Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Blocking All Roads Into Town

by digby

I’ve been writing for a very long time that the minute a Democratic president is sworn in, the Village cries for bipartisanship are going to be deafening. They did it after 2006 — imagine what they’ll do now. Just last week, Broder laid down the gauntlet. Now Obama fan (and former Bush sycophant) Howard Fineman is starting to get nervous:

This is the engine room of a novel grass-roots machine that may soon have another purpose: to help Obama govern the country. If he wins, it also could cause him headaches…’His supporters have sky-high expectations and expect to be involved,’ says Will Marshall, who studied the Obama organization for the Democratic Leadership Council. ‘They are loyal but not easy to control.’…

It could also cause Obama problems. Much of America may be gung-ho about putting more troops into Afghanistan, but it’s not clear Obamaworld is; he could run into opposition if he seriously pursues it. On the other hand, initiating talks with Iranian and Venezuelan dictators enjoys more support on his e-mail lists than in the rest of the country. If the Democrats win bigger majorities in the House and Senate, they (if not Obama) may well be eager to exact vengeance on Republicans, or at least cram Democratic ideas down GOP throats. Obama supporters might prefer more reaching-out. As Marshall sees it, most of them want a “transpartisan” approach that jettisons the old labels. “These people feel a close, personal tie to Obama, just as conservatives did to Reagan,” he says. “But if and when he starts governing, he is going to start disappointing them.”

He sounds awfully sure of himself.

Here’s David Sirota correctly assessing the real meaning of all this:

To the Village, it would be horrible – catastrophic even – if Obama supporters dared to expect Obama to actually pursue a true progressive agenda. Obama supporters are therefore depicted as a wild-eyed, bewildered herd of lunatic leftists that, as the corporate-backed DLC says, are – gasp! – “not easy to control.”

This is a portrayal designed to press Obama to immediately shun his base, capitulate to conservatives (in the spirit of “transpartisanship”), reject “cramming Democratic ideas down GOP throats” (even though Obama campaigned on Democratic ideas), and bow down to the Serious and Respected Villagers after the election. Of course, these are the same Villagers whose neoconservatism got us into Iraq and whose free-market fundamentalism drove the country to the bring of economic disaster – all under the guise of “transpartisanship.” Now, these same Villagers are making it clear that the Serious and Responsible thing for Obama to do is deliberately “disappoint” the people who elected him.

Indeed, disappointing the people who elected him is the only way that he can be taken seriously. It’s a right of passage for Democrats and if he doesn’t do it himself, they’ll bring in some elders to push hard in the press. (Here’s where our new best friends like Colin Powell will come in handy for the villagers. He may have been a good soldier for Bush, but his history is one of stabbing Democrats in the back.)

Predictably, establishment Dems are helping them:

Democrats said they were well aware of the mistakes of the past and the overconfidence exhibited during one-party rule of the Clinton and Bush administrations that led to Democrats’ losing control of the House in 1994 and to Republicans’ experiencing a similar defeat in 2006.

Chastened by their years in exile, Democrats said they were determined to avoid those pitfalls should voters deliver them control of the White House and Congress.

The nature of the Democratic majority, expanded partly through the election of centrists and even conservatives, would also temper Democratic zeal to pursue an overly ideological agenda, Democrats said.

“We are going to get new members with a clear understanding that the reason they won is appealing to independents and disaffected Republicans, and they are going to want to continue to do that,” said the House majority leader, Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland.

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Good to know we won’t have to deal with any crazy stunts like universal health care, withdrawal from Iraq or badly needed economic investment to counter the recession and the banking crisis. Steny’s going to save us from all that left-wing nuttiness. (Tax cuts, that’s the ticket. More tax cuts. More war.)

The Republicans, who ruled like a marauding horde of Vikings, agree with Steny that Real Americans want them to govern us from the opposition:

“I think the Senate operates best when it makes things happen in the middle, and that happens when you have 41 or more people who resist an idea to the point where you can compromise,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader and a lawmaker whose own seat is at risk. “I think there will be enough Republicans plus discerning Democrats in the Senate after January to keep a kind of far-left agenda from steamrolling through the Senate like it often does through the House.”

Oh Thank God. The Republicans will almost certainly have enough “discerning Democrats” to continue to run the country as effectively as they have the last eight years. Whew.

I don’t know where Obama stands in all of this, but I assume he knows that the success of his presidency rests on his ability to relieve this free floating anxiety out in the land about America’s future. More people than ever before think America’s best days are behind it and that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. And they are not just “whining.” The nation is facing some very, very serious challenges that require bold action: the economy is in serious trouble, we are dealing with an energy crisis so acute that we are fighting wars over it, and the planet it in grave, near term danger from global warming. Oh, and there are a bunch of religious fundamentalist terrorists still running around and Americans can’t afford to get sick anymore without losing everything. Worrying about whether or not David Broder and Howard Fineman think it’s “serious” to take these things seriously is a recipe for failure.

Let’s hope Obama can either finesse them or ignore them. In the meantime it’s incumbent upon all of us latte sipping freaks to make sure that the Democrats know who brung them. One way to do that is to vote in some real progressives to balance out the “Discerning Democrats” who are really Republicans in sheep’s clothing. Blue America is backing a whole slate of them. If you live in or near on of their districts, volunteer to help in this last week. Some of these races are very, very close.

And you can still buy ads in their districts through SayMe. (Click the Blue America ad to your left.) It could mean the difference between having Steny and the boyz take credit for this win and making it a true progressive victory.

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Two Really Bad Ideas From The Department Of Really Bad Ideas

by tristero

From the International Division of the Department Of Really Bad Ideas:

Civil rights campaigners are angry that ministers have approved plans to allow Sharia councils in Britain the right to settle disputes regarding money, property and access to children.

They say such tribunals are institutions for male domination which treat women like second-class citizens.

Couples who choose to use the Sharia system must get the ruling rubber-stamped by a judge sitting in an ordinary family court.

But neither party has to attend this hearing and approval can be obtained by filling in a two-page application.

The endorsement of Sharia was announced to MPs by Bridget Prentice, a junior minister, in answer to a parliamentary question.
She said Sharia councils would still have no jurisdiction in England, and rulings by religious authorities would have no legal force.

But she added: “If, in a family dispute dealing with money or children, the parties to a judgement in Sharia council wish to have this recognised by English authorities, they are at liberty to draft a consent order embodying the terms of the agreement and submit it to an English court. This allows English judges to scrutinise it to ensure that it complies with English legal tenets.”

Campaigners condemned the plans as unacceptable and said that the rulings were not compatible with English law, while the Conservatives insisted that should be safeguards for women.

Nick Herbert, the shadow justice secretary, said: “There can be no place for parallel legal systems in our country.

One would hope so.

From The American division:

What is known, however, is that Ms. Palin has had long associations with religious leaders who practice a particularly assertive and urgent brand of Pentecostalism known as “spiritual warfare.”

Its adherents believe that demonic forces can colonize specific geographic areas and individuals, and that “spiritual warriors” must “battle” them to assert God’s control, using prayer and evangelism. The movement’s fixation on demons, its aggressiveness and its leaders’ claims to exalted spiritual authority have troubled even some Pentecostal Christians.

Ms. Palin delivered an enthusiastic graduation speech for a class of young spiritual warriors in June at the Wasilla Assembly of God, the church in which she was raised.

As governor, Ms. Palin appointed Patrick Donelson, a pastor and fishing guide who helped found a spiritual warfare ministry, to the only seat reserved for members of the clergy on the state’s Suicide Prevention Council.

Bishop Thomas Muthee, the Kenyan preacher shown on the YouTube video anointing her as she ran for governor, is celebrated internationally as an effective spiritual warrior who led a prayer movement that drove a witch out of his town in Kenya. The removal of the witch, Bishop Muthee says, resulted in a drop in crime, alcoholism and traffic accidents.

Religious leaders in Alaska, including Mr. Donelson, declined interviews, with several saying they had been told by the McCain-Palin campaign not to talk to members of the news media.

Russell P. Spittler, provost emeritus at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., and an eminent scholar of Pentecostalism, said, “Most Christians would accept the view that there are forces and powers in the world that oppose Christian virtues.” But, Mr. Spittler added, “Spiritual warfare makes a religion of identifying demons by names and ZIP codes.”

Y’mean, like, “Beelzebub, 07078?”

Critics say the goal of the spiritual warfare movement is to create a theocracy. Bruce Wilson, a researcher for Talk2Action , a Web site that tracks religious groups, said: “One of the imperatives of the movement is to achieve worldly power, including political control. Then you can more effectively drive out the demons. The ultimate goal is to purify the earth.”

The article does assure us that it sounds scarier than it is. After the brouhaha over Terri Schiavo, which included a confrontation between the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the local sheriff, that is no reassurance at all.

Down To Pennsylvania

by dday

Now I’m going to have to call all my relatives. Thanks a lot, McCain campaign!

Pennsylvania will see a lot of Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin next week.

The scheduling reflects McCain’s tough electoral math. With some — though by no means all — advisers all but conceding Colorado, McCain would be forced to win a blue state in order to recoup the electoral votes. New Hampshire wouldn’t give him enough, and Pennsylvania, the McCain campaign believes, is the most brittle of the remaining states. Public and private polls give Obama a double digit lead in the state, but McCain advisers believe that Obama is underperforming in the suburbs and exurban counties around Pittsburgh. Tensions between the two campaigns in the state is acute.

Pennsylvania doesn’t have early voting, meaning that the McCain campaign is not starting from a deficit like in other states, and it’s 82% white, a fairly high percentage, as well as one of the older states in the union (15%-plus over 65).

And so the dirtiest of dirty tricks are all manifesting themselves in Pennsylvania. The “B” lady who failed in her race-baiting effort to blame an assault on an African-American Obama supporter was in Pittsburgh. The Pennsylvania GOP – not an outside group, but the state REpublican Party – sent out this mailer aimed squarely at my grandparents:

“Jewish Americans cannot afford to make the wrong decision on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008,” the e-mail reads. “Many of our ancestors ignored the warning signs in the 1930s and 1940s and made a tragic mistake. Let’s not make a similar one this year!”

A copy of the e-mail, provided by Democratic officials, says it was “Paid for by the Republican Federal Committee of PA – Victory 2008.”

It warns “Fellow Jewish Voters” of the danger of a second Holocaust due to the threats to Israel from its neighbors and touts Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s qualifications over those of Obama.

The same spokesperson who’s distancing himself from this mailer is the one who was feeding reporters the story of the campaign worker mugging.

And then, from the furthest stretches of Outer Wingnuttia, there’s this:

A federal judge in Philadelphia last night threw out a complaint by a Montgomery County lawyer who claimed that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was not qualified to be president and that his name should be removed from the Nov. 4 ballot.

Philip J. Berg alleged in a complaint filed in federal district court on Aug. 21 against Obama, the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission, that Obama was born in Mombasa, Kenya.

Berg claimed that the Democratic presidential standardbearer is not even an American citizen but a citizen of Indonesia and therefore ineligible to be president.

He alleged that if Obama was permitted to run for president and subsequently found to be ineligible, he and other voters would be disenfranchised […]

Surrick ruled that Berg’s attempts to use certain laws to gain standing to pursue his claim that Obama was not a natural-born citizen were “frivolous and not worthy of discussion.”

This guy was all over the map. He said Obama was born in Kenya AND an Indonesian citizen.

And previously, the state GOP sued the Secretary of State and ACORN, claiming that a clean election cannot be assured.

If you’re looking for the trends reflecting the worst of the Republican Party, check out Pennsylvania for the next ten days.

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Divas On Parade

by digby

I’m sure you have all heard by now that McCain loyalists are already out there dissing Palin for ruining everything.

But this one made me chuckle a bit:

A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign. “She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone,” said this McCain adviser. “She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else. “Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom.”

My goodness,somebody is just all upset. Get that diva a chill pill.

Palin shouldn’t feel too upset by this. In fact, it should (but won’t) make her a little bit less critical of Obama, who the McCain campaign spent the summer belittling as a “celebrity.” She should be glad they didn’t call her what McCain calls his wife. perhaps that will have to wait until after the election.

Meanwhile, I’m hard pressed to hold Palin completely responsible for this:

“Her lack of fundamental understanding of some key issues was dramatic,” said another McCain source with direct knowledge of the process to prepare Palin after she was picked. The source said it was probably the “hardest” to get her “up to speed than any candidate in history.”

I discussed this earlier. They didn’t even ask if she knew anything. They chose her because she spoke to Charlie Rose like and automaton and because she looked good. They have only themselves to blame if she was completely unschooled on issues and political politesse. She delivered everything they were asking for.

On the other hand, it does take a real diva to accept a job for which you are completely unqualified and then blame the people who chose you for failing to properly prepare you for the job. I know it’s anti-American to turn down a big opportunity, but the stakes were damned high and she could have done it. Lot’s of people do. In fact, on the Republican side there was a long line of them.

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Saturday Night At The Movies

So…what’s on your DVR? (Slight return)

By Dennis Hartley

At the risk of instigating a public stoning, I thought I would take a bit of a departure this week and switch over to the (gulp!) small screen. So if you’re a TV snob, you might want to tune out now and spare us the eye-rolling and the predictable “Jesus, why don’t you people try reading a book?” admonishments in the comment section, mmmkay?

For those still with me (both of you), I now submit an unabashedly subjective Top Ten list for your perusal of shows (in no ranking order) that I currently find to be compelling enough to earn the “priority” nod on my DVR. I shared a similar list here last year; you may spot a few “re-runs”, but hey-there’s no accounting for some people’s taste, eh?

Boston Legal(ABC) Denny Crane! Sadly, it’s the farewell season for creator David E. Kelley’s extremely entertaining courtroom dramedy about a prestigious Boston law firm. Leading a fine cast, James Spader, William Shatner, Candice Bergen and John Larroquette have cemented well as TV’s Dream Team; it’s a shame to see them break up the band, as it were. Sure, some of the ongoing plot points are admittedly silly and things do tend to get a bit too precious at times (especially when characters go smashing through the Fourth Wall like bulls in the proverbial china shop) but there is one thing I’m going to miss more than anything else, and that’s Alan Shore’s closing arguments. Well, for the sake of the narrative, they are called “closing arguments”, but I think we all know they are in reality some of the most incisive, intelligently written, “stand up and cheer” progressive political rants you’ll ever hear on a mainstream network TV show (on second thought-anywhere this side of the blogosphere). Paddy Chayefsky would be proud. Don’t despair, BTW- since this season breaks 100 episodes, syndicated perpetuity is assured.

Breaking Bad (American Movie Classics) I will admit upfront that I missed this one during its initial run back in January of this year (I don’t think it initially got a lot of press or much viewer buzz) but like many people, my interest was piqued when Bryan Cranston picked up an Emmy for his starring role. AMC has been replaying the first season, and I’m hooked. Cranston gives a full-blooded performance as Walter White, a middle-aged chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer. Infused with a desperate sense of urgency to build up a nest egg for his pregnant wife and cerebral palsy-afflicted son, he partners up with a former student-turned drug dealer and applies his knowledge of chemistry to cook up some award-winning crystal meth. Having a brother-in-law in the DEA complicates his situation, as one might expect. Yes, it is reminiscent of Weeds , but it’s much darker and more texturally rich. Season 1 was cut short by the WGA strike (only 7 episodes were made). Look for Season 2 in early 2009.

Californication (Showtime) Season 2 of this bawdy romp about a blocked, angst-ridden, sex-addicted East Coast writer (David Duchovny) who has grudgingly transplanted himself to L.A. is garnering much more interest than its premiere season for reasons that I’m sure Duchovny would rather not call more attention to (the actor’s recent, highly publicized check-in to a rehab center for, erm, sex addicts). It’s lewd, crude and frequently nude, but there are some very knowing, sharply written observations about the mercurial complexity of adult relationships lurking just beyond the bedroom door. Natasha McElhone is doing some wonderful work every week as his long-suffering ex.

The Daily Show / The Colbert Report (Comedy Central) – All I can say is, thank you, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert (and your writers), for reassuring us, with your wheelbarrows full of Emmy Awards and in your goofy yet consistently brilliant satiric fashion, that my good friend Digby and all the other equally dedicated and astute political observers/media watchdogs of the progressive blogosphere can no longer be dismissed by the MSM as the journalistic equivalent of crazy people screaming at traffic. God knows, many are the times you’ve kept me from throwing myself under a bus during a particularly depressing news cycle (like the one that’s lasted for the last, oh, eight years.)

Jurassic Fight Club(The History Channel) – Maybe there’s something about the new generation of imaginative, CG-driven, Wild Kingdom-inspired dinosaur docs that just appeals to my inner 14-year old, but ever since the BBC/Discovery Channel’s innovative and entertaining Walking With… series broke the mold of the endlessly droning paleontologist standing in front of a Museum of Natural History skeleton shtick, I can’t get enough of this stuff. Jurassic Fight Club is the latest and arguably best of the genre so far. Each episode investigates a prehistoric “crime scene”, where some epic clash of the titans has ensued. The mystery unfolds through an engaging blend of deductive science and forensic pathology, culminating with a vivid recreation of how the rumble likely went down. It’s guilt-free escapist fare, because you’re learning something…um, right?

The Life and Times of Tim (HBO) HBO’s newest addition to their sacred Sunday night lineup is an animated “cringe comedy” that is sort of a cross between The Office and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Each show is comprised of two vignettes from the life of a beleaguered, workaday New Yorker named Tim, who despite his generally good nature and sincere intentions, can’t seem to get through the day without unwittingly becoming a social pariah, or at best, somebody’s bitch. It’s very left field, and extremely funny. It’s even hard to explain why it’s so goddam funny until you’ve actually seen it, but with vignette titles like “Angry Unpaid Hooker”, “The Priest is Drunk”, and “Tim Fights an Old Man”, I think you can glean why it’s not a Saturday morning cartoon. The series is the brainchild of one Steve Dildarian, whose previous claim to fame was dreaming up Budweiser’s “Lizard” ad campaign (who knew?). Dildarian provides the voice of Tim.

Little Britain USA (HBO) Demented Brits Matt Lucas and David Walliams have adapted their BBC series for American audiences, who may or may not glom on to their very peculiar skew on the world. The duo play recurring sketch characters, some borrowed from their BBC oeuvre and some newly minted for the HBO series. They use a framing device that is suspiciously similar to the one used in the recent Showtime mini-series Tracey Ullman’s Tracy Ullman’s State of the Union. This fish out of water motif works better with some characters than others (these guys don’t really share Ullman’s gift for dialect-perfect mimicry) but when they do hit their target, it’s a gut-busting laugh riot. Like most British comedy, it’s a strange mix of lowbrow vulgarity and inspired moments of comic transcendence. My favorite recurring characters are the world’s most unhappily married middle-aged couple; the vignettes are like three-minute Harold Pinter plays, packed with bathos, pathos and a lifetime of shattered dreams and existential misery. Bloody brilliant!

Mad Men(American Movie Classics) I mentioned this show as one to keep an eye on in my piece last year, just as the first season was getting underway, and I’m happy to report that it has since made good on that promising start (including an Emmy for star Jon Hamm) Set on the cusp of the New Frontier (circa 1960) this drama centers around Don Draper, a Madison Ave “ad man” who is tops in his field, but is going through an existential crisis (“This place has more failed artists and intellectuals than the Third Reich,” he observes about the ad agency that employs him). Series creator Matthew Weiner was a writer for “The Sopranos”, and you may notice some signature themes, like family loyalty, primal doubts and territorial pissing. It’s kind of a post-modern take on The Dick Van Dyke Show, with a nod and a wink to Billy Wilder’s The Apartment.

The Sarah Silverman Program(Comedy Central) Sort of an alternate universe version of Seinfeld , this could be seen as another sitcom “about nothing”, but the beauty of it is, it really is about something. It’s about racism, homophobia, life, the universe and everything, except you are too busy laughing your ass off to really notice. I am aware that comedienne Sarah Silverman rubs a lot of people the wrong way, particularly those who do not have a highly developed sense of irony (one day, the rest of the world will put away the smelling salts and realize that she is the female counterpart to Sascha Baron Cohen). I will say that she’s pretty damn close to being the personification of my ultimate dream girl: Intelligent, beautiful, and just so adorably twisted and sick (I’m not normal).

Z Rock (Independent Film Channel) Extras meets The Monkees
in one of the freshest new comedy series around. Tagged by IFC as “a (kinda) true story”, the program is a hybrid of “mockumentary” and reality show. An aspiring hard rock power trio (comprised of real-life Brooklyn musicians Paulie Z, David Z and Joey Cassata) gigs the NYC club scene at night as “ZO2”, and plays the children’s birthday party/bar mitzvah circuit by day as their unplugged alter-egos “The Z Brothers”. As you can imagine, this Jekyll-Hyde juggling act makes for some pretty outrageous scenarios, and it is sometimes a little tough to distinguish the club crawling groupies from the hot-to-trot soccer moms. While the three band members exude an appealing, easy-going charisma just by basically “playing themselves”, the show’s secret weapons are Lynne Koplitz as their neurotic, fast talking manager Dina, and the hilarious Jay Oakerson as a mookish club manager who may or may not have a genuinely homoerotic “man-crush” on lead singer Paulie. The dialog (partially improvised) has a Kevin Smith vibe; or maybe it’s that East Coast thing?

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Proposition Hate: Father Knows Best

by tristero

By now, nearly everyone knows that Proposition 8 (hereafter, Prop Hate), the anti-marriage iniitiative in California is in serious danger of passing. The true extent of the extremism of the people behind this idiocy, however, may not be apparent. This is one of a series of a posts that will highlight that extremism.

If you make the mistake of clicking on the Yes On 8 website, you come across this weird image of a typical happy family at the top (the pictures up there rotate so you may have to refresh a few times):

Father towering over and protecting his charges, including the mother and two children. The chauvinism is unmistakeable and deeply ugly. But it’s par for the course for this crew of creepy donors opposed to marriage rights. Notice Howard Ahmanson’s name, for example. This BFF of extreme christianist R. J. Rushdoony – who called for gays to be killed – was also one of the early supporters of “intelligent design” creationism and a lot more rightwing nuttiness. He tossed in nearly a million bucks to prevent people who love each other from marrying. (Future posts will profile other Prop Hate donors.)

There has been some highlevel financial pushback on Prop Hate, including Apple and Google who have rightly defined this as a civil rights issue more than a political one. I”d also like to suggest that this is a church/state issue, that this is an attempt by christianists and Mormons to establish a religious definition for marriage as California law.

It is important that all Californians who care about civil rights support marriage equality and vote NO on Prop Hate.

How To Negotiate With The Bush Administration

by dday

What you do is this. You set up a deadline and force the White House to negotiate with you as it nears. You ask for major concessions and never stop asking for them. When the White House demurs, you say loudly to the press that there is likely to be no deal. Eventually, the White House will concede to your demands, but try to structure it in such a way that they can still get what they want. At that point, you agree to the deal, then take it back to your constituents, listen to their concerns, and turn right around and reject the terms.

Fearing political division in the parliament and in his country, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki won’t sign the just-completed agreement on the status of U.S. forces in Iraq, a leading lawmaker said Friday.

The new accord’s demise would be a major setback for the Bush administration, which has been seeking to establish a legal basis for the extended presence of the 151,000 U.S. troops in this country, and for Iraq, which won notable concessions in the draft accord reached a week ago.

“No, he will not” submit the agreement to the parliament, Sheikh Jalal al Din al Sagheer, the deputy head of the Shiite Muslim Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, told McClatchy. “For this matter, we need national consensus.”

I don’t think Maliki is some kind of genius – signing this or really any agreement with the United States at this point would be political suicide. But the idea of “listening to constituents” is something that nobody in this country has bothered to consider when dealing with the Bush Administration for the past 8 years.

They might want to give Baghdad a ring.

…as for the impact of this on the occupation, I would imagine the US will seek to extend the UN mandate by six months. No country on the Security Council will attempt to block that – why not let the American military degrade further and lay out even more of its depleted treasury? But this would be much better for an Obama Administration because it wouldn’t be constrained by an already-existing agreement that has a consensus in Iraq. It’s ridiculous that Baghdad is ultimately forcing an end to this mistake, but there we are.

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McCain’s Hope

by digby

Although I’m not sure about Stoller’s prediction of a landslide (I’m superstitious about such things) I’m pretty sanguine about Obama’s lead. I’ve been pretty positive all year that the Democrats would win except for the scary period in the late summer and early fall when McCain’s character assassination seemed to be gaining traction. (That little economic hiccup in late September seems to have sobered everyone up.)

However, it’s important to keep focused and not lose sight of just how divided this country actually is. There are still some people out there who could be swayed the wrong way at the last minute if certain things happen.

Anonymous Liberal gives a clear eyed rundown on what could go wrong in this post. It will make you sit up a little bit straighter. It probably won’t happen. But it could and that should make all of us work a little bit harder to make sure it doesn’t:

First, I don’t think the early voting numbers are nearly as favorable to Obama as various stories have made them out to be. The most comprehensive data on early voting that I’ve seen comes from the Obama campaign itself. If you look through the numbers, Democrats appear to be voting at a higher rate than they did in 2004 in North Carolina, Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado, but not by ridiculous margins. We’re talking 5-10 percentage points. Given that Bush won Colorado by 5 and North Carolina by 12, that may not be enough. And in Florida (where Bush won by 5 in 2004) the ratio of Democrat to Republican early voting is unchanged from 2004 levels. Moreover, the increased Democratic numbers could just be the result of increased emphasis on banking votes, i.e., the Obama campaign using its resources to convince its strongest supporters to vote early.

So while there are some potentially encouraging signs on the early voting front, the data is somewhat ambiguous and not uniformly in Obama’s favor.

Secondly, while the blue states are looking increasingly safe, the overall electoral map is starting to look a lot like it did in 2000. Obama has a solid lead in most national polls and has leads at or above his national lead in nearly every blue state (except New Hampshire, which has closed a little lately). He also looks likely to bring Iowa and New Mexico (states which Gore won but Kerry lost) back into the Democratic fold.

But that’s not enough.

Read the whole thing. It isn’t pessimistic. Anonymous Liberal is an enthusiastic Obama supporter from Illinois who believes this is going to be a major win. But he’s not willing to ignore the possibility that if things all break a certain way this last week we could find ourselves in an electoral college situation close to what we had in 2000. It’s unlikely but possible and where Republicans are involved, it pays to watch your back and be prepared for anything.

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The Materialism Pun

by tristero

This is about as good as it gets in terms of defining the scientific/philosophical nature of “materialism,” “methodological naturalism,” and the fundamental worldview of science. Unfortunately, like most such descriptions, it all but ignores the rhetorical sleight-of-hand that underlies much of the advocacy for anti-materialism. Steven Novella comes close to understanding it here:

Therefore, the broader “anti-materialist” movement of ID, dualism, and various healing pseudosciences is more accurately defined as anti-naturalism. But I guess for propaganda purposes it is better to be against “materialism” than against nature.

This is the heart of the issue.

Scientifically, and philosophically, materialism is non-controversial. Science can’t say, as Steven puts, “and then there’s a miracle.” Philosophically, dualism creates enormous problems.

But, colloquially – and lets face it, these arguments are aimed at the general public, not at anyone with any knowledge of philosophy or science – “materialism” equals greed, selfishness, vulgarity, the everyday, the ordinary. Being against materialism, therefore, aligns oneself with “higher aspirations” than the accumulation of wealth, a bigger car, even social status. It is hard, even in a society as warped as this one towards rewarding the rich and greedy, to be openly “for” owning a third SUV.

What is going on is a kind of pun. The Wedge Strategy conflates the colloquial understanding of materialism with the technical. A scientific worldview then can be portrayed as a crass, vapid, incomplete, and unsatisfying view of life. It is for that reason that, as Steve says, they are against “materialism” rather than nature.

Accordingly, elegant, even eloquent, defenses of the technical sense of materialism miss their target. The Wedge Strategy is not about reason but about appeals to unreason. The pun between materialism (greed) and materialism (naturalism) is what this confrontation is about and needs to be very clearly acknowledged when trying to refute the Wedge Strategy.

h/t PZ

UPDATE: Please don’t get me wrong. What Steven wrote is terrific. I simply believe the real issue is not materialism versus dualism, say, but the Wedge Strategy’s rhetorical exploitation of a pun.

Beware The Lame Duck

by digby

You’ll recall that the Republican Party took the Ohio secretary of state to the state Supreme Court over minor mismatches in voter registration. After the lawsuit was dropped, John Boehner and his Republican cronies sent a letter to the Bush administration asking that the Department of justice intervene.

It seemed insane that Bush would actually do anything like that. After all, one of their most infamous scandals was the US Attorney firings, which were proven to have been political in nature but never actually proved presidential involvement. This would lay it right at Bush’s feet.

Rick Hasen at Election Law Blog writes:

Roll Call offers this important report ($), which begins: “President Bush is asking the Justice Department to look into whether 200,000 Buckeye State poll-goers must use provisional ballots on Election Day because their names do not match state databases.”

Wow. Here is what I said earlier this week: “The idea that the DOJ would get involved in the Ohio election now to force Sec. Brunner to produce the mismatch list on voter fraud grounds seems remote. The political uproar would be deafening.” See also this AlterNet report.

There should be a political uproar but in the blaring noise of the last few days of the election campaign people may not hear about it.

The president ordering the Department of Justice to look into this is a stunning violation of DOJ guidelines and ethics. But why should he care? He’s out the door and the worst thing that happens is that somebody accuses him of doing something after the fact. He didn’t care about it when he was still pretending to be a president. He certainly doesn’t care about it now.

Republicans tend to lose their moorings when they have nothing left to lose. Unpopular lame duck Republicans are downright dangerous.

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