Dispassionate Liberal: February 2008

2/29/08

No, that's not a headline from The Onion, but it is John McCain's fault.

Boeing has lost a $40 billion refueling tanker contract to France's Airbus.

The Boeing loss means that the 767 assembly line in Everett will wind to a close around 2012 when the current commercial orders run out.

No layoffs are likely as workers will transfer to other programs. But Washington State has lost out on the chance to add as many as 9,000 jobs.

Until now, Boeing has had a monopoly on the supply of large air tankers to the U.S. military. But Northrop Grumman, in partnership with Airbus parent EADS, will build the next generation tankers using a modified Airbus A330 instead of the Everett-built 767 Boeing had put forward.

The deal, worth about $40 billion over two decades, is for the supply and maintenance of 179 tankers replacing old Boeing-built KC-135 airplanes.

Now if that didn't suck enough, Goldy at Horse's Ass tells us not just to blame George Bush for this Freedom Fries moment, but the presumptive GOP Presidential Nominee as well.

In its quest for new tankers, the Air Force in 2002 negotiated a $23 billion deal with Boeing for a hundred 767 tankers, but it quickly came under fire in Congress as a financial handout for Boeing. The critics were led by Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who was on the Senate Armed Services Committee at the time and is now the likely Republican presidential nominee.

So let's add that up, shall we. Six years ago John McCain put the brakes on a deal that now cost almost twice as much, and the money isn't going to 9,000 US workers but to another country. Not just any other country, but the one the wingnuts insisted we boycott -- France. That's a double whammy.

I guess it's okay to buy their wine and cheese again.

There's every reason to believe that John Sydney McCain III will win zero States come November. The left has no reason to like him, the right justifiably hates him, and the middle will be hearing from both sides just what a loser the Reverse Ace is. It's almost like the GOP wants to throw the race.

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Counting Votes

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What's Wrong With Matt Drudge?

2/28/08

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Beware: The Edwards Cultists Have A Home

2/27/08

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Back In The Olden Times

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Obligatory Post Debate Reaction

2/26/08

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I Gotta Question For The GOP Racists

Just how trivial would the GOP be if they were not the safe haven for sexists and racists? Is it even possible for them to win elections without catering to the bigots and lizard brains?

Via John Cole and Shakes, we learn the GOP fears charges of racism, sexism so much they are now polling and focus group testing just how close they can come to just flat out calling Hillary Clinton a shrieking "ryhmes with punt" or Barack Obama an uppity "N" word and not get in too much trouble.

I'd give just about anything to see the internal data on this crap. Just how close to the gutter can they lean before they get spattered with their own sewage? Just what code words can get through the filters without gumming up the works?

The standard analysis of the Post-Reagan Republican coalition is that it stands on three legs: the jingoistic warrior tribe, the theocons, and the robber barons of Wall Street, with varying degrees of overlap between the main groups. Of course this misses the 800 pound gorilla even the most simplistic historical account of the conservative movement that co-opted the GOP highlights -- their Nixonian "Southern Strategy" that has welcomed racists of all stripes to their fold.

Not to get too caught up in the metaphor, but as someone who buys bar stools by the dozens I know all too well the inherent stability of a three-legged platform is a far cry from the disorder and internal inconsistencies the conservative coalition exhibits. They never ignore but barely mention that embarrassing fourth leg that makes the whole operation wobble until you shove a matchbook or other incendiary device under it.

As good as Shake's advice is, (and you have no idea how much I wish she'd been able to stay with the Edwards campaign), simply not being a racist or sexist is not really an option for a national Republican candidate who is serious about winning. I really think they need those people. Why else would they need to play the race card in every damn election? Indeed, why else would they be studying just where the line is between opposing a woman or an African-American, and vilifying them.

Are there bigots and chauvinist pigs who call themselves Democrats? Sure. I know several of them. The difference is they know they are unwelcome, they keep their chromosomally challenged opinions mostly to themselves, and they simply don't constitute a significant voting bloc the party must cater to.

2/25/08

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Hillary's Ohio Lead Down To 4

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It's Not Just NAFTA, But I'm Done With Hillary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Obama didn't tell anyone in the Buckeye State anything new when he said:

"One million jobs have been lost because of NAFTA, including nearly 50,000 jobs here in Ohio. And yet, 10 years after NAFTA passed, Sen. Clinton said it was good for America. Well, I don’t think NAFTA has been good for America — and I never have."

Despite some folks who have become unglued as of late, the fact that she praises the pact one day and believes it to be flawed and in need of readjusting the next is just political double-speak more worthy more of the "straight-talk express" than a would-be champion of the middle-class. Note Hillary's praise for NAFTA over the years.

According to NBC's Meet the Press, in 2004, Clinton said, "I think, on balance, NAFTA has been good for New York and America."

In her memoir, Clinton trumpeted her husband's "successes on the budget, the Brady bill and NAFTA."

And in 1998, Bloomberg News reports that she praised corporations for mounting "a very effective business effort in the U.S. on behalf of NAFTA." Another direct quote.

Forgive me, but from the department of blind squirrels and nuts comes this from Powerline, a rare, but fair analysis of the situation:

The Clintons were never really able to solve the central dilemma of their campaign: who is the candidate here, Bill or Hillary? It's true, as Mark Steyn says, that Hillary represents the Clintons with their pants on. In another sense, though, when she talks about her experience, she is the empress who isn't wearing any clothes. Obama's willingness to point this out, however gently, is another nail in Hillary's coffin.

Is it really fair that I use a quote from a right wing tool against a Democratic candidate? No, certainly this is inappropriate -- unless she defames her Democratic rival as some kind of Karl Rove.

Still confused, with a little help from our friend Jeff at Ohio Daily Blog, FactCheck parses the issues pretty fairly, that both candidates have been spinning like tops here.

It's true that Obama used a source that misquoted Senator Clinton, that she did not call NAFTA a "boon" to the economy. But holy cow, there's a big difference between misquoting someone who misquoted her, and deliberately misleading them on her record. The fact remains that even if Hillary resisted NAFTA behind the White House doors, her rhetoric hasn't exactly been stellar on the issue.

I remember why I wanted to vote for Bill Clinton -- his promise of universal health care trumped all. I still held out hope they'd get it done in his second term and held my nose and voted to reelect him on the chance they might still get it through a hostile Congress in his second term. Trading off that to get NAFTA was a betrayal as far as I'm concerned. She doesn't get any points from me that we find out she was on the side of the angels now that Ohio decides her fate next week.

Hillary is definitely trying to use bombast and righteous indignation to prove her point just like any good lawyer who pounds the table when she can't pound the facts. Jeff has more:

I got a robocall from Hillary Clinton tonight. This time she was angry, railing at Barack Obama's "dishonest" mailers about trade policy. She told me that she's the one who will have a "trade prosecutor," not Barack Obama.

"I have a plan," she declared. "My opponent does not. Ohio needs solutions, not distortions."

No more Ms. Nice.

Suddenly it all clicked into place. Her entire Ohio strategy is now based on convincing us that Obama is dishonest and untrustworthy. She's filled with righteous anger at his deceptions, and she expects us feel it too.

In a conference call with reporters today, communications director Howard Wolfson and Ohio director Robby Mook pretty much laid it out. Noting that Obama had criticized John Edwards in Iowa last December for failing to intervene when an independent 527 group run by his 2004 campaign manager bought air time for pro-Edwards ads, the two of them castigated Obama over a United Food and Commercial Workers ad buy set to begin on Tuesday in Ohio, with no apparent protest from Obama. "Barack Obama has a pattern of making statements and promises and walking away from them," Wolfson declared. His "promises are not followed through with action." It's "not about principles for Barack Obama, it's about politics." Barack Obama is "running on promises of strength and the strength of his promises." Voters "need to know that when they choose a president he will follow through on his promises." But Obama is not "consistent in his leadership."

With all due respect, on NAFTA, it's Hillary and not Barack who has been less than "consistent." Say what you want, the fact remains that Hillary Clinton has been running of the legacy of her years spent by Bill Clinton's side. She's no Tammy Wynett, but a true force in her own right. Nevertheless, the shadow of Bill Clinton, both the good and bad, is something she has inherited.

She's not running against Obama anymore -- she's essentially running against Bill. I mean, I really don't know how you utter the "It took a Clinton to clean up after a Bush" line in one breath, and then in the next admit that he fucked up the job.

I noticed that too, her smooth ability to condemn something that she herself can be found responsible for can be breathtaking. Just like Jeff's robocall, she distorts the fact that Barack Obama does indeed address trade policy directly in his platform, yet Hillary has the "audacity" to say: "I have a plan," ... "My opponent does not. Ohio needs solutions, not distortions."

Sorry, Hillary, that was an outright lie. Obama does have some things to say about trade, a "plan" if you will. Just go to his website and look for the subheading "trade" under "economy" at the "issues" tab. It's a hell of a lot easier to find than wading through Clinton's site to find just where she mentions NAFTA as one of her issues.

Actually, she doesn't mention it at all. The word "NAFTA" does not appear on Hillary's web site under "issues." The only part of her "plan" for trade as set out on her website is under "Strengthening the Middle Class" where she says,

She will also ensure that trade policies work for average Americans. Trade policy must raise our standard of living, and they must have strong protections for workers and the environment.

That's not a "plan," but a platitude. There's also a linky bullet point that says: Strengthening unions and ensuring our trade laws work for all Americans, takes us to a press release that also fails to mention NAFTA but does have some meat on it. Primarily it concerns enforcement mechanisms in a pretty detailed manner for our trade negotiators and administration watchdogs. But this is in the context of overall trade, and not specifically addressing the mess NAFTA represents. Basically, she intends to throw more money at the US Trade Representative's enforcement unit and sets out how future negotiations should be handled.

Seems to me that if she thought sitting down with the leaders of Mexico and Canada to fix NAFTA was a priority, she might have mentioned it before discovering that Ohio was now on her list of campaign stops. Obama cared, Edwards cared. Hell, Dennis Kucinich was screaming about it four years ago. I think she's late to this party, and knows it.

If she has something to say that's all that different than Obama on trade, why is NAFTA only something we see mentioned in her speeches and press releases, but not worthy of it's own talking point as part of her overall plan for America? How on earth can she be taken seriously by saying she has a plan and Obama doesn't when he already put his plan on his website and she didn't think it necessary to go into detail until recently -- and even tries to cop out of any real responsibility (again) by saying Bill "inherited" NAFTA.

CLINTON: But it was inherited. NAFTA was inherited by the Clinton Administration. I believe in the general principles it represented, but what we have learned is that we have to drive a tougher bargain. Our market is the market that everybody wants to be in. We should quit giving it away so willy-nilly. I believe we need tougher enforcement of the trade agreements we already have. You look at the trade enforcement record between the Clinton Administration and the Bush Administration, the Clinton Administration brought more trade enforcement actions in one year than the Bush Administration brought in six years.

It really shouldn't be this hard to find out where she stands on something she's now using as a club. But in the interest of being fair, I'll try to compare/contrast Obama's take on NAFTA versus what she said in speech back in October where she actually talks about it by name and her interview with TIME today.

From what I can tell about Hillary's "plan" is that she's troubled by NAFTA's lack of enforcement provisions and that we assess our trade relationships "every five years to make sure they're meeting their goals or make adjustments if they are not and we should start with doing that with NAFTA."

If there's something more concrete other than her idea that trade along with health care is part of her comprehensive approach to the economy, and of course her proposal that "workers who've lost their jobs because of global competition get the income support, the health care, the job training and the job placement assistance they need to get back on their feet," please feel free to enlighten me. That's all the googling I care to do on her behalf.

Obama presents something that looks for all the world exactly like, if not better than ... you know ... Hillary's "plan." Honestly, if you care, go read the bullet points he provides. It's all there. The ONLY difference in their approach is her suggestion that we reassess our trade agreements every five years.

Short of putting sunset language into all new treaties, I don't see where institutionalizing a reevaluation process gets us anything special that the current ad hoc policy of addressing problems where they arise does not achieve. Is she actually saying we should review Most Favored Nation status for every country every five years? Won't that just push off decisions to withdraw such status to the next reevaluation period if a country gets out of line?

And seriously, if the only difference between them is this reassessment every five years, how dare Hillary claim she has a plan and Obama doesn't? How dare she call Obama a liar by lying about his lack of a "plan."

Obama's amending NAFTA "so that it works for American workers" sounds just like Clinton's renegotiation and enforcement strategy, and his proposal on "Transition Assistance" sounds even more expansive than Hillary's:

Obama would update the existing system of Trade Adjustment Assistance by extending it to service industries, creating flexible education accounts to help workers retrain, and providing retraining assistance for workers in sectors of the economy vulnerable to dislocation before they lose their jobs.

She's attacked him where he's stronger than her, and lies about it. Sorry, but she's the one using Rove's playbook -- and that's about the last straw for me.

Who knows, maybe she would be a better president than Obama, maybe a great president. But she's run a shitty campaign, has shitty advisers, and has no excuse for being broke and sounding desperate.

2/24/08

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Resume Debunkifying Function

Honestly, some things you just can't let go unanswered.

The one question, really the only question on the current state of FISA, why didn't the GOP agree to extend the Protect America Act another 21 days to sort out what is to be done on Telecom immunity. Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Mike McConnell, was asked that up front on CNN's Late Edition. It's the one question he would not answer. (Update: Turns out, the whole gang was full of it.)

Via Andy McCarthy at The Corner, we are linked to the even more wingnutty Weekly Standard up to their usual nonsense complete with spin, half-truths, bullshit, lies and a complete rewriting of recent history on the FISA/Telecom Amnesty bill.

Let's dive right in, shall we.

Hear No Evil
Are House Democrats serious about national security?
by Matthew Continetti

How much ya wanna bet that his answer is, "No?"

On February 16, last year's bipartisan legislation governing the collection of foreign intelligence and protecting from liability all persons who comply with federal directives to assist in such collection--the law otherwise known as the "Protect America Act of 2007"--expired, having exhausted its six-month, 15-day statutory lifespan. At which time the federal government's ability to pursue suspected terrorists and emerging threats was dealt a serious blow. You can thank House Democrats for the whole sorry mess.

Fair enough. We are now forewarned that as patriotic citizens, we must analyze the curiously named Protect America Act's failure to become law with any eye towards blaming Democrats for putting us all in horrible danger, and completely ignore the issue of retroactive and prospective immunity for the telecommunication companies who facilitated warrantless wiretapping when they didn't think they needed such a law to make their actions legal, and the role of George Bush in all this.

It gets ~~better~~ worse.

The Democratic leadership denies this, of course, having adopted an Alfred E. Neuman "What, Me Worry?" approach to national security.

Ah yes, foreign policy advice from someone who reads Mad Magazine. This should be good. Of course what's really telling about the whole piece is that the word immunity -- the reason for the impasse -- isn't mentioned until half-way through, once he's done spinning the facts to suit their version of history.

By the time one gets through page one of this two-page propaganda tool, we find out that "probable cause" is some kind of freakish liberal scheme deserving of scare quotes as it imposes some kind of "stringent FISA procedures" before a search warrant may issue -- which we all know is a lie since FISA allows initiation of surveillance three full days before any warrant might issue.

But any new wiretaps the government seeks will have to go through stringent FISA procedures, which require the government to show "probable cause" that a "U.S. person" is a "foreign power" or an "agent of a foreign power" before a search warrant targeting him can be issued.<

We also find out, simply by dropping the name Richard Clarke, the old 1978 FISA law doesn't work -- even though the Patriot Act, as well as Patriot II modified it already. Shocking, that in order to spy on you or me or any other American citizen, the Bill of Rights might apply. Jesus, I'll bet if it was the Second and not the Fourth Amendment they were pissing on there'd be hell to pay.

Another piece of Constitutional Tom-foolery was this tidbit:

It turns out, further, that the NSA wasn't spying on Americans willy-nilly. Most of the warrantless surveillance targets were foreign nationals located overseas, though the program also surveilled[sic] the 500-odd people in the United States with whom those overseas targets were communicating. Nor was it at all clear whether or not FISA superseded the president's plenary, constitutional authority to "protect and defend" the United States from attack. No court has ever said so. And no administration, including Carter's and Clinton's, has ever accepted FISA as determinative of its constitutional power.

Where does one start? How about the low-lying fruit first. The President of the United States swears an oath specifically laid out in Article II of the Constitution, to wit:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Not to split hairs, but if it were Bush's sworn duty to protect us from attack, they should have started impeachment proceedings on September 12th, 2001.

Now it's very comforting to know that the concerned folks at Weekly Standard have guaranteed all of out civil liberties, and that "most" of people our government spied on were nasty foreigners or people here talking to nasty foreigners -- all of which kept us safer. Too bad that's a lie. Not to mention the fact that we don't require any kind of warrants or other permission to spy on foreign nationals, only Americans -- never did.

But virtually all of them, current and former officials say, led to dead ends or innocent Americans.
F.B.I. officials repeatedly complained to the spy agency, which was collecting much of the data by eavesdropping on some Americans' international communications and conducting computer searches of foreign-related phone and Internet traffic, that the unfiltered information was swamping investigators. Some F.B.I. officials and prosecutors also thought the checks, which sometimes involved interviews by agents, were pointless intrusions on Americans' privacy.

Equally comforting is that previous Democratic Administrations, including the one that originally signed FISA into law, might not have felt bound by it's perfectly reasonable requirements. I suppose by not mentioning how Reagan or Bush(41) felt about FISA made the argument more persuasive. Also absent from consideration is the current POTUS's obviously disingenuous pronouncement that we get warrants whenever we need to.

Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so.

This fight was never about protecting us, except to the point where people's fears can be exploited and Democrats be made to look bad. It's about power, control, information and keeping everyone involved out of prison.

There really are so many freakishly outlandish wingnut memes floating through Continetti's article it's almost remarkable he didn't land a job on Dick Cheney's staff. He drops the bombshell that the FISA court system degraded due to an overload of cases because the "Bush administration was weak" after the Democrats reclaimed Congress -- but neglect to mention that now, unlike the situation last summer, the court has no backlog whatsoever.

Now one can talk about burying the lede, or just come out and accuse young Continetti of obscuration, but he doesn't get to the point, "retroactive immunity," until 1000 words into a 1600 word column. Mind you, this is a guy who thinks himself clever comparing Democrats to a cartoon character, Alfred E. Newman, but thinks Ted Kennedy is "disgusting" for saying Bush is "willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies."

And then the sophistry begins in earnest.

But the crux of the anti-immunity Democrats' argument seems to be that because the original Terrorist Surveillance Program was "illegal" and the phone companies were complicit in its "illegality," they therefore should be liable for damages resulting from such "illegal" invasions of privacy.

This is wrong on all counts. The Terrorist Surveillance Program was not illegal. And the telecoms were engaged in a good-faith effort to help the federal government protect the United States from attack. Isn't that how we should want corporations to behave in a time of war?

Hold on Sparky, not so fast.

It's simple logic, if you can follow along. If the program were "legal" as you say, and that journalism degree from Columbia is all the credentials we need to bow down to your authority on this, then there is no need to worry whether the Telecom's get immunity or not, yes? Shouldn't we at least let a court of law be able to make that determination is it is in question? Isn't that what they are for?

Oh Noes! You don't say? According to our junior editor at the Weekly Standard, we never should submit "national security decisions to an unelected and unaccountable judiciary."

Courts are thus, irrelevant, unnecessary, a quaint vestigial institution of a bygone era. We're at WAR don't you know. (I'm not sure which war he's talking about. Iraq, Afghanistan, George's war on Terra, or the wingnut war on liberals -- it all plays the same.)

Forget the fact that we've been at war before, this one's different I guess because the "enemy" isn't a superpower with enough nuclear weaponry to destroy the planet 10 times over, or a genocidal maniac with legions of storm-troopers blitzing through Europe. No, this time it's some dudes in a cave in Pakistan who might highjack a bus and call ahead for reservations in Atlanta -- which is all the warning we'll need to push to color-coded duct-tape threat light to orange -- just before the next election, and between the conventions of course to dull any Democratic advance in the polls.

But I digress, and there's a wee bit more insanity to debunk.

The fight over retroactive immunity should be seen for what it is: a backdoor attempt to shut down the president's post-9/11 intelligence gathering efforts and return the intelligence community to a pre-9/11 footing, when the FISA court governed almost all counterterrorist surveillance and the standards of traditional law enforcement applied more often than not to investigations of suspected terrorists.

Yeah, that horrible "law-enforcement" approach that Scotland Yard used to nail the liquid bomb plotters, or the FBI used to disrupt a planned attack on JFK airport. I used to think that the folks who mocked the "law enforcement approach" just wanted to kill anyone who remotely looked like a terrorist (whatever that means). I didn't know they just wanted to do away with laws altogether. Live and learn.

Perhaps the most egregious lie in the entire article resides in the penultimate paragraph:

It was fear of the FISA court, after all, that prevented Minnesota FBI field agents from searching the laptop of al Qaeda terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui--the suspicious student at the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Eagan, Minnesota--even though they knew about Moussaoui's jihadist beliefs and connection to a Chechen terrorist.

This theme, The Moussaoui Myth, of course is lifted almost directly from another "Standard" publication, completing the circle as it were. The only problem is that nobody presented the evidence of Moussaoui's suspicious flight training or terrorist ties to anyone at the Justice Department to make any decision on whether they should get a FISA warrant. The ball was dropped, period. The red flags weren't bright enough. Neither FISA nor "fear" of FISA kept anyone from doing their job. They just didn't.

2/23/08

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Authoritarians Hate The Very Idea Of You

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Becoming Obamafied: The Opposite of Hate

Hate and love are passionate emotions that the proverbial fine line separates. A completely different reaction is apathy.

I admit I truly despise the likes of Rush Limbaugh. The thing is, he hates me too.

Well, maybe not me in particular, but he freely says that liberal Americans are his enemy. We are to be crushed, defeated, destroyed. Indeed, Rush's recent overtures to John McCain contains an exhortation to His Maverickness on the futility of reaching across the aisle.

LIMBAUGH: The important question for John McCain today is is he going to learn the right lesson from this and what is the lesson? The lesson is liberals are to be defeated. You cannot walk across the aisle with them; you cannot reach across the aisle. You cannot welcome their media members on your bus and get all cozy with them and expect eternal love from them. You are a Republican. Whether you are a conservative Republican or not, you are a Republican. And at some point the people you cozy up to, either to do legislation or to get cozy media stories are going to turn on you. They are snakes. And if the right lesson is not learned from this, uh then it will have proved to be of no value. It’s a great opportunity her for Sen. McCain to learn the right lesson, understand who his friends are and who his enemies are. And he’s had that backwards, for way too long.

Right back attcha Rushbo.

And therein lies the problem. The reaction Limbaugh gets from me -- loathing -- is exactly what he wants. He doesn't want me to love him, ever. In fact, he hopes to enrage folks like me so much we make mistakes, are blinded by the rage he inspires. At a minimum, he wants the battle to continue. The conflict between right and left, much of it a product of his own addled brain, remains his and his imitators raison d'entre.

My principle arguments in favor of either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton from a culture warrior perspective, (all other factors being equal) have centered about who is best equipped to utterly decimate the worst of the wingnuts.

Clearly Clinton is "ready to lead" this fight right into the old gasbag's face. Obama's approach is completely different, doing exactly what Limbaugh cautions McCain against -- reaching across the aisle, finding common ground, fixing problems not finding enemies among our own people and throwing them up against a rhetorical wall.

We've seen this play before, a Clintonian triangulation strategy forced upon us by the nature of the dialog, the fighting words on all sides urged to ever stranger heights by the right wing noise machine. I started blogging by commenting on conservative blogs so no right wing smear was left unanswered, no lie left undebunked. I still think this is a worthwhile and sometimes entertaining passtime.

But that's a bloggers job, a media function (at least a media that actually, you know ... functions), trench warfare engaged in by shock troops, not the Commander in Chief, at least not how the two remaining Democratic prospects see the job. Obama states it up front, everybody gets a seat at the table. We know how the Clintons operate, they fight and fight hard -- but in the end the "enemy" was still left standing, just as strong and deranged as before.

Is this a battle that actually can be won? Is this really a battle that should be fought anymore -- at least at that level?

Fighting the Limbaughs and Hannities of the world is not opposing them. Ignoring them is a much more effective way of making them irrelevant. When it's put this way, Ann Coulter vowing to back Hillary over McCain makes sense. If it comes down to a choice between Barack and McCain, the haters are the ones who lose. They won't go away, and debunking will still be a necessary endeavor, but only at the fringes of our political discourse, no longer it's center-piece -- that is what they know will be their undoing.

Will an idealistic future come about with an Obama presidency? I have considerable doubts about that. But I doubt even more seriously we'll even move in that direction under Clinton; and if the vanity campaign of John McCain is successful I think it would tear this country apart even more.

Since John Edwards left the campaign, we lost the man truly committed to fighting the right wing and their corporate masters. Lacking such a champion, Clinton seemed the closest alternative. However, she is a flawed and vulnerable champion at best, showing scores of scars from previous battles that at best ended in a draw. Some would argue even worse. Regardless how you feel about her, the very qualities that often make her so endearing, her "human" side, are a perceived weakness to be exploited and mocked by Wingnutystan and undermine her ability to "win" the culture battles.

I'll say it again, as I have so often. I love her. I think she'd make an exceptional president. I'm just persuadable that we have even better choices right now.

Without the superior firepower I believed Edwards represented, it's quite possible the best way to proceed is to bypass the battle entirely. I'm having my doubts Hillary really would go all the way and that somewhere in the back of her Goldwater/Rockefeller Republican brain she believes conservatives somehow have a legitimate place in this nation. Much as I hate to admit it, maybe they do.

Obama represents a problem solving versus winning some "victory" approach, a rejection of the very idea that Limbaugh, et al. frame the world today -- us versus them. Fundamentally I have always agreed with this approach, and employed it in my professional life -- problem solving as opposed to beating an opponent. It works, and is a very effective negotiation technique. It's just not the game we play online.

I'm not completely on the Barack-o-wagon, nor do I think Hillary's candidacy is through as long as Texas and Ohio are in play. I worry a great deal about the fact that Obama has not won a single big state outside of Illinois. I think he is a phenomenal leader, but have doubts about his administrative abilities the job POTUS demands -- doubts I do not have about Senator Clinton.

But this nation is starved for true leadership, indeed the world is only holding it's collective breath until the current misleader is done. So for now, until next time I give it any thought, I've been Baracked.

2/22/08

[+/-]

Square This Circle, Washington on Church and State

I was pointed to a book review (pdf) of Tara Ross and Joseph C. Smith's, Under God: George Washington and the Question of Church and State. (HT Wince)

The book examines Washington's views and practices on issues of related to government support of religion. The book concludes that Washington was far less concerned about separation of church and state than were Jefferson and Madison, and that Washington's views deserve greater consideration from modern courts than they have received.

It would seem the thrust of their thesis is that the ideas of the Father of Our Country concerning the role of religion in our government should have much greater influence on how the Courts should interpret the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment:

Jefferson, of course, coined the phrase “separation between church and state” in his oft-quoted 1802 Letter to the Danbury Baptists. This phrase has seared itself into the public consciousness as the dominant metaphor for the meaning of the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment, in no small part because the Supreme Court has so frequently employed it in rendering Religion Clause decisions. In the body of their book, Mrs. Ross and Mr. Smith show that Washington would have rejected this metaphor. To the contrary, he believed it important “for government to accommodate and even to encourage the practice of religion, albeit in ways that were typically non-denominational and tolerant of religious minorities.” The authors further suggest that Washington’s views were closer to the American mainstream than were Jefferson’s—before, during, and after the framing of the Constitution and the enactment of the Bill of Rights—and thus are a better guide to ascertaining the original meaning of the First Amendment.

It looks like yet another tranparent assault on the separation of Church and State to me. I'm of a mind to give greater weight to the guy who wrote it the First Amendment, Jefferson, who was much more clear on how it should be intrepreted when he wrote his draft of the Virginia Constitution:

Religion

All persons shall have full and free liberty of religious opinion; nor shall any be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious institution.

But then I ran across a quote attributed to George Washington that should put the debate to rest.

“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion”

Now upon further review, it seems this "quote" was actually a clause in the Treaty of Tripoli.

Check it out. It's not without controversy, and this clause evidently does not exist in the Arab translation of the Treaty, but it is in the document that was negotiated by Washington's Administration, passed unanimously by the Senate, and signed by John Adams a few months after assuming the Presidency. As such, it is the law of the land (or at least it was until Jefferson decided not to pay the Pasha of Tripoli any more protection money to keep the Barbary Pirates in line).

My real point is, instead of trying to read the mind of a long dead hero, why not just look at the laws they left behind.

[+/-]

Note To GOP Frightmongers

2/21/08

[+/-]

Best McCain Headline, Ever

2/20/08

[+/-]

Cult of Perspicacity

2/18/08

[+/-]

Obama And The Tweener Generation

[+/-]

It's A Party For The Party

2/17/08

[+/-]

Note To Hillary Shills

2/16/08

[+/-]

McCain't

Why is Tom DeLay still invited to mouth off on TV, making endorsements for
Republicans he hates, and why doesn't John McCain tell DeLay and Inhofe to STFU?

Hey John, I hear Bob Ney will be out of jail early and has nothing better to do but go out and give stump speeches on your behalf. Throw a brother a bone.

Maybe I should leave McCain alone right now, keep my powder dry for the Swiftboating to come his way. Let's just put it this way, George Bush was probably a better pilot than the Reverse Ace.

"McCain had roughly 20 hours in combat," explains Bill Bell, a veteran of Vietnam and former chief of the U.S. Office for POW/MIA Affairs -- the first official U.S. representative in Vietnam since the 1973 fall of Saigon. "Since McCain got 28 medals," Bell continues, "that equals out to about a medal-and-a-half for each hour he spent in combat. There were infantry guys -- grunts on the ground -- who had more than 7,000 hours in combat and I can tell you that there were times and situations where I'm sure a prison cell would have looked pretty good to them by
comparison. The question really is how many guys got that number of medals for not being shot down."

For years, McCain has been an unchecked master at manipulating an overly friendly and biased news media. The former POW turned Congressman, turned U.S. Senator, has managed to gloss over his failures as a pilot and collaborations with the enemy by exaggerating his military service and lying about his feats of heroism.

Just a suggestion for Senator McCain (R-Jurrasic Era), don't show up at your ~~coronation~~ convention saluting and saying you're "reporting for duty." Your daddy the admiral isn't around to spin things anymore.

Judging by the way he's conducted himself so far, leaning so heavily on his own press clippings and attendant mythos as the expert on the military, he should be in for a huge fall (the gravity assisted kind, not the season).

Speaking to reporters in Richmond, VA last night, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) attacked "anyone" who points out that he is "fine" with keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for 100 or more years. "Anyone who worries about how long we’re in Iraq does not understand the military and does not understand war," said McCain.

He then added that it is "really almost insulting to one's intelligence" to question "how long we’re in Iraq" because he believes the current “strategy” is "succeeding."

[snip]
By dismissing as naïve those concerned with how long the U.S. military is mired in Iraq, McCain is claiming that top officials in the Pentagon don't understand "the military" or "war" as well as he does. In a recent GOP presidential debate, McCain argued, "I’m the expert" on Iraq.
Top military brass, such as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen and Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey, have worried in the past year that "a protracted deployment of U.S. troops" in Iraq would not be a wise move for the military:

This is gonna hit the fan, big. At least Bush gives lip service to the idea that he'll listen to his Generals as they tell him what he want's to hear. McCain thinks he's some kind of military genius.

Of course, we may not have to go this far, seeing as he's such a crashing boor.

[+/-]

Mmmmm Popcorn!

2/15/08

[+/-]

DC Puppet Theater

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

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

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

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

This is the kind of pure, unadulterated idiocy -- childish, cartoonish and creepy -- that Democrats for years have been allowing to bully them into submission, govern our country, and dismantle our Constitution. Outside of Andy McCarthy, Mark Steyn and their roving band of paranoid right-wing bloggers who can't sleep at night because they think (and hope) that there are dark, primitive "jihadi" super-villains hiding under their beds -- along with the Very Serious pundit class which proves their Seriousness by placing blind faith in the fear-mongering pronouncements and demands of our military and intelligence officials for more unchecked power -- nobody cares about adolescent Terrorist game-playing like this any longer. In the real world, it doesn't work, and it hasn't worked for some time.
Americans are worried and even angry about many things. Whether Osama bin Laden is throwing a party because AT&T and Verizon might have to defend themselves in court isn't one of them. Outside of National Review, K Street, and the fear-paralyzed imagination of our shrinking faux-warrior class, there is no constituency in America demanding warrantless eavesdropping or amnesty for lawbreaking telecoms.

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

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

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

Now, the president asserts that the expiration of the protect America act will pose a danger to our country.
The former National Security Council advisor on terrorism says that's not true.
Former assistant attorney general says that's not true. Numerous others, and the chairman, has asserted that's not true.
Why is that not true?

Because FISA will remain in effect.
The authority given under the protect America act remains in effect.
And if there are new targets, the FISA court has full authority to give every authority to the administration to act.
So I tell my friends, we are pursuing the politics of fear. Unfounded fear. 435 members of this house and every one of us, every one of us wants to keep America and Americans safe. Not one of us -- not one of us wants to subject America or Americans to danger.
The president's assertion is wrong. I say it categorically.

The president's assertion is wrong.

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

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

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

2/14/08

[+/-]

Bring It Bama

Oh My Stars! Much hand wringing found throughout Blogtopia (sctp) over the shocking revelation that (surprise) she's in it to win it.

It's WAR! Okay, Sully really isn't an official member of blogtopia, but MoveOn is rallying the shock troops.

Will she (gasp) go negative? Maybe just a little?

A revealing bit of soul searching comes from the Left Coast where Steve Soto is disappointed enough in Hillary's act to withdraw his endorsement and hop on the fence with me. (I'm sure they're heatbroken at Clinton headquarters. Now they'll have to court even more SuperDelegates instead of bloggers, like Dennis Kucinich.)

I don't really care how annoyed a progressive-to-the-bone blogger like Ezra is; and for the record Mr. Donatelli -- nobody in the Democratic Party gives a flying fig what you or any other card carrying member of CPAC thinks. This is the big leagues and it's "go" time. The time to make the Democratic Party more democratic was back in '04 in Boston. If you are unsatisfied with the current system, feel free to start one of your own.

Jane has a rundown of varied plans to put a stop to the "outrageous" slash and burn tactics the Clintonians have stooped to, like sending Chelsea on a date with a college Junior SuperDelegate. (Okay, it was breakfast, not really a date, and certainly not pimping -- unless she gave him her number.) Dude! ;-)

The Superdelegate Transparency Project by Chris Bowers caught my eye. It's just the sort of thing we should expect and admire from the dedicated online organizers who really think all those phone calls and letters have made a difference in other battles waged against undemocratic acts of our government -- like convincing the Senate to reject Telecom immunity, or protecting habeas corpus rights, outlawing torture, or to filibuster Alito and Roberts, and using Congressional oversight like a club and holding the administration accountable for the Attorney firings, the no-bid contracts, fixing New Orleans, ah ... Blackwater, and um ... SCHIP or ... uh, yeah... Rock on Chris. Good luck with that.

I know one thing, I hate it when I agree with this guy.

[More under the fold.]

Look, it's no secret that the progressive blogosphere by and large doesn't really need a reason to be less than enthusiastic with Hillary's campaign. She's never been the most liberal potential nominee. But I'd like you to look at this from a slightly different perspective with a little more pragmatism and a little less righteous indignation.

First, with the lead in delegates, a slight lead lead in national polls, the lead in States won, and all the momentum in the world, if Obama can't close the deal in TexOhPenn (where he's trailing) to the point where it's no contest, shame on him. The Alamo is in Texas, and Ohio is Hillary's other last stand. If she wins them, we dance some more.

That's why we have conventions -- to sort out who the assembled active and elite members of the party are willing to get behind. I know they've been nothing more that info-mercials over the last 3 or 4 decades, but there really is a reason everybody who's anybody, and all the wannabees in the party, get together in one place every four years. (Folks, if you really wanted a say in things, the path to having a vote in Denver was not through your computer screen.)

Which brings me to my second point. Anything Hillary is planning -- like trying to get Florida and Michigan delegates seated and keeping politicians who endorsed her early in line -- and any other "dirty trick" she might try is child's play to what the nominee faces this fall. Call it trial by fire. We're going up against people who have been fixing elections since 1972.

If Obama gets the nomination despite the worst the Clinton machine can throw at him, this was good practice. If not and by some "chicanery" Clinton gets the nod (like getting the most votes from the people eligible to, you know, vote), it's still good for us because he isn't ready for prime time, needs seasoning or someone to clear the path for his brand of hope next time. Why can I say that? Because if he doesn't win, he's a loser, just like my hero John Edwards. (The last -- only -- winner I ever backed for President was named Clinton.)

Come on Barack, Man Up! Does anyone think he wouldn't get his ass kicked in the General election if he can get beat by a girl, even if she does fight dirty? (Address all hate mail to markwadams dot esq at gmail dot com.)

So have at it. All's fair folks, you have to bring your best game to this thing. I'll get behind whoever comes out of this a winner, cuz winning the White House is what it's all about. In the mean time, I'll probably vote for someone, but I don't have to get on anyone's bus until I show up at my polling place -- so there. I still don't know who I'm for, but I damn well know who I'm against. They call him Maverick.

Just keep this in the back of your head when you criticize her big state strategy -- states in which Obama has to make up significant ground come the general election -- with just a slight win in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania Hillary can prove she has an advantage in winning the 270 votes needed in the electoral college. Only Nebraska and Maine apportion those votes. Come November, it's winner-take-all.

If she wins all the states she has so far, that represents 146 electoral votes (NV NH CA AZ AR OK NY NJ MA TN). Add that to possible wins in the big ones coming up, OH TX and PA and she'd be up to 220. Give her Florida and Michigan and that puts her at 264 electoral votes, "winning" only 15 states. The Democrat wins DC and probably Oregon and either Minnesota or Wisconsin.

That's over the 270 needed to win the White House, but not really a Florida-proof majority should McCain win there. For that, she'd need to carry Illinois -- Obama land (yes she can). Winning Colorado or Missouri cancels out McCain beating us in his home state come fall (doable). I will "know" she can pull it out with wins in TexOhPenn. I will be worried sick if there's a split and Obama is the nominee without having won most if not all of the big states.

Obama has momentum, a "movement." But that must translate into votes, not just the great feeling of unity he brings. I've got a very faded sticker of an American Flag I slapped on my jalopy in September of 2001 that stood for unity. It didn't last, and this nation is as fractured as at anytime in it's history.

Simply put, for all the gnashing of teeth over superdelegates and what to do about Fla and Mich, if she can't be stopped in TexOhPenn, everybody should get out of her way.

2/13/08

[+/-]

We Have Met the Enemy

by shep

And it isn’t just made of Republicans.

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

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

-- Glen Greenwald

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

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

Greenwald again:

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

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

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

[Cross-posted on E Pluribus Unum]

2/12/08

[+/-]

My Daughter Is Brilliant

She's 15 and in college -- really.

But what really tells me she's way too smart is that she sent me this:

The Guys' Rules
At last a guy has taken the time to write this all down
Finally , the guys' side of the story.
( I must admit, it's pretty good.)
We always hear " the rules "
From the female side.

Now here are the rules from the male side.

These are our rules!
Please note... these are all numbered "1"
ON PURPOSE!

1. Men are NOT mind readers.

2. Learn to work the toilet seat.
You're a big girl. If it's up, put it down.
We need it up, you need it down.
You don't hear us complaining about you leaving it down.

3. Sunday sports. It's like the full moon
or the changing of the tides.
Let it be.

4. Shopping is NOT a sport.
And no, we are never going to think of it that way.

5. Crying is blackmail.

6. Ask for what you want.
Let us be clear on this one:
Subtle hints do not work!
Strong hints do not work!
Obvious hints do not work!
Just say it!

7. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.

8. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That's what we do.
Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.

9. A headache that lasts for 17 months is a Problem.
See a doctor.

10. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument.
In fact, all comments become null and void after 7 Days.

11. If you won't dress like the Victoria 's Secret girls, don't Expect us to act like soap opera guys.

12. If you think you're fat, you probably are.
Don't ask us.

13. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of them makes you sad or angry, then we meant the other one.

15. You can either ask us to do something
Or tell us how you want it done.
Not both.
If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.

16. Whenever possible, Please say whatever you have to say during commercials.

17. Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions and neither do we.

18. ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings.
Peach, for example, is a fruit, not A color . Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.

19. If it itches, it will be scratched.
We do that.

20. If we ask what is wrong and you say "nothing," We will act like nothing's wrong.
We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle, besides we know you will bring it up again later.

21. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, Expect an answer you don't want to hear.

22. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine... Really

23. Don't ask us what we're thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as baseball, the shotgun formation,
or golf.

24. You have enough clothes.

25. You have too many shoes.

26. I am in shape. Round IS a shape!

Thank you for reading this.
Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight;

But did you know men really don't mind that? It's like camping.

Pass this to as many men as you can -
to give them a laugh.

Pass this to as many women as you can - to give them a bigger laugh

Yeah, I know, I usually avoid these silly chain-mail type things. My sister sends me so many I fed her to my junk mail filters -- she knows my phone number but doesn't know how to clip a header, cut and paste or make sub-groups in her address book to separate out who doesn't want to read every little soul inspiring care-bear or clown covered thought for the day she sends along.

If she sent me some fun LOL Katz, then maybe she can haz teh funny -- but no. My little girl, however, sent me this clean and clear of extraneous crap, and I hope it made you laugh too. (And Sis, if you're offended, I'm shocked. Not that I disturbed your sensibilities, but that you read my blog. Next thing you know you'll buy a newspaper.)

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