" keeps getting shoved in the face of such folks like a scoop of misplaced doggie-doo to remind people that - contrary to claims of messianic Barack disciples - we should not repeat the mistake they made in electing someone who promised to change the tone of Washington. I argued during the campaing that McCain was the real candidate for changing how things are done in Washington. Obama made a much better case, though, disingenuous as it was. After the election I argued that President-Elect Obama had a special opportunity to make real change, not just partisan policy change, and that doing so would elevate him from being another partisan President to being a real statesman and leader. He has gone the wrong direction in this regard, and he is killing fast the good will that people like me have maintained. I will hold on to hope. Increasingly, though, whether because the President is too naïve/weak/insecure to lead the left-wing leadership of Congress or because his rhetoric of bipartisanship/postpartisanship is truly meaningless, what I see is just audacity without much cause for hope in the long run.

-BRM
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The False Hope of Bipartisanship
[from Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball: see Sabato's Crystal Ball - Vol.
VII, Iss. 6 - SENATE 2010 UPDATE - @ Larry J. Sabato
<goodpolit...@virginia.edu<mailto:goodpolit...@virginia.edu>>]

Alan Abramowitz

It's not a matter of "if." It's a matter of "when." As in, when will all of the feel-good rhetoric about Democrats and Republicans joining hands to solve the nation's problems come to an end and open partisan warfare resume in Washington? In fact, that time may already be here. Despite Barack Obama's efforts to reach out to Republican leaders and conservative intellectuals since his election and his willingness to modify his economic stimulus package to accommodate Republicans' desire for smaller spending increases and larger tax cuts, the President isn't getting much love from the other side of the aisle.

One day after Mr. Obama ventured to Capitol Hill to urge Republican lawmakers to support his $819 billion stimulus package, House Republicans voted 177-0 against the bill. And despite intense efforts to reach an agreement acceptable to moderates in both parties, only three Republicans ended up supporting the bill in the Senate--just one more than the bare minimum needed to avert a filibuster. Meanwhile, conservative pundits and talk-show hosts have been hammering the President's plan as old-fashioned pork-barrel politics or socialism in disguise, and some former Bush Administration officials, including Dick Cheney, have been suggesting that his orders to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and ban the use of waterboarding and other
"enhanced interrogation techniques" are jeopardizing the safety of the American people.

The new president is still enjoying a honeymoon with the public. According to the Gallup Poll, almost two-thirds of Americans approve of the job that he is doing so far. That's quite a change from his predecessor who left office with an approval rating of about 30 percent. Even among Republicans, Mr. Obama started his term with a 43 percent approval rating and only a 30 percent disapproval rating--which is why most Republican leaders and conservative commentators, with the notable exception of Rush Limbaugh, have been reluctant to criticize the new president too harshly, claiming that they wish him well despite their disagreements.

Don't expect the honeymoon to last very long, though. The more decisions the president makes, the more he is going to offend the Republican base and the more free Republican leaders and conservative pundits are going to feel to attack him. That's because many of the policies that Mr. Obama supports, from withdrawing American troops from Iraq and lifting the ban on American aid, to international organizations that provide abortion counseling, to expanding government-sponsored health insurance and making it easier for unions to organize workers, are anathema to the large majority of Republican voters as well as the large majority of Republican office-holders.

One of the most important characteristics of public opinion in the United States today is polarization. Americans agree that the country has serious problems but they disagree sharply about what needs to be done about the economy, health care, climate change, the war in Iraq, gay rights, abortion, and a host of other issues. Democrats generally line up on one side of these issues while Republicans generally line up on the opposing side. And the biggest differences are found among the most interested, informed, and active members of the public--the people whose opinions matter the most to political leaders.

Journalists and editorial writers tend to see partisan conflict as a product of petty rivalries and personality clashes. They assume that Democratic and Republican leaders could settle their differences if they really wanted to, and that policies with broad bipartisan support would be better for the country than policies supported by only one party. But the major reason why partisan conflict has been so intense in the United States in recent years is not that Democratic and Republican office-holders don't like each other, but that they have fundamental disagreements on the major issues facing the country.

Since the 1970s the Democratic Party has been moving to the left, the
Republican Party has been moving to the right, and the center has been disappearing. The conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans who once exercised considerable influence in Washington are almost extinct. There are so few remaining moderates, and the ideological gulf separating the parties is so wide, that bipartisan compromise on most issues is almost impossible. And rank-and-file Democrats and Republicans, especially those who pay attention to politics, have been moving apart as well. As a result, politicians who try to compromise with the other side risk antagonizing their own base.

Contrary to the claims of some pundits and editorial writers, there is no clear relationship between bipartisanship and good public policy. The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 had broad bipartisan support. Twenty-nine Senate Democrats and 82 House Democrats voted for the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq; almost all of them ended up regretting it. And some very successful policies have been produced by highly partisan decision-making processes. In 1993, President Clinton's first budget passed Congress without a single Republican vote. Despite claims by Newt Gingrich and other GOP leaders that the tax increases included in that budget would throw the economy into a tailspin, the result was eight years of economic growth and shrinking deficits.

To win Republican support for his budget, President Clinton would have had to give up the tax increases on upper income Americans that were a critical component of his economic plan. Similarly, to win more than token Republican support for his economic stimulus package, President Obama will almost certainly have to agree to much larger tax cuts and much smaller increases in public expenditures than his economic policy advisors believe are desirable.

Barack Obama was elected on a promise of bringing change to Washington. But during the campaign he talked about two kinds of change: change in the content of public policy and change in the way Washington works and especially in what he described as the excessive partisanship of the Bush era. The problem is that these two kinds of change may be incompatible. Appointing a few Republicans to the cabinet and inviting some Republican members of Congress over to the White House to watch the Super Bowl may win Mr. Obama some compliments, but it's unlikely to win him any votes on legislation. That would require making significant concessions on the content of that legislation.

The last two elections have drastically reduced the number of moderate Republicans in the House and Senate, leaving the party more dominated than ever by hard-line conservatives who represent safe Republican districts and states. In order to win more than token support from congressional Republicans, therefore, President Obama would have to make major policy concessions to these hard-line conservatives--concessions that would almost certainly be unacceptable not only to the vast majority of congressional Democrats, but also to the vast majority of politically engaged Democrats in the country. Such concessions would require him to abandon commitments that he made to key Democratic constituencies during the 2008 campaign on issues such as health care, education, climate change, reproductive rights, and labor law reform.

Despite the President's rhetoric about the need for both parties to work together to solve the country's problems and his efforts to reach out to Republicans and conservatives, there is no indication that he is willing to make such concessions and he would be foolish to do so. It would only be seen as a sign of weakness and would lead to demands for even bigger concessions in the future.

Like it or not, in order to produce the kinds of policy changes for which he campaigned, Mr. Obama is going to have to depend overwhelmingly on the support of his fellow Democrats in the Congress and in the country. So expect more party-line votes in the House and Senate, more complaints from Republican leaders about being ignored, and more strident attacks on the president by conservative pundits and talk-show hosts. As a wise man once said, "politics ain't beanbag."

"Gifted and Flawed" Teddy Kennedy Dies

2009-08-26T10:22:00.000-07:00

I suppose you could say "Gifted and Flawed" about a whole slew of politicians who came and went. Regardless of your politics, it is the end of an era. Even Orrin Hatch would listen to Teddy on the health care issue; now who will fill his shoes?

NY Times Obit on Kennedy

It's Like That (and That's the Way It Is)

2009-08-25T10:48:00.000-07:00

I was listening to Run-D.M.C. this morning on the bus, and these words from 25 years ago still ring true today. There be some wisdom in them old-school rap! And the words are not one-sidedly political, either. Yet another testament to the fact that if you live long enough you see that history tends to repeat itself, for better or worse. Enjoy.

Unemployment at a record high
People coming, people going, people born to die
Don't ask me, because I don't know why
But it's like that, and that's the way it is

People in the world tryin to make ends meet
You try to ride car, train, bus, or feet
I said you got to work hard, you want to compete
It's like that, and that's the way it is
Huh!

Money is the key to end all your woes
Your ups, your downs, your highs and your lows
Won't you tell me the last time that love bought you clothes?
It's like that, and that's the way it is

Bills rise higher every day
We receive much lower pay
I'd rather stay young, go out and play
It's like that, and that's the way it is
Huh!

Wars going on across the sea
Street soldiers killing the elderly
Whatever happened to unity?
It's like that, and that's the way it is

Disillusion is the word
That's used by me when I'm not heard
I just go through life with my glasses blurred
It's like that, and that's the way it is
Huh!

You can see a lot in this lifespan
Like a bum eating out of a garbage can
You noticed one time he was your man
It's like that (what?) and that's the way it is

You should have gone to school, you could've learned a trade
But you laid in the bed where the bums have laid
Now all the time you're crying that you're underpaid
It's like that (what?) and that's the way it is
You know its like that and thats the way it is
Because it's like that and thats the way it is

One thing I know is that life is short
So listen up homeboy, give this a thought
The next time someone's teaching why don't you get taught?
It's like that (what?) and that's the way it is

If you really think about it times aren't that bad
The one that flexes with successes will make you glad
Stop playing start praying, you won't be sad
It's like that (what?) and that's the way it is
Huh!

When you feel you fail sometimes it hurts
For a meaning in life is why you search
Take the bus or the train, drive to school or the church
It's like that, and that's the way it is

Here's another point in life you should not miss
Do not be a fool who's prejudiced
Because we're all written down on the same list
It's like that (what?) and that's the way it is
Huh!

You know it's like that, and that's the way it is
Because it's like that, and that's the way it is

Whither Healthcare Reform?

2009-08-24T14:54:00.000-07:00

The Obama honeymoon's been over for a while, so we should pick up the debate of the moment. Will healthcare reform die on the vine once again like the many previous efforts to insure all Americans? Will the health insurance companies escape unscathed and actually benefit via the proposed reforms being considered in the Congress now? Big-money lobbying efforts will win out again? Will this country ever take its collective head out and figure out what the hell is going on?!! From gun-toting protesters to shoutings at town halls made to look like grassroots uprisings, you didn't really think this was going to be easy, did you, Obama?

Daiy Kos - L.A. Times: Insurers winning health reform battle
The LA Times article referenced above

Fwd: "happening world of Politics"

2009-07-06T13:50:00.000-07:00

From BRM via googlegroups... I think we received this one before but posting to our blog anyway.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Brian Menard" <brian_men...@hotmail.com>
Date: Jul 6 2009, 1:50 pm
Subject:
To: AMoMaI Group

Read the attached from one of my UVA friends who is an assistant
professor political science at Bentley University. No surprise to any
of us, but good to confirm academically that we are in the happening
world of politics.

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=120429506564&h=Be5Pl&u=AHVm...<http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=120429506564&h=Be5Pl&u=AHVm...>

Reps' Bipartisan Lip Service BS

2009-02-13T12:53:00.000-08:00

As I suspected but hoped would not be the case, it is quite evident that the Republicans in the House want absolutely no part of this stimulus package. That's a message, to me at least, that the Limbaugh-agreeing mob mentality in the party are herding as a block; i.e. they will bet on this package to fail and don't want any bit of its "stink" hanging on them, hoping to charge a comeback in power in 2010. And that in a word is bullshit, and in three words, bipartisan lip service. What more do the Reps want, tyranny by the minority? Already there's the compromise of about a third of it going to tax cuts, not to mention the $70 billion alternative minimum tax cut that will do virtually nothing to stimulate the economy.

I believe the bill as is does not do enough to help those who really need it, namely the unemployed, the uninsured and the foreclosed. Yes, I will agree with a Nobel Prize-winning economist over some Rep party leader from Ohio.

Get a load of these comments from the Reps:

Originally I was going to link the NYT article but WSJ had a more thoroughly assessed article so here it is: House Passes Stimulus Bill Without Republican Support

Petraeus Tests Obama

2009-02-10T17:22:00.000-08:00

Joe Biden got a talking to when he said that world leaders will test the "young president" Obama. It appears that most of the tests in his first 3-4 weeks have been coming from leaders within our own country, first the Republicans in Congress and now General David Petraeus, who apparently has some political aspirations of his own. But doing an end-around the president is not too smart, is it? Yet another sideshow to distract him from the economic troubles at home? Thanks, but no thanks, General.
Petraeus Leaked Misleading Story on Pullout Plans

WASHINGTON, Feb 9 (IPS) - The political maneuvering between President Barack Obama and his top field commanders over withdrawal from Iraq has taken a sudden new turn with the leak by CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus - and a firm denial by a White House official - of an account of the Jan. 21 White House meeting suggesting that Obama had requested three different combat troop withdrawal plans with their respective associated risks, including one of 23 months.

The Petraeus account, reported by McClatchy newspapers Feb. 5 and then by the Associated Press the following day, appears to indicate that Obama is moving away from the 16-month plan he had vowed during the campaign to implement if elected. But on closer examination, it doesn't necessarily refer to any action by Obama or to anything that happened at the Jan. 21 meeting.

The real story of the leak by Petraeus is that the most powerful figure in the U.S. military has tried to shape the media coverage of Obama and combat troop withdrawal from Iraq to advance his policy agenda - and, very likely, his personal political interests as well.

First Black RNC Chairman?

2009-01-27T22:10:00.000-08:00

From The Root giving some perspective on the vote for the new RNC Chairman. An excerpt:
"It’s true that two black men--of very different political leanings--are among the six men fighting to represent the party of Abraham Lincoln. Blackwell is a rock-ribbed conservative who writes for the far-right Town Hall, belongs to the Family Research Council as well as the National Rifle Association. Steele is a moderate who helms the revived Republican Leadership Council, a centrist political action committee, alongside others like Christine Whitman, Jane Swift and Tom Ridge. But how can we forget that Chip Saltzman, another potential RNC head, recently sent supporters an e-mail making fun of “Barack the Magic Negro?” Just this week, a fake cover of USA Today began to circulate among RNC membership, with the unpleasant headline “RNC Members Choose ‘Whites Only’ Chairman”—a reference to Katon Dawson, a South Carolina operative said to be the front-runner, who joined a private club that does not admit blacks."
Grand White Party: Can Republicans get down with the brown?

Conyers Subpoenas Rove for US Attorney Firings

2009-01-27T16:56:00.000-08:00

See, we'll never run out of stuff to blog about. Oh, that John Conyers! Conservatives hate him as much as liberals hate Rush Limbaugh, I bet. Give 'em hell, John, but we shall see if Rove ends up at your hearing first. So much for post-partisan D.C.? Hey, the law is the law, and you must pay if you broke it in the most egregious way possible.

Ball in Obama's Court on Rove's US Attorney Testimony
Here's an interesting bit from the above article:
"And just now, Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, told TPMmuckraker that he had already forwarded Conyers' subpoena to the Obama White House, asking them to give an opinion as to whether President Bush retains his ability to assert executive privilege.

In other words, the Obama White House will decide, essentially, whether to back Rove's claim of privilege, or to deny it. (And given that Rove is supposed to appear February 2, that decision from the White House should come soon.) In the latter case, said Luskin, a negotiation would ensue between the Obama White House, President Bush, and Rove. That would likely result in the matter going to court."

Well, the Sierra Club is pleased...

2009-01-27T15:33:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am on their email list. Here's what I received today entitled, "Now That's What I Call a President!":

President Obama Wastes No Time

If anyone was still wondering whether President Barack Obama would make a significant difference in the White House, it took less than a week to settle the question. The announcement that President Obama had requested that EPA Director Lisa Jackson to look into granting California a waiver for its clean car law is, by itself, a stunning break with the policies of the past. Significantly, it's also one of four "Clean Slate" energy initiatives that more than 50,000 Sierra Club supporters asked President Obama to enact immediately upon assuming office. (You can still encourage him to act on the remaining three.)

But that was only some of the good news last week. President Obama also indicated that his administration will issue new fuel-economy standards in the coming months that will go beyond what the Bush administration had started. Equally exciting was an announcement that the EPA, for the first time ever, would oppose a coal-fired power plant permit (the Big Stone II project in South Dakota).

In addition, President Obama lifted the "global gag rule" that has prohibited U.S. funding for international organizations that speak about abortion to women and girls seeking reproductive and family-planning services. And Abraham Lincoln's Bible probably hadn't even made it back to the Library of Congress before the Interior Department announced that it was withdrawing a rule change that would have prematurely dropped gray wolves in the Great Lakes and Northern Rocky Mountains from the endangered species list.

Of course much work remains before eight years of environmental neglect can be reversed, but what a start!

---------------
I promise our blog won't be just a long list of gushers for "President Obama." Still can't get over how good that sounds...

Obama Inauguration Thoughts

2009-01-20T23:41:00.000-08:00

I will confess that I played hooky and called in sick so I could stay home to watch and to tape the inaugural proceedings. It starts from the various dignitaries entering the platform to the actual inauguration (botched oath and all) to the luncheon (NBC screwing up the report that Byrd had a seizure instead of Kennedy) to the parade to the D.C. Neighborhood Ball to the first half of that night's edition of Charlie Rose. All in all, eight hours of VHS recorded. Is that so wrong? I'm only sorry that I couldn't capture it digitally on a DVD and even that the tape was recorded in EP mode instead of SP for better picture quality.

So let's have some thoughts on this historic day and beginning of a presidency.

Prelude to the Inauguration - BRM/YHK

2009-01-13T07:03:00.000-08:00

From: Brian Menard
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 7:03:37 AM

Young:

Been thinking about you much as we get closer to Inauguration Day. Johanna, who lives just outside DC, will have no floor space in her apartment as every inch will be filled with out-of-towners joining the throng on the Mall for the big event. I'm very jealous - just 'cuz I didn't vote for him doesn't mean I can't appreciate the incredibly historic moment this is in our nation's history. You know, of the two inaugurations I've attended, one was GOP (1973) and one was Dem (1993).

So far I am about as pleased as I could HOPE to be with the way Obama has set things up. There are things I really don't like, people he's bringing in that worry me greatly or that just make me nervous regarding what I expect they will do, etc. But that's part of reaching across the aisle, and so far I believe he IS following through on his rhetoric to do so. He's pre-governing quite differently than his campaign policy pronouncements implied, probably as much to your chagrin as to my relief. Not that I'm pleased with the policy overall; were it up to me, I'd move things much further my direction; but, I'm pleased that he's making the early movements to bring folks together in a way that both you and I can be equally displeased with the ultimate output! That's what deliberative democracy is all about, right?

Cheers in the new year!
Brian

----------------
From: Young H. Kim
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 3:48 PM

Well, I know one thing; our blog is awfully lonely these days. ;-) I know I sound like a broken record, but let's get more of our thoughts there.

I may have given many people here and elsewhere the impression that I am some sort of a fan or a diehard supporter of Obama, but I realized over the course of our emailing/blogging that I'm more of an ideologue/pragmatist but probably an extremist when seen from conservative views. However, I would never partake in anything even remotely resembling a "cult of personality," let alone over a politician. When I saw/read the contents of the Time Person of the Year issue, it made me cringe. For one thing, I don't get the hubbub over Rick Warren being chosen for the invocation. Not that I totally agree with the man, but is this where the liberals must draw the line? And always over the gay rights issue? Are we to dismiss people who have strongly held religious beliefs whether they are right or wrong depending on the argument?

It is obvious that many are/will be disappointed with the Obama transition's and future admin's decisions and policies. The pre-election PBS Frontline program illustrated and foreshadowed this by telling the fallout from Obama becoming the Harvard Law Review president. He ended up removing the doubts of the conservative wing and disappointing the liberals. So I have no illusions of Obama being the savior of the liberal agenda. I believe he has and will always follow the prudent and compromising path, not to mention that the current economic and national security concerns will dictate his limited options and no-drama decisions. As you said, in the end, he will disappoint and displease both parties, and I have been ready for a while to accept that as the reality. Obama will set his mark as a politician and a statesman in this fashion, much like Lincoln and FDR, as I can only hope. One thing I do still wonder about him is where will he draw the line and take a stand (e.g. economic stimulus, universal healthcare and the Iraq war) or will his "achievements" be a string of lukewarm compromises and could-have-beens?

My best to you as always,
Young

------------------
From: Brian Menard
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 1:29:01 PM

Agreed on the issue of "the line". He could be a statesman like Lincoln or FDR, or he could merely be a policy production factory like LBJ. As always, time will tell.

Let's hope for the good, and keep doing our part to come together. I think it was Mike Huckabee who said recently that it is good Obama won decisively, so he can clearly be the president for all of us. I think that is one deficit from which Bush could never break free. His Texas record was very much crossing party lines and working in bipartisan fashion, but because there was so much bad blood over 2000 (and even 2004), folks were not inclined to move that way in DC. As I've maintained previously, Obama has a great opportunity that allows him to be a statesman instead of just another politician. There is much he can do to screw that up, and little he can do to keep that opportunity alive. So far, I've got to give him credit for sticking to the harder, higher, better path.

Onward...e pluribus unum, meus amicus.
Brian

---------------------------
From: Young H. Kim
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2009 1:41 PM

And you know I have to respond as to the following:

1) LBJ the "policy production factory"? I suppose you refer to the War on Poverty/Great Society (and the Vietnam War to a certain extent), as many conservatives pinpoint that as the great downward spiral into a welfare society. Would you include the Civil Rights Act as a product of that factory as well? That seriously demeans the accomplishment, which was a landmark legislation in US history, wouldn't you say?

2) Dubya had many, many chances to "cross party lines", especially after 9/11 when the political support was overwhelmingly behind him and our nation. But what were his bipartisan iniatives to reach out to Dems? I don't agree that he wasn't given a chance (let alone how he ascended to the presidency); he squandered it, mainly with the ill-conceived Iraq War. I'm sure there will be many a Dubya apologist in the next few years (e.g. no terrorist attacks since 9/11, etc.), but really there's not much there in terms of what he accomplished over two terms, and certainly not in a bipartisan mode. The country is worse off by his administration in all aspects.

I must say that there are plenty of GOPers and conservatives who definitely are breathing a collective sigh of relief that they are not running show and not (necessarily) directly responsible for cleaning up and fixing all of the current problems.

"What is past is prologue"...let's look to the future but not forget how we got here.

-------------------------
From: Brian Menard
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2009 6:16:14 PM

No intent to demean any of the legislation itself (I'll spare the debate over the failure of the Great Society, and will remind you that the civil rights legislation passed in the 1960s was passed only with the help of congressional Republicans over the opposition of many leaders among congressional Democrats who had stopped it up in committee for years), nor to take away from LBJ's acumen as an accomplished legislator. Remember that he was the Senate Majority Leader before he went to the executive branch. My intent was to distinguish LBJ's legislative style (figure out what we can pass and get it passed) from statemanlike leadership. Much of LBJ's agenda he inherited from the Kennedy administration, rather than initiating it himself. LBJ, bigoted Texan that he was, never would have pushed for the Civil Rights Act - or the Voting Rights Act, which you left off your list - from his own moral volition. What he cared about more than the details of policy was legislative accomplishment, whatever the details needed to make things work out. Speaking as a political scientist, not as a partisan, prioritizing legislative accomplishment is often antithetical to statemanship, and vice versa.

Deepak Chopra from Huffington Post

2008-12-03T13:13:00.000-08:00

Mike sent me this link. Well said, Mr. Chopra. I don't see anything wrong with what he said here, not one iota. I like to think that Obama shares this view for the most part, in terms of being against the Iraq war, which is the main reason why I decided to support him. I wish more people would get the picture of what is really happening in our world.

My Uncensored Interview with Deepak Chopra

De Facto Clinton Restoration?

2008-11-21T12:22:00.001-08:00

Is that what is happening here? What do you guys think? It's practically official; Hillary accepts the State position.
Clinton Decides to Accept Post at State Dept., Confidants Say

I can appreciate Obama's penchant for Lincoln's "Team of Rivals", but now the latest is that Bill Richardson is being considered for the Commerce job? Really?
AP source: Richardson serious Commerce contender

And after picking off all the top Dem players at the federal and state levels for cabinet positions, doesn't this leave openings for the Reps to move in? Not that I'm a big party politics backer, but it does look like the same ol' same ol'. Kinda disappointed but reserving full judgment. I'm sure the conservatives are gagging while having a field day at the thought of being able to drudge up the tired, old Clinton lines again. And Letterman, Leno, Stewart and all the other comedians are screaming, "Thank you, God!"

Why Obama Wants Hillary for His 'Team of Rivals' and all the baggage that comes with it...I have a bad feeling about this.

Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla

2008-11-17T10:16:00.001-08:00

Another selection from Mike (who steadfastly avoids posting anything to our blog directly ;) where Dick Cavett weighs in on the Palin "mystique".

The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla

It's Morning in America (Again)!

2008-11-13T21:20:00.000-08:00

Hey, just wanted to share the good news. The stock market is up; Obama is President; And my wife and I received a key to our new house, today. What a day. What a month. What a year!

Sitting on Top of the World
Wednesday 12 November 2008
by: Garrison Keillor, The Chicago Tribune

The city of Chicago is celebrating the rise of one of their own to the office of president of the United States. (Photo: Getty Images / AFP)

Be happy, dear hearts, and allow yourselves a few more weeks of quiet exultation. It isn't gloating, it's satisfaction at a job well done. He was a superb candidate, serious, professorial but with a flashing grin and a buoyancy that comes from working out in the gym every morning. He spoke in a genuine voice, not senatorial at all. He relished campaigning. He accepted adulation gracefully. He brandished his sword against his opponents without mocking or belittling them. He was elegant, unaffected, utterly American, and now (Wow) suddenly America is cool. Chicago is cool. Chicago!!!
We threw the dice and we won the jackpot and elected a black guy with a Harvard degree, the middle name Hussein and a sense of humor - he said, "I've got relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and I've got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher." The French junior minister for human rights said, "On this morning, we all want to be American so we can take a bite of this dream unfolding before our eyes." When was the last time you heard someone from France say they wanted to be American and take a bite of something of ours? Ponder that for a moment.
The world expects us to elect pompous yahoos, and instead we have us a 47-year-old prince from the prairie who cheerfully ran the race, and when his opponents threw sand at him, he just smiled back. He'll be the first president in history to look really good making a jump shot. He loves his classy wife and his sweet little daughters. At the same time, he knows pop music, American lit and constitutional law. I just can't imagine anybody cooler.
It feels good to be cool, and all of us can share in that, even sour old right-wingers and embittered blottoheads. Next time you fly to Heathrow and hand your passport to the man with the badge, he's going to see "United States of America" and look up and grin. Even if you worship in the church of Fox, everyone you meet overseas is going to ask you about Obama, and you may as well say you voted for him because, my friends, he is your line of credit over there. No need anymore to try to look Canadian.
And the coolest thing about him is the fact that back in the early '90s, given a book contract after the hoo-ha about his becoming the First Black Editor of The Harvard Law Review, instead of writing the basic exploitation book he could've written, he put his head down and worked hard for a few years and wrote a good book, an honest one, which, since his rise in politics, has earned the Obamas enough to buy a nice house and put money in the bank. A successful American entrepreneur.
Our hero who galloped to victory has inherited a gigantic mess. The country is sunk in debt. The Treasury announced it must borrow $550 billion to get the government through the fourth quarter, more than the entire deficit for 2008, so he will have to raise taxes and not only on bankers and lumber barons. His promise never to raise the retirement age is not a good idea. Whatever he promised the Iowa farmers about subsidizing ethanol is best forgotten at this point. We may not be getting our National Health Service cards anytime soon. And so on and so on.
So enjoy the afterglow of the election awhile longer. We all walk taller this fall. People in Copenhagen and Stockholm are sending congratulatory e-mails - imagine! We are being admired by Danes and Swedes! And Chicago becomes The First City. Step aside, San Francisco. Shut up, New York. The Midwest is cool now. The mind reels. Have a good day.
---------
Garrison Keillor is radio host and author.

Same Ol' Dems: A View from the Left

2008-11-12T17:23:00.000-08:00

Here's a decidedly opposite take on what Obama and the Dems might do, compared to what BRM wrote previously. I mostly agree with the author; however, given that the right and the left view Obama/Dems with suspicion, doesn't that kinda show that Obama will rule from the center? All the hubbub prior to him even being inaugurated certainly speaks to the excitement and opportunity that everyone feels and to what an intense microscope will be on the Obama administration. From Salon.com:
The Democrats of 2002 and 2007 haven't gone anywhere

Federalism as Solution to Abortion and Gay Marriage?

2008-11-12T17:03:00.000-08:00

Is it really the solution to just let each state decide? I'm not sure about that, but perhaps that will help the Reps to straddle the fence, as it were, and get more centrist. I'll have to think about this some more, but I did start a short story several years back about abortion in an alternate future. Perhaps I should finish that...like some other writings I never finished. From Commentary:
"The solution is federalism."

Newsweek Behind the Scenes of 2008 Campaigns

2008-11-11T23:47:00.000-08:00

Been meaning to send this link of Newsweek's "expose" on Obama and McCain campaigns. Haven't read it all, Michelle told me about some of it, and some of it reads like petty gossip for which Newsweek is well known. Would like to get your opinions on it.
Secrets of the 2008 Campaign

Recriminations Fester

2008-11-05T11:01:00.000-08:00

I would like for us to use this post to collect any and all explanations on why McCain lost, whether it be from the right or the left. Here's an NRO Byron York piece on why McCain lost. No mention of Palin, but actually saying that the conditions were not "fair". Really? Seriously? The last thing I'd hear from a conservative is being the victim. Where is the sense of self-reliance, liberty and entrepreneurship?
What Sank McCain

Sorry to Dampen the Mood...

2008-11-05T10:01:00.000-08:00

...but right wingnuts are alive and well and will be in full force against change in America. Check out this brown nugget of hate. America has GOT to be the freest nation on earth for this kind of dirt to be shared on the Internet. I bet you it will be diffcult to get past the first two paragraphs: Blue Man

Congratulations

2008-11-05T08:56:00.001-08:00

Greetings from Cleveland. Sorry I've been so quiet on the blog. Life has been quite busy, and I haven't had much opportunity to follow what has been posted, let alone post things myself.

Just wanted to offer my congratulations to you guys on last night. It was a hard-fought race with much nastiness and negativity coming from two candidates who promised at the outset not to do such things. McCain could not have been more gracious, positive, healing, and on-target in his concession; since he lost, all he has are words without responsibility. One might argue that made it easy to say them, but I believe he was sincere and did the nation much good in speaking them. His speech should give pause to anyone who villified him during the campaign. He wasn't my first choice of candidates, but he is a good and honorable man who loves his country and the people in it. Obama spoke beautifully also, which we've come to expect. Unlike McCain, he now has the responsibility to follow through on his words and fulfill his promises of post-partisanship and healing. That has to be something more than, "All you Republicans, come on over here to the far left wing side of politics so we can march together toward posterity in harmony," for that is NOT harmony at all; that is hegemony. Granted, he has a mandate, and all the responsibility that goes with it. How he handles that mandate, though, will determine whether he seeks to be a great president for all the people or not, whether his talk of bringing people together is based in anything more than rhetoric. Publius, in Federalist #10, points out rightly that the suggested solution to the problem of faction in politics of having everyone follow the same line fails because it is unrealistic and impossible to achieve. Rather, we need a multiplicity of interests to cut across our divisions and give us opportunties to come together instead of focusing on what pulls us apart. The job for shepherding that effort inclusively instead of exclusively now falls to President-Elect Obama. As John McCain said, he's now my President. That's the right perspective and how things should be done here in this great democratic republic of ours (though it would take me no time at all on YouTube and Google to come up with countless examples of folks - prominent and not - who failed miserably at this eight and four years ago). I begin this transition to the Obama Administration with nonpartisan appreciation for the great moment in history that took place last night. Thomas Jefferson - philosopher, politician, statesman, President, slaveowner - wrote of the race issue in the United States as like having a wolf by the ears: you can't let go for fear of what it will do to you, yet you know you also can't hold on forever. As much as my vote for John McCain had nothing to do with race, my appreciation for President-Elect Obama's victory celebrates the great step forward on race that we took as a nation in electing him. I pray we will someday see the day when the every voter will cast a ballot for a man or woman of any race based purely on the ideas and policies they profess. While the ideas and policies candidate Obama professed cause me great concern, I hope that his election moves us closer to that ideal. More broadly, though, I hold out hope that President Obama will, indeed, forge a legacy as a unifier and not as a divider. That is up to him, not simply to be skilled enough at manipulation to craft support for his far-left agenda, but to recognize, value, and include what those who hold ideas different from him believe as we move forward together. I believed John McCain would do that as President, and doubted that Barack Obama would. I now wipe clean the messy slate of the campaign and maintain the audacity of hope of that President Obama will include me and others like me in shaping his plan for America, rather than merely offering me the ultimatum of jumping on his bandwagon or getting left behind.

Thanks for all your civic participation through the campaign. This is what it's all about, friends.

-BRM

Final Campaign Speeches

2008-11-04T22:00:00.000-08:00

As testaments to the two great presidential candidates with whom the country was blessed this year, here are links to their speeches for posterity. Obama gave a great speech, and McCain in some ways gave a better speech in conceding, especially this section:

Senator Obama and I have had and argued our differences, and he has prevailed. No doubt many of those differences remain.

These are difficult times for our country. And I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face.

I urge all Americans ... I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.

Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that.

The keyword there being "association" which was a very gracious and subtle reference to move forward and away from the negative campaigning that had been waged. From NYTimes.com:

Obama Victory Speech (video and text)

McCain Concession Speech (video and text)

The Revolution Has Been Televised!

2008-11-04T20:03:00.000-08:00

Barack Hussein Obama is the 44th President of the United States of America! All networks have called it. The revolution has been televised.

Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Shirley Chisholm, Barbara Jordan, Jesse Jackson, Colin Powell, Douglas Wilder, Condoleeza Rice and any other key figures in African-American history who I have missed, on their shoulders Obama stands as the next president of America! Hallelujah! This is a great day in American history!

Yes, We Can! And Yes We DID!

Hey, Osama bin Laden! America will come after you with Obama-Biden!

Pennsylvania Goes Obama!

2008-11-04T17:08:00.001-08:00

MSNBC calls it. The squeeze is on on John McCain...

Indiana "too close to call"...

2008-11-04T16:02:00.001-08:00

...is bad news for McCain, as the numbers flow in...

Live Electoral Map Starts at 3 PM PST!

2008-11-04T14:40:00.000-08:00

Brought to you by the Daily Kos, Watch Change Happen, LIVE! I hope it doesn't turn into a nightmare...

Electoral Map by Daily Kos

America has forgotten 9/11 by electing Obama?

2008-11-03T21:35:00.000-08:00

This op-ed from WSJ is annoyingly dumb. The writer, Bret Stephens who seems to have solid credentials, certainly has a decidedly conservative historical viewpoint that is wholly inaccurate and misplaced in its inferences: From 9/11 to 11/4

In the first paragraph, he makes the claim that the era that Pearl Harbor spawned was brought to a close by the end of the Cold War. From that errorneous thesis, he goes on to argue that 9/11 has already been forgotten by Americans as they are about to elect Obama for president. How so? Because the "War on Terror" is still on, and the terrorists are not "susceptible to trancendence" and will not be "mollified by Mr. Obama's middle name. Nor will Iran be deterred from developing nuclear weapons because a President Obama will restore faith in "brand America." " Huh?

First off, Pearl Harbor drew America into WWII, but it is the ominous climax of WWII by the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan and the subsequent nuclear capability of the Soviets that spawned the Cold War. Pearl Harbor, as far as I see it, has never been nor will ever be forgotten. News flash! We are NOT engaged in a cold war but a very hot war against terrorists in Afghanistan and a misguided war of choice in Iraq. So I wonder if Mr. Stephens is advocating that an escalating war against the entire Muslim world is necessary to truly merit a proper remembrance of 9/11. If so, he must have an insane warhawk fascination for Dr. Strangelove.

It was al-Qaeda that perpetrated 9/11, and I'd agree with Stephens on his point that 9/11 should be more accurately called an "outrage" instead of a "tragedy," but is it not tragic how so many civilians were killed? It seems that these conservatives will refuse to stop painting with a broad brush. Iraq and Iran did not cause 9/11. The Democrats and Obama understand that al-Qaeda must be rooted out. Don't make some stupid right-wing revisionist historical connection to argue that they will be weak with respect to our national security. How insulting!

Palast: Vote for him - because he's Black

2008-11-03T13:52:00.000-08:00

While I don't agree with Greg Palast that we should vote for Obama solely because he is black, I would contend that the conservatives at a fundamentally ideological level just don't "get" the Black-American experience in this country, past and present, because they always argue for race-blindness and against affirmative action. And one of many things that Obama symbolizes in the voters' minds is just that--there are people who will vote for him because he is black, not because of his skin but as a redemptive and poetic justice for the Black-American experience.

It is also important to note that Palast makes the point that he is "wary of" Obama, but I would guess he is for affirmative action. Conservatives are already calling Obama the first affirmative action president. And my and presumably Palast's reply to that would be, "And your point is?"

Vote for him - because he's Black
by Greg Palast for HuffingtonPost.com

No question, Mr. Bruce was my favorite teacher in junior high.

I went to this Loser-ville school in the San Fernando Valley. It was all Chicano kids and working class white losers like me. Everyone had to take 'metal shop' so we could work the bottom-end jobs in the Chevy plant.

My brain was dying - until Mr. Bruce showed up, the new science teacher. DOCTOR Bruce, actually - the only Ph.d teacher in the place.

At lunch hour, instead of hanging out in the teachers' lunchroom, Mr. Bruce would invite me and my friends into his classroom. Over coffee made on a Bunsen burner, he would talk about topics from Einstein to Buddha while munching on this strange stuff called "organic" food.

He was simply like no adult I'd ever met - an exceptional guy who could make us dull-brained students sizzle.

My parents had him over for Sunday brunch and he talked about his work as a 'honey-dipper' in the Deep South where he grew up. The honey-dipper was the guy who hunted for lost glasses and whatever else was dropped in outhouse cesspools. Dr. Bruce said he enjoyed the work because it taught him pleasures of quiet grace, of dignified acceptance.

The kids were crazy about him, but not all the parents. Some called to complain about the school hiring him.

So he left. Months later, Mr. Bruce mailed me a letter from Japan where he'd taken a university post.

It's odd, but it was only this year that I put it all together: his exclusion by the other teachers, his job as a honey-dipper, his need to escape America.

Dr. Bruce, of course, is Black.

So, I'm going to do something that Dr. Bruce would think little of. I'm going to vote for the Black man. Because he's Black.

The truth is, I'm wary of Barack Obama. His cozy relations with the sub-prime loan sharks who funded his early campaign; his vote, at the behest of his big donor ADM corporation, for the horrific Bush energy bill.

But there's one thing that overshadows policy positions, one thing he cannot change once in office: the color of his skin. The same as Mr. Bruce's.

I'm going to say something that I know the Obama campaign will just hate; but that many others are feeling but won't say out loud. We must vote for Barack Obama because he's Black.

For four centuries, our nation has poisoned itself with the corrosive venom of racism. From the slave trade, to our still-segregated schools, to the Bush family stealing the White House by cynically, and sinfully, calling Florida Black voters felons; to the exile of a brilliant science teacher four decades ago.

The time has come to cleanse the wound that will not heal.

********
Greg Palast's investigative reports appear on BBC Television and in Rolling Stone Magazine. Palast is the co-author, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., of "Steal Back Your Vote," the investigative comic book available for no charge at StealBackYourVote.org and www.GregPalast.com

Palast is a Nation Institute/Puffin Foundation Fellow for investigative reporting.

Madame Sarah Palin Prank Call with 'Nicolas Sarkozy' - Hilarious!

2008-11-03T12:12:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zrjm6Ivwnmw

Late and Lame October Surprise?

2008-11-01T13:02:00.000-07:00

I must say that it is endlessly fascinating what goes on in the political blogosphere. Take this story about Obama's aunt (half-sister of his father) who is living as an illegal alien in public housing in Boston. Yet another guilt-by-association grasping-at-straws from the right wing, a rather lame attempt at a Hail-Mary pass to change the campaign momentum, but wait, I thought Palin was the Hail-Mary pass? Anyway, take these two opposing takes on the story itself.

One from the left, Talking Points Memo, that accuses the Bush administration of leaking the immigration status of Obama's aunt. It is interesting to note that the Times of London broke the story on October 30th, a Murdoch newspaper:
Breaking the Law for McCain (the link to which was broken at the time of this writing; it appears the entire site is down, perhaps from a denial-of-service attack from the right ;-)

The other from Michelle Malkin, who's fast becoming my favorite right wingnut, which the article's title says all:
Obama’s illegal alien aunt (and campaign donor!) is a deportation fugitive; Bush administration moves to protect her

The fury and the frenzy! Am I the only one who is amused by all this? Oh, well... I suppose one can hope that some good can come out of this by the candidates actually debating about the immigration policy.

Stealing the Election?

2008-10-31T10:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, my Dad who has voted for both parties but lately has been voting a Democratic ticket received a letter in the mail stating that his signature has changed (bs). He had to make a copy of his driver's license and mail it to the Department of Elections in order to make sure his vote will count? He received the notice only 2 working days before the election in the traditional Republican enclave of Maple Valley - A place which has lately been turning purple.

Is this the Republicans game plan for wining? Steal the election (Again)?

What do you all think?

BA

Rumors vs. Facts

2008-10-30T16:37:00.000-07:00

Nice article from Politico summing up all of the rumors and innuendo surrounding both Obama and McCain. Some I had never even heard of until now. Guess I haven't been scouring through the blogs enough. One telling figure: 20-to-1 Obama rumor email to McCain rumor email, according to what Politico alone has received. Gives some perspective on the assumption that "both sides do it." Or just that the right wingnuts are more active and eager, I suppose. Enjoy.

Cover this! Inside the nastiest ’08 rumors

Last Minute Election Predictions?

2008-10-29T08:51:00.001-07:00

Okay, people... Who will win and by how much? Which states will go for McCain, or Obama?

I want to see your predictions.

-Brian A.

Great Last Minute Election Links (Entertainment)

2008-10-29T08:45:00.000-07:00

My American Prayer (song):
My American Prayer

Oppie, Andy and the Fonz, supporting Obama?
Ron Howard's Call to Action

The Vet Who Did Not Vet:
The Vet Who Did Not Vet

Powell vs. the Religious Right

2008-10-24T15:34:00.002-07:00

[Backlogged post...]
I obviously can't attest to the accuracy of the story, but it certainly sheds some light on why Powell endorsed Obama. From The Daily Beast:
The Man Who Helped Drive Powell Away From His Party

Re-re-making of McCain

2008-10-24T15:34:00.001-07:00

[More backlogged post]
NYTimes article on the McCain campaign:
Re-re-making of McCain

$150,000 to put Lipstick on a Pig?

2008-10-22T12:14:00.000-07:00

Okay, how much does it cost to put Lipstick on a pig? $150,000 dollars, that's how much the RNC spent to accessorize Sarah Palin and family in less than three months.

Donating hard earned money to the Republican party during times of economic distress? The look on his face, when he learns how his money was spent, PRICELESS.

L.A. Times Article (Posted by Patt Morrison on October 22, 2008 in Campaign 2008 , Patt Morrison , Public Shaming , Sarah Palin | Permalink):

Bill Clinton and John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Al Gore -- you can thank Sarah Palin for showing us what pikers you are.

Multi-hundred dollar haircuts? Earthtone clothing consultations? Four-figure hair styling sessions? So '90s. So downmarket.

Now here's real makeover money: ''Politico'' reports that the Republican National Committee has evidently spent more than $150,000 in less than three months to dress and style Sarah Palin and her family. Whoever came up with the nickname ''Caribou Barbie'' got it more right than he knew.

Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York got a combined $49,425.74 from the RNC, and they don't sell Arctic hunting gear there. There were a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis --one of them for $75,062.63 in early September! I feel so stupid -- I was at the St. Paul convention, and I didn't even KNOW there was a Neiman Marcus in the vicinity! Not that there might have been anything left for me after La Palin's Grande Shoppage.

And there are costs for what looks like just one month of hair and makeup. There were no hair and makeup expenses reported in August, so the $4,716.49 reported through September had to be just September, and the only difference between August and September for the RNC was the appearance of the Wasilla Family Palin.

The First Dude has been wearing a really nice suit, and Levi Johnson, Bristol Palin's newly affianced beau, appeared for his command performance at the RNC in spiffy new duds.

By contrast, the people of Alaska got the Palin family for a bargain. The AP is reporting that Palin charged the state for her children's travel expenses, including those to events the kids hadn't been invited to, and that expense reports were later changed to declare that it was official business. The tally for 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights for her three daughters: a comparatively cheap $21,012.

That kind of change would buy about 40 pairs of John McCain's favorite Ferragamo loafers, $520 a pair at Neiman Marcus. The difference -- you just know that McCain wouldn't be charging the RNC for his footwear.

LOL.

Let's Take a Breather...

2008-10-22T10:05:00.000-07:00

Having somewhat immersed myself into the blog world, I've tried my best to create some good copy for us, whether my own or inspired by what others wrote, probably with the misconceived notion that our blog is actually being read by more than just the four of us. Admittedly, we were hoping to have more dialog, but I now realize that maybe I have been taking the wrong approach.

Don't get me wrong; I've been thoroughly enjoying this experience, and I'm not trying to be apologetic. I'm just trying to figure out how to get you guys to jot down some thoughts on this election, politics and current events in general. Is it a matter of time for an Obama presidency? What will be the next move for McCain? Might he unload Palin at the last minute? Is there still an October Surprise in waiting? So many questions, so little time.

In trying to encourage or incite comment from you, I think I may have done the opposite--creating yet another wordy blog to sift through the blogosphere. Perhaps I made my posts too long and verbose to digest quickly in our busy schedule, and maybe I unintentionally placed an undue expectation on what should be posted. I can understand that you may be tired of talking politics on a regular basis. One thing I discovered through this is that I LOVE reading, talking and writing about politics more than I thought (maybe it's my calling). I think you guys do, too, and it's fine to do it in your own style and pace.

Whatever the case, I hope that you will take a bit of time to join the dialog, however short or long. This blog is for us to do as we please, and I'm just saying that I think we have forgotten that we started this as a flurry of email. Feel free to change the subject with a new post or comment on a post; do whatever that strikes your fancy. I miss the vibrant and furious back-and-forth dialog it was. Anyway, here I go getting verbose again. Thanks for reading and look forward to your thoughts.

P.S. On the right column of our blog, I've assembled what I believe is a fairly good (but by no means an exhaustive) list of political news, op-ed and blog sites. I have attempted to cover the spectrum of biases and opinions from left to center to right. I hope you enjoy them. Below each site link is the most recent article or post at that site, so you can refresh the page to see what the latest posts are.

Report from the Socialist International Conspiracy

2008-10-21T15:11:00.000-07:00

Such joy to find a great piece of writing to share with you all, in the tradition of Swift, Wilde and Twain. Nothing that I've read so far in the blogosphere has more wit, humor and bite than this, and you'd be hard pressed to find one. Enjoy.
Report from the Socialist International Conspiracy

The Pattern of John "I screwed up" McCain

2008-10-19T20:24:00.000-07:00

On the day when the most eligible-and-qualified-to-be-president statesman of our time announced his official endorsement of Barack Obama on "Meet The Press", a new take on the reasons why Obama is better suited to be president over McCain congealed and solidified in my mind. They are based in McCain's past history and pattern of poor judgments, choices, missteps, decisions and circumstances which add up to serious doubts regarding his aptitude for being a responsible and steady president who will lead us in these dangerous and uncertain times. Colin Powell made the points of questioning McCain's judgment and the necessity of a "transformational figure" for our nation and the world. McCain does not score well on both points.

Let's start with McCain's class rank at the Naval Academy--sixth from the bottom. From what I've read, most of that was intentional by being one of the Bad Bunch--screw-ups. Next, I've heard that as a pilot he crashed his plane five times. The last one of which led to his imprisonment by the North Vietnamese. OK, I'm not saying that the crash was entirely his fault, but I am alluding to a pattern in his life, albeit this one may be a stretch.

Soon after he came home from captivity in the Hanoi Hilton, he divorced his wife who waited for him while he was a POW. His ex-wife was quoted as saying that McCain did not want to grow up and be mature. His own memoir unequivocally places the blame on himself for why his first marriage failed--yet another screw-up.

Only a few years into his senate career, McCain was involved in the Saving and Loan scandal as one of the Keating Five. Senate Ethics Committee specifically mentioned that he "exercised poor judgment." He apologized for his conduct saying essentially that "I screwed up; please forgive me." To his credit, his senate career since the scandal earned him his now-questionable "maverick" moniker.

It is well-known that his 2000 presidential campaign lost steam due to unethical tactics by the Dubya supporters in South Carolina primaries, but before folding his campaign he accused the extreme left and right wingers as the "agents of intolerance," naming Farrakhan, Sharpton, Robertson and Falwell. A screw-up and a political miscalculation for which he would eat his words, after he agreed to speak at Falwell's Liberty University. He realized that he has to kowtow to the extreme conservative base in his party if he is to become the leader of GOP, and it took a while for that base to warm up to him and some still do not like him at all.

McCain announced his 2008 run on the Letterman show in February 2007. He neglectfully embarked on a bloated, money-leaking campaign that relegated him to a non-factor even before the 2008 primary season began. Once again McCain took full responsibility for not overseeing his campaign more closely--a screw-up. But he ended up winning New Hampshire and the maverick was back, even earning the tag "Comeback Kid."

Through belt-tightening campaign strategies, town hall meetings and a certain amount of luck, McCain became the GOP nominee, but then picked an unknown Sarah Palin as his VP running mate. Both liberals and conservatives have stated how unqualified Palin is to be VP, let alone president. He has yet to apologize and take full responsibility for the pick, but I would guess that that will come in a matter of time.

Then comes Powell's point that McCain's economic policy approach was unstable and erratic. "The fundamentals of the economy is strong" to "We're facing an economic crisis" to "Fire the SEC chairman" to "Let's halt our campaigns and postpone the debate to workout the rescue plan" to "The government shouldn't just bailout Wall Street" to "The government needs to buy up all the bad mortgages." During the financial crisis, he cancelled the Letterman appearance and just recently came back on the show and said, "I screwed up." Calling this a screw-up doesn't fully describe his roller coaster approach and thought process to his policies and intentions.

I realize that what I've laid out is a mixture of McCain's personal, public and professional lives, but they all count especially to conservatives who love to harp on character. His pattern reminds me of a Steve Martin routine many years ago when he said that there are two words that can get you out of any trouble, like poor performance on the job or an IRS audit: "I forgot. Just say, I forgot." And if that doesn't work, then he would tie it into his patented line, "Well, excuuuuse ME!" In McCain's case it's three words: I screwed up. "I'm the one at fault. I hope you can forgive me, again and again." How many screw-ups will it take before the country turns him away?

If the electorate will not accept his apology this time, then perhaps his infamous temper will fire back, "Excuse ME!" (ironically, he did jokingly say "excuse me" at a Wisconsin rally when an angry supporter wouldn't sit down and told him sternly, "Please let me finish." You can find it on YouTube) No, I suspect he will again say, "I screwed up." Is this the quality we want in our president? Can we afford to accept this pattern of behavior in our president at this time? No way, no how, no McCain. Didn't mean to end with a Hillary line, but I like that one. Oops, I don't mean "that one." I screwed up.

Letterman Grills McCain

2008-10-18T00:15:00.000-07:00

For one night at least, The Late Show turned into Meet The Press. Good ol' Dave really dug into McCain, and I fighting my own sleepiness was not the only one who sensed it. I feel it's necessary to link to all of the cyber reactions to the program on Blogrunner:
McCain gives Letterman his biggest audience in years

The blog headline doesn't do justice, I'm afraid. I think it was on the caliber of Murrow vs. McCarthy--ironic that it's another McPolitician. All right, don't go knee-jerking now, saying that I'm comparing McCain to McCarthy, but I'd be remiss if I didn't say that there are some echos of McCarthyism in the Ayers accusation, wouldn't I? "Are you or have you ever been associating with terrorists?"

More Conservative Dissent a la CTB

2008-10-17T23:43:00.000-07:00

Kathleen Parker's column defending Christopher Buckley and other dissenting, thinking conservatives in the Rep party. Will the real conservatives please stand up and take back the GOP? The days of the ignorant, anti-intellectual, intolerant extreme right calling the shots cannot end fast enough:
WFB Would Be Proud

Parker writes:
"The truth few wish to utter is that the GOP has abandoned many conservatives, who mostly nurse their angst in private. Those chickens we keep hearing about have indeed come home to roost. Years of pandering to the extreme wing -- the "kooks" the senior Buckley tried to separate from the right -- have created a party no longer attentive to its principles.

Instead, as Christopher Buckley pointed out in a blog post on thedailybeast.com explaining his departure from National Review, eight years of "conservatism" have brought us "a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance."

I'm telling ya, that last line from CTB has staying power.

John McCain's Rage is a National Security Concern

2008-10-16T17:27:00.000-07:00

The George W. Bush Presidential Library

2008-10-16T17:24:00.000-07:00

The George W. Bush Presidential Library is now in the planning stages.

The Library will include:

The Hurricane Katrina Room , which is still under construction.

The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you won't be able to remember anything.

The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you don't even have to show up.

The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they don't let you in.

The Guantanamo Bay Room, where they don't let you out.

The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room, which no one has been able to find.

The National Debt Room, which is huge and has no ceiling.

The 'Tax Cut' Room with entry only to the wealthy.

The 'Economy Room' which is in the toilet.

The Iraq War Room. After you complete your first tour, they make you go back for a second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth tour.

The Dick Cheney Room, in the famous undisclosed location, complete with shotgun gallery.

The Environmental Conservation Room, still empty.

The Supremes Gift Shop, where you can buy an election.

The Airport Men's Room, where you can meet some of your favorite Republican Senators.

The 'Decider Room' complete with dart board, magic 8-ball, Ouija board, dice, coins, and straws.

The museum will have an electron microscope to help you locate the President's accomplishments.

Joe the Plumber (Rumor Control)?

2008-10-16T17:03:00.000-07:00

Okay, who the hec is Joe the plumber, anyway? A Republican plant? Lot's of rumors floating around the internet. What kind of Plumber makes $250,000 dollars a year? Or, put in another way, what kind of plumber can afford to pay the million plus dollars it would take to buy a business that he claims would earn him $250,000-270,000 dollars a year? Joe the plumber, that's who.

So, what do we know?

Well, apparently he does not have a plumber's license. He considers himself a Republican. He owes back-taxes. Other unsubstantiated rumors include, his connection to the Keating Five. He is not listed in the phone book (probably not good for business). He is not registered to vote. He has been convicted of domestic violence on multiple occasions? And yes, he is a single dad-what a surprise.

SAT Question - Politicians:Voters::

2008-10-16T16:28:00.000-07:00

Full of shit:Getting shit on
Courtesy of BRM. Where do PACs fit in this picture? ;-)

Real McCain?

2008-10-15T15:31:00.000-07:00

Want to share a perspective I had not really considered which occurred to me while watching "Frontline: The Choice 2008", and it has to do with why McCain picked someone like Palin. Obviously, the pick is to appease the extreme right, but I think it also shows his disdain for the right as well. Remember his "agents of intolerance" line, referring to Farrakhan, Sharpton, Robertson and Falwell?

McCain is trying to shore up the right-wing conservative base, but he really is a moderate, especially on social issues. Instead of looking at Palin as his final conversion to the right, I think it says more about his actual opinion of the extreme right; i.e. “I don’t agree with you, my friends (as he likes to say), but here’s someone to make you feel better and support me during the campaign." If McCain becomes president (God forbid and that’ll be the day I look for work in Canada), I would bet that Palin will become your typical VP, hard to locate and seldom heard from, much like Dan Quayle was to Bush 41 (see, he wasn’t really a social conservative, either. Quayle was just there for window dressing and that’s what she is--a Quaylin). I'd also bet that Palin will have ZERO influence on any administration policies or initiatives; she'll practically be the Second Lady. Am I being sexist? Perhaps, but I'll leave it to the Reps to herald the first uninfluential, token female VP ever. Clarence Thomas, anyone?

Unfortunately for McCain, I believe his best chance to win is if he acts more like a moderate than an angry conservative, and it’s too late because the battle for the center is most certainly going to Obama.

McCain Rally "Fear and Trembling" and the Conservative Backlash

2008-10-14T10:05:00.000-07:00

It is rather fascinating trying to understand where the extreme conservative anger is coming from. For what it's worth, I do commend McCain for wanting to keep the campaign dialog "respectful" in this Minnesota "town hall meeting" and the associated TPM article (Hey, our first embedded YouTube video!):

The unfortunate reality is that he should be telling his campaign operatives and the more extreme Reps to keep things respectful. Apparently, there have been letters sent out that says Obama is an Arab. I do feel sorry for the woman who called Obama an Arab, Gayle Quinnell, as she should not be the focal point of this campaign exchange; she is only relaying the fear and misinformation coming from the McCain camp, given her limited knowledge and comprehension ("He's got Muslim in him"), but it is frustrating how some people just can't let go of false information: Post-rally conversation with Gayle Quinnell

Then, there's this from a Michelle Malkin, apparently a regular on Fox. Here's her defense of the McCain rally rage, basically that the left wing crazies do the same or worse about McCain/Palin/Bush all the time. Somehow that justifies the name-calling from the McCain supporters and the right in general, justifying intolerance with more intolerance, hate with more hate; has she heard of "two wrongs don't make a right"? Seems to me a typical conservative rebuttal, not exactly denounce the attacks from your side but point out the equally abhorrent venom from the other side, albeit none of them from an actual campaign rally or a town hall meeting.

Fair warning that some images on this blog are very crude and offensive; I did not bother to verify that they all came from the left wing extremists and are valid. Take a gander at some of the comments to the post, also (kinda my homage to Palin's frequent "also"). It indicates how far apart many of us are in how we view the world and how we should go about changing it:
Crush the Obamedia narrative: Look who’s “gripped by insane rage”

Why such vehement opposition to even a hint of socialist policy? That typifies the knee-jerk conservative reaction, doesn't it? Is free-market capitalism what makes America great? Is that why we're having a global financial crisis? The Europeans and Canadians have instituted socialist policies; are their societies crumbling because of socialism? Do they have people who must go bankrupt to pay for cancer treatments?

What is THE conservative creed? Isn't it really about "I get to keep what I make" because those liberal, hippie nutjobs have no respect for the money that I earn and the personal property that I possess? I saw an image on a conservative blog of two stick figures; a red figure holding a gun to the head of the blue figure holding a bag of goods/money, with the caption "Socialism". That attitude is the ugly root of class warfare, not the liberals looking for redistribution of wealth for the greater good of the nation. This is how conservatives incite class warfare, but then blame the liberals for starting it. Tax the crap out of the rich! Karl Rove was quoted as saying that under Obama's plan the top 5 percent will pay an increase of $131 billion in taxes, according to the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. And the bad news is? I say that's friggin' patriotic; they should be happy to pay more taxes because, as Palin would put it, "America has so blessed and privileged us"!

And, what is the point of laundering all of the mugshots of leftist activists/extremists, let alone whether they were justly arrested in all cases? That the liberals should be marginalized as rabid America-haters, like Limbaugh, Hannity and their ilk brainwash their audience every single day? That there are crazies of equal numbers on the left and right? That America has become a fascist state where dissenting opinions cannot be tolerated? That the status quo is indeed biased to the right so that only the leftist actions are criminalized? Who holds the trump cards in this society? Is a fascist oppression preferable over a socialist one?

There's so much to glean from the Malkin blog, especially this comment that somewhat reflects our earlier discussion on how conservative opinion can be dismissed, except that the writer misses the point that prejudice goes both ways (copy/pasted as posted):

On October 12th, 2008 at 1:52 pm, feebiebabe said:
THE GREAT HYPOCRACY OF OUR TIMES: Anytime a conservative enters into a debate with a liberal the first given is when said liberal realizes you are conservative…liberal will find some way to throw out any one or ALL of these tired phrases;”White Trash, Uneducated, Ignorant, Racist, Warmonger, Neocon or Redneck”. This happens to me ALL the time in California, and most often times I have done absolutely zero to warrant it, most times all I say is, “I’m a conservative” – and let the tongue lashing begin. Its creepy. I live in a blue state and work for a company where most people are unabashedly “Socialist”.

The other day I had a man walk up to me because he overheard my conversation I was having with a co-worker about a Herman Melville novel (Bartleby) and Atlas Shrugged by Ann Rand. When he approached me later he said I must “NOT be voting Republican because you are obviously an elitist who reads”. AND he meant this as a compliment - creeeepppyyyyy!!! My answer, “Why I do read, but what do you mean by elitist?” “Oh, Republicans are so uneducated; people who read literature I most often find to be liberals and intellectuals and are never ever Republicans”. I imagine I am the ONLY red vote on the floor (as usual) so I bit my tongue and just said “Is that so?” Does anyone else see the absolute irony in his thinking?!

Oh yes, and then there is the violence. Yes, the “Peace, love and happiness hippies” are only spreading “Peace Love and Happiness” selectively, to those who agree with them. And their Love-O-Meter always seems to go off the charts the more someone bashes this country or says they want to kill us. Talk about an abusive relationship!!!

Now, Madonna (“Hi, I name myself after the Virgin Mary to be irreverent, feed my delusions of grandeur, because I suffer from inadequacy and because I think no one will notice I have no talent”) . “Im gonna kick Palin’s ass!?” ROFLMAO. This coming from a woman who has been living full time in England and developed the WORST fake Brit accent next to her pal Gwennie –She couldn’t look Palin in the face let alone kick her ass (aside from the fact I am pretty sure one of her brittle body parts might just fall off her crusty frame by the impact of such an event). This woman is insufferably arrogant, ignorant and is bitter- she has NO talent and has to show her boobs to sell her records. Give me a break….what is Madonna three years old? What a loser. I think it really gets to Madonna that Palin is a REAL Woman and comfortable with herself, while Madonna is a hateful, malnourished, washed-up, ex-pat who has absolutely zero talent.
Rant off/
Happy Sunday.

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It's rather amusing but sad how her anecdote/argument quickly deteriorates into a rant bashing Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow. This is an example of why I would not want our blog to be open to the Internet public for comment (actually, I did open it up to registered users of the blog world, but obviously we're not exactly in a high-traffic area nor worthy of it, and that suits us just fine all the same).

My hope is that our small speck in the blog universe can provide a more thoughtful dialog and work to achieve a better understanding and a common ground in the midst of the left-vs.-right, liberal-vs.-conservative echo chamber noise.

Finally, a sane conservative case on doubts about Obama

2008-10-10T23:00:00.000-07:00

Looks like my trolling for views from the right has paid off, since BRM hasn't been gracing us with his conservative posts. Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, makes a good case of conservatives' doubts about Obama: Who is the Real Barack Obama?

Crux of the column, if you can get past the not-so-subtle condescending remarks, seems to be, "Is Obama a leftist radical or a cautious pragmatist able to reach out to the center and the right?" My personal opinion is that he is a mix of and capable of both, and given the current state of the nation, the economy and the world, I hope that he is more of a pragmatist in the tradition of FDR. My liberal preference also hopes that he will bring much needed socialist policies to reign in the runaway-greed capitalism, to enforce a loophole-less progressive tax code and to institute a healthcare system closer to a universal, single-payer model. Without a pragmatic approach, he will not get much done through legislation or achieve much in military objectives and diplomatic initiatives, if/when he is president.

Unfortunately, given McCain's campaign I have no confidence in how he would run the country as president. In other words, the liberal case on doubts about McCain will take some time to write down, so I'll save it for another post. To be fair, I have yet to find a good case for the McCain presidency that explains his policies and tendencies, beyond direct attacks and negatives on Obama.

Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama

2008-10-10T21:27:00.000-07:00

Just after reading and seeing how McCain did his best to stomp out the flames of anger and fear against Obama fanned by him and his campaign, I came across this article. Christopher Buckley says that he's voting for Obama. Yes, Virginia, there are sensible and reasonable conservatives out there in America. Come on, this has got to move BRM to action and post something here, don't it (Buckley even sprinkles in some choice Latin like rara avis)? We are sorely missing the right-of-center viewpoint on OUR blog.

From The Daily Beast:
Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama

Some choice excerpts:

I am—drum roll, please, cue trumpets—making this announcement in the cyberpages of The Daily Beast (what joy to be writing for a publication so named!) rather than in the pages of National Review, where I write the back-page column. For a reason: My colleague, the superb and very dishy Kathleen Parker, recently wrote in National Review Online a column stating what John Cleese as Basil Fawlty would call “the bleeding obvious”: namely, that Sarah Palin is an embarrassment, and a dangerous one at that. She’s not exactly alone. New York Times columnist David Brooks, who began his career at NR, just called Governor Palin “a cancer on the Republican Party.”

As for Kathleen, she has to date received 12,000 (quite literally) foam-at-the-mouth hate-emails. One correspondent, if that’s quite the right word, suggested that Kathleen’s mother should have aborted her and tossed the fetus into a Dumpster. There’s Socratic dialogue for you. Dear Pup once said to me sighfully after a right-winger who fancied himself a WFB protégé had said something transcendently and provocatively cretinous, “You know, I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.” Well, the dear man did his best. At any rate, I don’t have the kidney at the moment for 12,000 emails saying how good it is he’s no longer alive to see his Judas of a son endorse for the presidency a covert Muslim who pals around with the Weather Underground. So, you’re reading it here first.
......

John McCain has changed. He said, famously, apropos the Republican debacle post-1994, “We came to Washington to change it, and Washington changed us.” This campaign has changed John McCain. It has made him inauthentic. A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget “by the end of my first term.” Who, really, believes that? Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis. His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking?
......

As for Senator Obama: He has exhibited throughout a “first-class temperament,” pace Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s famous comment about FDR. As for his intellect, well, he’s a Harvard man, though that’s sure as heck no guarantee of anything, these days. Vietnam was brought to you by Harvard and (one or two) Yale men. As for our current adventure in Mesopotamia, consider this lustrous alumni roster. Bush 43: Yale. Rumsfeld: Princeton. Paul Bremer: Yale and Harvard. What do they all have in common? Andover! The best and the brightest.
......

Obama has in him—-I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy “We are the people we have been waiting for” silly rhetoric—-the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.

So, I wish him all the best. We are all in this together. Necessity is the mother of bipartisanship. And so, for the first time in my life, I’ll be pulling the Democratic lever in November. As the saying goes, God save the United States of America.

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Not exactly a glowing endorsement, but "we are all in this together" and "God save America", indeed. Unfortunately, some of the comments on his column at the website still show that bipartisanship has a long, long way to go.

Laughing at America - - A European Perspective

2008-10-10T11:01:00.000-07:00

Hi, All--

This is perhaps the last thing that needs to be said about the Biden/Palin debate. I think the British Press has nailed it!

Flirting her way to victory Sarah Palin's farcical debate performance lowered the standards for both female candidates and US political discourse
Friday October 3 2008, The Guardian

At least three times last night, Sarah Palin, the adorable, preposterous vice-presidential candidate, winked at the audience. Had a male candidate with a similar reputation for attractive vapidity made such a brazen attempt to flirt his way into the good graces of the voting public, it would have universally noted, discussed and mocked. Palin, however, has single-handedly so lowered the standards both for female candidates and American political discourse that, with her newfound ability to speak in more-or-less full sentences, she is now deemed to have performed acceptably last night.

By any normal standard, including the ones applied to male presidential candidates of either party, she did not. Early on, she made the astonishing announcement that she had no intentions of actually answering the queries put to her. "I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also," she said.

And so she preceded, with an almost surreal disregard for the subjects she was supposed to be discussing, to unleash fusillades of scripted attack lines, platitudes, lies, gibberish and grating references to her own pseudo-folksy authenticity.

It was an appalling display. The only reason it was not widely described as such is that too many American pundits don't even try to judge the truth, wisdom or reasonableness of the political rhetoric they are paid to pronounce upon. Instead, they imagine themselves as interpreters of a mythical mass of "average Americans" who they both venerate and despise.

In pronouncing upon a debate, they don't try and determine whether a candidate's responses correspond to existing reality, or whether he or she is capable of talking about subjects such as the deregulation of the financial markets or the devolution of the war in Afghanistan . The criteria are far more vaporous. In this case, it was whether Palin could avoid utterly humiliating herself for 90 minutes, and whether urbane commentators would believe that she had connected to a public that they see as ignorant and sentimental. For the Alaska governor, mission accomplished.

There is indeed something mesmerising about Palin, with her manic beaming and fulsome confidence in her own charm. The force of her personality managed to slightly obscure the insulting emptiness of her answers last night. It's worth reading the transcript of the encounter, where it becomes clearer how bizarre much of what she said was. Here, for example, is how she responded to Biden's comments about how the middle class has been short-changed during the Bush administration, and how McCain will continue Bush's policies:

Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced [sic] your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future. You mentioned education, and I'm glad you did. I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and god bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right? ... My brother, who I think is the best schoolteacher in the year, and here's a shout-out to all those third graders at Gladys Wood Elementary Schoo l , you get extra credit for watching the debate.

Evidently, Palin's pre-debate handlers judged her incapable of speaking on a fairly wide range of subjects, and so instructed to her to simply disregard questions that did not invite memorised talking points or cutesy filibustering. They probably told her to play up her spunky average-ness, which she did to the point of shtick - and dishonesty. Asked what her achilles heel is - a question she either didn't understand or chose to ignore - she started in on how McCain chose her because of her "connection to the heartland of America . Being a mom, one very concerned about a son in the war, about a special needs child, about kids heading off to college, how
are we going to pay those tuition bills?"

None of Palin's children, it should be noted, are heading off to college. Her son is on the way to Iraq , and her pregnant 17-year-old daughter is engaged to be married to a high-school dropout and self-described "fuckin' redneck". Palin is a woman who can't even tell the truth about the most quotidian and public details of her own life, never mind about matters of major public import. In her only vice-presidential debate, she was shallow, mendacious and phoney. What kind of maverick, after all, keeps harping on what a maverick she is? That her performance was considered anything but afarce doesn't show how high Palin has risen, but how low we all have sunk.

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008

If you have any questions about this email, please contact the guardian.co.uk user help desk: userhelp@guardian.co.uk.

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Also, in this months Reader's Digest, there is an article on if the world could vote. To list a few for Obama: Netherlands 92%, Germany 85%, Taiwan 81%, Brazil 78%, Australia 76%, Spain 76%, France 75%, Finland 71%, Mexico 70%, Poland 65%, Canada 64%, etc.

NYT's blogrunner

2008-10-09T14:57:00.001-07:00

Say what you will about the New York Times, but I am thoroughly enjoying their Politics site and their blogrunner. The blogrunner especially displays a long list of both left and right-wing blogs plus other non-political topics. Hope you enjoy them. The Yahoo election site is a good place to get a broad range of news and op-eds from left, center and right, also.

blogrunner|Politics
NYT Politics
Yahoo 2008 Elections

Reinhold Niebuhr

2008-10-08T17:00:00.000-07:00

Call it synchronicity or whatever, but I have come across the name Reinhold Niebuhr more than once this week, first from the PBS American Experience program on Jimmy Carter (with whom I share the same birthday, BTW) and now today from David Brooks who asked Obama about him in an interview. Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as a progressive Christian thinker. I'm still learning about him myself. From Wikipedia:

Reinhold Niebuhr
Reinhold Niebuhr Quotations

You have probably come across different versions of his prayer in many circles; I just didn't know until now that it was from him:

The Serenity Prayer (ca. 1942)
This has often been attributted to others, including St. Francis of Assisi but without sources. Though similar prayers may have existed, the work seems to be Niebuhr's. He never copyrighted the prayer and it has been used in many variants.

One of the most famous variants:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Niebuhr's preferred form as declared by his widow:

God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed, courage
to change the things which should be changed,
and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Full version of the original (c.1942):

God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

Post Turtle Joke; Down-home humour

2008-10-08T16:16:00.000-07:00

Subject: Post Turtle

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year old Texas rancher whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Sarah Palin and her bid to be a heartbeat away from being President.

The old rancher said, "Well, ya know, Palin is a post turtle."

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a post turtle was.

The old rancher said, "When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle."

The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued to explain. "You know she didn't get up there by herself, she doesn't belong up there, she doesn't know what to do while she is up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put her up there to begin with."

Obama Has Won Every Debate; But, will it matter?

2008-10-08T15:55:00.000-07:00

Okay, Obama and Biden have won every debate hands-down, not even close. McCain and Palin have only excelled in clichés. Unfortunately, clichés are enough for many people. The debates remind me of the wife who finds her husband in bed with another woman and the man says, "What, are you going to believe what I tell ya, or what your eyes see?" Republicans want us to belive what they tell us, not what we know to be true, and what we can check as facts. McCain says something like, Americans are the best workers in the world. What a load of crap. The only question now is, Are Americans going to believe what they can see? Or, are Americans going to believe what the neo-cons tell them to believe?

Remember, September 15, 2008:
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Addressing today’s news of upheaval in America’s financial markets, McCain said this morning that, despite fears over the "turmoil" on Wall Street, “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.”

No Gaffes? How about "that one"?

2008-10-08T12:39:00.000-07:00

I feel your pain, Sen. McCain (henceforth referred as "This One"), and your frustrations (in my best Bill Clinton voice).

Despite all of his efforts to win the election--picking Palin, accusing That One of lying and associating him with radicals and terrorists--This One has to continue to debate That One. How outrageous! Don't people know that This One deserves to be president over That One? Why don't they realize that That One is not like This One or Us? I can hear This One saying, "That One is one of Them, not Us. Come on, America! Pull your head out of That Butt. Real change is coming. I'm a reformer and a maverick. I'll get Osama bin Laden. I'll get him. I know how to get him. I'll get him no matter what. But I have to get That One first." Such poetry in prose.

Stick a fork in McBush, or at least a thermometer. I believe he's done. How long before we hear "you people" coming from This One? Some Reps are even happy to use "That One" to refer to That One, saying that This One came up with a great line in the debate. Incredible! This is what "grasping at straws" looks like in political campaign terms, but I'm not even close to celebrating until all the votes have been counted.

-----------
Here's a post from the Huff Post and our panelist Mike's response:

TruthSpeaker (wrote:)
John McCain has shown us what kind of conciliatory figure he would be - making dismissive derisionary comments like "that one" whenever he disagrees with someone. I think McCain put it best when he said "I'm not the most popular person in my own party let alone the Democrats." If you've alienated yourself from both sides, how exactly is it that you are going to bridge divides and get things done?
Posted 02:16 PM (ET) on 10/08/2008

MisterB46 (replied:)
Anyone else remember that old McDonald's TV ad with the boxing trainer trying to get his guy fired up to win the bout?

The trainer says (words to the effect), "Remember when you were seven years old...and someone stole your French Fries and you never found out who it was?" Well, it was him (gesturing to the opponent on the other side of the ring)."

After two debates, I'm convinced that someone told McCain that Obama stole his French Fries.
Posted 02:43 PM (ET) on 10/08/2008

-----------
Were those Freedom Fries that That One stole from This One? Sorry, Mike, I wish I could remember the commercial so I could enjoy your comment more.

H.L. Mencken "Bayard vs. Lionheart"

2008-10-07T12:12:00.000-07:00

Some wisdom from the pre-Great Depression era, as we are now mired in the second one. Here's the full Mencken article (and the link) that contains the famous quotation "As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." I'm pasting the entire article in case the link stops working at some point. Enjoy!

BAYARD vs LIONHEART

July 26, 1920

One discerns in all the current discussion of MM. Harding and Cox a certain sour dismay. It seems to be quite impossible for any wholly literate man to pump up any genuine enthusiasm for either of them. Each, of course, is praised lavishly by the professional politicians of his own party, and compared to Lincoln, Jefferson and Cleveland by the surviving hacks of the party press, but in the middle ground, among men who care less for party success than for the national dignity, there is a gone feeling in the stomach, with shooting pains down the legs. The Liberals, in particular, seem to be suffering badly. They discover that Harding is simply a third-rate political wheel-horse, with the face of a moving-picture actor, the intelligence of a respectable agricultural implement dealer, and the imagination of a lodge joiner, and that Cox is no more than a provincial David Harum with a gift for bamboozling the boobs.

These verdicts, it seems to me, are substantially just. No one but an idiot would argue seriously that either candidate is a first-rate man, or even a creditable specimen of second-rate man. Any State in the Union, at least above the Potomac, could produce a thousand men quite as good, and many States could produce a thousand a great deal better. Harding, intellectually, seems to be merely a benign blank—a decent, harmless, laborious, hollow-headed mediocrity perhaps comparable to the late Harrington, of Maryland. Cox is quicker of wit, but a good deal less honest. He belongs to the cunning type; there is a touch of the shyster in him. His chicaneries in the matter of prohibition, both during the convention and since, show the kink in his mind. He is willing to do anything to cadge votes, and he includes in that anything the ready sacrifices of his good faith, of the national welfare, and of the hopes and confidence of those who honestly support him. Neither candidate reveals the slightest dignity of conviction. Neither cares a hoot for any discernible principle. Neither, in any intelligible sense, is a man of honor.

But it is one thing to yield to virtuous indignation against such individuals and quite another thing to devise any practicable scheme for booting them out of the synagogue. The weakness of those of us who take a gaudy satisfaction in our ideas, and battle for them violently, and face punishment for them willingly and even proudly, is that we forget the primary business of the man in politics, which is the snatching and safeguarding of his job. That business, it must be plain, concerns itself only occasionally with the defense and propagation of ideas, and even then it must confine itself to those that, to a reflective man, must usually appear to be insane. The first and last aim of the politician is to get votes, and the safest of all ways to get votes is to appear to the plain man to be a plain man like himself, which is to say, to appear to him to be happily free from any heretical treason to the body of accepted platitudes-to be filled to the brim with the flabby, banal, childish notions that challenge no prejudice and lay no burden of examination upon the mind.

It is not often, in these later days of the democratic enlightenment, that positive merit lands a man in elective office in the United States; much more often it is a negative merit that gets him there. That negative merit is simply disvulnerability. Of the two candidates, that one wins who least arouses the suspicions and distrusts of the great masses of simple men. Well, what are more likely to arouse those suspicions and distrusts than ideas, convictions, principles? The plain people are not hostile to shysterism, save it be gross and unsuccessful. They admire a Roosevelt for his bold stratagems and duplicities, his sacrifice of faith and principle to the main chance, his magnificent disdain of fairness and honor. But they shy instantly and inevitably from the man who comes before them with notions that they cannot immediately translate into terms of their everyday delusions; they fear the novel idea, and particularly the revolutionary idea, as they fear the devil. When Roosevelt, losing hold upon his cunning at last, embraced the vast hodgepodge of innovations, some idiotic but some sound enough, that went by the name of Progressivism, they jumped from under him in trembling, and he came down with a thump that left him on his back until death delivered him from all hope and caring.

It seems to me that this fear of ideas is a peculiarly democratic phenomenon, and that it is nowhere so horribly apparent as in the United States, perhaps the nearest approach to an actual democracy yet seen in the world. It was Americans who invented the curious doctrine that there is a body of doctrine in every department of thought that every good citizen is in duty bound to accept and cherish; it was Americans who invented the right-thinker. The fundamental concept, of course, was not original. The theologians embraced it centuries ago, and continue to embrace it to this day. It appeared on the political side in the Middle Ages, and survived in Russia into our time. But it is only in the United States that it has been extended to all departments of thought. It is only here that any novel idea, in any field of human relations, carries with it a burden of obnoxiousness, and is instantly challenged as mysteriously immoral by the great masses of right-thinking men. It is only here, so far as I have been able to make out, that there is a right way and a wrong way to think about the beverages one drinks with one's meals, and the way children ought to be taught in the schools, and the manner in which foreign alliances should be negotiated, and what ought to be done about the Bolsheviki.

In the face of this singular passion for conformity, this dread of novelty and originality, it is obvious that the man of vigorous mind and stout convictions is gradually shouldered out of public life. He may slide into office once or twice, but soon or late he is bound to be held up, examined and incontinently kicked out. This leaves the field to the intellectual jelly-fish and inner tubes. There is room for two sorts of them—first, the blank cartridge who has no convictions at all and is willing to accept anything to make votes, and, secondly, the mountebank who is willing to conceal and disguise what he actually believes, according as the wind blows hot or cold. Of the first sort, Harding is an excellent specimen; of the second sort, Cox.

Such tests arise inevitably out of democracy—the domination of unreflective and timorous men, moved in vast herds by mob emotions. In private life no man of sense would think of applying them. We do not estimate the integrity and ability of an acquaintance by his flabby willingness to accept our ideas; we estimate him by the honesty and effectiveness with which he maintains his own. All of us, if we are of reflective habit, like and admire men whose fundamental beliefs differ radically from our own. But when a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental—men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack, or count himself lost. His one aim is to disarm suspicion, to arouse confidence in his orthodoxy, to avoid challenge. If he is a man of convictions, of enthusiasm, of self-respect, it is cruelly hard. But if he is, like Harding, a numskull like the idiots he faces, or, like Cox, a pliant intellectual Jenkins, it is easy.

The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by the force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre—the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

Worse Than The Republican Great Depression?

2008-10-06T12:00:00.000-07:00

Why This Could Be Worse Than The Republican Great Depression

By Thom Hartmann

Flickr: Creative Commons by Tony the Misfit

At its core, the problem with the banks today is twofold. First, we don’t make anything anymore. Which means we don’t “create real wealth.” More on that in a minute, but the bottom line is that we don’t have any sort of bottom line – there’s nothing to catch us as we fall, because we don’t have a manufacturing base to fall on like we did in the 1930s.

Second, all our cash is either gone or in a very, very few hands. If the former, we’re really screwed. If the latter, and those people decide their interest trumps that of the nation, we’re also screwed, but probably not quite as badly. It looks, though, like all our cash is gone.

Let’s take these one at a time. The British knew that manufacturing was the core strength of a nation, which is why they forbade the Colonists in 1770 from manufacturing most items that could be imported from Britain, and famously forbade the good people of India from even turning their own cotton into cloth and clothing (those processes had to be done with Indian cotton shipped to England, woven and sewn, then sold back to India as finished clothes).

The colonists of America overthrew the economic tyranny of the British, and in short order (1791) Alexander Hamilton presented to Congress a detailed and specific plan to turn America from an agricultural backwater to a manufacturing giant. We should discourage the import of foreign made products and promote the manufacture of American made goods by taxing imported finished goods (a tax called an “import tariff”). We should encourage the import of foreign raw materials, and the export of finished goods, with low tariffs on these items. We should invest government money – extensively – in infrastructure that would build our monetary and industrial base. We should be protectionist, hard-working, and refuse to cede to anybody our right to make whatever we damn well wanted.

Hamilton was so successful that 100% of the income of the federal government from our founding to the Civil War came from tariffs – and we learned to manufacture just about everything we needed in this country as a result. His policies were continued after the Civil War – tariffs represented two-thirds of all federal revenues from Reconstruction to WWI, and as government exploded in size to fight WWII still represented a third of all federal income.

Import tariffs on manufactured goods averaged – from 1791 until the 1980s – around 35-40 percent. As a result, we made things here. The benefit of “making things” is that you add value more rapidly than is possible in any other way. You get richer – both individually and as a nation – faster than by any other means. Turning a $50 ton of raw cotton into $5 million worth of designer clothing can be done with only a few tens of thousands of dollars worth of labor and a million dollars worth of machinery/factories. Turning a few dollars worth of iron ore into millions of dollars worth of luxury cars is incredibly profitable.

But the Reagan Revolution changed all that. Conservatives didn’t think making things was the most important consideration of an economy – instead the goal should be for “individual incentives” and “greed” to drive companies and individuals to “maximize profits” regardless of the impact on the nation as a whole. Labor was cheaper in China and India, so after a few hundred dollars worth of lobbying and a few cheerleading (but deeply flawed) books like Thomas Friedman’s “Olive Tree and the Lexus,” we dropped our average import tariffs into the realm of 2 to 3 percent, where they remain today.

The result was easily predicted. Most of our manufacturing was shipped overseas, while the profits from the sale of foreign-made goods concentrated in a few hands (think the Walton family and General Electric, the respective companies that first and most proudly drove China and India respectively into our manufacturing and service sectors).

While we didn’t make anything here any more, we still had a lot of cash and other “real assets” – real, physical wealth – left over from the two centuries when we made everything here. The share of that wealth in the hands of the middle class was mostly in the equity in our homes, cars, and pensions/savings.

And so the predators among us turned their sights on these last reservoirs of wealth in America. Phil and Wendy Gramm (he is McCain’s chief economic advisor) pushed through both a deregulation of banks and investment companies, but also a deregulation of how commodities (real things) were traded on margin (using money borrowed against the value of the commodities).

Alan Greenspan enthusiastically jumped into the game, dropping interest rates so low they were below the rate of inflation for the biggest institutional borrowers – giving the Masters Of The Universe all the cash they needed to gamble with, thus driving up the cost (but not the value) of commodities from houses to oil to food.

In the process, the American middle class got into the act by borrowing in a slightly similar fashion, but instead of billions they only borrowed against the value of their houses and cars and the line of credit on their credit cards.

But then we began to run out of wealth – real wealth. Because we didn’t make anything any more, about all we could sell to the world were IOUs, debt-based “instruments” made up of bundled mortgages. And when the world stopped wanting to buy them, looking instead to put their money into real assets like gold or oil or manufacturing plants, it all began to unravel.

The last time things unraveled like this was during the Republican Great Depression of 1929-1938. That, too, had followed a series of Republican administrations that had radically deregulated banking and securities rules, leading to wild speculation and asset bubbles, starting with a real estate explosion in Florida in the early 1920s. That Florida real estate bubble burst in 1927, and by 1929 it had spread to Wall Street. What we are witnessing today is the death of neoliberalism (e.g. Friedman/Greenspan/Thatcher/Reaganomics), although few in the corporate media will call it out.

The recent semi-nationalization of Freddie and Fannie were, in fact, clear demonstrations of the failure of privatization of institutions essential to the commons (a primary purpose of government), but at the time it seemed that none of the corporate media would dare refer to it as such.

Today we're seeing the logical culmination of deregulation; steps recommended by Friedman/Greenspan and started in the last years of the Carter administration, put on steroids by Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush, reaching a peak with Phil and Wendy Gramm's rollback in 1999 of Glass-Steagall allowing "investment" companies to behave like "banks" without regulation (making them, in reality, neither, but instead merely financial schemes).

"Roosevelt is dead," Limbaugh famously intoned at the appointment of GW Bush as President, "but his programs remain, and we're in the process of doing something about that, as well." Indeed.

Let's start calling this what it is - the total discrediting of the economic theories of Von Hayek, Milton and Thomas Friedman, Alan Greenspan, and borrow-and-spend Reaganomics/Bushnomics. The failure of "globalization," deregulation, and privatization. And let's begin to honestly identify today's events as a clear and clarion call for a return to the common-sense policies FDR put into place that saved capitalism from itself and its predators (and led to four decades of sustained growth of both the economy and the middle class) three generations earlier.

Now we are again "rediscovering" the lessons of the last Republican Great Depression...and if we don’t QUICKLY begin to move manufacturing capacity back into this country (and have it owned by American companies so the profits don’t just end up in Japan or Germany) we will be, within five years, far worse off than Americans were in 1934.

Obama & McCain in Reverse

2008-10-04T15:08:00.000-07:00

I guess everyone's busy these days, but kinda disappointed that there's not that much posted after a presidential and a vice presidential debates already. Come on, guys. I am working on some posts...

Mike forwarded me this thought-provoking, albeit pro-Obama, set of questions that allude to the various issues regarding how the electorate views these two candidates:

What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain were still married to the first woman he said 'I do' to?
What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Michelle Obama were a wife who not only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?
What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama were a member of the Keating-5*?
* The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

What if McCain were a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election
numbers would be as close as they are?

With America facing historic debt, 2 wars, stumbling health care, a weakened dollar, all-time-high prison population, mortgage crises, bank foreclosures, etc.; which team would you hire?

Educational Background:

Obama:
Columbia University- B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in
International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Biden:
University of Delaware- B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor(J.D.)

vs.

McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho- 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College- 1 semester
University of Idaho- 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

Now, which team are you going to hire?

Whither Tolerance

2008-10-02T10:56:00.000-07:00

Don't know if you guys recall my anecdote about sending office email about the 2000 election, but maybe I was just ahead of my time. ;-) An interesting NYT article given our past discussions on tolerance, etc.

Talking Politics in the Office

Obama Gets Chewed Out By Bartlet

2008-09-23T13:11:00.000-07:00

This is a fun read that Mike forwarded to me. Maureen Dowd has Sorkin down pat (or did he actually write it? If he did, she shouldn't get a byline on that, should she?). Maybe she should've helped him on that promising-but-ultimately-awful "Studio 60". I miss "The West Wing"...:
Aaron Sorkin Conjures a Meeting of Obama and Bartlet

Move Over, Greenspan, for Prophet Roubini

2008-09-22T17:54:00.000-07:00

Nouriel Roubini seems to be the man generally credited as the first prominent economist/soothsayer to foresee the current Wall Street collapse. An NYT profile article on him: Dr. Doom

And here's the link to his blog full of information:
RGE - Nouriel Roubini's Global EconoMonitor (registration required for full text)

Tax the #$%@ Out of the Rich!

2008-09-22T13:21:00.000-07:00

Here's more complete BS as perpetrated by the so-called investment bankers and executives:
Last Year's Big Five Wall Street Bonuses

So many people are worried about "How are we going to pay for this bailout of investment banks, etc?" I'll tell you how. Fleece the crap out of those rich people who got big fat salaries and bonuses. Obama says increase taxes for people making $250K or more. Fine. I'd say anyone making a million or more gross should pay 50% income tax or more, especially if you worked in any of these firms that are getting bailed out. Sounds simple to me. Socialism? So what? Class warfare? Why not? It's time we put an end to this 30-plus years of deregulation bullshit and start re-distributing the wealth to people who can manage it properly--the responsible middle class. No more of this rich-get-richer; it must end now! Pay for the freakin' mess you created, Wall Street and DC! There should be a financial martial law enforced by the IRS, FBI and the Federal Reserve!

Sorry to be away...

2008-09-22T06:57:00.001-07:00

It's been a busy time in the last few weeks. First, I was focused on organizing my grandmother's 90th birthday in MN...a rather challenging feat to do event planning from 750 miles away for a 115 person party at a site you've never seen. Then I drove to MN (and spent an evening with James Kim and his kids...just spent a couple minutes with wife Lisa when she got home from a pottery class before I took off), did some family research at the state historical society with my mom on my grandfather's weekly newspaper column "Outdoors in Minnesota" (running from the mid-40's into the 50's), and had on-site party prep to do. After the party, I planned to drive home in one day, but ran into the wake of Ike's pillage of the Great Lakes states and had to stop when I-94 was flooded out between Chicago (IL) and Gary (IN). Finally made it home late the next day, but found the internet out. Cox Communications made it out to our place at the end of the week, diagnosing the problem as squirrels having chewed the cable on our house and on the street, which left them (the cables, not the squirrels) prone to flooding in Ike's rains. Now I'm back on line and can read what's going on again.

Meanwhile, another distraction has been efforts to make the most of my involvement as we get through the last weeks of the campaign. Among the things I "cling to" is political participation, and I've found myself in the middle of an effort to supplement activity in northeast Ohio by starting a PAC...new means of participation for me, but very interesting to be involved with it and experience firsthand the relationship between unaffiliated PACs and campaigns - what we can do to achieve our ends and what we have to do / can't do to keep the FEC happy. Busy times. I'll keep chiming in as time permits. Meanwhile, keep it up! My kids are into scary stories these days, so it makes for good bedtime reading for them when I can give them shivers with accounts of what the mean oooooollllllllldd troll McCain and his evil witch partner Palin would do if they ever got past the castle walls.

Cheers!
BRM

The Motley Fool Explains the Financial Chaos

2008-09-19T10:22:00.001-07:00

The Motley Fool always explains matters financial well for people like me who didn't go to business school nor is an investment banker. I haven't gone through all of the links, but they look like great sources and insights to understand the current Wall Street scramble. For your edification:

The Biggest Financial Story of the Past 50 Years

It's the healthcare, Sicko!

2008-09-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

Watched "Sicko" for the first time last night. Michael Moore does it again. He knows how to pull the audience's strings, and I'm not sure about the dramatic license he took on the sequence where he megaphones toward Gitmo and the siren blares, but the whole healthcare in Cuba part was awesome.

I repeat his best question in the piece when he captures patients who are literally dumped on homeless shelters by other hospitals, "Who are we?" Why is it that this superpower nation of ours cannot afford the healthcare needs of its citizens (and aliens, guests, visitors)? It is beyond me. Universal healthcare, NOW! Do something! Support H.R. 676 (single-payer system)! Is this still being debated, or has it died already? The level of greed in the insurance, medical and pharmaceutical industries should be made a crime.

You gotta see "Sicko" if you haven't, regardless of your opinion of Moore. Sometimes, I just feel like quitting my job and get out there to fight for some real change and to make a difference. But I'm just a mortgage-paying, debt-ridden coward, like millions of us.

McCain the Next Nixon?

2008-09-17T15:42:00.000-07:00

This op-ed by Elizabeth Drew, author of “Citizen McCain”, certainly brought up images of Nixon for me, especially in the sections below. This hadn't occurred to me, but I've come to realize more and more that many Rep conservatives are shaped in the mold of Nixon instead of Reagan: How John McCain lost me

"In his 2002 memoir, “Worth the Fighting For,” he wrote, revealingly, “I didn’t decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president. . . . In truth, I’d had the ambition for a long time.”"
............
"There’s an argument that all this compromise wasn’t necessary: some very smart political analysts believed from the outset that McCain could win the nomination by sticking with his old self. And they still believe that McCain won the nomination not because he gave himself over to the base but as a result of a process of elimination of inferior candidates who divided up the conservative vote, as these observers had predicted. (These people insisted on anonymity because McCain is known in Republican circles to have a long memory and a vindictive streak.)

By then I had already concluded that that there was a disturbingly erratic side of McCain’s nature. There’s a certain lack of seriousness in him. And he does not appear to be a reflective man, or very interested in domestic issues. One cannot imagine him ruminating late into the night about, say, how to educate and train Americans for the new global and technological challenges."

Brief Reflection on 9/11, Then and Now

2008-09-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

Never forget the fallen of September Eleven
Seven years ago our nation was hijacked
Never again a day like any other day
Not since the Day of Infamy 60 years before.

Unreal images of fireball and smoke
Attack on plutocratic twin monoliths
Attack on a wall of the Pentagon defense
Tearing down our pride, might and arrogance.

Crashed remains strewn on a green field
To save the hallowed institutions of DC
Heroes of United 93 immortalized.
Could I have been as brave in their place?

Necessitating a swift and firm response
Chased the evil-doers to Tora Bora caves
As near to the gates of hell but
Mission remains unaccomplished.

Bearing false witness and
Distracted by uncertain intelligence
We moved lockstep toward Babylon
Marveling the shock and awe
Ignoring the innocent lives lost and fleeing
Proclaiming mission accomplished
As the death toll rises while
The nation turns to issues domestic.

Now at the precipice of a historic election
Looking for solutions at home and abroad
Same old politics reign again
Accusations of dishonesty and distortion.
One promising change for our future
Other now re-branding maverick change.
Follow the aging senator with POW past?
Or believe in the new face of audacious hope?

Who will honor the fallen of 9/11 and hence
Without mendacity, demagoguery and hypocrisy?
Without reckless zero-sum-game machinations?
Americans and the world watch and wonder
As we remember the eleventh of September.

Quindlen: "The GOP Finds Feminism"

2008-09-09T17:47:00.000-07:00

Didn't seem right to bury this Anna Quindlen article as a comment to another post. This one deserves another post in that Palin is to feminism as Clarence Thomas was to affirmative action. THIS is the sort of "doublespeak" and political truth-twisting at which the Reps excel. All the coddling and kid gloves used by the McCain camp to prevent any gaffes by Palin is an insult to feminism and is by itself a practice of sexism. Cue the Thompson Twins' "Lies": The GOP Finds Feminism

Liberal Media Bias?

2008-09-08T11:37:00.000-07:00

From: Brian Adamson
Subject: Liberal Media Bias?
Date: Monday, September 8, 2008, 11:37 AM

Hi: Really agree with this article. Let me know what you-all think?

We're Gonna Frickin' Lose this Thing (Adam McKay: The Huffington Post)

"Stop saying that!" my wife says to me. But this is not a high school football game and I'm not a cheerleader with a bad attitude. This is an election and as things stand now, we're gonna frickin' lose this thing. Obama and McCain at best are even in the polls nationally and in a recent Gallup poll McCain is ahead by four points.

Something is not right. We have a terrific candidate and a terrific VP candidate. We're coming off the worst eight years in our country's history. Six of those eight years the Congress, White House and even the Supreme Court were controlled by the Republicans and the last two years the R's have filibustered like tantrum throwing 4-year-olds, yet we're going to elect a Republican who voted with that leadership 90% of the time and a former sportscaster who wants to teach Adam and Eve as science? That's not odd as a difference of opinion, that's logically and mathematically queer.

It reminds me of playing blackjack (a losers game). You make all the right moves, play the right hands but basically the House always wins. I know what you're going to say " But I won twelve hundred dollars last year in Atlantic City!" Of course there are victories. The odds aren't tilted crazy, but there is a 51%-49% advantage. And in the long run, the house has to win. The house will win.

So what is this house advantage the Republicans have? It's the press. There is no more fourth estate. Wait, hold on...I'm not going down some esoteric path with theories on the deregulation of the media and corporate bias and CNN versus Fox...I mean it: there is no more functioning press in this country. And without a real press the corporate and religious Republicans can lie all they want and get away with it. And that's the 51% advantage.

Think this is some opinion being wryly posited to titillate other bloggers and inspire dialogue with Tucker Carlson or Gore Vidal? Fuck that. Four corporations own all the TV channels. All of them. If they don't get ratings they get canceled or fired. All news is about sex, blame and anger, and fear. Exposing lies about amounts of money taken from lobbyists and votes cast for the agenda of the last eight years does not rate. The end.

So one side can lie and get away with it. Now let's throw in one more advantage. Voter caging and other corruption on the local level with voting. Check out the article here on HuffPost about Ohio messing with 600K voters. If only five thousand of those voters don't or can't vote that's a huge advantage in a contest that could be decided by literally dozens of votes. That takes us to about a 52 to 48% advantage.

I'm not even getting into the fact that the religious right teaches closed mindedness so it's almost impossible to gain new voters from their pool because people who disagree with them are agents of the devil. I just want to look at two inarguable realities: A) we have no more press and B) the Repubs are screwing with the voters on the local level.

I'm telling you, we're going to lose this thing. And afterwords we'll blame ourselves the same way we did with Gore and Kerry (two candidates a thousand times more qualified to lead than W Bush.) Just watch.. McCain wins by a point or two and we all walk around saying things like "Obama was too well spoken." "Biden wasn't lovable enough." "I shouldn't have split those eights." "Why did I hit on 16? Why?!"

So what do we do?

1) We give definitive clear speeches like Biden and Obama gave the other day about how no one talked about any issues at the Republican Convention and how they outright lied. But we do them over and over again. 2) We use the one place where it's still a 50-50 game -- the internet -- as much as we can. 3) But most importantly we should bring up re-regulating the media and who owns it and what that conflict of interest is a lot more. By pretending there's no conflict of interest we're failing to alert the public that they're being lied to or given a looking at a coin at the bottom of a pool slanted truth. Every time a pundit or elected official is on any TV news program it should be a polite formality to mention that GE has made such and such billions off the war in Iraq by selling arms or that Murdoch is a right-wing activist with a clear stake in who wins and who taxes his profits the least. Disney, GE, Viacom, and Murdoch -- all want profits and the candidate and agenda that will get in their way the least.

Obama and Biden should also create a "master sound bite sentence" and repeat it hundreds of times. It should be so true that even the corporations can't screw with it when it makes the airwaves. Here's my attempt: "Katrina, four dollar gas, a trillion dollar war, rising unemployment, deregulated housing market, global warming...no more."

This race should be about whether the Republican Party is going to be dismantled or not after the borderline treason of the past eight years. But instead it is about making the word "community organizer" a dirty word and a beauty queen who shoots foxes from a plane. Someone is not in any way doing their job and it's the press. Or more specifically, that job no longer exists.

Probably the worst offenders are the pundits who take the position that it's all just a game and say phrases like "getting a post-convention bump" or "playing to the soccer Moms." This isn't a game of Monopoly or Survivor. There are real truths that exist outside of the spin they are given and have an effect on lives. 250,000 Iraqi civilians are dead because we let our reality be distorted by the most effective propaganda machine in fifty years, the corporate American press. Money and jobs are flying out of this country as our currency becomes worthless and we're talking about the fact that McCain is a veteran. If someone busted into your house and robbed you would you then forgive them if you found out they were a veteran? Of course not. So why are we forgiving McCain for selling out his country by supporting the Bush agenda?

This is it folks. If McCain takes power we fade and become Australia in the seventies: a backwoods country with occasional flashes of relevance. Except we've got a way bigger military and we're angrier. People will get hurt and we'll pay the bill for the bullets. I'm telling you, unless we wake up, we're gonna lose this frickin' thing.

How the Republicans Win

2008-09-04T13:34:00.000-07:00

A quite thorough article about the roots and schemes of the Reps to win the presidency over the last 40 years, by Robert Parry of Consortium News: How the Republicans Win.

I found it educational and accurate. I blame the Reps, but I also blame the Dems for their choosing indirectly complicit silence over cries of outrage. I also blame all of us for blindly accepting the state of the nation as it was and is. This is how long the country has been on the wrong track. Wake up, America! The Revolution WILL BE TELEVISED!

Sarah's Big Night Palin Comparison to Obama

2008-09-03T22:30:00.000-07:00

It's beyond laughable that the Reps insist on comparing Palin to Obama (ok, so I've been dying to use the "pale in comparison" pun ever since she came on the scene). She's hardly qualified to be VP, and they claim Obama does not have any experience to be president (O those haunting refrain of "Zero, zero, zero"!). It's also ridiculous how the media are now fawning all over her barely mediocre speech of no substance or content. And there's no doubt where the "fair and balanced" mouthpieces stand: see Politico article Media swoons over Palin's fiery speech. An AP article even has the headline, "Palin delivers star-turning performance at RNC". To be sure, there's no substitute for low expectations. Giuliani even said the presidency is decided not by the elite or Hollywood celebrities but by the American people. The elite and celebs who live in this country are not Americans? Yet another example of infrahumanization by the Reps. America doesn't want some Ivy League-educated president? That should've disqualified the entire Bush family by default. The Reps love to bash the liberal elite and the Hollywood celebs, but they love a lying political performance even more.

It was difficult to watch the typical elite-hating, media-bashing, liberal-baiting, flag-waving circus the Reps like to put on. I did love the part where she took credit for Alaska's budget surplus (boy, that's feat in pipeline country) and how she put the state jet for sale on eBay (this here Internet is somethin' else). As I've heard other people say, we are the laughing stock of the world. But, hey, the GOP will never apologize for America! Yeah, good luck with that.

At the Politico site above, I particularly enjoyed this rundown of RNC myths vs. facts by a Democratic responder:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."
THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform _ not even in the state senate."
THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."
THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded. Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families. He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.
THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state _ by population.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.
THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."
THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right _ change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington _ throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."
THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John McCain...is this the best the fascists on the right can do?

That last line is from the blogger, not me. It's the same ol' negative campaigning from the right. How could it be anything else, regardless of what Obama and even McCain try to do to keep it on the issues? Oh, right, I forgot:
"This election is not about issues," Davis told The Washington Post this week. "This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."

It's time for "It's the economy, stupid", part II.

Beware of Rove-ellian Trojan Horse

2008-09-02T18:07:00.000-07:00

Here's a very interesting article from The New Republic I found. As I have mulled over the Palin pick in my head over the last few days, I believe the Dems and liberals are falling over themselves into the Rove-ellian political trap:
The Case Against the Case Against Palin

The article ends with this:
"Sarah Palin is a living reminder that the ultimate source of political power in this country is not the Kennedy School or the Davos Summit or an Ariana Huffington salon; even now, power emanates from the electorate itself. More precisely, power in 2008 emanates from the working class electorates of Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Sooner or later, the Obama camp will realize that the beauty pageant queen is an enormously talented populist in a year that is ripe for populism. For their own sake, it had better be sooner."

The McCain camp has managed to re-define the theme of this election once again by re-invigorating the Culture War: Palin reignites culture wars

This is why they picked someone like her. She represents a lightningrod, a liberal flystrip, if you prefer, that will make all those left-wing liberals who attack her look like they're elitists alienating the working-class, heartland 'Mericans. Obama camp had better watch out and step around this political excrement-in-a-flaming-paper-bag that the Rove Sith-apprentices have put down on their doorstep. This is like "Bob Roberts" politics where an assassination (a character assassination in this case) is faked, and liberals are all too easy targets to fall for it.

Palin symbolizes the return to "God, guns and gays" political game at which the Reps are experts. This is a Simpsons' episode where the townfolk chant "Monorail!" in the Music Man cadence; a South Park episode where the townfolk misplace their anger shouting, "Dey took 'r jobs!" The Dems cannot compete in this game because the 'Merican public will never accept liberals as the defenders of their beliefs, values or culture. And don't forget the good ol' conservative whipping boy, the liberal media. McCain camp knows this and knows that this is the only way that the Reps can stranglehold the presidency.

It is truly despicable that they are going down this road again, but will the third time be the charm? I can officially declare that I have zero respect for McCain. Maverick? Hardly, just another opportunistic politician who will do and say anything to be president. Maverick McCain died a quick death prior the 2008 election season. It is also quite sickening to see the Reps pat themselves on the back for putting Palin on the ticket, as if they have accomplished something new and progressive, as if she somehow can even be a torchbearer for the "18 million cracks in the glass ceiling" that Hillary created.

The best course of action for Obama-Biden is to stay away from the culture war trap (as I saw Biden say repeatedly on C-SPAN tonight, "Children are off-limits!"), and let Palin be Palin. Looks like she's got a lot of political loose ends with which to fashion a noose for herself: See Campaign money hurts Palin's outsider image. I realize it'd be highly unlikely and a political suicide, but I'll go out on a limb to say that Palin's VP nominee days may be numbered.

Plus, the latest Gallup poll says Obama has hit the 50% mark. Mere post-convention bump perhaps, but thank the Lord at least half of the country is able to see through the Rove-ellian politics-as-usual smokescreen.

Who is Sarah Palin?

2008-08-30T20:20:00.000-07:00

Hey check this out.

Dear MoveOn member,

Yesterday was John McCain's 72nd birthday. If elected, he'd be the oldest president ever inaugurated. And after months of slamming Barack Obama for "inexperience," here's who John McCain has chosen to be one heartbeat away from the presidency: a right-wing religious conservative with no foreign policy experience, who until recently was mayor of a town of 9,000 people.

Huh?

Who is Sarah Palin? Here's some basic background:

She was elected Alaska's governor a little over a year and a half ago. Her previous office was mayor of Wasilla, a small town outside Anchorage. She has no foreign policy experience.¹

Palin is strongly anti-choice, opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest.²

She supported right-wing extremist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000. ³

Palin thinks creationism should be taught in public schools.⁴

She's doesn't think humans are the cause of climate change.⁵

She's solidly in line with John McCain's "Big Oil first" energy policy. She's pushed hard for more oil drilling and says renewables won't be ready for years. She also sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species—she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska.⁶

How closely did John McCain vet this choice? He met Sarah Palin once at a meeting. They spoke a second time, last Sunday, when he called her about being vice-president. Then he offered her the position.⁷

This is information the American people need to see. Please take a moment to forward this email to your friends and family.

McCain-Palin Ticket

2008-08-29T14:17:00.000-07:00

I'll give McCain one thing; I didn't see this pick coming AT ALL! I only heard of her last night on C-SPAN as they ran down a list of speakers at the RNC. I think he's really going out on a limb.

First thing I mentioned to Michelle when I heard the pick: They want to make Biden look like he's attacking women when they get in a debate.
Second: Does this really woo the unhappy Hillary supporters or women in general?
Third: The ol' "heartbeat away from the presidency" question. If the Reps think Obama is inexperienced, does Palin have the creds to backup a 72-year-old presidential nominee? Major stumbling block here, I think.
Fourth: I guess the evangelicals and conservatives like Palin's stance on issues, but anti-abortion isn't the way to get the women vote.

Forces some tactical adjustments for Obama-Biden in the short term (I bet they didn't see her coming, either), but in the long run VP picks end up being neutral. However, Biden backs up Obama much, much better than Palin does McCain. She seems hollow, token and purely a move in political campaign terms, not at all about how qualified she is to lead the second-in-command position. Too bad for Mitt Romney, but Hillary didn't get the VP nod, either.

Obama-Biden Ticket

2008-08-25T11:26:00.000-07:00

The VP gauntlet has been dropped from the Dem side, so what do you all think? I think it is a good and perhaps safe pick. McCain camp has already started to spin on the lack of foreign policy experience and going against the change agent message of Obama, but I think Biden is a good bulldog against Rep attacks. McCain camp is also courting seriously the disaffected Hillary voters, but those (some say up to 25% of her supporters who would now vote for McCain), I would argue, were not really core Dems, mostly independents and maybe some Reps who are Bush-haters.

Anyway, let's chime in, as the Dem convention is now rolling...

Fwd: Continuing on Edwards et al.

2008-08-11T13:06:00.000-07:00

From BRM via googlegroups...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Brian Menard" <brian_men...@hotmail.com>
Date: Aug 11 2008, 1:06 pm
Subject: Continuing on Edwards et al.
To: AMoMaI Group

Glad we agree, and that's with bipartisan culpability. (My beef with
Larry Craig is not the orientation of his activity, but the hypocrisy
factor. As for Gingrich, I respect the heck out of his great brain,
diagnostic ability, and strategizing, but he'll never be President
because he can't - or at least couldn't - keep his pants on. To his
credit though, he admitted things and resigned where others have not.)

As for Europe, I would argue that in fact, there IS a big difference
in moral expectations between the USA and Europe, not only with public
figures, but perhaps BECAUSE there is so much more toleration of such
things in many European cultures generally. Religion does figure in,
but not in the sense of right wing control of U.S. politics; I believe
it's more a matter of religion NOT playing so much an active part in
European culture.

As for damning politicians for sleeping around, I think John Edwards
said it best himself when he finally started to admit to a teeny-
weenie little part of what I suspect he will ultimately have to admit
to despite continuing to deny it (as he lied with a straight face just
a few months ago about the fact that any infidelity at all took
place). In his ABC interview, he said essentially that there is a
hubris that comes from a sense of invincibility and all-powerfulness
that seduces one into thinking that he can do anything that he wants
without culpability. THAT is very dangerous in public office,
especially the most powerful office in the world.

BRM

RE: Politics: Edwards Admits Affair to ABC News

2008-08-09T11:49:00.001-07:00

Well, he's definitely a huge heel here, but I think we can also all agree that neither party has the upper hand in matters of virtue, morals or family values. :)

MLB

From: brian_menard@hotmail.com
To: b.adamson@comcast.net; misterb_46@hotmail.com; yhkpenguin@yahoo.com
CC: yhkpenguin.amomai@blogger.com
Subject: Re: Politics: Edwards Admits Affair to ABC News
Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2008 10:22:54 -0400

And, I would add, also a shame that Edwards took such advantage of his wife's health circumstances for political gain while he was otherwise involved with extracurricular activity. Any agree?

BRM

Re: Politics: Edwards Admits Affair to ABC News

2008-08-09T07:22:00.000-07:00

And, I would add, also a shame that Edwards took such advantage of his wife's health circumstances for political gain while he was otherwise involved with extracurricular activity. Any agree?

BRM

----- Original Message -----
From: Young H. Kim
To: Brian Menard ; Brian Adamson ; Michael Busick
Cc: amomai blog
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2008 7:20 PM
Subject: Fw: Politics: Edwards Admits Affair to ABC News

Well, well, the other shoe drops...but no admission of fathering the child. Boy, he's learned a few things from Clinton, I suppose. What a shame that I have to admit that Fox and the Enquirer were right. Ugh!

Young

--- On Fri, 8/8/08, NYTimes.com <nytdirect@nytimes.com> wrote:

----------------------------------------

The Caucus
Edwards Admits Affair to ABC News
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
In an interview, former Senator John Edwards said he had an
extramarital affair but did not father a child out of
wedlock.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/08/abc-news-edwards-admits-to-extramarital-affair/index.html?nl=pol&emc=pol

Fw: Politics: Edwards Admits Affair to ABC News

2008-08-08T16:20:00.001-07:00

Well, well, the other shoe drops...but no admission of fathering the child. Boy, he's learned a few things from Clinton, I suppose. What a shame that I have to admit that Fox and the Enquirer were right. Ugh!

Young

--- On Fri, 8/8/08, NYTimes.com <nytdirect@nytimes.com> wrote:

----------------------------------------

The Caucus
Edwards Admits Affair to ABC News
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
In an interview, former Senator John Edwards said he had an
extramarital affair but did not father a child out of
wedlock.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/08/abc-news-edwards-admits-to-extramarital-affair/index.html?nl=pol&emc=pol

Fwd: Response to Young's Carter comment

2008-07-30T17:30:00.000-07:00

From BRM via googlegroups...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Brian Menard" <brian_men...@hotmail.com>
Date: Jul 30 2008, 5:30 pm
Subject: Response to Young's Carter comment
To: AMoMaI Group

From my end of things, Carter had good reason to be defensive. The
"misery index" that he created to lambaste Ford in '76 had grown to a
double-digit albatross hanging around his own neck by '80. Foreign
affairs were a disaster. And things were a mess at home. Worst of
all, there was DISCO! Can't we blame that on Carter as well? BA, I
won't touch the ABBA thing; I know that wasn't your fault despite an
ethnic affiliation.

BRM

Re: Is Obama Another Jimmy Carter?

2008-07-29T13:42:00.000-07:00

You mean his new "documentary".

BRM

----- Original Message -----
From: Brian Adamson
To: Brian Menard ; Young H. Kim ; Brian Adamson ; Michael Busick
Cc: amomai blog
Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2008 11:07 AM
Subject: RE: Is Obama Another Jimmy Carter?

I'd not considered that T. Boone Pickens might join the Obama camp. Yeah, that would be a brilliant PR move. Actually, I'm hoping Oliver Stone's new movie "W" will have a greater influence. Talk about a master propagandist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg7vwicPx98

BA

Just curious: Does anyone else think that the T. Boone Pickens push
of the last couple weeks will be a brilliant and strategic free
advertisement for Obama when Pickens ultimately endorses Obama during the
general campaign? I agree with the need for developing renewable energy
resources beyond (not in place of) expanding current energy efforts, but I won't
be surprised when Pickens outs himself in the Obama camp.

RE: Is Obama Another Jimmy Carter?

2008-07-29T08:24:00.001-07:00

Might want to check-out the Mayhill Fowler's piece on the Huffington post - not entirely positive- seemed fair and balanced to me.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhill-fowler/baracks-berlin-gamble_b_115312.html

________________________________
From: misterb_46@hotmail.com
To: brian_menard@hotmail.com; yhkpenguin@yahoo.com; b.adamson@comcast.net; briada@hotmail.com
CC: yhkpenguin.amomai@blogger.com
Subject: RE: Is Obama Another Jimmy Carter?
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:11:18 -0700

Like a lot of folks these days, I only get my national news from the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. :)

________________________________

From: brian_menard@hotmail.com
To: yhkpenguin@yahoo.com; misterb_46@hotmail.com; b.adamson@comcast.net; briada@hotmail.com
CC: yhkpenguin.amomai@blogger.com
Subject: Re: Is Obama Another Jimmy Carter?
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:17:02 -0400

Actually, your dear friends at Fox News (real news portions, not opinion shows, and not Obermaneque "opinion pretending to be news" shows) did the best job of covering Obama on the trip (while also getting digs in at their ABC/CBS/NBC rivals for their giddy fawning coverage) with actual reporters reporting what happened, with whom he met, what was discussed, and what reactions come from it all. I agree that the European coverage, by and large, was more focused than the Americans' star struck coverage. That included telling about how his German crowd got pretty quiet when Obama said Europe needed to step up and do their part in Afghanistan (for which I give him great credit). Didn't catch much of that here, but maybe I missed it in my channel surfing between the "big three" majors, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, and FOX.

RE: Is Obama Another Jimmy Carter?

2008-07-29T08:20:00.001-07:00

Let's face it - Obama screwed up by not visiting the hospitalized soldiers in Germany. One can only wonder what his true motivations were? Downer, little scary, perhaps he didn't want to face the reality of sacrifices made for a war that he did not start? Who knows... Can't defend Obama on this one. I think he made a mistake that will haunt him.

BA

From: brian_menard@hotmail.com
To: yhkpenguin@yahoo.com; b.adamson@comcast.net; briada@hotmail.com; misterb_46@hotmail.com
CC: yhkpenguin.amomai@blogger.com
Subject: Re: Is Obama Another Jimmy Carter?
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:57:18 -0400

That could be what really happened, though my understanding tweaks a little differently: the Pentagon told him HE was most welcome to come but the media entourage had to stay out, at which point the campaign chose not to put him one-on-one with the soldiers in the hospital. Two versions of the same story? How could it be in our blessed media age?

----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Busick
To: Brian Menard ; Young H. Kim ; Brian Adamson ; Brian Adamson
Cc: amomai blog
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2008 10:09 PM
Subject: RE: Is Obama Another Jimmy Carter?

Actually, I'm tired of reading how the media is in favor of either of them over the other.

There's no convention in sight and we still have three months to go so it seems like the media is grasping for any story they can find. This Europe trip. That biopsy. This magazine cover. That trip to Pennsylvania.

As I understand Obama's aborted trip to Germany, the Pentagon asked him not to do it. Wherever he goes, he's going to have cameras whether he wants them or not (Wailing Wall for example) so I don't see how he really has to ask for them.

Enough already -- until the conventions.

RE: Is Obama Another Jimmy Carter?

2008-07-29T08:11:00.001-07:00

OK, but the guys on Fox & Friends (according to a clip on the Daily Show last week) showed Obama in front of German monument and wasted no time comparing his location and speech to that of Hitler back in the day.

Like a lot of folks these days, I only get my national news from the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. :)

MB

----- Original Message -----
From: Brian Adamson
To: Brian Menard ; Young H. Kim ; Michael Busick ; Brian Adamson
Cc: amomai blog
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2008 10:52 PM
Subject: RE: Is Obama Another Jimmy Carter?

Brian M.

"Though I'm buried with reading and writing for a class, I can't sit out any longer on all the "media are for McCain" comments. Are we really in such different worlds that you guys think the media are shilling for McCain when Obama just did his superstar world tour with the three major network anchors and their accompanying entourages in tow? In my world, all their attention gave him a nice poll bump, though he somehow seems to have managed to lose much of it again in just a couple days despite all the fawning media efforts to help him any way they can."

Sorry, but I've got to comment on the above topic.

Yes, we really are in different worlds... Because, left-wingers are focusing on the story around the story. The story as told by the corporate media was Obama as "Rock Star" - - McCain criticizes Obama for not going overseas and then criticizes him for going overseas - - Looks like grandpa is the flip-flopper.

The media story was about the media covering the story. What is enlightening though is how little the media actually covered Obama, what Obama did and what Obama said. Instead the media was the message. The story was all about how big the story was. So, we're all left with the knowledge that Obama went to Europe and took an entourage of media with him to cover his big trip? What did we actually learn about that trip? What was actually covered? Just the story about how big the story was? How bizarre. Look at how Obama was covered in Europe. In Europe Obama was the story; In America the medias coverage of Obama was the story. Remember, Neil Postmans landmark book on television, "The medium is the message."

Brian Adamson

RE: Is Obama Another Jimmy Carter?

2008-07-29T08:09:00.001-07:00

Since Pickens had a lot to do with the financing of the Swiftboating of Kerry in 2004, I'd like to think he's trying to make up for that now. :)

If Pickens is serious about his energy ideas -- and it sounds like he is -- I believe he'll support whichever candidate is more in line with his goals.

MB

From: brian_menard@hotmail.com
To: briada@hotmail.com; yhkpenguin@yahoo.com; b.adamson@comcast.net; misterb_46@hotmail.com
CC: yhkpenguin.amomai@blogger.com
Subject: Re: Is Obama Another Jimmy Carter?
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:05:46 -0400

Just curious: Does anyone else think that the T. Boone Pickens push of the last couple weeks will be a brilliant and strategic free advertisement for Obama when Pickens ultimately endorses Obama during the general campaign? I agree with the need for developing renewable energy resources beyond (not in place of) expanding current energy efforts, but I won't be surprised when Pickens outs himself in the Obama camp.

----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Busick
To: Brian Adamson ; Young H. Kim ; Brian Menard ; Brian Adamson
Cc: amomai blog
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2008 10:38 PM
Subject: RE: Is Obama Another Jimmy Carter?

Yeah, what should Obama's group work on first: bringing the worst of this current administration to "justice" (we all know at worst it will be vacations in white-collar prisons) or trying to fix an economy stalled in 20th-century thinking (forget pre-9/11 thinking nonsense) while the rest of the developed world catches us and passes us?

The America of the good old days would seize on a chance to show the world how we can lead on wind and solar power innovations, but this administration (and McCain because he doesn't seem to know any better) whines and stomps its feet when it can't just dig bigger holes in the ground and sea whenever it wants to -- like it used to.

I don't mind more research into safer nuclear power (does that mean this administration wants to finally stop picking on France), but it's beyond time to look for more places to drill for oil and dig for coal and oil shale. Wind, water, and solar power will be around a lot longer than anything else and (IMHO) it doesn't look as bad when we try to build things to take advantage of wind, water, and solar power.

MB

RE: Is Obama Another Jimmy Carter?

2008-07-29T08:07:00.001-07:00

I'd not considered that T. Boone Pickens might join the Obama camp. Yeah, that would be a brilliant PR move. Actually, I'm hoping Oliver Stone's new movie "W" will have a greater influence. Talk about a master propagandist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg7vwicPx98

Just curious: Does anyone else think that the T. Boone Pickens push
of the last couple weeks will be a brilliant and strategic free
advertisement for Obama when Pickens ultimately endorses Obama during the
general campaign? I agree with the need for developing renewable energy
resources beyond (not in place of) expanding current energy efforts, but I won't
be surprised when Pickens outs himself in the Obama camp.

BRM