Enough!

Health Care Reform Debate as of August 15, 2009

2009-08-15T03:37:00.007-05:00

My friend Christy's Dad, Jerry (whom I also consider a friend) posted his thoughts and questions about the healthcare reform debate going on in our country as we speak.

I enjoyed reading the post and decided to respond with some thoughts of my own. Read Jerry's first for context. (And to my Republican and libertarian friends, if you'd like an example of how to make your case without becoming apoplectic, take a page from Jerry.) Quotes are his thoughts, non-quotes are mine:

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"I believe one reason is that the insurance companies are the sector that the federal government can replace. The government cannot act as doctors, they can't invent new drugs like the drug companies, they wouldn't dare touch the lawyers, and they wouldn't run a hospital.... that would involve bedpans. Bedpans and bureaucrats don't mix. The insurance companies have money and power. Ripe for federal takeover."

First, assuming this observation is correct, is there anything wrong with the government acting upon the one factor it can change in order to do good? Should it do nothing because it cannot do something to each of the facets of the problem you mention?

Second, though I'll admit insurance companies draw a lot of rhetorical fire, my understanding is that doctors and drug companies are going to have to settle for lower, negotiated prices -- or at least that that is an option that's being debated. Moreover, lawyers are "touched" all the time by politicians at state and national levels -- at state levels with damage caps, and at the national level with bills that restrict rights to sue at all. (See, e.g., here.) To consider who has better lobbyists, and thus who has a better shot at a fair shake in Congress and in state legislatures, ask yourself when was the last time you heard "greedy neurosurgeon" or "dirty obstetrician" used as a pejorative the way "trial lawyer" is every day. The guys who defend the insurance companies are "trial lawyers" too, but somehow I don't think that's who the politicians have in mind when they use the phrase.

I think most attorneys are open to genuine tort reform, but when it's used as a euphemism and a stalking horse for "damage caps," it's no good. Damage caps take from the "trial lawyers" to give to the members of the AMA and ADA and hospitals and drug companies, etc. -- a Peter and Paul situation. This is to say nothing of the fact that the most serious injuries would be undercompensated. One of the cases we had in torts was Quintal v Laurel Grove Hospital (62 Cal. 2d 154, 397 P. 2d 161, California, 1965), in which, according to a site I used to refresh my memory, "a 6-year-old patient [little Reggie Quintal] undergoing an operation to correct the inward deviation of his eyes suffered severe brain damage as the result of a cardiac arrest." "During the administration of the anesthetic, [Reggie] suffered respiratory arrest followed by a cardiac arrest. The ophthalmologist did not feel competent to administer a manual massage of the heart. In the few minutes it took to locate another surgeon, the patient suffered irreversible brain damage."

It turned out that there was reason to believe Reggie had a fever before he was anaesthetized -- for cross-eye surgery -- and he either shouldn't have been anaesthetized and operated on, or the doctors should've had a cardiac surgeon on hand just in case. Afterwards, someone fudged his charts to cover that up. So a six-year-old kid goes in for cross-eye surgery and comes out "a spastic quadriplegic, blind and mute" -- for the rest of his life, and say you have a $1,000,000 damage cap. For the guy who loses his pinky toe from staph infection, $1,000,000 should cover it, but for Reggie, who'll have to be cared for constantly and carefully for the rest of his life, even after his folks are gone, how can that be enough? (Quintal actually got $400,000 in 1965 money, which Inflation Calculator tells me would have been $2,702,339.07 in 2008.)

One of the most interesting discussions in which I ever participated in law school concerned the idea that health care costs could be brought down, doctors' malpractice premiums lowered, and people's real injuries could be more quickly and efficiently compensated if we would do away with our fault system altogether. (My torts professor, Roger Dworkin, was the one who facilitated the discussion, though I don't remember if he came up with the idea or just threw it out for debate.)

The issue of whether docs are negligent is the one that usually takes up the bulk of the time and money in medical malpractice lawsuits; it's almost always a foregone conclusion that an injury has happened -- a limb is lost, a baby has been brain damaged, etc. -- and it's usually not that hard to prove what caused the injury. The experts, and the tests, and the dog-and-pony shows put on for juries, are all about whether the docs were negligent. So, instead of paying insurance companies, who then pay "trial lawyers" to defend doctors by spending years litigating whether or not a doctor was negligent, why not have doctors pay into an "injury kitty?" Then, if their actions cause an injury, the injured party is compensated without litigation -- or at least without extensive, expensive litigation -- and the doctors are never called "negligent" or "bad." Billions that under our current system evaporate to pay experts, jury consultants, and attorney fees would either stay in the doctors' pockets or the kitty, or transfer to injured parties. And trial lawyers and doctors would both have to cede a little territory.

Of course, besides the fact that people would call it "socialism," another problem would be that doctors would have less incentives to practice careful medicine if they didn't face the possibility of the stigma of negligence. However, that would already result from more common forms of tort reform that are suggested today, such as damage caps, in which the most negligent doctors would get a windfall because their insurance policies would not have to pay the full amount for their most egregious injuries. So the incentive argument cuts against both types of reform and doesn't favor one over the other.

Anyway, moving on...

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"Another large segment of the uninsured, consists of individuals who could afford insurance, but choose not to be covered because they are healthy and will 'take the risk.' Are we going to force them to buy insurance?"

Answer: yes. And why? Precisely because when they do get sick or injured, they show up at the emergency room and get treated anyway. Then, if they can't afford to pay the bills, they take out a second mortgage on the home, or take bankruptcy, or both. If they're 22 and single, terrific. If they're 40 with a wife and six kids, where do those kids live? Who takes care of them when Risk-Taking Daddy mucks up the family's finances because he didn't want to buy insurance? The State does, i.e., taxpayers do.

I guess one alternative is to say "tough luck" and literally to turn away the people who could have afforded insurance but chose not to. Cancer, AIDS, lupus, head trauma from a car wreck, whatever it is, tough luck. Go die, and let your kids work or beg. There are two problems with that. One, as a generally compassionate society, I doubt many people could bear the thought of denying needed care, particularly when it would affect the innocent members of their families. Two, as a practical matter, if these people lose everything, or the kids are left orphans -- or the worst of both worlds, if Risk-Taking Daddy loses every bit of the money on his healthcare and still dies, leaving them orphans -- or if the kids turn to crime or don't amount to anything because they had to go pick beans instead of going to school or learning a trade, we all suffer from that.

So I think it's within reason for the government to say, "If you can afford health insurance, you have to have it," not because the government wants to take away individual liberty, but because the risk those individuals take is a risk that affects the rest of us. (I wasn't around when the debates over mandatory seat belt laws took place, but I imagine their rationale was much the same) And if people can't afford insurance, it's within reason for the government to decide that it will be cheaper to subsidize or provide insurance that will ensure preventive care and yearly maintenance than it is to wait until all the uninsured all show up at the ER with their hands out for a Kleenex and a $1000 Tylenol.

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"There's one reason why an insurance company wouldn't cover pre-existing conditions: If they did, everyone with a terminal illness would immediately buy a policy from that company, and the company would go broke paying all the claims."

Yes, but to me, this is just as much an argument for a "government option" as it is an argument against forcing companies to cover pre-existing conditions. The government, as spender (and, sadly, borrower) of last resort, could afford this sort of thing. Of course, if a mandate were instituted, one would think that the "gold rush" to insurance would only happen once.

"There's one other consideration when forcing the insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions. If they did, millions of people (myself included) would immediately cancel their insurance policies, saving thousands of dollars, knowing that if they got sick, they could then buy a policy and be covered."

That's only true if you don't require people who can afford it to purchase insurance. If you do, people can't cancel their policies to wait until they need them.

Oh wait, you say that here: "The only way pre-existing coverage works, is if insurance coverage is mandatory for everyone."

"Hillary Clinton wanted mandatory insurance for all, but Obama mocked her for forcing everyone to buy insurance."

That was more a matter of Obama's needing to draw a distinction between himself and Clinton at a critical time in the primary race than any real opposition to mandates, I think. The whole scheme has to have mandates. Otherwise, you've got something analogous to Social Security for all, paid for by an optional income tax.

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"The 60% number comes from the politicians, not the 'bastards' at the insurance companies."

Two things. One, I'm sure there are bastards enough to go around for many of these facets of a very big problem. Two, presumably there are mandates the state regulators could make that would be too demanding to make business in Illinois profitable, and the insurers would go elsewhere. That highlights the benefit of a federal plan: if the requirements are the same nationwide, there's nowhere for the insurer to go that would be any better than Illinois.

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"Everyone thinks that they're grandma should get the new hip."

I agree that everyone can't have everything. But my very limited understanding of Medicare is that the decision is based on whether a procedure is widely accepted, whether it is medically necessary, and whether it is likely to be successful. Those are still exacting criteria that can lead to painful results for ill people and their loved ones. But there is a difference between evaluating claims based on whether the procedures or treatments are likely to have the desired effect -- i.e., what Medicare does now -- and basing the evaluation in part on profit motives (private insurance) or on some Nazi consideration of whether the recipient can be restored to useful service of the Vaterland (Obama death panels, which I recognize you do not see as a legitimate fear). These are hard questions -- ones that Obama says he has grappled with himself and empathizes with -- but the solution is not to do nothing. It's not as if the choice is between Grandmas getting hips or not getting hips. It's between insured grandmas having the potential to get new hips and uninsured grandmas without the potential for new hips, regardless of discomfort or pain. (Unless it's an emergency, and then we go back to the ER/snotty nose scenario.)

"For those of you who are comfortable with Obama appointees making the decisions, would you be comfortable with McCain/Palin appointees in the same role?"

Yes, or at least as comfortable as I am with a panel at an HMO making the decisions (so long as Palin herself wasn't on the panel). To the degree that we have any power as citizens in a representative democracy, if we decided that we didn't like the way the bureaucrats were running things, we could fire their boss in the next election and demand they be replaced for incompetence or flagrant misapplications of the law. I'll grant you that that is a diluted and limited avenue for redress. But what's the avenue with HMOs? Switch to another insurance plan -- that probably won't cover our pre-existing condition that has caused us to want the care the first HMO wouldn't provide? I'd feel just as safe or safer with the government bureacrats.

(Plus, do you really think a bureaucrat would be as worried about saving the taxpayers money by denying claims as an insurance company employee would be worried about guarding profit margins for shareholders by denying claims? When I worked for the Indiana Department of Workforce Development deciding whether people were entitled to unemployment insurance or not, I never once considered whether granting a claim would cost the State money. Meanwhile, if I were an insurance company employee and never thought about keeping costs low, I'd probably -- and properly -- be fired.)

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"Our plan will be 'banned' by the Obama administration."

Who is saying this? Aren't there about five separate bills floating around in the House and Senate right now? Do they all ban your plan? I thought the Obama Administration didn't have any plan but had left it to Congress to hash out. Is that not correct?

"I would imagine that many plans will not be 'in compliance.' Sorry ... we're taking that away from you."

One thing that has been interesting -- and disappointing to me as a liberal -- is that Obama hasn't to date been much more inclined to ask people to sacrifice for the common good than Bush was. I didn't support the war in Iraq, but I think if I'd been asked to pay more taxes to make sure everyone had armor and good medical care in the military, I'd have done so. And I'd be happy to make small sacrifices now if it meant that a greater number of people would be brought into the circle.

What is more bothersome to you: (1) the idea that proponents of healthcare reform aren't telling people that their plans may change, or (2) the fact that plans may change? If it's the former, I agree. If it's the latter, what level of common sacrifice, if any -- in the forms of higher taxes, or higher deductibles, or higher premiums -- do you think would be an acceptable level to ask from the American people to accomplish the goal of universal or near-universal coverage? Isn't this just a way of helping our neighbors by working together in a way that we couldn't help those neighbors as individuals ourselves, by say paying the insurance premiums for their families directly, out of pocket?

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"FedEx delivers about 7,000,000 items each day. UPS delivers about 14,000,000 each day. The Post Office? Over 600,000,000 items are delivered each day. Nobody can compete with the Post Office in rural areas, where it cost much more than 44 cents to deliver a letter."

Why isn't that an argument for a government plan? I love the Post Office. I have everything shipped USPS, because UPS won't leave packages at my door. I can drop a card in the mail at Lake and La Salle, and it can be in southern Illinois the next day and in California in two days. I'm happy to pay for a $.44 stamp, and I'd be happy to pay a higher rate, or to pay a higher tax for a subsidy to keep the service good. I think it's one of our best American success stories.

Are FedEx and UPS doing the same level of business as the USPS? No. Are they going out of business? Nope. They're doing fine. Without their good service and competition, the Postal Service would probably relapse into the kind of lethargy that the character Newman embodied on "Seinfeld." Competition doesn't have to mean equality. There are things FedEx does that the USPS cannot. When I've tried to mail something express via postal service, I'm not kidding you, it has sometimes taken weeks, if not months. I don't know why, but express mail is where packages go to die. Meanwhile, FedEx can get something somewhere overnight.

In the same way, I imagine that people who can afford it are still going to want the private insurance, so they can have the options to pay higher premiums to get more ridiculous coverage -- emergency botox, say, or annual pig-heart transplants. I doubt very seriously we're going to see all the traders at the Merc and the investment bankers and the greedy trial lawyers and the dirty neurosurgeons clambering to get into that "government option." There'll still be plenty of middle and upper-middle class people who want private insurance options.

An Ode to Governor Palin

2009-03-04T00:07:00.002-06:00

GOP Pushing Total Lies About Partial Birth: Obama Supports Late-Term Abortion Bans

2008-10-17T02:01:00.009-05:00

This is a long post, so let me give you the gist of it up front: Barack Obama is not pro-abortion, he is not pro-partial-birth abortion, and he is not pro-infanticide. Barack Obama supports bans on post-viability abortions, unless those abortions are required to protect the woman’s life and health.

To see why this is the truth, keep reading.
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I have mentioned that Republicans are claiming and will continue to claim, falsely, that Barack Obama supports infanticide, that is, the killing of babies born alive in botched abortions. It should come as no surprise, then, that if Republicans will lie to say Obama supports killing live babies, they’ll also lie to say he supports partial-birth abortion. You hear this even from mainstream Republicans and conservatives, let alone all the extreme wack-jobs.

Sen. Obama has “endorsed partial-birth abortion,” writes columnist Michael Gerson of The Washington Post. He’s “the most pro-abortion candidate ever,” writes the super-sleazy Terence Jeffrey of Townhall.com, a cry that has been echoed by the equally sleazy HumanEvents.com, the Christian Coalition, and the truth-stretching National Right to Life Committee.

Jesus wouldn’t vote for Barack Obama, claims kookie World Net Daily. (This, by the way, is a line of attack that Obama’s opponent for the Senate seat, Alan Keyes, used against him in 2004 to no avail. In fact, it was to less than no avail, as Obama garnered seven out of every 10 votes cast in the State.)

Republican robocalls going on right now under the radar in battleground states are regurgitating the babykiller charges and suggesting that Obama supports partial-birth abortion and is “pro-abortion.” McCain even – finally – signaled that he was willing to enter the fray by charging that Obama’s insistence on providing exceptions for women’s health emergencies was a ruse of the “pro-abortion movement.”

This is the last best hope of the McCain/Palin campaign, to force upon voters the false dilemma between solving their economic problems on one hand and stopping terrorist babykillers on the other hand. What the Republicans are saying is, “Sure, you don’t like President Bush and you’re terrified that you won’t be able to retire, send your kids to college, pay your mortgage, or keep your job. But what kind of a sick, unpatriotic excuse for an American are you if you vote for a black terrorist babykiller??? How can you sleep at night???”

This would be an unsettling moral dilemma if it weren’t based on false premises. Thankfully for those of us who love our jobs, our country, and our souls, the Republicans are lying again.

Sen. Obama’s position on late-term abortions couldn’t be clearer: “I think it’s entirely appropriate for states to restrict or even prohibit late-term abortions as long as there is a strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother. Now, I don’t think that ‘mental distress’ qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term. Otherwise, as long as there is such a medical exception in place, I think we can prohibit late-term abortions.”

Guess what, Republicans? We Democrats love babies, too, and we’re tired of the dirty lie that we don’t.

How do we know he means it? Because since 1975, the State of Illinois has had in place a ban on ALL late-term abortions, regardless of the method, except in cases where the mother’s life or health demands it. And not once in his seven years in the Illinois Senate did Barack Obama try to change that law, to roll back the consensus of moderate people that late-term abortions should be curbed.

Per 720 ILCS 510/5, which is part of the Illinois Criminal Code:

“(1) When the fetus is viable no abortion shall be performed unless in the medical judgment of the attending or referring physician, based on the particular facts of the case before him, it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother. Intentional, knowing, or reckless failure to conform to the requirements of subsection (1) of Section 5 is a Class 2 felony.

“(2) When the fetus is viable the physician shall certify in writing, on a form prescribed by the Department under Section 10 of this Law, the medical indications which, in his medical judgment based on the particular facts of the case before him, warrant performance of the abortion to preserve the life or health of the mother.”

Just so you know, a Class 2 felony is very serious, punishable by 3 to 7 years in prison.

Republicans make a big deal about a ban on one kind of procedure – “partial-birth abortion.” Obama’s position is even broader than the Republicans’, and says, “I don’t care how the abortion is done, partial-birth or otherwise, because if the fetus is viable, we’re not going to do it.”

So why is this such a big deal? Why do Republicans persistently paint not just Barack Obama, but all Democrats as extremist? Because Republicans always refuse to include exceptions to the bans for a mother’s health. According to them, “pro-abortion” doctors will lie and claim that late-term abortions are necessary for the mother’s health, and they’ll just be ripping babies out of wombs willy-nilly at eight-and-three-fourths months.

That’s ridiculous, for three reasons. One, as you can see in the Illinois law above, those medical judgments have to be written down, verified, and turned into the State Health Department for review. The whole system would have to be corrupt and derelict in its duties in order for doctors to be able to skirt this law.

Two, as Sen. Obama and the Democrats have said repeatedly, the “health exception” is not meant to entail mental distress or some kind of airy-fairy imagined complaint. It’s meant to be a strict but necessary exception. How do we know that it’ll come out that way? Because courts and regulatory agencies are bound by law to consider Congress’ intent in construing statutes.

But third and most importantly, if the Republicans seriously think that doctors would lie about an abortion being necessary to preserve a mother’s health, what makes them think the same doctors wouldn’t lie about an abortion being necessary to protect a mother’s life? Why are the Republicans presuming that doctors are going to defy the law? Aren’t these the same doctors – OB/GYNs – whom Republicans love to describe as good, hardworking, innocent professionals who are the victims of too many frivolous lawsuits? Where did their faith go?

So which is it? Good, honest doctors, or nefarious babykillers looking for technicalities and loopholes to keep aborting full-term fetuses? Republicans can’t have it both ways.

I believe that the real reason Republicans for years have refused to include exceptions for health emergencies in partial-birth abortion bans is that they know Democrats won’t support the measures without such exceptions.

So, Republicans push a bill the Democrats can’t support, Dems oppose it, and Republicans get to paint the Democrats as extremist, when the reality is exactly the opposite: Republicans would rather kill good, moderate legislation to reduce or eliminate late-term abortions than to give up the political advantage of the “health of the mother” straw man. After all, if they compromised and actually passed good laws on which everyone could agree, what would they have to robocall and debate about two weeks before Election Day?

I remember as a boy during the Clinton Administration, sitting in my living room with my family and some of our fellow church members one stormy afternoon. We were listening to James Dobson’s program on Christian radio as there was a live report from Congress.

The Republican-led Congress was trying to get together enough votes to override President Clinton’s veto of the partial-birth abortion ban Congress had passed with no mother’s-health exception. The override failed, and it was a dark time for our family. I remember all the tearful prayers in the room, all of the bitterness and feeling of failure.

I still look back on that time as a tragedy, but for a different reason. If Republicans who purported to be pro-life had merely admitted, to themselves and to the American people, that doctors were not going to sneak around and kill babies on the sly, then those Republicans could have included a reasonable exception for the mother’s health in the ban. Most Democrats would have supported it, President Clinton would have signed it, and it would have passed constitutional muster. They could've saved hundreds of thousands of babies over the past 15 years. Instead, they decided they’d rather win elections.

They’re still at it today.

It Ain't Over Yet: Before V(ictory in the) E(lection) Day Comes The Bulge

2008-10-14T00:02:00.006-05:00

The Online Etymology Dictionary explains that “campaign” comes from the Old French “champagne,” meaning “open country that is particularly suited to military maneuvers.” At its root, the word derives from the Latin “campus,” which means “a field.” Old armies spent winters in quarters and took to the open field or “campus” to seek battle in summer.

Not surprisingly, the extension of meaning from military to political is distinctly American, and it’s still the best way to describe what it is we do in politics. We wear buttons and t-shirts, just as warriors put on their insignia to identify with their side. We display yard signs and bumper stickers the way ensigns used to fly the colors as they marched forth with armies from their respective pavilions to battle.

In that spirit, I think the Democrats are in for a long, bloody campaign these next three weeks.

Over and over again in American history, people looking for quick and easy victory have been discouraged. (See Bull Run,* Shiloh,** and D-Day.***) Overconfident armies have missed opportunities to strike final, decisive blows. (See Gettysburg.****) Prematurely triumphal leaders have emboldened their enemies by talking about how land would be divided and armies dismantled after surrender.***** In the famous Yogiism, it ain’t over ‘til it’s over.

On Monday, we had just a 10-point lead among registered voters in the Gallup poll. That number dropped to seven points among likely voters. Though we seem to be ahead in states for 343 electoral votes right now, 79 of those votes are in states where Obama leads six points or less. Take those away, we have 264 votes and a John McCain presidency.

Commentators and pundits like new Nobel laureate Paul Krugman are starting to presume an Obama presidency. As early as July, Frank Rich of the New York Times, whom I admire, wrote a column headlined, “How Obama Became Acting President.” There’s talk of Obama’s Cabinet. Particularly among former supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton – Lanny Davis, Howard Wolfson, and President Clinton himself – the tone is stridently jubilant.

As to Congress, there’s talk of Democrats reaching a filibuster-proof 60-seat Senate majority. People are rubbing their hands together, speculating how little time it will take for the Democrats to throw Joe Lieberman under the bus once they don’t need him to have a majority anymore. And on the House side, partisan pundits with tons of hope and no perspective toss around giddy numbers like bean bags.

But predicting any win is foolish, let alone predicting a landslide. Overconfidence only emboldens the other side and makes our side less likely to vote or work hard leading up to the election.

There’s a reason Woody Allen is my favorite director: I perceive the world through anxiety. But just because I always imagine all the terrible things that could happen in life doesn’t mean that kids don’t trip and impale themselves on the spires of wrought-iron fences, that people don’t accidentally step on their pets in the night and crush them to death, or that John McCain can’t whittle away at Barack Obama’s lead for the next three weeks and win this election.

Remember 2004? After two wars, the Patriot Act, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and everything else, I just knew that there was no way the American people could let Bush have another term. On Election Day, Gallup had the race tied. As late as November 1 – the day before the election – John Kerry led in the Electoral College 298 to 247. And while things were, as Dan Rather might say, tight as a tick, we were assured that Kerry’s ground game, and all the young and first-time voters, would surge to the polls and push the Democrats over the top.

I spent Thursday, October 28 through Tuesday, November 2 in Cincinnati, Ohio, doing get-out-the-vote operations for the Kerry Campaign. I had bet my Dad a steak dinner that Kerry would win, and the night before the election, I was so sure Kerry had it in the bag, I boasted to Dad, “Somewhere in America, the cow from which my steak is coming is already dead.” In my journal, I wrote, “Bush is done. Over and done. The election is ours for the taking.”

On Election Day, turn-out was up, all our voters were getting to the polls, and there was a prevailing spirit of cooperation and we-shall-overcome-ness. I left Cincinnati about 5 p.m. to drive back to Bloomington, Indiana, where I arrived just in time for my friends and me to watch Kerry lose the election. Instead of steak, I ate crow.

This past spring, after the Iowa caucuses, I predicted that if Sen. Obama could win the New Hampshire primary, he’d be unstoppable. But we’ll never know, because Clinton won New Hampshire, and the two of them went on to engage in the longest, most expensive primary campaign in U.S. history, one that felt every bit like the Siege of Petersburg. Those six months were a nightmare.

I love Barack Obama. I have believed in him and his politics ever since I first met him in 2004. But this battle is no longer about the people who love Sen. Obama versus the people who love Sen. McCain. It’s about people in the middle, who want what’s best for their families, their homes, their towns, their jobs, their paychecks, and their country, but who still don’t know which way to turn.

Several factors cut in Obama’s favor. It’s hard for any party to control the White House for more than two terms; it’s been done once since 1952. The economy’s in shambles. The war is unpopular, and so is the president. Democrats now significantly outnumber Republicans, and for once, their campaign coffers are much fuller.

But Obama is relatively new, and he’s black, and his name sounds foreign. People are constantly reminded that he’s got that crazy preacher in his past, and he’s from Chicago, where all those shady characters live. McCain’s a war hero. Many folks still believe that all Democrats are good for is raising taxes, losing wars, killing babies, and confiscating guns. And there is still a genuine terrorist threat in this world, one that the Republicans are trying every day to hang around Obama’s neck. Particularly if our stock market and those around the world continue to rally, people might stop worrying about Hoovervilles and bread lines and some of McCain’s nasty lies might start to filter through.

A Billboard in southeastern Missouri that just about sums up the Republican line on Obama.

No election is ever easy, even for the best leaders. Lincoln almost lost in 1864, FDR almost lost in 1940, and Truman almost lost in 1948. Churchill was replaced in the United Kingdom by Clement Atlee before World War II was even over.

I pray that we wake up on November 5 with 350 electoral votes for president-elect Obama, 60 Senate seats, and 250 House seats. But I will thank Almighty God if we wake up with 270 electoral votes, 50 Senate seats plus a tie-breaking Joe Biden, and 218 House seats.

Happily, for those of us who support the Democrats, we can do more than hope. We can go to http://www.barackobama.com/ right now and see how to get involved. Using phone lists there, we can make calls to encourage people to vote and to ask them to volunteer election weekend. We can give money. We can find out where our nearest Obama office is so we can show up to help knock on doors or stuff envelopes. This election is in our hands!

But let’s just please, please hush up this malarkey about a Democratic landslide and how screwed McCain is. Noses to the grindstone, let’s do everything we can to work for 1932, but let’s not count on anything but 1948. Otherwise, rather than being our new Roosevelt, Obama could be our new Dewey, and we Democrats could be banished to another four years in the wilderness.

I hope no Democrat who sees this picture can sleep soundly until he or she has done everything possible -- giving money, time, cell phone minutes, door-to-door volunteerism, and prayer, to make sure this nightmare doesn't come true.
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* July 1861: Bull Run. The Union Army marches southwest out of Washington, D.C. to Manassas Junction, hoping to crush the Confederate forces decisively to end the rebellion as quickly and painlessly as possible. Many Congressmen and the upper crust of Washington society pack picnics and bring their families to the battle, expecting free entertainment and an easy victory. And guess what? The Confederates win the day, sending both the Union Army and all the prematurely gloating spectators flying back to the safety of the capital.

** April 1862: Shiloh. The Confederates take Grant’s army by surprise and attack in what becomes the deadliest battle of the war up to that time. For the very first time – sixteen months into the Rebellion – the North understands this will be a war to the bitter end, with nothing quick or easy about it.

*** June 1944: D-Day. American and British forces land in Normandy and imagine that they’ll be able to roll through France and into Germany like a wave to end the war by Christmas. But the Germans dig in and fight fiercely, and in December, they begin the counteroffensive known to history as The Bulge (in which my Grandpa Harris and Sen. Obama’s Grandpa fought). The Bulge kills more Americans than any other battle ever, and the war lasts another five months.

**** July 1863: Gettysburg. After the deadliest battle of the Civil War, the victorious Union Army allows the Confederates to retreat unmolested, instead of rushing in on them and crushing them to end the war, which goes on to last nearly two more years.

***** Autumn 1944: Morganthau Plan. When the Axis learned in 1944 of the Allied plan to carve up Germany after the war, the news galvanized the Germans like “thirty fresh German divisions,” and made them hang on for another half a year.

Tiger by the Tail: McCain/Palin Campaign of Fear Works Too Well

2008-10-12T01:05:00.009-05:00

I remember as a little boy hearing a missionary at my church tell a story about a political rally he’d witnessed in Romania, sometime in the years leading up to the revolution. As President Nicolae Ceauşescu spoke, one woman out of the masses had the courage to speak up. “Liar!” she shouted. “You’re a liar!” And she spat on the ground in disgust, before promptly being carried away, likely never to be heard from again.

The late Communist President of Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, who had the good fortune not to have to call himself out on his own lies.

This week, confronted with the sobering fact that none of the attendees of McCain/Palin rallies had a similar courage to call the nominees out on their lies and demagoguery, John McCain finally had to step up to the plate and do it himself. Let me say that again: he repudiated himself.

I’d like to say I was happy to see “the old McCain” make a rare reappearance, peeking out like a little like a fleeting whack-a-mole before disappearing again beneath the tide of negativism that has overwhelmed his campaign.

But for at least two weeks now, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin, trailing in the polls, have been beating the drum that Sen. Obama is the candidate of false gods, palls around with terrorists, supports the killing of babies born alive in failed abortions, is funded by “foreigners,” doesn’t love his country, doesn’t support the troops, and condones the damnation of America by Rev. Wright. Their surrogates have been comparing Obama to Osama bin Laden, referring to Obama by including his loaded-word middle name – “Let’s leave Barack HUSSEIN Obama wondering what happened” – and calling him “a guy of the street.” Somehow I don’t think they mean Main Street.

After mentioning all these things, McCain’s been connecting the cognitive dots for his followers by asking over and over at rallies, “Who IS the real Barack Obama?”

Responding to these highly developed Rorsach inkblot tests, McCain/Palin followers and other GOP supporters have been heard screaming “terrorist,” “traitor,” and “treason” at the merest mention of Barack Obama. Some, in a violent fervor, have screamed racial epithets at the media crews. Others have yelled, “Off with his head!” Still others have dispensed with politeness altogether and apoplectically ejaculated, “Kill him!” and “Bomb him!”

When McCain has clearly heard the charges at his rallies before, he's not missed a beat. And they've clearly had tons of opportunities to condemn these things after learning about them later, even if they didn't hear them at the time. So McCain pretending to put “country first” and stick up for Obama now is a little like throwing a match on a gasoline spill in a garage, and then blowing on it and pretending you don’t know how it got there.

Now, don’t mistake me. I think it’s important to know everything we can about the candidates. The problem is that this territory has been gone over very thoroughly by the press and in umpteen debates. Most of us know more about Barack Obama’s life now than we do about our own cousins. This rehashing of old non-news is about nothing more than equivocation, circumlocution, innuendo, thinly veiled inflammation, and the overall trashing of Barack Obama.

Any person who’s ever sat through a Communications 101 class knows that for there to be a communication, you have to have a sender, a receiver, and a message. To be an effective communication, the message that the receiver hears must bear strong resemblance to the one the sender intended to relay.

In this best-case scenario, John McCain and Sarah Palin are dangerously inept at sending messages. At worst, they are brilliantly effective at communicating exactly the messages they intended to. Either way, their conduct is shockingly unbecoming at least someone of McCain’s stature, and it’s definitely an insult to the eternal dignity and the present distress of the American people.

I come from a long line of very sincere and credulous conservatives who love God and country, but who sadly put more faith in Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly than in verifiable facts. I have two sainted Grandmas, one of whom believes that doctors no longer give B-12 vitamin shots because “the immigrants took them,” the other of whom believes that Barack Obama may be the Antichrist. And my own Dad persists, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, in believing that Obama is a secret Muslim.

They are not senile, and they are not making things up. They believe it with all their hearts, just as surely as I believe that the atomic number of hydrogen is 1. I get frustrated with them, but I get angry at the people who feed them this misinformation in order to benefit from their belief – higher ratings, bigger paychecks, and victorious elections. To what I believe will be his eternal discredit, John McCain has decided to become one of those people.

With Michael Dukakis and the “Willie Horton ad,” the Republicans said he’d be weak on crime and played to people’s racial discomfort. With John Kerry, Republicans painted him as weak on national security and terrorism. Now, afraid to leave anything to the imagination, Republicans and the McCain/Palin campaign have all but stated that Barack Obama is a criminal, a terrorist, and a racist. What a sad day for a once-great party.

In criminal law, there are two doctrines that defendants often have a hard time wrapping their brains around. One, the felony murder doctrine, says that if someone dies during the commission of a felony like kidnapping or armed robbery, the kidnappers are on the hook for first-degree murder, regardless of intent. If you and your buddy rob a convenience store, and the store clerk pulls out a sawed-off shotgun and kills your buddy, guess who’s going to prison for murder? You. Why? Because when you play with fire like that, you ought to know that somebody could get killed.

The other doctrine is accountability, which says that you are responsible for the conduct of another when you solicit, aid, abet, agree or attempt to aid the other person’s commission of the offense. So for instance, if your buddy says to you, “Man, I’d like to rob a convenience store,” and you let him borrow your gun, you’re going to be accountable for that robbery. And if the clerk shoots your friend, guess what? Felony murder and accountability work together to make you guilty of murder, even if you’re sitting at home eating Doritos. The law makes you responsible not only for things that you know, but for things that you should know.

What’s my point? My point is that this country, in the midst of two wars and a hemorrhaging economy, is on edge. People are nervous about the present, let alone the future. And let’s be frank: even well-meaning people are nervous about the specter of the first black president, whose name has the bad fortune of sounding like BOTH of America’s arch-enemies. This is a time to tread very, very lightly on the tense tightrope of the American people’s fears.

And besides the fact that it’s doing nothing to resolve any of our several crises, the McCain/Palin rhetoric is fanning the flames of resentment, of hatred, and of abject terror, aiding and abetting some of the most extreme elements and violent tendencies in our populace. If they didn’t know about the volatility of those tendencies, they should have known, as any reasonable person familiar with American history undoubtedly does. (See, exempli gratia, Abraham, Martin, John, and Bobby. Not to mention James and William, and very nearly Franklin, Harry, Jerry, and Ronald.)

It’s simply not credible now for the McCain/Palin camp to try to wash its hands of this nastiness. This is a monster of their own creation, and they ought to own up to it.

Obama: Competent Government, Sounder Economy, Affordable Healthcare, AND You Can Keep Your Guns!

2008-10-05T23:20:00.001-05:00

Is the McCain/Palin Campaign Lying About Obama Being a "Terrorist?" You Betcha, Doggone It!

2008-10-05T05:04:00.009-05:00

In case you haven’t heard, Barack Obama is a terrorist. Or at least he’s been “palling around with terrorists,” if Gov. Sarah Palin can be believed. Unsurprisingly, she cannot.

"There is a lot of interest, I guess, in what I read and what I’ve read lately,” Palin said Saturday. “Well, I was reading my copy of today’s New York Times and I was interested to read about Barack’s friends from Chicago."

“I get to bring this up not to pick a fight, but it was there in the New York Times, so we are gonna talk about it. Turns out one of Barack’s earliest supporters, (University of Illinois-Chicago Professor William Ayers), is a man who, according to the New York Times, and they are hardly ever wrong, was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that quote launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and US Capitol. Wow. These are the same guys who think patriotism is paying higher taxes.

“This is not a man who sees America as you see it and how I see America. We see America as the greatest force for good in this world. If we can be that beacon of light and hope for others who seek freedom and democracy and can live in a country that would allow intolerance in the equal rights that again our military men and women fight for and die for for all of us. Our opponent though, is someone who sees America it seems as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country?”

This is in keeping with the McCain/Palin campaign’s stated intention of attacking Sen. Obama’s character in the final month of the campaign. There are so many things wrong with this b.s. that leaves me livid, so we’d better get started.

1. Gov. Palin, you will refer to the Democratic nominee as “Sen. Obama.” You have not met him, you don’t play poker with him, and he is not your moose-hunting buddy. You may not refer to Sen. Biden as “Joe,” you may not refer to Sen. Obama as “Barack,” and no, you may not braid their hair or paint their toenails. We’ll extend you the same courtesy.

2. There is only one candidate in this race who is under investigation for a potentially impeachable abuse of power, and it isn’t “Barack from Chicago.” It’s Gov. Sarah Palin, from that whitewashed sepulchre of corruption that is Alaska.

3. When did the McCain campaign’s official take on the New York Times become that the paper is “hardly ever wrong?” What happened to “in the tank for Obama” and “pro-Obama advocacy organization”?

4. If Barack Obama were a terrorist, or were tied to terrorists, don’t you think that would’ve been all we had heard for months? There would’ve been none of this “aw, shucks,” “my friends,” “country first,” “hockey mom,” “lipstick on a pig,” “maverick maverick maverick” ridiculousness. Every time Obama’s name came up, McCain and Palin would’ve just looked exasperated straight into the camera, The Office-style, and said, “Um…HE’S A TERRORIST!”

Why weren’t we hearing about how Barack Obama is a terrorist when John McCain was ahead?

Instead of merely refusing to look at Sen. Obama during their debate, Sen. McCain could’ve just refused to debate altogether. “I have suffered and bled and nearly died for my country, so you’ll forgive me, my friends, if I won’t share a stage WITH A TERRORIST!"

John McCain refuses to look at Barack Obama during their recent debate at Ole Miss.

Imagine that I came to your house and said, “My friend, I’d like to take you out for ice cream. Come with me.” And then, if you should refuse, imagine that I start to sweat, and say, “My friend, there are termites eating your walls. We should really leave and call an exterminator.” And then, if you should still refuse, imagine that I turn beet-red and scream, “For heaven’s sake, my friend, the whole block is on fire, and it’s consumed five buildings already! You must come with me!”

Wouldn’t you probably look at me and ask, “Um…so why were we talking about ‘ice cream?’” Of course you would, and so should we all wonder why McCain has waited until now, a month before the election, to say that Obama is a terrorist.

From the looks of Palin’s quote, and similar quotes by spokesman Tucker Bounds and others, it appears they’re going to try to pretend that this “terrorist” stuff is new. It isn’t. Sen. Clinton brought it up in her debates with Obama in April. Conservative columnists were ranting about it in February. It’s never been a secret.

Less than a month ago, everyone was accusing Mayor Daley and the University of Illinois-Chicago of a cover-up, of hiding damning records linking Obama to Bill Ayers in a way that could sink his presidential bid. But then the records were opened up, and conservative media outlets from the Chicago Tribune on down were disappointed to learn they’d been chasing yet another mirage.

Anyone who reads the Chicago Tribune’s Op-Ed page on a regular basis knows that it is a Republican paper. This dates all the way back to the Republicanism of Joseph Medill before the Civil War, and to that of his grandson Colonel Robert McCormick, who hated New Deal Democrats in particular; this is what made Harry Truman’s smile so broad when he held up that most famous edition of the Tribune ever published. The Tribune has dug at Obama for four years, from Tony Rezko to Bill Ayers to Rev. Wright. If it hasn’t found anything digging here in Sen. Obama’s back yard, you can bet there’s nothing to be found.

One of America’s most underestimated presidents: Harry Truman on his proudest day.

5. If the McCain campaign were truthful (which it is not), it would tell folks that the New York Times story it cites actually says that Obama and Ayers “do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called ‘somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.’”

This is like taking a headline that says, “Fred Thompson is 100%, absolutely, positively not gay with Rudy Giuliani,” and saying, “Did you read the news story that talked about the possibility of secret homosexual liaisons between Thompson and Giuliani?”

Rudy Giuliani in drag. Nope, I’m not joking.

But I don’t know why anyone is surprised the McCain camp is going there. This is classic Karl Rove-style politics, turning day to night, right to wrong, strength to weakness. It’s what allowed Republicans to run against a triple-amputee Vietnam veteran, Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., as soft on terror in 2002.

It’s what allowed two chickenhawks to run against a decorated Vietnam war hero as a weak, liberal coward in 2004. It’s what’s allowed every Republican since 1980 to run as a “fiscal conservative,” despite ballooning deficits that have made our national debt ELEVEN TIMES what it was in 1980, even though 20 of those 28 years fell under Republicans.

The McCain/Palin crowd has taken a headline that said “no terrorism,” left out the “no,” and convinced itself that it’s still telling a half-truth and keeping half its honor intact.

6. Lastly, as anyone who’s ever served on a board knows, you don’t get to pick your fellow board members. Charities and civic organizations are always looking for professionals and community leaders to serve on governing and fundraising boards, some of which can have as many as 100 members.

Should Sen. Obama have refused to serve on any organization’s board whose members also included someone with a shady past, regardless of how important the organization’s mission was? Should he have turned down this donation from a man who, by all accounts, has given back a lot to the community and the society that he once so violently reviled?

I don’t know. Do Republicans return every donation from G. Gordon Liddy, Oliver North, and other unrepentant criminals who put their beliefs and values above the law? I doubt it.
As Sen. Obama has said, he was eight when all this Weather Underground stuff was going on. One of the beauties of his campaign to so many in my generation is that finally – finally – the divisive politics of the 1960s can be put behind us. No more draft dodging, no more draft deferments, no more bra burning, no more free-loving and pot-smoking and flag burning and all of it.

We can turn the page with Barack Obama, and it’s not surprising that someone like John McCain – a Vietnam-era guy by definition – is hoping we have one more election mired in the social conflicts that consumed the second half of the 20th Century.

But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that McCain is just whistling Dixie. To me, it sounds an awful lot like a swan song.

More Babykilling Lies to Help McCain/Palin Win

2008-10-02T17:48:00.002-05:00

According to Talking Points Memo, the National Right to Life Committee is about to release a slanderous ad to help McCain and Palin steal and election with outright lies.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. As a criminal appeals attorney in Illinois, I have to say that the "live-birth abortion" charges are flat-out lies.

Moreover, it is a mistake for Democrats and those on the Left to just ignore these charges because they seem unexplainable, thinking, "Oh crap, that's really bad. Let's just pretend we didn't hear that."

These charges are not hard to explain. But "The Swamp" has gotten it wrong, "FactCheck.org" has gotten it wrong, and most of the non-legal analyses I've seen have gotten it wrong -- particularly from folks outside Illinois who might not be clear on how our legislature works.

Please go here, check my links, and see for yourself that the National Right to Life is engaging in a lying slander campaign rather than discussing genuine policy differences it may have with Sen. Obama. http://enough2008.blogspot.com/2008/09/born-alive-babykilling-bs-obamabiden.html

Veep Debate Will Pit "Attaboy Joe" Against "Oh S--t Sarah"

2008-10-01T23:27:00.013-05:00

Leading up to Thursday night's vice presidential debate, Republican operatives have been trying a new line of distraction against the Obama/Biden ticket. According to the whine of the day, the media have been treating Sarah Palin unfairly, running her through the ringer for her gaffes, awkward silences, errors, and outright ignorance, while they've been giving Joe Biden a pass.

According to Rudy Giuliani, “Sarah Palin is treated horribly different than Joe Biden." According to Fred Thompson, "Governor Palin’s every comment was scrutinized by the media and judged against what Jefferson or Lincoln might have said. Never mind that her counterpart, the 30-year-Washington-veteran Joe Biden, apparently is unaware that America relies upon coal for a lot of it’s electricity or that he recently referred to a top level U.S. official’s visit to Iran that never happened. That’s just Joe being Joe – protected by the sheer number of his gaffes and the fact that he is Barack Obama’s running mate."

And while the McCain campaign is pushing Biden's gaffes, it's insisting that Palin's shouldn't count. Today, McCain testily swiped at Biden's recent eroneous suggestion that FDR was president at the start of the depression and used the television to reassure the American people. "Some people allege that others may have spent too much time inside the Beltway," McCain said, "...and too much time not out in touch with the American people, some people that know that Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn't adress the American people on television."

It is absolutely the case that Biden has gotten a lot less press generally than Sarah Palin has. And it's also absolutely true that his gaffes -- which have been more plentiful than I'd have hoped, God love him -- have caused a lot less alarm among voters and members of the pundit class on both sides of the aisle.

But that absolutely makes sense, and here's why: we know Joe Biden -- loquacious, folksy, windy, goofy, but competent. On this, even conservatives like David Brooks agree. Nobody wants to have a phone conversation with him necessarily, and nobody would want him to be his star witness at a murder trial, but I think that if, God forbid, Barack Obama dropped over dead on January 25, 2009, 95 percent of us could still sleep soundly at night knowing folksy, windy old Joe was at the helm.

Sens. Biden and Obama at their first joint campaign rally in Springfield, Illinois. I am at top right, behind the fellow in the green shirt stretching out his hand, who happens to be none other than Mr. Jacob Trimble.

He's been in the Senate for three decades. Not only does he know Supreme Court cases, but he's taught them. He's even crafted laws that have been the subject of them. He's on two of the most prestigious and important committees in the Senate -- the Judiciary Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee. He's been to Afghanistan. He's been to Iraq. He's been on Meet the Press more than almost anyone. We trust him.

And who is Sarah Palin? She seems okay, even though she's stonewalling an abuse-of-power investigation in Alaska. But her roll-out has been one mistake, one wrong answer, one non-answer after another, to Charlie Gibson, to Katie Couric, and to her fellow cheesesteak eaters. All we know about her is an unsettling and desperate incompetence.

We have to ask her hard questions, not because she should be held to a higher standard, but because Joe Biden has already been tried in the refining fire of the public eye for 30 years. We're not intentionally leaving Biden out; we're just trying to bring Palin up to where Biden -- and generally all other VP nominees -- already are.

I'm reminded of the New Testament story about non-Christian exorcists in Ephesus who had heard about the miracles and exorcisms the Apostle Paul was performing. Without converting to the faith or giving much thought to the consequences, seven of these exorcists decided they'd get in on the action. When they came across a man possessed by a demon, some of these name-dropping coat-tailers yelled out, "We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches."

The demon replied, "Jesus I know, and Paul I know. But who are you?" Then the demon-possessed guy proceeded to beat the tar out of the posers.

I think a lot of Americans right now look at Sarah Palin and think to themselves, "Joe Biden we know, and John McCain we know, and heck, even Barack Obama we know. But who are you?" And when McCain repeats assertedly, as he did again today, that Palin's running for vice-president after just 20 months as a governor is the same as Reagan or Clinton running after considerably more experience, Americans scratch their heads and say, "Um...wait a sec. Reagan we know, and Bill Clinton we know. But who are YOU?"

"Ronald Reagan we know, and Bill Clinton we know, but who are YOU?"

Republicans always argue against affirmative action and taxes by saying that people should have to earn each opportunity and dime they get. Well, Joe Biden has earned a presumption of competence; Palin hasn't.

Before my Dad was a pastor, he was an oil field worker for Marathon, and his boss had a crude saying that explained his management style: "It takes about 20 'attaboys' to make up for one 'oh shit!'"

Biden's tenure as Obama's running mate has been peppered with a fair number of "oh shits" so far, but he's got the wind of a lifetime of "attaboys" at his back. Palin, on the other hand, was foisted on us all fully formed, like Athena from the mind of "Zeus" McCain, and she's done nothing but clumsily skip from "shit" to "shit" ever since.

The decent thing for the McCain/Palin campain to do is to start digging themselves out of this hole honestly and honorably, rather than bashing poor Joe Biden and the media over the head with the shovel.

Democrats Should Steer Clear of "Siren Sarah"

2008-09-30T23:58:00.009-05:00

I think the McCain campaign is finally catching on that things aren't going well. Barack Obama has led in the daily Gallup poll for five days, and John McCain hasn't led for two weeks. Best guesses on electoral votes range from 255 to 227 Obama, to 286 to 225 Obama, to 301 to 237 Obama, to 331 to 207 Obama.

And there's no clear end in sight. The economy is in the ditch, and while neither candidate seems particularly expert in economics, Obama has some very competent people on his economic team, while McCain has the bad fortune of having surrounded himself with precisely the kind of people who have helped cause the problem, like former Sen. Phil Gramm, and the kind of people whom Americans are disgusted with, like lobbyist Rick Davis and golden-parachuted CEO Carly Fiorina.

Conservatives of the old school are in revolt over Gov. Sarah Palin, Republicans can't get their act together, and even the most superstitious/anxious/cynical Democrats are having to shake themselves to avoid visions of premature inauguration.

So what does the McCain camp do? It sends out Gov. Palin as the bait in two distinct traps, extremely attractive to Democrats and extremly, extremely deadly.

Discerning Democratic mice will resist the urge to pounce on this tasty morsel of Palin provolone.

First Trap: Red Meat

In case you haven't seen the latest installment of the gift that keeps on giving, watch the video above as Katie Couric unrolls a few more lengths of rope for Palin to use to hang herself.

Of course, I think much of what Palin has to say is ridiculous, but more than that, I think the way she says it illustrates just how unready she is even to be a part of this campaign, let alone to lead America, and thus the world.

But step back from this for a minute and think about the dangers this interview poses for Democrats. Here are big hunks of juicy tidbits that voters, columnists, bloggers, and pundits can't resist -- ABORTION!!! BIRTH CONTROL!!! HOMOSEXUALITY!!! RELIGION!!!

But I believe it would be an absolute mistake to take the bait, and here's why. For starters, these aren't far-out wacky views, or at least if they are, they're held by a substantial number of Americans. America's largest Protestant denomination -- the Southern Baptists, with 16.2 million members -- and the Roman Catholic Church in America accounts for one quarter of our population. Guess what these denominations teach? That abortion is murder, the morning-after pill is murder, and homosexuality is a choice. This is to say nothing of the Assemblies of God, Churches of God, Disciples of Christ, et alii.

Unless people think that somehow Democrats can win with skeptics, atheists, and Unitarians, there's got to be a place at the table for people of all beliefs and traditions. These issues just aren't the most important ones in America.

That brings me to my second reason to avoid the culture-war bait. When the national conversation gets bogged down in the culture wars, Democrats lose. It's not necessarily because half the country agrees with Palin. It's that people who disagree with her can never be as forceful as those who agree with her. If you don't think that the morning-after pill is murder or that being gay is a chosen abomination, you'll never be able to match passions with people who do. (Unless, perhaps, you are gay without equal rights or unexpectedly pregnant without access to an early-term abortion, which certainly must account for a minority of Americans.)

To put it another way, most potential Democratic voters don't go to sleep at night thinking, "Man, I could really use an abortion," or, "Gosh, I wish I could have a gay marriage." For that matter, they don't go to sleep wondering just how stupid that Gov. Palin will look the next time she opens her mouth for a primetime interview or a cheesesteak sandwich.

They go to sleep wondering how they're going to pay for their health insurance, how they'll keep their jobs, what will happen to their folks when they get older and dont't have nursing home insurance, and whether their sons and daughters will ever come home safely from two wars that seem to have no end. So if the Democrats spend all their time talking to American voters about how they'll give them evolution education and the morning-after pill, voters will tune it out the way I tune out the infomercials for the Jack Lelane Juicer I don't need.

Polling shows this. Go back and look at where the McCain-Palin ticket stood in the polls when the national narrative was about "lipstick on a pig" and Obama killing babies. Those conversations miss the voters you can get and really really energize the voters you hope stay home.

Liberals like Unitarian Keith Olbermann (whom I generally like) and agnostic Bill Maher (whom I don't), if they really support Barack Obama, do themselves no favors deriding not the extreme policies of the McCain/Palin ticket but the personal convictions of the members of that ticket, which untold millions of Americans share.

Serious-minded Democrats should distance themselves from these criticisms of Palin's no-doubt genuine religious views and keep the focus on the economy, the war, and the disaster that was the last eight years. If someone says, "I think all the gays are going to hell," say, "Terrific. How does that help you feed your family?"

Second Trap: Wounded Animal

The other snare Palin is setting with her Siren song is one of low expectations. President Bush has famously spoken of the "soft bigotry of low expectations," but in this case, I think the Republicans in the short-term only stand to gain from how little the country has come to expect from Gov. Palin.

We've already seen the McCain camp exploit these expectations once before. When McCain first named Palin right before his convention, bloggers and partisans nationwide spent four solid days denouncing the decision simultaneously as a boneheaded blunder and a self-serving stunt, rapidly firing every possible criticism at Palin to see what stuck. She was a book-banner! Her daughter was knocked up! The First Dude had a 20-year-old DUI! She'd fired someone for political reasons! People were running pools to see how long she'd survive on the Republican ticket.

And then what happened? She stood up and read a great speech from a teleprompter at the convention, and Democrats looked stupid. They'd made her look like a victim, a martyr, a working-class hero. Meanwhile, Gov. Palin -- still unqualified, mind you, and still extremely dangerous to our nation -- was innoculated from criticism for weeks to come.

It took CBS's Katie Couric (someone else who's faced the soft bigotry of low expectations) to really pull back the curtain on the Wizard to let American voters sneak a peek to observe what Democrats had ham-handedly tried to pound into their heads a month before: Palin was clueless.

But rather than having learned their lesson, Democrats (and some Republicans, by the way) are piling on again, Democrats gloating at how abysmal Palin is, Republicans fretting and begging her to fall on her moose gun for the good of party and country. The result is that come this Thursday night, when she has to debate Sen. Joe Biden in the vice-presidential face-off, expectations are set so low for her that if she manages not to trip or swear, she'll be hailed for proving those snobby elitist critics wrong again.

Moreover, wounded animals are always 100 times fiercer than animals in good shape, so I reckon that the wound-ier the McCain campaign gets, the more ferocious its attacks on Obama/Biden will become.

What's the right approach? I say back off and let Palin continue to write her own epitaph. The American people are not stupid. Between the War on Terror and the Terrible Economy, folks know that times are tough and fraught with the potential for disaster. They also know that John McCain is old and more likely to die in office than any president we've had at least since Franklin Roosevelt's fourth term. The more they see of Palin, the more even her admirers are going to realize, "Darn the luck, she seems like a swell lady, but we just don't have the luxury of rolling the dice on her."

Don't make her a martyr. Don't waste breath and column inches pointing out what Palin daily makes painfully obvious. Let Palin be Palin -- in fact, just let Palin be -- and let's take our argument for real, lasting Change to the American people, reminding them at every turn that John McCain isn't it.

Is Anybody In Charge of the Republican Party Right Now?

2008-09-30T21:50:00.004-05:00

Let's recap. Yesterday, John McCain took credit for passing this bill before it passed. THEN he blamed Barack Obama for its failure to pass.

THEN, this morning, after everyone in America knew the bill had failed, the Republican National Committee ran an ad blaming Obama FOR PASSING the bill, that of course failed to pass.

Forget whiplash, I've snapped my neck!

McCain, Palin Spin Katie Couric in the Twilight Zone

2008-09-30T01:26:00.005-05:00

Watch CBS Videos Online

Somebody should remind McCain that Bill Clinton was governor for 12 years, Attorney General of Arkansas for two years, and a law professor. Moreover, Ronald Reagan, who had been active in Republican politics for a generation and who'd been governor of California for eight years, would probably be surprised to hear his old bosom buddy John McCain compare him to a small-town mayor and 20-month governor of Alaska.

Couric's caught in The Twilight Zone.

Meanwhile, Katie Couric, God love her, finds out what Rod Serling felt like all those years.

McCain Counts the Chickens While His Party Smashes the Eggs

2008-09-29T21:09:00.014-05:00

As John McCain's folksy running-mate, Sarah Palin, could have told him, you don't count your chickens before they hatch. Only in this case, you don't count your Republicans before they vote.

This morning, Sen. McCain lambasted Barack Obama mercilessly for "sitting on the sidelines" instead of taking leadership the way he did to save the economy by building a coalition for the bail-out. Then, when it came time for McCain's party to put up or shut up, McCain's own party balked, bucking both their nominee and their president and killing the bill 228 to 205.

It's one thing to take credit for things you had no hand in creating, like when McCain's campaign said he helped create the BlackBerry, or when Al Gore claimed to have "taken the initiative" in creating the Internet. But where some men see things as they are and ask "why," John McCain dreams things that never were ... and takes credit for them.

Car-"Mac" the Lackluster

Nobody can predict the future, and that's why all but the mentally infirm and the fraudulent snake-oil salesmen among us don't even try. I'm not saying Sen. McCain is mentally infirm or a fraud, but gosh, he's really not doing much to convince us all he's not.

In the best case scenaio, McCain isn't crazy or lying, but trying his hardest to make things come true merely by saing them. He's done this with the economy, with Sarah Palin, and every other thing that's gone south, so it's no surprise he's doing it now. This morning, he was Sky Masterson, cooing "Luck Be a Lady" into the ears of House Republicans and rolling them like dice, hoping against hope that he'd roll a winner.

"Sometimes luck has a very unladylike way of running out."

Then, when ol' Maverick Masterson's luck ran out, who did he blame? Barack Obama.

To sum it up, McCain's either crazy, a liar, or an unlucky compulsive gambler. None of the three leaves him fit to lead this great nation, in my judgment.

Palin Says, "Invade Pakistan? You betcha!"

2008-09-28T15:59:00.004-05:00

Sen. John McCain raised quite a fuss at Friday night's debate that Sen. Barack Obama has taken the position that if we know where bin Laden is inside Pakistan, and the Pakistani government won't act, we will. (This, by the way, has been the policy of the United States government since the Clinton Administration.) "You don't say that out loud," McCain scolded grumpily.

Well, as it turns out, his running-mate didn't get the memo. Gov. Sarah Palin has gone Obama one better, by saying the United States would send a ground invasion into Pakistan "if that's what we have to do."

"Put 'em up! PUT 'EM UP! I'll fight ya with one hand tied behind my back! I'll fight ya with one eye closed!"

I'm starting to wonder if we ought to give her and McCain a map of the world and a marker and tell them to cross off the countries that are actually SAFE from invasion in a McCain/Palin Administration. Russia? Iran? Pakistan? North Korea? Venezuela? Spain?

McCain quickly took an opportunity to point out that what Palin said wasn't actualy what she meant. This is yet another dramatic reversal for the McCain campaign, which you'll recall felt very strongly that "words mean something" back in those halcyon lipstick-on-on-a-pig days of relatively recent vintage.

Obama Won the Debate By Showing Up Without Horns

2008-09-27T21:13:00.007-05:00

After Friday night's presidential debate, I was initially very disappointed. "Well, we blew that one," I muttered, disgusted, much the way my Grandpa used to when the Cubs would give up a three-run homer in the top of the ninth.

I think my reaction was similar to Maureen Dowd's: why did Obama leave so much unsaid?

Why didn't Obama point out that McCain's campaign advisor's lobbying firm was still on the Freddie Mac Payroll until last month? Why didn't Obama get angry and fight back when McCain made those ridiculous allegations that Obama said he would just nance over to Iran to play footsie with Ahmadinejad?

When McCain bloviated for minutes and minutes about earmarks (to avoid having to talk about the economy), why didn't Obama remind McCain that his own running mate secured earmarks for Alaskans to study the mating habits of crabs? When McCain belittlingly scolded Obama that "the next president won't have to decide whether to go to war in Iraq," why in the world didn't Obama say, "No, Senator, but they might have to decide whether to bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran, and I don't think the American people can trust your judgment on that"?

Why, why why? Instead of doing what I thought he should do, Obama made his points firmly but respectfully, and then backed off to let McCain speak ad nauseum to "my friends" about Vietnam, being a maverick, earmarks, and any number of other things he loves to drone on about.

I was sure we had lost the debate, and that after two disastrous weeks for McCain, Obama had just allowed McCain to recapture the initiative.

Boy, was I mistaken!

Within minutes, the "insta-polls" showed that debate watchers preferred Obama's performance by a wide margin. (CNN. CBS.) So why had I been so wrong? Why had more voters found that my candidate Barack Obama did so much better than I thought he did?

As I thought about it, I came to three reasons. First, most Americans probably have better things to do with their time than to follow every single piece of election-related news from hour to hour each day. Thus, they don't know all the minor details; they just know the big picture. So while I was judging Sen. Obama on what he didn't say, most of America probably judged both candidates on what they did say, and they liked what Obama said better.

Second, McCain really lived up to his reputation for nastiness. Over and over again, he said things like, "My opponent just doesn't understand," "what Sen. Obama doesn't seem to understand," et cetera. He spoke about Obama's "naivete." In other words, it wasn't that he thought Obama was wrong, it's that he thought Obama was stupid, and that an argument with Obama was really beneath him.

Nobody likes to be talked to that way. A friend of mine recently began an argument with me by saying, "Let me see if I can break it down for you in a way you might comprehend." Of course, I tuned out everything after that, because that's not the way grown people speak to one another.

McCain partisans will be quick to point out that Obama's most enduring indictment of McCain from his Democratic Convention speech was, "It isn't that John McCain doesn't care. It's that he doesn't get it." The thing is, I think John McCain has demonstrated over the past two weeks that he absolutely doesn't get it when it comes to the economy and how it's affecting working families. So when Obama said it, it rang true.

When McCain said that Obama "doesn't understand," however, it directly conflicted with what people could see before their very eyes, which was that Sen. Obama certainly did get it. You might disagree with him about Iran, Pakistan, tax cuts, or whatever, but there's no mistaking that Obama knows what he's talking about. Thus, rather than really cutting Obama down, McCain undermined his own credibility by repeating over and over again something that was demonstrably false.

(With no disrespect towards fans of Sen. Clinton, I might make the comparison to the primary season. Clinton ran as the "invincible" candidate, the only Democrat who could win. Then she lost in Iowa to Obama, and her argument that nobody but her could win was out the window. It's the same now with McCain saying Obama "doesn't understand.")

Third, because each candidate needed something very different from the debate, Obama had an easier job. McCain's playing the role of the drunken abusive boyfriend who's begging to be taken back again, because, "I promise, things'll be different this time." Obama, meanwhile, is the new guy trying to convince us all that we really deserve better.

"Stella! I promise having a Republican president will be different this time!"

What do I mean? The economy stinks, and McCain doesn't get it. When he pulled his little stunt and promised to save the economy or else skip the debate, Obama called his bluff, and not only did McCain come to the debate without saving the economy, he made it worse. Palin is a joke -- a loveable joke, but a joke nonetheless.

The Afghanistan War is seven, the Iraq War is five and a half, the deficit is the largest in history, credit is freezing, unemployment is creeping, banks are failing, other countries are catching up, Russia is saber-rattling, Galveston is a rotting corpse, and Bush has cried wolf so many times that even his own caucus in the House of Representatives doesn't trust him. The American people are crying out for change, and in their minds, they are all screaming, "ENOUGH!"

They want to vote Democratic. They want to reject McCain, the last eight years, the turbulent 1960s culture wars and Vietnam turmoil, incompetence, mean-spiritedness, unnecessary wars and uncontrollable economic turbulence.

But they also want to know that the sky won't fall and their kids won't die and they won't burn in hell for voting for a black Democrat with a funny name. Exhausted with the status quo, they are waiting for permission from their anxieties, their consciences, and their dead ancestors to vote for a dramatically different kind of president. And every time Obama appears in public not burning a flag or performing an abortion on live television, they are given that permission, because they see he's really just a regular guy.

I grew up in a very conservative Republican household in very conservative downstate Illinois, so I was 11 years old before I ever met someone who admitted that he was a liberal. Mom had a new boss, and when she introduced him to me, she said, "Ron, this is my son Levi. He's never met a liberal before. He thinks you all have green horns and tails." Ron laughed pleasantly as he shook my hand, then he leaned forward and showed me the top of his head. "See? No horns. Pleased to meet you."

My hand didn't wither and drop off. I didn't turn to stone. Ron didn't kidnap me or curse God. All of a sudden, everything I'd ever heard about the evil baby-killing, atheistic, taxing-and-spending, military-cutting, sodomizing liberals rang false. Ron was just a normal American guy.

What Barack Obama needed to do last night wasn't to grit his teeth and fire again and again and again at John McCain like John Wayne in The Sons of Katie Elder. He didn't need to get too many zingers in on McCain, or talk jnoisily over McCain to make sure he was the loudest debater. All Obama needed to do Friday night was lean forward to show the American people that he has no horns.

Because he did that, he won.

**Post script: the Gallup poll seems to confirm what I've said here. On Sunday, September 28 -- the first day following the debate -- the three-day average for the national poll of registered voters moved three points, with McCain dropping two points to 42 and Obama gaining a point to rise to 50. Obama leads by eight points.

You can watch the entire debate here.

With the Soft Touch of a Bull in a China Shop, McCain "Suspends Campaign," Dons Captain Maverick Suit to Save the Day

2008-09-24T23:51:00.010-05:00

It's not surprising to me how devious and calculating the McCain campaign has become; after all, as they say, politics ain't bean bag. It's just surprising how poorly McCain pulls it off.

Surely you've heard by now that today, John McCain announced that the economic crisis was so big that it just couldn't be solved without him. So, saying he was putting his country ahead of politics, he suspended his campaign, tentatively called off this Friday's debate, and headed to Washington to fix everything.

Except, of course, none of that was true. The bail-out deal is nearing a consensus,and McCain is trying to swoop in at the last minute and take credit for something that the rest of Congress and the Bush Administration has sweated out for a week.

And McCain's campaign sent around a talking points memo to tell his surrogates how to exploit his "non-partisan" decision for nakedly partisan political gain. (Which, by the way, is to be expected 40 days before the election, but McCain shouldn't blow smoke up our wazoos by telling us that HE is completely above politics and is marching off to Washington self-sacrificingly. That's just patronizing and insultingly transparent -- maybe the first transparent thing about the McCain campaign since it chose Palin as McCain's running mate.)

Plus, if it's that important to McCain, why did he wait until today to bail out? Why not yesterday or the day before, when the Dow dropped much more precipitously than today and a bail-out seemed a lot more tentative?

And if it's such a terrible emergency, why did McCain ditch David Letterman, falsely claiming that he had to fly to Washington post-haste to save the world, when he (1) hadn't cast a roll call vote on ANY matter since April and (2) went over for a make-up job with Katie Couric rather than rushing to Congress like he said?

(Look for the make-up about 6:40 in the video.)

And if McCain is really just trying to put country first, if he isn't sneakily trying to cheat the American people out of 1/4 of their chances to hear from the two campaigns on the most important issues in debates, then why is he trying to get everyone to agree to scrap the vice-presidential debate altogether?

Maybe because Gov. Palin deals painful blows to the campaign every time she opens her mouth in public lately?

It kind of reminds me of high school, when some of the kids would drag in bleary-eyed on the Monday morning of a test and beg to postpone it, because something important came up over the weekend. (Nine times out of 10, the "something important" was a keg party rather than, say, a grandparent's death.) Surely the American people can sense that McCain is stalling, casting a grappling hook as far as he can and hoping that it catches on something he can use to stop his precipitous slippage.

Let me be clear. I do not believe for a second that John McCain really thinks that now, at the end of this bail-out negotiation, he needs to be in Washington. But I also don't believe that he's afraid to debate Barack Obama. After all, if the primary season is any indication, Obama usually doesn't shine in debates.

"There's no need to fear! Underdog is here!"

I think McCain is terrified at new polls showing his grasp on the race eroding. I think he is mortified that either his campaign manager Rick Davis has lied to him, or he has been caught in his own lie to the press, about Davis's lobbying firm receiving $15,000 a month from Freddie Mac until last month. I think he realizes what an absolute disaster last week was, as he flipped and flopped on his response to the economic crisis enough to make John Kerry look like the Rock of Gibraltar. And he figures, if I can just get people back to talking about how ambitious and selfish Obama-the-Celebrity is, instead of talking about how unscrupulous and clueless and volatile McCain is, then maybe he'll have a shot of winning.

I've got to hand it to McCain. He's not afraid to shake the snow globe and see where the flakes fall. If you gave him one of those choose-your-own-adventure books, I get the sense that he'd just pick the first option, every time, without batting an eye.

The problem, of course, is that the world isn't a snow globe, but an actual globe globe. And in the real world, the first option that comes to mind isn't always the best one, and sometimes it has disastrous consequences.

I say the Senators go to Washington, meet with Bush, put in their two cents' worth, and then get back to taking their cases to the American people. Putting aside politics for bipartisan cooperation is what brought us the Patriot Act and the Iraq War. Let's have the debates -- all of them -- so that folks can make an informed decision about how to cast their votes in just five short weeks.

Palin the Storm Trooper

2008-09-24T21:59:00.003-05:00

Today, Governor Sarah Palin gave only her third news interview since becoming Sen. John McCain's running mate, to CBS News' Katie Couric.

Sen. Biden often sticks his foot in his mouth, but at least Sen. Obama trusts him enough as a person and competent leader that he gives him the opportunity to make mistakes. Everyone knows he's competent, even conservatives, so if he's not particularly well-spoken from time to time, he gets the benefit of the doubt, God love 'im.

But they've got Gov. Palin memorizing her answers.

The key to seeming like you haven't memorized answers is changing them a little bit if the question changes slightly.

I'm reminded of one of my favorite stories from middle school. The students in my grammar class traded their papers to grade, and I got the paper of a guy who, to put it kindly, wasn't known as a stellar student. But I was amazed: as the teacher read off the correct answers from the book, the guy was getting every single answer 100% correct. But his answer to the last question -- an essay question -- was a little curious: "Answers may vary."

I raised my hand and said, "Mrs. Kling? My paper says, 'Answers may vary.'" Well, it was immediately apparent to Mrs. Kling that my guy had cheated, copying the answers straight out of the book. He went to the principal's office, and that was that.

The crack-me-up funny part of Sarah Palin's rote memorization of stock lines of fluff is that her answers don't vary. It's the same thing over and over and over again. Maverick, hockey mom, shake up Washington, reform, thanks but no thanks, maverick, maverick, maverick. It's like John McCain is a Jedi, and she's a storm trooper.

I'll tell you what I want to know. Who the heck's going to be whispering the answers into her ear if John McCain dies?

Update on Rick Davis, John McCain's Favorite Pimp

2008-09-23T22:16:00.004-05:00

Remember my post Monday about the Madam, the Pimp, and the Legislator?

The New York Times reports tonight that not only did John McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis lobby for failed mortgage giant Freddie Mac, but Freddie continued to pay $15,000 a month to Davis's firm until this August. As in, last month!

This despite the fact that McCain said Sunday that Davis had had no involvement with the company for the last several years.

The American people are entitled to know what was that $15,000 a month was for, aren't we? And even if it was for the pure heck of it, why has the McCain campaign insisted on distortion and out-and-out lying, as it has done with so many issues lately, on out-and-out lying. What's he hiding?

If the mortgage industry's payroll is the same as John McCain's, who do you think's going to have OUR back if John McCain gets in the White House?

Nervous About Venezuela, Russia, and Iran? Thank the Republican Party.

2008-09-22T21:39:00.010-05:00

Americans are justifiably nervous about Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and others of their ilk who seem increasingly to be defying America and its allies.

Headlines today broadcast that the Russian navy is sailing to Venezuela. Russia is getting more and more cozy with Iran. And even though it's all been taking place on George W. Bush's watch, Republicans, and especially super-conservative Republicans, are blaming the Democrats as usual.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez: Brought to You in Part By the Republican Party

John McCain and Sarah Palin have been blaming Barack Obama for "choosing politics rather than the national interest" in not taking a tough enough stance against Iran and Russia. And just today, a Republican family member forwarded me a crazy, crazy e-mail from a Political Action Committee made up of conservative evangelicals "supporting Israel," blaming liberals and the devil for letting Ahmadinejad gain more and more power and grow to pose a grave threat to Israel. (See the bottom of this post at the *.)

Here's a news flash: nobody likes Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, nobody likes Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and nobody likes Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin. And no reasonable Americans -- not liberals, not atheists, not Muslims, not anybody else -- thinks that the rise of these nations and the demagogues who lead them is good for either Israel or America. But here's another news flash: it ain't liberalism or the devil that's caused this problem.

What we're seeing is America's power slipping away, the greatest country in the world taking its eyes off the ball and getting lazy. Right in front of us today, a fundamental reallignment of power is taking place in the world, where forces are once again drawing up and taking sides reminiscent of the opposing powers in both World Wars, although with any luck, we'll be able to keep this competition to one of ideals and economics rather than guns.

Seemingly set on bringing back an East/West War as cold as his eyes, here's Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin: Brought to You in Part by the Republican Party.

By sailing its navy into the Western Hemisphere to participate in maneuvers with Venezuela, Russia is openly defying the 185-year-old Monroe Doctrine, and it's doing it for the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis. And why aren't we protecting our turf, defending our hegemony in the hemisphere? We can't right now.

But unlike that asinine e-mail forward, this has nothing to do with "Gog and Magog" or a "liberal State Department" (which is about as ridiculous as saying the "liberal Southern Baptist Convention," by the way). It has to do with two things: The Iraq War, and America being broke.

I. Iraq War

Our personnel and equipment are painfully, painfully overstretched in Iraq, with people doing two and three tours of duty. And let's not forget that we're still fighting in Afghanistan, where this year has been the deadliest year of the now-seven-year-old war, and nobody cared. And let's also not forget that we're still in Korea, and we're still in Germany, and we're all over the world in places we can't just leave.

So who's going to stop Ahmadinejad? America? I'm sure Iran right now would respond with the the common playground taunt, "America and what army???"

We used to have a little more cushion from our allies, but we have trashed our alliances because they wouldn't get on board with the Iraq War. It was all fine and dandy in 2003 to say, "If the world won't back us, we'll go it alone in Iraq," but now five years later, we're still in Iraq, the world still doesn't back us, and we can't go it alone.

This president, who ran and won two campaigns on "big military" and "national security" has left us stretched dangerously, dangerously, dangerously thin. If you wonder why nobody batted an eye when Russian tanks rolled into Georgia, or why no one seems bothered by the fact that Russia is right now sailing into South American waters unmolested by the United States Navy, it's because America trying stand up to them now would be like "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown": we are in a position of weakness. And it's not unpatriotic to say so. It's unpatriotic to have allowed us to get this way in the first place.

We all want to help our friend, Israel. But if you want to help Israel, if you want to stand up to Russia and Venezuela before more and more little countries start to sense that the U.S. can't protect them anymore and run to hide themselves in Putin's skirts, then we have got to get the heck out of Iraq. Barack Obama has always realized it, George W. Bush finally realizes it, but John McCain and Sarah Palin still don't realize it -- and still apparently think we can take on both Russia and Iran while we're stuck in Iraq for 100 years.

II. National Debt

But on top of Iraq, Iran and Russia's bellicosity also has to do with the fact that we are about to be $11.6 trillion dollars in debt -- $38,667 for every man, woman, and child in America -- and to whom?

Japan, China, Great Britain, oil sheiks, et cetera. This bail-out we're talking about is going to literally borrow a trillion new dollars -- 1,000,000,000,000 new dollars -- from China, Japan, England, etc., and put it straight into the pockets of Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and others like them, in exchange for mortgages and loans that aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

That money isn't coming from nowhere, out of thin air. We're not just printing it out of imagination. And heaven knows that nobody in an election year would pass, and Bush would never sign, a tax increase to pay for it with -- gasp! -- actual cold, hard cash. (After all, taxes are unpatriotic, if John McCain can be believed.)

We're borrowing against our souls and the souls of our grandchildren, from some of our fiercest world competitors, and we're not even using that money for our own growth and betterment -- better roads, schools, hospitals, nursing homes, water systems, police forces, courthouses. We're not using it to put our people to work. We're borrowing a trillion dollars to give the heck away.

So not only are we not militarily able to stand up to the thugs of the world, but we aren't financially able. China holds almost 1/5 of our national debt. Suppose they got angry with us and refused to loan us anymore, or called in some of their markers, what would happen? The dollar wouldn't be worth two hoots, because America's ability to pay would be destroyed. Now, they aren't likely to do that, because if they did, they'd have $200,000,000,000 worth of our IOUs that wouldn't be worth anything, either, but when we owe half the world, we can't continue to walk around like we're the cocks of the walk without being harmed.

Think of it like a gangster movie. We're the guy with the gambling problem who is in deep with the loan sharks and the mob bosses, and as long as we can pay, they'll keep us around, but the moment we make them angry or start to be worth more to them dead than we are alive, then it's concrete shoes for us.

And who got us into this shape? Who got us into the position where China and Japan have us by the shorthairs, where we come, hat in hand, begging them for money to bail out our mortgage industry, only to have China and Japan directly snatch up some of our businesses? Who got us into the position that we have so little leverage that, just last week, after Americans have fought and bled and died and spent $1 trillion in Iraq the past five years, the Iraqis decided they'd rather give their oil contract -- to CHINA!?

I'll tell you who. It's the same people who sold the American public a bill of goods that they could pay some of the lowest taxes in history and still fight two wars, still have good homeland security, and still have the best minds and inventions and industries in the world.

And those SAME PEOPLE today, who are trying to whip us up into a frenzy about "vote to save Israel" and "vote to stop anti-Christ Ahmadinejad," are going to cut more taxes, borrow more money, and cut out more federal banking protections if they are returned to office, to make us just that much more beholden to China and Japan and just that much more unable to stand up to bullies like Iran and Russia and Venezuela.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Brought to You in Part by the Republican Party.

So congratulations, Republican Party. You have given away the store. Ronald Reagan ended the first Cold War, and before the grass has had time to grow over his grave, you have brought us right to the doorstep of the second -- one that we are going to have to make drastic, drastic changes as a nation if we want to have any hope of winning.

--------

* (My favorite parts are in bold.)
Jerusalem Report, from the founder of the Jerusalem Prayer Team

Dear ____, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is all smiles today. The liberal U.S. State Department has granted him an entrance visa in order to speak at the U.N. meeting in New York. Ahmadinejad will be able to gleefully share his belief that all of America’s economic problems, terrorist attacks abroad, hurricanes, etc., are the judgment of Allah on “the Great Satan.”

Just this week, and as a result of calls for a halt to Iran’s nuclear program, Ahmadinejad said, “If anyone allows themselves to invade Iranian territory and its legal interests... our armed forces will break their hands before they pull the trigger.”

Following his appearance before the U.N. on September 17, 2005, Ahmadinejad related his occultist experience while delivering his speech:

“When I spoke at the UN and began saying Bismullah Muhammed a green light came upon me and I was placed in this aura …I felt it …the atmosphere changed and for 27 to 28 minutes all the leaders of the world did not blink. When I say they did not blink I am not exaggerating. They were looking as if a hand was holding them there.”

Humanistic blinders are keeping world leaders from seeing the true nature of Ahmadinejad’s doggedness and determination to end Western democratic freedoms and replace them with Sharia Law.

On another critical note, reports surfaced this week that Russia is going to sell advanced S300 surface-to-air missiles to Iran to guard their nuclear power sites from Israeli air attacks. Despite the protests of the U.S. government, they are apparently rushing this sale to help ensure that Iran gets nuclear weapons.

This news makes it even more likely that Israel will be forced to move quickly to make certain that a government which has vowed to “wipe them off the map” does not acquire the means to do so.

Is this crucial moment in history foretold in the Word of God? Found in Ezekiel 38 is the prophecy that Russia (Gog and Magog) will join with Persia (Iran) to attack the nation of Israel. Things are falling into place, just as Scripture tells us.

We must pray for God's deliverance like never before! Help us gather believers to pray by forwarding this email to your list today.

God has promised to deliver His Chosen People, through the prayers of those of us who know the truth. He has called the Jerusalem Prayer Team into existence for this moment, for “such a time as this,” to deliver the Jews from destruction. Just as Esther and Nehemiah stood up for their people, this is our moment to stand.

Sign the petition to support Israel today. I will personally deliver the petition to Israel.

Your financial support makes it possible for us to encourage believers from all over the world to pray for the peace of Jerusalem and the defense of Israel. God will hold us responsible for speaking out to leaders and praying and seeking His face. We must obey His command to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. (Psalm 122:6)

Support the Jerusalem Prayer Team today and do your part to defend Israel from those who want to see her destroyed.

Your help makes all the difference!

Your Ambassador to Jerusalem,

Dr. Michael Evans

The Madam, The Pimp, and The Lawmaker: A Parable of McCain The Deregulator

2008-09-22T02:26:00.012-05:00

This just in: John McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis -- his number-one guy -- lobbied John McCain himself to make sure that failed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stayed loosely regulated.

Maverick? Change? Clean up Washington? Give me a break.

This guy was aggressively lobbied by the very industry he now denounces for "corporate greed" and "special interest" and "pork-barrel projects" -- AND HE MADE THE LOBBYIST THE HEAD OF HIS CAMPAIGN!

To break this down, how about a parable?

The Madam.

A certain Madam hires a Pimp to go to the state capital to lobby a powerful 26-year Lawmaker to keep prostitution legal and to make sure the State Health Department doesn't require too many STD tests. The Madam knows the Lawmaker wants to run for Governor someday, and it never hurts for a girl to have a powerful friend in the Governor's Mansion.

The Brothel.

Over time, the Lawmaker gets to be such good friends with the Pimp that he asks his buddy the Pimp to run his campaign for Governor. Meanwhile, a violent epidemic of syphillis breaks out, and suddenly people are understandably very angry at brothels all over the State.

The Pimp.

Sensing he needs to create a diversion, the Lawmaker pretends he's been against brothels all along and starts calling his Opponent a bunch of names, like "Consort of Ladies of the Evening." And the Lawmaker promises to give all the hookers penicillin, because right now, the main thing is just to make sure that the hookers don't spread any more disease. But boy, oh boy, when he gets to be Governor, watch out! He's going to appoint strict, no-nonsense guys to the State Health Department, and they'll shut all this brothel nonsense down. (But they won't pass out penicillin to just anybody. After all, they might run out.)

All this comes despite the fact that it is well documented that the Opponent has no use for pimps. And all the while, the Pimp is still pulling the strings of the Lawmaker's campaign, laughing hysterically in the background at just how unbelievably, brazenly shameless the Lawmaker is.

The Lawmaker.

The Lawmaker is happy, the Pimp is happy, the Madam and all her hookers are happy with their penicillin and renewed health. But you know who's not happy? The whole population of the State who's now got painful, life-threatening syphillis, thanks to making some poorly-advised business transactions with some very dirty ladies -- ladies who were protected by the 26-year Lawmaker and his buddy the Pimp.

Counting Blue Cars

2008-09-21T15:22:00.003-05:00

Newsweek reports that while Barack and Michelle Obama have one car, John and Cindy McCain -- wait for it -- have 13.

There's nothing wrong with wealth and success, and having 13 cars certainly doesn't mean the McCain's can't understand the plight of ordinary Americans. But I'm about fed up with the malarkey that the Democrats are elite and out-of-touch.

Thirteen cars!? I don't even own 13 place settings for my table.

Republicans Break Out Familiar Scare Tactics for Bail-Out Legislation

2008-09-21T11:54:00.014-05:00

Why do Republicans care more about banks and insurance companies than they do about working families? And why, with the most important and expensive economic decision in seven decades to make, are they so interested in shutting down discussion and debate?

The Democrats want to make sure that if the Wall Street hedge fund managers, CEOs, and yes, the shareholders, have the benefit of a safety net of 700,000,000,000 soft dollar bills, then people whose homes are about to be foreclosed, who've lost their jobs, and who are hungry are also protected. Why should taxpayers be asked to bail out big companies in this financial crisis, if the government won't also toss them a life preserver when they are drowning in the same crisis?

The financial crisis we face today is very, very dire, and I certainly don't think it's acceptable for Congress to do nothing, or to stall unreasonably. However, I am troubled that the Bush Administration and the Republicans are using the same type of language to scare people today that they used when they rammed the Patriot Act and the Iraq War Resolution through Congress.

Patriot Act

The Patriot Act came fully formed from John Ashcroft's Justice Department to Congress, and there was so little discussion or debate that only one Senator -- Russ Feingold, D-Wisc., voted against it. It took only until October 26 -- six weeks after September 11 -- to pass the gigantic bill. Democrats were warned not to be "irresponsible," not to "seek political advantages by making incendiary suggestions." Even though the bill ran to hundreds or thousands of pages, it was passed in the blink of an eye: Congress trusted the Bush Administration and the Justice Department to tell it the truth. Plus, there was the implication that, if Democrats asked questions and held up the legislation at all, they would be responsible for another terrorist attack; "do this, or you'll kill Americans" was the tacit Republican argument.

As it turned out, though there was a lot good about the Patriot Act, or at least a lot of fair-to-middlin', there was also a lot of bad that should have been stopped by careful Representatives and Senators asking hard questions.

Iraq War Resolution

Or how about the Iraq War Resolution, which was rammed through Congress just a year later, in October 2002? Sixty-nine percent of the House of Representatives voted for it, and so did 77 percent of the Senate. The implication for Democrats was, "Surely you don't want Saddam Hussein to nuke Israel or America with that yellow-cake uranium from Niger, just because you were too cowardly to take him out. Do this, or you'll kill Americans and Israelis," went the argument.

And yet, Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, which you remember was the original reason we were told we had to go to war, and which we now know was a lie. And everyone just sort of shrugged, and said, "Oh well. Saddam was a bad man who needed to be taken out."

(Sounds a lot like Grandma after she used to spank us grandkids, and when we'd ask what it was for, she'd say, "Well, you probably did something you oughtta be spanked for."

Looking back, I think I could have been persuaded to go to war in Iraq, had I and the American people been told the truth. If we really believe as a country that we have an obligation to install democracies and to overthrow oppressive regimes, then let's have that debate and see if the American people get behind it. But let's not pretend that the war's about something it's not, you know? And let's not rush into anything without a fully informed debate.

Wall Street Bailout

Now, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Republicans on the Hill are once again warning Democrats that there could be dire consequences if they don't fall in line immediately and pass the bail-out bill. Once again, the bill came, fully formed, from the Executive for Congress to rubber-stamp. Once again, there's no time, no time, no time for debate, and the implication is, "Come on, Democrats. You don't want to be responsible if the world's economy collapses on your watch, do you? Do this, or you'll starve Americans and everybody else!"

"We need to deal with this and deal with it quickly," says Paulson. "It pains me tremendously to have the American taxpayer put in this position but it is better than the alternative." What Paulson means to say without having to say it is that "the alternative" will be disastrous, and it will definitely be the Democrats' fault if they try to ask any questions or add any other aid to the bill.

House Minority Leader John Boener, R-Ohio (who, by the way, has the most soulless blue eyes I've ever seen), said, "This would be the most serious financial crisis that the world has ever dealt with. It is not a time to be playing games."

It says something to me about President Bush's ability to judge character that he can look into both Vladimir Putin's eyes and John Boehner's and feel convinced that either of them has a soul. (I'm just kidding. I'm sure Boehner has a soul. I just think his eyes look cruel.)

Playing games? Is that what families struggling to make ends meet mean to you, Congressman? Is that what folks losing their homes mean? Fathers and mothers who can't put food on the table because their jobs are gone and the unemployment is about to run out? Come on.

Nobody in America thinks that the government can do nothing to solve this crisis. Corporations -- entire industries -- have to be saved to keep everybody afloat. But my gosh, would it kill the Republicans to lend a hand directly to working people at the same time they're prepared to take on another $1,000,000,000,000 of national debt to save Wall Street? I don't think so, and neither do the Democrats.

But just as in the Patriot Act, just as in the Iraq War Resolution, Republicans are once again trying to beat the Democrats into voting for a bill without making sure it's the best bill we can get.

I hope it doesn't work this time. I hope the Democrats make John Boehner and the Republicans go explain to working families why they won't help them feed and house and educate their kids today, but they're willing to saddle their great-grandkids with an extra trillion dollars of debt to pay tomorrow.

Proud to Be a Taxpaying American

2008-09-18T20:14:00.017-05:00

After a disastrous week so far, today the McCain campaign tried unsuccessfully to grab some traction out something Joe Biden said.

Asked about taxes on Good Morning America this morning, Biden repeated something he'd said earlier this month: “Anyone making over $250,000 ... is going to pay more,” Biden interjected. “You got it. It’s time to be patriotic, Kate. It’s time to jump in, it’s time to be part of the deal, it’s time to help get America out of the rut.”

John McCain immediately jumped in front of a camera to rant about just how un-American it was to say that taxes were patriotic. "Raising taxes in a tough economy is not patriotic, it's not a badge of honor," McCain said at campaign stop in Iowa today. "It's just plain dumb."

Republicans and McCain's other fellow travelers of the Right wasted no time lining up to sound the alarm -- Rush Limbaugh , Matt Drudge, NewsMax, and other people who just generally hate taxes.

Of course, the Republican reaction made me angry. Biden didn't say it was patriotic to raise taxes; he said it was patriotic to pay taxes. And most folks know by now that under Senator Obama's plan, people making less than $250,000 a year will get a tax cut; folks fortunate enough to make more than that will be asked to pay a little higher percentage.

But some people get upset even when they realize that only those those with yearly incomes topping a quarter million dollars will face a tax increase. They call Sen. Obama a socialist (even though it's their party that just nationalized a large part of the mortage industry), a class warrior, and various unprintables. According to them, Obama's plan just isn't good enough if it doesn't lower everyone's taxes. It's not fair to "blame" the wealthy for their wealth, to "punish them" for being successful, they argue. Taxes are bad, government is bad, and the two together are poisonous.

I'm sure this will come as a shock to none of you, but I disagree.

Before the British hanged him, Nathan Hale said of America, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." Would he be ashamed of wealthy Americans today who aren't even willing to part with a couple more measley percentage points of income?

First of all, somebody has to pay taxes. In case anyone has forgotten, we are fighting two wars and scrambling to be prepared for a potential third. The national debt -- much of which is owned by everybody's favorite Communist country, China -- is approaching ten trillion dollars. That's $10,000,000,000,000, if you're keeping track of zeros at home. As anyone who's ever financed an extravagant lifestyle with a Mastercard knows, that bill will come due sooner or later. How are we going to pay it? Sell Alaska back to Russia?

Second of all, the idea that people who make more should pay more comes straight from the Bible. The simplest, most straightforward statement on progressive taxation in Western civilization is, "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required." And remember that Christ instructed His followers to "render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." Mind you, I don't think "because God said so" is an adequate justification for government policy, but I'm always intrigued that the same party that boasts the Christian Right also embraces a fundamentally anti-Christian tax structure.

You've heard the old story about the chicken who suggests to the pig that they get involved in a breakfast restaurant focusing on bacon-and-eggs: the pig, of course, has justifiable qualms about the idea. At the risk of reminding us of last week's mindless misconstrued pig metaphors, I'll just say there are a lot of pigs giving their all in this country right now while a lot of chickens do a lot of squawking every time they're asked to surrender a few more eggs.

James Otis, Jr., to whom is attributed the famous Revolutionary quote, "Taxation without representation is tyranny!" Notice he didn't say there was anything tyrannical about taxation itself.

But on a more personal level, I consider it an honor to pay my taxes. Granted, I'd like a competent, more efficient government to make better use of my tax dollars. But I love this country that has given me so much, so many opportunities that generations before me didn't have, that people in other countries still don't have today. I love our Constitution and legal system. I love our culture. I love the beauty of our landscape, the convenience of our Internet and interstate highway system, the diversity of our ideas.

I love that I can turn on the kitchen sink and drink a whole gallon of tap water without fearing dysentery. I love that I can go to sleep at night knowing that there are cops on the street to protect my life and property, and there are soldiers in distant lands standing guard to protect my liberty and the security of my as-yet-unborn children. I love that for a lousy $.42, I can drop a letter in the mailbox in Chicago, Illinois, and by the next afternoon, have it delivered anywhere in the United States (except maybe Wasilla).

I love that I went to a state-funded college and state-funded law school so that, thanks to the generosity of the United States government, I have 30 years to pay back what I never could have afforded up front.

I love that I can pack my suitcase and walk one block to get on a public transportation bus that will take me five miles to an Amtrak station, where I can board a train that will take me all the way from Lake Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico.

I love that Teddy Roosevelt sailed America's Great White Fleet ostentatiously around the world, just to prove he could. And I love that when a world got sick of sailing around Cape Horn, Teddy Roosevelt moved Congress, heaven, and a whole lot of earth to carve a canal through the Isthmus of Panama.

I love that I can drive to Kentucky and see a mass of concrete, rock, and steel where another Roosevelt and raw American grit tamed the flow of the Tennessee River to electrify a valley and power a country back to its feet again.

A miracle of American sweat and ingenuity (not to mention good Democratic governance), Kentucky Dam, seen here on August 3, 2008.

And I love that I can walk through Arlington National Cemetery and wonder how many free people there are in this world today thanks to every one of those stately American tombstones.

And none of that -- not a drop -- would be possible without the tax dollars of patriotic Americans.

After 9/11, many of my friends and family members enlisted in the Army, Marines, Air Force, Navy, and National Guard forces. Many of them fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, some served two or three tours before they were through, some still serve today. Thankfully, none of my loved ones have died, but the fact that they have been willing to die makes them worthy of eternal honor, in my opinion.

But most of us didn't go. Most of us have stayed here at home either patriotically supporting or patriotically opposing the Iraq War, and going about the business of working our jobs and raising our families and mowing our lawns and living our lives. For us, the very least we can do for America and for those men and women who served it so selflessly is to pay our taxes with a smile and thank Almighty God that we're still alive and free to do it.

With $1000 in rent and $1000 in student loan payments monthly, I'm not exactly rolling in the dough, but if I had my druthers, I'd tell Obama to keep my tax cut, because America needs it worse than I do right now. I'm just as proud to pay my taxes to keep America moving as I am to give my church offering to keep the light bill paid.

I don't know how much Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Mitt Romney, and Cindy McCain pay each year in payroll taxes, but I pay $12,284.64.

And it's worth every dime.

Alaska's "First Dude" Says Thanks, But No Thanks to Bipartisan Investigation Into Wife's Abuse of Power

2008-09-18T20:14:00.003-05:00

This might be new. I don't think Lynne Cheney was ever subpoenaed.

Republicans' Theory of Government as Bankrupt as Lehman Bros.

2008-09-17T22:25:00.010-05:00

In all the media hubbub over the McCain campaign's three gaffes yesterday (one, two, and three), I think we overlooked a subtler but more fundamental revelation that sums up the Republican Party's entire theory of government: it's not that big a deal.

When Carly Fiorina, one of McCain's top economic advisors and former (ousted) CEO of Hewlett-Packard, was asked on a radio show whether she believed vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin "has the experience to run a major company, like Hewlett-Packard," Fiorina answered abruptly, "No I don't. But you know what? That's not what she's running for [laughs]. Running a corporation is a different set of things." A tougher set of things, she meant to say.

The media apparently realized that this was a pretty dumb thing to say before Fiorina realized it, because when Andrea Mitchell asked her about it later on MSNBC, she not only reiterated it. She amplified it!

"Well, I don't think John McCain could run a major corporation; I don't think Barack Obama could run a major corporation; I don't think Joe Biden could run a major corporation. But, on the other hand, running a major corporation is not the same as being the president or the vice president of the United States. It is a fallacy to suggest that the country is like a company."

Wikipedia describes "gaffe" partially as a mistake "that may come from saying something that is true, but inappropriate." Fiorina's statements yesterday were a gaffe of the highest order. They represented exactly what Bush, McCain, and the Republican Party have come to think of government. The only mistake was that someone forgot to tell Fiorina it was a secret.

Remember when Bush bragged about being just a C-student? Remember "Heckuva Job" Brownie, whom Bush had appointed to FEMA in time for him to completely botch the Katrina evacuation and recovery? How about Harriet Miers, the startlingly unqualified Bush nod to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor who went on to a dwindling career of Congress-stalling ignominy? How about Monica Goodling and the other 149 graduates of Pat Robertson's sham law school Regent University who found their way into the Bush Administration, surely on their merits, just in time to be at the center of the U.S. Attorneys scandal?

Well, that's just Bush's Washington, you might say. Fair enough, how about the employees of the Department of the Interior who were sharing alcohol, drugs, and illicit sex with the very oil employees they were supposed to be overseeing and regulating? They were in Denver, away from Washington, proving that Republican incompetence spans at least 2/3 of our continent.

Even so, you say, that still falls under the giant umbrella known as "The Bush Administration." In a McCain Campaign, the era of bad government is over. He's a maverick! He's going to take on the special interests and clean up Washington. Change is coming, and it's riding in on a white horse called competence!

Of course, the problem with that is that, in the single most important decision he has had to make so far in this campaign, he chose one-half-term Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate -- a person who thinks she's ready to be commander-in-chief because she can see Russia from her state, who doesn't have any definition of the Bush Doctrine, let alone the right one, who has switched her position on the Bridge to Nowhere from "yes" to "no," and who has also switched her position on cooperating with an investigation into her possible abuses of power with the same answers. Even current and/or former McCain fans Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., Charlie Krauthammer, David Brooks, David Will, and Richard Cohen have noted how unready, how unqualified, how strikingly lacking in basic competence Palin is.

Which brings us back to Fiorina. The thrust of her argument was that government wasn't rocket science, that little old America could make do with the leftovers after all the corporations, heck, even small businesses had had their pick of the litter. It's in keeping with Cindy McCain's nakedly tone-deaf statement at the Republican Convention that life would be a dream, sweetheart, if we could just get the pesky government off our backs and out of our way!

With apologies to Hallmark, the Republican Party's motto should be, "America: When You Care Enough to Send the Fair-to-Middlin'."

Nearly three decades ago, Ronald Reagan said of the nation's crisis at the time, "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. " But when Republicans took the reins of power, rather than shrinking government, or streamlining it, or staffing it with the best-qualified, most competent, most highly productive employees it could find in order to reduce the waste of the public's cash and confidence, they have taken the law-school-by-mail, Brownie/Harriet/Carly/Crony route and left us with the most broke, least competent, least efficient government in my lifetime.

Fiorina's statement that McCain/Palin aren't fit to run Hewlett-Packard but are quite good enough to lead the free world is nothing more than the bastard child of a bankrupt philosophy and unimaginative minds. It reminds me of Ananias and Sapphira, who in the Book of Acts told the Apostles that they had given their very best to the Church but who, in reality, had held back their choicest offerings for themselves. And God struck them dead.

I know America isn't God, but I'm a guy who believes America deserves the very best leadership and governance we can find. "Good enough" isn't good enough for the greatest country in the history of the world.

Washington Post Reiterates My Point

2008-09-17T09:11:00.003-05:00

Doesn't this sound like my post from last night?

Per the Washington Post, "A decade ago, Sen. John McCain embraced legislation to broadly deregulate the banking and insurance industries, helping to sweep aside a thicket of rules established over decades in favor of a less restricted financial marketplace that proponents said would result in greater economic growth. Now, as the Bush administration scrambles to prevent the collapse of the American International Group (AIG), the nation's largest insurance company, and stabilize a tumultuous Wall Street, the Republican presidential nominee is scrambling to recast himself as a champion of regulation to end ‘reckless conduct, corruption and unbridled greed’ on Wall Street."

Obama Sets Forth Simple, Straightforward Plan for Economic Recovery

2008-09-17T08:46:00.004-05:00

Here it is: real straight talk, in five plain, simple points. You can disagree with the points, but you can't say that he doesn't have a plan. Please note in this entire two-minute ad the lack of any mention of calling "a 9/11 Commission" to do a study on what went wrong.

Obama's plan: No commissions, no stalling, no bull.

Told You So: Republican Front Group Accuses Obama of Babykilling

2008-09-17T01:42:00.003-05:00

Remember just three days ago when I said that Republicans would try to say Barack Obama voted to kill babies? Well call me a prophet.

Presuming this lady is telling the truth, I feel for her plight, and so does Sen. Obama. That's why he opposes late-term abortions except in cases in which the mother's life or health is in grave danger.

But as I've said before, Illinois law has protected babies born alive in failed abortions since 1975. Really!

"(b) Subsequent to the abortion, if a child is born alive, the physician required by Section 6(2)(a) to be in attendance shall exercise the same degree of professional skill, care and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as would be required of a physician providing immediate medical care to a child born alive in the course of a pregnancy termination which was not an abortion. Any such physician who intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly violates Section 6(2)(b) commits a Class 3 felony."

Don't believe the lies.

McCain's Plan for Economic Tsunami: Tread Water

2008-09-16T19:52:00.007-05:00

Rocked back on its heels by the implosion of some of America's biggest financial institutions, the McCain campaign is employing a new tactic that should be familiar to anyone who has ever seen a comedy movie, a sitcom, or a cartoon: they're stalling.

You know the comedies moments I'm talking about. It's the chase scene where the bad guys come looking for the protagonist, and some beautiful woman distracts them and says, misleadingly, "He went that-a-way!" Or it's the love scene, where the jealous and suspicious husband comes home early from a business trip, and the wife has only seconds to secret away her paramour somewhere her husband won't look. Or it's every other episode ever of Saved by the Bell, where Mr. Belding is onto those pesky Bayside kids' schemes, and Screech or Lisa has to confuse or divert him until Zack et al. can escape. Classic moments of hilarity.

The difference is that this is no comedy. In fact, if we elect a man who has no idea how to fix the economy -- heck, a man who doesn't even think the economy is broken -- his stalling could turn into an American tragedy.

Exhibit A in the case of McCain v. Economic Crisis is McCain's own words today, in which he called for a "9/11 commission to find out what happened and what needs to be fixed."

Respectfully, we don't need a 9/11 commission to find out what went wrong, for two reasons. First, this isn't a whodunnit. It's fairly open-and-shut. People gave mortgages and loans and credit lines to bad credit risks, and then tried to spread risks (and wealth) by parceling up those mortgages and loans and credit lines and selling them to the highest bidder. Billions and billions of dollars were spent on mortgages that weren't worth a tinker's damn, and the bottom finally fell out of the whole shooting match.

Second, we already have an organism in place to investigate financial crises, fraud, excess speculation, et cetera. You might have heard of it. It's called "Congress."

McCain went on to say, "I know what's wrong, and I know how to fix it." At the same time, McCain reminded Harry Smith on CBS This Morning, "I was chairman of the Commerce Committee. Every part of the American economy, I oversighted [sic]. I have a long record, certainly far more extensive of being involved in our economy than Sen. Obama does."

Fantastic. He's been in office since 1982, when I was 13 months old -- 26 years! If he has known what's wrong, and how to fix it, why hasn't he done it? Why is today, September 16, 2008, the first time we've heard him talk about it?

John McCain during an earlier financial crisis, the "Keating Five" scandal, which nearly led to the stillbirth of his Senate career.

The reason McCain knows what's wrong is because he has been a part of the problem, or at least a passive, uninterested bystander. John McCain and the Republicans saying they're going to fix the problem when they get to the White House is a little like massive amounts of cash going missing from a till while you're the clerk on duty and then promising to track down the wrongdoers if you can only, pretty please, be promoted to store manager.

As any animal owner knows, the best way to know whether a dog's gonna bite is to know whether he's bitten before. McCain has bitten before. He's long described himself as "fundamentally a deregulator." He has made a career of the Goldwater philosophy, cutting through rules, regulations, and safeguards for the American public to make things simple, to do as his wife said at the Republican Convention and get the government "out of our way!"

And now the American people are hurting, crying out for more oversight, more protections, more rules and referees to make sure that never again will the "Masters of the Universe" land daintily on their private islands using golden parachutes while the rest of us -- taxpayers and stockholders and jobless ex-employees -- are left to clean up their mess. And John McCain just doesn't get it. He's incapable of understanding the importance of sound regulations.

He just doesn't get that the American people are sick and tired of these careless Tom and Daisy Buchanans who "smash things up and retreat into their money." I doubt he'll get it until Cindy McCain can't afford $300,000 outfits and their kids can't afford $50,000 balances on their American Express cards anymore.

But he's starting to get it just enough to realize that he's got to stop telling Americans it's all in their head, and he's treading water, going through the motions, trying like the dickens to throw America off his scent long enough for him to squeak into the presidency by the skin of his teeth. (I love mixed metaphors, by the way.)

Last night, the McCain campaign tried to squeeze a couple more days' worth of news out of Sarah Palin by announcing it would defy the requests of the Alaska legislature to comply with an investigation into Palin's possible abuses of power while governor. The press didn't bite. The economy was too important.

Then today, McCain's top domestic policy guru Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin tried to say McCain could handle the economy because, after all, he'd helped create the BlackBerry. And then, sensing reporters might be about as inclined to buy that as they were that Al Gore invented the internet, Holtz-Eakin went on to say that although McCain had a plan for the economy, it wasn't important "to write down exactly what the plan has to be. [...] I think that the moment when we write down a specific plan is the moment we send legislation out from a McCain administration to Congress. That’s the moment that happens.’’

I have about as much faith in John McCain's secret plan for the economy as savvy people had for Richard Nixon's secret plan to end the war in Vietnam. This is a guy who has said not once, not twice, but at least 16 times over the past nine months, that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong," as the economy has careened out of control and greed has continued unchecked.

John McCain is stalling, stonewalling the American people with oblivious and empty rhetoric. He's trying his dead-level best to keep us all occupied until November. Here's hoping We the People are a lot smarter than Mr. Belding.

McCain's Campaign Says He Helped Create BlackBerry

2008-09-16T09:59:00.002-05:00

Remember how much flack Al Gore caught for saying something like this?

Palin Refuses to Comply With Abuse-of-Power Investigation Controlled By Republicans

2008-09-15T20:16:00.000-05:00

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has refused to cooperate with a bipartisan investigation into allegations that she abused her power as governor.

This comes after she has promised to cooperate, because she has nothing to hide.

But people with nothing to hide don't refuse to cooperate with bipartisan investigations. She has an attorney, and claims she's done nothing wrong, so why won't she cooperate?

I think this is just another planned distraction to give John McCain time to figure out what to say about the abysmal downturn in the economy, so on the one hand, I feel like a McCain enabler even mentioning this. On the other hand, I think it's important for Americans to know that if McCain is running for a third Bush term, Palin is running for a third Cheney term.

The Chicken of Unregulated Greed Comes Home to Roost

2008-09-15T16:42:00.000-05:00

Today as they woke up, Americans were treated to some of the direst financial news in memory: Lehman Brothers Holdings would file for bankruptcy, and Bank of America would be buying out Merrill Lynch.

The effect on Wall Street was immediate. Bloomberg reported that "Stocks erased more than $600 billion in value as financial shares in the S&P 500 decreased the most since at least 1989." Stephen Wood, a senior portfolio strategist at Russell Investment Group in New York, said, "It'll be one of those days where people say in 10 years, 'Do you remember where you were?'"

Another Bloomberg story reported that "the Federal Reserve added $70 billion in reserves to the banking system, the most since the September 2001 terrorist attacks, to reverse a surge in borrowing costs sparked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc."

Six months ago, the Federal Government bailed out investment bank/brokerage firm Bear Stearns. Just eight days ago, the Federal Government had to step in and seize mortgage behemoths Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But this time, when Lehman Brothers asked for a bailout, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson said no.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has called this a "once-in-a-century" financial crisis. Thank God it's a new century, because I'd hate for him to be comparing this to 1929.

I don't have to tell you that it's rough out there. We've all got friends and family members in every skill set who are unemployed, from mechanics to factory workers to technicians to engineers to retail employees to lawyers. The unemployment rate rose to 6.1% last month nationally, and the rates in heavily industrial, down-home states like Ohio and Michigan have ranged as high as 7.7% to 8.5%. Thinks of that: millions of the best fruits of the American workforce are rotting on the vine.

You would think that if little ol' you and I could figure out that there's a problem with the economy, the politicians could figure it out, too. Greenspan realizes it's bad. Paulson realizes it's bad. Bloomberg realizes it's bad. Paul Krugman realizes it. Even Matt Drudge broke out his giant font sizes and red font colors to emphasize the point: the economy is in crisis.

But John McCain still hasn't gotten the memo. Just this morning, he repeated the line for which he has taken so much exasperated criticism already: "the fundamentals of our economy are strong."

On Sunday, one of McCain's economic advisors wrote an 1800-word essay in the Washington Post that seemed frighteningly reminiscent of Phil Gramm's July 2008 pronouncement that we were "a nation of whiners." Donald Luskin wrote Sunday, "We have surely become a nation of exaggerators." According to him -- and I'm not making this up, I swear -- "Things today just aren't that bad."

Folks, the barn of the American Economy is in flames around us, and the McCain campaign doesn't even smell the smoke!

What has caused the blaze? If you'll bear with my metaphor, the chickens of unregulated greed are coming home to roost, and, like Mrs. O'Leary's cow, they have turned over the kerosene lanterns of speculation and junk mortgages on the economy.

Not two weeks ago, the Republican Convention was brimming with declamations against government oversight, regulation, and "bureaucracy," which of course is just another word for order. Cindy McCain received thunderous applause when she said, "Our hearts are still alive with hope and belief in our individual ability to make things right if only the Federal government would get itself under control and out of our way."

This is their answer to everything: government is bad, and if we just dispense with the rules and regulations and let everybody do what they want, America will be a better place. This is their theory, and after eight years of Bush sowing exactly this wind, we are now reaping the whirlwind in spades.

How selfish, how greedy, how petulant are these people, to simultaneously deny that there is a real problem, and then to blame the problem on government? Wall Street has run amok for years engaging in speculation and risky investment behavior so reckless it's criminal, and yet nobody has wanted the government grown-ups to come in and lay down rules for making sure that banks and investment firms are solvent; that risks are properly assessed; that small, middle-class investors are protected; and that people don't believe they can lustfully chase after more and more and more profit, without regard for the risk, because the government will bail them out.

Obviously, bankruptcy and failure hurt the economy and hurt the people who work for these banks and firms. But buyouts might even worry me more. When the government bails them out, the American taxpayers -- you and I -- have to foot the bill for the unbelievable greed of hedge fund managers and investors. And when the government doesn't bail them out, foreign entities such as the China Investment Corporation have the chance to buy the failing businesses. So think about that: just because of pure greed, not only would China continue to hold a staggering amount of our national debt, but Chinese companies could hold the private mortgages and debts of the American people.

Is that the kind of "America First" John McCain wants?

There have been times in our history when government has become too repressive, the burdens of overregulation weighing down on the American people. This is not such a time. This is a time like 1932, like 1992, when events cry out for a Democratic president to clean up the messes left behind by a decade of corpulent excess. If Carter's America faced a crisis of confidence, the Bush/McCain America faces a crisis of competence.

I don't know whether John McCain wants to keep up these Republican laissez-faire policies so that Republican donors and cronies can continue to gorge themselves at the public trough, or whether he just doesn't understand how big this crisis is.

But I know that, once upon a time, Herbert Hoover called a disastrous economy "fundamentally sound." And I know that it took a grown-up, a great American, to brew the American people a pot of strong black coffee after a decade of drunken speculation: FDR.

In FDR's First Inaugural Address in March 1933, he uttered words sadly as relevant today as they were 75 years ago: "The rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

"[...] Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

"The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit."

Though those words should inspire our next president, FDR was obviously faced with greater crises than we face today. But if Sen. Obama is not running for FDR's fifth term, I think Sen. McCain is clearly running for Herbert Hoover's second.

Are Republican Values Your Values?

2008-09-15T10:37:00.000-05:00

Despite how innocuous and down-home friendly John McCain and Sarah "Oh Shoot" Palin seem, it is the stated policy of the Republican Party to call for a federal constitutional amendment not only banning gay marriage but also ensuring "that judges cannot make other arrangements equivalent to it" (a.k.a., no civil unions either, nor even those "legal agreements" McCain keeps saying he supports).

It's also the Party's stated policy to pass a constitutional amendment to overturn "Roe v. Wade," allowing States to ban completely even early-term abortions. Like most Americans, including Sen. Obama, I'm against late-term abortions, but come on? Even banning the morning-after pill?

If these policies are also your policies, then McCain/Palin is your team. No doubt about it, if you want a gay marriage amendment or an overturning-Roe amendment, Obama is not your guy. I just think it's important that folks don't delude themselves into thinking gay and choice issues would look the same under a McCain administration as they would under an Obama administration.

Even Neutral Newspapers are Calling Out McCain & Palin on Their Lies

2008-09-15T02:00:00.000-05:00

Born-Alive Babykilling Lies.: Obama/Biden Would Protect Babies, Women, AND Common Sense

2008-09-14T21:08:00.000-05:00

If you haven't heard it yet, soon enough, I promise you you'll hear some version of the following:

“Senator Barack Obama supports the killing of LIVE BABIES. That’s right. When faced with a chance to protect babies accidentally born in abortions gone awry, the heartless, wicked, cold-blooded psychopathic pawn-of-Satan Senator Obama said, ‘Let ‘em die!’”

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich told Jon Stewart on the September 3 episode of The Daily Show that Obama voted for "infanticide"a in the Illinois State Senate. Can you help me count what Al Franken would call the "lies and the lying liars who tell them?"

Calling Democrats babykillers is nothing new, but what IS new is that now, the GOP wants Americans to believe Sen. Obama would kill babies AFTER they’re born. He’d even like to kill Sarah Palin’s baby Trig, if Rush Limbaugh can be believed.

Republicans have broken out their same old fear-and-lies playbook. In his Republican Convention speech, Fred Thompson -- that biggest overhyped American disappointment since New Coke -- sounded trotted out the ridiculous and sickening line that Sen. Obama was, in fact, a person who’d be glad to let the unborn, or the newly born, die.

What Thompson referred to is a widely circulated lie that while Sen. Obama was in the Illinois Senate, he voted to let infants born alive in failed abortions die.

Pause for a minute, take a deep breath, and ask yourself this question: would a man who supported the killing of babies born *alive* be one step away from being the president of the United States? Of course he wouldn’t! He wouldn’t be so much as a dog catcher.

The reason Obama opposed the bills with the loaded name “Born Alive Protection Act” in the Illinois Senate is a matter of public record for all who care to look it up. It so happens that I so cared. Reading the transcript of the Illinois Senate on the 20th Legislative Day of the 92nd Illinois General Assembly, March 30, 2001, pages 84-90 -- along with other research -- here is what you would find:

I. Babies are already protected in Illinois.First of all, Illinois criminal law has protected babies born in botched abortions since 1975 – two short years after Roe v. Wade. In Illinois, letting a viable baby die after being born alive in an abortion screw-up is a Class 3 felony, punishable by 2 to 5 years in prison, according to 720 ILCS 510/6(2)(b).

Furthermore, even if we didn’t have that law, we already have another, more general law in Illinois that protects infants who are born alive: the murder statute! 720 ILCS 5/9-1.

II. These bills would have said, in effect, that life and full citizenship rights begin at the very instant of conception.

The "born-alive" bills had nothing to do protecting infants who are born alive, a goal that (A) is already accomplished by other law and (B) surely isn’t objectionable to any reasonable person. So if you're like me, once you realize the bills aren't about what they claim to be about, you ask yourself, "Hmmm, what were the bills really about?"

The bills would have amended the Illinois code to say, in effect, that all babies are entitled to full citizenship and personhood rights under the 14th Amendment from the moment of conception. The three companion bills packaged together: one, two, and three.

As you read, keep in mind that only underlined portions or strikethrough portions reflect suggested changes to the law; the language not underlined and not struck through is the law as it already reads, protecting babies born alive. Therefore, the underlined or strikethrough words were the only words being voted on; everything else was already the law. Republicans are trying to make it seem like Obama voted against every word in those bills, which is flatly not the case.

On the surface, these laws don't sound too sinister, and all the GOP surrogates have been making fun of Obama for saying at Saddleback Forum last month that deciding when life began was “above my pay grade.” Unlike Obama, they claim to know exactly how God feels about this issue, and not surprisingly, they claim God agrees with them: life begins at conception.

But Sen. Obama realized that that position, and the bills that would enforce it, would have drastic and far-reaching implications, and so he voted against the bills, even realizing the vote would be tough to explain to constituents, knowing that babies from failed abortions had ALWAYS been protected in Illinois and this bill was just a dangerous political ploy.

Let’s consider the consequences of the bills, which would have given citizenship rights to “infants” at every stage of development, from the moment the sperm meets the egg.

It means that not only would abortion be the same as murder, but so would in vitro fertilization, which creates tons of extra fertilized eggs and then wastes them. Let me say that again: if the Illinois legislature had passed a set of laws saying that life begins at conception, then mothers and fathers who have trouble getting pregnant would be MURDERERS for seeking in vitro fertilization – and multiple murderers at that. In fact, they’d be looking at life sentences for the murder of their embryos. Maybe even the death penalty.

And for that matter, laws saying that even the earliest embryos are fully vested with citizenship rights would mean that mothers who have miscarriages because they drink too much caffeine or exercise too vigorously would have to be prosecuted for reckless homicide, which in Illinois is a Class 3 felony punishable by 2 to 5 years in prison. That's what we'd be looking at: putting people in prison for early-stage abortions, for the morning-after pill, for in vitro fertilization, and for miscarriages that their actions caused. Under a law like that, pregnant women would basically have to stay on a nine-month bed rest just to be sure they weren’t prosecuted. Is that the kind of law that passes for sensible judgment to Republicans?

But why stop there? If a sperm plus an egg equals a citizen, then all the embryos that are cryogenically frozen are either prisoners or slaves, and the full force of the criminal law would have to be used against the doctors and fertility clinics that harbored these embryos, either for unlawful restraint or slavery.

And why stop there? Why not ban birth control, too? After all, the decision that said birth control couldn't be banned, Griswold v. Connecticut, is only eight years older than Roe v. Wade, which still isn't settled in some folks’ minds. If we really want to make sure that every embryo is brought to term, banning birth control is the logical next step.

I'm not trying to stretch the facts or make light of this. I'm deadly serious, and if you think this all sounds absolutely crazy, you are right. That’s exactly what Sen. Obama thought when he voted against these bills in the Illinois Senate.

And he wasn’t alone. In fact, seven Illinois senators voted “no,” and 15 senators voted “present,” including Roman Catholic Republican State Senator (and former candidate for State Treasurer) Christine Radogno, who certainly would never have voted for some bill killing babies.

Illinois State Senator (and 2006 GOP candidate for State Treasurer) Christine Radogno. If Sen. Obama is a radical, vicious babykiller, then so is this 56-year-old Roman Catholic graduate of a Jesuit university and married mother of three.

So the idea that somehow Sen. Obama is some wide-eyed liberal babykiller is just sickeningly crazy. Obama said at the time that if that radical language were removed, “we might have compromised and arrived at a bill that dealt with the narrow concerns about how a pre-viable fetus or child was treated by a hospital.” And Obama supported the federal version of the bill which passed with overwhelming support, without any of the crazy language with which the Illinois bills were freighted.

I don’t think the Illinois Republicans really wanted to pass the bills. They would've been disastrous, for their party and for the law. But I don't know what’s more upsetting: the idea that Republicans would dress radical bills in wholesome-sounding names to trick their constituents into an uproar, or the idea that some people – including Sarah Palin and, apparently, John McCain – actually believe that citizenship begins at conception, and that their view should be enforced with the full sanction of criminal and constitutional law.

I guess the Republican Party hasn’t taken to heart God's counsel in the Book of Isaiah 55:9: “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways, and My thoughts are higher than your thoughts.” Meanwhile, Sen. Obama has the humility to recognize that only God knows when life begins.

But Obama also has solid plans in place to help reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and to help support women who find themselves with those pregnancies. How does the McCain/Palin campaign plan to reduce those pregnancies and provide for the ones that result in babies?

I know that most people reading this now will think, "Who would ever believe such vicious lies?" But mark my words: these attacks will only increase, and you need only Google Barack Obama Born Alive to see I'm right. Take these facts to heart and pass them on so that this campaign can be about truth, not lies.

Obama Promises Middle Class Families: "I Will Cut Your Taxes"

2008-09-13T00:36:00.000-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aa4ipe4fhU

McCain Said "Thanks, But No Thanks" to Cooperation with Obama on Earmarks Reform

2008-09-12T21:27:00.000-05:00

Sen. McCain has been saying over and over again since his convention that one of his goals as president would be to stamp out earmarks. Day after day on the stump, he echoes one of the big applause-getters from his acceptance speech:

"And you will know their names. You will know their names!"

"I've fought the big spenders in both parties, who waste your money on things you neither need nor want, and the first big-spending pork-barrel earmark bill that comes across my desk, I will veto it. I will make them famous, and you will know their names. You will know their names!"

I'm sure Americans who hate the idea of their money going to wasteful spending absolutely went through the roof at that line, screaming, "Oh frabjous day, calloo, callay!" (Apologies to Lewis Carroll.) The Republican delegates exploded when McCain delivered the line at the convention, and the GOP faithful throughout the country have thrilled each time they've heard it since.

There's a problem with McCain's promise -- and I'm not even going to mention that his running mate has enjoyed more earmark dollars per capita for her state than any other state in the union.

What's the problem? Sen. McCain passed on the chance to support Sen. Obama's bill to "make them famous."

In 2006, along with moderate Senator Evan Bayh, D-Ind., Sen. Obama introduced Senate Bill 2261, which established the following:

"No appropriation [a.k.a. ["spending"] bill shall be considered unless (1) a list of all earmarks in such bill and the name of the requestor and a short justification for each earmark are available to all Members and made available to the general public by means of the Internet for at least 72 hours before its consideration; (2) all earmarks are contained in the text of the bill and not incorporated by reference or directed in the committee report; and (3) all earmarks are germane to the bill." (Emphasis added.)

But when McCain had a chance to cooperate with the two Midwestern Senators on the bill, he suggested the matter be referred to a "task force to study the issue" rather than spiriting the bill along through the appropriate Senate committees to make sure it became law. Their disagreement went heatedly public, as McCain's famously volatile temperament led him to question Sen. Obama's sincerity. And as a result of that pissing match, despite other ethics legislation that has been proposed, supported, and passed by Congress with Sen. Obama's help in the ensuing two years, we still don't know their names.

Whether McCain did this out of his own vanity in wanting only his name to conjure ideas of "reform" and "maverick," or whether he simply wanted to drag his feet so as not to ruffle any feathers as he ramped up his presidential bid, the fact of the matter is that when John McCain had the chance to help Barack Obama "make them famous" so that the American people could "know their names," he took a pass.

Sen. Obama is Not a Muslim -- No Matter How Many Crazies Say So, or How Loudly They Say It

2008-09-11T23:02:00.001-05:00

Last weekend, my home church in Clay City, Illinois -- First Baptist -- hosted a “Conference on the Muslim Faith,” featuring Mr. Usama Dakdok. Though in theory Dakdok was invited to speak about the differences between Islam and Christianity, he spent a good deal of his time spreading outrageous lies about Sen. Barack Obama, claiming among other things that Obama is a Muslim. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Here he is, in all his glory: Usama Dakdok.

I didn't make the trip home from Chicago for the occasion, but Dakdok has been to First Baptist before, so I know his m.o. And apparently, as Sen. Obama's star has risen, so has Dakdok's; the more people get to know Sen. Obama, the more lucrative Dakdok's Obama-bashing industry has become. I've heard reports out of Clay City that at least where Dakdok's car is concerned, he seems to be doing quite well for himself.

According to Dakdok’s website, http://www.thestraightway.org/, he bases his belief that Obama is a Muslim on three main facts: (1) Obama has a Muslim-sounding name; (2) Obama spent time in a Muslim school in Indonesia; and (3) Obama was born of Muslim blood. Putting it as gently as I can, this is pure hogwash.

First, a man named Usama Dakdok is hardly in a position to claim someone else’s name sounds too Muslim. I don’t doubt Dakdok’s Christianity, and he shouldn’t doubt Sen. Obama’s. In Christianity, the only Name that matters is Jesus.

Second, Obama went to a public school in Indonesia for two years. There, much in the same way that Christianity used to be taught in American public schools, Islam was taught part of the day because there was no separation of church and state. That no more makes Obama a Muslim than saying morning prayers in middle school made American children of the 1950s Christians.

Third, though Sen. Obama is not now, nor has he ever been, a Muslim, even if he had been as a child, that would not preclude him from claiming Christ as his Savior. Any number of legitimate news sources have debunked the Obama-as-Muslim rumors. You can check that here at Snopes.com. You can read Sen. Obama's famous 2006 Call to Renewal Address here, in which he speaks about the importance of faith -- and for him, his Christian faith -- in public life. You can watch him give that speech here. You can read the non-partisan Factcheck.org debunk the Muslim rumors about him here, in a January 2008 piece. You can watch Sen. Obama speak at Apostolic Church of God in Chicago on Father's Day 2008, about the importance of personal responsibility and fatherhood.

A man with whom I am honored to share not only a party, but a faith in Christ: Barack Obama.

But even if Obama had been a Muslim by birth, why should that mean we can't take him at his word that he's a Christian now?

The Apostle Paul spoke in Ephesians of folks who “were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise.” But Paul went on to say that these people who used to be strangers “were made nigh by the blood of Christ.” Christ has "broken down the middle wall of partition between us," and through Him all have access by the Holy Spirit to God the Father.

Sen. Obama has written and spoken frequently of the day two decades ago when he walked down the aisle of his church and confessed Christ as Savior. At that moment, the same blood that saved the Gentiles in Ephesus brought Sen. Obama nigh to God, no matter what faith Obama’s father professed. In fact, just a few weeks ago at Pastor Rick Warren’s church, Obama told a television audience of millions that “Jesus Christ died for my sins, and I am redeemed through Him.”

In this election season, it is natural that some folks will disagree strongly with Sen. Obama over real issues, such as affordable health care, middle-class tax relief, job creation, and military rebuilding. But folks should make their decisions based on the facts, not a bunch of hateful lies.

I don’t know Dakdok’s motives, and only God can look on his heart. Maybe he truly believes that Sen. Obama is a Muslim; if he does, I pray that God will speak truth to his heart.

But I know that the message he and others like him -- even prominent politicians -- are spreading is a lie. I know that God hates a lying tongue, and I know that Satan is the Father of Lies. If Dakdok is lying for his own gain, or if he opposes Sen. Obama’s calls for change and thinks that lying is the only way to stop him, then I call on Dakdok to stop these lies, and I encourage Christians and all people of goodwill to reject the false witness Dakdok and other hateful people are bearing against my brother in Christ, Barack Obama.

More of the same, Charlie Brown

2008-09-11T21:28:00.000-05:00

I am starting to process the last week of speeches, counter-speeches, ads, punditry, truth-bending, exaggerations, and outright lies. Out of it all, one image finally crystallized in my mind like a pearl around an irritating grain of sand, and it describes the McCain/Palin campaign perfectly:

What Zell Miller would call a "MET-a-fer": Lucy is the Republican Party, the football is reality, and Charlie Brown is the American people.

How many times did we watch those holiday specials and read those "Peanuts" strips growing up, to see ornery ol' Lucy tell our loveable loser, "Go on, kick the ball. It'll be different this time." And we would all feel ourselves pleading aloud, "Don't do it, Charlie Brown! Don't you trust her! She'll move that football again, just as sure as the world, and you'll end up flat on your back." And yet he always fell for it.

The Republicans know that the American people are sick of the status quo and ready for change. But at the same time, they're not dressing it up any. They're not pretending to have new ideas or new strategies. Constitutionally incapable of change, they're just counting on the folks believing that it'll be different this time, different than it's been for the past eight years during which Bush has proposed the *exact same policies.*

Prices high? The market will fix it. It'll be different this time.

Need a job? Trickle-down economics will work, as altruistic business owners and CEOs spend their savings on new employees and benefits rather than profit margins. It'll be different this time.

Need more personal savings and spending power? Tax cuts will fix it. It'll be different this time.

Need safer neighborhoods? Forget more spending on cops; tougher penalties will fix it. It'll be different this time.

Need health care for yourselves and your families? Screw mandates and subsidies for lower-income families; tort reform and tax cuts will fix it. Go on, kick the ball.

Want your kids and grandkids and parents and siblings home from the war in Iraq? Just give it time, and David Petraeus will fix it. After all, we've only been there a third as long as Vietnam and one and a half times as long as World War II. Kick the ball.

Want to be kept safe without losing your liberty? Don't sweat wiretapping and torture; that's just for "Those People." C'mon, you can trust us. It'll be different this time.

Want safe lakes without mercury, energy policy without secrecy, a State Department without retaliatory leaks, and a Justice Department without politics? Well, we'll replace Bush cronies with new cronies, to help us cut through the red tape and deregulate everything, because "less rules" means "more freedom," and more freedom surely will give you everything you could wish for. Kick the ball.

Want your gay friends and family members to be treated like humans? Don't worry: all those mean people who we put on the federal bench as a reward for arguing that homosexuality should still be a crime in 2003 have had a change of heart, and so have the ones who banned gay marriage in 2004 and 2006. No one's saying they can't be equal citizens; they just can't have equal rights. See? Now kick the ball.

Want more infrastructure -- roads, schools, dams, bridges, canals, and train tracks? Well, when we say we'll cut earmarks, we don't mean YOUR earmarks. It'll be different this time.

Want less hypocrisy? Good. We promise if we change our minds, we'll do it so quickly and so completely that you won't even notice. It's gonna be so different you won't even believe it.

Want less Neocon foreign policy? No biggie. The Neocon Bush advisors we have instructing Governor Palin now to bring her up to a passing grade in foreign policy are actually teaching her a new, McCain, maverick foreign policy. They're versatile, you'll see. Kick it.

Want your leaders either to have familiy values or to stop preaching about them? Well, ignore that John McCain started screwing Cindy after his first wife became crippled in a car wreck, that Rudy's third wife lived with him in Gracie Mansion while he was still married to his second wife, that Gov. Palin's daughter is 17 and pregnant without shame, that Fred Thompson's wife is 24 years his junior, that Mark Foley was hounded out of office after scandalous behavior with underage male interns, and that Larry Craig got caught in an airport bathroom trying to score cheap, quick, dirty sex from male strangers, all while wearing his wedding ring. Trust us: we feel terrible about our sins, but Jesus has forgiven us, and you should, too. It'll be different this time.

They gave great speeches, all of them, but through their sarcasm, their vitriolic wit, their talking-point lies and their focus-group-tested one-liners, I could smell their desperation. I could see the beads of sweat forming on their heads as they pleaded with us all, subliminally -- for the love of God! -- to please try to kick the ball one more time.

They've been in power for eight years, the Republicans, after a Bush promise of a "compassionate conservatism" that was supposed to be different THAT TIME. And yet they still revel in the same imperviousness to fact and reason and cling to a worn and sinking ideology like the band to the Titanic.

The greed, power, decadence, cronyism, and unchecked avarice of the last eight years have made them rich and comfortable, and the thought of it all drawing to a close terrifies them. To borrow from another favorite childhood cartoon, I can almost hear Pooh asking Christopher Robin whether they can go back to the beginning and do it all over again.

But like all good things, nothing gold can stay, Pony Boy, not even this Gilded Age. Christopher Robin must off to school, and there's a new game in town besides Lucy's trick football. Faced with the end of their era, Republicans are left like Kurtz in horror of "the horror," crooning a bittersweet symphony:

"No change! I can't change, I can't change, I can't change. But I'm here in my mold, I am here in my mold, and I'm a million different people from one day to the next. I can't change my mold, no no no no no." It's so maudlin Lear would vomit.

Last week, I thought it was just a clever Democratic talking point, but this week I'm convinced: the Republicans aren't bringing change; they're bringing more of the same. They're not just asking for votes. They're asking for sympathy for war wounds and Bangladeshi children and pregnant daughters and fighting sons and special needs babies. And they're asking for mercy and more than a little amnesia for eight miserable years.

Good leadership will get this country off its back and back on its feet. But if we try to kick that same old Republican ball again, no matter how loveable we are, we'll all be losers.