Whew!

New experiment. I'm going to try to post something everyday, reflecting my views as of that moment.

And as of this moment, I have to say, "Whew!" The polling is back to where it was before the conventions, with Obama slightly ahead and moving into an electoral college lead. Which is of course very good news indeed.

Overnight, McCain seems to have messed up an interview with a Spanish radio or TV outlet. Evidently, after being asked seriatim about various Latin American leaders, he was asked about the Spanish president (not a PM?), and persisted in speaking as though he were a left-wing Latin American thug (i.e., in the "Chavez-Castro Club"). Even when the reporter tried to steer him back, he seemed not to get it, and continued on his platitudinous way. (As they do.)

Oh, and the global financial markets are melting down and will soon be naught but rubble where once great wealth had been. The ranks of the unemployed and poor will welcome the many ex "investment bankers" and even the occasional "former big law partner."

Which of course is good news for Rudy Giuliani.

The last few days seem like they have been rough on poor old John McCain, who seems increasingly out of it, as though he had yet to learn his new talking points.

I've also noticed that he seems to never be without a handler, and I don't mean in a political sense. I mean in the sense of a handler for someone who really can't be left by himself in public. While I wish the man no ill and nothing but love, baby, I'm concerned that there is an accumulating body of evidence that indicates that Senator McCain's mental acuity may be declining to the point where even the Republicans -- the Republicans who foisted an Alzheimers-struck Ronald Reagan on us and kept it a secret for more than a decade -- cannot cover up his unfitness for high office. (Of course, he could be bed-ridden, unable to feed, clothe or clean himself, and convinced that his nurses are all working for that damn Ho Chi Mihn, and still be in the middle of the Senatorial pack, mental acuity-wise).

All of this -- the way the markets seem to indict the Republicans' laissez-faire-ism, the increasing "losing it-ness" of the Republican candidate, the collapse of the media's short-lived love affair with Governor Palin, the continued exudence of competence by Obama, the developing main-stream-media narrative that McCain is lying -- should be reflected in the polls in the next few days. Barring the unexpected (and wouldn't that be a neat trick), I'm hoping to see Barack open up a decent lead and ride it all the way to what one can only pray will be a right-good thumping of Arizona's hard-core, dishonorable senior (and yes folks, I mean senior) Senator.

Apples to Apples, Part II



A Worrisome Turn Toward the Dark Side

It seems like the Republicans have been breaking through one moral boundary after another, from the preposterous witch-hunts of McCarthy to the outrageous use of government apparatus for political gains by Nixon, from Willie Horton to smearing Max Cleland. So a claim that the Republicans have made a platonic shift to evil has to be viewed with some skepticism. Nevertheless, I worry that such a claim may be valid.

Watching the Republican Hate Fest ’08 this week, I heard a line that really resonated: when did unplanned unwed teenage pregnancy become a good thing? Thinking about it, it occurred to me that nearly all of the Republican talking points were as divorced from reality as their claim that Bristol Palin’s pregnancy was a joyous event. In fact, viewed through this prism, the entire Republican enterprise seems to be nothing more than political marketing run amok.

Even their biggest ideas are self-evidently false. Lowering taxes creates jobs. Life begins at conception. Liberals love to tax people. Democrats want high taxes and big government. Obama doesn’t know enough to keep us safe. Sarah Palin is terrific. People just want the government to get out of the way. Government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem.

The issue is campaigning and governing by slogan. And not slogans that neatly summarize a complex thoughts into something memorable. In fact, it’s the opposite: slogans as a way to disguise something unpalatable as something palatable. We see it all the time. The “PATRIOT” Act. “Compassionate Conservative.” “The Ownership Society.” “Support the Troops.” In every case, the actual meaning is almost perfectly contradicted by the reality.

So far, it’s more or less business as usual, though far more so for the Republicans, whose actual beliefs are way outside the mainstream and who must therefore work harder to disguise those beliefs to try to get elected.

But there was something about watching Republican after Republican get in front of a camera and describe Palin as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Had Obama picked a comparable light-weight, there’s no doubt the choice would be greeted as prima facie evidence of his dangerously bad judgment. And I believe that on some level Republicans know perfectly well that McCain’s choice is wrong-headed, but are so committed to their cause that they are fine with denying what they know to be true.

And there’s the rub. A movement this large, even if unable to win national office, that is so dedicated, so zealous, so free of honor, is a danger. I am concerned that these people could convince themselves of anything. And I think we saw that this week in St. Paul when the party faithful embraced the idea that off-shore drilling was, virtually overnight, an urgent national priority. Six weeks ago none of them had even heard of it; three weeks ago their own leader was against it, and a week ago none of them cared a jot about it. And now they are ready to lead their party unto death in defense of it.

Very committed zealots who feel they are free from the constraints of reality are a dangerous threat to civilized society. Ask the Germans.

Apples to Apples

Many Americans have been told by the media that John McCain has more experience. The “right” experience, in the words of the recent LAT poll. Well, it’s undeniable that McCain has more experience, but the current framing of this issue is inherently unfair and misleading. The truth is that in a fair comparison, Obama is the far more experienced candidate.

In 1983, McCain was 47 years old – the same age as Obama is today. Through family connections and family wealth, he was able to win a hotly contested primary and then a general election as a member of the US House of Representatives. He had previously worked in PR at his father-in-law’s company, and served 22 years in the US Navy, retiring with the rank of captain. He led a small training squadron (apparently ably), and also acted as the Navy’s liaison to the US Senate. He did not earn a major sea command. He had struggled at Annapolis, and barely managed to graduate. His record as a pilot was checkered.

In 2008, Obama has already leapfrogged McCain at the same point in his life by entering the US Senate two years ago. Obama has routinely garnered academic achievements and honors, including the highly coveted and prestige presidency of the Harvard Law Review. He has taught Constitutional Law at one of the nation’s most prestigious law schools for over a decade, written a best-selling book about forging a new way forward for America, and spent decades as a community organizer helping deserving Americans get the break they needed to get ahead.

The “experience gap” is really nothing more than the “age gap.” I can speculate about what Obama might have accomplished by his 72d birthday – more accolades, more concrete change, more leadership. (No need to speculate about McCain since age 47 – he’s mostly been an extremely conservative doctrinaire Senator from a conservative state with a gift for seeming to be on all sides of every issue.) But without that speculation being added into the mix, comparing Obama at 47 to McCain at 72 becomes nothing more than saying that one of these candidates is 25 years older than the other one.

If Obama’s experience is not “right,” or “enough,” or “adequate,” that’s because he is 47 years old. If the American people think 47 is simply too young to be President, that it certainly their prerogative. As is their right to think that 72 is simply too old. But to dress this age-ism up as “experience gap” is misleading.

McCain vs Obama: Victim vs. Empath

McCain vs. Obama

I heard Fareed Zakaria talking with Brain Lehrer on WYNC yesterday on the topic of differences between McCain and Obama on foreign policy. Fareed thought that there was a time when he would have said not much separated the two, but that McCain had taken several positions recently which made him think there were meaningful differences. (The main change seemed to be McCain’s recent idea to rid the G-8 of Russia and China, which is of course plainly counter-productive.)

What struck me though, was how little appreciation Fareed had for the enormous differences between the two candidates. His idea about politics seems to rest on an entirely left-brain approach where one simply compares the competing policy proposals and selects the one which is more closely matches one’s own idea of the best policy proposals. For me, it's far more telling as a determinant of the kind of governance we can expect is the emotional and psychological make-up of the candidates.

I often joke with people that if the people making Campbells Soup ads think they are selling soup, they’ll make unsuccessful ads, whereas if they think they are selling love, redemption, acceptance, etc., they’ll end up selling lots of soup. I don’t think McCain’s or Obama’s policy proposals are what will have the biggest impact on our society, any more than Candidate Bush’s passion for a Patient’s Bill of Rights made much difference to our health care system. Instead, the fundamental character of the person is the biggest determinant of the kind of governance we will get.

To me, the fundamental character of a person is best described in emotional and psychological terms. For example, I think the Current Occupant (h/t Garrison Keillor, of course) suffers from the effects of the terrible trauma he suffered as a child when his younger sister suddenly fell ill and passed away. His feelings of powerlessness in the face of random, inexplicable tragedy – feelings which were steadfastly ignored by his parents – are the direct cause of his misguided efforts to “protect” the US – and his inability to stop talking about the paramount importance of doing so. I think that’s what is behind his idea that he himself is personally responsible for the nation’s safety, and he is surely not going to wait around for other nations to act if doing so jeopardizes his protective (preventive) mission (as he had to do with tragic results as a child). In fact, it is this impatience that leads others to perceive that they are spurned and rejected. They are.

I’m still learning about the early experiences of McCain and Obama, but already I can see a fundamental difference in their characters. McCain seems to me to be primarily about being a victim – a quality he had long before he was so horribly victimized by the North Viet Namese. His high school nickname of “McNasty” is some evidence of this – a person who lashes out to protect himself from too-painful feelings. My guess is that John developed a sense that he was never going to be good enough for his ultra-successful dad – a sense that he was being expected to perform to a very unfair standard. John strikes me as someone who is always probing for acceptance – that’s what those back-of-the-bus bull sessions are: a chance for John to get acceptance.

As a leader, my guess is McCain would be quick to see the US as a victim, a nation that is being subjected to unfair standards. (It is of course true that the US is indeed expected to conform to a standard of behavior higher perhaps than any other nation. My own view is that that expectation is entirely fair. I doubt McCain would see it that way.) McCain would be quick to take offense, and quick to take action to challenge those he sees as confronting him (i.e., holding him to an unfair standard). His famous temper is a testament to the extent he feels slighted unfairly – in other words, victimized.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, could not be more different. I read him as being Mr. Empathy. He is quick to understand others. He readily shares similar experiences. But he does not leave things there. He generally pivots to his own ideas of how to help. His policies seem to be based on fully understanding how those impacted by them will perceive them, the result of his starting with understanding as best he can how others see and feel things.

An Obama foreign policy would be based on understanding the viewpoints of other nations – which by itself would instantly bolster American credibility and prestige. His actions would proceed organically from his understanding of how others perceive their own worlds, and therefore would be far more likely to be welcomed and far more likely to be productive. Domestically, Obama has already begun the process of people making more of an effort to understand the needs and feelings of others, something that the Republican revolution of the last 40 years has specifically targeted (“Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago,” Reagan famously asked). His empathetic nature is quite disruptive to the conventional wisdom.

We have a clear choice, not between competing policies but between competing personalities. We can choose a perpetual victim, someone who is constantly striving for acceptance and spurning those perceived as authorities (people with unfair expectations). Or we can choose an empathizer who can synthesize the needs of various individuals into harmonious compromises and solutions that provide a real chance of achieving success.

The Coming Craze for Confrontational Journalism

These past 10 years, many on the left have been appalled at the roll-over-and-rub-my-belly style of US journalism as mainstream journalists have vied with each other to see who loves Republicans the most. Not surprisingly, there's been a hailstorm of criticism about this.

Just in time for the return of the Democrats to power, the US mainstream press is about to shake off its journalistic slumber of the past 12-15 years and get back to basics: constantly hectoring the President about his many scandals and missteps, while making sure the opposition gets PLENTY of air time to bring these issues to the attention of the American people.

Wait for it, people. It's coming. And it will be just as ugly this time as it was under Clinton.

I don't usually waste my beautiful mind on the musings of confirmed half-wits like Billy Krystal. As a kid, I had two dogs, Spot and Frisky. ("Naming Things" was evidently not a course that either of my parents excelled in.) Either one of them, both long-gone to doggie heaven of course, had more insight into American public affairs that Billy. Yet neither has a newspaper column. Oh the injustice!

According to reliable sources, Billy is mad that BHO didn't talk more about the military at a recent commencement address. This brought home to me a idea I've been toying with the last few weeks about the nature of Republican-ism.

Republicans are famously derisive of governmental powers and responsibilities. But with one glaring exception -- the military. in fact, in their current mis-adventure in the Middle East, they are endeavoring to accomplish every task -- building schools, caring for the sick, feeding the hungry, etc. -- solely with military resources. In many cases, those resources are in fact outside contractors (wouldn't want to leave out those poor shareholders!), but even they are largely militarized servants of the DoD. (And speaking of which, boy oh boy are we well defended! Who knew we faced such threats!).

Not just overseas. The only appropriate manifestations of the US Government to these loonies are military ones. That's why they've accepted such quasi-military icons as police and firemen. (Firemen!). Perhaps we can convince them on skycaps and doormen.

For reasons only their psychoanalysts could fathom, these authority-lovers see the only legitimate branch of government as the military. Imagine their surprise when young President Obama switches things around!

I really can't wait for these unreconstructed Birchites to return to their richly deserved place of ridicule and obscurity.

Accountability, Please

The DNC just bent over backwards to give props to the state delegations of Florida and Michigan. The so-called leaders of these state delegations -- the same maroons who decided to proceed with primaries in spite of a clear rule not to, and in spite of their sister states' respect for the same rule -- claimed that not seating these states' delegations would imperil our chances in the fall. So, seated they are.

Let's have an accountability moment, then. We were told that these guys needed this sop to win. They have it. Now, let's see them deliver Michigan and Florida this fall. If we don't carry them, I want to have an accountability moment and call these calls on the carpet.

Being right matters. Ignoring the rules, gaining special favor at the expense of your peers, pleading special circumstances just because one doesn't like the outcome, and then failing to deliver -- is not right.

Negative Attracts Negative

The great Chris “Mad Dog” Russo recently appeared on an HBO show hosted by the almost equally great Bob Costas to talk about the phenomenon of sports talk radio. Chris essentially plays as a character a louder, more combative version of himself on his talk radio show on WFAN in New York. But on Costas’ show, as I suspect in real life, Chris is a bright and insightful guy.

Russo made the point that sports talk tends to emphasize the negative. IF a NY sports team messes up, or a player messes up, his show will go on and on, beating a dead horse, analyzing the failure. On the other hand, of course, positive achievements are mentioned, analyzed and discussed, but far more rarely and far more briefly. Russo observed that negativity was simply inherent in the medium. It reminded me of Michael Moore’s observation about local news – the old “if it bleeds it leads.”

Whether there is something inherently negative in the non-fiction media, or whether the people who control it make it negative for other reasons, there can be no real doubt that such media does tend to emphasize and gravitate toward negative stories. I don’t think that this phenomenon began as a product of any kind of political bias.

However, of the two political parties, one has a similarly inherent negative bias. The Republican party, especially under the modern reign of the Reagan-Bush crowd, is inherently negative. Their political position is often summed up by friend and foe alike as “smaller government, lower taxes, less government intervention.” This is a critique – a negative reaction. Their whole movement is a nothing more than a sustained complaint.

In thinking about the way in which the media seems obsessed with giving Republicans positive coverage and the Democrats negative coverage, there are several important factors to consider. (Two current examples to consider: Obama’s pastor is nearly wall-to-wall, while McCain’s spiritual endorsers are barely covered, and McCain’s independently wealthy wife isn’t going to release her tax returns (no big deal), while John Kerry’s independently wealthy wife didn’t release her tax returns (scandal!).) Certainly the fact that Republicans hold reporters accountable for their stories in a way that the Democrats do not is such a factor. The fact that the media is controlled by people who are sympathetic to Republicans for business reasons is another. The fact that most beat reporters are in fact liberal and therefore end to overcompensate for their personal bias is another.

But I do think one such factor is this inherent negativity of the medium. The press likes to emphasize negative stories. It’s what they’re focused on. The Republicans are the party of Negative Stories. There’s a natural affinity between the media and the Republicans, a sort of symbiosis: the press needs negativity, the Republicans need air time. This is particularly true since their views are held by a stubbornly small minority, they need to whip up support more strenuously. Plus, their way of whipping up support is not to tout their own ideas (of which they have none), but rather to demonize and attack the Democrats – a perfect topic for the press, just as demonizing the hapless goalie or unlucky quarterback makes for compelling sports talk radio.

The press is likely to have an affinity for the Republicans as long as the Republicans remain addicted to their aggressively negative ways. Of course, this addiction may last forever, but there is always a chance that in their search for votes, the Republicans of the future may conclude that they need to develop some ideas of their own. As Judy Temuda (sp?) used to say “it could happen.” Right?

Update: A clear example of this is in this morning’s Washington Post. A story is prominently featured about a federal arts commission objecting to a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. as excessively confrontational and vaguely totalitarian. (It is being sculpted in China, to boot.) This negative story will receive far more play than the earlier positive story announcing the statue’s design in the first place.

You'd Be Scared, too

If you were Iran, you'd be worried, too.

This Guy

This guy, Arthur Silber, must get paid by the word, but his writing reflects both genuine insight as well as the level of outrage that I would have thought would be all-too-common by now.

I guess after America is completely lost people will get upset.

Some Things the President Says are NOT True

Tort reform is NOT the solution to the health care crisis.

Drilling for oil in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge is NOT the solution to our energy problems.

Large unfunded tax cuts to wealthy Americans will NOT address the crisis in job creation.

Al-Qaeda is NOT the greatest threat to US national security.

Sending a 2d aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf to menace Iran does NOT make us safer or reduce tensions in the area.

Finally, John McCain is NOT a maverick straight-talker.

Now you know what to think.

Audacity of Hope

Hard to see any reason to hope that 2008 will be any different than previous Presidential elections. The press' piling on the "Wright Affair" is just a sample of the nonsense that will be peddled throughout the election (no matter who the Democratic nominee is).

It's easy to blame the press, which no doubt bears a large share of the responsibility for ending the madness. But where are the Democratic 527's running Hagee ads? Where are the elected Dems who are calling on McCain to denounce, repudiate, etc.?

We cannot expect to be successful if we don't show vigor in our campaigns. Kerry came to be seen as ineffective in his responses to Swift Boat, just as Obama risks the same thing here. (And if HRC were the leader, or the candidate Republicans feared more, then she too would be portrayed as unable to stop the media firestorm over "Pardon-gate" or whatever phone-baloney controversy was ginned up to smear her.)

Unless a majority of individual voters is somehow able to form and elect leaders who are both committed to change and have the skills to bring change about, there's no hope. And so far, I'm not seeing anything like the necessary majority of voters. I want to believe in my fellow Americans and their essential goodness, but when I overhear them talking about Obama and Hillary, I wonder if there are enough open minds left...

A Pennsylvania Thought or Two

We’ve now managed to piss away some large amount of money – let’s call it $25 million, shall we? – on an mostly pointless contest in Pennsylvania. The silver lining, of course, is the energy created amongst Pa. Dems and new voters, which of course is not nothing. But I doubt many donors to either BHO or HRC would be happy to see their money going for a general energy-raising exercise.

Listening to Pa. voters, I’m struck by how disconnected they are from the reality of the Democratic race. I wouldn’t want to say how prevalent this attitude was, but many of the voices I heard in the media seemed to be choosing between the two as if either one might win.

I find it odd that so many voters were persuaded that HRC had a legitimate shot. It is surely a testament to her campaign effort that she was able to attract 55% of Pa. voters to what is surely a losing cause. It’d be like Huckabee winning Pa. (He did get 11%, and Ron Paul 14%!)

In fact, HRC’s best argument is one she dare not utter publicly: even as a dead certain loser, some 55% of Pennsylvanians were willing to throw their vote away on her.

I hope BHO now ceases firing HRC’s way and only focuses on McCain. I think that was their strategy before they got suckered into mounting a full-scale (but not, despite HRCs claims, a maximum-scale) effort in Pa. I think super-delegates will be impressed not only with his lead in the delegate count, but also at how effective his attacks against McCain are.

It’s time for BHO to declare victory in the battle for the nomination and move onto the general election. (He could also use a few days off, from the look of things in Pa.)

Accountability Free Media

Bill Clinton famously said that Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line. There you have it. The Republican party is behind their nominee, just as they always are. The problem is whether they can get the independents and swing voters who have come to loathe Bush.

Does anybody remember like two months ago when the Entertainment Media was dead certain that McCain was going to struggle with getting his right-wing on-board? I'm certain that Timmeh all the way to Howie and back again were 100% that McCain had a big problem on his hands with getting all those who hated him jazzed about his campaign.

No? No one remembers? Strange, I have this definite recollection...

What Do I Think?

I think we’re on the verge of a very long economic contraction. I think we have pretty much eaten our seed corn and are going to have many long cold winters ahead.

For many years, American businesses have relied as much on cost-cutting as they have on actual innovation and market expansion. There has been a steady drip-drip-drip of wealth being transferred from workers to shareholders. Whether via the on-going down-grading of working conditions (glamorous Manhattan offices to low-cost suburban-sprawl office parks, offices and desks to cubicles, lunches at nearby eateries to sandwiches at the desk, etc.), the slashing of financial compensation to workers (loss of pensions, loss of healthcare coverage, loss of wage increases), or just the introduction of numerous productivity enhancers (PCs/e-mail, cel phones, Nextel radios, etc.), the overall trend has been to squeeze value from workers – value that gets reflected in the company’s “performance.”

The problem with cost-cutting-as-growth is that it cannot go on forever. I heard a phrase a while ago that really stuck in my mind: “things that cannot go on forever don’t.” And I think we’re finding out the hard truth of that right now. American businesses can’t find much more to cut. There’s no place cheaper than rural China to out-source to. Low-cost reporters, paralegals and engineers in India are getting scarce. We already have our workers in cheap metal buildings with shaky heat/A/C. Businesses have gone to this well for likely the last time for quite some time.

So businesses must rely on innovation and market expansion for growth. But the problem is that it cannot come up with new products successfully. Besides making somewhat faster and cheaper laptops, what is Dell going to do? Sell TV’s? Refrigerators (see Blockbuster to Buy Circuit City)? The dread “service contracts”?

In considering what will our businesses do, we’re all inclined to think that through sheer power of will, good old American pluck, and a little bit of luck, we’ll pull through. After all, we’ve been slogging along for some time OK, and we’ve been OK. Plus, we’re optimistic people and tend to think things will work out OK just because it’s how we view the world. That doesn’t mean, however, that the world is going to conform to our perceptions of it.

We have spent that last 25 or more years squandering our future – a future that I believe is arriving now. We have decided to starve our government half-to-death, so that the majority of our social problems have as their root cause lack of adequate resources. I take this drive to “cut taxes” as another part of the general trend of transferring wealth from those with less (i.e., consumers of governmental services) to those with more (those who would otherwise be paying for those services).

We’ve gotten the idea into our heads that those with great wealth deserve every last penny of it, and have no real obligation to the rest of society. Reagan-Bush economic theory is that the more we give the best-off, the better off everyone else is. This is just plain wrong, but it’s easy to see why millionaires promote it as a serious political-economic philosophy.

We’ve failed to invest adequately in our education system, and now are falling behind because of it. We’ve failed to invest in our health, and are reaping the rewards in an epidemic of obesity and other treatable and preventable diseases and conditions. We have failed to invest in technology that would allow us to throw off oil dependency when it becomes no longer affordable.

We have weakened our governmental and public infrastructure so much that it will simply not be available to help its citizens when most needed. It will be years before our governments can be wrestled out of the hands of the super-rich and returned to the control of the majority of voters.

We have borrowed massively to pay for things we have merely consumed. It’s one thing to borrow $1,000,000 to build a factory. But to borrow $1,000,000 to pay for a huge picnic is quite another. And far too much of our borrowing has been for picnics, not enough for factories.

Perhaps worst of all, we have abandoned our sense of community. Ronald Reagan began the job of killing it when he announced that the relevant question is “are you better off today than you were 4 years ago.” He appealed to the divisions in our society, using fear of others as the basis for his politics. Wealthy people had always used some version of this “divide and conquer” approach, and Reagan breathed new life into it. He also ushered in an era when substance no longer mattered on any level, and hastened the “juvenilization” of our public discourse.

These same people have worked hard to ensure that America is isolated in the world. Americans have little interest in helping other nations. Americans have little interest in other nations, period. We’ve once again retreated to the castle keep and pulled up the drawbridges, hoping the world will leave us alone.

Our ability to be part of a meaningful community has been obliterated – taking away the one thing that Americans might otherwise use to weather the coming storm and make a better future.

For years, wags have warned that we were mortgaging our future. As a society, we mostly ignored these warnings. I think that the future is now, the bill is due, and we just don’t have the money to pay it.

I have hope that Sen. Obama will ascend to our leadership and be our generation’s FDR. But remember FDR didn’t make the crisis go away, he just helped us cope with it. And the crisis didn't end for 15 years -- and even then only following a catastrophic war.

Things No One Says, Pt. 543

“My attitude is that Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants,” Mr. Obama said. "

I more or less agree, though I wonder whether HRC isn't getting more than the benefit of the doubt? Time for "Shoe On the Other Foot."

A. Hillary leads -- I think the pressure on Obama would be immeasurably greater. There'd be a kind of "Oh, let him run, for Gawd's sake, he's inspirational and healing -- it shows we care about the Black vote."

B. McCain leads over a rival -- say Huckabee. Pretty much see A above. We all agreed that the Huckabee thing was basically harmless and cute, and since he was such a hoot on Colbert and SNL and stuff, let him go."

To me, HRC is getting a break. Whether it's because of her gender, her "insider" bona fides, her actual smarts and charm and humor (which are considerable), I couldn't say. But I do think mouthing the platitude about "let her run" reflects a bit of a break.

Rumsfeld Book Title Contest

Former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld is reportedly releasing a memoir.  Here are my suggestions for a title:

"Shit, I'm Sorry. I am So, So, So Very, Very Sorry."

"Buy This Book Or Don't -- I Already Got Paid"

"Bushed! How I Discovered that the 43d President of the United States Is Really Quite Dumb"

"It Was Cheney"

"Don: A Personal Journey to War Crimes And Back"

"Smokin! My Torrid Affair with Condi Rice"

"Ha! I've Got a God Damned Fortune. You?"

Post your own in the comments.   It's fun!

Sporting Event

"I don't view the Olympics as a political event," Bush said this past week. "I view it as a sporting event." The White House has not yet said whether he will attend the opening ceremony on August 8.

Mr. Bush thinks the Olympics are not political but only a sports event. I therefore propose that he not attend as his role as a former part-owner of a baseball team is an inadequate credential to represent American sports. I nominate Michael Jordan and Lance Armstrong to attend in his stead.

Power of Groupthink

For many years after the Viet Nam war, TV and movies had a field day with a stereotype of the Viet Nam vet as a unstable, flash-back-prone and quite violent.  Part of the appeal of this character as a plot device was that he was undeniably evil and violent, but it wasn't really his fault.  It was because of the weird Asian war he had had to fight.  In any case, we were told over and over again that Viet Nam vets were unstable mentally and emotionally.  (There was certainly some truth to the idea behind that stereotype in the sense that many Vets were plagued with post-battle disorders of various kinds, plus when they came home it seemed nobody was really interested in them, whereas their fathers had returned to a grateful society prepared to help vets get back into civilian life.)

If you want to try a thought experiment, how about a little "shoe on the other foot."  In today's edition, we're going to pretend that John Kerry was a Republican, and that John McCain was a Democrat.  What would the press make of that?

Obviously, McCain would be deemed by the press as simply too unstable for the American people to trust.  "Questions" about his fitness for office, especially in a moment of crisis, would "linger."  Even if Democrats were foolhardy enough to actually nominate him, the press would persist in showing every old clip they could find of Viet Nam vets in the shadowy jungles, and feature every MD and PhD they could find to talk about the high levels of PTSD and other disorders faced by practically all Viet Nam vets.

Kerry, on the other hand, would be complimented for his height and overall "military bearing."  We'd be shown clips of how he looked in uniform (and of course with his short hair), and we'd be told that his heroism and bravery in action were such that the Democrats would never look "strong" on "national defense."

"Shoe on the other foot" is one of my favorite games.  It almost always helps to highlight the mental handcuffs that limit most mainstream press people from thinking independently and critically.  On the next installment, maybe we'll do "If Hillary were a man," or "If Barack were white."  

Dumber than Dirt

Patrick McHenry, a Republican kook representing a district in Virginia, is dumber than dirt.

If you can watch this whole thing, the only possible reaction is that this clown is an embarrassment to his district and his party.  All I can think is that he never expected that anyone would see this drivel outside of the audience of supporters.

Forget "Issues" --Authenticity Is All That Matters

Jeff Feldman decries the rise of “authenticity.”

Americans, he says, should reject the very notion of authenticity in favor of that old traditional value, pragmatism. In fact, he has a highly pragmatic proposal for our leading Democratic Presidential contenders: they should call for “NATIONAL CONVENTION TO SOLVE AMERICA'S HEALTH CRISIS.” (Evidently, putting it in all-caps and in bold makes it more, um, pragmatic, I guess. Maybe it’s more “frame-shoppy.” I don’t really have a clue.)

Intending only to help a worthy cause, Jeff has managed to embody almost single-handedly why Democrats are so singularly unsuccessful – and unsuccessful they are, in light of the huge majorities of Americans who agree with what they say they want to do. Too bad because Jeff's a fighter on the side of the angels.

It’s often said that we Dems are left-brainers – verbal, analytical, plodding, meeting-holders. And on the whole I agree. The Right wants leaders, the Left wants a meeting.

Oh sure, it’s a grand and glorious tradition – and of course the reason why Democrats are so much better at “governing.” But it ain’t gonna get us the political movement we need. We don't lack for good ideas, or snappy labels (OK, maybe we do, but it's not what's killing us). And we surely don't lack for meetings, workshops, or national conventions.

FDR (and this next sentence always begins with FDR, doesn’t it?) was our last great leader. Of course, under 8+ years of his leadership, the nation remained more or less stuck in an economic depression. But what he offered the nation wasn’t successful government programs. He offered hope. He offered a sunny, upbeat personality that somehow let every American believe that we’d get through the crisis.

People who work on Madison Ave (as I sort-of do) know that commercials for Campbell’s Soup are not about soup. It doesn’t matter if it’s tomato-i-er, or higher in protein or lower in msg or sodium. What matters is that your mother loves you, and that you love your kids. “Lower Sodium” as a claim isn’t about sodium; it’s about showing how much you care.

Hillary Clinton is yet another in a long-line of deeply dislikable Democratic nominees. I believe she thinks the campaign is about health care, the war, improving education and the like. No matter how much she thinks that’s true, it isn’t. It just isn’t. The campaign is about which of these two candidates do we like better.

Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney are by almost any reasonable measure not likely to be good for most Americans as President. But people will like whichever one prevails. They’ll seem jovial and confident. They’ll come across as reasonable people who want the right thing. They’ll have a very good chance of winning the election.

McGovern. Dukakis. Mondale. Kerry. Gore-2000. These people were deeply dislikable, and went down to defeat. Carter seemed likeable in76, but after 4 years of grappling with the issues of the day, seemed to lack confidence in himself. (As opposed to Reagan, a dreadful President revered to this day.) And consider what they did to Bill Clinton—a likeable sort. Their entire campaign was not to make us think his policies weren’t good, it was to make us hate him.

The Republicans know how to sell soup. If we don’t learn, we’ll just keep on making the best soup no one buys.

Shameless Self-Promotion

OK, it's time to promote Comedywise's newest adventure, DepressingThoughtofTheDay.com. Frank Santopadre has been percolating this idea for quite a while, and it finally burst forth on June 1. You can subscribe to get it in your e-mail via the site, or grab it via Twitter.

Try a taste -- here's today's Daily Dose of Downer (tm)

Cigarette mascot Joe Camel debuts on this date in 1987. Underage smoking soon increases.

Enjoy! Tell your pals!

Whither Immigration?

I've been hearing comments like this from our brethern on the right:

Normally, I am the first in line to support my party and the President. The Immigration fiasco/sellout that President Bush and others are pushing has caused me to rethink things. I declined to donate anymore until immigration is fixed. By fixed I mean border control first-funded, built and staffed, then legalization/visas as separate law next. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Posted By W. Brucker, MD, Eau Claire, Wisconsin : June 18, 2007 5:16 pm

This was over on CNN.com.

For the life of me, I cannot begin to understand immigration outside of a frankly racist context.

I do not understand what Dr. Brucker, of Eau Claire for heavens' sake, is so excited about. We have any number of flagrant law violations in our society, but the "failure to control our border" seems to be especially irksome. Don't know why this is so. It wasn't, say, 18 months ago, nor for the previous 400 years that Europeans have been here. So I'm not sure why this is so urgent. (But then again, I was never clear on the urgency to confront Saddam Hussein's failure to adhere to the UN's instructions either. It must be me.)

Nor can I see why English is so damn important. Folks on the right are happy with the market shaping our society, at least when it comes to who can afford health care or higher education or have job security, etc. (Some of the most extreme want the government to stop regulating the purity of foods or the safety of consumer products on the grounds that the markets provide more effective and more efficient protection than the hated government regulation.) But when it comes to speaking a language, or regulating who can have sex with whom, etc., all of a sudden the market is irrelevant and there is a moral imperative.

People have been not speaking English on this continent since humans first came here. Since the founding of our little Republic, there has been constant and in many cases uninterrupted non-English speaking. And we have all survived. Why is it now all of a sudden critical to somehow or other find a way to inflict some kind of painful consequence on those who do not speak this particular language?

I fear that too large a proportion of our population has gone round the bend for good, much as happened in the 1830s-1860, when nearly half of us were 110% certain that any tinkering with slavery would assuredly cause the loss of everything of value, so much so that nearly half of us were ready to fight and die for it. Whatever one's views of the causes of the Civil War, it is certainly undeniable that bloodshed was unavoidable or desirable. It was stupid then, and the same insistence on sticking our heads in the sand now is just as stupid now.

Vive la Revolution!

Why Embrace Defeat?

The Democrats have reportedly agreed to drop timetables from their funding bill. And Democrats are claiming defeat. I can't for the life of me see why.

The Democrats should remove these timetables and declare it a Republican defeat. Not a Democratic one. We have not "caved." We brought pressure to bear in a situation where we lack the power to coerce a favorable result. There is not enough support from Republicans to force the President's hand. This failure to stop the war lies at the feet of Republicans unwilling to join us. Not with us.

To those who say we should simply stop funding the military, you will have to recognize that this is not a viable option. Our C-i-C would use that as a justification for all kinds of mischief. He'd put our troops into even further needless danger. He'd use the lack of funding as an excuse to blame the Democrats for losing the war -- a meme that could well find traction. After all, the Republicans are about to start a Presidential campaign in which they all are against the war, all are in favor of withdrawal as soon as possible, and united only by their belief that the problems we've had are the fault of Defeat-o-crats. And while we won a righteous victory in 06, do not expect your fellow Americans to suddenly stop buying the Republican line of crap. Nah. Gon. Hapn.

This Nails it

I wish I had the talent of James Wolcott. In this post's 2d paragraph, he articulates my thought about 10 times better than I ever could my self. The master writes:

The ashy clouds over Mordor have parted, my friends. It was only a year or so ago that the Permanent Republican Majority seemed not only a grim possibility, but a stark near-inevitability. Karl Rove's master plan seemed to have a mortal lock on the political future. So downbeat was the daily news and so dispiriting the performance of the Democrats in 2004 that I had internalized liberalism's permanent underdog status, consoling myself that at least I lived in a liberal city in a liberal state and had plenty of company in the commisseration ward. But I also took heart in Emerson's insight that everything looks permanent until it's secret is known; that invisible cracks form deep in even the sturdiest structures and over time will not be denied. But "over time" can be a long time. Decades, even. And so much would not survive that long a wait.

He then goes on, of course, to herald the start of a new era of progressive ascendency, massive change on the near-horizon.

Interesting Essay on Outsourcing

There's an interesting essay on Salon.com today about outsourcing. Go read it and come back.


Some of the commenters say David is a big cry-baby for giving up steak dinners and ice cream ("CEO-ness," I think someone said) To them I say: you have no idea what David has given up. I'd guess he's lost quite a bit more than mere perks. Certainly his ego and self-esteem have taken a beating.

Secondly, to those who feel that David was a fool for putting in $2M to a dying business -- well, all I can say is, "nice hindsight, buddy." Why would you think David, his father, the SBA and the banks are such fools? Wait -- I know why.

In our post-Reagan society, people who experience loss DESERVE to. David isn't unlucky, or a victim of circumstance. No, out individual-centric worldview demands that his fate be somehow his fault. So to those who condemn David for looting his Dad, or his Dad for believing in him: shut up. You are simply wrong.

Finally, to the anti-globalization crowd: David's right, there is no stopping it. Not via tariffs, not via regulations, not via anything. Do you think the US government would have allowed Detroit to export all those jobs in the 70's and 80's if it had a choice?

The so-called "race to the bottom" is a fact of our market-based economy. In fact, the process of seeking ever cheaper production is what drives our economy and always has. It's why Europeans invested in North America in the 17th century. It's why Phildelphia is crowded with office buildings built for companies who have long ago moved out or closed. It's why India is finding that it's ability to attract jobs is being undercut by lower cost providers in Manilla and Malaysia.

The lesson to be learned from all this one that David is just beginning to grasp. Our market-based system has been one of the great creations of humankind. Of course it has limits, and it must be carefully regulated to work to society's advantage. What's missing now is not market mechanisms, or tariffs, or a soul. What's missing now is the simple faith that the future will bring us new opportunities and new rewards. And this faith is, in my experience, largely a product of a society's leaders.

It's what endeared FDR to a couple of generations of Americans. It's what made JFK seem cool. It's what makes Obama seem cool. It's even, God help my immortal soul, what made people like Reagan (the evil bastard!).

David's bankruptcy lawyer was right. He's a young man, with obvious gifts. He'll survive, maybe even thrive again. The future's like globalization: there's no stopping it.

We would do well not only to recognize that but to embrace it. One of the posters commented that the government has robbed us to give money to defense contractors, etc. I think this is right. What we should be doing instead is investing that same money in our future. We should be saying to David and everyone else who is trying make their way, "we've got your back. Your healthcare is on us. Your kids' education is on us. You won't starve or become homeless." And we should do that not because we're interested in creating a class of people addicted to a nanny-state. We should do that because we believe in David and in each other.

If David were a stock, I'd be ready to invest (if I had any money, that is!). Our future can be a great and wonderful thing, but only if we let go of the past and start to invest in it by investing in ourselves.

Abu G

Mr. Gonzales' performance yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committee was by any standard preposterous.

Well, not by any standard. The President, the one person who matterswas pleased with the Attorney General’s testimony today.

I have this image of the President sitting in his office watching these old fuss-budget Senators fuming and sputtering and stewing and full of righteous indignation, and the President simply enjoying the fact that there is not one goddamned thing any of them can do about it.

Mr. Bush has nothing to fear from the electorate or even his own party. So long as Mr. Gonzales is willing, my bet is that the President continues what is for him a ritualistic humiliation of pompous blatherers.

Things We All Know

There are certain things We All Know. In fact, quite a lot of things. The best example of things We All Know is that we all know that there is not an old white man living in the sky who looks out for us specially. We All Know that there is not an invisible Jesus who tells us what to do if we just listen hard enough. Whenever I hear Jesus freaks ranting about religion, I think there is no one they are trying to convince as much as themselves. They know, deep down, the truth. Their religious talk is a desperate cover -- a cover they feel strongly about because they so want it to be true. Even the Rapture: what better fantasy than that any day – tomorrow, even – one might awake to find all earthly cares swept away and replaced by truly transcendent bliss.


When these folks see secular media, they see a world that mocks them. The people they see on TV, movies, etc., are well off, educated, part of a meaningful group doing meaningful things, etc. They feel excluded from that mainstream society, and understandably they scorn it, mock it. And their legitimate feelings are manipulated and exploited by conniving men and women who see these dispossessed souls as a pool of money and votes to be commandeered for their own nefarious purposes, generally involving big houses, swimming pools and the odd private jet.

We need to acknowledge that these folks are our fellow Americans, and that those of us still feeling part of the mainstream have failed them terribly. Perhaps we have blame for defining society in such a way that it doesn’t include them. Perhaps we deserve blame for not fighting to address their real needs. Perhaps we should be ashamed that we have not treated them with the respect they deserve. There’s no shortage of blame. Only a shortage of clear paths to a better future.

There are a lot of Things We All Know. We all know that our society has lost the will to address our most pressing problems, even to the point of allowing our fellow citizens to die for lack of a modicum of health care. We seem uninterested in preparing tomorrow’s citizens for the world as it will exist. We seem determined to treat the least of us as a pariah whose misfortune is morally justified and whose amelioration is surely not our responsibility.

We All Know that the current regime is not in the least bit interested in doing what’s best for the voters. We All Know that the conservative movement is not really interested in lowering taxes, or reducing the size of government, or for preserving individual liberty, or for walking softly and carrying a big stick. We All Know that too many Democrats and most Republicans are so enthralled with the comforts of access to plentiful cash that they cannot be counted on to turn their backs on their paymasters and take up the cause of the people they purport to represent. We All Know This.

For today, let me point out something We All Know. We All Know that the President and his party have absolutely corrupted the US Attorney corps, just like they corrupted every other part of the executive branch. We Also All Know that the Attorney General was and is no innocent victim in this. By shifting the story repeatedly, We All Know these people are showing a guilty conscience. Finally, We Also All Know that however satisfying it may be to see Mr. Gonzalez removed in disgrace, the truth is he was a dutiful soldier, carrying out the wrongful instructions of his principal, whose continuing presence in the Oval Office is an embarrassment to us all.

Comedywise on Gothamist

The Gothamist.com has an interview up with yours truly and my partner Frank Santopadre. More press for Comedywise!

The Trouble We're In

Gary Kimaya writes a nearly perfect encapsulation of the thinking of many on the left, "Is There Life After Bush?"

Like so many, Kamiya has become so focused on the excesses of the Bush administration, he has a hard time seeing the bigger picture. Which unfortunately is quite grim.

Back when South Carolinians were electing the 90+ year old Strom Thurmond, I used to joke (mostly) that the problem wasn't Senator Thurmond but rather the people who kept voting for him. Indeed, I used to propose that states or other jurisdictions which made obviously foolish choices -- choices that were not merely unwise or foolish, but choices that bespoke a fundamental lack of judgment such as sending an obviously incompetent man to the Senate -- should be penalized by having the right to send a representative suspended for some time, say 10 years.

The point of this was to focus blame where it belonged: on the people hiring these guys. And as awful as these guys can be (I'm talking to you, Junior Bush), they aren't the problem. The problem is our fellow Americans who keep voting for them. And they're not going anywhere.

In some imporant ways, people like this have been here since the Puritans landed. There have been sporadic clashes between these forces and the rest of the nation as long as there has been a nation.

But what's happening lately takes this to a new level. This slice of America is becoming radicalized as it is becoming organized and entrenched. It is a religious phenomenon, but it is also unmistakably a political and cultural phenomenon. Alexandra Pelosi's Friends of God offers a compelling glimpse of the alternative society now growing withing our larger society: a distinctively militaristic and persecuted society, in which almost any measures are acceptable because they are mandated by God (whose word is delivered by humble servants like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell). It is a society that proclaims its commitment to Christianity while it actively works to thwart Christian values.

Unfortuantely, the harm is not confined to the many good people who have been fooled into buying into this nonsense. No, this pool of people is an ocean of gasoline waiting for a match. And the flames will threaten us all.

In "American Fascists," Chris Hedges describes this movement. Comparing it to movements he witnessed in other parts of the world, he told Salon

Those of us in New York, Boston, San Francisco or some of these urban pockets don't understand how radically changed our country is, don't understand the appeal of these buffoonish figures to tens of millions of Americans.

This build-up of fear and hate, of expressed longing for a cataclysm that will finally give their lives the meaning they now lack, will not just go away when Bush goes away. No, as Hedges told Salon

It takes time to acculturate a society to a radical agenda, but that acculturation has clearly begun here, and I don't see people standing up and trying to stop them.

So the problem, friends, is not merely this or that horrendous politician or preacher. The problem is with our fellow Americans themselves. Bush didn't vote himself into office (Supreme Court or no, the man got a lot of votes.) Bush is the symptom of a much larger problem we will have to confront -- sooner or later.

God in America

A lot of talk about religion in our society these days. The thing that always strikes me is that the people with the most passion in their assertions about God, Jesus and all the rest are mostly trying to convince themselves.

Watched Alexandra Pelosi’s “Friends of God” on HBO, and was struck by this with renewed force watching Ted Haggard, who was earnestly explaining how great it was to be a heterosexual Christian because of all the great sex within marriage. I can’t believe he was trying to convince anyone as much as he was himself.

Alexandra showed us all manner of Pharisees and scribes, all of whom were fixated on telling other people what God wanted. (Evidently, He is much consumed with marriage.) I seem to recall the New Testament as being fairly clear that faith is something that is personal and that the important part is what is between each person and God.

So I’m fairly certain that all this talk about God and religion is in fact not really connected to religion at all. If someone really has faith, I’m not sure what’s gained by talking about it.

U-Turn Coming!

It appears that Dear Leader is preparing for one of his trademarked long-overdue U-turns. Having bad judgment as a part of his fundamental nature, the President has often had to reverse his initial wrong positions. Lots of folks have to make frequent corrections to their views owing to mistakes out-of-the-gate, and it’s to their credit that they do so.
But the Current Occupant manages to couple this U-turn habit with a stubborn hubris that makes them long-overdue as well as a condescendingly dismissive attitude towards those who try to point out the error of his ways.
So folks, as we all await anxiously the release of the ISG report, let me tell you What To Think.
Bush has never hesitated to abandon previously held positions, even (especially?) when they were held with seeming certitude that he would never abandon them. Here’s some quick examples, many from this excellent list:

CHIP Program (Texas Governor)
Patient Bill of Rights (Texas Governor)
Nation Building
Protecting Social Security Surplus
Steel Tariffs
Clean Air Standards for Power Plant Emissions
Storage of Nuclear Waste at Yucca Mountain
Assault Weapons Ban
McCain Feingold Campaign Finance Reform
Creation of Homeland Security Department
Creation of a 9/11 Investigation Commission
Testifying before 9/11 Commission
Rice Testifying before 9/11 Commission
Giving 9/11 Commission deadline extension
Creation of WMD Investigation Commission
Finding WMD’s in Iraq
Iraq connection to 9/11
Winning the War on Terror
Friendship with Enron CEO Ken Lay
Need to Capture Bin Ladn
Power of Intelligence Chief to control intelligence budgets
UN Approval of Iraq Invasion
Federal Government regulation of marriage
“Jawboning” OPEC to lower oil prices
Staying the course in Iraq
Warrants for Wiretapping

So one thing seems certain: Bush will almost certainly reverse course on Iraq. If I’m wrong, there are plenty of folks who can cry “I Told You So.” And my guess is that Bush will go into his “Stem Cell Decidin’” mode: he’s getting lots of advice from the best people, and will soon tell the press he is going to make a Decision, and he’ll go on national TV and announce that he has no intention of reversing course and anyone who says he does is a dirty liar, and then he’ll announce a series of steps that, taken together, amount to reversing the course.

We’ll see what happens. The move might even revive his flagging popularity. It's hard to believe -- as much as one might want to -- that a President's approval ratings could be so low for so long. But you never know.

And that, my friends, is What to Think.

The Day After

Whew. My faith in my fellow Americans, sorely tested these last years, is restored. Our democracy lives. Maybe "survives," in light of the many blows it has taken.

The evil cretins who have control of the Republican party will always be with us. When I was younger, we referred to them as "John Birchers," and the Red States were called the "Bible Belt." These people are at the end of the day our fellow Americans, and will be with us moving forward.

When their influence is on the wane, we can progess. We they are ascendent, we go backwards. Their day, for now, has come and gone.

Sure, they'll continue to blame everything on Nancy Pelosi (funny how they didn't demonize Majority Leader Reid), Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton. But their attacks won't work if Americans don't buy into their schtick.

And after this cycle, it seems clear that Americans are looking to move beyond the politics and fear and hatred that have marked our politics for the last 10 years.

A corner has been turned. We move forward from here.

What to Think...About the Election

Let it not be said ("Nay! Nay!") that I did not commit to electronic form my predictions for tomorrow's midterm elections. So, before they go into the mayonnaise jar on Funk & Wagnall's back porch, here are the Answers in Advance(tm):
1. Eppes, in Sc-5th Senate, cruises to easy election. Frank's good humor and great common sense will be evident to the 97% of voters who have either met him or seen him from a distance, up to 1/4 mile depending on visibility. A win for the good folks of the SC's 5th Senate District. And a great relief to Frank's law partner, who will now have several good days a month in the office to himself.
2. The US House of Represenatives, where the good Dems will net gain 26 seats to re-claim the majority. This will allow Republicans a good chance to blame every thing that goes wrong -- including Alex Rodriguez' lack of clutch hitting -- on the Democratic House. Soon, everything that is not Bill Clinton's fault will be Nancy Pelosi's fault. Welcome to Scape-goat Land, Speaker Pelosi.
3. US Senate -- Repubs hang on by a thread. The brave and true Dems will pick up just 4 seats here, with Tenn and Mo (as well as Ariz) staying red.
4. NY Comptroller -- Alan Hevesi beats with several points of margin Republican Non-Criminal Chris Callaghan. I heard Mr. Callaghan this morning on WNYC, and he is in so far over his head it ain't funny. I'd prefer the vaguely comeptent criminal to the hubris, naivete and incompetence of Saratoga County's proudest fiscal officer.
5. Studio 60 -- Sorry, Charile, but this show's toast. An interesting and noble effort from Mr. Sorkin, but Sports Nite it ain't.

Well, I think that's enough, don't you? Stop by tomorrow and witness the amazing accuracy of my Answers in Advance(tm).

Home Stretch

The die is likely already cast. Even a fake dust-up over john Kerry's typically obscure remarks is unlikely to make a difference.

The House seems in the bag at this point. As for the Senate, it seems that it's coming down to 3 races: Virginia, Tennessee and Missouri (Webb, Ford and McCaskell). We would need to get all three to win, barring an unforeseen upset elsewhere.

Even so, no doubt a Dem victory in the House will allow conservatives a wonderful opportunity to re-load. For the last six years, everything bad has been more or less Bill and/or Hillary Clinton's fault: 9/11, recession, stock market crash, poor job growth, the coddling of North Korea, Iran and Iraq, global warming, etc. But starting next Wednesday, everything can be the fault of Speaker Pelosi and the Obstructionist House.

So, we'll have all new vitriol and all-new hyperbole. Let's remember, even if we get the White House and the Senate in 08, these clowns will continue to bitch and moan that everything we are and everything we do is wrong, un-American, etc. They did that when they were the kooky John Birchers, and they'll do that long after George W. Bush has been unanamously elected Worst President Ever. It's what they do. It's our challenge to ignore them and marginalize their impact as much as we can.

P.S. This November 7th, lucky residents of SC's 5th Senate District get the honor of casting their votes for the estimable Frank Eppes. Those lucky dogs!

I've Just Got To Say This...

You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.

-- A. Lincoln.

Doesn't this explain perfectly the implosion of the conservative movement that is underway? The whole thing is a con job, and it can work on some people all the time (the 30+5 who will always think GWB is a great man), and it can even work on all of the people some time (all those who voted for the movement these past five years), but at the end of the day, the body politic ain't that stupid and will wake up.

I've long maintained that when this movement failed it would be all at once, in a kind of "emperor has no clothes" moment.

That moment may be at hand. (It may not.) But the forces of light, reason and righteousness will have their day, and in the end, as ever, will triumph.

Now if we could just get this idiot Tom Kean Jr. to lose...

God Lives!

From today's Greenville News:

Eppes, who took 534 votes, for 91 percent, said he expects the runoff to bring more attention to the race, but his campaign is about getting out and meeting the voters. He said he doesn't have "time to fret about the opposition." He said education is the most important issue.

So you see, there is a God. Now let's see what happens in the general election.

A Giant Strides onto the Political Stage

The Greenville News continues it's coverage of the great Frank Eppes' drive to the South Carolina State Senate. Here's my favorite bit:

Democratic candidate Frank L. Eppes said he believes in "putting people in front of politics.

"One of the reasons I'm running for office is that I get so doggoned annoyed with people who just do lock-step stuff for their party that they know is bad because they say, 'Well, if I don't, the party leaders are going to fuss at me.' Well, that's absurd," he said.

"It's not what you're elected to do. You're elected to use your judgment and do what's best."

Frank Eppes. Strongly doggoned annoyed with those that fuss at him. And my hero.

And get a load of the other guy seeking his party's nomination, Charles Winfield (who I'm 99% certain was never on MASH). Just a few short months ago, he seemed pretty certain he was a Republican:

Eppes faces one challenger in the Democratic primary. Charles E. Winfield ran as a Republican in the June primary for the Greenville County Council seat being vacated by Mark Kingsbury, losing to Willis Meadows. Previously, he ran against Tommie Reece in the non-partisan school board elections, finishing third in a three candidate race. Now he has filed to run as a Democrat. The odds would appear to greatly favor Eppes in the primary, but he says he’s taking nothing for granted.

That's right: finished thrid in a field of three for school board. Now that's hot stuff. Surely the future of South Carolina, right there.

If you can legally vote in SC's 5th Senate district tomorrow, do the Right Thing and send Frank one step closer to the Senate. And don't forget to send him some money -- it's what makes campaigns go.

What have I learned from/since 9/11

Monday we celebrate the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. The media is awash in efforts to mark the occasion with something of meaning. I hear lots of “ordinary” Americans weighing in with how 9/11 affected them. One, not so ordinary, I suppose, is the President, who keeps saying the attacks changed fundamentally how he looked at the world. He says it gave him a new appreciation for the dangers that threaten us (I guess from abroad). The President’s rhetoric on this seems to me to be essentially a mask for the huge wave of guilt that must wrack his bones every day, knowing that this not only happened on his watch, but was in no small part due to his flippant attitude toward this threat. It speaks volumes to me that he shows no trace of humility, just hubris, condescension and thinly-veiled contempt (redirected away from himself, I’ll bet).

I hear other people talk about how 9/11 affected them mostly by making gas more expensive, or their business or jobs less stable or secure. I hear people say they, like the President, have a new-found fear of violence. Others profess a new-found hatred for Islam, or Arabs, or “extremists” or foreigners.

It seems the time has come once again for me to tell you What To Think, so here goes.

9/11 will be seen as a watershed event in both American and world history. (The two strains of history to undoubtedly merge at some distant point, much like Mercian and Cambrian history is now just early British history.) However, the effects caused by the terrorists – the deaths, injuries, damage – are negligible compared to the effects caused by our own fearful response. Perhaps the fate of thousands of Iraqis was sealed in November of 2000 when the US Supreme Court awarded the Presidency to George W. Bush. There’s a considerable body of evidence that he planned a military toppling of Saddam Hussein long before he was appointed to office. It may be that had 9/11 never occurred – had an alert security guard made a lucky call, had an FBI supervisor made an extra call, had a conspirator chickened out and gone state’s evidence – Mr. Bush would have found some other pretext for invading Iraq. And perhaps it was always part of his thinking that Afghanistan would have to be invaded also to ensure their cruel regime was a threat no more. Truly, a what-if scenario ripe for a talented alternative-history author to exploit.

I have learned since 9/11 that many of my fellow Americans can be cowardly, self-centered, childish and utterly rule by fear. I have learned that the deaths of thousands of innocents count for nothing if they are far away, not white, and not presented visually. I have learned just how far Ronald Reagan’s Culture of Me has permeated huge swaths of our society.

I have learned that the fundamental lessons of life – for individuals as well as societies – must be continually relearnt. We have allowed the powerful free rein in ordering our society’s affairs, with the not-too-surprising result that their share of our wealth has risen steadily at the expense of everyone else.

I have learned that powerful and corrupt people can use people’s natural fears as a most unnatural tool to deprive them of their security. And I have learned that resisting these people is a struggle without end.

I have also learned that terrorism is fundamentally a police matter. It is combated not through invasions or rockets or tank battalions. It is fought via intelligence, interrogations, taking precautions.

As grave a threat as terrorism is, it is on a par with other crimes – serious indeed, but no basis on which to organize our society. I write from Lower Manhattan, blocks away from the New York Stock Exchange. It’s fears for its security has led it to turn several blocks around it into an armed encampment. A variety of barricades block the streets and sidewalks. Meantime, the effects of 9/11 in this neighborhood are apparent in the nearly empty sidewalks, many fewer lunch spots, the surplus of seating in the parks.

And the future is being built, make no mistake. Under the guise of “re-building,” the ancient transport infrastructure is getting a face lift and a series of undistinguished office buildings are being built. A huge memorial is planned, that will add even more dead space to a part of our town that is already swimming in memorial spaces. The design of the "towers" says nothing to me so much as “cowering.” Where once the height of an office building was an unabashed metaphor for a society’s dreams, now the height of the office building is a signal that we must not raise our heads above the crowd for fear that a terrorist will lop it off.

In yet another alternative universe, our political or business leaders (remember when captains of industry had moral force in society?) would have stoutly called for defiance in the face of fear. “Letting the terrorists win” would have meant building exactly the kind of demure buildings we are now planning, and not failing to keep your Visa card near it’s maximum, as Mr. Bush has it.

By our ignorance and apathy, we have come, once again, to live in a dangerous time. Politics seems to so many of us an a minor annoyance, kind of like sports but not as engaging. But the truth is the actions of state actors like Mr. Bush and his Russian, British, Iranian, Afghani, Pakistani, Israeli and Iraqi counterparts are the stuff of which conflagrations are made. It is not the actions of murderous crooks like Osama Bin Ladn, or the man who killed Crown Prince Ferdinand almost a century ago, that cause massive devastation and tragedy.

We live in a democratic nation, as do many others around the world. We are often reminded that we have a civic duty to vote and read the paper. It’s kind of like the cajoling to eat healthier and exercise more: it’s undeniably good advice, but failing to heed it has consequences that are quite remote and quite easy to dismiss. But like the oft-ignored health advice, our failure to adequately supervise our government can over time have disastrous, even life-threatening, consequences.

What I’ve learned since 9/11 is that too many of my fellow Americans seem unprepared for the awesome responsibility of self-government. It may be that the ominous storm warnings will be enough to bring enough of them around to create a kind of tipping point. Our history has been, however, that Americans allow the government to get too far away from them before asserting their will, with fairly uniformly disastrous consequences. I’m just not sure that the disaster level is kicked up high enough for enough Americans to reassert their authority. Come this November, we’ll find out.

Frank Eppes for Senate - SC - 5th Dist.

The great Frank Eppes is finally running for office. The fates have smiled on him and given the incumbent state senator a dibilitating condition, forcing his untimely resignation. And creating an open seat. Frank has swung into action and is the favorite to win the Democratic primary, and given good odds in the general. The retiring incumbent switched from "D" to "R" in 2000, so Frank's win would swing this conservative district back into the blue.

I've found some background on Frank's campaign in "Metrobeat," a section of the "Upstate Beat." Political writer and comumnist James Shannon provides good background in this August 22 piece:

According to Ecclesiastes, for everything there is a season – and our eyes and ears tell us this is so. When athletes remain on the field of play as their abilities wane, we suffer along with them. Visions of a hobbled Joe Namath in a Los Angeles Rams uniform or a depleted Willie Mays in the New York Mets outfield were all the more painful because we so vividly remembered them in their prime.

The same holds true in politics. Recall the final years of Strom Thurmond’s career in the US Senate, when as a colleague gently observed, he was “no longer mentally keen.” Another long-running political career ended recently when state Sen. Verne Smith of Greer resigned his seat after a storied career in the General Assembly that began when Richard Nixon was president. This was no long goodbye, however. Through the 2005 legislative session, Smith remained a force in Columbia. 2006 was a different story, as illness kept him away from the daily business of the Senate. Although his term would not expire until 2008, he decided to step down.

A special election will be held to pick his successor, with Democratic and Republican primaries on September 19. The winners will face off on November 7. Verne Smith often said his role in government “was to help the raggedy-ass children and frail elderly.” They can only hope whoever wins the seat has the same commitment to those without access to the corridors of power.

He leaves some big shoesto fill, and not just because he was a large man in physical size. In a political arena increasingly populated by narrow ideologues and self-interested sycophants, Verne Smith was a giant. This lends added importance to the choice voters will make in the Fifth Senate District, and an examination of the candidates reveals some curious undercurrents.

On the Republican side, Rep. Lewis Vaughn would have to be considered the front-runner. He has served in the House since 1989 and chaired the Greenville County delegation when he announced earlier this year that he would not seek reelection. His “retirement” quickly ended, and he announced he would seek the Senate seat on the day Smith resigned. Vaughn’s ambitions for higher office are no secret. In 2003, when Jim DeMint indicated he would give up his seat in Congress to run for the US Senate, Vaughn publicly said he wanted to run but garnered no real support despite a reputation as a rabid GOP partisan.

Expect to hear a lot between now and November about candidates embracing the legacy of Verne Smith, but one area where Vaughn and Smith part company concerns vouchers that transfer public money to private schools. Smith was a strong supporter of public education, while Vaughn was perhaps the leading promoter of “school choice” in the General Assembly. Although the initiative called Put Parents In Charge went down in flames in 2005 and was pulled off the legislative agenda in this election year by Gov. Mark Sanford, it has not gone away. Campaign finance records confirm an avalanche of cash flowing into the Sanford and Karen Floyd coffers from out-of-state voucher advocates, and there is a reasonable expectation that Vaughn will ride that same gravy train. In a district with excellent public schools in Greer, Travelers Rest and Blue Ridge, it will be interesting to watch Vaughn try to convince voters that tax money needs to be removed from those schools in favor of affluent private schools and Christian academies.

The other Republicans running in the primary have taken notice of Vaughn’s presumed front-runner status, and appear to be attempting to move even further to the right – if that’s possible. Kathleen Jennings Gresham describes herself as the first female prosecutor in the Upstate, but she was disbarred in 1996 following numerous allegations including misrepresentation and forging a signature on a document. She is waging an aggressive campaign, taking Vaughn to task for failing to sign a pledge not to raise taxes. This is a gimmick frequently trotted out by ultra-conservative candidates trying to put their opponents on the spot. Gresham’s yard signs contain the slogan “Share the Vision,” although what that vision is remains unclear. Her radio commercials emphasize her gender, asserting she is not part of the “old boy” network. Hey, she’s a woman.

Also on the ballot is Timothy Macko, described as an accountant and graduate of Bob Jones University. It turns out Macko has experience in elective office, serving six years in the New Mexico legislature. On the one hand, the Bob Jones connection should not be discounted, especially in a GOP primary in the Upstate. On the other hand, New Mexico may as well be France to more provincial area voters.

The fourth GOP candidate in the race is Michael Meilinger, reportedly a certified public accountant. Meilinger did not participate in a recent debate of GOP candidates at Greenville Tech, and no further information had surfaced at press time. Beyond Vaughn’s built-in advantage as a well-known incumbent who has secured the support of virtually all the establishment Republicans in the district, the primary race is difficult to handicap. But after 18 years in office, Vaughn has undoubtedly made some enemies. If Jennings or Macko can assemble enough malcontents and wing-nuts to push Vaughn into a run-off, then all bets are off. But Lewis Vaughn looks like a safe bet in the GOP primary.

Things get a little more complicated on the other side of the aisle, not least because Verne Smith was a Democrat until 2001. When he changed parties, the Senate was evenly divided among Republicans and Democrats, with Republican Lt. Gov. Bob Peeler holding the tie-breaking vote. Although many Democrats – reportedly including Smith’s son Jeff – disagreed with the decision, he believed he could more effectively serve the people of his district as a Republican. Verne Smith did not change his beliefs, only the letter after his name.

What makes this discussion interesting is the emergence of a Democratic candidate making his first run for public office who vows to implement a “pro-education, pro-business agenda that shuns partisan, political game-playing and puts people first.” His name is Frank Eppes, a well-known attorney and the son of former Circuit Court Judge Frank Eppes. The funeral of Judge Eppes in 2002 has been described as one of the watershed political events of the decade, as the meek and the mighty gathered in large numbers to pay tribute to a man who touched countless lives. “My father loved people, and he loved helping people,” says Frank Eppes. “If it was in his power to help them, he’d do it whether he knew them well or not. I hope I can live up to that legacy.” The wild card in this election is that voters may have a chance to choose a successor who embodies the core values of the man they seek to replace. “Strom Thurmond and Verne Smith shared one important trait that I always admired,” recounts Eppes. “When someone asked for their help, neither man ever applied any kind of litmus test or asked about political affiliation. An effective legislator shares our values, speaks our language and understands the things that matter most to us. An effective legislator does what is best and right for people because it is best and right. While no one will be able to fill Senator Smith’s shoes, we certainly have the right model to follow.” Eppes faces one challenger in the Democratic primary. Charles E. Winfield ran as a Republican in the June primary for the Greenville County Council seat being vacated by Mark Kingsbury, losing to Willis Meadows. Previously, he ran against Tommie Reece in the non-partisan school board elections, finishing third in a three candidate race. Now he has filed to run as a Democrat. The odds would appear to greatly favor Eppes in the primary, but he says he’s taking nothing for granted.

Should Eppes and Vaughn win their respective primaries, expect the November election to focus on the issues – especially education – to give voters a real choice. According to Eppes, “Public education is the most important function of state government. I support our public schools and the dedicated teachers, principals and parents who serve our children so tirelessly. Using tax dollars to fund private school vouchers steals from our public schools, which hurts our children and our future.”

Eppes is an imposing man, standing 6’10” tall and solid as a rock. But it is the solidity of his convictions that make him a worthy candidate to succeed Verne Smith in the South Carolina Senate. It’s not easy to fill the shoes of a giant.

Digby reminds us that the media are a part of the problem, and asks how do we fix it. My answer?

We ARE fixing it.
The media are easily led. Hell, even dopes like Dick Nixon and Karl Rove can do it.
It starts by constantly calling BS on them. Unfortunately, a bunch of bloggers aren't adequate to the job: we need elected officials to be on board. And that's why, just like the conservatives did starting the in 60s, we progressives are taking over the Democratic party. People like Biden and Clinton and Kerry and Edwards have been called losers so often they've started to believe it themselves. We need a new class of elected Dems who think of themselves as the next generation of American leadership. And they're on the way. (Ned Lamont, I'm talking to you!)
The other thing we have to start is to push a narrative that has nothing to do with the RNC's narrative. If we can get some elected Dems to start pushing our own talking points, the press will come along. How about a press conference with every Democratic governor, where they all pledge to deliver health care access to all their citizens? Or a group of Decocratic senators put out a press release calling for the implementation of a college education tax credit? And that's all they talk about for a while...coverage will come around at some point.
And the good news is that we are doing all these things already! We look around and see darkness and despair. But if we just look ahead a little, there is light and hope. The movement we're building is accelerating fast. The progess we've made -- the blogs, Air America, the tidal wave of smart liberal books, etc., etc. -- is paying off already.
Victory will not long be denied the righteous. Just ask President Lincoln.

The always wonderful Digby posts this today:

I think that until we grapple with the fact that this is the real nub of the problem we will get nowhere.

The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We must not only let them alone, but we must somehow, convince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning of our organization, but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this has had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince them, is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them.These natural, and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly - done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated - we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas' new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.

So too, today, we must ask the question, "what will satisfy them?" Will it be to ban gay marriage? Outlaw abortion? Destroy the public schools? Institute mandatory prayer? Deport all non-English speakers? I don't think so. It certainly will not be enough to nominate a conservative, born again southern Democrat. We did that. His name was Jimmy Carter. Here's what they are still doing to him even 25 years later. We nominated a son of the "New South," modern, moderate and pro-business. They impeached his ass.

I think this analysis is wonderful, and parallels my own thinking in many ways. But the premise is not thought-through quite to the most basic level, namely that the reason our Red friends have this overpowering sense of resentment is not because they sense our disapprobation. It is because they sense their errors in themselves. It is they who insisted on the aristocratic electoral college/senate compromise as the price of admission. It is they who brutally oppressed a race of their fellow humans (don't think they were unawares, or believed for two seconds their fig leaf justifications). And now, it is they who don't educate their children, who don't refrain from child-bearing until later, who tolerate crushing poverty amongst their fellow citizens. And they get to be reminded every night when they watch tv or a movie that those of us in Blue America are better educated, have nicer homes, live better, etc. And their entirely understandable reaction is this sense of defensiveness, this way of projecting their feelings of inferiority onto us as a claim that we are lording it over them.
The reason why this is important is that it shows a key -- maybe even THE key -- to a successful strategy of getting them to join us in moving the nation forward. We must show empathy for their challenges. We must never gloat or lord it over them (as so many blog readers seem to). We must never, ever forget that there is no moving forward without these people. They are our friends and our colleagues. They are our loud brother-in-law at Thanksgiving. They are our, at the end of the day, our fellow citizens and our partners in building a national life, and we must respect them.
Which means respecting them enough to call bullshit on those that exploit them -- the Bushes, the Dobsons, the Robertsons. These people are cynical abusers of our fellow citizens, and we do them no favors by either emulating them by pandering, nor ignoring their crimes by being silent.
A successful national progressive candidate does not need to be from the South. He or she simply needs to be 100% free of any sense of condescension, and must demonstrate total empathy for the challenges of all Americans.

The Preznit on Border Security?

Sheesh. The Preznit goes on tee vee to Explain How Immigration Works. And we are treated to what I understand is a RNC infomercial. Shameless mugging for the racist ranks. And many in the press see right through the dog and pony show.

Oh, but not the NY Times' own Elisabeth Bumiller. She has ingested some powerful kool-ade. For her, not an effort to mend fences with the racist base. Oh no. To Elisabeth, the talk "reflected the subtle approach of a man shaped by Texas border-state politics and longtime personal views. reflected the subtle approach of a man shaped by Texas border-state politics and longtime personal views. "

Oh. I see. Not shameless pandering at all. Just reflective talk from the nation's deep thinker.

And here I thought he was an idiot. Thanks to the NY Times and Elisabeth Bumiller for clearing that up.

What To Think on Immigration

The President is a big fat lying faker.

There. I've said it. But how do I know it's true?

"Bush budget scraps 9,790 border patrol agents"

Instead of 2,000 new agents a year, the Preznit decided to cut 1,790 of them in his 2006 budget. And no commitment for the remaining 8,000.

So, sending a few coupla thousand National Guardsmen only partially restores his previous cuts.

Of course, expect plenty of media coverage of this interesting tidbit. (The foregoing statement was intended as a joke.)

So tonight the Preznit will explain to us How Immigration Policy Works. Should be entertaining.

And truthfully, it ought to help with his polling numbers. If it doesn't have much of an impact, or if it impacts him negatively, then Americans is large numbers will have arrived at this place I've been for a long time: they just can't stand the sight of the man.

The Deal on Colbert

All right already, I'll tell you What To Think about Colbert's massive diss of the Preznit. The video is available here.

If you make fun of a fat guy for being fat, it's may be funny-ish, but the yuck is tempered by the awkward feeling. If you make fun of a smart guy for being dumb, we can all enjoy the vitriol and hyperbole. Colbert is an American hero. I hope one day one of my grandchildren graduates from Colbert High. And I'm dee-lighted to say that he was not perceived as funny in the room and was terribly awkward.

He was making fun of the fat guy for being fat -- or, the dumb guy for being dumb. He spoke the truth to these people, and they knew it. They felt ashamed, deservedly so.

It may be that his performance is as close to a Have you no sense of decency, sir? moment as we are likely to ever get.

I do believe, for the 329th time in the last four years, that a corner has been turned culturally. The Preznit's little dog-and-pony show won't work any more. The next scary evil monster -- from Mexicans to a reprise of the evil Ruskies -- is likely to be met with incredulity.

And we can thank the valuable role of ridicule, sarcasm, satire and humor for some of this change in our culture. Dave Letterman banging away at Bush. Stewart, Colbert, the same.

The truth has always been a powerful ally, and we are seeing it in action once again.