I call it killing them with kindness

Obama Handshake and the Politics of Civility

Those who are alarmed about President Obama's easy, casual camaraderie with Chavez misunderstand the role of civility in public life. Barack Obama is, if nothing else, a civil and gracious political leader. In all honesty, he is a little too civil for my taste. I am cut from the sarcastic, snarky, blogger cloth. I hold grudges and prefer to punish my political foes with biting commentary whenever possible. Barack Obama appoints his adversaries to cabinet positions and asks those he disagrees with to pray at his inauguration. It is a core element of who he is. Even in Obama's pre-presidential book, The Audacity of Hope, he displays his brand of polite restraint. He condemns racism, but doesn't name racists. He blames conservative policies for creating our national mess, but doesn't attack conservatives. You don't have to like it, but that handshake was authentic Obama.

See how Obama is doing it with the Republicans. I think his civility drives Limbaugh rabid and only increases the distaste independents feel towards the Republicans.

Who thought post-partisanship meant we had to be co-opted by the Republicans?

Obama and Pelosi

Count me as one who does not buy the idea that Obama is a tool of Pelosi. Ia m also one who is a bit less impressed with the Speaker, but E.J. Dionne gives sone perspective that makes her much more interesting in his Nancy Pelosi's Balancing Act

During the interview last week, Pelosi called attention to a small statue of a coal miner that she has always kept in her office. It was a gift to her father from the late Jennings Randolph, who represented West Virginia in the House and Senate.

She said she points to the statue when she discusses energy and environmental questions with her mining-state colleagues. "They need not fear what I would write as a bill, [that I would] say, 'Let's write a bill without coal,' " she said. "You can't."

Those are not the words of an ideologue. In fact, that's the one thing Nancy Pelosi isn't

Pinning a Face on the Elephant: A Week of Rush and the Democrats

I noted a while back the Obama White House targeting Limbaugh. I think we saw the results of this as Rush bounced up and down at CPAC. Then we had a week of media frenzy questioning the wisdom of the targeting of Rush. I think targeting a bit extreme - does not that verb imply a bit of involuntariness on the part of Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh lives on ratings, this will help ratings, but he can play the victim card quickly enough albeit with a heavy dose of hypocrisy.

The following from Howard Kurtz's Washington Post column No Man of Steele shows me that Rush likes his role even if he is delusional about Obama debating him:

"As for Rush--who yesterday invited the president on his show in the name of bipartisanship, insisting it was not a 'cheap trick'--he tells Politico:

'The administration is enabling me. They are expanding my profile, expanding my audience and expanding my influence. An ever larger number of people are now being exposed to the antidote to Obamaism: conservatism, as articulated by me. An ever larger number of people are now exposed to substantive warnings, analysis and criticism of Obama's policies and intentions, a 'story' I own because the [mainstream media] is largely the Obama Press Office.'"

Timothy Egan Blog had Fears of a Clown :

"Smarter Republicans know he is not good for them. As the conservative writer David Frum said recently, “If you’re a talk radio host and you have five million who listen and there are 50 million who hate you, you make a nice living. If you’re a Republican party, you’re marginalized.”"

But the Rovian mantra of working the base is their only strategy, and their only economic strategy is cut taxes. That the core base now looks like a reborn Know Nothing party with an overlay of economic extremists and a leadership beholden to the frauds of Wall Street indicates that smarter Republicans probably are an insignificant few.

The Washington Post's The Fix gave us Plouffe on Rush: 'Fingernails on a Chalkboard':

"Plouffe's broader point is that the Republican strategy of courting its own base (represented by Limbaugh) with its opposition to Obama's economic stimulus plan is a recipe for electoral disaster as it serves to further alienate moderates who are keen on seeing the two political parties work together.

Limbaugh's loud (and repeated) call that he hoped Obama's economic policies would fail is the equivalent of 'fingernails on a chalkboard' to these moderates, writes Plouffe, adding: 'Independent voters, those who find the ways of Washington particularly toxic, could be forgiven for wondering whether the Republican minority has any clue what is happening in our country.'"

Which I think is the point of the White House's move on Rush. The Republicans have never taken responsibility for utter nastiness that they have instilled in our political system. None condemned Willie Horton. None condemned Bush's use of Osama bin Laden in his 2004 campaign ads. None condemned Delay's pushing the Democratic minority out of the legislative process. Time has come for a change. Time for the Republicans to decide how they want to do politics in the future.

As the conservatives remind everyone, they are not necessarily Republicans. Maybe this is a wake up call for them. I still do not understand why the economic conservatives do not move over to the Libertarians where they would find a more compatible home. Oh, worried about electoral success. Success may be judged differently when the whole story comes out - see the past Bush Administration for an example.

This might be the time for the country to look at a change in our electoral process, too. Anyone for proportional representation? It also comes to mind that Obama has never quite defined his view of a new, cooperative politics but only notice that he talks of working with the Republicans. Certainly he has paid more attention to the minority than did Bush, Rove, Delay and Lott. Does Obama have something more subtle in mind?

MSNBC's First Thoughts blog Return to partisanship :

"*** The return of partisanship: The biggest lesson to draw from the White House-Limbaugh fight: Partisan politics and divided Washington are back. The methodical effort by the white house to raise Limbaugh's profile is obvious now. And now the GOP is making a concerted effort to demonize Rahm. On one level, it's a reminder of just how hard it is for any president to change the tone in Washington. On the other, we do wonder what the GOP is going to get out of this decision to demonize Rahm while defending Obama. Oddly, they may end up helping Obama look above the fray. You've heard of the expression punching down; the GOP is punching down, not up. And the White House, while deserving of some of the blame for participating in the renewed negative tone affecting DC, is still smiling as, politically, they do look like they are winning."

For us Democrats, we need to think about what this from The Toronto Star. Why Democrats love Rush Limbaugh:

"In the aftermath of the frenzy, a bellyache is settling everywhere. The Republicans look especially bad, and the Democrats, not much better. As for the media – which turned its collective back on some of the most important stories of this lifetime to gorge at Limbaugh's easy-to-tell feast – perhaps it was the worst of the bunch.

'As a radio journalist, this is fantastic for Rush Limbaugh and therefore fantastic for the radio industry. But as an honest man, it's terrible for America and terrible for the world,' said Michael Harris, editor of Talkers magazine, America's talk radio industry bible.

'How is it that we would allow ourselves to divert this much attention from the issues facing not just the U.S. but the entire family of nations? It is a shame we cannot afford. And even if this is good for the Obama administration in the short term, it could backfire on them, too. People deserve better.'

FDR and the Hundred Days- New York Review of Books Essay

Seems that we had a bunch of books recently about FDR and the start of the New Deal. Russell Baker at The New York Review of Books has an essay that needs reading. Interesting how the Republicans do like their strongmen:

H.L. Mencken, after pronouncing Roosevelt "one of the most charming of men," wrote that, like most such men, he left the impression of being "somewhat shallow and futile." Other important journalists—Herbert Bayard Swope, Frank Kent, Arthur Krock—seemed to agree. Even more remarkably, after his election some of these very critics were saying he should be given dictatorial powers. Such was the sense of panic about the Great Depression as he took office.

"The nation expected Roosevelt to claim the powers of a dictator, or close to it," Adam Cohen states in Nothing to Fear. He quotes Senator William Borah, the highly respected progressive Republican from Idaho, declaring himself ready to put politics aside and "give our incoming President dictatorial power within the Constitution for a certain period."

"If this country ever needed a Mussolini, it needs one now," said Senator David Reed, a Pennsylvania Republican. Even Lippmann, having dismissed candidate Roosevelt just a few months earlier, wrote that the use of "'dictatorial powers,' if that is the name for it—is essential.'"

Roosevelt addressed the dictatorship question in his Inaugural Address, saying he intended to work with Congress on the nation's problems and hoped the president's traditional powers would suffice to help solve them. If not, he would ask for a "temporary departure," asking for "broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe."

As Cohen observes, this was "the most radical" passage in the Inaugural, "with its understated suggestion of autocracy." He notes that "it received an enthusiastic response from the crowd." Adolf Hitler had become chancellor of Germany just over one month earlier; Benito Mussolini, as Italy's prime ministerial dictator since 1922, was fairly popular in the United States. In the astonishing tumult of legislation that immediately followed Roosevelt's inauguration, Congress proved so eager to vote immediately for anything he wanted that he seemed to have been granted dictatorial power without asking for it.

But FDR chose not to be a dictator. No unitary executive theorist, he worked with Congress. Which probably did extend the Great Depression. But what would his critics prefer: the United States we have or an United States that endured a Mussolini/Francisco Franco?

Raymond Moley, who was very close to Roosevelt in the early days, told him his view should be that "there is no room in this country for two reactionary parties," that Democrats should be "a party of liberal thought, of planned action" on behalf of labor, farmers, and small businessmen. And that was what FDR made it when everything looked as hopeless as it could be and there had never been a worse hard time.

Certainly he did not make it by design. Some may say that he blundered his way into it and, what's more, all that spending did not end the Great Depression either; it took Hitler and World War II to do that. Of course World War II was, among other things, the biggest public works program in American history, which invites the inference that FDR was on the right track before the war, but simply failed to spend enough

Who Is For the Working Guy: Democrats or Republicans?

My own opinion is that the Republicans have never really been for the working guy. Paul Krugman has not been much of an Obama supporter but he has this to say about McCain and the working guy:

Maybe there are plumbers out there who earn that much, or who would end up suffering from Mr. Obama’s proposed modest increases in taxes on dividends and capital gains — America is a big country, and there’s probably a high-income plumber with a huge stock market portfolio out there somewhere. But the typical plumber would pay lower, not higher, taxes under an Obama administration, and would have a much better chance of getting health insurance.

I don’t want to suggest that everyone would be better off under the Obama tax plan. Joe the plumber would almost certainly be better off, but Richie the hedge fund manager would take a serious hit.

But that’s the point. Whatever today’s G.O.P. is, it isn’t the party of working Americans.

You might want to read all of The Real Plumbers of Ohio.

Book review and American Economics

I wish I had tome to double check this review but enough in Is History Siding With Obama’s Economic Plan? jibes with things I do know:

"The second big historical fact, which might be called the Great Partisan Inequality Divide, is the focus of Professor Bartels’s work.

It is well known that income inequality in the United States has been on the rise for about 30 years now — an unsettling development that has finally touched the public consciousness. But Professor Bartels unearths a stunning statistical regularity: Over the entire 60-year period, income inequality trended substantially upward under Republican presidents but slightly downward under Democrats, thus accounting for the widening income gaps over all. And the bad news for America’s poor is that Republicans have won five of the seven elections going back to 1980."

Take a look at the whole thing and remember the Republicans have talked about anything but the economy.

By the way, I do know I said I was closing down Trifles. I guess I cannot resist a chance to shoot off my mouth.

Where Should the Democrats Stand on Abortion?

That is the question I have after reading The Current's Obama and the Evangelicals. That post starts with this:

"On the face of it, Dobson's comments seem like a bizarre overreaction to a two-year-old Obama speech, in which he argued for a progressive politics more accommodating to religious believers while taking some (relatively gentle) jabs at religious conservatives. It's easier to understand Dobson's outburst, though, in the context of events like Obama's recent off-the-record meeting with evangelical leaders, after which one attendee wrote that Obama 'came across as thoughtful and much more of a 'centrist' than what I would have expected,' and added that while he would be voting for McCain, he wouldn't be surprised if the 2008 race were 'the first time a majority of evangelicals will vote for a Democrat for president since Jimmy Carter.'"

Overlooking what I think there were so many things wrong with Dobon's thrological pronouncements, the writer verges into this conclusion:

Of course, Obama is in a bind as well. If he moved to the center on abortion, a knowledgeable religion journalist remarked to me last week, he could win half of evangelicals under 40. But can he move to the center on abortion - by flip-flopping on partial-birth abortion, say, while making a big deal about embracing the (largely-symbolic) abortion-reduction plan being pressed by Democrats for Life -- after a bruising primary campaign in which he barely beat out a feminist icon with unimpeachable pro-choice bona fides? I've assumed that the answer is no and no again, not least because he's already ahead in the polls, and doesn't need to look for potentially gamechanging maneuvers that might blow up in his face. But if Obama wants a historic mandate, rather than a narrow win -- if he wants to cut the heart out of the GOP coalition and leave the Republicans for dead -- then breaking with his party's abortion orthodoxy to go hard after the evangelical vote is one obvious way to do it.

Sorry, I am not so sure the evangelical vote will buy into anything less than a heartfelt change in the Democratic platform to an anti-abortion position. Yes, I lean hard towards pro-choice but ask yourself if you think anything short of anti-abortion becoming the Democratic platform will satisfy the "pro-life" crowd. I do not like when pro-abortion becomes a litmus test for Democratic candidates but becoming Republicans on this issue serves no one well.

Race and The 2008 Election: Judgment Day for Us?

Why do I read Scotland's The Sunday Herald? Because it asks questions like this: Can America handle a strong black woman? My wife thinks Mrs. Obama is an angry black woman. I do not - except when someone starts attacking her husband. Speaking with a fellow Democrat yesterday at the Democratic Convention, race was mentioned as a barrier to Obama's election. Yes, there are Democrats thinking that Obama's race will cause him to lose the election.

The there was Hate Groups' Newest Target from The Washington Post:

Neo-Nazi and white power groups acknowledge that they have little ability to derail Obama's candidacy, so instead some have decided to take advantage of its potential. White-power leaders who once feared Obama's campaign have come to regard it as a recruiting tool. The groups now portray his candidacy as a vehicle to disenfranchise whites and polarize America.

Those Democrats worrying over or annoyed by Obama's race need to read what the Scots read about us:

"AMERICA HAS just had what I call a Blazing Saddles moment. You'll remember the scene. The downtrodden townsfolk are desperate for a hero. That old prospector, John 'Johnson Johnson' McCain has been talking authentic frontier gibberish. Then over the horizon comes riding the coolest, sharpest dude of a sheriff you are ever liable to see.

At the first the townspeople are beside themselves with relief. Then the ancient quells his gibberish just long enough to put out a singular detail. Sheriff Barack is a ni... Unlike Mel Brooks, we'll settle for African-American. We might add, though, that in some quarters the Democratic candidate for the presidency of the US is about as welcome as Cleavon Little in Rock Ridge.

Is he a 'secret Muslim'? Is his patriotism in question because he has sometimes failed to impale himself on one of those stars and stripes lapel badges that are, for American politicians, almost compulsory? Was his taste in preachers not revealing? But here's a better angle for the shock jocks and the lunatic bloggers and Fox News. Doesn't Obama possess an intelligent wife who happens to be capable of speaking her mind?
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Oh, she's black, too. In fact, in some quarters she is already being described as 'an angry black woman'. (Just a thought, but if she's not, Michelle"

***

The attacks on Michelle Obama have been astonishing on several levels. One shock comes from realising how very few people there are who will name racism for what it is. Democrats and "liberals" seem almost to have internalised the fact that the Republicans and their cheerleaders will always smear and savage when the White House is at stake. In a peculiar way they validate disgusting behaviour by accepting that it is, somehow, par for the course. Michelle Obama is, as one right-wing commentator happily conceded, fair game.

It's two-for-one, after all: racism and sexism without the risks involved in a frontal assault on the candidate. It is almost cost-free, too, if you adopt the habitual tactic of Fox - prop. Rupert Murdoch, lest you'd forgotten - in first airing the smear and then offering the token, half-hearted apology when your "fearless journalism" is misconstrued.

But that's the game. It would be tasteless to bring up the long battle waged against an addiction to pills by John McCain's wife. It would be a cheap shot to talk about her substantial inherited wealth. But allege - without a shred of proof - that a tape exists in which Michelle Obama talks of "whitey" and all denials come too late. Before you know it, the husk of what was once Christopher Hitchens will be trawling through a woman's 1985 college dissertation to uncover the word "separationism". Hasn't anyone in America heard what Hitchens was up to in the eighties?

Mercifully, Obama appears to be capable of standing up for herself. On the strength of a handful of interviews, at least, she seems to be quite as sharp as her husband. Nevertheless, if this is the pattern being set for America's general elections, you can only wonder how long it will be before race and attitudes towards race begin to head the agenda. The attack on Michelle Obama has been notable, after all, for two things: a lack of any substance and utter shamelessness.

***

The candidate's ability to steer clear of this issue is going to be tested. That's the strategy. Attack his wife - loving husbands are easily provoked - and do so in terms calculated to make middle America uncomfortable, or more uncomfortable, with the sight of black folks aspiring to the republic's highest office. What truly interests the outsider, however, is a question: are the Obamas to be put through the mill because of politics, or is actual racism bringing this filth to the surface? And is America unable even to broach the subject?

No, there is more and it may be worth it to you to read it all.

I say this election is judgment day for Americans and for the Democratic Party. Micheal Kazin finds another but like me thinks we stand on the verge of a great future. Once this country makes a sham out of a particular set of words then we have lost what makes us Americans and makes Americans special. That particular set of words is:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness....

By denying one person because of their race, we can deny anyone else who is does not have the right look, the right bank account, the right parents, the right zip code, the right hair color, the right eye color, the right height, the right religion, the right ethnicity, the right sex and so on. Yes, because we say Obama cannot be President because he is black, we can deny the white kid whose parents did not put him through Yale.

By denying the equality of opportunity enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we consign ourselves to an oligarchic republic instead of a government based merit.

Those Democrats who will not vote for Obama repudiate the essential basis of our party. Vote against him because you disagree with his ideas but also do not use this as a dodge for avoiding the race issue. By denying the equality of opportunity enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, you deny your own right to equality.

The time for putting belief into action has come. Now is not the time to shirk but to embrace our beliefs.

Presidential Politcs - The Week That Was

So ends the week that saw Barack Obama to become the first African-American presidential candidate. So everyone makes the big point about. It also overlooks that he is the first person to actually have pulled himself up by bootstraps into national political life since Bill Clinton and maybe even more so than Bill Clinton - Obama just paid off his student loans a few years ago.

Probably a good thing that it finally came to an end. I suspect my wife's reaction to the words "Hillary Clinton" was similar to many of us - boredom edging into frustration into disgust.

Scotland's The Sunday Herald had a lot to say about Obama finally getting the Democratic Party's nomination. Hillary's last hurrah captures the weirdness of this past week.

The speech that followed defied belief. Pressure for Clinton to bow out has certainly been ugly at times but refusing to admit Obama had won crossed the line, separating determination and delusion.

and then:

Clinton is not a natural public speaker. Her cadence is stilted, her mannerisms awkward. It is no stretch to say Obama won the nomination at the podium. But yesterday she found a grace and good humour that has too often been lacking. "This isn't exactly the party I'd planned," she began, "but I sure like the company."

***

After paying lip service to her "friend" without acknowledging his victory, Clinton ran through some familiar themes: the swing state argument, her claim to have won the popular vote, her readiness to lead, and the people who "reached out to help me, to grab my hand or grip my arm, to look into my eyes and tell me don't quit, keep fighting, stay in this race for us'."

The Guardian had this to report:

In her speech, Clinton went a long way to making that process a little easier. She tackled head-on the ferocity of the emotions that have grown in the party. She argued that the prospect of another Republican in the White House should unite them all behind Obama, and said she would be personally committed to that goal. She borrowed one of Obama's own campaign slogans. 'So today I am standing with you to say: 'Yes, we can!',' she said. 'We cannot let this moment slip away. We have come too far and we have accomplished too much.'

At such words, the Democratic establishment's biggest fear - the nightmare of a convention fight in Denver - evaporated in the humidity of a Washington summer afternoon. In an appealing, joky turn of phrase, Clinton admonished any of her fans who were even thinking of letting their defeat turn them off voting for Obama: 'Please don't go there. Every moment wasted looking back keeps us from looking forward. Life is too short, time is too precious and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been.'

So much for Rush Limbaugh's wet dreams of Operation Chaos.

Back to The Sunday Herald for its editorial US has changed, but can it go all the way?:

"The political reality for Obama now is that another kind of division may yet prove his downfall. Hillary Clinton's failure, and where her devoted support will now go, could determine whether or not McCain wins and subjects the US and the world to another four years of the Republicans.

This will mean no change in Iraq or Afghanistan, little prospect of peace in the Middle East and, without dialogue, the acceleration of US tension over Iran - which is already being talked of as the next Iraq."

The Sunday Herald also a fun bit of political satire with OK, Hillary, what’s next for a woman of your talents?.

HC: Who ever said I wanted to be vice-president?

BO: You mean, you don't?

HC: Hell no. It's worth less than a bucket of cold spit. I'm no second fiddle. I can be more powerful as the first female majority leader of the Senate.

BO: What are we talking about then?

HC: I want you to offer me it so that I can turn it down.

BO: Okay. I'll think about it.

Even reading something like Obama Maps a Nationwide Push in G.O.P. Strongholds shows the efforts being made to unify the party:

"In one telling example, he is moving to hire Aaron Pickrell, the chief political strategist of Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio — who helped steer Mrs. Clinton to victory in that state’s primary — to run his effort against Mr. McCain there. In another, aides said, he has tapped Dan Carroll, an opposition researcher who gained fame digging up information on opponents’ records for Bill Clinton in 1992, to help gather information about Mr. McCain. That is the latest evidence that, for all the talk on both sides about a new kind of politics, the general election campaign is likely to be bloody.

Mr. Obama’s campaign is considering hiring Patti Solis Doyle, a longtime associate of Mrs. Clinton who was her campaign manager until a shake-up in February, the first of what Mr. Obama’s aides said would be a number of hires from the Clinton campaign."

And al tlhis the week that Bo Diddley died.

A Bell Tolling for Hilary?

In talking to a friend of mine a week or so ago, I reminded him that Bill Clinton had not been so popular amongst some of the Democratic Party. Bob Herbert brings all of that up in his New York Times column, Hillary on the High Road?:

"And then there was Bill. It was an article of faith that Senator Clinton’s campaign had a built-in advantage: her husband was the smartest Democrat of them all. But when you think about it, Bill Clinton was never much of a benefactor for others in his party."

When he took office in January 1993, Democrats controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. Less than two years into his presidency, the Republicans swept to majorities in both houses, putting Newt Gingrich in line to become speaker. A New York Times article at the time described Democrats in the House as “disoriented.”

When Mr. Clinton left office in 2001, the Republicans were still in control of Congress, and the Monica Lewinsky scandal and impeachment had opened the door to the era of George W. Bush.

The former president’s less-than-magic touch in Senator Clinton’s presidential campaign contributed to her devastating defeat in the South Carolina primary. He’s been kept more or less under control since then.

Bill Clinton has very short coattails. As I mentioned before on here, we need to expand the lidea of electability to more than the presidential race but the congressional races, too. I see Obama being able to draw more Democrats into the House and the Senate.

Democrats

Frank Rich wrote On the Democrats in the latest The New York Review of Books:

"However much the Democrats might finesse differences on Iraq or any other issue in 2008, their best hopes for electoral victory still have less to do with their own ideas than with the sorry state of their opponents. Compared to the increasingly fractious and disheartened conservative coalition, the Democrats could pass for a model of coherence and unity. Compared to the Bush presidency, almost any conceivable Democratic ticket would seem a step up to the vast majority of voters eager to turn the page. The Democrats could yet lose the White House in 2008, especially if the general election becomes a referendum on the Clintons or race, but it would take the party's full powers of self-immolation to do so."

I read this a few days ago. Frank Rich surely wrote it much earlier than that. I am not so sure I agree that a Democratic victory will have less to do with our own ideas. Obama's campaign shows the strength of ideas. Clinton lacks nothing in the idea department - even if her presentation lacks Obama's flair. (Watching last night's debate on CNN, the opening made me think of something I read about The Who and Hendrix at The Monterey Pop Festival. Basically, Pete Townsend said no way to play after Hendrix. A brief look in Clinton's eyes brought home what it would have been like to have Jimi Hendrix as the opening act).

I am tired of bombast substituting for thought, and I suspect that I am not the only one in this country who feels this way. We, the electorate, can generally tell when we are getting fed a line. When we do get fooled, there is hell to pay. We know we got fed a line of BS by Bush, Cheney and the Republicans. For winning big we do need better ideas than the opposition. Winning just requires reminding the electorate of how badly the Republicans ran this country for the past seven years.

My wiseacre moment for the day

I am reading David Brooks column in today's New York Times, The Two Earthquakes, when I came across the following paragraph:

A conservatism that recognizes stable families as the foundation of economic growth is not hard to imagine. A conservatism that loves capitalism but distrusts capitalists is not hard to imagine either. Adam Smith felt this way. A conservatism that pays attention to people making less than $50,000 a year is the only conservatism worth defending.

And I thought: this sounds like what the Democratic Party is doing right now. Conservatives will just make a hash of it.

(By the way, the Brooks column has rather good things to say about Obama - and Huckabee - and worth reading.)

A New Third Party on The Rise?

That seems the point to The Washington Post's Bipartisan Group Eyes Independent Bid.

I got to admit they have an impressive line up:

Conveners of the meeting include such prominent Democrats as former senators Sam Nunn (Ga.), Charles S. Robb (Va.) and David L. Boren (Okla.), and former presidential candidate Gary Hart. Republican organizers include Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.), former party chairman Bill Brock, former senator John Danforth (Mo.) and former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman.

Boren, who will host the meeting at the university, where he is president, said: "It is not a gathering to urge any one person to run for president or to say there necessarily ought to be an independent option. But if we don't see a refocusing of the campaign on a bipartisan approach, I would feel I would want to encourage an independent candidacy."

The list of acceptances suggests that the group could muster the financial and political firepower to make the threat of such a candidacy real. Others who have indicated that they plan to attend the one-day session include William S. Cohen, a former Republican senator from Maine and defense secretary in the Clinton administration; Alan Dixon, a former Democratic senator from Illinois; Bob Graham, a former Democratic senator from Florida; Jim Leach, a former Republican congressman from Iowa; Susan Eisenhower, a political consultant and granddaughter of former president Dwight D. Eisenhower; David Abshire, president of the Center for the Study of the Presidency; and Edward Perkins, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Maybe something is afoot? The Republicans writhe in agony over Huckabee or Guiliani. Or so the media pundits tell us they are. I grit my teeth over Hilary but she is better than anything on the other side of the fence. I am leaning more to Obama as I do not think Dodd or Richardson (men with talent, if not the gracefulness of Obama) do not light any fires. He has no foreign policy experience? Neither did the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., but Obama shows more intelligience on a bad day than George W does on his best.

That this conference includes Gary Hart caught my eye. Hart made his comeback a few years ago. We forgot how bright he was and maybe now I understand why he has been silent in this campaign. I wonder if maybe Al Gore took a page from Hart when he decided he liked not being a candidate. Both seem better people without their presidential ambitions.

Another item today got me thinking that a third party is on its way. The New York Review of Books sent is e-mail notice to me today. The next edition carries They'd Rather Be Right about the Republicans. I have not had time to read it all but I offer this as a relevant teaser:

What would be a rational Republican response to this grim state of affairs? Given both the apparent ideological heterogeneity of the candidates and the soul-searching taking place even in the pages of National Review about how badly conservatism has failed the country, one might think that the GOP in 2008 would disclaim at least some of its current radical conservative positions and inch back toward the political center.

For all the accusations hurled at the Democratic Party, I cannot recall anytime that we were as exultant about our ideological purity as the Republicans have been since 1980. The Republicans are nothing but a conservative party. What do they do now?

Looking ahead, I think the Democrats need to show not just that they have ideas but also competence. We can look at Anderson and Kris Ockomon and see what attacks will be coming toward incumbent Democrats.

Senate blocks bills to pay for Iraq, Afghanistan

I am sure everyone has heard this news-Senate blocks bills to pay for Iraq, Afghanistan. The following is from the Boston Globe:

"Four Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the measure: Sens. Gordon Smith of Oregon, Olympia Snowe of Maine, Susan Collins of Maine and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska."

***

Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., was the lone Democrat opposing it because he said it did not go far enough to end the war.

The Republican proposal to pay for the Iraq war with no strings attached failed by a vote of 45-53, which was 15 short of the number needed to go forward.

Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said this week that if Congress cannot pass legislation that ties war money to troop withdrawals, they would not send President Bush a bill this year.

Don't blame the Dems, blame the fact we do not have enough of them in the Senate.

Preview of Democratic Congress

That is how I describe Ruth Marcus's Son of SCHIP in today's Washington Post. Probably for the political junkies amongst my readers.

Supporting the DNC locally

Here is a link to the DNC's Party Builder page: http://www.democrats.org/page/group?q=&z=46016&state_cd=IN&n=11

Put in your zip code and see who is close by or start your own group. There are several for Anderson.

Hilary, Rappers and the Imus Effect

Let me say, that I think Hilary appears jsut too much of a calculatingly, however-the-wind-blows politician. I think she has one great asset as a potential president, that being Bill, but otherwise I really think she has the material only to be a great cabinet officer.

With that disclaimer, Hilary seems to have stepped into a mess by criticizing Imus and then turning about and taking money from a rapper/music producer. From Colbert I. King's column in today's Washington Post:

Mrs. Clinton, you may recall, took umbrage at Imus's remarks, branding them "small-minded bigotry and coarse sexism." His words, she said in an e-mail to supporters, "showed a disregard for basic decency and were disrespectful and degrading to African Americans and women everywhere."

Good for her, I say, except it must be asked why she was down in Florida making nice to -- and pocketing big bucks from -- a rapper whose obscenity-laced lyrics praise violence, perpetuate racist stereotypes and demean black women.

We have started our presidential campaigns almost a year before the first primary, we have the Internet, and about all I can say about this story is that we can expect more of this. Information lies about the Internet ready to bite everyone in the ass, so be careful what you say unless it all comes from the heart. Frankly, if Hilary appeared to speak more often from her heart and less often from a consultant's list of talking points, she might just become our first female president.

Correction on Bill Bradley and Book TV

Book TV has a link to the Bradley interview. Click here to watch it. It is about an hour long.

It appears that the Book TV archives must be paid for and that this link was not on the site yesterday.

Updating the Blogroll - finallyi

Blue Indiana wrote a nice comment a ways back and invited me to contribute to the blog. Poor time management rather than churlishness caused my delay in adding this blog to the blogroll. I wish I had something of value to add but I suggest keeping an eye on this one.

I have known Mark Rutherford since law school. A genuine and genuinely nice person who is a dedicated Libertarian. He is blogging at Mark W.Rutherford's Immediate Past State Chairman's Report. I disagree with much of Libertarianism but I got to give them credit for not indulging in the cynicism I have been complaining about today in this post.

A blog found pleasantly by accident (ah, the wonders of Google): The Democratic Daily Blog...

Bill Bradley - I wish C-Span had a video archive

I suggest that if you have the interest in politics or government or Bill Bradley that you catch C-Span 2 tonight at 9:00 pm. I caught a repeat last night and was impressed with Bradley. I know Bradley is smart even if somewhat of an unemotional speaker. I looked today to see if C-Span had a video archive but so far have been unsuccessful.

A former Republican Congressman conducts (sorry his name escapes me right now but he is the Iowan Republican defeated last year) the C-Span 2 interview which is part of Bradley's book tour. Today's New York Times reviews the book,THE NEW AMERICAN STORY (Random House priced at $25.95.) . Here is part of the review:

But most of his suggestions are grounded in an appealing mix of idealism and common sense, and the result is a thoughtful, incisive book animated by an eagerness to grapple with an array of middle-class concerns that bridge red- and blue-state America.

Contesting the popular notion that the country is deeply polarized, Mr. Bradley cites a 2000 study showing that 52 percent of red-state voters want gun control, 70 percent of blue-state voters favor the death penalty and 62 percent of red-state voters say there should be no job discrimination against gays. He goes on to argue that the growing power of special interest groups — enhanced by the gerrymandering of Congressional districts, the media’s fascination with noisy partisanship and candidates’ susceptibility to lobbyists — is corroding the political process.

Bradley hits on a lot of my concerns. On television he mentioned the capture of the political process by consultants. That the candidates want to push the big issues but consultants tell them that to win they need to push the small issues, that honesty is not the best policy for winning.

I ask if there is a conspiracy of consultants only in partial jest. I see McCain shrinking from his status as maverick as he pledges fealty to the powers to be in his party. We see the results of this consultant driven politics with the vacuity presently living in the White House but I think our Governor presents another exhibit against political consultancy. So far, he has proven himself capable of presenting an image for the electorate but no idea or capability for governing.

More from the Time's review:

Mr. Bradley ends this perspicacious book by calling for a new kind of politics that would transcend red-state/blue-state partisanship, and that would emphasize consensus over what “purists” on both the left and right put at the top of their agendas.

“I believe,” he concludes, “that in a world in which activists and political consultants focus on peripheral issues — even in a world in which few elections are legitimately contested and money seems a necessary evil — the political party that emphasizes what 70 percent of the people care about will be in power for a generation.”

Does that 70 percent want American imperialism? Especially the sort implemented by Bush and the neo-cons? I do not think so.

On the other hand, we have been bombarded with terrorism intended to keep us so fearful that we welcome loss of freedom and increased Presidential power. So have the Republicans kept control of the country for the past 5 years. That is why we have a military budget exceeding our nearest competitors.

The Nation published a long essay reviewing several books and comes to the conclusion that we do not care about the Imperial Presidency:

But in their contempt for politicians and journalists, Americans should not be too quick to let themselves off the hook. Any serious effort to reduce the presidency to its pre-imperial proportions would imply rethinking the premises of US foreign policy, based on self-aggrandizing assumptions about American wisdom, competence and prerogatives and about the capacity of others to manage their own affairs. Given our chronic inability--or is it unwillingness?--to see the world as it is and to see ourselves as we really are, such a reassessment seems exceedingly unlikely. In an age of the citizen as consumer-spectator, Americans care enough to complain, but not nearly enough to act. Long live the emperor.

Take time to think on these things. Bush may hopefully cap the semiwarrior state outlined in The Nation essay. We really are not good at this sort of thing and this Administration shows just incompetent we are at playing policeman for the world.

I do not know if Zbigniew Brzezinski fits into The Nation's definition of semiwarrior. I remember how his hardnosed attitude towards the Soviets frightened those used to Kissinger's more subtle style until overshadowed by Reagan's even more frightening talk of an even evil empire. Brzezinski also has a book reviewed in today's New York Times.

As Brzezinski sees it, the first Bush administration did not capitalize on America’s victory in the cold war. George H. W. Bush helped ensure that the Soviet Union expired peacefully, that Germany was reunified and that an international coalition expelled Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. But, Brzezinski believes, much more could, and should, have been done: “America’s unique political influence and moral legitimacy were not strategically applied to either transform Russia or pacify the Middle East.” Bush, he says, should have pushed Israel far more forcefully to reach a permanent accommodation with the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat.

He sounds like he also belongs in the semiwarrior camp until this paragraph when we get a reminder of an idea the current President stole from Jimmy Carter and twisted his own way:

Carter’s great accomplishment was to put human rights at the center of American foreign policy, and it is here that Brzezinski is at his best. In his last chapter, he boldly seeks to restore America’s moral authority by redeeming the idea of democratization and regime change from the battering it has received at the hands of the Bush administration. He sees a “global political awakening” centered on a drive for “universal human dignity,” which, he says, is rendering Bush’s martial fervor both anachronistic and self-defeating. Retreating into a fearful garrison state will only compound America’s problems. The “nearly universal access to radio, television and the Internet,” Brzezinski writes, “is creating a community of shared resentments and envy that ... poses a challenge to both existing states and the global hierarchy, on top of which America still perches.” Brzezinski’s final warning, then, is that America must address those shared resentments or risk signing its death warrant as a superpower.

Ask what has all this paranoia and fear mongering has accomplished for our country. Ask if we are really better off with our military budget and far flung military commitments. Ask just who the hell benefits from our obese military budget. Ask if there are not better ways to accomplish our national goals with different methods. Ask why we use our brawn instead of our brains. Ask how we can win a war of ideas with bullets. Ask if anyone advocating war really wants to win this war and if not then why.

For in the end, we the people must assert what we want this country to be and we are at fault for the country's faults. The Republican bromide about individual responsibility is true even if the leaders of that party evade responsibility with reckless abandon. We do need to ask questions, we do need to think,about all matters big and small that we call political. I have a sister who evades politics because it is too complicated for her. We cannot fall back on such excuses for thinking on and making hard choices about public matters. We must stop letting politicians treating us as fools. Consider this passage from the New York Times' review of Jeffrey Feldman's FRAMING THE DEBATE: Famous Presidential Speeches and How Progressives Can Use Them to Change the Conversation (and Win Elections):

Back in 1990, Newt Gingrich sent his Republican colleagues a list of words to use to describe their Democratic opponents: “sick,” “pathetic,” “bizarre,” “traitors” and “corrupt” were some of the choicest. Getting the party on message helped the Republicans win in 1994, but Gingrich’s memo was a disaster for our political culture: it enshrined as demonstrated truth the idea that winning elections in America is all a game of spin and wordplay — a game Republicans happened to be better at than Democrats. Weirdly, even after last November’s Democratic rout, we’re still living in Newt’s world. “Those Republican ‘magic words’ ” that blind voters, according to the blogger Jeffrey Feldman, are still the big threat to Democrats’ electoral success — and, to help the left, he offers a rhetoric handbook, “Framing the Debate,” based on the Democratic strategist George Lakoff’s ideas about politics and language.

The New York Times reviewer attacks the idea that we are like Pavlov's dogs - drooling idiots responding to key words. Unless you think we are better with leaders treating us like Pavlov's dogs, I feel you will agree with the reviewer that such books and ideas are exercises in cynicism.

I find the Democratic Party feeling the need to emulate Republican strategy as a loss of faith in the people. Bradley still has that faith.