The Democratic flag

A modest proposal: Between now and election day, let's all fly the American flag proudly alongside our Obama and Tom Allen yard signs. It sends a powerful image. Just check out this picture over at Bag News.

(And while you're at it, check out the rest of their excellent work.)

Closing Daou's Triangle

Netroots alone lack the critical mass to change a media narrative, both because we're small and because we're not yet legitimate. We need established opinion-makers to pick up and continue any buzz that we start. We did this with the Trent Lott/Strom Thurmond story and then again with the Plame case and the attorney general firings scandal. But we failed in lots of other cases (the Downing Street Memo comes to mind).

Now with McCain's housing gaffe story, Paul Rosenberg thinks we're at last starting to close Daou's Triangle, creating a powerful synergy between blogs, traditional media, and the political establishment. We're just at the beginning of this task, but the prospect of building a functional progressive message machine is hugely important and exciting.

Next up on our agenda: overplaying the POW card.

UPDATE: Eric Boehlert discusses smackdown power and why swift-boating isn't what it used to be.

UPDATE 2: Writing from the Big Tent in Denver, thereisnospoon says that Goliath is beginning to notice David.

OMG the comments (Wonkette edition)

I have friends that, for whatever reason ( "It's too mean!" "It's too evil!") still don't read Wonkette. But oh my god the comments. The names alone - dogless liberal, speakerblowupdoll (with tiny Newt icon!), ronaldpagan, MoodProcessor, NoWireHangers, neitscheprojectile, The Incomparable Tiny Valdez - bring sunshine to my day. Not to mention the wit and the pithy, pithy, insidery insight.

Here are a few selections regarding McCain's latest whine memo on Obama's popularity with the elite:

• SayItWith Wookies: John McCain eats fried squirrel and olive stones. And frequently gums them.
• AxmxZ: So Hopey is hot, sexy, beloved by the world, eats well, keeps in rockin’ shape, - and is therefore unelectable?
• Larry McAwful: Ben, moi aussi, j’aime bien la forêt noire. Je me suis promèné là-bas souvent quand j’habitais Strasbourg… Alors! Est-ce que je suis élitiste moi-même? Passe-moi l’arugula!
• sezme: I’m elitist for worrying about the price of Arugula? WHY? It’s fucking expensive! Here I am scrounging for Japanese Knotweed, purlane and dandelions in the back alley because they’re free (and bitter!) but unless I eat iceberg lettuce from Yuma picked by some migrant worker for $50/hr (John McCain wages) I’m elitist.
• capt. tim: I looked up arugala. I totally eat that all the time, just never knew what it was called.
• El Bombastico: Motherfucker, your candidate is wearing $520 Salvatore Ferragamo loafers! WITH BUCKLES!

Read Wonkette. You know you want to.

UPDATE 7-31-08. Special bonus comment from today's story on Lanny Davis:

• Obfuscator: I can’t listen to Lanny Davis interviews unless he’s constantly being drowned out by the sound of metal folding chairs.

I am very tired of polling Democrats who plan to support Susan Collins

Here, courtesy of Collins Watch, is a list of key Bush initiatives she supported:

• Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq
  
• Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001
  
• Defeating withdrawal time lines in Iraq supplementals--multiple votes
  
• Military Commissions Act of 2006
  
• Confirmation of Samuel A. Alito to the Supreme Court
  
• Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003
• Legalizing warantless wiretapping via Protect America Act of 2007
  
• Medicare Part 'D'
  
• No Child Left Behind Act of 2001
  
• Energy Policy Act of 2005
  
• Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005
• Retroactive legal immunity for telecom companies
• Confirmation of John Roberts to the Supreme Court

She voted with Bush 81% of the time overall, and when the stakes were highest she was with him 100%. Tom Allen should be kicking her hind end all over the state with a story like this. Instead, Dems, Greens, and Unenrolled are telling pollsters like me they're going for Collins, Undecided, or (boding worst of all for their intelligence) Hoffman.

I'm told not to worry because the DSCC has budgeted a huge ad buy here. That is good news. But when do we start seeing a change in the "Collins is doing a good job" narrative?

We're #12! We're # 12!

...in human development, that is, as measured by health, education, and income. The BBC reports on Oxfam's American Human Development Project:

• Americans live shorter lives than citizens of almost every other developed nation.
• The US ranked 42nd in the world for life expectancy despite spending more on health care per person than any other country.
• Overall, the American Human Development Report ranked the world's richest country 12th for human development.
• Of the world's richest nations, the US has the most children (15%) living in poverty.
• Of the OECD nations, the US has the most people in prison - as a percentage and in absolute numbers.
• 25% of 15-year-old students performed at or below the lowest level in an international math test - worse than Canada, France, Germany and Japan.

Those dirty effing hippies at Oxfam! Why don't they do something useful instead of digging up stupid America-hating facts? Incidentally, I wonder how much coverage we'll see of this study in our own national press? (Hat tip: Don M.)

The policies behind the bad news

They add up to neofeudalism, and it's time to push back:

Growth means 'more billionaires'. Progress means 'less taxes' and 'lower wages'. Freedom means anything that brings "growth" and "progress."

Five kinds of stupid

Collect the whole set:

1. sheer ignorance: Ignorance of critical facts about important events in the news, and ignorance of how our government functions and who's in charge.
   
2. negligence: The disinclination to seek reliable sources of information about important news events.
   
3. wooden-headedness: The inclination to believe what we want to believe regardless of the facts.
   
4. shortsightedness: The support of public policies that are mutually contradictory, or contrary to the country's long-term interests.
5. bone-headedness: The susceptibility to meaningless phrases, stereotypes, irrational biases, and simplistic diagnoses and solutions that play on our hopes and fears.

Which would help explain why during poll calls, when voters tell me that "energy & the environment" is their top concern this election cycle, they're voting a straight Republican ticket.

Hegemony is the enemy

At the National Conference for Media Reform, Bill Moyers is sparking, as always, incredible dialog on the media's responsibility for our current political situation. Now comes Paul Rosenberg to say that Republicans are not the enemy in November (they're "a pathetic wreck"). It's hegemony, led by the corporate media:

In the 1990s, the media led the charge to depose Bill Clinton. As Gene Lyons meticulously documented in Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater, the New York Times and Washington Post persistently, repeatedly, and egregiously misreported virtually every major aspect of the so-called "Whitewater scandal." When that failed, and the Monica Lewinsky scandal emerged in its place, dozens of leading newspapers editorialized that Clinton should resign. Sixty percent of the American people disagreed, but they couldn't get a word in edgewise-which is where, when and how MoveOn.org was founded.

In contrast, George W. Bush has not merely subverted the most central aspects of our constitutional order with his dictatorial theories of unchecked executive power, he has shredded the Magna Charta as well as the Constitution, and yet the media persists in lying that only the "loonie left" thinks that there's anything amiss.

That's hegemony for you.

Read the whole thing here. And don't miss the great aikido ambush journalism video at Crooks & Liars.

Why we liked Ike

Steve Clemons at The Washington Note has published a collection of Eisenhower quotes so thoughtful it makes you almost long for the 50s... Very worthwhile reading. Go here for the full set. Here's a sample:

If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking. . . is freedom.

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

In most communities it is illegal to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Only Americans can hurt America.

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Suggestion

UPDATE:
Senator Clinton writes to say, "Thank you for your message. I have received thousands of emails from people all over the country. Your comments are very important to me and I am excited that so many people are joining our conversation about how to change the direction of the country." She suggests that I volunteer, donate, become a Hillraiser, or otherwise get involved in the campaign. She thanks me again for my interest.

To which I answer:

I'm not interested in joining Team Hillary. You obviously didn't read my comments. I want Senator Clinton to drop out of the race - gracefully and now, please - before she does any more harm to the Democratic Party. Don't send me chirpy emails. Just do what's right and fold up this campaign immediately.

Signed,
A Disgusted Former Hillary Apologist

Senator Clinton, I am a white woman over 50, a loyal Democrat, who has defended and admired you for years. But because of the campaign you have run, I now despise you. This latest musing about RFK's assassination is merely the latest outrage in a long line of slurs, innuendo, personal attacks, vote suppression tactics, and whining. So here's my suggestion:

WITHDRAW FROM THE RACE. GRACEFULLY.

You will not be the nominee. You will not be selected as VP. 2012 is now out of reach for you. Stop tearing down Senator Obama to no purpose and hardening your supporters' opposition to him. We can all see through your desperation. The country is ashamed for you. Salvage what little reputation you have left.

WITHDRAW FROM THE RACE. GRACEFULLY, AND NOW.

Thank you.

"The future does not belong to those who are content with today"

Ted Kennedy, on the death of his brother, Robert:

The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American Society.

I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling sad today.

Dear Maine superdelegates

Your indecision has a cost.

• You are permitting a candidate who cannot possibly win to tear down our presumptive nominee for no purpose.
• As you sit idle, Clinton supporters are hardening their opposition to Obama, and weakening him in the eyes of the general electorate.
• You are giving John McCain a clear field to consolidate his support among disparate groups, make conflicting promises, and issue misstatements of fact – all with zero press attention.
• You are denying Obama a chance to rest and regroup before the general election.
• You are starving Congressional races of money and attention and alienating potential donors. This is particularly true of lower tier races and long shot challengers.

The time and goodwill you waste cannot be recovered. In the words of opinion writer David Broder, “history shows that the earlier a candidate nails down his nomination, the better his chances of winning.” Broder cogently spells out the political costs of delay in decision making by those of you who remain uncommitted. Please read this column carefully.

Moreover, your fellow citizens are losing respect for you. Here’s Broder quoting Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin on the topic of uncommitted superdelegates:

"They want to avoid hard votes," Durbin told me at midweek, referring to his colleagues. "They want to be spared controversy. Most of them are looking for certainty, for inevitability, before they commit."

It is past time for you to act. Your decision could determine whether or not John McCain becomes our next president and keeps us in Iraq for the next half-century!

Sincerely,
Mr. & Mrs. Alna Dem

Historian-Americans smarter than regular Americans

This just out: Professional historians weigh in again on the Bush Administration and 98.2% say it's a failure (up from 81% four years ago). Sixty-one percent further judge Bush as the worst American president of all time (up sharply from 11.6% four years ago). By contrast, 28% of the American public still think Bush is A-okay.

The poll, conducted by History News Network, includes responses from 109 historians. It is admittedly nonscientific and almost certainly premature in that history has a way of taking its time to mature. I don’t care. The quotes are hypnotizing:

“Glib, contemptuous, ignorant, incurious, a dupe of anyone who humors his deluded belief in his heroic self, he has bankrupted the country with his disastrous war and his tax breaks for the rich, trampled on the Bill of Rights, appointed foxes in every henhouse, compounded the terrorist threat, turned a blind eye to torture and corruption and a looming ecological disaster, and squandered the rest of the world’s goodwill. In short, no other president’s faults have had so deleterious an effect on not only the country but the world at large.”

“When future historians look back to identify the moment at which the United States began to lose its position of world leadership, they will point—rightly—to the Bush presidency. Thanks to his policies, it is now easy to see America losing out to its competitors in any number of areas: China is rapidly becoming the manufacturing powerhouse of the next century, India the high tech and services leader, and Europe the region with the best quality of life.”

“[T]he paranoia of Nixon, the ethics of Harding and the good sense of Herbert Hoover. . . . . God willing, this will go down as the nadir of American politics.”

“He is not a conservative, nor a Christian, just an immoral man . . . .”

“[Bush’s] denial of any personal responsibility can only be described as silly.”

“His domestic policies have had the cumulative effect of shoring up a semi-permanent aristocracy of capital that dwarfs the aristocracy of land against which the founding fathers rebelled; of encouraging a mindless retreat from science and rationalism; and of crippling the nation’s economic base.”

“George Bush has combined mediocrity with malevolent policies and has thus seriously damaged the welfare and standing of the United States.”

And my personal favorite:

“Bush does only two things well. He knows how to make the very rich very much richer, and he has an amazing talent for f**king up everything else he even approaches. His administration has been the most reckless, dangerous, irresponsible, mendacious, arrogant, self-righteous, incompetent, and deeply corrupt one in all of American history.”

"I blame the media for this"

Digby on the scope of this administration's failures:

I blame the media for this. After 9/11 they lost their minds and became unthinking hagiographers and adminstration cheerleaders to an absurd extent. The man's halting, incoherent first press conference after 9/11 scared me more than the attacks and yet the press corps behaved as if they were in the presence of a God whose stuttering, meandering gibberish were words uttered from on high. He was called a genius and compared to Winston Churchill. Paeans to his greatness were turned into best sellers. His "gut" was infallible. It was patently obvious that he was in over his head and yet this bizarre, almost hallucinogenic image of the man emerged in the media that actually made me question my sanity at times. It took years for this trance to wear off with a majority of the public and even longer in the media. It was one of the strangest phenomenons I've ever observed.

Until recently, however, I was never quite sure if Bush himself believed it. It appears that he did. Big time. And that belief in his own hype created a completely dysfunctional organization. I suspect that what started out as a shield by Cheney and Rove to narrow the influences upon him may have morphed into a bubble designed to keep him from completely spinning out of control. But it couldn't keep him from making decisions, and make them he did, without thought or analysis or knowledge. His belief in his "gut" and God's anointment has been leading this nation since 9/11. Combined with Cheney's megalomaniacal belief in untrammelled executive power it has been a disaster. (In fact, Cheney could not have chosen a better subject to more thoroughly discredit his theory than Junior.)

I understand that it is difficult to know in advance what constitutes a real leader. A resume isn't enough to make one (although it's certainly better than not having one at all) and depending on personality or symbols isn't enough either. I don't know what the magic formula is. I do know that when someone speaks like a fool and acts like a spoiled child and appears to be "intellectually uncurious" and has never done anything in life that would give you a clue that he knows how to govern or lead -- well, it's not a good idea to make that person the most powerful person on the planet. If we've learned nothing else, I hope we have learned that.

The president matters. But whether or not we want to have a beer with him or whether or not we approve of his private life is not what matters about him or her. These are false hueristics and they don't add up to leadership any more than years of political experience translates into great political skills. Citizens need to think a little bit harder about this choice, look a little deeper, ask some serious questions. Part of the job is certainly PR and a president does have to be the star of the national TV show for four years. But it's a lot more than that and Americans need to rediscover a healthy sense of the requirements of this particular job.

Most importantly, the people who work in politics and the media need to take this more seriously. Presidential politics isn't American Idol, it's a contest for the leadership of the United States of America and putting together an "electable" package cannot be the only focus. And it goes without saying that this kewl kidz and mean girls nonsense from the press has to stop. The past six years have been a tragedy and we desperately need some thoughtful, intelligent, competent leadership to set this right.

Amen. And it was millions of like-minded citizens questioning their own sanity that led to the fellowship of the netroots and the rise of a new democracy.

Mike and I are headed off to St. Louis in January for the FreePress conference on media reform. We need to fix this piece of our republic, too.

A click a day makes the 'thugs go away

Help get the truth out. Large numbers of people get their information about candidates by checking them out on the internet in the weeks before the election. Here's a collection of Republican candidates in competitive races linked to damning articles written by independent, nonpartisan sources. Just click on a name, any name, to help build the links that will lead search engines to these articles. Some people call it "google bombing" - I call it a perfectly legitimate oppo dump.

Pass the word.

--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl
--AZ-01: Rick Renzi
--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth
--CA-04: John Doolittle
--CA-11: Richard Pombo
--CA-50: Brian Bilbray
--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave
--CO-05: Doug Lamborn
--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell
--CT-04: Christopher Shays
--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan
--FL-16: Joe Negron
--FL-22: Clay Shaw
--ID-01: Bill Sali
--IL-06: Peter Roskam
--IL-10: Mark Kirk
--IL-14: Dennis Hastert
--IN-02: Chris Chocola
--IN-08: John Hostettler
--IA-01: Mike Whalen
--KS-02: Jim Ryun
--KY-03: Anne Northup
--KY-04: Geoff Davis
--MD-Sen: Michael Steele
--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht
--MN-06: Michele Bachmann
--MO-Sen: Jim Talent
--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns
--NV-03: Jon Porter
--NH-02: Charlie Bass
--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson
--NM-01: Heather Wilson
--NY-03: Peter King
--NY-20: John Sweeney
--NY-26: Tom Reynolds
--NY-29: Randy Kuhl
--NC-08: Robin Hayes
--NC-11: Charles Taylor
--OH-01: Steve Chabot
--OH-02: Jean Schmidt
--OH-15: Deborah Pryce
--OH-18: Joy Padgett
--PA-04: Melissa Hart
--PA-07: Curt Weldon
--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick
--PA-10: Don Sherwood
--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee
--TN-Sen: Bob Corker
--VA-Sen: George Allen
--VA-10: Frank Wolf
--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick
--WA-08: Dave Reichert