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Taylor Marsh has been writing on line since 1996, with the archives provided here a representation of that work.

Archive | September, 2010

Islamaphobic Fanatical Preacher Asked to Back Off

By on 09 September 2010

Some fundamentalist God grandstander says he got a message that “Burn a Quran” day was a good idea, so he’s willing to put our troops in danger? Welcome to American the Insane, circa 2010.

Unbelievably, Sarah Palin equates the burning of a Quran to the building of the Cordoba House well beyond Ground Zero. It doesn’t compute.

Book burning is antithetical to American ideals. People have a constitutional right to burn a Koran if they want to, but doing so is insensitive and an unnecessary provocation – much like building a mosque at Ground Zero.

But Palin did ask Terry Jones to “consider the ramifications.” At least she got that part correct.

Gen. David Petraeus bluntly stated it would put our soldiers in danger, not unlike what happened after Abu Ghraib.

It’s a stunning development that people in our country are being revealed as being so religiously intolerant, but also incredibly ignorant of the fight we’re waging in the Middle East, Central Asia, but well beyond. It’s represented by this post at Red State by Erick Erickson, who wrote he’s “not going to wring my hands over it. If not this, there’ll just be something else causing riots in the “Arab Street.”

Pres. Obama eloquently took the issue on with George Stephanopoulos.

OBAMA: Well, look, the … this is a recruitment bonanza for Al Qaeda. You know, you could have serious violence in places like Pakistan or Afghanistan. This could increase the recruitment of individuals who’d be willing to blow themselves up in American cities, or European cities. You know and so you know, I just hope that, he says he’s … he’s someone who s motivated by his faith.

STEPHANOPOULOS:And he says he’s praying on it.

OBAMA:Yeah. I hope he listens to…those better angels.

STEPHANOPOULOS:Well, let me–

OBAMA:And understands that this is a destructive act that he’s engaging in.

The more you listen to the Republican Tea Party, then the Democrats, you see how extreme the Right reacts to issues that could seriously jeopardize our country’s missions in Afghanistan and beyond, while put us in danger here at home.

I truly empathize with Muslim Americans, who have to be afraid for their very safety inside this country.

Sect. Clinton’s statement about the media attention Terry Jones is getting seemed made in an alternative universe. Clinton saying she wished his efforts to burn a Quran on 9/11 hadn’t gotten so much media attention. How could it not? “That’s the world we live in right now”, Clinton added. How in the world she thought it wouldn’t gain attention is simply bizarre. Because as Petraeus revealed, he’s incredibly worried about the ramifications on our troops.

Fundamentalism is a scourge, with preachers like Terry Jones consumed with ego about his own message from an alleged God few would recognize.

However, reading Palin’s FB missive on the Quran burning event, I just see a large leap from that event to building Cordoba House. Conflating the two is not only unhelpful but cravenly opportunistic. But it does reveal the contortions required to keep all sides happy and your options open.

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Obama’s Kissinger, as Baker was to Bush 41

By on 08 September 2010



Sect. Hillary Rodham Clinton is now arguably Pres. Obama’s most important alliance, which will be made clear again today through her speech at the Council on Foreign Relations. There is no one who can play the role she can in the Middle East, certainly not Obama. The trust is wide and deep for Hillary with the President, with their relationship seasoned over battles, but also Clinton’s own team player behavior since she came into State.

It’s part of what has caused the murmurs of a 2012 perceived “masterstroke” revolving around Obama picking Clinton for vice president, with Biden moving to State. I’ll leave that to the rumor mill and gossipers, everyone from the mischievous Peggy Noonan and Sally Quinn to the sober David Ignatius, not to mention Hillary fans and readers from this site and well beyond, wanting Clinton’s prowess to be rewarded, but also the presidency of Barack Obama to be saved through an energy infusion sorely needed for 2012, when Obama’s case will be a much harder to make than in 2008. There is no evidence whatsoever that a Obama-Clinton 2012 team will manifest, Joe Biden being an invaluable silent partner behind the scenes, but one thing that is perfectly clear is Hillary would no more challenge Obama for the presidency in 2012 than she’d walk away from the Democratic Party.

In fact, at this point in time, Hillary has finally found her niche and she’s appreciated as a player in the President’s sphere as never before.

Laura Rozen on Clinton:

[...] Clinton “needs to be the real timeline between the president and the [Middle East peace] negotiations,” veteran U.S. Middle East peace negotiator Aaron David Miller told POLITICO. “Neither now should be the desk officer for those talks. … But by upping her involvement — in the substance — she is the pivot if the talks reach a stage where they get serious, just like Kissinger and Nixon and Baker and Bush.”

One Washington Middle East hand said Obama and Clinton had developed a “good cop/bad cop” routine that proved effective during the recent visit of Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

“Obama was the good cop with both parties and Hillary the bad cop,” the Washington Middle East hand said on condition of anonymity. “She came into the meetings with the Israelis, saying, ‘Look, yes, we love you, but if you guys can’t help us find a formula for settlements, if peace talks fail because of you, it’s going to make our lives very difficult. … It will be very hard to hold off the boycott movement by the Europeans … think of how difficult it will be to protect you [diplomatically], if this all fails because of settlements.’”

Hillary has spent more time lately on policy negotiation and less on globetrotting, which is likely just one of the reasons we no longer hear complaint quotes about fatigue. Time zone travel is exhausting and debilitating for anyone, but especially for a policy wonk who always intended her role at State to be a player. By all evidence she now is.

[...] What is new are signs of Clinton’s renewed energy, confidence and sense of partnership with Obama. And this is happening while another of Obama’s most trusted national security advisers, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, has signaled he would like to leave the job next year.

While Clinton and Obama had cordial relations after overcoming the awkwardness of Obama appointing his leading primary rival to be his top Cabinet official, Clinton bent over backward in the early months of the job to demonstrate she was deferring to Obama’s foreign policy judgments and showed no daylight on policy issues over which they had disagreed during the primary — engaging Iran and the Middle East peace process. Clinton was also constantly second-guessed in the early months of the job over her and Obama’s decision to outsource some of the most pressing foreign policy challenges to high-profile envoys who might have been secretary of State themselves — notably Richard Holbrooke and George Mitchell. What’s more, it was no secret that it was only thanks to Clinton’s interventions that some of her loyalists, including Holbrooke, kept their jobs in a White House that sought to control the foreign policy message coming from the Obama administration.

[...] … “Does it also matter that we are in the midst of a kind of Clinton renaissance among the Democrats who are starting to appreciate all that was achieved between 1993 and 2000?” Rothkopf added. “Yes, I think that helps too. … She definitely has the wind at her back.”

Clinton’s speech at the Council on Foreign Relations today she will emphasize the ways in which under Pres. Obama the United States remains the world leader on foreign policy. Everything about Sect. Clinton points to a more relaxed, comfortable diplomatic leader who has found a place beyond the world of politics.

Now that Hillary Rodham Clinton has finally earned a place at the world foreign policy table, garnering her own respect because of her unflinching alliance with and allegiance to Pres. Obama, whether she’ll give it up as soon as was once thought just months ago is questionable.

The one sticking point to her power and reputation continuing to be Afghanistan, where Sect. Clinton, as well as SecDef Gates, have played a major role in the continuing efforts to turn around a country Bush-Cheney left to collapse, including the appointment of Gen. Patraeus, whom Clinton has a close relationship.

Hillary’s future is a point of constant speculation, as is her place inside Obamaworld. But it’s plain to see that she’s very content, even happy, with her role as one of Barack Obama’s most trusted consiglieres, which he’s going to need as 2012 re-election approaches, no matter the role Hillary will take.

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Pres. Obama Tries Trading on 2008 Persona

By on 07 September 2010

For the first time in more than four years, Republicans run about evenly with Democrats on the basic question of which party they trust to handle the nation’s biggest problems. Among registered voters, 40 percent say they have more confidence in Democrats and 38 percent say they have more trust in Republicans. Three months ago, Democrats had a 12-point advantage. – Republican make gains against Democrats (according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll)

Tidal wave… Republicans make gains…

Segue to Obama’s Labor Day spee–… political cheerleading. It’s déjà vu all over again and it gave me indigestion. It’s all he’s got and it used to be more than enough. Today it’s simply Obama’s shrinking presidency.

The Democrat’s political fate hanging on the overall image of progressive ideology, which Barack Obama hasn’t represented though he ran on it, but whose Democratic lite leadership may cause irreparable damage to the brand. Represented in a Democratic Party who thought they’d vanquished conservatism in 2008, only to have their own leader revive the Right through his own political timidity.

After listening to Pres. Obama’s Labor Day political gambit I’m even more convinced that he’s so tightly locked inside his White House bubble, his aides throwing away the key so he can’t see reality, it’s obvious that the White House political shop plans to keep the President in his current state of unaware in hopes he can sell this story with a straight face.

Bob Herbert tries to help today, but he forgets that American voters, but especially Democrats, have seen this play before.

The question that remains, however, is whether he and his party will fight with the skill and tenacity needed to guide his infrastructure proposal to fruition, and whether they will finally focus intensely, as they should have been doing all along, on the difficult but absolutely critical task of putting millions of unemployed Americans back to work.

Mr. Obama seemed to take a wicked, almost Truman-ish delight in going after the Republicans in his speech. It doesn’t matter what actions are taken or proposed to help ordinary Americans or to rebuild the economy, he said, “almost every Republican in Congress says no.”

The notion that Pres. Obama has any relationship to the fighting Missourian, let alone “a wicked, almost Truman-ish” trait, is absurd. Truman didn’t just take on Republicans in rhetoric when the politics demanded it. Harry S. Truman reveled in fighting his opposition, but more importantly, actually making tough decisions.

Pres. Obama is the political Walter Mitty, Casperesque version of Mr. Truman. Barack Obama stands for whatever will get him through election day with a win. It’s just this time it’s very unlikely to work. Because regardless of whether the Republicans take the House or not, Democratic numbers will be reduced, which will hit women Democratic legislators the hardest, the real measure of political equality, while conservatives may make gains, including one of the biggest governor trophies in the land. At $100 million, Meg Whitman is proving a model for how femme executive can skip over local race drudgery and go straight for the biggest political prizes. Carly Fiorina is another example, who is giving Sen. Boxer fits, whether Fiorina can actually pull off the biggest progressive upset of the year or not.

Obama’s Labor Day speech coming far too late and at the beginning of midtermapalooza, which appeared just what it was: a naked attempt to show voters he means business on the economy, but also in fighting and fending off the Right. The last 20 months has shown Barack Obama as having none of the steel or ideological courage required to engage in the current combative political atmosphere.

It’s redundant, but being afraid to fight battles of the ’60s and ’90s, while offering half-measure policies that made a mockery of the progressive boldness required for the times, has led to wholesale squeamishness about Democratic ideas on the whole.

The Right is in.

The Left is out.

All of this happening in the age of Obama and under a Democratic majority that came in on the wings of American eagles and with the country’s blessings, because they wanted Pres. Obama to take the country back from where Bush-Cheney had led us all. Today, George W. Bush has been rehabilitated and the Democrats let it happen.

Who can vote for that kind of leadership?

I honestly hope 2010 voters, regardless of party, take a cue from Bob Herbert, and fall for Pres. Obama bringing out the fighting candidate Obama we all remember from 2008. You know, the man we all voted to take the reins from Republicans and show them how it’s done. Unfortunately, many won’t.

The theater Pres. Obama is now revving up for November rings hallow to me, as it will to many others, with this blanket wide Obama revival for the sake of The Other Guy’s Worse, which goes without saying, so desperate given what should have been.

You can’t beat the Right with pansy progressive lite policies that end up not making things any better at the same time you are bastardizing Democratic prescriptions that simply ends up causing doubt. Counting “accomplishments” that every other Democratic 2008 presidential candidate would have manifested by now, even including John Edwards, just doesn’t cut it. But it’s all they’ve got so expect the choir to sing it loud and proud, regardless of the reality people are feeling.

Independent based ads will proclaim health care’s benefits, but few Democrats feel like touting them themselves. With the goodies manifesting after Obama’s second term, provided he has one, people don’t know what all the fuss was about today, as the cost of a mandate without a public option comes due this year. With Obama’s leadership, the rightward Democratic Party is also making the austerity case that conservatives are touting, while the Debt Commission works on in secret, though their goal isn’t. No case made for what government can do, with the $50 billion midtermapalooza infrastructure bait way too little to manifest this year, with Democrats never making this case from the start.

This isn’t 2008. The year and one-half of Obama’s presidency hasn’t exactly sold people that following his lead will manifest anything but a paltry political agenda that leans right while offering half-baked progressive fixes that end in disaster, because half of anything is never enough. People like him, but they don’t trust him and aren’t at all sure they want to follow him down this road any further.

As people start considering their 2010 options they’ll be thinking hard about Pres. Obama and how they feel about him. The verdict is 180 degrees away from where voters were in 2008.

Word salad policy bromides mixed with lashing Republican criticism will be the formula. Who’s buying? is the question.

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2010: Can Rubio, Paul, Miller, and Sharron Angle Pull It Off?

By on 06 September 2010




…and so the midtermapalooza begins and there’s wider evidence that the Democrats have bigger problems than lack of enthusiasm. Michael Duffy of TIME Magazine said on Chris Matthews’ NBC show that outside Republican groups plan to outspend Democrats by “100%.” That’s a lot of negative ads incoming. This would obviously wipe out the Dem money advantage that has already been recorded. Raw Story had another story on 2010 spending, but they’re reporting a shift of “big donors” away from Dems to Republicans.

Meanwhile, more generic ballot poll carnage, this compliments of CNN.

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday, the GOP leads the Democrats by 7 points on the “generic ballot” question, 52 percent to 45 percent. That 7-point advantage is up from a 3-point margin last month. [...]

Hope everyone has enjoyed the weekend. (ps-Birthday festivities were just too much fun.)

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Democratic Self-Loathing in the Age of Obama

By on 05 September 2010

The problem began when the Right began squealing “Socialist!,” and Pres. Obama and those in the Democratic Party he leads today decided to go into a defensive crouch to prove they are all moderate, sensible, centrist, something that Obama made clear from the start. Back in July I wrote about Pres. Obama’s seduction to the Right at a time of a Democratic majority, others have now begun to write about how the Republicans and their Tea Party wing have further eroded what should have been Democratic gains. Instead what has happened is that Barack Obama and today’s Democrats have willingly and without flinching moved the party to the right, because our own Democratic President and Congress cannot and will not make a case for the progressive Left. Coupled with the Tea Party’s over the cliff rightward lurch, what has resulted is a country moving solidly away from what voters elected in 2008, all because Barack Obama never had any core ideological identity, only his political ego as his guide.

Now the country is stuck with a Democratic Party kowtowing to conservatives to prove they can be just as Right at a moment where Democrats hold the power of government. It’s the antithesis of how the Republicans act when in power, but yet Obama has caved to conservatism at every level. A health care bill that sucked up to insurance interests, while sticking Americans with an un-democratic mandate; women’s freedoms marginalized and a gift handed to the Right they couldn’t win on their own. A financial reform bill that leaves loopholes for the lofty. A stimulus that went one-quarter of the way while leaving the country and the unemployed out on half-sawed off limb. Adding insult to injury, the once anti Iraq war candidate, Pres. Obama, went down the memory hole on Iraq, letting Bush-Cheney off the hook for the most horrendous mistake in U.S. foreign policy history, not even using their blunder to once again explain his mission in Afghanistan.

In the midst of this Markos Moulitsas has released “American Taliban,” a polemic in the tradition of the rabid Right, which is obviously meant as a taunt to the collapsing Left. I have not read the book, but given the reaction to it by some Very Sober Democrats, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that today’s Left’s self-loathing is so deep that they don’t understand the importance of pummeling the Right’s self-righteous extremism. The usual suspects are sitting in clueless judgment forgetting recent history.

Matthew Yglesias:

This stuff doesn’t win votes anyone because, after all, it’s a form of preaching to the choir. Which is fine—the choir needs some sermons. But there’s no real upside in lying to the choir. Political movements need to adapt to the actual situation, and that means having an accurate understanding of your foes. You need to see them as they actually are so that you know the right way to respond. Either underestimating or overestimating their level of viciousness and evil can lead to serious miscalculations. Which is just to say that getting this stuff right is more important than coming up with funny put-downs.

Good grief. Getting this stuff right? Did Mr. Yglesias miss the Clinton years? The hunting of President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton? Being “right” has nothing to do with the Right’s attacks. Look how they’ve dragged Pres. Obama to their side of the political spectrum. The “Socialist!” attacks have cowed an anti ideological President into moving in their direction so he might get more done, regardless of whether Obama’s helping the Right by being anti Left.

Markos aggressively pushes back on the early reviews:

Conservatives will hate it, for obvious reasons. Weenie liberals will hate it, for obvious reasons. A bunch of “serious people” will tsk tsk the lack of civility in our discourse — now that a liberal is throwing the punches. And some people will appreciate that I’m throwing those punches.

Because look, this book, ultimately, is a big “fuck you” to every conservative who has ever accused us of wanting the terrorists to win. Why would we? The reasons I hate the crazy Right is the same reason I hate Jihadists — their fetishization of violence, their theocratic tendencies, their disrespect for women, their hatred of gays, their fear of the “other”, their defiance of scientific progress and education, and their attempts to hijack popular culture.

Daily Beast’s Ben Clair said Markos’s book is “a liberal’s attempt at a conservative bestseller.”

What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with giving the Right a little of their own medicine at a time when Democrats are seen not to have a spine?

Simple. In the age of Obama, Democratic self-loathing is at an all time high. The squishy Left wants everyone to be reasonable. Don’t take on the Republicans, beat them at their own game: You think Republicans are conservative? Wait until you see the 2010 Democrats! We can go Right with the best of them.

Kevin Drum is amazed that a bad review came out of American Prospect, “America’s premier mainstream liberal publications.” Drum is a good writer, but he’s dense as a post on the effectiveness of Republicans scorched earth tactics, which has been incredibly successful on right-wing radio, now on Fox News, too.

Can these Very Sober Democrats explain why so many people believe Obama is a Muslim?

This is the problem with today’s insider Democratic writers. In the age of Obama they think they can reason with an electorate that’s on fire against Obama and the Democrats by using reason to object to their rabid fanaticism, then co-opt a rightward move to prove Democrats can be as conservative as Republicans, which illustrates a self-loathing for being liberal, something that began when Democrats decided the word “progressive” would inoculate them against that ugly “l” word. All it did was make politicians squishier, a trait that’s become a virus in the age of Obama.

The title “American Taliban” is an assault on the senses, but since books inhabit the times in which they are published how can it not be seen as a battle cry?

Trying to wake up the Left, however, will be a thankless task for Markos, which can be witnessed by these reviews. The progressive Left is asleep and unwilling to meet Tea Party extremism with a campaign that shames them.

In the Democratic age of Obama, milquetoast is the mantra.

It’s no wonder die hard movement progressive activists are screaming mad. They’ve witnessed not only the lurching right of the Democratic Party at a time of historic Democratic majorities, but an indifference by the insider Democratic writing class, who actually believes that meeting the Right’s extremism with quiet tolerance and reason will work, refusing to take a rallying cry for the Left and run with it.

I’ve read Hannity and Coulter’s books, as well as many other right-wing rants. The instant I read the title “American Taliban” I knew its purpose. I also expected the exhaled whine that has come as a reaction. But considering the Democratic self-loathing in play today, coupled with the inability to meet the Right’s extremism with a little of their own medicine, not literally intended, simply won’t be indulged, no matter how purgative it might be for a party that’s back on its heels and thinking mimicking Republicans is the answer.

The Democratic Party and their propagandists have bought into Obama’s drivel about walking away from “the ideological battles that we fought during the ’90s that were really extensions of battles we fought since the ’60s.” They’re handing a victory to the Right in the process that will scorch the Left’s political possibilities. How deep the burn is yet to be determined.

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Alan ‘Foot in Mouth’ Simpson Lashes Out at Veterans Who Got Injured in the Wars He Supported

By on 04 September 2010

How many outrageous, offensive comments does this idiot have to make before Obama realizes that he’s the wrong person to Co-Chair his useless Deficit Commission?

His latest outrage (and the reaction from VoteVets.org):

“As ThinkProgress noted yesterday, Deficit Commission co-chair Alan Simpson recently started a political firestorm by complaining that veterans benefits allocated for servicemembers exposed to Agent Orange run “contrary to efforts to control federal spending.” He even went as far as to say that “the irony” is that “the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess.”

Now, veterans advocacy group VoteVets, the nation’s largest progressive veterans organization, is calling on President Obama to fire Alan Simpson.

Citing not only his comments about veterans benefits but also his earlier remarks comparing Social Security to a “milk cow with 310 million tits,” VoteVets asks that Obama remove Simpson from “his current position so that the commission can continue its work in a way that will give the military community — and all Americans — confidence in the conclusions…”

The thing is, does anyone doubt that this is probably the attitude of about 80% of the GOP? Oh, the chickenhawks love to champion unnecessary wars for other [lesser] people to fight and they love the photo ops and the flag lapel pins but when it comes to actually taking care of the men and women who selflessly serve this country, then they lose interest.

This post has been moved from “In the News.”

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My $0.02: Sarah Palin is neither the problem, nor the solution.

By on 04 September 2010

TM NOTE: This is a re-posting of Wonk’s post from 8.28, as promised. Enjoy the read and her view of the current voting dilemma she’s experiencing.

~~~~~~~

While the national debate over the Mythical Threat of the (not-just-a) Mosque (not) at Ground Zero continues, I’d like to distract your attention to that other national distraction… who else but Sarah Palin?

Actually, what I am going to say here is ultimately not about her, either. It’s about all of us as Americans. But, sadly I stand a better chance of getting your attention this way.

Why? Because it’s become a national pastime to hyperventilate over Sarah Palin.

Either by obsessing over her as if she were the One True Evil to bash all the livelong day to Obama’s re-election in 2012.

Or, by propping her up as the Pioneer Woman Fix to American politics today, by virtue of a good ol’ fashioned slap in the face to the Good Ol’ Club.

Neither of these narrow views of Palin get at the truth as far as I’m concerned.

Sarah Palin is a female pol building a rightwinger populist brand. She is actively courting the grassroots on the hard right. As is her right. She’s her own woman and she’s chosen to argue for a rightwing worldview.

From my leftwing feminist worldview, Sarah Palin is not the problem with American politics today nor is she the solution to it.

For her conservative grassroots, she may very well be their idea of a solution. That’s nice for them.

It’s better than I can say for the grassroots on the left right now anyways, which is all the more sad because not only did we have our own Rosie-the-riveter telling us We Can Do It, not only was she 16-years battle-tested against the vast right wing and the tabloid stream press, not only was she a policy wonk who could get things done, but she understood the crux of the problem with American politics today was the “trust bust” (a theme that goes back to her Hillary Rodham days at Wellesley).

From the Dream Ticket Debate in Los Angeles, California, January 2008:

Hillary: Well, I would, with all due respect, say that the United States government is much more than a business. It is a trust. It is the most complicated organization. But it is not out to make a profit. It is out to help the American people. It is about to stand up for our values and to do what we should at home and around the world to keep faith with who we are as a country. And with all due respect, we have a president who basically ran as the CEO, MBA president, and look what we got. I am not too happy about the results.

Obama: Let me — let me just also point out that, you know, Mitt Romney hasn’t gotten a very good return on his investment during this presidential campaign And so, I’m happy to take a look at my management style during the course of this last year and his. I think they compare fairly well.

The prose of governing versus the poetry of campaigning. Hillary understood.

She was no hopey dopey Change to Pretty Please Believe In.

Nor was she any flimsy whimsy Mama Grizzly.

She was a Master Tigress. (And, still is!)

Point being, it’s not like the grassroots on the left didn’t have the chance to thwart the Mama Grizzly phenomenon before it ever got started. We were right there on the verge. 18 million of us were ready. It could have been the Decade of Master Tigresses. However…

As Corzine put it recently, “she would have been able to handle this Congress… but it was just Obama’s time.””

Snort! If you *still* rationalize voting for Obama over Hillary because it was “just Obama’s time,” then please withhold any “concern” you may have about the rise of Mama Grizzlies. Male empty suits aren’t the only ones who “just have their time,” you know.

What Palin does with the power base she’s building, time will only tell. Everybody seems to have all kinds of theories about her political maneuvering and her political chances and what a President Palin’s governing style would be like in comparison to her rhetoric. But, I really don’t have much of a sense of any of that other than a general feeling of “neither here, nor there.” Citizen Sarah seems to be enjoying the ride and living in the moment and already has 12 million reasons and counting to laugh all the way to the bank.

As for Palin’s chances at the presidency were she to ever run, all I can say is that after experiencing the open season on women pols and their supporters in 2008, I really see the nomination process itself as a huge hurdle, forget about the general election. One of the two major wings (D or R) of the United Corporations of America will have to make a woman their nominee before I’ll believe either the Ds or Rs are capable of it. So far they’ve only proven how capable they are of using women as scapegoats to prop up men with very little leadership and conviction of their own to stand on.

As such, I firmly believe the bimbostein bogeywoman of Sarah Palin is one that exists in the cynical hearts and fevered imaginations of a bankrupt Democratic party that increasingly has had nothing to run on, so it desperately needs someone to keep on running against all the way to 2012. Some party of women that is.

Mother Jones, who in a very different time did not have the right to vote and did not support women’s suffrage once said:

“I have never had a vote, and I have raised hell all over this country! You don’t need a vote to raise hell! You need convictions and a voice!”

If you want to combat the rightwing memes and policies spread by Mama Grizzlies (as I do), the only effective way (to my mind) is to build up the hellraisers who can provide a real meaningful alternative to those rightwing memes/policies. Tearing down Palin’s womanhood will not stop the rightwing agenda. Caricaturing her as a backwoods biddy will not stop the attack on women’s rights.

Because here is the real problem (this is a screenshot, you can click on this link to the chart to see it in its entirety, or click on the image below for a larger view):

Note: This is not an endorsement of the Green party. I have not made up my mind yet but am looking at all my third party options.

I just think the chart is hilarious all around, but most especially where it says “Right to Choose.”

See that Question mark next to Democratic support?

It’s the same thing that I call the Asterisk Next to Women’s Rights.

This is the real attack on our right to choose. The party that claims to be protectors of that right has put a huge asterisk next to it.

The difference between the Party of Mama Grizzly and the Party of Papa Stupak is no difference at all. There is no party of women’s rights, just a system meant to restrict those rights thus keeping them in perpetual limbo. The Mama Grizzly party’s stated aims are actually more or less consistent with that agenda, so at least they are more honest about what they are up to. The Democrats pretend to protect women’s rights only to sell them out.

This is not acceptable. Listen to Eleanor’s Advice! Don’t Mess with Women’s Rights:

“The battle for the individual rights of women is one of long standing and none of us should countenance anything which undermines it.” –First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt

The damage done with Stupakistan is two-fold:

On the practical level of the equity argument, poor women should have the same freedom, access, and ability to exercise their choice on abortion as wealthy women do. The reverse should not essentially be codified into law.

And, on a fundamental level of political freedom, it keeps women still vulnerable in the back alley of politics, with the figurative choice between a coathanger (Democrats) or barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen (Republicans). When American women are unable to exercise their full political voices and devote them completely to fighting for or against the meat of public policy–because they’re stuck fighting for their BASIC human rights–this does not just hurt women, it hurts all Americans.

This is what happened on healthcare. Our energies were diverted by the Stupakistan gambit when we could have used that energy to fight for a Medicare expansion rather than Obama’s mandated junk insurance.

And, it doesn’t just stop there. The Stupaksis disease is spreading across the country. This is a spreadsheet called State Legislation Enacted in 2010 Related to Reproductive Health. I’d put the entire spreadsheet here if it wasn’t so big. You really need to see this chart if you haven’t already. It is creepy. I was horrified the first time I saw it and that horror is etched into my brain. Ordinary Americans are alive and suffering in this economy and state governments are going nuts passing gibberish amendments such as Requires Provider to Inform a Woman That Abortion Ends “the Life of a Separate, Unique, Living Human Being” and “Considers Some Miscarriages Murder.”

What fresh hell is this? All under a Democratic president, a Democratic Congress, and a Democratic female Speaker of the House. Do you feel very safe and protected reading that spreadsheet? I don’t.

When the chosen method of protection doesn’t work, a different method of protection is needed. (Pun accidental.)

We recently celebrated the 90th birthday of our 19th Amendment. It’s rather surreal that less than a century ago, a woman’s right to vote was also an asterisk that had to be resolved. Of course a lot has improved for women in that time. But, in other ways, the more things have changed, the more they have stayed the same.

I ask you to remember the suffragists themselves and how they got us the vote. They didn’t get us the vote by falling for the strawman that they had to support Democrats or else the Republicans would win.

The truth is: the Democratic party needs our rights in limbo because it keeps us hostage to the Politics of No Place Else to Go. If they can convince most of us that we still need them to protect our reproductive rights from the GOP, whose assault on our rights is 2% more evil than the Dems’ assault on our rights, then they sure as hell don’t have to do anything to earn our votes.

I don’t think it makes a difference if the current lot of Ds is in charge or the GOP is… it’s an illusion… because really it’s one party all in power…a giant party elite orgy that both sides are equal participants in… they just rotate who gets to drink more from the corporate cash trough every 4-8 years.

One of the crucial mechanisms that they use to keep this system rigged is by keeping fundamental human rights hanging in the balance. The other is the politics of divide and conquer. Women, LGBT, workers, immigrants, religious, racial, and ethnic minorities, older voters, younger voters, and so on and so forth… ordinary Americans under the bus, no place else to go, pit against each other and stuck fighting for our most basic rights and any semblance of a safety net while we are stuck in endless unnecessary war, our Constitution under attack, our economy and standard of living unraveling at the seams. Meanwhile our politicians allow the country to be swept up in “controversies” that are not the problem, the solution, or the point? That is the real threat playing into the hands of extremists of all sorts who wish to see our way of life deteriorate.

As Maggie Williams said during the Hillary campaign in 2008:

We will not be distracted.

November is getting closer. Many of us are not exactly feeling our most confident about how to make our voices heard and our votes meaningful when the choice is between worthless Democrats who run as “Independent conservatives” and Republicans who run as batshit insane.

I’ll leave you again with what Mother Jones said:

“I have never had a vote, and I have raised hell all over this country! You don’t need a vote to raise hell! You need convictions and a voice!”

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The Summer of Democratic Discontent

By on 03 September 2010



As a 2012 ad pushing Hillary for Pres. hits the airwaves, a laughable idea, Pres. Obama finds himself down and out on every front. It’s been a very bad summer, with Democrats not running on their health care “accomplishments,” they can’t run on a recovery that never happened, plus there is a general feeling among the American electorate that the only ones fighting for them are Republicans. Democrats seem totally out of touch with how they feel and what they want, which begins at the top with Pres. Obama’s out of touch presidency, the biggest albatross around the Left’s midterm neck.

If Obama didn’t have Sect. Clinton running State (and the MidEast process talks) he’d be in even worse state, because PM Netanyahu wouldn’t feel it necessary to even deal with him at all given Obama’s settlement bluster, because he knows the President won’t do squat in retaliation if he doesn’t extend the agreement. It’s the trouble with talking tough while not being willing to actually use any sticks, i.e. economic, against the Netanyahu government. Given the upcoming midterms, then Obama’s re-election, there isn’t a lot he can do to coerce Mr. Netanyahu. Only Clinton has the credibility and power to push Netanyahu on settlements, though even she will find it tough to move him. Democrats are on the way out in 2010, no matter who controls Congress, with a tidal wave of discontent about to sweep over them.



It can be seen in the latest New York Times story about young people, with fewer reportedly considering themselves Democrats. Wasn’t Mr. Obama supposed to change this forever simply through being elected? It’s a trend that matches the country’s mood in the age of Obama, a President who has tarnished the Democratic domestic brand from health care to the economy, with Social Security and other entitlements put in the hands of a “debt commission,” because Obama wants to make someone else has their hands on whatever bad news he decides to deliver. But as to young people:

“There’s a vibe,” he said on a recent afternoon, while pumping weights at the gym. “Right now it seems like Republicans just care a lot more than Democrats.”

A spokeswoman for the university’s chapter of College Democrats, Mandi Asay, 22, said her group battled apathy on one hand and anger on the other.

“People are angry — about the budget deficit, health care plan, angry about this and that,” she said. “I feel like Republicans definitely, definitely have a chance of getting back on their feet.”

We saw on Tuesday another reason why Republicans “have a chance of getting back on their feet,” because when the anti Iraq war candidate won’t re-enforce how cataclysmic the decision was to go into Iraq, if only to make his case again for why he believes he has a duty in Afghanistan, with the history that swept this candidate into the presidency already likely to be forgotten. It’s actually already happened, with George W. Bush’s rehabilitation on Katrina a stunning signal.

All of this is why Eugene Robinson’s pathetically whiny column today is so contrived. It’s all the voter’s fault, you know, because you’re simply a “spoiled-brat American electorate.” It has nothing to do with Democrats refusing to fight against the rabid right. Evidently Mr. Robinson and the rest of the people living in Obamaland, an alternate universe where things don’t appear as they actually are, believe the current state of political affairs is not to be blamed on a feckless Democratic Party that has once again ceded the oxygen to the Becks, Palins, Limbaughs on the rabid right, instead more intent on blaming the “professional left” and the discontented Democrats for all of Obama’s woes.

The American voter has a short memory and right now all they’re thinking is just how badly Pres. Obama’s first 20 months has been, regardless that he inherited an awful situation from his predecessor. It’s Barack Obama’s own fault, because he quit reminding people of the eight years he was elected to reverse. Political malpractice has been the Obama administration’s legacy going into midterms. Democrats are going to pay for it.

Let’s just hope the first 20 months of Obama’s presidency isn’t so searing it will obliterate all the promise his candidacy once represented. Because a Republican presidency aided by the current rabid Right would be a catastrophe.

However, unless Democrats and Obama learn how to fight and reflect what people are feeling that’s exactly where we’re headed.

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2010: Obama Versus Palin, Midterm Personality Politics

By on 02 September 2010

The ascendance of personality politics is complete, the Right finally getting their 2010 star. It’s been on parade since Barack Obama was elected, with the midterm grudge match sure to be a blockbuster.

From a scathing Vanity Fair article on Palin as she readies tomorrow to speak in Iowa:

Palin’s most unconventional hire is a novice media consultant, Rebecca Mansour, a 36-year-old Los Angeles resident who has been identified in news stories as a screenwriter. Mansour has said that she volunteered for Obama early in the 2008 campaign and then became disillusioned. Not long after the election, with Joseph Russo, a then 23-year-old college student from New Jersey, who would also go to work for Palin, she co-founded the most popular pro-Palin blog, Conservatives4Palin, known informally as C4P (and not to be confused with the “adult swingers” Web site of that name). C4P functions as a hybrid news service, discussion board, and field headquarters for a virtual army of Palin supporters, who pride themselves on brute devotion. “Who We Are and What We Stand For,” a post written by Mansour, declares, “We’re ordinary barbarians here. No one controls us. We’re a horde.” A prominent C4P contributor, Nicole Coulter, told CBS.com this summer, “We would literally walk across hot broken glass for this woman… She’s our family, and you protect your family; it’s like the mafia.”

The same exists on the Left where Pres. Obama is concerned.

Meanwhile, this country is in a hell of a mess, with Right and Left defending their Mr. or Mrs. America, while voters turn their noses up at both the big two parties. Any wonder why?

Politics is of the moment, with the people most committed, able and willing to exploit the mood of the country most capable of coercing events in their direction, no matter whether their answers will be right or productive for the people or the country.

Sarah Palin has harnessed her moment so far. She’s judged the moment right, connected emotionally and is driving her message hard, even through blundered syntax.

Barack Obama did not; his moment passing as his presidency weakens by the month. The only hope being that after the 2010 election people will see the Right as the latest political idiots unable to deliver, while Republicans continue to flail on what exactly they’ll do differently, trying not to look, or nominate, crazy, which is death in presidential election years.

But for now, it’s the year of the Reagan axiom: Are you better off today than you were in 2008? The answer is determinative of the Democrats’ fate. Considering there’s been political malpractice on the Democratic side we can only wait and see just how bad it will be, remembering that Americans dislike Democrats, but they think Republicans are even worse. However, it is midterms, so the party in power is the one that will get pummeled.

[...] Republican voters are raring to vote, their energy fueled by anti-Obama passion and concern over debt, spending, taxes, health care, and the size of government. Democrats are much less enthusiastic by almost every measure, and the Democratic base’s turnout will lag. Plus, Democrats have won over 50 House seats in 2006 and 2008, many of them in Republican territory, so their exposure to any sort of GOP wave is high. – The Crystal Ball’s Labor Day Predictions

With that as a foundation, the trouble Democrats are facing today begins with Barack Obama’s naivte that “the ideological battles that we fought during the ’90s that were really extensions of battles we fought since the ’60s” aren’t still in play in American politics.

How quickly people forget. But rarely has a politician, his party and supporters survived a Mirror, Mirror on the Wall infatuation without looking behind them. It’s just that Mr. Obama didn’t think cementing his win and what the people rejected and why was as important as riding his popularity wave.

This rising tide of discontent begun during Bush was missed by Barack Obama and a Democratic Party that believed their press releases and that the humongous crowds would stay enthralled amidst policies that weren’t democratic and didn’t address the full breadth of the problems we faced post Bush-Cheney. Obama letting the health care industry inside the room and making deals over smart policy, while demanding a mandate in a system that is fixed towards corporations; selling out core constituencies on the bet they’ll always be there; Wall Street meddling that not only pissed off business, but didn’t fix the system and render justice all the way up; environmental indifference on Obama’s watch, amidst colossal incompetence; all in an era when Barack Obama, who ran against the horrific leadership of Bush-Cheney, decided to let lies, torture, intelligence treachery and domestic deceit be bygones, while Speaker Pelosi looked the other way at what the Republican predecessor did in the name of “restoring honor and dignity to the White House,” so that in 20 months, why Obama and Democrats were put in power has gone down the memory hole.

The Republican Tea Party rise required a weak ideological opponent perfectly represented in Barack Obama. A political novice who would allow the Right’s incendiary language to blanket the national landscape without a firm response, because he’s above getting down into it. Obama preferring snide quips in campaign stump speeches to his choir, select media interviews, and OFA emails to take the place of a day in, day out campaign that makes the case that Democratic policies and principles are not only better for the country and the world than what the Right offers, but are worth fighting for every day, no matter how inconvenient it may be to fight icky ideological battles.

Like Palin’s fans who “would literally walk across hot broken glass for this woman… She’s our family, and you protect your family; it’s like the mafia,” Pres. Obama has his legions of Obamaphiles readying to tread the glass path for him too.

Unfortunately, Obama is just so 2008, with Sarah Palin the hot ticket today. That it also feels like year 6 of his presidency, but it’s not even year 2 yet, is another reality the White House has not yet faced.

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Speech Less

By on 01 September 2010

“… This continues to be a disastrous foreign policy mistake and we are now confronted with a question how do we clean up the mess and make the best out of a situation where there are no good options? There are bad options and worse options, and this is not a criticism of either of you gentlemen, this criticism of this President and the administration… I would argue that the impact (of the surge) has been relatively modest given the investment. … We have not seen national reconciliation of the sort that was promised prior to the surge. …” – Candidate Obama, 9/11/07 (see video below)

It was Barack Obama down the memory hole, barricaded deep inside the White House bubble.

What was he thinking? If he carefully read the speech before he gave it last night certainly Pres. Obama would have seen it for the word puzzle it was. Thankfully, it was short, unfortunately, its content a conglomeration.

Iraq… Iraq… Iraq… Oh, but don’t get me wrong, I know the economy is on your mind, and for all you Republicans who may be in the majority, forget what you believe, I’m reasonable. In fact, forget all those things I once said about Iraq, here’s one for your guy:

“… It’s well known that he and I disagreed about the war from its outset. Yet no one could doubt President Bush’s support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security. As I have said, there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it. [...]” – Pres. Obama

Whoever gives a crap about Pres. Bush and his administration after what he not only did in Iraq, but the subsequent spillover to Afghanistan, is either triangulating for the audience in hopes of reaching midterm voters or simply too naive and ill prepared for today’s political climate to be trusted with political party leadership on any level. Unfortunately, this is the guy Democrats have got.

Pres. Obama’s speeches are getting worse in content with each passing opportunity. Rarely has he looked or sounded so completely out of touch or well removed from the guy people voted to replace his disastrous predecessor. His political shop and speech writing crews in a sort of message paralysis because the President has gotten himself and his party in such trouble no one anticipated.

But if you want to know why Democrats find themselves up against it this November Pres. Obama’s performance and message last night is the reason. The man just doesn’t get it on any level.

For any Democrat facing election, the man who delivered the speech last night does not inspire confidence that he has a clue of the political climate they face or that he gives a damn.

Few moments have been more depressing than watching and listening to Pres. Barack Obama last night.

I honestly don’t know what Democrats are supposed to do with his hodgepodge messaging. If there’s someone around spinning last night’s speech into gold they’re fiction writers.

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