RantDuJour

Reading Glenn Greenwald is like catching a breath of fresh air after the stinking, putrid stench of listening to people like Limbaugh and reading the Washington Post. This is a must read. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/31/mukasey/index.html

[…]

I long ago stopped blaming the Bush administration — at least exclusively — for what has happened to our political system. They were responsible in the first instance, but the rest of the country’s institutions — its media, its Congress, the “opposition” party, even the courts — all allowed it to happen, choosing to do nothing — or to endorse it — once it all began to be disclosed. It wouldn’t have surprised the Founders that we would have corrupt and lawbreaking political leaders, including in the White House. The idea was that there would be numerous checks on that corruption. But when those other institutions fail, or are complicit, the fault is collective.

[…] 

We have allowed it to continue, and now these “theories” are ones which people who are considered to be “reasonable,” squarely within our political mainstream, can openly espouse — just as Mukasey repeatedly pointed out yesterday. We live in a system of government where the President seized the power to act without restraints and we allowed that to happen, and so Bush’s signing statement and Mukasey’s defiant posture are all now normal.

Pathetic. Feinstein. Pathetic. Rockefeller. Pathetic. Reid. Pathetic. Pelosi. Pathetic. And, yet, in my heart still beats optimism. If Democrats increase their control on Congress. If a Democrat wins the presidency. Perhaps, then, the broken laws can be fixed. Perhaps then the lawbreakers can be punished. Perhaps then the massive illegalities that have been foisted on the American People for the last 7 years can be exposed.

Sigh. Not very likely.

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It amuses me greatly to hear Limbaugh continue, day after day, to rip into McCain. McCain is a rock-ribbed Conservative. He anti-choice, pro-war, smaller-government conservative. He is perfect for Limbaugh. Unfortunately, he also believes in Global Warming and limiting political hit ads during the heat of a campaign by 3rd party groups. Those two items, above everything, have really launched Limbaugh into his spittle-rattling mode.

However, if/when McCain gets the nomination, regardless of what some of his base believes, he’ll get identified with the rightwing, straight-talker regardless, and that’s where he’ll stay. And, then, he’ll add to that several statements during the heat of the campaign where he says something really stupid, which he does all the time. And, the media, which run the themes of these campaigns, will realize what a doddering old man he is.

I think that it’d be best in this case for Obama to be the nominee. The stark difference between Obama and the doddering, dithering McCain is pretty obvious to most. Obama will be able to spin circles around the moronic pundit class that opine on most things of which they have no idea. I listened to the beltway monster queen last night on John Stewart’s show. And, at the end, she said something which was among the most incredible of things that she and the beltway have ever said. John asked her who was smaller, Bush for his continuing to call the Democratic party “Democrats”, among other things, or Clinton for his actions in South Carolina. It’s as close to a rhetorical question as it gets. However, this *itch said that Clinton was smaller.

These people will never get over their Clinton loathing. And, they hate to be called racists. So, perhaps for the beltway crowd, Obama is best. Even whats-her-face, seemed to agree that he’s a great candidate.

Either way, the gop is history.

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Well,l I can’t say that I’m surprised. It makes sense that since he couldn’t win a primary (or a caucus), that he’d pull out. It’d be nicer if he hadn’t said, repeatedly, that he’s in it until the convention. And, yes, I understand the semantic and legal difference between “suspending” his campaign and terminating it. But, still.

I’m just not happy with the 2 remaining choices. As I said before, they both have serious negatives for me. Edwards just didn’t have anything significant.

I suspect too that Edwards is going to endorse Obama. But, it’ll definitely be one of those 2, so c’est la vie.  I’m sure that whomever the nominee is will beat the rightwinger that will be running against them.

And, then, some sanity can return to the Universe.

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It is interesting to me the choices that the GOP’s voters has made. Despite his lethargy, I would have thought that Thompson would have been a shoe-in. Huckabee too, I would have thought would have garnered larger numbers. From the perspective of the GOP candidate though, I guess that there is nothing wrong with McCain. He’s got backward positions on pretty much everything, especially the war (”100 years!”).  Romney, though, I just don’t get. Here’s a guy who had the exact opposite position on everything. How do you change from being strongly pro-choice (to win the governership) to anti-choice? His line about he listened to a stem cell presentation is just stupid.

Anyway, I’ve given my thoughts on who I’d rather run against in a previous post. Right now, I just wanted to add that I love the fact that McCain won Florida. I listen to Limbaugh to laugh at him and his listeners. Yesterday, before the primary, he had 20 minutes of skits on McCain. He ripped him BigTime. It was an amazing use of the time available on his show. I still can’t forget the skits that he ran during the 2000 election. He had McCain as Captain McQueeg (”Mutiny on the Bounty”). He essentially called McCain insane. So, listening to him sputter about Florida will be a fascinating morning.

As far as Limbaugh and Romney go, Limbaugh isn’t a fan. But, he can’t get himself to rip the guy because he’s really the only alternative to McCain. So, he tosses aside Romney’s conversion as “You can believe that it’s genuine or not.” lol.

I like both remaining Democratic candidates, subject to my earlier caveats. But, both remaining GOP candidates just make me laugh.

Of course, I thought that bush was a joke too. Of course, he was. But, the media gave him such positive reviews that he conned enough of the population that he was actually a reasonable guy.

What a joke that was.

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I hear from many Democrats that the rightwingers are praying that Clinton is the nominee. I hear it from Stephanie Miller every day.

They are wrong.

Limbaugh has been defending Obama against Clinton for weeks now. He has been ripping Clinton daily. He takes time out from his anti-McCain rants to be nice to Obama. I just heard that rightwing blowhard on CNN, Bill Bennett, say the same thing. He was nice to Obama and “tough” on Clinton. If these people wanted Clinton to be the nominee, they’d be attacking Obama. There is no way that they’d be attacking Clinton if they really wanted Clinton to be the nominee.

Frankly, I think that both candidates give the wingers ample areas to attack. But, being that the wingers are closet-(and sometimes not so closet) racists, I am sure that they feel that Obama makes for a better attack target. As I said in my previous post, we are a nation that is very conflicted about race. Obama running will really drive some of this out in the open.

Luckily, I believe that both Gop candidates (Huckabee isn’t real) are very vulnerable. Even without the current antithesis towards the GOP (nobody likes the GOP), both McCain and Romney are very vulnerable. I’m thinking that I prefer McCain to be the nominee, despite the beltway media’s love of him (Matthews last night: “You’re in my heart”). He is as doddering as Dole. He makes these incredibly stupid statements, (”We’ll be in Iraq for 100 years”. “Bomb. Bomb. Bomb Iran”) It’ll be a campaign of faux pas on his part. Further, his deep love of war will shine through to a nation that is very tired of ward. He will get trounced.

Romney, OTOH, is a chameleon. He has flipped every single on of his positions. I expect that he’d flip a few more during the general. And, while it’d be fun to call him on all of his changed positions, and it would make for an easy target, there are people that don’t pay close enough attention to pick up on more-internal stuff like that.

Another advantage to running against McCain is that, according to DailyKos today, he is really out of money. He has no extra bank. He’s got to go to the people who he allegedly hates and get money. Further, there are a large number of arch-conservatives who will stay at home. While he may pick up Independents, I’m confident that the lengthy campaign will show how tired a story he is and even the beltway media will start to turn on him.

Either Clinton or Obama can and will raise unlimited funds. So, while the media will attack mercilously, they can and will defend themselves. Clinton more than Obama.

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Back from the abyss again! It’s a wonder that I can’t get myself to write into this thing more often. I have plenty of thoughts, rants, if you will. But, getting around to updating the blog is just too much work. I dont’ know why. But, anyway, here I am back. And, with yet another vow to keep at it. My subject for this evening is the state of the Democratic race for president.
I am a huge John Edwards fan. I recognize that he’s made some changes in his positions since last he ran. Hearing him defending the war on Tim Russert’s show back in 2004, I think, was really hard. Having the Obama and Clinton supporters list out, painfully, each and every time that Edwards turned his back on his positions 4 years ago was also really tough. However, I accept his apologies. I accept that he has changed. I accept that he was representing a red state at the time and isn’t representing anything now. And, most importantly, I love what he’s saying right now. He has carved out such great positions that I just can’t turn my back on him.
And, that leads me to my current dilema. Since Edwards isn’t going to win, who would I prefer to see as the Democratic nominee? It actually is a tougher question that I thought that it’d be. There are so many interesting and unique areas to consider.
The pros are actually pretty easy.
Hillary has the toughness. She has experience with the wars with the gop and the media. (An assumption that I have going into this is that the media will be much more antagonistic towards a Democratic nominee and president than they have been with bush and whomever is the GOP nominee.)

Both Hillary and Obama have positions that I’m in favor of, pretty much across the board. They’re both strongly pro-choice (Obama’s ‘present’ votes notwithstanding), pro-environment (pro-idea-of-global-warming), pro-fair-taxes (i.e. more progressive than they are now), pro-the-right-kind-of-spending (i.e. infrastructure). They both don’t agree with me on what to do in Iraq. They are both more conservative and will take baby steps to get us out of there. But, out they both will go. So, that’s ok.
So, essentially, in terms of positions, it’s almost impossible to get a chisel between them. I’m a great fan.

What does that leave? What else is there? Electability. Effectiveness in office. Style points. The ability to convince the electorate that he/she is going the right path. Anything else? Can’t think of what it could be.

In terms of electability, I think that it’s a toss-up. Clinton inspires great, and unfocused, dislike. People just don’t like her. People who should like her, don’t. Even as she has moved to the right over the last 8 years, people still don’t like her. The media hates her. They will be ripping her unfairly the entire general election. It will be like Gore all over again.
However, Obama is black. In my cloistered world here in the Bay Area, CA, that has no real significance, positive or negative. However, as we go deeper and deeper into the middle of the country that lack of racism vanishes. Are we really ready to elect an African American for president? I am not so sure. In my world, the answer is simple, in a heartbeat, he would be elected. However, I don’t think that even the blue counties in the middle of the country would support him fully. I would like to think that just the racist rightwing would vote against him. If that were really the case, then he’d win in a landslide.

However, I don’t believe that. Further, he’s got the awkward problem of his name Barak Hussein Obama. The problem that his father was muslim. That again is no problem for my area. I’d vote for a Muslim (even though Obama is not). But, again, I don’t think that most would. There are the rumors that are categorically fake that he is a Muslim. Those can’t be ever be fully beaten back. And, then, there is the issue that he went to grade school in Indonesia. Again, that’s not a problem for me. But, again, it is a problem for more of the uneducated masses.
These questions are a problem.
Once in office, I believe that Obama will be more effective than Clinton. He is just such a tremendous speaker. I don’t like him triangulating. But, Clinton does it too. So, I can’t say anything. I don’t like his attempt to run above the rabble of partisanship. Because it’s not going to work.
I worry that Clinton will be treated like Carter when she gets into office. However, I have to remind myself that she has worked effectively with republicans before. So, maybe she can get things done.
But, if she can, so can Obama.
Of course, neither of them can get anything done if the Senate is not veto-proof and the gop continue their obstructionistic ways.
And, that leads to my final conclusion. Obama is running as Clinton, Bill did in 1992. Bill was a “New Democrat”. He believed in a “Place called Hope”. He talked about reaching across party lines. What happened the second that he got into office? Actually, what happened before he even got into office during his transition? The GOP lined up dead-solid against him. And, they didn’t move. They filibustered his ($20B) stimuls plan. They voted in lock-step against his budget. Every single gop representative voted against his budget. This was despite the fact that he tried to get some gop members to vote with him. But, for the gop, the orders came down, don’t support anything that he does. Hillary’s health plan disappeared due to no support. The gop didn’t even try. The Democrats thought that they’d be in office forever. Wtih the ‘94 election, that turned out to be wrong. Clinton had to work with obstructionistic and stupid Gop congresspeople for the rest of his term.
It only got worse from there.

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