America, love it or leave it

Remember Vietnam? It was a dirty little war that exposed fault lines in American society. Since the Civil Rights movement was going on at the same time, we tend to lump them together as the turmoil of the 1960s. But there are some aspects of the Vietnam anti-war movement that deserve special attention today.

On one hand, during Vietnam, we had the conservatives who thought and said, "My country, right or wrong," and "America, love it or leave it." They meant, shut up and go fight, even in a stupid war. No doubt, they were committed to America, but their idea of the meaning of America was the limited view of an obedient tribalist.

On the other hand, we had liberals (and, yes, radicals) committed to the idea that freedom and democracy could coexist even in a dangerous world. They thought that a bad idea was a bad idea, and the sooner that was exposed, the better. They thought democracy was at its very center concerned with settling in public and by the people what to do, what not to do, and what to stop doing. They knew the difference between the existential threat of the Nazis and the sphere of influence threat of the North Vietnamese communists. In John Kerry's best line (and possibly his only good line), "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

The truth is that we do need people who will go fight without looking for every possible rationalization why whatever conflict is current is a bad war. We also need people who will question every conflict.

Now that President Barack Obama has been reelected, the huge irony is that the same tribalists and their political heirs are beside themselves with the urge to secede. They've completely abandoned "my country, right or wrong," because what they really meant was, "my white, conservative tribe, right or wrong."

In real time, those of us who even contemplated a dovish path on Vietnam, they told to get the hell out. Now that an election didn't go their way, instead of taking their own medicine and, in the extreme, relocating - the way Mitt Rmoney's grandfather did when his sacred polygamy was threatened by secular authorities - they are wailing and gnashing their teeth, threatening to secede again from the Union.

So, even though I didn't sign this citizen-created White House petition, I applaud its in-your-face message to the disloyal secessionists:

You simply cannot be a patriot if you're ready for civil war when you don't get your way.

Another double standard

Conservative Christianists organize to endorse Republicans from the pulpit and dare the IRS to enforce the plain law that this is political activity incompatible with tax exemption. Yet when a liberal church advocated John Kerry's policies in preference to Duhbya's, the IRS investigated and revoked its tax exemption.

(h/t Philosoraptor)

Deserving

Click image for full Dan Wasserman/Boston Globe cartoon.

Sample bias

USA Today reports empathy on decline in college students and waxes Chicken-Littlish about technology. My reading of news comment threads tells me that Claire Raines, at the bottom of the story, is right:

Raines says that empathy is declining in all generations...

Traditional liberals are empathetic (by which I mean New Dealers, not the imaginary rugged individualists that excuse-making posers such as Jonah Goldberg call "classical liberals"). Ted Kennedy was empathetic. Neo-liberals are technically and analytically sure that activism from government makes society better - so long as government is not too too active, but they're not strong on empathy. John Kerry...

Reconciling these two threads of liberalism is an important political problem for the coalition of the left of center.

This climate did change

Lindsay Graham (R-what passes for semi-reasonable, especially in the lunatic politics of South Carolina) didn't bolt from his work with John Kerry on carbon emissions and climate change because of some poisonous and high-handed change in the Senate calendar by Harry Reid. (Note to journalists: The fact that Graham claimed that is, ahem, a lie, though you're all far too whipped to say that.)

Graham found the excuse he needed to go full metal wingnut to appease the ignoramus caucus, now the dominant Republican faction. He had previously pushed to speed up on immigration reform. What he really wants is to regain the good graces of his teabagger constituents. Absent Reid's own electoral need to respond to his neighboring state's new law on driving while Mexican, Graham would have found something else - "Your necktie, Mr. Majority Leader, is an obamanation, uh, abomination up with which I shall not put!"

None of this flanking right will work for Graham. Not only did he once say something agreeable to a Democrat - and you know the Democrat Party is bent on the satanic destruction of the Holy United States of Neo-Confederate America - Graham also isn't married to an acceptably deferential Southern Baptist woman with whom to play hide the salami. Instead, he's a bachelor, so there are three choices, none of them acceptable to the ig-caucus:

• He ain't gittin' none.
• He's a goddamned fornic-, fernicat-, furni-, aw hell, playboy, and that means he ain't p-whipped like me.
• He's one a them other kinds a teabagger, the kind that oughta be stoned - and I don't mean on no pot - stoned according to our lord Jesus Christ the prince of peace's dad, who sure as hell wasn't no damn hippie freak believer in not castin' the first stone at them types a folks.

What changed for Graham was Doug Hoffman, Marco Rubio, and now - incredibly - three even wingier candidates who find Utah's Bob Bennett to be not frothingly extreme enough, at least in part because they would prefer to be living through the Second Great Depression right about now. Hey, they have a year's food stockpiled, right? Graham doesn't want to follow Dede Scozzafava, though she is far more moderate than he is, nor especially Charlie Crist.

Teabaggers and the Republican right - you couldn't pry them apart with a crowbar - want fire and brimstone from their pols. No more laws! The Ten Commandments are enough (even though there are actually 11 or 12 of them, but who's counting?). Not even laws based on Republican proposals, and especially never any real liberalism.

What they want is more of the aptly named Jim Dement, sorry, DeMint. And Republicans everywhere are falling all over themselves to give the crazy extreme wingnuttitude to them.

Housekeeping the anger

One thing that angry Republicans in Massachusetts should consider: When they were up in arms over the fact that the Democratic legislature and the governor changed the Senatorial succession law to allow an interim appointment by the governor, the Dems could easily have returned to the status quo before the previous change, which was meant to take a lasting appointment to fill John Kerry's seat out of Mitt Romney's hands.

That would have been bald partisanship (as well as undemocratic). But the Democrats didn't do that. Out of principle.

Tom Delay would never have been so democratic. Republicans should mull that over.

Democrats have to do something

... to get bullshit coverage like yet another CNN ticker item on the draft Cheney "movement".

If I put up a cheesy draft Kerry site and issued a one-page press release, would anyone in big media cover my T-shirt business? I seriously doubt it.

Of course, Democrats have to do something, too, and they don't seem to be.

Happy days are here again

I need to take a moment to be happy. From top to bottom, the elected officials who represent me are Democrats.

That in itself is good enough, but any group large enough to be a political party has its share of knuckleheads that you have to grin and bear. Not this subset - these Ds are particularly excellent.

I wouldn't trade my state rep for yours. Mine's better. On election night, I told her that all she owed me was her best effort and her good conscience, and I have no doubt I'll come out way ahead on both.

I wouldn't trade my state senator. He has proven his conscience by putting his career on the line for what he believes, and he has made it work out, too.

I'm ecstatic that Jim McGovern represents me in Congress. On the rare occasions when I disagree with him (say, his support of Hillary), I have to think hard about whether I'm wrong (not in this case!).

Even though I have some ambivalence about John Kerry, I love Ted Kennedy, warts and all, for whatever time we still have him.

I've had a beer with Tim Murray. Actually, he had a beer. I had Irish whiskey, and we chatted with a biker who was petitioning to repeal the helmet law.

Deval Patrick is a good man, whom I'm delighted to have as governor.

Barack Obama is better than we deserve, cooler, calmer, more intelligent, and better able to put aside selfishness to lead all the Americans who are willing. As he walked through the Capitol yesterday on the way to take the oath of office, he seemed finally to be feeling the weight he now bears. He needs my small help, and he has it.

There will be worse days ahead. What faces my country and my state will not be easy.

In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

But the people I have in place in my government can solve our shared problems if anyone can. I'm proud that I played a part, large or small, in electing each of them. Their presence restores my faith in democracy, which was sorely tested in the eight years now mercifully past.

Supposed attacks - a double dip

Amy Holmes starts her blog item with:

As John Kerry fulminates over supposed attacks by Republicans on Democrats' patriotism, I might remind readers that it was Bill Clinton who seemed to call into Obama's love of country when he said on the campaign trail in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Supposed? She can't even admit that they have happened over and over again? Probably she has even made some of those attacks. Certainly her friends have.

Republican pundits view their job as advancing the cause. Democratic pundits view their job as analyzing events honestly from a Democratic perspective.

Republicans don't care if what they say is obvious bullshit as long as it sticks in the narrative. Democrats care about what's actually defensibly true.

The reason that stupid people overwhelmingly vote Republican is that Republicans understand that they only need impressions, not actual knowledge to decide what they believe.

One other thing: Does McCNN know that it's using an item from National Review's Corner?

T. Boone Pickens, lying sack of shit

Pickens's promises are worth exactly as much as the hot air he makes them with. The swiftboating financier said that:

he would give $1 million to anyone who could disprove a single charge the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth made against Mr. Kerry.

Oops, now there are conditions and a narrowing of what counts as a charge to just the advertisement. By doing so, Pickens acknowledges that the Swift Boat Liars lied.

Obama had better be ready. They'll be coming after him next. It's what the Republicans do. Since their programs are unpopular, it's all they've got.

Mitt Romney's Massachusetts GOP

Oops. Ogonowski misses the mark.

War of sound-bytes

John Kerry remains for me a frustrating politician. Despite a lifetime in politics, he often reaches uncomfortably for oratory and nearly every time goes off the rails.

In his speech yesterday morning in Hudson, he told the story of a recent emergency helicopter landing in an unsecured LZ in Afghanistan. The rhetorical purpose was to introduce a self-deprecating joke about the phrase he would be remembered by had the chopper gone down:

Don't tase me, bro!

It's not even his line, of course. And he spoiled the helicopter story by painting the accompanying military officer as so nervous he launched into his briefing, which implicitly contrasted with his calm. Though he would have been a much better President than a second term for Duhbya, this captured some of his flaws as a candidate.

The painful truth is that Kerry's epigram would be:

I actually voted for it before I voted against it.

I suppose that's too bitter a memory even for self-deprecation. Reaching back to past glory, there would also be:

How do ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?

In those days, Kerry spoke frankly, and that hurt him to some degree thirty years later in 2004. He had to lose to Duhbya to become frank again - to escape the myth of collegiality with the Republicans - but frankness is not his nature either.

The oddest thing is that the man can actually ad lib. There was an old poster of the gubernatorial ticket of Mike Dukakis and Kerry from 1978, and Kerry extemporized a funny story about how the photographer made Dukakis look bigger than Kerry, despite the very different reality.

So, in spite of my frustrations with him, I still sympathize with Kerry. On my way into Hudson, I saw a bumper sticker on a street sign:

United we stood. Bush divided us.

I hope Kerry saw it on the way to the event we both attended. He could use the validation - and the lesson in rhetorical simplicity.

Another craven capitulation

As I told the office of one of the good guys, John Kerry, "The Congress needs new leadership."

Burying the lead

If you read deep in the Boston Globe today, you'll find this:

Yesterday, Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said that a delegation from China, one of the biggest producers of the gases linked to global warming, told him at the international climate-change conference that it was ready to cut greenhouse gas emissions if the United States first set mandatory reductions of its own - a plan the Bush administration has consistently rejected.

Duhbya will be gone in 13 months and 8 days. China will still be there spewing out carbon dioxide, while Duhbya out to pasture will release only relatively small amounts of methane spiced with sulfur compounds.

If the Chinese aren't faking - which they could be - maybe there is a solution that governments could contribute to.

Rules for thee and not for me

So, the Bushists acknowledge that it was their fault, but ... tough. The problem with successful government programs is that they make people expect successful government programs, and only Democrats can develop those.

John Kerry nails it:

"Everything the administration does is ideological," Kerry said. "They bend the rules and break the rules for their cronies, but they're unwilling to protect the people who most need it. We think it's disgraceful."

All this about and annual expenditure that's less than the money the Bushists spend in Iraq each second. No child left behind, my ass.

Unassailable generals

John Kerry said:

I don’t like any kind of characterizations in our politics that call into question any active duty, distinguished general, ... who I think under any circumstances serves with the best interests of our country.

I have two words for Kerry: William Westmoreland.

The very real question that MoveOn raised is whether we can trust Gen. Petraeus to serve the best interests of America, to whose Constitution he swore his oath, or only the best interests of his patron, Duhbya.

A good case of kiss my ass

So, Mitch McConnell and Tony Snow are outraged, outraged that MoveOn.org would smack Gen. Petraeus around in print. Oh, and John Boehner, too. And, of course, Joe Lieberman (I-I), who never saw a Bushist talking point he wouldn't, caaaww, mimic.

CNN even quotes John Kerry as calling the ad "over the top", and Kerry's a guy who has actually seen over the top. Why he mistakes this slightly juvenile play on words for excess, I can't say. (Of course, now I could be quoted as calling MoveOn's ad "juvenile".)

Yesterday, CNN also had Harry Reid dissing the ad, though they've "corrected" it to say "a member of the Democratic leadership, speaking on background".

What real Democrats need to say is this, "I've looked at the ad, and only a very small child would think there's something wrong with it. No, I'm not going to condemn our allies at MoveOn for unveiling the truth, and tobacco-money bagman Mitch McConnell can kiss my ass."

That last part, maybe not, but a guy can dream, can't he?

To impeach or not to impeach

The American Prospect (subscribe to the dead tree edition - I do) offers two liberal perspectives on impeachment:

• Harold Meyerson takes the point of view of the Democratic Congressional "leadership".
• Robert Kuttner argues for sterner stuff along lines I've walked before.

Both agree the Bushists deserve impeachment and removal for real and serious high crimes and misdemeanors. Meyerson spends a fair amount of copy trying to distract from the merits of the case against these witless would-be tyrants using humor. For me, he just wasn't funny enough to accomplish that.

Meyerson does admit:

This kind of assault on the Constitution is precisely what the founding fathers were guarding against when they crafted its language on impeachment.

Hard to argue with that...

Once the topic of just desserts is finally done, Meyerson starts with:

First, there's no way that there will be sufficient votes to remove Bush and Cheney from office.

Given the primary loyalty of Republicans to their party instead of their country and its ideals, this is true. It also doesn't matter. Politics is about drawing strong and definite distinctions between you and your opposition. John Kerry didn't have a clue about this in 2004, though he appears to have finally learned. Unfortunately, the Democratic caucuses haven't learned this obvious, elementary lesson. Maybe the Blue Dogs just don't want to learn, and the "leadership" lets them lead their more clued in caucus-mates around by the nose.

Democrats and liberals continue to labor under the misapprehension that they should be concerned with governance. This shows them to be slow learners - they've had a decade at least to cotton onto the idea that there is no compromise possible with this bunch of nefarious Republicans, instead only the chance of getting taken - again.

The political point of impeaching Duhbya is to tie his lousy, no-account ass around the deserving necks of every Republican who won't abandon the Bushist abrogation of the Constitution. The Constitutional point of impeaching the Bushists is of course more important - and more obvious.

Meyerson's second reason not to impeach is that Nancy Pelosi would become President and that this would boomerang with the electorate. Uh, wouldn't this only be possible if conviction were possible in the Senate? No matter, I have a rejoinder: Impeachment could boomerang if it were an elite process inflicted upon the country. Democrats need to convince their constituents that impeachment is a necessity of our democracy. Shouldn't that fundamental principle be obvious?

If Pelosi's succession were still a problem, there is no reason not to make a suitable compromise. Tell President Cheney that he can only escape war crimes prosecution if he appoints Chuck Hagel president before resigning. He can only pardon himself for violations of U.S. law.

Third, Meyerson says, the precedent set by changing the party in command of the Executive Branch via impeachment would be bad. This is exactly wrong. The Founders put this remedy in place for that very need. If that is a reason not to impeach Duhbya and Darth, it's a reason not to impeach any President or Vice President ever.

It's no wonder Meyerson writes a column for the Washington Post.

Arguments about Howard Dean

Comments in response to this post on DailyKos.

By the way, which one's Pink?
The truth about the blogosphere is that no one ever gets the last word! We just move on to another topic.

In any case, your twenty something posts in an hour and a half suggests that you don't have enough constructive to do, so you came here to pick a fight. Wouldn't that be more fun at your local biker bar?

My bona fides:

• worked for and contributed to Dean
  
• then worked for and contributed (more) to Kerry
  
• have been inspired by both, intellectually by Kerry and both intellectually and emotionally by Dean
  
• have been inspired by Al Gore since he decided not to run

All three have problems:

• Al Gore is not a natural politician. His old man was, but "young" Al is too cerebral - great for governing but hard to elect.
  
• John Kerry doesn't have the common touch. He has a hard time getting to the heart of the matter inside of the twenty minutes it originally took him to "explain" his position on Iraq. The fact that after a lifetime in politics he didn't understand that he had to fit into two short sentences clinched my support of Dean.
  
• Howard Dean scares people. I don't understand this and chalk it up to the herding of the media whores. The more I hear him, the more I like him. But this worries me.

Still, I am damn sure we need something new and different than what we've been doing, and it has to come from outside Washington.

Semantics
One can't shirk the responsibility of recognizing truth by adding I believe. It is reasonable to say that an opinion based on a falsehood is wrong.

No joke
We have to do just this kind of guerilla marketing to get our message out past the filter of the lapdog media (an insult to lapdogs everywhere!)

Downloadable audio and video. Local access cable. Text messaging trees. Animations that ridicule the Bushists. Anything to put our buzz into the air.

Tactics for the Democratic National Committee

Deliver a strong, simple sound-bite message. Our message doesn't have to be stupid, just succinct. Democrats are strong and fair. Don't say we're smart; be smart.

Go negative on the Republicans, early and with discipline. We don't have to lie or smear. Ridicule is best. Calmly call Bill O'Reilly a bully-boy to his face - tell him he reminds you of that high school kid who played with the eighth graders so he could win every game. Eventually, his head will explode. (Make sure your mouth is not open!)

About going negative: Voters will tell you that they don't like negative campaigning. Maybe. What they really don't like is negative campaigning against their guy!

Democratic political consultants will explain that we need turnout and that negative campaigning is thus bad for us. Bullshit! This was wrong even before the Rove-bots overtook our traditional GOTV advantage.

Going negative works. Voters say they hate it, but y'know, Wisk around the collar beats ring around the collar worked. It irritated viewers, but it was memorable. Going negative is memorable, and that's the purpose of advertising.

Never explain. Never apologize. Apology is blood in the water.

Always fight back. If we won't fight for ourselves, who will we fight for? Make sure that media whores and would-be media whores can't go along to get along. There has to be a price for them if they screw us. (But, sheesh, leave their kids out of it!) We don't have access to grant them, so start with shame. Bob Somerby could use a little help.

Stop accepting the RNC/media framing carried in the bullshit way they name things. Always call 2004's nastiest 527 the Swift Boat Liars. Over and over and over and over again until there's a competing name in the head of every voter who has a television.

Revive class warfare, our most potent weapon.

When Republicans scream bloody murder about it, don't respond that we're just starting to make up for twenty-five years of unremitting Republican class warfare, even though that's true. Deny we're engaging in class warfare by saying, Whoa, there! We're only looking for a fair shake for the middle class. You are the people who won't give it.

They'll keep screaming.

Say, It's a free country. You're entitled to put off-shore corporations first. As far as I can tell, though, they have no loyalty to this country. You've let them avoid even their drastically reduced taxes by opening a P.O. box in the Caymans. They open holding companies to trade with the enemy. You do nothing - I guess the Vice President won't let you. They use the tax incentives you gave them to make even more money by sending jobs overseas. I don't understand how protecting Americans from having their pockets picked by Enron and Halliburton is class warfare. Please explain to me why you think these immoral fatcats are more important than U.S. citizens.

Depending on how bright they are, you may need more of this, but there's an infinite supply. Hope that they are slow learners.

The media will try to call us on class warfare, too. This is good for us. Ask them, Do you make more than $100,000 a year? And have some fact ready, like, The average national cable TV pundit makes $500,000 (not a real fact, but check and cite Parade Magazine), and I know that you're well above average. Smile sweetly and twist the knife. Maybe Cokie and Steve will retire to the lecture circuit and their perfect marriage. If on Hannity and Colmes, proclaim that Fox could use one, just one real liberal.

On a couple of favorite issues: Environment and health care are not going to win for us. I say this as a member of the Sierra Club since 1975 and a believer in the justice and the efficiency of single payer.

We've tried them, and they didn't work. Everyone cares about the environment, but it's a lukewarm caring. If you don't believe me, count SUVs on the way home tonight. Some of them will even have environmental stickers. Environment is a nice-to-have, not a deal-maker.

Everyone wants cheaper and better health care, but most people who vote have something pretty decent. Our complaint that another 16 million (or however many) people are without access to health care is legitimate, but it requires altruism to be decisive with enough voters, and altruism is hardly ever a decisive motivator. Besides, the voters have been thoroughly propagandized to be suspicious of our health care ideas, even good, economical, incremental ones such as Kerry proposed.

Above all, personalize the culture war. Think about what they did to John Kerry, Al Gore, Bill & Hill, Max Cleland, Tom Daschle, Howard Dean, even John McCain, who is one of their own. Yet, somehow, despite the moral failings of Bob Livingston, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Jimmy Swaggart, Bill Bennett, Duhbya, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and others, most of them are still around calling us immoral!

The Republicans have feet of clay. Start breaking pottery. Remember, this is not an argument. It's a street fight.

Originally posted on DailyKos.