Month: May 2008

There Is No They There

by digby

Steve Benen points to more self-serving media navel gazing:

Harwood explained that the McCain campaign, in a move that “many Republicans would find ironic,” is pushing the line that the press is friendlier to Obama. Harwood said, “John McCain’s benefited from very friendly press coverage for many years, but he’s going to try to argue, which will have corollary benefit of rallying conservatives, if he can pull it off, of saying, ‘The press wants Obama to win. I’m pushing back, too.’” Tim Russert added, “In 2002, John McCain referred to the press as his base.” To which Harwood responded, “They were his base.”

I guess somebody should have reminded them that the name of the show they were on is called —Meet The Press. They are the “they” of which they speak. But then Russert spent two years pontificating on the same show about Scooter Libby pretending he wasn’t a major playing in the investigation, so this isn’t exactly new. He’s the Village High Inquisitor, charged with ensuring that the one true conventional wisdom is adhered to for the good of all. He isn’t a member of the press at all.

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We’re Chillin’

by digby

I realize that a good many people think I’m living in cloud cuckoo-land, but apparently a large majority of the Democratic party is drooling and delusional right along with me:

Pushing back against political punditry, more than six in 10 Democrats say there’s no rush for Hillary Clinton to leave the presidential race even as Barack Obama consolidates his support for the nomination and scores solidly in general-election tests.

Despite Obama’s advantage in delegates and popular vote, 64 percent of Democrats in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say Clinton should remain in the race. Even among Obama’s supporters, 42 percent say so.

That’s not a majority endorsement of Clinton’s candidacy; Democrats by a 12-point margin would rather see Obama as the nominee, a lead that’s held steadily in ABC News/Washington Post polls since early March. Instead it reflects a rejection of the notion that the drawn-out contest will hurt the party’s prospects. Seventy-one percent think it’ll either make no difference in November (56 percent) or actually help the party (15 percent).

Those views correspond with opinions on Clinton continuing her candidacy. And in a related result, 85 percent of Democrats (including Democratic-leaning independents) are confident the party would come together behind Obama as the nominee though fewer, 45 percent, are “very” confident of it. That underscores the importance of the endgame for the party’s prospects.

The second slot is one possibility: Clinton continues as the preferred choice as Obama’s running mate, with 39 percent of Democrats saying they’d like him to pick her if he’s the nominee. That peaks at 59 percent of African-Americans, 47 percent of Clinton supporters and 42 percent of women (vs. 34 percent of men).

I’m not necessarily endorsing the Unity ticket, but I don’t see a lot of hate and division in those numbers. If nearly 60% of African Americans prefer Clinton on the ticket, it’s fair to say that the party isn’t irrevocably broken.

And McCain just looks sad;

In other signs of difficulties for McCain, Obama leads him in trust to handle the public’s top issue, the economy, by 10 points; in trust to handle gasoline prices, by 20 points; and in trust to handle health care, by 24 points. On personal attributes Obama leads by wide margins as being better able to bring needed change, having the better temperament for the job, better empathy and a clearer vision for the future.

McCain also could suffer from the broader public discontent, generally and with George W. Bush in particular. Public disgruntlement neared a record high in this poll, with 82 percent of Americans saying the country’s seriously off on the wrong track, up 10 points in the past year to a point from its record high in polls since 1973. And Bush slipped to his career low approval rating, 31 percent.

In a related result, the Democratic Party in general leads the Republicans in trust to handle the main issues the nation faces, by 53-32 percent the biggest gap in favor of the Democrats in data since 1982. The question, again, is whether that fades in Bush’s wake.

It won’t unless the Democrats allow McCain to be a different kind ‘o Republican. It’s not a big window for him, but it’s a window nonetheless:

There are significant areas in which McCain can push back against Obama. After a five-year decline prompted by the unpopular president and the war in Iraq, there’s been a recovery this year in Republican affiliation possibly the precursor of post-Bush politics. The change is slight but bears watching: On average in ABC/Post polls this year 28 percent of Americans have identified themselves as Republicans, compared with a 24-year low of 25 percent last year. It peaked at 31 percent in 2003.

As you can see by the numbers, the Democratic party is doing fine. They have the most exciting politician in the country running for president at a time when the opposing party is falling apart. But they should not get cocky. McCain’s base, the media, will help him distance himself from Bush with everything they have and that’s his best hope.

It would be wise for everyone to heed this warning:

McCain has a credible brand with the public, who see him as a maverick and a reformer. If McCain succeeds on his current path, he may be able to use his own popularity to infuse the Republicans with new life and a new narrative–the “Change Republican.” The risk is amplified because there are 34 open House seats and 5 open Senate seats. Unlike incumbents, these Republican candidates–who aren’t from Washington–could seize onto McCain’s “Change Republican” brand and ride his coattails to a Republican comeback. Democrats could lose the House and Senate, and the White House would be out of reach.

It wouldn’t be all “change.” They’d combine this with the usual scare tactics and terror-mongering–tired old tactics that failed in 2006.

Lest my fellow Democratic partisans worry, I’m not giving away any secrets that the Republican strategists don’t know. In the last few days, a strategy memo on this same topic has been circulated by Republican strategists.

There is a big Achilles heel to this strategy. On the issues that the public will judge McCain he is not change. McCain’s tempered approaches on immigration and climate change are small bore stuff compared to the defining narratives on the war and the economy. On the issues central to voters, McCain is not change. The media pundits who think the public will view him as a maverick still don’t understand this vulnerability.

In many ways the emergence of a Democratic majority rests on whether John McCain gets away with becoming a “Change Republican.”

The answer is probably “no” but let this serve as notice to all of us: the ball is in our court.

The Republican party is George W. Bush — there is no daylight. They acclaimed him as the second coming of Winston Churchill and Alexander the Great just three years ago. They put him back in the White House and then swaggered around calling Democrats neutered farm animals.

“Once the minority of House and Senate are comfortable in their minority status, they will have no problem socializing with the Republicans. Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant, but when they’ve been fixed, then they are happy and sedate. They are contented and cheerful. They don’t go around peeing on the furniture and such.”

They can run from that but they can’t hide. Bush and the conservative movement he represents need to be tied around McCain’s neck so tight he can’t breathe.

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Long Answers To Stupid Questions

by digby

Question: Do I agree that Hillary Clinton is a racist and why haven’t I disavowed, renounced and rebuked her?

Answer: No I do not think she is a racist and I haven’t disavowed, renounced and rebuked her for the same reason I didn’t disavow, deplore and rebuke Barack Obama for saying that white working class voters cling to God and guns because they are bitter.

Why? Because they are ridiculous, MSM-style trumped up controversies.

Candidates speak imprecisely from time to time, particularly during presidential campaigns which are superhuman, exhausting efforts. They are human beings and they get tired.

In those separate comments, both candidates were clumsily trying to explain the meaning and motivation of the two coalitions that have formed during the primary. I would imagine that both of them wish they hadn’t said it, considering the blow back. But neither of them were trying to be dismissive or derisive toward the other candidate’s coalition. After all, both of them are quite bright and knew that neither one of them could hope to win in the fall without it.

Bob Somerby points to a discussion of this topic on Reliable Sources this week-end:

We’ve discussed The Cult of the Offhand Comment before; its commandments shape much of our sad, sorry discourse. But as we noted on Friday, the hub-bub over Clinton’s remark illustrates another key point. Within the world of the mainstream press, pundits are allowed to discuss certain topics—but disfavored politicians will be trashed for doing the same. The press can discuss them; the pols need permission! And uh-oh! On Sunday’s Reliable Sources, Clarence Page expressed this rule rather perfectly. We call attention to his exchange with Howard Kurtz because it illustrates this key point so nicely:

KURTZ (5/12/08): Clarence Page, was this a terrible racial remark for Hillary Clinton to make about white voters? PAGE: Well, it was not good political etiquette. I can’t remember when I have ever heard a candidate speak so candidly. It’s normally your operatives, your surrogates, your consultants who talk like that—or us, the pundits.

Or us, the pundits! In fact, the nation’s pundits had been “talking like that” non-stop, around the clock, for weeks. Aside from the clumsiness of her remark, why shouldn’t Clinton have done the same? Kurtz pursued things further:

KURTZ (continuing directly): But that’s not to say that—But that’s the point. It’s not to say that it’s not true. In fact, she is quoting an Associated Press article. PAGE: Truth is only part of the game here, Howard. We’re talking about politics, after all. And we’re talking about a candidate who up front says, well, my opponent is weak with white voters. So I’m going to go out and get them. You know, race is still too sensitive a topic in this country for you to just blindly say that as if we’re talking about, say, Catholic voters, say, during the 1960 campaign with JFK.

Race is too sensitive a topic, Page said. For that reason, we are allowed to discuss it non-stop. But we’ll have to reserve the right to beat up on pols when they do. Note one more part of Page’s remark. It’s OK to talk about Catholic voters in 1960; you just can’t talk about white voters now. Let’s expand that point just a bit: As we noted months ago, pundits thought it was A-OK when Huckabee’s opponents noted that his Iowa win was driven by evangelical voters. That was OK—but a few weeks later, it wasn’t OK to say that Obama’s win in South Carolina was largely driven by black voters. Presumably, that’s because of the press corps’ finely-developed sensitivities about these very difficult matters. Either that, or these people have a set of rules which may not make perfect sense.

Again, do I think Clinton should have said what she said? Of course not. I’m sure she agrees. Neither do I think that Barack Obama was happy with himself for saying that voters he needs to win in the fall are bitter. Partisans on both sides may think each of these candidates are racists or snobs, but neither of them are stupid. Both Clinton and Obama were clumsily repeating observations they’d heard, oh — a million times — about”what the white working class voter really wants.” It’s a non-stop topic among the gasbags, an obsession among pollsters. Library shelves are lined with books on the subject.

Page says no politician should ever bring this up, and he is probably right. But you can hardly blame either one of them for slipping up in the middle of a grueling campaign when asked about it, considering that it’s pretty much all the media have been talking about for weeks.

For those of you who are interested in whether this race really is racist, I would urge you to read the posts by Mark Blumenthal at Pollster.com. It’s not exactly clear what all the motivating factors are, of course, but it’s certainly more complicated than race — or the latest craze, age:

Age or Education? Amidst the personal craziness last week, I neglected to link to two columns from network pollsters that provide some valuable data from the exit polls on the Obama-Clinton race tabulated by race, education and income. Interest in this issue peaked last week after Barack Obama, said the following after his loss in the Pennsylvania primary:

I have to say if you look at and I know my staff has talked about this: If you look at the numbers, in fact, our problem has less to do with white working class voters. In fact, the problem is that, to the extent there is a problem, is that the older voters are very loyal to Senator Clinton.

ABC’s polling director Gary Langer combined data from exit polls to look at support for the two candidates among white voters by age and income. “Age clearly is a factor,” he concludes, “but it’s equally clear that socioeconomic status, as measured by the education and income alike, is independently a factor, and a big one.”

I suspect this is simply because people of lesser means associate Clinton with better economic times and they are feeling the pinch of debt and insecurity. The working class is a group that always liked Bill and probably like Hill as a result. (Working class African Americans are probably paying closer attention to Barack’s inspiring personal story, for obvious reasons, and are choosing him for affirmative, inspirational reasons, as are many upper class whites.) The MSM and blogospheric echo chamber’s tantrums notwithstanding, I don’t think it’s too much more complicated than that.

No doubt there are racists among them, but I would guess that for every racist Democratic woman who voted for Clinton (I say a woman because racist males wouldn’t be likely to have feminist leanings either) there is a sexist Democratic male who voted for Obama. I doubt that one is more prevalent than the other in the Party. What remains to be seen is whether there are enough racist independent voters out in the country to tip the election to McCain. I doubt that too. The country is sick of Republicans and their policies and unless we allow John McCain to pretend that he is something other than a standard issue Republican, he can’t win.

Update: And for those of you who are still interested in how the media affect our politics, read that Reliable Sources transcript.

I’m not a primary partisan, but I certainly agree with this:

SIMON: …I find that if you go into Hillary crowds, the anger you find on the part of her supporters, especially women supporters, is directed not against Barack Obama, but against the media.

There is a real deep hatred for how the media has treated Hillary Clinton. We’ve treated her unfairly, they say. We’ve been sexist. The debates of male-dominated media have beaten her up, have given her tougher questions. She complains she got the first question.

This actually makes it easier for Obama to unify the party. They’re not angry at him. They’re angry at the media.

KURTZ: And Kate Zernike, have you have found that as well? And do you think there is some justification among those who passionately support Hillary Clinton’s candidacy that she just simply hasn’t gotten a fair break from the press?

ZERNIKE: Yes. I mean, I think what people were reacting to this week wasn’t so much the media declaring the race over, as it was this kind of “Ding dong the witch is dead” quality about that tone to the comments. And I do think people are angry.

And I think when you look at, you know, the percentages of Hillary Clinton supporters who say they won’t support Obama, I think Roger is right. They’re mad at — they’re mad at the media. They’re not necessarily mad at Obama.

They talk about it like it was somebody else who did it instead of themselves.

They showed they can give Barack the treatment too during the Wright business and they’ll be doing it with gusto going forward, I’m sure. But, the most amazing story of the media in this primary was its blatant sexism. They know it and they don’t care.

Update: Joan Walsh is right about this: John “how do we beat the bitch” McCain is a hypocritical jackass. Obama should just keep doing what he’s doing and he’ll be fine.

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The Log In Our Own Eye

by tristero

PZ Myers links to a story of truly monstrous religious madness:

“Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British solider in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city’s Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death.”

And that isn’t all. Read PZ’s post for more details that will increase your despair for humanity.

What singularly shocks is the extent to which this behavior was accepted by the community. I would imagine that there are proportionally about as many Muslim fathers capable of psychotic rage who would stomp their daughter to death as there are Christian and Jewish ones – that is, not many at all. So obviously, something is seriously twisted about any community, religious or otherwise, that condones such insanity.

That said, this ghastly incident will probably serve as an occasion for some folks to re-assert the moral superiority of “the West” and to denounce the evils of “multi-culturalism.” It shouldn’t: generalizing from this horror is utterly fallacious. For if one does generalize, then one needs also to turn those generalizations back on ourselves.

In our larger society, we have plenty of objectively immoral acts that we condone or excuse or avoid confronting that make claims of higher moral standards absurd. One example: The people of the United States will almost surely permit the men who planned and executed the razing of Fallujah to escape justice, only one of countless war crimes for which the present leaders of this country will never be held accountable.

Obviously, stomping a child to death is a uniquely horrible crime. And it points to something seriously askew in the immediate cultural milieu if that community finds any excuse to condone or excuse it. Of course, anyone with an ounce of moral sense unequivocally condemns it. But incidents like this represent no opportunity to hold our own larger society up as an exemplar for others. Condemning is one thing, and fully deserved. Feeling superior is another, and is utterly unwarranted.

Show Us Your Papers

by digby

And so it begins:

The battle over voting rights will expand this week as lawmakers in Missouri are expected to support a proposed constitutional amendment to enable election officials to require proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote.

The measure would allow far more rigorous demands than the voter ID requirement recently upheld by the Supreme Court, in which voters had to prove their identity with a government-issued card.

Sponsors of the amendment — which requires the approval of voters to go into effect, possibly in an August referendum — say it is part of an effort to prevent illegal immigrants from affecting the political process. Critics say the measure could lead to the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of legal residents who would find it difficult to prove their citizenship.

Voting experts say the Missouri amendment represents the next logical step for those who have supported stronger voter ID requirements and the next battleground in how elections are conducted. Similar measures requiring proof of citizenship are being considered in at least 19 state legislatures. Bills in Florida, Kansas, Oklahoma and South Carolina have strong support. But only in Missouri does the requirement have a chance of taking effect before the presidential election.

In Arizona, the only state that requires proof of citizenship to register to vote, more than 38,000 voter registration applications have been thrown out since the state adopted its measure in 2004. That number was included in election data obtained through a lawsuit filed by voting rights advocates and provided to The New York Times. More than 70 percent of those registrations came from people who stated under oath that they were born in the United States, the data showed.

This is what the voter fraud fraud has always been about: making voting such a hassle that a lot of voters will just figure it isn’t worth the trouble or don’t feel like being treated like dirt by officials who suspect them of being criminals on the basis of their ethnicity. I would imagine that there are a whole lot of older people who’ve never had to prove their citizenship in their lives and wouldn’t have a clue about how to go about doing it.

This whittling away at the franchise will be one of the greatest accomplishments of the conservative movement when all is said and done. They simply don’t believe in the democratic concept of one person one vote. Never have.

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Grave Appearance Problems

by digby

A decision by a military judge on Friday to disqualify a top Pentagon official from any further role in a Guantánamo war crimes case was a major new challenge to the Bush administration’s legal approach to the war on terrorism. The ruling, in the case against Salim Hamdan, a detainee who was a driver for Osama bin Laden, transformed what had been something of a Pentagon soap opera over how to prosecute detainees into a formal ruling that gave new force to critics’ accusations of improper political influence over this country’s first use of military commissions since World War II. At issue is the role of a Pentagon office called the “convening authority,” which oversees the military prosecutors and has extensive power over the defense lawyers and judges in the cases against Guantánamo detainees. One role of that office is to be a neutral arbiter, deciding such matters as allocation of resources for both the defense and prosecution and which charges brought by prosecutors should go to trial. But military defense lawyers and other critics have said officials running that office have overstepped the bounds of impartiality by pushing prosecutors to charge more detainees and to use evidence obtained under coercive interrogations. Lawyers said the ruling set the stage for new challenges that could slow even the administration’s highest priority Guantánamo prosecution, against six detainees for the 2001 terrorist attacks. One of the six is Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-professed planner of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. “The military judge has said that, at the very least, there are grave appearance problems with this system,” said Michael J. Berrigan, the deputy chief defense counsel for the Guantánamo cases.

Uh Huh

A kangaroo court or kangaroo trial, sometimes likened to a drumhead court-martial or Drumhead trial, is a sham legal proceeding or court. Kangaroo courts are judicial proceedings that deny due process in the name of expediency. The outcome of such a trial is essentially made in advance, usually for the purpose of providing a conviction, either by going through the motions of manipulated procedure or by allowing no defense at all.

The term is often applied to courts subjectively judged as such, while others consider the court to be legitimate and legal. A kangaroo court may be a court that has had its integrity compromised; for example, if the judge is not impartial and refuses to be recused.

It may also be an elaborately scripted event intended to appear fair while having the outcome predetermined from the start. Terms meaning “show trial”, like the German Schauprozess, indicate the result is fixed before (usually guilty): the “trial” is just for show. Notorious were Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s kangaroo trials against his enemies, whom he labeled enemies of the people, notably in the context of the Great Purge. Another example is Roland Freisler’s “processes” against the enemies of the National-Socialist regime.

Just saying.

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Saturday Night At The Movies

Sky high Fe: Downey carries the torch for Iron Man

Robert Downey Jr. forges a head.

By Dennis Hartley

Although it’s about a month too early according to my calendar, the season of popcorn has now been officially thrust upon us with the release of Iron Man, the latest live-action “issue” produced from the seemingly inexhaustible stable of Marvel Comics superheroes.

This marks the fourth feature film and the second fantasy-adventure in a row from director-writer-actor Jon Favreau (Made, Elf and Zathura: A Space Adventure). Despite his growing list of director’s credits, Favreau the actor is probably still most recognizable for his role as the neurotic, lovelorn stand-up comic in Doug Liman’s 1996 cult film Swingers. Favreau also wrote the screenplay for that film, which means that you can credit (or blame) him with being the party who is responsible for adding the now ubiquitous catchphrase “Vegas, baby, Vegas!” to the pop culture lexicon.

For his new film, Favreau turns screenwriting chores over to Mark Fegus and Hawk Otsby; but those who are paying close attention will catch a brief, clever visual homage to Swingers in the opening sequence, which takes place in (you guessed it) Las Vegas. Favreau casts himself as one of the nattily attired security men for wealthy inventor/industrialist Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) who is in town to accept a recognition award for his ingenious achievements in the advancement of weapons technology. Stark is a cocky eccentric who enjoys the typical pursuits and distractions of a rich playboy, when not ensconced in the high-tech basement laboratory of his (movie fabulous) cliff mansion in Malibu. He is attended to by a beautiful and trusty gal Friday, Pepper Pots (Gwyneth Paltrow). In other words, he’s living the uber-geek’s fantasy life.

While on a junket in Afghanistan to demonstrate and promote sales of his latest missile technology, Stark’s military escort convoy is ambushed and he is captured by a group of terrorists, who then demand that he construct a crude prototype of his new warhead for their further development. With the assistance of a fellow prisoner, (a doctor/scientist, naturally) Stark instead constructs an armored suit with built-in weapon technology and jet-propulsion capabilities, which enables his eventual escape. You know-the kind of thing most of us can throw together by just recycling a few items laying about the cave.

Stark is quite shaken by his experience, and is particularly traumatized by the realization that the terrorist’s cave complex was chock-a-block with crates of weaponry labeled “Stark Industries”. He calls a press conference after his return to the states. Stricken by his conscience, he announces that his company will detach themselves from the propagation of the war machine and instead devote research and development to high-tech products that will be more beneficial to humanity (now THERE’S a fantasy). The scene reminded me of that famous newsreel where a-bomb developer Robert Oppenheimer utters his mournful epiphany: “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”, precipitating the anti-nuke crusade he was to embark on for the rest of his life.

This sudden and unexpected amendment to the corporate mission statement doesn’t settle well with the VP of Stark Industries, Obadiah Stone (Jeff Bridges) who thinks the CEO has gone off his rocker. Obadiah’s duplicitous machinations eventually lead to his transmogrification into our newly minted superhero’s first arch-nemesis, “Iron Monger”.

Paltrow and Downey have great chemistry in all their scenes together. I would have enjoyed a bit more screen time for Bridges; the transformation of his character from standard issue corporate weasel to super villain suffers a bit of the bum’s rush. This is likely due to time constraints; the movie clocks in at just over two hours as is, and it always takes longer to “introduce” the protagonist in the first installment of a franchise.

The film is thankfully bereft of the headache and/or vertigo-inducing f/x overkill one usually encounters in this genre (the reason I generally avoid the comic book inspired action flicks these days; chalk it up to the joys of aging). The action sequences are exciting and quite well done, but parceled out in just the right amounts. The emphasis is on character development, helped along quite nicely by a talented cast. Downey’s knack for physical comedy enlivens a hugely entertaining montage depicting the construction of his “new and improved” body armor. Downey keeps getting better, and despite the fact that he is not the first actor one thinks of as the “superhero type” he is perfectly cast here as the complex Tony Stark. You could say… the irony suits him well (insert groan here).

Heavy metal kids: Rocketeer, Inframan, Robocop Trilogy, Transformers , King of the Rocket Men, J-Men Forever!, Gandahar(aka Light Years), Aliens, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Knightriders, Excalibur, The Court Jester, Monty Python and the Holy Grail , The Wizard of Oz, Man in the Iron Mask(1939), The Man in the Iron Mask (1998),The Iron Giant , Castle in the Sky, The Terminator, Dr. No, The Spy Who Loved Me.

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FDL Book Salon

by digby

The Good Fight

“Ours is a time of great political disaffection, and I understand it, because so far in this new century, we have failed the people of this country. We’ve got a lot of damage to repair. There are no magic bullets. Future generations will look back on this period as a very dark one if we fail. But heaven help us if we don’t try.” Harry Reid, The Good Fight: Hard Lessons From Searchlight To Washington

No kidding.

I didn’t know much about Harry Reid’s background before I read his memoir other than that he came from a small town, had boxed in his youth and served on the Nevada gaming commission before going into politics. I assumed I wouldn’t be reading the usual up-by-his-Sperry top-siders from Andover to Yale that usually characterizes political biography in this country but I have to say that this wasn’t what I expected either:

I come from a mining town.

But by the time I came along – December 2, 1939 – the leading industry in my hometown of Searchlight, Nevada, was no longer mining, it was prostitution. I don’t exaggerate. There was a local law that said you could not have a house of prostitution or a place that served alcohol within so many feet of a school. Once, when it was determined that one of the clubs was in violation of this law, they moved the school.

As a boy, I learned to swim at a whorehouse. Nobody in town had ever seen such a fancy inground tiled pool in their lives as the pool at the El Rey. Or any pool at all, for that matter. At least nobody that we knew. The El Ray was the main bordello when I was growing up in Searchlight. Every Thursday afternoon, the whoremonger in town, a kindly bear of a man by the name of Willie Martello, would ask the girls who worked the El Rey to clear out, and he’d invite the children in town, usually no more than a dozen of so at a time, to swim in his pool. And we would live the life of Riley for a couple of hours, splashing in the azure blue of that whorehouse pool. This was a rare luxury in a hard town. When I was coming up, there were several other brothels in Searchlight – the Crystal Club, Searchlight Casino, Sandy’s – thirteen in all, and no churches to be found.

In my home, we had no religion. None, zero. And when I say none, I don’t mean 10 percent religious, I mean none. It wasn’t that my parent were atheists or something, it was that religion just wasn’t part of our lives. But Franklin Roosevelt was. In our little home, my mother had a navy-blue embroidered pillowcase with a little fringe on it, and she put it up on the wall. On it, in bright yellow stitching it read, “We can. We will. We must. – Franklin Delano Roosevelt.” And that was my religion.

That’s just not your average political biography in our culture of idealized small town life of white picket fences and fourth of July picnics. It’s a really rough story, with parents who drink too much, acute poverty, spousal abuse and finally suicide. It’s a childhood out of Jack London. Or maybe Dickens’ London. You can’t help but be somewhat horrified. And inspired. How does someone crawl out of that beginning to become one of the most powerful people in the country? This is a truly self-made man.

As it turns out, this matter-of-fact recitation of grit and self-reliance is a quintessentially American story. He hitch-hiked to high school across the desert because he desperately wanted to improve his lot in life. He worked his way through George Washington Law School, with a young family, as a police officer. He became a defense lawyer in Nevada, which meant he defended some very colorful characters and then he famously took on the mob as head of the Nevada Gaming Commission during the “Casino” era. When you see him speak, it’s really hard to believe that this soft spoken fellow is the guy who did all that.

“The Good Fight” turns out to be an breezy read and I frankly didn’t expect it to be. It’s structured in an interesting way, juxtaposing the recent congressional fights during the Bush Administration with the life story, which I would guess was done as a way of illustrating the “fighter” in both instances. I’m not sure that really works, since Reid patiently explains throughout just how much compromise, hand-holding and outright horse trading is required of a Senate leader. The fighting we see is nearly all of the sheerly defensive type since the Bush Republicans adopted an unprecedented form of Senatorial brinksmanship to serve the ambitions of the likes of Bill Frist and Karl Rove.

Those of us who’ve followed the Senate battles of the last few years will find some of what Senator Reid reports to be surprising. (For instance, that Joe Lieberman had to be convinced repeatedly to stay with the Gang of Fourteen.) His view of the Senate is that of a person who holds the rules and traditions to be somewhat sacrosanct (which might be surprising coming from libertarian Nevada, but when considered in light of his upbringing makes much more sense.) He believes strongly in the necessity of a branch of government that balances out the powers of the large states with the small — a Madisonian concern about the tyranny of the majority.

His fight against the Republicans employing the nuclear option was based upon preserving the integrity of the senate. The fact that they were threatening it in order to place radical, right wing judges on the court seems to have been less of an incentive. Senator Reid was concerned about preserving our system for the long run. Of course, as John Maynard Keynes said (and George W. Bush famously mangled) “in the long run, we’ll all be dead.” The legacy of the Bush appointments are going to affect all of us for the rest of our lives. Senator Reid succeeded in preserving the filibuster for the next generations. (Considering that the Republicans of this congress have now used it more frequently and capriciously than any minority in history, one can’t help but wonder if he might have a few second thoughts.)

The book is written in that flat laconic way of hardscrabble westerners, no frills, just the facts ma’am. It has, at times, the feeling of a soliloquy or a voice-over in one of those quiet western cinematic tone poems, like Tender Mercies. He doesn’t bare his soul or let us into his inner life, but then he doesn’t have to. His life story stands as a testament to the American dream and that’s something that speaks for itself.

I’m hosting a book salon with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid over at FDL right now. Please join us.

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Signs of Christianist Desperation

by tristero

So it looks like a group of rightwing nuts are going to challenge the IRS over the tax status of churches that endorse specific candidates:

The Alliance Defense Fund of Scottsdale, Ariz., is recruiting ministers to make political sermons Sept. 28, a few weeks before the presidential election, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. The group hopes to challenge the constitutionality of the tax law, the report said….

“The government should not be telling the church what it should or should not be saying,” [the Rev. Steve] Riggle said. “As a pastor, a private citizen, I can speak for myself. The IRS cannot quench my voice.”

But this is a lie because the reverend knows very well that the IRS is not banning him from endorsing a candidate. He is quite free to do so. Likewise, his church is also free to endorse whoever they want to.

All they need to do – and it’s no big deal, really, unless the reverend and his church worship filthy mammon above all – is to forgo tax-exempt status:

Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State said the tax exemption granted churches “comes with conditions.”

“So if any pastor out there feels he is gagged or can’t speak on partisan politics … forgo the tax exemption and say what you want,” said Boston.

Federal law prohibits churches from endorsing political candidates, but they are permitted to advocate positions on issues.

And the head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the REVEREND Barry Lynn goes on:

Said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, “This is a truly deplorable scheme. Federal tax law rightly requires churches and other tax-exempt groups to use their resources for religious and charitable purposes, not partisan politics. When the faithful put their hard-earned dollars in the collection plate, they don’t expect it to wind up pushing some politician’s campaign.

“The Religious Right leaders who lust for political power in America will apparently stop at nothing, not even the sacred character of the church,” Lynn continued. “The vast majority of clergy do not seek to turn their incense-filled sanctuaries into smoke-filled political backrooms.

“I think very few clergy will yield to the Alliance Defense Fund’s worldly temptation,” Lynn concluded. “And those who do will find their churches’ tax exemptions in jeopardy. I assume the ADF will provide a list of congregations unwise enough to join this move, and we’ll be ready to report those churches to the IRS.”

Lynn noted that clergy know they are free to speak out on religious, moral and political issues. But they cannot use tax-exempt resources to support or oppose candidates for public office, which includes statements from the pulpit by church officials and other indications of campaign intervention.

In May of 2000, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously held that the IRS properly revoked the tax exemption of the Church at Pierce Creek, a congregation near Binghamton, N.Y., that bought newspaper ads in 1992 opposing presidential candidate Bill Clinton. (Americans United filed a complaint with the IRS about this clear violation of tax law.)

The court ruled in Branch Ministries v. Rossotti that “the revocation of the Church’s tax-exempt status neither violated the Constitution nor exceeded the IRS’s statutory authority.” (The three judges were Reagan appointees, and the opinion was written by James Buckley, a scion of the ultra-conservative Buckley family and brother of William F. Buckley.)

The Alliance Defense Fund, which is organizing this nonsense, has among its founders radical christianists Bill Bright, James Dobson, D. James Kennedy, and Don Wildmon. Here’s the Wikipedia entry for ADF. And
here is a good short report of one of their more notorious actions, the infamous press release entitled “Declaration of Independence Banned from Classroom” (scroll down). Of course, that was a lie.

Coincidence they’re from the same state as St. John McCain? Maybe, but it is an indication of how desperate christianists are becoming that they would solicit churches to lose their tax exemptions. For many christianist “churches,” that is the holiest of sacraments.* And there is no better illustration than this that there is nothing religious about the so-called “religious” right. This is first and foremost a political movement that has co-opted religious symbols and tropes merely for secular gain.

Yes, I’m aware that if this gets to the current Supreme Court, they very well could rule in ADF’s favor. But I sincerely doubt that, first, it would ever get that far and second, that they would overturn this exemption rule. For one thing, Scalia, Thomas and Alito have little interest in further lining the over-moneyed pockets of the legions of catholic-hating Pastor Hagees out there. I could be mistaken, however, especially if one of the churches who takes up ADF’s call is Catholic. It takes a lot of money to pursue such a stupid challenge up to the Supremes so it’s not out of the question that Scalia, Alito, and Thomas signaled ADF that the “right case” would have a chance.

Needless to say, if churches and pastors can endorse candidates while retaining their tax-exempt status, it will immediately establish an American theocracy. In which case, I’ll see you at the queue for the stake.

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*I am speaking quite specifically here about those groups whose sole, or main, reason for being is to serve as organizing center for the ambitions of theocrats. That won’t stop certain readers from interpreting this as a malicious smear on all religious belief. As mentioned numerous times, my own public record of respect and tolerance for religious practice is extensive and my personal beliefs, or lack of them, are as private as my contempt for christianism is not. It simply is impossible to infer what I believe, or don’t, from my public comments.

The Iraq Treadmill

by dday

After a day of top-of-the-fold headlines that the Iraqi military had captured the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq (and all by themselves, too, see they can police their own country, only not enough for us to leave for the next 100 years), it turns out, and you’re not going to believe this, that wasn’t true.

Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq, has not been captured, a senior U.S. military official told CNN on Friday.

Iraqi authorities said Thursday that al-Masri had been captured in Mosul.

U.S. military officials were surprised about the report of Abu Ayyub al-Masri’s capture — first reported by Iraqi media and picked up by The Associated Press. And intelligence officials said they were skeptical, even though Iraqi officials said al-Masri was already in U.S. military custody.

Left unsaid here is how AQI is a marginalized force inside Iraq, and virtually immaterial to the long-term stability of the state. The real problem, based on where military airstrikes are targeted, are those civilians in Baghdad slums.

See, we’ve been laying siege to Sadr City for the last month, first building walls so the population can’t leave and then bombing the hell out of it, forcing a crisis where the population must leave.

So let’s recap the scene: the US military and its Iraqi “allies” are laying siege to a sprawling neighborhood in Baghdad housing roughly 2.5 million Iraqis, launching air strikes, artillery attacks, tank shells and other assorted ordnance, shutting down hospitals and bombing others, cutting off the supply of food and walling off entire sectors of the embattled region, causing a refugee crisis by their actions – and now actually pursuing a policy with the intent of creating a larger refugee crisis!

For what reason: because a majority of residents in these regions support a political movement, and militia, that oppose our presence. Can’t have that. Because we have to keep 150,000 troops in Iraq to safeguard the Iraqi people. After all, whose gonna set up the tents in the refugee catch basins we so magnanimously helped set up to receive the overflow from our relentless assault on political movements that would make it harder for us to stay in Iraq. To safeguard the Iraqi people.

Aside from, you know, eliminating American casualties, leaving Iraq would surely reduce Iraqi casualties and the attendant tensions that arise from those casualties. We hear constantly about the consequences of defeat, but they cannot be worse than creating pointless refugee crises in Baghdad. When you’re staying in the country just to fight elements who want you to leave the country, there’s a kind of circular logic to the whole thing.

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