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?

Thinking About Ronald Reagan

I was reading The New York Review of Books' What You Can Learn from Reinhold Niebuhr when I hit this paragraph:

"Ronald Reagan has a special place in Bacevich's rogue's gallery. He is a 'faux-conservative' and 'the modern prophet of profligacy' who encouraged the fantasy that credit had no limits and bills would never come due. He had a 'canny knack for telling Americans what most of them wanted to hear' and presided over eight years of 'gaudy prosperity and excess' based on cheap credit and cheap oil. Bacevich remarks that Reagan's beliefs 'did as much to recast America's moral constitution as did sex, drugs, and rock and roll.' By 1990 the United States imported 41 percent of its oil and was embroiled in the Islamic world as a result. Deficits and the national debt had soared, and the United States was no longer a creditor country. 'Americans have yet to realize,' Bacevich writes, 'that they have forfeited command of their own destiny.'"

For Republican, I think Reagan offered escape from the shame of Richard Nixon. for the majority, he offered an escape from the dullness of jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. The closer one looks, the lesser I think he becomes.

• His ending of the Soviet Union got a big boost from Pope John Paul II and Gorbachev.
• He never tried to end abortion.
• He never was a fiscal conservative when government money helped his supporters.
• He turned political discourse into wisecracks that made good soundbites and we have been stuck with this dumbing down of our politics ever since.
  

His biggest accomplishment? Revising the tax code. Which is really a rather important thing rather albeit not very sexy.

Is There Soemthing Wrong with Gun-Owners or Our Educational System?

Heard a bit about the wingnuts on MSNBC last night and rolled my eyes about the talk of Obama taking guns. Then I get to read Ammo and gun shortage driven by fear of legislation in today's Herald Bulletin:

"The election of President Barack Obama, he said, startled gun owners, who quickly loaded up on ammunition and guns, fearful that the Democratic majority would strip them of gun rights. “The federal government is introducing so many bills concerning ammunition, people are scared and instead of buying one box when they come in, people are buying 10.”

Michael Stephenson of Middletown is the secretary and treasurer of the Alexandria Conservation and Gun Club and said today’s leaders in Washington don’t sympathize with gun owners.

“Everybody’s so afraid that after the election, they’ll try to confiscate the guns and ammunition. Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Obama — they all hate guns.”

Although Congress has not yet passed any gun laws, Clevenger said state legislators are well on their way toward driving up ammunition prices."

I always figured the gun control thing was more about geography than party politics. My first year in law school, I heard a fellow raving about the pick-ups with gun racks. He was from Connecticut and a Republican. Those of us native to Indiana had a good laugh at him.

About as good a laugh as I am having thinking that Obama is going to take everyone's guns. He has never said a word close to this. The Dems have never said anything about taking guns. Go where those Dems who favor gun control are from and you will see that it makes sense to them. Then count up the votes where it does not - from Western Pennsylvania to Nevada.

And for all the concern for Second Amendment rights, it would be heartening to see a similar interest in our other constitutional rights.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

But the Republicans have not been so good about respecting constitutional rights they do not like. Maybe it is a collective bad conscience on the part of Republicans.

House Republicans and Their Budget

18 pages without numbers? What were these idiots thinking of? Obviously the same ideas that have gotten us into our current mess.

House Republicans Offer Outline of Alternative to Obama's Budget - washingtonpost.com: "With Democrats in control of Congress, the House GOP budget has no chance of becoming law, and Senate Republicans rejected the idea of even offering an alternative budget but will instead offer amendments on the floor. House rules allow Democrats to limit the amendments offered, so Republicans in that chamber will offer only their complete budget alternative.

'Our economic plan amounts to less government, lower taxes and economic prosperity,' the GOP document says."

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.'

Quiz: Republicans Want to Protect Us From Government Tyranny

I need to gird myself even more to read all of the Bush Justice Department memos. Right now I agree strongly with this headline from The Washington Post: Bush's Secret Dictatorship.

The memo issued by the acting director of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel just five days before Barack Obama took office comes across almost as, among other things, a bit whiny.

Steven Bradbury wrote to officially retract a series of memos in which his former colleagues secretly rewrote the Constitution.

He acknowledged that their reasoning was at various points "unconvincing" and "not sustainable."

But Bradbury was also making excuses for them. They were afraid, he wrote: "The opinions addressed herein were issued in the wake of the atrocities of 9/11, when policymakers, fearing that additional catastrophic terrorist attacks were imminent, strived to employ all lawful means to protect the nation." They were rushed, confronting "novel and complex legal questions in a time of great danger and under extraordinary time pressure."

No excuse. Not even close.

Why is it that the Republicans get up in arms about Obama trying to fix their damage to our economy never get upset by erosion of our civil rights? Might I suggest that paupers are much easier to control and those that they cannot control economically they will do so with the police power of the government?

No Cops for the Crooks

Hard to police the mean streets of Wall Street without enough cops. Is this misfeasance or malfeasance? Right now, I really do think it matters. The thing is that less regulation meant not only fewer, simpler written rules but less effective enforcement of the remaining rules. Which got a lot of money for Bernie Madoff types, Which leads me to the question of the day: how much money from the Wall Street thieves got into Republican hands?

Staffing Shortages Fuel Agency Failures - Federal Eye -:

"The Securities and Exchange Commission is under fire for failing to catch the $50 billion fraud allegedly orchestrated by Bernard L. Madoff, and some at the organization blame staffing shortages for the lack of adequate oversight.

'The amount of resources available to the SEC has not kept pace with the rapid expansion in the securities market over the past few years,' SEC director of enforcement Linda Thomsen recently told the Senate Banking Committee."

Conservatives... a bunch of whiny schoolgirls

Anybody watching Burn Notice knows I cribbed one of Bruce Campbell's lines. Good line, first thing that came mind this morning when I realized these three articles go together.

From yesterday's Washington Post, The Conservatives' 'Cleansing' Moment:

"McConnell painted a bleak picture: Republicans have vanished from the congressional delegations in New England. The Republican nominee won only 4 percent of the African American vote in the presidential election and did poorly among Hispanics as well. Large swaths of the electorate have stopped paying attention to Republicans, he said.

'You can walk from Canada to Mexico and from Montana to Maine without ever leaving a state in this country that has a Democratic governor,' McConnell said.

Huckabee sounded a populist note: 'We've got to get the word out that the Republican Party is not just a haven for rich white guys who want to get richer.'"

And why is it there has to be a Republican governor between Maine and Montana?

And, as for Huckabee, do you really believe that you are not the party of the rich? You really drank deep the Kool-Aid these past 29 years.

And for even more evidence of whininess, I give you 'Liberal bias?' IU professors find network TV election coverage favors Republicans:

"Grabe and Bucy found the volume of news coverage focusing exclusively on each party -- one measure of media bias -- favored Republicans. Their research found there were more single-party stories about Republicans overall and in each election year except 1992. When they studied the time duration of these stories, no pattern of favoritism was evident.

But they did spot differences when they studied visual coverage, that is, with the volume turned down.

'Reporters do exercise control over production decisions,' they write in their book. 'The internal structure of news stories -- their placement in the newscast, editing techniques and manipulations related to camera angles, shot lengths, eyewitness perspectives and zoom movements -- is at the volition of news workers, free of the influence of image handlers.'"

William Kristol - Republicans' Day of Reckoning:

"Conservatives and Republicans will disapprove of this effort. They will oppose it. Can they do so effectively?

Perhaps -- if they can find reasons to obstruct and delay. They should do their best not to permit Obama to rush his agenda through this year. They can't allow Obama to make of 2009 what Franklin Roosevelt made of 1933 or Johnson of 1965. Slow down the policy train. Insist on a real and lengthy debate. Conservatives can't win politically right now. But they can raise doubts, they can point out other issues that we can't ignore (especially in national security and foreign policy), they can pick other fights -- and they can try in any way possible to break Obama's momentum. Only if this happens will conservatives be able to get a hearing for their (compelling, in my view) arguments against big-government, liberal-nanny-state social engineering -- and for their preferred alternatives."

Obama, Republicans and The Stimulus Bill

What have we had from Washington?

• House Republicans refuse to vote for the House Bill and majority of Senate Republicans stay away from the Senate's Bill.
  
• Both set of Republicans seem to complain that they were shut out of the negotiations, that their ideas were ignored, but fail to mention that the vast majority of their ideas were retreads from the Bush Administration.
• Obama still seeks bipartisan support for the plan.

Have we got a President who is too concerned with bipartisanship? Mr. Obama wrote the following as part of his editorial for The Washington Post, The Action Americans Need:

"This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending -- it's a strategy for America's long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, health care and education. And it's a strategy that will be implemented with unprecedented transparency and accountability, so Americans know where their tax dollars are going and how they are being spent.

In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis -- the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive."

The Post's editorial writers then wrote The President Should Heed Calls for a More Focused Stimulus:

"However, ideology is not the only reason that senators -- from both parties -- are balking at the president's plan. As it emerged from the House, it suffered from a confusion of objectives. Mr. Obama praised the package yesterday as 'not merely a prescription for short-term spending' but a 'strategy for long-term economic growth in areas like renewable energy and health care and education.' This is precisely the problem. As credible experts, including some Democrats, have pointed out, much of this 'long-term' spending either won't stimulate the economy now, is of questionable merit, or both. Even potentially meritorious items, such as $2.1 billion for Head Start, or billions more to computerize medical records, do not belong in legislation whose reason for being is to give U.S. economic growth a 'jolt,' as Mr. Obama himself has put it. All other policy priorities should pass through the normal budget process, which involves hearings, debate and -- crucially -- competition with other programs."

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is one of the moderate Republicans whose support the president must win if he is to garner the 60 Senate votes needed to pass a stimulus package. She and Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska are working on a plan that would carry a lower nominal price tag than the current bill -- perhaps $200 billion lower -- but which would focus on aid to states, "shovel-ready" infrastructure projects, food stamp increases and other items calculated to boost business and consumer spending quickly. On the revenue side, she would keep Mr. Obama's priorities, including a $500-per-worker tax rebate.

To his credit, Mr. Obama continues to seek bipartisan input, and he met individually with Ms. Collins for a half hour yesterday afternoon. We hope he gives her ideas serious consideration.

While Republicans want to keep tax cuts for the rich but not for the working class, Martin Feldstein wrote The Current Stimulus Plan: An $800 Billion Mistake:

"As a conservative economist, I might be expected to oppose a stimulus plan. In fact, on this page in October, I declared my support for a stimulus. But the fiscal package now before Congress needs to be thoroughly revised. In its current form, it does too little to raise national spending and employment. It would be better for the Senate to delay legislation for a month, or even two, if that's what it takes to produce a much better bill. We cannot afford an $800 billion mistake"

***

Instead, the tax changes should focus on providing incentives to households and businesses to increase current spending. Why not a temporary refundable tax credit to households that purchase cars or other major consumer durables, analogous to the investment tax credit for businesses? Or a temporary tax credit for home improvements? In that way, the same total tax reduction could produce much more spending and employment.

Postponing the scheduled increase in the tax on dividends and capital gains would raise share prices, leading to increased consumer spending and, by lowering the cost of capital, more business investment.

On the spending side, the stimulus package is full of well-intended items that, unfortunately, are not likely to do much for employment. Computerizing the medical records of every American over the next five years is desirable, but it is not a cost-effective way to create jobs. Has anyone gone through the (long) list of proposed appropriations and asked how many jobs each would create per dollar of increased national debt?

***

If rapid spending on things that need to be done is a criterion of choice, the plan should include higher defense outlays, including replacing and repairing supplies and equipment, needed after five years of fighting. The military can increase its level of procurement very rapidly. Yet the proposed spending plan includes less than $5 billion for defense, only about one-half of 1 percent of the total package.

***

All new spending and tax changes should have explicit time limits that prevent ever-increasing additions to the national debt. Similarly, spending programs should not create political dynamics that will make them hard to end.

The problem with the current stimulus plan is not that it is too big but that it delivers too little extra employment and income for such a large fiscal deficit. It is worth taking the time to get it right.

The Senate passed a plan priced at $870 billion. Now off to conference committee. With Obama expected to campaign more forcefully for the plan in the next week.

E.J. Dionne thinks the President is losing the political/public relations battle over the stimulus. Rescue for the Stimulus:

"They have done so largely by focusing on minor bits of the stimulus that amount, as Obama said in at least two of his network interviews, to 'less than 1 percent of the overall package.' But Republicans have succeeded in defining the proposal by its least significant parts.
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Daschle's withdrawal as the nominee for secretary of health and human services poses a long-term challenge to the administration's ambitious health-care plans because the former Senate majority leader was so crucial to the White House's strategy. But the battering that the stimulus has taken is an immediate problem.

Although Obama aides dismiss the media coverage as 'cable chatter' important only inside the 'Washington echo chamber,' they acknowledge that Congress does its work inside that noisy hall and that the journalistic back-and-forth has tainted its key legislative objective. 'We didn't give it as much air cover last week as we should' have, said one top adviser. 'We lost a week.'"

***

For most of the debate, Obama has cast himself as a benevolent referee overseeing a sprawling and untidy legislative process to which he would eventually bring order. He urged Democrats to knock out small spending measures that had caused public relations problems while doing little to defend the overall package or to reply to its Republican critics.

In the meantime, those critics have been relentless, often casting logic aside to reframe the debate from a practical concern over how to rescue the economy to an ideological dispute about government spending.

***

And Republicans who in one breath say they want more tax cuts declare in the next that they are against the tax cuts Obama has proposed.

Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona said of Obama's $500 refundable tax credit: "Calling a rebate to people who don't pay income taxes a tax cut doesn't make it a tax cut." Presumably Kyl doesn't consider as taxes the payroll taxes (or, for that matter, sales taxes) paid disproportionately by low- and middle-income Americans.

***

Its hopes rest in part on a different form of bipartisanship. If Washington Republicans have decided to build a wall of opposition to the stimulus, Republican governors and mayors are eager for the money Obama wants to give them.

Thus will Obama and his allies be touting strong support for the stimulus from the Republican governors of California, Connecticut, Florida and Vermont. Mayors will be called upon to move House Republicans still open to persuasion.

Do not forget Indiana's Republican Governor's desire to spend the stimulus money, this from Nuvo Newsweekly's Statehouse update:

"Daniels said Indiana would get between $4 billion and $5 billion under the federal stimulus package the U.S. House passed Tuesday. That package gives the governor authority to decide how to spend much of those billions."


****

But with unemployment rising rapidly, Daniels said it's critical the state be ready to spend stimulus dollars to create jobs as soon as it reaches the state's bank account. Daniels named roadway construction, clean water projects and weatherization as programs he'd direct stimulus money toward. 


According to the governor, the Indiana Department of Transportation is nailing down a list of already-planned projects, and will begin accepting bids on some of those projects as early as Monday. 



Paul Krugman wrote something similar to Dionne in his New York Times' column's On the Edge:

"So what should Mr. Obama do? Count me among those who think that the president made a big mistake in his initial approach, that his attempts to transcend partisanship ended up empowering politicians who take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh. What matters now, however, is what he does next.

It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge."

As much as I respect Mr. Dionne's writing, I wonder if once again smarter people are missing the point of Obama? He plays his own game. He has the willfulness to impose his ideas and the mobility to move those ideas forward. Perhaps he sees a need to separate critics from mere obstructionists. Perhaps he sees the long term goal is of mitigating his critics and quarantining the obstructionists. Perhaps he sees that by highlighting the obstructionists, he can undercut the Republicans political support in next year's midterm elections? And maybe he has goofed? Who wants to bet?

With all that is going on with an incoming Administration, with all the messes left on the carpet by the departing Bush, could it be that our President knows the places and the points to put the pressure. Now we have seen what the Republicans offer us (nothing much, still denying reality), a President who appears not only reasonable but statesmanlike, and let us judge the plan by what is done between now and the time the bill reaches Obama's desk.

Obama and Limbaugh and the Stimulus

So Rush Limbaugh thinks the President is scared of him. Either the old blowhard has slipped into true megalomania or the meds have done permanent damage. Let us review something here: man whose father was a Kenyan immigrant wins Democratic Party nomination for President and then wins said Presidency. A mere radio show mouthpiece scares this guy? Rush is the comedian Keith Olbermann calls him.

Let us check out the wider world about all of this - or at least, The Washington Post's The Fix:

Is Rush Limbaugh the New Face of the GOP?:

"It's one week into President Obama's term and his arch nemesis isn't Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) or even one of the myriad candidates interested in challenging him in 2012.

It's conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh.

Limbaugh drew huge coverage in the days leading up to Obama's inauguration when he declared that he hoped the new president would fail -- part of a broader condemnation of liberalism in the country.

Obama upped the ante late last week when in a private meeting with Republicans he referenced Limbaugh's brand of politics as a big reason why major legislation hadn't been passed in years.

Then on Monday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs offered another sly provocation of Limbaugh; asked to expand on Obama's comments about the talk show host, Gibbs demurred and then added: 'Tell [Rush] I said hi.'

Not surprisingly, Limbaugh took the bait. Of Obama, he said: 'He's obviously more frightened of me than he is Mitch McConnell. He's more frightened of me, then he is of say, John Boehner, which doesn't say much about our party.'"

***

Whether Limbaugh continues to play as prominent a role as the GOP attack dog against Obama remains to be seen. If history is any guide, he will. Limbaugh -- along with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) -- is credited with leading the Republican revolt that brought about the 1994 wave election and his near-constant agitation against former President Bill Clinton is well-known.

Put simply: Limbaugh isn't going anywhere any time soon. And his voice -- and influence -- may well get stronger with the GOP out of power. Is that a good thing or a bad thing for Republicans? Time will tell.

How many times in the past year has Obama been underestimated but stayed on top? How often has the media and his opponents misapplied conventional wisdom to him? The least different thing about our President is his skin color. What makes him different - and interesting to me - is his ability to concentrate a not inconsiderable amount of intelligence and knowledge into a plan. he will screw up. He knows he will screw up and he has done as much as possible to mitigate his humanity with his choices for the cabinet and of his advisers. Do not underestimate the Lincoln interest that Obama has.

Glad to see Oliver Willis has the same idea here as me and writes much tighter post with his Above Limbaugh’s Game:

"...Like Rove, Rush is more hype than anything. And Limbaugh has not tangled with someone at President Obama’s level, not even Bill Clinton. At some point, we’re going to carve this into the White House lawn:"

So why pick on Limbaugh? Could it be to marginalize the Republican Party by making it the party that places its own ideology above the national interest? To make the Republicans look like the party that is high balling down a dead end? That Rush Limbaugh and his ilk (ah, there is a word I never thought to use) are the ones who directly profit from placing their partisan interests above the country's interests?

I read In the Agora's Purging Dissent is not the Answer as giving us an idea of what intelligent Republicans/Conservatives are thinking:

It's going to take a few years for the GOP brand to recover from too much power used too freely and for the Democratic brand to come down a peg from over-governing. Hang in there and have hope.

They still think the Right was right.

Willis's post lead me to Off The Grid and Rush Limbaugh Is Hot Under the Collar:

"The game the president is playing is to make a testy, easy-to-arouse, fun-to-rankle Rush come to stand for an odd-ball, tone-deaf, blowhard far right that the rest of the desperate-to-be-liked Republican Party will eagerly distance itself from (if Rush is trying to capitalize on the panty-waist demeanor of so many of his fellow Republicans, he’s also got to suspect that they’ll sell him out.)

Rush’s game is to try to stay in the game. To find some plausible way to characterize and ridicule the president, which will justify the $400 million what-were-they-thinking contract he signed with Clear Channel over the summer. The pressure is on."

If three of us can see this coming, I do not feel that I am imagining it all. The fun question now is: can Limbaugh stop his mouth without ruining his game?

This morning everyone should know the House passed the stimulus bill. If not here is House Passes Stimulus Plan Despite G.O.P. Opposition from The New York Times:

"But the size and substance of the stimulus package remain in dispute, as House Republicans argued that it tilted heavily toward new spending instead of tax cuts.

All but 11 Democrats voted for the plan, and 177 Republicans voted against it. The 244-to-188 vote came a day after Mr. Obama traveled to Capitol Hill to seek Republican backing, if not for the package then on other issues to come.

Mr. Obama, in a statement hailing the House passage of the plan, did not take note of the partisan divide but signaled that he expected changes to be made in the Senate that might attract support."

The House remains unruly (and does everyone recognize now why Rahm Emanuel is Chief of Staff). The Washington Post ran Democrats Among Stimulus Skeptics before the vote:

"Republican criticism of the stimulus package that the House will vote on tonight has focused on its soaring price tag, but some Democrats on Capitol Hill and other administration supporters are voicing a separate critique: that the plan may fall short in its broader goal of transforming the American economy over the long term."

***

For some House Democrats, the problem is less a matter of balancing the short and long term than a shortage of focus and will on the part of the administration. Their disappointment centers on the relatively small amount devoted to long-lasting infrastructure investments in favor of spending on a long list of government programs. While each serves a purpose, the critics say, they add up to less than the sum of their parts, and fall far short of the transformative New Deal-like vision many of them had entertained.

Dana Milbank wrote about the Republicans in The Republicans Are Smiling, but They're Not Buying:

"Forecasts call for no more than 12 Republicans to vote for Obama's stimulus plan today, and 'it's closer to zero than 12,' said Rep. Fred Upton (Mich.), one of a dozen Republicans invited to meet with Obama staff chief Rahm Emanuel at the White House last night. Rep. Roy Blunt (Mo.) chuckled when asked whether Obama had won his vote. Rep. Dan Lungren (Calif.) laughed. Rep. Dan Burton (Ind.) guffawed.

***

"Yes, we wrote the bill," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said last week. "Yes, we won the election."

Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, was still smarting about that quotation when the committee gathered to consider the stimulus package yesterday morning. "This bill is not the result of the usual bipartisan negotiations," he protested, accusing Democrats of a secret "deal to vote down our amendments."

I would like to remind Representative Grassley what bipartisan negotiations looked like under Tom Delay and George W. Bush. Blue Indiana catches a bit of what it is like under Obama with Mark Souder, Mike Pence love President Barack Obama. Who appears reasonable and who remains looking narrow-minded, even selfish? Even Advance Indiana seems cranky about the bill.

This comes from The New York Times article I noted above:

As Senate Democrats prepare to bring their version of the package to the floor on Monday, House Democrats and the administration indicated they would ultimately accept a provision in the emerging Senate package that would adjust the alternative minimum tax to hold down many middle-class Americans’ income taxes for 2009. The provision was not in the House legislation.

Its cost would drive the overall package’s tally to nearly $900 billion. That would exceed the roughly $850 billion limit that Mr. Obama has set for Congress, House Democratic leadership aides said, and leave no room for other proposals that senators of both parties are poised to seek during Senate debate next week.

While the House and Senate measures are similar, they are most likely to differ in ways that could snarl negotiations between Democrats from the two chambers, and delay getting a measure to the president. In particular, House and Senate Democrats are split over how to divide $87 billion in relief to the states for Medicaid, with senators favoring a formula more beneficial to less-populous states.

Democrats’ own differences aside, they also are under pressure from the White House to be open to proposals from Senate Republicans who might support the final legislation if their interests are accommodated, and which might draw a few Republican supporters on a final vote next month in the House.

Back to Rush and his attacks on the stimulus package, I want to close with this from Paul Krugman's Bad Faith Economics:

"First, there’s the bogus talking point that the Obama plan will cost $275,000 per job created. Why is it bogus? Because it involves taking the cost of a plan that will extend over several years, creating millions of jobs each year, and dividing it by the jobs created in just one of those years."

***

Finally, ignore anyone who tries to make something of the fact that the new administration’s chief economic adviser has in the past favored monetary policy over fiscal policy as a response to recessions.

It’s true that the normal response to recessions is interest-rate cuts from the Fed, not government spending. And that might be the best option right now, if it were available. But it isn’t, because we’re in a situation not seen since the 1930s: the interest rates the Fed controls are already effectively at zero.

I know the Republicans never let facts or reality stand in the way of their lust for power but this being the Age of Obama, I have the audacity to hope.

Republicans: The Good, the Bad, and the Dumb

For the good, read The Sunday Herald's Obama: the first 100 hours:

"As we waited to get out of the Mall, lawyer James Ely, a Republican, told me :'I don't agree with him about a lot of things, but it's just a relief to have a president who respects the constitution again.' Bush's final approval rating of 22% is the lowest since Nixon's at the height of the Watergate scandal. Obama inherits an economy in freefall, a trillion-dollar deficit and two wars with no obvious exit strategy. The gift wrapped in all this calamity is that compared to the last guy, he can only look good."

Ok, some Republicans have not drunk so deeply at the well of Conservative ideology that they cannot see what they have done to the country.

Which brings me to the bad and The Washington Post's Civil Wrongs at the Justice Department:

"Supervisors in the division routinely weighed political affiliation or ideology in hiring for career positions, which is a violation of federal civil service laws. Managers referred to some employees hired during Democratic administrations as 'libs' or 'pinkos.' When making hiring decisions, one supervisor, Bradley Schlozman, in conversations and e-mails, stated a preference for hiring conservatives -- or, in his parlance, 'right-thinking Americans' (whom he also referred to as 'RTAs'). According to the report, roughly 64 percent of those Mr. Schlozman hired were considered Republican or conservative; 2 percent had more liberal or Democratic credentials, and the political views of 34 percent were unknown."

Finally, let us talk about the dumb. I saw a bit of John Boehner on Meet the Press. Representative Boehner impressed me with his idea that the Republicans needed to restore themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility. I have never seen such straight-faced gall. This was the party of the bridge to nowhere and other acts of outrageous fiscal irresponsibility. How dumb does he and the other Republicans think the American public really are? Yes, they conned a bare majority into believing Bush/Cheney but we know better than that now. if not, give a look at Torpor Indy's Read This!.

John Conyers Jr. - Learning the Lessons of the Bush Imperial Presidency - washingtonpost.com

I find myself tempted by the idea of pursuing Bush Administration officials but at the same time I agree with Obama that this cannot be his prime focus. Of the reasons for going after the previous administration, I found John Conyers' Learning the Lessons of the Bush Imperial Presidency persuasive and view of how to do it without becoming mired in the horse manure:

"First, Congress should continue to pursue its document requests and subpoenas that were stonewalled under President Bush. Doing so will make clear that no executive can forever hide its misdeeds from the public.

Second, Congress should create an independent blue-ribbon panel or similar body to investigate a host of previously unreviewable activities of the Bush administration, including its detention, interrogation and surveillance programs. Only by chronicling and confronting the past in a comprehensive, bipartisan fashion can we reclaim our moral authority and establish a credible path forward to meet the complex challenges of a post-Sept. 11 world."

Third, the new administration should conduct an independent criminal probe into whether any laws were broken in connection with these activities. Just this week, in the pages of this newspaper, a Guantanamo Bay official acknowledged that a suspect there had been "tortured" -- her exact word -- in apparent violation of the law. The law is the law, and, if criminal conduct occurred, those responsible -- particularly those who ordered and approved the violations -- must be held accountable.

Some day, there is bound to be another national security crisis in America. A future president will face the same fear and uncertainty that we did after Sept. 11, 2001, and will feel the same temptation to believe that the ends justify the means -- temptation that drew our nation over to the "dark side" under the leadership of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. If those temptations are to be resisted -- if we are to face new threats in a manner that keeps faith with our values and strengthens rather than diminishes our authority around the world -- we must fully learn the lessons of our recent past.

Sarah Palin Cry-baby

Sorry for the title's crudity but it does honestly reflect my reaction to the reports I heard Friday on television and to Howard Kurtz's Palin Pummels the Press. Just in case you have not heard, this is the story:

"By turns aggravated and bemused, Palin complained in the video that her press office is still getting calls about rumors that she is not the mother of her infant son. She called this 'quite absurd,' saying she is 'frustrated that I wasn't believed that Trig was really my son.

'When did we start accepting as hard news sources bloggers, anonymous bloggers especially? It's a sad state of affairs in the world of the media today, mainstream media especially, that they're going to rely on bloggers, anonymous bloggers, for their hard news information.'

Mainstream news outlets reported the rumor in September only after John McCain's campaign revealed the pregnancy of Palin's teenage daughter Bristol, citing the chatter about Trig as the reason for the disclosure. Atlantic blogger Andrew Sullivan -- who is hardly anonymous -- has questioned why Palin would not release medical records to prove she is the boy's mother, but has also posted information supporting her account."

***

Would she do it again? "That's a darned good question," Palin said, before concluding that she would. But she doesn't want people in the "lower 48" being "sucked into believing what too many in the mainstream media want them to believe."

I am one who does not think Governor Palin a dupe or a naif wandering in from the tundra. I think she possesses an excessive ambition hiding behind her pleasing looks and gee-whiz. She plays well on usual trope of Republicans - victim of those who want to keep the Republicans from saving the country from the corrupt, the misguided, the wrong-headed and return us to our state of grace that existed before 1932. Not unlike George W. Bush in her convictions but lacking even his slight abilities or experience.

As a coda, a shout out for Keith Olbermann:

On his Web site, Ziegler says that when Palin saw a picture of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, "she literally let out a shriek and, pointing to his photograph, declared, 'THAT guy is EVIL!' "

China, Republican Stupidity and Our Economic Future

Let me be clear about this: I think the greatest failing of the Bush Presidency was pawning the country to the Chinese. Not that I have anything against the Chinese themselves. I would feel the same way if we were hocked to Malta.

No, I get irate about this because it was dishonest. Instead of using the taxing power (which would have been honest), the Bush Administration used the borrowing power. He could then smirk about his tax cuts.

Now the pigeons have come home to roost. China Is Losing Its Taste for U.S. Debt (New York Times):

"HONG KONG — China has bought more than $1 trillion of American debt, but as the global downturn has intensified, Beijing is starting to keep more of its money at home, a move that could have painful effects for American borrowers."

***

In the last five years, China has spent as much as one-seventh of its entire economic output buying foreign debt, mostly American. In September, it surpassed Japan as the largest overseas holder of Treasuries.

But now Beijing is seeking to pay for its own $600 billion stimulus — just as tax revenue is falling sharply as the Chinese economy slows. Regulators have ordered banks to lend more money to small and medium-size enterprises, many of which are struggling with lower exports, and to local governments to build new roads and other projects.

***

For now, of course, there seems to be no shortage of buyers for Treasury bonds and other debt instruments as investors flee global economic uncertainty for the stability of United States government debt. This is why Treasury yields have plummeted to record lows. (The more investors want notes and bonds, the lower the yield, and short-term rates are close to zero.) The long-term effects of China’s using its money to increase its people’s standard of living, and the United States’ becoming less dependent on one lender, could even be positive. But that rebalancing must happen gradually to not hurt the value of American bonds or of China’s huge holdings.

But the Republicans will ride their "no tax" hobby-horse into the abyss. Or so I interpret Harold Meyerson's A Page From the Hoover Playbook:
"In Monday's meeting between President-elect Barack Obama and congressional leaders, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell suggested that instead of providing aid to the states to help them meet their Medicaid and education obligations, the federal government offer them loans. The idea is ridiculous on its face: With revenue drying up, states are already slashing services and reducing their workforces, which only deepens the downturn. The last thing they'd be inclined to do would be to take on more debt at the very moment they're struggling to balance their budgets.

Ride on, Mitch:

About The Stimulus Plan

I heard a bit last night about Rush Limbaugh challenging the President on his stimulus plan. What I hear is that Rush thinks the President is scared of him. Yeah, right. On one hand, we have a fat oaf who has not changed his scare tactics in thirty years. On the other hand, we have Obama. Let's face one fact about Obama: whenever we ever see whatever makes Obama scared we know we got a reason to be scared. Son of an African immigrant runs for President of the United States....this guy has no fear. Guy takes over from George W. Bush, and we better realize nothing daunts him. Limbaugh's drug use is showing. Or maybe it is a more natural megalomania.

Not that the stimulus plan does not have its problems for me. I am not sure if the House and Senate Democrats do not need to check out the definition of infrastructure. On the other hand, the Republicans say they are getting no input with a straight face - just like they claimed there were WMD and they were the party of fiscal responsibility. If anything the President and the Democrats have been more conciliatory towards the Republicans than the Republicans were ever to the Democrats during the last Administration.

Meanwhile, Paul Krugman blows apart the nonsense in his Bad Faith Economics:

"First, there’s the bogus talking point that the Obama plan will cost $275,000 per job created. Why is it bogus? Because it involves taking the cost of a plan that will extend over several years, creating millions of jobs each year, and dividing it by the jobs created in just one of those years."

***

Finally, ignore anyone who tries to make something of the fact that the new administration’s chief economic adviser has in the past favored monetary policy over fiscal policy as a response to recessions.

It’s true that the normal response to recessions is interest-rate cuts from the Fed, not government spending. And that might be the best option right now, if it were available. But it isn’t, because we’re in a situation not seen since the 1930s: the interest rates the Fed controls are already effectively at zero.

Where Do The Republicans Go Now?

A question that has been on my mind since Bush kept Cheney on the ticket back in 2004 accelerated on election night and hit light speed with the failure of the automotive "bailout". Reading David Broder this morning and I see he has been thinking the same thing:

All the signs are that the stimulus spending will be opposed by congressional Republicans, whose shrunken ranks are increasingly dominated by right-wing Southerners who care not what their stance does to harm the party's national image.

Everything Bush did - for a while - indicated a firm belief that a 51% majority meant that it did not matter exactly who would follow him for they would be a Republican and do like he did. Even though The Nation raises the possibility that Obama shall be tempted by the powers created by Bush, I think knows history too well for this seduction.

Since learning that there would be no permanent majority for Republicans, Bush acted as if reality did not matter.

The phrase coming to my mind is cutting their nose off to spite their face.

Broder touches on Indiana.

Even though Bush later used his authority to provide the loan, the defeat of this legislation at Republican hands will not be forgotten when GOP senators run for reelection in 2010 in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania. It will also echo in industrial states such as Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, California, New York and New Jersey, when Republicans try to challenge for Senate and House seats.

Where now for Indiana Republicans? Are our Republicans to side with the ghosts of the Confederacy? Oliver P. Morton might just be hanging his head. Yet, our House Districts are so gerrymandered that I cannot see any danger to Dan Burton but what of Pence and Souder and Buyer?

But asking that question leads to an even more important question: what of Indiana's Democrats? Time for all those blue collar, Reagan Democrats to face up to the facts of what they helped create by crossing party lines but also time for the party to recognize the necessity of proving better candidates.

Consider the ironies of this election and the current position of the parties. The Democrats nominated an African-American paper when in 1860 they were the party identified with the slave power and after 1900 with the party of segregation. Meanwhile, the party recognized as opposing the slave party in 1860 now represents most of the Confederacy, two of the border states, and two Union states (Kansas and West Virginia). The Republicans ought to be asking themselves why a man who raised himself by his bootstraps, who is bi-racial, did not gravitate to the supposed party of self-reliance. to the party of Lincoln, but to the Democrats?

The Movies - Return to a Great Depression

Saw Critic’s Notebook - Reality Can Be Escapist, Too and the following does catch a feeling I ahve been having of watching too much Turner Classic Movies:

"But lately, when I’ve sought escape from the daily flood of cultural novelty (and the daily grind of economic bad news) by slipping an old favorite into the DVD player, I’ve been confronted with a disconcerting jolt of reality. Those silvery images don’t seem to belong to the past, but to the scary here and now. On my recent, more or less annual viewing of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” I was stopped in my tracks by the run on the building-and-loan company of the hero, George Bailey, as the panicked citizens of Bedford Falls try to rescue their nest eggs."

But it was Dead End and Baby Face that got me thinking this is our future. The conservative Republicans wanted to repeal the New Deal and this is what their nirvana looks like.

Obama Puts Conservatives in Disarray

Warning: what follows is purely opinion and is a construct of my own and is sure to annoy some and maybe more than annoy.

Thesis #1: Conservatism since 1980 has been a fraud and its exposure as such only comes with a perfect storm of George W., Barack Obama, and our financial meltdown. We forget that at the same time Ronald Reagan came in as President, the world also saw the end of the Social Democrats in West Germany and the Labour Party in the UK. (On the other hand, Mitterand's Socialists took over in France). What we were living through was the end of the old post World War Two political establishment. It was not the Second Coming.

This comes from Ross Douthat's Moderate Republicans, Reformist Conservatives, and Other Animals:

One alternative path forward - and only one, out of many - is a reformist conservatism that tries to craft a new right-of-center domestic-policy agenda, one better attuned than the current Republican agenda to the set of challenges facing middle and working-class America. This sort of reformism is associated with a group of writers that would include people like Ramesh Ponnuru, David Frum, Yuval Levin, David Brooks, Reihan and myself - and, if you cast a wider net, perhaps figures ranging from Jim Manzi to Rod Dreher to Michael Gerson and Pete Wehner. As the list suggests, it's not an ideologically coherent group by any means, with divergent views on issues ranging from abortion (Ramesh and I are pro-life, Frum and Brooks are pro-choice) to foreign policy (where I'm an outlier, being more in the realist than the neoconservative camp) to the wisdom of choosing Sarah Palin as John McCain's veep. And even on the basic domestic-policy questions there's considerable disagreement. Frum, Ramesh and I are more restrictionist on immigration than, say, Brooks and Gerson. Frum favors a carbon tax, Manzi opposes it. Ramesh is to my right on size-of-government questions, while David Brooks is probably well to my left. Ramesh had some unkind things to say about David Frum's book. I had some unkind things to say about Michael Gerson's. Etc.

From my perch here in the Midwest, Conservatism appealed to the idea that government was no longer working and that what was stifling us was the fat cats in the East. Liberalism lost its working class connections. Better historians than myself might put the breakdown date as 1968 and that Nixon's implosion into resignation only delayed the reaction in this country. (I recall Thatcher coming into power before Reagan). What we forget now is how conservative Carter was - such a Southern break from our Northern orthodoxy. Oh, how much opposition he brought down on him from his fellow Democrats which brings to mind that there are two ways for us to have a divided government: 1) have one party control the legislature and the other the presidency, and 2) let Democrats control it all.)

What was clear to me by 1984 was that Reagan had no use for people my age who had not made their first million - or anyone else who had not made their million. Not that most people will admit that now. No, Reagan had the talent of knowing what people wanted to hear and giving it to them in a form that appealed to them so much that they voted for him. Remember welfare queens?

Nor would anyone admit how radical was the Conservative program. I do not think most people figured that out until George W. appeared on the scene. Conservatives conserved nothing but their own hold on power. Ask yourself what did Reagan actually accomplish out of his Conservative agenda?

• Make abortion illegal? No.
• End the Cold War? No by himself. (Consider what might have happened if Andropov instead of Gorbachev was running the USSR.)
• Reduce the size of government? Not hardly.

I give you what might have been his greatest accomplishment of substance: reforming the tax code. Other than that, I give him credit for ending the Nixonian malaise that was the 70's.

Thesis #2 - the conservatives took their own propaganda too much to heart. Maureen Dowd touches on something along these lines in Who's The Question Mark? with her questions about McCain's campaign strategy.

This also comes from Ross Douthat's Moderate Republicans, Reformist Conservatives, and Other Animals:

And no, I wouldn't trust the rebuilding of conservatism to any of these people. But nobody was going to entrust it to them anyway: Scott McClellan, Bill Weld and Christopher Hitchens were not going to be the architects of a new Republican majority in any world you care to imagine. Indeed, you could even flat-out say "good riddance" to them, as Limbaugh wants to do ... if you had a plan for finding converts to conservatism somewhere else. But Limbaugh doesn't have a plan, and what he and others are doing is using the McClellans of the world to pre-emptively discredit anyone else who thinks the GOP needs to reform, rather than retrench. You moderate Republicans, he says: You wanted John McCain, you got him, and now you're all jumping ship! But everybody who disagrees with Limbaugh isn't jumping ship, and going forward the Right doesn't just face a binary choice between Limbaugh's conservatism and McCain's "moderate Republicanism," let alone between Limbaugh and Bill Weld.

The few times this year I subjected myself to Limbaugh I came away with the image of the man frothing at the mouth. It appears that Mr. Douthat does not buy Mr. Limbaugh's claim of being only an entertainer. Neither do I. To the conservatives' detriment and the good fortune for the country, Limbaugh is not William F. Buckley, Jr.. I strongly suspect that Mr. Limbaugh does think that he has the power to define conservatism.

Mr. Limbaugh will have no plan. His stance as victim attracts his listeners. No one can say that Rush Limbaugh is not a good steward to his advertisers and their revenue.

I hear people say that the country is center-right and that Obama is too liberal. Nonsense. At best we are a centrist country. Other than John McCain and Sarah Palin no one with any education seriously thinks that the Democrats are Socialists. Anyone who takes the time to do a little research will learn both of our parties are to the right of Britain's Conservative Party. Or to paraphrase Kevin Phillips, the American Democratic Party is the second most capitalistic party in the world with the foremost being our Republican Party.

If Obama does win on Tuesday, the Conservatives will face something they have no tools to deal with. They still speak (and therefore still think in) slogans from 1980. George W. brought back a truth forgotten since the death of the last New Dealer: Big Government was a tool of the Republicans to protect Big Business as the expense of its citizens. Obama knows the difference between effective and big government. (Amazing how those decry Big Government do not also question Big Business for where else have our politicians learned that big has its advantage?) Nor do the Republicans face a feckless Democratic Party and candidate. Obama is not Mondale, Dukakis, Gore or Kerry. He is not even Bill Clinton. I put Obama down as the right man at the right time. I suspect he has studied our history closely and he has thought hard on our last twenty years. Limbaugh and the other Conservatives will try to bend him into their cartoon version of liberals and politics and American history. I do not think it will be Obama who gets bent.

(Frank Rich captures what has gone wrong with all the campaigns against Obama:

After some 20 months, we’re all still getting used to Obama and still, for that matter, trying to read his sometimes ambiguous takes on both economic and foreign affairs. What we have learned definitively about him so far — and what may most account for his victory, should he achieve it — is that he had both the brains and the muscle to outsmart, outmaneuver and outlast some of the smartest people in the country, starting with the Clintons. We know that he ran a brilliant campaign that remained sane and kept to its initial plan even when his Republican opponent and his own allies were panicking all around him. We know that that plan was based on the premise that Americans actually are sick of the divisive wedge issues that have defined the past couple of decades, of which race is the most divisive of all.)

Obama tapped into our desire to end this playing one American against another. I wonder if he would have been successful but for George W. Bush. Karl Rove spoke of a Republican ascendancy after the last election - even though it was a damned close election. Since then W accomplished one great thing: he exposed the radical nature of Conservatism and its hypocrisy. I cannot imagine that the more ardent and intelligent anti-abortion types have not come to realize that the Republican support for them is a sham. If it were not a sham, then why did the Republicans not propose a constitutional amendment while they controlled the House and Senate for most of this decade? Nor can I imagine the libertarian wing found the Bush government's spying on us so attractive. Has not the military found that the Republicans talk out of both sides of their mouths when they talk about supporting the troops - that they now know Bush means supporting him and his ambitions when he speaks of supporting the troops?

Americans want common sense out of their government and politicians - not just ideology. It has been almost a hundred years since a purely ideological party (or a party emphasizing its ideology) approached anything like success in our country. I say between 1968 and 1980, the Democratic Party fought internally between common sense and ideology. It took Reagan and Clinton to bring us back into common sense. Then we thought the way to success to be Republicans-lite still shy of standing for something. We have someone now who has both common sense and does not back down from a fight. Put that down as another item putting the Conservatives into disarray.

I think the last few years we have learned that the Bush-Cheney-Rove fear mongering and Conservative whining about being victimized by a vast left-wing conspiracy are false. Frankly, the last six years have been years of increasing depression for me and I am not so sure that there is much to salvage personally. I suspect that this has lead me to supporting Obama. I think many of us see in Obama someone who understands our disgust at the shabbiness we have allowed the Republicans to lead us into as a country. He does present the possibility that we can overcome the traps we have let the Conservatives and the Bushies have set for us. (And take a look at Ncholas Kristoff's Rejoin the World for one trap and prescription for getting us out.)We can be frightened by fake bogeymen but it does not last forever. The reaction can be terrible. We will see just how terrible it will be this coming Wednesday morning. I think the Conservatives will remain in disarray until they can build a more frightening scarecrow.