America Enters the 21st Century at Last: Health Care Passes

I have a pre-existing condition but it's always been my firm belief that it's really nobody's business. Unfortunately, because I tried to get insurance on my own a few years back, the insurance industry knows more about my health than most of my friends and colleagues. That offends the hell of my me. These days I worry a lot more about big business than I do my government (that is, when it's not overly controlled by business interests and cronies, which happens every time the Republicans get elected).

For many reasons, I have not devoted as much time to the health care debate as I would have liked. For one reason, our nation faces some bigger issues that can't wait much longer such as jobs, revitalizing our economy, energy and climate change. But health care reform has passed and I rejoice. Despite the obstruction, the spin, the foot dragging, the lies, the stunts, the name calling and the 1001 shameful acts of the Grand Ostrich Party and its ridiculous leadership, America is moving forward again and we have a health bill.

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo has it right: the only thing everybody is going to remember ten years from now is that health care reform finally passed in March of 2010. Here's a bit of what he says:

Then the debate dragged on over many months. The pace slowed in the early summer. Then there was the town hall Crazy (tm) of August. And from there we know the rest -- the ugliness, close calls, the shuddering collapse of morale after January 19th. But the truth is, nothing matters but the final result. No one remembers the politicking in advance of Medicare or Social Security or really anything else. There's either a reform law or there's not. That's why, even though it's still a momentous event in political circles, the 1994 run at Health Care Reform might as well never have happened.

Even over the last two days you've seen a shifting of perspective as all the drama and angst of recent months recedes before the reality of final passage. There's no denying this is certainly the biggest and by almost any definition the first major social legislation in the United States in almost five decades. (Congress passed Medicare in 1965.)

Today, when David Frum wrote that this was turning out to be the GOP's Waterloo...

I don't know if this is the Republican Party's Waterloo or not. They have nothing to offer these days but games and tricks and lies and tons of money from their corporate friends. I still have Republican friends and I shake my head that they can't see what their leadership has become. They cannot accept that Bush and his cronies almost destroyed the economy out of sheer stupidity and greed. For twenty years, elected Republicans have been swinging further and further to the right. That is a fact. The obvious clue are the number of Republicans in the leadership who felt Reagan didn't go far enough. Some feel that Bush did not go far enough. A ridiculous few are sorry Dick Cheney wasn't president.

I root for Obama because if he fails, we're in for rough times. Even if Democrats remain in power in Congress, Republicans are hoping the Supreme Court can cause trouble. The Supreme Court has already shown its willingness to believe that corporations are more important than people.

Corporations are fictions designed to limit liability. There's nothing wrong with that in theory, as long as corporations act in the public interest. But the latest economic crisis that began in 2007 was a direct result of corporations who could care less about the public interest. They lied and bullied their way to wealth and many of them are unrepentant.

Any person who thinks the Republican Party is going to tackle the people who got bonus money is a fool. Republicanism has always been the same as big business. In recent years, they have incorporated and manipulated people on the far right while laughing all the way to the bank. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were two of them.

The United States does not need more corporatism and it does not need more from the American Taliban. We certainly did not and do not need an unholy alliance between the two.

What we need is to stop making excuses. Our economy has slipped. We have made mistakes. Now we have done this from time to time in the past. One of our great strengths is recognizing when we have made mistakes, correcting those mistakes and moving on again. We are in danger of losing that capacity to move forward. If we are not careful, we could start falling rather swiftly if we don't grab reality by the horns, with both hands, with our eyes open and our minds clear.

There's still work to do.

Obama, China and the American Press

George W. Bush left the White House a failure. He also left the nation in free fall. There are many things I wish Obama would do and many things I wish he would do faster. But he faces problems. First, he faces an obstructionist Republican Party. Even within his own party, there are moderates who have fallen behind in their understanding of how much things have changed and how much we need to do.

Day after day, Obama must deal on the one hand with millions of Americans who are angry at what happened in the last eight years and on the other with millions who are angry period. He also faces an American press that is barely in touch with what is going on out in the real world.

The truth is that the United States has not faced so many problems since World War Two. Another truth is that many of those problems are of our own making or have worsened from years of neglect. Bush's go-it-alone foreign policy was based on fantasy but it was pursued for eight years and cannot be undone in a matter of months, though Obama has done much to repair the damage done by Bush.

I was disgusted this week that so many news sources spent more time talking about Sarah Palin and her book than Obama's trip to Asia. Sarah Palin knows nothing and has accomplished nothing but her tour trumped Obama's tour.

Now I realize that for the last twenty years news stories on foreign policy trips usually start out with the phrase, "Although producing no breakthroughs on key issues...." But talking eventually does lead to results and not talking usually leads to deterioration in relations. The reality is that private talks always clear away misunderstandings and facilitate future cooperation. The above quote, by the way, is from an AP story about our ambassador to China, a reasonably rational Republican. Here's what Jon Huntsman said:

"I attended all those meetings that President Obama had with Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao," Huntsman said, referring to the Chinese president and premier.

"I've got to say some of the reporting I saw afterward was off the mark. I saw sweeping comments about things that apparently weren't talked about, when they were discussed in great detail in the meeting."

Although the Chinese stagecraft their news, one important aspect of Obama's visit is that it was the top story in China. Obama's visit was taken seriously by the Chinese even if many American journalists preferred to minimize what happened or prefer to say that Obama isn't effectively dealing with China, whatever that means.

I have no illusions about China. It is still an empire, it has a poor human rights record, it is nationalistic (one shouldn't ignore the symbolism of its pageants at the last Olympics), it is often plagued by corruption and it is still an autocratic system even if it is more benign than it once was. In addition, China is sometimes paternalistic toward its minorities, sometimes indifferent but there is never equal footing for minorities. At the end of the day, however, through deliberate policies, blunders and inattention, we are tied to China as never before. For one thing, they own a significant portion of our debt. And they make a great number of our goods, often through contracts with American manufacturing companies.

But at the end of the day, the United States is still the most powerful country in the world. Some quick graphs can be found at the BBC comparing the U.S. and China. Note, for example, that U.S. military spending is more than 5 times what China spends.

James Fallows at The Atlantic has a series of posts on Obama's visit. In one post, he talks about Chris Matthews who seems too often to follow the mood of grumpy pundits rather than finding out what actually happened:

...people have sent clips of today's talk show by my friend and former colleague Chris Matthews, which went in super-heavy for the "Obama humiliated in Asia" line. With all good will to Chris, I fear that this show today, notably the comments by the Washington Post's reporter from the Asia trip, will be the new symbol of exactly the kind of instant-analysis that, in my view, fundamentally misrepresents what happened on the trip.

In another post, Fallows writes:

...the before-and-after analyses from a private client newsletter by Damien Ma, Divya Reddy, and Nicholas Consonery of the Eurasia Group, reinforcing the idea that what actually happened on the trip was almost exactly what informed observers expected to happen, and not some humiliating disappointment.

It shouldn't be overlooked that the operative word in Fallows post is: informed.

To be honest, Obama could do a better job of courting the press—one of the many books of Roosevelt's press conferences would make great night reading. But the press has a responsibility to get out of the 24 hours news cycle and actually do news. Our country is sagging in large part because too many people simply don't understand what's going on. Let's face it, it's easier and cheaper to follow Sarah Palin around than to keep up on foreign policy and do some behind the scenes reporting.

It's ironic that there are writers who write because they want to better understand the world around them. It takes attention, a bit of reading and experience, lots and lots of practice and a bit of thought to use writing as an analytic tool. When I was younger I thought I noticed journalists that operated that way. Certainly Edward R. Murrow was like that.

Murrow was probably the last major journalist who could effectively analyze and explain things to Americans; he did an amazing job during the crises of the 1930s and 40s. We have journalists who can do that but they're not always in a position to be heard. Even very good journalists like Rachel Maddow can sometimes get distracted putting out fires instead of explaining the world, though I'm happy to see that she's getting better at that on her program. (I'm not a journalist, by the way, though I've been writing for forty years and have been working of late to add more tools to my utility box.)

I'm going to borrow from Fallows one more time but it's just a quote from Obama—from his opening statement at the controversial Shanghai Town Meeting:

...America will always speak out for these core principles around the world. We do not seek to impose any system of government on any other nation, but we also don't believe that the principles that we stand for are unique to our nation. These freedoms of expression and worship -- of access to information and political participation -- we believe are universal rights. They should be available to all people, including ethnic and religious minorities -- whether they are in the United States, China, or any nation. Indeed, it is that respect for universal rights that guides America's openness to other countries; our respect for different cultures; our commitment to international law; and our faith in the future.

Contrary to the opinions of the usual pundits, this does not sound like a "humiliated" or "humbled" president. We are in interesting times. I write often of the American Crisis. That crisis did not begin last year with the economic meltdown. It's been building for years. It was blatantly apparent during Hurricane Katrina on multiple levels from the effect it had on oil supplies to the dismal response to fellow Americans in distress.

Like many Democrats, I worry about how Obama is doing. From time to time, he surprises me and I realize, okay, he is paying attention. I'm going to stick my neck out and say maybe there's more to the Asia trip than meets the eye. Consider the following story from Bloomberg:

Bill Gross, who runs the world’s biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co., said Chinese growth is likely to be hurt by an absence of consumer demand from trading partners such as the U.S.

“The Chinese, I suspect, will have a bubble of their own to confront,” Gross said...

At the moment, the fates of the United States and China are tied together. China has been hearing conflicting advice from around Asia but they recognize that they and the U.S. have mutual interests. Whether we like it or not, we need each other. Let's see where events lead in the next few months. I'll have more to say.

Alternative Energy: Beware the Gee Whiz Factor

There are several areas in the United States that lead in energy research. Three that come to mind are Massachussetts, California and North Carolina (see last post). If we are to deal with the real threats of fossil fuel depletion, increasing pollution and global warming, we not only need useful new ideas and technology, we also need to see those ideas implemented in the real world.

I would like to think President Obama gets it when it comes to the need for alternative energy. Earlier today, he gave a speech on alternative energy at MIT. The Boston Globe has the story:

“Extraordinary energy research is being conducted at this institute,’’ he said, mentioning windows that generate electricity, viruses engineered to build batteries, more efficient lighting systems, and “innovative engineering that will make it possible for offshore wind power plants to deliver electricity even when the air is still.’’

(snip)

“From China to India, from Japan to Germany, nations everywhere are racing to develop new ways to produce and use energy,’’ he said. “The nation that wins this competition will be the nation that leads the global economy. I am convinced of that. And I want America to be that nation. It’s that simple.’’

Obama has already done far more for alternative energy than his predecessor. Of course that isn't saying much since both the previous president and vice president were oil men with a narrow view of the universe and little interest in science.

But I guess I'm becoming a worrier. The end of the Boston Globe article ended with a paragraph that might be called the gee whiz factor:

Today, the state is on track to have roughly 30 megawatts of wind generating capacity, or enough to power nearly 7,900 homes, and 40 megawatts of solar generating capacity, enough to power from 6,000 to 8,000 homes, installed by the end of Patrick’s term.

Okay, I have to admit I'm a sucker for gee whiz statistics. Nevertheless, a reality check is necessary here and I'll get to it in a moment. I just want to point out that installing wind turbines and solar farms is important whether it's a single homeowner doing it or a major corporation. Every bit helps and I mean that. No matter what happens in the next five, ten, twenty years, every new alternative energy project will add a resilience factor to our nation.

But here's the problem. Let's say Massachusetts manages to go the extra mile and installs enough power for 16,000 homes in four years. That's power for 4,000 homes a year. The population of Massachusetts is about 6.5 million people. Let's fudge and say there's a million homes in the state. At that rate, it's going to take over 200 years to wean the state from fossil fuels to alternative energy. That's way too long.

Our nation needs to get much more ambitious.

Thoughts on Pakistan and Foreign Policy

You wouldn't necessarily know it given what passes for journalism on TV and in many of our newspapers, but there's considerable worldwide activity in foreign policy going on these days. Much of that activity is coming from the United States and much of it is happening elsewhere.

It's probably the most foreign policy activity since the Berlin Wall came down. Why is this? I shouldn't have to ask the question but in the absence of news coverage, it may be time to remind people of the obvious: for eight years (but particularly in the first four) George W. Bush did enormous damage to America's foreign policy and enormous damage to the world economy.

Since January of this year, Barack Obama and his advisers have been working to repair the damage. Worldwide, other leaders are readjusting their foreign policy and increasingly, as was happening in the last two or three years of the Bush presidency, pursuing their own agenda.

Here's just one example of foreign policy going on elsewhere:

Russia and China are closing in on a mammoth energy deal which could insure that Beijing has the fuel to run its factories and cities and Moscow has a vast new market for its natural gas empire.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Wednesday wrapped up a three-day visit to the Chinese capital, during which Russia signed dozens of commercial pacts worth $3.5 billion and set the framework for a separate, multibillion-dollar agreement to build two natural gas pipelines to China from gas fields in Russia's Far East.

But the Russians and Americans are also busy at work. Here's a story from a few days ago:

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has invited U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to his private residence in suburban Barvikha for a discussion Tuesday on a broad range of issues in what one senior State Department official called a "relaxed setting."

Issues on the agenda for the two-hour meeting include the next steps on Iran, the Mideast conflict, cooperation on Afghanistan, possible joint work on a missile defense system, Russia's "neighborhood" and climate change.

Talking Points Memo has a set of photos covering Hillary Clinton's trip to Europe and Russia that ought to lay to rest that she's not an active Secretary of State (which was one of those inane stories from a media not paying close attention).

We now live in a turbulent era. In the past, the answer to turbulence was violence. Barack Obama knows this and most foreign leaders know this. No war exemplified such violence more than World War Two. It's not certain that George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney had much clue about the current era. In many ways, as so often happens with conservatives, they were fighting the battles of the past.

It's hard to believe that officials like Cheney were pursuing policies aimed at nothing else but creating some sort of American empire. The idea of preemptive war, unilateralism and even the notion of nuclear bunker busters that Bush proposed in June 2002 still feels alien to me when I come across the terms. In 2003, it sent a chill down my spine when a Bush official cheered the start of the Iraq War and bragged that 'we' had crossed the Rubicon. And yet, as they did with Reagan, there were right-wingers who felt George W. Bush had not gone far enough. One of those was Dick Cheney, particularly after 2004. It takes my breath away when I recall how much American policy went off the tracks during the Bush presidency.

And still there are right wingers who want more of that nonsense. Rush Limbaugh put himself on the side of the Taliban in denouncing Barack Obama's winning of the Nobel Peace Prize. I know for years it has been something of a convention to consider Rush Limbaugh a clown. When he jumps up and down, he certainly looks like one. But he is dangerous. In many ways, most Americans do not share his values, though it should be pointed out that in the early 90s he had a rather large audience. The key to Limbaugh is simple: he is very angry and he wants to dominate. He is a classic example of a very aggressive social dominator.

I bring up Limbaugh because he is good at enabling some Americans to forget the disaster of the Bush years. It should not be controversial news that Bush did enormous damage to our nation. It will take years just to repair the economic damage. During the Bush years, crooks had a field day simply because no one was minding the store. But what did more damage was a business as usual approach by Bush that ignored changing conditions in such areas as energy, the climate, an excessive loss of jobs, stagnant wages, and particularly new financial instruments that greatly aggravated the economic downturn.

In foreign policy, Bush was in Afghanistan for more than seven years. And yet some people seem to have forgotten that Bush should have been out of Afghanistan by the 2004 election. But he was more interested in Iraq and put Afghanistan on a back burner. We are still there and we are tangling with problems that affect not only Afghanistan but Pakistan as well. Now I believe we need to get out of Afghanistan as quickly as we can. But there's a problem and I haven't fully sorted it out yet so I'm not comfortable with arguments from those in a hurry to leave. The problem is Pakistan and the fact that it has nuclear weapons. Here's one story from Islamabad that disturbs me:

Pakistan has sought to protect its nuclear weapons from attack by the Taliban or other militants by storing the warheads, detonators and missiles separately in facilities patrolled by elite troops.

Analysts are divided on how secure these weapons are. Some say the weapons are less secure than they were five years ago, and Saturday's attack would show a "worrisome" overconfidence by the Pakistanis.

While complex security is in place, much depends on the Pakistani army and how vulnerable it is to infiltration by extremists, said a Western government official with access to intelligence on Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Bush and some of his advisers like to point to Pakistan as one of their successes. In reality, they never fully dealt with a wide range of issues. Through incompetence, they nearly encouraged Pakistan to go to war with India back in 2002 (Colin Powell, to his credit, cleaned up the mess).

Of course, stories like this one about the Taliban and al Qaida also concern me:

Pakistan – Teams of gunmen attacked three law enforcement facilities in Pakistan's cultural heart of Lahore on Thursday, killing 18 people in an escalation of audacious terror strikes as the Taliban try to keep the government from waging a planned offensive on the militants.

Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik vowed not to let the attacks deter the government in its pursuit of Taliban and al Qaida fighters. "The enemy has started a guerrilla war," Malik told a local television station.

Afghanistan is going to require constant reevaluation. Of course, the sooner we can get out the better. But the last thing we need, remote though the chances seemingly are (and are they really that remote?), is to see the Taliban and their friends in al Qaida somehow in control of Pakistan. It's not likely to happen but I for one am cutting Obama some slack until we see a better picture.

In other areas of foreign policy, I see many signs that Obama is moving forward. He is moving away from the unilateralism of Bush and returning to international discussions. We're still the only nation that can truly lead and after eight years of neglect serious and difficult issues are being tackled. Success in many areas are going to be difficult to achieve but that's far better than what we had during the Bush years when so many people in Washington couldn't be bothered to even try.

No one should imagine that Barack Obama can undo all the damage done during the Bush years, but I'm going to make a prediction: when Barack Obama gives his State of the Union in January, many Americans are going to be surprised at the useful things that have been done both domestically and in foreign policy. Of course, we'll still see the same nonsense from the news. One day Obama will be described as all talk and no action. And the next day, pundits will whine that he's doing too much. We're in an era where readers still have to do a certain amount of their own digging.

Bunker Buster Bomb Back in the News

In Washington, there is no such thing as putting something quietly into a bill, even if there is little prior discussion of an inserted item. But ABC News may be jumping the gun with a headline that reads: "Is the U.S. Preparing to Bomb Iran?" Here's the ABC News article:

Back in October 2007, ABC News reported that the Pentagon had asked Congress for $88 million in the emergency Iraq/Afghanistan war funding request to develop a gargantuan bunker-busting bomb called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP). It's a 30,000-pound bomb designed to hit targets buried 200 feet below ground. ...

Now the Pentagon is shifting spending from other programs to fast forward the development and procurement of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator. The Pentagon comptroller sent a request to shift the funds to the House and Senate Appropriations and Armed Services Committees over the summer.

The first thing to keep in mind is that back in 2002 President Bush advocated building nuclear bunker busters. It was one of the lamest ideas of the Bush Administration since it risked lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. Since that time the thinking has moved toward the development of a conventional weapons system to penetrate a bunker where the development of nuclear weapons is likely to be taking place. That's what being discussed in the article above. By the way, just to broaden the thinking a bit, bunker busters can be used for other purposes than disrupting a nuclear program. But let's stick to the nuclear angle for now.

The two potential nuclear renegades at the moment are Iran and North Korea. Given the feeble world economy, using a bunker buster on Iran would probably drag us into a war that would put much of the oil in the Persian Gulf at peril and sink what little economic recovery the world is seeing so far (In 2006, the idea pushed by Cheney and others to bomb Iran was a lame idea even then). Perhaps Obama and the Pentagon see the bunker buster mostly in terms of pressure on Iran, though the weapon wouldn't be ready, supposedly, until 2010.

As for North Korea, the issue has always been—and remains—the fact that North Korea has artillery weapons that can do enormous damage to Seoul before an effective response can be mounted. Negotiations and sanctions are still the best way to go with North Korea.

So who does that leave? UPI quotes a Pentagon spokesman:

After winning congressional approval, the Pentagon said this week that it had awarded Boeing's McDonnell Douglas a $51.9 million contract to "enable B-2 aircraft" to carry the bomb.

"The threats have been developing over the years," a Pentagon spokesman was quoted saying to U.S. media. "There are, without getting into any intelligence, there are countries that have used technologies to go further underground and to take those facilities and make them hardened. This is not a new phenomenon, but it is a growing one."

Even under Obama, nothing in Washington is ever straightforward. So, what countries does the anonymous spokesman have in mind? First, it should be noted that the bunker buster proposal was put forward over the summer. In the last six months, we have seen nasty developments in Iran and nasty developments in North Korea. In both cases, the nastiness has seemingly died down. Yes, I realize there is this notion sometimes of needing more options. But sometimes having more options simply complicates rather than simplifies the picture. If nothing else, perhaps the bunker buster is intended as a shot across the bow of Ahmadinejad's ambitions (this includes, of course, Iran's more conservative clergy).

Sooner or later, there will be other nuclear pretenders. And some of those pretenders may succeed in building functional bombs. There are several organizations, including the Arms Control Association, who keep track of who has what and who has ambitions. Syria, for example, is an example of a country that may still have ambitions—or not. Actually I don't mean to single out Syria since there are others to consider. Burma, for example? One of the insanities of our era is that nuclear weapons give status to a country and there are a number of leaders who want that status.

For the moment, the real question is whether conventional bunker busters that can do the job help diplomacy or hinder diplomacy. I don't know the answer. I hope someone in Washington does.

Obama Cuts Expensive Missile Defense Plan

Many of the biggest boondoggles in American history have not come from Democrats. Repeated tax cuts for the rich has to qualify as one type of Republican boondoggle, particularly since those tax cuts undermine Medicare and Social Security. However, the most widely acknowledged boondoggles in the last thirty years have been a long string of unnecessary military contracts. Of the latter group, one of the oddest boondoggles has been the "Star Wars" missile defense program and its various permutations.

Ronald Reagan rode a wave of Republican conservatism in 1980 to win the White House. Of course Reagan's conservatism wasn't nearly as extreme as what we've seen since 1994. But Reagan got talked into a missile defense shield that was never completed and that has never worked reliably enough in the testing stage to give anyone confidence that such a system could take out a significant number of ICBMs. As a program, it has undergone many modifications, is largely a bust and has wasted billions of dollars. It didn't work in the early 1980s when it was first proposed and despite advances in computers and nuclear technology it still doesn't work. In addition, even if it did work, it would be fairly inexpensive to foil.

The whole concept of the original "Star Wars" idea seems largely to have come from Edward Teller, the father of the H-Bomb. Either Teller did not understand as much about physics and technology as he thought he did or he told a big whopper to the president of the United States. One of the problems with secrecy in Washington is that stupidity occurs over and over. To this day, much of the "Star Wars" project remains shrouded in murky details.

When George W. Bush became president, he brought with him a number of Cold War warriors, including such people as Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice and Paul Wolfowitz. One of the things that has become obvious about the younger Bush's presidency is that he had a number of advisers who were still fighting old wars. The current war in Iraq is in some way old business from 1991. Despite Bush's claim of seeing into Putin's soul, the deteriorating relationship with Russia during the Bush years had a number of roots, not all coming from the U.S. side. A significant factor, though, was the Cold War mentality that kept surfacing in our relations with Putin.

In addition, "New Europe," consisting largely of former members of the Eastern European communist bloc, has been a pet project of elite Republicans looking for cozy financial and political relationships. Putting defense missiles in Eastern Europe was just as much about irritating the Russians (despite the claim of defending against Iranian missiles) as it was solidifying a relationship with more conservative elements in places like Poland (remember that Western Europe was not in favor of the missiles).

On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal carried a story on Obama's new policy:

The White House will shelve Bush administration plans to build a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, according to people familiar with the matter, a move likely to cheer Moscow and roil the security debate in Europe.

The U.S. will base its decision on a determination that Iran's long-range missile program has not progressed as rapidly as previously estimated, reducing the threat to the continental U.S. and major European capitals, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Additional details suggest a more modest, largely navy-based missile defense program would be developed closer to Iran. I'm not entirely sure what all this means. In a sense, Americans have had a defense perimeter around Iran for the last seven years, even before the official start of the war in Iraq.

Of course, after the news about shelving the missile program, it didn't take long for the neoconservatives and various Republicans to do their screaming and hollering. What is noteworthy is how much Republican criticism of Obama is about appeasing Russia and how little of it is about Iran. That, of course, is something of a giveaway.

Here's Romney and Santorum:

"President Obama has made a dangerous and alarming decision to shelve our missile-defense system in Europe," Romney said in a statement. "His decision is wrong in every way, despite his rationale."

Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, said the president is spurning European allies in order to "appease" Russia — "a potential foe."

More was also said by others. Is there something to what they're saying? Maybe not. Here's a interesting response by Russia:

In the first tangible response to the US decision to scrap its planned shield in Eastern Europe, an unnamed military source told the Interfax news agency that the Kremlin had frozen plans to deploy truck-mounted Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad and would not now site nuclear-capable T-22 strategic bombers there either.

Of course, not much has actually happened. Our imaginary missile defense is being scrapped so Russia appears to be scrapping its imaginary response. But President Obama will be meeting with Medvedev next week. There's one further item to note:

The Russian foreign ministry on Saturday condemned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for saying the Holocaust was "a myth," calling his statement "totally unacceptable."

Russians are tough customers but they haven't got much to gain by too much tension in the world. The reality is that a healthy world economy is good for Russia's oil prices. And that requires a healthy U.S. economy.

Poor Republicans. Relations with Russia just ain't what they used to be.

Pakistan and India Sharing Intelligence

It would be a step forward if Pakistan and India start sharing intelligence on violent militant groups. But I'm puzzled by this story which doesn't seem to have reached the main news outlets. I'm not a fan of The Wall Street Journal but here's the story:

Pakistan and India have begun sharing intelligence on Islamic extremists, with the prodding of the U.S., in an arrangement that represents unprecedented cooperation between the two nuclear-armed South Asian nations.

Washington hopes the cooperation will get a lift from last week's Indian elections, in which the incumbent Congress Party won by a wide margin over a Hindu nationalist party traditionally more hostile to Pakistan.

The story has been picked up by several sites interested in international news and national security. Potentially, it is good news. But why release the story to The Wall Street Journal? Fence mending, perhaps, by the Obama Administration?

I'm not going to draw too much from the story, except to keep watching developments in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. But here's something to keep in mind: an all-out war between India and Pakistan would not only be devastating for both countries but would probably send the worldwide economic situation into a deeper tailspin. By the way, the first quarter of 2009 was worse than many people thought. The U.S. economy shrank by 6.3% but that's not the worst economic news. Via Kevin Drum, here's another story from The Wall Street Journal (at least this is more up their alley):

On Wednesday, Mexico became the latest country to report a plunge in output. The country's gross domestic product fell at an annualized rate of 21.5% in the first quarter, the worst performance since the 1995 peso crisis led to an International Monetary Fund and U.S. Treasury financial rescue. This time, Mexico has insulated itself somewhat by arranging a $47 billion IMF credit line in advance.

Mexico's decline followed by a day Japan's report that its economy contracted in the first quarter at a 15.2% clip, its worst performance since 1955. Last week, Germany said its first quarter decline in GDP, an annualized 14.4%, was the worst since 1970.

None of this is good for the U.S. economy or for the world economy. Dick Cheney, who talks too much, dragged us into a war in Iraq. This led to putting Afghanistan, Pakistan and India on the backburner. The damage that Cheney and George W. Bush did to America simply keeps mounting.

I worry sometimes that Obama isn't thinking big enough in terms of facing our problems. On the other hand, given the problems out there, it may be a smart thing to isolate Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, and Rush Limbaugh while building a little broader consensus to deal with our problems. But doing things the way we have been doing them for thirty years and expecting results simply by building more consensus and being more efficient is not the answer.

Obama and his advisers are going to need big ideas to deal with big problems.

President Obama's Press Conference

It was masterful. What a pleasure it was to hear a president again who knows what he's talking about. Some of the media questions were lame and a couple of gotcha moments were caught like a moth caged in the hand and gently released back to the wilds of Washington. Obama knows what he's talking about and it may be time for reporters to start doing their homework again.

Other than the lame Fox reporter, the biggest embarrassment was Chuck Todd. His question about sacrifice was at least six years late and addressed to the wrong president. I happen to like Todd but he's going to have to do better if he wants to give David Gregory a run for his money.

Josh Marshall has a good read of what the press conference meant:

One thing that was clear from tonight's press conference was why the White House keeps wanting to get Obama out in front of the cameras and on TV. Obama has a ready and mainly unflappable command of the issues confronting the country, which I think people find reassuring in itself. In a climate of crisis such as this, I don't think most people's focus is ideological. They're looking for competence and command, a sense that someone is sailing the ship, at helm with a clear sense of where they're going.

There's been a lot of justified anger over A.I.G. and the bonus mess, but our economic crisis wasn't created over a couple of months and won't be solved in a couple of months. I'm not totally happy with Obama's economic team but at the moment I'm more disappointed that some progressives seem to be losing sight of where we are. The Democrats, for example, don't have 61 stalwart progressives in the Senate; instead, on the most crucial votes of a progressive agenda, they have maybe 51 votes they can count on, if they're lucky. We've known that since November. Democrats and their allies should be doing everything they can to add a handful of more progressives by 2010.

If anything, I wish people would work a little harder to turn people like Evan Bayh into more of a 21st century pragmatist instead of being stuck on what a pragmatist was assumed to be back in 1996. Things have changed dramatically. If the United States is to continue to thrive, Obama is right to target energy, education and healthcare. If it were up to me, I would make the focus global warming, energy and education, though I would dearly like to see something done about healthcare as well (for the record, I'm having trouble getting health insurance. The system really is broken).

I could still be wrong but I think I've been right all along that Obama is a pragmatist in a very real sense. If he really is a pragmatist, he has no choice but to address some fundamental changes we have been avoiding in different ways for the past thirty years.

Like most progressives, I'm very angry with the corporate world, more than half of which has seemingly divorced itself from any responsible connection to American society. But the last thing we need is a lot of corporations suddenly setting up headquarters in the Bahamas or any number of other 'friendly' locations around the world in a further effort to pursue a personal wealth agenda. Given how literally crooked the whole real estate boom became, the world can't afford too many more episodes of corporations behaving like what we've seen in the last ten years. Obama understands that. It's Congress I'm not so sure that understands (never mind what passes for the Republican Party these days).

Washington and the media love gossip and that's more what drove the A.I.G. episode than anything else. Progressives can't just be about electing people or critiquing the government. We need pressure put on Congress and we need to help the better people in the media raise their game. We're in trouble, and have been for a very long time. There's a lot more work to be done. Obama's press conference and public appearances in recent days have been major steps in the right direction.

The Problem with Republicans in Washington, D.C.

The biggest problem in Washington is the simple fact that only about six or seven rational Republicans are left in the Senate. And only three stepped forward to vote for Obama's stimulus package while the other three or four caved in to the radical right (though they may join Obama on other votes). Keep in mind that around the nation, there are rational governors and other Republican officials who clearly support the stimulus. Rational people know our nation is in deep trouble and they know that right wing conservatives who hope President Obama fails are complete fools. Republican obstructionists in the Senate and House are not on the side of average Americans. They are certainly not on the side of the Republican 'base' we hear so much about. If these Republicans were real leaders, they would sit down with the 'base' and explain the mess we're in and the work we need to do to get out of it.

What's worrisome is that there also seems to be a disconnect on Wall Street. Here's a quick economic assessment about investors in today's Los Angeles Times:

Wall Street has been busy focusing on companies' quarterly numbers and the developments in Washington. Now, investors are faced with finding less obvious answers to the question "What's next?"

Any jitters about what might be the next major bit of news to drive the market could extend the back-and-forth trading seen in the nearly three months since the Standard & Poor's 500 index finished at an 11-year low Nov. 20.

Stocks fell sharply last week to end at their lowest levels since November as investors factored in the stimulus bill and looked to other uncertainties about the economy.

If we set aside the inane quality of most financial news stories that are usually nothing but a conventional boilerplate about the day's financial news, this sounds like restless herd behavior, like people looking to other people for leadership. Today, there is no leadership in the private sector.

I'm going to add another somewhat unnoticed factor: there are still a lot of investors out there, usually elderly, who have no clue how much the economy and the markets have changed. I know investors who have no computer or no internet connection who are still doing everything themselves. Instead of continuing to invest in the stock market as they have been doing, it's obvious they should have been putting everything into CDs in the last year. The point is not whether the market will go down further—it easily could—but that we're in uncharted waters. That doesn't mean, however, that there aren't plenty of facts out there to help figure a few things out. Here's a key point made today by Paul Krugman:

Last week the Federal Reserve released the results of the latest Survey of Consumer Finances, a triennial report on the assets and liabilities of American households. The bottom line is that there has been basically no wealth creation at all since the turn of the millennium: the net worth of the average American household, adjusted for inflation, is lower now than it was in 2001.

At one level this should come as no surprise. For most of the last decade America was a nation of borrowers and spenders, not savers. The personal savings rate dropped from 9 percent in the 1980s to 5 percent in the 1990s, to just 0.6 percent from 2005 to 2007, and household debt grew much faster than personal income. Why should we have expected our net worth to go up?

Krugman's point reminds me of my oldest brother who was very pleased a few years back as the value of his home kept rising. That is, until he started thinking about retirement and what he could do with that money. The answer was: not much. The price of everyone else's home was also rising. As long as money kept flowing in from places in Asia, people had the illusion of growing wealth. But it wasn't real. And that is the problem with the Republicans in Washington. Republicans are infatuated with deregulated free market ideology as well as the wheeler dealers who grab headlines. Whatever the free market once meant, it has slowly been transformed over the years into the free-money-for-well-connected-rich-guys market. Loan fraud, ponzi schemes, no-bid contracts and insane bonuses have been the rule in recent years.

Ideally, senators and representatives are sent to Washington to serve the people, not their egos and back pockets. Some Democrats and some Republicans have always been guilty of abuses. In recent years, however, the Republicans have turned self-interest into an art form. They even act indignant when Barney Franks hurts their feelings (all he did last fall was tell it like it is). So let's list the problems with the Republicans:

1. They either fail to acknowledge the enormous crisis we're in or they barely acknowledge it. ("The fundamentals of the economy are sound," said McCain a few months back before taking other erratic positions.)
2. If they acknowledge the crisis, they are unwilling to admit the role that deregulation and lack of oversight has played. And they are still adament, despite evidence to the contrary, that more tax cuts for the rich will turn things around.
3. If they blame anyone, which is always the fallback of authoritarians who finally acknowledge a problem, they blame Democrats, immigrants, poor people, low income home buyers or messengers like George Soros. Republicans are emotionally invested in policies that have failed. They cling to those policies despite their obvious failures. Republicans once prided themselves as the party of pragmatists but they are pragmatists no more.
4. There is nothing clever about tax cuts but Republicans are obsessed with them despite obvious issues. Tax cuts do not pave our highways. They do not educate our kids. They do not provide alternative energy. They do not fund unbiased pure research that can lead to new solutions. Take out 'tax cuts' and put in 'corporations' and not much has improved (don't get me going on privatized roads and schools which are usually a fiasco; actually, just look at Iraq). Corporations of this era rarely care about the public interest. That is what we, the American people, have allowed them to become.
5. Now here's the bottom line and I can't emphasize this enough. If the so-called big brains who lead the Republican favor doing something about the American economy, it's generally in the direction of turning the United States into a third world economy. These are the same clowns who thought the neoconservatives had something intelligent to say about foreign policy.

It can be argued with good reason that our country does best when we have a two-party system. But we have a problem. One of those parties, at least at the national level, has become totally dysfunctional. It has no solutions and it has no ideas. It doesn't even have a clear understanding of what is going on in the world. The right wing side of the Republican Party still has money and it still has big mouths. And it seems committed to doing everything it can to obstruct any effort that might address our problems.

The forty percent of the Republican Party that is not right wing has some thinking to do. The only way to shut down nonsense from the Republican right wing is to put them out of business. The only way to do that is for the more sane, pragmatic side of the Republican Party to refrain from aiding and abetting fools who thought Bush was a great president. More important, it would help to stop paying the salaries of right wingers whether they're in Congress or in think tanks. Those who are not Democrats need to think long and hard about how to rebuild a viable second party. By the way, the 'base' is not as stupid or as difficult to reach as some seem to think. Despite the phony bipartisanship calls of the Republicans while they obstructed any meaningful discussion of the crisis we're in, we still need people to come together to some extent in our country—that includes at least some of 'the base'—while having real dialogue based on real facts with some serious thought about the enormous problems facing all of us. The United States is in crisis and too many people either do not want to deal with that fact or they want to play games for their own self-interest.

The American people quite literally cannot afford another George W. Bush, nor can they afford the Republican Party as it now exists. The Democrats, no doubt, could use an opposition but that opposition needs to be based on real ideas, without scapegoats, and with a reasonable understanding of where we are.

I didn't ask for Bush to be a failed president. The fact is that his failures have cost me money. Those failures have cost nearly everyone I know. Now I still think it's possible to dig our way out. I certainly hope so. I know it's possible that we have become the Titanic and that we have hit the iceberg of our own complacency. It certainly seems the rich, with their huge bonuses, are already sailing away from the Titanic in their fancy yachts. That wouldn't leave much for the rest of us except for the balloons from the party Republicans have been throwing for 28 years. Those balloons, of course, wouldn't help much. They would be too full of Republican hot air. Not too useful if we had to jump in the cold water.

It will take more than Barack Obama to turn our economy around and deal with our other issues. But I will say this: every American better hope President Obama succeeds.

The Last Hours of Our National Nightmare

They're actually leaving.

Of course Bush and Cheney have tried to grab headlines in their final weeks in power. Today, however, an AP story offers food for thought:

Vice President Dick Cheney pulled a muscle in his back while moving boxes and will be in a wheelchair for Tuesday's inauguration ceremony.

All those secret papers must be heavy! (sigh) A court ruling has actually gone in Cheney's favor on such stuff but I suppose he's not taking any chances. He had to move the boxes himself. But a wheelchair? If Cheney needs a wheelchair, so be it. But I can't help thinking of dictators, mafia bosses and SS guards who have used wheelchairs for sympathy. It's impossible not to think of "the way Pinochet danced out of his wheelchair" a few years back. Such are the times.

My wife is staying home tomorrow morning so we'll be watching the inauguration together. Obama doesn't have to do his best speech ever but I hope he has fresh material. And I hope he inspires in such a way that we might see real change in four to eight years. Down the road, the biggest change we can hope for is that the next time the Republicans return to the White House we won't see a repeat of the illegal nonsense we have seen too often from Republican presidents in the last forty years. The Republican Party needs to reform itself and put its authoritarian habits out by the curb (and, please, not in the recycle bin).

Barack Obama. Well, it's an amazing event. And it's historic. And it's a proud moment for our nation. Here's a great article by David Maraniss of The Washington Post about Barack Obama:

The first president to enter the White House with a literate and introspective memoir behind him, Obama is his own book of firsts. He is the first president with a foreign father. He is the first president to grow up in Hawaii, the 50th state. He is the first president whose parents earned doctoral degrees. He is the first president who once could speak the Indonesian language. He is the first president who was president of the Harvard Law Review. He is the first president who was a hapa, as they are called in Hawaii, with parents of different races. He is the first president who has a sister from Asia and a sister from Africa and a wife from the black working-class South Side of Chicago. And he is the first African American president, yet one with no slaves but a few slaveholders in his ancestry.

I remember a great James Stewart western from many years ago where his character was described by a local reporter as the first this and the first that. It's pure Americana what Maraniss is doing there. The United States has always been a nation of firsts. Let's hope the United States is still capable of more firsts in the coming years that can make us proud.

At noon on January 20, hope returns.

Barack Obama: Yes He Did

It's been more than a week since the American people elected Barack Obama to be the next president of the United States. It's an extraordinary story after eight years of the most failed presidency in American history. On Election night I'm not sure what was more moving, the great speech that Obama gave or the many moving crowd shots in Chicago, New York, Washington and elsewhere. Jesse Jackson will be remembered for a long time simply for the tears on his face. A lot of cynicism withered on November 4. Just amazing.

Now way back when, I supported John Edwards in the primaries (that was a mistake) and I was skeptical that Barack Obama could pull off a victory in this year's election (that too was a mistake). Sometimes it's nice to be wrong. But here's a map from 2006 that explains some of my early skepticism:


But in just two years, Barack Obama managed to go from one state to this:


If you're a relative newcomer, you have to be an exceptional person with an exceptional campaign to beat a powerful candidate in the primaries and then a big name politician in the general election. But I think Howard Dean should get a little credit too for the map above. I liked his 50 state strategy and I suspect Barack Obama liked it too. By the way, I don't know what happened in Missouri, the "show me" state, but Barack Obama should consider it a challenge and turn it blue by 2012.

Those who opposed Barack Obama are now either his best friends or they're just as shrill as ever. It's not pretty. Obviously, the leadership of the Republican Party has lost its way. Palin, as just one example, was an embarrassment. I never saw anyone fill air time with such inanities and drivel. Palin is a parody of today's Republican Party.

Of course, many men and women were far more qualified to be on the ticket than the $150,000+ fashion candidate. That McCain still stands by her is another embarrassment. Republicans have become the party of illusions and sheer cussed stubbornness in the face of a changing world that requires new ideas. I can still remember Republicans posting maps of the 2000 election showing all the red areas for Bush, except a lot of that red covered sparsely settled states. Too many of the right-wingers didn't want to notice that Al Gore had a plurality of votes. So here's another map that takes into account something we call democracy: an electoral map of the 50 states according to population:


This map was from a few days ago before Indiana and North Carolina became blue states for Obama.

It looks like President Barack Obama will be a uniter but if he wants a mandate, he has far more of a real mandate than George W. Bush ever thought he did.

Our country is facing enormous problems and those who wish to pursue business as usual are indeed making the usual noises. The truth is that our nation cannot afford business as usual. I'll make a prediction: the more the American people become aware of the problems we are facing and the more Barack Obama can explain what those problems are and what needs to be done, the more progressive solutions we are going to see because there really is no other viable alternative. Right wing conservatism has failed, utterly. Republicans are in need of pragmatists and most of the few Republicans pragmatists left are currently supporting Obama or wishing him well. George W. Bush and Newt Gingrich have no clue though the latter is already making noises about 2012; at the very least, Gingrich still wants to be a players though he has nothing to offer. We'll see. There is an enormous amount of work to do. But maybe we have a chance now. I look forward to the inauguration.

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.

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.

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.

2008 Election Priorities: Obama, Clinton and McCain

Reality check. This is what we're facing in the 2008 election:


Bush wants a successor and John McCain is willing to oblige. Look at the picture and note how tired John McCain looks. After seven years of failure, this is the best the Republican party can offer the American people? This is the guy who's mind is going to be clear at 3 in the morning when the phone rings? Hillary Clinton has got to be kidding.

McCain, despite his many lapses in the last four years since he gave up being America's favorite maverick—a reputation that has more to do with the media than reality by the way—has been treated generously and very kindly by the media. He served his country well and there will be no swift-boating from Democrats of this man. But he has weaknesses and Hillary Clinton should not hand him phony ammunition for the fall campaign.

Hillary Clinton has been running on an irritating premise that I wish she would drop. She says she has experience and that she will be ready on day one, particularly when it comes to national security. During Bill Clinton's presidency, she dealt with some foreign policy issues (mostly friendship building) but never handled serious national security matters. She had no national security clearances. If she's implying that she will have Bill Clinton looking over her shoulder, fine. If that's what the American people want. But I wish she would be clear about it. Now Barack Obama has a pretty good sense of humor. Perhaps he should suggest that if he's elected, Bill Clinton could stay in the White House—say for two weeks—in the Lincoln bedroom—since Bill is willing to do considerably more than that for Hillary.

But Bill Clinton had no national security experience when he was elected president and he did fine. He had good people and many former officials to consult. Just as Barack Obama will if he is elected. Obama has already shown that he has an ability to pick a good team. Despite Hillary's fame, the advantage of the Bill Clinton machine and millions of dollars from big donors, Hillary's campaign has made mistakes and she has had trouble finding her stride, possibly because she made decisions that might have been fine in the last election but not this one. In contrast, Barack Obama has shown that he understands the times and that he knows a thing or two about running a big operation. He still leads in delegate count.

I would gladly vote for Hillary Clinton but she has to think about the party and what it takes to win the election. She should not win the nomination using fear tactics. She should not win a nomination by going negative on a fellow Democrat or playing games with the system. Hillary can quickly change the tenor of the nomination by releasing her tax returns. She needs to affirm her integrity and credibility. Americans have had seven years of incompetence, fraud, lies and nonsense. We do not need more of it. If Hillary can win the nomination by taking the high road, I'm all for it. But if she can only win by playing dirty politics and throwing roses to McCain, then it's time for her to fold her tent. Americans deserve change.

McCain does not represent that change. He appears to have won the nomination by default after several candidates imploded. Esssentially McCain won because he was every Republican's second or third choice. No doubt Republicans will rally around him but it is an odd nomination.

McCain has a number of problems. We're seeing more and more of his bad temper. I have also heard him make comments about Vietnam that suggest he's still fighting that war—he has not put it behind him. His voting record is as conservative as any Republican of the last two generations and he has no solutions for the colossal failures, incompetence and corruption of the last seven years. He knows how to schmooze with reporters but that ability is based largely on telling reporters what they want to hear and adjusting his comments according to the shifting winds. His votes often do not reflect what he says. He contradicts himself a great deal but he leaves no doubt that he is a friend of corporate lobbyists looking for a free handout. There is more. I hold McCain responsible, as an example, for his comment that we might be in Iraq another hundred years. Americans need to reject Republican-style neocolonialism.

Americans need to be realistic about what is happening to our country. A lot of ideologues and wealthy people have been sacrificing pieces of our country's future to make a few extra bucks. And people have died because of other people's greed and political indifference. We need reform and we need change.

Democratic leaders need to keep a sharp eye on our nation's priorities as the Democratic nomination continues. I'm concerned that John Edwards' progressive talking points are quickly being forgotten and his best points need to be remembered. This is above everything else an election about change. If Clinton and Obama play clean, let the chips fall where they may. But if either candidate starts going too dirty or forgets what the election is about, the party's superdelegates and elders need to say enough is enough and close ranks to maintain the viability of the Democratic party.

Let there be no doubt that Bush and his corrupt friends will be doing everything they can to help John McCain win in the fall elections. Without a democratic president, there will be no change come next year. The failures of the last seven years will continue. Once again, this is the future we're in danger of facing:

The Need for Health Care Reform and Reality

I cringed when President Bush said there was no health care crisis and muttered inane nonsense about poor people going to the emergency room if they had a serious problem. President Bush, in many ways of course, did not invent the health care crisis. He merely stood by and did nothing as he has so often done during his presidency. For 27 years, our country has been drifting toward the lowest common denominator on issue after issue simply because powerful Republicans backed by wealthy donors have the money to buy the best pollsters, the best image and the best liars.

Kevin Sacks of The New York Times has an article on research that shows what so many of us already have the common sense to understand: the lack of insurance is dangerous to people's health:

A nationwide study has found that the uninsured and those covered by Medicaid are more likely than those with private insurance to receive a diagnosis of cancer in late stages, often diminishing their chances of survival.

(snip)

The widest disparities were noted in cancers that could be detected early through standard screening or assessment of symptoms, like breast cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer and melanoma. For each, uninsured patients were two to three times more likely to be diagnosed in Stage III or Stage IV rather than Stage I. ...

I'm going to make a confession: we need health care reform badly but so much damage has been done to our country in the last 27 years, and particularly in the last seven years, by the right wingers and their noise machine, I'm not even sure that health care reform is even going to be possible in the next ten years. Whoever becomes the next president will have an obligation to look at the real state of our nation as soon as Bush leaves. It could be ugly. We have problems that are not only coming but that have already arrived. If John McCain is elected, the problems will continue to get much worse. In front of the camera, McCain is a nice guy but he has no idea where we are and no idea what to do. If Obama or Clinton become president, there's a good chance either one can stop the bleeding, but it will take the involvement of millions of Americans and particularly the young to turn our country around.

***For the record, neither my wife nor myself have health insurance. At our age, the insurance premiums alone would drive us into bankruptcy.


Campaign Update: Hey, give me your ears. Four score and seven days ago, Hillary Clinton was the 'inevitable' nominee.

Being inevitable is not what one expects of a Democrat. If I'm being too sarcastic, I apologize. These are hard times. We need to be inspired. Hillary Clinton is very capable but she is now reduced to criticizing Barack Obama about the trivial such as borrowing lines from his friends. The irony is that if Hillary Clinton were to take the high ground starting now and inspire people and continue until November, she would have a good chance of taking the nomination and winning the election. She's capable of inspiring people but has chosen a different course thanks to some odd supporters, including Republican pollster, Mark Penn (Isn't it odd by the way that Republican pollsters urge Republican candidates to be more folksy but urge Democratic candidates to triangulate?).

A reader on TPMElection Central points out an article that Molly Ivins wrote in 2006 explaining why she would not vote for Hillary Clinton for the nomination. Here's an excerpt that talks about leadership:

What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

If Hillary Clinton wins the nomination, I will support her but I don't pretend to understand her current campaign. Does she really understand where we are? We are at an historic crossroads. Does Hillary or Bill get it? I'm convinced that Barack Obama gets it. I'm convinced that young people supporting Barack Obama understand clearly that their future is on the line. From time to time our country has needed major reform. We are in such a time. The corruption and greed of the last 27 years has been hurting our country. We need change. So my support of Barack Obama remains clear and it remains strong.