Cheers and Jeers: Monday

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

Happy Birthday, Howard.

Last week Obama campaign manager David Plouffe sent out an mail:

Our friends at the Democratic National Committee laid it all on the line to bring change this year. The DNC's 50-state field strategy was crucial to our campaign's success, as well as victories for Democrats up and down the ballot. Their organizing infrastructure allowed us to compete---and win---in states that seemed insurmountable just four years ago.

They took out substantial loans to make it happen. The DNC didn't hold back, and now, neither can we. You were there for this campaign when we needed to reach out to more voters and compete in more states. Now we're relying on grassroots supporters like you to come through for this movement once again. We'll get to work transforming this country. But first, we need to take care of the DNC.

Today the chief architect of the 50-state strategy turns 60. As Howard Dean prepares to step down from his post as DNC chairman in January, I think it would be awesome if we could help him leave with a clean balance sheet. Here's the donation page. (If you give $30 or more you get a spiffy Obama-Biden T-shirt.)

In what's become a C&J tradition, we cede a bit of front-page space to some of Dean's words from March 15, 2003 when he gave a thunderous campaign speech at the California State Convention in Sacramento. Progressives hailed him for taking aim at the Republican-lite wing of the Democratic party. The entrenched Washington elites, on the other hand, sensed a threat to their sanguine existence that practically caused them to choke on their martini olives. At a time when many of our party leaders had their noses stuck in the "Triangulation For Dummies" handbook, Dean's words rallied the forgotten base:

"WHAT I WANT TO KNOW IS...what in the world so many Democrats are doing supporting the President's unilateral intervention in Iraq!

What I want to know is why the Democrats in Congress aren't standing up for us, joining every other industrialized country on the face of the Earth in providing health insurance for every man, woman and child in America.

What I want to know is why so many folks in Congress are voting for the President's Education Bill---The "No School Board Left Standing Bill"---the largest unfunded mandate in the history of our educational system.

As Paul Wellstone said---as Sheila Kuehl said when she endorsed me---I am Howard Dean, and I'm here to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party! ...

We are not going to beat George Bush by voting with the President 85 percent of the time. The only way that we're going to beat George Bush is to say what we mean, to stand up for who we are, [and] to lift up a Democratic agenda against the Republican agenda. Because if you do that, the Democratic agenda wins every time.

After crushing GOP defeats in 2006 and 2008, even Dean's fiercest critics are admitting: "Dude was right."

Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Cheers and Jeers for Monday, November 17, 2008

Note: Daubers down.  We have a bingo.

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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Inauguration Day: 64
Days `til the Rosendale International Pickle Festival in New York: 6
Drop in prosecutions of fraud against financial institutions between 2000 and 2007: -48%
Overall decline in white-collar crime prosecutions in the same period: -50%
(Source: The New York Times via The Week)
Number of men who sleep in their childhood bedroom when they visit their parents: 1 in 3
Number of men forced to sleep alone when staying at their girlfriend's parents' house: 1 in 4
(Source: Men's Health)
Number of football games with a final score of 11-10 in NFL history: 1 (Pittsburgh vs. San Diego on 11/16/08)

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Monday Brain Droppings by George Carlin:

People used to take drugs, now they do drugs.  Some people don’t do drugs, they do lunch.  Instead of taking drugs, they take meetings.  They used to have meetings.  Now, instead of having meetings, they have relationships.  Some people who don’t do drugs but have a relationship will take a meeting while they do lunch.
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Can you imagine the increase in violence there would be if no one could lie?  If we could all read each other's minds?  Also, think of all of the additional crying there would be.

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Puppy Pic of the Day:  Um, Peru?  Thanks but no thanks.

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CHEERS to getting the boot.  Looks like there's an agreement in Iraq (though its parliament still needs to approve it, which is always iffy) that will allow us the pleasure of finally doing what George Bush said we would only do when pigs flew: start the clock and prepare to bug out:

Several Iraqi officials said they were assured that President-elect Barack Obama would honor the agreement.  ...  [Prime Minister] Maliki's delegates stressed that the agreement leaves no room to extend the American presence in Iraq beyond Dec. 31, 2011.  It calls on American units to pull out of Iraqi cities by June 2009.  "This timetable is final and fixed," [government spokesman] al Dabbagh said.

It's one of many Republican messes the Democrats will get credit for cleaning up, and I can see the bumper sticker now: "Who Got Our Troops Out of Iraq? Barack."  (Note to self: get that trademarked.)

JEERS to media babies.  Newsweek's Conventional Wisdom Watch gives Obama an 'Up' arrow this week but can't help moaning over the fact that he's running a tight ship:

Transition on track.  But media lockdown is shortsighted; press dinosaurs can bite.

This from a press corps that recently lost a finger to a Scottish terrier named Barney.  Back to your tar pits, whiners.

CHEERS to out rage.  Eleven days after the Draconian Proposition 8 passed in California, street corners and squares in 300 cities were buzzing Saturday as gay people and their allies rallied across the country for equal marriage rights.  The grassroots effort was inspiring, generated lots of positive press coverage, and will have been for naught if the California Supreme Court doesn’t overturn the vote.  And as we all know, only one thing can influence their decision: plates of warm cookies.

JEERS to boneheads in brocade.  On Friday we told you about a consortium of 120 church leaders in Maine who came out (so to speak) in support of same-sex marriage, and an election-day SSM voter signature drive that brought in 35,000 names (three times more than they expected).  The events are the opening salvos in a campaign to bring marriage equality to our state, and yesterday the Catholic church---aka the gayest church in the world---fired back by having priests read a letter from their pulpits condemning it. This is the kind of rhetorical nonsense we're up against:

"To redefine marriage to include same-sex couples is to strip marriage of an essential component, namely the ability and obligation to procreate," the bishop said in the letter. "To strip marriage of this essential component is to render marriage meaningless and open it up to endless revision and redefinition."

Look, I'm not the Pope or anything (my German sucks, for starters), but if procreation is "essential" to marriage, shouldn’t couples have to produce a kid first and then be rewarded with wedding cake and toasters?  Silly me, that would violate the 11th Commandment: leave your logic at the church door.

CHEERS to scribbles of greatness.  On this date in 1863, Lincoln began writing the first draft of his Gettysburg Address.  In his second draft he wisely removed the little hearts from over the i's.

CHEERS to Kum Ba Yah moments.  Not-president-elect McCain travels from house #6 to Chicago today, where he will meet with President-elect Obama.  There will be a brief moment of tension when McCain spots to a plate of cinnamon buns and yells, "That one!"

JEERS to the hunchback of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  Thirty five years ago today, in 1973, Richard Nixon uttered his immortal words: "People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook.  Well, I'm not a crook."  So what was that Ford pardon all about?  I'm all retro-confused.

P.S.  And the Oscar goes to...Tricky Dick???

CHEERS to your Sunday morning Twilight Zone Moment.  There's one every week, and this week was no exception.  Howard Fineman is convinced that the "voice" of the Republican party---aka the "chief jeerleader"---for the foreseeable future will be Rush Limbaugh.  I believe I speak on behalf of Democrats everywhere when I say: Merry Early Christmas and Happy Hanukkah, too!

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One Year Ago in C&J: November 17, 2007...

CHEERS to The Dating Game, Vegas-style.  My booze-soaked observations from last night's Democratic debate, during which the candidates pitched woo to the cable-watching masses:

>> Wolf Blitzer says there will be "no bells or flashing lights" to prompt the candidates to wrap up their answers.  Instead, poison-tipped darts will be blown by a Mayan tribesman in the audience.

>> Hillary on unifying America: "We must work together.  We must navigate the waters of unification.  We must subtract 4 from 5 to become one.  We must we must we must, we must increase our bust!  Ha Ha Haaaaa!"

>> Barack Obama on unifying America: "I'm building a large Unification Machine in my garage. It runs on hope and arugula."

>> Joe Biden is running away with this debate.  He seems effortlessly presidential.  Everybody else huffs and puffs to make a point.  Biden just tosses off the answer, and it usually makes perfect sense.

>> Chris Dodd just answered an audience member's question in fluent Spanish.  I think he called President Bush a douchebag.  No, wait a minute...that was me.  In English.

>> John Edwards: "You accuse me of mud-slinging?  I'll show ya mud-slinging!"  [Splot!]

>> Wolf Blitzer: "Dennis Kucinich, you voted against the Patriot Act."  Kucinich: "That's because I read it."

Winners, in order: Biden, Clinton, Edwards, Obama, Richardson, Kucinich and Dodd, with a special jury prize to the Republican candidates, whom no one laid a glove on last night.  Final rating: seven-and-a-half Wayne Newtons out of ten.

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And just one more...

CHEERS to fresh ink.  Whether you agree with all of his theories or not, reading Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point, Blink) is like giving your brain a facial and a massage.  Tomorrow he releases what will surely be another mega-bestseller, Outliers:

[T]he book grew out a frustration I found myself having with the way we explain the careers of really successful people.  You know how you hear someone say of Bill Gates or some rock star or some other outlier---"they're really smart," or "they're really ambitious?"  Well, I know lots of people who are really smart and really ambitious, and they aren't worth 60 billion dollars.  It struck me that our understanding of success was really crude---and there was an opportunity to dig down and come up with a better set of explanations. ...

My wish with Outliers is that it makes us understand how much of a group project success is.  When outliers become outliers it is not just because of their own efforts.  It's because of the contributions of lots of different people and lots of different circumstances---and that means that we, as a society, have more control about who succeeds---and how many of us succeed---than we think.

His next book should be about the spectacular failure of the Republican party.  He can call it, "Out-and-Out Liars."

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Oh, and guess who turns 70 today?  Gordon Freakin' Lightfoot.  Sheesh.  Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?

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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:

A man actually walked into a bar in Huntington Beach, Calif., last weekend with Bill in Portland Maine on a leash.  Apparently the denizens of Johnny's Saloon were not amused and police were summoned.
---USA Today.

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