"Biden The Nazi"

You may recall that

President Joe Biden called Fox News White House reporter Peter Doocy “a stupid son of a bitch” Monday on a live microphone, after Doocy asked Biden whether inflation was a political liability for him.

The verbal slip took place during a White House event on Biden administration efforts to combat inflation. After the president complained that all the press questions were about the military buildup around Ukraine, Doocy shouted: “Will you take questions about inflation? Do you think inflation is a political liability ahead of the midterms?”

Thinking his microphone was turned off, Biden responded sarcastically: “No, that’s a great asset. More inflation.”

He added, “What a stupid son of a bitch"....

Doocy said later Monday evening that Biden called him later in the afternoon to apologize for the remark. The White House did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Doocy regularly baits Biden during press events, shouting over other reporters and trying to catch the president off guard.

Biden has a long record of swearing on hot microphones, so the comments were not entirely out of character.

You can be forgiven if you've written off this event as relatively trivial, especially because Doocy "regularly baits" Biden, whose apology appears to have been accepted. However, this incident will not be as easily forgotten by the American-born and accomplished journalist Glenn Greenwald, a Russiagate denier living with his husband in Rio de Janeiro.

“This is what the Nazis did.” pic.twitter.com/DeeYT5qkqE

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) January 25, 2022

What the Nazis did, to members of the press and to Gypsies, Slavs, gay people, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews (most notoriously), and others is a little worse than calling someone a stupid son of a bitch.  It shouldn't be necessary to explain that to anyone, and Greenwald is no exception.  He is a very knowledgeable individual and never has shown, as far as is known, any signs of psychosis.

However, his Wikipedia page suggests that, though now partial to New Age philosophy, Greenwald was raised as a young child as a Jew. His outburst should warn us that, no matter a person's background, he is not immune to the trivialization of Nazism strain of anti-Semitism.

 

Share |

They're Back

For six days, we were spared hearing from Glenn Greenwald. Alas, all good things must come to an end:

This is fucking lunacy -- conspiratorial madness of the worst kind -- but it's delivered by a Serious Obama Official & a Respected Mainstream Newscaster so it's all fine.

This is Infowars-level junk. Should Twitter put a "False" label on this? Or maybe a hammer and sickle emoji? https://t.co/sEQGYux0Ix

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 31, 2020

This was not lunacy, of the sexual intercourse variety or any other. On March 10, The New York Times had reported

The Russian government has stepped up efforts to inflame racial tensions in the United States as part of its bid to influence November’s presidential election, including trying to incite violence by white supremacist groups and to stoke anger among African-Americans, according to seven American officials briefed on recent intelligence.

Russia’s lead intelligence agency, the S.V.R., has apparently gone beyond 2016 methods of interference, when operatives tried to stoke racial animosity by creating fake Black Lives Matter groups and spreading disinformation to depress black voter turnout. Now, Russia is also trying to influence white supremacist groups, the officials said; they gave few details, but one official said federal investigators are examining how at least one neo-Nazi organization with ties to Russia is funded.

Other Russian efforts, which American intelligence agencies have tracked, involve simply prodding white nationalists to more aggressively spread hate messages and amplifying their invective. Russian operatives are also trying to push black extremist groups toward violence, according to multiple officials, though they did not detail how.

Russia’s more public influence operations, like state-backed news organizations, have continued to push divisive racial narratives, including stories emphasizing allegations of police abuse in the United States and highlighting racism against African-Americans within the military.

We don't know to what extent, and in exactly what manner, the Kremlin has interjected Russia into USA politics. However, on February 13, intelligence officials informed members of the House Intelligence Committee that Russia was involved in trying to influence the 2020 general election and the Democratic Party's primary process.

We know that Putin's government was involved in 2016, which even Donald Trump acknowledged when a year ago he tweeted in part “I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected.” Things went swimmingly for Vladimir's henchmen in 2016, and they had every reason to return.

There are many possible avenues for disruption and inflaming racial tensions is a ripe target. If we do as Glenn Greenwald suggests and dismiss out-of-hand the influence of Russia and other outside forces on exacerbating racial discord, President Trump will be quite relieved in his second term.

Not Perfect, But Much Better Than Good Enough

At a town hall meeting in Hyannis, Massachusetts, Senator Elizabeth Warren responded to a constituent disappointed, in view of the recent Hamas war, that she voted to send an additional $225 million to Israel for the Iron Dome anti-missile system. Cape Cod Times reports

"I think the vote was right, and I'll tell you why I think the vote was right," she said. "America has a very special relationship with Israel. Israel lives in a very dangerous part of the world, and a part of the world where there aren't many liberal democracies and democracies that are controlled by the rule of law. And we very much need an ally in that part of the world."

Warren said Hamas has attacked Israel "indiscriminately," but with the Iron Dome defense system, the missiles have "not had the terrorist effect Hamas hoped for." When pressed by another member of the crowd about civilian casualties from Israel's attacks, Warren said she believes those casualties are the "last thing Israel wants."

"But when Hamas puts its rocket launchers next to hospitals, next to schools, they're using their civilian population to protect their military assets. And I believe Israel has a right, at that point, to defend itself," Warren said, drawing applause.

This kind of talk rankles Glenn Greenwald and some of the commentors on his website, who are miffed that a strong progressive is not charmed by terrorists such as Hamas. To be sure, Greenwald notes also that Warren was cool to the idea of another questioner who supports pressuring Israel to halt its settlements (a somewhat more defensible view), though Greenwald inaccurately complains she "rejected" the suggestion. He also commends "many of (her) domestic views" (and links to this appearance in February, 2013; video below), though sarcastically commenting they have "elevated her to hero status for many progressives."

It is evidently at least a venal sin to contribute to an ally's defense of its population against rocket attacks. (Better to ramp up the death toll.)  More oddly, Greenwald knocks the Senator for what is essentially boilerplate language on her Senate website.  The website, he notes, "still contains statements such as 'it is a moral imperative to support and defend Israel' and 'as a United States Senator, I will work to ensure Israel’s security and success.'"

Greenwald neglects mentioning that therein Warren has gone full-bore militaristic, rattling her sabers by maintaining

I am also a strong proponent of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which I believe to be in the interest of Israel and the United States, with a Jewish, democratic state of Israel and a state for the Palestinian people. The U.S. can and should play an active role in promoting a diplomatic resolution to the conflict that is agreed to by the parties, but I do not believe that a lasting peace can be imposed from the outside or that either party should take unilateral steps - such as the Palestinians' application for UN membership - that move the parties further away from negotiations. 

Notwithstanding Warren largely merely restating the policy of the U.S. government,  Greenwald criticizes the Senator's defense of the Israeli bombing campaign for "echoing Benjamin Nentanyahu." That would be the same Benjamin Netanyahu who recently went to war determined “we don’t get another Gaza in Judea and Samaria” because "I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan."

The journalist concludes by snarking  "That, ladies and gentlemen, is your inspiring left-wing icon of the Democratic Party."  Domestic policy typically doesn't capture his attention, allowing him to ooze sarcasm for a Senator who last November

appeared at a congressional event to attack regulators for failing to tackle the problem of financial institutions that are "too big to fail".

"We have got to get back to running this country for American families, not for its largest financial institutions," said Warren, who said the issue was an indictment of how little had changed since the 2008 banking crash.

The four biggest Wall Street banks are 30% larger than before the financial crisis, she said, while the five biggest institutions hold more than half the bank assets in the country.

Warren claimed this amounted to an $83bn-a-year taxpayer subsidy for some Wall Street institutions, because they were so large that they could safely rely on a government bailout in the event of a future crisis, and were therefore able to take bigger risks than rivals. She also cited research suggesting the crash had cost up to $14tn, or $120,000 for each American household.

If there were no Elizabeth Warren, there would be no Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Massachusetts Senator, recognizing the contribution of the financial sector to the economic catastrophe the country (and world) endured a few years back, also has been a leader in the effort to reform the student loan program.

There is a reason no one has been quoted as saying "The Israeli lobby owns this place." Ditto for organized labor, the insurance industry, the NRA, or reproductive rights supporters or opponents.  It's because no such claim can be legitimately made. But Majority Whip Dick Durbin in 2010 did credibly remark "The banks--hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created--are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place."

Elizabeth Warren is mostly, perhaps not completely, right about Israel. But never mind. She is not a member of the Foreign Relations Committee but of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee.  Fussing about her views about the Middle East, which are fairly standard, would be akin to being obsessed with the views (whatever they are) of Glenn Greenwald on gun control, abortion, or restrictions on genetically- modified ingredients in crops.

However, while the mega-banks have only gotten bigger and more powerful, no congressional Republican, and too few congressional Democrats, have taken them on. One who has is Elizabeth Warren. That is not enough to make her an "icon"- no human being should be- but it ought to make Massachusetts residents proud.







Share |

Another Con Job


Back when Senator Barack Obama was seeking the Democratic nomination for President, he was asked (as were other candidates) "whether he supports shielding telecommunications and Internet companies from lawsuits accusing them of illegal spying, Obama gave us a one-word response: "No.'"

That was a convenient stance taken by a Democratic candidate, one who also claimed to support a public option for health care and vowed he'd "put on a pair of comfortable shoes" and walk the picket line if workers were denied their rights.  Not in Wisconsin, apparently.

Those were the heady days, when Barack Obama's election would, we were assured, "make history."  Back in the day when he would say things like "My job this morning is to be so persuasive...that a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Barack."

These, however, are the days when, lawyer, civil libertarian, and journalist Glenn Greenwald reports 

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

In all likelihood, it's not only Verizon, and will likely continue.   Conor Friedersdorf tweets "This should be a litmus test for Republicans: either take action against this program, or never invoke liberty or limited government again."  But of course they will not take action because their small government rhetoric is, well, just rhetoric. As Alex Pareene points out

Conor Friedersdorf is right, but Republicans have mostly already failed this litmus test. Given the opportunity to limit the powers of the NSA during the Obama administration Republicans in the House and Senate voted to reauthorize the NSA’s post-9/11 expanded powers.

Ron Wyden has been crowing about this for some time. Because he is a Democrat criticizing his party from the left, his warnings and complaints have been given only cursory mention in the nonpartisan press, especially compared to the similar, but frequently much more ridiculous criticisms lobbied against the administration by Rand Paul.

If Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, or some other Repub is elected President, abuse of the Patriot Act will continue and there will be little that can be done about it, given that Obama now has normalized the national security state.  But no other Democrat will be given the same leeway afforded Mr. Yes We Can. Digby remarks

I'm pretty sure that something like that won't happen again any time soon. Indeed, the next Democratic nominee will likely not get the slightest benefit of the doubt as the pendulum swings hard the other way. And more importantly, Barack Obama is a once in a generation politician who had a very special relationship with the grassroots of the Democratic Party. I meet people all the time in civilian life who adore him. Most presidents don't have that deep and enduring bond with their voters. 

But even if one feels that bond, it's a good idea to pay close attention to any politician, even the ones you like and admire.

No need for concern.  There will be "close attention" paid to the next big thing in Democratic politics, perhaps even unwarranted cynicism, as liberals and moderates increasingly recognize how we were taken in by Barack Obama.


Share |

Another, If Expected, Disappointment

When the House is controlled by Republicans, the White House by an (Eisenhower) Republican, and the Senate Majority Leader is a moderate-conservative Democrat, it shouldn't be surprising that

The Senate on Friday reauthorized for five years broad electronic eavesdropping powers that legalized and expanded the President George W. Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program.

The FISA Amendments Act, (.pdf) which was expiring Monday at midnight, allows the government to electronically eavesdrop on Americans’ phone calls and e-mails without a probable-cause warrant so long as one of the parties to the communication is believed outside the United States. The communications may be intercepted “to acquire foreign intelligence information.”

The House approved the measure in September. President Barack Obama, who said the spy powers were a national security priority, is expected to quickly sign the package before the law Congress codified in 2008 expires in the coming days. Over the past two days, the Senate debated and voted down a handful of amendments in what was seen as largely political theater to get Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) to lift a procedural hold on the FISA Amendments Act legislation that barred lawmakers from voting on the package.

In the end, the identical package the House passed 301-118 swept through the Senate on a 73-23 vote.

The American Civil Liberties Union immediately blasted the vote.

“The Bush administration’s program of warrantless wiretapping, once considered a radical threat to the Fourth Amendment, has become institutionalized for another five years,” said Michelle Richardson, the ACLU’s legislative counsel.

Amendments senators refused to enact included extending the measure for just three years, another one requiring the government to account for how many times Americans’ communications have been intercepted, and one by Wyden prohibiting U.S. spy agencies from reviewing the communications of Americans ensnared in the program.

“The amendment I fought to include would have helped bring the constitutional principles of security and liberty back into balance and intend to work with my colleagues to see that the liberties of individual Americans are maintained,” Wyden said immediately after the vote.

The legislation does not require the government to identify the target or facility to be monitored. It can begin surveillance a week before making the request, and the surveillance can continue during the appeals process if, in a rare case, the secret FISA court rejects the surveillance application. The court’s rulings are not public.

The government has also interpreted the law to mean that as long as the real target is al-Qaeda, the government can wiretap purely domestic e-mails and phone calls without getting a warrant from a judge. That’s according to David Kris, a former top anti-terrorism attorney at the Justice Department.

In short, Kris said the FISA Amendments Act gives the government nearly carte blanche spying powers.

Journalist and civil libertarian Glenn Greenwald reminds us

when seeking the Democratic nomination, then-Sen. Obama unambiguously vowed that he would filibuster "any bill" that retroactively immunized the telecom industry for having participated in the illegal Bush NSA warrantless eavesdropping program.

But in July 2008, once he had secured the nomination, a bill came before the Senate that did exactly that - the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 - and Obama not only failed to filibuster as promised, but far worse, he voted against the filibuster brought by other Senators, and then voted in favor of enacting the bill itself. That blatant, unblinking violation of his own clear promise - actively supporting a bill he had sworn months earlier he would block from a vote - caused a serious rift even in the middle of an election year between Obama and his own supporters.

Critically, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 did much more than shield lawbreaking telecoms from all forms of legal accountability. Jointly written by Dick Cheney and then-Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Jay Rockefeller, it also legalized vast new, sweeping and almost certainly unconstitutional forms of warrantless government eavesdropping.

In doing so, the new 2008 law gutted the 30-year-old FISA statute that had been enacted to prevent the decades of severe spying abuses discovered by the mid-1970s Church Committee: by simply barring the government from eavesdropping on the communications of Americans without first obtaining a warrant from a court. Worst of all, the 2008 law legalized most of what Democrats had spent years pretending was such a scandal: the NSA warrantless eavesdropping program secretly implemented by George Bush after the 9/11 attack. In other words, the warrantless eavesdropping "scandal" that led to a Pulitzer Prize for the New York Times reporters who revealed it ended not with investigations or prosecutions for those who illegally spied on Americans, but with the Congressional GOP joining with key Democrats (including Obama) to legalize most of what Bush and Cheney had done. Ever since, the Obama DOJ has invoked secrecy and standing doctrines to prevent any courts from ruling on whether the warrantless eavesdropping powers granted by the 2008 law violate the Constitution.

Mother Jones' Kevin Drum has a different take, arguing

Glenn thinks that liberals have largely given up criticizing this stuff because we now have a Democratic president in the White House rather than George W. Bush, and I suppose that's part of it. But a bigger part, I think, is simply that it's all become so institutionalized. Back in 2004 and 2006, we were outraged because this was all so new. Today, after fighting and losing, it's just part of our brave new world, along with 3-ounce bottles on airplanes, unreviewable no-fly lists, and cops who demand to know what you're up to if you start taking pictures in public places.

As a country, we're now divided into two parts: those who aggressively support things like warrantless wiretapping because they're consumed with fear, and those who don't but have given up trying to fight about it. There's hardly anyone left still willing to tilt at this particular windmill. It's sad as hell.

Yes, liberals for the most part "have given up trying to fight about it" with "hardly anyone left still willing to tilt at this particular windmill."  But that's no act of God.  It's a confluence of a Democrat in the Oval Office- as Greenwald observes- and of having Barack Obama in the White House.

Perhaps President Obama has such an effect in part because the alternatives are so much worse.  Just as in the presidential race the choice was between the incumbent and a more dangerous alternative, so it is that 42 of 45 Republicans voting joined the President they despise and most Democrats in wantonly extending the national security state.  (Check out the east-west geographical split in the roll call vote.)  The GOP, whose tea party faction is obsessed with the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, gave Obama a pass in bypassing the Fourth Amendment.

The faith in Obama as a progressive may stem also from disbelief that the first black President- a constitutional lawyer and community organizer!- possibly could be anything but a child of the left.  Admittedly, the President, despite his actions and some statements to the contrary, periodically nurtures that favorable impression.

The most obvious example is the Affordable Care Act, a Rube Goldberg-inspired initiative whose main virtue is its superiority to the current health care system and considerable superiority to the harsh regimen Republicans dream of.  Union rights are another, inasmuch as the Democratic candidate for President in 2007 once promised (please control your laughter)

And understand this: If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I’ll will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America. Because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner.

When thousands of workers in Wisconsin picketed last year, President Obama couldn't find a pair of comfortable shoes.  But he did, eventually, manage to remark half-heartedly

Some of what I've heard coming out of Wisconsin, where they're just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally, seems like more of an assault on unions.  I think everybody's got to make some adjustments, but I think it's also important to recognize that public employees make enormous contributions to our states and our citizens.

When Governor Scott Walker, who had run roughshod over the rights of middle class, working class, and lower class public employees, faced a recall, President Obama remained silent until the night before the election. Instead, his campaign spokesperson cautioned against expecting her boss to become involved, stating "If you think that the secret weapon here is sending President President Obama, then, you know, I'm pleased that you believe that."

Soon thereafter Obama, recognizing that he had to appear interested, tweeted (no cameras, please) "It's Election Day in Wisconsin tomorrow, and I'm standing by Tom Barrett. He'd make an outstanding governor. -bo."

Thanks, Bo. I hear all Portugese Water Dogs in Wisconsin supported Barrett.   And he failed to "stand by" Barrett because there would have been cameras.  Transformation apparently complete, the man who once promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet now claimed less influence than a ward boss, labor official, corporate executive, or your next-door neighbor.

There always is just enough from Barack Obama to convince supporters it could be worse, and would be, with the other guys (or gals).   But the PPACA, drone signature attacks, labor rights, FISA re-authorization,  efforts to cut earned benefits, indifference to the poor, climate change, and abuses in the financial industry: the list goes on and on.  And on.    He might as well say "hey, it's not like I'm a Democrat or anything."



Share |

Hold The Applause, Please


Last night, the Canadian-born former Michigan governor and current Current (yes, current Current) TV host Jennifer Granholm offered a commentary entitled "Obama, Thank You for Keeping the Golden Door Open."    She exhibited impressive shortsightedness when arguing that the decision addressing the opportunities of children of illegal immigrants the President announced (transcript, here) yesterday "addresses our nation's biggest dilemma, which is economic growth."

By contrast, on Tuesday, Robert Reich, rarely if ever right (wing) but invariably correct, had noted

Can I say this any more simply? The earnings of the great American middle class fueled the great American expansion for three decades after World War II. Their relative lack of earnings in more recent years set us up for the great American bust.

Starting around 1980, globalization and automation began exerting downward pressure on median wages. Employers began busting unions in order to make more profits. And increasingly deregulated financial markets began taking over the real economy.

You won't get any of this from the  leading liberal/progressive blogs or journalists today.     Not from Reich.   Nor Glenn Greenwald.    Nor Charles P. Pierce.   Nor Daily Kos, which even offers a petition to sign supporting the Administration's decision.   Nor, especially, the Center for American Progress, the de facto media arm of Organizing for America.

Today, they will not be writing about globalization or automation- or offshoring, outsourcing, privatization, or withering criticism of government employees.    They will not point out that (as did Robert Oaks a few months ago) there officially are 3.39 unemployed individuals seeking work for every job available, with a ratio of 6.07 to 1 if we use a broader definition of unemployment.     While they pause to praise the President's decision, they will, for the time being, also stop writing about Republican class warfare while the GOP continues its (largely successful) effort to pit the poor against the working and middle classes.

Nor will they remind us of the 2010 Survey Of Consumer Finances released this past week by the Federal Reserve Board, which "provides insights into changes in family income and net worth since the 2007 survey."   It found (as the chart below, from the Federal Reserve Board via the economicpoplist.org, indicates)

the median value of real (inflation-adjusted) family income before taxes fell 7.7 percent; median income had also fallen slightly in the preceding three year period (figure 1).    The decline in median income was widespread across demographic groups, with only a few groups experiencing stable or rising incomes.   Most noticeably, median incomes moved higher for retirees and other nonworking families.

Median net worth (chart from the Federal Reserve Board via economicpopulist.org) fell dramatically despite rising for retirees and other nonworking families- the Americans who derive their income from outside the employment sector.
    

  


Continuing a 30-35 year trend (interrupted periodically), median family income declined despite rising for retirees and other nonworking families- the Americans who derive their income from outside the employment sector.        For individuals competing for jobs, the trend is clear, and downward, as reflected in the decline of middle-income private sector jobs as a share of total employment, graphically depicted by the decline of the empire.com:

Admittedly, those factors- including "free" trade, automation, privatization, off-shoring, outsourcing,  privatization, a stagnant minimum wage, and union busting- usually celebrated by conservatives play a greater role in the destruction of the job market, downward pressure on wages, and subsequent decline of the middle class than does immigration, legal or illegal. And, today (June, 2012) as Granholm assumes, our biggest "dilemma" might in fact be economic growth.

Still, at some point the economic slump will be in our rear view mirror with politicians, pundits, and media all cheering a roaring economy.    All factors, including illegal immigration, will continue to take their toll on jobs and wages, with most ignored by the right, and illegal immigration by the left.  




Share |

Measured Praise


It is an article of faith on the far right that Barack Obama's supporters have been head over heels over him for several years.    Illustrative is this exchange from January 21, 2009 between two of the three most popular talk show hosts in the nation, including one who still refers continually to Obama as "the Messiah":  

HANNITY:  It's gotten so bad. Did you notice they had the commemorative Obama thong? I mean — what do you make of the — you talk about a cult-like personality or you use the term messiah, the anointed one, he descended from the heavens at Invesco Field. What do you make of this Obama worship syndrome, Obama-mania?
LIMBAUGH:  Well, I don't — I — you know, it is cult like depending on the people you're talking about, but let's examine the drive-bye. The media.

As expected, some on the left found President Obama's expression of support this past week for same-sex marriage exhilarating.   Newsweek's Jonathan Rauch argued

Still, Obama has claimed for himself a place in gay history not unlike LBJ’s place in black history. He is the first U.S. president to put the federal government unequivocally on the side of full equality for gay Americans, and he will almost surely be the last Democratic president to have opposed full equality. For his party, for its liberal base, and possibly for the country, there is no going back. He has crossed the bridge from Selma.

Andrew Sullivan,  sometimes libertarian, generally supportive of  Obama, and married to his "partner," referred to the President Sunday on The Chris Matthews Show as a "father figure."  He explained (video below from Crooks and Liars) that he was moved to tears as he "watched our President tell me that I'm his equal....fully part of this family."  










Generally, however, the reaction among liberals/progressives (which periodically includes Sullivan), invariably favorable, was nonetheless sane, sober, restrained, and offered in perspective. Glenn Greenwald observed:

It should go without saying that none of this mitigates the many horrendous things Obama has done in other areas, nor does it mean he deserves re-election. But just as it’s intellectually corrupted to refuse to criticize him when he deserves it, the same is true of refusing to credit him when he deserves it. Today, he deserves credit. LGBT equality is one area — and it’s an important area for millions of Americans — where he has conducted himself commendably and deserves praise. That was true before today, but even more so now.

It might be telling that Sullivan, one of the most effusive in his praise of Obama,  is a registered Republican.    So is the conservative who, prior to Barack Obama's inauguration, gushed

There is an air of something big, something grand, something electric about to explode upon us. Barack Obama's visage is everywhere. His relaxed and reassuring - even beatific - smile is omnipresent. So are his irrepressibly cute girls and their together mom.

Unfortunately, that was not Mr. Etch-a-Sketch.     But it was, however, a genuine conservative- former Pennsylvania governor and GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum.


Share |

Franklin Roosevelt, Indeed


No guffawing.  No fingers crossed.    Not even a smile crossed his lips.

Apparently, incomprehensibly, Joe Biden was deadly serious when today in Wisconsin

“I’ve watched him make decisions that would make another man or woman’s hair curl,” Biden told the crowd of 150 inside the Italian Community Center in Milwaukee, according to a pool reporter on scene

Biden, who has said he’s the last man in the room with Obama before a tough call, often attests that his boss has a “backbone like a ramrod.”

And today he said that mettle — and the “serious problems” Obama faced upon taking office — put the president in a class of his own.

“I think I can say … no president, and I would argue in the 20th century and including now the 21st century, has had as many serious problems which are cases of first-instance laid on his table,” Biden said. “Franklin Roosevelt faced more dire consequences, but in a bizarre way it was more straightforward.”

The vice president claimed that the complexity of the 2008 financial crisis presented challenges in a way the Great Depression of 80 years ago did not.

The suggestion that President Obama has had it more tough than Roosevelt 32 is loathsome.     As Digby notes, "I think we can all agree that the Great Depression and Hitler were just a little bit more difficult than dealing with this recession and Mitch McConnell."

The vice-president's boast about his boss' courage is hard to square with the facts, especially as they pertain to the Administration's national security policies.      Today, New York Times Editorial Page editor Andrew Rosenthal wrote

The Bush administration kept secrets largely for bad reasons: It covered up its torture memos, the kidnapping of innocent foreign citizens, illegal wiretapping and other misdeeds. Barack Obama promised to bring more transparency to Washington in the 2008 campaign, but he has failed to do that. In some ways, his administration is even worse than the Bush team when it comes to abusing the privilege of secrecy.

One example of this abuse is the government’s effort to block public scrutiny of its “targeted killing” policy – the use of drone aircraft to kill specific people identified as threats to the United States. The most notorious case is the Sept. 30, 2011, drone strike in Yemen that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, who United States officials say was part of Al Qaeda’s command structure. Another American was killed in the strike, and Mr. Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, also an American citizen, was killed in an attack two weeks later.

The Obama administration has refused to make public the legal documents underpinning the president’s decision to order the killing of an American citizen without any judicial review before or after the attack. So far, it has not even made those documents available to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Accordingly, the American Civil Liberties Union has filed two lawsuits aimed at forcing disclosure. One predates the Awlaki killing, the other followed the attack. The New York Times is party to the latter: Our paper wants the government to release the legal reasoning behind the attack. The ACLU is asking for more: It also wants to see the factual information that led to the decision to kill Mr. Awlaki.

But the government is blocking any consideration of these petitions with one of the oldest, and most pathetic, dodges in the secrecy game. It says it cannot confirm or deny the existence of any drone strike policy or program.

That would be unacceptable under any condition, but it’s completely ridiculous when you take into account the fact that a) there have been voluminous news accounts of drone strikes, including the one on Mr. Awlaki, and b) pretty much every top government official involved in this issue has talked about the drone strikes in public. 

I generally agree with Bill Maher, and disagree with Glenn Greenwald, that drone strikes are an unavoidable tool in combating terrorism.     When an American citizen leaves the U.S.A. and plots, or aids, terrorist attacks, he ought to be subject to assassination.      But secrecy is not the mark of courage, and it's not too much to ask the Obama administration to release whatever written material exists to justify its policy, particularly when, as Greenwald points out, Obama and other officials "have repeatedly boasted in public about this very program."

It should be enough to boast, as Biden has, "the best way to sum up the job the President has done if you need a real shorthand: Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.”       The ironic thing, given the Administration's pride in its drone program, is that the difficult decision made by the President was not in giving the go-ahead on Bin Laden but in eschewing a drone attack in favor of an operation on the ground by Navy SEALs in coordination with the C.I.A.        Approving the killing of America's greatest public enemy of the last half century should have been a no-brainer for Barack Obama; if he had decided to forego any operation, he would not have gotten the virtual pass from his political opponents that President Bush was largely afforded when he outsourced the effort to kill Bin Laden.       But the Navy SEALs prevailed, intelligence was preserved, and Obama earned a notch in his belt.

In the continuing struggle against terrorism- misnamed the "War on Terror"- the President has enjoyed significant success.         But secrecy is, as Greenwald notes, "the linchpin of the abuse of power."     If Mr. Obama really wants to exhibit the "mettle" ascribed to him by the Vice-President, the White House must stop leaning on the state secrets privilege, end its assault on whistleblowers, subject itself to normal oversight, and start turning an opaque presidency into a transparent one.








Share |

(Conveniently) Missing The Point

For a paragraph and a half, 13 to 15 sentences, Rush Limbaugh was getting it right. He was right to be annoyed because Chelsea Clinton was hired as a full-time special correspondent for NBC News. Limbaugh commented

Okay, Brian Williams: "I can't wait to hear Chelsea's voice and her viewpoint." Viewpoint? I -- I -- I didn't think as a "down the middle" expert journalist, she was supposed to have a viewpoint. Do you realize, folks... Howard Cosell talked about this in the realm of sports: "The jockocracy." He spoke about all the struggling, hardworking sportscasters, wannabes working in the small markets trying to work their way up to the top of the ladder, only to find that jocks -- when they retired -- with no broadcast experience whatsoever, were put in those positions; and here we have Brian Williams. Do you know how many journalists are out there? They've followed all the rules. They've been working hard to try to destroy somebody in the market they live.

That's number one: You do a profile on somebody destroy 'em or put 'em out of business or what have you, write a profile that just ruins 'em. People are working hard to get hired, and then they go hire somebody that's never done it before, at the highest level! The NBC Nightly News. Somebody who has never granted an interview! They don't know what she sounds like. They're never heard her voice. That's why Brian Williams said, "I can't wait to hear her voice." Nobody's ever heard it. She's never granted an interview.

Limbaugh even favorably alluded to the late liberal Democrat Howard Cosell (a liberal, clearly; whether registered as a Democrat, unknown here, but highly likely), thus suggesting that hiring the unqualified is a problem of long-standing in the world of sports. Limbaugh even avoided the temptation of identifying the decision to hire Al Sharpton as a host at MSNBC as a prime example of individuals with little or no broadcast experience given a prime appointment.

But then Rush went stupid- or, more likely dishonest, given that he's far less concerned with upholding the principle of meritocracy than he is with exuding gross partisanship. Continuing, he claimed

I told you yesterday what this is all about. This is simply the communications arm of the Democrat Party (which is NBC and the media) preparing Chelsea to get her some television experience. You need television to get anywhere in politics. You have to be good on television to get anywhere, and this is simply the preparatory period for her Chelsea Clinton to eventually run for the Senate in New York at some point or whatever state that they think she

can move to and win that will allow that, like New York does.

That's clearly what's happening here.

Oh, dear. Rush Limbaugh was so close to making sense and then it slipped out of his hands.

Glenn Greenwald pulls us back to reality, noting that NBC in August, 2009 hired Jenna Hager, daughter of George W. Bush, as a reporter for the Today show. And just this month, MSNBC announced that Meghan McCain, daughter of John S., has signed on as an MSNBC contributor.

We are awaiting word from Rush as to why these two individuals have decided to join the communications arm of the Democratic Party.

Certainly, Mrs. Hager, Ms. Clinton, and Miss McCain were hired in part because of they would entice the curious to watch NBC or MSNBC. Yet, Greenwald, noting the network's nod to monarchy, sarcastically explains

We all owe our gratitude to NBC News for single-handedly correcting the shameful, long-standing exclusion from our media discourse of the views of young, journalistically accomplished heirs and heiresses to political power and great fortune; it is long overdue that former NYT Executive Editor Bill Keller, son of the CEO and Chairman of Chevron, finally be joined by the next generation.

Someone explain to Rush Limbaugh: that Fox News exists to advance the cause of a political party does not mean that legitimate news networks do so, also.

Share|

The Race Hustler And GE

There will be criticism, from the left, the far right, or simply from Americans who believe that with unemployment over 9%, a deal to raise the debt ceiling should not be fashioned to be a job-killer. But from whatever corner is expressed disappointment over a Democratic President encouraging the unraveling of the New Deal, it won't come from the guy holding down the 6:00 p.m. (Eastern) hour on MSNBC.

Until recently, that was the Young Turks' Cenk Uygur, who held the curious notion that Presidents should not be immune from criticism, even from the sole 24-hour cable news channel not partial to Barack Obama. Uygur fell victim to the corporate masters at the network, once owned by General Electric and now by Comcast, but with a substantial minority ownership still held by GE. He was replaced by Al Sharpton, who was the subject of a 60 Minutes profile (transcript here; video here, hopefully) on May 29, 2011, in which Lesley Stahl noted he is "now a trusted White House adviser who has become the president's go-to black leader campaigning around the country for President Obama and his agenda." Stahl added "the administration is rewarding him with access and assignments, like making him a spokesman for their education policy and sending him on the road with Newt Gingrich, of all people, to build support for hiring better teachers. " Moreover,

Sharpton told us that having a black president is a challenge: if he finds fault with Mr. Obama, he'd be aiding those who want to destroy him. So he has decided not to criticize the president about anything - even about black unemployment, which is twice the national rate.

Glenn Greenwald (who has found Sharpton "a constructive political voice") rhetorically but pointedly asks

How can a media outlet such as MSNBC that purports to be presenting political journalism possibly employ someone as a journalist -- even an opinion journalist -- who publicly and categorically pledges never to criticize the President of the United States under any circumstances? That would be like hiring a physician who vows never to treat any diseases, or employing an auto mechanic who pledges never to fix any cars, or retaining a pollster who swears never to make any findings about public opinion. Holding people in political power accountable is the prime function -- the defining feature -- of a journalist, including a pundit; if you expressly and publicly vow never to do that, how can you possibly be credibly presented as being one? And how can the political analysis of someone who takes this pledge possibly be trusted as sincerely held, let alone accurate? Note that this vow was not from three years ago; it was from two months ago.

Why would MSNBC violate orthodox journalistic standards? Perhaps because Barack Obama appointed GE chairman Jeffrey Immelt as chairman of the President's Council on Jobs and Effectiveness. Or perhaps it's only a coincidence. In either case, the President's modus operandi is clear. Only one individual could have realistically challenged his re-nomination in 2012 and was appointed Secretary of State. An attractive, moderate, respected western governor who was interested in the GOP nomination to run against Obama in 2012 was appointed ambassador to mainland China. That is a liability almost impossible to overcome in a Repub primary, as Jon Huntsman will find out.

Long-time investigative reporter Wayne Barrett of The Daily Beast, identified in the 60 Minutes piece as having "written about Sharpton for more than 20 years," remarked

I think he has been a hustler all of his career.... I think he's in the civil rights business, I don't think he's a civil rights leader. I think he's in the business. He has an organization called the National Action Network; nobody knows what has happens to all that money.

It's disturbing that General Electric avoids income taxes, its chairman is appointed to a potentially influential position, and MSNBC hires an Obama acolyte to hold forth for an hour nightly.

Additionally, however, as the Immelt/Murdoch truce over the petty Olbermann/O'Reilly feud suggested, the pro-Administration MSNBC and previously pro-Administration Fox News may have more in common than it appears. The sacking of Uygur and his replacement with Sharpton prompts Greenwald to observe

Of course, never criticizing the President was the overarching credo of Fox News during the Bush years, but that's one of the features that made it so pernicious; besides, not even Fox took a public pledge never to do so.

Share|

Backwards, Sometimes


Back in January 2010, when it appeared that the Obama Administration might not quite expand the Executive Branch's grip on civil liberties in the name of national security, Glenn Greenwald cited

what can only be called the grotesque immorality of the "Look Forward, Not Backwards" consensus which our political class -- led by the President -- has embraced. During the Bush years, the United States government committed some of the most egregious crimes a government can commit. They plainly violated domestic law, international law, and multiple treaties to which the U.S. has long been a party. Despite that, not only has President Obama insisted that these crimes not be prosecuted, and not only has his Justice Department made clear that -- at most -- they will pursue a handful of low-level scapegoats, but far worse, the Obama administration has used every weapon it possesses to keep these crimes concealed, prevent any accountability for them, and even venerated them as important "state secrets," thus actively preserving the architecture of lawlessness and torture that gave rise to these crimes in the first place.


Two days earlier, while interviewed on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, the President had asserted “a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.” He has been, in the manner of legitimate allegations against the Bush-Cheney regime, good to his word.

Unfortunately, while this "don't look backward" concept has proven useful to the President in deflecting proposals for investigating past crimes against the Constitution and the people of the United States, he now finds it less applicable. Yesterday, in a press conference (transcript, here) focusing on the economy, Obama bragged

But what I have done — and this is unprecedented, by the way, no administration has done this before — is I’ve said to each agency, don’t just look at current regulations — or don’t just look at future regulations, regulations that we’re proposing, let’s go backwards and look at regulations that are already on the books, and if they don’t make sense, let’s get rid of them. And we are in the process of doing that, and we’ve already identified changes that could potentially save billions of dollars for companies over the next several years.

Now- now! Obama wants to "go backwards."

Eager to turn backwards and eliminate regulations, the President may have forgotten that companies are sitting on record profits as unemployment climbs to 9.1%, wages stagnate, and benefits are cut. But then, the President added "we can’t afford to have labor and management fighting all the time," perhaps forgetting that not only has management turned against labor, state governments led by Republicans in Wisconsin, New Jersey, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and elsewhere have done so.

Still, with the spending cuts President Obama and the GOP are touting, "let's go backwards" might be an apt slogan.



Share|

George Soros, Evil American


In the Bloomberg Business Week profile he wrote, Devin Leonard observes:

As the waiters circled with warm banana-and-macadamia pudding, the conversation took on a darker tone. Donohue announced that the chamber had been digging into the funding sources of anti-globalization groups that might try to thwart their efforts overseas. "We found that 50 or 60 percent of their money comes from the same person," Donohue said dramatically. He wasn't ready to name names just yet. Instead, he acted like a man with a hand grenade in his pocket who couldn't wait to hurl it. "It's going to be a story," the chamber leader promised. The people sitting around the table seemed baffled. (Later, when asked if he was referring to George Soros, Donohue laughed and said, "That's a pretty good guess.")

It isn't only Tom Donohue, chief of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In October, Glenn Beck spun one of his conspiratorial tales, stating

George Soros, however, while we were like — he was wide awake and he's obviously been busy for many, many years. He's been expanding his influence through groups such as the Tides Foundation. And if you think it's too much to call him the evil emperor from "Star Wars" episode, really more of the "Episode Six" emperor.

If you think it's too much, well, he is the guy who's called for the managed decline of the U.S. dollar. Gee, George, thank you so much. I can't wait for my money to be worth less. Thank you.

See, what he does is buys up everything he can. He buys gold, like, right now, he's buying gold in huge sums, and then he just — he waits for the right time and then he says, I don't know, I think maybe currency is not going to go so well, I'm not sure if I'm going to stay, and he sells and everybody panics, and they collapse. Four times. You're going to go for number five?

(Glenn Beck against selling and buying gold? Perhaps General Mills is against the purchase and consumption of cereal.)

The same day, Rush Limbaugh exclaimed "You want to talk a little foreign money in politics? George Soros has admitted to donating $1 million to Media Matters for America."

This led Green Greenwald to note

George Soros, however, is an American citizen, with the full panoply of rights citizenship bestows (including the right to vote or run for office). He's been an American citizen for almost 50 years, since the age of 31 (Business Week: "George Soros became a naturalized American citizen in New York on Dec. 18, 1961, according to the Immigration & Naturalization Service"). He was born in Hungary in 1930, survived German occupation even as numerous Jews died, fled to London after the war to escape Communism, and then began working in New York in 1956. He lived and worked in the U.S. for many years and has given away many millions of dollars in philanthropy to American organizations.

What is it about Soros exactly that leads right-wing commentators -- including their long-time leader, Rush Limbaugh -- to falsely brand this American citizen a "foreigner"? The answer to that question provides substantial insight into the American Right and how they think about many things.

What is it about Soros exactly that leads right-wing commentators.... to falsely brand this American citizen a "foreigner"? It's a great question, with the obvious answer that a) Soros supports liberal causes; and b) the American right has little interest in facts.

Consider, however, an additional reason. A few days earlier, Beck had pledged $10,000 to America's offshoring champ, the U.S. Chamber, successfully urging his listeners also to contribute. That same organization secretly collects funds, as Think Progress has discovered and documented, converting them into ads attacking American politicians who have been cool to the Chamber's objectives- including sending as many jobs as possible abroad. Meanwhile, it opposes efforts to persuade American companies to bring jobs back to the U.S.A.

Greenwald gets to the heart of the matter- or at least attempts to. Perhaps the right is so enraged at Soros, whom it fears is striking the heart of American conservatism, precisely because he is an American citizen.

Share|

Timidity On The Public Option

Yesterday on Democracy Now! Glenn Greenwald weighed in on the health care debate

Well, to me, the way in which the Democrats have conducted themselves concerning the public option is really quite amazing, not because of what they’ve done, but because of how blatant they’re being about it.

The public option, of course, all along was already a compromise from what most progressives wanted, who wanted single payer and were told by most Democratic politicians for a long time that single payer was the optimal course. The public option was already a means of doing nothing other than at least providing some competition to the private health insurance industry. And all year long, Democratic senators and the White House pretended that they were in favor of the public option. They kept insisting, “We’re behind the public option. We want the public option,” even though there was all sorts of evidence that the White House was secretly negotiating with the health insurance industry to make sure that it would be excluded from the final bill.

Amy Goodman then asked Greenwald "what kind of evidence?" to which he responded

Well, they’re the fact that senators ended up saying that in private meetings with the White House, it was made clear to them that the public option was not something that was a priority for the White House and that they would end up happy to see it gone. Health insurance lobbyists were coming in and out of the White House. And the reason they didn’t end up vigorously opposing healthcare reform was because there would be no competition for the private health insurance industry in the form of the public option. And, of course, the final bill didn’t have a public option, and the White House did nothing to support it.

But what’s most incredible was that the excuse that they gave to progressives was that the reason that we couldn’t have a public option was because there were fifty Democratic senators, or fifty-one Democratic senators, who supported it, but there weren’t sixty, and because of the filibuster rule, sadly, the public option just couldn’t get into the bill, and there was just nothing the White House could do, as much as the President wanted that to happen.

Well, now you have a situation where everybody is talking about doing healthcare reform through reconciliation, where only fifty votes, not sixty votes, are required. And what does the President do? He immediately, when he finally unveils his first bill, excludes the public option from the bill, even as he says we’re going to use a process that will only require fifty votes. And you even saw Senator Jay Rockefeller, who spent the year pretending to be so devoted to the public option that he said he will not relent in ensuring that it gets passed, that there is no healthcare reform without a public option, now that it can actually pass and become a reality, he turns around and says, “I’m not inclined to vote for it in reconciliation.”

This is what Democrats do. They use the filibuster rule as an excuse to their supporters to justify their inaction. They’ve been doing this for years. And now that the sham is exposed, because they’re really going to pass healthcare reform with fifty votes, they just turn around and so blatantly say, “Well, actually, we’ve been telling you all year we have fifty votes for a public option. Even now that we only need fifty votes, we’re still not going to do it.” It’s really quite extraordinary.

As Greenwald understands, the idea of a public option initially was a concession to liberals/progressives, who actually preferred the fairness and simplicity of a single payer system. The details of the public option were framed so as not to offend Republicans, given that it was to have covered a grand total of roughly 10 million Americans. Nevertheless, it was used as a whipping boy by the GOP (something would have to be), which figured out that the best strategy was opposition to anything and everything proposed by the President. On top of that, Senate Democrats, encouraged by Chief of Staff Emanuel, fashioned a bill of extraordinary complexity, which left it vulnerable to Republicans and tea party supporters who complained about its length and derisively charged that Democrats had not read their own bill.

Now that, as Greenwald explains, the public option is a real possibility (through reconciliation), there is no enthusiasm for it. Obviously, primary responsibility for this sleight-of-hand must be laid at the feet of the White House. Senate Democrats, perhaps still enamored of their historic president and clearly convinced they must hitch themselves to his wagon (and loathe to offend their benefactors in the insurance industry), have fallen right in line.

But Greenwald is unfair when he argues "this is what Democrats do." Notwithstanding that his reference to filibusters applies only to the Senate, he might have given a shout out to one Democrat who does not always roll over and play dead. (Two cliches are my limit for one sentence.) The Speaker of the House, from her closing remarks (video below) at the health care summit yesterday:

Mr. President, I harken back to that meeting a year ago. At that
time, Senator Grassley said -- questioned you about the public option. And you said, "The public option is one way to keep the insurance companies honest and to increase competition. If you have a better way, put it on the table."

Well, I bring that up because we come such a long way. We're
talking about how close we are on this, how far apart we are here.
But as a representative of the House of Representatives, I want you to know that we were there that day in support of a public option, which would save $120 billion, keep the insurance companies honest, and increase competition.

Mrs. Pelosi went on to call out GOP Representatives Boehner and Camp. Drawing a distinction between the Democratic approach and the Repub approach and reminding President Obama of when he was in favor of a public option may not be a "profile in courage," but comes closer than we've become accustomed to seeing.


(

The Value of Life

Glenn Greenwald of salon.com today attacks supporters of the Israeli military action in the Gaza strip, arguing

Those who giddily support not just civilian deaths in Gaza but every actual and proposed attack on Arab/Muslim countries -- from the war in Iraq to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon to the proposed attacks on Iran and Syria and even continued escalation in Afghanistan -- are able to do so because they don't really see the Muslims they want to kill as being fully human.

Personally, I don't support the deaths of civilians, and even less "giddily" so. And the implication that the war in Iraq= Israeli invasion of Lebanon= proposed attack on Iran= proposed attack on Syria= continued escalation in Afghanistan is extraordinarily simplistic, and disappointing in someone like Greenwald usually advancing arguments well-reasoned.

Most significantly, however, is the implied charge that the most enthusiastic- and in Greenwald's view (though my words) blood-thirsty- supporters of the attack on Hamas are motivated by a refusal to recognize "the Muslims they want to kill as being fully human."

Consider this:

1985: Lebanaon releases three (3) Israeli soldiers in return for 1,150 prisoners;

1998: South Lebanese Army releases remains of one Israeli soldier in return for 65 prisoners and remains of 40 Hezbollah guerillas;

2004: Hezbollah releases one (1) Israeli businessman, one Israeli soldier, and the remains of three Israeli soldiers in return for 30 Lebanese prisoners, 400 Palestinians prisoners,and remains of 59 Lebanese militants and civilians

2008 (July): Hezbollah releases bodies of two (2) Israeli soldiers in return for one notorious terrorist, four other Lebanese prisoners, and the "bodies of 1999 combantants and infiltrators from Lebanon."

According to Wikipedia (in an entry made between the incidents of 2004 and 2008),

Over the last 30 years, Israel has released about 7,000 prisoners to secure freedom for 19 Israelis and to retrieve the bodies of eight others. A number of diplomatic efforts have been made to secure the release of Israeli IDF personnel following their capture by enemy forces.

I don't believe Muslim life is less than fully human, or less human than any other. Neither, obviously, does Greenwald, nor you. But if actions speak louder than words, here is the statement of the terrorist: in exchange for approximately 7,000 of ours, we'll turn over 27 of yours. A ratio of 7,000 to 27- approximately 259:1. And that is the dilemma of the Israelis, to whom a human life is a human life. To their adversaries- Arab terrorists, not Muslims nor Arab civilians- a human life is something less.

Article Of The Week

.... or, rather, blog post of the week, which comes from ever-thorough Glenn Greenwald of salon.com, who notes (in a quick and easy read):

Poor John McCain: Forced against his honor to run an ugly campaign

Time's Ana Marie Cox, in a Bloggingheads discussion with Ann Althouse, does an excellent job of expressing what is still, amazingly enough, the prevailing media view of John McCain: namely, that this deeply honorable and principled man is vehemently opposed to running an ugly, dirty campaign against Barack Obama, and that is happening despite McCain's deep opposition to such campaigns and the way it profoundly violates his code of honor. Cox, who is traveling with the McCain campaign (yet again), first shared a few memories and sentiments about her experiences with the candidate over the years:

When I got on the plane the other day, McCain said hi to me. . . .
When he had that conflict with that crowd in Minneapolis, or Lakeview, that really energized him. Going on offense against his own voters and supporters in this weird way made him more energetic. . . .
Some of the happiest times I had with John McCain are when everyone counted him out.

When asked by Althouse (who, fairness compels me to acknowledge, was surprisingly reasonable here) about the "Obama-is-a-Terrorist" tactics the McCain campaign has been using and whether some of those tactics attempt to stoke nationalistic or racist sentiments, Cox repeatedly contended that such tactics are deeply anathema to the noble spirit and elevated soul of John McCain:

Cox: What McCain's reacting to, is something that other Republicans are reacting to, iscu the kind of ugliness of the criticisms [towards] Obama. I think McCain in his heart of heart wants to win this fair and square. He wants to win this because he's the better candidate. He doesn't want to win this because people think Obama is a Muslim or is a terrorist or he's not really American. He wants to win this on his own merits. It upsets his sense of fair play -- to win -- to think that the support he's getting is because of what he thinks are bad reasons. . .
Althouse: But in the last month or so, he's been losing ground, and resorting to this terrorist meme --
Cox: I think that hasn't worked for them. I think they recognize that to the extent that that does work, that's not how McCain wants to win.
I adore the guy. I think he's fantastic in many ways. I respect him, I admire his service to the country. I think ultimately he's very principled and, to coin a phrase, honorable. . . .
I do think that McCain is one of the most unique individuals that I've ever personally met. As I said, I greatly admire him and think he's sort of an amazing person . . .
[The McCain campaign], not out of malice or intent, didn't allow themselves to think through how some of these images would be taken by their audience.

McCain has spent weeks overtly linking Obama to "terrorists" and "Palestinian donors" and posing the sinister question: "Who is the real Barack Obama"? Right this very minute, the McCain/Palin campaign is running massive robocalls in numerous battleground states, including North Carolina, alleging that Obama "has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans" and, if elected, "will enact an extreme leftist agenda." Last night on national television, McCain vehemently defended Sarah Palin's repellent and patently false accusation that Obama "is pallin' around with terrorists."

But McCain's vaunted principles and honor make him absolutely hate these tactics and he vehemently does not want to win this way. "It upsets his sense of fair play to think that the support he's getting is because of what he thinks are bad reasons." It just keeps happening despite McCain.

And what of the fact that these ads and accusations have spawned the widespread, hateful perception among the GOP base that Obama is a foreign, Muslim, un-American, subversive-Black-Terrorist? Why, the naive and innocent strategists running the McCain campaign had absolutely no idea that such a thing would happen. They just failed "to think through how some of these images would be taken by their audience" -- but "not out of malice or intent" (probably just due to time constraints; they've been really busy lately and didn't have time to contemplate what perceptions their attacks would unwittingly spawn).

It's not a coincidence that the hardest-hitting interviews of McCain have been conducted by everyone except the national press corps that follows him. Last night, David Letterman -- the comic -- grilled McCain about his relationship with convicted felon and post-Watergate extremist G. Gordon Liddy after McCain claimed that Obama associates with terrorists, the first time (to my knowledge) McCain has been asked about his friendship with Liddy despite its being written about for months. And the toughest and most adversarial interviews of McCain came from the hosts of The View and from a reporter on a local news station in Maine (here).

The national press corps continues to revere John McCain despite what is widely acknowledged to be the toxic and ugly campaign he's running because they still think that this campaign is being run despite McCain's character and wishes, not because of them. The idea that someone should be judged by their actual conduct never seems to occur to them, nor do they accept what ought to be the rather self-evident proposition that someone who repeatedly does dishonorable things is, by definition, dishonorable. By their fruits ye shall know them. Or, as former/long-time McCain-lover Andrew Sullivan put it:

I'm afraid that [Atlantic Editor] Jim [Fallows] is dealing with what we're all dealing with: the fact that the myth we had of McCain is, in fact, a lie. The real McCain - dishonest, dishonorable and despicable - is now in plain sight. To say I'm disillusioned would be an understatement. The last six weeks have shown us all something we'd rather never have found out. But we can't ignore it now, can we?

Some obviously can -- and are.

Cox does say that she doesn't intend to vote for McCain because the way he has run his campaign demonstrates that he's too scattershot and "erratic" (a word that Cox, fairly enough, accuses the Obama campaign of using as "code for senile"). But in explaining that, this is what Cox says:

As I said, I greatly admire him and think he's sort of an amazing person but that doesn't meant I want him to have control of my country's future in his hands. . . . I don't particularly want my commander-in-chief to have that whimsical attitude towards government.

If I could be granted one small wish about our political discourse, it would be that reporters and pundits would accept -- as disappointing and unglorious as it is -- that, under our Constitution and basic government design, people who aren't in the military don't have a "Commander-in-Chief." The President isn't your "commander," and the "Commander-in-Chief" power, now synonymous in our political culture with "President," is actually extremely limited (Art. II, Sec. 2: "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States").

This endless festishization of "President as Our Commander-in-Chief" is one of those small but pernicious reflections of how militarized we've become, of how we are a society in a state of perpetual and endless war. And -- though I don't think there's a strong complaint to be made that the media generally has been unfair to Barack Obama -- this "Commander-in-Chief" fetish is also one of the principal causes of the ongoing media reverence for John S. McCain.

Greenwald correctly notes that the American civilians do not have a Commander-in-Chief and that the President is not Commander-in-Chief but specifically Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. It is an important distinction in a nation which (once) prided itself on civilian control of the military, before elected members of Congress who question war policy were dismissed as opponents of "the generals" and "the troops."

Generously, in running quickly through McCain's "ugly" campaign, Greenwald omits the disingenuous effort to link Obama to ACORN which, given the GOP's ongoing effort to subvert the vote, might be likened to "psychological projection," if it weren't deliberate and insidious. And although I am not privy to the motive of the Obama campaign's criticism of the Arizona senator as "erratic," it is possible to be erratic (as McCain is) without being senile (as McCain isn't). (It is unfair to the elderly to imply that only senile individuals can be erratic.) Still, reading this posting (as has the selection of Sarah Palin as running mate) can remind us that John McCain has not shifted from the maverick of 2000 to the obedient right-winger of 2008; he is the same John McCain, adopting whatever tactics most likely to bring victory.