Closing time

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Rich lady needs to buy a clue

Carly Fiorina is one of John McCain’s top surrogates and by some backasswards logic a potential running mate, simply by virtue of 1) being a woman, so they can continue to pretend that Hillary Clinton’s voters will support him, 2) being rich, which is why she’s a Republican and 3) not being on the nearly full list of elected Republicans that John McCain has managed to alienate, and thus, willing to actually help this sad little man. Notice he knowledge of issues and campaign experience are not in her c.v.

Stumping for McCain this weekend, Fiorina explained

“Let me give you a real, live example, which I’ve been hearing a lot about from women. There are many health insurance plans that will cover Viagra but won’t cover birth control medication. Those women would like a choice,” she said.

Of course, John McCain’s not the man to give them that choice, as he voted twice against measures that would require insurers to cover birth control. Ok, so she’s clearly didn’t spend any time digging through the Congressional record before she decided who to support; that’s understandable. But then she said this:

Newsweek magazine reported, she told women in Columbus, Ohio, that McCain “has never signed on to efforts to overturn Roe vs. Wade,” the landmark Supreme Court decision confirming the right to abortion.

Apparently Fiorina didn’t even take the time to read her candidate’s website before hitting the trail, because this sounds pretty clear to me:

“John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned”

UPDATE: Fuck, how does someone who knows nothing about the candidate become a top surrogate?

“In an interview, Carly Fiorina, a top adviser, explains that any tax increases on ‘middle- and working-class’ Americans are off limits. She says if a bipartisan coalition is ‘creative enough’ to fashion tax increases on wealthier Americans, that may prove palatable.

But it doesn’t really matter, because according to Fiorina, all the work she’s putting in for McCain is really just navel gazing.

“Outside of Washington, where this is an interesting parlor game, I think most Americans are not really focused on what a bunch of surrogates are saying,” Fiorina said on “Meet the Press” on NBC.

I’m starting to see why HP fired this idiot.

Never thought I’d see the day…

Rush Limbaugh’s nefarious plan to defeat Barack Obama is apparently…raise money for him.

Limbaugh also called on his listeners to enter themselves into the Obama campaign’s lottery of donors who will be chosen to meet Obama backstage before his nomination acceptance speech at INVESCO Field at Mile High in Denver.

Since you have to give Obama $5 to enter the contest, Rush is basically encouraging his listeners to flood Obama’s campaign with a couple million dollars, all based on the faulty assumption that a campaign with the nationwide voter file and proficient know-how to run a cursory search of someone’s previous political donations isn’t going to bother to see if the person they invite to meet the candidate before his biggest speech is a freakin’ dittohead. Add into this the fact that there are already going to be over 1,500,000 real Obama supporters entered into the contest, and Rush may as well be encouraging his listeners to play the lottery so they can found a 527 with their winnings. Oy!

I look forward to the McCain campaign trying to say that a “major Obama fundraiser” is a draft-dodging, thrice divorced, drug addict.

While we’re being honest…

General Wesley Clark will catch a lot of flack for his appearance on Face the Nation, Sunday, and likely killed whatever slim vice presidential chance he had, by saying this:

Said Clark: “I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.”

It’s no fun being the guy who had to say it but is he wrong?

McCain freely admits that his is a single-issue campaign: foreign policy experience. Of course, this is an assumption people make about him based on his story, which is again, based entirely around his military experience. So his campaign pitch really boils down to “vote for me because I know how to keep us safe from terrorists because I was in the military.” Compare it to Rudy Giuliani’s now punchline campaign line: “Vote for me, I know how to keep us safe from terrorists because I was there after 9/11″. Being a pilot in the military, albeit a heroic pilot, in no way makes you any better suited to guide a nation’s foreign policy than being in New York on 9/11.

Of course, this is all tied into a bigger problem with the way Americans vote. People want to vote for the guy with the best narrative, because we confuse a good story with actual evidence.

Being a POW has certainly shaped his philosophy of foreign policy (although in a truly honest, emotionless discussion, it must remain open to debate whether or not this is a good thing), but what actual proof can he point to when making the case that he is best qualified not just to serve his country — as he has done for most of his adult life — but to create and implement a truly global foreign policy? That’s something that only a sitting president or secretary of state can fairly claim, and it’s hardly swiftboating John McCain to point out that his resume doesn’t really make him any more qualified to lead foreign policy than Barack Obama’s.

There’s hardly a single American who doesn’t want a more honest political discourse, but the problem is most people don’t know what honestly looks like. They want a sterilized politics, respectful to the golden calves and white lies of normalized society. But honesty is more iconoclastic than people know how to accept. It’s too difficult to defend political attacks on Michelle Obama even though her role in the Obama campaign is an inherently political one, and its sacrilege to point out that the only thing military experience really is exemplary of is the ability to serve in the military.

And since elections are a contest to see who can convince the most people of their honesty — as defined by idiots who judge honesty based on proximity to what they already believe — this will go down as a loss for General Clark, and of course, for honesty.

Unity, better than Hillary and Barack

Look at who’s working together to defend their loveless, sham marriages: Larry Craig and David Vitter.

Two United States Senators implicated in extramarital sexual activity have named themselves as co-sponsors of S. J. RES. 43, dubbed the Marriage Protection Amendment. If ratified, the bill would amend the United States Constitution to state that marriage “shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.”

Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), who was arrested June 11, 2007 on charges of lewd conduct in a Minneapolis airport terminal, is co-sponsoring the amendment along with Sen. David Vitter (R-LA).

But there’s only one thing I want to know: Can we name the bill after them?

House does U.S. energy policy

Bad news. Dr. House says you may be dying. Good news. He has a pill that may cure you. Or it might not. But the good news is if you don’t have the disease, the pill will have no effect at all. But you don’t want the pill. Of course House calls you an idiot, but you insist that you don’t want to take a pill that might not do anything at all. Now House knows that something else is up. Depending on the point in the episode, you’re probably going to have a seizure now.

Now let’s talk energy policy. Congress is considering bills that would make gasoline price gouging a federal crime. But, as the AP reports:

President Bush has promised to veto any anti-gouging measure, arguing that it’s not needed.

What a strange argument. If prices are being artificially inflated, it’s a crime and crime needs to be punished. It’s a cornerstone of the conservative philosophy of justice that tough penalties prevent crime, so even if prices aren’t being inflated, this law may prevent people from doing so. And, of course, if price gouging is simply a figment of the liberal imagination — never done, never considered and never to be done — then the bill will do nothing whatsoever. So why, when the American people are paying $4 per gallon for gasoline, does Bush not want to even give the impression that he is working to lower prices, even if he understands it is a useless and symbolic gesture? Like sending a sugar pill after lupus; it might not do anything, but it doesn’t hurt. And while appearances don’t count for much in medicine, they do in politics, so looking like you care is at least worth something.

And now Dr. House looks down at his patient, George W. Bush, and says: “Unless you don’t want a cure.” That of course, is the final symptom.

It’s never lupus.

Haven’t had a lolitician in a while

Enjoy!

Supreme stupidity

There’s a very real and tangible divide between Republican politicians and their electorate. Call it the conservative gap to be polite, although I could think of some more pejorative titles for it. But whatever you call it, it’s obvious that few Republican leaders are as good at the chest-thumping bluster as their voters are. So to account for this gap, Republican leaders will often making bombastic proclamations to bolster their sagging credibility. Mitt Romney’s “I’ll double the size of Guantanamo Bay” line is a perfect example because you can practically see Romney shutting down his higher reasoning faculties to better fit in with his voters.

John McCain had his “I’ll double the size of Guantanamo Bay” moment the other day. At a town hall meeting, McCain derided the Boumediene v. Bush decision as “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.” Speaking as someone who most decidedly will not vote for McCain, the Boumerdiene case is actually a spectacular victory for American democracy (albeit a victory by only one single vote) and I believe Justice Kennedy may forever be known for the elegant observation that “the laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”

Moreover, this case clearly demonstrates what observant people have always known: the judges who most proudly claim to be strict constructionists (or originalists, same diff), Antonin Scalia, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, were the quickest to go outside the bounds of the law and advocate and justify overturning the constitutional writ of habeas corpus on the grounds of national security. Of all the things conservatives find offensive about the court’s role in our government, how is forging a position in our national security policy not one?

As is often the case when Republicans get off script and try to impress their supporters is it comes off more as a parody of their supporters than actual politics, and in McCain’s case, it reveals his actual lack of conservative credentials. Even a hard-core Republican could put together a top ten list of bad Supreme Court decisions, where Boumediene v. Bush isn’t even mentioned.

1) Dred Scott v. Sanford – Conservative, liberal or otherwise, there is no doubt that Dred Scott represents the most egregious abuse of judicial power in American history. Chief Justice Robert Tawney authored a racially and politically charged decision finding that the Supreme Court had no standing to hear the case of a black petitioner, but since we’re all here anyway the Missouri Compromise is unconstitutional. The court’s finding was a direct contributor to the civil war.
2) Marbury v. Madison — The first decision by the Supreme Court, in which the justices granted themselves the power to declare laws unconstitutional.
3) Griswald v. Connecticut — Allowed people to buy condoms, but more importantly laid the groundwork for privacy arguments that would later be used to overturn laws against abortion and sodomy.
4) Lemon v. Kurtzman — Ruled that government must have a secular interests in mind when endorsing religion. Lemon became the standard in all cases involving school prayer, religious iconography on public property, government support of religious charities, etc.
5) Kelo v. New London — Upheld the constitutionality of eminent domain laws allowing government to seize private property without the consent of the owner.
6) Roper v. Simmons — Held the execution of children as cruel and unusual using, in part, a survey of other industrialized nations’ laws against capital punishment. Along with Kelo, Roper was one of two cases written by Justice Kennedy in the same 2005 session, which led some on the right to call for Kennedy’s impeachment.
7) Roe v. Wade — I wasn’t going to put this on here, because it seemed far too easy. Furthermore, Roe hasn’t been the guiding precedent in abortion cases since 1992’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey and the holdings of both Roe and Casey aren’t particularly unique, but rather applications of Griswald (#3), and while social conservatives don’t get as up in arms against Griswald (yet), neither Roe or Casey has been applied anywhere near as much as the Griswald precedent. In spite of all of this, Roe makes the list at number 7, because of all the dead baby fetuses.
8 ) Lawrence v. Texas — Another application of the Griswald precedent, Lawrence v. Texas held that any sex had between consenting adults in the privacy of their own home is perfectly legal. Shocking, I know, but sodomy laws had been upheld by the Supreme Court as recently as 20 years before Lawrence. A litany of other cases have been left in jeopardy by this ruling including:
– Williams v. Pryor, which upheld Alabama’s prohibition on the sale of sex toys;
– Milner v. Apfel, which asserted that “legislatures are permitted to legislate with regard to morality…rather than confined to preventing demonstrable harms;”
– Holmes v. California Army National Guard, which upheld the federal statute and regulations banning from military service those who engage in homosexual conduct;
– Owens v. State, which held that “a person has no constitutional right to engage in sexual intercourse, at least outside of marriage.”
Indeed, it is likely that in the next few years, many of these precedents will be overturned despite the strong right-ward shift of the court following the retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor, as Justice Kennedy was the author of the Lawrence majority decision. However, this is lower on the list because the court declined to overturn sodomy laws based on the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, which would have been a powerful, new precedent as opposed to an application of Griswald. The equal protection argument was central in both the Massachusetts and California supreme courts’ rulings that gay marriages needed to be constitutionally recognized.
9) Buckley v. Valeo — The first in a line of cases upholding campaign finance laws, and limiting personal contributions. Conservatives have criticized the court’s finding in Buckley that giving money constitutes free speech, while upholding limits on those contributions. Buckley paved the way for McConnell v. Federal Elections Commission which ruled money was not speech but property, and also upheld elements of the McCain-Feingold law banning soft money and limiting how independent groups can influence a federal election.
10) Employment Division v. Smith — A case that no one knows but should sting every conservative Christian. Justice Scalia authored this decision which basically renders the free exercise of religion clause of the First Amendment invalid, unless coupled with another right. Freedom of religion, Scalia explains, in itself is not sufficient to overturn any particular law. In doing so, he rejected the court’s previous holding in Sherbert v. Verner which the government needed to show a compelling state interest in restricting the free practice of religion. Scalia’s decision was enough to prompt Congress to pass the 1994 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, ordering the court to return to the compelling state interest standard that Scalia found untenable. Scalia also concurred when the court struck down the RFRA in 1997.

There’s a lot of bad cases, John. For the most part, this list was simply limited to the last 50 years, the time when all you right wingers think the world went to hell in a handbasket. And you’re telling me that in spite of all these cases that conservatives wine about, the restoration of habeas corpus is the worst?

Of course, Boumediene would have been a more remarkable decision had it not come in response to a centuries-long attempt to undermine the Constitution in the name of national security. In 1967, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote:

“Implicit in the term ‘national defense’ is the notion of defending those values and ideals which set this Nation apart. For almost two centuries, our country has taken singular pride in the democratic ideals enshrined in its Constitution, and the most cherished of those ideals have found expression in the First Amendment. It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties … which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile.”

I wish we’d have listened to him then.

What’s important

The ultimate fantasy of any leader spurned is for those who rejected him to someday realize how right he was, and having been the recipient of such a colossal rejection and public shaming, I can only imagine that this is the thought that haunts Donald Rumsfeld every night as he lays in bed, and greets him every morning when he wakes. And while Rumsfeld’s tenure as Secretary of Defense was an abomination, maybe it’s time he be allowed his moment, because it’s become abundantly clear, in the wake of his departure, that the successors of his Iraq War policy have taken this taken a dramatic and potentially disastrous departure — not only from the policies of Rumsfeld — but from the of all American military history to date.

Validation in the eyes of history, however gratifying, comes only after condemnation in the present. So it was for Rumsfeld, that the fleeting glimpses we’ve seen into the inner workings of the Bush administration came more after his departure than before. And while our understanding of the draconian Bush administration will likely remain the poorest in presidential history for decades to come, all of the histories and memoirs to date detail an internal power struggle between a traditional school of combat management represented by Rumsfeld (invade, destroy, get out) and a neoconservative cabal bent on making Iraq into a proving ground for their philosophy of nation building led by Condoleezza Rice. The public history, of course, spells who and what philosophy won. Rumsfeld was dismissed, Rice was not. Any talk of drawdown or troop withdrawal has been replaced with escalation, creatively rebranded as a surge, calls for permanent military bases in Iraq and calls of making Iraq into a “regional watchtower” in language eerily reminiscent of the neoconservative buzzwords that sold the war.

Of course, it all makes sense. Never before in the history of this county have wars been optional, so it should come as no surprise that the architects of this optional war would also view bringing the troops home as optional as well. Never before has the withdrawal of troops from combat been so wantonly viewed by an American president. Of course, Rumsfeld viewed war through the lens of history — accomplishing a mission and returning home. For Rice and the neocons, however, the war is the prelude to the mission, and bringing the troops home is a failure of that mission.

Not in the least bit surprising is the fact that John McCain, the head cheerleader for this hardline approach — more a philosophy than a strategy — would be anointed as the Republican presidential nominee and standard-bearer. He know claims with great pride that it was he who called first for this change in philosophy and realignment of power; away from the only person in the administration working, however incompetently, to bring the troops home and to those who, like McCain, view the withdrawal of troops as inconsequential because it is runs completely contrary to their stated agenda of a permanent military presence in Iraq.

The sad irony of McCain’s involvement in this entire affair, of course, is his history as a prisoner of war, a group noted for it’s courageous motto: Bring them home now, or send us back. Today that motto almost seems like a relic from a time when bringing the troops home was not a position to be derided as defeatism but one of supreme patriotism; a time when supporting perpetual war would never be confused with supporting the troops.

Sen. McCain’s past service to his country as a soldier is unquestionable; it is his current service to that county as a politician that we must discuss, and one, frankly, has little to do with the other. One of the many questions we must consider over the next five months is how could Lt. Commander McCain support Senator McCain? No matter how much politicians idealize combat, and celebrate the spirit of our soldiers — and that spirit is to be celebrated, in ways much less crass than politicians seem capable — the foremost concern of any soldier, before patriotism, before their mission, before their comrades, is an all-surpassing desire to see an end to their combat duty. And while victory and glory and honor certainly figure into their minds, those are the foremost concern of politicians and sons of admirals. But even for a young John McCain and certainly for the enlisted men who account for a majority of combat personnel, how could they support someone who speaks so much of figurative support, and yet offers so little actual support? How can we even imagine the betrayal Roberta McCain would have felt had a presidential candidate told her — while her son was enduring such inhuman treatment in the Hanoi Hilton — that bringing the troops home wasn’t a priority? But perhaps most importantly, where would McCain be if the president during his captivity had viewed talking with our enemies as a sign of weakness, and bringing the troops home as a secondary concern to achieving some ill-defined glory? If Lt. Commander McCain had served under the policies of Sen. McCain, would he be running for president today, or would he be a name on a wall in Washington DC?

That answers that

The key to a healthy heart is to regularly elevate your heart rate. So I’ve started reading Kathleen Parker’s columns. Today’s musings? Can we critique Obama without being racist? The obvious answer being, “I don’t know, can you?” After all, Republicans never figured out how to criticize Hillary Clinton without using outrageous misogyny. But, of course, a full answer depends on what Parker means by “we”. Since Parker is a fairly forgettable face among the cadre of right wing water carriers who flood our media, I can only assume she means “we Republicans”, so the question becomes: can the party of David Duke run a campaign against a black man without making it about his race? Good luck.
Of course, Parker isn’t interested in creating that productive dialogue; she’s actually trying to take a cheap shot at Obama’s supporters by asking if she can criticize Obama without being accused of being racist. Whether that critique is actually based in racism, of course, is left unaddressed. But this is a silly question, because of course you can run a non-racist campaign against a black candidate. In fact, I’ll do it right now: Barack Obama supports civil unions instead of full marriage rights for homosexuals, and that’s wrong. Of course, Republicans would never say that, but the point stands. If you stick to discussing how and why he’s wrong on the issues, there is no chance of being called a racist. Parker must know this, so what she’s really asking is “can we run our traditional agenda-of-rage, hate-filled campaign of scurrilous personal attacks against Obama?” The answer is no, that scares the crap out of Republicans, and that’s why Parker and her ilk have all been writing the same column: “Obama’s supporters are over-sensitive will call any criticism racist!” The writing that Parker and the Republicans see on the wall is this: In this election, the race card is going to be the great equalizer. They saw it happen with Harold Ford Jr., and it almost cost them a safe Republican Senate seat. Republicans launch the scurrilous personal attacks that they rely on to win, and Democrats can respond with (potentially scurrilous) accusations of racist campaigning. The 2006 Tennessee Senate race notwithstanding, an accusation of racism is more damning than Willie Horton, the swiftboat vets or anything else in the Republican playbook.
But the lunatic fringe of the right wing needn’t worry, because Parker has also come up with a brilliant defense. In a previous column, Parker explained that voting for John McCain over Obama because you think the president should be “a full-blooded American” for the simple reason that…it’s not racist. Quite remarkable, no? Simply make a claim more reminiscent of Josef Mengele than Jim Crow, then follow it up by saying “that’s not racist”.
But saying “I don’t mean to be rude but…” doesn’t immunize whatever rude thing you’re about to say, and saying “…but I’m not a racist” doesn’t suddenly make racial purity a legitimate campaign topic.
Parker answered her own question: Can we criticize Obama without being racist? Apparently not.

In the midst of Parker’s latest lunacy, I found this gem:
“Watching Obama give his celebration speech Tuesday night, I became aware that I was smiling. I slapped myself, of course, but the fool thing wouldn’t go away.”
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this argument. I’ve read several letters to the editor now from people who profess great admiration for Obama, in the first paragraph, only to conclude their thoughts by saying, “but all Democrats are evil, so I’m voting for McCain.”
Kathleen, smiling generally means you approve of what you see. Slapping yourself because you just realized that a Democrat just impressed you means you’re pathetic.