Since Nixon or Before?

John Dean (remember him?) has made courageous and insightful statements regarding the
Bush administration's unconstitutional assumption of near-authoritarian power vis-a-vis the division of power between branches of government, the tension between civil liberties and national security, etc. He has also written two books on the subject:

Republicans rule, rather than govern, when they are in power by imposing their authoritarian conservative philosophy on everyone, as their answer for everything. This works for them because their interest is in power, and in what it can do for those who think as they do. Ruling, of course, must be distinguished from governing, which is a more nuanced process that entails give-and-take and the kind of compromises that are often necessary to find a consensus and solutions that will best serve the interests of all Americans.

Republicans' authoritarian rule can also be characterized by its striking incivility and intolerance toward those who do not view the world as Republicans do. Their insufferable attitude is not dangerous in itself, but it is employed to accomplish what they want, which it to take care of themselves and those who work to keep them in power.

Read the whole thing.

Batterers Anonymous

This is a post I should have written a long time ago, and the fact that I didn't stands as embarrassing evidence that I have tried too hard to keep my own background and experience somehow separate from the political perspective I reveal in this blog.

John McCain is a batterer. I know that in every fiber of my being because I worked around batterers -- and their victims -- for twenty some odd years. I don't have to see bruises on Cindy McCain to know it (although the evidence that he called her a "cunt" in front of numerous reporters who didn't know how to report it is ample evidence in and of itself: You can bet your house that a man who would say something like this in public is WAY WORSE in private.)

No, it is this line, which McCain has repeated every single time he is confronted about how slimy and negative his campaign has become:

"Look, I asked Senator Obama to come with me around this country to have Town Hall events in front of the people. If he had agreed to do this, we would have had a very different kind of campaign."

Tonight, on Larry King, he repeated the same justification for the slime, and I finally decided to respond:

Only batterers reason this way. And all batterers reason this way:

"If you had only listened to me.... If you had only done what I wanted you to do... If you only hadn't defied me the way you did....... I wouldn't have had to beat you."

So you see, it's never the responsibility of the person wielding the weapon or the fist or the slime..... the responsibility lies elsewhere...... in the person who, by their defiance, "forced" the batterer to become physical.

John McCain is a batterer. It's as simple as that.

WTF

The right-leaning media has gone bat-shit crazy. Now they're quoting "Joe the Plumber" on Foreign Policy and Economics! One can only conclude that no rational or credible person will any longer associate themselves with this campaign, so they have resorted to trying to burnish their support with the testimony of a small-time, unlicensed plumber from Florida.

This is beyond parody, and I can hear the writers from SNL sharpening their pencils as I type.

This is a "cleansed" screen shot taken tonight from a section on Memorandum. I've actually removed the links because I refuse to give these people any oxygen or traffic. But look at the sources: This is Fox and AP -- which has dramatically damaged its brand with the new editor's obvious bias toward McNasty.

Fox News: ‘Joe the Plumber’ Backs Claim That Obama Would Bring ‘Death to Israel’ — Joe Wurzelbacher, on his first campaign trail appearance for John McCain, says he agrees that a vote for Barack Obama would be “a vote for the death to Israel.”

Discussion: The Reaction, Political Machine, Early Returns, Political Radar and Atlas Shrugs,

Philip Elliott / Associated Press:
Joe the Plumber says Obama would make US socialist — COLUMBUS, OHIO (AP) - “Joe the Plumber,” the small business aspirant and overnight media sensation, endorsed John McCain's presidential campaign Tuesday and said Barack Obama would make America a socialist nation.
Discussion: Tom Watson, Gateway Pundit, The Heretik, Washington Times and Hot Air

This is hysterically funny, the natural, logical sequence of nominating the First Moosehunter of Alaska to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. Why not? Let's put Joe in charge of Foreign Policy, and Tito the builder over HUD. Tammy the child-care worker can be put in charge of Education, and Fred the Farmer can have the Agriculture Department!

BTW -- Memeorandum is a site that tracks link traffic as a way to measure whatever topics are "the buzz" on the net. They over-sample the right, and typically only make discussion links to any blogs on the left (TPM seems to be an exception.) Their bias is clear. Yet it's a perfect way to keep track of the insanity on the right without actually having to read any of the garbage.

Say it Sistah!

Speechless

But, of course, the tone of the McCain campaign is in no way responsible for this, right?

Marxism, Socialism, and the Right Wing

The Party of McCarthy just loves to wave the red flag, and all the ugly demons of the conservative right are coming out to play at the end of their era.

Bill Kristol contributed to this meme early, but it never took off. He and Rover tried to paint Obama as a Marxist through the “religion as opiate of the masses” loop early in the campaign to no effect.

But with a new opening provided by Obama’s “spread the wealth” comment, the desperate puppeteers of McCain’s campaign are willing to give it another go.

And with nothing else to write about except Obama’s growing lead in the polls, the MSM is giving it oxygen. What an insult to socialists!

Not only is Obama not a socialist, he’s not even a great liberal, if his votes on FISA, his modest health care reform proposal, and his silence on Proposition 8 are any examples.

So if this cautious and careful man is labeled as Socialist, then the entire concept of liberalism is un-American and socialistic.

I have labeled a radical feminist by people trying to silence or diminish my arguments, and always laughed to think of what the accuser might do if ever confronted by a real radical feminist, as I routinely was! It’s tempting to shrug off the ridiculous face of the label.

But we shouldn’t. The Republican Party has successfully shifted the center of this country dramatically rightward through just such successful branding. A growing aristocracy was said to be over-burdened by “death taxes”; tax breaks for the rich became “economic incentives”, and “big government liberals” have been the bogeymen preventing us from joining the rest of the developed universe in providing health care to our citizens.

‘

Power doesn’t give up easily. And we must push back on these memes before they strangle what hope there is for a truly different tomorrow.

Why Bother?

Sarah Palin certainly accomplished one thing in her debate with Biden: she established a new norm in which it is perfectly acceptable for those purporting to engage in debate NOT to answer the questions posed. Yes, I know that this has been an emerging phenomenon, but this cycle has taken it to a new place altogether.

Both candidates were guilty, and I was frustrated to see Obama pass up stellar opportunities to make very good points and instead revert back to stump speech rhetoric that most of us have heard many times before.

If the candidates have no intention whatsoever to answer the questions asked, and the moderator, as restricted by current "rules" can't take them to task, haven't the "debates" been reduced to seeing two candidates giving their stump speeches from the same stage?

The Leadership of John McCain

Where to start?

At the beginning, where the drama queen of the campaign pulled one of the most notable political stunts in history to place himself in the center of negotiations -- and had no small hand in causing them to fail?

Or in the middle, where he gave himself premature credit for having revived the deal he screwed up (via Politico).

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his top aides took credit for building a winning bailout coalition – hours before the vote failed and stocks tanked.

Shortly before the vote, McCain had bragged about his involvement and mocked Sen. Barack Obama for staying on the sidelines.

“I've never been afraid of stepping in to solve problems for the American people, and I'm not going to stop now,” McCain told a rally in Columbus, Ohio. “Sen. Obama took a very different approach to the crisis our country faced. At first he didn't want to get involved. Then he was monitoring the situation.”

McCain, grinning, flashed a sarcastic thumbs up.

“That's not leadership. That's watching from the sidelines,” he added to cheers and applause.

Doug Holtz-Eakin, McCain's senior policy adviser, told reporters on a conference call that McCain "dedicated the past week" to addressing the problem but made "a conscious decision not to attract attention to John McCain."

Why not just start at the end, this afternoon, after the complete and abject failure of the Republican candidate to deliver on his brag. The master of chutzpah himself:

"Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unnecessary partisanship into the process. Now is not the time to fix the blame, it's time to fix the problem."

Doesn't it just make your head spin? Only a Republican could deliver lines like that. Blame everything on your opponent and then admonish your audience not to assign blame!

Or maybe I just misunderstood. Maybe the "don't blame" time doesn't begin until all his campaign's press releases blaming Obama have been sent, or until after this:

(Warning! You are about to encounter the most nauseating pile of shit passing for spin that I have ever seen. Those taking high blood pressure medication may want to pass.)

Hostage Taxpayers

I only occasionally post on economics, because I consider myself generally unqualified to have an intelligent opinion. And whenever I do, I always start with that disclaimer.

But the latest bailout of AIG, announced just tonight, has sent me over the edge. We are all standing around like deer with our eyes caught in the headlights while this Administration, on behalf of taxpayers for several generations, turns the economy of this country into some twisted kind of socialized capitalism: privatized gain and socialized risk.

Those 5%, who have gotten fat at the trough of the Bush Administration (the ones McCain will continue to favor,) are like terrorists standing in the middle of our public square wrapped in suicide vests. “Too big to fail” are the words on the suicide note. “You give me your money or I will kill you all.”

This really pisses me off.

Because of course we have to give in. And of course we can have no impact on these decisions because our Congressional leadership has abdicated all of that decision-making to the Treasury and Wall Street. And we are supposed to accept this because we aren’t qualified to have an opinion.

We are only qualified to pay the bill.

And maybe the “experts” are right. Maybe we are currently faced with no options, but I am sick of picking up the freaking bill while other people get rich. Where does it end?

This is going to cost us some of the best hopes for any upcoming administration. On top of the enormous financial pit dug by the current administration, and not even counting the “off books” cost of two wars, how in the world ANY next administration going to be able to afford to do anything?

And another thing……

Do you notice that another result of this debacle is that the companies that have survived are getting bigger?

So we can have even more companies that are too big to fail?

WTF?

A Day to ACT

Here are two items I am asking you to help spread around today. As part of a DKos campaign, the idea is to send these to people you suspect of falling victim to the lies and deceit of the McCain campaign. First, a video:



Then, here is The NY Times calling McCain out. A taste:

Mr. McCain came into the race promoting himself as a truth teller and has long publicly deplored the kinds of negative tactics that helped sink his candidacy in the Republican primaries in 2000. But his strategy now reflects a calculation advisers made this summer — over the strenuous objections of some longtime hands who helped him build his “Straight Talk” image — to shift the campaign more toward disqualifying Mr. Obama in the eyes of voters.

“I think the McCain folks realize if they can get this thing down in the mud, drag Obama into the mud, that’s where they have the best advantage to win,” said Matthew Dowd, who worked with many top McCain campaign advisers when he was President Bush’s chief strategist in the 2004 campaign, but who has since had a falling out with the White House. “If they stay up at 10,000 feet, they don’t.”

Up is Down

I have always loved Garrison Keillor:

So the Republicans have decided to run against themselves. The bums have tiptoed out the back door and circled around to the front and started yelling, "Throw the bums out!" They've been running Washington like a well-oiled machine to the point of inviting lobbyists into the back rooms to write the legislation, and now they are anti-establishment reformers dedicated to delivering us from themselves. And Mayor Giuliani is an advocate for small-town America. Bravo.

Don't Elect Liars

It has been almost amusing to listen to reporters from venues as diverse as NPR and CNN acting surprised that Sarah Palin continues each day to repeat the same lie ("I said to Congress, 'Thanks, but no thanks'. If we want that bridge we'll build it ourselves.")

But these are today's Republicans. Because the press has repeatedly confirmed that the statement is untrue (some have even used the "l" word!), they seem to expect Palin to do what past spinners have done: use different phrasing, tighten the boundaries, do something to create some wiggle room for herself instead of continuing to repeat bald-faced lies.

But not these Republicans. These Republicans have figured out that they can completely subvert the traditional power of the press by just going around them. They have figured out that at long as they have powerful enough marketing and enough corresponding echo chambers to amplify the message, it doesn't matter if the entire message is built on lies. They have been perfecting this for at least 20 years and the Iraq war is only the bloodiest consequence so far.

Hunter at DKos is one of my favorite writers on the web. Always spot-on; always insightful. You should read the whole thing, but here is a taste.

For Republicans, there is no longer any moral taboo whatsoever against lying outright. The only relevant question is whether the lie is effective -- not whether it should have been done in the first place.

[snip]

So what of it, if Sarah Palin says crooked things with a straight face? Name me one Republican who will object. Name me one -- just ONE -- diehard conservative who will be angry at the lie, instead of praising her for it. To hell with facts, there is another election to be won.

This is why I consider the Republican Party to be, at this point, a wrecked party. There is no self-consistent philosophy other than the acquisition and protection of their own power: there are certainly no moral or ethical boundaries that the party will internally enforce. … You can lie, you can staff your government with morons and ideologues, you can give a speech saying one thing while doing the exact opposite (a Bush specialty, in his State of the Union speeches.) We bemoan constantly the Democrats' failure to keep a unified front, in order to pass a more meaningful agenda -- but you would be hard pressed to find even a single, lone Republican in Washington willing to buck the moral collapse of their own party. Such people once existed: they were voted out of office.

Don't elect liars.

A Question of Temperment

Bleeding a Crisis

It makes me sick to see John McCain making every political advantage of today's hurricane in Louisiana.

First of all, his mere presence is posturing, made even more disgusting because of his record of actual behavior during and after Katrina. (Thanks to Bob Geiger.) He has no role there. Talk about presumptious?!

Then has a campaign event to accuse Obama of putting politics ahead of the country by having a campaign event.

Then Bushie actually lets him be in on a conference call of all affected governors! Has any other sitting President put himself in the middle of a campaign this way?

The Republicans are whores and hypocrites (with apologies to any actual prostitutes.)

Problem Solved

(CNN) – A health care policy adviser for the McCain campaign told a newspaper reporter that nobody in the United States is technically uninsured, because everyone has access to hospital emergency rooms.

"So I have a solution [to the health care crisis]. And it will cost not one thin dime," John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, told the Dallas Morning News in an interview published Thursday.

"The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care. So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved."

A Thrill Junkie in Charge?

I spent much of my morning surveying both the MSM, designated “pundits”, and the on-line community vis-à-vis the selection of Palin by McCain. Dems and progressives are generally delighted and having fun expressing outrage (feigned and otherwise,) intellectually honest conservatives are aghast, and –as might be expected – the designated members of the echo chamber (Gingrich and his ilk) are all in false congratulation mode over the “boldness” of his choice.

My thoughts move quickly from the obvious (clearly a political choice from a man who has put the perceived needs of his campaign ahead of governance issues for our country) to the less obvious: what this says about a man who has, indeed, faced death, and who should know better than to taunt the reaper.

As at least one conservative writer commented, the ultimate hubris behind this decision shows that John McCain clearly believes that he doesn’t need a qualified vice-president to serve in any meaningful way the day after the election. He has no intention of making room for even an Al Gore, much less a Dick Cheney. Those advisory roles will no doubt be played by the neo-conservative Feiths and Liebermans in his circle.

But even beyond that, McCain has either never for one moment considered the possibility that he might die in office – or he truly doesn’t give a shit about the future of this country. Those are the only options available for a man who has argued that the U.S. faces some of the gravest threats in its history.

So if we assume that the latter is not true, then we must examine the former: that he has failed to achieve the central benefit available to anyone who has brushed up against their own mortality: the knowledge that life is fragile and can be stolen in a heartbeat; the understanding that tomorrow is not promised to anyone.

This fits well with other things we know about McCain: That in addition to his time as a POW, he has crashed at least two airplanes in circumstances that were also life-threatening, and that he likes to “roll the dice” so recklessly that his campaign has barred him from casinos for the duration. What we have hear folks is a thrill-junkie, someone who delights in flipping the bird to the so-called fickle finger of fate.

That may make for a great personal narrative. It might even be amusing and novel on the political stage. But is it really the temperament Americans want in their President? The high-roller may be fun to watch at the table, because none of us has to go home with him at the end of the night when he loses.

But the thought of this man – and that attitude – at the helm of US foreign policy should send shivers up the spine of any thinking citizen.

Best so far

As he did last night on CNN, Paul Begala takes the sharpest knife so far to the McCain campaign over their selection of Palin.

But that's just from the Democratic perspective. Sullivan picks up one of the more intellectually honest Republican reactions.

But I think I like this one best. It's from one of Sullivan's conservative readers, who puts it on a broader landscape. He sees it as the final demise of the whole nasty mess that is movement conservatism.

A Gift for the Season

Lots of what you need to know about the new Republican VP nominee.

Spread it Around

I am finally comforted to see that the Obama campaign has both the skill and will to fight back. The only question I have is: Why only run this in Atlanta?

Calling McCain Out

I think it's self-evident that the on-line left has had a positive influence on the MSM -- to the extent that it has had any influence at all. If nothing else we have called them out on their stupidity, their willingness to be used at tools, and their general abandonment of the public responsibilities of the 4th Estate.

But in the credit-where-credit-is-due department, Joe Klein has decided to morph into someone who has been pretty wonderful lately. Here he calls McCain out.