Month: October 2008

Disqualified For Doping

by digby

I think it’s just terrific that Colin Powell has come over from the dark side and all. And I’m sure he’s very, very, very sincere even though he waited until the last possible moment, when it probably would have been much more meaningful if he’d come out last summer when nobody could talk about anything but national security. But hey, there’s no need to dwell on Powell’s endless capacity to play both sides at a time like this.

And neither would I think there was a need to dwell on Powell’s past errors in judgment, except for this:

Colin Powell will have a role as a top presidential adviser in an Obama administration, the Democratic White House hopeful said Monday.

“He will have a role as one of my advisers,” Barack Obama said on NBC’s Today in an interview aired Monday, a day after Powell, a four-star general and President Bush’s former secretary of state, endorsed him.

“Whether he wants to take a formal role, whether that’s a good fit for him, is something we’d have to discuss,” Obama said.

Maybe that’s just campaign talk. It would hardly be decent for Obama to slap Powell in the face after Powell’s effusive praise yesterday. But I would assume that Obama realizes that his opposition to the war was the single issue that separated him from the other candidates in the race and animated his most ardent and energetic supporters. To name one of the war’s architects to a role in his administration would cost him credibility among people he needs to be his strong and enduring base as he attempts to do big things.

It’s politically unnecessary. Powell has blown his cred with the neanderthals and brings nothing with him now:

Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh said that the only reason Gen. Colin Powell endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) was because they’re both African-American. “Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race. OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed.” On his show today, Limbaugh went a step further and shouted his accusation against Powell:

Let me say it louder, and let me say it even more plainly. IT WAS TOTALLY ABOUT RACE! The Powell nomination — or endorsement — totally about race.

So much for the right wing’s insistence that they judge solely on the content of one’s character, eh?

Having Powell by his side for the rest of the campaign is good for Obama, especially among the villagers, who are starting to get very, very nervous about a Democratic win. But there’s no need to actually follow through and welcome Powell into the administration in any role other than guest at state dinner.

As David Sirota says:

I don’t fault Obama for trying to capitalize on those fabricated memes about Powell, and use them in the context of the campaign. He’s got 15 days until the election, and any short-term boost is a good thing.

What I worry about is the day after the election. I am concerned about a President Obama internalizing that Establishment fantasy about Colin Powell the Serious and Credible Voice – and ignoring the actual fact-based story about Colin Powell, the Most Discredited Foreign Policy Voice In Contemporary American History. We don’t need another president who refuses to live in the “reality-based world” – we need a president who matches his campaign promises on critical issues like the Iraq War with an understanding of which voices will be the most reliable in making those promises a reality.

This is the legacy of Colin Powell:

For 80 minutes in a hushed U.N. Security Council chamber in New York, the U.S. secretary of state unleashed an avalanche of allegations: The Iraqis were hiding chemical and biological weapons, were secretly working to make more banned arms, were reviving their nuclear bomb project. He spoke of “the gravity of the threat that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction pose to the world.”

It was the most comprehensive presentation of the U.S. case for war. Powell marshaled what were described as intercepted Iraqi conversations, reconnaissance photos of Iraqi sites, accounts of defectors and other intelligence sources.

The defectors and other sources went unidentified. The audiotapes were uncorroborated, as were the photo interpretations. No other supporting documents were presented. Little was independently verifiable.

Still, in the United States, Powell’s sober speech was galvanizing, swinging opinion toward war. “Compelling,” “powerful,” “irrefutable” were adjectives used by both pundits and opposition Democratic politicians. Editor & Publisher magazine found prowar sentiment among editorial writers doubled overnight, to three-quarters of large U.S. newspapers.

Powell’s “thick intelligence file,” as he called it, had won them over. Since 1998, he told fellow foreign ministers, “we have amassed much intelligence indicating that Iraq is continuing to make these weapons.”

But in Baghdad, when the satellite broadcast ended, presidential science adviser Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi appeared before the audience and dismissed the U.S. case as “stunts” aimed at swaying the uninformed.

Some outside observers also sounded unimpressed. “War can be avoided. Colin Powell came up with absolutely nothing,” said Denmark’s Ulla Sandbaek, a visiting European Parliament member.

Six months after that Feb. 5 appearance, the file does look thin.

Nearly six years later, it’s been completely obliterated.

For more than 20 years, by word and by deed Saddam Hussein has pursued his ambition to dominate Iraq and the broader Middle East using the only means he knows, intimidation, coercion and annihilation of all those who might stand in his way. For Saddam Hussein, possession of the world’s most deadly weapons is the ultimate trump card, the one he most hold to fulfill his ambition.

We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction; he’s determined to make more. Given Saddam Hussein’s history of aggression, given what we know of his grandiose plans, given what we know of his terrorist associations and given his determination to exact revenge on those who oppose him, should we take the risk that he will not some day use these weapons at a time and the place and in the manner of his choosing at a time when the world is in a much weaker position to respond?

The United States will not and cannot run that risk to the American people. Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option, not in a post-September 11th world.

And then there was this, regarding his participation in meetings at the White House where torture techniques were acted out by CIA employees for the approval of the “principles committee:”:

Powell said that he didn’t have “sufficient memory recall” about the meetings and that he had participated in “many meetings on how to deal with detainees.” Powell said, “I’m not aware of anything that we discussed in any of those meetings that was not considered legal.”

I would imagine that the village believes such things should not disqualify him from ever being close to power again. But they do. No president should ever take advice from this man again.

.

The Dog Won’t Eat The Dog Food

by dday

If the Iraq debate wasn’t over in this country, you would think that this new pact giving the US a pretty firm deadline for withdrawal from the country by the end of 2011, only slightly less accelerated than Barack Obama’s own withdrawal plan, would be significant. After all, it’s a complete repudiation of the deeply held strategy of the Bush Administration and John McCain, that firm deadlines would be disastrous for America because the terrorists will “wait us out.” There’s also the matter of giving the Iraqis jurisdiction over their own country, by taking the military out of the prison business and subjecting US soldiers to prosecution, which at one time was anathema to the Bushies.

Iraq said it had secured the right to prosecute U.S. soldiers for serious crimes under certain circumstances, an issue both sides had long said was holding up the pact […]

On the immunity of U.S. forces, Dabbagh said: “Inside their bases, they will be under American law. Iraqi judicial law will be implemented in case these forces commit a serious and deliberate felony outside their military bases and when off duty.”

None dare call it treason except maybe all conservatives.

But the bigger story here is that the Iraqi Parliament, who unlike the Congress actually gets a chance to ratify this thing, appears to be balking:

BAGHDAD — Hopes that a security agreement between Iraq and the United States could be concluded swiftly receded Sunday as several of the leading Iraqi political parties, including some that had negotiated the agreement, appeared to back away from quick approval.

In a public statement posted on semiofficial government Web sites, the United Iraqi Alliance, which represents several powerful Shiite parties that back the government, said it could not endorse the pact as written and wanted amendments. It formed a committee on Saturday to survey alliance member opinions.

“The alliance asked the prime minister to reopen the negotiations with the Americans and try to modify the pact until it becomes acceptable to us,” said Sami al-Askari, a leader in Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s Dawa Party, which is a member of the Shiite alliance.

Whether the agreement will be signed “will depend on the American side,” he said […]

The largest Sunni bloc in Parliament, Tawafiq, also hesitated to endorse the agreement. The hesitation came as a surprise because until recently Sunnis had been supportive of the American presence since they viewed the troops as a bulwark against a repetition of the sectarian violence that forced many from their homes in and around Baghdad.

Can we face facts? The Iraqis don’t want the Americans there. Maliki might, because he’s using the US military to project power against his enemies. But the other parties really don’t. The Sadrists really don’t. The Sunnis, sensing Maliki’s use of the military to crush them, also don’t. And the Iraqi people are massively opposed. This is reflected by every single representative of the people hesitant to do anything in concert with the Americans.

Political analysts agree that the elections are making it difficult for Mr. Maliki to stand with the Americans, especially on an agreement that allows troops to stay. The election is likely early next year, and Mr. Maliki is worried about maintaining power.

“I think the main thing is that Maliki is worried about the provincial elections, and he doesn’t want to be seen as making concessions to the Americans,” said Joost Hiltermann, a senior Iraq analyst at the International Crisis Group office in Istanbul, which oversees Iraq. The Iraqi resistance “is positioning,” he said. “But what is the endgame?”

This is also why Maliki criticized the top US general very strongly for suggesting that Iran played a role in the security agreement. It is positioning, but of course you have to recognize that all the positioning demands a move away from any American occupation presence.

So the national security functionaries can peddle around some draft document all they want, and very serious Villagers can talk about 6 more months to dig in for the big victory, but at some point you have to take a glimpse at reality: we are being told, politely, to leave Iraq, by pretty much everyone who matters. And so leave we must. With a far bigger disaster looming in Afghanistan, a country where the Taliban can behead dozens on any roadway, it’s just completely absurd to hang on in Iraq where every major player is rejecting the occupation. I don’t believe in “surging” into Afghanistan, for the record, and that’s another failure of not heeding the truth of the situation on the ground. But nobody wants to see the truth in Iraq that is plainly visible – it’s time to go.

.

There They Go Again

by digby

It’s jarring to hear shouts of “socialist!” at these McCain rallies like it has some specific, current meaning. Who talks this way anymore? Well, in right wing circles, the sweat inducing, night terror of creeping socialism is as alive and well as it was 20 years ago.

To commemorate the moment the NY Times republished this yesterday:

December 31, 1989

We Have Socialism, Q.E.D.

Milton Friedman is senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

By Milton Friedman

Conventional wisdom these days can be summarized in the form of a syllogism.

Major premise: Socialism is a failure. Even lifelong Communists now accept this proposition. Wherever socialism has been tried, it has proved unable to deliver the goods, either in the material form of a high standard of living or in the immaterial form of human freedom.

Minor premise: Capitalism is a success. Economies that have used capitalism – free private markets -as their principal means of organizing economic activity have proved capable of combining widely shared prosperity and a high measure of human freedom. A private market system has proved to be a necessary though not a sufficient condition for prosperity and freedom.

Conclusion: The U.S. needs more socialism. An obvious non sequitur, yet there is no denying that many apparently reasonable people – including most members of Congress and of the Bush Administration – accept all three propositions simultaneously.

What is socialism? In its purest form, socialism is government ownership and control of the means of production. Ownership of anything implies the right to the income produced by that thing.

All means of production in the United States – people, land, machines, buildings, etc. – produce our national income. Spending by government currently amounts to about 45 percent of national income. By that test, government owns 45 percent of the means of production that produce the national income. The U.S. is now 45 percent socialist.

[…]

Socialism has proved no more efficient at home than abroad. What are our most technologically backward areas? The delivery of first class mail, the schools, the judiciary, the legislative system – all mired in outdated technology. No doubt we need socialism for the judicial and legislative systems. We do not for mail or schools, as has been shown by Federal Express and others, and by the ability of many private schools to provide superior education to underprivileged youngsters at half the cost of government schooling.

Airlines have had no difficulty in acquiring the planes and personnel to handle the increased traffic produced by deregulation. What has been the bottleneck? Airports. Why? Because they are government owned and operated.

We all justly complain about the waste, fraud and inefficiency of the military. Why? Because it is a socialist activity – one that there seems no feasible way to privatize. But why should we be any better at running socialist enterprises than the Russians or Chinese?

By extending socialism far beyond the area where it is unavoidable, we have ended up performing essential governmental functions far less well than is not only possible but than was attained earlier. In a poorer and less socialist era, we produced a nationwide network of roads and bridges and subway systems that were the envy of the world. Today we are unable even to maintain them.

Yet what are the loudest complaints? Government should be doing more; government is strapped for funds; taxes should be raised; more regulations should be imposed; build more prisons to house more criminals created by socialist legislation. Child care? Program trading? Earthquakes? Pass a law. And every law comes with a price tag and is cited as a reason for higher taxes.

Can we learn only from our own mistakes? Or not even from them?

It’s such a soothing and comfortable rant, isn’t it? It fits like a soft, well-worn old workshirt. You can see why the insult falls off the lips of guys like Joe the plumber without the slightest hesitation. But is that what Joe means when he claims that Obama is a socialist? I don’t think so.

It entered the campaign a few weeks back in an unusual and forceful way. The wingnut radio hosts resurrected it to describe the financial bailout — for which both Obama and McCain voted:

“When the government fails to pass a socialism bill and the market goes south, let it go south. I don’t want to pass a socialism bill just to protect the stock market,” said Limbaugh, by far the most popular host on U.S. radio.

That’s what passes for principle on the right. They reflexively rebelled against the bailout not because it created a moral hazard or rewarded the malefactors of great wealth when they had screwed the pooch. They were upset that the government was spending money on something other than killing or incarcerating people, period.

Now, however, the phrase morphed into an insult aimed not at the government’s bailout of banks and financial entities. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Here’s the other Limbaugh, with an screed that is a far cry from the elegant argument of Milton Friedman’s:

Maybe I’m being too much of an alarmist, but I’m worried for the first time in my life that the election of a presidential candidate could lead to a fundamental change in our system of government. Just listen to the comments of post-debate focus group members expressing a knowing willingness to accept Obama’s socialism, such is their angst at the subprime mortgage mess.

Already some 38 percent of Americans do not pay income taxes, and Barack Obama wants to increase that percentage dramatically. How ironic that he and other Democrats pretend to be targeting their message to “working-class” people when many of their constituents aren’t working. But such is class warfare that the upper-middle class and wealthy are demonized as not earning an honest living.

Do you suppose it has registered with class warfare-receptive Obama voters that Obama is deliberately turning the American dream on its head? Could it be any clearer that his message to the middle class is: Don’t aspire to achievement, success and wealth because a) it is immoral to have more than others, b) the government will take your wealth away from you and give it to others, and c) why bother to bust your rear end to make more when you can vote yourselves money from the public trough?

That’s right. Obama wants to eliminate income taxes for many Americans, but that’s a form of socialism because those people aren’t wealthy. And these socialistic policies will make everyone stop working and the government won’t have any money. Which is bad (or good?) I’m not sure.

So, you have right wingers inveighing against socialism based upon the idea that government can’t do anything right, that it’s government propping up the undeserving rich, and simultaneously that it’s government being harmful to the deserving rich who are the backbone of the American Dream. It pretty much covers all the bases.

McCain hasn’t actually used the word. But he came much, much closer to the heart of the real argument. He let it all hang out:

John McCain sharpened his economic attack Friday by accusing Barack Obama of plotting to turn the tax code into a tool for redistributing wealth, an idea he equated to welfare.

“When politicians talk about taking your money and spreading it around, you’d better hold on to your wallet,” Mr. McCain told a raucous crowd in Miami, where he debuted the tougher rhetoric. “His plan gives away your tax dollars to those who don’t pay taxes. That’s not a tax cut, that’s welfare.”

Ah, finally. The Big “W”. I think we all know what that alludes to, don’t you? I’ll reprise an oldie but a goody:

Sociologist Nathan Glazer of Harvard, who has long been interested in the question of America’s underdeveloped welfare state, answers a related question — “Why Americans don’t care about income inequality” which may give us some clues. Citing a comprehensive study by economists Alberto Alesina and Edward Glaeser of Harvard and Bruce Sacerdote of Dartmouth called, “Why Doesn’t the United States have a European-Style Welfare State?” (Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2/2001) he shows that the reluctance of Americans to embrace an egalitarian economic philosophy goes back to the beginning of the republic. But what is interesting is that both he and the economists offer some pretty conclusive evidence that the main reason for American “exceptionalism” in this case is, quite simply, racism.

AGS [Alesina, Glazear and Sacerdote] report, using the World Values Survey, that “opinions and beliefs about the poor differ sharply between the United States and Europe. In Europe the poor are generally thought to be unfortunate, but not personally responsible for their own condition. For example, according to the World Values Survey, whereas 70 % of West Germans express the belief that people are poor because of imperfections in society, not their own laziness, 70 % of Americans hold the opposite view…. 71 % of Americans but only 40% of Europeans said …poor people could work their way out of poverty.”

[…]

“Racial fragmentation and the disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities among the poor played a major role in limiting redistribution…. Our bottom line is that Americans redistribute less than Europeans for three reasons: because the majority of Americans believe that redistribution favors racial minorities, because Americans believe that they live in an open and fair society, and that if someone is poor it is his or her own fault, and because the political system is geared toward preventing redistribution. In fact the political system is likely to be endogenous to these basic American beliefs.”(p. 61)

“Endogenous” is economics-ese for saying we have the political system we do because we prefer the results it gives, such as limiting redistribution to the blacks. Thus the racial factor as well as a wider net of social beliefs play a key role in why Americans don’t care about income inequality, and why, not caring, they have no great interest in expanding the welfare state.

So, while Milton Friedman may have had his own reasons for perpetuating the myth of inefficient socialist government, this is the worldview that informs the conservative obsession with “socialism.” (The positively weird finger pointing at racial and ethnic minorities as the cause of the home mortgage meltdown is a perfect case in point.) For their next trick they will undoubtedly scream bloody murder when the government is forced to intervene more in the economy in order to keep average people like themselves from ruin. Until it hits them personally, they will be sure that no matter what happens, this government “interference” is designed to help the undeserving poor (minorities) at the expense of hard working people like themselves. They’ll say this even as they stand in line to receive help for their own failing mortgage or extended unemployment benefits.

The difference, you see, is that unlike these other parasites, they work for a living and therefore, will be among the rich someday. (The American Idol Dream says that wealthy people got rich because they were very special and they worked harder than anyone else — just like you.) Therefore, the prerogatives of the rich must be maintained for all the hard workers who will pull themselves up from their boot straps and became plumbing magnates. Don’t rain on their parades by suggesting that they may just remain middle class Americans (which in global terms puts them in the top five percent of all humans who’ve ever lived.) How disappointing. If Britney can do it, why not me?

A commenter at the Human Events site, where David Limbaugh expressed his terror at the impending socialist takeover, distills the problem down to its essence:

Obama is not a Communist. He is a Liberal, which is far worse, and further to the left than Communism. Under Communism, there is this underlying philosophy:

From each according to his ability.
To each according to his need.

That’s in a Communist society. In a Liberal society, we do not demand that each person work. And then we give them far more than they need.

Liberals are worse than Communists.

There you have it.

.

Penguin Logic

by tristero

You do know what Penguin Logic is, don’t you?

PENGUIN: Will you think about that a moment, my friends? Whenever you’ve seen Batman, who’s he with? Criminals! That’s who. You look in the old newspapers, every picture of Batman shows him with thugs and with thieves and hobnobbing with crooks. Whereas my pictures show me always surrounded by whom? By the police! I am an associate of the law!

And now, courtesy Bill Kristol comes a near-perfect meatworld example of Penguin Logic:

Most of the recent mistakes of American public policy, and most of the contemporary delusions of American public life, haven’t come from an ignorant and excitable public. They’ve been produced by highly educated and sophisticated elites.

Well, yes, that’s quite true when you think about it. And did you know most baseball spectators pitch a perfect game every time? That’s because, let’s have some straight-talk here, most of the recent runs and walks allowed are made by players who are actually pitching.

Amazing what you can learn from conservatives. Such smart, mature commentators.

Gadflying

by digby

Not that anyone cares, but in case you find yourself wanting to know even more about the endlessly uninteresting moi, here’s a little Q&A from this month’s LA Times Magazine. I must say that while the answers were somewhat dull, I did think the questions were quite entertaining.

.

Another View On Creeping Neo-Hooverism

by dday

I see that Donna Brazile signed up for neo-Hooverism on the Sunday chat shows this morning, seeking to constrain a potential Democratic Administration by suggesting we have to tighten our belts in the middle of a recession, which is nothing short of economic suicide. I can tell you that this is not a unanimous view inside the Democratic inner circle, based on what I experienced yesterday.

I was fortunate enough to see Bill Clinton at a small-group discussion in Century City for a group of entertainment industry professionals. This was not a campaign event, and indeed the President was somewhat constrained by campaign finance laws to really advocate for any candidate. But aside from Clinton announcing his preference for Gray’s Anatomy and Boston Legal, what was most notable was his discussion of the hypothetical “first 100 days” for a new President. This is from my notes:

The next President is going to face much different challenges than what I faced in 1993, and he can’t do the same things… he shouldn’t try to fix the deficit right away, but he’s going to have to stimulate the economy by paying for things that are useful… we have had too much risk and not enough legislation… we need a government strong enough to prevent the market from devouring itself… I was happy to see Senator Obama call for a moratorium on foreclosures, and we also need to do what we did in the 1930s by buying up these mortgages and giving homeowners the ability to stay in their homes, to minimize disruption and maximize confidence… so let’s stimulate the economy, and give birth to a new economy based on old-fashioned financing and modern products. It cannot be based on finance.

Obviously Clinton is part of a different side of the Democratic Party than Senator Obama. But there’s a significant amount of overlap, and to hear the President who ushered in deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility in the 1990s recognize very clearly the need for stimulus, in the areas of infrastructure, job creation and the new energy economy, makes me very much reassured and hopeful. And indeed, in the last debate Obama pushed back on the idea of reinstituting PAYGO during a time of recession. This idea of helping state and local governments, putting money into infrastructure and green energy and jobs is very much a part of Obama’s stimulus policies. They need to be bigger, but there’s no trace of neo-Hooverism there.

Obviously we have to get the surrogates back on the reservation (thanks Donna Brazile). I suggest that everyone gets put into a room with James Galbraith and they memorize this entire passage:

An amazing debate at National Journal. The journal asked, is there room for fiscal stimulus to respond to the crisis caused by the mortgage mess. David Walker, who’s been preaching the need to rein in entitlements, treated the crisis as a chance to push his favorite line:

My concern is, when will Washington wake up and start doing something to defuse the potential “super sub-prime crisis” associated with the federal government’s deteriorating finances and imprudent fiscal path?

And Jamie (Galbraith) let loose:

What is Mr. Walker’s approach to subprime crisis today? His comment above makes his approach clear. It is to use the crisis as a rhetorical springboard, in order to divert the conversation back to what he calls the “super sub-prime crisis associated with the federal government’s deteriorating finances…”

But the fact is, the subprime crisis is real. The collapse of interbank lending is real. The collapsing stock market is real. The disintegration of the financial system is real. The collapse of the housing sector is real. The credit crunch and the recession are real. You can see this in the interest rate spreads and in the credit that is unavailable at any price.

Mr. Walker’s “super subprime crisis” of the federal government is not real. It is a pure figment of the imagination. It is something Mr. Walker sees in his mind’s eye. He sees it in his budget projections. He sees it in his balance sheets, which are the oddest balance sheets I’ve ever seen, because they have all liabilities and no assets.

We have a progressive infrastructure now that wasn’t there in the past, able and willing to help drown out the neo-Hooverists as long as our leaders are on the same side. You can look no further to what the Wall Street Journal considers the nightmare of a new Democratic Administration than to see that this moment is entirely possible. And also, of course, necessary.

Voters will be registered. Workers organized. Banks regulated. Health care provided for all. Government investment will drive a green revolution that generates millions of jobs. The wealthy will pay more in taxes. Guantanamo will be shut down; torture will end. Net neutrality will be mandated. Citizens may even be able to sue corporations that negligently do them harm. They don’t even mention the war in Iraq ending.

The horror of it all. Can the Republic survive? The editors hold out one slim hope. Perhaps Democrats will divide. Perhaps he entrenched lobbies, the interest of the corporations and the wealthy will buy enough support to stand in the way of the tumbrels.

And that defines our job pretty clearly: to organize engaged citizens to hold Democrats accountable to the promises that have been made and the agenda the country needs.

We work now until Election Day. But on November 5, the real work begins.

.

Kristol’s Heartthrob

by tristero

You simply can’t exaggerate how thoroughly immature the rightwing can be:

The other journalists who met Palin offered similarly effusive praise: Michael Gerson called her “a mix between Annie Oakley and Joan of Arc.” [!!! See this post by Digby.] The most ardent promoter, however, was Kristol, and his enthusiasm became the talk of Alaska’s political circles. According to Simpson, Senator Stevens told her that “Kristol was really pushing Palin” in Washington before McCain picked her. Indeed, as early as June 29th, two months before McCain chose her, Kristol predicted on “Fox News Sunday” that “McCain’s going to put Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, on the ticket.” He described her as “fantastic,” saying that she could go one-on-one against Obama in basketball, and possibly siphon off Hillary Clinton’s supporters. He pointed out that she was a “mother of five” and a reformer. “Go for the gold here with Sarah Palin,” he said. The moderator, Chris Wallace, finally had to ask Kristol, “Can we please get off Sarah Palin?”

The next day, however, Kristol was still talking about Palin on Fox. “She could be both an effective Vice-Presidential candidate and an effective President,” he said. “She’s young, energetic.” On a subsequent “Fox News Sunday,” Kristol again pushed Palin when asked whom McCain should pick: “Sarah Palin, whom I’ve only met once but I was awfully impressed by—a genuine reformer, defeated the establishment up there. It would be pretty wild to pick a young female Alaska governor, and I think, you know, McCain might as well go for it.” On July 22nd, again on Fox, Kristol referred to Palin as “my heartthrob.

Dear Bill Kristol,

She’s out of your league. Trust me on this. It’s not gonna happen. Ever.

love,

tristero

Newtie’s Allies

by digby

On Stephanopoulos this morning:

Newt Gingrich: If Obama won and had a moderate House and a moderate Senate, he would probably be a moderate president. His temperament would lead him to be much more like Richard Daley than like Eeverend Wright. He’s not gonna have that. he’;s gonna have card check to take away your right to a secret ballot. He’s going to have an effort to eliminate freedom of speech for Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. He’s going to have a congress that wants to raise taxes, that wants to increase government — is he really going to veto and fight with Pelosi and Reid? … As the Wall Street Journal said on Friday, here is what their promising their allies they’re going to do.

Donna Brazile: Yeah, but they’re not in office Mr. Speaker. Senator Obama wil inherit a 10 trillion dollar deficit and he’s going to have to put things on the table that perhaps many of us would not like to see a Democratic president put on the table in terms of cutting back on spending, freezing hiring and making some real tough decisions. So, I think he will be constrained by the deficit and also by the fact that we’re still in two major wars.

That’s a relief. No need for anyone to worry that Obama isn’t going to govern like a Republican. Except, you know, Republicans are really unpopular.

Gingrich is playing for 2010, here, preparing his troops to run against the already unpopular congress. He’s calling Obama a wimp for being unable to stand up to his crazed, radical base. It’s a natural move for the Republicans.

But there is no excuse for Brazile to fall into the rhetorical fetal position and help him. My God, we are in the final two weeks of a presidential campaign which is taking place in the middle of an economic crisis and is this the best she can do? He gave her the most perfect opening in the world — “the Republicans are more worried about a non-existent free speech threat to multi-millionaires like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity than they are about the real threat to average Americans financial security. Obama is going to be dealing with real problems of average people and will do what it takes to get this country back on the right track after the Republicans drove it off the rails over the last eight years.”

This defensiveness is going to kill any mandate Obama gets before he even gets in office. I realize they don’t want to try to unprogram the American people from 30 years of supply-side, trickle down brainwashing in the last month of a presidential campaign, but explicitly saying that he’s going to be “constrained by the deficit” and forced to cut back and freeze hiring (!) in the middle of a recession isn’t just bad politics, it’s really, really bad economics. The Democrats should be pushing the idea that government spending right now is going to be necessary to fix the economy — because it is!

No wonder Gingrich looked like a very happy fatcat with a mouthful of yellow feathers when she said that. He’s winning even as he’s losing.

.

One More Unit, Stat

by digby

Luckily he’s never been right about anything, so he’s probably not right about this.

Today on ABC’s This Week, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman said that as president, Obama would abandon the hunt for Osama bin Ladan and actually decide that the U.S. could “win the war” in Iraq by staying another six months:

FRIEDMAN: I think everything we believe could be wrong. That is Iraq could turn out — that Osama — sorry, not searching for Osama bin Laden could be not the biggest issue for Obama. I think you could actually find out that Obama can win the Iraq war and he will want to actually continue our presence in Iraq for — until 2011.

When host George Stephanopoulos noted that even Gen. David Petraeus refuses to use the terms “victory” or “winning” for Iraq, Friedman walked back his comments slightly, saying Obama would bring Iraq to a “decent ending” but ultimately, “they will conclude that Afghanistan is a loser.”

I keep hearing a lot of rumbling about how Obama isn’t going to withdraw from Iraq as promised. Indeed, Muqtada al-Sadr just made a statement about permanent bases yesterday and urged his fellow Shiites to reject the new US-Iraq security deal because of it. But I’ve never heard that he would conclude he can “win” in Iraq — and that he would withdraw from Afghanistan because it’s “a loser.”

Friedman clearly believes that these wars are irrelevant on the merits. They are simply check marks to be put in a president’s win and loss column. If that’s the case, then perhaps Obama should invade Iceland in his first term. He could probably “win” it with no problem and then he’s have a nice little victory right off the bat.

It’s hard for me to believe that Friedman still frames these wars in such puerile terms after all we’ve seen these last few years. First, there was the famous idea that the US had to stick guns in the faces of average Iraqis and say “suck on this” to prove that bad guys couldn’t mess with us. As for Afghanistan, well, it’s all in how you define “loser.” Friedman has always believed that we “won” that war, but the “losers” refused to acknowledge it:

We have won the war. We have not won the hearts and minds of the Arab-Muslim world at all. There’s still a lot of people there quietly rooting for bin Laden. Some of that is related to their own frustration with their own governments, we know. A lot of it is related to what we just saw as well. This is their way of getting a little bit of revenge on us for what is perceived to be our unwavering support for Israel. By not granting us our victory, in a sense, by not acknowledging that victory, this meat grinder of people that is being… whose lives are being destroyed every day in this conflict is aired across the Arab world every night in news footage in a very tendentious way to be sure, in a way that often doesn’t show the Palestinian provocation only the Israeli reaction, but it has an enormously corrosive effect on American standing in that part of the world. That’s just a fact.

Damn those bastards for refusing to acknowledge our great victory. It’s rally screwed us up.

Meanwhile, here’s Peter Galbraith on the prospects for a so-called victory in Iraq.

The idea of these two cock-ups in Iraq and Afghanistan ever being called “winners” is delusional. Nobody’s ever won a war in Afghanistan and the US presence in Iraq is only exacerbating the problems. There are no winners, only losers. Which is, in fact, the case with every war. If Americans recognized that instead of thinking of them like a Friday night football game (or in Friedman’s case, a bad episode of NYPD Blues) maybe we’d have fewer of them.

.

Socialism: Is That, Like, MySpace For Muslims Or Something?

by tristero

There are two problem with McCain’s attempt to smear Obama as advocating socialism:

1. No one anymore knows what “socialism” is. Oh, sure, you and I know what socialism is, but the days when the right could point to the Soviet Union or some other giant example are history – hell China itself is moving towards turbo-capitalism. So normal people hear “sharing the wealth is bad” and it’s like, huh? They don’t think Stalin, they think that since we’re sharing our wealth with these schmucks, maybe we, too, could use a piece of that. The argument misfires because it has no substantive object anymore. “Share the wealth,” “redistribution of wealth,” and “socialism” talk only to a rightwing base: it is an historical argument, stirring up fears about something that, except in Cuba and a couple other places, simply doesn’t exist. And that neatly seques into:

2. Normals know Obama is no communist, excuse me, socialist, not by a long shot, The charge is totally off the wall, dishonest, really weird with a beard. Worse, it ratchets up hateful, fearful rhetoric to McCarthyite levels when the last thing this country needs is another completely vacuous distraction from the very real problems we simply must confront. So, to the youngsters amongst us who don’t remember the Soviet Union:

Trust me, dear friends, Obama is no commie, not even close. I was behind the Iron Curtain and it bore not the slightest resemblance to anything any mainstream American politician would propose, let alone do.

Come to think of it, I need to make an exception to that.

When Ari Fleischer, Bush’s first press sec’y, warned us all to watch what what we say, watch what we do, I was reminded of Czechoslovakia in the 80’s, when, due to widespread wiretapping and spying, we really did have to watch what we said and did even in our hotel rooms or private houses.

Actually, now that I think more about it, I’ve heard and read a lot about other things this REPUBLICAN administration has done that reminded me of Soviet-style communism – the torture and murder of prisoners, the subversion of a free press with plants and misinformation, the obsession with ideological purity, the corruption of the justice system – I don’t need to go on. But, just to make the point clear, here’s a recent example that’s all-but-flown under the radar because we’re all focused on the election and the economy:

Attorney General Michael Mukasey recently issued new guidelines for the F.B.I. that permit agents to use a range of intrusive techniques to gather information on Americans — even when there is no clear basis for suspecting wrongdoing.

Under the new rules, agents may engage in lengthy physical surveillance, covertly infiltrate lawful groups, or conduct pretext interviews in which agents lie about their identities while questioning a subject’s neighbors, friends or work colleagues based merely on a generalized “threat.” The new rules also allow the bureau to use these techniques on people identified in part by their race or religion and without requiring even minimal evidence of criminal activity.

These changes are a chilling invitation for the government to spy on law-abiding Americans

Does all this make Bush and his rightwing acolytes Communists? No. Of course not. Just as Obama is no communist, excuse me, socialist. But if you want to talk about which politicians act more like totalitarian dictators, Republicans and their rightwing acolytes really fucking shouldn’t be trying to go there.

So stop the baseless, distracting bullshit about “socialism” or, to quote St. John Himself, we just might take the gloves off.

UPDATE: Discussion of point 1 edited for (hopefully) more clarity.