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New York Times: According to named Republicans, unnamed Democrats fear a Hillary candidacy

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

I’m not a Hillary Clinton fan, but I had the same reaction as Kevin Drum to this morning’s article in the New York Times that claimed that Hillary would be a threat to the re-election of some of the (if there are any) vulnerable Democrats in the House. The article specifically mentions Kansan Nancy Boyda, who beat Jim Ryun, the Olympic choke artist, last year:

So Boyda is nervous about sharing the ticket with Hillary?

Of the presidential race, she said: “It is something I have no control over, quite honestly. They will demonize any Democrat who becomes the nominee. I just put my head down and work.”

They will demonize any Democrat who becomes the nominee. Smart woman. So who is worried about Hillary’s anti-coattails? Answer: Kansas Republicans, who claim that a Clinton nomination will help them out. An entirely impartial assessment, I’m sure. Who else? “House Democrats” who are “privately nervous” about Hillary’s reverse coattails. No names, of course. What else? Well, there’s this:

Democrats say they have not polled on the issue, though a private survey that surfaced this year found that the nomination of either Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama could cut into support for House Democrats in tough districts.

I’m actually open to the idea that Hillary Clinton might not have downticket coattails that are as strong as Barack Obama’s. But if you want to convince me of this, you really need more than a few Kansas Republicans shedding crocodile tears, some allegedly “privately nervous” House Dems, and a survey — the only piece of actual evidence in the entire article — that concludes just the opposite. Just sayin’

The article proves no more than the fact that Democrats in right leaning districts (like Republicans in left leaning districts) have a tougher time in Presidential election years when turnout is greater. The article doesn’t come close to proving its basic premise: that Democrats are worried about Clinton in particular. Once again the press turns to Republicans to tell us what Democrats are thinking and/or what Democrats should avoid, but isn’t it possible that they’re just pulling their regular scam. On the internet we have learned to ignore concern trolls, the New York Times puts them front and center. This is yet another example of the press trying hard to propagate a meme that reinforces the narrative it has chosen for this campaign.

The Democrats have more chance of blowing the presidential election than they do of losing Congress. And, by the way, if some of the freshman must lose, it couldn’t happen to more deserving people that some of the folks mentioned in the article (e.g, Heath Shuler).

Filed in Media, Presidential Politics | | Comments (0)

Solidarity

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Many of my readers are probably wondering: Why has the writing on this blog sucked so much lately? How is it possible that it could have gotten any worse than the lows to which it habitually descends?

There is a perfectly logical explanations for the wretched prose I have spewed forth of late. I am engaging in a sympathy strike for the members of the Screen Writers Guild. I am expressing my solidarity with my unionized brothers and sisters by refusing to cross the mental picket line between me and good writing. So long as the strike goes on, the American people do not deserve good writing, and by golly, so long as I have anything to write about it, they won’t get it. If I must endure weeks without the Daily Show or Colbert, then I have no choice but to pass the suffering along, in my own small and ineffectual way.

Filed in Uncategorized | | Comments (1)

No WMDs in Iran

Monday, December 3, 2007

A lot of very unsurprising things have been revealed lately. A few days ago I noted that Bush and al-Maliki had all but sealed a sweetheart deal that, in the case of Bush, helped his cronies tremendously, and in the case of al-Maliki, promised to preserve his power, all to the detriment of their respective countries. Now we learn that despite the fact that Bush has known for months that the best intelligence available indicates that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons, he has been, in those very same months, spewing heated rhetoric about those very, once again, non-existent weapons.

I’m sure someone else has noted, though I haven’t seen it, that the fact that the various intelligence agencies felt free to give this assessment, in the teeth of Bush and Cheney’s preferences, says something about their waning power. The Democrats might still be cowed, but the bureaucrats, apparently, are not. Rightly or wrongly, they must have decided that the Prince of Darkness and his puppet are no longer a threat.

Now we will see whether there will be a replay of 2002, when the far more tentative conclusions of the intelligence community, which cast some, but not enough. doubt on the Iraqi WMDs, were ignored or ridiculed by the neocon ideologues. This time, no doubt, they will argue that since the intelligence agencies were wrong before (having concluded that Iraq might, just might have WMDs) they are no doubt wrong again, proving beyond doubt that Iran most certainly must have them.

Filed in Creeping Totalitarianism, Empire, Iraq | | Comments (1)

Truth in Advertising

Sunday, December 2, 2007

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0gzmBxsFMg[/youtube]

Filed in Humour | | Comments (1)

Friday Night Concert-Piano Men

Friday, November 30, 2007

Elton John and Billy Joel team up on their best songs.

Sir Elton’s Your Song

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5Tud0xdpE8[/youtube]

Billy Joel’s Piano Man

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WXjU2i99HE&feature=related[/youtube]

Filed in Music | | Comments (1)

Good news

Friday, November 30, 2007

The move to steal about half of California’s electoral votes has been quashed for now. The folks with the deep pockets behind the campaign apparently weren’t willing to collect legitimate signatures for their ballot initiative, preferring, in time honored Republican fashion, to do it by fraud. Unfortunately for them, they were caught, so they had to withdraw the initiative. We may not have seen the last of this. This is the second time they have had to back off, but expect them to come back again.

In case you’re not familiar with the proposal, it seeks to allocate California’s electoral votes by Congressional District. If the Republican candidate wins in 15 districts, for instance he (no need to say “or she”) gets 15 electoral votes. If such a proposal were adopted nationwide it might be something of an improvement over what we now have, but probably not. It is entirely possible that a candidate could get 60% of the votes in a given state, but only 40% of the electoral votes, if that candidate did extremely well in a few districts and lost narrowly in a lot of the others. Such a result is not unlikely, what with the way districts are often gerrymandered.

A fairer way would be to allocate the votes proportionally. Even better, there is a plan being floated whereby a state could pass an act allocating its electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote if and only if a sufficient number of states comprising a majority of the electoral college follow suit.

Of course, the Republicans behind the California shenanigans are not interested in being fair. They are interested in finding yet another way to subvert the national will. Suppressing Democratic votes may not work in 2008.

Speaking of suppressing the vote, there’s a documentary on PBS tonight on Now, documenting the spreading movement in the backwater states to restrict the vote-the Democratic vote that is. It’s on WGBH at 8:00 PM

Filed in Politics, Presidential Politics, Republican Corruption | | Comments (1)

Mr. 9/11 is having a tough few days

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Looks like Mr. 9/11 is in for some stormy weather. Even the New York Times covered the story about Rudy paying the security costs for his Long Island adulterous trysts out of the budgets of obscure city agencies. (It should be pointed out, however, that the Times obligingly buried the story in the back pages of Section A, and tried its best to cover for Rudy).

Today we learn that Rudy’s initial excuse (I knew nothing about it, and anyway I got security everywhere, even my love nests) because besides paying the extra security costs for the Long Island love romps, the taxpayers of New York were footing the bill for a chauffeur and security for the little lady, whether she was with the Mayor or no. As icing on the cake, it turns out that the trips to Long Island may have been necessitated, at least in part, by the fact that the Mayor’s preferred love nest, the one located at 7 World Trade Center, had been destroyed. You may remember that was the spot Rudy chose as the emergency command center, over the advice of the experts. It was more important to Rudy that he had he could have Judy conveniently close by. The American people are still largely ignorant about the fact that Rudy was running around New York that day because he literally had nowhere else to go. That’s a fact that may just get a little more coverage now. It’s amazing how adding a little sex to a story makes it so much easier to understand.

But there’s another story hidden in this story, one more important but a lot less sexy. The most important thing we should want to know about any presidential candidate is how he or she will actually conduct themselves as president. Are we in for four to eight more years of Constitution trampling and arrogant governance, or will we have a president who knows at least some bounds, and recognizes some limits on his/her actions.

One of the hallmarks of the Bush near dictatorship has been its refusal to operate in the open. It essentially asserts the right to operate in total secrecy, and to a large extent it has gotten away with doing so. If the next president isn’t reined in, or doesn’t rein himself in, then we are in real trouble. That’s why this is troubling:

When the fact that the security detail was accompanying him on the visits to Ms. Nathan’s condominium was first reported in May 2000, the Giuliani administration refused to provide an accounting of the expenses, suggesting that it was a security issue.

Perhaps Bush has made more patently absurd claims, but I doubt it. There is no logical reason why the costs of providing security to the Mayor and his girlfriend affects security. For that matter, exactly whose security would be threatened? If he was willing to pull that type of stuff as Mayor then imagine what he’ll be doing as president. There is no greater danger to a democracy than an executive who firmly believes that the public has no business knowing what its government is doing.

Filed in Creeping Totalitarianism, Republican Corruption | | Comments (1)

But why don’t you tell us what you really think?

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Via Pharyngula, a fellow named Pat Condell:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5cXWElb-GE[/youtube]

Filed in Religion | | Comments (0)

The insolubility of the Social Security non-crisis

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

As a reminder that there are no final victories in politics, there have been rumblings on the internet that the wise people in Washington are insisting that we must, before all things domestic, fix the non-existent crisis in Social Security. Kevin Drum is the latest super blogger to note that the Washington Post has been beating the drum about the “crisis” quite steadily, despite the lack of evidence that Social Security has more than minor problems, all of which are rather long term. He points out that we might be better served waiting, at least until the trust fund balance is exhausted, to decide what action to take, as we will then have a better idea about the lay of the land at that point.

There’s another point that has to be made. There are only two “solutions” to the crisis, at least only two that are within the acceptable limits of discussion. One is to solve the “crisis” by raising the payroll tax, the other is to solve the problem by destroying the program. The latter didn’t work out too well for Bush, and it’s unlikely that his fellow Republicans will want to walk that plank at this particular moment. That leaves increasing the payroll tax.

But, that presents a problem. At this point raising the payroll tax would simply increase the Social Security trusts fund surplus. That increased surplus would be invested in the very treasury bills that Bush and his Washington Post supporters insisted were worthless; mere “I.O.U’s. Full faith and credit, we were told, was for the Chinese, not the American worker. That being the case, any money we infuse into the system now will simply disappear down the same hole, stolen by George Bush to transfer to his cronies, and replaced by worthless pieces of paper. The only thing we can hope to do is pay as we go, because any surplus we generate is lost to us. By that logic, it makes no sense to do anything until payroll taxes no longer cover the cost of current benefits. In fact, if we accept their logic, the rational thing to do now would be to cut payroll taxes so that they only cover current benefits, since we are flushing the surplus down the toilet anyway.

Filed in Issues | | Comments (0)

Soft bigotry of no expectations

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

In today’s Times we learn that Bush still eschews the hands on approach to Mid-East peace that Bill Clinton took in his final days in office. Besides the reflexive position that anything Clinton did was bad, there’s another consideration motivating Bush. He’d be risking visible failure, and he doesn’t like to do that. Unlike Clinton and Jimmy Carter he’s too afraid to fail to lay it all out on the line. Normally, we might be inclined to condemn a president who refused to take a chance for peace, but in Bush’s case we must admit that his fear has led him to the better choice. Consider this, from the Independent, via Firedoglake:

Making matters worse was Mr Bush’s lack of knowledge and sense of history. Flynt Everett [sic], once the top adviser to Ms Rice on Middle East matters, but now a strong critic of the President, last week related how at a 2002 meeting in the White House situation room, he heard Mr Bush say that as soon as the Palestinians had a democratically elected government, their leadership would be “less hung-up” on issues like borders and the status of Jerusalem.

Mr Everett [sic] was astounded. It was, he told the Washington Post last week, “one of the most profoundly ignorant statements anyone has ever uttered on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” [Emphasis mine]

This is the man that some people felt deserved to be president, saying things that are so profoundly stupid they leave you open mouthed with astonishment. So, thank you Mr. Bush for staying out of the talks. They will fail miserably, but at least, without your presence, we may avoid another war.

Filed in Bush, Issues | | Comments (0)