QUOTE OF THE DAY

Joseph A. Palermo:

Before George W. Bush causes more damage to the world by escalating the war in Iraq, or bombing Iran, or unleashing Israel in another short-sighted attack on one of its neighbors, we must impeach him and remove him from office. There has never been a man so undeserving of power who has been given so much of it. Bush might even hold messianic fantasies about the all-powerful post that happenstance has given him; hence, he sleepwalks through history. We are now entering the most dangerous time of the Bush presidency. He has nothing to lose. His "legacy," as Eric Foner recently noted, is that he is the worst president in American history. The world is too perilous, and the technology too lethal to allow George Walker Bush to remain the President. We must impeach him and remove him from office before it is too late.

"Put the Bush Foreign Policy into Receivership"

John Emerson:

Two very good pieces suggesting what can be done to restrain Bush and Cheney: Putting the Bush Foreign Policy into Receivership I and Putting the Bush Foreign Policy into Receivership II.This is the kind of thinking we need to be doing -- it's much more important than the 2008 Presidential nomination horserace or strategizing the 2008 election. Bush and Cheney still have the power to bring on disasters which will make our present situation in the Middle East seem wonderful in comparison.

"'NYT' Sunday Preview: Sen. Jim Webb Says Story on Rift With Bush 'Emanated from the White House' "

Editor&Publisher:

In an interview with Deborah Solomon that will appear in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine, the newly-elected U.S. senator from Virginia, Jim Webb, discusses his recent widely-publicized exchange with President Bush over an Iraq pullout.

At a recent White House reception the president had asked about Webb's son, who is serving in Iraq. Webb suggested that troops should start coming home from Iraq, and Bush snapped back, "I didn't ask you that."

Webb calls the coverage of that "vastly overblown" but adds: "I think what I said was appropriate." He also stated, "This was something that emanated from the White House. I did not say anything about this for two weeks. I said nothing publicly at all."

So why did the White House push the issue? "Probably as an attempt to try to define me between the election and the beginning of the Congress," Webb replied "And that's all I am going to say."

Webb, a novelist and Reagan appointee, said he had left the GOP when the Democrats took a "stronger position on foreign policy" -- he had always felt more comfortable with them on "social issues or issues of economic fairness."

He called for greater diplomacy leading to troop cuts in Iraq. He also revealed that he plans to "always write" while in office, with his model being the late senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

"Edwards and Obama Lead Dems in Iowa"

It's just a poll, a long way out, on MyDD:

Via Political Wire, Research 2000 has conducted a new round of polling on likely Iowa caucus-goers for KCCI-TV in Des Moines and the numbers look like this:

December 18-20, MoE +/- 4.0%*

John Edwards: 22 percent

Barack Obama: 22 percent

Tom Vilsack: 12 percent

Hillary Clinton: 10 percent

The write up of the poll is rather sparse, even in comparison with how these articles are usually written. As such, it's not possible to tell what the actual margin of error is among those who will participate in the Democratic caucuses (as opposed to both the Democratic and Republican caucuses). Nonetheless, one can assume that the margin of error for the Democratic race would be higher than 4 percent -- perhaps even 5.5 percent or even wider.

That said, when compared to polling in the field back in October conducted by Harstad Strategic Research Inc., these new numbers show that there may have been movement towards Obama and away from Edwards. In that earlier poll, Edwards led with 36 percent, trailed by Clinton at 16 percent, Obama at 13 percent and Vilsack at 9 percent, with others filling up the bottom of the pack. (The KCCI report on this month's poll neglects to detail numbers of candidates with support less than 10 percent, though one would assume that other names were included in the poll.)

Just to add... It's not yet clear whether these shifts are permanent or even real. Comparing two different surveys from two different pollsters with two different methodologies is always a tricky business. But if these numbers are correct, Obama does appear to be coming on strong.

Two on Obama

"Should Barack Hussein Obama be president 'when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam'?"-from wingnut Debbie Schlussel.

"So, even if he identifies strongly as a Christian ... is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father's heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?"

"Obama the anti-Bush"-from Michael Tomasky,editor at large of the American Prospect.

George W. Bush, to most voters, is no longer the man who restored honor and dignity to the White House. Nor is he — in another line from his 2000 campaign — a "uniter, not a divider."

He is now instead the stubborn, highly partisan unilateralist who doesn't listen to others.

So what character type does this mean voters will be looking for in 2008? Someone who speaks of his frustration with our polarized politics and his fervent desire to transcend the red-blue divide.

Sound like anyone you know? I thought so.

"How the Kvetch Stole Chanukah"

David Golstein, now that he has his power back on, cross posted at Huffington Post (front page) and horsesass.org:

Every Joo
Down in Joo-ville
Liked Chanukah as such…

But the Kvetch,
Who lived just north of Joo-ville,
… not so much.

The Kvetch hated Chanukah, the whole Chanukah season.
Now don't ask me why.
What? Should I know the reason?
It could be he wasn’t a mensch, that is all.
Or his petzel, perhaps, was two sizes too small.
Such meshug’as comes from one thing or another,
But like most Joo-ish boys, we should just blame his mother!

But,
The reason, whatever,
His mom or his putz,
The Kvetch hated Chanukah. Oy, what a yutz!
For he knew every Joo down in Joo-ville tonight
Was busy preparing menorahs to light.

“And they’re giving out gelt!” he sighed as he said
“I need waxy chocolate like holes in my head!”
Then he nervously whined as his fingers tapped horas,
“I MUST stop the Joos from igniting menorahs!”

For,
The Kvetch knew that soon…

… All the Joo girls and boys
Would say the baruch’ha, then unwrap their toys!
And then! Oh, the oys! Oh, the Oys! Oys! Oys! Oys!
If it’s not what they wanted, the OYS! OYS! OYS! OYS!

Then the Joos, young and old, would sit down for a nosh.
And they’d nosh! And they’d nosh!
And they’d NOSH! NOSH! NOSH! NOSH!
They would nosh on Joo-latkes, and Gefilte-Joo-Fish,
Which was surely the Kvetch’s least favorite dish!

And THEN
They’d do something
Which made the Kvetch plotz!
Every Joo down in Joo-ville, Bar Mitzvahed or not,
Would sit down together, their proud ponim’s grinning.
Then dreidels in hand, all the Joos would start spinning!

They’d spin! And they’d spin!
AND they’d SPIN! SPIN! SPIN! SPIN!
And the more the Kvetch thought of this Joo-Dreidel-Spin,
The more the Kvetch thought, “I can’t let this begin!
“Oy, for fifty-three years I’ve put up with it now!
“Chanukah, Schmanukah! Stop it!
… But HOW?”

Then he got an idea!
And the moment he had,
He said
“I’m no Einstein, but this… not half bad!”

“I know just what to do!” Then he donned an old sheet,
And dug up some sandals to wear on his feet.
“I’m the Prophet Elijiah! They’ve set me a plate!”
(For the Kvetch couldn’t keep Joo-ish holidays straight.)
“The Joos ‘ll oblige ol’ Elijiah, no doubt!
“I will simply walk in. Then I’ll clean the place out!”

“All I need is a camel...”
He looked far and near,
But this wasn’t the desert, and camels are dear.
Did that stop the old Kvetch...?
That pischer? No, never:
“If I can’t find a camel,” the Kvetch said, “...whatever.”
So he called his dog, Max. Then he took an old sack
And he tied a hump onto the front of his back.

THEN
He climbed on this
dog-dromedaryish mammal.
You never have seen
Such a schmuck on a camel.

Then the Kvetch cried “Oy vey!”
As old Max started down
Toward the homes, while the Joos
Where still schmoozing in town.

All their driveways were empty. Just SUV tracks.
All the Joos were out last-minute-shopping at Saks,
As he rode to a not-so-small house on old Max.
“It’s a good thing I brought” the old Prophet Kvetch thought,
“All these bags with to stuff all the stuff the Joos bought.”

Then he looked at the chimney. It seemed quite a stretch
That a fat goy like Santa could fit, thought the Kvetch,
“Still, the goyim believe stranger things, that’s for sure.”
Then the Kvetch shrugged his shoulders, and walked through the door
Where the little Joo dreidels were all strewn about.
“These dreidels,” he grinned, “are the first to go out!”

And he schvitzed, as he shlepped, with an odor unpleasant,
Around the whole house, as he took every present!
Barbie dolls! Mountain bikes! Brios! And blocks!
Pokemon! GameBoys! And all of that shlock!
And he stuffed them in bags. Then his arms spread akimbo,
He shlepped all the bags, one by one, out the wimbo!

Then he shlepped to the kitchen. He took every dish.
He took the Joo-latkes. The Gefilte-Joo-Fish.
He cleaned out the Sub-Zero so nimbly and neat,
Careful to separate dairy from meat.
Then he shlepped the Joo-nosh right out the front door-a.
“And NOW!” kvelled the Kvetch, “I will shlep the menorah!”

And he grabbed the menorah, and started to shlep on,
When he heard a whine, like a cat being stepped on.
He spun ‘round with shpilkes, and coming his way,
It was Ruth Levy-Joo, who was two, if a day.

The Kvetch had been caught by this small shaina maidel,
Who’d been watching TV on her big RCA’dle.
“The Prophet Elijiah?” she quizzed the old fool,
“You visit on Pesach, they taught us in shul.”

And although the old Kvetch was surprised and confused,
It’s not hard to lie to a girl in her twos.
“Bubbeleh… sweatheart…” he started his tale,
“Your dad paid full price, when this all was on sale!
“And like any good merchant, I just want to please ya.
“I’ll ring it up right, then I’ll refund your VISA.”

Then he patted her tush. Put a Barney tape in.
And she spaced-out as fast as the spindle could spin.
And as Ruth Levy-Joo watched her mauve dinosaura,
HE went to the door and shlepped out the menorah!

Then the match for the shamas
Was last to be filched!
Then he shlepped himself out to continue his pillage.
On the walls he left nothing at all. Bubkes. Zilch.
And the one speck of food
That he left in the house
Was a matzoh ball even too dense for a mouse.

Then
He did the same schtick
In the other Joo’s houses.

Leaving knaidlach
Too dense
For the other Joo’s mouses!

It was quarter to dusk…
All the Joos, still at Saks,
All the Joos, still a-shmooze
When he packed up old Max,
Packed him up with their presents! The gelt and the dreidels!
The chotchkes and latkes! The knish and the knaidels!

He hauled it all up to his condo in haste!
(A Grinch might have dumped it, but why go to waste?)
“Shtup you!” to the Joos, the Kvetch loudly cheered,
“They’re finding out Chanukah’s cancelled this year!
“They’re just coming home! I know just what they’ll say!
“They’ll ask their homeowners insurance to pay,
“Then the Joos down in Joo-ville will all cry OY VEY!”

“All those Oys,” kvelled the Kvetch,
“Now THIS I must hear!”
So he paused. And the Kvetch put his hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising up from the shtetl.
It started to grow. Then the Kvetch grew unsettled…

Why the sound wasn’t sad,
It was more like the noise
Of a UPS trucker
Delivering toys!

He stared down at Joo-ville!
And then the Kvetch shook,
As truck after truck
Replaced all that he took!

Every Joo down in Joo-ville, the Golds and the Steins,
Re-ordered their presents by going online!

Chanukah HADN’T been cancelled!
IT CAME!
…On UPS trucks… but it came just the same!

Then the Kvetch, staring down at the gifts where they sat,
Stood kvitching and kvetching: “For this, I did that?
“It came without traffic! It came without tax!
“It came without shopping at Bloomie’s or Saks!”
And he kvetched on and on, til he started to shvitz,
Then the Kvetch thought of something which might make him rich!
“Maybe stores,” thought the Kvetch, “don’t need mortar and bricks.
“Maybe toys can be bought with a few well-placed clicks!”

And what happened then…?
Well… in Joo-ville they say
That the Kvetch raised
Ten million in venture that day!
And the minute his web site was ready to go,
He raised ten billion more on his new IPO!
He sold back the toys to the homes they came from!
And he…

… he the Kvetch…!
Founded YA-JOO.COM!

"Obama ad hits New Hampshire & D.C." (with video)

Here's the video ("Believe Again"-RealPlayer™) and the text.

National Journal:

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama (D) may not have decided whether now is the time for him to seek the White House, but Draft Obama sure has.

A 60-second ad urging the junior senator to enter the race will debut in New Hampshire on Wednesday and run through Christmas Day. It is also making its way onto Washington, D.C., airwaves this week. The Jackson Group's Bud Jackson, who produced the ad gratis, confirmed it is the first TV spot of the 2008 election.

"We can replace fear with hope" flashes on the screen as the ad begins; it's a line that underscores what many political analysts deem Obama's top selling point. And Obama's second book -- "The Audacity of Hope," echoing the same theme -- is once again perched on top of the New York Times' best-seller list. Jackson said that although he's used the line in other campaign spots, it was an easy choice for the TV spot.

New Hampshire played host to Obama last weekend in what was reported by the New Hampshire Union Leader as a "whirlwind debut." But MSNBC.com national affairs writer Tom Curry found that the feverish media entourage that followed Obama put off the New Hampshirites who are used to being "courted" and "want more substance when he returns."

That's precisely why Jackson, who said he may not even end up working for a presidential candidate in 2008, got on board to produce the spot.

"Obama is potentially the right candidate at the right time," Jackson said, adding that Democrats deserve to hear more from him.

Jackson and consultant John Hlinko, who is also a new addition to Draft Obama, were part of the successful movement that pulled retired Gen. Wesley Clark into the 2004 Democratic presidential primary. One of Jackson's claims to fame is that he produced the first-ever presidential draft ad -- a similar ad to this year's Obama spot, but touting Clark.

The group is clear about its intended audience: Obama himself. "Our target is the senator," said Draft Obama spokeswoman Kris Schultz.

Still, the ad may impact the public at large as well, likely raising Obama's national profile and name recognition. A recent Newsweek magazine poll found that 31 percent of registered voters had never heard of the one-term senator. The Democrats' presumed front-runner, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, doesn't have that hurdle; just 4 percent said they knew nothing about the former first lady.

Obama won't be in New Hampshire or Washington to view the ad in the coming week; he's vacationing in Hawaii with his family and making the final decision on whether or not he wants to enter the fray.

But the Draft Obama movement is also picking up in the Aloha State right now. Jackson said there are no current plans to air the spot there, but the group is looking into it, and it will depend on their fundraising efforts.

Schultz said that the group received a rush of donations after the Union Leader published news of the ad last Wednesday. But Schultz also indicated that she doesn't expect the group to be around very long because Obama said he plans to announce his decision about running shortly after the New Year.

Draft Obama is registered as a limited liability company, not a political organization, but that has no effect on the fundraising rules it must follow. Via email, outgoing Federal Election Commission Chairman Michael Toner said, "Draft organizations have to follow hard-dollar limits regardless of whether they are a LLC, corporation, or however they are organized (meaning they can't accept corporate and union donations nor individual contributions beyond the limits)."

That limitation coupled with Obama's time frame gives the organization little time to accomplish its mission, which is to show Obama that his grassroots support is "more than a mile wide and an inch deep," Schultz said

Schultz said she approached Ben Stanfield -- a 25-year-old Maryland-based non-political computer technician who created the Draft Obama Web site on Oct. 2, 2005 -- to see if she could purchase the site from him. Instead, he offered to let her join him, and Draft Obama was born. "Most of us have day jobs," she said of the group's volunteers, but she added that they would likely try to join an Obama campaign should one materialize.

"America's Two Party System: The Marketing Party and The Product Party"

Dave Johnson and James Boyce:

We do have a two-party system in America: The Product Party and The Marketing Party. We have one party that spends its energy and its resources creating a product that will improve the lives of its supporters, and then we have a second party, one that invests its energy and its resources managing perception.

One party offers substance but without the sizzle, and one is so incredibly adept at selling that it can charm you into supporting an agenda that helps only those who don't need it, and actually hurts you and your family.

By mastering the management of perception and with an utter disregard for facts and reality, the Marketing Party's agenda and vision gets implemented - despite its horrendous consequences for the country, and the world. It has never been worse than it is now. The chasm between their vision, its consequences and the lifestyle and security of the average American is mind-boggling.

Do not underestimate the power of marketing. With enough money, a good campaign and some time, you really can make people think and do almost anything. Exactly why do you think Coke and Pepsi outsell all the other brands - because their sugar water is vastly superior to others? Exactly why do you think one brand of shampoo is "premium" and another is $5 a gallon - is it because they have different ingredients? No, it is because marketing works, especially on a public increasingly trained to respond.

Marketing works so well that some businesses have grown so accustomed to looking for marketing solutions rather than product solutions that they have developed a mindset that it is cheaper to manage perceptions than to fix a product. If people think the product tastes bad - market it as the best-tasting product and make the rubes think THEY're the problem. The result is they can spend millions on the symptoms and nothing on the disease.

Our "CEO President" Bush appears to be cut from this mold. As it became clear that the Iraq occupation wasn't proceeding as intended, Bush didn't change the product - he changed the sell.

The administration spent $20,000,000 on hiring a PR firm to plant positive stories in the press - instead of spending $20 million on body armor to actually reduce the casualties that fostered the public relations disaster. It created "Vets For Freedom" and planted bloggers among the troops in Iraq to send back positive posts. President Bush made major speech after major speech. And top officials made surprise trip to Iraq after surprise trip to Iraq.

But now we are in a time where the marketing no longer is sufficient to solve the problems. Increasingly, the American people have stopped buying the sell. Just as the American automobile manufacturers are forced to increasing amounts of dollars selling a product that increasingly the public does not want to buy, so too did the Administration have to step up the marketing of a war that the public no longer is willing to support.

Sadly, the past two weeks have showcased the collision of perception and reality. Tragically, the administration continues to hold a cult-like belief in the power of perception management, regardless of circumstances and the politically acceptable options that it has provided itself.

The Iraq Study Group recently came forward with a lifeline for the administration, but their recommendations did not sync with the administration's vision for a moment of victory - again, cheaper to change the marketing. So instead of working with the ISG, Baker and other members were - characteristically - smeared in the right-wing's echo chamber to "soften up" public perceptions in advance of the coming Bush rejection of their advice.

Last week, James appeared as a guest on MSNBC's show THE MOST, and was asked how President Bush could improve the "public's impression" of the war. He said,

"The president doesn't have a problem with the perception of the war, the President has a problem with the facts. ... Eventually the product has to speak for itself, and I think the American People are rapidly coming to the conclusion that we have an Edsel on our hands here. They want a solution, they don't need a new slogan."

Between us, we have more than forty years experience in marketing and advertising, and we both know, all too well, that it is exceedingly common for companies to approach product failures as marketing and advertising failures - it allows them to continue to live in denial about the weakness of their product.

With today's Republicans the first instinct is always about the marketing, and not about the country. According to Bob Woodward, Karen Hughes reportedly said, when she first saw the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center, that it was "the perfect backdrop" for a photo opportunity. Even in tragedy, the instinct is toward the marketing instead of the managing.

In the current tragedy the Bush image makers continue to search for the photo-op moment in Iraq. They are looking for the right image - the kiss in Times Square from World War II or the Japanese Admirals on the deck of the aircraft carrier, signing a treaty.

The fact that no such moment exists or ever will exist only increases their desire for it.

Why is their first instinct to market rather than to manage? And how exactly have they gotten away with this total management of perception? How have they been able to sell the American people over the past five years?

The answer may lie in the study of how the "conservative movement" took control of the Republican Party. As Dave wrote last week in Are Progressives Good? Then TELL PEOPLE!,

There are literally hundreds of conservative organizations that primarily exist to persuade the public to support conservative ideas (and, therefore, conservative candidates.) The people you see on TV or hear on the radio or who write op-eds in newspapers are paid by, or at the very least draw upon resources provided by, these organizations.

You might or might not have heard of the Heritage Foundation or the Cato Institute or Americans for Tax Reform or the This Institute or the That Foundation or the Government-and-Taxes-Are-Bad Association - but there really is a machine or network of well-funded conservative organizations marketing the conservatives-are-good-and-liberals-and-government-are-bad propaganda every hour of every day and they have been doing so for decades.


Yes, marketing. They have been doing this solidly for over three decades and they've been doing it well, and with an incredible amount of money, resources and talent behind it.

The people in power in the Republican Party got there by marketing and perception management, and using a $ell and $mear strategy to demolish and humiliate their opponents, and that is what they know. They come from a culture of saying anything as long as it keeps the rubes buying. Why would a company spend all that money to clean up the product when you can instead spend less and sell the idea that Toxic Sludge is Good For You.

The conservative movement understands this. They understand if they are going to cut student loans, hand over the management of Social Security, arguably the most successful government assistance program in our history, to the private sector, give away valuable public resources and then, on top of everything else, wage a war without reason or basis, the spend must be astronomical.

The American people are a living focus group to the success of their plan. The past thirty years has seen a slow and steady decline in the public's understanding and acceptance of progressive values - like equal rights for all our citizens or the acceptance of all religions.

It's important to point out another old expression: great products sell themselves. And while in practice, it holds that to reach great heights, great marketing combined with great products is actually the key - think Apple and the iPod - the better the product, the less marketing dollars need to be applied to drive sales. YouTube, Facebook, MySpace... If you're selling the best made car in America, the press reviews, customer loyalty and word-of-mouth marketing greatly enhances your paid advertising. If you're selling a lemon, you better have tens of millions to spend.

This brings us to the other party in our two-party system - the well-meaning Product Party that doesn't understand marketing. The Product Party stands in bewilderment as time and time again, The Marketing Party works its perception management magic to win elections, control the debate and lead the media and public to diss its leaders and policies. As Dave wrote last week,

We can see the results of the conservative marketing campaign all around us: War. Debt. Crumbling infrastructure. Falling wages. Loss of pensions. Loss of health insurance. Declining union membership. Massive trade deficits. Distrust of government, courts, schools and other institutions of community. The list just goes on and on.

But really, after decades of conservatives pounding out their message and progressives keeping their message to themselves, what should we expect?


And to make this problem worse, the Marketing Party is very good at shifting the blame for their bad product. For example: take a moment and look at the reality of the financial mess that is being handed to the new Congress - it is stunning. And yet, if the Democrats don't explain this clearly and succinctly to the American people, the result will be that the mess will land - squarely - in the wrong party's lap.

The Product Party's product is responsible and involved government: a government that can fix the schools and patch up the potholes. A government that would actually practice hurricane rescue not just preach it.

The Katrina debacle laid bare the failure of the right wing's anti-government agenda. The reason they didn't do anything for the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast is they don't really care. Government - or product - is just not what they do - marketing is.

However, they cared deeply when they began to lose the public relations battle - like 9/11 and Iraq, the reality is inconsequential - managing the perception of the reality is paramount.

The Product Party is known for fiscal management and international diplomacy and building mass transit and roads and bridges and schools. This is the party that brought us the middle class and the weekend and Social Security and inspections for e-coli.

But the Product Party is a political party full of boring policy "wonks" holding community meetings where hours are spent arguing the best and most democratic ways to provide services and, well, fix those potholes and even working on the finer points of health care finance administration management policies subsection 3, paragraph... ... and who wants to hear about THAT?

So where the people in the Marketing Party got there using marketing pizzaz, the people in the Product Party got there by plugging away and delivering a product. They're not the most adept at marketing. Whereas the people from the Marketing Party don't understand - or care - about the actual product, apparently the people in the Product Party don't understand - or care - about marketing - reaching and persuading the public. Democrats have long had the product but are woefully unskilled in the marketing and the willingness to spend and support the marketing. There is something to the idea of marketing and selling people on something that goes against the nature of the wonky democracy idealists of the Product Party.

Which leads to their problem. Don't people realize that almost all the veteran leaders in America are Democrats? They ask this - thinking of Max Cleland, Wes Clark, John Kerry, Joe Sestak, Chris Carney, Tim Walz, Jim Webb and more. Don't people understand the Democrats want to raise the minimum wage, improve health care, make global warming a priority, enact the recommendations of the 9/11 commission and more? Don't the understand how much better the Democratic product is for their families and the future?

No, the people don't.

Because you can't just be the party that does the boring work of cleaning up the toxic waste left behind by that wrecking crew - the people known for marketing, selling and heading for the county line. If you want the public to understand what you are about you have to be the party that does the work, and communicates the fact in clear simple English to voters who have better things to do with their lives than listen to the nuances of toxic waste policy.

In fact, The Product Party is not only running against the sell and smear tactics of the right, they're running against a coordinated program that says "government itself is bad." The Republicans have spent 40 years running down government. Ronald Reagan famously said that "government is the problem" and then left for the county line leaving us with 4 trillion of debt. George W. Bush, the "CEO President" emulated Enron, and implemented "no-bid" contracts while the Republican Congress got rid of the system of oversight.

So what can be done? The Democrats have to understand that people respond to marketing, and that building a better product doesn't always mean that the people will flock to you if they don't find out about it. They must remain the party of the Product, but they also need to be the party of the Marketing. Only we can be both, the Republicans can not.

Why? Because the last six years has not only demonstrated the Republican mastery of their marketing but it has shown the misery of the product. From not implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission to the absolute abandonment of our fellow Americans in the aftermath of Katrina, and the outrageous lies regarding the solvency of Social Security, the product that we are being sold is dangerous and destructive. "You can't fool all the people all the time." And on November 7, 2006, the marketing plan fell apart.

So now the Product Party has the ball and there is no question that the Democrats will deliver the goods. However, the danger lies not in the performance but in the perception of the performance and especially in how we clearly communicate the mess we inherited.

If Democratic leaders believe that all we have to do do is do a better job, and surely the American voters will reward us with the White House in 2008 and continued control of Congress, watch out.

Our moment in the sun, and moment in power, will be very short-lived indeed.

I'm Confused

First Harry Reid says "Brief troop increase OK in Iraq" but tonight he says "I don't believe that more troops is the answer for Iraq." Did he flip/flop? I hope so. Or does he believe a brief increase is okay and then Bush will just bring them home after a little while? That is not smart thinking Harry.

Chris Bowers defends the Senator from Nevada, saying we should cut him some "slack" over his "unfortunate comment."

"Obama's credentials..."

Georgetown University Law Center professor Rosa Brooks:

On his recent swing through New Hampshire, Barack Obama drew rapturous crowds. But many pundits continue to assume that he'll be just a flash in the pan, sharing the fate of Howard Dean, the one-time Democratic hottie who flamed out before the campaign season ended.

Sure, say his detractors, Obama is a symbol of hope to Americans desperate for politics that transcend barriers of race, class and ethnicity. But charisma isn't everything -- it can't make up for lack of experience. Obama has never been "tested.'' Can he withstand the rigors of the campaign trail? When the ads go negative (start looking now for sly insinuations that a man named Barack Hussein Obama can't be trusted!), will he fall apart? Can he handle the challenges of leading the world's last limping superpower through an era fraught with conflict and danger?

But Obama is nowhere near as unseasoned as his detractors suggest.

A political campaign isn't the only kind of test, and Obama's no stranger to the sort of criticism or hostility he'll face if he runs for president. With his racially mixed background (his father was from Kenya; his mother was a white American), his international upbringing (he spent part of his youth in Indonesia before returning to Hawaii, where he was born), and his penchant for work among the downtrodden and disaffected, Obama has spent his life struggling against those eager to discredit or exclude him. He's already faced tests of character and endurance. They were different in scale from those he'll face if he runs for president, but not different in kind.

In his years as a community organizer in Chicago, Obama had to unite disparate and mutually suspicious communities, and he eked out small victories over politics-as-usual, finding out the hard way that lasting change isn't easy.

Later, in the Illinois state legislature (not known as a nurturing environment for new-minted politicians), Obama earned a reputation as a guy who could get things done. The conservative Chicago Tribune endorsed Obama in his 2004 Senate run, praising his "significant accomplishments'' and "shrewd negotiation.'' The Tribune credited Obama with "legislative feats,'' including laws requiring that police videotape interrogations in murder cases, laws creating tax credits for the working poor, and "laws to track racial profiling by law enforcement, prohibit public officials from accepting lobbyists' gifts (and) expand health insurance coverage for children of the working poor and their families.''

Obama bashers now complain that his two years in the U.S. Senate largely have been devoid of shock and awe. That's not a bad thing. Obama wisely hasn't tried to hog the limelight; instead, he's focused on issues that are unsexy but important.

He forged a sturdy partnership with Indiana Republican Richard Lugar, for instance, and the two successfully sponsored legislation that steps up U.S. support for global programs designed to secure or destroy stocks of conventional weapons, including shoulder-fired missiles, small arms and abandoned ordnance. (Hand-wringing about WMD is de rigueur in Washington, but most politicians forget that it's conventional weapons that kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq, allow terrorists to shoot down aircraft and fuel the bloody conflicts that have killed so many civilians from Darfur to Colombia.) On a dozen equally unglamorous issues, from global warming to our decaying public health system, Obama has shown a similar steady commitment.

In any case, experience, like charisma, can be overrated. A good president doesn't have to know everything about everything. (If he doesn't know anything about anything, of course, that's no good. We're still trapped in an unhappy national experiment with a guy in that category.) Good presidents strike a balance: They learn all they can, then appoint smart, thoughtful aides, people who can fill in the gaps in their own knowledge and serve as honest brokers. At the end of the day, good presidents need the judgment and common sense necessary to make tough decisions. But to get there, they need to know how to listen and how to nurture, rather than crush, dissenting voices.

In his two years in the Senate, Obama has already earned a reputation for doing just that. Like every good leader, he knows what he doesn't know -- and reaches out to those who do, whatever their party affiliation. He's worked with Republican senators on Darfur and Congo, consulted military leaders, and sought out foreign policy veterans.

And many of the experienced Washington hands who've seen Obama in action are as impressed as the New Hampshirites who attended his book signings.

Former Assistant Secretary of State Susan Rice, who's been consulted by any number of prospective candidates over the last few years, was blunt: "I've been around long enough not to waste my time trying to talk to politicians who just aren't educable. Obama's different. He has judgment and intelligence, but he knows how to listen and take on insights from other people too.''

So why not Obama?

Contrary to what his detractors suggest, he can offer prose as well as poetry, and this country desperately needs both.

In the end, when it comes to the question of his relative inexperience, Obama himself offers the best retort: "Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have an awful lot of experience."

'Nuff said.

"Plenty Of Fingers To Go Around"

Balloon Juice:

It strikes me that the president’s determination to throw more troops into Iraq or as I call it, break the army requires giving the finger to a remarkable number of different groups of people. Start with the new Democratic majority, who the president has maneuvered to shut out entirely from Iraq decisionmaking. That might mean more if anybody could come up with an instance when the President has not given Democrats the finger. It’s just who he is. More interesting to me is the number of folks who are unaccustomed to getting flipped off by the C-in-C.

The Joint Chiefs.
The American people. Only 11-12% support the troop buildup that the president is proposing. Mark Foley polled better than that.
The ISG. Considering poppy’s influence on this group via Baker, we should take this as the President reiterating his position that dad can pound salt.
Think that the president’s own party wants to re-fight 2008 on the same strategic ground as ‘06? I don’t.
Josh Marshall asked a while back, “who’s for this exactly?” John McCain and Joe Lieberman should count for something. The rightwingosphere will hang on for awhile if only because libruls want the opposite. Laura and Barney, and Barney is open to debate.

Eventually true statesmen recognize that their historical moment has passed and subsume their ego to the good of the country. LBJ did it. Sadly, I think that we can all acknowledge that Bush is not LBJ. Recognizing failure is not in his lexicon. The idea of Bush subsuming his ego to anything is laughable. The fighting will go on, the army will break and the political ground will continue getting worse for Republicans until they find some way to pull the plug.

Particularly note that last bit – when it comes to personal gratification versus the good of his own party the President has no qualms about choosing the former over the latter. Ask any ex-Congressman whether he or she would have preferred to see Rumsfeld gone sooner.

I have no doubt that Bush was dead serious when he said that he would go on with nobody but Laura and Barney at his back. So what does his party plan to do about it? There is really only one option at their disposal and it ends with president Pelosi. Stipulated that things that can’t go on generally don’t, nonetheless my money says that America can limp through at least two more years of a Potemkin occupation, broken army and all. Then a massive Democratic majority can define Pyrrhic victory while cleaning up what Bush broke.

Matt Damon: "I want Cheney under oath." (video)

Here. "Waterboarding won't work."

David Horsey on Obama's "experience"

Here.

"Senators Clinton, Ensign ask Bush to consider Iraq Oil Trust" (UPDATE II)

UPDATE II: The Nation, "New Poll: Hillary Over McCain"

A new poll from Newsweek has some interesting data on Hillary Clinton's electability. According to the poll, Hillary beats John McCain 50 to 43 percent, squeaks by Rudy Giuliani 48 to 47 percent and trounces Mitt Romney, 58 to 32 percent. Her presumptive rival, Barack Obama, narrowly loses to McCain and Giuliani but thumps Romney as well, 55 to 25 percent.

It's important to take this poll, and every other one you'll see until Labor Day, with a grain of salt.

Howie comment: I believe that is Labor Day, 2008.

UPDATE: "Sen. Clinton opposes troop surge in Iraq."

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday she would not support a short-term increase in U.S. troop presence in Iraq unless it was part of a more comprehensive plan to stabilize the country.

Clinton also offered the broadest indication yet that she was close to a decision on whether to enter the 2008 Democratic presidential field.

"I want to make sure the decision is right for me, my family, my party and my country," Clinton said during an interview on NBC's "The Today Show." She appeared on the show to promote the rerelease of her best-selling book on child rearing, "It Takes a Village."

Raw Story:

In a commentary published in Monday's Wall Street Journal, Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and John Ensign (R-NV) ask the Bush Administration to set up an Iraq Oil Trust, so that revenues can be distributed to the country's "ordinary" citizens and to further demonstrate that the United States is not in Iraq just for the sake of oil.

"For the sake of our soldiers and for the future of Iraq, it is time we place greater rights and responsibilities of citizenship in the hands of the Iraqi people," the two Senators write. "This includes a stake in oil revenues, which are central to political reconciliation and an end to the sectarian violence."

Excerpts from commentary:

We have urged for three years that the Bush administration pursue an Iraq Oil Trust, modeled on the Alaskan Permanent Fund, guaranteeing that every individual Iraqi would share in the country's oil wealth. Oil revenues would accrue to the national government and a significant percentage of oil revenues would be divided equally among ordinary Iraqis, giving every citizen a stake in the nation's recovery and political reconciliation and instilling a sense of hope for the promise of democratic values.

The implications would be vast.

• The future of Iraq's oil reserves remains at the heart of the political crisis in Iraq, as the regional and sectarian divides in Iraq play out over the division of resources and revenues. As the Iraq Study Group writes, "The politics of oil has the potential to further damage the country's already fragile efforts to create a unified central government." An Iraq Oil Trust would chart an equitable path forward for dividing oil revenues in a way that transcends the divide among Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis.

• As report after report indicates, one of the challenges to building Iraq's oil revenues has been insurgent attacks against oil infrastructure. A distribution of revenues to all Iraqis would mean they would have a greater incentive to keep the oil flowing, help the economy grow, reject the insurgency, and commit to the future of their nation.

• While demonstrating that the U.S. is not in Iraq for oil, an Iraq Oil Trust would also inhibit corruption and the concentration of oil wealth in the hands of a privileged few.

• Finally, an Iraq Oil Trust would demonstrate the values at the heart of democratic governance: Individuals would have the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Indeed, the study group reports, "Iraqis have not been convinced that they must take responsibility for their own future." By trusting ordinary Iraqis, ordinary Iraqis would in turn gain greater trust in the national government while seeing something positive about the future at a time when positive signs have been few and far between.

"HOW THE DEMOCRATS CAN KEEP THE YOUTH VOTE"

Paul Rogat Loeb:

I suspect you’ve heard about the stunning margin of the youth vote--how 18-29 year-olds supported Democratic congressional candidates over Republicans by a massive 60% to 38% difference. They did so in every region of the country, from a 74-25% split in the East to a 51-48% margin in the South. They provided the winning margin for Tester in Montana and Webb in Virginia, and helped put McCaskill over the top in Missouri. Had it been up to them, the Democrats would have also won Senate races in Tennessee, Arizona, and Nevada; Ned Lamont would have defeated Joe Lieberman, and a slew of additional House seats would have changed hands. The Democrats would have elected Senators from 26 states, with Republicans carrying Texas, Utah, Wyoming, and the Maine seat of moderate Olympia Snow. Studies suggest that young voters tend to keep the political identifications they develop in their first few elections (for instance, the young adults who helped cascade Reagan into office have tended to remain more conservative as they’ve gotten older than those in the late Vietnam-era generation). So if Democrats address the legitimate needs of this generation, they have a chance to make it a key part of a continuing majority.

Young voters have been leaning Democratic since the Clinton years, although Nader siphoned off enough support in 2000 to make it a near-dead heat. They were the only generation to favor Kerry, and did so by a ten percent margin. Now the gap has opened wider than ever, fueled by the Iraq war (and friends returning emotionally or physically wounded), by the religious right’s attacks on sexuality, and by an economy whose terrain has become increasingly difficult for all but the wealthiest. Combining the children of late Baby Boomers and of immigrants, this generation will eventually become the largest in the country. Some of their issues, such as Iraq, global warming, and the decline of low-end and middle-income wages, cut across generational lines. But this generation also faces specific obstacles, like the financial barriers that make higher education increasingly unaffordable for any but the children of the wealthy. Age 24 is the point after which the likelihood of ever graduating from college plummets. If your family is in the top quarter in annual income, you have an 82% chance of getting a bachelor’s degree by then. If you’re in the bottom half of the population, your chances are just 12%--and only 10% if you’re in the bottom quarter

Nancy Pelosi has already vowed to make student financial aid a priority. But the Democrats need to take this fight to the campuses, where most students are distracted from the votes and issues that profoundly affect their lives--and often wonder whether political efforts even matter. By age 29, 57% of all Americans will have completed some college, with others returning later. So we’re talking about a major slice of the populace, and this country’s major route to decent job prospects. Access to education won’t solve our every ill, but in this area, as in so many others, Democrats need to link seemingly individual challenges with public solutions.

The barriers students face have been building since low-income wages began to stagnate in the mid-seventies, and since Reagan began shifting federal financial aid from grants (which don’t get paid back) to the loans that now saddle the average college graduate with nearly $20,000 of debt. More affluent students benefited from some of the new programs, but for those who were low-income things got steadily harder. Even the Clinton programs did nothing for those at the bottom, since his prime successful initiatives, the Hope and Lifetime Learning credits, were based on income tax refunds and consequently provided no help to poor families who paid out for Social Security but were under the income tax threshold.

The encounter that crystallized the shift happened a few years ago, when I met a student who lived on the same Brooklyn block where I had lived while attending college in the early seventies. I’d worked my way through school as a bartender, making $5 an hour for twenty hours a week. I paid my tuition at a private university with costs as high as any in the nation, paid my food, rent, and books, and had money left over to go out on the weekends. Twenty-five years later, this student was working 30 hours a week for $6 an hour, a fraction in real dollars of what I’d been making. He commuted an hour and a half each way to the City College of New York, a public school with tuition far higher proportionate to his earnings than my private college tuition was to me. He kept dropping out and working fulltime to try to avoid getting too deep in debt, but would still owe $15,000 or more when and if he graduated. Though he was working harder than I had, the rules had changed to make his passage vastly more difficult.

The situation of those working their way through school has continued to get harder. College costs have skyrocketed. Low-income wages have stagnated. So have federal financial aid programs aimed at low-income students. In 1980, the maximum Pell Grant covered 77% of the average cost of attending a public institution. It now covers just 33%. In December 2005, the Bush administration made the situation far worse by cutting $12.7 billion in Federal financial aid. They reduced Pell Grants, cut successful low-income support projects like some of the Trio programs, and enacted major cuts in student loan subsidies, which will leave students paying far higher interest rates for years.

The result is a perfect storm of financial constraints that threatens the already problematic access of low-income students to higher education. Most have little sense of the policies that will leave them so financially burdened that many will either drop out before they finish, or never start to begin with, and others may postpone raising families, buying houses or entering the careers to which their passions draw them. I speak at colleges throughout the country, and in the past year have asked the students I’ve met whether they knew about the Bush administration’s recent draconian aid cuts. A few knew, maybe one in five. The rest had no sense the cuts had even occurred, in part because their greatest impact was buried in the fine print of student loan agreements.

As a result, their voices were silent when the cuts went through. The major higher education associations did lobby against them, but few college presidents did anything to mobilize their students. The United States Student Association (USSA), the excellent association of student governments, did create some strong phone call and letter writing campaigns, which helped create enough resistance so that the bill passed the U.S. Senate by just a single vote. But given the significance of the cuts, the campus outcry was minimal.

The same has been true with other ways this administration has made it harder to get through college. A general sense that the Republicans were making things harder did contribute to the generation’s electoral shifts, along with organizing by groups like the PIRGs, Rock the Vote, the League of Young Voters, and Music for America. But most students never heard about the changes in welfare rules requiring recipients, often single mothers, to work far more hours at outside jobs, even if going to school full time. Unless they were directly affected, they heard little or nothing about Bush’s ban on federal financial aid to students with drug convictions—which has had no impact on affluent partiers (such as the president himself when he was "young and reckless," or the royal Bush daughters) but has prevented over 200,000 prospective students from getting federal assistance. Most heard little about Bush’s bankruptcy bill--lobbied through by immensely profitable credit card companies that will gleefully offer a credit card to your dog, cat, or 12-year-old—and how it ensures that no matter how bad their financial situation, student debts will follow them for the rest of their lives.

Taken together, these changes close opportunities for all but the privileged. But they don’t have to stand. Speaker-elect Pelosi is already proposing to halve the interest rates on various federal loans, increase the maximum Pell grant from $4,050 to $5,100, and increase the tax deductibility of tuition. USSA has been supporting these same measures while lobbying for the new Congress also to rescind the ban on financial aid to those with drug convictions and to support adequate child care for single parents working their way through school. Congress could go further still by enacting Pell Grant increases that actually matched the increases in college costs since the program was founded. They could pass a bill, like one Ted Kennedy proposed this past summer, that would address the problem of financially pressed students bypassing public service careers, like teaching, social work, or serving as firefighters or police officers, by capping loan repayments at 15 as a percentage of income and allowing loan debt forgiveness for public sector employees who make 10 years of repayments. Democrats could even look to the G.I. Bill as a model, and how, by making possible the college education of an entire generation (at least for the men), it both opened up unprecedented opportunity and fueled America’s post-war economic boom.

Opponents are already saying that even the most minimal shifts are too costly, or politically impossible. Yet we might remember that the Bush administration passed over $100 billion a year in top bracket tax cuts, all of which could be rescinded. The Iraq was has already cost nearly $350 billion, or enough to give almost 17,000,000 complete four-year scholarships at public universities. My local paper just ran an article on how a million dollars no longer buys a luxury home. The money exists in our culture, if we’re willing to debate our priorities.

Passing new laws to broaden access to higher education won’t be easy. But the Democrats could consider it an opportunity. Whether or not they can pass the necessary bills over Bush’s potential veto, they now have a chance to reach out and organize, particularly on campuses whose students are used to politicians ignoring them. If they can do enough to highlight the crisis in access to education, they can give grassroots campus groups a major boost in getting their peers involved. They can help engage students in drawing the links between how they or their classmates struggle to pay for their schooling and the larger priorities of our country. Precisely because their opponents will claim that resources are simply too scarce, they’ll have a chance to link this with other urgent questions about what kind of common investments will build the strongest society.

They have to be careful, of course, to keep the focus on the fundamental stories about what it means to be poor and trying to get through school in America—progressives in general are all too comfortable with putting to people to sleep with an endless maze of statistics and sub-clauses. But if they can really fight to reopen higher education opportunity for all, they’ll win whether or not they can initially pass every desired piece of legislation. And a generation already inclined to support them just might give them their long-term allegiance.

"How to Spend the War Money"

David Swanson on t r u t h o u t:

Congress members of both parties, not to mention the White House, have already forgotten the anti-war and anti-Bush vote of November 7th (the Republicans lost one more seat in a runoff on Wednesday) and are dreaming of big Christmas presents for war profiteers. Since we Americans apparently have no other need for any money, and since we enjoy paying our taxes so much, they're planning to approve another $160 billion in "emergency" (off the books) cash for the war early next year. That's billion with a "B." This will be on top of the $70 billion they provided in October. I hate to play Scrooge here, but ain't that a bit much?

The strange thing is that Congress doesn't even know where the money goes. The Democrats have announced plans to try to find out, but Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi has simultaneously announced that the money will be approved. It's as if she were announcing that the Democrats would do investigations of Bush's crimes, but that they would not impeach him no matter what they found. Oh wait, I forgot: she has announced that too. There must be something I'm just not understanding about the way Washington works today.

Pelosi and other Democrats have tried to explain it. They say they will commit to approving the additional money in order to "support the troops." But they must be talking about the handpicked pro-Bush troops Sean Hannity recently pretended to have "organically" stumbled upon in Iraq (the ones who had all, by sheer coincidence, brought along cameras to take Hannity's picture, and who amazingly all agreed with him exactly). Otherwise, Pelosi's latest RNC talking point makes no sense to me.

Zogby International's poll of US service men and women serving in Iraq in early 2006 found that 72 percent of them wanted to stop the war by the end of 2006, a date that is fast approaching. So, how do we "support the troops" if the troops want us to stop "supporting" them?

Iraq Veterans Against the War have on their web site a list of ways to support the troops. Here's the first item on their list: "Contact your Representative and demand that they stop funding the war in Iraq and halt the construction of all permanent bases in Iraq. Ask for a meeting with them or their staff to discuss your views." I wonder if Pelosi has seen this.

Veterans for Peace, on their web site, urge us to write letters to Congress members asking them to "support bringing our troops home immediately." Hmm. Maybe supporting the troops just doesn't have anything to do with what the troops want. Clearly they want health care and educational and employment opportunities when they get home, and we aren't supporting them with those. Come to think of it, there are millions of non-troop Americans we aren't supporting either. Not to mention Iraqis. Maybe we need a new approach.

Former senator George McGovern has co-authored a book with William Polk titled Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now. This book does one of the better jobs I've seen of explaining the historical context of the disaster we've created in Iraq. But, more important, it proposes a way out, including specific steps, noting that some of them will cost money and estimating how much. McGovern and Polk propose that we pay:

$6 billion for a two-year Muslim international force

$1 billion to help Iraq create, train, and equip a police force, not an army

$0.5 billion to help create and train a national reconstruction corps, made up of Iraqis

$0.25 billion to survey and plan the removal of landmines, unexploded ordinance, and depleted uranium

$1 billion for surveys, planning, and organization of rebuilding damaged property (plus loans and grants of an unspecified amount to assist Iraqis in rebuilding)

$0.5 billion to dismantle and dispose of blast walls, wire barriers, and other architecture of war and occupation

$0.25 billion to restore archeological sites

$0.1 billion to audit the Coalition Provisional Authority and find out where oil profits meant for the Iraqi people went

$0.00001 billion in reparations for each civilian killed or grievously wounded (plus an unspecified amount for victims of torture) [following the authors' calculation, but using the Lancet study's much higher estimate of deaths, this comes to $9.75 billion]

$0.5 billion in fellowships to train lawyers, judges, journalists, social workers

$0.5 billion to bring professionals who emigrated back to work in Iraq

$1.7 billion to rebuild Iraq's public health system

This adds up to $22.05 billion. That's the cost of twelve and a half weeks of occupying Iraq. And if we spend that $22.05 billion, we'll still have $47.95 billion left, money that has already been approved by Congress to pay for the war and put our grandchildren into debt. It will not cost $47.95 billion to put all of our troops on planes and bring them all home by June 2007, as McGovern and Polk propose. It will cost $3.8 billion, according to a proposal from John Isaacs.

The rest of the money ($44.15 billion), plus the $160 billion that we now won't need for war at all (bringing the total to $204.15 billion), I'd propose, should be spent on the following priorities:

Physical and psychiatric care and career counseling for veterans ($1 billion)

Restoration of people's homes that were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina ($10 billion)

Creation of universal, single-payer health care (Senator Wyden has a new quasi-single-payer plan with costs covered by shifting current expenses)

Restoring a decent minimum wage (no cost)

Establishment of free college tuition for all ($60 billion per year by Congressman Kucinich's estimate)

Creation of a cabinet-level Department of Peace (2 percent of "Defense" budget = $8 billion)

Of course, we're still left with $125.15 billion, so we may just have to take a drastic step - and I know how unpopular this is: we may just have to CUT TAXES. Just for kicks we could change it up this time and cut taxes on working people rather than the rich. I bet voters would just hate that!

On the subject of money, Joel Connelly explains how "Taxpayers may be forced to 'Big Dig-Deep'."

"The swiftboating of Obama begins"

stilwell on Northwest Progressive Institute:

Clearly Barak Obama is unfit to serve because he wanted a bigger front yard.

There have been no allegations that Obama, whose political fortunes are soaring as he mulls a run for president, broke the law or committed any ethics violations. He said he has done no government business with Rezko, who is facing charges in two unrelated criminal cases.

The most disturbing thing to me about this horrible scandal is how Obama is letting the media tell him what to do. He didn't do anything wrong, nobody alleges he did anything wrong (other than some good government types who are "concerned,") and yet The Washington Post decides to put it on page A6.

Look, there are lots of scummy people in politics. Shockingly, there are scummy people in Chicago politics.

Some would argue most people in politics are, in some way, untrustworthy. If you banned from politics everyone who did business with scummy people, most of the state legislatures in this country would be largely empty.

As soon as I heard last month about this terrible incident involving a bigger yard for the Obama family, I pretty much concluded the media would never let it go. And they haven't and they won't. See, it balances out. The Bushes are tied closely to the Saudi Royal family, and Barak Obama had some low-rent guy who wanted to run Panda Express outlets at the the Chicago airport try to butter him up. The Saudi Royal family and Mr. Panda Express guy are pretty much equivalent, huh?

And now Obama feels compelled to criticize himself for making a "bone-headed mistake."

So what happens next is the noise machine starts producing books about Whitewateryardgate, followed by serious editorials in leading newspapers about "judgement" and "lack of experience" and "legitimate concerns." Pretty soon half the country believes Obama is running a secret drug cartel from Central America. It's not like we haven't seen this play before.

People may be yearning for a more civilized discourse in this country, but that can't happen until the media stops it with the double standard. Has it occured to anyone at all that maybe Obama actually just wanted a bigger yard?

Meanwhile, the current occupant of the White House anwers to nobody, not even his Dad's advisers. Whether the Democratic Congress successfully changes that remains to be seen. If Obama wants to be president, he better figure out how to deal with a severely hostile, mostly incompetent and biased media.

Here's another quote from the Washington Post article:

Stewart, of the Better Government Association, said Obama took responsibility and did not shy away from questions. If there are no further revelations, he said, "it's going to wind up being a footnote," but "if anything further comes out, it's a different story."

Cute. So when it pops up on Drudge, there's the signal for everyone to attack.

What may be most remarkable about 2006 is that we won despite a press corps that holds Democrats to different standards than Republicans. In an age of unprecedented Republican corruption, they have to show their "objectivity" by turning an apparently insignificant land deal over a tiny slice of yard into a major national story. That's pretty pathetic. Obama isn't even my personal favorite, and that's another story, but he just got hosed by The Washington Post.

Jerome Armstrong reveals his crush on Barack with "Obama: The Message."

"Reid Says Yes To Short Term “Surge” In Troops: Leading Dems Say No Way..."

AP:

The Senate's top Democrat offered qualified support Sunday for a plan to increase U.S. troops in Iraq, saying it would be acceptable as part of a broader strategy to bring combat forces home by 2008.

President Bush's former secretary of state, however, expressed doubts any troop surge would be effective, noting U.S. forces already are overextended. "The American Army isn't large enough to secure Baghdad," said Colin Powell, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman during the 1991 Gulf War.

Yet more American soldiers in Baghdad is precisely what Iraq's Sunni vice president said is necessary to quell sectarian violence — even though the Shiite-dominated government has proposed shifting U.S. troops to the capital's periphery and having Iraqis take the primary role for security.

"Who is going to replace the American troops? ... Iraqi troops, across the board, they are insufficient, incompetent, and many of them (are) corrupted," said Tariq al-Hashemi, who met with Bush in Washington last week.

There are about 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and about 5,000 advisers. Combat troops make up less than half of U.S. forces in Iraq.

Incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, whose party campaigned in the November congressional elections on changing course in Iraq, said he would be open only to a short-term increase.

"If the commanders on the ground said this is just for a short period of time, we'll go along with that," said Reid, D-Nev., citing a time frame such as two months to three months. But a period of 18 months to 24 months would be too long, he said.

"The American people will not allow this war to go on as it has. It simply is a war that will not be won militarily. It can only be won politically," Reid said.

At least three other Democrats did not support Reid's position on the additional troops.

Sen. Jack Reed (news, bio, voting record), D-R.I., said that if it were a short-term increase, "won't our adversaries simply adjust their tactics, wait us out and wait until we reduce again? So I think you'd have to ask very serious questions about the utility of this."

Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., said, "I respect Harry Reid on it, but that's not where I am."

Kennedy, like Reed a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said there would be widespread opposition by members of his committee if Bush proposed a troop increase.

Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record), D-Del., the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said any proposal to send more troops should only follow a political solution that will end civil unrest. "The president and others who support the surge have it exactly backwards," Biden said during a speech in Manchester, N.H.

Powell said if more troops were proposed, commanders would need to make their mission clear, determine whether they can accomplish it and what size force is appropriate. "We have to be very, very careful in this instance not just to grab a number out of the air," Powell said.

He noted that the Iraqi leadership wants to take control of security for Baghdad. While saying he does not know if that is possible now, "This is the time to say to them, `Fine, you think you can do that. Show us not only the political will to do that, show us the political means you're going to use.'"

Increasing troops would run counter to recent recommendations by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which set a goal of withdrawing combat troops by early 2008 in support of more aggressive regional diplomacy.

Powell said that U.S. troops should not act as policemen. He described the active U.S. Army as "about broken," with a shortage of equipment, officers going on repetitive tours and gaps in military coverage elsewhere in the world.

"The current active Army is not large enough and the Marine Corps is not large enough for the kinds of missions they're being asked to perform," he said. "And the Congress has a serious task ahead of it, to make sure that the Army and the Marine Corps get the funds they need to sustain themselves and to sustain their equipment and their ammunition."

Asked if victory was possible, Powell said: "If victory means you have gotten rid of every insurgent, you have peace throughout the country, I don't see that in the cards right now. What we are going to have to do is try to bring a sense of order and security to the country, even if there continues to be low-level violence and insurgency."

He said such a victory must increasingly become the responsibility of the Iraqi leadership.

"If they can't pull it off, if they can't demonstrate the political will and means to go after the militias, to create a military force that is answerable and confident in the government, and to root out the corruption that exists in the police forces — if they are unable to do that, the United States is not going to be able to do it for them," Powell said.

Reid spoke on ABC's "This Week," Kennedy was on "Fox News Sunday," Powell appeared on CBS' "Face the Nation" and Reed and al-Hashemi were on "Late Edition" on CNN.

"A Surge of Insanity," says Arianna Huffington. Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks calls it "The Democrat's Plantation Mentality."

"Internet critical tool for political cash"

USA Today:

Retired naval officer Joe Sestak out-raised incumbent Republican Curt Weldon to seize a House seat in suburban Philadelphia — aided by nearly $900,000 in Internet contributions.

"Netroots" activists helped propel Virginia's incoming Democratic Sen. Jim Webb in the early days of his race. And in 18 hours, the Internet-based political action committee MoveOn.org Political Action raised $500,000 online to buy airtime for advertising that targeted Republicans in four congressional races.

This year's midterm elections offered fresh examples of the ways the Internet is changing how candidates in both parties raise money as they scramble to collect the $20, $30 and $50 donations needed in the aftermath of changes to campaign-finance laws in 2002 that banned large donations. Online fundraising has proved a cost-effective and lightning-fast method to raise cash, rally the faithful and promote or smear office seekers.

It also could transform fundraising in presidential races. "It's inevitable that the Internet will become the principal means of fundraising from now on," said Anthony Corrado, a campaign-finance expert at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. "It's the only way you get a million people to each give you $10 on the same day."

ActBlue, an online clearinghouse that has raised more than $17 million since 2004, plans to use that power. It recently won approval from federal regulators to stockpile cash for yet-undeclared presidential candidates.

Learning fast

While Democrats have scored many of the high-profile campaign successes on the Web, Republicans say they are not far behind in capitalizing on the Internet's potential.

ABCPAC.com, a GOP website launched in September, has raised $300,000 for candidates, said its chairman, Frank Donatelli, a public-affairs consultant and longtime Republican activist. Following ActBlue's lead, the PAC also will raise money to draft presidential contenders.

It's hard to quantify Internet contributions in campaigns because candidates and political parties are not required to disclose which donations came via the Web, but online activity played a role in several closely watched races this year.

In Pennsylvania, online cash to Sestak helped catapult the political newcomer ahead of the 10-term congressman in the money race. Campaign-finance reports show Sestak raised nearly $3.2 million to Weldon's $2.7 million through Nov. 27. Sestak, a retired Navy vice admiral, said he had no clue of the role the Web would play in the race when he announced his candidacy Feb. 2.

He caught on. Sestak called for U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq by the end of 2007 — a message that resonated with netroots activists opposed to the war. In June, he spoke to liberal bloggers at the first YearlyKos convention. (Attention to the race also spiked with news of an FBI probe into whether Weldon used his influence to help his lobbyist daughter. Weldon has denied wrongdoing.)

The Web became "an absolutely critical source" of money, Sestak said. In four days, a single e-mail solicitation raised $88,000.

Candidates such as Jesse Ventura, the former pro wrestler who became Minnesota governor in 1999, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who sought the presidency in 2000, were among those with strong Web appeal years before former Vermont governor Howard Dean outpaced better-known rivals through online fundraising before the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries.

"Television benefited candidates who were telegenic and, most importantly, people who had money because TV is so expensive," said Carol Darr, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet at George Washington University. "The Internet tends to benefit the mavericks who have a compelling message."

Leveling the playing field

Web-based activists such as Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org, relish their new role. In the 2005-06 election cycle, MoveOn.org Political Action, the group's PAC, raised $28 million, he said. That's almost on par with the $30 million the group collected during the high-profile presidential campaign two years ago, Pariser said.

"The presidential race that's coming up is one where online fundraising has the power to completely level the playing field," he said.

Benjamin Rahn, the 29-year-old president of ActBlue, said the Web opens up politics. "Anyone can get up and running and have a website for free. People don't need to go through the traditional party structures."

That said, online watchers say Internet givers have more in common with large donors than they do the general population. "They don't have as much money as big donors, but they are still middle-aged, upper income and highly educated," Darr said.

Just because the midterms are over, that doesn't mean the race for cash via the Internet is done. Recently, the National Republican Congressional Committee issued an e-mail plea to supporters to help retire $2 million in debt. Donors who sent in $100 or more were promised a 2007 daily planner.

Outgoing committee spokesman Ed Patru declined to say how much the appeal has raised. Contribution amounts garnered from the Internet are "not something we discuss," he said. "It's something that gets into the strategy side of things."

"Partisan battle boils over Fla. House seat"

LA Times:

Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi's pledge to bring bipartisan peace to that most partisan of institutions — the House of Representatives — could be put to a test early in the new Congress by an election dispute in Florida.

When the Democratic-controlled Congress convenes in January, Pelosi may have to decide whether to seek to deny the certified GOP winner of a Florida House seat from taking office.

Republican Vern Buchanan was declared the winner by 369 votes. Democrat Christine Jennings has gone to court seeking a new vote, asserting that the electronic voting machines malfunctioned. A court hearing is set for Tuesday. And Jennings plans to file papers with the House by Wednesday's deadline contesting the election results and seeking to block Buchanan from taking office next month.

Pelosi is monitoring the court fight but hasn't decided on a course of action, aides say.

Republicans have made clear they would view a Pelosi embrace of Jennings' challenge as a call to arms.

Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) said Friday that if Democrats attempted to prevent Buchanan from taking the seat, it would be a "poisoning of the well by depth charge."

"This is a first major test for Nancy Pelosi," added Ed Patru, a spokesman for the House Republican Conference. "Will she side with the voters of the 13th District? … Or will she make a blatant partisan power grab?"

Any effort to prevent Buchanan from taking office would have to be approved by the full House.

If Pelosi decides to pursue that route, her new majority presumably would vote for it. But a source close to the Democratic leadership, who requested anonymity when discussing party strategy, said Pelosi probably would let Buchanan take office while ordering an investigation by the House Administration Committee into whether a new election was warranted.

Pelosi is being pressed by Democratic activists to take a tougher stance and block Buchanan from being sworn in.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told Florida's Bay News 9 this month: "You cannot seat someone if you don't have an election that's valid."

The liberal organization MoveOn.org delivered a petition to Capitol Hill on Friday urging Congress to order a new election.

Historically, denying certified winners their seats can be the political equivalent of a bare-knuckles brawl on Capitol Hill. In 1984, partisan tensions ran high in a dispute over what came to be known as Indiana's "Bloody 8th" district.

In that race, Republican Richard McIntyre had been declared the winner by 34 votes one day after the election and by 418 votes after a state-ordered recount. But the Democratic-controlled House refused to seat him. For a time, both McIntyre and Democratic incumbent Frank McCloskey drew congressional pay, but neither was officially seated.

Six months later, after another recount, McCloskey was declared the victor by four votes. Republicans cried foul and stormed out of the chamber when McCloskey was seated. Then-Rep. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), now a senator, said at the time, "This wound will not heal without a terrible price and a scar that will not disappear for many years."

Indeed, the ill will sparked by the dispute helped empower GOP insurgents in the House who were prodding their leaders to more aggressively battle the then-entrenched Democratic majority on a range of issues.

The current dispute involves the seat that Republican Katherine Harris gave up to make a Senate run, which was unsuccessful. In 2000, Harris was Florida's secretary of state and oversaw the state's bitterly contested recount of presidential ballots. In that role, she ultimately certified that George W. Bush narrowly carried the state and, with it, won the White House.

This year's flap does not focus on hanging chads, but on voting machines.

Jennings has contended that 17,811 ballots cast in Sarasota County — almost 1 in 5 ballots — made no choice in the House race, a significantly higher rate than in other areas in the district. Jennings, who carried Sarasota County, 53% to 47%, alleges that an electronic foul-up is the most logical explanation for the large number of blank votes.

Buchanan's camp depicts Jennings as a sore loser.

"The votes have been recounted twice — confirming Vern Buchanan won the election," said his spokeswoman, Sally Tibbetts. "It is time for Christine Jennings to … concede this election."

But Jennings spokeswoman Kathy Vermazen said the fight was an important national test of the reliability of electronic voting machines. "This case, for better or for worse, provides probably the best chance we have to really take a look at these machines," she said.

In part because of the contested election, efforts are underway in Congress to require a paper trail for computer voting.

The dispute has created an awkward moment: Both candidates showed up for a freshman orientation on Capitol Hill.