Month: November 2009

Reconciled

by digby

I’m hearing a lot of the usual chatter about using reconciliation for the public option in light of comments by various Dems, such as Ben Nelson. But Reid sounded pretty adamant the other day:

Reid also said he would not use a procedural maneuver known as reconciliation to pass the bill – a shift from previous statements when he would say all options are on the table.

“I’m not using reconciliation,” he said flatly.

As dday noted, this could be construed as only applying to the Saturday vote, but it actuallysounds to me as if he took it off the table in order to get that vote. I guess he could go back on that promise, but I would doubt it.

Reconciliation is looking more and more likely to be the best way they get a public option, but my guess is at this point that they are very unlikely to use it unless the liberals demand it. And I just don’t know how much more stomach anyone has for this high wire act.

I gather that there is plenty of talk about the public option in the Senate and that it is not off the table in some form or another, so I am not one of those who are perpetually pronouncing it dead. People have been doing that for months and continue to look foolish when it doesn’t turn out to be true. So, I remain hopeful that it happens, if only for political reasons demonstrating to the village that liberals have the political clout to push through their priorities. (Truthfully, I’m not sure if any of this is going to be worth it if they can’t figure out a way to speed up the reforms, but that’s another problem.)

However it happens I think Reid’s words are fairly clear, especially since, as dday pointed out, reconcilation was the threat that Reid used to get the vote and when he took it off the table, the dynamic changed. I think the deal was made and that Reid probably won’t bring it back.

But, as always, I could be wrong. My crystal ball is as cloudy as always.

.

Don’t Have A Seizure In Public

by digby

… unless you expect to get tasered:

A Washington man lost consciousness and was soon revived Wednesday after being hit twice with a Taser by city police during a struggle in which the man bit one of the officers several times.

Ronald Petruney, 49, of 1090 Jefferson Ave., remained in Washington Hospital Thursday, and his condition was not immediately known, city police said at a news conference that morning.

An officer, whose name was not released, was patrolling Jefferson Avenue when he encountered Petruney on the ground near his apartment about 1:05 p.m., suffering from what appeared to be a seizure.

Petruney then stood up, disoriented, and attempted to walk into traffic, police Lt. Daniel Stanek said at the news conference.

Petruney refused orders to sit down and charged the officer, biting him and swinging his arms when the two began to struggle, Stanek said.

Another officer, who also was not identified, arrived on the scene. Petruney was first shot in the legs with two Taser wires. The second officer then applied his Taser directly to Petruney’s torso, Stanek said.

At that point, Petruney lost his pulse and was revived by paramedics.

Stanek said the officers followed department procedures in using Tasers. He said city police have had problems in the past with Petruney, who has known mental health issues. He has bitten a police officer before, Stanek said.

Police are preparing to charge him with aggravated assault and resisting arrest upon his release from the hospital.

No need. He died.

I understand the officers fearing being bitten and can appreciate the difficulty in dealing with the mentally ill in these situations. But when someone is having a seizure, biting and disorientation are common, and they should be trained to deal with it without shooting the person full of electricity. Especially since seizure disorders are caused by electrical disturbances in the brain:

In seizure disorders, the brain’s electrical activity is periodically disturbed, resulting in some degree of temporary brain dysfunction.

*
Many people have unusual sensations just before a seizure starts.
*
Some seizures cause uncontrollable shaking and loss of consciousness, but more often, people simply stop moving or become unaware of what is happening.
*
Doctors suspect the diagnosis based on symptoms, but imaging of the brain, blood tests, and electroencephalography (to record the brain’s electrical activity) are usually needed to identify the cause.
*
If needed, drugs can usually prevent seizures.

Normal brain function requires an orderly, organized, coordinated discharge of electrical impulses. Electrical impulses enable the brain to communicate with the spinal cord, nerves, and muscles as well as within itself. Seizures may result when the brain’s electrical activity is disrupted.

Does it make any sense to be shoot someone who is experiencing such a thing full of electricity?

It’s impossible for me to believe that cops didn’t have better ways of dealing with these situation, and mental illness too, before tasers came into the picture. They seem to be completely losing any sense of judgment in dealing with sick members of the population since they got this magic all purpose torture weapon.

h/t to JAT

The McDonnell Strategy

by digby

Howie talks about the vaunted McDonnell Strategy that all the GOP establishment poobahs are selling as the next big thing. Howie sagely points out that depressing the Democratic base, as McDonnell admits was a big part of the strategy, will depend upon the individual Dem candidates’ willingness to adopt the Creigh Deeds strategy of moving right even as your Republican opponent was desperately trying to pretend that he isn’t captive of the crazies.

McDonnell recently said:

“I never shied away when I got attacked on pro-life– I said, ‘Yeah I’m pro-life, I’ve governed myself that way for 18 years [in the political arena] and I’m going to be a pro-life governor,” he said. “Now let’s talk about jobs and the economy. So it was more a matter of focus, not a matter at all of backtracking on things that we believed in.”

That seems to me to be the exact strategy Democrat Mark Warner used in Virginia throughout the decade, which was also touted as the super-duper winning strategy for Democrats everywhere. I think I’d start to consider whether Virginia is the fabulous microcosm of Real America that everyone who lives in its environs thinks it is. They choose to elect the same dull technocrat over and over again regardless of party and I’m not sure there’s a lot of evidence that the rest of the country is as enamored of such types as Virginia obviously is.

Indeed, if there’s any lesson from Virginia to be taken in this moment, it’s that the Republicans are the ones who feel the need to downplay their true beliefs in favor of an appeal to competence, which should indicate to the Democrats that they can more safely run on theirs. Naturally, timorous Dems who’ve been traumatized by years of Republican dominance and media abuse, simply can’t conceive of a circumstance in which it might actually be better for them to embrace their more liberal instincts. (In a situation where the opponent on the right is trying to direct the electorate’s attention away from his social conservatism, you’d think they’d get a clue.)But these are opportunities to move the goalposts and give liberalism some exposure to people who have had almost no experience with it.

If the lesson that Democrats take from this is that they too need to have more candidates like McDonnell, just as they believed they needed more candidates like Mark Warner (who is a very nice centrist and obviously perfect for Virginia, if not the rest of the country) then Republicans will be back in the majority before too long. Unlike the Democrats, the GOP understands that when the other side is on the run and trying desperately to erase the differences between the two parties, it’s an opportunity to move even farther to the right, thus shifting the center. Democrats, on the other hand, often believe that when the Republicans are on the run, it’s a good time for them to tack to the right, thus ensuring that the “center” remains firmly conservative no matter what. The only way to understand this is to believe they are stupid — or they all want the country to stay as far to the right as possible.

.

Lamentations

by digby

You’ve all heard about the winguts sporting bumperstickers and buttons that say Psalm 109, which is calling for Obama to be replaced (or killed, depending on how you look at it.) The good Christians sporting these bumper stickers insist it’s no biggie and that everyone should just lighten up.

Max Brantley says otherwise — at least if you take your Bible seriously:

Diana Butler Bass at Beliefnet explains that Psalm 109 is one of the “imprecatory” prayers, “a lament in the form of petition to destroy one’s enemies.” While perhaps intended to be a joke, she notes that the psalm actually “entreats God to destroy the president”:

It is the personal prayer of an individual, someone who has been dealt an injustice by another–and usually more powerful–person. The words of Psalm 109 are those of deep agony, the longings of a victim for retribution and justice. This psalm is considered one of the most difficult of all the psalms–full of violent images of vengeance and death.

h/t to bb

Saturday Night At The Movies

The worst years of our lives

By Dennis Hartley

The bad news bearers: Harrelson and Foster in The Messenger

Well, it took long enough. Someone has finally made a film that gets the harrowing national nightmare of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars right. Infused with sharp writing, smart and unobtrusive direction and compelling performances, The Messenger is one of those insightful observations of the human condition that quietly sneaks up and really gets inside you, staying with you long after the credits roll. This is easily one of the best films I have seen this year (and one of the few with real substance). First-time director Owen Moverman and co-writer Alessandro Camon not only bring the war(s) home, but they then proceed to march up your driveway and deposit in on your doorstep. Quite literally.

Knock, knock.

“The Secretary of the Army has asked me to express his deep regret that your (son, daughter, husband, wife) (died/was killed in action) in (country/state) on (date). The Secretary extends his deepest sympathy to you and your family in your tragic loss.”

Those are words that no one ever wants to hear, and I can’t imagine any job in the world that could possibly be any worse than being the person assigned to deliver that message. “There’s no such thing as a satisfied customer,” deadpans Casualty Notification Officer Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) to his new apprentice, Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster), who is emotionally shattered by his virgin encounter with bereaved “NOK”.

Sgt. Montgomery is a decorated, recently returned Iraq War vet whose enlistment is almost up. Although he accepts this one last thankless assignment with the stoic obedience expected from a professional soldier, he appears to privately suffer from PTSD; a condition that makes an odd bedfellow with his new responsibilities. Stone is a hardass, a cynical careerist who carries a fair share of personal baggage himself. When he bluntly asks Montgomery if he is “a head case” right after meeting him, you suspect that this may be a case of “it takes one to know one”. Stone (and Harrelson’s portrayal) is reminiscent of SM1 “Bad Ass” Buddusky, Jack Nicholson’s character in The Last Detail.

In fact, there is a lot about this film that reminds me of those episodic, naturalistic character studies that directors like Hal Ashby and Bob Rafaelson used to turn out back in the 70s; giving their actors plenty of room to breathe and inhabit their characters in a very real and believable manner. A subplot involving a relationship between Montgomery and a recently widowed Army wife (Samantha Morton) strongly recalled one of my all-time favorite sleepers from that particular era and style of filmmaking, Mark Rydell’s Cinderella Liberty (worth seeking out, if you have never seen it, BTW).

Although the filmmakers hold back from making any overt political statements, the notification scenes in the film say it all-we continue to ship scores of young American men and women overseas whole of limb and spirit, and return many of them home sans either or both (or in a box)…and for what justifiable reason, exactly? And as heartbreaking, gut-wrenching and hard to watch as these scenes are-I am sure they pale in comparison to the agony of those families and loved ones who have answered the door and received that news for real. In fact, I’ll take this one step further. I challenge anyone out there who feels we “need” to dig ourselves in deeper into our present Middle East quagmire to watch this film, reassess their justifications, and get back to me. Go. I’ll wait.

All power to the people

And speaking of lost causes… there’s a fascinating new documentary making the rounds that you might want to keep an eye out for. William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe is a sometimes stirring, sometimes confounding but ultimately moving portrait of the iconoclastic and controversial defense lawyer who was sort of the Zelig of the radical Left throughout most of the 1970s. Somehow, he became THE key legal champion for the Chicago 7, The Black Panther Party, anti-war activist Father Daniel Berrigan, the American Indian Movement and the ill-fated inmates who initiated the Attica prison riots.

However, beginning sometime in the 1980s (for reasons known only to himself, or perhaps just merely in keeping with the inherently contrarian nature of a defense lawyer) he slowly but surely turned to The Dark Side (at least in the opinion, and to the chagrin, of many of his professional cohorts and former “co-conspirators”). He started to take on high-profile cases involving clients who were, well, decidedly less sexy to the dedicated followers of fashionable radical chic; terrorists (including the chief planner of the first World Trade Center attack and the man accused of murdering Rabbi Kahane), mobsters (John Gotti and other Gambino family associates), notorious murderers (L.I. Railroad killer Colin Ferguson) and rapists (the Central Park jogger assault case)-to name a couple.

The filmmakers may have more personal reasons than anyone else to be stymied by this apparent mass of contradictions that constituted Kunstler’s persona, and are arguably the best qualified to take a stab at earnest analysis-because after all, he was their Dad. Luckily for us, Emily and Sarah Kunstler were precociously budding filmmakers from an early age; they were able to capture a lot of wonderfully un-self conscious vintage home movie moments from a man who was almost always otherwise playing to the news cameras with the Right Profile and the Grand Gesture. These moments temper the usual talking heads reminiscences and archival news footage in a unique fashion, adding an unusually intimate element to the film. To their credit, they don’t sugarcoat that they were truly horrified by some of their father’s professional choices (not to mention the fact that some of those choices precipitated some all-too-real death threats against the family).

Whether one agrees or disagrees with Kunstler’s eventual decision to seemingly pull any defendant’s name out of the Fuckit Bucket and give it his all, regardless of the political correctness involved, the real takeaway you get from the film is the same one his daughters touchingly acknowledge in the denouement-there’s never anything wrong with making a stand against social injustice, even if you’re the only one who perceives it may be taking place. This point is brought home beautifully when Emily and Sarah remind us that the young African Americans who were originally brought to trial in the 1989 Central Park jogger case, roundly vilified in the media and vigorously defended by their father were exonerated in 2002, when DNA linked a murderer to the rape. And so it goes.

Previous posts with related themes:

Stop-Loss

Lions for Lambs

Chicago 10

.

Protest At Your Own Risk

by digby

This is from last week’s protests at UCLA:

UCLA is no stranger to Taser Gun use. After a horrible video in 2006 surfaced of a student, who was already retrained by officers, being tasered several times, the school suffered a good amount of drama and settled with the student for $220,000. During protests over the past two days, at least a few students were tasered. UCLA officials said two were tasered on Wednesday and photos show that at least one student was on Thursday. A witness to Thursday’s incident tells LAist that two people were tasered during a scuffle captured in photos. “In fact with this particular incident,” said the student, “there were actually two students who were tasered, the girl lying down next to Rustin O’Neill on the right in the first photo posted was also tasered, once, in the arm, and Rustin was tasered multiple times over the heart.”

Somebody forgot to read their memo. Luckily he lived. But it’s going to be an expensive lawsuit.

.

The Cow Is Over The Fence Again

by digby

If you missed Bill Moyers’ Journal last night, I urge you to find the time to watch it or at least read the transcript:

With an eye on President Obama’s deliberations on whether to deploy more U.S. troops in addition to the 68,000 already in Afghanistan, Moyers presented a montage of recorded conversations and his personal memories of President Lyndon Johnson’s decisions to escalate the war in Vietnam. He said:

“Our country wonders this weekend what is on President Obama’s mind. He is apparently about to bring months of deliberation to a close and answer General Stanley McChrystal’s request for more troops in Afghanistan. When he finally announces how many, why, and at what cost, he will most likely have defined his presidency, for the consequences will be far-reaching and unpredictable. As I read and listen and wait with all of you for answers, I have been thinking about the mind of another President – Lyndon B. Johnson. I was 30 years old, a White House assistant, working on politics and domestic policy. I watched and listened as LBJ made his fateful decisions about Vietnam… Barack Obama is not Lyndon Johnson, Afghanistan is not Vietnam and this is now, not then. The situation is different. But listen – and you will hear echoes and refrains that resonate today.”

Refrains like this:

US Senator John McCain predicted an allied win in Afghanistan in one year to 18 months if sufficient troops are sent, as the White House mulls sending tens of thousands of reinforcements.

But he said that timeline is threatened by US President Barack Obama’s delay in rolling out a new Afghanistan strategy.

“I am absolutely convinced and totally confident that with sufficient resources we can turn the situation around,” McCain told reporters at an international defense summit in easternmost Canada.

“I even am bold enough to predict that in a year to 18 months you will see success if the effort is sufficiently resourced and there is a commitment to get the job done before setting a date to leave the region,” he said.

They always say that, knowing that it’s so much more complicated, but also knowing they can make political points. From the Moyers broadcast:

ROBERT MCNAMARA: … If we’re going to stay in there, if we’re going to go strictly up the escalating chain, we’re going to have to educate the people, Mr. President. We haven’t done so yet. I’m not sure now is exactly the right time.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: No, and I think if you start doing it, they’re going to be hollering, “You’re a warmonger.”

ROBERT MCNAMARA: That’s right. I completely agree with you. So this is the-

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: I think that’s the horns that the Republicans would like to get us on. Now if we could do something in the way of social work, in the way of our hospitals, in the way of our province program […] and in the way of remaking that area out there, and giving them some hope and something to fight for, and put some of our own people into their units and do a little better job of fighting without material escalation for the next few months, that’s what we ought to do.

BILL MOYERS: The President’s hopes for a kind of ‘New Deal’ for South Vietnam are stymied by the corruption and incompetence of the government there, which is again on the verge of collapse, even as the enemy – the Vietcong – are consolidating more and more control in the countryside. The walls are closing in, and the President turns once again to his old mentor in the Senate, Dick Russell.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: I’m confronted with-I don’t believe the American people ever want me to run. If I lose it, I think that they’ll say I’ve lost, I’ve pulled in. At the same time, I don’t want to commit us to a war. And I’m in a hell of a shape. I can’t do-I just don’t know.

RICHARD RUSSELL: We’re just like the damn cow over a fence out there in Vietnam.

The whole thing is so reminiscent of what’s currently going on — the clear knowledge that it’s useless, the right wing using it as a political weapon, the wishful thinking about nation building, the sense of inevitability. And you can’t help but be struck by the fact that everyone knows the right always uses war as a weapon and that the liberal political establishment always believes it must cower from the threat.

Update: Bill Moyers is retiring. I don’t know what we’ll do without him.

.

Blanche

by digby

Blanche Lincoln has also generously decided to let the health care bill come to floor for debate today (which was more or less expected), but she seemed to promise that she will help the Republicans filibuster any bill that contains a public option:

“Let me be perfectly clear. I am opposed to a new government administered health care plan as a part of comprehensive health insurance reform, and I will not vote in favor of the proposal that has been introduced by Leader Reid as it is written…. I’ve already alerted the Leader and I’m promising my colleagues that I’m prepared to vote against moving to the next stage of consideration as long as a government-run public option is included.”

So, looks like triggers are back on the table and President Snowe has been called back from Elba:

After announcing her intent to support a health care debate this afternoon, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) told reporters she thinks Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will soon have to choose between a triggered public option and no health care bill. She also says Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)–the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate one of its most fierce and vocal public option advocates–has been tasked as a point man on the issue.

“I believe it’s going to be very clear at some point very soon that there are not 60 votes for the current provision in the bill, and that the leader and the leadership are going to have to make a decision and I trust that they will figure out how to do that,” Landrieu told reporters.

“At some point very soon,” meant when Lincoln came to the floor, I’m guessing.

One step at a time …

.

The Christianist Manifesto: A Partial Fisking

by tristero

Led by an admitted felon,* a bunch of extreme, but influential, christianists have released a rambling statement which they’ve pompously called “Manhattan Declaration.” Get it? That’s “declaration” as in “Declaration of Independence” rather than “manifesto” as in “The Communist Manifesto.” I prefer the latter, though. It bugs ’em, that’s why.

A hat tip to Americans United for the heads up and for this response:

Said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, “This declaration is certain to be deeply divisive. These religious leaders want to see their doctrines imposed by force of law, and that goes against everything America stands for.

“The United States is an incredibly diverse nation,” he continued, “and it would be a disaster if government started favoring one religious perspective over others.”

Well, in fact, the US has started favoring a religious perspective, via the faith-based initiative program, continued under Obama with the addition of a faith-based advisory council.** But let’s not get distracted; I’ll confront the F-BI on another day, as will, in more eloquent language than I can muster, Reverend Lynn. What Colson and his fellow creeps are up to is a more salient issue.

The “Manhattan Declaration” is an odiously grandiose screed. It preambles with a long, brain-glazing history lesson starting some 2000 years ago, the point of which is – well, it’s not too clear, but it seems to be that 2000 years of Christians and Christianity fully support the tedious obsessions of modern American christianists. The inconvenient truths of Christian history – pogroms; tortures; burnings; religious persecution; the undermining of the sincere faith of believers in order to foment war, greed, and other political/cultural atrocities; and the perpetuation of stupefying ignorance – are swept under the rug in zippy little subordinate clauses:

While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and communities in all ages…

Yeah, we all make mistakes, it’s true. Like the Spanish Inquisition, Or imprisoning Galileo. And christianists credit the religion they mock – yes, these people make a mockery of a great tradition – with any liberal idea they think they can get away with:

It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade;

Took ’em a while.

And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement.

Indeed. And were excoriated for it by other Christians.

The great civil rights crusades of the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming the Scriptures

And those very same “crusades” were opposed from the pulpits of countless churches throughout the land, And oh, yes, the leaders of the civil rights movement, which included humanists, Jews, Christians, atheists, and others, were denounced as irreligious liberals.

Christians today are called to proclaim the Gospel of costly grace, to protect the intrinsic dignity of the human person…

That’s why so many of the signers of this declaration spoke out so forcefully against the torturing regime of George W. Bush and his cohorts. They did, didn’t they?

…and to stand for the common good.

And that is as close as this Manifesto gets to acknowledging that Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, liberals, humanists, gays, and others have anything close to a right not to believe what christianists believe. Or that many rights, period.

Let’s go on.

In this declaration we affirm: 1) the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every human being as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, possessing inherent rights of equal dignity and life; 2) marriage as a conjugal union of man and woman, ordained by God from the creation, and historically understood by believers and non-believers alike, to be the most basic institution in society

In other words, all humans are equal but heterosexuals are more equal.

and; 3) religious liberty, which is grounded in the character of God, the example of Christ, and the inherent freedom and dignity of human beings created in the divine image.

Which means…well, it’s not clear, but it seems like they’re comparing themselves, and their nonsensical crusades against things like decent science education, as well as their well-funded greed machines ministries to the poverty of Christ.

I could go on, but I have more important things to do than read more of Colson’s repellent garbage, like pare my toenails. I’d like to leave you with one more excerpt, however. I thought about giving you the spectacle of Colson, et al, deploring births out of wedlock, which they didn’t do, and didn’t do it ever so convincingly, when Sarah Palin was parading her pregnant-out-of-wedlock daughter around. But that’s too easy: you’ll just instantly agree with me and that’s no fun. Liberals, at least the liberals I like, enjoy a good argument. And I like you folks. Soooo…

Instead, consider the following:

The President and many in Congress favor the expansion of embryo-research to include the taxpayer funding of so-called “therapeutic cloning.” This would result in the industrial mass production of human embryos to be killed for the purpose of producing genetically customized stem cell lines and tissues. At the other end of life, an increasingly powerful movement to promote assisted suicide and “voluntary” euthanasia threatens the lives of vulnerable elderly and disabled persons. Eugenic notions such as the doctrine of lebensunwertes Leben (“life unworthy of life”) were first advanced in the 1920s by intellectuals in the elite salons of America and Europe. Long buried in ignominy after the horrors of the mid-20th century, they have returned from the grave. The only difference is that now the doctrines of the eugenicists are dressed up in the language of “liberty,” “autonomy,” and “choice.”

Of course this is bullshit, anyone sane will agree, and the distortions and poor associations between different pseud0-facts make for incoherence, if you try to make actual sense of it. So what is this about? Why is this weird passage in the Christianist Manifesto?

Focus carefully on the style. Get it? No? Ok, let’s spell it out. Check out what this passage contains:

The President and many in Congress…Industrial mass production…human…to be killed…assisted suicide…”voluntary” euthanasia threatens the lives of vulnerable elderly and disabled persons…Eugenic…lebensunwertes Leben (“life unworthy of life”)…the elite salons of America and Europe. Long buried in ignominy after the horrors of the mid-20th century, they have returned from the grave.

In other words, Colson and his cronies are saying Obama is Hitler and Democrats are Nazis. They’re planning a Holocaust for Christians.

Disagree that that is the intent? Perhaps you think the gratuitous use of the German was just an accident, or mere intellectual posturing. Or that it’s just a coincidence that the phrase “The President and many in Congress” occurs so close to “Industrial mass production” as well as the word “human” and the phrase “to be killed.”

If you really think this is just some kind of random half-baked nonsense, just boiler-plate, then – and I mean this very sincerely – you don’t know the first thing about how language works in modern American political discourse. And so, you will be satisfied with a liberal rhetoric that counters this disgusting demagoguery with something as unfocused and ineffective as spring rain and mushrooms. And nasty creeps like Colson, Donohue, and their ilk will continue to have regular access to sitting presidents .

And no, I will not get over it.***** This ain’t no party. This ain’t no disco. This ain’t no…

—–

*h/t: The Smoking Gun

Charles Colson, chief counsel to Richard Nixon, served seven months in prison after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice as well as other Watergate related charges.

** Some observers I spoke to at AU’s annual meeting believe that the Advisory Council is not what it appears to be on its face. By appointing, they said, a broad spectrum of people who hate each others’ guts, Obama seems to be encouraging gridlock on faith-based initiatives rather than a smooth flow of funding. Perhaps: after all, Obama is a very astute politician, and there is more than one way to prevent the government from funding Colson-approved boondoggles. But AU leaders were emphatic in denouncing the very notion of the advisory council, insisting it represented an ominous expansion. I tend to agree.

***I jest. Or maybe not. After all, Colson is a convicted felon. And the others who signed this document think like him. And they’ve served to help him accomplish the writing and marketing of “Manhattan Declaration”.

****I counted eleven women out of 154 authors and/or signatories.

***** But, if cute mushrooms are inadequate, what would effective liberal rhetoric sound like? Well, here’s Rick Hertzberg, for example. More like this, please.

Blasphemy!

by digby

Yesterday, I made fund of the fact that little Luke Russert thought that Harry Reid was the new liberal standard bearer because he got a vote to the floor. But this might actually do it:

“In tomorrow’s Washington Post, David Broder, their distinguished senior columnist, certainly not a political conservative, expresses his reservation as a citizen about the steps that we could be about to take,” McConnell said. Reid couldn’t have been less impressed. “To focus on a man who has been retired for many years and writes a column once in a while is not where we should be.”

Update: Democrat Mary Landrieu just announced that she’s generously going to allow the historic Democratic health care reform bill to come to the floor. That’s very kind of her.

So it looks like we’re going to get a vote. The question now is what the bill is going to look like after all the amendments.

… it never ends …

.