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99 days. It will seem like years.

Monday, July 28, 2008

It’s going to be a long hard slog until November. The Republicans may not know how to govern, but they know how to play the press corps. They bring their A game every time, and the Democrats never seem to know what’s hit them.

Just a few odds and ends that illustrate what Obama is up against.

First, we have the ginned up controversy about his alleged refusal to visit sick troops in Germany. The story is completely false, but that hasn’t stopped the media from almost unanimously repeating it uncritically, as is being documented over at Media Matters. But what’s interesting about this bit of Republican fiction is the fact that the McCain smear ads appear to be directed almost entirely at the media, not directly at the voters. Why spend a lot of money pushing your slime when the media will deliver it for free:

Okay, this is interesting: It looks as if the new McCain ad falsely attacking Obama over his canceled troop visit may not really have a lot of money behind it, suggesting that its real purpose isn’t getting it before voters directly.

Rather, the real target audience may be the media — meaning that the McCain camp’s goal is largely to get the ad debated in the press and to drive the conversation that way.

Evan Tracey, who tracks media buys at the Campaign Media Intelligence Group, took a look at the McCain buys and discovered that an earlier McCain foreign policy attack ad, as well as the troop visit attack spot launched this weekend, are running in almost no battleground-state markets, with the new spot only running in Denver and Washington, D.C

When Obama went on his foreign trip the media was looking for a “gaffe”. There were none, so now they’ve allowed the Republicans to make one up. Meanwhile, John McCain is a gaffe factory, and they go virtually unreported.

It’s really cheaper and more effective to get the media to drive your narrative for you, as has worked so well with McCain’s argument that Obama should be a man and admit he was wrong about the “surge”. Obama has been pestered for a week to recant his opposition to that failed strategy, and to his credit he has resisted. Today he pushed back:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SE-ONd4ACw[/youtube]

The money quote:

You know, I have to say, it is fascinating to me the to hear you guys reemphasize this over and over again. I have not heard yet somebody ask John McCain whether his vote to go into Iraq was a mistake. i haven’t, during the entire week that we were having this conversation.

Besides echoing and amplifying McCain’s talking points, the media will be madly spinning almost everything to bolster McCain. Consider the new Gallup poll out today, that contradicts Gallup’s own tracking poll, since instead of a 9 point Obama lead, it shows a four point McCain lead. How? Here’s how:

In the latter instance, the metric being evaluated was one near and dear to the hearts of pollsters, the “likely voter.” In the earlier poll that showed Obama ahead, Gallup merely surveyed registered voters.

…

Emory Univeristy political scientist Alan Abramowitz broke it down for the Huffington Post. Noting that out of the 900 voter sample surveyed by Gallup/USA Today, the pollsters deemed 791 of those individuals to be “likely” ones, and it is their responses which make up the 49-45 figure that immediately got coverage on MSNBC’s Hardball.

By contrast, the full 900 person sample of registered voters polled by USA Today showed Obama with a 47-44 lead. So what about those 109 likely voters? According to Abramowitz, “among your 109 unlikely voters, according to Gallup, Obama leads McCain by a whopping 61 percent to 7 percent. Putting it another way, according to Gallup 16 percent of registered Obama supporters are unlikely to vote compared with only 2 percent of registered McCain supporters.”

Apparently, we’ve all been missing something, and it’s McCain’s voters who can’t wait to get to the polls.

The media constantly tells us that Obama has a problem with Jewish voters, (e.g. this article) yet, the numbers say that it is McCain that has the problem. Reality will not intrude on this meme; we will hear about it until election eve.

The Republicans accomplish all this by engaging in co-ordinated message delivery and by intimidating that dwindling portion of the press that is not already in their ideological corner. Former Democrats like George Stephanopoulos must prove their bona fides by bending over backwards to prove that they are not in the tank for Democrats. They do so by echoing the right’s talking points. The idiotic surge questions are a case in point. Conservatives, on the other hand, don’t have to prove they are not liberal and make no attempt to hide their biases. Result: except for Keith Olbermann, John Stewart (most of the time) and Stephen Colbert, the media marches to the Republican drumbeat.

The Democrats as an institution deserve their fate, though we citizens are the ones who suffer. Democrats don’t co-ordinate; they don’t push back. The fake story on the troops is a good example. Obama should not need to defend himself on that. The rest of the Democrats should be doing it for him in a coordinated fashion, and they should be accusing the media (and this is mainly the broadcast media) of doing exactly what they are, in fact, doing: echoing Republican talking points.

Don’t hold your breath. The Republicans don’t like McCain, but they’ve circled the wagons. We Democrats leave our candidates exposed, as we did to John Kerry. It may be that the electorate has become inured to Republican sleaze, or that the thought of $5.00 gas, foreclosed homes, and unemployment has induced a little critical thinking in all those folks who figured they should vote for the guy with whom they would want to drink beer. We can only hope. Obama is the far superior candidate, but the fact remains that he is a black (one drop will do) Democrat with a Muslim sounding name. He may be ahead in the polls, but it’s still an uphill battle. The press destroyed Al Gore in 2000, and it enabled the Swift Boaters in 2004. Obama will be battling one Republican fostered media narrative after another until November. It’s going to be a long campaign.

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Sunday Evening Political Music

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Harry Shearer (via Jesus, General):

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Ben Stein: Everything’s still fine, just like he told us last year

Sunday, July 27, 2008

I must admit that Ben Stein is one of those Republicans who really gets under my skin. Perhaps it’s because he’s put himself forward as a poylmath, and operates on an idiot level on so many fronts. He writes on economics for the New York Times, though his credentials for doing so are something of a mystery. In his spare time, he unsuccessfully debunks evolution and blames Darwin for the holocaust.

Last year, as the mortgage crisis started to gather steam, he sought to calm all us Nervous Nellies by telling us:

If I were the editor of the business section for just one day, I would run one immense headline: “Everything Is Going to Be Fine. Go Back to Work.”

Being incapable of evolving, he is back again today telling us that he was right back then, and that a few bank failures, along with the collapse of Bear Stearns, along with the de facto bankruptcy of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac along with the advent of a probable recession along with a decline in employment are no big deal and everything is still fine.

Like Stein, I’m no economist (unlike Stein, I don’t claim to be), so I’ll leave the details to Dean Baker (who is an economist) at his invaluable blog, Beat the Press:

[Stein’s column] includes a number of wondrous “no big deal” comments. For example, the Fed had to step in and rescue Fannie and Freddie from bankruptcy — no big deal. We’ve had only one major bank (IndyMac) fail — no big deal. One of the major investment banks, Bear Stearns, collapsed — no big deal. Of course those minimizing the economy’s problems last summer expected such commonplace events.

We also have the great line “employment in June was considerably less than 1 percent below its all-time peak in November 2007.” You’ve got to really really love that one. Does Stein not know that economies add jobs through time. In other words, we generally expect that in any given month we have more jobs that we ever did before. To be 1 percent below our all-time peak, 7 months after that peak is really quite bad.

In addition, Stein misrepresents the meaning of the employment data. Contrary to what he claims, the numbers do not show “that 94.5 percent of the people who wished to be employed and were capable of work were employed.”

The employment rate (EPOP), the percentage of the non-institutional population that is actually employed, is more than 2 full percentage points below its peak in 2000. This corresponds to more than 5 million fewer people employed compared with a situation in which the EPOP had stayed the same. We can either believe that these people just developed a distaste for working in the last eight years, or alternatively that they are not working because the labor market does not present as many good job opportunities today as it did in 2000. The latter seems more plausible to me, but readers can make up their own minds.

In singing the praises of the economy, Stein also neglects to mention the loss of $5 trillion in real housing wealth over the last two years (almost $70,000 per homeowner), but that’s probably a small point.

Okay, I admit it. I’m jealous of Stein. Here I am laboring away in anonymity and Stein gets to write for the New York Times. I’m at least as unqualified as he to write a column on economics. Of course, I’m also just as unqualified as David Brooks to be a social critic. I didn’t know that Applebee’s doesn’t have a salad bar either. My point is that given the proper motivation I could be just as wrong as Stein, indeed just as wrong as Brooks (I’m overlooking Maureen Dowd here. Since she never says anything, technically, she’s never wrong), just as often as either of them, if only the Times would give me a chance.

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Swallow that cracker, or pay the consequences

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Things have gone dangerously awry in this country. Could Thomas Jefferson or James Madison have predicted that the religious freedom they promoted could have turned the U.S. into not only the most religious country in the Western World, but the most religiously intolerant? More to the point, would they believe that the separation of church and state they cherished could have promoted the growth of religious institutions that would be able to enforce bizarre religious rules on non-believers, while Europe enjoyed a robust secularism?

This story begins early this month when a student at the University of Central Florida took a piece of bread hostage:

[Webster] Cook claims he planned to consume it, but first wanted to show it to a fellow student senator he brought to Mass who was curious about the Catholic faith.

“When I received the Eucharist, my intention was to bring it back to my seat to show him,” Cook said. “I took about three steps from the woman distributing the Eucharist and someone grabbed the inside of my elbow and blocked the path in front of me. At that point I put it in my mouth so they’d leave me alone and I went back to my seat and I removed it from my mouth.”

A church leader was watching, confronted Cook and tried to recover the sacred bread. Cook said she crossed the line and that’s why he brought it home with him.

“She came up behind me, grabbed my wrist with her right hand, with her left hand grabbed my fingers and was trying to pry them open to get the Eucharist out of my hand,” Cook said, adding she wouldn’t immediately take her hands off him despite several requests.

Naturally, it was necessary, out of Christian love, for the Catholics to threaten the kid. That goes without saying. Bu there’s more. This being America, is the following surprising:

One week after a University of Central Florida student snatched something sacred from church, armed UCF police officers stood guard during Sunday Mass to protect what Catholics call “The Body of Christ.”

Minutes before the Mass began, Student Senator Webster Cook returned the Holy Eucharist he was holding hostage in a Ziploc bag ever since smuggling the blessed wafer of bread out of the Catholic Mass service Sunday June 29.

Meanwhile, P.Z Myers (a professor at the University of Minnesota), the curmudgeonly atheist over at Pharyngula, had the gall to point out that the object in question was, after all, only a cracker.

Before you could say “This is my body, this is my blood” Catholic League President Bill Donohue, self appointed protector of the Catholic Faith, took up arms against him. As the Dominicans proved so many years ago, no holds should be barred in defense of the church. If torture is okay, then so is a little misrepresentation. Donohue’s website implied that Pharyngula was hosted on the University website, and that Myers had violated University policy with his unprovoked attack on a piece of unleavened bread. In fact, Myers blog is independently hosted, but what’s a little deception in service to Mother Church?

Myers was inundated with threatening emails, and the university president received tons of mail demanding that Myers be fired. Apparently that campaign had no effect. Among Myers posts was one in which he offered to hold a cookie hostage too, if anyone cared to send him one. One result:

On Friday the Catholic League reported that Thomas E. Foley, a Virginia delegate to the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Minneapolis has asked that increased security be considered for the event in light of Myers’ threat to acquire and desecrate the Eucharist.

“I just felt security at the Republican National Convention ought to look at him and his followers,” Foley told CNA in a phone interview on Wednesday morning. He reported that he had not received an update about his request.

Voicing his concerns about Myers, Foley said: “What I think he has done, he’s loaded a cyberpistol and he’s cocked it and he’s left it on the table. He may have set something in motion that no one can stop. It was irresponsible, a hell of a thing to do.”

The other result was a Donohue fostered hate campaign against Myers, who began receiving rather vile threats in the name of a loving Jesus. Webster Cook, meanwhile, has been “impeached” by his fellow campus senators. But what’s a persecution unless you visit some divine wrath on an innocent bystander:

One UCF student claims he’s simply guilty by association.

Benjamin Collard is the friend of the student who smuggled something sacred out of Catholic mass. That friend, Webster Cook is under fire for going to mass June 29th taking a Eucharist and not eating it.

…

“I tried to look at my class schedule,” Collard said. “There was a hold placed on my account that I couldn’t sign up for classes.  I went to the office of Student conduct to see what was going on and they told me Catholic Campus Ministries filed charges against me.”

Collard learned that he has been charged with misconduct, disruptive conduct and giving false identification, the exact same charges as Webster.

Collard has been silent since the episode but when he learned of the charges, he decided he’d be silent no longer.

He said during the incident he sat silently while everything else around him was happening.

“I didn’t talk to anybody, didn’t say anything,” he said. “While the situation, disruption happened, I was sitting in my seat looking forward, I did nothing.”

“I never spoke to a university official, I never lied about who I was,” Collard added. “I never engaged in any disruptive conduct.  I just think this is absolutely disgusting that they’re going after me.”

These people who are getting so upset about an abused cookie live in a country that tortures real people as a matter of official policy. I haven’t heard Bill Donohue complain about that, nor have I heard much about it from the church he claims to represent. But they’re ready to start the Tenth Crusade (yes, believe it or not, there were nine Crusades) to rescue a piece of bread from an atheist. What’s frightening is that, at least in Florida (apparently not in Minnesota) they are able to enlist the state in their cause. Since when does the state dispatch armed men to prevent non-criminal behavior that calls religious superstition into question? Precisely what did they intend to do if someone else refused to swallow?

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Groton Dems Picnic

Saturday, July 26, 2008

The Groton Democratic Picnic was a great success. Great quantities of food were consumed, and much to our surprise, Barack Obama made a surprise appearance! Frankly, I was a bit disappointed. Maybe it was jet lag, or the letdown after the overseas trip, but to me he seemed a little stiff, besides being a little quiet. Hardly the inspiring speaker we’ve grown to know and love. Don’t get me wrong, he was still a hell of a lot more exciting and charismatic than John McCain, and he was infinitely patient posing for pictures. Here he is with the group (everyone but me—it’s good to be the photographer).

Kevin Clemency, Joe Courtney’s new field co-ordinator, made an appearance. That’s him below with Obama. Kevin has the unenviable task of stepping into the oversize shoes of his predecessor, Walter Kerr. Today was a baptism by fire, of sorts, since he had to pretend he was enjoying mixing with a bunch of geezers. He seemed to pull it off okay, so maybe he has a future in politics.

Kevin is trying to pull together some canvassers for Joe Courtney tomorrow. If you’d like to do your bit to get Joe re-elected, you can join the group at 12:30 at S.B. Butler school.

(The pictures seem to get a bit distorted when you view them in the posts. They look better if you click on them)

By the way, I want to say thanks again to Liz Duarte, who gave me a “Disappearing Civil Liberties Mug”. It has the entire Bill of Rights on it, each one of which disappears when you torture the mug by pouring hot liquid in it. My only criticism is that the Second Amendment should probably be exempted.

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Friday Night Music-Summertime

Friday, July 25, 2008

The Seasons right. I think I managed to find a version in which Brian Wilson actually appears. Check out the girls in the background.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9_ZPBhG47Y[/youtube]

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Dem Picnic Tomorrow

Friday, July 25, 2008

Better late than never, I guess. I forgot to post about this earlier in the week, what with one thing and another going on in my life.

Tomorrow from Noon to 3:00 PM the Groton Democratics will be having a picnic at Spicer Park in Noank. The suggested donation is $20.00. The basics will be supplied (hot dogs, hamburgers, etc.), but folks are encouraged to bring extras.

For those unfamiliar with Spicer Park, it really is a little gem, right on Beebe Cove. For Mapquesters, the address is 27 Spicer Avenue in Noank. Make sure you put Noank, not Groton, as apparently there is another Spicer Avenue that turns up if you search for Spicer Avenue in Groton. Here’s a few pictures of the location. First, a view from the water, then a couple of views from the park.

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Back to First Principles

Thursday, July 24, 2008

John McCain is building his entire campaign around the “surge”, which he claims to have created himself, and which, according to him, has brought, or will bring, peace and prosperity to Iraq. In the process of promoting the “surge” he has misrepresented its origin, its purpose and its results. Juan Cole has an excellent post today about the surge, and delivers a decidedly negative appraisal.

As those with memories recall, the surge was supposed to supply a breathing space to allow for political reconciliation. It has been a failure on those terms, so McCain/Bush talk about reduced levels of violence. As Cole points out, there’s a reason for that reduced violence:

For the first six months of the troop escalation, high rates of violence continued unabated. That is suspicious. What exactly were US troops doing differently last September than they were doing in May, such that there was such a big change? The answer to that question is simply not clear. Note that the troop escalation only brought US force strength up to what it had been in late 2005. In a country of 27 million, 30,000 extra US troops are highly unlikely to have had a really major impact, when they had not before.

As best I can piece it together, what actually seems to have happened was that the escalation troops began by disarming the Sunni Arabs in Baghdad. Once these Sunnis were left helpless, the Shiite militias came in at night and ethnically cleansed them. Shaab district near Adhamiya had been a mixed neighborhood. It ended up with almost no Sunnis. Baghdad in the course of 2007 went from 65% Shiite to at least 75% Shiite and maybe more. My thesis would be that the US inadvertently allowed the chasing of hundreds of thousands of Sunni Arabs out of Baghdad (and many of them had to go all the way to Syria for refuge). Rates of violence declined once the ethnic cleansing was far advanced, just because there were fewer mixed neighborhoods.

One of those refugees, apparently, is the woman blogger at Baghdad Burning, whose last post is dated October, 2007, from Syria, to which country she fled just about the time that violence in Iraq began to decline. So it appears that the surge decreased levels of violence because it created a situation in which the people doing the killing had nobody left to kill. Just one more Bush success story.

Cole’s entire post is recommended reading. Cole actually knows what he’s talking about, which is one of the reasons so few people listen to him

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Scam on the right

Thursday, July 24, 2008

It is a truism that a sucker is born every minute. That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it doesn’t matter to scam artists as long as a reasonably high number of people are reliably gullible. It appears that the right wing suckers among us are getting fleeced with regularity.

Here’s the facts: An Iraq veteran is running for Congress against John Murtha. High Priestess of Evil Michelle Malkin doesn’t understand why he is being ignored, since he has raised a jaw dropping amount of money. Once again that “liberal media” is doing its nefarious worst. Well, not so fast:

In the most recent quarter Russell raised $669,534, almost all from out-of-state donors who presumably are on BMW Direct’s list of self-styled conservatives with a good track record of responding to direct-mail fundraising.

At the same time, he spent $442,990, almost all of it on expenses related to the direct mail effort and paid to BMW Direct and its affiliates (some of which share the same downtown Washington office).

The only expenses that appear to be spent on an actual campaign totaled about $20,000 for Web site design, a low-budget video and a campaign consultant based in Pennsylvania rather than Washington.

He reports having $269,953 in cash on hand. But he also reports debts totaling $242,521 — almost all for direct mail expenses to BMW Direct and its vendors.

So that leaves him only about $27,431 ahead — not much for a guy who’s raised a total of nearly $1 million this election cycle.

The folks at BMW have been very busy beavers for Republican candidates. (See here and here). It’s a great business model: collect money on behalf of sure losers; bill said sure losers for almost every dime you collect; then repeat. Apparently, these folks have a mailing list that would make P.T. Barnum turn green.

One could almost suspect that BMW Direct is a dirty tricks outfit operating out of the DNC, but apparently it’s not so.

It reminds me a bit of the Producers. These guys aren’t interested in winners. They’re looking for box office bombs. One must wonder whether the candidates could possibly be ignorant of all of this. Don’t they look at their own financial disclosures? Almost makes you wonder if the candidates themselves are in on the scam.

Filed in Republican Corruption | | Comments (1)

Public service announcement

Thursday, July 24, 2008

A friend and neighbor has asked me to remind my readers that Glen Beck is an a**hole.

Filed in Politics | | Comments (1)