Kentucky Abolishes Marriage Altogether

Kentucky Abolishes Marriage Altogether

(Apr. 1) Louisville .  In the face of increasing pressure from traditionalist forces in the
mountains who argued that the concept of marriage is not in keeping with the
kind of marriages engaged in by the founders of the commonwealth in 1792,
Kentucky's General Assembly has agreed to prohibit all marriages. The new
law, signed by the governor, who apparenty mistook it for a self-pardon--takes
effect April 1.

 One of the few times conservative Christians and radical, bomb-throwing,
liberal gay and lesbian rights activists intent on destroying civilization as we
know it have been able to agree on any issue.

We looked at the state of marriage in frontier Kentucky in the 18th
century, says David Williams, president of the state senate, and realized,
hey, it in no way resembles what we now consider to be "traditional"
marriage Back then, historians informed him, Kentucky pioneers simply
coupled with each other in what would now be considered common law marriages.
No preacher was asked to perform a ceremony, and no licenses were required. If
the couple later decided to divorce, they simply told their neighbors and then
went off to couple with others.

Such customs were apparently in place in the British Isles for thousands of
years before the royal government clamped down in 1752 and required everyone to
obtain a marriage license.

"We welcome this return to the traditional concept of marriage" said David
Williams, former editor of The Letter (not to be confused with the senate's
Williams). For years we've been telling these people that if you really
want to go back to traditional marriage, then do away with marriage licenses and
do away with church ceremonies. Just cohabit like everyone did before the 18th
century. It makes the most sense, actually, because if things don't work out,
you don't have to go to court and face a judge and air all your private
grievances. It's a much more amicable arrangement.

Marriage has had a convoluted history. Before the Council of Trent in the 16th
century, the Roman Catholic Church refused to recognize it as a sacrament. Even
after that, marriage was considered a property rights institution engaged in
only by the wealthy who sought to protect their land by prudent marriages to
neighbors. Wives were considered no better than cattle, and children were
thought to be the unfortunate consequences of lust.

"At last" says David Williams (not to be confused with the former editor of
The Letter), "we've returned to the good old days when our commonwealth was
founded, when women were the property of the husband, and no activist court
could tell a family how to conduct their lives." Williams also feels the new
law reflects the type of marriages common in the Bible (a book which most
Christians perform idol worship on). "This is indeed," he concludes,
"what God intended."

UNBELIEVABLE

 

The head of a California company hired by the U.S. government to help build a fence along the Southwest border to curb the flow of illegal aliens into the United States has been sentenced on charges of hiring illegals for the job.

incase You Missed This One.......

What we call the news........

 

http://www.jibjab.com/what_we_call_the_news?jjeid=wwctn-sub

"In my universe, your life in the present moment is better than the best moments
you have ever loved in your past, and your future is even better than all that."

Ron Mills (-:

http://Breakthru.info

Memo To Time Inc.

Well, check out what we've just obtained: An internal memo from Time mag's research department to the mag's managing editor, Rick Stengel! How about that?

TO: Richard Stengel Time magazine Managing editor

FROM: Time magazine research department

RE: Your request for information about American attitudes towards Democratic investigations into GOP malfeasance

Dear Mr. Stengel:

Thank you for your request. We recognize, as you suggested in your earlier memo to us, that the many factual rebuttals and criticism of your recent assertion that an aggressive Democratic investigation into Karl Rove would be bad for Dems has produced on your part an urgency for some hard information about this matter. So we've endeavored to get this to you as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, in addition to the earlier polls many have written about, there are now two new polls that support the idea that the American public is broadly supportive of aggressive Democratic investigations into GOP malfeasance, both in a general and specific sense.

First, here's a new CBS poll that finds that there's indeed broad public interest in the U.S. Attorney firings story:

The CBS News poll finds that just half of Americans are following the news about the firing of several U.S. Attorneys but 40% say Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should resign, while 25% say he should not and 35% are not sure. Among those who say they are following the story closely, 55% think Gonzales should resign.

In the judgment of our researchers, CBS' use of the "just half" language is misleading. We judge that this is a striking finding giving how technically complicated this story is. Though we can't be entirely conclusive about this, we judge that the fact that sentiment is running strongly in favor of the view that Gonzales should resign -- combined with the high public interest in the story -- strongly suggest public support for aggressive Dem probes into these matters. After all, if large numbers want him to resign and hence think he did something wrong, it's reasonable to assume they'd look favorably on efforts to uncover such wrongdoing.

Here, meanwhile, is a second poll from Pew Research, just out this afternoon, that directly addresses these questions. It says:

The Democrats' stepped-up pace of investigations has not drawn much in the way of negative reaction. Just 31% believe Congress is spending too much time investigating possible government wrongdoing, while slightly more (35%) say they are spending too little time on this, and a quarter believe that the time spent on investigations has been appropriate...

In addition, more independents say Congress is spending too little time on investigations than too much (by 39%-29%). Roughly the same number of Democrats as independents say Congress is devoting too little time to investigations.

Though this poll was highlighted by one of your blogospheric critics, our researchers judge that he was right to draw attention to it. As you can see, it says that while less than a third (31%) think too much time is being spent on investigations, a substantial majority (60%) think either an appropriate amount of time or too little time is being spent on them. Also note that more people think too little time is being spent than think too much is.

In sum, our judgment is that the vast preponderance of evidence suggests that it's difficult to sustain the view that the American people are predisposed towards a negative view of such aggressive Congressional oversight. Incidentally, if you would allow us an observation outside our role for a moment, it is also our judgment that you are nonetheless on fairly safe ground repeating your initial point, even if it's factually unsustainable, since it is unlikely to attract much attention from reporters or commentators at the big news organizations and is unlikely to be rebutted in any serious way beyond the liberal blogosphere. (Though we'd be remiss if we didn't point out that you have come under some criticism from a former Time.com writer, Andrew Sullivan.)

We hope this information has been useful to you; as always, should you choose not to use it, we will keep this memo confidential. Please let us know if we can be of more assistance.

Rookie mistakes plague The Politico

UPDATED: Rookie mistakes plague The Politico

UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald expands on the Politico-Drudge connection.

OK, actually the headline of the piece that I'm writing about here is "Rookie Mistakes Plague Obama," and it's the latest effort from the new, right-wing narrative-boosting tag team of The Politico web site and Matt Drudge.

The thing is, I could write a story headlined "Rookie Mistakes Plague The Politico," and I would have a dynamite anecdote to back it up. It would be the story of how, with the whole world watching, The Politico, in existence for less than three months, botched the Elizabeth Edwards cancer story and falsely reported -- based on just one anonymous source -- that her husband would be dropping out of the presidential race.

Yep, that would be a doozy, and you could follow it up with the story -- as so well related by Glenn Greenwald last week -- of how the new Internet site wrongly reported that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would soon resign, or how The Politico also apologized for creating a right-wing talking point with the phrase "slow bleed" to describe the Democrats' Iraq strategy.

Unfortunately, Mike Allen of The Politico's new attack story on Sen. Barack Obama -- highlighted on the Drudge Report no later than 18 minutes after it was filed by Allen (how does he do it!) -- has no such doozy.

In fact, as a longtime journalist, I can assure you that writers save the best for first, and so here is Allen's lead-in:

Speaking early this month at a church in Selma, Ala., Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said: "I'm in Washington. I see what's going on. I see those powers and principalities have snuck back in there, that they're writing the energy bills and the drug laws."

It was a fine populist riff calculated to appeal to Democratic audiences as Obama seeks his party's presidential nomination. But not only did Obama vote for the Senate's big energy bill in 2005, he also put out a press release bragging about its provisions, and his Senate Web site carries a news article about the vote headlined, "Senate energy bill contains goodies for Illinois."

The press release said he voted for the bill "reluctantly" because he wanted something "bolder," and his staff says there was nothing inconsistent about the comment in Selma.

That's it? Here's how I understand this anecdote: Obama saw what was going on with the 2005 energy bill and didn't like what he saw, as he explained in Selma, but looked at the package as a whole and -- although "reluctant," as he acknowledged at the time -- cast a vote for it. Knowing all the facts, I'd assume that Obama wants to be president so he could help craft a "bolder" energy policy than the one he reluctantly voted for.

That's a rookie mistake? To me, the tale does illustrate why no sitting U.S. senator has been elected president since 1960 , because they're forced to explain their votes for or against murky compromise packages like this one.

When I read this, I figured there had to be a lot more mistakes coming to justify the heated headline (and Drudge treatment). But the mistake was mine. Instead, there's a lot of mushy, unsupported stuff like this:

Obama's gift with language -- his powerful speaking style and the graceful prose and compelling story of his best-selling memoir -- has been an engine of his dramatic, high-velocity rise in presidential politics. But he has also shown a tendency toward seemingly minor contradictions and rhetorical slips that serve as reminders that he is still a newcomer to national politics.

Huh? Such as...?

I won't rehash the No. 2 anecdote, which is cribbed (with proper credit) from the Chicago Tribune, and basically says that no one has been able to find a magazine picture from the 1960s -- when he was elementary-school age -- that shaped his views on race. Obama recalled it was in Life and apparently it wasn't, so it may or may not have run somewhere else. As I recall myself, being roughly the same age as Obama, there were a lot of magazines laying around in the 1960s.

Well, this is a shame because I thought Obama could be a decent president before I learned that one childhood memory had played a trick on him.

Yes, that was sarcasm. Could it be the case here that certain elements inside the Beltway, having worked a little too hard on their narratives to tear down Hillary Clinton, are frantically creating a new one as Obama rises in the polls? Sure smells that way. With about 19 months until the 2008 general election, there's still plenty of time to launch and implant a narrative that Obama is a fabulist and a myth-maker.

Even when what lies beneath that narrative is a fable in and of itself.

"In my universe, your life in the present moment is better than the best moments
you have ever loved in your past, and your future is even better than all that."

Ron Mills (-:

http://Breakthru.info

MEDIA: THE U.S. ATTORNEY PURGE IS OVERBLOWN

MEDIA: AMERICANS DON'T WANT ACCOUNTABILITY: Speaking about the U.S. attorney scandal last week, CNBC chief Washington correspondent John Harwood claimed that "[i]nvestigating the Bush administration is a lot easier than passing new laws," and cautioned that "[o]ne danger for Democrats is whether they look too political in exploiting this." The next day, NBC's Brian Williams "paraphrased" Harwood's comments, saying, "I can't help but wonder if the Democrats are finding it a little easier to investigate than legislate." Time magazine managing editor Richard Stengel chimed in this weekend. "I am so uninterested in the Democrats wanting Karl Rove, because it is so bad for them," he said, ignoring the fact that criticism of Rove and calls for him to testify have been bipartisan. "[I]t shows business as usual, tit for tat, vengeance," Stengel said. "That's not what voters want to see." In fact, public opinion data shows just the opposite. A USA Today poll conducted this weekend asked, "Do you think Congress should -- or should not -- investigate the involvement of White House officials in this matter?" An overwhelming majority, 72 percent, said it should. Sixty-eight percent said President Bush and his aides should "Answer all questions" rather than invoking executive privilege, and an equal number said Congress should "issue subpoenas to force White House officials to testify under oath" about the matter. This should come as little surprise. Last September, prior to the midterm elections, a CNN poll found that 57 percent of Americans thought it would be a good thing for Congress to "conduct official investigations into what the Bush administration has done in the last six years."

MEDIA: THE U.S. ATTORNEY PURGE IS OVERBLOWN: In mid-January, as early details of the administration's purge of U.S. attorneys began to trickle out, Time magazine reporter Jay Carney was already convinced the story was a dud. "[I]n this case some liberals are seeing broad partisan conspiracies where none likely exist," he wrote. To his credit, two months later, Carney acknowledged he was wrong. But many senior journalists continue to parrot this line, despite the serious wrongdoings and potential illegalities that have since been exposed. This past weekend, CBS national political correspondent Gloria Borger declared that members of Congress pursuing the attorney scandal merely "want to change the subject. ... They don't want to talk about how they're doing on the war in Iraq." MSNBC's Chris Matthews agreed. "They divide over the war and fund-raising, but this makes it simple. It's good for fund-raising." A March 22 Washington Post editorial stated that e-mails released by the Justice Department "for the most part suggest nothing nefarious in the dismissal process." (As Media Matters noted, "[W]hile the editorial referred to the 'e-mails that the administration has released,' it made no mention of the entire category of communications that the White House has said will not be released.") Roll Call executive editor Mort Kondracke claimed last week that there's "not a shred of evidence" that "there was a nefarious reason involved" in the firings. Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes agreed: "I'm still waiting to see some evidence of illegality or wrongdoing." Again, the American public is far ahead of the establishment media. Fully 58 percent, including 45 percent of Republicans, "say the ouster of the federal prosecutors was driven by political concerns."

"In my universe, your life in the present moment is better than the best moments
you have ever loved in your past, and your future is even better than all that."

Ron Mills (-:

http://Breakthru.info

The Enemy Within

 

 

 The Enemy Within

 

The Democrats' most dangerous opponent in '08 may be their own campaign consultants, who charge far more than GOP strategists -- and deliver far less

TIM DICKINSON

2008 has the makings of a banner year for Democrats. The wave of discontent that swept the GOP from Congress last November is growing, and the Iraq debacle will make it difficult for Republicans to retain the White House. But there is one group of powerful Washington insiders who have a proven ability to derail the Democrats. Working behind the scenes, these top-tier operatives humiliated Mike Dukakis in a tank, muzzled Al Gore on the environment and portrayed John Kerry -- a lifelong crusader for gun control -- as a rifle-toting Rambo. Year after year they have made sure that the Democratic message comes across as little more than a fuzzy, focus-grouped drone about child tax credits, prescription-drug plans and the "fight for working families."

And here's the depressing news: The Democrats pay them millions to do it.

The insiders are the political consultants hired by the Democrats to poll voters, shape strategy and devise campaign ads. With the exception of Bill Clinton, who brought in his own team of outside-the-Beltway mavericks, these top advisers have paved the way to Democratic defeat in every presidential election since 1980. "The political consultants," says longtime Gore policy staffer Elaine Kamarck, "have not served our presidential candidates well." Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, is even more blunt. "Forget what Shakespeare said," he advises. "First, kill all the consultants."

The party's campaign strategists operate under contracts that would make Halliburton blush. While their GOP counterparts work for a flat fee on presidential campaigns, Democratic media consultants profit on commission, pocketing as much as ten percent of every dollar spent on TV ads. It's a business model that creates "an inherent conflict of interest," concedes Anita Dunn, who served as a strategist for Bill Bradley in 2000. The more the candidate spends on TV advertising, the more the consultant cashes in. And that compensation is hidden from public scrutiny: Federal campaign reports reveal only what a campaign spends on ads, not how much the consultants skim off the top.

"Consulting," says former Gore campaign chair Tony Coelho, "is a business that can turn into a racket." Over the past two presidential elections, Rolling Stone estimates, that racket has cost the Democrats at least $10 million more in consultant fees than it did the Republicans. Even top GOP advisers, who usually counsel that greed is good, are amazed by the exorbitant fees. "If you want to elect your candidate, you ought to be able to work for a reasonable rate -- not try to haul off a sack full of profits," says Mark McKinnon, the lead media strategist for George Bush in both 2000 and 2004.

Overpaying consultants, McKinnon adds, may even have cost Democrats the White House. "Their consultants are getting ten percent -- that's outrageous." He laughs. "That's money that could have been spent on other parts of the campaigns. It might have captured 500 more votes in Florida for Gore in 2000 -- or maybe helped Kerry win Ohio in 2004."

Democratic consultants stand to walk away with an even bigger payday in 2008: The campaign could easily cost at least $2 billion, more than twice the '04 bill. And if the party continues to pay strategists a commission for every TV ad, much of that money will wind up wasted. "The consultants will be spending more money on bigger ad buys, trying to catch the few people who watch ads today," says Chris Lehane, a strategist on the Clinton and Gore campaigns. "It's a crazy, illogical position."

But as long as that's where the money is, that's what the consultants will do. "There's little impetus to try anything new," says Joe Trippi, who orchestrated Howard Dean's insurgency in 2004. "You can't get a ten percent commission on a million people viewing something for free on YouTube."

Top consultants interviewed by Rolling Stone refuse to reveal how they will be compensated in 2008. But when the dust settles, party insiders warn, those who write checks to the Democrats won't be happy with the results. "Donors will be shocked at how their money is spent," says Coelho, "and who walks away with multimillions."

Ask any consultant and they'll tell you they get too much credit when a candidate wins -- and too much blame when he loses. The candidate is the one who has the vision, sets the strategy and makes the decisions. "Consultants don't come to meetings with weapons," jokes Dunn, the former Bradley adviser.

But in a political era driven by media and technology, consultants have become kings of the campaign hill. "TV is so important that they're elevated to the top hierarchy," says Lehane. "They're in the room with the candidate when the doors are closed." The consultant then brings aboard a pollster who will back up his advice with hard data, selling the candidate on the kind of campaign they can "prove" appeals most to swing voters. "Candidates fall for what look like hard numbers," says Sabato, author of The Rise of Political Consultants. "But in fact they're not hard at all: The pollsters manipulate the questions and interpret the data, and too many candidates go along with it."

Which is precisely what happened in the last two presidential elections. In 2000, the chief Democratic consultant was Bob Shrum, a veteran known for orchestrating no fewer than six losing Democratic presidential bids. Shrum advised Gore to downplay his trademark issue -- the environment -- because it didn't rate as a top issue for enough voters. "They took his best gun and threw it in the river," says McKinnon, the Bush strategist. For his catastrophic counsel, Shrum's firm demanded fifteen percent of the ad buy, but Coelho knocked it down to ten percent. "They were not happy about it," he recalls. "So they pushed advertising expenditures even more." The consultants pocketed an estimated $5 million -- compared to $500,000 for McKinnon -- even though their ads were terrible. "The Republican spots were far more original," says Coelho. "We paid our consultants millions and got retread Mondale ads."

The 2004 campaign played out like a bad sequel. The Kerry team, once again headed by Shrum, advised the candidate to focus on prescription-drug benefits rather than national security and counseled Kerry not to respond to the Swift Boat attack ads. "The consultants turned him into Generic Democrat," says Jonathan Winer, a longtime Kerry counselor. "And Generic Democrat will always lose." Shrum's team spent an estimated $130 million for advertising -- roughly triple Gore's ad budget -- receiving a commission of 4.5 percent on top of a payment of $2.5 million. Once again, the ads were a disaster: While Bush's team used data-mining to microtarget voters with cable TV and Internet appeals, Shrum relied on network television. "The Bush campaign did everything a sophisticated Fortune 100 company would do," says Lehane. "The ads Kerry ran were so unfocused that they not only didn't help him, they actually helped Bush."

In the wake of such costly failures, Shrum has mercifully been put out to pasture -- but the track records of those vying to replace him hardly inspire confidence. Barack Obama's top strategist, David Axelrod, got his start helping the last presidential candidate from Illinois -- Sen. Paul Simon -- lose to Mike Dukakis in 1988. John Edwards has hired Harrison Hickman, who served as a top pollster for Gore in 2000. And Stanley Greenberg, another Gore pollster who worked closely with Shrum, is helping Sen. Chris Dodd burn through his campaign war chest.

"If you fail regularly in the commercial world, you don't get hired anymore," says Bill Hillsman, the consultant who engineered the long-shot victory of Sen. Paul Wellstone in Minnesota and helped the unknown Ned Lamont topple Sen. Joe Lieberman in Connecticut. "But if you fail regularly in the political arena, it has no bearing on your future income stream. You seem to get hired more and more -- simply because other people have hired you."

The only candidate with winning consultants on her team is Hillary Clinton, who is relying on pollster Mark Penn and media consultant Mandy Grunwald, both of whom are veterans from Bill's presidential victories. But stripped of their charismatic frontman, neither Grunwald nor Penn has made much of a splash in presidential politics. In 2004, the pair teamed up on the failed "Joementum" candidacy of Lieberman, who never rose above a second-place finish in Delaware. And so far they have only contributed to the impression that Clinton is the most scripted and poll-tested of all the candidates. In the online video Grunwald created to unveil Clinton's candidacy, Hillary engages viewers in a teleprompted "chat" from the deep-cushioned confines of her living room sofa. "It's such a put-on," says Sabato. "Her consultants said, 'Act natural.' And that's exactly what she did: She acted natural. Primping the pillows. It was hilarious."

The return of so many of Bill's top guns also runs the risk of making Hillary sound like a stand-in, lip-syncing the same old lines. She promises to fight -- as her husband did -- for people who "work hard and play by the rules," and has trotted out his chestnut, "There's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what is right with America." Such lack of innovation, says Sabato, is part of the problem with drawing from the same small pool of consultants year after year. "They've all worked on dozens of campaigns together," he says. "They have formula campaigns, formula ads. They even transfer slogans."

Axelrod, who is advising Obama's campaign, insists that he doesn't plan to package his candidate based on polls. "We will rise or fall based on who Barack Obama is," he says. "We're not going to reinvent him." In reality, though, Axelrod's emphasis on authenticity is itself a formula -- the same one he used twenty years ago to try and sell Paul Simon. In a voice-over for one of Axelrod's spots in 1988, the famously dowdy Simon intoned, "The public-relations specialists tell me, 'Get rid of the bow tie, get rid of the horn-rimmed glasses, change your views to accommodate public-opinion polls.' My bow tie is . . . my declaration of independence. You'll have to take me for what I am."

In addition to repeating old messages, consultants are likely to push the Democrats to buy TV ads that accomplish little -- except driving up the commissions for consultants. "There's no market incentive for the consultant class," says Lehane. "It pays whether they win or lose." When a Democratic candidate asks why their campaign isn't getting traction, says Hillsman, the answer from consultants will be the same as always: "You're not spending enough on TV advertising."

The single-minded emphasis on television could be more disastrous than ever next year, given the GOP's ability to target voters at the micro level. "Our strategic targeting remains primitive," admits Dunn, the former Bradley consultant. Lehane is even more incensed by the lack of technological sophistication. "People are not getting their information the same way they were five years ago, yet the consultants have been very slow to react," he says. "Why aren't campaigns doing what Google and Yahoo do: using algorithms to analyze e-mail lists and figure out what moves people on a daily basis? If you had this conversation with a consultant in Washington, they'd say, 'What do you mean, algorithm?' "

In fact, the ads that work today are almost never the ones a candidate pays to keep on TV -- they're the ones that earn free airtime when they're covered on CNN or spread virally on YouTube. "Earned media like the Swift Boat ads are the ones that change things, because people talk about them," says Markos Moulitsas, founder of the influential Daily Kos blog. Hillsman, considered a maverick among consultants, has had success selling candidates the way Apple sells Macs: with memorable, creative, even funny spots. Last summer, one of his commercials for Lamont became the second-most-viewed video on YouTube.

Yet consultants insist on airing the same spots over and over -- even though ads wear out their welcome after they have been seen ten or twelve times. "They really do believe that you can annoy someone into voting for your candidate," Hillsman says. "Viewers are seeing political ads as often as thirty times in the same market. It's asinine! Not only do the ads stop having any positive effect, you actually get a backlash against it."

The only solution, say Democratic veterans, is to take a page from the GOP playbook and eliminate the commissions that motivate consultants to go ad-crazy. "Our candidates need a Karl Rove," says Kamarck, the former Gore staffer. "Somebody who is on their side -- not in it for fifteen percent of the media buy." Based on recent discussions, Dunn believes that commissions will be increasingly rare. "Candidates are moving to a fixed fee," she says.

But fixed fees are only an improvement if they're negotiated down. For her work on Hillary Clinton's re-election campaign last year, Grunwald received an estimated fee of nearly $1 million -- double what consultants on Senate campaigns typically make from commissions. Penn also pocketed some $1 million for his role in helping Clinton spend $30 million -- more than any other Democrat -- for what was essentially an uncontested election.

Those figures suggest that, commission or no commission, consultants will continue to find ways to bleed the Democrats dry. In recent weeks, Clinton has raised $1 million in small-dollar donations online. If the past is prelude, that money won't cover what Clinton will shell out for a single consultant in 2008. Win -- or lose.

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/13883484/national_affairs_the_enemy_within/print

The Way We Were

* DISCLAIMER

I was a Volunteer, for Florida For Hart in 1984

Ron Mills

 

 

I will never forget sitting in the first row of the California delegation at the 1984 Democratic Convention in San Francisco and watching Gary Hart, a young and vibrant United States Senator from Colorado, challenge Vice President Mondale for the Democratic nomination for president. While the Vice President was a good man with a distinguished record, he was the establishment candidate and represented the status quo.

On the other hand, Senator Hart embodied the excitement of youth as the first baby boomer to seek the presidency. He was one of us and a reformer with a dynamic vision for the future. His candidacy marked the beginning of the baby boomer era in Democratic Party politics.

The peak of my generation's political power was the ascent of Governor Bill Clinton to the presidency in 1992. His campaign was exhilarating, driven by a candidate cool enough to wear stylish sunglasses and play the saxophone on Arsenio Hall. Clinton campaigned without a jacket and with his shirt sleeves rolled up. He seem fearless and overflowed with hope for resolving the policy issues of the day. He articulated a vision and, for the first time, told us that we were part of it. The youthful and reform-minded Clinton led his baby boomer generation in vanquishing the entrenched Washington establishment created by Reagan and Bush, Sr.

When blocked by traditional politics or political machines who wanted to continue the status quo, Clinton filled up arenas with young people, organized thousands and thousands of volunteers, bypassed traditional ways of campaigning and appealed directly to the constituencies of the Democratic Party to create a new coalition to lead into the new millennium. It was an extraordinary time to be in politics.

It sounds almost sounds like Barack Obama or John Edwards today, doesn't it?

How ironic that, in many ways, Senator Hillary Clinton represents the end of that era. She may just be the baby boomer generation's last hurrah.

Today, the Clintons run the political machine trying to save the status quo in the Democratic Party. Their fundraising operation is notorious for its ruthlessness and elitism. Their circle of advisors and friends are tough and aggressive with anyone who refuses to pledge allegiance. They are surrounded by money collectors like Terry McAuliffe who shakedown donors with warnings that they will be punished if they give to another candidate. Senator Clinton's position on the Iraq War is by far the most calculated of any candidate. And on so many other issues, her positions are measured and break no new ground. Each appearance is predictable and perfectly arranged. Whether by necessity or choice, the spontaneity, exuberance and hope we saw in both of the Clintons in 1992 is gone.

In many ways, Senator Barack Obama is today's Bill Clinton. Like Clinton in 1992, he is packing arenas with young voters, campaigning in shirtsleeves, and calling America to believe in a new generation of politics. His candidacy stands in stark contrast to the safe predictable status quo Clinton campaign. Unlike Senator Clinton, he understood the consequences of invading Iraq and refused to support the war from day one. Like President Clinton in 1992, he is mobilizing thousands of cynical and disenfranchised voters and welcoming them back into the Democratic Party.

Ted Sorenson, President John F. Kennedy's legendary speechwriter, recently endorsed Obama saying he represents the spirit of President Kennedy's campaign in 1960.

It must not be easy for President Clinton to see a youthful figure like Senator Obama rise to become the hope and future of the Democratic Party. That is a place he has held for more than 14 years. And that is exactly the Clintons' problem. He was elected almost 15 years ago and they have become the establishment. The people around them have a vested interest in preserving power and not making change.

Then there is John Edwards - the 2008 issues candidate - who is articulating bold policy positions and giving voice to the powerless. The former Senator recently mailed more than 70,000 DVDs to Iowa voters on universal health care and his pragmatic plan to make it happen. Clearly declaring his opposition to the Iraq War, Edwards' speech at Riverside Church remains the best political address in the campaign so far.

I think famous progressive Robert Scheer captures the essence of the Edwards campaign. He recently posted on truthdig.com these comments about Edwards after Anne Coulter's outrageous statement at the CPAC convention:

No wonder Coulter hates him: Edwards is a Democrat who believes in the progressive heritage of his party and is not afraid to tell the world.

"I want to say something about my party," Edwards said in a speech at UC Berkeley on Sunday. "I'm so tired of incremental, careful caution. Where is our soul?" He was referring to, among other issues, the party's failure to deal boldly with "the bleeding sore that is Iraq."

Unlike rival Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, he has forthrightly apologized for his Senate vote to authorize the war and called for ending it, starting with "immediately" cutting troop levels by half and then withdrawing all troops within the next 12 to 18 months. In a pointed rebuke to the Democratic leadership of Congress, Edwards states on his website, "We don't need non-binding resolutions; we need to end this war, and Congress has the power to do it. They should use it now." Edwards_2

On domestic issues, Edwards has hewed to the progressive line he maintained in the 2004 campaign, warning about the growing income inequality in the "two Americas." As opposed to the Clintons, who still insist that they solved the poverty problem with Bill's putting an end to the federal welfare program, Edwards points out correctly, "Every day, 37 million Americans wake in poverty." Stating that "our response to that reality says everything about the character of America," Edwards has called for a national program to eliminate poverty instead of leaving the poor to the tender mercy of the states as called for in the Clinton welfare reform.

It is also refreshing for a politician to invoke the image of Jesus, as Edwards did Monday, not as a divisive symbol of intolerance but rather as the inspiration for social justice and peace. "I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs," he said. "I think he would be appalled, actually."

As he did in the 2004 campaign as the Democrats' vice presidential candidate, Edwards has once again made relief for the struggling middle class a signature issue, strongly attacked tax breaks for the rich and the mindless globalization that is widening the class divide. He is equally strong on environmental issues, following 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore's leadership on global warming, and he has had the courage to bluntly oppose the Clinton-era "don't ask, don't tell" hypocrisy on gays in the military.

"Gay men and women have continually served our country with honor and bravery, and we should honor their commitment and never turn away anyone who is willing to serve their country because of sexual orientation," he said. These words were of particular resonance, coming on the heels of the announcement by the first U.S. Marine seriously wounded in Iraq that he is gay.

So, there it is. While the Clintons lead the party in a chorus of "The Way We Were," the charismatic Barack Obama and the substantive John Edwards are giving us a glimpse at the future of the Democratic Party. My baby boomer generation has had our run and the next generation is boldly stepping up to lead and to create a new vision for America.

That is a good thing.

 

Originally posted at DavidMixner.com

"In my universe, your life in the present moment is better than the best moments
you have ever loved in your past, and your future is even better than all that."

Ron Mills (-:

http://Breakthru.info

Friday, March 23, 2007

White House Spins Iraqi Polling

 

Tony Snow says two polls on Iraqi optimism are "diametrically opposed." A close look shows otherwise.

 

Summary

Results of an ABC News survey of public opinion in Iraq found much pessimism as the fourth anniversary of the war approached. When asked for comment, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow cited a British poll which he said offered a "different conclusion." The British poll's summary did sound less gloomy, but a close look at the numbers showed that the actual results of the two polls are similar.

Analysis

On March 19th, ABC News, and its news media partners, announced the results of a new survey of public opinion in Iraq, the third in a series of Iraqi polls it has conducted roughly every year and a half beginning in February 2004. The previous poll was released in November 2005, and its findings were trumpeted by President Bush as proof that "Iraqis are optimistic -- and that optimism is justified." At that time we found that Bush was citing the polls findings selectively, and that neither Bush nor his critics had accurately painted the full complexity of Iraqi public opinion.

This time the Bush administration isn't embracing the latest poll at all. It found "a draining away of the underlying optimism that once prevailed." Conclusions were so unrelentingly negative that the report is titled, "Ebbing Hope in a Landscape of Loss."  

When asked about these findings at a press briefing, Press Secretary Snow replied that "there was also a British poll at the same time that had almost diametrically opposed results." That mischaracterizes the British poll.

Snow is referring to a poll conducted by the British firm Opinion Research Business . There is nothing in the ORB poll results that contradicts ABC's poll findings. In fact, when the two survey companies asked similar questions, their results were very much in line.  For example:

 

ABC Poll Q2. Compared to the time before the war in Spring 2003, are things overall in your life much better now, somewhat better, about the same, somewhat worse or much worse? 42% -"Better" 36% -"Worse"

ORB "British" Poll Q8. Taking everything into account, do you feel that things are better for you now under the present political system or do you think things were better for you before under the previous regime of Saddam Hussein? 49% -"Better under the current system" 26% -"Better under the previous regime"

 

So the British poll found a somewhat greater share of its sample – 49 percent as opposed to 42 in the ABC poll – saying that life is better under the current regime. However, the difference is not much more than the statistical margins of error (+/- 1.4% for ORB, +/- 2.5% for ABC). The polls were completed within 11 days of each other in February and early March.

What is different is the way the British poll presents its findings. The press release from ORB says:

ORB: The poll shows that despite the horrendous personal security problems only 26% of the country preferred life under the previous regime of Saddam Hussein, with almost half (49%) preferring life under the current political system.

This language is markedly more positive than the summary of the ABC poll, despite there being little real difference in the results. It is ABC's poll, however, that digs far more deeply. ABC asked 54 questions (beyond demographic ones such as, "age" and "profession") to the British poll's eight. ABC (and its partners, the BBC, USA Today and ARD German TV) asked Iraqis dozens of questions about quality of life, compared with ORB's two or three. ABC can also measure historical trends by comparing three sets of answers to the same questions over a 36 month period.

It's worth considering the source of the British poll. ORB lists Britan's Conservative Party (the tories) as a client, the leader of which describes it as "sister party" to the U.S. Republicans. The Conservative Party supported the invasion of Iraq and supports the presence of the "Coalition of the Willing" there.

Press Secretary Snow was pushed at the March 19 press briefing to comment officially on the ABC poll and he reiterated that, " there was a British poll with twice the sample that reached a different conclusion." ORB's sample size is 5,019. ABC's is 2,212. Either way, the actual numbers of the British poll seem only to bolster the grim conclusions of ABC's.

Continue reading to view comparisons of three other similar questions from the two polls.

- by Justin Bank

Preferred Government

ABC Poll Q14: Which of the following structures do you believe should have in the future? 58% –"One unified Iraq with  central government in Baghdad 28% -"A group of regional states with their own regional governments and a a federal government in Baghdad" 14% -"Dividing the country into separate independent states"

ORB "British" Poll Q5: On balance, which of the following alternatives would you prefer for the future of ? 64% -"The current system, Iraq a single country with a central national government" 21% -"A new federal system with independent regional governments for areas such as the Kurdish North, Sunni West, and Shia South"

 

 

 

Exposure to Violence

ABC Poll Q35: Have you or an immediate family member – by which I mean someone living in this household – been physically harmed by the violence that is occurring in the country at this time? 17% -"Yes" 83% -"No" Q37: Do you have any close personal friends or immediate family members living outside this household who have been physically harmed by violence that is occurring in the country at this time? 47% -"Yes" 53% -"No"

ORB "British" Poll Q3: Which of the following have you personally experienced in the last three years? 26% -"The murder of a member of my family/relative" 12% - "The murder of a friend or colleague" 8% -"The kidnapping of a member of my family/relative" 6% -"The kidnapping of a friend or colleague" 50% -"None of the above"

 

 

 

 

 

Civil War?

 

ABC Poll Q52. Do you think is or is not involved in a civil war at this time? 42% -"Yes" 56% -"No"

 

ORB "British" Poll Q4. Which of the following comes closest to your own opinion about the state of at the moment? 27% -" is in a state of civil war" 22% -" is close to a state of civil war but not in one yet." 18% -" is still some way from a civil war" 21% -"I don't think will ever get as far as a civil war"

 

Sources

Langer, Gary, "Voices From Iraq 2007: Ebbing Hope in a Landscape of Loss," ABC News. 19 March 2007.

Bush, George, "President's Address to the Nation," White House. 18 Dec 2005.

Snow, Tony, "Press Briefing," White House. 19 March 2007.

Opinion Business Research, "March 07 - Despite violence only 26% preferred life under Saddam," News Release. 7 March 2007.

 

 

Bloggers At The Gate

Bloggers Storm the Senatorial Gates

In the latest sign of the growing strength of the liberal "net roots" community, Senate Democrats have invited a trio of prominent bloggers into one of their formal, inside-the-Capitol luncheons for the first time.

On Thursday, John Aravosis of AMERICAblog, David Waldman, a contributing editor at Daily Kos, and Duncan Black of Eschaton are slated to brief the Senate Democratic Policy Committee luncheon.

 

That's a weekly gathering of the Democratic caucus, led by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), and held inside the stately Lyndon Baines Johnson room just off the Senate floor. This particular meeting is always a bit less formal than the Tuesday caucus luncheons, where group policy decisions are hashed out. Instead, the Dorgan meetings are meant to stir discussion and long-term thinking about issues.

In an interview with Capitol Briefing today, Dorgan acknowledged this was a big step for the group, actually inviting the progressive supporters (and sometimes agitators) into their meetings. "It's a new world out there," Dorgan said. "The Internet is changing everything."

Dorgan declined to elaborate on what he expected from Aravosis, Waldman and Black, whether they would be specifically asked to stick to talking about technology or whether they would also be advising the caucus on tactics. But he said he's particularly interested in learning more about what the Internet has done to transform public discourse on issues and politics.

 

"How are these [technological] changes affecting the public dialogue?" he asked.
Normal attendees to Dorgan's luncheon are establishment liberal-to-moderate activists, authors and former officials. In recent years that's included figures such as New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman, Democratic strategists James Carville and Paul Begala, and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. A few years back, when Dorgan really wanted to stir the pot, he invited Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corp. and the head of FOX News, into the Democratic lion's den.

Senate Democrats have grown closer to the net roots crowd in the last two years, including moves by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), to hire a staffer more than two years ago whose sole job was to work with progressive bloggers.

 

But the blogosphere has never before been invited into the Capitol to address the Democratic caucus, according to Dorgan. The closest it has come was two years ago at an informal policy retreat the caucus held across the street in a meeting room of the Library of Congress.

 

Considering the distinguished tenures and ages of some members of the caucus -- Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.), 89; Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), 75, just to name two -- how much will they be able to follow along with the high-tech dialogue on Thursday?

"Every member of our caucus is sharp as a tack, up to date and Internet savvy," Dorgan said, pausing for effect. "That's our position and we're sticking to it."

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2007/03/bloggers_storm_the_senatorial.html

 

For Politics See: http://PoliTalk1.BlogSpot.com

 

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Once Again Politico.com Proves to be a GOP-Faux-News Mouth Piece

Once Again Politico.com Proves to be a GOP-Faux-News Mouth Piece

 

 

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0307/CORRECTION_Edwards_Campaign_Goes_On.html

 

Obama runs away from Soros

Obama runs away from Soros on AIPAC:

a) Well, what did you expect? Obama is a pragmatic politician who is running a genuine campaign for president. Is anyone who could possibly be president any braver?

b) Kind of proves Soros' point, dontcha think?

The Soros piece is here, and Joe Lelyveld's excellent discussion of the Jimmy Carter controversy is here. And when you think about pro-Israel bias in the media, consider this for a second. The Washington Post's Book World gave Carter's book not only to someone who's Jewish, not only to someone who worked for the Forward during its days as a neocon outfit, but to someone who served in the Israeli army. And nobody thinks anything of it. Can you imagine the kvetching you'd here from Abe Foxman, Marty Peretz, Alan Dershowitz, etc., if Carter's book had been given to someone who'd fought for the Palestinians and got his start writing for a pro-PLO newspaper? I get a headache just thinking about it.

I was asked by an academic journal last year to peer-review a paper comparing the coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in The New York Times and Ha'aretz. I thought it was quite revealing -- and yes, the Times is way more biased toward the hawkish Israeli point of view -- but I don't think it was ever published, which is a shame. It had problems, but was overall quite compelling. If anyone has heard of it since, let me know, pelase.

 

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Texas We Have A Problem

 

Top White House aide Karl Rove continues to portray the U.S. Attorney scandal as "a lot of politics," something for Congress to "play around with." But the continuing allegations of wrongdoing and dishonesty are placing heavy pressure on senior Bush administration figures. "Republican officials operating at the behest of the White House have begun seeking a possible successor to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales," whose support among conservative lawmakers has "collapsed," The Politico reported last night. It is a "now a virtual certainty that Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty, whose incomplete and inaccurate congressional testimony about the prosecutors helped precipitate the crisis, will also resign shortly." Rove's spin cannot paper over the serious ethical and legal questions raised by the U.S. Attorney purge, and the administration's subsequent effort to cover up its deeds.

THE ETHICS PROBLEM: Several members of Congress -- including Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Reps. Heather Wilson (R-NM) and Doc Hastings (R-WA) -- have acknowledged that they or their offices contacted a U.S. Attorney about an ongoing case, which may violate congressional ethics rules. The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) alleges that Domenici's call to U.S. attorney David Iglesias violated an ethics rule stating that "Senate offices should refrain from intervening in such legal actions...until the matter has reached a resolution in the courts," and that "Senators are not to communicate with an agency regarding ongoing enforcement or investigative matters." Wilson and Hastings may have violated similar House ethics rules.

THE LEGAL PROBLEM -- LYING TO CONGRESS: There are at least two instances where Bush administration officials may have violated federal law in the course of this scandal. One involves testimony to Congress by Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty that the Justice Department would never fire U.S. attorneys for political reasons. Subsequent Justice Department e-mails have shown that to be untrue. It is illegal to lie to Congress, and the relevant provision "is very broad." Gonzales has blamed their inaccurate testimony on his former chief of staff Kyle Sampson, who resigned last week after Gonzales said Sampson had provided "incomplete information" to senior Justice Department officials. But as CREW explains, "Federal law provides that if Sampson knew that he was causing DOJ officials to make inaccurate statements to Congress, he can be prosecuted for the federal crime of lying to Congress even though he did not personally make any statements to Congress." Now Sampson's lawyer now says other top Justice Department officials knew of the White House's role. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) said last week that "Kyle Sampson will not become the next Scooter Libby, the next fall guy."

THE LEGAL PROBLEM -- OBSTRUCTING AN INVESTIGATION: Secondly, "if the attorneys were fired to interfere with a valid prosecution, or to punish them for not misusing their offices, that may well have been illegal." "Fired San Diego U.S. attorney Carol Lam notified the Justice Department that she intended to execute search warrants on a high-ranking CIA official as part of a corruption probe the day before a Justice Department official sent an e-mail that said Lam needed to be fired," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said on Sunday. Feinstein "said the timing of the e-mail suggested that Lam's dismissal may have been connected to the corruption probe." Congress has also called for an investigation of the removal of Frederick Black, the U.S. attorney in Guam, who was fired after he began investigating criminal lobbyist Jack Abramoff. "Anyone involved in firing a United States attorney to obstruct or influence an official proceeding could have broken the law. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said last week that if an attorney is fired "to stop an ongoing investigation, then you do get into the criminal area."

THE INDEPENDENCE PROBLEM: E-mails show that the Bush administration rated the "performance" of U.S. attorneys on whether or not they were "loyal Bushies." The White House is now justifying its prosecutor purge by arguing that since these attorneys are "political" appointees who "serve at the pleasure of the President," there's nothing objectionable about them being fired for political reasons. But as Feinstein has pointed out, "political" means only that they are appointed by the President. "[O]nce that prosecutor takes the oath of office, that prosecutor must become independent," she said. "That prosecutor must be objective and what I worry about most of all in this is the chilling effect this has on objectivity of the American U.S. attorney who is the main prosecutor for the federal government of big cases under federal law." Likewise, Leahy noted that while there is nothing illegal in a president firing a U.S. attorney, the message it sends to law enforcement is, "You either play by our political rules -- by our political rules, not by law enforcement rules, but by our political rules -- or you're out of a job. What I am saying is that that hurts law enforcement, that hurts fighting against crime." Atlee W. Wampler III, chairman of a national organization of former United States attorneys and a prosecutor who served in the Carter and Reagan administrations, agrees: "People who understand the history and the mission of the United States attorney and Justice Department they are uniformly appalled, horrified," he said. "That the tradition of the Justice Department could have been so warped by that kind of action -- any American should be disturbed."

Under the Radar ADMINISTRATION -- NO PRECEDENT EXISTS BARRING WHITE HOUSE AIDES FROM TESTIFYING TO CONGRESS: Last week, Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) called on Karl Rove and other top White House aides to testify under oath on their roles in the U.S. attorney purge. In response, the White House and its allies have put up a fight, arguing that presidential advisers have historically not testified in front of Congress. In reality, there is no such precedent. According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), under President Clinton, 31 of his top aides testified on 47 different occasions. The aides who testified included some of Clinton's closest advisers such as George Stephanopoulos (Senior Adviser to the President for Policy and Strategy) and John Podesta (Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary). In contrast, between 2000 and 2004, Bush allowed only one of his closest advisers, then-Assistant to the President for Homeland Security Tom Ridge, to appear in front of Congress. He has also refused three invitations from Congress for his aides to testify; Clinton did not refuse any. CRS also notes that although "White House aides do not testify before congressional committees in a regular basis...under certain conditions they do. First, intense and escalating political embarrassment may convince the White House that it is in the interest of the President to have these aides testify and ventilate the issue fully. Second, initial White House resistance may give way in the face of concerted congressional and public pressure." IRAQ -- STAYING THE COURSE FOUR YEARS LATER: President Bush's schedule yesterday "originally called for no observation whatsoever of the four-year-anniversary of the war." Before altering his plans, Bush's only public event called for playing host to the 2006 college football champion Florida Gators. He proceeded with those plans in the afternoon, shaking hands and celebrating the occasion. (Video HERE.) But at the last minute, he added a brief public statement, which recycled past Iraq-anniversary speeches and advocated a stay the course approach.  The media quickly echoed the President's talking points, arguing that his escalation is showing "progress" in Iraq. Fox News's Brit Hume said the escalation "does seem to be making a difference so far," even though a senior administration official admitted "right now there is no trend" showing the new strategy is working. Fox News's Neil Cavuto did a segment on "something you are not hearing" -- how many Iraqis are "thanking" the United States for "liberating" Iraq. In reality, a new poll shows that just 18 percent of Iraqis now have confidence in the U.S.-led coalition troops and nearly 90 percent "say they live in fear that the violence ravaging their country will strike themselves and the people with whom they live." Similarly, Kadhim al-Jubouri, an Iraqi weightlifter who was enlisted to help bring down the statue of Saddam Hussein in 2003, said, "I really regret bringing down the statue. ... The Americans are worse than the dictatorship. Every day is worse than the previous day." Vice President Cheney marked the Iraq anniversary by attending the Hudson Institute Board Dinner at the swanky Union League Club in New York. Yesterday, The Progress Report contacted the Vice President's office to request details about what Cheney would be talking about. "No one in the office can answer that question," said a Cheney staffer. The Hudson Institute -- a proponent of war against Iran -- is home to Cheney's former chief of staff Scooter Libby. NATIONAL SECURITY -- FBI REWRITES RULES ON PHONE RECORDS: Earlier this month, the Justice Department Inspector General (IG) issued a report detailing the FBI's repeated improper use of so-called "national security letters." The IG found that the FBI "had ignored its own rules when demanding telephone and financial records about private citizens." FBI investigators issued these "secret requests" to several large telecom companies including AT&T and Verizon beginning in 2001. The letters often referenced "exigent circumstances" and promised that subpoenas for the requested information had been submitted to the U.S. Attorney's office and would be served promptly. The IG found that such statements were often false and that "there sometimes were no open or pending national security investigations tied to the request." Further, it was found that in many cases "no subpoenas had actually been requested before the letters were sent." It was later revealed that the FBI had been aware of such "legal lapses" as early as 2005 and, according to one FBI official, had taken steps to "clean up" the problems in 2006 by submitting seven more national security letters to "provide legal backing for all the telephone record requests that still needed it." Today the Washington Post is reporting that the FBI has issued a new set of rules governing requests for phone company records in which the use of national security letters or subpeaons is no longer required. While the rules require that requests be limited to "dire emergencies," such requests can now be made "verbally," relieving agents of "a paperwork burden that was the heart of past problems." FBI Assistant Director John Miller assured the Post that the new rules include "an audit trail to ensure we are doing it the right way." Congress has promised a full inquiry and IG Glenn Fine and FBI general counsel Valerie Caproni will appear before House Judiciary Committee today

 

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