Smartest Republican of the Day: Mike Murphy

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Sometimes, just sometimes, a Republican says something smart or otherwise does something that is worthy of positive comment, even here at this liberal blog.

So let's start a Smartest Republican of the Day series. There surely won't be as many entries as there are in our Craziest Republican of the Day series, but I think it's only fair to give credit where credit is due.

And, today, I am pleased to say, credit is due to GOP strategist and long-time McCainiac Mike Murphy, who wrote this for the New York Daily News:

Gov. Sarah Palin is the political train wreck that keeps on giving. First, she was an awful choice last year as John McCain's running mate. I came to this conclusion with regret -- I am one of McCain's biggest admirers.

But facts are facts. An inexperienced governor of a small state, she lacked the experience to be President and brought nothing to the ticket except a surefire knack for exciting voters who were already reliably Republican. It was a strategically awful choice, and I said so -- both on and off microphone -- at the time. Most pundits thought I was wrong. Look at the crowds she can draw, I was told. She "excites the base."

Phooey. Every presidential election year brings forth some new nugget of conventional wisdom from the media elite that totally misses the real picture. Last year, the big wrong idea was this notion that base voters have somehow become the new swing voters. We are now told the party base -- those voters who will vote for a bag of cement if it has an R or D attached to it -- must be carefully appealed to, romanced and appeased.

Under that funhouse reasoning, Palin was an inspired pick.

Unfortunately for McCain, the actual swing voters, the independents who do determine the winner of the election, didn't buy into this fantasy at all. After a three-week sniff, most couldn't run away from Palin fast enough.

*****

Other politicians are more reliable conservatives; Palin ran for governor on a set of populist issues usually linked to Alaska Democrats. She lacks any real accomplishment - no military or private-sector career of note, no academic achievement beyond a frenetic bounce between five colleges, including a sun 'n' surf-oriented outfit in Hawaii. She has served only two years as governor of a small and uniquely easy-to-govern state (other governors pine for Alaska's small population and billions of dollars in easy revenue from oil production), a job she has now abandoned.

And so on. The title of the op-ed says it all: "To go forward, GOP must snap out of its Sarah Palin spell."

That's good advice, from a Republican perspective.

As for me, though, I welcome as much Sarah Palin as the Republican Party can handle. The more the merrier. In fact, I encourage Republicans to hitch their "funhouse" wagon to this "train wreck."

Why? Because Murphy is right: "She'll lose, of course, almost certainly the Republican primaries and certainly the general election."

The Republican Party is indeed "demoralized." What could demoralize it more than the annihilation it would suffer with Palin at the helm?

Obama, the media, and the polls

By Creature

DougJ, over at Balloon Juice, makes a point I've been meaning to make:

But it’s strange to me that the same people who insisted Bush was a popular wartime president even when his approval rating was in the 40s are now concern-trolling Obama’s 55-60 percent approval rating. Note that while many media types say that the country only turned on Bush after Katrina, the reality is that his approval ratings were consistently well-below 50 percent starting a four or five months before Katrina. [...]

I can’t escape the feeling that many in the media are fixated on puncturing the Obama image in a way they never were with Bush. From 2001—2005, reporters boasted about the nicknames Bush gave them, now they boast about having asked Obama a “tough question”. What changed?

As Doug's commenters point out, it's the "D" after Obama's name that makes the difference. With the media geared toward internalizing GOP talking points, it can be no other way. It's either chip away at Obama's ratings or get yelled at by their Republican overlords. Since they fear Republicans more, it's a no-brainier.

The old "he said, she said" again, huh?

By Carol Gee

The feud between Congress and the CIA is back in the news. Today the House will take up an intelligence authorization bill that would do away with the administration's right to dictate the terms of how Congress is briefed on intelligence matters. Predictably, President Obama has threatened to veto a bill in that form.

Panetta vs. Congressional Oversight of Intel Community -- On June 24, CIA Director Leon Panetta testified before the House Intelligence Committee, chaired by Rep. Sylvestre Reyes (D-TX). According to CQ Politics (7/9/09), a couple of days later 7 Democrats on the Committee wrote a letter to Panetta asking him to " “correct” his statement from May 15 that “it is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress.” The article quoted a CIA spokesman who said "Panetta stood by his May remarks and believes Congress must be kept fully informed."

Dems vs Repubs -- Rep. Reyes wrote a letter on Wednesday to the Intelligence Committee ranking member Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), telling him, to quote Politico (7/8/09):

. . . that he had obtained information that there were serious problems with the CIA’s briefing of lawmakers and that the CIA “affirmatively lied to” lawmakers.

“These notifications have led me to conclude this committee has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and (in at least one occasion) was affirmatively lied to,” Reyes wrote in his letter.

. . . Later, Reyes issued a more conciliatory statement that framed Panetta's alleged admission as an attempt to reform the agency, beginning:

“I appreciate Director Panetta’s recent efforts to bring issues to the Committee’s attention that, for some reason, had not been previously conveyed, and to make certain that the Committee is fully and currently briefed on all intelligence activities. I understand his direction to be that the Agency does not and will not lie to Congress, and he has set a high standard for truth in reporting to Congress."

The authorization bill that expands its oversight of the intelligence community, including the National Security Agency and the ODNI, was reported out of committee on June 18. Certain lesser officials would be subject to Senate confirmation, and would require videotaping of arrested detainees. According to the Washington Post (6/20/09), to quote:

The bill also would end the statutory authority of the executive branch to limit briefings on classified, covert action to the "Gang of Eight," the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees and the House and Senate senior leadership.

Together these measures, Democrats say, represent an attempt to make the intelligence agencies more accountable to Congress. In recent years, controversies including disclosures of the NSA's warrantless surveillance program and the CIA's use of harsh interrogation techniques have led to calls for greater oversight.

Bonus Backgrounders:

• "2010 Intelligence Authorization Pending," is by Steven Aftergood at Secrecy News (6/18/09).


• "Ending the Gang of Eight," is by emptywheel (6/15/09).
  


• "Congressional Access to National Security Information," is by Steven Aftergood at Secrecy News (6/10/09).


• "The Hill's Campfire Games on Intelligence Briefings," is by emptywheel (6/5/09).


• "CIA: Congress shouldn't get records of our crimes," is by emptywheel (5/31/09).


• "What Pelosi, Rockefeller & Harman Could have done," is by bmaz at emptywheel (5/27/09).


• "CIA Briefers regularly mislead Hill intelligence panels, ex-spy charges," is by Jeff Stein at Spy Talk-CQ Politics (5/26/09).


• "The terrorism intelligence and briefing schedule," is by emptywheel (5/16/09). Timeline period covered by documents/details: 9/21/01 -- 3/19/03.

Stay tuned, folks, because there will certainly be a lot more conversation about these thorny separation of powers questions.

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)

Democracy is beautiful

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It's our Photo of the Day, from the BBC: "A tribesman casts his ballot at a polling station in Papua province, Indonesia."

(Indonesia held its presidential election yesterday. Final results are expected early next month. If no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote, a run-off election will be held on Sept. 8.)

Dems press Panetta on CIA's lies

By Creature
“We wouldn’t be doing this over a trivial matter.” -- Representative Rush D. Holt (D-NJ)

I would like to give credit to Panetta for coming clean to Congress about his agency's lies over the past eight years, but I can't. I need accountability, not admissions. From day one President Obama promised the CIA he would protect them. President Obama believes it's good enough to draw bright lines between themselves and the past and that will be enough. It's not. Bright lines are not a deterrent.

Another Palin lie (this time, on why she quit)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Greg Sargent:

One of the chief reasons Sarah Palin has given for resigning as Governor of Alaska is that her state's taxpayers are being forced to spend money defending her government against ethics complaints that would otherwise fund teachers, cops, and road repair.

But in response to our questions, a spokesperson for the Alaska governor's office just gave us new information that casts serious doubt on this assertion. The revelation makes the resignation episode even stranger, and raises fresh questions about the real reasons for her abrupt departure.

Given how much she lies -- again, check out Andrew Sullivan's list -- it's hard to believe anything Palin says, and this is no exception.

We still don't know why she decided to resign. Presenting herself both as a victim (of elites out to get her) and as a defender of the taxpayer (from elites out to get them) was part of the spin, not the reality, and it played directly to the Republican base that loves her (and that hates those coastal elites that it imagines to be, in its Manichaean fantasies, its ever-so-threatening arch-enemy).

It's hardly any wonder her story is unravelling.

No, Mr. Bond -- I expect you to lie

By Capt. Fogg

Aboard Blue Moon, Port Salerno, FL.

The only creativity coming out of the Republican tribe these days seems to center around new and ever more precious ways to denounce Barack Obama. Still sweating from the effort it took to convince themselves that Obama Supporters see him as the second coming, they're mocking him for not being a messiah.

Take Senator Kit Bond (R-MO), for instance. Hoping you won't remember George Bush's pathetic swoons about looking into Vladimir Putin's eyes and seeing a soulmate, Bond told reporters yesterday that the president's trip to Moscow was a huge pile of shit because nothing was accomplished but an agreement to reduce the huge pile of nukes. Obama should, says Bond, have stopped the repression of the Russian media and commanded them to sanction North Korea if he were a president worth his salt. Obama has simply failed, in one magical moment, to make Russia an obedient, American client-state -- as John McCain and Sarah Palin surely would have done with a great flourish of bluster, threat, and bravado -- and at a lower cost. George Bush? Who?

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Groundhog day

By Creature

Ahhh, the magic of AAA:

Morgan Stanley plans to repackage a downgraded collateralized debt obligation backed by leveraged loans into new securities with AAA ratings in the first transaction of its kind, said two people familiar with the sale.

Morgan Stanley is selling $87.1 million of securities that it expects to receive top AAA ratings and $42.9 million of notes graded Baa2, the second-lowest investment grade by Moody’s Investors Service, according to marketing documents obtained by Bloomberg News.

I don't blame Morgan Stanley for trying to resell their crap, I blame the rating agencies for allowing it. Crap, backed by crap, is still crap (no matter how many magical AAAs Moody's uses to try and cover the stench).

Inside Jeb: Is the smarter Bush brother in line to take over the GOP?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So Jeb Bush, according to Tucker Carlson, may be, whether he knows it or not, the future of the Republican Party.

That's right, as if two Bushes haven't been more than enough, another -- this time the smart one, at least when compared to his more famous brother, Obama's predecessor -- may be on the way to presidential politics. If, that is, he can find a way back to high-level elected politics at all.

You can read the Jeb-Tucker interview here. It was published just yesterday at Esquire, but it took place way back in April, presumably, just days before Arlen Specter's aisle-hop to the Dems.

There really isn't much new here. It's pretty much just Jeb commenting on the sad state of the Republican Party and of a possible (in his view, likely) conservative resurgence. What it does show, I think, is that Jeb remains a formidable political figure (with a fairly formidable mind, especially by Republican standards) even out of office, and one only imagines how things would have been different had he, and not Dubya, been elected in 2000, had, that is, the GOP gone with the right Bush boy. What we also find is a deeply curious and engaged man, again in stark contrast to his brother. At the start, he's talking about his Kindle, and about how he subscribed to HuffPo, "just to see how the forces of evil are conspiring." One assumes that that is intended hyperbole.

Evidently, too, Jeb is a Republican who thinks seriously about his party and a conservative who thinks seriously about his preferred political ideology and the movement to which he belongs. This should concern Democrats, I think -- it certainly concerns me (Americans have elected two Bushes, so why not a third) -- which is why they ought to take him seriously well ahead of a future run for the Oval Office (or, perhaps, for the Senate, though, in Florida, there may not soon be an open seat for him). And it is what makes this interview rather interesting, and well worth the read.

Let me just address a few points:

1) On Limbaugh: "I feel happy for Rush to get all this attention. He's one part of a mosaic of people and thought in the conservative movement." I'm not sure the Dear Leader of the conservative base of the GOP is just part of a mosaic, or that he actually considers himself just another tile in a pattern of diversity. And how is conservatism, in its present form as an increasingly absolutist movement, just some sort of "mosaic"? Jeb may want it to be that, but it is not. It's not a mosaic, it's a white-out.

2) On Republican unpopularity and the Democratic gains: "I don't think there's any seismic shift. The Democrats have won on tactics. Barack Obama would not have gotten elected if he'd let us in on his secret plan prior to the election." First, the Democrats may have won on tactics, but they also, and more importantly, won on substance. American voters didn't reject Republicans because they didn't campaign effectively but because their ideas are a black hole of failure. Simply put, Americans, while not fully behind Democratic policies (obviously, the country is still polarized), trust the Democrats on issues like national security and the war on terror (as well as the Iraq War, a specific Bush failure), the environment and global warming, health care, and the economy. Second, what is this "secret plan"? The scope of the economic downturn was not fully known during the campaign, but Obama spoke to the need to address the crisis in a meaningful way (and not just through those old Republican stand-bys of tax cuts and deregulation). As well, he spoke to the need to address the climate crisis. There's nothing "secret" about his agenda.

3) On Obama's popularity: "First of all, who cares? His popularity is no greater -- in fact it's less -- than what my brother's was during the beginning of his tenure, in a time of unbelievable friction, if you think about it, because of the 2000 election. His approval ratings were higher than Barack Obama's during his first one hundred days." This is silly. It was a different time -- there was nothing remotely like the current economic crisis, 9/11 was still months away, the Democrats weren't nearly as negative and obstructionist as the Republicans are now, and there wasn't a liberal anti-Bush campaign to rival the concerted conservative smear campaign against Obama today. Although there were some who questioned Bush's legitimacy, what conservatives are doing to Obama is much more nasty and much more ugly.

4) On global warming: "I'm a skeptic." He may not be an Inhofe-like denialist, but he seems to buy into industry-manufactured denialist propaganda. Yes, he's a good Bushie.

5) On the leaders of the GOP: "Newt is fantastic." Okay, that's enough. I can't take anymore. Just read it, if you have the stomach for it.

Palin still popular... but only with Republicans

By Michael J.W. Stickings

A new poll shows that Palin is not just still popular with Republicans but even more popular with them since her oh-so-shocking resignation announcement.

Which is pretty much as expected.

She was all about the GOP mob during the campaign last year, and she has, since then, spun herself as a victim of all that the mob loathes: liberals, the media, elites on both coasts. And she went so far as to spin her impending resignation as a firm stand against her various enemies.

Republicans -- the hard-core extremists in the base, at least -- eat up that sort of self-victimization, and, to them, Palin is, at the moment, the martyr to end all martyrs, their hope for a future in which they rule once again. Some Republicans, to be sure, are less than enamored of her, but there is no denying her standing on the far right -- or, actually, at the very core of -- the Republican Party.

But all does not look so bright for Palin and her political ambitions. Other than Republicans, most Americans are rather less supportive:

Independents by 55%-34% would prefer she leave the national stage.

The findings underscore how polarized opinions of Palin were even before Friday's surprise announcement. Seven in 10 polled say their views weren't affected by her decision. Among those whose opinions shifted, Democrats by a 4-1 ratio and independents by 2-to-1 view her less favorably. Republicans are somewhat inclined to see her more favorably.

Sounds about right. Among other things, Palin is a deeply polarizing figure. But a polarizing figure who turns off not just Democrats but independents (as well as many of the more sensible Republicans out there, though there aren't all that many of them) is pretty much a dead end as "a major national political figure," which is what most Republicans want her to be.

So, as one who is not a Republican, I say to Republicans: Go with Palin. She's your future. Have a nice time in perpetual oblivion.

Quote of the Day

By Creature

"So the status quo remains: banks with bad assets, a Treasury program to fix it that isn't operational and isn't expected to yield much once it is, and an economy stuck in quicksand in part because of it." -- Kevin G. Hall of McClatchy Newspapers reporting on our zombie banks, their toxic assets and the failure of all parties to face up to or do anything concrete about it.

Forget bipartisanship. Democrats need to do what is right on health-care reform.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Roll Call:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday strongly urged Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to drop a proposal to tax health benefits and stop chasing Republican votes on a massive health care reform bill.

Reid, whose leadership is considered crucial if President Barack Obama is to deliver on his promise of enacting health care reform this year, offered the directive to Baucus through an intermediary after consulting with Senate Democratic leaders during Tuesday morning’s regularly scheduled leadership meeting. Baucus met with Finance ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Tuesday afternoon to relay the information.

According to Democratic sources, Reid told Baucus that taxing health benefits and failing to include a strong government-run insurance option of some sort in his bill would cost 10 to 15 Democratic votes; Reid told Baucus that several in the Conference had serious concerns and that it wasn’t worth securing the support of Grassley and at best a few additional Republicans.

This is certainly reassuring -- not least because it's coming from Reid, with whom many of the more liberal Democrats have had their problems in the past.

The whole 60-vote thing is being overblown, of course, as it's unlikely that the Democrats will be able to secure unanimity on something as controversial as health-care reform, but I do think it's time for the Democrats to stop trying to win over Republican support. The fact is, Republicans aren't serious about reform, or at least not in the sort of reform that the American people actually need, which is a robust public system, and it boggles the mind why a majority party with 60 votes should need to kowtow before an obstructionist, ideologically rigid minority party that has no interest in real change. Republicans wouldn't do it, so why should Democrats?

Let the Republicans come out against a public option that would fill the gap to ensure coverage for all Americans. Let them run on that.

It's time for the Democrats, long past time, to do what needs to be done. Republicans aren't into bipartisanship -- and Democrats should just move on.

**********

Reid's push is also reassuring given the ongoing questions surrounding the White House's commitment to a public option. Rahm Emanuel opened the door the other day to the possibility of dropping it, whereupon Obama may or may not have pushed back the other way.

Open Left's Adam Green thinks that Emanuel "just went with his natural gut instinct -- to be weak, and cave to Republicans," and that the subsequent comment from Obama was "a great step."

Actually, though, Emanuel's comment may have been not so much instinctual as planned, allowing Obama to look like the good guy to pro-reform liberals and progresives. Slate's John Dickerson notes that Obama's rebuttal was vague enough to allow him to go either way on the public option depending on the circumstances down the road. It's an Obama-Emanuel good-cop-bad-cop routine that we've seen before.

While I think that Obama himself would prefer a robust public option, I'm just not sure how committed he is to it, given his pragmatism and apparent lack of unwavering principle. And that's where the worry comes in: Will Obama compromise to the point where, in order to achieve reform, a reform bill is actually more Republican than Democratic?

Or is this just Obama being Obama, pushing compromise and conciliation (just as he does diplomacy with Iran), only to take a harder line (as he likely will with Iran) when bipartisan outreach fails, turning the other side's refusal to negotiate or compromise in good faith against it, using that refusal to secure even greater popular support? Here's hoping.

Today looks a bit brighter

By Creature

With the tough talk coming from Harry Reid in the Senate and the progressives in the House about not compromising with Republicans on a health care bill things do look a bit brighter this morning. The Republicans should be abandoned. The idea that they (and the conservative Democrats) would support any legislation that was true reform, that contained a strong public option, that didn't hand our health to the insurance lobby was ludicrous to begin with. So, bravo to progressives for drawing a line in the sand (something the White House still refuses to do). Now let's see if they can hold that line until passage. There's still a long way to go.

Department of Law

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Hey, Sarah Palin, what's a "department of law"?

It's our Quote of the Day (from ABC News, via The Plank):

I think on a national level, your department of law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we've been charged with and automatically throw them out.

Yes, Palin thinks that a White House "Department of Law," something apparently unavailable to her in Alaska, would shield her from ethics-violation allegations -- presumably, in good Nixonian fashion, by covering up the violations and going after the allegers with vindictive malice. (ABC News helpfully reminds us that there is no Department of Law in the White House. Thanks.)

Yes, she's that arrogant -- and that clueless.

Sub-burpin' sprawl

By Carl

I am a black hole.

I'll get back to that in a minute. Let me do the set up first.

I would argue that, while perhaps not an overwhelming number, a pretty big segment of society is pretty shallow, perhaps even a majority.

Psychic space being a finite element if you look in two dimensions, part of the reason we end up in conflict with each other is that your sprawl ends up butting against my sprawl, because each of us is trying to get more sprawl.

I'd wager this large segment of society are always busy doing, well, something: Running out to meet friends, working too hard at a job, jetting off to the next vacation. They need the trappings of a "good life", the condo on the beach, the car, fine wines.

They expand sideways because they can't know there's a depth to life, too.

I call these people "Flatlanders". In the guise of "expanding themselves," adding sides (to extend the metaphor), they gain no third dimension. They buy this trinket or that souvenir and proudly display them on their shelves to boast of their travels.

They claim understanding of the world around them, but in truth, this is a false logic.

For how can you truly relate to the world if you do not relate to yourself? How can you understand someone else and have compassion for their plight if you don't understand yourself and extend that compassion to yourself?

How can you love if you have no love to give?

Love is a commitment, and commitments always demand faith. You can only have faith by delving deep into those parts of you that lie covered in darkness, shrouded by the sprawl of your flatlandedness.

Faith is not based on logic or hunches. Indeed, faith is that thing that keeps us tied to what we love when "evidence" suggests it might be time to let go.

I put "evidence" in quotes because none of us can ever really know a truth outside of ourselves. our eyes deceive us. Our ears hear distant noises that emanate from within us.

Our minds lie to us for...what? Fear? Our protection? Freud was not far off, I fear, when he spoke of the id, the ego, and the superego. Many people you'll meet have a champion superego, but no id.

Well, that's not completely true. That id shows up in the weirdest ways and those are the behaviors we look at and wonder what the hell were they (or we) thinking?

Faith comes from belief. Faith is a never-ending well to draw from.

I am a black hole.

Spending my adult life extending my self-knowledge, I have been able to give love completely.

Love does not necessarily mean another person at all times. One can love yourself, for example, or find love in the smallest acts of kindness and in the roughest, bleakest landscape.

I express this love through my art: my photography, my acting and performing, and especially my writing. By opening my heart to what goes on around me, by drinking in from the fountain of the world, I can absorb that which I see and express how it affects me.

This is something that Flatlanders never get: it's not about seeing the temples at Angkor Wat or the pyramids or Mount Everest, taking a snapshot, buying a trinket, and bragging about it later, maybe saying how you "soaked up" the local culture with a beer and some local food at a boîte.

It's about how these affect you. I probably have fewer pictures of more places in the world that I've been than anyone else. And I'd wager I have a deeper understanding of anyplace I've been than a million other tourists.

Let's say five people, including me, see a house on a high cliff and take pictures of it.

Most people will center on the house, and the good ones will get enough of the cliff to allow for the precarious position of the building.

I will take that same picture and focus on the cliff: the striations of layers of history building, year after year, one on top of the other, the roots breaking out into the air, the grass overhanging the lip.

Oh, I'll include the house, to show it as the burden the cliff must bear until it can no longer bear it, to highlight the foolish transient nature of people who build on land that is ultimately destined to fall.

To highlight the Flatlanders.

I take that picture that way because I understand the precarious nature of life, how tomorrow, we might all be gone. Or more to the point, how tomorrow I might be gone.

So I want to leave a piece of me in these places. Many people talk about leaving their heart, but for me, I've shredded little bits of my soul and left them behind. Places don't steal my heart. I steal places' hearts.

I am a black hole. I leave a small footprint on the surface, but once you've peeked into the abyss, you realize there's a lot more down there than up here.

The trouble with Flatlanders is, they insist on painting on the surface what they want me to be, to define me somehow. But you cannot define that which you cannot understand.

And then they get frustrated that I no longer fit the definition they gave me in the first place.

I am a being, not a doing. I don't worry that I've held the same job for eleven years, because while I don't enjoy it much, I know that it's comfortable for me, and as many places as I've worked, this is pretty sweet and stable.

Some may jump jobs every other year and believe they are improving their lot, but they collect nothing but a paycheck and a too-long resume. Like children with french fries, they are grabbing for the next one before they're finished chewing the first one.

Further, I understand that my discomfort there has to do with boredom, the terrible mind draining tedium of having conquered all I can on this employment.

My faith tells me this. I am enough, and my needs beyond the space to explore my space are few. I don't need to be "seen" in a hot exotic restaurant with friends who I can only truly stand when I'm drunk, but my influence is felt none the less.

I am a black hole. By knowing myself, I know everything I encounter. No, I might not know every single fact about everything...altho most people will swear I do...but I have a deep comprehension of the truth of it.

It is that truth that gets expressed, like the radiation bursts out of the black hole.

(crossposted to Simply Left Behind)

HuffPo 1, WaPo -1

By Michael J.W. Stickings

When it comes to Dan Froomkin, WaPo's loss (i.e., firing) is HuffPo's gain (i.e., hiring).

Read Greenwald for more.

Liars, damned liars, and Sarah Palin

By Michael J.W. Stickings

We already have two posts up on Palin today -- one from me, one from Carl -- so let's make it three with this one.

**********

Over at The Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan has done us an extremely useful service, posting a round-up of Palin's many "odd lies." And by many I mean 32 in all. (And they've all been re-fact-checked.)

I don't think they're at all "odd," though. Palin is a liar. It's as simple as that. And, as Andrew rightly asks: "After you have read these, ask yourself: what wouldn't Sarah Palin lie about if she felt she had to?"

The answer is pretty clear.

Palin comparison

By Carl

Poor Sarah Palin:

The Alaska governor spoke in taped interviews on ABC, NBC and CNN broadcast Tuesday morning.

She told CNN that "all options are on the table" for her future.

But told ABC's "Good Morning America" that she recognizes she might not have political staying power after her surprise resignation Friday, which came just as she had been expected to elevate her national profile ahead of a possible 2012 GOP presidential run.

"I said before ... 'You know, politically speaking, if I die, I die. So be it,'" she said.

Speaking in fishing waders from the town of Dillingham, Gov. Palin said her administration has been paralyzed by fending off frivolous lawsuits.

So let me get this straight: You're frustrated by your inability to win a fight in your administration because your administration has been under investigation for possible corruption... and leaving is somehow fighting?

I might be wrong, but "fighting" to me means throwing a few haymakers back. Anything else is quitting.

Cute touch with the fishing waders and the whole "family fishing business" thing. Most people in the lower 48 will assume it's like the Gloustermen of The Perfect Storm, you know, weeks on a boat, reeking of bait and a lone shower, the things real men do.

I'm betting that "fishing business" means hiring boats to go out and do the dirty work for you.

Imagine, if you will, what would happen if, say, she somehow got caught in the Oval Office with her pants down and Congress launched an investigation that lasted six years and culminated in an impeachment trial.

Think she'd quit? I do, based on this silly little girl's tale here.

Personally, I don't think she's going to run. Between the campaign jokes made about her, the recent kerfuffle with David Letterman and this obvious grandstand ploy, she's come to the realization that, goshdarnit, people really don't like her very much.

Yes, she has immense support from the conservative wing of the Republican party, but other conservatives in the party are balking mightily at the fact she seems to be dividing the party up, perhaps to create her own ("Dominionist"?) third party.

It's hard to predict where this is really going to end up. On the one hand, a Palin party would both destroy and save the Republican party from itself. It would attract the John Birchers and the fringe members of the media and, with the help of Rush Limbaugh et al., would establish a legitimate national party.

For a while. See, moving the inmates out of the asylum doesn't make the inmates sane, but it makes the asylum safer.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

What the world needs now is not more Sarah Palin; or, how her right-wing admirers are falling all over themselves trying to love her up

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Whether we like it or not, we're being bombarded with all things Sarah Palin, more so now pre-resignation than at any time since last year's campaign. And, honestly, it was driving me nuts over the weekend.

But the right loves her, and continues not just to apologize for her, not just to cheerlead for her, but to pump her up out of all justifiable proportion. Which is fine, when you think about it, because the simple fact is, she's not -- and is not close to being -- a credible national political figure. And that's putting it nicely. I'd say she's a joke, an appalling caricature of phony, mock-outraged populism, a caricature of herself, actually, though I'm not sure the caricature is any different than the real thing, so entwined is she with her own manufactured persona.

Whatever.

Let's take a look at what a few conservatives have said about her in recent days:

1) Ross Douthat -- One of the more thoughtful conservatives around, to be sure, with a perch at the NYT, one of the key media organizations of the coastal elite that Palin claims to loathe, and against which she directs much of her silly resentment. I was going to comment earlier on his ridiculous juxtaposition of "Palin and Her Enemies," but I don't have much to add to Mustang Bobby's terrific post from yesterday afternoon.

While Douthat is certainly right that Palin has "tarnished" her own "ideal," and that she remains popular, "beloved by millions," it is ridiculous to suggest, as Douthat does, that Palin represents "the democratic ideal" -- in contrast to Obama, who supposedly represents "the meritocratic ideal" -- simply because she has shown "that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard." I had no idea that going to an Ivy makes you somehow un-democratic, but this is the sort of populism that Palin spins, the sort that her story, and her political celebrity, has inspired on the right, including among elitist coastal newspaper columnists who are hardly Heartland material.

As Mustang Bobby puts it, Palin's problems were her own fault, not the media's, not the political commentariat's, not liberals' or Democrats'. Douthat claims that the attacks on Palin "had everything to do with Palin's gender and her social class." No, they had everything to do with Palin herself. And they weren't attacks, they were justifiable criticisms of a self-absorbed dimwit who was in way over her head but who nonetheless managed to arouse the GOP mob.

**********

2) Fred Barnes -- Kristol's pal at TWS and an unabashed partisan (and Palin booster). For Barnes, who can't seem to keep it in his pants, Palin is "the most exciting Republican figure to emerge in decades." But, alas. While she has "a super-abundance of charisma," she also has "shortcomings in experience and knowledge" -- which is just another way of saying she has a nice personality, but...

And so Barnes, after tracing the history of Republican presidential nominees since WWII, looks ahead, a long, long way ahead: "By itself, two months on the Republican ticket won't propel her to the presidential nomination. But there is a way: win Alaska's lone House seat in 2012 and oust Democratic senator Mark Begich in 2014. A term in the House and another in the Senate -- nothing would do more to groom her for the White House than this and transform her into the best Republican candidate for the presidency in, say, 2020, when she'd be 56."

Woo-hoo! Palin 2020!

Actually, it's not so unreasonable, given that Palin has a much brighter future in Alaska than nationally, and she may just be able to do what Barnes suggests. But her bright future has dimmed even in Alaska, and I wonder if her career path to 2020 is as clear as this. Obviously, we shall see. What I do think is that we haven't heard the last of Palin the politician.

But back to Barnes. Despite the fact that Palin has glaring "shortcomings" and "limitations," he still things she was a brilliant veep pick for McCain. He even claims she won the debate with Biden, which is insane. He apparently was watching a different debate than the rest of us, perhaps one firing off in the recesses of his imagination. And he claims that "she could have taken Joe Biden apart while demonstrating her own knowledge and brainpower had she known more about national issues," which is also insane. The fact is, she didn't have any knowledge or brainpower to demonstrate, and she didn't know anything about national issues beyond the facile talking points that had been fed to her. Her "personality and likeability" in that debate just came across as smarmy arrogance. And yet Barnes still wanted her to be, as they say, a heartbeat away from the presidency? How irresponsible is that?

**********

3) Jim Prevor -- Also at TWS, Prevor puts even Barnes to shame with respect to Palin-boosting, as there is apparently no end to what Palin can accomplish if she just puts her mind to it:

Will she write a thoughtful book? Become a syndicated columnist whose ideas make her a "must read" for everyone? Will she found an important new think tank? An important journal? Spearhead an effort to help the unemployed? Decide to launch a business? Or maybe she will start a new political party?

*****

Maybe Sarah Palin thinks she can change the world without becoming president. Maybe she is deeply and authentically conservative and isn't certain that aiming to change the world is such a good idea.

Maybe plumes of white smoke will herald her election from atop the Vatican.

Maybe she'll win back-to-back Nobels, if not for literature, maybe for peace and chemistry, or for whatever areas she wishes to tackle upon her return to private life.

Maybe she'll hit .400.

Who knows? Who can say?

As TNR's Chris Orr notes, it's rather curious that Prevor put quotation marks around "must read." Are we to take it that Prevor is being ironic, that there's no way Palin would ever be a legitimate "must read"? No, surely not, but I think Chris is quite right that the passage reads better if you put quotation marks around "thoughtful," "ideas," "important" (twice), "effort," and "business" as well. I'm quoting more than Chris here, so I'd also put them around "change the world" and "deeply and authentically conservative."

Seriously, though, does anyone other than her mindless admirers at TWS actually think that Palin might found a think tank or journal, or "help the unemployed"?

I've had enough of Sarah Palin, yes, but thankfully her fan club keeps me entertained with its stupidity. At a time like this, we can at least be thankful for that.

I demand that you shoot me now

By Creature

Even talking about a "trigger" is wrong. If the public option is not present from go then we will be right back to square one in a few years after having wasted more time, more money, and more lives in the process. If the White House wants to cave to pressure from lobbyists, fine. But don't do it, say you didn't, and call anything that passes reform. We are not that dumb.

Robert McNamara (1916-2009)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Robert McNamara, one of the supposedly "best" and "brightest" behind the Vietnam War, the defense secretary who determined who was winning and losing by counting body bags, died yesterday at the age of 93.

To a certain extent, he was the Vietnam War, and just as it took America down, it took him down, too. He was long gone by the time the war eventually ended, with American fatalities increasing significantly under Nixon and Kissinger, but he remained "a haunted man," the war "his personal nightmare."

He apparently came to regret what he had done, but the past could never ever be put fully behind him.

There is not much more to say. This was a man who lived, and suffered, and who may or may not have come to terms with his time in office, or achieved, at long last, some sort of inner peace. The Vietnam War wasn't entirely his fault, but, to his death, he bore as much responsibility for it as anyone.

**********

For more, I highly recommend Errol Morris's fantastic documentary, The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.

And I suppose you could already read his mea culpa memoirs, which I have not.

It's time for America, a nation of immigrants, to tell Joe the Plumber to fuck off

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Here's Samuel Wurzelbacher's latest invective of ignorance (at a right-wing tea party, no less):

I believe in making sure our country is safe first. I believe we need to spend a little more on illegal immigrants. Get them the hell out of our damn country and close the borders down. We can do it. We've got the greatest military in the world and you're telling me we can't close our borders? — That's just ridiculous.

Now, of course, America is a nation of immigrants, many of more of them illegal, in one way or another, than just the Mexicans who so trouble the nativist bigots of the right, Joe included. And, of course, many of the illegal ones from Mexico and elsewhere down south came to America for the same reason generations upon generations did before them: in search of hope, in search of a better life for themselves and their children.

If Joe wants "our damn country" to belong to his own kind, I'm sure there are more than a few native Americans who would tell him to get the hell out, too.

In fact, let's take up Joe's idea and run with it: Let's turn America into a military-police state with a wall around it. Let's target the Other, anyone who doesn't look right, anyone who might be a little too brown for Joe's liking. It's fascism, sure, but that's what he seems to want. (Notice that he equates illegal immigrants with terrorists. Making America "safe," it seems, requires targeting Mexicans.)

Mass deportation? Hey, why not?

Well, my American friends, why don't you start with the Wurzelbachers themselves? That doesn't sound like an American name to me. In fact, it sounds downright foreign. German or something, and, hell, America fought two world wars against them. Okay, maybe the Wurzelbachers entered America "legally," but can we be sure of that? Besides, what if they were let in simply because there was a generously liberal immigration policy back then? I'm sure even Joe understands that it's just not "safe" for America to have so many un-Americans draining the public well.

Oh, fine, I guess that won't work.

Well, I'm sure many if not most of the "illegal" immigrants Joe derides are a hell of a lot more "American" than he is. Unless I'm mistaken and America really is a nation of bigoted ignorance? Unless it isn't so much a light upon a hill but a sewer of hate?

No, allow me to be a tad more optimistic this July 6, 2009.

If they care at all about their country, Americans should tell Joe the Plumber that he's not one of them and that his views are un-American.

Actually, they should tell him to fuck right off.

Fear is the mindkiller

By Carl

Rigid thinking and black and white solutions are the mark of children, the small-minded, and Republicans.

I started thinking about this over the weekend, attempting to flesh out why so many people in this country are patriarchal.

It's the whole "my way or the highway" logic. I never understood the lack of of compassion for another person's situation. I mean, it's not like we're discussing things that require immediate action or snap judgements.

It's true, even framing the discussion as black/white (either/or) often precludes a meaningful discussion and b) any hope of solving complex problems, like immigration and of course, abortion.

So why do people do this? Why is it so easy, left and right, to paint the opposition as radical and dangerous and thus shut off dialogue?

Rather than be open to compromise and new ways of seeing things, to simplify things to some arbitrary "essentials" ignores nearly the entire tale of history. Things are never as easy as they appear.

What's turned this entire thread around was that I wanted to understand why some people can't seem to let go and grow up, that they feel the need to control and dictate over things they have no business controlling.

Like other people. Indeed, the essence of controlling someone else is to negate any possible value of that person's opinion in favor of force-feeding them your position, and then intimidating them into accepting it.

I think it comes down to views from the extremes, which I find are propelled by fear and when grabbed by fear it is extremely difficult if not impossible to see clearly and with distance.

Fight or flight. You panic and all you can think about is whether your gloves are high enough in front of your face or your running shoes are laced tightly enough.

People can't manage to take a breath and assume the other party perhaps has some validity to their views, and incorporate those, rather than attacking the views, the other party, or usually both.

But why?

I think it has to do with knowing yourself. In getting to know yourself, you learn two things:

1) The world is a lot more complex than you ever gave it credit for and, 2) you have to incorporate as much information as you can in order to present an informed judgment on something. You have biases, but as you gather information, you learn what those biases are and try to compensate.

In gathering this information, you learn about different views of the world. You learn that other people see things just as logically as you do and can yet come to completely different solutions.

When you don't know yourself, when you make knee-jerks reactive judgments based on biases or incomplete information, you panic when presented with alternative views and alternative information that discredits and maybe negates your own conclusions.

And panic leads to immature behavior. And children don't think, they believe, and when those beliefs are threatened, they try to believe even harder.

Making a commitment to something-- a relationship, a religion, a job, whatever-- requires an act of faith. It says that "I am in this fully because I believe in this and good will come from it."

When evidence to the contrary presents itself, how many people sit down and try to understand if it means something? Instead of trying to incorporate the new information either into their faith or to perhaps look more closely at that faith, the larger number of people with either reject the evidence out of hand ("He can't be having an affair! We just made love last night!") or reject the faith-object itself ("Boss, you promised me a promotion! I quit!").

Both of those are intelligent reactions, so long as they remain in the realm of first stage reactions (what we tell ourselves). Neither of those is intelligent actions until we can look deeper into the abyss of this new information and uncover what's really going on.

Our fears: justified, or not?

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

It's her own fault

By Mustang Bobby

Ross Douthat makes a half-hearted attempt to defend Sarah Palin against her enemies:

She should have said no.

If Sarah Palin’s political career ended last Friday, 10 tumultuous months after she was introduced as the Republican Party’s vice-presidential nominee, those five words will be its epitaph.

Had she refused John McCain, Palin would still be a popular female governor in a Republican Party starved for future stars. Her scandals would be the stuff of local politics, her daughter’s pregnancy a minor story in the Lower 48, her son Trig’s parentage a nonissue even for conspiracy theorists. There would still be plenty of time to ease into the national spotlight, to bone up on the issues, and to craft a persona more appealing than the Mrs. Spiro Agnew role the McCain campaign assigned to her.

Most important, nobody would have realized yet how much she looks like Tina Fey.

But she said yes. It wasn’t the right thing to do, in hindsight, but it was certainly the human thing. She was coming off a charmed rise through statewide politics. John McCain was offering her a spot on a national ticket. It was the chance of a lifetime.

He then goes on to defend her against the "elites" who sneered at her for her rural appeal, her idiosyncrasies of speech, and the fact that she didn't work her way up from a poor background to go to Columbia and Harvard:

Here are lessons of the Sarah Palin experience, for any aspiring politician who shares her background and her sex. Your children will go through the tabloid wringer. Your religion will be mocked and misrepresented. Your political record will be distorted, to better parody your family and your faith. (And no, gentle reader, Palin did not insist on abstinence-only sex education, slash funds for special-needs children or inject creationism into public schools.)

Male commentators will attack you for parading your children. Female commentators will attack you for not staying home with them. You’ll be sneered at for how you talk and how many colleges you attended. You’ll endure gibes about your “slutty” looks and your “white trash concupiscence,” while a prominent female academic declares that your “greatest hypocrisy” is the “pretense” that you’re a woman. And eight months after the election, the professionals who pressed you into the service of a gimmicky, dreary, idea-free campaign will still be blaming you for their defeat.

All of this had something to do with ordinary partisan politics. But it had everything to do with Palin’s gender and her social class.

Well, if that's true, then I have two words for you: Hillary Clinton. She put up with all of what Sarah Palin went through and worse and not only didn't quit her job as both First Lady or her marriage, but she went on to become a Senator, a presidential candidate, and now Secretary of State. Compared to what Ms. Clinton went through over the last eighteen years (and what Michelle Obama is already going through as well), Sarah Palin has had it easy, and she can't even make it through ten months in the spotlight. That has nothing whatsoever to do with her gender or her looks or her "enemies" -- a good deal of the "elites" attacking Ms. Palin were from her own party and within her own campaign.

So before we start working up the pity party for Sarah Palin, let's remember that she brought all of this on herself. Not because she said "Yes" to John McCain (which reminds us to wonder what kind of judgment Mr. McCain used to choose an untested and unvetted candidate for vice president in the first place), but for what she said afterward. She invited all of the attention to her family and her tenure as governor, and then got worked up when people and the press had the temerity to actually look into them. It had nothing to do with her gender or her social class, and to make those the excuses does no favors to feminism or the struggle for the ordinary person to gain some political clout.

Sarah Palin is beloved by millions because her rise suggested, however temporarily, that the old American aphorism about how anyone can grow up to be president might actually be true.

But her unhappy sojourn on the national stage has had a different moral: Don’t even think about it.

I can't help but think that Mr. Douthat and a lot of Republicans are secretly heaving a sigh of relief that Sarah Palin's fifteen minutes may be over. While they may outwardly blame the MSM and the elites, they're glad to see her go; it saved them the trouble of having to do it themselves.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

The trouble with Facebook

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Whoops:

The wife of the new head of MI6 has caused a major security breach and left his family exposed after publishing photographs and personal details on Facebook.

Sir John Sawers is due to take over as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service in November, putting him in charge of all of Britain’s spying operations abroad.

But entries by his wife Shelley on the social networking site have exposed potentially compromising details about where they live and work, their friends’ identities and where they spend their holidays. On the day her husband was appointed she congratulated him on the site using his codename “C”.

Lady Sawers had put virtually no privacy protection on her account, making it visible to any of the site’s 200m users around the world who choose to be in the open-access London social network on Facebook.

Wait. The trouble with Facebook? No, not so much. Rather, it's the trouble with Facebook users, some of whom, apparently, have not a clue. (Though perhaps Facebook should have strict privacy as the default setting. If I'm not mistaken, that is not presently the case.)

You'd think Sir John would have had a chat with his wife about security, no? Did he never question her about her Facebook account? Did it never come up?

Not too big to plan for failure

By Creature

As Hilzoy says, this is good news:

Under the administration's proposal, companies such as Citi, Goldman Sachs and others in a broad top tier engaged in complex transactions would face stricter scrutiny and have to hold more assets and more cash as cushions against a downturn.

They also would have to anticipate their own demise, drafting detailed descriptions of how they could be dismantled quickly without causing damaging repercussions. Think of it as planning their own funerals -- and burials. [...]

Under the administration's plan, the Treasury could decide to take a company swiftly through a bankruptcy-like process, appointing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as a conservator or receiver. The FDIC currently now only has the authority to take over troubled banks."

While I still think these too-big-to-fail banks should be dismantled now and the idea that these banks would "anticipate their own demise" leaves way too much wiggle room for those great at wiggling, this is a step in the right direction and should be encouraged.

I'm with Chuck

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From The Hill:

The healthcare reform bill that emerges from Congress this year will include a government-run public health insurance option, regardless of the bipartisan negotiations seeking a compromise in the Senate, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sunday.

"Make no mistake about it, the president is for this strongly. There will be a public option in the final bill," Schumer said on CBS News's "Face the Nation."

I hope he's right.

For Democrats, there's simply no excuse. Any reform bill without a "public" option, without an option that would guarantee coverage for all Americans, would be not just a disappointment but a failure to do what is right, what must be done, when given the opportunity.

No, it's not all with the Democrats. The Republicans who will vote en masse, and perhaps unamimously, against a bill with a public option, deserve perhaps even more of the blame. They are against universal health care, after all, and do not seem to care about the millions of uninsured Americans.

But the Democrats are in a position to do something about it. And this is no time for excuses.

The Reaction in review (July 5, 2009)

A weekend's Reactions that deserve a second look:

Sunday

By Capt. Fogg: "No exit?" -- Fogg explores the latest statement of Vice President Joe Biden on national sovereignty, concluding, "With Joe, you never know, but sometimes you worry."


Saturday

By Michael J.W. Stickings: "July 4, 2009" -- Michael's "Happy Fourth" message included a Jimi Hendrix Woodstock national anthem video, prompting happy comments.

By J. Thomas Duffy: "Happy Fourth of July!" -- Duffy's post adds to everyone's holiday pleasure with great music links and a neat visual, all in his usual exuberant style.

By Capt. Fogg: "Whither Sarah - more speculation" -- Fogg, the great word smith, elicited several comments: "So why is she doing this? It's nearly impossible to tell from her tangled and mangled speech, which of course makes her verbal mulch the the perfect medium for hydroponic conjecture."

By Michael J.W. Stickings: "Reactions to the Palin resignation" -- Michael delves into what others -- such as Bill Kristol, Josh Marshall, John Dickerson and Andrew Sullivan -- have said, closing with his own insightful "take" on the news.

(Cross posted at Behind the Links)

No exit?

By Capt. Fogg

Is it another case of Joe's foot and Joe's mouth, together again? This morning, Vice President Joe Biden told ABC that:

[W]e cannot dictate to another sovereign nation... if they make the decision they are existentially threatened.

No, he wasn't discussing Sartre, he was telling George Stephanopoulos that if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decides the international peace efforts concerning Iran are no longer doing anything worth waiting for, we wouldn't get in the way of Israel's actions:

Israel can determine for itself — it's a sovereign nation — what's in their interest, and what they do with Iran or anything else.

Yes, Joe, and we as the sovereign nation that makes their existence possible, can say hell no if we want to and let them ponder whether cutting off US aid is a bigger "existential" threat. Of course, Joe didn't answer the question of whether our hands-off policy extends to an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, and he did say we would continue to do what we thought was in our own best interests.

I'm left with many questions, the first of which is about how well Biden reflects actual US policy. Is he simply proposing not to interfere as a warning to Iran to get serious? Is he trying to avoid looking like the administration disapproves of Netanyahu? Is it just good cop, bad cop?

With Joe, you never know, but sometimes you worry.

Truth in Comics

By Creature


If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.

July 4, 2009

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I want to wish a very happy Fourth of July to all of you Americans out there -- and especially to my American co-bloggers (Americans make up the overwhelming bulk of The Reaction, even if I'm not one of them) and to my many American friends in the blogosphere. I hope you're having a wonderful day.

Without further ado, here's Jimi Hendrix performing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Woodstock -- almost 40 years ago:

Happy Fourth of July!

By J. Thomas Duffy

Hooray for the Red, White and Blue!

Happy Fourth of July! ... Independence Day!

The Garlic (and, The Reaction) wants to wish all a very happy, safe, enjoyable holiday, wherever, and whatever the manner in which you celebrate it.

This may be our only post of the day, as we haven't finished, what has been a burgeoning tradition the past two years, of penning a "Garlictorial" (see today's This Date ... On The Garlic, for the previous efforts).

If we don't get it up later in the day, perhaps tomorrow.

In the meantime, kick up your heels, with this well-worn classic;

Stars and Stripes Forever



If, you want something, a bit off the beaten path, we can hip you to another, that, unfortunately, almost, exists exclusively on jazz radio stations, invariably, blared out today on many a playlist.

It is the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, "Doodletown Fifers", performed, faithfully, by the Bill May Orchestra

The Doodletown Fifers

This, as it turned out, was the only big hit of the short-lived Sauter-Finegan Orchestra;

Sauter-Finegan was an extraordinary 21-piece band, the like of which has never been seen before or since. The music was so complex that it depended on first-class musicians, many of whom contributed on three or four instruments each . The exquisite music of Sauter and Finegan frolicked in every range of the band, with fife and piccolo at the top and tuba and bass trombone at the bottom.

Although never a raging success, the band was able to go on tour between 1952 and 1957 and it recorded a dozen or so albums. Its biggest hit was "The Doodletown Fifers", based on an old Civil War song. "Midnight Sleigh Ride" called for horse's hooves as an introduction and backing, and Finegan achieved this sound by stripping to the waist and beating his chest before the microphone.

You can go HERE, for the Sauter-Finegan rendition, just scroll down to "Doodletown Fifers"

(Jazz Freaks will know, that it was Eddie Sauter who arranged the Stan Getz album, "Focus")

So, once again, Happy Fourth of July!



(Cross Posted at The Garlic)

Whither Sarah - more speculation

by Capt. Fogg

I have to say I'm grateful that Sarah Palin has somewhat abated the psychotic media obsession with a dead neurotic surgery addict. She has the media and the bloggers back to doing what we all do best: speculating. So why is she doing this? It's nearly impossible to tell from her tangled and mangled speech, which of course makes her verbal mulch the the perfect medium for hydroponic conjecture.

David Wallechinsky seems to think Fox has made her an offer she can't refuse and we'll be seeing her in their little shop of horrors before long. He offers no evidence to interfere with belief, but it's filling and very satisfying, like comfort food, so I'll go along with it.

Max Blumenthal has what I think is a more credible scenario, based around the theory that an Alaska construction company, the same one that built the huge sports complex in Wasilla ( putting the town into serious debt) built her house as an inducement to get that job and future jobs after she became Governor. Todd and she have had personal and financial ties to the company of long standing.

Blumenthal also speculates about the effect a recent Salon article might have had on her decision. Revelations about her attempts to kill the stories about Husband Todd's affiliation with that Alaska secessionist group and provide false cover stories, may be about to blow up on her. Who knows, but of course the delicious irony, considering her attempts to portray Barak Obama as a "terrorist" who hates America, makes the idea hard to resist.

There are so many possibilities to delight the palate that I may be sorry if and when we ever figure out why! In a way I would love to see her as the next Republican presidential candidate, since she's so amazingly unqualified, but to be disgraced as a hypocrite and possible felon would satisfy my taste for justice perfectly. The worst outcome, in my opinion, would be to have her take her place on the Fox News Chorus, where hypocrisy, incompetence, dishonesty, lack of intelligence, irrational hostility and incipient dementia are prime qualifications . She could be as big a threat to our country as she would be in the White House, and of course there are no term limits on Fox.

Cross posted from Human Voices

Reactions to the Palin resignation

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Right now, most of the speculation, if not all of it, is premature, as speculation is wont to be. Still, everyone who is anyone, which is pretty much everyone, is weighing in. I checked Memeorandum a while ago, and the entirety of the "Top Items" section was given over to Palin's resignation, the first time I've ever seen such uniformity.

So let's delve into it a bit.

Bill Kristol, neocon extraordinaire and one of Palin's biggest boosters, is being predictably upbeat about it all:

After all, she's freeing herself from the duties of the governorship. Now she can do her book, give speeches, travel the country and the world, campaign for others, meet people, get more educated on the issues -- and without being criticized for neglecting her duties in Alaska. I suppose she'll take a hit for leaving the governorship early -- but how much of one? She's probably accomplished most of what she was going to get done as governor, and is leaving a sympatico lieutenant governor in charge.

And haven't conservatives been lamenting the lack of a national leader? Well, now she'll try to be that. She may not succeed. Everything rests on her talents, and on her performance. She'll be under intense and hostile scrutiny, and she'll have to perform well.

All in all, it's going to be a high-wire act. The odds are against her pulling it off. But I wouldn't bet against it.

Right, it's all proof of her outstanding courage, and Kristol's with her all the way.

Kristol presents himself as a "contrarian," but this is but the most prominent example of what is already the right's pro-Palin spin: Sure, she stepped down, and, sure, that looks bad, but it's for a good cause, a noble calling, and she may soon be our leader. Get down on your knees, our saviour has arrived.

Back in the real world, though, things look a little different.

For example, Josh Marshall offers some helpful perspective:

It seems like a colossal sulk on Palin's part, or perhaps better to say an effort on her part to ingeniously combine anti-liberal media bias agitation with Christianist politics by portraying herself as having been crucified by the liberal media.

*****

[T]his clearly happened so quickly that Palin hasn't even had a chance to come up with a coherent cover story for her resignation. Some context is probably helpful here, however. Remember that based on the public record, Palin is a wildly unethical public official, guilty at a minimum of numerous instances of abusing her authority as governor. And a lot of very damaging information has come out about her in the last few days -- though mainly embarrassing information about her character rather than new evidence of bad acts. I would not be surprised if this latest round of revelations shook something else loose that we haven't heard about yet.

And that very well may be the case. As Think Progress is reporting, Palin may have resigned "because she was trying to avert a major, yet-to-be-disclosed corruption scandal," one involving embezzlement.

Needless to say, we shall see.

As is so often the case when a major story breaks, I turn to Slate's John Dickerson, who offers this explanation (if an explanation is even possible this early on):

The larger reason for Palin's early departure was that she was having no fun. Ever since she returned to Alaska from the national stage, being governor has been a chore. Her political opponents have launched 15 ethics charges against her. The state economy has turned sour, and she got into an ugly squabble over federal stimulus funds. It's much more enjoyable to travel the country waving to adoring crowds of GOP activists.

So Palin decided to chuck her office for the limelight.
She can now tour the country as the only superstar in a party that desperately needs one. Because she can pack bleachers, she can raise money. In addition to boosting party morale and filling its coffers (and her own), she can build relationships nationwide that will be crucial if she really is interested in running for national office again.

This is sort of what I said yesterday. If I may quote myself:

What I think is that she's come to believe all the right-wing talk about how great and wonderful she is -- from the likes of Bill Kristol, as well as from Dear Leader Rush and the movement conservatives.

It could very well be that Alaska is simply too small for her now. Don't get me wrong, she's still a parochial fool. I don't think she's become some sort of genuinely national leader, or that she really has grown beyond Alaska. But, clearly, her ambitions have outgrown Alaska, and, after her sudden rise to the big time last year, and with the talk ongoing about her potential, she may just not want to govern a relatively small and insignificant state anymore.

In other words, when the going got tough -- that is, when she actually had to be governor at a time when things weren't going well, and with her adorers and admirers calling her from across the land -- she threw in the towel and moved on, and up, to what she surely imagines are much, much greener pastures. As HuffPo suggests, she just wanted to get the hell out of Alaska while the getting was good.

Let me conclude by quoting one of Palin's most fervent critics in the blogosphere, Andrew Sullivan, who, once again, may be right on here:

I guessed right, which I suppose reflects just how much time I've spent trying to figure what goes on in her head. I think the simple truth is that, as even Alaskan Republicans told us last September, she was far from able to be governor of Alaska, let alone vice-president of the United States. Once the klieglights hit, it was only a matter of time before she imploded or exploded or some gruesome combination of the two.

*****

In the end, I think, the one thing to say is that the Republican party is in such a total state of collapse and incoherence that it actually believed she could be a future president; and that John McCain was so reckless, so cynical and so cavalier that he was prepared to rest the national security of this country on her shoulders if he, in his seventies, were to become unable to fulfill his duties or die. In some ways, this is a moment to reflect on McCain, and his irresponsibility, not Palin and her drama.

I'm too stunned to say anything else, to tell you the truth. And yet not surprised at all.

Actually, I'm not stunned at all. It was inevitable that Palin's wildly exaggerated sense of self, blown up out of all proportion by her various enablers on the right (like Kristol), would win out, that she would give up Alaska for a full-out assault on the national scene.

Palin isn't going away, she's only going to get bigger. Even if her run for the top fails miserably, as it surely will, it won't be for lack of delusional self-righteousness on her part -- or on the part of those who form her inner circle and the bubble that shields her from reality.

Happy Fourth of July!