What would President Gore have done after 9/11?

By Marc McDonald 

I've often wondered: if Al Gore had been allowed to assume the presidency that he won in the 2000 election, how would he have responded after the 9/11 attacks? Actually, I think it's pretty likely 9/11 would never have happened in the first place under President Gore.

Gore was (and is) a reader and a scholar, you see. One of those dreaded "liberal book learners." Unlike Bush, Gore didn't make decisions "based on his gut." Gore read about and studied the issues. He listened to experts. Oh, the horror!

And on Aug. 6, 2001, when the CIA hand-delivered a Presidential Daily Brief to President Gore, he would have actually read the goddamn thing (particularly after glancing at the alarming headline, "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in U.S.")

Unlike Bush, Gore wasn't fond of endless five-week vacations on the taxpayer's dime. So it is entirely possible that Gore wouldn't have been on vacation at the time. I'm think it's also highly likely that if Gore had been on vacation, he'd have cut it short to deal with the PDB.

What's important, though, is that President Gore would have taken action. For example, it's a virtual certainty that he would have called a meeting of his top security people. (Maybe such a high-level security meeting would have brought attention to issues like the FBI's July 2001 reporting about suspicious Middle Eastern men who were learning to fly passenger airliners at U.S. aviation schools.)

I also suspect that President Gore would have ordered possible terror targets like airports to step up security a notch.

Sadly, none of this actually happened. Of course, that's because in the previous year, a blatantly pro-GOP Supreme Court in 2000 awarded Bush a presidency in an election that Gore won by over half a million votes.

And so when Aug. 6, 2001 rolled around, Bush was handed the fateful Bin Laden PDB and took no action, as he continued to enjoy his 5 week vacation.

And so 3,000 Americans died on 9/11. And later, hundreds of thousands of civilians were slaughtered in the trillion-dollar fiasco called the Iraq War.

Read more »

Minority president

By Mustang Bobby

Although I don't think it's going to happen, the Villagers are positing that the election could be close enough that Barack Obama could lose the popular vote but win the Electoral College. And they predict consternation if that happens.

One such Villager is Karen Tumulty in The Washington Post:

A win in the electoral college that is not accompanied by one in the popular vote casts a shadow over the president and his ability to govern.

If Obama is re-elected that way, "the Republican base will be screaming that Romney should be president, and Obama doesn't represent the country," McKinnon predicted. "It's going to encourage more hyperpartisanship."

Josh Marshall has a response: Spare me.

Now, the possibility of election without a national majority exposes a genuine glitch in our system. No doubt. It is also true that these are the rules we play under and there is little reason to think that we'd have just the same result if both candidates were trying to maximize raw vote nationwide. Think how many more votes both candidates would mobilize in New York, California and Texas — not to mention among African-American voters in hopelessly red states in the South. But mainly to those making these arguments I would make the following points: Get over it and most of all STFU.

When a president wins election but doesn't win with a majority of the popular vote (vide Richard Nixon in 1968, Bill Clinton in 1992), he's called a minority president and it's supposed to force him into building a coalition with the other party because he's perceived as not being a strong leader. (In Mr. Obama's case, "minority president" has a little more meaning.) But that didn't happen with Mr. Nixon or Mr. Clinton. They took the oath. They're in the Oval Office. They've got the launch codes.

The last president to lose the popular vote and win the election was George W. Bush in 2000. Not only were the Republicans perfectly happy with that outcome — we heard a lot of "Get over it and most of all STFU" from them — Mr. Bush went ahead and governed as if he had won in a landslide.

It's all a matter of perception. Act like you won big and people will think you did. As for the talk of "hyperpartisanship," all I can say is welcome back to Earth and did you enjoy your four years in the Delta Quadrant?

I would much rather that Barack Obama wins both the popular vote and the Electoral College (and Nate Silver is saying his chances are good that he will), but if he is a minority president, I hope he governs like he beat the snot out of them. The GOP will richly deserve it.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Romney will take us to war

By tmcbpatriot

Terrorism

Mitt Romney, October 22, 2012 (Debate #3): "In the 2000 debates there was no mention of terrorism, for instance. And a year later, 9/11 happened. So we have to make decisions based upon uncertainty. And that means a strong military. I will not cut our military budget."

Al Gore, October 17, 2000 (Debate #3): "I served on the House Intelligence Committee and I worked hard to learn the subject of nuclear arms control and how we can diffuse these tensions and deal with non-proliferation and deal with the problems of terrorism and these new weapons of mass destruction. Look, we're gonna face some serious new challenges in the next four years."

George W. Bush, October 17, 2000 (Debate #3): "Saddam Hussein still is a threat in the Middle East. Our coalition against Saddam is unraveling. Sanctions are loosened. The man who may be developing weapons of mass destruction."

George W. Bush, October 11, 2000 (Debate #2): "We don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be or there's going to be a consequence should I be the president."

——

Keepin' the Peace. (Heh. Heh. Heh.)

Mitt Romney, October 22, 2012 (Debate #3): Let me -- let me step back and talk about what I think our mission has to be in the Middle East, and even more broadly, because our purpose is to make sure the world is more -- is peaceful. We want a peaceful planet."

George W. Bush, October 17, 2000 (Debate #3): "You're going to live in a peaceful world. It will be a world of peace because we're going to have a clear sight of foreign policy based upon a strong military and a mission that stands by our friends... I want to have the military keeping the peace... This is a peaceful nation, and I intend to keep the peace."

——

Strengthening Our Military

Mitt Romney, October 22, 2012 (Debate #3): "We don't want to get drawn into a military conflict... I do not want to see a military involvement on the part of -- of our -- of our troops. We need to have as well a strong military. Our military is second to none in the world."

"We're blessed with terrific soldiers and extraordinary technology and intelligence. But the idea of a trillion dollars in cuts through sequestration and budget cuts to the military would change that."

"And our military -- we've got to strengthen our military long-term."

"Look, this, in my view, is the highest responsibility of the president of the United States, which is to maintain the safety of the American people. And I will not cut our military budget by a trillion dollars, which is the combination of the budget cuts that the president has as well as the sequestration cuts. That, in my view, is -- is -- is making our future less certain and less secure. I won't do it. And of course, a military action is the last resort. It is something one would only, only consider if all of the other avenues had been -- had been tried to their full extent."

George W. Bush, October 17, 2000 (Debate #3): "Should I be fortunate enough to earn your confidence, the mission of the United States military will be to be prepared and ready to fight and win war. And therefore prevent war from happening in the first place."

"I want to make sure the equipment for our military is the best it can possibly be, of course. But we have an opportunity -- we have an opportunity to use our research and development capacities, the great technology of the United States, to make our military lighter, harder to find, more lethal. We have an opportunity, really, if you think about it, if we're smart and have got a strategic vision and a leader who understands strategic planning, to make sure that we change the terms of the battlefield of the future so we can keep the peace."

——

Don't vote for this guy, America. You've been warned. Don't be stupid. Okay?

(Cross-posted at Take My Country Back.)

A comment on the Gallup poll

By Richard K. Barry 

Hey Nate, I bought your book.

At the risk of sounding cranky, I feel compelled to note Nate Silver's comments yesterday on the Gallup tracking poll that shows Romney up by seven points over Obama, results which he says are "deeply inconsistent with the results that other polling firms are showing in the presidential race, and the Gallup poll has a history of performing very poorly when that is the case":

In 2000, for example, Gallup had George W. Bush 16 points ahead among likely voters in polling it conducted in early August. By Sept. 20, about six weeks later, they had Al Gore up by 10 points instead: a 26-point swing toward Mr. Gore over the course of a month and a half. No other polling firm showed a swing remotely that large.

Then in October 2000, Gallup showed a 14-point swing toward Mr. Bush over the course of a few days, and had him ahead by 13 points on Oct. 27 -- just 10 days before an election that ended in a virtual tie.

I'd rather get it right at this point, and this just seems wrong.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

The media created Romney's loser image. Agree or disagree. Discuss.

By Richard K. Barry 

John Cook writing at Gawker makes an interesting case. I'm not sure I agree. I'm not sure I disagree. His idea is that somewhere along the way the media have decided Mitt Romney is such a loser that, no matter what he does, he will be portrayed as a loser:

The press is doing to Romney the same thing it did to John Kerry, and to Al Gore before him: Covering him as a loser. A weird loser. A distant loser, who is "uncomfortable in his own skin" and "failing to connect" with "regular voters." The contempt and pity for him as a candidate is almost palpable, and each moment in the campaign is distorted imperceptibly, as if by magnetism, to reinforce the Romney caricature.

Cook makes a case. It's not a bad argument. But I would argue that we've got to get our chickens and eggs in a row here (just to mix some metaphors). If he really is unable to connect and consistently says and does stupid things, as I think is obvious, it won't take long for the press to start blowing stuff out of proportion that might not otherwise have been significant. That much I accept.

But does this mean that Romney is not "uncomfortable in his own skin?" Does it mean that he doesn't "fail to connect" with "regular voters?" Uh, no.

The fairness issue comes into play only when we ask about the extent to which how Romney actually is makes the press too quick to magnify small gaffes and even non-gaffes that should mean nothing. This may have happened, and I'm sure it sucks if you're Mitt Romney, but his image was not created out of whole cloth by lazy media types.

Politics is hard, or so Ann Romney told me.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

New polls: Obama widens leads in Ohio and Florida

By Michael J.W. Stickings

WaPo:

President Obama is threatening Mitt Romney's best route to victory in the electoral college, grabbing a significant lead over his Republican challenger in Ohio and a slender edge in Florida, according to two new polls by The Washington Post.

In the presidential race, Obama is ahead of Romney in Ohio by 52 percent to 44 percent among likely voters. In Florida, the president leads 51 percent to 47 percent, a numerical edge but not a statistically significant one. Among all registered Florida voters, Obama is ahead by nine percentage points.

There's just no way Romney can win the election without at least one of these key swing states. And as Mustang Bobby writes:

More than a few people think John Kerry would be finishing his second term had it not been for some slight-of-hand in Ohio in 2004, and, well, we all know what happened in Florida in 2000.

Wouldn't it be ironic if these two states closed the deal for Obama?

Indeed, and while I'm still trying not to get too excited about any of this, things are looking really good at the moment.

New poll: Obama's historic September lead

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Pew:

At this stage in the campaign, Barack Obama is in a strong position compared with past victorious presidential candidates. With an eight-point lead over Mitt Romney among likely voters, Obama holds a bigger September lead than the last three candidates who went on to win in November, including Obama four years ago. In elections since 1988, only Bill Clinton, in 1992 and 1996, entered the fall with a larger advantage.

Not only does Obama enjoy a substantial lead in the horserace, he tops Romney on a number of key dimensions. His support is stronger than his rival's, and is positive rather than negative. Mitt Romney's backers are more ardent than they were pre-convention, but are still not as enthusiastic as Obama's. Roughly half of Romney's supporters say they are voting against Obama rather than for the Republican nominee. With the exception of Bill Clinton in 1992, candidates lacking mostly positive backing have lost in November.

And Mitt Romney, if I may venture out on a limb, is no Bill Clinton.

As Ed Kilgore writes, pretty much stating the obvious, this is really bad news for Mitt.

2004 and 2012

By Comrade Misfit

To set the stage, recall that in 2000, Bill Clinton was finishing up eight years as president. The Democrats nominated Al Gore, who lost the election.[1]

In 2004, Bill Clinton spoke at the Democrats' convention.

In 2008, George W. Bush was finishing up eight years as president. The GOP's nominee lost heavily.[2]

In 2012, at the Republican convention, George W. Bush was nowhere to be found.[3] In point of fact, the man who was the last Republican president barely rated a mention. Apparently, only his brother Jeb felt obliged to mention his name, let alone defend his atrocious record.

Hard to see why, for Bush did what Republicans like: Cut taxes for the rich, pour shitloads of money into defense, and rack up large deficits.

But to listen to the GOP nowadays, it's as though they haven't held the White House since Reagan left office.

Curious, that they need to run away from the last two Republicans who were elected president.
__________________________________________
[1] By a 5-4 vote to George W. Bush.
[2] Well beyond the Republicans' ability to steal.
[3] Presumably, he was too busy inspecting coal mines in Ulan Bator.

(Cross-posted at Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I.)

All's fair in fraud and felony

By Capt. Fogg

Voter suppression -- there's nothing new about it, but when the support for it comes from people who think testing city water for arsenic is "too much government," you have to expect odd, snarling noises from the cynics. Pennsylvania's latest attempt to reserve the right to vote for the landed gentry, posing as a reaction to voter fraud that might possibly occur but actually does not seem to have, has Pandagon snickering and me barking  -- and for good reason. Government intervening in the free exercise of a constitutional right is different I guess, because the goal of keeping Pennsylvania for "real" Americans sanctifies a little bit of  double-think:

[T]he argument seems to be that the state can impair a constitutional right because... well, because they can. It doesn't really matter why, it just makes a kind of instinctual sense, like how vaccines cause autism or how evolution can't exist because I've never seen a thing evolve in front of my eyes despite staring at it and chanting "evolve" for hours on end,

wrote Jesse Taylor yesterday.

Meanwhile, back in Florida, where excluding "undesirables" from the voter rolls is a tradition of long standing, former Florida Republican Party Chair Jim Greer is suing the "whack-a-do, right-wing crazies" that filed criminal fraud charges against him in 2010 in a plot to force saner Republicans including former Governor Charlie Crist out of the party and suppress the African-American vote by once again purging voter rolls.

Florida, of course, bans ex-felons from voting for life for those without good connections in the GOP, like Governor Scott of the Fourteen Felonies, so if one wrote a bad check in 1956 or was found with an ounce or so of cannabis in 1968, one can go fish forever. In fact, if your name sounds like someone else who did, and you live in Florida, you may have been illegally banned from voting in the 2000 election by a similar voter roll purge that targeted minority voters and probably put George Bush in the White House. You may be banned once again and you won't likely know until you show up at the polls.

It's funny how consistently the voter fraud circus parade neglects to mention the voting machine "problems" in Ohio. Again, I'm a cynic, so I find it easy to believe that GOP tampering is treated differently in the post-Bush, Tea Party era. Remember those "unhackable" Diebold machines that took only minutes to hack, delivering more Republican votes than could be accounted for by registered voters -- and delivering Ohio for Bush, as the CEO openly boasted before being forced to resign over accounting fraud? I wonder if he's still on the voter rolls.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Truth in Comics

By Creature


If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.

[H/T Gordon]

Craziest Conservative of the Day: J. Harvie Wilkinson III

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I quote Chait, who quotes Wilkinson:

In today's Washington Post, conservative judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III appeals for an ideological truce in appointments that just happens to coincide with the exact moment Democrats have retaken the nominating power:

So the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit is set for a takeover. Popular commentary has it that the court, on which I serve, is a fortress or bastion or citadel of conservatism. Discussion of coming changes suggests more the fruits of a successful military campaign than the result of an election giving our new president the right to nominate members to a judicial body. ... With the new numbers in the Senate, the temptation is there to go for an ideological makeover. Yet the tempting course would prove a misguided one.

If you're wondering whether Wilkinson wrote a similar op-ed at the start of, or any time during, the Bush administration, the answer is no, he didn't.

Wilkinson also writes, "ideology should not be the foremost criterion for selecting a judge. Many people may not believe it, but judges are not politicians in robes." Tell that to the five justices who decided to be Republican precinct captains in 2000.

Exactly. There are no partisan judges quite like conservative partisan judges, and Republicans, including Bush, have been all about appointing rigidly ideological and unabashedly partisan judges. What happened in 2000 was just the most prominent example of partisan conservative judicial activism.

Perhaps this isn't crazy so much as typical. As in, the typical conservative double standard: do one thing when in power, say the opposite when not. Coming out of this past presidential election, for example, many conservatives claimed that Obama did not have a mandate to govern other than from the center-right, and certainly not to enact liberal-progressive policies, despite his decisive victory over McCain and his decidedly liberal-progressive policy platform. Regardless of this victory, they claimed, America remains a "center-right" nation. And yet, back in 2004, following a much closer election, many conservatives claimed that Bush, in winning re-election, had a mandate to implement pretty much whatever he wanted, including social security reform, and not just a "center-right" agenda but, with the exception of immigration, a far-right one.

And here they are again -- one of them, anyway, a prominent member of theirs swollen judicial ranks -- arguing, in stark contrast to how they conducted themselves when Bush was president, that Obama and the Democrats should take ideology and partisanship out of the judicial appointment process, or, to put it another way, that Obama and the Democrats should not act like Bush and the Republicans.

How convenient indeed. Whether Wilkinson actually believes his newfound post-partisan rhetoric or not, that is, whether he can write drivel like this with a straight face, I'm not sure. Perhaps he really is that self-delusional and perhaps, enveloped in his own partisan bubble, he really is that cluelessly hypocritical. Whatever the case -- and as earnest and as focused on the common good as he wants us to believe he is -- he's crazy.

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth

By Carl

It strikes me odd how much better, how much more hopeful, I feel right now than I did even three days ago. I wonder why...

Oh, yeah. That might do it.

See, for thirty years, I've felt like an outcast in my own nation. A liberal. A stranger in a strange land and I couldn't grok society. I'd rail as the antithesis of culture, of the political spectrum. I felt a little like Cassandra, destined to have foresight yet doomed to be taken quite unseriously until events had passed that showed I was right.

Such was the power of the right wing hate machine that even I, a liberal even in this most blue of cities, felt a frisson of that hate.

Oh, there were moments, of course, like when Bill "Greatest. President. Ever." Clinton was elected twice. That comforted me, made me feel like part of the universe again.

Until the right wing hate machine, presented by Rupert Murdoch and funded by Richard Mellon "Family Values Cost $750,000 A Month" Scaife decided he was too much a threat to the good of the nation, and started dismantling him, brick by brick.

The year 2000 held hope, as my real hero, the man I voted for twice in primaries, Al Gore succeeded in capturing the nomination. It looked, to coin a phrase, like a slam dunk, until Karl Rove got his precious little mitts on the election, and managed to squeeze a faux cowboy into the flight suit he had abandoned 25 years earlier.

Now there's a diet I probably should try, altho being around Karl Rove seven days a week probably would make me quit eating and start drinking more, so who knows?

After four years, I figured we had the bastard: approval ratings in the 40% range, half the country truly hating the man, an abortion of a war, an economy that took three years to jump start from the most mild of recessions in 2000 and 2001, and a man who failed to protect us from a terrorist attack, not because he was caught by surprise, but because he really just didn't give a damn about some feller named "Al Kaydah."

And then the Democrats, rather than choosing the most obvious candidate, a former general with bona fides out the wazoo in Muslim-West relations in Wesley Clark, or even the most antipodal candidate to Bush's elitism and out-of-touchness, a man who worked with the poor and could speak earnestly about the plight of the children left behind in John Edwards, picked a former war hero who had for thirty years ducked the charges smearing him from a nutcase former soldier who probably never even fired a gun, much less saved his men on a Swift Boat.

All this, again, funded and encouraged by the Wonder Twerps of Truthiness, Murdoch and Scaife.

That was a bitter defeat, to be sure. Even as horrid a candidate as John Kerry battled this machine down to the last minute, and almost, ALMOST, pulled it out. It shouldn't have been close enough that voting discrepancies in Ohio made a difference, just as 2000 should not have been close enough to let Florida's egregious backwoods voting systems and antiquated laws decide that election.

It should have Dems in a walk in both years.

A sidenote: Recent history gives us coalescing images of moments in time. Photography and videography have given us totems of events that sum up and define not only the historical significance of the instant, but the context and emotional content. Think of the Kennedy assassination, and the photo of Caroline and John-John with Jackie on the cortege route, or the flag at Iwo Jima, or this one from 9/11:

My suspicion is that history's pictorial judgement of the elections of 2000 will be this photo:

So we are left at the end of the 2004 election, defeated, dispirited, but not dormant. The anger that welled up inside progressives and liberals nationwide, and spread worldwide by the old saw "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice... can't get fooled again". Other nations woke up and realized that Bush was not going away easily, and decided to leverage their political strength against him. We here on the left took comfort in that, that the rest of the world would shun, as best as they could, this poseur president.

As time passed, and our anger solidified into action, the 2006 election loomed as a pivotal point in American history. It would set the stage for a revolution unlike any we had known previously, even our own Civil War, even our own birth, because this one would forge a future for our country without bloodshed. This one could unite a nation in the pursuit of true American values, of fair play and equal opportunity. It would prove the adage that, yes, ANYONE could be president.

It sure didn't hurt any that the Republicans had shot themselves in the collective face (in Dick Cheney's case, quite literally) by accomplishing nothing in over ten years of Congressional control. The politics of division revealed themselves to be the politics of do-nothingism, and America wondered why we even have a Congress.

It also didn't hurt that, hand in hand with this, and likely this bit was orchestrated by some on the left, the hypocrisies of the "family values" party were slowly uncovered, like a good stripping. The GOP missed the lessons of the early-'90s Democrats: never EVER let yourself be caught on tape or in a sex scandal. By Nov. 8, 2006, it was almost safe to be a liberal.

But there was still Dum-Dum to deal with. Were Pelosi and Reid correct not to pursue criminal charges against Bush? History will judge, but in my opinion, yes. Two years of haggling over documents would have frozen the nation worse than it already was, and would have made the bailouts and other economic stimuli passed and that still need to be passed, impossible. For the greater good, we let the guilty get off.

This is how our nation has always operated. This is how it must operate now. If you want to file cases in the Hague against the Bushies, I'll do what I can to see them brought to justice, but not here. Not now.

And now, we have a President who reflects in his very being the country: cool under pressure, able to laugh at himself, and diverse.

In other words, a liberal. He may, from practicality sake, be forced to dumb down his progressive credentials. I'm OK with that. He's not the Liberal President. He is President of the United States and that means respecting the thoughts and feelings of people in Nebraska as much as New Jersey.

I'm OK with that. It guarantees him an eight year term, and I kinda like "That One."

(Cross-posted at Simply Left Behind.)

So the days float through my eyes

By Carl

I find myself in agreement with Christopher Hitchens of Slate. Thank you, President George W. Bush. Thank you for your eight years of service to this great and proud nation.

Now, before you choke on your cornflakes, let's take a look back at the past eight years and understand, truly, the great thing this man did for our nation.

Having his father's cronies steal an election in 2000 by manipulating first the Florida vote count and then the Supreme Court of the United States, he took office as the first President in nearly 150 years to lose the plurality of votes in an election, but win the electoral college. This reminded us how fragile our freedoms are, and how short-sighted the Founding Fathers could be, by making a wholly unpopulated state like Wyoming or North Dakota have an outsized voice in the direction of this nation.

He made education a centerpiece of his first term, proving that even Republicans who have tried to dismantle any federal education policy recognize the importance of education. However, the gaming of the system, teaching to the test, has rigidified the educational process and stifled ambition, creativity, and thinking, skills that will be desperately needed in the years ahead with the challenges facing us. In effect, George Bush managed to outsource intelligence.

With approval ratings in his first year tanking into the 40% range, an unprecedented collapse in popularity, 9/11 happened on his watch, despite his best efforts to ignore the warnings. Bush proved that confronting your problems and facing them are far more valuable than praying them away. his recovery advice, to shop, probably pushed back this economic meltdown until, well, the end of his administration, proving that no good deed goes unpunished, and that people don't have unlimited credit like many faux Texans who own a ranch with one head of cattle do.

After 9/11, Bush fought hard to establish the Patriot Act, which created the single largest bureaucracy in American history after the US military, proving that Republicans could be as profligate with tax payer money as a drunken sailor in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. Which brings me to...

Katrina. Sure, the Coast Guard got there quickly and was effective in rescuing hundreds of stranded people. That's what they are trained to do, and they train constantly to do it. No, the knee jerk, reflexive immediate response of the federal government was good.

It's the stuff they actually had to plan and carry out that got all screwy. In this instance, Bush proved the truth about cronyism: It's OK to pick cronies, just make sure the cronies you pick know what the hell they are doing (see also Hank Paulson in 2008). Hundreds if not thousands died while Bush circled overhead in Air Force One like a vulture, heading out to Arizona to help destroy John McCain's candidacy.

The war in Iraq proved that sending US troops willy-nilly into harm's way, without an effective battle plan, and more important, and effective peace plan, should never, EVER, happen again. We had no business being there, and have no business remaining behind except to clean up our mess.

As well, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay made us stop and realize that even the freest of nations can lose that freedom if the nation acts in any way, shape or form tyrannically. These were silly incidents that should never have been allowed to happen.

Many might legitimately disagree with the outcome, but no one can deny that wars of aggression never ever work out well in the end for the aggressor. We'll spend many years cleaning up and making amends and apologies to the world community in the hopes that our rightful place in leadership of that community may be graciously restored to us.

People forgive mistakes. They'll have a hard time forgiving us for 2004.

Finally, the economy is in the tank, and if we're lucky, if we're extremely lucky, Barack Obama will find a keystone to set it straight that will have us well into recovery after his first term. We'll see on that score.

But, if anything, this depression has finally proved the old saw that Harry S. Truman used to say regularly when campaigning: "If you want to live like a Republican, vote Democratic."

Right now, we've voted twice for Republicans, and are facing a diminished, depleted life. Tax cuts can only do so much. The Bush legacy will be one of reckless abandon to reward the plutocracy of this nation for raping our resources and then turning their backs on the people of America. This must not stand.

So, in an attempt to be conciliatory, I've tried to find the one thing that Bush has done to make this a better nation, a better world. A couple of things cropped up in my research.

1) He increased funding to Africa to combat AIDS and malaria. OK, true, this is a positive thing, to be sure, but how positive? Bush raised funding from about $2 billion to $3 billion, adding 50%, in 2006. And that was with strings attached, like abstinence-only sex education. And the program could only use American branded drugs, not generic drugs. He's further expanded this with a $48 billion dollar bill over 5 years, about $40 billion for AIDS ($8 billion a year). This would represent about 0.006% of annual gross domestic product, however. Japan contributes 0.7% of it's GDP. There's a lot more to be done there.

2) He's kept us safe from terror attacks since 2001. Sort of. I mean, there were the still-unsolved anthrax attacks, the series of sniper shootings in Virginia, any number of abortion clinic bombings, the attack in Washington state where that man shot up the offices of a Jewish organization... and of course, the attacks overseas, in London, Madrid, and Mumbai.

It should also be pointed out that there were no terror attacks in the seven years leading up to 9/11. I'm sure the Bushbots will credit him with that, too.

So, no. It would be hard to credit Bush with purely positive results even in these miniscule eddies of the flow of his administration.

And then it hit me. There is one undeniable positive that President George W. Bush, the 43rd and soon-to-be former president, has done for America.

Thank you, President Bush, for making it safe to be a liberal again.

(Cross-posted at Simply Left Behind.)

Echoes down the corridor

By Carl

The first of many disconstitutional dismantlings is now coming back to haunt us:

The Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore, issued eight years ago this month, was widely understood to work like that tape recorder in “Mission: Impossible.” It was meant to produce a president and then self-destruct.

“Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances,” the majority famously said, “for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities.”

That sentence, translated from high legal jargon into English, was often taken to mean this: The decision was a ticket for one ride only. It was not a precedent. It was a ruling, yes, but it was not law.

But now, as the petitioner leaves the national stage, Bush v. Gore is turning out to have lasting value after all. “You’re starting to see courts invoke it,” said Samuel Issacharoff, a law professor at New York University, “and you’re starting to see briefs cite it.”

Indeed, rumblings of the damage the Bush administration has so gleefully inflicted on the Constitution echo everywhere. That sound you here is the foundation of the nation quivering. And just as it was unlikely that a major Supreme Court obstruction of justice eight years ago would not now be used by candidates great and small, Democratic and Republican, so is it unlikely that the massive gaping holes in due process and the law will go long ignored.

We elected Barack Obama with the understanding that he would likely close some of these holes, and perhaps ignore others, but asking a President to completely ignore convenient precedents is like asking a man to not use his left arm for four or eight years. It's simply not going to happen so long as they are available.

And assuming that Barack Obama is as much a mensch as we might hope he is, there's no guarantee that a president down the road would not reopen these old wounds. After all, even as great a man as Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. But then, so did as wretchedly pitiful and miserably twisted a man as George W. Bush.

Our freedoms, such as they are, are at stake here. This is more important than any controversy over any pastor or proposition might be, for what is, say, gay marriage or the right to an abortion when there is no freedom to speak of? Nothing but a gaudy bauble glued to the ratty carpet of America.

If I had the means, I would do this: When Barack Obama gets to the bit at his inauguration that says "preserve, protect and defend the Constituion of the United States of America," I would ask Chief Justice Roberts to pause, and say, "We are holding you to this, Mr. President."

A reminder that a free people is only as free as the government allows them to be, and until we the people control the government again, we the people rely on those in power to share our vision of freedom.

It pains me to think that in the past fifty years I've been on this planet, I've seen freedom dwindle, rather than flourish. Freedom should be an unprunable bush, one that you can nip a little here or there, but never be able to cut back to its roots. Freedom should be spreading, not contracting.

Even as we've made strides to insure freedom to all people in the nation- - black, white, male, female, gay, straight -- we've simultaneously watched our freedom winnow and starve as a whole. This must stop. This must reverse. The center cannot hold for long.

The impetus in this country has long been towards safety. I'm not sure specifically when that occured, my guess would be during the Great Depression. Government does solve problems, but those solutions need to be put away unless necessary as soon as the problem begins to resolve itself.

Similarly, a confluence of morality, religion, and fear has created an atmosphere that makes security take precedence over liberty. Scary gay men might ruin our marriages! Scary Latina women might do work that American women will not! Jesus is coming and he's carrying an M-16 rifle!

We must, as a nation, grow up a little. Coddled by our ministrations and administrations for too long, we must stand on our own two feet and work our own way through the world. Only then will we understand that it is through liberty, through freedom from oppression not only of our government, but of the majorities and minorities around us, that we can achieve security and safety. Respect is a two-way street, not a dumpster in a blind alley that we might duck behind when we need protection.

Freedom, Mr. President-elect, is what got you where you are. Please keep that in mind when you take your oath next month. We've missed it for so long here in America.

(Cross-posted at Simply Left Behind.)

On Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama for president

By Carol Gee

(See clips of Powell's endorsement here. See also our post "Powell for Obama," including an assessment of right-wing reaction to the endorsement, as well as what the endorsement means for Obama, here.)

No surprise, this endorsement -- "Colin Powell endorses Obama on Meet the Press this morning," writes Steve Benen, and Matthew Yglesias. Though the announcement did not surprise many people, it remains as an item of big news. It seems to me that it is very significant because Powell still calls himself Republican. He, like many others in the same situation, did not leave the party; the party left him.

Retired General Powell will help with the centrist Republican vote, and with the military vote, though he will not actively campaign. Colin Powell would not rule out helping out in an Obama administration, however. His endorsement was unequivocal and fulsome, and gave no hint of any reservation. He mentioned (I paraphrase here) Obama's steadiness in difficult situations, talent for speaking, willingness to dive deep into issues to learn more, commitment to surrounding himself with the brightest people, and admirable intelligence.

Senator John McCain's decision-making lost Colin Powell's confidence two months ago. Powell cited a "narrowing" that the choice of Sarah Palin signified for the Republican Party. McCain also lost Powell's confidence with his inability to demonstrate effective handling of the economic crisis. And Senator Barack Obama gained his confidence during what he called the candidates' "final exam" of these recent weeks.

General Powell may be passing his own re-examination by skeptics and critics, who have remained mad at him for his inability to stop the invasion of Iraq. He took a good bit of time to explain the history as he lived it, citing bad intelligence as the precipitating factor. He conspicuously took no pains to defend George W. Bush's conduct of the war, which McCain has also criticized. In several contexts Colin Powell mentioned how important United States leadership is in the world and how much it has eroded.

Colin Powell made his judgment, in my opinion, about his choice based on merit. It was not based on McCain's association with Bush. At the same time he dismissed Obama's limited association with William Ayers, pointing to the campaign charges as further "narrowing" of the Republican party. He also explained that it was not based on race, as he could have made the endorsement much earlier, if that has been the case.

In the end Colin Powell's endorsement was about leadership capacity, now about tenure or loyalty. He has known and admired Senator McCain for decades, and Senator Obama for two years. He looked at the two men's attributes to be the leader of the free world in perilous times, and made his choice based on that much more expansive judgment.

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)

The Reaction in Review (Oct. 19, 2008)

A weekend's Reactions that deserve a second look:

Sunday

By Michael J.W. Stickings: "Powell for Obama" -- Michael's very insightful post, on Colin Powell's unambiguous endorsement of Barack Obama for president, includes good critique of the Republican right-wing's upset over the news.

By Creature: "A people-powered campaign" -- Creature's short and sweet comment on Obama's fantastic fundraising.

Saturday

By Mustang Bobby: "The Palin factor" -- Bobby's great post explores the recent Obama endorsements by several major newspapers, noting that McCain's Veep choice was the "loser" factor with all the editorial boards.

By Libby Spencer: "The return of McCarthyism," & "Beating the press" -- Your reviewer was unable to choose between these two equally great posts commenting on these scary "reactionary" (I use the word in it's most negative political meaning) times in presidential politics.

 

By J. Thomas Duffy: "Yes, Virginia, there is a real Virginia" -- Duffy has this wonderful way of dissecting Republican ridiculousness -- this time the recent incrediblly divisive comments of three Republican women about who represents the "real America," with Nancy Pfotenhauer as the star.

Election, the Big Picture

By Carol Gee

The last presidential debate is over. Fewer people watched this debate than watched the second. Most people think that Barack Obama was the more successful debater. And, because that is the case, the Republican smear machine is still in operation.

Truth squads are out. There are websites dedicated to that work. Television networks make some attempts to help viewers sort fact from fiction. Attempts to define Barack Obama as somehow dangerous are back-firing. Recent weeks have proven that racism remains a nasty reality in far too many places. And it was unleased by the McCain campaign. John McCain has been playing with fire. People worry about the potential for violence. Moreover, McCain is losing credibility as a true maverick with the general public, and also with many in the mainstream media.

"Joe the Plumber" is on the hotseat, along with Sarah Palin. Joe is actually a worker. He is not a licensed plumber, and several government entities that have jurisdiction are probing further. Veep candidate Sarah Palin is also having major ethics problems. Palin's problems are turning out to be the perfect example of that old saw, "the pot calling the kettle black."

TV ad buys for presidential candidates are in a state of flux. It is quite a contrast. Obama is soon going to be speaking to the nation on many major networks for a half hour. And the Republicans are forced to cut back on any advertising in several states. Voting has begun for many people. Many people worry that the Republicans will somehow steal the election. There are predictions that there will be major voting problems, a possible "major meltdown." College students will be particularly affected, facing major stumbling blocks.

President George W. Bush has 94 days left in office. There have been 4185 military deaths in the Iraq war since March of 2003. And in 18 days it will be Election Day. Get the picture?

Hat Tip: Most of today's story leads came from my regular contributors, Jon and "betmo."

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)

This is the Week!

By Carol Gee

Update for The Reaction -- Memeorandum reports that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is McCain's VP pick: source.

The mornings after the Democratic National Convention (DNC) this week, I was often struck speechless. The DNC was so very big, bold and beautiful along the way. Fast paced, and yet somehow at ease, the convention moved towards the last day with ascending excitement. Media coverage of the week was available to cable and satellite TV viewers in pundit-driven or gavel to gavel style. By Thursday's the DNC had visited almost everything. The convention's conclusion did not begin until afternoon.

FRIDAY MORNING, everyone agrees the DNC was unprecedented in several respects. Barack Obama is the first African American candidate to be nominated by a major party to run for President. His acceptance speech audience was the largest ever. His candidacy was the most high-tech in history. And the United States is in a brand a new kind of governance crisis. The USA is embroiled in two very high cost (in people and money) wars. Polarized politically, in economic recession, its citizens have been routinely victimized by an out of control, inept, constitution-shredding administration. An unprecedented level of problems faces the nation; that is the reason the Democrats are willing to leave the venue mostly united. They and the whole country know what is at stake.

Is it any wonder that the "Change We Need" campaign of (dare I say it?) destiny's Obama was eventually so welcomed by Democrats? The other reason for Democratic party unity is Barack Obama himself. His skill as a the leader of his own campaign became more apparent as the week progressed. The stadium setting was the story for a while. And it was seized upon by nay-sayers as "over the top." A full stadium of flag-waving, enthusiastic people, who came early and in large numbers, affirmed the planners' decision, in my opinion. A text message exercise in voter recruitment energized a huge starry map showing supporters. Lots of good video filled in the gaps, along with food and funny hats, statement t-shirts, and Diverse Dems dancing in place. The audience was entertained by good music that seemed just right, much of it with a a modern folk feel. Stevie Wonder and Sheryl Crow sang. Republicans and Independents testified to their support. Obama's best political friends, including his mentor, Senator Dick Durbin, gave little speeches. And a set of "just folks" told us through vignettes why they had to support Obama. In contrast, a stage-filling group of military leaders and generals marched out in a line to support the candidate, some of whom had previously retired in protest against the Bush administration. Vice-President Gore did 'his thing" with sincerity and skill.

This is the week that culminated last night in Senator Obama's acceptance speech. By most accounts it was perhaps his best speech ever-- it was dynamite. At once biographical, inspirational and confrontational, it was also policy specific. It was a magnificent blue print for the next couple of months of this 2008 presidential campaign. I cannot wait for it to unfold. Unwilling to post yesterday, because I wanted to just enjoy the moments, I went back to my occasional years-ago choice of "being on vacation without my camera." The blogosphere took appropriate notice, however, as links to the other blogs where I post show. This is the rest of the week as reflected in my earlier notes:

THURSDAY MORNING, Wednesday was historic -- Senator Barack Obama was nominated by the Democrats to run for President. In a stroke of genius, Senator Joseph Biden was nominated for Vice-President. Speeches by Former President Clinton, Senator John Kerry, and Veep-to-be Senator Joe Biden were all outstanding. Many of us were relieved by Bill Clinton's endorsement. Wednesday night's theme was national security. Morning-after reflections gave the Democrats high marks for the way the theme was handled during the third night of this historic week. Bloggers gave the mainstream media less than high marks for the coverage. Because of the difficulty of Surviving the DNC on cable, too many viewers missed the best speech of the evening given by John Kerry.

WEDNESDAY MORNING, Democratic National Convention -- Tuesday night was all Hillary Clinton's, though she was not the official keynoter. The keynote speaking task fell to Governor Mark Warner, who was lack luster, by many of the next morning's accounts. To me, it was probably one of her best to date. A few questioned whether Clinton's endorsement of Obama was strong enough, but most bestowed qualified approval of her speech. Scott Paul, for instance at The Washington Note, gave: "A (Potentially Premature) Defense of Clinton." To quote:

I had two immediate reactions to Clinton's speech. First, purely from the perspective of speechcraft and delivery, I've never seen her deliver a better one. Second, she said very few positive things about Barack Obama or his candidacy. She talked at great lengths about the need to support Obama given the state of the country, the challenges we face, the alternative of John McCain, and the importance of Democratic Party unity. But aside from one line of praise for the grassroots oriented, bottom-up nature of Obama's campaign, she had precious little to say about the appeal of the candidate himself.

TUESDAY MORNING, Dateline: Democrats -- Michelle Obama was a big hit with all of us who listened to her speech Monday night (8/26/o8). She was both highly "professional," as well as very personal. On the morning after, this was a typical story: "Michelle keeps things down to earth." It was penned by Roger Simon at Politico.com. It refers to Michelle's narrative about Barack, the brand new father, driving his little family home from the hospital at a snail's pace. To quote:

. . . She was describing a simple moment, a real moment, an emotional moment and one that made only one point: Barack Obama is a human being just like you. He is not an other, he is not a celebrity. He is a father, a husband, a person.

And so, indeed, was Senator Ted Kennedy awesome, according to David Rogers at Politico.com (8/26/08). Most every listener was rooting for his success. In a way, he "had us with hello." The headline hinted at how we all still felt the next morning: "Ailing Kennedy: 'The dream lives on.'" To quote:

Most people have to fight a whole Civil War before getting a Ken Burns documentary. Not Teddy Kennedy, who staged a triumphant appearance before the Democratic National Convention Monday night complete with a Burns-crafted tribute casting him as the modern Ulysses bringing his party home to port.

Weakened by cancer, the Massachusetts senator first let the pictures do his talking but then rocked the Denver hall with an appeal for healthcare reform and party unity that brought him full circle from his famous the dream shall never die speech in New York 28 years ago.

This is also the week that Senator McCain was to have announced the identity of his running mate. I am not waiting to conclude this piece with that information. I want to savor the week before being forced to move on before I am ready. But, of course I will move on -- to Minneapolis. I predict that I will be able to post much more because I will not be savoring all those Republican moments. I give them back to the next participants in this wonderful democratic process.

ADDENDUM -- References From Tom Head, who writes about civil liberties for About.com.

1. Obama vs. McCain (on civil liberties issue differences)


2. Joe Biden on Civil Liberties


3. Joe Biden's Middle East Policy


4. Civil Liberties and November 2008 Ballot Initiatives


5. If You Make a Mistake While Voting

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)

No honor, no dignity

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Greetings from Prince Edward Island, everyone. As I write, I'm looking out over New London Bay, just west of Cavendish and PEI National Park. It's a cool, gray day, but still beautiful. And relaxing. And, thankfully, still early in my vacation.

As I mentioned the other day, I'll blog while I'm here, infrequently, but, clearly, the blog is in good hands, with the co-bloggers having already put up some excellent posts over the past few days.

Keep checking back for more from me and much more from them.

**********

Over at C&L, Jon Perr notes that it was eight years ago today that George W. Bush, accepting his party's nomination for president, "promised to restore 'honor and dignity' to the White House":

At the time it was delivered, Bush's acceptance speech at the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia was an arrogant, deceitful broadside against the Clinton/Gore years. But the very words Bush used to tar Al Gore with the blight of the Lewinsky scandal may now constitute the epitaph for the Bush presidency:

So when I put my hand on the Bible, I will swear to not only uphold the laws of our land, I will swear to uphold the honor and dignity of the office to which I have been elected, so help me God.

That hateful address (video excerpts here), of course, was filled with exactly the kind of lies and taunts -- the smallness -- that came to define George W. Bush.

More:

Eights years later and Bush's 2000 standard of "not only what is legal but what is right" is in tatters. Just this week, Bush's own Justice Department issued a report which concluded that Monica Goodling, the former White House liaison for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, violated federal law and DOJ policy by discriminating against job applicants who weren't faithful Republicans or conservative activists.

And that's just the beginning. Plamegate, the Libby pardon, the Abramoff affair, doctoring scientific reports, the end of habeas corpus, detainee torture, the politically-motivated firings of U.S. attorneys, illegal domestic surveillance, the theory of the unitary executive and the unprecedented assertion of executive privilege all show a President committed to doing neither what is legal nor right. And then, of course, there's Iraq.

It's almost over, of course, but an extraordinary amount of damage has been done. And, with McCain running for what would be a third Bush term, or worse, there is the potential for much more damage to be done.

Americans would do well to remember what happened eight years ago -- and what was said eight years ago -- when they go to the polls this November to vote in one of the most important elections in their history.