Month: February 2008

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● RealClearPolitics.com – Obama leads in National Poll by 7.5 pts
● Gallup Daily – Democrats Primary Election 2008

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

Hard to believe, I know, but Straight Shooter McCain still hasn’t convinced some Republicans of his conservative bona fides, despite the fact that he has promised to stay the course in Iraq for 100 years if necessary, appoint only “strict constructionist” (i.e., wingnut) judges to the federal bench, keep the Bush tax cuts for the rich (and likely try to add more), and received the personal blessing of John Hagee, fundamentalist Rapture ready preacher supreme. For some reason a number of these nitpicking “Common Sense Conservatives” (as they call themselves) want more. Specifically they want him to publicly affirm these Conservative Truths before they will declare their willingness to support his candidacy:

We ask you to please encourage us to work FOR your election by letting your actions convince us we can trust you on the issues important to “Common Sense Conservatives.” To that end we have drafted the following Eight “Common Sense Conservative Assurances” – eight opportunities for you to demonstrate you hear and understand our concerns and are willing to govern more from a position of conservative principle than a particular personal ideology. If you are unwilling to demonstrate such assurance in the middle of an election to secure and consolidate your hard working base, we would be naive to believe you would somehow do so if elected President. Thus we stand on these issues and ask for your assurance on:

1. Life Assurance: Pledge to support and sign a Human Life Amendment that protects all human life.

2. Judicial Assurance: Pledge as President that you would re-nominate the conservative judges your actions sacrificed.

3. Taxes Assurance: Words are not enough, SIGN the No New Taxes pledge now.

4. Immigration Assurance: Pledge to close and secure the border and to enforce immigration law.

5. Free Speech Assurance: Support legislative changes to McCain-Feingold to protect citizens’ free speech, political associations, and activities.

6. Marriage Assurance: We ask for your pledge to support a Federal Marriage Amendment.

7. Security, Energy and Environment Assurance: Pledge first to open ANWAR to energy exploration and build more refineries in a way that shows proper respect for our environment, and then promise to veto any attempts by Congress to cap CO2 or bind us to international law.

8. Respect for Conservatives Assurance: Pledge to dignify the Reagan legacy by respecting ALL conservatives and should you become the Republican nominee publicly offer to make Governor Mike Huckabee your running mate.

Yeah, it’s Huckabee for Veep or else, Senator. And no more supporting the gay agenda, that global warming nonsense, or allowing those dirty Mexicans illegal aliens to pollute our precious bodily fluids with their presence on our sacred soil.

Don’t worry dear Common Sensers, I’m sure Straight Shooter will cave in to your demands and give you what you want. After all, it’s what he’s been doing for corporate lobbyists for years. What’s a little more pandering gonna hurt a man who has been a panderer for his entire political career? But be honest. You’d like him a lot better if he wasn’t so friendly with all those liberal media types that are trying to destroy our country from within, isn’t that right. I bet if he’d just take a swing at Timmy Russert on Meet the Press for asking one too many stupid questions, or slap Katy Couric upside the head one day during an interview for copping an attitude against Republicans, you’d be cheering your lungs out for him. Just admit it. You don’t hate McCain because he’s not conservative enough, you hate him because he gets good press from CNN and MsNBC.

You also hate him because he does stuff like repudiating the comments of a true “red meat” conservative talk show host who had the guts to utter Barack Obama’s “evil jihadist” middle name out loud, and because in Straight Shooter’s apology to the media he stated that he “respects” both Senators Clinton and Obama and considers them “honorable Americans.” That’s your real beef with Straight Shooter. You’re afraid he won’t be as nasty, divisive, bigoted and racist as you’ve come to expect from your Republican standard bearers.

Don’t worry though, I’m sure he’ll come around. Besides attacking the integrity and patriotism of Democrats is what campaign surrogates, vice presidential running mates and 527 groups are for. You have heard of plausible deniability, haven’t you?

OK, a small diversion from next Tuesday. It’s like watching paint dry – a nerve wrecker.

In case you did not notice, we are in a Leap Year – a quirk in the calendar to take care of the one quarter of a day that astronomers had to synchronize.  So every four years one full day is added to the month of February – 29, February.

Show hands. Is today your birthday – are you a Leaping?

Your official birthday makes you a 20, 24, 28, 32, 36 or over 36?

From Wikipedia

“A person born on February 29 may be called a “leapling”. In common years they usually celebrate their birthdays on 28 February or 1 March.”

For legal purposes, their legal birthdays depend on how different laws count time intervals. In Taiwan, for example, the legal birthday of a leapling is 28 February in common years, so a Taiwanese leapling born on February 29, 1980 would have legally reached 18 years old on February 28, 1998.

Folk Traditions Wikipedia

In the English speaking world, it is a tradition that women may propose marriage only on leap years. While it has been argued that the tradition was initiated by Saint Patrick or Brigid of Kildare in 5th century Ireland, it is dubious as the tradition has not been attested before the 19th century.[7] Supposedly, a 1288 law by Queen Margaret of Scotland (then age five and living in Norway), required that fines be levied if a marriage proposal was refused by the man; compensation ranged from a kiss to £1 to a silk gown, in order to soften the blow.[8] Because men felt that put them at too great a risk, the tradition was in some places tightened to restricting female proposals to the modern leap day, 29 February, or to the medieval leap day, 24 February. According to Felten: “A play from the turn of the 17th century, ‘The Maydes Metamorphosis,’ has it that ‘this is leape year/women wear breeches.’

A few hundred years later, breeches wouldn’t do at all: Women looking to take advantage of their opportunity to pitch woo were expected to wear a scarlet petticoat — fair warning, if you will.”[9]

In Greece, it is believed that getting married in a leap year is bad luck for the couple[citation needed]. Thus, mainly in the middle of the past century, couples avoided setting a marriage date in a leap year.

Share your story with us.

Have you ever been pulled over by the police and been told there must be an error; your driver’s license registers your birth date as 29 February.

“Yes officer, I was born on 29 February ” ..

The officer is adamant – no such date as 29 February… you’re pulled off to jail for having a  forged document?

Will there be a special cake – say instead of candles, water falls or carousels?

I’ll probably do a longer piece on this later, but Ron Brownstein goes inside the exit polls to glean the coming political realignment. One thing I’ll note right off the bat is that John McCain must search for his votes among the elderly and non-college educated whites. This is the same coalition that is giving Hillary Clinton her votes, although her advantage with these groups has slipped as Obama’s success and name recognition have grown.

Obama is pulling off something that college educated white liberals have been waiting for since 1968. He has built a coalition of blacks and whites making over $100,000 a year. White liberals are sometimes called the ‘wine track’ to distinguish them from the lower educated and heavily unionized ‘beer track’ white Democrat.

The beer track Democrat has been coveted by Hubert Humphrey, George Wallace, Ronald Reagan, Walter Mondale, and Bill Clinton. Wine track Democrats have gravitated toward Eugene McCarty, George McGovern, Teddy Kennedy, Gary Hart, Paul Tsongas, Bill Bradley, and Howard Dean. In other words, wine track Democrats have a long record of high passion combined with electoral disappointment. The Volvo driving, latte-drinking, English majors that typify the white liberal bloc have never been able to put together a coalition strong enough to take on the Republicans. Barack Obama has changed this.

However, just as many blacks are shocked at the rise of Obama because they never pictured it happening quite like this, white liberals are somewhat shocked by how Obama is pulling this off. Particularly in the face of the Bush presidency, where white liberals and white liberal values have been under such withering assault, there is a thirst for hard partisanship. And that is not what Obama is providing. Instead, he is deconstructing the old coalitions with a velvet glove.

Our experience is one of one failure after another, as our leaders have been taken apart by the press and a fire-breathing Republican wurlitzer. Look around and you’ll see a clear trend. The older the Democrat (regardless of race) the less likely they are to believe that a black man can become president. The older they are, the less likely they are to believe that we can win with a message of unity and hope. The older they are the more likely that are to believe that we can only win with the kind of bare-knuckles amoral approach favored by the Clintons. Some might call it the victory of experience over hope.

But a look at the internals of the exit polls helps explain both why Obama is succeeding (and will succeed) and why demographic changes favor this new ‘wine track’ governing coalition in the future. Another leader that lacks Obama’s special political gifts and strong support in the black community might have a harder time holding this coalition together. But the trends favor the party that appeals to the ‘creative class’ and the black/latino voter.

And Bush is the reason why.

In 2000, under-30 voters split about evenly between Bush and Gore, according to exit polls. In 2004, they preferred Kerry over Bush by 54 percent to 45 percent. In the 2006 House elections, they backed Democrats by 60 percent to 38 percent. In a race between Obama, 46, and McCain, 71, even many Republicans wouldn’t be surprised to see that wide a gap among the young.

“If you look at Ronald Reagan and how he performed among youth, he created a generation of Republicans that was able to sustain itself,” Dowd says. “Well, what Bush has done in his presidency is almost the opposite: He has won elections and lost a generation. Now this generation is emerging, and if Democrats end up winning this election, and then govern in a way that gives people a sense that it is a new politics, they will have a generation. It will be the reverse of Reagan.”

This is the victory that has eluded the white liberal since the death of RFK. When you add to it that it is the victory that the black community could scarcely dare to dream about, it will be so deeply satisfying. And…when this all comes off, it will greatly benefit the beer track Democrat…perhaps it will benefit them most of all. And that’s something we’ve been trying to convince them of ever since they started drifting away to Reagan and Wallace.

     According to Senator McCain, just because your campaign is being run by lobbyists that doesn’t mean you are still not anti-lobbyist. The straight-talker now wants us to believe that his lobbyists are not like the other ones populating Washington. That’s right his lobbyists are honorable and he is never influenced by their pressure. While for many non-Christian wing-nuts the issue is not whether McCain did or did not have relations with that woman, it is purely political and whether that woman had undue influence over the Senator. So according to the Senator, a lobbyist isn’t a lobbyist if they work for his campaign.

McCain attorney Robert S. Bennett played down the contradiction between the campaign’s written answer and Paxson’s recollection.

“We understood that he [McCain] did not speak directly with him [Paxson]. Now it appears he did speak to him. What is the difference?” Bennett said. “McCain has never denied that Paxson asked for assistance from his office. It doesn’t seem relevant whether the request got to him through Paxson or the staff. His letters to the FCC concerning the matter urged the commission to make up its mind. He did not ask the FCC to approve or deny the application. It’s not that big a deal.”

The Paxson deal, coming as McCain made his first run for the presidency, has posed a persistent problem for the senator. The deal raised embarrassing questions about his dealings with lobbyists at a time when he had assumed the role of an ethics champion and opponent of the influence of lobbyists.

The two letters he wrote to the FCC in 1999 while he was chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee produced a rash of criticism and a written rebuke from the then-FCC chairman, who called McCain’s intervention “highly unusual.” McCain had repeatedly used Paxson’s corporate jet for his campaign and accepted campaign contributions from the broadcaster and his law firm. Washington Post

     My question is how did Ms. Iseman get such complete access to Senator McCain? I am a skeptic granted but I know that for many men there are two types of women in the world the ones they have slept with and the ones they have yet to sleep with. It isn’t important to me whether Senator McCain slept with that lobbyist or any other lobbyist, politicians probably should sleep with them because then we wouldn’t end up being the only ones screwed. My main concern is the fact that John McCain has made a career of promoting himself as anti-lobbyist and now we see just as with all of McCain’s other claims to fame this one has no merits either. A lobbyist is a lobbyist and the sooner the Senator can acknowledge that the better. The most troubling thing about this whole affair are the lies starting to come out of the McCain camp. Not the lies about any sort of tryst between the Senator and Ms. Iseman, but the lies concerning his actions on her behalf and involving her. First there was the lies concerning meeting with Mr. Paxson on behalf of Ms. Iseman, why would that man have any reason to lie and say he met with Senator McCain when he didn’t? The second is the lies about whether his campaign was concerned enough about the relationship to have to have a discussion with the Senator and Ms. Iseman, obviously if it gets to this level someone thinks there is a problem. Why would his campaign staff lie?

     I think it is time for Senator McCain to do some “straight talking” concerning this whole affair. I have a feeling that we have not heard the last of the lies from Senator McCain on this subject. The thing about lying that any good liar knows is that you just have to keep telling more lies to cover the first batch. The more Mr. McCain’s campaign tries to spin the lies and inconsistencies the more damning they appear. What is odd is that Mr. McCain wrote the letters after receiving 20,000 dollars from those on whose behalf he wrote the letters, but there was no quid pro quo? Not to worry Republicans the Senator has already gotten a bounce from Republicans following these stories, it appears that the Party of family values and morality obviously do not consider lying and bribery, not to mention adultery immoral. Why am I not surprised?

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. – Daniel Patrick Moynihan

The Disputed Truth

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing

click to enlarge

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It takes a particularly high opinion of self to be Ralph Nader. A multiple-loser for the Presidency, he is at again with another political loser, Matt Gonzalez. Although he lead the San Francisco Board of Supervisors several years ago, I find it difficult to understand how these guys think they can win in 2008.

Yes, let us all repeat again that Nader did bring product safety to the forefront of the American consciousness – yes, Ralph, thanks for that. But looking back at the last 7 years of a Bush presidency, you campaign harmed the nation just as much (if not more) as you helped it decades earlier.

You had great karma, but your 2000 bid damaged the nation, maybe to the point it may not recover.

But that wasn’t enough. Oh hell no. Your ego required more stroking in 2004 and did nothing to help remove Bush from office. One would have thought that seeing how close the 2000 election was, you would have taken up the charge to restore voter rights and prevent that debacle from ever happening again. And it did happen again in the Great State of Ohio.

Thanks for that.

You may be a consumer advocate, but you can no longer claim to be an advocate for the American People. How many dead would still be living had Gore won in 2000? We needed you assistance instead of your resistance.

Don’t look to me to stroke your ego or boost your over-inflated level of self-importance. And don’t you dare ask for my campaign contribution.

Go masturbate on your own time.

Now, if Glenn Beck is quoting Nouriel Roubini it DOES represent a major change in the atmosphere in Camp Wingnut.  The blinders are off the horse, and the horse is going to be crapping everywhere now.

It doesn’t however mean that the wingnuts have stopped drinking the “Bush Boom” Kool-Aid.  Quite the opposite.

Because what it really means is that, following GOP talking point regurgitation standard operational procedures where everybody but the actually responsible parties are blamed, the failure of the economy will now at every turn be blamed on brown people, black people, gay people, women, liberals, and Democrats instead of the Old White Rich Republican Donor Men who actually made these various greedy and shortsighted decisions in the first place and who will continue to make the decisions despite empirical evidence of being arguably the worst people to actually do so given the state of the economy.

Expect the next, oh, decade or so to be about How The Liberals Ruined The Bush Economy.

I’m just sayin’.

It is perhaps ironic that yesterday I quoted Lincoln regarding his need as the nation’s leader to act without malice even during the height of the Civil War, because Tony Snow took it upon himself to compare George W. Bush to Lincoln explicitly on the Colbert Report:

COLBERT: Latest polls have his approval rating at 19 percent, which is low for a President but very high for a fetish.

SNOW: Ouch. … They actually hated Truman. They hated Lincoln. Lincoln as late as late-1864 was telling his guys to get ready the next incoming administration of George McClellan.

This appears to be the new talking point of the Bushies, identifying George W. Bush, the most wretched mangler of the English language and the progenitor of the doctrine of preventive wars against anyone he feels, in his sole determination as Commander-in Chief, deserves the destruction of their society and the permanent occupation of their country by American forces, with perhaps the most eloquent, and the most important President in our history. Lincoln, who was responsible more than any other for ending the evil institution of slavery, and whose efforts literally reshaped the United States of America into the form we see today, though it has taken over a century to fully realize his vision.

Yes Tony, Lincoln was hated. He was hated by the the literal and spiritual ancestors of the same people who today are Bush’s last true believers. The people who still cherish their Confederate heritage and want to fly the Confederate Flag (or place it on their personalized license plates) to remind us all of that treasonous rebellion that led to over 600,000 American deaths. Lincoln, who agonized over every person who was killed or maimed in that horrible war, whose suffering was palpable on his face to all who saw him, and who spent many hours reviewing the cases of soldiers condemned to be shot for desertion, pardoning most of them, is just like George W. Bush, who says he sleeps very well at night despite knowing that his war has led to the death of at least hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, the ethnic cleansing of Iraq, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 to 5 million internal and external refugees who suffer in poverty and untold misery. The same Bush who spent little if any time reviewing requests for clemency from execution, and who publicly mocked the the pleas of Karla Faye Tucker for clemency.

Lincoln was hated by bigots, racists and slave holders who couldn’t see that the words “all men are created equal” applied to human beings they considered nothing more than property to be bought and sold like hogs and cattle. Ultimately he was murdered by a man, John Wilkes Booth, who was so offended that Lincoln planned to give “niggers” citizenship and the right to vote that he felt justified in carrying out the assassination of our greatest President.

Bush is hated, because his values are diametrically opposed to those of Lincoln as is his personal character, by anyone with any semblance of decency or a sense of morality. Lincoln sought to heal the wounds of partisan divide and create a new and better nation, one more aligned with the ideals stated in the Declaration of Independence. Bush has sought to increase the partisan divide in our country, demonizing all his political opponents, from Democrats in Congress to antiwar activists, from gays seeking equal rights to African Americans and Latinos seeking to exercise their right to vote, all in pursuit of raw political power for his party, but most of all for himself.

But other than that, yeah, they have a lot in common.

I caught David Gergen on one of the political shows, and his comment that HRC had always opposed NAFTA surprised me, especially considering how many times she’s supported it publicly. During the Ohio debate, Tim Russert played several video clips in which she stated her support for NAFTA, one as recent as 2004, and she’s never given public indication of opposing NAFTA until now.

On another show just the other day, Lawrence O’Donnell, who was chief of staff of the relevant Senate committee during the 90s, contradicted Gergen:

  “-O`DONNELL:  You`re right, Dan.  By the way, I was working with Hillary Clinton at the time in the Senate when she was trying to pass her health care plan.  And her only problem with NAFTA was she wanted it to go after the health care plan because if that`s come through the same committee that I was running and so, her problem was just sequential.  She`s never been against NAFTA until this campaign.”

I find both Gergen and O’Donnell credible, which makes reconciling their accounts somewhat difficult. One thing is clear, Clinton has never publicly opposed NAFTA until recently. Her recently rediscovered opposition thus looks less principled than expedient.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23394339/

Bob Geldof has written a nice piece about his time on Air Force One with the President, traveling to and around Africa. It’s probably the most complimentary piece I’ve read about Bush since Hurricane Katrina wiped out the last of his unapologetic apologists. And, yet, even in the midst of praising Bush for his generosity to Africa, Geldof tells us:

I don’t know how, but eventually we arrive at the great unspoken. “See, I believe we’re in an ideological struggle with extremism,” says the President. “These people prey on the hopeless. Hopelessness breeds terrorism. That’s why this trip is a mission undertaken with the deepest sense of humanity, because those other folks will just use vulnerable people for evil. Like in Iraq.”

I don’t want to go there. I have my views and they’re at odds with his, and I don’t want to spoil the interview or be rude in the face of his hospitality. “Ah, look Mr. President. I don’t want to do this really. We’ll get distracted and I’m here to do Africa with you.” “OK, but we got rid of tyranny.” It sounded like the television Bush. It sounded too justificatory, and he doesn’t ever have to justify his Africa policy. This is the person who has quadrupled aid to the poorest people on the planet. I was more comfortable with that. But his expression asked for agreement and sympathy, and I couldn’t provide either.

“Mr. President, please. There are things you’ve done I could never possibly agree with and there are things I’ve done in my life that you would disapprove of, too. And that would make your hospitality awkward. The cost has been too much. History will play itself out.” “I think history will prove me right,” he shoots back. “Who knows,” I say.

It wasn’t awkward. It wasn’t uncomfortable. He is convinced, like Tony Blair, that he made the right decision. “I’m comfortable with that decision,” he says. But he can’t be. The laws of unintended consequences would determine that. At one point I suggest that he will never be given credit for good policies, like those here in Africa, because many people view him “as a walking crime against humanity.” He looks very hurt by that. And I’m sorry I said it, because he’s a very likable fellow.

I’m sure that Bush was hoping for a good interview, and on the whole, the Geldof piece is positive. Unfortunately, the man is a ‘walking crime against humanity’. It’s funny because Geldof never would have had the balls to say something like that to Idi Amin, Pol Pot, or Saddam Hussein. It’s important to ruminate on what it is that distinguishes one mass killer from another. What are unintended consequences for those that order war? And what are we to think of this?

Then, in what I took to be a reference to the supposed Chinese influence over the cynical Khartoum regime, Bush adds, “One thing I will say: Human suffering should preempt commercial interest.”

It’s a wonderful sentence, and it comes in the wake of a visit to Rwanda’s Genocide Memorial Center. The museum is built on the site of a still-being-filled open grave. There are 250,000 individuals in that hole, tumbled together in an undifferentiated tangle of humanity. The President and First Lady were visibly shocked by the museum. “Evil does exist,” Bush says in reaction to the 1994 massacres. “And in such a brutal form.” He is not speechifying; he is horror-struck by the reality of ethnic madness. “Babies had their skulls smashed,” he says, his mind violently regurgitating an image he has just witnessed. The sentence peters out, emptied of words to describe the ultimately incomprehensible.

Does an experience like this have the potential to change a man like Bush, even at this late stage of his life? Can such a visible witness to what otherwise remains abstract statistics (600,000 dead in Iraq, for example) stir some sense of dread in Bush’s soul? ‘I, too, have filled pits like these.’ Does it even matter if that is what he intended to do?

What a dreadful legacy this man built. And to try to face his demons sober? What maintains his wall of denial? Evil does exist, as Bush says, and in such a banal form.