November | 2010 | TaylorMarsh.com

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

Archive | November, 2010

Gates and Mullen Endorse DADT Repeal After Report Release

By Taylor Marsh on 30 November 2010

From the Defense Dept. comes full-throated support of the working group report on repealing DADT. From Defense:

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff today fully endorsed the report of the working group that assessed the impact of a possible repeal of the law that bans gay men and women from serving openly in the military.
[...] “The working group surveyed our troops and their spouses, consulted proponents and opponents of repeal and examined military experience around the world,” Mullen said. “They also spoke with serving gays and lesbians.”
The chairman called the working group’s recommendations “solid, defensible conclusions.”
Mullen said he was gratified that the working group focused their findings and recommendations “rightly on those who would be most affected by a change in the law: our people.”

We’ll now see whether Sen. John McCain will continue to stand against SecDef Gates and Chairman Mullen, who clearly believe the repeal of DADT is an idea whose time has come.

Gates brings up the real dangers of not passing the repeal of DADT in the lame duck session. From the New York Times:

At a news conference on Tuesday announcing the release of the report, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said that repeal “would not be the wrenching, traumatic change that many have feared and predicted.” Nonetheless, he said that there were higher levels of “discomfort” about repealing the law among those in the combat branches of the military, and that “those findings remain a source of concern to the service chiefs and to me.” He said the concerns were not insurmountable, but that implementing any repeal should be done carefully and with more preparation of the military’s combat forces.

At the same time, Mr. Gates said it was a “matter of urgency” that the lame-duck Senate vote in the next weeks to repeal the law. If not, he said there would be a fight in the courts and the possibility that the repeal would be “imposed immediately by judicial fiat.”

Here’s the transcript of the news briefing with Gates and Mullen.

It’s up to the Senate now, with Republicans having to decide whether they want to do what’s right for our service men and women, or get stuck on their determination to make sure Pres. Obama doesn’t preside over this historic moment.

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Flop Sweat Over Sarah

By Taylor Marsh on 30 November 2010

If Republicans want to embrace Palin as a cultural icon whose anti-intellectualism fulfills a base political need, then have at it. I suppose it’s cheaper than therapy. – Joe Scarborough

Joe Scarborough made Sarah’s day today, while binding her fans closer to her. These guys never learn. The presidential race hasn’t even begun and he’s challenging people like Romney, Newt, et al. to take on the “most-talked-about figure in the GOP is a reality show star who cannot be elected.” Joe is begging for a preemptive political strike, which is actually more like a suicide mission.

Scarborough is also taking it very personally that Palin pointed out the fact that the Bushes are “blue bloods.” It’s as defensively uncomfortable to watch as his genuflecting to the presidency of Ronald Reagan, a man I voted for in ’80, so I learned the hard way that he wasn’t all that.

Reagan kicked off financial deregulation, with American indebtedness rising under his watch. Scarborough’s nemesis, Paul Krugman, made the case against Reagan long ago, something that Joe won’t let him forget. And you know all those rules put in place so that people had to actually put a down payment on a house? Reagan scrapped those, too. Mr. Scarborough also forgets the S&L crisis, which Mr. Reagan helped escalate, though no one wants to talk about that either, because being federally insured it made gambling so much easier for the S&Ls. And what about Iran-Contra, which happened under Reagan’s nose and could have led to impeachment if it had been uncovered earlier and Reagan had been healthy? We haven’t even gotten into the AIDS crisis and Reagan’s callous disregard for a generation of people.

As for George H.W. Bush and his ~~bitchy~~ catty wife, they may be wonderful people (at least he could be), with Bush 41 a war hero, but there is no doubting they are of the privileged political class that grandfathered in a feckless incompetent because of breeding. Pres. George W. Bush ended up being even more dishonest than Richard Nixon, and half as intelligent and competent, all because he came with the right pedigree, something Sarah Palin doesn’t have.

Scarborough’s column today wreaks of the “hicks from the sticks” opinion of Bill and Hillary Clinton when they landed in Washington. The Beltway elite thinking the Arkansans had despoiled the ground on which the Reagans and Bushes had walked.

It’s the political class elitism that Mr. Scarborough seems to champion on POLITICO that is being thoroughly trashed by the American electorate.

There is no doubt that Republicans should challenge Palin on her policy prescriptions and ideas. Wait, does she have any?

Will Sarah even need any? Or can Republicans run against Pres. Obama, against health care, against, against, against all things Obama?

William F. Buckley, right before he died, said in an interview with Charlie Rose that conservatism is about fighting against things. It’s one reason Republicans always get into trouble when they are asked to put forth ideas and solutions. They haven’t got any, except to stand against what Democrats propose.

However, considering that Pres. Obama is freezing the pay of federal workers, part of his base, but also is letting Republicans off the hook for wanting to end unemployment benefits while extending tax cuts for the wealthy, it’s understandable that Scarborough senses what all Republicans feel today. That with Obama losing working class voters and independents, which will be very hard for him to get back, 2012 is in reach for Republicans to take it all, the Senate and the White House, keeping the House.

With Sarah Palin’s building power, Scarborough wants to stop her before she builds any more steam. Scarborough’s post today gives you a window into the real fear among the Republican intelligentsia who believes no one can stop Sarah if she wants the nomination. But by getting it Joe and the Republican boys’ club think she’ll also manifest defeat from the jaws of victory.

Today, Mitt Romney remains in the top spot for 2012, especially if the economy stays flat, though if a foreign policy event occurs who knows how things could shift. Except that Romney won’t unite the Republican Tea Party as they look to dismantling “Obamacare.”

So I don’t think the only question is whether Sarah can win the presidency. It’s whether the Republicans would put her on the ticket again as vice president in order to win the White House. Whoever could broker that deal would be quite a kingmaker.

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Wikileaks Exposes Lumbering Fed Fogy

By Taylor Marsh on 30 November 2010

–cross-posted at Huffington Post–

Wikileaks has proven that the American government is running on an arcane set of principles led by people with their frame of reference in the past, with neither the infrastructure or the people running it or serving it having adapted to the times in which we live. This last century thinking is the most dangerous threat to America today.

This is the state of the U.S. government at a time in history when Mark Zuckerberg created the notion of Facebook from his dorm room at Harvard, which made him a billionaire. It’s Zuckerberg who is tagged with saying that it’s “okay to break things” as long as you’re plan is “to make them better.” The book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution was published in 1984! Fast forward to the cusp of 2011 and we have 20th century minds running the government who are still shocked that Zuckerberg’s hacker culture has turned itself on the U.S. government.

The unprepared idiocy boggles the mind.

It’s exploded the heads of the Old Fogy guard inside the behemoth American bureaucracy.

Watching “Morning Joe” yesterday, I could only chuckle at Mike Barnicle and Joe Scarborough as they expressed their shock and dismay at some, as they saw it, lowly private in the Army, to paraphrase their characterization of the Army intelligence analyst and hacker, allegedly getting his hands on so much secret diplomatic material. Where have these guys been, the moon?

From Marc Ambinder:

But in the modern military, which relies on information as much as bullets and bunkers, it’s more easy than one might think to gain access to classified material and to disseminate it, according to interviews with numerous officials.
Manning’s job was to make sure that other intelligence analysts in his group had access to everything that they were entitled to see. That included incoming intelligence streams from across the world on something called the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS), the Department of Defense’s computer network for Top Secret information. Manning also had access to another information stream dubbed the Secure Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet), the Pentagon’s server for information classified as Secret. (Secret and Top Secret are differing levels of classifications for materials.)
Using keyword searches and a knowledge of routing nomenclature, any intelligence analyst — even if he’s sitting in a shack in Iraq — can access pretty much any piece of data classified at the level of access he has.
[...] The important thing to know is that diplomatic cables are no longer transmitted over wires to clattering teletype machines. They’re sent via e-mail over secured networks, and they are also stored on servers until they’re erased. Cables and incident reports from the field are stored on servers in the form of PST files — PS stands for “personal storage” — e-mail archives that Microsoft’s Outlook program uses to compress and store data.
So how did Manning allegedly manage to get access to the diplomatic cables? They’re transmitted via e-mail in PDF form on a State Department network called ClassNet, but they’re stored in PST form on servers and are searchable. …

I’ve been on the web since 1996 and I find the hacking that has so thoroughly embarrassed the Obama administration not only unsurprising, but predictable.

Richard Clarke, cyber guru to former Pres. Bill Clinton, has been warning about a cyber attack against the U.S. since the ’90s. “Good hackers can get through any password,” he warned on NPR. Former Pres. George W. Bush and Dr. Condi Rice couldn’t be bothered to listen to him about Al Qaeda back in 2001. Rice demoted Clarke and his position to outside Cabinet level where Bill Clinton positioned him, because the Bush administration didn’t think counterterrorism was much to worry about. Cyber terrorism barely crossed their radar. The Pentagon can’t do everything.

“The Pentagon is all over this,” he says. “The Pentagon has created a four-star general command called Cyber Command, which is a military organization with thousands of people in it to go to war using these [cyber]weapons. And also, Cyber Command’s job is to defend the Pentagon. Now, who’s defending us? Who’s defending those pipelines and the railroads and the banks? The Obama administration’s answer is pretty much, ‘You’re on your own,’ that Cyber Command will defend our military, Homeland Security will someday have the capability to defend the rest of the civilian government — it doesn’t today — but everybody else will have to do their own defense. That is a formula that will not work in the face of sophisticated threats.”

Today we find, almost 10 years later, Pres. Obama was handed an archaic system from Mr. Bush, with neither president of either party bringing the technology of the United States government up to speed so that an intelligence analyst hacker couldn’t break into secure files, download them, then walk away with the world diplomatic version of Peyton Place.

As for Sect. Clinton and the State Department, in the few documents released, Wikileaks has made red many faces of the diplomatic branch of our government, which still believes “secrets” in the technological age means that what you say or write won’t likely come back to haunt you on some web page on the Internet.

I’m not ginned up about what’s been released, but what it reveals about how unprepared we still are after 9/11 for the realities of the dangers in our world is frightening. Nobody seems to get it. We are nowhere near ready to counter cyberterrorism, which is a very real threat and has been for the last decade.

Former governor Sarah Palin tore of a Facebook rant revealing she doesn’t get the cyber world either. She sounds exactly like Barnicle and Scarborough, oblivious to the talents of hackers, including the youthful skullduggery that often is a characteristic of the inquisitive and the hyper intelligent on a mission. That said, it’s very hard to argue with one particularly thing she wrote:

The White House has now issued orders to federal departments and agencies asking them to take immediate steps to ensure that no more leaks like this happen again. It’s of course important that we do all we can to prevent similar massive document leaks in the future. But why did the White House not publish these orders after the first leak back in July? What explains this strange lack of urgency on their part?

The part in bold is dead on. Palin’s foreign policy adviser, Randall Scheunemann, knows how to couch this stuff all too well. Democrats simply got lucky it’s Sarah Palin posing the question in a Facebook rant where she buries her lede under breathless bloviating that includes calling Assange an “anti-American operative with blood on his hands.”

Republican Rep. Pete King wants Wikileaks to be charged as a terrorist organization. Now, I think that’s daft, but he might actually have a case if our government actually took cyber security seriously, as Clarke tried to get done during his tenure with Clinton and into George W. Bush’s first year. But our entire government is way behind in anything remotely resembling 21st century cyber security.

Pres. Obama was supposed to represent both new politics and a new 21st century era. So, you’ve really got to ask why in the hell U.S. technological and cyber security wasn’t a top priority and why we’re not leading on this issue, making it a top priority as part of the responsibility of being the largest super power in the world.

As the dust settles, the embarrassment will settle in at the State Department as well. Sect. Clinton has had a miserable mess dumped in her lap via Wikileaks, which she handled with grace yesterday, but it doesn’t diminish the obvious lack of understanding at State about the technical world in which we live, with the security breach allowed serious. You’ve also got to wonder when the diplomats are going to get that this isn’t 1950 anymore.

Well over ten years after Richard Clarke made his warnings a cyber attack has occurred and the Democratic administration of Pres. Barack Obama has been embarrassed to the bone, because it didn’t come from China or some other nosy country looking for our secrets, it came from within.

Listening to everyone squealing about the horrors of what Wikileaks perpetrated, including Jamie Rubin and many other experts today, their defensive protestations and the accusations leveled at Wikileaks had a cornered animal quality. Rubin saying Wikileaks “stole” the material then posted them on the web seemed to excuse and even ignore the lax security protocol that allowed State to be burgled.

There is also something oddly out of tone about people representing a democratic republic taking the position that the American public needs to be shielded from knowing that diplomats can be petty, too. But also that U.S. foreign policy aids thugs in defrauding their own people, while maintaining 20th century foreign policy that no longer serves anyone.

Bob Woodward got something right last night when he talked on CNN about the sheer volume of the document load and what might await, but also the necessity and daunting task of combing through what is still unknown, which is the responsibility of Wikileaks. The Pentagon Papers this latest leak is not, because there is something vastly random and unknowable about all that’s contained within, no road map foreseeable.

Last July the Washington Post published a stunning article on the hidden world of secrets that has grown out of control, reporting about “1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies” involved in our secret national security complex, now with over 2 million people by some estimates involved, and in Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings – about 17 million square feet of space.

Count the computers, new platforms, and technologically shared data bases that span this massive secret metropolis.

There were many warnings about the eventuality of secrets being spilled, but also that a cyber attack was inevitable. Pres. Obama isn’t the only one to blame, that’s for sure. He’s just the latest leader to ignore them.

And it’s not over yet. As Forbes teases, Julian Assange isn’t done, not by a long shot. The banks are next.

This essay has been updated.

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Obama Plays Economic Scrooge

By Taylor Marsh on 29 November 2010

… Clearly this is a difficult decision. Federal employees are hardworking and dedicated and central to delivering essential services to the American people. And today we are — the President is clearly asking them to make a sacrifice. We believe it’s the first of many difficult steps ahead that we’ll be taking in the upcoming budget to put our nation on sound fiscal footing — steps that will ask for all of us to sacrifice. [...] – The White House

So, Pres. Obama is asking federal employees to sacrifice while Wall Street bonuses go through the roof. Got it. Good to know the presidential priorities. Hey, but it’s not like federal workers gave Obama the record campaign contributions that Wall Street did.

This is stupid, not to mention Reaganesque without the grandeur, throw in a side of Hooverism, which is just bad economic policy. But since most people don’t understand economics they’ll hear $60 billion over ten years and think it’s good, even if it’s just, well, stupid, especially when compared to the always bloated Pentagon bill.

Obama’s playing the political auditory factor, how the freeze of federal workers’ wages will sound to people, while the Right squeals it’s not really a freeze at all. Like anything would appease the Rush Limbaugh crowd where the federal government is concerned. Yeah, yeah, poor O, there’s no win for him. But there’s also no stopping Pres. Obama, who’s bought into the right-wing austerity kick, which has the added insult of not really reducing what needs to be reduced. How’s that for an economic policy?

President Obama plans to announce a two-year pay freeze for civilian federal workers on Monday in his latest move intended to demonstrate concern over sky-high deficit spending.
The president’s proposal will effectively wipe out plans for a 1.4 percent across-the-board raise in 2011 for 2.1 million civilian federal government employees, including those working at the Defense Department, but the freeze would not affect the nation’s uniformed military personnel. The president has frozen the salaries of his own top White House staff members since taking office 22 months ago. …

I’m wondering, is this Obama’s way of admitting federal health care costs are going to skyrocket, so he’s trying to pay for it? …and what does this say about “health insurance exchanges”?

Sending competent federal employees to private contractors, because taking a pay cut for Pres. Obama simply isn’t worth it and isn’t smart on any level. Unbelievable.

Aw, hell, it’s likely just about punching the unions. You know, because taxing so-called Cadillac health care plans, considering the midterm backlash it cost, wasn’t enough.

From The Hill:

Representatives of three liberal advocacy groups on Monday blasted President Obama’s proposed two-year freeze on federal civilian worker pay. John Irons of the Economic Policy Institute, Tamara Draut of Demos and Greg Anrig of The Century Foundation said it is a mistake to freeze pay until the economic recovery from the recent recession has taken hold more firmly.
“We think that is a terrible idea. We should be raising wages,” Irons said in a press call. “It is unclear why the president would want to do this.”
“It reinforces the concern we have that the focus has shifted from creating jobs to deficit reduction. It is far too soon to be doing that. We need to be focusing on ways to lower 9.6 percent unemployment,” Anrig said.

Our Democratic president in action, with the worst economic plan possible. Doesn’t anyone in the Democratic Party do math anymore?

This post has been updated.

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Wikileaks Diplo Docu Dump

By Taylor Marsh on 29 November 2010

Italy’s Foreign Minister Frattini called the Wikileaks release the “Sept. 11 of world diplomacy.”

Republicans are jumping on the leak, as expected, because transparency scares the bejeezus out of the Right. Rep. Pete Hoekstra using hyperbole to say what allies might ask, “‘Can the United States be trusted? Can the United States keep a secret?’”

Americans have grown accustomed to being kept in a state of permanent stupid on foreign policy. That’s how Iraq happened, but it’s also how dangerous moves in the Middle East towards Iran can be sanctioned through a simple sound bite.

Few news organizations bother to cover the Mideast, which is one reason I hailed Al Jazeera English when it came available in the Beltway area some time ago. Years of covering Israel without any way objectivity, along with Iran, has left Americans with a stilted view of American foreign policy. What’s worse is that the collective American ignorance about other countries and our involvement in their inner workings has given neoconservatives and traditional hawks the playing field, because our foreign policy is always presented as militaristic movements being strong, diplomacy is weak. When you have people like Rep. Eric Cantor making religious based Middle East foreign policy pronouncements, as well as people like Sen. Jon Kyl inventing the Cold War 2.0, circa 21st century, it shows just how vulnerable our foreign policy is to tilts in presidential domestic power, especially when Democrats don’t fight on their own ground.

Unclassified and not marked secret, 251,287 cables were provided to The Times by “an intermediary on the condition of anonymity.” Below are some stand out elements of what was released, with a fascinating look into Saudi King Abdullah’s advice to Pres. Obama equally interesting. However, the first standout element of the documents take us to Israeli and Saudi worries about Iran, but also fuller information about the Iranians long-range missile capacity.

There was little surprising in Mr. Barak’s implicit threat that Israel might attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. As a pressure tactic, Israeli officials have been setting such deadlines, and extending them, for years. But six months later it was an Arab leader, the king of Bahrain, who provides the base for the American Fifth Fleet, telling the Americans that the Iranian nuclear program “must be stopped,” according to another cable. “The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it,” he said.

His plea was shared by many of America’s Arab allies, including the powerful King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who according to another cable repeatedly implored Washington to “cut off the head of the snake” while there was still time.

… The cables also contain a fresh American intelligence assessment of Iran’s missile program. They reveal for the first time that the United States believes that Iran has obtained advanced missiles from North Korea that could let it strike at Western European capitals and Moscow and help it develop more formidable long-range ballistic missiles.

The Right is making a lot of ruckus about the Saudi comments while pointing fingers at Arabists utilizing the See Even Saudi Arabia Wants To Strike Iran. The Right’s anti Arabist sentiment is what scuttled Chas Freeman’s possible appointment. However, the Shia v. Sunni dynamic has been an amped up challenge ever since Pres. Bush let the neoconservatives run things, which began with the disastrous preemptive attack on Iran that altered the balance of power in the region. With shifts in Lebanon, the Shia state rising has as its most important godfathers George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, intended or not, something that has been forgotten. But the dynamics being used right now to make the case for Iran action aren’t a sudden revelation with these leaks, though that’s what’s being talked about on the Right.

From The Times:

¶ A dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel: Since 2007, the United States has mounted a highly secret effort, so far unsuccessful, to remove from a Pakistani research reactor highly enriched uranium that American officials fear could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device. In May 2009, Ambassador Anne W. Patterson reported that Pakistan was refusing to schedule a visit by American technical experts because, as a Pakistani official said, “if the local media got word of the fuel removal, ‘they certainly would portray it as the United States taking Pakistan’s nuclear weapons,’ he argued.”
¶ Thinking about an eventual collapse of North Korea: American and South Korean officials have discussed the prospects for a unified Korea, should the North’s economic troubles and political transition lead the state to implode. The South Koreans even considered commercial inducements to China, according to the American ambassador to Seoul. She told Washington in February that South Korean officials believe that the right business deals would “help salve” China’s “concerns about living with a reunified Korea” that is in a “benign alliance” with the United States.
¶ Bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison: When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of “Let’s Make a Deal.” Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in Chinese Muslim detainees, cables from diplomats recounted. The Americans, meanwhile, suggested that accepting more prisoners would be “a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe.”
¶ Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government: When Afghanistan’s vice president visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash. With wry understatement, a cable from the American Embassy in Kabul called the money “a significant amount” that the official, Ahmed Zia Massoud, “was ultimately allowed to keep without revealing the money’s origin or destination.” (Mr. Massoud denies taking any money out of Afghanistan.)
¶ A global computer hacking effort: China’s Politburo directed the intrusion into Google’s computer systems in that country, a Chinese contact told the American Embassy in Beijing in January, one cable reported. The Google hacking was part of a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government. They have broken into American government computers and those of Western allies, the Dalai Lama and American businesses since 2002, cables said.
¶ Mixed records against terrorism: Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda, and the tiny Persian Gulf state of Qatar, a generous host to the American military for years, was the “worst in the region” in counterterrorism efforts, according to a State Department cable last December. Qatar’s security service was “hesitant to act against known terrorists out of concern for appearing to be aligned with the U.S. and provoking reprisals,” the cable said.
¶ An intriguing alliance: American diplomats in Rome reported in 2009 on what their Italian contacts described as an extraordinarily close relationship between Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister and business magnate, including “lavish gifts,” lucrative energy contracts and a “shadowy” Russian-speaking Italian go-between. They wrote that Mr. Berlusconi “appears increasingly to be the mouthpiece of Putin” in Europe. The diplomats also noted that while Mr. Putin enjoyed supremacy over all other public figures in Russia, he was undermined by an unmanageable bureaucracy that often ignored his edicts.
¶ Arms deliveries to militants: Cables describe the United States’ failing struggle to prevent Syria from supplying arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has amassed a huge stockpile since its 2006 war with Israel. One week after President Bashar al-Assad promised a top State Department official that he would not send “new” arms to Hezbollah, the United States complained that it had information that Syria was providing increasingly sophisticated weapons to the group.
¶ Clashes with Europe over human rights: American officials sharply warned Germany in 2007 not to enforce arrest warrants for Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in a bungled operation in which an innocent German citizen with the same name as a suspected militant was mistakenly kidnapped and held for months in Afghanistan. A senior American diplomat told a German official “that our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S.”

Pres. Obama is up against it politically right now, no doubt about it. His reelection map, with his support in the industrial Midwest wiped out, leaves him vulnerable in ’12, though no one should count him out. When Americans hear the Right saber rattling once again it will correctly make them revisit memories of Bush-Cheney and their disastrous foreign policy. But starting in the New Year the difficulty of Obama’s battle is immense compared to anything he’s ever faced before.

When you read about the leaked documents then think about a Republican in office, the possibilities on what could happen with a reflexive neoconservative in the White House should be a sobering thing to contemplate. If that person is a neophyte on foreign policy, which includes everyone running except Newt Gingrich, the dangers for this country jump exponentially. Just listen to the comments you’re hearing on Fox News, which is foreshadowing of more to come as the 2012 campaign on the Right revs up.

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The Sunday News Round-Up: Post-Thanksgiving Edition

By Stacy on 28 November 2010

I hope everyone had a nice long holiday weekend.

On this day in history, Nov. 28, 1520, Ferdinand Magellan reached the Pacific Ocean after passing through the South American strait that now bears his name.

Here are some links to go with your morning coffee/tea:

~Did anyone go shopping on Black Friday? Retailers are dancing around the cash registers and the preliminary numbers indicate it was a good turnout but the real numbers won’t be in until next Thursday. I stayed home and shopped via internet. I hate those crowds.

~Here’s another reason to hate Citigroup.

~This story about Fox Nation just writes itself. Unfortunately, Fox took down the original article and that is a travesty because the comments were priceless. Apparently the fake story was “recommended” on Facebook over 1,000 times.

~The debate over Park51 unleashed a torrent of Islamaphobia and one of the worst things that resulted from it was the elevation of the formerly-fringe right-wing hate blogger Pamela Geller into mainstream discourse and GOP politicians have started looking to her as a source of anti-Muslim rhetoric.

~The first baby Gentoo penguin born in Australia made it’s first public appearance for the cameras last week and it’s way cute.

~The USS George Washington is engaging in naval exercises with the South Koreans and China is quietly fuming. Of course, if China wanted to reign in its communist ally, it could do so quite easily, which speaks volumes. Over at Foreign Policy, Aidan Foster Carter pours cold water on all the diplopundits who are stepping up to the plate to plead with China to act responsible and reign in their erstwhile ally. Carter’s response? Ain’t gonna happen. China is merely calling for an emergency session of the Six Party Talks.

~The possible repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) has brought all the looney tunes out of the woodwork. Salon has an excellent commentary on a rather offensive article penned by retired Army and part-time county Magistrate (Tennessee) Joe Rehyansky. He spends a lot of time talking about gay guys wanting to look at naked guys in the shower (what is this heterosexual male obsession with showers?) and he throws around a lot of right-wing stereotypes that you probably thought had gone the way of the Dodo bird thanks to that thing we call Social Progress. Nope! I’m not even going to get into the part about lesbians and “corrective rape.”

~The cat known as “Prince Chunk,” who became famous in 2008 because, well, he was so fat (allegedly 44lbs) is now in cat heaven. Goodbye Prince Chunk, I already miss you. Although you are nowhere near as cute as my Scooter.

~Michael Steel is again being criticized for potential financial mismanagement- this time over preliminary spending on the 2012 National RNC Convention that is to be held in Tampa, Florida.

~Yediot has an interesting analysis of what may be going on between the U.S. and Israel regarding the alleged security deal in return for a settlement freeze. Israel is waiting for certain guarantees in writing, but apparently none has been forthcoming. The commentary is written by one of Yediot’s defense analysts. It’s a good read and it gets much more in-depth than anything I have seen in the US papers. H/T to Coteret for the translation.

~All the people who are now saying that we should have airline security similar to that in Israel probably haven’t ever been to Ben Gurion airport. Given the relatively small amount of air traffic that Israel sees daily in comparison to the US, the two situations are hardly comparable. There is no question at all that Israel’s airport security has had outstanding results but replicating it on such a large scale would be difficult if not impossible, assuming that we really wanted to go down that road. Imagine every passenger being pulled aside and interviewed anywhere from 10-20 minutes by multiple security personnel. Now multiply that by tens of thousands of people a day- in just one airport. And then of course there is the issue of the enormous costs associated with it.

~Senator Tom Carper adds his voice to the debate over the airport security issue here.

~Sarah Palin and Jonah Goldberg- great minds think (and write) alike! Wait, what’s that you say? Jonah Goldberg’s wife “helped” Sarah Palin with her book? I can’t help but wonder if Sarah Palin has even read this new book by Sarah Palin? Thank God for ghostwriters! Btw, when you have a ghostwriter, you no longer can classify yourself as “one of the common folk” because average people don’t have ghostwriters- they spend years writing their own book.

~Lil Demon! And then this little guy!

~One of the big lies of the midterm elections was that the Tea Party represented the average Jane and Joe and the outside-the-beltway interests. Of course, had the media done their job people would have known that many of the candidates were actually heavily influenced by inside-the-beltway cash, consultants and policies. The Democrats would do well to sit back, hold up a mirror and ask themselves why they are unable to compete with these groups and why they are unable to provide a unified message. Perhaps they don’t have a message anymore but this is politics and combating the spin and defining yourself (as opposed to letting your opponent do so) is half the game.

~The Pentagon’s report to Congress on progress in Afghanistan seems to indicate there hasn’t been a whole lot of progress.

~The State Dept. has sent a legal letter to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, again requesting him to cease and desist with the pending document dump of diplomatic cables.

~The FBI foiled a terror plot involving a Somali born teenager in Oregon as part of a six month sting operation.

~Modern day sex trafficking in our own back yard.

The End.

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My $0.02… The Saturday After: Give Thanks for the Sisterhood

By Wonk the Vote on 27 November 2010

November 5, 2010, Wellington, New Zealand. Secretary Clinton places a rose on the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior.

Hey everyone, Wonk here, hope everyone is enjoying the holidays and had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It’s the Saturday after, and my gratitude as always goes out to the Sisterhood out there that has grown around Hillary and her work–toward a world where families and communities can thrive and individuals–man, woman, or child–have the opportunities to realize their God-given potential.

Here are my reads for this Saturday in Shero news, with an emphasis on Madame Secretary:

World leaders send their condolences… “United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has joined the Queen and other world leaders offering condolences over the loss of 29 lives at the Pike River coalmine. Clinton, who visited New Zealand earlier this month, said New Zealand had lost 29 brave and hard-working men who would be mourned around the world. ‘Earlier this month I visited New Zealand and I saw the famous Kiwi strength and spirit for myself,’ Clinton said. You have come through adversity before, and I know you will do so again. Today, our thoughts and prayers are with you.’”

This next link was from the beginning of November– American Samoans give thanks for Hillary Clinton, which I find appropriate to look back on this weekend. A taste of Gov. Togiola remarks at Ava ceremony for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “We are very proud in seeing Hillary Clinton visiting foreign countries and the diplomacy that you take to them and bring back to us. We feel very much a part of you and the work that you do, and we pray for your safety and your wisdom and everything that it takes to do the job – the very difficult job that you do for all of us.”

Hillary op-ed in the Vancouver Sun, courtesy of the US Consulate General in Vancouver — “Hillary Clinton: Engage men and boys in eliminating violence against women… I often say that we need to empower women because no country can make economic progress if it leaves half the population behind. It’s just as true that no country can stop violence against women with the other half of the population sitting on the sidelines.”

Hillary says Resolve, Resilience, and Respect are stronger than Guns and Bombs, in her remarks two years after the 11-26 attacks in Mumbai (via state.gov): “As the people of Mumbai gather in temples, mosques, churches, gurdwaras, and synagogues to honor those who perished on November 26, 2008, they send a message of resolve, resilience, and mutual respect that is far louder and more powerful than any terrorist’s guns and bombs.”

This is beautiful footage of a woman of strength and substance who LEADS — an hour long conversation between Hillary and the Australian grassroots (H/T to Stacyx aka SCB at sectetaryclinton.wordpress.com, for digging up this fantastic youtube).

H/T to Minkoff Minx on this one , an op-ed from the Buenos Aires Herald by Patricio Navia — “Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi: The two most powerful women in the Democratic Party represent two divergent views on what strategy will optimize the party’s chances to stay in the White House after 2012.” ( I couldn’t disagree more with Navia’s designation of Pelosi as moving the party to the left, but it is an interesting read nonetheless.)

Ruh Roh, I have seen the following movie script and cast before and it doesn’t end well. This sequel has “straight to DVD” written all over it … from the blog pages of the US News & World Report: “A Facebook group called Hillary Clinton for 2012!! is organizing a meeting in Washington to talk about plans to coax her into the race. ‘Right now,’ says organizer and publicist Will Bower, ‘we are simply aiming to keep HRC’s strongest supporters united for if and when that day comes when Hillary either challenges in 2012 and/or makes a run in 2016. And, of course, to rally as many people as possible to strongly encourage and petition her to do so— preferably the 2012 option.“

NowPublic asks a 64,000 dollar question: “Will Hillary Clinton & Lawrence Cannon Be Named By Wikileaks?“

This is from the week before — the State Department released it’s annual International Religious Freedom Report for 2010. State.gov youtube of Hillary’s remarks (about 40 minutes). In Hillary’s words: “This report reflects a broad understanding of religious freedom, one that begins with private beliefs and communal religious expression, but doesn’t end there. Religious freedom also includes the right to raise one’s children in one’s faith, to share one’s faith peacefully with others, to publish religious materials without censorship, to change one’s religion – by choice, not coercion, and to practice no religion at all. And it includes the rights of faith communities to come together in social service and public engagement in the broader society.”

Saw a fun Hillary tidbit in a Las Vegas Review Journal piece on Nevada pols and their messages at Thanksgiving time — the Clark County commissioner Chris Giunchigliani has bulldogs named Kennedy and Hillary (for Hillary Clinton). Oh, and on a sidetrack from shero news–apparently Harry Reid is thankful he has another 6 years to destroy the Democratic brand. Judging by Sharon Angle’s Thanksgiving tweet to her nonexistent fanbase (“I hope God blesses you all with a very happy and safe Thanksgiving. May it be filled with great moments, great food and great joy with those you love most!”), she’s hard at work trying to make some “great lemonade” out of her loss… or something.

From a conservative source — the National Interest: “Clinton and the Nuclear Scientist” (Information on Hillary’s meeting with Siegfried Hecker seems to be scarce, so I linked to the one actual writeup I could find.)

This pulled up on one of my feeds, and I found it informative – West Virginia politics: “But What About the Women?” (via The Intelligencer and Wheeling News Register)… “Interesting, isn’t it, that we know lots about the major male candidates – but the four strong women continue to fly under the radar?”

Since there’s no photos of Bill and Hill on this Thanksgiving, a couple of Clinton turkey day flashbacks — this is what public service looks like –

Thanksgiving 2009 — raw video of Hillary in Afghanistan, in that beautiful coat: Hillary to the troops: “At the top of my (Thanksgiving) list is all of you.”

Via Huffpo — Life magazine photo of President-elect Clinton (sorry, it’s Bill not Hillary ) serving Thanksgiving dinner at a shelter for battered and homeless women in Arkansas.

On the Friends of Hillary lecture circuit…

Monday at Wellesley (via the Boston Globe): “Developing African economies are the topic for a lecture at Wellesley College by an advisor to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, according to a release. Emerging Africa: How 17 Countries Are Leading the Way is the title of the lecture by Steven Radelet, who advises Clinton on foreign aid… Radelet will explain why a group of African nations are making a successful transition to sustainable economic growth and development.”

While we’re at it, Tuesday in Greensboro, NC (via WRAL news): Bill Clinton will be giving a lecture at Guilford called “Embracing Our Common Humanity.”

I stumbled across this neat footage of Bill Clinton on youtube, from Hong Kong in 2005, responding to a question about UFOs. It’s about 7 minutes long and put a smile on my face.

Excellent piece via The Stir: “Sarah Palin vs. the 1990s… The thing is this — no woman likes to be judged on how she creates her own version of motherhood. And there are still plenty of Murphys and Hillarys just trying to raise their kids and put dinner on the table without someone else judging them. So Palin might want to tread lightly as she implements this new chapter in her quest for stardom, political and otherwise, because it’s got the word ‘backfire’ written all over it.” Agreed!

From the Economist: “Bill Clinton: the opera… ‘Billy Blythe’ —the brainchild of two Arkansas natives, Bonnie Montgomery and Britt Barber—is set on a single day in the Southern life of a teenaged Clinton in the Arkansas town of Hot Springs, where he grew up. It highlights the tribulations that shaped the future occupant of the White House, living with an abusive and alcoholic stepfather and a decidedly colourful mother.”

I have to end this in a hurry–my dog had surgery this week and she needs her antibiotics and pain meds. Hope everything clicks to where it’s supposed to go! If any of the links are broken, please let me know, and as always, feel free to use the comments as an open thread to share what you’re reading and ruminating on this Saturday.

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Sarah’s North Korea Slip v. Obama’s ’57 States’

By Taylor Marsh on 26 November 2010

One thing you can say about Sarah Palin is that she’s not going to take any crap from the media, willing to call anyone out without a day going by. Not even on Thanksgiving did she take a day off from media slapping. Palin’s North Korea slip, which I just didn’t see as anything noteworthy, inspired heavy breathing by many, including Palin herself, who thought it wise to strike back using an Obama slip to make her point.

From her Facebook entry:

My fellow Americans in all 57 states, the time has changed for come. With our country founded more than 20 centuries ago, we have much to celebrate – from the FBI’s 100 days to the reforms that bring greater inefficiencies to our health care system. We know that countries like Europe are willing to stand with us in our fight to halt the rise of privacy, and Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s. And let’s face it, everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma and they end up taking up a hospital bed. It costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early, and they got some treatment, and ah, a breathalyzer, or an inhalator. I mean, not a breathalyzer, ah, I don’t know what the term is in Austrian for that…

Of course, the paragraph above is based on a series of misstatements and verbal gaffes made by Barack Obama (I didn’t have enough time to do one for Joe Biden). YouTube links are provided just in case you doubt the accuracy of these all too human slips-of-the-tongue. If you can’t remember hearing about them, that’s because for the most part the media didn’t consider them newsworthy. I have no complaint about that. Everybody makes the occasional verbal gaffe – even news anchors.

The only problem with Palin’s overly defensive crouch is that her “occasional” verbal gaffes began her national rise. From Katie Couric to Charlie Gibson, where she obviously couldn’t define the Bush doctrine, Palin’s awkward introduction after the Republican convention is seen as quite different from Obama’s eloquent entry, even amidst the usual candidate misstatements.

Is it because Obama reins from Harvard, just like George W. Bush? Sarah Palin having gone to many schools before she finished college, with a stop along the way to have children in the middle.

Is it more about class than anything else? Obama’s exalted position, as well as Bush’s lineage through political aristocracy, versus Palin’s simple struggle against the establishment.

For many of Palin’s die hard fans it is, as they see how Palin’s judged as a double standard from Obama, but also George W. Bush, who was certainly no brighter than Palin, but came with a political pedigree that led to a pass into the privileged presidential hopefuls club. These same people working hard to keep Sarah Palin from riding her fan wave to the nomination for the simple reason that the Republican intelligentsia thinks she’ll get creamed in the general election.

Sarah Palin had better learn to be more judicious with her defense, however, a strong performance a much better offense, because if she doesn’t get a thicker skin and just keep on moving she’ll be judged a serial complainer, someone who is constantly blaming someone else for her own slips, misstatements, gaffes, whatever you want to call it. She’s made her point time and again about the media. A confident person knows when it’s time to push back, laugh along with everyone else at your own mistakes, or simply ignore the critics.

Man up, Sarah.

If you want to play in the big leagues either suck it up or make fewer mistakes. Because you simply do not have the political track record of Hillary Rodham Clinton to be worthy of a perpetual pass.

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New ‘No Labels’ Group Focuses on ‘Centrist Voters’

By Taylor Marsh on 24 November 2010

The story that’s all the talk today I’m not interested in. The Sarah Palin kerfuffle over her verbal slip on North Korea, which everyone is jumping on as some monumental gaffe. I just don’t hear that in the clip, so I’ll let others get all wee-wee’d up about it. Though I will note that John Kerry got scuttled for saying less, so Sarah should police her patter post haste, because she doesn’t have the foreign policy chops to make any mistakes at all. What I’m fascinated about comes complete with counter intuitive partnering.

It’s the group former Bushie Mark McKinnon talked about launching in December, the official date of the roll out and is called “No Labels.” Nancy Jacobson, the boffo Democratic fundraiser who’s married to Mark Penn, is partners with McKinnon.

From the Wall Street Journal:

An alliance of centrist Republicans and Democrats is seeking to organize a grassroots movement aimed at the “middle” of American politics, a political sphere depopulated by the midterm elections and a vital tool for any potential third-party presidential candidate.
The group, called “No Labels,” has drawn support from advisers to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the country’s most powerful independent politician, raising tantalizing questions about his national political ambitions. Mr. Bloomberg has been invited to attend the group’s Dec. 13 launch.
Political analysts see a potential Bloomberg bid if Washington’s divided government turns into gridlock, if the economy doesn’t improve, and if former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and President Obama are the likely nominees. But so far, Mr. Bloomberg has said that he wouldn’t consider running in 2012. “I have the best job in the world,” he said.
No Labels is led by Democratic powerhouse fundraiser Nancy Jacobson and Republican strategist Mark McKinnon, who were introduced to each other by Kevin Sheekey, Mr. Bloomberg’s political adviser.
The group has raised more than $1 million to seed its effort against what it calls “hyper-partisanship.” Backers include co-chairman of Loews Corp. Andrew Tisch, Panera Bread founder Ron Shaich and ex-Facebook executive Dave Morin. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, as well as U.S. senators Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Michigan’s Debbie Stabenow, will attend the New York launch.[..]

Quoted in the article is one of Bloomberg’s “top advisers” saying “These efforts aren’t important; they’re invaluable,” referring to a possible Bloomberg run in ’12. Another quote comes from Howard Wolfson, speaking for Mayor Bloomberg who quoted quoted Fiorello La Guardia: “there’s no Democratic or Republican way to clean up the streets,” adding, “The same is true on a lot of other big issues, but partisan gamesmanship keeps the two parties from working together.”

I’m not very interested in “centrist” organizations, which don’t have a compass on policy accept to make deals. Obama’s done that and look what a mess it has been.

Maybe McKinnon and Jacobson, et al. hope to serve up non-partisan types who are more committed to real solutions instead of any deal in order to name it an accomplishment.

The whole thing sounds like the Non Screamers Club.

All that being true, I am for ripping the political entrenchment of the two party system to smithereens. The time is ripe.

Contrary to others I also don’t see Michael Bloomberg as any worse than Barack Obama. Right now, across the political spectrum, no matter who might run and win, better choices do not exist.

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Some Democrats Fight

By Taylor Marsh on 24 November 2010

In what may prove a significant development for the 2012 elections, David Brock, a prominent Democratic political operative, says he has amassed $4 million in pledges over the last few weeks and is moving quickly to hire a staff to set up what he hopes will become a permanent liberal counterweight over the airwaves to the Republican-leaning outside groups that spent so heavily on this year’s midterm elections. – Effort for Liberal Balance to G.O.P. Groups Begins

Sen. Jon Kyl holding up the new Start Treaty is a symbol of what Republicans are being allowed to do to Pres. Obama, because he doesn’t have the fortitude to call Kyl or the Republicans out for playing politics with American national security. Obama won’t play political hardball. It’s why Democrats find themselves in the mess they’re in after the midterms.

David Brock represents a contingent of strong action oriented people. There are many on the Left who are sick and tired of Pres. Obama’s lack of leadership and fight, which has hobbled the Democratic Party in a way that could lead to a true disaster in ’12. Republicans taking the Senate and the White House, while holding the House, would be an awful prospect. It’s why Brock is making no apologies for playing the hand that the Robert’s Court has dealt. Via Greg Sargent, Brock’s statement on utilizing undisclosed donors:

Many Americans, including me, were deeply troubled by the new rules of the road given to us by a Republican-controlled Supreme Court in Citizens United. Subsequently, the wave of rightwing money created a right-wing wave. There is no right-wing wave. There was a wave of Republican money that was not in any way matched in the cycle by Democrats. Only by making our elections a fair fight will the people really be heard.
We do not make the rules. We must make 2012 a more equal contest than 2010. We cannot surrender everything — health care, the environment — because of the Citizens United decision.

There are few in politics today who understand the Right better than David Brock. Once part of their pack, he has spent his life for many years drawing and quartering conservative misinformation. That he’s now amassing the finances and a top team to take on the onslaught that Pres. Obama has ignored for his entire first term is good news for Democrats.

Since Barack Obama came into office he has unilaterally disarmed in the name of bipartisanship and “accomplishments,” without taking the time to make the Democratic case for policy prescriptions that matter in people’s lives and has been the foundation of the Democratic Party since Roosevelt. There can be only one reason for this and that is he doesn’t believe in them strongly enough. Pres. Obama even went so far as to voluntarily form a Debt Commission through Executive Order, which he wouldn’t do on DADT, to take on entitlements when they’re not the problem, while also sending signals that he’d protect the upper 2% Bush tax cuts even as Warren Buffet and other wealthy Americans served up protestations to the President’s ridiculous ode to the super rich.

It’s preposterous to prop up the notion that middle class people will one day have the money of millionaires, encouraging these same people to vote against their own interests. Rush Limbaugh has beaten Democrats on this turf for 20 years and Democrats played directly into the Right’s talking points by ducking a debate on middle class tax cuts before the election.

The problem for Democrats is that David Brock’s new group can’t do everything.

One of Obama’s biggest problems is that he’s lost the core Democratic demographics, particularly the working class men and women who no longer relate to him or the Democratic Party. That’s because people have no idea what Obama stands for or what he’ll fight for. Women as well turned away from Democrats in the midterms, because as breadwinners of their families in the 21st century they didn’t hear an economic message from Democrats that resonated. There is also a contingent of women who will never forgive Democrats for compromising their reproductive rights in the health care bill, which was wholly unnecessary.

But the Democrats have large internal problems too, which Howie outlines in this story that will make your head explode.

Democrats are up against it right now, something David Brock knows all too well, as does anyone paying attention. I foreshadowed the coming midterm catastrophe, but have been sending out other warnings for months.

The looming Debt Commission is one signal that awaits Pres. Obama, but he’s got serious foreign policy challenges as well. First, facing up to the fact that Republicans know he’s been weakened and they’re playing for his defeat in ’12. Secondly, that Obama has indeed moved the marker on Afghanistan, which isn’t going down well with many. In fact, Christian Science Monitor has a fascinating tale that leads to a primary challenge for Obama on his waffling on Afghanistan that’s worth a read. The bottom line:

As Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg was leaving a Monitor breakfast last week, he was asked about the possibility that President Obama might face a Democratic primary challenge in 2012.

Mr. Greenberg’s two-word answer: “Watch Afghanistan.” …

But beneath that top line sit dangerous numbers about Democratic opinion. Among Obama’s own party, only 33 percent say the US is doing the right thing in Afghanistan; 62 percent say it’s not. Among independents, a group Obama must woo to win reelection, US involvement in Afghanistan has only 40 percent support; 54 percent oppose. Republicans are the only group favoring the US commitment. They back the war 64-31. …

I don’t happen to believe Afghanistan would be the tipping point, but instead think it would be over Obama sanctioning a move against Social Security, even if challenging Obama is not a prospect anyone relishes. But on principle, depending on his decisions, it could happen.

So, while there is a lot of turmoil on the Right, with the Republican establishment turning themselves inside out over Sarah Palin and how to stop her fan juggernaut from lifting her to the nomination before they can mount a strategy on how to stop it. Mitt Romney quietly making his move, along with Newt Gingrich, because there is no one else with clout on foreign policy.

Among the activists who get out the vote and work to elect Democrats there is little enthusiasm for Pres. Obama right now, with the 2008 voter contingent smashed to smithereens, which is Barack Obama’s own fault.

Axelrod leaving earlier than planned, with David Plouffe soon to set up shop inside the Obama bubble, isn’t just because Axelrod wants to see his family. They know they’re in trouble. The problem is that they don’t realize it’s not just communication or about cosmetic West Wing changes. Pres. Obama’s challenges go much deeper. It’s also about him, his leadership style and the lack of fight against Republicans he’s shown so far, which has left his presidency vulnerable and Democrats in a panic.

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Katie Couric Was Not Unfair to Gov. Palin

By Taylor Marsh on 23 November 2010

“No question, she will be a very, very strong presence and force, if she gets in,” Huckabee told reporters Sunday, per the Des Moines Register’s Tom Beaumont. “You know, she may run away with it. And that’s one of those things everyone needs to be prepared for.” – via Sarah Palin’s Mike Huckabee Problem

Let’s face it, nobody is prepared for Palin running away with it. But so far the Republican elite has revealed they’re scared witless that she will and not at all certain how to stop it.

Mike Huckabee might be the only person with the power to help out the establishment. Right now I think it’s safe to say Obama and the Dems are currently calculating that it would be much easier to run against Palin than Huckabee.

However, Palin’s not at all shy about going negative and she will against Huckabee, with Willie Horton type ads over his pardons sure to come out during the primaries.

As for Gov. Palin’s media strategy, she is under no obligation to talk to anyone, but who does she think she’s kidding? The only reason Palin won’t talk to Ms. Couric is because the CBS newswoman bested Palin and caused her a hellish embarrassment at the moment she was being introduced to America. You only get one change at a first opinion and Couric’s simple line of questioning at a moment that Palin wasn’t prepared is something she’s still not gotten over.

The irony of the whole back and forth is that Palin doesn’t need Couric, CBS or any of the “lamestream” media, as she calls it. She’s successfully gone around the whole apparatus.

However, looking forward and seeing Mike Huckabee, her main rival for the Right’s evangelical and religious base, he’s been willing to allow access to even Bill Maher and is not afraid, reticent or against being interviewed by anyone.

The competition between Palin and Huckabee, if/when Palin enters the presidential race, may be the only thing that can change her game plan.

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TSA Gropefest Latest Domestic Debacle

By Taylor Marsh on 22 November 2010

“I believe this is a tipping point,” said Debra Burlingame, a vocal advocate for tough anti-terrorism policies. Burlingame – whose brother was the pilot of the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 which crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11 – was outraged after undergoing the new TSA pat-downs. – TSA pat-down controversy: Overreaction or real issue?

Honestly, is there anything the Obama administration doesn’t screw up?

At least someone is happy.

The latest polls on the full-body scanners showing the majority of Americans think they’re just groovy, that is unless they fly more than once per year.

Sect. Clinton spoke for a lot of people when she said answered “who would?” want to go through the groping and embarrassment. One cancer survivor ending up soaked in his own urine, while a breast cancer survivor had to present her prosthesis.

Meanwhile pundits keep squealing and asking what else can be done?

If this country would grow up and allow psychological and behavioral profiling we wouldn’t be in this mess. Couple that with the profound understanding that comes after years of being terrorized until what you come to conclude is that there is never 100% security.

But the way in which the roll out of the security measures and scanners were done as the answers to keeping us safe, including invasive privacy barriers being broken, leaves anyone paying attention asking whether Pres. Obama and his people have a fricking clue about anything.

Heckava job the Obama administration is doing and I mean that in the most critical sense. It doesn’t take a genius to imagine the graphic pictures you’re going to get when the TSA starts grabbing and groping American citizens.

There is simply no way this policy will last. None.

Yet another air ball from the Obama administration that proves again there is no one competent around to give guidance to the people in power, either that or no one is listening.

Ben Smith chalked it all up to the power of Drudge who “chose it and drove it,” making the TSA debacle front page news. I’m not so sure, though I bet POLITICO got a nice link from Drudge for the publicity, because this story was bound to get legs helped by all sides, led by all parties on the Right.

The real question is why in the world Pres. Obama’s people didn’t see this for the disaster it was bound to be. In the era of Tea Party independence did they really think they could roll this out without blow back?

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Pres. John F. Kennedy, Dealey, and Today

By Taylor Marsh on 22 November 2010

… On the front left running board, Clint Hill focused on the overpass ahead, looking for signs of anybody who might attempt something from that ideal vantage point. About ten people and two police officers. No problem. He moved his gaze to the left, to the flat grass area that formed Dealey Plaza, where just a few people were standing and waving. Directly across from Hill, on the front running board, Agent Jack Ready was scanning the clusters of people standing on the sidewalk and seated on another grassy slope on the right-hand side of the street. The four motorcycle police were back in position a few yards from the gents, their growling engines drowning out the cheers and greetings from the few spectators. Suddenly, above the noise of the motorcycles and beyond the screams of the adoring crowd, a sharp crack blistered through Dealey Plaza. … .. – The Kennedy Detail, by Gerald Blaine (with Lisa McCubbin), pg. 212

If you’ve never been to Dealey Plaza it’s hard to fathom just how incomprehensible the left turn Pres. John F. Kennedy’s motorcade made that day in Dallas. There’s nothing about it that makes sense. Not that anything about Pres. Kennedy’s assassination lends itself to comprehension.

You’d have to be someone of the darker life arts to concoct such a malicious conspiratorial act against our country, which is exactly what someone did.

I’ve spent my entire life researching and studying John F. Kennedy, because of the lens I had through my older brother and sister who were old enough to understand and comprehend what it meant when he was murdered.

As many old time readers here know, I wrote and produced a one-woman show in L.A. a few years ago entitled “Weeping for J.F.K.,” which chronicled the intersection of my siblings and my life and just how John F. Kennedy melded into it. The research into countless books, which I began reading decades ago, has been never ending. Beyond Jack the man, what happened on this day almost five decades ago is an event I’ve studied since I was old enough to do research, along with the life of the man who captured America for one brief shining moment in a decade that I’m proud to have come of age in.

The latest book, The Kennedy Detail, is a fascinating and historic addition, because it compiles the story of Pres. Kennedy’s Secret Service Detail for the first time. That these men finally broke their silence adds an invaluable perspective and we are forever in their debt. The pain they’ve carried silently must have been unimaginable to relive again, though that it was healing has to be a final comfort.

For me, commemorating this day will be something I do every year of my life.

Pres. Kennedy’s murder was the beginning of a political odyssey for me that no matter what I was doing at the time was remembered. The cataclysmic catastrophe our nation suffered when Pres. Kennedy was targeted for assassination for who he was, as well as what his brother Bobby stood for in his life and as his partner in politics, a moment that impacted my older siblings profoundly, which trickled down to me from my big brother in a way that altered the course of my life and is why I’ve followed politics since I was a kid.

This day will never be laid to rest for some of us, no matter the protestations of the certain, meaning no disrespect to anyone sure, or of those believing the “magic bullet,” the Warren Commission or that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Symposiums with Mark Lane, among other things, forever disabused me of these theories when I was very young.

Perhaps Leonardo DiCaprio can give the horrific event serious perspective where so many others have failed. The film “Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination,” based on the book written by Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann, is set to be released in the 50th year commemorating Pres. John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Based on the story that mafia godfather Carlos Marcello confessed that he ordered Kennedy’s assassination to his confidant Jack Van Laningham, who was actually a deep cover F.B.I. informant (whom DiCaprio will portray). It’s a tale that’s been around for years and years, which deserves full airing by someone serious enough to respect what it means.

So, the mystery lives with us, the tragedy of a fallen leader in a decade of collapsing idealism all pushing me forward through life into unknown territory of what makes leaders like Kennedy, as well as F.D.R. and Truman versus celebrities like Sarah Palin and Barack Obama. That moment when candidate Obama was passed the torch by Pres. Kennedy’s brother Teddy in a moment of political emotion now simply hangs in the distant ether like a mirage.

And no matter what is said of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, having studied him thoroughly, I also know full well that he was the last human who fits the mold of statuesque superman hero, or someone who’d want the silly title. Not only was he so very human, but also deeply flawed, with a cold-hearted calculating brilliance owned by a man who was insatiable about life. That’s likely because he knew his own would be fleeting. His constant fight for life through incomprehensible pain and debilitating health challenges that were enough to kill anyone, simply made him fight harder to survive.

But what I think of most of all on this day in the last years is that in our current political and media climate the likes of a John F. Kennedy would never have been given a chance to serve. Our moralistic hubris defying anyone intellectually brilliant with a corporeal appetite to match the opportunity to try and juggle both in the light.

What would have been said about Jackie Kennedy’s smoking or her disdain for First Lady duties would have represented a collective wail of suffocating self-righteousness.

Pres. John F. Kennedy simply wouldn’t be today. The moralistic mental midgets on the Right wouldn’t allow it. Mind you, John F. Kennedy had to fight the Right back then too, including wingnut radio and even Human Events, but the current crop of self-righteous complainers aren’t satisfied until someone is brought to his knees. It would be sex over science and the moon, dumbed down politics over intellectual curiosity that took us beyond what we’d dreamed we could be. Political jealousies of what they can’t understand driving them to destruction.

But we all now know we lost more than Pres. John F. Kennedy this day so many decades ago. It was the beginning of the gutting of our national soul.

It led to escalation of Vietnam, Nixon, Watergate, and the cowardice pardon that led this nation to believe we couldn’t stand to hold our own accountable. The country couldn’t take it was the line and the Democrats sucked it up. It led to the tenuous presidency of Jimmy Carter, the calamitous Teddy Kennedy presidential gamble, then 12 years in the wilderness until William Jefferson Clinton came along to teach Democrats how to win again. It also led to Democrats letting George W. Bush and Dick Cheney get away with unspeakable malfeasance, all on the notion that our nation isn’t tough enough to stand up for our own values.

The Right came gunning for Clinton, too, using a coordinated conspiracy to attempt a coup through impeachment, then the Left tried to humiliate him off the national stage by calling him a racist. However, no one has used a gun, though there are sinister forces targeting Pres. Obama today, with people showing up packing at rallies against a foe that only exists in their minds, the place where all hate resides.

We’re a different nation today than when Kennedy reined. It remains to be seen if we’ll end up a country John F. Kennedy could recognize if he came back to visit the country that to this day still remembers he was about much more than his name.

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Sunday News Round-Up

By Stacy on 21 November 2010

A Very Cute Bird

Good morning! I’m sorry I didn’t get this up earlier but apparently I angered the Gremlins that keep my computer working properly and they conspired to almost make this Sunday round-up never happen.

On this day in history, November 21, 1922, Rebecca Felton of Georgia was sworn in as the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate.

Your Sunday Link Dump:

~Wall Street Behaving Badly: Criminal Edition.

~Afghan deadline, what Afghan deadline? Obama’s becoming more and more just like every other run-of-the-mill Washington hawk.

~While everyone is breathlessly claiming Iran is two years away from obtaining a fully functional nuclear weapon (something both the US and Israel have been saying for over a decade and each two years passes and…no nuclear weapon!), here’s a country which has a brand spankin’ new nuclear weapons facility that actually can develop nuclear weapons- now. Anyone want to venture a guess as to where this particular country got all their modern equipment? (*cough*China*cough*)

~The Pope grants a super-narrow exception to the Church’s prohibition on the use of condoms in preventing the spread of AIDS.

~Frank Rich on Palinmania.

~An interesting look at why the Marines from the bottom on up, are so resistant to overturning DADT.

~Are Michael Steele’s days numbered? Some big GOP guns want him out as RNC Chair.

~I don’t know whether Julian Assange is guilty of these rape/molestation charges but I can’t help but wonder if the U.S. has been leaning on Swedish prosecutors with regard to this international arrest warrant that has been issued. It’s very unusual for a warrant of this type to be issued this quickly in a case like this.

~You may have heard that there is a little debate brewing in the Beltway about how to cut spending, reduce everybody’s taxes and continue to spend obscene amounts of money on wars that seemingly never end. But here’s an article that makes clear that when it comes to Afghanistan, money is no object. In fact, moving the goal posts back to at least 2014 could end up costing taxpayers hundreds of billions more, not including some costs such as veteran benefits, etc. which could take the long-term costs into the trillions (in addition to what already has been spent). This at a time when we are being told that meaningful health reform is too expensive, cuts need to be made to Medicare and most of us will not be able to retire anywhere near the age of 65. And yet there is very little debate on this.

~Ben Bernake finally got a spine and called out China for its currency manipulation. Apparently appeasing the Chinese in all things hasn’t really done anything but embolden them. You would think President Obama would begin to notice this pattern- when you don’t stand up for certain key principles, other world leaders (and members of Congress) begin to think you are a pushover.

~The earmark debate is a thinly-veiled ruse foisted upon an overly-gullible public.

~Just as with everything else, the administration’s jaw-dropping “incentives” package to the Israelis have pretty much outraged everyone on all sides of the political spectrum. That’s quite a feat. When you have the former Ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, blasting the administration (and Israel) for rewarding Israel for it’s intransigence, it’s a pretty good sign that the administration has drank a bit too much of the kool-aid. The latest twist in this saga is that the US originally said the three billion dollars in military hardware would go to Israel contingent upon signing a deal with the Palestinians. But Israel doesn’t like that. So now it appears they will get their three billion in fighter jets even if there is no deal, which makes no sense. Oh yeah, and Anthony Weiner, Barney Frank and others have called on the administration to release Jonathan Pollard. I kid you not.

~Artist Jim Sanborn is trying to help people crack the Kryptos puzzle contained in his sculpture on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. You can see the photo on the right. He’s tired of waiting for people to figure it out, apparently. It sounds pretty cool. Unfortunately, I’m terrible at puzzles.

~The TSA has eased security restrictions for airline pilots of US carriers- not pat-downs and no body scanning- they just have to show two forms of ID. Honestly, I can’t help but think that anyone who has to travel frequently would do almost anything to get through the security line in a timely fashion no matter what it involved. I’d walk through naked if it meant not having to spend hours waiting.

~ohmygoddidyouhearSarahPalinhasanewbookout?

~Ok, now the GOP has control of the House so they are digging right in to help the US economy right? Right? Of course not- if the US economy improves they won’t have as good of a chance of winning in 2012. One of their top pet projects – birthright citizenship. I kid you not. I guess after that it will be the defunding of NPR. Then maybe military action against Iran? The possibilities are endless!

~An interesting column about how the advances in glbt rights have helped those of us who are adults living in bigger cities, but not the younger generation living outside large urban areas.

~Have you seen this campaign ad that Republican bigwigs from DC wouldn’t let Sharron Angle air? It’s the BEST!

~Bryan Fischer of the patriotic Christian group the American Family Association wants you to know that the Medal of Honor has become “feminized” because it never goes to people who cause mass slaughter, but rather to people who are just engaged in the stupid act of almost single-handedly saving their fellow soldiers’ lives while under attack by enemy forces. It’s time to give the Medal to some real men! Oh, and God loves lots and lots of blood and killing and wanton destruction. So says the Bible.

~Sarah Palin decries bear propaganda and wants us dunderheads in the lower 48 to know that when you come across one in the wild, you do not hug them.

~I’m sick of Sarah Palin and Grizzly Bear references. Ok, I said it.

~What does anti-defamation have to do with nuclear arms reduction? No idea.

~Best headline ever: Democrats in Congress Worried Obama Will Cave to GOP. Now that is a very rational fear.

~More Afghan election fraud, 2010 Parliamentary edition.

The End.

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Full Court Press to Stop Sarah

By Taylor Marsh on 20 November 2010

“I sat next to her once. Thought she was beautiful,” Barbara Bush said. “And she’s very happy in Alaska, and I hope she’ll stay there.” – CNN

Karl Rove started it and now the Republican intelligentsia is out in the open gunning for Sarah.

Meanwhile, a federal judge has ordered Gawker to take down the “unauthorized excerpts” of Palin’s new book pending a hearing on November 30th. Important win for Palin and her publishers. Authors need to protect their property.

Nate Silver jumps in on the Palin presidency conversation, further delineating what I’ve been writing for months and months.

Ms. Palin, in fact, draws almost as much search traffic worldwide as the man she would face if she wins the Republican nomination: Barack Obama. And her name is searched for about 30 percent more often than the President’s among Google users in the United States. …
All of this poses a dilemma for the other potential Republican contenders. If and when Ms. Palin declares her candidacy for the White House, it could consume much of the media oxygen literally for months. For that matter, if Ms. Palin declines to run for office, it could also be a huge story. And, of course, until her mind is made up, there will be plenty of articles that attempt to anticipate Ms. Palin’s decision.
[...] Ms. Palin may not be the front-runner in a traditional sense (although it’s not clear that any of the other candidates are either). But she literally commands as much of the public’s attention as the President of the United States, and the strategy for the other candidates will have to revolve around her to some significant degree. In fact, since it is uncertain whether she will run or not, they will effectively have to develop two separate sets of strategies, one contingent upon the assumption that she will enter the race and the other on the bet that she won’t.

None of this matters to establishment Republicans like Mona Charen, who makes her case in “Why Sarah Palin Shouldn’t Run.” Here’s the bottom line for Charen:

Palin has many strengths. I admire her fortitude and her commitment to principle. Her capacity to connect with a crowd is something most politicians can only dream of. I will always remember her 2008 convention speech as a rollicking star turn. She would be terrific as a talk-show host — the new Oprah.
But as a presidential candidate? Someone to convince critical independent voters that Republicans can govern successfully? Absolutely not.

All of this is keeping Conservatives4Palin.com very busy. Another conservative weighs in by delivering a sound bit of advice for the elite: If Sarah Palin has a secret weapon, it’s how distasteful and classless are so many of the GOP establishment types lined-up against her.

The establishment cannot afford to sit silently by, they just can’t. There hasn’t been a bigger threat to them to come along since Patrick J. Buchanan. However, Sarah’s wattage and fan base is in another league. They’re also damned with her, but completely damned without her.

It’s going to be quite a circus to watch this play out.

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My $0.02: Birthday Boys on a Shero Saturday

By Wonk the Vote on 20 November 2010

Secretary Clinton and President Obama in Lisbon, November 19, 2010

Good morning, sleepyheads. Wonk the Vote here with my two for this Saturday, November 20th, 2010. Eighty five years ago today, Bobby Kennedy was born. On November 3rd, 1964, the voters of New York elected Bobby Kennedy to the US Senate. Thirty six years later, on November 7th, 2000, the voters of New York elected Hillary Rodham Clinton to the seat that had once belonged to Bobby. Hillary earned 55 percent of the vote, nearly the same as Bobby Kennedy’s 54 percent in 1964. Over eight years later, toward the end of the 2008 race between Clinton and Obama, much was made of Hillary’s RFK remarks — much ado about absolutely nothing. The photo to the left, from yesterday in Lisbon, is testament to just how baseless and phony the outrage over Hillary’s comments had been from the start.

Months before, back in January 2008, when the banshee choir’s chant of “Why Won’t That Stupid Bitch Quit” was still in its infancy, RFK’s children had endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. Their endorsement prompted Stephen Schlesinger to pen an op-ed for the Huffington Post called “Hillary and RFK” underscoring the thread between Bobby’s career and Hillary’s:

It is interesting to read the op-ed piece in Tuesday’s Los Angeles Times (Jan 29, 2008) written by three of Robert Kennedy’s children — Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Kerry Kennedy, endorsing the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. The match-up of RFK’s offspring with Hillary Clinton is, on one level, a personal and passionate embrace of a woman whom all of them greatly admire for her political prowess and broad vision. But, on another level, it is a symbolic reminder to America of how similar Hillary’s and RFK’s political experiences have been — and what lessons we can draw from them.
First, all political analogies are imperfect. Still the similarities are quite atonishing. Both individuals, we should remember, started their political careers with famous last names. Like RFK, Hillary ran for the U.S. Senate in NY State as an outsider and won. Like him, she won the adoring support of New Yorkers. But, like him, the moment she jumped into the presidential race, she was labeled ruthless and unprincipled. And like him she has faced an opponent who is considered a “breakthrough” candidate, a man of change. In the case of RFK, voters were eventually able to see through the din and dust to his true progressive beliefs. In the case of Hillary Clinton, her triumphs in New Hampshire, Nevada and Michigan suggest that as more and more people listen to her, the more they are willing to embrace her as the most reliable liberal trailblazer in the contest.

It is Hillary whose life’s work echoes and embodies the spirit of Bobby Kennedy’s words in Cape Town, South Africa, June 1966:

“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

Interestingly enough, this week ended with another faux-controversy ala Hillary’s RFK remarks, this time with the White House getting its panties in a bunch over James Carville reiterating his joke from 2008:

“If Hillary gave up one of her balls and gave it to Obama, he’d have two.”

The truth is, Hillary has something that she cannot give to Obama no matter how hard she tries to help him. These are stripes earned. They cannot be transferred from her to him.

With her bid for the presidency, Hillary did exactly what Matt Taibbi doubted when he wrote the following in June of 2008:

So that was one problem with viewing Clinton’s campaign through that heroic prism, i.e., that of an inspirational female leader refusing to step aside when told by a male-dominated political hierarchy. The other was that I just don’t believe it.

Hillary Clinton, love her or hate her, is a fighter. You can disagree with her politics, indict her character, or tear down her womanhood all you want, but you will not be able to stop the fact that the world witnessed a woman who fought back and was resilient while the chattering classes declared open season on her and on her supporters, all while jumping the gun to write the political obituary of a woman who is still going strong today.

There was an actual assassination during the 2008 cycle—the one that took down Benazir Bhutto, which David Axelrod did not miss the chance to make about Hillary Clinton’s AUMF vote. That was the poor assassination comment during the 2008 primaries.

In stark contrast to Bhutto’s assassination was the imaginary assassination that the Clinton-deranged faction projected onto Hillary’s RFK remarks.

The thread between the Axlerod’s Bhutto remarks and the reaction to Hillary’s RFK remarks was the attempted character assassination against the Clintons—an attempt that failed.

This is obviously not a diary on RFK. Of the three Kennedy brothers, Bobby is the one I am drawn to, but I am sure someone who was actually alive when he was can write a much more fitting tribute of him on this November 20^th, and I cannot wait to read it. I wrote this piece today because what is past is prologue and remembering Bobby on this day led me straight to Hillary and the line between their careers. Reminiscent of Bobby and the Kennedy legacy, Hillary is the Clinton who we came so close to having as our president but fell short. Unlike with Bobby, there is still a chance Hillary could run again. But, if she does not, that is our loss. Not Hillary’s.

If you see Hillary now, she is happier than ever and is living out history, doing the work she was born for, fighting not just for women and girls but for the progress of us all, which cannot happen without the rights and roles and voices of women.

And, on that note, I would like turn you to three different profiles on three very different women.

The first woman is Ela Bhatt, who Hillary presented the first ever Global Fairness Initiative award to this week at the Kennedy Center. A few excerpts of Hillary’s comments in honor of Ela:

And tonight, we are honoring a woman whose work has been at the leading edge of the fight against poverty.

A great deal has already been said and written over the years about Ela’s impact on India and the world. About the innovative programs she pioneered, making it possible for the very poor to gain access to services that were once the sole purview of the well-off—like credit, like banking, sick leave, and child care. Or about her conviction that women are the key to progress—that investing in women is one of the most powerful ways to fight poverty.

But tonight, I’d like to consider Ela’s impact from another angle. The work that she has done through the Self-Employed Women’s Association is not only about finding solutions to the problems of poverty. At its most basic level, Ela’s work is about fairness, about giving every person the chance to achieve his or her dreams, to make the most of his or her God-given potential—no matter how rich or poor, no matter whether they work in a factory or a home or on the side of a road.

Next up is Cathleen Black, who is Bloomberg’s pick to lead New York’s schools – the NY Times ran this piece called, “A Trailblazer With Her Eye on the Bottom Line”:

“She’s the closest thing to Superman that exists,” said Atoosa Rubenstein, on whom Ms. Black placed an audacious bet, letting her start a new magazine, CosmoGirl, at age 26.

Hmm, the closest thing to Superman? That’s not exactly inspiring. NY Mag has this breakdown of NYT’s profile on Black:

The Times dispatched a journalistic SWAT team of fourteen reporters to uncover information about her, and they basically discovered she’s a powerful woman in a stylish gray flannel power suit.

I’m running out of time, so click on the NYT and NY Mag links to get the dish on Cathie Black and judge for yourself. (There’s also this bit from the NYT City Room blog about Black’s appearance on The Apprentice.)

Last but not least, Melanne Verveer, in the words of Hillary who introduced Melanne this Wednesday at the National Women’s Law Center Award dinner (state.gov video and transcript at the link; Hillary also gives shout outs to Brooksley Born and Geena Davis):

Melanne has been a dear friend as well as a colleague. And she actually, along with her wonderful husband Phil, went to college with Bill. So we have had a very close, personal relationship. And then 18 years ago we started working together and it was the beginning of an epic journey that has taken us together and separately on behalf of the work we love to every corner of the world. We’ve been sitting together under sweltering tents in a village in India or at a meeting with thousands of civil society activists packed in that room in Huairou, China in 1995 or going to a housing development, literally, built from the ground up by formerly homeless women squatters in South Africa, and so many other places that flash through my mind like the movie that reminds me of everything that we have done on behalf of women and girls.

Before I end this morass of a post, a few words on another birthday boy…

With all due respect and birthday wishes to Vice President Joe Biden , why on earth does he have to keep going around even dignifying the rumor mill that Hillary Clinton will replace him on the ticket in 2012? Why will he not just laugh it off with some good humor? I cannot understand Biden’s public reactions at all.

Until Obama and Hillary ever prove otherwise, I for one do not buy the chatter of an Obama/Clinton do-over as anything other than the internet chain letter it started out as within days after Obama announced Biden as his VP pick. And, yet it strikes me as telling that Biden is not only asked about being replaced by Hillary but has yet to shrug off the talk effortlessly without getting into how wanted a Vice President he was and how his parents have reassured him he was not any kind of a mistake. Gah.

It is yet more evidence that Hillary earned something in 2008 that all the male suits running against her did not.

Well that’s it for me, this is Wonk signing off… hoping against Hope, pour la liberté, égalité et sororité… and since this is a birthday boy post on a Shero Saturday–all the way from Bobby to Hillary–I’ll go the extra mile to add back the fraternité mention for our like-minded brotherhood out there. I hope you have a great weekend, and as always, I welcome you to use the comments to share your two cents and Saturday reads:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baiOAROK_xQ&w=300&showinfo=0]
Bernice Johnson Reagon,
“Come and Go with Me to that Land”
Come and go with me to that land
Where I’m bound
I got a brother in that land
Where I’m bound
I got a sister in that land
Where I’m bound
We’ll all be together in that land
Where I’m bound
Come and go with me to that land
Where I’m bound

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MSNBC Doubles Down on Stupid, and a Rant about Sarah

By Taylor Marsh on 19 November 2010

First Olbermann, now Joe Scarborough gets suspended for donations to Republicans, because, you know, nobody knows Joe is on the Right. Both pundits should have disclosed to their audiences, but a suspension without pay is preposterous. Unlike Keith, Joe hung a lantern on his problem, or as I like to call it, invoking the Jack Ryan strategy, which means “Give them no place to go, nothing to report, no story.”

MSNBC said Friday that it is suspending “Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough for two days after he acknowledged giving eight previously unknown $500 contributions to friends and family members running for state and local offices during his tenure at the network, a violation of parent NBC’s ban on political contributions by employees without specific permission from the network president.
“I recognize that I have a responsibility to honor the guidelines and conditions of my employment, and I regret that I failed to do so in this matter,” Scarborough said in a statement. “I apologize to MSNBC and to anyone who has been negatively affected by my actions,” he said, adding that after he was made aware of some of the contributions, he called MSNBC President Phil Griffin “and agreed with Phil’s immediate demand of a two-day suspension without pay.”

Meanwhile, according to Media Matters Fox News channel is giving $40 million in free publicity to 2012 candidates, which of course includes Sarah Palin. Someone email Jon Stewart so he can dispense with the false equivalencies.

The good news is that it looks like the suspension will coincide with Thanksgiving week festivities. Now that’s planning, Scarborough.

Now I’m going to segue into something that has been annoying me all week. To address something Scarborough & Co. keep repeating daily about the Murkowski Senate win in Alaska.

It’s frustrating to be the only one pointing to facts regarding Sarah Palin on this one, especially since my politics are on the exact opposite side as hers. However, everyone from Joe to Mika to Aaron Sorkin to everyone on the Left keeps saying what a comeuppance to Sarah it was that Lisa Murkowski & Alaskans refudiated Sarah Palin by voting against Joe Miller in the general election.

It’s not Palin’s fault that Murkowski pulled a Lieberman in the general after she was soundly defeated in the primaries by Miller. It’s also not Palin’s fault that Joe Miller turned out to be a frickin’ idiot, tweeting arrogantly before he’d won the general that he appreciated being welcome in DC. Or the fact that Miller hired bodyguards that ended up in a scandal because his peeps handcuffed a reporter without any cause.

Would you vote for someone after that scene?

Meanwhile Lisa Murkowski ran a killer Independent campaign. Joe Miller was engaged in premature measuring his Senate office for drapes. Credit goes to Murkowski for making history in a write-in campaign that hasn’t been done since 1954 and Strom Thurmond. She dug down and pulled off something historic and deserves a lot of credit for it.

What Sarah Palin should have done, if she really knew how to play this game, was to be the bigger person, swallow her gargantuan ego and insecurities, and release a statement congratulating Lisa Murkowski. But Sarah doesn’t know how to play the game with grace yet. As egos go she’s a lot like Barack Obama in that she can’t give ground to her adversaries for fear it shows weakness. It’s the Small Politicians Playbook.

In addition, the primary talking points from the Republican intelligentsia, including the talking heads on both sides, continues to be about blaming Sarah Palin for the Right losing the Senate too, which was never in play in the first place.

I understand that Joe Scarborough and Mika, add in everyone in the Republican establishment, want to stop a Palin primary juggernaut. Fine, go for it. But making shit up won’t do it. It just makes her stronger and her fans more loyal.

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What Could the Rich Buy with Their Tax Cut?

By Taylor Marsh on 19 November 2010

–updated below–

This one is a classic.

The reality is stark:

“Do the math: we have 14 million people in this country who are unemployed, and we have 13 percent unemployment in my district,” he said. “Here’s an idea: let’s take that hundred billion dollars and give three million Americans a job. Let’s give three million Americans a working wage, an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work, and that will revive our economy.”

Yesterday my husband called me from work to talk about GM’s initial public offering. All he could relate to were all the workers who’d lost their retirement, which may be old news, but still hits home to blue collar workers. So, hearing Obama hail the “turnaround,” well, it may be for some, but it depends on which side of the economic fence you sit, especially when you take into account GMAC.

That there is even an issue on extending the 2% top tier Bush tax cuts is stunning. If Obama and the Democrats do it they’ll be the Obama tax cuts for the wealthy, which will have the added insult of making our economic reality worse not better. Doesn’t anyone do basic math anymore?

UPDATE: Ezra Klein has this exactly wrong. He also represents the contingent that thinks Obama should pay attention to press and what the talking heads want instead of sending a message to the people. He’s against Harry Reid playing hardball on the upper 2% tax cuts, which if Reid actually does get a spine would be the most important line in the sand the Dems could draw. Not holding my breath on this, because Dems usually cave to the media intelligentsia, like Ezra, who seems to be working on taking David Broder’s place whenever he finally retires.

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The Cojone Factor

By Taylor Marsh on 18 November 2010

Out of the mouth of a top Clintonite. Ouch. The Carteresque storyline continues, unfortunately, it’s coming from Democrats.

There’s never been any love lost between Obama and Carville. It exploded again during the BP disaster, when Pres. Obama was caught ill prepared and ineffective. However, what Pres. Obama and the White House misses with Carville, as do many of the pundits, is what James Carville is saying channels many working class American voices and how they feel about the President, too. It was proven in the midterms.

So to say Democrats have lost faith in Pres. Obama is an understatement. To say they’re stuck with him is a fact. …though depending on his decision on Social Security recommendations from the Debt Commission a primary challenge on the wings of principle may still manifest. The only hope is that Obama’s ego will become engage and he’ll start fighting back. A good place to start would be on middle class tax cuts, not the upper 2%.

If Obama doesn’t get the bottom line of Carville’s message he’s in for a very rough reelection battle.

It’s not a pretty picture for the President or his party right now. Charlie Rangel pleading for mercy in the House. Obama’s own plight punctuated by a less than enthusiastic election of Nancy Pelosi to minority leader. Not that she didn’t win in a walk, but that no one was exactly elated about it was obvious. Then there is Harry Reid… ugh.

Same leadership. Same problems. Same spinelessness.

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Does Groping Make Us Safer?

By Taylor Marsh on 18 November 2010

Via Mediaite, this photo from the Denver Post website says it all.

Lots of discussion on the TSA scanners and “pat-downs,” with plenty of upheaval around the subject.

I still contend that targeted profiling similar to what Israel does, based on behavior and demeanor, etc., makes a lot more sense than fondling passengers.

Instead we’re reduced to body scanners and “junk grabbing.”

I find myself in very rare agreement with Megan McArdle.

Our country is clueless.

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Wikileaks Diplo Docu Dump

The Sunday News Round-Up: Post-Thanksgiving Edition

My $0.02… The Saturday After: Give Thanks for the Sisterhood

Sarah’s North Korea Slip v. Obama’s ’57 States’

New ‘No Labels’ Group Focuses on ‘Centrist Voters’

Some Democrats Fight

Katie Couric Was Not Unfair to Gov. Palin

TSA Gropefest Latest Domestic Debacle

Pres. John F. Kennedy, Dealey, and Today

Sunday News Round-Up

Full Court Press to Stop Sarah

My $0.02: Birthday Boys on a Shero Saturday

MSNBC Doubles Down on Stupid, and a Rant about Sarah

What Could the Rich Buy with Their Tax Cut?

The Cojone Factor

Does Groping Make Us Safer?

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