The Democracy Index: An Interview With Law Professor Heather Gerken

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal. On January 1, 2007, Yale Law School professor Heather Gerken published a widely read article in the LegalTimes entitled, “How Does Your State Rank on The Democracy Index.” Gerken argued that just as the Environmental Performance Index (“EPI”) shamed countries such as Belgium to upgrade their environmental practices, a “Democracy Index” would embarrass state and localities into reforming their electoral administration through competition. Since Bush vs. Gore in 2000, the debate about electoral reform has been dominated by anecdotes and overheated abstractions. Liberals like me have long suspected that states such as Ohio and Florida were deliberately disenfranchising minority voters sympathetic to Democratic candidates. Conservatives complained that voter fraud and urban political machines were allowing ineligible voters to cast ballots at the expense of Republican candidates. With her article, Gerken contended that a Democracy Index would replace a debate dominated by shouting with data driven arguments instead: “This index should take what Ohio State University law professor Daniel Tokaji calls a ‘moneyball approach.’ The word ‘moneyball,’ of course, refers to Michael Lewis’ book of the same name about the success of the Oakland A’s after management substituted hard numbers and empirical research for the gut-level judgments of baseball scouts in making hiring decisions. Similarly, the Democracy Index could change the terms of the debate by giving voters something new: moneyball politics. It would offer cold, hard numbers and comparative data in place of atmospherics and anecdotes. It would provide bottom-line results in place of subjective judgments. It would let reformers talk like corporate executives, not starry-eyed idealists. And, most important, it would enable the voters to hold election officials accountable for their missteps. In the end, a ranking system would work for a simple reason: No one wants to be at the bottom of the list.” Gerken further described her Democracy Index proposal and identified the major obstacles to good election practices with her new book, The Democracy Index: Why Our Election System Is Failing and How To Fix It (Princeton University Press). Her book is an accessible 181 pages and postulates that we need more facts about our election practices and that a ranking metric is our best hope to facilitate accountability and reform. Gerken also contends that our broken electoral system has less to do with intended malice than “deferred maintenance,” a term typically applied to failed infrastructure such as broken bridges. Shortly after Gerken’s LegalTimes article was published, Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, put her concept into proposed legislation and within a year, Congress set aside $10 million to fund model data collection programs in five states and the Pew Center. Other foundations also sponsored conferences and initial research. On March 1, 2007, Obama referred to these initiatives on the Senate floor as, “an important first step toward improving the health of our democracy. We are all familiar with the problems that have recently plagued our elections: Long lines, lost ballots, voters improperly turned away from the polls. These are basic failures of process. Until we fix them, we run the risk in every election that we will once again experience the kind of chaos and uncertainty that paralyzed the nation in 2000. We can do better. We must do better. But to do better, we need more than anecdotal information. We need better, nonpartisan, objective information.” Hence, Gerken's efforts illustrated at least the potential for action from the body politic to facilitate electoral reform but obviously, more needs to be done. With respect to electoral law, Gerken is among the most authoritative voices in the country. In 2006, Gerken joined the Yale Law School faculty where she teaches election and constitutional law. Previously, Gerken clerked for Supreme Court Justice David Souter and was an assistant professor at Harvard Law School, where she was granted tenure and won the Sachs-Freund teaching award. She has also written for the New Republic, Roll Call, and Legal Affairs and has been a frequent media commentator. Gerken was among several commentators who appeared on Charlie Rose’s program the very evening the Supreme Court rendered its fateful decision in Bush vs. Gore. During the 2008 presidential election, Gerken served on Barack Obama’s election protection team. Gerken agreed to a podcast interview with me over the telephone about her book and proposal for a Democracy index. Our conversation was just over seventeen minutes and can be accessed via the flash media player below. This interview can also be accessed at no cost via the Itunes Store by searching for either “Intrepid Liberal Journal” or “Robert Ellman.”

Gloria Steinem, Activist

Los Angeles Times: Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes. But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie. Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

Hillary Sucks Up To Bloggers

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeThe first thing that shot though my mind when I saw Hillary take the stage was the color of her pant suit. I have never seen her in something so colorful and bold. The second thought was... "hmmm, that is Daily Kos orange." I think the coverage for this convention is better than any of recent elections, mainly because of the Big Tent bloggers. I am getting more nitty-gritty, more insight and better analysis than I am getting elsewhere. MSNBC is OK (better with Olbermann and Maddow). CNN is totally fucking unwatchable. Fox News is easier to watch than CNN and that is saying something. CNN can't claim it has the best "political team in television" while showing a picture of Larry King. It is an oxymoron. CNN's coverage is so bad, I keep hoping that Lou Dobbs would show up just so someone would say something off-script. One of my fav things to watch is the MSNBC crowd cheering when Maddow is introduced (and loudly disagreeing with Pat Buchannan on almost everything). Sooner or later, that crowd is gonna make Pat cry. Bloggers aren't at that point... yet.

Hillary’s Denver Death March

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlarge I have no problem with letting Hillary Clinton speak at the Denver convention - none at all. I was one of those people in 1992 chanting "Let Jerry Speak!" But Hillary's convention preview far past bordering on tenacity, it screams vanity. From the LA Times: "Because I know from just what I'm hearing that there's incredible pent-up desire, and I think that people want to feel like, 'OK, it's a catharsis, we're here, we did it, and then everybody get behind Sen. Obama.' That is what most people believe is the best way to go," she said. The former first lady did not rule out having her name placed into nomination at the convention, which will be held Aug. 25-28 in Denver. But her advisors said that was unlikely. Clinton, who suspended her White House bid on June 7 and endorsed Obama, is expected to deliver a prime-time address to delegates on the second night of the convention. There is not a damn thing that resembles an act of unity if Clinton allows her name to fall into nomination. It is divisive, arrogant and belligerent - that is how I have seen her entire campaign. Remember, Obama's delegates don't matter.

Obama needs an Orthopedist. Suggestions?

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeMy wife, an African American, was watching the delegates roll in for Barack Obama and she asked "can this really be happening, can this be for real? I guess so - typically Blacks struggle for everything." And struggle Barack did. He battled bullshit from all corners, including his own party. Even the candidate who now wants to be the VP accused him of being unfit to be Commander In Chief. Hillary Clinton deployed what is now called the "Kitchen Sink Strategy" and she deployed it constantly throughout the campaign. It may still be being deployed behind the scenes. Now he is battling the racist beliefs of Hillary's supporters like Harriet Christian (fitting name), "the Democrats are throwing the election away. And for what, an inadequate black male?" Or how about the Hillary supporter from West Virginia who claimed she had had enough of "Hussein." Personally I think Hillary not only threw every kitchen sink she could find at Obama, but she started heaving toilets (heavily soiled, unflushable, fully loaded, public toilets) at Obama and never let up. And still Obama won the nomination. But it ain't over yet. I am sure besides the kitchen sinks and clogged toilets, Hillary is also fully stocked with more goal posts. I hope Obama knows a good orthopedist. He still has some field goals to kick. SPECIAL REQUEST FOR TCD FANS: The San Francisco Chronicle is pondering the addition of new cartoons for their paper - a process that seems to be initiated by Darren Bell, creator of Candorville (one of my daily reads - highly recommended). You can read the Chronicle article here and please add your thoughts to the comments if you wish. If anything, put in a good word for Darren and Candorville. I am submitting Town Called Dobson to the paper for their consideration. They seem to have given great weight to receiving 200 messages considering Candorville. I am asking TCD fans to try to surpass that amount. (I get more than that many hate mails a day, surely fans can do better?) This is not a race between Darren and I, it is a hope that more progressive strips can be represented in the printed press of America. So if you read the San Francisco Chronicle or live in the Bay Area (Google Analytics tell me there are a lot of you), please send your kind comments (or naked, straining outrage) to David Wiegand at his published addresses below. If you are a subscriber, cut out your mailing label and staple it to a TCD strip and include it in your letter. candorcomment@sfchronicle.com or David Wiegand Executive Datebook Editor The San Francisco Chronicle 901 Mission St. San Francisco, CA 94103

Obama & the Orgasmic Orgy of Approval

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeThere are few times in my life where I hoped the mainstream media was right about their reporting. Last night and today, the Team Clinton seems to be packing up and getting ready to call it quits. Superdelegates are lining up to spew forth their support for Barack Obama all in one cascading, orgasmic orgy of approval. One can only hope. Damn, there goes that word "hope" again. But is my wanting Camp Clinton to finally concede hope or heightened desperation? How many millions of dollars has Obama wasted defending himself against Hillary Clinton since Super Tuesday? How much more traction has McCain received because of his free ride to June? I hope Clinton is not offered up as a VP choice. I really don't believe she can be trusted, especially after her backstabbing over Michigan. She promises one thing and then does another. I am frankly tired of that kind of politics. Sick of it, in fact. If she is the VP choice, what in the Hell will you do with Bill? I used to think Bill would be a good choice for Sec of State or some other position where he would excel at. Now I think, after his horrible performance this campaign season, Bill would do nothing but stab Obama in the back in an attempt to "set-up" Hillary to be President. Unlike Rev. James Cleveland, I do feel always tired. SPECIAL REQUEST FOR TCD FANS: The San Francisco Chronicle is pondering the addition of new cartoons for their paper - a process that seems to be initiated by Darren Bell, creator of Candorville (one of my daily reads - highly recommended). You can read the Chronicle article here and please add your thoughts to the comments if you wish. If anything, put in a good word for Darren and Candorville. I am submitting Town Called Dobson to the paper for their consideration. They seem to have given great weight to receiving 200 messages considering Candorville. I am asking TCD fans to try to surpass that amount. (I get more than that many hate mails a day, surely fans can do better?) This is not a race between Darren and I, it is a hope that more progressive strips can be represented in the printed press of America. So if you read the San Francisco Chronicle or live in the Bay Area (Google Analytics tell me there are a lot of you), please send your kind comments (or naked, straining outrage) to David Wiegand at his published addresses below. If you are a subscriber, cut out your mailing label and staple it to a TCD strip and include it in your letter. candorcomment@sfchronicle.com or David Wiegand Executive Datebook Editor The San Francisco Chronicle 901 Mission St. San Francisco, CA 94103

Brava Donna Brazile!

Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers' Alliance, and My Left Wing. For making a point I've been trying to make since Hillary began her heroic struggle for Michigan and Florida's suffrage. “My momma always taught me to play by the rules,” she said, adding that “when you decide to change the rules, especially middle of the game … that is referred to as cheating.” Ms. Brazile said fairness dictated that the committee should take into consideration Michigan voters who might have written in a candidate or stayed away from the polls on primary day thinking that their vote would not count. Thank you!! How exactly is fair to voters of either of those states that their primary was misrepresented to them? How many, who would have otherwise made the time to cast a primary ballot, did not because they were told it was pointless. Even Hillary said it wouldn't "count for anything." But, no. Those Michigan and Florida residents who assumed that rules were rules didn't know Hillary Clinton, and the joke's on them. Hillary Clinton is a study in disingenuousness; pleading for voters in Michigan and Florida not to be disenfranchised like the poor people in Zimbabwe, as she disregards the votes caucus participants in Iowa, Nevada, Maine, and Washington state, which don't provide vote totals as part of their usual process. She would also ignore the will of 40% of Michigan voters who showed up in a "meaningless" primary just to vote against her. Jonathan Alter explains: This does not include Iowa (where Obama first broke from the pack), Nevada (where Hillary won the popular vote narrowly), Maine (where Obama won easily) or Washington state (another strong Obama state). Why? Because these caucus states don't officially report their popular votes. But if we're going to truly count all the votes, official and nonofficial, as Hillary advocates, you can't very well not include caucus states. . . . Beyond not being official numbers, there's another problem with counting Michigan in these totals. Obama wasn't on the ballot there. You can say this was his own choice, but that doesn't change the fact that had he been on the Michigan ballot he would have received a lot of popular votes. How many? Try 238,168. That's the number of Michiganders who voted for "uncommitted." Were they possibly genuinely abstaining? Maybe a few hundred of them at most. The rest were clearly Obama supporters who launched a grass-roots campaign. Everyone in Michigan knew on January 15 that a vote for "uncommitted" was a vote for Obama. As of this writing, the matter seems settled. Florida will have its delegates seated with half a vote each. Michigan will as well, with Obama receiving the delegates for those intrepid "none of the above" voters. Hillary's minions, protesting outside, are right about one thing. It's not fair. It couldn't be, no matter how this debacle was laid to rest.

Stop Insulting The Soldiers!

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlarge The whole degrading of the word "elite" bothers me to no end. Leave it to politics to take something that is good and turn it into something bad. BushCo has been doing that for eight years now and I am just as sick of that crap coming for the alleged "left." My real problem with demonizing the word "elite" is, I believe, it is degrading to our men and women in uniform. They are the "elite fighting forces," "elite pilots," "best of the elite," and so on. And yes, we are talking about more than you Marines out there! ;-) I know it is all game play - all bluster and bullshit, but on a deep level it bugs the shit out of me. As some of you may know, I founded Books For Soldiers, a 501(c)(3) non-profit that sends books, DVDs and other care package items to any US Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine - for free of course. Troops can go to BooksForSoldiers.com and fill out the form and one of our volunteers will see if they have the book on their shelf and they will then pack it up and ship it off to the soldier. I got the idea back during the first Gulf war when friends of mine from college were sent off to Saudi Arabia. After the 4 day war, most were stuck in the desert for months on end with nothing to do. I rounded up all my sci-fi books that were collecting dust and then raided my civilian friend's book collections and sent them to an Army hospital in Riyadh where my military pals were stationed. They then handed out the books to the soldiers on the base. I was receiving letters from strangers a year later, thanking me for the books. They were a good break from the boredom. When the War On Terror started, I figured our troops would be home in a matter of weeks after Baghdad fell. I erroneously thought the Pentagon had an exit strategy and Books For Soldiers would be a nice six week project then on to something else. I knew I had to reach more people than I did during the first Gulf War - I just couldn't do it all myself. So I put together a self-serve website and BFS was born. Due to the cluster fuck now known as Iraq, BFS celebrated our 5th year anniversary this past Spring. The economy has been rough this year for charities. Local food banks are reducing services, women's shelters are closing - those 1000 Points Of Light that Bush Sr. proudly yapped about are being hit hard by the crushing economy. Financial contributions to BFS this year disappeared almost completely. I think the reason is partially because of the economy and the other part is the lack of MSM coverage of the war in Iraq. I can track rises and falls of traffic on BFS directly to the amount of coverage the war gets. When the statue of Saddam fell, traffic started to tank. By the next day we lost 90% of out traffic and it took almost a year to build back up to the initial level. Starting at the first of this year, BFS started a robust fundraising campaign here in North Carolina. We contacted small companies and some large companies you probably have heard of. To date, we have received a stack of letters that begin with "we deeply regret not being able to donate this year." From our corporate donation campaign we have received a tad under thirty dollars from a philanthropy grants group in Winston Salem, NC. That was it, nothing else. The BFS Board of Directors have discussed this problem for some time and have decided to have another go at fundraising. The Board set a goal of $70,000 to raise by November 1st of this year. If that amount is not raised, the site will close on December 31st, 2008. If we cannot make the fundraising target, the Board will seek to sell the site to another qualified 501(c)(3) or close. We would also stop accepting new books requests from soldiers on December 1st, 2008. Below are some ways of how you can help 1) Office party fundraiser - Coordinate a "Save BFS Day" at work and urge, beg, cajole your co-workers into coughing up something for BFS. 2) Have your company cough up some cash. We will send your company a formal donation request, just send us the company name, contact name and address and we will get it out right away. Send these requests to me personally (storm@booksforsoldiers.com). 3) Have your place of worship pass the plate (hat, kippah, whatever) for BFS. Consult with your church's leader about holding a "Save BFS Offering" one day this month. Checks should be made out to "Books For Soldiers." If they have any questions or concerns, please contact me directly to set up a call. 4) Visit our donation page and give what you can. http://booksforsoldiers.com/donate.php or by check Books For Soldiers 2008 Fund Drive 353 Jonestown Rd #123 Winston Salem, NC 27104

Stealing Edwards’ Delegates

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeI was somewhat shocked with the attitudes of some Hillary supporters after the Edwards endorsement, especially those swearing they will still vote for Hillary even if she is not on the ballot. Yeah, it is their right, but I am unsure if they were really Democrats to start off with. For example, I was one of those lunatic Gore supporters, hoping against hope (insert Obama pun here) that he would get into the race. That didn't happen. Then I was supporting Kucinich because he and I are both staunchly anti-war. That relationship didn't last long. I then landed in the Edwards camp and winced when he dropped out before Super Tuesday. I think if he had stayed in, the primary would have been VERY over at Super Tuesday, not because he would have won, but I have always felt he drew votes away from Hillary and made Obama look stronger and making it easier for Obama to pile on more delegates. When the final tally of votes came in for West Virginia, I think I was proven right as Edwards still garnered 7% of the vote and he wasn't even running. Edwards connects deeply with the blue collar worker - the biggest boast of Camp Clinton these days. So now I am in the Obama camp and hoping he wins the Presidency. However, if Hillary wins the nomination, I will vote for her - no problem. So, am I a good Democrat or just a shill for the Democratic Party? Neither really, I am an independent voter who wants a progressive government.As an independent, am I a better Democrat than the Hillary sycophants? I don't know. But I do know total candidate allegiance is not good for democracy. SPECIAL REQUEST FOR TCD FANS: The San Francisco Chronicle is pondering the addition of new cartoons for their paper - a process that seems to be initiated by Darren Bell, creator of Candorville (one of my daily reads - highly recommended). You can read the Chronicle article here and please add your thoughts to the comments if you wish. If anything, put in a good word for Darren and Candorville. I am submitting Town Called Dobson to the paper for their consideration. They seem to have given great weight to receiving 200 messages considering Candorville. I am asking TCD fans to try to surpass that amount. (I get more than that many hate mails a day, surely fans can do better?) This is not a race between Darren and I, it is a hope that more progressive strips can be represented in the printed press of America. So if you read the San Francisco Chronicle or live in the Bay Area (Google Analytics tell me there are a lot of you), please send your kind comments (or naked, straining outrage) to David Wiegand at his published addresses below. If you are a subscriber, cut out your mailing label and staple it to a TCD strip and include it in your letter. candorcomment@sfchronicle.com or David Wiegand Executive Datebook Editor The San Francisco Chronicle 901 Mission St. San Francisco, CA 94103

Hillary is the Real McCain… er McCoy

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlarge The outcome of the West Virginia Primary shows something I have suspected all along - Hillary Clinton has more in common with neo-con beliefs than she does with progressive ideas. Exit polls showed that 67% of those who voted for Hillary will vote for McCain if Obama wins the nomination. Some people say that is because racism is rife in West Virginia. When I lived there, it sure as hell was. But now? Every time I am back in the Mountain State to visit family, the same old racism still exists. You know, the kind of racism Hillary has been playing to since she started her campaign. But I think the root cause of the willingness of Hillary supporters to vote for McCain is because Hillary is more closely aligned philosophically with McCain than she is with Obama and when she enters a contest like West Virginia, the effect is amplified. If West Virginia's main concern is the economy, why are they choosing a neo-con? I wish I knew. West Virginia has, on occasion before, defied logic and common sense. SPECIAL REQUEST FOR TCD FANS: The San Francisco Chronicle is pondering the addition of new cartoons for their paper - a process that seems to be initiated by Darren Bell, creator of Candorville (one of my daily reads - highly recommended). You can read the Chronicle article here and please add your thoughts to the comments if you wish. If anything, put in a good word for Darren and Candorville. I am submitting Town Called Dobson to the paper for their consideration. They seem to have given great weight to receiving 200 messages considering Candorville. I am asking TCD fans to try to surpass that amount. (I get more than that many hate mails a day, surely fans can do better?) This is not a race between Darren and I, it is a hope that more progressive strips can be represented in the printed press of America. So if you read the San Francisco Chronicle or live in the Bay Area (Google Analytics tell me there are a lot of you), please send your kind comments (or naked, straining outrage) to David Wiegand at his published addresses below. If you are a subscriber, cut out your mailing label and staple it to a TCD strip and include it in your letter. candorcomment@sfchronicle.com or David Wiegand Executive Datebook Editor The San Francisco Chronicle 901 Mission St. San Francisco, CA 94103

What Hillary’s Umbrella Is Protecting

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeToday's commentary is light because it is my birthday and I am relaxing today! w00t! Anyway, a tiny bit of commentary I guess. Hillary's nuclear umbrella bothers me. What are we protecting besides oil with her umbrella? Dictatorial societies and cultures that are repressive to women, unfriendly towards the west and loves to kill Jews. I am not sure protecting Sharia Law and Wahhabism is a good mission for our soldiers to die over. SPECIAL REQUEST FOR TCD FANS: The San Francisco Chronicle is pondering the addition of new cartoons for their paper - a process that seems to be initiated by Darren Bell, creator of Candorville (one of my daily reads - highly recommended). You can read the Chronicle article here and please add your thoughts to the comments if you wish. If anything, put in a good word for Darren and Candorville. I am submitting Town Called Dobson to the paper for their consideration. They seem to have given great weight to receiving 200 messages considering Candorville. I am asking TCD fans to try to surpass that amount. (I get more than that many hate mails a day, surely fans can do better?) This is not a race between Darren and I, it is a hope that more progressive strips can be represented in the printed press of America. So if you read the San Francisco Chronicle or live in the Bay Area (Google Analytics tell me there are a lot of you), please send your kind comments (or naked, straining outrage) to David Wiegand at his published addresses below. If you are a subscriber, cut out your mailing label and staple it to a TCD strip and include it in your letter. candorcomment@sfchronicle.com or David Wiegand Executive Datebook Editor The San Francisco Chronicle 901 Mission St. San Francisco, CA 94103

The Vast Clinton Conspiracy

Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers' Alliance, and My Left Wing. "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." -- Friedrich Nietzsche Any residual sympathy I had for the Clintons as targets of the "vast right wing conspiracy" was expended in the umpteenth chapter of "The Endless Saga of the Eternal Primary." This because team Clinton insists on borrowing heavily from the very playbook they so famously decried. The tactics should be familiar to those who've watched the machinations of that very VRWC: insinuations of guilt by association, reliance on the media of the right wing noise machine, faux populism and disingenuous charges of elitism, and, of course, blatant distortions of reality. With a self-righteous arrogance befitting the Bushes, it seems the Clintons are operating from the belief that it's only wrong when other people do it. And in their Bush-league hypocrisy, the charges of motes they hurl only make them seem totally oblivious to the many beams in their own eyes. Witness their exploitation of the Ayers red herring. As per Clinton biographer Carl Bernstein: Which raises the question: Is the Clinton campaign's emphasis on the Ayers-Obama connection significantly different or less spurious than the familiar (McCarthyite?) smears against Hillary, particularly those promulgated and disseminated by the forces she labeled "the vast right-wing conspiracy" in the 1990s? Like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton has (at least so far as this reporter and biographer has been able to determine) consistently rejected the ideological rigidity of the radical Left and -- especially -- the notion of revolutionary violence as a means of political change in contemporary America, despite claims to the contrary by the VRWC. Like Obama -- and John McCain for that matter -- she has valued her friendships with individuals who figured in the Left-wing and anti-war movements of the 60s and Vietnam era. And like Obama and McCain, she has never wavered from her belief and faith in establishment politics, within the two-party system. As Bernstein explains Hillary has carefully expunged much of her own idealistic interest in radical politics -- such as the Black Panthers trial -- from public accounts; even going so far as to bury her thesis on Saul Alinsky in unobtainable Wellesley archives. Yet her campaign has attempted to leverage Obama's even more tenuous link to radicalism. Notes Bernstein, with dismay: One of Hillary Clinton's most winning attributes -- and Bill Clinton's too -- has always been their understanding of the complexity of American politics, and the danger of ideological demagoguery (witness their fight against the "vast right-wing conspiracy" and excesses). The resort by Hillary and her campaign to guilt-by-association--of which the Bill Ayers allegations are but one example: see Louis Farrakhan, or a comparatively-obscure African-American writer and perhaps -- communist party member named Frank Marshal Dixon, whom Obama knew in high school in Hawaii -- is, even for some of her most steadfast advocates, particularly dismaying. Like Gov. Bill Richardson and Senator Christopher Dodd, among others who have abandoned the Clintons, many old Clinton hands had hoped, judging from Hillary's triumphant and collegial senate years, that she -- and Bill -- had left behind such tactics when the Clinton Presidency ended in 2001 and the Right-wing threat to the Clintons' tenure in the White House had abated. "The sad irony," noted Jonathan Alter in Newsweek, "is that these are the same [guilt-by-association] attacks used against her husband in the elections of the 1990s. The GOP tried to destroy Bill Clinton for his relationships (much closer than Obama's tangential connections) with Arkansas crooks, sleazy fund-raisers and unsavory women... But, alas, no bit of Republican-style chicanery is too loathsome for the desperate Clintons to embrace. And, as this blogger was particularly dismayed to learn, a key architect of their new attack machinery is none other than Sidney Blumenthal. Former journalist Sidney Blumenthal has been widely credited with coining the term "vast right-wing conspiracy" used by Hillary Clinton in 1998 to describe the alliance of conservative media, think tanks, and political operatives that sought to destroy the Clinton White House where he worked as a high-level aide. A decade later, and now acting as a senior campaign advisor to Senator Clinton, Blumenthal is exploiting that same right-wing network to attack and discredit Barack Obama. And he's not hesitating to use the same sort of guilt-by-association tactics that have been the hallmark of the political right dating back to the McCarthy era. Almost every day over the past six months, I have been the recipient of an email that attacks Obama's character, political views, electability, and real or manufactured associations. The original source of many of these hit pieces are virulent and sometimes extreme right-wing websites, bloggers, and publications. But they aren't being emailed out from some fringe right-wing group that somehow managed to get my email address. Instead, it is Sidney Blumenthal who, on a regular basis, methodically dispatches these email mudballs to an influential list of opinion shapers -- including journalists, former Clinton administration officials, academics, policy entrepreneurs, and think tankers -- in what is an obvious attempt to create an echo chamber that reverberates among talk shows, columnists, and Democratic Party funders and activists. One of the recipients of the Blumenthal email blast, himself a Clinton supporter, forwards the material to me and perhaps to others. . . . But, rather remarkably for such a self-professed liberal operative like Blumenthal, a staggering number of the anti-Obama attacks he circulates derive from highly-ideological and militant right-wing sources such as the misnamed Accuracy in Media (AIM), The Weekly Standard, City Journal, The American Conservative, and The National Review. To cite just one recent example, Blumenthal circulated an article taken from the fervently hard-right AIM website on February 18 entitled, "Obama's Communist Mentor" by Cliff Kincaid. Kincaid is a right-wing writer and activist, a longtime critic of the United Nations, whose group, America's Survival, has been funded by foundations controlled by conservative financier Richard Mellon Scaife, the same millionaire who helped fund attacks on the Clintons during their White House years. Scaife also funds AIM, the right-wing media "watchdog" group. Suddenly, Hillary's endorsement in longtime foe Mellon Scaife's paper seems not so terribly surprising. Any reader of David Brock's "Blinded By The Right" will recognize, in Blumenthal's modus operandi, the familiar tactic of force-feeding propaganda from far right venues to more mainstream sources, and into the established media narrative. After years of defending against this very tactic, he seems to have learned it well. Some Clinton supporters who also knew about Ayers have been discreetly trying to catapult the story out of the right-wing sandbox into the wider mainstream media. On April 9, Fox News' Sean Hannity interviewed fellow right-winger Karl Rove, who raised the Ayers-Obama connection. The next day, ABC News reporter Jake Tapper wrote about Ayers in his Political Punch blog. The following week, on his radio show, Hannity suggested to his guest, George Stephanopoulos, that he ask Obama about his relationship with Ayers at the upcoming Philadelphia presidential debate. Stephanopoulos, who was Bill Clinton's press secretary, replied, "Well, I'm taking notes." The following night during the April 16 nationally televised Presidential debate, Stephanopoulos dutifully asked Obama about Ayers, who is now a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Possibly more insulting is watching the Clintons turn to that mainstay of Republican politics: making fun of pointy-headed intellectuals. Is there anything more disingenuous than the obviously well-heeled pol insisting that it's the other guy who's part of the elite? In the annals of sheer audacity, I never thought anything could top the mind melting hypocrisy of the scion of one of the wealthiest, most insulated families in the world -- an alumnus of both Yale and Harvard -- convincing blue collar voters that he was just plain folk. Okay, Dubya still wins the prize on the faux populism scale. But there also, Hillary refuses to be outdone. Exploiting for all it's worth, Obama's "bitter" faux pas, she has once again joined forces with the Republican competition. This time to paint the black son of a struggling single mother as an "elitist," and her Wellesley and Yale educated self, as someone who couldn't tell arugula from iceberg lettuce. In her latest triangulation two-step, Clinton has partnered with McCain on an all out assault on voter intelligence, with the shamelessly pandering "gas tax holiday." To drive the point home, this woman, whom the Secret Service has protected from all concerns automotive since 1992, set out on her own blue collar comedy tour of gas station photo-op destinations. Would you want to have a cup of coffee with this woman?

Hillary Clinton: Unfuckingbelievable!

Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers' Alliance, and My Left Wing. It's no secret that I hate Hillary. And everyday she gives me another reason. Her everything but the kitchen sink strategy continues and accelerates and now she's lobbed a toaster at Obama's head for stating the obvious. "You have a real choice in this election. Either Democrat would be better than John McCain. And all three of us would be better than George Bush," Obama said. Says Hillary: "We need a nominee who will take on John McCain, not cheer on John McCain, and I will be that nominee," she said. Let me get in my time machine and go back a whole month and half. Hillary Clinton told reporters that both she and the presumtive Republican nominee John McCain offer the experience to be ready to tackle any crisis facing the country under their watch, but Barack Obama simply offers more rhetoric. “I think you'll be able to imagine many things Senator McCain will be able to say,” she said. “He’s never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002.” Oh my gods and goddess. The woman will say anything. No matter how completely unmoored from reality and reason it may be, she will say anything to win. Much like Bush, little things like recently recorded history will not get in the way of her narrative. That's why her Bosnian fish story stuck in many a craw; because that kind of revisionism is par for the course with this woman. In other news Michael Moore dissed Hillary, saying: Well, that sounded good last year, but over the past two months, the actions and words of Hillary Clinton have gone from being merely disappointing to downright disgusting. I guess the debate last week was the final straw. I've watched Senator Clinton and her husband play this game of appealing to the worst side of white people, but last Wednesday, when she hurled the name "Farrakhan" out of nowhere, well that's when the silly season came to an early end for me. She said the "F" word to scare white people, pure and simple. Of course, Obama has no connection to Farrakhan. But, according to Senator Clinton, Obama's pastor does -- AND the "church bulletin" once included a Los Angeles Times op-ed from some guy with Hamas! No, not the church bulletin! This sleazy attempt to smear Obama was brilliantly explained the following night by Stephen Colbert. He pointed out that if Obama is supported by Ted Kennedy, who is Catholic, and the Catholic Church is led by a Pope who was in the Hitler Youth, that can mean only one thing: OBAMA LOVES HITLER! Yes, Senator Clinton, that's how you sounded. Like you were nuts. Like you were a bigot stoking the fires of stupidity. How sad that I would ever have to write those words about you. You have devoted your life to good causes and good deeds. And now to throw it all away for an office you can't win unless you smear the black man so much that the superdelegates cry "Uncle (Tom)" and give it all to you. A-fucking-men! Moore sadly notes that he could not cast his vote for Obama, because like Floridians, Michigan residents were excluded by party rules from a real primary. What he does not say, is that he could have voted for Hillary and that if she has her way, that vote would count. To shrink Obama's 800,000 popular-vote margin, the Clinton campaign argues for the inclusion of votes cast in Michigan and Florida. Those two states lost their right to send delegates to the convention by scheduling their contests earlier in the year than party rules allowed. Clinton and Obama agreed not to campaign in the two states, and Obama took his name off the ballot in Michigan. Clinton won both uncontested races, and now says they should count in the nationwide popular-vote calculations. Florida voters ``expressed their views,'' Clinton told the Newspaper Association of America in Washington on April 15. ``They have had their vote certified by the Florida secretary of state; it's part of the popular vote.'' That's what we're dealing with, in Hillary Clinton. A woman who thinks it's perfectly fair to include the results of an uncontested primary into the tally. A woman who just makes up the rules -- and the facts -- as she goes along. Unfuckingbelievable.

I'm A Member of Moveon.org & A Terrible Bowler

The topic below was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal. As many of you know by now, The Huffington Post reported yesterday that Senator Clinton slammed the activist organization Moveon.org at a fundraiser in February: “Moveon.org endorsed [Sen. Barack Obama] -- which is like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down," Clinton said to a meeting of donors. "We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn't even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that's what we're dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of our positions, and it's primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don't agree with them. They know I don't agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me." You can read their entire post by clicking here where audio of Senator Clinton’s remarks is also provided. I’m hardly the first blogger to post about this and surely won’t be the last. Many across the progressive blogosphere venting about Clinton’s rhetorical cluster bomb against the Democratic Party’s activist base are far more articulate than me. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to hit back on behalf of this movement I proudly call my own. I first became aware of Moveon.org when they stood up for the Constitution and supported censure over impeachment during the Monica Lewinsky scandal a decade ago. I was delighted such a movement sprang from the toxic bile of Ken Starr’s witch-hunt. Do you remember Senator Clinton how we advocated for censure as a means of “moving on”? We were your allies against the racist and misogynist “right wing conspiracy” represented by Richard Mellon Scaife that you now sit down with to exploit racial divisions. So to paraphrase James Carville, attacking us is “an act of betrayal” that resembles Judas. Anyway, that was the beginning of the netroots movement. After 9/11 Moveon.org was an oasis in a dessert of reactionary enablers that included Hillary Clinton in the lead up to the Iraq War. Sadly, Clinton even echoed the administration’s lies about connections between Saddam Hussein and al quaeda! Not only did Clinton fail to read contrary arguments about weapons of mass destruction in the mere ninety page National Intelligence Estimate, she also on the Senate floor said this on October 10, 2002: “He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001.” Well, nice that Clinton said “apparently no evidence’ about Saddman and 9/11 but she implied there might be and the rest of the statement was an outright lie. Yet the only contrition Clinton expressed for years was “if I only knew then what I know now” while her Senate colleagues from 2002 Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, John Edwards and John Kerry eventually redeemed themselves for their transgressions by honestly acknowledging their mistakes. Clinton couldn’t even do that until recently and yes that angered Moveon.org members like me. Furthermore, Clinton lied about Moveon’s “opposition” to Afghanistan. Indeed she was echoing Karl Rove propaganda about the Democrats and Afghanistan. There was no organized opposition to America’s response in Afghanistan by Moveon.org. Speaking for myself, I knew there had to be a military response to 9/11 but for damn sure I didn’t trust the Bush Administration to do it skillfully and retain the international community’s good will. And yes I worried about the loss of innocent life, largely women and children, who would lose their lives while nothing was accomplished. Sadly, that is what has come to pass. Moveon.org members are my brothers and sisters. Fellow patriots and activists mobilized to reverse America’s homicidal/suicidal foreign policy and grotesque erosion of civil liberties. They represent the core of the people powered social networking netroots movement determined to make America the best America it can be. It’s rather like a large extended virtual family that has moved beyond Moveon.org and is really a decentralized community. We coordinate to raise money, phone bank and canvass on behalf of causes larger than ourselves. Like all families, individual members of Moveon.org and the netroots as a whole don’t always agree about tactics or which candidates to support. For example, I didn’t think the “Betraus” ad last fall was very smart. Previously, I had intense email debates with other bloggers about my support for John Edwards. I had posted a heartfelt endorsement of Edwards and some Obama supporters I enjoyed email correspondences with over the years hit me hard. On the bigger picture though we’re on the same side even as squabbles happen over how to best achieve the objectives we share. Once Edwards dropped out I put my disappointment aside because I sensed Obama’s candidacy better represented the sensibilities of this movement I’m a part of than Clinton. I also hunger for our netroots movement to achieve critical mass beyond white liberal computer literate activists to better combine with organized labor and more effectively fight on behalf of wage earners. We're making substantial progress in that direction as the movement has grown so fast. And yet not fast enough. Hence, it’s easy to become frustrated. But Moveon’s movement is my movement and I’m in it for the long haul no matter what happens in 2008. The netroots people powered movement is fighting to take the Democratic Party from predatory moneylenders, warmongers and corporatists and push our country towards progressive reform. A tough ongoing struggle waged against powerful interests. These interests include the incestuous relationship between the corporate media and the military industrial complex as exists between NBC and General Electric. And if you think the recent performance of moderators Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous during the Clinton/Obama debate and the perverse reactionary values of ABC’s parent company Walt Disney are a coincidence, I have bridge in my hometown of Brooklyn I’d like to sell you. Senator Clinton’s whining about activists like myself who are informed, passionate and motivated to fight the madness that war mongering enablers like her supported is quite revealing. Her whining about funds raised online “like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down," is even more revealing. Clinton receives contributions by the banks and credit card companies “like a gusher” and supported predatory bankruptcy legislation in 2001. Big money contributors that support Senator Clinton benefit from laws that destroy the lives of families on the financial abyss whenever a loved one suffers from an expensive medical calamity. Moveon.org’s money doesn’t come from insurance companies, HMOs, Halliburton, Bechtel, BlackWater USA, K-Street lobbyists, banks, credit card companies or other war mongering corporatist predators. Hence, this “gusher of money” is beyond the comprehension of Clinton and Washington insiders such as James Carville. This money comes from regular folks giving what they can even as we too struggle with our groceries bill, energy costs and mortgages. Yet they call us elitists? There is also the lie about our “intimidating” her supporters at caucuses. Listen up: I subscribe to something Howard Dean has said many times, that it would be far better for this country to have 100% voter turnout even if Republicans win. I’ve registered all kinds of people to vote who don’t share my beliefs and so have many dedicated activists who also belong to Moveon.org and make our voices heard in the progressive blogosphere. I don’t own a gun or attend religious services. Nor do I wear a flag pin. Neither does military veteran and Virginia Senator James Webb. I’m also not a good bowler. Admittedly, I am “bitter” about the direction of my country. But I’m as good an American as you are Senator Clinton. And yes I’m a member of Moveon.org and will give another $25 to Senator Obama today. Anyone care to join me and help raise money like a gusher? If so, click here.

Charlie Gibson's Debate: 4 Cartoons

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeI watched last night's "debate" with horror. As you probably know by now, nearly the entire first hour was taken up by bullshit questions about lapel pins, bitterness, Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers nonsense. But they did manage to carve out a minute from their televised circus to discuss gas prices for sixty seconds. I would have rather listened to a real discussion on the horrible treatment of vets, the economic crisis, China's human rights record, trade deals, h1B visas, renewable energy, the tap on my phone, the plummeting dollar and a solution to health care just to name a few. Anyway, I didn't know which strip to choose, so I am publishing them all. You get to decide which is best.

If wishes were ponies...

Originally posted at Howard-Empowered People Via Oliver Willis, I found this post on Salon.com. I recommend going to Oliver's site for the commentary, but you don't want to miss the title of the pro-Hillary piece in Salon. It's classic Hillary-think: Why Hillary Clinton should be winning You see, while Hillary is not actually winning, she really should be. But reality is well-known for having a pro-Obama bias. And the subhead reads: Under a winner-take-all primary system, Hillary Clinton would have a wide lead over Barack Obama -- and enough delegates to clinch the nomination by June. As Oliver points out, "If Senator Clinton wished to run for the nomination of a party with a winner-take-all nomination process, she would be well within her legal rights to do so - she simply needed to have changed her party affiliation to Republican." Well, yeah. And actually, Demetrius told me a while back that he saw Paul Begala on some cable news show saying the Democrats should have a winner-take-all system like the Republicans, because it has "built-in momentum" or some such. Wouldn't that be rather, well, "undemocratic"? Especially coming from someone associated with Hillary, who is currently presenting herself as would-be champion of the downtodden, disenfranchised voters in Florida and Michigan. I also saw this earlier today, via Pho's Akron Pages. Part of the plea Hillary is currently sending out to her mailing list With 14 days to go until the people of Pennsylvania vote, the Obama campaign has decided to go all-out. They're trying to end the race for the White House with an unyielding media blitz. Right now, we're being outspent 4-1 on Pennsylvania television. So now, here's what we have to ask ourselves: Have we come this far in our history-making contest for the Democratic nomination only to see the race decided not by the quality of our ideas but by the size of our opponent's media budget? Maybe I'm misremembering this, but isn't that how Hillary was planning to win the nomination? By crushing any and all challengers under the weight of her mighty campaign war chest? But, I do understand. What it comes down to is that Hillary Clinton really really wants to be president. She wants it so much that she seems unable to even consider the possibility that it won't happen. I am reminded of a moms' group I attended when Son and Daughter in Ohio were much younger. One of the other mothers was asking how to respond to her little one's meltdown over being denied something s/he desperately wanted. Like maybe the child wanted a pony, but couldn't have one. The group leader suggested saying something like, "You wish you could have a pony." When I first heard that suggestion, I couldn't help laughing, because it sounded like sarcasm to me. "You wish!" But I learned to say it in a way that didn't feel that way to me. "You really wish you could have..." It was kind of Rogerian, actually. A way of acknowledging kids' feelings and making sure they know they've been heard...even if the answer is still "no". I'm glad I had some good role models to teach me the importance of showing empathy toward toddlers and preschoolers. The "you can't always get what you want" lesson is a tough one for little kids, and they deserve our compassion as they are learning it. But when we're talking about 60 year old senators, my patience and compassion wear a bit thin... Here's your pony, Hillary. Now get out of the damn race!

Some Things I've Had to Accept (Or: Today I Agreed with Peggy Noonan)

Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers' Alliance, and My Left Wing. It's a bitter pill, but I have to admit that Nooner has offered some pretty stunning insight into the psyche and motivations of one Hillary Rodham Clinton. I think we've reached a signal point in the campaign. This is the point where, with Hillary Clinton, either you get it or you don't. There's no dodging now. You either understand the problem with her candidacy, or you don't. You either understand who she is, or not. And if you don't, after 16 years of watching Clintonian dramas, you probably never will. . . . What, really, is Mrs. Clinton doing? She is having the worst case of cognitive dissonance in the history of modern politics. She cannot come up with a credible, realistic path to the nomination. She can't trace the line from "this moment's difficulties" to "my triumphant end." But she cannot admit to herself that she can lose. Because Clintons don't lose. She can't figure out how to win, and she can't accept the idea of not winning. She cannot accept that this nobody from nowhere could have beaten her, quietly and silently, every day. (She cannot accept that she still doesn't know how he did it!) She is concussed. But she is a scrapper, a fighter, and she's doing what she knows how to do: scrap and fight. Only harder. So that she ups the ante every day. She helped Ireland achieve peace. She tried to stop Nafta. She's been a leader for 35 years. She landed in Bosnia under siege and bravely dodged bullets. It was as if she'd watched the movie "Wag the Dog," with its fake footage of a terrified refugee woman running frantically from mortar fire, and found it not a cautionary tale about manipulation and politics, but an inspiration. So what is it that I am struggling to accept? (Sigh) That the Clintons are a lot more like George W. Bush than I am comfortable considering. Recently, I read a piece by Andrew Sullivan, that felt a little like a blast from the past; the Clinton years, I mean. But, his over-the-top comparison of the Clintons to a horror movie seems less like vicious hyperbole to me now. Well no more than the average lefty rant about Bushco. The Clintons have always had a touch of the zombies about them: unkillable, they move relentlessly forward, propelled by a bloodlust for Republicans or uppity Democrats who dare to question their supremacy. You can't escape; you can't hide; and you can't win. And these days, in the kinetic pace of the YouTube campaign, they are like the new 28 Days Later zombies. They come at you really quickly, like bats out of hell. Or Ohio, anyway. Now all this may seem a little melodramatic. Perhaps it is. Objectively, an accomplished senator won a couple of races - one by a mere 3% - against another senator in a presidential campaign. One senator is still mathematically unbeatable. But that will never capture the emotional toll that the Clintons continue to take on some of us. I'm not kidding. I woke up in a cold sweat early last Wednesday. There have been moments this past week when I have felt physically ill at the thought of that pair returning to power. And, I kid you not: So have I. My colleague in blogtopia,* Arthur Gilroy, no doubt counts me among the "kneejerk Hillary bashers," but there was nothing kneejerk about it. My loathing of Hillary took years to develop and was cultivated by one assault on small "d" democracy, and any semblance of good taste, after another. Even her odious vote to authorize war in Iraq was not enough. She was, after all, in the good company of most of the Democrats in Congress. Sure it made me leave the party, but it did not make me single out our Hillary for special contempt. No, that was the death of a thousand cuts. So how did this two-time voter for President Clinton and one time "Hillary for Senate" enthusiast come to find common ground with the "vast right wing conspiracy," in unabashed loathing for this potential first woman President of these United States? As Arthur would say, read on, if you dare. My first inkling that there was something distinctly "wrong" with Hillary, above and beyond the rank and file Dem sell-out, came when I learned of a nasty maneuver in her Senate re-election bid. If you doubt that the US is devolving into an oligarchy where powerful corporations and other moneyed interests control the political process, look no further than New York state. There, an unholy alliance between Hillary Clinton and TimeWarner has seized control of the electoral process by taking away the microphone of her opposition. . . . Because at another outpost of the Time Warner empire, decisions have been made that help ensure Sen. Clinton will have "virtually nonexistent opposition." Time Warner's NY1 TV news channel ("the CNN of New York")adamantly refuses to host a Democratic New York Senate debate. Despite protests over its decision, NY1 says it is giving incumbent Clinton a no-debate free pass because her antiwar challenger, union leader Jonathan Tasini, has not raised enough money; the channel arbitrarily set the bar at a half-million dollars. This despite the fact that Tasini has reached 13% in polls. . . . And there you have it. Hillary is the TimeWarner candidate, not the people's. And, in a bout of unintentional honesty, TimeWarner has admitted what it thinks elections are about: Money. Yes, it was a stomach-turningly Rovian maneuver; one of Hillary's major donors cutting the mic on her only competition. So, I was less than surprised when she moved to silence other presidential candidates this election season. And today, I find myself unable to gaff off Peggy Noonan's assertion that the Clintons bully the press, in a manner that must surely do the micro-managing press-Nazi Karen Hughes proud. Over the last couple of years, I have written more than a little on Hillary's image-by-committee, her palpable disingenuousness, her bullying; cataloging my growing dislike. But her tactics in what has turned out to be a very competitive primary have pushed me over the edge into vehement disgust. Even more disheartening I am being forced to reassess a former President I quite liked; her husband Bill. I always thought Bill was treated unfairly by the press... and by the vast right wing conspiracy. I stand by that assessment. If I had been forced to endure one more special news report on the President's penis, during his term in office, I probably would have stroked out. A witch hunt it was. But as "the first black President" has lapsed into subtle race-baiting and McCarthyesque insinuations about Obama's patriotism, I have had to consider the possibility that he did a little more than indulge sexual compulsions to earn the extreme ire of some of his detractors. While I have never had any illusions about the wages of triangulation, and other tilts to the right, we endured during the Clinton years, I always gave him props for ameliorating some of the damage that could have been caused by the Gingrich Revolution. (Goodness knows, we have had a good, hard look at how bad free market fundamentalism run amok is for the country, under the current misadministration.) So even if Clinton's domestic policy was somewhere to the right of Nixon, he was to the left of Bush... and that's not nothin.' Bottom line: I found him likable; thought him earnest; considered him, overall, a good President. But his adventures in slime politics during his wife's run, have soured me but good. I've had a glimpse, seen a tiny glimmer, of the man the right wing hated with such passion. Good googly moogly, there really is "a character issue." Whoda thunk it? I can simply no longer consider the Clintons the hapless victims of a cabal of right wing loons. Loons, though they may be, I now understand a bit of the disgust and frustration that arises from witnessing their relentless battle against reality. I must even consider the possibility that Sully is not blowing smoke when he says that the Clintons dragged out the Whitewater investigation by being secretive and evasive. I say this not because I had then or have now the stomach to rifle through the arcane details of a land deal gone awry, but because I've witnessed, in her run for the presidency, the stunning contortions Hillary goes through to avoid acknowledging error and telling simple truths. I've had a little glimpse of the woman behind the curtain, and a bungling, but affable wizard, she is not. Hence, I was not surprised, though I was aghast, at the most recent eruptions of ugliness from the Hillary campaign. I speak of the Sopranosesque threat from her donors to Nancy Pelosi and her blatant lying about her adventures in Bosnia. Yes, Bosnia; a fish tale told by yet another chicken-hawk wannabe whose lack of military cred she tried to parlay into feats of daring do. Can a flight suit and "Mission Accomplished" banner be far behind? And even faced with incontrovertible, videotape evidence, she refuses to shrink that fish back down to its actual size. So, yes, Ms. Noonan, I get it. The Clintons are almost as polarizing as the Bush regime that followed them into the White House. I have now spent seven plus years on the other side of that funhouse mirror. Not for the first time, I've had to address the curious parallel between my rabid disgust for an Administration trafficking in epic distortions of reality and my counterparts on the right side of the aisle, who experienced similar angst during the previous eight. There is far greater symmetry than I ever wanted to admit. As a matter of degree, the Bush years have been far worse. The toll on the economy, the military, the country as a whole, has been far greater than those endured by the worst Clintonian excesses. But, I admit to my chagrin, the Clinton presidency also greased the wheels but good. As I look forward, the thought of enduring still more Bush Republican-lite, is almost as unbearable of the 4 more years of Bush reign a McCain presidency would almost certainly ensure. That politicians lie is not news. That they disappoint is a near certainty. But what we have endured for nearly 16 years borders on the surreal. Not one, but two, administrations fraught with the worst kind of lies and vitriol, volleying back and forth across a political and ideological divide. And as Hillary marshals on, against the blatant reality of delegate math, threatening to upend the will of the voter, if need be, to ensure her ambition, the déjà vu is simply more than I can stand. * Yes, skippy coined the phrase.

Here is the church...

Originally posted at Howard-Empowered People The latest from Hillary Clinton... "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend." (Shakes head) Oh, Hillary, what are we going to do with you? You have been saying for months that you're "ready on day one". But, you remember that saying about how "everything I needed to know, I learned in kindergarten"? I think maybe you were absent for a pretty important lesson... Here is the church, and here is the steeple Open the door and see all the people. All the people, Hillary. Not just the pastor. Setting aside for a moment the concepts of forgiveness and redemption, and, oh, I don't know, choosing to stay with someone who's made a mistake of some sort, disagreeing with one's pastor is not necessarily reason enough to leave one's church home. As Deborah Brown said at Street Prophets yesterday To me, all these folks who yell sanctimoniously about Obama NOT leaving the church when he heard something he didn't like are only showing their true colors as people who have never been meaningfully involved in a church family. Your church is, or should be, so much more than a single pastor-- it's the people, philosophies, works and programs that make up a combined spiritual home and physical place to be the hands and feet of God.   More here.

Hillary needs to super-size her delegate count.

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeKos over at the big orange machine posted a diary with great links on Hillary and her superdelegate nightmare. Summing up the article, she is not gaining superdelegates, but losing them to Obama. In fact, she has started robo-calling Obama's delegates to try to harvest them. That is how bad it is over in the Clinton camp - reduced to thievery. Jack Cafferty posited a good question yesterday on The Situation Room - should the superdelegates step in early and endorse Obama to put an end to the divisive Hillary campaign? I have been asking that myself but even if they did, I do not think Hillary would stop. I really do believe she is on a path to destroy the party if she does not win. Her tactics is at the heart of why she has failed to win the netroots and grassroots - most people understand what fair is and they do not see fair play coming from the Hillary camp. It is time for Hillary to go.

The election is black and white

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeI have been reading some stuff on John Adams of late - always been a fan of his, especially his work on the Treaty of Tripoli. After a spot of reading I switched on the news last night and it was then I saw just how apparent the race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is a black and white issue. I am not talking about skin color here, I am talking about their ability to communicate what the American spirit is. Their ideas, their goals for all of us. Hillary's remarks over the years have been very me specific whereas Barack's message is about us, you know, We The People. I am not saying "yes we can" rises to the level of "We The People" in cultural significance, but I do believe John Adams was a "we" kind of guy. I think he would have resonated with "hope" in all of its audaciousness as it took a bucket of hope to build the American experiment. I wonder if Hillary has hope?