Down With Righty!

What do you know, another Republican a-hole

2009-09-09T13:10:00.000-07:00

"Testing...testing...is this thing on?"

Perverse sex scandals are becoming the norm for Republican politicians of late. It seems like almost every week, Americans are treated to a fresh story of some womanizing, adulterous conservative, likely elected on a campaign of "family values." From South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's hot South American tryst to Senator John Ensign's affair with and subsequent payoff of a campaign staffer's wife, GOP sex scandals are starting to become commonplace.

But not this one.

Yesterday, KCAL-9 in Los Angeles reported that Michael Duvall, a Republican state assemblyman from Orange County, admitted - during a state assembly meeting - to having an elicit affair. This piece of human excrement bragged to a colleague about several women he was sleeping with (neither of whom was his wife, it appears). Oh, but it gets better. Duvall was speaking into a live mike without knowing it and the conversations were recorded. ThinkProgress has coverage of it here.

In addition, the two women were allegedly lobbyists for a utility company. Duvall was vice chairman of, you guessed it, the utilities committee. Duvall bragged openly about spanking the women and gave descriptions of their underwear. As you might expect, Duvall has been described by supporters as one who has voted "time and time again to protect and preserve family values in California."

Evidently this behavior was neither novel for Duvall nor surprising to many of his colleagues. KCAL-9 reporter Dave Lopez stated in the piece that:

According to sources, he loves to talk about his 'sexual conquest.' The source goes on to say "it makes us all feel very uncomfortable, but it's very difficult to get him to change the subject.''

I tried to find some good hypocritical "family values" stuff on Duvall from his own website before it was taken down, but alas, I was too late. All that remains of his campaign website is a one paragraph resignation statement:

"I am deeply saddened that my inappropriate comments have become a major distraction for my colleagues in the Assembly, who are working hard on the very serious problems facing our state. I have come to the conclusion that it would not be fair to my family, my constituents or to my friends on both sides of the aisle to remain in office. Therefore, I have decided to resign my office, effective immediately, so that the Assembly can get back to work."

Unlike fellow Republicans Ensign (w/ an employee), Sanford (w/ Argentine lady), David Vitter (whore) or Larry Craig (random airport restroom patron) , at least Duvall had the common decency to resign his office when his sexual indiscretions were exposed. If a double standard exists between Republicans and Democrats on this issue, it is for good reason. To my knowledge, John Kennedy, Bill Clinton and John Edwards didn't campaign with "family values" as a central issue, nor did they almost exclusively court these values voters. But apparently, as far as values voters are concerned, you can sleep around whenever and with whomever you want, but if you support a gay person's right to marry or believe in evolution, well, then you have no values.

While this story might seem like just another "gotcha" moment for the GOP, it really underscores some very serious problems with our government. The fact that at least one of the women was a lobbyist for the very industry Duvall was charged with regulating should not be taken lightly. While it is no secret that lobbyists and their corresponding corporate interests will readily throw money at politicians, throwing pussy at them is something entirely new to me. I can only imagine the board meeting where this was thought up:

CEO: Okay people. We need to have greater influence over the state utilities committee. Let's think outside the box here. Who is on that committee?

Woman #1: Uh, isn't that creep Michael Duvall like the vice chairman?

CEO: Yeah, I think you're right. What do we know about him? He likes to brag about sexual conquests. He's obnoxiously pro-values, so he probably hates his wife. Hmmm....We could send him some hookers, right? But in this economy, who has money for hookers anymore?

Woman #2: Uh, sir... Couldn't WE just fuck him?

CEO: Excellent idea!!! I like the way you think. Now let's get some lunch.

Now admittedly, I don't know all that goes on behind closed doors, but it's a fair to assume that many politicians are already richer that shit, to whom corporate payoffs may not amount to much. It's also not much of a stretch to assume some corporations and lobbying firms maintain women on their payroll to perform exactly this kind of function. If so, it's disgraceful, yet just more evidence that the American political system is gradually being flushed down the toilet.

One final amusing tidbit from the Michael Duvall saga. A source for KCAL-9 claimed that Duvall was overly cautious with what he said or did in Sacramento, saying "you gotta be real careful with what you say up here, because they could have microphones hidden in a salt shaker."

Uh, yeah.... Or hidden in a that microphone in front of your face. Priceless.

Barack Obama: The First Black Nazi

2009-08-11T21:36:00.000-07:00

No, no, no, no , no. For the last time, NO!!!

It seems that every few months or so, the right wingers in this country need a world history refresher course. In particular, they keep forgetting that WWII-era fascism was a distinctly right-wing movement, and instead go about attacking Democrats by comparing their policies to those of fascist regimes like the Nazi party. A year ago, when election season was in full swing, these attacks were running rampant, inspiring me to author the post Right-Wing Delusions: The Liberal Nazi, debunking an idiotic viral email that was circulating at the time.

Well, the Right is at it again. President Obama and the Democratic majority in congress are attempting to make some long-awaited and much-needed changes to the country. Unfortunately for Democrats, we live in a country where people don't know their history and can only make superficial historical associations. The above picture, for example, illustrates this concept. Any kind of social reform in the U.S., whether it is welfare, Medicare, education grants, food stamps, or Social Security, is going to be labeled "socialism" by the right. That's just the way it is. The problem is, the righties don't just stop there. Almost a soon as they hear the word socialism, a few tenuously connected neurons in their brains tell them that socialism sounds an awful lot like "National Socialism," i.e. the Nazi Party. "Hey, the Democrats are Nazis! Obama is a Nazi!"

Hold on.

Let's take a brief time-out to re-educate the Right about National Socialism. The Nazi Party was a fascist regime. The party was anti-Communist, anti-liberal, and anti-intellectual. They were characterized by extreme nationalism and militarism, and religion was used as a way to control the masses. The Nazis were also clearly anti-Semitic and anti-homosexual. Hmmm.... Sound like anyone we know? The idea that the Nazis, and fascism in general, were far-right movements is hardly a matter of debate. As the following diagram of political ideology illustrates, fascism was not only a right-wing movement, but a "double-right" movement, residing on the extreme right of both the social and economic axes (and you'll note, fascism is only slightly more extreme than modern conservatism.)

The one area where Hitler shared an ideology with the left was his anti-corporate view that sought to end huge salaries for the wealthy in order to boost the economic fortunes of Germany's poor. Of course, this anti-capitalist ideology was driven in large part by Hitler's disdain for the Jews and what he saw as their hoarding of capital. Hitler was clear to distinguish between this kind of "socialism" and the Marxist ideology of ceding personal property to the state. And Hitler's means of creating equality and high employment was quite unlike modern Democratic Socialist movements. Democratic Socialism (which I will discuss further) is practiced in modern Germany and throughout much of Western Europe today. It seeks to improve economic equality through, among other things, state-sponsored education and health care, support of labor unions and a robust minimum wage. Hitler tried to achieve economic equality by seizing Jewish-owned businesses, encouraging women to stay out of the workforce, and by employing millions in an enormous military and military industrial complex.

Oh yeah. Ever heard of the Neo-Nazis? The unequivocally right-wing hate group dedicated to helping White Aryans prevent the United States from becoming "a wilderness teeming with savages," to quote the website of the American Nazi Party.

Of course the modern Nazi movements aren't so concerned with bringing about economic equality, nor is it Hitler's economic policies that right wingers are hoping to invoke when they compare Democrats to Nazis. The modern Republican Party has become a herd of sheep capable only of making simple associations and knee-jerk reactions. My theory is that when Republican politicians and talking heads continually talk down to their underlings, many of them simply flee the party. Those that remain never realize their intelligence is being insulted. So when Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh equate the Democratic Party with Nazism or fascism, the validity of such a comparison is rarely evaluated. It is simply accepted as fact, even though National Socialism and especially fascism are just about as diametrically opposed to the Progressive Democratic ideology as is possible.

It helps to understand that when Republican Party leaders compare Democrats with Nazis, they know it is a ridiculous claim to make, but they also know that their followers will not question it. What better way to discredit a political party than by equating it to one of the most oppressive, murderous and purely evil regimes in human history. As a political strategy, it is little more than very well-organized name-calling, yet it's surprisingly effective.

As we saw last summer, when the economy was in free fall and the GOP's chances of winning in 2008 were plummeting, Republicans will almost always play the Nazi/fascist card when backed into a corner. Take our current debate on health care reform. I'm certainly not opposed to debate on this issue because it is complicated and it effects many people very differently. However, in any debate, the opposing arguments must first be clearly defined. If President Obama's message is (or should be): "Healthcare costs are out of control," "Insurance companies are profiting by not treating you" and "People being bankrupted by hospital bills is un-American," then what is the opposing viewpoint? Healthcare costs are just fine, thank you? Healthcare-induced bankruptcy makes me proud to be an American? Well, no. Of course those are not the arguments being pursued by the Right. That would be insane. In their place, the right has peddled lies like "Death Panels," "government-sponsored abortion" and "euthanasia." And the Right's weapon of choice: Claims that Obama's rather modest healthcare proposals are essentially America's descent into Soviet-style socialism. What Obama and Democrats in congress are proposing is in reality a compromise between what we have now (a private insurer-dominated marketplace) and what modern capitalist nations like Canada, France, the UK and Sweden already have, a single-payer system. Essentially the current healthcare reform simply aims to extend the current Medicare system to people other than seniors, and enrollment would be completely voluntary.

According to a recent CNN/Opinion Research poll, roughly three-quarters of Americans feel major changes are needed to bring down healthcare costs and to insure the uninsured. Given that the proposed changes to healthcare are necessary, just, beneficial, cost-effective and popular, righties are again backed against into a corner. Time to play the Nazi card:

Last week Rush Limbaugh said the Obama health care logo looked eerily similar to the Nazi Party logo. He even posted a graphical representation on his website, which bears the question, "Who's similar to Nazis?" The healthcare "logo" on Obama's website is essentially the standard Obama campaign logo with a caduceus on top of it. Of course the Obama logo just as easily resembles the U.S. Marines logo, but don't expect Rush to be comparing Obama to the Marines any time soon.

The Obama Healthcare logo

The Nazi logo from Limbaugh website

Marines logo

On August 6, Limbaugh went on a diatribe claiming that the Democratic Party, modern Democratic socialism, and the Nazi Party are "all bundled up under the socialist banner."

For several days, Glenn Beck has been pushing the eugenics angle. Somehow he has determined that Obama's health care reform will lead to the government essentially weeding out the weaker Americans as a cost-cutting measure. The whole rationing argument is so wholeheartedly stupid and irresponsible that it makes my brain hurt. As if private health insurers just treat anyone at any time for any condition. If anything, a government health program could offer more care because they aren't making a profit on your health. And what would you call leaving the poor, uninsured and underinsured to go broke or die because that's what the free market dictates? I know there's a word for that somewhere, you know, allowing the weakest of the species die off.... Damn! What is that word????!!!!

Taking their cue from Beck and Limbaugh, right-wing protesters carried signs bearing swastikas and other Nazi comparisons, as blogger Motor City Liberal detailed in a recent post.

A day after appearing on Glenn Beck's TV program, U.S. Rep. David Scott (D-GA) had his congressional office vandalized with a large swastika.

The list goes on and on. All this because Obama and the Democrats are seeking to fix a broken healthcare-for-profit system, for seeking to provide a basic human right. After all, it's illegal to refuse to treat a sick or injured person but it is perfectly legal to refuse to insure them. I'm sure there are elements of the proposed bills that are less than perfect. But to make up things about the bill that aren't there and to compare it's sponsors to murderous, fascist regimes is almost inhuman. Again, there are elements of Nazi Party socialism in nearly every modern socialist movement. But let's be honest. No one remembers Hitler for building the Autobahn or sponsoring great feats of German architecture. They remember him - as he should be remembered - as an egomaniacal, power-hungry propagandist who nearly exterminated a race of people and almost single-handedly started the most violent conflict in the history of the world. It is this impression of Nazism that is indelibly burned into the minds of millions of right-wing automatons when the Becks and Limbaughs of the world belittle the efforts of Democrats to bring about a more civilized America.

I will say this, though. If Obama wants to steer clear of all fascism and personality cult comparisons, he may want to tone down the whole propaganda poster thing.

Bad Day for the Birthers

2009-07-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

Where's the birth certificate? Oh, right, there it is.

Last week I documented a right-wing phenomenon known as the "Birther" movement. The fringe, nut-job movement enjoyed about a week of mainstream media recognition. Albeit more about spectacle than legitimacy, they did get mainstream support from CNN's resident xenophobe Lou Dobbs, until Dobbs was instructed to drop the story by CNN management.

On Monday, the Birthers were dealt two severe blows to their already futile cause. First, the House of Representatives passed a resolution containing the provision, “Whereas the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii.” The resolution passed by a vote of 378-0, with four of the movement's biggest supporters in congress voting with the majority.

Also on Monday, the State of Hawaii certified the birth of Barack Obama in Hawaii, even though they had already this prior to the 2008 presidential election. Evidently beseiged with requests from media outlets and concerned citizens, the State Department of Health again confirmed that Obama "was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen."

So the question remains: Will double whammy finally put an end to the Birthers? If I know anything about right-wing nutjobs, I'm inclined to believe they will endure. I think this will probably put an end to the movement's support in congress as well as much of the mainstream media coverage. But the movement's most ardent believers won't be deterred by these latest realities because the Birther movement is not based in reality. The Birthers exist in a right-wing fantasy world, where George W. Bush was our greatest president, Sarah Palin is a rising political star, and Barack Obama is a radical Muslim terrorist from Kenya. As long as people are uncomfortable with Barack Obama being president they will continue support outrageous conspiracy theories in an attempt to somehow invalidate the Obama presidency.

Are you F#!&ING serious, people???

2009-07-21T23:23:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the blunt and rather crass title of this post, but enough is fucking enough. Those who inhabit the right side of the political spectrum in this country are seemingly getting crazier by the day. For the first time in 15 years, the United States has a Democratic president and a Democratic majority in Congress hell-bent on actually fixing some of the country's problems, and righty is not happy about it.

The latest lunacy advanced by the right is the notion that Barack Obama is somehow not a legitimate U.S. citizen, and thus ineligible to be President. Right-wing muckraker Jerome Corsi and the conservative website World Net Daily have led the crusade to invalidate the Obama presidency. While both sources of this myth appear to be profit-driven (i.e., Corsi's book The Obama Nation and WND's "Where's the Birth Certificate" line of merchandise), they have nonetheless garnered a huge conservative following.

Now bear with me, because I'm not really clear how their argument works. It is so nonsensical and convoluted that it actually hurts the brain. Basically, it goes something like this: Barack Obama's father was not a U.S. citizen, therefore the junior Obama must not be. They also claim that the Obama administration has yet to produce a valid birth certificate. Both of these claims are hysterically false. The citizenship claim is fairly easily debunked by reading the U.S. Constitution. Article 2, Section 1 states that:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

In addition, the Fourteenth Amendment states that:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Assuming Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961 - by that time a state - he meets all legal qualifications of both a U.S. citizen and a U.S. President. Evidently much of the confusion stems from the a misinterpretation of U.S. law. Snopes.com points out that the citizenship status of Barack Obama Sr. would only be relevant if Junior were born outside of the United States.

But what about that birth certificate? What if Obama wasn't really born in the United States?

Factcheck.org investigated this myth, obtaining the actual birth certificate and posting photos of it on their website. Birth announcements were also placed in two Honolulu newspapers at the time of Obama's birth in 1961. Factcheck.org offers this tongue-in-cheek explanation to further solidify the insanity of these beliefs:

Of course, it's distantly possible that Obama's grandparents may have planted the announcement just in case their grandson needed to prove his U.S. citizenship in order to run for president someday.

So it would appear that the slightest bit of research and a cursory perusal of the U.S. Constitution would have been sufficient to put this myth to rest long ago. To the contrary, the "Birther" movement, as it is called appears to be gaining momentum, or at the very least has warranted the attention of the mainstream press. The website Birthers.org claims that Obama's birth documents are forgeries and that Obama was likely born in Kenya or Indonesia. They even offer as evidence a prank-call style radio interview where a Kenyan official with limited English fluency is tricked into affirming that Obama's "birthplace" is in Kenya. (You really must hear this. It's the height of despicability).

Currently Reps. John Campbell (R-CA) and Bill Posey (R-FL) are sponsoring a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would require presidential candidates to present a birth certificate and other supporting documents to prove he or she meets the requirements for the office of President. Ordinarily, this type of bill might not seem so extreme. I mean, why not certify the eligibility of the presidential candidates? The problem is that the United States is in the midst of her 44th presidency, and never before has a bill like this been deemed necessary. Hmmmm....What is so different about this President? Oh, right, he's a black man with a foreign-sounding name and a father from Kenya. When looked at in these terms, the Birther movement can be seen clearly for what it really is: a disturbing blend of racism and sour grapes. I don't like this President and he's kinda foreign or something....I know! He's not a citizen! And so it begins.

And so there is really only one more thing to say about the "Birther" movement: If you believe that Barack Obama is legally unqualified to be President of the United States, in spite of mountains of evidence to the contrary, then you are in fact an idiot. If you think the Democratic Party would squander the very favorable political environment of 2008 by running an ineligible candidate, you really don't understand presidential politics. Certainly the legitimacy of George W. Bush's wins in 2000 and 2004 is highly suspect among those on the left. The main difference between the two is that the left-wing protests are almost entirely based in FACT (mass disenfranchisement of minority voters in swing states, astronomical irregularities in exit polling vs. reported election results). The claim that President Obama lacks a birth certificate is not only not a fact, but it's not even an opinion. It's just wrong. It would be as if a group of people got organized around the idea that Cleveland is the capitol of Ohio (it's actually Columbus). Like the Obama birth certificate, Columbus being the capitol of Ohio is a FACT and a matter of public record. A "Cleveland Truth" movement would not be any more ridiculous than the Birther movement, yet somehow the Birthers endure. With the economy in the tank, jobs evaporating, a broken health care system and two less-than-successful wars going on, Americans don't have time for manufactured conspiracy.

For a timely metaphor, lets compare this fiasco to the current steroid controversy in Major League Baseball. Imagine that a highly successful player for the Boston Red Sox had passed drug test after drug test year after year beyond any doubt. What would you think of someone who still doubted the legitimacy of said player? Exactly.... Must be a Yankees fan.

Sorry Bin Laden. Cap-and-trade is the new public enemy #1.

2009-04-17T20:14:00.000-07:00

I always kind of thought this was a bad thing

Okay, so what's with the five month layoff, you ask? It was a number of things, really. The post-election Obama euphoria probably dulled my otherwise keen sense for detecting right-wing nonsense. In addition, the very serious economic predicament in which this nation finds itself diminished, in my opinion, the importance of issues like gay marriage and intelligent design for the time being. You might say I'm waiting for the proverbial dust to settle following Obama's first round of economic stimulus, waiting to see if the Left has any clue how to fix this mess before slamming the Right for getting us into it in the first place.

But also, the Right itself became much less prominent after November, lacking any real leadership or focus of message. There was even some talk on the left of the eminent downfall of the Republican Party itself. I'm not so sure about that, but certainly the party of George W. Bush has been much less prominent since his departure from office in January. Sure an episode of lunacy from Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck would pop up periodically, but not to the degree to stir this sleeping giant. Until Now.

Two stories emerged last week that told me conservatives were still up to their old tricks, thus giving me the green light I've been seeking to pick up the blog once again. Those stories (which conservatives insist are connected) were the highly publicized "Tea Parties," bizarre displays of tax-induced angst that lay surprisingly dormant during the entire Bush era of government waste. The second was last week's release of a Department of Homeland Security report on radical right-wing extremist groups and conservatives' collective huff of righteous indignation and hypocrisy that followed.

I started to blog about both events and about the Right's collective effort to claim that the two events are unequivocally linked. Somewhere between Fox News audaciously claiming that liberal groups are more violent than right-wing groups and idiot righties dubbing Barack Obama a fascist, I just lost it. I got so bogged down in right wing craziness that I just couldn't continue. As with any prolonged layoff, like from exercise or substance abuse, I think I needed to work myself back into form gradually. Hence the following piece, which I came across on Think Progress, and I felt was just too good to be ignored.

I would again like to thank Think Progress and also the Washington Independent for bringing another GOP nutjob to my attention.

John Shimkus is a U.S. House of Representatives member from Illinois. Shimkus has been a global warming skeptic and opponent of greenhouse emissions regulation for some time. Today during a debate on a proposed "cap-and-trade" legislation, Shimkus made the following appeal:

I think this is the largest assault on democracy and freedom in this country that I've ever experienced. I've lived through some tough times in Congress - impeachment, two wars, terrorist attacks. I fear this more than all of the above activities that have happened.

Really? Worse than 9/11?

"Cap-and-trade" is a pollution regulation policy that puts limits on the amount of pollutants that can be emitted. Companies or other groups who exceed their allowance may purchase (trade) with others to fulfill their needs, so as the total amount of emission allowed in the particular body (city, state, nation, etc.) remains fixed. If one believes the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the scientific consensus of every industrialized nation, global warming is a serious problem that is almost entirely caused by increased greenhouse gas emissions since the industrial revolution. Given that nearly the entire industrialized world is in agreement that greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced, how then is an effort in the U.S. to achieve this a greater threat to democracy than 9/11?

To answer that question, one must get to know Mr. Shimkus a little better. This is a man who opposes global warming legislation because he just doesn't feel it would make any difference. Why? That's right. Because God is taking care of it. We've heard this one before, like when Minnesota congresswoman Michelle Bachmann said in August 2008 that we don't need global warming legislation because "we all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet." Not to be outdone, Shimkus read scripture and invoked the creator Himself in a March 2009 senate hearing on climate change:

Not only will the earth end "only when God declares it is time to be over," as Shimkus asserts, but God already flooded the Earth once and promised he wouldn't do it again. ARE YOU CALLING GOD A LIAR?!!!

This is the point where a very lengthy discussion might ensue regarding the separation of church and state and the appropriateness of invoking religion in matters of science. I'll just say this: What a person chooses to believe in is his or her own choice and nothing should come between a person and their faith. Likewise, one person's faith should not intrude on a society's ability to better itself. Employing an ancient book to legislate complex scientific and political issues is reckless at best and at worst a sign of utter madness. I fear Mr. Shimkus is exhibiting more of the latter, and with leaders like this at the helm, it's no wonder the United States is bringing up the rear when it comes to addressing global climate change.

Now that we understand the kind of person we are dealing with here, let's return to Mr. Shimkus' recent comments regarding cap-and-trade, "the largest assault on democracy and freedom in this country" ever experienced by the congressman. It's unclear to me whether this is an attempt at hyperbole by Shimkus or whether he really is this nutty. I'm inclined to believe he just really is this nutty. One would have to reside pretty far to the right of the political spectrum to believe that governments have no role in sponsoring the health and safety of their citizens. Also inhabiting the lunatic right are those who believe it is every American's God-given right to consume as much fossil fuel as possible, and that infringing on that right is more heinous than the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That said, I've never known a Republican to pass up an opportunity to call someone or something "anti-American," so there's likely some method in his madness.

Mr. Shimkus' antics aside, global climate change is a legitimate concern and America has dragged her feet for way too long on this issue. It has been made abundantly clear that the consumption of fossil fuels is not a viable energy model for the future. Fossil fuels are limited in quantity and they pollute the planet, speeding global warming and negatively impacting public health. Any model of the future that assumes population growth is fundamentally at odds with fossil fuel consumption. If Americans want a future consisting of one oil war after another, fossil fuel addiction would be the way to guarantee that outcome. Right wingers will say that cap-and-trade will cause the cost of oil, coal and natural gas to skyrocket, as companies pass on the costs of cap-and-trade to consumers. Fine by me. Let fuel prices go through the roof. Our society is clearly at a crossroads with regard to energy. Fossil fuels are on the way out, and a dramatic increase in the cost of such fuels may be just the catalyst needed to bring about a more speedy extinction.

Obama and His Big Blue Paintbrush

2008-11-05T15:26:00.000-08:00

Last night, Barack Obama won an election of tremendous historical and political significance. As an Obama supporter, I'm certainly very pleased with the victory as well as the positive reception his election has received around the world.

But my celebratory exterior belies the nerd within. I must have spent 18 out of the last 24 hours staring at that electoral map, trying to uncover the secrets behind Obama's lopsided drubbing of John McCain. Certainly, if you are one to believe the pre-election polling, this kind of performance was expected of Obama. In spite of these polling data, McCain's claims of a comeback and the so-called "Bradley Effect" left many on both sides of the aisle uncertain about what would happen on November 4th. As it turns out, the election went almost exactly according to the pre-election polling. Obama even stands to add icing to the cake if he wins either of the two remaining undecided races in Missouri and North Carolina.

So how did he do it? I'll save the hard analysis for another day, but studying the electoral map and comparing it to the 2004 election geography, some very telling facts arise that help tell the story of Obama's victory:

If you give North Carolina to Obama and Missouri to McCain (as it appears it will go), Obama will end up winning 364 electoral votes, 94 more than is needed to win and 78 more than Bush's 286 electoral votes won in 2004. It is also 26 more than Karl Rove predicted.

In addition to holding every blue state from 2004, Obama won nine states in 2008 that John Kerry lost: Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.

In addition to the newly acquired blue states, Obama pushed McCain in other traditionally red states. Obama got within ten percentage points of McCain in seven states carried by Bush in 2004: Missouri (-1 point), Montana (-3 points), Georgia (-5 points), North Dakota (-8 points), South Dakota (-8 points), Arizona (-9 points) and South Carolina (-9 points). Bush carried these states by an average of 16.3 points.

In the 2004 "Bush States," Bush beat Kerry by an average margin of victory of 18.2 percent. In these same states in 2008, McCain beat Obama by an average of only 9.5 percent.

Obama won his home state of Illinois by 25 points, while McCain won Arizona by only 9 points. (Obama also won his former home state of Hawaii by 45 points.)

In 2004 Kerry won six states by 3 or fewer points: Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Obama won these same six states by an average of 12.3 points.

Compared to Bush in 2004, McCain performed better in only two states, Louisiana and Arkansas. McCain did roughly the same in Alaska and Tennessee, and worse than Bush in the remaining 46 states.

Is there a landslide coming?

2008-11-03T16:13:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow, in an event nearly two years in the making, Americans will finally elect their next President. The McCain campaign and the right wing media are attempting to interpret the most minute of polling fluctuations as McCain "closing the gap" on Barack Obama. The reality is that, while McCain is seeing a slight increase in support, so is Obama, a result of undecided voters solidifying their choice as November 4th approaches. The election analysis site fivethirtyeight.com currently gives Obama a 98.1% chance of winning. Pollster.com still has Obama leading comfortably in swing states of Colorado, Nevada, Ohio, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Virginia, and leading slightly in Florida, Missouri, North Dakota and North Carolina. CNN's Poll of Polls shows very similar findings. Fivethirtyeight.com projects Obama to win 340 electoral votes to McCain's 198. By Pollster.com estimates, McCain would need to win every toss up state and every blue leaning state to get the minimum 270 electoral votes needed to win.

That said, many are predicting a very tight race much like we saw in 2000 and 2004. Why do people still think McCain can win? As far as I can tell, there are really only three reasons anyone can still hold out hope for McCain:

1. The "Bradley Effect"

The much-publicized phenomenon named for former Los Angeles mayor and unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate Tom Bradley has been used as evidence of a possible unreliability of pre-election polling. The idea is that a social desirability bias exists among polling respondents, causing them to tell pollsters they intend to vote for a minority candidate when in fact they do not. Some believe this effect can make as much as a 6 percentage point difference, which could swing some Obama-leaning states over to McCain.

2. Undecided voters will vote McCain

There is an idea floating around that undecided voters will opt for McCain because he is seen as more experienced and less risky. Also, some undecideds actually represent "Bradley Effect" McCain voters who claim to be undecided so as not to appear negative to the ethnic minority candidate. While there may be some merit to that idea, it is probably not that significant an edge for McCain, and the undecided voters currently only make up 3-4% of respondents polled. Even if the undecideds go for McCain 2 to 1, that only represents 2-3 percentage points, not enough to tip the balance in his favor in critical swing states.

3. GOP election-day shenanigans

Rolling Stone recently published an article detailing the GOP strategy to suppress to vote. Stricter voter registration laws will no doubt result in many eligible voters being turned away at the polls due to ID issues, typos and technicalities. The long lines that plagued many Democratic-leaning precincts in 2004 have already been an issue in early voting locations. Add to that Republican voter intimidation campaigns, phony claims of voter fraud, and voting machine "glitches," and it's easy to see why Republicans like McCain's chances despite polling data to the contrary.

Do I believe these things will have an effect on the election? Absolutely. Do I think they will tip the election in McCain's favor? Not by a long shot. In fact, I tend to believe Obama will win by pretty much the same margins the polls are predicting, if not more. For every election day unknown that benefits McCain, there is an equally compelling unknown working in Obama's favor:

A. Cellphone-only households.

Public opinion surveys, while often very reliable, do not take into account households (like mine) that have no land line telephone. Paul Maslin, Salon.com contributor and partner at the public opinion firm Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates, noted that cellphone-only voters made up 7.1% of all voters in 2004. That number is likely to be much higher this year. So why does this help Obama? Because this demographic is more highly represented by young adults, minorities and the poor, all more likely to vote for Obama. Maslin suggests that the cellphone-only factor will likely give Obama an additional 2% to 4% boost nationwide. That is roughly equivalent to the percentage of undecideds McCain hopes will swing to his side.

B. The Enthuisiasm Gap

While survey firms usually only include data of "likely voters," not all likely voters are created equal. In a recent ABC News/Washington Post Poll, 63% of Obama supporters were "very enthusiastic" about their candidate. Only 29% of McCain supporters felt that way about the GOP candidate. One can fairly safely assume that the more enthusiastic a voter is for his/her candidate, the more like he/she is to actually vote for that candidate. Assuming the polling data are correct, Obama supporters are simply more likely to get to the polls than McCain supporters. Not only does enthusiasm increase voter turnout among the enthused, it also has the beneficial side effect of generating a massive volunteer staff, as the Obama campaign has done. Not only will Obama enthusiasts get to the polls, they will get others to the polls. Even with the addition of Sarah Palin to pander to the Evangelical Republican base, support for McCain-Palin remains tepid when compared to Obamamania.

Looking at the electoral map, McCain needs to win several states where Obama currently holds leads of 5 to 10 percentage points (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Virginia and Nevada). The Bradley Effect, undecided voters and GOP vote suppression will certainly have an impact. The problem for McCain is that that impact will likely be offset and then some by the turnout of cellphone-only voters and Obama enthusiasts. I believe factors A and B to be much more influential than factors 1, 2 and 3. So for McCain to win, he would essentially need ALL THREE factors to happen and for factors A and B not to happen. This scenario is highly unlikely. More likely, in my opinion, is that Obama will actually beat pre-election polling numbers. McCain's factors can only account for a few percentage points here and there. In other words, there is a limit to how much these factors can actually benefit McCain. For Obama, the enthusiasm behind his candidacy and the massive Get Out the Vote campaign have the ability to drastically impact voter turnout. With voter turnout typically around 50-60% for presidential elections, there is a large amount of room for this to swing the vote in Obama's favor.

So, given that pre-election polling is historically very accurate and whatever undetectable advantages McCain has will likely be cancelled out by Obama's own untapped voting blocs, I am predicting a rather easy victory for the Obama-Biden ticket tomorrow. I won't go as far as to predict a landslide, because A) I'm not sure how to appropriately define "landslide" and B) it's not a good idea for someone who favors an Obama presidency to get complacent a day before the election. This will, however, be a large victory - and an historic one - for Barack Obama. Today, Monday, November 3, 2008, a man of mixed race and a Muslim-sounding name is poised to defeat the deep-pocketed, corporately-driven Republican smear machine. He is in this position in spite of widespread lies and distortions spread about him by his opponent, and a general campaign of fear and appeals to racism coming from the right.

Certainly 2008 has been set up for awhile as a good year for Democrats, with the embarrassing Bush presidency, an unpopular war and a floundering economy. This is precisely why this election can't be close. This election needs to be seen as a referendum on the Republican Party, and quite frankly, anything less than a blowout doesn't send a strong enough message. If McCain only loses by a few percentage points or a couple of dozen electoral votes, it shows that the GOP still has clout. It would show that despite inflicting endless war and reckless economic policies on the American taxpayer, many people still feel this type of leadership is appropriate.

So it's no secret that I'm hoping for (and predicting) a huge victory for Barack Obama. On Wednesday, McCain can go back to the Senate, Palin can return her wardrobe and disappear into the Alaskan wilderness, never to be heard from again.

Oh, and if Obama does win by a landslide, I imagine he'll get Stevie Nicks' permission first so as not to repeat the mistakes of the McCain campaign.

UPDATE:

Karl Rove is even predicting a big victory for Obama, 338-200 in the electoral college.

Can we stop questioning this guy's patriotism already?

2008-10-28T13:08:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to quickly comment on the following.

Throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, Republicans have repeatedly attacked Barack Obama for an alleged lack of patriotism. From his absent lapel pin to his wife's "proud of my country" comments, Righty has seized upon every opportunity to paint Obama as someone not all that psyched about the U.S.A. Some have even gone as far as to call Obama Anti-American and a "terrorist." He has even been attacked by his opponents for believing the country is not the "greatest source for good in this world" and is "imperfect." (Shit, at this point I would take imperfect, and maybe like, the 35th greatest source of good in the world.)

While the validity of such attacks can be easily disputed, I would simply like to respond by saying this: Barack Obama is running for President of the United States. As a brilliant, well-spoken and well-liked scholar, Obama could likely earn fame and/or fortune in any number of private sector capacities. He instead has spent much of his adult life as a community organizer, Illinois State Senator and U.S. Senator. Now he is seeking the highest office in the country and arguably the world. President of the United States is a tough job, a thankless job, and for Barack Obama, a very dangerous job.

Yesterday, federal authorities disrupted a neo-Nazi plot to assassinate Senator Obama. It is the second such plot uncovered, after authorities arrested three would-be Colorado assassins in August. The Tennessee-based neo-Nazis planned to kill Obama and go on a shooting spree at a "predominantly African-American school." Here's a photo of the nutjob, pulled from his MySpace page:

Whether or not these threats are legitimate remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that there is an element that exists in the United States that welcomes the assassination of this political figure. It's becoming clear that Obama is not so much "The One," but rather The One Right-Wing Radicals Have Been Waiting Their Whole Lives to Assassinate. After all, this is a nation with a history of offing its most charismatic, influential and forward-thinking leaders. Obama is a radical neo-Nazi's wet dream: a little Kennedy, a little MLK.

I am in no way suggesting that the views of these radical racist elements represent the right as a whole. Certainly they inhabit the right half of the political spectrum, but I'll spare right-wingers from any guilt-by-association smear. The point I'm trying to make is that by attempting to lead a violent, gun-toting nation with a history of racism and demonization of the left, Obama is taking a pretty big risk. He's doing so, in essence, to take on probably the most difficult and stressful public service job in the world. So stop claiming this guy is un-American, a Muslim or a terrorist. Stop harping on his lapel pins and his middle name. This is a guy who has the opportunity to bring the nation together and move it forward. To to so, he has chosen to campaign in the lion's den, speaking to large outdoor crowds in the South, Western Pennsylvania, Michigan, West Virginia, and so on. This likely caused him a few sleepless nights. And if elected, we will likely hear about similar assassination plots every few months or so.

So while Obama might not be a great war hero, but one could easily say he is putting his life on the line to serve his country. Regardless of how one feels about Obama's political views, it's time for the questions about his patriotism to end.

No, Inland Empire! That's a bad Inland Empire!

2008-10-16T20:35:00.001-07:00

I just had to comment on this. Thanks to The Press-Enterprise and Thinkprogress for picking this one up.

For those of us in Los Angeles, the Inland Empire is sort of like our retarded cousin to the east. The IE (or the 909) is like having a little bit of Alabama right in your own backyard. Whenever COPS is not filmed in the South, it's in the IE. The 909 is to air quality what China is to civil liberties. You get the idea. Every so often they do a bad thing and have to be reprimanded. You can't really blame them for doing the bad thing. They are, after all, the IE. But they still need to be learn that what they did was wrong.

This week the Press-Enterprise reported on a disturbing newsletter circulated by a Rancho Cucamonga based Republican women's group. The newsletter contained what was meant as a critique of Barack Obama's claim that he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." Here's what they came up with:

Let me just say that I typically have a pretty high threshold for racism. There are many occasions when claims of racism are bandied about inappropriately. THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE OCCASIONS. This is so racist that it just slaps you in the face. There's a great Dave Chappelle stand-up routine where he talks about this kind of racism:

Have you ever had something happen that was so racist that you didn't even get mad?...I mean it was so blatant you were just like "Wow." Almost like it didn't even happen to you, it was like a fucking movie.

Aside from the collard greens and pigs feet, the illustrator pretty much nailed all of the African American food stereotypes. Now I have to come clean for a minute. As a teenager, my friends and I once regrettably took part in a "traditional black picnic," for black history month, featuring pretty much the same fare depicted on the "Obama Bucks." I now realize that the picnic idea probably amounted to racism. Victimless racism, but racism nonetheless.

The problem with the above depiction of Obama is that is was circulated to members of the community, as supposedly representing the organization's members. Of course, this kind of thing shows up all the time in Republican-affiliated newsletters and websites (here, here, here, here, and here). Appeals to racism generally work to the GOP's advantage. What made this story unique in my opinion, was the utterly moronic claim of ignorance on the part of the person responsible for the newsletter's circulation. Diane Fedele, president of the Chaffey Community Republican Women, said this of the illustration:

I didn't see it the way that it's being taken. I never connected. It was just food to me. It didn't mean anything else.

Yeah, no. Nobody is buying for a minute the idea that watermelon, fried chicken, ribs and Kool-Aid are "just food" whilst encircling a black man. There are times when I may be ignorant to racism. I'll hear someone cry racism and I say to myself, "Wow, really? That's racist? Good to know." Like apparently Jar Jar Binks was racist. Not a racist, mind you, but I guess the character invoked some unfortunate black stereotypes. I don't know. But this Obama Buck crap is different. I assure you if I were a contestant on the Pyramid, and my partner rattled off those four foods, I'd be like, "Dude, you had me at watermelon: Foods Black People Like to Eat!"

So don't sit there and try to tell people you didn't know it was a racial stereotype. Stop saying that you don't see the color of people's skin, only the character of their soul. Wait! Let me guess. You had a friend in college who was black, right? I knew it. Just stop it already. We get it. You're a racist. You thought it would be funny. You thought no one would say anything because they're all racists too. It's fine. Some people are just racists. Just stop telling people you didn't know any better, because fucking dogs knew that picture was racist.

Damn. Now I'm hungry.

UPDATE:

Tonight, Keith Olbermann named Diane Fedele his Worst Person in the World for her lame brained excuse given for circulating the racist newsletter.

Obama vs. McCain? Shit, the REAL debate is on YouTube

2008-10-14T13:03:00.000-07:00

When I began this blog, it was meant in large part to be a kind of centralized dumping site for all the online discussions and arguments in which I had become engaged. While it has strayed a bit from that ideal, I still like to include occasional commentary from online discussions I have had with Joe Righty (a moniker meant to encompass all right-wing bloggers/commentators with no official ties to mainstream or right-wing media).

As you may know, I utilize YouTube quite often as a primary source of documentary information. Occasionally I feel the urge to comment on a video or on someone else's comment. In researching my last post, Drinking the Sarah Palin Kool-Aid, I came across this gem mocking Palin's ignorance of crucial U.S. foreign policy concepts:

I found the following user comment disturbing and decided to leave a comment. Here is the comment, posted by user jimmyvan1775:

1.You can really tell a lot about a celebrity by their fans. You can also tell a lot about the fans by their choice of celebrity. This guy is a leftist idiot, a real tow the Democrat party line moron. He has the freedom to spew this kind of stupidity; others even have the right to believe it. However, lets remember that the Bush Doctrine has kept us safe to shop, work, go to movies, and yes watch retards like Maher

2. It was the Democrats, Bill Clinton, which treated terrorism as a criminal action rather than an act of war. As a result we enjoyed events such as the first bombing of the WTC, the bombing of our embassies, the bombing of the USS Cole, and the debacle that was Somalia, among other events. Now, in the waning years of the Bush administration, the left has to find a new village idiot. Sarah Palin has more backbone, brains, ands brawn, than the entire left-wing in this country.

I felt compelled to leave the following comment, hoping to set the record straight for the man:

Dude if you think attacking a country without the desire nor the means to attack the U.S. has kept us safe, then you also belong in the Category 5 Moron class. This is what is fundamentally wrong with Neo-conservatism. You believe that your right to shop and go to the movies is more important than an Iraqi citizen's right to be alive. That is an egotistical, reckless and deranged worldview. You wonder why al-Qaeda wants to attack us? Not for our freedoms, but for things like the Bush Doctrine.

Today, I was greeted by this reply from the incensed conservative:

YOU said, "Dude if you think attacking a country without the desire nor the means to attack the U.S. has kept us safe,"

Dude, I don’t think, I KNOW that sending troops into Iraq has KEPT the terrorist IN THE MIDDLE EAST fighting our solders THERE, and that has kept US safe HERE in the continental U.S.

YOU said, "then you also belong in the Category 5 Moron class."

Once again, for the real CAT. 5 Moron here, if we keep the Islamist (those are the bad guys in our story) in the Middle East, they can not set bombs in our backyards. President Bush and the military (those are the good guys) have done exactly that.

"This is what is fundamentally wrong with Neo-conservatism. You believe that your right to shop and go to the movies is more important than an Iraqi citizen's right to be alive."

First of all I am a CONSERVATIVE, none of this neo crap. As a part of my conservative beliefs, I think that when a group of people attack us and kill thousands, like say, I dunno, maybe THE TWINS TOWERS on SEPTEMBER THE ELEVENTH IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD TWO THOUSAND AND ONE, that give us the absolute RIGHT to kick the tail of ANY HUMAN BEIBNG or ORGINIZATION that is involved with these enemies in any way. By the way, we aren’t fighting and killing Iraqis, we are fighting and killing TERRORISTS that are in Iraq.

"That is an egotistical, reckless and deranged worldview."

What is truly egotistical, reckless, and deranged, is the worldview of idiots with no ability to rationally examine a situation and come to a logical conclusion is somehow given the status of true thought. I mean people that simply absorb the comments made by retards like Maher, are allowed to believe their words are just as valid as the words of someone who truly uses his or her mind.

"You wonder why al-Qaeda wants to attack us? Not for our freedoms, but for things like the Bush Doctrine."

You poor, poor, left wing propaganda casualty. They attack us because we aren’t like them. They attack us because we don’t call God Allah, and we pray whenever we feel like it, and some of us don’t pray at all. They hate us because we treat women with respect and not like dogs and slaves. What happened first? Did we preemptively, unilaterally, enter Iraq happen first? Or did the terror attacks on 9/11 happen first? How can they hate us for something that we had not even considered as a national policy at the time they did what they did? Confusing? Well, let’s make it clear. Al-Qaeda hates us for being us, and not them. As a result of this hatred they attacked us. We determined as a nation that we would find and kill or capture as many terrorist as we could. This led us into Iraq, and thus the “BUSH doctrine”.

Please do some research and thinking, maybe you can break the stranglehold the mainstream media and idiots like Maher have on your mind. Leave the dark side and come over to the light. You can do it!!!!

First, let me say that being smug ("You can do it!!!!") about something of which you are ignorant is neither endearing nor a good way to win an argument. That said, I would like to use this space to reply to the spirited post by jimmyvan1775.

"Once again, for the real CAT. 5 Moron here, if we keep the Islamist (those are the bad guys in our story) in the Middle East, they can not set bombs in our backyards. President Bush and the military (those are the good guys) have done exactly that."

This response represents what is fundamentally wrong with most proponents of aggressive military action. The "Good vs. Bad" and "Us vs. Them" scenarios are as inaccurate as they are juvenile. Foreign policy is not a fairy tale. There are not always well-defined good guys and bad guys. When you enter into a conflict believing you're on the "Good" side, then any action taken by that side is deemed infallible. Trust me, I wish global relations were that simple. I wish we were always right. But that kind of myopia is not only ignorant, it's also why many foreign countries despise the United States for our unrepentant unilateralism.

Second, the notion that "we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" is almost as ludicrous. The Right likes to point to the fact that we have not had a major domestic terrorist attack since the Iraq War began, as if that has prevented an attack. Fair enough. Assuming correlation equals causation, as the user has assumed, here are just a few other significant post-9/11 events that have also thwarted terrorism:

The New England Patriots win the Super Bowl three times (2002, 2004, 2005)
The last episode of "Friends" airs (May 2004)
Hurricane Katrina (August 2005)
Pluto redesignated as a dwarf planet (August 2006)
Martin Scorcese wins first Ocsar for The Departed (February 2007)
Barack Obama becomes first African American major-party presidential candidate (June 2008)
Michael Phelps wins 8 gold medals at Beijing Olympics (August 2008)

It is not any more preposterous to claim these events were related to 9/11 than to make that claim of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Yet right-wingers continue to assert these false links, which have even been debunked even by their own heroes:

September 2003: President Bush admits that there is "no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th."

June 2004: 9/11 Commission Report finds no link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda.

August 2004: Dick Cheney claims he never made Iraq-9/11 connection.

August 2006: Bush admits that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, then suggests that no one in the administration ever made that claim.

September 2006: Cheney admits there is no Iraq-9/11 connection.

Even if we could overlook the FACT that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, one would still have a difficult time making the argument that invading a sovereign Arab nation would make us safer here in the U.S. Just looking at the idea at face value, it's difficult to believe that motivated terrorists would stop planning coordinated 9/11 style attacks in favor of essentially becoming cannon fodder in Iraq. As if Osama bin Laden said, "You know...that 9/11 attack went pretty well for us, but what I think we need is to do is go to Iraq and be blown away by tank fire." Bin Laden may be a sociopath, but I give him more credit as a tactician than to believe that.

Of course, the difficulty in convincing Joe Righty using logic is that he often doesn't have the fundamental facts straight. He believes that all terrorists are irrational and only want to attack Americans because they "hate our freedoms." In believing that fallacy (which I will explain in more detail later), Joe Righty essentially feels that nothing the United States actually does will have any effect on the way these people view Americans. That being the case, the only way to prevent more terror is to kill ALL the terrorists, making America safer in the process. As you may have predicted, this is simply not the case. Expert assessments and actual U.S. intelligence have found that the U.S. presence in Iraq is inspiring terrorists and making the world and U.S. citizens less safe. Even General Petraeus, whose word conservatives value just slightly less than the word of God, could only muster an "I don't know" when asked if the Iraq strategy was making Americans safer.

Of course, even if one could claim that we're "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here," there are still a few obvious moral impediments. One, it's not really fair to Iraqi citizens for their country to be destabilized to the point of civil war so that the United States can outsource its terrorism problem. Imagine, if you could, that China is at war with some radical anti-Chinese element residing in Mexico. Imagine that the Chinese leader says (in his best Bill Lumbergh voice), "Hey, America. Yeah...see we've got this war-type thing going on with some guys down in Mexico, so if you could just...let us occupy your country for the next several years while we fight them. I hope you don't mind. Of course, many of them will cross over here to try and kill our soldiers, and in the process, many American civilians will die in the crossfire. But hey, we need to fight them here so we don't have to fight them at home. 'Mkay?"

The second obvious moral issue is the idea that a U.S. soldiers' death is worth less than the "potential" death of a U.S. civilian. Look, I understand that certain sacrifices are expected to be made when one dons the uniform. What makes the notion of preemptive war so ridiculous is the fact that in sending troops into the line of fire, some will certainly be killed. By comparison, there is no guarantee any Americans will die if troops are not sent into a preemptive battle. Given how shoddy the pre-war intelligence was (lies, exaggerations, forgeries, cherrypicking), what are the odds that a military death has actually saved a civilian life? Five percent? Ten? So much for "an eye for an eye." 3,000 Americans are killed in the 9/11 attacks, and what do we do? We send 4,000 more to die, create violent unrest in Iraq while Osama bin Laden remains a free man. And somehow people who question that strategy are called un-American.

First of all I am a CONSERVATIVE, none of this neo crap.

Not surprisingly, neoconservatives don't much care for that label, probably because of the negative connotation these philosophies have garnered in recent years. But make no mistake about it. "Nation-building" and aggressive foreign policy (i.e. the Bush Doctrine) are hallmarks of neoconservatism. Still not convinced? Here's what some prominent neocons have said about the Bush Doctrine:

William Kristol: "The world's a mess....The danger is not that we're going to do too much. The danger is that we're going to do too little."

Richard Perle: "So the message to Syria, to Iran, to North Korea, to Libya [four countries that have not attacked nor threatened the United States] should be clear. If we have no alternative, we are prepared to do what is necessary to defend Americans and others.

David Horowitz: "Today 'neo-conservatism' identifies those who believe in an aggressive policy against radical Islam and the global terrorists.

Paul Wolfowitz: "if we say our only problem was to respond to 9/11, and we wait until somebody hits us with nuclear weapons before we take that kind of threat seriously, we will have made a very big mistake."

Just because you don't like the label, it doesn't mean it isn't aptly applied.

As a part of my conservative beliefs, I think that when a group of people attack us and kill thousands, like say, I dunno, maybe THE TWINS TOWERS on SEPTEMBER THE ELEVENTH IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD TWO THOUSAND AND ONE, that give us the absolute RIGHT to kick the tail of ANY HUMAN BEIBNG or ORGINIZATION that is involved with these enemies in any way. By the way, we aren’t fighting and killing Iraqis, we are fighting and killing TERRORISTS that are in Iraq.

Again, Iraq was not at all involved with the September 11th attacks. The attacks were perpetrated almost entirely by Saudis, who received training in Afghanistan. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was a Kuwaiti living in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden was from Saudi Arabia. And you can't be so naive as to believe we are only fighting "terrorists" in Iraq. Exactly who we are fighting in Iraq is an extremely complex issue, as CNN's embedded reporter Michael Ware explains here. It is fairly common knowledge that the Iraqi insurgency began with the vacuum created by the removal of Saddam Hussein. Initially, the insurgency was born from a combination of Saddam loyalists, Iraqi nationalists (who resented U.S. occupation), disgruntled Iraqi military (whose unit's were disbanded under the Coalition Provisional Authority) and some Islamic radicals. We know that there now exists an al-Qaeda presence, but experts believe it represents a small percentage of the overall fighting, and did not come to be affiliated with al-Qaeda until 2004, after U.S. troops arrived.

Finally, to illustrate just how improbable is the idea that only "terrorists" have been killed in the Iraq War, one need only look at any of the estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths. Estimates run as high as 650,000 civilian casualties. Even if you take the Bush Administration's word for it and assume that only 30,000 Iraqis have died since 2003, that is still 30,000 civilians!!!! Not terrorists, but civilians, and by Bush's own admission. Of course, given the Bush administration's extensive war propaganda machine (here and here), the chance that their estimate is correct is highly unlikely. No one suggesting that the U.S. military gunned down 650,000 Iraqi civilians, only that these people would theoretically still be alive were it not for the American military presence in Iraq. I wonder if jimmyvan1775 remembers the sacrifices these people made when he goes shopping. Probably not.

What is truly egotistical, reckless, and deranged, is the worldview of idiots with no ability to rationally examine a situation and come to a logical conclusion is somehow given the status of true thought. I mean people that simply absorb the comments made by retards like Maher, are allowed to believe their words are just as valid as the words of someone who truly uses his or her mind.

I generally try to avoid making statements that, taken out of context would mean virtually nothing without a few key partisan words. For the sake of illustration, I'll break with tradition, and offer this critique of jimmyvan1775:

What is truly egotistical, reckless, and deranged, is the worldview of idiots with no ability to rationally examine a situation and come to a logical conclusion is somehow given the status of true thought. I mean people that simply absorb the comments made by retards like ~~Maher~~ Hannity, are allowed to believe their words are just as valid as the words of someone who truly uses his or her mind.

See what I mean? A virtually universal statement. Although I would submit that my argument has relied on a breadth of information from a variety of actual documented sources, while my conservative counterpart has (I can only assume) relied almost exclusively on Fox News talking points (hand delivered by the White House) to defend...well, the White House. What you find, when you actually fact check and diversify your information stream, is that the conclusions you are able to draw are invariably more valid.

They attack us because we aren’t like them. They attack us because we don’t call God Allah, and we pray whenever we feel like it, and some of us don’t pray at all. They hate us because we treat women with respect and not like dogs and slaves.

I also dealt with this topic several months back. The University of Maryland conducted a public policy survey entitled the 2008 Annual Arab Public Opinion Poll, a vast survey of the current attitudes of Arab citizens. The polling found that 80% of those surveyed based their opinions about the United States on "American Policy" compared to 12% who responded that "American Values" were most influential. For all we have heard about Muslims "hating freedom," these data really blow that idea out of the water. Certainly there exist some radical elements in the Arab world, and certainly, taken literally, the Koran can be seen as promoting violence against the "infidel". But again, these people represent a very small percentage. Besides, there are many non-Muslim nations throughout the world, often with more liberal societies than that of the United States. Yet it is the United States that, in the same survey, was viewed "Very Unfavorably" by 64% of the Arab world. Does anyone really believe that all this anti-U.S. animosity is created entirely from a disdain for American values? If that is the case, why don't we see similar anti-Chinese, anti-Italian or anti-Brazilian sentiment? They are just as non-Muslim as the United States. Is Brazil any less liberal a society than the United States? Is Italy any less free? The freedom-hating Muslim theory is one that has been debunked so many times, yet it somehow remains a belief espoused by many Americans.

What happened first? Did we preemptively, unilaterally, enter Iraq happen first? Or did the terror attacks on 9/11 happen first? How can they hate us for something that we had not even considered as a national policy at the time they did what they did?

Those are all great rhetorical questions. However, since we have already seen that 9/11 had nothing to do with the Iraq War, these questions are reduced to mere historical trivia rather than the cause and effect relationship the author had hoped to establish. Here are a few more rhetoricals, but this time, with that relationship.

What happened first, September 11th or the Reagan-era bombings of Lybia?

What happened first, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing or U.S. support of Israel?

What happened first, the U.S.-led coup in Iran and subsequent installation of a puppet government or the Iran hostage crisis of the early 1980's?

In each case, of course, U.S. foreign policy preceeded the terrorist act. Why is there a causal relationship between these events? Because the terrorists that carried out these acts actually said what their motivations were. In fact, in the last several hundred years, I'm not sure there has ever been a terrorist attack on the United States that was the result of hatred of our values. This idea is an invention of the mainstream media and the U.S. government, as a means of deflecting guilt away from our own past military escapades. That is certainly not to say that these terrorist attacks were justified by any means. It says that ignoring the terrorists' motivations and writing off attacks as acts of lunacy does nothing to help thwart future attacks.

We determined as a nation that we would find and kill or capture as many terrorist as we could. This led us into Iraq, and thus the “BUSH doctrine”.

I might have to re-read my history book, but I always thought we went to fight in Afghanistan because we were trying to fight and kill terrorists. By the Bush administration's own admission, the Iraq war has at various times been about liberating the Iraqi people, deposing a brutal dictator, finding the WMD's, and was a mission from God.

And the notion that "we determined as a nation" to go to war with Iraq is highly suspect. Look at how the nation feels today. As the public came to understand the costs and learned that the justifications for war were flimsy if not outright lies, people withdrew support for the war. Currently 65% oppose the war and only 39% feel we were right to invade Iraq. Certainly the war had more support in the beginning, even in congress. Yet in October 2002 (a month before a congressional election), despite the fact the president and intelligence experts were telling congress that Iraq had nukes and that and Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks, 23 Senators and 133 Members of the House boldly voted not to authorize U.S. military involvement in Iraq. So we certainly did not go to war "as a nation" but rather as a nation divided. Once the holes emerged in the pre-war intelligence, support for the war dwindled dramatically and was the primary reason for the 2006 shift of power in congress.

Please do some research and thinking, maybe you can break the stranglehold the mainstream media and idiots like Maher have on your mind. Leave the dark side and come over to the light. You can do it!!!!

Well, I decided to take him up on this little challenge. How'd I do? I certainly outdid him on the research aspect, but let's examine the question of "thinking" for a bit. Which would you say requires more thinking?

- Constructive criticism or name-calling ("idiots", "retard")

- Relativism and objectivity or "Good Guys" versus "Bad Guys"

- Careful, documented analysis or regurgitation of GOP talking points

Naturally, the options in blue exhibit more sound reasoning than the chest-pounding, knee-jerk type of responses seen in red.

Perhaps most disappointing about jimmyvan1775's post is the fact that he never quite addresses the main point of my comment, the critique of his claim that Americans should have the right to shop and go to the movies even if it means the deaths of many innocent people. I suppose my opponent would counter by claiming that no innocent Iraqi was killed, as all Iraqis are terrorists. Really? Even the women and children? They were all terrorists too, huh?

Finally, a few words now for jimmyvan1775:

Whether or not you choose to believe it, yours is an insulated worldview, shared by an ever-dwindling number of like-minded individuals. In fact, we are both in the minority with respect to our views on the Iraq War. I opposed the war from the beginning. You still support it now. In between, 35% of Americans withdrew their initial support for the war, with about 60% currently opposed, according to Gallup polling. Only about 40% support the war. Who are these people? Basically, they are the ill-informed, or should I say, misinformed. Despite the notion being debunked by the 9/11 commission and the Bush administration, 30% of Americans still believe Saddam was "personally involved" in the 9/11 attacks. In an internet world where information is so readily available, how are so many Americans so wrong about major current events? Is it stubbornness? Intellectual laziness? Fox News? Whatever the cause, Americans need to start allying themselves with the facts rather than blindly following the leader. The United States was founded on dissent. The founding fathers saw it necessary to include freedom of speech, freedom of the press and checks and balances to dissuade groupthink from stifling dissent. Because of these allowances, the truth about the Iraq War has come out and many Americans have changed their minds. Certainly you too are allowed dissent from the mainstream and continue to tow the GOP party line, but why would you? Why cling to beliefs that are just not true? Do you still believe the Earth is flat? Do you still think slavery was moral? Do you still think witches ought to be burned? Assuming the answer to each is no, why do you still cling to the idea that the Iraq War has anything to do with September 11th or making Americans safer? In this age of information, you have every opportunity to acquaint yourself with the truth. I humbly implore you to do so.

You can do it!!!!

Drinking the Sarah Palin Kool-Aid

2008-10-08T16:19:00.000-07:00

When John McCain picked Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate on August 29th, the campaign got a quick jolt of energy from the party's social conservative base, resulting in a momentary boost in the polls. This initial energy was met almost immediately with very pertinent questions about Palin's qualifications to hold the highest political office in the country. Since then, opinion of the governor has been on the decline, spurred on by her "Bridge to Nowhere" lies, the "Troopergate" scandal, her daughter's "shotgun weddin'", dead moose carcases, speaking in tongues, book burning, and a seemingly endless supply of public gaffes that would make Miss Teen South Carolina blush. As a result, the McCain campaign has seen a 5 percentage point lead in Gallup polling turn into a 9 point deficit.

So if McCain doesn't exactly have a Palin Problem, at best his campaign has seen zero net effect from her joining the ticket. The idea that Palin is not qualified to be President of the United States is hardly a matter of opinion. Holding office as governor of a small state and mayor of a very small town do not make an impressive resume. Say what you will about Barack Obama's lack of experience, but at least he has had experience at the national level. I would prefer a candidate with four years in the U.S. Senate to one with fifty years as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. Public opinion seems to agree. 57% of those surveyed in a October 3 CNN poll said that Sarah Palin was not qualified to serve as president, compared to 18% who felt the same about Joe Biden. (It is interesting to note the very low number for Biden here. Almost any poll conducted about a candidate's likability, favorability, or readiness typically skews along party lines, with results usually falling between the 35% and 60% levels. Biden's 18% - compared to 80% who believe he IS qualified - is a staggeringly low number. This means a lot of Republicans swallowed their pride and admitted Biden is indeed prepared for the job and Sarah Palin is not.)

Certainly Obama's credentials can be debated. I would even feel more comfortable if he had one more term in the Senate. But when John McCain (the same John McCain who has cancer and would be the oldest president ever to take office) selected a first term governor of Alaska as his running mate, experience, for all practical purposes, was taken off the table. After all, who in their right mind would say that an already embattled first term governor from the nation's 47th most populous state is more qualified to lead the United States than a man who taught constitutional law for 12 years, was a state senator and community organizer from the third most populous city in the country, and served in the U.S. Senate for four years?

The answer, of course, is no one. No one in their right mind, that is. That hasn't prevented the radical right from not only coming to the defense of the flailing Palin, but from engaging on some sort of Palin worship that truly boggles the mind. Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt is currently working on a book entitled, How Sarah Palin Won the Election ... and Saved America. Another conservative pundit, Randall H. Nunn, had this observation: Sarah Palin is "quite possibly the strongest candidate conservatives have seen since Ronald Reagan." What? Not better than Reagan? So you can see the kind of derangement I'm talking about. That said, I give you my Top 7 Most Ridiculous Things said in Defense of Sarah Palin:

7. Palin is a "real person" and that qualifies her to be President. Ironically, Republicans seem to love Sarah Palin because there is nothing exceptional about her. When news of Palin's pregnant 17 year old daughter was announced, Republicans lined up to praise Palin for it. The pregnancy made Palin "a real person like all the rest of us" and "show[ed] the Republican Party is a real American party," according to two RNC delegates. Conservative pundit Frank Salvato more eloquently stated Palin's qualifications thusly:

At this, our country’s most critical hour, when irreverent forces – both foreign and domestic – strive to destroy our nation, we should all be thankful that a real American, with real life experience as a citizen and a patriot’s love of country, chooses to exercise civic responsibility.

You can almost hear "Battle Hymn of the Republic" in the background. New York Times contributer Judith Warner summed up the right's affection for "real people" over qualified people in her blog:

One of the worst poisons of the American political climate right now, the thing that time and again in recent years has led us to disaster, is the need people feel for leaders they can “relate” to.

Or, as Bill Maher less eloquently put it, "shit-kickers voted twice for a retarded guy they wanted to have a beer with and everybody else had to suffer the consequences." As long as the GOP continues to lose on the issues, they will frame this election as "The Real People" versus "The Elitists." Of course, the Democrats could just as easily frame the election as "The Smart People" versus "The Dumb People" or "The Wrong Ideas" versus "The Right Ideas," but they shouldn't have to. Being "elite" is not a bad thing, nor does it make one an elitist. No offense to all the "real people" out there (a group to which I also belong), but let's leave the job of governing the greatest power in the world to the elites this time.

6. Defending censorship. Michelle Malkin posted on her website an entry entitled, "The Bogus Sarah Palin Banned Books List," assailing an obviously phony list circulating the internet after evidence of Sarah Palin's desire to ban books as mayor of Wasilla surfaced. The problem with Malkin's rescue effort: nowhere does she refute the story that Palin tried to ban books, only that the "list" was a fake. And she does so with such self-satisfaction as to make one's stomach turn. Palin's book-banning is a story that I don't think has gotten nearly enough traction. She later tried to terminate the librarian who opposed banning books. After a public outcry, Palin backed down, claiming the librarian was marked for termination because she was friendly to her opponent in the most recent mayoral election. A couple of things to take from this episode. One, the book banning allegations have not been sufficiently debunked. Two, I seriously doubt there was hardcore porn on the shelves at the Wasilla Library. Chances are, Palin was seeking to censor books with an anti-Christian or anti-Conservative message. Three, you know you're small potatoes when you send a political payback message to the town librarian. I hope the janitors at city hall support Palin if they value their jobs.

5. The faux outrage over Obama's "lipstick on a pig" comment. Even though John McCain and other politicians have used the common expression, many claimed it was directed at Sarah Palin. Of course, Obama was talking about McCain's policies, not Palin, but the McCain campaign and the right-wing media went forward with the outrage anyway. Jane Swift, head of the "Palin Truth Squad," seemed to think it was crystal clear: "Senator Obama uttered what I can only describe to be disgusting comments, comparing our vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, to a pig." Swift also noted that "she's the only one of the four presidential candidates or vice-presidential candidates who wears lipstick." Well, that's good enough for me. Here's the entire right-wing thought process on this one (in your best caveman voice): "Palin say lipstick. Obama say lipstick. Me mad!!!"

Right-wing tough guy Sean Hannity maintained the faux outrage even after guest Mike Huckabee refuted the claim. September 9th on Hannity and Colmes, the clip of Palin's hockey mom/pit bull knee-slapper was played immediatly preceeding the Obama "lipstick" comment. After Huckabee explained the ubiquity of the expression, Hannity insisted that, "He's talking about Sarah Palin," and it's "naive and irresponsible" to believe otherwise.

This phony "pig" controversy is made even more ridiculous by the fact that it's being feuled by the campaign of a man who actually joked about the physical appearance of a political opponent's teenaged daughter:

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno."
-John McCain, 1998

4. Palin's bogus foreign policy credentials. Perhaps the most hilarious defense of Sarah Palin is the idea that Alaska's geographic proximity to eastern Russia somehow gives her adequate foreign policy experience to be President. First, how does physical proximity yield experience? I live down the street from a hospital, but I wouldn't say I'm qualified to be a doctor. Yet Palin herself made this moronic claim, after the right began repeating it ad nauseum. Fox's Steve Doocy made the claim on Fox and Friends on August 29th (the day Palin was nominated), saying, "she does know about international relations because she is right up there in Alaska right next door to Russia." A few days later, Cindy McCain repeated it. Then John McCain said it. Even if Palin's foreign policy theory were true, it would only be helpful if the U.S. were to enter into a conflict with Russia (or, I suppose, Canada). As Palin will soon learn, there are 190 other countries in the world, many of which share no border with the United States.

3. Criticism of Palin = sexism. Let's get one thing perfectly clear: if Barack Obama had chosen Hillary Clinton as his running mate, no one outside of Alaska would know who Sarah Palin is. McCain certainly could have chosen Mike Huckabee or Sam Brownback if he really wanted to appeal to the Christian conservative base. He chose Palin because she is a woman, plain and simple. That is the very essense of sexism. But to hear the right tell it, it's not the selection of Palin but the often well-deserved criticism of her that is sexist. Rush Limbaugh claimed that the ethics investigation into Palin's firing of an Alaska State Trooper is "pure sexism." That's right. Investigating a woman is sexist, according to Limbaugh. The sexism claims don't stop there. McCain advisor Carly Fiorina cried sexism after the SNL's initial portrayal of Governor Palin (played by that chauvanist pig Tina Fey). Dick Morris was lampooned by Jon Stewart for his Palin-Hillary double-standard. Speaking of the initial Palin media frenzy, Morris claimed that "a man would never have had to go through this." Except several months earlier he essentially said that if Hillary Clinton couldn't take the heat, she should get back in the kitchen. The bottom line is that Sarah Palin is woefully unqualified to be President, and it has nothing to do with gender. Like the "lipstick on a pig" fake controversy, the phony sexist outrage seems almost choreographed by the McCain campaign and the right wing media. It's now beginning to look like Palin was chosen to allow the campaign to play the gender card.

2. Palin Derangement Syndrome (PDS). At some point shortly after the Republican National Convention, right-wing talking heads were dispatched with the identical message that critics of Sarah Palin - her experience, her intelligence, her political views or her campaign tactics - have no logical basis for such criticism. It's virtually identical to Bush Derangement Syndrome, an idea put forth to shield George W. Bush from frequently warranted criticism. It's the idea that any criticism of a Bush is spawned from irrational hatred of the man, not his actions, abilities or beliefs. Michelle Malkin was out in front of this one, first claiming PDS after news surfaced that a pregnant Palin had boarded a plane for Alaska after her water broke in Texas, hardly an obstetric recommendation. On September 12, John Fund of the Wall Street Journal cried PDS on Bill Maher in defense of Palin's embarrassing interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson. On September 18, Cinnamon Stillwell of The San Francisco Chronicle (yes, apparently it's possible to be named Cinnamon and not be a stripper) gave an ominous warning to PDS-stricken Democrats that "a public backlash over perceived media bias against Palin may be brewing." If that is the case, this brew is taking quite a while to ferment. It has been three weeks since Stillwell's prediction, a period that has seen the percentage of people that feel Palin is qualified to be President drop from 50% to 43%. So, if anything, Palin Derangement Syndrome more aptly describes those on the right who still feel Sarah Palin is a qualified candidate for national office. What PDS really is is an effort to group all criticism of Sarah Palin, warranted or otherwise, under the same umbrella and write it off as sheer lunacy.

1. Sarah Palin is more qualified that Barack Obama. Say what you will about Obama's relative lack of experience, but compared to Obama, Palin looks like a small-town mayor. Oh, well, yes, I guess that's what she is. Poor analogy. But check out some of these fanatical statements:

McCain staffer Jill Hazelbaker: "She has a record of accomplishment that Senator Obama simply cannot match."

Rudy Giuliani: "She had to make decisions....All Senator Obama has had to do is talk. That's all he does.”

Rush Limbaugh: "She's more qualified than Barack Obama....He has not done one thing to qualify himself to be President of the United States."

Randall Nunn of The New Media Alliance: "Governor Palin understands the Bill of Rights better than this Harvard trained elitist."

Much of the Republican's claim hinges on the idea that one must hold an executive capacity to be a great president. One need not have any experience in national politics, but being a state governor and having "executive" experience is really what counts. Of course, very recently we have enjoyed the presidency of someone who was governor for a longer period of time from a much larger state, coupled with vast executive experience at the corporate level. His name was George W. Bush, and we all know how that ended up. (in case you're unaware, Bush's approval rating has recently polled as low as 22%.) Republicans are now suggesting that someone not as qualified as Bush on the same experience assessment is somehow more qualified than Barack Obama. Good luck with that one.

More "Shady" Tactics by the GOP

2008-10-03T16:41:00.000-07:00

You really have to admire the ingenuity of the Republican Party. When the typical assortment of innuendo, spin, demonization, ad hominem, flag-waving and fear-mongering aren't enough, Republicans get creative. This week Open Left and Think Progress both covered a story about a rather brash Republican smear campaign launched by embattled congressman Virgil Goode. The campaign ran an ad (video here) literally altering their opponent's physical appearance.

The Democratic challenger, Tom Perriello is portrayed in the ad as a bearded, swarthy, sinister character. What's the problem, you ask? Only that Perriello doesn't really look like that.

As you can see (above picture comes from Perriello's own campaign website), Perriello has light brown hair and what might easily be called a fair complexion. So who's that menacing rogue pictured in the smear ad? Well, it's Tom Perriello, at a time when he was unfortunate enough to be photographed with a beard. Run the pic through Photoshop, add an ominous soundtrack and voila! A friendly-looking white guy becomes Lucifer personified. Here's what I'm talking about:

Above are the doctored image and the source image side by side. But let's forget for a minute how they doctored Perriello's appearance and instead focus on why they did it. I think that is fairly straightforward. Most voters in Virginia's 5th congressional district probably don't know what Tom Perriello looks like. If Virgil Goode can make people believe that some dark, hairy weirdo with (gasp!) a foreign-sounding surname is coming from New York to depose their congressman, it's probably to Goode's advantage. One could certainly argue that physically altering your opponent's appearance in a smear ad might not be the most virtuous path to re-election. Time and time again, however, Republicans seem to get away with this garbage, and this year will likely be no different.

Probably more disturbing than the utter lack of ethical constraint on the part of the Virgil Goode camp is the very blatant political fear-mongering this stunt represents. Republicans have often resorted to racist and xenophobic innuendo in political campaign ads. Why should this year be any exception. The dark, bearded and/or mustachioed and possibly foreign antagonist is an archetype whose connotations have been strengthened even more by recent U.S. history. Archetype? What archetype? Glad you asked.

There are the modern villains, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden:

Then we get into the realm of fictional and/or historical villains. Why not start with pirates:

Captain Jack Sparrow

Edward Teach (aka "Blackbeard")

Captain Hook

Captain Morgan

Then we move to famous cartoon villains:

Brutus/Bluto from Popeye

Stromboli from Pinocchio

Jafar from Aladdin

Captain Hook, once more

Duke Igthorn from Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears

Wario

And finally some archetypal villains of no particular classification:

The Sheriff of Nottingham

Count Rugan (aka, "The Six-Fingered Man") from The Princess Bride

"Evil" Spock

Andy from Pee Wee's Big Adventure

I guess my issue with this campaign tactic is not so much the dishonesty or lax ethics. What is truly disturbing is the idea that in 21st century American politics, a major party candidate feels the need to appeal to ignorance, xenophobia and racism in order to secure victory. Of course, even if Tom Perriello actually did look like Stromboli, that's still no reason not to vote for him. But evidently Virgil Goode doesn't think very highly of the voters in his congressional district. He believes these people are more likely to react to sinister images of his opponent than to vote on character or issues. In an election year that has seen a floundering American economy and two stagnant wars, that is an extremely cynical assessment of American political will.

On the September 12, 2008 edition of his HBO talk show, Bill Maher defined cynicism as it relates to the token nomination of Sarah Palin:

A real cynic is someone...who knows better but knows that the stupid people don't. They know what the dumb people don't but they know that somebody like that [Palin] can get over on the dumb people.

Virgil Goode certainly fits this definition of cynicism. Who knows? Maybe he's right. Maybe the best way to get elected to political office is to trick your constituency. One would hope, however, that this type of campaigning backfires on the GOP. One would hope for a voter revolt of sorts, where people simply say, enough already. We're tired of being talked down to. We're tired of being frightened into voting Republican. We're tired of Republicans assuming we hate foreigners and wierd names. Impeding this "revolt," unfortunately, is the fact that this Karl Rove style of campaigning usually works. As long as it works, I don't expect Republicans to stop employing it. So it's up to voters themselves to wise up. It really doesn't matter if Tom Perriello looks like a dark-skinned foreigner or whether Barack Obama has a peculiar sounding name. Here's a general rule you might want to follow: If Virgil Goode's attack ad makes you more likely to vote for Virgil Goode, then you probably shouldn't be voting.

Isn't It Ironic...

2008-09-24T23:09:00.000-07:00

The many faces of John McCain

During the course of the 2008 presidential campaign, John McCain has reversed course on more issues than one can count. Today, however, McCain outdid even himself when he called for a suspension of his campaign to deal with the present economic crisis. Actually, I would assert that McCain's announcement to return to the Senate is really more irony than inconsistency.

Irony #1: Just last week, McCain, amid a catastrophic meltdown in the financial sector, claimed that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." Today, McCain referred to the same economic environment as an "historic crisis." While leaders like McCain and President Bush have ignored the economic warning signs for months, McCain now seeks to claim that he's the one out in front of this issue. That's quite a bold attempt, considering McCain and his GOP buddies were complicit in stripping our financial system of the very safeguards that are meant to prevent this kind of thing from happening in the first place.

Irony #2: The idea that McCain wants to suspend political activities to get work done in the Senate is, in a word, laughable. McCain has not cast a single vote in the Senate since April 10th. By comparison, Barack Obama has voted 99 times since Senator McCain's last vote. McCain has missed a whopping 64% of Senate votes since the 110th Congress was sworn in January of 2007, by far the most of anyone in the Senate. In fact, the only other members of the Senate missing more than 15% of votes either ran for president (Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Sam Brownback) or had severe health issues (Tim Johnson, brain hemorrhage, and Ted Kennedy, brain cancer). McCain hasn't felt the need to show up for work for five and a half months, yet now is calling on a suspension of the 2008 campaign to fix a failing economy his party was responsible for creating. I guess that might be funny is it weren't so reprehensible.

Irony #3: Last week, Senator McCain dismissed Obama's concerns over the crashing economy as "political opportunism." If that was indeed the case, McCain has taken that opportunism to a whole new level. By "beat[ing] Obama to the punch" as the Associated Press put it, McCain has in essence forced Obama to either suspend his campaign and risk looking like a Johnny-come-lately, or go ahead with the campaign and be seen as insensitive to the economic crisis. Jumping at an opportunity to put your opponent in a political paradox is the very epitome of "political opportunism".

I think Obama did the right thing in refusing to suspend the campaign. Of the two options, he chose the one that made him look like more of a leader than a follower. Plus he got in that little jab about being able to "deal with more than one thing at once." The ultimate irony - and the reason I believe McCain is taking this siesta - is that by going back to congress to "work on the economy," he won't have to answer as many difficult questions about the economy.

Ten Ways Democrats Can Avoid Losing Yet Another Election

2008-09-19T10:23:00.000-07:00

Silver medalists (L-R) Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore and Kerry

The Republican National Convention and the fervor created by the nomination of Sarah Palin has turned the 2008 Presidential Election into quite a barnburner. Barack Obama, who has at several times enjoyed as much as a 9-point lead in Gallup polling over rival Republican nominee John McCain, now finds himself in a virtual dead heat with the Arizona Senator.

This should be especially disturbing for Democrats, given that the political climate could hardly be better. An unpopular war, an unpopular president, a floundering economy and a skyrocketing national debt are just a few of the factors in the Democrats' favor. Coupled with the fact that the Democrats have nominated a fresh, exciting and change-oriented candidate in Obama, the Democrats should be burying an old, uninspiring, politically entrenched, retread of a candidate like John McCain. But they're not. Somehow McCain has convinced 45% of the electorate that he and the Republicans are the agents of change. He has convinced them that a woefully inexperienced Governor of very average intellect is qualified to run the United States. (Come on, John. We know why you picked her. You can stop pretending she's qualified now.)

So whatever the reasons are for the Democrats' current predicament, I believe there are ways they can recapture the energy of Denver and possibly win in a November landslide. So if I were advising the Obama campaign (no, seriously, are there any openings?), here's what I would propose:

1. Ignore Sarah Palin

Democrats need to treat Governor Palin as a non-entity. Much to my own surprise, the national media has shown thus far that they are interested in Palin and will not let her lies, scandals and outrageous views go unnoticed. But Palin is not the candidate. John McCain is rife with inconsistencies, bad policies, conflicts of interest, and deep-rooted Washington entrenchment. McCain not only is an easier target, but attacking him doesn't bear as much risk of backlash. Excessive questioning of Palin's credentials could lead some to feel she's being unfairly treated or bullied. Democrats don't want to make a martyr of a "good Christian" rural mother of five. Democrats need to treat Palin as they would treat a rumor about Obama being a Muslim: ignore it, or risk lending credence to it by addressing it. When Republican Senator Larry Craig called a press conference to announce that "I am not gay.... I never have been gay," people must have come away saying, "You know what? I bet he's gay." (of course, if Sen. Craig was gay, he could always visit Sarah Palin's church to get "converted.")

2. Get the Clintons out there

Hillary Clinton may still be stewing over her narrow defeat in the Democratic primary, but she needs to get over it, and soon. I know the Clintons both spoke at the convention, and that's nice. But they need to really get busy for the sake of their party and to ensure that the Clinton legacy is not permanently dismantled by another Republican administration. The Clinton's have the ability to do the following:

Appeal to Southern and moderate voters. Bill Clinton was successful in 1992 and 1996 because he was seen as a centrist and had credentials in the South. 2008 marks one of the extremely rare occurrences in American politics where there has not been someone from the South or the rural Midwest on either ticket. And Bill is in the rare position to say, "Hey, I know moderate. John McCain is no moderate."

Bring Hillary loyalists to the Obama side. Hillary Clinton has scores of followers who appear to have been more interested in electing a woman than electing a Democrat. Hillary needs to show how similar she and Obama are and how distant the McCain-Palin ticket is from either of them.

Attack Sarah Palin. Oddly enough, this parody on SNL made me realize something. Hillary is probably the only person who can attack Palin with impunity. At the very least, she is the position to be the most effective critic of the Alaska Governor. Despite the fact that Obama and Palin have both been criticized for inexperience, religious affiliations, family, patriotism and sex education, some on the right have argued that criticism of Palin is purely a result of sexism. Hillary has the ability to criticize Palin without being viewed as sexist and hopefully make American women realize that the selection of Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate is itself a blatantly sexist act. (further reading on this here and here.)

3. Dumb it down a little

As the enthusiasm over Sarah Palin has demonstrated, Americans aren't going to be voting with their brains any time soon. That is the unfortunate reality for Obama, who is without a doubt a brilliant man. The Columbia University and Harvard Law graduate, former editor of the Harvard Law Review, and former Constitutional Law professor at the University of Chicago probably has the combined McCain-Palin ticket beat in terms of IQ points. McCain ranked 894 of 899 students in his class at the US Naval Academy. Palin attended four different schools, including two stints at the University of Idaho, before attaining her Bachelor's degree in communications. It's not that Barack Obama is too smart to be president. On the contrary, I would argue that one can't be smart enough for that job. His problem is that he's too smart for people who would vote for John McCain.

The average voter doesn't get that increased domestic oil drilling will have no immediate effect, very little long-term effect, and will get us no closer to developing cleaner, renewable energy sources. They don't understand that unregulated capitalism leads to the kind of economic disasters we are seeing this week. They don't see how blunders in foreign policy have eroded the global goodwill the U.S. has been building for a century. In essence, they don't understand cause and effect very well, and don't want some politician lecturing them about it. It's sad, but true. Obama needs to hit people with a barrage of "problem-solution" scenarios. There are plenty of problems that need solving, and people generally want a quick fix. Don't tell people all the most intricate details of a solution, how long it will take or how much it will cost. Just tell them it will work.

4. Focus on the economy

McCain this week criticized Obama, calling Obama's assessment of the crashing Bush economy, "political opportunism." Notice how McCain didn't say Obama's assessment was wrong, or offer any solution other than setting up a "commission" to study the current economic crisis. Imagine if the 9/11 Commission was formed as the planes were about to strike the World Trade Center. I'm pretty sure the planes would have still hit their target, just as a commission on the economy will not likely deter this current economic free fall. In fact, as Lehman Bros., Merrill Lynch and AIG were collapsing, McCain reiterated his claim that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." The resulting echoes of laughter must have reached McCain's ears, as he quickly redefined these "fundamentals" as "American workers, innovation, entrepreneurship," bizarrely suggesting that criticism of the economy is akin to criticism of working people. See for yourself:

The point of course, is that John McCain knows next to nothing about the economy, and what he does know is wrong. For example, McCain's chief economic advisor and likely Treasury Secretary Phil Gramm was instrumental in ushering in a new age of financial deregulation and corporate loopholes. Obama needs to show who is responsible for the current economic meltdown, and let the American people know that, aside from the Iraq War, economic policy is where Bush and McCain are probably most similar.

5. Grill McCain on his houses

Various reports have concluded that the McCains own somewhere between seven and nine houses. The Obamas own one. This topic is not simply a personal attack and is very much fair game for the Obama campaign to use. For one, McCain is touting himself as the populist while calling Obama an "elitist." This is almost hysterical, given McCain's aforementioned real estate empire, the fact that he believes only those making more than $5 million are rich, and - hello??? - he's a Republican, the party that for decades has committed itself to making life easier for the super rich at the expense of the middle class. Despite these facts, McCain is still going to try to claim that he's the guy that supports the middle class. Obama needs to mention the 7+ houses whenever it is appropriate and often when it is not. People aren't that stupid. If someone with nine houses says he's in touch with the plight of the middle class, he's lying, and people will know he's lying if they know he has nine houses.

6. Grill McCain on his staff of lobbyists

For reasons unknown to me, John McCain has somehow been able to make a lot of people believe he is a "Maverick," an "Agent of Change" and someone who will clean up Washington. This is highly suspicious given the fact that so many current and former lobbyists are employed in key positions on McCain's campaign staff. Here are just a few:

Rick Davis: campaign manager, partner at lobbying firm Davis, Manafort & Freedman.

Charlie Black: chief campaign adviser, former chairman of lobbying firm BKSH & Associates.

John Green: campaign liason to Washington, current lobbyist for the firm Ogilvy Government Relations

Frank Donatelli: Deputy Chairman of the RNC, former lobbyist for McGuireWoods Consulting.

Randy Scheunemann: foreign affairs advisor, registered lobbyist for the Republic of Georgia.

In fact, according to the website, Mccainsource.com, the candidate has had 133 current or former lobbyists working at various levels in his campaign, many sporting conflicts of interest with either the candidate or the country. And if McCain gets elected, what happens to these high-level lobbyists? They become high-level members of the President's cabinet or staff, giving lobbying firms people on the inside.

For Obama, this one shouldn't be at all difficult. People don't like lobbyists and they don't like hypocrites. By cramming his staff with the former, the Maverick has become the latter. Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington put it this way: "The problem for McCain being so closely associated with lobbyists is that he's the candidate most closely associated with attacking lobbyists."

7. Grill McCain on his flip-flops

Back in 2004, Republicans painted John Kerry as a flip-flopper. That, along with with smearing a decorated war veteran and "fixing" things in Ohio and Florida, helped the Republicans win a close election. McCain's flip-flopping is legendary. If there ever was an example of a politician that will say anything to get elected, it's this guy. More complete lists can be found here or here, but here are some of the highlights:

Religion: McCain, who once called Reverends Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson "agents of intolerance," actively sought the endorsement of Paster John Hagee, an equally bombastic Christian ideologue. In an April 2008 interview with ABC's George Stephanopolous, McCain said it was a mistake to accept the Hagee endorsement, then later said he was "glad to have" it.

Taxes: McCain opposed the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. Now he promises to expand those tax cuts, even amid an economic meltdown.

Economy: In the midst of this week's economic debacle, McCain flip-flopped on regulation in less than an hour. He said "I don’t like excessive and unnecessary...government regulation." Later he said "Do I believe in excess government regulation? Yes."

Immigration: McCain said in January that he would not vote for his own immigration bill he sponsored in 2006.

McCain's flip-flops are especially damning for his campaign because they almost all involve him flopping to the right. McCain the Maverick has built his brand image on bucking his own party, yet in the race for the White House, the GOP seems to have been successful in reigning him in. Obama needs to expose McCain as the master panderer that he is, essentially a political nomad loyal to everyone and to no one.

8. Indirectly attack McCain's age

Obviously Democrats can't explicitly call McCain "too old". They need to imply that he is too old. The two best ways to do that are to stress McCain's public gaffes (i.e., "senior moments") and his ridiculous aversion to technology. All political candidates make verbal errors over the course of a year-long campaign. McCain, however, has really outdone himself this election cycle. He has confused Sunni and Shia. He has mixed up his economic regulatory agencies. He said the Sunni awakening in Iraq was caused by the "surge," when that was not remotely the case. He claimed that Iraq and Pakistan share a border. (They don't) Recently, he started discussing Latin America and Mexico when a reporter asked him about U.S. relations with Spain. Whether these are merely "senior moments" or evidence of a deep lack of understanding we may never know, but either way, this is not good for McCain.

McCain's bizarre disdain for technology is not as widely reported as it should be. I'm not saying a presidential candidate must have a Nintendo Wii and a Blue Ray player before I will vote for him. But in the most industrialized nation in the world, is it too much to ask for the president to be able to use email? It's clear that McCain's technology gap could pose problems in November. As one GOP strategist put it, “If I were counseling John McCain, I would have him standing in line for an iPhone.” Again, inability and/or unwillingness to adopt technology that has been around for 20 years may not be to the benefit of McCain either as presidential candidate or as president. Since he has admitted publicly to being "illiterate," this illiteracy is fair game for the Obama campaign to use to paint the broader picture of a candidate that needs to be put out to pasture.

9. Get people talking about his temper

Most politicians and Washington insiders have known about McCain's nasty streak for some time. From obscenity-laced tirades on the floor of the senate, threats of physical violence aimed at political opponents, and even dropping the "C-bomb" on his own wife, McCain has proven to have a very short fuse. Apparently he once got into a Senate floor fight with a 95-year old Strom Thurmond. Needless to say, a hot-head in the White House is the last thing the country needs. While Obama can't explicitly attack McCain's temper, he needs to find a way to get it out there. In the debates, Obama should try to get under his skin a little and see if he can elicit an outburst. Hey, if Obama is lucky, he may even get a racist eruption from the Arizona senator. Cha-ching!

10. Remind voters that McCain is a Republican

Comparisons of John McCain to George W. Bush may be fairly accurate, but that strategy has seen mixed results for Democrats. According to A CNN poll conducted last week, only 53% of those surveyed felt that McCain would carry on the policies of the current president. If a McCain victory really means a third Bush term, the public isn't buying it. It's as though McCain has acheived a public opinion that more closely associates him with his self-invented "Maverick" brand than with his own political party. If Democrats want to win back the White House, this perception needs to change. The fact that McCain is fleeing the disastrously unpopular Bush presidency indicates that he knows Bush won't be an asset to his campaign. What the Democrats have to do is simplify things. Instead of endlessly dissecting Senate votes and policy positions, Dems need to put it this way: George Bush is a Republican. John McCain is a Republican. Therefore, George Bush = John McCain. While extremes certainly exists within political parties, what gives the major parties their strength is their unity on a vast number of issues. If McCain really had a 50/50 chance of bucking his own party, as Americans now believe, that would potentially fracture the Republican party as we know it. Anyone who believes the Maverick will come out once John McCain is elected doesn't understand American politics or political parties.

Look. John McCain is a Republican. If he wasn't, he would be running as an independent. He's not. He belongs to the same Republican regime that is on the wrong side of issues like Iraq, health care, the economy, the environment, abortion, gun control, and stem cells. He's a member of the same party that has crashed our economy and has erased any credibility we once had with the rest of the world. Most of the people that voted for George W. Bush will also be voting for McCain. Why? BECAUSE THEY ARE REPUBLICANS!!!! There simply aren't enough Republicans out there (27% by recent estimates) for McCain to win this thing unless independents and moderate Democrats vote Republican as well. To prevent this from happening, Democrats need to stop making this about people and start making it about party. When you're dealing with an ill-informed electorate, as we are in the U.S., Republican = Republican is a lot easier to grasp than McCain = Bush.

Thou Shalt Not Rock

2008-09-15T14:08:00.000-07:00

"Everybody Wang Chung tonight, my friends"

The nomination of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has infused the McCain campaign with some well-timed Christian self-righteousness. Absent from this new holier-than-thou ticket, however, is the adherence to the commandment "Thou Shalt Not Steal." A rather amusing or perhaps disturbing theme in the 2008 campaign has cropped up in recent weeks. On multiple occasions, musicians have objected to the unauthorized use of their music in conjunction with the McCain campaign. Many have demanded that the Senator cease playing their songs or face legal consequences. For example:

Van Halen: While introducing Sarah Palin at an August 29th rally in Ohio, the campaign played "Right Now" without the band's permission. The band responded by saying, “Permission was not sought or granted nor would it have been given.”

Jackson Browne: On August 14th, the artist filed suit with McCain's campaign and the RNC for the unauthorized use of his iconic hit "Running on Empty." The song was used in a RNC television ad criticizing Barack Obama's energy policy. Browne's objections were based less on intellectual property violations and more on his desire to not be associated with the Republican party or John McCain.

ABBA: In February, the McCain was compelled not to use the Swedish group's 1977 hit "Take a Chance on Me" at campaign rallies due to licensing issues.

Theme from "Rocky": Also in February, the owner of the copyright to the popular theme song informed McCain that "Rocky" was not his to play. McCain continues to use the song at campaign functions.

John Cougar Mellencamp: In February, reps for the artist asked McCain the stop playing “Our Country” and “Pink Houses” at campaign events.

John Hall: The founder of the band Orleans and current New York congressman asked the McCain campaign in June to stop playing his song "Still the One." Hall also had to issue a cease-and-desist order to the RNC and Bush-Cheney in 2004 for the same infringement.

Frankie Valli: McCain attack ads were removed from YouTube after it was determined they used the classics "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You" and "My Eyes Adored You" without a copyright.

Heart: Musicians Ann and Nancy Wilson objected to the use of their song "Barracuda" during the Republican National Convention, in reference to a former nickname of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The band's publishers sent a cease-and-desist order to the McCain camp and Nancy Wilson issued the following statement:

Sarah Palin’s views and values in no way represent us as American women. The song ‘Barracuda’ was written in the late ’70s as a scathing rant against the soulless, corporate nature of the music business, particularly for women. While Heart did not and would not authorize the use of their song at the RNC, there’s irony in Republican strategists’ choice to make use of it there.

There are several amusing aspects to all this. First is the idea that the McCain campaign thought they could get away with stealing music. In general, rock musicians are not part of the Republican base, and many (Neil Young, Melissa Ethridge, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Kanye West, The Dixie Chicks, Green Day, Cheryl Crow, Rage Against the Machine, Dave Matthews, Bon Jovi, Willie Nelson and REM, to name a few) have been extremely vocal critics of conservative policies. One could certainly include Browne, Hall, Mellencamp and the Wilson sisters on this list, which really begs the question, "Did they really think they would get away with this?"

Perhaps this was another way for McCain to sharpen his "maverick" credentials: "I'm John McCain, dammit! I'm a maverick, you see, and no one will tell me what songs I can or cannot play." Another theory is that the campaign just doesn't care if they violate copyright laws. Both theories are highly unlikely, however, given the fact that McCain has touted "protecting American intellectual property" on his official campaign website. To be honest, I couldn't tell you why the McCain campaign has shown such blatant disregard for intellectual property. All I can tell you is that at the rate he is currently alienating musicians, future McCain rallies may be a continuous loop of Donnie & Marie masterpieces.

That got me thinking a bit. In the past I have opined about the lack of conservative self-expression when it comes to bumper stickers. What about music? Where are all the conservative anthems? I stumbled upon this list of the "Top 50 Conservative Rock Songs" published by the conservative The National Review. Going through the list, you almost get the feeling this is a joke, written by liberals to underscore the lack of creativity and artistic fervor behind the conservative movement. Apparently, however, the list is meant to be taken seriously. Yet most of the songs listed simply allude to socio-political situations that conservatives have hijacked as their own: law and order ("I Fought the Law and the Law Won"), anti-Communism ("Cult of Personality," “Revolution,” “Right Here, Right Now”) family values (“Stay Together for the Kids,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”) and anti-idealism (“You Can’t Always Get What You Want”). Others are either misinterpreted by the author, obscure to the point of irrelevance or obnoxiously right-wing (“Why Don’t You Get a Job,” “Stand By Your Man,” “Capitalism,” “Get Over It”) And of course the list included songs by such "conservative" artists as Bob Dylan, The Beatles, John Mellencamp, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, David Bowie, and U2.

So this may be an issue to watch in the coming months. Will the McCain campaign:

A) continue to play pirated music at campaign functions and face fines and/or lawsuits

B) scour the earth for music with a conservative message

C) offer to pay for the rights to play these songs and hope the artists acquiesce

D) bypass the copyright process and play nothing but public domain John Phillip Sousa marches

Who the %!@$ is Sarah Palin?

2008-08-29T16:02:00.000-07:00

Today, John McCain surprised many people by selecting Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Like most Americans, I did not know anything about Sarah Palin and decided to investigate. In a nutshell, she's young, inexperienced, a tenacious breeder, and by all accounts squeaky freaking clean. Oh, and she's a dead-ringer for Tina Fey.

But here's what I believe this all means:

Primarily, the selection of Palin addresses the GOP's need to lure women voters. Even if the specter of Hillary Clinton weren't looming over the 2008 election, the choice of a female running mate would still be seen as pandering to the female electorate. Because of the Hillary factor, the McCain camp is again reaping the benefits of a tightly-contested Democratic primary. Lingering Obamocity ("Obama" plus "animosity," it's a portmanteau) among Hillary supporters may lead some to vote for McCain in the general election, especially if he has a woman on the ticket. With Obama choosing not to put Hillary on the ticket with him, some of these women may feel that McCain got it right and Obama got it wrong.

Of course the timing of the announcement, and the selection of a dark horse like Palin has created the media frenzy (free advertising) that the McCain campaign sorely needed on the heels of the Democratic National Convention. The consensus, even among Republicans, is that the McCain camp orchestrated the surprise selection of Palin to maximize the media hype. Evidently, presumptive front-runners Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney have said they felt "strung along," "manipulated" and used only as "decoys" in the selection process.

Another reason to pick Palin is her energy policy. Being a pro-drilling governor of an oil-rich state fits well with McCain's own newly adopted drilling plans. Public opinion is also on the side of McCain-Palin, although in this case, the public simply has it wrong. Not only would increasing domestic drilling take years to have an appreciable affect on gasoline prices, but it would do very little to move us towards energy independence. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling, which Palin supports, would potentially lower global oil prices by $.41 per barrel. With oil currently around $115 a barrel, that means a savings of 0.3%. Not exactly a great savings. The DOE also states that "OPEC could neutralize any potential price impact of ANWR oil production by reducing its oil exports by an equal amount." Of course people want lower gas prices, but this is a case where the astute candidate will buck public opinion. The impact of increased domestic drilling would be minimal at best, and the tough reality is that high gas prices are likely essential to bringing about energy alternatives.

Of course Palin is a true Republican in almost every sense. She strongly opposes gay rights, is a member of the NRA and Feminists for Life, an anti-abortion organization. She opposed adding polar bears to the endangered species list because of the impact it would have on oil production in her state. She advocated teaching creationism in Alaska's public schools. Oh, and she's got that family values thing covered. She has done her best to add to the world's overpopulation problem by spawning five children, oddly named Track, Trig, Bristol, Willow and Piper. (suck on that, Tagg Romney!).

But in spite of her glistening Republican pedigree, I believe her selection as McCain's running mate may have had more to do with Obama's VP choice than anything. Aside from the aforementioned Hillary factor, I believe the selection of Sarah Palin was done so in large part to offset Joe Biden. The upcoming Vice Presidential Debate is scheduled for October 2, 2008 at Washington University in St. Louis. Joe Biden is capable of debating circles around anyone McCain chooses as his VP, and he won't pull any punches. Remember that Biden is the one who had one of the greater moments of the Democratic debates when he said of Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani, "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, and a verb and 9/11."

Instead of choosing a candidate that may actually last a few rounds with Biden, he chose someone with no experience in national government and no chance in a face off with Biden. In my opinion, the McCain campaign is hoping the presence of a 44 year old mother of five across the stage from him will either make Biden "go easy" on her or be seen as a bully if he doesn't. I know that is a cynical and probably sexist assessment, but I absolutely believe Biden will now have to ratchet down the vitriol or his wit, candor and years of debating experience may backfire on him.

While the selection of Palin has it's advantages for the Republicans, the one major drawback is possibly enough to offset them all. Palin's age and inexperience essentially mean that attacking Barack Obama on the same perceived weakness is now off the table. In fact, one could easily argue that Obama's eight years in the Illinois state legislature and nearly four years as a U.S. Senator easily trump Palin's six years as a small-town mayor of Wasilla, Alaska (pop. 5,469) and two years as governor of the nation's 47th most populous state. But in choosing Palin, either McCain believes he is immortal, or he is willing to concede the argument that Obama lacks the experience necessary to be President of the United States. Clearly McCain is not immortal. If elected, he would become the oldest first-term president in U.S. history. Oh, and his recently released medical records were able to be squeezed into a mere 1,173 pages. So yes, choice of VP does matter, especially in the case of John McCain. His choice to forfeit the right to attack Obama's inexperience is, in my opinion, an egregious error.

Tina Fey look-alike notwithstanding, I think the choice of Sarah Palin as running mate will be one John McCain will ultimately regret.

Right-Wing Delusions: The Liberal Nazi

2008-07-28T19:54:00.000-07:00

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." -- Sinclair Lewis

Recently my girlfriend forwarded me an email from an extreme right-wing friend of hers. You know the guy. They guy who thinks Liberals are the scourge of society and that all of society's problems can be solved with some good old-fashioned Reagan tax cuts for the wealthy. So "that guy" distributed an email which was presumably a clever attempt to associate modern American liberalism with the German Nazis of the 1940's. The email was in the form of a letter to executed Nazi war criminal Julius Streicher from none other than the Führer himself. Written from beyond the grave, this Adolf Hitler is getting the last laugh, because although the United States aided in defeating Hitler in WWII, Americans have since incorporated many elements of national Socialism into their own government. The text of the "letter" can be found here.

The letter levels an assortment of allegations at the American left, many of which are patently false or downright ludicrous. The letter accuses a recently re-elected president (presumably Bill Clinton) of "affirming the legitimacy of exterminating infants during birth" in an effort to equate liberal views on abortion to Hitler's use of mass extermination. Obviously, Clinton did not advocate the extermination of babies "during birth," and if, as it appears, the author is referring to a woman's right to an abortion, it is an extraordinary reach to compare abortion to an orchestrated genocide. Also in the letter, Hitler praises Americans for banning smoking in many public places and teaching of the dangers of second hand smoke. Presumably, the "real" author of the letter ascribes to an austere libertarian ideology, where even government's involvement in matters of public health is seen as an iron fist of oppression. There is also a ridiculous claim that gun-control laws are proposed, not to curb violent crime, but rather to control the masses.

Essentially, the objective of the letter is to locate a few areas where Nazi policy and modern liberalism more or less coincide, in a thinly-veiled effort to compare American liberalism to Nazism. Of course, a more didactic approach would have been much more thoroughly researched and contain less generalization and grasping. What the letter amounts to is cheap ad hominem attack on liberals that doesn't stand up to even the slightest scrutiny.

Conservatives and Libertarians, and all opponents of a functioning government, need a way to portray government as inherently evil. Luckily for them, history has given us the Nazis, or National Socialist Party. The fact that the Nazis considered themselves socialists is convenient for anyone who seeks to quickly and easily attack any kind of social program. Whether it is universal healthcare, welfare, public education, food stamps, public works projects, they are all seen as a slippery slope to socialism, and inevitably, rampant Nazism. Of course, this is a ridiculous conclusion for one to draw. There are countless examples of free nations with socialized medicine, education, transportation, etc. And believe it or not, citizens of these nations have NOT lost basic human rights as a result of social programs. Their leaders have NOT engaged in genocide nor have they engaged in campaigns of world domination. In fact, many of these nations enjoy a quality of life greater than or equivalent to that of the United States.

The flimsy premise or ad hominem name-calling aren't even the most disturbing elements of the "letter." Probably most unnerving is the fact that this is yet antother attempt by conservatives to downplay their own ideolgical ties to fascist regimes by painting liberals as the modern-day Third Reich. While fascism may have a few fleeting elements in common with liberalism, much of the neo-conservative playbook is taken from the most fundamental tenets of fascism. Nazism especially, was a far-right political movement, characterized by opposition to communism, extreme nationalism, military domination, xenophobia, authoritarian leadership, and opposition to liberalism. Of course, the slight similarities between Nazism and liberalism (essentially, a functioning central government) are enough for right-wing pundits to have a field day with Nazi-Liberal comparisons:

Anyway, you get the point.

This is a very fascinating article I found outlining the 14 fundamental characteristics of fascist regimes, from Hitler's Germany, Franco's Spain, Mussolini's Italy, and others.

http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=britt_23_2

You don't have to get too far down the list before you start to see very striking similarities between fascism and modern American conservatism, or more aptly, neo-conservatism (although fascism also shares a much with 1950's McCarthyism).

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.

Believe it or not, a central issue in the 2008 election will be Barack Obama's alleged lack of patriotism. From his lapel pin stance to his wife's misconstrued "pride" comments, Republican's will actually try to have Americans believing that a career public servant would actually run for president of a country he despises. They did the same thing with John Kerry in 2004, and got many people believing that the draft-dodging Bush-Cheney ticket was somehow more patriotic than a decorated war veteran.

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.

While conservatives have fought ardently for the right to bear arms, they have not been so zealous in other areas. The Bush Administration has rolled back habeas corpus, a fundamental right dating back to 1215 and the Magna Carta. A 2002 administration memo stated that the 4th Amendment has no application to "Domestic Military Operations," which could mean almost anything. Republicans have also fought for increased privacy and legal immunity for telecommunications companies that helped the government execute Bush's warrantless surveillance program.

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.

In perhaps the single most prolific and comprehensive moment in conservative scapegoating, the late Reverend Jerry Falwell most famously blamed liberals, feminists, gays, lesbians, secularists, pagans, the ACLU and abortionists for the September 11th attacks. Similarly, conservatives have also found it convenient to blame immigrants and Muslims for many of America's woes. In fact, the examples of conservative scapegoating are so numerous and so ridiculous that I'll only share a few of the more insane examples here:

Michelle Malkin blamed illegal immigration for the 2007 California wildfires

Glenn Beck blamed 2007 California wildfires on "damn environmentalists"

Michael Savage blamed sex-change operations for the Columbine school massacre.

Ann Coulter faulted Darwin's theory of evolution for creating Nazism

Rush Limbaugh blamed liberals for America's obesity epidemic

Culture & Family Institute spokesman blames Abu Ghraib prison scandal on gay marriage

Newt Gingrich claimed "liberalism" was responsible for Virginia Tech shooting

Bill O'Reilly blames the poor for Hurricane Katrina

4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.

George W. Bush famously stated, "I am a War President." This seemed to indicate that war would be the central identifying characteristic of his administration; it has. By declaring a "Global War on Terror" and coining the vague classification "Enemy Combatant," Bush laid the groundwork for United States to be in a perpetual war against anyone, with potentially anyone being a wartime enemy of America. Bush set the precedent for "preemptive war," meaning the U.S. no longer even needs a good reason to start a war. God forbid if Canada ever looked at us funny.

5. Rampant sexism.

While I wouldn't exactly consider conservative to endorse "rampant sexism," they do generally wind up on the less sexually equal side of many arguments. Most notably, conservatives staunch opposition to reproductive rights and homosexual marriage are enough to clearly place them on the more sexist side of the aisle.

6. A controlled mass media.

While the U.S. media is certainly more free than in many countries throughout the world, there are certainly areas where government is not doing what it can to promote a free press. Despite the emergence of the internet as a varied source of information, the so-called "mainstream media" has become more consolidated in recent years. Deregulation of media corporations has been a cornerstone of conservative policy, leaving much of the mainstream media in a very small number of hands. Also, former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan (not surprisingly) revealed that conservative-leaning Fox News Channel receives daily talking points directly from the White House.

7. Obsession with national security.

This one is a no brainer. The whole "9/11 changed everything" argument has been used to promote a pseudo-police state in the U.S., where Americans' phone calls and emails can be monitored, toothpaste is confiscated, babies appear on a "no-fly" list, In addition to granting themselves the right to spy on Americans without obtaining a warrant, the Bush administration has even gone as far as to monitor the meetings and communications of anti-war groups.

8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.

The union of government and religion is a clearly conservative trademark. Probably the most notable cases of this intermingling of interest exists within the public school system, where many states have made it mandatory to teach intelligent design and unlawful to teach anything but abstinence as sexual education. Republicans have for several decades enjoyed an alliance with the Christian Right, which has helped them win elections while helping religious organizations have more influence in government affairs. Not surprisingly, Christian leaders David Kuo and John DiIulio claimed that the Bush White House pandered to Christian groups for political benefit, without actually taking their concerns seriously.

9. Power of corporations protected.

What will probably be seen as the trademark of Reagan-era conservatism is the enormous, unchecked power corporations have gained. Corporations enjoy lower taxes than at virtually any time in the nation's history, while trade agreements have allowed them to profit more by exporting American middle-class jobs overseas. The Bush White House has also made sure that defense contractors are not held accountable for failures and even criminal behavior in Iraq. The most clear-cut example can be seen in our current mortgage crisis. President Bush has supported a bailout of Bear-Stearns, while opposing assistance for troubled homeowners, calling defaultees "irresponsible." Bush has also made sure to fill his cabinet with industry-friendly executives, essentially installed to ensure that the regulatory bodies they are meant to oversee don't perform any regulation at all. This all leads to a class arrangement typical of fascist regimes, with most or all of the power concentrated in the hands of a few leaders and large corporations, and a deepening divide between the haves and have nots.

10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.

Another conservative hallmark is the opposition to organized labor. While conservative claim to stand for the middle-class working man, they have for decades fought to weaken the power of unions. Of course conservatives will never actually outline their opposition to labor, but it is no surprise that unions simply do not endorse Republicans. Check out the website of the AFL-CIO, whose latest tally of union endorsement shows a Democratic candidates pitching a shutout. John McCain's own website doesn't contain any mention of organized labor, but labor's eternal nemesis, free trade. McCain believes the U.S. "should engage in ... efforts to reduce barriers to trade," and admits that "globalization will not automatically benefit every American." (no sh*#!)

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.

On numerous occasions, most notably at NASA and the EPA, Bush administration officials have edited the work of scientists and scholars to downplay information that might be harmful to Republican allies, i.e., polluters. Meanwhile, conservative pundits deride almost all university professors as elitist, liberal eggheads that are brainwashing our youth.

12. Obsession with crime and punishment.

See: U.S. prison population. Part of the conservative ideology is the idea that people are basically all bad or all good. The "bad" people need to stay in prison and cannot be rehabilitated. Ex-convicts don't deserve the right to vote even after they have served their time. Since only "bad" people misuse guns, we needn't make laws that restrict the right of "good" people to own guns. That's the gist of the conservative stance on crime. Demonize drug offenders, statutory rapists and other fringe-criminals, while Bush commutes the sentence of convicted perjurer, Scooter Libby.

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.

See: "Heckuva job, Brownie." It's not surprising that cronyism and corruption go hand in hand. George Bush's "buddies" Mike Brown, Alberto Gonzalez, Karl Rove have all been involved in scandal, and have all been forced to "spend more time with their family." For Christ sakes, Bush tried to nominate his personal attorney (Harriet Miers) to the Supreme Court! I'm surprised he hasn't tried to nominate his family practitioner to the office of surgeon general.

14. Fraudulent elections.

Leave it to conservatives to usher in a new age in American politics where only 28% of Americans are "Very confident" that votes will be counted accurately nationwide. Conservatives have fought to oppose laws requiring paper ballot receipts and upheld antiquated voter ID laws. Conservatives have invented a voter fraud epidemic that does not exist, the purpose of which is to challenge the voting rights of qualified citizens. Yet as we have seen with the caging lists in Florida, inconsistencies with exit poll results in Ohio, and the mass disenfranchisement of minority voters, there is not a voter fraud epidemic, but an election fraud epidemic, one which at nearly every turn has mysteriously helped the Republican candidate.

The Evolution Debate Rages On (for some reason)

2008-05-02T13:50:00.000-07:00

What other evidence do you need?

As if it isn't bad enough that American teens can't find Iraq on a map and think drinking bleach prevents the spread of HIV, the fundamentalist wing of the Republican party is still insisting on teaching children incorrect information about the origin of species. And it seems as though there is a very concerted effort by many Americans to personally disprove the theory of evolution. This effort is not spearheaded by any scientific rigor, mind you, but by rejecting evolution, thus remaining intellectually ignorant to the point where we might stop evolving altogether.

Today, the Wall Street Journal published an article detailing a new round of efforts by Christian Conservatives aimed at "encourag[ing] or requir[ing] public-school teachers to cast doubt on a cornerstone of modern science." From the look of things, it would seem that these efforts are unnecessary. Several recent surveys have indicated that about half of all Americans reject the theory of evolution altogether. In addition, the percentage of those who believe evolution is strictly a natural occurrence (i.e. no influence from a "higher power") is somewhere in the area of 15 percent. These data exist despite the fact that evolution is taught in nearly every public school system, and is regarded by scientists as a near scientific certainty. When I first saw the results of these surveys, I had one of those "oh that's right, I live in a blue state" moments. You know, like "Why is that liquor store closed at 5 pm?" or "Wow, I didn't know they still made Buicks."

National Geographic did a cover story on evolution a few years ago. The article is a brilliant and concise look at the theories Darwin proposed in his On the Origin of Species, the mountains of supporting evidence that has surfaced since, and the nature of the Creation-Evolution debate. The most brilliant part of the article in my opinion was the title,"Was Darwin Wrong?" It suggested that perhaps some new evidence had arisen recently that would cast doubt on Darwin's claims. Of course, if you read the article, you learn that, as most evidence suggests, Darwin was right. The title likely lured in many evolution skeptics looking for validation of their skepticism, only to learn how utterly complete and satisfying the theory is after nearly 150 years. A key passage comes from the first paragraph, showing that evolution is not functionally different from other routinely accepted scientific theories:

If you are skeptical by nature, unfamiliar with the terminology of science, and unaware of the overwhelming evidence, you might even be tempted to say that it's "just" a theory. In the same sense, relativity as described by Albert Einstein is "just" a theory. The notion that Earth orbits around the sun rather than vice versa, offered by Copernicus in 1543, is a theory. Continental drift is a theory. The existence, structure, and dynamics of atoms? Atomic theory. Even electricity is a theoretical construct, involving electrons, which are tiny units of charged mass that no one has ever seen. Each of these theories is an explanation that has been confirmed to such a degree, by observation and experiment, that knowledgeable experts accept it as fact. That's what scientists mean when they talk about a theory: not a dreamy and unreliable speculation, but an explanatory statement that fits the evidence.

So what makes evolution such a controversial subject? Why do we not see similar views when it comes to other well-established, rigorously tested theories like gravity, electricity, relativity, the round Earth, the heliocentric solar system? Is it because evolution is too slow as to be observable? Perhaps, but so is the aforementioned continental shift, and you don't see "stationary land mass" advocates pressuring school boards or state legislatures. Evolution is extremely complex, and maybe this complexity accounts for people's unwillingness to accept it. Of course, one does not need to understand a scientific theory to embrace it. Theories of chemistry, physics, neurology and medicine are often quite complex, yet these disciplines do not contain a theory as mystifyingly shunned as evolution. Perhaps the theory of evolution, just 150 years old, is still too new to be fully embraced. However, the idea that the dinosaurs were the victims of an asteroid or meteor colliding with the Earth is now the prevailing extinction theory, yet one that has been around for less than 30 years. So maybe it is a combination of these characteristics that explains all the skepticism. Or maybe it's something else....

If the theory of evolution were laid out on the first page of the best-selling book in the world, the number of people espousing this idea would likely approach 100%. Of course, this book instead begins with the story of creation. I call it a "story" because creationism is not a "theory," and it always bothers me to hear it referred to in that manner. A "theory," according to the common definition, is "a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations, and is predictive, logical, and testable." Creation is not predictive, testable, nor is it any formalized expression of observations. So to include it alongside evolution as a valid explanation of the origin and diversity of species is absurd. But I digress.

If someone tried to tell you the sun revolved around the earth or that babies come from storks, they would be immediately fitted for a straight jacket. Yet evolution has some very powerful and vocal opponents who would like to see creationism taught in public schools, as if creation and evolution were somehow two sides of the same coin. President Bush has himself stated that he believes "the jury is still out" on evolution and that Intelligent Design (the euphemism Christians Conservatives have adopted to make creationism sound at least somewhat legitimate) should be taught alongside evolution.

So with the United States being a predominantly Christian nation, and Christian conservative activists and even the president fighting for against evolution, it is not difficult to imagine that so few Americans believe in it. Interestingly, the percentage of people who believe that evolution is a strictly scientific process is very close to the percentage of people who identify themselves as non-religious. The fact is, evolution and creationism are two explanations of the same phenomenon: one is a scientific explanation and the other is a religious one. One could even argue that creationism is not even a religious belief, but simply a belief that the people who wrote the bible held at the time. I think that creationism should be kept out of the public schools, not out of a conflict with the First Amendment, but because it is no longer the prevailing scientific explanation of an observed phenomenon. I've never been to medical school, but I'm pretty certain they don't teach the theory of the humours alongside Grey's Anatomy. Therein lies the problem with the form of Christianity that exists throughout much of the United States. It is seen by many as an "all or nothing" religion, meaning if you are to believe in anything contained in the Bible, you have to believe everything. While I am not religious, there are many parts of the Bible that I recognize as useful tools in leading a full, moral existence. The Bible, however should not be seen as a means to explain the unknown. Our society has entrusted the institutions of science to explain worldly phenomena, and that trust has been highly successful in achieving an understanding of our lives.

Where are all the conservative bumper stickers???

2008-04-30T15:50:00.000-07:00

Recently I've seen a lot of bumper stickers on cars espousing a variety of political views. Interestingly (at least where I live) these stickers almost exclusively portray "liberal" sentiments or values. From "War is not the answer" to "Impeach Bush," liberals have cornered the market on bumper self-expression.

I started to imagine examples of possible "conservative" bumper stickers, and as I did so, I started to understand why you don't see very many. Almost every conservative slogan or talking point I could conceive was either ridiculous or just downright offensive when I imagined it prominently displayed on one's vehicle. Perhaps "Pro Life" is fairly innocuous, probably only offensive to abortion doctors and victims of a rape-induced pregnancy. And conservatives don't own the American flag, so only bumper stickers that are belligerently patriotic could be considered to be "conservative."

With that in mind, I thought I would utilize some free time at work - along with the Microsoft Paint program pre-installed on my PC - to provide some examples some of the more ridiculous and inconsistent conservative values:

The Freedom-hating Muslim: A Reality Check

2008-04-25T11:26:00.000-07:00

I have dedicated many of these pages to the political polling data of Americans. However, in a time when our leaders are telling us that the greatest threat our country has ever faced comes from the Arab world, wouldn't it be interesting to examine what Arabs think?

In fact, this week the 2008 Annual Arab Public Opinion Poll was published, containing some very telling data. The survey (which interviewed subjects in six different Arab countries) found that 83% of the Arab public views the United States unfavorably. That finding alone is not particularly surprising. However, the study also found that Arabs' attitudes of the United States are overwhelmingly influenced by U.S. foreign policy as opposed to "American values."

Only 12% of Arabs indicated that their attitudes towards the U.S. were determined by American values. This is an overwhelmingly low percentage when you consider people often use "religion" and "values" interchangeably, and compared to the predominantly Muslim Arab world, Muslims in the U.S. make up a mere 0.6% of the population. For years we have been told that the 9/11 attacks and "The Great Satan" rhetoric coming from the Arab world was a direct assault on American values. However, as polling data (and, well, common sense) suggest, perhaps the best way to determine the attitudes of people in the Middle East is to actually ask them.

Of course, these data allow us to view the erroneous statements and beliefs of prominent Republicans in a whole new light.

George W. Bush

Perhaps the most famous example of this fallacy was the post-9/11 "analysis" of President Bush: "America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world....They hate our freedoms," Bush proposed. "Our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other."

As ridiculous as the notion of someone hating freedom may sound, most Americans bought into this idea at the time.

Rev. Jerry Falwell

When he wasn't busy outing children's TV characters, the reverend chimed in with his own analysis of the 9/11 attacks:

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'

While Falwell later apologized for the remarks, placing the blame for the death of 3,000 innocent civilians squarely at the feet of the American Left hardly seems like a slip of the tongue.

Rudy Giuliani vs. Ron Paul

In a May 2007 Republican debate, Ron Paul asserted that the United States was attacked on 9/11 in part as blowback from of an interventionist foreign policy in the Middle East. Giuliani took exception, calling Paul's hypothesis "absurd." The pro-war Fox News audience erupted in applause, as it appeared Giuliani had easily bested the unpatriotic Paul. Paul didn't back down, however, responding with what rational-thinking Americans know to be the truth:

If we think we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred then we have a problem. They don't come here to attack us cause we're rich and we're free. They attack us cause we're over there. I mean, what would we think if other foreign countries were doing that to us?

As it turns out, Ron Paul was right. While Giuliani got the applause, Paul's campaign has raised more money and won more delegates than Giuliani's, and Paul is still technically in the race, compared to Giuliani, who dropped out three months ago.

John McCain

Certainly it is still very possible for a Republican to run a successful campaign while still making this error. In fact, John McCain's error is no slip of the tongue either - it's in writing on his official campaign website, http://www.johnmccain.com/. McCain states that:

The [9/11] tragedy highlighted a failure of national policy to respond to the development of a global terror network hostile to the American people and our values.

Why have these politicians repeatedly made this specious error in spite of it's utter implausibility? Simple. Because it is easier to comprehend than decades of American meddling in the Middle East, supporting a coup in Iran, defending Israel, bombing Lybia, establishing bases in Saudi Arabia, as well as this latest Iraq debacle. And it's easier on the conscience for Americans to tell themselves, "Oh, terrorists are just crazy" or "They just despise our values" rather than accept that their own country's reckless imperial foreign policy decisions have created dangerous enemies abroad.

Let's just examine exactly how idiotic is the notion of the Freedom-Hating Terrorist. Take, for example, an Arab prisoner at Guantanamo. I would seriously doubt he would prefer captivity to freedom, let alone be willing to kill for his right to remain imprisoned. That is absurd. I'm also fairly certain he would be very pleased to be afforded the right of habeus corpus (which we Americans frequently enjoy). The right to practice religion freely and the opportunity to prosper economically are also likely to appeal to both Americans and Arabs alike.

Even if you could assume that all of these values didn't appeal to the majority of the Arab world, lack of appeal simply isn't enough to justify horrific terrorist acts perpetrated against the West. If people are willing to kill or be killed, it almost always accompanies the promise of reward or heroism. It's hard to see how killing an innocent person because you don't like their values is particularly rewarding or heroic. Yes, I know about the 72 virgins, or whatever the number is. But you can't conflate religious fundamentalism with terrorism. The two do not necessarily go hand in hand. The religious aspect and the promise of martyrdom makes committing suicide attacks easier for the attackers to go through with, but it is not the motivating factor behind the attack. If it were, wouldn't radical Islamic terrorism be raining down on all of the non-Muslim world? Instead, nearly every Islamic terrorist attack on record - from Munich, to Pan-Am 103, to the London and Madrid subway bombings and the Iraqi insurgency - was motivated not by religious fanaticism, but by what the attackers saw as retaliation for unjustified acts committed against them.

The motives behind the 9/11 attacks are no different. The 9/11 Commission Report found that even Osama bin Laden, as ideological as any Muslim, claimed the 9/11 attack was not motivated by disdain for American values, but in retaliation for American foreign policy. In a 2004 video, bin Laden traced the genesis of the attacks as far back as the 1982 U.S.-led attack on Lebanon. And rather than being an enemy of freedom, bin Laden asserted that the attacks were meant to "restore freedom to our nation." Certainly the 9/11 attack was a reprehensible act for which no justification exists, but that doesn't mean those responsible were acting out of sheer lunacy. Making up fables like "They hate our freedoms" is not only untrue, but dismissing the real motivations behind the attack only serves to make another attack more likely.

We know that the idea that "they hate our freedoms" is preposterous, so why do people still believe it to be true? To better understand the post-9/11 U.S. foreign policy debacle, we need to examine a little social psychology. The incorrect belief that Arabs hate American values stems from a broader social phenomenon known as the Fundamental Attribution Error. Psychologists define the error as "the tendency to overestimate the internal and underestimate the external factors when explaining the behaviors of others." In other words, people (normal people, for this is not a cognitive disorder) tend to believe the behavior of others is more a function of the type of person they are rather than what situations may have contributed to the behavior. Most of us have been in the situation where someone driving in the car in front of us has made a questionable driving maneuver, after which we thought (or said aloud) "What a dumb asshole!" Chances are the driver is neither dumb nor an asshole, but was rather influenced by children in the car, a phone call, another driver, stress, or some other external factor or factors.

So as it relates to the analysis of terrorist acts, United States politicians and pundits have over-emphasized the personality-based explanation (these guys are crazy freedom-haters) and under-emphasized the external factors (U.S. intervention in the Middle East). In fact, as Patrick Rael of the Bowdoin Orient illustrates, Osama bin Laden and others have not only claimed to be acting in retaliation for U.S. military intervention, but have also stressed that they are themselves "freedom fighters." Thus any idea that Muslim terrorists "hate freedom" is preposterous because they feel that is the very goal for which they strive. More than just an exercise in relativism, the inability of both the United States and Muslim extremists to view each other with objectivity has had disastrous consequences.

Profiles in Right-Wing Lunacy: Alphonso Jackson

2008-04-23T00:18:00.000-07:00

Last week, Alphonso Jackson, then Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) spent his last day in office. Forced to resign amid numerous scandals of impropriety, the public is now beginning to see the dirty underbelly of Jackson's tenure at HUD, a tenure marred by politicization, corruption and disturbing egomania.

Jackson, a longtime buddy of George W. Bush, was appointed HUD Secretary in 2004. In a break from the Bush crony tradition, Jackson had actually worked in the public housing arena prior to coming to HUD. Jackson, however, soon established himself as a true Bush loyalist, and attempted to run his department with a political bent. As early as 2006, Jackson was accused of awarding housing contracts on the basis of political affiliation and loyalty to the President. (On a side note, the idea of an African-American Republican has always struck me as odd. The fact that a black American would join the party of Richard Nixon, David Duke, Tom Tancredo and Bill O'Reilly truly baffles the mind. But that's a discussion for another time.) He once rescinded a contract offer because the contractor didn't like President Bush. In Jackson's own words, "Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president?"

Jackson also was the focus of an FBI investigation into allegations he improperly awarded contracts to his friends and business associates, including awarding a lucrative housing contract to a golfing buddy. Of course, this was all taking place as the United States quickly found itself in the midst of a debilitating mortgage crisis that is fueling a nationwide recession. Amid all the controversy surrounding Jackson, he announced his resignation on March 31, 2008, not surprisingly to focus on "personal and family matters."

Now that he has resigned, we are beginning to learn more about Alphonso Jackson, the man, and it isn't pretty. Most notably, Jackson has shown himself to be an alarming egomaniac, which is all the more amusing in light of his disgraced departure from public service. On April 13, the Washington Post reported that he had submitted an "emergency bid" of $100,000 in taxpayer money to have a portrait of himself commissioned. In addition, the walls of the HUD headquarters' lobby, until very recently, were entirely covered with 20 large color photographs of Secretary Jackson.

To put this is perspective, we had a girl at my office a couple of years ago that had a single 8x10 framed photograph of herself adorning her cubicle. We all thought she was a narcissistic nutcase, and that was just one photo.

If that weren't enough, on April 16, Jackson threw himself a lavish going away party (at tax-payer expense), attended by over 1,000 HUD employees. The disgraced secretary is described as "honorable" on the cover of the event program, modestly graced this time with just four photographs of Jackson.

So, in Alphonso Jackson, we have a Republican who believes that government is a way to help his friends get rich. He believes the government should reward political loyalty and punish political criticism. He headed a government agency that did virtually nothing to regulate the predatory lending practices that have spelled disaster for homeowners and investment banks alike. And he believes that HUD should allocate precious time and resources to paying homage to Alphonso Jackson. Jackson is the poster boy (no pun intended) for why America can't afford another incompetent, crony-laden administration, and why the more seats Democrats win in November, the more abuses like those of Alphonso Jackson will come to light.

Profiles in Right-Wing Lunacy: John Yoo

2008-04-07T19:39:00.000-07:00

It seems as though with each passing week, Americans are learning more and more about the disturbed conservative mind of John Yoo. Currently the quintessential fish-out-of-water (he teaches law at UC Berkeley), Yoo worked in the Department of Justice under George W. Bush when the legal underpinnings of unitary executive rule were being established. As it turns out, Yoo - then a fairly low-level DOJ staffer - authored several influential memos supporting the legality of torture, unitary executive power and the suspension of habeas corpus. Because of the far-reaching scope and questionable legality of these memos, Yoo is currently facing charges of war crimes while the National Lawyers Guild is calling for Yoo to be fired and disbarred.

Some of Yoo's greatest hits:

Torture

In 2002, Yoo helped author the now infamous "Torture Memo," which was essentially a liberal interpretation of the interrogation techniques allowed by international law. The memo defined the illegal practice of torture as "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." It also stated that the infliction of such pain must be intentional. Such narrow definition of torture opened many loopholes with which the U.S. could conduct a host of "enhanced interrogation techniques." So when the President says the United States "does not torture people," he is technically right, because his administration has exempted itself from international treaties and the Justice Department has worked to redefine torture to legalize what interrogators were already doing.

Habeas Corpus

Keeping with the unprecedented idea that combating terrorism was primarily a military operation, Yoo has argued that the 4th Amendment need not apply to counter-terrorism efforts. This memo concluded that, "the Fourth Amendment [has] no application to domestic military operations," essentially stating that even U.S. citizens under the protection of the constitution are not immune to illegal search and seizures, as long as the country is engaged in any kind of "War on Terror." Of course this is a frightening conclusion. Simply put, the president can determine what is considered terror, who can be considered an enemy combatant, and when and how the military should be used. This leads to a remarkably brash definition of presidential powers, which will be described next.

Unitary Executive Power

Yoo is a proponent of consolidated executive power during wartime. Yoo stated in a 2001 memo:

In both the War Powers Resolution and the Joint Resolution, Congress has recognized the President's authority to use force in circumstances such as those created by the September 11 incidents. Neither statute, however, can place any limits on the President's determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of military force to be used in response, or the method, timing, and nature of the response. These decisions, under our Constitution, are for the President alone to make.

Yoo also stated in a 2005 debate that no treaty could prevent the President from authorizing enhanced interrogation techniques, including crushing the testicles of a detainee's child. According to Yoo, the authority to torture "depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that." So, in essence, the President is above the law. Yoo believes there is no law that can limit Presidential powers during wartime, and that the legality or illegality of an interrogation technique is determined solely by what the President thinks.

We can now start to see the neoconservative mindset come into focus. If presidential powers increase when the nation is at war, it's no wonder that the United States has been at war for all but one year of the Bush presidency. And the "Global War on Terror" isn't so much a single operation, but an infinite campaign to somehow eradicate something that can never fully be eradicated. It would be akin to the President declaring that as long as there is crime to fight in the U.S., the president alone can determine how to define crime, how to deal with criminals and which parts of the constitution he needs to adhere to. Like crime, there always has been, and always will be throughout history, acts that could be defined as terrorism.

It would be interesting to hear how Yoo, who has also been a visiting scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, feels about unitary executive power when a Democrat is in the White House. Luckily for us, Yoo has in fact contradicted himself numerous times to fit his political agenda du jour, as Salon's Glenn Greenwald documented last July. Yoo has flip-flopped on presidential use of the military, use of executive privilege and FISA laws. If a Democrat wins the presidency in 2008, expect Yoo to moderate his views on executive power to fit his own political agenda.

If John Yoo's sick totalitarian view of constitutional government weren't enough to cement his place among the insane, he recently delved into the world of election politics, the results of which are equally troubling.

In a March 24, 2008 Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal, Yoo blasted the Democratic Party's use of superdelegates in the nomination process:

That the 2008 Democratic nominee for president will be chosen by individuals no one voted for in the primaries flew for too long under the commentariat's radar. This from the party that litigated to "make every vote count" in the 2000 Florida recount, reviled the institution of the Electoral College for letting the loser of the national popular election win the presidency, and has called the Bush administration illegitimate ever since.

ThinkProgress highlighted Yoo's hypocrisy, as one who would criticize a party's "undemocratic" nomination process while at the same time espousing totalitarian views of the executive office.

More troubling than Yoo's hypocrisy, however, is his startlingly vapid argument. As simple as it may seem to most, Yoo fails to grasp the fact that primary elections do not elect a president. In fact they are not really "elections" at all, but a nomination process, a process that is much more democratic than most other democracies around the world and more certainly democratic than at earlier times in our nation's history. Primary elections were not seen in the United States until the 20th century, and before that relied completely on congressmen and political bosses to nominate a presidential candidate.

Yoo makes the fundamental error of conflating a primary election (a method by which a political party has determined it will nominate it's candidate) with a national election. Yoo claims that the "delegate dissonance wasn't anything the Framers of the U.S. Constitution dreamed up. They believed that letting Congress choose the president was a dreadful idea." The problem with Yoo's analysis is the notion that the founding fathers had some concept of political primaries. They barely had knowledge of political parties, and certainly didn't lay down any foundation as to how parties nominate their candidates.

In addition, one could easily argue that the Democrat's is a more democratic nominating process than that of the Republican Party. The RNC employs a "winner-take-all" system similar to the electoral college in the general election. By allocating delegates based on a percentage of popular votes won, the Democratic nominating process is more representative of the general public than the Republican system. For example, let's say a state has 10 delegates at stake in the primary. In the Democratic Party primary, if Candidate A wins 60% and Candidate B wins 40%, then Candidate A wins six delegates to Candidate B's four. In a Republican primary, Candidate A wins all ten delegates. The Republican system is one that says, essentially, "Get on board with the leading candidate, or your vote won't count." Doesn't sound very "Democratic" to me.

Yoo is correct that the superdelegate system does have the ability to stymie the hopes of a more populist candidate. In close primary elections, as we have this year, the idea is that the superdelagates are there to help cast a deciding vote for the more "mainstream" candidate. This year, we would have to assume that candidate is Hillary Clinton, and the populist is Barack Obama. If the superdelegates are here to overrule the will of the common Democrat in favor of someone whom they feel is more of a Washington "insider" (Clinton), then, I would not care for that kind of system.

It's not that Yoo is incorrect in noting that certain flaws exist in the superdelagate system. It is the fact that he somehow believes primary elections should be governed by the the same standards as general elections that completely invalidates Yoo's position. Yoo's column, while not unusual by WSJ's standards, is special in its purely partisan scope and utterly untenable premise. From what we have seen from Yoo thus far, it is safe to assume that the Op-Ed was less an educated critique of the Democratic nominating process than a petty partisan jab at what is perceived as a divided party.

Score One For McCain!

2008-04-07T12:26:00.000-07:00

"Like, McCain totally has foreign policy skills"

As Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continue to battle for the Democratic nomination, John McCain is busy locking up key endorsements. This week, McCain secured the much-sought-after endorsement of quasi-celebrity Heidi Montag. Montag, a "star" of MTV's scripted reality series The Hills, was quoted in Us Weekly magazine, espousing her preference for the aging politician. "I'm a Republican and McCain has a lot of experience," she stated.

You may be asking yourself, "Who the %@*$ is Heidi Montag?" True, scripted reality television may be a harbinger of the Apocalypse. Sure, a spoiled, Paris Hilton wannabe may not possess any real political clout. But let's not diminish the importance of this endorsement.

First, the Montag endorsement has shown a real breadth of support for McCain's candidacy. Now, he's got the senior vote and the youth vote. He's got the support of those that decry the political influence of the "Hollywood Elite," and, well, a Hollywood elitist. And while some viewers will naively dismiss scripted reality shows like The Hills and it's predecessor Laguna Beach as contrived, disingenuous garbage, centered around spoiled rich assholes you couldn't care less about, that couldn't be further from the truth. Montag is really a crossover sensation, and The Hills can potentially appeal to both reality TV and dramatic TV viewers. That's a very large demographic group, and with Montag is his corner, McCain has it all but locked up.

But in all seriousness, are we really that surprised that this flavor of the week, soon-to-be coke fiend is a Republican? Now if a young Hollywood star like Ellen Page were a Republican, that would be absolutely shocking. But Heidi Montag, not so much. She's rich, she's from Orange County, and she dates this douchebag:

Enough Said.

Now I'll admit that I don't really see Montag's announcement as a valuable "endorsement," but I'm going to have some fun with this anyway. Montag, 21, strikes me as someone who is a Republican because her parents are Republicans. A telltale sign that one is not particularly politically aware is when they are under 30 and vote for a Republican. When I was 18, I voted for Bob Dole, for Christ's sake. Why? Because my parents were Republicans and I didn't know any better. The fact that her basis for the endorsement was because "I'm a Republican," indicates the shallow depth of analysis Heidi Montag has to offer this election cycle.

While McCain will certainly take any vote he can get from anyone under the age of 60, I'm not so sure the Montag endorsement is all that great for McCain. First, it is an endorsement from someone who doesn't have the slightest credentials with which to make an endorsement. Something tells me Montag's not super excited about staying in Iraq for the next 100 years or privatizing social security. Secondly, if there's one thing typical Americans can do without, it is rich, spoiled, overexposed, talentless trust fund socialites. If I was an undecided voter and Heidi Montag (or Nicole Richie, Kim Kardashian or whomever), preferred one candidate, I'd vote for the other guy. Finally, it's not like this is an endorsement that will resonate with any key voting bloc. Ironically, most people interested in who Heidi Montag would vote for are too busy paying attention to people like Heidi Montag to even vote in the first place.

The Times They Are A-Changin'

2008-03-13T02:20:00.000-07:00

This week, cable news channels severed ties with two right-wing hosts when Tucker Carlson and John Gibson were let go by MSNBC and Fox News, respectively.

Tucker Carlson is an annoying media figure for several reasons. First, he's the kind of newsperson that claims to be non-partisan, while at the same time referring to himself as "the most right-wing person I know." Secondly, that stupid bowtie. After years of being known essentially as "that douchebag with the bowtie," Carlson felt the need to announce on his show in 2006 that he was moving to the more conventional necktie. Now, his choice of neck apparel is no longer a high priority. Carlson will be replaced by David Gregory, MSNBC announced this week.

John Gibson has a long history of bigotry. Among his most notable outlandish remarks are his statement that non-Christians were "following the wrong religion," and that Hillary Clinton had made "a deal with Al Qaeda." He defended his network's incessant coverage of the Anna Nicole Smith story, accusing journalists who covered real news like the Iraq War of "news-guy snobbery." Recently, Gibson got into hot water for mocking the death of actor Heather Ledger. On March 12, 2008, Fox News Channel announced it was replacing Gibson's "The Big Story" in favor of "election-year programming." That could very well be the case, as for the first time in years, CNN's election coverage has garnered more viewers than Fox, continuing a general ratings slide indicative of Fox's alignment with the floundering Republican Party.

I found the following to be an interesting observation on how things are going in this country politically. After September 11th, Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect on ABC, and That's My Bush, a satire of formulaic sitcoms starring the current President airing on Comedy Central, were both taken off the air. While Bush got the axe due mainly to financial concerns, it would have been difficult to imagine a show lampooning the White House to be successful in late 2001. On the other hand, Maher's program was cancelled almost entirely due to comments Maher made about U.S. foreign policy in the aftermath of 9/11.

Today, roughly six years later, Bill Maher is back on the air in a similar format on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. The show is currently in it's sixth season and has been nominated for seven primetime Emmys.

Similarly, Comedy Central is airing a new Bush-centered comedy, Lil' Bush. The show has received mixed reviews, but is now airing it's second season of episodes. While the show is lighthearted in nature, the light in which the title character and his "pals" are painted is quite scathing.

So making fun of Bush in America has been a real roller-coaster ride:

2001 (pre-9/11): Acceptable

2001 (post-9/11): Not Acceptable

2002 through 2007: Criticism of Bush appropriate, but not exactly comical

2007 to the present: Acceptable. He's a horrible president and we've just accepted it.

Who's That Nice-looking Young Man?

2008-03-10T18:22:00.000-07:00

I was surfing the web the other day, and I ran across this advertisement on You Tube, of all places. It's an ad featuring a clip of John McCain from what appears to be at least 25 years ago.

Immediately, I thought, "Wow.... John McCain is advertising on You Tube and he's using a much younger image of himself. What kind of an idiots does he think we are?" Then I realized that there are probably a lot of Americans who have never heard of John McCain, have never seen a picture of him, or do not know that he will be 72 years old by the time the election rolls around. In fact, according to a recent Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, eight percent of registered voters had never heard of John McCain, in spite of the fact that he has spent the previous 6 months winning the Republican presidential nomination.

I certainly wouldn't put it past the McCain people to appeal to young potential voters (like those on You Tube) by placing ads featuring a more "alive-looking" version of Senator McCain. It's all about PR, and while placing ads of a 40-something McCain is not necessarily a dirty trick, it's pretty clear what their intentions are. With "change" being the political message du jour, the image of a stale old white man is probably not going to resonate with young voters. For those of you in the eight percent, here is what McCain actually looks like now:

Don't get me wrong. I'm certainly not suggesting that one's appearance should trump substance. I just think it's more than a little sneaky to show a picture of younger McCain on a website frequented by young potential voters. And while I don't agree with McCain on many issues and would not vote for him, I also think age is an issue. Young people have every right to vote for a younger candidate, just as older voters typically vote in higher numbers for the older candidate. Also, let us not forget that not too long ago the United States had a president in Ronald Reagan that many have suggested had symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease while in office. Again, I think age and appearance are certainly much less important than policy issues. That said, if Republicans are going to promote McCain's youthful appearance and attack the Democratic candidate for his/her lack of experience (and they will), Democrats have every right to use McCain's age against him.

GOP in '08: A One Trick Pony

2008-03-07T14:18:00.000-08:00

"Terrorism...Terrorism...Terrorism...Terrorism..."

For months I have been predicting that the GOP will run a "campaign of fear" in 2008. From Rudy Giuliani's September 11 mantra, to the "Nuclear Iran debacle", the Republican candidates have made it clear that global terror will be a central issue in the the November election.

This idea was reinforced this week with the release of a new poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. The poll surveyed Americans on which political party, Republicans or Democrats, they believed would do a better job on a variety of issues. Of the twelve key issues, Republicans were seen as more favorable to Democrats on just one issue: Dealing with the terrorist threat at home. Despite a massive PR campaign by Republicans to paint Democrats as soft on terror, or even in bed with the terrorists, Republicans enjoyed a mere 45% to 38% advantage over Democrats on this issue. In comparison, Democrats held at least a ten percentage point lead on Republicans on nine of the twelve issues, including 25% or greater advantage on five issues.

On the environment, Americans favored Democrats to Republicans by a margin of 65 percent to 21 percent. As commanding an advantage as that appears to be, it does beg the question: Who are these 21% who think Republicans are stronger on the environment? That is the one issue in which Republicans have been proud of their failures. VP Dick Cheney has a habit of basing entire energy policy legislation on the recommendations of corporate energy lobbyists (here, here and here). But I digress...

In the Pew survey, even issues that the GOP and much of the media have touted as Republican strongholds have gone to the Dems. For example, in spite of liberals and their "War on Christmas," "Homosexual Mafia,", and "Partial-Birth Abortion" and conservatives trumpeting their "Culture of Life," and "American Values", Democrats even hold a ten point edge when it comes to "Improving morality in this country." While Conservatives like to appeal to the public with claims of lower taxes and derisive labels such as "Tax and Spend Democrats" and "Taxachusetts," Americans still view Democrats as stronger on the issue of taxes.

It appears the Republicans are beginning to understand that going to bat with one issue is going to be an uphill climb. If John McCain lives to be the Republican nominee, he will have to do three things:

1) Convince America that terrorism is the Number One issue in the 2008 election. It can't be seen as a secondary issue because Democrats win on any other issue. With the economic bubble beginning to burst, this is looking like a more and more difficult task with each passing day.

2) Overcome the public's gradual disillusionment with fear-based politics. Hillary Clinton was sharply criticized for her fear-mongering ad aimed at Barack Obama. You can bet that any fear-based pitch McCain dishes out will put the Clinton ad to shame. Personally, I think Americans are fed up with hearing about how they are going to die if they don't choose a particular candidate. And I hope they are tired of terrorism being used for political gain.

3) Distort and re-word the issues where Republicans are weakest. McCain has already started to do this. In an attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of undecided and less-informed voters, he has, on his official campaign website, disguised many key issues, hoping the public won't recognize them as strong Democratic issues. "Morals and Values" have become "Human Dignity." All immigration policy (which is an unbelievably complex issue) is lumped under the tough-guy heading "Border Security." His antiquated gun-control stance is nicely gift-wrapped in a package called "Protecting Second Amendment Rights."

I'll give it to McCain on one Issue: The Environment. Not that he's stronger on the environment than Democrats, because he's not even close. It's his attempt to make the environment a Republican issue that is, well, mildly hysterical. In his opinion, we should protect our national parks, not out of a desire to preserve nature or the future of our planet, but because it "is a patriotic responsibility." Later, he somehow manages to get "U.S. national security" into a discussion about his environmental policy, proving he will beat that drum even when it's not appropriate to beat it. And if it weren't enough to employ fear-mongering, McCain closes his statement on the environment with some good old fashioned religious pandering. Calling on Americans to be "caretakers of creation," McCain attempts to infuse just a touch of religious fundamentalism where, again, it could not be more further removed from the topic at hand.

So I have briefly outlined what the GOP's campaign strategy will be in 2008. Republicans are not stupid. They study polling data and they know which issues are winners, which are losers, and which issues just need a little change of context to be seen as favorable. Good luck with that.

Debbie Schlussel: TV Critic, Moron

2008-03-05T18:25:00.000-08:00

Right-wing blogger and hate-monger Debbie Schlussel has been a frequent source of inspiration here at Down With Righty. To sum up her career, Ms. Schlussel is a far right bigot with perhaps the most unfortunate Midwest accent in recent memory. (Check her out) She HATES Muslims, so much so that her blog is more religion than politics. Nearly every post is about some alleged Muslim "terrorist" or some "liberal" organizations' attempts to give Muslims special rights. In Debbie's warped mind, every Muslim with any money is funding al-Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah. This is a person for whom referring to Barack Obama by the popular "Barack Hussein Obama" has become too tiresome. She has since adopted the truncated "B Hussein O," being sure to preserve in full the name most useful for Republican hate-mongering.

To this point, Ms. Schlussel has only been detected on my radar for her extreme political views. This week, however, she tried her luck as a TV critic, but the results were the same. In the midst of the a presidential campaign, a collapsing economy, and heated debates over waterboarding and wiretapping, Ms. Schlussel took time to gloat over the potential cancellation of a TV show. The show, "Aliens in America" centers around a white, American family and their live-in Pakistani exchange student. Despite generally favorable reviews from the likes of Entertainment Weekly and Salon.com, the sitcom, like most television programs, faces an uncertain future.

After a Detroit News article warned of the show's possible demise, Schlussel was quick to affirm her suspicions: Americans will not tolerate a show with a positive Muslim character.

She went on to claim that the show was "anti-American" propaganda where "Americans are a lesser life form and Muslims are G-d's gift to humanity."

So much is wrong here that I hardly know where to begin....

First, her assessment of the show is hardly accurate. The show is in no way anti-American. Since 9/11, Americans have generally viewed Muslims with greater hostility. Despite a heightened awareness of the religion, Americans are still largely ignorant about Islam. Highlighting these facts in a television show does not constitute anti-American propaganda. In an almost comical twist, Schlussel, the anti-Muslim activist, attacks the show for - of all things - portraying Americans as anti-Muslim. These Hollywood types have some nerve!

Secondly, what was it that Mark Twain said about the rumors of his demise? Despite Schlussel's claims that the show is "a big flop," "tanking," "faltering,"and "on life support," things are not nearly that bad. In fact, the show has simply not yet been renewed for next season. Before the WGA strike, the show was gaining in the ratings and receiving positive reviews. The show's future is simply up in the air, as is the case with most television shows. This is an especially uncertain year for TV because the writer's strike shut down production on most shows and killed any momentum any new shows may have gained.

Aliens' Raja (Adhir Kalyan) and Justin (Dan Byrd)

Perhaps the most disgusting element of Schlussel's post is the sick joy she oozes while bashing a sitcom for it's positive Muslim element. It's one thing to revel in the misery of others, but doing so because of xenophobic racist hate is extremely disturbing. And in case Ms. Schlussel isn't aware, many, many TV programs face the threat of cancellation every season despite the fact that very few feature a Muslim protagonist. In fact, just last season, the following shows were all cancelled:

3 lbs
7th Heaven
All of Us
Andy Barker, P.I.
Angela's Eyes
Big Day
Close to Home
Creature Comforts
Crossing Jordan
Day Break
Deadwood
Drive
Falcon Beach
Grease: You're The One That I Want!
Happy Hour
Help Me Help You
Identity
In Case of Emergency
Justice
Kidnapped
Lovespring International
Raines
Reba
Rome
Runaway
Show Me the Money
Six Degrees
Smith
Standoff
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Thank God You're Here
The Black Donnellys
The Class
The George Lopez Show
The Great American Dream Vote
The King of Queens
The Knights of Prosperity
The Nine
The O.C.
The Real Wedding Crashers
The Rich List
The War at Home
The Wedding Bells
The Winner
Traveler
Twenty Good Years
Vanished
Veronica Mars
What About Brian

So what's the point? Simply put, a lot of shows get cancelled every year. "Aliens in America" is not only NOT cancelled, but is currently airing new episodes. Even if it were to be cancelled, it would be very unlikely to be due to Islamophobia, as Ms. Schlussel has suggested.

So let's see.... Debbie Schlussel is a conservative who enjoys attacking Muslims and Hollywood. She makes false, ill-informed statements and takes comfort in the misery of others. Sounds like your garden variety Righty. How very uninspired and unoriginal, Debbie. Perhaps it's time someone did us all a favor and cancelled you.

Obama's Patriotism Revisited

2008-02-28T15:07:00.000-08:00

Several months ago, presidential hopeful Barack Obama was the center of controversy for, of all things, not wearing an American flag lapel pin. Down With Righty followed the story here.

Since then, the Right has changed strategy in the form of numerous attempts to smear Obama as a closet Muslim. This campaign has recently gotten some of the bottom feeders in the Right-wing media (like Bill Cunningham) into hot water with both the mainstream media and even Republican John McCain. Despite the support of virtually the entire Right-wing media machine and a grassroots email campaign, the Obama-Muslim strategy has now appeared to have lost momentum.

So it's back to the drawing board. Thanks to the recent misconstrued (and edited) comments of Michelle Obama and a widely circulated image above of Barack with his hands to his sides during the national anthem, Obama's patriotism has once again been called into question.

First, let's look at Michelle Obama's comments. On February 19th, Michelle made a speech applauding Americans for demanding more from their leaders and crediting these people with some of her husband's success on the campaign trail. In the middle of the speech, she uttered the now famous line, "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country." Of course the Right-wing media blew right past the fact that Mrs. Obama was swelling with pride for her country, and instead went insane with the inevitable "Wait a minute, why wasn't she proud before now? What does she have to not be proud about?!! Traitor!!!"

Adding to the spectacle of an overblown attempt to paint the Obamas as un-American was the fact that the quotation appeared in an edited form in the mainstream media:

The poorly edited video - without the word "really" - made it into the mainstream media, where news agencies began reporting that Michelle Obama had never before been proud of her country. What's the big deal? It's just one little word that was deleted from the speech. What difference can one word make. Well, in my opinion, it can mean quite a bit. Basically, it is the difference between Michelle Obama showing an elevated level of patriotism because of the support shown to her husband, and never before having the slightest ounce of American pride. To me, that is a huge difference. Sorry, a really huge difference.

It's like that game we used to play in grade school, the one where a phrase is whispered from one kid to another in a circle until it reaches it's point of origin again, and is no doubt altered beyond any semblance of the original phrase. Well, the Right-wing bloggers took Michelle Obama's quotation and ran with it, until this is what came out:

"[S]he hasn’t had a real moment of pride in her country for the duration of her adult life." - Michellemalkin.com

"Michelle Obama Finally Proud of America After 44 Years" - urbangrounds.com

"Michelle Obama has never been proud of her country before?" - neoconnews.com

"She hasn’t been proud of America for 20+ years, apparently" - blogger Out West

"Michelle Hussein Obama Says She's Been Ashamed of the U.S. for Decades" - debbieschlussel.com

"Instead of seeing America as a place which afforded her the opportunity to create a blessed life, Mrs. Obama seems to view it as a place where some 'people' are always trying to hold her back." - The Weekly Standard

So while each blogger's commentary has strayed it's own way from the original statement, the last comment by the Weekly Standard really takes the cake. Not only is it the most derivative, but also the most telling insight into the conservative mind. I don't know what is more amusing: watching the Weekly Standard transform Mrs. Obama's "really proud" comment into some misguided indignation leveled at "The Man," or conservatives' reluctance to acknowledge that any American has ever behaved in a way that would inspire anything but the utmost pride in country. Americans owned slaves for 200 years. Americans wiped the Native Americans off the face of the earth. Americans didn't allow women to vote for 150 years. Americans have used weapons of mass destruction. Americans killed Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Americans have used steroids to cheat in the Olympic Games. Americans have set up puppet regimes in other countries. Americans have brokered illegal arms deals. Americans have started wars unprovoked. Americans have profited from these wars.

Yes, Americans have done some very wonderful things throughout the relatively short history of this country, far too many to list here. But not everything Americans do is necessarily good. That brings me to the next main point of this post: Why is unfettered patriotism a critical asset of any presidential candidate? In fact, the flag-waving, unyielding, unquestioning uber-patriotism espoused by much of the Right is in many ways a negative personality trait. It's narcissism on a national scale. Just like a person can love themselves too much, people can love their country too much as well, to the point where they develop a myopic view of their homeland, it's leaders and their actions. Where an individual must find common ground between narcissism and low self-esteem, so must a nation's citizens find a balance between blind flag-waving on one side and treason on the other. A nation, like any individual, is neither all good nor all bad. A true patriot is someone who takes the good with the bad, one who takes pride in the good and learns from the bad. The United States has, in recent history, had politicians and pundits more concerned with rationalizing the bad than learning from it, and that is how societies stagnate or even regress.

In the most innocuous cases, a leader with hyper-patriotism will often ignore other countries when it comes to advice on global issues or examples of successful domestic plans. It will cause the leader to over-emphasize matters of national security under-emphasize matters of national identity. It will cause a leader to ignore or simply be oblivious to very real problems for fear of being seen as negative toward the country. Look at Bush and the economy. He kept telling the nation that everything was great, in spite of mounting evidence to the contrary, until it was too late to reverse the trend. Essentially, too much patriotism will prevent the leader from making sound, unbiased decisions. We have seen the results of a hyper-patriotic presidency with our current leader. We have also seen it in leaders of past fascist regimes and I, for one, would prefer a candidate who maintains the ability to temper his/her national pride with some good old fashioned objectivity.

But back to the issue at hand, Obama and his supposed lack of national pride. The picture in Time magazine with his hands at his sides during the national anthem? Doesn't bother me. I'm sure many a politician has been photographed without a hand over his/her heart, most not living in nearly as much scrutiny as Barack Obama. But it is this kind of thing that causes epileptic fits on the Right. There were emails circulating, claiming that Obama "refused to not only put his hand on his heart during the pledge of allegiance, but refused to say the pledge." In fact, Obama did not "refuse" to put his hand over his heart, nor was this during the pledge, nor did he refuse to say the pledge. But when you have so few issues to go to bat with (as Republicans do this election cycle), you can't let the Democrats slip when it comes to national pride. To me, the idea that someone could aspire to be the leader of his country and not have pride in that country is beyond absurdity, but as long as some people are willing to believe it, the Right will keep pushing it.

Thanks to the Time magazine photo, the comments by Mrs. Obama, and the backfiring of the "Obama-is-a-Muslim" campaign, attacking Obama's patriotism is back on the table. On the February 22nd broadcast of Real Time With Bill Maher, panelist Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) revisited the lapel pin and pledge controversy. Ironically, Kingston was not wearing a lapel pin himself during the program.

The whole thing is really a moot point. Whether Barack Obama or his wife are flag-waving patriots is of very little concern to me. Of greater concern is whether a candidate is competent, independent, loyal to his constituency, and possesses integrity beyond reproach. As I mentioned before, the uber-patriot usually does not make the best leader. And before Americans start attacking Obama's lack of patriotism, they should really start to examine their own. How many times have you taken in the national anthem with your hands down? How many times have you approached Memorial Day as just another day off? How well do you know the U.S. Constitution? Or U.S. history?

In summary, there are several reasons the attacks on Obama's patriotism are bogus:

1) Wearing lapel pins and placing your hand over your heart do not make you a good American. They are symbols and anyone who thinks symbols trump substance is severely out of touch.

2) Being supremely nationalistic is not only not a prerequisite for the presidency, it is in fact a detrimental to one's ability to perform the duties of the president in an objective manner.

"Oh Dana"

2008-02-15T12:14:00.000-08:00

"It's okay, Dana. You're still a lot smarter than me."

I certainly don't envy the life of a White House Press Secretary. You basically get in front of a microphone everyday and spew administration propaganda and lies. It's a lot like the Rush Limbaugh show, but without the convenient physical anonymity radio provides. George W. Bush is on his fourth press secretary in 7 years. His latest, Dana Perino, is a refreshing change of pace from the quick-witted, smooth-talking styles of Ari Fleischer, Scott McClelland and Tony Snow, Bush's three previous press secretaries. No, Ms. Perino kind of just seems lost up there. Instead of simply spewing out the pre-approved administration lies, which she does frequently enough, she often appears as if she's making stuff up on the fly.

Last week, Dana Perino drew the ire of Democratic lawmakers by labeling the 110th U.S. Congress as the "Do-nothing Congress." Perino made the statement to explain President Bush's marked decline in the use of controversial signing statements in 2007. In fact, in 2007 Congress passed 11 more bills than the Republican-controlled Congress of 2006. And the Democrats were able to get all this done in spite of the fact that seven out of the eight vetoes issued during the Bush presidency were issued in 2007.

So was this moniker dropped by Perino part of a concerted effort by the GOP to smear the Democrats in Congress? Certainly Dems have been accused (unjustly) of not supporting the troops and aiding terrorists, but the "Do-nothing" comment appears to be a creation of Perino herself. And if she had done her homework, she would have realized what an inappropriate and ill-informed comment it was. Despite intense opposition from the White House, this Congress still passed more bills into law than the more aptly named "Rubber Stamp Congress" of 2006.

Of course this was not the first time Ms. Perino embarrassed herself in such a fashion.

In a January 2008 press conference, Perino eschewed a reporter's question about the looming recession and budget crisis, claiming simply that "math is not my strong suit.”

Despite graduating college with a minor in political science, Perino admittedly does not know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was. On a December 2007 edition of NPR's game show, "Wait, Wait . . . Don't Tell Me," Perino retold the story of how she was flustered by a reporter's question about the historic event, saying she thought it had to do with "Cuba and missiles, or something." She later told her husband about her "deer in headlights" experience, to which he replied, "Oh, Dana." Perhaps we might not expect the President to know pertinent U.S. history, or be able to find Namibia on a map, but his official mouthpiece should be able to.

Following the Virginia Tech school shooting in 2007, Perino was asked about the administration's stance on current gun laws. Perino said the best solution for combating gun violence is for people to just obey the existing laws:

The President believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed. And certainly bringing a gun into a school dormitory and shooting,...that would be against the law and something that someone should be held accountable for.

Downplaying the value of the Army Field Manual (which expressly forbids waterboarding as an interrogation technique), Perino said the manual is really only appropriate for "young GIs, some so young that they’re not even able to legally get a drink in the states where they’re from." The rationale, then, is that CIA interrogators (average age of 40) shouldn't be governed by the same code as the Army, essentially a bunch of rowdy teenagers. In fact, the average age of Army soldiers is 28, and the age of Army interrogators likely much higher. So Perino believes that two U.S. intelligence outfits should be governed by different codes of ethics because of perhaps an age difference of a few years.

I mean, come on Dana. Just come out and say you want to waterboard people, and we'll have at least some respect for you. But again, this isn't just smooth-talking propaganda, but some seriously bizarre ad libbing that makes you think "Wow. If she's getting this creative with her spin, she must really be hiding something." See, the Tony Snows of the world are cool customers. Snow was like a pre-programmed robot who never really got flustered and never deviated from the administration talking points, no matter how ridiculous they might have been. Perino on the other hand, seems to want to make her case stronger by going off the page with her answers, and we've seen the results of that.

I guess I prefer the Perino approach to the Snow approach. I guess it comes down to a personal preference for honesty over competence. While Americans have gotten used to both dishonesty and incompetence since 2001, it's refreshing to see someone who is woefully unqualified giving it their all for the team. And when being a good liar is the main qualification for the job, I guess I don't mind Perino's incompetence all that much.

A Wolf in Elephant's Clothing?

2008-01-29T11:45:00.000-08:00

Last week, a Mark Deli Siljander, a former Michigan congressman and Reagan appointee to the United Nations, was indicted on charges he helped raise funds and lobby for an organization with financial ties to Al-Qaeda.

Siljander, a Republican, served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1981 until 1987. He then served as a U.S. representative to the United Nations General Assembly for one year. In his private career, Siljander worked for a Christian Conservative Non-profit Organization, a Washington DC Lobbying Firm, and later for the Islamic American Relief Agency, the organization charged with aiding a known Al-Qaeda terrorist.

Clearly it is a shocking development when a former U.S. congressman is indicted for aiding a terrorist organization. However, if you have been paying attention to the right-wing talking heads and occasionally the mainstream media, the real surprise in this story might have been: "Shouldn't this guy have been a Democrat?"

For years, Republicans, as well as the right-wing media have been obsessed with telling the American people that the Democratic Party is the "Al-Qaeda Party." Presumably based in very reasonable Democratic objections to the Iraq War, The Patriot Act, Guantanamo, torture, domestic spying, and other questionable Republican anti-terror endeavors, right-wingers have scored political points perverting the Democrats' desire to preserve basic constitutional freedoms with some Democrat-Al-Qaeda alliance. Since Republican policies run in contrast to most Americans' best interests, the party decided after September 11th that one of the few winning issues they had left, national security, would be exploited at all costs. According to a July 2007 poll, when rating the political parties on different issues, Republicans were rated higher than Democrats on just three of 20 issues: moral values, a strong military, and national security. Even then, Republicans were viewed as stronger on national security by a mere 3 to 2 margin over Democrats, whereas Americans favored Democrats on their "strong" issues - global warming and health care - by a margin of about 5 to 1.

The point is, that Republicans will beat the drum of national security for as long as they are seen as strong in that area. As Americans became disenchanted with "staying the course" in Iraq, for example, Republicans largely stopped campaigning on that issue. To keep from losing their grip on one of their few remaining selling points, Republicans must:

A) Continually remind Americans that we are under attack from radical Islam, and

B) Make themselves appear stronger than Democrats on fighting Islamic terrorism.

One component of this strategy has been the effort to link Democrats and other liberals with radical Islam. Below are a few (actually a lot of) examples of this going on in the media:

Just this week, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton suggested that "mullahs" in Iran are hoping for a Democratic victory in 2008 because a Democrat would allow Iran to continue it's supposed nuclear weapons program. According to Bolton, Iran is "thinking about...the Democratic nominee winning. I think they’re going try and string this thing out in hopes that they’ll find some more pliable administration in the White House." While it would certainly be to the benefit of Iran to not have a sabre-rattling lunatic that has talked openly about preemptive war, Iran halted their nuclear weapons program in 2003, so a Democrat in the White House would be irrelevent in this regard.

Conservative author and newspaper columnist Dinesh D'Souza attacked liberals in his book, The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11. I guess the title pretty much sums it up, but yes, he claimed that 9/11 would not have happened if not for liberals.

John Gibson, on his radio program in August of 2007, claimed that certain Democrats may have bargained with Al-Qaeda before the November 2006 elections, presumably because an Al-Qaeda attack would benefit Republicans in the election. Gibson went as far as to announce, "Hillary makes a deal with Al Qaeda."

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh had this photoshopped picture of Osama Bin laden posted on his website (notice Bin laden's party affiliation):

In 2006, Glenn Beck told newly-elected congressman Keith Ellison, a Democrat and practicing Muslim, "Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies." As outrageous as that statement might be, at least Beck called the congressman "Sir."

A 2006 New York Post editorial regarding the Senate confirmation hearings of controversial U.N. ambassador John Bolton, claimed that, "Democrats have an obligation to demonstrate conclusively to America's enemies that they don't have allies on Capitol Hill." The editorial also claimed that terrorists "were rejoicing last week and feeling emboldened in the wake of the Dems' victory."

Weeks before the 2006 Congressional Election, Rush Limbaugh claimed that "The key voters...in this year's election are the terrorists, the Islamofascists, the jihadists," and that increased violence in Iraq at the time meant that "the terrorists around the world, and particularly, those in Iraq, are voting Democrat today."

In 2006, after President Bush exploited the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks to drum up support for the unrelated Iraq War, Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) said of those critical of the Bush speech, “I wonder if they’re more interested in protecting the terrorists than protecting the American people.”

After the death of Iraq insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June 2006, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) issued a statement suggesting Zarqawi was only a "mere sliver" of the Iraqi violence and that anti-U.S. violence will continue as long as U.S. troops are in Iraq. Radio host Don Imus responded by suggesting Kucinich might take Zarqawi's place as leader of the anti-U.S. insurgency.

Leading up to the 2006 Congressional Election, VP Dick Cheney suggested that voting for Iraq War critic Ned Lamont over the hawkish Joe Lieberman would embolden "the al Qaeda types" who want to "break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task."

In a posting at GOP Bloggers, contributor Jon Roth cited a disputed article in the far right Wall Street Journal opinion page in leveling serious accusations on Democrats opposed to the warrantless surveillance program. According to Roth, critics of the illegal program, who sought to hold the government and telecommunications companies accountable for violating Americans' privacy rights, were "Aiding al-Qaeda against America" and had the nerve to label any criticism of the surveillance program "treason." (An interesting side-note to this blog post. Roth later suggested that President Bush went after the leaker of Valerie Plame's identity with "gusto." Seriously. That's his word, not mine. I suppose if with "gusto" means making sure no one involved with the leak ever has to testify or spend one night in jail, while no charges are ever brought against the people who actually leaked Plame's identity, then yes, "gusto" works just fine.)

Following the March 2004 bombings in Madrid, and subsequent regime change in Spain, media figures started suggesting that terrorists might seek to use violence to oust George W. Bush in 2004. Chris Matthews claimed this put Democratic candidate John Kerry in a pickle: "Doesn't it put your party in a terrible position of having Al Qaeda rooting for you?"

Rush Limbaugh asserted that al Qaeda terrorists "want Kerry, they want the Democrats in power. They'd love that -- I mean, based simply on what they're saying and how they're reacting to what happened in Spain. I'm not guessing."

Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said before the 2004 Presidential Election that terrorists "are going to throw everything they can between now and the election to try and elect Kerry."

Ray Kraft of Family Security Matters, still undaunted by the lack of any Iraq-al Qaeda link, suggested that the Democrats' April 2007 effort to set a timetable for the withdrawl of U.S. troops in Iraq was tantamount to surrender. Kraft suggested that supporters of withdrawl were giving aid to the enemy, thus being guilty of treason. Kraft also stated that if the U.S. withdrew troops from Iraq, the world would "incrementally surrender to the religious totalitarianism of Jihad." It is unclear how the United States could surrender from a conflict we have already claimed to have won:

And while not directly asserting any ties between the Democratic Party and al-Qaeda, no discussion of the politicization of Islamic terrorism would be complete without the infamous GOP attack ad of 2006: (video here)

First of all, no one is celebrating the fact that a former United States congressman has ties to al-Qaeda. I'm just waiting for the Rush Limbaugh's and Dick Cheney's of the world to apologize for all the innuendo, inference, and outright suggestion that the Democratic Party is in allegiance with al-Qaeda terrorists. I'm not getting my hopes up.

Of course, these claims are so utterly ridiculous for one main reason: When it comes to who they want to kill, Islamic Jihadists do not differentiate between Republicans and Democrats.

Jihadists have said for years that they will kill any and all Americans. Osama Bin Laden himself addressed the American people in a tape released before the 2004 election, saying, "Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands." The idea that al-Qaeda would be "rooting" for Democrats or that Democrats seek to give "aid and comfort" to the terrorists is so ludicrous that it's amazing the notion has persisted as long as it has.

The real irony of this alleged Democrat-al-Qaeda partnership is that during the few times Islamic terrorists have discussed U.S. political parties, it has been the Republicans they have sided with. Remember the Madrid bombings? The group widely thought to be responsible for the attacks "endorsed" Bush in 2004:

"Kerry will kill our nation while it sleeps because he and the Democrats have the cunning to embellish blasphemy and present it to the Arab and Muslim nation as civilization. Because of this we desire you [Bush] to be elected."

But because Democrats seek to preserve constitutional freedoms and global credibility, as well protect the lives of U.S. soldiers and innocent Iraqi citizens, they are seen as being in league with al-Qaeda, when the goals of the two organizations could not be more disparate. Yet you continue to hear these connections made among the right-wing media and some of the mainstream media as well. In reality, 9/11 occurred under a Republican President and a Republican Congress. Osama Bin Laden, supposed public enemy number one and poster boy for the GOP's "Get Tough On Terror" campaign, has not been captured in over six years since the 9/11 attacks. Compared to the relatively easy capture of Saddam Hussein, Bush's failure to apprehend the founder of al-Qaeda with a $50 million bounty on his head is almost beyond comprehension.

The only real link you ever hear between al-Qaeda and the Republican Party is among 9/11 conspiracy theorists, and while these theories are probably inaccurate, the movement has been branded by the mainstream media as complete folly.

If there is a silver lining in the Mark Deli Siljander saga, it is this: One would hope that the next time a politician, pundit, or member of the mainstream media alleges some link between Islamic terrorism and the Democratic Party, he/she stops and remembers that Mark Deli Siljander was a Republican.

Bush and the U.S. Economy: The End of a Delusion

2008-01-17T19:29:00.000-08:00

2008 has been especially rough for the United States economy, culminating this week with another poor showing on Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, for example, is already down 9% in just two weeks of trading in 2008. It seems that everywhere you turn, people are talking about a recession. President Bush has given the state of the economy numerous "thumbs up" in recent years and has largely ignored the many warning signs of an economic slowdown.

This week, Bush finally acknowledged that, in fact, the United States economy is not as rosy as he has been telling us. He met with Congress January 17th to discuss a $150 billion economic stimulus package, aimed at kick-starting the sagging U.S. economy.

Many of us have seen a recession on the horizon for a while now. I'm certainly no economist, but I understand that what economic situations are good indicators of recession, and that the simultaneous existence of many of these these factors is a bad sign. To anyone paying attention, A) the bursting real estate bubble, B) the foreclosure crisis, C) record national debt, D) record levels of personal consumer debt, E) reckless military spending, F) the evisceration of the middle class, G) rising inflation, H) stagnant incomes, I) rising energy costs, J) the Social Security crisis, K) a weak U.S. dollar and L) more and more jobs being shipped overseas, all pointed in the direction of a recession.

But that is part of Bush's appeal, apparently: the ability to look at a dire situation and see the complete opposite. We're winning the Iraq War, remember.

Bush's 2007 State of the Economy is essentially a feel-good story of a nation without an economic care in the world. The report's cherry-picked economic data belie the very real financial issues Americans are facing.

So why has it taken Bush so long to grasp the gravity of this situation? Presumeably it is because he believes that the only components making up the national economy are i) job growth and ii) corporate earnings. I'll admit that I don't quite get "job growth." It seems as if everywhere you look, major U.S. companies are laying off employees by the thousands, yet job growth remains strong according to the Bush Administration. I mean, in just the last couple of years alone, we have seen layoffs from:

Ford: 30,000 jobs
Hewlett-Packard: 20,000 jobs
General Motors: 30,000 jobs
Dell: 8,000 jobs
Citigroup: 20,000 jobs
Chrysler: 13,000 jobs
Bank of America: 3,000 jobs
Verizon: 7,000 jobs
Oracle: 5,000 jobs
Proctor & Gamble: 6,000 jobs
American Home Mortgage: 6,250 jobs
Countrywide Home Loans: 12,000 jobs

We know jobs are being cut. But where are all these supposed new jobs coming from? Jobs are cut either because of corporate mergers, because they are moved someplace cheaper, or because a company is failing. These are jobs that aren't coming back. I understand that new jobs are created due to company growth, and that companies like to announce layoffs because they make the value of their stock increase. I just don't see how job growth is steady in this country. Chalk this one up to ignorance, I guess.

As for corporate earnings, Bush's economic policies of deregulation, corporate welfare and capital gains tax cuts have certainly benefited investors and the super rich. That cannot be disputed. For years, Bush was hidden behind a strong Wall Street to avoid discussing the real economic problems facing the middle and lower classes. Not only have Bush's economic policies benefited the wealthy at the expense of the middle class, but they have actually created the smoke and mirrors with which to obscure the looming recession and eroding middle class.

So instead of telling us how great the economy has been over the last 7 years and exclusively looking at the "half glass full" scenarios, President Bush would have been better served to heed the economic indicators and do something before it became too late. Many economists believe we are already in a recession. It remains to be seen if Bush's plan to throw money at the problem will work. Personally, I'm skeptical. The proposed tax relief plan of $150 billion, divided evenly among every American would would amount to roughly $500 per individual. Don't get me wrong, George. I'll take the money. But for many Americans, that's just about enough money to pay their credit card bills this month. I don't think that will pull the United States out of a recession any time soon. I hope I'm wrong, but judging by Bush's economic track record, I'm not getting my hopes up. While President Bush has had one thumb up in praise of the U.S. economy, the other thumb has apparently been somewhere else.

Kerry Joins Obama: Is that a good thing?

2008-01-12T00:37:00.000-08:00

This week, 2004 presidential runner-up John Kerry formally endorsed Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination in 2008. That makes Democrats wonder, "Is that a good thing?"

Let's remember that John Kerry managed to lose to George W. Bush, one of the worst presidents in the history of the United States. Currently, Bush enjoys a roughly 30% approval rating, and since the 2004 election, Republican have lost control of both houses of congress. Kerry has been criticized (and rightfully so) for not responding to the Swift Boat Veterans' smear campaign and not challenging very questionable election day discrepancies and Republican-led voter suppression.

I'll admit, I voted for the guy, but I worry that he carries with him a "loser's persona." I think Obama is a great candidate, and I hope he or John Edwards wins the Democratic nomination. But above all else, the Democrats must take control of the White House, and I'm concerned that if Obama wins the nomination, Kerry will not necessarily help his cause.

I could be wrong, and I hope I am, but no one likes to back a loser, especially in America. Whether it's fair or not, Kerry lost in 2004, and did very little to fight for what was likely stolen from him. I just hope he lends his support "behind the scenes" and lets Obama bear the brunt of the campaigning. And I hope this year Kerry will refrain from attempting any "jokes" while on the campaign trail.

I put together this montage to commemorate the failed Kerry presidential bid. Enjoy.

Election '08: The tireless Right-wing effort to convince America that Barack Obama is a Muslim

2008-01-04T12:48:00.000-08:00

Tell me that isn't a mosque in the background

Yesterday, 2008 Presidential hopeful Barack Obama won the Iowa Caucuses, taking 38% of the vote to John Edwards' 30% and Hillary Clinton's 29%. The results solidified Obama as a real contender to win the Democratic nomination and eventually the General Election. Many on the Right, however, have realized the Obama threat a while ago, and haven't waited until the General Election to start smearing him. His supposed inexperience, his position on Pakistan, his sex education policy, even his choice of fashion accessories. But a somewhat more subtle, and in my opinion irrelevant, tactic has been to question Obama's religion. While some have chosen to attack Obama's church, essentially lumping the Trinity United Church of Christ in with Jim Jones, David Koresh, the Reverend Moon and Tom Cruise, others have taken a different approach: prove to the world that Barack Obama is a Muslim.

Conservative website Insightmag.com peddled a since-debunked story that Obama was educated at a Madrassa, a Muslim seminary school, and attributed the false story to the Hillary Clinton campaign.

In a December, 2007 interview with Good Morning America, Right-wing pundit Glenn Beck "mistakenly" referred to Obama as "Osama" before correcting himself. "Unfortunate name," was Beck's excuse for the supposed flub.

Conservative Frontpagemag.com published an article on December 26, 2007, using discredited accounts of a childhood acquaintance to answer that age-old question, "Was Obama Ever a Muslim?"

Debbie Schlussel has devoted at least three blog posts to cracking the case of Obama's secret Muslim identity. In Schlussel's view, we should apply Islamic law:
In Arab culture and under Islamic law, if your father is a Muslim, so are you.
And once a Muslim, always a Muslim.
Schlussel later outdid herself, posing the question of whether Barack Obama was a "man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?"
Bernard McGuirk, former executive producer of Imus in the Morning, criticized Obama for having a "Jew-hating name." Really.

Radical right-wing website Freedomsenemies.com, states that Obama has been "a Muslim for 31 years."

CNN Correspondent Jeff Greenfield suggested that Obama and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad somehow have similar tastes in fashion, adding:
Now, it is one thing to have a last name that sounds like Osama and a middle name, Hussein, that is probably less than helpful. But an outfit that reminds people of a charter member of the Axis of Evil?

In an apparent slip of the tongue, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney committed the common mistake of confusing Obama with Osama bin Laden:

Actually, just look at what Osam—Barack Obama—said just yesterday. Barack Obama, calling on radicals, jihadists of all different types, to come together in Iraq.
Rush Limbaugh referred to the Senator as "Obama Osama" no less than seven times during the June 11, 2005 edition of his radio program.

In addition to these concerted efforts to link Obama with Islam, the somewhat more innocent practice of using Obama's full name, Barack Hussein Obama, has become part of the right-wing canon. While I'm sure Obama appreciates the courtesy, the fact that these conservatives fail to refer to other politicians by their full names makes it clear that the real, not so innocent, intent is to make Obama appear more Muslim. The following pundits have all used this tactic:

Ed Rogers, former advisor to Bush, Sr.
Ann Coulter
Richard "Bo" Dietl, frequent Fox News "analyst"
Rush Limbaugh
Chris Matthews
Bill Bennett
Bill Cunningham, conservative radio talk show host (actually falsely added "Mohammed" to Obama's name to give it some extra Muslim flair)

While the attacks by the "professional media" have been petty enough, those lobbed at Obama by Joe Righty have been truly idiotic:

"There's no way that anyone with the middle name 'Hussein' could rise to that level of power in the United States without being the devil, in my opinion." - caller on The John Gibson Show

"He's not open about being a practicing Muslim." - poster validuscustodiae on redstate.com

"Hussein Obama is a dangerous covert muslism." - poster huckabeefan on redstate.com

An email circulating in 2006 claimed that Obama's father was a "radical Muslim" and that Obama swore his oath of office on the Koran, both outrageously false.

Conservative "blog," (to put it nicely) http://barack-hussein-obama.blogspot.com/, claimed that "Barack Obama is a MUSLIM. No ifs ands or buts," and placed this tasteful picture of Obama in front of the burning World Trade Center on the website:

Why is this a big deal? Well, it shouldn't be. A candidate's religious background means almost as little to me as his or her middle name. But as I'm beginning to discover, I'm not always like most Americans. A Pew research survey conducted in 2007 found that 45% of Americans would be less likely to vote for a candidate who is a Muslim.

So clearly, religion does matter. (Interestingly enough, and in spite of the anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. after 9/11, Americans would still prefer a Muslim president to an atheist.) But even without the anti-Muslim hostility, the United States is still overwhelmingly a Christian nation, and candidates who appear to have more in common with the average American are traditionally seen to have an advantage. That is where I believe this effort to Muslimize Barack Obama stems from. I have to give the average American some credit. Despite the Arab name and Muslim stepfather, and even though 9/11 is still very fresh in people's minds, I don't think people are going to believe Obama is the Trojan Horse of radical Islam. But as many analysts expect another tight election in 2008, every vote counts, especially among independents. Evangelicals are not going to vote for Barack Obama, but your average, moderate Christian might, which is why conservatives are trying so hard to make Obama's "Musliminess" a wedge with which the GOP can create distance between Obama and independent voters. If Obama retains the momentum garnered from his victory in Iowa and wins the nomination, expect this sort of nonsense to increase exponentially. Because, while it is not okay in this country to attack a candidate for being black or being a female, sadly it's still okay to attack them for being Muslim.

Let's [not] Talk About Sex

2008-01-02T15:36:00.000-08:00

"Condoms? Never heard of 'em."

While it is not known whether or not Jamie Lynn Spears is aware of contraceptive devices, once thing is certain: She did not learn about them in school. That is because the pregnant 16-year old actress attends school in Mississippi, one of 36 states that receives federal funding for abstinence-only sexual education. The program, known as Title V, was implemented in 1996 and has since allocated over $1.5 billion to promoting abstinence as the only sex education alternative available to teens. For states to receive funding, Title V requires that a state meet very specific sex education standards. Since it's inception, 14 states have opted not to receive federal funding, and Congress may eventually cut the program altogether.

In a modest step in the right direction, Congress this week passed a budget without an increase in abstinence-only funding. Funding for the programs had increased virtually every year since George W. Bush took office

So why would the government want to eliminate this program? Why would states turn down federal money? Intuitively, abstinence education makes sense, right? After all, you can't get pregnant or contract an STD if you don't have sex. The problem with abstinence-only education, however, is the "only" part. These programs, as opposed to comprehensive sex education, eliminate all discussion of contraception, except when noting the failure rates of the various contraceptive methods. This leaves teenagers woefully unprepared for sexual activity and this ignorance leaves them potentially more vulnerable to pregnancy and STD's.

I know what you're thinking. "But why do kids need to know about contraceptives if they are not having sex?" The answer to that question is simple: They're having sex.

-In a 2007 report commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services concluded that abstinence-only education programs do not have any net effect on a teen's likelihood of engaging in premarital sex. In fact, students who had taken part in an abstinence program began sexual activity at the same age and had the same number of sexual partners as the control group. Of course abstinence is the most effective way to prevent pregnancy and STD's. The study found, however, that abstinence education programs do not actually result in promoting abstinence.

-Aside from being ineffective, a 2004 report released by the US House of Representatives concluded that these programs also contained false or misleading information about contraceptives, STD's and other sexual health issues.

-While abstinence-only programs do not work, comprehensive sex education programs, which emphasize abstinence along with contraceptive methods, have produced more desired results. A study released by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, stated that comprehensive programs were effective in "delaying the initiation of sex, reducing the frequency of sex, reducing the number of sexual partners and increasing condom or contraceptive use."

-Studies of teens who have taken a "virginity pledge," a promise to abstain from sex until marriage, had a rate of STD infection equal that of non-pledgers.

The debate about abstinence education is relevant again, and not just because of Jamie Lynn Spears. In 2006, teen pregnancies increased for the first time in 15 years, as did the rate of unmarried women giving birth. In addition, the 2008 presidential election, and the GOP's desire to pander to socially conservative voters, has put the abstinence-only debate back on the map. Mike Huckabee has said, "I do not believe in teaching about sex or contraception in public schools." Mitt Romney proudly displays his devotion to the abstinence education cause on his campaign website. John McCain has spoken about his pro-abstinence record in South Carolina.

So why are all these Republicans so proud of a program that had failed so miserably? There are three equally compelling explanations.

1) Americans are easily confused. Teaching abstinence and teaching abstinence ONLY are two entirely different issues. Conservative groups like to tout polls that find parents overwhelmingly support abstinence being taught in schools. Of course, this is no big surprise. Parents generally want their children to avoid sexual activity as long as possible because of the risks involved. Conservatives conveniently omit the fact that the same Zogby poll found that 75% of parents favor teaching teens about abstinence and contraception. Simply put, teaching kids about the importance of abstinence and allocating taxpayer funds to teach abstinence-only education are vastly different concepts, and Republicans are exploiting the average American's inability to distinguish between the two.

2) Republicans need the "Values Voters" to win elections. Like abortion bans, gay marriage amendments and the like, issues like abstinence education appeal to the "moral majority," and are essential to any Republican's chance of winning in 2008. Despite poll after poll suggesting these values issues are of low importance to voters, the Republican primaries have become a competition to see who can appear more socially conservative. One need look no further than the rapid decline of Rudy Giuliani's presidential dreams to observe the fallout of being a socially moderate Republican in 2008.

3) Republicans must paint Democrats as very socially liberal. Appealing to moderates and independents will likely determine which party wins the White House in 2008. Despite a multitude of Republican sex scandals in recent years, Republicans are already on the offensive when it comes to making the Democratic Party out to be the party of loose sexual morals. Barack Obama has caught flack from Republicans who misrepresented his comprehensive sex education policy. Also expect the unsubstantiated claims of Hillary Clinton's lesbianism and her support of NAMBLA to be ramped up if she wins the Democratic nomination.

So, with the 2008 election approaching, teen pregnancy on the rise, multiple studies undermining the program's efficacy, states opting out of the abstinence education funding, and Congress likely to cut funding altogether in the future, the "values" crowd is scrambling to pick up the pieces. In December of 2007, the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) had the following reaction to the news that teen pregnancy had increased in 2006:

"The alarming news today that U.S. teen birth rates are on the rise brings additional credence to the call for Congress to invest in abstinence education for America's teens."

So, in the opinion of the NAEA, when a program that has been proven ineffective becomes even more ineffective, the logical solution is to sink more money into the program.

This week, Fox News aired a report on abstinence-only education that featured Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America. Wright had this to say about those who oppose abstinence-only education:

In fact, they want to encourage [kids to choose to have sex] because they benefit when kids end up having sexually transmitted diseases, unintended pregnancies and then they lead them into having abortions, so you have to look at the financial motives behind those who are promoting comprehensive sex ed.

As for those "financial motives," one can infer that Ms. Wright is referring primarily to Planned Parenthood, a non-profit organization that primarily provides pregnancy prevention services. That someone would claim that groups are encouraging teen sex is absurd, and the fact that Fox News would present this as if were somehow a sensible argument is appalling.

But alas, at least people are talking about it. Ever since the Republican Congress of the mid-1990's created the abstinence-only education program, funding has increased even as evidence of the program's ineffectiveness has mounted. So even if the Jamie Lynn Spears pregnancy is seen as an indictment of the U.S. sexual education system, at least she has people talking about it. Hopefully the government can address this colossal waste of taxpayer money before the War on Teen Sex becomes the next War on Drugs.

'Tis the Season for Eco-bashing

2007-12-28T12:17:00.000-08:00

"The month of rolling blackouts was totally worth it"

Okay, so the holiday season is not typically the most environmentally-conscious of seasons. In fact, it's probably one of the toughest few weeks of the year for the environment, with all the holiday travel, increased heating costs, forests worth of discarded wrapping paper, and let's not forget all the lights! Reason would suggest that a time of such great environmental strain would be an opportune time to help the environmental cause.

Unfortunately, many on the Right like to savor this time of year, hoping that those "crazy whack job environmentalists" will take a much-needed vacation from their cause. They employ the "Is Nothing Sacred?" argument to mask their true intention, pandering to big business at the expense of the environment.

Michelle Malkin recently went on the attack following what she perceived to be a heretical act by the mayor of Seattle to instill a little environmental awareness into a holiday tradition. Mayor Greg Nickels got the Right into an uproar with his "Letter To Santa", an effort to use Santa's Christmas rounds as a reminder to children that global warming is having an observed effect on the North Pole. The letter also launched the mayor's campaign to give out energy efficient light bulbs this holiday season, and announced the use of efficient LED Christmas lights for the city's holiday tree.

Malkin was not alone in piling on the mayor. Conservative blogs leaningstraightup.com, The American Pundit, crushliberalism.com, rightvoices.com and brutallyhonest.org all voiced their displeasure with Mayor Nickels' environmental message. Malkin herself later shed a tear for the eventual phasing out of the incandescent light bulb, a mandate of the new energy bill signed by President Bush in December.

If you're anything like me, you're probably asking yourself, "So what's all the uproar about?" Unfortunately, reading these blog posts does virtually nothing to answer that question. Rather than putting up any real argument as to why we shouldn't be environmental aware at Christmas time, these blog authors instead relied on the following tactics:

1. The aforementioned "Is Nothing Sacred?" argument. This states that because Christmas is -or at least was intended to be - a religious holiday, that any discussion of environmental issues is tantamount to sacrilege. Now I would be offended by, say, Christ-centered pornography, if that even exists. One could reasonably use the "Is Nothing Sacred?" argument in that case. But with the Seattle mayor, we're not talking about Jesus, we are talking about the secular, mythical tale of Santa Claus and his reindeer. And we're talking about energy efficient light bulbs, not anything illegal, immoral or even slightly unpleasant. Not exactly a crucifix in a glass of urine. For example:

"Can’t Christmas be Christmas without Al Gore wannabes polluting the air and scaring the kids?" - Malkin

"Now they’ve crossed the line. Dragging Santa in the Global Warming debate has gone too far!" - rightvoices.com

2. The Idiotic Knee-jerk Reaction. Right-wingers have some nerve ending in the brain that fires whenever the words "environment" or "global warming" are uttered, sending these impulses to the thalamus resulting in a heightened state of arousal, sometimes referred to as a "fight or flight" response. (Wow, I did remember something from college) This results in the righty reacting without understanding what is really going on, often embellishing on the original story or fabricating one of their own. Like the human knee-jerk reflex, there isn't really any conscious thought going on here either. A few of the right-wing headlines for this story:

"Seattle mayor: Santa hates kids who aren’t eco-kooks like me." - crushliberalism.com

"Seattle Mayor: Use Eco-Friendly Lightbulbs or Santa Will Die" - The American Pundit

"Seattle Mayor Nickels to kids: Stop Global Warming, OR SANTA WILL DIE!!!!" - Leaningstrightup.com

Okay folks, let's not get carried away here. There is no environmental fear-mongering going on. Nickels says nothing about Santa or his reindeer dying, nor does he claim that Santa hates any kids. Real fear-mongering (the kind mastered by conservatives) involves warning of the demise of real people over a fictitious threat (see George Bush, mushroom cloud). What the mayor of Seattle did was the exact opposite. He warned of the demise of fake people (Santa, et al) over a real threat (global warming).

3. The "Closed Loop" method. This is when far-right conservatives exclusively use other far-right conservatives as backup for their arguments. You have to give it to this group, though. At least they attempted to make an argument.

- In slamming the new energy bill, Michelle Malkin based her position solely on the Business and Media Institute's assessment of the bill. The Business and Media Institute is a right-wing watchdog group dedicated to promoting conservative, free-market economic theory in the media.

- For their part, Leaning Straight Up used multiple far right sources to slam energy-efficient light bulbs, linking to both Capitalism Magazine and the Washington Policy Center, the self-proclaimed purveyor of "high quality analysis on issues relating to the free market and government regulation."

Because nothing says "sound argument" quite like exclusively citing unabashedly right-wing organizations. A less-overtly partisan source usually makes for a better argument. For example the The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the National Academy of Sciences, The American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the EPA, would all provide a more well-rounded summation of environmental issues than the energy-funded organizations conservatives exclusively tap for their environmental [mis]information.

Election '08: The Huckabee Factor

2007-12-21T14:57:00.000-08:00

Recent 2008 presidential polls have former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee coming out of nowhere to lead in Iowa and pull virtually neck and neck with the Republican front runners in national surveys. Clearly, the religious right was not pleased with the choice of candidates, and has thrown support in the corner of an evangelical ally, which has many within the Republican Party scrambling to smear him.

Why attack one of their own, you say? Huckabee represents a break from the traditional GOP way of doing things: He is a actually a true social conservative. Where Reagan, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. only pandered to social conservatives to get elected, Huckabee appears committed to the "Christian" conservative cause.

This is troubling to the GOP for several reasons. Huckabee stands to split Republican voters into two factions. On one hand, you have the social conservatives (SC's), and on the other, the fiscal conservatives (FC's), classical conservatives or Goldwater conservatives. Until now, the two factions (while having virtually nothing in common) were able to coexist under a single GOP banner. This was largely due to the SC's distancing themselves from the Democratic party over issues like abortion, civil rights and gay marriage, and from a concerted effort by the FC's in power to give the SC's just enough "faith-based" government to keep them happy.

But now, in walks Mike Huckabee, who is without a doubt a true blue Christian Conservative. If George W. Bush and Karl Rove could have the SC's convinced they're good Christians, Mike Huckabee may have them believing he's the Second Coming. Huckabee is an ordained minister. He is against civil unions, abortion and gun-control. He doesn't believe in evolution. He believes that homosexuality is sinful, and he has credited God for his recent jump in the polls.

It is not difficult to grasp the implications of Huckabee's meteoric rise. Social Conservatives, Christian Conservatives, Evangelicals, or whatever you want to call them may not be able to recognize if a Republican is or is not a Christian, but they sure as hell can tell who is more Christian. Among the pro-choice, cross-dressing adulterer, the cult follower, the Hollywood actor, and the Baptist Minister, I think the SC's can find their guy. And if you consider John McCain to still be in the running, remember that he lost the 2000 primary largely due to his reluctance to pander to the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells of the world.

So what we have is a candidate in Huckabee who may actually be too socially conservative for the FC's. While Huckabee is busy locking up the "I-ain't-come-from-no-monkey!" vote, the "Lower-my-taxes-and-screw-the-middle-class" voter may start to look outside the Republican Party. This is where a moderate candidate like Hillary Clinton gets a boost, as she is clearly the more fiscally conservative of the Democratic candidates. For example, Hillary supports not a single-payer universal health care plan, but a health insurance mandate, much like automobile insurance is required for all drivers. While the government would assist in helping people adhere to the mandate, Americans would now have more of their tax dollars devoted to pure profit for insurance companies. But I digress...

Huckabee's ascent to the top of the polls has started to alarm the FC's, and the FC's are starting to fight back. Presumably worried that Huckabee is not as fiscally conservative as a Republican should be, conservatives are fiercely trying to stave off Huckabee's rise.

Rush Limbaugh claimed that Huckabee is essentially a Democratic plant designed to ensure the Democratic nominee has a beatable candidate to compete against in the general election:

"Why are the Drive-Bys, why are they pushing Huckabee? Because they think that Huckabee is a nut. They think that Huckabee is a Bible-thumping preacher that's going to be marching into every woman's home and telling her, "No, you must not and cannot have an abortion." And then they think he's going to hijack the Constitution and write Roe vs. Wade out of it without even going to the Supreme Court. And then they think he's going to make every liberal kid go to Sunday school. This is what they think of him. This is what they think of any God-fearing pastor or conservative religious person. And, as such, they think that would be easy to beat."

While this isn't necessarily an "attack" on Huckabee, it's an ominous warning to Republicans that Huckabee will be like pigs to the slaughter if he wins the GOP nomination. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

This week, a "prominent, DC-based Huckabee ally" had this to say about why Rush didn't support his candidate:

"Honestly, because Rush doesn’t think for himself. That’s not necessarily a slap because he’s not paid to be a thinker—he’s an entertainer. I can’t remember the last time that he has veered from the talking points from the DC/Manhattan chattering class. If they were praising Huckabee, he would be too."

Of course, truer words were never spoken, but that didn't prevent conservative water-carriers from slamming the Huckabee camp:

Michelle Malkin: "What an unbelievably knuckle-headed move by Huckabee’s minions....I believe this Rush-bashing incident may turn out to be Huckabee’s Howard Dean scream moment."

And in a bizarre twist, conservative author Ann Coulter slammed Huckabee in her blog, despite sharing his disdain for evolution, saying, "Liberals adore Huckabee because he fits their image of what an evangelical should be: stupid and easily led."

And in a truly strange episode, Glenn Beck attacked Huckabee for, of all things, claiming that Mormons believe Jesus and Satan are brothers. Huckabee, the Southern Baptist made the comment to call into question the faith of fellow candidate Mitt Romney, a Mormon. Beck, also a Mormon, responded by calling Huckabee a "one-eyed Mullah," in an apparent reference to Islamic jihad. If all this religion has your head spinning right now, you're not alone.

I don't know what is more entertaining: watching Social Conservatives have it out with Fiscal Conservatives, or watching the Republican nomination being decided over whose religious beliefs are less crackpot.

Of course, this is all good news for the Democrats. Huckabee is attacking the policies of George W. Bush, and neo-cons are fighting back, warning the nation of the next coming of Jimmy Carter. Now all the Democrats have to do is sit back and watch the GOP break apart from the inside and 2008 will be a rout.

Sorry Guys, Iran Has No Nukes

2007-12-05T17:27:00.000-08:00

The recent NIE report confirming Iran's dormant nuclear weapons program has done more than just expose the Bush administration as disengenuous fear-mongers; it has created a "vacuum," as Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank so eloquently put it on Hardball w/ Chris Matthews. It had created an issues vacuum, which the GOP candidates must scramble to fill with gay marriage bans, flag burning amendments, and the like. Iran was always the ace in the hole for these candidates, and now the NEI has taken that from them.

On the December 4th broadcast of Hardball, Milbank summed up the GOP's 2008 election strategy:

The playbook sort of seems to be about 2002, pushing measures through congress, whether it was the authorization for war, basically creating something of a drumbeat, putting pressure on the Democrats to be strong on national security. This [NIE report] makes it very, very difficult to go back to that same playbook.

The leading Republican candidates have been eerily silent on Iran since this report was made public this week. Unfortunately, they are already on the record with regard to the Iranian nuclear threat. Since the United Nations had already determined that Iran had no nuclear weapons program, the NIE report is nothing new. All it does it put a final nail in the coffin of the GOP's 2008 Iran strategy. Now that Iran is clearly not going nuclear any time soon, that drumbeat will soon fall upon deaf ears. This solidifies Iraq, not Iran, as the dominant national security/foreign policy issue in the next election, and that is not good news for the Republican candidates.

Here are a few of the ways these guys have already been using the non-existent Iran situation to build a 2008 election platform:

"If for some reasons they continue down their course of folly toward nuclear ambition, then I would take military action if that's available to us." - Mitt Romney, 10/07

"... the military option is not off the table and the Iranians should understand that, that America will not allow them to become a nuclear power.... Their regime is too irresponsible. The world would be in too much danger" - Rudy Giuliani, 10/07

“The theocrats ruling Iran need to understand that we can wield the stick as well as the carrot, by undermining popular support for their regime, damaging the Iranian economy, weakening Iran’s military, and, should all else fail, destroying its nuclear infrastructure.” - Rudy Giuliani, 8/07

"I know that our liberal friends shake their head when a conservative talks of a nuclear Iran.... But for conservatives like me, facing reality is not a source of fear. It is a source of confidence." - Mitt Romney, 6/06

"Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran." - John McCain, 4/07, to the tune of The Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann"

Bush: Hot is Cold, Up is Down

2007-12-04T10:44:00.000-08:00

We all know George W. Bush has said some idiotic things during his presidency:

"They misunderestimated me."

"Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?"

"I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family."

"I think we agree, the past is over."

Ok, so this is not going to be a post poking fun at Bush's War on English (although that can be fun). These quotations are innocently stupid. Yet there is a whole other class of perplexing Bushisms that really cut to the core of what an insincere and evil tyrant the man really is. They paint Bush as either completely out of touch with reality, or a sadistically compulsive liar. The following quotations are not as much funny as they are disturbing:

"You work three jobs? … Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that."

"Heck of a job, Brownie."

"Bring 'em on."

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."

(to hear many of these Bushisms, go here)

This week, Bush continued to lose his grip on reality after a National Intelligence Estimate (NEI) confirmed an international intelligence finding that Iran, next in line to be pre-emptively attacked by the U.S., had shut down it's nuclear weapons program in 2003. (story here) The Bush administration has relied heavily on Iran's supposedly active nuclear weapons program to fuel public support for war on Iran:

"Apart from few very sophisticated uses for uranium metal by the most advanced nuclear programs in the world, the only real use for uranium metal is a nuclear weapon." - John Bolton, United States ambassador to the UN

"We've made our choice. We will continue to work closely with our allies to find a diplomatic solution, but there must be consequences for Iran's defiance and we must not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon." - President Bush

"Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust." - President Bush

Before we delve into the latest NEI finding regarding Iran, here are a few items of note:

1. The UN has never believed Iran had an active nuclear weapons program. The US report is consistent with what the international community and Iran have been saying for years.

2. Iran has never directly threatened the United States.

So it would appear that the pre-existing notion (or near-certainty in Bush's mind) that Iran is developing nuclear weapons is pretty flimsy to begin with, and the further conclusion the Bush administration is hoping we all come to, that Iran is planning a nuclear attack on US soil is completely without merit. The NEI report further erodes this idea, putting a serious dent in the Bush administration's effort to start a new war before his term expires.

So what did Bush have to say in response to the "Good" news that Iran's nuclear weapons program was dormant? Well, as any great warmonger would do, Bush went right back on the offensive. While your average radical, peace-obsessed hippie might see this news as a sign that another large-scale war in the Middle East is not necessary, our fearless leader remained ever vigilant. In another break with reality, Bush actually used the news of Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons program as a launching pad for more saber-rattling. He called the news a "warning signal," and in grand fear-mongering fashion, resorted to outrageous denials and ominous hypotheticals.

"What's to say they couldn't start another covert nuclear weapons program," Bush suggested. "I have said Iran is dangerous, and the NIE doesn't do anything to change my opinion about the danger Iran poses to the world."

So once again, we have seen the President make ludicrous and contradictory statements for the purpose of advancing his agenda. This time, the agenda is war. In the above examples, the agendas Bush was driving were slightly less destructive. The mother working three jobs ("The economy is just fine") or the gushing endorsement of Brownie ("My government appointees are neither corrupt nor incompetent") are sinister enough. But when Bush starts lying to lay the groundwork for another war, Americans should be alarmed, especially in light of the fact that the very same tactic of targeting a boogieman (Saddam/Ahmadinejad), cooking up intelligence and exaggerating a threat worked on Congress and the American people in 2003.

Frighteningly enough, to this point, the President's Iran PR campaign has worked. According to an October 2007 CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, 77% of Americans believed that the government of Iran is attempting to develop its own nuclear weapons. Hmmm...Where have I seen numbers like this before? Oh yes, the Iraq War! After an intense and dishonest propaganda campaign aimed at conflating Iraq and 9/11, approval of the Iraq situation peaked at 75% in April, 2003 polling. That percentage has since dropped to the 30% range, as, you guessed it, doubts about both the necessity of the war and the ability to succeed have swayed public opinion 180 degrees.

Is there a bad time to spew right-wing propaganda?

2007-10-25T19:26:00.001-07:00

The recent wildfires that raged across Southern California are of particular interest to me. As a resident of Los Angeles, a graduate of Rancho Bernardo High School in San Diego, and the son of wildfire evacuees, this story touches very close to home. That is why I find it so abhorrent when politicians and media figures use the fires as a springboard to advance extreme right-wing claims. Certainly no one is suggesting that the Right should not be allowed a forum for free speech, only that, considering the 1,500 homes destroyed, 500,000 acres burned, and 950,000 people evacuated, a more opportune time certainly would have presented itself. And considering how outlandish some of these far right claims are, perhaps they should be permanently bottled up.

The first perpetrator of this nonsense was none other than Fox News. On October 24th, the Fox & Friends morning program (shown above) reported an alleged link between al-Qaeda and the wildfires. (video here)

The alleged "link" turned out to be a 4-year old FBI memo, detailing a purported al-Qaeda plot to start wildfires in several Western U.S. states. The plot was suggested by an alleged al-Qaeda detainee, and California was not one of the states mentioned. And while the the exact cause of all the fires is not yet known, the evidence is not at all hinting at any kind of coordinated effort. Thus far, fires have been attributed to fallen power lines, an overturned semi-truck, a boy playing with matches and arson. So, what we really have here is not a concerted effort on the part of an international terrorist organization to kill Americans, but a concerted effort on the part of a national news organization to frighten Americans. What makes Fox's "reporting" so heinous is the fact that suggesting al-Qaeda involvement in a natural disaster is pure, unadulterated propaganda. If the White House had chosen, I don't know...Belgium instead of al-Qaeda as the medium by which to scare Americans into relinquishing their civil liberties, taking on massive national debt, and watching soldiers come home from battle dead or wounded, then Fox News would be telling us Belgium was responsible for the California wildfires.

Conservative blogger/columnist Michelle Malkin, appearing on Fox News, blamed the wildfires on illegal immigrants. (video here) Discussing with Neil Cavuto the possibility of one of the fires being started by a Central American immigrant, Malkin stated :

Of course, massive, uncontrolled immigration touches every aspect of life, particularly in Southern California. So whether you're in an emergency situation like they are now with the wildfires, or in regular everyday life, illegal immigration and massive, uncontrolled immigration has an impact....It's enough to deal with the problems that are "native born" in Southern California without having to import more headaches.

Just a couple of problems with Malkin's analysis:

1. The immigrant suspect in question was in fact in the United States legally.
2. Michelle Malkin is, herself the daughter of legal immigrants
3. Nowhere in her anti-immigrant rant does Malkin actually explain what immigration has to do with the forest fires.

With no evidence tying the California wildfires to illegal immigration, it is clear that Fox News and Michelle Malkin were simply exploiting a terrible situation to advance their own xenophobic agenda.

But by far the most despicable example of the politicization of the California wildfires is Conservative TV and radio host Glenn Beck. The smug, ill-informed, and almost comically un-funny Beck has long had some ethereal disdain for all things liberal. I'm actually surprised that this is the first time Beck's mug has graced the pages of my blog, as he is as agenda-driven a water-carrier as any that exist among the GOP's media enterprise.

On the October 22nd edition of The Glenn Beck Program, Beck took a cheap shot at the fire victims. Tastelessly tacked on to the end of a pro-war, anti-healthcare, anti-education rant, Beck added:

We all love America. We just disagree on how we should function, what we should do, big government, small government. It doesn't mean you hate America. I think there is a handful of people who hate America. Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire today.

I could maybe ignore yet another refrain of the conservative mantra that "all liberals hate America." Perhaps I could overlook the fact that among the wealthy San Diego, Orange, Los Angeles, and San Bernadino County residents effected by the fires, liberals are likely a small minority. If Beck intended his liberal-bashing "joke" (as he later described it) to be aimed at Hollywood, well, he missed. What makes Beck a poor American (and a lousy comedian) can be summed up in one word: timing. It's probably not the best idea in the world to use fire victims as a punchline to some lame effort to smear Hollywood liberals. And it's definitely not a good idea to question one's status as a model American, while in the same breath mocking your fellow American for having his/her home burned to the ground.

If this episode of political "hitting below the belt" weren't enough, Beck later took a swipe at environmentalists. Beck has long been in the 10-15% of Americans that comprise the global warming skeptics. I guess "skeptic" is a nice way of putting it. The word "skeptic" implies that there is some lack of empirical evidence preventing one from embracing a widely held belief. Evidence like, I don't know...melting polar icecaps, more frequent and destructive hurricanes, devastating forest fires! So call him what you will, but Beck's stance on the environment is basically as far right as possible, just shy of actually going out and burning down trees and slaughtering bunnies. I think Beck may actually HATE rainforests.

So Beck's comments from the October 23rd broadcast of his cable TV program on Headline News should really come as no surprise. With assistance from R.J. Smith, environmental analyst from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a Right-wing, oil-funded think tank, Beck claimed that environmentalists were actually to blame for the California wildfires:

...[T]he environmentalists, the same ones that going to tell me it’s my fault because I have an SUV, these same damn environmentalists are the ones that have stopped people in California from clearing brush on their own property.

Beck has apparently conflated liberal opposition to deforestation with opposition to property owners clearing brush near their homes. With Beck, it's almost as if the more ridiculous the claim (i.e., environmentalism creates forest fires), the more likely he is to advance it. Of course, no green-bashing orgy would be complete without an assault on global warming theories. To do this, Beck, in the same segment, also employed another CEI fellow, Chris Horner, to downplay global warming as a factor in the fires. In a bizarre menage a trois, cleverly disguised as some kind of debate, the anti-environmentalist Beck and the two Big Oil think-tankers put the blame for the California wildfires squarely on the shoulders of the greens. It really is a must watch. Beck introduces his two guests as if they were two polar opposites, ready to square off in a heated debate, when in fact Horner and Smith likely have adjoining offices at CEI.

So in summation, we can clearly see that anytime is a good time to advance the conservative agenda. What makes the talking heads even more disingenuous in this case, is not so much the inappropriate timing of it; From Jerry Falwell's post 9/11 comments to Barbara Bush's post-Katrina remarks, we have come to expect national disasters to be a green light for conservatives to launch into anti-liberal tirades. The insincerity in the California fire comments stems from the fact that, in each case, the media figures in question did not offer any unique political perspective on the fires, but simply echoed their own previous ideologies, disguised (with the exception of Glenn Beck) as concern for the fire victims. Fox News traditionally likes to ramp up fears about Islamic terrorist organizations. Michelle Malkin is a noted opponent of almost all forms of immigration. Glenn Beck is perhaps the leading champion of the global warming deniers movement.

I guess that those on the left don't really expect conservatives to stop making ridiculous statements. We just hope they might better pick their moments, so as not to make it seem as though they are exploiting disaster victims for their own political benefit.