tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90625152024-03-13T17:10:46.691-07:00blue memeunabashed liberal rants.
secular humanism. logic. typos.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2185125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-59376255738500649242009-10-17T23:21:00.000-07:002009-10-18T00:06:37.576-07:00Hearts and MindsI just watched the 1974 documentary "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071604/">Hearts and Minds</a>." It is a pretty powerful piece.<div><br /></div><div>By the end, I had realized that there used to be a pretty good working definition of liberal: someone who had learned the lessons of Vietnam. That definition largely fell out of fashion at some point. (To be fair, so did liberalism itself.) In the 1980s, the favored terminology became "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_Syndrome">Vietnam Syndrome</a>," Reagan's revisionist fiction that the U.S. would have won but for the treason of the DFHs.</div><div><br /></div><div>As I watch Barack Obama prepare to send tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan to support a corrupt and unpopular government, in support of vague and unconvincing strategic goals, eight years into a conflict with no end in sight, I feel forced to admit that he is not a liberal.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-59867797188216603392009-09-03T20:09:00.000-07:002009-09-07T16:00:02.592-07:00The key to a bipartisan healthcare solution: adopt the Nixon plan!When I was a freshman in high school, I joined the debating team. I have no idea if it still works this way, but back then all debate competitions nationally were based on a single question, and teams had to be able to take either side of the issue. And so the issues chosen tended to be live issues in society, and that were likely to find significant numbers of people in real life who would either support or oppose.<br /><br />The issue that year was, as best as I can recall: resolved, that there should be a guaranteed annual income for every American. In other words, during the last year of the Nixon Administration, people were entertaining the idea of a huge expansion of the welfare state, in a way that seems impossibly socialist by today's standards. And do you know who proposed this idea in real life? <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_in_the_United_States">Richard Nixon</a>.<br /><br />(I can't find where I related this story before, though I vaguely remember writing about it.)<br /><br /><div>If that anecdote doesn't convince you of how dramatically the "center" has shifted in the 3+ decades since, then perhaps this will: Richard Nixon (who, after all, created the EPA, normalized relations with China, and pursued detente with the USSR), also proposed health care reform that we should be thrilled to have now.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here's how Tricky Dick pitched his plan <a href="http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2009/September/03/nixon-proposal.aspx">himself</a> back in 1974:</div><div><br /></div><div><div></div></div><blockquote><div><div>One of the most cherished goals of our democracy is to assure every American an equal opportunity to lead a full and productive life.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the last quarter century, we have made remarkable progress toward that goal, opening the doors to millions of our fellow countrymen who were seeking equal opportunities in education, jobs and voting.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now it is time that we move forward again in still another critical area: health care. </div></div><div>...</div><div><div>Early last year, I directed the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to prepare a new and improved plan for comprehensive health insurance. That plan, as I indicated in my State of the Union message, has been developed and I am presenting it to the Congress today. I urge its enactment as soon as possible.</div><div><br /></div><div>The plan is organized around seven principles:</div><div><br /></div><div>First, it offers every American an opportunity to obtain a balanced, comprehensive range of health insurance benefits;</div><div><br /></div><div>Second, it will cost no American more than he can afford to pay;</div><div>Third, it builds on the strength and diversity of our existing public and private systems of health financing and harmonizes them into an overall system;</div><div><br /></div><div>Fourth, it uses public funds only where needed and requires no new Federal taxes;</div><div><br /></div><div>Fifth, it would maintain freedom of choice by patients and ensure that doctors work for their patient, not for the Federal Government.</div><div><br /></div><div>Sixth, it encourages more effective use of our health care resources;</div><div><br /></div><div>...</div><div><div>Upon adoption of appropriate Federal and State legislation, the Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan would offer to every American the same broad and balanced health protection through one of three major programs:</div><div><br /></div><div>--Employee Health Insurance, covering most Americans and offered at their place of employment, with the cost to be shared by the employer and employee on a basis which would prevent excessive burdens on either;</div><div><br /></div><div>--Assisted Health Insurance, covering low-income persons, and persons who would be ineligible for the other two programs, <b>with Federal and State government paying those costs beyond the means of the individual who is insured</b>; and,</div><div><br /></div><div>--An improved Medicare Plan, covering those 65 and over and offered through a Medicare system that is modified to include additional, needed benefits.</div><div><b>One of these three plans would be available to every American</b>, but for everyone, participation in the program would be voluntary.</div><div><br /></div><div>The benefits offered by the three plans would be identical for all Americans, regardless of age or income. Benefits would be provided for:</div><div>--hospital care;</div><div>--physicians' care in and out of the hospital;</div><div>--prescription and life-saving drugs;</div><div>--laboratory tests and X-rays;</div><div>--medical devices;</div><div>--ambulance services; and,</div><div>--other ancillary health care.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>There would be no exclusions of coverage based on the nature of the illness</b>. For example, a person with heart disease would qualify for benefits as would a person with kidney disease.</div></div></div><div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>What Nixon proposed isn't just better than what we have now. It is better than anything today's Republicans have proposed. It is far better than what "Democrat" Max Baucus is now offering. And, if Obama wimps out on Wednesday, it is arguably better than what our "progressive" President will settle for. </div><div><br /></div><div>Bloggers have been talking about the massive shift of the Overton window since the demonization of the DFHs began decades ago. It is hard to imagine a more effective example of that shift.</div><div><br /></div><div>The way this story has been touched upon recently has been in connection with the passing of Ted Kennedy, and in the revisionist claim that Teddy's failure to agree to this plan because he was holding out for single payor was his his greatest regret. </div><div><br /></div><div>My first thought upon seeing Nixon's plan was that it was yet another amusing but useless trivia point. But then I realized how useful it could be to our cause.</div><div><br /></div><div>When President Obama leans in to the microphone before the Joint Session on Wednesday, he should say something like this:</div><div><br /></div><div></div><blockquote><div>Ted Kennedy devoted his life to the cause of delivering decent health care to every American regardless of income. The need was there long before he entered Congress in 1962; it is even greater after his passing.</div><div><br /></div><div>In 1974, Republican Richard Nixon proposed a health care plan that Democrats thought was not good enough. They pushed for a single payor system. In the end, they got nothing.</div><div><br /></div><div>I want to correct that mistake, and deliver what Ted Kennedy devoted his life to achieving. And so, I propose that we all -- Democrats and Republicans, House and Senate, President and Congress -- do what a Republican President proposed 35 years ago.</div><div><br /></div><div>I challenge my fellow Democrats -- stand not just with me, but with the Republican President the House nearly impeached in 1974. I challenge Republicans -- do you really want to call what Nixon proposed "communism"?</div><div><br /></div><div>Here, then, is bi-partisanship: the Nixon-Obama plan.</div></blockquote><div><br />Would it work? My crystal ball is murky. One downside is that the wingnuts will use this move as an excuse to donate Tricky Dick to us lie-bruls. But c'mon, kids. They've already tried to rebrand another notorious right wing nutjob as one of ours:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mN3AdrPLabg/SqEb2WpVLkI/AAAAAAAAAPg/0IB23wKDyyI/s1600-h/lib+fascism+cover"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 263px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mN3AdrPLabg/SqEb2WpVLkI/AAAAAAAAAPg/0IB23wKDyyI/s400/lib+fascism+cover" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377610050662903362" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>If they've turned Hitler into a liberal, how much more damage can they do?</div><div><br /></div><div>And no less a figure than Noam Chomsky has <a href="http://www.chomsky.info/articles/200006--.htm">called</a> Nixon "in many respects the last liberal president." And, of course, there is the fact that while half the wingnutosphere is ready to make Hitler one of us, the other half is busy trying to <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/200909020026">rehabilitate him</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Back on the debate team, we had a name for a left-field proposal that was calculated to surprise the opposition: a squirrel. Squirrels don't always work, but they can totally disarm a team that can't think on its feet.</div><div><br /></div><div>So there you go, Mr. President -- your very own squirrel.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-75891001837364165562009-08-12T18:22:00.000-07:002009-08-12T18:56:00.177-07:00The return of Blue Meme's Law<div>FEMA death camps.</div><div>Obama was born in Kenya.</div><div>Steven Hawking would be dead if he was British.</div><div>The death panels.</div><div>Keep the government's grubby hands off of Medicare.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>This nonsense has completely taken over -- no one is talking about anything else. And I told you about this kind of thing almost 4 years ago.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><div></div><blockquote><blockquote><div>A University of Kansas professor who drew criticism for e-mails he wrote deriding Christian fundamentalists over creationism resigned Wednesday as chairman of the Department of Religious Studies.</div><div><br /></div><div>Paul Mirecki stepped aside on the recommendation of his colleagues, according to Barbara Romzek, interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.</div><div>...</div><div>Mirecki had planned to teach a course in the spring that examined creationism and intelligent design after the State Board of Education adopted science standards treating evolution as a flawed theory. Originally called 'Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies,' the course was canceled last week at Mirecki's request.</div><div>...</div><div>On Monday, Mirecki was treated at a Lawrence hospital for head injuries after he said he was beaten by two men on a country road. He said the men referred to the creationism course.</div></blockquote></blockquote></div><blockquote><div>A few years back, while mired in some ugly, painful litigation, I formulated a sort of corollary to Murphy's law: In any situation, the craziest person in the room controls the agenda. Since then, I've seen this rule validated in a wide variety of contexts. Reasonable people tend to try to accommodate, find common ground and compromise. Those with limited capacity for reason tend to take harder and more extreme positions, and take more extreme actions to defend those positions. And, sadly, the dynamics of such a conflict tend to favor the crazy.</div><div><br /></div><div>Until I read this story, I had not thought about applying the rule to our political situation. But it fits rather well. I sincerely doubt we will ever read reports of Darwinist thugs going after Creationists with tire irons. Anti-war activists are unlikely to gun down even the most flagrant chicken hawks. And the most violence lefties are likely to let loose on the far right is the pie thrown at assclown Ann Coulter.</div><div><br /></div><div>But the right wing is consistently the craziest person in the room. So we talk about what they want to talk about, we compromise in hopes of bringing the discussion back to the realm of civility. But it never works, because our very approach rewards their misbehavior. Concessions merely move the midpoint, and lead to new and more extreme positions on the right, and further escalations of rhetoric and, cf. Professor Mirecki's hospital bill, actions.</div><div><br /></div><div>Mirecki's politics provoked a physical response from the crazies. Their thuggery produced the results they wanted. The voice of reason in Kansas is now thoroughly cowed. I am not questioning his decision, but we need to understand that they must see this outcome as a victory, and are likely to be emboldened by it.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Brownshirts had little trouble controlling the agenda 70 years ago. Their spiritual heirs are well on their way to such control again.</div></blockquote><div></div></div><br />I saw many things back then. But I did not see that electing Obama would be the tipping point, the signal event that sends us the rest of the way to the place Bush and Cheney and Yoo wanted to go, but never quite reached. <a href="http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2009/08/fascist-america-are-we-there-yet.html">Read</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-32610391415631647502009-07-31T09:42:00.001-07:002009-07-31T09:56:33.997-07:00Birther defectsOne of my ongoing themes has been the oft-supported hypothesis that conservatives tend to have a long distance relationship with reality. How else do you explain this:<div></div><blockquote><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Poll: 28% Of Republican Base Are Birthers </span></div><div><br /></div><div><div>A new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll finds that 77% of Americans believe President Obama was Indeed Born in the United States, with only 11% saying he was not -- but there's no clear verdict among Republicans.</div><div><br /></div><div>Among Republicans, it's a much weaker plurality of only 42% who say Obama was born in the U.S., with 28% saying he was not, with a very high undecided number of 30%. Among Democrats, the number is 93%-4%, and among independents it's 83%-8%.</div></div></blockquote><div><div></div></div><br />There really isn't room for on-the-other-hand-ism on this one. Birthers are manifestly several cards short of a full deck. <div><br /></div><div>I have been critical of the level of press coverage this nonsense has gotten, but the poll suggests that there is some justification for it. And the fact that the coverage has not put out the fire (if I had to bet, I'd say it has actually pushed the birther numbers UP), confirms that we are not dealing with a rational process: at best, evidence and logic are to these folks as a bicycle is to a fish. At worst, efforts to correct simply hardens their resolve to remain bonkers.<br /><br />On the one hand, the fact that the numbers are well short of the Bush era insanity is encouraging. On the other:<div></div><blockquote><div><br /></div><div>Birtherism is heavily concentrated in the South. Only 47% of Southerners say Obama was born in the United States, 23% say he was not, and 30% aren't sure.</div></blockquote><div><br />Which means that Congress will continue to enjoy the contributions of the <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/07/28/birther_enablers/index.html">Inhofe/Shelby</a> variety.... </div><div><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-42780290388816673512009-07-03T20:22:00.001-07:002009-07-31T09:42:03.115-07:00WaPo: Haggling over the price<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_mN3AdrPLabg/Sk7LAI-iSWI/AAAAAAAAAPY/c2YdO2Ldw0o/s1600-h/wapo+salon"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 309px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_mN3AdrPLabg/Sk7LAI-iSWI/AAAAAAAAAPY/c2YdO2Ldw0o/s400/wapo+salon" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354440210260314466" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I have a pretty good idea of how this happened. Suits with MBAs have some pretty standard questions when trying to generate revenue for a mature company:<br /><br />(a) can we find new customers for our existing products?<br /><br />(b) can we sell new products to our existing customers?<br /><br />and<br /><br />(c) are there underexploited assets we can monetize?<br /><br />Finding new customers for their existing product? Hah. They moved online, but (a) the money generated has been minimal, and (b), as the Froomkin saga shows, there are some real incompatibilities between old and new.<br /><br /><div>Selling new products to existing customers? Well, that depends on how you define "customer." If you define it as "subscribers," well, good luck with that. But I strongly suspect that subscribers are merely tolerated lubricants of the real market -- the Beltway glitterati. They seem to actually <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">like</span> what the WaPo does. And by the twisted internal logic we are talking about here, it would make sense to find new ways to do business with them.</div><div><br />But what to sell them? Some very senior people at the Post obviously agreed that their biggest underexploited asset was access.<br /><br />What is most instructive about this is that they saw nothing objectionable in auctioning off that access in such a direct and explicit way.<br /><br />And you can look at that as part of another classic MBA move: redefine the market. A high-priced management consultant would challenge them to stop thinking of themselves as being in the newspaper business -- a dying industry. Some brainiac probably asked, "you have easy access to powerful government officials. That access is very valuable. Who makes money selling it?"</div><div><br /></div><div>Duh. Lobbyists. So acting like lobbyists, and monetizing the very thing the WaPo has spent decades hording, must have made perfect sense.<br /><br />Somerby has a slightly <a href="http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh070309.shtml">different take</a>. He knows his stuff, but -- if the goal of the evening was to impose the establishment line on the WaPo's own reporters, why take the risky step of charging corporations to "Sponsor" (and print up flyers)?<br /><br />And so, in a more dramatic fashion than I would have ever imagined, they have confirmed every bad thing bloggers believe about them. Most impressive.<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-39414468136994219512009-06-25T14:57:00.002-07:002009-06-30T17:48:44.287-07:00Turd in a Guilded CageSo HuffPo guy Nico Pitney, who has been jacked into events in Iran while the Washington Press Corpse has been doing its usual fluff, was tabbed to convey a question from Iran at a presser.<br /><br />Here's Dana Milbank defending his turf:<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/9c7kr43HG4Q&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/9c7kr43HG4Q&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Newspapermen used to belong to guilds. And the primary purpose of these guilds, which date back more than 1000 years, was to keep competition out. Via wikipedia:<br /><blockquote><br />The earliest guilds were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_union" title="Trade union">trade union</a>, a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartel" title="Cartel">cartel</a> and a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_society" title="Secret society">secret society</a>. They often depended on grants of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_patent" title="Letters patent">letters patent</a> by an authority or monarch to enforce the flow of trade to their self-employed members, and to retain ownership of tools and the supply of materials.</blockquote><br />And the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Newspaper_Guild">journamalistic</a> version:<br /><br /><blockquote>The <b>Newspaper Guild</b> is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_union" title="Trade union">labor union</a> founded by newspaper <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalist" title="Journalist">journalists</a> in 1933 who noticed that unionized printers and truck drivers were making more money than they did. In addition to improving wages and working conditions, its constitution says its purpose is to fight for honesty in journalism and the news industry's business practices.<br /><br /></blockquote>See much honesty in journalism in Milbank's pique?<br /><br />As Milbank's furious tantrum demonstrates, the quality of the work is irrelevant. The fact that Pitney asked a much better question than 90+% of the drones around him dared to ask is irrelevant. And the fact that Obama wouldn't answer his question (which completely undermines any claim of substantive collusion) is irrelevant. <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/exclusives/steinberg/gannongate_momentum_022205.htm">Jeff Gannon</a> is irrelevant, as is the complete indifference of Milbank & Friends to his extended stay in the pressroom. What matters to the Guild is that their ability to protect their turf has suffered another blow.<br /><br />The end really can't come soon enough for these guys.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-73287472686037256822009-06-08T06:08:00.000-07:002009-06-08T07:20:56.289-07:00Man of GuantanamoI am a pretty picky consumer of culture these days. One of the forms of entertainment I no longer much care for is musical theater. Andrew Lloyd Webber makes me barf; almost everything else is a revival or otherwise recycled. There are perhaps two shows that I consider worthy of such resurrection: West Side Story and Man of La Mancha. The former is so insanely difficult and demanding that it is virtually never staged (I've only seen the 1961 film); the latter is much easier to find (I've seen at least four stage productions).<br /><br />One thing they have in common is their centuries-old source material -- Shakespeare and Cervantes are almost perfect contemporaries. (The two Broadway shows launched only a few years apart as well.) Another similarity is the importance of that material: Don Quixote is widely considered the first modern novel. And of course they are both tragedies in which optimism collides with a dark, hostile reality.<br /><br />An interesting diffference between the works of the two authors is that Shakespeare's plays are often staged in updated contexts (the whole point of West Side Story); La Mancha is almost always staged in its original context. The whole play-within-a-play takes place in a prison where the protagonist awaits his turn before the Spanish Inquisition. That context has seemed sui generis for most of the 40+ years since its first run.<br /><br />Until now.<br /><br />And that's why I'm prattling on about Broadway -- I just realized that Man of La Mancha ought to be staged in a new prison with a Spanish name: Gitmo.<br /><br />(It turns out I am not the first to think of this, and there have been <a href="http://newtheatercorps.blogspot.com/2008/03/man-of-la-mancha.html">small productions</a> that are explicit, and a more <a href="http://theater2.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/11CTarts.html">mainstream one</a> that drew explicit parallels in the program without changing the setting. But I think this is a textbook case in which familiar art could make an uncomfortable but needed point to people who might not otherwise hear it. Were I to stage it now, the play would start conventionally during the Inquisition, but when the play-within ends, the scene would be Guantanamo.)<br /><br />More on La Mancha in context <a href="http://www.newlinetheatre.com/lamanchachapter.html">here</a>. If you don't know the show and are tempted, skip the movie and find a stage production.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-13383179528711519242009-05-13T05:49:00.000-07:002009-05-13T06:22:52.478-07:00Free John Demjanjuk<blockquote>Deported by the United States, retired autoworker John Demjanjuk was carried in a wheelchair onto a jet that departed Monday evening for Germany, which wants to try him as an accessory to the murders of Jews and others at a Nazi death camp in World War II. <br /> <p>Demjanjuk, 89, arrived in an ambulance at Cleveland Burke Lakefront Airport after spending several hours with U.S. immigration officials at a downtown federal building. Airport commissioner Khalid Bahhur confirmed Demjanjuk was on the plane and that its destination is Germany.</p> <p>The deportation came four days after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider Demjanjuk's request to block deportation and about 3 1/2 years after he was last ordered deported.</p> <p>The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk (pronounced dem-YAHN'-yuk) is wanted on a Munich arrest warrant that accuses him of 29,000 counts of accessory to murder as a guard at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. The legal case spans three decades.</p></blockquote><br /><br />I really don't see how we can allow Demjanjuk's prosecution to go forward.<br /><br />Would it not be unfair to "<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/16/politics/100days/main4950212.shtml">prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect (their country) for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by (their government)</a>"?<br /><br />Surely we can agree that Demjanjuk was <a href="http://voices.kansascity.com/node/4323">"pressured by (his) fear, by (his) sense of duty to a fearful nation, led by a (government) awash in fear—all of this swimming in (his) head and clouding that moral compass—acted in good faith, from (his) perceptions."</a> Under such circumstances, “<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-04-08/the-cia-torture-cover-up/">no one who took actions based on legal guidance from the (Ministry) of Justice at the time should be investigated, let alone punished</a>.”<br /><br />WWII was, of course, a "<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/16/politics/100days/main4950212.shtml">dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past</a>."<br /><br />Indeed, "<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/30/AR2009043003108.html">the current spectacle of self-righteous condemnation not just cowardly but hollow. It is one thing to have disagreed at the time and said so. It is utterly contemptible, however, to have been silent then and to rise now ... to excoriate those who kept (their country) safe ...</a>"Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-58466926294042102242009-05-06T12:59:00.000-07:002009-05-06T13:02:10.677-07:00Torture in three grafsAs <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/05/tnr/index.html">awful</a> as <span style="font-style: italic;">The New Republic</span> can be, this is brilliant in its economy:<br /><blockquote><br /><p class="articleText">First, there's no such thing as a government policy of "torturing terrorists. " There's only a policy of torturing people the government thinks are terrorists. Many of the suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, subjected to agonizing stress positions, turned out not to be terrorists--not because the soldiers who captured them were venal, but because they were human.</p><p class="articleText">Second, torture is designed to force prisoners to provide an answer the interrogator already knows. The torturer relents when his subject provides the "correct" answer. Intelligence gathering, by contrast, is designed to garner answers the interrogator does not already know.</p><p class="articleText">Finally, yes, we can imagine ticking-time-bomb situations where regular interrogation methods work too slowly and extreme measures might prove helpful. But this premise bears the same relationship to the question of legalizing torture as the morality of stealing a loaf of bread to feed your starving family does to the question of legalizing theft.</p></blockquote><p class="articleText"></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-2923045243901442752009-05-02T13:38:00.000-07:002009-05-02T13:44:43.324-07:00Pass the popcorn<blockquote> Prison guards jailed for abusing inmates at the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq are planning to appeal against their convictions on the ground that recently released CIA torture memos prove that they were scapegoats for the Bush Administration. <p></p><p> The photographs of prisoner abuse at the Baghdad jail in 2004 sparked worldwide outrage but the previous administration, from President Bush down, blamed the incident on a few low-ranking “bad apples” who were acting on their own. </p><p> The decision by President Obama to release the memos showed that the harsh interrogation tactics were approved and authorised at the highest levels of the White House. </p><p> Some of the guards who were convicted of abuse want to return to court and argue that the previous administration sanctioned the abuse but withheld its role from their trials. </p></blockquote>In other words, the patsies want another go at the "only following orders" defense -- the same one folks who set up the patsies now want to use themselves.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-85612568671056198852009-04-29T22:30:00.000-07:002009-04-29T22:41:12.863-07:00Josh Marshall, <a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/04/torture_and_cowardice_pt2.php">April 2009</a>:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>Being bold means <em>taking responsibility</em> for being bold. As I've argued before, I think the answer to the ticking time bomb rationale for torture is this: that in the extremely unlikely circumstance that government officials ever found themselves in that position of having a ticking time bomb ticking away, they might have to make the decision to break the law. Not fudge it or keep their actions hidden, but take the decision on their own responsibility that it was the best thing to do in the situation -- despite it being wrong as a general matter -- and then bring their decision to attention of the people and law enforcement authorities and throw themselves on the mercy of the public. Thomas Jefferson <a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/152505.php">explored a similar question and argument for the position</a> a president could find himself in when faced with extra-constitutional or even unconstitutional actions. </p> <p>In any case, if your patriotism is such that in an extreme situation you'd risk your own liberty to defend the lives of Americans, that's courage. But nothing else really cuts it.</p></blockquote><p></p>Me, <a href="http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Tortured_logic_1214.html">December 2005</a>:<br /><blockquote><br /><p>If you really believe in some higher law, then you should be willing to pay a temporal price for your willingness to torture in its service. Then when the time comes, perhaps you can explain to your higher authority why you think making it safe for heathens like me to torture with impunity makes ours a better world. </p> <p>I feel there is a strong categorical imperative against torture. I am also in at least some contexts a utilitarian. I honestly don't know what I would do if faced with this situation. But I do know that if I honestly believed that by doing something I considered wrong I would certainly prevent the suffering of millions, the illegality of my actions would not be a major factor in my decision. I would much prefer that my government declare torture illegal and risk jail in your hypothetical situation than sleep in my own bed in a country that condones such barbarity. </p> <p>Moral decisions involve costs. What personal price would you pay to prevent the Holocaust? I would like to believe I am strong and noble enough not just to commit a personal wrong, but to pay the price for that transgression, to benefit the many. And I would hope that, when compared to the millions of deaths and countless other horrors prevented, my own punishment for murder would have only trifling weight in my personal calculus. </p> <p>Doing the right thing often means paying a price. Ask Joseph Wilson. Ask <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051128/pl_nm/court_fbi_linguist_dc_3">Sibel Edmonds</a>. Ask <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/28/AR2005082800881.html">Bunnatine Greenhouse</a>. Torture is, at the very least, almost always the wrong thing. I want my country to make sure that torturers pay a price, and I’d rather punish the one-in-a-million person whose actions are justified than encourage others with motives less pure to sin with impunity.<br /></p><p></p></blockquote><br /><p>And that's a big part of why I don't post so much nowadays.<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-82136409079876810552009-04-23T18:12:00.000-07:002009-04-27T07:41:10.140-07:00ClarityA simple answer to a simple question:<br /><br />It has been known for years that torture is useless as a technique for intelligence gathering. Subjects will say anything to make it stop. All it is good for is extracting false confessions. So why would the Bush Administration engage in torture?<br /><br />Because false confessions were not just an unfortunate side effect of the torture; <a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/grand-unified-scandal/">they</a> were <a href="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/were-an-empire-now-and-when-we-act-we-create-our-own-reality.html#more">the point</a> of <a href="http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/rivers-coming-together-by-digby-ron.html">the torture</a>.<br /><br />Update: Frank Rich <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/opinion/26rich.html?ref=opinion">goes there</a>:<br /><blockquote><br />Five years after the Abu Ghraib revelations, we must acknowledge that our government methodically authorized torture and lied about it. But we also must contemplate the possibility that it did so not just out of a sincere, if criminally misguided, desire to “protect” us but also to promote an unnecessary and catastrophic war. Instead of saving us from “another 9/11,” <span style="font-weight: bold;">torture was a tool in the campaign to falsify and exploit 9/11 so that fearful Americans would be bamboozled into a mission that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda.</span> The lying about Iraq remains the original sin from which flows much of the Bush White House’s illegality.</blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-44685400669066437522009-04-16T14:15:00.000-07:002009-04-17T13:40:41.166-07:00MonstersObama released the memos.<br /><br />I have quickly skimmed the first one, available <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/pdf/OfficeofLegalCounsel_Aug2Memo_041609.pdf?sid=ST2009041602877">here</a>. It is notable for the casual, detached manner with which it treats unequivocal torture techniques. (It is also notable for the obscene way in which Bybee blindered himself in order to reach the desired outcome. (You handed me carefully selected and misleading "facts;" I will accept each of them as gospel and make no effort to put them in the context the rest of the world takes for granted in order to bless what you do).<br /><br />My first, naive thought was that now, at long last, the dead-enders will finally have to admit how wrong they have been. That lasted about ten seconds. I quickly remembered that the Bush crowd remains as immune to facts as they were before; these memos will change nothing. Bush was part of their "us;" he shared with the wingnuts their hatred of the same "them;" and no revelation, no matter how horrible, will change that.<br /><br />My next, less naive thought was about the recent brouhaha about the Homeland Security report warning us against right-wing extremists, and how the Malkins and Boehners are asking, in their best faux outrage voices, if we mean them.<br /><br />Well, Michelle, if you read these memos and continue to stand with the thuggery of the Bush Administration... then yes, we mean you. If you can look upon such unequivocoal, grotesque criminality and still defend those who enabled and perpetrated it... then yes, we mean you. If, now that the power to eavesdrop without warrant, detain without evidence, and imprison without trial is held by those with whom you disagree, you would still justify the widespread abuse of those very powers... then you should not be heard to complain if the bell tolls for thee.<br /><br />Update: Sully <a href="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/the-banality-of-evil.html">nails it</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>This is what Hannah Arendt wrote of when she talked of the banality of evil.</blockquote><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/for-the-record.html">Twice</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>No mention of the torture memos appears right now on the Drudge Report (which provides news of a prank at Dominos pizza), Instapundit (which mentions the new DVD for the Lord of The Rings trilogy), Pajamas Media, or Michelle Malkin. They are reacting to the evidence of war crimes committed by the president of the United States the way they did at the time the crimes were committed.</blockquote>No surprise.<br /><br />Update #2: I don't always agree with Sully, but the man can write. <a href="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/the-bigger-picture.html#more">This</a> is just dead on, at least until he gets to this part:<br /><blockquote><br />But my view is also that the president has acted wisely in ... (declining prosecution). As president in wartime, he knows how wounding it would be to engage in this kind of activity right now.</blockquote><br />The "wartime" dodge is a familiar one, especially to Sully. But even if you buy into that paradigm, ours is not a war for territory or resources. You may believe, as Victor Davis Hanson <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/exclusives/burke/islamofascism_012205.htm">nonsensically argued</a>, that they hate us for who we are, or you may be capable of grasping that they hate us for what we do. Here the distinction is without a difference. Both paradigms are reinforced by letting the perps walk. Both are undercut if they are punished. Indeed, our enemies bomb us in order to punish them, because they know we won't. The way to stop fueling the fires is to stop acting like beasts, and to punish our own monsters.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-17153685209821049352009-04-03T15:33:00.000-07:002009-04-03T15:44:51.892-07:00NostalgiaRemember when the Republican machine was an overwhelming juggernaut, dominating news cycles, playing public sentiment like a fiddle, and utterly dominating our national discourse? <br /><br />What the hell happened? Now they can't tie their shoes without tying left and right together and triggering domino-like pratfalls among their colleagues. They still get attention from the press, of course, but that only seems to drive them further off into the deep brush as they lurch from gaffe to embarrassment. <br /><br />I know they were never as good even we gave them credit for. But the fall is still remarkable. <br /><br />At the rate they are going they will lose still more seats in Congress in 2010, which will make it 3 in a row. Has that ever been done before?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-78547340221228574732009-03-04T06:46:00.000-08:002009-03-04T06:51:55.468-08:00GD IIDid you know that for a couple of decades after it ended, the conflagration that started in 1914 and ended in 1918 was called the "Great War"? It was only when another, even more deadly and encompassing war came along that it was called World War I.<br /><br />For the seven decades after it ended, we have referred to the economic meltdown that lasted from 1929 through the late 1930s as the "Great Depression." How long before we start calling it Great Depression I?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-33060212015475926302009-03-01T08:41:00.000-08:002009-03-02T22:08:47.667-08:00I can has talk show appearancez?<blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">Top Dems Planning Amped Up Efforts To Elevate Rush As GOP’s Public Face</span><br /><br />Top Democratic operatives are planning a stepped up campaign to promote Rush Limbaugh as the public face of the GOP — an effort that will include recruiting Dem governors to make this case on talk shows, getting elected officials to pen Op eds arguing it, and running more ads pushing it, a senior Democratic operative says.<br /><br />Key leadership staff in the House and Senate, and in all the political committees, have been encouraged by senior Dem operatives to push this message wherever possible, the operative says.<br /><br />“I’m encouraging everybody to go out and say this,” Paul Begala, the well-known Dem strategist, just told me by phone. “I’m hot for this. Let’s get this out every way we can.”<br /><br />...<br /><br />“I’m encouraging every Democrat, every progressive, to be pointing out this powerful but painful truth: The party of Lincoln is now the Party of Limbaugh,” Begala continued. “We should make every Republican answer this: Why do they want our president to fail?”</blockquote><br /><br />Your friendly neighborhood Blue Meme, <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Ann_Coulter_Republicans_0622.html">June 2006</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>The question, "Are you an Ann Coulter Republican?" should confront every Republican running for every office in the land, from President to dog catcher. Every Democratic candidate should accuse his or her opponent of being in favor of poisoning Supreme Court Justices and killing Congressmen. At every opportunity, every Republican should be made to answer: "Do you agree with Ann Coulter that the 9/11 widows are witches and harpies?" And George W. Bush, Tony Snow, Dick Cheney, Laura Bush and Barney (the only lapdog with a good excuse) should be confronted with these questions as well.<p></p> <p>Republicans have been able to maintain a Kabuki symbiosis with all manner of cave-dwellers by speaking in an elaborate, <a href="http://pandagon.net/2006/05/09/debating-right-wingers-do-you-fight-the-horse-or-the-greeks-inside/">dog whistle</a>-like code. They hold racists, homophobes and rapture acolytes close enough to keep their votes without ever having to either publicly embrace or disavow such extreme viewpoints. That relationship with white-sheet America has been essential to their electoral strategy for decades.</p> <p>But Ann Coulter has furnished us with a turn-key solution. We can now easily put them in the logical <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_%28chess%29">fork</a> they should have been forced into years ago: disavow Coulter's vile, sub-human ravings, or embrace them. If they distance themselves from her, they risk alienating the mouth-breathers who demand such red meat as the price of their loyalty. If they embrace her, they lose significant swaths of the middle - the decent folks who are the reason Republicans talk about Dred Scott and "state's rights" rather than criminalizing abortion and gutting civil rights laws. </p></blockquote><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Update</span>:<br /><br />I can has <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/01/rahm-on-rush-hes-the-voic_n_170854.html">seenyur advizor post</a>?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Updatez</span>:<br /><br />I is in yr <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/01/cantor-v-limbaugh/">televishun</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Updatezz</span>:<br /><br />And the <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/3/1/12152/77957/475/703299">fratricide begins</a>. Kinda fun to watch leaderless authoritarians all goose-stepping in different directions...<br /><br />UpdateUpdate: <a href="http://firedoglake.com/2009/03/02/limbaugh-to-steele-all-your-republicans-are-belong-to-me/#more-37688">via</a>:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mN3AdrPLabg/SazH0NCOhzI/AAAAAAAAAN0/6BJhqyWpNKM/s1600-h/rushthehutt.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 291px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mN3AdrPLabg/SazH0NCOhzI/AAAAAAAAAN0/6BJhqyWpNKM/s400/rushthehutt.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308837760429098802" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-37732750632275341902009-02-07T14:31:00.000-08:002009-02-07T14:35:52.846-08:00Letter to the PresidentHon. Barack Obama<br />POTUS<br />1600 Pennsylvania Ave.<br />Washington DC<br /><br />February 7, 2009<br /><br /><br />Dear Mr. President:<br /><br /><br />You can't compromise with crazy.<br /><br /><br /><br />Sincerely,<br /><br />Blue MemeUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-44002498786657323752009-01-31T18:49:00.000-08:002009-02-01T12:20:23.987-08:00How to dismantle an atomic wingutI've taken a long <s>haitus</s> hiatus from blogging here, but I have not been able to keep my yap shut. I've been commenting a lot at Glennzilla's place, and occasionally elsewhere.<br /><br />But the most fun has been a recent string at Balkinization. Brian Tamanaha posted about a ridiculous WSJ column penned by Mr. Torture himself, John Yoo. The post explored, among other things, the ways in which Yoo seemed to be trying to shift the blame for his own criminality.<br /><br />It is generally immpossible to pick up a comment thread in midstream, but here is the exchange between myself and a particular trollish conservative there.<br /><br />My open:<br /><blockquote>First, there is a subtle shell game being played by those who seek to defend both Bush and Yoo. Yoo is blameless because he was just writing memos; Bush is blameless because he just relied on those memos. If what Bush did was, but for the memos, illegal, then there should be consequences for SOMEBODY. It makes a mockery of the advice of counsel defense to allow it to be used this way.<br /><br />Second, I think those defending Yoo ignore the fact that the role of an attorney is dependent on context. At one extreme, a criminal defense attorney can and should be aggressive in offering any colorable claim on behalf of the accused -- about an event that is obviously in the past. An attorney in private practice advising a client about a possible future action is and should be somewhat more constrained, and should fairly represent the current state of the law. The opposite extreme is a lawyer representing The People and asked by the executive about future actions. In that circumstance, the highest duty is to see that justice is done. The first is an advocate; the third is supposed to be neutral; the second is somewhere in between.<br /><br />Yoo and Bybee should have been neutral. Instead they were advocates.<br /><br />If there are no consequences for bad advocacy, I fear for the future of the legal profession, and for our legal system.<br /></blockquote><br />Conservative "Charles" takes the bait:<br /><blockquote>OLC is an advocate, certainly not neutral.<br /></blockquote><br />And the trap is sprung:<br /><blockquote>Care to back your assertion up, Charles?<br /><br />Because I can back up mine:<br /><br />"OLC’s core function is to help the President fulfill his constitutional duty to uphold the Constitution and “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” in all of the varied work of the executive branch. OLC provides the legal expertise necessary to ensure the lawfulness of presidential and executive branch action, including contemplated action that raises close and difficult questions of law. To fulfill this function appropriately, OLC must provide advice based on its best understanding of what the law requires. OLC should not simply provide an advocate’s best defense of contemplated action that OLC actually believes is best viewed as unlawful. To do so would deprive the President and other executive branch decisionmakers of<br />critical information and, worse, mislead them regarding the legality of contemplated action.<br /><br />OLC’s tradition of principled legal analysis and adherence to the rule of law thus is constitutionally grounded and also best serves the interests of both the public and the presidency, even though OLC at times will determine that the law precludes an action that a President strongly desires to take."<br /><br />Says who?<br /><br />Says them:<br /><br />Walter E. Dellinger, Assistant Attorney General 1993-96<br />Dawn Johnsen, Acting Assistant Attorney General 1997-98; Deputy AAG 1993-97<br />Randolph Moss, Assistant Attorney General 2000-01, Acting 1998-2000; Deputy AAG 1996-98<br />Christopher Schroeder, Acting Assistant Attorney General 1997; Deputy AAG 1994-96<br />Joseph R. Guerra, Deputy Assistant Attorney General 1999-2001<br />Beth Nolan, Deputy Assistant Attorney General 1996-99; Attorney Advisor 1981-85<br />Todd Peterson, Deputy Assistant Attorney General 1997-99; Attorney Advisor 1982-85<br />Cornelia T.L. Pillard, Deputy Assistant Attorney General 1998-2000<br />H. Jefferson Powell, Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Consultant 1993-2000<br />Teresa Wynn Roseborough, Deputy Assistant Attorney General 1994-1996<br />Richard Shiffrin, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, 1993-97<br />William Michael Treanor, Deputy Assistant Attorney General 1998-2001<br />David Barron, Attorney Advisor 1996-99<br />Stuart Benjamin, Attorney Advisor 1992-1995<br />Lisa Brown, Attorney Advisor 1996-97<br />Pamela Harris, Attorney Advisor 1993-96<br />Neil Kinkopf, Attorney Advisor 1993-97<br />Martin Lederman, Attorney Advisor 1994-2002<br />Michael Small, Attorney Advisor 1993-96<br /><br />http://www.acslaw.org/files/2004%20programs_OLC%20principles_white%20paper.pdf<br /></blockquote><br />Charles then brings a different paper clip to a different gunfight:<br /><blockquote>Mark:<br /><br />As I already pointed out to you, the primary task of a wartime President is protecting U.S. citizens. He doesn't need the AUMF (or even the Supreme Court) for that.</blockquote><br />I really do have better things to do. But when they set the table for me so beautifuilly:<br /><blockquote>Charles asserts (without citation, to be sure) that "the primary task of a wartime President is protecting U.S. citizens."<br /><br />But the Presidential oath of office (the very one he perhaps feels was improperly administered?) provides:<br /><br />"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."<br /><br />Seems the founders thought our common good would perforce follow if our highest laws are but upheld. And they strictly circumscribed the ability of any president to "protect the people" in a way that violates the law. I am unaware of any alternative oath for times of war, declared or otherwise.<br /><br />Charles assumes the conclusion -- Circulus in Probando.<br /><br /></blockquote>At that point, the vital signs became faint:<br /><blockquote>bluememe:<br /><br />The Constitution is not a suicide pact.<br /></blockquote><br />I must admit feeling a bit guilty, but that's how it is with guilty pleasures:<br /><blockquote>I don't normally waste my time with trolls, but I don't mind offering feedback to the author of the trollbot program posting responses under the name "Charles."<br /><br />Your bot responded to my comment pointing out that the previous trollbot comment was factually wrong by commenting:<br /><br />The Constitution is not a suicide pact.<br /><br />The phrase comes from a dissent in Terminiello v. Chicago, a case in which the Supreme Court overturned the disorderly conduct conviction of a priest whose anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi rantings at a rally had incited a riot. The Court held that Chicago's breach of the peace ordinance violated the First Amendment.<br /><br />It was also used, in slightly different form, in the majority opinion in Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, a case in which the Supremes determined that laws permitting stripping draft evaders of their citizenship are unconstitutional. And the full quote refers repeatedly to the powers of Congress to enact laws, rather than the right of the executive to ignore them.<br /><br />There is no support in any of these opinions for the proposition that the Constitution is merely aspirational.<br /><br />While a random number generator paired to a list of incoherent talking points may fairly simulate the conversation of the average conservative, the Turing test remains beyond your grasp, alas.<br /></blockquote><br />To which Charles replied:<br /><blockquote>I am not a program.</blockquote><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mN3AdrPLabg/SYXcj-ea5OI/AAAAAAAAANs/WSGBFnYBy-I/s1600-h/leonqo4.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 170px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mN3AdrPLabg/SYXcj-ea5OI/AAAAAAAAANs/WSGBFnYBy-I/s400/leonqo4.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297883047295378658" border="0"></a><br /><br />Do wingnuts blog of electric sheep?<br /><br />The whole string is <a href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4093719&postID=8258719552289889643&page=1">here</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-69427213578895549892008-11-07T18:39:00.000-08:002009-01-13T10:59:31.350-08:00Blogiversary bookendsThe first entry in this blog was posted on November 7, 2004:<br /><blockquote><br /><h3 class="post-title"> angry </h3> pissed. frustrated. perplexed. but mostly pissed. </blockquote><br /><br />What a difference fours years make, eh? On November 10, 2004, I linked to the <a href="http://sorryeverybody.com/gallery/1/">Sorry Everybody</a> website, where liberals apologized for our country to the rest of the world; now we see pictures of ecstatic reactions from all around the world. Then, cartoons looked like this:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/125/2298/640/rall1116.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 315px;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/125/2298/640/rall1116.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />And this:<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mN3AdrPLabg/SRePqkx-cFI/AAAAAAAAALk/0GukdzQwi3g/s1600-h/jesusland.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 277px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mN3AdrPLabg/SRePqkx-cFI/AAAAAAAAALk/0GukdzQwi3g/s400/jesusland.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266836250823651410" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Ah, those were the days....<br /><br />In many ways it makes sense to stop here.<br /><br />In a micro sense, readership has, after growing to a reasonable level, retreated to numbers not much larger than when we first started. And growing is harder now than it was then; the blogosphereic firmament is pretty static at this point, and this blog's impact on it rounds to zero.<br /><br />More importantly, in a macro sense, the distance from Kerry's loss to Obama's win has been traversed. I think the blogosphere has had a major role. And I have been willing to be one of countless minions in the army of ants swarming the stupid. I think the blogosphere has a real role going forward as well, but is there sufficient return on investment from this one small platform? I will have to ponder that one. I am sometimes pleased by the sound of my own voice here, but self-indulgence is a luxury, and these are tough times. It is nice having a place to vent, but there comes a time when blogs must be beaten into ploughshares.<br /><br />Anyway, much has been said and (collectively) accomplished. So:<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Proud.</span><br /><br />Cautiously hopeful. Relieved. Strangely wistful. But mostly proud.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-83810715565550852142008-11-07T11:43:00.000-08:002008-11-07T12:12:10.716-08:00The solution to the Lieberman problemJoe Lieberman is simply amazing in his burning need and undeniable ability to make himself important in the face of overwhelming evidence of irrelevance.<br /><blockquote><br /><p>Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has reached out to Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) about the prospect of joining the Republican conference, but Lieberman is still bargaining with Democratic leaders to keep his chairmanship, according to Senate aides in both parties. </p><p>"Senator Lieberman's preference is to stay in the caucus, but he's going to keep all his options open," a Lieberman aide said. "McConnell has reached out to him and at this stage his position is he wants to remain in the caucus but losing the chairmanship is unacceptable."</p></blockquote><p></p><br />The solution is so obvious: Obama should offer Loserman a senior administration position. A real Dem will take his Senate seat; Obama looks magnanimous; and Joe gets canned the minute he (inevitably) goes off script.<br /><br />And continuing the "<a href="http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/life_imitates_art_imitating_life.php">echoes of "West Wing" parallels</a>," the Obama team should announce that Lieberman has accepted even before he is asked, and effusively praise his patriotism, bipartisanship and willingness to put country before personal interest.<br /><br />Heh.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-16771198139003827552008-11-05T07:07:00.000-08:002008-11-05T07:09:04.546-08:00Song without words<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mN3AdrPLabg/SRG28tfkKTI/AAAAAAAAAI0/K0sQqPVjJHE/s1600-h/jesse+tears.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mN3AdrPLabg/SRG28tfkKTI/AAAAAAAAAI0/K0sQqPVjJHE/s400/jesse+tears.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5265190593493215538" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-56653254944907841992008-11-04T21:35:00.000-08:002008-11-04T21:45:44.431-08:00Not "Not my President" any moreI have never felt what I feel tonight.<br /><br />Words fail.<br /><br />The closest thing I can compare it to was watching Neil Armstrong step off the ladder and into immortality. I was only 10 years old, but I grasped the magnitude and improbability of the accomplishment.<br /><br />Almost 40 years later, the next giant leap.<br /><br />Tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, the give and take and the gap between promise and fulfillment will surely return. Tonight, I exalt in my country.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-75184229462782362622008-11-04T16:15:00.000-08:002008-11-04T16:31:15.072-08:00He got gameI put in a couple of hours volunteering on the phone bank at the local Obama office today. I did the same thing 4 years ago, and the difference was striking.<br /><br />In 2004, the office was small, the volunteers sparse and low-energy, and the targets of the calls not too happy to receive them.<br /><br />This time, there were at least 50 people jamming the office, and probably more than 75. The place hummed with enthusiasm, and we overflowed the available space (I made my calls from the parking lot). And out of perhaps 100 calls, I only had one or two hangups -- I suspect the list was better, and the country was more receptive to the message.<br /><br />I'd guess that in just the two hours I was there, more than 5000 calls were lobbed into Pennsylvania from just one office in suburban California. Extrapolate that by perhaps 25 California offices (I don't know the number, but that is probably conservative) and maybe 12 hours and you get more than a half million calls just on election day.<br /><br />Yeah, he got game.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-61159832202404269482008-10-31T20:51:00.000-07:002008-10-31T21:00:34.883-07:00More of that irony stuffThe wingnuts keep insisting that the Democratic nominee for the top slot is not a natural born citizen.<br /><br />Their preferred candidate keeps proving she must be one, because she sure as hell <a href="http://www.americablog.com/2008/08/sarah-palin-not-sure-what-vice.html">couldn't</a> <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/31/palin-criticism-threatens_n_139729.html">pass</a> a citizenship test.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9062515.post-36882620573946480932008-10-27T18:46:00.000-07:002008-10-27T18:49:12.099-07:00The irony, the irony...Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens can no longer vote FOR a Senator, but he is still free to vote AS a Senator.<br /><br />How strange.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1