When the Grand Old Party comes to town

College students, hide your laptops and whatever you do, don't stay with a bunch of friends in a single house. Because freedom of assembly is not guaranteed to dirty fucking hippies.

Jane Hamsher and Glenn Greenwald are in Minneapolis, and when word got 'round of SWAT raids on 5 DFH houses, they took their cameras and hit the streets.

Black clad, heavily armed officers entered without warrant, handcuffed occupants and laid them face down on floors for up to 45 minutes. Laptops and political materials confiscated, no charges filed, except for two people who will be charged with "conspiracy to commit riot", a vague statute which has, apparently, never been used up to know, and which will almost certainly face a constitutional test in the courts after this weekend's raids.

Glenn's post has video and links to local coverage. Jane has more.

I was at an end of summer pool party yesterday, and talking with a man who's political cynicism was palpable. You know the drill: both parties corrupt, no difference, we're screwed. I made a rather impassioned plea for practical engagement over cynicism: of course we can screw it up if we win, on any number of fronts and in any number of ways. The point is to try, and to put your support behind the candidate who lays out ideas that you believe are most likely to give good results.

"But it doesn't bother you that they can record all of your email and collect all of your data and spy on you without reason and," etcetera.

Of course that matters to me! It matters deeply to me! Which is why I cannot fathom allowing the party that has worked so hard to strip us of constitutional protections to retain power.

This weekend's raids underscore this for me, in dramatic fashion. Police in Denver may have behaved badly with protesters, and the DNC may have been overly aggressive in keeping the scene media-friendly for the candidate.

But the RNC will preemptively attack anyone who may pose a political threat: through political prosecutions approved by the justice department, and by raiding groups whose crime is, say, non-violent political protest.

The RNC is criminal. Their use of local and national law enforcement is criminal.

Wondering what kind of media coverage this story will get.

Pappy and The Broad

Viewing McCain's pick of Sara Palin as anything other than cynical politics is ridiculous.

She's an avowed anti-abortionist; which means that James Dobson and Co are finally on board with the ticket, along with hopes that they'll rally their to date unexcited base.

She's young, so she makes the ticket look prettier.

She's a woman, which, in the minds of people like Rove and McCain means that the rest of us simple little women will not fail to be inspired by the opportunity to put someone with a uterus in the White House.

That, my friends, is what Sara Palin offers the Republicans. And they also know that if anyone on the Obama campaign, say, Joe Biden, calls them out on it, they risk looking condescending at best and misogynist at worst.

I listened to the broadcast media all day refer to the choice as historic, which rankled me. Dems put a woman up for VP 24 years ago, so in setting that particular historical precedent, Republicans are, unsurprisingly, a bit behind the times.

This could be viewed as historic in the fact that she's on a Republican ticket: this marks the day when they decided they could benefit from a skirt or two in prominence. It can be viewed as historic in the context of the full campaign, meaning that come January, we'll either have a black president or a female VP. That's something.

But this is an image pick, not one based on merit or vision. She isn't Hillary, a woman who has worked her entire life toward the respect and opportunity she currently has, and who reached her pinnacle this year on the trust of millions of voters, rather than a single team of political operatives.

She isn't Barack; who, again, rose to prominence on his own guts and skill, bringing millions of Americans to his side.

She's a first term governor of a resources rich small state, and she brings to the ticket pot holes for Joe Biden and anti-global warming pro-oil cred.

She is, in short, the formalization of the same crude, pandering, misogyny that gave us "Happy Hour for Hillary" in Denver last week.

I'm disgusted with the campaign's Rovian use of women as emotional triggers and props.

And that's all I have to say about that at the moment. I'm going to go read Joe Conason now and see what he has to say about it. I am sure it will be devastating.

Update: Conason here.

No, Senator McCain, I Am Not An Idiot

You think I'm stupid.

You think I'm going to fall for it.

You think that because I loved Hillary Clinton, gave money to Hillary Clinton, stood in the freezing rain for two hours to see her speak, put a sticker on my car, wore my pin around town, and supported Hillary Clinton to the very end, that I will vote for you.

You think I will forget every single one of my personal and political values just because there's a vagina on your pro-war, anti-woman, anti-science ticket.

You, Senator McCain, are wrong.

I'd love to see a woman in the White House. I would have loved to see a woman on Obama's ticket.

But not this woman.

Not a woman who thinks decisions about my body should be made by hateful old men in Washington.

Not a woman who thinks science is a myth.

Not a woman who thinks the Republican party has anything to offer besides more war, higher taxes, oil dependency, and hate.

I am not falling for it, Senator McCain.

Because what you do not understand is that my support for Hillary was not about anatomy. It was about values. Hillary Clinton articulated and represented my dreams.

You do not. Not even with a vagina on your pathetic ticket.

This changes nothing.

No way. No how. No McCain.

Cross-posted at DailyKos

Why does God hate Republicans?

Here they are, trying to protect marriage and man's right to plunder, and yet: on the heel's of the anniversary of Katrina, Gustave is headed for land.

WaPo:

Republican officials said yesterday that they are considering delaying the start of the GOP convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul because of Tropical Storm Gustav, which is on track to hit the Gulf Coast, and possibly New Orleans, as a full-force hurricane early next week.
The threat is serious enough that White House officials are also debating whether President Bush should cancel his scheduled convention appearance on Monday, the first day of the convention, according to administration officials and others familiar with the discussion.

via TPM:

"The Republicans can't seem to get a break when it comes to August and when it comes to the weather," said Rove, a FOX News analyst. "I know this is being thought a lot about in Washington and at the White House and discussed and I suspect they will monitor it carefully and figure out what to do."

And Greg says,

Yeah, Katrina (which hit in August 2005) was really rough on those Republicans, no question about it.

I was in Crawford, Texas, when Katrina hit. And I watched him fly overhead on his way to Arizona, where he presented McCain with a cake that both of them discarded after the photo op.

And unlike Bush and McCain, the people on the ground in Crawford that day were sorting batteries and blankets and non-perishable foods, loading buses and vans for immediate delivery to New Orleans.

I love New Orleans, really great memories of that city. So Katrina felt personal to me- self involved white woman that I am.

And if- and I say if- if the convention next week is in any way adversely affected by a storm like Gustav, I will take it as a sign that karma or the gods and goddesses have some scores to settle.

You could take it as a random act of weather, sure. But as a feminist ACLU member, I've been taking blame for years, and I would love th chance to spread it around.

I Have Become an Obamabot

I laughed at them. Silly cultists, drinking Kool-Aid, talking about The Savior, The Messiah, The One. I laughed at the slogans they chanted. Fired up. Hope and Change. Yes we can.

Bunch of nonsense.

I said I'd vote for him anyway. He's a Democrat, and we need one in the White House.

I said I'd vote for him anyway. McCain is worse, a continuation of eight disastrous years, and an assault on every single one of my personal and political values.

But this week, I stopped being just a Democrat who will vote for the party's nominee.

This week, I became an Obamabot.

I can't tell you the exact moment it happened.

I loved Michelle Obama's speech on Monday. She was stunningly beautiful and composed, but also warm and passionate. She spoke about her life, about her husband, about their beliefs and dreams that they want to share with the American people. With me.

When she said the words "18 million cracks," I cried. I couldn't help it. I'd wanted so much for Hillary Clinton to be the nominee and take back the White House and shatter the glass ceiling once and for all.

And there was Michelle Obama, who, with three simple words, not only acknowledged everything I felt, but said she felt the same way too. She wanted it too. She's a woman and a mother of two daughters, and she wants to smash that ceiling as much as I do.

And with those three words, she seemed to be promising that it will happen. Her husband will help us continue to shatter glass ceilings everywhere across America.

And I wept with joy and, yes, with hope.

But I don't know if that wasn't the moment I became an Obamabot.

Because then there was Tuesday. Oh, Tuesday.

When Hillary Clinton took the stage, was there any Democrat in America who would question why I and so many others supported her? She was glorious -- beautiful in a color few can wear, more passionate than she has ever been, gracious and sincere in her support of Obama, and clear in her message to all of us that we are Democrats, we are family, and we must work together to change this country.

And then she made me cry.

I'm a United States senator because in 1848 a group of courageous women and a few brave men gathered in Seneca Falls, New York, many traveling for days and nights -- (cheers, applause) -- to participate in the first convention on women's rights in our history.

And so dawned a struggle for the right to vote that would last 72 years, handed down by mother to daughter to granddaughter -- and a few sons and grandsons along the way.

These women and men looked into their daughters' eyes and imagined a fairer and freer world, and found the strength to fight. To rally. To picket. To endure ridicule and harassment, and brave violence and jail.

And after so many decades, 88 years ago on this very day, the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote became enshrined in our Constitution. (Cheers, applause.)

My mother was born before women could vote. My daughter got to vote for her mother for president. This is the story of America, of women and men who defy the odds and never give up.

But I don't know if that was the moment.

Because then there was Wednesday.

And on Wednesday, for the first time in eight years, I felt like maybe the Democratic Party was listening to us after all. Because we didn't want another wimpy convention, where Democrats were too afraid to take on Republicans. We don't want to play nice. We don't want to bite our tongues.

We want to win.

And they heard us. Was there any Democrat in America who watched John Kerry's speech and didn't think that if that John Kerry had reported for duty four years ago, we'd be working for President Kerry's re-election right now?

And there were others. The video of military service men and women telling their stories, pleading with us to end this war, bring them home, stop their friends from dying.

And there was the former Republican who proudly proclaimed he was now a Democrat because he knows his former party no longer represents anything but old, tired ideas that don't work.

And I realized in that moment that we are not just united -- we are unanimous. We all want change -- not just Obama supporters, not just Democrats, but all of us.

And then they gave us Bill. Bubba. The Big Dog. Call him what you will -- that man made me so proud to be a Democrat. Again. Finally.

Bill reminded us of why we loved him. Why we believed in him. Why we stood by him, in spite of all of his, uh, imperfections.

I fell in love with Bill Clinton all over again last night. Is there any Democrat in America who can't say the same?

He passed the torch. The man from Hope endorsed the man who gives us hope, and he did it with his trademark charm and humor and wit.

It was 1992, and I was a freshman in high school, sitting in my parents' living room with all their friends, cheering at the television as we watched President Bush's failed administration fade into oblivion and the dawning of a new era, and we danced and we sang, "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow."

What a tremendous feeling to hear that song once again. As if we were given permission to look into the future once more, instead of having to be afraid of what tomorrow might bring. No more terrorist threat color wheel; no more duct tape. It's going to be okay. We can look forward to tomorrow again.

But I don't know if that was the moment.

Because then Joe Biden spoke. And I'm no fan of Joe Biden. I could write an essay on all the reasons I'm no fan. I could, but I won't.

Because last night, I made peace with Joe Biden. I forgave him for all the ways he has let me down. None of that matters now. He did the job he needed to do. He made the case to us -- to me -- for Barack Obama. He made the case against John McCain. And this time, when he made one of his infamous gaffes, it was the right kind. Because John McCain really is just more of George Bush.

But I don't think Joe Biden's speech was the moment for me.

Because then Barack Obama himself took the stage, and I felt my heart swell and my lungs tighten and tears sting my eyes, and I realized that I wanted nothing more than to see this man, and his family, in the White House. In my White House.

I was convinced. After nearly two years and endless debate with my family and friends and fellow Kossacks, after my shock and disappointment at seeing my dream candidate defeated, after swallowing my pride and hopes and trying my best to be supportive of our party's nominee, and after an incredible week of seeing the all-stars of our party make the case, again and again and again, that we desperately need Barack Obama, I am convinced.

And I am fired up.

And I believe in Hope and Change.

I get it now. I understand.

Yes We Can.

Yes We Can.

Yes We Can.

It is not just a slogan. It is not just a silly music video made by celebrities who are want to endorse the next hip thing.

It is our truth, as Democrats and as Americans.

Yes. We. Can.

So this, today, is my moment. This is the moment I went from being a good Democrat to a proud Obamabot. Because today, I am going to my local campaign headquarters to volunteer for Barack Obama. Because helping to elect him may be the most important thing I've done in my thirty years so far.

Because now, I believe.

Yes We Can.



Cross-posted at DailyKos

McCain Campaign Issues Lying Ad?

So says (moderately brain damaged, usually) Jake Tapper:

From the Fact Check Desk: Did Obama Say Iran Is a 'Tiny' Country That 'Doesn't Pose a Serious Threat'?

August 27, 2008 11:13 AM

We, in the media, have given a lot of airtime to the TV ads of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., this week, starring, as they do, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.
There's been evidence emerging that McCain's campaign isn't really running these ads anywhere, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group.
"These were basically video press releases," CMAG’s Evan Tracey tells the Wall Street Journal.
OK, so that's kind of dishonest of the McCain campaign.
Today's new McCain ad -- "Tiny," [...] crosses a new line into dishonesty, however, beyond whether or not it's actually airing anywhere.
The script reads: "Iran. Radical Islamic government. Known sponsors of terrorism. Developing nuclear capabilities to 'generate power' but threatening to eliminate Israel.
"Obama says Iran is a 'tiny' country, 'doesn't pose a serious threat,'" the ad continues. "Terrorism, destroying Israel, those aren't 'serious threats'? Obama -- dangerously unprepared to be president."
This is a dishonest representation of Obama's words.

If Jake Tapper is willing to call you out, your slip is definitely showing.

For Theresa

Because Theresa likes a story, and I really want her to see the whole thing.

The day

Initially, I gave Bill Clinton's speech a B, because Bill is capable of great, soaring oratory, and I grade him on a curve.

Then I realized that Bill probably toned it down specifically because the night was not supposed to be about him. It's Biden's night, and Bill left some air in the room for Joe to use.

Biden did what I hoped he'd do: he came out strong and explained who he is and what he believed in, and then he began to sharply draw the lines and contrasts that need to be deeply carved into the national conversation over the next two months.

This administration has appallingly low approval ratings, holding steady in the high 20s-low 30s for about three years now. The only reason McCain has any footing at all is that his campaign has been able to keep McCain's image separate from McCain's actual policy judgments, which are almost identical to President Bush and Vice President Cheney's.

He has the same foreign policy advisers, essentially. His economic advisers advocate more of the same. And Biden's right: his judgment has been proven wrong on key foreign policy and domestic issues repeatedly over the past few years.

The Dems need to keep reminding everyone of where we're at, and who brought us here. Biden started the chorus off nicely.

Also, Angry Mouse. Angry Mouse sings a rousing chorus, too.

Biden

One thing I forgot about Biden: He can be pretty damned adorable.

Three More Reasons I'm Voting For Obama

I didn't vote for him in the primary.

I didn't advocate for him in the blogosphere until he won the nomination.

But damn it, I'm fired up. I'm ready to go.

And I'm proud to be an Obama supporter. I'm proud to say you will hear no condemnation from me about Barack Obama between now and November. I am proud to aspire to be Obama's biggest cheerleader on DailyKos.

I've already given three reasons for supporting Obama.

Well, here are three more:

One: Michelle Obama. We need this woman to be our First Lady. Brilliant, beautiful, accomplished, inspiring -- and dare I say it, as good a speaker as her husband, if not better.

The role of First Lady is a critical one, or at least it can be, with the right First Lady.

This country's second First Lady, Abigail Adams, was credited with being a powerful influence on her husband and a voice for women in our young democracy:

I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.

Eleanor Roosevelt damn near ran her husband's presidency toward its end.

Jackie Kennedy brought grace, sophistication, and French food to America.

And Hillary...Hillary showed this country that behind every powerful man, you better believe there's an equally powerful woman helping him along the way.

We need Michelle Obama, and her beautiful daughters, to bring vitality and joy back into the White House and across America.

Two: Hope and Change. I have mocked Hope and Change. Empty rhetoric, pretty words.

But I was wrong.

After two days of the Democratic Convention, I understand that now. I'm becoming a believer. Some speakers have been better than others, but many have sought to lay out the clear choice in this election: the past or the future.

McCain offers the past. War, dependence on foreign oil, tax breaks for the rich. And fear. Lots of fear. Fear of the terrorists and the Russians and Iraq and Iran and black men and free women and gay marriage and science.

But Obama offers us the future. He offers us the chance to believe that we can do more and be better. I don't know if Obama can deliver all of the dreams he has dared us to dream. I'm a pessimist by nature. But I'd rather hope for a brilliant future than fear we are forever trapped in a dismal past.

Three: Hillary Clinton. I didn't need her speech last night. I was one of her strongest supporters, but when Obama wrapped up the nomination, I jumped on board.

But still...

Last night, Hillary spoke to me. She inspired me. She made me laugh. She made me cry.

She spoke about the Seneca Falls Convention, where our long struggle began. She quoted Harriet Tubman, one of my favorite women in history. She urged us to keep going, keep fighting, keep standing up, keep trying.

Because one day, we're not just going to put cracks in the ceiling. We're going to shatter that damned ceiling once and for all.

And President Obama is going to help us do it.

She articulated what she stands for, which is why I voted for her, and she said -- in the clearest and plainest of words -- that Obama shares her values. My values. And McCain does not. No way. No how. No McCain.

Hillary made me proud, last night. Proud to have supported her, and proud to be supporting Obama now. But most importantly, she made me proud to be a Democrat. And that's something I haven't felt in eight years.

Because we are the party of the future. We are the party that put 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling.

We are the party of hope and change.

These are my three simple reasons. I'm sure I'll think of more.

What are yours?

Cross-posted at DailyKos

Calling all PUMAS: you're embarrassing me

The McCain camp's big strategy for this week is to use the simple little women it can get near to sow discontent in the Democratic party and peel away feminist support for Barack Obama. And the disgusting thing is that there seem to be quite a few simple little women lining up to help them do it.

Witness the ad they released: a Washington nurse and Hillary delegate, telling you "It's okay" to vote for a man who voted against the Lebetter legislation on equal pay this year.

Witness the pandering "Happy Hour for Hillary" party they're throwing in Denver.

Are you all so stupid that you don't understand you're being used? Are you all so self-involved that you don't notice when you're being lied to?

Got a problem with Obama referring to someone as "sweetie"? What about McCain referring to his wife as a cunt?

You wanna buy the idea that he will support Roe v. Wade? Did you watch the Saddleback forum? Have you listened to anything he has said on the subject during his entire public life- other than one comment in 1999? How about checking something easy- like his campaign website?

"Country before party"? So you think that the economy is swell, war is good, and if we deregulate everything except equal pay we'll be better off after 4 years of McCain? And that's why you were supporting Hllary Clinton?

I understand that there is an argument for acknowledging your disappointment. I know that you aren't fond of Obama, for whatever reason. But if your answer to all of this is to let the Republicans use you, you're an embarrassment.

Michelle

Michelle Obama knocked it out of the park last night. Anyone who could be reached must have been touched by her speech.

Of course there are the hystericals: the Nobama Puma narcissists and the set partisans. But if a democrat or independent or even republican with any opening in the head or heart watched her last night, I fail to imagine how they could come away without a new admiration for the woman.

Off for family fun today, and can't wait for tonight.

It's Biden

John Cole says:

BTW- The pick is probably gonna be Biden according to the media, who I rate as the person most likely of all the VP possibles to call Mitt Romney an asshole. Others are hoping for a casual “m____ f_____.” Either way, I call that a win.

Megan Gogerty says:

The best thing about Biden, though? He's so articulate. And clean.

I say Biden is a smart, if safe, choice. By "safe" I mean that he isn't the face of CHANGE, or anything so romantic and exciting as that.
He's a white male with a gazillion years in the senate, and a face and a name easily recognizable by much of the country. He's got foreign policy cred, and sort of a tough guy persona. And as the press is deeply concerned about "seriousness" -meaning things they hear and approve of at the right cocktail parties- Biden is likely a press-friendly choice. Over the years, they've probably been to a lot of the same cocktail parties and shared space on campaign buses and planes zooming off to serious foreign policy meetings.
Also, while he's not mac & cheese boring (Bayh), he's reassuring to people who can't handle the very radical idea of a black president and a woman VP- too much too soon! As much as we'd like to believe the country can handle it, there are an awful lot of nervous nellies out there, press and citizenry, for whom that idea would be just so frightening.

(Aside: I don't mean that I wouldn't have supported a "scary" choice. In many ways I think it might be a case if not now, when?)
I have watched too many senate hearings to love Biden. But I like him. And he can get mean- he should be great in the VP debates. And as for his tendency to say really amazingly stupid things: we're running against McCain here, a walking gaffe machine. I think that takes the heat off Biden somewhat.

More on surges and timelines

Froomkin:

In agreeing to pull U.S. combat troops out of Iraqi cities by June, and from the rest of the country by 2011, President Bush has apparently consented to precisely the kind of timetable that, when Democrats called for one, he dismissed as "setting a date for failure." Bush can call it an "aspirational goal" until he turns blue, but a timetable is exactly what it is, thank you very much. [snip]

It is hypothetically possible that an American pullout on this timetable will leave behind a peaceful, democratic and pro-Western Iraq. One can certainly hope. But it seems more likely that the sectarian fissures opened by the U.S. invasion and subsequent occupation will once again explode into violence as soon as U.S. troops -- and U.S. payments -- stop creating an artificial sense of stability.
And then, of course, there's Bush's own histrionic prediction. "It makes no sense to tell the enemy when you plan to start withdrawing," he said last May. "All the terrorists would have to do is mark their calendars and gather their strength -- and begin plotting how to overthrow the government and take control of the country of Iraq. I believe setting a deadline for withdrawal would demoralize the Iraqi people, would encourage killers across the broader Middle East, and send a signal that America will not keep its commitments. Setting a deadline for withdrawal is setting a date for failure -- and that would be irresponsible."
So the next big question is this: How will Bush explain this turnaround when he finally emerges from his Crawford vacation? Will he try to downplay its significance? Or will he actually suggest that the job is nearly done in Iraq? That would be a bold move indeed, but not one with a lot of evidence to support it.

Surges and timelines and "war"

The Bush administration will apparently agree to removing all US troops from Iraq's cities and villages by next June, with a complete pull out by the end of 2011. Note, though, that they are also stating a proviso that the proposed timeline will be subject to a review of "events on the ground", as usual. It's more of an "aspirational goal". Meaning they really do not want to be bound by such a plan, regardless of what Iraqis have to say about it.

Supporters of Bush military strategery, in particular the Surge™, would like us all to humbly apologize for ever opposing the Surge™, for ever doubting the supreme wisdom of the president and his generals.

Not so fast, kids.

I opposed the Surge™ for a few reasons, and I don't think any of those reservations have been resolved or proven wrong. Yes, if you put armed soldiers on enough street corners, violence in the immediate area will likely decrease. That isn't exactly deep thinking.

The Surge™ did not address the political and civil structure of the country. In fact, the successes touted by the administration over the past two years have often been dependent on the very fractures that keep Iraq from full political progress. In other words: if the majority Shia run the Sunnis out of a neighborhood, then sectarian violence in that neighborhood stops. This is a strategy still employed by Shia and Sunni throughout Iraq, creating a still growing wave of Iraqi refugees.

The Surge™ also takes a great deal of credit for decreases in violence which are due to the Sunni Awakening- those former insurgents who have been on our payroll to police their cities since about a year before the Surge™ began. This is particularly true outside of Baghdad, where the majority of Surge™ troops are focused.

But the majority Shia in the Iraqi government really don't like the Awakening, and are targeting them for arrest and imprisonment. We and the Sunnis had asked that they be trained and moved into the Iraqi armed forces, but that isn't happening at any great pace. Instead of integration and unity, we are simply seeing governmental reinforcement of the sectarian divide.

And that doesn't even address the Kurds, who are still a regional power in their own right. It doesn't address the still unbuilt infrastructure, which could be funded at this point by Iraqi budget surpluses.

The problem is that we keep calling this a war, and thinking that we can fight our way to victory. But if the Surge™ was supposed to "give the Iraqi government breathing room" so that they could build civil and legal frameworks and agreements, and make progress in uniting the country and so forth, how can we call what we're looking at now a victory? Iraq is still a deeply divided country, and it looks to me like the government will have a tough time getting to real reform because none of the key players trust each other, nor do I think they have developed a shared vision of what a healed Iraq will look like.

The Surge™ was and is a flawed approach because it is an extension of the same thinking that got us into this mess: that American military might is the sole answer to all questions, that this is a "war" at all.

It's an occupation, and not a well executed one.

The coveted D&D bloc

I had to send my teens a recap on the campaign D&D war. Most of them are too young to vote. All of them are deeply thoughtful. Some of them enjoy a regular D&D date, while others roll their eyes and beg for a different activity.

Pretty much all of them will think this is hysterical, and the GOP better hope they don't harbor deep resentments over petty, stupid things when they are old enough to register. Might not be good for the future of the party.

But in their new role as bloggers, the paper’s editors seem to have all the intelligence and reason of the average Daily Kos diarist sitting at home in his mother’s basement and ranting into the ether between games of dungeons and dragons.

- McCain campaign in-house blogger Michael Goldfarb on 8/1, responding to criticism of a campaign commercial by the NYT editorial blog.

If my comments caused any harm or hurt to the hard working Americans who play Dungeons & Dragons, I apologize. This campaign is committed to increasing the strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma scores of every American.

- Goldfarb responding to criticism on the internet, which may or may not have been raised by actual D&D players

It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others.

- Goldfarb on 8/18, responding to questions about the candidate's veracity

It’s official. Thanks to some initiative-taking readers (or perhaps someone totally unrelated to this blog… I’m still not sure), the “Pro-Obama Dungeons and Dragons Crowd” group has been created at MyBarackObama.com. [snip] We even have not one, but two completely awesome logos, made by McE and Beth, respectively… w00t!

- candleboy.com

Different universe

Via TPM, via Politico:

The McCains increased their budget for household employees from $184,000 in 2006 to $273,000 in 2007, according to John McCain's tax returns.

My domestic "staff" is paid approximately 1 big bag of Iams per month.



Krugman fleshes out the differences.

Nice

Is there another David Gregory that I don't know about?

Weird.

Despite his often piercing and on-point questions, this behavior has cemented David Gregory as a liberal-media-conspiracy incarnate in the eyes of conservatives and a kind of tough-questioning hero to many on the anti-Bush left.

There must be another David Gregory out there that I am unaware of.

And very very happy that Rachel Maddow will anchor her own show.

I want my habeas back

The AG thinks the FBI needs broader surveillance powers, and he's fixin' to do something about it. From NYT:

WASHINGTON — A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion, Democratic lawmakers briefed on the details said Wednesday.

The plan, which could be made public next month, has already generated intense interest and speculation. Little is known about its precise language, but civil liberties advocates say they fear it could give the government even broader license to open terrorism investigations.

On Tuesday, I listened to a really great Fresh Air with Terry Gross segment with Michael Beschoss, on his book Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-1964.

A couple of bits of the original tapes from October 1964 are fascinating and have topical relevance. LBJ is on the eve of a reelection campaign, and his private conversations with a couple of key figures kept me in my car. Listen to his conversation with Billy Graham (about 9 minutes in at the link above) if you think that using evangelical leaders to cover one's political ass was invented in 1980.

The segment that I'm thinking about this morning, though, was a conversation toward the end of October with J. Edgar Hoover.

LBJ is worried, because there are rumors of a pending "October Surprise" planned by the Goldwater camp. Specifically, he's worried that Goldwater's team may have found and will name secret homosexuals within the administration, or photos of Johnson himself with a woman of ill repute. A Republican operator has scored a point earlier in the month, discovering that close Johnson aide Walter Jenkins was arrested at a DC YMCA having sex with a man. The press was tipped off, and Johnson suddenly feels vulnerable on the "morality" issue.

On the one hand, this tape has a comic edge: Johnson is aware of the rumors about Hoover's sexuality, so he is probably taking some real pleasure in pressing him about how one might know that someone was "queer". It's amusing if disgusting as they discuss the ways men part their hair, "walking funny", mannerisms, and the like.

But this conversation is only one part of a broader narrative. Johnson was on the phone with The director of the FBI a lot during these weeks, for one reason and one reason only: to put a stop to any opposition research hitting the press in the run up to the election.

Beschloss makes the point that this was in no way atypical presidential behavior. That the FBI should be used to silence potential scandal doesn't appear to have been questioned. We talk about the "hands off" approach that the press took with FDR's disabilities or JFK's private life, but I wonder how much of that had to do with the presidential ability to call out the goons when needed to squelch gossip or unflattering information.

The Nixon administration's grasping paranoia brought an end, for a time, to the use of the FBI as a private security force and the DOJ as a political shield. But since 9/11/01, new fears and paranoia have given strength to the expansion of executive power and the lessening of restrictions or oversight with regard to the practices of the military, the FBI, the NSA, and the DOJ. The agencies and institutions which could wreak the most damage to a constitutional republic have been steadily freed from restrictions designed to protect the country and its citizens from constitutional abuse, while the institutions whose role it is to provide oversight and correction have seen their influence steadily usurped (congress) or undermined through political maneuvering and deck-stacking (the courts, the free press). All under the undying zombie meme that they need all these "tools" to prevent another major terrorist attack.

But. It has been extensively documented that the failures of the FBI and intelligence agencies prior to 9/11/01 were due not to a lack of information, but a lack of action. The FBI had plenty of dots to connect, plenty of actionable intelligence. The lack was in leadership. Anti-terrorist investigation was not given priority, and key information was not shared up the chain of command.

The idea that 9/11/01 would have been prevented if only the agencies had better tools is false. But it's prevalent, and it has lead to the destruction of law and order, and of constitutional protections. While I'm sure that Bush and Mukasey really just want to keep everybody safe, they are creating tools which can -and will, given our history- be used as political bludgeons, and undermine the integrity of our criminal justice system.

Quite a legacy.

Mukasey, for his part, says that the new guidelines are intended merely to assist poor, confused agents, who cannot seem to figure out the rules as they are (this is the same reason Mukasey gives for the politicization of Justice under AG Gonzalez). He has agreed not to sign the new guidelines until after a congressional hearing on 9/17.

Let's hope the congress shows some spine. That would be a nice change.

More on public education

Earlier, I posted,

I really believe that a lot of parents make the choice to keep their kids out of the public school system because they have been told, over and over again, that it won't serve them, and the only solution is home-schooling or vouchers.

Over at Salon today, a conversation with Sandra Tsing Loh caught my eye.

Loh's kids are in a school district about 2 over from mine, LAUSD. LAUSD is a behemoth, and it is legendarily hard to find a good neighborhood school within its confines. As a mom without the resources to fund the recommended $25k per year private schools in her area, she did something unheard of: she went to her neighborhood school to see what they could offer.

When I was at public radio looking at kindergartens for [my older daughter] Madeline, for months I did not meet anybody who had their kids in public school in Los Angeles, which is really shocking. I'm a journalist so my friends are journalists: magazines, newspapers, even public radio. Nobody had their kids in public school. That's why I would never think of just going to the corner school and poking my head in. Because that's like going to the DMV.

[snip]

I started doing these questionnaires. I'd say, "OK, before we get started: On a scale of 1-10, how terrified are you of your local kindergarten?" 11! "Have you ever set foot inside that kindergarten?" No! "Do you know any living soul who has ever set foot inside that school?" No! "How do you know the school is so bad?" Uh, neighbor ...? Nobody had any direct experience of that school, but they were so terrified.

So what happens when you take the chance and look inside?

At our school, they're learning to read like gangbusters, the teachers are great, the solids are definitely there. But they didn't have instrumental music. So I found out that VH1 gives grants of new musical instruments to schools, and I did a lot of fancy footwork to get these instruments to our school. Sometimes with these school grants, it's like the Mafia truck drives up and stereos fall off. And it's like, get the stereos! I don't know where we'll put them, but get them! It was like that with these instruments. We got them, and then I had to find a music teacher and then pay the music teacher. It was a bit of a thing to unravel. Yet for me it was sort of fun.

We needed an after-school program. We didn't have one. And our PTA, we were able to start an after-school program with arts and crafts -- and even piano. Piano lessons, they're $55 for half an hour to teach a 6-year-old. We can't afford that either. And if we don't have affordable piano lessons, no one will play the piano. So we got these affordable lessons. I'm in a pocket of bohemian parents who have a little extra time and can teach an art or craft class. Five dollars a lesson, maybe $6, pretty cheap. We scholarship people for free and we still have money left to pay our violin teacher. It's an economy of scale. We know how to rub quarters together and make something.

The public schools need our personal, community, and political support, not the hand wringing. Not the dropping out, by way of home school or private academies. Tsing Loh makes this point,

And I think that goes back to the public school thing, where on one affluent block, in Los Angeles, every morning about 7 a.m. you see the four Lexuses and Range Rovers bolting out of the driveways and going to four different private schools in four different remote parts of the city. If they each just went to the corner public school and took one year of tuition -- $25,000 a year -- and put it into that school for one year, that would be $100,000. That school could buy a new gym, and everyone would save so much money -- you'd save gas, you'd save the planet -- if people just looked around and started thinking a little more communally rather than competitively.

Where I live, in the land of really decent public schools, the hand-wringing and opting out contribute almost as much to the district's difficulties as the budget shortfalls do. I read comment in the local paper a few weeks ago (paraphrasing):

Both of my kids went to private school, so I don't know very much about the local public schools. But I've seen the results: not pretty.

Really? Because I work with teens, and over the past 8 or 9 years I've watched my public-schooled teens go off to prestigious colleges. I've watched them work really hard through high school, in band, in sports, in internship programs with scientific labs. I've seen the way they work in community, heard them express their ideas, their values, and their bemusement over what on earth the adults are so freaked out about.

I've seen the same things from private and home-schooled kids. And I've seen adolescent angst turn into late teen torpor and worried about how best to guide them back in progress and growth. Whether their schooling has been public, private, or at home, the kids are, essentially, kids.

Unfortunately, the tide in this town seems to be turning toward elite selfishness, with parents demanding special charter schools for their special kids, threatening to drop out of the district if they don't get their way, and a school board election coming up which, I fear, will elect a board weighted with cultural extremists who've told the parents that they should have everything they want, and left out the facts that they will also push for prayer in schools and probably the teaching of ID.

We'll see.

But a word of advice to new parents of 4 year olds here in California: read Tsing Loh's article, and then go down to your local school and get to know it.

New item on the "Friends" roll

Just recently found out that pal Dave has a blog, Compassionate Warmonger. He's agreed that we won't get into a fight if I take issue with his points here. So will do that later this week.

In the meantime, stroll on over.

Saddleback forum: my final word (I think)

After the previous post, I spent some time watching replay of the Obama segment, and spent some time on the phone with a pal who was unnerved by McCain's answers and outraged that the forum was held before such a friendly audience. I think, however, that the vent has to be, for Obama, a net positive, for the following reasons.

Obama was thoughtful and gave mostly clear, concise, answers. As congregants at Saddleback told Salon's Mike Madden yesterday, they came away having seen an authentic man, a principled man, a man that was worthy of respect and their attention, even if they weren't going to vote for him in the fall (after all, as one pointed out, they are the people who make $250k or more, and don't think they are wealthy, as they still "struggle" to keep all that they have acquired).

The Saddleback congregation wasn' the only audience, though. And if middle-of-the-road voters across the nation got to experience that same authenticity and thoughtfulness, how can that be a negative? In a campaign season where the biggest themes running against Obama seem to be his "elitism", his not really being"like us", the "who is he and why should we trust him?" theme, how can it be bad for him to have an extended open conversation in such a sensational forum?

There are segments of the voting population who will vote for John McCain no matter what happens: they are hard-line "pro-lifers", or reflexive anti-taxers, or so deeply partisan that John McCain could spend the rest of campaign season in a bunny suit handing out peeps and singing camp songs and he wouldn't lose their vote because he's a republican.

There are still the Tony Perkins and James Dobsons of the world, and their email lists of people like my mom who will always vote for whomever they label "conservative" enough in their version of "Judeo-Christian values". There are the audiences of Jerome Corsi and Rush Limbaugh and Mchael Savage and others who will absorb every lie they hear and presume that they now know everything there is to know about the Senator form Illinois.

And there are people who are either still devoted to President Bush, or completely in love with McCain's prisoner of war stories.

Obama will never, not in a million years, get a vote from these people.

But any chance he gets to reveal himself in an extended, authentic way before a national audience, any time he can spend which is not devoted to answering smears and misrepresentations, is a net positive. Because he's that good, that smart, that real.

Aside: memo to the McCain camp on the "Cone of Silence" :

It's not so much that anyone would question the honesty of "A John McCain, a former prisoner of war", it's that we question the deviousness and history of cheats and low blows by his campaign staff.

In other words, don't ask us to trust the integrity of the candidate when we know the campaign is run by Karl Rove and his accolytes.

Saddleback forum: initial impressions

I think the only problem I have with this forum taking place at a church is that it's only going to take place at a church. That is to say: this kind of forum, this "conversation", as Barack called it, should be taking place every day, in many venues, so that the electorate isn't making decisions based on a single talk radio show and a few campaign ads.

Yes, we'll have the official debates, but not enough of them. And the moderation may or may not be good.

The format: on the plus side, no "gotchas". Each asked the same question, not playing off one another.
On the downside: no follow-ups. For instance, when McCain talked about torture, he got to say that he was against it. No follow up on his capitulation to the president on this issue.

I was out all day, so missed most of Obama. Saw all of McCain.

Hated the "I don't want to raise taxes" speech. It was based on two false points.
1: The Republican canard that we will all magically get rich together. As my husband says, societies will always have ditch diggers, and this get rich together! fantasy never addresses them.
2: Did you know that the congress committed a few million dollars to some mammal paternity research thing? McCain made a good joke on this line ("I don't know if this was a legal issue"), but the truth, as any economist or budget analyst knows, is that eliminating these little earmarks alone will never solve our budget woes. McCain also knows that he's been as skilled as almost any of them at bringing home the bacon.

Hated the "choice and competition" bit on education. Build public education because it is for the public and the national good. Period.
I really believe that a lot of parents make the choice to keep their kids out of the public school system because they have been told, over and over again, that it won't serve them, and the only solution is home-schooling or vouchers.

Really did not like McCain's response on marriage equality, because saying people of same gender can make "legal arrangements" falsely suggests that these "legal arrangements" offer the same protections as a legal marriage. They do not even come close, and I am sure the Senator knows this.

Barack seemed comfortable and open during the portion I saw. Really appreciated the final answer, he'd tell Americans that great sacrifice may be required of our generation, and we should be up to the task, as our parents and grandparents were. Much more appealing to me than "My friends, we should all be rich."

Just by the way: on a very personal level, I really resented McCain's response to the wealth question. He spoke about people who've suddenly lost jobs, insurance, etc, and then said something about giving people hope. No, asshole. I have hope. I want an income and some upward mobility. Which I will continue to work toward, if you and your pals will stop wreaking havoc on the national economic playing field.

I don't like being lectured about rich people being unhappy by a man in $500 shoes while I'm sitting at home wondering about how I'll make enough money to keep paying my mortgage this year.

The CNN heads are going to do "analysis" now. Let's see how big the war hero worship can get.

Experience, judgement

Salon has a new blog, Open Salon, and I'm becoming enamored of a poster named Leigh, who writes as a deep insider in the DC game. I want to draw attention to his post today.

In about fifteen years I was a skilled and experienced international lawyer for the US government. And even though it is illegal I learned the lobbying trade at the same time because the Executive Branch lobbies Congress every day. (It's called giving technical advice so as not offend the law.) (Despite eight years as President I'm sure "W" doesn't know that arm-twisting on Capitol Hill is a criminal offense for a government employee. But he lacks lots of experience.)
To the best of my knowledge no American President has interpreted treaties, negotiated in 80 countries, worked the delegates at the UN, seen Robert McNamara nude in the Pentagon swimming pool when he had to be briefed in a big hurry and manipulated Congress at the same time. Short of doing that no President has ever had serious experience in international affairs or national security affairs. People will tell you that Roosevelt was an Assistant Secretary of the Navy. By the time an issue got that high in the Navy Department it was already decided. FDR was not an expert in international affairs and national security until he was close to dying. One of our best Presidents succeeded him with no warning, Harry Truman. HST was a haberdasher in Missouri. When he became Vice President under Roosevelt he was given nothing to do and had no briefings of importance. But he had what Obama has, brains, judgement and personality.
[snip]
I want to mention one other thing. "Traveling Senators". They are set up by the State Department. Their appointments are arranged. The people they meet are pre-selected, they are made to feel important and given leather bound briefing books with all the "right" answers and they are taken shopping. Cocktail parties a plenty. They are duped. Except for a spontaneous greeting like the one Obama got in Berlin. Don't imagine the Bush State department helped set that one up for a Democrat.
[snip]
So where did McCain get his foreign affairs and national security experience? He didn't. He went to the movies. Thousands of witnesses paraded before the dais of his committee and carefully guarded the truth to ensure that McCain didn't know it. Sometimes he was given classified briefing books market Top Secret with a cover sheet bordered in red. But the contents of the briefing book only included information the executive branch wanted him to have. He was duped.
I could go on all day but you get the point. Washington is run, arranged and manipulated by the executive branch to dupe the dupeables. McCain was one of those. That's why he doesn't know the difference between Sunni and Shiite. Its hard to remember all those words when you only read five minutes a day. If he read much more he would have graduated higher than the bottom of his Annapolis Naval Academy class.
Obama has no more (or less experience) than McCain. But there is one big difference. He's smart as a whip (and being President of the Harvard Law Review attests to that. If you have that title in your resume today you can work anywhere in the country you want and fresh out of law school you'll be earning $165,000) and he isn't one of the dupeables. He is a quick learner. McCain thought he'd royally screw up his foreign trip and say the wrong word at the wrong time so he goaded him. Then he had to do everything possible to destroy a man who obviously slid right into the role of a wizened chief of state. When the Russians invaded Georgia McCain attacked viciously and immediately. Obama attacked mildly and cautiously. The experienced foreign policy expert would have done what Obama did. The temperamental foolish dupe would do what McCain did. He didn't even have time for his staff to brief him on the importance of Russia's help in settling that minor atomic bomb crisis in Iran before shooting off his mouth. But Obama was thinking. Always thinking. And Obama is a nice man or he knows how to present himself as a nice man. Either one is better than McCain who acts like a son of a bitch. And the media kisses his ass because he's a maverick.
[snip]
No matter what you hear, Presidents do occasionally get that 3:00 AM phone call. I can just hear Obama saying "Tell me more". I hear McCain saying, "Let's go get those fuckers".
Most of you are too young to have lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis with a President Kennedy and his brother Robert both of whom lacked McCain's so called experience. I am quite confident that if McCain had been President during the Cuban Missile Crisis I would be dead now, along with my wife and children and I can't imagine what the rest of the country would have been like. I am certain that Obama could be trusted to guide us through that nightmare. We really did believe we would all die the next day in a nuclear holocaust. Go back and read if you didn't live through it. But we slept better with a smart, personable man of good judgment than we would be entitled to sleep if John McCain were President.

Which goes back to my earlier (outsider) post on Wisdom. A president must listen, and then exercise sound judgement. According to contemporary accounts, the current president refuses new or more complex information than he has already based his decisions on, and either allows the information received through a very filtered single source (the VP's office) or directs the information be changed or created out of whole cloth to support his ideas (Suskind).

And then there comes the question of exercising judgment. Even in cases where he might have had the best information available, I think we can all agree that his judgments tended to result in either total failure (Katrina), opposite outcomes (democratically elected Hamas officoals in Palestine), or a prolonged mess of one step forward, two steps back (the rebuilding of civil society in Iraq and Afghanistan).

John McCain, despite his "maverick" reputation, has voted with Bush administration goals and proposals 95% of Bush's term. And this week, his response to the situation between Russia and Georgia has sounded painfully like our current president, if even more hawkish. Despite the fact that our recent diplomatic efforts in the region have really painted us into a corner and tied our hands in this conflict.

Should the cold war be heating up again, should we face a power over the next 8 years who's actually armed enough to cause us great harm, I want a JFK on that phone. A deep thinker as well as a pragmatist, who projected good will to the harshest of America's critic, who had some diplomatic credibility as well as the brain power to keep that button from being pushed, in the USSR or here in the states.

We don't truly know how either candidate would lead until the office tests them. But we can look at their tendancies in the time we've known them and make the best decision.

I'm voting for the guy who has demonstrated the ability to listen, to respond, to allow his plans to evolve and change as new information is made available.

Hot (predictable, unsurprising) sex

I was just over at Huffington Post, where the have a JOHN EDWARDS BIG NEWS PAGE! Interested? Sure- the guy had sex. I mean, he's no David Vitter or Mark Foley or Larry Craig, but WHO KNEW HE HAD A PENIS? Let me save you some time. Here's the BIG NEWS, in summary.

John Edwards had an affair. The woman's name is Rielle Hunter. She made web vids for the Edwards campaign, which is over, and which did not focus on marital fidelity and phony family values. She has a child, who may or may not be the product of said affair. John's (amazing) wife, Elizabeth, has been aware of the affair, and wishes, of course, that it had remained a private thing, between John and Rielle and his family.

Got it? That's what you need to know.

Over on Open Salon, Leigh wrote:

Now we have a bunch of fools who would argue that if a man cheats on his wife it reflects on his character and the public needs to know. But that's hypocritical bull shit which only came into fashion when the Republican Party planted the seeds of real honest to God fundamentalist Christianity and watered them and gave them plenty of fertilizer.
I have spent more than fifty years in Washington. I have hardly met a member of Congress who wasn't shtupping some woman in his office. And of course they lie. Who wouldn't? The one thing the media is ridiculing John Edwards for today is his 99% honest statement. I doubt that's true but if you can really find a member of Congress who is 99% honest you have found the Hope diamond. In all my years in Washington I only met two members of Congress who I found to be completely trustworthy and honorable; and even they cheated on their wives occasionally. I'll tell you who they were another day.

Over at Aristocrats, Paul wrote:

Reporters seem obliged to ask the question, "Why did you do it?" Inevitably, this leads to a complicated self-examination ("I was depressed at the time..." or something) and introspective condemnation ("I knew it was wrong but...")
[snip]
Someday, the Lord Of The Rednecks (whoever that might be) will get caught and, lacking the verbal tools of pop psychology, he'll wrinkle his brow when the question is asked, think back to when it happened, and answer, "Well, she was there and I got a boner - or I got a boner and she was there - I forget which. She seemed willing and, sure enough, she was. Next thing you know..."

I will vote for that man, even if he's a Republican. It's really not complicated at all, in fact it's kinda natural. Anyone who knows that is fit to lead. Important decisions, like trivial ones, are best made on the facts at hand and not behind a cloud of some mystical idealogical bullshit. Oh, to hear "the lord" or one of his lesser lieutenants just come out and say it, "Yeah, I fucked her."

Ok. Now that we've finished with THE BIG NEWS ON JOHN EDWARDS' PENIS, could we talk about Russia? China? Did the president instruct the CIA to forge "evidence" against Saddam Hussein? I mean, Suskind's book never, to my knowledge, mentions whether the president's penis had anything to do with it, but still.

How about discussing the actual, current presidential candidates actual, documented, positions on key issues and policy ideas, rather than whether they appeal to Hot Chicks (spoiler: the old guy, according to his campaign, does not).

Last word: Someone (Josh Marshall? Who was it?) wrote this week that arguably the worst outcome of the Edwards story is the silencing of Elizabeth, a smart and savvy woman of class and ideas, who, should she face the cameras again and approach issues of poverty or health care policy, will be met with, "But how did it feel when you found out?"

Dear Senator Lieberman:

Fuck You.

"Between one candidate, John McCain, who has always put the country first, worked across party lines to get things done, and one candidate who has not."

When was Senator McCain MORE selfless?

Was it when Barack Obama was working as a community organizer, and Senator McCain was one of the Keating 5?

Was it when Senator Obama was paying off his college loans, and Senator McCain was buying $500 fucking Italian shoes?

Was it earlier this week, when St McCain decided that Ralph Reed, the man whose undoing was largely due to Senator McCain's own committee investigation, was a worthy surrogate and fundraiser?

Is that when it was? When he decided to put friendship with a money-laundering phony over an honest campaign?

You know, I really do hate all of politics-of-the-personal garbage, and that includes the bit about Senator McCain's shoes. But as his campaign knows that he has no hope of winning if he's honest about his policies and ideas, they've decided to go Rove. And Senator Joe Lieberman is the biggest loudest lyingest fucking asshole they've got.

This just in: we're it

The press and the blogs have been going a bit crazy over this Obama theme. We are the ones we've been waiting for. Or This is the moment. Or any variation thereof.

Messiah complex? No. It's a call to collective work, as one would know if one spent time within a place of liberal religion. It speaks to the entwined natures of freedom and responsibility. As Annie Dillard wrote,

Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord or who shall stand in his holy place? There is no one but us. There is no one to send, nor a clean hand, nor a pure heart on the face of the earth, nor in the earth, but only us, a generation comforting ourselves with the notion that we have come at an awkward time, that our innocent fathers are all dead� as if innocence had ever been�and our children busy and troubled, and we ourselves unfit, not yet ready, having each of us chosen wrongly, made a false start, failed, yielded to impulse and the tangled comfort of pleasures, and grown exhausted, unable to seek the thread, weak and involved. There is no one but us. There never has been.

Liberal religion, honoring as it does the dignity and worth of each person, of each mind, calls us to do the necessary work, to see our values given life.

The Right likes to remind us that Martin Luther King and most of the abolitionist movement were religious- yes, they were. But merely using labels like "Christian" or "Religious" doesn't explain the grounding of their movements. These and other progressive movements were inspired not by the death of Jesus or the infallibility of the Bible, but by the understanding that in this world, in this time, the only way society will reflect our deeper values is if we are willing to roll up our sleeves and make it happen.

When Obama speaks of the change we seek, and of this being our moment, he isn't talking in messianic terms. He isn't talking about partisan goals, or end moments, no culmination of anything. He's talking to the deeply felt yearning in each of us to see justice, to live our values, so that others may live. He's talking to the parts of us who've felt left out of the process, helpless, while the big cogs of government turn and our leaders give us answers that don't answer for anything.

He's saying, of course you can do this. You have to.

He's talking about personal responsibility. One wonders why that freaks the republicans out so much, as this has been their (empty) mantra for the last 40 years.

Dick Cheney said that conservation is a personal virtue that has no place in public policy. Barack Obama says that policy has got to broaden if we're going to achieve energy independence, and hey, by the way: are you doing everything you can to help out at your house?

Again, I have no idea why this freaks out the "personal responsibility" people.

And while the policies that will be pursued are, rightly, secular; the call reaches from within a liberal religious perspective, and attempts to speak to everyone, of whatever stripe.

It's not messianic. It's responsibility. So dear press corps and right-wing blogs: please get over your juvenile bullshit.

Crazy-ass friends

Don't forget to tell them you love them.

Because you do, and because when one of them suffers a tragic loss, you will want to be there for them. Unintentional walls between you will feel really, really bad.

Mike Dunn needs to share, too

In comments, bookslinger recommends Dunn's recent letter to the TO Acorn. I had read the letter and wanted to write about it, thanks to bookslinger for prompting me to just do it. As bookslinger notes:

It is telling that not once does he mention the students which he serves, in his letter about "what makes (him) tick."

Indeed. What he does say is this:

Here's what makes me tick:

I grew up in the 1950s eating graham crackers dipped in milk while watching television on a 1956 Packard Bell with wooden knobs. Superman, Roy Rogers, Billy Graham Crusades, Ozzie and Harriet, Mighty Mouse, Disneyland, Lawrence Welk, Lassie and the Untouchables with Elliott Ness were favorites.

The 1950s instilled in me a sense of optimism, faith, justice, morality and patriotism. I still have the 1956 Packard Bell TV, and it works.

Our congressman was a Democrat, James Charles Corman. Corman was born in Galena, Cherokee County, Kansas, on Oct. 20, 1920. He moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1933. Corman served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps with the 3rd Marine Division from 1942 to 1946. He was in the Bougainville, Guam and Iwo Jima actions. He was my congressman from 1961 to 1981.

Congressman Corman did something I never forgot: he conducted polls before he voted. Our family would get a letter about every three months asking our opinion of about three different issues. Corman would tabulate the results and then vote, representing the wishes of voters in his district.

I loved Corman. He was a war hero. He conducted polls. He listened to the people. He was honest, uncorruptable. He represented the people when he voted.

He listened to the people.

When I got elected to the Conejo Valley Unified School District School Board, Corman became my mentor and the example that I've followed as a trustee.

Following Corman's example, I polled teachers asking when they wanted Christmas vacation to start. The result: Union bosses Arliegh Kidd and Susan Falk issued a complaint that I violated the labor code. I polled PTA presidents seeking opinions on school closures. The result: Trustees Dolores Didio and Dorothy Beaubien gave me a "Stalin style" no witness, show trial and censured me. Didio and Beaubien should retire.

James Charles Corman, congressman, war hero, family man, my mentor, my example to follow, died in 2001 at 80 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Corman and Ronald Reagan are my heroes.
Michael Dunn
Newbury Park

Oh god, where to start.

There's this romantic movie called "The 1950s". Fans of this movie become so engrossed in the beautifully written plot that they cannot, will not, netflix something new for a change. It's "The 1950s" or nothing, because this movie is the height of human achievement, the nexus of imagination and moral fortitude.

But all they're really talking about is a movie. And it's not like it's a documentary. It's just a movie.

I grew up in the 1970s, and while fans of "The 1950s" really only see the drug scenes and permissive sex scenes, my movie has its own optimism. I grew up optimistic about the equality of women and racial minorities being, you know, normal. SOP. I also got to watch the moon landing on TV- the culmination of a decade of a governmental and societal drive toward progress and science.

Growing up in Southern California in the 1970s, you could believe that racism was a thing almost of the past, and that sexism soon would be. When my grandmother told me that Martin Luther King was a trouble maker and the KKK were upright citizens, I could chalk that up to the outdated memories of an old southern woman. And when Phylis Schafly and friends put out their hysterical tripe about the ERA and how it would be the ruin of American women, you could hope that their craziness was a soon to be vanished backlash against necessary and just change.

And I never, no never, thought of or heard anything about a war on Christianity, of all things. Saying Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays hadn't yet become a political statement.

So my own personal movie is optimistic and hopeful, but also cautious and not a little bit disappointed in the way a certain sector of society and opinion seems to have taken on the identity of the victim, howling about the low returns they're getting on their goddamn movie, "The 1950s".
(Hey: remember that the top tax rates in the '50s jumped around in the 80% range most of the time? Which meant that a lot of the optimism of that decade was given solid grounding in the building of vital infrastructure and the funding of priorities deemed important by the American people.)

Mr. Dunn: there was nothing "Stalin style" about your censure on the school board (Also note that in future, for stylistic purposes, you may want to use stalinesque).

There are rules in any governing body, you chose not to learn them. You said that taking training would be agreeing to brainwashing. You were given the opportunity to apoligize and stop acting like a spoiled ass, you chose to chew your gum and cross your arms and continue acting like a spoiled ass.

Of course, you weren't censured for being an ass; that would in itself be against the rules. You were censured for breaking the rules.

So, this open society you fear so deeply- the one where there is no right or wrong, only what feels good, the one that you're pretty sure George Soros is forcing us into- is this in evidence when you flout governmental rules and standards of decent behavior in your work on the school board?

Ignoring the rules of the governing body you've been elected to serve on: would that be right, because its in some way respectful of the rules? Or wrong, because you are just doing what feels good to you, based on your love of a fictionalized plot that you developed all on your own?

PS: I don't serve on the board and I haven't asked any of the members, but I'm betting that if you really wanted the teachers' opinions on anything, there's probably a means to legally ask for said opinions. That might mean asking someone who knows the ropes to advise you as to the how.

After a respite, the keyboard beckons

It's been almost two weeks since I last logged on. Knoxville took my attention for a time. I worked out a local service with two other women in their honor, which we will hold tomorrow night. We'll acknowledge the sadness and anger, honor the dead and express our support for the surviving community. And we'll reaffirm our shared values. Putting this together has been a powerful experience for me. Almost no writing was required; there have been so many beautiful words written by UUs across the country. Creating the service was almost a process of simple selection and editing.

In addition to Knoxville, certain home and hearth things have been demanding, and so I haven't made the time to write about exterior things.

But my personal internal is often moved forcefully by the external, so it's best that I blog, even if it has no outcome other than that I have spent some time forming sentences.

Ahhh... so off I go.