Under the fold....
Senator to president: A new day:
But is it a good thing for senators to be frozen out of the process? Though governors may make better candidates, it's not clear that they're well prepared to deal with the complex mix of personalities and parliamentary procedures that will decide whether their agenda is quickly passed or quietly strangled.
Admittedly, the general tone of this site over the past week or so has been one of unabashed anger and outrage. While I won't apologize for this -- mostly because I feel like the more that people throw down the gauntlet against the rising tide of dangerous stupidity on the part of the new Republican ticket, the better -- I do want to address the small amount of criticism I've received. Although the response has been overwhelmingly positive to the recent posts railing against John McCain and Sarah Palin, a few readers have chastised me for resorting to crude insults and sweeping generalizations as opposed to "elevating the debate" in an effort to win over potential voters on the opposite side of the aisle. I've made it pretty clear that I don't believe that those who seem not to care about logic and reason -- who demonize, ridicule and distrust anyone who has the audacity to put intellect and analysis above blind faith or bumper-sticker-brand patriotism -- will be willing to find common ground with those who do. But our government doesn't work without compromise, despite what many on the right believe; so back in January -- when it looked as if the funadamentalist Christian contingent who'd been given such a deafening voice in our government for so long would be left without a voice at all in the coming election -- I wrote a piece advocating if not unity then at the very least inclusion for all points of view. It was exclusive to the Huffington Post and was never published here. If I heard more of this kind of talk from the right -- and less mockery, chest-thumping and overt bullshit from the GOP's army of bellicose mouthpieces -- I probably wouldn't be fighting back in the kinds of absolute, unyielding terms that I am right now. Here now is that column from January 20th, 2008.
FRAGILE! McCain campaign handles Palin's exposure with care...and sexism:
The McCain campaign's constant reference to Palin as a naif not only contradicts the image of a pitbull with lipstick, but reinforces the image that Palin is only the lipstick on the pig.
The result of tolerating these lower levels of sexism is the treatment of Sarah Palin that we're seeing now, at the hands of the people who supposedly want to make her a queen in yet another pageant.
But many men and women decided a long time ago that there's no value in winning the pageant trophy if all you get to do is look good holding it.
Not Training Wheels We Can Believe In:
There's a lot of complaining that the McCain campaign won't allow anyone to interview Sarah Palin. And for the major news outlets that would be in line for such an interview there's a logic to keeping up the drumbeat. But McCain campaign manager Rick Davis is right: It's their campaign to run. They can do it how they want. Everyone else should just shut up, stop complaining and call the reality for what it is.
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That's really all we need to know. Yes, she's off being prepped at some undisclosed location. And I've little doubt that by the time her debate rolls around she'll be sufficiently pumped full of slogans and bromides to make a show of it. But now, this moment, is the one that tells us all we need to know.
As is so often the case, Palin is the incarnation of the Republican slurs. The darling of the hard-right; she gives stem-winding speeches. She pushes all their buttons. But she's such a lightweight, they can't risk letting her answer a few questions. Not even on Fox. They know she's not ready and probably never will be. But they think the politics might work for them.
Last night at the Republican National Convention, John McCain used the word "fight" more than 40 times in his speech. In the 16 years that we have served together in the Senate, I have seen John McCain fight.
I have seen him fight against raising the federal minimum wage 14 times.
I have seen him fight against making sure that women earn equal pay for equal work.
I have seen him fight against a women's right to choose so consistently that he received a zero percent vote rating from pro-choice organizations.
I have seen him fight against helping families gain access to birth control.
I have seen him fight against Social Security, even going so far as to call its current funding system "an absolute disgrace."
And I saw him fight against the new GI Bill of Rights until it became politically untenable for him to do so.
John McCain voted with President Bush 95 percent of the time in 2007 and 100 percent of the time in 2008--that's no maverick.
For John McCain, his suffering is an end to itself, the alpha and omega of his life. Beyond that, he's just a cranky fucker who pissed off everyone so now he's a "maverick," which is just a fancy word for "dick."
Republican electoral success rests on a three-legged stool of depraved sick-fuck extreme far-right-wing factions.
(1) Deranged wackaloon theocratic motherfuckers who live in a fantastical world of disturbed misogynist hate, and seek a return to the middle ages.
(2) Neo-confederate racist scumbags who think their economic and social problems are all due to the existence of non-whites, and who seek a return to the days of white supremacy.
(3) Corporate oligarchs and other assorted rich-ass greedfucks who only give a shit about one thing: keeping going the three-card monte game of privatizing financial gains and socializing financial losses.
In light of this analysis, the Palin pick for VP was absolutely fucking brilliant. She takes care of (1) and (2), and McCain takes care of (3). And normal decent cognitively, emotionally, and morally intact citizens of the United States get fucked up the ass for another four years.
Hopefully the media's wised up and realized that they don't need to do stories that feature interviews with Sarah Palin because Sarah Palin's refusal to talk to them is the story -- and one worth shouting far and wide.
As for the Republicans keeping Palin on a short leash and meticulously engineering her image, they should realize that eventually the truth will come out -- even if it takes a debate with Joe Biden, which millions will watch, to finally get to it.
Ever since the RNC, which was based around sneering at effete liberals for having the gall to sneer at down home rednecks,* there's been a lot of talk about elitism and sneering. I engaged, in my way. And I'm going to engage again, even I agree with Paul Krugman that it's mostly a distraction. Who sneers at who more? Should liberals appreciate "redneck pride" as a reclamation in the same way that feminists reclaimed the word "bitch" or gay people reclaimed the word "queer"? Is "redneck" a classist term that should be avoided or just a cultural descriptor like "mullethead" that should only hurt the feelings of the very thin-skinned?
The honor goes to Michael Reagan, conservative talk show host for his incredible assertion that Sarah Palin is the reincarnation of his father Ronald Reagan. This quote is a gem of insanity.
Greg Mankiw Promotes the Myth of Double Taxation:
There is an old myth developed by rich people at some point in the distant past that paying taxes on dividends amounts to "double-taxation." The argument is that profits are already taxed at the corporate level, so taxing money when it is paid out as dividends to shareholders is taxing the same profit a second time. Gregory Mankiw, a Harvard University professor and former top economist in the Bush administration, pushes this line in a column in the NYT.
McCain's Big Speech: More Prison Cell Than Policy:
The convention ended as it began: a commemoration of McCain's hellish years in a Hanoi prison cell four decades ago. The political equation was a simple one: POW equals patriotic hero equals a fighting president. Before McCain walked down the long runway at St. Paul's Xcel Center, a baritone voice declared over the P.A., "When you've lived in a box....you put your people first." Case closed.
McCain's Domestic Policies: As Old As He Is:
Even though he's 72, I never really think of John McCain as old, at least until he is forced to discuss domestic policy. It's not entirely his fault. When forced to make a nod to less manly subjects such as health care and education and other items not related to the war or foreign policy, his entire party's domestic policy offerings have changed little since Newt Gingrich was king of the Capitol. Case in point: Last night, McCain said he opposed Obama's "health-care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor."
It's the same argument Republicans used in 1994 to kill off the Clinton health plan. But much has changed since the debut of Harry and Louise 14 years ago, and the recycled line seems hugely out of touch with reality. This past year, my family has been forced to switch health plans three times, and every one of these plans has not only a different set of rules, gatekeepers, and attendant paperwork, but also of approved doctors. How long can Republicans continue to insist that a government-sponsored plan would be worse than this? Government doesn't have a monopoly on bureaucracy. Some of my health care plans make the Post Office look efficient.
The Right has repeatedly accused Obama of being a blank slate upon which his supporters draw what they want to see. Whatever "hope" and "change" are to them, that's what Obama supposedly stands for. But my experience at the Republican convention was that Palin plays the exact same role for the GOP. I mentioned this in my video dispatch. If John McCain was too old and stiff, she was the new blood and the energy the ticket needed. If McCain was too moderate, she had the conservative credentials the ticket needed. If McCain was too wishy-washy on abortion, she was the committed pro-lifer the ticket needed. And so on.
The difference is, Obama has spent significant amounts of time defining the change he seeks -- just look at the middle 20 minutes of his convention speech from Denver. Palin has never made that effort -- she's only been around a week and has never spoken to the press!
Steve Schmidt does not impress me in the slightest. He is guilty of professional malpractice. And some of us can't be bullied by spitballs from National Review. I will keep asking questions - in order to provide as much information to my readership as possible. We don't live in a totalitarian society. We can talk about whatever the hell we want. And if the First Amendment does not apply to asking important questions of someone who could be president next January, then it's meaningless.
And what does it tell you that in the week since they introduced their new nominee, the Republican machine has been able to do nothing but attack those who want to know more about her?
This is the Internet's moment, when it will flush the truth out against some of the creepiest power brokers this country has had to deal with since Nixon.
The Sexism Of The McCain Campaign:
Fox News now has a propaganda film up about the possible next president of the United States; but the actual press is not allowed near her. With one single exception: in a staggeringly sexist decision, Steve Schmidt has allowed Palin to be interviewed by a soft-focus, non-political magazine, People. There was also a lifestyle interview on jogging and diet in the WSJ, but that was obviously done before her selection. But no actual political journalists, asking questions about what her, you know, views are on, say, Iran or Fannie Mae or the EITC or the battle between Shia and Sunni Islam. Now: can you imagine a man being selected as vice-president and only giving feature interviews to People?
McCain's treatment of Palin is increasingly one of the most sexist displays I've ever seen in national politics. They somehow think this woman cannot handle the press. Why?
Palin's First Year as Mayor: Off With Their Heads!:
The Seattle Times has unearthed three boxes of archived documents on Palin's first year as the mayor of Wasilla. The year is 1996, and Palin can't seem to decide whether she wants to be Karl Rove or the Queen of Hearts. Elections in this town of 5,000 are officially nonpartisan, but Palin and her supporters turn the race into a senseless proxy war for national issues: they tar her opponent as "pro-abortion" and question his marital status, trumpet her endorsement by the NRA, and roll out the slogan, "Conservative, More Efficient Government." Her backers include an only-in-Alaska coalition of the religious right and bar owners who want to make sure they can keep serving until 5 a.m.
After she's elected, she gets drunk on power and goes on a firing binge. We already knew she laid off the anti-book-banning librarian, but here we learn more: she fires the police chief, who'd recently been named Wasilla's employee of the year, and, in a sort of Lord of the Flies scenario, asks the three employees of the town museum to decide among themselves who will get the ax (all three decide to quit). The same year, she's stopped by the city attorney after she tries to stack the city council. The local paper, the Frontiersman, condemns her in blistering editorials and citizens talk of a recall.
Despite all of this, of course, she's reelected in 1999. She's a smoother politician by then. But given the way she later wields the axe as governor (see Troopergate), maybe the editors of the Frontiersman were onto something when they wrote that Palin's philosophy was "that either we are with her or against her." Sounds a lot like king what's-his-name
As the election grows closer candidates will have to cut their losses as well as go for blocks of possible voters. They have to do that, they can't spend time on people who aren't going to vote for them. If you lose one group you have to look for votes from another group. Being intransigent cuts you out of consideration. Obama's best hope for countering the cynical Palin gambit is by appealing to moderate independents and even Republicans who can be persuaded of the clear dangers of having her as McCain's Vice President. Their possible support in November, when it counts, puts them in play. McCain might have made winning them to his side much more difficult when he tied his political fate to Palin.
Let's just say the Republicans got their way; abortion becomes illegal, and every pregnant woman has to give birth. No more worries about protecting the "babies;" they will all be born.
After the cheering settled down, how do you think these same people would react if, along with their precious "Human Life Constitutional amendment," a second amendment was passed, limiting the number of children any family may have by law to, oh, say, two. No more quivers full of arrows.
Do you think they would suddenly have an opinion on government controlling a woman's right to choose? Would these same heroic, baby-saving lawmakers suddenly become "activist judges," legislating from the bench?
Another John McCain Surprise?:
Now I expect McCain to continue to define his ticket as the true reform minded "change" ticket. I think we will hear McCain say that he has taken on his party and taken on his President when others would not. He will say that he chose Sarah Palin because he wanted someone just as committed to reform and taking on corruption and changing Washington as he is.
The McCain campaign seems to have learned from the mistakes of Hillary Clinton's campaign. Clinton ran on 35 years of experience against the Obama Change campaign -- and only realized far too late in the game that experience was not going to trump change. After nearly a year the Clinton campaign started to stress change as well and began to turn things around, but it was too late.
The McCain campaign is trying to make the same turn -- tougher to do when you are running as the nominee of the party that has held the White House for the last 8 years -- particularly when your party's current occupant of the White House is as unpopular as George Bush.
This notion that McCain "disdains partisanship" is a myth he's worked hard to cultivate. It's also completely wrong, as those of us who've watched the campaign know.
This need not be complicated. McCain hired Karl Rove's disciples to run an ugly, dishonest, and ultimately small campaign, which has put partisanship and self-interest above all. And while some of McCain's more enthusiastic cheerleaders in the media like to argue that this style of destructive politics was foisted upon McCain involuntarily -- David Brooks, I'm looking in your direction -- McCain had a choice, and he chose to become a transparent Republican hack, more interested in winning the news cycle than keeping his integrity.
In his last post, Steve notes the Washington Post equating a flat-out lie by Sarah Palin with a claim by Joe Biden that at worst lacks context, and asks: "Why lump them both together as "questionable claims"?"
As it happens, there is an answer to this question. It was revealed by David Broder to my co-blogger publius in a vision several years ago. His whole post is worth reading -- after all, it reveals secrets known only to initiates into the arcane mysteries of the Washington Post -- but here's a taste:
I went back and did the same exercise. I called a couple of cases differently, but ended up with about 50% of McCain's sentences focussed on himself, but the same 43% on the state of the country, etc. I counted 14% of Obama's sentences as being about himself; as those included all sentences about his wife and Joe Biden, there was no need to count those separately. The remaining 86% was about the country, his plans, and so forth.
For the record, both my friend and I excluded any claims about McCain and Obama that were about what they were going to do, however vague (e.g., a sentence like McCain's "We're going to change that" counts as a claim about the future, not a statement about McCain.) We counted only sentences that were about their present or past. The contrast was pretty striking, even more so when I read the speeches back to back.
No, Actually, It's that the Economy is Falling Apart:
Maybe I'm getting old, maybe it's that I've seen this act so often before, maybe it's that the people I talk to when I go out on the road really are having a harder time paying for things like health care, gasoline and college tuition, but I'm finding the Republican attempts to derail the conversation from the actual state of the country really depressing and disgraceful this year. They practice Orwellian politics of the crudest sort. They are trying to sell a big lie--that the election is about the social issues of the 1960s, or Barack Obama's patriotism or his eloquence, or the "angry left," when it's really about turning toward a more moderate path after the ideological radicalism and malfeasance of the past eight years.
Alert reader J forwards an Obama campaign email sent to supporters in the counties north of GSO, adding, "The Obama campaign is incredibly active up here."
We are hosting a voter registration canvass in the Madison/Mayodan area, followed by a cook-out where you can relax and enjoy some much needed restoration and food. Please be a part of our effort to register as many eligible voters as we can before October 10, 2008. Your help and time are very much needed as we rally the base to get out the vote and show our support of Senator Barack Obama for POTUS!
We canvass as a team and we work together! Don't sit by and believe that someone else will do this for you - YOU are the change WE have been waiting for! It's time to get on the move.
Are you fired up and ready to go? Join with us and let's make this event a success!
This ain't Chapel Hill. The ability to organize in small towns and rural areas of North Carolina seems like an important resource for Obama.
Not unrelated: The Vanishing Republican Voter.
My fellow conservatives and Republicans have tended not to worry very much about the widening of income inequalities...[But] As America becomes more unequal, it also becomes less Republican. The trends we have dismissed are ending by devouring us.
FBI Wanted Obama Plotters Charged, But A Rove Appointee Said No:
We noticed last week that it was awfully peculiar that Colorado's U.S. Attorney, Troy Eid, had so airily dismissed conspiracy charges against the three white-supremacist tweakers who were caught planning to assassinate Barack Obama at last week's Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Now it turns out that those suspicions were fully warranted
The Need for Community Organizers: Not Everyone Can Afford to Buy Politicians:
It was fascinating to see the top Republicans struggle with the concept of community organizers this week. After all, these people would never turn to a community organizer. When they have a problem they just call one of the politicians they own.
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This is frightening. Really frightening. More so because it's all true...