"Was that a good move?" I asked Sensei hopefully.

He smiled.  "Good move.  Bad move.  All is next move."

I was taken aback for an instant.  Then I realized Sensei had shared one of the most important lessons in Go, and in life.

Please join me over the fold for more....

By now we've all heard the reasons Democrats have lost elections for the past four decades.  Frames.  Memes.  Defined by opponents.  Attack ads.  Political capitulations.  Weak on defense.  And crime.  And the voters are stupid.  Oh, and the media are biased.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that all of the above are the politics of mass distraction.  The real reason Democrats lost elections for the past four decades?  Just three:

Racism.  Sexism.  Organization.

Please join me over the fold....

To read many of the diaries and comments here on DKos over the past four days, you'd think John McCain had turned the tables on Barack Obama and was now favored, or that McCain had at least drawn even.  There's a good reason for that mis-impression:  Kossacks spend too much time listening to (and complaining about) pundits, and not enough time looking at the underlying mathematics of the race.

Follow me over the fold for an explanation of why Obama is losing the pundit race (and he is) ... and winning the election (and he is)....

Note: All of the math in this post is taken directly from Nate Silver's excellent site, fivethirtyeight.com.  And I'll come right out and ask Mr. Silver(poblano) to correct any shortcomings in my descriptions of his methods.

I'd like to apologize to anyone I've offended or insulted in the debates about FISA.  I've been reacting emotionally too much, and not stepping back to consider that, as a former criminal appellate attorney who argued constitutional issues regularly, my perspective on the Constitution is very different from from a lay citizen's.  I couldn't understand why so many of you were so exercised over what was, to me, a commonplace piece of legislation, albeit one with which I disagree.

I took some time alone last night and put myself back in time, before my law practice, before law school, back to high school and college civics classes and my then-layperson's view of the Constitution.  I realized that, back then, I'd have been running around with my hair on fire too.

Come with me over the fold, please, and I'll try to explain why - though I disagree with this FISA bill - I'm not all that exercised about it.

This diary is in response to a number of diaries and comments speculating about why Democrats "always lose," are "spineless," don't "run to their base," and the like.

I don't consider these people purity trolls.

They have a legitimate complaint, albeit one grounded in too small an historical sample.  I'm old enough to remember when GOP voters made these same complaints, back when Democrats had legislative majorities and a progressive Supreme Court, and racked up a stunning series of policy victories: the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, Court decisions like Miranda, Gideon v. Wainwright and the Pentagon Papers case, Watergate, the War Powers Act, and Carter-era Congressional hearings, legislation, and executive orders that reined in the FBI and CIA.

But I suspect most Kossaks aren't old enough to remember those times, and in the nearly 40 years since, progressives have indeed been on the losing side of almost every major political fight.  If that's all you've known, all you've seen in your adult lifetime, it's easy to get cynical.

Still, come with me over the fold, please, for why I think we should not make the 2008 elections into a progressive referendum.

Note:  This is the third essay in a series.  The previous are Sixty Years of Losing and Sixty Years of Moral Acid.

B.H. Lidell Hart, in his 1954 classic Strategy, spends a chapter discussing guerilla warfare, its methods, and its long-term social effects.  In light of the challenges we face in Iraq and Afghanistan, the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the recent history of the progressive movement in the Democratic Party, it's worthwhile to consider Hart's thoughts on what happens when insurgency becomes infection.

After Senator Obama's decision to forego public financing came the FISA mess, then the Supreme Court decisions on the death penalty and handguns, then his comments on General Clark's criticism of Senator McCain, and now his statement to evangelicals that he will not only preserve but expand the Faith-Based Initiatives program instituted by President Bush.

Each of these positions has upset many progressives, who see these acts as proof that Senator Obama is "just another politician," "betraying his base," "caving in to Republicans," "Republican-Lite," and the like.  Most of Senator Obama's defenders, echoing the prevailing media narrative, say Senator Obama is following the usual general election strategy of "moving to the center."

While I disagree with some of the positions Senator Obama has taken in the past few weeks, I also disagree with both his detractors and many of his defenders.  Please follow me over the fold for an explanation of why Senator Obama is not, in fact, "moving to the center."

This is a follow-up to my last diary, A pragmatist looks at FISA.  Thank you to everyone who took time to contribute to that debate.  But within that debate, several of you asked what I mean by "pragmatism," or argued as if I were referring to nothing more than Clintonian triangulation.

As someone who has engaged real policy battles with conservatism for twenty years - from base policy when I was a Marine, to my former church's stand on my community's gay rights ordinance, to authoring and pushing through a human rights amdnement to my law school constitution, to courtroom battles on behalf of defendants, to my involvement in local community committees - I've had many opportunities to learn, often from my own mistakes, how to wage a political fight.  I've become convinced that pragmatism is what gets problems solved.

So please follow this pragmatist over the fold as she explains what she means by "pragmatism."

I'm a former criminal defense appellate attorney.  Most of my cases turned on constitutional issues: search and seizure, interrogation methods, ineffective assistance of counsel, police and/or prosecutorial misconduct, and the like.  The issues that dominate the news and the blogosphere today are the issues I worked with in the grit and grist of real defendants, real victims, real crimes, real facts.

So please bear with this pragmatist and follow over the jump as she explores why this FISA bill is, to quote the Bard, "sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Thus warns Justice Antonin Scalia in his scathing dissent in yesterday's decision, Boumediene v. Bush.  Regardless of Scalia's other arguments, and his dissent was an exhaustive display of obeisance, the core flaw in his argument is right here:

[This decision] will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.

Join me after the jump for a critique explaining why Scalia's argument is fundamentally, inarguably un-American.

Let me first say that I have no inside connections.  I don't know anyone in Team Clinton, though I've some friends who voted for her.  I haven't been to her website, and I haven't read any of the many pro-Hillary blog sites.  I'm just an ordinary Kossack who watches and reads the news, and thinks about what I watch and read.

With those caveats, herewith my speculation on What Hillary Clinton Wants, and why I think she has, indeed, earned it.

Reduced to a single word: She wants to be special.

More after the fold.

Not that she would ever hire me as a speechwriter, nor would I accept the job if it were offered, but this is the apology I would write for her.  And Senator Clinton, you have my permission to use it.

After driving 50 miles through hail and sleet[1] in my Prius[2] while sipping my latte[3] to an intimate gathering of Obama supporters[4], I found out just what the right wing is afraid of.

Follow me after the jump, for a whimsically[5] annotated account of today's Barack Obama rally in Tampa.

Note:  This is the second essay in a series.  The first was Sixty Years of Losing - On War: Part I.

"Why?"  The young woman, only 17 yet already widowed, looked at me with shimmering blue eyes as I gently placed her husband's wedding band into her palm.  "Why?

I didn't have an answer.  What I had was exhaustion and sorrow.  And hate.  I could, at least, share the sorrow.  I embraced her.  "I'm sorry."

But part of me wanted to say:  "We'll kill the f*ckers who did this."

When did the hate start?

This is the first of what will probably become a series of diaries on what I believe is the greatest challenge facing our nation: militarism.  Too many Americans have bought into the "can do" mentality preached by militarists, both on the Right and on the Left.  Too many believe our military "can do" anything, if the American people support the mission.

They are wrong.  As this diary will explore, the United States has lost every war but one for the past sixty years, and there are many who argue we "lost" even that one: DESERT STORM.  Their arguments gave us the Iraq War in which we're mired today.  One we will lose, without doubt, and for entirely predictable military reasons.  See you after the fold....

I usually enjoy Chuck Todd's "First Read" blog at MSNBC, simply because I think he's one of the most perceptive and intelligent reporters we have.  There's a little nugget in today's edition that I found both revealing and not entirely accurate (in my view), and it's all about ...

... oh, do I need to tell you?

UPDATED with more specific context.

More after the jump....

You probably didn't know there was a place called Oblivia.  But there is.  And it has a university, where we send our best and brightest to be turned into our worst and dumbest, then call them experts.  If you want to be an expert - on politics, foreign affairs, and especially on Iraq - you must study diligently, and learn to be ... oblivious.  Oblivious to real facts, real motives, and real outcomes.

More after the jump....

The 2008 Democratic Primary season has come down to that bizarre state called Super.  Created by the rules wonks at the DNC back in the early 1980s, Super has both the smallest population (about 720) and the largest delegate haul (about 720).  And it will be the Super Primary that decides whether Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee.  The highlights:

What and Why is Super?

Does Obama Need Super?

When is the Super Primary?

What Issues Matter in Super?

Playing to the Final Whistle

More after the jump....