Reminding Liberals How "Phony Soldier" Became Possible

Not to excuse Rish Limbaugh's fat, draft-exemptingly pimpled ass, but let's not forget where he got the "ability" (i.e., the daclaration from another source that this is how we'd deal with input on the war by veterans and military personnel) to say what he has. Before Move On's incompetent "Betray Us" heading on the Patraeus ad they took out, it was unacceptable to personally attack vets and uniformed soldiers. Thanks to Eli Pariser and his fumble, it is now okay with Limbaugh's listeners to attack vets... one step short, in their minds, of what Move On did.

Not to sound like a broken record, or anything, but thanks Move On.

The Perfect Start to October

Tonight, the 1-game playoff to decide the NL Wild Card between the Colorado Rockies and the San Diego Padres was the perfect exclamation point to an incredibly exciting September in Major League Baseball. It was also a superb kickoff to an October that will likely prove to raise interest and, as a result, increase attendance to set another new record in 2008.

The poetry of the game was almost too much to take. The Rockies fielded a team with 6 position players who were brought up in their own farm system, and the Padres had just one. The Padres’ recent play had served only to help the Cubs clinch the NL Central, but was otherwise perfectly-suited for being taken over by an upstart team. The Rockies had won 12 of their last 13, playing like the young and wreckless newbies who just couldn’t be conviced of what they were really involved in.

The Mark Ecko convolution of the Bonds’ ball and its fate, providing the surrealistically “Kato Kalen” punctuation to the end of the steroid era, gives the game its next opportunity to revive itself after scandal. Just as after the Black Sox Scandal, The Great Depression, WWII, and the strikes, the game will need something to correct the errors of those magnates who control the game and turned a blind eye to the steroids when it made them rich (you, too, President Bush).

That opportunity is here. With traditional powers like the Yankees and Red Sox, the “lovable losers” of Chicago, the young upstart Rockies, the walking-wounded Angels, the overachieving Diamondbacks, the Indians whose fans couldn’t see home games at the start of the season because of snow, and the hard-charging Phillies, this post-season is set to be magical. The National Pastime is ready again to be the nation’s favorite game. To quote the conservative George Will, "Football incorporates the two worst elements of American society; violence punctuated by committee meetings.”

And so, as this year’s NFL and college seasons become more and more disappointing (unless you’re a South Florida fan, who shouldn’t get too comfortable in that #6 spot) with unreasonable upsets, accusations of cheating, stars taken down by scandal or suddenly unwilling to get into their familiarly scandalous character (TO), and foreseeable poor play on the part of some key players, the stage is set for baseball to regain its place atop American sports.

So let’s sit back and enjoy the fact that TBS/TNT has taken some of the load off Fox, enabling us to see every game this post-season. Let us cherish the last hints of summer that games in Arizona will give (slight as they’ll be in that air-conditioned can), as we await in fear of the snow and sleet in Boston and Cleveland. Let’s all get into it, whether our teams are in it or not, as the story to be told this fall simply warrants our attention. Let us get reacquainted with the greatest game ever created, not just as fans, but as a nation, that played the game on Civil War fields and gave it back to Japan after our troops arrived.

Our relationship with the game is essential, believe it or not, to our national identity. It’s not possible to be the America of its longest-held values, without being the America that loves and respects its original game. So find a part of this story to identify with, and follow it. It has set up too perfectly to simply let us down, now. The next baseball renaissance is here, my fellow Americans, and it is your duty to your future offspring, or their future offspring, to be able to recount what happened this October.

"I see great things in baseball. It’s our game- the American game.” -Walt Whitman

Mets' September Collapse is Penance for 1969

Baseball is, in many ways, like nature. It has limits on its tolerances for extremes, and tries its best to preserve karmic equilibrium (it's failed dramatically with the Yankees). For those of you crying over the Mets' disasterous collapse this month, don't blame the team, don't blame the Phillies, don't blame the baseball gods... blame your dads and grandfathers who got such a kick out of the 1969 Mets' takeover of the Cubs, coming from 9 games down on Aug. 16th to take the NL East by 8 games. Your father's joy at that improbable comeback sowed the seeds for your disappointment this year.

So, I suggest you make dad or grandpa tell you the story of the 1969 Miracle Mets each night as your bedtime story, until opening day 2008. That would be his penance, and would keep your hope alive through the winter.

-A Cubs' Fan

Giuliani Candidacy Could Spell Problem for Religious Right

Dr. Dobson, I'd like you to meet Irrelevance. Irrelevance, this is Dr. Dobson. I'll leave you two alone now, to get better acquainted.

The religious right has decided to consider backing a 3rd party (Constitution Party, anyone?) candidate if the GOP nominates a pro-choice candidate, specifically Giuliani. While that would be a disaster for the GOP, leaving them without their foot-soldiers for their campaigns, it would be the death nail for a cohesive and corporate-structured religious right.

What Dobson, and people like him (Richard Viguerie, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins) don't seem to understand, is that their power over people of faith is relative only to that power's usefulness. As long as they were able to keep the "moral values" voters in check, dutifully serving the GOP's machine, they were helpful in separating the GOP from their foot soldiers' ideology. That provided them with plausible deniability over their perceived ties to the religious right, allowing them to remain attractive to self-serving agnostic yuppies.

But in the absence of such a purpose, as would be the case with 22% of voters back in play, you will be irrelevant. In fact, you will become a target, yourselves, as the payoff for taking you down, no longer men of faith, but men of politics, would be your supporters being free to think for themselves again.

Here's what this Giuliani battle is really over; the leaders of the religious right see their power slipping away. The "moral values" voters see that they've been used, and feel abandoned. The GOP had the power to end abortion, to roll back gay rights 25 years, and to push the social agenda of the religious right to ridiculous ends in 2005 and 2006. But they didn't, and the reason for that is simple. When they had the power the religious right gave them, controlling all three branches of government, they had other priorities. That wasn't a mistake, it was a rare illustration of the GOP's true character. Dobson and Perkins are mistaken if they think the way to keep that power is to put their voters back in play.

Today, Tony Perkins got the first indication of what post-GOP life would be like for him. Chris Matthews, with a terrific target-of-opportunity in Giuliani's boy Congressman Peter King (R-NY), chose instead to lay into Perkins for the "pro-abortion" lingo that's been used for ages. If you go out into the third party wilderness, Tony, don't expect anyone to lay off of you any more. At that point, you are political prey with a lot of supporters other people will be happy to take from you.

Consider this fair warning.

Respone to JSObservations on Health Care

This week's GTL post (link in title) on "Hillary Care" has provided for some fun debate on health care. It's original purpose, which I'll return to this weekend some time (I may owe Hillary an apology, or at least a temporary withdrawal of my more pointed criticisms), was to point out how electoral failure leads to political weakness. But it's become about health care itself.

So we'll look first at several assertions made about about how this current health care system works, and whether or not it should be abandoned.

This JSObservations post provides some unique insight into the health care debate, as it doesn't use the typical rightwing attacks of simply calling us "commies" for wanting to ensure what, in the Greatest Country in the World, should be a human right. Instead, it breaks down numbers and makes assertions that will, at first glance, alleviate the immediate concerns of those with health coverage at the time they read it.

First, let's address the comment that provoked all of this;

So many people base their opposition to the current healthcare system on the number of uninsured, which is commonly identified as 47 million. However, that number is a sham.

“If we believe the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is a frequent source for the mainstream media, Americans who do not qualify for current government programs and who make less than $50,000 a year total somewhere between 13.9 million and 8.2 million, no more than 5 percent of the population. Furthermore, according to the Congressional Budget Office, 45 percent of uninsured people will be uninsured for less than four months."

Is it really a good idea to junk a system that works pretty well for 95 percent of Americans?

The number that's "a sham" is shown in the post as 46.6 million. A far leap from 47 million, I know (somewhat saracastically), but when we get done looking at this, there won't be any of that "well, they're both fudgin' the numbers" stuff that Carville made fun of in War Room (just to be clear, I can't stand Clinton, but Carville is funny as hell). Here's the problem with arguing about 400K people; the report he cites for the math he uses later in the post says 46,995,000 people uninsured in 2006 (see Table 6, "Uninsured", "2006", "Total"), which is only a difference of 5,000 and has likely surpassed that number by now.

This is not the major contention of the post, nor the motivation for my rebuttal. It does, however, provide a lens through which to read the rest of the logic used to dismiss any health care reforms. That is also not the only reason given that the number is a "sham". Some interesting math, whereby the illegally invited (illegal immigrants to righties), and those who make over $50K a year are subtracted. Why, you ask?

Well, the illegally invited are not our problem. I'm not going to argue this point, as immigrant rights isn't the point of the post, although those who think it's a good idea to just leave them hanging should keep in mind that: 1) There's a big corporation somewhere making a bigger profit due to the unprotected nature of their labor; 2) Leaving 9.5 million people without any kind of health care, illegal, legal, not a citizen, whatever, spells major potential for a public health disaster, whether you're covered or not; 3) If these people go to hospitals anyways and never pay, you will pay for it, either through taxes or higher premiums, and the cost will be higher because out-of-pocket health care costs are much higher.

So, moving on to those other people who don't count. The uninsured who make over $50,000 a year, "ought to be able to afford it." He's absolutely right, that they ought to. But this is one of the greatest faults in conservative logic: "If you work hard, you'll succeed, so if you're successful, you've worked hard." Which obviously translates to "those in trouble didn't work hard enough." There's plenty of people with more measure of success than they've earned, and ALOT more people with less.

How much extra spending cash would you sacrifice your health or your childrens' health for?

The answer is, obviously, you can't afford my or my childrens' health. So why would you assume that people in the position of being uninsured, despite their income, have a price and are doing it willfully? Those who go through life thinking "I'll be fine and nothing's going to happen to me," or "I'm not gonna pay my share in," are not the norm, regardless of what Reagan told you. There's probably a good reason why they're risking bankrupting or debilitating illness while earning what "ought to be able" to pay for health coverage.

Maybe it's because that salary, that income, doesn't quite cut it any longer. 50 or 75K isn't what it used to be. According to the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, it takes an income of 175.8%-277.6% of the poverty level, depending on your family structure, to afford health coverage. I recall having seen a 200-300% of poverty level standard in one of the comments or the article, and am regretting not being a faster reader; I may be wrong about that. JS is honest, though, and will comment on the origin of that number (it mighta been Captain Morgan who whispered it, so my apologies if it was), but its in the UCLA paper, nonetheless. Those requiring child care are much higher. Is it out of the realm of possibility to assume that stuff just came up that ruined that budget structure and pushed health care out of their affordability column? Probably not.

One can play games with numbers at will, and since I've been dragged into it, I'll do some of that this weekend, too. You can make them say funny things, like the health care system "works for 95% of us" and you can make it come out with an infinite string of subsequent "6's", so the devil returns to provide the Commie solution himself. But no amount of "if a train leaves Milwaukee at 75 mph" fun will change that people are going to go bankrupt (though not as easily, thanks to the GOP and Bush) or die as a result of no coverage or insufficient coverage.

These people are not lazy. They do not expect a handout. They work hard, they love their children. They love their country. But the commitment of some to the market-over-man ethos has sentenced them to financial ruin (about 2 million a year, before the bankruptcy restrictions went into place) or death (18,000 a year).

It's time to let Milton Friedman's ideas go with his spirit, and start looking at this from a pragmatice point of view, and a more selfish (not free-for-all market) point of view. You pay more for someone to tell you to "go screw yourself, that's not covered," regardless of what your doctor says. You're paying for far more than what single-payer health insurance would cost, because you pay for CEO bonuses, corporate profits, administrative overhead, and the ridiculous inflation of unpaid charges to out-of-pocket patients tacked onto the insurance premiums and/or tax obligations of every American. More on all that later.

JS is more than welcome to post a rebuttal and email it to me, which I will post here, or just link it into the "Comments". I prefer a return to dialogue over "socialism" versus "capitalism" talking point disputes, as they're both inaccurate and polarizing. I do apologize for the "you again" and "Stop waisting our time" shots on GTL, as I like to use hard pokes until I know you're really ready to throw down. They make the process of responding to comments easier.

Until then, I'll focus on bashing Eli Pariser and his big league fumble of the "Betray Us" ad, a possible apology (don't hold your breath) to Hillary, and some Iraq war stuff.

That Goes Boom #6/Gomer Says “Surprise” #2: Thanks Move On

So the Senate held debate today about Move On. The revulsive Patraeus ad, which appeared in the NYT last week and has drawn increasingly vociferous opposition from the right, was a political folly that’s going to continue to be an issue.

Ed Schultz talked about it today, reiterating it as a reason to join Move On and send them money. He calls the debate over the ad “honky tonk” and a “waste of taxpayers’ money.” He’s absolutely right on those latter points, but wrong that it’s a good reason to send them money.

Whatever this is, be it “honky tonk”, a “waste”, an offense to the 1st Amendment, it was foreseeable. It doesn’t take a genius to see that offending a uniformed soldier, whatever his political purpose or persuasion, would not help our efforts to end the war.

The “they don’t support the troops” crap had been put to rest, but with Bush’s statement today, and the debate in the Senate, it has been resurrected by a politically irresponsible stunt. As I’ve said before, there’s a number of different ways they could have approached that ad, but chose the second worst option possible (the worst would have been to call him “babykiller” in grand yippie Tantrum Left fashion).

So thanks again, Move On, for not thinking things through.

CREW's New "Beyond De Lay" Report

In the spirit of policing our own, I'm not going to focus on the GOP's corruption. Also, I don't have that much room. Instead, let's address those Democrats who made CREW's Top 22 list, shall we? Each name has a link to the report summary for that person.

Rep. William "Ice Box" Jefferson (D-LA)
Used the National Guard to get to his home after Katrina so he could pick up some stuff. Then, he got busted with $90,000 in bribe money in his freezer. I know we have a judicial system based on innocence until proven guilty, but the only reason to keep this guy around is if you like to suffer. You don't ever put $90k in your freezer for a good reason.

Rep. John "Retriever" Murtha (D-PA)
This guy basically works for one of his old staffers. Paul Magliochetti now owns one of the most successful defense lobbying firms in DC. Why is he so successful? Maybe he has a friend on the Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Defense.

Rep. Allan "Quarter Bill" Mollohan (D-WV)
Between 1997 and 2006, this guys directed more than $250 million to companies in his district that he set up. I guess that makes it easy to win your disctrict, but doesn't this make clear why we have such enormous budgetary problems? Whenever a Republican bitches about how we don't have the money for this or that, what he means is "that guy took it!" This kind of scum is the reason China owns our ass!

Rep. David "Didn't See This Coming?" Scott (D-GA)
This guy started missing tax payments, at the state and local level, in 1998. He's only in his third term in congress. How did someone run against a guy whose company doesn't pay its taxes, and lose? Since then, he's stopped paying any taxes, and it makes the voters and media in his district look a little nearsighted.

None of these guys even comes close to DeLay in scumminess. But then again, they haven't been given the opportunity yet, either. If any one of these guys were given the authority over the time that DeLay had, I have no doubt that they'd all be just as bad. Murtha would probably be worse. We made electoral gains in 2006 because of the GOP's corruption, and it's our responsibility to address these ethics problems, both in the ethics committee and on the ground in the disctrict.

The Open Letter To Move On

September 14, 2007

Mr. Pariser,

This week, congressional Democrats were given a difficult challenge. Without the votes to override a Presidential veto, without even the votes to break a filibuster in the Senate, the Democrats in congress were challenged by their base to finally end the war in Iraq. It is an appropriate objective for them, given that they were elected to do just that, and I believe it is one that most of them want to achieve.

This specific opportunity was provided by this administration’s callously scheduling the report of General Patraeus over the 9/11 anniversary, and what we knew would be a factually weak argument for keeping American troops in Iraq through 2008. That the Iraqi government had taken a vacation, despite the pressure from American people to end our presence their, was proof that the surge had not worked and could not work towards its stated political objectives, regardless of any disputable improvement in the security conditions.

The task of countering the image presented by the report was simple. To undermine the political cover invariably given to military personnel, question why the administration would send a bureaucrat and a military officer to justify the policy of the Bush administration. To refute the argument that our pullout would lead to disaster, point out the “shining example” of new security cooperation in Anbar, which only came about after our withdrawal and subsequent diplomatic efforts in the province. The help provided by retiring Senators Hagel and Warner would raise the possibility that “moderate” Republicans could be brought over to help in ending, or at least limiting, our involvement in Iraq.

Only after carefully addressing the report could we try several options. Senator Webb’s proposal that we limit deployment time in relation to down time is well-suited to bringing a veto-proof majority to the aid of our military personnel, and while it isn’t ideal, it is a huge wrench in the administration’s war engine. The coming request for $50 billion to continue the war provides us an opportunity to give the President his money in a way that forces him to de-fund the operation or accept limits that move troops out of Iraq in clear stages, set diplomatic requirements on his lazy State Department appointees, and impose regional cooperation on this President.

But that’s not what we’re talking about this week, is it? That’s not what every news network is covering right now. It’s not what’s on the minds of “moderate” Republicans whose votes we need to accomplish anything in the Senate. What we’re talking about, what they’re covering, what’s on their minds, is how fast every Democratic candidate for office is going to have to run away from you and your organization.

The ad you took out in the NYT on Monday was a tactical disaster. Though the text of the advertisement was accurate and perfectly within the scope of our political objective, the tacky and childish wordplay “Betray Us” has set up every Democrat opposed to the war as a punching bag for the White House and other pro-war Republicans. It has given the GOP an opportunity to resurrect one of their favorites, that we “don’t support the troops”, all because you weren’t creative enough to come up with a better lead-in than rhyming. “General Ordered to Take the Hill” is better, as it allows you to focus on his representation of a political ideology, not the facts on the ground. It even lets you do a cartoon with him charging up the steps of congress. Alas, we’ll never know if that would’ve been effective, because now we have to spend this weekend preparing for shots from Giuliani and McCain, rather than focusing on ending the war.

Move On is tainted by this, likely for the remainder of the 2008 election cycle. So, I’m requesting that you do not make contributions to Democratic candidates or committees. Take the money you raise and push a message that will help Democratic candidates. But don’t tie any of our campaigns up in the cloth of “Not supporting our troops” that you’ve re-woven for us. It’s been a long political fight to get to where those of us against the war are not automatically “commie coward soldier-haters”. We need to end this war, and that takes precedent over your antics and position as a political force. Stay out of 2008 so we can focus on what’s important.

Sincerely,

The War Mule

Warmule Cartoon

The Political Value of Baseball

I am a life-long Cubs fan. Having not grown up in Chicago, I was kept in line through the Summers of my childhood by the Cubs' many losses on WGN. And after each game, because they played day games, I had time to go out into my back yard, and replay the game myself. Except this time, the Cubs would win.

Each year that the Cubs make a run at the playoffs, we see famous Cubs' fans become more and more visible, as the cameras take the time to search the crowd for fans that might find a simple trip to the ballpark as too much of a hassle, during a losing season. Some are always there. Bill Murray, John Cusack, and Vince Vaughn are varyingly common fixtures at Wrigley Field, and very good actors. Another Cubs fan, whose work I'm not so fond of, is George Will.

George Will is the Pulitzer-winning conservative columnist who can now be seen on ABC's This Week each Sunday. He frequently quotes Milton Friedman, whose economic idealogy has been the basis for conservative undermining of government. He's a regular addition at Cato's functions, a libertarian institution that advocates "free-for-all" markets. This is Will's politics.

Ken Burns' famous Baseball series on PBS contains input from many people who are not ball players, owners, etc. Some are just important, recognizable people, whose lives can be traced by baseball. One of those people is George Will, professional conservative.

But in the Baseball documentary, Will is not doing his job, discussing politics. He's just a baseball fan. He's talking about something he cares about. When he does, when he's forced by his love for the game to reconsider his ideology, his views are very different:

"55, 56 (now 75) million people pay to get into ballparks every year. Not one of them buys a ticket to see an owner. I happen to be a semi-Marxist in this field, I believe in the labor theory of value. The players are the labor, they create the economic value. They ought to get the lion's share of the rewards."

Politics is, you see, simply Will's job. Baseball is his passion. When one advocates for Friedman's economic ideologies, he advocates for market manipulation, advantaged to the strong and wealthy. That would mean that as far as his business is concerned, he should want his favorite team's pitcher, one strike from throwing a perfect game, to be given an advantage. The market's "benefit of the doubt" given to the stronger on that day. Not so for baseball.

In a salute to umpire Bruce Froemming this last August, he laudes Froemming's integrity... Integrity that cost Milt Pappas a perfect game in 1972. In what Will love's he is for umpiring, which would translate to regulation in the political world.

I would never advocate for George Will as President of the United States. I don't believe that governing, or our systems of doing so, are his true love. But I would like to ask him, this one time in probably the least flattering tone one could have imagined, to please buy the Cubs? It is the team he loves, in the game he loves, and he would nourish it to make it successful. Because that is what you do when you love something.

Perhaps a round through baseball, for those conservatives who love it (not Bush, keep him away), could change the way they think, as well. Teamwork, personal sacrifice, fair play, trades agreed upon by both parties, and the most important measure of your trip to the field being that you return home, are good values. It's time that conservatives learn them, and if they already know them, carry them over to other parts of their lives.

Open Letter to Move On

Move On's antics to kick off what was an important week towards ending the US involvement in Iraq have allowed distraction to settle into the political discourse over the war. As a result, I have written an Open Letter to Eli Pariser, Executive Director at Move On, asking them to stay out of 2008 so they don't serve as a weight around the neck of every Democrat running for office and opposed to the war. You can read it at GTL or Banzai Elvis. I will cross-post it here Saturday night.

AP Takes California Electoral Fight to a Very "Cat's in the Cradle" Place

As this Media Matters article points out, the GOP's support for a ballot measure to completely gut the California Electoral Delegation was written about, with no mention of their fathering of the measure. This should make the Presidential Election Reform Act feel very abandoned, as his estranged father gives a nod of proud support from across the room, but no hug.

Dead or Alive... When We Get Around To It

On the sixth anniversary of 9/11, how ashamed we must all feel that the perpetrators roam free? How insincere any condolence must feel to the family members of those lost, that we allowed our sense of obligation to them be diverted for a war of choice, that itself goes on? How weak must our resolve appear, to the eyes of the world, in that one mass murderer can carry out an act like this and be free to gloat about it for six subsequent anniversaries? How hard must it be, for the victims looking down on us, to see us put so much blood and treasure into “Daddy’s Unflushed Doody”, while their killer sits in relative comfort behind an imaginary line that we haven’t the courage or resources to cross?

Osama bin Laden is free, and apparently has access to a Rite Aid or Walgreen’s to get his Just for Men dye. Meanwhile, George W Bush is suffering the early consequences of his own atrocities. When scores are finally tallied up, it’s my estimation W will be on his way to historical irrelevance, if he’s lucky, while bin Laden will be quietly killed by troops sent in by a Democrat. But he’ll outlast Bush as a political force in the US, which should fill the GOP with shame as they seek to defend the war that diverts our attention from resolving that issue.

This president kills people, that’s always been his thing. As governor, he laughed at executed criminals whose appeals piqued his lowbrow sense of humor. He killed then, kills now, and will continue to kill until he leaves office. The abnormality is when he doesn’t kill someone. So it is with some confusion that we wonder at OBL’s ability to taunt us, six years later, while this president seeks to shorten the appeals process for those sentenced to death, but makes no effort to get him. There will be no clemency for bin Laden, no pleas for compassion or lenience, no political consequence for quenching his blood thirst. You get to kill him, and no one will be bothered by it. This one is free George, so why do you refuse to do it?

He refuses because bin Laden serves a purpose for him. As long as he’s out there, he’s a threat, and we will fearfully give tacit permission for his bloody misadventures throughout the Muslim world. Only after he’s catalyzed every neo-con objective in the oil-producing world, will bin Laden become a target of the Bush administration, and that won’t happen in this term.
The fact of the matter is if we want bin Laden caught or killed, people are going to have to do it themselves. The best way to get OBL’s head on a pike would be to up the ante on him to $250 million. Then, crawl up the ass of whoever comes to collect, being that they’ve probably had the opportunity all along and done nothing. After all, they’ll have to pay for denying us the honor of giving bin Laden his “due process”.

To Medea Benjamin and the Tantrum Left

As their apparent Happy Birthday present to Medea Benjamin, MoveOn sent notice of its intentions to join her and Code Pink in the crevasse of political irrelevance. Yesterday’s “Betray Us” ad (really, word play on Patraeus’ name is the hijinks MoveOn members paid for?) in the NYT saddled congressional Democrats with the added obligation of disowning another group on the left, while trying to manage a committee hearing that was already tilted by the administration and the media (CNN did a bangup job, putting the General’s buddy David Gergen front and center all day long). All of this was punctuated by the constant whaling of protestors from the back of the room, whose presence makes it appear that Dems can’t keep order in government. So Happy Birthday, Susie. I hope it was worth it.

Your support of the increasingly pro-war candidate in 2004, John Kerry, makes your cries for peace seem hypocritical. When it was expedient, you vociferously opposed the only candidate calling for impeachment and pulling the troops out (Nader), and supported one who called for more troops and assured victory in Iraq. Yet now, you and your cohorts throw hissy fits at hearings and meetings with congressional leaders because they won’t do what you wouldn’t do in ’04; impeach and end the war. The July assault you waged on the credibility of John Conyers, whose vocal opposition to the war and every other position of the Bush administration was the only light at the end of the six-year tunnel we were in, demonstrates your sense of entitlement and lack of political awareness. Believe me, when the votes for impeachment are there, when they are even an outside possibility, Conyers will push it.

This “Tantrum” Left, as I call it, is not unfamiliar. It was this kind of public fit that characterized the anti-war movement in the 1960’s, and gave Nixon the openings he needed to keep the Viet Nam War going. First, it split the Democratic Party in 1968 and hobbled the nomination prospects of Gene McCarthy, who would have ended the war, and gave the nomination to a thump-able Humphrey. Then, it produced the McGovern nomination in 1972, which is exactly the kind of weak and self-undermining opponent that Nixon needed to win back the White House in spite of overwhelming opposition to the war. And when Nixon put up the hippies as the personification of the anti-war sentiment, he was able to keep control of the “silent majority” that actually opposed the war, but wasn’t going to give control of our foreign policy over to a bunch of rioting teenagers.

In effect, this massive anti-war movement, headed up by the likes of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, extended our involvement in Viet Nam. I know Nixon credited them (the movement, that is, not them personally) with forcing him to end the war, but the fact is he shouldn’t have been in office to drag it out another 5 years, and his own arrogance prevented him from recognizing that. This same condition exists now, as Democrats look for ways to end the war, a “movement” undermines them at every turn, by making the party seem weak, entitled, fussy, whiny, divided, and committed to failure. When there’s an obvious approach to this issue, that we’ve done all we can and it’s time for Iraq to resolve its issues politically, quickly, there’s no time for screams from the back of the room about impeachment.

The issue is separate, Medea, as much as you refuse to admit it. To get the war debate bogged down in an almost impossible attempt to “put an elephant head on a pike”, would be irresponsible and counter-productive. It is time for your “movement” to start writing letters, paying visits, making phone calls, and do it all without getting arrested or yelling at congressional allies. Cindy Sheehan was a political force until she started hanging out with you, and her message has since been lost in the annoying white noise of the Tantrum Left. We can’t allow you to do this to the rest of the 60% who oppose this war. Do us all a favor and stop handing Republicans the brush with which to paint all of us. Don’t go away mad, just go away.

War Mule Cartoon

War Mule Cartoon

Chris Matthews Ignores Elephant in Room

Did anyone see the interview Matthews did with Tom De Lay, today? How did he manage, as De Lay sat there and claimed that Democrats don't police their own, to ignore the the fact that the GUY HE WAS INTERVIEWED WAS NOT POLICED BY HIS OWN FOR YEARS? Chris Matthews is such a wussy when someone "important" is on his show.

Is GOP Crop the Best or Worst Ever? It Doesn't Matter

In Townhall, today, Michael Medved tries to put the GOP 2008 Presidential field "in proper perspective" by illustrating how crappy their primary candidates have been in the past. And he's right. This year's group of candidates is the best ever, not the worst, despite the misgivings of Republican Party politicos and ground troops, alike. They exactly represent what the Republican Party is all about and they have experience to make a legitimate run on their party principles.

The problem is not with the candidates, though, it's with the GOP's current condition. The alliance of religious conservatives, cut-throat yuppies, the opulent that yuppies desire to be, anti-gay/black/brown bigots, and nationalists has been broken by their own arrogance. Upon gaining control of all three branches of government in 2005, the GOP thanked these groups but informed them that their services, and expectations, would no longer be needed.

The fact is that Ronald Reagan, at the feet of whom every conservative feels the need to worship, could not get elected in this climate. Religious conservatives will not wage the GOP's ground war for them in 2008, because they feel misunderstood after Terry Schiavo, ashamed after Katrina, and ignored by the Supreme Court appointments of Alito and Roberts. The yuppies see their portfolios in a constant state of flux because of the irresponsible deregulation of finance, and the weakness of the dollar caused by enormous trade and budget deficits to wage a war they only had passing interest in to begin with. And the "Reagan Democrats", now being given hope by Obama and Edwards, will ignore the social ideology that has kept them from finding something better for themselves for two generations.

A waffling Governor, an incompetent celebrity mayor, a war hero trying to refight the war he was held in captivity through, and a career lobbyist who served the highest bidder absolutely are the best GOP field in many years. They accurately represent the true interests of the GOP. The problem is that the brazenness and overreaching of the GOP in 2005 and 2006 has illustrated that fact, and none of those who were swindled for so long will continue to be taken for fools.

How does your boy, W, put it? "Fool me once, shame on... shame on... shame on you. Fool me twice... Fool me, can't get fooled again."

Hillary Clinton Claims She Voted for War Because Bush Is A "Tricksy Hobbit"

George W Bush is stupid. That's what we on the left have maintained is his defining characteristic since he first started pissing us off by executing women, the disabled, and some likely innocent people. It's what's kept our sense of humor in tact over the last 6 years. We joke about it, at dinner parties, coffee shops, barbecues, baseball games, and holiday gatherings.

Sure, Bush has had a few dirty tricksters who could pull out a win in Florida or Ohio, and some guys whose lack of respect for fact has given the public the impression that there's some sort of evil genius behind the curtain. But as far as W is concerned, we think he's a moron, right?

Well, in my mind the only thing that disqualifies you from a position of responsibility more than beind a moron, is being taken by a moron. Hillary Clinton maintains that her vote to authorize military action in Iraq was tricked out of her by the Pwesident.

Invoking Gollum does not score points with me, and it shouldn't for any Democratic primary voter. After 8 years of putting up with a level of stupidity that makes Reagan look like an MIT professor, I don't think our response to that should be to send someone who couldn't get her mind around the true motivations of Texas oilmen.

A lack of intellectual curiosity does not just apply to a fool's refusal to read newspapers or intelligence reports. It also applies to the failure of a presumably smart person to hold onto the well-known facts in lieu of reactionary fantasies about trucks, bunkers, aluminum tubes, and Prague meetings. A moron like W has an excuse for his behavior; his charm (I guess) and family name have been used as a vehicle for things he does not understand. But any Democrat who voted to invade Iraq was simply lazy or afraid, and neither of these are qualities we want in a President.

That Goes Boom #5: Your Trunk Doesn't Go There

In honor of Sen. Larry "Can I Warm That For You" Craig's coming out party, otherwise known as a guilty plea showing up in Roll Call, we're going to go back through the recent sex scandals to undermine the GOP's "Family Values" facade.

The Hard Core Dirties

Ted "Pipe Smokin'" Haggard
Teddy likes pipes. Not only did he go to a gay prostitute, but he smoked meth with him, too. It's hard to do that and maintain your position as a the national leader of a religious group whose uniting political focus is passing judgment on others. As a backer of Amendment 43 in Colorado (to outlaw gay marriage), Ted was apparently concerned that if his male hooker became pregnant, he'd be pressured into marrying him. Amendment 43 was his "out" to keep it casual, I guess.

David "The Hobbyist" Vitters
After doing some research on Johns, I discovered that they like to call themselves "hobbyists". Vitters apparently is one. He was a consistent basher of gays as having been responsible for ruining the institution of marriage. I'm sure none of that 50% divorce rate has anything to do with cheating, or hookers. His phone number came up on the DC madame's list, and he confessed. But when a New Orleans madame handed his ass over to the press, he denied ever using her girls. So after Katrina, he won't even help his home state by pushing the Big Easy's pro lovin'? Talk about abandoning your constituents!

Mark "Time of Your Life" Foley
Had he ever actually achieved his fantasy, the Foley thing would be sooooo not funny. But as it is, we can make fun because the kids who work as pages in the House of Representatives apparently have enough street-smarts not to play "no pants relay racing" down the hallowed halls. Foley's creepy speech on the topic of the page program on the House floor, where he cried a little, is now remembered as the public evidence of what Speaker Dennis Hastert's office was apparently aware of; Mark Foley likes teenage boys. It should be noted that it was also alleged in 1982 that Larry Craig had sex with pages.

Bob "20 Bucks O'Fun" Allen
"I was scared of the guy, so I offered to blow him" is Bob's excuse for soliciting an undercover officer for sex. The cop wasn't even stinging park-trollers, he was hoping to catch a burglar.

Jim "Job Offer" West
Should we speak ill of the dead? Sure. West was the infamous anti-gay mayor of Spokane who offered internships to guys he wanted to screw. He was also alleged to have molested boys as a scout leader in his "young and reckless days". He's dead now, and probably furious that what got him sent to Hell was the molestation, lying, and hate-mongering, not the gay thing.

Duke "Buy Hooker Bonds" Cunningham
We all know Cunningham took bribes from arms manufacturers, like free boats and home purchases at 200% their value. But Duke liked his cherry on top, so the poker games his benefactors set up for him often had hookers for his post-bust liesure.

Jeff "Key at the Front Desk" Gannon
The Talon News guy who had unprecedented access to the Bush White House, including sleepovers, was also a male prostitute. Who was nailing him, in return for all the good press? Rove? McClellan? The twins?

Newt "I Know Where You Can Serve Her" Gingrich
This bastard led the impeachment of Clinton over lying about a BJ. But not only was he a cheater, he actually served his wife with divorce papers while she was hospitalized. Now that's the kind of cold, hard, "national interest" kind of guy the GOP should run for President.

The Softer Side

Lewis "Inmate #28301-016" Libby
The Apprenitice is a book containing scenes of a bear raping a teenage prostitute-to-be, a man wondering if he should screw his freshly killed deer before it cools, and incest. Libby wrote it. Dont' quit your day j.. err, uh, maybe you could go back to school.

Bill "That's What I'm Talkin' About" O'Reilly
Sexual harrasser and author of Those Who Trespass, an adventure of perversion. He's general scum, so it's actually surprising this is it.

Potential Fun

Glenn "Sandman" Murphy, Jr.
The now-former Chairman-elect of the Young Republicans is now TWICE accused of giving unwanted blowjobs to sleeping men. He has resigned, probably realizing that publicity of his habit will make holding all-male sleepovers, his real reason for wanting the job anyways, very difficult.

Jim "Not as Obvious as Foley" Kolbe
This Arizona congressman came out in 1996, after gay rights activists sought to "out" him because of his vote for the DMA. Things went swimmingly for him, considering he was a gay Republican, until the Mark Foley scandal erupted. He claimed to have informed the office supervising the page program of Foley's email activities, but no one can substantiate that. What is substantiated is that he was way too friendly with some of the former pages, especially on a camping trip he took two on in 1996. The DoJ cleared him of any wrongdoing, but then again, he didn't leave any evidence as damning as emails.

Rudy "Cousin-Kissing Cross-Dresser" Giuliani
Every time I see file footage of this guy on the news, a little part of me thinks the other shoe is getting ready to drop. And when it does, there's gonna be a whole closet collapsing behind him. Married his cousin? Dressed in drag? Cheated on his wife? When it comes out that Bernie Kerik was his pimp, you're all gonna feel very foolish for being scared of this guy!

In conclusion, I have only one question for Larry Craig. When you tapped your foot, then stuck your hand under the wall of the bathroom stall, and only got a badge for a response, why didn't you just ask for a roll of toilet paper?

Immigration Reform as the Civil Rights Act of this Generation

In the early 1960's, the second greatest political drama, after the assassination of President Kennedy, was the push for civil rights in the federal government. After the events of Selma, these actions became much more visible at the national level, and were the definition of a conflict of cultures that would destroy the solid South for Democrats.

In terms of both political consequences and morality, this generation's Civil Rights Act is immigration reform. The GOP is divided sharply on this issue, between the new Republican stronghold of the Southwest "shoot-em-ups" like Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, and that dipstick sheriff Joe Arpaio, and Northeast brain trusts of Heritage and the RNC money machine. It is the perfect opportunity for the Democrats to use two political "negatives" (moral "rights" that are politically detrimental) to make a political "positive".

The Republicans' ability to force Johnson and Humphrey into the forefront of the legislative battle for the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act was masterful. They created exceptions that prevented any new intrusions by the federal government into the North, alleviating any concern they had over the bill. As a result, what was created seemed to be political imposition by the Democrats on the South, despite the consistent efforts of Dixiecrats to stop the legislation. As a result, the GOP gained a new political base in Southern whites without having to give anything up. The Bush, Reagan, and Nixon administrations, and the GOP congressional power over the last 4 decades, is based entirely on the opportunity presented by this one tactic. Democrats did the right thing by passing these measures, but their political arrogance led them to believe they were in the driver's seat until it was too late. LBJ even acknowledged that he believed they were giving the South to the GOP.

We now have the opportunity to accomplish the same thing with George W Bush in office. He's desperate for anything to hang his hat on, and this is the one thing within reach. And passing immigration reform that undermines the image of "guardian at the gate" held by Southwestern Republicans could put Arizona, Oklahoma, Kansas, and districts of Southern California and Texas into play for Democrats, and create a new "solid blue zone" that includes New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Montana.

Bush is part of the New England business-intellectual class of Republicans that actually control the GOP's agenda, and only stokes the religious or bigoted tendencies of its base for its ulterior purposes. The GOP, and more importantly Bush, has greater interest in providing his paymasters with the exploitable labor that inflates their profits than he has in scaring people over the "brown threat". If he is made to understand that 2008 is a lost cause, and that this is the one thing he can do for his legacy, he just might bring the votes to the table to make it happen.

What's more, Democrats can rest easy in allowing passage of legislation that hasn't the labor protections they want. Creating a 3 or 4 year sunset on the program can allow them to revisit it with both branches in Dem control, and put in whatever new provisions we want. At this point, they will be providing more protection for a group that is ready to be politically assimilated. New union membership and empowerment, a broader mandate for fixing NAFTA, and the opportunity to expand industry with newly legitimized labor and a working class emboldened to create independent small businesses of their own.

The way to make this happen is by cutting off the funding for the Iraq War. By taking away W's only other hope for a separate room in his library, he will be forced to accept less than ideal terms, and will help the push for this in a way that will give us the political reward of opening up the Southwest. Some would say that this would make him combative, but with his approval ratings, he's already backed into a corner and only seems to understand negotiation from a position of power anyways. Make him get us the votes from the Northeastern GOP, and let our congressional officials resist it on moral grounds.

Over a four-year period, we will have ensured protection for immigrant workers who are better off in the immediate future with anything than they are with nothing. We will be able to fix or withdraw from NAFTA, and we will be able to create a whole new class of business owners in downtrodden industrial areas. And in doing so, we can take away a key region of the GOP's base, because once they find the GOP's rhetoric is empty, they will turn to the hope we provide.

War Mule Cartoon

The GOP knows there's only one candidate who can energize their base for 2008; that's Hillary Clinton. Rove talking her up and down at the same time, Murdoch and his cronies backing her financially, and Kristol sprinkling pixie dust all over her foreign policy agenda are signs. First, she's good for them if she wins, both from a policy standpoint and as a political punching bag. Second, she actually gives them a shot at winning next year.

That Goes Boom #4: The Inevitible Demise of the GOP

The demise of the GOP was inevitible, but since it happened on Rove's watch, why don't we just see if we can drive him insane with the implications of responsibility.

That Goes Boom #3: California Seeks Electoral Irrelevance

For decades, California’s ballot initiative system has been the blind three-legged pet dog of American democracy. It’s cute, and you feel sorry for it, but it walks into walls and glass doors, can’t go where other dogs can, and every once in a while it craps all over itself and embarrasses everyone.

First, it was Prop 13 in 1978. What was supposedly a way to prevent sky-rocketing home values from financially crippling fixed-income and second-generation homeowners, was actually the first step to undermining the fiscal integrity of state governments. Its passage in California led to a taxpayer revolt, nationwide. So now we have deficit-spending as a fact of life, both at federal and state levels. State legislatures now have to choose between begging the voters for a tax increase to simply keep up with inflation, or just raise tuition rates at state schools.

Next, it was Prop 38, an attempt to keep Spanish-speaking voters from being able to vote by printing election materials in English only. This passed, as did the famous Prop 187 to restrict state services form illegal immigrants. Combine these two facts and we know that either; a) Spanish-speaking voters are a statistical irrelevance in the Hispanic population, otherwise they’d have shown up to defend themselves, or b) California is a lot more bigoted than their arrogant criticisms of the South would let on.

And of course, there was the Gubernatorial Recall of 2003 that made California’s electoral system seem more like the bar scene from Star Wars. All year, most of us were just waiting for Obewon to come in and thin the herd.

And that’s just their ballot initiative system at work. They’ve elected two actors to be Governor, one was a snitch during the McCarthy era, and the other’s a philandering Nazi-descendant. They elect car thieves (Darrell Issa), closeted mouthpieces (David Dreier) and the weaker half of Sonny and Cher (Sonny Bono) to represent them in Washington.

They put a guy in charge of San Francisco, the one city where it’s possible for gay rights to be pushed on a national level, who had the political seasoning of a 5th-grader running for student council because he was endorsed by both major parties, and still barely beat the Green Party candidate. Then, instead of being smart and coordinating a gay-marriage movement with people who know what they’re doing, he opens the doors to city hall and holds a costume party outside. By the time the national media had gotten done sensationalizing the issue, Gavin Newsom had personally turned hundreds of thousands of voters across America, many of them religious African-American’s, against the party just in time to help Bush take Ohio in 2004.

Now, California seems to be supportive, and I know it’s over a year away, of splitting their electoral delegates along congressional district votes. That would’ve meant that in 2004, Kerry would’ve gotten 33 votes, and Bush would’ve gotten 22. If you figure a net-gain, for a 10-point win, of 11 electoral votes, California becomes only as important to candidates as Washington, Missouri, or Tennessee. And that’s only if you can win by 10 points. In a close election, California becomes Wyoming.

This is annoying for two reasons. One, California’s obvious arrogance, with Hollywood money pushing socially liberal issues that have politically hurt a message of economic populism and ending the war, is about to screw the entire country on a very regular basis. The only time Californian’s vote together is when a Californian runs for office. I’m sorry, but the two biggest bastards, Nixon and Reagan, in the last half of the 20th century came from California, and I don’t want to know who else they’ve in store for us (please God, no Arnold for President).

Two, they’re going to turn themselves into the electoral equivalent of a bonus round. The fifth-largest economy in the world will be completely ignored by every general-election presidential candidate from that day forward. They had a chance, with Prop 77, to remove gerrymandering from their political process and take a step towards better democracy. They didn’t take it. But now, they think they’re going to make themselves more pure by turning a win in California into a quarter you find on the sidewalk; serendipity, nothing to go out looking for.

To be completely honest, I’d rather have the Democratic Party completely ignore California altogether, and focus on the needs of Middle America. The loudmouth nonsense that the left coast produces reminds of how I feel every time I’m in Boulder, Colorado. Everyone there seems really liberal, what with the pot and promiscuity. But do anything that affects property value or taxes, or show a white girl with a black guy, and suddenly everyone’s turning their Che Gueverra t-shirts inside out and putting up “Musgrave for Governor” signs.

That Goes Boom #2: Jaba the Rove

So Jaba the Rove went on the Sunday talk shows, and Momma Cheney sent him with a grocery list:

1) Put the spotlight on Hillary Clinton; no one will figure that one out.
2) Bring back the underwear Condi left in Russert's dressing room.
3) Blame the 2006 losers for losing; it's not your fault they don't know how to steal an election.
4) Talk up the GOP for 2008. What? Of course you won't sound crazy.
5) Bring back applesauce for W. We ran out when he was feeding his lunch to Yogi and Boo-Boo Saturday morning.

We'll spend the next few days beating up on Karl, the GOP, and how absoFUCKINGlutely stupid they must think we are. We'll go both ways on it, with coherent arguments on the facts, then some exercises in vitriolic name-calling that we'll try to make sound as Dennis Millerish as possible... only relevant, not random.

The Clinton Drag

The last several days have seen alot of talk about Hillary Clinton's viability as the Democratic nominee for president. First, there were questions about whether she'd be a drag on the party. Then, people wondered if her First Lady experience is so important to her image of "being ready" for the White House, why wouldn't the documented evidence of her time there be available until after the election? Then, her attack dog Howard Wolfson blasted Obama's perfectly reasonable, objective, and even-tempered observation on her handicap as a divisive figure in politics, as being negative. What's behind this is much more than meets the eye. Hillary Clinton seems more and more every day like a modern Edward of Caernarvon, the inevitible and benign heir to the throne of a dying and hateful father, with their main qualification being that their spouses could rule. This is the result of our party having been tuned for survival and evasion over the last 40 years, rather than for combat. We've lost our ability to forecast a strategic advantage, and prepare for it. The national polls indicate that our nominees have a slight edge over GOP opponents, but it'll be close. What those polls don't account for is the tremendous malfunction in the conservative machine that gives us this opportunity to exploit a lack of enthusiasm in any GOP candidate.

It is important that we make the most of this opportunity. The Republican brain-trust will eventually find some new social minority to exploit for political gain. If they do this before we’ve established ourselves as the party that can carry poor and working class Americans into the global trade era, they will again rest on fear as their main political motivator.

Hillary is not the best candidate for these conditions. Her nomination and possible election would result in a failure on our part to move our platform into an economically progressive position that can block out right-wing exploitation in the electoral market. The formula is simple. Despite the tone of inevitability around her, she’s not our first choice for principled reasons, and she is the GOP’s for tactical reasons.

She’s not our first choice

In the debates, whenever Obama, Kucinich, or even Edwards and Dodd say something, it gets passionate applause. When Hillary says something, the applause is much more like the applause you give a football player who gets up off the ground after being knocked unconscious. As far as Democrats are concerned, she’s “our most viable candidate”, which isn’t true (I’ll go into why in the next section).

Voters and activists are not inspired by Clinton. The other four I mentioned each have their own corps of volunteers, to varying extents, who truly believe in their candidates. Hillary’s volunteers are more interested in beating the Republicans, and they’re subjugated to her political machine and its interests.

This disempowers and demotivates those grassroots activists brought back from the Nader camp by Dean and the DNC, whose participation has been key to recent state and local Democratic Party transformations. These changes are what made 2006 a big win, instead of just a slight advantage in the House, alone.

What’s more, her policies will shut the door on a public that’s ready to step back into our tent in a big way. Her defense of lobbyists and their effect on governing, her soft neo-con foreign policy (to include her vote to authorize military action in Iraq), her apparent abandonment of national health care as a priority (when it’s ready to make a big electoral impact), and her fundraising methods put her out of touch with activists and voters alike. And a couple of these will hurt with independents, whose focus on the integrity of the political process (as illustrated by the popularity of Perot in ’92). These all hurt the integrity and politics of the Party, both long-term and in 2008.

She is their first choice

Clinton angers the social conservatives, more as a result of her representation of the enemy in the culture wars than anything else. Right now, they’re completely uninspired by their own candidates and continue to search for something that will unify them. Hillary would do that. Even though they’re poised to stay home in 2008, not put out yard signs or go to rallies, thanks to Bush and the destruction of the GOP’s house of cards alliance, she would give them that motivation they need to turn out and work hard against us.

In this climate, we can have our first choice, because all of our candidates are electable (maybe not Mike “I-Wish-I-Were-McGovern-So-Much-It-Makes-Me-Mad” Gravel). That’s because of the fracturing of the GOP through its now evident self-contradiction. Populist economics is the secret to moving poor and working class whites back into our circle. She can’t do that, because her platform won’t be what it needs to be, and because they’ll be tempted to campaign against her. This hurts us all the way down the ticket if they come out to vote against her as the representative of our party.

All of this is illustrated in the recent warming between her and right-wing leadership. Murdoch and Kristol, among others, have found a niche application for Hillary. They get two things out of Hillary; 1) They aren’t in disagreement with her cloaked neo-conservatism on foreign policy, and can live with her winning, but will also be able to bash her to help reunite as an opposition party; 2) they have the chance to put someone relatively benign and agreeable, like Huckabee, in office to stem the impending judgment of the GOP before historians have completed their conviction of Bush. This gives them time to repair the fractures in the GOP.

Hillary Clinton’s nomination would be a costly fumble by our team. It would disincentivize participation in our party by those with the most political and moral resolve, and would provide the GOP with their much-needed dragon to slay. She is the best Republican candidate in the field right now, in that she is the best candidate for the GOP, and we have to treat her that way. To do anything else would leave us open to defeat in 2008 and beyond, in a time when we should be running the score up.

War Mule Cartoon

Hillary's drag on the party.

Thursday we'll go into how many ways she's a drag.

War Mule Cartoon

At least McTragedy has PTSD to blame for his intractability. What's Mittbot's excuse?

"Changing Conditions" First Right Idea Out of POTUS43

In his pre-vacation press conference today, W suggested that we have to change the conditions that lead people to carry out suicide attacks against us. For the first time, he's right.

The conditions that exist in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, and the UAE (you know, the countries that the 9/11 terrorists came from, not Iraq) are repressive governments propped up by American political support in exchange for some regular errand they do for us (suppressing democracy and protecting access to oil are the big ones), and religious distractions promoted by those governments to focus the people's wrath away from them. Unfortunately, it gets focused onto us.

Not that it's incorrect to start there. After all, from the perspective of a revolutionary Saudi citizen, there's no removing the royal family as long as that family is wrapped around our finger. It's easier to convince us to let go beforehand, rather than try cutting through our pinky. I don't think blowing up buildings is the way to do that, but then again, Bin Laden isn't looking to get us to separate from the Saudi's, he's looking for regional revolution with us as the catalyst. So he misguides the revolutionary and desperate about the strategic purpose of their missions.

But I digress. These people become desperate because their home countries have systems that make economic and political freedom seem impossible for the majority of citizens. The Saudi's actually bring in immigrant labor from the east for the oil industry to keep their own people dependant on handouts, instead of economically independent. And in both Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the only way to have a public voice is to be close friends or family with the ruling class and tow the line.

So if W is serious about changing the conditions that foster suicide bombers, he should probably start by reconsidering that arms deal he's looking to make with Saudi Arabia. That's unlikely, so for once we're having a purely academic discussion about something that came out of this administration.

"That Goes Boom!" #1: Operation Iowa Freedom and Saving Privates Romney

During the Viet Nam War, Dick Cheney almost ran out of excuses for draft exemptions. If only his dad had been running for president...

In response to a question from an anti-war activist in Iowa yesterday, MittBot defended the decisions of his five sons not to serve in the military, despite campaigning for a pro-war candidate, "one of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping me get elected because they think I'd be a great president."

If the standard for national service has been reduced to running around Iowa with a bunch of CPAC yuppies and handing out free balloons and cotton candy at that stupid straw poll, I don't think we'd get another Repubelickin' into uniform.

Everyone Rising at Townhall.com

The Townhall douchebags have run out of creative ways to promote their weakass candidates. Example:

"Gingrich Rising?" is an opinion piece by John McCaslin on Tuesday.
"Romney Rising" is a blog post by Hugh Hewitt later on Tuesday.

The complete lack of imagination on the conservatard side of the fence is a reflection of their lack of enthusiasm in both their real and fantasy candidates. The GOP is so screwed.

Snubbing Sellouts, Not Centrists

The DLC has put out its response to the snub they received from every Democratic presidential candidate who chose not to pander to the Schumer-McAuliffe corporate element of the Party weekend before last. They say to be careful not to dismiss the center, as that's what won the White House for Clinton in 1992 and 1996. But the center did not go to Clinton, it went to Perot. People who care about family economics, the integrity of the political process, and government responsibility voted for the independent. These were all issues and voters that should have belonged to Clinton, but he surrendered this ground in favor of a pro-corporate NAFTA agenda.

Harold Ford, Jr. was a terrific Congressman, and would've been a great Senator. Martin O'Malley is a smart, even if not overly cautious, politician. But what instigated this op-ed was not truth, or the better political interests of the the Party. It was pride, and a sense that they had been handed the reigns of an organization that had made itself insignificant over the last 8 years, that made them reach out with this timid and vague ultimatum.

Ford and O'Malley either do not realize, or do not acknowledge, that what was shunned was not centrism, it was the compromise of values that had lost Democrats two presidential campaigns and made their traditional positions of economic populism, morality, and social justice seem like distant memories. These candidates recognize that it's the activists and the base, and their agenda that will propel them to victory. Not just because it will turn out the Democrats en masse next November, but because it resonates with the independents and Southern and Midwestern working class whites that are now in play thanks to the GOP's incompetence. Even Hillary Clinton, whose campaign chair is sellout McAuliffe himself, realizes that she can be more liberal this cycle without fear of pulling a McGovern.

The New Democrat was not the rule, it was the exception. It could only succeed in the environment it did because Democrats don't operate on faith alone, like Repubelickers do. We need proof and we don't just follow the leader because it's his or her turn, even if they're DLC-annointed. It is time for the Democratic Party to return to its Roosevelt greatness, and that will mean a loss of stature for the DLC and Schumer, unless they want to lead in that direction. Otherwise, this year will not be the last time you guys sit at a big empty table. It's not your fault, Ford and O'Malley, but it is your job if you want to keep it.

Repubelickin' Presidential Candidate Names

So a libertarian, an actor, four schizo's, two bigots, an anorexic, and a total loon are sitting around a BBQ... One of them says, "I'm thinking of running for President." Which one was it?

From this point forward, we will be using nicknames for all of our GOP '08 opponents. Here they are:

Ron Paul- Ron Paul. When nobody knows or cares who you are, despite being right, your real name is a nickname.

Fred Thompson- Foreskinhead. The guy looks like he was taken right out of the wash and folded without so much as a turn on air fluff. When he peels back his forehead skin, you see where he's been hiding Sam Waterston's liberalism, and he hides blackmail photos of his wife to keep her around in the bags under his eyes.

Mitt Romney- MittBott. He's been reprogrammed for national office after his service as a gubernatorialbot.

Rudy Giuliani- Ghouliani. The guy looks like Nosferatu of New York from a bad B-movie.

Sam Brownback- The Desperate Fro. His hair looks like he's trying really hard not to have "the Devil's curly hair" (thanks, Ned Flanders), but the longer he goes with out a comb, the more it curls under just a bit.

John McCain- McTragedy. No explanation needed.

Tom Tancredo- Slim Pickins. He played the B-52 pilot who rode the nuke in on Dr. Strangelove.

Mike Huckabee- Jared. Every time you ask him a policy question, his solution is for everyone to lose weight. Go have a sub sandwich, Mike, and leave me to my trans-fats. They're really not responsible for terrorism.

Tommy Thompson (not pictured)- Fraggle. This guy looks like a muppet washed on hot with bleach. I didn't draw him, because he's so much fun to draw, I want to give him all the room and detail his horrid misfigurement deserves.

Duncan Hunter (not pictured)- Fence Guy. "I built the fence along the border in Southern California" is supposed to carry you to the White House? Shut up, dumbass!

Repubelickin' '08 Strategy: Suicide

Many Repubelicans in the US House and Senate have spent the last 8 months distancing themselves from Bush's Iraq policy. After the 2006 election, that seemed to be a smart move, if you liked your job. The only problem is that GOP upstarts still subscribe to the foreign policy guideline of "kill 'em all, and let God sort 'em out." This means they'll have primary challenges from new pro-war punks this Spring.

What could be better than a whole bunch of Repubelicans, who were too chickenshit to stand up for what's right so they did it when it was "safe", getting devoured by a bunch of morons who, if they get a nomination, will be out of touch with 70% of America?

The GOP is going to write the book, over the next decade, on achieving political irrelevance.

Angry Little French Pirate Storms Reporters' Boat

Photojournalists Jim Cole (AP) and Vince DeWitt were treated to the French version of Woody Harrelson on Sunday, when French President Nicolas Sarkozy became enraged at them for doing their job. He had previously issued a request to be left alone, but like an arrogant little Frenchman, he gave it in French and then expected it to be understood in New Hampshire. Fortunately, for our own amusement, some of the reporters didn't get the interpretation until it was too late.

As Sarkozy and his family were riding in a boat on Lake Winnipesaukee, he noticed the two photographers snapping shots of him and his party. He was overcome with Napoleonic rage, and had the boat steered towards the journalists, so that he could jump onto their boat and scream at them up close. Of course, having not understood enough French to get the jist of "leave us alone", the reporters were clueless about the angry spitting and "sacre bleu" half-naked Frenchness now on their boat.

Eventually, one of the women on the boat was coaxed into doing something outside of her 35-hour workweek, and explained in English why Niccy was pissed. It's a good thing she wasn't in a rush to help, because the idea of a little French guy with no shirt on jumping into someone else's boat to scream at them because he forgot to bring an English interpreter with him to America is just too funny. Look at his angry Frenchness. HA!

Re: Wonkette: Meet Your New First Lady, Bill Clinton!

Ken Layne asks (in different words) if a Slick-Willy First-Ladyship is compatible with returning dignity to the White House. I'm going to take the question more literally than Wonkette's authors, who have more fun than Larry Flynt with a madame's client list during a GOP Primary.

In comparison to the 300 milion anal-rape victims of Bush-Cheney, Bill Clinton's consentual BJ's are seeming like the good ol' conservative days of wooing a gal with a cigar and dirty talk. The rest of us got a $300 tax break that, it turns out, was a lien on our asses!

I don't support Hillary. I think she's a soft neocon, to be honest. But after looking at W's wild-eyed enabler wife and watching him dry-drunk his way through the incineration of our Bill of Rights, I could laugh myself through 8 years of Bill diddlin' the help and Hillary taking Chuck Schumer as a "special friend", which might distract him from his Wall Street errands in committee.

Richard Viguerie: "It's Aliiiiive!!!"

The "Funding Father" (as he is most often known) of the modern conservative movement has become so disenfranchised with his pwesident that he now criticizes his GOP on Thomm Hartmann's wonderful Air America program. It reminds me of when "Fog of War" came out, and how it stank of an old man (Robert McNamara) on his death bed trying to justify his sins, and disown those he could not justify. Viguerie's creations are his responsibility, and he won't be able to distance himself from their consequences at his judgment.

Viguerie is actually the Dr. Frankenstein of our politics over the last 40 years. He has taken something that was dead and buried; buried by direct armed conflict with fascism, by the overwhelming guilt that accompanied the belated end of segregation and Jim Crowe, and by the unnecessary fear of nuclear annihilation put upon us by Democrats and Republicans, alike. That body to be resurrected was conservatism.

It was unnatural to exhume the New England protestant royalty-intelligentsia and refashion it as a champion of the poor, of the devout, of the simple working family man.

It was an abhorration to assemble the old "government off my back" libertarians with the religious oppressors in the Moral Majority leadership;
...the blue-collar worker, who hasn't the time to understand the root of his condition, with free-for-all trade econo-fascists at Chicago U;
...the anti-tax libertarians with the military industrial complex and its think tanks;
...the Mexican-hating Southwestern candidate with the checkbooks of executives whose bonuses are dependent upon exploitable immigrant labor;
...the "We're always #1" nationalists with the "Our government is incompetent" free-marketeers;
...the outdoors-loving followers of the gun lobby with the anti-environmentalists who wish to leave no cache unmined, no deer unextinct, no wood uncut;
...and most of all, the proud veterans, servicemen and women, and their families with those cowboy candidates whose dismissive rhetoric and hard hearts sounded flat-out disrespectful.

Of course, it was doomed to fail, just as Frankenstein's monster would never assimilate and be able to function of its own free will. This is because neither has a free will, no purpose common to its parts, other than to be. For the GOP, that was to be in power. Once it had completely achieved that in the Spring of 2005, its independent parts attempted to do their independent things, and could no longer work for the whole. The brain, left over from the 1950's and probably cloned from Prescott himself, could only sense and think in horror as its legs, back, feet, mouth, and eyes did things of their own free will, angry at each other over their lack of cooperation, and frightened the villagers.

We'll go ahead and stop with the allegory, I think. It seems like enough to have gotten the point across, but I reserve the right to go back if necessary, or funny.

Viguerie's sins are those of uniting the incompatable. Fear and arrogance, hate and pride, wealth and poverty, constraints and boundlessness, faith and pessimism, were functional together insomuch as none of them were in a position to expect treatment all at once. As soon as they were, they tore eachother apart.

Did Viguerie understand what he was doing, or was he the first true-believer, as W is a believer, in the common purpose of this unrealistic "assemblage"? Or, did he know he was simply empowering a beast of parts to serve the purposes of the rich? The answer is irrelevant.

Just as McNamara may have actually believed the domino theory, and that we could win in Viet Nam, an educated man should have seen that he was simply feeding the military industrial complex and the anti-communist sentiment that would keep it full for the coming decades... Viguerie is smart enough to know that these parts of his neocon alliance are competing more than they are complimentary, and this alliance could only fail when it had completely succeeded. Judgment of him will probably be the same, regardless of his intentions or level of consciousness.

Despite his irritability at the GOP and its current condition, Viguerie is not for impeachment. But I'd bet he would forever banish Bush and Cheney to the Seventh Circle of Republican Hell. Their damning offense: overreaching and blowing the GOP's cover. For those of you who haven't visited, it's a good show. It's inhabitants include Joe McCarthy, Henry Kissinger, whose soul was recently found to have been there since 1967 (he's been working on conract for Luke, his endearing name for his buddy Satan, since then), and Calvin Coolidge. It's run by Huey Long, who tortures them all for fun, and in true Huey Long fashion, taxes them for the honor of being his subjects. What could be more painful for a Republican?

Viguerie believes that blaming the beast, for being the beast, will absolve him of his sin of unnatural creation. In the end, he can hope only for Purgatory, and only if he takes the very life he gave from the beast. To ignore the criminality of his creation is to plead "not guilty" to the crime of creating it, and his sentence must certainly be more harsh for his lack of contrition.

RIP: The Permanent GOP Majority

Is the 100-Year Republican Majority, the dreamchild of coked-up GOP operatives, the conservative "intelligentsia" of the PNAC-Heritage-ChicagoU fiction-writing club, and the laundry list of Republican office-holders who seem to have been a part of a gerrymandering pyramid scheme for the last 40 years, finally dead?

The last 3 years have been a beautiful illustration of the inherent incompatibilities of the GOP alliance that has made the GOP more powerful and more intractible over much of the South and parts of the Midwest and West. The major misconception is that the current malevolence of voters towards the Republican Party is due entirely to the Iraq War. This is not the case. The voters were made aware of the Republican lie that was itself long before they lost patience with Iraq. That awareness has manifested itself in the form of a guilty opposition to a war that "apparently," said the dumbass voter, "was not an honest endeavour."

In the Spring of 2005, the neo-conservative alliance was where it had never been before; in charge of everything with the sense of entitlement to do and take whatever it wanted. They were going to change Social Security, the courts, end taxation as we know it, and use our military might to achieve every foreign objective that the Carlyle Group could find profit in. They could barely hide their excitement, and the other 6 billion of us held our breath, and waited for the end.

But there was one problem that the neo-con leadership had never planned on having to deal with, assuming they even had the foresight to know it was coming. They had no idea how to cash all the checks they'd written over the last 40-years. The only way to achieve such an unnatural condition as suddenly existed (GOP control over everything), they had to make promises to groups and agendas that were contradictory.

Their candidates in the Southwest pandered to xenophobia to get elected by white voters, but their national committee took money from the major agricultural, construction, and other immigrant-exploiting corporations. So when immigration reform met its foreseeable and agonizing demise, it was more a case of Southwestern Republicans biting the moneyed hands that feed them than it was a partisan issue.

They promised to cut taxes to harness the anger of the middle and lower-middle classes, but their record-deficit spending and a discretionary war were in such close proximity to those tax cuts, that it was obvious they had no intention of letting us keep those $300 checks. They were merely pay-day loans from China.

They promised to help the elderly with their prescription drugs, but by leaving gaping holes in their plan and not restricting drug prices, then following it up with a dangerous assault on Social Security, they gave birth to a whole new generation of lifelong Democrats who are 55 or older.

They won the White House by promising to act like the business professionals they were; then when they actually kept that promise, they made us feel stupid for not having seen Enron and Tyco coming. Their typical CEO short-term mindset, and irresponsible overreaching has made all Americans cynical of good news from Wall Street and untrusting of business leadership.

Their main bullhorn, Fox News, is part of a corporation whose product is self-contradictory. They push family values on their news network, and bash everything left of fascism, all while parading Foxy blonde talkers across the screen to keep their old-man audience captivated while they pick the most obscure fights (who really gives a damn about Ward Churchill?). But their "news" outlet was made possible by the success of the "offensive" Bart Simpson and the collage of trashy teensoaps in the 1990's. As a family values critic, I think Dan Quayle's only error was in criticising the informed adult decision of Murphy Brown while ignoring the teen-sex merry-go-round on 90210, or the promiscuity-is-glamorous Melrose Place. There were easier targets, and only his personal fear of the shows' main benefactor made him shy from them.

They promoted the idea that American family was under assault, that liberals do nothing to protect the integrity of the American family. But when the GOP dropped everything to intervene on the Terry Schiavo matter, it was obvious who was really pushing its backwards ideals on families. That an American must be at the very medical end or beginning of life to get some health care out of the GOP was not lost on those blue-collar Republicans who've been misdirecting their rage all these years. And it made religious conservatives slightly uncomfortable, and much more on their toes to watch what happened next.

Katrina was the hammer to the eggshell holding together the Republican image. That they couldn't manage a forecasted disaster was obvious to those who've been voting out of fear since 9/11. That they didn't give a damn must have made the true Christians in the Republican Party feel overwhelming guilt. Then there were those prowar Southerners who forgot what the National Guard is really for. They remember, now, and you can bet "that's what they signed up for" isn't how most of them respond to deployment stories in the news any longer.

The religious conservatives were expecting Roberts and Alito to turn the tide for them on abortion. Suddenly, both nominees had said that it was law and there wasn't a way to take back Roe. What they were adomate about was presidential powers, a mighty executive above the other two branches of government. Had the GOP been using abortion as a cover issue to get judges with pro-corporate, pro-executive agendas on the courts at all levels? Of course, and now both sides of the argument should feel stupid for having argued the abortion debate in the scorched-earth way they did.

The event that really triggered this separation of the GOP from its most necessary element was not what you think it was. Believe it or not, it was Terry Schiavo. When the GOP went completely outside the bounds of its authorities to interfere with this one family's horrible situation, yet would do nothing tangible to stop millions of abortions, it became clear that the entire "pro-life" position of the GOP was lip-service. And this awareness, whether conscious or not, put Alito's and Roberts' testimonies into a new light, and made it apparent that Katrina was less incompetence than indifference. This may not have made religious conservatives angry about their representatives, but it has certainly made them feel guilty and unenthusiastic. The electoral effect is that they stay home, at least for a few elections.

This is the most important point. When the Republican candidates have their nominations in hand, for office at any level, their campaign is manned by religious conservatives. Sure, there are always gun folks and anti-tax yuppies, but they're fewer in number and not nearly as committed. When a Republican candidate, outside of New York or California, doesn't have the physical presence of the religious conservatives, he or she is dead in the water. As things stand now, no GOP candidate can expect to have them to hand out literature, put up signs, register voters, make phone calls, write letters, raise money, or do any of the other critical volunteer duties that have given Republican candidates their edge for so long.

And at the end of the day, there's no indication that they can get that support back. The religious conservative community has been betrayed, and they know it. As long as they feel used and dismissed by the GOP, they will not be the foot soldiers that every slimy Republican needs as the buffer between their crazed ideologies and humanity.

TSA: Dozens of Lighters on Planes not as Dangerous as Dozens of Niccing White People in Line

So the TSA has dropped just one of their retarded bans for air travel. Unfortunately, they picked the least retarded of all of them. I as an occasional smoker, and someone susceptable to anxiety and spontaneous rage when faced with the spectre of having a cross-eyed foreigner, or a obvious alcoholic whose blood-shot eyes give away that he slept in employee parking the night before, size me up to determine if I'm a "threat", love to have access to my cigarettes right after the flight. But I'm willing to wait for that it in the logical order it should be given back. There are some other things that you should feel more comfortable giving back to airline passengers than lighters.



First off, your logic that searching for lighters causes too much delay and is too expensive for its safety payoff applies to just about everything else you do to screen passengers. The same would not be true for their checked baggage, but you still haven't gotten to that, have you? The fact is that it doesn't matter who you let on a plane, any longer. The condition where someone can stand up on a plane with anything less than a gun with lots of bullets and say, "Everything will be fine if you just do as your told," no longer exists. 9/11 was a paradigm shift in many ways, just one of which is how a plane-load of people will react to a wild-eyed nut with a boxcutter. No one will believe him any longer. The next time someone tries to do that, he's going to get his ass kicked and probably be killed, and will be lucky not to be thrown from the plane in mid-flight. So just scan for explosives and weapons, and stop with the third degree you give each passenger, and the no-fly list that keeps a 13-year old soccer player from his tournament because he has the same name as some guy who sent a threatening letter to the National Review.



And can we please stop with the whole ziploc bag, 3 ounce container deal? Every time I fly, there's some girl who's not flown in the last 2 or 3 years who has a giant bag of stuff that has to be dumped out and reorganized, and she ends up drawing the ire of her fellow passengers. This makes no sense, though, because the only reason there's even still a threat is that the Bush administration can't keep it in long enough to finish the job (I'm talking of course about Afghanistan, but many Republican women will assume I know why they're okay with their husbands going to hookers). Our anger should be directed at the administration for wasting world sympathy and backing after 9/11 and converting it to a greater threat.



Also, can I please bring liquid from outside the airport again? I hate paying $9 for a beer because you won't let me bring a water bottle through security (note: an Aquafina bottle full of vodka passes as water just about everywhere but the airport). If I'm a little sauced, I'm much less likely to say degrading, smartass things to your screeners, and much less likely to have a problem with the "authority" of the flying cocktail waitresses.


In the end, there are only two things that can prevent terrorism: 1) Diligent police and intelligence work, done with the cooperation of a public that trusts their government's capacities and intentions and will support their effort, and; 2) a reduction in the supply of angry foreign males who blame their suicidal feelings on America.

So thanks again, TSA, for letting me hang on to my lighter. Now, when I spend the entire flight fretting about the threat posed by all the baggage underneath that wasn't scanned because we've put all of our resources into taking away lighters and making us redistribute and organize our lotions and shampoos, I can put myself at ease with a smoke when I land.