In his opinion piece on "Weekend Edition" of NPR today, Simon took Obama to task for suggesting that McCain’s campaign would play the race card in the general election.  Simon posed the question of when has McCain ever done something like that?  Pointed out that having been the victim of sleazy, race based attack on his family that it would be irrational to even consider that McCain would do anything like that.  (Carefully omitted from his opinion piece was the identification of the source of that attack on McCain.)  Simon concluded with a suggestion that the public should watch for signs of bigotry by both campaigns, but based on what he’d said, the strongest implication was that it would come from Obama.

Having listened to several recent interviews with McClellan, I’ve heard him consistently selling two notions in every one of those interviews that have received scant attention.  First, GWB is a good guy with good intentions.  Second, Scotty is a truth teller and not a liar.

How could anyone that is capable of detailing numerous instances of GWB not acting like a good guy with good intentions continue to hold onto that opinion of GWB?  GWB lied and people died.  Lots of people died.  

Anyone that has concluded that Webb, Clark and/or Clinton is the best choice for the Obama ticket is engaged in character and individual accomplishment analyses.  Identifying what they see as Obama’s shortcomings and seeking to plug that in the cheapest way possible.  Magnifying the strengths of Webb, Clark and Clinton and minimizing their deficits.  However, I could talk until I’m blue in the face about all those character factors used to evaluate Webb, Clark or Clinton and it would all be rejected because once an individual has been idealized, any information that disputes those assumed (projected?) characteristics can’t be heard.  It’s the unfortunate downside of love.

Since the NH primary, I’ve been mostly perplexed by the "Hillary Girls" phenomenon.  There seems to be two components: "Old Guard Feminists" and the so-called low-information blue or pink collar workers, full-time homemakers and older, retired women.  

The "Old Guard Feminists" are the easiest to identify as a group.  However, they are the smaller subset of rabid Hillary supporters and currently sound too much like bat-shit crazy female chauvinists to hold much interest for me.  Even recognizing that many of them are writing and pitching the narrative of Hillary as the feminist standard bearer and that some of their language is trickling down to those "low information voters," they aren’t driving the significant portion of the "Hillary Girls" phenomenon.  They wouldn’t even know that because, like me, they approach most questions from an intellectual perspective and sometimes that doesn’t work.

Heading into the 1968 California June primary, tensions in the Democratic Party were as high as they’ve been for the past two months this year.  Earlier that year, LBJ had won the New Hampshire primary but the little known Senator Eugene McCarthy with his anti-Vietnam War student brigade had finished a strong second.  LBJ dropped out, and his VP Hubert Humphrey and Senator Robert Kennedy dropped in.

Those who had worked hard for McCarthy resented RFK jumping into the race after they had done the heavy lifting.  But RFK easily garnered most of the anti-war Democratic support, at least those who could vote which left McCarthy with the underage student volunteers, plus the larger group of JFK Democrats.  Humphrey inherited the blue collar, pro-war Democrats along with those any others who would have continued to support LBJ against RFK.  The race was extremely close coming into California; the primary that would essentially seal the deal for one of the candidates.

It wasn’t that her campaign was horribly mismanaged.  Because it wasn’t.  The flaw was the initial assumption that if she ran, she would win.  From that she put together a strategic plan that focused on her strengths and did some cosmetic work on her personal weaknesses.  It was not dissimilar to how Bush/Cheney viewed Iraq: if the US invaded, the US would be greeted with flowers, etc..

In her own right, her political resume was thin, both in accomplishments and time in office.  Beyond personal aspirations to be POTUS, neither Clinton has ever exhibited more than a limited and cramped vision for the country.  (On that measure, GWB is superior to the Clintons which is one reason why he has been so successful in changing the direction of the country.)  Thus, the primary reason for her candidacy was "I am Clinton."  A third term for Clinton.  Much like GHB was a third term for Reagan (even if the country didn’t want that in ’88).  And GWB was a second term for Bush and McCain seeks to be a third term for GWB.  

Every freakin' election cycle, voters bemoan the fact that the media focuses on the stupid stuff instead of policy issues.  And yet during primary season, voters quickly suck up declarations that the policy differences between the most viable (a combination of name recognition, charisma and cash) candidates are slim to none which leaves on the the stupid stuff to talk about.  When the general election rolls around, the policy differences are sufficiently blunted that once again, there’s not enough there there to bother with.  Therefore, it’s the stupid stuff  that matters.

How whacky is it to reject all the scientific evidence that confirms biological evolution in favor of an unseen, unheard big guy in the sky that created all life just as it is today?    To believe that the earth is 5,000 years old and the geological record is false?  That Jesus was in favor of torture and capital punishment?  That Saddam had WMD that were going to come and get us?  Or even that Saddam was involved in perpetrating 9/11 when there was no shred of evidence for that?  

A hell of a lot more Americans believe or once believed one or more of the above whacky ideas.  Are they "whackadoodles?"   If I reject all those whacky ideas but have had a relationship with a "whackadoodle," why would that reflect on me?  By that standard, we’re all "whackadoodles."

Vietnam was the historical reference point for Americans who never wanted this country to repeat that shameful and costly "mistake."  Those who really learned the lesson of Vietnam understood from the moment GWB uttered the words "axis of evil" in his ‘02 SOTU that he not only had failed that lesson plan but was determined to have his own splendid quagmire.  What shocked me then and continues to amaze me is how many Americans were as ignorant as GWB.  Even if he didn’t legitimately win either of his elections, GWB was and is an almost perfect microcosm of a majority of Americans.  That was what a founding father like John Adams feared about a full fledged democratic government.

Picking up where I left off in Why Torture? Why?, my attention was limited to questioning the utility for the Bush Admin of the US military functioning as the agent of  torture at Gitmo.  Others may be satisfied with the answer that it's because Bush, Cheney and/or Rumsfeld and their legal right-hands Gonzalez, Addington and Haynes like torture.  One reason why that isn't a satisfactory answer for me is that they could (and did) accomplish the same thing without legally formalizing the  participation of the military.  "Extraordinary rendition" and CIA black sites served that purpose and did so under a far heavier cloak of secrecy than anything that could be done at Gitmo.  

"Why government authorized torture" is the primary question that smacks me upside my head every time I read another expose of BushCo’s torture(ous) machinations.  The latest one in Vanity Fair by Philippe Sands, The Green Light puts more meat on the bones of  the story that should have been clear to Americans from the "Bybee(-Yoo) Memo" and the Senate hearings into Abu Ghraib in the spring of '04.  

Anyone remember Gore in late '03?  At the nadir of his public career, he bucked the DLC machine by endorsing Dean.  Took a chance on doing the right thing because by then he couldn't sink much lower with the institutional wing of the Democratic Party.  The DEM chorus telling him to go away after 2000 was as loud as the GOP chorus singing the same tune.  In Sept.'02 (before the IWR had been submitted for a vote in the Senate), he gave a great speech denouncing the insanity of rushing into a war with Iraq.  The DEM party leaders yawned and told him to fuck off.  So, perhaps his endorsement of Dean wasn't and honest and courageous moment for Gore.  It could have been that he was simply poking a stick in the eye of those who had told him to get lost.  The jab didn't even connect with the face much less the eye.

Paulson finally speaks the truth, sort of:

After years of unsustainable price appreciation and lax lending practices, a housing correction was inevitable and necessary.  That correction is underway. Over the next two years, we also face an unprecedented wave of 1.8 million subprime mortgage resets, raising the potential of a market failure. Because the industry does not have the capacity to manage this volume, without action, unnecessary foreclosures would result.

Then the denial (or lies crept) back in:

Nobody EVER wants to admit that she or he is wrong.  Whereas, cognitively almost everybody can admit to themselves that they have been wrong,  if not often, at least occasionally.  (Even the most pathological narcissistic of individuals, who have little capacity for self-examination and evaluation, aren’t completely deficient in the ability to recognize that they aren’t always right.  The evidence for that is that they work hard to hide their errors and shortcomings from others, and the more successful they are at that, the better able they are to delude themselves which is positive reinforcement for their narcissism.)  Our ability to spontaneously recognize an error, or consider the possibility of error, and to admit it to ourselves and others is a measure of maturity and how much practice we’ve had in learning and exhibiting this skill.

Many will have heard that Clinton was upbeat and confident in her little private DC meeting with very important people today.  As reported by TPM  Clinton is predicting that "...we're gonna win this,..."  Her key advisors, aides and super-delegates made presentations and reinforced the message of "Yes, we will" win.

But who was the audience for this public relations event?

we'd be about mid-way through it.

The protagonist has been given heroic qualities.  He parlayed his reputation for busting big-time white collar criminals into the governorship of a large state.  From that powerful position, he continues to be a thorn in the side of the Wall St. crooks and liars.  Yet for all his smarts, he somehow overlooks that the prey he's stalking has friends in very high places.  Then because he can't help himself, he consorts with a high priced hooker.  Leaving behind the evidence of the arrangement of the assignation.  The  prostitution ring is busted by the Feds and Mr. Hero gets scooped as client #1.  But no John Doe invisibiilty cloak for our hero.  He's outed immediately in the media.

Democrats have no one to blame for this but themselves.  Long before the MSM ‘00 swoon for McCain, Democrats in DC were telling the nation that McCain was okay.  That he is a good Republican.  I don’t know when this began, but it was concurrent with the historical revisionism of Goldwater by Democrats.  "Goldwater was a good guy" and since McCain is essentially AuH20 v. 2.0, he’s a good guy too.  

In that milieu, is it any wonder that the former Goldwater Girl would be simpatico with McCain?  Pictures of the two of them together look as if they have the hots for each other.  More so than seems apparent from pictures of either of them with their respective spouses.  So, how big of a step was it for her to state that she and McCain are peers and Obama is a piece of fluff that wandered in from Hicksville. Neither invited nor welcome at their party.

In the presidential campaign TV advertising awards.  Time will tell if it’s as effective and therefore, as brilliant as the best of the best over the past fifty years.  What can be said is that it’s competing in a category with no prior winners or even honorable mentions.   Let’s first review one observer's top choices since the dawn of TV political advertising: