Hillarycrats

It has long been clear that Hillary Clinton cannot win the Democratic presidential primary race. So what is still motivating so many Democrats to continue supporting Clinton’s quixotic campaign at this point? Obama is well ahead now in the national polls. He is regularly raising twice as much money as Clinton and he keeps picking up new superdelegates and new endorsements on a daily basis.
But in the Pennsylvania primary tomorrow, the polls still show Hillary winning by as much as 10 points.
The Democrats in Pennsylvania could do us all a big favor by finally putting Hillary’s mortally wonded campaign out of its misery. Why do they insist on continuing to prop it up just to keep this painful charade going for another month or more? Why do Pennsylvania Democrats hate the Democrats?

Of course, there is still a chance that Obama could win tomorrow and force Hillary out of the race once and for all. But I’m not going to hold my breath at this point. I am assuming she will pull out a narrow victory - but only gain a slightly larger and ultimately insignificant number of pledged delegates - and then spin it to be a major victory for her side that should totally redifine the dynamics of the presidential race. Nonsense.

We need Hillary and the Hillarycrats to abandon this futile crusade and get back on the right side. Quit doing the Republicans’ dirty work for them and start defending the party’s eventual nominee for this fall’s election. Maybe the Clinton’s will sit down after tomorrow, refigure the math one more time and come to the same conclusion most everyone else did long ago. Then perhaps they will make a graceful exit from the race and allow the party to start the healing process before we get any further into the campaign season.

Letter to ABC

The following is a letter to ABC News signed by a distinguished collection of liberal journalists. I wholly concur with the sentiments of the letter.

We, the undersigned, deplore the conduct of ABC's George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson at the Democratic Presidential debate on April 16. The debate was a revolting descent into tabloid journalism and a gross disservice to Americans concerned about the great issues facing the nation and the world. This is not the first Democratic or Republican presidential debate to emphasize gotcha questions over real discussion. However, it is, so far, the worst.

For 53 minutes, we heard no question about public policy from either moderator. ABC seemed less interested in provoking serious discussion than in trying to generate cheap shot sound-bites for later rebroadcast. The questions asked by Mr. Stephanopoulos and Mr. Gibson were a disgrace, and the subsequent attempts to justify them by claiming that they reflect citizens' interest are an insult to the intelligence of those citizens and ABC's viewers. Many thousands of those viewers have already written to ABC to express their outrage.

The moderators' occasional later forays into substance were nearly as bad. Mr. Gibson's claim that the government can raise revenues by cutting capital gains tax is grossly at odds with what taxation experts believe. Both candidates tried, repeatedly, to bring debate back to the real problems faced by ordinary Americans. Neither moderator allowed them to do this.

We're at a crucial moment in our country's history, facing war, a terrorism threat, recession, and a range of big domestic challenges. Large majorities of our fellow Americans tell pollsters they're deeply worried about the country's direction. In such a context, journalists moderating a debate--who are, after all, entrusted with free public airwaves--have a particular responsibility to push and engage the candidates in serious debate about these matters. Tough, probing questions on these issues clearly serve the public interest. Demands that candidates make pledges about a future no one can predict or excessive emphasis on tangential "character" issues do not. This applies to candidates of both parties.

Neither Mr. Gibson nor Mr. Stephanopoulos lived up to these responsibilities. In the words of Tom Shales of the Washington Post, Mr. Gibson and Mr. Stephanopoulos turned in "shoddy, despicable performances." As Greg Mitchell of Editor and Publisher describes it, the debate was a "travesty." We hope that the public uproar over ABC's miserable showing will encourage a return to serious journalism in debates between the Democratic and Republican nominees this fall. Anything less would be a betrayal of the basic responsibilities that journalists owe to their public.

Spencer Ackerman, The Washington Independent
Eric Alterman, City University of New York
Dean Baker, The American Prospect Online
Steven Benen, The Carpetbagger Report
Julie Bergman Sender, Balcony Films
Ari Berman, The Nation
Brian Beutler, The Media Consortium
Michael Berube, Crooked Timber, Pennsylvania State University
Joel Bleifuss, In These Times
Sam Boyd, The American Prospect
Lakshmi Chaudry, In These Times
Joe Conason, Journalist and Author
Brad DeLong, Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal and UC Berkeley
Kevin Drum, The Washington Monthly
Henry Farrell, Crooked Timber, George Washington University
James Galbraith, University of Texas at Austin
Todd Gitlin, Columbia University, TPM Cafe
Merrill Goozner (formerly Chicago Tribune)
Ilan Goldenberg, The National Security Network
Robert Greenwald, Brave New Films
Christopher Hayes, The Nation
Don Hazen, Alternet
Michael Kazin, Georgetown University
Ed Kilgore, The Democratic Strategist
Richard Kim, The Nation
Ezra Klein, The American Prospect
Mark Kleiman, UCLA/The Reality Based Community
Scott McLemee, Inside Higher Ed
Ari Melber, The Nation
Rick Perlstein, Campaign for America's Future
Katha Pollitt, The Nation
David Roberts, Grist
Thomas Schaller, Columnist, The Baltimore Sun
Mark Schmitt, The New America Foundation
Adele Stan, The Media Consortium
Jonathan Stein, Mother Jones Magazine
Mark Thoma, The Economist's View
Michael Tomasky, The Guardian
Cenk Uygur, The Young Turks
Tracy Van Slyke, The Media Consortium
Kai Wright, The Root

Fox News could have done a better job moderating the Democratic debate. ABC has really shot itself in the foot here. Gibson should be demoted from his anchor chair. Stephanopoulos should be fired.

Smoke gets in their eyes

Like Ann, I could be described as “desperately optimistic” about Barack Obama’s chances for election in November.
All the signs point to a big Democratic victory in November - fundraising, turnout percentages, Bush’s unfavorability, etc.
But the one thing that troubles me are these damn polls that show John McCain leading Obama in so many states.
What is wrong with these people?!? How can Bush have a 70 percent unfavorability rating while, at the same time, McCain, who promises to carry out Bush’s same policies for the next four years, has a 64 percent favorability rating?
It doesn’t make sense. Are people really this dumb? Don’t answer that!

It’s like someone getting a report from their doctor that if they don’t stop smoking Marlboros they will die from lung cancer. So, they start smoking Winstons instead.
That’s how stupid it is.

I think too many people fail to look at the big picture when casting their votes. They allow themselves to be distracted by totally irrelevant issues - Obama’s former pastor, for example - until it clouds out the more important issues - like the war in Iraq and the tanking economy.
What we need is better media coverage that will blow some of this smoke out of the room and give people a clearer picture of what this election will mean. Unfortunately, much of our media tends to behave like a big fog-making machine, further clouding the picture worse than it is.
Our only hope is that the prevailing winds that are beyond the control of the media and the GOP spin machine will be strong enough to clear some of this mess out before we get stuck with four more years of the same thing.

Good reading

I bought a book this weekend that really sums up a lot of what I have been trying to say on this blog for the past year.
The Conservatives Have No Clothes: Why Right-Wing Ideas Keep Failing by Greg Anrig gets right to the point I’ve been wanting to make: It’s not just Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rove and DeLay, etc. It is the whole rightwing ideology that underlies their actions that needs to be addressed.

Mark Schmit said it well in a review of Anrig’s book:

As even the most committed conservatives have begun to recognize the scale of the debacle, foreign and domestic, of the seven years during which they have held unchecked power, they have begun to plot a slick escape from the consequences. "Oh, that?" they will say. "That wasn't conservatism. That was something completely different." It started out as conservatism, they say, but was corrupted by the culture of Washington, by Jack Abramoff or Tom DeLay. Or, they say, so sorry, we misjudged George W. Bush, failed to see how incompetent he was. Or, as in recent tributes to Karl Rove on his resignation from the White House, they will admit that the single-minded focus on winning elections, bending all policy to that purpose, destroyed the conservative soul. If they have the chutzpah of Rove himself, they will blame Hillary Clinton.

If there were any justice in the world, such claims would take their place in history alongside those of the old Marxists who, as Alan Wolfe noted in these pages last year ("Why Conservatives Can't Govern," July/August 2006), insisted that the only problem with communism was that it had never been properly implemented. The noble dream, they argued, should not be judged by its real-world manifestations. Maybe so. But in the real world, ideologies are judged by their consequences.

Such justice is unlikely for the recent American right, however, and the evasion of responsibility has been made easier by Democrats' nearly total focus on individual actors: George W. Bush and, to a lesser extent, Rove and Dick Cheney. Thus the spate of books with titles like The Lies of George Bush and Bush's Brain. Now Rove is gone, DeLay is gone, and in sixteen months Bush and Cheney will join them, but their brand of conservatism may never be held to account for its failures in practice.

Like I’ve said before, we can’t focus entirely on these individuals (although they have certainly earned their infamy and vilification) and risk allowing a new group of right-wingers like John McCain to step in and continue the same failed policies that have been so disasterous for our economy and our foreign policy.

Humble Pie

My latest music purchase is a greatest hits compilation of Humble Pie.



My friend Anne sparked my interest earlier this year by linking to a video of their song “30 Days in the Hole”, which was the first time I had ever heard it.



Now I’m hooked. Last year, I got into The Faces which was the band that helped launch Rod Stewart and Ron Wood’s careers. Now I am learning about all these connections between the two bands - Humbe Pie’s lead singer Steve Marriott had originally been in a group called the Small Faces with the core rhythm section of what would become The Faces. When Marriott left, he was replaced by Stewart and Wood. But Marriott got together with Peter Frampton and launched Humble Pie.

Anyhow, Marriott is an incredible singer (supposedly the inspiration for Led Zepplin) and it is a shame that he was killed in a house fire sometime back.

Endless war cheerleading

The San Antonio Express-News has been cheerleading for Bush’s war in Iraq since Day 1 and today is no different. Their editorial today is no different and, what’s worse, they devote the ENTIRE Other Views section to three op-ed pieces by rightwing warhawks — Cal Thomas, Rich Lowry and Ken Allard.
How is that for fair and balanced? Way to go Jonathan Gurwitz! You totally rule Bruce Davidson’s world.

Today’s editorial is a particulary loathsome piece of garbage. The title is “Don’t hastily discard hard-won Iraq gains”.
Hastily?!?!? Hastily?!?!?!?!? We’ve been over there for five years now!!! What the HELL are they talking about hastily!!!???!!!! Idiots!!!
The subhead says “U.S. forces have purchased modest progress at a tremendous cost, but the alternatives may be worse”.
Modest progress my rear! If we’ve been there five years, spent $300-plus billion dollars, sacrificed 4,000 U.S. soldiers lives, and yet if we leave anytime in the next year things will supposedly go to hell in a handbasket.... How can they call that progress?
And as for alternatives that could be worse, what could possibly be worse than having our military mired in that hellhole for another four years? (a certain guarantee if John McCain is elected).
And yet, any thought of us leaving Iraq at any time in the near future is constanly equated with failure and retreat. This time next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, we will hear this same song-and-dance routine from Gen. Patraeus or whoever the current general in charge is. It never ends, just like this video illustrates:

Look who’s back!

My old sparring partner Mark Harden has resurfaced in the Letters to the Editor section of the San Antonio Express-News.

Mark is in a tizzy because in a news story on Saturday about a local woman being appointed to the board of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) the E-N failed to denounce the group as an Islamofascist terrorist organization! Such shoddy journalism!!!

Mark claims that CAIR “was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation for providing material support to Hamas, an officially designated terrorist group. But Mark neglects to mention that case ended in a mistrial.

After 19 days of deliberations, a jury in 2007 were unable to come to a definitive conclusion and the case ended in a mistrial. On Nov. 4, 2007 the LA Times reported: "The nation's biggest terrorism finance case ended so badly for the government that it has thrown into question the Bush administration's original order to shut down the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development six years ago."
Experts found the jury's inability to come to a definitive conclusion evidence of weakness in the government's ability to provide clear enough evidence against the charity.
The LA Times reported: "If the government can shut them down and then not convince a jury the group is guilty of any wrongdoing, then there is something wrong with the process," Georgetown University law professor David Cole said. [9]
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said the criminal trial derailed the government's long-publicized assertions about Holy Land. "From the beginning, the allegations were highly suspect and only got worse," said Turley, who has handled a number of national security cases.
"Indeed, Turley said, if the government had begun with the troubled criminal case, it might never have succeeded in closing down the foundation administratively because its disputed evidence would have come to light years ago."
Some jurors were skeptical of the government's case. The LA Times reported: "The government's allegations not only proved unpersuasive but engendered skepticism among some jurors.
"The whole case was based on assumptions that were based on suspicions," said juror Scroggins, who added: "If they had been a Christian or Jewish group, I don't think [prosecutors] would have brought charges against them."

Mark also references American Islamic Forum for Democracy , a rightwing lobby group with little support outside of rightwing circles, in a further attempt to tarnish CAIR.
It seems little wonder then that CAIR feels compelled to keep an Urban Legends section on its website to try and combat the wild accusations that get thrown at it (and then published in newspapers) on a regular basis.

Charlton Heston

Here is a good retrospective on Charlton Heston.
I’ve always liked Heston despite his conservative political advocacy. I don’t let a person’s politics affect the way I look at their art or music. I was annoyed that Heston became such a strong public advocate for the NRA at a time when the organization was becoming much too extreme in its advocacy - assault weapons, cop-killer bullets, plastic guns, etc. But I also think he should get more credit for being one of the celebrities to embrace the Civil Rights movement early on.
My favorite Charton Heston movies are fairly obvious:

The Ten Commandments
Ben-Hur
Planet of the Apes
Omega Man

But then I was surprised by how few of Heston’s pictures I’m really familiar with. I know I have seen others, but I don’t remember them as well and would need to watch them again for a full appreciation. So here is a list of Heston movies I would like to revisit or see for the first time:

Arrowhead
Touch of Evil
El Cid
Major Dundee
The Agony and the Ecstasy
Will Penney
Soylent Green

The last time a saw Heston was probably in Michael Moore’s film “Bowling For Columbine” and my reaction was quite the opposite of what Moore intended. Moore took his film crew to Heston’s residence in Hollywood and tried to do one of his gotcha seens aka “Roger and Me” only to have it backfire on him. Heston came across as gracious and welcoming while Moore came across as crass and vindictive. In the end I left the theater feeling sympathetic for Heston (although still not sympathetic with his views) and thinking that Moore had behaved like a total jerk.

You say Goodbye, and I say Hello

I have finally decided to de-link All Things Conservative from my blogroll.
It was nearly three years ago that I welcomed ATC to the San Antonio blogging community. It almost immediately became more popular than my meager blogging effort and attracted a bevy of regular readers. But a couple of months ago its proprietor Bill Crawford inexplicably walked away from the site and for many weeks after it just sat there like a bloated corpse collecting comment spam like flies.
Then, a week ago or so, it was gone. Wiped out. Deleted. Three years worth of labor down the memory hole, only to be replaced with what can only be described as a sick joke of a website - a nameless, barren, non-descript site that looks less than half-finished and claims to be devoted to debunking global warming theories, but in truth, if you scroll down, is just a template for random advertisements. Pathetic.
It’s hard to understand why someone would devote three years of their life building up a blog like that only to turn around one day and delete the whole thing. I had contributed a few guest posts at the site over the years and had been one of the regular commenters, contributing to countless lengthy debates on a myriad of topics.
All gone. Just like Bill who just vanished without a word. Poof!
So it goes in the World Wide Web sometimes.

On the other hand, I’d like to formally welcome a new blog to the San Antonio blogging community called maximum volume. The anonymous author is a good friend of mine who I will say is very well connected and should have a lot of insightful things to say on many topics. Hopefully, with a little positive feedback we can encourage him to post more often on his new blog. So check him out.

Wasteful spending in context

Here is a fine example of why I think groups like Citizens Against Government Waste are a joke.
The CAGW has just released its annual “Pork Report” in which it breathlessly reports that "Congress stuffed 11,610 projects" worth $17.2 billion into a dozen spending bills.”
The fact that they had to comb through more than 11,000 projects and they only come up with $17.2 billion is telling. We spend more than that in less than two months in Iraq. These people aren’t fighting waste! They are finding some left over pocket change under the sofa cushions. Big deal!!

The GAO report should put those people to shame. The GAO did not question the need for any of the 95 weapons systems it looked at. It did not question the bloated costs of any of these programs. All it did was look at cost overruns — money above and beyond the initial pricetags which you know are already inflated — and here is what they found:

The Government Accountability Office found that 95 major systems have exceeded their original budgets by a total of $295 billion, bringing their total cost to $1.6 trillion, and are delivered almost two years late on average.

$295 billion!!! Compared to $17.2 billion for 11,610 programs most of which are probably easily defensible as needed or necessary spending. The $295 billion is not for any programs. Zero!! We don’t get squat for this money. It is simply cost overruns. Bad management. Incompetence. The hallmark of the Bush administration, and Republican policy in general. At least with the $17.2 billion in so-called pork barrell projects we will get a lot of roads and bridges and museums and so forth.

And the $295 billion pales in comparison to the estimated costs of the Iraq debacle, now coming close to $5 trillion.

Next week, the Iraq war enters its sixth year. As casualties mount (about 4,000 American soldiers killed since the start of the war in March 2003), so do the bills.
"The cost is going up every month," says Linda Bilmes, an expert at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. She estimates the short-term, "running cost" has reached $12.5 billion a month. That's up from $4.4 billion a month in 2003. Add in long-term factors, such as the care of veterans and interest on federal debt incurred as a result of the war, and the cost piles up to $25 billion a month nowadays.
Last September in a phone interview, Ms. Bilmes estimated the war's total price tag as easily exceeding $2 trillion. In a book published last month, she and Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist from Columbia University, New York, estimated the total long-run cost at $3 trillion in 2007 valued dollars. If you add in Afghanistan and various costs to the economy, the sum reaches $4.95 trillion.

From now on, whenever I hear any Republican complain about paying taxes my standard response will be, “Yeah, paying for Bush’s war is a pain, isn’t it?”
Because, after all, that is what every last one of our tax dollars is going to go towards for the rest of our natural lives.

One more MB video

The first one is my nephew. The second is my son. My other brother-in-law, Alan, took this video.

Mutton Busting II

My brother-in-law Mark took this video of my son riding the sheep at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

And here is my nephew just moments earlier...

No time to blog today

My mom forwarded this cool picture to me this morning.

Dream cabinet

OK, here’s a fun fantasy exercise while we wait patiently for the never-ending primary process to play itself out. Who would be your ideal picks for the top cabinet posts in the next presidential administration. Here are some of my choices:

President Barack Obama
Vice President Bill Richardson
Secretary of State Chris Dodd
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel
Attorney General John Edwards
Secretary of Education
Secretary of Health and Human Services
Secretary of Energy
Secretary of Homeland Security Joe Biden
Secretary of Interior Clint Eastwood
Secretary of Veterans Affairs
Secretary of Commerce
Secretary of Treasury
Secretary of Agriculture
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Secretary of Labor
Secretary of Environment Al Gore (New cabinet level position)

And Hillary Clinton will return to the Senate and challenge Harry Reid for the job of Majority Leader.
I’ll try to fill in the blanks over time. Any suggestions?

Embedded music

Jed over at Boots and Sabers has been highlighting different musical artists each day and having readers post their favorite songs. It’s kind of fun to see what other people pick as their favorite music by acts that are familiar to most everyone. It’s also interesting to see which group or individual gets highlighted each day.
Here are the groups they’ve featured so far in order:

The Rolling Stones
Aerosmith
Led Zepplin
U2
Lynyrd Skynyrd
AC/DC
Motley Crue
Jim Croce
Queen
Bruce Springsteen
Guns n Roses
The Clash

The exercise is apparently limited to the availability of songs Jed can find on the SeeqPod web site. This cool site lets you search for songs that you can then embed on your blog. Here is my first attempt:



I want to dedicate this one to Aretha Franklin!

Delegate math update

For those who may still be unconvinced of the futility of Hillary Clinton’s continuing bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, MSNBC has helpfully run the numbers again:

Obama leads among pledged delegates 1408-1251; Clinton leads among superdelegates, 255-218. Added together, Obama's overall delegate lead is 120, 1626-1506. Now, what's left? There are still 10 pledged delegates NBC News hasn’t allocated from contests already held. In addition, there are 566 delegates at stake in the remaining contests. On the supers front, there are 321 folks who haven't picked sides (76 of whom have yet to be named; they'll get named at state convention meetings held between now and the end of June). OK, now, let's play the math game. If the remaining contests split up "as expected" meaning Clinton wins her base states (PA, KY, WV etc.) and Obama wins his base states (NC, OR, MT etc.) and the two split Indiana down the middle, the two campaigns will likely split those 566 delegates right down the middle 283-283 (margin of error +/- 5 delegates). This means Obama would need 34% of the uncommitted superdelegates to hit the magic 2024 number, while Clinton would need 72% of the uncommitted Supers to hit 2024.  

And splitting the remaining delegates down the middle is probably an overly optimistic scenario for Hillary right now. But even if that does happen, she has to somehow persuade an overwhelming majority of the Super delegates (72 percent) to overturn the will of the Democratic primary voters and support her at the convention. Ain’t gonna happen.

In the meantime, the Jeremiah Wright controversy is starting to fade as the pack-dog press has turned its attention to chasing a sex scandal in the Detroit Mayor’s office; Obama has increased his poll lead in North Carolina to 20 points; and his fundraising efforts continue to outpace Hillary and is leaving John McCain in the dust.

Conservatives for Obama

Andrew Bracevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, makes the conservative case for Barack Obama.

Conservatives who think that a McCain presidency would restore a sense of realism and prudence to U.S. foreign policy are setting themselves up for disappointment. On this score, we should take the senator at his word: his commitment to continuing the most disastrous of President Bush’s misadventures is irrevocable. McCain is determined to remain in Iraq as long as it takes. He is the candidate of the War Party. The election of John McCain would provide a new lease on life to American militarism, while perpetuating the U.S. penchant for global interventionism marketed under the guise of liberation.

The essential point is this: conservatives intent on voting in November for a candidate who shares their views might as well plan on spending Election Day at home. The Republican Party of Bush, Cheney, and McCain no longer accommodates such a candidate.

So why consider Obama? For one reason only: because this liberal Democrat has promised to end the U.S. combat role in Iraq. Contained within that promise, if fulfilled, lies some modest prospect of a conservative revival.

Lie, Cheat and Steal

When I saw this story the other day about Hillary needing to do three things to win the Democratic nomination, my first thought was "Yeah - Lie, Cheat and Steal."
But then I read the article and here are the three things they actually suggest she needs to do:

1. Win big in Pennsylvania and claim that that proves she deserves the nomination even though she will still be behind in pledged delegates... In other words, LIE.

2. Find some way to have the Florida and Michigan delegates seated on her behalf even though they did not hold legitimate primary elections... In other words, CHEAT.

3. Find some way to get the superdelegates to abandon and Obama and support her... In other words, STEAL.

So my first impression turns out to have been dead on. Ha!

5 year anniversary

No, not the war in Iraq. My blogiversary!
Actually, I just realized that I totally neglected to note my blog’s fifth anniversary back in January - Jan. 10 to be precise.
Here is my first ever blog post from 2003.
I didn’t have titles for my posts back then. I didn’t have comments. I didn’t know how to post links or pictures or videos. But I had a blog!
It is strange to think that my blog has been around longer than the war-that-will-not-end in Iraq. It is older than both of my children. I’ve had it longer than either of the two cars I currently own.
Amazingly enough, I’ve lived in the same house and had the same job for this entire period. That is unusual for me. But I have no plans of ever moving again and I expect I will keep this blog going for the forseeable future. It’s too much fun to stop now!

Failure to Communicate

I’ve always enjoyed sparring with people over politics and since I started blogging I have sought out people who I could engage in debate over the political issues of the day.
But forming and maintaining such relationships - cordial yet adversarial - has proved difficult at times. A lot of bloggers simply don’t stick around for very long. Many of the rightwing bloggers I have engaged in debate over the years have simply shut down and tuned out. Sometimes the dialogues we’ve had have proved fruitful and informative on both sides. Other times they have simply reinforced stereotypes and animosities and have gone nowhere.
One recent effort of mine to strike up a discourse with a political adversary has just ended in dismal failure. The other day I was formally banned from commenting at the blog run by TexasFred. It didn’t take long. I think I was allotted three comments on the site before I was pitched out on my rear.
I should have known better. I was intrigued by TexasFred because he was one of the many rightwing bloggers to announce steadfast opposition to John McCain’s presidential candidacy. I was curious to see how long this would last before the prospect of a Democratic boogeyman getting in the White House would force a reversal of that position. Sure enough, once it became clear that Obama would be the nominee, TexasFred began to bitterly denounce him in tones that were both objectionable and over-the-top.
It should have been clear then that there was no opportunity for dialogue at that point. But I let my curiosity overrule my better judgment and I attempted to open a dialogue on his blog. This is always difficult because many people will assume that someone posting an adversarial comment on their site is a “troll” who is only seeking to pick a fight or make fun of them. So I tried to ease into the discussion by first noting an area where we are in agreement - he is adamantly opposed to the Iraq War in the same way that Pat Buchanan is. But, I wondered, how can he still consider supporting the Republican ticket in that case?
But my attempt to raise this issue backfired when he mistook one of my comments and lambasted me with his response. And then he made it clear that if I were a supporter of Obama he would have no interest in anything I have to say. I should have bailed at that point, but I then made the mistake of trying to lighten the mood by cracking a joke in my next comment only to find that TexasFred takes his politics very seriously and does not share my sense of humor. So I was banned and all my previous comments on the site were deleted and pitched down the memory hole.
So, as in the Cool Hand Luke clip above, I had failed to communicate and I walk away with the impression that there are some people that you just can’t reach.
But, honestly, I still don’t believe that. Not entirely.

A historic speech

Here is the full text of Obama’s “Race Speech” that he delivered today. It is most remarkable because he addresses the race issue from both the perspective of a black man and a white man. There are not many people who can do that today with any degree of credibility. Obama, because of his unique racial heritage, can.
He doesn’t just dismiss and denounce the racist words of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, he puts them into their historical context and then shows a path by which those views can be changed. He does not excuse the offensive remarks, but neither does he condemn the man for saying them.
And then he changes gears and discusses the race issue from a white perspective. He talks about the racial resentments that white people feel over busing and affirmative action, and he puts that into its historical perspective too.
I don’t know how anyone could listen to this speech in its entirety and not come away affected by its eleoquence and sincerity. This is the power of rhetoric that has been missing for far too long in our society. I am more excited than ever now about the possibilities that Obama’s candidacy brings for reconciliation and healing in our fractured society.
There will always be people who will dismiss and ignore what he says, but as long as he continues to find forums to spread this unifying message, it will be difficult for the naysayers to hold back the positive changes that are long overdue in our country.

Raw, unfiltered hatred

A while back I noted that a lot of rightwing bloggers were swearing up and down that they would never vote for John McCain.
Their revulsion for McCain’s alleged liberalism was just too much for them to bear.

But I should have known not to underestimate the power of raw, unreasoning, unfiltered hatred.
Case in point: One of the wingnut bloggers I referenced was one called Texas Fred who had this to say back then:

I will officially go on record, here and now, and I make this a public disclosure to any and all that have doubts as to where I stand, IF John McCain is the candidate chosen by the RNC to run for the White House, I will NOT support the Republican choice...

But now, using the drummed up controversy over Obama’s former pastor as his excuse, Texas Fred has suddenly backtracked:

”If it means supporting McCain to keep this skinny, purple lipped, half-assed black son of a bitch stealth muzzie OUT of the White House, then by God I’ll support McCain...”

Texas Fred precedes this tirade by claiming that he is “not a racist” and I would agree. It’s not that he is a racist that makes him say these things, it’s that he is an a**hole. I’m sure he would find some excuse to vent his hatred at the Democratic nominee regardless of who it turns out to be.

Not all rightwingers are like this, fortunately, but for far too many this raw hatred that builds up in their twisted psyches becomes the primary motivation for all their political views. It is the touchstone of their politics. It is what motivates them and drives their political agenda. They build up a strawman, fill it up with their worst fears and prejudices and then sit back and scream hateful invectives at it.
Trying to engage people such as this in constructive debate is usually futile. Their hatred runs too deep and blinds them from any rationale thought.

It does not surprise me that Texas Fred and others of his ilk are going back on their pledges of non-support for McCain, but I was a little shocked to see it done with such foul and hate-filled intensity as demonstrated by Texas Fred.

Mutton Busting

This is what my little boy got to do on Saturday.

Heck of a job, Mr. President

This is some way to cap off the final year of his presidency, isn’t it?

"The current financial crisis in the US is likely to be judged in retrospect as the most wrenching since the end of the Second World War," Alan Greenspan said in a Financial Times commentary.
    "It will end eventually when home prices stabilise and with them the value of equity in homes supporting troubled mortgage securities," he said, referring to the meltdown in the US subprime home loan market and subsequent massive losses for the banks holding the debt instruments.
    "The crisis will leave many casualties," he said, his remarks coming after Bear Stearns, the fifth largest US investment house collapsed Friday and was taken over by JPMorgan Chase for a fraction of its value of only a week ago.

So.... what happened? Why haven’t Bush’s tax cuts made everything wonderful for our economy? How come after eight years with Bush at the reins we are heading towards the most wrenching financial crisis since WWII?
Not his fault, you say? 9/11 and all that?
Ridiculous.
There could not be clearer evidence that Republican economic policies have FAILED miserably. The prospect of electing John McCain to carry on another four years of these same failed economic policies is frightening.

Desert Island Music

Over at Boots & Sabers they have been running a series of posts where people pick their favorite song by different bands. Today, they take it one step further with a deserted island post.
The game is that you are stuck on a deserted island with plenty of electricity and a good stereo system. In one version you are allowed to have three songs and only three songs. In another version you are allowed three albums - double albums allowed but no greatest hits compilations or box sets. And in a third version you are allowed the entire discography of three artists.
I decided to combine the three versions and make them cumulative so that I could get the most musical variety on my little island as possible.
Here was my answer:

The complete discographies of:

The Beatles
Bing Crosby
Duke Ellington

The Albums:

Exile on Main Street - The Rolling Stones
The Sun Sessions - Elvis Presley
Modern Sounds in Country Music - Ray Charles

Songs:

Like A Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic - The Police
The Sixth Symphony (Pastoral) - Beethoven


That still leaves out a lot, doesn’t it.

Warning shot

Jonathan Gurwitz can see what’s coming. The Republicans are heading for a major election defeat in November and the loss of former Speaker Dennis Hastert’s seat in what used to be a solidly Republican district in Illinois is just one indicator.
But Democrats still have a long primary fight ahead of them with the next big primary - Pennsylvania - nearly six weeks away. Obama won Mississippi handily - 61-39 percent - adding to his victory a few days earlier in Wyoming. That gave him enough delegates to wipe out any bump that Hillary saw out of her March 4 victories in Ohio and Texas.
There is no way at this point that Hillary can win this thing so it is not clear why she is staying in the race. But it will all be over in time and Democrats will unite behind their nominee just as the disgruntled Republicans have obediently kow-towed to John McCain.

Dump Spitzer

What is he still doing in office?? Get the hell out! Resign now! He should have been out yesterday.
There is no way that New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is going to survive this sex scandal. The fact that he used to be a prosecutor who aggressively went after people caught up in prostitution rings sends this case way off of the hypocricy scale. Democrats should not waste one ounce of political capital trying to defend his stupid ass. What an idiot! His political career is over, regardless of how the legal case plays out.
There are a lot of questions about how the Justice Department came to snare a Democratic governor. These should be pursued vigorously and exposed if it turns out the investigation was politically motivated. But that doesn’t mean Spitzer is going to get off the hook. His goose is cooked no matter what. He needs to clear out and make room for the Democratic Party’s next rising star - Lt. Gov. David Paterson. Paterson would not only become the fourth African-American governor in history, but he would also be the first one who is legally blind. What a great story! Dump Spitzer now and start promoting Paterson!

A question of experience

When they are not darkly alluding that Barack Obama is a terrorist sympathizer because of his middle name, they will attack him for his percieved lack of experience.

On that note, here is an interesting exercise on picking presidents based on experience:

Suppose you had to choose between two Presidential candidates, one of whom had spent 20 years in Congress plus had considerable other relevant experience and the other of whom had about half a dozen years in the Illinois state legislature and 2 years in Congress. Which one do you think would make a better President? If you chose #1, congratulations, you picked James Buchanan over Abraham Lincoln.

There are many other examples like that where you can persuade people to pick Warren G. Harding over Franklin Roosevelt; or Millard Fillmore over John Adams.

Clearly, “experience” is almost a random factor when it comes to determining the success of a president. One of the most galling things about Hillary’s “threshhold” argument for being commander-in-chief is that her own husband would never have passed the test the way she is using it today.

Some people will argue that having too much experience is actually bad. They will point out that most presidents fare more poorly during their second term after gaining experience than they do during their first term. I don’t necessarily buy that argument. I just think that experience by itself is overrated. What matters most is what you do with the experience you have and not just the simple fact that you have it.
Some people can do a great deal with very little experience while others do almost nothing with lots of experience.

Crossing the threshhold

For the last few days, Hillary Clinton has been pushing a new campaign theme where she claims to have “crossed a threshhold” for becoming Commander in Chief of our military, while implying that Barack Obama has not. The outrageous part is that each time she does this she assumes that Republican John McCain has crossed that threshhold as well. So, in effect, she is endorsing McCain’s bid for the presidency over Obama’s.
What is she thinking?!?
Hillary has crossed a threshhold alright! Right into Joe Lieberman territory. What’s next? Will she be making a nomination speech at the Republican National Convention this summer like Zell Miller did?
I’m not a Hillary basher by any measure. I’ve always admired and supported her in the past. But lately it is becoming extremely difficult for me to defend her actions to my friends. What is going on?
Hillary is not stupid. I know that she can count. I know that she can see the writing on the wall. As Jonathan Alter pointed out in Newsweek, she has no chance of catching up to Obama in the pledged delegate count at this point, even if she were to blow him out in every contest from here on out.
So what is her gameplan with this new line of attack? How does she expect to win over Democratic voters by praising John McCain? It’s nuts. Is she just being vindictive, with the idea that if she can’t win, then nobody can win?

District 23 challenger

It seems like just yesterday that I was celebrating Ciro Rodriguez’ victory over Henry Bonilla in the 23rd Congressional District.
Now, it’s time to gear up for the next challenge. Bexar County Commissioner Lyle Larson won the Republican primary the other day and will take on Ciro this fall. Larson handily defeated millionaire businessman Quico Canseco despite being outspent nearly 10-1.

I was glad to see Larson win, partly because I think he is not as noxious as Quico and partly because he does not have the personal wealth and financial resources at his disposal that Quico has.
Larson seems like a mainstream Republican who is not out on the wingnut fringe. But then, I thought the same thing about John Cornyn before he got elected to the Senate.

On his campaign website, Larson seems to downplay (or ignore) the more divisive issues on his website and promises to “bring fiscal discipline to Washington, D.C.,” secure our borders and care for our veterans. Hardly controversial ideas.
Still, Larson covers his right flank by declaring "I am pro life and I value the sanctity of every human life.” and "I believe in traditional marriage; a union between a man and a woman". But then he goes on to emphasize his support for adoptions programs which everybody supports.
But there are some worrisome areas on Larson’s “issues” page that voters should be aware of. He talks about Social Security in alarmist terms and hints that “tough decisions must be made” about the level of benefits younger generations will recieve.
And on taxes, Larson embraces the nutty “Fair Tax” scheme most recently promoted by Mike Huckabee that would eliminate the IRS and fund the entire U.S. government (inadequately) with a massive 36 percent sales tax on everything. The goofy idea was initially dreamed up by the Church of Scientology, and is now being endorsed by the rightwing fringe of the Republican Party.

One issue that Larson skirts on his web site, not surprisingly, is the Iraq War. But one can be assured that as the Republican candidate on the ballot with John McCain next fall, Larson will have no choice but to wear the Iraqi albatross around his neck.

This should be a good year for Democrats and Ciro should not have too much trouble getting re-elected after knocking off Bonilla by a 55-45 margin less than two years ago. But he needs to take the challenge from Larson very seriously with the understanding that Larson or someone like him will be back again and again trying to pry him out of this newly blue congressional district.

A muddled election

I am deeply disappointed in the elections results last night. I very much wanted to see Texas go for Obama.
We had a chance to pick the next president of the United States here in Texas the other day and we blew it.
The election results, which gave a slim popular vote victory to Hillary Clinton and a caucus-driven delegate victory to Barrack Obama, only served to muddle things up and send the whole campaign packing down the road for the next states to decide.

Hillary is claiming a huge victory for herself, which is understandable, but when the delegates are all counted and divvied up there is less there than meets the eye.
Hillary won big in Ohio and Rhode Island, but lost in Vermont. In Texas, she split the primary delegates and lost the caucus delegates. The final tally looks like she may end up with a net gain of two or three delegates, maybe.
In other words, she did nothing to make up the gap in pledged delegates between her and Obama which stands at something like 157.
So now, instead of bowing out of the race and allowing Democrats to regroup around their eventual nominee, we are going to continue the bloody fratricide to the delight of the Republicans for the next six weeks. Hillary’s only chance of winning the nomination will be to continue her negative campaigning and tear Obama to pieces before the Democratic convention this summer so that the super delegates will be more willing to abandon him and support her.
Lovely.
The part of John McCain will now be played by Hillary Clinton for the next six weeks. Meanwhile, McCain will have time to raise a huge warchest with which to beat Democrats over the head this fall.
I don’t know if I have the stomach to put up with this for another six weeks. Yech!

E. Gary Gygax RIP

Gary Gygax, the creator of the Dungeons and Dragons role playing game, died today at age 69.
I actually got to meet Mr. Gygax back during the summer of 1983 and got his autograph when I attended the GenCon gaming convention in Lake Geneva, Wis. with my friend Jim Miller.
My friends and I were big into D&D when I was in high school. My friend Robert introduced me to the game when I was a freshman or sophomore and we played pretty regularly until we all left for college.
D&D has gotten a bad rap over the years from fundamentalist churches and that lame TV movie that starred Tom Hanks and so forth, but I have to say that for a kid growing up in small-town South Texas it was a godsend. Back before we had home computers and VCRs and cable TV, there just wasn’t much for young teens to do in the evenings. Rather than driving around town, cruising the local Dairy Queen, drinking beer and generally getting into trouble, my friends and I would gather at someone’s house, sit around a card table with a big bowl of popcorn and play D&D until late in the evening.
The game was complex and had lots of rules, but was otherwise very low-tech and required little more than the rule books, some pencils, paper and special dice. When we started, we didn’t even have dice and had to use little cardboard chits with numbers that we would keep in styrofoam cups. I remember when we finally got the special 20-sided, 12-sided and 8-sided dice it was very exciting. Back then, finding D&D games and accessories meant searching through the back corners of old hobby shops that mostly catered to people who built models and train sets. The closest one to us was in Kingsville more than 30 miles away.
Today, the game has been taken over by computers. Whereas it used to require gathering all your friends together to play a decent game, you can now play all by yourself in front of your computer, sometimes with other people half a wold away sitting in front of their computers. It’s just not the same.
I still have all my D&D books and stuff at home, packed away in a closet somewhere. Maybe when my kids are old enough and if they show any interest I might drag it all out and hopefully the magic will still work at that point. All it takes is a little imagination.

Hopes and fears

I got an email today from Move-On.org that said they had called more than 400,000 Texas voters over the weekend to urge them to vote for Barack Obama. If they called everyone of them a dozen times like they did me, that would be a lot of phone calls!
Seriously though, my phone was ringing off the hook all weekend by people calling on behalf of Obama. I never got any calls from anyone supporting Hillary. My wife assumed it was because I had given the Obama people my contact info when I dropped by their HQ last week to pick up a bumper sticker. But I didn’t tell them my name or anything. I just shook the guy’s hand and said thanks for the bumper sticker. So I assume they have my number from the Democractic Party which should be available to Hillary as well.

On a related topic, I was listening to the local wingnut radio station again last Friday and the locally-based host - Joe Pags - was having a “townhall meeting” on the air with representatives from the different political campaigns taking questions from a studio audience. What I thought was incredible is that they had a well-known educator and labor leader there to represent Hillary, a prominent local state representative to represent Obama, a local attorney speaking for Mike Huckabee, but nobody to represent John McCain! How could that be?? This was the rightwing radio station that airs non-stop rightwing hate radio day and night and they couldn’t get a McCain supporter to show up for their big election event? How pathetic!
And then I noticed that every single person in the audience asking questions throughout the show was an Obama supporter. Hilarious! I almost felt sorry for the host.

I’m now hearing that Obama will be back in San Antonio on Tuesday as the election results are coming in. If he doesn’t win, I will be sorely disappointed because it will mean six more weeks of Hillary continuing to tag team with John McCain in attacking Obama, even though she still won’t be able to catch up to him in the delegate vote. One prominent blogger has already speculated that the Hillary team might even work to defeat Obama in November so that they can be set to run for president again in 2012. I certainly hope that is wrong.
I think Obama will win in Texas, and if so Hillary should step down even if she pulls off a victory in Ohio. Ohio can be a face saver for Hillary, but it won’t be enough to keep her afloat for the rest of the campaign. Hillary blew this race on Super Tuesday when she decided to coast along on her victories in New York and California while overlooking the fact that Obama was sweeping the floor with her everywhere else.

SAPBA Round-Up

Vince over at Capitol Annex has his weekly Texas Progressive Alliance Blog Round-Up for this past week.
As usual, Vince neglects to include any bloggers from San Antonio in his “round-up.”
So to make up for this regular oversight, I’ve decided to set up the informal San Antonio Progressive Bloggers Alliance Round-Up to highlight all the good bloggy stuff coming out of the Alamo City that is regularly ignored by our progressive brethrens in Austin, Houston and Dallas.

Peter at B&B was able to attend the Barack Obama rally in San Antonio on Friday and gives his thoughts here. He even provides some photos from his seat up in the nosebleed section.
Earlier, Peter, a native Chicagoan, had an excellent post about the similarities between the Obama campaign and that of the late Harold Washington, the former mayor of Chicago.

Over at Beginning To Wonder, AnnPW has a suggested theme song for the Obama campaign.

Donna at Happiness Anyway has a good post up about the astounding number of people we keep locked up in jail for non-violent crimes. It is a huge problem that flies below the radar screen for most people until one of their relatives gets caught up in the system.

Karen Zipdrive at Pulp Friction makes the excellent point that we would not bat an eye if John McCain were to pick a white male as his running mate. However, if Hillary Clinton were to pick a white woman for a VP or Barack Obama were to pick a black man, chaos and mayem would ensue. Go figure.

Dig ad veritas at Dig Deeper Texas is concerned that the harsh tone of the Democratic primary could hurt the winner’s chances in November.

And over at Agblogistan they are wondering if we will see any last minute surprise attacks thrown out just before the March 4 primary.

Finally, over at Rhetoric & Rhythm, Mike discusses the Hagee-Farrakhan double standard where Obama is forced to denounce a controversial black minister he has no connection to, while McCain openly embraces the endorsement of a controversial white pastor with no negative consequences.

Check back next week for more good stuff from the SAPBA!

That’s it?!?

John McCain’s campaign raised $12 million in February.
That may sound like a lot, and it is, but when you consider that Hillary Clinton raised $35 million and Barack Obama raised close to $50 million during the same time period, it’s chicken feed.
But this is consistent with how the entire election season has been going. Three to four times as many Democrats are turning out to vote in the primaries as Republicans. When McCain holds a campaign rally, he attracts just a fraction of the number that either Hillary or Obama attract.
Just imagine when the primary race is over and the Hillary people come on board with the Obama campaign (the most likely scenario). They are going to swamp the Republicans in November. Most of the Republican’s big money men know this and that is why they are keeping their wallets closed for this election. They don’t like to throw away their money on losing causes. And the Republican presidential campaign is a lost cause no matter who the nominee is.

Whose side are they on??

One reason I’ll be glad when this primary campaign is over is to put an end to garbage like this. Why is Hillary cutting ads for John McCain? Sheesh!

I was thinking the same thing yesterday when I heard Hillary supporter Henry Cisneros on the logal wingnut radio station WOAI 1200 being interviewed by Joe Pags. Pags is one of those “John McCain is not conservative enough for me” nut jobs who will end up supporting McCain in the fall anyway. And here he was interviewing Cisneros and delighting in getting the former San Antonio mayor and HUD secretary to take cheap pot shots at Obama.
The only good things is that these “my opponent doesn’t have enough experience” attacks are largely ineffective. Otherwise, George W. Bush would never have been almost elected in 2000.

But when it comes to internal bickering, I don’t think Democrats can hold a candle to the kind of vicious dog-eat-dog battles that go on in the Republican primary. I heard a radio ad for Republican state Rep. Nathan Macias that made it sound like his Republican opponent is running on Ralph Nader’s Green Party ticket. The ad is mean and nasty and vicious, and then it has the audacity at the very end to accuse Macias’ opponent of “running a negative campaign.” Go figure.

And listening to Quico Canseco’s radio ads makes me hope Lyle Larson will pull off a victory despite being outspent nearly 10-1 in the race. Canseco is shamelessly and ignorantly demagouging over the illegal immigration issue. Not only do the demogouges make the illegal immigration issue into a bigger problem than it really is, but their proposed solution is fanciful nonsense that will only exacerbate the problem over the long run. You CANNOT deport 12 million people who are already here and have long ago enmeshed themselves into our society. Providing them with a means to obtain citizenship is not just doing them a favor (not to mention their children), it is doing society in general a favor. Giving them citizenship means they will be able to serve society as well as benefit from it.

An endorsement (not)

I am constantly amazed that I actually have a U.S. Congressman representing me who I like and can support - Ciro Rodriguez. And a state senator too - Carlos Uresti.
But my state representative is a little rightwing toad by the name of Frank Corte Jr.
I just heard an ad for Corte today on the local wingnut radio station (WOAI) and it reminded me that he actually has a primary opponent this year, the equally loathsome and dumb as a brick Tony Kosub.

So I just wanted to take a minute to announce my endorsement of Tony Kosub in his bid to take down Corte Jr. in the Republican primary. Not because I want Kosub representing me any more than Corte Jr., but because on a tactical level it would be easier for a Democrat to run against Kosub in the fall. Kosub has not built up the name recognition, the campaign warchest or the legislative experience that Corte Jr. has. Therefore he would be easier to knock off in the general election, and, in the event that he does get into office, God forbid, he would be less effective and less able to screw things up.

The Hagee-Farrakhan double standard

Glenn Greenwald has another excellent post up today in which he calls attention to what I would call the Hagee-Farrakhan double standard in our political discourse.

Why is Louis Farrakhan deemed by our political establishment to be so radioactive as to not be fit for good company -- black candidates are required to repudiate his support even when they haven't sought it and denounce his views even when they've never advocated anything close to those views -- but John Hagee is a perfectly acceptable figure whom mainstream GOP politicians are free to court without any consequences or media objections?

John Hagee is the pastor of the 19,000-member Cornerstone Church which is just down the road from my house. The first thing you should know about Hagee is that he is a hypocrite. Like many religious right preachers, Hagee loudly denounces people who commit sexual infidelity (especially the homosexual kind) and says that “Christians... don’t get divorced...”
And yet, Hagee’s first marriage of 15 years ended in divorce in 1975 as a result of his own infidelity. Rather than acknowledge this, Hagee tries to cover it up today as he does on his web site where he claims that he and his current wife Diana “have five married children.”
But two of those children were actually with his first wife who has apparently been excised from his memory.
In addition to being an adulterer, Hagee reportedly rakes in millions of dollars each year through his tax-exempt television ministry.
But Hagee is most controversial when it comes to his extreme views on the Middle East. He is downright racist when it comes to Muslims in general and Palestinians in particular - having claimed that all “who live by the Koran have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews.”
Hagee also claims that there is a Biblical imperative for the U.S. to attack Iran and supports a pre-emptive strike on Iran as a first step toward fulfilling his twisted interpretations of Biblical prophesies.

But, as Greenwald notes, none of these extremist views have made Hagee (or Robertson or Falwell or Dobson) the kind of political pariah that Louis Farrakhan has become.
Farrakhan has made many controversial statements over the years that have been deemed both racist and anti-semitic. The difference that I can tell, however, is that today Farrakhan denies having said many of these things or simply does not say them anymore, whereas Hagee continues to make the same controversial statements again and again without consequence.
Thus we have the situation we saw just the other day where on the one hand Barack Obama is being hounded by Tim Russert to denounce Farrakhan despite never having sought his favor or endorsing his views; while at the same time John McCain is openly accepting the praise and endorsement of Hagee at his church in San Antonio.
A shameless double standard if ever there was one.

Vote cast

I cast my vote yesterday. I went to an early voting site at the library nearest to my house. It was around 5 p.m. when I arrived and there actually was a bit of a line, but not too bad and I was in an out in about 10 minutes. I couldn’t find my current voters card, so I brought my old one that had expired in November and they were perfectly fine with that. That and my driver’s license was all I needed.
They gave me a slip of paper with my name on it that I can use to attend my precinct caucus meeting after the polls close next Tuesday. I may try to go just out of curiosity. I bet that it will be crowded.
This is only the second time I’ve been able to vote in a contested presidential primary in Texas. The first time was in 1988, and ironically I voted for a black man then too. Four years prior to that, I had cast my first vote ever for Ronald Reagan. But by 1988 I had done a complete about face. I voted for Jesse Jackson in the primary not because I thought he could actually win, but because I wanted to send a message that I wanted a strong liberal candidate. We ended up with Michael Dukakis instead, but I enthusiastically backed his campaign to the bitter end.
This time I was not sending a protest vote. Rather, I think my candidate will actually win.
A actually got to vote in one other contested presidential primary, but that was while I was living in Connecticut in 1992. I cast my vote for Bill Clinton that year largely because I had been so impressed after seeing him in person give a speech to the Middletown Chamber of Commerce. He ended up losing the Connecticut primary to Jerry Brown, but won the overall election nonetheless.
I also got to see Hillary Clinton speak at a campaign rally on the Yale University campus that year as well. We lived close to New Haven at the time. I remember being impressed by her as well. They made quite a team.
Hillary will be back in San Antonio this Friday for a campaign rally and so will Barack Obama. It will be ineresting to see who can draw the larger crowd, although I think it won’t be any contest.

William F. Buckley Jr. RIP

William F. Buckley Jr. was one of those conservatives for whom I had a great deal of respect. I admired his willingness to engage the other side in debate. His TV show Firing Line provided a national outlet for prominent liberals of that era such as Gore Vidal, John Kenneth Galbraith and Noam Chomsky to gain some badly needed exposure.
Conservative commentators today, by contrast, are much less educated and very much unwilling to engage the other side in a direct debate. Can you imagine Rush Limbaugh inviting someone like Chomsky or Vidal onto his radio show and actually allowing them to talk?
I saw Buckley in person once when I was at Texas A&M in the mid-1980s as part of a current affairs program at the university. It was a live debate between Buckley and Galbraith on the merits or demerits of Big, or as Galbraith corrected, Strong Government. At the time, I think I was siding with Buckley. I have long since switched to Galbraith.
When I lived in Connecticut, Buckley’s newspaper columns were widely distributed and I would read him every week. I remember my impression at the time was that he would cram as many big words as he could into each column and often times not come to any clear point.
In his later years, as the modern conservative movement was becoming more and more radicalized, he stayed grounded in the conservativism of the past. He was highly critical of President Bush and the war in Iraq and was thereafter largely sidelined by his ideological heirs.

Steroid obsession

Aaarrrrgggghhhhh!!!! Why is Henry Waxman still wasting time on this?

Congress asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Roger Clemens "committed perjury and made knowingly false statements" to a House committee.

This is all “he said-she said” nonsense. They can’t prove squat! I hope that Mukasey throws this back in Waxman’s face and tells him to stick it in his ear.
I know that investigating all the myriad Bush scandals is not as glamorous as going after a baseball superstar, but I’d really appreciate it if Waxman would go back to doing his real job.

Even temperment

One thing that has impressed me about Barack Obama lately is his even temperment. Nothing seems to ruffle his feathers or break his stride. He doesn’t raise his voice, he doesn’t get testy or perturbed. In fact, he seems to have handled all the pressures of the campaign amazingly well.
Glenn Greenwald has a good post about how Obama effectively handled a rightwing attack on his patriotism without getting defensive and agitated.
So far, this is one of the qualities I like best with Obama and it contrasts well right now with the shrill tone that Hillary Clinton has lately adopted as she desperately tries to salvage her presidential prospects.
Clinton’s “outrage” the other day over the content of some Obama campaign fliers was clearly a tactical effort on her part to try and link Obama to someone most Democrats despise - Karl Rove. You know that Clinton did not just pick up one of these flyers the other day and fly into a rage. Rather, there was probably a strategy session where they came up with the idea of trying to link Obama to Rove, followed by a search through the campaign literature for something that they could pretend to get upset about. It all came across as very fake and very staged. But the point was not to reach out to politically astute people, but rather those who don’t pay much attention to these things and would be more likely to be persuaded by such mock outrage.
Needless to say, I’ll be glad when this is all over and the Democrats can all kiss and make up and stop all the sniping and backstabbing.

Running Mates

An interesting column today from George Will speculating about who John McCain is likely to tap as his VP choice. After briefly toying with and then dismissing the ideo of a woman (Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison) and a black man (Gen. Colin Powell), Will gives us a list of five or six WASPy males who are currently preening for the job.
Before reading the Will piece, I was prepared to make a bold prediction that McCain would try and exploit the Hispanic community’s reluctance to support Obama by picking a right-wing Hispanic as his running mate — someone like Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida.
But that didn’t seem to cross Will’s radar screen, so perhaps it is something McCain will not consider. Maybe they are afraid it would further enrage the anti-immigrant wingnut faction of the party.

Meanwhile, on the other side I have said before that Bill Richardson would be a smart choice for Obama and would go a long way at bridging the black-Hispanic gap that currently exists. But they may also decide that having one minority on the tickets is groundbreaking enough and play it safe by going with a white male. I hear that John Edwards is available.

Oscar impressions

Yawn! I wasn’t terribly interested in the Oscars this year. Once again, I have yet to see any of the major category nominees and it is unlikely that I will rush out and see them anytime soon. The only one I wouldn’t mind seeing sooner than later is Johnny Depp in “Sweeney Todd”.
I wouldn’t mind eventually seeing “No Country For Old Men” “There Will Be Blood” and “Michael Clayton”, but I’ve said the same thing in the past about other Oscar films that I have yet to see. I’ll probably never see “Atonement” or “Juno”.

The best film I saw all year (which I finally watched over the weekend) was the “Bourne Ultimatum”, which I was delighted to see win three Oscars, a sweep of every category it was nominated for. I was also happy that “Ratatouille” won for best animated film, although it should have been nominated for Best Picture as well.
But the Academy has even less respect for action/adventure movies than it does for comedies. Thus the past oversights for all time great films like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I thought the acting awards were fairly predictable except for Best Supporting Actress which I figured would go to Cate Blanchett. I was disappointed with the Oscar choice for Best Song going to some independent film no one has ever heard of and no one will ever see, passing over three Disney songs from “Enchanted”. I can pretty much guarantee that I will soon own a copy of “Enchanted” and know all those songs by heart, while I will probably never hear the other song again.

But that is what the Academy likes to do these days. Diss the big megaplex movies that most Americans get to see in favor of little known independents that you would be lucky to find at your local video store in a year. This somehow demonstrates the Academy’s superiority and elite tastes compared to the mongrel hordes who shell out most of the money that supports the industry in the first place.
If the Academy wants to honor these kinds of movies every year, then they should put their money where their mouths are and back these films from the get go. Give them enough financing to get better distribution and advertizing and marketing budgets so that people will actually have a chance to go see them during the year instead of only having a choice of films that the Academy typically turns its nose up to.

McCain’s run of bad luck

No, I’m not talking about the NYTimes story today about John McCain’s close ties to a female telecom lobbyist.
What caught my interest while reading through McCain’s Wiki bio entry was the number of times he was involved in a flying mishap that resulted in the loss or near loss of his airplane. There are five all totaled, four of which resulted in the loss of an aircraft and one that was “a close call.”
Not all of these were McCain’s fault, in fact, it’s not clear if any could be directly blamed on him (except possibly the close call incident). But it sure does seem like an amazing run of bad luck for one pilot. How common was it for pilots to lose aircraft like this?

The first incident occurred sometime prior to 1960 while McCain was in flight school in Texas.

During a practice run in Texas, his engine quit while landing, and his aircraft crashed into Corpus Christi Bay, though he escaped without major injuries.

Next came the “close encounter” in 1962:

His aviation skills improved, but he had another close call when he and his plane emerged intact from a collision with power lines, after flying too low over Spain.

The third incident occurred in December 1965:

...he had his third close call when a flameout over Norfolk, Virginia led to his ejecting safely, and his plane crashed.

Then, perhaps the most bizarre and deadly incident occurred onboard an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin in July 1967:

The crew was preparing to launch attacks, when a Zuni rocket from an F-4 Phantom was accidentally fired across the carrier's deck. The rocket struck McCain's A-4E Skyhawk as the jet was preparing for launch. The impact ruptured the Skyhawk's fuel tank, which ignited the fuel and knocked two bombs loose. McCain escaped from his jet by climbing out of the cockpit, working himself to the nose of the jet, and jumping off its refueling probe onto the burning deck of the aircraft carrier. Ninety seconds after the impact, one of the bombs exploded underneath his airplane. McCain was struck in the legs and chest by shrapnel. The ensuing fire killed 132 sailors, injured 62 others, destroyed at least 20 aircraft, and took 24 hours to control.

Wow! Talk about bad luck! This guy seemed to be destined for trouble. It makes me wonder if anyone was really surprised when McCain got shot down and taken prisoner just a few months later:

McCain was flying as part of a 20-plane attack against a thermal power plant in central Hanoi, a heavily defended target area that had almost always been off-limits to U.S. raids. McCain's A-4 Skyhawk had its wing blown off by a Soviet-made SA-2 anti-aircraft missile[48] while pulling up after dropping its bombs. McCain fractured both arms and a leg in being hit and ejecting from his plane.

He parachuted into a lake where he nearly drowned before being dragged out by an angry mob that nearly beat him to death. He might have died from his injuries, except that the Vietnamese figured out that he was the son of an Admiral and decided to keep him alive so that they could torture him and try and use him as a propaganda tool.

Legislative achievements

Wow. Obama really kicked some butt last night in Wisconsin. He blew out Hillary worse than John McCain blew out Mike Hucakbee. Just think about that for a minute. And then consider that Hillary recieved more votes than McCain and Huckabee combined, and still lost by nearly 20 points. The Republicans better wake up and smell the coffee, because they are heading toward the short end of a Reaganesque landslide in this fall’s general election.
The Obama phenomenon is continuing to surge ahead and it looks like it will finally swamp the struggling Hillary campaign right here in Texas. If Obama wins in Texas, it’s all over for Hillary.

On a slightly different topic, I want to comment about political hit that MSNBC’s Chris Matthews pulled on Texas State Sen. Kirk Watson who was on air last night as a surrogate for the Obama campaign. Watson had obviously been prepped with the latest campaign themes to regurgitate in short bursts, but instead got hoodwinked by Matthews who wouldn’t let him talk about those things and instead insisted that he list Obama’s “legislative accomplishments” in the Senate. Poor Watson could only stare blankly because he did not know what to say and had obviously not been prepped for that question. Matthews clearly knew this and made great sport of embarrassing Watson over it.
First, if Watson had been a little quicker on his toes he would have shot back and turned the tables by asking Matthews to list the legislative accomplishments of John McCain, who has been in the Senate much longer than Obama, and has no better track record of authored legislation signed into law. He could have also pointed out that if people were interested in who had the biggest list of “legislative accomplishments” they could have gone with any one of the other candidates with far more experience in the federal legislature (Dodd, Biden, Richardson).
But Obama really does have some “legislative accomplishments” under his belt despite his short time in the Senate. And the interesting thing is that most of them were achieved by cooperating with and co-sponsoring legislation with Republican lawmakers - including John McCain on at least two occassions. Obama co-sponsored immigration reform legislation with McCain. He also co-sponsored with McCain a bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Other interesting bi-partisan efforts include the Lugar-Obama act that expanded a cooperative threat reduction agreement to include conventional weapons; and the Coburn-Obama Transparency Act which funded a website run by the Office of Management and Budget where people can see how federal funds are being spent. He has also worked on legislation with Republicans Kit Bond and Chuck Hagel.
I think the fact that Obama seems to work so well with Republicans speaks well of his sincerity in building a broad coalition that can actually change the partisan tone in Washington.
I’m sure the next time the Obama campaign sends out a campaign surrogate on MSNBC, they will be stuffed full of talking points about Obama’s “legislative achievements” and it is probably a good think in the long run that Matthews rubbed their noses in the dirt now rather than saving it for later when it might have hurt more.

Obama endorsement

Is this what it was like in Iowa and New Hampshire?
San Antonio, and the rest of Texas, is being inundated by the political campaigns. We’ve already had Hillary Clinton make an appearance here. Today we have Barack Obama conducting two townhall-style meetings. On Thursday, Sen. Ted Kennedy will be here on behalf of Obama and Gov. Mike Huckabee will also drop in as part of his Quixotic crusade against Republican frontrunner John McCain. Then, on Sunday, Hillary Clinton is supposed to be back again. I’ve also heard that former President Bill Clinton will be campaigning here on behalf of Hillary soon. And I’m sure that is not all. This thing is just getting started with two weeks before the make-or-break primary.
Obama is expected to continue his post-Super Tuesday winning streak today with primary victories in Wisconsin and Hawaii. Unless a miracle occurs for Hillary in Wisconsin, she will have her back against the wall in Texas and Ohio where she will have to win by large margins to avoid being forced out of the race. By contrast, Obama does not HAVE to win here, but if he fails to knock off Hillary then, it will probably mean that we are headed for a brokered convention and that could end up being a lot uglier than anyone wants to see.
I tried to stay neutral in this race for as long as I could, believing that either Hillary or Obama would make an excellent president. But I don’t want to see anything happen that could damage the Democrats chances of retaking the White House in November. Another four years of the Bush presidency with his surrogate John McCain would be unspeakably disasterous. Our nation’s superpower status is hanging in the balance.
Therefore, I’ve gone full bore toward supporting Obama because I see him as having the best chance of winning the nomination outright at this point, and of going on to victory in November. I’m hoping for a clear Obama victory in Texas on March 4 followed by a gracious withdrawal by Hillary so that the Democratic Party can come together in time to weather the onslaught of political attacks being put together by the rightwing spin machine.

Update:
It looks like Obama is sweeping the San Antonio Progressive Bloggers Alliance here and here.

Meanwhile, the local wingnut blogs have endorsed: Rudy! Huckabee! Fred! Romney! ummmm Huckabee?

Political comebacks

As someone who had written John McCain off long ago (just like everyone else did), I’m wary of dismissing other candidates too early. While it would seem that Hillary is in a heap o’ trouble right now (and indeed she is), things could still turn around for her on a dime as this article makes clear.
Still, the people who are saying that Hillary can win in Wisconsin next week are the same ones who said she could win in Washington and Maine and Virginia, etc. So I’m not convinced, but I’m also not going to write anybody off.

Meanwhile, I love to read stuff like this where the Republican Party realists are forced to face up to the reality of their dismal election prospects in November.
With both Obama and Hillary drawing twice the number of voters as all the Republicans combined in a Red state like Virginia, it is very clear that the general electorate is swinging very heavily to the Democratic side this year regardless of which candidate ultimately wins the nomination.

By the way, Hillary was in San Antonio last night for a rally at St. Mary’s University where she got introduced by County Judge Nelson Wolff. The crowd seemed big and enthusiastic, but that is to be expected in a state that has been starved for some attention from these national candidates. I’m sure a lot of people who went may end up voting for Obama, but just wanted to be at the rally to see a Democratic superstar.
And I think the archbishop showed extremely poor judgement by sticking his nose into it and whining about how some candidates’ views don’t match up to all of the Catholic church’s hardline dogma. It was reported that the archbishop had been prompted to speak by local Catholics upset by Hillary’s presense at a Catholic university. I would’t doubt that one of those people complaining most loudly is my old friend Mark.
I just want to hear the archbishop next dress down Sen. McCain for his support of the death penalty and the War in Iraq. Fat chance.

E-N endorses McCain, trashes Hillary

I just caught up on my newspaper reading and saw today that the San Antonio Express-News made their presidential endorsements on Sunday here and here.

Boy! If it wasn’t alreadly plainly clear which side they are coming down on there can be no doubt after this.
The first clue is the prominent placement of the McCain endorsement on top of the Obama endorsement. Sure, this might be quibbling, but the visual impact is unmistakeable.
Then when you read the “endorsements” the contrast becomes distinctly clear. They practically gush over McCain calling him a “war hero” and “political maverick” in the subhead.
There are no such gushing descriptions for Obama. Instead, they set up a rhetorical trick in the lead sentence saying that “America needs a president that tries to create unity out of diversity...” and then follow that by saying that Obama is “the Democratic candidate that offers the best chance to reach that lofty objective.
In other words, they don’t really think Obama can do it, it’s just that he has “the best chance” among the Democratic candidates (i.e. not Hillary).
By the third graph they jump into the political fray, mentioning that Hillary Clinton is “bracing for the fight of her life.”
By contrast, in the McCain editorial they never once mention the name of any of his primary opponents. Instead, they wax philosophically about how all of McCain’s “maverick” positions will prove to be “attractive points for independent voters.”
The only good things they have to say about Obama are done when making a negative contrast toward Hillary.
The main difference, they claim is that “Obama expresses a message of hope that emphasizes what is good for the country, not the party.” With the implication being that Hillary is doing the opposite.
Then they claim, incredibly, that “Obama tends to falter in debates” which is clearly a matter of perception on their part. Before noting that Obama is a powerful speaker on the campaign trail.
From that point on the editorial deteriorates into what can best be described as an anti-Hillary screed. They bring up the failed health care reform of the Clinton years. They talk about the “polarizing baggage that undoubtedly would hamper a Clinton presidency.” They talk about how Hillary and Bill have run a campaign “that has been, at turns, nasty and undignified.” They mention Hillary’s “win-at-all-cost approach” that “is a turnoff to many voters.”
And they wrap it all up with this doozy:

Obama may have a hard time translating his words into action. But embracing his message of hope and a new approach to American politics is a far preferable gamble than the prospect of another era of Clinton politics.

Sheesh! Thanks for that backhanded endorsement E-N.

We Can’t Do It

Atrios is right. This is wonderfully funny in a scary kind of way...

Inspired by the new Obama video making the rounds on the Web, some talented satirists did this competing video for John McCain.

A bad week for Hillary

Obama swept all of the Demcratic primaries and caucuses over the weekend - Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington, Maine and even the Virgin Islands.
And he is favored in the polls to win in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. this coming Tuesday.
The only thing Hillary did to make news was to dump her campaign manager in the biggest shakeup of her campaign so far.
Hillary’s campaign is now saying that they expected Obama would win all of those states and they are concentrating on the big states like Texas and Ohio coming up in March. But that is not entirely true. It was thought that Obama would win Louisiana because of the large number of African-Americans there, and in Nebraska because of its close proximity to Kansas where Obama is considered a favored son - his white mother’s family lives there. But Hillary was supposed to have a good shot at Washington where she had the endorsement of the state’s two female senators, and everyone said without question that Hillary would win in Maine and that it would at least be the one bright spot she could hold up after a long hard weekend.
But the endorsements in Washington didn’t make enough of a difference and she got blown out in Maine.
Quite frankly, I think Hillary has her work cut out for her if she expects to win this nomination race. Obama clearly has the momentum and the advantage right now. Saying that she is waiting for Texas and Ohio makes her sound too much like that other New York politician who claimed that he would jumpstart his flagging campaign with a big win in Florida. If Hillary doesn’t start to turn things around now, she will continue to bleed support in the other big primary states coming up.
I’m not ready to write her off quite yet, but she is getting close to the point where I may have to declare that it’s all over.