Hullabaloo

Saturday, October 25, 2008

 
Saturday Night At The Movies


So…what’s on your DVR? (Slight return)
























By Dennis Hartley

At the risk of instigating a public stoning, I thought I would take a bit of a departure this week and switch over to the (gulp!) small screen. So if you’re a TV snob, you might want to tune out now and spare us the eye-rolling and the predictable “Jesus, why don’t you people try reading a book?” admonishments in the comment section, mmmkay?

For those still with me (both of you), I now submit an unabashedly subjective Top Ten list for your perusal of shows (in no ranking order) that I currently find to be compelling enough to earn the “priority” nod on my DVR. I shared a similar list here last year; you may spot a few “re-runs”, but hey-there’s no accounting for some people’s taste, eh?

Boston Legal(ABC) Denny Crane! Sadly, it’s the farewell season for creator David E. Kelley’s extremely entertaining courtroom dramedy about a prestigious Boston law firm. Leading a fine cast, James Spader, William Shatner, Candice Bergen and John Larroquette have cemented well as TV’s Dream Team; it’s a shame to see them break up the band, as it were. Sure, some of the ongoing plot points are admittedly silly and things do tend to get a bit too precious at times (especially when characters go smashing through the Fourth Wall like bulls in the proverbial china shop) but there is one thing I’m going to miss more than anything else, and that’s Alan Shore’s closing arguments. Well, for the sake of the narrative, they are called “closing arguments”, but I think we all know they are in reality some of the most incisive, intelligently written, “stand up and cheer” progressive political rants you’ll ever hear on a mainstream network TV show (on second thought-anywhere this side of the blogosphere). Paddy Chayefsky would be proud. Don’t despair, BTW- since this season breaks 100 episodes, syndicated perpetuity is assured.

Breaking Bad (American Movie Classics) I will admit upfront that I missed this one during its initial run back in January of this year (I don’t think it initially got a lot of press or much viewer buzz) but like many people, my interest was piqued when Bryan Cranston picked up an Emmy for his starring role. AMC has been replaying the first season, and I’m hooked. Cranston gives a full-blooded performance as Walter White, a middle-aged chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer. Infused with a desperate sense of urgency to build up a nest egg for his pregnant wife and cerebral palsy-afflicted son, he partners up with a former student-turned drug dealer and applies his knowledge of chemistry to cook up some award-winning crystal meth. Having a brother-in-law in the DEA complicates his situation, as one might expect. Yes, it is reminiscent of Weeds , but it’s much darker and more texturally rich. Season 1 was cut short by the WGA strike (only 7 episodes were made). Look for Season 2 in early 2009.

Californication (Showtime) Season 2 of this bawdy romp about a blocked, angst-ridden, sex-addicted East Coast writer (David Duchovny) who has grudgingly transplanted himself to L.A. is garnering much more interest than its premiere season for reasons that I’m sure Duchovny would rather not call more attention to (the actor’s recent, highly publicized check-in to a rehab center for, erm, sex addicts). It’s lewd, crude and frequently nude, but there are some very knowing, sharply written observations about the mercurial complexity of adult relationships lurking just beyond the bedroom door. Natasha McElhone is doing some wonderful work every week as his long-suffering ex.

The Daily Show / The Colbert Report (Comedy Central) – All I can say is, thank you, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert (and your writers), for reassuring us, with your wheelbarrows full of Emmy Awards and in your goofy yet consistently brilliant satiric fashion, that my good friend Digby and all the other equally dedicated and astute political observers/media watchdogs of the progressive blogosphere can no longer be dismissed by the MSM as the journalistic equivalent of crazy people screaming at traffic. God knows, many are the times you’ve kept me from throwing myself under a bus during a particularly depressing news cycle (like the one that’s lasted for the last, oh, eight years.)

Jurassic Fight Club(The History Channel) – Maybe there’s something about the new generation of imaginative, CG-driven, Wild Kingdom-inspired dinosaur docs that just appeals to my inner 14-year old, but ever since the BBC/Discovery Channel’s innovative and entertaining Walking With… series broke the mold of the endlessly droning paleontologist standing in front of a Museum of Natural History skeleton shtick, I can’t get enough of this stuff. Jurassic Fight Club is the latest and arguably best of the genre so far. Each episode investigates a prehistoric “crime scene”, where some epic clash of the titans has ensued. The mystery unfolds through an engaging blend of deductive science and forensic pathology, culminating with a vivid recreation of how the rumble likely went down. It’s guilt-free escapist fare, because you’re learning something…um, right?

The Life and Times of Tim (HBO) HBO’s newest addition to their sacred Sunday night lineup is an animated “cringe comedy” that is sort of a cross between The Office and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Each show is comprised of two vignettes from the life of a beleaguered, workaday New Yorker named Tim, who despite his generally good nature and sincere intentions, can’t seem to get through the day without unwittingly becoming a social pariah, or at best, somebody’s bitch. It’s very left field, and extremely funny. It’s even hard to explain why it’s so goddam funny until you’ve actually seen it, but with vignette titles like “Angry Unpaid Hooker”, “The Priest is Drunk”, and “Tim Fights an Old Man”, I think you can glean why it’s not a Saturday morning cartoon. The series is the brainchild of one Steve Dildarian, whose previous claim to fame was dreaming up Budweiser’s “Lizard” ad campaign (who knew?). Dildarian provides the voice of Tim.

Little Britain USA (HBO) Demented Brits Matt Lucas and David Walliams have adapted their BBC series for American audiences, who may or may not glom on to their very peculiar skew on the world. The duo play recurring sketch characters, some borrowed from their BBC oeuvre and some newly minted for the HBO series. They use a framing device that is suspiciously similar to the one used in the recent Showtime mini-series Tracey Ullman’s Tracy Ullman's State of the Union. This fish out of water motif works better with some characters than others (these guys don’t really share Ullman’s gift for dialect-perfect mimicry) but when they do hit their target, it’s a gut-busting laugh riot. Like most British comedy, it’s a strange mix of lowbrow vulgarity and inspired moments of comic transcendence. My favorite recurring characters are the world’s most unhappily married middle-aged couple; the vignettes are like three-minute Harold Pinter plays, packed with bathos, pathos and a lifetime of shattered dreams and existential misery. Bloody brilliant!

Mad Men(American Movie Classics) I mentioned this show as one to keep an eye on in my piece last year, just as the first season was getting underway, and I’m happy to report that it has since made good on that promising start (including an Emmy for star Jon Hamm) Set on the cusp of the New Frontier (circa 1960) this drama centers around Don Draper, a Madison Ave “ad man” who is tops in his field, but is going through an existential crisis (“This place has more failed artists and intellectuals than the Third Reich,” he observes about the ad agency that employs him). Series creator Matthew Weiner was a writer for “The Sopranos”, and you may notice some signature themes, like family loyalty, primal doubts and territorial pissing. It’s kind of a post-modern take on The Dick Van Dyke Show, with a nod and a wink to Billy Wilder’s The Apartment.

The Sarah Silverman Program(Comedy Central) Sort of an alternate universe version of Seinfeld , this could be seen as another sitcom “about nothing”, but the beauty of it is, it really is about something. It’s about racism, homophobia, life, the universe and everything, except you are too busy laughing your ass off to really notice. I am aware that comedienne Sarah Silverman rubs a lot of people the wrong way, particularly those who do not have a highly developed sense of irony (one day, the rest of the world will put away the smelling salts and realize that she is the female counterpart to Sascha Baron Cohen). I will say that she’s pretty damn close to being the personification of my ultimate dream girl: Intelligent, beautiful, and just so adorably twisted and sick (I’m not normal).

Z Rock (Independent Film Channel) Extras meets The Monkees
in one of the freshest new comedy series around. Tagged by IFC as “a (kinda) true story”, the program is a hybrid of “mockumentary” and reality show. An aspiring hard rock power trio (comprised of real-life Brooklyn musicians Paulie Z, David Z and Joey Cassata) gigs the NYC club scene at night as “ZO2”, and plays the children’s birthday party/bar mitzvah circuit by day as their unplugged alter-egos “The Z Brothers”. As you can imagine, this Jekyll-Hyde juggling act makes for some pretty outrageous scenarios, and it is sometimes a little tough to distinguish the club crawling groupies from the hot-to-trot soccer moms. While the three band members exude an appealing, easy-going charisma just by basically “playing themselves”, the show’s secret weapons are Lynne Koplitz as their neurotic, fast talking manager Dina, and the hilarious Jay Oakerson as a mookish club manager who may or may not have a genuinely homoerotic “man-crush” on lead singer Paulie. The dialog (partially improvised) has a Kevin Smith vibe; or maybe it’s that East Coast thing?


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Dennis Hartley 10/25/2008 06:00:00 PM |

 
Proposition Hate: Father Knows Best

by tristero

By now, nearly everyone knows that Proposition 8 (hereafter, Prop Hate), the anti-marriage iniitiative in California is in serious danger of passing. The true extent of the extremism of the people behind this idiocy, however, may not be apparent. This is one of a series of a posts that will highlight that extremism.

If you make the mistake of clicking on the Yes On 8 website, you come across this weird image of a typical happy family at the top (the pictures up there rotate so you may have to refresh a few times):



Father towering over and protecting his charges, including the mother and two children. The chauvinism is unmistakeable and deeply ugly. But it's par for the course for this crew of creepy donors opposed to marriage rights. Notice Howard Ahmanson's name, for example. This BFF of extreme christianist R. J. Rushdoony - who called for gays to be killed - was also one of the early supporters of "intelligent design" creationism and a lot more rightwing nuttiness. He tossed in nearly a million bucks to prevent people who love each other from marrying. (Future posts will profile other Prop Hate donors.)

There has been some highlevel financial pushback on Prop Hate, including Apple and Google who have rightly defined this as a civil rights issue more than a political one. I"d also like to suggest that this is a church/state issue, that this is an attempt by christianists and Mormons to establish a religious definition for marriage as California law.

It is important that all Californians who care about civil rights support marriage equality and vote NO on Prop Hate.

tristero 10/25/2008 04:00:00 PM |

 
How To Negotiate With The Bush Administration

by dday

What you do is this. You set up a deadline and force the White House to negotiate with you as it nears. You ask for major concessions and never stop asking for them. When the White House demurs, you say loudly to the press that there is likely to be no deal. Eventually, the White House will concede to your demands, but try to structure it in such a way that they can still get what they want. At that point, you agree to the deal, then take it back to your constituents, listen to their concerns, and turn right around and reject the terms.

Fearing political division in the parliament and in his country, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki won't sign the just-completed agreement on the status of U.S. forces in Iraq, a leading lawmaker said Friday.

The new accord's demise would be a major setback for the Bush administration, which has been seeking to establish a legal basis for the extended presence of the 151,000 U.S. troops in this country, and for Iraq, which won notable concessions in the draft accord reached a week ago.

"No, he will not" submit the agreement to the parliament, Sheikh Jalal al Din al Sagheer, the deputy head of the Shiite Muslim Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, told McClatchy. "For this matter, we need national consensus."

I don't think Maliki is some kind of genius - signing this or really any agreement with the United States at this point would be political suicide. But the idea of "listening to constituents" is something that nobody in this country has bothered to consider when dealing with the Bush Administration for the past 8 years.

They might want to give Baghdad a ring.

...as for the impact of this on the occupation, I would imagine the US will seek to extend the UN mandate by six months. No country on the Security Council will attempt to block that - why not let the American military degrade further and lay out even more of its depleted treasury? But this would be much better for an Obama Administration because it wouldn't be constrained by an already-existing agreement that has a consensus in Iraq. It's ridiculous that Baghdad is ultimately forcing an end to this mistake, but there we are.


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dday 10/25/2008 03:00:00 PM |

 
McCain's Hope

by digby

Although I'm not sure about Stoller's prediction of a landslide (I'm superstitious about such things) I'm pretty sanguine about Obama's lead. I've been pretty positive all year that the Democrats would win except for the scary period in the late summer and early fall when McCain's character assassination seemed to be gaining traction. (That little economic hiccup in late September seems to have sobered everyone up.)

However, it's important to keep focused and not lose sight of just how divided this country actually is. There are still some people out there who could be swayed the wrong way at the last minute if certain things happen.

Anonymous Liberal gives a clear eyed rundown on what could go wrong in this post. It will make you sit up a little bit straighter. It probably won't happen. But it could and that should make all of us work a little bit harder to make sure it doesn't:

First, I don't think the early voting numbers are nearly as favorable to Obama as various stories have made them out to be. The most comprehensive data on early voting that I've seen comes from the Obama campaign itself. If you look through the numbers, Democrats appear to be voting at a higher rate than they did in 2004 in North Carolina, Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado, but not by ridiculous margins. We're talking 5-10 percentage points. Given that Bush won Colorado by 5 and North Carolina by 12, that may not be enough. And in Florida (where Bush won by 5 in 2004) the ratio of Democrat to Republican early voting is unchanged from 2004 levels. Moreover, the increased Democratic numbers could just be the result of increased emphasis on banking votes, i.e., the Obama campaign using its resources to convince its strongest supporters to vote early.

So while there are some potentially encouraging signs on the early voting front, the data is somewhat ambiguous and not uniformly in Obama's favor.

Secondly, while the blue states are looking increasingly safe, the overall electoral map is starting to look a lot like it did in 2000. Obama has a solid lead in most national polls and has leads at or above his national lead in nearly every blue state (except New Hampshire, which has closed a little lately). He also looks likely to bring Iowa and New Mexico (states which Gore won but Kerry lost) back into the Democratic fold.

But that's not enough.

Read the whole thing. It isn't pessimistic. Anonymous Liberal is an enthusiastic Obama supporter from Illinois who believes this is going to be a major win. But he's not willing to ignore the possibility that if things all break a certain way this last week we could find ourselves in an electoral college situation close to what we had in 2000. It's unlikely but possible and where Republicans are involved, it pays to watch your back and be prepared for anything.


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digby 10/25/2008 02:00:00 PM |

 
The Materialism Pun

by tristero

This is about as good as it gets in terms of defining the scientific/philosophical nature of "materialism," "methodological naturalism," and the fundamental worldview of science. Unfortunately, like most such descriptions, it all but ignores the rhetorical sleight-of-hand that underlies much of the advocacy for anti-materialism. Steven Novella comes close to understanding it here:

Therefore, the broader “anti-materialist” movement of ID, dualism, and various healing pseudosciences is more accurately defined as anti-naturalism. But I guess for propaganda purposes it is better to be against “materialism” than against nature.

This is the heart of the issue.

Scientifically, and philosophically, materialism is non-controversial. Science can't say, as Steven puts, "and then there's a miracle." Philosophically, dualism creates enormous problems.

But, colloquially - and lets face it, these arguments are aimed at the general public, not at anyone with any knowledge of philosophy or science - "materialism" equals greed, selfishness, vulgarity, the everyday, the ordinary. Being against materialism, therefore, aligns oneself with "higher aspirations" than the accumulation of wealth, a bigger car, even social status. It is hard, even in a society as warped as this one towards rewarding the rich and greedy, to be openly "for" owning a third SUV.

What is going on is a kind of pun. The Wedge Strategy conflates the colloquial understanding of materialism with the technical. A scientific worldview then can be portrayed as a crass, vapid, incomplete, and unsatisfying view of life. It is for that reason that, as Steve says, they are against "materialism" rather than nature.

Accordingly, elegant, even eloquent, defenses of the technical sense of materialism miss their target. The Wedge Strategy is not about reason but about appeals to unreason. The pun between materialism (greed) and materialism (naturalism) is what this confrontation is about and needs to be very clearly acknowledged when trying to refute the Wedge Strategy.

h/t PZ

UPDATE: Please don't get me wrong. What Steven wrote is terrific. I simply believe the real issue is not materialism versus dualism, say, but the Wedge Strategy's rhetorical exploitation of a pun.

tristero 10/25/2008 12:00:00 PM |

 
Beware The Lame Duck

by digby

You'll recall that the Republican Party took the Ohio secretary of state to the state Supreme Court over minor mismatches in voter registration. After the lawsuit was dropped, John Boehner and his Republican cronies sent a letter to the Bush administration asking that the Department of justice intervene.

It seemed insane that Bush would actually do anything like that. After all, one of their most infamous scandals was the US Attorney firings, which were proven to have been political in nature but never actually proved presidential involvement. This would lay it right at Bush's feet.

Rick Hasen at Election Law Blog writes:

Roll Call offers this important report ($), which begins: "President Bush is asking the Justice Department to look into whether 200,000 Buckeye State poll-goers must use provisional ballots on Election Day because their names do not match state databases."

Wow. Here is what I said earlier this week: "The idea that the DOJ would get involved in the Ohio election now to force Sec. Brunner to produce the mismatch list on voter fraud grounds seems remote. The political uproar would be deafening." See also this AlterNet report.

There should be a political uproar but in the blaring noise of the last few days of the election campaign people may not hear about it.

The president ordering the Department of Justice to look into this is a stunning violation of DOJ guidelines and ethics. But why should he care? He's out the door and the worst thing that happens is that somebody accuses him of doing something after the fact. He didn't care about it when he was still pretending to be a president. He certainly doesn't care about it now.

Republicans tend to lose their moorings when they have nothing left to lose. Unpopular lame duck Republicans are downright dangerous.


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digby 10/25/2008 10:30:00 AM |

 
Proud To Be An American

by digby


Here are some lovely McCain voters participating in the electoral process:

You'll note that they have already begun to morph from socialist to communist. I'm surprised it took so long.

These people are obviously in a minority and they are not going to carry the day. But they represent a rather alarming number of people --- and they are really pissed.

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digby 10/25/2008 09:30:00 AM |

 
Republicans vs. Science

by tristero

Sarah Palin isn't the issue here. Sure, I'll concede that this illustrates Palin's breathtaking ignorance AND her stupidity. After all, she agreed to repeat it. But what it really demonstrates is how unqualified the upper echelons of the Republican party are to run this country. She certainly didn't write this speech: John McCain's advisers did and approved every appalling word.

The subject is government funding of scientific research:

Where does a lot of that earmark money end up anyway? […] You've heard about some of these pet projects they really don't make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.

If you know anything at all about science in the 21st century, then you know that the study of fruit flies (aka Drosophilia melanogaster) has led to some of the most important discoveries in biology, genetics, and related topics. Why is that?

Embryogenesis in Drosophila has been extensively studied, as its small size, short generation time, and large brood size makes it ideal for genetic studies.

The fruit fly's utility in genetic research, in and of itself, is enough to justify its study. Basic science, like the arts, is a worthy end that deserves federal support. But those "genetic studies" also have considerable ramifications:

About 75% of known human disease genes have a recognizable match in the genetic code of fruit flies (Reiter et al (2001) Genome Research: 11(6):1114-25), and 50% of fly protein sequences have mammalian analogues. An online database called Homophila [1] is available to search for human disease gene homologues in flies and vice versa. Drosophila is being used as a genetic model for several human diseases including the neurodegenerative disorders Parkinson's, Huntington's, spinocerebellar ataxia and Alzheimer's disease. The fly is also being used to study mechanisms underlying aging and oxidative stress, immunity, diabetes, and cancer, as well as drug abuse.

In other words, "fruit fly research in Paris, France" - as if the location of the research has anything to do with anything beyond access to appropriate tech and personnel - is part of a long, extensive, and successful effort to find better treatments for some of the most intractable and horrible diseases that afflict us all.

Words fail me. The people who elevated Palin to national prominence, who approved those words, belong nowhere near the power of the presidency. For a country like the United States to have this kind of garbage spewing from the mouth of a major party candidate is, quite simply, beyond shameful. It's actively destructive.

UPDATE: Here's a charming video called A Fruit Fly In New York

UPDATE: Given the subject matter of her talk, Palin and her speechwriters should have known that Fruit fly research has led to advances in understanding autism

UPDATE: Mike the Mad Biologist has tracked down a description of the research , which is applied, not basic:

“The Olive Fruit Fly has infested thousands of California olive groves and is the single largest threat to the U.S. olive and olive oil industries,” he said. “I secured $748,000 for olive fruit fly research and irradiation in the (fiscal year 2008) appropriations bill for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The USDA will use some of that funding for their research facility in France. This USDA research facility is located in France because Mediterranean countries like France have dealt with the Olive Fruit Fly for decades, while California has only been exposed since the late 1990s. This is not uncommon; the USDA has several international research facilities throughout the world, including Australia, China and Argentina.”

Thompson’s office said Citizens Against Government Waste did not contact the congressman before it issued the award.

“Had the CAGW spent any time even talking to the USDA, they would have learned that our government does research in multiple USDA facilities around the world and that none of this money goes to other governments or for other government projects,” Thompson said.

Olives are the second-largest cash crop in Napa County, running a very distant second to wine grapes.

Dave Whitmer, Napa County Agricultural Commissioner said, Napa County had more than 220 acres of olive groves, and that the olives mostly go into olive oil production.

“(For) most of the coastal counties and a lot of the valley counties and the foothill counties that have olive producers, this olive fly is really turning out to be a really significant pest for olive producers to got a handle on,” he said. “Particularly for people who do fresh olives or olive oil production.”

tristero 10/25/2008 03:28:00 AM |

Friday, October 24, 2008

 
Ugly

by digby

Proposition 8 here in California is starting to get hot. Here's a report from oakland:

This is the reality of Prop 8, though. A woman on her way home saw a bunch of pro-Prop 8 types and a few counterdemonstrators, so she got out her phone and started taking video. Having turned off her phone to approach after a particularly ugly confrontation between an angry pro-8 woman and a man who was against it (and who stayed calm while the woman got in his face), she was approaching when the pro-Prop 8 types threatened her (”Get that shit out of here. I’ll knock it out of your hand.”).

Conservatives are starting to feel very, very freaked out. And they tend to be the type of people who believe violence is the best answer for everything. You do the math.

You can see the video at the link. Ugh. The sheer rage in the voices of the anti-gay marriage people is chilling.



Update: You can't blame them, really. Their own leaders are going postal and psaying that you will die if Obama wins. Here's the latest McCain robocall:

"Democrats attempt to cut off crucial troop funding," goes the script. "They accuse our troops of war crimes. And Senator Biden predicts Senator Obama will be tested. A weak president will indeed be tested. Obama and Democrat's politics endanger American lives. They are not qualified to lead our military and our country. When you vote, vote for the team that puts leadership, character and country first. John McCain."

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digby 10/24/2008 08:00:00 PM |

 
Killer Button

by digby

There are innumerable things about Sarah Palin that annoy me. And mostly she depresses me because she validates the worst biases people have about women in politics. But this latest affectation of hers is so reprehensibly wrong that it makes me want to scream. Check out this picture:

Notice the polar bear pin? This is the woman who, as governor, refused to acknowledge that the polar bears are drowning and fought their designation as an endangered species.

I can only assume that her wearing of that pin is a signal to her fellow animal haters that if she's elected she'll open up aerial hunting for polar bears too. After all, this came out of her administration:

The Board of Game, which she appoints, has approved the killing of black bear sows with cubs as part of the program and expanded the aerial control programs

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digby 10/24/2008 06:00:00 PM |

 
The Myth Of A Maverick

by dday

Matt Stoller has scored an incredible interview with a staffer from John McCain's 2000 Presidential campaign. It might not surprise you, given the sludge that his campaign is currently running, that the style is virtually unchanged from those days, when he was this supposed straight-talking honorable maverick. John McCain hasn't changed a bit.

McCain 2000 staffer: Yes, in South Carolina he had the Quinn's running his campaign out of their office. McCain did very well with establishment Republicans in NH... they helped him get his big win there along with independents. The Quinn's (Rick and Richard) are notorious.

Matt Stoller: For what?

McCain 2000 staffer: Well, they are probably one of the few consultants in SC that everyone would want. But... They also publish the Southern Partisan magazine. Which is extremely racist.

McCain 2000 staffer: McCain had their support and they were our consultants there. A good get for a Republican in the primary.

Matt Stoller: Wow

McCain 2000 staffer: He also had the support of some state officials and legislators that were important. Not to mention Graham and Sanford who at the time were both US Reps. Now one is a Senator and the other is Governor

Matt Stoller: The general consensus among pundits is that McCain in 2000 was destroyed by George Bush's dirty tricks (masterminded by Karl Rove). These tricks included claims he fathered a black child and attacks on his record in Vietnam.

McCain 2000 staffer: Had the Quinn's won SC for McCain he would have been the nominee in 2000.

Matt Stoller: But that McCain himself ran an honorable campaign.

McCain 2000 staffer: Ha! Again, the story is more detailed than that. Rove ran a Rove campaign. So yes, they were dirty. But we were too. I remember the week after NH, we surged in SC polls from something like 10pts behind Bush to 10pts ahead. After a little slipping because Bush was letting surrogates go after McCain's military history, we went up with an ad that said Bush twisted the truth just like Clinton. The ad aired for one day. The press said McCain was going negative, the Bush people screamed bloody murder, and our campaign went into a tail spin. Had that ad not run, I'm convinced, and if you spoke to people from the SC campaign or Weaver or Davis and they were honest with you they would agree, that ad sank the campaign.

Matt Stoller: What were some of the rumors the campaign was pushing about Bush?

McCain 2000 staffer: I remember talking with reporters after events about Bush's DUI. I remember senior press staff doing that. I remember them talking about Laura Bush's horrible car accident, saying that she may have been drunk when it happened. On a funny side note, during a debate Bush held up this flyer we were handing out door to door and at events that said Bush would hurt seniors... it was a really nasty flyer aimed at scaring the elderly. So Bush holds it up and asks McCain about it. McCain looks at Bush and says it isn't from his campaign. Bush points out that it says McCain's campaign paid for it. McCain then says well we have stopped doing that. Keep in mind, McCain swore off negative TV ads after the Clinton one failed so badly. So I'm watching the debate and I'm like... is he crazy? We have people in the field handing that out TONIGHT. He blew up at the staff that night over the flyer. Vintage McCain. He doesn't mind getting deep in the mud when it works for him. But if he gets caught? Hell-to-pay. And then he plays the straight-talking martyr.

Matt Stoller: Was he responsible for the flyer, or was it some sort of rogue operation within the campaign? What kind of tone did he and his senior advisors set?

McCain 2000 staffer: Ultimately McCain signed off on everything. That's how he operated. Very military minded, chain of command so to speak. The tone? Well, I think a story illustrates that better. On the campaign we had this right of passage called being WOW'd. It stood for Wrath of Weaver. If you ever experienced his wrath you essentially made it to the in-team. McCain on the other hand, being on the receiving end of his temper was NEVER a good thing. It wasn't something you bragged about over drinks with co-workers like you did with Weaver. It could be brutal. It's sort of funny in retrospect. At the end of ads these days, candidates have to say 'I'm so and so, and I approve this message." McCain is the guy who made that law. To see the filth he's been approving is pretty sick, but not unexpected.

This would be a nice story to fax to David Broder and Chris Matthews and Joe Klein, these pundits who did somersaults any time McCain was in their general orbit for years, and who think that this dive into the muck is only of recent vintage. McCain has been saying and doing anything to get elected for a long, long time. The gasbags became so impressed by this military man and his presumed honor that they made up a story about him, created an image basically out of nothing, an image that until this year made him the most respected Republican politician in America. Now a few of them are seeing the error of their ways, but they're replacing it with another story - John McCain's changed. He had to go to the dark side in this election. He didn't even want to, it's those Rove protégés around him that are pushing this noble warrior into it.

Wrong. All wrong. McCain lives for knifing his political enemies. He just wants deniability for it, which so many in the media are willing to give him thanks to this carefully cultivated image. The great axiom of modern politics is that if someone on television is telling you how honorable a politician is, well, just turn the sound off, because it's nothing but inauthentic flattery. Cocktail parties don't have this much gladhanding at them.


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dday 10/24/2008 04:30:00 PM |

 
Down To The Wire

by digby

Everyone has heard about Michelle Bachmann's outburst on Hardball and the ensuing outpouring of donations for her opponent. But there was another "macaca moment" that was so bad Keith Olbermann even named the perpetrator The Worst Person In The World.

Here's Howie:

It's taken him a while but he's finally gotten around to Robin "Weepy" Hayes, a kind of feudal type who represents a sprawling district that stretches from Charlotte to Fayetteville (NC-08). Apparently he had either just lost control of himself or he was trying to compete with Michele Bachmann for the GOP crazee du jour, when he introduced John McCain to an audience in North Carolina by saying "Liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and believe in God." Forgetting that we're in a different kind of media age, where things are easy recorded and checked, he flatly denied saying it.The next day witnesses came forward to say they heard him. He denied it some more...

If any member of Congress personifies a willingness to sell out his constituents' economic interests for the sake of special interests, it is Robin Hayes. Few districts anywhere have been as hard hit by unfair trade policies as NC-08. And yet Hayes was the deciding vote-- twice-- on trade agreements his party was pushing that he himself said he knew was bad for North Carolina! Once he actually voted NO and then, weeping like a little girl, changed his vote to YES when Tom Delay threatened him on the floor of the House.

Hayes' opponent, Larry Kissell, is one of the best candidates running for Congress anywhere. A laid off mill worker, Larry became a social studies teacher and later came within 325 votes of ousting Hayes from Congress in 2006. This year polls say he will complete the job. Blue America has endorsed him and I'm very nervous about this race because Hayes and his corporate allies are flooding the district with negative campaign ads-- and Larry's pretty much out of money. According to Open Secrets, on September 30 Hayes still had $1,113,272 left to spend and Larry was down to $250,134. The most recent polling shows Larry at 49% and Hayes at 41% but the NRCC is blasting away with $882,000 in television smears.

Kissel is one of the good guys. Not only would he be unseating a wingnut jackass, he's a real progressive. You can help him by donating through ACT Blue, but the most direct way to help right now is by doing this:

Place your own ad buy in the Charlotte cable market through SaysMe.tv. Just pick which ad you want to run, which network you want to run it on and what time of the day. An ad on MSNBC in the late afternoon, for example, costs $60, while a late night ad on MTV or the SciFi channel costs $31; ESPN 2 charges $60 for a spot late night or early morning.

Howie is getting some amazing feedback about this SaysMe campaign. Political gurus are totally wowed by the idea and are telling Howie that this is where the next wave of internet politics is heading. It's an amazing concept and could make the difference in some of these races in the last few days. But you have to act quickly. The ads have to be bought by Monday.

This is a really cheap and easy thing to do and it's so much fun. (You don't have to do it just with Kissel --- you can use it for other Blue American candidates as well. Check the site.) In these late days it's the best way for you to affect congressional races and get the message out in these districts.

Click below and you'll go to the Blue America SaysMe site:

Also: Down With Tyranny and Crooks and Liars have been running a $10,000 matching fund raising drive for Debbie Cook, another great Blue America candidate, who just might beat that Taliban loving jackass, Dana Rohrabacher. She would be a huge asset in the House:

Debbie doesn’t mince words about women’s issues, marriage equality, getting out of Iraq, or the need for single payer health. But her passion is energy and the need to act now to leave fossil fuels before they leave us.

We’re riding a wave of change here in Surf City, and Republicans panicked when they finally did internal polling and showed the race within the margin of error. We’ve gotten great response to our ads on cable, and we can still increase our buy for the last week. We’re on track to knock on almost every door in the district before the election more than once, and we’re getting tremendous support for GOTV from every environmental group, the unions, the nurses, PDA, and DFA.

We have targeted mail ready to go to hit the low-propensity voters and remind younger voters, women, seniors, veterans, Latinos, and Vietnamese that Rohrabacher is a ZERO while Debbie is a HERO. Every dollar you give today goes out the door to communicate to voters.

A series of donors have made a $10,000 matching dollar for dollar pledge.

You can buy ads for her too, here.


Update: And now the Republicans (and the allegedly liberal media) are smearing Darcy Burner, saying she lied about her degree from Harvard, (which is complete bullshit.) Meanwhile, Dave Reichert, the smear artist, is caught lying about his degree from Concordia Lutheran College, inflating it from an AA degree to a BA.

Where does this chutzpah come from?

Donate here to stop the insanity. Or buy some ads for Darcy on behalf of the latte sipping, intellectual elite.




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digby 10/24/2008 03:00:00 PM |

 
It Ain't Us

by digby


David Swanson at After Downing Street indicts the liberal blogosphere for failing to hold McCain accountable for his hypocrisy on torture. Speaking of the Pinochet meeting revealed on Huffington Post today, he writes:

First, it's an opening to talk about McCain's more recent support for torture, a topic Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and other liberal blogs have been no more open to than the New York Times or Fox News. In 2005 John McCain championed the McCain Detainee Amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill for 2005, which passed the Congress and was signed into law by Bush, adding one more redundant ban on torture to existing U.S. law, despite Vice President Cheney having lobbied hard against it. But McCain allowed a major loophole for the CIA and then kept quiet when Bush threw out the whole thing with a "signing statement." Bush and Cheney's administration continued to torture without pause or slowdown.

In 2006 Time Magazine recognized McCain's efforts to supposedly ban torture in naming him one of America's 10 Best Senators. Time made no mention of the fact that torture had always been illegal, the fact that Bush had thrown out the new law with a "signing statement," or the fact that the United States was continuing to torture people on a large scale.

Also in 2006 McCain voted in favor of the Military Commissions Act which supposedly left torture decisions up to the president. And in February 2008, McCain voted against a bill that would supposedly ban torture, and then applauded Bush for vetoing the bill. I've talked to plenty of torture fans at McCain-Palin rallies. They know they're backing the torture ticket. Why won't even the independent progressive media admit it?

I'm on his mailing list and he sent this to me. But obviously, he doesn't read my blog or any number of others who have been railing about McCain's deplorable record on torture for years. It's as great a mystery and frustration to me as it is him that the mainstream media have refused to look at this story, but it's not because I the blogosphere hasn't tried to get it out there.

I don't mean to pick on Swanson. I get emails all the time from people excoriating me for failing to write about things I have been writing about for years. I normally just ignore it, assuming they don't read my blog, but in this case, I wrote about it just last week, so I'm a little bit irritated.

And aside from own fevered meanderings, it is useful to point out that Glenzilla wrote a whole book about conservative hypocrisy and devoted substantial ink to this very topic:

The mirage-like nature of McCain's alleged convictions can be seen most clearly, and most depressingly, with his public posturing over the issue of torture. Time and again, McCain has made a dramatic showing of standing firm against the use of torture by the United States, only to reveal that his so-called principles are confined to the realm of rhetoric and theater, but never action that follows through on that rhetoric.

In 2005, McCain led the effort in the Senate to pass the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA), which made the use of torture illegal. While claiming that he had succeeded in passing a categorical ban on torture, however, McCain meekly accepted two White House maneuvers that diluted his legislation to the point of meaningless: (1) the torture ban expressly applied only to the U.S. military, but not to the intelligence community, which was exempt, thus ensuring that the C.I.A.--the principal torture agent for the United States -- could continue to torture legally; and (2) after signing the DTA into law, which passed the Senate by a vote of 90-9, President Bush issued one of his first controversial "signing statements" in which he, in essence, declared that, as president, he had the power to disregard even the limited prohibitions on torture imposed by McCain's law.

McCain never once objected to Bush's open, explicit defiance of his cherished anti-torture legislation, preferring to bask in the media's glory while choosing to ignore the fact that his legislative accomplishment would amount to nothing. Put another way, McCain opted for the political rewards of grandstanding on the issue while knowing that he had accomplished little, if anything, in the way of actually promoting his "principles."

A virtual repeat of that sleight-of-hand occurred in 2006, when McCain first pretended to lead opposition to the Military Commissions Act (MCA), only thereafter to endorse this most radical, torture-enabling legislation, almost single-handedly ensuring its passage. After insisting that compelled adherence to the anti-torture ban of the Geneva Conventions was a nonnegotiable item for him, McCain ultimately blessed the MCA despite the fact that it left it to the president to determine, in his sole discretion, which interrogation methods did or did not comply with the Conventions' provisions.

Thus, once again, McCain created a self-image as a principled torture opponent with one hand, and with the other, ensured a legal framework that would not merely fail to ban, but would actively enable, the president's ability to continue using interrogation methods widely considered to be torture.

more at the link...

That was excerpted from Huffington Post, btw.

Swanson is correct that the mainstream media have allowed McCain's reputation as a moral agent on the subject of torture to stand. Even Obama unfortunately granted him that in the last debate. But those of us who follow civil liberties issues in the blogosphere have not and it's galling to be accused of it.


I won't link to all the posts on this subject from bloggers such as Kagro X at DKos, Christie Hardin Smith, Emptywheel, Think Progress, Crooks and Liars etc. Mr Google will take you there. We've done our best to expose McCain's outrageous cowardice on this. Perhaps it's such an enormous betrayal of principle that the political establishment can't wrap their minds around it, I don't know. But it's out there if anyone wants to find it.


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digby 10/24/2008 01:30:00 PM |

 
Eating Their Own

by digby

... legs off.

In response to this morning's post about an anti-Palin faction developing with the McCain campaign and among Republicans, Randy Scheunemann, McCain's chief foreign policy adviser, e-mails:

Just read your post. This is on the record. This is cleared by HQ. It is a fact that Barack Obama was palling around with terrorists. It was a fact before Governor Palin said it in a fully vetted speech and it is fact today. It is bullshit to claim or write anything else.

I guess we can see why McCain likes this guy so much. The guy is just as intemperate and impulsive as he is.

It's kind of funny, though, that Randy Scheunman is accusing people of palling around with terrorists. He's got quite a history himself and it's a lot more recent that Ayres' ancient activities:

Remember, US intelligence later found evidence that Chalabi, in addition to foisting a bunch of bogus intelligence and lying informers on the US and pocketing a lot of US taxpayer dollars, had provided highly classified US intelligence to Iran. Scheunemann worked closely with Chalabi for years in his efforts to get the US into war with Iraq. He was also a go-between between Chalabi and McCain. Now that he's taking such a high-profile role on the Iraq issue in the 2008, Scheunemann's history with Chalabi and the use of bogus intelligence to get the nation into war is unquestionably highly newsworthy.

It is a fact that just like his friend Chalabi, Randy Scheunemann is a loser conman. It is bullshit to claim or write anything else.

Update: There's palling around and then there's palling around:

In 1985, McCain traveled to Chile for a friendly meeting with Chile's military ruler, General Augusto Pinochet, one of the world's most notorious violators of human rights credited with killing more than 3,000 civilians and jailing tens of thousands of others.

At least he wasn't a socialist.

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digby 10/24/2008 11:30:00 AM |

 
The Scarlet 'B"

by digby

I'm sure most of you have heard about the alleged attack of a McCain campaign worker by a crazed black man. It's been all over the internets and apparently the McCain campaign has been pushing it like crazy. There are many questions as to the story's veracity, but that will sort itself out in due course.

But someone sent me this blog post from John Moody, president of Fox, that is has to be read to be believed:

Part of the appeal of, and the unspoken tension behind, Senator Obama’s campaign is his transformational status as the first African-American to win a major party’s presidential nomination.

That does not mean that he has erased the mutual distrust between black and white Americans, and this incident could become a watershed event in the 11 days before the election.

If Ms. Todd’s allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee.

So, according to Moody, if a black man assaults someone in Pittsburgh, people can justifiably be suspicious of another black man who happens to be running for president. And that's not racist.


Recall that this is a very,very important man in American broadcasting. He directs the news of a major cable network every day with a memo that gives the parameters for the coverage. He's clearly a right winger, but I never thought he was an idiot. Until now.

Update:

Yeah...

Police sources tell KDKA that a campaign worker has now confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter "B" in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.

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digby 10/24/2008 09:30:00 AM |

 
This Is Not Funny

by tristero

Seriously, this is sick. None of us would be snickering if Obama was down in the polls:

Who was the highest paid individual in Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign during the first half of October as it headed down the homestretch?

Not Randy Scheunemann, Mr. McCain’s chief foreign policy adviser; not Nicolle Wallace, his senior communications staff member. It was Amy Strozzi, who was identified by the Washington Post this week as Gov. Sarah Palin’s traveling makeup artist, according to a new filing with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday night.

If ever there was a perfect indicator of the priorities of modern Republicanism, this is it.

(Actually, in a Strangelovian way, it's also pretty funny.)

tristero 10/24/2008 05:59:00 AM |

Thursday, October 23, 2008

 
Jews For Obama

by tristero

Despite the hype from the right, it's more than 3 to 1.

Heh. Looks like the good Sarah's Great Schlep may not be that necessary, even if it is very funny.

tristero 10/23/2008 08:00:00 PM |

 
An Offer They Can't Refuse

by digby

The bigots allegedly doing the Lord's work in California are getting really nasty. Now they are extorting money from companies that support gay marriage:

Leaders of the campaign to outlaw same-sex marriage in California are warning businesses that have given money to the state's largest gay rights group they will be publicly identified as opponents of traditional unions unless they contribute to the gay marriage ban, too.

ProtectMarriage.com, the umbrella group behind a ballot initiative that would overturn the California Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage, sent a certified letter this week asking companies to withdraw their support of Equality California, a nonprofit organization that is helping lead the campaign against Proposition 8.

"Make a donation of a like amount to ProtectMarriage.com which will help us correct this error," reads the letter. "Were you to elect not to donate comparably, it would be a clear indication that you are in opposition to traditional marriage. ... The names of any companies and organizations that choose not to donate in like manner to ProtectMarriage.com but have given to Equality California will be published."

The letter was signed by four members of the group's executive committee: campaign chairman Ron Prentice; Edward Dolejsi, executive director of the California Catholic Conference; Mark Jansson, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; and Andrew Pugno, the lawyer for ProtectMarriage.com. A donation form was attached. The letter did not say where the names would be published.

Is that even legal? More importantly, considering the context, is that supposed to be moral?

These people have every right to boycott businesses that support No on 8. It's disgusting that they refuse to allow their fellow citizens the right and privileges afforded by marriage, but they have a right to their beliefs. But I find it hard to believe they have a right to extort money from people who believe differently than them and threaten them with "exposure" if they refuse. When did that become SOP?

And naturally, these are the same people who have run the most dishonest campaign in my memory. I've never seen anything like it:

THE LIE: Four activist judges ignored four million voters.
THE TRUTH: Voters were far from ignored. Proposition 22, which originally made same-sex marriage illegal, was at the center of the court case. The California Constitution has not been this carefully examined since interracial marriage was made legal in 1959. Three of those four judges were appointed by Republicans.

THE LIE: Churches can lose their tax-exempt status.
THE TRUTH: Churches have the right to preach whatever they believe, and deny marriage to anyone on any grounds. This does not affect their tax-exempt status at all. Prop 8 would do nothing to protect this right any further.

THE LIE: Schools will have to teach about gay marriage.
THE TRUTH: The State of California does not control curriculum about marriage. They mandate that children are taught about the financial responsibilities of marriage, but not about what marriage is; that is completely up to the school and the parents. Parents have the right to remove their children from class any time they would be taught something about health and families that the parents disagree with. Prop 8 would do nothing to protect this right any further.

THE LIE: Prop 8 ensures religious freedom.
THE TRUTH: Considering some churches allow same-sex marriage, Prop 8 would actually take away a religious freedom. The judges in the court ruling took extra steps to ensure that freedom of religion was preserved. Prop 8 would do nothing at all to ensure religious freedom.

THE LIE: Prop 8 ensures free speech.
THE TRUTH: The court ruling did nothing to free speech, and neither would Prop 8.

THE LIE: Prop 8 means less government.
THE TRUTH: Prop 8 is an amendment to the California Constitution that dictates what a marriage is. It actually means that the government is more involved in our lives.

These people are pulling out all the stops and there is no guarantee this amendment is going to fail. California is in the bag for Obama and there's no real campaign going on here. But the "No on Prop 8" campaign is fierce and if you feel like getting involved, there are ways to do it:

Donate. The Mormons are pouring money into this thing.

Volunteer at a local campaign office. Or phone bank from your home.

One of the big problems is that many people still don't understand that voting NO is the way to support gay marriage. The least we can all do is make sure we are explicit in our conversations about that part of it.


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digby 10/23/2008 07:00:00 PM |

 
On The Trail Of The Real Stories

by digby

The ever reasonable "conservative" Jon Swift has collected the most important, overlooked Pulitzer level stories emanating from the rightwing blogpshere during this election season. If the liberal media weren't so in the tank for teh gays and the you-know-whats, these stories would be in screaming headlines in every newspaper in the land.

Here's just one:

Michelle Obama attacks “American white racists” in an interview with obscure online news site

I bet you probably didn’t know that Michelle Obama gave an exclusive interview to the obscure online journalism site African Press International in which she said that “American white racists” are trying to derail her husband's candidacy by claiming that Obama was adopted by his Indonesian stepfather, which would make him ineligible to be President under one of the secret, little-known provisions of the U.S. Constitution. Mrs. Obama was apparently so disturbed by these charges that she decided to call this press agency, which most people have never heard of, and vent Martha Mitchell-like, even though her words might scuttle her husband’s chances of becoming President. Although the mainstream media hasn’t yet picked up the story, and the Obama campaign denies the interview took place, Gateway Pundit, Protein Wisdom, Right Pundits, Stop the ACLU, Maggies Notebook, Death by 1000 Paperecuts, Strata-Sphere, News Busters, World Net Daily, Jim Treacher, Townhall and a number of other conservative blogs and news sites ran with it. Although some cynical bloggers were skeptical of the story for some reason and demanded more proof, API assured them that it had tapes of the conversations and was just waiting for the right moment to release them. Although API still hasn’t managed to work out the logistics yet, and several deadlines have already come and gone, conservative bloggers are very patient and understanding and just hope that API can work everything out before the election. “We will know soon enough,” writes Gateway Pundit. “It is amazing how the media will believe a hoax that some Republican yelled ‘kill him’ at a Palin rally with no evidence but will disregard a harsh story on Michelle Obama from the start. It's interesting how that works.”

More like this at the link. No wonder the newspaper business is on its last legs. they have no nose for the news. luckily for Americans these good folks are picking up where they left off.
digby 10/23/2008 06:00:00 PM |

 
Oh Well, Another Handful Of Afghanis Dead

by dday

Digby was talking about Afghanistan earlier, in the context of Obama seeking to see "the big picture" in allocating resources. I hope events like this fit into the edge of the frame.

Nine Afghan soldiers were killed and four others injured by a U.S. airstrike on an Afghan army checkpoint Wednesday in an apparent friendly-fire incident in eastern Afghanistan, according to Afghan and U.S. military officials.

The pre-dawn airstrike occurred after a convoy of coalition troops came under fire as they returned to their base in Khost province, according to a statement released by the U.S. military. Coalition soldiers called for air support after exchanging fire with Afghan troops near an Afghan army checkpoint in the Sayed Kheil area in what military officials said could be "a case of mistaken identity on both sides." [...]

Arsallah Jamal, governor of Khost province, said coalition and Afghan troops had been engaged in operations in the area for about 10 days before the strike occurred. Jamal said the army checkpoint was relatively new but was well-known and on a main road. "They knew it was there. They made a mistake," Jamal said.

There was another airstrike in the region today that hit a Pakistani school and killed at least eight. And you can just read these stories with a sense of deja vu throughout the past seven years. We've been bombing Afghanistan for so long, as a band-aid to make up for the lack of troops, that I'm not sure if you asked an Afghan civilian that they would tell you that the Taliban is the real enemy and not the guys in the airplanes in the sky. Right now popular support for a foreign presence is almost even with opposition, and declining.

Russ Feingold spoke up today with one of those statements that isn't allowed in the polite company of the foreign policy establishment in Washington - maybe we shouldn't just transfer our military strength from one country to the next.

But few people seem willing to ask whether the main solution that's being talked about– sending more troops to Afghanistan – will actually work.

If the devastating policies of the current administration have proved anything, it's that we need to ask tough questions before deploying our brave service members – and that we need to be suspicious of Washington "group think." Otherwise, we are setting ourselves up for failure.

For far too long, we have been fighting in Afghanistan with too few troops. It has been an "economy of force" campaign, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff put it. But we can't just assume that additional troops will undo the damage caused by years of neglect.

Sending more US troops made sense in, say, 2006, and it may still make sense today. The situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated badly over the past year, however, despite a larger US and coalition military presence.

We need to ask: After seven years of war, will more troops help us achieve our strategic goals in Afghanistan? How many troops would be needed and for how long? Is there a danger that a heavier military footprint will further alienate the population, and, if so, what are the alternatives? And – with the lessons of Iraq in mind – will this approach advance our top national security priority, namely defeating Al Qaeda?

How dare he try to ask questions, using such trifles as reason and logic. How dare he consider that massive military might can be anything but glorious. How dare he suggest that an international problem has something other than a military solution.

The very nerve.


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dday 10/23/2008 04:30:00 PM |

 
Et Tu Petraeus?

by digby

Joe Klein has published a very informative interview with Obama on foreign policy on Swampland and it's worth reading from beginning to end. Even where I disagree with him, I can't help but feel relieved and overjoyed at Obama's impressive intelligence (which makes it more laughable than ever that Sarah Palin has the nerve to diss his readiness in foreign policy.)

Anyway, there's a lot to digest in the interview, but the long passage about General Petraeus stuck out at me because of an article I'd read just prior to reading Klein's piece. Here's Obama in the Klein interview:

[Q] I have been collecting accounts of your meeting with David Petraeus in Baghdad. And you had [inaudible] after he had made a really strong pitch [inaudible] for maximum flexibility. A lot of politicians at that moment would have said [inaudible] but from what I hear, you pushed back.

[BO] I did. I remember the conversation, pretty precisely. He made the case for maximum flexibility and I said you know what if I were in your shoes I would be making the exact same argument because your job right now is to succeed in Iraq on as favorable terms as we can get. My job as a potential commander in chief is to view your counsel and your interests through the prism of our overall national security which includes what is happening in Afghanistan, which includes the costs to our image in the middle east, to the continued occupation, which includes the financial costs of our occupation, which includes what it is doing to our military. So I said look, I described in my mind at list an analogous situation where I am sure he has to deal with situations where the commanding officer in [inaudible] says I need more troops here now because I really think I can make progress doing x y and z. That commanding officer is doing his job in Ramadi, but Petraeus’s job is to step back and see how does it impact Iraq as a whole. My argument was I have got to do the same thing here. And based on my strong assessment particularly having just come from Afghanistan were going to have to make a different decision. But the point is that hopefully I communicated to the press my complete respect and gratitude to him and Proder who was in the meeting for their outstanding work. Our differences don't necessarily derive from differences in sort of, or my differences with him don't derive from tactical objections to his approach. But rather from a strategic framework that is trying to take into account the challenges to our national security and the fact that we've got finite resources.

[Q] But you didn't have to make that point.

[BO] No well I think that I did, I felt it necessary to make that point even though I tried not to talk about it publicly, not knowing sort of what the terms of our discussion were. Precisely because I respect the Petraeus and [inaudible], precisely because they've done a good job and because my job as a candidate is preparing myself to be commander in chief. And I want to make sure that I'm taking their arguments seriously, they understand I'm taking their argument seriously. I want our military brass and our mid level officers to all feel that I am going to be listening to them. This notion that I'm not paying attention to them is nonsense. I'm listening to them very carefully and I take their advice with great seriousness. I just want them to know that I've got a, I potentially will have a broader task at hand.

[Q] Right.

[BO] And I want to make sure that we establish a relationship of respect early on. Again not just with the joint chiefs but also with folks who align responsibly on the ground.

[Q] Now I've heard that conversation characterized as everything from angry to spirited to agreeable. And I kind of took it as

[BO] I would say it was between spirited and agreeable. That's how I would characterize it.

[Q] And after you made that point, [Petraeus] said I understand now.

[BO]He did.

Obviously I wasn't there and have no way of interpreting that exchange, but I wouldn't be so sure it means what it appears to mean. I certainly respect Obama for making it clear that he will be Commander in Chief and that his view is, by definition, more global, in every sense of the word. But I have a sneaking suspicion that The Man Called Petraeus may not be as sanguine about that interaction as Obama might wish.

The article I had just read was also about Petraeus and Andrew Bacevich quotes him saying that he no longer votes because he "thought senior leaders should be apolitical." Bacevich points out that this used to be common among the higher reaches of the officer corps, but changed in recent decades when the military became much more overtly Republican. He questions Petraeus' meaning, however:

... if Petraeus's statement that "senior leaders should be apolitical" reflects the beginnings of a retreat from the partisanship that has infected the officer corps, that will be all to the good. Indeed, General Petraeus will perform a signal service to the military profession and to the nation if he genuinely honors that commitment.

Still, one wonders. Since he burst upon the scene during the invasion of Iraq back in 2003, Petraeus has displayed a political sophistication and savvy not seen in any senior officer since Colin Powell himself left active duty. Among other things, the general possesses and does not hesitate to deploy (as did Powell) a remarkable aptitude for courting politicians and members of the press. Rather than seeing war and politics as distinctive spheres, with soldiers confined to the former and civilian leaders dominating the latter, Petraeus understands (correctly) that the two spheres are inextricably linked. To restrict soldiers to a specific arena of activity -- to limit their role to issues directly related to war fighting -- makes little sense and would be self-defeating. This is especially true in an era when the United States remains committed to waging an open-ended global war against the forces of violent Islamic radicalism.

The so-called "Long War" is a political war par excellence, with "politics" here having a domestic as well as an international aspect -- a reality apparent in the way that the Bush administration suppressed doubts about the "surge" in Iraq by employing Petraeus as its de facto spokesman. To criticize the policy became tantamount to criticizing the general, which few members of Congress or the media were willing to do.

Was Petraeus the administration's willing dupe? Or was he shrewdly pursuing his own game that just happened to coincide with the administration's? Who exactly was playing whom?

The question still to be determined is this: what role does Petraeus foresee himself playing as this deeply politicized war extends beyond the Bush presidency? Will he confine himself to rendering disinterested professional advice? Should Barack Obama win the election, will the apolitical soldier bow to the wishes of his new civilian master -- despite Obama's opposition to the war in which Petraeus built his reputation? We should hope so.

Yet by claiming to be apolitical -- someone who stands "above" mere politics -- Petraeus might also be positioning himself to assert a role not only in implementing policy but in shaping policy to suit his own agenda, in Iraq and elsewhere. In that event, General Marshall just might end up turning over in his grave.

I think there is nearly zero chance that Petraeus is apolitical and I would bet good money that he is positioning himself for a role in shaping policy. His willingness to be used by the Bush administration proves it in my mind. in fac, his recent protestations of being above politics are actually very cunning --- if the country devolves back into angry partisanship, which it will (it always does), TMCP will be positioned to be the apolitical outsider with the leadership experience to lead us out of the darkness. There is no doubt in my mind that when he looks in the mirror he sees President Petraeus.

Obama had better watch his back. As Bacevich mentions in the article (and Lucian Truscott IV wrote in my comment section last night) there is a pretty recent example of another ambitious General who stabbed his president in the back. This is the one area where Obama should cultivate Powell's advice. He's an expert.



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digby 10/23/2008 02:00:00 PM |

 
Wealthy Parasites

by digby

Apparently, it never occurred to the great guru that wealthy people would be greedy enough to destroy the system. It didn't show up in his "models."

Greenspan, who called the current financial crisis a "once-in-a-century credit tsunami," said that he remained "in a state of shocked disbelief" that banks and investment firms did not do a better job of analyzing the risks involved with investing in home mortgages extended to less creditworthy borrowers.

Under questioning from Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the committee chairman, Greenspan acknowledged that the failure of that expected self-regulation represented "a flaw in the model" he used to analyze economics. "I was going for 40 years or more on the perception that it was working well."

This is the fundamental problem with Randian thinking. They really do believe that capitalism is a moral system in which the people become wealthy because they are morally and intellectually superior to those who don't. Why, it would be wrong for them to not self-regulate and endanger the whole economy, right? It wouldn't make any sense.

Except, well, there's this:

"Let's hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters," wrote [an analyst] in an email obtained by Waxman's committee.

Being able to pass on all your risk to someone else while personally coming out on top is a pretty glaring and obvious flaw in the system unless you think that wealthy people are too wise and moral to ever do such a thing. The only people who believe that are Randians and Joe the Plumber. Everybody on Wall Street certainly seemed to know the score and acted accordingly.

The moral justification of capitalism does not lie in the altruist claim that it represents the best way to achieve “the common good.” It is true that capitalism does—if that catch-phrase has any meaning—but this is merely a secondary consequence. The moral justification of capitalism lies in the fact that it is the only system consonant with man’s rational nature, that it protects man’s survival qua man, and that its ruling principle is: justice.

—Ayn Rand, “What Is Capitalism?” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

Update: like Rand, Greenspan probably operated from the premise that "businessmen" were all moral agents. This is from an essay called An Answer for Businessmen, written by Rand in 1962.

The world crisis of today is a moral crisis—and nothing less than a moral revolution can resolve it: a moral revolution to sanction and complete the political achievement of the American revolution. We must fight for capitalism, not as a practical issue, not as an economic issue, but, with the most righteous pride, as a moral issue. That is what capitalism deserves, and nothing less will save it.

I should like to suggest that you begin by applying to the realm of ideas the same objective, logical, rational criteria of judgment that you apply to the realm of business. You do not judge business issues by emotional standards—do not do it in regard to ideological issues. You do not build factories by the guidance of your feelings—do not let your feelings guide your political convictions.

You do not count on men’s stupidity in business, you do not put out an inferior product “because people are too dumb to appreciate the best” do not do it in political philosophy; do not endorse or propagate ideas which you know to be false, in the hope of appealing to people’s fears, prejudices or ignorance. You do not cheat people in business—do not try to do it in philosophy: the so-called common man is uncommonly perceptive.

See, capitalists are all as honest as the day is long. The only problem with our capitalistic system is that these superior beings are overtaxed and over regulated, and restricted by the parasites from exercising their superiority. They are entirely rational and moral and should be trusted to do the right thing because it is who they are.

Uncle Alan is in his 80s and he's just learned that his heroes aren't what he thought they were after all. No wonder he's in a state of "shocked disbelief." It's a wonder he didn't keel over.



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digby 10/23/2008 11:00:00 AM |

 
Values

by digby


It's sort of "comforting," as Karen Hughes would say, to know that the far right is the same the world over:

The successor of the Austrian far-right leader Jörg Haider was dismissed yesterday after he revealed a “special” relationship “far beyond” friendship with his former mentor.

In emotional interviews with the national broadcaster and a tabloid newspaper Stefan Petzner spoke openly about his affair with Haider, who died at the age of 58 in a high-speed car crash after heavy drinking session at a gay club this month. Haider’s party, the Alliance for the Future of Austria, captured 11 per cent of the vote in national elections last month .

Mr Petzner’s appointment as party leader was widely seen as a fulfilment of Haider’s last wish, as he had frequently said in public that he would like his young protégé to take his place one day. Mr Petzner dropped out of university when he met Haider at a party. At that time he was working as a journalist, writing about cosmetic treatments.

Outraged by the interviews, the party felt compelled yesterday to dismiss its leader amid reports of his alleged role in Haider’s tragic death. Local papers said that, on the night of his accident, Haider and Mr Petzner had a row at a magazine launch party. Haider left in a hurry and drove to a gay club in Klagenfurt, his home town, where he drank vodka with male escorts. The reports said that he was hardly able to walk to his car.

He was such a lovely fellow:

Haider, in leading a revival of the Austrian Far Right, set out to say what is rightly unsayable in modern Europe. He praised the employment practices of the Nazi era, said that the SS should be honoured and called concentration camps “punishment camps”. He distanced himself from those remarks later, sort of, but many doubted a real change of heart. The war years appeared to arouse his passion more than anything in current policy, but he also launched an assault on immigration. He took his critics’ loathing as proof of his courage, as he did the diplomatic sanctions slapped on Austria in 2000 by the European Union in protest at his party’s role in government.

Nobody says that every gay person has a sweet and gentle heart. But in a world with less hostility toward gay people there would probably be fewer of these psychologically damaged closet cases seeking to prove their macho bonafides to the world by being Nazis.



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digby 10/23/2008 10:05:00 AM |

 
They Don't Want You To Vote

by dday

Josh Marshall found this gem from a news item about the early voting sites in the heavily African-American Lake County in Indiana:

CROWN POINT, Ind. (AP) — A judge weighing whether to close down early voting sites in Lake County’s Democratic strongholds questioned local officials about the absentee voting process during visits to the disputed sites.

Lake County Superior Court Judge Diane Kavadias-Schneider toured the Gary, Hammond and East Chicago satellite voting sites Monday and heard hours of testimony and arguments on whether they are legal and fair.

Republicans want to shut down the centers in the largely Democratic county on the grounds that they will increase the likelihood of vote fraud in the Nov. 4 election.

Kavadias-Schneider, who was appointed a special judge in the case by the Indiana Supreme Court, questioned county elections board director Sally LaSota on Monday about the process of early voting and safeguards against vote fraud.

LaSota assured the judge that the elections board staff ensures voters are registered and don’t vote more than once.
When Kavadias-Schneider asked, “What of those who have already voted?” R. Lawrence Steele, a GOP lawyer, replied, “Maybe those votes should be discarded.”

And well, there you have it. For decades this has essentially been the Republican strategy, since they can't run the country the way they'd like with all these pesky voters running around. From 1980 when Paul Weyrich famously said "I don't want everybody to vote...our leverage in the elections, quite candidly, goes up, as the voting populace goes down, right up until today.

So this is, ultimately, why the right is making ACORN famous, calling for defunding and investigations and the like. It's to cover their real agenda of trying to disenfranchise voters. It's been the GOP ground game for a long time. And every time you think you've got it tamped down, it rises up somewhere else. Particularly slippery this year has been the "lose your house, lose your vote" effort to use foreclosure lists to challenge voters. Even after it was revealed and part of a lawsuit in Michigan, where the GOP was forced to surrender its effort, it has popped back up around the country. This is in Volusia County, Florida:

Thanks to a new law passed by the Florida Legislature, she explained, groups interested in challenging voters now may do so up to 30 days before an election.

Once a voter's right to cast a ballot is challenged, McFall's office must attempt to notify the voter, and must flag the voter's name in the statewide database.

If the problem can't be straightened out at the supervisor's office before Election Day, the challenged voter will be required to vote a provisional ballot, then visit the Elections Office within 48 hours after the election to disprove the allegations of the challenge.

"One party, that we know of, is going to challenge every voter that's being foreclosed on," McFall said.

Foreclosure-related caging is just the tip of the iceberg. Ultimately, they don't want you to vote.


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dday 10/23/2008 08:00:00 AM |

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

 
Still Headlining

by digby

I saw this story this morning and the footage was all over the TV. In all the reporting, everyone talked about how the mortgage convention featured a lot of protesters and that one of them tried to "arrest" Karl Rove on the stage. But nobody explained why in the hell Karl Rove was speaking to a convention of mortgage bankers in the first place. Doesn't that seem like an extremely bad choice considering the current situation?

Apparently, these people still think he's got something relevant to say to them. And that's actually pretty scary.



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digby 10/22/2008 09:00:00 PM |

 
CYA

by digby

I mentioned the other day that I had to cast a provisional ballot in 2006 and I got a number of emails from readers telling me about their problems with voter registration and voting. It pays to check it out ahead of time and make sure you haven't been caged or purged.

Here's an excerpt from a helpful post from Steve Rosenfeld at Firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette:

What Should Voters Do?
Voters need to be sure they are properly registered. They can do this by calling their county election office and verifying their voter registration information is in their county database and is current.

Anyone who registered with the help of a voter drive this year should check to see that their form has been processed, as those applications have to be entered by local officials. If there are data-entry errors, many states still allow voters to fix those, so their right to vote is not jeopardized. In some locales, officials are still processing voter registration applications turned in weeks ago.

While on the phone, voters should ask where their polling place is located and what form of ID is required. First-time voters must show more specific forms ID when checking in to vote.

Voters can also ask about early voting options. There generally are two choices, although every state has its own laws. The first is called in-person early voting, where a voter will go to a county office or designated site and fill out a ballot. If there are any questions or mistakes made when voting, election officials can correct those. The second option is to get an absentee ballot, which is taken home and mailed. The downside of voting absentee is any mistakes in filling it out the ballot cannot always be corrected. In every election, a number of absentee ballots are disqualified for errors that could otherwise be fixed.

Here are charts that describe each state's early voting options and absentee ballot options. (This is voting by mail with an absentee ballot, which is not the same as in-person absentee voting, where voters fill-out and submit an absentee ballot at a county office before Election Day.

Voter Challenges
One of the big unanswered questions about the 2008 election is will the GOP try to contest the credentials of new voters as they show up at polling places.

Voter challenges are a deliberate tactic to discourage voting. In most cases, these involve a party representative challenging an individual's registration as that voter checks in at their polling place. A typical partisan challenger would claim that voter lives at a different address than what is in their voter registration record. The challenged voter then must produce an ID or a utility bill proving otherwise to vote. This tactic could not only delay that person from voting, but would also slow down others in line. The goal of voter challenges is both to victimize new voters and to prompt others to leave without voting.

The solution to voter challenges is to call your local election office now to ensure that your registration is current. If your information is correct, you cannot be successfully challenged and you will vote. If a problem arises while voting, the challenged voter should call the nation's largest election protection hotline, 1-866-OUR-VOTE, where they will reach an election lawyer or law specialist to help them solve the problem. That hotline is now being staffed during East Coast business hours.

The prospect of partisan challenges in 2008 has been enhanced by a bureaucratic snafu that is not the fault of most voters. Government databases that are now being used for the first time in some states to verify voter registrations have had numerous "no matches" due to data-entry problems. The GOP is using this problem to suggest that Democrats are illegally padding voter rolls with fabricated voter registrations.

Republicans have said, in lawsuits and public statements, that the only response to these mismatches is to recertify all new voters -- which they know is not going to happen before Election Day. Secondarily, the GOP has argued that these voters should get a provisional ballot, which must be verified after Election Day before it is counted.

Virtually all of the Republican-filed litigation -- notably in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania -- has sought to invalidate voter registrations where a 'no match' has occurred. So far, the GOP has lost every case in court on this issue, including one at the U.S. Supreme Court. The Ohio Supreme Court dismissed a similar suit late on Tuesday.

The Democratic National Committee, which is coordinating election protection efforts for the Obama campaign, also said that voters should not be intimidated by GOP voter suppression efforts.

I would imagine that most people who read blogs think they are up on all of this. But yours truly had to vote provisionally last time out --- and I have voted in every election at the same precinct for over a decade. If you haven't voted recently or have moved or have changed your name or just aren't sure, check anyway. It can't hurt.

And if you have relatives who might find this information helpful, send it to them too. It's quite a shock to discover that you aren't registered. I can't even imagine what it would be like to be challenged. (They wouldn't dare here in the People's Republic of Santa Monica.) It's best to make sure everything's in order ahead of time.


H/T to SB
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digby 10/22/2008 07:30:00 PM |

 
Who Cares What She Thinks?

by digby


The NY Times magazine has a fascinating feature about the McCain campaign in this week-end's edition. The inside look at the Palin choice is really interesting. Republicans have become so enraptured by their hype about "marketing" and "branding" that they've forgotten that you need to have something in the package you're selling besides air:

On Sunday, Aug. 24, Schmidt and a few other senior advisers again convened for a general strategy meeting at the Phoenix Ritz-Carlton. McInturff, the pollster, brought somewhat-reassuring new numbers. The Celebrity motif had taken its toll on Obama. It was no longer third and nine, the pollster said — meaning, among other things, that McCain might well be advised to go with a safe pick as his running mate.

Then for a half-hour or so, the group reviewed names that had been bandied about in the past: Gov. Tim Pawlenty (of Minnesota) and Gov. Charlie Christ (of Florida); the former governors Tom Ridge (Pennsylvania) and Mitt Romney (Massachusetts); Senator Joe Lieberman (Connecticut); and Mayor Michael Bloomberg (New York). From a branding standpoint, they wondered, what message would each of these candidates send about John McCain? McInturff’s polling data suggested that none of these candidates brought significantly more to the ticket than any other.

“What about Sarah Palin?” Schmidt asked.

[...]

After that first brief meeting, Davis remained in discreet but frequent contact with Palin and her staff — gathering tapes of speeches and interviews, as he was doing with all potential vice-presidential candidates. One tape in particular struck Davis as arresting: an interview with Palin and Gov. Janet Napolitano, the Arizona Democrat, on “The Charlie Rose Show” that was shown in October 2007. Reviewing the tape, it didn’t concern Davis that Palin seemed out of her depth on health-care issues or that, when asked to name her favorite candidate among the Republican field, she said, “I’m undecided.” What he liked was how she stuck to her pet issues — energy independence and ethics reform — and thereby refused to let Rose manage the interview. This was the case throughout all of the Palin footage. Consistency. Confidence. And . . . well, look at her. A friend had said to Davis: “The way you pick a vice president is, you get a frame of Time magazine, and you put the pictures of the people in that frame. You look at who fits that frame best — that’s your V. P.”

[...]

After McCain’s speech brought the convention to a close, one of the campaign’s senior advisers stayed up late at the Hilton bar savoring the triumphant narrative arc. I asked him a rather basic question: “Leaving aside her actual experience, do you know how informed Governor Palin is about the issues of the day?”

The senior adviser thought for a moment. Then he looked up from his beer. “No,” he said quietly. “I don’t know.”

This is where Karl Rove's politics hit the wall. Indeed, it's where the conservative movement hits the wall. They run their campaigns like car commercials and they govern with concepts like this:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

It works for a while. They put on a good show. Then reality bites. Hard.


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digby 10/22/2008 05:50:00 PM |

 
Visigoth!

by digby

From Dan at Pruning Shears:

Have you noticed they keep reaching farther and farther back for terms of derision? First terrorist, then communist and socialist. Today, "running dogs".

By Friday Obama will be an anarchist, by this time next week a Royalist and by election day a Pharisee.

Heh indeedie.


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digby 10/22/2008 04:30:00 PM |

 
No One Could Have Known

by tristero

Wadda surprise.

Saying early voting cost too much money with rules that weren't uniform, Republican legislators led a charge three years ago to set new statewide standards limiting the number of polling sites and their hours of operation.

Those revamped rules trimmed early voting from 12 hours per workday to eight.

During the first presidential election since Gov. Jeb Bush signed the bill in 2005, the new law's impact can be seen throughout South Florida: exhausting lines at polling sites in Miami-Dade and Broward that led voters to miss work, senior citizens to beg for chairs and voting advocates to question whether some are being disenfranchised.

From Miami City Hall to the Southwest Regional Library in Pembroke Pines, voters on Monday and Tuesday -- the first two days of early voting -- sweated out waits of two to five hours. Broward reported record turnout for early voting, which ends Nov. 2.

Now, the debate over those achingly long lines has turned political. Some Democratic leaders contend the bill intentionally slowed down a process that has historically benefited the party.

There are two ways to look at this:

1. The Republicans were sincere about saving money by trying to make voting rules more uniform. By failing to take into account how this would mess up the people's right to vote, they have proven they are - once again - totally incompetent at everything they touch.

2. The Republicans truly wanted to suppress Democratic votes by making the process of voting so onerous many people, especially Dems, would give up.

Personally, I see no reason why both can't be true. They're being both incompetent and malicious.

tristero 10/22/2008 02:30:00 PM |

 
It's Not That He's Anti-American, Just That His Views Are Against America

by dday

These wingers really don't like it when we pay attention to their words.

It's been 5 days and Michelle Bachmann is still trying to explain her little McCarthyist rant from Hardball. The first explanation was that she didn't say it. Videotape got her on that one. The second was that Tweety tricked her. Look, if you get into an intellectual war of words with Chris Matthews, and you lose, that's a disqualifying event for public life.

Chris Matthews laid a trap, and I walked into it. […]

Chris Matthews was using the term over and over, and I should not have used it. […]

This was Chris Matthews. I made a big mistake by going on the show. I never should have. […]

I just didn’t recognize — I never watched the Chris Matthews show before. I should have before I went on. I didn’t recognize that he would lay a trap the way that he did.

He laid this trap by allowing you to say what you were saying instead of cutting you off. And by taping it.

And now, in friendlier media outlets, she's just rearranging the words.

BACHMANN: All I did on Chris Matthews is I questioned Chris Matthews and said, “look, if John McCain had friends like Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers and Father Pfleger, you’d be all over him Chris, but you’ve laid off of Barack Obama.” And so, he was using the word “Anti-American” and I told Chris, what I question are Barack Obama’s views. Because Barack Obama’s views are against America. They won’t be good for our country.

It's all so simple. All she did is say that Obama's views are against America. Now if that makes him anti-American, well, you must be one a' them liberal elitez.

The D-Trip has an ad on the air in the district now, hitting her CONTINUED love of deregulation and the Wall Street cash she's taken for her campaign. I'm a little befuddled why they're not hitting the McCarthyism, but maybe the free media is doing that job for them. The idea that "hyper-regulation" caused the crisis is nutty, too. I hear that the NRCC might not save her from this one.

Bye bye Bachmann.

...the NRCC pullout is confirmed. She's on her own.


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dday 10/22/2008 01:48:00 PM |

 
Win By Losing

by digby


Paul Rosenberg lays it out:

Anyone who remembers the Clinton years knows what this means. The Republicans never accepted Clinton as President, and the Democrats failed to crush the Republicans for this outright disloyalty to the democratic process. The media, in turn,normalized this state of affairs. Unlike any other President, Clinton had no "honeymoon" period, and was subjected to a continual witch-hunt designed to cripple him and drive him from office. They came very close to acheiving their ultimate goal, and were quite effective at keeping him hamstrung. One consequence of this may well have been 9/11, as their demonic politicization of everything under the sun impeded the full-scale focus on combatting terrorism generally and al Qaeda in particular. And, of course, the impeachment of Clinton significantly damaged Gore's chances of winning the presidency in 2000, hardening the media's hostility against him for failing to join in their witch-hunt.

So this is what we're fighting against now: the pre-emptive undermining of everything we're fighting for in this election.

This is correct. It's true that the Republicans are on the run and their movement is crippled by the epic failure of the Bush administration. But they have a permanent character assassination apparatus, funded by extremely wealthy aristocrats, devoted solely to the destruction of liberalism. They aren't closing up shop and taking up needlepoint. Indeed, they are much more active when the Republicans are out of power than when they are in.

It's not inevitable that Obama will not have a honeymoon or that the press will become the willing love toys of the rightwing as they did in the 1990s. But it pays to remember that the media were quite in love with Bill Clinton during the last half of that campaign and they turned on a dime once the wingnuts started working the refs in earnest. (You see, as with John McCain, the conservatives didn't care for Bush Sr and were actually quite happy that Clinton won so they could purge the party of its moderates and focus on its "revolution." For them, the way to real power is in being a ruthless opposition.)

So, as Rosenberg writes, this voter fraud nonsense is about legitimacy. Regardless of whether Obama wins a clear victory, the story doesn't stop the day of the election. Indeed, they will be recycling the left's complaints from 2000 almost verbatim making us sputter in rage about the absurdity of such a comparison. And they'll build a powerful myth of victimhood around the phony belief that Democrats steal elections. Lack of faith the in the electoral system serves conservatives far better than it serves liberals.

Here's a great movie by ACORN and Brave New Films which you should send around to any skeptics you know and keep bookmarked for future use. you may need it.

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digby 10/22/2008 12:00:00 PM |

 
To Hell With Aunt Millie: part deux

by digby

Remember this?

This is Bob Badeer (a trader at Enron's West Power desk in Portland, CA, where all these tapes were recorded) and Kevin McGowan (in Enron's central office in Houston, TX, as he mentions in the transcript):

KEVIN: So,
BOB: (laughing)
KEVIN: So the rumor’s true? They’re fuckin’ takin’ all the money back from you guys? All those money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?
BOB: Yeah, grandma Millie, man. But she’s the one who couldn’t figure out how to fuckin’ vote on the butterfly ballot.
KEVIN: Yeah, now she wants her fuckin’ money back for all the power you’ve charged right up – jammed right up her ass for fuckin’ 250 dollars a megawatt hour.
BOB: You know – you know – you know, grandma Millie, she’s the one that Al Gore’s fightin’ for, you know? You’re not going to –
BOB: Grandma Millie –

Ah those were the days.

The whole Enron business was a bit of an embarrassment what with Kennyboy Lay being Bush's strongest supporter and all, but it was blamed on a few bad apples and quickly swept under a rug. Bush was such a brilliant leader that we couldn't afford to taint him with that unpleasantness. But the ethos, unsurprisingly, lived on:

The top dogs of the big three credit rating companies made $80 million in compensation while their firms gave bogus high ratings to trillions in dubious mortgage-related investments which led to the world's current financial meltdown -- and a hearing before bitter lawmakers on Capitol Hill Wednesday morning.

"The story of the credit rating agencies is a story of colossal failure," Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will tell the men when they appear before his committee this morning, according to a draft of his prepared comments. "The result is that our entire financial system is now at risk."

The top executives -- Moody's Corporation CEO Raymond W. McDaniel, Standard & Poor's president Deven Sharma, and Fitch Ratings' president and CEO Stephen Joynt -- are expected to say the meltdown of mortgage-backed securities was "unanticipated" and "unprecedented."

But confidential documents obtained by Waxman's investigators show that the firms' executives anticipated much of what has happened, and were aware that their ratings were quite possibly shaky, according to the chairman.

"It could be structured by cows and we would rate it," one Standard & Poor's employee wrote in a company email cited by Waxman. "Let's hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters," wrote another in an email obtained by Waxman's committee.

I'm sure a lot of them are more than wealthy enough to be able to retire quite comfortably. And from the looks of things, nothing will be done about that. The big boys are all taking care of one another and making sure that their social class isn't badly impacted by this unfortunate turn of events.

As for us grandma Millies well ... in the immortal words of the Enron traders:

KEVIN: They’re so fucked and they’re so, like totally
BOB: They are so fucked.

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digby 10/22/2008 10:30:00 AM |

 
Investigate The Firefighters!

by tristero

More anti-Americans.



tristero 10/22/2008 10:28:00 AM |

 
We're Tied With Bosnia. But We Beat...Uruguay!

by tristero

The US is number 36 on the Press Freedom Index. (My pals in Finland have the 5th freest press in the world, btw.)

Joking aside, this is a disgrace. It's one of the major reasons why the American liberal blogosphere screams bloody murder at the media, of course. Our media is more than lousy (and boy is it ever lousy). It also does not have the freedom to report the news enjoyed by nearly every other democracy of note.

But hey, when it comes to the skinny on Paris Hilton, the US press totally rules. Maybe.

UPDATE: Some detail on the US ranking:

The United States rose twelve places [!] to 36th position. The release of Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami Al-Haj after six years in the Guantanamo Bay military base contributed to this improvement. Although the absence of a federal “shield law” means the confidentiality of sources is still threatened by federal courts, the number of journalists being subpoenaed or forced to reveal their sources has declined in recent months and none has been sent to prison. But the August 2007 murder of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey in Oakland, California, is still unpunished a year later. The way the investigation into his murder has become enmeshed in local conflicts of interest and the lack of federal judicial intervention also help to explain why the United States did not get a higher ranking. Account was also taken of the many arrests of journalists during the Democratic and Republican conventions.

tristero 10/22/2008 08:28:00 AM |

 
An Un-useful McCain Endorsement

by tristero

True, McCain's campaign is, apparently and hopefully, in such deep water he needs as much support as he can dredge up. But the endorsement of this group creates two problems. First, not too many of their members are eligible to vote. Second, they're, you know, al Qaeda.

At least they're not socialists.

tristero 10/22/2008 06:39:00 AM |

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

 
How Helpful

by digby

Nothing like deploying a bunch of cops on the streets of American cities, looking for marauding African Americans to help get out the vote:

Police departments in cities across the country are beefing up their ranks for Election Day, preparing for possible civil unrest and riots after the historic presidential contest.

Public safety officials said in interviews with The Hill that the election, which will end with either the nation’s first black president or its first female vice president, demanded a stronger police presence.

Some worry that if Barack Obama loses and there is suspicion of foul play in the election, violence could ensue in cities with large black populations. Others based the need for enhanced patrols on past riots in urban areas (following professional sports events) and also on Internet rumors.

Democratic strategists and advocates for black voters say they understand officers wanting to keep the peace, but caution that excessive police presence could intimidate voters.

Sen. Obama (Ill.), the Democratic nominee for president, has seen his lead over rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) grow in recent weeks, prompting speculation that there could be a violent backlash if he loses unexpectedly.

Cities that have suffered unrest before, such as Detroit, Chicago, Oakland and Philadelphia, will have extra police deployed.

In Oakland, the police will deploy extra units trained in riot control, as well as extra traffic police, and even put SWAT teams on standby.

“Are we anticipating it will be a riot situation? No. But will we be prepared if it goes awry? Yes,” said Jeff Thomason, spokesman for the Oakland Police Department.

“I think it is a big deal — you got an African-American running and [a] woman running,” he added, in reference to Obama and GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. “Whoever wins it, it will be a national event. We will have more officers on the street in anticipation that things may go south.”

The Oakland police last faced big riots in 2003 when the Raiders lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Super Bowl. Officials are bracing themselves in case residents of Oakland take Obama’s loss badly.

Political observers such as Hilary Shelton and James Carville fear that record voter turnout could overload polling places on Election Day and could raise tension levels.

Shelton, the director of the NAACP’s Washington bureau, said inadequate voting facilities is a bigger problem in poor communities with large numbers of minorities.

“What are local election officials doing to prepare for what people think will be record turnout at the polls?” said Shelton, who added that during the 2004 election in Ohio voters in predominantly black communities had to wait in line six to eight hours to vote.

“On Election Day, if this continues, you may have some tempers flare; we should be prepared to deal with that but do it without intimidation,” said Shelton, who added that police have to be able to maintain order at polling stations without scaring voters, especially immigrants from “police states.”

Yeah, that'll work. Between the long lines because of obscure voter ID requirements, GOP lawyers buttonholing anyone who looks even slightly like they might not be a Real American and the cops hovering all over the place, it's just possible they'll be able to keep a lot of those new voters from casting a vote. And hey, if they get out of line, they can always taser them into submission.

My favorite thing about this is that they assume it's going to be Aftrican Americans rioting in the streets if they don't get their way.

Here's who they should be worried about:

Photographer Joe Eddins and I headed over to the closest one and found a steady line of voters hoping to cast ballots early. Most seemed to be Obama supporters and several had come from the rally. Nearly all the voters were black.

Also at the polling site was a group of loud and angry protesters who shouted and mocked the voters as they walked in. Nearly all were white.

As you can see from these videos, no one held anything back. People were shouting about Obama's acknowledged cocaine use as a young man, abortion and one man used the word "terrorist." They also were complaining that Sundays are for church, not voting.

The first video closes with Roger Farina (who won NHL fan of the year in 2003) going into detail about why he was heckling the voters.

I sent Stephen Dinan a quote from Farina about former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's endorsement of Obama yesterday. Read his story wrapping up that news and Sen. John McCain's reaction here.

At the voting site, I asked a local sheriff monitoring the scene if the protesters were allowed. "They're fine," he said. I asked if he'd ever seen anything like that and he said he'd never seen Sunday voting.

The only people who sound like they're are ready to start shooting things up on election day are the Republicans.


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digby 10/21/2008 10:00:00 PM |

 
Welfare Queen

by dday

Why is the nanny state, in the form of the state of Alaska, caring and feeding for Sarah Palin and her family? Doesn't she know she has to WORK for that money instead of taking a handout?

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Gov. Sarah Palin charged the state for her children to travel with her, including to events where they were not invited, and later amended expense reports to specify that they were on official business.

The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race, and a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel.

In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters' 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office in December 2006. In some other cases, she has charged the state for hotel rooms for the girls.

Actually, $21,000 is chump change compared to what the hockey mom is charging the RNC for her duds:

The Republican National Committee appears to have spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.

According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.

The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.

John Edwards got a haircut, though.

Talk about your redistribution of wealth. I'll tell you, we can't afford Sarah Palin as Vice President. I mean we literally can't afford it.


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dday 10/21/2008 08:00:00 PM |

 
The Poo-Flinging Campaign

by dday

Looking back on the McCain campaign's narrative throughout the election looks a bit like the narrative through-line from Tristram Shandy. The lack of discipline to find a line of attack or a compelling reason for voters to choose McCain, and stick with it, is probably the most surprising element of this campaign. In place of an actual strategy, McCain walks out every day with a different set of cards, and he lays them down and says "Whaddya think about that?!"

This is a great strategy for 24-hour news, and given that McCain is most suited to the role of hothead pundit, it fits. But it's a terrible strategy when you're trying to convince people that you're best equipped to handle the office of the Presidency. Flailing about incoherently from one attack to the next does not inspire confidence. Because the traditional media is obsessively moving from one news cycle to the next, without the time to take a step back and consider anything in context, McCain probably figured he could sneak by and take the advantage by keeping his opponent off-balance. But the Obama campaign actually provided the context in this very perceptive ad.



Above all, this is why McCain's boxed in right now. When the financial crisis overtook the campaign, he treated it the same way he treated the attacks on Obama - suspending his campaign, supporting the bailout, then opposing certain elements of it, coming out with a mortgage plan, changing the mortgage plan, thinking about adding additional economic steps, postponing the announcement, going forward with it... watching McCain's campaign is like babysitting a hyperactive child. There's always something new and it's exhausting to take in.

There were BRAND NEW lines of attack today. McCain has seized on comments by Joe Biden that the next President will be tested in a crisis, touting that he has "already been tested" - not the POW card this time, but that he was on the USS Enterprise before the Cuban Missile Crisis. So "already been tested" means "awaiting an order," I guess. But of course, McCain and Obama were tested just a few weeks ago in the economic crisis, and McCain acted like a nut. When he later today suggested that the election is all about the economy (wringing a bit more out of the "Joe the Plumber" nonsense), Joe Biden pounced:



And then there's this idea that Obama is plotting with those evul librul Democrats and we have to preserve gridlock in the federal government or they'll just run wild. Yes, I'm sure the whole country has been thrilled with the gridlocked and divided government of the past two years. In a time where the economy needs massive intervention, making sure NOTHING HAPPENS is definitely an argument for its time.

Obama kind of laid this all out in his ad and again today:

"While President Bush and Sen. McCain were ready to move heaven and earth to address the crisis on Wall Street, the president has failed so far to address the crisis on Main Street, and Sen. McCain has failed to fully acknowledge it," Obama said at a jobs summit his campaign staged in economically precarious and politically significant Florida [...]

"Instead of commonsense solutions, month after month, they've offered little more than willful ignorance, wishful thinking, outdated ideology," he said in a steamy gymnasium at Palm Beach Community College, where 1,700 people sat cheering in the stands and at least that many if not more gathered outside to cheer Obama's appearance.

It comes down to the word that is the name of the ad: erratic. While any Republican nominee faced serious headwinds, one that acted like an adult throughout the campaign would probably fare much better.

The other thing, of course, is that McCain managed to find the only bigger liability than Bush to run with him as Vice President.


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dday 10/21/2008 05:30:00 PM |

 
Railing

by digby

Jonathan at A Tiny Revolution catches a perfect illustration of Village mores:

From a recent profile of Seymour Hersh:

It was Tina Brown, formerly of Tatler and Vanity Fair, who brought [Hersh] to the New Yorker. 'What's-her-name... yeah, Tina. She gave me a lot of money, and she said: "Just go do it!" But she used to worry. She'd call me up and say, "I sat next to Colin Powell at dinner last night and he was railing about how awful you are." So I would say, "Well, that's good." And she'd say, "Is it?" And I'd tell her, "Yes, it is."'

Tina Brown was the editor of the New Yorker from 92 through 98, so it's not like Powell was just being a good soldier for the Bush administration. Indeed, he was probably upset at Hersh's My Lai expose and his indictment of the military over Gulf War Syndrome.

Hersh is an old guy with a long established reputation, so he has nothing to fear from villagers like Powell. Any other journalist might have seen what Tina was saying as a warning. And, indeed, it would have been. Tina and Sy weren't peers. Tina and Colin were.


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digby 10/21/2008 04:00:00 PM |

 
Here's To Doing The Right Thing

by digby

Apparently, Obama's grandmother is very ill and he will take a couple of days off from campaigning to spend some time with her. He lost both of his parents at a relatively young age and his grandmother is the last of his parental figures --- it's a sad irony that she should be so ill when her grandson is on the cusp of achieving the most powerful job in the world.

Here is an excerpt from a lovely thoughtful post from Ta-Nehesi Coates about Barack's grandmother.

... I was looking at this picture of Obama's grandparents and thinking how much he looks like his grandfather. And suddenly, for whatever reason, I was struck by the fact that they had made the decision to love their daughter, no matter what, and love their grandson, no matter what. I'd bet money that they never even thought of themselves as courageous, that they didn't give much thought to the broader struggles in the the world at the time. They were just doing what right, honorable people do. But the fact is that, in the 60s, you could be disowned for falling in love with a black woman or black man. There is a reason why we have a long history of publicly biracial black people, but not so much of publicly biracial white people.

We often give a pass to racists by noting that they were "of their times." Fair enough, and I know Hawaii was a different beast, but still, today, let us speak of people who were ahead of their times, who were outside of their times. Let us remember that Barack Obama learned the great lessons of life from courageous white people. Let us speak of those who do what normal, right people should always do when faced with a child--commit an act love. Here's to doing the right thing.

Bravo. There were always people who weren't racists in America, going all the way back to the beginning. And those people don't get enough credit and aren't held up as examples of people of courage and integrity, almost as if we want to hide them away because they prove that people always had a choice.

Madelyn Dunham is a good woman who produced a good and open minded daughter and helped raise a good and inspirational grandson. Let's hope she recovers and can see him get elected and sworn in to the presidency.


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digby 10/21/2008 02:00:00 PM |

 
Good For Rachel Maddow

by dday

She is officially a force on the cable scene, and I can hardly wait for the Maddow imitators to pop up. Imagine, someone that can hold an intelligent conversation on cable news. The other thing about this is that Maddow's beliefs were extremely well-known at the outset - there's no need to read the tea leaves of her statements desperately searching for validation or anything. This isn't some accidental liberal making his or her way onto the teevee.

It's still a pretty lonely outpost, of course. Maddow isn't a Villager.

But I do hope that, after the election, Maddow puts her intellect to good use and starts dissecting the actual issues facing the country. She has a strong grasp of them, but I imagine the MSNBC "Place for Politics" personality is constricting her. Obviously the election is going to swamp coverage for the next two weeks, but I hope that afterwards she presents a picture of what can be possible in cable news.


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dday 10/21/2008 12:34:00 PM |

 
Restarting The Clock

by digby


If you ever wanted to know what a legal system in hell would look like, this is it:

The Pentagon said Tuesday it has dropped war-crimes charges against five Guantanamo Bay detainees after the former prosecutor in their cases complained that the military was withholding evidence helpful to the defense.

None of the men will be freed, and the military said it could reinstate charges later.

America's first war-crimes trials since the close of World War II have come under persistent criticism, including from officers appointed to prosecute them. Some of the harshest words came this month from the very man who was to prosecute the five men against whom charges were dropped.

Army Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld said during a pretrial hearing for a sixth detainee this month that the war-crimes trials are unfair. Vandeveld said the military was withholding exculpatory evidence from the defense in that case, and was doing so in others. He resigned over his concerns.

But the chief Guantanamo prosecutor, Army Col. Lawrence Morris, said Tuesday's announcement was unrelated to Vandeveld's accusations. He said the charges were dismissed because evidence "is being more thoroughly analyzed." He would not elaborate on the nature of the evidence but said the review began before Vandeveld's testimony.

"Rather than refine the current charges, it was more efficient and more just to have them dismissed and charge them anew," he told The Associated Press.

In addition, dismissing the charges allows to Pentagon to avoid deadlines set by the Military Commissions Act to bring the men to trial.

"The way to stop the clock and get a new clock is to dismiss the charges and start again," said Air Force Col. Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor who quit in October and later testified about alleged political interference in the military trials.

This is turning from Franz Kafka into Joseph Heller.

They actually expect people to believe it's coincidence that these five cases are the same cases vandevled resigned over and then just say right out that they are circumventing the spirit of the law to keep these men imprisoned indefinitely --- even though the big question that is interfering with their trials is the question of their actual guilt.

I don't know what the eventual disposition of these cases will be. But I'm going to make a prediction today that if a president Obama tries to end this inhumane regime, it will be "don't ask, don't tell" all over again. And I also predict he'd be sandbagged by members of his own party (and perhaps even by Colin Powell, who was responsible for that earlier monstrosity.) It won't matter that McCain also said he would close Guantanamo. After all --- it always takes Nixon to go to China. Perhaps Obama knows this and has a cunning plan to get around it.

This is going to be a problem:

A poll by the Military Times newspaper group suggests that there is overwhelming support for John McCain among U.S. troops in every branch of the armed forces by a nearly 3-1 margin.

According to the poll, 68 percent of active-duty and retired servicemen and women support McCain, while 23 percent support Barack Obama. The numbers are nearly identical among officers and enlisted troops.

The Military Times, which publishes the Army Times, Navy Times, Marine Corps Times and Air Force Times, polled 80,000 subscribers from Sept 22 to Sept. 29. The non-scientific survey gathered 4,300 respondents -- all of them registered and eligible to vote.

A racial divide was immediately evident among the respondents. Nearly eight in 10 black servicemembers chose Obama, while McCain captured 76 percent of white voters and 63 percent of Hispanic voters.

Numbers among men and women respondents were also visibly different. Men overwhelmingly said they would vote for McCain, 70 percent to 22 percent. But among women the margin was much closer: 53 percent support McCain, while 36 percent support Obama.

U.S. troops also said in the poll that they prefer McCain to handle the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- 74 percent said McCain would perform better, while just 19 percent said Obama would.

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digby 10/21/2008 11:00:00 AM |

 
McCain Concedes The Race To The Lawyers?

by dday

I know we're all supposed to be somber and work like we're 10 points down, but I don't know how else you can characterize this strategy, if it's accurate:

Most people top in the McCain campaign now believe New Mexico and Iowa are gone, that Barack Obama will win New Mexico and Iowa. They are now off the dream list of the McCain campaign. More interestingly, most top people inside the McCain campaign think Colorado is gone.

So they are now finishing with a very risky strategy. Win Florida. Win Nevada ... And here is the biggest risk of all -- yes they have to win North Carolina, yes they have to win Ohio, yes they have to win Virginia, trailing or dead-even in all those states right now. But they are betting Wolf on coming back and taking the state of Pennsylvania. It has become the critical state now in the McCain electoral scenario. And they are down 10, 12, and even 14 points in some polls there. But they say as Colorado, Iowa and other states drift away, they think they have to take a big state. 21 electoral votes in Pennsylvania, Wolf, watch that state over the next few weeks.

New Mexico and Iowa were always done; it's fine for McCain to concede those. But it doesn't leave him much of a path to victory, and giving up on Colorado leaves him with basically one path. The Upper Midwest is fine for Obama, and the Pacific Coast is fine. He's really sinking everything into Pennsylvania.

Despite polls showing him trailing Democrat Barack Obama by double digits in Pennsylvania, John McCain continued to treat the state as if the whole election depended on it.
Yesterday, his wife, Cindy, made four stops in Philadelphia and Yardley, speaking at two rallies, visiting a hospital, and meeting the mothers of men and women in the military.

Today, the Republican nominee has three appearances in Pennsylvania, starting with a morning rally in Bensalem. He made two visits to the Philadelphia suburbs last week, and running mate Sarah Palin was in Lancaster over the weekend.

"It sure doesn't sound like a campaign that's pulling up stakes," said Chris Borick, a political scientist and pollster at Muhlenberg College in Allentown.

All the McCain activity is happening in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly 1.2 million, double from four years ago; where Obama, flush with cash, is outspending McCain on television by several orders of magnitude; and where the Democrats have an organizational advantage.

(Irrelevant note: I grew up in Bensalem)

And not only Pennsylvania. McCain has to in addition pull off wins in SEVEN states that are tight right now:

Nevada, Florida, Ohio, Missouri, Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia

If he took Pennsylvania he could afford to lose one or maybe even two of those - but the idea that McCain's going to come back in Pennsylvania doesn't seem plausible. The polling is extremely static:



I'm just not seeing what makes Pennsylvania the firewall state, other than process of elimination. But perhaps it's this:

The state Republican Party filed an injunction Friday against Secretary of the Commonwealth Pedro Cortes and ACORN, alleging a fair vote on Nov. 4 is impossible because of rampant voter fraud.

The injunction signals a step up in action against ACORN, which for weeks has been the recipient of attacks from the state GOP and John McCain's presidential campaign.

At a press conference in the Capitol, state GOP Chairman Bob Gleason Jr. said the sheer number of registrations submitted by ACORN has overwhelmed many county election offices and the state department has not provided the local bureaus with enough support.

"I am not confident we can trust the results of this election," Gleason said.

We all know this is absurd, completely absurd. But maybe it's the last thing McCain can cling to. Consider that:

• Pennsylvania does not have early voting, and absentee voting is restricted.
• Unlike Minnesota and Wisconsin, Pennsylvania doesn't have same-day registration.

So voting is concentrated on Election Day, and the state GOP is trying to make the election illegitimate.

Not much of a glimmer, but perhaps all they've got.

...Alternatively, the McCain campaign could be banking on racism.

...Chris Bowers says there's less than meets the eye here. Giving up on Colorado would be insane.


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dday 10/21/2008 08:00:00 AM |

 
Georgia: Some Background

by tristero

For those interested, here's an excellent article by Robert English on the history behind the recent Georgian war. As usual, the reasons are far more complicated than the US public is permitted, by their mainstream media and leaders, to consider when trying to become informed about our world.

Essentially, "Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Georgia's first post-Soviet president, from 1991 to 1992," whipped Georgians into a state virulent nationalism, not as bad as what Milosevic did, but still pretty nasty. This led to the inevitable persecution of minorities such as the South Ossetians and the Abkhazians who turned back to Russia for protection.

This wasn't inevitable, but it underlies the reasons why these two regions wish to break away:

ll this is especially tragic because it could have been avoided. Many Russians, including then-president Boris Yeltsin, were sympathetic to the non-Russian republics' desire for independence from the USSR. And many Abkhazians and Ossetians were initially hopeful of their prospects in a free, democratic Georgia. "We could have left the [Soviet] Union together, as brothers," one Ossetian leader told us in Tskhinvali in 1991. But Gamsakhurdia's aggressive nationalism and strident denunciations of "devil Russia" and its "traitorous" allies within Georgia pushed moderate Abkhazians and Ossetians into support of outright secession and of an unholy alliance with reactionary elements in the Russian military (who began arming them behind Gorbachev's and Yeltsin's backs as they struggled with their own hardliners between 1991 and 1993).[10] By the time of Putin's rise in 1999, Gamsakhurdia's rhetoric had long since become a self-fulfilling prophecy—both the Abkhazians and Ossetians had voted overwhelmingly for secession.[11] And by 1999, of course, Russian policy toward Georgia, and the broader Caucasian-Caspian region, had also become part of a larger contest for influence with the West.

None of this is to defend Moscow's manipulation of post-Soviet conflicts to dominate its neighbors—though it is vital to discern the difference in motives behind an offensive, "neo-imperial" strategy and a defensive, "anti-NATO" tactic. Nor is it to justify the devastating attack on Georgia—though Moscow was also clearly lashing out at the West, with pent-up fury for what it sees as an American strategy of isolating and encircling Russia (the attack was also, in effect, a preventive strike against two NATO bases-in-the-making in Georgia). What is important, however, is to highlight the Georgians' own initial victimization of others in a tragedy in which they ultimately became victims themselves.

Of course it is "unfair" that Georgians today reap the bitter fruits of what Gamsakhurdia sowed in years past—just as it is unfair that today's Serbs still pay for the sins of Milosevic. And certainly Gamsakhurdia was far from the coldblooded killer that Milosevic was. Yet consider the roughly one thousand South Ossetians who died resisting efforts to impose central Georgian control in 1991 and 1992; for a population of under 100,000 this represents a per capita death toll over twice as high as that which Milosevic inflicted on Kosovo. (Milosevic's Kosovo savagery took some 10,000 lives, out of a Kosovo Albanian population of nearly 2,000,000.)

Consider, too, that one of Saakashvili's first acts as president in 2004 was to ceremoniously rehabilitate Gamsakhurdia, hailing him as a "great statesman and patriot." Many in the West criticized Saakashvili's 2007 crackdown on opposition politicians and the press, but few noted this earlier insult to Georgia's restive minorities. Nor are most aware of the continuing tensions between the Tbilisi government and the country's Armenian, Azeri, and other non-Georgian peoples—many of whom sympathized with the Ossetians, not the Georgians, in the recent war—over ongoing linguistic, economic, and even religious discrimination. Certainly Saakashvili is not the extreme nationalist that Gamsakhurdia was. And along with some provocative steps, he has also made notable efforts toward reconciliation. But his purge of senior Georgian officials from the previous government, and his replacement of them by ministers and ambassadors who in some cases were barely in their teens during the Gamsakhurdia era, seems also to have purged valuable assets of experience, caution, humility, and even recent memory.

We must hope that urgent diplomatic and economic support from abroad, together with some self-critical reflection by Georgians at home, will yet help this proud, long-suffering people escape the humiliation and the debilitating cult of "innocent martyrdom" that has plagued post-Kosovo Serbia. But the Western media that blindly follow the Georgian nationalist line in discounting Ossetian and Abkhazian grievances—viewing their separatist aspirations as largely illegitimate or a Russian invention and casting the entire conflict as the Georgian David vs. Russian Goliath—serve neither the cause of truth nor reconciliation. And American officials who embrace this simplistic narrative—and who reflexively call for Georgia's rapid rearming and accelerated accession to NATO—risk further inflaming confrontation with Russia to the grave detriment of both Western and Georgian interests.

In short, the situation is complex, the politics convoluted, and a subtle, firm, and intelligent diplomacy will be needed to address the situation. A good guys vs. bad guys attitude is no way to address the problems the people of this region face, let alone America's self-interest in the region. But one thing is certain:

We are not all Georgians now. That was a remarkably stupid remark that, if made by an American president, had the potential to make a bad situation immensely worse. That is not to excuse Russian aggression, of course. But oversimplifying a complicated reality and tying it to American's own ugly nationalism is far worse. It is blundering into a china shop with the dumbest, clumsiest bull imaginable.

tristero 10/21/2008 06:57:00 AM |

 
Anyone Have A Job For Doug Prasher?

by tristero

Here's a very sad story:

In a couple of months, Roger Y. Tsien and Martin Chalfie will head to Stockholm to collect the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and $450,000 each in prize money in recognition of their development of a revolutionary technique that lights up the inner workings of living cells.

Meanwhile, the scientist who provided the essential piece that made Dr. Tsien’s and Dr. Chalfie’s work possible — a jellyfish gene that produces a fluorescent protein — is out of science.

Douglas C. Prasher, who conducted his research on the Aequorea victoria jellyfish while at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts in the early 1990s, now drives a courtesy van for a car dealer in Huntsville, Ala., earning $10 an hour. He said he was not bitter or jealous of this year’s winning chemistry Nobelists: Dr. Tsien of the University of California, San Diego, Dr. Chalfie of Columbia and Osamu Shimomura, the original discoverer of the jellyfish protein in 1961.

Trained as a biochemist, Dr. Prasher, 57, was interested in the chemistry of how certain animals are able to glow. In the late 1980s, he applied to the National Institutes of Health for a five-year grant to track down the fluorescent protein gene.

Dr. Prasher said his proposal included speculation on how the fluorescent protein might be used as a beacon to light up structures in cells. “That would have certainly been part of my research program,” Dr. Prasher said. “I knew it could serve as a genetic marker and it would be really, really useful, which it has turned out to be.”

That application was turned down. A parallel proposal to the American Cancer Society succeeded, giving Dr. Prasher only two years of financing, enough time to isolate the gene, but not pursue any applications.

By then, however, Dr. Prasher had decided that Woods Hole was not the place for him. Instead of going through the tenure process — he thought he would be turned down, anyway — he looked for a new job. Dr. Chalfie and Dr. Tsien independently contacted Dr. Prasher asking about the jellyfish gene. Dr. Prasher generously shared the gene with both of them.

Dr. Prasher then worked for the United States Department of Agriculture, first on Cape Cod and later in Beltsville, Md., developing methods for identifying pests and other insects. Again, he was not happy, experiencing the beginning of bouts of depression. “I was not happy with management there, so I looked for another position,” he said.

His next move was to Huntsville, where he worked for a NASA subcontractor that was developing mini-chemistry laboratories, which would be needed as health diagnostic tools for a potential human flight to Mars. Dr. Prasher loved that job, but NASA eliminated the financing for the project. For family reasons, he stayed in Huntsville, which restricted his opportunities. “The amount of life science done here is very limited,” he said.

The depression returned. “That’s been a serious problem off and on, but anyone who doesn’t have a job has that problem,” Dr. Prasher said. “If they don’t, there’s a problem with them. Or they’re independently wealthy.”

After a year of unemployment, he started driving the van for Bill Penney Toyota, his job for the last year and a half.

There are many tragic details in this story, not the least being the serious toll depression can levy on someone's life. I have no idea whether Dr. Prasher is even interested in doing science anymore or whether he can tolerate the pressure. But there's something very wrong when someone this talented falls through the safety net. He clearly deserves better.

tristero 10/21/2008 05:02:00 AM |

Monday, October 20, 2008

 
Reliable Sources

by digby

Here's Bob Shrum telling the Democrats not to go wobbly, which is fine and I don't have a problem with it. Don't go wobbly, Dems!

But this was a little bit disconcerting:

Democrats, scarred by the stolen election of 2000 and the near miss of 2004, privately worry, wring their hands and, traveling cyberspace’s vast expanse, trip over a discouraging word, poll, or prediction. Generally, they needn’t look farther than the Drudge Report, which shamelessly selects information—and disinformation—in order to stereotype Barack Obama and denigrate his prospects.

With genuine anguish, one Democrat said to me Sunday, “Did you see Drudge has Obama only 2.7 percent ahead?”

It wasn’t actually Drudge, but a poll by Zogby, which Drudge had cherry picked for its pessimism. (Unlike Drudge, Zogby isn’t biased; he famously elected Kerry in 2004.) Rasmussen’s poll used to be Drudge’s favorite, but on Sunday it showed Obama leading by six, so Drudge swept it under the rug.

It was good of Shrum to point out that Drudge is biased, but apparently his Democratic friends read him religiously anyway. It's just a crying shame there aren't any liberal sites that Democrats could read instead. Somebody ought to start one.



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digby 10/20/2008 10:00:00 PM |

 
Deadbeat Nation

by digby

Dday and I wrote about this earlier and I've been hearing this trope all day coming from various wingnuts on TV, so I assume it's a new conservative article of faith:

OBAMA [audio clip]: I want to give all these folks who are, you know, bus drivers, teachers, autoworkers, who make less -- I want to give them a tax cut.

QUINN: Wait a minute. Let -- hold on a second. He wants to give them a tax cut. Most of those people he just mentioned, if they fall into the average-income category that we're talking about here, don't pay any taxes. So how do you give them a tax cut? You give them a tax cut by taking away Joe's money and redistributing the wealth to them.

They are seriously trying to convince people now that Obama wants to take the money from "hard working Americans" and hand it to deadbeats. As dday explained earlier:

I think Atrios makes the salient point.

Basically everybody pays taxes. So you when you're talking about giving free money to people who don't pay any taxes, that must be somebody else because, you know, I pay taxes.

But bus drivers, teachers and auto workers? They're deadbeat lucky duckies too? Retail salespeople? Truck drivers? Office workers? Nurses? Cops? All of them?

The dissonance is getting so bad I think their heads may literally start to explode. I realize that the true dittoheads like Joe the Plumber actually believe that they will be better off if rich people don't have to pay taxes because he's sure he's going to be rich one day too and wants to preserve the privileges he doesn't yet have. But does Joe believe that everyone but he and the rich guys aren't paying any taxes at all?


Update: it's a virus.
digby 10/20/2008 08:30:00 PM |

 
No Choice

by digby


Poor McCain. Since John Lewis spoke out about the ugly behavior at Republican campaign events, St John has been left with no choice but to do what he really didn't want to do:

John McCain's campaign manager says he is reconsidering using Barack Obama's relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright as a campaign issue during the election's closing weeks.

In an appearance on conservative Hugh Hewitt's radio program, Davis said that circumstances had changed since John McCain initially and unilaterally took Obama's former pastor off the table. The Arizona Republican, Davis argued, had been jilted by the remarks of Rep. John Lewis, who compared recent GOP crowds to segregationist George Wallace's rallies. And, as such, the campaign was going to "rethink" what was in and out of political bounds.

He'd been "jilted?" Huh?

Clearly, McCain has no choice but to fight back. The Obama campaign has gone too far (well, John Lewis has anyway, and he's close enough *if you know what I mean*) and it's time to take off the gloves. I'm not sure what that means, but I'm sure it will be as classy as the rest of the campaign has been.

I don't know where that John Lewis got his crazy ideas:

“I’m afraid if he wins, the blacks will take over. He’s not a Christian! This is a Christian nation! What is our country gonna end up like?”

“When you got a Negra running for president, you need a first stringer. He’s definitely a second stringer.”

“He seems like a sheep - or a wolf in sheep’s clothing to be honest with you. And I believe Palin - she’s filled with the Holy Spirit, and I believe she’s gonna bring honesty and integrity to the White House.”

“He’s related to a known terrorist, for one.”

“He is friends with a terrorist of this country!”

“He must support terrorists! You know, uh, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. And that to me is Obama.”

“Just the whole, Muslim thing, and everything, and everybody’s still kinda - a lot of people have forgotten about 9/11, but… I dunno, it’s just kinda… a little unnerving.”

“Obama and his wife, I’m concerned that they could be anti-white. That he might hide that.”

“I don’t like the fact that he thinks us white people are trash… because we’re not!”

Wait until they find out he's gay too!


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digby 10/20/2008 07:00:00 PM |

 
Let Them Eat Cakewalks

by digby

Boo Yah....

Ken Adelman intends to vote for Barack Obama. He can hardly believe it himself.

Adelman and I exchanged e-mails today about his decision. He asked rhetorically,

Why so, since my views align a lot more with McCain’s than with Obama’s? And since I truly dread the notion of a Democratic president, Democratic House, and hugely Democratic Senate?

Primarily for two reasons, those of temperament and of judgment.

When the economic crisis broke, I found John McCain bouncing all over the place. In those first few crisis days, he was impetuous, inconsistent, and imprudent; ending up just plain weird. Having worked with Ronald Reagan for seven years, and been with him in his critical three summits with Gorbachev, I’ve concluded that that’s no way a president can act under pressure.

Second is judgment. The most important decision John McCain made in his long campaign was deciding on a running mate.

That decision showed appalling lack of judgment. Not only is Sarah Palin not close to being acceptable in high office—I would not have hired her for even a mid-level post in the arms-control agency. But that selection contradicted McCain’s main two, and best two, themes for his campaign—Country First, and experience counts. Neither can he credibly claim, post-Palin pick.

I sure hope Obama is more open, centrist, sensible—dare I say, Clintonesque—than his liberal record indicates, than his cooperation with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid portends. If not, I will be even more startled by my vote than I am now.

I don't know what to say. Whenever I think of Ken Adelman I think of him crying happily in Cheney's arms after the invasion of Iraq:

On April 10, 2003, Ken Adelman, a Reagan administration official and supporter of the Iraq war, published an op-ed article in The Washington Post headlined, " 'Cakewalk' Revisited," more or less gloating over what appeared to be the quick victory there, and reminding readers that 14 months earlier he had written that war would be a "cakewalk." He chastised those who had predicted disaster. "Taking first prize among the many frightful forecasters" was Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser in the first Bush administration. Adelman wrote that his own confidence came from having worked for Donald H. Rumsfeld three times and "from knowing Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz for so many years."

Vice President Cheney phoned Adelman, who was in Paris with his wife, Carol. What a clever column, the vice president said. You really demolished them. He said he and his wife, Lynne, were having a small private dinner Sunday night, April 13, to talk and celebrate. The only other guests would be his chief adviser, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and Wolfowitz, now deputy secretary of defense. Adelman realized it was Cheney's way of saying thank you, and he and his wife came back from Paris a day early to attend the dinner.

When Adelman walked into the vice president's residence that Sunday night, he was so happy he broke into tears. He hugged Cheney for the first time in the 30 years he had known him. There had been reports in recent days of mass graves and abundant, graphic evidence of torture by Saddam Hussein's government, so there was a feeling that they had been part of a greater good, liberating 25 million people.

"We're all together. There should be no protocol; let's just talk," Cheney said when they sat down to dinner.

Wolfowitz embarked on a long review of the 1991 Persian Gulf War and what a mistake it had been to allow the Iraqis to fly helicopters after the armistice. Hussein had used them to put down uprisings.

Cheney said he had not realized then what a trauma that time had been for the Iraqis, particularly the Shiites, who felt the United States had abandoned them. He said that experience had made the Iraqis worry that war this time would not end Hussein's rule.

"Hold it! Hold it!" Adelman interjected. "Let's talk about this Gulf war. It's so wonderful to celebrate." He said he was just an outside adviser, someone who turned up the pressure in the public forum. "It's so easy for me to write an article saying, 'Do this.' It's much tougher for Paul to advocate it. Paul and Scooter, you give advice inside and the president listens. Dick, your advice is the most important, the Cadillac. It's much more serious for you to advocate it. But in the end, all of what we said was still only advice. The president is the one who had to decide. I have been blown away by how determined he is." The war has been awesome, Adelman said. "So I just want to make a toast, without getting too cheesy. To the president of the United States."

They all raised their glasses. Hear! Hear!

Adelman said he had worried to death that there would be no war as time went on and support seemed to wane.

After Sept. 11, 2001, Cheney said, the president understood what had to be done. He had to do Afghanistan first, sequence the attacks, but after Afghanistan -- "soon thereafter" -- the president knew he had to do Iraq. Cheney said he was confident after Sept. 11 that it would come out okay.

Adelman actually jumped ship some time ago. And while I certainly agree that all votes are welcome, everyone is going to have to pardon me for not rushing to welcome war criminal enabling scumbags like Ken Adelman into the big tent. They tend to pollute every place they go.


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digby 10/20/2008 05:00:00 PM |

 
The New Lucky Duckies

by dday

It is remarkable to see McCain play the socialism card on Obama, days after voting for a $700 billion dollar bailout of the banks and the largest government intervention of the last 100 years. The institutional memory doesn't even go back three weeks anymore? Furthermore, he characterizes Obama's refundable tax credits as "welfare," neglecting the fact that his own refundable tax credits, the centerpiece of his entire health care plan, which go to the same low-income members of society who supposedly "don't pay taxes," are not welfare but "reform".

It's silly, but this is very powerful stuff. And I think Atrios makes the salient point.

Basically everybody pays taxes. So you when you're talking about giving free money to people who don't pay any taxes, that must be somebody else because, you know, I pay taxes.

I suppose that works.

Yes, I suppose it does.

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — When Sen. Barack Obama entered a barbecue joint here to greet dozens of people eating lunch after church services on Sunday, Diane Fanning, 54, who works at a Sam's Club, began yelling, "Socialist, socialist, socialist — get out of here!"

Plumbers and Joe Sixpacks may make out better under Obama's plans, and McCain is peddling lies. But the way Republicans have historically won elections is by getting some members of the working class to think that other members of the working class are getting away with a free lunch. I don't know if it'll work, but the pull is undeniable and will last well past the election. Wait for the statistics to come out of Rush Limbaugh's mouth about how big a tax cut Obama has given to black people.

After all, this is the type of code they use. And it works.

Herbert reminds us about the Southern Strategy -- and famed GOP strategist Lee Atwater's candid admission: “You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger. By 1968, you can’t say ‘nigger’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.”

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dday 10/20/2008 03:30:00 PM |

 
The Other

by digby

Call me crazy, but I think the Politico just published a story implying that Obama is gay.

The talk radio gasbags will have a field day with this one. Now he is not only a black, foreign, Muslim, socialist terrorist, he's a gay black, foreign, Muslim, socialist terrorist.

What's left? Child molester?


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digby 10/20/2008 02:30:00 PM |

 
Disqualified For Doping

by digby

I think it's just terrific that Colin Powell has come over from the dark side and all. And I'm sure he's very, very, very sincere even though he waited until the last possible moment, when it probably would have been much more meaningful if he'd come out last summer when nobody could talk about anything but national security. But hey, there's no need to dwell on Powell's endless capacity to play both sides at a time like this.

And neither would I think there was a need to dwell on Powell's past errors in judgment, except for this:

Colin Powell will have a role as a top presidential adviser in an Obama administration, the Democratic White House hopeful said Monday.

"He will have a role as one of my advisers," Barack Obama said on NBC's Today in an interview aired Monday, a day after Powell, a four-star general and President Bush's former secretary of state, endorsed him.

"Whether he wants to take a formal role, whether that's a good fit for him, is something we'd have to discuss," Obama said.

Maybe that's just campaign talk. It would hardly be decent for Obama to slap Powell in the face after Powell's effusive praise yesterday. But I would assume that Obama realizes that his opposition to the war was the single issue that separated him from the other candidates in the race and animated his most ardent and energetic supporters. To name one of the war's architects to a role in his administration would cost him credibility among people he needs to be his strong and enduring base as he attempts to do big things.

It's politically unnecessary. Powell has blown his cred with the neanderthals and brings nothing with him now:

Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh said that the only reason Gen. Colin Powell endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) was because they’re both African-American. “Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race. OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed.” On his show today, Limbaugh went a step further and shouted his accusation against Powell:

Let me say it louder, and let me say it even more plainly. IT WAS TOTALLY ABOUT RACE! The Powell nomination — or endorsement — totally about race.

So much for the right wing's insistence that they judge solely on the content of one's character, eh?

Having Powell by his side for the rest of the campaign is good for Obama, especially among the villagers, who are starting to get very, very nervous about a Democratic win. But there's no need to actually follow through and welcome Powell into the administration in any role other than guest at state dinner.

As David Sirota says:

I don't fault Obama for trying to capitalize on those fabricated memes about Powell, and use them in the context of the campaign. He's got 15 days until the election, and any short-term boost is a good thing.

What I worry about is the day after the election. I am concerned about a President Obama internalizing that Establishment fantasy about Colin Powell the Serious and Credible Voice - and ignoring the actual fact-based story about Colin Powell, the Most Discredited Foreign Policy Voice In Contemporary American History. We don't need another president who refuses to live in the "reality-based world" - we need a president who matches his campaign promises on critical issues like the Iraq War with an understanding of which voices will be the most reliable in making those promises a reality.

This is the legacy of Colin Powell:

For 80 minutes in a hushed U.N. Security Council chamber in New York, the U.S. secretary of state unleashed an avalanche of allegations: The Iraqis were hiding chemical and biological weapons, were secretly working to make more banned arms, were reviving their nuclear bomb project. He spoke of "the gravity of the threat that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction pose to the world."

It was the most comprehensive presentation of the U.S. case for war. Powell marshaled what were described as intercepted Iraqi conversations, reconnaissance photos of Iraqi sites, accounts of defectors and other intelligence sources.

The defectors and other sources went unidentified. The audiotapes were uncorroborated, as were the photo interpretations. No other supporting documents were presented. Little was independently verifiable.

Still, in the United States, Powell's sober speech was galvanizing, swinging opinion toward war. "Compelling," "powerful," "irrefutable" were adjectives used by both pundits and opposition Democratic politicians. Editor & Publisher magazine found prowar sentiment among editorial writers doubled overnight, to three-quarters of large U.S. newspapers.

Powell's "thick intelligence file," as he called it, had won them over. Since 1998, he told fellow foreign ministers, "we have amassed much intelligence indicating that Iraq is continuing to make these weapons."

But in Baghdad, when the satellite broadcast ended, presidential science adviser Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi appeared before the audience and dismissed the U.S. case as "stunts" aimed at swaying the uninformed.

Some outside observers also sounded unimpressed. "War can be avoided. Colin Powell came up with absolutely nothing," said Denmark's Ulla Sandbaek, a visiting European Parliament member.

Six months after that Feb. 5 appearance, the file does look thin.

Nearly six years later, it's been completely obliterated.

For more than 20 years, by word and by deed Saddam Hussein has pursued his ambition to dominate Iraq and the broader Middle East using the only means he knows, intimidation, coercion and annihilation of all those who might stand in his way. For Saddam Hussein, possession of the world's most deadly weapons is the ultimate trump card, the one he most hold to fulfill his ambition.

We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction; he's determined to make more. Given Saddam Hussein's history of aggression, given what we know of his grandiose plans, given what we know of his terrorist associations and given his determination to exact revenge on those who oppose him, should we take the risk that he will not some day use these weapons at a time and the place and in the manner of his choosing at a time when the world is in a much weaker position to respond?

The United States will not and cannot run that risk to the American people. Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option, not in a post-September 11th world.

And then there was this, regarding his participation in meetings at the White House where torture techniques were acted out by CIA employees for the approval of the "principles committee:":

Powell said that he didn't have "sufficient memory recall" about the meetings and that he had participated in "many meetings on how to deal with detainees." Powell said, "I'm not aware of anything that we discussed in any of those meetings that was not considered legal."

I would imagine that the village believes such things should not disqualify him from ever being close to power again. But they do. No president should ever take advice from this man again.


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digby 10/20/2008 01:00:00 PM |

 
The Dog Won't Eat The Dog Food

by dday

If the Iraq debate wasn't over in this country, you would think that this new pact giving the US a pretty firm deadline for withdrawal from the country by the end of 2011, only slightly less accelerated than Barack Obama's own withdrawal plan, would be significant. After all, it's a complete repudiation of the deeply held strategy of the Bush Administration and John McCain, that firm deadlines would be disastrous for America because the terrorists will "wait us out." There's also the matter of giving the Iraqis jurisdiction over their own country, by taking the military out of the prison business and subjecting US soldiers to prosecution, which at one time was anathema to the Bushies.

Iraq said it had secured the right to prosecute U.S. soldiers for serious crimes under certain circumstances, an issue both sides had long said was holding up the pact [...]

On the immunity of U.S. forces, Dabbagh said: "Inside their bases, they will be under American law. Iraqi judicial law will be implemented in case these forces commit a serious and deliberate felony outside their military bases and when off duty."

None dare call it treason except maybe all conservatives.

But the bigger story here is that the Iraqi Parliament, who unlike the Congress actually gets a chance to ratify this thing, appears to be balking:

BAGHDAD — Hopes that a security agreement between Iraq and the United States could be concluded swiftly receded Sunday as several of the leading Iraqi political parties, including some that had negotiated the agreement, appeared to back away from quick approval.

In a public statement posted on semiofficial government Web sites, the United Iraqi Alliance, which represents several powerful Shiite parties that back the government, said it could not endorse the pact as written and wanted amendments. It formed a committee on Saturday to survey alliance member opinions.

“The alliance asked the prime minister to reopen the negotiations with the Americans and try to modify the pact until it becomes acceptable to us,” said Sami al-Askari, a leader in Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s Dawa Party, which is a member of the Shiite alliance.

Whether the agreement will be signed “will depend on the American side,” he said [...]

The largest Sunni bloc in Parliament, Tawafiq, also hesitated to endorse the agreement. The hesitation came as a surprise because until recently Sunnis had been supportive of the American presence since they viewed the troops as a bulwark against a repetition of the sectarian violence that forced many from their homes in and around Baghdad.

Can we face facts? The Iraqis don't want the Americans there. Maliki might, because he's using the US military to project power against his enemies. But the other parties really don't. The Sadrists really don't. The Sunnis, sensing Maliki's use of the military to crush them, also don't. And the Iraqi people are massively opposed. This is reflected by every single representative of the people hesitant to do anything in concert with the Americans.

Political analysts agree that the elections are making it difficult for Mr. Maliki to stand with the Americans, especially on an agreement that allows troops to stay. The election is likely early next year, and Mr. Maliki is worried about maintaining power.

“I think the main thing is that Maliki is worried about the provincial elections, and he doesn’t want to be seen as making concessions to the Americans,” said Joost Hiltermann, a senior Iraq analyst at the International Crisis Group office in Istanbul, which oversees Iraq. The Iraqi resistance “is positioning,” he said. “But what is the endgame?”

This is also why Maliki criticized the top US general very strongly for suggesting that Iran played a role in the security agreement. It is positioning, but of course you have to recognize that all the positioning demands a move away from any American occupation presence.

So the national security functionaries can peddle around some draft document all they want, and very serious Villagers can talk about 6 more months to dig in for the big victory, but at some point you have to take a glimpse at reality: we are being told, politely, to leave Iraq, by pretty much everyone who matters. And so leave we must. With a far bigger disaster looming in Afghanistan, a country where the Taliban can behead dozens on any roadway, it's just completely absurd to hang on in Iraq where every major player is rejecting the occupation. I don't believe in "surging" into Afghanistan, for the record, and that's another failure of not heeding the truth of the situation on the ground. But nobody wants to see the truth in Iraq that is plainly visible - it's time to go.


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dday 10/20/2008 11:00:00 AM |

 
There They Go Again

by digby

It's jarring to hear shouts of "socialist!" at these McCain rallies like it has some specific, current meaning. Who talks this way anymore? Well, in right wing circles, the sweat inducing, night terror of creeping socialism is as alive and well as it was 20 years ago.

To commemorate the moment the NY Times republished this yesterday:

December 31, 1989

We Have Socialism, Q.E.D.

Milton Friedman is senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

By Milton Friedman

Conventional wisdom these days can be summarized in the form of a syllogism.

Major premise: Socialism is a failure. Even lifelong Communists now accept this proposition. Wherever socialism has been tried, it has proved unable to deliver the goods, either in the material form of a high standard of living or in the immaterial form of human freedom.

Minor premise: Capitalism is a success. Economies that have used capitalism - free private markets -as their principal means of organizing economic activity have proved capable of combining widely shared prosperity and a high measure of human freedom. A private market system has proved to be a necessary though not a sufficient condition for prosperity and freedom.

Conclusion: The U.S. needs more socialism. An obvious non sequitur, yet there is no denying that many apparently reasonable people - including most members of Congress and of the Bush Administration - accept all three propositions simultaneously.

What is socialism? In its purest form, socialism is government ownership and control of the means of production. Ownership of anything implies the right to the income produced by that thing.

All means of production in the United States - people, land, machines, buildings, etc. - produce our national income. Spending by government currently amounts to about 45 percent of national income. By that test, government owns 45 percent of the means of production that produce the national income. The U.S. is now 45 percent socialist.

[...]

Socialism has proved no more efficient at home than abroad. What are our most technologically backward areas? The delivery of first class mail, the schools, the judiciary, the legislative system - all mired in outdated technology. No doubt we need socialism for the judicial and legislative systems. We do not for mail or schools, as has been shown by Federal Express and others, and by the ability of many private schools to provide superior education to underprivileged youngsters at half the cost of government schooling.

Airlines have had no difficulty in acquiring the planes and personnel to handle the increased traffic produced by deregulation. What has been the bottleneck? Airports. Why? Because they are government owned and operated.

We all justly complain about the waste, fraud and inefficiency of the military. Why? Because it is a socialist activity - one that there seems no feasible way to privatize. But why should we be any better at running socialist enterprises than the Russians or Chinese?

By extending socialism far beyond the area where it is unavoidable, we have ended up performing essential governmental functions far less well than is not only possible but than was attained earlier. In a poorer and less socialist era, we produced a nationwide network of roads and bridges and subway systems that were the envy of the world. Today we are unable even to maintain them.

Yet what are the loudest complaints? Government should be doing more; government is strapped for funds; taxes should be raised; more regulations should be imposed; build more prisons to house more criminals created by socialist legislation. Child care? Program trading? Earthquakes? Pass a law. And every law comes with a price tag and is cited as a reason for higher taxes.

Can we learn only from our own mistakes? Or not even from them?

It's such a soothing and comfortable rant, isn't it? It fits like a soft, well-worn old workshirt. You can see why the insult falls off the lips of guys like Joe the plumber without the slightest hesitation. But is that what Joe means when he claims that Obama is a socialist? I don't think so.

It entered the campaign a few weeks back in an unusual and forceful way. The wingnut radio hosts resurrected it to describe the financial bailout --- for which both Obama and McCain voted:

"When the government fails to pass a socialism bill and the market goes south, let it go south. I don't want to pass a socialism bill just to protect the stock market," said Limbaugh, by far the most popular host on U.S. radio.

That's what passes for principle on the right. They reflexively rebelled against the bailout not because it created a moral hazard or rewarded the malefactors of great wealth when they had screwed the pooch. They were upset that the government was spending money on something other than killing or incarcerating people, period.

Now, however, the phrase morphed into an insult aimed not at the government's bailout of banks and financial entities. In fact, it's just the opposite. Here's the other Limbaugh, with an screed that is a far cry from the elegant argument of Milton Friedman's:

Maybe I'm being too much of an alarmist, but I'm worried for the first time in my life that the election of a presidential candidate could lead to a fundamental change in our system of government. Just listen to the comments of post-debate focus group members expressing a knowing willingness to accept Obama's socialism, such is their angst at the subprime mortgage mess.

Already some 38 percent of Americans do not pay income taxes, and Barack Obama wants to increase that percentage dramatically. How ironic that he and other Democrats pretend to be targeting their message to "working-class" people when many of their constituents aren't working. But such is class warfare that the upper-middle class and wealthy are demonized as not earning an honest living.

Do you suppose it has registered with class warfare-receptive Obama voters that Obama is deliberately turning the American dream on its head? Could it be any clearer that his message to the middle class is: Don't aspire to achievement, success and wealth because a) it is immoral to have more than others, b) the government will take your wealth away from you and give it to others, and c) why bother to bust your rear end to make more when you can vote yourselves money from the public trough?

That's right. Obama wants to eliminate income taxes for many Americans, but that's a form of socialism because those people aren't wealthy. And these socialistic policies will make everyone stop working and the government won't have any money. Which is bad (or good?) I'm not sure.

So, you have right wingers inveighing against socialism based upon the idea that government can't do anything right, that it's government propping up the undeserving rich, and simultaneously that it's government being harmful to the deserving rich who are the backbone of the American Dream. It pretty much covers all the bases.

McCain hasn't actually used the word. But he came much, much closer to the heart of the real argument. He let it all hang out:

John McCain sharpened his economic attack Friday by accusing Barack Obama of plotting to turn the tax code into a tool for redistributing wealth, an idea he equated to welfare.

"When politicians talk about taking your money and spreading it around, you'd better hold on to your wallet," Mr. McCain told a raucous crowd in Miami, where he debuted the tougher rhetoric. "His plan gives away your tax dollars to those who don't pay taxes. That's not a tax cut, that's welfare."

Ah, finally. The Big "W". I think we all know what that alludes to, don't you? I'll reprise an oldie but a goody:

Sociologist Nathan Glazer of Harvard, who has long been interested in the question of America’s underdeveloped welfare state, answers a related question --- “Why Americans don’t care about income inequality” which may give us some clues. Citing a comprehensive study by economists Alberto Alesina and Edward Glaeser of Harvard and Bruce Sacerdote of Dartmouth called, "Why Doesn't the United States have a European-Style Welfare State?" (Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2/2001) he shows that the reluctance of Americans to embrace an egalitarian economic philosophy goes back to the beginning of the republic. But what is interesting is that both he and the economists offer some pretty conclusive evidence that the main reason for American “exceptionalism” in this case is, quite simply, racism.

AGS [Alesina, Glazear and Sacerdote] report, using the World Values Survey, that "opinions and beliefs about the poor differ sharply between the United States and Europe. In Europe the poor are generally thought to be unfortunate, but not personally responsible for their own condition. For example, according to the World Values Survey, whereas 70 % of West Germans express the belief that people are poor because of imperfections in society, not their own laziness, 70 % of Americans hold the opposite view.... 71 % of Americans but only 40% of Europeans said ...poor people could work their way out of poverty."

[…]

"Racial fragmentation and the disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities among the poor played a major role in limiting redistribution.... Our bottom line is that Americans redistribute less than Europeans for three reasons: because the majority of Americans believe that redistribution favors racial minorities, because Americans believe that they live in an open and fair society, and that if someone is poor it is his or her own fault, and because the political system is geared toward preventing redistribution. In fact the political system is likely to be endogenous to these basic American beliefs."(p. 61)

"Endogenous" is economics-ese for saying we have the political system we do because we prefer the results it gives, such as limiting redistribution to the blacks. Thus the racial factor as well as a wider net of social beliefs play a key role in why Americans don't care about income inequality, and why, not caring, they have no great interest in expanding the welfare state.

So, while Milton Friedman may have had his own reasons for perpetuating the myth of inefficient socialist government, this is the worldview that informs the conservative obsession with "socialism." (The positively weird finger pointing at racial and ethnic minorities as the cause of the home mortgage meltdown is a perfect case in point.) For their next trick they will undoubtedly scream bloody murder when the government is forced to intervene more in the economy in order to keep average people like themselves from ruin. Until it hits them personally, they will be sure that no matter what happens, this government "interference" is designed to help the undeserving poor (minorities) at the expense of hard working people like themselves. They'll say this even as they stand in line to receive help for their own failing mortgage or extended unemployment benefits.

The difference, you see, is that unlike these other parasites, they work for a living and therefore, will be among the rich someday. (The American Idol Dream says that wealthy people got rich because they were very special and they worked harder than anyone else --- just like you.) Therefore, the prerogatives of the rich must be maintained for all the hard workers who will pull themselves up from their boot straps and became plumbing magnates. Don't rain on their parades by suggesting that they may just remain middle class Americans (which in global terms puts them in the top five percent of all humans who've ever lived.) How disappointing. If Britney can do it, why not me?

A commenter at the Human Events site, where David Limbaugh expressed his terror at the impending socialist takeover, distills the problem down to its essence:

Obama is not a Communist. He is a Liberal, which is far worse, and further to the left than Communism. Under Communism, there is this underlying philosophy:

From each according to his ability.
To each according to his need.

That’s in a Communist society. In a Liberal society, we do not demand that each person work. And then we give them far more than they need.

Liberals are worse than Communists.

There you have it.



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digby 10/20/2008 09:30:00 AM |

 
Penguin Logic

by tristero

You do know what Penguin Logic is, don't you?

PENGUIN: Will you think about that a moment, my friends? Whenever you've seen Batman, who's he with? Criminals! That's who. You look in the old newspapers, every picture of Batman shows him with thugs and with thieves and hobnobbing with crooks. Whereas my pictures show me always surrounded by whom? By the police! I am an associate of the law!

And now, courtesy Bill Kristol comes a near-perfect meatworld example of Penguin Logic:

Most of the recent mistakes of American public policy, and most of the contemporary delusions of American public life, haven’t come from an ignorant and excitable public. They’ve been produced by highly educated and sophisticated elites.

Well, yes, that's quite true when you think about it. And did you know most baseball spectators pitch a perfect game every time? That's because, let's have some straight-talk here, most of the recent runs and walks allowed are made by players who are actually pitching.

Amazing what you can learn from conservatives. Such smart, mature commentators.

tristero 10/20/2008 04:22:00 AM |

Sunday, October 19, 2008

 
Gadflying

by digby

Not that anyone cares, but in case you find yourself wanting to know even more about the endlessly uninteresting moi, here's a little Q&A; from this month's LA Times Magazine. I must say that while the answers were somewhat dull, I did think the questions were quite entertaining.


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digby 10/19/2008 09:00:00 PM |

 
Another View On Creeping Neo-Hooverism

by dday

I see that Donna Brazile signed up for neo-Hooverism on the Sunday chat shows this morning, seeking to constrain a potential Democratic Administration by suggesting we have to tighten our belts in the middle of a recession, which is nothing short of economic suicide. I can tell you that this is not a unanimous view inside the Democratic inner circle, based on what I experienced yesterday.

I was fortunate enough to see Bill Clinton at a small-group discussion in Century City for a group of entertainment industry professionals. This was not a campaign event, and indeed the President was somewhat constrained by campaign finance laws to really advocate for any candidate. But aside from Clinton announcing his preference for Gray's Anatomy and Boston Legal, what was most notable was his discussion of the hypothetical "first 100 days" for a new President. This is from my notes:

The next President is going to face much different challenges than what I faced in 1993, and he can't do the same things... he shouldn't try to fix the deficit right away, but he's going to have to stimulate the economy by paying for things that are useful... we have had too much risk and not enough legislation... we need a government strong enough to prevent the market from devouring itself... I was happy to see Senator Obama call for a moratorium on foreclosures, and we also need to do what we did in the 1930s by buying up these mortgages and giving homeowners the ability to stay in their homes, to minimize disruption and maximize confidence... so let's stimulate the economy, and give birth to a new economy based on old-fashioned financing and modern products. It cannot be based on finance.

Obviously Clinton is part of a different side of the Democratic Party than Senator Obama. But there's a significant amount of overlap, and to hear the President who ushered in deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility in the 1990s recognize very clearly the need for stimulus, in the areas of infrastructure, job creation and the new energy economy, makes me very much reassured and hopeful. And indeed, in the last debate Obama pushed back on the idea of reinstituting PAYGO during a time of recession. This idea of helping state and local governments, putting money into infrastructure and green energy and jobs is very much a part of Obama's stimulus policies. They need to be bigger, but there's no trace of neo-Hooverism there.

Obviously we have to get the surrogates back on the reservation (thanks Donna Brazile). I suggest that everyone gets put into a room with James Galbraith and they memorize this entire passage:

An amazing debate at National Journal. The journal asked, is there room for fiscal stimulus to respond to the crisis caused by the mortgage mess. David Walker, who’s been preaching the need to rein in entitlements, treated the crisis as a chance to push his favorite line:

My concern is, when will Washington wake up and start doing something to defuse the potential “super sub-prime crisis” associated with the federal government’s deteriorating finances and imprudent fiscal path?

And Jamie (Galbraith) let loose:

What is Mr. Walker’s approach to subprime crisis today? His comment above makes his approach clear. It is to use the crisis as a rhetorical springboard, in order to divert the conversation back to what he calls the “super sub-prime crisis associated with the federal government’s deteriorating finances…”

But the fact is, the subprime crisis is real. The collapse of interbank lending is real. The collapsing stock market is real. The disintegration of the financial system is real. The collapse of the housing sector is real. The credit crunch and the recession are real. You can see this in the interest rate spreads and in the credit that is unavailable at any price.

Mr. Walker’s “super subprime crisis” of the federal government is not real. It is a pure figment of the imagination. It is something Mr. Walker sees in his mind’s eye. He sees it in his budget projections. He sees it in his balance sheets, which are the oddest balance sheets I’ve ever seen, because they have all liabilities and no assets.

We have a progressive infrastructure now that wasn't there in the past, able and willing to help drown out the neo-Hooverists as long as our leaders are on the same side. You can look no further to what the Wall Street Journal considers the nightmare of a new Democratic Administration than to see that this moment is entirely possible. And also, of course, necessary.

Voters will be registered. Workers organized. Banks regulated. Health care provided for all. Government investment will drive a green revolution that generates millions of jobs. The wealthy will pay more in taxes. Guantanamo will be shut down; torture will end. Net neutrality will be mandated. Citizens may even be able to sue corporations that negligently do them harm. They don’t even mention the war in Iraq ending.

The horror of it all. Can the Republic survive? The editors hold out one slim hope. Perhaps Democrats will divide. Perhaps he entrenched lobbies, the interest of the corporations and the wealthy will buy enough support to stand in the way of the tumbrels.

And that defines our job pretty clearly: to organize engaged citizens to hold Democrats accountable to the promises that have been made and the agenda the country needs.

We work now until Election Day. But on November 5, the real work begins.


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dday 10/19/2008 04:00:00 PM |

 
Kristol's Heartthrob

by tristero

You simply can't exaggerate how thoroughly immature the rightwing can be:

The other journalists who met Palin offered similarly effusive praise: Michael Gerson called her “a mix between Annie Oakley and Joan of Arc.” [!!! See this post by Digby.] The most ardent promoter, however, was Kristol, and his enthusiasm became the talk of Alaska’s political circles. According to Simpson, Senator Stevens told her that “Kristol was really pushing Palin” in Washington before McCain picked her. Indeed, as early as June 29th, two months before McCain chose her, Kristol predicted on “Fox News Sunday” that “McCain’s going to put Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, on the ticket.” He described her as “fantastic,” saying that she could go one-on-one against Obama in basketball, and possibly siphon off Hillary Clinton’s supporters. He pointed out that she was a “mother of five” and a reformer. “Go for the gold here with Sarah Palin,” he said. The moderator, Chris Wallace, finally had to ask Kristol, “Can we please get off Sarah Palin?”

The next day, however, Kristol was still talking about Palin on Fox. “She could be both an effective Vice-Presidential candidate and an effective President,” he said. “She’s young, energetic.” On a subsequent “Fox News Sunday,” Kristol again pushed Palin when asked whom McCain should pick: “Sarah Palin, whom I’ve only met once but I was awfully impressed by—a genuine reformer, defeated the establishment up there. It would be pretty wild to pick a young female Alaska governor, and I think, you know, McCain might as well go for it.” On July 22nd, again on Fox, Kristol referred to Palin as “my heartthrob.

Dear Bill Kristol,

She's out of your league. Trust me on this. It's not gonna happen. Ever.

love,

tristero

tristero 10/19/2008 03:00:00 PM |

 
Newtie's Allies

by digby

On Stephanopoulos this morning:

Newt Gingrich: If Obama won and had a moderate House and a moderate Senate, he would probably be a moderate president. His temperament would lead him to be much more like Richard Daley than like Eeverend Wright. He's not gonna have that. he';s gonna have card check to take away your right to a secret ballot. He's going to have an effort to eliminate freedom of speech for Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. He's going to have a congress that wants to raise taxes, that wants to increase government --- is he really going to veto and fight with Pelosi and Reid? ... As the Wall Street Journal said on Friday, here is what their promising their allies they're going to do.

Donna Brazile: Yeah, but they're not in office Mr. Speaker. Senator Obama wil inherit a 10 trillion dollar deficit and he's going to have to put things on the table that perhaps many of us would not like to see a Democratic president put on the table in terms of cutting back on spending, freezing hiring and making some real tough decisions. So, I think he will be constrained by the deficit and also by the fact that we're still in two major wars.

That's a relief. No need for anyone to worry that Obama isn't going to govern like a Republican. Except, you know, Republicans are really unpopular.

Gingrich is playing for 2010, here, preparing his troops to run against the already unpopular congress. He's calling Obama a wimp for being unable to stand up to his crazed, radical base. It's a natural move for the Republicans.

But there is no excuse for Brazile to fall into the rhetorical fetal position and help him. My God, we are in the final two weeks of a presidential campaign which is taking place in the middle of an economic crisis and is this the best she can do? He gave her the most perfect opening in the world --- "the Republicans are more worried about a non-existent free speech threat to multi-millionaires like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity than they are about the real threat to average Americans financial security. Obama is going to be dealing with real problems of average people and will do what it takes to get this country back on the right track after the Republicans drove it off the rails over the last eight years."

This defensiveness is going to kill any mandate Obama gets before he even gets in office. I realize they don't want to try to unprogram the American people from 30 years of supply-side, trickle down brainwashing in the last month of a presidential campaign, but explicitly saying that he's going to be "constrained by the deficit" and forced to cut back and freeze hiring (!) in the middle of a recession isn't just bad politics, it's really, really bad economics. The Democrats should be pushing the idea that government spending right now is going to be necessary to fix the economy --- because it is!

No wonder Gingrich looked like a very happy fatcat with a mouthful of yellow feathers when she said that. He's winning even as he's losing.


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digby 10/19/2008 01:00:00 PM |

 
One More Unit, Stat

by digby

Luckily he's never been right about anything, so he's probably not right about this.

Today on ABC’s This Week, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman said that as president, Obama would abandon the hunt for Osama bin Ladan and actually decide that the U.S. could “win the war” in Iraq by staying another six months:

FRIEDMAN: I think everything we believe could be wrong. That is Iraq could turn out — that Osama — sorry, not searching for Osama bin Laden could be not the biggest issue for Obama. I think you could actually find out that Obama can win the Iraq war and he will want to actually continue our presence in Iraq for — until 2011.

When host George Stephanopoulos noted that even Gen. David Petraeus refuses to use the terms “victory” or “winning” for Iraq, Friedman walked back his comments slightly, saying Obama would bring Iraq to a “decent ending” but ultimately, “they will conclude that Afghanistan is a loser.”

I keep hearing a lot of rumbling about how Obama isn't going to withdraw from Iraq as promised. Indeed, Muqtada al-Sadr just made a statement about permanent bases yesterday and urged his fellow Shiites to reject the new US-Iraq security deal because of it. But I've never heard that he would conclude he can "win" in Iraq -- and that he would withdraw from Afghanistan because it's "a loser."

Friedman clearly believes that these wars are irrelevant on the merits. They are simply check marks to be put in a president's win and loss column. If that's the case, then perhaps Obama should invade Iceland in his first term. He could probably "win" it with no problem and then he's have a nice little victory right off the bat.

It's hard for me to believe that Friedman still frames these wars in such puerile terms after all we've seen these last few years. First, there was the famous idea that the US had to stick guns in the faces of average Iraqis and say "suck on this" to prove that bad guys couldn't mess with us. As for Afghanistan, well, it's all in how you define "loser." Friedman has always believed that we "won" that war, but the "losers" refused to acknowledge it:

We have won the war. We have not won the hearts and minds of the Arab-Muslim world at all. There's still a lot of people there quietly rooting for bin Laden. Some of that is related to their own frustration with their own governments, we know. A lot of it is related to what we just saw as well. This is their way of getting a little bit of revenge on us for what is perceived to be our unwavering support for Israel. By not granting us our victory, in a sense, by not acknowledging that victory, this meat grinder of people that is being... whose lives are being destroyed every day in this conflict is aired across the Arab world every night in news footage in a very tendentious way to be sure, in a way that often doesn't show the Palestinian provocation only the Israeli reaction, but it has an enormously corrosive effect on American standing in that part of the world. That's just a fact.

Damn those bastards for refusing to acknowledge our great victory. It's rally screwed us up.

Meanwhile, here's Peter Galbraith on the prospects for a so-called victory in Iraq.

The idea of these two cock-ups in Iraq and Afghanistan ever being called "winners" is delusional. Nobody's ever won a war in Afghanistan and the US presence in Iraq is only exacerbating the problems. There are no winners, only losers. Which is, in fact, the case with every war. If Americans recognized that instead of thinking of them like a Friday night football game (or in Friedman's case, a bad episode of NYPD Blues) maybe we'd have fewer of them.


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digby 10/19/2008 11:00:00 AM |

 
Socialism: Is That, Like, MySpace For Muslims Or Something?

by tristero

There are two problem with McCain's attempt to smear Obama as advocating socialism:

1. No one anymore knows what "socialism" is. Oh, sure, you and I know what socialism is, but the days when the right could point to the Soviet Union or some other giant example are history - hell China itself is moving towards turbo-capitalism. So normal people hear "sharing the wealth is bad" and it's like, huh? They don't think Stalin, they think that since we're sharing our wealth with these schmucks, maybe we, too, could use a piece of that. The argument misfires because it has no substantive object anymore. "Share the wealth," "redistribution of wealth," and "socialism" talk only to a rightwing base: it is an historical argument, stirring up fears about something that, except in Cuba and a couple other places, simply doesn't exist. And that neatly seques into:

2. Normals know Obama is no communist, excuse me, socialist, not by a long shot, The charge is totally off the wall, dishonest, really weird with a beard. Worse, it ratchets up hateful, fearful rhetoric to McCarthyite levels when the last thing this country needs is another completely vacuous distraction from the very real problems we simply must confront. So, to the youngsters amongst us who don't remember the Soviet Union:

Trust me, dear friends, Obama is no commie, not even close. I was behind the Iron Curtain and it bore not the slightest resemblance to anything any mainstream American politician would propose, let alone do.

Come to think of it, I need to make an exception to that.

When Ari Fleischer, Bush's first press sec'y, warned us all to watch what what we say, watch what we do, I was reminded of Czechoslovakia in the 80's, when, due to widespread wiretapping and spying, we really did have to watch what we said and did even in our hotel rooms or private houses.

Actually, now that I think more about it, I've heard and read a lot about other things this REPUBLICAN administration has done that reminded me of Soviet-style communism - the torture and murder of prisoners, the subversion of a free press with plants and misinformation, the obsession with ideological purity, the corruption of the justice system - I don't need to go on. But, just to make the point clear, here's a recent example that's all-but-flown under the radar because we're all focused on the election and the economy:

Attorney General Michael Mukasey recently issued new guidelines for the F.B.I. that permit agents to use a range of intrusive techniques to gather information on Americans — even when there is no clear basis for suspecting wrongdoing.

Under the new rules, agents may engage in lengthy physical surveillance, covertly infiltrate lawful groups, or conduct pretext interviews in which agents lie about their identities while questioning a subject’s neighbors, friends or work colleagues based merely on a generalized “threat.” The new rules also allow the bureau to use these techniques on people identified in part by their race or religion and without requiring even minimal evidence of criminal activity.

These changes are a chilling invitation for the government to spy on law-abiding Americans

Does all this make Bush and his rightwing acolytes Communists? No. Of course not. Just as Obama is no communist, excuse me, socialist. But if you want to talk about which politicians act more like totalitarian dictators, Republicans and their rightwing acolytes really fucking shouldn't be trying to go there.

So stop the baseless, distracting bullshit about "socialism" or, to quote St. John Himself, we just might take the gloves off.

UPDATE: Discussion of point 1 edited for (hopefully) more clarity.

tristero 10/19/2008 09:31:00 AM |

 
Palin's White America

by tristero

Nate Silver has an utterly brilliant post which analyzes, by race, where recent Palin events are held versus Obama's. The conclusion: Palin is speaking to a far whiter swath of America than Obama. But that's not all. Palin is speaking to a whiter-than-average swath of America. (Obama, in general, is speaking to a more representative sample of the population). This places, perhaps, her already notorious "pro-America places" quote in a very disturbing context:

We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation.

Nate concludes with admirable caution that this is not necessarily a racist election strategy. It could be simply pragmatic:

Since white voters have historically turned out at higher rates than minorities, and since there are probably proportionately more swing voters among whites than among minority groups, one can argue that Palin's choice of locales reflects optimal strategy. Still, the difference between her geography and Obama's is fairly striking.

Equally striking are the stunning charts Nate has at his post. Go on over and give them a look.

tristero 10/19/2008 08:30:00 AM |

 
Colin Powell and $150 Million

by dday

Colin Powell walked into the Beltway's St. Patrick's Cathedral, Meet the Press, and endorsed Barack Obama today. Hopefully that'll turn out better than the vials of anthrax. This is devastating for McCain, of course, because Colin Powell was John McCain before John McCain became John McCain, if that makes any sense at all. He was the Very Serious GOP Daddy who everybody in the media establishment fell all over admiring. Heck, even Oliver Stone gives him a wet kiss in "W." And so Powell's rejection of McCain shows that the GOP nominee is no longer worthy of admiration.

But rather than one man's endorsement, I'm more impressed with the 3.1 million endorsers who have supported Barack Obama, with an average contribution of under $100, from retirees to students, and who donated $150 million dollars in the 30 days of September.

Those are endorsements I can get behind.


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dday 10/19/2008 07:26:00 AM |