Calvinball gets a new name

Colemanball:

As Coleman, a Republican, listened from his lawyers' table, Friedberg said that a strict standard requiring that each element of absentee voting be met -- being properly registered, signing both the envelope and application, having it witnessed by a registered voter, and more -- "doesn't exist anywhere in Anglo-American jurisprudence."

Read that again. Coleman's lawyer is explicitly arguing that the four corners of the statute don't exist in jurisprudence. To make sense, that means he is asking the court to disregard the law and make up new law.

The irony is that Bushists accused Democrats of this in 2000, when in fact Democrats wanted interpretation and standards for intent of the voter, which was already law. Republican Coleman's lawyers want to throw out the law and rewrite it for their convenience.

And their wingnut supporters will claim that Democrats are stealing this election. They really can't tell the difference between truth and a lie.

Stockholm Syndrome

The North Vietnamese tortured John McCain. Now he acquiesces to the continuation of Duhbya's CIA torture policy.

In 2000, Duhbya and the Bushists engaged in some of the vilest political character assassination against McCain. Now McCain makes common cause with one of the men who viciously abused him.

It appears that there is no depth to which John McCain will not stoop in pursuit of his overweening ambition. It's sad, really.

Becomes what he forswore

The Republicans lie even when they're lying. No one should any longer expect them to be fair to their opponents, but if their first tales are not juicy enough, they pump them up without limitation by silly things like facts.

John McCain had this done to him by the Bushists in 2000 in South Carolina. Now, he is trying vainly to do the same to Obama.

He has flushed his conscience down the toilet in the name of ambition. He has become a Bushist in every way.

Of course, compared to acquiescing to continued torture by the CIA, he had already much more visibly lost his bearings. It would be sad, a tragic flaw, except that it's so infuriating.

Despite all this, McCain will not be Thane of Cawdor. He will have to live with the damned spot for the rest of his days. He could have been a man and still lost. He chose to dishonor himself.

The delusional McCain?

Apparently, Cindy McCain has forgotten the way the Bushists' allies slimed her daughter and her family in South Carolina in 2000. As a parent, I would find that unforgivable even with the White House at stake. (Another reason I'll never be President!) There is no way I could ever greet warmly the man who permitted my daughter to be used against me the way Bushists used Bridget against John McCain.

Still, according to Cindy, what Obama is saying about her husband is worse. Bullshit. There are a large number of what Karl Rove would call character issues that Obama has left alone against John McCain:

• Cindy's drug addiction (without legal consequence)
  
• John's infidelity
• John's temper
• John's gambling
• John's rambling
• John's dismal flying record
• John's dearth of academic achievement
• John's willingness to exploit the protection of his admiral father
  

Yet Obama is running the "dirtiest campaign in American history." I suppose it's only natural for people who believe in Republican economics - we earned our inherited wealth - to believe that they are entitled to their own facts.

But Cindy's lack of perspective could only come from someone who has always had the field tilted in her favor and who can't remember as far back as 2000 - or chooses not to.

Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

GOP doctrine of total political war

John McCain has a choice: lose honorably or generate a furious shitstorm of mudslinging to change the race's undeniable trend.

Ed Rollins advocates another way, not a bomb-dropping attack, but a return to Republican ideology. This is a stunning rejection of the orthodox GOP core doctrine of total political war, and no one in the McCain camp appears to be listening.

McCain tasted total political war from the Bushists in 2000. Now, the hero of the Hanoi Hilton can rationalize any means to his own ends - because he's a hero, after all. If he gave up his conscience on torture in order to gain the nomination from the pro-torture Republican base, how bad is a little gutter politics?

Gotta be the alpha dog

Looking back on 2000 in light of 2008, maybe it wasn't such a grievous error for Al Gore to keep Bill Clinton away from his campaign.

Some actors just can't handle a supporting role.

Recount

I haven't watched the HBO docudrama about Florida in 2000. It would provoke too many painful memories. Maybe someday when I'm feeling too good and need a downer...

One thing I have to say for Hillary Clinton: If Al Gore had shown her tenacity in 2000, America would be a lot different today. Hillary is counting up the popular votes to achieve the desired outcome, but the vote itself is a total muddle. How do you count Michigan? How do you count caucuses? She is of course counting in the most advantageous way possible.

The problem with applying that lesson to 2008 is that Harold Ickes's threat of a floor fight is an extortionate threat to throw the election to McCain. It puts personal ambition ahead of party and country by risking four more years for the disastrous Bushist Republicans.

Don't get me wrong. All of these candidates compromise for their ambition. McCain kissed so much Bushist and fundie ass over eight years that he learned to like it. Obama cut ties to his church to try to stop the bleeding rather than help his congregation. Hill's just one of the bunch.

Still, the one outcome worse than a Pyrrhic victory is a Pyrrhic loss.

The first evasion

I find myself thinking back to Periclean days of 2000, when so much of what has happened since could have been avoided. That would have taken a more perceptive electorate better informed by a press that actually cared to inform its audience. Instead, the media chose to sell politics as a chance to revisit middle school, but it was still theoretically possible that this disastrous administration could have been prevented.

The press corps' behavior these days is probably the touchstone of memory. Odor is a goad to recall, and the media's current stench arises from their swooning, Elisabeth Bumiller admiration of John McCain, here playing the role of the eighth grade boy who wears Budweiser T-shirts and QBs the football team. The press loves the stupids. It just can't help wanting to be cool instead of smart.

Ah, to remember the past might be not to repeat its errors. What an optimist I turn out to be even now. But I digress.

Imagine Gov. Duhbya in 2000, safely ensconced in the role of Republican Presidential nominee, by which of course I mean figurehead for the shadowy permanent Republican apparatus, filled as it is with once and future felons, some pardoned, others off on technicalities. Darth Cheney is happily lining his pockets at Halliburton, though due to some poor acquisitions and the lack of an active war, he isn't lining the pockets of his shareholders.

Duhbya has a problem that he can't solve by himself - no surprise, since he has never really solved any problem by himself.

"Mr. Cheney," he says, "Turdblossom recommended you as someone who could help me out."

"Yes, Governor, I am fully capable of exercising any power. Uh, that you might bestow upon me."

"I need a veep, see. Ol' Turdy says I need someone who knows his way around Washington, some guy who can get things done on the Hill. Why's Hillary so important that she has to get things done on her? Rove didn't tell me that."

"Capitol Hill, sir."

"Capital punishment Hill? I'd rather sign a capital punishment Bill, if you know what I mean."

"Never mind."

"Anyhoo, Karl wants someone who's a strong conservative, but it can't be someone who scares the bejeezus out of independents, so I can't put James Inhofe on the list. For some reason, Karl wants someone who looks like a moderate, all the while he talks about being a conservative. A course, the Christers have to love the guy."

"Mm-hm, Governor, anything else?"

"Number one, my veep has got to be committed to eliminating taxes on entre--businessmen."

"We are looking for a Republican, aren't we, sir?"

"Damn right."

"So we're pretty safe on lifting the tax burdens of our big contributors."

"Great, Dick, that's one down. Karl said you were a problem-solver."

"What else can I do for you?"

"I want you to be in charge of finding a good veep for me."

"Thank you, sir. I'd be delighted to identify some options for you. Any other criteria?"

"Cry what?"

"What other qualifications should your vice president have?"

"Gotta be for a strong executive while Republicans have the White House, which oughta be permanent. Also gotta be avnucular."

"Avuncular?"

"Whatever you say. Got any ideas?"

Darth thinks, Rove set this up perfectly. I'm obviously the guy. I'll give Duh--Gov. Bush a couple of other options and point out their flaws, and Rove and I will both get what we want.

"Sir, I look forward to serving you. I'll get back to you in a week."

We all know the story. Darth put himself forward, probably posing as a reluctant last resort.

There was only one problem: Both of them resided in Texas, and there's that pesky Twelfth Amendment, which opens:

The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves...

This was going to be close even with the press all over Al Gore like cow patties in a cow pasture. Duhbya and Darth would surely both need Texas's electoral votes. So, after the two of them announced their selection, Darth boarded a plane to Wyoming to "establish residency" there for the transparent reason that they already needed to subvert the Constitution, even before the election.

Hardly anyone in the punditocracy deigned to notice that this was unmitigated bullshit. After all, how important is the Constitution compared to compassionate conservatism?

See "Documenting the tatters" for more about the Bushist destruction of the former Constitution.

Where were you in 2000?

Setting: Interrogation room in the Seattle Police Headquarters.

"So, Huckabee, what were you doing on the night of December 12, 2000?"

"Detective, I told you, it was nearly eight years ago. How could I possibly remember that? What has that got to do with my police report?"

"Think back. It was an important day."

"I was probably Christmas shopping at the local Bible-believing book store. My opponent is trying to steal my caucus right out from under your nose."

"Any witnesses to this alibi? Or had they all been raptured?"

"I don't know about witnesses, Detective, but I expect to be taken when the Rapture comes down upon us. But what about the caucuses?"

"You ever heard of adverse possession, Reverend?"

"What kind of possession? I've never taken drugs in my life."

"Sure. You're not just another Bible-banger like Ted Haggard?"

"No, sir, just a good Christian come to report an election theft."

"What I'm saying to you, Huck - that your real name? - is that the Republicans established adverse possession over election returns, and the Supreme Court approved it in 2000."

"December 12th?"

"You got it buddy."

"So there's nothing you can do for me?"

"I could, but I don't like you, see? Stirring up trouble. I'm gonna send your fingerprints to Washington, and I'll bet we find a match. I got my eye on you, bub."