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Drawing a better conclusion

June 25, 2008 Comments off

Or, you can spend four years trying to tell McCain apart from Bush.  Not as easy as you might think.

Categories: Politics

Habeas… what?

June 17, 2008 5 comments

A telling quote from John McCain:

We are now going to have the courts flooded with so-called, quote, Habeas Corpus suits against the government, whether it be about the diet, whether it be about the reading material. And we are going to be bollixed up in a way that is terribly unfortunate, because we need to go ahead and adjudicate these cases.

Is it possible, is it even conceivable, that United States Senator John McCain doesn’t know what “habeas corpus” means?  Because his statement certainly suggests that he does not.  He sounds way too ignorant to be voting on Supreme Court justices, let alone appointing them.  He’s a perfect example of how far an engaging smile and a heroic story will take you in American politics.

The right wing keeps using the word; “Freedom”, but I do not think it means what they think it means.  Our whole country was founded on the notion of limits to power.  The king had a nasty habit of dropping people into black holes of imprisonment without a trial.  They might be bad, bad, horrible people or they might just be an embarrassment to the king, with the same result and there was no recourse.  It had nothing to do with prison conditions.

It fascinates me that people on the right wing distrust the government so much in everything else, yet they’re willing to let the government have unlimited powers to “keep them safe”.  When did our government become so trustworthy that it could operate without oversight?

Categories: Law, Politics

Beer: the new third rail of American politics

June 15, 2008 2 comments

From Paul:

Remember the right wing going nuts over Howard Deans’ laryngitis? Is that really all that’s needed to derail a candidate in a nation election – a moment out of context that looks or sounds weird from the right angle, but has no bearing on policy whatsoever?  Pretty stupid criticism of a candidate, wasn’t it, but they got real political mileage out of it.  Which doesn’t say much for the voters, I’m afraid, if a discussion of crucial policy debates can be derailed by ten seconds of video in which a candidate’s voice broke while cheering on his campaign workers. 

Of course there are substantive things to criticize McCain for, like his admittedly shaky grasp of economics, his even more tenuous understanding of constitutional law, his deliberate attraction to whacky religious leaders who make Rev. Wright look like Robert Schuller, his unrepentant jingoism, or the fact that he doesn’t know a Shiite from a Sunni from his ejection shute.  But why bother?  We have him vetoing beer.

Hah!  He tried to cover it up a moment later by switching to “bill with earmarks” but he’s a closet prohibitionist!  He’ll take away our BEER!!!

(By the way, senator McCain, since you like vetoes you might be interested to know that President Clinton vetoed 63 spending bills and all but 13 of the vetoes stood up to challenge.  Until just recently Bush never vetoed anything until he started vetoing for ideological reasons.  And you, senator, voted with Mr. Bush 100% of the time last year.  So knock off all that guff about how you’re going to change Washington; you won’t.)

 

Categories: Politics

Our constitution makes this a Christian nation, part I

June 8, 2008 3 comments

In case you were wondering if our constitution makes the United States of America a Christian nation the answer is “Yes”.  John McCain says so.  At length:

Whew!  Glad we got that cleared up.

Categories: Politics

Style vs. Substance

June 8, 2008 Comments off

Mike Dunford at The Questionable Authority takes on the false dichotomy between style and substance In Defense of William Jennings Bryan

Why think about Bryan now?  Just this: when you have a public figure who is completely lacking in style (bad orator, out of touch with current culture, and generally a dud) his supporters will always say of his opponent “All style no substance”.  Or “All hat, no cattle” or any of several variations.  It’s a canard: style and substance are not mutually exclusive and may be orthogonal to each other.  Not that any current examples of this dynamic come to mind.

Categories: Politics

A celebratory drink

June 4, 2008 3 comments

On the occasion of Obama’s clinching the nomination (while Hillary presumably continues to weigh her options) I am having a drink:

  • 6 ounces milk

  • Several heaping teaspoons Ovaltine, Euro formula (less sweet)
  • Stir vigorously,
  • Add one large scoop Breyer’s Natural Vanilla ice cream and serve

Whiskey would probably be healthier but we all have our weaknesses.

Categories: Politics

Minority president

June 2, 2008 6 comments

I used to say; “I don’t want a woman president, or a black president, or gay or an atheist president etc. I just want a good president.” But watching our country’s reaction to Hillary and Obama I now realize we’re sorely in need of minority presidents who are also good presidents. The office is symbolic and we just can’t… seem… to let… go… of the notion that there is something wrong with a person who is not a white male above the age of 55.

And this hurts minorities all the way down to the kid in grade school who sees the pictures of presidents all the way back to George Washington and knows, in his or her heart, that their road has limits, that they’re not the right kind of person. That’s wrong on more levels than I can count.

I am certain Hillary is not somebody I’d like to have a cup of coffee with, and I trust her as much as I trust any politician, but I’d be happy to see a woman president even if it’s her. Or a black president especially if it’s Barack. And I’ll take either one of them in a heartbeat over the war hero who voted with George Bush 100% of the time last year and yet somehow says he’s going to change Washington.

Which first? Black, woman, gay, humanist? (I suspect we have already had more than one humanist president) I doubt we can do rock/paper/scissors so we’re stuck with a messy process and some minority is going to be first.  Of course, constituents of whoever is second aren’t going to be happy about it.

Categories: Politics

On “appeasement”

May 17, 2008 15 comments

Conservative Republicans (using the terms in their modern corrupted meaning here) have their panties in a knot about the Obama camp’s reaction to Bush’s shot at him from Israel the other day.  They’re hopping around shouting “Appeasement!” and “Chamberlain!” as if they had any idea what either reference meant.

(By the way, Chamberlain’s ‘appeasement’ was not in talking to Hitler, but in giving him half of Czechoslovakia.  Mark that down because it’ll be important in a minute.)

“Appeasement” is a stone the self-styled followers of Reagan should be very careful about throwing. Their poster-boy was a worse appeaser than Chamberlain ever was.  And by that I mean that Chamberlain negotiated a treaty that everyone knew about, but Reagan traded arms for hostages on the sly and got caught.  All the while, talking tough like a movie star reading a script.  Which he was.

The Reaganites are scandalized because Obama has said he would talk to our enemies.  That of course, being the worst thing you can do in any situation.  It’s always better to swagger and sabre-rattle and bluster.  You know, “Speak loudly, because you have a tiny, um… stick.  What would Roosevelt say?  Here’s what Dick Cheney said:

“I believe that it’s not an accident that our hostages came home from Iran when President Reagan was president of the United States. He didn’t sit down in a negotiation with the religious extremists in Iran, he made it very clear that those hostages were coming home.’‘

Apparently Dick Cheney and I agree on one thing: it was not a coincidence that the hostages came home when Reagan became president.

Learning the wrong lesson from History

Mark Twain said; “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes”.  There was a case back in 1938 where Hitler made demands and Chamberlain compromised on them, and because of that all of WWII is now Chamberlain’s fault.  The lesson?  “Never, ever listen to your enemies!”  All situations are just like Nazi Germany, and sitting down to talk with the other side (who shall henceforth be called ‘the bad-guys’) legitimizes them and invites attack.  You should demand the other side surrender and kiss your ass before you’ll even talk to them, even if it will get them expelled as representatives of their people.  Got it?

Sorry, but that’s just stupid. I mean brutishly, unforgivably stupid in a way that cannot be explained by anything but childish insecurity.  It’s a confusion of naked power with confident strength.  It might be an ideal strategy if you are God and you combine invulnerability with genocidal malice and truly unlimited power, but in no other case.  As a way for mortals to meet mortals, it is the height of hubris. It is the pride that goeth before a fall.  Obama knows that; he is far more a student of history than his critics.

Oh, and Neville Chamberlain, remember him? He pushed for rearming Britain and it was he, not Churchill who in 1939, declared war on Germany.  And though his earlier policies (which had strong public support at the time) had failed and he was forced to resign as Prime Minister, he became an effective member of Churchill’s war cabinet.

Chamberlain was an appeaser like Reagan, then he changed.  But his name and legacy are still used as an epithet for politicians to throw around. You know the old saying about ‘glass houses’…


Updates:

Categories: Politics

Who knew Hitler would be so useful?

May 15, 2008 3 comments

Well everyone knows it, I guess.  There is after all, Godwin’s Law, which states that as any Internet discussion lengthens the probability of someone invoking Hitler as a rhetorical device approaches one.  And Ben Stein has been using Hitler lately to diss Darwin.  But did President Bush have to get into the act?…

Well yes, it seems he did; and while speaking to the Israeli parliament too.  Referring to Obama’s well-known advocacy for communicating with our enemies (actually just drawing different lines, talking to Iran but not Hamas), he recalled Hitler’s invasion of Poland and a particularly headstrong Republican senator who once said;

‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’

Afterward when Obama responded to the speech as a ‘false attack’, Bush denied that it was intended as a slam against Obama.  In other news, a group of people dumb enough to believe that denial signed a purchase contract for the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday.

The saying that “you can’t negotiate with terrorists” is a rhetorical two-step, an irrelevant truism.  Terrorists only have power because people feel shafted; a little investigation and foresight could go a long way.  You want to stop Hitler?  Der Fuhrer didn’t have magic powers – do something about post-WWI German Reparations and he would have only been a nut yelling on a street corner.  Terrorism does not come out of nowhere and our international policies are not exclusively benign. Is there anyone too stupid to realize that actions have consequences?

If that weren’t sad enough, Donald Rumsfeld called for another terrorist attack to keep the Democrats from winning. Seriously. 

The Republicans have positioned themselves as the only party that can keep America safe.  They’ll do this by trying to scare the crap out of the rest of the world, which is presumably (if enough money is given to the Military-Industrial Complex) powerless to do anything about it. 

Well that’s one definition of security, I guess;  a giant surrounded by terrified enemies; some of them allied with other giants.  It could work for a while but in the long run, is guaranteed to fail.  As the Guiness commercial says, “Brilliant!”

“Drink Responsibly.”

Categories: Politics

‘Toon Physics’ and the Hillary Campaign

May 11, 2008 3 comments

My choice for Quote Of The Week on the Clinton campaign:

“IN CARTOONS there is often a moment when a hapless character, having galloped over a cliff, is still unaware of the fact and hangs suspended in the air, legs pumping wildly, until realization dawns, gravity intervenes, and downfall ensues…
- The Economist editorial page, “Almost There”, 10 May 2008

The editor went on to say that “Mr. Obama’s refusal to follow her (and Mr. McCain) in supporting an idiotic summer suspension of the petrol tax, crude economic populism at its worst, was especially notable.”  There’s lots more – Go Read!

Categories: Politics