Someone somwhere.

It never ceases to amaze me how much the notion that someone somwhere is getting something they don't deserve drives 90% of our discourse.

Re: Iraq

For me, the number 1 lesson of Iraq remains, "A large number of people believing something to be true does not constitute evidence in its favor"
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Any time anyone defends a propostion based on it's popularity, we can point to Saddam's WMD's for instant refutation.

On a discussion about the "Ground Zero Mosque"

It's threads like these that remind me that for many people, religion isn't about worshiping the Creator of the Universe but rather just identifying who you're supposed to hate. I have news. The number of Creators of the Universe is somewhere between zero and one. At some point, we're going to have to learn to share.

Original link has gone bad.

I've always kept a link to John Ashcroft's diatribe against the clipper chip, because it serves as a healthy reminder that the desire to spy on people is a fully bipartisan impulse. That link no longer works but here's a copy:

http://www.badattitudes.com/AshWeb.html

Re: any time Israel/Palastine comes up.......

I just enjoy how the same entity can be a fierce aggressor with no moral compunction whatsoever and a whimpering powerless victim cowering before it's enemies simultaneously. (Notice that I don't even need to specify which entity I could be referring to)
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Just another demonstration of the irrelevance of reality when it comes to tribal/political debates.

Re: BP CEO "I Want My Life Back"

Just as I ask those who insist that "the government is inherently inefficient" to look at the lines of accountability to determine why they might think that and to identify where the real problems lie, we can perform the same exercise on BP. There were problems with the well that caused significant concerns among personnel there. But the lines of accountability, the determination of what sort of behavior is rewarded and what sort of behavior is punished, determined that the best course of action was to shove the problems under the rug.
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The nature of Corporate organization almost guarantees the response. Would the CEO have approved had he been informed? Probably not. That's why he wasn't informed

Regarding Arizona

Everyone arguing about the law, pretends that it only affects resident aliens. This is simply false. The law as written (yes, I've read it) creates unequal treatment under the law for Hispanic citizens. This is directly counter to the forteenth amendment which guarantees equal protection under the law for all citizens regardless of race. Simply stating that the cops can't use race to base their targeting decisions when they in fact have no other basis BUT race to do so, is to deny simple reality.

Thought For The Day

The only people who participate in deciding whether a certain Military action was "worth it" are the people who survived the result. Sort of a skewed dataset if you ask me!

One of the problems with "Centrism"

One of the problems with "Centrism" as currently practiced is that you end up with either the worst of both worlds or an absolutely incoherent and unprincipled position.

To take an obvious example. Many liberals think that torturing prisoners is wrong and should be treated as a war crime pursuant to laws currently on the books in this country. Many conservatives think that torture is AOK because obviously anyone who 'wants to kill us' deserves every moment of agony that can be managed. Centrists on the other hand agree that torture is wrong and illegal but that nevertheless the people who actually did it should be rewarded for their service.

Not much in the way of moral clarity in THAT neighborhood....

Evolving thinking

Back when debate among Swamplanders revolved around whether insisting on the public option was worth holding the entire HCR effort hostage, I spent a lot of time defending Insurance companies against what I saw as a knee-jerk anti-business attitude among my fellow commenters.

Now that I have seen how Blue dog Democrats have aquired a well-honed ability to absolutely lie about their concerns and actually hold out to vote AGAINST reducing Federal outlays for health care, I now see that my loyalty was severely misdirected.

These guys really ARE in the pocket of Aetna and really ARE willing to screw their constituents in order to placate their sponsors.

Finally something new worth posting

The entire theory behind medical insurance existing is that the healthy subsidize the sick. If that weren't the case there would be no value in insurance in the first place. Everyone could keep a savings account for the money they'll need when they succumb. What insurance offers, is the opportunity for someone who gets sick unexpectedly to draw out of the pool before they've paid in fully. Insurers guarantee themselves that they collect more in premiums than they pay in benefits and pocket the difference in administrative costs and profits. Obviously the notion of a 'fair share' under a system where the healthy already pay in more than enough to cover the sick AND the overhead is absurd on its face. Yes the young pay more than their fair share. That's the whole point of insurance. Mandates don't change that one iota.

The Ridge By Fairchild Park

There's a place I often think of
And though it's just a lark
A short straight stretch of two lane road
Just down from Fairchild Park
But each and every morning as I drive over the ridge
An island vista opens to remind me where I live.

It doesn't photograph too well
Wires get in the way
But still it serves to set the mood
Of each unfolding day
And if the horizon's hazy
Well that's just the road you're on
But you know that life is looking up
When the islands meet the dawn

So if you know the North Side
You know just where I mean
And so you know just where to go
To catch that Island scene
It may be just a workday
In just another week
But past the ridge by Fairchild park
Is a whole new world to seek

Left on a Joe Klein thread.

Yesterday I refered to 'the circles you travel' in an effort to defend your gratuitous "I criticize Liberals too" disclaimer in an otherwise refreshingly candid article. Today you reward me by ignoring the fact that Charles Krauthammer is clinically insane.

I know I've been sidetracked and this is seemingly off topic but when I was looking for an example of an 'evil corporation' for a post a few days ago, I went immediately to a Rent-To-Own Site because I know they are in the business of gouging the poor. Until I went to their site, I didn't realize how thoroughly they do so. They offer a $180 two week loan at a flat fee of $30 dollars and hence charge and legally collect 521.43% APR. You thought that the 18-22% the credit card companies get was unconscionable? The point is simple. Corporations are not constrained by conscience. The only way to avoid shameless exploitive behavior is to either make it prohibitively expensive or illegal altogether.
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I think the debate often gets sidetracked when we talk about parasites and make it seem that we're seeking revenge for insurance companies greed. Like the proverbial scorpion crossing the river, Insurance companies can, should and do whatever they can get away with. Our job is to make sure that 'what they get away with' actually serves the public.

My last two health related posts:

My father passed away in 1989 at age of 62. He might not have, but a committee at the privately owned Hospital where he received his care determined that at his age, a lung transplant would not be an efficient use of a limited resource.

My mother passed in 2005 at the age of 76. She had a living will properly drawn out, and cleary spelled out DNR orders. Both died in their own homes.

Anyone who speaks cavalierly about how health care isn't rationed yet but will be under Obamacare or how there's something wrong with providing sensible counseling to people facing serious illnesses is not only hopelessly ignorant but probably heartless as well.



The sad truth is, is that there comes a time in many peoples lives where aggressive Medical treatment is indeed a waste of money. Being appalled and frightened by that fact is a symptom of being human.
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That fear is now being cruelly exploited to derail sane debate about vitally important issues.
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That is nothing short of criminal

Left on a GG thread

I like to point out that the founders were well aware of the various paths toward the abuse of power and tried their best to plug them all. And yes that includes guaranteeing a citizen's ability to defend himself in cases where 'any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends'

That is of course why Constitutional guarantees are necessary, because they run directly counter to human nature especially in times of fear. As I've said before, if the temptation to torture weren't common then the freedom from self-incrimination wouldn't be necessary to enunciate. If the temptation to railroad criminals weren't common then the right to a jury trial wouldn't have been mentioned. Each of our Constitutional guarantees stands directly in the path of the easy way out. That's why they are there.

JNS and Sarah, the condensed interview:

Q1-Why is Government bad?
Q2-Really?
Q3-Was resigning a great move or merely a good one?
Q4-Hillary's a whiner-Why aren't you?
Q5-What now?
Q6-Just can't get enough rally's eh?
Q7-Until your ready to run again?
Q8-Care to unload on Obama?
Q9-Again?
Q10-and once more?

Proceed with caution!

Trying to thread the needle.....

The whole theory behind free-market Capitalism is that it harnesses individual self-interest in a way that ends up spreading benefits widely. As I've often said, it's good at accomplishing some things, other things, not so much. But whatever solution we propose to whatever problem we perceive has to take in account the fact that individual self interest isn't going to go away and that any solution that doesn't take it into account is doomed to failure.
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The other point is that a lot of political arguments are based on others being 'undeserving'. Spob made clear several threads ago that his arguments against any Health-care reform was based on the notion that some undeserving poor person who brought it upon himself might nevertheless get some health-care on the public dime, therefore costing spob personally. In his worldview, poor people are morally suspect freeeloaders.
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But you folks who are arguing over how evil Insurance companies and lobbyists are are applying the same kind of thinking. By assuming that powerful people are powerful by virtue of their gaming the system, you blind yourself to their worldview which only suggests that they are delivering a valuable service at a fair price and bemoaning people who want something for nothing.
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There's nothing inherently evil about being poor and there's nothing inherently evil about being rich. Only when we get past the stereotypes and ask ourselves how we can design a sytem wherein individual self-interest nevertheless results in widespread benefit then we will be dealing with the Health-care crisis rationally.

Where the Right went wrong in one sentence or less:

The problem as I see it is that having started with an idea that seemed plausable in the Eighties concerning competitition and markets and efficiency, instead of testing that idea and checking where it made sense and where it didn't, they instead proclaimed it as an article of faith, and now that it's slammed against the wall of reality they refuse to consider that perhaps they've failed to correctly identify the problem that their solutions are supposed to solve.

re: Sotomayor

The lack of background being provided behind her 'controversial' quote is the real sin of ommission in this entire discussion.
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She was invited to speak at a memorial lecture specifically on the topic of diversity on the bench and in courtrooms in general. The subject of how background and heritage might affect decisions from the bench was the topic under discussion
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She gave a lengthy speech on the subject but the only way they could hang her for an inappropriate statement was to slice it not just out of the paragraph it appeared in, but to chop the sentence itself in half in order to excise the phrase "I would hope".
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The fact that this isn't explained in absolutely every story discussing the subject is solid evidence that the media is utterly uninterested in truth if it interferes with the outrage and controversy that is their bread and butter.
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Even when the coverage is sympathetic to the candidate it's only centered around questions as to whether her critics have gone too far
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If you ask me, the whole process is downright disgusting.

Read the Whole Thing

Left on a Joe Klein thread re: Torture photos

I'd like to once again remind everyone that the pictures that were going to be released aren't CIA types carefully applying graduated techniques to elicit confessions but are home-movies of US soldiers run amok. If nothing else, they serve as a stark reminder that when cruelty is officially sanctioned, the normal checks to evil behavior are gone and this is what ensues. It's simple human nature and labels like "American" or "Taliban" don't change the basic equation.
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The the moral authority that the US has enjoyed in the past is a direct result of our adherence to the principles of human rights even when it was inconvenient (or frightening). It's not too late to regain that authority, but if there isn't a sharp break between the current administration and the last one, then all the justification we have to engage in geopolitics in our current "world leader" role will dissolve into dust.

Quoting Karen Tumulty....

Providers now get paid according to how much care they provide, rather than how good it is. If a botched surgery lands you back in the hospital, for instance, that means more profit for the health-care industry. "They are often penalized if they provide more efficient care, if they reduce readmission rates," Orszag says, adding that changing that kind of perverse incentive will be a major focus of health-care reform. .

The great thing about this paragraph is that it is way more generally applicable than just within the health care debate. Anywhere where we can ask ourselves "where are there situations where the optimum business decision is one that resuts in harm?" After all, you can't ask and should never expect businesses OR individuals to do anything but what is in their own best interest within the law.
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This is the one thing that "Church of Reagan" zealots look right past. There are things that markets are good at doing and other things at which the really suck! Failure to consider that possibility is precisely what's brought us to our current brink.

Thought for the day...

Paul thinks the world would make more sense if people stopped talking about places as if they were people. The United States says one thing, Israel feels differently and Iran reacts emotionally and Saudi Arabia is not amused.
File Under Stupid Human tricks......

Also worth preserving......

Here's a little thought experiment for Ann to try on for size. Imagine two scenario's.
An omnipotent supreme being with unlimited capability decides one day to create intelligent living creatures and impart into them not only intelligence but also free agency and a strong sense of right from wrong.
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Or a vast universe comes into being through a poorly understood physical process and across vast lightyears of space and across billions of stars in another poorly understood but incredibly rare physical process self-replicating molecules form and start a long and treacharous journey down a path wherin they form cooperative structures and across eons of time grow into forms that eventually become intelligent living creatures that not only possess intelligence but also free agency and a strong sense of right from wrong.
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In which scenario are such life forms to be considered more precious and in which scenario is the prospect of destruction of the creature's habitat and planet more dire?
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Certainly the belief in an omnipotent Creator that can declare "do-over" at any moment leads to a more cavalier and LESS moral attitude than faith in a self-discovering physically realized Universe that our current scientific understanding portrays.
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Your conviction that science operates in a realm free from moral or ethical inquiry is not only factually incorrect but it is also deeply offensive.

Amy Sullivan inadvertantly steps in it.

The Kids Are Alright

In an otherwise unremarkable post celebrating a teenager who aced the SAT and ACT's she throws in this line:

is surprising is that by all accounts Willa is no vocab-memorizing automatron but rather a normal, down-to-earth kid with a playful sense of humor.

For reasons that are obvious only to those who know me, this raised my hackles.

Here are my two responses:
I'm going to look at this as an opportunity to examine prejudice as a general phenomenon. Amy writes this:

What is surprising is that by all accounts Willa is no vocab-memorizing automatron but rather a normal, down-to-earth kid with a playful sense of humor..

And no one seems to notice that she's no less guilty of trying to pigeonhole people than someone would be if they made blanket assumptions about hip-hop fans or Muslims.

There's a smart kid who's otherwise just like kids everywhere. The only thing surprising is that anyone finds that surprising.

There is a great deal of cultural pressure in this country to NOT succeed academically. Without even delving into how such forces can disproportionately impact minority students, anti-intellectualism is a potent and exceedingly harmful force in this country. Don't believe it? Let us relive those heady weeks of 'bittergate' and remember how much backlash there was against Obama for the crime of being 'elitist'

Just so I know where to find them:

Links of evil:

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/03/02/shocking/#comment-47333
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http://www.altermedia.info/civil-rights/the-problem-with-whites-by-prof-kevin-macdonald_689.html

More religion

In response to this

Beginning with the first of the Ten commandments, it's an unfortunate fact that much of the Religious intolerance that exists in the World is a direct result of the contents of the Religious tenets themselves. If you, like me, believe that there can be only one Creator of the Universe, then the notion of different versions of God competing for loyalty is easily recognized as absurd. That doesn't prevent millions of people from nevertheless falling into just that trap. This is where the Gospel teachings come in so handy. Certainly Loving your enemy, Refraining from judging lest you be judged and Tending to the log in your own eye rather than the speck in your neighbors is inconsistent with religious intolerance let alone seeking to harm those who don't share your specific beliefs.

Posted for easy linkage

Originally from a Swampland thread:

There is nothing at all surprising about the inability of capitalism to produce a private, free-market health insurance plan that works in favor of the people subscribing to it..

Can we get that engraved somewhere? A big problem with our debates nowadays is that people have had 'free markets' preached to them for so long that they treat it like some kind of magical deity instead of a simple mechanism to allow for the pricing of goods and reasonably efficient way to allocate resources.
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There are many problems that markets are unable to solve because no participants have a financial stakes in the solution. I still think that Hog Manure Odor Abatement represents a perfect example but there are many others. Pig farmers don't mind the smell and their neighbors have no recourse but to use government to hold the farmers accountable for the problem. So we can either shut down the hog farms thus directly interfering in the 'market' or create incentives or spend public funds to deal with the problem.
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There are way too many people who aren't willing to think such problems through and way too many others who have a strong discentive to even talk about it.
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Of course hogsh!^ isn't the only example but ever since John McCain decided to make fun of it, its remained one of the most accessible.

Garlic for the Zombie Lie

I'm posting this link because the notion that waterboarding yielded actionable intelligence and might therefore be justified is going to continue to rear it's ugly head at frequent intervals and will need to be bashed in the skull each and every time.

Detainee's Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots
Waterboarding, Rough Interrogation of Abu Zubaida Produced False Leads, Officials Say

By Peter Finn and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, March 29, 2009; A01

Random Comments

One of the ironies of Obama decrying the Boom/Bust economy is the fact that in includes vast swaths of the Clinton Presidency as well. Well before "Housing bubble" entered the vocabulary, Dot-com bubble was a household word.

You'd think the the Republicans would catch on that they can improve the economy AND blame a Democrat while embracing Obama's current efforts!

Another thing worth remebering about Boom/Bust is that the boom half of the cycle is just as unhealthy and crippling as the bust portion. It's the period during which people are extracting wealth from the economy while not putting anything of particular value into it.

Which of these are too insulting?

Having joined the #badgeofhonor list of twits blocked by Jake Tapper, I invite both my readers to ascertain which of my posts was sufficiently bile-laden to justify such treatment:

phd9: @jaketapper The 'insult' threshhold will always be lower to the recipient than the provider.

phd9: @jaketapper The Leno transcript has 4430 words and yet you have nothing to report on but two of them - mumbled at that. Agenda much?

phd9: @jaketapper When I think 'populist' - Orange County in number one on MY list!

phd9: @jaketapper re: Confidence. Look on the bright side. He didn't say he's doing a heck of a job.....

phd9: @jaketapper The AIG bonuses were "contractual" obligations. Yet the Big 3's UAW contracts were abrogated. Why not AIG's?

phd9: @jaketapper I know chasing earmarks are fun - BUT!http://mediamatters.org/items/200903130027?f=h_column

phd9: @jaketapper Two thoughts re partisanship 1. Never underestimate the power of selective attention. 2. How did we get to this point?

Twitter won't let me post this:

It's nice that everyone hates the AIG bonuses. Where was the outrage over their equally grotesque salaries?

Re: Judge selection....

The task of actually applying Constitutional tests to statutes is significantly less difficult than people make it out to be. It only becomes a problem when the clear text of the Constitution runs counter to the current public will. It's worth noting that this is why its necessary to have a Constitution in the first place. Without a document in place to enumerate our inalienable rights, the tendency of majority blocs to oppress minority viewpoints would be nearly irresistable.

Re: Animal Spirits

In response to this

You keep capitalizing "Animal Spirits" in a way that either stresses it as unique or mocks it (I'm not sure which.)
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From my perspective though you are treating as remarkable, something that is blindingly obvious. Humans ARE animals. We are capable of rationality but it is not our standard operational mode. The fact that we hold ANYTHING of value beyond what we can eat, drink or breathe is an artifact of our evolutionary history. Our historical fascination with precious metals in particular reveals that what we regard as valuable is entirely arbitrary and that there is no such thing as "intrinsic value"
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Why then should it be surprising that the health of our economy depends entirely on the mindset of its participants?
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I could expand on this and point out how our whole political system revolves around the notion that if we throw our money into a big enough pile so that counting it is no longer intuitive, when we then remove it again in manageble chunks, it feels like we've gotten something for nothing.
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We refer to the process as 'earmarking'
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The only arguments between the the two political parties is whether it's preferable to spend more than you collect or collect less than you spend.

More earmarks....

The problem with earmarks is that EVERYBODY does it. For weeks now I've been comparing the Federal trough to a lottery pool. Everyone pays into one big pot and then competes to see who can draw the most money back out. If anyone were serious about reducing earmarks, then they would simultanously be favoring doubling State Income or Sales taxes. By acting like a financial heat-sink, the Federal government gets to participate in the sleight of hand that allows people to think that they're getting something for nothing.
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The only difference between the Republicans and the Democrats is that the Republicans howl about the process while the Democrats simply shrug their shoulders and proceed.
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Guess which approach is more dishonest?

Re: Earmarks

I wish that if people were going to play silly games with big numbers, that they'd take the additional step of dividing by 250,000,000 to get the figure 'per American'
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Not only would this knock the numbers down to a more easily imagined size, they would allow for more direct comparisons to typical American families other expenditures.

Obama at Health summit

If there is a way of getting this done where we're driving down costs and people are getting health insurance at an affordable rate and have choice of doctor, have flexibility in terms of their plans, and we could do that entirely through the market, I'd be happy to do it that way.
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I'm starting to get tired of people regarding "The Market" as if its some kind of magical diety. In any situation, it's important to examine motivations and incentives and assure oursleves that the actual incentives lead to the behavior we want. In many cases, the market is the best way to acheive this but in certain cases it fails miserably.
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There is no 'market' for electricity and phones in many rural areas. There is no 'market' that will assure that hog farms don't pollute their surroundings. And there is no market that will allow people who are already sick to get their health needs paid for.
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There is an appropriate time and place for Government action and it doesn't betray any Conservative principles to acknowlege the fact. We've been lied to for so long that this simple truth is no longer on the radar.

Pointing outward.

Much of our political thought involves imagining undeserving people who are getting benefits at our expense. It works in two directions. Whether you imagine shiftless unemployed people who nevertheless manage to go to doctors and send their kids to school, or fat-cat bank executives flying down to the VI for 'retreats' on their yachts on the government dime, the process of imagining itself drives our emotional reaction and eventually our voting behavior.
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I only say this because, while its easy to demonize "bank shareholders" as deserving what they get, the truth is that many 'shareholders' are in fact Mutual Funds that are holding the retirement savings of millions of ordinary Americans.
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Much of what we face now will be a matter of allocating discomfort so that we feel we're rising and falling together, but the process of pointing outward to decide who should be hurting hasn't helped us so far and won't help us in the long run.

Watching the speech

I have to admit that while watching Obama speak, I found myself wondering how he thought he was going to pull off everything he was describing. All this stimulus, all this bank bolstering AND a reduced deficit?

I'd even be interested in Republican counterarguments except for one rather important detail. They don't believe a word of their own arguments. The key to balancing any budget including our Federal one is to spend less than you take in. While pretending that the Democrats want to spend more than they take in, the Republicans instead insist on taking in less than they spend. Add to that, their record of keeping the GWOT off-budget and you have a perfect formula for graft and dishonesty.

I don't know how Obama is going to manage to reduce the deficit but stopping lying is certainly a good first step.

The Unlikely Planet

In just about the time it takes to draw a single breath
A vision found its way into my mind
It wasn't very much now Not a case of life or death
But it really seemed important at the time

I saw a distant planet Way out there in space
A whole lot like the one that we are on
But I noticed one big difference as I walked around the place
I couldn't see any fighting going on

So I walked up to a stranger The first one I could find
And I asked him how it was that this could be
At first he looked at me as if he thought I'd lost my mind
But then he answered simply "History"

He told me that they once had wars that nations lost and won
And everybody feared the next attack
Until someone discovered that it wasn't any fun
If the people you were killing didn't fight back

Well the changes happened slowly as changes always do
But common sense soon won out over strife
And do unto your brother as you want done unto you
Became the accepted way of life

So now you've heard my story of the planet out in space
But I guess that it was just a foolish thought
For who out there will listen to an idea so out of place
As we gear up for the next war to be fought.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the (economic) Bomb

I have often marvelled at how anything aquires value. An object is worth exactly what you can get someone to pay you for it. Therefore all 'value' is, is a consensus opinion on what something is worth. This can be quite unrelated to the costs associated with producing the said item.
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So while it is true that we have been selling vapor for the last 30 years and paying for it with equally gaseous currency, as long as there is a sufficient consensus to agree that the illusion is worth maintaining, then it will remain in everyone's interest to continue to insist that the Emperor's outfit is resplendent. That is why I don't think our economy will actually collapse. It's built on a psychological effect for its foundation and there are too many vested interests who will do whatever is necessary to maintain their position.

My Theology in a nutshell:

(as posted on Facebook)

I have always held that the Universe should be credited at having least as much consciousness as it's contents. I therefore don't call myself an atheist. Beyond that......

All I mean is that if we strip away the limitations of our own viewpoints - stuck in time, looking out from inside our own skulls, then there is plenty of room within the physical Universe for what we would call God. I like to think of the Universe itself as in the process of discovering its own existence and we are tools in that endeavor.
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Life is the interface through which molecules can learn of stars

Apropos of nothing......

Part of the confusion about the nature vs nurture debate is that its all an artifact of the way we chop up realms of knowlege. When you refer to something as 'biological' you pretend that that doesn't encompass sociological and anthroplogical considerations as well.
A better illustration of what I mean is the misuse of the term "natural." Human society is a part of nature. Therefore strip-mines, auto-assembly plants and breast implants are every bit as 'natural' as beaver-dams and coral reefs

Klein links to Sully - I comment

>Klein
Sullivan
Me:
The system is correcting itself after one of the most unbalanced periods in American history. But it took the self-restraint of one man to do it.
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Do we want to credit this to the system or an individual? If McCain had won would Sully still call the system self-correcting?
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I detect a severe amount of wishful thinking here. The system is still broken. The crimes of the torturers are still unpunished. Rove is still ignoring Conyers. The telecoms are still officially above the law.
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Obama may understand the Constitutional limits of the Presidency but that doesn't mean that they have been restored. We just got lucky this time.

Posted on an Amy Sullivan thread

I look at the whole problem as a window into human nature. As JayAck points out above the same people who object the loudest to abortion rights also object to sex education and other forms of contraception. This clearly demonstrates that their objections have less to do with the fates of unborn souls than it does with discomfort over recreational sex.
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So what is the association between authoritarian religious beliefs and discomfort with pleasure? And why do the same people who experience such discomfort with sexual pleasure nevertheless have such enthusiasm for warfare? Again, it's obvious that concern over innocent souls has absolutely nothing to do with the question.

Re: Gaza....

This is where I recuse myself from the conversation because the whole 'logic' of warfare is something that remains beyond my understanding. We are each morally responsible for our own actions. To hold individuals responsible for the acts of those around them flies in the face of the way I understand the world. People who launch expolsives in the direction of other humans are murderers. People who die in such attacks are innocent victims. Who's 'side' anyone represents is irrelevant to the discussion.

Re: The Auto Bailout

Am I the only one who sees something inherently wrong with attacking the pensions of people who are already retired? It's not like their in a position to address any sudden drops in income.

What Paul said at 23

Whenever I think about Rev. Wright, I remember that half of the stuff he says would be utterly uncontroversial except for a prevalent and totally unhealthy belief that the USA has some kind of inside track to Godliness. The Gospels themselves make clear that loyalty to God is an entirely separate matter from loyalty to any earthly political entities. Confusion on this point leads directly to the notion that the USA is incapable of immoral actions. The same people who end up attacking Wright's patriotism are the very one's who write off Abu Ghraib as no big deal

I thought this was worth preseving

From Time:
The right answer here is not for the executive branch to have zero latitude in the highest stakes interrogations," Wittes said. "And you don't have to be Dick Cheney to believe that." In the past, members of the intelligence community have also argued for keeping some approved methods of interrogation classified, so as not to tip off enemies to what they might possibly face in the future.

From Me:

Again the biggest problem I have with this whole discussion is the concept of latitude. As soon as there's latitude then there's no longer a line preventing torture. I'm sympathetic to the notion that techniques might need to be classified, but as soon as you suggest that agents in the field should be free to apply their own judgment then all bets are off. Genuine, unambiguous torture will be soon to follow. Has everyone forgotten how much fun the soldiers at Abu Ghraib appeared to be having?

I find this remarkable

Obama's Favorability at 70%

So as the GOP licks its wounds and tries to piece together what went wrong it's instructive to realize that the hard-core who are unwilling to give Obama the benefit of the doubt only represent 25% of Americans. Next time to you think running a campaign based on hate, fear and lies is a good idea, you might want to think again!

Such a nice sentiment

That I had to link:

http://crooksandliars.com/node/23938

Because something I witnessed truly moved me –I watched McCain’s concession speech, and was saddened by the booing when he congratulated Obama, called him a good man, and looked forward to supporting him as our President. He more than once raised his hands in the attempt to rebuff those who jeered, but the months of maligning his opponent as a scary, un-American, possibly even terrorist bogeyman are not something that will be so easily switched off. That Frankenstein monster McCain’s campaign created has a way to go before it dons a tuxedo and top hat and puts on the Ritz. When I then watched Obama’s victory speech, I was moved by his praise for McCain, calling for unity, to be seen as a president for all the people, both on the right and the left… and by the crowd cheering in response to those words, many in tears of joy and gratitude. There was no sense of conquest over an enemy, no feeling of imminent retribution, no hatred, no vengeance. No booing.

The campaign of fear lost to the campaign of hope.

Re: McCains concession

McCains' experience on the lawn there was exactly a case of reaping what he sowed. He was exceedingly gracious and except for the fact that in my view he overemphasized the significance of Obama's race, he spoke very well with a message that his supporters needed to hear. Unfortunately the message he had was utterly foreign to his supporters and it showed loudly and clearly in the crowd's reaction.

I'm still convinced that if he had run half as honorable a campaign as he said he intended to and that his fans (Michael...) insisted against all evidence that he was doing, he could have won. Every drop in the polls that he experienced was directly related to some tactical move designed to appeal to the Hate-R-Us right at the expense of the "please don't raise my taxes" Center.

Even more important than my satisfaction of knowing that Barack Obama will be the next President, is my satisfaction of knowing that campaigning on the assupmtion that only 30% of Americans are real Americans and that patriotism is reserved for a small subset of our nation's citizens is an exercise in self destruction

A commenter at Swampland

Said this about a pogniant Joe Klein post re: Obama's Grandmother

What a way to distract from the real issues at hand.

This is my response:

Interestingly enough, while there are many specific issues that need to be debated and that people can find themselves on several sides of, this campaign has unfortunately become a referendum on whether hatred and fear will continue to sell.
.
It actually touches on all the other important issues, because when we deal with terrorism and threats abroad, it will be important that we deal rationally and with the knowlege that we are dealing with fellow human beings and not demons, and as we tackle a sinking economy, it will be important that we realize that we are all in it together and that by sharing the burden and working together we can lift ourselves out of the difficulty, but if we insist that it's every man for himself, we're doomed to do more harm to everyone.

I have faith that most Americans realize this and that this will become evident as the day wears on.

Someone explain

Why this would end up in moderation!

I disagree strongly on one point. While Obama might be somewhat satisfied with the National Security team that's currently in place, he is certainly going to have to make an assertive move on arrival if for no other reason than to remove all doubt that HE'S in charge. The last thing we're going to need is for any second guessing along the chain of command, especially if some of his strategic decisions happen to be unpopular with the troops themselves

In response to

This

Powell's finest moment was when he told Tom Brokaw that what really bothered him about the sinister rumors labeling Obama a secert Muslim wasn't that they were a lie; it was the suggestion that there was something un-American about being a Muslim.

There's a very good reason the Founders thought it necessary to include Freedom of Worship in the Bill of Rights. They knew first hand that religious conflict was among the most emotionally engaging variety and that a properly formed Government has no business inserting itself into it.

Almost everything in the Bill of Rights is there because the things it prohibits are exceedingly tempting. If coercive interrogation weren't a real temptation then there would be no need for a rule against self-incrimination. If intrusive searches weren't a real temptation, then there would be no need to spell out warrant requirements. And if there weren't a real temptation to impose a particular faith on people against their will, then there would have been no necessity to explicitly prohibit it.

It is therefore unsurprising that the battle to preserve our rights is ongoing. In that sense they are unnatural and require positive effort to keep them intact.

Re: EO Wilson

The subject of an EO Wilson article came up at Washington Monthly;

Here's what I had to say on the subject:

if we can hold both that morality is a human contrivance and that biology is not relevant to answering moral questions

I feel compeled to point out that biology is an inescapable part of moral reasoning. After all, how can we possibly speak of 'suffering' or 'pleasure' or otherwise describe the results of our choices except upon the substrate of bodies and minds that feel pain and hunger or triumph. We can certainly think of such things at a hiogher level of absraction but without biology, we would be nothing more than rocks.

Later:

Wilson, Dawkins and Dennett among others all struggle against the question, "Why in spite of all my efforts, do people insist on continuing to be religious?" They then go on to argue (convincingly in my view) that religious feeling is actually a selected adaptation that has among its effects, the potential to motivate people into fatal acts in defense of their tribe (and hence their fellow gene-carriers) What they fail to consider is that the resolute absence of religious feeling is an effect of precisely the same force.

Certainly a congregation of athiest is capable of creating the same sense of belonging and community that churchgoers enjoy and at its fringes is capable of fomenting actual hatred against those who insist on viewing the Universe differently.

I might say the above in the shorter form. "Even atheists are capable of religious intolerance."

Just a quick note

To say that I agree with this wholeheartedly.

Paying The Piper

The biggest problem with the widening gap between the wealthy and the middle class is that the reduced spending power of the middle class eventually results in reduced consumer spending that affects everyone.

Call it the Trickle-up theory.

Posted on a Joe Klein Thread:

Swampland

Both your article and Michael Scherer's post-debate post seem to address the same point. Neither candidtae is willing to give the public any bad news about the limits of what the Government can do to help. This is the bad news.

The good news is that are able to reopen all the philosophical underpinnings that led in a straight line from Johnson to Reagan and allowed Americans to believe that corporations were somehow inherently superior to government agencies.

The basic assumption that has now been become frozen into the public consciousness is that because businesses are motivated by profit, that they are better than government at operating efficiently and NOT wasting money. This is true, as far as it goes, but the sad fact is that if the object of the game is to provide for the minimum basic needs of all Americans, the cheapest way is unquestionably unacceptable. It's taken almost 20 years for this realization to sink in.

The problem as I see it now however, is because these arguments are have all been internalized and simplified into slogans, we're no longer able to discuss them reasonably. All someone has to do is say "redistribution" or "socialist" and an otherwise open mind curls up into a tight little ball of Reaganomic true-belief.

I happen to be well aware of the limits of Government's ability to solve problems. I have sympathies toward Republican economic thinking. I'm a huge fan of balanced budgets and limited borrowing. But we have to be willing to take a systematic look at ALL our institutions and ask themselves "Are these designed in such away that blind self-interest nevertheless creates desirable results?"

The beauty of our Constitutional system is that it turns the self-interest of the Branches of government against each other in order to limit the excessive concentration of power. If only we were half as clever in designing our economic system.

A recent Palin quote:

"We see America as a force for good in this world. We see America as a force for exceptionalism..."

It's exceedingly interesting that A: she doesn't seem to have a clue about what "exceptionalism" means in that context and B: she seems to be promoting precisely the moral blindness that actually IS referred to by the word 'exceptionalism'

Whenever being "a force for good" is assumed by your identity rather than strived for by your ideals, then you are well on your way toward ceasing to be a force for good. This is the number one failure of the current Republican playbook. As soon as you are unable to evaluate your own actions or stated another way, as soon as the suggestion that your own actions might be wrong becomes taboo, then evil follows as assuredly as night follows day.

Even if they weren't taking the Obama quote out of context, the refusal to consider that we ourselves may doing harm is not only harmful, it's morally bankrupt.

More on Mediocracy

Digby

And they deserved it. They are the people, after all, who wrote garbage like that above for years and nursed the belief in the Republican base that the only thing required for world leadership is being as mediocre as possible. What did they expect?

Pulled Directly from AmericaBlog

AmericaBlog

Obama has noted this before, as has Jon Stewart - the fact that Republican politicians admire stupidity and ignorance. They wear their lack of education, their incompetence, their failure as a badge of honor. And it's certainly an American tradition, having disdain for intellectuals. But when push comes to shove, do you really want bubba, or bubba with lipstick, in charge of your 401k and your life savings? At some point America has got to get over its love affair with stupid. Or the mistakes of the last eight years, when we elected stupid to an art form, will continue to repeat themselves.

This is a theme that's been close to my heart ever since March. If you google the word 'elite' I'm sure you will find page after page extolling the virtues of mediocrity.

I find the whole thing - dare I say it - stupid!

Quoting from a Time article:

Time

Some people want to say there's too little regulation. It's not that. It's just outdated, outmoded, ineffective. The architecture was put in place in a different era, and it hasn't kept pace with the evolving financial markets."

Consider that when we refer to "evolving financial markets" we're refering to moves made and instruments created that are specifically designed to skirt regulation.

One of the grossest oversimplifications that muddies our debate is to think of 'regulation' as a single activity and declare it either good or bad. Regulation can be good or bad and finacial deals can either be fair or larcenous. There is no single slogan or approach that magically makes everything fair and prosperous. And there's no such thing as a totally 'free' market.

File under: The Stupid! It Burns!

It is now percolating up to the MSM that while Palin was mayor, she allowed her town to bill rape victims for their forsenic tests.

Amanda Carpenter of course rises to the occasion to note that Palin never supported such a thing.

AmandaCarpenter

This of course utterly fails to explain, if she didn't support it, why she allowed the practice to continue until it was made illegal by the State.

The most intriguing part is the TownHall comment thread. A series of people all pipe in to explain how her column does nothing to vindicate Palin while every fifth one or so chimes in to decry the HORRIBLE LIBERALS for trying to destroy the beloved candidtae.

Is McCain against teaching little kids to beware of sexual predators?

Yes.

This has been another edition....etc.

So much for deficit reduction

http://money.cnn.com/

I don't know a lot about economics but I have a great deal of faith in the laws of thermodynamics.

If, at any time it appears that you are getting something for nothing, not only will it end up being payed for at the end but with the additional cost involved in maintaining the illusion.

The housing bubble is only the most glaring example, but certainly the federal deficit is another fine demonstration.

Funny:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/213806.php

Apparently a photo of a North Hollywood Jr. High made its way into McCain's presentation on account of it's being named "Walter Reed"

Note to Google users. Avoid the "I feel Lucky" button when preparing for one of the most important nights of your life!

On Swampland

Somebody objected to the fact that prominent Democratic women were being introduced with their family size leading as in:

Grandmother of two to head United Way" or "Mother of three up and coming Democrat.....

I respond:

Perhaps to compensate, when introducing Republican noteworthies we should refer to them as "owner of seven houses including a 400 acre ranch" or "Owner of two residences both considered primary depending on whether we're discussing the father's Congressional district or the child's school district"...

Left on a Swampland thread:

After all the back and forth over what constitutes bigotry, I have to firmly second THIS sentiment:

I'm tired Sean. I'm tired of living in a country that hates intelligence. I'm tired of living in a country whose people DO NOT WANT TO ELECT A MAN OF INTELLECT, because apparently intelligence is equal to effeminacy. I'm tired of my and my family's future being tied to a populace who wants to elect a beer buddy.

This is the center of the problem. Not only is there an active effort to mock and ridicule people BECAUSE of their intelligence, but it's being joined by the press corps and media folks who themselves OUGHT TO BE SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW BETTER!

There's been a shining beacon on mediocrity ever since Obama made a comment about bitter Pennsylvanians and it qualifies as a full-on fatal illness as far as our nation is concerned. Because its going to guarantee that we continue to deal with the challenges we face globally with proud ignorance.

WaPo notices Randy Scheunemann but misses an important detail

While Aide Advised McCain, His Firm Lobbied For Georgia

You think that an article about Mr. Scheunemann's ties to the Georgian government might also merit a sentence or two of background mentioning his former ties to Ahmed Chalabi and his participation in pushing us into Iraq.

It would seem that committing US troops into the service of foreign interests seems to be Job 1 for him. Good thing he's nowhere near the White House.

Oh wait....

http://phd9.blogspot.com/2008/07/must-publicize.html

Just an observation re: Russia/Georgia

The central paradox to all this debate is the fact that military force is only capable of destroying stuff and it takes a different sort of activity to build stuff.

I know that war-cheerleaders may think of themselves as sculptors who are busy simply removing those parts that aren't supposed to be part of the finished product but in reality there are very strict limits on what can be accomplished with bombs alone.

This is why we need to make sure that we have ALL the tools at our disposal when we're dealing with crises. Confining yourself to the hammer, leads to less than optimum results.

I Gave - You should Too.....

http://www.actblue.com/page/accountabilitynow

When is a terrorist not a terrorist.

Seemes like a nice time to point out the astounding difference in how terrorist suspects are treated depending on their ancestry.

If reports are to be believed, Bruce E. Ivins is responsible for a horrible terrorist attack on American soil. Why wasn't he in Gitmo? Why wasn't he waterboarded? Why wasn't he stripped naked and threatened with growling dogs? Why wasn't he placed in stress positioned and deprived of sleep until he confessed. If it's good enough for Afghani captives, why not Ft Detrick terrorists? At least in his case we had identifiable victims. What's the difference?

An enlightening experiment:

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&q=McCain+Lies

Yields 1300 articles most of which detail various lies McCain has told about Obama.

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=Obama+Lies

on the other hand yields 1700 articles most of which detail various lies McCain has told about Obama.

I wonder if there's any conclusion we can draw?

Hmmm......

Where are they now....

And now that Anthrax is in the news again it appears that the name Woolsey is getting mentioned a lot.

It would be interesting to see what a "where are they now?" article about the people who claimed that Iraq was responsible for the antrax attacks would look like.....

oh wait!

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0511-07.htm


James Woolsey, former CIA boss and influential adviser to President George Bush, is a director of a US firm aiming to make millions of dollars from the 'war on terror', The Observer can reveal.

[...]

In 2001 US Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz sent Woolsey to Europe, where he argued the case for links existing between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. He was one of the main proponents of the theory that the anthrax letter attacks in America were supported by Iraq's former dictator

http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/woolsey-joins-mccain-camp-as-security-adviser-2007-04-23.html

James Woolsey, who served as CIA director under President Clinton, is endorsing Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for president and will serve as national security and energy adviser, the campaign announced Monday.

[...]

“These individuals are recognized and respected for their seriousness and leadership on the important security issues confronting our nation,” McCain said. “I am honored to have their support, and I look forward to working with them to develop innovative policies that move America forward.”

The Race Card

Paul Dirks :
I'm going to repost something I put on another thread. Lets look at it again within the context of race.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Politics/story?id=5487322&page=1

Michelle Cottle of the New Republic noted, "Americans don't like Presidents who think they are better than the average guy."

Think about the above statement for a moment.

We are a nation of 301 Million People. We are hard at work selecting the ONE PERSON who will represent us all and be the voice of America and the Leader of the Free World and yet we're supposed to believe that this person should be no better than "the average guy"

I'm trying to come up with adjectives but I'm unable to get past 'pathetic' 'sick' or 'insane'.....

If we look at it within the context of racial attitudes, it starts to make more sense but still not enough.

Under what circumstance can we think that the President of The United Sates is too smart, or too successful or too classy? Only if he doesn't already have the proper family membership required to earn those attributes.

Why do we ignore McCains $500 dollor shoes?

Same reason. He has the right to wear expensive shoes by virtue of his birthright.

Even if race has nothing to do with it, there is obviously a priveleged class in America and anyone who deigns to exhibit it's attributes without earning it's membership gets the whole weight of the "Presumptious - Elitist - Celebrity - Rock Star" slur directed at him.

Regarding the 'Obama blew off the wounded troops' manure

This is certainly an interesting exercise because it highlights a complaint that many bloggers have had over the MSM for a long time.

Stories aren't balanced or fair if they are balancing a truth against a lie. Now that we have a nice clear example of a lie to work with we can see which outlets state it clearly.

So how many more times are the McCain campaign and the Republicans going to repeat what is a thoroughly baseless charge? (Karen Tumulty - Swampland)
Certain qualifies as a clear statement.

despite no evidence that the charge is true. (WaPo)
Is also reasonably clear.

Now that I've read the linked article further, I'm getting another picture. Not only are they lying but they're going to continue to do so:

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said again yesterday that the Republican's version of events is correct, and that Obama canceled the visit because he was not allowed to take reporters and cameras into the hospital.

"It is safe to say that, according to press reports, Barack Obama avoided, skipped, canceled the visit because of those reasons," he said. "We're not making a leap here.

Asked repeatedly for the "reports," Bounds provided three examples, none of which alleged that Obama had wanted to take members of the media to the hospital

So now we're getting to the meat of the problem. The McCain charge is a lie. Careful investigation has confirmed its a lie. And now they're sticking to their guns.

As I said above, this will provide a very nice test of the courage and integrity of the media outlets one by one.

Let's keep score, shall we?

using our enemy's standards

I've often noted that one of the reason's I beleive so strongly in Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press and the Right to Dissent, is that I was taught in school that those were the very things that made us great in comparison to the Soviet Union. It was standard issue, schoolroom indoctrination but it made a lot of sense and I took it seriously at the time.

Now since the collape of the Soviet Union, it seems that our own standards of conduct have taken a significant turn for the worse. How many times have we seen idiots defend the worst of our abuses by noting "Oh yeah, well at least we don't behead people and then post the video on the internet!"

Do people not realize that if we take on all the worst attributes of our enemies, then we know longer need the enemies, we can represent evil all by ourselves?

The shorthand term is 'American exceptionalism', but the amount of denial and self-inflicted blindness that it takes to maintin the illusion of our righteousness boggles the mind.

I respond to

This

You can almost hum a tune to the "on the one hand - on the other hand" construction of the story. I suppose that's to be expected however.

The best part:

Orwellian newspeak of the White House, "joint aspirational time horizons"
I'm almost willing to try and take credit for highlighting the absurdity of those word choices.

the worst part:

For McCain, the first priority remains a stable Iraqi nation state, and he is willing to risk ever more American blood and treasure over the coming years in that quest. For Obama, the first priority is an exit from the country, and he is willing to risk civil chaos in Iraq and a loss of American influence in the region.

Again that's an example of the conventional wisdom driving your writing but its basicly claptrap.

For McCain the first priority remains having a large strike force available in the region to be able to protect Oil assets and infrastructure from being utilized in ways unfavorable to US interests. (Note that I'm using the phrase 'US interests" in the standard Republican business friendly manner)
For Obama the first priority is to actually be able to claim that he acted against the real terrorists and was able to defang Al Qaeda as a danger to the US without having to enlarge the US Military sector further in order to accomplish it.

See how I can manage describing the same situation that you are without the "McCain's motives are noble and Obama's are risky" undercurrent that infuses the above sentence.

Think about it.....

Aspirational

"What is the meanIng of the word 'aspirational' and how does it differ from "in your DREAMS!"?"

MSNBC

New York Times

I get all Lakoffian....

the surge has improved security but has not led to the political reconciliation that was supposed to be its purpose.

Here's a perfect example of how the bumper-sticker mentality pollutes our political debates. The above sentence is perfectly accurate and is about as good as its going to get to succinctly explain where we stand in Iraq. But it's 19 words. Compare that to "The Surge is Working!" It's significantly less accurate but its not obviously wrong.

So in the contest to reach people and encourage support for one position or another we have 19 words competing against 4.

You might write off my concern as sour grapes until I restate the problem thusly:

In a democracy it's easier to gain approval for stupid actions than smart ones.

And it shows....

Flip Flop?

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=23059
McCain, who lost most conservatives when he supported the president’s immigration reform proposals, confirmed that he did not support the DREAM Act, which was stopped in the Senate Wednesday by a vote of 52-44. The DREAM Act would provide amnesty to millions of illegal aliens who came to America when under the age of 16. It would also give green cards to illegal aliens residing in America for five years and attending college or performing military service

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-mccain15-2008jul15,0,5118734.story

During a 15-minute Q&A after McCain's speech, a young woman asked if he would support the Dream Act, which gives illegal immigrant children a chance to earn citizenship by attending college or enlisting in the military.

"Yes. Yes," he replied, then added a sentiment that he incorporated into almost every answer: "I would also enforce existing laws of our country, and the nation's first requirement is the nation's security, and that's why you have to have our borders secured."

Those pesky innertubes strike again!

Must publicize:

But in light of the lastest conference call during which Randy Scheunemann accused Obama of desiring defeat in Iraq, I thought it might be useful to link to Scheunemann's vision of victory in those heady days right after the invasion.....

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june03/chalabi_05-07-03.html

Well, I think there may be some unfortunately in the U.S. government that are looking at an Afghan model. They don't understand that Iraq is not Afghanistan. It's not a primitive tribal civilization. It's a highly educated, urbanized population, and as for Dr. Chalabi's activity, all I think that we should be seeking and striving for in Iraq is a level playing field. He does in fact have a vision for Iraq. He has expressed it many times including the United States in exile conferences and bridging the differences, and his group has exhaustive contacts inside Iraq. Many of the surrenders or captures of the officials including some who made the CENTCOM playing card deck, have been facilitated or negotiated by the INC under Chalabi's leadership

If one reads the Federalist papers

One comes away with the knowlege that our system of Government was set up specifically to COUNTER the natural proclivity of humans left unchecked. The founders saw personal ambition and irrational fear as forces to be coralled and set against each other by the system of checks and balances.

It is unsurprising then that it is during times of stress that the Constitution and the Rule of Law are in the greatest danger.

Compounding the problem is what can only be referred to as Cheney's revenge for Nixon. Much of the what the administratrion has done has been specifically to undo the effects of the Church commission. The deliberate violation of FISA when the political capital was available to change it instead is a direct result of the Cheney/Addington project to resupremify the Presidency. Even the erasure of e-mails and the ignoring of subpeonas falls under the same effort.

Part of the problem with the FISA vote is that people just don't understand the stakes involved.

Blog comment of the day:

I know who and what Obama is. He's a mushy centrist and a reflexive compromiser who sometimes says utterly moronic things like this latest abortion spat. He's also not John McCain. That's enough for me.

Posted by FastEddie | July 7, 2008 9:20 PM

Responding to a Michael Scherer Post

It is legitimate to look at how McCain's time in the military, and his service in Vietnam, informs his approach to foreign policy.

Swampland


This seems to be the part that everyone is dancing around but few are willing to state.

John McCain's military biography will make him a WORSE President. Between suffering form the 'everything looks like a nail' syndrome that renders the military solution the first resort instead of the last, to the 'Vietnam was a failure of will' syndrome, which encourages people to subvert the Democratic process AND lie about facts on the ground, McCain's experience as well as his choice of diehard PNAC'ers as advisors suggests that his Presidency will incorporate all the worst aspects of GWB's.

It's worth discussing....

I Joined

You should too:

SenatorObama-PleaseVoteAgainstFISA

Education Education Education

Those pesky voters

While sitting back and watching the significant and approriate backlash against Obama, I'm struck by the fact that Obama probably knew quite well that this would happen but chose the path he did anyway. He's not stupid. He weighed out the costs vs the benefits and decided that screwing the netroots would be less costly than creating a vulnerabilty among low-attention TeeVee viewers.

He may or may not be correct in his assessment, but we'd be derelict in our own efforts if we don't come away with a serious lesson about the limits of our influence.

I think the ActBlue effort is important not only because I'm sure there will be a measurable dip in Obama's fundraising efforts but because our actual mission should be to reach the people who don't necessarily follow the issues closely and teach them why it matters.

It remains an important mission.

Chris Dodd speaks

Glenn Comments

I opine:

He tied the core corruption of the FISA bill's telecom amnesty and warranltess eavesdropping provisions into the whole litany of the Bush administration's lawless and destructive behavior over the last seven years -- from torture and rendition to the abuse of secrecy instruments and Guantanamo mock trials -- with a focus on the way in which telecom amnesty further demolishes the rule of law among our political class.

To me this has always been the core issue. It is well known that David Addington and John Yoo authored a set of documents that basically rewrote the Constitution to conform to Richard Nixon's assertion to David Frost, "If the President does it then it's not illegal".

It is also well known that ever since entering office, Dick Cheney's primary mission has been to systematically dismantle every statute, argument and interpretation that in any way impinges on the President's ability to act as a law unto himself. The result is as predictable as sunrise and the list above, including the indefinite detentions of citizens, cruel and degrading treatment of POW's, extraordinary rendition of vocal opponents (from Canada) and, need I add, the destruction of public records, follows from this as surely as day follows night.

FISA is just one battleground, but the larger war is for the soul and conscience of America.

Left at The Obama Campaign Blog

I've been watching the comments over at Glen Greenwald's and remained quite alarmed at the number of people, many of whom I respect who are now on record that they can no longer support our Candidate.

I think Obama has seriously miscalculated the passion and reach of what the the MSM tries to write off as "those, like Senator Russ Feingold and assorted civil liberties activists" (Joe Klein) and also underestimated the fatigue Americans experience when exposed to 24/7-9/11 attack ads designed to gin up fear and nothing else.

Americans are notably brave and are looking for someone to actually FIGHT for what is right.

Obama has seriously let us down.

Matt Stoller solicited comments for Steny Hoyer

Open Left


Here's what I wrote:

While everyone may have varying opinions about what level of leeway the NSA should have in accessing raw telco data, the bottom line remains that the President can't and shouldn't have unlimited leeway in circumventing the law. By pressing for the current "compromise" you are giving the current President and all future Presidents the freedom to act contrary to any and all controls that were put in place by the Framers of our Constitution.
If the President is free to order violations of the law and his AG is free to shred whatever civil recourse the victims of those violations may have, then we might as well go ahead and declare the rest of the Constitution null and void as well.

I know it's hard to believe

But Joe Klein is once again, shockingly wrong about FISA.

Swampland

My response:

Well at least if we're going to vehemently disagree, I finally have a coherent paragraph or two to disagree with.

Your bullet 4 is the one that is entirely wrong. The telecom immuninty is not a subsidiary issue. It is the sole issue.

Everyone agrees that the law needed to be updated in order to cover gaps in the existing law. However the correct procedure for updating a law is to bring a draft of the law you want to Congress and ask them to vote on it.

The last time I checked ordering companies to violate the law extensively and continuously for a period of years, and then only pushing for changes in statute when caught out by the NYT is doing things a$$-backward.

It is precisely when "everybody is freaking out" that constitutional protections become the most important because that is precisely when the temptations to sweep them under the rug is greatest.

I won't even begin to address why your "Roe vs Wade anaology" is flawed. We've already been down that road.

In short Joe, your efforts to be reasonable are putting you squarely on the wrong side of an important issue. And your wading into some sketchy truth-value waters in order to get there.

left on a Swampland thread....

You should familiarize yourself with the standard Time/Warner response to questions about FISA and telecom immunity. It goes like this:

I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who's right.....

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2007/11/fisa_more_than_you_want_to_kno.html

But having said that, the current issue before the gallery isn't whether the telecoms should be allowed to skate. The current issue is how John McCain feels about David Addington's expansive interpretation of Article II allowing the President to break existing laws with impunity.

His current position appears to be I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who's right.....

A Phrase I'd like to see take off...

Wired

McCain performs a reverse-double-flip-flop with a twist and embraces BushCo's all-encompassing reinerpretation of article II to read "The President can do whatever he wants. That's why he's the President"

Mike Allan

And Glenn is all over a particularly blatant case of pathalogical denial from Mike Allen

Link

ALLEN: And indeed, Scott does adopt the vocabulary, rhetoric of the left wing haters. Can you believe it in here he says the White House press corps was too deferential to the administration?

Wow - who'd a thunk?

I think that is rather important so I'm reposting my reaction there, over here:

Alternate reality
Apparently there are still journalists who inhabit a parallel Universe. That would be the one where vast stockpiles of WMD's were found and our soldiers were indeed greeted by a grateful populace as liberators and bringers of Democracy.

We've come full circle. In 2005 when "Feet To The Fire" came out the fact that the press had been disasterously wrong about what to expect in Iraq was sufficiently fresh, that there could indeed be a reevaluation of the press's role in leading us into war.

Feet To The Fire

But as of 2008, we've now 'been there-done that' and memories have faded enough that the original roles of cheerleaders and 'haters' can be reprised.

I think if someone's going to dredge up the phrase "left wing hater" and try to get any fresh mileage out of it, the suggested opposite should be "right-wing liar".

(Though the latest new from Dunkin' Donuts suggests that right-wing haters are alive and well)

Hearts and Minds

re: Glenn on McCain

It seems that everybody remembers what happened in Vietnam, but no one remembers what the world looked like at the time. The US was locked in a seemingly mortal conflict with the forces of "Godless Communism" but because of the world-ending nature of Nuclear warfare, it was necessary that all our battles be fought in small containable proxy wars.

It was also true that score was kept over who was winning this global conflict by the number of "proxy states" that could be claimed by each side. One of the results of this though was that the competition for allies involved both the carrot and stick sides of the equation. The US and USSR competed heavily for allies by spreading aid around like candy (both in military hardware and food/economic aid.) In that context, it was important that we not be seen as irreparably evil. A decent respect to the opinions of mankind still matters and carpet bombing civilian popuations is not the best way to differentiate yourself from the evil commies.

When I was an adolescent

and was working on developing my political and religious views one of the things I did was sit down and read the New Testatament confining my attention to the four Gospels figurung that they were the closest thing I could find to 'source' material.

What I saw astounded me. The amount of energy that is spent condemning hypocrisy and, more importantly, false piety based on strict adherence to doctrine rather than the common sense kindness to our fellow travelers is boggling especially when you consider how much the very attitudes that Jesus railed against have become reincorporated into our Religious institutions.

I give the Vatican credit for being more consistent about life issues than the Right here in America, but anyone who considers abortion a more grave evil than launching a war of aggresion has carefully avoided thinking about the nature of suffering.

In response to:

CIA Foresaw Interrogation Issues
Agency Considered Investigations 'Virtually Inevitable'

If for the sake of argument, we ignore the morality or lack therof involved in waterboarding and get back to what is known.

The CIA was directed by people in the highest reaches of the executive branch to engage in behavior which they knew might result in prosecution. In order to protect themselves from that eventually they directed John Yoo to write a series of documents providing cover for their likely illegal acts. When Jack Goldsmith, (who by the way, is rather sympathetic to the idea of the CIA taking 'risks') reviewed the legal justifications authored by Yoo, he found them to be stretched beyond defensibilty and promptly withdrew them. Since that time a lot of effort has gone into A: legalizing the behavior that took place and B: hiding the decisionmaking process that led to the behavior.

So even if you think that waterboarding is the coolest thing since sliced bread, it still doesn't change the fact that the administration engaged in a conspiracy to violate existing law and in obstruction of justice behind a wall of 'national security' since those violations took place.

This is equally true in the case of FISA.

You don't have to think that the underlying behavior is necessarily bad to nevertheless acknowlege that it was against the law at the time it was done.

Call me a stickler but that doesn't strike me as a minor point.

Joe Klein linked to a speech by Joe Biden

PDF

So I left a reaction:

Ironically, even though I agree with almost every sentiment expressed in the speech, my concetration was distracted by seeing exactly where it could be attacked by hawks. (Maybe I'm picking up some of Joe's bad habits.)

The troublesome spots:
It starts with the very language the President has tried to impose: “the global war on terror.” That is simply wrong. Terrorism is a means, not an end, and very different groups and countries are using it toward very different goals. If we can’t even identify the enemy or describe the war we’re fighting, it’s difficult to see how we will win.

While I agree that the crucial falure of both BushCo and McCain is to be able to correctly identify our enemies, to flatly say that the phrase 'global war on terror' is wrong is to invite ridicule.

Right now, Iran loves the status quo, with 140,000 Americans troops bogged down and bleeding, caught in a cross fire of intra Shi’a rivalry and Sunni-Shi’a civil war.

Again, he's conveying an unpleasant truth but to refer to our troops as "bogged down and bleeding" is going to distract from his message by creating a negative soundbite.

Among the good spots:
Worse, saying you’re happy to stay in Iraq for one hundred years fuels exactly the kind of dangerous conspiracy theories about America’s intentions throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds that we should be working to dispel

Doesn't anyone else remember that we had permanent basing in Saudi Arabia and that that was the main casus belli cited for Al Qaeda's attacks on us? Clearly, one of the main reasons we attacked Iraq was so that we could have a place to set up permanent bases in the region. Why is this never discussed in these terms?

It’s amazing how little faith this administration has in the power of America’s ideas and ideals.

All these fronts throughout the Middle East and South Asia are connected. But this administration has wrongly conflated them under one label, and argued that success on one front ensures victory on the others. It has lumped together, as a single threat, extremist groups and states more at odds with each other than with us. It has picked the wrong fights at the wrong time, failing to finish a war of necessity in Afghanistan before starting a war of choice in Iraq.

Again, the mislabelling of our enemies is a constant strategy applied by the White House and there's every indication that Sen. McCain intends to continue the practice.

This is why every time he fails to differentiate Shia and Sunni or relies on the Commander of the wrong theater for advice, he should be called out on it strongly.

Our country can not afford 4 more years of willful ignorance.

Saint McCain clueless again.....

Army Times

Count me among those curious to see how long the myth that McCain has any credibility, let alone expertise on Military affairs and foreign policy (which in a sane world wouldn't be the same thing) when he consistently and repeatedly gets important or, dare I say it, vital details flat-out wrong.

My guess is at least another 8 months

If I'm going to be mentioned by name at Swampland

The least I can do is link to it.....
Underplayed Story of the Day

McCain on his Sunni/Shiite 'confusion': Qaeda not just Sunni

Sen. John McCain, defending his recent troubles differentiating between the two major branches of Islam, suggested today that the terror network al-Qaeda encompasses both Sunni and Shi'a...

I'm posting this now, because I'm going to need to remeber it later.
McCain could have insisted that he had misspoken again but rather than continue down that path, he decided that lying was easier.

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