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.

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.

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.