Obama's Viability

My friend Fish Head pointed out this commentary from noted neocon Charles Krauthammer. Fish Head, who is not Demophobic, happens to agree with Krauthammer that Barack Obama is a likeable but, ultimately, not viable, presidential candidate in 2008. Both Fish Head and Krauthammer cite Obama's lack of foreign policy experience.

I can understand that position (although to hear Krauthammer endorse a presidential run by Obama The Democrat strikes me as terribly, terribly suspect). It's true, Obama does not bring a distinguished military career to the table although he is currently on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He served 7 years in the Illinois legislature and he's been in the Senate for nearly two years.

Fish Head argues that's an awfully skimpy resume for the highest office in the land but - alas - he voted for Bush in 2000 so I'm afraid I must point out that Fish Head does not have a knack for recognizing foreign policy genius (which is not to say I don't still adore Fish Head... I'm just not trusting him with my presidential picks).

Although it's a bit of a gamble to make a comparison with my favorite all time president, Abraham Lincoln, it still must be said that a true statesman is not necessarily forged in the Senate. Abraham Lincoln spent eight years in the Illinois legislature before losing his Senate bid to Stephen Douglas. For the longest time, only Lincoln, his wife, and his closest friends and supporters believed he had the makings of the President of the United States of America. Oh, what a president he turned out to be... and a war time president, at that.

Leaders are born. Statesmen are born. 20 Years in the Senate isn't going to give you those attributes if you don't already have them. What 20 years in the Senate will give you is an unintelligible voting record, a trail of IOUs a mile long, and some rather unattractive bed fellows.

We all say we want more from the Presidency than we've been getting. We want someone who's more than a cardboard cutout of a Presidential image. Someone who respects the trials of ordinary men but is also extraordinary among men. Someone who commands respect without having to insist on it. So what are we doing to achieve that? Are we going to accept the same tired line-up of RNC/DNC approved "experienced" candidates in 2008, each more bought-and-paid-for than the next, or are we going to truly choose our next President?

Obama is rising on his own merit at this point. The DNC/DLC want to exploit his burgeoning popularity but they don't want to let him outshine Hillary. If he's the man I think he is, he'll beat Hillary by good old fashioned popular vote in 2008 and Clinton's DLC won't have a damned thing to say about it.

I'm willing to put some action behind my words on this -- I'm pledging now to be a local volunteer for his campaign if he decides to run.

Obama 2008

Jim Webb: Vile or Victim?

As my mom and I (Hi Mom! xoxoxox) discussed, the excerpts from Jim Webb's books as viewed on the Drudge Report are troubling, indeed. Webb had seemed like a better candidate than his opponent, George Allen, right up until Drudge splashed the big, ugly headline last Thursday. Readers were compelled to conclude from the Drudge excerpts that Webb was downright pervy, if only for the one scene from Lost Soldiers between a Vietnamese father and his four year old son.

Now, I like fiction and I like sex (certainly I have no problem with the two in any combination) but one had to wonder when reading those two and a half sentences from Lost Soldiers just exactly what was wrong with Jim Webb.

So imagine my surprise to read this from conservative blogger John Cole. Had I fallen for one of Drudge's infamous hit and run slanders?

Next I was amazed to find one of the Drudge excerpted books, Fields of Fire, on the United States Marine Corp Professional Reading Program list (as linked all over the blogosphere at this point). From the USMC site:

James Webb. a well-known Marine Corps Navy Cross recipient in Vietname and former Secretary of the Navy, conveys the experience of combat with rare lucidity through fiction. In fact, Fields of Fire is less fictional than most realize. It is the Vietnam War as the author lived it, and the reader sees and feels it through the eyes of the book's main character, a platoon commander in Company D, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines.

The novel is about the reality of war that Marines must come to grips with today as we prepare for the future. Fields of Fire is the story of the young, enlisted Marines who fought under then Lieutenant Webb. The reader should note carefully their emotions, motivations, courage, and fears for they are the men who have served us best in every war. Their social backgrounds vary, and many of our best warriors came from the lowliest of stations. In terms of the brotherhood of those who bleed together and the nobility of sacrifices made for friends, the characters in Webb's novel are timeless. He succeeds brilliantly in making them real. Webb creates a doctrine of combat leadership and a creed for the succeeding generation on how and why Marines fight.

Could be that the GOP is desperate to undermine Webb's reputation. Watch Fox News Military Analyst Col. Hunt fawn over Webb's military background to see why (follow the link and click on Video-WMP).

Relentless war hawk, The Bull Moose, chimes in.

I'm starting to suspect a hatchet job, Mom. What do you think?

V for Vendetta

Finally got around to seeing it. Don't know why I waited so long... it's easily the best movie I've seen in ages.

Argh!

God, isn't anyone else getting sick of this shit every. freaking. election cycle? It's as predictable as the rising of the sun.

President George Bush is seizing on a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling this week offering full marriage rights to gays and lesbians in hopes of galvanising the dispirited conservative base of the Republican Party just 10 days from crucial mid-term congressional elections in the United States.

And it works because... people think monogamous gays are the greatest threat to our country ever? Thank God my children's generation couldn't care less about this topic... at least there's hope for focusing their attention on more important things.

In the meantime I wish it were possible to slap this country across its collective face and make everyone snap out of it.

Update: It's going to be like a drumbeat until the elections.

Obama 2008

OK, I admit that I did say a while back that Obama needed more time to mature as a politician before running for president. I have changed my mind. I don't want a mature politician in that office, I want a competent leader. A statesman. I listen to this man speak and it affirms the rightness of everything I believe in. I have decided I don't want him tainted by lobbyists and quid pro quos like every other career politician. I'd rather have him young and inexperienced.

I would challenge anyone to listen to this Take Back America speech and the one in the previous post and tell me that this man would not be good for America.

You can also listen to Obama's positions on various topics via his web podcasts. Listening to his energy independence speech, I swear he has read my thoughts exactly.

He'll probably have to do a grassroots end run around the DLC but to hell with Hillary... I want Obama. The best case scenario would be for the Dems to take the Senate in 2006 in order to stop, or at least slow down, the damage currently being done by Bush and company (I don't mind the idea of a divided congress if the Repubs should happen to keep the House). Then I'd like to see Obama run a bold primary campaign against Hillary. Despite conventional wisdom, I think she's entirely beatable. The Democratic base doesn't trust her and besides... all this Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton WH is starting to get creepy. I think Obama will have broad centrist appeal. In fact, I believe that of all modern politicians he alone has the ability to unite us again as Americans and undo all of the bad blood that's been brewing since the day Clinton took office.

Obamarama

Senator Barack Obama in defense of habeas corpus (Part 1)


Senator Barack Obama in defense of habeas corpus (Part 2)

Greenwald Vs Noonan

Glenn Greenwald takes on Peggy Noonan's latest. Greenwald always throws a good counterpunch but let's be honest... it doesn't take much to puncture Noonan's trademark superficiality.

Expanding slightly on Greenwald's case, I find it ironic that the "average guy" attribute that was once so captivating about Bush the Candidate is now the obvious fatal flaw of Bush the President. Those of us who cringed at the media frenzy around the "Who would you rather have a beer with?" survey will find this a cold comfort. Maybe it's starting to register with people that the characteristics that make someone a good drinking buddy might not be the same characteristics that make someone a good Leader of the Free World.

Of course we still have some 30% of the country who think Bush is doing a fine job. I wish I knew what they're measuring him against.

Electronic Voting

Paperless electronic voting devices seem to be a bad idea, whether the threat is Hugo Chavez or some kind of domestic power grab.

I hold faithful to the belief that if there's a way to abuse or exploit anything for money/power, someone will do it. Actually, not much faith is required... history is full of supporting evidence.

Winning in Iraq

One of the regular Friday night pool players at our local bar, Johnny, served in Iraq. He's a youngster -- 24 -- and a super nice guy. As pool and politics don't mix, and because I'd never risk offending someone who has voluntarily put their life on the line for their country, we've only discussed Iraq in the vaguest ways. But last night after a few beers he made a passing reference to an experience he had there and I took the opportunity to ask him, "Do you think we'll win?"

He looked down and shook his head. "It's different over there now," he said. "It's gotten bad."

We let it drop after that.

I've thought about Iraq a lot over the past few months, trying to decide where I stand on troop withdrawal. For so long I've thought we had to stay and finish the job, that to leave before Iraq was stabilized would be a disaster for everyone involved. And I still think it would be a disaster if we left... but now I'm unconvinced that it won't be a disaster if we stay, or that it won't be a disaster the day after we leave ten years from now. There are no good options going forward... it seems like a total mess. And while the insurgents pick off our troops and the Iraqi police at a steady clip, it's the sectarian violence that's killing the majority of Iraqi's -- to the tune of nearly 1000 a month.

There's a term used in business called "sunk cost". The definition of sunk cost is "cost already incurred that cannot be recovered, regardless of any present or future decision." A similar more common phrasing is "throwing good money after bad." Sunk cost often becomes an emotional (and absolutely pointless) consideration for people when they're trying to decide what to do. I think a lot of people want to "stay the course" because we've invested so much in Iraq already but to make a go-forward plan based on that is bad strategy.

I caught the clip of Bill O'Reilly on David Letterman via Crooks and Liars. I never watch David Letterman's show so I'm not terribly familiar with his position on anything but it was an interesting contrast to see them face off. I, of course, hate Bill O'Reilly.

According to Bill, the loss of American support for the war is because Americans don't like seeing bad news on their TVs everynight and would rather be watching Dancing with the Stars. That is a pretty nakedly condescending view, isn't it? We're all just stupid Americans... thank goodness we have Bill around to tell us what's important.... like the War on Christmas.

But the clincher was when Bill exasperatedly asked Letterman, "Do you want America to win or not?" As if questioning the war effort is the same thing as wanting us to lose. Or as if all it really takes to win a war is to robotically support it.

Letterman's answer was something like, "It's not that easy, Bill... I'm a thoughtful person." Which is a pretty good answer, really.

And the Winner is... ?

Lots of speculation about the dynamic of November's elections and who's going to win the House and Senate next month. I couldn't even venture a guess.

I see a few interesting grassroots races, which is nice. I'm kind of a fan of grassroots movements in general, believing that they are the purest form of democracy (yes, even when they're evangelical nutjobs or when they unseat long term incumbants). It's kind of like the music industry where everything is slickly produced and marketed for mass appeal but -- once in a great while -- you'll see a breakthrough indy band circumvent the big labels, propelled by popular demand. Considering that our incumbancy rate is about 98% and that it's nearly impossible to sneak new candidates past the DLC, DNC, and RNC, I'd like to see a lot more people-powered grassroots movements in the landscape.

It's time for people to stop accepting what they're offered, start thinking about what they want, and then do something to make it happen. That's the only way we're going to rid ourselves of the plutocracy we've passively created. Easier said than done, maybe, but awareness is always the first step.

Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting different results. I will not be voting the same way I've voted in the last few congressional elections, that's for sure.

What Are You?

According to Political Compass, I'm Libertarian Left.

Economic Left/Right: -2.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.33

Despite my angry rants it appears I'm more of a centrist than a radical (centrist being defined literally, in this case, as "toward the center of the graph"). I'm loosely at the same position shown for Gandhi, which at first made me feel a bit prideful but, on further consideration, has me a bit puzzled since I always thought him more of a radical. Regardless, I'll consider it good company.

It's hard to remember sometimes that in America we're rather a homogeneous bunch as far as politics go. In the greater history of the world we're really just splitting hairs in our differences (Republican Vs Democrat). Although Democrats are accused of being "socialist" they don't even come close to the real thing, and although Republicans are accused of being "fascist" they don't come close to that, either. We haven't had a serious political contender for Communism on the ballot in my lifetime.

We're amazingly fortunate that our "deep divide" is so relatively shallow.

Limboob

Catch the Keith Olbermann segment on the whole Rush Limbaugh-Michael J Fox ad controversy. Keith Olbermann, the lone liberal "news" pundit in a sea of conservative "news" pundits, is a guilty pleasure of mine. Like a bit of chocolate at the end of the day, I listen to him as I drift off to sleep at 11. And his guest in this segment, Sam Seder, who I've never heard of before, is someone I now want to hear a lot more of. Mostly reasonable thoughts on the topic -- it makes the right's hysterics look pretty stupid.

Oh well... at least it appears that Limboob is following through on his WH obligations.

As an aside, I don't generally have a problem with famous people commenting on politics. I comment on politics all the time. So what if I only have an audience of 3? Anyone who knows me knows I'd be making the same comments if I had an audience of 3 million.

Besides, it seems that the people who find politic'ing celebs offensive are the people who happen to disagree with their politics. For example, loud mouth country singer Dixie Chicks=bad but loud mouth country singer Tobey Keith=good. Hollywood heavyweight Barbara Streisand=bad but Hollywood heavyweight Ron Silver=good. Michael J Fox campaigning for Republican Arlen Specter=good but Michael J Fox campaigning for Democrat Claire McCaskill=bad. Actor Sean Penn=bad but actress Patricia Heaton=good.

As always, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Update: It occurs to me that I don't recall the left going after Michael J Fox for campaigning for Specter in 2004. I also don't think the left goes bonkers every time Tobey Keith or Ron Silver or Patricia Heaton open their mouths. This actually zeroes in on the one thing that sets me off the most: the right's insistence on ridiculing or dismissing opponents on superficial terms in lieu of dealing with issues. It's easier to mock someone (Howard Dean's "scream", John Kerry's "Lambert Field", "orangey tan", "manicures", Al Gore's "crazy beard", "angry speech", "kiss with Tipper", etc) than it is to deal with the substance of their ideas. In this case, it's easier to make a big deal out of Michael J Fox's appearance or whether or not he should become a political activist for his cause than it is to confront the issue of public funding for stem cell research. I saw kind of a similar trend with Michael Moore. I admit I never saw Fahrenheit 911 in its entirety (it appeared to me that the movie was taking certain liberties with the truth) but it seems that the right, instead of rebutting the content of the film, settled on something more like "Michael Moore is fat!" as a talking point. My point is, I rarely see the dialogue on the left descend into the kind of petty crap you hear from the right. The right seems to revel in this. Maybe that's why the left is so "angry".

Update II: I did notice on rewatching the clip that Olbermann and Seder make several mocking references to Limbaugh's Oxy and Viagra problems. So ok, there's some mocking on the left. Can you think of any other examples? Just curious if it's as lopsided as I think it is... maybe it's just me.

What the Cat Dragged In

Islamic men have the self-control, reason, and morality of... cats! Who knew?? An Islamic cleric continues the fine tradition of blaming women for the evil men do:

Addressing 500 worshippers on the topic of adultery, Sheik al-Hilali added: "If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it..whose fault is it - the cats or the uncovered meat?

"The uncovered meat is the problem."

He went on: "If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab (veil), no problem would have occurred."

Lordie... Islamic fundamentalist nutjobs prove once again that they're even more batshit crazy than Christian fundamentalist nutjobs.

Meow.

For My Boss

Ode to Kyle's mom Kris.

The Party of Ideas

First came word of the ominously delayed-until-after-the-election report from James Baker's Iraq Study Group, quickly followed by Bush's gentle dropping of the oft heard phrase, "Stay the Course."

It was enough to make my ears perk up.

Now the Party of Ideas has come up with a new one: Setting a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Except it's not really all that new. And it's not really their idea. And they're kind of shy about calling it a plan for withdrawal (although it sure sounds like a plan for withdrawal to me).

It is, of course, entirely different from the Defeatocrat position of "cut and run." This has more nuance -- the Republican position includes respectable words like deadlines and milestones.

---------------------------------------------

My take on Iraq is as it always has been: This was a misguided war in different ways for different people for different reasons. The benefits never outweighed the risks. Iraq's history and cultural divisions didn't support the notion that they'd step right into a nationalized, West-loving democracy. Saddam, other than compulsively thumbing his nose at the UN, didn't seem to pose much of a threat anymore. The war wasn't making sense even during the runup.

The fact that we're not winning (if winning has ever been quantified; the bar seems always to be moving) shouldn't be that much of a surprise. It's not the Democrats' fault. It's not the media's fault. It's not because of our troops' performance or Abu Graib or torture or secret CIA prisons or FBI leaks. And it's certainly not that we couldn't turn Iraq into a sheet of glass if we wanted to. It's because it was a bad idea executed with near perfect incompetence.

And now it's time to go. The idea that Iraq will become a haven for terrorists doesn't hold weight with me anymore. First of all, I don't think the Shia, Sunni, or Kurds will have much use for the terrorists after we're gone. Second, I think Iran and Syria will have plenty of influence there whether Iraq is unified or not. Third, I think we're far better off focusing our resources on an effective international counter-terrorism strategy. And fourth, Iraq is going to have to evolve on its own terms.

In the end, I think this war will be remembered as a war of manipulation. The genesis of the war itself was a manipulation, with the attempted tie-in of Saddam and 9/11. The intelligence was manipulated, or at least cherry picked, to support the war. Ahmed Chalabi, the darling of the neocons prior to the invasion, turned out to be the master of manipulation. Likewise the news cycles were manipulated and dominated by the Republican noise machine (Fox News, Hannity, Limbaugh, et al) to the extent that citizens were bombarded by one obfuscation after another, from the slander of Scott Ritter to O'Reilly's ridiculous France boycott. And finally -- most tragically -- the manipulation of the raw emotions of the American people after 9/11. Support stoked by fear; accusations of appeasement passing as patriotism.

It's OK to Smoke in Omaha if You Play Keno

There is no public smoking now in Omaha. Fair enough, if the city chooses to pass the law and the citizens choose to support it. And if the citizens want to divert their emergency response teams every time Big Brother calls 911 to report a violation, so be it.

What really gets me, though, are the smoking ban exceptions:

The new smoking ban applies to bars that serve food and those that don't have keno licenses. Some bars have applied for keno licenses to keep their smokers happy, and a few decided to give up food instead of smoking.

So let me get this straight... Smoking is bad for everyone's health and must be banned in order to protect the innocents. It is, in fact, so dangerous that citizens are being encouraged to make emergency 911 calls to rat out public smokers. But only if they aren't playing Keno.

Either we should be expecting an announcement soon from the scientific community about how Keno neutralizes the effects of second hand smoke OR the city has succeeded in establishing a brilliant system for extorting Keno cash from local businesses.

Sunday Surfing

It's been a heavy week so I'm trying to catch up on news and blogs.

• Will Obama run in 2008? Man, wouldn't that be nice. I still wonder if he should grow a little more first but, on the other hand, it might be nice to have a president who doesn't bring years of IOUs into office with him. If he chooses to wait he should get out of the Senate post-haste with a run for Illinois Governor instead. Senior Senators are always at a disadvantage because of how their voting records get used against them at election time (the way legislation is bundled makes it easy to twist voting records in a thousand meaningless ways but most people don't understand that).
  

• I find Scalia's recent comments amazing:

  "Deeply controversial issues like abortion and suicide rights have nothing to do with the Constitution, and unelected judges too often choose to find new rights at the expense of the democratic process, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Saturday."

  Am I the only one who thinks he has this backwards? That the focus of the constitution was not meant to explicitly define (and therefore limit) individual rights but rather to explicitly define (and therefore limit) the power of government? We are born with ALL rights; the constitution does not grant them to us. It does call out specific rights that serve as a foundation for our law but it was never meant to be a complete laundry list. And it's only via the democratic process that we decide to limit them, via law. Jefferson summarized this idea quite articulately when he said:
  

  "Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author of nature, because necessary for his own sustenance." --Thomas Jefferson: Legal Argument, 1770. FE 1:376

  I surfed a bit to read what else has been said on the topic and found this 2003 blog post from Common Dreams... it's really quite brilliant. As an aside, I always thought one of the most telling (and dangerous) things about Bush's Supremes (including the rejected Harriet Miers) is their general belief in the less-limited power of the Executive Branch of government. All the abortion brouhaha is just a total load of obfuscational crap. Roe v Wade as a litmus test is irrelevant... it's not going to get repealed in my lifetime. It's just a tool for both sides of the aisle to bludgeon us with. People need to get a little smarter about not continuously falling for this sleight of hand.
  

• Is Bush flip-flopping on "stay the course" or does he just think we're all stupid?

• I've noticed this phenomenon, too.
  

• Looks like I missed out on a lot of to-and-fro over John Kuo's new book, "Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction. Tristero and Digby (here too) over at Hullabaloo fill me in, as does this story in time. Read the all book excerpts... yikes. I don't know what to make of this story if it's true, quite frankly. Part of me feels bad for the theo-voters who got snookered into getting out the vote for Bush but - then again - you'd have to have been blind not to see the obvious "god and gays" manipulation going on during the last few election cycles. I also don't understand why government funding of faith-based programs is any better than direct administration of the same programs. Why does everyone assume the private sector is better or more efficient at providing these services when there is ZERO oversight or accountability? And finally, I think the unnecessary blurring of church and state is bad for both church AND state.

• Fox News strikes again (surprise, surprise).
  

Total Recall

A few years ago my husband and I were seduced by a Time Life infomercial into buying the Time Life Music CD set, "Singers and Songwriters of the 70's." Our friends and family laughed at us for buying what they thought was a horrendous compilation of cringe-inducing sap but for us it was a happy stroll through our childhood memories. We spent an entire summer listening to those 10 CDs, trading I remember when's... and This reminds me of's...

Music is a unique conduit that way. I can listen to "Afternoon Delight" (a truly hideous song if ever there was one) and suddenly remember exactly what it was like to pile into the car with my parents and travel up to our garden in Rockton. Or I can listen to "Saturday Night" by the Bay City Rollers and remember the day my best friend Eric and I used his picnic table as a stage while we pretended to be rock stars in his backyard. These are not important memories and I would not normally have cause to reference them but listening to the music brings everything back in a visceral rush.

Anyway, I thought of this today as the BOB station randomly played Eagle Eye Cherry's "Save Tonight" on my way home from the grocery store and my brain spontaneously accessed a series of silly T2C memories.

What if...

DemFromCT has a good post over at dkos today called "What Democrats Would Do," which muses over the possibility of Dems winning majorities in the House and Senate next month.

Even if I were a conservative (hahaha!) I'd be looking on in utter horror at what the current unbalanced state of government has given us. Without any inherent check and balance we're left with a perverse, incestuous distortion of government that affects everything from crazed spending to crazy legislation. This has happened at other points in our history and it's eventually been corrected.

It's time for another correction.

Vote For Us, You Losers!

Now that Bush's gross incompetence has driven his approval rating lower than anything a stained blue dress ever wrought, it's time to bring in the big guns. Last month the White house spent an hour and a half trying to convince their favorite conservative radio talkies to throw a little love in Bush's direction. And they're not done yet:

"The effort will peak on Oct. 24, when the administration will hold something of a talk-radio summit meeting, inviting dozens of hosts to set up booths on the White House grounds, where top cabinet officials are expected to sit for interviews."

I guess the plan is to get the sheeple herded in the Right direction. Maybe it'll work but the White House's assumption that their voter base can be so easily swayed by a bunch of radio personalities seems rather condescending. Probably accurate, but stilll... condescending.

I Spy

I agree with Digby. Power unchecked will be power abused, guaranteed.

DPRK Test Bombs

(Don't you wonder how long they had to scour the military looking for soldiers who would not tower over the miniature Kim Jong Il in this picture?)

America's bilateral diplomacy was flawed and it's six party talks have failed (spectacularly so, it seems). I must say that I never understood the much ballyhooed "brilliance" of Bush's Six Party talks since it doesn't seem very wise to leave OUR national security interests up to other countries to negotiate. Call me a control freak, I guess.

Diplomacy is a funny thing... very easy to do with your friends (where you need it least) and rather difficult to do with your enemies (where you need it most). It's a tool, not a weakness. Not only is our refusal to engage with those we dislike (N Korea, Syria, Iran, etc) childish and counter productive, it's also dangerous. To those who question how you engage in diplomacy with parties that can't be trusted: Strategically and pragmatically... as countries have been doing for a thousand years.

So what now?

This is actually one scenario where I would have liked to have seen military action since I believe the cash-strapped DPRK will offer the black market every nuke they produce. Wouldn't bilateral agreements have left room for a unilateral response? I think we've lost that option in the six party forum -- I highly doubt that our banker, China, will allow military action against their little buddy. And although China is trying to sound tough, I don't think they intend to support any meaningful trade sanctions, either. Since they are one of the DPRK's primary trade partners, everyone else's sanctions would then be more symbolic than effective.

Taking a military response out of the equation would leave us with three options: sanctions, diplomacy, or nothing. Sanctions are meaningless without China onboard. And now that the DPRK has its nukes we would be coming at diplomacy from a weakened position. Our objective would be the same as before -- containment -- but with nukes now on the table the stakes are much higher. The option of doing nothing is even worse still... it just ensures we'll be in an even weaker position at the next critical juncture.

I don't understand why the "America, Love It or Leave It" crowd isn't screaming about this a bit more. I find it very painful to see our great country this way... weakened by poor strategy in the Middle East and now Asia, too.

Sunday Night Football

My favorite football honey, Troy Polamalu (or as I affectionately refer to him, Po-walawalawalu), is already looking good tonight.

Fun factoid for the "God, I'm getting old" file... Po-walawalawalu was born four years before I graduated from high school.

UPDATE: Ugh... Pitt lost, 23-13.

White House for Sale

I meant to comment on this Jack Abramoff-Susan Ralston exchange when I first saw it but got distracted by other things. I was reminded yesterday when I heard that Susan Ralston had resigned.

We should all be concerned with the implication of the memo. It demonstrates exactly how Abramoff really got things done in Washington in his role as shadowy power broker and it reveals that this administration keeps two sets of books: one for the public and one for the plutocracy.

To be fair, corruption and quid pro quo are generally bipartisan support items. But the GOP owns K Street now and is, in fact, working to own it forever. For those unfamiliar with the Republican K Street Project or Jack Abramoff's role in it, here's a primer.

Call it whatever you want, clever or corrupt -- but this is not how our Democracy was designed to work.

A Round of Values for Everyone!

Foley... ewwwww. It's easy to call the coverage exploitive but the reason it's been everywhere, non-stop, is because the story's so incredibly layered that it just keeps on giving. For example:

• Is Foley a "predatory pedophile" or a "sexual predator"? I happen to think the former but it sounds like keninny thinks the latter. To me, "sexual predator" means someone who sexually preys on a non-descript victim. I reserve the term "predatory pedophile" for someone who sexually preys on children. A 16 year old, no matter how "experienced", is still a child. And a man who repeatedly reaches out to 16 year olds until he gets the sexual satisfaction he's looking for is a predatory pedophile.

• Is Dennis Hastert a corrupt Republican or, as his "defenders" would have you believe, just an inept manager? Again, I pick the former. My gut tells me there is no way on this planet his staff would have received information of this scandalous magnitude and not passed it on to Hastert immediately. And then there's this breaking news, which I think spells certain, ugly doom for Hastert. As if this hadn't pushed him to the precipice. Or this.
  

• Is the FBI a teat sucking tool of the GOP or is it just so hopelessly enmeshed in bureaucracy that it would allow children to be stalked? This one would just be a guess so let's call it a draw. I find it hard to believe that the FBI would receive a complaint this politically sensitive and simply drop it without telling anyone. Even if they chickened out and decided not to pursue it, I don't believe for a minute they didn't give anyone a heads-up.

• Are the GOP's warrior pundits truly despicable, self-serving, worthless lifeforms or are they simply trying to provide moral guidance to a shaken public? Hah -- I'm a kidder! Does that even require an answer? In case it does, look no further than Glenn Greenwald's gloriously provocative post on the absolution of Denny's sins by none other than Rush Limbaugh.
  

• And finally I cannot help myself, I must touch on one of the more painfully indulgent excuses echoing through the wingersphere over the past few days: The reason the Republicans could not chastise Foley for preying on the minors in their charge is because FOLEY IS GAY. That's right, folks... scoring a perfect 10 for their Turn the Blame on the Liberals gymnastics, some on the right have attempted to call the sexual exploitation of child subordinates a political correctness issue that the Democrats have created by supporting monogamous unions between gays! The Wallstreet Journal leads the charge by using terms like "private lifestyle choices" out of context to take a jab at Democrats, which would be rather clever if "private lifestyle choices" wasn't being used as a synonym for "pedophile predator activities." The real contextual idiocy, however, comes when the Journal asks, "Are these Democratic critics of Mr Hastert saying that they now have more sympathy for the Boy Scouts' decision to ban gay scoutmasters?" I'm going to go out on a limb here and respond to that one on behalf of all Democrats: We'd have an infinite amount of sympathy for the Boy Scouts if they decided to ban pedophile predator scoutmasters. And that's a whole lot more sympathy than the Republicans appear to have.
  

Food and Drug

An interesting scientific discovery: Food may be as much of a physical addiction for some as drugs are for others.

Anyone who has ever faced a lifetime battle of the bulge already knows this to be true. I have, in fact, had this conversation with my slender, cigarette smoking husband many times as we've contrasted and compared our addictive weaknesses. He could not care less about food (he often refers to meals as "cavity filling") but he could describe in great detail the exquisite rush of the day's first cigarette or the sense of satisfaction that comes with smoking after a meal.

I, on the other hand, would rather put dry leaves into my mouth than smoke a cigarette first thing in the morning. Food is what I cannot resist -- it's as joyful to me as sex or rollercoasters. I think of it in sensory terms: the way it looks, the way it smells, they way it feels in my hands, the way it tastes. I love the variant nature of food, the experience of eating, and I love that feeling of fullness when I'm done.

So anyway, it's no great shocker to me that science is finally discovering what many of us have always known to be true... food can be as intoxicating as any drug on the market.

More Foley

Ewwwwww.

Maf54: I want to see you
Teen: Like I said not til feb…then we will go to dinner
Maf54: and then what happens
Teen: we eat…we drink…who knows…hang out…late into the night
Maf54: and
Teen: I dunno
Maf54: dunno what
Teen: hmmm I have the feeling that you are fishing here…im not sure what I would be comfortable with…well see

And I see Foley has graduated from the Mel Gibson school of "I only did it because I'm an alcoholic!"

Of course there is some profusely shallow obfuscation happening over on the anti-Democrat blogs, with some folks being confused by the difference between a "sex" scandal and a "predatory pedophile" scandal.

"So it seems in the run-up to the election we won't have to talk about Iraq and terrorism and detainees anymore. Let's talk about sex."

Ah, if only it were as simple as a naughty sex story -- then they could drag Clinton and Condit and Hart through the mud again along with Foley. I'm afraid it's appallingly worse than that, guys... and most normal people will recoil in the kind of disgust that has nothing at all to do with politics.

A Marriage Forged in Hell

Here's something I hadn't previously considered: the union of terrorism and organized crime.

"The phenomenon of the synergy of terrorism and organized crime is growing because similar conditions give rise to both and because terrorists and organized criminals use similar approaches to promote their operations."

Nice.

Speaker Pelosi

Interesting article about the Republican election machine in Time. Quote:

Republicans acknowledge one ominous vulnerability: for more than a decade, the party has benefited from an intensity gap. Stoked by hatred of Bill Clinton or love for George W. Bush, G.O.P. voters have been more certain to vote than Democrats--meaning that the party tends to perform better than the final opinion polls suggest. Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, head of the House Democrats' campaign committee, recently told TIME that gap had counted for as much as 5 to 7 points for the Republicans. But he thinks this election year might be different. "Their voters are unhappy," he says. "They're despondent about a failed President."

I have been amused whenever I've heard the Republicans chant "Speaker Pelosi" like a sacred mantra to ward off election defeat. Their hope is that the lethargic Republican voters who aren't pulled into voting booths by Bush love will instead by repelled into voting booths by Pelosi fear (what is it about Republicans and their relentless use of fear as a motivator??).

The irony, of course, is that Republican voters should be delighted by the possibility of such a weak and ineffective Democratic Speaker as Pelosi. As the readers of my blog know (both of them), I am no Pelosi fan but c'mon.... a weak Speaker (Dennis Hastert comes to mind) is really an opposition party's dream.

Silly strategy and, if it works, silly voters.

Well Said

Thank you, Michael Kinsley, for taking the time to point this out. I have noticed the same thing for quite some time... the strange, pretzel-twisted logic of the stridently pro-life, pro-war crowd.

You can be one, or you can be the other, or you can be somewhat conflicted -- but I don't understand how you can be both stridently pro-life and pro-war without committing a purposeful act of mental mendacity.

"Don't get too wrapped up in him being too nice to you..."

Big story: Republican congressman Foley is caught preying on minors.

Bigger story: Republican congressional leaders knew he was a danger to minors and did nothing.

And in case you're thinking it's just a case of the "liberal media" blowing things out of proportion, think again.