Race Matters

Would someone tell Gwen Ifill that most black voters are not racists?

Appearing this past Sunday, April 26, 2008, on NBC's Meet The Press, PBS' Gwen Ifill, after sympathisizing with Reverend Jeremiah Wright, stated

But what the, the numbers have shown us, the exit polls have shown us in the last week is that what we don't want to talk about is racism, which is, I think, a, a, a real issue. The people who said they--that race mattered to them, a lot of them voted for Hillary Clinton. I'm not calling the voters racists, but I think, at some point, we have to get back to a word that we're very scared of using in our society, which is the reason why people vote against someone because of their race is not a positive reason, it's a negative, and racism is a negative quality.

To summarize, Ifill says: A lot of people to whom race mattered voted for Clinton. I'm not calling them racists but people voting against someone because of race is a negative and racism is a negative quality.

Now, here are the results by percentage and race (black and non-Hispanic white only, so as not to complicate the issue) in a few Democratic primaries, as indicated by NBC exit polls (not all add to 100%):

New Jersey: whites: Clinton 66, Obama 31; blacks: Clinton 14, Obama 82
Mississippi: whites: Clinton 70, Obama 26; blacks: Clinton 8, Obama 92
Ohio: whites: Clinton 64, Obama 34; blacks: Clinton 13, Obama 87
Pennsylvania: whites: Clinton 63, Obama 37; blacks: Clinton 10, Obama 90

Bloc voting clearly has been more common among blacks and apparently race has played a part in the overwhelming majority of blacks voting for Obama. Therefore, if among people who said "that race mattered to them, a lot of them voted for Hillary Clinton," I think we can conclude that among people who said that race mattered to them, a lot of people voted for Obama. But I believe that most of these voters are not racist, yet Ifill cites strong white support for Clinton as suggestive of racism. I suppose, then, that Ifill believes that strong- no, overwhelming- black support for Obama suggests racism.... except she doesn't say that. So does this prominent journalist believe that Obama's support among blacks can be attributed to racism (I don't)- or is she a firm believer in double standards?

The Republican Media- No. 16

Thanks go out to Republican strategist Alex Castellanos and Andrea Mitchell, Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent of NBC News.

Two days after I reprinted the 1999 article in slate.com by Timothy Noah which described the Republican effort to tar Al Gore with responsibility for the Willie Horton hit job in the 2000 election, along comes Castellanos practically bragging how the GOP is going to replay this tactic in 2008, immediately followed by McCain enthusiast Andrea Mitchell reminding us how routine bias toward the Republican Party is.

Here are the two comments from the April 27, 2008 edition of NBC's Meet The Press:

MR. RUSSERT: Alex Castellanos, the Republican strategist, was on TV the other night and said this: "Clinton's running the ads Republicans would love to be running so--now, so we don't have to because Hillary Clinton is doing it. Yes, it could--would be hard for a Republican to run an ad with Osama bin Laden in it. Not so much now because Hillary has already done it against Obama.

"It would be difficult for a Republican to run an ad questioning does Barack Obama have the strength of character to lead the country. Well, not so much now because Hillary has already done it."

Is that a Republican sort of protecting his flank, getting ready for a rollout, or has Hillary Clinton's attacks on Obama paved the way for McCain if Obama becomes the nominee?

MS. MITCHELL: She's written the playbook for John McCain. They've done all the opposition research. I think that Obama has also had some self-inflicted wounds, notably in San Francisco, the bitter comment, which just didn't play right, and I--you know, obviously I don't think he's handled Jeremiah Wright, we can talk about that. I don't think he anticipated the impact of that and the way it would be perceived out of context or in context. But Hillary Clinton has laid out a road map for the Republicans, and that is one of the Obama arguments. The Obama supporters are arguing that she is destroying him, even if he is the nominee, and he is the presumptive nominee and the front-runner, certainly

Note Castellanos claiming "It would be difficult for a Republican to run an ad questioning does Barack Obama have the strength of character to lead the country. Well, not so much now because Hillary has already done it."

Not true. Hillary Clinton's 3:00 a.m. foreign policy ad (courtesy of The Huffington Post) and her more recent buy with images of Franklin Roosevelt, Pearl Harbor, Castro, gas prices, and, yes, bin Laden emphasize her credentials for handling a crisis. They do not criticize or demean Barack Obama in any way, but merely suggest that she is the candidate best able (and I use "best" rather than "better" because it is not a direct comparison with her current rival) to handle an emergency. Disagree with her on that point if you choose, but paranoia about either ad is neither attractive nor flattering to the frontrunner, merely indicating a naivete that it the spot is somehow beyond the pale. However, it is not surprising that a Repub consultant has spilled the beans, revealing that the GOP this autumn intends to do a "Willie Horton"- run a venomous campaign and blame it on Democrats.

Similarly, Andrea Mitchell, wife of one of the most important Republicans, Allan Greenspan, of the last 20 years. She now has said of Hillary Clinton "she's written the playbook for John McCain. They've done all the opposition research." Fortunately, we have a Weekly Standard blogger ("fortunately" the Weekly Standard- something I'm not used to typing) quoting John McCain on a conference call as claiming

All I can tell you, Jennifer, is that I think it's very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States. So apparently has Danny Ortega and several others. I think that people should understand that I will be Hamas's worst nightmare....If senator Obama is favored by Hamas I think people can make judgments accordingly.

Did Mrs. Clinton run an ad I missed about Danie Ortega and Hamas, linking them to Barack Obama? No, but that doesn't stop Mitchell from claiming "she's written the playbook for John McCain."

And "they've done all the opposition research?" Did Senator Clinton force Senator Obama to refer on the first of his two interviews with WIP Radio in Philadelphia to his maternal grandmother as "a typical white person?" Did Senator Clinton infiltrate that meeting with campaign donors and insinuate Senator Obama into contending that small town Americans "cling" to their guns and religion? Has Senator Clinton been asking the silly question about why Senator Obama doesn't wear an American flag pin? Was it Senator Clinton or George Stephanopoulos who asked Senator Obama about William Ayers- or whether Obama's former pastor "love(s) America as much as you do"? And was it Senator Clinton who dug up video of Reverend Wright- which would be a huge surprise to conservative Repub talk show host Sean Hannity who claims to have uncovered the Wright story first?

No, Andrea, Hillary Clinton isn't laying out the road map for the Grand Old Party. But you seem to be trying to.

Quote Of The Week

"Anyway, dot-communism? The Xinhua News Agency reports that, in China now, there are 221 million Internet users, tying the United States for the most web users in any country. The trouble is, it means that China is growing and advancing, but, let‘s not forget, our Internet users have access to the entire Internet.

In China, sites that show protest videos in Tibet, like YouTube, are blocked by the government. Glasnost has yet to hit China, and the First Amendment is nowhere in sight."

-Chris Matthews, MSNBC's "Hardball," April 24, 2008

After Two Days, New York Times Proven Foolish

On April 23, 2008, in an editorial which instantly looked silly, the august editors of The New York Times actually wrote:

The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.

Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.

Then on April 25, 2008, Michael Goldfarb on "The Blog" (creativity from our conservative Republican friends at weeklystandard.com) wrote

Earlier this month, Ahmed Yousef, chief political adviser to the Prime Minister of Hamas, told WABC radio, "We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election and I do believe he is like John Kennedy."

Responding to a question during an interview with bloggers on 4/25/08, John McCain declared

All I can tell you, Jennifer, is that I think it's very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States. So apparently has Danny Ortega and several others. I think that people should understand that I will be Hamas's worst nightmare....If senator Obama is favored by Hamas I think people can make judgments accordingly.


There you have it: two days after The NYT slammed Hillary Clinton for "demeaning the political process" with a campaign "even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it," John McCain simultaneously links Barack Obama with both Hamas and Daniel Ortega. No Democratic nominee yet, no (Democratic or Republican) convention yet, no general election campaign yet, and John McCain already has made a more vile charge than Hillary Clinton has over the course of her entire campaign for the nomination. So will the New York Times "acknowledge" that the "negativity" for which Senator McCain "is mostly responsible" (actually, totally responsible) "does nothing but harm.... to the 2008 election"?

Willie Horton And The Republican Slime Machine

"Al Gore is the one who first brought up Willie Horton." So sayeth Bruce Bartlett, now an author but described by Wilkipedia as an economist associated with supply-side economics. He was a domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan and was a treasury official under President George H.W. Bush." Yes, that supply-side theory, which has helped bring us an increasing trade deficit, increasing budget deficit, gas and food prices rapidly spiraling upward, and the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Bartlett, spinning his web of right-wing, highly partisan paranoia, was on the Friday, 4/25/08 edition of Laura Ingraham's syndicated talk show and has written "Wrong On Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past." (It's not me saying conservatives always live in the past; Repubs apparently say it about themselves.)

Was Al Gore really the first to bring up "Willie Horton" (reason for quote marks to come up eventually)? In the article, entitled "Did Gore Hatch Horton?" posted 11/1/99 in slate.com and reprinted here, Timothy Noah points out that this notion had, apparently, already been spreading.


Conservative commentators have taken to repeating the mantra that Al Gore introduced Willie Horton, the inflammatory racial symbol who enlivened the 1988 presidential race, to political debate in America. On Oct. 24, William Kristol, editor and publisher of the Weekly Standard, said on ABC's This Week:

Gore's a mean, tough political fighter. Gore is the one who introduced Willie Horton to American politics in the 1988 primary against Mike Dukakis.

Kristol repeated this, almost verbatim, in a "Memo to Bill Bradley" that appeared in the issue of Newsweek that hit newsstands the following day:

Big Al can be a tough, mean player. After all, he's the guy who introduced Willie Horton to the American public in his primary campaign against Michael Dukakis.

Four days after that, Paul Gigot wrote in his Oct. 29 Wall Street Journal column:

Recall that the candidate who first raised the prison furlough (Willie Horton) issue against Mike Dukakis in 1988 wasn't George Bush. It was Al Gore.

Horton, you may recall, is a black man who, while doing prison time in Massachusetts for murder, escaped from a weekend furlough and committed a particularly brutal assault and rape. Dukakis hadn't started the state program that allowed prisoners like Horton, who were serving life sentences without parole, to take furloughs--that would have been Dukakis' Republican predecessor as governor of Massachusetts, Francis Sargent. But Dukakis, even after hearing what Horton did on his furlough, was resistant to ending the program, which the state legislature finally did after much crusading by a local newspaper. Horton's story was subsequently offered up by Vice President George Bush's campaign as evidence of Dukakis' softness on crime, and--less directly--of the Democratic party's excessive fondness for black people. (It was an ugly election.) Introducing Willie Horton to American political discourse would not seem to be something to be proud of. Is it true that Gore did so? And if it is true, was Gore's 1988 campaign guilty of injecting cryptic racist messages into the debate? The answers to these questions are, respectively, yes and no.

Gore did ask Dukakis, in a debate right before the 1988 New York primary, about "weekend passes for convicted criminals." Here is how Sidney Blumenthal, now a Clinton White House aide but then a reporter for the Washington Post, wrote it up a few months later:

An uncomfortable Dukakis, after dispassionately reciting statistics, conceded that the Massachusetts furlough program for murderers sentenced to life imprisonment had been canceled.

The issue did not take for Gore, but the exchange attracted the interest of Jim Pinkerton, the research director for the then flailing Bush campaign. "That's the first time I paid attention," said Pinkerton. "I thought to myself, 'This is incredible' ...It totally fell into our lap."

In reviewing this history, it's important to make some crucial distinctions. Gore never mentioned that Horton was black; indeed, he never mentioned Horton by name. He merely drew attention, correctly, to the damaging fact that Dukakis had tolerated a furlough program for especially violent criminals in his state even after a horrific incident strongly suggested this was a bad policy. It's conceivable, of course, that Gore was warming up for more explicit and racially tinged use of Horton's story later in the primary fight. But that would have been uncharacteristic of him. In any event, Gore dropped out of the race shortly after the debate.

Now recall what the Republicans did with Horton's story: An "independent expenditure" group aired an ad for Bush showing a picture of Horton. A Republican fund-raising letter in Maryland showed pictures of Dukakis and Horton alongside the following text: "Is this your pro-family team for 1988?" Horton told Playboy magazine in 1989 that a woman who identified herself as working for "an organization affiliated with the Bush campaign" phoned him and wrote letters to him up in prison trying to get him to endorse Dukakis. The official Bush campaign, of course, kept its distance from such efforts, and claimed to use Horton only in race-neutral ways. But there is plenty of evidence that it was heartily appreciative of the racial subtext. In his book about the 1988 campaign, Pledging Allegiance, Blumenthal quotes an anonymous member of the Bush campaign team as saying, "Willie Horton has star quality. Willie's going to be politically furloughed to terrorize again. It's a wonderful mix of liberalism and a big black rapist." Although Bush's campaign manager, Lee Atwater, always insisted publicly that for the Bush campaign Horton was never a racial symbol, Atwater slipped in a speech he gave to southern Republicans right before that year's Democratic convention:

There is a story about a fellow named Willie Horton who for all I know may end up to be Dukakis' running mate. Dukakis is making Hamlet look like the rock of Gibraltar in the way he's acted on this. [This was a reference to Dukakis' search for a vice-presidential candidate.] The guy was on TV about a month ago and he said you'll never see me standing in the driveway of my house talking to these candidates. And guess what, on Monday, I saw in the driveway of his house? Jesse Jackson. So anyway, maybe he'll put this Willie Horton guy on the ticket after all is said and done.

As was noted at the time by Thomas Edsall of the Washington Post and others, Atwater was pretty clearly equating Jesse Jackson with Willie Horton because both happened to be black. Gore never did that. He never did anything close to that.

The major point seems to be this: Gore never mentioned Horton by name, never mentioned that Horton was black, and dropped out of the race shortly thereafter. But to the evident pleasure of the Repub Party, an "independent expenditure" group acting on behalf of the GOP ticket ran an ad featuring a frightening-looking black rapist and associating him with Michael Dukakis. In this, as in so many things, the GOP has at best a tenuous grip on reality, and on the truth.

Straight Talk About The Church?

Sometimes I get to thinking: is John McCain, confused, temperamental, or self-conscious about his own hypocrisy? Fox News reports an extraordinary, if disarmingly simple, response of the presumptive Repub nominee to questions posed to him in New Orleans aboard his bus today, April 24, 2008:

Q: What is your reaction (to Hagee Katrina comments)?

McCain: It’s nonsense.

Q: Would you withdraw accepting his endorsement?

McCain: It’s nonsense, it’s nonsense, it’s nonsense. It’s nonsense. I don’t have anything additional to say about that. It’s nonsense.

Q: Do you regret accepting his endorsement?

A: It’s nonsense. I don’t have anything more to say about that. Of course–I apologize for that. It’s nonsense. I reject that categorically and I would point out there’s a lot of people who have endorsed me. They support my views. That does not mean that I support–would I consider repudiating his endorsement? I certainly condemn those parts of his remarks. I continue to appreciate his support for the state of Israel and for many of the good things that he and his church has done. But I repudiate as strongly as possible those remarks and those of the Catholic church as well.

At first glance, the fun response (to the second question) is "it's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense. It's nonsense. I don't have anything additional to say about that. It's nonsense." This is, of course, a perfect description of McCain's response and means nothing.

But McCain's response to the third question may be more revealing. First, he refuses- or, rather, avoids- repudiating Hagee's endorsement. And then he says something astonishing which is not going to be noticed. McCain said "I repudiate as strongly as possible those remarks and those of the Catholic church as well" (emphasis mine).

What remarks of the Roman Catholic Church does the Senator repudiate? Did he really mean that? Before you conclude that he couldn't possibly have been taking a shot at the Church, remember: this is all about John McCain's admiration of someone who has publicly referred to the Roman Catholic Church as "the great whore of Babylon."

Not So Straight Talk On Endorsements

ABC News Senior National Correspondent Jake Tapper, writing on the Political Punch blog on April 20, 2008, pointed out that McCain senior campaign adviser Charlie Black last month stated

What Senator McCain has said repeatedly is that these candidates cannot be held accountable for all the views of people who endorse them or people who befriend them. ... He believes that people who endorse you, people who befriend you, are entitled to their own views, but you are not held personally accountable. That when somebody endorses you or befriends you, they're embracing your views, the candidates' views, not the other way around.

To summarize: candidates cannot be "held personally accountable" for "all the views of people who endorse them or people who befriend them."

But on the 4/20/08 edition of ABC's "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos, the Repub candidate himself said of Barack Obama

I'm sure he's very patriotic. But his relationship with Mr. Ayers is open to question. ... if you're going to associate and have as a friend and serve on a board and have a guy kick off your campaign that says he's unrepentant, that he wished they had bombed more.

To summarize: Barack Obama must be held accountable for the views of someone who endorses him.

Is this the "Straight Talk Express" we still keep hearing about? Or is this a guy whose only extraordinary quality is doubletalk?

A Classic Moment

I don't believe in guilt by association but.... to all those who haven't drunk the Obama Kool-Aid, who wonder if the tens of thousands of individuals who come out to a Barack rally to cheer his applause lines, to swoon and sometimes faint, know what they're actually entranced with, comes one of the Democratic presidential campaign's most curious events.

It happened at the senator's speech, following his 9.4% loss to Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, in a YouTube moment.

Here is Jonathan Alter's description (under "Who Are The Obama Abercrombie Guys?):

If you were watching Obama's concession speech last night then you saw them: Three guys standing two rows behind the candidate in what is usually a carefully-selected backdrop of loyal sign-waving supporters, each sporting t-shirts clearly bearing the logos of Abercrombie & Fitch. During Obama's speech, they waved their signs dutifully but also clearly communicated with each other; at one point, one of them blackberried. Obama's speech was great as usual (and nice line to slip in there about 4-or-8 years!) but it was distracting to see that huge "FITCH" in the background and see the trio of average-looking dudes bobbing behind his head. Who were they and what were they doing there?

No one knows whether this was product placement by Abercrombie & Fitch (which has denied it), a plant by the Obama campaign (which has denied it), or a prank by three guys who had shopped together (or drunk together). But we do know something about Abercrombie & Fitch Co. In an (11/24/04) article on the CBS News website describing a piece broadcast on 60 Minutes, we read that a lawsuit had been filed against the chain, charged with firing, or refusing to hire, young people "because their look was not consistent with the store's look." The lawsuit, according to the report, "alleges that Abercrombie hires a disproportionately white sales force, favors white employees for the best positions, and discourages minorities from even applying for jobs."

And what was the store's look?

It's dominated by Caucasian, football-looking, blonde-hair, blue-eyed males; skinny, tall," says Lu. "You don't see any African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and that's the image that they're portraying and that they're looking for."

Liu says she was fired after corporate officials visited the store, and, according to her, didn't like what they saw: "A corporate official had pointed to an Abercrombie poster and told our management at our store, 'You need to have more staff that looks like this.' And it was a white Caucasian male on that poster."

In an update, CBS News reported "Abercrombie & Fitch settled the class action suit against it for $40 million. As part of the settlement, the company agreed to create an office of diversity, and to recruit more black, Latino and Asian employees."

So three guys go to an Obama speech and celebrate a clothing chain, giving it free advertising. And it's a company which, until it was stopped by determined ex- (or would-be) employees who filed a lawsuit, discriminated not only against non-white employeees and potential employees, but perhaps even against all those who did not fit the Nazi racial ideal. And that is the operation these Obamites think is oh, so cool- one which avoided hiring anybody who looked remotely like a Barack Obama.

Simply The Truth

Courtesy of The Los Angeles Times, we learned on April 20, 2008:

Throngs of Chinese Americans protested outside CNN's offices in Hollywood on Saturday morning, calling for the dismissal of commentator Jack Cafferty, whose recent remarks about Chinese goods and China inflamed a community already angry about international condemnations directed at the host country of the upcoming Olympic Games.

The protesters lined Sunset Boulevard from Cahuenga Boulevard to Wilcox Avenue chanting "Fire Cafferty" and "CNN liar" and singing the Chinese national anthem and other patriotic songs. They waved Chinese, American and Taiwanese flags and directed their anger at the news channel's dark glass tower.

In a group discussion on the April 9, 2008 edition of The Situation Room, Cafferty had remarked

We continue to import their junk with the lead paint on them and the poisoned pet food and export . . . jobs to places where you can pay workers a dollar a month to turn out the stuff that we're buying from Wal-Mart. So I think our relationship with China has certainly changed. I think they're basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years.

The tyrannical regime in Beijing had demanded an apology. The protests resulted when the network, understandably, noted that Cafferty's remarks were directed not against the Chinese people but against the Chinese government and that the network's commentator has periodically criticized various governments, including his own.

Still, we want to consider: Was Cafferty accurate? He contended: 1)we import junk with lead paint on them (check); 2) we export jobs to places where workers are paid minimally to turn out stuff we're buying from Wal-Mart (check); 3)Our relationship with China has changed (check); 4)They're basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years (check). Looks like 4 for 4 to me.

No Debate Before The North Carolina Primary

According to Wilkipedia, these have been the debates thus far in the Democratic presidential race (not verified- others have put the number of debates held at 20):

5.1 April 26, 2007 – Orangeburg, South Carolina
5.2 June 3, 2007 - CNN 7:00pm EDT - Manchester, New Hampshire
5.3 June 28, 2007 - PBS - Washington, D.C.
5.4 July 12, 2007 – Detroit, Michigan
5.5 July 23, 2007 - CNN - Charleston, South Carolina
5.6 August 4, 2007 – Chicago, Illinois
5.7 August 7, 2007 – Chicago, Illinois
5.8 August 9, 2007 – Los Angeles, California
5.9 August 19, 2007 – Des Moines, Iowa
5.10 September 9, 2007 – Coral Gables, Florida
5.11 September 12, 2007
5.12 September 20, 2007 – Davenport, Iowa
5.13 September 26, 2007 – Hanover, New Hampshire
5.14 October 30, 2007 - NBC 9:00pm EDT - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
5.15 November 15, 2007 - CNN - Las Vegas, Nevada
5.16 December 4, 2007 - NPR (radio only) - Des Moines, Iowa
5.17 December 13, 2007 – Johnston, Iowa
5.18 January 5, 2008 - ABC 8:45pm EST - Manchester, New Hampshire
5.19 January 15, 2008 - MSNBC 6:00pm PST - Las Vegas, Nevada
5.20 January 21, 2008 - CNN 8:00pm EST - Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
5.21 January 31, 2008 - CNN 5:00pm PDT - Hollywood, California
5.22 February 2, 2008 - MTV 6:00pm EST - MTV Myspace Debate
5.23 February 21, 2008 - CNN 7:00pm CST - Austin, Texas
5.24 February 26, 2008 - MSNBC 9:00pm EST - Cleveland, Ohio
5.25 April 16, 2008 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
5.26 April 18, 2008 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
5.27 April 27, 2008 - North Carolina


Oops! There will be no debate in North Carolina. The Caucus, a New York Times blog, reported on April 22, 2008:

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign issued a statement saying: “It is unfortunate that Senator Obama has chosen to brush off the people of North Carolina by flatly refusing to debate. But we are willing to move forward with another time and location for the debate so that he has no excuse for not participating.”

An Obama campaign spokesman, Bill Burton, replied: “It’s unfortunate that the Clinton campaign decided to play politics with this — especially considering that Senator Obama agreed to a North Carolina debate long before Senator Clinton did, and their campaign took three weeks to consider and ultimately reject that proposal.”

(The Clinton campaign rejected the original date of 4/19/08 because it is the first day of Passover and the two camps then worked out the later date.)

The posting concluded "CNN and PBS have offered to sponsor a debate in Indiana ahead of that state’s May 6 primary. Mrs. Clinton’s campaign has accepted the invitation; Mr. Obama’s campaign has not." To all those who have watched the previous debates, this comes as no surprise.

Condoleezza Rice, Gun Control Advocate

As a reminder, here is the second amendment to the United States Constitution:

Amendment 2 - Right to Bear Arms. Ratified 12/15/1791.


A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

And here is Condoleezza Rice speaking on April 20, 2008 in Baghdad, encouraging Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to fight the militias of Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr:

But clearly, the prime minister has laid down some ground rules which any functioning democratic state would insist upon, having to do with, you know, arms belonging to the state, not to -- not in private hands," she said. "The current circumstances come out of what I think is a very important and indeed appropriate action that the Iraqi government has taken."

To repeat: "ground rules (of) any functioning democratic state (to include) arms belonging to the state.... not in private hands." Exactly.

The Republican Media- No. 15

How about those retired military officers you see on network and cable news programs passed off as experts? It turns out some have been part of a Pentagon intelligence operation, with assistance from the White House, the State Department, or the Justice Department.

The information was gathered when "The(New York) Times successfully sued the Defense Department to gain access to 8,000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts and records describing years of private briefings, trips to Iraq and Guantánamo and an extensive Pentagon talking points operation." An article written by David Barstow in today's (4/20/08) paper lays out the case:

Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters, records show. They have been taken on tours of Iraq and given access to classified intelligence. They have been briefed by officials from the White House, State Department and Justice Department, including Mr. Cheney, Alberto R. Gonzales and Stephen J. Hadley.

The television networks rarely if ever reveal to their audience the financial or political connections of the "experts," who sometimes do not reveal their true associations or motives to the networks themselves. Information provided often has been contradicted by subsequent inquiries and books later published.

Moreover, Barstow notes

Several dozen (of these) military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror.

The program was overseen by Assistant Secretary of Defense For Public Affairs Torie Clark, a former public relations executive, who believed the analysts she recruited, ironically, would be seen as "authoritative and utterly independent," according to Barstow. They would be

framing how viewers ought to interpret events. What is more, while the analysts were in the news media, they were not of the news media. They were military men, many of them ideologically in sync with the administration’s neoconservative brain trust, many of them important players in a military industry anticipating large budget increases to pay for an Iraq war.

Darn that liberal news media!

A Debate, Or Whatever

Stupid, offensive, or biased questions from the Democratic presidential debate, hosted by Charlies Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, on April 17, 2008:

(1) (from Gibson, of both candidates) Governor Cuomo, on elder statesman in your party, has come forward with a suggestion. He has said, "Look, fight it to the end. Let every vote be counted. You can test every delegate. Go at each other right till the end. Don't give an inch to one another. But pledge now that
whichever one of you wins this contest, you'll take the other as your running mate, and that the other one will agree, if they lose, to take second place on the ticket."
So I put the question to both of you: Why not? (LAUGHTER)
Don't all speak at once.

No, Charlie, neither candidate is going to take a pledge- binding himself/herself months ahead of the convention- which you would never asked the Repub candidate to take.

(2)(follow-up to Clinton) If it was good enough in colonial times, why not in these times?

You already asked this question, Charlie; what part of Obama's response- "I think it's premature at this point for us to talk about who vice presidential candidates will be, because we're still trying to determine who the nominee will be" didn't you understand?

(3)(from Gibson, of Obama, regarding his controversial remarks to a fund-raiser) Do you understand that some people in this state find that patronizing and think that you said actually what you meant?

There is a legitimate question or two still to be asked about Obama's comments about small-town America, but "do you understand that some people in this state find that patronizing?" is not one of them, but rather suggests a conclusion it is not Gibson's to make- perhaps his own conclusion couched in the cowardly "some people" phrase. It is itself a patronizing question, when he might have actually asked about the issues raised in the remark.

(4) (to Clinton about allegedly talking to Bill Richardson about Obama's electability) I'm not going to ask you about that conversation; I know you don't want to talk about it.

This was not a question but a comment from Stephanopoulos. Still, why should George set out to avoid asking a candidate a question because it would make her uncomfortable?

(5) (Stephanopoulos, of Obama) Senator, two questions. Number one, do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do? And, number two, if you get the nomination, what will you do when those sermons are played on television again and again and again?

Which question is worse? The hot-button issue, not about the content of Reverend Wright's remarks or Obama's response to them, but about the feelings toward his country of someone not running for office and whom very few of us have ever met or ever will; or a hypothetical question which is meant to suggest that he can't win ("played on television again and again and again")? And is the reference to playing the remarks repeatedly after the convention lay the groundwork for the GOP rationalizing this line of attack once they launch it?

(6)(follow-up to Obama) But you do believe he's as patriotic as you are?

Do you still think, George, that the candidate is going to say that his former pastor is unpatriotic?

(7) (an individual identified as a Tom Rooney of Pittsburgh, Pa.) Senator Clinton, how do you reconcile the campaign credibility that you have when you made those comments about what happened getting off the plane in Bosnia, which totally misrepresented what really happened on that day? You really lost
my vote. And what can you tell me to get that vote back?

If you've already decided that the senator lied, what purpose is served asking her what she can do "to get that vote back?" If you've decided that she lied and it's important enough to ask her about it, why would you vote for her? (Hiding behind the "man in the street" technique does not justify placing such a question on the air.) Is this ABC's backhanded way of saying what it's too cowardly to charge "Senator, you lied about Bosnia?"

(8) (from an individual identified as a Nash McCabe) Senator Obama, I have a question, and I want to know if you believe in the American flag. I am not questioning your
patriotism, but all our servicemen, policemen and EMS wear the flag. I
want to know why you don't.

Probably the worst question of the debate, but with much competition, this is not a question which would be asked of Senator McCain- who does not wear it and whose patriotism no one would doubt- and thus raises the question: are we to suspect that Barack Obama is less patriotic than the other candidates? Sorry, but Obama is not going to make you happy and say that he is unpatriotic, about which there is no evidence.

(9) (from Stephanopoulos, of Obama about William Ayers, "part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s) Can you explain that relationship for the voters and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?

And can you, Mr. Stephanopoulos, tell us why you take your questions from GOP TV talk show host and Repub enthusiast Sean Hannity?

At dailykos, DHinMI noted that all these topics were ignored:

The financial crisis
The collapse of housing values in the US and around the world
Afghanistan
Health care
Torture
The declining value of the US Dollar
Education
Trade
Pakistan
Energy
Immigration
The decline of American manufacturing
The Supreme Court
The burgeoning world food crisis.
Global warming
China
The attacks on organized labor and the working class
Terrorism and al Qaeda
Civil liberties and constraints on government surveillance

Merely calling the guys who hosted the debate "biased" may be giving them too much credit.

Just Another Day With Your Olympic Hosts

According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, after a protest on Thursday, 4/17/08 in Qing-hai province's Tongren county in western China, "police moved in, beating participants and detaining more than 100 monks and laypeople," reported the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy. The Tibetans were demanding the release of clergy detained at a March 16 protest.

Receptionists at Tongren hotels....

refused to give their names (to reporters) for fear of retaliation by authorities. Officials have reportedly offered rewards for information on people leaking news of unrest to the outside world, where parts of the Olympic torch relay have been disrupted by anti-China protests.

Another term for this: police state.

A Simple Question

On Thursday, April 17, 2008 in a television interview, John McCain stated, in yet another valiant effort to have it both ways:

. . . you could make an argument that there's been great progress economically over that period of time [the Bush years]. But that's no comfort. That's no comfort to families now that are facing these tremendous economic challenges.

McCain was criticized by Senator Obama in an appearance before an estimated 35,000 people on Independence Mall in Philadelphia the following evening. However, it is now up to the media to ask Mr. McCain:

Senator, you stated that an argument can be made that there has been great progress economically over the seven-plus years of the Bush presidency. Would you make that argument for us now?

Quote Of The Week

"You're talking about an Administration that treats the truth as if it were a commodity that's as disposable as plastic gloves."

-Colonel Larry wilkerson, Chief of Staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, on MSNBC's "Countdown," April 10, 2008

Saint McCain

A three-fer this past week from MSNBC:

"He's always, I must say, at his most impressive the harder the question."
-Chris Matthews, "Hardball," 4/14/08

"Since then, McCain's rhetoric and his record have evolved."
-David Shuster, "Hardball," 4/14/08
(Republicans "evolve;" Democrats "flip-flop")

"John McCain's act is going to wear very well."
-John Harwood, NBC Chief Washington Correspondent, "Morning Joe," 4/16/08
(and this from a guy who likes B. Obama and adores M. Obama)

On Being "Commander In Chief"

Writing in slate.com, Fred Kaplan on 4/16/08 explains "when it comes to national-security affairs—the heart of his campaign, the center of his career—does Sen. John McCain know what he's talking about?"

Kaplan refers to McCain's (unintentional or intentional) recent mix-up among Sunnis, Shiites, and Iranians, fascinating in a candidate whose claim to the presidency is staked on a supposed knowledge of foreign policy. Still, the more revealing remark by the Arizona senator, as Kaplan recounts, was a response to whether he would divert U.S. troops from Iraq to Afghanistan in order to quash the resurgent Taliban and capture Osama Bin Laden. McCain responded: "I would not do that unless Gen. Petraeus said that he felt that the situation called for that."

But as Kaplan points out, General David Petraeus is commander of the U.S. armed forces in Iraq and therefore not in a position to make that decision. The commander of United States Central Command, who is responsible for the entire Middle East and south Asia, was until recently Admiral William "Fox" Fallon. Admiral Fallon (no fan of General Petraeus) believes that U.S. resources should be diverted from Iraq to other crises in the region and was fired recently after stating there would be a shift in strategy in the Iraq war. Nevertheless, candidate McCain neglected to mention that he would have asked the commander of U.S. Central Command his opinion on policy.

This suggests the most serious issue. Diversion of American troops to Afghanistan, Kaplan notes, is a matter not of strategy and tactics, but of policy and priorities. It is not a decision to made by any military commander but by the President of the United States, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.

Apparently, for all the tough talk, the vaunted "straight talk" of the McCain campaign, the senator wants to take a pass on this role of the leader of the free world.

Not so, apparently, Barack Obama. In a rare moment raising an actual issue of policy, Charlie Gibson at the Democratic presidential debate on April 16, 2008 asked Obama "so you'd give the same rock-hard pledge, that no matter what the military commanders said, you would give the order to bring them home?" The Illinois senator responded:

Because the commander-in-chief sets the mission, Charlie.
That's not the role of the generals.
And one of the things that's been interesting about the president's approach lately has been to say, "Well, I'm just taking cues from General Petraeus."
Well, the president sets the mission. The general and our troops
carry out that mission. And, unfortunately, we have had a bad mission set by our civilian leadership, which our military has performed brilliantly. But it is time for us to set a strategy that is going to make the American people safer.
Now, I will always listen to our commanders on the ground with
respect to tactics, once I've given them a new mission, that we are
going to proceed deliberately, in an orderly fashion, out of Iraq, and we are going to have our combat troops out. We will not have permanent bases there.
Once I have provided that mission, if they come to me and want to
adjust tactics, then I will certainly take their recommendations into consideration. But, ultimately, the buck stops with me as the
commander-in-chief.

Barack Obama, whose weak point is purported to be foreign policy, understands the role he would assume upon taking the presidency. John McCain, whose strong point is purported to be foreign policy, apparently does not understand. That will tell you something about the man the Repub Party believes should be the next President of the United States.

Not So Straight Talk On Medicare

John McCain said this during his speech at Carnegie-Mellon University of a popular government program:

But when we added the prescription drug benefit to Medicare, a new and costly entitlement, we included many people who are more than capable of purchasing their own medicine without assistance from taxpayers who struggle to purchase their own. People like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet don't need their prescriptions underwritten by taxpayers. Those who can afford to buy their own prescription drugs should be expected to do so. This reform alone will save billions of dollars that could be returned to taxpayers or put to better use.

Means-testing Medicare- a way of turning into a welfare program a successful government program so many Americans rely on. That would cut into the popularity of the program, which perhaps is the (unstated) point, and further diminish faith of the citizenry in the federal government. And that may be the larger goal- for if government is seen as completely ineffective, it is not a big leap to see the infallible private sector, and the party incapable or unwilling to question it, as deserving of blind, unquestioning loyalty.

Not So Straight Talk On Social Security

In John McCain's speech about economics at Carnegie-Mellon University, we had the biannual Repub attack on government programs that work.

Senator McCain actually said this, and without visibly crossing his fingers:

It will be American workers and their children who are left with worthless promises and trillion-dollar debts. We cannot let that happen. And you have my pledge: as president I will work with every member of Congress — Republican, Democrat, and Independent — who shares my commitment to reforming and protecting Medicare and Social Security.....


You're confused, Senator McCain. It's the national debt (artificially reduced by stealing from the Social Security trust fund) which stands at $9,202,319,223,752.84 as of 4/17/08. That's nine trillion dollars and....

As for Social Security, President Bush claims "in the year 2018, for the first time ever, Social Security will pay out more in benefits than the government collects in payroll taxes."

However, reported MSNBC's chief economics correspondent in January, 2005:

In 14 of the past 47 years, including 1975 to 1983, Social Security paid out more in benefits than the government collected in payroll, with the gap reaching $10 billion in 1983. So the projected 'crossover' point in 2018 is a relatively meaningless milestone, say opponents of Bush’s privatization plans.... Further, the emphasis on 2018 by Bush and other officials relies on “either an implication or very often an explicit statement” that the Social Security trust funds have no real assets (said Bob Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities).

Try telling that to the Social Security trustees, including Treasury Secretary John Snow, who offer a detailed list of government securities they hold, paying up to 9.25
percent interest and totaling more than $1.6 trillion.


So the "trillion-dollar debts," Senator, are not for the Social Security trust fund, but the national debt, thanks largely to George W. Bush and the ex-president of whom you continually proclaimed "I was a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution." And the worthless promises are yours- when you claim an interest in "protecting" Social Security, true to form for the mythical and ironically named "Straight Talk Express."

Not So Straight Talk On Gas Prices

Sometimes a person is accused of not being able to keep two contradictory thoughts in his/her head at the same time. Not so John S. McCain. The first quote, about gas taxes, is from McCain at his speech at Carnegie-Mellon University on 4/15/08, the second, about global warming, from an interview on MSNBC's Hardball on 4/16/08:

I propose that the federal government suspend all taxes on gasoline now paid by the American people — from Memorial Day to Labor Day of this year. The effect will be an immediate economic stimulus — taking a few dollars off the price of a tank of gas every time a family, a farmer, or trucker stops to fill up.

Climate change. Climate change. I believe that climate change is real. I think we have to act...
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERS)

And I’ve said that for many, many years. I would just like to put the question this way to my fellow Americans. Suppose that we are wrong and there’s no such thing as climate change but we go ahead and adopt green technologies and we reduce greenhouse gas emissions? All we’ve done is give our kids a cleaner planet, OK? But suppose...
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERS)

Suppose we are right and do nothing. Suppose we just continue this endless debate and continue the increase of greenhouse gas emissions, and we hand these wonderful Americans a damaged planet? I think the answer to that is pretty obvious. And by the way, that question was posed first by former prime minister Tony Blair.

So JSM is exorcised about global warming- except that he proposes to increase the release of greenhouse gases by suspending the federal gas tax, thus encouraging driving.

Admittedly, McCain claims that by temporarily ending the 18.4% federal gas tax and 24.4% diesel tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day the American consumer will benefit by spending less. However, I don't recall McCain recommending this 2-3 months ago as Congress was debating the proper form, and extent, of an economic stimulus package. Then, a cut in gas taxes likely would have resulted in the cost of driving, because it is a period when most driving is for cummuting and thus unavoidable. A cut in the summer months- the peak driving period as Americans drive for leisure- may instead prompt Americans to drive more, hence increasing greenhouse gases, a strange urge for a guy professing concern about climate change.

Consider, therefore, an alternative scenario: the oil companies, seeing a suspension in a gas tax and thus a cut in cost to the consumer, realize that they can raise the cost at the pump to near what it previously was- and thus increase their already extraordinary profits, all without the increase in driving and hence greenhouse gases decried by McCain. Could this be what John McCain is after? The Straight-Talk Express guy- perish the thought!

McCain Manipulating The Abortion Issue

I always have believed that John McCain was not the strongest candidate the Repub Party could have nominated to run against Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. I still believe that, but his manner of addressing the issue of abortion during the April 15, 2008 episode of MSNBC's Hardball gave me concern.

Here is what the Arizona senator said in relevant part:

And I want to say that the rights of the unborn is one of my most important values, but we can have disagreement.... I realize you’re going to have to change the culture of America before there’s full respect given to the right of the unborn.

Logically or not: 1)approximately 45% of this country can be considered "pro-choice," approximately 45% "pro-life," and approximately 10% unsure or very much middle-of-the-road; 2)most Americans-virtually all of those who are "pro-life" and some who are not- oppose, even in some cases fear, the repeal of Roe v. Wade; 3)some (probably a large minority) of those who are pro-choice believe nevertheless that life begins at conception while very few of those who are pro-life believe that life does not begin at conception. Hence, most voters- the pro-life contingent and most sitting on the fence- are likely to be sympathetic to McCain's reference to fetuses as "the unborn."

Still, the brilliance of McCain's remarks is better illustrated by the declaration "you're going to have to change the culture of America." To the anti-abortion rights faction he is saying: I'm anti-abortion, period- and I recognize the decadence of 'the culture.' And to all others he is saying (with a nod and a wink), what Repub politicians have said in recent years. (This includes George W. Bush, who in response to a question at a 10/03 press conference declared "I don't think the culture has changed to the extent that the American people or the Congress would totally ban abortions.") It is this: "Don't worry, I'm not going to press for the repeal of Roe v. Wade. I'm going to talk a good game, remind you that I believe that the act of abortion is an abomination, but it'll still be an option when necessary."

If you don't believe this is an effective balancing act, consider that syndicated conservative talk show host Michael Medved on his program of 4/16/08 spoke approvingly of McCain's abortion comments, not realizing that he was being had. Or possibly, like many liberal folks (especially in the mainstream media), I am comforted by McCain's words of moderation, not realizing that at base he is, and in the White House will be, hard right. But on this issue at least, not likely- I've seen this act before. Ronald Wilson Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush: abortion to be used as a wedge issue to mollify the conservative base, but nothing really to be concerned about.

McCain at Carnegie-Mellon

John McCain's speech on economics on April 15, 2008 (April 15- quite clever, huh?) at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa. was unintentionally revealing.

McCain declared:

As president, I will also order a prompt and thorough review of the budgets of every federal program, department, and agency. While that top to bottom review is underway, we will institute a one-year pause in discretionary spending increases with the necessary exemption of military spending and veterans benefits.

That's right. Everything gets cut in real terms except the Pentagon. Exempting veterans benefits is commendable, but treating the military as a sacred cow will contribute to the 'favorite son' status the Pentagon has enjoyed at least the past seven years amidst redundancy and exorbitant waste.

The senator promises "no more corporate welfare -- no more throwing around billions of dollars of the people's money on pet projects, while the people themselves are struggling to afford their homes, groceries, and gas ." However, there is less to this than meets the eye. Are "pet projects" those a President McCain doesn't favor? And will there still be "no more corporate welfare" when a President McCain declares that people no longer "are struggling to afford their homes, groceries, and gas?"

Evil Partisanship

Perhaps the underlying principle of the Obama campaign is its belief that politics can be transcended, that our problems as a nation can be solved only if overheated partisanship people associate with Washington is overcome. When he formed his Presidential Exploratory Committee on January 16, 2007, the Illinois senator exclaimed:

But challenging as they are, it's not the magnitude of our problems that concerns me the most. It's the smallness of our politics. America's faced big problems before. But today, our leaders in Washington seem incapable of working together in a practical, common sense way.

Sometimes, though, this idealized version of possibilities buts up against reality. Campaigning in Pennsylvania for Obama, Pennsylvania senator Bob Casey, a determined foe of abortion rights, conceded of the front-runner "He has the unique skills to try to lower the temperature and foster a sense of common ground, and try to figure out ways that people can agree (but) on this issue, it's particularly hard."

Bipartisansip, post-partisanship, non-partisanship is fine- until it affects issues you care about. And writing on slate.com on 1/8/08, Jack Shafer noted another peril of bipartisanship:

Moving to the contemporary period, we discover that monument to bipartisan accord: the Patriot Act, which passed the Senate 98-1 and the House 357-66. So unified in pursuing the common interest were legislators that they barely debated the bill, and few read it. The No Child Left Behind Act passed with near unanimity, even though nobody much cares for it today.

He concluded "if you embrace compromise for the sake of compromise and ban division for the sake of political unity, you're left with parties and candidates that don't stand for anything."

Maybe Bob Casey has stumbled onto something he didn't expect.