Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Can The Dems Throw A Hissy Fit

by dday

I thought Gov. Palin delivered a strong speech that is bound to excite people already inclined to vote for Republicans (and I think the speech was designed more for 2012, anyway), but one line may have overreached.

“Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown,” Ms. Palin told the delegates in a speech that sought to eviscerate Mr. Obama, as delegates waved signs that said “I love hockey moms.” “And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities.”

Let’s see if the media will react to a Democratic hissy fit. Because there’s ample opportunity. Roland Martin laid this out immediately. Community organizers, which were part of George H.W. Bush’s thousand points of light, provide comfort, help save jobs, create opportunity. In a nation ripped asunder by right-wing policies, they are often the last line of defense. Leaders of this nation like Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Susan B. Anthony, even Thomas Paine and Sam Adams, were community organizers. As this fellow writes today, Jesus was a community organizer and Pilate was a governor.

In the largely white confines of the Republican National Convention, the phrase is a slur, like “ghetto hustler,” but lots and lots of people today derive great benefit from community groups, including church groups, and the help they provide ordinary people. Most Americans live in metropolitan areas and actually have experienced the value of community organizing in their lives. Think bake sale.

The Obama campaign is going to try and ramp this up, they’ve already done so in an email to supporters:

I wasn’t planning on sending you something tonight. But if you saw what I saw from the Republican convention, you know that it demands a response.

I saw John McCain’s attack squad of negative, cynical politicians. They lied about Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and they attacked you for being a part of this campaign.

But worst of all — and this deserves to be noted — they insulted the very idea that ordinary people have a role to play in our political process.

You know that despite what John McCain and his attack squad say, everyday people have the power to build something extraordinary when we come together. Make a donation of $5 or more right now to remind them.

Both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin specifically mocked Barack’s experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago more than two decades ago, where he worked with people who had lost jobs and been left behind when the local steel plants closed.

Let’s clarify something for them right now.

Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies.

And it’s no surprise that, after eight years of George Bush, millions of people have found that by coming together in their local communities they can change the course of history. That promise is what our campaign has been about from the beginning.

Throughout our history, ordinary people have made good on America’s promise by organizing for change from the bottom up. Community organizing is the foundation of the civil rights movement, the women’s suffrage movement, labor rights, and the 40-hour workweek. And it’s happening today in church basements and community centers and living rooms across America.

Meanwhile, we still haven’t gotten a single idea during the entire Republican convention about the economy and how to lift a middle class so harmed by the Bush-McCain policies.

It’s now clear that John McCain’s campaign has decided that desperate lies and personal attacks — on Barack Obama and on you — are the only way they can earn a third term for the Bush policies that McCain has supported more than 90 percent of the time.

But you can send a crystal clear message.

Enough is enough. Make your voice heard loud and clear by making a $5 donation right now:

https://donate.barackobama.com/fightback

Thank you for joining more than 2 million ordinary Americans who refuse to be silenced.

They can go ahead and hate the people who try to make a difference in their communities. They can keep turning up their nose at regular people. Winning this election will be about making sure those people know who’s on their side.

The question, of course, is whether or not this indignation can be sustained and loud enough. There are a lot of factors working against this, like the no liberals on the teevee rule.

But a speech designed for the backlash, for the Orthogonians, can be turned right around if there’s a sufficient amount of political will. And by the way, the reaction among the country wasn’t universally positive, so there’s an opening here.

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Trick or Treat

by digby

Not that anyone cares about this but October is just over the horizon and surprises are always possible.

Pakistan: Uproar grows over first ground assault by US troops

Pakistani military officials fear American intervention in the tribal areas could spark a rebellion, derailing counterterrorism operations.

United States forces conducted their first ground assaults into Pakistani territory from bases in Afghanistan early Wednesday morning in a raid on a suspected Taliban stronghold in South Waziristan, one of Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas. The attack has caused an uproar in Pakistan and raised concerns of a new period of tension between the US and its valuable, nuclear-armed ally in the war on terror, which has entered a period of political uncertainty after the resignation of long-serving president Pervez Musharraf last month.

The US has not officially commented on the raid, and leaders of the US-led NATO peacekeeping force in Afghanistan deny any knowledge of the attack, reports Reuters. But one US official, speaking to CNN on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that the attack had occurred.

The Pentagon has refused to comment officially on the attack, but several defense officials acknowledged that U.S. military activity had taken place inside Pakistan.

The senior U.S. official said a small number of U.S. helicopters landed troops in the village near Angoor Adda in South Waziristan, where Taliban and al Qaeda fighters have hunkered down over the years.

Local media reports said the troops came out of a chopper and fired on civilians. The U.S. official said there may have been a small number of women and children in the immediate vicinity, but when the mission began “everybody came out firing” from the compound.

He said the U.S. troops specifically attacked three buildings in the compound. They were believed to contain individuals responsible for training and equipping insurgents who have been crossing the border into Afghanistan in increasing numbers in recent months and staging large-scale, high-profile attacks against U.S. and coalition forces.

There has been no indication that the US troops were targeting Osama bin Laden or his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Outraged at the violation of sovereignty, the Pakistani government summoned the US ambassador to protest the raid, reports the BBC.

Some officials and analysts say that the raid into Angoor Adda may signal a more aggressive American strategy towards militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas and their cross-border raids into Afghanistan, reports The New York Times.

The commando raid by the American forces signaled what top American officials said could be the opening salvo in a much broader campaign by Special Operations forces against the Taliban and Al Qaeda inside Pakistan, a secret plan that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has been advocating for months within President Bush’s war council.

It also seemed likely to complicate relations with Pakistan, where the already unstable political situation worsened after the resignation last month of President Pervez Musharraf, a longtime American ally.

“What you’re seeing is perhaps a stepping up of activity against militants in sanctuaries in the tribal areas that pose a direct threat to United States forces and Afghan forces in Afghanistan,” said one senior American official, who had been briefed on the attack and spoke on condition of anonymity because of the mission’s political sensitivity. “There’s potential to see more.”

But with political uncertainty and the rising tide of violence, some fear that an aggressive American posture could do more harm than good. Speaking to the Associated Press (AP), Pakistani Gen. Athar Abbas said he feared American attacks could provoke a tribal rebellion against Islamabad, which would completely derail counterterrorism operations in the region.

He said the attack would undermine Pakistan’s efforts to isolate Islamic extremists and could threaten NATO’s major supply lines, which snake from Pakistan’s Indian Ocean port of Karachi through the tribal region into Afghanistan.

“We cannot afford a huge uprising at the level of tribe,” Abbas told AP. “That would be completely counterproductive and doesn’t help the cause of fighting terrorism in the area.”

Now back to our regularly scheduled fruitless flailing. Sorry to disturb.

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Palin The Extremist

by tristero

“The problem with you John Birchers’ is that you are too damn liberal!”

~ Joseph Vogler, Founder Alaskan Independence Party

As we all know, Palin flirted with the secessionist Alaska Independence Party and even sent them a video of support. While Palin apparently wasn’t, Palin’s husband was a member of this extremist group for from 1995 to 2002 (except for a few months). Digby discussed the party and their founder here and I added a little bit more here. (btw, imagine the uproar if Michelle Obama had been in Farrakhan’s group for seven years.)

The AIP have direct ties to Christian Dominionists. What does that mean? Read Chip Berlet’s report. Berlet, in case you don’t know, is one of the leading experts in this country on extremist organizations. Here’s his introduction:

Given Sarah Palin’s rather doctrinaire approach to conservative libertarian Christian evangelicalism, her political flirtation with the secessionist Alaska Independence Party (AIP) is hardly surprising, but the AIP’s ties to the U.S. Constitution Party raise some creepy issues. It is not fair to suggest that Palin agrees with all of the political positions of the AIP or Constitution Party. It is fair to ask with what policies she does or does not agree. It is already clear that on the issue of the “Sanctity of Life,” Palin and the theocratic Consititution Party are on the same Dominionist page.

The AIP has placed the candidate of the U.S. Constitution Party on the Presidential ballot in Alaska in the 2008 race. Let’s be clear, the U.S. Constitution Party would impose a form of theocratic neofascism in the United States. And I am not a person who tosses the term fascism around lightly.

In short, Palin has ties to people so far to the “Religious” right they make Jerry Falwell look like a liberal.

Special Note for Republicans and others with cognitive impairments: Obama has consistently denounced Ayers who perpetrated his crimes in the 60’s. What Berlet quotes is from the current Constitution Party platform, a group allied with the Alaska Independence Party. Furthermore, there is no indication that Sarah Palin has any intention of denouncing the extremist party which was a political home for her husband for seven years and which she once flirted with and praised.

Updated with opening quote from Vogler.

Exactly Right

by tristero

Glenn Greenwald:

The Republicans are well aware that they can’t possibly win the election if it is even partially decided based on issues. They need and intend to win despite the fact that Americans hate their positions on the issues, and to do that, they want to ensure that a majority of Americans love and respect the strong, honorable, principled, culturally familiar all-American mavericks John McCain and Sarah Palin (even if they don’t agree with them on everything) while strongly disliking that wishy-washy, snooty, foreign, exotic, self-absorbed Eastern elitist Barack Obama (even if he says the right things on issues).

Democrats have clearly decided (yet again) to cede that lowly playing field to the GOP and are hoping (yet again) that those personality and cultural issues are not enough to outweigh the country’s dislike of Republican policies. This year is indeed different — dissatisfaction with the Government is higher than ever before, the GOP is as discredited as a party can be, and Obama is a more effective candidate than those who preceded him — but the attacks last night were only the beginning, not the end. If John McCain remains — even from the mouths of Democrats — the Honored, Honorable, Principled, Heroic Maverick, the GOP chances will be as high as they can be.

More Anti-Democratic Bias

by tristero

This kind of slanted garbage from the media is so ubiquitous that we tend to ignore it.We do so at our Peril.

Democrats officially warned Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) on Wednesday that he could face repercussions for delivering a speech at the Republican National Convention in which he called Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama an “eloquent young man” who lacked the experience to be in the White House.

What could possibly be wrong with Lieberman saying that? The impression is that Dems are overreacting.But that wasn’t the problem.

Lieberman lied. He lied about a fellow Senator’s record. That’s the problem. But we don’t get to hear about it ’til the 3rd paragraph. And no specifics are given:

“Senator Reid was very disappointed in Senator Lieberman’s speech, especially when he appeared to go out of his way to distort Senator Obama’s record of bipartisan achievements in the Senate,” said Reid’s spokesman, Jim Manley. “The Democratic caucus will likely revisit the situation with Senator Lieberman after the elections in November.”

So Lieberman’s lies have been rhetorically reduced to a potential “he said/she said.” And we still haven’t heard any details.

Let’s go on. It’s not ’til paragraph six that we hear what Lieberman’s lie was:

[Lieberman] pointedly said Obama “has not reached across party lines to get anything significant done, nor has he been willing to take on powerful interest groups in the Democratic Party.”

And remember I said the article was structured to be a “potential ‘he said/she said?” Well, that kind of article wasn’t considered biased enough in Lieberman’s favor. Therefore, no one was given a chance to refute this blatant lie in the article by citing the relevant facts about Obama’s record.

People, let there be no mistake: Lieberman lied through his teeth.

Liberal media, my patooties.

Teen Marriages

by tristero

from the Times:

Studies show that today teenage marriages are two to three times more likely to end in divorce than are marriages between people 25 years of age and older. The most comprehensive study on marriage and age that sociologists cite was published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2001, from 1995 data, and it found that 48 percent of those who marry before 18 are likely to divorce within 10 years, compared with 24 percent of those who marry after age 25.

“Most young women don’t fare very well when it comes to raising a family as a teenager, and those precious few who get married, the marriages are very short-lived,” said Bill Albert, chief program officer for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. “I know and respect a lot of 17-year-olds, but I don’t think any of them are ready to be married and begin the lifelong task of raising a child.”

Census data on teenage marriage, from 1998, showed that only 1 percent of 15- to 17-year-olds had ever been married. But the rates were higher among 18- and 19-year-olds — 6.5 percent for white women, 13.4 percent for Hispanic women — and they vary by region, with higher rates in the South and lower rates in the Northeast. Experts say that teenage marriage tends to be more common in religious and immigrant families, particularly among Hispanics, and more common in so-called red states like Alaska.

Sociologists say that what drives the failure of teenage marriages — and some also say the postwar young marriage boom may have contributed to the divorce explosion of the 1970s — is the complex condition of being an unformed adult.

“They may not know quite what they want in a lifetime partner,” Dr. Popenoe said. “They still often have years of education to complete, as well as getting settled in the work world, and those two things may change their outlook on life considerably.”

The point is this: Teenage marriages are far more likely to fail than marriages between more mature individuals. Usually, education is delayed or terminated as the parents find and hold jobs, especially true when they have children. Therefore, many young women choose to terminate the unwanted pregnancy and continue their education; they defer marriage and children and preserve the potential for a far more productive life for themselves and their family.

Of course, there is no shame attached to choosing to have a baby when you’re young. Nor is there any shame for choosing not to.

McCain, like Bush, wants to eliminate our opportunity to have that choice. But that’s not all. Despite all evidence that it doesn’t work, McCain, in lockstep with Bush and Palin, wants to continue the ludicrous notion of funding sex education that doesn’t educate, but only preaches. The three not only want to cut funding for indigent unwed mothers, they actually have cut such funding.

They are ignorant, nasty prigs, ever so eager to preach their divine virtue to the rest of us sinners. Worse, they are greedy, sadistic, ignorant, nasty prigs, ever so eager to make the less advantaged suffer so that they may prosper. If McCain and Palin are permitted to continue the odious Bush legacy, both the number and burdens of poor young mothers will dramatically increase and their options will shrink. Innocent children will die so that Sarah Palin can call herself a pitbull with lipstick* and wealthy white supporters can snort and snuffle their approval.

I have posted many times about the War on Fucking, and have made the point more than once that it really is a class war, a war on the poor and the blue collar workers by elite, rightwing Republicans. Wealthy, well-connected families will always have access to safe reproductive choices including accurate information, effective contraception, and several abortion choices. If McCain is elected, the poor and lower middle class will not. Wealthy, well-connected families will always have ways to support a child who becomes pregnant and chooses to take the pregnancy the term. The poor and lower middle class often do not.

A vote to continue the repellent ideology of Bushism, a vote cast for McCain to extend the hateful policies of the current administration is a vote to repeal Roe and eviscerate necessary social services. A vote for McCain is a vote to continue the class war against the poor and blue collar workers.

The dreadful effects of the class war McCain wishes to continue will be felt primarily by the poor, but it will affect all of us. Except for McCain and his pals, holed up in their multiple homes, safely ensconced behind their gated communities, sneering at the suckers who further enriched them.

*The phrase “pitbull with lipstick” means only one thing. So remember: Palin compared herself to a violent bitch, not Democrats, liberals, or progressives.

Compare And Contrast

by tristero

Here’s how the NY Times covered Biden’s speech:

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware accepted the Democratic vice-presidential nomination on Wednesday night with an ode to his middle-class upbringing and a blistering attack on Senator John McCain.

“Again and again,” he said, “on the most important national security issues of our time, John McCain was wrong, and Barack Obama was proven right.”

He said Mr. McCain had supported President Bush’s policies that Mr. Biden said had driven the American economy into a ditch and backed Mr. Bush on a war that is costing American taxpayers $12 billion a month.

As Democrats often do, he paid tribute to Mr. McCain’s military service and his more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. That is not sufficient qualification for the presidency, Mr. Biden said in as direct a way as any Democrat this year has.

Hello? Anyone awake? Well with prose like that – stately, plump, and boring – I wouldn’t blame you if you nodded off.

Now, here’s how they covered Palin’s:

Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska introduced herself to America before a roaring crowd at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night as “just your average hockey mom” who was as qualified as the Democratic nominee, Senator Barack Obama, to be president of the United States.

An hour later Senator John McCain, a scrappy, rebellious former prisoner of war in Vietnam whose campaign was resurrected from near-death a year ago, was nominated by the Republican Party to be the 44th president of the United States after asking the cheering delegates, “Do you think we made the right choice” in picking Ms. Palin as the vice-presidential nominee.

Questions, boys and girls? Ok. Let’s merely list the emotion-laden adjectives:

The Biden article – first four paragraphs:

Middle-class
Blistering

The Palin article – first two paragraphs:

roaring
scrappy
rebellious
cheering

Still don’t get it? Then let me give you the straight talk. In his opening paragraphs, John Broder wrote a nearly completely objective report of Biden’s speech. Bumiller and Cooper used almost every possible rhetorical device they could pack in to two grafs to signal their support not only for Palin but also for the “scrappy, rebellious former prisoner of war in Vietnam whose campaign was resurrected from near-death a year ago.”

Liberal media, my patooties.

The Speech

by digby

I expect that a lot of people on both sides of the aisle were surprised that Palin didn’t run out on stage dressed like Ellie May Clampett, chomping on a wad of tobacco and talking like Roseann Barr. Instead, she gave a successful political speech in the style of a female political icon like Ann Richards (if she had a Fargo accent.) She was confident and poised and she is obviously not going to embarrass the GOP with amateur, provincial incompetence. I don’t think anyone’s as sure she’ll be dumped from the ticket tomorrow morning as they were today.

But the bottom line is that while she may not sink this ticket (at least immediately) she can’t save it either. They’ll get out their base, which until now was a questionable proposition. But that won’t be enough. Their base has shrunk. They have to win over a chunk of independents and I just don’t know if they can successfully separate themselves from the disaster of the past eight years, even if Maverick decides to move the White House to Point Barrow.

They are Republicans. Both of them. And that should be enough to sink them if the Democrats actually run against them.

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Small Town Boy

by digby

Uhm, did I just hear New York mayor Rudy Giuliani do an impression of one of the “Queer Eye for the Straight Guys” drawling, ” Does Barack Obama not think her home town is cosmoaahlitan enough? I’m soorrrry Barack that it’s not flaaashy enough?”

At the Republican convention? To great cheers?

Man, the times they are a-changin’

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American Idol

by digby

From Mojoblog:

Why the American Dream Is Bigger than Palin or McCain

Below is a guest blog entry by economist and MoJo author Nomi Prins:

At some point today, (around the time I noticed Lindsay Lohan weighing in), I got hit with Sarah Palin overload.

Then, I realized that Palin’s omnipresence isn’t about John McCain or Barack Obama, or even this week’s RNC. It’s not about her experience or stance on issues. It’s about the “Pop” American Dream.

The old American Dream is dying. Rampant economic inequality makes the cost of working hard to achieve prohibitive. In a culture where more people vote for the next American Idol than for the next president, no wonder Sarah Palin is the top story: She defines the new American Dream, where leaping to the top against all odds is the end goal in itself. Of course there are voters appalled that someone ‘like her’ can be a ‘heartbeat away from the presidency.’ But there are also plenty of voters delighted that someone ‘like her’ has a shot at the ultimate American Dream—a spot in the White House.

read on…

I wrote about Palin as a ‘reality show” winner yesterday and I think this captures it even better.

Prins goes on to point out that in reality the mortgage meltdown and health care crisis are far more relevant to the American dream for the vast majority of citizens.
But we live in an American Idol culture where the American dream is defined simply as “winning the contest.” Project White House. Top Politician. Survivor.

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