The American Way

There has been a good deal of public yelping about Obama’s refusal to belly up to campaign finance funds — a flip-flop, we hear, even though McCain is breaking the law with his funding. Some of this is response to lessons learned with Kerry’s lack of funding when the Swift Boat attacks caught him with no money to respond, and B’s determination not to be caught short. The public doesn’t seem to care; and even the Righty’s are saying that he wins with this move, keeping his $$ and suffering only a bit of a bruise to the ‘character issues.’ It’s interesting to note that even the Right have admiration for the way in which B uses all that dough — they say he uses it “wisely.” That’s quite an admission from the Right, who seem to be a bit enamored of Obama, even as their own guy plummets in the polls.

So that’s the big MSM issue, discussed at length … and loudly, on Sunday pundit shows and since … meanwhile, we hear almost nothing about the FISA immunity issue. That’s because some 61% of the nation thinks its fine to have the government intrude in our communications. Nothing to see here, move along.

The Lefty’s, however, are in meltdown, along with the Libertarian’s and a handful from the Right. The Blue dogs in Congress, the establishment itself and now, Obama, will go along with the FISA redraw for the sake of “security” and wound the 4th amendment. Obama has said he’ll work to remove the immunity clause, but Feingold seems to think the issue is already dead; Obama has said if he’s elected, he’ll go back and restore the Constitution, but … there are many who see this as defection from Progressive principals early on. Evidently Obama’s advisers have convinced him that a strong Inspector General can keep abuse from occurring … of course, we’d have to get us one of those, first.

So here’s where I have to say … while this is very disappointing, how is this surprising from a controversial candidate fighting a well-oiled “national security” machine? I told you months back that Obama and Clinton and even Edwards are Establishment Democrats. Those who wave the real Lefty flag like Kucinich are tolerated but not amplified; the Establishment types typically find their place within the system, they do not tear it down and begin again. So if that’s what we’re waiting for, then we’re blowing smoke up our own arse.

Months back, Right-leaning Stu Rothenberg identified the trends in clumsy, but apparent, stereotypes:

While the Democratic race has often, and quite accurately, been described as a choice between change (Barack Obama and John Edwards) and experience (Hillary Rodham Clinton), it has, in the final days before Iowa, become another kind of choice as well.

Democrats must decide whether they want a candidate who is angry and confrontational, and who sees those favoring compromise as traitors (Edwards), or a candidate who presents himself as a uniter (Obama), or a candidate who presents herself as someone who understands the ways of Washington and can get things done (Clinton).

We did not choose the confrontational one, which should have been the no-brainer for an actual Progressive ticket; the fight between the remaining contestants, the uniter and the insider, ended eventually — leaving the next traditional campaign strategy, that count-on-it move to the middle in order to garner Independents and opposing-party deserters; that, like it or not, is the American way. And the more Obama moves to the middle the more buyers remorse the Lefty’s get … but we would have seen this in Clinton, for sure, Clash of the Titan’s notwithstanding. This is how it’s done in the Establishment. [It should be noted that if Barack is having problems with his base, McCain is having considerably more.]

Obama’s assertion that he will vote yes on this FISA bill puts us all at odds with our own dearly-held desires and wondering what’s going on in his head — is this strategic positioning, is this political expediency, is this campaign hurrah … or something else? But the bottom line, one we have to look at because Adults do that kind of thing, is this: we wanted change, we wanted bi-partisan discussion, we wanted a new way of looking at things without the growl that John Edwards offered … and that’s what we’re getting. Did we think that “change” was going to follow our wish list to a “T”?

Now that we’ve made our selections, in the race between Obama and McCain our choices are clean cut. Besides the possibility that McCain “ain’t alright” mentally, emotionally or physically [little worrisome bits and pieces of odd and clueless rhetoric continue to surface, reminiscent of St. Ronnie the Reagan] the maverick Mac of 2000 is dead and buried, and the Bush makeover has taken root. He’s Bush III and obviously so.

It can’t be a shock that Obama is at odds with some of the things that the Left embraces. For instance, he’s going after young evangelicals using their language and their concepts; the Left is the secular model, and that familiarity with religion is going to make them nervous and unhappy. My early concerns about Obama included his mentorship from Lieberman and, perhaps because of it, support of AIPAC, and his coziness with nuclear energy; his ethanol issues are state-driven, rather than national. Obama is not a peace-nik, he’s pragmatic. He did not support the war because he thought it was ill-conceived and unnecessary; but he’s voted the money for it, as have most of the Dem’s in the last two years. Under Dem leadership in Congress, there have been 663 casualties [for a total of 4104 in the last five years.] That’s 663 souls on OUR WATCH.

The Clinton years took us farther and faster toward the middle-Right than any I remember; especially with a Democratic president. As we pull out of this 8-year shift to radical Right, we’re going have to effort to move ourselves back to the middle. It will take time … and effort — OURS — to change that.

Nobody said “change” was going to be easy or even pleasant; so we have to intuit the bigger picture if we’re going to make our way through it without imploding. I’m including a bonus section with Obama reads — I think it would be very bright of us to examine this man carefully, and stop superimposing our own stuff on him. In my mind, he remains highly ‘teachable’ — of those we’ve looked at in the last year, he’s still the one who is most available to Progressive influence. When you read this stuff, keep ‘change’ … old vs.. new … in the forefront of your mind; there are bits to factor in as you ponder the shifting energy.

You’ll find a Christy Hardin Smith [FireDogLake] piece below, giving you numbers to call including Obama’s to get the point across that we aren’t going to sit still, or forget this FISA cave in. If I’m reading the blog entries correctly, the Left is hot enough to pull their financial support from Obama, even as they determine to vote for him — and since he’s relying on our money, he might factor that little piece in as he prepares his FISA vote. That would be a disaster, by the way — same as Clinton-for-McCain types. The Old Coot is standing by to catch anything Obama has to lose.

DO CALL — DO FAX. Even under the best scenario, our activism was going to be required to shift him farther to the Left. His instincts are sound, as exemplified by his voting record — it’s his pragmatics that need to be influenced.

In the bonus section, I’ve included a couple of unusual bits: the first is the most recent anti-Obama e-mail I got from my Righty relative [one every few days.] As we spin ourselves up because of the the FISA issue, we need to remember what Obama has actually accomplished in his tenure; that speaks to his instincts. The next is from our old friend Tina Louise, our reader from Arms Against War in Britain [who have their own FISA-type problems, for sure. This security paranoia is even turning up in Sweden; the WOT nonsense is beginning to shift toward psy-op's and will continue, until we come to some more democratic turn.] Both of these pieces are part of the puzzle — the next reads are from moderate press and give us even more glimpse into the habit and life of the Dem nominee.

I’ve added another bonus section below that, for those who think Hillary Clinton would have been more predictable; I think that’s pretty much true, and that was always the problem I had with her. Matt Taibbi, Greg Palast and John Edwards had a few things to say about those possibilities, from my archives.

The passions of both the far Right and the far Left have given us a split nation; the proposition at hand is to find unity, which by definition will mean coming to the middle. I will be satisfied if we can actually DETERMINE an honest middle that leaves uber-conservatism and militarism on the far side of same. No president will ‘fix’ this nation — but every president makes his mark on the direction in which the nation heads; Obama has the potential to take us toward that balanced nation. It’s up to us to give him a long leash but yank it back when the issues are critical.

Stopping this FISA bill seems incredibly critical to us — but the rest of the nation is yawning. A few yanks on the lead may not make a difference today, but in the long run it will, as will the times themselves. Let’s remember that FDR ran and won as a Conservative Democrat — but that didn’t define him, in the end. I think Obama has the same capacity, perhaps even more given his [seriously] non-elitist roots.

As for the Blue dogs [moderates] that rolled over for a tummy scratch, they are the very reason we have the House today, so making them the enemy is counterproductive — they play their part; if we want that to change we have to actively support groups like Blue America to replace them with Lefty’s of our own ilk — ‘cuz, you know … freedom isn’t free and you don’t get to bitch unless you DO something! There’s an excellent read about the Blue dogs below, plus a breakdown of the Senate by conservative-to-liberal … guess who’s most liberal?

The most important point I make today is that ‘change’ is an experiment. Let’s begin to look at that realistically and understand that every experiment shifts from day to day — and take our position in the Petri dish to be a factor that can’t be ignored.

A number of different points of view, today — take your time with this collection … and CALL.

Jude

Feingold: “We Caved In” on FISA
Brian Beutler of the Media Consortium
June 23, 2008

The Senate is poised to give Bush what he wants.

That’s the loud and clear warning Sen. Russ Feingold just issued.

In the wake of the House of Representatives’ passage of a bill last week that grants the White House wide latitude to spy on American citizens, and that effectively forces courts to throw out lawsuits against lawbreaking telecommunications companies, the Wisconsin Senator predicted Monday that the Senate would likely follow suit, despite strong protests from civil liberties groups and a majority of Democratic Party members.

“I’m very worried we’re not going to be able to prevail,” Feingold said.

Feingold was the featured guest at a New America Foundation event where he discussed systemic gaps in the country’s collection of foreign intelligence. But during a question and answer session, he fielded several questions about the controversial wiretapping law.

The Wisconsin Democrat voiced considerable frustration with members of his own party, who, he says, have enabled the sweeping new legislation.

“Sen. Dodd and I and Sen. Leahy are going to do everything we can to stop this mistake,” Feingold noted, referring to fellow opponents of the bill. “But I’m extremely concerned that not only virtually every Republican… but far too many Democrats will vote the wrong way.”

“We met with Sen. Reid on Friday morning,” said Feingold, speaking of himself and Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., “and we indicated our desire that this thing not just be jammed through, we’ll be requiring key procedural votes and we’ll also be taking some time on the floor this week to indicate the problems with this legislation.”

This won’t be the first time the duo have tried to stall the enactment of broad surveillance powers by using procedural tactics. Last February, amid the uproar over the possibility that the government would retroactively immunize telecommunications companies that participated in the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, Dodd spearheaded a filibuster of a similar set of FISA Amendments–a move which ultimately prompted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to pull the bill from the floor.

Progressive activists and civil libertarians hailed the filibuster, and the Democratic Party’s decision not to cave in to White House demands.

Nonetheless, several senior Democrats spent the intervening months trying to accommodate the Republicans. And despite containing less than a handful of narrow improvements over the February amendments, the new legislation has much wider support among Democratic leaders. Many of them claim the bill represents a worthy compromise.

“That’s a farce and it’s political cover,” Feingold said, “Anybody who claims this is an okay bill, I really question if they’ve even read it. ”

“Democrats enabled [this],” Feingold went on. “Some of the rank and file Democrats in the Senate who were elected on this reform platform unfortunately voted with Kit Bond, who’s just giggling he’s so happy with what he got. We caved in.”

Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., is the ranking member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and has been the Bush administration’s chief congressional point man in its attempt to secure both retroactive immunity for telephone companies and much wider authority to conduct surveillance on both foreign and domestic targets.

Feingold also described critics’ chief concern with the provision of immunity–specifically that it will mean the eventual dismissal of a number of lawsuits that might otherwise have shed some light on the president’s legally dubious Terrorist Surveillance Program. “It doesn’t simply have the impact of potentially allowing telephone companies to break the law,” Feingold said. “It may well prevent us from getting to the core issue that I’ve challenged since December 2005, which is the president ran an illegal program I think that was essentially an impeachable offense.”

Immunity, though, may ultimately constitute a distraction from an even larger spectacle. “Frankly, the tremendous and legitimate focus on the immunity has covered up and sat on top of this issue,” Feingold said. “I think the big story is ultimately not going to be that the telephone companies got immunity… It’s that our personal conversations are now in a giant database somewhere over which we have no control.”

Holding up his BlackBerry, Feingold warned, “Every time you email my daughter or text message her in England, anybody contacts their son or daughter in Iraq, anybody has kids [spending] junior year abroad, anybody that has a business associate anywhere around the world, all of that is now sucked up into a database over which there is essentially no control for the first time in American history. All of this has happened to you, and your communications, in a way that you never would have thought was possible in this country…. We’re going to fall over on this.”

The Senate will most likely take up FISA later this week, and one source of disappointment for activists and civil libertarians alike has been presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s position on the issue.

“I don’t know for sure what Sen. Obama’s going to do,” Feingold said.

In October, the Illinois Senator promised to support a filibuster of any bill that grants amnesty to telecommunications providers. In a statement last week, though, Obama indicated he would support the House bill. ++

Obama Backs Bill Giving Immunity To Telecoms
The Huffington Post
June 20, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign released a statement Friday afternoon saying that while Obama opposes amnesty for telecom firms that spied on Americans, he will support the House compromise legislation.

The statement in full:

“Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. There is also little doubt that the Bush Administration, with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies, has abused that authority and undermined the Constitution by intercepting the communications of innocent Americans without their knowledge or the required court orders.

“That is why last year I opposed the so-called Protect America Act, which expanded the surveillance powers of the government without sufficient independent oversight to protect the privacy and civil liberties of innocent Americans. I have also opposed the granting of retroactive immunity to those who were allegedly complicit in acts of illegal spying in the past.

“After months of negotiation, the House today passed a compromise that, while far from perfect, is a marked improvement over last year’s Protect America Act.

“Under this compromise legislation, an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue, but the President’s illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over. It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance - making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people. It also firmly re-establishes basic judicial oversight over all domestic surveillance in the future. It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I will work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses. But this compromise guarantees a thorough review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies to determine what took place in the past, and ensures that there will be accountability going forward. By demanding oversight and accountability, a grassroots movement of Americans has helped yield a bill that is far better than the Protect America Act.

“It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives - and the liberty - of the American people.”

Also today, in an interview with Bloomberg’s Al Hunt, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he would attempt to remove the amnesty provision in the bill:

Reid said the Senate may try to remove a provision from the bill that shields telephone companies from privacy lawsuits. Holding a separate vote on that issue next week may provide political cover for Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. Even though the attempt may fail, Reid said the vote would allow those opposed to the liability protection to “express their views.”

“I’m going to try real hard to have a separate vote on immunity,” Reid said in an interview to be aired this weekend on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt.”

“Probably we can’t take that out of the bill, but I’m going to try.”

McJoan at Daily Kos writes, “That effort should be helped by Obama’s opposition to the provision. His support of the remainder of the bill is disappointing, but that would be in large part offset if he can help kill immunity.” ++

If the Opposite of Pro Is Con, Then the Opposite of Progress Is … Congress
David Swanson, SmirkingChimp
June 23, 2008

Why is Congress ranked right below Dick Cheney in popularity?

Because nobody has yet polled on the popularity of pond scum.

The day before Congress tossed the Fourth Amendment, and literally five minutes after they took out a $163 billion loan on behalf of my unborn grandkids to kill Iraqis and U.S. troops for another year, I had to give a speech at a university in Milwaukee about peace, impeachment, and elections. I started like this, before breaking the news about what Congress had just done:

Happy Juneteenth! The words that were read to the slaves in Texas are worth remembering:

“The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer.”

If someone would read the recent Supreme Court decision in plain English to the captives at Guantanamo, the words might sound very similar — shocking to the point of unbelievability.

So, good things can happen, and they can take a long time coming, and then they can suddenly surprise you….

That was my attempt to offer encouragement. Then I broke the news, to lots of moans and groans.

But there’s an important catch that I should have stressed more than I did, I think. Good things cannot happen in Congress, because the soulless spineless servile scoundrels running the place would throw their own mothers under a bus for a corporate campaign contribution or to avoid being called names by a pundit on TV or perhaps - we can only speculate - to succumb to blackmail and avoid exposure of the fact that they once tried to have sex with a sheep, and that the sheep - of course -turned them down.

Somebody needs to tell members of Congress, with regard to their jobs, what a CIA torture strategist advised six years ago: If the detainee dies you’re doing it wrong. If thousands of people die to enrich your “contributors,” YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG.

Here I am hanging out with my rightwing Midwestern relatives who complain nonsensically about affirmative action and welfare, and they agree with me on all the big things. They want to stop paying for the war. Even the ones who still believe Iraq attacked the World Trade Center still want to stop paying for the war. They do not want to give immunity to lawbreaking telecoms. They do not want to lose the Fourth Amendment.

They want the legalized bribery system that we call “campaign financing” shut down. They want the power of political parties curtailed. They want independent non-wealthy candidates to run for office and win. And they want them to serve one term and quit. They want power taken back from the White House and restored to the Congress. They want green energy and no more wars. If you just make clear that they can keep lots of guns and Bibles around, they’ll get enough other stuff right to fix the broken system, except that they aren’t trying. They’re going hunting and reading the Bibles and hoping somebody else will fix everything. They think the only place to effect change is through elections. And they think the electoral system is rotten to the core. So they give up. Just like most East Coast liberals.

But, of course, elections alone have never fixed anything. Movements of people pressuring for change, working for change, risking for change, and sacrificing regardless of how soon - if ever - they can be expected to succeed is what fixes things. If electing people alone could change anything, the 2006 elections would have changed at least some teeny tiny noticeable policy. Instead those elections changed absolutely nothing.

Congress Members don’t acquire humanity by being elected. They have to have it injected into their hollow toxic souls every single morning by massive public pressure. And then you have to keep them out of sight of a full moon, or they can lose it again.

On June 19th, the so-called leaders of the so-called Democrats in Congress passed an amendment they had carefully drafted and negotiated to assure its passage, dumping another $163 billion into the humanitarian project of liberating Iraqis from their homes and limbs and lives. Most of the votes came from Republicans (188). Some came from Democrats (80), including Hoyer and Emanuel. Most Democrats voted No, including Pelosi, Obey, and others who worked tirelessly to make sure the thing would pass. In fact, every single congress member who voted No did so knowing the thing would pass. And in the days leading up to the vote, not a single one of them publicly lobbied their colleagues or the so-called leadership to vote No or to not bring it up. Almost all of them voted Yes on the Rule, the procedural vote to bring the matter up for a vote. Not a single one of them went to any more effort than pulling one lever instead of another. Not a single one of them risked a broken fingernail. Meanwhile thousands upon thousands of Americans have made huge sacrifices over a period of years trying to grab the attention of these living dead fascist functionaries.

Congressman David Obey considers it a law of physics, both that the war simply must be funded even by those who claim to oppose it, and that his own shit doesn’t stink. Yet, when Democrats.com commissioned a poll last month, it found a majority of Americans wanting Congress to cut off the money and demand that the president bring everyone home within six months. That’s a majority of the citizens of this country, who have heard more about Iraq than any other topic in the news over the past six years. If Obey won’t trust us on this one, what will he trust us on? And if he considers a majority of Americans to be “idiot liberals,” why should a majority of Americans continue to masochistically employ this arrogant and unaccountable accountant for mass-murder?

In November 2006, I said there would be two things Congress could do in the next two years. Because any good bill would be vetoed or signing statemented, Congress could only usefully stop funding the occupation or start hearings on impeachment. Assuming we don’t stop the funding that the House just passed, there will remain only one useful thing that Congress can do. Of course, the “leaders” don’t want to impeach, and they especially don’t want to impeach for crimes they have been complicit in — and that’s most of the crimes.

But, believe it or not, there is a type of impeachment that a number of congress members in both parties have begun expressing interest in, namely Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s 27th article of impeachment: the refusal of the president to comply with congressional subpoenas.

Congress Members can’t be complicit if they try (and you can be sure they’ll try) in a president’s refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena. And an impeachment hearing on that abuse cannot take a lot of time. The president simply has refused to comply with numerous subpoenas, not to mention contempt citations. It’s an impeachment hearing that takes under an hour, requiring zero staff time or expense.

But, of course, Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers wants to wait until Bush bombs Iran to start impeachment. This is like waiting to begin surgery on a patient until he’s lost a pulse. This Fourth of July, somebody needs to remind these senile servants of dictatorship how we got the constitutional system of government that they are destroying before our eyes.

A president whose character is marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. We therefore do, in the name and by the authority of the good people solemnly publish and declare that these free and independent people are absolved from all allegiance to the president, the vice president, or the corrupt cabal of court jesters on capitol hill, and that all political connection between them and this so-called government is and ought to be totally dissolved. And for the support of this declaration we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

Of course, somebody will have to explain to each congress member what “sacred honor” means. ++

4th Amendment: Rest in Peace
Cindy Sheehan, PopulistAmerica

4th Amendment
b. December 15, 1791
d. June 20, 2008

The 4th Amendment to the US constitution is just one more thing that has been murdered since bloody Emperor George took office in 2001: Over 4000 US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan; over one million Iraqis and Afghanis and many of our brothers and sisters in this country who have been either killed or devastated by catastrophic climate change and other violence that has become rampant.

Among the things that have been murdered in George’s quest to be the emperor of a vast US corporate-military empire are many aspects of our constitution.

The First Amendment has been obliterated with “free speech” zones; the arrests of thousands of activists trying to express their freedom of speech; the destruction of the “freedom of the press” clause began during the Reagan years and it’s untimely demise was hastened during the Clinton regime; the US technically has no state religion, but Christianity has been informally shoved down our throats with the Emperor getting revelations from his demented God that tells him to go on crusades against Muslim countries.

“Torture memos” written by law professors; torture camps; and extreme rendition slaughtered the 8th Amendment that prohibits “cruel and unusual” punishment. The Military Commission and Patriot Acts dealt the deathblows to the 8th Amendment.

When Congress gave Emperor George the power to invade sovereign countries without a declaration of war from Congress—the Emperor’s loyal and obedient servants destroyed two clauses of the Constitution: the Supremacy Clause (Art. VI, Clause 2) which states the treaties are the “Supreme” law of the land and the enumerated power of Congress to “declare war” (Art. I, Section 8).

Art. II, Section 4 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to remove a criminal administration, but the Queen of the Imperial rubber stamp arm of the empire, Nancy Pelosi, took that clause “Off the table.” When I hear that phrase, I envision a long table with lords and ladies pigging out on a banquet while the peasants starve because justice is not on that table and economic equality is out of the question.

Now, with the new law granting immunity to telecom companies and granting the federal government wide discretionary powers in spying on our communications (which has become far simpler in this electronic day and age), the Imperial rubber stamp arm of the federal government has brutally murdered another of our precious rights: the 4th Amendment which states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The centuries old right of habeas corpus which protected us from arbitrary state action through unlawful detention was also destroyed, so the US has returned to pre-Magna Carta “jurisprudence” and not one of us is safe from the arbitrary crimes of the police-empire that has replaced our representative republic.

Even thought the 4th Amendment was 217 years old, it died a violent and untimely death.

I am calling for a memorial service for the 4th Amendment on Tuesday, June 24th. We in San Francisco will be gathering at City Hall at 3pm and having a solemn funeral procession to the Federal building at 3:30 pm. We will then eulogize the 4th Amendment and give it a proper send off. It served us well. Many of our brothers and sisters have never felt its presence, though, even though they have been working for civil rights for generations.

Wear black. We are a nation in mourning for our rule of law.

If you can’t join us in San Francisco, please organize a memorial service of your own. ++

Obama’s Rightward Lurch
What is to be Done?
GREGORY KAFOURY, CounterPunch
June 24, 2008

Barack Obama arrived on the political scene with a smile as beautiful as salvation itself, like a visitor from an idealized future, one where the races have combined to a golden hue, sent here to show us the way. Of course people fell in love with him. Yet now we see Obama drawn into the great room where the Democratic/Corporate establishment dwells, and the door is slowly closing behind him. This is not how it was supposed to be.

Obama has just opted out of public financing, the first presidential candidate to do so since 1972. NewsHour’s Mark Shields, keeper of the flame for all that is good in the Democratic Party, called it “a flip-flop of epic proportions,” noting that Obama’s argument about a GOP financial advantage was “bogus.” Shields even said it raised issues of Obama’s “character.”

The New York Times editorialized that 2008 may now be “the year public financing died.” In seizing a tactical advantage, Obama has handed an enormous strategic victory to corporate power.

Many progressives will argue that Obama, having raised huge amounts from small contributors, is akin to getting public financing, which liberates the candidate from dependence on corporate support. Yet just the opposite is happening. In the three weeks since Hillary Clinton fell upon her sword, Obama has lurched far to the right. Consider:

- Obama announced a new financial team of supply-side economists led by Jason Furman, famous for declaring that it would be “damaging to working people” if Wal-Mart were to raise its wages and benefits. Obama had recently criticized Clinton for serving on the Wal-Mart board, declaring, “I won’t shop there.” In the Audacity of Hope, he sympathized with “Wal-Mart associates who hold their breath every single month in the hope they’ll have enough money to support their children.”

-When questioned in a Fortune interview about his promise to renegotiate NAFTA to protect workers and the environment, Obama replied, “Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified.”

- In a close congressional primary race in Georgia, Obama endorsed a troglodyte incumbent – a “Bush enabler” – over an exemplary progressive insurgent.

- In a speech to the Israeli lobby, he moved to the right of Israel’s government by ruling out negotiations with Hamas. A day earlier, Obama had told Cuban exile groups that he would only sit down with Raul Castro if the exiles had a seat at the table, a precondition that Cuba will never agree to.

- Obama refused to criticize recent Israeli war maneuvers and accompanying threats to launch massive air attacks on Iran. He failed to even urge restraint.

- Just as a move was growing in the Senate to strip the House-passed Telecom bill of its immunity provisions, Obama declared his support for the House version. Obama’s opposition to immunity had been our best hope to learn whose phones and emails had been wiretapped by the Bush administration, and to punish those Telecom companies that assisted this massive criminal enterprise.

Is he lost to us? Was he ever ours to lose?

Progressives were all too eager to overlook the warning signs in Obama’s brief career, his support for the Patriot Act, for nuclear power, his vote against limiting credit card interest to 30%, his calls for increased defense spending, and his equivocation on full withdrawal from Iraq. These decisions were mere matters of political expediency, we were assured, not to be taken seriously.

Yet how can political expediency explain Obama’s retreat on NAFTA? Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania are all in play - how many of those voters have been broken on the wheel of NAFTA? Those who contend that the real Obama will suddenly emerge after the election to overturn an imperial foreign policy and to bring justice to the home front, might be advised not to hold their breath.

Obama desperately needs pressure from the left, and he is amenable to pressure. Once we on the left agree that this analysis is correct, then we must choose the correct strategy.

So far, blind support of Obama has yielded the same kind of benefits that we got from John Kerry. With the united left in his pocket, Kerry went from a declared “anti-war” candidate to a thoroughly hawkish one, berating Bush for wimping out in the face of massive civilian casualties in Falluja, and promising to win the Iraq war. Unconditional support for the Democratic nominee is unconditional surrender, with all the utter powerlessness that the terms imply.

As one alternative, we can complain, write and blog, for all these have their place. But we are all too good at talking to ourselves, and disparate efforts without a focus are all too easily dismissed.

We must consider support for Ralph Nader’s campaign. Nader has been as high as six percent in recent national polls, something he has achieved with only modest support from left intellectuals, and virtually no recognition by corporate media.

Yet Google has announced its intent to hold at least one presidential debate, and has set the bar at 10% support. It is hard to imagine Obama or McCain snubbing Google, and the prospect of such a debate carries more promise than anything the left has seen in recent memory.

For those who claim that Nader can only hurt Obama, I suggest the opposite is true. Gore and Kerry were both doomed by the accurate perception that they were corporate to the core. People knew in their gut that these guys were not on their side. (In 2004, Kerry fled from a living wage initiative in Florida; it passed nearly three to one.) It must also be remembered that in 2000, when Nader was at 5%, a full 15% believed he was the best candidate. More importantly, Nader’s positions are not just majoritarian ones, most enjoy overwhelming public support.

Full military and corporate withdrawal from Iraq, major reductions in the defense budget, a crackdown on corporate crime, single-payer health care, massive investment in renewable energy and conservation, a living wage - these would provide a platform that would send Obama to a historic victory, and all are available for the taking.

Those who insist we must work only within the Democratic Party have clearly failed to hold Obama to his promise. We must get outside the box. Obama needs a great big push, and we are the only ones who can give it to him. ++

FISA: Screwed, Blued and Tattooed
Jane Hamsher, FireDogLake
Thursday June 19, 2008

FISA: Turning Up The Pressure
Christy Hardin Smith, FireDogLake
Monday June 23, 2008

There has always been a tension between individual liberty and governmental power.

National security issues are a natural fault line, given the difficulty of protecting the nation while simultaneously upholding the values of freedom and liberty. And politicians, bless their hearts, always try to find ways to consolidate their power while pretending to do so in the public interest — and not their own and that of their cronies who benefit in some way from their decisions.

They miscalculated this time regarding how many people in America are paying attention to civil liberties concerns these days. And it is our job to make certain that they learn just how badly they have misjudged this.

It is one of the many reasons we are working so hard to build incentive through our Blue America FISA actions. (You can donate here.)

Kathy G wrote a thoughtful essay about the intersection of human frailty, politicians, and the public interest, discussing Obama’s candidacy and a number of other issues. It’s worth a read and some thought on a number of levels, but this is what I want to highlight:

…If we want real change in this country, the place to look for it is not in our so-called leaders, but in ourselves….

Obama, like just about every other politician out there, is cautious, but also highly pragmatic. Like everyone else, he responds to incentives. As activists, what we need to do is to move the political center of gravity in this country to the left. To change the incentive structure so that it will be easier for him to do the right thing. This is a far sounder strategy, over both the short and the long term, than waiting for saints or messiahs to come along.

I’ll close with one of my favorite political stories. It concerns my all-time favorite president, FDR. He was meeting with a group of reformers trying to persuade him to support one of their goals. After they finished speaking, FDR said to them, “You’ve convinced me. I want to do it. Now make me do it.”…

And what’s the incentive to push on FISA? McJoan details the potential:

Strategically, if immunity is removed, the bill is once again veto bait. Another stalling tactic, maybe, but one that might work to finally kill this damned thing once and for all this session. Delaying it past the Independence Day recess is the goal for now. Pushing it into the short remaining work period for the session in August would land in the middle of a packed schedule of “must pass” bills. There’s the slimmest chance that time would once again work in our favor. Granted, that outcome is not likely. Our Congress, including our nominee, seems intent, as Hunter says, “to quite so cravenly negate their own oversight duties.”

It’s our job to try to stop them, and to convince our leaders that it’s the right thing to do and they’ll have our support in doing so.

The objective is to strip immunity from the bill. We need to figure out a way to make that happen before leadership caves on this altogether. Sen. Feingold’s office has put up a handy fact sheet on the problems with the bill. One way to push on this is to flood the offices of Senators with calls and FAXes telling them to do just that. If they don’t hear from you, then they won’t know you are pissed — so let’s get to work…

Toll-free numbers for Congress from Katymine:

1 (800) 828 - 0498
1 (800) 459 - 1887
1 (800) 614 - 2803
1 (866) 340 - 9281
1 (866) 338 - 1015
1 (877) 851 - 6437

Several Senators could use extra contact on this — uncommitted or wavering Democrats, leadership folks, members of the Gang of 14, and a number of wavering Republicans. Tell them no telecom immunity — period. It is well past time that respect for the rule of law and the role of Congress in the balance of powers was restored:

Name Phone FAX

Bayh (202) 224-5623 (202) 228-1377
Carper (202) 224-2441 (202) 228-2190
Obama (202) 224-2854 (202) 228-4260
Inouye (202) 224-3934 (202) 224-6747
Johnson (202) 224-5842 (202) 228 5765
Landrieu (202)224-5824 (202) 224-9735
McCaskill (202) 224-6154 (202) 228-6326
Mikulski (202) 224-4654 (202) 224-8858
Nelson (FL) (202) 224-5274 (202) 228-2183
Clinton (202) 224-4451 (202) 228-0282
Nelson (NE) (202) 224-6551 (202) 228-0012
Pryor (202) 224-2353 (202) 228-0908
Salazar (202) 224-5852 (202) 228-5036
Specter (202) 224-4254 (202) 228-1229
Feinstein (202) 224-3841 (202) 228-3954
Webb (202) 224-4024 (202) 228-6363
Warner (202) 224-2023 (202) 224-6295
Snowe (202) 224-5344 (202) 224-1946
Collins (202) 224-2523 (202) 224-2693
Sununu (202) 224-2841 (202) 228-4131
Stevens (202) 224-3004 (202) 224-2354
Byrd (202) 224-3954 (202) 228-0002
Lincoln (202)224-4843 (202)228-1371
Reid(202) 224-3542 (202) 224-7327
Coleman(202) 224-5641(202) 224-1152
Durbin (202) 224-2152 (202) 228-0400
Smith (202) 224-3753 (202) 228-3997
Stabenow (202) 224-4822 (202) 228-0325
Kohl (202) 224-5653 (202) 224-9787
Leahy (202) 224-4242 (202) 224-3479
Schumer (202) 224-6542 (202) 228-3027

And, for extra bonus points, here is contact information for the Democratic presidential candidate:

Sen. Barack Obama:

Phone: 312-819-2008 Toll Free: (866) 675-2008 FAX: 312-819-2088 ++

Blue Dogs Are Now Silver Foxes
Rep. Major R. Owens, HuffPo
June 17, 2008

We can do it! Change can happen if Congress does not ambush the movement. First, we must secure some strong leashes to hold back the Blue Dogs. They have just commandeered a five-year authorization for a $307 billion farm subsidy bill.

While the nation was appropriately preoccupied with the giant macro-concerns related to the nomination and election of a US president, this poisonous micro legislative maneuver authorized a cynical and costly looting of the treasury. At this moment the Blue Dog Coalition members have again demonstrated their mastery of the Washington maze that Barack Obama has pledged to change.

Beware! Change brigades are at risk. The massive veto override vote in support of this many-headed, power grabbing, tax-sucking monster Act exposes a deadly degree of malignant fuzzy mindedness among the majority Democrats. The title, conjured up from the best witch’s brew of the advertising world: Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008 was step one in what will probably be the greatest swindle perpetrated on this once promising 110th Congress. More than two thirds of the members yielded to this hypnotic call of the wild and followed the Blue Dogs into the forest of financial fantasies and voodoo economics.

The money appropriated for food stamps could be administered better by the Department of Health and Human Services; the funds allocated for conservation could be more effectively utilized by the Department of the Interior; and of course, there would be more food for the hungry throughout the world if the State Department was allowed to oversee the purchase of local food nearer to the sites of suffering.

In the hallways outside the offices of many Blue Dog members there are cute posters highlighting the dangers of escalating spending and debts. From many naïve Capitol visitors they win civic praise. Often they even capture accolades from fuzzy-minded House members who once scored high marks on their math SAT exams. Obsessed with the speeches of Reverend Wright and Senator Clinton’s messages to white men, most members failed to review the arithmetic of the Blue Dog’s enduring pork barrel system.

Since politics is the art of compromise, and the Blue Dog Coalition has seduced the most members into making substantial compromises, the Blue Dogs must be crowned as the champions of the House legislative process. Perhaps a new attempt should be made to reestablish an effective Urban Caucus to advocate subsidies to lower food prices in the cities. Or the urban poor should be allowed to adjust their “personal responsibility” assistance formula, not in order to be eligible for a 600 thousand dollar subsidy (possible for a farm couple), but at least a bit above the current six thousand dollar a year welfare allocation for a family of four.

Or perhaps the Progressive Caucus members who voted for the 307 billion dollar farm bill should study the style of the Blue Dogs and seek their set of compromises with these champions of duplicity who are stalwart supporters for a wasteful defense budget while at the same time their hallway posters preach fiscal accountability and restraint. The Blue Dogs who obsessively demonize welfare families have never demanded an investigation of the Pentagon’s unaudited trillion-dollar sinkhole.

The second most powerful caucus in the House, the CBC, should carefully study the techniques and modus operandi of the foxy Blue Dogs. Year after year the Blue Dogs shovel billions of dollars to their small constituency of rich farmers concentrated in only twenty-one of the 435 congressional districts. The big cities and the big states, where most of the Blacks and the poor reside, have representatives who have brought home very meager resources since the demise of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs. Obviously the power to gain a fair share of the federal budget does not reside in numbers but in creative planning, dedication, and a relentless determination to prevail on behalf of a chosen constituency.

To match the Blue Dog Coalition poster marketing, more objective members of Congress should place posters in their hallways, which advocate meaningful change as follows:

Audit the Pentagon and use the savings to build schools

Discontinue the weapon systems that have failed in Iraq and Afghanistan and use the savings for youth employment programs

Limit farm subsidies to families with less than 200 thousand dollars in annual income and use the savings to fund child health care.

Accelerate the collection of outstanding farm home loan debts and use the funds collected to support affordable public housing.

Yes, the knights of change riding into Washington can do it. But only if they are vigilant against the Blue Dogs who hunt in the jungles of the capitol.

FYI, senators ranked conserative to liberal:

Nelson -Neb.
Landrieu -La.
Pryor, Mark -Ark.
McCaskill -Mo.
Baucus -Mont.
Conrad -N.D.
[MORE CONSERVATIVE THAN]
JOE LIEBERMAN - CT
Dorgan -N.D.
Salazar -Colo.
Carper -Del.
Webb -Va.
Tester -Mont.
Bayh -Ind.
Lincoln -Ark.
Byrd -W.Va.
Rockefeller -W.Va.
Nelson -Fla.
Feinstein -Calif.
Casey -Pa.
Inouye -Hawaii
Bingaman -N.M.
Akaka -Hawaii
Kennedy -Mass.
Brown -Ohio
Levin -Mich.
Wyden -Ore.
Dodd -Conn.
Mikulski -Md.
Klobuchar -Minn
Kohl -Wis.
Kerry -Mass.
Cardin -Md.
Cantwell -Wash.
Stabenow -Mich.
Clinton -N.Y.
Schumer -N.Y.
Reed -R.I.
Durbin -Ill.
Murray -Wash.
Harkin -Iowa
Feingold -Wis.
Reid -Nev.
Boxer -Calif.
Leahy -Vt.
Lautenberg -N.J.
Menendez -N.J.
Biden -Del.
Whitehouse -R.I
Obama -Ill. ++

Obama Bonus Reads

The Obama Tidal Wave
anonymous e-mail

Some of you will recognize the name of Bill Brown. He is a highly respected retired member of the Billy Graham team. I take assessment of Obama very seriously and for that reason accept his challenge to pass this on I share his concern about the “rock star” image Obama has and watch with growing concern at the celebrity status the media has foisted upon him. I hope this email informs you in a wise way.

We are witnessing a political phenomenon with Barack Obama of rare magnitude. His speeches have inspired millions and yet most of his followers have no idea of what he stands for except platitudes of “Change” or that he says he will be a “Uniter”. The power of speech from a charismatic person truly can be a powerful thing; Certainly Billy Graham had charisma and both his manner of speech and particularly the content changed millions. On the extreme other hand, the charisma of Adolph Hitler inspired millions and the results were catastrophic.

Barack Obama certainly is no Hitler or a Billy Graham, but for many Americans out there feeling just like a surfer who might be ecstatic and euphoric while riding a tidal wave, the real story is what happens when it hits shore.

Many people have asked, “what has Barack Obama actually accomplished to qualify himself as a candidate for President?”

Here is a list of Barack Obama’s accomplishments:

* He voted against banning partial birth abortion.

* He voted no on notifying parents of minors who get out-of-state abortions.

* Supports affirmative action in Colleges and Government.

* In 2001 he questioned harsh penalties for drug dealing.

* Says he will deal with street level drug dealing as minimum wage affair.

* Admitted marijuana and cocaine use in high school and in college.

* His religious convictions are very murky.

* He is willing to meet with Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Kim Jung Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

* Has said that one of his first goals after being elected would be to have a conference with all Muslim nations.

* Opposed the Patriot Act.

* First bill he signed that was passed was campaign finance reform.

* Voted No on prohibiting law suits against gun manufacturers.

* Supports universal health-care.

* Voted yes on providing habeas corpus for Guantanamo detainees.

* Supports granting driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

* Supports extending welfare to illegal immigrants.

* Voted yes on comprehensive immigration reform.

* Voted yes on allowing illegal aliens to participate in Social Security.

* Wants to make the minimum wage a “living wage”.

* Voted with Democratic Party 96 percent of 251 votes.

* Opposed to any efforts to Privatize Social Security and instead supports increasing the amount of tax paid.

* He voted No on repealing the Alternative Minimum Tax

* He voted No on repealing the “Death” Tax.

* He wants to raise the Capital Gains Tax.

* Has repeatedly said the surge in Iraq has not succeeded.

* He is ranked as the most liberal Senator in the Senate today and that takes some doing.
* He voted to keep pork in

* voted no on making English the USA official language

If your political choices are consistent with Barack Obama’s and you think that his positions will bring America together or make its a better place, then you will probably enjoy riding the wave and not passing on this information.

If you are like most Americans that after examining what he stands for, are truly not in line with his record, it would be prudent to get off the wave or better yet, never get on, before it comes on shore and undermines the very foundations of this great Country.

We have limited time to save America or the Supreme Court as we know it.

Remember…inaction is action. ++

Is it ‘we’ or Obama who is ‘the one’?
Tina Louise
Tina Louisewww.tinalouise.co.uk

Political parties tempt the voters - ‘we the people’ - with lip service that pulls at our individual heart strings and plays to the masses. They say the words they know will pull us, sway us to them – without completing any pictures that would lead us to the realisation that what they are offering, is small change compared to the status quo they wish to impose.

Throughout history our parties have made offerings to the people that would make fools of our ideals and hopes, our dreams and faith in their ability to actually be honest for once and make a clear promise, then carry it out without caveat. They make a right move in our eyes in the right direction – we follow because it feels like they are doing what we wanted all along – and before long we discover that the one step on the right road is accompanied by diversions that will keep us from a right solution for as long as the term dictates.

Then next elections we aim to find a voice that will make a promise that we can believe in, that will take more than one step in the right direction, that will have a map with no diversions. The next elections deja vu the last and over time we lose belief, cling to hope and go with what looks like the least diversions-to-right-step ratio – or we stop voting.

Obama has promised change, has offered to step in the right direction and take us down his path of right if only we will follow. He has pushed the right buttons, said the right words, sweated the right passion and he has moved us. Is he ‘the one’?

I don’t think that it matters if he is or he isn’t.

Maybe this time it isn’t about the politicians, it’s about us.

Maybe this time it isn’t about politics, it’s about the movement.

The fact that we have watched a woman and a black man battle for supremacy on a traditionally white male stage, the fact that passion played a role, the fact that the internet meant politics found its way further, faster and more varied than ever before and the fact that I feel impassioned and compelled to write these things about a stale and often evil subject – are facts that attach true hope to my belief that there is a better way to manage ourselves than the way politics has.

In all I have digested of the Obama that is presented, I still don’t know how I feel about him or what I believe about him. There is much to choose from on the media menu of Obamas; much unpalatable, some tempting and others simply a mash of confusion with something-for-everyone flavours infused.

But the media menu of political choices offers something more than before, it offers unexpected extras that include a whole swathe of people finding points of agreement despite their backgrounds, other opinions or differences. If finds people finding a sameness of desire – we want anything other than the usual. We don’t want to play it safe, we want to play it different. Turn us around, switch direction, stuff the assumed right ways and lets blunder into an uncharted wilderness of it-can’t-be-as-bad-as-where-we’ve-been.

Obama is whatever it is we wanted him to be – he is not one thing, one direction or one party – he is the reflection of our longing for change. Who he becomes as a leader is a different subject. What he stirred in us is powerful and if we can find a way to harness that power, maybe ‘we the people’ can start to realise just how much we can change - regardless of the politicians.++

The American Left: What Progressives Can Learn from Obama
Ken Brociner, InTheseTimes
June 24, 2008

I am often downright embarrassed by how one-dimensional and superficial our “analysis” of the world is. We progressives like to think of ourselves as “truth tellers” committed to depicting the world as it really is. Yet we too often present a cartoonish version of reality, rather than an accurate account of what is happening – and why.

One of the trademarks of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has been his commitment to a new style of politics. Last year, in answering a question about negative campaigning and ad hominem attacks on opponents, he said: “My preference going forward is that we have to be careful not to slip into playing the game as it is customarily played.”

Obviously Obama’s pledge to take the high road is nothing new or original. In fact, it has become standard fare – even if only a small percentage of politicians come close to making good on these promises.

Yet despite the intensity of his drawn-out battle with Hillary Clinton and his current showdown with John McCain, the consensus view among longtime politicos is that Obama has, for the most part, run an unusually fair-minded and positive campaign.

Obama’s commitment to a different brand of politics represents more than a mere preference for taking the high road in the rough-and-tumble world of political combat. The Illinois senator has, in fact, developed what amounts to an alternative philosophical outlook toward politics. And it is a perspective that, I believe, too many progressives have been ignoring at their own peril.

One of the most striking features of Obama’s approach has been his near refusal to attack the motives of his political opponents. As he made clear in The Audacity of Hope, Obama doesn’t just believe this policy to be tactically sound; he also feels that most of his opponents are truly well-intentioned.

“Even when talking to those colleagues [in the Senate] with whom I most deeply disagreed,” he wrote, “I was usually struck by their basic sincerity – their desire to get things right and leave the country better and stronger; their desire to represent their constituents and their values as faithfully as circumstances would allow.”

Obama bemoans the fact that politics has become ” …a contest not just between competing policy visions, but between good and evil… In this Manichean struggle, compromise came to look like weakness, to be punished or purged.”

Of course, this kind of talk has raised some legitimate concerns within progressive circles. At what point, some wonder, might Obama’s attitude become overly bipartisan or too prone towards compromise? Clearly, should he be elected president, progressives will need to closely monitor these potential pitfalls.

But rather than cynically dismiss Obama’s statements as being naïve or just another form of political gamesmanship, progressives ought to seriously ponder what he is saying.

Compare Obama’s approach with the predominant tone and rhetorical style of much of the progressive media. Glance at the most popular progressive websites, magazines and blogs on any given day and notice how we consistently characterize those with whom we disagree – be they liberal Democrats who lack “courage,” Democratic Leadership Council-types who we routinely refer to as being, in effect, “corporate lackeys,” or neocons who we describe as “warmongers.”

Instead of vigorously critiquing ideologies, policies, priorities and values that we disagree with, we routinely assign consciously malevolent motives to our political adversaries. It’s as if we progressives cannot even fathom the possibility that politically engaged people who have sharply different views than ours might also sincerely believe they are working to make the world a better place.

The most prominent recent example of this tendency was the full-page ad that MoveOn placed in the New York Times last fall, in which General David Petraeus, then commanding general of the multinational forces in Iraq, was mockingly referred to as “General Betray US.”

Whatever MoveOn’s intent, the extraordinarily unfortunate choice of the word “betray” was widely – and understandably – interpreted as accusing Petraeus of consciously and deliberately “betraying” the United States.

Not only did the ad put a serious dent in MoveOn’s image, it backfired by undermining congressional efforts to set a deadline for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

While the “Betray US” ad was an extreme example, the sad reality is that the progressive media is now rife with writers who seem to demonize practically anyone who dares to see things differently than they do.

These days, no one fits this description better than David Sirota.

In the world according to Sirota, there is no such thing as having an honest difference of opinion. For instance, instead of allowing for the fact that Barack Obama might actually believe what he has been saying in regard to his economic policies, Sirota proclaimed in a column earlier this year that “though Obama is certainly less industry-owned than Clinton,” he nonetheless does accept “hush money” from Wall Street that is “contingent on candidates silencing their populist rhetoric.”

As for Clinton’s true motives, Sirota had this to say earlier this month, in a Campaign For America’s Future blog post: “Clintonism [is] a brand of politics that is about trying to appease Big Money while pretending to serve ordinary people.”

Unfortunately Sirota’s dogmatic style is more the rule than the exception within many media oulets on the left. In fact, if you only read or tuned into progressive media, you would likely come away believing the world is made up of good guys wearing white hats and bad guys wearing black hats who delight in bringing misery and oppression to the entire world.

Although I have strongly identified with the progressive movement’s political agenda throughout my nearly forty years of activism, I am often downright embarrassed by how one-dimensional and superficial our “analysis” of the world is. We progressives like to think of ourselves as “truth tellers” committed to depicting the world as it really is. Yet we too often present a cartoonish version of reality, rather than an accurate account of what is happening and – more to the point – why it is happening.

In September 2005, Obama issued a direct appeal to progressives urging a more fair-minded approach to political criticism and analysis. He sent an essay to Daily Kos titled “Tone, Truth and the Democratic Party,” in which he voiced frustration with the over-the-top criticism and attacks many progressives were directing toward those Democrats who, at times, deviated from the standard progressive position on one issue or another.

In his essay, Obama wrote: “… I firmly believe that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, or oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose.

Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. A polarized electorate that is turned off of politics, and easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate, works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government because, in the end, a cynical electorate is a selfish electorate.”

We need not be uncritical admirers of Barack Obama to realize that his desire to transcend old political habits has profound meaning not only for American politics as a whole, but for progressives who are committed to fundamentally changing our country’s policies and priorities. ++

Are You Experienced?
Why a U.S. senator might not trump a state legislator
Alan Ehrenhalt, Newsweek
Jun 23, 2008

We are in the opening days of a presidential campaign that pits youth against age, the virtues of experience against the freshness and riskiness of the new arrival.

I’m not here to refute all of that: John McCain is 25 years older than Barack Obama, and he always will be. But here’s something I bet you didn’t know: If Obama becomes president, he will have spent more time serving as a state legislator (eight years) than anyone who has occupied the White House since Abraham Lincoln.

You’re thinking that’s kind of irrelevant. John McCain has been a member of the U.S. Senate since 1986; do I really mean to suggest that Obama’s eight years in the Illinois Senate (not the most august deliberative body, as anyone who has seen it will attest) provide the same preparation for the presidency? Well, not exactly. But looking back on quite a few years covering Congress, and an almost equal number of years following legislatures, I’m drawn to some slightly curmudgeonly comments about what it is that U.S. senators do, and what it is that state legislators do.

Twenty-first century U.S. senators are, virtually by the nature of the job, gadflies. They flit from one issue to another, generally developing little expertise on any of them; devote a large portion of their day to press conferences and other publicity opportunities; follow a daily schedule printed on a 3×5 card that a member of their staff has prepared; depend even more heavily on staff for detailed and time-consuming legislative negotiation that they are too busy to attend; and develop few close relationships with colleagues, nearly all of whom are as busy as they are.

There are exceptions, of course—senators who beat the odds and develop an encyclopedic knowledge of topics that interest them—but they are the minority. I don’t doubt McCain’s instinct for global strategy, but a few months ago, when he had to be corrected on his statement that Iran was training Al Qaeda operatives, I wasn’t surprised at all. I’m surprised this doesn’t happen to senators more often.

By contrast, what do state legislators do? At their worst, they are doggedly parochial, people who tend first and foremost to the interests of a relatively small constituency. At their best, they keep all the state’s significant issues in mind; it is possible to do that in a state legislature in a way that is not possible in Washington. During the years that Obama served in Springfield, 1997-2005, he was forced to wrestle with the minutiae of health-care policy, utility deregulation, transportation funding, school aid, and a host of other issues that are vitally important to America’s coming years, but that U.S. senators are usually able to dispose of with a quick once-over. State legislators have to do this largely on their own, without ubiquitous staff guidance, because staffing is not lavish even in the more professional state capitols. They enter into day-to-day bargaining relationships over the details of legislation with colleagues of both parties; there is no one else to do it for them. At the end of the session, they are likely to know the strengths and quirks of nearly everyone who serves in their chamber.

And perhaps most important, there is simply more personal contact across the aisle than there is in Congress. Legislatures have grown more partisan in the past decade, as all of American politics has. But in most state capitols, the wall of partisan separation is nowhere near as high as it is in Washington. When Obama was in the Illinois Senate, he was obligated to sit down in a small room day after day with his Republican counterparts and work out the details of legislation expanding health-care coverage and revising campaign-finance law. He played in a regular poker game in which party and ideology were utterly irrelevant. Maybe there are still poker games in the U.S. Senate. I haven’t heard of one lately.

The last thing I want to do is idealize state legislatures. Their members, most of whom have private jobs, are prone to conflicts of interest worse than those that occur in Washington. They are frequently easy for lobbyists to manipulate. And on the whole, I think it is fair to say, the ones who remain at their desks term after term may not be quite as bright as the ones who make it further up the ladder to Congress. But for a smart, curious and hard-working young legislator—for a Barack Obama in the Illinois Senate-can we be so sure that the skill set picked up over eight years in a state Capitol is inferior as presidential preparation to two decades in the pompous, cordoned-off environment of the U.S. Senate? I seriously doubt it.

Assertions about experience were misleading when they were employed in the Democratic primaries by Hillary Clinton. She had been a legislator—a U.S. Senator—for eight years. Obama had been one, albeit at a different level of government for a time—for 12 years. The only way her claim of superior preparation could be taken seriously was to consider her two terms as First Lady to be relevant professional training.

That may be true, but it is a claim no one else has ever promulgated in the history of American politics. Does having been First Lady make you better prepared to give the right answer when the phone rings in the dead of night? Maybe it does. I’m not saying no; I’m saying I don’t know, and nobody else does either.

As for the fall campaign, I am not urging anyone to vote for Obama, or against McCain, on the issue of experience. What I am suggesting is that experience itself is a slippery commodity to measure—that there is no easy way to guess what sort of political career is ideal for a president—and that we would all be better off just listening to what the candidates say and how they say it, and spending a little time looking into what sort of people they are. ++

Mr. Obama’s Washington
He wants to change the culture there. But it’s hard to fix a place you’ve never really known.
Jonathan Darman, NEWSWEEK
Jun 21, 2008

The life of a young senator in Washington can be lonely. After winning a Senate seat from Illinois in 2004, Barack Obama became a part-time bachelor. He lived three or four days a week in a one-bedroom apartment a few blocks from the Capitol. He worked all day, and at night he missed his daughters and his wife, Michelle, left behind in Chicago. “I have chosen a life … that requires me to be gone from Michelle and the girls for long stretches of time and exposes Michelle to all sorts of stress,” Obama wrote in “The Audacity of Hope.”

“Rationalizations seem feeble and painfully abstract when I’m missing one of the girls’ school potlucks because of a vote, or calling Michelle to tell her that session’s been extended and we need to postpone our vacation.”

The Obamas’ separated life was of their own making. When they had first pondered a run for the Senate, the couple had weighed the pros and cons of relocating to Washington. Obama quizzed Democrats on the balance between work life and home life; Michelle toured D.C. neighborhoods. In the end, they decided it was best to keep the home base in Chicago, where Michelle had her own career and the girls, Malia and Sasha, had a chance at normal life.

This is the stuff that people like about the Obamas—their insistence on maintaining something approximating “normal.” From the start of their presidential campaign, the Democratic nominee and his wife have been at pains to show they view the capital as a strange and foreign place.

They aren’t the only ones. The Obamas are part of new generation of political couples that doesn’t assume election to the Senate means a new life in Washington. Connie Schultz, a columnist for The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, works at home in Ohio while her husband, Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, spends weekdays in Washington. “What better way to keep a senator grounded,” she says, “than to bring him or her home on a regular basis to the people who elected him or her?”

But while frequent-flier legislators have been a boon for constituent services, they aren’t necessarily good for governance. Old-guard senators bemoan their new colleagues’ eagerness to get out of town on Thursday nights, a tendency that the veterans believe has helped make Washington a more partisan place. It was easier to understand the gentleman from the other party, they reason, when you saw him cheering at St. Albans’ soccer games. As he launches his general-election campaign, Obama faces the question always asked of outsider candidates: how do you change a place you’ve never really known? And as they contemplate capturing the White House under a banner of bipartisanship, Obama and his generation of senators face a broader dilemma: how do they work with their opponents when, for so long, they’ve lived their lives apart?

Members of Congress have always led geographically divided lives. In the early 19th century, the House and Senate convened in mid-December and typically closed by March or April, in time for members to head home for the planting season. The Civil War, however, made service in Congress a full-time job, and the men stuck in Washington sought to turn it into a real city. “They were trying to catch up with New York and Philadelphia society,” says Betty Koed, assistant historian of the Senate. “They needed women to do that.” By the mid-20th century, it was standard for senators to bring their families to town. Each of the last three presidents who had served in the Senate—John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon—raised families in the capital.

Senators’ spouses and kids became creatures of Washington, for better and for worse. This was the heyday of the Georgetown dinner party, of men with martini glasses and hostesses in flowing gowns out of “Advise and Consent.” John Warner, the Republican from Virginia, retiring after six terms, remembers this Senate as “a close-knit family” where “a new senator had a big brother and his wife had a big sister.” The collegial quarters made it harder to stay mad. “I remember in the good old days, there were several senators who were known to keep a pretty good bar,” says Warner. “We would just go down and have a sip together and go home. The fight was over.”

A series of revolutions swept that Washington away. First the women’s movement made senators’ wives wonder why they were expected to drop their own lives to be at their husbands’ beck and call. Then the 1994 Republican revolt made it a badge of honor to live out of a suitcase on Capitol Hill. Money dealt the fatal blow: by the late ’90s, re-election campaigns cost so much that senators begged their leadership for short, Tuesday-through-Thursday sessions so they could spend the weekends raising money at home. A Washington residence for the family seemed pointless. By 2007, a majority of freshmen senators were arriving in the capital without their families.

Without the civilizing influence of spouses and children, Washington has receded into the swamp. Georgetown parties now belong to journalists and lobbyists. The influence peddlers have shifted much of the city’s social center to Capitol Hill, where members of Congress bunk together in town houses for three and four and make their way at night between fund-raisers and receptions.

Obama stepped into this bachelor wilderness in 2005. Michael Strautmanis, Obama’s chief counsel, recalls getting a call from the senator in the months before his term began. “Don’t worry, this won’t be in your job description,” said the senator, “but I need you to help me look for a mattress.” Obama shunned the party scene, confining his socializing to fund-raisers, dinners with policy experts and the occasional meal with old law-school classmates. “I’m not aware that he ever went to a residential party,” says Cassandra Butts, a law-school friend who helped him set up his Senate office. “He could have developed much deeper personal relationships if he had spent more time in D.C,” says a senior aide who would describe a weakness only anonymously.

All this makes for a sharp generational contrast between Obama and his Republican opponent. John McCain, too, never brought his family to Washington—but, until recently, he was certainly happy to make his way to Georgetown for a party or a dinner with friends. Warner, who supports McCain, says the Arizonan’s “long service in the Senate” has helped him establish “close personal relationships with many senators across the aisle, which is an essential element to bipartisan success.”

Obama’s generation, meanwhile, scoffs at the notion that living in Washington makes for better public servants. “Don’t tell me you’re saying women are responsible for partisan discord,” Schultz says with a sigh. “Just because [senators] don’t sit around and drink a lot doesn’t mean they don’t talk.” It’s a fair point. But if they make it to the White House, the Obamas will have to live in Washington, full time. Obama often speaks about how he’d change the tone in Washington, appointing Republicans to his cabinet and encouraging open debate. He might also try some of the old customs—getting out to dinner, and opening up the bar. ++

Clinton Bonus Reads

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“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

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