The Workday Liberal

GBCW

2008-04-29T11:53:00.000-07:00

Goodbye Cruel World... Today is my last day as The Workday Blogger. I've posted about this previously, but just to reiterate... my job has been outsourced. I'm not just saying that in order to play the victim in tough economic times. I work(ed) as a customer service agent for a major corporation and last year they opened a call center in the Philippines. Then on the last day of February our center found out we were closing on 04/30. Oddly enough, in late March our company opened another center in Panama... So if that is not the definition of having my job outsourced I don't quite know what is.

I don't want to leave the wrong impression about my perception on this. My company is offering a very nice severance package. If I had been given the chance to move along, keeping my job in the states but being given my severance to move along, I would have taken the offer.

I do feel bad for our customers though. My company is renowned for being American. I know from taking calls since the center opened in the Philippines that many of our customers are not happy about reaching an overseas center when they want customer service, and that experience is about to increase dramatically. I don't want to sound xenophobic, but the fact is that there is a fundamental communications gap, and many mannerisms and quirks which Americans understand about one another which are lost on overseas operators. Everyone I have spoken with in my center considers this to be an unmitigated disaster for the customer service provided by our company.

Now maybe my new job, whatever it may be, will afford me the same opportunity to go online every now and then to spout off. In which case The Workday Liberal will rise like a phoenix from the ashes. But I've considered myself very lucky to have been able to do this from my current job and I will be surprised if another job allows the same sort of activity.

Jet-Gate Proves Once Again, McCain PWNS The Media

2008-04-28T18:24:00.001-07:00

The N.Y. Times story about Senator John McCain's use of his wife's corporate jet starting last summer has gotten quite a bit of attention in the last couple of days. The consensus from the mainstream media is that McCain followed the letter but not the spirit of the law. If you watch the talking heads on television they will harrumph about the shady ethics this story demonstrates and quickly shift the topic over to the Jeremiah Wright controversy. It is the safest bet possible that Jeremiah Wright coverage will dominate the news and we will be hard pressed to find any coverage at all on Jet-Gate in the mainstream media.

The fact is that Jet-Gate would prove to be disastrous if Senator Obama were caught in such a circumstance, and following are several reasons why.

First, as noted by ABC on August 24, 2007 (August '07 was the month in which McCain started using his wife's corporate jet), "Early in the campaign McCain pledged he wouldn't take flights on private corporate planes."

Despite this pledge, the jet McCain was using even as that story hit the wires was, according to the N.Y. Times report, owned by "Hensley & Company, through a holding company, King Aviation. Mrs. McCain is the chairwoman of Hensley, which is one of the country’s biggest distributors of Anheuser-Busch products." This could not be clearer. McCain was tooling about in a corporate jet which he had access to because of his wife.

McCain thinks he can score political points by insisting that Obama uphold a supposed pledge to only accept public financing in the general election, which pledge Obama never actually made. Just imagine the uproar from the McCain campaign (and of course Senator Clinton would be adding volume to the Republican assault on Obama) if it turned out that Obama skirted federal election law while breaking a pledge from early in the campaign. There can be no doubt that the talking heads would be savaging Obama over such a transgression. But when McCain does this type of thing, you have to scan the lefty blogosphere for any real commentary on the event because the mainstream media can't get over their Wright obsession.

Here is another way that this story shows that the media just adore McCain. You may remember back when McCain's campaign was down and out and there was a flood of media stories about the shoestring operation which he had been reduced to. Here's one example of a cream puff story by a local reporter in New Hampshire:

[T]he Straight Talk Express bus has been sidelined due to a lack of campaign money.

McCain... is flying commercial to campaign stops in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, and he travels with the smallest cadre of aides.

[McCain] is enjoying the leaner campaign that requires him, literally, to carry his own bags

This story was filed on August 10, 2007... which just so happens to be the very month in which McCain started using his wife's corporate jet. Believe you me, this wasn't the only story about McCain's becoming the commoner in his travel schedule. There were stories about him standing in line waiting to catch a flight, campaign supporters giving him rides from the airport to campaign events because the campaign could not afford local transportation... and so on and so forth.

It is now very apparent that McCain was able to foster an image as the hard scrabble shoestring budget campaigner. As soon as that image had settled into the media narrative, he started accepting perks from his wealthy wife that hardly matched the narrative, but were there any stories about John breezing around the country on a corporate jet? Of course the answer to that question is a resounding no. So it's a big story when McCain makes a show of traveling coach and carrying his own luggage, but no reporters seem to notice for the next several months that he is mysteriously arriving at events without having traveled with the little people. Did the reporters think that McCain was being beamed to his destination, or did they lose interest once McCain started breaking campaign pledges and benefiting from the largess of his wildly wealthy spouse?

In fact, McCain has used these supposed campaign travails to demonstrate that he is in touch with everyday working folk. As recently as April 22 he was in Ohio telling the crowd that his roughing it early on meant that he felt their pain in struggling from paycheck to paycheck. The difference here is that when McCain didn't want to struggle along like the working poor do, he could place a call to Cindy and have a corporate jet at his beckoning. The working poor don't have such a luxury. McCain says that his campaign was given a second chance, but now it turns out that he called in his wealthy wife when the chips were down.

The only thing that could have been more dishonest is if Cindy had made a big show of helping McCain carry his luggage through the terminals and hitch rides to campaign events immediately prior to opening her purse and helping grease the wheels to the Republican nomination.

Oh yeah... since I'm already giving Cindy McCain the what for, let me end by asking the reader one simple question. What do you think would have happened if Michelle Obama had been caught plagiarizing recipes, and posting them on Obama.com as "family favorites"?

Defending The (Seemingly) Indefensible

2008-04-25T12:42:00.000-07:00

Reverend Jeremiah Wright has given an interview to Bill Moyers and the media has taken this chance to commence pounding on the Obama/Wright target again. There are several segments of past Wright sermons being used against Obama, but the most damaging is the one where he reaches a crescendo, shouting: "The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three strike law and then wants us to sing God Bless America. Naw, naw, naw. Not God Bless America. God Damn America! That's in the Bible. For killing innocent people."

It is simply a given in today's political environment that the mass exposure of such a statement will disqualify the speaker, and by extension anyone associated with the speaker, from any possibility of serving in public office. But... believe it or not there are very fundamental precepts of Judaism, Christianity and, I presume, Islam which Reverend Wright may call upon to buttress his inflammatory statement.

The mainstay conservative fundamentalist preachers very commonly use the same precept, if not the inflammatory language. The reverends Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson famously claimed that 9/11 was Gods punishment for the ACLU, Pagans, lesbians, abortion and various other social issues. Reverend John Hagee still refuses to recant his position that Hurricane Katrina was Gods wrath upon New Orleans because of a gay pride parade that was scheduled to take place.

The traditions which lead preachers to thunder about the punishment of God upon a sinful nation is hardly a modern day phenomena. In fact this tradition has roots directly connected to the days of the old testament prophets who caused a lot of problems for the rulers of their times. Ahab was the unfortunate king when the prophet Elijah started denouncing the religious duality of the nation of Israel. When Ahab met Elijah the King of Israel called him "thou troubler of Israel". This would be the equivalent of President Bush denouncing the Reverend Wright as being un-American. I'd be willing to bet that if the people who automatically think that Wright was wrong to condemn America could be beamed back into a past life they would be shocked and appalled at that loud mouthed Elijah fellow. Just to prove Ahab's point on how much of a troubler of Israel he was, Elijah then personally slew all of the prophets of Baal... which would probably be frowned upon in modern times, and actually did land Elijah in hot water with Israels first lady... who lent her name (Jezebel) to women of loose moral character from that time until this.

When the kings son sent soldiers to arrest him, Elijah called down fire upon them, killing two groups of fifty. Can you imagine the outrage in this nation if a wild eyed overtly unpatriotic and wanted preacher man ever oversaw the deaths of 100 law enforcement or military personnel sent to arrest him? Imagine the uproar if all the ATF agents sent to arrest David Koresh had been slaughtered, and Koresh fled to Mexico and escaped prosecution. Yet most main stream Jews, Christians and presumably Muslims are certain that Elijah was a man of God, divinely inspired and worthy of veneration as a true prophet.

Elijah is hardly the only example of old testament prophets telling the state of Israel or the kings who lead Israel that they were doomed to various punishments by God for wrong behavior. But this post is already turning into a book so I'll forgo compiling more examples...

Which brings us to the modern day examples of preachers warning America of impending doom, or pointing the finger at some portion of society they do not agree with as responsible for calling Gods judgement upon the neighborhood. The particular message about Gods role in national suffering from Hagee, Robertson, Falwell and Wright are essentially the same, save that Wright comes from a different political perspective, and the word which Wright uses is commonly accepted as a vulgarity. Compare the message of Wright: God damn America for killing innocent people, with the message of Pat Robertson: being struck by terrorists and natural disaster is Gods retribution for "those who shed innocent blood". It seems to me that the only difference between making one socially acceptable and the other a social outrage is the political perspective of the preacher in question.

Does anyone call Robertson's, and/or Hagee's love of America into question? It certainly seems to be a given that they are patriotic. In fact I'm certain Elijah was patriotic as well. All of these firebrands just have impassioned beliefs about what is or isn't the right way forward for their nation. And I for one am willing to extend the same benefit of the doubt to Reverend Wright.

It may come down to purely a question of the vulgarity which Wright uses in his message. In fact, I do find that sort of language coming from the pulpit to be startling. However, if proper language is the only objection, we have come a long way towards understanding Wright's meaning. Hearing a preacher curse should hardly serve as a reflection on the parishioners of that preacher.

Besides, reluctant as I am to go here because this is partially me playing devils advocate... there is a case to be made that what Wright said was what he meant in the literal sense. Damn may be used literally, in proper context, and not considered a vulgarity, as demonstrated many times in the bible. In modern society the expression used by Wright would typically be used in an off handed context not literally dealing with God's opinion on the issue in question. Yet Wright was preaching on Gods reaction to a nation killing innocent people. It is most likely his opinion that the expression he used literally meant just what Wright intended to say.

Be that as it is, I think that it was appropriate that Obama disavowed the Wright remarks. I don't appreciate that type of sentiment from the right wing preachers, and I'm not about to start liking it from the lefty preachers either. We may be able to trace this type of inflammatory rhetoric back to the old testament but there are many thousands of examples of people who were flat out wrong about what God told them who did more than just prophecy the ruination of their country at the hand of God. Some of these apostates wrought death and destruction on a biblical scale, and this type of mistaken inspiration leads me to doubt the efficacy of firebrand type preachers.

Now we just have to figure out how long it will take McCain to disavow Reverend Hagee's comments, which I must add go far beyond anything I've mentioned in this post.

Quite Possibly The Least Intelligent Blather I've Read This Week

2008-04-24T13:29:00.000-07:00

Warning! The following is a long winded post which devolves into military history and so on and so forth which you may find completely boring. If you manage to read all the way to the end, you have my admiration.

Check out this bit of back and forth on Megan McArdle's blog at the Atlantic. McArdle has gotten into a bit of a dustup with Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald over the Bush administrations use of torture. In one of the responses on McArdle's blog she writes:

I said that what the Bush administration has done was not the result of choosing what Glenn Greenwald called an "aggressive" war in Iraq. (To be distinguished, presumably, from the peaceful, passive sorts of wars that other countries have.)

I'm certain that McArdle intended for this riposte to be construed as obvious and witty, but she seriously misses the mark. Nearly by definition, if a war is not aggressive it is defensive. Wars may be fought to defend your own nation or another nation we have treaty obligations to defend without being aggressive, so the substance of McArdles half witted parenthetical riposte to Greenwald is manifestly vapid.

Of course one would expect a widely read blogger on a very popular website to take some heat for such a weird statement, and the comments section of the post in question does not disappoint. Unfortunately for McArdle, she chooses to engage one of her commenters in defense of her wrong headed point, and that exchange is as follows:

I thought that a war is supposed to only be fought as a matter of self-defense. If you aren't defending yourself or an ally against aggression, then you are the one initiating violence without cause. And I'm pretty sure that there's a word for killing people without a defensive justification. It starts with the letter M...
Posted by thoreau |
...
I don't think that's quite right, Thoreau. We weren't defending ourselves against the Japanese or the Germans, who had zero capability to conquer the United States or even inflict much serious harm on us. Nor was the north defending itself against the south, which had no interest in occupying it. We chose those wars, in my opinion rightly, as payback for attacks on our territory that did limited damage to non-military capacity. (And for other reasons besides, of course, but that was at least part of the basic motivation.)
Posted by Megan McArdle

Now there are certainly many examples of past American wars of aggression (the Mexican war and the Indian wars are striking examples, and in fact the crimes committed during the Indian wars in particular provide backing to Greenwald case) but McArdle is widely off the mark in describing the causes of WWII and the Civil War. In fact she so completely twists the causation of those wars as to seriously call the credibility of her opinion on this entire matter into serious doubt.

I am particularly interested in the Civil War, and McArdle's take exactly mirrors that of the southern dead enders and modern day Confederate sympathizers whose favored name for that war is "The War Of Northern Aggression". It is certainly true that the South did not immediately invade the north, but it is also true that President Lincoln was not wrong in asserting his rights as commander in chief of the entire United States of America. In fact the South did initiate hostilities against Fort Sumter after the commander in chief attempted to provision the fort.

One would be hard pressed to favor the terminology of the southern lost cause crowd under any other situation in world history. When one part of a nation attempts to overthrow the central government and establish their own self rule through force of arms, that is the definition of Civil War. It is not aggression for the central government to assert control of their own territories.

The McArdle/lost cause, war of aggression logic provides the building blocks for the recent and widely ridiculed assertion from the wingnuts at Redstate that McCain's 100 years in Iraq makes perfect sense... IF we consider that the United States has peacefully occupied the south, with a standing army, for longer than that!

All of this is certainly fascinating from my perspective, but I'm a big civil war buff and anyone reading this post has probably had their eyes glaze over. So let me move onto the other citation by McArdle in reply to Thoreau. Just to refresh our memories McArdle opens her mouth and inserts her foot with the following sentence: "We weren't defending ourselves against the Japanese or the Germans, who had zero capability to conquer the United States or even inflict much serious harm on us."

This is one of the most patently absurd statements I've ever seen. I feel goofy for even rebutting it to be honest because the history is so obvious. But I suppose if I'm going to flame McArdle for that quote I have to justify my take, so here goes.

Has McArdle ever heard of Pearl Harbor? There is this very famous quote from the president at the time... who said that December 7 1941 was a date which "will live in infamy." It's not like America went willy nilly across the Pacific ocean looking to pick a fight with Japan.

McArdle's take about Japan and Germany posing no real threat to American security is belied by the damage done with the attack on Pearl harbor, as well as the harvest of dead and wounded taken from the ranks of the American services during the course of the war. Nations which don't represent a real threat to America do pretty freaking well when they wipe out our pacific fleet and kill us by the hundreds of thousands... which doesn't even touch on the German near miss with their nuclear weapons program. It certainly was a grave error in judgement when Japan initiated war with America, but they weren't bringing boxing gloves to a gun fight.

As for Germany, I would tend to be more forgiving of McArdle for getting this wrong than I was at the Japan gaffe, because the bit of trivia I'm about to give is hardly as infamous as Pearl Harbor. But the fact is that Germany and Italy declared war upon us four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The notion that the war would extend to Europe in the days after Pearl Harbor but prior to Germany's declaration of war was hardly a settled issue. The first hostilities between America and Germany were initiated in mid January when German U-boats began patrolling the eastern seaboard and the toll they took on shipping was enormous.

McArdle just digs herself in deeper by asserting that America chose to march into aggressive warfare in the Civil War and WWII "as payback for attacks on our territory that did limited damage to non-military capacity." At this point you just have to throw your hands up and surrender to the dingbattiness. Pearl Harbor was an attack which did "limited damage to non-military capacity"?! Just exactly what does she mean by non-military capacity anyway? Is she under the impression that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was intended as a mighty blow against Hawaii's international sugar distribution network which went horribly awry? McArdle seems to be under the misapprehension that we were facing opponents who learned their methods from the Vikings, Atilla the Hun and General Sherman. The way they meant to defeat us was to rampage throughout the land, bringing ruin to society as we know it... but thank goodness, their success was limited.

It may be the case that McArdle is extremely intelligent and well spoken on many issues, but her take on American military history is simply mind boggling. She would be well served to remember that there are quite often times when the best thing one can do in order make oneself seem more intelligent is to leave ones mouth closed in the first place. I suggest the next time the subject of aggressive vs defensive war and American military history are raised in her presence that she just clam up.

The Mass Media: Right Wing Megaphone

2008-04-24T10:53:00.001-07:00

In the last couple of weeks I have found myself feeling... well 'bitter' is a good way to put it, and wondering why I have to go to the left wing blogosphere in order to find sanity in our national discourse. We've known for years that the national media are carrying water for the right wing, but it's really gotten out of hand lately, thanks to the threat they (they being the right wing, and by proxy the corps who run our mass media) perceive in the candidacy of Barack Obama.

Let me just say that if Obama survives this onslaught he will have proven to be one of the most resilient and enduring politicians in this nations history. He is facing a full bore onslaught by the Republicans, and slightly less than half of his own party. The media are doing their best to bring him down. I will just be inspired if he survives and goes on to win the general election.

The role of the media in the full throated attack of Obama was evident again yesterday on Hardball with Chris Matthews. (Oh yeah... What's up with MSNBC making it just about impossible to find transcripts of their daily shows?!) During the segment of his show called the politics fix Matthews focused on two ads which are set to be run against Senator Obama. Both ads have not been aired yet, and the national Republican party along with John McCain are asking that the North Carolina Republican party not air one of the ads. The other ad has been produced by Floyd Brown... who is the sleaze merchant behind the 88 Willie Horton ads. Both ads are targeted at the North Carolina Democratic primary.

What I find galling about the coverage of these ads are not the ads themselves. It is the fact that Hardball saw fit to air both ads on national television. The ad producers are given free national exposure and their ads haven't even been shown in a paid spot in the piddling local markets they are targeted at.

This mirrors the swift boat ads of 2004. The initial swift boat ad was aired in three states following the Democratic convention, until it was pumped around the nation poisoning the discourse with lies and distortion free of charge by the national media.

It would be fine for Hardball and the rest of the national media to discuss political ads but giving these groups national air time which greatly exceeds any time they actually pay for magnifies their message beyond all reason. I don't think there should be a law, but there should at least be a sort of journalistic ethic which does not allow the actual advertisement in question to be given more running time than what has actually been paid for.

My Cognitive Dissonance Is Fritzed, And I'm Not Happy

2008-04-23T14:10:00.000-07:00

Pennsylvania Democrats have voted to extend the primary debacle at least another two weeks. If they have their way evidently this bloody intra-party warfare will continue through the convention.

There are many ways to spin this outcome. Obama was behind by over twenty points a month ago. This result only cements Obama's position by giving Clinton a mere handful of delegates more than her opponent, in effect moving the race as it was prior to Pennsylvania into territory more favorable for Obama. Clinton had the entire Democratic party establishment in Pennsylvania pulling for her with the one exception of Senator Bob Casey, and she spent part of her childhood in the Scranton area. So Pennsylvania was a tough nut to crack for Obama, and he did as well as could reasonably be expected. Obama goes into the home stretch of this primary in decidedly better financial shape, having driven Clinton into debt during the last couple of weeks.

To be honest though, as hard as I've tried to see the bright side of last nights vote, I can't help but feel a bit peeved about the entire situation. The most irritating thing for me right now is that I'm sick of hearing Republicans from Joe Scarborough to Pat Buchanan to Richard Scaiffe to Rush Limbaugh openly root for Clinton and delight in her successes against Obama. She is providing them with aid and comfort, plain and simple. Anyone with half a brain knows full well that these right wing characters and the people who support their ideals have precisely ZERO probability of voting for Clinton in November.

For example, Crooks and Liars has the video of Pat Buchanan trying to befuddle Rachel Maddow on what the super delegates should really be basing their considerations upon. Buchanan trots out the Clinton camp talking point that Obama isn't beating Clinton in big states, which somehow reflects on Obama's electability against McCain. Now Buchanan has forgotten more than I'll ever know about politics, so he just HAS to know that this is specious logic. Yet there Buchanan is, the long time ultra conservative bomb thrower, authoritatively stating that Democratic superdelegates should not move for Obama, based upon a positively inane Clinton campaign talking point. Rachel Maddow actually has good liberal credentials and more credibility on matters which concern Democrats than Buchanan will ever have, but Buchanan tries to convince the audience that Maddow is misreading the Democratic primary. Just for good measure, Buchanan goes back to his glory days as a cold warrior speech writer, and calls Maddow's dialect Marxist... which really has no meaning but sure sounds all patriotic!

Then there is the wrong headed and oft repeated anti-Obama point by Joe Scarborough which has Joe asserting that what Obama has faced to this point is child's play. In fact Joe has taken to calling Obama a whiner of late because Joe considers a tough campaign to be Kerry swiftboating or McCain in the 2000 South Carolina Republican primary. Those certainly are examples of dirty campaigning, BUT... can there possibly be a more insidious and underhanded campaign smear tactic in today's political environment than to start a whisper campaign that Obama is a secret Muslim? I mean being an openly practicing Muslim would disqualify him from serious consideration for the Presidency, but accusing him of harboring a secret devotion to Islam, a veritable Manchurian candidate with the secret desire to surrender us to our implacable enemy... that is not real dirty beanball? Honestly? Just as a bit of an aside on what is or isn't tough campaigning, let me note that the whole Jeremiah Wright flare up wasn't exactly softball either.

Republicans hyping Clinton when they have no real desire to see her elected is not the only reason I'm feeling a bit on edge today. I'm angry at Pennsylvania for voting for a candidate who told the world six days prior to the vote that she was an admitted liar. The mud which has been flung at Obama mainly has to do with stuff which really has no bearing on his ability to lead the nation. No one I'm aware of has accused Obama of being a flat out liar. I mean what could possibly be more important than the integrity of the candidate. Yet somehow Reverend Wright and a mangled quote about small town America are worse than a bald faced admission from Clinton that she is a liar, plain and simple. Oh yeah... don't forget he's a freaking horrible bowler, which means it is somehow ok to vote for someone who doesn't mind telling the world that she is a straight up liar.

Here's another thing that has me on the verge of throwing a tantrum and demanding that Pennsylvania Democrats turn in their voter registrations. They have validated the filthy rotten stinking campaign being run by Clinton and now we can expect the fetid monstrosity she has wrought on our party to live on for at least two more weeks. Thanks to Pennsylvania Democrats, Republicans around the nation rejoice as they prepare to harvest an abundant crop of anti-Obama talking points for mass consumption in the general election from the fields being planted and tended by the Clinton campaign.

So try as I might, I can't flip the switch for my own cognitive dissonance. The results of the Pennsylvania primary have strengthened the Clinton campaign, damaged the Democratic party and I don't see anyway of putting lipstick on that pig.

The Unqualified Success Of G.W. Bush

2008-04-22T13:43:00.000-07:00

Andrew Sullivan features the following paragraph from Richard Cohen's column in the Washington Post:

The Financial Times last week billboarded an opinion column "Bush's worst legacy" and wondered whether it was Iraq or fiscal policy. The menu of choices in this case is so vast as to induce vertigo, but let me suggest that Bush's "worst legacy" is what he has done to whatever trust Americans still had in their government. This administration's incessant lying, its secrecy -- its creepy Cheneyism with its petty justifications for torture and violation of privacy -- is its worst legacy, one that will endure long after Wal-Mart opens a branch in Sadr City. Only an idiot would trust this government.

The context of this paragraph is Cohen reflecting on the candidacy of Senator Clinton. Wide majorities of people asked say she is not honest or trustworthy. Cohen believes Senator's Obama and McCain could each restore a little trust in our government but Clinton would have much more difficulty.

Sullivan lifts the above quoted paragraph from all context (normally this charge is pejorative in nature, but it is not intended to be so in this particular case) and headlines his post "What hath Bush wrought". His only commentary is this brief introduction for the quote: "Richard Cohen focuses on the real damage".

It occurs to me that what Bush has wrought is to bring us the end result of the core meaning of conservatism. The goal of the right wing movement since I've been politically aware is to denigrate and devalue the role of government. After Bush has his turn at the helm, our government will be distrusted and loathed more-so than at any other point in American history, including amazingly enough the immediate aftermath of Water Gate.

This is reminiscent of the President's campaign promise to be a "uniter, not a divider". The nation naturally assumed that he meant to unite us in constructive ways, bringing both sides of the political divide together and leading us to solve our problems in a bipartisan manner. To be fair, after seven years of Bush Presidency the nation is united, not divided, but it is in opposition to this ongoing trainwreck of an administration. In fact the disapproval rating of this President is at an all time high as measured by over 70 years of Gallup polls. Yet, when Vice President Cheney answers a question based upon a wide majority of the American people opposing the war in Iraq with the one word answer "so?...", one is left wondering if this administration really gives the slightest care in the world as to how the citizenry thinks about the President.

In fact, given the wishes of the conservative movement that Americans distrust the government we may actually have a situation in which they consider the success of President Bush to be in inverse proportion to his popularity. When it comes to uniting the nation, and turning the populace against faith and trust in their own government, President Bush has been an unqualified success. Maybe future generations of conservatives will look back upon this president in much the same way one considers a soldier who heroically throws themselves upon a live grenade. President Bush insured his own destruction in order to make government a perceived plague upon the land and in order to unite us all. He sacrificed his own good name in order to save America from that horror of horrors, big guvmint, and future generations of conservatives will have to respect that.

Bill Press touches on the lessons of the Bush error in his book 'Trainwreck' by pronouncing that conservatives, as they are currently understood, must never be allowed to lead the nation forever and for all eternity. Press asserts that the conservative take on the role of government should serve as a default disqualifier for good governance, and that Bush's reign is the end result of a self fulfilling prophecy. If conservatives denigrate the worthiness of the governmental institutions set up at various points in our history, when they are called upon to run those functions after an election we can expect those agencies to be mismanaged.

I wouldn't be willing to go so far as Press in calling for the complete disqualification for future leadership by conservatives, but I do think it is not too much to ask that the people chosen to serve their offices do so with the intent of faithfully performing the role envisioned for their job. One would presume that this would include the very top levels of governance, meaning that appointments and nominations for advice and consent be of people understood to be well qualified to serve. Mayhaps with that fundamental understanding as a given going forward, many conservatives would realize that government work in some bureau which they have attacked for years is not for them.

The Pro-War Elitists

2008-04-21T11:59:00.000-07:00

Glenn Greenwald has written another stellar post in which he destroys Bill Kristol for getting all uppity about Americans not being willing to sacrifice sufficiently to win in Iraq. Kristol's recent whining about sacrifice is a bit odd, considering that he only calls on a very small segment of society to sacrifice, and that segment does not include Kristol's family or himself. In fact Kristol's lament that society is not willing to sacrifice enough to win is perverse, not only because he does not share in the burden, but because he benefits from those who do carry the load. He makes a very good living writing columns, and making the rounds on television calling on more sacrifice.

Greenwald briefly touches upon a truth which I would like to further develop when he writes:

Given that accusations of "elitism" are all the rage, is there anything more definitively elitist -- more repulsively elitist -- than continuing to sermonize to a tiny segment of the population that they must continue to give up everything -- even their lives -- while the sermonizers give up absolutely nothing?

Greenwald labels the call to sacrifice from those who refuse to sacrifice "repulsive elitism", but that hardly scratches the surface. What could possibly be more elitist than the following exchange between ABC News White House reporter Martha Raddatz and Vice President Dick Cheney:

RADDATZ: Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting.

CHENEY: So?

RADDATZ So? You don’t care what the American people think?

CHENEY: No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.

First, there are not "fluctuations" in the polls. This war has been seen for the disaster it is by wide majorities of the American people for years now. But the larger point here is how blithely the administration just disregards the will of the people if the people do not agree with them. It's like we are a fiefdom being ruled by the unquestionable decree of royalty. If the serfs do not agree with the royalty, so? This attitude nearly defines elitism. Unfortunately, John McCain only promises more of the same: no matter what the people think we are there for the duration.

This arrogant attitude is the height of elitism. President Bush has declared time and again that he doesn't pay attention to the polls. This lack of care about what Americans think may have it's place in certain circumstances but to continuously tweak us for having the wrong opinions by setting policy irregardless of the peoples wishes is the height of elitism. This nation was founded in large part upon the notion that the will of the citizenry would guide the nation. Even if the citizenry of the time was only considered to be land owning white males, the founding concept should remain as we evolve in our politics.

The administration has even practiced a form of generational elitism, claiming that the threat posed by terrorism was great enough to revoke traditions and constitutional precepts which guided this nation for over 230 years. The threat was not great enough to have a war tax in order to pay for Bush's Iraq bungle. There was no need to ration foodstuffs or oil, or to have a draft... all measures which past generations resorted to in order to respond to the emergencies they faced. So this generation was not asked to actually sacrifice, yet Bush saw fit to mangle several constitutional amendments, and article one of the constitution, while putting article two on steroids...all in secrecy. What sort of twisted elitist outlook lead this administration to dispose of the rule of law and the constitution, remaking the fundamental meaning of our nation in response to a conflict which has not yet claimed 10,000 American lives? Just look at the widespread catastrophic death attendant with America's past national crisis' and try to convince me that Sept. 11 meant the Bush administration had to toss away our national heritage to keep us safe, while calling upon us to go shopping in order to do our part in the war effort.

The elitism of the Bush administration goes beyond domestic politics. America now purports to determine which foreign citizens may be disappeared from their own nations, tortured, held without charge and given perfunctory show trials allowing evidence gained by the torture of the accused and others to be used against them. There was a time not long ago when American citizens could count upon our government to defend us from the depredations of foreign governments. But now, because of the Bush administrations wretched policy's, we are witness to the top legal minds of the State Department being expressing confusion as to whether or not Americans would be considered torture victims if they were waterboarded by a foreign government. All of this because the Bush administration found that the Geneva conventions were "quaint". This reeks of elitism. Geneva was lawfully ratified and guided our international conduct for decades prior to the Bush administration, yet they determined to do away with those conventions in secret because they could not be held to codes of international conduct which did not allow them to torture detainees.

This administration was boorish and impudent with our longtime allies who disagreed with us over our invasion of Iraq. This President has instituted a distinctly imperialistic approach to foreign policy, named the Bush doctrine, which policy purports to give America rights no other nation in the world is allowed: The right to engage in pre-emptive war based only upon the perception of threat against our interests. They have even disdained the longstanding policy of this nation during the cold war for no American first use of nuclear weapons. We have loudly condemned nations going to war without having been first attacked themselves, and we would freak if a nation nuked another nation in a first strike. George Sr. termed this the new world order, but George Jr. flushed the new world order and replaced it with good old fashioned bellicose imperialism. All of these policies have been wrought by an insidious mindset that Bush inherently knows what is best, that he is the actual hand servant of God, and to question the efficacy of Bush's ways demonstrates weakness. The result of these policies wrought by the elitist attitudes of the administration during the last seven years has caused lasting harm to Americas international image and standing.

Frankly, the Bush administration and their water carriers can not help but be elitist in order to continue this travesty. They MUST disparage the opinion of the wide majority of the American people, and the international community with their curtly snide one word "so" responses when confronted with the will of the people. The neocons pad their wallets while calling on a slim portion of the populace to continue sacrificing.

So ask me which type of elitist I think will be more harmful to the nation. Someone who puts the wrong sauce on a southern dish and couldn't bowl himself out of a wet paper bag, (I can't believe I brought that up for no good reason) or someone determined to ignore the opinions of a wide majority of the American people in order to keep us involved in a manifestly disastrous military quagmire for the foreseeable future? I think the tone of the question probably betrays my answer...

History Proves Bush And His Ilk Wrong Again!

2008-04-17T12:48:00.000-07:00

TimesOnline (hat tip Raw Story) has an article which sheds new light on the circumstances that led to the capture of 15 British sailors by Iran last year.

According to documents obtained from the British Ministry of Defense, the sailors were captured in disputed waters. It is noteworthy, however, that the dispute on the demarcation of Iranian territory stemmed from the fact that "the coalition unilaterally designated a dividing line between Iraqi and Iranian waters in the Gulf without telling Iran where it was". This might explain why Iranian forces had patrolled the waters in question an average of three times each week prior to the capture of the British sailors. On the ill-fated day in question it was the British who first pointed their weapons at the Iranians, before the Iranians came alongside.

So how does this report by the British Ministry of Defense jive with the contemporary narrative by the Bush administration and their domestic toadies? Well, here is a quote by President Bush from March 31, 2007:

The British hostage issue is serious because the Iranians took these people out of Iraqi water. It's inexcusable behavior.

The only way that quote can be squared with the truth is if Iraqi water means an arbitrary line which the Iranians have not been told about and which their forces regularly patrolled. America would be justifiably outraged if some nation half the world away were to arbitrarily change the boundary for American territorial waters unbeknownst to us and then affected belligerence and shock when we proceeded to secure the waters we did not realize had been secretly taken from our control. Would the sailors of that nation be rightfully labeled hostages in those circumstances as the President and his lackeys started labeling the British captives last year?

The reliable Bush toadies were in their full croaking glory throughout this crisis. One typical example is given by Charles Krauthammer who wrote a column decrying the final resolution:

Iran has pulled off a tidy little success with its seizure and release of those 15 British sailors and marines: a pointed humiliation of Britain, with a bonus demonstration of Iran's intention to push back against coalition challenges to its assets in Iraq. All with total impunity. Further, it exposed the impotence of all those transnational institutions -- most prominently the European Union and the United Nations -- that pretend to maintain international order.

You would think maintaining international order means, at least, challenging acts of piracy. No challenge here.

I know these right wing blowhards started with the pathological need to accept everything spoon fed to them by the Bush administration from the year 2000, but how long can they continue to repeatedly base their expert opinions on patent falsehoods? Knowing now what we weren't told then, it seems utterly absurd to term the actions taken by the Iranians as "piracy", unless patrolling waters which were regularly patrolled prior to the crisis and then detaining a vessel encroaching in those waters who pointed their weapons at the patrol is somehow piracy now. All of this after the American-led coalition redrew the international boundary without telling anyone. It seems to me that customary and widely accepted behavior by every nation with a shoreline is now piracy by the standards of Krauthammer.

Of course, when it comes to loyal Bushies we can not help but notice how the right wing blogosphere reacted to the crisis. The best word to describe the general outlook from those folks is outrage. For example Ed Morrissey blogging at Captains Quarters was emblematic of the right wing blogdiots when he bayed:

Will the British and the US take any action for this provocation? If the Iranians do not immediately release the sailors, the US should start taking similar action against Iranian ships entering Iraqi waters, and perhaps event start positioning for a blockade. Given the stressed nature of the Iranian economy, that will certainly get Iran's attention, as well as the notice of its citizens.

Let me just say "freakin' aye Captain," because we partially see eye to eye here. Iranian military ships entering Iraqi waters who point their weapons at British or American ships should be treated similarly to the way the British were treated. All that other silliness about blockading and ticking off the Iranian citizenry seems a bit over the top though, given what we now know to be the truth of the matter.

In a very tangible way, this points out how utterly horrible this administration really is. Yet I do not doubt that any other administration in our nation's history would have behaved in much the same way under similar circumstances. Those two statements can be concurrently true by asserting that when the truth came out regarding the conduct of any other administration in a similar circumstance, the story would have been given wide play in the press (with the exception of some other important story dominating the release of the British documents). But under the Bush administration we have grown accustomed to international blundering, official misconduct and overtly wrong headed policy. The combined effect is a veritable barrage of daily Bush administration news crud which flows together to drown out the individual stories, so that a revelation like the British/Iran documentation is largely ignored and forgotten.

The Stake In The Heart Of The Clinton Campaign

2008-04-17T00:31:00.000-07:00

Following the disaster which passed for a debate on ABC the national punditry gathered together in order to find anything which Barack Obama may have said which would make him unelectable. The natural assumption was that any such moment would have to be against Obama because he was under attack from multiple sides in that atrocity of an event.

The widespread consensus is that there was no nuke which would destroy the Obama campaign. I think, however, that the punditry have missed just such a moment... but it is the campaign of Senator Clinton which will have to try to repair the damage sooner or maybe later. I will simply be amazed if the Clinton campaign could recover from a commercial on steady rotation which featured a video of this reponse by Senator Clinton to the Bosnia controversy:

"On a couple of occasions in the last weeks, I just said some things that weren't in keeping with what I knew to be the case and what I had written about in my book."

This quote distills the entire controversy into one potent quote directly from the candidate herself. Hillary Clinton can not possibly be elected following her own admission that she knowingly lied in order to score cheap political points. In fact all of the recent blather by her campaign about her exaustion or the time of day that she was quoted or her age, is shown as further deception. She knew what she was saying was not true, and she continued to say it in a crass attempt to pad her resume.

Senator Clinton is now on tape admitting that she is willing to lie for political gain. It may well be the case that Senator Obama means what he says about a different type of politics, and he may not run a commercial featuring that quote. But I very seriously doubt that the Republicans will be so kindly should Clinton win the nomination, and it is hard to imagine a candidate who could overcome such an attack in their own words.

McCain Has A Senior Moment

2008-04-16T17:03:00.000-07:00

Senator John McCain's long term memory has started clouding over in his old age, and the proof of that can be seen on Think Progress.

McCain has promised to be a fiscal hawk and balance the budget. McCain's foggy memory seems to crop up whenever he gets a bit of pressure to square his rosy outlook on the budget against his promises to drastically cut taxes across the board. In the example seen in the video at Think Progress, when Andrea Mitchell points out that financial experts tend to have a dim outlook on this approach, McCain sputters that he disagrees with the experts, and he has his own. Then McCain reaches into history and entirely destroys his own logic, all the while thinking that he is making a great case his manifestly backwards budgetary outlook:

"And that's what we did in 1980, or Ronald Reagan did in when he came to office in 1981. We reduced taxes, we reduced regulations [here he gives his words emphasis by wagging his finger towards the camera ] and we controlled spending."

Unfortunately this is not the first time that McCain has cited Reagan as a grand example of budgetary discipline. Just over a week ago an audience member asked for some straight talk on the budget and McCain recalled the Reagan model as a good example.

“When Ronald Reagan came to office,’’ he said, noting that few in the audience were old enough to remember, “we had 10 percent unemployment, 20 percent interest rates, and 10 percent inflation, if I’ve got those numbers right. That was when Ronald Reagan came to office in 1980. And so what did we do? We didn’t raise taxes, and we didn’t cut entitlements.

When McCain said that I posted that he was suffering a severe case of cognitive dissonance. I can no longer give cognitive dissonance as a diagnosis for McCain's delusion, but have to chalk it up to a senior moment because of a very crucial difference between the quote from two weeks ago and what McCain said on MSNBC.

On MSNBC, McCain emphatically declares that Reagan controlled spending. A couple of weeks ago McCain trumpeted that Reagan did not cut entitlements. This is a crucial difference on a fundamental aspect of the budget. Something has happened in a very short time span to change McCain's memory on a very important part of Reagan's supposed budgetary triumph.

To be sure, it's bad enough that McCain would repeatedly cite Reagan as his example of fiscal discipline. McCain only worsens the mistake by contradicting himself from one week to the next when it comes to Reagan's record on spending.

This is widely acknowledged to the one of the most important elections in this nations history. The next President has to guide the nation out of, or deeper into, Iraq, and reverse eight solid years of budgetary madness. Let us hope that such senior moments as McCain has displayed lately are not a daily feature at the White House starting next January.

Hollow Words At An Empty Hearing

2008-04-15T17:09:00.000-07:00

The N.Y. Times has a story which is doomed to slide into forgotten obscurity in very short order. Out of 21 senators who sit on the committee only the chair, Senator Robert Casey (D. Pa.) attended the hearing covered by the Times article.

The witnesses at the hearing were John Bellinger, a top legal advisor of the State Department, Charles Allen who is a counsel for the Defense Department and Brig. Gen. Michelle Johnson who testified briefly on behalf of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. These officials were present to give support on behalf of the administration for a handful of treaties designed to lessen wartime civilian casualties, and give wartime protection to cultural sites.

Maybe it's just bitter old moi, but I think the following blurb in the article is positively stuffed to the brim with rich and caustic irony:

Summing up, Bellinger said, ''We set an example to the world when it comes to humanitarian law,'' and other nations ''know we stand for the right thing.''

That quote is clearly an example of some administration toady creating an alternate reality which favors their warped outlook.

Just to give a bit of perspective on Bellingers knowledge when it comes to international humanitarian law, he recently told a British interviewer that he could not say one way or the other if an American being waterboarded by a foreign government would be a torture victim. Color me excessively bitter about the stain left on our nations honor by this administrations barbaric policy on detainees, but when the top State Department lawyer will not mount the most rudimentary defense of American citizens abroad from being tortured because of this administrations abysmal record, things have gone very seriously off track. Is Bellinger really the right man to be spouting off about our international standing when it comes to humanitarian law?

Let us consider the facts regarding Bellingers high falutin rhetoric on American leadership when it comes to international humanitarian law. Here is just a little taste of what our allies and friends in the international community are saying on the world stage when it comes to our leadership by "example" in this regard: Britain's Attorney General in May of 2006, in an article titled 'Britain's top lawyer demands closure of Guantanamo Bay':

"It is time, in my view, that is should close. Not only would it, in my personal opinion, be right to close Guantanamo as a matter of principle, I believe it would also help to remove what has become a symbol to many - right or wrong - of injustice," he said.

"The historic tradition of the United States as a beacon of freedom, liberty and of justice deserves the removal of this symbol,"

Remember when Canada added the United States to a watchlist of nations which torture captives. This was a truly stellar moment in the Bush administrations international humanitarian record of leadership by example:

The list includes Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, and China. But surprisingly, it also included the United States, Guantanamo Bay, and Israel.

It notes specific "U.S. interrogation techniquies," which include "forced nudity, isolation, and sleep deprivation."

There we go setting the example which the rest of the world follows when it comes to humanitarian law again. The Canadian focus on torture occurred following the mistaken disappearance and "rendition" of Canadian citizen Maher Arar from the United States to Syria where he spent months being tortured. Arar was detained when the flight he was on from Tunis to his home in Canada stopped over in N.Y. The Canadian government has completely exonerated Arar of any connection with terrorism, but the Bush administration still refuses to remove him from terrorist watch lists. It sure is unfortunate when the administration's enlightened policies wind up resulting in innocent people being dissapeared and tortured, but I suppose that is the risk we run when Bush leads by example on international humanitarian law! He's botched everything else he leads, why not humanitarian law too?

I could write a book about the wrong headed approach to humanitarian law by the Bush abomination and the condemnation we have earned on the international stage because of it. But let me wrap this up with a brief rehash on another topic covered at the soon to be forgotten hearing: The protection of cultural sites.

The Bush administration is directly responsible for the greatest ransacking of ancient historical sites in human history. Iraq is recognized as the cradle of civilization. The importance of these cultural sites was not unknown to the administration as is demonstrated by this report from the Wall Street Journal (or here for a nonsubscription transcript) on a briefing held for the Pentagon prior to the invasion:

Concerned about the fate of Iraq's antiquities, an international group of archeologists, academics and art lawyers made a presentation in late January to Pentagon officials, asking them to take the utmost care to preserve Iraq's cultural relics. The delegates presented them with a catalogue of 5,000 -- just a fraction, they said, of the countless sites that dot the countryside. "We wanted to make it clear that Iraq is Mesopotamia, and the major cradle of civilization in the world," says McGuire Gibson, a professor of Mesopotamian archeology at the University of Chicago

Following our invasion the administration exposed their priorities by seeing to it that the oil ministry building was well guarded, while historical sites and museums which were filled with priceless relics dating to the dawn of civilization were left unprotected. The Bush administration allowed the widespread looting and resultant loss of countless and invaluable artifacts, but enforced complete security at the oil ministry building. With 20/20 hindsight we see that the obvious answer to this mindset would have been for all the concerned scientists and professors to have hustled over to Iraq immediately prior to the invasion and stuffed the oil ministry compound full of all the priceless artifacts they could grab!

I remember administrations which would actually be taken seriously when they talked about our commitment to humanitarian law and the preservation of cultural sites. I rather suspect it is a lucky thing for the Bush administration that this hearing was largely unattended and ignored. If such matters were considered important in this political season I can just imagine the embarrassing train wreck an aggressive line of questioning at this hearing would have devolved into.

What is sad is that the treaties in question most likely should be ratified and would be helpful, but having this administrations henchmen on the hill pontificating about humanitarian law and so forth really is a bit much.

Hillary STILL Doesn't Get It

2008-04-14T11:25:00.000-07:00

In all of the hub bub of late about the Obama 'small town America is bitter' comments, Senator Clinton has continued a long standing narrative which has not served her well in the Democratic nomination.

This narrative is the construct of Mark Penn, who was demoted for meeting with Colombians who favored a trade agreement which Senator Clinton did not approve of. But the entire pundit universe and much of the Clinton campaign thought that Penn should have been completely sacked months ago for determining to define Senator Clinton as the candidate of experience and strength. 2008 is the mother of change elections, and Penn's experience message doomed his candidate when a change candidate became a viable alternative. Yet with the latest controversy, Hillary has demonstrated that she still does not get the fundamentals of this election. Given the choice between strength and experience in maneuvering the levers of power on the political machine in Washington, or a candidate who vows to change the fundamentals of that machine, the change candidate wins every time.

Senator Clinton is now painted in a box, hoping and praying that all the planets align to suck the Obama campaign into a black hole. Her only hope will destroy Obama and split the party, so the Clinton people have glommed onto the Obama bitter quote and tried to make hay from it.

In doing so, Clinton reiterates her political strength and experience, as a hard hitting campaign fighter who knows the ins and outs of campaigning. In fact Clinton eerily echoed the ultimate Washington insider, John McCain, by calling Obama elitist and out of touch. As Josh Marshall points out, she is making the very same arguments which solid liberals have defended her from for decades as the right attacked the Clintons for being out of touch.

Out of this kefluffle, it is Obama who looks to be the candidate of change, by telling the real truth which is plain for all to see. What a refreshing change by a front running presidential candidate. The McCain and Clinton campaigns filled the airwaves with the candidates enlightened understanding of the heroic, stoic and stead fast small town American heroes who were the targets of a dastardly Obama smear, and Americans just rolled our eyes at the craven spectacle of it all.

After years of hearing happy talk and fantasy based reality on a daily basis from the current resident of the White House, and demonization of Bush's political opponents, we are offered a choice. More of that snide, politically calculating condescension and meaningless happy talk which has been a very prominent feature of McCain and Clinton over the last several days, or an honest perspective. It is particularly notable when that honesty is regarding an obvious truth, yet the Clinton/McCain camps act like Obama has been caught on tape cursing out a nun.

We can choose to continue to be talked to like little children who our leaders expect will throw a tantrum if we aren't coddled and cooed at. Or we can learn to live with, if not appreciate, it when someone says something that honestly reflects upon us, warts and all, while searching for the best way forward.

One other thing Hillary would do well to recognize is that she should be appealing to Democrats in order to get the Democratic nomination. Echoing McCain may not be the best way forward. Besides, Democrats in particular are bitter, and for good cause. We have watched our treasury be looted by the wealthiest among us, we have seen the constitution trashed and we have seen the nation taken to war based upon lies. We have seen our government officially condone the torture of captives for the first time in our nations history. We have witnessed the spoiling of the Justice Department perverting our legal system for political power. We have watched this nation dragged down the tubes by an abomination of a President and his Republican toadies in Congress. We have been tarred as unpatriotic, spiritually dead and pro-terrorist. We had our President impeached for a personal transgression which seems positively silly in comparison to the Bush criminal enterprise, and we fought for President Clinton's very political survival against those and many other unfair attacks. Just try telling us that the Clintons were not bitter during and immediately following impeachment, and they should have been. Bitterness has it's place.

So your freaking right that many many Democrats are bitter, and Hillary's happy talk just reminds us of the smarmy condescending self righteous attitude which we have come to find so irksome! Following the recent attacks on Obama, the only thing Clinton has going for her in comparison to the last 7 years is her ability to complete an entire sentence coherently.

Am I, and millions just like me bitter? You bet!

Here's Your Answer Hillary, With Some Flavor Added

2008-04-11T17:54:00.000-07:00

Brendan Loy, who blogs as the Irish Trojan In Tennessee, has written the perfect response to the recent hubbub from the Clinton camp surrounding the Michigan/Florida early vote controversy. Loy quotes Clinton wondering why the Democratic party can't reach a decision on this matter, and his reply may be best paraphrased as saying, 'but this has been decided, and the Clinton camp helped decide it, only changing their tune when it became apparent that they needed to have the Mi/Fl results despite the rules breaking'.

Let me be so bold as to expand a bit on this stellar reply by Loy. It is clear that the Clinton camp is trying to break the rules for their own benefit on this issue, and until they decided to make this an issue the matter had been settled. But in making such a huge issue out of these two states the Clinton campaign shows an eagerness to attack the putative nominee of the Democratic party in a way which reflects very poorly upon Senator Clinton's loyalty to her party if she is not the nominee. In fact, in the quote which Loy bases his post upon, this willingness to split the Democratic party and provide assistance to the Republican nominee is self evident. Here is that quote:

"I really don’t understand why the Republican Party very clearly decided what they were going to do [about the Florida and Michigan delegations], and the Democratic Party can’t decide."

By saying this, Clinton blatantly pronounces that she favors the Republican party over the Democratic party regarding an issue which she has harped on for months. In fact she is telling us that Republicans are doing the right thing in counting votes, whereas Democrats are acting wrongly by disenfranchising voters. Time and again, Clinton has cast this as an issue which is fundamental to American democracy. Quite honestly I object to the tone of Senator Clinton as she denounces the Democratic party while upholding the example of the Republican party on an issue which she then paints as crucial to the fall election.

This quote is hardly the first time that Hillary or her shrillagates have crossed this line either. For months they have warned of the loss of the general election as Florida and Michigan voters decide to punish the Democrats, throwing those states to McCain and insuring that he wins, should the Democratic party follow the rules everyone agreed upon. In fact Senator Clinton has been very direct in accusing Senator Obama of wanting to suppress votes. Just yesterday she said:

“He doesn’t want the votes to count, lets not mince words here. Senator Obama has been very, very clear ‘do not count those votes, or come up with some kind of resolution that disenfranchises people by taking away their right to have voted for whom they have voted for and neither of those is acceptable to Michigan and Florida voters and I wouldn’t agree with that either,”

This sort of direct attack upon the putative party nominee, casting doubt upon the legitimacy of his nomination and blatantly favoring the other party on this issue in particular is just not acceptable from one of the leaders of the Democratic party. Barack Obama should... indeed he positively must stand his ground on this. If both sides can find an equitable solution that would be fine, but Obama will show some real strength and character if he does not allow himself to be buffaloed by the patently unfair and dishonest attacks upon his Democratic and democratic ideals from the Clinton campaign. Obama's continued resolve in the face of heat and smoke from his opponent in a time of trial speaks well for what we may expect from a President Obama.

It does not speak well for Senator Clinton. It only reinforces the now rapidly building narrative as another example of how the Clinton's will say and do anything, ANYTHING, to be elected.

Bill, Bill, Bill...

2008-04-11T11:47:00.000-07:00

Bill Clinton is causing his wife a headache by disinterring the corpse of Senator Clinton's Bosnia landing monster, and characterizing the events which gave birth to the monster in ways which do not comport with reality. In doing so, beyond causing the harm of resurrecting the monster, Clinton focused the spotlight on several issues which do not favor his wife.

From my perspective, this is ironic following my last post in which I found cause to celebrate an answer given by Senator Clinton. Just when I am able to finally find cause to give Clinton some praise, Bill has to go ruining it for me.

I heard some talking head say that the Limbaugh types would tell anyone who cares to listen that this type of prevarication and fantasy blather is not a new thing for the Clintons. This is what they have been doing the entire time.

Now the right wing noise machine may have a point when it comes to the famed Clinton bimbo eruptions. That is pretty much a given and I'll concede that point. In fact just the other day, when the Clinton campaign was making all the noise about Obama being unelectable because of the savagery of the Republican attack machine in the fall election, I told my wife that the Clintons must have cause to worry about the Republican hit operation in their own right.

Now TWL is an obscure little blog with no regular readers... people who happen across me are typically sent here by a google search. If I had any idea that I had wider visibility I would not dare make the following, completely unfair and unprovable assumption. In fact what I'm about to say comes as such a turnaround on my part, being a steadfast and hard core Clinton supporter for many years, that I'm having difficulty even bringing myself to actually go there. But here was the point I told my wife regarding the Republican hit machine if Senator Clinton wins the nomination.

Just using my own common sense, I find it impossible to believe that Bill Clinton has been entirely faithful to Hillary when it comes to monogamy in the last 8 years. If I were a Republican agent I would be extremely interested in unearthing that dirt. Maybe Bill has been able to hook up with entirely trustworthy and untouchable lasses who will keep their secrets. But quite frankly, I would not be the least bit surprised if a Hillary campaign were to find itself rocked in the fall by a bimbo eruption or two and if I am forced to turn in my good liberal card for having that thought, then so be it!

Having conceded the bimbo issue to the right wingers, I'm not sure that they can point to other such long term prevarication as we are witnessing day to day in the Clinton campaign. I was politically aware during the 90's, and I remember the incessant sniping from the right against the Clintons. Whitewater, travelgate, the Lincoln bedroom, the Christmas guest list... I remember all of that. And I must say that from my perspective there was not a whole lot there. The Republicans looked under every blade of grass and made full use of the bimbo problem to the point of impeaching President Clinton... In the end they were the ones who looked thuggish, petty and oft times like bald faced hypocrites.

What it comes down to is that I reject the presumed assertion by the Limbaugh types that we Democrats are only becoming cognizant of the inveterate dishonesty of Bill because it is being directed against one of our own. This may seem a bit incongruous following my giving voice to a suspicion that Bill is probably not completely chaste... but I calls them the way I sees them.

Hillary Frikken NAILS It

2008-04-10T18:22:00.000-07:00

My recent record regarding the Clinton campaign has hardly been favorable. In fact I've been downright hostile about Hillary lately. But today Senator Clinton turned on a softball question over the heart of the plate and blasted it out of the park.

At a news conference here, Mrs. Clinton was asked if she would keep to her promises on withdrawing troops, even if she is advised differently by military leaders on the ground.

“Well, let me just describe to you the way our system works,” Mrs. Clinton said. “Policy is set by the civilian leadership. The president of the United States sets the policy. Our military, and thankfully so, carries out the policy that is set. You ask the military for their best advice about how to implement the policy that you have

I have to say that this is one of the best answers to this line of questioning I've ever heard. You just have to respect that brutal honesty here. Senator Clinton must know that the Bush administration toadies will try to make it sound like she is going to destroy military morale and all that other blather we know is coming. But what Clinton says here is the gut level truth.

At least she has the veritable cajones to say this rather than taking the approach of President Bush: Loudly profess that he is guided by the counsel of his commanders, but sacking commander after commander until he finds one who parrots Bush's line of thinking, and then replacing that commander when his thinking changes again. I really want to believe that the military would respect a President who would take their advice and then reach his/her own decision, and then expect that policy to be implemented regardless. The commanders wouldn't need to worry that the President is going to sack them based upon a shifting political matrix. They just need to give their advice and do their jobs...

That is the way it really should be, and this was a positively stellar answer from Senator Clinton. Here's a thought which I've seen floating around the intertubes and which this answer reinforces from my perspective. Hillary Clinton would make a great Supreme Court Justice.

Why Won't WAPO Report The Entire British/Saudi Bribery Story?

2008-04-10T16:23:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post has an article written by David Clarke and Paul Majendie titled 'British court condemns end to Saudi arms probe'. The article reports on various aspects of the scandal caused when the British government stopped an inquiry into the bribery of Saudi royalty in conjunction with a major arms deal. What I find objectionable about the WAPO article is that there is not one mention of the most objectionable threat used by the Saudis in order to stop the British investigation.

I happen to know a teensie eensie bit about this case because I previously wrote a bit of a rant about the actions which the Saudis had pursued in order to stop the bribery investigation. That rant was driven by the fact that the Saudis actually threatened to expose the British to increased terrorism, even warning of another 7/7 in reference to the bombing of the British public transit systems which caused over 50 deaths, unless the British dropped the investigation.

Yet if you search the WAPO article, there is not one mention of the word terrorism. While the article mentions a British capitulation to Saudi threats very early in the story, the real nature of the threat is never mentioned. In fact there is a bit of a head fake on what was threatened in the following two sentences:

Critics have attacked former Prime Minister Tony Blair for saying it was right to halt the investigation, arguing it would damage Britain's national security.

Arms sales to Saudi Arabia under the Al Yamamah pact dating back to the 1980s represent the biggest export deals in Britain and their cancellation would threaten thousands of jobs.

So WAPO tells us that critics attacked Blair for telling the honest truth as to why the probe ended. The reason Blair is being attacked over this is for being run over by the Saudis, not because he is for national security, or because the threat against national security was not a legitimate one.

By reporting that losing the deal could cost British jobs WAPO seems to be making some sort of attempt to have us reach an understanding on the British motivations in the bribery. Nevermind that other companies and nations who bid on the contract lost the benefit and profits from being selected because they were playing on a surface tilted for the British. So I look upon the only part of the WAPO article which actually touches upon the nature of the threat from the Saudis as misleading at best.

What is particularly telling in this article is the absolute silence on the real threat from Saudi Arabia which stopped the British investigation. In the opinion of Lord Justice Moses the decision to end the investigation due to the threats caused damage to the rule of law and lasting harm to the legacy of Tony Blair. In order to find crucial details like the one I just mentioned, I would suggest you close the WAPO article and replace that browser with a link to the Timesonline. Here are more pertinent details on this which you won't find in the WAPO story as copied and pasted directly from Timesonline:

“No one,” Lord Justice Moses and Mr Justice Sullivan declared, “whether in this country or outside, is entitled to interfere with the course of our justice.”

snip

Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General then, emerges little better from the affair. As the Government's chief legal adviser he should have pointed out that democratic governments seek to influence the judicial process at their peril. Instead, by meekly endorsing the Prime Minister, Mr Goldsmith came to embody a shameful blurring of the demands of justice and convenience.

Robert Wardle, the SFO (Serious Fraud Office) director, took full responsibility for his decision and personally sought diplomatic advice before making it. The British Ambassador to Riyadh is reported to have warned him that British lives were potentially at stake should intelligence-sharing with Saudi Arabia cease. Hence Mr Wardle's conclusion that he was “powerless” in the face of the Saudi stance. Hence, also, the High Court's blistering riposte: “So bleak a picture of the impotence of the law invites at least dismay, if not outrage.”

This ruling demands urgent action of its targets. The SFO should reopen its investigation - or make public the concrete reasons for abandoning it. Gordon Brown should defend justice where his predecessor jeopardised it, by refusing to interfere and explaining, if necessary, that it would not be in his power to do so anyway.

So now that we have reached a true understanding as to the nature of the Saudi threat, let me reiterate a bit of my previous rant on this matter.

President Bush maintains close personal ties with the Saudi royal family and frequently cites them as allies in the "war on terror". In fact it is a given that administration figures who travel to the middle east will stop over in Saudi Arabia for meetings with the royal family. It is positively outrageous that the Saudis would threaten one of our allies with increased terrorism. How this truth is not self evident truly is beyond me.

It may be completely reprehensible, but I'm actually not surprised that they would do it. The Saudis are merely playing the game used by President Bush in ramming through his agenda for the last several years. Time and again the President has threatened the public and Congress with the specter of terrorism if he were not given everything he wanted. Only in the last month, with the houses refusal to give the President authorization for continued warrantless spying on domestic communication including past immunization for telecoms who cooperated before the program was legalized, has this ploy not worked to full effect. It's not that the President didn't make plenty of speeches and threaten great calamity if he were not given his whim with telecom immunity (and it's hard to take the President seriously on the dire nature of the threat when he's being offered an extension of the program, just not retroactive immunity) it's just that congress didn't knuckle under this time. They should be applauded for that.

The same applies to funding the Iraq war. One of the most disastrous moves in the war on terror has been justified for years now as an integral feature in the war on terror. We must continue sinking blood and treasure into this manifestly wrong headed and backwards war or the terrorists will win according to Bush's logic. Frankly it's poppycock. We are mired in Iraq and if we left tomorrow the Al Qaeda freaks would make a lot of noise but it would be one of the most effective blows against their cause we can ever hope to accomplish. This really is just common sense. The neocons have employed their Jedi mind tricks over Iraq on the American public for far too long but it is becoming more apparent with each passing day that the vast majority of us see through their blather.

It is time for a leader who calls for policy based upon strength, and resolve... not fear and cowardice. It will be positively wonderful when this disaster of a President, and his blow hard fear mongering ways are retired from the scene. Then maybe the Saudis will think twice about what kind of response they may expect from the west the next time they threaten one of our allies with more terrorism.

McCain Has A Big Problem With Reality

2008-04-09T17:43:00.000-07:00

Senator John McCain was asked how he intended to balance the budget should he be elected President, and told the world that he would follow the example provided by Ronald Reagan.

This is just the latest in a long series of statements by McCain which prove that the Republican nominee for President of the United States suffers from one of the most severe cases of cognitive dissonance ever presented. After being called out for associating Al Qaeda with Iran, rather than correcting an obvious mistake the McCain camp has set about trying to prove the un-provable. Just today McCain was on Fox and when asked about this basic contradiction between the facts and his rhetoric he chose to further the dissonance by asserting that Al Qaeda was not operating in strictly Sunni areas.

A severe case of cognitive dissonance may explain McCain's long held and fiercely defended view that torture should not be used by Americans, followed by his call for the President to veto a bill which would have outlawed various forms of torture. Only rapid onset of cognitive dissonance explains McCain's transition from a positively disdainful attitude about the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell in 2000, when he called them agents of intolerance, to his modern day embrace of the very same personages. Only uncontrolled cognitive dissonance can explain McCain pointing to Ronald Reagan, under whose signature the budget deficit exploded (which I will remind the reader occurred after Reagan made a huge issue of the piddling deficit under Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election) as his model for balancing the federal budget. If you thought W. Bush was bad, imagine McCain exploding the deficit multiple times over what Bush oversaw!

We can only hope McCain's outlandish rhetoric of late is cognitive dissonance, because if he really believes what he's been saying then he is completely out of touch with reality. Frankly I find that prospect to be a bit worrisome in a person who has a good chance to be the next President. If there is a third choice to explain McCain's recent behavior beyond the complete onset of cognitive dissonance and or just believing in a completely irrational reality of his own creation, I don't know what it could be.

Fun With Comments.

2008-04-09T16:17:00.000-07:00

In the course of bopping about the intertubes yesterday I stumbled over a post on the pundits blog at The Hill titled Year Two of President Obama by John Feehery. Feehery is a bit of a right wing water boy so you would be correct if you presume that the Obama administration would be horribly misguided as pre-judged by Feehery. There was one particular paragraph which caught my attention, so I buckled on the accoutrements of war and left a comment. My comment was in turn commented upon, and the entire affair has been a lot of fun. So here is the pertinent comment thread left by moi and those who respond to moi:

11. Thank you for the laugh John… I especially appreciated the following prediction: “As America withdrew its forces from Iraq, political support for the Americans plunged in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, as Afghanis and some Pakistanis decided to throw their support behind a newly resurgent Taliban, who used the defeat of America in Iraq as a rallying cry for recruitment.”

Because everyone knows that Afghani’s and Pakistani’s (apostrophe trolls do your worst!) supported our invasion of Iraq by overwhelming numbers and those numbers have only increased as the years of quagmire draq on and on.

Otherwise it appears that John is describing the logical cumulation of events if President Bush were to gain a third term. The depletion of our military, the loss of international prestige, even watching as Russia assists Iran in furthering their nuclear program, supposedly for peaceful purposes. I would be hard pressed to draw the conclusions which John has reached, because I don’t believe Obama intends to continue manifestly wrong headed and defiantly stupid policies after his inauguration.

Comment by Ken — April 8, 2008 @ 5:36 pm

snip

13. Ken, have you ever watched one of those videos where America’s “honorable” enemies cuts off a living man’s head? They are instructive to figure out that these enemies don’t respect
weakness and are not very advanced in the moral scruples department. There are a lot of people in Afghanistan and Pakistan who support America and want to live in peace. There are also quite a few that like to cut off heads and there is only one way they will interpret America’s hasty exit from Iraq: as victory. I bet you can even imagine the two words they’ll be repeating over and over in their excitement.

Ken, you’re very confused about what causes respect in the Middle East, and it’s not that hard to figure out. The answer is “Ruthless Power”.

Comment by Igor R. — April 8, 2008 @ 6:55 pm

Unfortunately this comment was left just prior to my leaving the computer, so I didn't see it til the following day. But here is what happened when I got back to the thread:

19.Igor: In reply to my comment why you have the word honorable in quotes is simply a mystery to me. That word never appears in the original comment and I would certainly reject any notion that Al Qaeda or any other of a couple of dozen extremist groups, many of which recieve support from the Bush administration, have any sort of honor whatsoever. If you have a misunderstanding about my sides perception of this, that is your problem, not mine.

I believe it is that misperception which leads people like Igor to consider that it is well and good for America to commence with apolicy like torture or dissapearances while fighting the “war on terror”. They don’t mind disdaining our own honor in order to fight a dishonorable foe. They fail to realize that America has faced many many other enemies who held no honor, and we have always managed to hold our own values, even though those struggles were against threats much greater to our national existence than a group of throwbacks living in caves on the Afghan/Pakistan frontier.

The quote in my comment from the original post never once mentions the word respect either. It mentions Afghani and Pakistani support. There is a world of difference here. Anyone pretending that “support” for America around the middle east has increased because of the overtly bellicose and wrong headed attitude and policy taken by the Bush administration is simply living in a fantasy land.

I honestly appreciate the response though Igor. You distilled the world outlook of those who have led this nation to endless quagmire, attendent with the loss of American prestige on an unprecedented scale on the world stage with that “ruthless power” line.

Comment by Ken — April 9, 2008 @ 2:42 pm

snip

22. Ken the quotes were used to convey sarcasm and not quotation, and I apologize for any confusion. With that said, we will only get support (and respect, even if you didn’t say it) in the Middle East when we win. You see Ken, in the past we faced enemies that couldn’t destroy us to the same extent as, say, nuclear-armed Iran can. Yet back then when an enemy shot at us we shot back and didn’t try to count every unidentified battle-field corpse and claim it to be an innocent civilian (I normally put the last two words in quotes but just for you I won’t). Today we just need to win Ken and to hell with world opinion. Here is a simple algorithm that worlds against concentrated threats (not all, but many we should’ve handled this way): “Identify threat. Point a projectile big enough to eliminate it at the threat without regard for innocent civilians. Fire.” Would’ve worked for Falluja and Iran. Until it’s too late Ken, until it’s too late.

Comment by Igor R. — April 9, 2008 @ 6:09 pm

snip

23. Igor… I’m going to be blunt. This is language you won’t hear often from those who agree with me, but here it is my friend. You, and those who think like you, are quite simply panzies. Why would I say something so inflammatory. Because you, Igor, have the lack of intestinal fortitude which leads you to say patently ridiculous stuff like this: “You see Ken, in the past we faced enemies that couldn’t destroy us to the same extent as, say, nuclear-armed Iran can.”

Try telling the past generations of Americans who had their people killed by the hundreds of thousands that our war is more dangerous to this nation. It is frankly laughable. Our war, which the President calls upon us as citizens to wage by going shopping and having our taxes cut! Try telling the patriots that founded this nation that the threat they beat, while establishing and upholding cherished American ideals which we recognized from the Revolution until this abomination of a President, that the threat they faced to the nation was lesser than that we face now. By definition you are wrong, and it is that plaintive wail, that sorrowful fearful bleating about having it so rough these days and how dangerous the world is so we have to act like idiots, that makes you and everyone who holds those thoughts panzies.

I’m sorry if it sounds callous or mean… but it is true.

Comment by Ken — April 9, 2008 @ 6:45 pm

There is no reply as of my relating this, but if or when Igor sees fit to continue I'll leave further developments in the comments of this post.

Why How We Got Here Matters Going Forward

2008-04-08T17:25:00.000-07:00

Senator Obama's questioning of General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker brushed against an issue which I believe should play a large part in the political discussion over how we proceed in Iraq. Obama stated:

I continue to believe that the original decision to go into Iraq was a massive strategic blunder, that the two problems that you've pointed out -- Al Qaida in Iraq and increased Iranian influence in the region -- are a direct result of that original decision.

That's not a decision you gentlemen made. I won't lay it at your feet. You are cleaning up the mess afterwards. But I think it is important as we debate this forward.

The typical response to this undeniable truth from those who support an indefinite continuation of our occupation in Iraq is that we are where we are and rehashing old arguments isn't going to get us anywhere. Of course, those who support an indefinite quagmire in Iraq have proven completely wrong time and again, and the "we are where we are" argument is yet another example of this singularly mistaken approach to the situation. In fact, let me be so bold as to declare that not only is the "we are where we are" logic mistaken, it is transparently silly.

As America determines how best to proceed it is only fitting that we consider the wisdom and judgement of those we elect to lead us. How can one argue that this criteria is not critical in choosing the nation's leaders? John McCain is going to make a huge issue out of his vaunted experience and many years of service to the nation. In fact, he should make a big deal of that service. BUT... I am hardly convinced that he will be able to turn around and posit that, on the lone subject of Iraq, we are where we are now and judging the people who took us here in a negative light is not fair play.

Of course we should consider past positions and judgement as we consider whom we elect. By definition this opens the debate on who supported driving us into the war. It is nearly automatic that the people who supported President Bush from day one until now have been positively wrong from then until now. Those who backed the President but then saw the light were wrong from the lead up to war until the moment of their conversion. Just look at the record of continual happy talk from Bush and his toadies: the continual chatter about progress being made, the endless milestones on the road to success, the postively inane claims that black is white and up is down in order to paint a rosy picture, the absolutely absurd policy decisions which doomed us to quagmire... How anyone can think that the people who gave us this unbroken chain of wrong headed policy and dishonest assessment can be trusted to find a constructive way forward is simply beyond my comprehension.

Do you think Heckuvajob Brownie should be appointed as the head of FEMA? Would you like Mark Foley back in charge of running the congressional page program? Wouldn't Alberto Gonzales make a great Attorney General? If you reflexively responded with an emphatic "no" to those questions I must ask that you reconsider. Remember when you answer those questions that we are where we are and thinking about past decisions and judgement is not constructive in picking the best way forward. There are a million such examples of just this type of thinking which would lead to manifest disaster, but we are supposed to apply that logic to choosing the path forward in Iraq? Indeed I am hard pressed to imagine any circumstance in which the people asked to choose should not consider past decisions and prognostications while determining who is best suited to lead on a given issue.

Not only is it right that we consider the past judgement of those who wish to be the Commander in Chief when it comes to the war which they will oversee, but such consideration is imperative. Don't let those who have taken this nation into a no win situation convince us that we should forget how we got here and trust them to lead us to victory. If past performance is any indication of the future, the Bush backers can be counted on bringing us another unbroken string of Orwellian rhetoric, burgeoning fiscal deficit and continued deadly quagmire. At some point in time the importuning for Americans to ignore the past will not be heeded. Let us do our part to make that time this year, not four years, thousands of lives, and billions of dollars down the road.

Now THIS Is An Apology

2008-04-04T19:24:00.000-07:00

When I drive to and from work each day I tune into the local NPR. My drive home is the time slot taken by Canadian Broadcasting. During today's drive I listened to one of the most sincere apologies I have ever heard from any person. This apology is from a conservative member of parliament named Tom Lukiwski with whom I would tend to disagree on a political level. But the apology is so heartfelt and personal that I'm not even going to mention the trangression which warranted these words out of a sense of respect for the man. If you wish to click on the link above I'm certain you can find the back story.

Look at these words:

"Mr. Speaker, I would like to offer through you and to you to every member in the House my deepest apologies...

Therefore, I feel absolutely compelled that I must stand here today and publicly apologize to a number of people....

To say that I am ashamed is not putting it in context and certainly not putting it in strong enough terms....

All I can say is that I hope that over the passage of time, my apologies will be accepted....

The only explanation that I can give to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the members of this House, is that I was stupid, thoughtless, and insensitive. I am not using that as a defence...."

We have grown accustomed to pseudo apologies. The pleas for forgiveness if the words were taken the wrong way or the intent is misunderstood. But this is a real apology and I can tell you that the offended parties have accepted it. How could they not?

Mr. Lukiwski and I may not have the same political outlook, but I can tell you that he has my respect.

A Mirror Of "I'm Kwiziperzalcame Mulgomilimop, Crown Prince Of Nigeria"

2008-04-04T17:29:00.000-07:00

We've all seen those scam emails from the bank manager or crown prince in some foreign country who needs your assistance to cash a large sum of money, and if you help them you will assuredly be rewarded with a percentage of the sum total. All you need to do is provide a good faith token of your trustworthiness by putting some money up front.

Well it turns out that not only are the foreign scam artists taking our money, but at least one of us seems to be returning the favor with a scam which defrauds the Nigerian government. McClatchey tracked down this veritable man bites dog story by using the Google to search for the name of one Kase Lawal.

One may wonder just why Mr. Lawal would deserve such a query by a McClatchey reporter in the Google? The answer my friends if because Lawal is one of the top fundraisers for Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

McClatchey reports that Lawal is the latest of several Clinton fundraisers to be found in a bit of a legal difficulty overseas. The list includes a Miami lawyer convicted of defrauding Cuba, a fugitive from China and Ray Jinnah... who filed for bankruptcy seven times between 1999 and 2001. That must be a record for default upon default.

Jinnah is on the FBI's featured fugitives list after fleeing to our stalwart ally in the war on terror, Pakistan. What is it about Pakistan and people who don't want to be found by American authorities? But I digress!

Niwal is the the owner of one of the worlds largest black owned businesses. There are many aspects to Niwal which remind me of this years presidential politics. He is well connected with the Clinton's, partly shares Senator Obama's ethnicity, and represents everything we loathe about the Bush regime by being a corrupt Texas oilman.

This all comes as quite a shock to the Clinton camp, who insist they intensively vet donors to catch these types of issues. Have the Clinton vetting people ever heard of the Google?

Finally, while I'm going off on the people who Clinton is associating with, let me put in my two cents on the Mark Penn met with Colombian officials to lobby for a trade agreement which Senator Clinton does not purport to support mini scandal.

What in the world keeps this guy on the Clinton campaign? He must have something that would really bury the Clintons. Penn is payed millions of dollars a month from a cash starved campaign and he can be counted upon to prove embarrassing to that campaign at least once a week. After all of the back biting and internecine warfare in the Clinton camp, with everyone else against him, even after Penn publicly threw the rest of the senior staff under the bus and then disavowed any control in the campaign at all immediately prior to their triumph in Texas and Ohio, he is still there. And still causing embarrassment for the Clintons!

Sarah Powers was sacked after saying Hillary was "a monster". She didn't mean a literal "monster" as in un-human beast of indeterminate species who eats children. She was speaking figuratively. Her comments did not cost any American their jobs excepting that she lost hers. That example stands in direct contrast to Penn, who is lobbying for a trade pact which would cost American jobs and have a real impact on the lives of thousands.

If he hangs on after this there MUST be a conspiracy involved. Penn has to have some real dirt on the Clintons and he's getting paid the big bucks to keep it under wraps. What other explanation could there possibly be at this point?

Curse You Feith!

2008-04-04T16:50:00.000-07:00

Created by OnePlusYou

Around 1.9% of the pages on your website contain cussing.
This is 76% LESS than other websites who took this test.

I am convinced that my family friendly score was damaged dramatically bythis post from 04/02 in which I quote, without censoring but with forewarning, Douglas Feith's take on people who care about America's moral standing in the world. But still... 1.9% is pretty good when you are looking at nearly 3 years of often passionate commentary on the issues of the day, even if I did ruin it by quoting a vulgar neocon.

Lt.General Odom Makes The Case

2008-04-03T18:55:00.000-07:00

Check out the transcript of Lt. General William Odom's statement favoring rapid and orderly withdrawal by the American military from Iraq as the best strategy, which was given before the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs.

The one highlight I would give to this masterpiece is towards the end of Odom's statement. The following point is the crux of the issue and expressed so well by Odom that I will end the post with his words:

[I]t is insisted that chaos will follow our withdrawal. We heard that argument as the “domino theory” in Vietnam. Even so, the path to political stability will be bloody regardless of whether we withdraw or not. The idea that the United States has a moral responsibility to prevent this ignores that reality. We are certainly to blame for it, but we do not have the physical means to prevent it. American leaders who insist that it is in our power to do so are misleading both the public and themselves if they believe it. The real moral question is whether to risk the lives of more Americans. Unlike preventing chaos, we have the physical means to stop sending more troops where many will be killed or wounded. That is the moral responsibility to our country which no American leaders seems willing to assume.

Boehner's Bewildering Babbling Brings Bemusement

2008-04-03T18:02:00.000-07:00

The Hill is reporting that House Minority leader John Boehner has declared his belief that Republicans will pick up House seats in the coming election. You read that correctly: Boehner predicts Republicans will actually gain seats in the House in this years election.

I'm not sure what Boehner is smoking, but it can't be legal.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has $5.1 million while the Democratic Congressional Committee has $38 million. To Boehner this financial discrepency presents no cause for concern though because he says Republicans do not need as much money as Democrats. They only need enough to "tell our story".

If Boehner keeps spouting off with delusional fantasies like this, he might have a point actually. At some point very soon the major news outlets are bound to start devoting plenty of free air time describing how the Republican House leadership appears to have taken leave of their senses for some unknown reason.

The Hill points out that today's fiscal happy talk from Boehner stands in opposition to his take on the issue when he is talking to House Republicans behind closed doors:

Earlier this year, he reportedly told House GOP lawmakers to get off their “dead asses” and raise more money for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).

If The Hill were not a respected source for political news I would swear this was lifted word for word from the Onion. Maybe Boehner has a fantastic sense of humor and was having a good time with a gullible reporter. Just check out the following quote and try to tell me it isn't one of the most humorous lines from a politician in recent memory:

Asked who was best suited to join McCain on the Republican ticket, Boehner said the running mate must be younger than McCain

Is there even a choice here? They would have to dig up a grave yard to find someone who didn't fit Boehners age criteria. I know McCain would love to have Reagan on the ticket but he just can't, because Boehner would not approve! McCainiacs around the nation must cringe every time their mans age becomes the topic of conversation, and here Boehner is just tossing it out there for no apparent reason than to give the rest of us a hearty laugh.

Anyone who has watched Boehner talk for any amount of time has to know he didn't intend for this to be funny. He is dour, hostile and at times weepy, but hardly a humorist. Which makes this even funnier from my perspective.

The Weakest Clinton Argument Yet

2008-04-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

Let me begin by acknowledging with appreciation a change in tone by the Clinton campaign of late. It seems that most of the eruptions are coming from stories which reach reporters regarding behind the scenes occurrences. Bill Clinton's blow up with the California super delegates was not intended for public viewing. The interaction between Hillary and Governor Bill Richardson, when he called to let her know he would support Obama, was not intended for TV. The Clinton campaign's supporters and surrogates, have every right to feel strongly one way or the other and can be expected to express themselves accordingly. It is only when they set about tearing up Obama on the national stage that I start really taking exception to their tactics. So from my little pipsqueak blog, let me acknowledge the recent civil public demeanor of the Clinton campaign with appreciation.

So let me get past the pleasantry and onto the business at hand, because when the logic posited by the Clinton campaign seeps from the smoke filled rooms into the general news cycle I believe it is fitting to respond. In the last couple of days we have heard a lot of news filtering out that the Clinton campaign are making appeals to super delegates based upon the logic that Senator Barack Obama is not electable in the general election.

Even if this were true (it is not) the logical conclusion would only serve to weaken the Clinton campaign. How is it that Senator Clinton is being beaten by a candidate who she says can not win? This argument may have made sense if they were positing it prior to Senator Clinton losing all these contests, but to go to the supers with the logic that she is being trounced by someone who can not beat McCain is just plain silly.

Douglas Feith Paraphrased: Abe Lincoln Sides With A**holes, To Put It Crudely

2008-04-02T14:32:00.000-07:00

Those interested in the hideous torture regime instituted by the Bush administration have been flooded with reams of information the last couple of days. (Glenn Greenwald, as can be expected, offers a stellar treatise on the Yoo memo, in which Greenwald concludes that Yoo and others who facilitated torture at the highest levels are guilty of war crimes.)

The extensive article in today's Vanity Fair titled The Green Light is simply a must read. Philippe Sands has exhaustively detailed the progression which led to the first policy explicitly authorizing the use of torture by the military of the United States of America. I realize full well that the previous American record is spotty at best, and there have been many instances of clandestine initiatives which crossed the line, but we have always held the official position that torturing captives was repugnant and would not be tolerated. Thanks to the Bush administration, we now have the first time in our nation's history that a President has ever attempted to give a legal justification for a regime of institutionalized torture.

Among those interviewed by Sands for the article was former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith. Feith was 3rd in the Pentagon's chain of command, immediately under Donald Rumsefeld and Paul Wolfowitz. Feith comes across as matter-of-fact and unapologetic for the role he played in this sorry affair.

During the interview Sands asked Feith if he felt that abrogating the Geneva Conventions served to diminish America's moral authority around the world. Let me forewarn certain readers (like my in-laws) that Feith's response contains a bit of profanity. "'The problem with moral authority,' [Feith] said, was 'people who should know better, like yourself, siding with the assholes, to put it crudely.'"

Let me state for the record that I am freaking defiantly proud that Douglas Feith would consider me to be siding with a-holes if he were to ever meet me or read this blog. I am honored to join the cheeky ranks of a-hole siders like Colin Powell, George Washington, and just about every military officer and JAG who has expressed an opinion on torture.

Frankly I consider Feith to be on the side of a-holes for his role in trying to provide legalisms and shoddy logic in an effort to defy over 230 years of American tradition on the issue of torture. I'll even go one better and state that Doug Feith doesn't just side with a-holes, he is one himself. Here is proof positive of Feiths a-holiness:

Feith, for his part, had told me that he knew nothing about any specific interrogation issues until the Haynes Memo suddenly landed on his desk. But that couldn’t be right—in the memo itself Haynes had written, “I have discussed this with the Deputy, Doug Feith and General Myers.” I read the sentence aloud. Feith looked at me. His only response was to tell me that I had mispronounced his name. “It’s Fythe,” he said. “Not Faith.”

Great comeback, Mr. Faith. From labeling Sands and those concerned about America's moral standing as on the side of a-holes to becoming unresponsive when busted in an obvious lie, it is painfully evident that the Feith/Sands interview was a bit of a train wreck.

Sands writes about a trip to Guantanamo Bay taken by the highest level lawyers for the administration on September 25. The result of that trip was a memo which specified 18 techniques which were authorized for use at GITMO:

The list was set out in a three-page memorandum from Lieutenant Colonel Jerald Phifer, dated October 11 and addressed to Dunlavey.

The Phifer Memo identified the problem: “current guidelines” prohibited the use of “physical or mental torture, threats, insults, or exposure to inhumane treatment as a means of or aid to interrogation.” The prohibition dated back to 1863 and a general order issued by Abraham Lincoln.

The list of new interrogation techniques turned its back on this tradition.

Just think about the national emergency which Abraham Lincoln presided over and then the emergency presented to President Bush on 9/11. Let me make this clear up front: In no way am I trying to diminish the horrible nature of the terrorist attacks. 9/11 was indeed a disastrous emergency, which absolutely was among the worst presented to any President. But on the scales of threat to the very existence of the nation, there is only one other event which I would place over the Civil War. That singular threat was the Revolutionary War, and in both cases Lincoln and Washington clearly stated that inhumane treatment of prisoners was not acceptable.

Lincoln guided the nation through a trial of bloodletting and cataclysm with more than a few days of death dealt on a greater scale than 9/11. He was agonized by repeated defeats, and the war aged him terribly. He mourned the dead and sacrificed his health, while upholding a prohibition on the inhumane treatment of prisoners. It is that American heritage and tradition which this administration turned away from following 9/11.

Indeed, my assessment that 9/11 was not as critical a threat to America as the Civil or Revolutionary wars may be wrong, simply because our nation's leadership has fundamentally altered what it once meant to be an American. Now people concerned about our moral standing in the world are a-holes as defined by the very people responsible for getting us to this point in the game.

Finally I must note one other part of the Sands article which begs for comment:

Ideas [for techniques to use in interrogations] arose from other sources. The first year of Fox TV’s dramatic series 24 came to a conclusion in spring 2002, and the second year of the series began that fall. An inescapable message of the program is that torture works. “We saw it on cable,” Beaver recalled. “People had already seen the first series. It was hugely popular.” Jack Bauer had many friends at Guantánamo, Beaver added. “He gave people lots of ideas.”

Our national honor has been stained by torture, and a freaking TV series is part of the problem here? You have GOT to be KIDDING me!! It is nearly beyond comprehension from my perspective. I'm really at a loss for words here. A fictional character on a TV series guiding interrogators. Pathetic! Well done, President Bush, you have managed to replace the principles of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington with those of a fictional television character. This must be the handiwork of The. Worst. President. Ever.

That Which Should be, But Is Not

2008-03-31T17:56:00.000-07:00

There has been a pretty effective counterattack by Senator Clinton's campaign against the recent wave of punditry who were calling on her to quit the campaign.

Senator Obama took the high road here and affirmed Clinton's "right" to keep campaigning lest he appear to have un-democratic ideals. Of course his immediate surrogates must also follow the official line, so it has become widely accepted orthodoxy in the last couple of days that Clinton should not withdraw from the race.

The Workday Liberal is little read and I have no ties whatsoever to the Obama campaign so let me spit the wrong way into the wind and affirm the seemingly defunct notion that Senator Clinton should indeed withdraw from the Democratic nomination. The following are truisms from my perspective. These are the veritable things which the Clinton camp claim should be, but which actually are not. The logic which is posited by those who favor her continuation in the race sounds good in soundbites, but the least bit of prodding shows those arguments to be entirely empty of substance.

Before I continue, let me establish a basic premise which I am more than willing to defend if pushed to do so. The odds favoring Barack Obama to be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States are overwhelming. The odds that Hillary Clinton can be the nominee are prohibitive. We're talking 95%-05% odds here and that number tilts more in Obama's favor with each passing day. Having established this premise let me take an honest look at the arguments posited by those who favor Clinton remaining in the race.

The most common argument for Hillary to soldier on is invariably an appeal for allowing all of the people to be heard. "Why not let the final few states have their say in the process and then settle the outcome?" ask the Clinton dead enders. Today we heard that over 40 million people have not voted, and Obama wants to end the voting. My reply: It is a very rare circumstance when the nomination process allows for all of the states to have a say in who wins. Understandably, this is the process the parties prefer because allowing the nomination to drag on and on tends to cause division and strife in the party. Typically the evident nominee is allowed to sweep through the majority of the primaries uncontested, despite the fact that the given nominee has not garnered the number of delegates needed to win the nomination outright when the other candidates leave the race. The later states may not appreciate having little or no say in the nomination (see Fl. & Mi.), but it has been a given for decades that the nomination would be settled prior to the final votes being cast.

I look at this plea for allowing all of the votes to count as a stall tactic by the Clinton campaign. If it is true that Obama will be the nominee unless some earth shattering event happens I wonder why the sudden concern for all the states to vote in order to decide what, for all intents and purposes, we already know.

The next most common argument follows the logic that if Hillary can win Pa. by a landslide, and sweep the majority of the coming races, and we allow for Fl. and Mi. to count, that she would win the popular vote and be able to make an appeal to the super delegates to not overturn the will of the people. To which I respond that if a UFO traveled across the universe and panned for gold in just the right spot, and then bagged up the results and left the bag on my porch, that I would wind up being independently wealthy. Both scenarios are theoretically possible I suppose (and I'm even willing to stipulate here that Clinton's scenario has a slightly better chance) but neither is going to happen. The only state which Clinton has won the popular vote by margins she would need is Arkansas. She would have to have Arkansas type landslides in multiple states to win the popular vote and she simply has not shown the ability to pull that off. Further, Clinton trails Obama by ten points in the latest polls nationwide, which makes future landslides even more unlikely.

The oldest arguments from the Clinton side have them appealing to superdelegates to overturn the delegate and popular vote to give the nomination to someone who can defeat McCain in November. We are told that this is the exact reason that superdelegates were given their status in the process... to stop the next McGovern. To which I say that Obama is no McGovern, and the only way he will become one is if he is hobbled by repeated attacks from both the left and the right for the next several months. Indeed, hobbling Obama may well be the entire purpose of the Clinton campaign at this point. Just to be fair, though, let me note that I have sensed a certain pullback recently from the most negative and personal attacks. I believe this is because Senator Clinton's negatives really shot up while Senator Obama remained on course with his numbers during the recent nastiness.

Really, what it comes down to is that the Clintons must know the damage they would do to themselves and the party if they do what they must to make the "Obama is McGovern" line actually work with the superdelegates. Besides, if Hillary is really more electable than Obama she sure has a weird way of showing it by losing election after election during the nomination process.

Which brings me to several lines from the Clinton camp which are really too laughable to even give the opposing viewpoint on. Clinton is winning big states which means Obama would lose them to McCain? The Electoral College map somehow relates to the primary? You can trust Clinton to answer the phone at 3 am? It's like they are trying to play Jedi mind tricks on us gullible citizens. Unfortunately for them those mind tricks only work when employed by Jedi Knights... anyone else trying to use them just winds up looking silly.

So yes... for the good of the Democratic party and the nation, in the best interests of defeating John McCain this November, Hillary Clinton should step aside and support our nominee. If you are not convinced by that summation, maybe that's because I am not a Jedi Knight...

Timmeh Lets Hayden Off The Hook

2008-03-31T11:47:00.000-07:00

The following exchange on yesterdays Meet The Press made me yell at the T.V. when I watched it.

MR. RUSSERT: This is an article, Friday's paper: "[Iraqi] Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ... decided to launch the offensive without consulting his U.S. allies, according to administration officials. With little U.S. presence in the south, and British forces in Basra confined to an air base outside the city, one administration official said that, `we can't quite decipher' what is going on. It's a question, he said, of `who's got the best conspiracy' theory about why Maliki decided to act now." The United States was not informed by the Iraqis that we--he was going to do this?

GEN. HAYDEN: I, I don't know what on--what went on on the ground in Baghdad prior to the operation. I do know that this was a decision of the Iraqi government by the prime minister and personally by the prime minister, and that he's relying on Iraqi forces, by and large, to take this action.

MR. RUSSERT: Were you aware of it?

GEN. HAYDEN: I was--in terms of being prebriefed or, or having, you know, the, the normal planning process in which you build up to this days or weeks ahead of time, no. No, I was not.

MR. RUSSERT: You didn't know it was going to happen?

GEN. HAYDEN: No more so than Dave Petraeus or Ambassador Crocker did.

This exchange was a huge dodge by CIA Director Michael Hayden. In fact a close reading of his answer makes it appear that the CIA did not plan the operation which touched off all the fighting, but was very much informed what was coming up. As were Dave Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, apparently.

Tim Russert is supposed to be some sort of tough bull dog type interviewer, but in this case his quick pivot from the Hayden dodge to other matters was frustrating. When the CIA director ends the response with "No more so than Dave Petraeus or Ambassador Crocker did", any self respecting interviewer should absolutely probe as to what Petraeus and Crocker knew in that case. It was an obvious followup which left the audience hanging, and me yelling "so what did they know?!" at the screen, when Russert moved on.

As to the question which Hayden dodged (when did the Iraqi's inform the Americans they were moving into Basra?) I don't pretend to be an expert in such affairs, but it hardly seems surprising that the director of the CIA would not be involved in actually planning an Iraqi military operation. That would be the purview of military planners, like Dave Petraeus. In fact I would hardly expect the head of the CIA to personally give a briefing on the situation in Basra relating to such an operation, even if CIA intelligence did play a role.

If there is one word I would use to define the Hayden dodge that word would be truthy. Truthy answers are technically correct, but intrinsically misleading. No one can accuse Hayden of actually lying, but his answers are hardly responsive to the question at hand. Russert really should not have allowed the topic to drift after such an obvious dodge.

There must be a reason for the truthy answer given by Hayden, and I think Congress has a chance to get to the bottom of the matter by asking the pertinent questions to one of the people which Hayden mentioned. General Petraeus visits Congress later this week to give his regular report on the progress of the surge. I do hope Congress sees fit to ask him the questions which Russert would not ask Hayden. The last time Petraeus made the Congressional rounds he brought Ambassador Crocker with him. So if Crocker is going to tag along maybe Congress could get his take on this as well.

The question I have is this: What would be wrong with the Americans being forewarned of a move into Basra. In fact I would rather expect such a high stakes military operation to be expressly signed off on by the ruling military power of Iraq. We can't have thousands of troops and all that equipment moving about the countryside without America knowing about it or someone might get injured, or even killed by mistake. *snark*

So there must be a reason why the administration is out there acting like they were completely caught off guard by the Basra operation. I can think of two reasons. Or to be more precise, I see two extremes of the same reason.

1st is the benign outlook that the operation truly was a wholly Iraqi endeavor and the administration does not want to leave the slightest impression that Americans were involved in operational planning. Under this kinder and gentler explanation, we would have been given the details solely for the purpose of not having Americans bomb and strafe and otherwise molest the Iraqi convoys as they moved to Basra.

The other option has a more conspiratorial outlook, which is fitting when we consider that the administration itself has invited conspiracy theorists to speculate on why Maliki chose to move now. Americans, for obvious reasons, did not want to leave the impression that they were actually the instigators behind this operation. They intended to show the world that the Iraqi government was starting to gain the ability to handle itself. Under this theory the Bush administration would have pushed Maliki to make his move at a politically strategic time: immediately prior to the next report on the surge to Congress by Petraeus and leading in to the general election, providing fodder to McCain in claiming that Iraq was showing progress. If this outlook is true, we have witnessed a mirror image of the Bush administration instigated Israeli/Hezbollah debacle: Washington pushed Maliki to plan it himself and then carry it out, and the results were hardly what we were hoping for.

It may well be the case that the truth lies in the middle of the extremes. Maybe we would have claimed foreknowledge for informational purposes alone, but then everything went sour with the operation. The administration would want to completely forswear anything which would unfairly implicate them in yet another military adventure gone wrong, ala the American instigated Israeli invasion of Lebanon to root out Hezbollah which went so horribly awry.

For what it's worth, I tend to side with the more conspiratorial outlook.

Dem's Fighting Words

2008-03-29T13:34:00.000-07:00

I've just read a column on Alternet by John Dolan which I think is spot on. Dolan writes that liberals need to stop policing the language we use when engaging the other side and start getting confrontational, in order to gain support from the constituencies which Dolan thinks we need to start flaming.

This may seem counter intuitive, but Dolan's explanation makes sense when given due consideration. By way of example, Dolan singles out the 2004 race which he believes was the perfect example in which a Democrat could have gained real traction by responding with fighting words, rather than trying to rise above the fray. John Kerry is a decorated war hero, and he was running against George Bush, who was an awol party kid even as Kerry was serving with distinction and honor. Yet it was Kerry who found himself trying to remain dignified even as he was slimed by the same old set of GOP bullies who crawl out from under their rocks every election cycle. Here is the narrative which should have consumed the news when Kerry was initially swiftboated as related by Dolan:

Would he defend himself when called out by the gang of disgusting bullies Bush had gathered around himself? It would have been so simple, so glorious, if he'd just turned on his accusers and reacted like a human being: "You're questioning my record on behalf of a skunk like Bush who spent the war with the Alabama National Guard, and then went AWOL from the Guard?"

Millions of American voters were waiting, hoping Kerry would react like any sane person would have. He never did. I don't know why not; I assume he was in the hands of some Clinton gurus who babbled about "rising above the fray." Well, that sure worked well.

But the call for lefties to start getting confrontational goes beyond just defending ourselves when attacked by the GOP mudslingers. Dolan writes, and I agree, that we need to start going on the offense with blunt language which will probably offend various groups at some point. Liberals need to stop worrying about sanitizing our approach in such a way as to not offend this group or that cause, because it is the milktoast approach of Kerry, Dukakis, and Carter which gave liberalism a bad name. This explains how the conservatives won election after election even though they held positions which the majority of the electorate do not agree with. That held true until 2006 when Allen of Virginia, Tester of Montana and a whole slough of Democratic candidates stood up, fought back and were swept into power. Bush ran around the country using the same old canards that if Democrats won the terrorists won, and we responded with derision rather than meekly letting him say it because we did not want to offend.

The white men which fled the party in droves during the Reagan years know full well that they are voting against their own interests. They just want us liberals to stop being such pantywaists when we tell them whats up. They want to fight for the cause they believe in, and if we give them the impression that fighting for that cause is verboten then they'll go where they are welcome.

Besides, as Dolan notes, the history of actual violence in the cause of American liberalism is a glorious one. Liberal movements and armies fighting for the cause of liberalism have killed British Redcoats, Confederates and Nazis by the hundreds of thousands, and we as a nation take pride in this. Which is not to say that we lefties should start a fist fight with the next Republican we come across. We should recognize that Americans honor a liberal heritage of confrontation against many of the same interests we are afraid to even honestly debate today. Modern liberals must find a way to rid ourselves of the reputation for being milktoast fuddy duddys who are afraid of saying this or that because someone listening might take offense.

Anyone who has read my rantings for any amount of time knows full well that I would whole heartedly agree with Dolan on this. I've never shied away from letting the other side know in no uncertain terms exactly where I'm coming from and what makes them so freaking wrong headed. The only stricture which I place upon myself in these rants is that I will not use gratuitous profanity. This is simply because of the way I was raised and the people I am surrounded by who have occasion to read this blog every so often. But that doesn't stop me from applying plenty of strong terms for the other side, like koolaid drinking dunderheaded administration toady... well you get the point I'm sure. So I would encourage anyone reading this blog who knows what is up with the state of American politics, but can not bring themselves to side with the effete left to switch parties, and do your part to give the verbiage used by the left a bit more of an edge. Take my word for it: There are plenty of opportunities to take shots at the right, and it can be quite a bit of fun actually.

All this might be moot in very short order anyway. If Barack Obama manages to change the political landscape we may move beyond the need to rip the other side a new one every so often. But I just know that the general election is going to see more than a few unfair and scummy eruptions directed from the right at Obama, so I'll be doing my small part to give it right back at them as we progress.

Of Crisis Management And Strange Bedfellows

2008-03-28T17:22:00.000-07:00

There has been a fundamental change in the last day or two in the campaign. Even though the Clinton campaign publicly proclaims a determination to take this to the convention it is becoming more evident every minute how this is going to wind up. It feels like the flow of events on the campaign trail is making what follows somewhat perfunctory. I've sensed a bit of a pull back by the Clinton campaign from the brink of the cliff over which they, for a time, seemed to be intent on driving the Democratic party.

Senator Obama has weathered a real storm over the last couple of weeks. It began when the media decided that they had not been aggressive enough following the Clinton campaign playing up a skit on Saturday Night Live. So the media started glomming onto any little thing they could catch which cast Obama in a less than favorable light. THEN Jeremiah Wright re-exploded on the Obama campaign. The entire narrative for a week focused on Obama's America-hating angry black preacher problem. The Clinton campaign ratcheted up the pressure on a daily basis harping on Michigan, Florida and electability (although they did not play up the Wright affair as heavily as the Republicans will). Out of all this Obama has emerged relatively unscathed, demonstrating a real ability to fend off repeated bad cycles and not lose ground.

At the same time Senator Clinton stumbled badly into the Bosnian affair. Senator Clinton placed herself in a bad situation and never recovered. Her reply to the controversy has further damaged her in my opinion by adding another layer of prevarication on top of the original. Further, Clinton seemed to disqualify herself from taking emergency phone calls if she is sleep deprived.

This was a head to head petri dish experiment in crisis management by the two candidates, and Obama won with flying colors. Senator Obama gave a response which is widely acclaimed as one of the most important statements in modern history on the issue of race to answer his crisis, but Senator Clinton only dug her hole deeper.

As we wrap things up on this race it is telling that Senator Clinton has taken up with some tried and true card carrying members of the vast right wing conspiracy. We hyper-political lefties took notice when she gave an interview to the National Review Online, sitting elbow to elbow with Richard Melon Scaife. Scaife is one of the worst, having financed much of the movement in the 90's devoted to proving the various anti-Clinton slanders like how Vince Foster was murdered at the First Lady's behest and the President was running drugs with a trail of bodies left in their wake etc. etc. etc... It was this NRO/Scaife interview which was the platform by which Senator Clinton just answered the question as to whether or not she would attend services led by Jeremiah Wright.

Clinton followed up that appearance by going to Fox News and declaring that she was taking the Michigan and Florida cause to the convention and daring the Democratic party to follow the rules she previously agreed to.

A change is in the air, so I really don't want to make this another slam Hillary every chance I get post. Let me just give my opinion as to what is really going on with the right wing's newfound willingness to extend Senator Clinton aid and comfort during this hour of need.

The VRWC is obviously using the Clinton campaign to cause dissension in the ranks of the Democratic party. In fact many of them are quite open about it. Witness Limbaugh with his operation chaos scheme, calling on his listeners to vote for Hillary to win the nomination while never intending to vote for her in the fall. They want to split the Democratic party and damage our putative nominee, using the Clintons to do it. It must really give them some sort of perverse joy to think that the family who drove them positively batty for so many years now offers to serve as an unwitting tool for use against the Democratic party.

But I have no doubt that once the dust has settled that the deranged right will exult in the fall of Senator Clinton. They will be hateful, venomous, unfair and uncouth once more when the Clintons are the topic of conversation. Politics may make strange bedfellows, but if Senator Clinton thinks that these bedfellows are going to keep being all supportive after her use for them is over then she is in store for a very nasty surprise.

Really though, she must know the truth about these characters... and in my opinion this is a measure of the true state of affairs in the Democratic nomination. Senator Clinton is willing to use the talking points and mouthpieces of her long long time enemies to attack Senator Obama because that is all she has going for her right now. I almost pity her at this point.

Right Wing Iraq Delusion Exposed In Real Time

2008-03-27T14:45:00.000-07:00

You've really got to hand it to the stateside war cheerleaders. They have set all new standards for being absolutely bull headed in the face of incontrovertible evidence that they are just wrong. It has reached absurd levels now with President Bush concluding that the upheaval in Iraq demonstrates the rule of law and political stability at the grass roots level.

Glenn Greenwald (who is simply a blog superstar who can not be missed on a daily basis) destroys noted war pusher Fred Kagan for proclaiming on Monday that the civil war in Iraq was over. Fred actually had the temerity to say that people who did not see his truth would have a very hard time discussing Iraq "on the basis of reality". Hopefully you did not read that immediately after drinking a beverage, or you are probably having to clean off the monitor and keyboard following an enormous spit take.

Why anyone is taking these people seriously at this stage of the game baffles me. Why would a respected television program want to interview Kagan about Iraq after five solid years of uninterrupted and demonstrable stupidity.

John McCain parroted the pro-occupation talking points in the foreign policy speech he delivered just yesterday. Two full days into the latest upheaval in Iraq, he wound down his major foreign policy speech with a litany of security gains and political achievements which, McCain contends, never would have been realized without the troop surge. Even after it was readily apparent that a seismic upheaval was engulfing Iraq McCain could not adjust his talking points laden speech in order to account for reality on the ground. For war cheerleaders the surge of troops into Baghdad is used to explain events around the entire nation of Iraq. The truth is that most of what we were benefiting from was the result of bribery and short term political gamesmanship which was very tenuous and may cause real harm to our interests in the long run by funding, arming and training our avowed enemies.

The McCain speech simply continues a long and rich tradition of war cheerleaders being completely and demonstrably wrong about Iraq. Senator McCain is one of the brightest stars in the universe of wrong headed Iraqi policy wonks. McCain is the founding member of the school of war proponents who seek to demonstrate separation from the ongoing Bush disaster, not by being against the entire endeavor from the beginning, but by contending Bush wasn't ham handed enough from the start. They believe America should have thrown more troops into the quagmire which, if anything, is even more detached from reality than the Bush administration and their steady enablers have been from the beginning.

Meanwhile, if the report from the TimesOnline is true, not only are the war cheerleaders completely off base with the rosy outlooks, but we are witnessing a real threat to our puppet government. According to that report the Iraqi army is stalled and dealing with mass defections in Basra, the anti-Maliki Shiites are taking over neighborhoods in Baghdad and we are on the verge of a real meltdown. The Iraqi spokesperson for "the Baghdad security operation" was kidnapped and three of his bodyguards killed, which just about says it all from my perspective.

So this is peace, stability, and grass roots political achievement from the perspective of the right wing loons. I'm certain we'll all tune in tomorrow for the next talking points laden rose colored happy talk tall tale from the usual set of war cheerleaders... At some point maybe the nation will stop tuning in to those right wing fools, and then we can start taking the first steps towards ending this disaster. Or we can elect John McCain for at least another four years of the same old same old.

On Gaffes And Misspeaking

2008-03-26T18:15:00.000-07:00

The recent firestorm over Senator Clinton's description of her Bosnia trip lead her to explain that she had misspoken. When Senator McCain incorrectly associated Iran with Al Qaeda in Iraq the national media were quick to term it as a gaffe. The media covering the McCain campaign were even disposed to term the mistake a gaffe after the McCain campaign reiterated their belief in the tie between Al Qaeda and Iran the day after McCain was called on his mistake in front of the cameras by Senator Lieberman.

The two statements which caused the Clinton and McCain campaigns such embarrassment are very similar. Both claims are demonstrably wrong, but both candidates did not make the mistaken claim one time with immediate correction. The claims were made over the course of several appearances. How can it be that a talking point used multiple times is shrugged off as a misstatement or a gaffe?

If we are honest with each other, these statements are proof that the candidate which uses them is forwarding a known lie in order to further their own political ends. I contend that knowingly promulgating a falsehood is not misspeaking or a gaffe. It is an attempt to deceive the American people and it would be refreshing if the electorate were considered adult enough to be able to hear this unvarnished truth. Hillary lied about her Bosnia trip. And John lied about Iran backing Al Qaeda in Iraq.

There was motivation behind each of these lies. The war in Iraq has a long and rich history of the people who supported the invasion and support a continued occupation using deceit to further their ends. John McCain is surrounded by people who think it would be in our best interests to strike Iran... his spiritual advisor goes so far as to believe that doing so will bring on Armageddon which would be a grand thing from his perspective. If past experience is an indicator for those who care about such things, Senator McCain has just sent an unmistakable signal that he is willing to twist the facts and distort reality in such a way as to give the worst impression of Iran possible. He is signalling his embrace of Bushism and all of the deadly, bellicose and deceitful mannerisms which Bush has come to define. I suppose the major possible difference between McCain and Bush would come down to a question of competence at this point.

Senator Clinton's deceit was based upon the fact that she has founded her campaign upon her experience. The Bosnia lie was a classic case of resume embellishment but for the fact that it was also very stupid in concept. Usually an embellishment on a resume can not be disproved by simply going to the video archives of any of the major news networks. The fact that Senator Clinton thought she could add such vivid embellishment in this case demonstrates a contempt for the electorate. It's like she was expecting to simply have her story accepted at face value and her word is so trusted that no one would even bother to check the archives. I think it demonstrates incompetence. She thought she could get away with something which really blew up in her face and anyone who thought about it for more than ten seconds could have seen the outcome. The Bosnia embellishment may not disqualify her from the office, but it does remind me... again... of the current president because of the audacious creation of an alternate reality, incompetence, and dishonesty.

But it is time for the media to start treating us like adults when it comes to long used "gaffes" and a candidate repeatedly "misspeaking". Just be honest and call it what it is: a lie.

Sleep Deprived And Misspoke

2008-03-25T18:34:00.000-07:00

Senator Clinton tried to explain her Bosnian landing tall tale away by saying "I was sleep deprived and misspoke".

Is that really the person you want answering the red phone at 3am in the morning? Just imagine the smoking rubble which might result from her babbling away after being confronted with a crisis decision on only an hour or two of sleep...

Kitchen sink... meet trampoline.

Clinton's Conceit Is A Self Fullfilling Prophecy

2008-03-25T11:56:00.001-07:00

As the Clinton campaign swirls the drain to their inevitable doom we see them desperately throwing out a myriad of arguments and excuses. One of the most prominent talking points lately has been to dwell upon the experience and electability of Senator McCain while making the argument that only Clinton can win against him in November. We've seen variations on this theme since immediately prior to Ohio and Texas and the much noted Clinton assertion that both she and McCain passed the commander in chief threshold, but Obama?... Not so much. The latest permutation on this talking point came from Bill Clinton yesterday when he said:

"She can win this race, and we have got to win. And she will win in Florida. And I must say that this new strategy of denying and disempowering and disenfranchising the voters in Florida and Michigan is I believe a terrible mistake."

In effect Clinton is saying that if the Democratic party follows the rules that we will lose the general election. We must bend and distort the rules in order to favor the Clintons in order to have any hope of defeating McCain. This position is nearly the definition of amorality: being indifferent to right or wrong, being for or against this or that action solely dependent upon whether it benefits Senator Clinton or not. But what else would we expect from Bill... and now it seems to have permeated the entire Clinton campaign. These statements on the Michigan & Florida debacles are just embarrassing when paired with the quotes and the signed affirmations by Hillary last fall that the votes in these states were meaningless. Bill continues to construct the logical fallacy that ONLY Hillary can defeat McCain in November by saying:

“Sen. McCain is not going to be easy to beat; he has always run well in Michigan. He will run pretty well in Florida. She can win. Look, if we win these four states we will win the White House; there is no point in doing this if we are not going to win."

It seems to me that the talking point that only Hillary can defeat McCain is the height of conceit by the Clinton campaign. It's not like Hillary is a fantastic campaigner with no baggage and all the answers who will sweep the electoral college map in November. There MUST be a reason that the Republican machine is pulling for Hillary to be coronated the nominee, and I don't think it's because they are all going to cheerlead her to victory in the general election. It's because Obama is imminently electable, does inspire, was right about Iraq, and offers hope. McCain and the rest of the Republican establishment know who is most likely to defeat them in November and they are not out there trying to take down Clinton in case you haven't noticed.

Steve Benen at The Carpetbagger Report tries his best to put a positive interpretation on the logic which seems to drive the Clinton campaign by writing:

[A]t Clinton HQ right now, a team of advisers are likely thinking, “If Obama’s the nominee, Democrats lose. We may be the only ones who realize it, and we may only have a 10% shot, but we need to keep fighting, keep tearing Obama down, and keep this damaging process going in order to save the party and protect the party’s interests.”

It seems to me that this is a self fulfilling prophecy. The Clinton campaign says that only they are electable in the fall campaign and in order to be proven right they are savaging the evident Democratic nominee, doing their absolute best to make Senator Obama unelectable, just like they say he is. Hillary will look on the smoldering ruins of the Obama campaign the day after the general election and exult at the final vindication of her attempt to save the Democratic party from itself. She will destroy her party in order to save it... if she can't lead the Democratic party to victory then she will see to it that no one will.

The Clintons are doing real and lasting damage to their legacy in the party which once held them in very high esteem. The attempted destruction of Obama and the damage being wrought on the evident Democratic nominee by the Clinton machine will not soon be forgotten by many many party loyalists, like myself, who were once die hard and longstanding Clinton supporters. The sooner she ends this self destructive campaign the faster we can put this all behind us. Yet it is evident that Senator Clinton has no intention whatsoever of ending this train wreck, even going so far as to dwell upon the Reverend Wright controversy in various appearances today.

Of course she would go there. At this point, what else can we expect?

The Real Outcome That Merits 4,000 Dead

2008-03-24T17:14:00.000-07:00

I am more than just a little hot and bothered right now, and I warn the reader that what I'm about to pop off with would likely be prosecutable treason at certain times in this nations history. (Look up the Alien and Sedition acts for a starter.)

What has me in such a dither? This quote by President Bush:

"I have vowed in the past, and I will vow so long as I'm president, to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain _ that, in fact, there is an outcome that will merit the sacrifice,"

The president comes very close to pinpointing the precise logic which has lead to the deaths of 4000 young Americans, along with tens of thousands wounded and a gaping hole in the budget. When Bush states that this goes on "so long as I'm president" he begins to shine a light on the dark and cruel reality which guides him, and has guided him, in the closing years of his presidency.

Long after military victory was long since an impossibility, the sole purpose for this president in carrying on a bloody occupation was to simply pass the mess to the next president. To make the next president be the one who faces the inexorable drift set in motion by the demands of the people to be rid of this wasteful bloody endeavor. That is the goal which makes the deaths of thousands worth it for this horrible president. His freaking legacy. Shame!

This is the presidents true legacy: torture, lawlessness, the unprecedented loss of American prestige on the world stage, 9/11, the international metastasis of the enemy which struck us on 9/11, the loss of a great American city to a hurricane, trillions of dollars of debt for future generations to pay, and our military quagmired in the occupation of an Arab land, and now petulantly refusing to end his military adventure... insuring that the next president would have to clean up the mess causing yet more needless death for our military and innocent Iraqis by the thousands.

Frankly at this point, I do not trust the president to oversee a withdrawal if he were to come to his senses and decide to end this disaster on his own watch. All through his adult life he has proven singularly inept at managing large scale affairs. If the president were ever made to actually withdraw he would be brought to that point kicking and screaming and with all the petulance we have grown to find so freaking irritating. I shudder at the thought of the President botching the endeavor and the horrible train wreck which he may take our military, or more likely, the Iraqi people into.

Given my druthers the military would hunker down in their remote bases and play defense until an adult is given the presidency, and then let us withdraw in a sensible manner.

Eugene Oregon Welcomes The Next President Of The United States, Senator Obama

2008-03-21T17:35:00.000-07:00

Senator Barack Obama is going to be giving a speech tonight at Mac Court in my hometown of Eugene.

Unfortunately I won't be able to attend because I work late hours... and by the time I can get to the scene it will be a freaking mad house.

On the bright side, the next time Senator Obama comes to town there is a very good chance that I won't have any scheduling conflict because my job as a customer service agent has been outsourced to Panama and the Phillipines. I can't say who I work for until we have parted ways, but suffice to say that it is a company which has been known for the better part of a century as all American. Our center found out a couple of weeks ago that our final day would be April 30. Starting that day our customers will have a one in three chance of reaching an office in the United States when they call customer service.

To be honest with you, I am being given a nice severence and the job was hardly the top of the food chain when it comes to careers. But the next time you call customer service and reach a call center overseas, think of me standing in line to see an Obama event... because the powers that be have outsourced my job!

A Poem Of Peace, And A Tall Tale

2008-03-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post's Fact Checker is getting added to my favorites. Today their reporter Michael Dobbs has the pictures, a link to the video, and various other facts which utterly disprove a recent tall tale by Senator Clinton about her trip to Bosnia.

Here is Senator Clinton's recollection of the visit as related in a speech less than one week ago:

"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

Unfortunately for Senator Clinton technology has advanced to the point that mankind can take pictures and, believe it or not, if you take a several pictures in a row and then look at them with a device which plays those pictures in rapid sequence, you get what is known today as... video. So there are pictures and video of the first lady arriving in Bosnia. Wonder of wonders, it turns out that the speech detailing the race to the armored personell carriers under a hail of gunfire which is the stuff of first lady legend is not actually a very accurate telling of the event at all.

Clinton and her party were greeted on the tarmac by smiling U.S. and Bosnian officials. An eight-year-old Moslem girl, Emina Bicakcic, read a poem in English. An Associated Press photograph of the greeting ceremony, above, shows a smiling Clinton bending down to receive a kiss.

"There is peace now," Emina told Clinton, according to Pomfret's report in the Washington Post the following day, "because Mr. Clinton signed it. All this peace. I love it."

There is peace now, because Mr. Clinton signed it! What a beautiful poem... and how out of place as the pot shots from the snipers around the airfield kicked up the dirt and the mud all around the smiling dignitaries.

Senator Clinton has claimed that the reason she went to Bosnia in the first place is to carry on the good work of President Clinton, when it was too dangerous for the President to go himself. Thank goodness that Mrs. Clinton allowed herself to be targeted rather than the leader of the free world... except that is not quite the entire truth either. President Clinton visited the very same air base two months prior to the first lady.

Let me wrap this up with yet another observation on the state of this nomination race. I used to be a huge fan of the Clintons. Just search this blog and you will find many many instances in which I have supported both of them in some manner. But this kitchen sink strategy is doing permanent harm to the Clinton legacy in the Democratic party and I am a very small piece of evidence of that damage. If the Clinton campaign insists on further attacking the putative Democratic presidential nominee, I fear the damage done to the Clinton legacy in this party will be beyond recovery. The only option left for Clinton to win this nomination at this point (having superdelegates over rule the majority of the voters and the states in the national priamary) would result in riots at the Democratic convention, unless Barack Obama held back the mob in person. Is it really worth it for Clinton to try to get the nomination under such circumstances? Is it worth it for them to go all scorched earth and completely alienate the majority of the Democratic party, even if doing so would still mean it would be a miracle for her to be nominated?

If Senator Clinton thinks it is worth it under these circumstances to continue with her self destructive campaign then I think that serves as proof in it's own right that she is not showing the necessary good judgement to be the commander in chief.

The Clinton Democratic Incongruity

2008-03-21T13:06:00.000-07:00

The campaign of Senator Clinton has her making the rounds in Michigan calling for all the votes in that states primary, as well as Florida, to be counted. Senator Clinton is on a real freedom and democracy kick, claiming that not counting all of the votes would be un-American, an insult to democracy and everything Democrats stand for, and appealing to Senator Obama to come to his senses and stand against the forces of evil by siding with the Clinton campaign.

If the reader gets the sense that I am hardly convinced by the Clinton rationales on the Florida and Michigan debacles, the reader is absolutely correct.

I do hope the Clinton campaign remembers their appeal to count all of the votes and their take on the nature of democracy and the American way when it comes time to count all of the votes in the entire nomination. The only hope the Clinton campaign has is that the party bigwigs and back room dealers will over turn the express will of the voters in ALL of the primaries in order for the super delegates to let her steal the nomination from Senator Obama.

This seems disingenuous at best, and frankly seems more than a little desperate. The Clinton campaign has this great "come to Jesus" epiphany about the worthiness of counting all the votes in two states which they once agreed would not count, but has staked their entire campaign on a strategy which will depend on Clinton being chosen as the nominee despite not getting the majority of the votes.

McCain Continues Bush Practice Of Creating His Own Reality

2008-03-20T17:32:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post's Fact Checker is busy correcting the ongoing "gaffe" by Senator John McCain in which he ties Iran to Al Qaeda in Iraq. I believe the newest permutation to this story demonstrates a disturbing tendency by the McCain campaign which echoes two unique traits by the Bush administration that proved in combination to have disastrous effects. Those traits are the insistence that the world recognize a reality which is wholly of their own creation and the inability to ever admit error.

The Fact Checker takes note of a "fact check sheet" distributed by the McCain campaign which attempts to provide proof that Iran is supporting Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Fact Checker reports that the Senators top foreign policy advisor, Randy Scheunemann, is mounting a spirited defense of McCain's "gaffe". Rather than admitting that the Senator misspoke or being a bit confused as he repeated the "gaffe" over the course of several days, Scheunemann has provided several references which, according to the McCain campaign, verify that McCain was correct all along.

First off, I've evidently adhered to the wrong definition of the term "gaffe" for nigh on half a century now. I always thought a gaffe was something which was a one time occurrence, immediately recognizable for being embarrassing and not liable to be repeated by the person who had made the gaffe. I mean, if a gaffe can be ongoing over an extended period of time could we just take it to some horrible extreme and declare that slavery was a gaffe? If that is the case I think the entire Bush administration could be labeled a gaffe. Just one huge, embarrassing, deadly, ugly, expensive gaffe... But I digress!

A cursory examination of the "evidence" (tonight is a big quote mark night here at The Workday Liberal) provided by the McCain campaign serves to demonstrate their willingness to twist the meaning of the reports they cite to suit their own purposes. Make no mistake about this, the purpose of the McCain campaign's fact check sheet is hardly to provide an accurate assessment of the situation to the American electorate. They cite a report from a think tank who is explicitly calling for war with Iran. They also reference a partisan tabloid. Their coup de grace is provided by lifting portions of a military briefing out of context. The briefing they take out of context actually proves that any contacts between Iran and Al Qaeda in Iraq are entirely incidental. It would be like the McCain campaign trying to prove that Canada was responsible for 9/11, because a few of the hijackers crossed the U.S. Canadian border to get here.

I can not help but wonder if this is intended to be a clever ploy which sends the signal to the Republican base and big monied defense contractors that their man and his team are willing to make up facts, twist the intelligence, create their own realities and scare up false alarms in order to tweak the Iranians.

Is the nation really ready for another four years of that hairbrained type of leadership? Please please PLEASE let the answer to that rhetorical question be a resounding no...

The Iraq Credulity Test

2008-03-19T14:15:00.000-07:00

There is an awful lot of heat being generated around the intertubes regarding the Iraq war. I would encourage anyone browsing through the news to apply a very simple test when considering who should or should not be taken seriously while pontificating on the situation we face in Iraq today.

Simply consider the past track record of the person in question. Has that person generally made sense and had their suppositions on the war prove true over the course of time? It just makes sense to apply this very basic test to the war in Iraq, much the same as we would apply that standard to any other aspect of our daily lives. For all sorts of people, from the lowliest weather person to the great and vaunted phone psychic Miss Cleo, a repeated record of incorrect assumptions or illogical opinions would typically disqualify the guilty party from future consideration in a serious way on the issue in question.

Yet after five years straight of an absolutely disastrous record of policy decisions and starry eyed assessments of the war, the President and his enablers are still being given widespread credence in the current debate over Iraq. Not only are these given credence, but their assumptions are often forwarded by the media as unquestionably correct.

Thus it has come to pass that we are witness to the widely admitted failure of benchmark after benchmark set prior to the so called surge in Iraq to gauge it's success. Yet because the influx of American soldiers have temporarily improved security in Baghdad, the entire message trumpeted by the administration and their toadies, and propagated by the media, is about the unqualified success of the surge. Indeed it seems that the widespread perception is that people who discount the results of the surge simply because we took the administration at their word (ha!) when they announced the goals for the surge are being intransigent or defeatist. Wha?!

Thus it is that in recognition of the 5th year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the President holds forth on events as he sees them and his words are broadcast around the world as some sort of noteworthy pronouncement on the results of the Iraq war. At this stage of the game the President's statements on the situation in Iraq are noteworthy only for their invariable deviance from any semblance of reality. The President's determination that the war was worth it in hindsight really can not be given any more credence than the delusional ramblings of a well trained drunken parrot. It is hard to imagine any sane individual being granted the power to time travel from today to 5 1/2 years in the past and actually encouraging or in some other way allowing the President to make the same choice. Yet the President and his enablers still proclaim that they made the right decision and would do it again if given the choice. Not only do the make this absurd proclamation, but they are defiant in doing so.

The people who crow about the worthiness of the effort in Iraq are the very same crowd who trumpeted the certainty that Saddam possessed WMD and was working hand in hand with the very same terrorists who plotted 9/11. These are the people who proclaimed years ago that the insurgency was in it's last throes. They predicted the war would cost a mere pittance and saw to it that the man who predicted the war would cost 200 billion dollars was fired from the administration. They disbanded the Iraqi army and sent greenhorn young Republican idealists to form a neocon government from scratch which, predictably, resulted in disaster. The President was mystified by the revelation that there were two sects of Islam who would be set at each others throats in Iraq, proclaiming, “I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!” This dunderheaded outlook was echoed by John McCain this week as he repeatedly asserted that the Iranians were training Al Qaeda agents and sending them into Iraq.

It seems to me that anyone who can not be brought to admit the mistaken nature of the entire endeavor, given that the initial reasons for the invasion were proven wrong followed by 5 years of bloodletting and the burning of our national treasure, should be disqualified from serious consideration on the matter. They should be allowed to express themselves, but these folks have proven so consistently wrong for so long that their pronouncements should be greeted with widespread derision, and duly noted for express denunciation when the opinion they are promulgating is proven completely off base after the proof is in.

What's That You Say? Someone Gave A Speech Today?

2008-03-18T14:21:00.001-07:00

You've got to hand it to Senator Obama. If politics is hardball, Obama was given a high inside beanball with the Wright hubbub. Rather than ducking out of the way or dodging he appears to have swung and connected. Exactly where the ball winds up at this point is beyond me, but he's hit a deep drive that has the potential to leave the park... or simply be a very long out. I'm impressed with Obama for where he took his campaign and the nation with today's speech.

That being said, I have only seen about 1/3 of the speech, and I won't be able to catch the rest of it for several hours. So my impression thus far is mainly formed by the various reactions to the speech I'm reading around the intertubes.

When it comes to this type of event I don't like to only rely upon my favorite lefty sites to provide me with insight. By and large Huffpo, TPM, and Sullivan et al are very impressed with the speech. So I have taken the trouble to load up NRO's The Corner to get some perspective from the right side of the great political divide. I must say that the reaction to Obama's speech from the right is decidedly more muted than my favorite sites, but I am pleasantly surprised by some of the positive reactions from The Corner.

For example, here is Jonah Goldberg's first impression of the speech:

"It was a much better speech than I thought it would be. It had some lovely moments and he came across as a remarkably classy and decent guy. But I think there were some serious logical, philosophical, and political flaws to it."

Charles Murray gets a link from Sullivan by writing:

"I read the various posts here on "The Corner," mostly pretty ho-hum or critical about Obama's speech. Then I figured I'd better read the text (I tried to find a video of it, but couldn't). I've just finished. Has any other major American politician ever made a speech on race that comes even close to this one? As far as I'm concerned, it is just plain flat out brilliant—rhetorically, but also in capturing a lot of nuance about race in America. It is so far above the standard we're used to from our pols.... But you know me. Starry-eyed Obama groupie."

This level of honest support for a Democratic speech by the regulars at The Corner is encouraging. To be sure there are more ambivalent or outright negative comments about the Obama speech than positive posts, so let me note one of the negative posts in particular. In the best spirit of partisanship which ruled the nation prior to today's Obama speech, let me present a bit of a rebuttal to a post by Kate O'Beirne titled "Common Pulpit Speech":

Obama says, "Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed." This a breathtaking attempt to pass off Wright's hateful rants by implying that they are little different than the "political views" of some priest with which a parishioner might disagree. Does he think plenty of ministers of every faith are capable of spewing Wright-like vitriol or, despite his repudiations, does he really view the comments as benign "political views" with which we're free to disagree.

I think this serves as an example of what we can expect as the standard line of attack by the right on Obama going forward... to wit Obama has not sufficiently thrown Wright off and then under the bus.

O'Beirne begins by indignantly proclaiming that Wright's offensive blather is not precisely what it really is by huffing about Obama's "breathtaking attempt to pass off Wright's hateful rants by implying that they are little different than the 'political views' of some priest with which a parishioner might disagree." All of the objectionable material I have seen by Wright may be precisely defined as radical political views with which a parishioner may disagree. I have very personal and real experience with just this type of political divide in my own family. To be sure, my in-laws and the extremely conservative members of my wife's church are not one hundredth as offensive in style as is Wright, but if I were to actually hold myself separate from people who did not hold my political take, I would be entirely shut out of my wife's side of the family. That would be my loss (and perhaps the in-law's gain actually*snark*). It is telling for me that a large swath of conservative fundamentalists have interwarped their spiritual lives with a right wing political outlook, and expect the rest of the flock to hold like views or be separated.

Barack Obama is the living embodiment of what he stands for. In calling for national unity and a voice for all perspectives he rejects the fundamental outlook held by O'Beirne. Rather than separate himself from that which he finds politically offensive Obama only rejects what offends him, but embraces what he finds to be good in Wright. Rejecting the offensive statements time and again in no uncertain terms is the most we can expect from Obama if he is to remain true to his own ideals.

If one is to believe that Obama secretly harbors the beliefs expressed by Wright it is incumbent upon his accusers to show us the proof. Is it to be found in his writings? In his speeches or how he has raised a family... or maybe his voting record? Show us the proof of the fiery, racially divisive, figurative bomb thrower which is supposed to scare us into voting for the other candidate. I contend there is no there there. There is only a man living the very ideals he calls upon the rest of us to follow.

I have no doubt that O'Beirne and a very large segment of the American populace would find the Sunday services at Trinity to be unbearable, if only because of the occasional radical political rant. That is fine for them, but it's not fair to expect Obama to take the approach which he expressly calls the nation to turn away from: the approach which has us grouped into like minded clusters of polarized voting blocs.

Man... all of that on the very first O'Beirne sentence and I feel like I'm just getting warmed up!

O'Beirne wraps up her take with the following sentiment, which I find a bit puzzling to be honest with you. "[D]oes he (Obama) really view the comments as benign "political views" with which we're free to disagree." I am left wondering exactly what else can the Wright rantings be? I suppose the qualification of Wright's political views as benign in that sentence may be intended to somehow define Obama as trying to lessen the truly damaging meaning of the statements. But Obama has made clear, repeatedly, that he rejects those statements. Nearly by definition we can determine that Obama did not find the sentiments to be benign else he would not have felt it necessary to condemn and renounce them.

The way O'Beirne uses the word benign in that sentence, though, leads me to conclude that she is wondering if Obama considers the statements as simple political speech, which of itself is a benign activity in American society even if the content of the speech is offensive. If that reading of the final O'Beirne sentence holds true, one must wonder what else the statements by Wright could be mistaken for than benign political views? Is it some sort of criminal speech? Maybe the right will reverse a long tradition and start calling for the punishment of offensive political expressions as hate speech. It seems to me that allowing for the sentiments of Wright to be heard, offensive as those notions are to most of the nation, defines the real meaning of the phrase "freedom of expression." What could possibly be more patriotic than affirming that fundamental principle which forms the veritable cornerstone upon which this nation was founded?

The Right Mobilizes, But Not For McCain

2008-03-17T17:25:00.000-07:00

Bill Kristol's hit piece on Obama in the NY Times ended up with him issuing a retraction, which embarrassment is what most of the lefty blogosphere chortled about today. It certainly is noteworthy anytime a right wing flack has to eat some crow, but I think Democrats are missing the forest for the trees with this article. The tree everyone is focusing on is how Kristol was willing to lift a report from a far right website without bothering to check that report's veracity, and then had to retract. But the forest is that Kristol's entire piece is a hit on Obama, and Kristol makes no bones about his wishing to see Hillary Clinton win the nomination.

Believe you me, when it comes to trees in this forest they are plentiful. Limbaugh implores his listeners to cross party lines to vote for Hillary and we see a drastic increase in the percentage of Republicans voting for a Democrat, with the vast majority of those new found Republican votes going to Clinton. One of the earliest manifestations of this crossover support for Clinton was Ann Coulter promising to support Clinton. These two examples are the best known, but there are many ~~drudger~~ erm... other, examples of the right wing attack dogs being loosed on Obama to the express or implied benefit of Senator Clinton (including the hit piece on Obama from Newsmax which fed Kristol his erroneous fact).

It should speak volumes to the Democratic party that our putative nominee is being savaged by the right, more often than not with the express intent of supporting Senator Clinton. Bill Kristol is the embodiment of the smarmy, unethical and intellectually bankrupt far right fetid mouthpiece. He ends the Obama hit column with the following paragraph:

With no particular dog in the Democratic fight, many conservatives have tended to think it would be good for the country if Obama were to win the Democratic nomination, freeing us from the dreary prospect of the return of the House of Clinton. Now I wonder. Might the country be better off with the cynicism of the Clintons than the conceit of Obama?

I for one am not interested in allowing Kristol, Limbaugh, Newsmax, Coulter, or any of the rest of that pack of right wing freaks to pick the Democratic nominee.

So let me focus on the Obama hit piece by Kristol, beyond the retraction which has the entire left chortling. His article is titled "Generation Obama". Kristol works himself into high dudgeon over how Obama's website has a section called Generation Obama which is geared to his youthful supporters. According to Kristol it is the height of arrogance and conceit for Obama to label an entire generation as his own.

Either Kristol has virtually no experience in campaigns in general, or his entire thesis is an unfair cheapshot at Senator Obama. Campaigns inevitably allow people who are interested in the campaign to join coalitions which are geared to an individual's interests. Why is it that Kristol can find himself so hot and bothered over Generation Obama, but not bother to load up Senator Clinton's site and link over to a section titled "Women For Hillary". Now if one were to read that title with just the wrong attitude one could leap to the conclusion that Senator Clinton was assuming that all women are for her. One would be completely off base with that claim, but it makes just as much sense as Kristol's attack on Obama.

But wait... it gets even better! Google up "women for mccain" and you will find that even John McCain is so conceited as to feature a segment on his official site which purports that the fairer sex are for him! I am aghast!! (not)

So Kristol's real problem here is that the Obama webmaster puts a catchy, gimicky title on their interest group sections. It's not Senator Obama's fault that we are left wondering what is meant by the Clinton team with the title her site uses for the same demographic: "Hillblazers". Senator Obama just has a catchier title for his youth group. Actually, on this one Senator McCain actually passes the Kristol smell test when it comes to the youth vote. I can't find any segment of his site which is dedicated to youth at all, beyond allowing the browser to sign up for the McCain Youth Coalition which doesn't seem to actually exist. I'm certainly not savvy when it comes to McCain's website, but he's not making it easy to find his youth coalition either.

At least we have Kristol admitting that he's coming to favor Senator Clinton for the Democratic nomination. The first seedling he planted in this particular forest didn't amount to much beyond embarrassing the author, but I'm certain he will contribute more to the cause of supporting Clinton by attacking Obama.

The W(r)ight Perspective

2008-03-14T11:53:00.000-07:00

I make a point of staying up late enough to catch the first part of Morning Joe on MSNBC. This morning Joe spent a lot of time playing up the inflammatory rhetoric of Barack Obama's former preacher, Jeremiah Wright.

Let me preface the following with the admission that this is all generalities... and thus may not exactly fit each and every person reading this post to a tee. I do not intend to offend anyone, but this is a very touchy subject so I will probably offend every single reader anyway.

My sense while watching Reverend Wright preach was to be instinctively turned off and take offense at his rhetoric. As an Obama supporter my first reaction was a foreboding of things to come. But as time has passed I am starting to reach another impression of this entire affair. I object to Wright's rhetoric, but there is a wider context to this we need to consider.

I full well and truly believe Reverend Wright is out of line with the rhetoric I saw him using. But his take on society is comparable to the rhetoric of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson immediately after 9-11, blaming the attack on liberalism which I feel was out of line rhetoric as well. Wright blames American history and foreign policy, Falwell blames liberals. Is one take really more damaging than the other or is it just the style in which the opinion is delivered? Wright is impassioned, fiery and African American. Rightly or wrongly, that angry black man running off at the mouth is far more threatening for most of us than is the same type of sentiment made by a calm and smiling white man.

I recall a plethora of right wing spiritual leaders who preached that the catastrophe wrought on New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina was the wrath of God validating their conservative take on social issues by destroying a decadent city. Reverend Wright gave his socially radical take on widespread destruction wrought on an American city in far more colorful and fiery terms. But why are his sentiments really more objectionable than the conservative preachers who claimed that God struck New Orleans with a hurricane and America on 9/11 out of political spite?

I consider the call of the Right Reverend (and right wing) Hagee, for unprovoked war to be waged upon Iran with the express intent of bringing about Armageddon and all the horrors of the apocalypse, to be more dangerous to the nation and the world than anything I've heard from Wright to this point. Hagee wants to bring death and destruction on a biblical scale (literally) to the world whereas Wright is seen expressing an impassioned, and radical, view of society and America's role in world history. Is the impassioned anti-American history lesson really more dangerous to this nation than the coldly reasoned call for America to trigger Armageddon, made by a preacher who has McCain's ear?

Yet I do not doubt that Obama's association with Wright will prove more damaging to his political aspirations than McCain's association with Fallwell, Robertson, Hagee or any of the other right wing preacher men McCain appeals to for help in winning the White House. In fact, McCain's embrace of the religious right, warts and all, will be a political plus for him. So here is where I go off half cocked in my own right: I believe the difference in the political ramifications of the preachers supporting McCain or Obama can be attributed to racial stereotypes. Yes... I did just go there. But what other reason is there for the fact that McCain considers the endorsements of the right wing preacher types to be a strength for his candidacy, but Obama is being damaged by past association with this Wright character?

When the nation heard Falwell or sees Robertson or Hagee make some outrageous and patently offensive comment we are watching a white preacher, normally with a soothing southern drawl and a smiling countenance. When we see Reverend Wright in a dither during one of his rants, we are witnessing an angry black man. Quite frankly angry black men like Wright scare the snot out of most of the nation, especially little old white ladies. Pleasant sounding white fellows who preach the same sort of nonsense from the right are much less traumatic for most of us.

Most Americans have been raised to give spiritual authorities and leaders inherent respect, and for most of us those leaders are cut from the same mold as Falwell, Robertson and Hagee. So part of this racial/spiritual dichotomy must be attributed to the life experience of each one of us. People like me and my wife... who are white and raised in fairly traditional Christian households are used to the typical white authority figure. My wife is Mormon so every few months I am privy to the regular meeting of Mormon elders known as general conference. I have determined that the talks given from the pulpit at the LDS general conference would be extremely effective sleep aids if they could somehow be distilled into pill form. Quite frankly it is impossible to imagine a liberal black firebrand preacher giving a sermon in that setting.

The same applies to congregations around this nation who would be thunderstruck at having one of the Mormon leaders come to their church to give the Sunday sermon. The different outlooks on social issues may very well present a barrier, but an even greater wall would be the jarring difference in the style of the preachers.

So when white Americans are exposed to a black firebrand espousing objectionable clap trap I don't find it surprising that they are more shocked than when some right wing preacher spouts off with something just as objectionable.

Bush's Clarion Call To Yellow Elephants

2008-03-13T17:08:00.000-07:00

Check out this quote (hat tip Huffpo) by President Bush from a video conference he held with military and civilian officials in Afghanistan:

"I must say, I'm a little envious. If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed.

"It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger."

Oddly enough, when the time came for the gung ho patriotic democracy fighters of Bush's generation to answer the call for a romantic and exciting adventure, he somehow found a way to stay home. President Bush allowed some lucky draftee, who probably did not share Bush's sense of romance and adventure at spreading democracy, to take his place in the jungles of Vietnam. How tragic for the poor young man stuck in the air national guard defending Texas from the waves of Viet Cong which may have shown up at any time. I'm certain Bush was hoping and praying that the VC invasion would not hit Texas when he was AWOL or he would have been extremely sad for having missed that romantic adventure as well.

Operation Yellow Elephant should be able to use this quote to very good effect. What young, war loving, democracy spreading wing nut could possibly resist the clarion call to romantic combat given by their hero. Just think of the young Republicans of today in another 40 years... gazing with starry eyes over the battlefields of tomorrow and wishing like the dickens that they had joined the Army to fight in the Bush wars. President Bush is gently prodding these idealistic but reluctant keyboard freedom fighters to take advantage of the promise of their youth. Let these young Republicans replace the cheap suits and flag lapels with fatigues, lest they lose their chance at romance and adventure. The commander in chief beckons the flower of Republican youth to put down the attache case filled with the robotic talking points, and pick up a rifle while you still have a chance!

I'm quite certain that President Bush's sentiment in his old age will lead to wave upon wave of fighting age Republicans filling the ranks of our nation's military to capacity, lest they too find themselves considering what might have been. Just like we found WMD in Iraq, and the connections between Saddam and Al Qaeda have been well documented!

The Image Of God, Hooded, Standing On A Box With Hands Attached To Wires...

2008-03-12T18:31:00.000-07:00

President Bush addressed a group of Christian Broadcasters yesterday and defended his misbegotten war in Iraq on religious grounds. Bush told the group that his actions were based upon the belief that freedom is a right given by God and “every human being bears the image of our maker.”

I just think it is perverse to frame the events in Iraq in these terms. Think of the images of human suffering which have attended this horrible war, and then imagine that the sufferer being photographed or taped is the image of God in that same circumstance. That is supposed to be inspirational? Think about the images of God in Abu Ghraib... That is what God would look like with a dog snarling and barking inches from his face... this is what God would look like tied over a bed frame with womens panties over his head.

I am frankly offended when anyone brings God into this on one side or the other. The other side calls upon God to a greater degree than does Mr. Bush. They send their suicide bombers into the public square with promises of paradise. How many people have heard the very last thing in their lives be a scream of Allahu Akhbar immediately prior to the suicide bomber blowing them to smithereens. It is a dark and ugly road which the President trods when he as a man sets himself as the arbiter of what is or is not God's will in the life and death of hundreds of thousands of people who are created in God's image. He has no more claim to righteous understanding than do I, or any other human being walking this planet. The only difference is that when Bush goes off half cocked with God as his copilot, people die by the hundreds of thousands.

How is it that the war is now framed as a struggle between freedom or tyranny? I don't recall this rally cry for freedom being a part of the the gameplan which the administration used in taking this nation to war in 2002. Quite frankly, this nation never would have accepted a war in Iraq based upon a call for the freedom of Iraqis, yet we find ourselves 5 years on and trillions in the hole with no end in site. Bush playing up his international freedom agenda, after the initial logic for the war was proven wrong, is disingenuous at best. Yet what else should we expect from a president who has a congenital defect which makes him the ultimate anti-Midas... everything he touches turns into crap.

Brother Olbermann Redirects His Fire

2008-03-12T11:48:00.001-07:00

Keith Olbermann is going to give one of his special comments tonight. This one is particularly notable because it will be the first time he has ever directed a comment against a Democrat. And this isn't just any Democrat either. Brother Olbermann is going turn his guns onto the Presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton.

I let this blog go dormant I haven't really expressed my views on the state of the Democratic nomination here at the Workday Liberal. I am supporting Barack Obama for the nomination. When I initially decided to back Barack it was with a feeling of mutual admiration for both him and Hillary. I still defended her against what I felt were unfair attacks, just as I did many times before the nomination process got underway. For me supporting Obama did not mean denouncing Clinton... and I was absolutely convinced that I could whole heartedly support either of them as the party candidate in November. But for me, these feelings of solidarity with the Clinton's are dissipating faster than a late morning fog in summertime Arizona.

If my read on this is correct, Brother Olbermann has gone through a similar transformation. He is a long time defender of both of the Clintons, but her campaign's conduct in pulling out all of the stops in order to win the nomination is rapidly costing her support among many, like Olbermann and myself, upon whom she could once count as staunch defenders.

It looks like Brother Olbermann's comment tonight will focus upon the recent kerfluffle wrought by Geraldine Ferraro. The Ferraro business is ugly and another mark against the Clinton campaign from my perspective but I am having a serious issue with the whole kitchen sink strategy in general.

It seems to me that the only way Clinton can win the nomination is by appealing to the superdelegates to overturn the results of the primary and caucus process. How they can do that and not lead to a decisive schism in the party is beyond my understanding. I know I will find it extremely difficult to support a candidate who steals the nomination by subverting the express will of the people via back room deals and other such untoward shenanigans. If I had been asked 6 months ago to imagine a scenario in which I was questioning the possibility of my supporting the Democratic nominee in the coming election I would have laughed at the notion. Yet here we are, and if Hillary is starting to lose people like me... stalwart proud Democrats who have spent years defending the Clintons and Democrats in general, that is a bad sign.

Furthermore, it appears for all the world that her campaign is taking the approach that if she can not benefit from the nomination that they will make sure that the evident winner will not benefit from it either. It is the political equivalent of the jilted lover proclaiming that if they can not have the love of their life, no one ever will. Keep in mind that Barack Obama is the front runner for the nomination and it will take a minor miracle for that to change at this point. Yet Hillary is out there talking up her ability to step into the role as commander in chief from day one, as is John McCain, but casting aspersions on the credentials of Obama. Has she started taking her counsel from Joe Lieberman? Is Zell Miller writing her speeches now?

So yes... the party is being wrenched asunder by a losing candidate who is convinced that she should have been crowned the nominee. The right wing psychos have come to realize that supporting Hillary serves their best interests. I hope and pray that before it's too late that regular rank and file Democrats will realize what is happening and turn away from the precipice which Clinton is driving the party toward. At this stage of the game the choice is coming down to the following options as far as I'm concerned. You can stand with Rush, Coulter and the rest of that crowd in supporting Clinton, or you can stand with the growing number of people who once stood with the Clintons but can no longer tolerate what is happening to our party.

Not Much To Say Today

2008-03-11T13:27:00.000-07:00

I blog from work, but I'm not at work today because of an eye sty. Rather than spread eye junk around the office I chose to take a day off.

There is one thing I can say about the news today... Elliot Spitzer needs to resign. He should have done it yesterday.

Unless my eye grows it's own hand or something weird like that I'll be back to work, blogging here at the Workday Liberal just like old times, tommorrow!

I'm Back!!

2008-03-10T17:49:00.000-07:00

Well... the whole All Things Democrat blogging tryout went nowhere fast. We were sunk by an internal squabble over posts which attack Hillary Clinton. I am very tempted to post the G-Mail thread which led us to this pass. Mayhaps in another post...

I will re-commence posting my daily take on the political news here at The Workday Liberal starting tommorrow. I realize I've probably lost the few regulars I had before I let this blog go dormant but here's hoping I can get you back.

About This Blog

2008-01-31T16:53:00.000-08:00

For quite some time I've been a contributor to All Things Democrat. I am frankly mystified and honored that I, a near illiterate 40 hour 5 day a week working dude, would be invited to post along with the other contributors to ATD. Since I've commenced to posting there on a somewhat regular basis I thought I'd leave a word on this blog regarding where I'm going with this blog. Which is basically nowhere for the forseeable future!

There are times when I have something to say which may not be entirely appropriate for a Democratic rah rah site, so I'll keep WDL open for such occassions. But posting here will be very sparse so if you care to stomach my ranting about partisan politics, be sure to check out ATD. Thanks.

Remember Another S.C. Primary Winner

2008-01-28T14:39:00.000-08:00

Bill Clinton responded to a question about why Senator Obama is having to run against two Clinton's by invoking Jesse Jackson's primary victory's in South Carolina.

Clinton swears that was not an attempt to inject racial politics into the debate... and even though I am an Obama supporter, I have to agree with Bill on this one. In fact considering previous South Carolina primary winners may be cause for believing that Obama is on the march to the White House. After all Governor Clinton carried the state in the 1992 primary. But sadly, when we consider that Bill has been widely labeled as the 1st black President, maybe invoking past primary winners actually does raise racial questions. Shucks! There goes my illogical attempt to justify President Clinton's oddly out of context 'Jackson won S.C.' too answer.

This past weekend has only served to further settle my opinion on the state of affairs regarding the Democratic nomination. The behavior of the Clinton campaign after Obama's landslide victory veered from classless to weird to maddening. I think it was classless to lose the primary but forgo the standard post election perfunctories and continue campaigning through out the evening as if S.C. never really mattered. It was weird to have Bill Clinton be the voice of the campaign immediately after the votes were counted and classless for him to brush aside the results as meaningless in the face of the upcoming super primary, and Florida. It is underhanded and maddening for the Clinton's to start chortling over Hillary's certain win in Florida after all the campaigns agreed to forgo campaigning in that state, insuring her uncontested victory. Clinton's Jesse Jackson answer to a totally unrelated question was weird, classless and maddening.

I've spent the last couple of weeks fighting the impulse to go along with the rest of the crowd and start bashing on the Clinton's. I've been a fan for a long time, and even when I decided to support Obama I was careful to note that I held the Clinton's in high esteem. I thought a lot of the criticisms against Bill could be chalked up to the media putting an unfair focus on stuff that really did not deserve that focus. As a longtime fan of the President and his wife it is easy to chalk up the overwhelming noise against them to the same old unfounded and unreasoning Clinton hatred.

But the 'Jackson won S.C. too' answer, coming as it did completely out of context to the question asked of Clinton, crossed a line from my perspective. There can be no doubt now as to what Bill is doing. It is Nixonian/Rovian and ugly. At this point Bill is damaged goods and he would do his wife and the Democratic party a huge favor by retiring from the scene, at least for the duration of this election. He is doing great work beyond politics, and he needs to focus on that for the time being to rehabilitate his image in his own party. I say this as a true fan. I still have his autographed picture and fondly remember him signing it on a rope line.

The wave of Kennedy endorsements for Senator Obama have come at a crucial time in this nomination process. I only saw a brief blurb of Kennedy's speech immediately prior to coming to work, but that one small part was very exciting.

Those Pesky Canadians Keep Calling Torture Torture

2008-01-24T14:06:00.000-08:00

The Government of Canada has disclosed that the Canadian military in Afghanistan have stopped handing prisoners over to the government of Afghanistan after monitors found evidence that those prisoners were being abused and tortured. Notably, this decision was made by the commander of Canadian forces in Afghanistan, and that person deserves another star... or whatever it is that signifies advancement in the Canadian Armed Forces. Another maple leaf maybe? Well another honorific insignia anyway! But, as is my wont, I digress!

The prisoner transfers were stopped after Canadian monitors visited a prisoner who showed injuries from being beaten and given electric shocks. The monitors were actually able to find the instruments used to torture the prisoner after he told them to look under a chair in his cell, where they located an electric cord and a rubber hose.

This revelation comes a couple of weeks after the disclosure that a training manual used by Canadian diplomats to recognize torture victims listed America among nations which torture prisoners. Following an uproar the Canadian Foreign Minister apologized for including America and Israel on the list, which was reviewed and rewritten. Tellingly, there never has been refutation of the particular charges levied against American techniques which were described in the list. The world knows we use sleep deprivation, painful stress positions, exposure to extreme temperatures, isolation and other forms of "harsh interrogations". We may be off the Canadian torture list, but the techniques we use are still called torture by them as well as the rest of the civilized world.

So... we have two recent bombshells from Canada regarding the outlook they take upon other nations ill treatment of prisoners. In one case they placed America upon, then removed us from, a list of nations which torture. In the next case Canada found evidence that Afgani's were being tortured and stopped transferring prisoners to them. So what we have here is two steps forward and one step back. Which is a far far better record than America has to show on the subject which has been to step back so many times as to completely circumvent the globe in the opposite direction from the direction we once professed to be going.

I do not claim to be any sort of expert on Canadian domestic politics and affairs so consider that fair warning, and a bit of an apology for my friends to the north for what I'm about to say... in my best shoot from the hip in the dark fashion. But this looks for all the world like a struggle between Prime Minister Harper and various other vestiges of government who do not hold Harper's conservative political outlook. How long will it take for Harper to clean up the embarrassing slap in the face of the Afghani government? After all, when the American Neocon World Overlords hear of this latest embarrassment from the Canadian bureaucracy, there are certain to be some harshly worded demands for clarification on Canada's attitude towards our Afghani puppet.

For the grunts doing the good work in the Canadian government, causing Harper to sweat on the international stage by exposing the truth about the use of torture by allies, we really do appreciate the brutal honesty. Honestly, I'm actually a bit jealous. I remember the good old days (about 7 years ago) when America would make noise about the ill treatment of prisoners and people would actually care about what we said. Now we have come to the point that international despots are pointing to America as an example to justify their own hideous practices. Don't let that happen to Canada, and the world will owe you a debt of gratitude.

More Proof That Cheney Is Absolutely Insane

2008-01-23T18:08:00.000-08:00

Newsweek has published an article titled "Fishing for a Way to Change the World" which is a lengthy excerpt from author Jacob Weisburg's book "The Bush Tragedy"

I am simply amazed at the utter lack of sense or reasoning which the following revelation shows as relates to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Cheney and Libby believed that Iraq's potential to produce a smallpox weapon necessitated universal vaccination of the general population, something that hadn't happened in the United States since 1972. On the other side of the argument was Donald Henderson, the heroic epidemiologist who led the WHO smallpox eradication program and later became Bush 41's science adviser. After the anthrax attacks, HHS brought Henderson in as a consultant to help develop emergency plans.

When I visited him at his office at the Center for Biosecurity in Baltimore, Henderson recounted a surprise, unpublicized visit he paid to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta with Cheney and Libby on July 18, 2002. Henderson flew down with them on Air Force Two and spent most of the trip explaining to the vice president and his chief of staff why he and other epidemiologists thought a massive vaccination program would be a terrible idea. Even medical professionals were horrified when they saw the range of normal reactions to a vaccination: grotesque scabs, lesions, and pustules. Henderson showed me a pamphlet that HHS distributed to hospitals to document the abnormal reactions: blackened limbs, uncontrolled swelling, and a reaction called progressive vaccinia, in which sores cover the body from head to toe.

Worse than the panic these reactions would cause would be the predictable casualties. According to Henderson, adverse reactions to the vaccine were estimated to kill between one and two out of every million people inoculated. The question of legal liability would be a nightmare. Henderson said that Cheney and Libby didn't seem to disagree with his arguments, which he reviewed with them on the return flight. "I thought, Thank God they've finally gotten the message. Finally we've been able to get it through to them that this just does not make sense," Henderson said.

When he reached his home in Baltimore two hours later, Henderson's wife was waiting with an urgent message to call the office. "They were going to have a press release the next morning announcing that they were going to vaccinate the entire country immediately," Henderson said. "I couldn't believe it." But after girding for battle and taking a 5:00 a.m. train to HHS the next morning, Henderson was relieved to be told that the vaccination plan was off after all. Bush had overruled Cheney.

Vice President Cheney was willing to see hundreds of Americans die and cause a nationwide panic in order to respond to a non existent threat. In fact this was worse than a non existent threat... it was a threat made from whole cloth by people determined to use the specter of 9/11 in order to drive this nation to needless war. George Bush comes out of this particular story actually looking like the reasonable one, but for the fact that he selected this freaking dingbat to be his number two in the first place.

Weisburg uses this story as a demonstration of the deadly earnest drive by Cheney and the neocons to protect this nation from what they were convinced was a truly dire threat by Saddam Hussien. In fact Weisburg believes that the smallpox innoculation plan proves that Cheney did not act in bad faith during the lead up to war in Iraq. Yet Weisburgs benign outlook on Cheney's motives is belied when considered against the recent documentation of the veritable carpet bombing by this administration of lies and deciept in leading this nation to war as documented by the new website The Center For Public Integrity. The graph in that report is particularly instructive. Note the spike in dishonest administration statements as they began the propaganda drive to war, right during the same time frame that Cheney was making his determination to doom hundreds of people to a grotesque death and cause a nationwide panic... before President Bush quashed the scheme.

Frankly, I'm not quite so willing as Weisburg to chalk it up to a misplaced sense of duty by Cheney on this one. Maybe I'm just too jaded and cynical at this point, but after years of seeing Cheney in action I can see him being the trigger to instigate a medical debacle, pointing the finger of blame at Saddam for the nations pestilence, further increasing fear and hatred of Iraq in the drive to war.

I actually find myself hoping that I am wrong... but fearful that I am right.

Exiled To Siberia Guam

2008-01-19T13:11:00.000-08:00

The decision to arrest Steven Howards after he ~~attacked~~ confronted Vice President Cheney at a ski resort in 2006 has blown up in the face of the secret service.

In the good old days of the cold war, people in the USSR who crossed the line were sent to exile in far off Siberia to live out their days far from civilization and any ability to further influence the events of the day. I think the arrest of Howards has provided the modern day equivalent of the exile to Siberia, with the arresting agent having been stationed in Guam. Marianas Variety has a great little piece on how agent Virgil D. “Gus” Reichle Jr. of the U.S. Secret Service is training border agents, at no cost to the government of Guam. on how to recognize counterfeit currency, and identity thieves. They aim to stop the influx of tourists who commit credit card fraud and other such heinous crimes.

Thank goodness the secret service is on the case of those ebil ebil white collar criminal tourists in Guam. Actually one suspects that Reichle does not find himself stationed on the moon only because the American government does not have a diplomatic mission there.

Just imagine the fall from grace Mr. Reichle has undergone. From the secret service inner circle, protecting the most powerful men in the world, to giving lectures in Guam on how to recognize rogue credit card expenditures. These guys are trained to take a bullet for the men they protect. Reichle would have thrown himself on a grenade to keep Cheney safe. He would have undergone various forms of mutilation, and deformation to protect his charge... but since Reichle saw fit to arrest a man who ~~attacked~~ confronted the veep, and then took part in a coverup of the circumstances of that arrest, he finds himself languishing in Guam.

Speaking of the circumstances of Howards arrest, I find it very interesting that Cheney's role in the entire affair has been very effectively squashed to this point. Reichle claims that the secret service just wants the entire affair to go away, to avoid "inconveniencing" the Vice President. According to the N.Y. Time article, Cheney's involvement in the affair remains uncertain, and his lawyers have declined repeated request to have him deposed about the affair. Why won't Cheney tell his side of the story here?

With all this in mind, here is my completely unfounded and off the cuff notion about what happened. Keep in mind that this scenario has no basis in fact as far as I know at this point.

Some peasant managed to break into the Vice President's bubble as Cheney was trying to relax, and Cheney ordered the peasant to be arrested, deported to Guantanamo and tortured (harshly interrogated). The arrest went off without a hitch, but when the President could not be bothered because he was relaxing in Texas, the needed Presidential finding that Howards was an enemy combatant could not be gotten. Once the plan started unraveling the secret service realized that Cheney had Howards arrested for no good reason, and in the best traditions of their craft set about protecting Cheney by commencing a coverup. Once the coverup started to unravel, Reichle as the arresting agent had to go away, and he winds up lecturing Guamian border agents on recognizing counterfeit currency. Rather than Howards winding up in Guantanamo on a waterboard, Reichle winds up in Guamtanamo lecturing about credit card fraud and check kiting schemes. It is oddly symmetrical from my point of view.

It all fits, and that version is just as likely to be entirely true as the next thing you hear from an administration spokestoady, or Mitt Romney, on any given subject as well...

Guess Who Is On A Torture List By Canada

2008-01-17T17:13:00.000-08:00

Canadian diplomats reading a training pamphlet on how to determine if prisoners have been tortured are given a list of nations which are known to torture. The list includes names like Syria, China, Iran and, sadly... this year America has been added to that horrible assemblage.

The document cites the use of sleep deprivation and forced nudity as torturous techniques currently used against prisoners. These techniques were once recognized by America as torture, particularly when used by the Soviet Bloc against dissenters and American POW's. Yet the debate in America now is focused on whether or not the use of feigned execution by drowning is actually torture. You can almost hear the guffawing of the right wing torture apologista's over the notion that sleep deprivation would be considered torture. After all it was Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who once justified the use of painfull stress techniques by noting he stood at his desk all day.

Nations which once looked to America to provide international leadership in the cause of human rights are now including us on their lists of nations which torture.
This is real time proof of the complete degradation of this nations image on the world stage, from the foremost international champion of human rights to making an international rogues gallery list of torturers. Shame on this administration for promoting policies which have led us to this pass, and shame on the people who silently sat by and let them do it.

The Voters Decide: Inspiration Or Chief Exec

2008-01-15T17:49:00.001-08:00

Senator Barack Obama gave an interview with the Reno Gazette in which he touches upon the reason I, and many others who do not necessarily hold my political opinions, support him.

“I don’t think there is anybody in this race who can inspire the American people better than I can. And I don’t think there is anybody in this race who can bridge differences ... better than I can.
“But I’m not an operating officer. Some in this debate around experience seem to think the job of the president is to go in and run some bureaucracy. Well, that’s not my job. My job is to set a vision of ‘here’s where the bureaucracy needs to go.’”

Senator Obama's logic here is not a blatant appeal as a candidate of change, but after 8 years of President Bush the change Obama is offering, in management styles alone, can not be greater. Even those who fully support President Bush's policies would be hard pressed to contend that Bush is inspirational. President Bush motivated the American people by pushing fear. The President motivated the Congress when it was in Republican hands through sheer cynical demands of fealty to partisanship and alienated many of his own party in Congress by doing so. The entire administration has been a veritable cult of Bush with members being forced to include glowing references to the President or to mention him a given amount of times on each page of a report, and people who dare to think outside the orthodoxy being tossed aside and then savaged. The President inspires those who he leads him like Kim Jong Il inspires North Koreans.

President Bush used the chief executive model of leadership and has proven very effective at being that type of leader. Bush's record at getting his way in policy battles over the years has been remarkable, and the nation has suffered for that. The Bush record as chief executive was dismal before he was selected in 2000. His disastrous leadership as President will not improve that record, unless you take the perspective of a big oil CEO or war profiteer or some such greed motivated persona that is. The question in the 2004 election of who you think would pull over and help if you were stranded on the side of the freeway with a flat tire... Bush or Kerry, did not consider the rest of the scenario. If both saw fit to pull over, who could be trusted to actually change the flat tire competently, and who would break the jack, lose the lug wrench but put the lug nuts on backwards and leave them loose, causing your car to wreck 2 miles down the road. Bush might have won the personality battle but he can't be trusted with the important things.

I am not saying here that someone who intends to change the system by way of using experience in the system to get the job done is comparable to Bush by any stretch of the imagination. Simply by dint of supporting policies opposed by the current President, and thus nearly invariably good policy for the nation, changing the system through whatever method will be a welcome relief. So Senator Clinton's approach has value and I will have no problems enthusiastically supporting her if she wins the nomination. I'm certain that a Clinton Presidency would bring a marked change for the better to the nation. In fact I even believe her personal style would be a welcome relief after years spent cringing through the public buffoonery of President Bush ... but I don't believe Senator Clinton would lead the nation by to inspiring us.

Not only would Obama bring a much needed change in policy to the White House, he would bring a much needed change in style used to motivate the nation to reach his goals. Bush has used fear, and Clinton intends to use intrinsic knowledge of the ins and outs of the system to change it. I'm ready for a President who inspires me when I listen to them. It's hard to even imagine how it will be when a President sets a goal for the nation and uses rhetorical inspiration with a call to a greater purpose as motivation for the nation to reach the goal, rather than predicting disaster, ruination and the death of our children if that goal is not attained.

So to sum it up from my perspective, both Clinton and Obama are candidates of change, and either will make a fine President following the disastrous reign of Bush. I'm just ready for a President who leads the nation to change with true inspiration rather than a reliance upon experience in the system in order to get that change accomplished.

On MLK V. LBJ

2008-01-14T16:46:00.000-08:00

I'm heartily sick and tired of this never ending election, and we have barely begun. We have the better part of a year to go of daily media obsession on the personal trivialities of the candidates and heated blather by all concerned. I'm sure some people love this but I am convinced this system would be well served with a drastic overhaul. Would it not be better if we were just now starting to think about who will run for President... and started voting in the party nominations in a couple of months. Have the conventions in late September and stop with the never ending campaign cycle we seem to have fallen into.

Speaking of meaningless heated blather, I must admit to a bit of puzzlement as to what Senator Clinton was trying to say with her, now infamous, MLK/LBJ quote. So let us hearken to what Senator Clinton actually said:

“Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act,” Mrs. Clinton said when asked about Mr. Obama’s rejoinder by Fox’s Major Garrett after her speech in Dover. “It took a president to get it done.”

First off, notice that Senator Clinton gives an answer to a Fox freak, and winds up digging herself out of a hole for the next several weeks. Let that be a lesson Senator! Don't give those Fox cruds the time of day. It is not like Senator Clinton will ever change their minds or win over the Fox News audience... they've already been brainwashed to believe that she is the spawn of Satan.

Moving on, Senator Clinton's point in the above quote seems to be that King needed political leaders like Johnson in order to make the dream come true. That point may be somewhat correct... yet it seems to me in an election which is a drive to be the candidate of greatest change, saying you are LBJ to your opponents MLK is a bit of a miscalculation. In the grand scope of things, comparing oneself to a southern white male from Texas while the other guy plays the role of inspirational movement leader who will be included in the pantheon of timeless personalities from Ghandi to Mandella hardly seems a wise course of action. Maybe next she can claim a historic parallel as Herrod next to Obama as Jesus Christ... I mean after all Jesus never could have been offered as the savior of mankind if he were not crucified by the Romans! It took a Roman puppet to start Christianity! (Not that LBJ is like Herrod mind you... and how the heck did I reach a point in one of my ramblings that I would ever have to toss in such a disclaimer anyway?!)

Getting down to the my take of the history here, I consider that LBJ saw what was happening and assisted the inevitable. I'm not certain that without the social upheaval of the 60's that LBJ would have taken the same stance. LBJ was on the right side, just like FDR was on the right side of increasing the role of women in society and the workplace... just when all the men went off to war and the necessity of the times demanded an increased role by women to get us to where we needed to be. FDR would have been on the right side of the civil rights movement in the mid 60's, as LBJ would have been on the side of expanding the role of women in society in the early 40's.

But the agent of change is not the men who signed the laws while bowing to the inevitable. They should be recognized for being enlightened leaders and embracing the change which was forcing itself upon our society. After all, some leaders steadfastly refuse to accept the inevitable, digging the nation deeper into a hole from which everyone else recognizes at some point we will have to extricate ourselves from. One example which readily comes to my mind is having an oil man as President, doing zilch to wean America from a heavy addiction to oil, and leaving it to the next generation to find a way to get us out of the oil hole.

There is another aspect of LBJ which should have Senator Clinton giving his legacy a wide berth. Johnson's legacy is not solely, or even predominately, tied with his acceptance of the civil rights movement. He is remembered as the President who was destroyed by a war which he could not bring to an end. A war which split this nation and contributed mightily to social unrest and political upheaval. I fear history will be an unkind judge of Senator Clinton's part in the Iraq war. If I were advising her I would suggest that comparisons to LBJ, in any context, would not be the best course of action in pursuit of the nomination of a party which is strongly against a war she voted to authorize.

Let me wrap up by owning my whiteness and allowing that I may not be the most sensitive or best judge of what is or is not offensive. I am convinced that anyone who is determined enough can find offense in nearly any lengthy discourse on race or gender or other such matters. So, if it makes the offended feel any better, just be aware that none of what I wrote in this post was meant to be hurtful. Just chalk it up to me being an insensitive lout!

A Case Of The Clash Of Rights With Liberties...

2008-01-11T18:26:00.000-08:00

I have just read the most fascinating article which raises an interesting question from my perspective. When the right to a speedy and fair trial of your peers conflicts with the right of your peers to live their daily lives without being molested by the law for no fault of their own, which one should win out. I may have made up the right to be unmolested by the law, but if that is not a right, it should be one... I think the prohibition against illegal seizure of persons should qualify in the following circumstance as reported by the N.Y. Times:

Judge Eaton, of Caledonia District Court in St. Johnsbury, Vt., had an accused child molester to try and too few good-people-and-true on hand to pick a jury from. So he sent the county sheriff and his deputies out to three locations in town — outside the post office, the local Price Chopper supermarket and the Green Mountain Mall — to bring ‘em back alive.

They stopped passers-by and asked if they were residents of Caledonia County; a “yes” answer won a summons to appear at the courthouse for jury duty immediately, right now, this minute. They rounded up 45 people that way in all, to join the 34 already at the courthouse.

Seriously? Simply being a resident was reason enough to demand immediate disruption of the citizens life, with a summons to appear in court for no other reason than the Judge needing a jury, and the prospective juror being in the wrong place at the wrong time? What if a parent were expected to pick up a child later in the day? Just imagine the multitude of circumstances which were not given any consideration whatsoever beyond whether or not the person lived in the right county.

The story goes onto describe how impressing jurors on the spot actually is more common that one might suppose. The reporter found several other cases, and even rulings on the practice by various jurisdictions, with the Indiana Supreme Court banning the practice in that state, but a Pennsylvania appellate court recently ruling that impressing jurors on the spot was legal.

I have been called for jury duty once in my adult life, and the entire pool was sent home immediately after court convened for lack of cases. I would gladly respond positively to the next summons to appear and serve on a jury if selected... assuming that summons to appear was not being handed out on the street by a sheriff with instructions to drop the rest of the day for jury duty.

The Feds Can't Pay Their Phone Bill So We're All Gonna Die!! (or maybe not)

2008-01-10T12:20:00.000-08:00

Remember how the Administration and their toady apologists were calling "Terrorist Surveillance Program" a vital tool in the war on terror which was responsible for stopping multiple attacks and saving thousands of lives? Remember how they were calling for the reporters at the N.Y. Times to be charged with treason for reporting on the story? Well, if we can judge the necessity of the program by the determination to fund it, it may not have been so vital to our safety after all.

Via Raw Story we learn that the FBI has accrued thousands of dollars in unpaid phone bills, leading to dropped wiretaps as the phone companies discontinued service.

In at least one case, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation "was halted due to untimely payment," the audit found. FISA wiretaps are used in the government's most sensitive and secretive criminal and intelligence investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies.

"We also found that late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence," according to the audit by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine.

Here we have the Bush administration instituting a program which clearly violates the 4th amendment, and established law, claiming when found out that they were doing it in order to save lives, yet it turns out the program is not even worth paying the bill for. Why be upset at the loss of civil liberties and the horrible precedent set by the President as he willfully violates the law and constitution in the name of safety? This administration is not even competent enough to keep the program running effectively by paying the freaking phone bill.

Why would the administration be willing to bring on a constitutional crisis over a policy which actually proves so unimportant in the long run? Just how freaking vital a tool can the "terrorist surveillance program" really be? Every person reading this can relate to paying the phone bill. The telephone and attendant services, usually, are not vital to the survival of those paying the bill, BUT we make sure to do it anyway... if for no other reason than we owe the freaking bill! Yet in this instance, with the administration using the specter of massive death if they are not allowed to go about trashing the constitution, and crowing about the effectiveness of the program at stopping certain attacks until it was publicised, it turns out that the program is actually not important enough to pay the bill for. That is a pretty low priority and speaks volumes about the real value of the program from my point of view.

I might chortle about this in regards to the "terrorists surveillance program", but it is notable that FBI taps cover far more territory. How many domestic cases were harmed by lost evidence, how many criminals are now on the streets, and how many victims have been harmed because of the administrations patent incompetence?

Toss Tucker, Bring Back Brokaw

2008-01-09T18:08:00.000-08:00

There has been alot of attention on the interaction between Tom Brokaw and Chris Matthews during last nights coverage of the New Hampshire primary. Brokaw lamented the pre primary focus by the major media on personalities, gossip and speculation by the entrenched set of talking heads which dominate cable television. Brokaw called for a change in course by the media, wondering why they can't start focusing on issues and policy in what seemed to be a pretty direct assault on the essence of what makes Chris Matthews (here after referred to as Tweety) who he is.

Glenn Greenwald sums up the exchange by arguing that, in the context of talking heads sitting around navel gazing during the vote counting, Tweety must win the day. After all, if Tweety is wrong then the entire construct and formulation by which the mass media drives the news will be brought to ruin. All of Brokaw's high falutin musing about focusing on real issues would never prove successful if his dream show were to be put in competition against the slash and burn political hackery which constitutes modern cable television news programs...

As if to reinforce his own outlook, Tweety took to the cable ramparts this morning and pronounced that the only reason Senator Clinton was elected Senator in the first place is because Bill cheated on her. It makes me feel dirty even going there so after I bash out this post I have to take a shower.

Perhaps you have deduced by my acid tone towards Matthews that I am hardly on Tweety's side when it comes to the role our media should be playing. But I would like to see this tested somehow. Why not give Brokaw the chance to test his theory? If there is a person who could make it work it would have to be Brokaw. He is experienced, not widely assumed to be partisan one way or the other, serious, and generally well suited as the face of a respected news program. MSNBC is looking for a way to shake Tucker off... I think Brokaw would be a great addition, and we would be given a chance once and for all to see if a program focused on issues rather than poo fuffery would do well. I for one think it would.

All of this reminds me of Bill Clinton standing in front of the camera's and lamenting that he could not make his wife younger, or male. This recieved huge play with the personality driven media coverage and I though made Bill look bad, (I immediately thought to myself that Michelle Obama should call a presser and announce that she could not make Obama white, or his spouse a cad for that matter). But what we as a nation really can not change is the plague which passes for mass media in modern society. They force feed us the foibles of the politicians, the tears when the chips are down and the general personality driven story of the day, while giving the issues and policy decisions of the day very short thrift.

So let us put the Brokaw theory to the test, and I can not think of a better way to do it than by having Tucker Carlson exit stage right and letting Brokaw make a run at changing the basic character of the media by example.

I'm A Believer

2008-01-04T17:54:00.000-08:00

What I'm about to say may hardly seem to be the definition of cogent, trailblazing blogger thoughtfulness: I mean I held out for most of last fall hoping Al Gore would enter the race, and then when it became evident that it was getting too late I hemmed and hawed about who I favored in the race to the Democratic nomination. So now that Obama has made it easy to support him by altering the fundamentals of the political universe I once thought I knew... let me give him the much coveted (SCOFF!!) bhfrik endorsement.

See, waiting 'til now to endorse Obama really does ring hollow does it not? I could have done it when Obama was 20 points behind Clinton in Iowa and 40 points back in the national polls, and looked prescient now. I could have done that when all the major Democratic party hacks were endorsing Clinton and crowning her the nominee months before the first vote was cast, and just think about how much more impressive I would look now.

But I do have reasons for waiting for a bit to hop on the Obwagon. Never in a future election will I withold even seeking a favorite until the person I really really want to run lets the time for entrance into the race pass by with passive denials and half hearted responses to questions about their candidacy. I must admit that the non entry of Gore into this race has been a bitter pill to swallow for me, and I won't fall into that hole again.

Next, I really do appreciate all of the candidates for the Democratic nomination. From Gravel to Obama, they all would make fantastic Presidents. Should a Democrat win I truly hope they find a place for every one of these candidates, either in their cabinent or at the table where important decisions are made from time to time if the candidate is already in high political office and does not want to move on.

It is particularly difficult for me to announce for someone other than Senator Clinton, given that she is really trying to follow stratagems I have called for and it may actually be costing her popularity. In several posts I have called for a nitty gritty back alley fighter to be the Democratic nominee in order to combat the certain smears they will face from the Reublican machine in the general election. My perception is that Clinton is trying to prove herself willing to do whatever it takes to win, and she is coming out the lesser for it. If there is a lesson from Iowa, where Romney went negative on Huckabee and recieved a thumping, it may well be that the mean season in our national politics is coming to an end. Could part of the national yearning for change from the politics of Bush include a desire to put the blatant partisan ugliness behind us, and to punish those who go there? Then my call for a back alley fighter is admittedly wrong headed, yet here I go abandoning Senator Clinton, partially for doing what I called on the Democratic nominee to do.

But the kicker for me has been personal experience. I am married to a conservative Mormon. I am not in the business of trying to convert my wife from the conservative darkness, just as she is not in the business of trying to convert me from non Mormon apostasy. We try to avoid talking about the hot political subjects of the day because those disussions can get very argumentative, and the chances of one side or the other persuading the opposite outlook with their logic is just about nil.

My wife started out with a political and religious prediliction to support Mitt Romney. But my wife has become something of an Obamanatic, and this is only getting more pronounced by the day. My everyday life is a testament to me of the cross idealogical appeal of Senator Obama.

And the kicker for me was indeed the result of the Iowa caucus. I watched Obama's speech and despite that fact that he was two dimensional and electronically piped into my living room, I found myself inspired. His message doesn't just reach my wife, and alot of other conservatives who hold my wifes outlook... but he reaches me too.

I've heard the pundits talk about Obama the rock star and how pumped up his crowds get. But that victory speech brought it home for me. Obama is more than a rock star... he is freaking inspirational, and that feeling is held across the political board. I couldn't help but watch that speech and think about my personal experience with my wife and decide that to support Obama going forward.

I remember telling my wife early on when she started warming to Obama. You might like him now, but just imagine a six month stretch where he has to deal with daily attacks from the right wing noise machine... Osama/Obama, Obamanation... all of the childish language with the Islamic hoo haw and so on and so forth. I was convinced that after such a daily barrage that my wife and others like her would never vote for Obama and fear for the children if he ever visited the state. Maybe... just maybe I was wrong, and at this point, I want to find out.

Happy Holidays

2007-12-21T18:32:00.000-08:00

I'll be away from the intertubes for the next couple of weeks, so here is wishing each and every one who may read this a safe and happy holiday season.

American Society And Torture.

2007-12-20T17:51:00.000-08:00

I recall as a boy reading about the treatment received by American POW's in Vietnam. I had a book on the war, and one of the pictures in that book was a drawing of an American man on his knees, his arms draped over a pole which ran across his upper back. He was leaned forward, and the position looked very uncomfortable. At the time, I knew full well that this was an illustration of torture. But in modern day society that very same picture would be termed a "stress technique", and there are many who would hotly defend the use of such methods against detainees in the war on terror.

You may be asking yourself, "self... why has friky started getting all philosophical about the attitude of society as a whole on what is or isn't torture". The answer may be found in this story on MSNBC titled 'Staff fired over prank-call shock treatments'.

Here is the gist of the story. The Judge Rotenberg Education Center is some sort of institution that caters to "troubled" youths. One of their charges was released, and called the center pretending to be a supervisor who was ordering two teens be punished for supposed offenses committed earlier in the day. The punishment which the "supervisor" imposed upon these teens (one 16, the other 19) was shock treatment with one boy being given 29 shocks and the other boy 77. We have this blurb from the MSNBC article about this technique.

The center is believed to be the only school in the United States that uses two-second skin-shock punishments to change destructive behavior. The center says the treatments are used in a minority of cases and only with parental, medical, psychiatric and court approval.

In other words the shocks are being used by this institution to break difficult patients. As far as I'm concerned they are torturing patients into submission, evidently with the hearty thumbs up by the parents and the courts.

No where in this article is the word torture mentioned. The following blurb comes the closest:

The center has survived two attempts by the state to close it over allegations that its unorthodox methods amount to abuse.

Hello?! Abuse?!! Try TORTURE! Those unorthodox methods do not "amount to" torture, they define that ghastly word. Yet somehow the state has not been able to close the facility which means that some authority out there is just fine with having troubled teens being broken by torture.

Who knows how long this has been going on. I know full well that the evil and brutality of various institutions through out the history of America has been a very badly kept secret. But I am really outraged that such treatment would somehow be acceptable in modern day America. This isn't something that happened behind closed doors with a secret to be kept by those involved. This was official policy which went off the tracks because some patient who had been released took advantage of the system in order to mete out punishment to two undeserving boys. To me the outrage here is not that the system was flummoxed by an out patient. The outrage is that we allow a system which, as a remedy for 'destructive behavior' saw those teens be repeatedly shocked until they were broken.

It makes me wonder about our nations moral bearing. This is fundamental to our basic understanding of what is good and evil, regardless of what religion or sect you belong to. We have television shows glorifying the most heinous forms of torture as a way to save our cities, Americans using the very techniques once used against us which we decried as torture, and a school which uses electric shock to correct "destructive behavior" with the blessings of a judge and the parents. Far from endeavoring to guide our nation by the light of human rights and equality, our nation seems to be determined to tread path of societies which embrace torture and humiliation of those who are considered problems or less worthy than the rest of us. I just thank my lucky stars that when I was acting out in my teenage years that I didn't live in Massachusetts.

The Pentagon Throws Petraeus Under The Bus.

2007-12-19T17:23:00.000-08:00

Check out these conflicting stories about the Turkish military bombing the Kurds in northern Iraq.

First, The Guardian reports that General Petraeus first learned about the attacks as they were happening:

State Department and Defense Department officials in Washington and Baghdad said top U.S. commanders in Iraq didn't know about the incursion until the first of two waves of Turkish planes were already on their way - either crossing the border or already over it.

The Turkish military did not inform the American military as quickly as had been agreed. That meant the U.S. had to rush to clear air space for the incursion, two defense officials and a State Department official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

One Washington official said the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, was angered by the development. Another said American diplomats complained to the Turks about it.

There may well be a fine reason that General Petraeus was not warned about the coming incursion: The Iraqi government would freak out at having Turkey invading Iraqi territory, and General Petraeus has to work with those folks to try to get this quagmire on firmer ground. If Petraeus could come out expressing shock and dismay at the Turkish incursion it would make his job a lot easier... IF it is really true that Turkey just hauled off and went to battle without telling us. Which, as it turns out, is a mighty big if. Check out this article by Raw Story:

Turkey informed the United States well in advance before launching weekend air raids into northern Iraq against Kurdish rebel bases, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

"We had ample notification of the air strikes by the Turkish Air Force against PKK (Kurdish separatist group) positions in northern Iraq," spokesman Geoff Morrell said, confirming for the first time that Washington knew of Ankara's plans.

"It was communicated to us through the Ankara coordination center, this has been opened for some months now, in which you have Turkish personnel along with US military personnel working to share intelligence."

He told reporters the coordination had been "adequate" and said the Pentagon had nothing to complain about.

So we have two possibilities. Petraeus was warned. He was just acting like he was caught by surprise in order to maintain a better relationship with the locals. I don't like this particular possibility because of the lessons learned by us fevered liberals during the moveon N.Y. Times ad debacle. General Petraeus' motives and outstanding integrity must needs lead to the ultimate conclusion that he was entirely honest in this instance, lest in questioning his motives we open ourselves to condemnation as un-American dimwits and loudmouthed louts.

Which leads to the other possibility, which must be true if Petraeus' honor is to be maintained. The Pentagon was notified but did not forward that information to their Iraqi commander.

I tend to believe this possibility, and not just in a liberal knee jerk reaction to stop a moveon ad debacle repeat. But because this explanation would be so symbolic of the way things in Iraq have been handled since day one of the invasion. The thought that the top commander in Iraq would be kept out of the loop on the military incursion of Iraq by Turkey just boggles the mind. What sort of inane idiocy, what hapless cronyism, what bumbling moron brought this latest embarrassment to the fore? Exactly who is responsible for making sure that our forces in Iraq do not get into a hot shooting war with our Nato allies from Turkey? How could they have overlooked giving this crucial piece of information to the top American General in Iraq? They thought it would be a good idea if Petraeus were awakened by some breathless aide in the middle of the night with tales of radar blips descending from Turkey in an unannounced campaign into Iraq?

Once the person responsible for this bumbling affair is brought to light, the President will almost certainly give them a medal and a promotion.

By letting this happen the Pentagon really threw Petraeus under the proverbial bus. He is sputtering about proper notification and anger at the provocation... and then the Pentagon tells the world that they were notified. It makes Petraeus seem like he's out of the loop at the very least and can not help but weaken his position with the locals.

I eagerly await the honorable defense of General Petraeus by the same loud mouthed right wing koolaid drinkers who so loudly decried Move On about the Times ad. I have the feeling the I will be eagerly awaiting for quite a while.

We've Already Had This Debate!

2007-12-12T16:45:00.000-08:00

I've been watching Morning Joe on MSNBC a bit recently, and Joe Scarbororough has come out full bore defending waterboarding against his guest host, Mika Brzezinski and roving reporter David Shuster.

I have yet to locate video or the transcript from this mornings show, but in watching it live I found myself a bit flustered at one of the mutually agreed upon determinations by the protagonists. It seems that everyone agrees that it is a good thing that we as a nation are having this debate about whether or not we should employ torture in order to gain intelligence. To which I say poppycock!

The thought that we as a nation have been brought to the point of parsing what is or is not torture, and debating whether or not our national policy should allow for this or that technique is disturbing from my point of view for several reasons.

America has already had this debate. We settled this when our forefathers instituted safeguards insuring the basic human rights for people who are imprisoned by the federal government. It was settled when the founding fathers saw fit to bind our government to international treaties, and America signed the Geneva conventions. It was settled when the founding fathers gave constitutional authority to the Congress to determine the treatment of captured enemies, and Congress then wrote into law, on several occassions, statutes expressly prohibiting the ill treatment of captives. This debate was settled when the founding fathers set the standard for the care of prisoners passed from them to the Clinton administration, and overturned by the Bush administration.

It is instructive that at no point from the founding of this nation til the current administration has there been any significant portion of society who have argued for torturing captives. Simply because modern day neocons have outlandish theories and outlooks on the power of the President, who in turn can be counted upon to take the wrong headed point of view on a case by case basis, does not mean they have the right to open a debate long settled by the nation. It has always been fundamentally un-American to torture captives, period.

To now say it is a good thing to debate torturing prisoners is to take a massive step in the wrong direction, no matter how the debate is settled. This debate is closed, and anyone who thinks it should be open is frankly advocating an un-American viewpoint, no matter what their superficial logic is in wanting to debate the issue.

The fact that we are now telling the world that we find this a debatable issue takes away our right to influence the same debate in other nations. Who are we to maintain the possible right to torture our prisoners, and then call upon other nations to treat their prisoners humanely. Just yesterday we were witness to the chief legal counsel from Guantanamo Bay being unable to cogently answer whether or not he believed Iran would violate the Geneva conventions if they were to waterboard Americans. This just a couple of months after the chief legal advisor for the State Department echoed that sentiment by refusing to speculate on whether a foriegn nation waterboarding American citizens would be in violation of the Geneva conventions. This administration has removed the ability of our own government to insist upon the humane treatment of our own citizenry abroad.

With the stated inability of this administration to protect citizens who are taken captive by other nations, and the fact that the Military Commissions Act which passed Congress last year applies to American citizens, it is absolutely breathtaking to consider that under this one administration the rights of American citizens to be treated humanely have been stripped both domestically and internationally.

Let me touch upon the oft stated contention by Scarborough and other torture apologists that waterboarding is not torture. One interrogation technique widely accepted as torture are feigned executions. Now there may be some out there who believe holding a gun to someones head and pulling the trigger on an empty chamber is an acceptable technique, but that is widely acknowleged to be a form of torture. Waterboarding is no different, and in fact is even more traumatic both psychologically and physically. Victims of waterboarding tell of not being able to take showers, or being terrified if they are caught in a rain storm. The purpose of waterboarding is to make a person believe they are being drowned to death, and thus it is a form of feigned execution which, in turn, is beyond all doubt a form of torture.

Finally, a word on the efficacy of torture. I was amazed while watching David Shuster on Morning Joe finally get badgered by Joe into conceding that if torture did lead to information which would save innocent lives that he would be willing to allow for the practice. Now I may well be in the minority on this, but I say no to this slippery slope. Because if torture works for us, it works for them. And the chances of me or you being blown up by some freaky terrorists as opposed to the chance of the average citizen of the middle east being blown up by a piece of American ordinance is absurdly miniscule. If we are going to allow it to save our lives, we are hypocrites if we expect them to behave like Americans used to, and by our own logic to take casualties as a result. We might as well just chuck the notion that led America to sign the Geneva conventions. I'm not willing to do that.

Also, as noted in my last post, if we are to concede that torturing people leads to intelligence that may save lives, we are left wondering why it is that the founding fathers and every generation following them until ours forbade the policy. I contend that the emergencies face by several of those generations posed a far greater threat to the very existence of the nation and it's citizenry at the time. Just look at the sacrifices of the various generations with food rationing, military drafts and so on, compared to the sacrifice of our generation in being called upon to do our part by shopping more! We are the ones so threatened that we have to toss aside the fundamental principles regarding the treatment of captives? It is just ridiculous to even concieve... but somehow it is good that we are having this debate.

Selling Our Souls For Dross

2007-12-10T18:37:00.000-08:00

The evidence that this administration officially sanctioned the torture of suspects affiliated with Al Qaeda is simply irrefutable. The latest confirmation comes from John Kiriakou, the CIA officer who interrogated Abu Zubaydah.

Kiriakou says that waterboarding Zubaydah broke him in 35 seconds, after which he freely admitted to scores of plots and provided reams of extremely valuable intelligence. Kiriakou says that waterboarding is torture, and he thinks torturing detainees may have been necessary after 9/11: "What happens if we don't waterboard a person, and we don't get that nugget of information, and there's an attack," Kiriakou said. "I would have trouble forgiving myself."

This is the crux of the pro torture logic. The ends justify the means if the ends is to save innocent life from the terrorists. In fact, when considering the torture issue from that neoconnish us vs them, good/evil, black/white outlook, the sense of torturing Al Qaeda suspects isn't really even debatable. Of course the evildoers who want to kill us should be tortured in order to save innocent lives!

But it seems to me that that same logic may be used by all people throughout the course of human kind. In fact Andrew Sullivan's exposure of the Nazi justifications for torturing partisans (even to the point of calling it "enhanced interrogation") follow the modern day pro torture arguments precisely. Those partisans were captured out of uniform, plotting to kill indiscriminately far removed from any front line, resulting in random acts of violence which had to be stopped in the name of saving lives. Those arguments did not win the day at Nuremburg and the fact that the Bush administration is echoing the wrong side of those war crimes is beyond appalling.

In fact Kiriakou takes note of the example passed to us from the "greatest generation", and how they handled their intelligence gathering at the time. Yet rather than learning from that example, Kiriakou dismisses those old fashioned notions thusly:

I had heard stories of-- of captured German prisoners from the Second World War playing chess with their interrogators. And over the course of many weeks and months of playing chess they develop a rapport, and the German ended up giving information. Al Qaeda is not like a World War Two German POW. It's a different world.

These guys hate us more than they love life. And so they're not-- you're not gonna convince them that because you're a nice guy and they can trust you and they have a rapport with you that they're going to confess and-- and give you their operations. It's-- it's different. It's a different world.

Reading this, I don't think Kiriakou is well schooled in the attitudes of the generation which fought WWII. They were fed the most vitriolic propaganda instilling racism and hatred for the enemy. There can be no doubt as to the certain knowledge of that generation that the enemy at that time wanted every one of us dead, and that we were in a fight to bitter end... it was either us or them. It was ok with that generation to firebomb the enemies population centers for goodness sakes! The perception of modern day interrogators that the enemy we face today is particularly vicious and deadly is hardly a new found conviction only applicable to our generation.

Frankly, the truth of the matter is the WWII generation actually had a far greater reason to fear their enemy than we do to fear terrorists. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died in a four year war with the Axis. The death toll in the 6 year war on terror has not yet approached 10k. They were fighting the national superpowers of their ages, with huge war machines bent on world domination. We are fighting a backwards sect of religious fundamentalist cave dwelling freakazoids who are bent on world domination. Where are the stories of Axis prisoners being waterboarded in order to root out plots and stratagems which actually cost lives by the thousands in that war? Claiming that the modern threat to Americans is such that we are called upon to forsake the principles which our fathers and their fathers through the generations established is simply nonsensical. It really makes no sense, and yet that is how the torture apologists want us to think as they call upon you to be afraid and let that fear guide you in deciding whether or not to cast off the principles that make us American.

Past generations of Americans faced with mortal danger never responded to the crisis of their times by lowering themselves to the depths which the Bush administration has taken us to. They never officially condoned torture in order to save their own lives. Lives which they gave willingly in order to pass along fundamental ideals which guided America for over 230 years, but which ideals the Bush administration allowed to be subverted out of fear. I am just appalled that this happened with my generation... on our watch!

The Bush administration has cheapened the sacrifice, lives and suffering of past generations of patriots... and in the course of doing so we are telling history that our forefathers had it wrong. They should have broken their prisoners to save themselves. George Washington, facing the definition of worst threat to the nation while founding America by revolting against the world superpower of the day, was wrong to not break British prisoners in order to get intelligence. Roosevelt was wrong to not waterboard Axis prisoners and use the intelligence we would have gotten to save allied lives by the thousands.

There is no doubt in my mind on this simple fact. It is not our forefathers who were wrong to hold American ideals which found the mistreatment of prisoners unacceptable. It is this abominable President who is wrong.

The title of this post was coined by the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, describing the wests reliance upon intelligence gained by the most hideous forms of torture used by the tyrant of Tashkent as selling our souls for dross. If you link around enough, you can see that evidence for yourself, and it is particularly gruesome. The Uzbeki government barely attempts to conceal the awful truth. By way of graphic example they contend that two brothers whose bodies actually had water lines burned into them from being dipped alive into boiling water had died after engaging in a tea fight. I'm certain there were many plots and terrorists exposed in the final moments of those brothers existence, and the thought that our intelligence services would actually use such evidence should shock the conscience. Shame!

We may not be boiling people alive, but our allies are. And it seems to me it's harder for America to call upon the rest of the world to toe the line on humanitarian concerns when it is clear that the President of the United States authorized the torture of prisoners. We sell our souls for dross and impugn the past sacrifices of those patriots who handed down American ideals rather than allowing fear of the threats they faced to forsake those principles by allowing this President and his cronies to get away with this. There really has to be an accounting for this. A war crime in 1946 must still be a war crime in 2001 and beyond.

On Faith And Freedom

2007-12-06T14:04:00.000-08:00

John Kennedy, Sept 12 1960 at the Greater Houston Ministerial Association.

"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute"

Mitt Romney today at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library.

"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."

Comparing the above quotes brings to mind a paraphrase of the classic Lloyd Bentsen take down of little Danny Quayle: "[Governor], I served with Jack Kennedy: I knew Jack Kennedy; Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. [Governor], you're no Jack Kennedy"

The Romney quote above is one of the most absurd assertions ever uttered in the history of political platitudity. (Hah! A new word!) Jesus Christ, who by Romneys own testimony "is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind" walked the Earth and spread his message founding the Christian faith in a land brutally occupied by the Romans. In fact one may argue that if not for the absolutely pathological outlook by the Romans on their subjects (which led them to do things like publicly torture and crucify common criminals as an example to the local populace) that Jesus would never have been offered as the sacrifice for mankind, which happening is integral to the Christian faith.

Jesus' disciples then spread the gospel in lands far and wide, and every single kingdom they visited suffered under various forms of brutal tyranny. They all died at the hands of brutal tyrants in the course of spreading their message and building one of the worlds great religions. If Romney were actually correct in asserting that "freedom and faith endure together or perish alone" Christianity would have died in the cradle, a forgotten cult based upon a cannabalistic off shoot of Judaism.

There are a myriad of examples of strong churches, amazing tales of faith and spirituality in the face of institutional oppression. In fact repression is one of the greatest reasons that any given populace turns to spirituality. Just look at the example of the early American slaves. Consider the foundations which led to the mythic status of the "Negro Spiritual", emblematic of inspirational faith and spiritual fortitude in the face of hopeless generational bondage. Now tell me that faith and freedom must live together or perish alone.

The message Romney is really trying to sell here is that religion should be influenced by the political system, as religion should also influence the system. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that overt spirituality is quite often the very foundation of tyranny and oppression. Romney rails against "radical violent Islam" in this very speech. Consider the governments which are founded upon a radical interpretation of that faith, and you are witness to some of the most backwards, illiberal and repressive regimes in human history. The Holy Catholic Church spent most of the middle ages brutally repressing various subcultures and other sects and religions based upon a warped mingling of faith and government. I contend that faith and freedom may certainly coexist with each other, but one is not neccessary in order to have the other. In fact intertwaining faith and freedom may lead to the death of one or the other... or both.

The evangelical audience Romney was reaching out to with this speech may appreciate the sentiment that insists freedom and religion endure together. But I'm not certain that they will be happy, understanding that their sectarian beliefs are not the guiding principles of the faith which influences our freedom.

Beyond that evangelical audience, people who are paying attention to this speech must be given pause at the expressed will of Romney at incorporating faith with freedom.

The Majority Of the 24%'ers

2007-12-05T16:51:00.001-08:00

One of the enduring mysteries in modern politics is how President Bush, with approval ratings in the low 20 percentile range, is able to have any effectiveness in forwarding his agenda.

I believe this is the answer: Republicans know for a certainty that the rabid supporters who make up the right wing of their party can be counted to show up on election day. If only half the populace votes, suddenly the 24% of rabid koolaid drinkers who make a point of showing up at the polls is about half of the electorate that matters on election day.

If the right wingers can carve off a percentile here or there by vote caging, under servicing left leaning geographical areas on election day, and making hundreds of thousands of voters in those same areas cast provisional ballots that most likely will not be counted... suddenly 24% of the general populace is a slim majority on election day.

If worse comes to worse and the election is razor edge close, even if the Democrat holds a slight lead... the Supremes have proven willing to narrowly decide that the Republican should be declared the winner.

I am convinced that Bush would hold a pittance of the influence he wields in Washington if the bloc of the electorate who disagreed with Bush's policies, otherwise known as the 70%'ers, were as motivated to vote as the 24%'ers.

In fact Paul Weyrich, a founding member of modern day conservatism, and co founder of the Heritage foundation expressed it this way, from a decidedly right wing point of view: (here's video @ Crooks and Liars):

“Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome — good government. They want everybody to vote. I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."

This may be one reason there is growing panic from the right about their field of candidates this year. A large segment of the die hard righties are evangelicals. If they are not as motivated to turn out in the coming election as they were in 2004 the Republicans are looking at impending electoral disaster. The Republicans may be about to ask their fundamentalist brethren in politics to cast their votes for a candidate who is a cross dressing, thrice married, serial cheating, flip flopping former proud social liberal. Giuliani actually makes Clinton family values look traditional by comparison. If the fundamentalist right loses motivation to vote for the Republican candidate, suddenly 24% of the general population is going to start looking like 24% of the voting electorate.

That will be the end of the majority of the 24%'ers, and good riddance to them.

Then again, I admit that I've always been a dud when it comes to math... so maybe I need to stop crunching numbers and just chalk up the continued legislative successes of Mr. 24% to gutless pols who won't take a stand.

Praying Podheretz Pans imProper Peacenik Plot

2007-12-04T17:19:00.000-08:00

Norman Podheretz wrote a column last May in which he prayed that America would bomb Iran. With yesterday's bombshell revelation that our intelligence services have determined that Iran halted it's nuclear weapons program in 2003, sane people would expect Podheretz to be thankful that war with Iran had been avoided with American goals satisfied. But sane people, being sane and all, would be mistaken.

Rather than welcoming good news, Podheretz takes a shot at writing fiction, penning a column which ascribes political motives to a conspiracy by the CIA in order to make the President (and Poheretz, to be sure) look bad. I expect the next Podheretz column to be filled with black helicopters and maybe some invading space aliens. Even the title of today's Podheretz fiction is conspiratorial: "Dark Suspicions about the NIE". After a rehash of outdated and cherry picked proof to determine that Iran needed bombing in the first place Podheretz writes:

"I entertain an even darker suspicion. It is that the intelligence community, which has for some years now been leaking material calculated to undermine George W. Bush, is doing it again. This time the purpose is to head off the possibility that the President may order air strikes on the Iranian nuclear installations."

Gee... the notion that the NIE findings are just what they appear to be is not acceptable if you are a raving madman who prays for needless war. It's hard to twist the facts when the all the NIE findings are released. It was much easier to start an unnecessary war when they let out selective parts of the Iraq NIE in the fall of 2002. If they can not manipulate the intelligence and narrative, by putting out the parts which most suit the Cheney goals, it is proof that the intelligence community is out to get Bush.

Actually, come to think of it, Podheretz may actually be right but for the wrong reasons. By releasing all of the findings of this NIE and stopping a needless war in Iran the intelligence agencies HAVE thwarted Bush. Not from defending America and acting in our best interests as the Podheretz gang have been loudly proclaiming an attack on Iraq would be, but from starting another bloody, costly needless war and handing the mess off to the next President. Stopping this President from spawning another disaster is a good thing, unless you take the perspective of a nutty neocon. Podheretz might think thats a bad outcome, but all you need to know about his thought process is that he actually prays for war! I can't even begin to imagine the thought process that goes into an actual supplication to God that people die and nations go to war as a result of your prayer.

We can almost see the spattered tear stains on the original copy of this editorial when Podheretz pens:

"If this is what lies behind the release of the new NIE, its authors can take satisfaction in the response it has elicited from the White House. Quoth Stephen Hadley, George W. Bush’s National Security Adviser: 'The estimate offers grounds for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically—without the use of force—as the administration has been trying to do."

Podheretz' despair at the prospect of peace is nearly palpable. Just remember, he is currently advising Rudy Giuliani on foreign policy.

Go Out And Earn It

2007-12-04T14:17:00.000-08:00

I've long resisted the sundry denunciations of Senator Clinton and her campaign for projecting an air of inevitability in her march to the Democratic nomination. I've been willing to chalk a lot of the anti Clinton talk up to reflexive Clinton haters. I am convinced that much of the heat she is taking is from people who have no particular reason to be so vindictive against Clinton, other than the fact that she is Clinton. I've even told myself that to run for President means that you believe you will win. Are we expecting Clinton to start hemming and hawing about her chances?

My perceptions on Clinton have started turning of late. Today David Corn reports on first hand experience with "Clintonites" recently which reflects very poorly upon Senator Clinton's campaign. To be sure, the following words are not from Senator Clinton herself, but she would be well served to disassociate herself from them or risk further alienating undecideds, like myself, in the Democratic primaries.

"When talking to Clintonites in recent days, I've noticed that they've come to despise Obama. I suppose that may be natural in the final weeks of a competitive campaign when much is at stake. But these people don't need any prompting in private conversations to decry Obama as a dishonest poser. They're not spinning for strategic purposes. They truly believe it. And other Democrats in Washington report encountering the same when speaking with Clinton campaign people. "They really, really hate Obama," one Democratic operative unaffiliated with any campaign, tells me. "They can't stand him. They talk about him as if he's worse than Bush." What do they hate about him? After all, there aren't a lot of deep policy differences between the two, and he hasn't gone for the jugular during the campaign. "It's his presumptuousness," this operative says. "That he thinks he can deny her the nomination. Who is he to try to do that?" You mean, he's, uh, uppity? "Yes." A senior House Democratic aide notes, "The Clinton people are going nuts in how much they hate him."

President Clinton may be very popular amongst Democrats, but that does not mean that members of his family are entitled to any post they seek within the party. This story, if accurate, mirrors the criticisms leveled at Hillary on her sense of entitlement and is very troubling. We should not be asking ourselves just who Barack Obama thinks he is to challenge Hillary for the nomination. Unless Hillary takes immediate steps to separate herself from this sentiment, we should be asking just who Hillary Clinton thinks she is... expecting a march to coronation at the Democratic convention, and having a temper tantrum when that march gets interrupted.

This sense of entitlement, and outrage at being challenged in the process that defines our participation as citizens in who it is that will lead this nation, is reminiscent of royal families. I have previously resisted criticisms of Clinton/Bush political dynasties. (I happen to believe that it is unfair to the Clintons to unfairly tar them with linkage to the Bush's when the two families are actually very different with the Bush's stewardship being far more damaging to the nation than Clintons.) But for all the world, Corns report makes it appear that the Clintonites are pining for the days of royalty, with a succession of leaders being determined by family lineage and anyone who would dare challenge that succession being ground into ashes as an example for any others who would have the temerity to follow the unfortunate example. Democrats might appreciate the overall leadership of the Clinton's in national affairs, but this certainly does not mean they have any God given right to Democratic office. They have to go out and earn it, and freaking out because they have not reached exalted leaders status in Democratic circles does not sit well.

I say all this as one of Senator Clintons defenders against the drumbeat of criticizm: see here, here and here. In fact I still find myself pulling for her... hoping she pulls out of this funk and wins it all. But what I've seen lately has taken me from leaning for Clinton to more undecided than ever. I'm lucky that Oregon isn't one of those early primary states!

Frankly, as one who calls for a tough Democrat who will do what it takes to get elected, I find the Clinton campaigns approach to Obama of late to be overwrought and not very effective. Yesterday the Clintonites made themselves laughing stocks around the nation, claiming that Obama lied for saying that he did not have a long term ambition to run for President, as proven by a kindergarten paper in which Obama wrote that when he grew up he wanted to be President. Democrats need to be able run a tough campaign, but we need them to be smart about it as well. Criticizing a kindergartner for wanting to be President is just ridiculously dumb. Lately the Clinton camp is coming across as reflexive and slightly hysterical.

Let me wrap this up by saying that it should be a goal for the next President and Congress to reform the national primary system. Why Iowa and New Hampshire have been bequeathed with the sanctified role they have makes no sense from my perspective, with all due apologies to possible readers from those states. Maybe we could rotate the opening primaries and/or caucuses around. Campaigns starting immediately after the midterm elections is just silly. America is not being well served by the current system and there has to be a better way. In fact it seems to me that both parties should be able to get together on this to make repairing the nomination process a bipartisan endeavor.

The Shag Fund Spinners Think You Are Dumb

2007-11-30T17:20:00.000-08:00

The story originally broken by Politico, which Talking Points Memo has titled the Shag Fund, has Rudy Giuliani in a pickle. This is a direct attack at the Mayor on issues which the Republican base pay attention too. The Mayor was boffing a mistress on the side while he was still married, and using taxpayer funds to pay for the trips and sundry expenses to do it... as well as having the taxpayers pay for the cops to chauffeur the mistress around town and so on.

But the part that caught my attention today was the disclosure that the city of New York prepaid an American Express account $400,000.00 for travel expenses incurred by the mayor. The AMEX account was billed to the Assigned Counsel Administrative Office, who are responsible for providing lawyers to indigent defendants. The permutations and smokescreens associated with this type of accounting fairly cry out for an auditor to take a fine tooth comb to the books. This type of accounting gimmick is the very definition of money laundering.

Giuliani's spokesman put the following spin on this AMEX prepayment revelation: "[I]t's fiscally responsible to anticipate predictable expenses and prepay them." With logic like this, the Giuliani camp must think whoever listens to them is dumb, or just not paying attention. They must be counting on the penchant of many Americans to roll their eyes and tune out once numbers and economic theories are the topic.

If this AMEX prepayment is really an example of fiscal responsibility by a Giuliani administration, the nation is in deep budgetary doo doo if he is ever elected President. Giuliani's money laundering cost the city thousands of dollars because of this gimmick. Rather than the city keeping that money in interest bearing accounts, and paying from those accounts when the bills came due, they gave AMEX that money. So taxpayer dollars were used to enrich AMEX, who certainly did draw interest on that money, and applied the funds as they were spent by the Mayor during his little extramarital excursions. In fact AMEX wound up refunding $298,000 after Giuliani left office, which reinforces what a great deal this was for AMEX. Just imagine some kindly billionaire depositing $400k in your bank account with the understanding that it is not your money, but the interest that accrues from that money is yours to keep. That is a sweet deal no matter how you slice it.

Calling this "fiscally responsible" is precisely the opposite of the truth. The Shag Fund tells us a good deal about Giuliani's commitment to family values, but we also are learning about his very careless manner in dealing with fiscal concerns.

Every Word Of The Bible: Infallible?

2007-11-29T14:23:00.000-08:00

The Republican debate last night brought an interesting theological question into the political spotlight. Is the bible the infallible word of God?

This question is especially cogent in the Republican primaries because of Mitt Romney's beliefs. Mormonism explicitly denies the infallibility of the bible. Joseph Smith, the founder of the Jesus Christ Church of Latter Day Saints, actually wrote his own interpretation of the bible which included what he considered to be divinely inspired corrections to the original text.

This is not to say that Mormons deny the bible. They simply do not hold it to be correct word for word... which is one cause for schism betwixt Mormons and mainstream Protestant evangelicals. There are millions of evangelicals who are absolutely certain that the original King James Bible is literally correct, from the six days of creation through the foundation of the early church.

I am no Mormon (my wife and her family are), but I am no fundamentalist evangelical either. When it comes to the question of the inerrant truth of the bible I can prove with a scientific certainty that the King James bible is not word for word inerrantly correct. In fact the very first post I ever wrote as a blogger was on this very subject!

Let us open the good book to Deuteronomy chapter 14, verses 11-18:

11 Of all clean birds ye shall eat.
12 But these are they of which ye shall not eat: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray,
13 and the glede, and the kite, and the vulture after his kind,
14 and every raven after his kind,
15 and the owl, and the nighthawk, and the cuckoo, and the hawk after his kind,
16 the little owl, and the great owl, and the swan,
17 and the pelican, and the gier-eagle, and the cormorant,
18 and the stork, and the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat.

So the bible gives a list of birds, including eagles, owls, swans, cormorants and so on and so forth, and the very last bird listed is ... "the bat". Do the fundamentalist die hards who believe the bible is inherently correct, really think bats have been misclassified by science as mammals, because the bible clearly teaches that they are birds?! It really is quite simple. Infallible Bible = bats are birds.

The way I see it, those folks who want the bible taught in science class should be exclaiming that there is now a debate about the classification of bats as mammals. In order for a full exploration of the various theories and lines of thought, our children should be exposed to both sides and allowed to make up their own minds as to the scientific validity of what makes a bird a bird and a mammal a mammal.

I rather suspect that even the most dogmatic fundamentalist would have to admit that bats are not birds, especially if caught unawares that there was a scripture which seems to indicate the opposite. This admission is the veritable foot in the door. If the bible calls bats birds, in what other way is the bible incorrect. Remember... the first scientists to posit that the Earth was round were persecuted by the Church for contradicting the words of Jesus Christ detailing that the Earth had four corners. It may be easy enough to say that Jesus was talking figuratively, but it would take a real stretch to look at the list of unkosher birds in Deuteronomy and read that list figuratively.

Another Stinker From A Federal Attorney

2007-11-24T14:19:00.000-08:00

U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie from New Jersey is a Republican hack who can be counted upon to use his position for partisan political purposes. A prime example of this was when Christie launched a federal probe of then U.S. Representative Bob Menendez in September of 2006. At that time, Menendez was in a tight race for the Senate with Tom Kean Jr., which Menendez went on to win, despite the best efforts by Christie to tar him.

The latest example of mendacity by Christie comes as the result of a settlement in which Zimmer Holdings has agreed to pay for a company to monitor them in order to end a probe into possible kickbacks. The agency doing this monitoring was hand picked by Christie, and he chose the company run by former Attorney General John Ashcroft to oversee the practices of Zimmer. That's right... a U.S. Federal Attorney has handpicked his old boss's outfit to benefit from a prosecution.

To say that the terms of the contract are generous for Ashcroft's company would be a massive understatement. Ashcroft Group Consulting Services stands to make $52 million for 18 months of monitoring:

Disclosed in SEC filings, the arrangement calls for Zimmer Holdings of Indiana to pay Ashcroft Group Consulting Services an average monthly fee between $1.5 million and $2.9 million. The figure includes a flat payment of $750,000 to the firms "senior leadership group," individual legal and consulting services billed at up to $895 an hour, and as much as $250,000 a month for expenses including private airfare, lodging and meals.

There were a total of five companies involved with this settlement but Zimmer has gone public with the terms of their settlement in particular because, according to a company spokesperson: "it was our judgment that it was a large amount outside of our normal course of business." Zimmer has a point about the amounts seeming to be a bit out of whack. Usually these types of contracts are kept private, but the one example provided in the story seems to demonstrate that the fees being charged for this oversight are completely overblown:

Former SEC Chairman Richard Breeden, a monitor in several high-profile cases, reportedly billed Worldcom $300,000 a month to oversee the aftermath of what was then one of the largest corporate accounting scandals.

Just doing the math shows that the cost for monitoring the followup to one of the largest corporate accounting scandals in American history over the course of 18 months shows that they would pay $5.4 million. No wonder Zimmer started making noise about this contract... they didn't go into this expecting to be the personal financiers for Christies political payback party.

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) has written a letter to Christie questioning this entire shady procedure, and is proposing legislation that would remove the ability of U.S. Attorneys to hand pick companies to monitor those accused of wrong doing. I'll be willing to bet that if we elect a Democratic President next year Rep. Pallones bill will see a sudden flood of Republican cosponsors, if you know what I mean.

After having made so much noise about kickbacks and other such shady financial dealings but then hand picking his old boss for this type of contract, maybe Christy should open another probe. Of himself!

When No News Is Huge News, & Vice Versa

2007-11-20T16:34:00.000-08:00

One of the major political stories roiling the waters is Scott McClellan's assertion that he was sent forth to lie about the Valerie Plame Wilson affair at President Bush's behest (evidently). From the report in Politico:

“I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the seniormost aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby,” McClellan wrote.

“There was one problem. It was not true.”

McClellan then absolves himself and makes an inflammatory — and potentially lucrative for his publisher — charge.

“I had unknowingly passed along false information,” McClellan wrote.

“And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."

I am just a bit mystified as to why this teaser of McClellan's book is such huge news. We already know McClellan was not telling the truth. So now McClellan is confirming what we already know, and it's a huge freaking deal... for what reason exactly?

Furthermore, many of the very people who were dutifully forwarding the lies from McClellan knew he (and by extension the entire administration for which McClellan was the spokesperson) was not telling the truth because they were the ones who had received the leaks. The truth has been out there from day one, and the administration relied upon the presses code of ethics in order to perpetrate the ruse... feeding them the Plame story on background while denying doing so from the podium of the Press Secretary.

Singling out the Plame affair as the major case for McClellan being sent forth to lie is laughable. McClellan raised the bar to all new heights for demonstrably lying with a straight face to the press so the Plame business is hardly the exception to the rule here.

The initial splash of the McClellan story is not really the big news that everyone seems to think it was from my perspective. Sure... it's another brick in the wall, another drop in the ocean that adds to the body of evidence that this administration lies as a matter of course when politically expedient. It is another iota of proof that the lefty blogosphere has been spot on correct. But as far as I'm concerned we already knew this and McClellan's admission is old news.

So what is the huge news that will be the non news from all this? From my perspective that would be McClellan's publisher following up by saying that McClellan did not intend to convey a perception that he thought the President knowingly told him to lie. From a Rawstory report on a CNN feed:

"I just got off the phone with the publisher of McClellan's new book, and he tells me that McClellan does not charge in the book that the president himself was involved in any kind of conspiracy to mislead the public," reported CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin. "But of course, in the publisher's words, 'Scott did go out to take bullets without the proper flak jacket on.'"

In a series of 2003 press conferences, the former top White House spokesman had maintained that neither then-advisor Karl Rove nor Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, had been involved in the leaking of Plame's identity as a CIA agent. Yellin pointed to a previous interview with Larry King Live, in which McClellan suggested that both he and the president had been mislead about the Plame affair.

"It was also what the president believed at the time based on assurances we were both given," McClellan had told King. "Knowing what I know today, I would have never said that back then...I said that those individuals assured me they were not involved in this. I did speak directly with them and I was careful about the way I phrased it at them time -- even though I believed what they had told me to be the truth."

McClellan's publisher is thus claiming that not only did the leakers lie to McClellan, but they lied to the President. If true, this is what should have been the huge news when McClellan was peddling the untruth, and if not then it should be big news now. The top circle of Presidential advisers all lying to the Commander in Chief about outing a CIA officer... under nearly any circumstance such activity would define treason.

Frankly, I don't believe the publisher now. Especially when we consider that the President decided to commute Scooter Libby's prison sentence. Try to imagine a scenario in which a high level administration official would expose an undercover CIA agent, lie to the President, and when it all comes to light continue in their job with a security clearance. Far from purging the administration after a cabal had outed an undercover officer and lied to the President about it, and seeing to it that the guilty were held to account, Bush made certain that the one man who faced jail time as a result of the affair was spared serving any time at all. That is not the action of a strong leader who was lied too... that is the President taking an active role in furthering the cover up.

ERROR, ERROR, Does... NotCompute ztt..crackle

2007-11-20T15:37:00.000-08:00

This is a mail it in post about the shock of returning to regular life after nearly two weeks on vacation.

My definition of vacation is trying my best to emulate the examples of lethargy provided by my two cats. But I go an extra step by not being physically active, batting at floss or sparring with the other human in the house during the hour or two when I am stirred from passivity. Also, my work involves looking at a computer monitor all day, so another aspect of a successful vacation from my perspective is staying offline.

I'm not one of those happy folks who love their job and have to be forced to take time off... So this morning when I rolled out of bed, I faced the coming day with a sense of depression and angst. This may have been a self fullfilling prophecy, but the first day back at work has been just what I expected. *sigh* I have this logy, brain dead bewildered wish I were anywhere but here feeling. This must be what a robot that is about to fritz out must feel like... assuming there are robots who feel like anything at all!

I am really shocked at the difference when it comes to news gathering while staying offline. Being on vacation did not mean that I lost interest in the news. But staying off the computer led to me gathering information from daytime cable news. The focus of these channels these days is largely on the horserace for the Presidential nominations. I believe this dynamic favors the Republicans, who must be relieved that the focus is shifting from the disastrous Bush Presidency to election year horserace politics.

Another favor for Republicans when it comes to this coverage is that the Democrats have a real dogfight developing between their candidates. The Republican race isn't over by a long shot, but it appears to me that they are taking the road to the nomination by savaging Senator Clinton rather than each other. Which leads to Clinton taking it from all sides. If she manages to get the nomination after all this there can be no doubt that she is one tough cookie.

On the home front politically, I note a marked increase in support from my Libertarian conservative wife in favor of Barack Obama. My wife is actually considering registering as a democrat in order to be able to vote for him in the Oregon primary... which would really be a siesmic shift in her political life. Just on the most personal level I must say that this appeal by Senator Obama to someone who would not typically consider voting for a Democrat makes Obama look pretty strong. Plus it would be novel to find myself agreeing with my wife on a political matter which makes Obama even more appealing from my perspective.

That said, Senator Clinton is being taken on by every one else with a chance to win the nomination from either party. With that much fire being directed at her I actually find myself rooting for Clinton as the underdog despite her lead in the polls. It's like she's in a cage match with five or six opponents all focused on taking her down, and I think I would be satisfied by seeing her knock them out one by one and come out on top. But my domestic tranquility will be sorely tested if Senator Clinton gets the nomination... and I'm not looking forward to that.

Let Me Spell It Out Joe...

2007-11-09T18:17:00.000-08:00

Joe Lieberman gave a speech yesterday. Typically I try to ignore Lieberman for fear of keeling over dead from an aneurysm as my blood pressure skyrockets.

Lieberman is just mystified at how it can be that anyone would conclude that the Kyle/Lieberman amendment would ever be read in such a way as to lead to the use of military force against Iran.

Lieberman: several left-wing blogs seized upon the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, offering wild conspiracy theories about how it could be used to authorize the use of military force against Iran.
These were absurd arguments. The text of our amendment contained nothing—nothing—that could be construed as a green light for an attack on Iran. To claim that it did was an act of delusion or deception.

So let me spell out the precise way that the Kyle Lieberman amendment could lead to hostilities with Iran. In case you have been on Mars the last few months, the Kyle Lieberman amendment designated certain units of the Iranian military as terrorist organizations.

The AUMF was passed immediately after 9/11 and authorized the President to use force against the terrorists who attacked us... "or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism". [My italics]

Just to give the reader an idea about how widely the net may be cast in determining who is harboring terrorists such as Al Qaeda, the President certified to the Congress that pursuing military force against Iraq: "is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001." Of course we can prove that Iraq's involvement with 9/11 was precisely zilch, as admitted by the President himself on several occassions.

So I'm not so sure that perceiving the Congress' designation of a section of Irans military as a terrorist organization as a prelude to military action is really such a paranoid or deceptive take on the matter. If anything Liebermans own words, both in yesterdays speech and in other recent outbursts further raises the alarm rather than proving how wrong headed us liberal bloggers are. For example, there was Lieberman asking General Petraeus why it wouldn't be a good idea for American forces to pursue the Iranian Quds forces into Iranian territory. Or Lieberman telling CBS that America should bomb Iran if they didn't stop supplying weapons to Iraqi insurgents... Even in yesterdays speech Lieberman seems to be frothing at the mouth for a go at Iran with rhetoric about Iran murdering American troops and Democrats being all wrong headed about their outlook on Iran.

I think the ones being deceptive about Liebermans outlook on whether or not America should be bombing Iran are not the liberal bloggers... but Joe Lieberman himself by feigning ignorance as to how the Kyle Lieberman amendment could ever be construed as justification to go to war with Iran.

My Take On The Robertson/Giuliani Kerfuffle

2007-11-08T17:28:00.000-08:00

Most of the opinions I've heard about the Pat Robertson endorsement of Rudy Giuliani have focused on how it can be that Giuliani would associate himself with a man who had once declared that it was America's fault that we were attacked on 9/11. This question is entirely valid, and one suspects that Giuliani would be hard pressed to give a coherent answer if some enterprising reporter were to put the question to him.

But I am more interested in what this endorsement says about Pat Robertson. I mean the entire world knows that Giuliani is a waffling, say anything to get the nomination, Pinocchio wannabe, but what is Robertson? Until this endorsement he was a reliably right wing reactionary Christianist who made the news every couple of months with some nutty pronouncement.

I find it particularly ironic that Robertson noted how "Giuliani stood tall as his city was rocked by the worst terrorist act of America's history." It is ironic because Robertson is endorsing a cross dressing, pro gay marriage, pro choice, thrice married, avowed social liberal... within seven years of agreeing that abortionists, gays, the ACLU, and liberalism in general were responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

By Robertson's own words following 9/11, having a liberal heathen like Giuliani govern America should result in all sorts of catastrophe wrought upon the land by a wrathful God. Has Robertson decided to do his level best to bring about the destruction of America, or is he now saying it is ok to have pro choice, gay marriage promoting, marital cheating, liberals leading us?

It seems to me that not only does Giuliani have some splainin' to do, but so does Robertson.

DOD Pressure On Guantanamo Judge Is On The Record

2007-11-08T14:18:00.000-08:00

There has been a steady stream of news flowing from the military officers who are playing their roles in the military tribunal system set up at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Today I saw a story by Reuters on the proceedings surrounding Omar Khadr which adds an entirely new twist to the plot from my perspective.

"The DOD people, they didn't like what I wrote," the judge, Army Col. Peter Brownback, said at the hearing.

[snip]

Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, questioned Brownback about his impartiality to preside over the case. He asked the judge if he recalled telling lawyers during an October 24 conference call that he had "taken a lot of heat" for dismissing the charges, which were later reinstated.

"I may well have said something like that," Brownback said.

The difference between Judge Brownbacks testimony and all the other stories recently detailing problems with the proceedings is that this is part of the record of the tribunal itself. All of the previous stories were based upon Congressional witness testimony, officer editorials, friend of the court filings and so on. Today's news has the Judge who is conducting the trials putting it in the record of the proceedings that he was pressured and criticized from the Pentagon because of a previous ruling in the Khadr affair.

If the Judge is supposed to be a fair and impartial adjudicator of these hearings, how can the DOD be putting the heat on him to reach conclusions they find satisfactory. This is yet another example of how this tribunal system is inherently biased and geared to obtain convictions whether or not the accused is actually guilty. If the Judge doesn't rule the way the DOD likes, they put the heat on the Judge and then send him back the case for reconsideration.

Well now it is part of the official record of the tribunals, and I believe that is a significant step. It is now a part of the record that the Judge overseeing the proceedings is being pressured to reach conclusions which the military hierarchy finds satisfactory, regardless of the Judges independent thought process. What the Judge has put on record is the very definition of the term kangaroo court.

Bush: The Fiscally Responsible Drunken Sailor

2007-11-07T17:11:00.000-08:00

In a historic first, the House has decisively overridden President Bush's veto of a water projects spending bill. The Senate is expected to follow suit, and this will be the first time that a veto by President Bush has been overridden by Congress.

The opening salvos in the coming budget wars came with the passage of SCHIP, which the President vetoed, which veto Congress could not override. The President claims SCHIP and the water projects bill are fiscally irresponsible due to increased spending.

I think the President is looking into the fog of history and trying to repeat it. Bill Clinton forced a budget showdown with the Gingrich led Republican Congress and won that battle. Bush would love nothing more than to shut down the Government in the name of fiscal conservatism because he is convinced he will win the showdown. Indeed, history normally shows that presumption to be true, and the weakened backbones displayed by the Congress hardly serves to inspire confidence in their ability to effectively fight back. But there is one major difference at play here which may wind up throwing a wrench into the works.

Even as he appeals for fiscal sanity, the President is demanding another $200 billion in order to carry on a widely disliked war in Iraq. The obvious tactic for Congressional leadersip is to simply point to that massive waste of money and compare it to the pittance they are calling for in order to better the lives of ordinary Americans on the domestic scene.

Gingrich did not have such a case when Clinton started vetoing those spending measures. In fact Gingrich was making the case for fiscal conservatism at that time, even as Bush purports to be making that case now. Bush is in a weaker position because of the manifest hypocricy on this issue as demonstrated while Republicans held the power of the purse, and his continued calls for funding of an unpopular war which is draining the budget at a far far greater clip than any spending programs proposed by the Democrats.

If the President is simply counting on his Republican allies in the House to blindly back him with each and every veto, the water projects veto over ride might provide a bit of a reality check. Most of the programs President Bush is threatening are very popular. The override of the water project veto may be the initial crack in the dam that signals a coming torrent of House Republicans, sensing an election year tidal wave of blue, and trying to disassociate themselves with the least popular President in the history of polling.

It is the President and his party who have spent like drunken sailors, and the President who insists on continuing the practice in Iraq. So, on the condition that Congressional Democrats are willing to actually take on the President, I say let him make a fool of himself by vetoing massively popular programs in the name of fiscal conservatism. Drunken sailors do not make particularly convincing economic advisors.

Conservative Authors Schooled On Laissez-faire Economics

2007-11-06T18:12:00.000-08:00

The NY Times has an irony laced article on a lawsuit by several big name conservative authors against Regenery Publishing.

Regenery is an outfit which peddles Conservative authors exclusively. Evidently the authors are getting ripped off because Regenery takes these books and gives them to other Regnery outfits at steep discounts, causing the authors to take a bath in their profit margin. I just love the following quote by Richard Minitier, author of “Shadow War: The Untold Story of How Bush Is Winning the War on Terror.”:

Mr. Miniter said that meant that although he received about $4.25 a copy when his books sold in a bookstore or through an online retailer, he only earned about 10 cents a copy when his books sold through the Conservative Book Club or other Eagle-owned channels. “The difference between 10 cents and $4.25 is pretty large when you multiply it by 20,000 to 30,000 books,” Mr. Miniter said. “It suddenly occurred to us that Regnery is making collectively jillions of dollars off of us and paying us a pittance.” He added: “Why is Regnery acting like a Marxist cartoon of a capitalist company?”

It seems to me that Minitier has it precisely backwards. Regenery is trying to make the largest profit they can, by hook and by crook, for their company. Regenery is simply living by the philosophy taken by Minitier and the rest of his ilk whenever they expound on economics in general. The haves have more and the have nots keep having not. Minitier should consider himself blessed that he is being given a dime for each book Regenery launders through their conservative echo chamber... After all if Regenery were to follow the economic model supported by their authors, those authors would be given subsistence wages and their taxes increased in order to lower the taxes on Regenery's wealthy executive officers.

Of course I do not agree with the economic view taken by the modern day conservative, so I would like to applaud the effort by Minitier and his gang of starving authors to destroy the laissez faire economic model being forwarded by Regenery, by dragging their butts into Federal court! It is just amazing how quickly Conservatives turn their view of the Federal Government around when they are the ones having their pockets emptied or their bodies ruined by some corporation.

Why does this remind me of that lion of the right, Robert Bork... longtime proponent of tort reform in order to protect business interests, suing the Yale Club because he toppled over and bruised his leg while trying to step onto their dais in order to give a speech. He is suing them for one million dollars because he hit his noggin and suffered a "large hematoma" in his leg. That's right, a bump on the head and a bruise on the leg is worth one million bucks to Judge Bork, but he doesn't think you or I should be allowed to have our day in court to sue for that type of justice. Now I realize he claims to have had surgery and been in excruciating pain for months on end, but he is the freaking paragon of conservative judicial virtue whose entire thought process on his own type of law suit stands in direct contrast to his own law suit!

So let us raise our glasses and toast the group of starving conservative authors who recognize the worthiness of the Federal government in protecting their financial interests against their corporate overlords, Regenery. I wish them the best of luck in their endeavor, but I do pray that this gives them pause the next time they are thinking about writing some conservative hit piece on the economic interests of the little guy who is trying to get a fair shake out of the wealthy corporations.

Yet Another Reason American Torture Is A Bad Idea

2007-11-06T14:55:00.000-08:00

We have reached a point with this administration that the State Department can not even take a coherent position on whether or not a foreign intelligence service would be justified to waterboard an American citizen.

To me, this is one for the "you have got to be freaking pulling my leg department". The top legal advisor to the State Department, John Bellinger, has declined to allow for the most rudimentary protection under international laws against torture for American citizens. I'm certain anyone reading this post is already fully aware of what the State Department is. But just in case this isn't registering... the top lawyer for America's diplomatic mission, the department tasked with representing American interests internationally, is actually not able to say that waterboarding Americans is torture.

[Professor of Law at University College London]Philippe Sands: Could you imagine any circumstances in which the use of water boarding on an American national by a foreign intelligence service could be justified?

[Senior Adviser on international law to the US Secretary of State] John Bellinger: One would have to apply the facts to the law, the law to the facts, to determine whether any technique, whatever it happened to be, would cause severe physical pain or suffering.

Philippe Sands: So you're willing to exclude any American going to the international criminal court under any circumstances, but you're not able to exclude the possibility of water boarding being used on a United States national by foreign intelligence service? I mean, that just strikes me as very curious.

John Bellinger: Well, I'm not willing to include it or exclude it,

Nicely done President Bush! In order to remain consistent in the face of this administrations disastrous policies our State Department is not even able to call for the most rudimentary protections against torture for Americans traveling abroad. This is a case example of one reason why the President's detainee torture program is such a freaking disaster for this nation.

Torturing detainees does not work, but the consequences that flow from allowing the practice go beyond the bad intelligence we get. When our nation is found to be doing it we lose the moral high ground by which we call upon other civilized peoples to exercise restraint with their prisoners, which may turn out to be Americans at some point in the future. Just what happens if we get into a shooting match with Iran, and they capture some of our people? You can not begin to imagine the outrage this nation would feel if we were witness to video of our soldiers being waterboarded under that circumstance. We have ceded the moral high ground from which we used to thunder about the Geneva Conventions and the universality of human rights.

So we have come to the point that our own State Department can not even be brought to defend the rights of Americans to not be waterboarded because of the backwards and disastrously wrong headed policy forwarded by the worst President in American history. Frankly, seeing the top legal mind in the State Department being brought to this point is an eye opener from my perspective. This really is outrageous...

Congress Should NOT Pass Another Law On Torture

2007-11-06T10:12:00.000-08:00

I'm calling foul on a new effort to make another law which details which techniques may or may not be used by American interrogators.

This new effort is being represented as some sort of torture litmus test for the Congress. Will they or won't they pass a law specifically labeling waterboarding as torture? If they do will the President veto that law, and if he does can the Congress override the veto. Will they or won't they pass a law which, in effect, makes Mukasey's massive hedge on waterboarding moot. The fact is that when all is said and done, all of this is at best academic, and at worst a platform that may allow the legal foundation for American interrogators to torture at will, depending on what torturous techniques have not been specifically outlawed by Congress.

Waterboarding is already torture. One of the definitions of torture which the United States has legally accepted, by treaty and domestic law, are feigned executions. Waterboarding terrifies the victim by leading them to believe they will die by drowning. It is an extreme form of feigned execution, and thereby is already defined as torture by international treaty, and domestic law.

There is no need to pass a law explicitly delineating the various techniques which are or are not torture. Especially when the technique in question so obviously fits the definition of torture. In fact it is dangerous to take this approach because it gives the people who want to be able to torture detainees the right to try to legislatively defeat calling torturous techniques precisely what they are, and/or to cite precedent which allows techniques commonly accepted as torture to be used until such a point as Congress specifically outlaws the technique.

Congress is giving too much credence to the administration and torture apologists by even debating this. It would be positively catastrophic if political machinations somehow led to the defeat of the effort and a legal footing for the view that waterboarding is somehow not torture.

Besides exactly what was the purpose of the law which McCain caved on which the President signed with a signing statement declaring his belief that he need not abide by the law.

It's already illegal to torture detainees, and by even allowing the matter to be debated the Congress is needlessly giving the signal that some forms of torture may not be torture after all, depending on how this or that Congress critter votes, and then if they can over ride a Presidential veto... unless the President decides to sign the bill with a signing statement that affirms his right to torture detainees anyway.

America's Double Message On Torture

2007-11-05T17:27:00.001-08:00

Joan Walsh over at Salon has video of George H.W. Bush breaking into tears while recalling the dignified treatment our soldiers gave to Iraqi combatants during Gulf War 1. The title of her post asks "Why is this man crying?".

America has come a long way since the halcyon days of President Bush the 1st, when our commitment to human rights and the dignity of war time captives was never in doubt. These days, the administration of Bush the 2nd is sending a double message to the world. This double message was succinctly delineated by the N.Y. Times: "In effect, officials want Al Qaeda to believe that the United States does torture, while convincing the rest of the world that it does not."

To be sure, there are many right wing torture apologists who would discount that conclusion simply because it can be read in the N.Y. Times. So here is a quote by the head of U.S. Intelligence Mike McConnel that should (but probably will not) persuade these doubters as to the truth of the double message being given by the United States:

"[T]his is a program where we capture someone known to be a terrorist, we need information that they possess, and it has saved countless lives. Because, because they believe these techniques might involve torture and they don’t understand them, they tend to speak to us, talk to us in very—a very candid way."

The fact that the leader of U.S. Intelligence is telling the world that it is good that Al Qaeda members think we will torture them tells us all we really need to know about the issue.

I've already written a post detailing how American efforts to make suspected Al Qaeda detainees believe they will be tortured is itself a form of psychological torture that unacceptably stains American honor. But the tape of Bush Senior breaking down when he recalls the treatment of Iraqi captives in Gulf 1 presents the perfect opportunity to explain another reason it may not be such a swell idea.

Who in their right minds would ever surrender to us if they are convinced that they will be tortured as a result? The reason we had miles long lines of surrendering Iraqi soldiers is because they knew they would be well treated when they fell into our hands. It's hard enough trying to capture Al Qaeda members when they have it ingrained into every fibre of their being that it is glorious to martyr themselves in battle with us. If they are not sufficiently determined to die before being captured because of that twisted martyrdom complex, they will be certain to fight us to the death out of fear of the torture that we hope they believe awaits them if they fall into our hands.

The hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's who willingly gave themselves over to captivity would never have done so if we had actively tried to foster a belief in their ranks that they would be tortured if taken alive. The example provided by Bush 1 stands in stark contrast to the example of his son. I can not help but feel that the father knows what shame his sons endorsement of torture has brought to America, and that may well explain a small part of the anguish displayed by the ex President.

What Is Feinstein Smoking?

2007-11-02T18:05:00.000-07:00

Charles Schumer and Diane Feinstein have announced that they will vote to confirm Mike Mukasey as Attorney General. Those votes will move the nomination to the floor of the Senate, and it is simply unimaginable that anything untoward like a filibuster will stop his nomination.

I expected Schumer to go to the dark side on this one because he was in a tricky spot. Schumer recommended Mukasey to the President so it would seem to be a bit underhanded to help defeat Mukasey. I suppose that is a lesson our leaders should learn... always find out the position on torture that will taken by the person you are recommending.

The part that has me shaking my head and wondering at the sorry state of American politics at this stage in our history (besides having to wonder about how a proposed nominee will feel about torturing detainees) is the following quote from Senator Diane Feinstein. In a letter explaining why she would support Mukasey she writes:

"Judge Mukasey’s answers to hundreds of questions, both in our confirmation hearing and in writing, were crisp and succinct, and demonstrated a strong, informed, and independent mind"

Mukasey may have been alot of things during his testimony, but "crisp, succinct, informed and independent"? Just which hearings did Feinstein attend?

Here is Mukasey, proving how informed he is: MUKASEY: "I don't know what's involved in the technique. If water-boarding is torture, torture is not constitutional."

Mike Mukasey must be the last person in the sentient universe who doesn't know what water boarding is. Seriously... this is the man who Feinstein just praised as being "informed". In fact I think there is a convincing case to be made that Mukasey perjured himself with that answer. For him to not know whats "involved in the technique" is completely unfathomable. In fact if what he claims is actually true, it shows that Mukasey is so completely out of touch that he should be rejected for his complete lack of awareness of current events.

As to Mukasey being independent... it is his lack of independence which landed his nomination in hot water in the first place. A truly independent candidate would have no trouble defining simulating the drowning of detainees as torture. But if the head of the Justice Department reaches that conclusion, suddenly there are a lot of administration figures including the President who are in legal jeopardy from our own legal system.

And post facto statutes which retroactively immunize our war criminals will not save the folks responsible for making American torture a feature in the war on terror. The Nuremberg trials mean something. 'I was only following orders' does not excuse our interrogators from war crimes, period. Are we to not believe that the German interrogators were not covered by domestic legalisms when they committed their crimes? Torture is freaking torture. International courts are not going to accept Americans immunizing themselves, nor should they.

I could fisk that atrocious Feinstein missive all day long, but I'm sick of thinking about her mendacity... Will a real Democrat PLEASE do the party a favor and run against her in her next primary election Feinstein runs in?

Bush Throws A Hissy Fit At The Constitution.

2007-11-01T17:53:00.000-07:00

Shocking as it may seem, someone evidently needs to give the President a primer on the Constitution. Specifically he needs to be instructed on the role of the President and the Senate regarding the process of nominating candidates to fill certain positions, like Attorney General. Check out what the President told the Heritage Foundation about a possible rejection by the Senate of Mike Mukasey for Attorney General:

“If the Senate Judiciary Committee were to block Judge Mukasey on these grounds, they would send a new standard for confirmation that could not be met by any responsible nominee for attorney general. And that would guarantee that America would have no attorney general during this time of war.”

Wow... there can not be an Attorney General confirmed in time of war if Mukasey is not confirmed because he refuses to define waterboarding as torture? Let us see what instruction the Constitution gives in this regard.

[The President]shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law:

Odd... The Presidents assertion that the Senate MUST confirm Mukasey or not be given any alternative seems to be based upon some weird reading of the Constitution which no sane person could follow. There actually does not appear to be any standard specified in the Constitution by which Senators must or must not confirm an appointee. If the Senators decided en masse to vote against Mukasey because they do not like closely cropped graying hair on the next Attorney General, the Senators would be well within their Constitutional rights to reject him. They could, indeed maybe they should, reject Mukasey simply because he is George Bush's initial choice to be Attorney General.

It makes perfect sense that Senators would reject Mukasey if he can not accept be brought to define waterboarding as torture. If it were an American service member being subjected to the treatment we would certainly decry the treatment as torture. Mock executions are deemed to be psychological torture, and waterboarding goes far beyond placing a pistol to a detainees head and pulling the trigger.

By announcing that Mukasey must be confirmed or no other candidate can be, Bush has staked out a position that is his own little reality. He is the ultimate decider, no matter what the Constitution, which he swore to uphold, may say. Would anyone be surprised if, in the future, a legal memo turned up which gave some weird legalistic justification for this preposterous assertion by the President? Some flunky in the Justice Department very well may have already passed along the super secret classified legal opinion laying out the the dubious legal groundwork that in times of war the President has the ultimate authority to install any officer he sees fit in the office of his choosing.

Sorry Mr. President, but you don't get to determine what is or is not a reason for the Senate to reject a nominee. Well... not yet anyway.

Here I Go Defending Hillary Again...

2007-10-31T14:51:00.000-07:00

Sheesh folks... maybe I should just call a spade a spade and announce my whole hearted support for Senator Clinton to win the Democratic nomination. Everything I write lately on the Democratic candidates has been to support her, and it doesn't look like Al Gore is going to run.

Let me continue this trend by coming to Senator Clinton's defense with her supposed flubbing of the following question:

Tim Russert: Senator Clinton, Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer has proposed giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. He told the Nashua, New Hampshire, Editorial Board it makes a lot of sense.

Why does it make a lot of sense to give an illegal immigrant a driver's license?

Clinton: Well, what Governor Spitzer is trying to do is fill the vacuum left by the failure of this administration to bring about comprehensive immigration reform. We know in New York we have several million at any one time who are in New York illegally. They are undocumented workers. They are driving on our roads. The possibility of them having an accident that harms themselves or others is just a matter of the odds. It's probability.

Senator Clinton's answer here is admittedly not completely responsive to the question. She won't just come out and say that giving illegal aliens a drivers license is a good thing. Senator Clinton is pointing out a problem which does need to be addressed without sticking her neck out too far and saying that Governor Spitzer's particular remedy is the best answer.

Russert: Does anyone here believe an illegal immigrant should not have a driver's license?

(Unknown): Believe what?

Russert: An illegal immigrant should not have a driver's license.

Dodd: This is a privilege. And, look, I'm as forthright and progressive on immigration policy as anyone here. But we're dealing with a serious problem here, we need to have people come forward. The idea that we're going to extend this privilege here of a driver's license I think is troublesome, and I think the American people are reacting to it.

We need to deal with security on our borders. We need to deal with the attraction that draws people here. We need to deal fairly with those who are here.

But this is a privilege. Talk about health care, I have a different opinion. That affects the public health of all of us.

But a license is a privilege, and that ought not to be extended, in my view.

Before I start tearing into Dodd too much, let me just say that his leadership in the Senate lately is really much appreciated and I hold him in high esteem for that alone. However... Dodds answer to this really is a mystery from my perspective. He is progressive on immigration issues but illegal aliens should not be given the privilege of a drivers licence. We do not live in some Utopia where illegal aliens can harmlessly beam to work and home each day. Even if we did live in that Utopia, I am certain that there would be an enormous controversy over illegal alien beaming privileges. So If Dodd wants to take a progressive stance maybe he should start by recognizing reality and trying to figure out a way to cope with it.

Frankly if Dodd can be brought to support giving illegal immigrants health care because that "affects the public health of all of us", why can't he see the use in having people who are going to drive passing tests which demonstrate a basic grasp on the rules of the road and ability to drive safely. The system New York and the rest of the nation is laboring under seems far more dangerous than trying to insure that people who are going to drive be identified and prove their worthiness behind the wheel. If you don't want to call the end result a "drivers license", fine! Call it a provisional drivers certificate or some other such euphemism.

Clinton: [T]he point is, what are we going to do with all these illegal immigrants who are driving...

Dodd: That's a legitimate issue. But driver's license goes too far, in my view.

Clinton: Well, you may say that, but what is the identification?
If somebody runs into you today who is an undocumented worker...

Dodd: There's ways of dealing with that.

Clinton: Well...

Despite the triangulation and unwillingness to stick her neck out too far on a very hot issue, I think Clinton does very well in this back and forth. It seems like everyone agrees that there is a problem, so the only controversy is over the degree of the solution. If we recognize that we are not going to deport 12 million illegal aliens, lets find some formula that starts to address the problem.

Also, when Clinton says "if somebody runs into you today" that brings the issue home to the average American. We don't all get into car wrecks everyday, but it is enough of a reality in our lives that we take steps to mitigate the problem. So Senator Clinton's tactic of making us wonder what we would do if we were hit by an illegal alien with no i.d. is a good way for her to drive the debate. I think she does well with that line of logic.

Dodd: This is a privilege, not a right.

Clinton: Well, what Governor Spitzer has agreed to do is to have three different licenses, one that provides identification for actually going onto airplanes and other kinds of security issues, another which is another ordinary driver's license, and then a special card that identifies the people who would be on the road, so...

Dodd: That's a bureaucratic nightmare.

Clinton: ... it's not the full privilege.

It's like Dodd is convinced N.Y. can not figuratively chew gum and make licenses at the same time. I can't imagine a state which does not have multiple layers of licensing covering various circumstances. For example I live in Oregon. My state has three different types of commercial drivers license. Oregon offers a provisional drivers license to drivers under the age of 18. Beyond that, our standard license is hardly uniform, with various coding on each regarding a persons legality to drive without corrective eyewear, and the willingness of the driver to be an organ donor. Despite all these different license types and individual permutations, I have not heard any news about the total collapse of the Oregon bureaucracy surrounding the Department of Motor Vehicles. I suspect Oregon is probably not much different than most of the rest of the states in this particular regard.

After the debate Chris Matthews was dialed up to 11, telling the world that Clinton had just handed the Republicans next years general election if she won the nomination. And it appears to be accepted as a foregone conclusion by the entire talking head set that Senator Clinton flubbed her response on this issue. Admittedly, I may be the one out of touch here, but I thought she made perfect sense.

Frankly, after months of media prodding Senator Clinton to take a stand on this or that issue, I think this episode has been a sad example of why she may be reluctant to do so. She took a controversial stand based upon sound logic, (even those disagreeing with her say there is a problem) and we have the pundits declaring her to have thrown the election because of it.

Now if she would just come out and apologize for being so freaking wrong about the Iraq war...

Hillary Keeps On Keeping On, Is Obama Arabic For Dukakis?

2007-10-30T18:06:00.000-07:00

Before I start this ramble, let me say that I have not yet picked a favorite in the Democratic nomination. Recent events have me leaning for Senator Clinton, but I'm not all the way there yet by a long shot.

Marc Ambinder blogs for The Atlantic, and today he posted about an aspect of the horserace which casts Senator Clinton in a positive light.

Another two weeks, another impressive navigation through ever-trickier waters. Hillary Rodham Clinton now has nine serious opponents -- four on the Democratic side (only Bill Richardson isn't making a compelling case against her right now) and five on the Republican side (counting Mike Huckabee).

One reason Bill Clinton is regarded so fondly by Democrats, and conversely is so detested by the right, is that he did not fold in the face of the Republican slime operation. Now his wife is proving her mettle when it comes to taking the heat, and Senator Clinton to this point has proven very durable.

If Senator Clinton wins the nomination despite the months of attacks by everyone in the race, including Democrats, what better testament can there be of her tenacity in a campaign? There is no other personality out there taking the heat she is, and she is not just surviving, but she seems to be thriving.

This leads me to the reflections of Talking Points Memo reader KB:

Why are the republican presidential candidates the only ones going after their opposite numbers in the other party?

Rudy and the gang have gleefully used Clinton, and to a lesser extent Obama and Edwards, as foils and rhetorical ploys in their daily campaigning. But the Democrats running for President never name any of the Republican candidates. Obama could gain serious points by going after Rudy and his wacky team of neocon advisors. Why not do it? What does he have to lose? It would at least put Clinton on the defensive about Iran and force her to comment on the latest Podhoretz nonsense.

It leads to a larger question: at this late date, after all that has happened in Iraq, why are the neocons not on the defensive within the context of this presidential season? Given current public opinion polling, the neocons should be hiding under a rock, and the Democratic candidates for president should be the ones who put them there.

I know that Clinton could score some major points with the left by slamming around Rudy and the gang... but does she really need to at this point? Senator Clinton is doing fine, so why fix it if it's not broken. For everything there is a season, and Senator Clinton has demonstrated enough of a knack for campaigning that I'm certain she will take those shots when it is best that she do so.

I think the candidate who needs to get the gumption to take on the Republican frontrunners by name is Barack Obama. In fact, Senator Obama has been handed an issue which is ready made for him to show some backbone and fight on. The Republican nominees, and Mitt Romney in particular, have made a point of repeatedly "mistaking" Obama's name with Osama Bin Laden's name. The last time this happened Mitt Romney extensively paraphrased a position taken by Osama Bin Laden and repeatedly labeled that position as coming from Obama. In fact Romney actually had to (mis)correct himself from originally getting the name right to mistaking the name and sliming Obama.

Senator Obama's response to the Romney slander was to say that he did not pay attention to Mitt Romney. If Obama will not fire back at that overt defamation, what sort of provocation will it take to get a decent reaction out of him? Obama's reaction reminded me of the '88 campaign, when Bernard Shaw started a debate by asking Michael Dukakis if his wife were raped and murdered by some perp, would Dukakis still oppose the death penalty? Dukakis gave an ideologically correct talking points answer which would have made a typical robot seem emotional by comparison. That unemotional, highly intelligent, technical approach defined Dukakis, who would have made an absolutely fantastic President, but was a decided failure as a campaigner.

Senator Obama only cemented this perception on my part by announcing for the record that he was about to take the gloves off and go after Hillary. Then he released a campaign commercial which indirectly challenged her on Social Security, and featured Obama giving a litany of what fores and where nots on Social Security. That is the best Senator Obama can do when it comes to going after Senator Clinton? I'm as unimpressed with the promised tough Obama as I was with the dismissive Obama in the face of Romney's smears.

So based upon the events of the last couple of weeks, I find myself being drawn to the candidacy of Senator Clinton, if for no other reason than that she is showing the ability to take the heat and thrive for the experience. I am not ruling out supporting any other candidates, but someone else needs to be able to present a viable challenge and show some gumption while taking heat.

Mormon Jihadists? Republicans Go There

2007-10-29T18:58:00.000-07:00

Michael Crowley has an article in the New Republic regarding the underhanded tactics used in the Republican primary contest in South Carolina. This primary contest is rapidly gaining recognition as being the dirty stinking slime encrusted event which determines who will win the Republican nomination. It's like the Repubican who proves the nastiest and most souless in South Carolina is given the nod as the guy most able and likely to continue the practice and win a slimy general election campaign.

The letter which starts the Crowley article leads to an extremely rare occurrence for yours truly: I find myself rising to the defense of Mitt Romney, a candidate who has precisely zero chance of getting my vote. In fact, this letter is so out there that I not only rise to the defense of Mitt Romney, but I rise to the defense of an entire religious movement which I do not believe in! Here is Crowley's description of the letter which I find so objectionable:

"Mormons in Contemporary American Society: A Politically Dangerous Religion?" The letters depicted Mormonism as based on "hoaxes" and ridiculed the church's founder, Joseph Smith, as a "gold digger turned prophet. " The mailing also provocatively dubbed Smith "the Mohammed of the West." "Like the prophet of Islam," it said, "Smith founded his religion upon prophecies and revelations which commanded him to become a polygamist and warlord. Many centuries apart, these two men became the focal point of large religions that blurred the lines between religion, war, domestic life and politics."

Modern political battles are permeated through out by questions on how this or that candidate will handle the "war on terror". The vitriolic poison spread by the right wing noise machine about Islam and Muslims is a fundamental aspect of the Republican outlook on the world. Calling Joseph Smith a religious "warlord" and "the Mohammed of the West" is frankly atrocious. What next? Television commercials featuring oil paintings of Joseph Smith which slowly meld into images of Mohammed? Maybe toss in some explosions and some Osama footage... because Mitt Romney is a Mormon and the two are somehow related.

I might not be a Mormon (my wife is, and has been all her life) but I still wonder at how they will react to the right wing smear mongers who purport to be their political allies, but then are so savage in denouncing them on religious grounds to score cheap political gains. Make no mistake about it either. The most inflammatory denouncers of Mormon theology are not atheists or liberal Christians. It is the right wing evangelicals who bitterly denounce Mormonism, and then benefit from Mormon votes. When you look at the political map, there is no redder state than Utah. Idaho, which also has a large population of Mormons is also deeply red.

My impression of Mormonism is that their beliefs have a decidedly Old Testament flavor. Many Mormon institutions and precepts are directly taken from Old Testament roots. Mormons have guidelines on dietary matters and appearance which would fit very well in the books of law passed from God to the children of Israel. In fact Mormons trace their lineage back to old Israel, and if a new member can not be placed in a tribe of Israel by lineage they will be adopted into one from the Mormons perspective.

This leads to a decidedly 'old time religion' flavor for what is actually a very new sect of Christianity. When I attend Mormon services (I've promised my wife I will on certain big occasions) they sing songs that have been standards for decades. The entire congregation goes in their Sunday finest (the only time since my childhood I've been formally dressed was for these church services... and my wedding). Attending a Mormon service is to step into a time machine, and go back to any church service in the middle of last century (save a good old southern Baptist black church I suppose). My point in all this is that Mormons are not wild eyed, hippified, revolutionary apostates, or sharia preaching Muslim holy warriors, even if most of what they believe is not conventional Christianism.

This traditionalism extends to the Mormon view on society and politics. Harry Reid is a rarity: a liberal leaning Mormon. Those liberal Mormons can be found I'm sure, but every Mormon I have met and discussed politics with has been politically conservative. In fact they tend to feel very strongly about their political leanings in my experience. Indeed, after several years of living in Eugene (famous the world over for our liberal ways) and a year and a half of living with yours truly, my wife is still a hardcore libertarian conservative. She does not like Bush, but the chances of her voting for Hillary are about the same as my ever voting for Mitt. Which as I said before is a big fat zero.

So the right wing evangelical freaks do themselves no favors by slamming around Mormonism for short term political gain against a Mormon candidate. Especially when they go off half cocked about Joseph Smith being a Mohammed like warlord... Mormons may be politically conservative, but I believe they place an even greater weight on their religious views. If this type of inflammatory anti Mormon garbage is going to be a big feature from the right in order to tear down Romney, I can't help but wonder what effect it will have on the typical Mormon who is then asked to vote for the same people who have defamed Mormon leaders and beliefs in order to claw out the nomination.

I don't think Mormons will ever vote for liberal and moderate Democrats in any great numbers, but if the right makes a point of slamming them around too much they may find cause to just stay home. Especially if the guy who benefits from the slanders on Mormonism and wins the nomination is a thrice married, pro choice, pro gay marriage candidate...

McCain Slams Giuliani On Waterboarding, So Will He Vote Against Mukasey

2007-10-26T17:26:00.001-07:00

Rudy Giuliani made a bit of a splash (holy cow, this is a horrible pun) by announcing at a campaign forum that he was not sure that waterboarding was actually torture. Oddly enough, one of the mitigating factors against it being torture for Giuliani is who is doing the waterboarding. So evidently, if the Iranians had waterboarded the captured British sailors last summer that would be called torture, but if our intelligence agents are waterboarding the five Iranian captives we took in Kurdistan last spring that would not be torture.

Senator John McCain responded to Giuliani's prevarication's thusly:

“All I can say is that it was used in the Spanish Inquisition, it was used in Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia, and there are reports that it is being used against Buddhist monks today,”

I suppose this is the perfect time to point out that Giuliani would obviously agree that those examples do constitute torture, because those were not American interrogators. It's like McCain is trying to make Giuliani's point or something!

Regardless of those pesky technicalities, McCain seems to have a certain belief that waterboarding is torture. So some enterprising journalist needs to ask how, or even if, McCain intends to vote on the nomination of Mike Mukasey for Attorney General.

Mukasey's nomination has hit a bit of a snag with Mukasey being sent a letter from leading Senate Democrats asking that he clarify his belief on whether or not waterboarding is torture. I for one find it difficult to believe that the Democratic leadership is not taking Mukasey's "massive hedge" as prima facie evidence that he will not end the practice. But they are extending the clock on his answer, giving Mukasey every opportunity to get it right, and trying their best to forgive and forget Mukasey's transparently wrong headed response to the question.

The entire world, except for Republican koolaid drinkers, knows that waterboarding is torture. How is it that Mukasey and Giuliani evidently have the same wrong headed opinion? It turns out that these two have a history with each other, to the point that Mukasey has promised to recuse himself from any matter dealing with Giuliani if he is confirmed as Attorney General. Mukasey's son works at Giuliani's law firm. So when Giuliani was asked about his take on waterboarding being torture, he was echoing his pal Mukasey in yet another massive hedge on the question.

I highly suspect that Mukasey's response to the Democrats letter on waterboarding will only extend his past obfuscation. So if the response is anything other than a flat out rejection by Mukasey of waterboarding as torture, can McCain in good conscience vote to confirm him as Attorney General. I know that the Presidential candidates are missing lots of votes while they campaign, and I suppose that will be one out for McCain. But if he really feels strongly about this issue (which is a big if considering McCains support the the MCA last year) how can he justify missing that particular vote. If this issue is as important to McCain as it should be, he will make a point of voting against Mukasey.

Maling It In, Thanks To Larry Craig

2007-10-25T18:55:00.000-07:00

I've just finished reading this article about some extremely hairy dude's romp in the hay with Senator Larry Craig... and I'm just at a loss for words. Well not really... skin crawling, light headed, gag inducing (not gag like Larry wants either), and creepy are all words. So I'm maling (get it? MALING... like mail, only male... oh nevermind!) it in tonight.

When Can The President Legally Break A Law? No To Mukasey

2007-10-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

Michael Mukasey's testimony during his confirmation hearings for Attorney General disqualifies him for that job in my opinion:

On the second day of confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Mukasey went further than he had the day before in arguing that the White House had constitutional authority to act beyond the limits of laws enacted by Congress, especially when it came to national defense.

He suggested that both the administration’s program of eavesdropping without warrants and its use of “enhanced” interrogation techniques for terrorism suspects, including waterboarding, might be acceptable under the Constitution even if they went beyond what the law technically allowed. Mr. Mukasey said the president’s authority as commander in chief might allow him to supersede laws written by Congress.

[snip]

In the case of the eavesdropping program, Mr. Mukasey suggested that the president might have acted appropriately under his constitutional powers in ordering the surveillance without court approval even if federal law would appear to require a warrant.

“The president is not putting somebody above the law; the president is putting somebody within the law,” said Mr. Mukasey, who seemed uncomfortable with the aggressive tone, occasionally stumbling in his responses. “The president doesn’t stand above the law. But the law emphatically includes the Constitution.”

Does Mukasey believe that Article two of the constitution is pre-iminent over the rest of the document? The President draws his war time powers from article two, but no one can cogently argue that the rest of the constitution is somehow subservient to that article, least of all the nominee to be Attorney General.

If the rest of the constitution is to be held in equal value to article two, we need to look at how a law becomes a law in order to determine if that law must be followed. This can be found in article one: Congress passes the law, and if the President thinks, for whatever reason (including the belief that the law violates the constitution) that the law is not acceptable, he/she may veto it. If the law is vetoed Congress may override that veto by a two thirds margin. The only further recourse at that point would be for the President to challenge the constitutionality of the law in the judicial system. Thus, when Congress passed FISA, and the President signed that law... the issue for all intents and purposes must be considered settled.

If a future President were to consider a particular law unconstitutional, does that give him the right to defy the constitution in turn, by proceeding as if article one were not in effect? How can we allow the President to be the sole arbiter of what is or is not constitutional if while making that determination he blatantly violates fundamental constitutional precepts, and tries to do so in secrecy so that his illegality is never exposed to the separate branches of government.

Mukasey also makes a dubious point regarding the President's war time powers to determine the treatment of captives in time of war. Far from gaining rights in this particular area from article two, the treatment of prisoners is particularly designated in the constitution as being guided by rules determined by Congress, in the same clause which gives Congress the sole ability to declare war.

There can be no doubt as to the legality of waterboarding based upon the fact that the United States has prosecuted people as war criminals for that particular act. It would be inconcievable that a war crime, if commissioned by another nation, is allowable if it is the President who orders it. The President is lawfully obligated to treat detainee's humanely both by international treaties ratified by the Senate and laws passed by Congress which cover the treatment of these prisoners.

The notion that Mukasey is positing giving the President rights in contravention of the constitution and duly enacted laws should be an automatic disqualifier for Mukasey's nomination.