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

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.
______________________

* 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

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.

Is Anybody In Charge of the Republican Party Right Now?

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!

Obama Won the Debate By Showing Up Without Horns

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.

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

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

Republicans' Theory of Government as Bankrupt as Lehman Bros.

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.

Told You So: Republican Front Group Accuses Obama of Babykilling

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.

Are Republican Values *Your* Values?

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.

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

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.

More of the same, Charlie Brown

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.