It's a quiet Sunday afternoon with the I-Pod on "shuffle."  In rapid succession it gives me "A Song For Europe" by Roxy Music, "China My China" by Brian Eno, and "Japan" by Be-Bop Deluxe.  And that gets me to reflecting about all the great songs in my collection that have geographical locations in the title.

Leading off the New York Times obituary page is the sad news of the passing of George MacDonald Fraser, author of the Flashman novels.  I know from the various book threads that pop up on this site that those books have a solid following here.  

The obituary mentions his collaboration on the screenplay for Octopussy, but inexplicably omits his adaptation of The Three Musketeers for the two films directed by Richard Lester.  Which is a shame, since those are two great movies.  Go figure.

My apologies for the short diary.  But really, what more is there to say? Except for a heartfelt "thank you."

Glenn Grenwald tells us our friends on the right are now inventing quotes from Abraham Lincoln:  

[Frank] Gaffney begins his column by purporting to quote Abraham Lincoln. Gaffney claims that Lincoln said:

Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged.

This quote has become a favorite weapon for those who want to criminalize criticism of the Leader and the War. Jack Murtha's opponent in the last election, Diana Irey, cited this quote while discussing Murtha's opposition to the war.

But this quote is completely invented. Lincoln never said it. This "quote" was first attributed to Lincoln by J. Michael Waller in Insight Magazine, in a 2003 article revealingly entitled: Democrats Usher in an Age of Treason. But as Waller himself now admits, the quote attributed to Lincoln is completely fraudulent.

I say, why should they have all the fun?  Let's make up our own Lincoln quotes.

Kos has cited this story about Newt Gingrich and his severe allergic reaction to Freedom of Speech.  I would like to counter Newt's cowardice with a bit of history.

When this country was founded, it was not some idyllic time free of care and worry.  Those who claim that today we face an unparalleled threat overlook that the early years of this Republic were spent on a veritable knife edge.  

If you're looking for guilt, if you're looking for blame,
Bill Clinton's the only guy you need to name.
There's no point disputing, no questions to ask.
Bill Clinton's the one to be taken to task

That bomb in Korea that just was exploded
Is Bill Clinton's fault - that's a fact to be noted.
After all, what's he done for  six years to forestall it?
Not a darn thing - so his fault we can call it!

It's Bill Clinton's fault that Mark Foley is gay
Bill Clinton, you see, is who made him that way.
Don't ask how he did it  - I don't have the proof.
But Clinton's responsible - that's just the truth.

Kids, kids, kids -- we're looking at this torture thing all wrong.  Now that Bush can disappear anybody he chooses, we have a tremendous opportunity.

Opportunity for what, you ask?

Only the all-time coolest betting pool ever!!!

Not channeling anybody  in particular this time, unless it's Richard Armour...

Hello! Hello there, NSA.  It's good to know you're there
I haven't got a lot to say, but you don't really care.
You just want to listen in on people when they talk -
And write down all their numbers while bin Laden takes a walk

I know it's lots of work to track me with your database.
I wish that I could be a much  more interesting case
I don't know any people hatching plots in foreign lands
But I do hang out with people that Republicans can't stand.

I have a friend who's black.  I have another who's a Jew
I know a couple gays.  I know an immigrant or two.
I only know one Vegan -- she is quiet and reserved
That probably means she's up to something and should be observed.

Well, it took me awhile, but I finally realized what "I'm the decider" reminds me of.  It sounds like something a character in a Dr. Seuss book might say.  

So with apologies to the late Mr. Geisel, here is some idle speculation as to what else such a character might say:

I'm the decider.
I pick and I choose.
I pick among whats.
And choose among whos.

And as I decide
Each particular day
The things I decide on
All turn out that way.

(You can decide if you want to continue below...)

William Rivers Pitt posted a piece on Truthout.Org that is, in my humble opinion, essential reading for this community.  It is titled "Incompetent Design." I have seen not a diary on it, so I decided to provide one.

Pitt's thesis is quite simple:  The Bush administration has been quite successful, really.  They have done pretty much what they set out to do, in Iraq and in America.  

Money quotes below...

I came upon this on Yahoo this afternoon:

The Republican national chairman created a furor this week when he suggested Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is too "angry" to win the White House in 2008. And to hear Republicans tell it, Clinton is just one of many Democrats with an anger management problem.

Former Vice President Al Gore is angry. So is Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. The party is held hostage by the "angry left."

In recent months, GOP operatives and officeholders have cast the Democrats as the anger party, long on emotion and short on ideas. Analysts say the strategy has been effective, trivializing Democrats' differences with the GOP as temperamental rather than substantive.

However are we to counter such a thing?  Well, as I did once before, I suggest we start agreeing with the Republicans.  Immediately.

Dear Mrs. Alito,

I see that our mean old Senators asking questions of your husband has upset you terribly.  It pains me to see anyone upset to the point of shedding tears in public -- even if what upsets them is a process that has been part of this Republic for 216 years.  Leaving aside the fact that there are a lot more of us -- tens of millions as a conservative estimate -- who would like to have these questions answered than there are people crying in public about these questions being asked, I'd like to ask you this:

What would make you happy?  Honestly, I'd really like to know.

Rev. Pat Robertson
The Christian Broadcasting Network
977 Centerville Turnpike
Virginia Beach, VA 23463

Dear Rev. Robertson:

I see you have attributed Ariel Sharon's stroke to God's displeasure.  I've noticed that you are very diligent about telling us when God is pissed off about this or that.  Leaving aside the fact that God seems to get pissed off about the same things you do, I'd like to ask you this question:

How come you never tell us when He is happy??  Seriously -- why don't we ever hear about that?

Ted Rall is worried about the likely confirmation of John Roberts:

Federal abortion rights are doomed. Liberals and feminists had might as well accept that. Pocket the TV ad budget and upgrade the website.  
.....

In a sick way, the end of Roe v. Wade may turn out to be a net positive for America. For one thing, Roe was a legally dubious decision based on flawed constitutional logic. Rather than pass abortion rights into law, 14 cowardly congresses and seven weasely presidents have relied on the 1973 ruling to avoid taking political fire from the Bible-thumpers.

I, too, think it may be a net positive -- but only if we work to make it so.  I have a modest proposal below...

When I first met my wife, she owned a toy poodle that was unexpectedly smart.  It was impossible to give this dog a pill the same way twice, because she'd figure out we were giving her a pill.  We'd put it in cream cheese -- she'd eat the cheese and spit out the pill.  Ditto any number of processed meats, cat food, butter.  We were forced to keep finding new ways to shove a pill down her throat.

Well, judging from the latest bit of drivel from David Gelerntner in today's Los Angeles Times, the radical religious right considers the rest of us their poodles.  After decades of trying to pass their religion off as science, they've come up with this:

Teaching the Bible in public school raises ticklish problems. Because our public schools must not be used for preaching religion, they must teach the Bible purely as literature.

They're trying to sneak their religion down our throats again....

PM Carpenter writes on the toxic legacy of McCarthyism: When Goldwater was crushed in '64, liberals assumed that right-wing politics, if not the Republican Party, was as dead as the cirrhosis-eaten Senator McCarthy.

I recommend to everyone Before the Storm by Rick Perlstein. Its subtitle: "Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus." It is, as you might expect, about the 1964 campaign. But it's also about the origins of the modern -- make that "current" -- Republican party.

What normal, rational people perceived as a crushing defeat was in fact an overwhelming success for the radical rightists and devout anti-New Dealers who set their sights on gaining control of a major political party just about 50 years ago. (They considered Eisenhower -- Eisenhower! -- a communist stooge.) Step One was to get their guy on the ticket. He didn't have to win -- he just had to get on the ticket. So in 1964, it was Mission Accomplished, and on to Step Two -- actually winning.

Now, here's where it gets kind of interesting...

Good news, everybody. The new meme is out!  The Democratic party is now "The party of No" according to the Republicans.  

The timeline, for this Democrat, is really quite impressive:  1)At approximately 2:45 PST Friday afternoon I hear Ed Schultz alerting his listeners to the new meme.  2)At about 7:20 PST Friday evening I hear Tony Blankley refer to Democrats as "the party of No" on the rebroadcast of "Left, Right & Center."  Great work, guys!

The question is:  What do we do about it?  How do  we respond?  Easy -- WE EMBRACE IT.  Here's why....

Weekends seem to be good times to ask non-political questions about things like music and literature.  So here's mine:  

What book made you a reader?

What did you read at just the right age -- maybe you were ten, maybe you were twenty -- that made you realize that books weren't just those things teachers forced on you?  

Who wrote the US Constitution? What sort of men? This is not a question pertaining to character, but to vocation.

The answer is, for a great many of them, "attorneys."   A majority of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were lawyers.  Virtually all of them had been active in their state legislatures.  Quite a few had served in the Continental Congress as well.  

This means that these men were grounded in the traditions of law, the language of law, the patterns of thinking of law, and the experience of law.  As such, they constructed a legal -- not moral, not philosophical -- framework for a working republic.