February 2008 Archives

In a new ad from VoteVets.org, Rose Forrest (Iraq war veteran) says this:

John McCain says it's okay with him if the U.S. spends the next thousand years in Iraq. That's some commitment to the Iraqi people, Senator McCain. This is my little boy. He was born a year after I came home from Iraq. What kind of commitment are you making to him? How about a thousand years of affordable healthcare? Or a thousand years of keeping America safe? Can we afford that for my child, Senator McCain? Or have you already promised to spend trillions in Baghdad?

In the clip below, Norah O'Donnell of MSNBC asks John Stoltz of VoteVets.org, "Why are you running ads against McCain, a fellow veteran?" Stoltz's answer:

We all respect John McCain's service in Vietnam; he's clearly an American war hero. But he's not in touch with what Americans want in this war. I mean, as an Iraq War veteran, representing over 15,000 veterans across VoteVets.org, we want John McCain to give us some straight talk. Is he going to continue the failed policies of George W. Bush in Iraq -- and retreat from Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan -- or is he going to take the fight to the enemy?

HumanEvents.com's Ericka Anderson was there to offer up Republican talking points.

Watch the whole thing:

Normally, I don't like hearing (or reading) complaints about how the traditional media covers this candidate or the other. To me, it's like an NBA ballplayer complaining about how the refs call a particular game -- IMHO, you should be good enough (or far enough ahead) that whatever influence a ref has should not make a difference to the outcome of the game.

That said, on occasion a TV personality's performance can be so egregiously bad -- relative to all the candidates on stage -- that you can't help but stand back and shake your head. And that describes Tim Russert's performance at Tuesday night's debate in Ohio. And, for that matter, much of his career performance for the last decade or more.

by Mark Adams

It wasn't her unapologetic stance on the Iraq War, now or then. Truthfully, the moment any of us signed on to support John Kerry, we gave Hillary a pass on her vote for the AUMF, even if we reserved the right to nit-pick her votes to fund the war. It's not the triangulation, or Bill's clumsy rants on her behalf. It's not the two-faces of her flag-burning position, or health-care mandates.

It's the fucking lies about the economy, stupid.

"The notion that you can selectively pick what you take credit for and then run away from what isn't politically convenient, that doesn't make sense," Obama said. "If she suggested she had nothing to do with economic policy in the Clinton White House, then it would not be fair for me to bring it up but as you know, that's not the claim that she is making."

For her to insist that NAFTA not only was a bad idea, but that her wise counsel against it was ignored by her husband which allows her to take credit for much of the good from Bill Clinton's administration while distancing herself from one of it's most glaring examples of right-leaning policy mistakes -- only to be reminded that she herself includes it as something in her record of accomplishments to which she stands proud -- is a lesson in cherry picking.

David Sirota found the money quote from a 2002 speech Hillary Clinton gave to the DLC (the Republican wing of the Democratic Party):

"We all know the record of the DLC, the Progressive Policy Institute and, of course, the Clinton-Gore Administration. The economic recovery plan stands first and foremost as a testament to both good ideas and political courage. National service. The Brady Bill. Family Leave. NAFTA. Investment in science and technology. New markets. Charter schools. The Earned Income Tax Credit. The welfare to work partnership. The COPS program. The SAFER program. All of these came out of some very fundamental ideas about what would work. The results speak for themselves. Those ideas were converted into policies programs that literally changed millions of lives and, I argue, changed America."

I'll not argue with her that much of this was good, very good in fact. But here in the Rust Belt, NAFTA is a four letter word (a testament to our economic condition, not the educational system). She knows it, which is why, as the Ohio primary looms and the Pennsylvania primary looks increasingly like a contest she might not even get to, the last thing she wants around her neck is a trade deal so many of us here have concluded is responsible for wiping out what once was one of the most economically prosperous regions in the country.

If the election is Obama vs. McCain, it'll come down to Hope vs. Hopeless, "Yes, we can" vs. "No, we can't."

In Mafia parlance a "button man" is a hit-man or mafia soldier. In The Godfather movies, Luca Brazzi was a button man, as was Willie Cicci:

Chairman: ...you were a member of the Corleone crime organization.
Cicci: No. We called it the Corleone Family, Senator. We called it the Family.
Chairman: What was your position?
Cicci: At first, like everybody else I...I was a soldier.
Chairman: What is that?
Cicci: A button, you know, Senator, come on.
Chairman: No, I don't know. Tell me.
Cicci: Well, when the boss says push a button on a guy, I push a button. See, Senator?

I think Ed Rollins pushed the button on the McCain campaign. And whether it was Huck (or someone else) who gave the order remains to be seen.

Hear me out...

"Suggestions" that McCain once had intimate relations with a telco lobbyist are just the beginning of the story. As Digby succinctly puts it, "It's not about the sex it's about the favors."

Demosthenes is all over the story:

This scandal couldn't be worse. It's not that it raises the question of Gary Hart-style philandering, though it certainly does. It's that he was philandering with a lobbyist, a telco lobbyist no less. He's not just receptive to corporate lobbyists, he's intimate with them.

It destroys that "Maverick" image and makes him worse than other Republicans [and jaysus, that's saying a lot]. It puts him right back into the mold of the Keating 5. It's not going to go away, either; Republicans won't cut him enough slack [has Rush weighed in yet?], and Democrats will gleefully feast on what remains of his reputation [although Hillary's campaign probably won't -- too close for comfort]. If there's anything to this, it could destroy his candidacy. There's no way he can win.

Oh but it gets better, much better. When a story like this breaks you have to ask yourself two questions: "Why did the story break now and who benefits from it?" So here we go:

Let's say McCain drops out. That leaves Mike Huckabee as the frontrunner by default. In fact, it goes further than that, because Huckabee's staying in the race is what has maintained it as a race. All that CNN/MSNBC/Fox primary coverage has been predicated on Huckabee continuing to provide a challenger.

If McCain had dropped out with everybody else out, it would have simply progressed to a brokered convention and someone like Romney would have probably taken it. If there were no race, so there would be no objections.

Instead, the presumption is going to be that Huckabee will have "won" the race.

Yes, the Republican powers that be could try to nominate someone else, but then they'd have to go up against the social conservatives (egged on by the Huckster) yelling that Huckabee won fair and square, and should get the nomination.

The Republicans will be between a rock and a hard place: either nominate Huck, or those small cracks in the Republican coalition are blasted wide open.

So...you can believe this was a fortunate coincidence for the Huckabee campaign. You can also believe in the Tooth Fairy. But you and I know that the Huckabee campaign has on its payroll one of the most brutal streetfighters in the business: Ed Rollins.

Rollins came on board in December (coincidentally the same month the NYT held back the McCain story to begin with) and then Huckabee called Bush arrogant and having an bunker mentality; shortly after that, Huckabee vowed he wouldn't run the negative ad on Romney and then showed the ad to the assembled press (P.S. Huckabee beat Romney shortly thereafter); and now this.

by shep

David Brooks is just sure that the magic is fading: “…those in the grips of Obama Comedown Syndrome began to wonder if His stuff actually made sense. For example, His Hopeness tells rallies that we are the change we have been waiting for, but if we are the change we have been waiting for then why have we been waiting since we’ve been here all along?”

Quite obviously, we’ve been waiting for a leader who, at least, isn’t a sociopathic mental midget. That would be the same sociopathic mental midget whom Brooks once remarked: “[m]any will doubt this, but Bush is a smart and compelling presence in person, and only the whispering voice of Leo Tolstoy holds one back.”

Sorry David, you’re a partisan hack who can’t recognize the difference between an idiot political scion and a genuinely brilliant and dedicated public servant who is inspiring several generations of multi-ethnic, bi-gender Americans of every economic class to reject your tired and mindless partisan bullshit. “The magic” not only continues, it has just turned you into the toad that many of us always saw you for.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

Last night, Feb. 19, John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama gave speeches after the results were announced in the Wisconsin primaries. The following 6 minute video intercuts those three speeches in a way that gives new meaning to the campaign.

Shorter Barack Obama: ""The last thing we need is to have the same old folks doing the same old things, making the same mistakes over and over again."

Obama takes Wisconsin and Hawaii and delivers a victory speech so long and full of policy details that supporters were spotted in the crowd behind him making cell phone calls. OK, back to the drawing board on that idea.

Anyway, in a spirit of celebration, I'm including this little widget to help you Clinton stragglers get right with the Obama cult before you get hauled away to the re-education camps and things get...serious.

And if that's not enough for you, did you know that Barack Obama is Your New Bicycle?

(Cross posted at Daily Kos where it made the "Recommended Diaries" list)

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to the Bush administration's domestic spying program.

The justices' decision Tuesday includes no comment explaining why they turned down the appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU appealed the case because the lower court said that the plaintiffs couldn't prove they had been spied on. The government said they couldn't reveal whether or not they had been spied on because it would compromise state security.

That's pretty much the definition of Catch-22.

So one more pillar of the American Constitution knocked away by the Bush Supreme Court.

Doesn't it make you feel all tingly?

Susan Jacoby has written an article in the Washington Post that is one of those "woe is me" pieces about how stupid we're becoming. Problem is, this isn't anything new. Every older generation has looked at the younger one with a mix of bemusement and horror at how stupid they've become -- compared to themselves. I'm in my mid-fifties and I see my peers succumbing to this more often than not. It's a drag, believe me.

Fact is, every generation, as it nears death, gazes out upon a world that appears to be, well, dying. But life is for the living -- not the withered (in mind if not body), cynical elitists.

"The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself." Ralph Waldo Emerson offered that observation in 1837...

Well blow me down. Americans have been complaining about the dumbing down of culture for nearly 175 years? How'd we ever get so far?

But the inability to concentrate for long periods of time -- as distinct from brief reading hits for information on the Web -- seems to me intimately related to the inability of the public to remember even recent news events.

Hang on -- who's she talking about here? That's a pretty broad brush she's using. There are plenty of people who remember just fine, thank you.

Candidates, like voters, emphasize the latest news, not necessarily the most important news.

Is that the candidates' fault, or the voters' fault or the traditional news media's fault? Big difference, I think.

No wonder negative political ads work.

Negative political advertising is as old as the the Republic. Ever read some ads from the election of 1800? It makes today's stuff look pretty tame.

A comparison of two video reports, on the other hand, is cumbersome.

Not really. Hasn't she ever read a blog that contains embedded video from YouTube?

Forced to choose between conflicting stories on television, the viewer falls back on hunches, or on what he believed before he started watching.

This is not a new phenomenon. Long before the Internet, long before television, long before radio, or even modern newspapers, voters made election choices based on emotional reactions to a candidate or his party. Fact is, our brains developed over thousands of millenia to make emotional decisions first and -- only after that -- logical ones. Emotional intelligence controls pretty much every decision we make -- especially in electoral politics.

As video consumers become progressively more impatient with the process of acquiring information through written language

Again, Jacoby assumes that we make decisions based on dispassion and logic. I think that is the exception, not the rule.

FDR had told his speechwriters that he was certain that if Americans understood the immensity of the distances over which supplies had to travel to the armed forces, "they can take any kind of bad news right on the chin."

The anecdote is illustrative of many things, chief among them the vast difference in quality of leadership and character between FDR and GWB.

Sandy, this is frustrating: if Jacoby wants to say that Bush lied and we fell for it, then say it -- I'm just not convinced that it was due to us being dumber today than our ancestors were back then.

According to a 2006 survey by National Geographic-Roper, nearly half of Americans between ages 18 and 24 do not think it necessary to know the location of other countries in which important news is being made. More than a third consider it "not at all important" to know a foreign language, and only 14 percent consider it "very important."

Finally, some hard data! And yes, I agree -- it's a shame and much to our detriment. But is this because people spend too much time on their Facebook profiles? I'm skeptical.

The problem is not just the things we do not know (consider the one in five American adults who, according to the National Science Foundation, thinks the sun revolves around the Earth); it's the alarming number of Americans who have smugly concluded that they do not need to know such things in the first place.

Great point. Or as Bush so famously put it:

"I remind people that, like when I'm with, Condi, I say she's the Ph.D. and A comparison of two video reports, on the other hand, is cumbersome. and just look at who's the president and who's the adviser."

Not that Condi would have been much better.

And speaking of Bush, Jacoby continues:

...rote efforts to raise standardized test scores by stuffing students with specific answers to specific questions on specific tests will not do the job.

Jacoby's lament would be a whole lot more credible had she been saying this back in 2001, before we bought No Child Left Behind.

If this indeed turns out to be a "change election," the low level of discourse in a country with a mind taught to aim at low objects ought to be the first item on the change agenda.

Again -- broad brushing happening here. There are always going to be dull and stupid people making bad decisions. But, if anything, greater numbers of people are engaged in issue-discourse than ever before.

They just happen to be concentrated on one side of the political spectrum and not the other.

Look -- every generation (as it gets closer to death) thinks the world is, for want of a better word, dying. But I don't buy it. That's not to say that climate change is not a serious problem. It is. And our generation may, in fact, be the last one for a long time that will have done better than our parents. Our children may not be able to say that. And perhaps this will not be another American century, but rather a Chinese one. Or Indian. Who knows?

I do know that if you think you can't do "it," you're probably right. And if you think you can, you're also probably right.

So, in the end, you become what you think about. That's why I'll always turn my back on the candidate of fear, uncertainty and doubt.

I will always prefer the candidate who appeals to hopeful, forward thinking ideals.

by Mark Adams

Super Delegates, Schmooper Delegates. The convention is a long way off.

Please spare me from any more drivel about the public acquiescing to the whims of a party elite being somehow equivalent to Soviet sheeple bowing under pressure from some Politburo:

[...] once the people at large have internalized the notion that it is okay for an elite group of philosopher kings to make decisions for them, then the people have internalized and institutionalized their own oppression.

Yes, just what I need more of, some wise sage explaining why super delegates are so seemingly powerful -- and how it will be the end of us all. Spare me, mm'kay?

Governors, Senators, Congresscritters and members of the DNC (and yes, former Democratic Presidents) get to vote at the party's convention because they ARE the face, the leadership of the Party. They represent the heart and soul of the Party.

They earned it. They get their ticket punched because they did more than you or I did to get a Democrat in office. They did more fundraising, made more phone calls, showed up for more votes, did more organizing and campaigning and spent more time on it than anyone -- because they did it for themselves. It's a perk of office, something to be expected.

How they vote, just like how you vote, is their choice.

If you want that kind of influence, put down the laptop, get your ass down to the board of elections, and run for something. It's a free country -- pretty much anyway.

Better hall monitors than I have been weighing in on sudden switch in Washington yesterday.

From time-wasting hearings for druged-up ball-players on Wednesday, to presidential fantasies of existential threats from abroad and all out rhetorical warfare on Constitutional principles in the House -- complete with a GOP staged walkout in the name of rejecting any such grandstanding by the Dems -- all coming to a head on Thursday.

Something changed yesterday.  The wind is now blowing from a different direction.  There's still fear in the air, but it's coming more from the right than the left now.

I will duly note Olbermann coming right out and calling Bush a fascist last night on national television had to be some kind of first.  It's also no surprise that Glenn Greenwald has one of the best takes on all of this:

This is the kind of pure, unadulterated idiocy -- childish, cartoonish and creepy -- that Democrats for years have been allowing to bully them into submission, govern our country, and dismantle our Constitution. Outside of Andy McCarthy, Mark Steyn and their roving band of paranoid right-wing bloggers who can't sleep at night because they think (and hope) that there are dark, primitive "jihadi" super-villains hiding under their beds -- along with the Very Serious pundit class which proves their Seriousness by placing blind faith in the fear-mongering pronouncements and demands of our military and intelligence officials for more unchecked power -- nobody cares about adolescent Terrorist game-playing like this any longer. In the real world, it doesn't work, and it hasn't worked for some time.

Americans are worried and even angry about many things. Whether Osama bin Laden is throwing a party because AT&T and Verizon might have to defend themselves in court isn't one of them. Outside of National Review, K Street, and the fear-paralyzed imagination of our shrinking faux-warrior class, there is no constituency in America demanding warrantless eavesdropping or amnesty for lawbreaking telecoms.

Ah, the Drama. Bravo! Author! Author!  Coming as it did after deliberate disruption of a memorial for one of their fallen colleagues, Shakespeare would have set the whole scene at a graveyard. "Alas poor Lantos, I knew him Horatio..."

The conservative noise machine's Regurgitators are playing their appointed role, but without the usual enthusiasm the zeitgeist demanded just a few months ago.  Noting John Boehner's stunt was indeed "staged," but all in the name of principle, that any disrespect to the dead was the fault of those damn Democrats for mourning too long and interfearing with their scheduled snit-fit, all over serious stuff of course -- like their dad is bigger than ours or something like that -- they just seem preoccupied, depressed.

Serious?!  You want me to be serious?  Fine, I will when they stop using fear for fear's sake and recognize the facts.  The games and demagoguery are old.

Now, the president asserts that the expiration of the protect America act will pose a danger to our country.

• The former National Security Council advisor on terrorism says that's not true.
  
• Former assistant attorney general says that's not true. Numerous others, and the chairman, has asserted that's not true.
  

Why is that not true?

• Because FISA will remain in effect.
  
• The authority given under the protect America act remains in effect.
  
• And if there are new targets, the FISA court has full authority to give every authority to the administration to act.

So I tell my friends, we are pursuing the politics of fear. Unfounded fear. 435 members of this house and every one of us, every one of us wants to keep America and Americans safe. Not one of us -- not one of us wants to subject America or Americans to danger.

• The president's assertion is wrong. I say it categorically.

• The president's assertion is wrong.

Honestly, it's nearly impossible to keep track of all the wingnut temper tantrums that hit the fan all at once.  While duly reciting the party line on FISA and the contempt citations for Harriet Meirs and the rest of the goon squad who purged all but "loyal Bushy"

US Attorneys, the spontaneous eruptions of shock, somber resignation and real outrage over Mitt Romney's endorsement of John McCain (or anything else to do with McCain) contrasted sharply with the dull, paint-by-numbers faux indignation being spoon-fed to the remaining dead-enders of the right's true believers, all 16% of them.

[Interesting side note: the rabble at Wizbang's comment section are speculating that McCain would do better asking John Kerry to be his running mate instead of the usual suspects like Huckabee or Lieberman.  They are an amusing bunch, and starved for anything that will distract from their depressing future.]

First, I think before this is over, the super delegates will vote -- mostly en masse -- along with the majority of pledged delegates. In other words, their vote will serve to clarify the outcome of a tight race. That's a good thing.

But supposing it works to get her the nomination. What happens after that? Can she win in the fall? That's too far in the future to predict, but I will say this: it'll make it harder, not easier to win. I do think an alarming number of Democrats will either quit the party or will simply not vote for Clinton in the fall. Which is a shame because that's kind of the whole point of being a Democrat in 2008, isn't it?

So to you Hillary supporters who are thrilled at the prospect of a nasty convention fight (I'm talking to you, Rosemary), be careful what you wish for.

And you too, Mark, for suggesting that this is the point of a party convention -- "to sort out who the assembled active and elite members of the party are willing to get behind." That may be, but once the genie is out of the bottle you'd have to anticipate that he might have arrived floating on a cloud of tear gas, my friend. And if "winning the White House is what it's all about," I have to wonder if that's going to get it done.

This in-your-face strategy just doesn't make sense -- and, far worse, it risks tearing the party apart with feelings of resentment and bitterness simply to give the Clintons their victory. In the end, the nomination wouldn't be worth much. And it simply shows me that Hillary hasn't got what it takes to win. Her style of fighting simply unites our enemies (Republicans) and divides our friends (Independents as well as Obama Democrats).

You heard me: whereas Obama has demonstrated that he can peel away Independents and some Republicans from McCain, Hillary, not so much. It's much more likely that Obama can expand the Democratic base than Hillary. In short, Obama makes it easier to find a path to victory -- Hillary makes it harder.

And while we're on the topic of Hillary Clinton...

She has retooled her message and is now saying, "I'm in the solutions business; my opponent is in the promises business." Gosh, that sounds pretty much like she is tone-deaf.

Come on guys, I'm talking to you now -- think hard: how many times has your significant other wanted to talk about something that was bothering her -- and when you tried to give her "a solution" she wasn't exactly, ahem, appreciative?

And to my female readers: don't you just wish he could empathize a bit more before jumping in with some sort of quick fix?

What this means is that it isn't always about specificity, and policies and programs -- McCain misses this point too -- but about emotional intelligence. It's about getting on the same emotional wavelength as your listener. Some say this is a sign of emotional intelligence (measured by EQ, not IQ). And if that is so, and I believe it is, then trust me -- Obama's EQ is higher than Clinton's.

This is important because emotions control pretty much every decision we make — especially in electoral politics. Emotions move voters. Policies count, but only insofar as they stimulate an emotional response in the voter.

Democrats, for some reason, have a hard time getting this. Perhaps it's because we are in the reality-based community and we believe in hard scientific research -- not feelings. But the irony is that the science verifies what we see all around us about the role of emotion in political decision making.

Yet we continue to ignore this vital point. As a result, Democrats have traditionally run their campaigns on issues, position papers, statistics and … science! Republicans, on the other hand, know what wins (e.g., fear) and they run on that. As we know, it works because fear moves voters.

Lesson (hopefully) learned: it ain't about "solutions," it's about emotions.

Say what you will about Keith Olbermann, but he calls it the way he sees it. And in the dismal years of the Bush-Cheney regime, no one nails them better than KO.

It is bad enough, sir, that you were demanding an ex post facto law that could still clear the AT&Ts and the Verizons from responsibility for their systematic, aggressive and blatant collaboration with your illegal and unjustified spying on Americans under this flimsy guise of looking for any terrorists who are stupid enough to make a collect call or send a mass e-mail.

But when you demanded it again during the State of the Union address, you wouldn’t even confirm that they actually did anything for which they deserved to be cleared.

“The Congress must pass liability protection for companies believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend America.”

Believed? Don’t you know? Don’t you even have the guts Dick Cheney showed in admitting they did collaborate with you? Does this endless presidency of loopholes and fine print extend even here? If you believe in the seamless mutuality of government and big business, come out and say it! There is a dictionary definition, one word that describes that toxic blend.

You’re a fascist — get them to print you a T-shirt with "fascist" on it!

Obama: "Yes, We Can."

McCain: "No, We Can't."

by shep

And it isn’t just made of Republicans.

19 Senate Democrats, led by the miserable Jay Rockefeller, enabled by the mendacious Harry Reid just voted:

”…to legalize warrantless spying on the telephone calls and emails of Americans, and will also provide full retroactive amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms, thus forever putting an end to any efforts to investigate and obtain a judicial ruling regarding the Bush administration's years-long illegal spying programs aimed at Americans. The long, hard efforts by AT&T, Verizon and their all-star, bipartisan cast of lobbyists to grease the wheels of the Senate -- led by former Bush 41 Attorney General William Barr and former Clinton Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick -- are about to pay huge dividends, as such noble efforts invariably do with our political establishment.”

--Glen Greenwald

As Dan Froomkin puts it: “"isn't that the very definition of a police state: that companies should do whatever the government asks, even if they know it's illegal?"

Why yes it is. It is also the exact definition of the word fascism when what the government asks infringes on the rights of the people to benefit “the state”.

Greenwald again:

”…a large number of elected Democrats vote in favor of the radical Bush agenda for a very simple reason: they believe in it. Despite the glorious "D" after their name, their views are materially indistinguishable from the defining ones of the Bush faction on the key issues. A huge portion of Congressional Democrats are members of the corrupt, bipartisan Beltway political establishment first, and everything only follows that, and they thus embrace and support the values of that establishment.”

Progressives have their work cut out for them. After we rout Republicans from the White House and the Congress, progressive will still have their work cut out for them. Purging Joe Lieberman from the party was a good step. And another Bush Dog Democrat was sent to another fat cat lobbying job by progressives supporting Maryland’s Donna Edwards, against the full force and might of Nancy Pelosi and the “corrupt, bipartisan Beltway political establishment,” wing of the Democratic Party.

I know who’s next on my wish list. Just don’t make me move to Delaware.

[Cross-posted on Dispassionate Liberal]

On the eve of the Louisiana primary, our house got a "call" from "Bill Clinton." Well, it sounded like him anyway, on the answering machine. Apparently Bill in Portland Maine got a series of similar calls on the eve of the Maine caucuses:

[Beep!] Hello, this is Barack Obama reminding you to come out and caucus for me on Sunday. Together we can bring hope and change to America. Thank you.

[Beep!] Hello, this is Hillary Clinton. If you agree that we need a new direction in America, please caucus for me on Sunday. I have the experience needed to hit the ground running on day one. Thank you.

[Beep!] Hi, Barack again. Did Hillary just call you? Look, she and I were friends before the primary season and we'll be friends after. But right now she's just acting crazy, understand? Vote for me and I may let you stand next to me at my inauguration.

[Beep!] Hillary here. Barack's feeding you a line 'o crap and he knows it. Not only will I let you stand next to me at my inauguration, but I'll give you the cabinet position of your choice. You have to admit, that's pretty sweet. Love ya!

[Beep!] Hey, it's Barack. Love ya more. Wanna be my VP?

[Beep!] Oh, he's not gonna make you vice president and he knows it!

[Beep!] Will too!

[Beep!] Will not!

[Beep!] This is Chelsea Clinton. Have you seen my mom or my dad? I'm supposed to be at a rally with 'em but there's no one here. Today's Nebraska, right?

[Beep!] Hi, this is Oprah. Despite what the Clinton campaign says, I am not going to crush your skull between my thighs if you don’t vote for my man Barack. That would let you off too easy! Hint hint.

[Beep!] Hi, Barack again. That wasn't Oprah. That was Hillary pretending to be Oprah. You see how these people work? I think it's... Oh, wait, it was Oprah. Never mind. Vote for me!

Hee.

Enough of politics, I say! Enough of primary returns! What we need here is more cul-cha!

(HT to Mark Frauenfelder)

by shep

Ever since Super Tuesday, The Village Gasbags have been so gleeful their faces looked like they might split open over their narrative that moderate, Straightalker McCain, the all-but coronated Republican nominee, was going start his campaign against the silly, confused Democrats who were going undecided all the way to a *gasp* brokered convention where Howard Dean and the Super Delegates would retire to a “smoke-filled backroom” (every idiot in the asylum used the same stupid cliché) where some sort of secret process involving a dead chicken and the severed head of a frog was going to thwart the will of Democratic voters and cause Democrats to lose the election.

Trouble is, nobody bothered to tell Barak Obama, Mike Huckabee and the churlish American voter. Huckabee inexplicably refused to be properly ignored and bow out gracefully and went on to big primary wins over McCain. Obama practically slaughtered Clinton in every region and every imaginable demographic in the Party and continues to build momentum and disgrace the gasbags’ conventional wisdom in places like Washington State and Maine with nothing but clear skies ahead of him for nearly a month.

So once again we see the media gasbags telling the public what the media gasbags want to hear, picking the candidates, writing the history and telling the public what to do in hilarious contrast to what the public actually thinks and does. Perhaps they simply got too full of themselves with their success at trashing Al Gore and John Kerry and thinking they had ignored John Edwards’ populist campaign into oblivion.

But, just like rightwing nutjobs Limbaugh, Hannity and Ingram, who told their listeners to vote for Mit Romney and not to vote for McCain or Huckabee, their audiences basically told them to go Cheney themselves. It may be too much to hope that the public has finally come to fully reject the elitist, self-serving, immature and simple-minded nature of our national press commentators but it is clear that each has never had greater disdain for the other. The public, certainly, has very good reason.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

Obama wins Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington state and then gives a tremendous speech at the annual Virginia state Jefferson-Jackson Dinner. You can tell he's tired and that he's probably given this speech a thousand times already. But near the end (I've captured the last three minutes) he gives it everything and the crowd responds and he gets energy from that response.

There's been a lot said about Obama's oratory and frankly I don't even know what that term means. All I know is that when he speaks about the past and the present, he connects the dots, he gives things meaning in a way that puts you, the listener, in the middle of great things and dares you to rise up to meet the challenge of the future. THAT'S rare and it is truly inspirational.

Give it three minutes of your time and tell me if you don't agree.

Can a candidate -- and his campaign -- be too inspirational? Jake Tapper seems to think so, as does Suzanne Goldenberg of the Guardian. And closer to home, when discussing the relative merits of Obama over Clinton, certain people have even commented to me, "Gosh, you're talking like one of them."

What's going on here?

I suspect the accusation of "cultism" is being put out by people who are uncomfortable with their own emotions; and/or by people who feel that we (Democrats) must be dispassionate in order to win elections. Of course, that is wrong. A quick look at recent history will tell you that.

That is not to say we have to abandon the reality-based community in order win success at the ballot box. On the contrary. But we, as Democrats, need to recognize that people and voters are moved by emotion. Study after study shows that people will rationalize all sorts of things contradictory things about their candidate if the emotion moves them.

Just look at John McCain: he's already running on the emotions of fear (of jihadism) and pride (St. John suffered so that you might live). His voters (including a lot of Independents) will overlook the hypocrisy that has rotted his career because they like feeling the feelings he invokes in them.

How do we deal with that?

Well, the positive emotions of hope and optimism about the future are what moves our voters (and a whole lot of Republicans and Independents). The sooner we learn that lesson, the bigger our victory will be in the fall.

• Michael Moore is in the middle of making a movie now, but he'd rather not talk about the details of it for obvious reasons.

  "If I can just say in the broad strokes of it, in the last eight years, a lot of things happened in this country that we didn't pay a lot of attention to because we were so focused on Bush and the war. While we were so focused on that and distracted, corporate America and others got away with a lot, a lot of stuff that we're going to have a hard time getting our democracy back. The theme of it is 'While America Slept.' But it's a comedy."

• John Williams, on the, ahem, uniqueness of Janet Huckabee -- someone we might be seeing more of before this thing is over:

  The night of the New Hampshire primary, I watched the various victory and concession speeches of the Republicans. Of their wives, only Janet Huckabee caught my interest. Everyone else stood by supportively, without much expression. Cindy McCain, as usual, looked like she had come straight from a L'Oréal testing lab. But Janet looked feisty and fun. Her laughs seemed genuinely spontaneous. She nodded along vigorously, sometimes looking like she wanted to grab the microphone.

  I also suspected she could crack her husband in half over her knee.

• Two of my favorite people -- Christopher Hitchens and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach -- recently debated the existence of God. Why Boteach would do this, I have no idea. The outcome was a surprise (to me, anyway).
• Hillary has to lend her own campaign $5 million? And her key staff is working without pay? And Obama raised $7 million in the 36 hours after the polls closed on Super Tuesday? And Hillary is begging for more debates? And the traditional media says Hillary is the front-runner? What's wrong with this picture?
• Joe Lieberman is stripped of super-delegate status under "The Zell Miller Rule." I'll bet you a nickel that, before this is over, Lieberman will make an appearance at the Republican National Convention.
• Speaking of Lieberman, a lot has been said about the importance of the Independent vote -- how McCain/Lieberman and Obama "get it." Allow me to point out, however, that Obama widens the Democratic base when he does it; McCain/Lieberman simply moves his base when he does it. As a result, Obama is a transformational candidate; McCain/Lieberman is a "zero-sum game" candidate.
• Gore voted...but for who?
• So Romney's out. If McCain were smart (and not a hot-head) he'd lock Romney into the VP slot -- in fact, maybe he's already done that. Of course, Romney would have to finesse his dislike for McCain, e.g., "Senator McCain has proven that he will say anything to win this election." On the other hand, Romney has proven that he can change positions on a dime. So maybe this is perfect for both of them. On the other hand, SC Gov. Mark Sanford is young, from the South and conservatives like him. So maybe that's your Republican ticket right there.

by shep

It’s a draw. Barack Obama, the African American candidate who has overcome his lack of name recognition, young age, establishment connections and pedigree within the Democratic Party to run dead even with Hillary Clinton, the female candidate and Democratic pillar, for the Democratic presidential nomination. Most likely, one of them will make history as the next President of the United States. What a great day and what a nourishing moral victory for America, in contrast to the unqualified wretchedness and shame of the last eight years of Republican rule.

So powerful is the Obama rise that even queens of conservative evil, so to speak, and (at least) theoretical supporters of sister Hillary Clinton feel compelled to offer reasons why the Barack Obama phenomenon may be good for America. I humbly offer two more:

One, as just evidenced above and proved by every primary election so far, Barack Obama has substantial appeal among Independent voters. In our inexplicably close partisan political competition, these inexplicable voters often inexplicably hold the key to electoral success. With them Al Gore and/or John Kerry would have been our most recent presidents, probably avoiding untold government corruption, malfeasance and treason, starting with the Iraq war (if not the otherwise successful 9/11 attack on America). Barack Obama can carry many of these tragically important voters that Hillary Clinton probably never will. And John McCain enjoys strong support with this group even before so-called conservatives betray their “principles” (again) to vote for him.

Second, once all has been decided, a President Obama would be free to govern this nation without particular fealty to interests that have plagued this country for decades, interests in which Hillary Clinton is heavily invested and obliged. From campaign funding to corporatist vs populist policy to crass and dangerous "national security" political alliances, a President Obama would have fewer obligations to the ruling class oligarchy that has inflicted such tremendous damage to our nation and the world. That may frighten the invested, the ignorant, and the prejudiced but it is, without doubt, our only chance to surmount the challenges that confront us.

And, to echo and reinforce the oft remarked ability of Barack Obama “to sweet talk people into saying yes to his ideas,” this will be an essential quality to move the people to pursue their own political and economic self interest rather than follow the conventional corporatist wisdom as framed by both political centrist gasbags and rightwing talk radio nutjobs.

It may turn out to be a wise gamble to roll the dice for Independents and independence and for President Barack Obama.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

By Mark Adams

The Recession Is Here! The Recession Is Here!

Now maybe instead of endlessly listening to the doom-sayers predicting the imminent collapse of our financial institutions and discussing how deep and how long the coming catastrophic economic downturn will be as we teeter on the brink of ruin -- they can start with the happy talk of Teh Awesome recovery and how much better things will be ... reeeeel soon.

A growing number of top economists believe that the U.S. economy has now toppled into recession. Alarm bells were set off Tuesday by a grim report on service businesses, which make up the majority of the U.S. economy.

The Institute of Supply Management said that activity in the service sector declined for the first time in nearly five years. This report also indicated that employers are cutting staff.

Now they push the panic button?!? Now that all the decent jobs have been outsourced and the unions are a shadow of their former selves, you know that we're in trouble when cash flow has ground down to the point where we can't afford to wait on each other.

Come on, the Service Employee's Union is now the largest and most influential Union when it comes to endorsement headlines? WTF happened to the clout of the manufacturing guys, the Steel and Iron Workers, the UAB, the frickin' Teamsters? They were the forces to be appeased not that long ago. Now it's "big" news that the Painters endorsed the Huckster. Not to disparage the Painters Union, good folks all. But seriously, am I supposed to be impressed?

Ya gotta make stuff. That's the economic engine of an industrialized nation. What this current episode of chickens coming home to roost indicates is that the era of post-ndustrialized America is now fully in play. Everybody is servicing everybody else and nobody is making anything of value that originates the wealth we pass around to each other for doing stuff for the next guy.

In fact, all that we're witnessing is the perpetual motion machine wearing down through inertia -- a machine that was switched off in the late 70's and early 80's with the American steel industry disintegration and has slowly worked it's agony throughout the economy as manufacturing jobs have been outsourced over the last decade.

Finally, deregulation and indifference by a ruling class that treats globalization and the free market as a religion instead of an economic theory has trickled it's malignant magic right down though to the folk who clean up everybody else's messes, drive the buses, care for the sick and disabled, sell shoes, build, finance and sell houses, and flip burgers.

The survey covers the retail, transportation and health care industries as well as hard hit areas such as finance, real estate and construction.

Some economists argued that the normally low-profile ISM services reading, coupled with the government's report Friday showing the first monthly net loss in jobs in more than four years, is proof that recession is now a reality.

Of course, the cure for this is the same thing we saw when the economy was humming and the Club For Greed insisted that starving the beast was only "fair" -- that you should get "your money" back. Huzzah! Tax cuts for the wealthy, naturally. The elixir that treats all ailments -- just like snake-oil and a stiff shot of scotch (preferably Johnny Walker Blue -- the choice of Enron executives everywhere).

Say what you want about Mike Huckabee and his goofy ideas, but his break with supply-sider doctrine is outstanding. The Fed is still in the grip of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman mythology that tinkering with the money supply and playing with the Laffer Curve is the extent of proper government interference with the private sector.

Rand's "Objectivism" is merely raw selfish greed and hedonistic misogyny supercharged with a thesaurus yet this delusion of a failed screenwriter is the basis of the dominant fiscal policy of our nation -- supply-side (voodoo) economics. The fact that John McCain counts Trickle Down Guru Jack Kemp as an adviser tells you all you need to know about his fiscal conservative orthodoxy. McCain is just as nutty as the rest of them, The Blimpster included.

Put people to work. That'll fix a lot that's wrong. Adding some lanes to I-95 is a great thing to do -- lousy idea to campaign on, however. But Huck is a hick, after all.

More of the same is why we're in this mess.

by shep

George Will may have been right after all. He famously contended that apathetic political participation in this country may be simply because people were basically satisfied with their government and society. With the intense grassroots political giving, participation and record primary turnouts we’re seeing at the moment, it seems that may no longer be the case.

So The Village gasbags tell us that the exit polling tells us that people are sick of the partisan gridlock in Washington and they want change. I agree. Many of them claim that unity is the answer. But if this partisan gridlock represents a sort of stasis in the struggle between two diametrically opposed forces – let’s call them Republican conservatism (so-called) and Democratic progressivism – then one of those forces must give way to end gridlock and create change. Unity or bi-partisanship is obviously no solution.

We’ve had nearly thirty years of near constant progress in one of these two forces, to the point that it is now considered the political center by the entire elite class. We’ve warred, tax cut, de-regulated and politically demonized the opposing political force to the point where we find ourselves today: An unsustainable global military empire that is despised by most of the world. A beggar’s economy where we borrow our money from our former (and possibly future) mortal enemy and build their industrial might to feed the mostly mindless material consumption of our middle class, all to create grotesque wealth for the operators of the system. The ever-increasing stripping and burning the planet’s naturals resources at an ever-more unsustainable rate to feed that consumption. Health and safety deregulation that sickens and kills huge numbers of the public, many of whom haven’t the means to get help without bankrupting their families. And last but not least, a public media that isn’t the slightest bit interested in telling the public the truth about how and why we got here.

So, can there be any question as to what the people shall not be told: that one political force needs to give way to end gridlock and create needed change and that force is Republican “conservatism”? And that it is not a governing force anyway, but a set of largely disreputable beliefs, the cornerstone of which is that “government is the problem.” And that to continue more of the same and expect a different result is a form of mass insanity. And that bi-partisan unity, half consisting of Republican conservatism, cannot constitute a way forward from the mess created by Republican conservatism. But the people will not be told because Republican conservatism, the force of corporate greed and political elitism and aggressive militarism and social Darwinism and shameless selfishness is both the beast that shall not be named and the beast that does the naming.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

UPDATE: CNN has a great summary of results for Super Tuesday. In brief, as of 1 pm CST, pledged delegate totals (not including super delegates) are still being reported. And/But as of now Clinton has 618 vs. Obama at 614. This will change throughout the day. Bookmark this page!

MSNBC has produced a handy way to track the delegate count for all the remaining candidates in each party (yes, that's Gravel -- but where's Paul?). So click on the permalink (right under the title, next to the date) and bookmark this page.

Down to New Orleans for the Rex Parade, then back to Baton Rouge to watch the Super Tuesday returns. If I was having more fun I'd have to be twins.

But wait -- there's more! Obama in Baton Rouge on Wednesday morning! What was it the guy said? "Let history blaze its trail!"

Gotta go.

Spanish Town is a residential district downtown in Baton Rouge. The parade winds through the narrow neighborhood streets and a good time was had by all. See if you can spot Miss Julie.

by Mark Adams, Cross-posted at American Street

Still mulling my choices, and I know I have more than enough time to do so. The lovefest masquerading as a debate last night did little to push me one way or another. What I saw was the Democratic ticket at a panel discussion, not a pair of bickering rivals. I just can't figure out who's driving the bus and who's reading the map and giving directions.

John Edwards himself isn't making any hasty endorsements and neither am I. I've enjoyed a unique experience organizing the online effort for Ohio Edwards supporters. It's been absolutely fascinating contacting so many netroots supporters in Ohio and throughout the nation, as well as the contact I've had with the online team at the Edwards campaign.

I've never been so engaged in politics, and I've been a political junkie since the day they brought a TV into the main lodge at summer camp, something foreign to us kids roughing it in the semi-wilderness of Camp Fitch in the Pennsylvania panhandle -- and we watched Richard Nixon resign.

We Edwards supporters even have a name for ourselves that is only now starting to emerge. Edwards Democrats. Or the even shorter, slicker Edmocrats with a simple switch of the first two letters in Democrats.

We know who we are. We know how important the message that John Edwards brought to the presidential campaign was to all of us and how he forced the debate back to important issues again and again, always moving the discussion forward towards progress. He may not have gained delegates or donors, and delegates, but he set the terms of the debate and in the end, those issues he championed became the issues that now define both of the remaining Democratic candidates.

• -- how he shined a spotlight into the dark corners of our society that the corporate media keeps in shadows and the Village Idiots who parade around Versailles on the Potomac ignore.


• -- how uncomfortable he made all who opposed him for his righteous indignation and powerful and unwaivering theme until they simply had to adopt his message as their own.


• -- how he led on every important issue, forcing his opponents to tinker around the edges of his plans to distinguish themselves just to remain relevant.


• -- how he proposed a comprehensive universal health care plan that was so well thought out, and presented such an appealing way to co-opt those who cry "socialized medicine!" at every democratic medical reform initiative; yet covered everyone and provides a path to a single-payer system by forcing the free market worshipers to put up or shut up and prove the superiority of their deluded ideology by directly competing with something they hate and fear -- a parallel government run system -- a plan Hillary and Barack could only veer from in insignificant ways merely to create talking points.

And now it's over, a new chapter begins.

Suddenly there are all these policy wonks I respect making arguments (some persuasive, some stupid) why I should support the Obamanon over Hillary -- and my wife informing me that they're all morons and that we all better back Clinton or get used to perpetual war and perpetual recession because the Republicans will figure out a way to beat Barack, but not the Clintons. I learned long ago never to dismiss my wife's instincts lightly.

I mentioned George Lakoff's piece in HuffPost in my earlier post, but failed to mention that it was an argument to endorse Obama disguised as a policy piece by a renowned political scientist.

Obama's style is painted in the best possible light over Hillary's issues driven argument for the White House. Lakoff remarkably transforms the difference in style as an issue itself -- as if liberal intellectuals who have long dismissed the shallow pandering to performance points as inferior to policy details now have permission to be inspired by Obama's rhetoric because style has been promoted by Professor Lakoff into a legitimate issue.

Nice try George. I'll take that under consideration.

Paul Rosenberg, another true wonk whom I admire at Open Left insists he is not trying to make the argument that Barack Obama isn't ready for prime time -- and goes on to devastate Obama on style and substance in piece after piece.

Also at Open Left, Matt Stoller takes a quick swipe at Clinton, but notes: These people are not on our side, they only align with us more than the Republicans do.

So the quandary continues. In my opinion we have two good, "electable," sincere Democratic candidates. I could support either of them, but I doubt with the enthusiasm I had for John Edwards. I don't have the answer, yet, to Lambert's question, "What kind of politics can turn the opportunity into permanent, progressive change?"

There are so many out there right now telling me the vast philosophical differenced Hillary and Barack represent. Obama represents "post-partisanship" at a time when I believe partisan politics is what we need to forever bury the discredited conservative agenda only the entrenched VRWC still promotes. Yet Barack goes out of his way to tell us that he will fight for our values and not cave into the assaults from the right. Meanwhile Hillary blurs the differences with the expertise only decades of obscuration can accomplish by insisting that she too has a Kumbayah streak in her.

Arguments about their respective coattails are mere theory at this point, and with more and more Republicans deciding to spend more time with their think-tanks and lobbyist friends, I don't think the choice between Hillary or Barack will make or break the opportunity for a bullet-proof Democratic majority in Congress.

Both will get us out of Iraq, but not nearly as quickly nor completely as I would like. Both will address climate change, but it may be too little too late. Both will move tax policy back towards rationality, direct an effort to untie the noose the energy cartels have around our necks, throw the union busters out of the labor department, replace some of the ideologues with actual judges, and restore some integrity to our justice system and foreign service.

My big issue has always been health care, but my plan is closer to what Dennis Kucinich wants than anything we'll see coming from these two.

The press will probably give Obama a longer honeymoon than Clinton. But they will turn on any Democratic White House as they always do -- and with Bill Kristol at the NY Times and Karl Rove at Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal, the smears against even a McCain administration would start the day after inauguration day.

All of this means that for the next four years, I will have a lot less to bitch about, but I won't be so emotionally married to our next administration to lose my perspective, which is probably a good thing, for me if not the country.

Shmuley, get a drink...