Midday open thread

• It would be nice if the White House learned, as Baratunde notes, that they can't negotiate with terrorists.

  Van Jones was one of the good guys. A really, really good guy. He used his education and his passion to combat police brutality and the massive, wasteful incarceration of so many of this nation’s young, brown people. Having fought in the trenches for so long, he saw an opportunity to build hope and jobs and tangible communities as the world responds to the climate crisis. He connected the dots and inspired action and had a vision. He was the rare outsider who got a chance to move inside, and move he did.

  Van was the kind of guy that gave me real confidence in this administration’s seriousness. President Obama meets with generals every day and sees scary reports and wants to get re-elected. I can always make some politics-based allowances for his underwhelming actions. Van, however, was truly one of us. He got it. And to give someone like him power gave me more faith in the president. So when the lynch mob came after Van, it was a test. The same test so many Democratic administrations have failed time and time again. When the going gets tough, do you back your people, or do you fall back on excuses [...]

  I’m heartbroken over Van’s departure because it’s these little meaningless concessions that undermine people’s faith in the system. You get folks all riled up about change. You empower a man who embodies that change. And they you let him be run out of office by fucking Glenn Beck? So Glenn Beck is running the White House now? Is that how it’s gonna be? Just tell me that I knocked on all those doors for nothing, and I can start the grieving process, but don’t pretend this will solve anything.

  If it was the conspiracy theory stuff that truly did him in, then why was Dick "we know where the WMDs are" Cheney allowed to finish out his eight years as vice president, and why is he STILL taken seriously these days?

  But the precedent has been set. Subscribing to a conspiracy theory, even in passing and perhaps inadvertently, is good enough reason to demand a resignation. So we'll soon be seeing every Birther and Deather in Congress resigning this week, right? Michelle Bachmann, you're up first.  

• It's a point we've been making at Daily Kos on a consistent basis, but I'll quote Jay Ackroyd just to reinforce it:

  Obama and his campaign team accomplished something extraordinary in 2008. They inspired, and turned out, a huge number of young people who had not voted before. These new voters, new Democrats, were moved by his commitment to Change of a system driven by lobbyists and not voters.

  I cannot think of a more effective way of alienating those voters than forcing them to buy shitty health insurance they can't afford even if subsidized (13% of income?!?).

• When I was in the Army, I got fantastic government-run health care that was all commie and shit. Of course, Nazi health care is bad, so when will Republicans introduce legislation mandating private health insurance for our troops?
• If Obama caves on public option:

  Well, if Obama really does punt on the public option, it will be a disaster for him and for us. And not because of policy. No, this will be our Waterloo moment because emotional truth and actual truth will collide.

  Those of us who feel the most passionately about this, the "left of the left" if you will (although, I live in Venice, there are people here who equate me with George Bush, honest to god), will see a President who did not respect, empower and include them. We will feel that we have no more voice in this administration than we did the last.That will be our emotional truth.

  Worse, Republicans will see that bullying, being disruptive, and tapping into people's worst fears and instincts works, and will use it on each and every piece of legislation the White House tries to pass for the next 3 years. It's happening on climate change legislation now. Combine that with a disillusioned, disempowered activist left and I'm seeing damage to the Democratic Party well past the 2010 election cycle.

  So on Wednesday night, the only thing I'm going to be watching for is the narrative our Story-Teller-In-Chief brings to the American people. I will be watching for the emotional truth.

  That is what the fight over the public option is all about - it is not about policy. It's a proxy for the implied contract we entered into when we helped get Obama elected. We expected Change, we expected to be respected, empowered and included, we expected him to fight, and we expected to join him in that fight.

  Wednesday night will be a promise kept or a promise broken.  Either way, it will be our moment of truth.

• The best health care system in the world? That is what Republicans and their acolytes are fighting to protect?
• Obama's Deputy Campaign Manager, Steve Hildebrand, is losing patience with Obama.

  “I am one of the millions of frustrated Americans who want to see Washington do more than it's doing right now,” said Steve Hildebrand, the deputy campaign manager who oversaw the Obama campaign’s field organization and was an architect of his early, crucial victories over Sen. Hillary Clinton in Iowa and South Carolina.

  Obama, he said, “needs to be more bold in his leadership.”

  “I’m not going to just sit by the curb and let these folks get away with a lack of performance for the American people,” he said, speaking of Washington’s Democratic leadership as a whole. “I want change just as much as a majority of Americans do, and I’m one of the many Americans who are losing patience.”

• Maybe I won't wait to buy a new car. Really looking hard at Mazda5. I just wish that market segment (mini-minivans with three rows of seats) had more cars than just the Mazda5. Would the market really reject a third row on all those boxy new sportswagons flooding the market, like the Element and Scion xB? I want a small car with a third row. I don't want a full-size miniwagon, or a huge-ass SUV. I don't even want a mid-size SUV/crossover. I live in an urban setting, and parking is at a premium. I just want a small car with a third row. And right now, the only car that fits that bill is the Mazda5.
• Douglass Rushkoff's new book, Life Inc., shows how corporations not only dominate the business world, they shape how we think about our own lives. Not only is this corpotate mindset destroying both public and private institutions, there's actually something we can do about it. Come and find out what when Douglass Rushkoff stops by for a live Q&A Monday, Sep 14, at 8PM EST -- Devilstower