If the Voters Show Up, Barack Obama May Win

The title for this post is deliberately tentative. The only poll that counts is the one that includes more than a hundred million ballots. The voters need to show up, the young, the old, those with mortagages, those losing jobs, those worried about their relatives in the military, those frustrated with high gas prices and stagnant wages and those trying to figure out where we are going in the twenty-first century. All elections are important. This election matters more because we are running out of time. The United States is a strong and capable country but it will not remain that way unless we begin to repair the damage of the last eight years and unless we start doing a better job of taking on the future. Barack Obama doesn't have all the answers but the right wing noise machine has effectively shut down people for too long who do have answers whether it is about energy, global warming, the economy, fairness or simply finding a way into the future. I am confident that Barack Obama is a listener and not just a very fine orator.

Joe Klein has come a long way in the last five years. Here's an excellent article in Time magazine on why Barack Obama is winning:

They were arguing their respective positions, in a respectful way." The other two Senators — Chuck Hagel and Jack Reed — told Petraeus they agreed with Obama. According to both Obama and Petraeus, the meeting — which lasted twice as long as the usual congressional briefing — ended agreeably. Petraeus said he understood that Obama's perspective was, necessarily, going to be more strategic. Obama said that the timetable obviously would have to be flexible. But the Senator from Illinois had laid down his marker: if elected President, he would be in charge. Unlike George W. Bush, who had given Petraeus complete authority over the war — an unprecedented abdication of presidential responsibility (and unlike John McCain, whose hero worship of Petraeus bordered on the unseemly) — Obama would insist on a rigorous chain of command.

John McCain could still win this election. Events in the world might unfold so rapidly and in terms so favorable to McCain that Barack Obama could lose by a small margin. But McCain has run a poor campaign and damaged himself with an impulsive choice for vice president. We expect more of our presidents. Many years ago McCain served his country honorably and there may have been a period a few years ago when he had might have had sufficient command of the issues to become a better than average Republican president. It's possible he would have been better than George W. Bush if he had been elected in 2000. Perhaps not. Perhaps the Republicans in Congress would have dragged him onto the same failed path our current president has followed. But one thing is clear: the current reincarnation of John McCain seems far removed from a comfortable command of the current issues of the day. Lately, he has distanced himself from President Bush but there is no evidence that his policies would be much different.

This past Sunday on Meet the Press, Colin Powell not only endorsed Barack Obama but made a compelling case for Obama and a compelling case against McCain. I have mixed feeling about the former secretary of state. Colin Powell's 2003 presentation at the UN on Iraq will always be the low point of his career. And yet, time and time again, Powell offered clues for anyone willing to pay attention that not all was well. For example, in late 2002, when Iraq agreed to inspections, there was stories in the back pages of newspapers that Powell had noted that there were those in the Bush Administration who had no plan B; they had fully expected Iraq to say no to the inspections, thus giving them the justification for war.

Since leaving office, Colin Powell's relationship with the Bush inner circle has cooled considerably. Still, of all the Bush administration figures, Colin Powell was the one we expected better of; he was the one figure with credibility. Whatever Powell's motivations for endorsing Barack Obama, however, his word still carries weight. Many people tuned in to hear what Colin Powell said:

Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama on "Meet the Press" gave the Sunday chatfest its best ratings for a political interview since 2004. "Meet the Press" averaged 6 million viewers for its Sunday morning airing,...

Other Republicans have stepped forward to endorse Barack Obama. Bush's former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan now endorses Senator Obama. Here's a list of Republicans for Obama found on the website for the Philadelphia Inquirer:

A surprising number of recognizable Republicans are reportedly supporting the Democratic nominee: Susan Eisenhower, Julie Nixon Eisenhower, Rep. Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland, former Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa, former Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Bush fund-raiser Rita Hauser, former National Review publisher Wick Allison, former National Review columnist Christopher Buckley (son of William F.), and former Reagan-Bush lawyer and pro-life legal scholar Doug Kmiec.

Note that it is in Pennsylvania that McCain is making his last flailing attempt to turn things around. I do not know the motivations of those Republicans supporting Obama. I'm sure the reasons vary. I'm sure it has much to do with the failures of the last eight years. I would like to believe that moderate Republicans and perhaps some conservatives are turning their backs on the hardcore right wing Republicans who have so damaged our country in recent years. I'm sure many are dissatisfied with McCain. And finally, some appreciate Barack Obama for who he is.

But think of it: right wing Republicans had control of the House, the Senate, the White House and pretty much the Supreme Court and their failures in retrospect have been staggering. Our prestige in the world has declined. Our economy is in tatters. What is one to make of Greenspan when he says:

“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms,” ...

(snip)

“Something which looked to be a very solid edifice and, indeed, a critical pillar to market competition and free markets did break down.

“And I think that … shocked me. I still do not fully understand why it happened.”

I think we all know what happened: the federal government, under Bush, stopped minding the store and Wall Street, drunk with greed, proceeded to pillage the American economy as well as the economy of the world. I don't know which is worse: that for years Greenspan pretended to be an economic oracle or that so much of the media and that so many Americans fell for it. And John McCain would like to give us a taste of Phil Gramm who would give us more of the same.

Vote. Whatever you do, make a statement at the ballot box. No matter how much Barack Obama might be leading in the polls, make a statement. Make a statement for the future. Make a statement for the generations. Let us see if American democracy still survives. Do it for yourself. Do it for your children and grandchildren. Whether Barack Obama is way ahead in your state or way behind, vote. Vote for the ages.

The Republican Economic Philosophy is Bankrupt

For much of the past seven years, many experts have worried that George W. Bush's policies might drive the nation over the cliff. Here's a profile of the Dow over the last year.


For the sake of the nation, let's hope things start turning around. But we may have to wait a few months. It's clear McCain has little understanding of economics. Obama has the smarts, the steady hand and the economic advisers to give us a fighting chance, but there's work to be done. As we can see from the chart, the Republicans are leading us nowhere.

Bailout Has Been Changed to 'Rescue'

The White House has changed 'bailout' to 'rescue.' So, instead of bailing out the crooks on Wall Street, we're going to rescue the crooks on Wall Street. Hope everyone feels better now.

I doubt any decent bill that addresses our systemic problems as well as providing help for those who really need it can be passed in the current environment. However, some sort of stopgap bill is probably going to have to be passed just to get us to the first week in February. Obviously, the less spent the better.

Not surprisingly, the current crisis is bringing out the bottom feeders: Newt Gingrich is back in the news and is as eager as ever to dominate right wing authoritarians, too many of whom occupy seats in Congress. They seem to remember who got them there. Here's the Huffington Post:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was working aggressively behind the scenes to defeat the Wall Street rescue plan minutes before he himself released a public statement in support of the package, NBC's Andrea Mitchell reported on Tuesday.

Yep, the same M.O. as usual—one has to give him that. Gingrich is one of the many reasons why we can't expect much seriousness from the House Republicans, though we still have to wait to see what the Senate Republicans will do.

A reader asked if there is a relationship between the credit crisis and the price of oil. The answer is yes and no. Because so many politicians, economists, bankers and corporate people don't fully understand the energy situation, the answer is largely no. These people do understand that large sums of money have been pulled out of the American housing market and its many faulty subsidiary investment schemes largely because overseas investors, mainly from Asia, need oil and are not just buying oil but trying to secure long-term sources which requires sizable investment in Africa and Asia. They do get that much. And they get that high oil prices are slowing down various sectors of the world economy (some understood it well enough to speculate dangerously and recklessly on oil). But they think of the current situation as temporary. And, in one sense, perhaps it is, but in the next twenty years we are likely to have an increasing number of these 'temporary situations' unless we recognize we have a problem and start dealing with it. So the answer is yes, but not according to those anesthetized by the usual market ideology.

In the meantime, the energy we need to run our economy still comes from oil. The oil industry, like any major business sector (well, more than most), has always had problems: oil spills, dry wells, production delays, refinery fires, financing problems etc. But we're entering an era where every problem is magnified much more than in the past. That is because the easy days of oil are over. We're in the hard days now. Here's the first of two stories from Rigzone:

As of September 29, 2008, 52 of the 3,800 offshore oil and gas production platforms have been confirmed as destroyed. Initial estimates are that the 52 destroyed production platforms produced a total of 13,300 barrels of oil per day and 90 million cubic feet of gas per day. Currently, MMS has no information on whether any of the destroyed platforms will be rebuilt by any operator.

Rebuilding platforms can be very expensive. Here's the other story:

From the operators' reports, it is estimated that approximately 57.1% of the oil production in the Gulf is shut-in. This shut-in figure for oil increased from yesterday’s figure due to operators’ errors in reporting for September 29, 2008. As of June 2008, estimated oil production from the Gulf of Mexico is 1.3 million barrels of oil per day. It is also estimated that approximately 45.7% of the natural gas production in the Gulf is shut-in.

Although it's not as bad as 2005 after Katrina, that's still a serious drop in oil production until everything gets back up (minus most of the 52 platforms). But I wouldn't want to guess whether oil prices will continue rising, falling or staying flat. Falling production usually means higher prices. But if the economy is sagging, that means lower prices. We're in an era of turbulence and turbulence at any moment is not easy to predict.

In the meantime, Washington has become a lunatic asylum so I'm not going to criticize the few sane people, almost all Democrats, who are trying to deal with an impossible situation. A real solution to the current crisis would require enough votes to overcome Bush's veto. Since a sizable proportion of House Republicans are stark raving mad and are perfectly willing to hold our economy hostage out of sheer spite, or because Gingrich said so or because Pelosi hurt their feelings, the Democrats are probably going to have to hold their nose on a ugly compromise of some sort just so we can reach next February with the economy reasonably intact. Here's some useful perspective from The Mahablog:

...from what I have read a large majority agree that the Administration’s basic approach is deeply flawed.

However, Congress more or less tweaked Paulson’s approach rather than try something completely different. They improved it mightily, according to many. But my understanding is that the smarter people in Congress figured the more conservative members would dismiss the smart approach outright. So instead of the best bill, they put together the best bill they thought they could sell to the right-wing troglodytes in the House.

And it still didn’t pass.

(snip)

As Paul Krugman and others say, probably all that can be done now is to patch something together that will keep the economy limping along until a new administration and Congress is sworn in. And pray that will be an Obama administration, because McCain clearly is out of his depth on this issue and will be no better, possibly worse, than Bush.

No one should forget that this is Bush's bill offered just weeks before an election. Bush is, after all, the leader of the Republican Party and ought to be able to get his party to go along. His heir-apparent, John McCain also supports the bailout, or so he says when he isn't talking about how strong the economy is or how he needs to suspend his campaign so he can get his photo op at the White House. And needless to say McCain too is having trouble getting his party to go along. Do we really want these same Republicans back in January with McCain as president? S.W. Anderson of Oh!Pinion summarizes the situation rather well:

So, the feeling among Pelosi and House Democrats yesterday was that if Republicans wanted a bailout, they should vote in substantial numbers to pass it, making the effort clearly bipartisan.

As the vote was held, Democrats saw many Republicans weren’t up for that. So, seeing no reason to stick their own necks out when Republicans wouldn’t, more and more Democrats voted against the bill as well. Thus, the defeat.

Today, House Democrats and Republicans are said to be working for a revised version of the bill, one that will attract the dozen or more additional votes needed to pass it.

House Democrats should explain their refusal to go out on a limb to benefit the Bush administration and Republican colleagues unwilling to do their own part.

House Republicans should put up or shut up.

My Wife's Cat Had More Foreign Policy Experience Than Sarah Palin

Those who know me know that the following story is true. Some years ago my wife worked and lived three doors down from the home of the Russian Consul General in San Francisco. She had a cat then named Bessie who liked to roam the neighborhood. From time to time my wife noticed that Bessie started coming home smelling of expensive perfume and a nice fire. Well my wife was busy then and was glad that Bessie with socializing with the neighbors. Then my wife noticed Bessie was definitely gaining weight. My wife wondered who was being so nice to Bessie? She was a chef then for a wealthy family and one day Bessie came home with a distinct smell around her whiskers that she recognized: caviar. She mentioned to several neighbors her suspicion that Bessie was visiting the Russians and getting acquainted. Sure enough, two or three times, Bessie was seen slipping through the front door as though she were an expected guest.

Eventually my wife moved on to another job (she'd been working six days a week and said enough of that). Alas, for many years, Bessie thought she was something of a queen. She was a talkative cat and we wondered sometimes what she talked about with the Russians.

By the way, the nearest Russian consulate to Alaska is in Seattle. So much for Sarah Palin's absurd notion of foreign policy experience.

In recent days, the nonsense and posturing of the McCain campaign may have much to do with the fiasco of picking Sarah Palin. A candidate's first presidential decision is the choice of a vice president. McCain has obviously failed and appears to be bent on changing the subject by sabotaging the bailout with more demands for more deregulation.

Here's the latest on the negotiations from Politico:

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson came up to the Capitol hours later to revive talks, but House Republicans did not participate, and Democrats warned that the whole process could collapse unless President Bush gets them to come to the table.

“Unless this fourth leg shows up at some point, this could fall off very quickly,” said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.).

At the White House, in fact, House Minority Leader John Boehner had bluntly warned about the lack of Republican support for the massive government intervention: “I can’t invent votes,” Boehner said. But House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) angrily accused the minority of trying to undercut Paulson by crafting a late-breaking alternative proposal—with the tacit support, Frank said, of Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

Yes, indeed, the Republican drama queen showed up at the last moment. Mr. Deregulator himself. He of the Keating Five (remember the meltdown of the S&Ls?).

Hilzoy of The Washington Monthly links to several stories. Here's a snippet she quotes from The New York Times:

Mr. Boehner pressed an alternative that involved a smaller role for the government, and Mr. McCain, whose support of the deal is critical if fellow Republicans are to sign on, declined to take a stand.

The talks broke up in angry recriminations, according to accounts provided by a participant and others who were briefed on the session, and were followed by dueling press conferences and interviews rife with partisan finger-pointing.

In the Roosevelt Room after the session, the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr. literally bent down on one knee as he pleaded with Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, not to "blow it up" by withdrawing her party's support for the package over what Ms. Pelosi derided as a Republican betrayal.

"I didn't know you were Catholic," Ms. Pelosi said, a wry reference to Mr. Paulson's kneeling, according to someone who observed the exchange. She went on: 'It's not me blowing this up, it's the Republicans."

Mr. Paulson sighed. "I know. I know.""

Shakespearean tragedy or comedy? It's hard to say. After eight years, Bush has destroyed his credibility. Other Republicans, particularly those in the House, have almost no credibility but these are the same guys who voted with Bush 90% of the time, particularly when Bush was asking for more power. Hamlet or Falstaff? MacBeth or Caliban? Beats me. The real motives of professional liars is difficult to divine. Notice the cute role that John Boehner plays. Boehner replaced the Duke of Hastert who replaced Gingrich the Grinch. Actually, Gingrich might be behind some of the nonsense: see The American Conservative:

...McCain’s stunt has been predictable (right down to Gingrich’s Romneyesque call for a “workout, not a bailout”), and it says a great deal about what these people think constitutes leadership: opportunism, trying to hog the credit for other people’s work and, above all, a mindless dedication to taking action. No doubt, if these were what made for great leaders McCain would be the new Augustus.

Laughably, Gingrich likens this to Eisenhower’s “I will go to Korea,” but unlike Eisenhower and the Korean war McCain has no credibility concerning the crisis he is supposedly addressing. In the end, knowing when you can contribute something and knowing when to avoid complicating an already difficult situation by intruding on ongoing negotiations is what separates grandstanding from leadership. It is what separates the simple egomaniacs from the ambitious pols who nonetheless have some idea what public service is. McCain’s belief that he is indispensable in a time of crisis is the surest sign that he is unfit for any office in republican government, much less the chief magistracy of the Republic.

That's a conservative speaking. Gingrich, no doubt, would love for McCain to win so Palin could be moved aside to make room for Gingrich himself, Cheney-style. Of such plots do these deceivers dream.

The Dow went up almost 200 points on Thursday. That may have been the stock market trying to recover on its own or it may have been a reaction to the belief that a deal was near. Tonight, the bad news: here's the Times again:

Washington Mutual, the giant lender that came to symbolize the excesses of the mortgage boom, was seized by federal regulators on Thursday night, in what is by far the largest bank failure in American history.

Regulators simultaneously brokered an emergency sale of virtually all of Washington Mutual, the nation’s largest savings and loan, to JPMorgan Chase for $1.9 billion, averting another potentially huge taxpayer bill for the rescue of a failing institution.

We are in a crisis that has been in the making since Ronald Reagan became president. Instead of seizing the future and facing the growing problems that face us, too many American politicians, mostly Republicans, mostly right-wing conservatives, chose the easy road of greed, corruption and business as usual. And too many Americans went along with them. With one exception, things have gotten increasingly worse year by year. That exception, and it was a mild one, was the Clinton Administration. For six of those years, opportunities were lost because of the recklessness of people like Newt Gingrich.

I have mixed feelings about the bailout. I think there might be better solutions. The main thing that worries me about the bailout is the feeling that it's based on the notion that housing prices will bounce back. I don't think so, not without inflation, and that is no way to go. We need leadership. John McCain cannot provide that leadership. Barack Obama is the better man. But Obama has made a point that is frequently overlooked. If there is to be change, the leadership has to come from the American people. And that leadership is going to require an honest evaluation of our predicament and an openness to new ideas and new ways of doing things. Because of the late hour, it may not be enough. But it will be what's necessary to come out on the other side.

McCain: The Maverick Becomes a Mackerel

In British slang, a mackerel is a fool. If we only look at McCain's actions over the last week, he qualifies. If we include his selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate, he's close to the cliff. If we try to visualize the man in charge of the economy if he wins the election, we see him and the nation in free fall.

I've been watching the news closely for weeks while working on a large editing project. Part of my current assignment in the project is to update an assessment of the world's condition. My gut reaction is that things have been happening so fast it's a bit difficult to keep up. But I can summarize the current situation in this manner: in a time of crisis, as we face a series of crises both at home and abroad, the people at the top who are currently in charge of our foreign policy have no credibility and the people in charge of our economic policy, largely the same crowd, also have no credibility. Folks, this is not how the United States normally operates.

The idea that a fading, out-of-touch McCain is somehow going to restore credibility is too painful to consider. If our nation were a bit more rational than it is at the moment, there would be a push to honor McCain for his services 35-40 years ago while urging him to retire to his ranch in Sedona where he can enjoy his millions, his houses and a steady stream of visitors. But these are not sane times.

There is far too much to summarize in a post but here's some items that catch my interest:

Everything is fine. Or not. Here's an item from Businomics:

It's OK: We've got a guarantee. The owner of an office building in London has a lease with Lehman. But don't worry. They have an insurance policy to protect them if their tenant cannot pay the rent. The insurer: AIG.

Here's a reminder of the bail-outter-in-chief's track record so far: Bush's Legacy of Squandering Taxpayer Money.

Talking Points Memo has a number of stories on the bailout proposal. Here's some gallows humor from a TPM reader:

Considering as how the proposed Wall Street bailout will be one of the most intensely lobbied efforts in American history, will there be anyone left to manage John McCain's campaign?

So far, not many economic blogs think much of the zero oversight that apparently is part of Bush's bailout. I mean, isn't the lack of oversight what got us into trouble in the first place? Here's more from the Economic Populist.

Brad DeLong, the economist from Berkeley, sometimes puts things succinctly. Here's the issue for the next five days if not the next six weeks:

John McCain chose Sarah Palin to be his vice president.

There is a 40% chance John McCain will be president on January 21, 2009.

There is no way in hell that anybody should give any extra power to any Treasury Secretary chosen by John McCain.

I beg the Democrats in congress: write a bill that makes sense.

Nightmare scenario: McCain, just looking for a trophy for his Hall of Fame, steps down if he wins the election. Sarah Palin is a poor choice for president but she takes instruction well and follows the party line. Cheney remains in town and stays at his secret location while he runs the show.

Okay, I'm joking but eight years ago our nation had a surplus, we were at peace, and Wall Street wasn't completely overrun by crooks. (sigh)

Compassionate Conservative = George W. Bush = John McCain = Maverick

Mitt Romney: "I'm the Candidate of Change"
John McCain: "I'm the Candidate of Change"

Craig: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ



The Republican side of the 2008 campaign is bizarre one night and boring the next.

I have a confession to make. While I want Barack Obama to win and hope very much he does since our country is in crisis and since wasting more time is something we cannot afford, a small part of me nevertheless wouldn't mind John McCain winning. Why? Because if the American people don't get that our nation is in trouble and that we need to get serious about changing course, then it might as well be McCain. George W. Bush has so damaged our country that we will be feeling the effects for some time to come. Even the current economic downturn may not bottom out until another two or three years down the road. If Americans this year are not ready to understand what deep shit we're in, they might as well elect McCain and see how bad it can get. Because McCain ain't got a clue.

I know it's an odd thing to say, but it's true. There's no point electing Barack Obama unless Americans understand the work that needs to be done. There's hope but only if we start looking at the world as it is and not as the Republican leadership imagines it to be.

Poor McCain: He Has So Many Houses....

For most Americans, it's not hard to remember how many homes we rent or own (my wife and I rent one apartment). Now I know a small handful of very talented people who own more than one home and who seem able to remember how many they have. As many know, hero John McCain hit the jackpot after leaving his first wife for a beer heiress now worth $100 million. Okay, maybe it doesn't take much talent to be a beer heiress but then it doesn't much talent to know how many homes are in the family. Politico has the story:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in an interview Wednesday that he was uncertain how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own.

"I think — I'll have my staff get to you," McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M. "It's condominiums where — I'll have them get to you."

Now was McCain talking about his political staff or his housing staff? Mr. Average Joe, or so McCain would like people to believe, has a budget for a house staff that is more than five times what the average family makes; here the story from Talking Points Memo:

From 2006 to 2007, the McCain's budget for household staff went up roughly 50% from $184,000 to $273,000 ...

Yes, Mr. Average Joe likes to remind people that these are Cindy's homes, not his. That she was filthy rich when he married her seems not to have been noticed by the then future senator. Like the current president, John McCain has a habit of forgetting inconvenient facts such as the name of the Czech Republic or the fact that the al Qaida terrorists are Sunnis, not Shiites (it would take hours to list all the inconvenient facts that McCain garbles or ignores; it is, above all, the one place where he most resembles George W. Bush). Like the failed president currently sitting in the White House, McCain is not, I repeat, not, an average Joe. Firedoglake offers a bit of perspective:

The recent news that John Sidney McCain III is so frickin' rich he can't keep track of all of his domiciles is really no news to those of us who have been paying attention. This is a man, mind you, who is the Fortunate Son and Grandson of two admirals, and whose great-great-grandfather was a Mississippi plantation owner with 52 slaves and 2000 acres in the days before the Civil War. (McCain professed not to have known this when it was brought to his attention in 2000, but his cousin, author Elizabeth Spencer, mentions the McCain family's slaves in her family memoir Landscapes of the Heart, a book John McCain had admitted to reading by the time the 2000 campaign had rolled around.)

It was McCain's silver-spoon background and admiral daddy that got him into the prestigious Navy Air Pilot Flight Training program despite graduating 894th in his Annapolis class of 899.

Let's remember that George W. Bush would never have gotten into the champagne division of the national guard if it were not for his daddy as well. Now McCain served his country and his time as a POW made him a hero. After becoming a senator and marrying a wealthy wife, he clearly has come far in the last thirty-five years. But no one should pretend that our country needs a third term of George W. Bush which is exactly what McCain offers. This is not the McCain of 2000; this is the McCain that struck a Faustian bargain with Bush in 2004 and hasn't looked back since.

Karl Rove is still around. His method of protecting his candidate is to put his weaknesses on the other guy. If anyone is paying attention, it's not hard to figure out that McCain is the elitist in the 2008 campaign. Here's a brief description of just one of the McCain homes (via Raw Story):

In Phoenix, the McCains' primary residence is a nearly 7,000 square foot condominium worth about $4.66 million. The McCains purchased two condos in 2006 and knocked down some walls to create the massive space in a high-rise that features valet parking, a rooftop swimming pool, personal spa services and on-staff housekeepers, among other amenities.

That's just one home. Among others, John W. McBush and his wife Cindy also have a 14 acre ranch with several homes in Sedona, a town famous for its retirees. Now there's a thought. Given McCain's famous temper and his desire to go to war with Iran and Russia and whoever else he's mad at that day, the nation would be better off if he retired to the quiet and beautiful red rock country of Arizona rather than submit himself to the pressure cooker of the White House. But McCain is ambitious and, like many prominent Republicans, he nurses resentments. That star he puts in many of his ads begs a question: does he resent that he never made admiral? The reality is that McCain is stuck in the past. He's still fighting Vietnam, he's still fighting the Cold War, he wants to win something in Iraq but can't define what it is. Listen to him very carefully: sometimes he's still fighting World War II. We are facing new challenges in the 21st century; it's time for a new crew in Washington. If this country is to move forward, it's time.

Items for the "World Is Stark Raving Mad' File

It was no accident that the theater of the absurd followed World War II, the greatest crisis of the 20th century. Art followed more than twenty years of absurd performances and disasters that began with Germans carrying their money in wheelbarrows during hyperinflation and ended shortly after Britons decided they had had enough of colonialism and Winston Churchill's 'India problem' and kicked the victorious prime minister out of office shortly after the allies defeated Germany.

The difference between then and now is that during the 1930s, a growing number of journalists covered the looming disaster of World War II with a tenacity that has not been seen for many years now, at least not in American mainstream press. This past week, the media spent a day talking about Barack Obama's lack of a pet and what that meant in the race for the White House. If you're in the future, and reading this twenty years from now while taking a break from cleaning up the mess we made, here is how we spent our time as we faced a series of largely self-inflicted crises:

As we've reported here before, Republican presidential candidate John McCain has 24 pets, while Democratic contender Barack Obama has none.

It isn't just newspapers, news shows and journalists who've gone stark raving mad. I'm sometimes inclined to think there's something in the water the Environmental Protection Agency hasn't noticed yet. Here's a story from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat about the last of the rugged individualists or something like that:

Debra Due, 43, was trying to eliminate mice in a travel trailer on her property for a new tenant ... said Mendocino County Sheriff’s Capt. Kurt Smallcomb.

(snip)

At about 1:20 a.m. July 3, Due, who was intoxicated, went down to the trailer with her gun, holstered under her left arm, Smallcomb said.

“Being a good landlord, she comes down to take care of this mouse problem,” he said.

But as she drew the revolver from its holster, it slipped from her hand, hit the floor and fired, Smallcomb said.

The bullet went through the woman’s right kneecap then struck a set of keys hanging on the man’s belt loop. The bullet glanced off the keys and tore a hole in the man’s pants, he said.

The bullet traveled between the man’s pants and his under shorts, grazing his groin area before coming to rest in his coin pocket, from where it was recovered for evidence, Smallcomb said.

Due was back home after a brief visit to the hospital and is laying low. The same cannot be said about Phil Gramm, former senator, wealthy right wing ranconteur and McCain adviser. Here's that story:

In an interview with the Washington Times, former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm termed the current economic slowdown "a mental recession."

(snip)

And then he showed why his own presidential bid in 1996 quickly crashed and burned, calling the United States "a nation of whiners."

The only difference between Gramm and McCain is that Gramm never developed the Republican art of telling people what they want to hear while doing the opposite behind their backs.

Republicanism, by the way, runs deep in the Gramm family. Because of federal regulations she sneaked in, Gramm's wife is partly responsible for the Enron debacle and the creative accounting that led to Enron's downfall while various frauds were perpetuated against millions of Americans (yes, I know, I said millions).

Cindy McCain, on the other hand, is only guilty of bankrolling her husband's campaign, though probably in ways that the press hasn't even come close to exploring yet. The truth is that Cindy's hundred million doesn't exactly make John McCain an average Joe. That might explain another McCain gaffe in response to Gramm's comments about whining. McCain, in an effort to be more sympathetic to voters, acknowledged that many families are having a hard time paying for their children's education. Let that sink in for a moment.

Keep in mind that John is perfectly willing to tell people what they want to hear. But he's been around Cindy's hundred million for so long, he's clueless. He can't even tell a good yarn. He's oblivious to the fact that millions of Americans are having trouble putting food on the table. Millions of seniors are trying to figure out how to pay for their medication. Millions of Americans can't pay for health insurance. Millions of Americans are paying through their nose for gas so they can go to work, assuming they still have a job. Millions of Americans are worried about rising food prices. Millions of Americans are worried they may lose their home. These days it's a luxury to be able to wonder if you can afford your child's education. But in this world that has gone stark raving mad, it's Barack Obama who's the elitist.

But absurdity is not restricted to Americans. The Iranians released pictures of a missile launch this past week. One picture showed four missiles being launched. Problem? The photo was photoshopped. Then, in some sort of Iranian press snafu, a second picture showed up showing only three of four missiles being launched and, except for the area that's photoshopped, it's exactly the same picture as the first, confirming the photoshop theory. So either the Iranians are just as incompetent as the White House or Dick Cheney hired a teenager to fake both pictures which would be Dick Cheney's only significant accomplishment in seven and a half years.

Did I mention that the price of oil almost reached $150/barrel on fears of an attack on Iran? There's been lots of talk about speculators. Given the climate of fear fostered by right-wing conservatives, would it surprise anyone that the speculators are cronies of Bush? In 2006, the price of oil dropped in the two months before the midterm elections. Will it happen again? Maybe. Maybe not. Fear is a potent weapon of the far right and is just about all a failed president like Bush has left to have any chance of continuing his 'legacy.' The McCain/Bush axis is real, even if Bush has to fool the voters once more by letting McCain feign some distance. For now, the Bush Administration seems to be backing away from any possible attack on Iran. But they have not closed the door fully on the Israelis perhaps doing something that might, after all, make Israeli voters forget Olmert's corruption problems.

Did I mention that the Russians and Chinese don't pay much attention to us anymore? Mention corruption or human rights to them and you hear guffaws.

In these times, what is certain is this: the theater of the absurd has returned. We will see more of it in the coming months.

Most Failed President in American History Wants a Successor

It must be small solace to James Buchanan: he is no longer the worst president in American history. A poll by the Los Angeles Times has Bush down to an approval rating of 23%. That's close to the 25% of Americans that expert Bob Altemeyer says are authoritarian followers (see John Dean's Conservatives without Conscience). Such followers respond to the kind of fear-mongering used by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay and Karl Rove. John McCain, who is receiving considerable help from the White House, shows clear signs of following in Bush's footsteps.

Authoritarian followers like their politics expressed in black and white terms and they get annoyed if everyone else doesn't follow the party line by wearing a flag pin. It's embarrassing that the media still jumps when frauds like Rush Limbaugh, Bill Kristol and Ann Coulter try to spin their nonsense on the American people. No, Mr. Limbaugh, torture is not a fraternity hazing. No, Ms. Coulture, liberals are not the enemy —not unless a free press, social security, medicare and democracy are now considered unAmerican. No, Mr. Kristol, we do not need a third war in Iran after the blunders and incompetence of Iraq, and the failure to finish the war in Afghanistan (29 Americans have died in Iraq this month and about 20 Americans have died in Afghanistan in the last 30 days where the toll per year has been climbing since the invasion in Iraq).

Bush's foreign policy is sufficient reason for his presidency to be listed among the worst. Now we have the economy to worry about. Here's the latest economic news from CNN:

U.S. stocks fell sharply Thursday with the blue-chip index enduring its worst June so far since 1930, and plunging to its lowest finish since Sept. 11, 2006, after getting slammed hard as crude soared to new highs and Goldman Sachs disparaged U.S. brokers and advised selling General Motors Corp.

The Dow Jones fell over 358 points on Thursday. The stock markets in the US would be lower than they are except for three factors. First, the hijinks of Bush and Alan Greenspan a few years back have unleashed inflation making the quarterly reports a little harder to read after the price increases of the last year. Second, the dollar has been devalued making it easier for foreigners to buy stocks (buying American companies seems preferable to buying American goods). Third, after getting burned by the credit crisis, foreign stock exchanges have been having their own problems thus making US markets relatively attractive, at least by comparison. We are of course in a global economic crisis that is reflected by the price of oil which rose to $140/barrel today.

And still there are Republicans touting that the economy is doing fine. After all, the economy grew by 1% in the first quarter this year. If the growth was real, which I doubt, it is likely the profits went straight into the pockets of America's billionaires while the hordes of Bush cronies got their share of the plunder. One thing for sure is that most Americans did not benefit from that "growth." Nor did the cities, counties and states who are having trouble meeting their budgets. What is also clear is that Bush and the leadership of the Republican Party have absolutely no plan for putting America's future on a more sound basis except to continue the stupidity of the corporate bottom line which is really nothing more than a scam to take money from our future and line the pockets of the usual suspects. And John McCain admits he doesn't know much about the economy.

In the meantime, the Supreme Court is doing it's best to destroy any notion that the American people run the country. No, according to the Supreme Court, the wealthy not only run our country but they have special privileges and a special status that must be protected by the courts. If corporations incur enormous damage on the American people, the Supreme Court will kindly limit the damages. Here's a story from the San Jose Mercury that appeared in the Los Angeles Times:

The court ruled that Exxon Mobil must pay $507 million - about one-tenth of the original jury award - to punish it for recklessly putting a known alcoholic in charge of a supertanker traveling a treacherous channel.

The justices described Exxon's conduct as "worse than negligent, but less than malicious."

Capt. Joseph Hazelwood had been drinking and was not on the bridge when the Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef in March 1989, spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound.

(snip)

But some lawmakers and environmentalists faulted the court for giving a big-money reprieve to one of the world's richest companies. Exxon Mobil earned more than $10 billion in profits in the first quarter of 2008.

"This ruling is another in a line of cases where this Supreme Court has misconstrued congressional intent to benefit large corporations," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

Warner Chabot of the environmental group Ocean Conservancy was stunned by the lesser amount that Exxon would have to pay.

"That's pocket change. They can turn over one cushion on their leather couch and find that," said Chabot, whose group has offices in San Francisco. He worried the amount would not motivate companies to adopt the strictest environmental protocols. [Apologies for the extensive quote but the decision was truly an obscenity and a clear violation of American values.]

I'm no expert but I know a thing or two about oil spills. My wife and I were volunteers for over ten years for an organization that watches for oil spills and documents the damage when a spill happens. The first thing you learn is that oil spills are always more damaging than what is reported by the media. That's understandable since the media conglomerates are easily intimidated by other corporations and sometimes by their own corporate heads.

America cannot continue with business as usual. The brutal fact is that the world cannot continue with business as usual. We need leadership. Not the top down leadership we've been getting for the last 28 years that is usually bought and paid for by the wealthy. We need a bottom up leadership that restores America's future and democracy. Is Barack Obama that leader? I honestly don't know. But I have no doubt whatsoever that he will be a vast improvement over a Bush third term. Will we continue to have problems? Yes. We have a conservative Supreme Court that will continue to thwart the will of the American people to restore a more just and fair society. We have a Congress with too many members on the take and too many members who have forgotten that they serve the American people. The reality is that it will take a generation to repair the damage that has been done in Washington. Many of us will be gone by them. It will be up to younger people to continue on. Their future is in peril.

The Failures of Bush and the Republican Leadership

The revelations just keep on coming. We are in an election season to see if our nation will change course and recover the principles our nation was founded on or whether Bush will have a de facto third term through Senator John McCain. The situation is grim. In their final year in office, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have still not come clean with the American people. They lied their way into a war our nation did not need. They have committed crimes or encouraged the committing of crimes by others that have damaged the reputation of the United States and that have violated the U.S. Constitution. They have engaged in a level of cronyism not seen since the 1920s.

The character of the president and the vice president are well enough known in their eighth year in office that we know they are incapable of accepting responsibility for their actions and incapable of telling the American people the truth. Most of the leadership of the Republican Party has also turned away from principles that have often guided our nation for over two hundred years. In fact, some Republicans who have been in leadership positions at some point in the last few years are now more concerned about lobbying for major corporations or foreign governments and soaking the American people for every penny they can get (the bigger the favor they do for their client, the bigger the fee).

Even if Barack Obama gets elected, our nation will have a chance if, and only if, a large number of progressive Democrats win this fall. The Democratic Party is not without its problems. The same crooked business interests that have been recruiting and cultivating the members of the new Republican Party over the last thirty years have also been doing their best to find friendly Democrats in states and districts where Republicans are not likely to win. We can see a small number of these 'friendly' Democrats in the House and Senate. The real question is whether Americans understand what is at stake.

The new Scott McClellan, who doesn't squirm, twist and equivocate like he did when he was Bush's press secretary, has said the Bush Administration used propaganda to get us into the war in Iraq and the American press did not do nearly enough to question the premises for war. Think back a couple of weeks. Here's the response the Bush Administration had to McClellan's revelations (from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution):

White House aides seemed stunned by the scathing tone of [McClellan's] book, and Bush press secretary Dana Perino issued a statement that was highly critical of their former colleague.

"Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House," she said. "For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was press secretary, we are puzzled. It is sad - this is not the Scott we knew."

Perino said the reports on the book had been described to Bush, and that she did not expect him to comment. "He has more pressing matters than to spend time commenting on books by former staffers," she said.

The president has more pressing matters than telling the American people the truth. Sad indeed. For those Americans paying attention, we got a dose of the truth this week in Congressional testimony by Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell (his testimony can be found at The Gavel and through Think Progress); he spoke about Abu Ghraib, torture and the particular failures of Cheney and Rumsfeld:

Mr. Chairman, let me back up for a moment and tell you why this was a particularly important effort for me and I believe for Secretary Powell as well. Clearly, we were—we are—both soldiers. Moreover, we are both veterans of the war in Vietnam and we are both students of military history. We both know how soldiers go astray in the heat of battle, with buddies being killed and wounded all around—particularly in wars that seem to have no end, no light at the end of the tunnel.

In Vietnam, as a first lieutenant and a captain of Infantry, on several occasions I had to restrain my soldiers, even one or two of my officers. When higher authorities took such actions as declaring free fire zones—meaning that anything that moved in that zone could be killed—and you came upon a 12-year old girl on a jungle path in that zone, it was clear you were not going to follow orders. But some situations were not so black and white and you had to be always on guard against your soldiers slipping over the edge. As their leader, it was incumbent upon me to set the example—and that meant sometimes reprimanding or punishing a soldier who broke the rules. In all cases, it meant that I personally followed the rules and not just by "breaking" the so-called rules of engagement, as in the designated free fire zone, but by following the rules that had been ingrained in me by my parents, by my schools, by my church, and by the U.S. Army in classes about the Geneva Conventions and what we called the law of land warfare. I had been taught and I firmly believed when I took the oath of an officer and swore to support and defend the Constitution, that American soldiers were different and that much of their fighting strength and spirit came from that difference and that much of that difference was wrapped up in our humaneness and our respect for the rights of all.

So, Mr. Chairman, when I saw the first photographs from the prison at Abu Ghraib, I had two immediate reactions. First, I knew such things could happen. Second, I knew such things were wrong and I knew that leadership had failed. What I did not know, was on what level that leadership had failed. So I set out to find the answer.

(snip)

...echoing the President and the Vice President's own words, the word went out that the gloves were off, and we were going to have to work "sort of the dark side". That same day at Camp David, September 16, 2001, when the Vice President referred to the dark side, he also told Tim Russert: "...it's going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective."

These words reminded me of what Undersecretary of Defense Robert Lovett had argued as the Cold War was heating up, after the Soviets had developed and tested a nuclear weapon in 1949. Lovett argued in 1950 that the nation was "in a war worse than any we have ever experienced" and that this meant doing away with the "sharp line between democratic principles and immoral actions...." Lovett considered such distinctions as a "dangerous and unnecessary handicap" in the struggle with communism. He said he wanted to fight the Soviets “with no holds barred....". In my view, it was fortunate for the nation that Truman did not follow Lovett's advice.

But many in the Pentagon, and eventually the armed forces, did seem to follow the advice, however implicit, of Lovett's reincarnation in 2001, Vice President Cheney. In short, the Pentagon needed intelligence; people should go out and get it. And the usual rules were not going to apply; new rules would be forthcoming. Even as a result of my early investigations at the State Department, this overriding reality was clear. But somewhere in that early part of 2002, some of the principals also began to worry about legalities. It was likely earlier even but I could find nothing in late 2001. Perhaps someday others will.

(snip)

It's my strong view that the legal proceedings were led by David Addington, who turned to Jay Bybee and John Yoo at the Department of Justice, and Alberto Gonzales in the White House, then counselor to the President.

These were the lawyers who set the legal background against which other-than-standard interrogation methods would be explained away as "in accord with the Geneva Conventions", "not constituting torture", "fully within the Article II powers of the Commander-in Chief", and so forth. At Defense, Jim Haynes and Douglas Feith would adapt these views to their needs at the Pentagon. Indeed, in the recent book Torture Team by English barrister Philippe Sands, in extended interviews Mr. Feith appears to express no small degree of pride in having helped make the Geneva Conventions adaptable to the needs of the new interrogation regime. In my view, this was done largely through artifice not unlike the angels sitting on the pinhead. Such artifice may appeal to certain lawyers but I assure you soldiers have no use for it for they know how dangerous such arguments are when put to the hard act of execution in the field.

Meanwhile, the operational end of this affair was orchestrated by the Secretary of Defense and his subordinates, Haynes, Feith, Stephen Cambone and I'm quite certain others. Certain of these individuals, including Addington, even visited the prison at Guantánamo Bay in September 2002 to get a better grip on what was happening to acquire actionable intelligence and to inform their own views about what was possible.

There has been an argument that U.S. Southern Command queried the Defense Department with respect to interrogation procedures for GITMO, and thus the impetus for the new procedures came from the field. There is a paper trail that seems to have been laid down to support that. What I found, however, was that Southern Command's query was expected (set up perhaps?) and that OSD General Counsel, in league with the others in the legal group, had already worked up what the legal position was going to be. In short, there were people in DOD at the highest level who knew what they wanted: actionable intelligence. They also knew, or thought they knew, that the only way they were going to get it from battle-hardened al Qa'ida operatives was to use harsh interrogation methods. And that's the bottom line.

Depressingly to me, these men also seemed to have the cavalier disregard for any innocents who might be caught up in this process that one often finds in men safely to the rear of the real action. Soldiers call such men "REMFs". I won’t elaborate on that acronym.

(snip)

Moreover, this was a man—and these were men—who could not bring the challenge he thought he was confronting to the legislative branch and ask for relief. To come to the people's representatives, and through them to the people, was beneath this group. They would not deign to ask the legislature to change the rules for the Armed Forces—a legislature vested by our Constitution with the power to "make Rules concerning Captures on land and water" and "To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces." Instead, they made the rules all by themselves in secret.

This is damning testimony. And yet, if anything, I believe Wilkerson lets Bush off too easily. And he could have been harder on Cheney and Rumsfeld. But Wilkerson is restricting himself to documentation that he has been able to accumulate. It is certainly more documentation than Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld ever hoped that anyone would acquire.

Major General Antonio Taguba was the lead investigator for the army into the Abu Ghraib scandal. He is an honest man who paid for his honesty with his career when he failed to participate in a coverup. Last year, Sy Hersh interviewed Taguba for the New Yorker; here are some excerpts:

In a series of interviews early this year, the first he has given, Taguba told me that he understood when he began the inquiry that it could damage his career; early on, a senior general in Iraq had pointed out to him that the abused detainees were “only Iraqis.” Even so, he was not prepared for the greeting he received when he was finally ushered in.

“Here . . . comes . . . that famous General Taguba—of the Taguba report!” Rumsfeld declared, in a mocking voice. The meeting was attended by Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld’s deputy; Stephen Cambone, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (J.C.S.); and General Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, along with Craddock and other officials.

(snip)

[Major General Mike] Myatt followed Taguba’s involvement in the Abu Ghraib inquiry, and said, “I was so proud of him. I told him, ‘Tony, you’ve maintained yourself, and your integrity.’ ”

Taguba got a different message, however, from other officers, among them General John Abizaid, then the head of Central Command. A few weeks after his report became public, Taguba, who was still in Kuwait, was in the back seat of a Mercedes sedan with Abizaid. Abizaid’s driver and his interpreter, who also served as a bodyguard, were in front. Abizaid turned to Taguba and issued a quiet warning: “You and your report will be investigated.”

“I wasn’t angry about what he said but disappointed that he would say that to me,” Taguba said. “I’d been in the Army thirty-two years by then, and it was the first time that I thought I was in the Mafia.”

(snip)

Taguba came to believe that Lieutenant General Sanchez, the Army commander in Iraq, and some of the generals assigned to the military headquarters in Baghdad had extensive knowledge of the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib even before Joseph Darby came forward with the CD. Taguba was aware that in the fall of 2003—when much of the abuse took place—Sanchez routinely visited the prison, and witnessed at least one interrogation. According to Taguba, “Sanchez knew exactly what was going on.”

Recently Sanchez offered a choice quotation from the president (quote highlighted by Michael Abramowitz of The Washington Post):

Among the anecdotes in "Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story" is an arresting portrait of Bush after four contractors were killed in Fallujah in 2004, triggering a fierce U.S. response that was reportedly egged on by the president.

During a videoconference with his national security team and generals, Sanchez writes, Bush launched into what he described as a "confused" pep talk:

"Kick ass!" he quotes the president as saying. "If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can't send that message. It's an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal."

"There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!"

A White House spokesman had no comment.

But Sanzchez knew what was going on. As did many others. No doubt Abu Ghraib was toxic and endangered more careers than just that of the lead investigator.

In a preface to Broken Laws, Broken Lives, a report by Physicians for Human Rights that details torture by the U.S., Taguba writes about the torture that took place in Iraq and elsewhere:

In order for these individuals to suffer the wanton cruelty to which they were subjected, a government policy was promulgated to the field whereby the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice were disregarded. The UN Convention Against Torture was indiscriminately ignored. And the healing professions, including physicians and psychologists, became complicit in the willful infliction of harm against those the Hippocratic Oath demands they protect.

After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.

Lt. Col Larry Wilkerson speaks eloquently about what is right and what is wrong. Major General Antonio Taguba understood his duty to the constitution and the law. The John McCain of 2000 seemed to understand. I do not know where John McCain stands in this important election year. But the signs are not good. A Commander-in-Chief who doesn't know the difference between Shiites or Sunnis is worrisome. And McCain talks of staying in Iraq for a hundred years. He totally backs Bush on the war. He is unable to acknowledge the lies that got us into this war.

In short, John McCain is incapable of holding George W. Bush accountable and that in itself suggests it is time for change in Washington.

Democrats Realizing They Must Unite As National Crisis Deepens

Let's see. The stock market on Friday went down almost 400 points. At one point, the price of oil jumped 11 dollars a barrel before settling down at a little over 138 dollars a barrel. An incompetent president with a flawed ideology will continue to run the country into the ditch for a few more months. Jobs are still being outsourced overseas. Joblessness and debt are growing. City, county and state budgets are suffering a serious shortfall this year thus endangering education, safe roads and public services. The credit markets are in a mess despite some successful attempts to mitigate some of the damage (the corrections in Washington were slow in coming, however, which only deepened the crisis last summer). We are still at war in Iraq and the evidence only grows stronger that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice lied to the country about the need for war in Iraq.

Scott McClellan whose new book confirms that indeed Bush, Rove and Cheney have been lying to the American people, particularly about the outing of Valerie Plame, is being villified by a Republican leadership that has lost its moral compass. And the media is still playing games. For example, CNN carries a first person article by a former Bush official who wastes no time calling McClellan a liar. I'm not even bothering to post an excerpt. You can check the link yourself. There was a time when journalism automatically carried both sides of the story. They would check the background of people participating in a smear job. They would check all sides of the story and if there were truth to either side of the story they weren't shy about making sure the truth didn't wind up rolling under the bed somewhere. CNN has stacked the cards. McClellan, who was there, is telling his side. And CNN matches several administration figures against him along with Bob Dole who like several others is in no position to understand what happened. The people at CNN are not stupid. They know there is a concerted, organized effort to undermine McClellan's credibility.

I wish some blogger with more time and resources than I have at the moment would hunt up video footage of some of McClellan's vintage press briefings and compare those briefings with how the man is now talking. The difference is striking and telling. Of all the spokespeople for the Bush Administration, McClellan always squirmed the most. He never looked comfortable though he clearly deceived the American people at times. But his deceptions were largely misdirections, changing the subject and playing rope-a-dope. Go back and watch the footage. It was rare that he told an outright lie and the ones he told he claims were what was said to him.

Look at him today. My wife noticed it first: McClellan is at peace with himself. Sometimes he's tentative as if he's making sure he's got it right but he's consistent, relaxed and frankly telling us what millions of Americans figured out a long time ago. That's why CNN's reporting has been so shabby at times. We know the president and his top advisers lied about Iraq. We know the president and his top advisers lied about Valerie Plame.

The lies, incompetence and failures continue. Now John McCain is coming out and saying it's okay for the president to break the law and spy on Americans without getting a warrant. Too many Americans have forgotten what that means. The Germans haven't forgotten. Laura Rozen of War and Piece notes this story in Reuters:

A spate of chilling snooping scandals involving some of their country's biggest corporations has unsettled Germans who have not forgotten the dark days of the Cold War.

Revelations by Deutsche Telekom, Europe's biggest telecommunications firm, that it illegally monitored phone records in 2005 have reawakened memories of communist East Germany's Stasi secret police and even Hitler's Gestapo.

(snip)

"The German fear, the deep-seated mistrust of people towards those in power and institutions is all too understandable given the scale of Telekomgate," wrote Der Spiegel weekly, which broke the story last week and splashed "Big Brother" on its cover.

The Germans remember and people like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have forgotten, or don't care. Dick and George don't care about a lot of things. It's hard to keep track of all the things they don't care about. But the supporters of Hillary Clinton care deeply about the issues and what is happening in the country. The supporters of Barack Obama also care deeply about the issues and what is happening in the country. When passions are strong, and mistakes are made, there are going to be hard feelings but Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama care about things that Dick and George never understood. The party is already beginning the healing. There may be missteps but the Democratic party will heal. Barack Obama now has the majority of the delegates and he now leads the Democratic party. Hillary Clinton has a role to play this fall whether she is selected as vice president or not. I hope Bill Clinton is out there as well. He also has a role to play.

We can't be certain who will win in the fall. And we can't count on help from network talking heads who are more interested in games and silliness and their seven and sometimes eight figure salaries. But we can be certain of this: the American crisis is deepening and will deepen seriously if John McCain fulfills a de facto third term for President Bush. McCain is no longer a maverick, assuming he ever was. In the spring of 2004, McCain made his devil's pact with Bush and Rove. That has not changed. The only thing that has changed rather frequently is the packaging. George W. Bush sold us a bill of goods in 2000. He lied about who he was. We knew who he was in 2004 and he still sold us a bill of goods by running on fear.

I fully support Barack Obama. I have seen him grow and become a better candidate. He has a terrific team. If he wins, the streets will not be paved with gold. No one should have any illusions. There is still hope for our country but it's going to take work. As many Democrats, independents and even a few Republicans have been saying, it's time to take our country back.

The Real Appeasers: Bush and Company

George W. Bush went to a foreign land to launch a political attack against the Democrats. Any number of news sources have broken the story. Here's Think Progress commenting on a CNN story:

While delivering an address before the Israeli parliament commemorating the 60th anniversary of Israel, President Bush said that Sen. Barack Obama and Democrats favor a policy of appeasement toward terrorists. CNN reports that Bush was comparing Obama to “other U.S. leaders back in the run-up to World War II who appeased the Nazis.”

In his speech, Bush said, “As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

The guy who called himself a uniter, not a divider, has broken every bipartisan rule of the last seventy years. The Decider in Chief has led us into a war we did not need in Iraq and failed to prosecute effectively the war in Afghanistan. He is now itching to start a third war to cover up his incompetence. It's too bad there isn't someone at the White House who puts up a new mirror every time a president tries to blame someone else for his blunders; by now the White House would have a thousand images of Bush pointing back at himself. Personally, given his behavior in recent days, I don't think Bush cares anymore. His arrogant and useless behavior will continue until January. The American people should have impeached Bush four years and ten months ago when it not only became obvious that there were no WMDs in Iraq but when it became obvious that the White House had deliberately lied about the evidence. Republicans in Congress failed to apply the US Constitution to a law-breaking president. Sorry, but I would call that appeasement.

Here's the Merriam-Webster definition of 'appease' that applies here: "pacify, conciliate: esp : to buy off (an aggressor) by concessions usu. at the sacrifice of principles." The Republican leaders of Congress in the last eight years have had no principles. If Bush wanted something, no matter how wrong it was, torture, multiple wars, privatization contracts for cronies, the Republicans appeased him.

But the reality gets even worse. In America, there are good responsible businesses and there are bad businesses that are not only greedy but bad for America's democracy and America's long term interests. Bush and his Republican friends in Congress have appeased the worst of American business. I'm talking about guys who could care less about their workers, their customers or their neighbors. Bush and Cheney have both appeased the most anti-social corporations in America: the Enrons, the Halliburtons, the Blackwaters and so on.

The way I see it appeasement is turning your back on the most urgent problems of our era. Those two oil guys, Bush and Cheney, have turned their backs on doing anything about the energy problem. We've known for thirty years that we have a problem. We've known for the last ten years that the problem is getting worse. And Bush and Cheney are too busy appeasing the oil and coal companies to think about tomorrow. Appeasement is about procrastination. It is about putting off until tomorrow what you know has to be done today.

When it comes to global warming, Bush finally admits there's a problem, after seven long years. And his solution? More studies, vague goals, more procrastination. More appeasement of the worst of American business. Time is running out and Bush will end up wasting eight years.

Some may say appeasement is only about foreign policy threats. In other words, don't give in to foreign aggression. But Bush ran away from his foreign policy obligation to pursue Osama bin Laden and instead pursued a personal obsession about Iraq (McCain isn't far behind. He still obsesses about Vietnam). Seven years later, Osama bin Laden is still free. The sad truth is that appeasement is more often a Republican buzz word to cover up incompetence, corruption and flawed policies.

The reality is that Bush has done enormous harm to our national interests. He has alienated our allies and created new enemies. He has refused to talk when diplomacy could have had real value. During the Cold War, diplomacy saved this country from all-out nuclear war with the Soviet Union. And the Soviet Union eventually fell. But the president has done harm in other areas. Above all else, Bush has damaged our economy, making it more difficult to pursue any number of policies. Bush has even outsourced a certain percentage of our national defense requirements to companies in foreign countries. Outsourcing undermines American jobs and American know-how and in a time of crisis it could jeopardize our national defense. Heavy dependence on foreign oil and a lack of a sound energy policy also puts our nation at risk.

Bush's failed presidency and leadership have much to do with perpetuating the worst of American business because—it can't be said often enough—the worst players around are willing to pay for political favors. We used to call it bribery and corruption. The leaders of the Republican Party now call it 'free speech' and 'campaign contributions' even as they exploit every loophole in the law and then more.

Here's a little dose of reality: if elected, John McCain will not be as bad as George W. Bush. He will give us less nonsense. His wars might be more competently fought. His social policies might not be as draconian. His tax policies will not be as ruinous. He may slow down the outsourcing of jobs overseas a touch. And his fantasies will not be as onerous. But our country does not need a little less of George W. Bush. We need a clean break. And we need to put behind us the hysterical claims of right wing Republican politicians in Congress. Look, there's nothing wrong with a little flag waving—we do it every Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Veterans Day. But what is it with right wing politicians and their flag pins while their business friends show what they think of patriotism by overcharging the Pentagon, making shoddy products and putting their obscene profits in offshore accounts? I think most Americans are getting tired of the disconnect.

We need a Washington that belongs to all the people again and not just the loud and the few. The next president is going to have to pay as much attention to Appalachia as New Orleans, as much attention to children as seniors, as much attention to small towns as big cities, as much attention to small businesses as major corporations. Those companies that create the most quality jobs in America should get lots of attention. We're at a point where big business needs to rejoin America and turn its back on the most anti-social elements of the business community.

George W. Bush will go down as the most failed president in American history. He has turned his back repeatedly on opportunities to reform his behavior. I don't know who John McCain really is. Suffice to say that John McCain has three positions for every issue, loves his lobbyists and loves telling TV pundits what they want to hear before going off and doing something else. Americans need much more than that. Hillary Clinton, for one, would make a fine president. But I believe Barack Obama would be a better one. He's a pragmatist, and like John Edwards, he understands the times. Like many of us, he sees what's coming and knows that if we are to have a future, we need to move on.

The McCain Illusion

Like many people back in 2000, I bought somewhat into the notion that Senator John McCain was a maverick Republican and an independent voice. Until early 2004, McCain somewhat maintained that reputation by criticizing various aspects of Bush's Iraq policy. Of course, given the acrimony of the 2000 campaign, there was no love lost between McCain and Bush.

But a funny thing happened in 2004. The details are still somewhat fuzzy and there are variations on the story but there were rumors and stories in 2004 that John Kerry had approached McCain about a bipartisan ticket with McCain as the vice president. Some say that it was McCain who approached Kerry but that doesn't make too much sense unless it was a cold calculation on McCain's part that was really directed at Bush. However, if it was McCain that was asked, Kerry may have unintentionally called McCain's bluff. In reality, McCain is no bipartisan maverick and perhaps never was even if he crossed the aisle now and then to work with others on joint bills as he did on accounting for Americans left behind in Vietnam.

In an era where Republicans drifted as far right as imaginable, a seemingly ordinary conservative Republican who's an easy story may seem moderate in the eyes of the media. Still, something reporters may have overlooked is that in the collegial slow-moving atmosphere of the Senate, it's possible to cajole somebody like McCain on a personal level, even if the man has a temper. In the fast-paced pressure-cooker of the White House, however, I doubt McCain could quickly come to the right decisions or at least change his mind later when it's important. Not with that temper of his. Not with his age becoming a factor. For almost eight years, we have seen how Bush stumbles over his ego and stubbornness rather think a policy through—or at least learn the facts. We don't need more stumbles on an almost daily basis.

Here's the latest stumble from McCain as mentioned in Newsday:

John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee and a supporter of the war, was considerably more gentle in his questioning of Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, during their testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The Arizona senator, who recently confused the two main Muslim sects -- Shia and Sunni -- nearly repeated the gaffe, calling Sunni-led al-Qaida "an obscure sect of the Shias" before quickly correcting himself.

Even if McCain could keep pace with any numbers of events that are quickening, he is after all a conservative and he has been far too frequently wrong on Iraq and abyssmally wrong on the economy. Like Bush, the Senator from Arizona is attached to failed conservative policies and doesn't seem to learn from his mistakes.

With McCain, there's the added problem that he tends to tell members of the media what they want to hear. The ability to tell the media what they want to hear is not the same as the ability to make the right decisions. And too many on the cable news networks failed to see McCain's many contradictions and inconsistencies, such as when he suddenly embraced Bush four years ago. Here's a story in The Washington Post that covers some of what happened in the spring of 2004 before McCain joined a campaign trip in June for President Bush:

... McCain's trip with Bush grew out of a meeting this spring between White House senior adviser Karl Rove and John Weaver, a top adviser to McCain, who became a Democratic consultant after the bitter campaign between Bush and McCain.

(snip)

The meeting represented the beginning of a rapprochement between the two men and in a symbolic sense between the Bush and McCain camps. "There had to be a breaking of the ice and a breaking of the logjam," said one source familiar with the meeting. "What better way for that to occur than to have the two main antagonists in the drama doing it?"

The Bush team's outreach to McCain occurred at the same time Kerry was trying to entice the Arizonan to join him on what some Democrats fantasized could be a unity ticket that could attract moderate Republicans.

It may have been important for Bush to neutralize McCain's VP chances in order to enhance his own chances of reelection. But McCain took the new relationship very seriously, so seriously that one has to wonder what was promised? Help in 2008?

Here's an example a couple of days later from the San Francisco Chronicle of McCain jumping wholeheartedly on the Bush bandwagon:

... McCain's political relationship with Bush has been so frosty that Kerry reportedly talked recently to the Arizona senator about running for vice president on the Democratic ticket.

McCain put an end to those suggestions Friday, joining the president in a morning visit with troops at Fort Lewis in Washington state, then flying to Reno to give Bush a ringing endorsement for his work in Iraq, calling it "noble, achievable and necessary.''

Leaving Saddam Hussein in charge in Iraq was a risk the country could not take, McCain said. While the war "has surely had its ups and downs,'' Bush's efforts "deserve not only support, but admiration. He has led with great moral clarity and resolve.''

If the reader can stop gagging on McCain's fawning hyperbole for a moment, it might be worth asking if this is the moment McCain's 2008 presidential bid began? This kind of brazen about face, flip flop as some call it, requires enormous ambition. There is no integrity in being a consistent Bush critic for four years (at least when McCain wasn't voting) and suddenly fawning on the man. For the those of us paying attention, 2004 is when it became obvious that McCain was an illusion.

We have learned a great deal more since then. A new book is out called The Real McCain by Cliff Schecter; here's more on it in the Huffington Post. McCain's temper and many contradictions and inconsistencies are going to become more of an issue as time goes by. We simply cannot afford another president like George W. Bush. The media, unfortunately, is still in love with John McCain. These are the same guys that talked endlessly about George W. Bush in his flight suit as he embarrassed his presidency with his Mission Accomplished speech on Iraq. There's more on the media/McCain love affair in Daily Kos.

The Democrats have their work cut out for them. If the Democratic nominee can run against John McCain, the Democrats may be able to change a few things in Washington and bring about some measure of badly needed reform. If the Democratic nominee is forced to run against the Illusion, George W. Bush may have his successor and third term by proxy. And the same failed policies will continue.

Greenspan Endorses Man Who Knows Nothing About the Economy

Andrea Mitchell's husband, Alan Greenspan, whose lack of integrity on tax policy has given us mounting debt as far as the eye can see, is endorsing John McCain. The Huffington Post has the story from Reuters and includes Greenspan's growing obliviousness to cause and effect:

There is more than a 50 percent chance the United States could go into recession, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan told El Pais newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.

Greenspan, the U.S. Fed chairman from 1987 to 2006, endorsed the Republican presidential candidate....

Republican economics is a failure. The presidency of George W. Bush is a failure. And yet, John McCain, who wishes to continue many of Bush's policies, including more war in Iraq and elsewhere, and who admits he knows nothing about economics, is getting a growing number of endorsements. Our nation is on *TILT* and there is a chance the idiocy will continue.

I mention Andrea Mitchell, a reporter I once respected maybe ten to fifteen years ago, because of a post today by Digby. I'm not a great fan these days of Hillary Clinton but she may have gotten a bum rap this time around on the hospital story. The real story on Hillary is not that she hung on to Mark Penn too long but that she could have easily won the nomination with a more realistic and updated campaign (see this post in Talking Points Memo).

But there were major signs over the last two years that Hillary Clinton was falling behind in her awareness of a number of issues, including in particular Iraq and energy. No doubt political triangulation played a role, but I'm still surprised at how hard she fought for ethanol despite the many obvious problems (there may still be a small role for ethanol in our need for new energy but a small role is all it can be) and despite the need for a more comprehensive energy plan.

The people over at The Oil Drum are working hard on a variety of energy issues. I spent some time going over this article and this article today. They're abstract to some degree but essential reading for those who need to catch up on energy issues. One of the points made was that we have known we had an energy problem for more than thirty years and have blindly insisted on doing little. We cannot afford that any longer.

We're heading for hard times. How it's all going to unfold is hard to say. In fact, if we're very lucky and get some competent leadership in Washington, the current recession might be mitigated sooner than later and the hard times I'm talking about will come later. If we're lucky. If we can wait a year for competent leadership to show up. Assuming it does show up. Which it won't if McSame is elected.

I'm optimistic by temperament but I'm capable of looking at brutally hard facts. Here's something to think about. Anyone willing to pay attention has known for centuries that wars cause shortages, particularly shortages of food. At the end of World War I, there were major food shortages in Europe. Without computers we, meaning the United States, figured out how much food was needed, where to get it and where to send it. We understood the problems very well. And that was almost a hundred years ago.

One of the dirtiest secrets of World War II was that German army knew that if Hitler insisted on a war with Russia, there was a reasonable chance, if the war lasted two or three years, that 20 million people would die in Eastern Europe from famine. The logistics people in the German army had calculated the numbers. The army knew.

I'm not talking about the Nazis or the SS. I'm talking about Germany's military professionals. They pointed to the Nazis and the SS for the crimes that followed but they knew what was likely to come before they ever crossed the Russian frontier. The point? I have no doubt any number of people know what problems we're facing worldwide and too many of them are sitting on the numbers. If Americans and people everywhere want a halfway decent future, they better start doing a better job of digging out the facts. They can't keep relying on the know nothings like George W. Bush and John McCain.

Hillary and Bill Need to Be Transparent

Hillary Clinton represents a rather unique situation in American politics. First, of course, is the fact that she is a former first lady. Now she's very capable and if she had found a way to run a campaign without referring to Bill Clinton's eight years in office, she might have been able to deflect any number of questions that obviously bring Bill Clinton into the equation. But she has run on her experience and that experience includes her eight years as first lady. She leaves the distinct impression that she was intimately involved in many of Bill Clinton's decisions during those eight years. I don't buy her commander-in-chief argument but certainly she was involved in other decisions. One has to assume the situation will be somewhat similar if Hillary becomes president; Bill Clinton will surely offer whatever advice he can. Bill Clinton is therefore an issue.

In 2002, Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq bill, thereby effectively authorizing the war (even if one can argue that was not the full intent of the legislation). In Hillary's case, I always had a question and it was a question that out of respect for the Clintons made me hesitate despite the many contradictions and falsehoods that were put out by the Bush Administration that were obvious at the time. What made me hesitate was a small article somewhere that suggested Bill Clinton had had conversations with Tony Blair and had suggested to Blair that he be patient with George W. Bush. The distinct impression I had was that Clinton was not exactly against the war. Given the ability of the Clintons to spin, I'm sure they can tell a perfectly plausible story of what that was about. But Hillary took a long time to catch up to public opinion on Iraq. Was it because of Bill? I wish we had more transparency on just this one issue alone. Clearly, for the first three years Hillary did an effective job of backing Bush on the strategic aspect of the war in Iraq even if sometimes she was critical of tactical decisions and sometimes questioned the competence of Bush's top officials.

Then there's the income tax problem. Bill and Hillary have not exactly been forthcoming on how much money they have been taking from various people. This matters. Ever since Ronald Reagan took $2 million from Sony after leaving office, the flow of money to former presidents has raised a wide range of issues. The senior Bush, after leaving office, also took huge amounts of money from various sources including the bizarre Rev. Moon. There has been a tendency to look the other way since former presidents are supposedly not directly involved in politics. It's an odd informal rule imposed by the media despite the fact that former presidents have indeed involved themselves in politics. And now we have a former president who may potentially return to the White House with his wife as president.

The issue of income taxes and transparency has been raised today as reported by various news sources, including Reuters:

Obama's tax returns from 2000 to 2006 were posted on his Web site as his campaign pushed to portray Clinton, the New York senator and former first lady, as secretive and unwilling to be open with voters.


Obama, an Illinois senator, has repeatedly asked Clinton to release tax returns for the years since she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, left the White House in 2001.

Obama's request is not unreasonable. Americans, in general, should be asking just who has given money to the Clintons and for what purpose. President Clinton freely admits that he has done well since he left office. If he can speak so freely, that implies he has nothing to hide. Given the huge amounts of money given to other former presidents and the role Bill Clinton is likely to have if Hillary were to make it to the White House, Americans voters need to make sure transparency is observed.

Now I have read that the Clinton campaign is thinking of releasing the tax returns three days before the Pennsylvania primary. That's hardly time to understand what all the names and numbers mean that would appear on a tax return. Nor does it explain why tax returns from earlier years cannot be made now. And of course there is the possibility the Clinton campaign may only offer voters a brief and uninformative summary. The Republicans will clearly make an issue of the Clintons sources of income if Hillary somehow managed to be the party nominee; so the time to deal with this is now.

Transparency requires that we understand the source of the Clintons' considerable new wealth.