Who won the first 3 debates?

Who won the Palin/Biden debate and the first two McCain/Obama debates? The vast majority of the experts who discussed it in the media immediately following the debates seemed to think they were basically draws – no clear winner. But those were all opinions. What are the facts?

As reported in this morning’s New York Times the latest Times/CBS News poll show a 14 point lead for Barack Obama.

After several weeks in which the McCain campaign unleashed a series of strong political attacks on Mr. Obama, trying to tie him to a former 1960s radical, among other things, the poll found that more voters see Mr. McCain as waging a negative campaign than Mr. Obama. Six in 10 voters surveyed said that Mr. McCain had spent more time attacking Mr. Obama than explaining what he would do as president; by about the same number, voters said Mr. Obama was spending more of his time explaining than attacking.

Over all, the poll found that if the election were held today, 53 percent of those determined to be probable voters said they would vote for Mr. Obama and 39 percent said they would vote for Mr. McCain.
Read the entire article.

Remember that up until the debates the polls showed the race to be pretty much a dead heat. Also remember that the elections of 2000 and 2004 were extremely close, both in the popular vote and in the Electoral College. For the Democrats to have opened up a double digit lead in 3 weeks shows that the debates were a total disaster for McCain/Palin and a stunning victory for Obama/Biden.

As all the experts discuss tonight’s debate will they acknowledge how incorrect their analysis of the previous 3 debates has turned out to be? Not likely. Being accountable for performance is apparently just for school teachers and administrators.

More about Rev. Arnold Conrad

A little sleuthing on the internet, see here and here, reveals that the Dr. Arnold Conrad who delivered the invocation at the McCain rally in Davenport on Saturday is the current interim minister at Bethany Baptist church in Moline and holds a Doctor of Ministry Degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL. This supposedly highly educated man said "there are millions of people around this world praying to their god - whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah …" and was worried that if their prayers were answered they would think their god was "bigger" than the "God of the Bible."

Well, I don't hold any advanced degrees in religion and even I know that there is no god named "Hindu" or "Buddha" and "Allah" is another name for the "God of the Bible." There are many Hindu gods but none of them are named "Hindu". Buddhists do not have a god – Buddha was just an enlightened man. Muslims believe that Jews, Christians and Muslims are people of the book, worshiping the same god. (Jews and Christians may not agree with that, but no Muslim would ever think that "their god" was different than the god of the Christian Bible.)

So, what exactly are they teaching at Trinity Evangelical and on what basis do they award doctorates?

Davenport minister causes controversy

Updated below

The Quad Cities is getting some dubious national exposure thanks to John McCain and Rev. Arnold Conrad. At John McCain's rally today in Davenport, Iowa, Rev Conrad, former pastor of Grace Evangelical Free Church, delivered the invocation. According to the Iowa Independent this was what was said:

I would also pray, Lord, that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their god - whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah - that his opponent wins, for a variety of reasons," Conrad said.

And Lord, I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they're going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you will step forward and honor your own name with all that happens between now and Election Day."

Can you believe that?! This joker is claiming that because non-Christians around the world are hoping for an Obama victory in November, the Christian God's reputation and honor is at stake in this election!

As Obama's election becomes more likely these people are getting more desperate and deranged.

Update: According to the QuadCities Times Rev. Arnold when questioned after the rally offered this clarification:

Arnold told the Times later that he wasn’t referring to any particular candidate and that he probably misspoke. “My prayer had nothing to do with either candidate,” he said. “My point was these people are praying that the person of their choice wins. If that happens, then they’re going to ascribe to their God that power, that their God made it happen as opposed to the God of the Bible.”

We were not told the question he was asked but I don't see how that can be the right answer to any question. He really seems to believe that non-Christians around the world would interpret an Obama victory as a victory of their god over the "God of the Bible." But doesn't he realize that the Muslim god is the "God of the Bible?" Doesn't he realize that Buddhists don't have a god?

If non-Christian's wishes coming true would be intrepreted as a victory for "their God" as "opposed to the God of the Bible" why are only their wishes about this election a problem? Wouldn't any of their wishes about anything coming true be just as much ascribed to "their God.. as opposed to the God of the Bible?" According to his argument wouldn't we have to try to keep any non-Christian's wishes from coming true to prevent a perceived defeat for "the God of the Bible?"

A lesson I learned from my Indian Guru

McCain and Palin have been saying that Barak Obama sees this country differently from you and me and pals around with terrorists. At least some of their supporters have made the inference from those statements that Obama himself is a terrorist. See here and here. The threats of violence against Barack Obama from riled-up crowds at McCain/Palin rallies have unnerved a lot of people including some Republicans. Here is an example from this morning's Quad City Times.

U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood has a message for his party's presidential ticket: Tone it down.

LaHood, a Republican from Peoria, Ill., who is retiring in January after seven terms, told a Chicago radio station Friday that some McCain-Palin rallies are unbecoming to Republicans.

In particular, he pointed to shouts of "terrorist" that have come from the audience when vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has talked about Democrat Barack Obama, the U.S. senator from Illinois.

"This doesn't befit the office that she's running for. And, frankly, people don't like it," LaHood told WBBM-AM.

Read the entire article.

In response to sentiments such as these from other Republicans and perhaps from his own sense of growing unease with what he has unleashed, yesterday John McCain started contradicting his own supporters who think Obama is a terrorist. See here. In response to a woman in the audience at his rally yesterday who said she feared an Obama presidency because Obama is an Arab, McCain said that Obama is a decent American and a family man and that no one should fear an Obama presidency.

This reminds me of the Indian guru I followed for a while in the 1970s. When he was hyping an upcoming meditation course, for which attendants would pay a sizeable fee, he would describe the importance of the course in cosmic terms – world peace and the very future of the universe depended on the number of people attending. Inevitable some followers dropped everything to attend, neglecting important family and business responsibilities. When reports of these unfortunate situations reached the guru he was perplexed. "Don't these people have any common sense?" he asked.

Republicans should learn from McCain the same lesson I learned from my Indian guru. Some people say things they don't believe themselves and if you believe them they will think you are a fool.

And peace to you, too

Check out this photo!

Taco Dinner Fundraiser Tonight

The Moline Township Democrats are holding a Taco Dinner Fundraiser at the Moline American Legion Hall, 1623 15th St., from 5:00 to 7:30 pm. today, Wednesday, Oct. 8. Dinner tickets, which can be purchased at the door, are $7.00/$6.00 for seniors.

The Day of the Dead at the Figge, Nov. 2

The thing you need to understand about the Mexican Day of the Dead (otherwise known as November 2, All Souls Day) is that the skulls and skeletons are not meant to be scary or spooky as they are when used in American Halloween decorations. The skeletons symbolize those who have died, our loved ones who have passed on. Leading up to the Day of the Dead, Mexicans set up altars in their homes honoring those who have died. On the Day of the Dead they gather at the cemetery to decorate the graves of their loved ones and to have a picnic.

These designs have been created by Moline graphic artist Rafael Gonzales and donated to Moline’s Casa Guanajuato. There will be T-Shirts with these designs printed on them for sale (as a fundraiser for Casa Guanajuato) at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport Nov. 2, 2008 as part of this year’s Day of the Dead festival. There will be a display of altars similar to the ones Mexicans create in their homes as well as Mexican music and food and dancing by the Quad Cities Ballet Folklorico.

Artist Jesus Pastor from Cortazar, Guanajuato, Mexico, who has been sponsored by the Cultural Institute of the state of Guanajuato and the city government of Cortazar to spend a month in the Quad Cities, will give a lecture on the meaning and symbolism of the Day of Dead. Between now and then Senor Pastor will be designing and building an altar to be displayed at the Figge honoring the more than 70 women who have been murdered during the last few years around Juarez as well as those who have died in the desert coming from Mexico to the United States. From what he has said about his plans for the altar it promises to be stunning and magnificent.

Iraq still the winning issue for Obama/Biden

The conventional wisdom endlessly repeated in the media is that Iraq has faded as an issue in this election and that the voters are much more concerned about the economy. Well, they may be concerned about the economy but according to the undecided voter's instant reactions to the vice-presidential debate last night they still have very strong feelings about Iraq.

As reported by Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com:

After the presidential debate last week, GOP pollster Frank Luntz said on Fox that, among undecided voters, Obama's strongest moments and McCain's weakest came when they clashed on Iraq, and later said that it is simply impossible for the GOP to win any debate on Iraq. Last night, GOP strategist Alex Castellanos on CNN said after the debate: "You know, Republicans aren't going to win debates on Iraq. I don't care who you put on that stage tonight, we're not going to win debates on Iraq, and we didn't tonight." And most notably, the best reaction Biden produced from the CBS focus group was when he demanded withdrawal from Iraq, and the worst reaction Sarah Palin produced was when she then spat out her tired right-wing slogan that Obama's withdrawal "plan is a white flag of surrender in Iraq."

Undecided voters in CBS's focus group who were turning dials to record their second-by-second reactions to the debate twisted the Sarah Palin dial sharply toward maximum disapproval when she labeled a call for the US to withdraw from Iraq "a white flag of surrender."

John McCain had no trouble throwing out a lifetime of being against government regulation of business and markets to become a born-again regulator. But he apparently cannot abandon his support for our occupation of Iraq in spite of its unpopularity with the public and his sinking poll numbers.

What sort of people are these Republicans? It sometimes seems as though they would do anything to win an election, but obviously there is one thing they will not do—advocate withdrawing our troops from Iraq. What sort of values are these?

Family Man Barack

In general I think that people should decide for whom to vote based on the issues and political philosophy rather than on personality and "feeling your pain." But in this video you can see that Barack Obama is a true family man who really likes babies in a way that only a proud and devoted father does. Contrast his demeanor with the smoldering "Yosemite Sam" anger that John McCain has been showing lately.

Banned Book Week

The American Library Association has declared this week, September 27–October 4 2008, as National Banned Book Week. In honor of that and my aunt and sister-in-law who are librarians, here is a list compiled by the American Library Association of the "10 Most Challenged Books of 2007" along with the reasons given for why some people thought they should not be read.

1) "And Tango Makes Three," by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
Reasons: Anti-Ethnic, Sexism, Homosexuality, Anti-Family, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group

2) The Chocolate War," by Robert Cormier
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Violence

3) "Olive's Ocean," by Kevin Henkes
Reasons: Sexually Explicit and Offensive Language

4) "The Golden Compass," by Philip Pullman
Reasons:  Religious Viewpoint

5) "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," by Mark Twain
Reasons:  Racism

6) "The Color Purple," by Alice Walker
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language,

7) "TTYL," by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

8) "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," by Maya Angelou
Reasons:  Sexually Explicit

9) "It's Perfectly Normal," by Robie Harris
Reasons:  Sex Education, Sexually Explicit

10) "The Perks of Being A Wallflower," by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons:  Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

My personal choice for the greatest book ever written is number 5 on the list, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." My brothers and I still fondly remember my father reading it to us when we were little. We did not realize at the time what a subversive act that would later appear to be, in today's political climate. (My father also read to us from "Gulliver's Travels," which must only have escaped the book banner's attention by some oversight. It also is an extremely subversive book, full of ideas that some people would think were especially unsuitable for children.)

Defy the book banners by reading one of these books this week. If there is a child in your life who has not yet begun to read on her/his own then emulate my father and read it to her/him.

Obama: McCain had nothing to say about the middle class.

You have probably already read and heard a lot of opinions on last night's debate. Here is Barack Obama's take on it, in a speech today at Greensboro, North Carolina:

The truth is, through ninety minutes of debating, John McCain had a lot to say about me, but he had nothing to say about you. He didn't even say the words "middle class." Not once.

You see, I think Senator McCain just doesn't get it – he doesn't get that this crisis on Wall Street hit Main Street a long time ago. That's why his first response to the greatest fiscal meltdown in generations was to say that the "fundamentals of the economy are strong." That's why he's been shifting positions these last two weeks, looking for a photo-op, and trying to figure out what to say and what to do.

See a transcription of the entire speech here.

Breaking news – McCain’s proposing a tax increase on the middle class

Almost all of John McCain's supporters and defenders in the Main-Stream Media have now deserted him. The latest defector is the Associated Press, which until recently had been consistently putting a pro-McCain slant on all its coverage of the campaign. The incredible events of the last few days must have been the straw that broke the camel's back over at the A.P. Check out this A.P. story that just appeared in the latest news headline stories on the 'My Yahoo' website.

Voters whose bottom line is taxes can use a new online tool to calculate what their own bottom line would be with the IRS under a Barack Obama or John McCain administration. ….

For example, the model indicates that a couple with two children earning $100,000 with $20,000 in itemized deductions would have a net tax bill for 2009 of $9,555 under McCain and $9,002 under Obama. That compares with a $9,505 tax bill for this couple under current law, the electiontaxes.com site says. In another example, a single taxpayer making $50,000 and using the standard deduction would pay $6,867 under McCain and $6,325 under Obama, compared with $6,827 under current law.
Read entire article.

It is hard to imagine anything more damaging to McCain's chances of winning the votes of still undecided voters with yearly incomes less than $200,000 than to point out that their taxes would be lower under Barack Obama's tax plan than they would under John McCain's. In fact, for most taxpayers McCain's plan would be a tax increase over what they are currently paying while Obama's would be a tax cut. These facts contradict everything McCain has been saying in his television ads about his and Obama's tax plans so this story efficiently and effectively demonstrates that not only does McCain favor the rich at the expense of the middle class but his entire campaign is built on lies.

Since neither McCain nor Obama have changed their tax plans recently one can wonder what about this story is "breaking news." My guess is that A.P.'s sudden realization of what their former hero John McCain has become is the breaking news being announced in this story.

A rash and impulsive conservative?

The idea that the economic situation facing the country was so grave that presidential candidates should not campaign probably did not even occur to either Herbert Hoover or Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 at the beginning of the Great Depression. Yet John McCain, a man who calls himself a conservative, is taking the radical, non-cautious, non-prudent, unprecedented step of suspending his campaign and calling for candidate's debates to be delayed or canceled. When are true conservatives going to emerge to denounce this imposter?

The Quaker Lobby

The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad is currently in New York to address the United Nations. On Thursday, the Iranian president will be the honored guest at an Iftar dinner--the ceremonial breaking of the Ramadan fast--at the New York Grand Hyatt Hotel. That meal is sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, the Mennonite Central Committee, Quaker United Nations Office, Religions for Peace, and the World Council of Churches-United Nations Liaison Office According to the invitation, the assembled guests--including Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, President of the General Assembly of the United Nations and the Rev. Kjell Bondevik, former Prime Minister of Norway and President of the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights--will hold a "conversation about the role of religions in tackling global challenges and building peaceful societies."

As you would expect, given the current United States political climate, something so civilized and decent as religious groups reaching out to a Muslim leader to discuss peace has drawn some criticism. One of the funniest things I have read lately was an article at The New Republic website by James Kirchick which actually uses the phrase "the Quaker lobby" to describe a force in our society the writer feels needs to be opposed. Be sure to read the comments to the article. Here is one of the best comments:

The worst part is the Quaker Lobby is so influential. It's so bad these days that a politician can't even call for a war for fear of the Quaker Lobby. Even a hint of war-mongering and they start yelling about "anti-Quakerism." It's too bad they so skew the debate that we can't even talk about war rationally any more. I mean, what if there is a genuine threat to our national security, shouldn't we at least be able to consider the use of force? But no. Our Congressmen and women are reduced to banal pro-Quaker sentiments on the floor of the House and Senate. It's kind of sad. I'm glad you are calling them out on it though Jamie. Keep up the good fight!

And this one:

It's well known that the Quaker lobby has many members of the United States government in their back pockets. The U.S. gives more monetary and military aid to Quakerstan than to any other nation. Their super-secret Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations--the Oatmen--routinely carries out assassinations all over the world, and has frequently been found to be spying on the United States government and military.

Don't misunderstand me. Many of my best friends are Friends. Quakers are often skilled, learned professionals. The fact that many of those currently playing hacky-sack with the U.S. financial system are Quakers is sheer coincidence, and more a testament to their hard work, intelligence, and respect for education. Quaker families and traditions are a model for us all.

However, American foreign policy suffers when any one group possesses undue influence. Thus it behooves us to follow Mr. Kirchick's lead and keep a close watch on the nefarious Quaker lobby.

Who is to blame?

According to what the U.S. Treasury Secretary has been telling everyone the world banking system will collapse unless immediate and unprecedented action is taken. This crisis has as its basis securities being held by the banks that turn out to be worth much less than was expected because a much higher percentage of the home mortgages upon which the securities were based are turning out to be bad than was anticipated. Apparently this situation is going to cost the taxpayers billions of dollars. Who should be blamed?

Judging by the comments my last few blog entries have received many people think the primary responsibility rests with the home buyer.

Assume we are talking about the majority of mortgages which were taken out by home buyers who were not real estate or finance professionals. When every one of those bad mortgages were created there were a number of people in the room, everyone of whom other than the borrower was a professional with a responsibility, either to the bank that would end up holding the mortgage or to the home buyer, to help write a mortgage that would be successfully repaid. Everyone in that room, except the borrower, got paid in full at that time for their contribution to that process. How in God's name can the primary blame for their failure to write a good mortgage rest with the home buyer?

Banks, but not homeowners, to be rescued

U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson was just interviewed by George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week." One of the most amazing, at least to me, things he said was in answer to Stephanopoulos' queries about foreclosure relief. He was asked what the American public would get in return for the billions of taxpayer dollars being given to the banks? Could individual Americans facing home foreclosure receive any relief as part of this package?

In reply the Treasury secretary said that the vast majority of Americans facing foreclosure were in that position because they had bought more house than they could afford. Although they paid more for the house than it is now worth that, according to the secretary, is not why they are facing foreclosure. Although they got a higher interest loan, a variable rate loan, a balloon loan that was not the best loan then available that, according to the secretary, has nothing to do with it. Nothing could possibly be done to keep them in their homes because, even if as part of this package they were refinanced at the current market value of their house with a 30 year mortgage at a fixed rate that is the best now available for them, they could not make those payments because they simply bought more house than they could afford. The housing bubble had nothing to do with it. The fact that loan agents were incentivized to steer borrowers to higher rate, variable rate, riskier loans had nothing to do with it.

Do you find that believable?

Obama described as the ideal conservative candidate

John McCain and his supporters constantly describe Barack Obama as the "most liberal member of the U.S. Senate." This claim has not received as much attention from the fact-checkers and debunkers as McCain's charge that Obama wants to teach kids about sex before they can read or that Obama called Palin a pig, but that is not because it is any less untrue.

Like Diogenes looking in vain for an honest man I have been waiting for an honest conservative to admit what is obvious to me -- that in many very important ways Barack Obama is much more conservative than either George W. Bush or John McCain. He is much less reckless and impulsive and much more thoughtful, careful, realistic and family, community and church-oriented than any Republican currently on the national stage.

I have found such a conservative - Wick Allison, a former publisher of the National Review. This is what Allison had to say in a recent editorial:

But I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history. I disagree with him on many issues. But those don’t matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama’s books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers.

Most important, Obama will be a realist. I doubt he will taunt Russia, as McCain has, at the very moment when our national interest requires it as an ally. The crucial distinction in my mind is that, unlike John McCain, I am convinced he will not impulsively take us into another war unless American national interests are directly threatened.
Read entire article.

If the government is going to buy up those bad mortgages…

Yesterday the Dow jumped 410 points on news that the federal government was talking about a plan to use taxpayer money to buy hundreds of billions of dollars of bad mortgages. According to the New York Times:

While details remain to be worked out, the plan is likely to authorize the government to buy distressed mortgages at deep discounts from banks and other institutions. The proposal could result in the most direct commitment of taxpayer funds so far in the financial crisis that Fed and Treasury officials say is the worst they have ever seen.

I would like to pass on some suggestions from someone I know who has been trying to help people in danger of losing their homes through foreclosure. Many of these mortgages are bad (the borrower cannot make the payments) not because the borrower bought a more expensive house than they could afford but because the terms of the loan were so unfavorable. If these mortgages were converted to fixed rate, 30 year loans at a reasonable interest rate that alone would transform them from problem mortgages into loans that could and would be repaid.

In situations in which the mortgage is for more than the house is now worth and the borrower cannot afford the current payments but could afford a mortgage for what the house is now worth why not have the government forgive the portion of the mortgage above the current market value? If the government bought the mortgage at a "deep discount" then it would likely still be worth more than the government paid for it. It would not be to anyone's advantage for the government to foreclose on a mortgage, leaving a family homeless and the government owning an empty house.

Perhaps there would be reasons why these things could not be done, but they sure seem reasonable to me.

The rain in Spain falls mainly on McCain

In a story that does not yet seem to getting much play in the United States but is a very big story in Spain, in an interview with a Spanish television network John McCain amazed the interviewer by appearing to not know whether the Spanish prime minister Zapatero was an anti-American leader like Hugo Chavez that he would refuse to meet with or a pro-American leader with whom he would consult.

As reported in the Talking Points Memo blog:

…In the interview, McCain is asked about Hugo Chavez, the situation in Bolivia and then about Raul Castro. He responds to each of these with expected answers about standing up to America's enemies, etc. Then the interviewer switches gears and asks about Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister. And McCain replies -- very loose translation -- that he'll establish close relations with our friends and stand up to those who want to do us harm. The interviewer has a double take and seems to think McCain might be confused. So she asks it again. But McCain sticks to the same evasive answer.

The people of Spain are saying that if McCain thinks it is possible that the Spanish prime minister might be an anti-American leader similar to Hugo Chavez that he must not know that Spain is a country in Europe. Spain and all the other European NATO countries rightly consider themselves to be staunch American allies and apparently assume that Americans feel the same way. They must not fully comprehend how stupid Republicans have been lately about Europe. This is somewhat good news because it means that President Obama might have an easier job of repairing relations between the United States and our European allies than would otherwise be the case.

Is the future of political commentary at stake?

Several commentators (see here and here) have pointed out that the McCain/Palin campaign is a trailblazer in prevarication. It is quite common for the media to fact-check claims made by political candidates and find that some of them fall short of the truth. Always before when this happened the campaign dropped the statement once it had been widely reported in the media to be untrue. Not this time. The McCain/Palin campaign continues to say that Sarah Palin opposed the bridge-to-nowhere and said "No thanks" to the Congressional earmark for that project even after that was widely reported to be a lie. McCain continues to describe Palin as someone who fought against earmarks as mayor and governor and continues to claim that Obama called Palin a pig – claims that have been widely debunked.

This has caused a number of commentators (see here and here) to wonder what the effect would be if after continuing to repeat things exposed as lies in the media the Republicans went on to win the presidency in November. In addition to all the other negative effects this would have it would conclusively demonstrate that political commentary in the media is totally irrelevant and can safely be ignored.

Have the media political commentators, as well as other political professionals, contemplated the implications of that scenario? Is the future of their profession now at stake in this election?

The conservatives have been claiming for a long time that the media was "liberal" and against them, but up until now that claim was untrue and was just a tactic for intimidating the media. It would be interesting to see the how the conservatives react if the media now really turned against them - (for eample see here and here).

Former McCain lapdogs in media turn on him

Check out Richard Cohen's column scheduled to be published tomorrow in the Washington Post but available now online.

I am one of the journalists accused over the years of being in the tank for McCain. Guilty. Those doing the accusing usually attributed my feelings to McCain being accessible. This is the journalist-as-puppy school of thought: Give us a treat, and we will leap into a politician's lap.

Not so. What impressed me most about McCain was the effect he had on his audiences, particularly young people. When he talked about service to a cause greater than oneself, he struck a chord. He expressed his message in words, but he packaged it in the McCain story -- that man, beaten to a pulp, who chose honor over freedom. This had nothing to do with access. It had to do with integrity.

McCain has soiled all that. His opportunistic and irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir -- the person in whose hands he would leave the country -- is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president. McCain knows that. He means to win, which is all right; he means to win at all costs, which is not.

Read entire column.

If elected what would be McCain’s mandate?

Thomas Friedman has an interesting column in today's New York Times. I usually try to ignore Friedman because I so dislike his amorality. (He supported invading Iraq even though he knew they had nothing to do with 9/11 and posed no threat to us. He thought a U.S military invasion of some random Muslim country as a demonstration of our might would make an impression on the Arab psyche that would be beneficial to us.) Thomas Friedman is appalled by what the McCain campaign has been saying, not because of what the blatant lies that continue to be repeated even after they have been thoroughly debunked by the media reveal about McCain's and Palin's honesty and character – being amoral , Friedman cares not a whit about that – but because the Republican emphasis on fossil fuels and wedge issues is making the American public stupid and unprepared to deal effectively with the problems we face.

….an America that is focused first and foremost on drilling for oil is an America more focused on feeding its oil habit than kicking it.

Why would Republicans, the party of business, want to focus our country on breathing life into a 19th-century technology — fossil fuels — rather than giving birth to a 21st-century technology — renewable energy? As I have argued before, it reminds me of someone who, on the eve of the I.T. revolution — on the eve of PCs and the Internet — is pounding the table for America to make more I.B.M. typewriters and carbon paper. "Typewriters, baby, typewriters."
Read the entire article.

I don't think the McCain campaign willingly chose such a low-road approach to winning the election – I think they were forced into it --they had nothing else. But insofar as their campaign is effective it poses a serious challenge to America. If McCain and Palin are elected after a campaign in which they mocked not only renewable fuels, fighting global warming and community organizing, but honesty and integrity themselves what will we have mandated them to accomplish in office?

McCain says it’s Obama’s fault

At the ServiceNation Presidential Forum at Columbia University on Thursday, John McCain had the following exchange with CNN's Judy Woodruff:

WOODRUFF: Senator, at the Republican convention, a couple of speakers, most notably your running mate, vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, made somewhat derisive comments about Senator Obama's experience as a community organizer. I've heard you say you haven't taken that tone. So I guess my question is, are you saying to others in your campaign and your supporters that that's not the kind of language you want to hear?

MCCAIN: Well …

WOODRUFF: How do you — how are you approaching that?

MCCAIN: First of all, this is a tough business. Second of all, I think the tone of this whole campaign would have been very different if Senator Obama had accepted my request for us to appear in town hall meetings all over America, the same way Jack Kennedy and Barry Goldwater had agreed to do so. I know that, because I've been in enough campaigns.

See the entire transcript here.

So John McCain is trying to claim that the negative tone of his own campaign is Barack Obama's fault?! If McCain's has so little control over his own campaign what sort of leader is he? How much control would he have over the federal government as president?

President Truman had a sign on his desk "The buck stops here." I wonder if John McCain as president would have a sign on his desk reading, "Don't blame me. You brought it on yourself."

It’s not a generational thing.

When I heard Sarah Palin tell ABC's Charles Gibson that the United States should go to war with Russia if they invade Georgia again I could not believe it. How could anyone suggest that the United States go to war with Russia?

Sarah Palin is of a younger generation. Maybe young people today are not as aware as we baby boomers are of the consequences of a thermo-nuclear war. So I asked my 18 year old daughter, "How do you think going to war with Russia would compare to our current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?" "Russia," she exclaimed, eyes wide with astonishment and concern. "They have nuclear bombs! We would all die!"

So no, I guess it's not a generational thing.

UPDATE:

A local conservative blog is suggesting that the only reason anyone might think that Sarah Palin had breezily said that we might have to go to war with Russia if they have another border skirmish with any of their neighbors is because of unfair framing of the issue by that bastion of liberalism - ABC News. I watching the interview and got my impression of what Ms. Palin said directly from her. The fact that John McCain said something similar does nothing to detract from the provocative and disturbing nature of their position on this.

Morally Unfit to be President

"I am John McCain and I approved this message."

Almost everything coming out of John McCain's mouth these days is an absolute, black-is-white lie – not just the normal half-truth, favorable spin that politicians usually engage in – but flat-out lies.

A bill that Barack Obama voted for (not authored or sponsored) in the Illinois Senate intended to protect kindergarteners by having them taught about inappropriate touching in a McCain television ad becomes Obama promoting kindergarten sex.

Obama's tax plan that all the experts agree would provide more tax relief for the middle class than McCain's proposals is described by John McCain as tax hikes.

In McCain's telling Sarah Palin opposed the "Bridge to Nowhere" and Congressional earmarks when she actually did the exact opposite.

John McCain, who abandoned all his maverick positions over the last few years in order to get the nomination and voted with President Bush 95% of the time is running television ads portraying himself as a maverick who often opposes his own party.

Has America, whose first president was George "I cannot tell a lie" Washington, fallen so far from our founding principles that we will elect a president who apparently cannot tell the truth?

Another example of conservative dishonesty

From CNN Politics.com:

The Florida Federation of Republican Women made the decision to boycott the Oprah Winfrey Show Saturday, after the media mogul refused to have Gov. Sarah Palin as a guest on her show until after the election wraps up.

"Women in Florida helped build Oprah into the icon she is today," Linda Ivell, President of the FFRW said in a statement. "We are deeply disappointed in Ms. Winfrey's decision to sit out the greatest political moment in the history of women since suffrage."

That statement is thoroughly dishonest on many levels. Since Oprah has had a stated policy of having no candidate who is currently campaigning on her show no one could have had reasonable expectations that she would invite Sarah Palin. For Oprah to invite Palin on her show would be unfair to all the other candidates. How could the Republican women then be "deeply disappointed" that Oprah is sticking to her policy? Also how can they claim that a woman being nominated for vice president is "the greatest political moment" since suffrage when the Democrats had a woman vice presidential candidate over 20 years ago? The women of the Florida Federation of Republican Women are putting on a show of faux outrage in an attempt to bully Oprah.

Dishonest conservatives

I know there used to be honorable, honest conservatives. Barry Goldwater was one. But being in power seems to have corrupted conservatism itself. Take the conservatives' choice for vice president as an example:

As Josh Marshall writes at the Talking Points Memo blog

The McCain camp has made her signature issue shutting down the Bridge to Nowhere. But as The New Republic
put it today that's just "a naked lie." And pretty much the same thing has been written today in Newsweek, the Washington Post, the AP, the Wall Street Journal. Yesterday even Fox's Chris Wallace called out Rick Davis on it.

On earmarks she's an even bigger crock. On the trail with McCain they're telling everyone that she's some kind of earmark slayer when actually, when she was mayor and governor, in both offices, she requested and got more earmarks than virtually any city or state in the country.

When you remove the lies there is nothing left. The entire presentation of Sarah Palin as someone who represents change from the corruption of Washington is dishonest.

My previous two blog posts were about a Quad Cities conservative blogger whose entire blogging persona is a lie. She pretends she is non-ideological and non-partisan but somehow ends up only criticizing Democrats and liberals. She writes blog posts in which the main point is a lie – such as a recent post about American flags that Democrats supposedly threw in the garbage and were then rescued from the landfill. (Actually the bags of flags were just left behind at the convention center and a vendor thought they would probably end up being thrown away.)

It makes you wonder whether they are lying because they have nothing truthful to offer, i.e. if they didn't have lies they would have nothing, or if modern conservatives have convinced themselves that lying is a virtue.

Avoid blogs that deal in trivialities

A local conservative blogger wrote a blog post that proclaimed that after the Democratic Convention "12,000 American flags had been tossed in the garbage" and "were rescued from the landfill." When the blogger was informed that in actuality the flags were not so much discarded as possibly left behind she wrote in a comment this was turning out to be a typically overblown campaign issue that turned out to be much more ambiguous than originally portrayed and then said:

Honestly, if I wasn't blogging, I don't think I could stand all the trivial bullsh*t.
As it is, the trivial bullsh*t provides many blogging opportunities.

She has just admitted that writing overblown, over-generalized accusations based on exaggerated trivialities is her concept of political blogging.

I agree that seems to be the essence of conservative political blogging. It is certainly not what I am attempting to do in this blog.

I am blogging in hopes of nudging the thinking of the body politic in a positive direction. I think that we need to vote this November as if our lives depended on it, because they may. John McCain is an impulsive, shoot-from-the-hip, gamble on hunches, trust the gut, war-mongering militarist who appears to want the presidency in order to avenge the Vietnam War loss by winning a war – any war. Since the opponents he seems to be setting his sights on are Iran and Russia this is serious business indeed.

Barak Obama is a very intelligent thoughtful man whose decision-making style is the exact opposite of John McCain's. John McCain seems to like the idea of "bombing Iran." Barack Obama appears to be a man who would react to a suggestion that we should bomb Iran by thinking of the innocent Iranians who would be killed --Iranians he probably sees as people like himself, with families, hopes and dreams.

Electing a president of the United States is very serious business. The whole world is watching us to see what we will do. Don't allow yourself to be distracted by trivialities.

How Dare You Question Our Patriotism?

A local blogger is passing on lies from the McCain Campaign. After the Democratic convention a local vendor removed some bags of American flags and gave them to the McCain Campaign. They claimed they were found near a dumpster and assumed they were destined to be thrown away. "Not so," says the Democratic National Convention Committee. Quote sourced here.

Stories circulating about flags at the Democratic National Convention are false. We distributed more than 125,000 American made flags at the Convention - the flags removed from Invesco field were intended for other events and taken without permission. It's disappointing that someone would take American flags without authorization and then falsely describe how they were being used. We have the utmost respect for the American flag, and it's sad to see them being used for a cheap political stunt

Of course, there is no way of knowing if the flags would have ended up being discarded if that vendor had not taken them. Even if they had all that would mean was that at most a small handful of people were careless and certainly not that anyone was unpatriotic, especially not Barack Obama or the entire Democratic party.

When asked specifically about it, John McCain always denies that he questions Barack's patriotism, but here he goes again.

(I tried to post comments with the above information on the local blog referenced above but there were deleted. I guess she does not want her readers to hear the truth.)

Fox News is recycling the Kerry smears

Brave New Films has just released a new video and have asked me (and everyone else on their mailing list) to help spread the word about it. It documents how Fox News and the Republicans are using exactly the same attacks on Barack Obama now that they used against John Kerry in 2004. Check it out.

The Politics of Resentment

Once again Paul Krugman, in his column in today's New York Times, gets to the heart of the matter:

What struck me as I watched the convention speeches, however, is how much of the anger on the right is based not on the claim that Democrats have done bad things, but on the perception — generally based on no evidence whatsoever — that Democrats look down their noses at regular people.

Thus Mr. Giuliani asserted that Wasilla, Alaska, isn't "flashy enough" for Mr. Obama, who never said any such thing. And Ms. Palin asserted that Democrats "look down" on small-town mayors — again, without any evidence.

What the G.O.P. is selling, in other words, is the pure politics of resentment; you're supposed to vote Republican to stick it to an elite that thinks it's better than you. Or to put it another way, the G.O.P. is still the party of Nixon.

Read the entire article.

Of course, the fact that the Republicans have selected the politics of resentment, left-over hatreds of the of cool and popular cliques in high school, as the focus of their convention and campaign does not necessarily mean that their analysis, polls and focus groups tell them that is a winning strategy this year. They may be going with it because it is all they have.

Did Sarah Palin read the entire prepared text?

Did you listen to Sarah Palin's speech last night? I listened to it and one of the things that stuck out for me was that she talked a bit about drilling for oil, laying pipelines, building more nuclear plants and "clean coal," but not about alternative energy sources such as solar, wind, geothermal -- you know, things we won't run out of. And, of course, nothing was said about energy conservation – trying to use less energy. I read what another blogger wrote about the speech and he said the same thing. But when I looked at the speech text, which was released before she spoke, I found this:

To confront the threat that Iran might seek to cut off nearly a fifth of world energy supplies … or that terrorists might strike again at the Abqaiq facility in Saudi Arabia … or that Venezuela might shut off its oil deliveries … we Americans need to produce more of our own oil and gas.
And take it from a gal who knows the North Slope of Alaska: we've got lots of both.
Our opponents say, again and again, that drilling will not solve all of America's energy problems - as if we all didn't know that already.
But the fact that drilling won't solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all.
Starting in January, in a McCain-Palin administration, we're going to lay more pipelines … build more new-clear plants … create jobs with clean coal … and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal, and other alternative sources.

It looks like something of an afterthought but there is the mention. But I did not hear those last 10 words. Did you hear her mention alternative sources of energy?

The perspective of a mother of a special needs child

Apparently John McCain and only a small circle of advisers selected Sarah Palin as his choice for vice president. I wonder how many women were part of that decision. I suspect not very many. At least some women feel very different about Sarah Palin's situation and behavior than any of the men I have heard opine on the matter. This is famous female blogger Blue Gal's take:

I think Sarah Palin is a bad mother.

I hate even thinking that about anyone. Palin is an idiot. I don't care how many people want me to paint her as 'smart'. She's also a compulsive liar, and has obviously lied to herself that she can do the job of helping McCain to get elected, too.

As the mother of a special needs kid, I can tell you that at the time of his diagnosis I would have cut off my own limb before taking ANY job that took me away from his care.
Read the entire blog post.

I wonder what percentage of woman voters share the above opinion, or will come around to that pont of view after seeing Ms. Palin on the campaign trail for the next 60 days. After all she will either leave her 5 children, including her 4 month old special needs baby and pregnant 17 year old, at home or drag them along with her as she campaigns. Judging from the last 2 presidential elections something that would cause just 5% of the voters who would otherwise vote Republican to stay home or vote Democratic would sink John McCain's chances.

Michael Moore Responds to Joe Lieberman

Last night, during his primetime speech from the podium at the Republican National Convention, Senator Joe Lieberman made the following statement: "... if John McCain is just another partisan Republican, then I'm Michael Moore's favorite Democrat. And I'm not. And I think you know that I'm not.") Michael Moore wrote the following open letter in response.

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008
Dear Joe:
John McCain IS just another partisan Republican -- so that must mean you ARE my favorite Democrat!
But how can you be my favorite Democrat when you are no longer a Democrat? This is very confusing. I was in the middle of taking out the garbage and, all of a
sudden, there you were, trash-talking me in front of thousands of cheering (mostly) white people on TV.
What is it with you and your Republican friends always bringing me up? Can't you stop thinking about me? It's starting to sound like a fetish! Stop it! Four years ago at the last Republican Convention, John McCain, in his convention speech, also trashed me, calling me a "disingenuous filmmaker" because I called all of you out in "Fahrenheit 9/11." The crowd at Madison Square Garden went berserk. McCain didn't know I was sitting above him in the press box, and the crowd wouldn't stop screaming at me, so I flashed them the "Big L" loser sign and, well, nine of New York's finest had to help me get out of there alive.
With all the problems facing the world, why is valuable time being wasted reviewing a movie and attacking a filmmaker? And now you, Joe, tonight. Do you think you're energizing the "base" by attacking me? Better take a look at the scoreboard. While your side has spent years trying to make me the boogeyman, let's see how it's worked:
** 2006 Congressional elections: Republicans lose 30 seats in the House and 6 seats in the Senate;
** States That Have Lost a Republican Governor (and elected a Democrat) since 2002: Kansas, Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Tennessee -- EACH ONE OF THEM A RED STATE!;
** Latest Gallup Poll: Obama hit 50% yesterday for the first time for either candidate, 8 points ahead of McCain!
Do you see the trend?
Putting me in your convention speeches, attacking me nonstop on talk radio and Fox News -- and thinking that this helps you -- shows just how out of touch you all are.
Two-thirds of the country agree with my position on the war, two-thirds of the country agree with my position on a single-payer universal health care system, two-thirds believe in some form of gun control -- name the documentary, pick the issue, and the American public agrees with Michael Moore. So get over me, will ya? You're only hurting yourself. And I've got to finish taking out the garbage.
"... if John McCain is just another partisan Republican, then I'm Michael Moore's favorite Democrat. And I'm not. And I think you know that I'm not." Now click your heels together and say, "There's no place like home on the Republican minority side of the aisle."
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

Families “Off Limits”

As John McCain now proclaims, with Barack Obama's complete agreement, that the children of the candidates should be "off limits" it would be good for everyone to remember how the Republicans treated Chelsea Clinton back in the 1990s.

From the Crooks and Liars blog:

John McCain made this odious joke about Chelsea Clinton back in '98.

Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno."

– Sen. John McCain, speaking to a Republican dinner, June 1998.

Solidarity Forever!

Labor Day, September 1, 2008

Solidarity Forever sung by Pete Seeger & The Weavers, with old photographs of the labor movement in US History.This is a tribute to all the workers who sacrificed to make a better world for their children and grand children.

Solidarity forever! by Ralph Chaplin (1915) (modified slightly by Pete Seeger)

When the union's inspiration
Through the worker's blood shall run
There can be no power greater
Anywhere beneath the sun.
Yet what force on earth is weaker
Than the feeble strength of one?
But the union makes us strong.

Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
For the union makes us strong.

It is we who plowed the prairies,
Built the cities where they trade,
Dug the mines and built the workshops,
Endless miles of railroad laid.
Now we stand outcast and starving
'Mid the wonders we have made.
But the union makes us strong.

Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
For the union makes us strong.

They have taken untold millions
That they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle
Not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power
Gain our freedom when we learn
That the union makes us strong.

Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
For the union makes us strong.

In our hands is placed a power
Greater than their hoarded gold,
Greater than the might of atoms
Magnified a thousand fold.
We can bring to birth a new world
From the ashes of the old,
For the union makes us strong.

Don't let the capitalists trick you into thinking that intellectuals and college professors are the haughty elitists. As Pete Seeger & The Weavers tell us in this song the true enemy of the working woman and man are those who do not toil themselves and yet make millions off of your labor.

A Michelle Obama fan

Unlike another white Quad Cities political blogger I make no attempt to speak for African-Americans. They can speak for themselves perfectly well. For example, here is a blogger who appreciates Michelle Obama far more completely than I ever could.

First off, the dress? Loves it! Michelle always looks gorgeous in jewel tones. (Or any solid color. I don't think she has a bad color. The woman rocked ORANGE. That's just how we do.) I don't know who the designer is yet, but I bet it's Maria Pinto, her girl in Chicago. The dress is similar to the purple sheath and an orange dress she's worn previously that were also made by Pinto. I would have preferred a necklace over the beaded flower on her chest, but other than that I have few complaints. Over and over last night, myself, my dad, mother, pundits on TV, even on FOX News couldn't get over how gorgeous she looked. The best Republican strategist Leslie Sanchez on CNN could come up with was it was too "evening gown" like. Um ... seriously, Leslie.

Read the entire blog entry (including 34 pictures of Michelle).

Obama’s Acceptance Speach

What a speech! Despite the unfair attacks John McCain has leveled at Barak Obama, that he was an empty-headed celebrity like Paris Hilton or Britney Spears, that he didn't care whether America was defeated in war as long as he was elected, Barak Obama was not angry with John McCain. He admitted that John McCain loved his country and served it bravely in uniform. But more in sorrow than in anger he had to say that John McCain would not offer the change we need because he is out of touch with the problems and concerns of the vast majority of Americans.

Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn't know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than 100m Americans?... It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it.

Only someone who owns more houses than he can count could think our economy is fundamentally sound and that people who think otherwise are suffering a mental recession. Talk about being unprepared to lead!

The American Dream

You may have missed the Democratic Convention speech last night of Miami Mayor Manny Diaz if you were watching on a channel that had talking heads interpret/interrupt the action for you (almost any channel other than CSpan).

I am privileged to be Mayor of Miami, a city built on the dreams of so many who have come to America searching for freedom and opportunity. I left Cuba at age six, arriving on my mother's lap. We didn't have a penny to our name, but I grew up to become mayor of one of America's greatest cities and president of the United States Conference of Mayors.

I believe in the American dream because I am a product of it. This is the only country in the world that inspires a dream. We provide refuge to those seeking freedom, hope to those seeking opportunity. Our nation's history is built on the stories of men and women who, from many, have become one. It does not matter what your name is, where you came from or what language your ancestors spoke.

Read the complete speech.

It is absolutely breath-taking how the people who have been running our country the last 8 years have been killing the goose who lays the golden eggs. They have been over-turning the American dream and throwing away the things that the rest of the world admired about us. Since the time of George Washington we had been the ones who did not torture and who gave quarter – did not kill soldiers who surrendered to us. Since the time of Thomas Jefferson we have been the place where the majority did not force their religious views on the minority. Since the time of Madison we have had three branches of government with checks and balances so as not to have too much power in one person's hands, in order to avoid being ruled by a despot like England's King George. Since the time of the Mayflower we have been the ones, in Mayor Diaz's words, providing refuge to those seeking freedom, hope to those seeking opportunity.

I just can't get over that these radicals who are over-turning all these long-standing American principles call themselves "conservatives." What exactly do they think they are conserving?

Wake up, America!

Although Hillary Clinton got the headlines in this morning's paper Rep. Dennis Kucinich gave the most rousing speech at the Democratic Convention last night.

Millions of Americans have lost their jobs; trillions of dollars for an unwarranted war paid for with borrowed money; tens of millions of dollars in cash and weapons disappeared into thin air at the cost of the lives of our troops and innocent Iraqis.
….
The insurance companies took over health care. Wake up, America!
The pharmaceutical companies took over drug prices. Wake up, America!
The speculators took over Wall Street. Wake up, America!
See the video

The media characterize these remarks as attacks on Republicans. But Republicans pay the same inflated prices for drugs and health care as other Americans. Rank-and-file Republicans are hurt as much by these crimes as everyone else. Don't fall for the corporate media framing on these issues. Wake up, America!

Media ignore vindication of Obama’s Iraq policy

In negotiations with the United States for a new Security Pact between Iraq and the United States, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is insisting on a firm time-table for withdrawal of all United States forces – no residual forces, no option for slowing or delaying the withdrawal based on conditions on the ground – complete withdrawal by a set date. In other words Maliki is insisting that the United States sign on to Barack Obama's Iraq policy – a policy that John McCain and the Bush Administration had for months labeled a policy of defeat and surrender. Strangely, the "liberal" media have not been trumpeting this vindication of Barack Obama's judgment, foresight and leadership.

McMansionGate

According to the Daily Kos this is a picture of John McCain's key ring with all his house keys. Apparently they are going to have some fun with house keys at the Democratic Convention in Denver this week.

Watching ABC's "This Week" Sunday morning my jaw dropped when Mark Halperin said that the "How many houses do John and Cindy McCain own" business was going to be bad for Obama.

Halperin: ” My hunch is that this is going to end up being one of the worst moments in the entire campaign for one of the candidates, but it’s Barack Obama. I believe this has opened the door to not just Tony Rezko in that ad, but to bring up Reverend Wright, to bring up his relationship with Bill Ayers. I think that the Obama campaign agressively jumped on something ”

Stephanopolous: “Don’t you think that was going to come up anyway?”

As though the Republicans have not been talking about those things for months! How can Halperin continue to pretend he is an impartial observer while saying nonsense like that?

Fear of terrorism

I was once talking to a fellow who told me with supreme confidence that slaveholders always treated their slaves well, much better than employers treat their employees. A slave was a two thousand dollar investment. It would be foolish for the slave owner to damage their own property so, of course, they never did.

When logic is sound but leads to a false conclusion it must be based on false assumptions. Surely one of the false assumptions here, a common one that leads to many false conclusions, is that people always act logically and in their own best interests. But there is another false assumption here that I have recently come to understand from talking to my brother, who is researching American slavery and the Civil War for a book he is writing. That false assumption is that the goal of preserving and protecting their financial investment was never overruled by a higher priority. Slaveholders lived in constant fear of being murdered in their beds in a slave revolt. This fear led to them savagely beat, cripple and execute their slaves, hoping to instill enough fear into the slave population to prevent resistance. A fear of being killed caused people to willingly destroy their own valuable property.

After 9/11 many Americans, reacting to a fear of being killed by terrorists, advocated and supported policies and actions as inhumane and ultimately as harmful to their own best interests as a slaveholder beating his own slave to death.

I imagine that 30 or 40 years in the future there will be people who deny that the United States ever invaded and occupied a sovereign country that posed no danger to us. "They could not have done that," they will say. "That would have put them in greater danger of being attacked by terrorist. I refuse to believe that the people of the United States did such illogical, immoral things -- acts so at odds with all the nobel principles of democracy and self-determination that they have always stood for."

Does John McCain care what the Iraqis want?

What does John McCain mean when he talks about victory in Iraq? As far as I know he has never defined what 'winning' there would look like. According to an article in the Moline Dispatch John McCain thinks

victory in Iraq 'is finally in sight.'

but

the victory he envisioned still could be 'squandered by hasty withdrawal and arbitrary timelines.

Speaking yesterday in New Mexico, John McCain said of Obama's approach to our involvement in Iraq:

He's making these decisions not because he doesn't love America, but because he doesn't think it matters whether America wins or loses.

Polls show the vast majority of Iraqis want the United States out of Iraq as soon as possible. The elected government of Iraq now has called for a phased withdrawal of United States forces on a timeline very similar to the one Barack Obama has been advocating. Given these facts we have to conclude that in John McCain's mind victory and winning in Iraq have nothing to do with democracy and Iraqis running their own country. How could following the wishes of the majority of the Iraqi people and the democratically elected government of Iraq and setting up a timeline for withdrawing our forces 'squander' our victory unless that victory had nothing to do with what the Iraqi people want?

George W. Bush has often talked about our invasion and occupation of Iraq in terms of bringing freedom and democracy to that part of the world. Why haven't the media asked John McCain whether he believes in Iraqi democracy?

Those who know him best

If you are thinking about voting for John McCain for president you might want to read this. It is an op-ed written for http://www.military.com/ by Phillip Butler, who was at the U.S. Naval Academy with John McCain and was a prisoner of war in Hanoi for 8 years, including the 5 ½ years that McCain was there.

I … believe that having been a POW is no special qualification for being President of the United States. The two jobs are not the same, and POW experience is not, in my opinion, something I would look for in a presidential candidate.

Read the entire article.

Thanks to faithful reader Saul for sending me the link.

Not helpful to classify Russia as adversary – Robert Gates.

This morning on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" George asked the Secretary of State, Robert Gates, whether Russia had been acting lately more like an adversary than an ally. Robert Gates said that he did not think it was "helpful" to classify nations as one or the other. He doesn't?!? What then did he think of his boss, President George W. Bush, classifying Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the "Axis of Evil?" Wasn't that equally "not helpful?"

Who is the Manchurian Candidate?

I just came across another reference to some people's fear that Barak Obama is a Manchurian Candidate who, after being elected, was going to be revealed to be under the control of enemies of America. It suddenly occurred to me how strange it is that those fears attach themselves to Barack Obama and not John McCain. After all John McCain was a captured prisoner of war being tortured by evil Communists for five years, presumably the situation in which Manchurian Candidates are created. Ever since his return from Vietnam McCain has seemed to be under an overwhelming compulsion to be president. He immediately divorced his wife who had waited faithfully for him during his imprisonment and married a woman with wealth and connections that enabled him to enter politics. The last few years he has shown himself willing to compromise everything he has ever stood for in order to get the presidential nomination. If someone had been programmed to become president as part of some nefarious plot isn't that exactly how he would act?

Energy too cheap to meter

At a recent family gathering the subject of energy prices came up. I stated my opinion that energy was going to remain at least as expensive as it is now for the rest of all of our lives. My college-aged nephew disagreed. There are very promising technologies now in the works involving solar, wind, geo-thermal, he stated. When the economies of scale and mass production kick in we will return to the equivalent of $2/gal. gasoline or even cheaper, he happily predicted.

Of course, he was not yet born when the same things were predicted about nuclear power. Young people today would probably be very surprised to hear that when nuclear power plants were first being designed there were predictions that nuclear power would become so cheap, once all the engineering was done and economies of scale and mass production kicked in, that they would not bother to even meter it.

Of course, that did not happen. There turned out to be so many unanticipated costs and downstream liability that power companies stopped building nuclear power plants more than 30 years ago. Perhaps someday the costs of other forms of energy will become so high that the price of nuclear power produced electricity, with all the liability and other downstream costs factored into the price, will be competitive again. Of course, at that point energy would be selling at prices much higher than they are now.

There are always additional costs and unanticipated problems with new technology. My prediction is that those who make decisions now assuming every increasing energy costs in the future will turn out to have made the right choices.

Dinner and Dancing on the Mississippi

Last evening my wife and I took a dinner and dancing cruise on the Celebration Belle riverboat in Moline. This is the way the river looked at sunset. (Yes, the sun is setting directly downstream. That is because the Mississippi flows from east to west through the Quad Cities.)

These picture were taken with my cell phone camera, since I had neglected to bring my regular camera aboard.

Here is a friendly wave from my good friend and party animal, John Bradley. (If you would like to meet John go to Quad Cities Suzuki in Davenport and ask for him by name.)

What would it take for these people to lose their credibility?

Does the concept of credibility still exist? People are sometimes threatened that their credibility will be destroyed and no one will ever pay attention to them again. If the person in question is a conservative then that is now an empty threat because Fox News and right-wing talk radio will put people on the air no matter how defective their epistemology turns out to be. Media Matters reports on a recent example of this phenomenon:

On the August 11 edition of the syndicated radio program The War Room With Quinn & Rose, guest host Mike Pintek echoed right-wing blogs and websites in questioning the authenticity of Sen. Barack Obama's birth certificate, which was posted on the Obama campaign's Fight the Smears website in response to the false claim that Obama is not a natural-born citizen. Pintek asserted: "I still keep wondering about his birthplace and his birth certificate. I'm still not convinced that he actually was born a natural-born citizen." Pintek went on to add: "According to some people who know what they're talking about, who are experts on this, they say that the birth certificate that he's got on his website and has been posted to the Daily Kos and some other places, is -- it looks very much like a Photoshop deal and doesn't look legit."

Who were these experts that Pintek is listening to? They don't include the definitive source on the authenticity of the birth certificate – the Hawaii Department of Health:

In an August 13 article, The Honolulu Advertiser reported that Hawaii Department of Health spokeswoman Janice Okubo said that her office contacted the Obama campaign to find a solution to the repeated requests for Obama's birth certificate. She reportedly said that the Obama campaign "responded and apparently it isn't good enough that he posted his birth certificate." She reportedly added: "They say they want it because they claim he is not a citizen of the United States. It's pretty ridiculous."

So these people Pintek accepts as experts "who know what they're talking about" say the birth certificate vouched for by the Hawaii Department of Health "doesn't look legit." Obviously Pintek and his "experts" are looking for authenticity in all the wrong places. I am starting to suspect that conservatives have a different concept of truth than the rest of us.

Who will the disabled veterans vote for if they get a chance?

Political campaigns try to maximize the percentage of people in groups that generally support their candidate who go to the polls on election day and minimize the turnout among groups likely to support their opponent. There are numerous legitimate, legal and ethical ways to suppress turnout among people likely to vote for your opponent, such as planting seeds of doubt in voter’s minds about the opponent’s qualifications, character and experience or trying to convince voters that their vote does not make a difference.

There are also illegal, unethical and undemocratic ways to suppress votes for your opponent, such as making it difficult for certain groups of citizens to register to vote, throwing out existing valid voter registrations and making it difficult for voters to cast their ballots on election day. Democrats in recent years have often accused Republicans of trying to suppress the turnout among minority and poor voters – groups likely to vote Democratic.

But this year the Republicans seem to be trying to suppress the votes of disabled veterans. Susan Bysiewicz, the secretary of state for Connecticut, wrote about this in a recent op ed in the New York Times.

On May 5, the department led by James B. Peake issued a directive that bans nonpartisan voter registration drives at federally financed nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and shelters for homeless veterans. As a result, too many of our most patriotic American citizens — our injured and ill military veterans — may not be able to vote this November.

I have witnessed the enforcement of this policy. On June 30, I visited the Veterans Affairs Hospital in West Haven, Conn., to distribute information on the state’s new voting machines and to register veterans to vote. I was not allowed inside the hospital.

Don’t veterans vote Republican? As Bob Dylan said, “The times there are a-changing.” According to the Las Vegas Sun when John McCain spoke to disabled veterans Saturday in Las Vegas he received a tepid reception:

Just one of 14 veterans interviewed by the Sun after his speech said he is a certain McCain voter, and the nonpartisan group’s legislative director expressed concerns about McCain’s proposed “Veterans’ Care Access Card.”

Being sent on multiple tours of Iraq and Afghanistan and coming home to find that the politicians who were so eager to send you into combat are reluctant to appropriate money to treat the physical and mental injuries that resulted apparently is enough of a shock to change someone’s political orientation. What will it take for farmers in Kansas to see which politicians and which political philosophies are truly in their best interests?

Why do we have to fight Russia? Didn’t we win the cold war?

When the neocons advocated invading Iraq, a basket-case of a country unable to mount much of a military defense, they were just being mean and evil amoral bullies. When they starting talking about bombing Iran, a country with vastly greater capability to fight back, they were being reckless and stupid. But now that they are advocating we militarily confront Russia, as Cheney is here, they are totally insane.

For an informed point of view about the currently conflict between Georgia and Russia that is very different from what you have been hearing in the media check out Glenn Greenwald's interview with Charles King, a professor in the School of Foreign Service and the Department of Government at Georgetown University.

Voters reject racist campaign

We can hope this is a preview of November. In a Democratic primary Thursday in Tennessee in a majority African-American district in and around Memphis a white, Jewish, progressive incumbent Congressman, Steve Cohen was running against a black female corporate lawyer, Nikki Tinker. By all accounts during his one term in Congress Steve Cohen has served his district well. He has been an opponent of the Iraq war, and according to many observers he has had a consistently solid record on civil rights.

Tinker, apparently able to think of no reason other than her race and religion why anyone should support her over Cohen, ran television ads trying to link her opponent to the Klu Klux Klan and suggesting he was a hypocrite when he visited black churches.

The vast majority of the voters in the district were obviously not impressed with these tactics. Cohen won with almost 80% of the vote. Read Bob Herbert's article in today's New York Times for a more complete discussion.