Cult of Perspicacity

by shep

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

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

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

[Cross-posted at E Pluribus Unum]

Obama And The Tweener Generation

I absolutely agree with Joe Gandelman.

Tom Watson takes a detailed, stand-back-and-analyze look at Barack Obama and where he is in generational and politically symbolic terms.
...
It’s a fascinating article and a MUST READ. So read it in its ENTIRETY, from beginning to end.

If you, like me, are somewhere between the age of 44 and 48 -- at the tail end of the Baby Boom, too old to ever consider yourself Gen X, but the first Beatles album you bought was their last, Let It Be -- and especially if you are waffling between Hillary and Barack, this article explains a lot that none of your older or younger friends and family will ever really grok.

It won't help you make up your mind, but will help you (and your friends and family) understand why you haven't yet.

In a nutshell, Obama is also a tweener, but he's created a movement deliberately designed to inspire the younger generation to be a part of something greater than themselves, reminding the Boomers above of the promise the movements their generation witnessed and still believe in. He doesn't speak to people his own age, like me, because his campaign isn't designed to reach us misfits.

No seriously, I can't do it justice in any summary or excerpt. Go read all of it.

It's A Party For The Party

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Note To Hillary Shills

Especially you two, give it up. You're making fools of yourselves.

Lord knows there's enough sexism out there, as well as racism and other forms of bias. You really don't need to invent it.

People are allowed to have opinions, even working journalists. Indeed, it is impossible not to have them and exceedingly difficult not to bring the sum total of all your experience into what you write and say publicly.

But let's be clear. There are plenty of reasons not to like/trust/want Hillary Clinton. Jumping to the misogyny conclusion without some kind of overt evidence, some obvious pattern of behavior -- especially to accuse Obama of such sexism is insane.

Likewise, it doesn't mean you're a racist if you don't like/trust/want Barack Obama, including Senator Clinton (or Joe Biden) characterizing his rhetorical style.

You people are fools to be fighting amongst yourselves, creating insult where none exists, stuffing old shirts full of straw only to burn them at the slightest provocation.

There are REAL bigots among us. No slur to low or obviously far fetched for them to dissemble. And they're loving this.

Some of the insults from Reich Wing Blogistan are just so despicable, so horribly delusional, I shouldn't even link them, let alone offer a quote:

Am I the only one who's noticed just how much Barak Obama's campaign rhetoric resembles George W. Bush's, circa 2000?

Yes dickhead, you are.

Are we all clear now?

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!

In what is sure to become one of the epic grudgmatches of the intertubez, Pandagon's Amanda Marcotte is calling out pig-man Kim duToit, one of the most disgustingly sexist fascists out there whose closed-mindedness is only superseded by his spouse when he permits her access to the outside world.

Locally, if you're in the mood for some schadenfreunde, here's another episode of the continuing saga of the disintegration of Northwestern Ohio's Republican Party. Somehow I just knew the party affiliation before I clicked on the link: Ohio Senate candidate in custody in Wood County.

BOWLING GREEN — John F. Schulte, a Republican running for the Ohio Senate’s 2nd District in the March 4 primary, turned himself in yesterday after a warrant was issued charging him with violating the terms of his bond.

Schulte, 52, of Wood County’s Troy Township was indicted by a Wood County grand jury in October for menacing by stalking and telecommunications harassment after being accused of stalking a Lucas County woman he knew.

On Wednesday, visiting Judge Richard Knepper revoked his bond and issued an arrest warrant after prosecutors received confirmation from a state lab that Schulte’s DNA was on an envelope mailed to the victim in the case in November.

Under the terms of the bond, he was to have no contact with her either directly or indirectly.

According to a prosecutor’s motion, the victim found an envelope in her newspaper box Nov. 19 with her name typed on the outside.

Inside the box was an index card with “don’t testify” typed on it.

Is this guy really still on the ballot? I think he just moved up to witness intimidation. Gawd I hope he wins the primary. I haven't seen anyone campaign from prison since Jim Traficant.

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.]

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.

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]

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.)