Oh Boy

We rag on Obama a lot over here, but I kinda have to empathize a little with him here.

Yes, Joe. We talk pretty.

Not quite the worst way to kick off a presidential campaign but close enough.

Democrats, Listen Up...

This is how it's done:

Good evening.

I'm Senator Jim Webb, from Virginia, where this year we will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown – an event that marked the first step in the long journey that has made us the greatest and most prosperous nation on earth.

It would not be possible in this short amount of time to actually rebut the President's message, nor would it be useful. Let me simply say that we in the Democratic Party hope that this administration is serious about improving education and healthcare for all Americans, and addressing such domestic priorities as restoring the vitality of New Orleans.

Further, this is the seventh time the President has mentioned energy independence in his state of the union message, but for the first time this exchange is taking place in a Congress led by the Democratic Party. We are looking for affirmative solutions that will strengthen our nation by freeing us from our dependence on foreign oil, and spurring a wave of entrepreneurial growth in the form of alternate energy programs. We look forward to working with the President and his party to bring about these changes.

There are two areas where our respective parties have largely stood in contradiction, and I want to take a few minutes to address them tonight. The first relates to how we see the health of our economy – how we measure it, and how we ensure that its benefits are properly shared among all Americans. The second regards our foreign policy – how we might bring the war in Iraq to a proper conclusion that will also allow us to continue to fight the war against international terrorism, and to address other strategic concerns that our country faces around the world.

When one looks at the health of our economy, it's almost as if we are living in two different countries. Some say that things have never been better. The stock market is at an all-time high, and so are corporate profits. But these benefits are not being fairly shared. When I graduated from college, the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker did; today, it's nearly 400 times. In other words, it takes the average worker more than a year to make the money that his or her boss makes in one day.

Wages and salaries for our workers are at all-time lows as a percentage of national wealth, even though the productivity of American workers is the highest in the world. Medical costs have skyrocketed. College tuition rates are off the charts. Our manufacturing base is being dismantled and sent overseas. Good American jobs are being sent along with them.

In short, the middle class of this country, our historic backbone and our best hope for a strong society in the future, is losing its place at the table. Our workers know this, through painful experience. Our white-collar professionals are beginning to understand it, as their jobs start disappearing also. And they expect, rightly, that in this age of globalization, their government has a duty to insist that their concerns be dealt with fairly in the international marketplace.

In the early days of our republic, President Andrew Jackson established an important principle of American-style democracy – that we should measure the health of our society not at its apex, but at its base. Not with the numbers that come out of Wall Street, but with the living conditions that exist on Main Street. We must recapture that spirit today.

And under the leadership of the new Democratic Congress, we are on our way to doing so. The House just passed a minimum wage increase, the first in ten years, and the Senate will soon follow. We've introduced a broad legislative package designed to regain the trust of the American people. We've established a tone of cooperation and consensus that extends beyond party lines. We're working to get the right things done, for the right people and for the right reasons.

With respect to foreign policy, this country has patiently endured a mismanaged war for nearly four years. Many, including myself, warned even before the war began that it was unnecessary, that it would take our energy and attention away from the larger war against terrorism, and that invading and occupying Iraq would leave us strategically vulnerable in the most violent and turbulent corner of the world.

I want to share with all of you a picture that I have carried with me for more than 50 years. This is my father, when he was a young Air Force captain, flying cargo planes during the Berlin Airlift. He sent us the picture from Germany, as we waited for him, back here at home. When I was a small boy, I used to take the picture to bed with me every night, because for more than three years my father was deployed, unable to live with us full-time, serving overseas or in bases where there was no family housing. I still keep it, to remind me of the sacrifices that my mother and others had to make, over and over again, as my father gladly served our country. I was proud to follow in his footsteps, serving as a Marine in Vietnam. My brother did as well, serving as a Marine helicopter pilot. My son has joined the tradition, now serving as an infantry Marine in Iraq.

Like so many other Americans, today and throughout our history, we serve and have served, not for political reasons, but because we love our country. On the political issues – those matters of war and peace, and in some cases of life and death – we trusted the judgment of our national leaders. We hoped that they would be right, that they would measure with accuracy the value of our lives against the enormity of the national interest that might call upon us to go into harm's way.

We owed them our loyalty, as Americans, and we gave it. But they owed us – sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it.

The President took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War, the chief of staff of the army, two former commanding generals of the Central Command, whose jurisdiction includes Iraq, the director of operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many, many others with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable – and predicted – disarray that has followed.

The war's costs to our nation have been staggering.
Financially.
The damage to our reputation around the world.
The lost opportunities to defeat the forces of international terrorism.
And especially the precious blood of our citizens who have stepped forward to serve.

The majority of the nation no longer supports the way this war is being fought; nor does the majority of our military. We need a new direction. Not one step back from the war against international terrorism. Not a precipitous withdrawal that ignores the possibility of further chaos. But an immediate shift toward strong regionally-based diplomacy, a policy that takes our soldiers off the streets of Iraq's cities, and a formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq.

On both of these vital issues, our economy and our national security, it falls upon those of us in elected office to take action.

Regarding the economic imbalance in our country, I am reminded of the situation President Theodore Roosevelt faced in the early days of the 20th century. America was then, as now, drifting apart along class lines. The so-called robber barons were unapologetically raking in a huge percentage of the national wealth. The dispossessed workers at the bottom were threatening revolt.

Roosevelt spoke strongly against these divisions. He told his fellow Republicans that they must set themselves "as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other." And he did something about it.

As I look at Iraq, I recall the words of former general and soon-to-be President Dwight Eisenhower during the dark days of the Korean War, which had fallen into a bloody stalemate. "When comes the end?" asked the General who had commanded our forces in Europe during World War Two. And as soon as he became President, he brought the Korean War to an end.

These Presidents took the right kind of action, for the benefit of the American people and for the health of our relations around the world. Tonight we are calling on this President to take similar action, in both areas. If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will be showing him the way.

Thank you for listening. And God bless America.

28% and Falling

Bush is in the toilet. Just about to be flushed.

Monday Malamute Blogging

BEARS WIN!! ONTO SUPERBOWL

Woo-hoo! What a game! Bears are going to the Super Bowl! Now all the doubters can have a nice, tall glass of shut-the-fuck-up. Pardon my bluntness--it's in my nature to be blunt. Can't be helped.

New Mexico to Lead Surge for Impeachment

New Mexico State Senator Gerald Ortiz y Pino has agreed to introduce an impeachment resolution for New Mexico next week at the start of the 2007 session.

NOTE: Sec. 603. Inception of impeachment proceedings in the House. This refers to Jefferson's Manual—the House uses it as a supplement to its standing rules.

In the House there are various methods of setting an impeachment in motion:

[...] by charges transmitted from the legislature of a State (III, 2469)

And it's a twofer—it targets both Bush and Cheney.

Oh, fair New Mexico!...our hearts with pride o'er flow indeed.

Boxer's Left Hook or Low Blow?

Steve links to a New York Post article accusing Barbara Boxer of attacking Condoleezza Rice with below the belt questioning. All's fair in love and war, as they say. Condo clearly does not have the necessary empathy for those who are making the ultimate sacrifice, maybe because she ate her young soon after birth. I know that's a question I would've asked her, were I Senator Boxer.

But as far as Rice having no lovahs...

Ultimately, Baker's political strategy counted on the decisive intervention of one person in the president's closed inner circle -- who sees him alone and could not be kept from him, and on whom he has become dependent for support and trusts implicitly...

What does Sidney Blumenthal mean by "could not be kept from him"? I know what I would mean if I described a relationship that way.

And Sidney goes on in the same Salon piece:

On the other [side] was the president, who had raised her into Baker's seventh-floor office in Foggy Bottom, whom she had flattered as the equal of Lincoln and Churchill, and whom, in a telling Freudian slip, she had referred to as "my husband" before a roomful of reporters and editors of the New York Times.

Her husband? I wonder if they'll be allowed conjugal visits when the revolution comes.

Real Men Don't Cry or eat Quiche

All the tears in the world are not going to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Bush Sr. may have been talking about Jebbie, but make no mistake, he was weeping about Dubya. In his father's own words the measure of a man is in how he handles both victory and defeat. He handled a false "victory" by saying,

I've earned capital in this election -- and I'm going to spend it..."

He handled defeat by cheating, by stacking the deck, by stealing not just one but two elections by any and all means necessary.

Cry me a river, grampa, you should've drowned him when you had the chance.

Birth Control is Yummy

V-Day 2008

I got nothing. Go read Kos. They have the goods.

We Live in F*****land*

When Limbaugh says something horrifying, it really isn't all that surprising. Limbaugh left the world of civil discourse so long ago there's no point calling him a fucker yet again.

So why is this latest fucker moment worth noting?

Because of all the other fuckers it brings out of the woodwork.

This "attack the suffering" mentality has been one of the most extraordinary things to emerge on the right over the last few years. On the one hand it's sort of part of the outrage that blames the poor for poverty, promiscuity for rape, etc. But I think that part of the post 9/11 whackoness also is this sense where the idea of somone else suffering more than you is simply unacceptable and rather than acknowledge that all suffering is not equal, you attack the sufferer.

There is a certain truth to all being fair game once it enters the political arena. But there is distinct difference between having an issue with Michael J. Fox politicizine his disease and calling him out for "faking." And more power to him for being political, especially now. The stakes are higher for him, as the are for the Iraq vets, and the 9/11 widows.





*Quote taken from roomie Spence.

Cheney Admits to Having NO BRAIN

Not that we had any doubt, but admitting that you have a problem is the first step toward recovery. Get well, Dick.

The Audacity of Obama

Well, the inevitable save-the-date announcement of Barack Obama's true intentions has arrived. Yup. It's all about him. No matter that the invasion of Iraq is getting bleaker by the hour; we could be at the brink of a nuclear war; and Bush appears to be preparing to flee to South America when the shit hits the fan--the conversation must be brought back to the importance of what the country can do for Barack Obama. I mean, wouldn't someone who really served his constituents and country be calling for investigations into the corruption that has brought our democracy to its knees?

He sure has come a long way from young Barry Obama, who tried hard to fit in, rejecting his Kenyan heritage until he saw how useful it could be for him. It's interesting to me that in the only real political campaign he's run, he had his head handed to him by voters on the southside of Chicago who overwhelming re-elected Bobby Rush to Congress. And I have more than a few questions about how he treated his mentor, Alice Palmer, as he ran her over to get her seat in the state senate.

But now, his face and name are everywhere. He's out selling his books and himself. But the conversation shouldn't be about Obama, it should be about this nation and what needs to be done to coexist peacefully in this world and how to enrich the lives of all our citizens.

Just Because

Sigh, I still miss this segment. Comic gold.

Ann Richards, 1933-2006

From the NYT:

Former Gov. Ann Richards, the witty and flamboyant Democrat who went from homemaker to national political celebrity, died Wednesday night after a battle with cancer, a family spokeswoman said. She was 73.

Ann Richards, the former governor of Texas, in 2004.
She died at home surrounded by her family, the spokeswoman said. Richards was found to have esophageal cancer in March and underwent chemotherapy treatments.

My earliest memory of Ann Richards was of her infamous speech at the 1988 Democratic Convention. There are people who will no doubt eulogize her more thoroughly and elegantly than I can. But Ann represented a seldom seen aspect of Texas politics, namely the scrappy, populist, take-no-shit Democrats that make the Bush clan look like the limp hypocrites that they are.

Garrison Keillor's Apology to Republicans

A friend emailed this to me and I thought it was hilarious:

Having been called names, one looks back at one's own angry outbursts over the years, and I recall having at various times referred to Republicans as:

hairy-backed swamp developers,
fundamentalist bullies,
freelance racists,
hobby cops,
sweatshop tycoons,
line jumpers,
marsupial moms,
aluminum-siding salesmen,
misanthropic frat boys,
ninja ditto heads,
shrieking midgets,
tax cheats,
cheese merchants,
cat stranglers,
pill pushers,
nihilists in golf pants,
backed-up Baptists,
the grand pooh-bahs of Percodan,
mouth breathers,
testosterone junkies
and brown shirts in pinstripes

I look at those words now, and 'cat stranglers' seems excessive to me. The number of cat stranglers in the ranks of the Republican Party is surely low, and that reference was hurtful to Republicans and to cat owners. I feel sheepish about it.

My personal favorite? Backed-up Baptists, although Constipated Christians is more inclusive.

Bullshit Detectors at Alert Level RED

ABC looked back at the events of September 11, 2001, and yelled, "GET ME REWRITE!" And the new villain is...(drum roll)...Bill Clinton. These guys have no imagination.

Steve has a a good idea.

Bush, the Absurd

The Professor and I were discussing the recent White House claim that Bush has read 60 books so far this year, including an 800-pager, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

random thoughts:

Ok...8 months divided by 60 books = a feat conceivable for anyone but Bush.

If you calculate his 2hour+ workouts each day, his inability to stay up past 9pm, and the "presidenting" he's supposed to be doing between the workouts and the sleeping... I mean, he'd have to be reading close to 3 hours a day, and, quite frankly, I don't think he's capable.

When it comes to the things that separate us from the apes, he's demonstrated he's got the attention span of a kumquat.

More on New Orleans

Adolph Reed in The Progressive on New Orleans.

With each passing day, a crucially significant political distinction in New Orleans gets clearer and clearer: Property owners are able to assert their interests in the polity, while non-owners are nearly as invisible in civic life now as in the early eighteenth century.

Among other things, the travesty in New Orleans reminds us that capitalism enshrines the prerogatives of property owners—and the bigger the holdings, the more substantial the voice.

This underscores why a simplistically racial interpretation of the injustices perpetrated in New Orleans is inadequate, even when those injustices cluster heavily along racial lines. Substantial numbers of blacks as well as whites are in a position to benefit materially from this regime; blacks as well as whites support the de facto creation of a property owners’ republic. It is possible simultaneously to include black people as stakeholders in the equation for rebuilding the city and to exclude poor people. This is the truth beneath the 200 sociologists’ assurance that their proposal for dispersing the poor would not “depopulate the city of its historically black communities.” But this is a sleight of hand that seeks to sanitize class cleansing with a patter of racial respect.

NOLA, still here, inspite of it all

I've read, here and there, different accounts of what happened a year ago, and what's happened since. But Kate is back, with the beautiful writing that gets past the debris to what was New Orleans.

random thoughts:

Why did CNN send their African correspondent to cover Katrina? A wierd echo of Bush when he said, “I know the people of this part of the world are suffering…”

I wonder, also, why so much reaction to the displaced New Orleanians is resentful and even hostile...you'd think that when Hurricane Katrina uncovered a group of American citizens who have been living below what most would consider "the poverty line"--going without even basic housing and healthcare for generations--you'd think that the reaction would be more charitable for longer than a year. The logic of this reaction escapes me.

Anyway...here's to New Orleans...