Author: Eternal Hope

Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter has called Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina an “abject failure.” This was reported in today’s Guardian.  The Guardian has had extensive coverage of the Hurricane damage; they now estimate that there are 10,000 dead in New Orleans alone and 25,000+ still trapped in the city.

In addition, the Guardian reports that Bush’s bungling could turn this into an international row with Britain, normally our strongest ally. They report on many UK citizens trapped in New Orleans with no way to get out.
Here is the summary of the news from the Guardian:

–60 fires burning in New Orleans; firefighters can’t put them out because they have no running water.

Condemnations from religious and civil rights leaders:

The Reverend Calvin Butts, president of New York City’s Council of Churches, writes in today’s Observer: ‘If this hurricane had struck a white middle-class neighbourhood in the north-east or the south-west, his response would have been a lot stronger.’

In an extraordinary outburst during a live television fundraising concert broadcast on America’s NBC network, the rapper Kanye West said: ‘Bush doesn’t care about black people. It’s been five days [waiting for help] because most of the people are black. America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. We already realised a lot of the people that could help are at war right now.’

Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader, said he saw ‘a historical indifference to the pain of poor people and black people’ in the US and said it was poignant that blacks were suffering in New Orleans, for many years the south’s biggest slave-trade port.

‘Today I saw 5,000 African-Americans on Highway 10, desperate, perishing, dehydrating, babies crying – it looked like the hold of a slave ship. It’s so ugly and obvious. The issue of race as a factor will not go away.’

Mayor Nagin defends himself against right-wing charges he is to blame:

Nagin, who is black, was criticised for not mobilising buses for those who lacked transport, but Jackson said the blame lay elsewhere. ‘The mayor of New Orleans did not cut the budget on building a stronger levee to protect the city from a flood in the event of a storm,’ he said.

The rampant racism among the cops:

‘We had to wrap dead people in white sheets and throw them outside while the police stood by and did nothing,’ said Correll Williams, a 19-year-old meat cutter from the Crowder Road district in the east of the city, who waded two miles through waist-high water to make it to the Convention Centre after hearing on the radio it was being turned into a refuge.

‘The police were in boats watching us. They were just laughing at us. Five of them to a boat, not trying to help nobody. Helicopters were riding by just looking at us. They weren’t helping. We were pulling people on bits of wood, and the National Guard would come driving by in their empty military trucks.’

Authorities bungled an effort to flood the district in an attempt to drain water out of another submerged neighborhood:

Williams only left his apartment after the authorities took the decision to flood his district in an apparent attempt to sluice out some of the water that had submerged a neighbouring district. Like hundreds of others he had heard the news of the decision to flood his district on the radio. The authorities had given people in the district until 5pm on Tuesday to get out – after that they would open the floodgates.

‘We thought we could live without electricity for a few weeks because we had food. But then they told us they were opening the floodgates,’ said Arineatta Walker, who fled the area with her daughter and two grandchildren.

‘So about two o’clock we went on to the streets and we asked the army, “Where can we go?”. And they said, “Just take off because there’s no one going to come back for you.” They kicked my family out of there. If I knew how to hotwire a car I would have,’ Walker said.

Rape and lawlessness is rampant in the convention center:

Once inside the Convention Centre, Walker confronted a new hell. ‘People were being raped, there were cries and screams, there were gunshots, but the police did nothing,’ Walker said.

‘The police were afraid to do anything,’ said Chantelle, a black 22- year-old. ‘They wouldn’t come in. They took two white guys out one night but left the rest of us in here.’

Williams said: ‘The floor was a swamp, you couldn’t live in there. The police kept telling us buses were coming but they didn’t. People started getting aggravated and then one policeman got mad, he caught an attitude with somebody and they caught an attitude back and started banging on his car, and that’s how it started. He called for back-up and the next thing I know the military are down there throwing stun grenades. Everybody started running, bumping into each other, hurting each other.’

Congressman Bennie Thompson has called for the resignation of the FEMA head:

The shock confession prompted calls for Brown to be fired. ‘That was just a boneheaded statement,’ said Mississippi Democratic Congressman Bennie Thompson. ‘The President will have to change the leadership so that a response this bad will never, never happen again for the American people,’ Thompson added.

UK Victims told, “You’re on your own!”

30 people are trapped in the Ramada Inn, including a woman with breast cancer badly in need to treatment:

Gerrard Scott, 35, spoke to his brother Peter from the Ramada Hotel in New Orleans where he has been stranded without assistance with wife, Sandra, 38, and seven-year-old son Ronan for the past six days. ‘Those that didn’t fit their criteria were told to help themselves. The police said they were evacuating Americans, and took away the majority.

‘The British who were left all thought the police would come back, but nobody has. They have just been left,’ said Peter Scott last night. Among the 30 or so people still inside the Ramada Hotel is a woman recovering from breast cancer who had been confined to a hotel room by herself because of fears over her immune system.

Operators are refusing to take their calls:

There is a payphone in the hotel lobby, but US operators have been refusing to accept collect calls from stranded Britons.

‘Some of them are just hanging up even after they have explained they are trapped in New Orleans. It’s like – what emergency?’ said Scott. He added that conditions in the lobby were described as atrocious, with sewage up to knee level last night.

These real-life horror stories, more than anything else, graphically illustrate the massive failure of Conservativism to provide answers to disasters of this scale.

What we need is a massive change in the way government does business. We need to recreate the old Works Progress Administration to put these refugees back to work so we can rebuild New Orleans. We must stop the massive draining of swamplands from Louisiana and elsewhere, as these swmaplands help protect against disasters of this scale. We must also end our involvement in Iraq, stop the Bush tax cuts from becoming permanent, and massively crack down on the $300 billion of unpaid taxes so we can pay to rebuild our country.

The problem with Conservatism is that it does not react well when massive change like this takes place. It assumes that incremental changes are all that is necessary to react to a disaster like this. Similarly, Herbert Hoover failed to exercise   leadership in the aftermath of the depression, instead promising people that things were about to return to normal. But they didn’t, and things got worse until Hoover was thrown out of office and FDR got elected.

Hurricane Katrina has revealed and exposed the racist and classist attitudes of the Bush administration. This also illustrates the trap many of us have fallen into. After the hard-won victories in the 1960’s, we thought the problems of race had been solved. But the problem is that while overt racism is unacceptable in our society, covert racism is alive and well in this country. And covert racism reared its ugly head in America last night. AlterNet discusses a lot of the racist assumptions of the Bush administration.

Van Jones writes that the Bush administration made massive cuts in levee funding for New Orleans and  diverted it into tax cuts, funding for the War in Iraq, and payoffs for Halliburton:

The result: catastrophe. The flooding was not a result of heavy rains. It is a result of a weak levee — one that was in mid-repair when the storm hit. And that levee, which has held back floodwaters for time beyond memory, collapsed for one simple reason: Bush refused to fix it last summer, when local officials were begging him to do so. Instead, he diverted those funds to the war effort.

In other words, the dollars that could have saved New Orleans were used to wage war in Iraq, instead. What’s worse: funds that might have spared the poor in New Orleans (had the dollars been properly invested in levees and modern pumping stations), were instead passed out to the rich, willy-nilly — as tax breaks.

The fact is, Bush gambled with people’s lives in the name of providing more and more funding for the Iraq War. We cannot blame the Mayor of New Orleans for this, like the right-wingers claim. He actually foresaw this potential disaster and begged for more funding. However, he did not get it.

The failure of the levees not only illustrates the failure of the Bush administration, it illustrates the failure of Conservative ideology as a whole. Conservative ideology assumes that people should be responsible for their own welfare, that giving them too much results in dependence, and that government should be made as small as possible.

But the problem is that we have tried this approach before. The Great Depression illustrated graphically the massive failure of Conservative ideology; Herbert Hoover was guilty of a similar slowness in responding to the Great Depression. Now, the hurricane illustrates the failure of the Bush administration to respond to crises in a same way.

The FEMA evacuation plans, drawn up by a man with no emergency management experience, by the way, assumed that many people had things which they don’t have:

Poor people and black people didn’t “choose to stay behind.” They were left behind. All evacuation plans required the city’s residents to have working, private cars — plus gas money, nearby relatives or funds for a hotel stay. And if you didn’t have all those things, tough luck.

Had the responsible agencies valued the lives of the poor, they would have helped the destitute flee in the face of the hurricane — even those who couldn’t afford a car or a motel room. But when the face of suffering is black, somehow our high standards for effective action and compassion begin to sag.

Not only that, some residents could not get out because of the massive traffic congestion that occured.

Dave Zirin writes that the Superdome, where many of the New Orleans poor were located, was itself a massive display of closet racism at taxpayer expense:

In a case of brutal foreshadowing that would shame a B horror flick, the dome was constructed on an old cemetery for the poor. The burial grounds were dug up and discarded with a promise that the Superdome would the centerpiece of a New Orleans Central Business District that would benefit all. The results are certainly now in plain, ugly view. This past week, 25,000 people, walked through its doors, many for the first time. They entered a stadium where tickets go for $90 a pop, season passes cost $1,300 and luxury boxes can run for as much as $109,000.

The arena boasts of having a capacity that can comfortably seat 72,000 people, with 9,000 tons of air conditioning, and 88 massive restrooms. But for the 25,000 who can’t afford the oxygen, there has been no air conditioning and bathrooms without electricity, running water or working toilets. Feces and garbage now pack the upper decks. The traumatized people finally emerging tell of dead bodies on the 50-yard line. One man even committed suicide, throwing himself off the upper deck.

We should rethink the way we look at sports stadiums. We all like our sports teams. But the problem is that too often they do not deliver the economic development results that their developers promise. The presumption with sports stadiums is that they will provide a steady flow of traffic to nearby businesses. But that is not always the case. Sports stadiums should be designed in a way that benefits people of all classes so that people who make minimum wage jobs can feel that this is their team as well.

The point in bringing up the Superdome is that while we have moved away from overt racism, we have not properly considered the possibility that our policies could have a disproportionate negative impact on Blacks in this country. And this is true for everyone from the President to people in this community.

If we decide to live in the comfort zone of a white middle-class suburban neighborhood and try to avoid contact with people “not like me,” we miss out on chances to achieve racial equality by using our talents to benefit people of all races. If we do not speak up when someone makes a racist remark, we miss out on a chance to help someone recognize their actions were wrong and why. If we fail to take an interest in world events, we concede the ground to the right-wingers and Emperor Dobson, who is breathing threats against Bush for failing to carry out his directives.

If you are a business owner, do you wait for people to come to you to get hired, or do you actively develop relationships with African-American groups and let them know when you have job openings? If you are a school teacher, do you only have 1 day a year where you celebrate Black culture, or do you do it on an ongoing basis throughout the year?

Undoing the damage caused by the Bush administration starts with the person in the mirror. I am going to a school that is much more diverse than the one I went to before. I could write more about issues affecting other countries and cultures. I could visit a religious center of a religion that I am not familiar with. I plan to go to a Unitarian service to see what it is like at my new place.

I am sure that if New Orleans had been 90% White and had voted for Bush 5:1, and Bush were still up for reelection, Bush would have been a lot more motivated to act quickly to bring relief. In fact, last year, Jeb Bush did not attend the Republican National Convention so he could direct the relief efforts there. But the problem is that Bush, not facing any kind of reelection, was no longer motivated to step up and help until public outcry forced him to. And changing the tone of our government requires changing ourselves so we can amplify our moral voice.

In thinking about the aftermath of the Katrina Hurricane, we need to use this tragedy to give people back their hopes and dreams again after five years of Bush’s misrule. We must create a modern-day Works Progress Administration similar to the one FDR formed at the height of the Great Depression. Here are some of the projects that the WPA built over its lifetime.

The amount of work that is required to rebuild New Orleans will be staggering. There will be enough work for everybody who is unemployed and then some. Therefore, we, as Democrats, should adopt the mentality that the right to work is a basic human right and that nobody should be forced to starve because they can’t find work.
The first people to be hired should be people with city-planning experience or middle-level management experience who would work with state and local authorities to rebuild the homes and infastructure and provide levee protection. Colleges from all over the country and abroad could provide students with majors in city planning, technology, and architecture. Lots of coordination with private companies and relief workers would be required.

At the head of this new WPA should be someone who has had a proven track record of managing disasters in the past. Obviously, nobody in the country has ever managed a disaster on this scale. But someone with a proven track record who has been in disasters of this nature on a regular basis is out there.

To pay for this, here is what we must do:

–End all of Bush’s tax cuts. This task will require a national sacrifice similar to World War II and other such national emergencies.

–End the Iraq War and bring the troops home.

–Senator Kent Conrad wrote an excellent editorial in The Hill about how we have $300 billion a year in unpaid taxes because the IRS does not have the staff to collect them. We should hire the staff necessary to track down and collect every single unpaid tax in this country; if it is not paid, it should not be for lack of trying.

–Support the Conyers bill waiving the Bankruptcy Bill for people who were in the Hurricane and returning to the old rules.

–Raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour. Raising the minimum wage has no effect on job growth; in the UK, Tony Blair set a minimum wage that is twice as much as ours; it did not prevent the UK from creating 1-2 million new jobs, cutting unemployment to 4-5%, and wiping out a budget deficit.

–It is a fact of life that many Americans are unwilling to do the grunt work necessary to make things work, like picking fruits off a fruit tree, for instance. However, immigrants are willing to do it. We should raise the quota of legal immigrants to meet both unmet job demand for the new WPA and job demand for them elsewhere.

–Raising the immigration quota will provide more job growth because a disproportionate number of immigrants start their own businesses when they come to this country. This increases tax revenue and increases jobs as well.

–Hold a national contest to design and demonstrate a car which gets at least 100 miles per gallon, can travel at least 300 miles without filling up, and costs less than 150% of a conventional car. From all the entries, the top 100 contestants would demonstrate their cars, how they would run, and the business model that their company would use if they were selected. The winner gets to form their own company with money and loans provided by the government. The government would help them find facilities to create a plant so they can mass-produce the cars. Continued federal funding would be contingent on them not exporting jobs to third-world sweatshops.

These are some of the ideas that I am floating. Once we are done rebuilding the South, we should not disband the new WPA. We should focus on other projects around the country which need jobs. We could even send WPA teams around the globe to help with natural disasters elsewhere.

If we want to win in 2006 and 2008, we must persuade people to vote their hopes and not their fears. The problem with pandering to “moral values” voters is that these are people who have little hope in the present life, and are seduced by promises of an eternal life elsewhere, where everything will be fine. Many believe in an imminent apocalypse, and thus depend on Bush to protect them through thick and thin.

Working to create a modern-day utopia right here in this world, on the other hand, is much more real to people and much more possible than the hereafter. Creating a coherent vision of a utopia here in this world can beat a vision of going to heaven afterwards anytime.

The Hurricane has hit close to home. Gas prices have gone up here 30-40 cents in the last 24 hours. Currently, there is no telling how far they will go up, or if they will be permanent.

I suggest that the oil companies are exploiting a situation in which thousands of lives may have been lost to gouge customers and pad their already record profits. And both Bush and Cheney are oilmen and recieve much of their donations from big oil companies.

Bush has released our oil reserves, which may help a little. But the one thing he has failed to do is put oil companies on notice that the AG would prosecute any instances of price gouging and profiting off of human lives.
When the 9/11 tragedy struck, many gas stations across the state raised their gas prices to the unheard-of $2 a gallon. That quickly stopped after our state AG put gas companies on notice that would be prosecuted. Why hasn’t Bush done so here?

Furthermore, Bush is playing on the fears of rising gas prices to drum up continued support for the War in Iraq. In yesterday’s San Diego address, he said that if we left Iraq, Bin Laden would control the oil fields of Iraq, driving up prices even further.

First of all, that is simply not true. The Iraqi nationalists outnumber the foreigners under Zaraqwi’s control by 9 to 1. They would have no more use for the foreigners after we left. In fact, they could start fighting among themselves, given the xenophobia the nationalists frequently show. The foreigners would lose popular support and be made irrelevant.

It was a myth that oil prices would go down as a result of the war. In fact, the demand created by the warring factions, including the Americans has far outstripped any new supply that was created. And the insurgents have disrupted the oil supply line so badly that they have badly affected the oil output there

Bush will undoubtedly use this tragedy, as he has with so many others, to play on people’s fears and cling to power. But we must present a clear alternative.

A couple of days ago, I wrote that we needed to break out of our tunnel vision and look for issues not covered as much here. That led to a lot of brainstorming. I have some ideas in mind, some of which I will share over the next few days. But my main idea is that we must convince people to vote their hopes and not their fears.

Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, LBJ, and Clinton all won because they were able to defeat the right-wing smear machine by convincing people to vote their hopes and not their fears. That is what made the Democratic Party so successful over a 40 year period. That is what we must do again.

Liberal Street Fighter details how Hillary Clinton has sold women out to Emperor Dobson and his minions on Plan B, an emergency contraceptive safer than asprin. He gives a blow-by-blow account on how she cut a deal with the Republicans to release her hold on the nomination of Lester Crawford in exchange for his decision to make a decision about Plan B by September 1st.

However, after she released her hold and Crawford was confirmed, Crawford broke the deal and delayed his decision for a public comment period, so that Emperor Dobson and his allies can rant, rave, and froth at the mouth over how icky and dirty S-E-X is.
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The Men of God at the FDA

One of the men who serves on the FDA’s advisory board is Dr. David Hager, a mysogynist who opposes birth control, abortion, and believes women should pray to God to cure PMS. Furthermore, he once anally raped his wife as she was having an epileptic seizure.

The fact that a mysogynist like Hager serves on the board of the FDA and that few (edited from none; thanks to Paul Rosenberg) in the Democratic Party congress or house besides Henry Waxman have uttered a word of outrage is amazing. If we as a party cannot express our collective outrage when someone like this gets appointed, no wonder Frank Rich thinks we’re irrelevant as a party.

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Crawford breaks a promise

Up for nomination as FDA commissioner and egged on (I suggest) by Hager, Lester Crawford dragged his feet on a promise to issue a ruling on Plan B. Their “concern,” made up, of course, was that Plan B was not appropriate for girls under 17 because they couldn’t understand the directions. Hillary placed a hold on his nomination.

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Hillary caves in

Crawford cut a deal with Clinton that if she released her hold on his nomination, he would issue a ruling by September 1st. But once she released her hold, and Crawford was confirmed, Crawford broke his promise again. He delayed his ruling indefinitely to solicit comments from the public. This is a ploy to get Emperor Dobson and company frothing at the mouth and give himself cover to deny the use of Plan B without a prescription.

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Conclusion: Hillary’s poor judgement

Hillary should have known the first time that Crawford was not a truthful person and that she couldn’t trust anything he said. But she failed to recognize that and got burned.

Back in my response to Tom Kertes, I mentioned that Hillary did not have good judgement skills. If this were a single instance of poor judgement, I would overlook it. But, as I wrote in my previous diary, this is hardly the only instance of Hillary making bad decisions.

Being able to govern involves evaluating people and judging whether they are truthful or not. Hillary failed to make an obvious judgement that Lester Crawford was a known liar who would say anything to get confirmed and then do whatever he wanted to.

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The tunnel vision of the netroots and what we can do

To be fair to Hillary, after I have slammed her all this time, she did vote against Crawford. Russ Feingold, for one of the few times in his career, cast a vote I don’t agree with and voted to confirm him. Only 13 Democrats voted against him.

While I agree with Liberal Street Fighter’s criticisms of Hillary in regards to her poor judgement, I think there is a larger issue here than just Hillary.

Here at Kos and elsewhere, we have a major weakness — we have tunnel vision. We focus singlemindedly on one topic for a long period of time, while other topics go by the wayside. Right now, for instance, is a perfect example — 6 of the recommended diaries at Kos are about the hurricane. A week or two ago, there were 4-6 recommended diaries at a time about Cindy Sheehan. At the start of June, it was all about pie.

The Crawford nomination is a classic example of how the GOP can sneak issues through while our eyes are on Cindy, or Gonzales, or the pie wars, or whatever the fad of the day is. The reason so many people are ranting and raving about how the Democrats are only focused on one issue and appeasing the right on the rest is because we engage in tunnel vision here as well.

Right now, we are in opposition, and our job is to oppose every step of the way. That means that every time a Republican opens their mouth in front of the camera, we should have our keyboard drawn and ready to respond. I would like to see people read the Senate website every day to see what new bills hit the floor and what our senators are saying. And I would like to see more diaries about what the Sunday morning shows are saying and fire back hard when necessary.

If you play chess, if you use tunnel vision and block out one half of the board, a “hidden piece” on the other half can come out of nowhere and capture your queen. The Crawford nomination and subsequent betrayal is not just a matter of Hillary selling us out; it is a matter of us not paying attention. We must get our eyes back on the ball.

John McCain committed a howler on today’s Face the Nation when he said “I’m not that knowledgeable” about the number of troops necessary to win the war in Iraq.

The howler came when he called for the escalation of the Iraq War in the face of increasing violence. When asked how many more troops were necessary by Bob Schieffer, he said, “About 20,000 more; I’m not that knowledgeable.” Then, if John McCain is not that knowledgeable about what must be done in the Iraq Conflict, then what the heck is he doing considering a run for President in 2008? And what the heck is he doing going on all the talk shows shilling for the administration?
Now shilling for the administration: Lara Logan?

The report on Iraq led off with a report from Lara Logan from Iraq. In it, she said that a no vote from the Sunnis meant a vote against stability. Then, what is the purpose of democracy, if not to give the Iraqi people an independent voice in the elections? Is she suggesting we have a ballot that says on the instructions, “Vote yes for this Constitution?”

By way of mitigation, she said that the word violence does not do justice to the level of suffering of the Iraqi people and that our troops are not welcome there anymore. But, if she is a shill for the administration, then this could be an administration plan to blame the Sunnis for the plight of the Iraqi people and take the side of the Shiites and Kurds in any civil war.

If so, this is just an excuse by the administration to cover up their own failures. The Sunni proposals that I saw were quite reasonable. It is the Shiites who are being unreasonable by sending gangs of thugs to enforce Iranian-style Islamic law on the streets of Basra.

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McCain and the Left Behind series.

McCain led off his case by calling for more troops and using apocalyptic language warning against withdrawal from Iraq. He used such key words and phrases as “We can’t afford to lose,” “cataclysmic,” “factionalization,” “Muslim extremism and terrorist breeding grounds,” and “cut-and-run.”

But the problem is that this has already happened. Just read Al-Jazeera, the Iraq bloggers, the generals Russ Feingold talked to, Dahr Jamal, or even the media if you don’t believe me. The question is, how does it help the situation by keeping our troops there? And what is the noble goal our troops are dying for, since it is becoming increasingly clear that Iraq is in the process of becoming an Islamic dictatorship?

And furthermore, what McCain is calling for is impossible. As Hagel pointed out, our military is already stretched to its limits. And McCain failed to answer Hagel’s assessment that our military will not be able to sustain its current levels beyond 12 months. After all, he is not knowledgeable about that topic. The only alternative is a draft. Is John McCain next going to call for a draft?

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Is singing songs to Saddam progress?

McCain next says that we are making progress in training. But other than his own admission that he is not knowedgeable about this, here, from my old blog, is my summary of an AP article contradicting McCain:

–Iraqi Soldiers singing songs to Saddam;

–Iraqi Soldiers equipped with guns of so poor quality, they jam after 10 shots;

–Dozens of Iraqi soldiers go without pay for three months;

–Our military is giving them unequal treatment; our soldiers have air conditioning, while Iraqi soldiers don’t; the Iraqi soldiers in some cases must sleep on concrete floors;

–Iraqi Soldiers on patrol selling weapons and hailing taxis;

–An Iraqi commander cowering in his truck and insisting they were surrounded by insurgents even after the Americans arrived.

This AP article which I wrote about was from a reporter who was on the ground and who was with such a unit. I would take the report of someone on the ground any day over the report of a Bush administration shill who, by his own admission, is not knowedgeable about the topic.

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You and I are tools for the far left!

McCain next talked about Cindy Sheehan and accused her of being used by the far left. But anybody can accuse someone of being used by the far left when they can’t explain what the noble cause is that our men in uniform are dying for.

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When others doubt, Bush has steady resolve.

McCain went on to talk about how progress was being made and how steadfast the President was when his own generals were doubting him. But first of all, McCain failed to state any kind of progress that was being made besides what I mentioned. If you want to report progress, then at some point you have to show me progress, not just say there is to try to calm people down.

He then went to talk about the steadfastness of the President in the face of others’ doubts. McCain is trying to frame the President as a heroic figure who carries on in the face of adversity, even as others worry and doubt.

But if the President wishes to be such a model, he can’t go on sounding like a broken record and not offering us anything new. Bush is like an automation which you give to a kid for Christmas. The kid pushes a certain button, and the automation will say the same thing over and over again without saying anything new. Bush is almost exactly like such an automation.

If Bush wishes to show us progress, then let him tell us something we have not already heard.

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Another McCain howler: “That’s not the right message!”

McCain then committed another howler when asked about the Pentagon officials who have questioned the President’s policy. He dodged the question by praising the performance of the troops in the field. Then, he weakly said, “That’s not the right message,” after being pinned down by Schiffer.

So, what is more important: Getting the right message out, or telling the truth? I suggest from this howler that John McCain values getting the right message out more than telling the truth. The problem is that there are still people in the Pentagon who work hard, play by the rules, and are disgusted by what is going on there. But they can’t take their concerns up the ladder, because their superiors won’t listen. So, they go to Russ Feingold or the media instead. That is a clear sign that the Bush administration is divided and that he is out of touch with his own generals.

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The GOP piefight: Frist holds entire defense bill up over Abu Girhab.

Bill Frist has held up the entire defense bill up over the Bush administration’s refusal to support a McCain bill which would set clear rules over what the Abu Girhab and Guantanamo interragators can and can’t do. McCain opposes the hold, but this creates a huge dilemma for the Bush administration — if they wish to stay the course in Iraq, then where is the money going to come from?

So, not only are Bush’s own generals divided, the GOP is divided as well. Not only is Iraq imploding before our very eyes, the GOP is about to implode with it.

Tom Kertes has written a diary endorsing Hillary Clinton for President. After the loss of John Kerry in the election last year, Kertes, a far-left blogger, has taken a pragmatic approach to the extreme. But there is a problem with backing Hillary for the sake of being pragmatic: Why sacrifice your principles when you don’t have to? Why sacrifice your principles when you can support a candidate like Russ Feingold who is both principled AND pragmatic?
The ability to Govern

The first argument Kertes makes is that Hillary is best equipped to govern this country. But I would respond that governing requires good judgement skills. I play chess online, and there are a number of times when I make a move and realize the second I release the mouse what a terrible mistake I have made.

It is, of course, better to admit mistakes than not to. But it is even better not to make those mistakes in the first place. Bill and Hillary Clinton have made several key bad decisions that have come back to haunt them. Feingold, on the other hand, showed his judgement skills by not making those mistakes in the first place. Here are some examples:

–Bill Clinton supported NAFTA and the China Agreement, which has caused the loss of high-quality jobs, environmental devastation, and the growth of low-quality jobs like Wal-Mart’s. Hillary served on the board of Wal-Mart before Bill took office. Furthermore, that led directly to the loss of the election for Kerry, as people blamed Democrats and Republicans equally in places with many shut-down factories.

Furthermore, Hillary can tout the massive job growth under Bill all she wants. But much of that job growth was in low-quality jobs like Wal-Mart and exurban fast-food places like McDonalds.

Russ Feingold foresaw the harm that these free trade agreements would bring to this country, and voted against it.

–Hillary Clinton voted for the Patriot Act. She did not bother to read it to understand the ramifications. However, Russ Feingold takes pride in reading every bill that is proposed by the Senate. He foresaw the damage that it would cause to civil liberties and voted against it.

–Bill Clinton and Wesley Clark were the architects of the Kosovo War. However, that war, while bringing short-term success and well-run by Clark, was unnecessary in that Miloslovic would have been toppled anyway, it caused people like Hillary to overvalue the military as a way of solving problems, and it caused the right to frame the Iraq War as a logical extension of the Kosovo War.

Furthermore, what many people don’t understand is that the Kosovo War almost triggered a major confrontation, if not war, with Russia. So, despite the fact that it only lasted 78 days, it was a near-disaster. The only reason it didn’t trigger a confontation with Russia was because Clark, to his credit, worked the phones and got all the Eastern European countries to deny Russia the use of their airspace.

Feingold recognized such potential problems and voted against the Kosovo War.

–Hillary Clinton voted for No Child Left Behind, leading to major financial hardships for schools, unrealistic expectations, the treatment of students as assembly-line products instead of individual students, and the hardships for rural schools who must transport students to schools at least 20 miles away in many cases. Furthermore, the only real point for NCLB was the draconian provision requiring schools to open student records to the military and let military recruiters have the run of the school or lose federal funding.

Feingold, who reads through every bill that comes across his desk, saw through the hype and saw the only real point of NCLB. He was only one of 10 Senators to vote against it. He was proven right.

–Hillary voted for the Iraq War because she fell for the President’s hype about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction. Now, she is doing an ostrich act and refusing to call for an exit plan or even try to develop a victory strategy for Iraq. She simply refuses to talk about it.

Feingold, on the other hand, voted against the war in the first place, and is now leading the discussion, along with General Clark, on how we can develop an exit strategy for Iraq. As Clark correctly pointed out, Kosovo had a viable exit strategy; Iraq doesn’t. Hillary should know this. Yet she still pulls her ostrich act by refusing to talk about Iraq.

There are three different qualities that a person must have if they wish to govern. Russ Feingold has these qualities; Hillary doesn’t. Feingold has superior judgement skills, as noted above. He has the ability to pay attention to detail, which Hillary doesn’t, as evidenced by their different stances on the Patriot Act and NCLB. And Feingold has the courage to speak out on hot-button issues; Hillary doesn’t.

A person who wishes to govern must show courage, exhibit superior judgement skills, and pay attention to detail. As documented above, Feingold is far superior in these areas than Hillary is.

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The common-sense Center

Kertes next makes the argument that we need to elect Hillary because of the need to appeal to the common-sense center. Lets define that term and go from there: A centrist is someone who normally votes for the best person for the job, or who normally votes for the winner most of the time. Missouri is the very definition of a centrist state; it normally almost always votes for the winner in an election. Furthermore, the rural areas normally almost always tip the state one way or the other.

So, what do people around here want? They want people who can give straight answers whenever they ask you a question. They want to be treated as adults who can solve their own problems. They throw up their hands in horror if you show them a bill that is one inch thick and is really complicated. They want their fair share of government money to help them build their communities. They want people to be simple and to the point and not ramble like John Kerry frequently did.

People around here don’t care about agreeing with you on every single issue. That is the trap that Hillary and the DLC is falling in to when they try to get socially conservative. They want you to present your opinions in a way that they can respect.

That is what Russ Feingold has succeeded in doing in Wisconsin. He won many rural counties that John Kerry lost. He won with 56% of the vote in a state that Kerry won by just a few thousand against a hand-picked Rove candidate. He got support from many Conservatives despite his Liberalism because they liked his candor and the fact that he valued their input.

But don’t take my word for it; see for yourself. Here and here are the videos from his first two debates against Tim Michaels and see for yourself how he can appeal to centrist “common-sense voters.”

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Pragmatism

Kertes’ approach to pragmatism illustrates the trap that many people in this community fall into — the belief that pragmatism and idealism are either-or. They are not. Let me give a simple example:

You may be an idealist who believes in universal health care for your state, but the Republicans, who control the majority, will only support it for 5-year-olds and under. The idealistic approach would be to rant and rave about it and never get anything done about it. The pragmatic approach would be to go along with the Republican plan and drop the rest of your plan. But there is a third way which combines both — going along with the Republican plan for now, and bringing up the need for universal health care 2-4 years from now.

And it is possible to reach across the aisle and work with Republicans with issues you both agree on without compromising your principles. Here are some examples of bills that Russ Feingold has worked across the aisle with GOP Senators on:

–The campaign finance reform law with John McCain;

From his Senate Campaign:

–Recieved the endorsement of a group of 100 well-known Wisconsin Republicans for his willingness to work with them in areas of common interest;

–Sponsored a bill with Susan Collins to bring defibrillators to small communities; there is one in my home school;

–Supports pay-as-you-go legislation which was widely touted by fiscal conservatives;

–Cited by Taxpayers for Common Sense, an anti-government waste group, for his championing of fiscal responsibility.

But you have to know when to be bipartisan and when not to. Clinton does not seem to understand this point; Feingold does. Here is his widely-quoted statement slamming the deal of the Group of 14:

This is not a good deal for the U.S. Senate or for the American people. Democrats should have stood together firmly against the bullying tactics of the Republican leadership abusing their power as they control both houses of Congress and the White House. Confirming unacceptable judicial nominations is simply a green light for the Bush administration to send more nominees who lack the judicial temperament or record to serve in these lifetime positions. I value the many traditions of the Senate, including the tradition of bipartisanship to forge consensus.

I do not, however, value threatening to disregard an important Senate tradition, like occasional unlimited debate, when necessary. I respect all my colleagues very much who thought to end this playground squabble over judges, but I am disappointed in this deal.

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Toughness

Some of Hillary’s defenders will say that she has the tough image necessary to win people over. However, that is a weak argument. First of all, we tried to run a tough-guy against George Bush in John Kerry. We thought he’s be immune from Rove’s attacks because of his tough-guy image from serving in Vietnam. He wasn’t; we lost.

Besides, Bush has taken his tough-guy image to an extreme. Showing the world how tough you are will not help show people how well-qualified you are.

The thing I noticed about Feingold in the debates with Michaels is his level-headed image. He projects an image of always being in control, never needing to go SBVT on Michaels, always responding clearly and forcefully to Michaels’ attacks.

I agree with Kertes that toughness is good. It is necessary because a candidate who cannot defend themselves against attacks will be perceived to be  weak on defense. However, a candidate who is good at deflecting attacks will be perceived as being touch on defense. But we can’t have candidates who sacrifice their principles for the sake of toughness or candidates who are tough to the point of being bullheaded like Bush. Feingold shows the right kind of toughness by being so without compromising principles or being bullheaded.

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Can an anti-war candidate win?

Kertes operates under the faulty premise that they can’t. But the facts and data show otherwise; here is how candidates who voted against the Iraq War did:

–Feingold: Got 56% of the Wisconsin vote, his highest total ever, and 11 points better than John Kerry.

–Boxer: Won with almost 60% of the vote in California, compared to 55% for John Kerry.

–Durbin: Got 60% of the vote in 2002, compared to 54% in 1996.

–Wellstone: Was 10 points up in Minnesota before his plane crash.

–Obama was against the war from the beginning and  got 72% of the vote.

In addition, no candidate who opposed the Patriot Act has ever lost an election.

By contrast:

–Daschle voted for the Iraq War and lost;

–Max Clelland voted for the war and lost;

–Jean Carnahan, the wife of a popular governor, voted for the war and lost;

–Martin Frost voted for the war and lost.

Although it would not be fair to say the Iraq War vote was a direct cause of all of these people’s defeats, it was a contributing factor. And it did not help shield them against attacks from Rove.

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Rove’s attacks

Kertes’ last argument is that Clinton is able to withstand Rove’s attacks better than anyone. But he forgets something: Tim Michaels, Feingold’s opponent, was Karl Rove’s hand-picked candidate. He launched all sorts of unfounded attacks against Senator Feingold. Not only did Feingold do a masterful job of parrying the attacks, they boomeranged on Michaels. Feingold, as noted above, got his largest share of the vote ever.

So, once again, you get the best of both worlds with Feingold: You get a person who is excellent at parrying the vicious attacks of Karl Rove, and you don’t even have to sacrifice principles to do so.

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Conclusion

Tom Kertes’ diary has not convinced me to change my support to Hillary. I don’t mind being pragmatic, but what I do mind is sacrificing principles just for the sake of winning when it is clear that you can win without having to do so.

And Kertes totally ignores the worst-case scenario — that of Chuck Hagel running as a third-party candidate and stealing millions of antiwar votes from Clinton, as Sam Brownback, George Allen, Newt Gingrich, or Tom Tancredo win with 40% of the vote.

Pragmatism and principle are not mutually exclusive. They can be combined, and Russ Feingold has done a masterful job of combining them. For that reason, I fail to be swayed by arguments demanding that I support Hillary for the sake of winning.

Today, I read a book about the life of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Lincoln. Booth was a well-known actor who had a twisted mind. He believed that Abraham Lincoln was an American Caesar and would take away our freedoms. Therefore, he believed that it was the will of God for him to assassinate Lincoln.

The fanaticism that was on display on the 700 Club by Pat Robertson was nothing new. John Wilkes Booth was also a religious fanatic. Over the span of four years, he developed a hatred towards Lincoln as the result of the Civil War. He hatched several plots to kill Lincoln during the war; these plans finally came to fruitation shortly after the war was over. I will highlight some of the aspects of Booth’s twisted mind and compare it to Robertson’s.
Like Robertson and many other TV preachers, Booth had a charisma which could cause people to suspend their better judgement:

Many people who came in contact with Booth mentioned the magnetism and power of his eyes. Sir Charles Wyndham, a fine comedian who witnessed the acting exploits of both Booth and his brother Edwin, wrote that Booth’s “… eyes were striking features, but when his emotions were aroused they were like living jewels. Flames shot from them.”

Once, Booth was surrounded by a group of soldiers after singing a Confederate song; he had little difficulty talking his way out of it:

Without a second thought, Booth broke into the words of the banned rebel song. Fearful of the consequences, most of Booth’s companions ran away. Undaunted, Booth finished the first verse before being surrounded by excited Union soldiers. Upon being questioned, Booth gave a performance worthy of any played upon the stage. Feigning innocence, Booth quietly explained that he didn’t know about a law against singing the song. He went on to claim that he sang it because he had heard someone singing it in the street and liked the words and the tune. Incredibly, the soldiers let him go. His companions were certain that had the perpetrator been anyone else besides the famous John Wilkes Booth, he would have spent the rest of the war in a prison cell. “He had a way about him which could not be resisted, the way which permits a man to overstep the boundaries of the law, and do things for which other people would be punished.”

Booth believed that God was on the South’s side and that he created the institution of slavery for their benefit:

“This country was formed for the white not for the black man. And looking upon African slavery from the same stand-point, as held by those noble framers of our Constitution, I for one, have ever considered it, one of the greatest blessings (both for themselves and us) that God ever bestowed upon a favored nation.”

As one observer noted, (same link as above) Booth was focused on one thought only — that of the well-being of the Confederate Army:

“He (Booth) became a monomaniac on the success of the Confederate arms, a condition which generally follows when a man’s thoughts are constantly centered upon one subject alone.”

Booth was enraged at the idea that Blacks could ever get the right to vote. The trigger that finalized his plans to assassinate Lincoln was a speech by the latter proposing giving voting rights to certain Blacks:

Among other things, Lincoln discussed possible new rights for certain blacks. He suggested conferring voting rights “on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers.” Booth was enraged! He said, “Now, by God! I’ll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever make.”

Booth had a lot in common with Shakespeare’s Richard III in that he believed he was a slave of destiny in that he was fated to kill someone and could not do anything about it. Therefore, he was not responsible for the murder he committed, because the murder was beyond his control:

Two key events occurred in Wilkes’ childhood which, no doubt, affected his thinking for the rest of his life. In a memoir of her infamous brother entitled THE UNLOCKED BOOK, Wilkes’ younger sister Asia described how their mother had a nightmare when Wilkes was a baby “in which she imagined that the foreshadowing of his fate had been revealed to her”. Asia went on to describe an event which took place when she and her mother went to visit the young Wilkes at the end of his school year in June of either 1850 or 1851 at the Milton Boarding School for Boys near Cockeysville, Maryland.

At the conclusion of a picnic for the students and parents, Wilkes took Asia aside and confessed to her that he had met a Gypsy in the woods a few weeks before who read his palm and forecast a gloomy future for him. The gypsy told Wilkes “You’ll die young… You’ve got in your hand a thundering crowd of enemies – not one friend – you’ll make a bad end…you’ll have a fast life- short, but a grand one.” Wilkes had written down the old woman’s words on a tattered piece of paper which he gave to Asia who apparently still had it in her possession when she wrote her memoirs in the 1870’s. Asia observed that Wilkes tried to laugh off the gypsy’s words but it was plain that the episode troubled him and he frequently would frequently refer to the dreary prediction throughout his short life.

We must draw a strong contrast between good and evil. The nature of good is that each person is responsible for their own actions and can rise to avoid their fate. If a person knows that the path they are headed down involves a horrid end, they can still choose to make choices that can help them sidestep their fate.

But the nature of evil is the belief that a person is not responsible for their own actions. For instance, Booth believed that he killed Lincoln because God told him to. Or similarly, Robertson believed that the US should kill Chavez because God told him so. Or the 101st Fighting Keyboarders’ belief that they should not own up to their beliefs and enlist in the military and fight in the war.

In fact, Booth frequently played the role of Richard III (same link as above):

Traveling extensively through the North, Booth routinely opened with RICHARD III in each city he toured. His interpretation of Richard, which he apparently played with great viciousness, quickly become his most famous and popular role. Reviewers, still fondly remembering Junius Brutus Booth’s Richard, compared father and son frequently. It was suggested more than once that it was Wilkes, rather than Edwin, who had inherited his father’s genius.

Booth was a very talented man who could charm the socks off of anybody he met. But like many talented minds, he misused his talents and came to a tragic end:

In 1899, Joel Chandler Harris, a contemporary of Booth’s who would become famous for his Uncle Remus folk tales, wrote that Booth “had all the elements of genius but seemed powerless to focus them…He was as mad as Hamlet was: no more or less… He was so infected and unbalanced by his profession that the world seemed to him to be a stage on which men and women were acting, living, their parts. There was nothing real to him but that which is most unreal, the theatrical and the romantic. He had a great variety of charming qualities, and his mind would have been brilliant but for the characteristics which warped it.”

Booth wrote a diary in which he revealed his innermost thoughts. In his final hours, he was shocked that he had become a scapegoat for doing the will of God:

“I am in despair. And why? For doing what Brutus was honored for – what made Tell a hero. And yet I, for striking down a greater tyrant than they ever knew, I am looked upon as a common cut-throat. My action was purer than either of theirs…I hoped for no gain. I knew no private wrong. I struck for my country and that alone. A country that groaned beneath this tyranny…and yet now behold the cold hand they extend me…I bless the entire world. Have never harmed or wronged anyone. This last was not a wrong, unless God deems it so…”

And here is the final entry, from his diary:

Until today nothing was ever thought of sacrificing to our country’s wrongs. For six months we had  worked to capture, but our cause being almost lost, something decisive and great must be done. But its failure was owing to others, who did not strike for their country with a heart. I struck boldly, and not as the papers say. I walked with a firm step through a thousand of his friends, was stopped, but pushed on.  A colonel was at his side. I shouted Sic semper before I fired. In jumping broke my leg. I passed all his pickets, rode sixty miles that night with the bone of my leg tearing the flesh at every jump. I can never repent it, though we hated to kill. Our country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment. The country is not what it was. This forced Union is not what I have loved. I care not what becomes of me. I have no desire to outlive my country. The night before the deed I wrote a long article and left it for one of the editors of the National Intelligencer, in which I fully set forth our reasons for our proceedings. He or the gov’r-

After being hunted like a dog through swamps, woods, and last night being chased by gunboats till I was forced to return wet, cold, and starving, with every man’s hand against me, I am here in despair. And  why? For doing what Brutus was honored for. What made Tell a hero? And yet I, for striking down a greater tyrant than they ever knew, am looked upon as a common cutthroat. My action was purer than either of theirs. One hoped to be great himself. The other had not only his country’s but his own, wrongs to avenge. I hoped for no gain. I knew no private wrong. I struck for my country and that alone. A country that groaned beneath this tyranny, and prayed for this end, and yet now behold the cold hands they extend to me. God cannot pardon me if I have done wrong. Yet I cannot see my wrong, except in serving a degenerate people. The little, the very little, I left behind to clear my name, the Government will not allow to be printed. So ends all. For my country I have given up all that makes life sweet and holy, brought misery upon my family, and am sure there is no pardon in the Heaven for me, since man condemns me so. I have only heard of what has been done (except what I did myself), and it fills me with horror. God, try and forgive me, and bless my mother. Tonight I will once more try the river with the intent to cross. Though I have a greater desire and almost a mind to return to Washington, and in a measure clear my name – which I feel I can do. I do not repent the blow I struck. I may before my God,  but not to man. I think I have done well. Though I am abandoned, with the curse of Cain upon me,  when, if the world knew my heart, that one blow would have made me great, though I did desire no greatness. Tonight I try to escape these bloodhounds once more. Who, who can read his fate? God’s will  be done. I have too great a soul to die like a criminal. Oh, may He, may He spare me that, and let me die bravely. I bless the entire world. Have never hated or wronged anyone. This last was not a wrong, unless God deems it so, and it’s with Him to damn or bless me. As for this brave boy with me, who often prays (yes, before and since) with a true and sincere heart – was it crime in him? If so, why can he pray the same?

I do not wish to shed a drop of blood, but ‘I must fight the course.’ ‘Tis all that’s left to me.

Now, compare this with the twisted mind of Pat Robertson, justifying the killing of Chavez:

There was a popular coup that overthrew him [Chavez]. And what did the United States State Department do about it? Virtually nothing. And as a result, within about 48 hours that coup was broken; Chavez was back in power, but we had a chance to move in. He has destroyed the Venezuelan economy, and he’s going to make that a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent.

You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don’t think any oil shipments will stop. But this man is a terrific danger and the United … This is in our sphere of influence, so we can’t let this happen. We have the Monroe Doctrine, we have other doctrines that we have announced. And without question, this is a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us very badly. We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.

This is what Pat Robertson and John Wilkes Booth have in common — they both believe that God can justify the killing of tyrants in the name of some vague “greater good.” I don’t know what God they were praying to, but it is not the God of the Bible presented by Jesus.

The Jesus of the Bible never sanctioned the killing of a dictator. Despite the gross immorality of the Roman government, he did not order his followers to assassinate the Roman Emperor and create a new Christian nation. Instead, the early church leaders commanded their followers to live quiet lives and to live in a way which reflected credit on the new faith.

Although Pat Robertson would never actually shoot someone himself, the problem is that he is not different enough from Booth. He has the same talents as Booth and the same flaws. Robertson also has the power to charm audiences and develop a devoted following. He also misuses that talent by making death threats against people. He also believes that he is being led by God to kill people. The scary thing about Robertson’s fanaticism is not that he would kill Chavez, but that one of his demented followers might make an assassination attempt on him.

Over 100 protestors greeted George Bush’s visit to Idaho to meet up with Idaho military families. The protests were part of a massive blitz by Democrats and anti-war activists to counter the Bush visit.

I suggest that Bush visited these military families in order to thumb his nose up at Cindy Sheehan. Like I said yesterday, Bush only hears what he wants to hear. So, the people selected to meet with the President are carefully screened for their views. Then, the President can turn around and say that the military families he met with do not reflect Sheehan’s views.

In response to the President’s visit to Idaho, here is the local response:

—The Idaho Democratic Party accused the President of "playing ostrich." From their news release:

On Wednesday, Bush is scheduled to appear before a crowd of carefully selected military families and political friends at the Idaho Center. Idaho Democratic Party Chairman Richard Stallings is calling upon the president to take that opportunity to announce America’s plan to reduce troop numbers in Iraq and to bring Idaho’s National Guardsmen back home where they belong.

"When he leaves Idaho tomorrow, the president should quit playing around and go back to work!” Stallings said. "We’ve got a war to win, we’ve got thousands of veterans who aren’t getting their benefits, we’ve got record fuel prices approaching a critical level. These emergencies demand someone who is willing to step up and solve these problems – today, not tomorrow.”

–The Idaho Peace Coalition held vigils both yesterday and today:

Vigil at Flower Peoples’ Park next to Somerton Realty on Hwy 55 in Donnelly
Tuesday, August 23 – Capitol Park across from the Statehouse in Boise.
Iraq War Memorial dedication at 12:00 pm, open all day.
Peace Rally with music, speakers, and a Memorial Procession.
Music starts at 6 pm, Rally starts at 7 pm.

Wednesday, August 24 – Peace Vigil in Nampa to coincide with
the President’s speech. This is a sidewalk event starting at 7:30 am
on CanAda Road in front of the Idaho Center. Please carpool from the Park
and Ride lot near the Eagle Rd./I-84. Meet there at 7:00 am.
Watch for parking directions as you approach the Center.

—Here is the news report of the Donnelly vigil:

“We support the troops, we want those troops taken care of, we want people to care about them, but particularly we want the president to really care about them and respond to their needs,” said Chuck Davis, rally organizer. “The biggest part of his doing that is going to be go about the business, burn the midnight oil if necessary, but resolve this conflict in Iraq.”

–From the Boise rally, same link as above:

At a rally in Boise, one demonstrator declared, "He’s going to find a Cindy Sheehan in every community across the United States."

Demonstrators set up a memorial to the more than 1,800 U.S. troops who’ve died in Iraq — rows of white wooden crosses in Capital Park across the street from the Statehouse.

Bush told reporters today those who seek an immediate pullout from Iraq would weaken America.

However, Melanie House, whose Navy husband was killed in Iraq in January, says Bush owes her and others an explanation of what the mission is in Iraq. She says, "I want to know why my husband had to die."

—All four Boise TV stations ran Cindy Sheehan’s ad protesting the war:

The 60-second ad that accuses Bush of lying to the American people about the war in Iraq will air through tomorrow after supporters contributed $10,000 to buy the air time.

The ad aired earlier this week in Salt Lake City, but one station refused to run it, saying it was offensive to the community.

The Idaho Democratic Party is right on the money with their Ostrich comment. Furthermore, Hillary Clinton is pulling an ostrich act by refusing to address the problems we are having in Iraq. In the 2006 and 2008 elections, our goal as Progressives will be to separate the leaders like Feingold, Dean, Clark, and Obama from the ostriches like Hillary Clinton who do an excellent job of service to their constituents on other issues but who refuse to talk about Iraq.

Moonage, a Conservative blogger, posts a recent letter that Hillary Clinton wrote to her constituents. Hillary goes into great detail about the excellent work she has done for the economy, veterans, and health care. Yet, she committed a major howler — she did not utter one peep about Iraq.

On the other hand, Russ Feingold once again showed true leadership in his recent speech in Los Angeles. He said that Bush administration officials now acknowledge that Iraq has become a training ground for terrorists and that they export their gospel of hatred elsewhere.
Russ Feingold is a true leader because he has the guts to address difficult issues that other Democrats will not touch. Him and Wesley Clark are the only two Democrats to demand that the President produce an exit strategy for Iraq.

Hillary Clinton has done a fine job in representing the people for New York. But she does not have the leadership skills to be President because she will not address the tough issues that more and more Americans are concerned about.

Feingold versus Clinton is a clear example of courage versus cowardice. Feingold has the courage to address the Iraq War issues head-on and to call out the rest of the Democratic Party if necessary. He noted that the Democrats in Congress are scared of Bush and thus will not address the issues involving Iraq.

On the other hand, Hillary’s stance on the Iraq War is a stance of moral cowardice. She is trapped in the past and running in the 1990’s, when Bill was President and we didn’t even worry about terrorism. Her letter would have been a perfect campaign piece for, say, the 2000 election or either one of her husband’s campaigns.

The polls show that Hillary, in fleeing to the shelter of the 1990’s, has gotten grossly out of touch with the American people. A recent poll shows that 80% of Americans either give the Plame story high importance or some importance. By implication, a similar number would believe that Iraq was of great or some importance as well.

Feingold, on the other hand, is willing to talk about Iraq percisely because his constituents bring it up all the time.

There is no conceivable way the Republicans can beat Feingold if he gets nominated. That is because he is in touch with the will of the American people on the issues and can make an emotional connection with them. On the other hand, there are several scenarios in which a Hillary candidacy could be beaten:

1. Hagel runs and wins the GOP nomination (unlikely, because the right hates his guts).
2. Hagel runs as a third party and siphons off millions of angry Democratic voters angry at Hillary’s pro-war stance.
3. A moderate (in the public’s eyes) like Guliani or McCain gets nominated, and Democrats yawn and stay home because there is no clear choice between Hillary and the GOP candidate.

The Left Coaster develops this point even further:

Sure, what worries the Democrats about taking such a position is the fear that the Mighty Wurlitzer will start the “blame the Democrats for losing Iraq” smears, attacks that are already starting in the right wing blogosphere and punditocracy spewed by people who never wore a uniform and are only to happy to keep their own kids home while they urge other parents to send their kids to die for the PNAC wet dream. Democrats will be attacked no matter what, and we are way past the time when timidity outweighs the safety of our soldiers fighting an ill-conceived war trapped in a botched occupation, an occupation and foreign policy that was hatched not amongst Democrats but squarely within the GOP.

So, big deal. Karl Rove would attack Jesus Christ if he came back and ran for President. And running ads of yourself shaking hands with George Bush is a sure recipe for defeat, as Tom Daschle and Martin Frost found out the hard way. Jean Carnahan and Max Clelland, who both voted for the War, were also ousted.

On the other hand, Wellstone was well on his way to victory when he was killed in a plane crash. Dick Durbin won with 60% of the vote as opposed to 54% in 1996, when he opposed the war. Russ Feingold won with 56% of the vote over a Karl Rove hand-picked candidate as opposed to John Kerry, who waffled on the war. Barbara Boxer won by over 2 million votes against a wingnut opponent. And as Ben Masel likes to point out, nobody who has voted against the Patriot Act has lost an election, yet.

It is clear that voting for an antiwar candidate is not only the morally right thing to do, it is also the winning strategy for the next election.