The Flaw in the Plan

Trading ambition for ideals, McCain made the mistake of aligning his campaign with the culture warriors instead of running as himself. The fatal flaw was exposed: because before God, America worships money, and culture wars call a truce when the economic woes reign supreme. Sure the tide has shifted in Evangelical circles to bring about more progressive tendencies, but on the whole the Almighty Dollar supercedes the Almighty God (and sometimes they're one in the same). The only thing evangelicals love more than God is money, and this ultimately marked the end of John McCain. He would have known this if he hadn't been such an outsider. Only a true evangelical would have known.

In the Washington Post today, Peter Beinart says Culture War just isn’t selling anymore, and that only 6% of voters now name “issues like abortion, guns and same-sex marriage” as a big deal:

The economic challenges of the coming era are complicated, fascinating and terrifying, while the cultural battles of the 1960s feel increasingly stale …. Although she seems like a fresh face, Sarah Palin actually represents the end of an era. She may be the last culture warrior on a national ticket for a very long time.

The relationship between prosperity and cultural conflict isn't exact, of course, but it is significant that during this era's culture war we've gone a quarter-century without a serious recession. Economic issues have mattered in presidential elections, of course, but not until today have we faced an economic crisis so grave that it made cultural questions seem downright trivial. In 2000, in the wake of an economic boom and a sex scandal that led to a president's impeachment, 22 percent of Americans told exit pollsters that "moral values" were their biggest concern, compared with only 19 percent who cited the economy.

Today, according to a recent Newsweek poll, the economy is up to 44 percent and "issues like abortion, guns and same-sex marriage" down to only 6 percent. It's no coincidence that Palin's popularity has plummeted as the financial crisis has taken center stage. From her championing of small-town America to her efforts to link Barack Obama to former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, Palin is treading a path well-worn by Republicans in recent decades. She's depicting the campaign as a struggle between the culturally familiar and the culturally threatening, the culturally traditional and the culturally exotic. But Obama has dismissed those attacks as irrelevant, and the public, focused nervously on the economic collapse, has largely tuned them out.

Palin's attacks are also failing because of generational change. The long-running, internecine baby boomer cultural feud just isn't that relevant to Americans who came of age after the civil rights, gay rights and feminist revolutions. Even many younger evangelicals are broadening their agendas beyond abortion, stem cells, school prayer and gay marriage. ["Last of the Culture Warriors" - WashingtonPost.com]

Sarah Palin may symbolize the last Republican culture warrior:

They’re still out there, still angry and still illiterate. But there’s not enough of them to win elections anymore, and the new Great Depression has even knocked some common sense into a few of these people — this year, a lot of bitters sort of cleared the Rove Goo from their eyes and realized being permanently enraged about guns or Mexicans is not really the path to wealth and happiness.

Younger voters just don’t care much about race, they aren’t paranoid about homosexuals trying to do whatever it is they fear homosexuals want to do to poor dumb white people, and they’re very much in favor of the kinds of things Dingbat Palin mocks with such enthusiasm: environmental protection, alternative energy and government-backed health care.

And surprise, surprise, younger voters are going heavily to Obama and Democrats across the board. Older voters are surprisingly in the tank — that Medicare and Social Security is pretty good stuff, HENGHH? — and “that one” has the wealthy and the educated on his side. ["Palin Fighting 'Culture War' Nobody Cares About" - Wonkette.com]

Finally, much of what we think we know about values in America isn't really of much value:

The reason that recent presidential elections have been so close, and Congress so narrowly divided, is that voters actually share both a broad distrust of both political parties and government and a basic civic outlook. For example, in 2000, the Mother of All Red/Blue Elections, he found that exactly 62 percent of voters in red states and blue states should tolerate each others' "moral views." But finding neither team attractive, voters naturally split their votes about evenly between the two unpopular sides. That isn't polarization; it is simple sorting.

Noisy, persistent conflicts aren't a sign of civic rot, but of humans being human. Americans are indeed frustrated and challenged by a lack of community, by rapid social and technological change and by economic pessimism. But our values are not the problem. ["Five Myths About Values Voters" - WashingtonPost.com]

"America is just not gonna be the same"

I love watching how satisfied the first lady is after her little rant. Her head twitching, you can tell she doesn't even believe it, she's just angry. It's all over her face.

Oh the lies they believe...that's a pretty good grouping of most of the things I've heard from the less-than-critical class, and it's all at one rally!

"And I keep looking for that blindfold faith
Lighting candles to a cynical saint
Who wants the last laugh at the fly trapped in the windowsill tape
You can go right out of your mind trying to escape
From the panicked paradox of day to day
If you can’t understand something then it’s best to be afraid

And they keep moving at a glacial pace
Turning circles in a memory maze
I made a new cast of the death mask that is going to cover my face
I had to change the combination to the safe
Hide it all behind a wall, let people wait
And never trust a heart that is so bent it can’t break"

- "Classic Cars" - Conor Oberst

America's Socialist Tendencies or Just More GOP Fearmongering?

The latest desperation jab from the McCain campaign accuses Obama of wanting to "spread the wealth."

Thank you, John McCain, for shoving the issue of "redistributing wealth" back into political primetime. Just two problems. You're only a quarter-century or so late -- and you have everything backwards.

When the Bush Administration is in the process of spending $1 trillion in taxpayer dollars to bailout some of the richest people in the country, while refusing to extend unemployment benefits for victims of the financial collapse or force banks to renegotiate predatory loans, I've gotta think that a few of Sarah Palin's "real Americans" are warming to the idea of spreading the wealth.

What Republicans don't want you to know is that redistribution of income and wealth toward the rich has be happening for decades, and it has accelerated since 2000 under a Republican Administration. [http://www.alternet.org/workplace/105653/the_massive_wealth_redistribution_that_doesn%27t_bother_john_mccain/]

The United States currently ranks 4th worst in income inequality, according to a recent report from 30-nation Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development - or OECD. Here's a link to the The U.S. has the 4th worst income inequality, behind Mexico, Turkey and Portugal of the 30 OECD nations. Here's a link to the report summary for the United States.

Report highlights:

• The U.S. has the 4th worst income inequality, behind Mexico, Turkey and Portugal of the 30 OECD nations.
• U.S. wealth inequality is even worse. The richest 1% hold 25-33% of the country's total net worth, the top 10% hold 71%. (By comparison, OECD average: top 10% hold 28% of wealth.)
• Redistribution of income by government plays a relatively minor role in the United States. Only in Korea is the effect smaller. This is partly because the level of spending on social benefits such as unemployment benefits and family benefits is low – equivalent to just 9% of household incomes, while the OECD average is 22%.
  
• The distribution of earnings widened by 20% since the mid-1980s which is more than in most other OECD countries. This is the main reason for widening inequality in America.
  
• Social mobility is lower in the United States than in other countries like Denmark, Sweden and Australia. Children of poor parents are less likely to become rich than children of rich parents. [AnyIdiot.org: U.S. 4th Worst In Income Inequality]

Republicans preached "trickle down" Reaganomics, but what we got was geyser up. This was no accident or inevitable result of globalization or free market Darwinism. Plutocrats in robes of free market theology designed the system to deliver the goods by changing tax code, trade policy, labor policy and corporate governance, by reducing oversight and regulation, and by attacking safety nets in place since the New Deal.
http://www.oecd.org/document/25/0,3343,en_2649_201185_41530009_1_1_1_1,00.html

American Socialism for the Already Rich

By Christopher Howard, Democracy: a Journal of Ideas. Posted March 27, 2007.

"Call it phony universalism, Robin Hood in reverse, or socialism for the rich -- whatever the name, the U.S. government is effectively targeting tax subsidies and legal protections at the more advantaged members of American society. The level of support is enormous, amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars each year. For every dollar spent on traditional anti-poverty programs, the United States spends almost as much through the tax code helping individuals who are lucky enough to have health and pension benefits at work or rich enough to buy a nice home (these are often the same people). This is how the United States can spend a ton of money on its welfare system and yet make fewer inroads against poverty and inequality than other affluent nations. Imagine a campaign against child obesity that encouraged kids to exercise daily and eat more Cheetos: U.S. social policy is beset by the same kinds of contradictions.

Some policy makers realize what's going on. When the Bush administration proposed new tax incentives for Health Savings Accounts, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities quickly pointed out that most of these benefits would go to affluent taxpayers. The Democratic authors of the American Dream Initiative, a set of policies designed to expand and strengthen the middle class, were careful last year to propose refundable tax credits for college tuition so that more people with below-average incomes could benefit. But it's not enough to oppose bad ideas, or layer potentially good new programs on top of dysfunctional old ones. We also need to scrutinize existing programs and figure out how they got started, whom they really help, and what we can do to change them. Otherwise, we may find ourselves repeating these same mistakes as we respond to persistent poverty and growing inequality today. Moreover, if we can find ways to spend less on some of these existing programs, we can free up monies to serve more pressing social needs. The goal should not be to exclude the middle class from these programs but to ensure that more governmental benefits are distributed to those who truly need help."

continue reading here: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/49768/

Bill Moyers examines the current financial crisis and growing income divide in the October 24 edition of Bill Moyers Journal.

McCain endorsed a plan similar in principle to Obama's years ago, (as the New York Post reported) so he's got no room to talk as satirized here in this clip from the Daily Show:

But neither McCain nor Obama should be labeled undercover socialists since in the past 150 years there have been innumerable differing socialist programs in America enacted by both parties. For this reason socialism as a doctrine is ill defined, although its main purpose, the establishment of cooperation in place of competition remains fixed. Which by this definition, Sen. Obama, would be labeled a raging capitalist (Plus, seriously folks, would the Economist, the Financial Times, the CEO of Google, Warren Buffet, the Wall Street Journal editor and numerous columnist, and the current Noble prize winner in Economics among countless others be advocating Obama if he were espousing true socialism?! Give me a break. This is just another distraction from the McCain camp).

The effects of socialism in America can still be felt today. According to the Future of Freedom Foundation, any government-owned, -funded, or -subsidized operation is considered to be a socialist program. For example, publicly owned airports, sports arenas or government-funded universities would be considered socialist operations by that definition.

We've long embraced as a nation the positive effects of our dabblings in social insurance programs or "socialism lite" through various government organized programs such as Medicaid. The Social Security Act of 1935, one of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal creations, is seen by many as a socialist program because it is a government-organized and -regulated system. Social Security was designed to provide retirement benefits to citizens through mandatory donations to the program during one's employment years.

In this clip Stephen Colbert interviews the ACTUAL Socialist Candidate for President - Brian Moore who says Obama is "the furthest thing from a socialist candidate:

"It's misleading for Republicans to say that," the local peace activist and perennial candidate said Wednesday from his Spring Hill home. "They know (Obama's) not a socialist."

Now, more than ever, Moore and his party are getting attention thanks to the $700-billion financial bailout and the rhetoric from the Republican presidential ticket. John McCain and Sarah Palin have repeatedly labeled Obama as a socialist in recent days when what they're advocating is socialism (by their definition) for the wealthiest 5% of Americans. Moore said McCain and Palin are abusing the "socialist" label. Likewise, he said Obama's programs wouldn't create a true wealth redistribution.

As more Republicans are latching on to this talking point, it is important to separate spin from reality as the election comes to a close and so much is at stake.

Growing up as a committed Christian in the South, I've been skeptical to the promises of government from either party. I know that politicians alone cannot solve our nations problems, much less save the world. However, I do honestly believe that with Obama elected and the House and Senate in Democratic control that things will become better than the last 8 years. I believe that Obama means what he says and does have a new and healthy vision for the country. I believe things will change, no matter how small, for the better. I know that he and congress will be limited in what they can actually do and that they will disappoint anyone who's hope is in government alone. But one of the biggest things I love about Obama is that he isn't trying to save it himself, but rather build a massive movement of Americans who will step forward inspired, not cynical and apathetic, and try to make change alongside their neighbors.

Like the New Deal, Works Progress or Kennedy's "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" initiative before him, Obama has offered practical solutions to increase individuals involvement in our democracy. From increasing Ameri-Corps and Peace-Corps support, to college tuition in public schools for those who contribute over a 100 hrs/community service, to a new 'New Deal' to repair America's infrastructure and energy independence that in doing so creates new jobs, Obama offers clear points of action. And furthermore, not only will we not depend solely on government to make change, but we will not go it alone in the world under Obama. We'll repair our alliances and restore our nation's leadership role with partners and our moral authority in the world freeing us to actually address areas of injustice that we are impotent to touch now. THESE are solutions. I haven't heard a one from a Republican. Not one. The Republicans have fought hard to distract people from talking about the real issues that they don't believe this election is about. No more. In a few days there will be enough people who will make the better choice and Barack Obama will be our next President of the United States.

Godless Americans? -OR- "Perfect Love Drives out all Fear"

This video should replace the definition of desperation.

**UPDATE - Kay Hagan responds to Dole's attack ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k76tRXq0ZC0
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Be Not Afraid

by Jim Wallis 10-30-2008
from Sojourners

In the final days of this election campaign, a new message has emerged. For the entire political year, the overriding theme has been change—with each candidate competing to be the real champion for a new direction. With 80 percent of Americans unhappy with our country’s current direction, it seemed that no other theme could break through.

A new message has, and it is this: “Be Afraid— Be Very Afraid.” Most of that fear is directed at Barack Obama, the leading candidate with just days to go before November 4. Instead of being content to offer a competing policy vision to Obama’s, the Right has now focused on the man himself in an attempt to stir the fears of the electorate that “he” is not really like “them.” “Do we really know who Barack Obama is?” has been the refrain of partisan peddlers. A parallel and ugly national innuendo campaign stokes the fear. Is he a Muslim? An Arab? A pal of terrorists? Or maybe even a closet Socialist? Where did he grow up? Why such a funny middle name? Doesn’t his support come from those parts of the country (and those people) that deep down inside are anti-American? And, of course, what has quickly become a campaign classic—guilt by association.

The fact that Barack Obama is the first black nominee of a major party for president gives all the fear a decidedly racial undertone. YouTube has quickly become populated with video after video of the dark underbelly of American fear and racism. The innuendos and rumors have brought to the surface latent fears and thinly veiled biases that many had hoped were gone from our country. The message of fear is the same: Obama may look okay on the surface, but we don’t know what might lie beneath.

Regardless of whether one favors Obama or McCain, this development should be of concern to all Americans, and especially people of faith. There is now a new spiritual dimension to this election, and it is decidedly evil. Christians believe that “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear…” (1 John 4:18.) There are, of course, good and decent motivations to vote either way in this election. Strong people of faith will be marking different boxes on Election Day, but for people of faith there will be a spiritual decision to be made as well. Will we put our trust in the power of fear or hope?

Conservatism did this with the bright and hopeful theme of “Morning in America” with the Ronald Reagan years. I disagreed with most all of Reagan’s agenda, but his appeal was to ask us all to choose hope, not fear. Similarly, the best of liberalism was seen in the power of John and Robert Kennedy’s appeal to build a “newer world.” Both conservatives and liberals can appeal to the better instincts of the American people, or to their worst—and each side has done both over the years.

Fear has always been the dark side of American politics, and we are seeing its resurgence in the campaign’s final days. Demagoguery has come from both the right and the left in America, and the most dependable sign of it is the appeal to fear over hope. Facts don’t matter when fear takes over. Fear covers over the debate on a candidate’s tax plans, the wisdom of their foreign policies, their experience and judgment to handle the economic crisis. Fear attacks character and lies with false prophecies of what a candidate would do if they are elected.

Some of the worst fear-mongering has sadly come from leaders of the Religious Right who are worried about losing their control over the votes of the evangelical and Catholic communities, especially a new generation of believers. Their apocalyptic rhetoric has been among the worst and most irresponsible. When religious leaders sound so desperate and seek to stoke fear and hate, they have lost their theological perspective by putting too much of their hope in having political power. It is that loss of power and control which seems to be motivating the current campaign of desperation and fear now being waged by so many conservatives. Instead, scripture points to a better way:

For “Those who desire life and desire to see good days, let them keep their tongues from evil and their lips from speaking deceit; let them turn away from evil and do good; let them seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.” (1 Peter 3:10-15, emphasis added)

With that reminder that Christ is our ultimate hope, let us pray that, on November 4, the need for change will finally prevail over the appeals to fear. Pray that the voters will choose either Barack Obama or John McCain as the best agent of change, rather than submit to the tyranny of fear. It is always better to live (and to vote) in the light of hope than in the darkness of fear. It is always an act of faith to believe that, in the end, hope will prevail over fear. So pray, and vote.

http://www.sojo.net/blog/godspolitics/?p=3287
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{SIDE NOTE: It's not just the "dark underbelly" of America that still holds racial prejudice. Rather, it effects us all to different degrees.

What? Me Biased?

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: October 29, 2008

"For the last year and a half, a team of psychology professors has been conducting remarkable experiments on how Americans view Barack Obama through the prism of race.

The scholars used a common research technique, the implicit association test, to measure whether people regarded Mr. Obama and other candidates as more foreign or more American. They found that research subjects — particularly when primed to think of Mr. Obama as a black candidate — subconsciously considered him less American than either Hillary Clinton or John McCain."

Continue reading article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/30/opinion/30kristof.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Take the test yourself & choose the Obama/McCain IAT test: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/

I scored the following:
- Your data suggests no automatic preference for White people over Black people
- Your data suggests a moderate automatic preference for Barack Obama over John McCain

The real "Gotcha" media

In this video receiving a remarkable amount of attention despite it's unremarkableness, Biden makes the point clear that Obama's ony taking about returning us to the Clinton era tax rates with a further cut in the middle class. Was Clinton a Marxist too? If we're going to start throwing labels out there and go down to the letter, then we should probably get rid of those socialist programs like Medicare and Social Security,...or those new nationalized banks we just bought up, ...oh wait that was Bush.

This is running on desperate from Drudge and FoxNews who are making a big deal of it. The reporter laid out a bunch of rhetorical questions that are straight out of John McCain and Sarah Palin's stump speeches. The reporter's bio on her site shows she's a major republican supporter, family donates thousands to RNC. Surely it's just a coincidence that her husband is a GOP MEDIA CONSULTANT! And on Thursday she asked McCain a set of softballs. But look, tough questions are great, but not if some of them are 100% false or aim to equate the Democratic candidate for president with Karl Marx. There's no equivalence between the Obama tax plan and Marxism. Have the Republicans been taking cues from McCarthy? Biden kept his cool in the face of some really woefully ignorant questions, that were obviously taken from talking points. What’s actually newsworthy is Biden’s elegance at disposing of the wingnuttery so frankly. If she had more time she probably would have asked for “a penetrating expose on who is an anti-American in Congress"!

I will agree on one thing though; it does seem a bit silly for the campaign to have said in response to the interview that Jill Biden wouldn't appear on the show next week. So the lady asked some stupid questions; so she's a tool for an agenda; Jill's a big girl and could have taken advantage of the opportunity.

But since just two days ago the PA McCain campaign told 75K jewish voters that if they voted Obama they could be repeating the same steps that led to the Holocaust, I guess a Marxist or socialist charge isn't the worst they have done.


How I wish this all had gone:

Anchor: Senator Biden, what do you say to the people who think that Barack Obama likes to rape kittens while feasting on the entrails of Republican virgins that were sacrificed at the Satanic Marxist altar built by the Democrats using money that Acorn stole, with the help of Willam Ayers, from old white women?

Joe Biden: [cuts a bitch]

Funny how things change:

UPDATE: HOLY HELL

America's REAL favorite domestic terrorist, James Dobson is baaaack. Prepare yourself, according to Dobson, an Obama presidency will force your boys to sleep with pedophiles in tents thanks to the Supreme Court and Boy Scouts. OH YEAH, he's that apeshit.

CHRISTIAN RIGHT INTENSIFIES ATTACKS ON OBAMA

AP, October 24, 2008 · Terrorist strikes on four American cities. Russia rolling into Eastern Europe. Israel hit by a nuclear bomb. Gay marriage in every state. The end of the Boy Scouts. All are plausible scenarios if Democrat Barack Obama is elected president, according to a new addition to the campaign conversation called "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America," produced by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family Action.

The imagined look into the future is part of an escalation in rhetoric from Christian right activists who are trying to paint Obama in the worst possible terms as the campaign heads into the final stretch and polls show the Democrat ahead.

"It looks like, walks like, talks like and smells like desperation to me," said the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell of Houston, an Obama supporter who backed President Bush in the past two elections. The Methodist pastor called the 2012 letter "false and ridiculous." He said it showed that some Christian conservative leaders fear that Obama's faith-based appeals to voters are working.

Like other political advocacy groups, Christian right groups often raise worries about an election's consequences to mobilize voters. In the early 1980s, for example, direct mail from the Moral Majority warned that Congress would turn a blind eye to "smut peddlers" dangling pornography to children.

"Everyone uses fear in the last part of a campaign, but evangelicals are especially theologically prone to those sorts of arguments," said Clyde Wilcox, a Georgetown University political scientist.

continue full article and a partial list of the insane remarks from Focus on the Family here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96128513

Focus on your own damn family, James.
http://www.jamesdobsondoesntspeakforme.com/

Hard to watch no matter the frequency

I'd normally just laugh this kinda malarkey off for the absurdity that it is if I wasn't STILL hearing this or some variation of it from so many Christians. It's not just on the satire shows or even out of the mouths of the Mississippi folks I grew up with (that would be too easy) but from surprising places like students, recent college grads or people I meet through work. The same dissonant, divorced from reality nonsense, it just takes different forms with different levels of vocabulary. The mind balks. (and Jesus weeps)


NPR: How McCain Shed Pariah Status Among Evangelicals

by Barbara Bradley Hagerty

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96031231

Exerpt: "In May, McCain began to court the evangelical leaders he had once disdained, with the help of Bauer, his friend and religious insider. All summer, McCain met privately with leaders and stressed his credentials that he is strongly pro-life, anti-same-sex marriage, a religious conservative by record if not by countenance."

Brooks calls Palin "Fatal Cancer to Republicans," Decries culture of willful ignorance

Conservative columnist/writer, David Brooks, (with whom I have a long standing love/hate, or more appropriately the other way around, relationship) spoke frankly about the presidential and vice presidential candidates Monday afternoon, calling Sarah Palin a "fatal cancer to the Republican party" but describing John McCain and Barack Obama as "the two best candidates we've had in a long time."

In an interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg at New York's Le Cirque restaurant to unveil that magazine's redesign, Brooks decried Palin's anti-intellectualism and compared her to President Bush in that regard:

[Sarah Palin] represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party. When I first started in journalism, I worked at the National Review for Bill Buckley. And Buckley famously said he'd rather be ruled by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. But he didn't think those were the only two options. He thought it was important to have people on the conservative side who celebrated ideas, who celebrated learning. And his whole life was based on that, and that was also true for a lot of the other conservatives in the Reagan era. Reagan had an immense faith in the power of ideas. But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices.

Brooks praised Palin's natural political talent, but said she is "absolutely not" ready to be president or vice president. He explained, "The more I follow politicians, the more I think experience matters, the ability to have a template of things in your mind that you can refer to on the spot, because believe me, once in office there's no time to think or make decisions."

The New York Times columnist also said that the "great virtue" of Palin's counterpart, Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, is that he is anything but a "yes man."

"[Biden] can't not say what he thinks," Brooks remarked. "There's no internal monitor, and for Barack Obama, that's tremendously important to have a vice president who will be that way. Our current president doesn't have anybody like that."

Brooks also spent time praising Obama's intellect and skills in social perception, telling two stories of his interactions with Obama that left him "dazzled":

Obama has the great intellect. I was interviewing Obama a couple years ago, and I'm getting nowhere with the interview, it's late in the night, he's on the phone, walking off the Senate floor, he's cranky. Out of the blue I say, 'Ever read a guy named Reinhold Niebuhr?' And he says, 'Yeah.' So i say, 'What did Niebuhr mean to you?' For the next 20 minutes, he gave me a perfect description of Reinhold Niebuhr's thought, which is a very subtle thought process based on the idea that you have to use power while it corrupts you. And I was dazzled, I felt the tingle up my knee as Chris Matthews would say.

And the other thing that does separate Obama from just a pure intellectual: he has tremendous powers of social perception. And this is why he's a politician, not an academic. A couple of years ago, I was writing columns attacking the Republican congress for spending too much money. And I throw in a few sentences attacking the Democrats to make myself feel better. And one morning I get an email from Obama saying, 'David, if you wanna attack us, fine, but you're only throwing in those sentences to make yourself feel better.' And it was a perfect description of what was going through my mind. And everybody who knows Obama all have these stories to tell about his capacity for social perception.

Brooks predicted an Obama victory by nine points, and said that although he found Obama to be "a very mediocre senator," he was is surrounded by what Brooks called "by far the most impressive people in the Democratic party."

"He's phenomenally good at surrounding himself with a team," Brooks said. "I disagree with them on most issues, but I am given a lot of comfort by the fact that the people he's chosen are exactly the people I think most of us would want to choose if we were in his shoes. So again, I have doubts about him just because he was such a mediocre senator, but his capacity to pick staff is impressive."

original article from HuffPo | author: Danny Shea | October 8, 2008 02:09 PM

example of some of that "willful ignorance":




Related Film to Topic - Stupidity - http://stupiditythemovie.com/moviebody.html

"Stupidity sets out to determine whether our culture is hooked on deliberate ignorance as a strategy for success. From Adam Sandler to George W. Bush, from the IQ test to TV programming, to the origins of the word moron, Stupidity examines the "dumbing down" of contemporary culture. Stupidity embarks on an exhaustive search into its meaning, and the implications of a culture that is obsessed and saturated with stupefying culture."

Where we're at...

Moderate Conservative Peggy Noonan and Jon Stewart talk about the general heartbreak and small-town offs.

Starting to believe in Karma.

In 1 week Republicans have lost all ground to criticize Obama.
and here's 8 reasons why:

(UPDATE: I could make this a Top 10 list if I had added the Immigration flipflop and the say one thing do another attitude about keeping family members out of this.)

1. After Focus on the Family asks people to pray for epic rain during the DNC so that Obama's speech could not be delivered, the DNC experiences record attendance and record ratings all the while basking in perfect weather. While, the RNC is overshadowed by a hurricane following the same path as Katrina which laid bare the Bush administration management 3 years ago. (Oh, and I enjoyed my friend, Don Miller's little reference before his benediction at the DNC. Nicely done.)

2. After over half-a-year of Republicans belittling Obama's experience and calling him "not ready to lead" and touting John McCain as the experience candidate, Barack Obama chooses 36-year serving foreign policy expert Joe Biden. While, McCain chooses 20-month-serving Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate whose previous experience was serving as mayor of a town of 7,000, being runner-up in Miss Alaska, an undergrad degree in journalism from the Univ. of Idaho and whose foreign policy experience [according to Cindy McCain] is said to be her state's "close proximity to Russia" and who doesn't even "know what a VP does."
But don't you dare ask them about her limited experience as evidenced here.

3. After ludicrous attempts at undermining Barack and Michelle Obama's patriotism by Republicans from distractions like flag pins to Muslim lies, John McCain runs a "Country First" sloganed campaign. While, Sarah Palin's husband was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party (AIP), which since the 1970s, has been pushing for a legal vote for Alaskans to decide whether or not residents of the 49th state can secede from the United States. And while McCain's motto is "Country First," the AIP's motto is the exact opposite -- "Alaska First -- Alaska Always." Palin even did the welcome message at the 2008 AIP Convention!


4. The party of family values tries to paint Democrats as out of line with "moral America" and selects Palin to secure values voters and social conservatives. Palin, who champions abstinence-only-ed as the "only solution," her teenage daughter Bristol begs to differ as she is pregnant by a self-proclaimed, "f--in redneck" who will "kick anyone's ass." If this had happened in the Obama family he would have been crucified by Republicans but when it happens in their own ranks this just "makes her more real," "she's just like us," and "she lives her values." The very objections that Democrats raise about Palin, conservatives hold up as talking points. Example:

Summer Vanderbilt is the youngest member of the Colorado delegation. The 21-year-old college student from Colorado Springs, a center of Christian conservative activism, says Palin's pregnant teenage daughter is making "a pro-life statement."

"It's a very interesting turn of events," she says, laughing. "Look, we have a very exciting party. We have a very exciting time. We've got a hurricane. We've got a baby. ... We're just having fun with all the different turns and we just don't know what's happening next."

- [from NPR] (click the link and listen to it with audio, much more "fun and exciting" that way. Summer's quote starts at 4:30 in)

5. After abandoning his once somewhat legitimate reform credentials in an "anything to win" blitzkrieg to the White House over the past year, McCain now seeks to re-brand himself as the "Reform" candidate and hopes Palin's record will bolster that...too bad he didn't seriously vet her. The governor's past practice on earmarks stands in contrast to the branded views of her running mate, as well as her initial support the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" pork project, times spent as the director of a 527 group for indicted Sen. Ted Stevens, and her retention of his lobbying group in her campaign.

6. After years of sexist jokes toward Hillary Clinton from conservatives and even more years of opposition to equality protection laws for women, Republicans now have to pander to voters and pick a woman VP to try to shallowly pick up Clinton supporters for McCain to win and in doing so further insult and undermine women. (enjoy Samantha Bee's satire of this in the latter half of this Daily Show video on the Palin pick).

7. McCain. War Hero. Survivor of "Torture." Why is torture in quotes now? Well because apparently the McCain camp no longer calls it that. John McCain who as little as a year ago used to stand up against torture and decry it at all levels; McCain who "literally serves as the living embodiment" of the case against torture and has said, "One of the things that kept us going when I was in prison in North Vietnam was that we knew that if the situation were reversed, that we would not be doing to our captors what they were doing to us," has buckled on torture and now accepts it as long as you don't use THAT word. And in every speech last night supporting McCain at the RNC, Bush included, McCain's time as a POW in Vietnam now no longer includes "torture." Reason being: If it's put that way, if they describe what was done to McCain as torture, they have incriminated the Bush administration for war crimes.

8. And finally, and perhaps my favorite, Republicans have attempted over and over to tie Obama to every disreputable friend, co-worker, or acquaintance that he has ever known, met, or lived in the same state with. They even went so far as to create BarackBook, a Facebook type website to draw 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon attachments to Obama so as to attach the beliefs or actions of anyone and everyone to Obama despite evidence otherwise. The most obvious of these is of course the Jeremiah Wright spectacle which consumed the pundits talking points for a month and in which Obama could do no (w)right in conservatives eyes. Even with Hillary he had to famously "denounce" and "reject" Wright's comments as one verb meaning the same thing was not good enough. All the while, McCain was allowed to receive endorsements from all kinds of bigoted and xenophobic pastors from all walks of life. Meanwhile as of just TWO WEEKS ago, Sarah Palin sat in her Assembly of God church where a pastor gave this message:

Brickner described terrorist attacks on Israelis as God's "judgment of unbelief" of Jews who haven't embraced Christianity.

"Judgment is very real and we see it played out on the pages of the newspapers and on the television. It's very real. When [Brickner's son] was in Jerusalem he was there to witness some of that judgment, some of that conflict, when a Palestinian from East Jerusalem took a bulldozer and went plowing through a score of cars, killing numbers of people. Judgment — you can't miss it."

But apparently it would be unfair to attribute Palin's views to Brickner, though not Obama's to Wright's.

The complete and utter hypocrisy in all of this is astounding.

"I have to say that the 2008 Minneapolis Convention and the 1968 Chicago Convention have some eerie parallels. An unpopular war, a deeply divided country, and a ruling party having a mental breakdown on live television. In Minneapolis, in some kind of freak political weather system, all the centrifugal forces that have been tearing at the GOP for two decades now have merged. The veneer of a serious governing party is colliding with the reality of a theocratic, fanatic base. The pull of foreign policy realism is busting up against an unrepentant neoconservatism made even more extreme by the McCain candidacy. The whole collision makes one want to look away.

And when you see who may inherit the spoils of this disaster, we can only breathe a sigh of relief. The Democrats do not have their version of Nixon to swoop in, and triumph. They already have their Reagan.

(It was close though.)" - Andrew Sullivan [Atlantic]

Oh, and just for fun...here's Lieberman on Obama two years ago.

and Cheney on invading Iraq 14 years ago.

The Best of the Sarah Palin Video Collection (no, not Skinemax)

Let's start with Colbert:

add some Stewart:

and a 2-parter from Palin "herself":

The Problem is the Question Itself

"Now That's Rich"

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: August 22, 2008 - NYTimes.com

Last weekend, Pastor Rick Warren asked both presidential candidates to define the income at which “you move from middle class to rich.” The context of the question was, of course, the difference in the candidates’ tax policies. Barack Obama wants to put tax rates on higher-income Americans more or less back to what they were under Bill Clinton; John McCain, who was against the Bush tax cuts before he was for them, says that means raising taxes on the middle class.

Mr. Obama answered the question seriously, defining middle class as meaning an income below $150,000. Mr. McCain, at first, made it into a joke, saying “how about $5 million?” Then he declared that it didn’t matter because he wouldn’t raise anyone’s taxes. That wasn’t just an evasion, it was a falsehood: Mr. McCain’s health care plan, by limiting the deductibility of employer-paid insurance premiums, would effectively raise taxes on a number of people.

The real problem, however, was with the question itself... Read More

Coverage of candidates' ability to relate to voters ignores their policy positions
"Media Matters" 8/22/08

It's easy to get caught up in trying to count John McCain's houses or listing Barack Obama's preferred salad greens or trying to figure out whether there's a Whole Foods in Iowa or how much John and Cindy McCain spend on household staff. But reporters covering these who-is-the-real-elitist battles should keep in mind that for most voters, the candidates' bank accounts are less important than their own. The candidates' policy positions -- their tax plans, their proposals for dealing with the mortgage crisis, their health care plans, among others -- should be part of any news report purporting to assess the skirmish over which candidate is more in touch with the needs of the typical American. Read more

Speaking Truth to Power

Thanks to David Dark for turning me on to this fantastic interview of Andrew Bacevich by Bill Moyers.
August 15, 2008
BILL MOYERS JOURNAL - PBS.org

As campaign ads urge voters to consider who will be a better "Commander in Chief," Andrew J. Bacevich — Professor of International Relations at Boston University, retired Army colonel, and West Point graduate — joins Bill Moyers on the JOURNAL to encourage viewers to take a step back and connect the dots between U.S. foreign policy, consumerism, politics, and militarism.

Click to Watch Video: PART 1 ---- PART 2

Bacevich begins his new book, THE LIMITS OF POWER: THE END OF AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM, with an epigraph taken from the Bible: "Put thine house in order." Bacevich explained his choice to Bill Moyers:

"I've been troubled by the course of U.S. foreign policy for a long, long time. And I wrote the book in order to sort out my own thinking about where our basic problems lay. And I really reached the conclusion that our biggest problems are within.

I think there's a tendency in the part of policy makers — and probably a tendency in the part of many Americans — to think that the problems we face are problems that are out there somewhere beyond our borders, and that if we can fix those problems, then we'll be able to continue the American way of life as it has long existed. I think it's fundamentally wrong. Our major problems are here at home."

Bacevich concludes, we cannot solve our problems by simply electing a new president, or removing a beligerant foreign regime. To address our triplet crises, we must first confront our core misconceptions. Which we do, Bacevich explains, by confronting our consumerism and

"...giving up our Messianic dreams and ceasing our efforts to coerce history in a particular direction. This does not imply a policy of isolationism. It does imply attending less to the world outside of our borders and more to the circumstances within. It means ratcheting down our expectations. Americans need what Niebuhr described as "a sense of modesty about the virtue, wisdom and power available to us for the resolution of [history's] perplexities."

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

Playing on the idea that if you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed, McCain released three new ads with multiple false and misleading claims about Obama's tax proposals. How does McCain get away with just completely lying in his ads? It's not even "misrepresenting" or "taking out of context" or "exaggerating." They are just out-right lies.

Here's the ad:




The ad continues McCain's pattern of misrepresenting Sen. Barack Obama's tax proposals as falling on middle-income families. It claims that Obama "promises more taxes on small businesses, seniors, your life savings, your family." But that's untrue for the vast majority of small businesses, seniors and individual taxpayers, who would see their taxes go down under Obama's actual plan. He proposes to increase taxes only for those with more than $250,000 in family income, or $200,000 in individual income.

Summary from FactCheck.org
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/more_tax_deceptions.html

McCain released three new ads with multiple false and misleading claims about Obama's tax proposals.

• A TV spot claims Obama once voted for a tax increase "on people making just $42,000 a year." That's true for a single taxpayer, who would have seen a tax increase of $15 for the year – if the measure had been enacted. But the ad shows a woman with two children, and as a single mother, she would not have been affected unless she made more than $62,150. The increase that Obama once supported as part of a Democratic budget bill is not part of his current tax plan anyway.
  
  
• A Spanish-language radio ad claims the measure Obama supported would have raised taxes on "families" making $42,000, which is simply false. Even a single mother with one child would have been able to make $58,650 without being affected. A family of four with income up to $90,000 would not have been affected.
  
  
• The TV ad claims in a graphic that Obama would "raise taxes on middle class." In fact, Obama's plan promises cuts for middle-income taxpayers and would increase rates only for persons with family incomes above $250,000 or with individual incomes above $200,000.
  
  
• The radio ad claims Obama would increase taxes "on the sale of your home." In fact, home-sale profits of up to $500,000 per couple would continue to be exempt from capital gains taxes. Very few sales would see an increase under Obama's proposal to raise the capital gains rate.
  
  
• A second radio ad, in English, says, "Obama has a history of raising taxes" on middle-class Americans. But that's false. It refers to a vote that did not actually result in a tax increase and could not have done so.
  

These ads continue what's become a pattern of misrepresentation by the McCain campaign about his opponent's tax proposals.

Here's someone's independent response to the lies using McCain's premise:

Paris Hearts America

A Message from Hopey & Walnuts

Send a JibJab Sendables® eCard Today!

Meet the Press (and then politely ask them to leave)

Obama, McCain, and Gershon agree: The press needs to get off the stage

by Eric Boehlert
from Mediamatters.org
Tue, Jun 17, 2008

Two hopeful sparks were visible from the campaign trail last week that suggested there is growing support for the idea of pushing the press off the stage and letting voters get on with the important business of picking the next president. For years, the press played a central and welcome role in that decision-making. But over the past 12 months, the increasingly self-absorbed Beltway press corps has shown that it's no longer up to the job, that it cannot be trusted to oversee it.

The first thanks-but-no-thanks signal to the press came when the campaigns of both Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain quickly rejected an offer made by ABC News to exclusively air the first of the proposed town hall forums that the candidates agreed, in principle, to have during the general-election campaign. ABC News, as part of its pitch, offered to have Diane Sawyer act as moderator.

But both campaigns insisted that any citizen-based town hall event had to be open to all television outlets, as well as be seen on the Internet, and not be sponsored or organized by a single news organization. More important, the campaigns stressed that the town hall meeting would not be moderated by the press.

The other refreshing forum being proposed for the general election is a Lincoln/Douglas-style event, which would also let the candidates address voters unfiltered and keep journalists on the sidelines, where they belong.

I cheered that bipartisan rejection of ABC's offer because, for me, at least, the entire appeal of the citizens-first town hall format is that the television networks would have virtually no role and that their millionaire moderators (like Sawyer) would be nowhere in sight. What was the point of letting ABC News brand a town hall forum as its own by putting its host in the chair, building space-age sets as it did during the winter debate sessions, selling lots of advertising time off the event, and then turning it into prime-time programming? The town hall forums aren't about the networks, they're about the larger electoral process.

By smartly swatting down ABC's proposal, the message seemed clear: The campaigns want to get the media off the stage. Journalists are not the collective third candidate in this election, although at times it's obvious they consider themselves to be just as important as political leaders. That runaway narcissism has severely damaged the craft, and the campaigns have wisely decided to give the press a time-out.

(story continued here)

Judge me [not] by my experience.

Stephen uses his Where-o-Meter to prove that John McCain is where he is.


"We can measure him only in the past-less and future-less present, this infinitely thin slice of existence, the zero-dimension..."

Roberta McCain Admits No One Likes Her Son, Continues to Live

HILARIOUS!

Story via Wonkette
11:57 AM ON FRI JAN 25 2008
BY JIM NEWELL

"John McCain made the brilliant decision to let his batshit crazy 95-year-old mother, Roberta, go on the teevee again — probably unmedicated — and say some more senile old lady things. For this, we applaud him. Last time we heard from the oldest lady in the world, she criticized Mitt Romney for being a Mormon, and we laughed! This time she says that no one likes her son and that she has no idea what she’s talking about. God, this woman never misses the mark!

Here’s MOMNUTS! on C-Span:

Steve Scully: This is a political question in terms of how he gets the nomination, but just from what you have seen, how much support do you think he has among the base of the Republican Party?

Roberta McCain: I don’t think he has any. I don’t know what the base of the Repub—maybe I don’t know enough about it, but I’ve not seen any help whatsoever.

Scully: So can he then go on and become the nominee of this party?

McCain: Yes, I think holding their nose they’re going to have to take him.

Scully: Can you explain?

McCain: Well, everything they’ve done and said. … Now I’m really popping off, but he worked like a dog to get Bush re-elected. …He’s backed Bush in everything except Rumsfeld. Have you heard other senators and congressmen backing Bush over eight years? Find me it—give me a name. I’ve not seen any public recognition of the work that he’s done for the Republican party.

So she manages to say that Republicans hate her son, that they’ll have to take him even though they hate him, that he’s a big fan of Bush — more than ANYONE EVER — and that she has absolutely no evidence or reason to support any of this. But it’s all true!"

McCain’s Mom Pops Off [Daily Dish]

More Fun with Hypocrisy

TRUTH IN HUMOR?

blog posting by Shaun Groves:

Evangelicals decided in about 1976 that Jesus' earthly ministry was essentially political and that he had intended to take over the Roman government precinct by precinct, using "get out the vote" drives and putting voter guides in synagogues each November. He was thwarted by a run-in with Roman authorities that turned out badly, but 2,000 years later evangelicals wish to fulfill Christ's goal of gaining control of the modern secular superpower...

Jimmy Carter was the first "born again" president, but disappointed evangelicals by confessing his sins to a "skin" magazine (rather than to Rosalyn or to his accountability group) and quaffing Billy Beer. So the evangelical community threw it's support behind an army of divorced Republicans (you know, Republicans, the "sanctity of marriage" party) - Ronald Reagan, Dick Armey, Phil Gramm, John Engler, John McCain, Bob Dole, Pete Wilson, John Kasich, Susan Molinari, and Newt Gingrich - who at least understood that the Bible allows for divorce if your staff assistant is cuter (see Matthew 5:31). As a group, these politicians came to represent America's Moral Majority...

...Here is how evangelicals interpret Bible passages to arrive at their [political] positions:

"Remember the poor" (Galatians 2:10) really means "Remember how lazy the poor are and thank God you're not on welfare like them."

"My kingdom is not of this world." (Jesus in John 18:36) really means "But for now, make sure you keep control of the White House and Congress."

"Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's" (Jesus in Matthew 22:21) really means "Only pay taxes on money you can't hide from the IRS."

"Thou shalt not kill" (God in Exodus 20:13) really means "Kill only those who deserve it - like death row inmates, abortion doctors, sworn enemies of the United States, and the French, when possible."

"The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and care for it" (Genesis 2:!5) really means "Don't worry about the environment because when Jesus comes back he'll destroy the earth anyway."

From A Guide To Evangelicals and Their Habitat.

True or not? Well if you're laughing it probably is to some extent.


***support Shaun Groves by helping him make his next album here