THE MAGIC NEGRO

So Rush Limbaugh plays a song called "Barack The Magic Negro" and people are up in arms. So was I - thinking they got Imus, here's a chance to get Rush. Until I listened to the song.

It's funny, it's political parody and it's no more insensitive that anything Jon Stewart does or says.

Sorry, folks, but if this song is racist, then blacks - like Jews - are immune from political humor.

Listen to it.

NOT THE ANTICHRIST

Contrary to popular opinion, Dick Cheney is not the Antichrist.

According to the LaHaye doctrine, the Antichrist will be a seductive personality and will speak in terms of social justice and one-world government. That wouldn't be Dick - although you could just conclude that LaHaye is wrong and the Antichrist will be an unsubtle man who works more openly on the Devil's agenda.

But I think Cheney is one step up on the foodchain. I think he's the Devil. Just look at him.

CLOSEST THING

Now I know why I don't like Hillary Clinton. Except for Leiberman, she's the closest thing we have to a Republican. In a time when politics as usual has proved empty and barren, she's playing political games for all they're worth. I don't believe she has a sincere bone in her body - and I think that's pretty obvious to everyone.

NATURAL

From Think Progress:

“In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle.”


Seems like a fair description of the brains running our government. So this is just a natural consequence of that.

BRILLIANT

From John Aravosis at AmericaBlog:

Bush just gave us our solution. In the post below, Joe notes that Bush will now not consider whether we're making "progress" with the "surge" until September. Fine. Then here's what we do. After Bush vetoes the Iraq funding bill in the next week or two, Congress should pass a clean bill, giving Bush all the money he needs... until September. That way, when Bush finally starts paying attention to Iraq again in September, when he makes the assessment of whether the surge is doing anything at all, whether Iraq isn't still going downhill, Congress can at the same time revisit whether the American people fund, again, and again, and again, this disaster of a war.

John Murtha has proposed something similar to this. Give Bush the money he needs, enough money to get him through, say, September 30. Then we use Bush's own benchmark-date to revisit just how well the progress is really progressing. Let him veto that.

This is a brilliant idea. I hope Reid and Pelosi get wind of it.

DECADES

Wolfowitz's lawyer says it's not Wolfowitz' corruption that hurts the World Bank, it's the exposure of that corruption that hurts the bank.

Just in case you had any question left about the ethics of the people who run our government.

Never mind impeachment - why isn't there a call for revolution? I'd be against that, actually. The system works fine, it's just being manipulated for evil. But we do need a purge of the power centers - including much of the federal government, a lot of the press and a lot of corporate boards. And I'm afraid it will take decades before the residue of America's corrupt and immoral oligarchy disappears.

What would speed it along is mass public action - at the voting booth, in the supermarket and on the couch. Vote out at least this bunch of crooks, tank the ratings of TV MSM and rat bastards, stop buying products built on corruption - and most importantly, get into the streets and tell everyone why you're doing all that.

Way I figure it, as things are, I'll meet the other two of you on a corner in Sheridan Square.

FEITH-BASED

This is so scary I can't believe I haven't been thinking about it.

IS HE FRENCH?

This is what I want to see - not just from candidates, but from everyone.

Only - Brian Williams kept calling him Senator Gravel. Is that how he pronounces it? Are we sure his name isn't Lifschitz? (Am I getting too subtle for you?)

RIGHT-EE-O

Tenet and Powell - symbols of what's wrong with Americans.

FICKLE

The fascinating thing about the Giuliani, Romney and McCain campaigns is that the absurd things they've been saying - a lot of them flipflops from prior positions - define the nature of the Republican base. They've made it easy for anyone to see what the Republicans really are - and not one candidate has tried to raise Republican awareness or bring the party into line with mainstream values.

So if you vote Republican you have to believe what they believe. That gives them less than 30% of the vote in 2008. Assuming no major terrorist activity between now and November '08 - a pretty big assumption - they will go down with their principles. One can only hope that they will be treated with the contempt they deserve after what they've done to us.

But that depends on a fickle public, so I'm not counting on it.

MY VOTE

Finally figured out why I don't like Obama. It isn't fair, but it's a reason.

So many of the people who are running our world have made such a moral mess of things ... I can't pinpoint a responsible generation since the spectrum seems to run from 20-somethings to 70 year old John McCain ... but Obama seems to me a product of a glib generation which does not seem compelled to act on or know any truth beyond what will help it (them) get ahead.

I'm lonely for people grounded in a wider sense of obligation. I know Obama says he is, but so far I don't believe him. Maybe that's because I can only see him through the filter of the press, of which only a tiny minority has that grounding. But I guess what I'm waiting for - however long it will take - is a new generation like the generation of the 30's which - though so many of them went the wrong way - was focused on making a better place for everyone.

So maybe I'm just an old fart, and maybe I'm misjudging Obama - but he's going to have to do something to get my vote.

INTEGRITY

Of the six people Bill Moyers said refused to talk to him about the press' complicity in the runup to the Iraq war, four out of six - Judith Miller, Tom Friedman, Bill Safire, Bill Kristol - are Jewish. Maybe five - I'm not sure about Krauthammer. They don't want to talk because they will not admit to being toadies, or being wrong, or being devious.

What has happened to the time honored Jewish tradition of intellectual and moral integrity? Or am I making it up? Did it ever really exist?

MAYBE

From Cannonfire:

There are days (few) when I know optimism, and days (many more) when I see no hope. After reading this, I can't avoid pessimism. Take a look at the Quinnipiac poll's head to head match-ups, R-vs-D, in the three big purple states:

Pennsylvania: Giuliani beats Clinton, 47-43; Giuliani beats Obama, 45-41; McCain beats Clinton 45-43.

Ohio: Giuliani beats Clinton, 46-41; Giuliani beats Obama, 45-37; Giuliani beats Gore, 47-39; McCain beats Clinton, 44-42; McCain beats Obama, 42-36; McCain beats Gore, 46-39.

Florida: Giuliani beats Clinton, 49-41; Giuliani beats Obama, 49-38; Giuliani beats Gore, 47-43; McCain ties Clinton and Obama.

Giuliani and McCain can rack up those kinds of numbers in the midst of an unpopular war, an insecure economy, the looming prospect of $4.00 a gallon gasoline, a daily barrage of scandals, and a growing sense of national disgust with the current administration. What the hell does the Republican Party have to do to discredit itself?

I'm not saying that a win in 2008 is impossible. But...good lord. Why the hell are we still in the underdog position? 2008 should be the easiest Democratic win since 1964.

Maybe the Democrats need to find a better candidate?

CAN TOM FRIEDMAN

It's time.

MEDIATED

South Florida, faced with what could shortly be a severe water shortage, is shutting off its fountains.

But - fountains recycle a limited amount of water. Shutting them off will accomplish about as much savings as if you required people to lick drops off water off their shower walls instead of filling a glass.

Why do it, then? Because it looks like a savings.

Yes, we do live in a mediated world.

HITCHENS

Hitchens again.

I am gay.

RIGHT NOW

The phrase "dumbing down" used to be on everyone's lips - TV, news, the public, education were considered to be dumbing down. But now that they - and let's include politics and the presidency - have been dumbed down to below the lowest common denominator, no one uses the phrase anymore. Why?

It's probably not that the great mass of Americans are dumber than they used to be. What is, however, happening is that an uberclass has formed which has figured out how to use American dumbness to its own profit. It's not that no one had this figured out before. It's just that so damn many are now using the technique.

So, for example, whereas news departments used to assume a quintessential American stupidity but tried to use the news to elevate, those who own the news now know where the profit is, and so they have given up any pretense at education and have chosen to pander to the dumbest (and most) of all of us. Politicians have figured out that what's important is getting elected so they can control the outflow of government cash to the people who support them; so they don't lead, they follow, and ideas are irrelevant. They run ignorant campaigns to get the votes of ignorants. Aside from love paeans, pop music (in the 60's-70's anyway) used to push ideas or paint impressionistic pictures of the state of what is. Now they're involved either in self-analysis, self-praise, simple-minded instruction on how to get what you want, or denigration of others. The best seller lists are full of lowbrow self-help manuals, biographies of people who should not matter, and romance books that convince women there's a way to feel desired if you only knew what men wanted. (How tough is that?) Or, to the contrary, that you don't need a man. (I don't think I would take issue with that.) I'm waiting for the romance novel that tries to talk women into thinking about the society that's beyond their own noses.

What has disappeared is any sense of obligation to the nation, any sense of what morality requires of them. (I hear Obama talking about stuff like this, but it seems to me to him this is just an idea, not something which is grounding his soul.)

I recently saw a post which proposed that the "Me" generation had morphed into the "You" generation. But using the "You" is just an advertising technique. The "Me" generation has morphed into the "Mine" generation. Everything is "mine" and I don't care about you.

I really started my awareness of morality and politics with the flower children in 1967. They used to talk with interest of American Indian culture, which recognized great obligation of each to the others. You would think they would be horrified at what has become of them now - but accumulation of assets is everything to them. Unfortunately, I haven't lost my moral sense. So I am going to be left behind. But here's hoping I live long enough to see the next revolution - because as successful as capitalism is, it isn't everything. And the things it isn't are being ignored right now.

MUSTREAD

Never said better.

PUERILITY

From Benjamin Barber on the Huffington Post:

After Blacksburg, anybody remember Imus? Tragedy swallows farce, and the ravenous media move on. But the puerility of American consumer culture persists. Imus's radio slander of the Rutgers women's basketball team was called everything from insensitive and outrageous to racist and imbecilic.

But the one thing it wasn't called is what it shares with so much else in American society today: it was egregiously juvenile, simply infantile. Who is it but the mindless adolescent who blurts out the kind of rude, scatological, stereotypical stuff that was Imus's stock and trade?

Adolescence today, however, seems less a state to be overcome than an aspiration of the consumer marketplace. Because we live in a culture, for all the tut-tut ting someone like Imus causes when he crosses the line, that supports and reinforces such behavior. The righteous condemnations coming from our moral cops recall the cynical Vichy police officer in Humphrey Bogart's Casablanca who, upon entering Rick's Café, is "shocked! shocked! that there is gambling going on here."

So we too affect to be "shocked" at the radio hosts like Imus and Howard Stern whom we have ourselves merrily dubbed shock jocks, even though they are being paid high-end salaries precisely to shock us, to test and cross the boundaries of tolerance and decency. When the real shocks come along -- a massacre at Blacksburg, more massacres in Baghdad - we give idiocy a break. Briefly. Then, it's back to puerility.

How different are the shock jocks from pundidiots like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, who traffic in hype, hyperbole and aggravated insult? They are scarcely to be distinguished from the gangsta rappers who go platinum demeaning women in equally gross terms. And doesn't the posturing NBC distribute some of hip hop's most graphic lyrics via its Interscope label, and produce films like Slither and Waist Deep singled out by the new F.C.A. report on marketing violence to teenagers? How come, post Imus, I just saw Snoop Dog on VH1 parading a couple of models on chain leashes?

What is new in America is not scatology or bigotry or violence, but a consumer culture that licenses and reinforces scatology and bigotry and violence by carefully nurturing infantilism - in order to sell all the things it needs to sell us that we don't really want or need. The culprits here are only secondarily Imus or Stern or Limbaugh or the rapper groups that years ago were already giving themselves names like "Niggas with Attitude." The real perpetrators are the networks that support them, the global media companies that profit from glamorizing crime -- has anyone linked the racist talk on the oh so fashionable TV series The Sopranos with Imus's rant or television's homicidal violence with Virginia Tech?

Behind the outrage against Imus is a simple reality the corporations busy punishing him don't want to acknowledge: puerility pays. So perhaps when Imus has made all his apologies and gone back to Texas, or to satellite radio (where nothing is taboo and all is forgiven), and after the earnest keepers of American righteousness are through venting about Blacksburg even as they aired Mr. Cho's sick photos, we ought to take a look at the underlying consumer culture that supports and reinforces the behaviors against which they spout. For it is with our support as consumers of polarizing, juvenile shock talk, and with the full complicity of the consumer corporations that have made stars not only of Imus and Stern and Coulter and Limbaugh but of Anna Nicole Smith and Paris Hilton, that Imus peddled his intoxicatingly toxic talk and we consumed the Cho videos on NBC and YouTube.

So folks, until we identify and begin to resist the real culprits, let's at least be honest with ourselves. Imus may be gone, but even after the horrors of Blacksburg, Imus is us and we're still here.

I captioned this puerility(puer being latin for "boy" , but let me be clear: women are at least as guilty as men. Is it only boys who buy rap records trashing women? I don't think so. Or make a life out of consuming? Or love scurrilous chatter and insulting talk?

It isn't puerility - it's infantilism. And plenty of women have chosen to play that role.

SUICIDE

Bush is accusing Democrats of impeding the war by undercutting the advice of the generals.

I have heard some commentators note that what the Democrats are doing is exactly what the generals want. But I have not heard anyone note that it was Bush's ignoring the advice of his generals that got us into this mess.

When a Republican makes a statement that hangs himself, someone ought to point it out.

GAY

From Christopher Hitchins, talking about the reaction to Virginia Tech - and my God, I agree with him!

It was my friend Adolph Reed who first pointed out this tendency to what he called "vicarious identification." At the time of the murder of Lisa Steinberg in New York in 1987, he was struck by the tendency of crowds to show up for funerals of people they didn't know, often throwing teddy bears over the railings and in other ways showing that (as well as needing to get a life) they in some bizarre way seemed to need to get a death. The hysteria that followed a traffic accident in Paris involving a disco princess—surely the most hyped non-event of all time—seemed to suggest an even wider surrender to the overwhelming need to emote: The less at stake, the greater the grieving.

It must be a gay thing. So I must be gay.

WHERE BABIES GO

Okay, here's one I don't get.

The Pope has announced that unbaptised babies, rather than going to limbo, as the Catholic Church has preached for who knows how long, may be able to go to heaven.

Did God clarify this point for him? Well, not exactly. According to the AP, a Vatican advisory panel is reassessing traditional teaching on limbo in light of "pressing pastoral needs" - primarily the growing number of abortions and infants born to non-believers who die without being baptized.

I.e., the Pope is watching the polls. And he doesn't want to lose a whole lot of potential or present believers.

To be fair, the Vatican isn't saying it's sure about this. They say there are reasons for prayerful hope, rather than sure knowledge. What that means is: they don't have a clue how God has set it up; they would just like a happier result than the one they've been predicting.

I'm glad they said that, because otherwise I would respond: if the Pope can decide where babies go, why not worship him, rather than God?

As it is, a note to the faithful: if these guys aren't sure where babies go, why are you giving them money?

STALKING HORSE

From Truthdig:

The folks at Gallup have noticed a unique trend in the race for the White House: Hillary Clinton’s numbers have been heading steadily down. In fact, no other candidate, whether Republican or Democrat, shows as clear and consistent a trajectory.

Did I, by any chance, predict this? I hope I did.

So here's another prediction: Obama turns into a stalking horse for somebody else. Maybe Gore, maybe someone we haven't thought of yet.

Anyway, the field's wide open, and that's great.

LONG-TERM

From Truthdig:

A coalition of eight Sunni insurgent groups has announced the formation of a cabinet, naming the head of al-Qaida in Iraq the minister of war. The announcement from the “Islamic State of Iraq” was made hours after the group released a video showing the executions of 20 people who were either civilians or Iraqi soldiers and policemen.

This is what should have been expected, even anticipated. When you destroy not only a government but its thesis and system, what replaces it is not necessarily what you expect. Um - Russia in 1917? The revolution leads to the Kerensky socialist government which is then overthrown by the Bolsheviks.

I don't know if this particular effort to declare an alternative government has any real chance of taking power. But I will bet that the ultimate government of Iraq will have no roots in the Maliki system we've set up. Whether you call it revolution or not, the Iraqis will be governed by a system chosen by them - or some of them, anyway.

Our staying in Iraq only postpones the inevitable. That postponement might be a good thing if we were using the delay productively, both through diplomacy and real rebuilding efforts. But none of that will happen with the jerks we have in the White House. Which brings me to my second point.

On NPR's On Point, General Anthony Zinni deplored the nature of our current presidential candidates in this sense: we need a president who has thought about how the world has been changing and has conceived a viable grand plan for where we go from here. He doesn't see that in any of the announced candidates, nor do I. They are all engrossed in reacting to the immediate situation and spending no time or effort thinking long term - even if they have the intellectual capacity to do that.

Zinni blames the fact that these politicians have to put so much effort and strategical thinking into getting elected and then getting re-elected. George Bush is the final proof that we now have a generation of politicians who are brilliant at getting elected and not so good at governing.

His father was an even better example of that - he had no idea what he wanted to use the presidency for. The current Bush at least had an agenda - Christian and right wing - of deconstructing the government, which he has focused on. And been pretty much successful with - and I have to give him credit for being able to effectively master politics and carry out his agenda at the same time. I don't see any Democrat out there who's managed that. The ones who have agendas are lousy at politics (Gore); the ones who are good at politics have no agenda (Clinton, Obama.)

The reason I got into this is: I could support continuing a troop presence in Iraq if I believed that in 2008 we'd have a president who could take advantage of the preservation of the status quo from now until then, and had and implemented a rational and intelligent long-term strategy for protecting the US for the next twenty years.

But I don't see anyone like that around yet - and so I see no reason to keep spending lives and money in Iraq, when we'll get the same result from a pullout then as we would now.

GRASSY

Listening to an episode of NPR's On Point discussing the Virginia Tech shootings, the moderator - Jane Clayson(?) - said: "Two hours yesterday morning on the grassy Virginia Tech campus and America was changed."

Do these pundits pull statements like that out of their ass or is it off a Hallmark card? Well, when you use the word "grassy" you're writing poetry, and poetry doesn't have to be true, right? It's just a bunch of creatively arranged words.

How has America changed? What's different this morning? I went through the whole program and no explanation was offered. It seems just to be assumed that anything bad that happens changes America - at least if enough people get killed. I remind pundits that a lot of Americans have died in Iraq, and I haven't seen that sad fact change anything much at all. Maybe it's just that we can't stand the thought that something that saddens us is meaningless - or that anything is meaningless. We have to make sense of everything. Good luck with that.

Well, there is an answer. What may have changed - what changed after 9/11 - is that some Americans have (probably temporarily) been disabused of the notion that they are absolutely secure, that anything bad that happens happens to someone else, probably someone else who has done something to deserve it. Americans think they have mastered random fate. If we could actually do that, we wouldn't need to believe in God.

Maybe that forced comprehension is not a bad thing - maybe it leads to a growth of maturity and a better understanding of the human condition - and maybe from there to a little bit more sympathy for others (aside from the usual candle-lighting and ribbons around trees which are more about the worth of the person participating than they are about the worth of the person memorialized. Sort of like Oprah and that African school of hers.)

The change I hope not to see is the shutting down of freedom on college campuses, the imposition of severe security concerns on intellectual life (which develops not just in the classroom but in interaction among students wherever they meet). That's the kind of shutdown we had after 9/11, and we all know the disaster it has led to.

I guess the question is: does the Democratic victory in November '06 signify a national turn away from putting security over liberty?

This sad incident may give us the answer to that. The wrong answer bodes ill for life in America after the next real terrorist attack.

US

From an ad for the Bentley Continental GTC (that's a car, okay?)

Don't feel envy. Generate it.

If you're buying a Bentley Continental to make others envious,

1) you probably can't afford it; or

2) you've got a serious personality problem; or

3) you inherited your money, you've done nothing with your life, and everybody knows it.

Now a BMW or a Hummer - your friends will drool. And if you can make more money, you can get a better class of friends. The ones who already have Bentleys. You know. Us.

Just kidding.

DEAF

When a jazz performance series is billed as "And All That Jazz", you know

1) It's being pitched to a jazz-deaf audience, and/or

2) It's being pitched by a jazz-deaf promoter.

Either of those is an indication you don't want to go.

BRING 'EM ON

Contractors keep building new homes and condos here in South Florida, further depressing prices on already-built properties. (Did anyone ask me whether I wanted them to depress my property values?) Contractors run Florida, with the help of their minions in local, county and state government. Whatever they want, they get. This is the only state I know of where you can destroy wetlands if you promise to create new wetlands on your property. So you can dig up a million-year old swamp if you replace it with a manmade pond. And of course the birds can't tell the difference - can they?

Now there are warnings of a severe, immediate water shortage. Stringent water use regulations are now in effect. So - keep on moving down here folks. Just bring a lot of bottled agua. When it comes down to guns over the wells and water holes, I'm armed and ready. Bring 'em on.

And ready to move on from there to lynch Lennar and G.L. Homes and all the rest of the bastards who've brought us to this.

NO HELP FROM JESUS

Here's the awful thing about the Imus brouhaha: the focus is entirely on what was said and not what motivated it.

I don't have a problem with jokes about blacks, or Jews, or Catholics - or lawyers, for that matter - as long as they are not uttered out of hatred or contempt. Things ethnic groups, or professions, do are funny - they have been for thousands of years. If people fall down, you laugh. If they fall down and they're Jewish, unfortunately it's still funny.

If it's our intention to eliminate these forms of humor because they offend some people, we might as well give up any chance of laughing around here, because we're going to become a faux serious nation full of drones. (I say faux serious because whether or not we get rid of a large part of our humor base we are never likely to get serious about many of our problems.)

Whether or not Imus is a racist, he said what he said - and has been saying similar things for years - because there is a huge audience out there for it. Some of the audience appreciates the humor for itself, and some of the audience appreciates it because it expresses their own hatred or contempt for the people being lampooned. Those audiences are not going to go away.

There is a huge audience for misogyny - probably because the advancement of women is so threatening to so many men (and incidentally to a lot of women who don't have the stuff it takes to advance and are afraid of being left behind as just another underclass, like black crackheads.) There are racial differences, and they can be amusing. Even blacks like to make jokes about that.

What the discussion should be about is the prevalence of hatred - or the prevalence of the purveyance of hatred - in our society. That means people like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and Dick Cheney need to be condemned at least as firmly as Imus. That isn't happening, and it isn't going to. Here's why.

There is an industry out there making a fortune purveying this stuff. There is also an industry - of blacks, Jews, etc. etc. etc. - making at least a living protesting it - but only specifically protesting what is at least, by appearance, relevant to them. They don't protest hatred generically, because there's no money in it. They get paid - one way or the other - by the groups they represent. So the truth is the Imus thing is an economic issue - actually a good one for both sides. Everybody gets paid to fuss about this little thing.

Where are the voices speaking out about hatred per se? Actually, David Brooks - of all people - came the closest when he said, on this morning's Meet the Press - that there is a pervasive culture of hate language going on around here. But he wasn't saying a culture of hate, and he certainly wasn't talking about Limbaugh or Coulter.

Maybe Jesus can work people out of that syndrome. But if He wants to do that, he's going to have to start by replacing a lot of the people He has speaking for him these days. Because Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are very efficient haters.

I don't expect help from Jesus - or anyone else.

QUESTIONS

From Eric Schmeltzer at the Huffington Post:

Today, I found out that I'm genetically superior to most of you. So says Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve. Somewhere along the line, he posits, Jews needed to be smart to survive, and then concentrated their smartest people, so the result today is that we're just genetically designed to have a superior intellect.

Here's the secret of it, though. We question everything. We're brought up to question everything. We disagree with people just because a silent dinner table is like death to us. We're not smarter, but our culture and religion definitely encourages rigorous exercise of the mind. To many, especially those brought up in dogmatic religious institutions and authoritarian homes, that might look like smarts.

OK, that explains why I hate boring dinner parties. Also why I can be found on both sides of an issue, and always on the opposite of the side the people I'm with are on.

God, people hate that.

HYSTERICAL!

This has to be the funniest thing I have ever seen.

EXTREME

From Scott Ritter on TruthDig:

This new Democratic leadership has failed egregiously. Not only has the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, been unable to orchestrate any meaningful legislation to bring the war in Iraq to an end, but in mid-March she carelessly greased the tracks for a whole new conflict. By excising language from a defense appropriations bill which would have required President Bush to seek the approval of Congress prior to initiating any military attack on Iran, Pelosi terminated any hope of slowing down the Bush administration’s mad rush to war.

Despite the fact that Congress was only stating through this language a simple reflection of constitutional mandate, Speaker Pelosi and others felt that the inclusion of such verbiage put the security of the state of Israel at risk by eliminating important “policy options” for the president of the United States. In short, Israeli national security interests trumped the Constitution of the United States.

For decades AIPAC has operated in the shadows of American foreign policy decision-making, exerting its influence on elected officials away from the public scrutiny of the very constituents who elected those officials to begin with. It is impossible to hold someone accountable for actions that are kept secret, and as such AIPAC’s ability to secretly influence American foreign and national security policies represents a flagrant insult and threat to the very essence of American democracy. I am not advocating the dissolution of AIPAC. However, I am demanding that AIPAC be treated as any other representative of a foreign nation is treated. It should have to register as an agent of a foreign power so that the totality of its interactions with American officials can become a part of the public record. We require this of all other nations, including our good friends the British.

To state that AIPAC, and by extension Israel, is above the law in this regard is to acknowledge the reality that American national sovereignty no longer matters when it comes to the state of Israel. So be it. But then we are, collectively, no better than those nations I mocked prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 as “colonies” of the United States. So if we are to continue to permit AIPAC to operate as an undeclared agent of a foreign nation, and to influence American foreign and national security policymaking at the expense of our Constitution, then we should acknowledge our true status as nothing more than a colony of Israel, pull down the Stars and Stripes and raise the Star of David over our nation’s capitol. While representing the final act of submission, it would also be the first truly honest act that occurred in Washington, D.C., in many years.

An extreme position? Or isn't it?

PRE-OBITS

All newspapers run obits - and when someone big and famous dies, they run the death all over the paper.

But how about running the news that someone big and famous is sick and going to die?

That way, if we love the person, we can tune in to his or her emanations and mourn along with them - or maybe do whatever it was we always wanted to do about or with them but never got around to.

When they're dead it's too late. We need to know when they're sick. We need to know what we're going to lose, not what we've lost.

GET A LIFE

So CBS and MSNBC fired Don Imus. Any bets on whether he gets a $250 million deal with satellite radio?

Most of his audience couldn't care less if he's a racist. In fact, they kinda like it. It's shocky. It's hip. That's why Imus figured he could talk like black rappers do. Which is what he was doing. Whatever.

Any part of his audience which doesn't like that he's a racist (if he genuinely is, and doesn't say those things for ratings) had no business listening to him anyway. Sorry, but if you're going to love meaningless rants and stupid jokes, or if you like the lies so many other talk show hosts tell, you shouldn't be bitching about racism. Get a life.

HEY

Hey. There's nothing real going on out there. Let's waste a lot of time talking about Imus.

NO SHAME

More than three dozen University of Florida faculty members snubbed Jeb Bush this week, killing a proposal to give him an honorary degree. The faculty Senate voted 38-28 Thursday against the degree.

No problem. A state House of Representatives council just passed a bill proposing to name UF's College of Education the "Jeb Bush College of Education."

There is no shame left in the world. Everything is OK.

TAKE THAT

A stubborn Senate voted Wednesday to ease restrictions on federally funded embryonic stem cell research, ignoring President Bush's threat of a second veto on legislation designed to lead to new medical treatments.

Take that, Amitai Etzioni!

ASHAMED

From Think Progress:

The Republican Jewish Coalition highlights the baseless Washington Post editorial in a new 30 second attack ad against Pelosi’s trip to Syria. It contains no mention of the five Republicans who traveled there as well last week.

I've been calling for Christian and Muslim moderates to speak out against their radical intemperate brethren. Now it's time for Jews to do the same.

Let me be the first. Let me do a Dixie Chick: I'm ashamed these people are Jewish.

It's a shonda.

DOWN BY LAW

From Gen. J.C. Christian, whom I dearly love ...

ERIC CANTOR

Oh God. Another bad jew? They just keep making more of them.

So who is his mother, and what does she think?

NOT GONNA LIKE IT

From Think Progress:

Ratio of graduates from Pat Robertson’s Regent University employed in some form of government work, according to Regent estimates: 1 in 6.

This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. But we're not going to like it when Pat Robertson is running the government - because, as one blogger mentioned, a lot of these jobs are Civil Service and protected, and if a Democrat is elected to the White House in '08, these people are going to see their sole mission as being to take that President down.

NEXT TIME

Read this Amitai Etzioni piece and then note my comments below.

OK, we have another maniac.

The Democrats knew that what they could pass in the House might not pass in the Senate, because their majority was so thin there. They also knew Bush would veto anything that did pass both houses. But to conclude from that that the Democrats have accomplished nothing is willful political ignorance of the highest sort.

Etzioni quotes Pelosi as saying: "If you honor Democratic candidates with your vote today, in the first hundred hours of a Democratic Congress: We will restore civility, integrity, and fiscal responsibility to the House of Representatives. We will start by cleaning up Congress..."

And that is exactly what they have done. The effect has spilled over into the Senate, too, and into the national political discourse. Anyone who doesn't see a major change in the way politics is played since January is blind.

He further quotes Pelosi: "From national security to economic security, our first 100 hours met the urgent priorities of the American people, turning our promises into reality...." Again, that is what she did. The question is: what is meant by reality?

If by reality you mean that the legislation the public wanted has been enacted, you don't understand reality. That was only possible with Republican cooperation. If by reality, however, you mean that the Democrats acted on their promises, they certainly did that. The message comes in clear: if you want these bills enacted, you've got to get rid of the Republicans who obstructed them - in the White House and in the Congress. If we're lucky, that message got through, and that is what's going to happen.

Democrats have every right to claim victory. If Etzioni wants more, he knows how to vote the next time.

THE JIMMY CARTER SCHOOL

I predicted this when I first heard of Pat Robertson's law school. And wait til you see what happens if they get on the bench and they start deciding cases based on what Jesus would do.

Actually, that wouldn't be so bad if what they used as the law was the Sermon on the Mount. But these people never mention those rules. It's as if Jesus never said them. Turn the other cheek? The Golden Rule? Their Jesus is a mean motherfucker and wouldn't believe in stuff like that. If he actually did say them, he must have been having a bad day. Much like the ones we're going to have if the law winds up in the hands of these misguided pricks (replace this word with another one for women).

We must never let another evangelical into the White House, unless he can prove he's from the Jimmy Carter school.

IMPROVEMENT

Why is it that lying is such an integral part of the Republican modus operandi?

Here's one that's so blatant and so easily disproved that you wonder why they bother telling it. They are driven to lie to attack others, and either they don't think there's anything wrong with that or they don't know they're lying. Either case is pathological.

Until November we had a government run by pathological liars. Now we have half a government run by pathological liars.

That's an improvement, isn't it?

CONFIRMATION BIAS

Unfortunately, it has become quite clear that even the most "objective" of the mainstream media can no longer be trusted when it comes to expressing editorial opinion. The reason is that they process conceptions through Beltway-think. I.e., they are guilty of confirmation bias - and the opinions they're confirming are those of people who've learned over the last six years an alternate reality which has no connection to logic or the truth.

I'm still grateful to the Washington Post for its investigative reporting - but as for opinions, I'd rather read the blogs.

THAT KIND OF GUY

I am baffled by the predictions that Gonzalez will be let go or resign. Other than with Rumsfeld, when has this president ever let go of anyone he likes? And I still can't figure out the Rumsfeld thing.

The only way Gonzalez will go is if he steps down voluntarily, in the interest of protecting the President. And he just doesn't seem like that kind of guy.

POWER POLITICS

The Iranians' release of the British sailors indicates they know how to play intelligent power politics.

Too bad our President does not.

And thank God this Congress is stepping in. There's more capacity for intelligent analysis and response in the Congress right now than in the entire executive branch.

BY DEFAULT

The Washington Post accuses Pelosi, re her trip to Syria, of attempting to take over the function of the Executive Branch. And they're right. But they should drop the accusatory tone.

It is finally apparent to all that Bush/Cheney cannot govern. If you look back at the last six years, what you see is a presidency whose primary function is to perpetuate Republican rule by salting every position in the Executive Branch with their political operatives. Anything else this administration did is either an accident or the implementation of policies Republicans hold dear. That of course is the intention behind and the consequence of putting Karl Rove in a policy-making position; the only policy Rove cares about is a permanent Republican majority.

Bush never governed, and now he's doing even less. The only thing Bush is doing now is continuing to appoint unqualified people to posts he can fill. There is literally nothing else going on in the Executive Branch.

Since we do need to keep government moving, Pelosi and Congress are - by default - taking over Presidential functions. I'm sure they'll return them unharmed to the next occupant of the White House - unless he or she turns out to be another incompetent asshole.

360 DEGREES

From ABC News:

The executive director of Columbia University's financial aid department has been suspended for allegedly profiting from stock options he acquired from a loan company his department recommended to students as a "preferred lender," according to officials at the office of the Attorney General for New York.

Great. My alma mater, yet.

Didn't we used to think that people in academe - though weird, politically devious and focused on the arcane - were, at least, not on the take?

You can turn around 360 degrees and not see anyone you can trust.

SOMEBODY HAS TO

From the BBC:

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as she continues a visit to Syria that has angered the White House.

President George W. Bush has said her visit undermines U.S. foreign policy.

Ms. Pelosi brushed off criticism, saying dialogue with Syria was key to solving the Iraq and Lebanon crises.

Hey, Georgie, somebody has to do it, and it's better if it's anyone but you.

Besides, she can't undermine what doesn't exist.

SUN CITY

From David Ignatius and the Washington Post:

Lee Hamilton, the former Indiana congressman who is a one-man bipartisan commission, recently suggested a simple test for evaluating political leaders. The best choice, he told a Washington gathering, is the person who can build consensus around difficult policy issues.

By that measure, we are seeing a long list of would-be dividers but not many leaders. The United States is losing a war in Iraq, yet instead of uniting around a policy that could reduce the damage and create a sustainable strategy for the future, Congress and the White House are on a collision course over funding for the troops.

A glimmer of hope that U.S. politicians haven't all lost their minds was a statement this week by Barack Obama challenging his party's extreme wing. "I think that nobody wants to play chicken with our troops on the ground," he said in an interview with the Associated Press. "I don't think that we will see a majority of the Senate vote to cut off funding at this stage."

Obama has the political maneuvering room to be sensible now because he was skeptical about the war from the start. But that didn't stop a blast from the left-wing blogger Kos, who wrote Monday that Obama "just surrendered to Bush." If Obama is in fact ready to challenge his party's most partisan activists, perhaps he is a man who can meet Hamilton's test.

Hamilton is dead right. Ignatius is an idiot. Obama is not going to build a consensus around this position. Getting out of Iraq is an inevitable imperative. The next President should be the guy (gender term used intentionally in view of the female choice) who builds a consensus around getting that done.

That does not include a consensus with Bush. That Ignatius, after all this time, still doesn't see that it is impossible - due to his personality - to draw Bush into a consensus proves what all the bloggers are bitching about - the disconnection of Washington punditry from reality.

Ignatius should get on a donkey (or an ass - hopefully someone he knows well) and ride the skimpy trails down into the Grand Canyon. He should stay there for a year or two. And then come back as a retiree and live in Sun City, and leave us alone.

PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING I'VE EVER SAID

It seems to me a fifteen year world wave of rising authoritarianism (including religious) is beginning to wane.

The older you get, the more you realize that stuff like this is cyclical. Yin/yang. Good things and bad things come and go. You can try to assign a reason for it, but there isn't any. It's just the ebb and flow of the universe. Not something you can think through.

So I think we may be heading into an era of good things.

I'm knocking on every piece of wood I come across.

This is not to say I don't believe you have to fight bad things and help good things come about. But I do believe when you succeed it's because the cosmos has shifted. Which you helped. Which means kabbala might actually be correct. Hmm.

OR NOT

From Ha'aretz:

Israel's political and military leadership has been preparing in recent weeks for the possibility of a Syrian attack on the Golan Heights that will start as a result of a "miscalculation" on the part of the Syrians, who may assume that Israel intends to attack them.

Israel, however, has delivered a calming message, and has no plans to attack its northern neighbor.

According to information Israel received, the Syrians are concerned that the United States will carry out an attack against Iran's nuclear installations in the summer, and in parallel Israel would strike Syria and Lebanon.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who visited IDF forces in the North last week, heard an intelligence assessment and was informed of the dangers of a Syrian "miscalculation."

Following his visit to the forces in the field, a decision was made to publicly address the concerns of a possible deterioration with the Syrians, and to send a message that Israel has no intention of attacking Syria, nor is there any coordinated plan with the U.S. for a joint attack against Iran.

Olmert must have really pissed off AIPAC'S Christian allies - because there's nothing they'd like better than a Syrian attack on Israel.

For details, see my novel "The Tenth Cow", digitally downloadable on iTunes - or at least read the blog at www.tenthcow.blogspot.com.

Or not.

From TRex:



(Nice outfit, Preznint Dickhead. I see you found yourself a cop. So, where's your Biker and your Indian?)

Nothing like a writer tipping you off about his age. Remember the lyric from "Hey Nineteen"? If you don't know what this guy's referring to, "we can't dance together, we can't talk at all".

UMM ...

From Crooks and Liars:

Here's a little nugget from Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, mocking Al Gore and climate change:

During the session [Gore's Congressional testimony], Gore's "Chicken Little" scenarios were met with skepticism, particularly from Senate Republicans like Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., who said he, like many scientists, believed the dire global warming projections were a "hoax." On the House side, the former vice president was called a prophet by some Democratic members but his revelations were challenged by others. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, cited 600,000-year-old scientific evidence that Gore's carbon dioxide claims are false. When Gore introduced …

Wait. Back up a moment. What was that last bit from Rep. Joe Barton?

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, cited 600,000-year-old scientific evidence …

600,000 years?

B-b-b-but the Family Research Council doesn't believe that the earth is 600,000 years old! How can Barton have "scientific evidence" that's 594,000 years older than the universe itself?

WHO?

From the Miami Herald:

My Name Is Rachel Corrie, the controversial play about a young American activist who died after she was run over by an Israeli-operated bulldozer in the Gaza Strip, has been pulled from the lineup at Plantation's Mosaic Theatre after protests from some of the theater's subscribers and outside individuals.

Geez, I wonder who they were. Anybody out there who won't let you say bad things about Israel?

SEE?

From Think Progress:

“Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Monday shrugged off White House criticism of her upcoming trip to Damascus… Speaking hours after arriving in Lebanon, Pelosi indicated the Bush administration was singling out her trip to Syria, but ignoring the recent visits by Republican members of Congress. ‘It’s interesting because three of our colleagues, who are all Republicans, were in Syria yesterday and I didn’t hear the White House speaking out about that,’ Pelosi said… ‘I think that it was an excellent idea for them to go,’ said Pelosi, who is to meet Syrian leaders Wednesday. ‘And I think it’s an excellent idea for us to go, as well.’”

See, all it takes is one smart woman to point out the bullshit, an honest press to report what she says, and a public that understands something is bullshit when it sees it.

I am encouraged that, at this moment in time, we may have all three.

SLIPPIN' AND-A SLIDIN'

For those who have doubts about Hillary ... here's the fix.

WHAT SWEETIES!

Nice.

NAUSEATING

Apparently 24 states are trying to move their primaries into February because they don't like Iowa and New Hampshire getting all the attention of the candidates and the press (there is no other reason).

Start with this: why do we care what Iowa does? They don't even have a convention, just a caucus. Same for New Hampshire. Does the way they vote really influence the rest of us?

It's not us - it's the media that cares about those states, because results in those states can set up a horserace that they can report and comment on all the way to November. It's easy stuff for them, and it gives them something to say - and the rest of us forget that what they're talking about is meaningless.

So the candidates have to care about those states, because they know what the press is going to do to them if they don't win them. And we have to care about those states because they all keep blabbing about them.

Moving all the primaries up is going to be disastrous. It means that the candidates who get their money quickest are the only ones who have a chance to matter - and those will be the guys and gals who are hooked into the establishment. In other words, money talks and the rest of us get no say.

On top of that, once the candidates have been selected by primary votes, the campaign gets boring for 7-8 months. Plaintiffs' trial lawyers know that when they start a case, they begin at a high point and it's all downhill from there, as the defense takes their case apart little by little, either by pointing out the truth or by confusing the jury. And so it will be with the election - from the high point of victory in the penultimate primary (conventions will not be high points - in fact, they shouldn't bother having them) a candidate will be lucky if in November there is any part of his proposed programs, or his likeable personality, that is not in shreds. Eight months of negative ads pounding one guy? The prospect is too nauseating to contemplate.

THE SAME GAME

Something bad happens in Iran and oil companies raise the price of gas.

Something bad happens to the World Trade Center and Republicans trample on democracy.

These are not cause-and-effect relationships. They are convenient excuses to do what they've been planning to do all along.

It's all the same game.