Petraeus throws Obama into the Briar Patch

I've never thought Barack Obama was an idealist. Nor did I ever think that his "lack of experience" as a legislator was a critical factor. It's the "community organizer" aspect that caught my attention. You see, in Chicago, that means you learn to deal with a lot of various sorts of people, and this very much includes fronting up to stone killers and squeezing a donation or some leverage out of them.

I think he's a man who is very much a realist, and very familiar with dealing with things as they are and the people on the ground that are there, and rather less affected by the various idealistic and doctrinal slants that people on the "left" and the "right" try to assign to him.

I consider him to be the very sort of person that you would want piloting an crippled airplane toward a distant airfield with one single chance of putting it down in one piece. I don't think for a moment that he's confused about the real "mission at hand."

So I'm amused to see this headline: "Petraeus Locked Obama In."

At this morning’s hearing, General Petraeus tamped down talk of an early withdrawal from Afghanistan—and warned of greater U.S. casualties to come.
With his four stars and battle ribbons speaking for themselves and his reputation soaring, Gen. David Petraeus Tuesday told the Senate Armed Service Committee just what President Obama wanted its members to hear: (1) fighting the Taliban and al  Qaeda in Afghanistan remains essential to U.S. security; (2) the president’s counterinsurgency strategy and U.S. troop reductions projected to begin on July 2011 were fine; and (3) this general and this president are in harmony unlike the departing U.S./NATO commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

But make no mistake, the thrust of the general’s remarks in these confirmation hearings was to further lock Mr. Obama into the Afghan war and to protect his right flank against Republicans and conservatives who have begun charging that the president is about to cut and run from the war. He offered very little to Democrats and liberals who have stepped up their demands for an exit strategy.

There are many stories written by the Terribly And Professionally Sincere from the left, the right and the clueless, who don't see that the "exit strategy" for a politically-driven war has to be, first and foremost, a political maneuver, one that places the price of failure on the heads of those who carry the banners for the satus quo ante.

President Obama absolutely must achieve a fundamental shift in the way Americans think about the projection of power, the use of military force and the expense in terms of guns, of butter and human life. Given the things he has expended political capital to achieve, he is either working in this direction or accepting it more readily than many others.

His critics haven't read their Sun-Tsu or their Von Clauswitz or their Rommel - or they would understand that victory comes from creating conditions in which your enemy will make some very critical mistake.

American financier Jay Gould. 

After hiring strikebreakers, he said "I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half."^{[Wikipedia >Wage Slavery;#35]}

In order to win a war, you need to know exactly what the war is about, which side you are on, and who your enemy is.  For President Barack Obama, the most direct threat to his policies, and indeed, to the people who gave him his mandate is the Military Industrial Complex and the National Security State types - the ones who are all in favor of the War on Drugs, the War on Crime, the War on Terrorism - that is to say, the war on you.


He's fighting the war that Eisenhower predicted, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq give him cover and opportunity to bleed his opponents dry, discredit or kill them and created conditions whereby a long-term socio-political shift might be achieved.

What Obama needs to do is allow his enemies the opportunity to make mistakes - and then use the mistakes they make against them. So when someone says this out loud, I giggle.

 Peter Galbraith writes in the Daily Beast:

The U.S. will have to be deeply engaged diplomatically to keep the erratic and ambitious Karzai from destroying his own country. Eikenberry and Holbrooke understand the man and the terrain. The last thing President Obama needs now is a group of new faces who believe the U.S. strategy is working, and who take his recent Karzai charm offensive seriously.

Clearly there have been strains in the relations between Eikenberry and Holbrooke, which is hardly surprising since both men sit atop large organizations devoted to making progress in Afghanistan. But both Eikenberry and Holbrooke are exceptionally competent and they know it is essential to work together.

With Afghanistan possibly headed for a full-scale civil war, this is not the time to replace an experienced and accomplished diplomatic team. The mission in Afghanistan is difficult enough without the Afghan leader believing he has the upper hand in his relations with the United States.

Yep. A terrible mistake. Assuming that Obama actually thinks the situation in Afghanistan is actually more critical to the national security of the United States than the threat to the United States presented by it's National Security establishment. But Iraq and Afghanistan are both wars of political choice, based on neoconservative assumptions about the role of the US in the world and what it should use it's military and economic power to achieve, at the expense of the entire demographic that President Obama grew up with, went to church with and was largely elected to represent.

I'd be looking to see what Obama has Eikenberry and Holebrooke do next. Because I think that giving Karzai what he thinks HE wants, and giving Petraeus what he thinks HE wants, Obama is achieving three important goals. Setting up Karzai to fail, sooner rather than later. Setting up Petraeus to personally fail to make make his Counter Insurgency plan work - sooner rather than later. And getting his people out of the way so they will not be damaged by the inevitable association with a huge military and foreign-policy failure.

The COIN doctrine is what much of the Pentagon and the civilian Neo-Conservative hangs it's hat upon, and the doctrine justifies and necessitates a commitment to indefinite, potentially global low-level counter-insurgent warfare - a prospect that is the life-blood of the military-industrial complex.



It is a strategy that absolutely depends on a very close diplomatic support and skilled intelligence. If Obama "acceeds to pressure" to replace "his people" with those who are philosophically inclined to support Karzai and COIN, it will be a strategic maneuver to generate victory in the very real cold civil war that is raging in the United States right now. Afganistan is a sideshow for Obama, but the "graveyard of empires" could indeed become the undoing of those who thought the United States had the right and the need to become one. But of course, that's not the sort of thing a President can say out loud.

Obama may be the titular commander in chief, but the tail has been wagging the dog for several Administrations. What he's doing is slipping the leash, and letting the puppy try and bite the tires off of the rolling semi.

Obama will be be handed a political exit, and he will take it like a statesman. In part, I think this perception will be genuine, but in order to achieve it, he must first get his enemies to eliminate each other - and ideally, it should occur all at once. What it will be - well, I can't say for sure. But it might look something like this...

Oh, Republicans, Why do you hate Science?

Fox news decided to do a little "scientific polling" designed to prove something they knew to be true. Well, something got proved...

TPMDC | Talking Points Memo | Obama Preferred Over Reagan -- In Fox News Poll

Check out this question from the new Fox News poll: "What do you think the nation's economy needs more of right now -- the economic policies of Ronald Reagan or the economic policies of Barack Obama?"

The answer: Obama 49%, Reagan 40%.

If science reliably gave you the answer you wanted to hear - it would be Scientology.

The "proof" of what was actually intended is the fox news analysis, provided by a commenter.

FOX News Poll: Obama Believes in Bigger Government
Thursday, March 05, 2009
By Dana Blanton

Majorities of Americans think President Barack Obama is meeting, if not exceeding, expectations, and keeping his campaign promises. In addition, despite Obama's claim that he doesn't believe in bigger government, a new poll shows there is widespread belief among Americans that he does.

I love it. While 52 percent believe he is meeting expectations, only 14 percent think he is exceeding expectations. And even though people really like Obama and his policies and trust him and think his economic proposals are better than Reagans, a majority think that he believes in a bigger government that provides more services. He's a massive failure. May as well start impeachment proceedings immediately.

If I had Dana's job, I'd be rather proud of myself for that spin. But that's one very significant component of why I don't have Dana's job. As much as I like good booze - I don't want to have to need enough of it to drown my conscience.

Regarding Bobby Jindal

I'm writing this as my immediate reaction to Bobby Jindal's response to the State of the Union. Any moderately well informed 8th grader could detect it's manifold failures of logic, but I'll not bother with that, because, well, I wish to give seventh grade level bloggers something to aspire to.

No, my comment is simple, and it would be exactly what any qualified competitive speech coach would tell you.

Do.
Not.
Patronize.
Your.
Audience.

From whatever standard I apply, from Martin Luther King to Westbrook Pegler, from JFK to Churchill, from the workmanlike prose of Ron Paul to the revivalist pyrotechnics of Al Sharpton - that speech sucked.

Now, it was a damn tough act to follow. It would have been a position a man better aware of personal and circumstantial limitations would have found some reason to avoid, but if force to the podium by gunpoint, would have applauded a magnificant speech, and then simply pledged to hold the president to every word of it.

But then, if you were a prudent, conservative man with any degree of situational awareness, I don't suppose you'd be touted as one of the rising stars of the Republican Party at this particular moment in history.

If I were judging you by competitive speech standards, you would most likely not get to go on to Nationals. On the other hand, Sirrah, I'm quite sure every Democrat is delighted at the prospect.

Breaking News! Senators Did their Jobs

There's an aphorism about politics that I haven't seen cited often the last few decades in regard to Politics, Umurikin Style; that "politics is the art of compromise." That's a trend that I've seen mirrored in Canadian politics. Well, whether it was in regard to the "fierce urgency of now" as communicated by Obama's televised ass-kicking, or whether it was due to the overwhelming lack of support for Republican threats to have a temper tantrum and hold their breath until they turned blue - nonetheless, apparently sanity prevailed, and the Senate passed the Stimulus bill.

That is to say, they did their job in a timely manner, after properly debating the issues. Well, they debated the issues as they saw them; what snippets I've seen showed me that our leadership doesn't have much of a grasp of economics. Much of the Republican rhetoric reminded me of the late and unlamented William Proxmyer - I honestly don't know which party he belonged to - who made his career on ridiculing programs he did not understand, and pretending to not understand programs he didn't like.

Of course, there's stupid things to be found in any budget - but the bleating often was about things that actually made some sense, if you believe that government has a proper role in society, in regards to investigation and regulation. For instance, some idiot was wittering on about the horror of giving the Social Security Administration money for new computers. Well, you know, it's getting hard to find Cobol programmers these days, and they just don't make parts for those keypunch machines any more.

Yep, I just ridiculed the critic with about the same information level as the senator in question. It's pretty easy. OTOH, he has a staff and gets paid a couple hundred thousand a year to have a duly deliberated viewpoint. I'm a blogger sitting in my living room. I don't feel that he should be living up to the standards generally expected of "Pajamas Media" bloggers.

Anyway, sanity prevailed, without a complete split along partisan lines. Perhaps it was due to the loud hint that if they got with the program, the economy might rebound in time for the 2010 elections. Perhaps it was due to howls of outrage communicated by phone, email, fax and paper to republicans threatening to obstruct the bill. If so, it only penetrated three skulls - but that was enough, and what are elections for.

But I was struck by the "breaking news" that Congress had done it's job.

Meanwhile, like the first tender shoots of spring, like the rays of a new dawn, I'm starting to notice Liberals and Progressives actually speaking Liberally and Progressively. In other words, they are now able to start advocating the batshit things that they want to see, as opposed to pointing out the bullshit we have all been wading through.

William Kunstler has been reliable and adept at pointing out the wrongs of neoconservatism and the evils of predatory supply side, trickle down, unregulated kleptocracy. But his visions of positive change do not comfort me, or strike me as being (thank god) particularly likely.

If this nation wants to survive without an intense political convulsion, there's a lot we can do, but none of it is being voiced in any corner of Washington at this time. We have to get off of petro-agriculture and grow our food locally, at a smaller scale, with more people working on it and fewer machines. This is an enormous project, which implies change in everything from property allocation to farming methods to new social relations. But if we don't focus on it right away, a lot of Americans will end up starving, and rather soon. We have to rebuild the railroad system in the US, and electrify it, and make it every bit as good as the system we once had that was the envy of the world. If we don't get started on this right away, we're screwed. We will have tremendous trouble moving people and goods around this continent-sized nation. We have to reactivate our small towns and cities because the metroplexes are going to fail at their current scale of operation. We have to prepare for manufacturing at a much smaller (and local) scale than the scale represented by General Motors.

Actually - I should temper this with a loud caveat; I'm making the assumption here that he sees this return to Mayberry as being an inherent good, and sees no potential issues with people being forced of necessity to live in contained, localized political units, where they must go along to get along.

I've noticed that the main difference between conservatives and liberals in terms of public and social policy is what parts of my life they wish to interfere with, what particular liberties they wish to restrict; nobody speaks for the idea that perhaps, just perhaps, we could trust people to mind their own business for the most part, on the stunningly obvious basis of fact - mostly they do, and mostly they manage well enough.

They tend to manage better when mechanisms and resources exist with the aim of helping people make better choices, they tend to manage a lot less well when politics interferes with natural rights and common sense - the War on Drugs and the proliferation of private prisons speaks volumes about that. In other words, we have enslaved a vast number of human beings for reasons that strike me, and many others, as extremely dubious, and at horrendous price to the taxpayer in terms of economic impact and in terms of coarsening our culture.

We DO need to encourage all of the things Kunstler advocates. But we cannot afford to simply accept that the necessity for a new system of economics mandates a socialist form of authoritarianism to replace the current crop of self-anointed authorities.

We need to embrace and encourage the ideal of individual responsiblity. And by that, I mean, equipping people while they are very young to be able to think for themselves. Without that, the idea of "individual responsibility" is simply code for "you are responsible for doing what I tell you to do," the sense in which we have become accustomed to hearing it.

But in fact and in practice, while all the above Kunstler refers to will come about, they will come about as much from preference as of necessity. Just as no-body likes being forced to stay in one place, neither do they particularly long to be forced to commute. Further, there are technical solutions coming down the pike which will add MORE choices to our lives - not fewer choices.

You see, I prefer sourcing Leftist thinkers for their ability to see and articulate what is wrong with a status quo, and to an extent, trust them to point out a sheaf of choices. But it's wise to remember that the Lefts and Rights have an overriding common faith in their own suitability to tell people what to do, they tend to be Authoritarians to one degree or another; President Obama being no exception to that.

I'm an anti-authoritarian, politically. I call myself a "libertarian," but my primary issues are ethics and authority abuse. I hope for and see a future in which the necessity for authoritarian structures is reduced - simply one of many viable ways of organizing like-minded people in tasks of common value.

What I see is the obvious necessity and inevitability of political and social structure decentralizing itself - as Koestler seems to be implying - but also becoming even more connective. In other words, a world in which small groups of people are connected robustly into a vast, world wide web.

Eh, Claudus? Arrest Bush 2009

The Raw Story | 'Arrest Bush 2009' plans Inauguration Day protest:

"A group calling itself 'Arrest Bush 2009' has announced its intention to hold a 'Yes We Can Arrest Bush' event in front of the FBI Building in Washington, DC during the Inaugural Parade.

However, coordinator Jose Rodriguez insists, 'It's not a protest; it's a celebratory event.'

Arrest Bush 2009, which is sponsored by the Washington Peace Center, After Downing Street, and Shoes For Bush, is demanding that Bush be arrested for war crimes and for lying to the American people."

It's also interesting to observe that the Bush Administration has managed to extend international law - in a morbid and disturbing way - by establishing the idea of "extraordinary rendition," and asserting the right to arrest fugitive individuals regardless of whether the sovereign government would permit it.

I wryly observe that even a small power can contemplate such an operation. And I would imagine that the Secret Service is contemplating that contemplation. One does wonder, however, what position they will take should they become aware of it as an operational possibility.

Eh, Claudius?

Arresting Valentine 2-SideTemplate T-Shirt by webcarve

Hope, fear and hope from across the 38th Parallel.

The bit below was a response to this election post/thread on Echidne of the Snakes. Antijen speaks for a great many people; myself among them.

Eight years ago, I was casually cynical about politics, but still had reason to think that most people (and politicians) were well intentioned and had some principles. In January 2001, I moved to the US and GWB took office. Since then, almost every news story has been of corruption and the destruction of civil liberties, environmental protections and the ability of the government to even function. Now that Obama has won, I am mostly relieved that we have averted another diaster...and starting to dare to hope for more.
antijen | 11.05.08 - 1:39 am | #

I was inspired to do some thinking aloud, and realized that it had expanded to a point that I either needed to be actually blogging there, or post it here. And indeed, it would have been quite inappropriate to post it there as a comment.

----


antijen, that was a perfect summation of these last eight years for me. I moved to the US in 2000. My wife and I left in September fearing the consequences of what could happen, having been devastated by economic and medical issues that should never have become issues. And frankly, this fight for the soul of your nation has taken a toll upon me. Note that I say "your nation." I am a dual citizen in fact and law. But it's emotional truth has evaporated. In this fight I've lost my ability to really care about the fate of all citizens of the United States.

The fact is, as stupid as "My country, right or wrong" is as a slogan, it must be something you can abide by at the last ditch, if push comes to shove. And in that event, should push come to shove, I cannot honestly take that position.

Let the healing begin - and I hope and pray it can. But it will not be without some surgery and I do indeed fear that it will not come without violence and upheaval. There are outstanding moral and legal debts, international obligations to justice being done and amends to be made if this beautiful moment is to unfold in all it's seeming promise.

I personally believe that even the appearance of being willing to hold the Bush administration accountable for it's most literal and inarguable crimes could cause social upheaval. It will certainly earn legitimate worldwide contempt and distrust - and with that will come terrifying economic consequences.

Too many people have been raised for too long in total batshit denial of vital duties of citizenship and the requirements of participating in civil discourse. Too many people believe that linguistic, social or direct violence and oppression are the first and only appropriate responses to dissent. And the realization that this cancer infects the US as badly as it infects anywhere the Taliban raises it's banner with impunity is something no-one who can connect to the internet and is aware of geopolitics and the price of money is unaware of.

These people have been defeated in a crucial battle. The war will continue; complacency is not an option.

I do not think they will permit "reconciliation." Nor do I believe they deserve forgiveness for thirty years of conscious subversion and treason. Whatever happens will be remarkable and intensely interesting from an historical perspective. For that very reason, I choose to spend the remainder of my days in a far less "interesting" social matrix.

I find myself holding within my heart an implacable hatred of all these people stand for, a hatred that is refueled every day by every pinhead and would-be potentate who consciously lies or stupidly repeats lies intended to further the end of a Saudi-style religious dictatorship upon us all. And such levels of hatred and contept bring a price of bitterness that I did not care to pay more of.

I finally choose to return home. Canada earned my loyalty long ago; but in the US, it's been established to my satisfaction that there are people in places of power, great and small, that would cheerfully kill me and mine if they could get away with it, and had achieved a great deal to achieve that happy state of affairs - of being able to kill anyone they wanted to, with impunity, while terrifying the rest into mute compliance.

And at least a third of the US citizenry thinks that's a fine idea, devoutly to be wished. In eight years, a nation I loved abused and squandered my loyalty and my trust, while Canada muddled along, quite easily avoiding the worst pitfalls of being such a close ally of the US.

I wish all of you the best and I will continue, even redouble my efforts to be a small voice of reason, sanity and right action. But frankly, I'm a Canadian, by birth AND by choice. If it comes down to it, if push comes to shove, this is my country, and it is right far more often than it is wrong because it cares about being correct in hindsight; because being good and decent is something we value across the spectrum. Often - far too often - the recognition that we have made poor choices comes late; often far too late. But as a nation, I do believe we do not cling to our mistakes so grimly or deny consequences so irrationally as I have seen "down there."

There are exceptions of course; there are certainly people here that are hateful little pinheads - but by and large, they are recognized as being hateful little pinheads, even by those who think Canada is far, far too liberal about this and that.

Mostly, though, we argue about the most effective means of effectively giving a crap about our neighbors without becoming meddlesome busybodies. More importantly, as Canadians, that is actually how we tend to act as individuals. Our ideology generally arises from conscience, rather than the other way around.

I'm afraid that left and right and middle, the idea that "ah gawt a gawdamn right" to exercise power over others who are thereby defined as "Lusers" is a cultural matter that is far too likely to play out in tragic ways against a world background of rapid change, need and expectation. We can no longer afford that luxury, if we ever truly could; this world is now so tightly knit together that it's really not sane to let any nation, large or small, to wander off into dusty, desolite, self-indulgent idiocy. Consequnces trancesnd borders; we must at least find ways of defining a price for such willful disregard for the rights of one's neighbors and take it to the Allthing of public opinion.

More than fear, though, I have hope, and if I were a native born American I would suck up my gut, gird my aching loins and carry on. I expect, hope and pray that you who are in such a position will do so.

I have faith you will ultimately prevail; indeed, I expect you will. But it will not be without cost, and I can foresee circumstances that may bring our two nations into genuine dispute.

Well, this is my home, this is my choice and this society, this polite, civil and caring nation is where and for what I will choose to fight if, God Forbid, push comes to shove.

Je sui un Canadian!

Obama Wins and It's Barak-y night in Canada!

Celebrations abound world-wide at the realization that Democrats have gained a majority in all both houses of Congress. This changes everything - or so we all hope. There are gigantic issues to be dealt with, huge domestic issues, and worldwide expectations for Barack Hussain Obama. Particularly from a small, dusty town in Kenya, where they are no doubt partying their brains out now.

And no doubt if I were to walk across the street to the pub, I'd find quite an ebulliant mood there.

I just this second finished listening to Obama's victory speech - an amazingly well crafted and gracious speech, of which my wife said, "this is going to be one of those speeches, right?" As she is a teacher, I knew exactly what she meant. It will be played to first graders for the next century, just as was an historic predicessor from Ohio who spoke at another historic cusp: Abraham Lincoln.

It's Barak-y Night in Canada! T-Shirt by webcarve
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Irony Abounds at Townhall.com

News Headlines - Judge tosses lawsuit challenging Obama citizenship : Townhall.com:

"A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging Barack Obama's qualifications to be president.

U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick on Friday night rejected the suit by attorney Philip J. Berg, who alleged that Obama was not a U.S. citizen and therefore ineligible for the presidency. Berg claimed that Obama is either a citizen of his father's native Kenya or became a citizen of Indonesia after he moved there as a boy."

The facts are not in serious dispute by serious persons. But we are speaking of Townhall Dot Com. Not exactly a hotbed of objective, fact-based thought.

Indeed, they are clamoring that the dismissal of this utterly friviolous, unfounded suit shows blatant contempt for the Constitution.

Unlike the Patriot Act, Warrantless Wiretapping, "Sneak and Peek" warrants, the gutting of FISA and Bush's grandiose theories of unitary executive power; THAT bothers them!

Unlike the the widespread imposition of "Free Speech Zones" and the videotaped documentation of jackbooted goons beating the crap out of dissenters, THIS act of requring that a suit have standing and a factual basis is "wiping one's ass on the constitution."

Kris Location: PA

Reply # 6
Date: Oct 25, 2008 - 5:29 PM EST

Standing?

The Constitution demands that the President be a "natural born citizen."

Mr. Berg, and indeed the entire country, could suffer irreparable harm if a person is elected to the office of President despite a failure to meet the minimum requirements to hold that office. This is a matter of a member of the public challenging a candidate for PUBLIC office to prove he meets the requirements of that office as defined by the supreme law of the land! The Federal court has an obligation to hear this case, and is now in violation of its duty to uphold the Constitution.

But who am I kidding, the courts decided long ago that the constitution is worth less than a roll of Charmin when deciding matters of law.

As for Factcheck.org going to the actual document, instead of "analyzing" scans that may have been touched by who knows who for ghu knows what reasons, one reader says this.

Forrest Location: IL

Reply # 51
Date: Oct 25, 2008 - 8:47 PM EST

Subject: Birth Certificate

I don't know that Fact Check can be trusted. At least one of those groups is allegedly an Obama front. I am surprised that Sandra did not quote Moveon.org. I believe they, or a group like them, also came up with the thing she is talking about. Also, he has not actually presented a birth certificate, according to Berg, and the document he did produce has been allegedy altered. Just produce the Birth Certificate, and that will be the end of it. Them all we have to do is worry if he will house all of his Marxist, anarchist, racist friends in the White House so they will be close by to advise him on how Saul Alinsky, Hugo Chavez and Raila Odginga would do things.

How much reality do you have to ignore in order to believe made-up shit like this?

Well, here's one example - and one reason why the McCain campaign uses paid surrogates such as Corsi. Of course one wonders why a party with such access to resources can't afford a better grade of liar. Maybe - and I don't think I'm the first person to think of this - but maybe they honestly don't believe they need better lies - and maybe they are right. With exemplars as seen above, it would be difficult to honestly believe that you needed to bring your A game.

Diplomat:"OF COURSE you talk to enemies!!!" It takes me six paragrahs to say "Duh!"

27 year career diplomat agrees with Senator Obama on need for diplomacy, including talking with our enemies.

I was moved to digg and comment (digg link below, please use that one) and then realized that I really should follow my own lead on this. I frequently blog the better comments on news stories made by others. Well, this time, I think I nailed it.

Here's what I said.

"This whole "we don't talk to people we don't like" foreign policy has struck me as being on a level with seventh graders deciding who gets to sit at what table at lunch. And - clearly - our leaders do not choose to be seen in public with the auto-shop boys, the "smoker's corner" crowd or anyone from "the wrong side of the tracks."

This is a criticism that transcends any need to speak to politics, ideology or philosophy. I've seen absolutely nothing to indicate that those concepts have had any bearing on any approach to anything. Conservatism has been reduced to the level of a purple heart band-aid.

Remember that, when it was a sign of a Good Conservative to mock the service of a decorated war hero because his experience led him to disapprove of the war in Iraq?

Whatever one might feel about a political opponent, or whatever one might feel about the conclusions they drew from their time in service of country, it's utterly wrong and an utter betrayal of a decent appreciation of fundamental Conservative values to mock the wartime service of another. Nonetheless, the tactic was embraced by leaders and followers alike, because it looked like it would work toward a short-term political goal. Principles be damned. And that's our foreign policy in a nutshell.

It's first, last and only goal has been domestic political advantage within the current news cycle, a calculation that is common to ALL important decisions over the last, utterly disastrous eight years.Wise and mature leaders understand that you cannot, must not, pander to people informed in sound bites by political partisans, or even be terribly concerned about what those partisans might say. There are always such people and it's always easiest to convince them that they are somehow being "mistreated" or "betrayed" by someone in power dealing with a complex situation.

And let us remember that despite being genuinely likable and good with people, George Bush's leadership style has never led him to deal with difficult issues in any substantive way. I honestly cannot think of a single situation that has been improved by George Bush's involvement, or indeed, improved on the basis of the Bush leadership philosophy. It's been a government of, by and for the "popular kids" - and we are reminded why student governments have grownup advisers."

If you digg what I said, please digg it there. But of course, you are also encouraged to share this article directly with all the other bookmarking services. :P

read more | digg story

Civilization rears her beautiful head at McCain event only to be garrotted.

I held some hope that this presented a change for the better, so to speak. But this occurrence is about the only positive note. It's considerably muted by the fact that the hero of the piece, the Islamic McCain staffer who shut down these hateful twits has been forbidden to speak to the media, according to the latest from CNN and Huffpo:

The aide, Daniel Zubairi, had been scheduled to appear on Sanchez's mid-day program after he was caught on video talking down an anti-Muslim protester outside a McCain rally in Woodbridge, Virginia. But, even after telling the network that an interview was "good to go," the McCain shop pulled Zubairi at the last minute, leaving Sanchez in limbo on live TV.

"Wouldn't you think they would have wanted him to come on?" the CNN host would later tell the Huffington Post. "What the guy did was courageous. I called him heroic. I'm mystified why they wouldn't embrace him for his actions. Maybe they didn't like the story, but I'll tell you. I thought it was presented it in a very transparent way, if anything I kind of gushed philosophically about how impressive and real his reaction was to the protester's hateful message. It seemed to show some of the best of McCain supporters, didn't it?"

It's a damn good question. But perhaps this New York Observer story holds the answer.

First, Representative Patrick McHenry cheered what he called the “biggest crowd John McCain has gotten in North Carolina” and emphasized that this was a critical election with a stark choice between the candidates.

“It’s like black and white,” someone in the crowd at the Cabarrus Arena & Events Center yelled out, laughing. McHenry let the remark pass and finished his speech. He yielded the microphone to Representative Robin Hayes, who prefaced his comments by saying it was important to “make sure we don’t say something stupid, make sure we don’t say something we don’t mean.” Republicans, he reminded the crowd, were kind people. Plus, he added, the liberal media had shown itself eager to distort such remarks. With the crowd duly chastened and put on best behavior, he accused Obama of “inciting class warfare” and said that “liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God.”

So to answer the confused Sanchez, they want to “make sure [he doesn't] say something ... we don’t mean.”

McCain campaign is relying more upon the America Blanca's [Spanish for "White America"] than the Daniel Zubairi's of conservatives.

Damn the Polls: McCain's Irreducibles Beg to Differ | The New York Observer: "“I don’t believe these polls,” said America Blanca, a 44-year-old small business owner from Miami who wore a red dress and was visibly pumped up by the rally. “Not one of them. Because it’s the kids answering the polls on the computers. Their parents are not home and they are answering and they will not be voting. I think if he is losing, it is only by a little spread. Very little.” She held the tip of her pointer finger about two inches from the tip of her thumb.

Asked if her business made more than $250,000 a year, the cap under which Obama has proposed cutting taxes, she said it did. Told about Obama’s proposal, she answered, “I don’t give a shit. I will never vote for a black man.”"

And if it's not Obama's race, it's false associations with his religion:

Daniel Varisco, anthropology chair at Hofstra University, said he wrote the "statement of concerned scholars" after seeing Islamophobia on the rise.

"The attempts to label Senator Obama a terrorist or rhyme his name with Osama (bin Laden) or accent his middle name (Hussein), as well as false claims about his being sworn into (U.S. Senate) office on a Koran, demonstrate how near to the surface anti-Islamic sentiment is in the United States," he said.

Circulating such falsehoods "avoids playing the race card directly but at the expense of Muslims," he said.

It troubles me that McCain and Palin have not taken this stunningly obvious opportunity to disavow all support from the false assocations and outright racism. While I do not think that race, per se, caused Colin Powell to support Obama - well, look to this statement:

"Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?" he asked on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion 'he's a Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists.' This is not the way we should be doing it in America," Powell said, while making clear such sentiment was not coming from McCain himself.

Racism and hate speech of this sort may not have told a rock-ribbed Conservative such as Powell who to vote for; but it surely had to influence who he was unwilling to be associated with publically, for reasons both obviously political and no doubt personal on a most visceral level.

Likewise, I would not be at all suprised to soon hear Daniel Zubairi disavowing his association with McCain. Were I in his place, I'd consider the actions of the McCain campain to be a disavowal of my public disavowal that racism and anti-muslum retoric is supported by the campaign.

While racist, anti-muslim words are spread by supporters, they should be taken as one person speaking on their own behalf - if they are not disavowed, they tend to spread. And there is no lack of evidence to suggest that people speaking on behalf of the campaign and attempting to influence more have little less restraint.

Via "BadAmerican"

..Dana Milbank highlights another incident from Monday:

Worse, Palin’s routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric’s questions for her “less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media.” At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, “Sit down, boy.”

“Getting ugly out there,” says ABC’s Jake Tapper.

It is getting very difficult to evade the distinct impression that class and race warfare is in fact the keystone of the entire McCain/Neocon strategy. I'm going to take one speculative step beyond that - I'm beginning to suspect that McCain is positioning Palin as the new spokesperson for a resergant, racist right-wing movement. This is distinctly underlined for me by her ties to the Alaska Independance Party - a separatist movement with some disturbingly extremist positions.

But mostly, I'm just plain insulted by her suggestion that only rednecks from rural Amurika are "real americans." That everyone that has any appreciation of nuance, multiculturalism or good sushi is a "godless liberal."

In closing, I'm down with John Stewart: "Fuck Y'all!"

(From Canada, go here. Aside to BOTH comedy networks - this is a royal pain in the ass; fix it. All it takes is a simple redirect to the appropriate server, dudes.)

Frankly, I think that at certain points in time - and this is one of them - that a hearty "fuck you" is the only intelligent response to massive, visible stupidity.

"We're votin' for the n***er!"

Typing "Racists for Obama" into Google brings in more results than you could believe. Could this be the end of the Southern Strategy? Via FiveThirtyEight:

So a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're votin' for the n***er!"

Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: "We're voting for the n***er."

In this economy, racism is officially a luxury. How is John McCain going to win if he can't win those voters? John Murtha's "racist" western Pennsylvania district, where this story takes place, is some of the roughest turf in the nation. But Barack Obama is on the ground and making inroads due to unusually strong organizing leadership.

Meanwhile Here's some more small town Palin Patriots capering for your amusement. I must admit, I haven't verified that these cartoon characters are in fact Republicans. I'm making a prejudicial assumption based on prior bad acts of similar sorts by Republicans. Call it "political profiling." :>

A Mirror for Ms. Bachmann

I finally got to see Chris Matthews pay out the rope for Rep. Bachmann. I'd seen transcripts, with nuggets such as this, but so many people were clogging the tubes, I had to wait my turn.

"What I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out if they are pro-America or anti-America,"

Gee whiz, I'd kinda thought we'd established that witch-hunts were a bad idea, even BEFORE Jefferson's time. I was obviously wrong in believing that "Have you no decency, Sir?" was a phrase that still resonated. Clearly, millions disagree. Fortunately, those millions do not include the honorable old warrior Colin Powell.

"Mr. McCain says that he's a washed up terrorist, but then why do we keep talking about him? And why do we have the robocalls going on around the country trying to suggest that because of this very, very limited relationship that Senator Obama has had with Mr. Ayers, somehow Mr. Obama is tainted. What they're trying to connect him to is some kind of terrorist feelings. And I think that's inappropriate. Now, I understand what politics is all about, I know how you can go after one another and that's good. But I think this goes too far, and I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little narrow. It's not what the American people are looking for."

Powell also spoke passionately against the insinuations by some Republicans that Obama is a Muslim.

"Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian," he said. "But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, 'He's a Muslim and he might be associated [with] terrorists.' This is not the way we should be doing it in America."

Now, that's the most diplomatic bitch-slapping I've heard in recent times. It will never be all that quotable; Mr. Powell is, I'm afraid, no master of the pithy catch-phrase. But he's certainly capable of pithing essentialist idiocies.

..Mr. Obama is now [called] a socialist, because he dares to suggest that maybe we ought to look at the tax structure that we have. Taxes are always a redistribution of money. Most of the taxes that are redistributed go back to those who pay them, in roads and airports and hospitals and schools. And taxes are necessary for the common good. And there's nothing wrong with examining what our tax structure is or who should be paying more or who should be paying less, and for us to say that makes you a socialist is an unfortunate characterization that I don't think is accurate.

Powell has stated that he will be voting for Obama and that he still considers himself a Republican. I think it would be fair to assume that his conclusion is that people such as Mr. McCain and Ms. Bachmann do not meet his standards for probity and disciplined leadership.

Nor do I think Powell confuses reactionary social impositions with any sort of Conservatism, and while I might be wrong, I think he'd tend to guardedly agree with the next bit.

I personally think that the only decent position on matters of individual choice that should decently be considered to be private was best stated bluntly by one of the most contradictory, maddening and controversial politicians in North American history; one of the very few foreign leaders to ever be noticed by the American people - aside, of course, from Fidel Castro.

We take the position that there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation. * Comment in the Canadian House of Commons on the decriminalization of homosexuality (1967-12-22)

That's a very Libertarian idea, when you think about it. It's certainly widely quoted by Libertarians, though they tend to file off the serial numbers. And though he was a self-described Democratic Socialist, that was an economic, not a social position. I might add that he's been as much of an influence upon me as William F. Buckley - and for essentially the same reason; both men were far more interesting and useful when wrong than any two ordinary politically significant figures stumbling upon the right idea for the usual populist reasons.

I thought of Trudeau in reference to Mr. Powell, who has finally come to his parting of the ways with stupidity and who has taken the high ground as the only strategic and tactical option available.

He did not say it as eloquently as Trudeau on the eve of the FLQ crisis, but in essence we are seeing similar times and a similar impatience with those who think that violence and chaos are the proper response to political frustrations.

Pierre Trudeau - "There are very few times in the history of any country when all persons must take a stand on critical issues. This is one of these times; this is one of those issues. I am confident that those persons who unleashed this tragic sequence of events with the aim of destroying our society and dividing our country will find that the opposite will occur. The result of their acts will be a stronger society in a unified country. Those who would have divided us will have united us." - Announcing the War Measures Act to a national television audience, October 16, 1970

I hope very much that leaders and statesmen such as Colin Powell can indeed rise to this challenge, can indeed forestall what seems to me a crisis of spirit and a rising tide of intolerance. While it's not at all fashionable to equate the rhetoric of Palin and McCain with the actions of people responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing, it's damn clear that they are not as far apart as any reasonable person might wish.

Reasonable and civilized leaders do not foment hatred, do not cultivate suspicion of their rivals, do not brandish the noose and the burning cross even in the subtlest and most deniable way. The reason why should be brutally obvious, but perhaps McCain and Palin are indeed willing to "rule in Hell rather than to serve in Heaven."

But as with all Faustian bargains, the devil is in the details. The telling details are, in both cases, those who are willing to do "whatever it takes" (Palin's infamous phrase) leave a swathe of destruction behind them - and that echoing emptiness, that conspicuous, Shermanesqe path of political arson and the rape of propriety leads unfailingly to those responsible.

The Karma comes due when such people meet principled opposition and act toward that opposition as if that person were their own mirror image, projecting on that other all the evils, all the spitefulness, all the shameful guilty reservations about their own progress to power that they believe to be known only to themselves.

With Palin, McCain and their few remaining apologists, it's simple to discern their mistakes, their failures, their regrets and their gaps of leadership and comprehension, for all those things are precisely what they accuse their opponents of. They are unused - sadly - to contestation with their betters.

They are sadly shallow people, quite apparently proud of their inability to deal intelligently with complex issues, or at least unwilling to be caught thinking in public, lest "Joe the Plumber" accuse them of being "elitist." As Obama has been pilloried for saying, "it's as if they are proud of being ignorant."

No "as if." They are proud of it. They celebrate it. And they persecute anyone and any thing that bodes even the slightest possiblity of penetrating their shells of willful parochialism. These are Palin's Patriotic Americans.

I'm quite sure that the majority of her supporters would enthusiastically agree that yes, they ARE "Good, patriotic, "God-Fearing Uhmurikins" with no discernment of why this condemns them as both Unchristian AND Unamerican in their abuse of both Christ and Constitution.

Aside from being wrong, it's the sort of dumb-as-dirt wrong that leads to the sort of mess the world is now in, thanks to George Bush and the half-smart and the fully stupified folks who put the crap-flinging Chimp in power.

Well, frankly, I think it's my damn right to expect the best and the brightest, and my responsiblity to support them whenever I can. Since and including Ronald Regan, and not sparing either Clinton or Carter, all successful presidential and indeed most congressional candidates have been or styled themselves as being "low bid candidates;" the champions of Joe Six-Pack and the true and natural representative of the dumb-ass wings of each party.

In this, they were not entirely disingenuous, in that they were as easily bribed with shiny trinkets and meaningless photo-ops as were their constituents. Can we say "Keating Five?" Can we say "Enron" and "Energy Policy?" Oooh, I KNEW that we could!

I'm not one to worship at the altar of Obama. I think him a skilled politician, a remarkably good speaker, certainly a potential statesman and certainly as smart as any cracker's whip - but I do not think him better than what we should ordinarily expect of our elected leaders. I think he is a good example of what sort of people we should consider our due. It's not that difficult to choose to be an honest broker, to choose to act according to principles and to try, as often as humanly possible, to achieve something worthwhile along the path of fulfilling one's own ambitions. That is my minimum standard for myself and for anyone I choose to associate with. I do not think that a particularly high standard.

And I think that it's a standard we - not as citizens of this country or that, but as civilized persons participating in our various cultures and societies - should realize we MUST live up to in order to have a civil society to prosper within.

But I have my doubts that the United States will survive that realization. It certainly will not, cannot and should not pass through this trial unchanged. It may not survive without violence, it may not survive in recognizable form. The irresponsible and unconscionable efforts by Right-Wing conservatives, the social subversions committed by traitorous theocrats have carved out rifts between people that could well be fatal to any meaningful resolution. More personally, I found myself less and less inclined to even wish to live in a society that included people who see nooses as "fair comment" and the conscious, deliberate and malicious bearing of false witness against their neighbor as being "their Christian duty."

Fuck 'em, said I, knowing that that would be the least worst fate they envisioned for me. It was all too easy to see me and mine shoved into a cattle car on a one-way trip to a nuclear-powered microwave incinerator.

I, personally, see no profit in trying to fight that good fight there when I could do as much here in Canada and, bluntly, for a Canadian society that has far less bad karma coming due. I make no apologies for the fact that I prefer to live in a culture, a nation and a society where none of the party leaders are people who's positions insult my intelligence or who think it proper to appeal to my most base instincts.

Je suis un Canadian! Vive la Confederation! Vive la Civilization! VIVE La Banque du Canada!

It's not difficult to point to Ms. Bachmann as being an exemplar of all that is wrong with the United States in general. But in fact, Ms. Bachmann is the direct responsibility of those who elected her, those who contributed to her campaign and those colleagues in Congress that permit her to caucus with them, valuing political expediency over the consequences of tolerating such a poster child for petty partisan patronage.

It's inconceivable to me that such a lackwit could have gotten on a ballot by any fair, legitimate, intelligent process. The fruits and nuts point to the health of the tree and it's roots. Bachmann and her ilk in elected office at all levels are the bitter fruit of a poisoned tree.

Obama for the cause of Law and Order

Auburn McCanta: Arizona Officer Supports Obama for the cause of Law and Order:

"We don't discuss politics at work," Lt. Cable explains. "It's paramount for police officers to maintain an aura of neutrality, which means discussions of politics are off-limits. Even in our private lives, we keep our politics close to the vest. Every police officer's primary function is to maintain or reestablish the status quo during any given situation. That's our role. As cops, we hold and preserve a conservative stance in dealing with the public because it serves to settle things. Even our private lives, we're a pretty conservative bunch. By default, then, most cops are conservative by nature and practice. Like the military, we pretty much tend to vote Republican."

But he's going to vote - conservatively - for Obama. He has several compelling reasons; I'm going to pick just this one. (You really need to read the article itself. )

Lt. Cable discussed the way each campaign has conducted itself from a standpoint of crowd control. To him, the Obama rallies seem organized and enthusiastic, but nevertheless, respectful. From a police view, there's vigilance for the occasional rabble-rouser, but there's not chaos or disruption. Detractors are tolerated, yet carefully monitored and controlled.

On the other hand, the McCain and Palin gatherings "seem to be trouble from the start." As the good Lieutenant puts it, "I'm responsible for my officers in the field. I believe policy is set at the top, so if I allow an anything-goes atmosphere, my officers are going to be confused. If, however, I set an example of proper conduct, everyone below me will know what's expected. What I hear from McCain and Palin is mean-spirited confusion and that translates to the crowd in those explosive responses we've heard like, 'terrorist' and 'kill him.' From a police viewpoint, that's a crowd control nightmare. You've got to wonder what McCain ... as a military man ... is thinking and why he would allow that kind of atmosphere."

"These guys are playing the ultimate 'bad cop' and it makes life miserable for those of us who are responsible then to clean up their mess."

This nutshells my own gut reaction, a reaction I've had since dubya got put into office. He and his sort are cocksure and contemptuous of actual common sense conservative values, such as expressed above. Here's a few more I live by.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

"Don't make a mess if you aren't willing to clean it up."

"Don't be a bully; nobody respects bullies."

"To complain is to volunteer."

"Be the neighbor you want to live next to."

"If you had to cheat, you didn't win."

"The 'easy way' isn't."

Now, being as I am now in Canada, the exercise is moot for me. I'm done with this; I've suffered through two stolen elections and a tidal wave of arrogance, stupidity and lies that is being passed off as a "cultural revolution" and "conservative leadership." Four words with not a lick of substantive reality to them.

I stopped calling myself a Christian a long time ago, not because I left the church, but because the church left me. And now, the same people have taken the Union and done what they did to a properly conservative Christianity - replaced substance with selected dogmas that mandate the most unpatriotic and antisocial behavior in the name of patriotism.

Well, Mah fellow Umurikins - I'm done. I'm Canadian. I'm a dual citizen, but I was born on this side of the line, and all my life-experience tells me that only a damn fool would choose to put up with such crap as trickles down upon the average US citizen, and what level of damn-fool ignorance is required to think that what trickles down hasn't passed through corporate kidneys first.

As a Canadian and as a small-c conservative in the Canadian sense of the word, I need not add conditional clauses. There is no "I'm Canadian, but..."

Obama is not merely the only rational choice, he's actually the conservative choice, because he's in favor of conserving the things that the vast majority of US citizens need conserved - their homes, their jobs, their well-being, their piece of mind and the lives and mental health of their daughters, sons, cousins and spouses in the armed forces.

To believe otherwise, in fact, to even confuse Obama with someone espousing anything resembling genuine Liberalism, requires that you believe all kinds of damn fool things about what "liberals" really want to do.

Just visit digg or any other such site to see what I mean.

Obama unfairly using Canadian-style politics!

H/T > Mattbastard:

Who simply posts a press release from the Liberal Party of Canada with no comment. But then, what could you add?

Read, enjoy, and as you do, see if any of this sounds suspiciously familiar...

For Immediate Release
September 15, 2008

Harper’s Index - Week One

Number of campaign events that Stephen Harper has held so far that have been open to members of the public: 0

Number of campaign events that Stéphane Dion has held so far that have been open to members of the public: 18 (including two town halls)

Number of times Jason Kenney has been seen in public since the puffin incident: 0

Total savings a Canadian family could receive from Mr. Harper’s two-cent-per-litre diesel tax cut if it fully “trickles down” to consumers and is not absorbed by suppliers or transporters: $15 annually or about 25 cents per week.

Number of Conservative campaign events that used unwitting new and expectant mothers as human props: 1

Number of apologies Mr. Harper has had to issue so far for gaffes by his staff: 2

Number of female party leaders Mr. Harper has tried to exclude from the leader’s debate: 1

Number of times the RCMP has been used to physically shield Mr. Harper from questions: 1 (2 if you count This Hour Has 22 Minutes)

-30-

Contact:

Liberal Party of Canada Press Office
613-783-8888

Do you see what I see? Barack Hussain Obama has stooped to employing Canadian Style politics!

He has resorted to employing The Politics of Personal Courtesy. He thinks - and I must emphasize this, for it is a critical point - he thinks that American voters will stand for Canadian political niceties; unfairly and un-patriotically employing banter that is both amusing and substantive!

Who does he think he is? Who does he think he's talking to? Go back to Canada, Hoser! How DARE you try to change the game by actually playing it skillfully according to the written rules?!?
How DARE you respectfully and politely refuse to engage in American style politics?

Who the hell do you think you are? Wayne Gretzky?

THAT ONE and Joe

THAT one and Joe by webcarve

"That one," in reference to Barack Obama, might be the most talked about sound byte from any election or primary debate this year. NOW Magazine

McCain made the remark tonight when discussing a 2005 Senate vote on an energy bill. “There was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies, and it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney. You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one,” he said, pointing to Obama. “You know who voted against it? Me.”- WSJ

You know what I think? I think the whole debate - such as it was - revealed a grumpy, shallow, occasionally incoherent old man, one who can barely contain his disrespect for his colleague.

Is it because Obama is black? Is it because Obama is clearly smarter? Is it due to some coatroom slight? Ya know, I don't really care.

He Shoots!!! He Scores!!!

It's the end of the first quarter in this grudge match against the Oilers; Obama's heading for the net, it looks like he's in the clear when OOOH, McCain tries to spear him!

Oh, it looks like the refs saw that this time, Jim!

Looks like they did, Bill. They're called a penalty. The first round draft pick from Hawaii is being called to the bench by the trainer for a look-see.

You know, it's really not my place to comment about the quality of the refs on the ice...

...but they suck, Jim!

And that's why I'm The Announcer, and you are the Color Commenter, Bill. You are here to say the dumb things that would get me fired. You took so many pucks to the head, anything could fall out... Well, looks like the medic is giving Obama the thumbs up; he'll be taking his penalty shot against the Oiler's rookie goal-tender.

Some fans may not know this, but rumors are that Rove is sitting out this game due to some contract dispute, or that he's gotten crosswise with McCain. That's why Palin suited up, and some folks wonder if she's up for it. But the Oilers are thin in the bench right now, so McCain really doesn't have a choice. Jim, you racked up a lot of ice time playing for them and against them; what do you think?

Well, when it comes to the Oilers, Jim, there's only two things that you can count on. First, nothing that comes out of the front office is the truth, even when they actually believe it themselves. And second, they play the meanest offensive game in all of hockey. The really don't play D... and mostly they don't need to.

Bill, Palin looks nervous there. Obama's taking his shot... stick fake! Head fake and... great jumping Jehosepat! He put it RIGHT between her SKATES! Man, that's an ugly way to start your career in the majors!

Let's look at the instant replay... damn, he took that shot like she wasn't even in the net! Now that's how you play HOCKEY!

Huffington Post: Obama Ad Targets McCain's "Vile," "Truth Be Damned" Distortions

Ok, you know that when someone in politics makes a big fat hairy deal about being a Hockey Mom, sports metaphors are gonna start flying. I actually started the illustration for my post about Canadian Style politics, and because it occurs to me that Obama is a game-changer in the same way Gretzky was. He kinda brought the whole puck into net concept back into the game; for a while there, hockey was what happened in the intermissions between fights.

The campaign video was a damn gift!

So here's to Wayne and Obama, who both know that at the end of the day, you need to put the puck in the net if you want your name on the cup.

Illustration credit: Me!
It's Barak-y Night in Canada! T-Shirt by webcarve
Design Customized T-Shirts At zazzle.com

Hitting the Cynic Limit: That's all the blogging I can stand for today

You know, it's not so much what I'm for, it's more like there is a whole social and political tradition in America that's just too damn embarrassing and conspicuous to ignore any more. You can't argue with them. They are impervious to reason, common sense and seem to revel in a level of mean-spirited spitefulness no kindergarten teacher would tolerate.

This gives me quite the cynical take on "Christian homeschooling."

But consider the low-hanging fruit sent by their friends and neighbors to the Republican Convention, as shown by The Daily Show. presumably they were sent to the Mile High City because everyone, including themselves, thought of them as being informed enough and representative enough to participate in our political process. Or maybe they thought it was a Shriner's Convention. It's kinda hard to tell, but the family values voters seem to be treatin' the strippers real nice.

More insight from a fellow cynic:

From Bad American:

Don’t get me wrong, I hold no great hope for an Obama presidency - they are fully creatures of the establishment. But if I have to wish which one of these guys wins in would be Barack ONLY because I see this as a last test of the basic decency and intelligence of the American people. At least Obama speaks to the higher principles we should be aspiring to as a people whose birthright stemmed from the pen of Thomas Jefferson. McCain and Palin seem to be salivating to shoot Iranian families from airplanes.

If McCain/Palin win in a margin that doesn’t need Diebold vote fixing, then I say America deserves whatever it gets from that point forward. If we’ve truly become a nation that worships the playground bully ethic, than that’s not a country I could support in any fashion.

And this last story is the absolute worst.

Michigan GOP to Challenge Foreclosure Victims at Polls

If having your home foreclosed isn’t bad enough, the fascist bastards will be trying to disenfranchise you at the polls in Michigan. What I would like to see is these challengers (described in some of the comments following the story) have the shit kicked out of them outside the polling booths. Liberals are just too damn nice sometimes.

I have to wonder what kind of person you would have to have become in order to even THINK that was a respectable thing to do. How the hell do sleazeball tactics like that fit in to being an upright, stalwart "pillar of the community?" You know, I don't even care who or what you are upholding, because when you wear a calving glove to do it, it kinda gives away the area where you think you are gonna get the best grip. The fact they seem to enjoy it tells me all I need to know about that whole tableau.

Sometimes, all you can do is laugh bitterly and make a hip, urban t-shirt emblematic of my conservative coastal urban, civilized values. You see, I just think it's common sense to be conservative of stuff that's actually worth preserving. Libraries, for instance, and the books in them. The Constitution, and the Enlightenment from which it sprang - an enlightenment that in itself came from universities in cities where people fled from the "small town values" that led to witch burnings and using the Bayeux Tapestry to cover a haystack.

Obama + fave lyric... by webcarve
design your own shirt On Zazzle

Four lines. Your favorite country lyric. Get out there and stir up some cognitive dissonance with Waylen, Willie and the Boys.

But yeah, it IS that stupid...

Barack Obama: A pro-vaccine pharma shill who doesn't care about autistic children?

The stupid, I fear it will burn me to a crisp. It's neuron-apoptosing in its intelligence-devouring intensity, and my brain still hurts from reading the passage above. (Sadly, once having seen it, I can't unsee it, wish as I might.)

Ewww. I had to look up apotosing. Ewww! Now I have to floss MY brain.

Yeah. It DOES kinda have that effect.

Hm, have you noticed the overlap between anti-vax folks and Christianist Republicans? I bet you five bucks they will at least try to pressure Palin into bringing up the whole false link between autism and vaccines. I'd be interested to see if there was a statistical correlation between comorbid PTSD and autistic traits within children exposed to churches like this. All else aside - imagine dragging an autistic child to this shrieking hootinany!!!

Joe Biden - Obama's Choice, and Chuck Hagel's too

DownWithTyranny!: Not All Republicans Are As Enamoured Of McCain As Ron Fournier Is-- Hagel, Lugar And Specter Sing Biden's Praises

I can't imagine McCain and the lobbyists are too happy about what they're hearing from veteran Republican senators who have worked with Joe Biden for years and years. No doubt the comment that rankles McCain most comes from Nebraska Republican Chuck Hagel-- an actual Vietnam War hero, not some loser who got shot down bombing civilians from 20,000 feet and then spent the rest of his miserable life trying to capitalize on his imprisonment. "Joe Biden is the right partner for Barack Obama," said Hagel. "His many years of distinguished service to America, his seasoned judgment and his vast experience in foreign policy and national security will match up well with the unique challenges of the 21st Century. An Obama-Biden ticket is a very impressive and strong team. Biden's selection is good news for Obama and America."

Hm. I wonder what he will say about the widely-rumored choice of Mitt Romney for the Veep spot on the Republican ticket. I imagine "as little as possible" is what the McCain camp is hoping for.

For myself, I'd have to say that Mitt does bring balance to that ticket as well - he serves to balance out McCain's few positives. The fact that he expressed his willingness to "respond to the call" on Sean Hannity's tells me what he thinks of "his constituency."

"I think any Republican leader in this country would be honored to be asked to serve as the vice presidential nominee, myself included," Romney told FOX's Sean Hannity in a recent broadcast. "Of course this is a nation which needs strong leadership. And if the nominee of our party asked you to serve with him, anybody would be honored to receive that call ... and to accept it, of course."

Emphasis Mine.

What does "strong leadership" mean to people who get their information from Faux News? What sorts of "strong leadership" do Hannity and his ilk regularly demand of our current leaders and condemn "the left" for interfering with?

Near the end Murguia called for depriving immigration critics of First Amendment rights. Again, no quotes around hate speech, as if the Times is simply assuming that what Murguia smears as "hate speech" truly is.

Ms. Murguia argued that hate speech should not be tolerated, even if such censorship were a violation of First Amendment rights:

"Everyone knows there is a line sometimes that can be crossed when it comes to free speech. And when free speech transforms into hate speech, we've got to draw that line. And that’s what we’re doing here today. And we need to make sure that network executives will hold their people accountable and not cross that line.

Times Watch is unable to detect in Alexovich's posting a single raised eyebrow at the thought of Murguia's frightening dismissal of free speech. It's a particularly bizarre omission coming from someone who works in journalism.

No, not really. People trained in journalism - such as myself - are actually trained to understand "consequential speech." That is to say, words have consequences, and while "free speech" is indeed a very, VERY important concept, it exists in order to keep a check upon those who would use violence to suppress criticism.

Hate speech is simply verbal violence against people one disapproves of and is precisely the opposite of constitutionally protected free speech. Hate speech is the favorite tool of the Authoritarian, of the Dictator, of those who profit by setting one part of society against another. Hate speech is the tool of demagogues, of those who would steal your right to dissent - in the name of being a "Real American."

In other words, if you feel the need to protect your right to say hateful things against others and use that stolen impunity to gin up hatred, you are actually suppressing the first amendment rights of those you spew hatred against.

Of course, Hannity is just so totally down with the idea that "liberals" (by which I have come to understand those who know the assets of evil when we see them) should just shut up or be sent to Gitmo. The more obviously apt the criticism of the obvious outcomes of such massive, willful, hateful stupidity, the more such yammerheads yammer about the need for "strong leadership" to suppress dissent.

"Strong Leadership" of this sort is exactly the sort of leadership that has gotten us into this mess. It's the idea that any problem can be dealt with by punishing the people who bring it to your attention, or fixing blame upon someone too weak to be anything other than a symptom of the problem and then making their lives harder.

"Strong," in this context, is arbitrary, whimsical and based on premises that are simplistic, false and presume that all other persons are as inherently corrupt and stupid as The Dear Leader - so that any of their apparent good ideas may be dismissed as being mere Trojan horses for their "hidden agendas."

And that's exactly the sort of "Strong Leadership" being promised you by the McCain Campaign.