As I sit here watching March Madness, I see the future of politics. Do I see politics as a game? Perhaps, but that is not the future, that is the nature of politics. No, the key is that I am not watching on television. I am watching on my computer. I have watched the debates online before. But what is remarkable is that I can watch any game at anytime. This was available last year, but it worked sporadically, this year it will be my standard way to watch.

But instead of watching Kansas St. and USC (good game by the way), I imagine that I am watching a Senate debate. Instead of watching Duke and Belmont (is Duke going to lose), I imagine that I am watching a cabinet debate (man am I junkie). The MSM has not even begun to deal with blogs, imagine when every debate, every second of the government is open to every citizen. Barack Obama understands the change that this will make on politics.

Paul Krugman has a new hit piece out on Obama at the NY Times. More below the fold ...

Too often when discussions are held on DailyKos someone will refer to an argument as a right-wing talking point or a political view as coming from the right. Since often when we are talking about the "right wing", we are basically discussing an established group of people rather than an ideology it is easy to be dismissive of everything "they" say. It gets very confusing as what is considered to the right and what is considered to the left. I fear that we are dismissive of ideas that may have merit, even if those who are articulating them may have nefarious motives.

My view is that arguments from the right are those that provide freedom through individual rights with the far-right basically being a state of nature where anyone is allowed to do anything without any government intervention and ideas from the left being those that impose rules on interaction to support the common good (with far-left being a paternalistic state). Given that individuals can reduce each others rights without rules, these rules can often enhance freedom between individuals even if there is some reduction in freedom because of the rules (a simple example of this is the financial markets where the rules allow system to work and therefore give everyone the freedom to trade).

A few days ago Artios posted the following description of the candidates:

Obama: The system sucks, but I'm so awesome that it'll melt away before me.

Edwards: The system sucks, and we're gonna have to fight like hell to destroy it.

Clinton: The system sucks, and I know how to work within it more than anyone.

Similiarly, Krugman has slowly been hammering at Obama with multiple articles against him and then this interview and article which explicitly calls him an "anti-change candidate":

Which brings me to a big worry about Mr. Obama: in an important sense, he has in effect become the anti-change candidate.

Krugman and Atrios (and for that matter Jerome Armstrong) seem to be intentionally misunderstanding what Barack stands for ... (more)

He has no ability to look past the next year in Iraq. I am frustrated listening to the debate of whether the surge has worked or not. It reminds me of the debate over WMD's. We have allowed the question in the debate to be framed by the Administration. Who cares what Petraeus says. He has not said that the troops will be out of Iraq in the next year. What happens by focusing on his testimony and the report is that the question of "should we stay in Iraq" is tied to the question of "has the surged worked", even when these are independent questions. This is the same mistake we made with WMD's when the question of "does Saddam have WMD's" got tied to "should we go to war".

Update:

Ok, I edited the title. And the poll is supposed to read, "Hypothetically, if the surge had been a success, should we leave Iraq?"

Dear Senator Durbin,

As a resident of Illinois, I was disappointed recently to see your remarks concerning the extra 50 billion dollars that the Administration is looking to include in its supplemental this September.

"Though he said he is likely to approve the increased request -- it would accompany a pending request for an additional $147 billion in war funding -- Durbin said he would work to attach conditions to it that would require troops to begin coming home in the spring." - Chicago Tribune

During that period, I have voted for Democrats. I have volunteered for the party and contributed to our candidates. And yet I find it difficult to reconcile the quotes below with your recent comments. It is time to leave Iraq. It is time to stop funding this war. The President has the funding he needs to bring the troops home.

I have received numerous emails asking for support from you. Here are some quotes from those emails: ...

And the Iraqi government is allied with Iran. The statement calling the Iranian Army terrorists opened our eyes to the fact that we are not "going" to war with Iran, but already are in a war with Iran. The war in Iraq is a proxy war with Iran.

Military from Iraq, say openly, "the real problem is Iran". Does this suggest that perhaps the Administration is right, that we should bomb Iran? No. Our proxy war in no way benefits America and we enter a war with Iran with no exit strategy, an incredibly weakened army and dependent on an Iranian ally, the Iraqi prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki. The August 19th edition of the Chicago Tribune Alireza Jafarzadeh writes, in this article

On the surface, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's visit to Tehran on Aug. 8 to talk with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was another effort to enlist Iran's help in bringing security to Iraq. The real purpose, however, was quite different. Al-Maliki's trip helped smooth the way for the Iranian clerics to install a sister Islamic republic in Iraq.

In today's Chicago Tribune there is an article about the difficult logistical challenge that leaving Iraq will be. I think this is an important article. While I understand that the Tribune is doing this article, to support the administration's position that leaving Iraq will be fraught with danger, I believe there is more than a grain of truth when they say:

When it comes, the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq and the dismantling of the vast American presence here promises to be as risky and unpredictable as the past four years of war.

My parents have always said I have an over-developed sense of justice. My mother would often knock down this notion with the statement, "Life is not fair". And yet, deep down in my bones I want it to be. To me, the statement "all men are created equal", is a basic conception of fairness. And this is my basic issue with the conservative mentality. In Slate's "A Supreme Court Conversation – 10" Dahlia Lithwick searches for this concept in describing the Supreme Court

But is there a name for this thing we liberals want to see more of on the court? Something that isn't merely the opposite of "mean"?

More below the fold ...

INTERACTIVE EXERCISE - Developing a competency model

As we watch the SOTU tonight, we know we are watching a bad president (ok, understatement). But how do we define a good president? Is it simply a matter of them agreeing with us on the issues? Or is there more to it?

In HR terms the way to evaluate a position is develop a competency model. A competency is generally defined as the knowledge (e.g. economics, skills (e.g. good speaker), and dispositions (e.g. empathetic) to do a particular position. Since competency models are heirarchial and so are blogs, I thought we could work together to create a competency model for a president. Below I have started the competency model with the hierarchy of the competency, and indicator (a way to determine if someone has the competency). If you think the competency is important for a president, recommend it. If you have other competencies that you want to add, make a comment as your competency. Later we can evaluate the candidates against the model.

As I have read the reaction to Obama’s presidential aspirations the one I have found most striking is the reaction to his race. From what I have seen this falls into two categories "Is he black enough?" and "Is America ready to vote for a black President?". While questions of health care and security will be central to the campaign, these questions resonate in the soul of the American story. It strikes at the deepest questions about our individual selves and our communal identity. The question of race in America is the first question of America, how could the country that’s first utterance is "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" have slavery until 1865 and segregation till 1964?

And yet, till I saw these questions in print I had not reflected on their true meaning. The conflict inherent in voting for a black President who may not be black enough, I think means that it will be possible for Barack to be President and for him to be so in an inspirational manner (in spite of ourselves). If the road to hell is often paved with good intentions, I think this may be a case where the road to heaven is paved with misguided intentions.

In early December a member of DailyKos wrote quite a negative review of Obama’s "Audacity of Hope". At the time I read the Book Review, I was skeptical. Living in Chicago and having met with Obama twice at fund raisers, the reviewers take on the book seemed unfair (but having not yet read the book, I felt limited in my response). However, when earlier this week Obama announced his exploratory committee and similar views were expressed (ie. Obama is not a real progressive, Obama is Lieberman lite, Obama’s views on the war are not definitive enough, Obama’s views are not out there enough, Obama is not strident enough on gay rights), I feel compelled to reply and try to summarize some of the arguments in the book (of course not as well as Obama, but cheaper and shorter to read).

This diary therefore tries achieve 2 things, summarize Obama’s book and reject some of the other claims made against him.

You also realize how difficult campaigning is. Dan's campaign has not recieved some of the national recoginition that other campaigns have because it was not seen to be a competitive campaign. However, a week before the election Dan is running neck and neck.

We need to press the issue that based on the numbers we should win the house relatively easily. So that if we don't, there is only one explanation, that our democracy has been comprised beyond repair. We may need to take to the streets. I have heard reference to legal action if the election is stolen. That is ridiculous. The way to fix a corrupt democracy is to take to the streets and we need to be prepared that this may be our only option.

Its bad enough that the casualty numbers are not comparable to Vietnam becauase modern medicine saves so many soldiers that people's perspective on how much damage is actually happening is completely eschew. This will go down as the most horrible egotistic war that America ever prosecuted.

Article in war rooms on salon.com

The governor of Michigan discusses that the industry with the countries 3rd and 4th largest companies are getting crushed. Its a pity the president is to busy dealing with the fact that he lied us into a war to answer her letter.

Luckily I woke up this morning to this article in the Chicago Tribune:
Carter: Policy by religion has nation at risk

Our most truly religious president has written a book about religion in public and in politics called ""Our Endangered Values". I cannot wait to read it. Below are a few more of my own thoughts about religion and policy and is Scalito an acceptable Supreme Court nominee.