Midday open thread

• Today on Daily Kos

  

  Ashley Judd, a staunch campaigner for many progressive causes, has joined with the Sierra Club to help put an end to Mountaintop removal. Join her on Daily Kos at 5PM Eastern for a live Q&A on the topic -- Devilstower

• Michael Steele:

  Mr. Steele believes bipartisanship "is a fiction of politics. It's an idea people work toward, but the reality is something else." Mr. Steele thinks White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is "running the entire government," noting he is not known for bipartisanship, but for slash-and-burn politics.

  Steele is right. The DC punditry (and Obama) may be obsessed with bipartisanship, but politics at its best is a battle of ideas, with people disagreeing on the solutions to our nation's tough problems. So we have elections to sort out the disagreements, and the people speak. It's okay! Democracy is a nice thing. And if Democrats fuck things up, then people can give Republicans -- and their ideas -- another shot.

  All this desire for everyone to agree is creepy, and more indicative of the Broderites who want everyone to agree with them, rather than any desire for real consensus that might exclude their own ideas.

• Liddy Dole's 2008 campaign manager writes about the decision to run that awful "atheist" ad against Kay Hagan.

  So, in the end, the “Godless” ad had little impact on the election. The Obama campaign’s decision to target North Carolina and turn out the Democrat vote was far more damaging. Another key factor was the very effective ads run by the DSCC and the ton of money behind them. I would argue that had we run the ad sooner, and without the voice at the end, it would have been closer. However, that is all hindsight.

  The risk was huge and not worth taking until it was evident we could not win without it, and that was not clear until about 10 days out. Had the ad run about 20 days out, it may have made it closer, but the data we had at that time did not warrant taking such a large gamble. However, in the end the ad had very little impact if any, in the defeat of Elizabeth Dole.

  Dole was not going to win that race, and while Obama's organizing in the state certainly helped Hagan a great deal, fact is that Obama won the state by 14,000 votes and Hagan won it by 362,000 votes. Perhaps the Godless ad didn't lose Dole the election, but neither did Obama. Hagan proved to be a great candidate, Dole was a terrible senator, and the DSCC ran their best 2008 ad in this race.

• I completely missed this a month ago, from the Knoxville church shooter:

  "Know this if nothing else: This was a hate crime. I hate the damn left-wing liberals. There is a vast left-wing conspiracy in this country & these liberals are working together to attack every decent & honorable institution in the nation, trying to turn this country into a communist state. Shame on them....

  "This was a symbolic killing. Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book. I'd like to kill everyone in the mainstream media. But I know those people were inaccessible to me. I couldn't get to the generals & high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chickenshit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Someone had to get the ball rolling. I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It's the only way we can rid America of this cancerous pestilence."

  I'm in Goldberg's book, so thanks Bernie! In any case, given the ever crazier rhetoric from the militant Right, like good ol' Chuck Norris, ranting about their little domestic terrorist cells and talking treason against the government, expect more of these politically-motivated shootings from a new generation of Tim McVeighs.

• Holy shit this look at Bill O'Reilly's book for teens is hilarious.

  The O'Reilly Factor For Kids is a scattershot guide to all the things O'Reilly thinks kids should do: toughen up, buck "the self-esteem police," ignore stereotypes, stop listening to rap music, and allow Chuck Knoblauch (!) to serve as an inspirational example.

  O'Reilly also:

  • Calls teenagers "kids," which is exactly the way to reach them.
  • Recalls the one time he ever bullied someone. (O'Reilly was in Little League.)
  • Warns, "Girls, some guys will tell you anything to get the sex thing going."
  • Boasts he has never been "drunk or stoned."
  • Complains of "attacks" against him by "religious maniacs."
  • Reprints a newspaper article about his leaving Inside Edition for Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
  • Demonstrates a sparkling comic gift: "Every teacher you have is kind, smart, hardworking, and trustworthy. Sure, and I'm Brad Pitt."

  Oh, and he tells readers that he didn't lose his virginity until he was 20, which as a commenter notes:

  Considering his "move" is to pretend to rub women with Middle Eastern food, I'm not suprised he was a virgin until 20.

• Me:

  [Red-district Democrats protect themselves] by developing tools and tactics to distance themselves from the rest of their caucus. The Blue Dog Caucus gives them the veneer of centrism, waving the flag of fiscal conservatism (even as they essentially supported every one of President Bush’s budget-busting spending and tax bills). The leadership gives them freedom to stray from the party line in key votes, to further bolster their claim of independence. And every so often, they legitimately make common cause with Republicans and put a wrench into the Democratic majority’s efforts, allowing them to proudly wear the label of “maverick.” Those may all be infuriating to Democratic partisans, but it helps them get reelected.

  Republicans, for their part, don’t have a “centrist” caucus they can join, and as we’ve seen so far this year, leadership refuses any dissent on key votes. Unity is mandatory. There is no separation between any members and their party’s leadership, and no acknowledgement that their districts are politically shifting under their feet.

  Such tactics may bring a smile to Rush Limbaugh’s face, and Joe the Plumber may cheer, but for the people back home wanting true representation, those Obama votes weren’t a plea for the status quo.

• Why anyone gives a shit what Alan Greenspan thinks is beyond me.
• Did you know that Howard Fineman is one of "us"? I laughed too. And I do love the concern trolling about the "elites" abandoning Obama, leaving him with just the impotent rabble on his side.
• Poor Daily Kos is dying.