Executive Immunity

Finally, a court stands up to the Bush Administration and their legal arguments that are completely unsupported by any precedent.

Gulf of Tonkin II?

If true, this is outrageous. Think Progress:

HERSH: There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up.

Might cost some lives. And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. That’s the kind of — that’s the level of stuff we’re talking about. Provocation. But that was rejected.

Black People Show Me Love When I'm Up on the Block

Ludacris' music video on Obama:

Obama says Ludacris should be ashamed of the lyrics. They seem pretty tame to me.

Terrorists as Criminals

Yglesias cites a new Pentagon-funded study in defense of Kerry.

Media Cowardice

The headline - Analysis: Obama, McCain both have lobbyist ties - and tone of this CNN article imply that McCain and Obama are equally influenced by lobbyists. But I'd say this is a real difference:

During this campaign, lobbyists and trade groups donated $181,000 to McCain, while Obama received $6,000, according to the New York Times.

The article goes on to explain that those numbers "only include registered lobbyists and trade groups -- not big companies that could have lobbyist ties." Well yes, but there's an important difference between a collection of individuals who happen to work for a large company and a person who is explicitly paid to represent companies, industries, or other groups on their behalf with regard to legislation and other government policy.

The right has worked the refs so well that the media is completely afraid to call 'em like they see 'em. Instead, they lead the public to believe the Nader line that both parties are exactly the same when there is an objective difference.

Politicizing Wounded Soldiers

Obama canceled a visit to wounded troops for fear of politicizing the troops, and then his cancellation of the visit was politicized by McCain in a dishonest ad. FactCheck:

The Obama campaign canceled the visit with wounded troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, Obama says, when he learned that the Pentagon would not allow him to bring along a retired Air Force major general who is serving as a foreign policy adviser to the campaign. Obama says that "triggered then a concern that maybe our visit was going to be perceived as political."

Screw McCain.

Tennessee Church Shooter

Some people are just crazy, but maybe we ought to consider the possibility that demonizing political opponents has consequences:

Adkisson targeted the church, [Knoxville Police Department Officer Steve Still] wrote in the document obtained by WBIR-TV, Channel 10, "because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets."

...

Inside the house, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly.

Opposite of a Sound Counterinsurgency

Daniel Larison's takeaway from a post at The American Prospect:

Lost in the frequent back-and-forth over whether John McCain understands what the “surge” was or whether he knows when the Anbar Awakening happened (answers: apparently not and no) is the more basic point, made here by Matthew Duss, that the Anbar model has succeeded for the time being by pursuing the opposite of a sound counterinsurgency...

Corrupt Idiots

WaPo:

Former Justice Department counselor Monica M. Goodling and former chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson routinely broke the law by conducting political litmus tests on candidates for jobs as immigration judges and line prosecutors, according to an inspector general's report released today.

Goodling was part of an effort to give a large number of highly sought-after Justice Department jobs to law school grads from her alma mater, Pat Robertson's bottom-tier Regent University:

The infiltration by mediocre graduates of a poorly rated faith-based law school into key positions in the Department of Justice is just plain scary. The New Republic website, referring to the Goodling affair, observed with uncharacteristic understatement: “That a recent graduate of one of the worst (and sketchiest) law schools with virtually no relevant experience could ascend to this position is a sure sign that there is something seriously wrong at the [Department of Justice].”

Reduced Violence in Iraq

To borrow from Obama, we've gone from an unacceptable level of violence up to a horrifying level of violence and now back down to an unacceptable level of violence. That's not a tremendous accomplishment. Yglesias:

If you look back to the summer of 2005, you'll see that few people at the time regarded conditions in Iraq as "good" or even acceptable. And yet things got so much worse over the course of 2006 and early 2007, that improvement in 2008 to bring us back to the kind of level of violence we had three years ago -- except with more walled-off and ethnically cleansed neighborhoods in place -- is now represented as a great triumph. James Vega has a forceful post up at The Democratic Strategist reminding us of how perverse this is.

And then you get things like today's newspaper headline "Bomb Attacks in Baghdad and Kirkuk Kill Dozens". The essence of the "success" of the surge is that, as in 2004 and 2005, you only sometimes read about that kind of thing, whereas at its worst you read about it frequently. That's not nothing, but people should understand that even in its "better" state Iraq is very much a shattered society featuring an unenviable quality of life.

Patriotism Differs Between Conservatives and Liberals

This article by Peter Beinart is a pretty good attempt at describing the difference:

What both campaigns understand is that American patriotism wears two faces: a patriotism of affirmation, which appeals more to conservatives, and a patriotism of dissent, particularly cherished by liberals. Both brands are precious, and both are dangerous. And in this campaign, the candidate who embodies the best of both will probably win.

I agree that I tend to think dissent more patriotic than affirmation. However, while Beinart tries to be very evenhanded, I don't agree with some of the other characterizations of liberal patriotism.

A liberal patriot is fully capable of recognizing past American greatness, but there is also something conservative about not needing that belief in American greatness to be patriotic. My country doesn't have to earn my patriotism by being perfect or sufficiently great.

And liberal patriotism can distinguish Americans from others with the same values and American interests from foreign interests. There is value in moral duty to your community.

Here are the primary sources of my patriotism:

1. American ideals embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and expressed by others throughout the years.
2. Past American social, economic, and military accomplishments.
3. My family and friends are Americans, and the future of myself and my family depends upon American success.

The second and third sources on the list may be classified as conservative patriotism by Beinart, but they are perfectly compatible with liberal patriotism.

Another False Attack Ad from McCain

I had hoped for an honest and honorable campaign from McCain. I guess knowing he's going to lose is making him desperate. FactCheck.org:

The McCain campaign is running a TV ad attacking Obama with statements that are literally true but paint an incomplete picture.

It says he "voted against funding our troops." He did – exactly once. Obama cast at least 10 votes for war-funding bills before voting against one last year, after Bush vetoed a version that contained a date for withdrawal from Iraq.

It says he "hasn't been to Iraq for years." He was headed there at the time the ad was released, however, and had been there in 2006.

It says he "never held a single hearing on Afghanistan." It was the full Senate Foreign Relations Committee, not Obama's subcommittee, that had the hearings on this global hot spot, and Obama attended one of those. Over the same time period, McCain himself attended none of the Afghanistan hearings held by the Armed Services Committee on which he serves.

Study: Media Tougher on Obama

James Rainey at the Los Angeles Times:

The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, where researchers have tracked network news content for two decades, found that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican John McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign.

You read it right: tougher on the Democrat.

During the evening news, the majority of statements from reporters and anchors on all three networks are neutral, the center found. And when network news people ventured opinions in recent weeks, 28% of the statements were positive for Obama and 72% negative.

Network reporting also tilted against McCain, but far less dramatically, with 43% of the statements positive and 57% negative, according to the Washington-based media center.

Lest you think the researchers have a liberal bias, the article noted that Lichter is a former Fox News contributor whose past findings have been touted by conservatives:

It might be tempting to discount the latest findings by Lichter's researchers. But this guy is anything but a liberal toady.

In 2006, conservative cable showmen Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly had Lichter, a onetime Fox News contributor, on their programs. They heralded his findings in the congressional midterm election: that the networks were giving far more positive coverage to the Democrats.

Disbar Alberto Gonzales

Besides being a bad lawyer, he has broken the law and advised his client to break the law. He has been involved in most of the major abuses of power of the Bush Administration, as shown by this Slate diagram (follow the link for the interactive diagram):

Time for a Surge in North Fulton County

The AJC reports on car bombs in Milton:

In fact, there were six incidents involving Molotov cocktails -- incendiary devices made of gasoline-filled bottles plugged with rags -- starting at 10:30 p.m. Thursday until 2:30 a.m. Friday. Three cars were heavily damaged. Two driveways were set on fire.

Another device was found that caused no damage, according to Milton authorities. There were no injuries and no damage to homes.

What If We Had Left Iraq?

Matthew Yglesias suggests that 2005 would have been the perfect time to leave Iraq:

Instead, the reason given for why we had to stay in Iraq was that if we left Iraq there would be civil war, sectarian violence, and ethnic cleansing. Since we know all of that happened anyway it seems reasonable to second guess the decision-making that led us to stay.

Deaths per day in Iraq from suicide attacks and vehicle bombs by year:




Deaths per day in Iraq from gunfire and executions by year:




Of course, it can be argued that these violence levels would have been even worse without the U.S. presence, but it's hardly clear that staying through 2006 and 2007 accomplished our goals.

Global Warming and the Surge

On Global Warming, the political right constantly reminds us that correlation isn't causation. When you present evidence of rising temperatures and more greenhouse gases as proof of anthropogenic climate change, the right raises the possible influence of other factors such as solar variation and climate cycles. The left insists that rising temperatures occur in conjunction with greenhouse gases because both are related.

On the Surge, the political right ignores other possible factors and attributes the recent drop in violence to a greater troop presence solely because both happened at the same time. Here, the distinction between correlation and causation is practically nonexistent on the right. The left, on the other hand, notes the Sunni Awakening, the Sadr cease-fire, and other internal forces in Iraq.

I'm not using this comparison to prove that either side is right or wrong on either issue. I just think it's sort of interesting.

CBS Covers-Up McCain Error

Your liberal media at work:

The Irrelevance of Gaffes

If Obama made these gaffes, the right would claim that they are evidence of inexperience.

However, nobody suggests that these gaffes are evidence of McCain's lack of experience because we don't question his experience. They also are not evidence of McCain's age.

McCain's gaffes are evidence of the fact that such gaffes are completely irrelevant to evaluating a candidate's preparedness for office.

McCain's Despicable Attack

McCain: "I had the courage and judgment to say that I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Sen. Obama would rather lose the war in order to win a political campaign."

This is what class looks like, McCain:

Despite differences with his Republican counterpart, Obama said that he and McCain both want to see success in Iraq.

"John McCain doesn't want to see us take a wrong strategy when it comes to fighting the war on terror," he said. "I think John McCain wants to see America safe, just like I do. And so, I respect his best judgments in many of these issues, but I think it's important to recognize that, on the majority of issues that we've faced in terms of foreign policy, not just over the past four years, but over the past six, seven years, that my batting average is pretty darn good."

Surge Fraud

I feel like I am stepping in front of an avalanche of Republican triumphalism here, but I have to dissent from the idea that the Surge has been a success.

Obama is being hammered by the right for refusing to acknowledge the success of the Surge, which they accept as an irrefutable truth. But I don't think the Surge has been such an undeniable success.

First, let's take a look back at Obama's judgment in late 2006 given what he knew then. Obama was highly critical of the Surge but stated that additional troops could help suppress the violence while failing to solve its root causes. We should also remember that, at the time the Surge was proposed, Rumsfeld had only recently announced his resignation and had not yet been replaced. Gates became Secretary of Defense in December of 2006 and Petraeus did not become the top commander in Iraq until January of 2007. Americans had not only lost patience with the war, they had lost confidence in the Bush Administration. There was no indication at the time the Surge was proposed that the Pentagon would dramatically overhaul its strategy and tactics in Iraq in conjunction with the Surge.

Second, Iraq cannot be viewed in a vacuum. Continued investment in Iraq comes at great cost, and Obama has consistently maintained that Iraq was a distraction from the more important war in Afghanistan.

On the Surge itself, there are two broad reasons to doubt its success: (1) the purported relationship between the Surge and reduced violence is speculative, at best; and (2) there is no evidence that the Surge has resulted in political progress.

Reduced Violence

In addition to the Surge, candidates for credit for reduced violence are the Baghdad Wall, the Sunni Awakening, strengthened Iraqi Security Forces, and the completion of ethnic cleansing.

While the Surge and those other factors may have contributed, I would suggest that the most likely reason for the reduction in violence in Iraq is the cease-fire called for by Shia nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on August 30, 2007. Note that date: August 30, 2007. Here is a chart showing the number of violent deaths in Iraq from January 2006 through December 2007:


Here is the timeline for the Surge:

• January 10, 2007: Troop level at 132,000 when Bush announces surge.
• March 20, 2007: Troop level reaches 152,000 (approx. half of surge troops have arrived).
• June 15, 2007: Troop level reaches 160,000 and surge operations commence. "All the forces initially identified as part of the surge have completed their strategic movements into theatre in Iraq."
• August 2007: Surge troops expected to be operating at full capacity.
• September 2007: Troop level peaks at 168,000. Surge results disappointing.

While the drop in violence followed the Surge, it coincided more with the Sadr cease-fire. Additional troops from January to June appeared to have no impact. In the summer, with all Surge troops in Iraq and the Surge reaching full strength, violence remained at previous levels. In September, after the call for cease-fire by Sadr, the violence dropped dramatically.

Political Progress

As stated above, Obama was concerned that political progress would not be advanced by the Surge. He was probably wrong in stating that the Surge would hinder political progress, but there is no evidence that the Surge is responsible for political progress. Even if there has been substantial political progress, and the Iraq Study Group says there has not been, the political progress is not necessarily a result of the Surge.

Impeachment

Kucinich is continuing in his efforts to impeach Bush and getting no cooperation from the House Democratic leadership.

While I agree with the Democrats' decision not to impeach, I am going on record as saying that impeachment of Bush would not be inappropriate. Bush's actions (e.g., torture, trumped up case for Iraq, politicization of the Justice Department, violations of civil liberties, evasion of Congressional oversight; executive signing statements; Valerie Plame) are far worse than Clinton's and probably worse than Watergate.

However, I tend to think that impeachment is probably outdated. In addition to facing re-election after four years, presidents are now limited to two terms. The country can survive four to eight years of all but the most egregious abuses. The divisiveness and disruption of impeachment proceedings probably outweighs the potential benefit.

With Clinton, and to a certain extent with Bush, the impeachment movement is partially based upon politics and frustration with failure to defeat the President upon re-election. As I said, there are grounds for impeachment, but at this point the only purpose of impeachment would be to try to override the election and embarrass the President. That doesn't justify the national trauma of impeachment.

The Conservative Realism of Obama's Foreign Policy

Neoconservatism has its roots in the left. Its signature foreign policy event - the invasion in Iraq - is grounded in liberalism, not conservatism. The idea that you can quickly and easily remake the world in America's image and spread freedom and democracy is the sort of enormously idealistic and interventionist thinking that you would expect from a "bleeding-heart liberal". Obama favors the traditional conservatism most recently exemplified by George H. W. Bush. Fareed Zakaria:

Obama talks admiringly of men like Dean Acheson, George Kennan and Reinhold Niebuhr, all of whom were imbued with a sense of the limits of idealism and American power to transform the world. "In his view of history, in his respect for tradition, in his skepticism that the world can be changed any way but very, very slowly, Obama is deeply conservative," wrote Larissa MacFarquhar in her profile of him for The New Yorker. "There are moments when he sounds almost Burkean. He distrusts abstractions, generalizations, extrapolations, projections. It's not just that he thinks revolutions are unlikely: he values continuity and stability for their own sake, sometimes even more than he values change for the good."

Adopting Obama's Foreign Policy

Hilzoy has a great post showing how Obama's positions on Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran are gaining support.

On Afghanistan, McCain has said in the past that Iraq is the focus in the war on terror and that any additional troops in Afghanistan should come from NATO, not the U.S. Recently, he has copied Obama's call for three additional brigades in Afghanistan, saying only that he would be open to the additional troops coming from NATO.

On Iran, Bush is now negotiating with the second coming of Hitler.

On Iraq, McCain has claimed that Obama is wrong because he does not know the facts on the ground, but now Maliki, the guy who really knows the facts on the ground, agrees with the 16-month timetable (the weak backtrack under pressure from Bush notwithstanding). Hilzoy:

By two days ago, McCain was left with basically two messages: (a) timetables would be a disaster, and Obama's embrace of them just shows how naive he is; and (b) McCain got the surge right and Obama got it wrong. It's a pretty weak foundation for a candidacy.

It was against this backdrop that Maliki comes out in favor of Obama's proposal to withdraw combat troops from Iraq in 16 months (though he is careful not to endorse Obama.) McCain has to call Obama naive on Iraq. But that is a lot harder to do if Maliki agrees with Obama. It's hard to say that Maliki is insufficiently familiar with the facts on the ground. It's hard to call him naive. And whatever you think of Maliki's motives, it's also a lot more complicated to make the case that he doesn't know or care what's best for his country. In Presidential elections, uncomplicated cases are key. "Obama has only been in the Senate for three years; he doesn't have the experience to get Iraq right" is an uncomplicated case. There is no such uncomplicated explanation for Maliki's being wrong.

***

Worse, lot of the more obvious ways of responding to Maliki's statement are fraught with danger for McCain. Responding that Maliki either doesn't know what he's talking about or is somehow untrustworthy and bad directly undercuts our reasons for staying in Iraq. We are there in support of the Maliki government, which we are hoping will become capable of running the country without our presence. The more ignorant, untrustworthy, or otherwise bad Maliki is, the less likely it is that he will succeed, and the less clear it is why we should try to help him.

Saying, as McCain has, that Maliki only supports a timetable for political reasons is almost as bad, since it rather obviously implies that the Iraqi people really want us to leave. (As, in fact, they do.) Again, this raises the question: what on earth are we doing there? If the Iraqi people want us out, and their Prime Minister is asking for timetables, why not just take 'yes' for an answer?

If the Iraqi people want us out, we have two choices. First, we leave. As McCain said four years ago, "I don't see how we could stay when our whole emphasis and policy has been based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people." McCain does not seem to have seriously considered this option, which would deprive him of yet another distinction between himself and Obama.

Second, we continue to occupy Iraq whether the Iraqi people and their government want us to or not. We have not paid much attention to the wishes of the Iraqi people for some time now -- in fact, I'm always struck, listening to Bush and McCain, by the way in which they consistently describe the question how long we stay in Iraq as one to be answered solely by them, in consultation with the commanders on the ground, as though Iraq's government and its people had no say in the matter at all.

This has, of course, always been true. This administration has never cared much about what the Iraqi people think. But Maliki's comments might make it clearer to the American people that it's not enough to ask whether a candidate supports staying in Iraq; you need to ask whether he supports staying in Iraq even if the Iraqi government asks us to leave. Asking McCain that question would force him to chose between maintaining our presence in Iraq and maintaining the idea that that presence has something to do with helping the Iraqi people.

Moreover, explaining why it would be OK to override the wishes of the Iraqi government presents yet another problem for McCain. The obvious default position is that when a country's government asks us to withdraw our troops, we should do so. To say that that's not true in a given case, like Iraq, you need to provide some sort of explanation. Part of that explanation would normally be: the government is unrepresentative or dysfunctional or awful in some way, and so its wishes do not carry the weight they would in, say, Switzerland.

But saying something like that about the Iraqi government -- that it doesn't really speak for the Iraqi people, or isn't capable of making its own decisions about Iraqi territorial integrity -- would undercut McCain's claims about progress in Iraq. Again, McCain would have to choose: does he say that Iraq's government has made some real political progress, and is capable of making its own decisions? In that case, he should accept its wishes. Does he say that he can disregard its requests on matters of Iraqi sovereignty? In that case, he undercuts a lot of his claims that the surge has enabled real and lasting progress in Iraq.

As I see it, Maliki's statement is all upside for Obama. It neither poses risks for him nor presents him with problems. But it's a minefield for McCain. And this will, I think, become clearer as time goes on, when people begin to ask him these sorts of questions.

Blacks Less Hardworking, Intelligent, Trustworthy

I know I post about racism a lot. I do think it is a very minor factor in modern society, but I think we take too much comfort in the false idea that it has been sufficiently eliminated or stigmatized.

I frequently encounter whites who harbor prejudices against racial minorities but would certainly befriend, hire, or vote for individual blacks as long as that black person does not exhibit the characteristics found in the racial stereotypes. Many even take a certain pride in their racial open-mindedness when they find an acceptable black individual. Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, and Bill Cosby are a few of the more famous blacks that have distinguished themselves from their race. I think Obama has the potential to do this (the frequent talk about personal responsibility is key).

That is the reason why I don't consider race to be a major factor in the success of African Americans despite these poll results referenced in the title above:

Respondents were given “a seven-point scale on which the characteristics of the people in a group can be rated.” Whites, blacks, Hispanic-Americans and Asian-Americans were to be rated in terms of how hardworking, intelligent, and trustworthy they are. Any score of 1, 2 or 3 means the respondent thinks - more or less - that most members of the various groups are hardworking, intelligent, and trustworthy. Here are the results (in terms of the percentage of respondents saying 1, 2, or 3) for whites, blacks, and Hispanics:

Hardworking
Whites - 53.9%
Blacks - 28.1%
Hispanics - 48.5%

Intelligent
Whites - 58.3%
Blacks - 35.4%
Hispanics - 33.5%

Trustworthy
Whites - 49.2%
Blacks - 29.6%
Hispanics - 32.3%

One interesting result that you see if you follow the link is that blacks are slightly inclined to say that blacks are less hardworking and intelligent than whites.

While whites are readily prepared to distinguish individual blacks from the stereotypes, it's hard to imagine that these prejudices don't have some effect on blacks in our society.

I also think that a large amount of the hostility to social welfare programs is tied to the idea that blacks receive a disproportionate amount of the benefits and that they receive the benefits because of the characteristics in the stereotypes. This chart from the book Why Americans Hate Welfare (p. 69), using the same scale as the poll linked to above, shows that support for welfare spending decreases the more a respondent views blacks as lazy:

Negative Externalities and Energy Policy

Our co-blogger has asked why the government needs to be involved in an energy solution. I have pointed out negative externalities in comments on this blog here and here. Another thing to consider is the impact that government policy has on the choices that we make as energy consumers:

Americans can optimize their personal consumption decisions all day long, but without a policy in place to internalize social costs, they’ll still end up creating costly traffic jams and devastating climate change.

Along these same lines, I'm constantly annoyed that people insist that public transportation pay for itself. Gas taxes and vehicle taxes go a long way in paying for roads, but we also heavily subsidize the use of oil by spending income and sales taxes on roads. In addition, local governments provide services such as sewer, water, fire protection, schools, etc., to outlying suburbs. It is more expensive to provide these services over a larger geographic area, so local taxpayers subsidize the use of oil through local taxes.

A lot of people live in suburbs in part because it is cheaper. You can get more house and more land for less money. That wouldn't be the case if the costs of our automobile culture were not so hidden from individuals.

I'm not suggesting that we all be required to live in urban areas. I commute over 20 miles each day, love my car, and enjoy my few acres in the middle of nowhere. But aligning individual costs more with social costs makes sense.

Democratic President = Economic Growth

I don't know the explanation, or if there is a satisfying one given the variety of factors and the potential impact of Congress, and I am willing to concede the possibility that Democrats are occasionally reaping the benefits of Republican policies (though I highly doubt it), but the numbers are clear enough to raise important questions:

[Follow the link for more charts.]

* Even Carter outperforms every Republican except for Nixon's first term.

Is Obama Another Carter or Reagan?

Many conservatives like to paint Obama as another Carter on foreign policy. Eli Lake, noting that Obama advisers Richard Clarke and Rand Beers are influenced by the Reagan Doctrine, says Reagan is the better comparison:

Clarke and Beers in effect were drawing on a time-honored tradition of foreign policy that goes back to the Gurkhas: finding proxies to fight an enemy. It was a tradition for America that found its apotheosis in the Reagan Doctrine of the 1980s, which was defined by Charles Krauthammer as "unashamed American support for anti-Communist revolution," regardless of whether or not such support respected the sovereignty of communist states. It was a policy that manifested itself in U.S. support for the Nicaraguan Contras, Jonas Savimbi's insurgency in Angola, and the Afghan mujahedin. In a sense, the Reagan doctrine was a full-throated rejection of the Carter era. It was Kirkpatrick's Commentary essay put into practice. So here we arrive at the central irony of the charge that Obama will revive Carterism: The two most important architects of his counterterrorism policy came of age at the height of the Reagan Doctrine, and that thinking continues to inform their strategy.

Obama's Latest on Foreign Policy

An op-ed on Iraq in the New York Times:

Only by redeploying our troops can we press the Iraqis to reach comprehensive political accommodation and achieve a successful transition to Iraqis’ taking responsibility for the security and stability of their country. Instead of seizing the moment and encouraging Iraqis to step up, the Bush administration and Senator McCain are refusing to embrace this transition — despite their previous commitments to respect the will of Iraq’s sovereign government. They call any timetable for the removal of American troops “surrender,” even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government.

But this is not a strategy for success — it is a strategy for staying that runs contrary to the will of the Iraqi people, the American people and the security interests of the United States. That is why, on my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war.

As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal.

And a speech on his overall national security strategy with a look back at the missed opportunities of the past eight years:

Imagine, for a moment, what we could have done in those days, and months, and years after 9/11.

We could have deployed the full force of American power to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and all of the terrorists responsible for 9/11, while supporting real security in Afghanistan.

We could have secured loose nuclear materials around the world, and updated a 20th century non-proliferation framework to meet the challenges of the 21st.

We could have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in alternative sources of energy to grow our economy, save our planet, and end the tyranny of oil.

We could have strengthened old alliances, formed new partnerships, and renewed international institutions to advance peace and prosperity.

We could have called on a new generation to step into the strong currents of history, and to serve their country as troops and teachers, Peace Corps volunteers and police officers.

We could have secured our homeland—investing in sophisticated new protection for our ports, our trains and our power plants.

We could have rebuilt our roads and bridges, laid down new rail and broadband and electricity systems, and made college affordable for every American to strengthen our ability to compete.

We could have done that.

Instead, we have lost thousands of American lives, spent nearly a trillion dollars, alienated allies and neglected emerging threats – all in the cause of fighting a war for well over five years in a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.

Is it possible to have a liberal media bias...

...if the ubiquitous AP is rooting on the Republicans?

In a Strange Way This is Cool

I like the fact that both wacko Presidential candidates are from Georgia.

Energy Solution Questions

1. Why does the government need to be involved in this anyway?

2. If it's so important that we do this why don't we cut all programs a certain amount to pay for it?

3. Why do we need new taxes to pay for this?

The FDIC what?

Isn't necessary because of the free market Ryan?

What about when banks COLLAPSE?

The Media's Love of McCain

Max Bergmann at the Huffington Post says the events of this week should have mortally wounded McCain's campaign:

This is the week that should have effectively ended John McCain's efforts to become the next president of the United States. But you wouldn't know it if you watched any of the mainstream media outlets or followed political reporting in the major newspapers.

During this past week: McCain called the most important entitlement program in the U.S. a disgrace, his top economic adviser called the American people whiners, McCain released an economic plan that no one thought was serious, he flip flopped on Iraq, joked about the deaths of Iranian citizens, and denied making comments that he clearly made -- TWICE. All this and it is not even Friday! Yet watching and reading the mainstream press you would think McCain was having a pretty decent political week, I mean at least Jesse Jackson didn't say anything about him.

John Cole adds to the list.

Appreciating Regulation

The Bush Administration is reportedly considering a takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. E.J. Dionne sees a dramatic shift in favor of regulation and income equality:

The biggest political story of 2008 is getting little coverage. It involves the collapse of assumptions that have dominated our economic debate for three decades.

Since the Reagan years, free-market cliches have passed for sophisticated economic analysis. But in the current crisis, these ideas are falling, one by one, as even conservatives recognize that capitalism is ailing.

You know the talking points: Regulation is the problem and deregulation is the solution. The distribution of income and wealth doesn't matter. Providing incentives for the investors of capital to "grow the pie" is the only policy that counts. Free trade produces well-distributed economic growth, and any dissent from this orthodoxy is "protectionism."

The old script is in rewrite.

Dionne went on to quote Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke:

Bernanke said the Fed needed more authority to get inside "the structure and workings of financial markets" because "recent experience has clearly illustrated the importance, for the purpose of promoting financial stability, of having detailed information about money markets and the activities of borrowers and lenders in those markets." Sure sounds like Big Government to me.

Disclosure requirements are a relatively unobtrusive way to maintain some oversight in the market.

Excess and Language

Another blog I enjoy. He usually talks about pop-culture but today he made some good points about Costco and learning Spanish.

Uh Oh!

Maybe we shouldn't build all those nuclear power plants I want.

Is Obama too Old to be President?

A little fun on another boring July campaign day.

And this.

Obama Denies Shift to Center

Obama in Powder Springs, Georgia, as reported by the New York Times' The Caucus:

“I believe in a whole lot of things that make me progressive and put me squarely in the Democratic camp,” he said. But, he noted, he does not believe that the active hand of government is a replacement, say, for parental responsibility in education.

“I believe in personal responsibility, I also believe in faith,” he said. “That’s not something new; I’ve been talking about that for years. So the notion that this is me trying to look” – he waves his hands around his head – “centrist is not true.”

Several months ago, I was constantly refuting attempts by my conservative friends to paint Obama as some sort of radical left-wing liberal. I argued that he is liberal but exhibits a very centrist pragmatism in his positions, traditional values in his approach to things like personal responsibility, and a careful conservative incrementalism. He may be more liberal than Gore or Kerry, but after the last eight years, liberal positions are more mainstream. My arguments were dismissed.

Now, I find myself arguing to those same conservatives that Obama has not significantly shifted to the center. That he has been saying the same things all along. Again, my arguments are being dismissed. He is a flip-flopper, they say. Now they are eager to hear every hint of centrism that they disregarded before.

Surely you can understand my frustration.

The Costs of Sounding "Black"

There is more evidence that, while overt racism is no longer a major issue, racial prejudices still exist. Sounding black has a negative impact on wages. Blacks who do not sound black earn the same amount as whites. Steven Levitt:

Fascinating new research by my University of Chicago colleague, Jeffrey Grogger, compares the wages of people who “sound black” when they talk to those who do not.

His main finding: blacks who “sound black” earn salaries that are 10 percent lower than blacks who do not “sound black,” even after controlling for measures of intelligence, experience in the work force, and other factors that influence how much people earn. (For what it is worth, whites who “sound black” earn 6 percent lower than other whites.)

I also found support here for my theory (not yet discussed here) that African-Americans and rural Southern whites have a lot more in common than either side would like to admit. The study found that sounding southern is almost as bad for your wages as sounding black.

RNC Ad on Energy

Yes, the RNC talking up the virtues of bucking the party is comical. And yes, there is a certain dissonance in advocating more drilling and investment into alternative fuels.

However, Obama needs to get out in front of this issue. I think that more domestic drilling is a gimmick. It is a diversion of resources that will result in no perceptible reduction in gas prices to the consumer. But that is a difficult sell. He needs to publicize a clear and simple plan to reduce gas prices or the hardship that they cause.

Gas prices could very well be the most important issue in this election.

UPDATE: Obama has a response ad airing in the same states as the RNC ad. Not enormously effective, but decent.

Left Libertarian

This probably best describes my political ideology.

Obama's Faith-Based Initiative

Here is a criticism of Obama's Faith-Based Initiative by someone Brian might remember.

“I think we’re at the irreversible point.”

Let's all pray that this is true.

Admiring Helms

People would be more inclined to believe Republicans when they apologize for the Southern Strategy if they didn't go on to laud an unrepentant segregationist without qualification as if he were some sort of hero.

UPDATE: Hilzoy has more.

Drill and Research

I've just finished this book, and in it Bjorn Lomborg claims that with a 25 billion dollar a year investment worldwide, we could fund enough research and development to replace our need of fossil fuels with renewable sources of energy.

His solution for raising the funds is to tax carbon emissions at 2 dollars a ton. Now, I'm all for funding R&D for renewable energy but I think that we can do that without any new taxes. And we can get the 25 billion from the US alone.

I suggest we take all the money we get from land leases for drilling (on and off-shore), which came to about 9.4 billion last year. That total will be even higher if we open more areas for drilling. And while we're at it get rid of the the new farm subsidies bill at about 30 billion a year. This would give us almost twice the recommended amount needed to fund the research necessary to get us off of oil. Even without the farm subsidy money we would fund almost half of the 25 billion from land leases alone.

Also, new oil drilling sites would allow us to stabilize the price of oil, giving us time to transition to these new forms of energy.

I should probably mention that Lomborg agrees with the findings of the IPCC. Even with this being the case he still thinks it the 14th most important problem to tackle.

Also, with all that uranium coming out of Iraq, we could have the fuel for all those new nuclear power plants McCain wants.

I'll be doing a detailed write up on the entire book in future posts.

Neither Liberty nor Safety

The Fourth of July was a time for pure patriotism.

However, on this, the sixth day of July, allow me a little criticism. At a time when we are eager to abandon the values of the Declaration of Independence and shred the Constitution in fear of a band of criminals, we should remember that those documents were written and signed by men who were almost certain to fail in their revolution against the most powerful empire in the world and be executed as a result.

Patrick Henry's "give me liberty or give me death" was not just a slogan. It was a gravely serious decision. But Franklin's quote is strikingly applicable to our current debates. "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

From warrantless wiretapping to suspension of habeas corpus, people have been alarmingly willing to sacrifice liberty for safety. In addition, endorsing actions such as torture sacrifice other important values to the cause of fighting terrorism.

In a very good column shortly after the attacks of September 11th, Dan Kennedy and Harvey Silverglate warned against sacrificing civil liberties in the fight against terrorism. I worry how much farther we will go in the event of another, perhaps more devastating attack.

The goal of terrorism is right there in the name - terror. It is possible that Bush has given Osama bin Laden exactly what he wanted with the invasion of Iraq. We know that bin Laden once wanted oil to reach its current price of $144 per barrel. Our reaction to terrorism must be prudent, but more importantly, our reaction to terrorism must be consistent with our values.

While we should aggressively pursue terrorists both militarily and in the criminal justice system, the most effective way to combat terrorism is to refuse to live in fear. Terrorists will always have the capacity to take our lives, but they need our help to take our liberties and our values.

Flanking Obama's Right

I share John Cole's frustration with left-wingers who howl at every position of centrist pragmatism that Obama takes despite the fact that he has always run as a center-left pragmatist. These are probably the same self-absorbed bozos that voted for Nader. Just as you'd rather have had Gore than Bush, you'd rather have Obama than McCain. Big picture, guys. John Cole:

The sum total of this behavior is to validate GOP frames (aided, of course, by a media establishment that loves a “gotcha” and is wholly in the tank for McCain) that Barack is a flip-flopper and can’t be trusted, and watching these various interest groups daily hamstring Obama is going to give me an ulcer or high blood pressure or both. I can’t decide what is driving it, but it is maddening. Whether it is a need to feel relevant, the naivete of single issue voters, an unwillingness to recognize the demands of a general election, spite from former Hillary supporters, complete ignorance regarding Obama’s stated position on an issue (see his “flip-flop” on Iraq in which he said the same thing he has been saying for over a year- he will continue to refine his withdrawal policy as he gets additional information), or a desire for accountability after eight years of Bush, the end result is to force Obama into a box on many issues and refuse to allow him the flexibility he needs to win in November.

Absent founding member?

Ryan? Where are you buddy? I know Brian's prolific posting is hard to keep up with, and I'm doing a poor job myself. Regardless, where ya gone to?

A Christian Nation?

This is a major problem I have with McCain specifically, and the Republican party in it's current incarnation. To believe this one must have never actually read the constitution.

I do not disagree with his assertion of a founding on "Christian principles," (honesty, charity, hard work, kindness, love, etc.) but that is very different from being a "Christian Nation." The authors of the Constitution went to great pains to insure religious freedom. A government cannot insure religious freedom for all if it endorses one religion.

He also demonstrates his lack of historical knowledge when he compares "In God We Trust" with Jefferson's "created equal." As I'm sure you know, our very Christian national motto did not become such until about a month before John McCain's 20th birthday in 1956. So he was either not paying attention to politics yet, or he's being disingenuous here. (I use the same argument with Stars and Bars wavers that pretend they're only celebrating our heritage.) Not only that, but Jefferson himself would meet no definition of Christian used by today's right. He was a deist. Not only that, but he created an edited version of the New Testament that eliminated Christ's miracles and ended at his burial, thus changing it from a supernatural text to a moral guide only.

Founded on Christian principles? Sure, the ones that focus on being moral and that all major religions share. Christian nation? Nope.

Sharia Marriages in Britain

The right is appropriately concerned about Britain approving private contracts between consenting adults imposing Sharia law on marriages.

The concern is that it will separate the Muslim community from the rest of Britain, but the strong policy argument against it is that women in such contracts may lose important rights under the law.

I don't hear the same concerns from the right about covenant marriages in the U.S., though.

Is this about women's rights, or fear of Muslims?

Happy 4th Everyone

My man Thomas Jefferson:

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.

The Advantage to Writing the Campaign Finance Laws

You know where all of the loopholes are.

It sure is a good thing McCain is sticking to principle, unlike that Obama character.

More on Obama's Alleged Iraq Flip-Flop

I had to share the thoughts of Andrew Sullivan, a pre-war supporter of the invasion who has been remarkably self-critical but at times cautiously optimistic during the post-invasion mess:

I'm relieved that he has shifted exactly as I hoped he would: to a pragmatic commitment to a withdrawal strategy that does not jeopardize the fragile and reversible gains of the last year or so. I don't see this as a U-turn, any more than I regard my own attempt to understand the situation in Iraq as best I can and to remain open to good, as well as bad, developments as some kind of flaw. Very few people foresaw the extent of the gains we have made this past year, in part because a new counter-insurgency had the luck to coincide with some real shifts among Sunni tribes and the Sadrite opposition. But facts change. Shouldn't tactical policy respond? I would never have felt that Obama would be a good president if I felt he'd stick to a position on an issue irrespective of empirical data. As long as the goal is total withdrawal from Iraq as soon as possible, and the man doing it has the vital characteristic of having opposed the war in the first place, I'm fine with pragmatism. Any conservative should be.

John Cole helpfully suggests you Google the phrase "as careful getting out as we were careless getting in".

Obama's "Flip-Flop" on Iraq

Commenter Stan on Matthew Yglesias' blog, in response to Matt accurately noting that your "liberal media" will paint anything other than total refusal to adjust to reality and listen to advice on Iraq as a flip-flop, gives a useful rundown of instances during the primaries where Obama said exactly what he is saying now.

OBAMA HAS CONSISTENTLY SAID HE WILL LISTEN TO COMMANDERS ON THE GROUND IN IMPLEMENTING HIS POLICY

June 2008: Obama: I’ve Consistently Said That I Will Consult With Military Commanders On The Ground And Be Open To The Possibility Of Tactical Adjustments. Obama said, “I’ve also consistently said that I will consult with military commanders on the ground and that we will always be open to the possibility of tactical adjustments. The important thing is to send a clear signal to the Iraqi people and most importantly to the Iraqi leadership that the U.S. occupation in Iraq is finite, it is gonna be coming to a foreseeable end.” [MSNBC, 6/16/08]

March 2008: Obama Said He Would Give Senior Military Leaders Opinions Great Weight In Implementing His Iraq Plan But As Commander In Chief Would Make His Own Assessment Of The Situation. Obama was asked “what weight will you give to
the counsel of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the CENTCOM [U.S. Central Command] commander, the combatant commander on the ground in Iraq and current intelligence chiefs on the ground in Iraq regarding an immediate phased withdrawal?” Obama said, “I will give their counsel great weight. But, as commander in chief, it is my responsibility to make my own assessment of the situation. We must send a clear signal to the Iraqi political leadership that we are leaving Iraq on a timeline. Doing so will put pressure on those leaders to begin to resolve the political impasse at the heart of this civil war. But I also want to be clear about another thing. I am worried our Army is overstretched and that we have asked an awful lot from our military families. Many in our senior military leadership are worried about a plan that will keep 130,000 troops on the ground in Iraq for the foreseeable future. So, as commander in chief, I will also have to take into consideration the counsel of other senior military leaders who may be concerned that Iraq is undercutting our ability to confront other security challenges.” [Washington Post, 3/2/08]

March 2008: Obama Said The Size Of The Residual Force Will Depend On Consultation With Military Commanders And “Will Depend On The Circumstances on The Ground.” Obama said, “The precise size of the residual force will depend on consultations with our military commanders and will depend on the circumstances on the ground, including the willingness of the Iraqi government to move toward political accommodation. But let me be clear on one thing: I will end this war, and there will be far fewer Americans in Iraq conducting a much more limited set of missions that include counterterrorism and protection of our embassy and U.S. civilians.” [Washington Post, 3/2/08]

November 2007: Obama Said He Would Leave Residual Troops In Iraq Based On The Levels Of Violence, “It’s Not My Job To Specify Troop Levels.” Obama said, “If we see a serious effort by the Iraqi leadership to arrive at an agreement and an accommodation and you’ve seen continued reductions of violence, then you need one level of troop protection for the embassy…If things have gone to hell in a hand basket then you need another … It’s not my job to specify troop levels. My job is to tell our commanders on the ground, ‘Here’s your mission. Protect our embassy, protect our diplomats and our humanitarian workers in the area and make sure al Qaeda in Iraq, or other terrorist organizations inside of Iraq are not re-establishing bases there.” [Fosters, 11/28/07]

November 2007: Obama Said U.S. Has To Make Sure “We Are Not Just Willy-Nilly Removing Troops” And That It May “Take A Little Bit Longer” In Some Areas Where There Is Less Stability. “According to all the reports, we should have been well along our way in getting the Iraqi security forces to be more functional. We then have another 16 months after that to adjust the withdrawal and make sure that we are withdrawing from those areas, based on advice from the military officers in the field, those places where we are secured, made progress and we’re not just willy-nilly removing troops, but we’re making a determination – in this region we see some stability. We’ve had cooperation from local tribal leaders and local officials, so we can afford to remove troops here. Here, we’ve still got problems, it’s going to take a little bit longer. Maybe those are the last areas to pull out.” [New York Times, 11/1/07]

November 2007: Obama: “If The Commanders Tell Me They Need X, Y And Z, In Order To Accomplish The Very Narrow Mission That I’ve Laid Out, Than I Will Take That Into Consideration.” “You raise a series of legitimate questions. As commander in chief, I’m not going to leave trainers unprotected. In our counterterrorism efforts, I’m not going to have a situation where our efforts can’t be successful. We will structure those forces so they can be successful. We would still have human intelligence capabilities on the ground. Some of them would be civilian, as opposed to military, some would be operating out of our bases as well as our signal intelligence…But listen, I am not going to set up our troops for failure and I’m going to do something half-baked. If the commanders tell me that they need X, Y and Z, in order to accomplish the very narrow mission that I’ve laid out, than I will take that into consideration.” [New York Times, 11/1/07]

In March, Obama foreign policy adviser Samantha Power explained that Obama's sixteen month plan for withdrawal is a best-case scenario that would be adjusted based on the situation when he takes office and the facts on the ground in Iraq.

The difference between Obama and McCain is that Obama has a clear goal of withdrawal as soon as possible, whereas McCain has no problem with an open-ended commitment, complete with permanent military bases. Obama's plan would have substantial combat troops in Iraq into the middle of 2010 and residual forces remaining throughout his first term. Matt points out in another post that Obama has been consistently centrist and McCain won't get a lot of support for the position that 2010 isn't long enough and we should be in Iraq for over 2 more years.

Obama: A Candidate I Could Support?

Based on this Slate article, Obama is slowly molding into a candidate I could see voting for.

Unfortunately, based on the article, four things (taxes, health care, the war and abortion, although the last one is not mentioned) prevent me from doing so. I do agree with him on immigration.

And the fact that I don't believe what the article calls his "recalibrations" just yet.

McCain Plays Craps, Obama Plays Poker

What their gambling may say about them.

The McCains - Just Regular Folks

We've all been told repeatedly that Obama is too elitist and out-of-touch to be President, so it must be true.

I'm a Democrat, so I'm not allowed to mention the fantastically opulent lifestyle of the McCains. It would be class warfare. If I have anything but reverence for their wealth, I'm just jealous.

Gates as Obama's Secretary of Defense?

The idea has merit and is apparently being seriously considered in the Obama camp.

I don't like reinforcing the view that only Republicans can handle military or foreign policy matters, but Gates possesses indispensible experience in this conflict and is, by all accounts, trustworthy and competent. If Obama thinks he's the best man for the job, he shouldn't let the fact that Gates is a Bush appointee affect the decision.

Fox News

Grow up.

Bush's Third Term

You might be surprised who it is.

Obama and McCain should just use this!

How to choose a Veep.

The Ant and the Grasshopper

While I'm posting forwarded emails, here's an old one that just came in again today. It's unfortunate that ants are black as opposed to white, because we wouldn't want anyone to be confused about the message. Thank goodness the author made references to Jesse Jackson, Oprah, the EEOC, and welfare recipients to make it clear.

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER STORY

OLD VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

Moral of the Story: Be responsible for yourself!

MODERN VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green.'

Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, 'We shall overcome.' Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.

Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill Clinton appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients.

The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

Moral of the Story: Be careful how you vote in 2008.

Here's the lefty version (a little too lefty for my taste, but it's okay):

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house, laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper takes a job at Wal-Mart.

Come winter, the ant finds he has more supplies than he and his family needs, so he invests the surplus in a small business. Due to hard work and shrewd dealing, the ant's company grows into a profitable business.

The grasshopper continues to turn in ten hours a day at Wal-mart.

After thirty years of comfortable middle class existence, the ant sells the company to a large conglomerate, and retires.

The conglomerate immediately fires all the ant's employees and outsources their jobs to India.

The ant's former employees join the grasshopper at Wal-mart.

With the added revenue from outsourcing and downsizing the ant's company, the conglomerate is able to purchase even more politicians who will work hard against peace, unions, the environment, the poor, the middle class, and anything that might inhibit the corporate bottom line.

The grasshopper and the ant's former employees demand that Wal-mart pay them for overtime but are told they are exempt -- because they are 'managers.' The case makes it to the Supreme Court, where Reagan and Bush appointees rule in favor of Wal-mart, admonishing the plaintiffs to 'go home and feel lucky to even have jobs, what with all the outsourcing going on these days.'

The conglomerate also buys CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS and many radio stations and news periodicals to keep the ants and grasshoppers from knowing how dramatically the deck has been stacked against them. And with demagogic politicians and the media in its pocket, the conglomerate finds it very easy to keep the ants and grasshoppers from uniting to demand justice by pitting them against each other with stories of lazy, irresponsible grasshoppers living off of industrious, sober-minded ants.

Moral of the Story: Think critically -- and be very careful how you vote in 2008.

As Long As They're Not Muslim Terrorists...

they're A-OK with McCain. Matthew Yglesias:

Carl H. Lindner Jr. is a businessman who recently co-hosted a big dollar fundraiser for John McCain. He also oversaw the payment of about $1.7 million to a terrorist organization. But that's okay because (a) the terrorists were Latin American rather than Arab, (b) the terrorists were right-wing Latin Americans rather than leftists, and (c) McCain is a straight-talker and the candidate of honor so it's not actually possible for any number of sleazy associations to taint him.

Another Forwarded Message

Here's a charming little racist knee-slapper for you. Enjoy:

A man goes to a public golf course.

He approaches the man behind the counter in the pro shop and says, "I would like 18 holes of golf and a caddie."

The man behind the counter says, "The 18 holes of golf is no problem, but all of the caddies are out on the course. What I will do for you is this: We just received 8 brand new robot golf caddies. If you're willing to take one with you out on the course and come back and tell me how well it works, your round of golf is on me today."

The golfer obviously accepted the man's offer.

He approached the first tee, looked at the fairway and said to himself, "I think my driver will do the job."

The robot caddie turned to the man and said, "No sir. Use your 3 wood. A driver is far too much club for this hole."

Hesitantly, the golfer pulled out his 3 wood, made good contact with the ball, and the bal l landed about 10 feet to the right front of the hole on the green.

The golfer, delighted, turned to the robot and thanked him for his assistance.

As the golfer pulled out his putter he said, "I think this green is gonna break left to right."

The robot then again spoke up and said, "No sir. I do believe this green will break right to left."

Thinking about the last time the robot corrected his prediction, he decided again to listen to the machine.

He made his putt and birdied the hole thanks to the robot and his advice.

But his luck didn't end there. His entire game was the best game he ever played, thanks to the assistance of the new robot golf caddie.

Upon returning to the clubhouse, the man behind the counter asked, "How was your game?"

The golfer stated, "It was, by far, the BEST game I ever played. Thank you very much for letting me take one of your robots.

See you next week.

A week passed, and exci ted, the golfer returned to the pro shop.

Upon entering, he turned to the man behind the counter and said, "I would like 18 holes of golf and one of those robot golf caddies, please."

The gentleman from behind the counter turned to the man and said, "Well the 18 holes is no problem. However, we had to get rid of the robots. We had too many complaints."

Confused, the golfer cried, "COMPLAINTS? Who in the heck could've complained about those robots? They were incredible."

The man sighed and said, "Well, it wasn't their performance.

It was that they were made of shiny silver metal, and the sun reflecting off them was blinding to other golfers on the fair way. "

The golfer said, "So then why didn't you just paint them black?"

The man nodded sadly and replied, "We did. Then four of 'em didn't show up for work, two filed for welfare, one of them robbed the pro shop, and the other is running for President."

Do I think the people that forward these are out wearing white dresses with pointy hats on weekends? Of course not. I'm sure these people are very friendly to minorities and practice no conscious discrimination in their personal or professional lives. But let's not deny that prejudices remain prevalent enough to generate a laugh at a minority's expense and socially acceptable enough to forward to 10 acquaintances.

Comparing New Orleans to the Midwest

To refute anyone who claims racial prejudices no longer exist, I need only dig into my email inbox for a few choice forwarded messages. Here's one that makes an argument also made by Rush Limbaugh:

Just a personal observation...as I watched the news coverage of the massive flooding in the Midwest with over 100 blocks of the city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa under water, levees breaking, and the attention now turned downstream for when this massive amount of water hits the Mississippi, what amazed me is not what we saw, but what we didn't see...

1. We don't see looting.
2. We don't see street violence.
3. We don't see people sitting on their rooftops waiting for the government to come and save them.
4. We don't see people waiting on the government to do anything.
5. We don't see Hollywood organizing benefits to raise money for people to rebuild.
6. We don't see people blaming President Bush.
7. We don't see people ignoring evacuation orders.
8. We don't see people blaming a government conspiracy to blow up the levees as the reason some have not held.
9. We don't see the US Senators or the Governor of Iowa crying on TV.
10. We don't see the Mayors of any of these cities complaining about the lack of state or federal response.
11. We don't see or hear reports of the police going around confiscating personal firearms so only the criminal will be armed.
12. We don't see gangs of people going around and randomly shooting at the rescue workers.
13. You don't see some leaders in this country blaming the bad behavior of the Iowa flood victims on "society" (of course there are no wide spread reports of
    lawlessness to require excuses).

Re: Iowa vs. Louisiana:

Where are all of the Hollywood celebrities holding telethons asking for help in restoring Iowa and helping the folks affected by the floods?

Where is all the media asking the tough questions about why the federal government hasn't solved the problem? Asking where the FEMA trucks (and trailers) are?

Why isn't the Federal Government relocating Iowa people to free hotels in Chicago?

When will Spike Lee say that the Federal Government blew up the levees that failed in Des Moines?

Where are Sean Penn and the Dixie Chicks?

Where are all the looters stealing high-end tennis shoes and bigscreen television sets?

When will we hear Governor Chet Culver say that he wants to rebuild a "vanilla" Iowa, because that's the way God wants it?

Where is the hysterical 24/7 media coverage complete with reports of cannibalism?

Where are the people declaring that George Bush hates white, rural people?

How come in 2 weeks, you will never hear about the Iowa flooding ever again?

There are the obvious points that a Category 4 hurricane is different from slowly rising river waters, that there are many more escape routes out of the Midwest, and that governments may have learned something from Katrina. But I'll refer you to Tim Wise for a full explanation why this is an inappropriate comparison and the wrong conclusions are being drawn from it.

In Defense of Flip-Flops

Ruth Marcus brings some sanity to the discussion:

When it comes to flip-flops, one candidate's outrageous reversal can be another's welcome pragmatism. Liberal bloggers are flaying Obama for a "craven" flip-flop because he once vowed to filibuster any wiretapping bill providing immunity for telecommunications providers. Now he plans to vote for one.

Smart politics, yes, but also sensible as a matter of substance. Whatever your position on immunity, crafting a workable wiretapping regime for the future, not punishing companies for past transgressions, should be the central issue in the debate over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. If Obama is edging toward the center on this, or on free trade, we should praise the flip, not hate the flopper.

Indeed, some flip-flops might even be evidence of open-mindedness -- not a bad attribute in a president, as the past eight years have taught. The downside to flip-flop politics is making politicians reluctant to change course lest they be exposed to accusations of spinelessness.

Take one example that supposedly shows McCain in a bad light. I'm a lot more interested in whether it makes sense to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling in light of higher energy prices, changed geopolitical circumstances and improved technology than I am in whether McCain has flipped on this issue.

538 Update

Patriotism is not Nationalism

According to Jonah Goldberg, Obama isn't patriotic because he doesn't love his country in the uncritical way a child loves a parent. That's not patriotism - it's nationalism.