Month: October 2008

American Dream

by digby

Oh dear. It looks like he really might need a CPA and a tax break this year:

Move over Sanjaya and tell William Hung the news: Joe the Plumber is being pursued for a major record deal and could come out with a country album as early as Inauguration Day.

“Joe” – aka Samuel Wurzelbacher, a Holland, Ohio, pipe-and-toilet man – just signed with a Nashville public relations and management firm to handle interview requests and media appearances, as well create new career opportunities, including a shift out of the plumbing trade into stage and studio performances.

On Tuesday, Wurzelbacher joined country music artist-producer Aaron Tippin to form a new partnership that includes booking-management firm Bobby Roberts and publicity-management concern The Press Office to field the multiple media offers he’s received over the past few weeks.

Among the requests – a possible record deal with a major label, personal appearances and corporate sponsorships. A longtime country music fan, Wurzelbacher can sing and “knocks around on guitar” but is not an accomplished musician or songwriter, according to The Press Office’s Jim Della Croce.

Is this a great country or what?

How long before he ends up in rehab with a frappucino and a chihuahua in his hand?

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Handmaids and Commanders

by digby

Tina Brown’s new site seems to be featuring a lot of disaffected feminists who are leaving the Democratic party. Yesterday we had this former editor of Ms magazine extolling the virtues of Sara W. Palin.Today’s “goodbye to all that” essay is from someone named Wendy Button who was a speechwriter for John Edwards and as recently as a few months ago was writing speeches for Michelle Obama. Apparently, everything changed for her in August:

It got stronger during the Democratic National Convention when I counted the substantive mentions of poverty on one hand and a whole bunch of bad canned partisan lines against Senator John McCain. Some faith was lifted after Senator Hillary Clinton’s grace during a difficult hour. But that faith was dashed when I saw that someone had raided the Caligula set and planted the old columns at Invesco Field.

The final straw came the other week when Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (a.k.a Joe the Plumber) asked a question about higher taxes for small businesses. Instead of celebrating his aspirations, they were mocked. He wasn’t “a real plumber,” and “They’re fighting for Joe the Hedge-Fund manager,” and the patronizing, “I’ve got nothing but love for Joe the Plumber.”

Having worked in politics, I know that absolutely none of this is on the level. This back and forth is posturing, a charade, and a political game. These lines are what I refer to as “hooker lines”—a sure thing to get applause and the press to scribble as if they’re reporting meaningful news.

I’m sorry, but none of this scans as truth to me. She was an Edwards staffer who then worked for Michelle, was briefly inspired by Clinton at the convention but was turned off by the anti-McCain rhetoric at the convention? And then, after watching Joe the Plumber call Obama a terrorist and a socialist, what really bothers her is that somebody then mocked him in return? C’mon.

She isn’t a PUMA. She comes from the Edwards camp. She’s mad because the Democrats aren’t talking about poverty. So she’s going to vote for the Republicans because she agrees with them on economics:

Joe the Plumber is right. This is the absolutely worst time to raise taxes on anyone: the rich, the middle class, the poor, small businesses and corporations.

Our economy is in the tank for many complicated reasons, especially because people don’t have enough money. So let them keep it. Let businesses keep it so they can create jobs and stay here and weather this storm. And yet, the Democratic ideology remains the same. Our approach to problems—big government solutions paid for by taxing the rich and big and smaller companies—is just as tired and out of date as trickle down economics. How about a novel approach that simply finds a sane way to stop the bleeding?

(How about magic?)

Then we hear a fairly standard rant about how Democrats and the press treated Clinton badly and are doing exactly the same thing to Sarah W. Palin:

Governor Palin and I don’t agree on a lot of things, mostly social issues. But I have grown to appreciate the Governor. I was one of those initial skeptics and would laugh at the pictures. Not anymore. When someone takes on a corrupt political machine and a sitting governor, that is not done by someone with a low I.Q. or a moral core made of tissue paper. When someone fights her way to get scholarships and work her way through college even in a jagged line, that shows determination and humility you can’t learn from reading Reinhold Niebuhr. When a mother brings her son with special needs onto the national stage with love, honesty, and pride, that gives hope to families like mine as my older brother lives with a mental disability

Ok. She’s come to like Palin. Whatever.

But what can we conclude about this bit of incoherence?

But thank God for election 2008. We can talk about the wardrobe and make-up even though most people don’t understand the details about Senator Obama’s plan with Iraq. When he says, “all combat troops,” he’s not talking about all troops—it leaves a residual force of as large as 55,000 indefinitely. That’s not ending the war; that’s half a war.

I was dead wrong about the surge and thought it would be a disaster. Senator John McCain led when many of us were ready to quit. Yet we march on as if nothing has changed, wedded to an old plan, and that too is a long way from the Democratic Party.

Is she for the war or against it? I honestly can’t tell.

It’s not that I don’t get that a lot of people are still torqued about the primary and have a lot of bad feelings on the feminist, working class front. These are not illegitimate gripes, even if I don’t share them. But it’s very weird for a liberal of any stripe, much less a political professional, to make this case on the basis of taxes and the Iraq war, no matter how disgruntled they might be with the Obama campaign. And all this seems to have come to her rather recently, for reasons that aren’t clear.

It’s nearly impossible for me to see what road takes you from being a John Edwards speechwriter talking about the plight of the poor and ending the war to supporting McCain and Palin who are running around calling Democrats Marxists and talking about victory in Iraq. And there is nothing in this somewhat incoherent essay that explains it.

Well, except maybe this:

Before I cast my vote, I will correct my party affiliation and change it to No Party or Independent. Then, in the spirit of election 2008, I’ll get a manicure, pedicure, and my hair done. Might as well look pretty when I am unemployed in a city swimming with “D’s.”

Whatever inspiration I had in Chapel Hill two years ago is gone. When people say how excited they are about this election, I can now say, “Maybe for you. But I lost my home.”

I suspect there’s going to be a very lucrative niche opening up for these Palin Democrats with lots of wingnut welfare to go around.

It’s a good career move.

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Wedding Guest

by dday

I haven’t done too much writing about Prop. 8 here, though I have at my other haunts. Over at Calitics we’ve devoted a substantial amount of time and resources to it, and we’ve raised over $50,000 at the Calitics ActBlue Page for Equality for All. I’ve been praiseworthy of the campaign at times, critical at others – I think their ads fail to put a face on who the discrimination would actually harm, and as such come off as vague and allow the theocons to distract and distort the issue (“they’ll teach your kids how to be gay!!!”) and drive the narrative. I’ve been happy that much of the progressive movement has come together to defend this attack on civil rights, and that even establishment figures like Maria Shriver and Dianne Feinstein have gone public for the cause (Barack Obama has allowed the campaign to use him in Web advertising, but there’s an argument to be made that he could do more).

But instead of an analytical post (the short answer is that every single volunteer is vital because this will be an extremely close vote), I’d like to get a little personal. Today is Write To Marry Day, where hundreds of bloggers are posting about Prop. 8 and their thoughts about gay marriage and civil rights. I’d like to add my own by talking about the wedding I attended a few months ago.

It was unusual only for the fact that it was extremely casual. There was morning coffee and some pastries and other food and drinks set up on picnic benches at a park in the hills behind Berkeley, and a large field where the wedding was held. When the announcement was given for the ceremony to begin, everybody kind of meandered over to the field and stood around in a circle. The “aisle” for the couple to walk down had to be created impromptu. Eventually that got sorted out. Other than that, the event had what you might expect – two people who loved one another making a commitment to spend their lives together. It was entirely unremarkable and indistinguishable from any other wedding where I’ve been invited. Except for one thing.

The ceremony was conducted by Assemblymember (soon to be State Senator) Mark Leno. He is notable for having authored the marriage equality law that passed through the California legislature – twice – only to be vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger. (Just remember that the next time someone tells you he’s “practically a liberal.” He’s opposing Prop. 8, supposedly, but has gone completely silent on the issue.)

In brief remarks, Leno talked about how the issue was not made clear to him until the Massachusetts Supreme Court rendered their decision on the law. He quoted the text of the decision at length, particularly this portion:

The SJC ruling held that the Massachusetts constitution “forbids the creation of second-class citizens.” The state Attorney General’s office, which argued to the court that state law doesn’t allow gay couples to marry, “has failed to identify any constitutionally adequate reason for denying civil marraige to same-sex couples,” Marshall wrote.

The creation of second-class citizens is really the nub of this, said Leno. By defining marriage in such a way, those who would seek to ban gay marriage tell those who wish to love one another how they can do it. But this is part of the common experience of the human condition – the desire to love another man or woman and profess a commitment to them. What is perverse – indeed, irrational and against human nature – is to defy that love and that commitment. The right to marry is a right to share in the common experience of man. It has served the nation and the world with tangible societal benefits and promotion of the family. It is a profoundly conservative virtue.

And this was a very (small-c) conservative, simple wedding, just two people – two men – and their friends and family, coming together to express their love and joy. This is what those who would pass Prop. 8 would snuff out. Indeed they are the radicals – the kind of people who would express that equality is not an American value. They have to rewrite the Declaration of Independence to fit their worldview:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…

It’s really as simple as that. I was thinking while attending this wedding that I would maybe write something about the feelings it engendered, the wonderful picture of basic civil rights being expressed. But it was totally unremarkable, which is why I waited so long. It was banal, even. It was just two people that love one another among the hundreds of millions and even billions on this planet. There was nothing that special about it.

Which is why it should not be singled out and rejected.

If you can, volunteer for No on 8 or donate to their cause. It’s the best investment in normalcy that you’ll ever make.

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More Prop Hate Prop

by digby

At this point, I’m just documenting the atrocities. Get a load of this creepy thing:

If you’re in California, and were planning to take the week-end off and just enjoy the fact that Obama is ahead by a gazillion points here, rethink it:

The religious right is calling Proposition 8 its “decisive last stand” — an “Armageddon”-like battle to pass a ballot measure that would “eliminate the
right of same-sex couples to marry.”

We couldn’t agree more. This fight for our fundamental rights will shape the
future of the progressive movement for decades to come, both in California and across the country. This Saturday, several ultra-right-wing religious groups will be gathering 70,000 evangelicals together in San Diego at Qualcomm Stadium for “The Call” — a mega-church event that will mobilize thousands of out-of-state
volunteers to get out the vote in Califonia.
These religious extremists also want to pass Proposition 4 — the “parental notification” ballot measure that medical professionals and progressive organizations agree would endanger teen safety. Please watch this shocking promo video for “The Call” right now. This is what
we’re up against. And we need to respond with a “call” of our own — a call to volunteer for the “No on 8” campaign and the “No on 4” campaign across California this weekend and on Election Day. We need to match them volunteer-for-volunteer. Will you answer our
call by forwarding this web page link to your friends — and asking them
to volunteer with you — before it’s too late?

Click here to volunteer for the “NO ON 8” campaign

At the “NO ON 8” page, please don’t forget to say the Courage Campaign sent you (by clicking on “Courage Campaign” in the Netroots Challenge drop-down menu).

Click here to volunteer for the “NO ON 4” campaign

There are shifts available several times a day this weekend and on election day. Volunteers will be asked to pass out literature, call voters and/or to wave signs at important locations. There is a way for everyone to help win this together.

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Respectful

by digby

Chris Matthews just allowed Tom Delay to call Barack Obama a radical, militant Marxist who wants to pack the Supreme Court with communists and is far to the left of Barney Frank — and then chided Debbie Wasserman Schultz when she said that one should consider the source when it’s someone who was forced to leave Washington in disgrace after presiding over the most corrupt congress in history. Apparently what she said was disrespectful.

The right wing is working itself up into an epic frenzy of hate about Obama. And guys like Matthews aren’t exactly drawing any lines by allowing these guys to spew this disgusting swill on national TV which doesn’t bode well for the future. Cable news and talk radio are easily turned into cauldrons of hate for high ratings and big advertising dollars. The right wing noise machine is already working them.

And by the way — if there has ever been a more transparent effort to bully a new president into doing your bidding than declaring that he will never cut taxes on anyone and instead wants to raise them to 90%, I can’t think of one. Luckily Obama doesn’t appear to be subject to schoolyard dares, but it’s pretty clear that the conservatives are staking out ground way way over to the far right so they can keep the goal posts firmly right of center. And knowing the way the village operates, I expect they will have some success. See, there’s Colin Powell on the left and Tom Delay on the right. If Obama stays somewhere in between, he’ll be a great bipartisan president who gets things done.

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Socialist Republicans

by digby

Hendrick Herzberg’s column in the New Yorker is all about this “socialism” nonsense and he does a particularly good job of explaining Alaska’s special brand of it:

Sarah Palin, who has lately taken to calling Obama “Barack the Wealth Spreader,” seems to be something of a suspect character herself. She is, at the very least, a fellow-traveller of what might be called socialism with an Alaskan face. The state that she governs has no income or sales tax. Instead, it imposes huge levies on the oil companies that lease its oil fields. The proceeds finance the government’s activities and enable it to issue a four-figure annual check to every man, woman, and child in the state. One of the reasons Palin has been a popular governor is that she added an extra twelve hundred dollars to this year’s check, bringing the per-person total to $3,269.

But lord how they hate the government. Alaskan Republicans will be the first in line to cash the check, while telling each other how much they resent paying taxes and want the government out of their lives.

Last night, slimy Ari Fleischer was on Larry King lying as easily as he breathes (claiming, among other things, that Obama hates Israel.) And here’s what he had to say about this:

L. KING: We have a blog question for Ari Fleischer. It’s from Dawn, “How does Sarah Palin’s policy in Alaska of taxing the oil companies and distributing $3,269 to each citizen differ from distributing the wealth?”

FLEISCHER: Well, that’s because there is no state income tax in Alaska. Nobody has to pay because Alaska has such an abundance of natural resources. The state actually gets the royalties and passes it back to its citizens.

I wish that was the case for everybody in every state. That would be a real big growing private enterprise. I’d have no problem with that.

Golly, that sure sound like some sort of redistributional scheme to me, but what do I know? (And here I thought I heard McCain and Palin railing against corporate taxes …)

So, how does Palin explain it? Here’s Hertzberg again:

A few weeks before she was nominated for Vice-President, she told a visiting journalist—Philip Gourevitch, of this magazine—that “we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.”

Oh fergawdsake…

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Voter Suppression Watch

by dday

I’m still a little stunned that it isn’t a bigger story that a sitting US President is ordering his Attorney General to intervene in a voting-rights case in Ohio – a case already decided by the US Supreme Court – just a week away from the election to pick his successor. This is attempted voter suppression at the highest levels, with the President essentially aiding an abetting the nominee from his own party. And if it’s so much as hit page D-38, I’d be surprised. Only the ACLU appears the least bit worked up about this:

With the election one week away, this kind of intrusion represents partisan politics at its worst. In addition, challenging — or purging — lawfully registered voters in the days before the election invites chaos and undermines the integrity of the democratic process.

The whole letter is here.

Why is this not the talk of Democratic circles? Ohio may not hold the key to the election the way it has in years past, but injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, as the saying goes. My biggest fear is that after the election, if Democrats win there will be a strong pull to say “Oh well, the system worked” and not to enact the structural reforms that are needed at so many levels, whether that means instituting the National Popular Vote or same-day registration or automatic registration through Social Security numbers or a ban on e-voting machines and a paper ballot requirement or instant runoff voting or a federal voting standard or making Election Day a holiday. The catch-22 is that a win breeds inertia and a loss means the loser has no access to the levers of power.

But when people like this have a large bearing on how elections are run, there is a serious problem afoot and it doesn’t matter if the eventual conclusion seems correct.

Yesterday we told you about an effort by Indiana’s Republican secretary of state, Todd Rokita, to press federal and state authorities to prosecute ACORN for voter fraud. Rokita had said a review by his office of forms submitted by ACORN found “multiple criminal violations.”

But it turns out that Rokita hardly has a reputation as a non-partisan public official. In October 2002, the South Bend Tribune reported (via nexis):

Working on his own time, [Rokita] also assisted George W. Bush’s campaign during the infamous Florida election recount in 2000. Rokita is proud of that, especially because the U.S. Supreme Court cited Indiana election law when it decided the election in Bush’s favor.

In other words, Rokita was part of the team of ambitious young Republican operatives who flew down to Florida to help out on a bid to stymie the recount effort — remember the “Brooks Brothers riot”? — and ultimately put George Bush in the White House.

This is a partisan operative, one of Roger Stone’s freshly scrubbed protégés, and a McCain campaign co-chair, using his office to attempt to pervert the election process. At some point, this must be fought, regardless of who wins and who loses on November 4.

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What Have We Learned?

by tristero

On August 31, 2008, I wrote, in re: Sarah Palin:

How refreshing and bold! Yet another ignorant far right nut who abuses government power for personal reasons!

I’m curious. In the past couple of months, have we learned anything new about Sarah Palin?

Impolite Servants

by digby

So everybody in Hollywood hates MSNBC. (Michael Reagan gets death threats from sissy liberals every time he appears!) Whatever. But this common piece of right wing victimology is worth examining:

Actress Patricia Heaton noted that Hollywood workers too often just assume everyone they work with is a like-minded liberal. When those around her belittle John McCain or Palin, she politely reminds them that she’s a Republican.

“That’s what you have to do in our town,” she said.

The humanity. How can she bear up under it all?

She says “Hollywood workers” which would indicate to me that she’s talking about crew as well as fellow actors. And it’s true that there are more liberal “workers” in Hollywood — a lot of them are union, after all. I can easily see Patricia Heaton telling them to stop expressing their opinions around her and them having to do so since she’s a (washed up) TV star. I’ve had many a boss do the same thing. Everybody knows the score.

But poor Heaton still feels put upon because in her mind her beautiful ears should never have to hear liberals being mean to Republicans. It’s impolite. Meanwhile, liberals in this country have been subjected to conservatives slinging crap like this for years every time we turn on the radio:

LIMBAUGH: I mean, if there is a party that’s soulless, it’s the Democratic Party. If there are people by definition who are soulless, it is liberals — by definition. You know, souls come from God. You know? No. No. You can’t go there.

That guy is given awards and treated like a king among the conservative set — which includes the entire Republican establishment. Just a couple of months ago both Bush presidents called the show to shoot the breeze with its “polite” host.

For the last thirty years I have been listening to politicians run as “proud conservatives” without even the slightest acknowledgment that more than half the country identifies themselves differently. (Even the Democrats go to great lengths to assure the country they aren’t “latte sipping, New York times reading” liberals.) Conservatives have been shoving their philosophy down Americans’ throats for decades as if it were the one true American faith and anyone who doesn’t agree is a traitor.

Nonetheless, get ready to hear more of these stories of victimization, as Republicans begin to realize that conservatism is as out of fashion as mullets and padded shoulders. If they thought they were being victimized when they ran the whole government and were feted as the personification of Real America you know they are going to wallow in victimhood as if being a conservative is akin to living in the Warsaw ghetto, once they are out of power. For reasons that probably have to do with guilt and projection they seem to need to see themselves as an aggrieved minority. I say let them follow their bliss.

Update: Here’s another one right out of the Limbaugh files — this time used by Liddy Dole.

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Holy Crap, Obama Went There

by dday

I don’t think he needed to, but will anybody watch this and not understand implicitly?

Maybe this is the first ad of the 2012 campaign.

But for the current one, it’s a devastating comment on John McCain’s poor judgment. He tried to win a news cycle, but Barack Obama just won the war.

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