When I read kos's recent entry "Rewarding Good Behavior", I was first intrigued, in the way that anyone should be when they witness an apparent contradiction that must be understood and reconciled. Markos has earned so much of my respect over the years that I did not, like some, rush to accusations of hypocrisy. Even with great individuals, Hanlon's razor is a powerful tool for judging human behavior, and I have come to the conclusion that kos is in the process of working out some underexamined beliefs. If I may be presumptuous, I would like to help him along by delineating just what it is he has said and just what it means in the real world.

I once had an extensive conversation with someone who insisted that rape is a more terrible offense than murder, and I am confident enough that this is a widely-made assertion and not my own straw man. In light of the recent Supreme Court decision that has determined the unconstitutionality of the death penalty in cases of child rape, which in turn is certainly the most perverse and destructive form of sexual assault, I find it appropriate to explore just how correct the five assenting Justices are in their decision. This is not my condemnation of the death penalty as a practice, which is in my mind completely separate from the ruling and constitutes a wholly different conversation. Suffice it for me to say there is no defensible rationale for that practice outside the realm of guttural assertion.

This is a necessarily sensitive topic. I welcome all points of view in response, but I ask that you read well below the fold before making your decision and reply, and that you respect the candor of the argument over considerations of social grace. This is not and cannot be a happy topic.

Bear with me, this is a wild fantasy, but a good one:

Suppose the legislation were enacted on the state level mandating that a vote in a primary for candidate in a party other than your own (thus applying to any vote placed by an indie) is permissible only under the condition that it should count also as an automatic advance vote in the general election, should your candidate win his or her primary.

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I must begin by saying that I am astounded by Barack Obama's frankness, his unwillingness to brush Jeremiah Wright under the rug as he so easily could have done. The media, it is true, have made a of this issue. Far more, many have already noted, than they made on the wholly more indecent statements of John McCain's welcomed endorser, John Hagee, as though the "IOKIYAR" effect were still more potent for indecent and radical statements of faith.

But, with the Democratic primary all but finished, this so-called scandal could not have turned any tides. By the time the nomination is handed out, it will be a small-print footnote in the narrative of his primary campaign, not his general campaign, and not, fate willing, his presidency. So why, then would Obama put himself on the line? Why not let his denunciation stand, and allow the media to move on to the next passing fancy?

This year, more than ever, we have nothing to fear from Ralph Nader. His agenda is rapidly becoming that of the Democratic Party, and everyone's favorite seatbelt enthusiast really isn't looking any younger or hipper these days. Of course it doesn't look like that's going to stop us from talking about him. You aren't a Democrat unless the first mention of his name in a campaign makes your testicles retreat just a little into your abdomen (or ovaries into your thorax, however that works). It carries the specter of the 2000 spoiler, the 500-odd votes that made all the difference, that put us through eight long years of what may be the most baffling, erroneous regime American politics has ever seen.

It still really worries and amazes us that the 2.74% percent of Americans who voted for him in protest of their choices--because hey, one vote never mattered--wound up giving us all the greater of two evils. And along with the 50,000,000 who voted Republican, that is their fucking fault. And a bit Ralph Nader's. After all, he is the one who asked them to trade their democratic efficacy, their only tool for directing the course of the American executive, for the political equivalent of a grumpy "Meh". And somehow, that got them really excited.