I was googling around for something when I came across this oldie, but goodie, from June 26, 2003:

Barack Obama will not be carrying the Democratic Leadership Council’s baggage in his race to become the second Black person to represent Illinois in the U.S. Senate. The state senator and professor of constitutional law has told The Black Commentator that he is acting to have his name stricken from the "New Democrats Directory," a list of several hundred DLC-affiliated elected officials.  

"I am not currently, nor have I ever been, a member of the DLC," said Obama, in a statement that substantially reflects a telephone conversation with   Associate Editor Bruce Dixon, this weekend. "It does appear that, without my knowledge, the DLC...listed me in their ‘New Democrat’ directory," Obama continued. "Because I agree that such a directory implies membership, I will be calling the DLC to have my name removed, and appreciate your having brought this fact to my attention."

Compare to his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Scott Kleeb made a great impression with the Lincoln Journal Star editorial board:

Nebraska Democrats should choose Scott Kleeb as their nominee for the U.S. Senate race.

Kleeb offers an appealing blend of intelligence, drive to get things done and thoughtfulness on the issues....

The other major contender for the Democratic nomination is Columbus industrialist Tony Raimondo, who recently changed his political registration from Republican. Raimondo also is a strong candidate who has a track record of creating jobs. Raimondo would be especially effective on business and economic issues.

Kleeb, however, has the ability to inspire. Smart, focused and talented, he has great growth potential. The Journal Star editorial board believes Kleeb is best suited to carry the Democratic banner in the general election race for the U.S. Senate.

Anybody who had the opportunity to meet Scott in Chicago at the Yearly Kos convention last summer will recognize the man the Journal Star editors describe. He would be an asset to Nebraska, to the party, and to the nation in the Senate.

The primary is next Tuesday. You can help send a real Democrat to the Senate.

We're looking for $20,000 and 450 donations (one donation for every $1,000 of Raimondo's personal loan of $450K to his own campaign) by the end of the day tomorrow. Send the message that people power can compete with big money by contributing to Scott's campaign.

On the Web:
Kleeb for Senate
Daily Kos for Scott Kleeb ActBlue page

Race tracker wiki: NE-Sen

Poblano, who has wowed Kossacks with his detailed election analyses and in-depth background Diaries like this one at Daily Kos and at his own FiveThirtyEight.com blog, got some well-deserved attention today from the  National Journal.

As Mark Blumenthal writes:

Over the last week, an anonymous blogger who writes under the pseudonym Poblano did something bold on his blog, FiveThirtyEight.com. He posted predictions for the upcoming primaries based not on polling data, but on a statistical model driven mostly by demographic and past vote data. His model predicted a 17-point victory for Barack Obama in North Carolina and a 2-point edge for Hillary Rodham Clinton in Indiana.

Critics scoffed. Most of the public polls pointed to a close race in North Carolina. Looking back at Poblano's efforts in Pennsylvania, pollster Dick Bennett decried the models as "stepwise regression run amok." Slate's Mickey Kaus predicted failure for "a sophisticated model that ignores... what's been happening in the campaign. Like Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright."

But a funny thing happened. The model got it right. ...

Moreover, the predictions were more accurate than any of the pollsters' results, as indicated by the graphic below (modified from a chart created by Brian Schaffner of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies).

Poblano is just another example - albeit an exemplary one - of how a blogger with a brain and an obsession  benefits us all. We don't know if he does this from a basement in his pajamas, but who cares? Kudos to you, sir.

Embattled New York Congressman Vito Fossella (R)'s political career has gone up in smoke in just one short week.

It was bad enough when Fossella, the last remaining Republican Congressman from New York City, was arrested last week for DWI. "Vino" Fossella, as the New York Daily News has seen fit to dub him, blew a .17 into the Breathalyzer, twice the legal limit, and apparently had some trouble with his ABC's:

Mr. Fossella, who was driving a white Honda Civic, was stopped about 12:10 a.m. on Thursday, and told a police officer he had had two or three glasses of wine about two hours earlier. Mr. Fossella was asked to recite the alphabet between the letters D and T. “The subject immediately started and said ‘A, B,’ ” the officer wrote in his report.

After the officer explained the test again, Mr. Fossella started: “D, E, F, H, G, H, I, J, L,” and then was able to finish.

If found guilty of drunk driving, he faces a mandatory five days in jail, at the minimum. Frankly, that is now the least of his problems. Seems that the good Congressman, married with three kids, has a daughter from an extramarital affair. The mother of his daughter, Laura Fay, was the woman who provided bail for Fossella after his arrest, after Fossella had told the arresting officer that he was "picking up his daughter", and listed the street where Fay lived as his destination. After several days, Fossella has now publicly admitted the affair and his paternity:

“I have had a relationship with Laura Fay, with whom I have a three year old daughter," Fossella said in a statement.

"My personal failings and imperfections have caused enormous pain to the people I love and I am truly sorry.

"While I understand that there will be many questions, including those about my political future, making any political decisions right now are furthest from my mind".

It is pretty clear, however, that Fossella's career is in serious trouble. Already facing a significant Democratic challenge from New York City Councilman Domenic Recchia and attorney Steve Harrison, Fossella is now extremely unlikely to run for reelection. From the Washington Post:

GOP political insiders say Fossella, whose blood-alcohol content was more than twice the legal limit when he was busted at 12:15 a.m. last Thursday, stands little chance of running for reelection at this point, and their Democratic counterparts agree. Buzz on the Hill and around town Wednesday was that Fossella would be announcing sooner rather than later that he won't seek another term in what has quickly become a hotly contested seat for embattled Republicans. Fossella was not voting in the House Wednesday.

The local press agrees:

But one of the state's top Republicans told The Post, "He's not going to be able to win re-election if he is the father."

Sources said party officials have privately discussed who could best hold onto the seat for the GOP should Fossella end up in deeper trouble.

Names being bandied about include Staten Island DA Daniel Donovan and city Councilman James Oddo.

In a slightly Democratic-leaning district (D+0.8), this is yet another potential open-seat nightmare for Fossella's party. After his admission, the biggest question remaining is whether Fossella will finish out his term.

If he does resign before July 1st, New York Governor David Paterson could call a special election in which the state parties would be responsible for picking the candidates, which could lead to all manner of backroom deals brokered behind closed doors. In particular, it's possible that one faction of the state Democratic Party could lobby for a candidate from Staten Island, Fossella's home and the population center of the district. That could leave Recchia and Harrison, the current declared candidates, out in the cold.

But that's all speculation. For now, we know that Fossella is in unimaginable trouble, his political career is sunk, and we have another top-tier race for November.

Race tracker wiki: NY-13

This doesn't sound good:

Telecom companies have presented congressional Democrats with a set of proposals on how to provide immunity to the businesses that participated in a controversial government electronic surveillance program, a House Democratic aide said Wednesday....

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said Wednesday a FISA deal is "still in flux" but he described the latest developments as "promising" and said he hoped to have a solution soon.

House officials declined to discuss the specifics of the proposed immunity language by the telecoms.

Although it remains to be seen if congressional Democrats will accept the telecom companies' proposal, the communication between the two sides signifies that progress is being made.

Have Dem leaders really moved in the discussions from whether to provide amnesty to how to provide it? Beyond that, why in the hell do the telcos have a seat at the negotiating table on this issue at all?

I doubt Congress invited the Mafia to the table when it wrote the RICO  Act. Seems pretty unlikely that there were any drug kingpins at the table when Congress wrote the Continuing Criminal Enterprise statute. But AT&T gets to write this one?

The telcos participated in illegal, warrantless spying--not a "controversial government electronic surveillance program"--in illegal spying. They broke the law. They should have their day in court along with the plaintiffs in the cases against them. But they shouldn't be writing the damn law that lets them off the hook.

Then there's this:

Meanwhile, Senate Select Intelligence Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) has begun circulating a proposal on the FISA bill to all key stakeholders, hoping to break the deadlock, several members and aides also confirmed on Wednesday.

With Hoyer and Rockefeller on the case, it's looking more and more like the Protect AT&T Act is back in business.

When last we left the Federal Election Commission, the lights were on but no one was really working.  Four of the six commissioners' nominations expired at the end of 2007, leaving the the Commission shy of a working quorum as Democrats remained steadfast that odious nominee Hans von Spakovsky receive a separate up-or-down vote, which Senators on both sides of the aisle recognize would sink his nomination, which is why Sen. Mitch McConnell refused to go along with it.

[A full FEC has six Commissioners, with no more than three allowed from any political party.  It takes four votes for it to do anything.]

Time marched on.  The FEC has been unable to investigate important complaints which have been filed, but it has also been unable to release John McCain from the public financing limits per his request.  It would also be difficult for McCain to then receive public financing for the general election come September should there not be a functioning Commission to administer the program.  

And, in the meantime, former FEC Chairman Bob Lenhard, a Democrat who'd have no trouble being re-confirmed, withdrew his name from re-nomination last month because of the delays.

The solution would seem simple: have Bush replace von Spakovsky with an acceptable nominee, end the logjam and move on.  But, of course, that's not how it works.

Instead, the White House has kept von Spakovsky's nomination and located two new Republican nominees for vacancies on that side of the aisle -- NRCC lawyer (and former lawyer for Rep. Tom DeLay) Donald McGahn and Caroline Hunter, who has sat on the Election Assistance Commission despite having no relevant experience previously.

This, however, required jettisoning Commissioner Mason, who had been a seriously roadblock to McCain's scheme to evade the public financing limits and whose confirmation was assured.  Sen. Reid is, understandably, miffed.

[On the Dem side, Commissioners Ellen Weintraub and Steven Walther will remain; Lenhard's slot would be filled by Cynthia Bauerly, Sen. Schumer's legislative director.]

Democracy 21 president Fred Wertheimer, our frenemy, has this to say:

The White House dumped Mason after President Bush had twice proposed Mason for the FEC in the last two and a half years, in December 2005 as a recess appointment and in January 2007 as a nominee to the FEC for Senate Confirmation.

The only apparent reason for President Bush to drop Commissioner David Mason at this stage, an FEC candidate he had twice proposed for the Commission, is to prevent him from casting an adverse vote against Senator McCain on important enforcement questions pending at the Commission. The questions deal with Senator McCain’s request to withdraw from the presidential primary public financing system and the consequences of a loan the McCain campaign took out and the collateral provided for the loan.

Under these circumstances, President Bush’s dumping of Mason can only be viewed as a bald-faced and brazen attempt to wrongly manipulate an important enforcement decision by the nation’s campaign finance enforcement agency.

The White House action today represents the political equivalent of obstruction of justice.

Noted Democratic election law attorney Bob Bauer weighs in:

The reason for the White House to act now is to restore the FEC to full voting power, which is not usually a Republican priority but now serves the immediate need of giving Senator McCain the most direct, statutorily routine access to public funding for the general election.  In this one move, the White House ended McCain's accountability for his use or abuse of the primary public financing system while putting him in position to take money for the general.  

For this maneuver to have been arranged for the benefit of Senator McCain, of all people -- the John McCain who has regularly, severely criticized the FEC as a "corrupt" agency -- is a remarkable turn in his career as a reformer.  A Commissioner who acted to enforce the law, to just raise an important question of enforcement, has been stripped of his post.  This was clearly in Senator McCain's interest, this raw power play.  It is also in his interest to have the FEC, back in business minus Mason, arrange for his money for the fall campaign.  

It is inconceivable that McCain was not informed of the plan.  In fact, it is highly probable that he was in involved in its formulation or its approval.  In the days ahead it will be seen whether he will be asked about his role.

It is an obvious question and a fair one.  This development at the FEC, after all, is one of kind.  For all the time that McCain has savaged the performance of the FEC, he has led the sizeable crowd of critics who believed that the agency is too beholden, on the whole, to the narrow interests of parties and their candidates.  Yesterday, Republicans could not have acted more narrowly in just this vein:  effectively firing a Commissioner to immunize their Presidential nominee from enforcement action in a pending case but making sure that there is enough of an agency left to get him the money needed to finance his campaign.

I should note that Commissioner Mason was strongly on the netroots' side throughout the whole debate over regulating political activity online, and I always found him to be a decent, sincere man, whatever differences we may have had on other issues.   During those 2005 hearings, he dressed down then-IPDI head Carol Darr on the whole question of who should receive the protection of the "media exception" from campaign finance law, explaining why bloggers merited equal treatment in a way that any of us would agree with:

I think part of the reason is a lot of us kind of don't understand your point or your concerns, so I want to probe it a little bit and first starting from the Internet and one of the first major Internet decisions, which was about protecting pornography, of all things: the Supreme Court celebrated the fact that on the Internet, everyone can be a publisher, and they said this is a great thing. And a lot of us looked at it, and we say this is a great thing. So from the supply side, if you will, what is the problem if lots of the things on the Internet are judged to be publications, just like traditional?

And from the other side, you know, we look down; General Electric, which may be, what, the second biggest corporation in the world owns, you know, big media; Cap Cities, Disney, Murdoch, Time-Warner; I mean, you know, these are -- if you want to talk about holes in the corporate prohibition, these are huge. And as you have suggested, they are limited in some ways by some professional standards, but what we've heard from the Internet people is you have not only the sort of professional obligations of a lot of the sites but their credibility; in other words, the social pressure within the Internet itself to police activity. So I guess I just don't understand what you're concerned about losing by a broad expansion of the media exemption to Internet activities.

But there is good news, if this NYT report is credible: "The White House declined on Tuesday to withdraw Mr. Spakovsky’s nomination, but a spokeswoman, Emily Lawrimore, said Republican officials were now willing to allow each of the nominees to be voted upon separately."

If that's the case, we might actually have a functioning FEC before the Fourth of July.

update: Never mind the alleged good news; McConnell still says no separate vote on von Spakovsky.

The media narrative isn't always right, but it's always fascinating to watch. Because political reporters tend to be pack herd animals, once a narrative gets out there, it's tough to change. Yesterday, there was only one narrative: the Democratic race is over.

The consensus was swift and brutal. The tabloids had their own way of saying it (like the NY Post, which led the front page with "Toast!"). TIME has a cover offering an Obama victory pic. Broadcast media had their list, as captured by Jim Rutenberg in the NY Times (Pundits Declare the Race Over).

The moment came shortly after midnight Eastern time, captured in a devastatingly declarative statement from Tim Russert of NBC News: "We now know who the Democratic nominee’s going to be, and no one’s going to dispute it," he said on MSNBC. "Those closest to her will give her a hard-headed analysis, and if they lay it all out, they’ll say: ‘What is the rationale? What do we say to the undeclared super delegates tomorrow? Why do we tell them you’re staying in the race?’ And tonight, there’s no good answer for that.

Russert, btw, did an encore on Wednesday's evening news, using his whiteboard to go over the inexorable delegate math on the Nightly News (the astute Chuck Todd has been all over this), reiterating the idea that there was no way Clinton wins.

Yesterday afternoon, this AP story made its way onto the internet via the Houston Chronicle: Analysis: Democrats quietly send word to Clinton it's over. In the WaPo, Dan Balz did his own canvassing:

I sent a message to one of her most loyal supporters early Wednesday morning asking what are her realistic options? "She has only one option," he replied. "Gracefully exit and help unify the party to beat [John] McCain." How quickly, he was asked. "I would advise them to figure out how to do it as soon as this weekend," he replied.

Another veteran Democrat who has backed Clinton was equally pessimistic in his private assessment. "It's hard to see a path toward the twin goals of Hillary winning and the party uniting," he wrote. "Her strategy cannot be to destroy the village in order to save it. The superdelegate dam is about to break. Hillary losing [George] McGovern is like LBJ losing [former CBS News anchor Walter] Cronkite."

Several outlets started to dissect the Clinton superdelegates (this from The Hill):

"I, as you know, have great fondness and great respect for Sen. Clinton and I’m very loyal to her," [Dianne] Feinstein said. "Having said that, I’d like to talk with her and [get] her view on the rest of the race and what the strategy is.

Clinton, who eked out a win in Indiana Tuesday night but lost big to front-runner Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) in North Carolina, has not responded to Feinstein’s phone call, the California senator said.

"I think the race is reaching the point now where there are negative dividends from it, in terms of strife within the party," Feinstein said. "I think we need to prevent that as much as we can."

Today, it'll be about grace, timing, pride and, inevitably, money. Already one can see the references to Planet Clinton ( a place far away from here where people think they can win) openly make their way into political discussions (I heard it on MSNBC yesterday; pundits hate it when the candidates defy the narrative.)

I'll leave it to others to talk about why the pundits suddenly realized what the blogs have been saying for weeks... Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee, and it's about damn time to put his opponent, 71 year old John McCain, under the microscope and hold him accountable for his positions, his gaffes and his embrace of the worst President in polling history. But given the current narrative, that time is coming very soon.

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

Chaaaarge it!

I love The Week magazine. They do a nice job summarizing news and opinion---left, right and center---from a variety of sources, both in this country and abroad. In this week's issue I was struck by their clarity and simplicity in describing how we're paying for the nightmare in Iraq. Behold The Credit Card War:

The Iraq war, says economist Joseph Stiglitz, is "the first U.S. war financed entirely on credit." When the war started, the Bush administration said it would cost no more than $60 billion. But the U.S. budget was already in deficit, so the administration had to borrow money to finance the invasion. About 40 percent of the money was borrowed from China and other international investors---the first time since the Revolutionary War that foreigners financed a U.S. war. At the same time, the administration and Congress lowered taxes instead of raising them, as is customary in wartime. The Federal Reserve kept interest rates low, which encouraged middle-class Americans to go on a consumption binge financed by credit cards and home-equity loans.

Today, say Stiglitz and other economists, the bills for the country’s spending spree are starting to come due, in the form of higher prices, a weakened dollar, and lower living standards. "There’s no such thing as a free war," Stiglitz said. "The U.S.---and the world---will be paying the price for decades to come."

But at least we're getting our money's worth. Right?

Contractors hired to rebuild the country’s infrastructure or provide security have overcharged the U.S. for everything from soft drinks---$45 a can---to gasoline. Millions of dollars in no-bid reconstruction contracts were diverted to things such as Super Bowl tickets, prostitutes, watches, and jewelry. And much of the reconstruction work has been substandard. ... "This became the lens through which Iraqis now see America---incompetence, profiteering, arrogance," said House Democrat Henry Waxman of California, a vocal critic of the war.

So remember: Vote for John McCain in November. Because a hundred more years of this will be awesome!

Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

The upsurge in the youth vote this primary season has been nothing short of phenomenal. This sharp rise in turnout has been widely chalked up to two factors: the war in Iraq and the presence of Barack Obama in the field of candidates.

In Iowa, Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas, the youth vote tripled over 2004. In Tennessee, it quadrupled. In Louisiana and Massachusetts, it doubled. Other states also saw large increases. It appears not just possible but likely that this year will break the record for the youth vote, a record set in 1972, the first year that 18-year-olds could vote in a presidential contest. That year, 52% of eligible 18-to-24-year-olds showed up at the polls (compared with 68% of those 25 and older).

After '72, until 2004, the youth vote plunged downward except for the uptick in 1992 - which was in great part accounted for by the youthful casualness of a candidate named Bill Clinton, who was a year younger when he took the oath of office than Barack Obama will be when and if he does.

The primary turnout is a heartening prospect for Democrats and those who lean Democratic because young voters have picked Democrats over Republicans by close to a 2:1 margin overall in the primaries. And that fits into a whole range of other good news for Democrats that has been partly obscured by the acerbic nature of the Obama-Clinton battle since Super Tuesday. Among them the facts that fewer people self-identify as Republicans since 2004, and that both Obama and Clinton have (personal loans notwithstanding) raised more cash, recruited more volunteers and generated more turnout than anybody could have imagined even a year ago. This is now backed up by Senator Obama's 50-state voter registration drive.

What all this seems to presage, the youth vote certainly, but all the other positive factors as well, is the very real possibility of what Paul Rosenberg at Open Left has been harping on for some time: realignment. A shift in partisan power and political outlook and approach as striking as that of 1932, as DHinMI has written about here,  here, and here.

In short, not only would the Democrats win the White House, but they might even better their 2006 net gain in the House of Representatives with 30-40 more seats, add three or four seats to their Senate majority, and continue the gains they made in state legislatures two years ago. That wouldn't be a mere blowout. It would put the Democrats in position to shape the political landscape for the next decade or two.

Whether they would actually do so should they turn all the good news into success at the polls in November - or whether the change they would usher in could legitimately be labeled "progressive" - remains, of course, to be seen. Realignment is about a lot more than who controls Congress, indeed, about a lot more than electoral politics in general. But first things first.

Tonight's Rescue Rangers are Louisiana 1976, vcmvo2, shayera, hhex65, dopper0189, YatPundit, jlms qkw and grog.

• davej, continuing his coverage of the strike at Kaiser Permanente and their subcontractor Inter-Con Security Inc, explains Why They (And You) Need A Union. (dopper0189)
• MA Voter gives Kossacks a personal view of "then" and "now" in Economic Realities. (shayera)
• Stranded Wind had a near brush with disaster, that caused deep self-reflection on the need for national healthcare in Walkabout #17: One Fall, Two Sprains. (dopper0189)
• In CounterProductive CounterPunch Story on Iran, Jeff Huber notes that unsourced alarmist stories about Iran are not solely a tool of the right. (hhex65)
• JoesGarage focuses our attention on the true enemy during the next 6 months in Let's Meet John McCain's Economic Advisors. (jlms qkw)
• greenchiledem's series, The Daily Flipper - Vol.1 No.8 - May 7, 2008, continues to chronicle McCain's flip-flops for those of us having a hard time keeping track. The traditional media might find this resource helpful. (dopper0189)
• don mikulecky looks back on the New Deal and why FDR is such a hero to many in On this day in 1935 FDR created the WPA. (vcmvo2)

jotter has High Impact Diaries - May 6, 2008, while brillig has Top Comments- 05/07/08 School Days Edition.

All y'all know the drill: please promote your own favorite diaries in this Open Thread.

::

The Burmese are used to bad news. The person who should be their prime minister, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Aung San Suu Kyi, has been under house detention or in prison off and on for 18 years. The military junta has repeatedly proved that it has no intention of relaxing its iron-fisted rule. As Dr. Suu Kyi said in her Freedom from Fear speech in 1990:

It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.

The generals are corrupt, so corrupt, indeed, that they did not have a system in place to give citizens an early warning when Cyclone Nargis struck Saturday. Even now, with Burma reeling from the aftermath of one of the world's worst modern natural disasters - with perhaps more than 100,000 dead and 2 million homeless - the junta is continuing years-long behavior, approving only $5 million for aid relief to their citizens, even though the government receives $2.7 billion a year in revenue from gas exports.

"Not only are the regime blocking international aid, they are not mobilising their own resources either," according to Mark Farmaner, the director of the Burma Campaign UK. "£2.5m is pathetic given the scale of this crisis. This is less than was spent on presents for the wedding of the daughter of Than Shwe, the dictator of Burma." The Campaign says that the government spends half its budget on the military.

As widely reported, the junta has somewhat relaxed its usual tight grip on aid workers who were already in Burma when Nargis struck. The BBC says these aid workers have been allowed to travel with someone from the local Red Cross or a government official without needing to obtain additional permission, as was previously the case. But far more aid workers are needed, and the junta is barely moving to make that possible, despite the devastation.

The military is extremely wary of allowing the small number of foreigners based in Burma to move around in normal times; the prospect of having many times that number operating in the country may prove too much for the generals to swallow.

"Some are getting in, some are not - we need the floodgates to open," said Britain's Ambassador in Rangoon, Mark Canning.

"It's crucial that we get these humanitarian experts in, and that's what we're putting a lot of effort into at the moment".

The government has appointed Deputy Foreign Minister Maung Myint to oversee the issuing of visas, but it still is not clear whether he has the authority to approve them in the numbers the international agencies say they need.

Early Wednesday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner spoke in favor of the United Nations invoking the concept of the "responsibility to protect." Under this highly controversial approach, approved by the world body in 2005, the United Nations could intervene in cases where governments failed or refused to protect their own citizens, even when this would violate national sovereignty.

But John Holmes, UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said "confrontation" would be unhelpful because discussions with the government were slowly moving forward.

"I'm not sure that invading Burma would be a very sensible option," he said in response to criticism that the United Nations was not doing enough.

"We are having useful and constructive discussions with the authorities of Burma," he said.

"It is moving in the right direction. We want it to move much faster clearly. But I'm not sure it would help at this moment at least to embark on what could at least be seen by some people as a confrontation."

Millions of dollars have already been pledged for relief if only it can be delivered directly to those who need it. That, it seems clear, will take some blend of cajoling of and pressure on the junta to save their own people. Time is of the essence. Obtaining clean water has been a problem for days, and lack of food is rapidly becoming a serious worry.

If the immediate roadblocks can be overcome, much suffering can be avoided, and, perhaps, the generals will see their way clear to relaxing their tough rule overall, although that is a far dicier prospect. Once the first weeks are past, it would behoove aid agencies to avoid some of the problems associated with aid to Aceh province in Sumatra after the 2004 tsunami. There, that aid, according to a survey by Oxfam, wound up in the hands of the more well-to-do, with the poor benefiting least.

Two good sites to visit for information about the situation are Democratic Voice on Burma and Campaigning for Human Rights and Democracy in Burma. The latter contains a short list of organizations accepting donations for cyclone relief.

One important effort you can make that won't require a financial commitment is to e-mail or phone your favorite media operations to urge them to pay attention to this tragedy.

+ + +

^{Avila and srkp23 have Diaries here and here on the same subject.}

For a long time, Robert Jordan was the man I admired above almost all others in life and fiction … a hero for the twentieth century, my century.

On Monday, as BarbinMD noted, John McCain denigrated Barack Obama's experience in foreign affairs.

"Senator Obama obviously has no national security experience, and therefore that's reflected in his judgment on a number of those issues."

It's untrue of course; Obama serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But this is a larger issue than simply another falsehood from John McCain. It's also about McCain's hypocrisy, and indeed his own judgment.

The touchstone for the charge that Obama is too "inexperienced" to be president is this: Where did the speaker stand on George W. Bush's candidacy - both in 2000 and in 2004?

In 2000, Bush had no experience whatever in national security or foreign policy, nor indeed any experience in Washington. Bush was both naive and ignorant in the extreme about world affairs. The contrast with Al Gore could not have been sharper. And yet, most Republicans backed Bush over Gore. John McCain himself endorsed Bush in 2000, and in fact worked hard to put in the White House the grossly inexperienced Texan (video here).

"I look forward to enthusiastically campaigning for Gov. Bush over the next six months."

So McCain is concerned about experience only in so far as it helps or hinders electing Republicans. The same is true, I suspect, of the vast majority of critics of Obama's level of experience.

In any case, Bush in 2004 demonstrates why the "experience" argument fails. No candidate in 2004 could rival Bush in experience because he'd already served as president. If experience was your yardstick then Bush was your man in 2004, hands down. And what a disaster Bush's second term has turned out to be, for all his experience! In living memory we have several examples of other disastrous presidents who brought abundant experience to the White House - Richard Nixon and Herbert Hoover spring to mind - but George W. Bush in 2004 is perhaps the clearest proof that experience is a pretty poor predictor of presidential success.

And yes, having learned nothing from Bush's disastrous first term, the "maverick" John McCain campaigned hard for the Republican candidate in 2004. In fact in his speech at the 2004 Republican National Convention, McCain praised Bush as "tested".

Thus whether it's Bush in 2000 or Bush in 2004, the man who is arguably the worst president in American history is the perfect test of whether to take seriously the argument from "experience". And in both elections, wouldn't you know, McCain is hoist by his own petard.

McCain is nothing if not consistently inconsistent. On Monday, he was exploring every possible way to put down Barack Obama.

McCain, who also questioned Obama's credentials on the economy, was asked if he thought Obama had experience in any areas. Probably, McCain said, "I think on many issues, (but) certainly not on the level of mine."

Contrast what McCain said in 2004 about why candidates shouldn't promote their own credentials.

Kerry, who McCain called a friend, has used his tour of duty in Vietnam as a contrast to his opponents who didn't serve. McCain said it's inappropriate politically for candidates to "compare their credentials," because voters will do that. Later, he said he wasn't criticizing Kerry, only making a political observation.

McCain is nothing if not consistently inconsistent.

We're over half of the way to our goal of raising $20,000 this week for Kleeb's campaign to win the Democratic nomination for Nebraska's open Senate seat.

The primary is next Tuesday, and his opponent, Tony Raimondo has opened up his seemingly bottomless checkbook,  loaning his own campaign $450,000. We're trying to help Scott contend with his opponent's personal wealth through people-power: $20,000 or 450 donations (one for every $1,000 of Raimondo's money), whichever comes first. (Though both would be pretty cool.)

Contribute if you can. Help help send a real Democrat to the Senate, and send the message that people power can compete with big money.

On the Web:
Kleeb for Senate
Daily Kos for Scott Kleeb ActBlue page

Race tracker wiki: NE-Sen

Georgia Congressman Paul Broun, a Marine veteran and medical doctor, has launched a new crusade on behalf of our fine military men and women. Surveying the dangerous situation abroad, the progress (or lack thereof) in Iraq, and the ever-increasing number of American casualties, Broun has, after careful consideration, decided that the problem is pornography.

"As a Marine, I am deeply concerned for the welfare of our troops and their mission," said Broun. "Allowing the sale of pornography on military bases has harmed military men and women by: escalating the number of violent, sexual crimes; feeding a base addiction; eroding the family as the primary building block of society; and denigrating the moral standing of our troops both here and abroad."

Oh, so THAT'S what's harming our troops. Porn. Of course!

Seriously, it's just one step from there to blaming the Iraq debacle on...our permissive attitude towards sex as a nation! If it wasn't for those stupid liberals and their low moral fiber...

Race tracker wiki: GA-10

Check out how green you are on the green calculator at the National Geographic Society site.

And oh, yeah ... this thread is now officially open.

So we all know that the thresshold for victory is 2,024 right? (Actually, it's now 2,024.5 with last week's LA-06 victory, but close enough.) The Clinton campaign, which has installed a little motor in their goalposts so they don't wear themselves out moving them, now claims:

[Yesterday] morning, Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign made the case that the goal line needs to be moved further back and that the real "magic number" is 2,209. It also laid out a scenario that has the primary season ending on June 3 with neither major contender having reached the 2,209 mark. In that event, Clinton strategist Geoff Garin said, "the process" would continue -- a process that could see Clinton and Barack Obama taking their battle for the nomination to the floor of the party's late-August convention in Denver.

Man, Those people will do anything to win. Even if, as Mark Nickolas points out, it makes them hypocrites:

Howard Wolfson, January 26:

[WOLFSON MEMO] This remains a delegate fight, with 1,681 delegates at stake on February 5th, and 2,025 needed to secure the nomination -- and we are ahead in that fight.

Howard Wolfson, February 12:

"We don’t think either candidate will be able to get 2,025 delegates without the superdelegates," Wolfson said during Monday’s briefing, a prediction that may come down to whether Clinton can stem Obama’s February momentum by taking the majority of Texas's and Ohio’s 389 delegates on March 4 (Vermont and Rhode Island also hold contests that day).

Howard Wolfson, February 13:

"Superdelegates are supposed to vote their conscience. ... That's essentially what my friend David Axelrod said on the Today show. ... No one is going to win the nomination without them. Our goal is to get to 2025 delegates. " - Howard Wolfson

[...]

And so on. Nickolas dug up nine similar quotes, and there's obviously a lot more of that lying around.