Expel your base or retreat into an echo chamber: If those choices seem dispiriting, Republicans can take heart. They’re the same false alternatives that the Democrats allegedly faced four years ago. Then a politician who hadn’t fallen behind the bipartisan Iraq war — but, unlike Howard Dean, actually wanted to be president — came out of nowhere to beat his party’s establishment and take the White House.
There’s a lesson there. If I were a Republican, I’d ignore the inane Palin debate and start looking around for a politician who had the good sense to break with the bipartisan consensus and oppose the bailout bill before it passed. Then I’d start planning an insurgency.
This is a topic that I’ve refrained from weighing in on because, despite my generally leftist political leanings, I really don’t identify with the Democratic Party. Or the notion of party politics at all, frankly. In fact, as with Senator McCain, I’ve actually admired Lieberman’s tendency to occasionally challenge his Democratic Senate colleagues on matters where his principles did not align with theirs.
Of course I understand the priority of establishing a strong sense of party loyalty. But from the perspective of this outsider, the Democrats have before them the opportunity to achieve an era of government dominance comparable to the Reagan Revolution. During that time, the Republicans controlled the Oval Office from 1981 through 1992 and the Senate from 1981 through 1987. It was a period that left a powerful and lasting impression on our government. Five Supreme Court Justices were nominated and confirmed and one Associate Justice was promoted to Chief Justice of the United States in that time, by Republican President Ronald Reagan and his Republican successor, George H.W. Bush. Four of those five justices remain on the bench today.
Instructively, the GOP built and maintained this era of dominance by establishing itself as a big-tent party. Some might take exception to the use of that term to describe the Republican party in the 1980s, since it was mostly dominated by conservatives from the beginning of that era and since. But the term applies (even if somewhat loosely) because notions of conservatism and liberalism are highly varied from issue to issue, so much so, some might even argue, as to render the terms meaningless in some cases. I don’t think they’re meaningless, at least not yet. But they sure are misused an awful lot.
Anyway, the GOP in those years managed to pare off many traditionally Democrat voters by appealing to their more socially conservative views on such matters as crime and pornography. And it didn’t hurt of course that the economically lean years of the Carter Administration had weakened the argument for liberal economic policy. These typically northern, working class and often union member voters hardly fit the traditional mold of American conservatives and came to be known as Reagan Democrats. But they were essential to the Republican dominance of the era.
If the modern Democratic Party is to achieve a comparable era of dominance with a similarly lasting impression on government, it must establish a similarly broad appeal. And Senator Joe Lieberman’s popularity with the American political right provides the Democrats with what appears to be an ideal opportunity for outreach to the right. But to cash in on that opportunity, they must sacrifice their pride and display - as the party in power - their intentions in building a diverse governing coalition that focuses on the broad collective goals of the various factions instead their finer differences. So I believe they would be wise to allow him to keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and to welcome him back to the Democratic caucus in the 111th Congress.
One of Barack Obama’s philosophical convictions (at least rhetorically), has been the necessity of cross-party cooperation. Adopting the axiom of bipartisanship, especially at a time when the GOP controlled the White House and both houses in Congress and often actively shut the minority party out of the process, was highly sentient of him. It now affords President-elect Obama a credibility which he would be smart to bolster into real political capital (not like the kind that some might claim from a narrow election majority). And he is clearly sensitive to the notion. Along with a promise to look across the aisle for candidates to fill out his cabinet, Obama has also supported Senator Lieberman’s return to the Democratic caucus. If his Senate colleagues care to retain the control they have won in the past two elections, seeing this issue his way is a good place to start.
More than once at this site, I’ve taken considerable issue with blog entries written by Ed Morrissey at Michelle Malkin’s Hot Air. Prior to joining Hot Air in March, Morrissey ran his own highly popular and well-respected conservative blog, Captain’s Quarters. Back in February when he announced that he would move his full-time efforts over to Malkin’s blog collective, I wrote the following:
As far as I’m concerned, Ed Morrissey is the gold standard for rational political commentary from the right. He’s not a political insider and might not be among the right’s shrewdest thinkers or highly accomplished writers but his genuine willingness to put aside his personal bias in approaching a topic is a rare treasure in the blogosphere.
Most recently I was particularly ill-researched hyperbolic entry from late September in which he disingenuously blamed the “current collapse” on Democrats in the House of Representatives. In my response at this site, I wrote:
For anyone unfamiliar with Captain Ed Morrisey, there used to be a day when he ran his own highly respectable conservative blog Captain’s Quarters. I often listed Captain’s Quarters among my favorite conservative blogs and respected Captain Ed’s opinions as thoughtful, researched and even handed. Sadly, since joining Malkin’s team of subordinates at Hot Air, Ed has given up command of not just his personal forum, but his integrity. I don’t believe the sense of diligence possessed by the Ed Morrissey I used to respect and read regularly would ever have allowed him to post this video and claim:
In 2004, a year after the Bush administration tried to tighten regulation and oversight on Fannie and Freddie, Congress was told yet again that disaster loomed. The Democratic response is instructive to seeing who really sat back and allowed this collapse to occur
…much less throw around such sloppy hyperbole as:
Democrats distorted the market through the CRA and through Fannie and Freddie’s massive securitizing of bad debt, and then blocked regulators from doing their jobs. That’s the real story of this collapse.
Earlier today, Scott Martin, from Conservatism Today forwarded this blog post from Morrissey to me with the suggestion that the objective Captain Ed I used to respect still makes his presence known. In that post, Captain refers to Jake Tapper’s criticism of what he calls “Obama derangement syndrome” as he (on cue from tapper) rails against Rep. Paul Broun’s (R-Georgia) abjectly hyperbolic public concern that Obama seeks to usher in a “philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism.”
Perhaps Scott is right. I don’t read Captain Ed as avidly as I did before his move to Hot Air so it’s possible that I’ve simply not caught his more objective posts. Of course there’s no questioning this new tendency for the Captain to stray from his former standards of integrity at his new gig. But perhaps I was a touch rash in stating, as I did in reply to Scott in the comments section of the “Addressing Blatant Dishonesty” post, that…
When he went to work for Malkin, the blogosphere lost one of it’s most valuable voices.
It’s been a while since I’ve written any posts about sports. In fact, I think several months may have gone by where I didn’t write about anything that wasn’t in some way tied to the election. Now that the election is over, I might find that I still haven’t quite defined the extent to which I’ll cover non-political topics here. I don’t really know the answer, except that I’ll continue to write about what happens to be occupying my thoughts at the moment. Right now, they’re occupied by the greatest margin of victory in NY Jets franchise history, which I was lucky enough to witness first-hand from the very top of the north corner of Giants Stadium.
I was reminded of a hullabaloo from last season in which the Patriots were accused of unsportsmanlike behavior for unnecessarily running up the score late in blowout games in which the outcome had already been determined. The most offensive example came in the week 8 blowout against the Redskins. In that game, the Pats got the ball back with 2:02 remaining in the 3rd quarter and led the Skins 38-0. Any NFL fan knows that a head coach lucky enough to be in that position will normally play out the game as conservatively as possible. He’ll sub in as many of his reserve players as possible to eliminate the risk of key injuries. He’ll call mostly simple running plays, to keep the clock running and eat up as much of the remaining time as possible while he has possession of the ball, and to limit the likelihood of turnovers.
But this was not the approach that Coach Belichick employed in the 4th quarter of his week 8 game last season. Instead, the Pats ran an offensive assault with Tom Brady in at QB. They ran 10 passing plays, all of them from the shotgun. The drive took 17 plays and ate up 8 minutes because of two penalties called against the Pats, the fist of which sent them back to their own 13 yard line on the 6th play of the drive. On the 15th play, a 4th and 1 on the Redskins 7 yard line with 11:02 left in the game, they ran a QB sneak to get the first down! This set up the touchdown pass two plays later with 9:09 remaining. 45-0 Pats.
The Skins promptly went 3 and out and New England got the ball back at the Washington 45 with 8:30 to play. Would they now win graciously, let the clock wind down and go back to the locker room and celebrate another blowout? No. They ran it up to 52-0 with the backup QB on 6 plays (2 from the shotgun) including a pass on 4th and 2 from the Washington 37 with 7:16 left to play. The drive took all of 2:40 off the clock.
Compare that with the final 17 minutes of yesterday’s Jets/Rams game. The Jets also got the ball with just over 2 minutes left in the 3rd quarter with a huge lead (40-3). They orchestrated an 8 play drive with 6 running plays that ended in a touchdown, eating up 5:30. The Rams then went 3 and out and the Jets got the ball back on their own 22 with 11:09 left in the game. The Jets brought in backup QB Kellen Clemens and ran 12 straight running plays, getting them 4 first downs and 70 yards and eating 9 minutes off the clock. So they came out of the 2 minute warning with first and goal on the Rams 8 yard line. With a cinch field goal and the opportunity for their second 50 point game of the season (not to mention Clemens’ first touchdown opportunity of the season) staring them in the face, he took a knee on three straight plays and let the clock run out. With a division showdown looming this Thursday against the hated Patriots, Coach Mangini made exactly the opposite statement that Belichick chose to go with 54 weeks earlier in almost exactly the same situation: a display of sportsmanship.
Almost by definition, Barack Obama’s election meets with the approval of a majority of American adults. Many are wildly enthusiastic about the prospect of an Obama presidency. More probably reside somewhere between cautiously optimistic and indifferent.
But this column is addressed to politically active conservatives who fear the worst and are now wondering how to cope. The key, as always, is to maintain one’s equilibrium. To this end, I offer, unsolicited, the following suggestions:
Pray that President Obama achieves greatness in office.
Don’t assume that Obama is always wrong.
Be loyal in your opposition.
Be patient in your opposition.
Be persistent in your opposition.
Be fair in your opposition.
Be skeptical in your opposition.
“Secede” from the mainstream media.
Support fledgling conservative institutions.
Don’t hate.
Don’t obsess.
Please click through. Each item in the above list is elaborated upon in some detail. I don’t agree with every word, but the approach is honorable.
I held off from writing about this local story because it was just one man’s claim that he’d been assaulted by police. There was no evidence to support him, aside from his wounds, which could have been self-inflicted. But now that the grand jury testimony of another cop on the scene has substantiated his claims, it’s worth noting. NY Daily News Friday:
Talking to investigators and the grand jury, Maloney gave this version of the Oct. 15 incident:
Maloney, 26, said he spotted cops chasing Michael Mineo and subduing him in the Prospect Park subway station.
The young cop said he was cuffing Mineo when Officer Richard Kern, 25, unfolded his NYPD-issued baton and poked Mineo on the left buttock, sources said.
As Mineo struggled, Kern then maneuvered the baton between Mineo’s buttocks, the officer testified, according to sources.
The baton is about 2 feet long and 1-1/4 inches in diameter. Until now, it was believed Mineo had been assaulted with the antenna of a police radio.
Mineo’s pants were riding low from his struggle with cops, but his underwear was on, sources said. Maloney could not see if Kern struck Mineo’s pants or underwear, sources said.
When the baton came out, witnesses said Mineo screamed, “What are you doing? Sticking a radio up my a–?”
The entire incident took seconds, but once the cuffs went on, Kern; Police Officer Alex Cruz, 26, and Officer Andrew Morales, 26, hustled Mineo upstairs, Maloney said, sources said.
As the Daily News noted the previious day, New York City has had to settle two previous excessive-force federal lawsuits involving Officer Richard Kern.
A longtime aide to Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin is lashing back at anonymous critics within the McCain-Palin presidential campaign, telling ABC News they are attacking the former vice presidential candidate with distortions.
Meg Stapleton offers an explanation of some of the more stinging criticisms that have come out in recent days since the McCain-Palin defeat.
Regarding another stinging criticism, Stapleton claims that the Fox News report Thursday — that quoted unnamed sources inside the now defunct McCain campaign, saying Palin didn’t know Africa is a continent — was taken out of context.
Stapleton says that during a briefing session, someone asked Palin to explain the McCain-Palin stance on an issue, and as she was responding, “in the middle, she said, ‘country of Africa’ and somebody instantly wrote it down, and said, ‘Oh, my God, she thinks it’s a country.’”
But Stapleton insists, “She knows it’s a continent. It was just a human mistake, just like Obama saying 57 states. I don’t think anyone ever doubted that Obama knows there are 50 states.”
Stapleton adds that a McCain-Palin campaign speechwriter was flown in to write a speech for Governor Palin to deliver Tuesday night after the election results were in. But after a discussion, aides decided Palin would not give a speech that evening — only McCain would speak.
Stapleton says Palin didn’t understand why they would bring in a speechwriter and then not use the speech they wrote for her which was complimentary of McCain.
Stapleton’s accounts sound more likely than the claims they challenged and it seemed clear enough that much of it was exagerated.
Mayor Bloomberg wants to nickel and dime you at the grocery store - taxing you an extra 5 cents for every plastic bag you take home.
New Yorkers use an estimated 1 billion plastic bags per year. City officials aren’t sure what bags they plan to tax, or how they’d collect it - though they’re considering allowing merchants to charge an extra penny per bag, giving them an incentive to track it.
“They’re charging sales taxes already. There’s not some massive new overhaul or bureaucracy that’s needed,” said Rohit Aggarwala, Bloomberg’s head of environmental affairs.
“We are hoping that at 6 cents a bag, people would change their behavior.”
San Francisco bans plastic bags unless they are biodegradable, while a proposed 20-cent fee in Seattle is on hold pending a challenge. In Ireland, a 33-cent fee pushed plastic bag use down 94%.
New York considered a plastic bag tax earlier this year but settled for a mandatory recycling program, figuring most stores would just switch to paper, Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Queens) said.
Ikea tried charging customers a nickel per bag, but when demand for its 70 million bags a year dropped 92%, the chain just eliminated them.
Personally, I take no issue with this. The fact is that double-bagged plastic bags are durable enough for multiple uses even for peopel who walk home with their groceries. The cost to consumers who refuse to use cloth bags or re-use plastic ones won’t be terrible, a few dollars a month. And it’s an expense that is easily reduced by 80% or more.
One cue I fear the left will take from the past eight years of the right’s dominance of our government is the tendency of many to kneejerk chastize any and all dissent as unpatriotic.
“If John McCain loses this election, will the conservative base continue to be willing to sacrifice their ideals to the evangelicals for no better than another semi-conservative lesser evil every four years”?
It seems natural that rifts on possibly several fronts would develop as the GOP seeks to modernize (redefine?) itself in the wake of this harsh series of political losses. And it appears, at least for now, that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will be the focal point. In my opinion, this is a significant hurdle for the party since I just don’t see how, after the statements of some McCain aides yesterday to FOX News’ Carl Cameron and Newsweek, Palin can continue to be taken seriously by the electorate. Cameron’s report to Shep Smith yesterday evening is in the previous post. Here’s Cameron’s report to O’Reilly last night:
If these McCain aides are even partially honest, shouldn’t that automatically disqualify her for any future consideration for public office, particularly in the minds of philosophical conservatives? Sure, she can learn that “Africa” isn’t a country, for example, but shouldn’t such a displayed utter lack of intellectual curiosity just outright eliminate her? I’ve seen posts at numerous rightist blogs insisting that such things can be forgotten in four years and I saw Bill Kristol and Gretchen Carlson this morning on FOX & Friends upset with the disloyal and disrespectful statements from McCain aides. If Palin does become a primary fault line across the Republican Party, it will be instructive to note which big names within the camp fall on the side of favoring her, although I don’t think it’ll be difficult to guess. Given the look we’ve taken into AK politics during her terms as mayor and governor, Palin’s conservative bona-fides should be strongly questioned. For example, when a natural resource is owned by the state, that sounds very much like a communist ideal. I understand that it works for AK and that the arrangement was in place long before she took office but she expanded on it. Wouldn’t a real economic conservative be just itching to privatize those resources and let the free market have at it? Anyone think Reagan wouldn’t have tried to deregulate AK’s oil industry? And we know a good number of her pet projects as both mayor and governor were actually very economically liberal endeavors, and not necessarily good policy at that. Particularly the bridge to nowhere which, despite all her backtracking on the stump, she very much did support.
Cameron reported that McCain’s numbers started trending down right after the Couric interview. What would have happened if McCain had named a running mate with solid economic conservative bona-fides who knows her stuff backward and forward, say, Kay Bailey Hutchinson? She wouldn’t have been protected from the media for fear that she didn’t know which nations made up NAFTA, for example. She would have aced interviews and probably would have taken the lead on the ticket with regard to the economy. Yes, it might have looked bad for McCain to have his running mate outdo him in that field, but the economy is widely regarded as the primary issue that McCain lost the election on. So someone better equipped than him to publicly respond to the crisis could only have helped, especially if it were someone who out performed Obama on the issue as well.
If I were a philosophical conservative, this would be the last embarrassing straw for me. I understand the strength of her charisma and the appeal of her faith. But faith isn’t rare under the GOP tent and charisma is something you can find in any empty shirt news anchor or game show host. Frankly, I think it’s time for the conservative wing of the GOP to stand up to the religious wing. No one can deny that the rise of the evangelicals to power in the GOP has coincided with it’s downfall. That’s not to say of course that I think they must abandon the principles of faith, just that real conservative principles aren’t necessarily a priority for many Republicans who focus heavily on their faith. Bush, Huckabee and Palin are all strong examples. The George Wills and Peggy Noonans of the party recognize this and I believe are getting tired of seeing the conservative base compromise itself to appease the Evangelicals. The GOP is a political party, not a church or a religious club. The party runs best and (I believe) best serves it’s country when it is committed to advancing established conservative political principles. Try as some might to squeeze Christianity into that box, it isn’t always an ideal fit. The left vs right political paradigm is an invention of man. The Christian God I was raised to know probably doesn’t care much about liberal vs conservative. He measures ideals on an entirely different scale.
I took a lot of grief for my pretty instant realization back in August that the Palin candidacy was a total farce. But when you cop to the fact that the McCain peeps knew most of that too very early on after their world-historical screw-up, you’ve got to respect and be terrified by their cynicism. I mean: country first?
President-elect Obama’s first step will be to establish that he will make good on the following promise:
But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And, above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation, the only way it’s been done in America for 221 years — block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.
What began 21 months ago in the depths of winter cannot end on this autumn night.
This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.
It can’t happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.
So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.
Let us remember that, if this financial crisis taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.
In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let’s resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.
Let’s remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity.
Those are values that we all share. And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.
As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.
And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.
I still remember well the last victory speech followed by an American presidential election. Four years ago, Vice President Cheney and President Bush offered rather conflicting sentiments regarding the notion of unity. Here’s the Vice President on November 3rd, 2004, in his speech to introduce the newly re-elected President Bush:
We have worked hard and gained many new friends, and the result is now clear: A record voter turnout, and a broad, nationwide victory. (Applause.)
We are deeply grateful to every person who joined in the effort. Thanks to you, we have gained seats in the House of Representatives. (Applause.) Thanks to you, I will be presiding over a larger Republican majority in the United States Senate. (Applause.) Thanks to you, President George W. Bush won the greatest number of popular votes of any presidential candidate in history. (Applause.)
This has been a consequential presidency -? which has revitalized our economy and reasserted a confident American role in the world. Yet in the election of 2004, we did more than campaign on a record. President Bush ran forthrightly on a clear agenda for this nation’s future, and the nation responded by giving him a mandate. Now — (Applause.) Now we move forward to serve and to guard the country we love.
Several minutes later, President Bush delivered a speech which included the following paragraph:
Reaching these goals will require the broad support of Americans. So today I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent: To make this nation stronger and better I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust. A new term is a new opportunity to reach out to the whole nation. We have one country, one Constitution and one future that binds us. And when we come together and work together, there is no limit to the greatness of America. (Applause.)
Of course we now know (and I think most of us knew at the time) which message prevailed in the Bush Administration, and which message was just meaningless lip service.
There will be no shortage of partisans on either side who will remain committed to sustaining the vitriol of the past 8 years. Many on the left will demand revenge for (often rightfully) feeling shut out of the process through those years. Many on the right wil submit to the temptation of the obstructionist mantle with the same ferocity they accused Democrats (sometimes accurately) of in the 108th and 109th sessions of congress. And many will not stop there. Indeed, the campaign to see him impeached has begun some 75 days before Obama has an opportunity to commit an impeachable offense. There will always be those who willfully embrace hated toward their countrymen in some disfigured sense of patriotism, as if declaring oneself the committed enemy of half of the American citizenry is somehow a patriotic sentiment for an American to uphold.
And the left is not without their share of blame for the heightened partisanship of these times. While you might not find quite the same level of volcanic, virulent scorn for Red America that we see on the right for the Blue cities and suburbs, the bitter legal battle for Florida’s electoral votes in the weeks following the 2000 election set the stage for eight years of widespread public abhorrence of President Bush, from the very first day of his presidency, in fact. The image of protestors hurling eggs at the new president’s motorcade on inauguration day in 2001 is a memory that will not fade easily.
But I believe most of us grew tired of this chasm a long time ago. I believe most of the right recognizes the need for a successful Obama Presidency ahead of the want to advance the public argument against the left. I believe most of the left recognizes the need to include the opposition in the process ahead of the want to advance an unchecked liberal agenda. If I’m right, we will afford President Obama the opportunity to see that healing begin.
I hope so. Because I believe it the enormity of the task that lies ahead will require such unity.
If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.
- President-Elect Barack Obama November 4th, 2008.
…went smothly as usual for me. The polling place is in the middle school right across the street from our building and the Mrs. and I were in and out of there inside of 15 minutes.
I’ll take a moment to share my only poor voting experience, in 2004. At the time I was living in Fort Greene, a more upscale neighborhood than Ditmas Park, where I currently live. The following is a post I wrote that year in the politics forum at Rotoguru.com, with some additional proofreading that I didn’t bother with at the time:
My Brooklyn polling location was a mess. They really needed a few signs telling people thatthey must first report to the non-descript folding table next to the booth for your precinct for the volunteer to look up your name and give you a card that confirms you are registered. You then get on the end of the line that leads to the actual booth. When you’re up you hand the card back to the worker at the same table.
I knew the drill and went right up to the table for my precinct. The volunteer was looking through the book for the name of the man in front of me. While standing there next on line I asked if she’d need my driver’s license. Big mistake. She stopped, looked up from her book, stared off blankly as she paused for another moment and then turned to me. With her lips pursed as tightly as she could muster and in in a tone of voice that made clear she was having a hard time keeping her composure, she said, “Sir, this man is ahead of you.” Okaaay…
So she fills out his card and he signs it and I step up and she asks my name. I watch her run her finger down the same page over and over as she repeatedly has me spell it for her. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that ‘L’ comes after ‘G’, so I waited for her to figure out that “Kinlan” comes after this page that starts “Kiernan” (or some similar K-i name) and ends in “King”.
When she finally figured it out she angrily said, Oh, K-I-N as if; (a) I was mis-pronouncing the letter “I” and (b) I didn’t just watch her repeatedly run her finger up and down a page full of names that started with K-i. No matter, she finds my name on one of the next pages and hands me my card.
So now I’m behind the same man again, on line for the voting booth. When it gets to his turn, he hands his card back to the same woman who found our names in the book and filled out our cards. She smiled and exchanged pleasentries and he went into the booth. When I stepped up to hand her my card back, she ignored me for maybe 15 seconds as she finished whatever she was saying to he worker next to her. She then took my card but didn’t pull the lever that resets the machine so I had to step out of the booth to ask her to do so, which clearly angered her again.
Anyway, in the 35 minutes or so I waited on line there were several people ahead of me who had gotten on line without getting their card and were told that they had to go to the table to get a card first and then get on line again. One woman, after watching the elderly person in front of her have this explained to him by a worker who had come over from the information desk (another unmarked folding table), refused to step off the line. She insisted that the information desk worker told her that this was the line she had to wait in and that since she did what she was told to do, she should not have to get off the line. The man behind her refused her request to “hold her place.” So the first worker, after initially refusing to do so, agreed to walk about 10′ to hand her a card while she stood on line. The man behind her threw an absolute fit. He insisted that giving that woman a card out of turn was not only unfair after he had to wait on two lines, but would “shatter the integrity of the voting process.” There were a few times during my wait in line when there were several people were yelling and the volume in the cavernous old school was up there.
I’ve been voting there for 3 elections now and I’ve never seen the place so crowded or chaotic. I think this was the first time I’ve voted during the daytime, so maybe that had something to do with it. Or maybe I’ve just been lucky, as it was very similar experience to a typical morning at my local DMV.
That was at Brooklyn Tech High School on Dekalb Avenue. I still have a few freinds in Ft Green and will have to remember to ask about how it went there today.
There will be those that say [McCain] wasn’t tough enough, he should have run on - with Rev. Wright, that he shouldn’t have ruled that out. I don’t think the American people are going to vote retrospectively. They never do. They’re not going to vote on associations, however unsavory, when their 401Ks are shrinking. That’s just not the way they - the electorate is more rational than that.
I’ve noted previously that I count Cold Fury among my sources for right-biased information. Mike Hendrix typically keeps his opinions separate from what he calls facts and asks honest questions. In my experience (if you can get past the barrage of insults and profanity) the site can sometimes be useful, particularly posts authored by Mike.
Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for his contributers, who seem content with producing an anti-left hate-site which lazily gets by on simply linking and pasting dubious propaganda written by other people. They display no concern for checking that work against factual sources or, as far as I see, taking it upon themselves to do any kind of honest research of their own, whatsoever.
Anyone who reads this page knows I’m not in the habit of running down other blogs but the exchange I had with Cold Fury contributor, Noel, this past week is nothing short of absurd.
He/she linked and pasted a recent Mark Hyman column in the Washington Times which furthered the debunked lie that Barack Obama spent his week in his ancestral Kenya in 2006 campaigning for Raila Odinga. For anyone unfamiliar with the story, at the time, Odinga was one of several candidates for Kenyan presidential election coming up in the following year. Odinga spent 8 years in prison for a violent attempted coup in 1982. His father was an outspokenly avowed communist and Odinga, himself is reported to have ties with Islamist factions in Kenya. Following the election in early 2007, which Odinga lost to incumbent Mwai Kibaki, violent civil unrest erupted across Kenya, much of it blamed on groups in support of and reportedly tied to Odinga.
Predictably, Kenyan politicians jostled to bathe in Mr Obama’s light. The senator did his best to divide time between government and opposition. The embattled president, Mwai Kibaki, had looked forward to being seen at last with a squeaky-clean politician. He was said to be mortified when Mr Obama informed him that Chicago television crews accompanying him had been “shaken down” for hefty bribes at Nairobi airport. And Mr Obama was made into something of a mascot by Raila Odinga, a populist who hopes to succeed Mr Kibaki in next year’s elections.
Kenyan politicians have been using [Obama's] popularity as political capital. In 2006, opposition leader Raila Odinga tried to portray Obama’s trip to Kenya as a personal endorsement. Odinga’s supporters created T-shirts and posters with cleverly computer-altered images that showed Obama and Odinga standing side by side, arms around each other.
From Odinga’s exploitation of Obama during that week in Kenya, a completely unsubstantiated propaganda narrative has sprouted; that Obama traveled to Kenya specifically for the purpose of helping Odinga get elected.
Initially, Mr. Odinga was not the favored opposition candidate to stand in the 2007 election against President Mwai Kibaki, who was seeking his second term. However, he received a tremendous boost when Sen. Barack Obama arrived in Kenya in August 2006 to campaign on his behalf. Mr. Obama denies that supporting Mr. Odinga was the intention of his trip, but his actions and local media reports tell otherwise.
Mr. Odinga and Mr. Obama were nearly inseparable throughout Mr. Obama’s six-day stay. The two traveled together throughout Kenya and Mr. Obama spoke on behalf of Mr. Odinga at numerous rallies. In contrast, Mr. Obama had only criticism for Kibaki. He lashed out against the Kenyan government shortly after meeting with the president on Aug. 25. “The [Kenyan] people have to suffer over corruption perpetrated by government officials,” Mr. Obama announced.
Aside from numerous reports, such as the Economist and Frontline pieces linked above which directly contradict these claims, there are also several first-hand accounts of people who were present at Obama’s trip through Kenya who outright deny them. Not the least important of them are Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott, who wrote a response to Hyman’s column the following week:
Mark Hyman’s “Obama’s Kenya ghosts,” (Commentary, Sunday), was a disgraceful smear on Sen. Barack Obama. Because I accompanied Mr. Obama on his trip to Kenya, I can say unequivocally that Mr. Hyman’s piece was filled with lies and innuendo.
Mr. Obama did not “campaign” on behalf of Raila Odinga, has never endorsed him, and was not “nearly inseparable” from Mr. Odinga during his time in Kenya. Mr. Obama met with a wide range of Kenyan and American officials, including a Nobel Prize winner, human-rights defenders, and President Mwai Kibaki. He did not have a single scheduled meeting with Mr. Odinga.
Mr. Obama was accompanied throughout his trip by myself and two other active-duty U.S. military officers; and the U.S. ambassador attended meetings and events throughout the trip. The Obama staffer - Mark Lippert - that Mr. Hynes names is a naval reservist and Iraq War veteran whose deployment began several months before the Kenyan elections and continued well past it.
Here’s a video posted to youtube by a member of the Kenyan press:
The definition isn’t great so I’ll transcribe the key excerpt:
Unbeknownst to Obama’s trip planners or staff, presidential candidate Raila Odinga had assembled thousands of Luo for a political festival in Obama’s honor. For Odinga, Obama’s visit was a political gift. For the entire trip, Odinga endeavored to gain as much publicity for himself as he could by cozying up to [this] beloved figure from the United States who happened to have a Luo heritage. Odinga even had T-shirts printed up with the image of him and Obam and the humble declaration AFRICA’S GREATEST SONS.
In an effort to remain above Kenyan tribal politics, Obama’s staff had been coy about revealing the senator’s schedule to Odinga. Still, the time of his vist to the family compound was widely known to locals. Kisumu, in fact had been in carnival atmosphere for several days, with nightclubs celebrating Obama’s trip in raucus fashion. So there was no way to get around the orchestrated political assembly, which had all the trappings of the same kind of event in the United States.
I’d tend to think that first-hand accounts typically trump the claims of those with established anti-Obama agendas who stretch reported facts to extrapolate unsubstantiated conclusions from them. Unsubstantiated because I have never seen even a single word quoted from Obama in support of Odinga’s presidential compaign. Senator Obama’s 2006 Kenya trip was a major international media event, widely reported by American, European and African outlets. So there are many, many accounts of the events that occurred that week in Kenya. And after considerable research into what was reported at the time (much of which provided in this post) I’ve yet to come across a news article from any source which claimed at the time that Obama was in Kenya in support of Raila Odinga’s campaign.
The crux of the claim is tied to the events of August 26th, 2006, the day this photograph of Obama delivering a speech with Odinga seated in front of him was taken:
There is also Newsworld (a now-defunct former CBC cable network broadcast in the US) footage on Youtube of Obama delivering that speech, but the audio is replaced with music so there’s no way to know what Obama is saying.
What we do know is that Obama arrived in his ancestral home that day, where he and his wife took HIV tests in a mobile medical trailer. He then gave a speech right in front of that trailer with Odinga seated about as close as physically possible to him, which is the event captured in the photo and video above. Every news report I’ve seen which mentions that speech states that it was about AIDs awareness and his ancestral homecoming. None of them claims, suggests, infers or speculates that Obama’s speech was a campaign rally for Raila Odinga.
Sen. Barack Obama and his wife took HIV tests before a crowd of thousands Saturday at a clinic in Kenya in an effort to battle the fear and social stigmas that have slowed progress in fighting the spread of AIDS.
On his one-day swing through western Kenya, a mostly rural area along the shores of Lake Victoria, Obama and his wife, Michelle, were both tested for HIV, a powerful statement in a country whose leaders often talk about the need for regular testing but rarely lead the way. “You need to know your status,” Obama told a surging crowd of hundreds of locals. “If a U.S. Senator can get tested and his wife can get tested, then everybody in this crowd can get tested. Everybody in this city can get tested.”
Obama and his wife, Michelle, used the spotlight to encourage Africans to get tested for AIDS, an action that carries a deep social stigma in Africa. In front of crowds, the couple had their blood drawn at a U.S.-run testing center.
“I and my wife are personally taking HIV tests. And if someone all the way from America can come and do that, then you have no excuse,” he announced.
That lengthy article acknowledges Odinga’s presence at the event and notes his attempt to settle the crowd. It also includes numerous quotes from Obama’s speech; many references to HIV prevention but none to Odinga’s presidential candidacy.
Kisumu - Thousands of people turned out to greet US Senator Barack Obama in the Kenyan city of Kisumu on Saturday, some perched on trees and others breaking through police barriers at a hospital where the colourful politician took an HIV/Aids test before heading to his grandmother’s village.
There are also numerous photographs of that speech available at the Getty Images news photo archive. I can’t post their rights-managed material here but you can go to the provided link and type obama kenya in their search field to find them (2nd page). Several different news agencies provided the photos and all are captioned with descriptions of the event. None describes the event as a campaign rally for Odinga or refers to Obama’s alleged support of Odinga’s campaign.
So, in every single report on the event I can find, there is no mention of Odinga’s campaign, much less note of any support for it from Barack Obama. This would have to be the most spectacular failure of a political endorsement in recorded history. Imagine, a sitting US Senator travels halfway around the planet to his ancestral homeland where he is wildly popular to politically endorse his cousin for president, declaring his support for him before a crowd of thousands of people. And with 100 members of the national and international media looking on, no one reports it.
Having seen this story pop up in various places since the spring, I was not surprised to see Noel’s post on the topic at Cold Fury, in which he/she wrote:
John McCain may have voted with George Bush 90% of the time, but Barack Obama voted for Raila Odinga 110% of the time. “Inseparable”, indeed.
But have you heard Obama apologize for his part in creating Ethnic Cleansing in Kenya by supporting a Communist thug, cousin or not? Have you ever even heard any of our alleged “reporters” ask Obama about his intimate involvement and his dubious judgement?
It might be almost as important as Sarah Palin’s shoes.
What I didn’t expect was his/her reaction to my replies: abject denial with a complete dearth of substance to defend the claims. I don’t believe I’ve ever so thoroughly prostrated someone in debate that he or she was left clinging to such blatant absurdities as in that discussion. It’s well outside of the character I try to portray here, but I’ll make an exception in the case of a site that often enough leaves me feeling personally offended and invite the reader to read through the discussion for the sheer sport of it.
Citylimits.org takes a closer look at ACORN’s supposed culpability in the housing market crash. It’s really something when the actual record so thoroughly contradicts the propaganda narrative put forth by committed partisans.
The Washington Times reports today that the McCain campaign has angered party leaders in several key battleground states:
Virginia Republican Party Chairman Jeff Frederick says he knows his state’s historically conservative voters, but that John McCain’s campaign dismissed his input even as the Republican presidential candidate slid in polls and the state unexpectedly became a battleground.
“They act as if, ‘How could you tell us to change our plan?’” said Mr. Frederick, who had offered advice on how to minimize losses in the state’s liberal-leaning northern region.
But in Michigan, the McCain campaign, which kept its operations fully segregated from the state Republican Party, decided in early October to pull out its money and organization for deployment elsewhere. McCain operatives gave no warning. Nor did they discuss the pros and cons of the pullout with Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saul Anuzis, who was left millions of dollars in the hole as the state party struggled to support its other Republican candidates.
“The fact they decided to publicly abandon Michigan was one of the dumbest political moves I have ever seen,” Mr. Anuzis told The Washington Times. “The decision to reallocate resources is done all the time, but doing it in a way that generated national network coverage and front-page stories across the country was inexcusable.
In Ohio, long-boiling friction between the McCain campaign and the state Republican Party on a variety of issues reached a new intensity over a complicated local gambling question. The state Republican Party’s central committee had voted to oppose a proposed state constitutional amendment to permit a casino in Clinton County. The state party included its “vote no” view on the “slate card” of recommendations it sends to early voters.
The McCain campaign unilaterally removed that recommendation from the mailer, overriding Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett and threatening to block funds to pay for the printing and distribution. Mr. McCain favors legalized gambling, and his campaign did not want to appear to support it some states and oppose it in others.
There has also been a growing clamor that perhaps all is not well in Maverickville. Earlier this month, Erik Ose at the Huffington Post pointed to some friction between McCain and his running mate, notably Palin’s disagreement with the campaign pullout of Michigan, that she apparently learned of it by reading about it in the paper, and the still-continuing semi-public disagreement between the Governor and Senator over whether the issue of Jeremiah Wright should be raised in stump speeches.
Today, Ben Smith cites sources (”four Republicans close to Palin”) who make a case that she is increasingly at odds with her campaign strategists:
“She’s lost confidence in most of the people on the plane,” said a senior Republican who speaks to Palin, referring to her campaign jet. He said Palin had begun to “go rogue” in some of her public pronouncements and decisions.
“I think she’d like to go more rogue,” he said.
And last week Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard described a telling exchange during his interview with Governor Palin:
In the weeks after the convention, she was limited to two major TV interviews. When she did poorly in one–the Katie Couric interview–Democrats and hostile columnists unloaded, calling her unqualified to be vice president. There was little contrary evidence in the press by which to judge her or defend her.
I asked Palin whether she’d do things differently if she could repeat those weeks. She answered by silently mouthing “yes.” When two aides–we were on a McCain-Palin bus with staff and security–said “yes” aloud, she chimed in, “Yes yes, yes, yes.”
The alternative would have been what she’s doing now: three or four talk radio shows a day, plus interviews on local TV and cable news, appearances on some national shows such as Saturday Night Live, and chats with local print reporters and a few national political writers.
And they didn’t seem quite on the same page earlier today, considering the notable contrast between John McCain’s calls for convicted felon Ted Stevens to step down from his Senate seat and Palin’s initial statement which did not call for a resignation and instead expressed confidence “that Sen. Stevens from this point on will do the right thing for the state of Alaska.” According to FOX, Palin did later state that Stevens should step down.
First step: dilute the word, ’socialist’. In order to effectively cite Senator Obama’s tax proposal as evidence that he is a ’socialist’, a certain ignorance of the meaning of the word is required. The entry at Merriam Webster online offers three definitions. Here are the first two:
1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
Clearly, neither definition applies to Obama’s tax policy. Obama has never sought to put ownership and administration of our private industries into the hands of government and he has certainly never sought to eliminate private property. The third definition might work for some who choose to ignore the context of history:
3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
The Civil War income tax was the first tax paid on individual incomes by residents of the United States. It was a “progressive” tax in that it initially levied a tax of 3 percent on annual incomes over $600 but less than $10,000 and a tax of 5 percent on any income over $10,000. In 1864 the rates increased and the ceiling dropped so that incomes between $600 and $5,000 were taxed at 5 percent, with a 10 percent rate on the excess over $5,000. Passed as an emergency measure to finance the Union cause in the Civil War, the first income tax generated approximately $55 million in government revenues during the war. Paying the taxes was viewed as part of the patriotic war effort, and the whole country was proud when the merchant prince A. T. Stewart paid $400,000 in taxes on an income of $4 million. 1
Taxes were levied on residents of all states and territories not in rebellion. In the South, some states operated under reconstruction governments while the war went on. Virginia, for example, the site of the Confederate capital, was largely controlled by federal forces, and northern and western Virginians were subject to the income tax from the beginning. States that seceded were included in the tax base as soon as Union troops established control. Georgians paid income taxes in 1865 even though their state was not officially readmitted to the Union until 1870.
The Civil War taxes were not immediately repealed at the end of the war but continued in force until 1872, when the Grant administration sponsored the repeal of most of the “emergency” taxes. The tax on whiskey remained in force. Between 1868 and 1881 the U.S. Supreme Court responded to challenges regarding the validity of the Civil War taxes on dividends, real estate, inheritances, and income tax by upholding the constitutionality of those taxes. 2 Fifteen years later the Populists attempted to revive the income tax and Congress passed a law providing for a new 2 percent tax on incomes over $4,000. But the Supreme Court surprised the nation, reversing its earlier decision and declaring the law unconstitutional in 1895. This ruling, declaring that an income tax is a direct tax and therefore unconstitutional, led to the ratification of the sixteenth amendment in 1913.
So for as long as there has been income tax in the United States, it has been applied progressively, meaning that the precedent to “spread the wealth around” reaches back every bit as far as the precedent for income tax, itself. I think the likely reply from those who are committed to spreading the disingenuous meme that Obama is a socialist is that the tax rate Obama proposes for the top bracket is far higher than the 5% levied by Lincoln. This is fair, however there still exists 95 years of American income tax precedent since the Civil War era income taxes were repealed. Wikipedia provides a very handy tax table which outlines the history of top and bottom tax brackets in the US since 1913.
A peek at that table reveals that through most of the 20th century, the highest income earners paid well over 70% in income taxes. Often, the political right looks back upon the postwar 1950s as the heyday of the American dream. We had established ourselves as the world’s great economic superpower, with an economy that was growing and still yet to reach it’s potential. Traditional values were heavily promoted in mainstream culture, not the least of which was our national sense of patriotism, still running high off victory in Europe and Japan. Never in our nation’s history was anti-communist sentiment as strong as a during this era. In the 1952 presidential election, conservative Republican Dwight Eisenhower defeated Democrat Adlai Stevenson. Despite the anti-communist sentiment dominating our culture at the time, Eisenhower barely altered the extremely progressive income tax code he inherited, in which the lowest bracket was taxed at a rate of over 20% and the highest at over 90%.
It’s interesting that even in the era of Joe McCarthy and the Red Scare, President Eisenhower was able to preside over two terms of such excessive wealth redistribution, and still go down in history as a champion of America’s opposition to communism. Even such high income taxes levied upon our top income earners in those days did not earn Eisenhower or his tax policy the dreaded “communist” label.
It wasn’t until the administration of Lyndon Johnson that the rate levied upon the top bracket was reduced to under 80%. From the time LBJ assumed office in late 1963 through the end of the 1970s, the rate on the top bracket kicked around between 70% and 77%.
Even through the first 6 years of the Reagan administration in the 1980s, the top bracket still paid 50%. From the linked Wikipedia table:
As shown, since the completion of the Reagan-era tax cuts, we’ve basically been kicking the top-bracket rate around in the 30% to 40% range, which Obama’s proposal does not exceed. It reverts to the Clinton era tax for the top income earners which, as noted, is well under the rate paid by top earners through the heart of the Reagan administration. And lest anyone forget, the 1980s under Reagan and the 1990s under Clinton were periods of considerable economic growth in the US - growth which was not prevented by the tax rates levied on our top earners in those decades.
Obviously, in the context of both the recent and also the complete history of federal income tax in the United States, the Obama tax proposals do not exceed the established range of taxes levied against the top income earners in the United States, even through our greatest periods of prosperity.
And the answer to the original question seems clear as well: as a transitional state between capitalism and communism, the Obama tax proposal falls far short. Reverting to the Clinton-era code, in which the top earners paid a lower rate than through most of the Reagan administration, hardly qualifies when considering the income tax rates paid through the 20th century before Clinton. One must omit the context of the entire history of income tax in the United States prior to the second Bush tax cuts in 2002 to consider even a loose and highly conditional definition of “socialism” to squeeze Obama into.
But disingenuous scare tactics are a convenient tool of desperate people in search of a last resort:
Fortunately, we have the benefit of recorded history to counter them. In considering the disingenuous tactics of the desperate, it can be instructive to look back at a time when they were perhaps not quite so desperate:
Returning to Capitol Hill amid a financial crisis rooted in mortgage lending, Mr. Greenspan said he had been wrong to think banks’ ability to assess risk and their self-interest would protect them from excesses. But the former Fed chairman, who kept short-term interest rates at 1% for a year earlier this decade, said no one could have predicted the collapse of the housing boom and the financial disaster that followed.
Lawmakers weren’t buying his explanations. “You had the authority to prevent irresponsible lending practices that led to the sub prime-mortgage crisis. You were advised to do so by many others. And now our whole economy is paying its price,” said Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.), chairman of the House committee.
Lawmakers read back quotations from recent years in which Mr. Greenspan said there’s “no evidence” home prices would collapse and “the worst may well be over.”
The 82-year-old Mr. Greenspan said he made “a mistake” in his hands-off regulatory philosophy, which many now blame in part for sparking the global economic troubles. He quoted something he had written in March: “Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder’s equity (myself especially) are in a state of shocked disbelief.”
He conceded that he has “found a flaw” in his ideology and said he was “distressed by that.” Yet Mr. Greenspan maintained that no regulator was smart enough to foresee the “once-in-a-century credit tsunami.”
Mr. Greenspan was asked when he knew there was a housing bubble and when he told the public about it. He answered that he never anticipated home prices could fall so much. “I did not forecast a significant decline because we had never had a significant decline in prices,” he said.
Perhaps the right will now stop their absurd accusation that the bulk of the blame belongs with the minority party in the 108th and 109th sessions of Congress. Why do I have my doubts? SEC Chair Chris Cox also testified at the hearing, largely echoing Greenspan:
“The lessons of the credit crisis all point to the need for strong and effective regulation, but without major holes and gaps”
But I don’t see any acknowledgement from him regarding the single greatest factor which led to the crisis, the altering of the net capital rule, which allowed the largest banks to more than triple their debt-to-asset ratio:
The net capital rule also requires that broker dealers limit their debt-to-net capital ratio to 12-to-1, although they must issue an early warning if they begin approaching this limit, and are forced to stop trading if they exceed it, so broker dealers often keep their debt-to-net capital ratios much lower.
In 2004, the European Union passed a rule allowing the SEC’s European counterpart to manage the risk both of broker dealers and their investment banking holding companies. In response, the SEC instituted a similar, voluntary program for broker dealers with capital of at least $5 billion, enabling the agency to oversee both the broker dealers and the holding companies.
This alternative approach, which all five broker-dealers that qualified — Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley — voluntarily joined, altered the way the SEC measured their capital. Using computerized models, the SEC, under its new Consolidated Supervised Entities program, allowed the broker dealers to increase their debt-to-net-capital ratios, sometimes, as in the case of Merrill Lynch, to as high as 40-to-1. It also removed the method for applying haircuts, relying instead on another math-based model for calculating risk that led to a much smaller discount.
The SEC justified the less stringent capital requirements by arguing it was now able to manage the consolidated entity of the broker dealer and the holding company, which would ensure it could better manage the risk.
What bothers me most is that this major detail isn’t anywhere to be found in the national debate about the origin of the credit crisis. All we hear from the left are ambiguous references to “deregulation” and the right are committed to their fraudulant talking points about the alleged culpability of Barney Frank and Maxine Waters and Chris Dodd and the absurd notion that the minority party in the House banking committee somehow prevented a mark up of a bill that would supposedly have saved us from the whole mess. I’ve thoroughly fisked that narrative here by simply pointing to the various bills proposed in both houses during the 108th and 109th sessions and noting that in each case, not a single one was voted down in committee, which is all the minority party would have been able to do to prevent a mark up to a vote on the floor.
As I noted in that post, the Treasury probably played the greatest role in preventing that first bill (H.R. 2575) from getting out of committee. And even if it had passed floor votes in both houses and FM/FM were prevented from buying the new tsunami of mortgage credit allowed under the SEC’s new net capital allowance, the major broker-dealers would have found other takers for that paper, even if they had to go overseas. That’s where all the paper went anyway, with FM/FM acting as the middle man. I don’t know of any regulations that might have prevented the biggest banks from such an end-around, but it’s obvious where the SEC’s loyalties were at the time and you can bet that they would have made it happen.
The Republican National Committee reported spending about $150,000 on clothes, hair-styling and makeup for the vice-presidential candidate after she joined the ticket in September.
The campaign expenses include $75,062 spent at high-end department store Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis and $41,850 in St. Louis in early September. The committee also reported spending $4,100 for makeup and hair consulting. The expenses were first reported by Politico.com.
It shouldn’t be an issue and I don’t like feeling compelled to raise it here. But the importance of what I’ll call extravagant vanity was not initially raised and hammered upon by the opponents of Sarah Palin.
No. By my math, John Edwards could get himself a $400 haircut every two weeks for the next 14 years and 5 months for that money.
Only celebrities like Barack Obama go to the gym three times a day, demand “MET-RX chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and bottles of a hard-to-find organic brew — Black Forest Berry Honest Tea” and worry about the price of arugula.
Former NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton (the man from who Rudy Guiliani has stolen much credit from for “cleaming up” New York City) and former NSC counterterrorism director R.P. EDDY today in the NY Daily News:
Al Qaeda has a history of trying to influence elections, most notably with the 2004 train attacks in Madrid. Just three days before Spain’s prime ministerial elections, 10 bombs left 191 dead- and Al Qaeda affiliates swung the election away from the incumbent, who supported the coalition wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and toward the challenger, a vociferous critic of U.S. foreign policy.
Seven months later, Bin Laden attempted to disrupt the presidential race between George W. Bush and John Kerry. His videotaped statement, released just days before the elections, seemed to support Kerry - driving some voters toward Bush. According to 2006 reporting by Ron Suskind, CIA analysts concluded that Bin Laden knew that voters would react in this way and his message was “clearly designed to assist the President’s reelection.”
If Bin Laden wants to engineer a late-October surprise in 2008, an attack on a significant American economic target may be one of the most tempting opportunities he has had in recent years.
This is a critical election for AlQaeda. The U.S.-led invasions of two Muslim countries during the Bush years and scandals such as Abu Ghraib have been aboon for Bin Laden’s demagoguery. He and other Islamists continually (and dishonestly) cite these wars as evidence of a U.S. war on Islam. That has helped create a steady stream of suicide bombers eager to destroy U.S. targets on their way to paradise.
Bin Laden is likely to believe that a President John McCain - who has jokingly sung of bombing Iran and who championed the troop surge in Iraq - is more likely to engender Muslim anger and resentment than would his opponent. Indeed, international polls, including those in Muslim countries, show striking support for Barack Obama.
Put simply: Bin Laden probably realizes it could become markedly more difficult to paint the United States as the “Great Satan” with a new President who is admired internationally. The remaining 14 days before the elections should be seen as a time of high threat, and state and local police should be on high alert. With so much at stake in these elections, Bin Laden will probably attempt to make his opinion count.
Since 9/11, the right has clung tightly to the opposite notion, that terrorist organizations which seek to brazenly harm Americans inside the United States will be deterred with fear from a US government with an aggressive foreign policy. In late 2004, following the releae of a bin Laden taped statement just days before the presidential election, this case was made made by every pundit who weighed in on the right.
I find it hard to believe that Osama’s goal here is throw the election to the guy he considers a deranged Christian crusader. What Osama needs now is not a reinvigorated, ratified war on terror from Bush and Cheney, what he needs is a time out to reinforce, regroup etc. It might be unfair to Kerry (though I doubt it), but he almost surely thinks he gets a time out from Kerry not from Bush.
I wonder what Mr. Goldberg thinks today of how the reinvigoration of the war on terror has gone over the past four years.
“Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election,” said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the “failing march of his predecessor,” President Bush.
The Web commentary was one of several posted by Taliban or al-Qaeda-allied groups in recent days that trumpeted the global financial crisis and predicted further decline for the United States and other Western powers. In language that was by turns mocking and ominous, the newest posting credited al-Qaeda with having lured Washington into a trap that had “exhausted its resources and bankrupted its economy.” It further suggested that a terrorist strike might swing the election to McCain and guarantee an expansion of U.S. military commitments in the Islamic world.
“It will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaeda,” said the posting, attributed to Muhammad Haafid, a longtime contributor to the password-protected site. “Al-Qaeda then will succeed in exhausting America.”
It was unclear how closely the commentary reflected the views of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who has not issued a public statement since the spring. Some terrorism experts said the support for McCain could be mere bluster by a group that may have more to fear from a McCain presidency. In any event, the comments summarized what has emerged as a consensus view on extremist sites, said Adam Raisman, a senior analyst for the Site Intelligence Group, which monitors Islamist Web pages. Site provided translations of the comments to The Washington Post.
“The idea in the jihadist forums is that McCain would be a faithful ’son of Bush’ — someone they see as a jingoist and a war hawk,” Raisman said. “They think that, to succeed in a war of attrition, they need a leader in Washington like McCain.”
Islamist militants have generally had less to say about Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. Leaders of the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah expressed a favorable view of Obama during the primary campaign but later rejected the Democrat after he delivered speeches expressing support for Israel.
Of course, basing a vote on the question of which candidate al Qaeda might happen to prefer is folly. I’ve never understood the tendency of the right to argue that that we should consider the opinions of our enemies in choosing our political leaders. The notion that Hamas or al Qaeda or any other entity which is hostile to the US and her interests should be given a say with regard to our political elections is simply absurd.
I’ve recently come across number of disturbing stories about supporters of both candidates who have crossed lines in their zealous opposition to the other side of the political aisle.
Beyond displaying the impacts of the The Agenda to Dehumanize Barack Obama (examples of which are associated with disingenuous assaults on Obama’s character) I haven’t been very interested in chronicling the tit-for-tat nonsense we see committed by people like this. But it does seem that this year’s election season has become even more vitriolic than most. I’m beginning to think this country has perhaps had enough of the 2008 election.
Hilzoy today with an investigative entry to examine the case against ACORN for any kind of “systematic fraud”:
In particular, I wanted to know whether or not ACORN had flagged suspicious registrations, and whether or not it seemed to be cooperating with the authorities and generally trying to minimize fraud. I did this because I wanted to find some sort of evidence one way or another.
In the cases I’ve gone through, the takeaway seems to be: ACORN had flagged suspicious registrations; it was cooperating with authorities, there is no evidence that it was trying to submit fraudulent registrations, and plenty of evidence that it was trying not to. (E.g., firing people who submitted fake registrations to ACORN.) I do think ACORN ought to ask serious questions about its practice of paying people to register people to vote, and/or about its controls on its employees, though I understand why one might want to give low-income people the work.
Click through to check her work.
Hilzoy is why Obsidian Wings is my most important daily read.
