The basic logic of suicide bombing is "I will sacrifice my own life, but I am going to take a lot of people down with me". By that measure, Saddam was remarkeably succesful--far better than any of the 9/11 hijackers. Together, the 9/11 suiciders killed <3,000 Americans, and 0 Iraqis. Saddam has already taken more Americans with him, plus tens of thousands of Iraqis. And the toll will contiinue to rise.</p>
Now, I am not suggesting that Saddam willingly gave his life. I am sure he clung to survival like a drowning rat. But I am talking about the overall impact of his death. You can dress it up however you want, but getting Saddam was one of Bush's major motivations for going to war with Iraq. Remember Bush's line:
"After all, this is a guy who tried to kill my dad at one time."
I have an idea. Why don't we get all the Go Big people to put their money where their mouth is. You know the Go Big people, the idiots like McCain who think we just need a bigger stick to poke the bee hive. If they really think Going Big is the answer then they should be willing to stake their careers on it. So, if we send more troops, and after 6 months things are not demonstrably better, will all of the people who advocated Go Big agree to Go Away? As in retire? As in hand in your policy wonk badge and just disappear? As in, agree never to go on the TeeVee again? I mean, I assume anyone advocating Go Big (or Go Long for that matter) is doing it only because they really believe it will work. Otherwise, they would never ever risk more of our soldiers lives, would they? So, nothing to fear, right?.
Have you seen the NY Times editorial page today? They ran an editorial about sleazy campaigning in Connecticut. About time, right? And it started well:
Connecticut has turned out to be the epicenter of national election-year politics. Besides its big Senate race, the state has three Republican members of Congress who are targets of the Democrats. Unfortunately, it has also become the focus for some of this year's nastiest campaign tactics.
I was excited to see Lieberman get smacked around for his "a vote for Ned is a vote for Osama" crap. Maybe a few shots would be fired Cheney's way. This was going to be good.
So I was a little stunned to see the next line:
For months, thousands of residents have gotten telephone calls with recorded messages filled with half-truths or outright lies regarding the records of the Republican House members
Robo-calls! Thousands of em! Appalling!!
More below...
Here is a scenario that I have been thinking about: Lets say I am a huge party loyalist and, for some reason, I think Joe Lieberman has the best chance of keeping his seet in Democatic hands.
If I give him money now, and he loses the primary but runs against the Democratic nominee, what happens to my money? How would I know that Joe would not use my money against the winner of the Democratic primary when he runs as a representative of the Me Like I Joe Myself Not You Lieberman party?
His campaign against the Democratic nominee would hurt the Democratic party, which I am trying to support. Could my money be used for exactly the opposite of what I want by a switcher like Joe? Are there laws about these things? Could I demand a refund?
It wasn't the Democrats in congress, it wasn't Bill Clinton, it wasn't John Kerry, it wasn't Tony Blair, and it wasn't the UN. It was George Bush and the assclowns that he listens to. They own that decision and it was one of the single worst tactical blunders in the history of America. This is the first thing people should mention when it comes to discussing the lead-up to the war in Iraq--"sure Clinton said Saddam was bad, but lets not forget who kicked the inspectors out just as they were disproving the WMD mythology". Nobody else would have done that. Nobody.
The intelligence may have been faked, hyped, spun, or whatever but that whole discussion is really secondary. What matters first and foremost is that the inspections were working and George Bush halted them to launch Shock and Awe.
Today on Face the Nation Alberto Gonzales made a rather startling admission. It started with todays NY Times, when Frank Rich reminded people of Gonzales' role in Treasongate:
As White House counsel, he was the one first notified that the Justice Department, at the request of the C.I.A., had opened an investigation into the outing of Joseph Wilson's wife. That notification came at 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2003, but it took Mr. Gonzales 12 more hours to inform the White House staff that it must "preserve all materials" relevant to the investigation. This 12-hour delay, he has said, was sanctioned by the Justice Department, but since the department was then run by John Ashcroft, a Bush loyalist who refused to recuse himself from the Plame case, inquiring Senate Democrats would examine this 12-hour delay as closely as an 18½-minute tape gap. "Every good prosecutor knows that any delay could give a culprit time to destroy the evidence," said Senator Charles Schumer, correctly, back when the missing 12 hours was first revealed almost two years ago.
On Wednesday, Dean made a stop in Minnesota that drew huge crowds and a pretty poor article from the Star Tribune (free subscription required). The stop has already been discussed but I think the diary missed a key point (which is not, contrary to what the Strib thinks, that Dean did not scream): Dean apparently made fun of Limbaugh by pretending to snort drugs:
Dean regaled an appreciative audience for nearly 90 minutes without once raising his voice, as he did after last year's Iowa primary election. But he did draw howls of laughter by mimicking a drug-snorting Rush Limbaugh.
(BTW that is the second time the scream is mentioned in the article! Aren't you supposed to rotate your scripts every 20,000 miles?.) It should not be a big deal, but my Wingnut Hissy Fit sense is tingling. To find out why, race me to the other side...
The Times has a very irritating article on the Social Security Trust Fund. Apparently, its all a big misunderstanding--the government doesn't really owe that money. The silly Democrats seem to think U.S. government bonds represent some sort of promise to pay money. Actually bonds are just a statement that it would be nice if the government paid you back someday, but it doesn't have to (gotta read the fine print). Doesn't that make bonds look like an attractive investment? The worst part is, they quote someone from the AARP who agrees that the Trust Fund is not real.
Its importance, said John C. Rother, the policy director of AARP, the advocacy group for older Americans, is largely symbolic. "It is a symbol of the insurance nature of the program and the social contract that lies behind it," Mr. Rother said. "But it doesn't really bind the Congress," he said, and "no individual's benefits are insured by it."
[Update]: Here is the contact page for the AARP. Let them know what you think. There is some good info to send them in the comments.
Underneath another moronic attempt by Brooks to tell people how to conduct their private lives, there is a strong liberal argument. He is talking about why married couples should have joint bank accounts but he ends up sounding pretty liberal in his criticism of economic selfishness (economic selfishness being the basis of all conservative thought). I never thought I would hear Bobo talk, snark free, about the benefits of "the communal ethos" particularly in relation to financial matters. He even articulates a very good case for social security:
The larger, far more important point is that in a society as individualistic as ours, it's especially important to protect and nurture the countervailing institutions.
Social security is the archetypal "countervailing institution".
A tiny bit more below the fold...
Did you see the press conference today? I just caught the end of it on C-SPAN. I am not a tinfoil hat aficionado, but if Bush is not on some kind of stimulant, my name is Jeff Gannon. He was doing his seemingly drug induced jaw flick thing (moving his jaw rapidly side to side) and he was really amped up. I noticed during the campaign that the frequency of Bush's jaw twitches (a common side effect of stimulants) correlates perfectly with his demeanor. Lots of jaw movement--pumped up. No jaw movement--lethargic. The guy is on drugs. They finally nailed the dosage, however. He wasn't second debate hostile, but he was way more together than the first debate. He was riffing like a fool and trying to be funny. He managed to combine the awkwardness of his father with the vacuousness of Reagan. It was amazing.
More below the fold...
Sure, he doesn't seem like the hitchin kind, but we all settle down at some point. Should Gannon (or as I like to call him, Fred Garvin, Male prostitute) have less of a right to marry then a heterosexual prostitute? If so, does that mean that being gay is worse than being a prostitute? I am confused. We must get the right-wing to help us out on these issues. They have moral clarity to spare.
Seriously. The Republicans party has some profound inconsitencies on homosexuality. It is our duty to point them out and exploit them for political gain. They can not continue to get both the anti-gay religious zealot vote and the, OK with homosexuality but otherwise conservative vote. Make their leaders take a stand and offend part of their consituency.
Because if you have, now would be a great time to come forward. Given that the liberal media has gone sqeamish on Gannon/Guckert/Garvin, the best way to advance the story is to get back to the real issue. How exactly did Jeff Gannon, Male Prostitute, ever get regular access to the White House? Surely, its not that easy to get a Day Pass. There must be lots of people who have tried and failed. These people should be all over the news talking about why they were rejected. Someone should go now and try to get a Day Pass. Bring a video camera. See what happens. Anybody live in DC? This is the angle that needs to be advanced. Make it clear that Fred Guckert got special treatment. Then the question is, WHY did he get special treatment. There is the story. This should be easy.
That is what Republican economic policy is. Its not an ownership society. Its not personal accounts. Its economic balkanization.
WordNet defines Balkanize this way:
1. Balkanize, Balkanise -- (divide a territory into small, hostile states)
That is what Republican policies do to the American people--divide us against each other. Social Security works because it harnesses the economic power of working together. Privatization pits us against each other. Democrats want us to pool our economic might making each of us stronger. Republicans want us to hoard our money and act selfishly. Balkanization makes everyone weaker. The European Union beats Albania any day.
Something Digby said recently made me think we are going about the whole Social Security debate wrong. Instead of being defensive, we should recognize that it is really a great opportunity for us. Digby pointed out that, contrary to what the pinheads keep saying, the Democrats have, in fact, put forward an alternative to Bush's plan. It's called Social Security. It works great and we have lots of data to prove it. Social Security is perhaps the most successful government program in all of human history. And it is all ours. Republicans have always hated it and still do. If they want to keep bringing it up, I say great. Lets use this opportunity to remind people how great it is and, more importantly, why it works. Social security works for the same reason most liberal programs work. It is good economics. For a multitude of reasons, economics favors the big over the small. And only governments can provide the economic advantages of a big corporation to individual citizens.
So now that Reid has got us one of those fancy media war rooms, next we need to get some training facilities. You can't fight a war without well trained troops. I think with a little work we could vastly improve the quality of our on air spokespeople. We could at least put as much effort into this as a football team puts into a game. They have coaches, film sessions, practices, game plans, etc. They also are very careful about who they put on the field. So here is what we should do:
Centralized decision making. We need to decide who goes on the air (not the networks). If you are representing the Democrats, you should not go on the air unless the Democratic leadership thinks you will represent us well. No more boneheads or unprepared people. They are killing us.
Game plan. Everyone that goes on the air must know the few key points the need to make. Get everyone on the same page and tell them exactly what their primary objective is. If they don't like it, they don't represent us.
Every time the Republicans bring up the phony Social Security crisis, Democrats should say "If you want to talk about something that could be disasterous 40 years down the road, lets talk about Global Warming". Both Social Security and Global Warming involve using models to predict what is going to happen in the future. The difference? With Global Warming, the worst case scenario is somewhat worse than only being able to pay 80% of benefits. If Republicans respond by saying that there is no Global Warming crisis, that is a perfect opportunity to ask what exactly the evidence for a Social Security crisis is. If anything, the evidence is better for Global Warming, and the stakes are much higher. Why is Bush, an oilman, ignoring one 'crisis' while promoting the other? The recent Tsunami only helps make the point that Mother Nature can be quite devestating. We need to pay more attention to the envioronment and the Republicans seem to be providing a good opportunity to talk about why. At the very least this tactic might slow the push to destroy Social Security.
We are not the fans. It is not ok for us to make disparaging remarks about our teammates when these comments serve no purpose. Its fine for fans to sit at home and yell "so-and-so is a bum" at the TV when somebody screws up. It is not OK for a player in a post game interview to say "my teammate is a bum". We are all on the same team--you, me, our candidates, our party leaders. All of us. I am not saying we should stiffle criticism. We need to focus our criticism on things that can help us win the next game. Saying so-and-so is a such-and-such after they lose an election only brings down team moral. Saying what they did wrong and how it can be fixed is useful. The team mentality is something Republicans are much better at. Liberals are much more likely to make fun of their own, even during the game. While honesty and self-deprecation are admirable, we are getting outplayed. We can't afford to lose any longer. We need to focus on winning. Together. As a team.
After reading about the success of Schweitzer in Montana over at David Sirota's blog I thought now would be a good time to start pushing for a piece of legislation at the national level that makes it more difficult to privatize public land. Its an issue that resonates in the West and it is pretty straightforward. The bill would make it more difficult for greedy rich people to gobble up public land that is currently used by sportsmen and nature lovers. The details would not matter nor would it matter right now how feasible or even good the legislation is. What is important is that it lets the Democrat's be on the side of sportsmen in a natural way because it is an issue of the people against the powerful. It is also a good place to make a stand against the Republican's obsession with privatizing everything. Where are you going to hunt if you aren't rich enough to own a bunch of land?
