Black Box Report

For anyone out there who's confused if not angry at the Spitzer, join the club. Governor, what happened to the promises of overriding the legislature if need be? What happened to the righteousness, saying this was the right thing to do? What happened to all the tough talk?

If your answer is, “I delivered on my promise,” please sell that to someone who doesn't know better. This Real ID plan is such a joke, it's not surprising the brain trust behind it are the same geniuses who managed the Katrina relief. This disaster has actually managed to unite all parties behind the consensus that it's unworkable and unacceptable.

The conservatives still say it rewards illegality, and the once-backers of Spitzer say he sold out with a plan that all but puts a scarlet letter on any cardholder.

So why did Spitzer cave? Is it really possible that some two-bit loudmouth like Lou Dobbs made him put politics above principle? I'd like to think that's not the reason but why else would the governor reward a misinformation campaign that makes New Yorkers less safe become policy. Nobody in their right mind thinks immigrants will sign up for the cards and even fewer believe they'll stop driving.

So in the end, the status quo prevailed, and even fewer people are willing to stick their neck out for Spitzer. For me it's simple Eliot, if you’re going to talk the talk - you better walk the walk.

I don't know what's harder to stomach, the free-for-all that’s ensued since Spitzer caved to political pressure, or that the nauseating loudmouth Lou Dobbs can claim victory. It's well documented that I think this plan made sense. It dealt with the real world, not the make believe one Dobbs and friends seem to occupy. That being said, Spitzer allowed this debate to be framed by those who oppose all immigrants, and he allowed the facts, the Homeland Security experts and common sense to be held hostage by the xenophobes.

For a guy who held the political world in his palm last November, he has taken a mandate and in less than a year finds himself on the outs with not only Republicans, but members of his own party. Spitzer may be able to recover his governorship, but for a guy who once bragged of being the "steamroller," his political courage on the licenses resembles a pushover.

Forget about the Global War on Terror. The administration’s War on Science is coming along splendidly. The White House wants to provide a balanced view of the climate change issue, much the way Christopher Columbus' naysayers "balanced" their debate by insisting the earth was flat, so they took it upon themselves to cut out all references to global warming-related health hazards from a Center for Disease Control report. This would be shocking, if it didn’t happen all the time:

The Bush administration has not only repeatedly attempted to suppress global warming facts, but has also muzzled its officials from speaking out. A January report found 435 instances in which the Bush administration interfered into the global warming work of government scientists over the past five years. The administration also attempted to censor the government’s top global warming scientist, James Hansen, who has been outspoken about the dangers of climate change.

But it’s not just a war on science, it’s also a war on logic, as seen by White House Press Secretary Dana Perino’s response to the administration’s evisceration of the CDC report:

As I understand it, in the draft there was broad characterizations about climate change science that didn't align with the IPCC.

And we have experts and scientists across this administration that can take a look at that testimony and say, this is an error, or this doesn't make sense. And so the decision on behalf of CDC was to focus that testimony on public health benefits -- there are public health benefits to climate change, as well, but both benefits and concerns that somebody like a Dr. Gerberding, who is the expert in the field, could address.

"Or at least Dr. Gerberding could address those things - the concerns, mostly - if we let her. But we're not." Quite frankly, I nwouldn't trust an "expert" or "scientist" from this administration to predict thunder after lightning, much less second-guess the CDC. And "public health benefits?" Are you kidding?

“Public health benefits.” Seriously. The White House touched up the director of the CDC’s Senate testimony, coincidentally taking out the information the Bush gang finds politically inconvenient, and the president’s press secretary is left talking about the silver lining of global warming.

Too bad she didn’t get into specifics; I’d love to know what these “public health benefits” might be. Less hypothermia? Fewer instances of frostbite? A steep decline in the number of snowball-fight-related injuries?

And as for the report not jibing with conclusions from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Jonathan Patz, the IPCC’s lead author of its 1995, 2001 and 2007 reports calls that "nonsense," that "Dr. Gerberding's testimony was scientifically accurate and absolutely in line with the findings of the IPCC." But this is what happens when you pound the square peg of propaganda into the round hole of reality:

The truth is simple: Bush and crew don't want us to know how harmful global warming will be to our personal health, not to mention the future of our planet. By each act of "editing" the facts, (they) hope to avoid debate, not engage in it. If the "truth shall set you free," it follows that "what you don't know WILL hurt you."

Infectious diseases, air pollution hazards, food and water scarcity.... Nothing to see here, folks. Talk amongst yourselves about something else.

Nice unseasonably warm October weather we’re having, isn’t it?

Look, just because the Spanish Inquisition and Cambodian Communists did it, is it really torture?

Rudy Giuliani told an audience in Iowa that waterboarding might not be torture. It all depends on how it’s being done and who’s doing it. If the right person does it, why, it’s not torture at all! If you could back slowly and fearfully away from an online article, now would be the time:

At the risk of sounding impolite, these are the words of a crazy person.

Remember, Giuliani is running for president as an expert on counter-terrorism and national security policy. And yet he told this Iowa audience that he doesn’t know whether waterboarding is torture, and doesn’t know if newspapers can be trusted to describe the torture technique. Apparently, reality continues to have a “well-known liberal bias.”

Let me see if I can clear this up....

Waterboarding. Is. Torture. !.

If it wasn’t, ESPN 8 ("the Ocho") would be covering it as the latest fad among thrill seekers. All the kids would be doing it! But they’re not, because it’s torture! But if Rudy's unclear, he could always check with an expert:

A piece of advice to Mr. Giuliani: Next time you have a debate, sidle over to Senator McCain and ask him if waterboarding is torture or not. He'll set you straight.

But Rudy’s not trying to be straight, he’s trying to blur the line between torture and the conveniently vague euphamism, "aggressive questioning."

The line between the two is very delicate, but the Geneva Conventions are very blunt. Those who don’t deem the treaties clear muddy the lines of distinction so they can do indelicate things.

And by “indelicate things”, he means torture! But it’s not just how to fight the war on terror that Rudy’s lost his mind on, but the scope of the war itself. And to that end, Rudy's surrounding himself with the creme de la creme of right wingnuts. Seriously, Bush surrounded himself with a few ethics-free thugs, but most were garden-variety cronies who were as incompetent as they were loyal. Not Rudy, he's going for the "big thinkers":

Norman Podhoretz believes that America needs to go to war soon with Iran. As far as he knows, Rudy Giuliani thinks the same thing. “I was asked to come in and give him a briefing on the war, World War IV,” said Mr. Podhoretz, a founding father of neoconservatism and leading foreign policy adviser to Mr. Giuliani. “As far as I can tell there is very little difference in how he sees the war and how I see it.”

You heard the man. World War IV. Not III, which despite rightwing alarmism we're ostensibly not even fighting now with the GWOT, as we're the only world power involved and WWIII is generally assumed to mean the end of the world, nuclear apocalypse...but IV. With Iran. These are the same views of the Bush / Cheney administration with the volume cranked up to 11:

Rudy Giuliani is the guy you'd get if you put George Bush and Dick Cheney into a wine press and squeezed out their pure combined essence: unbounded arrogance and self-righteousness, a chip on his shoulder the size of a redwood, a studied contempt for anybody's opinion but his own, a vindictive streak a mile wide, and a devotion to secrecy and executive power unmatched in presidential history. He is a disaster waiting to happen.

Rudy-BOO!

Happy (early) Halloween!

Glenn Beck, idiot:

We come to the center on principles. We come back to the center of the melting pot, that we're all one America, that just because I disagree with you doesn't mean you hate America, and I love America. We all love America. We just disagree on how we should function, what we should do, big government, small government. It doesn't mean you hate America. I think there is a handful of people who hate America. Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire today.

There are a few people that hate America. But I don't think the Democrats are those. I think there are those posing as Democrats that are like that.

But you don't come into the center. You have to stand up for what you believe in.

(emphasis mine)

He's right, of course. You do have to stand up for what you believe in. And I believe Glenn Beck is an idiot.

Now, finding proof that Glenn Beck is an idiot is like shooting large sleepy fish in a very small barrel. Nevermind the logistical contortion of going from "just because I disagree with you doesn't mean you hate America," to "I think there is a handful of people who hate America" in the space of three sentences, or that Beck tries to parse between Democrats and the people who hate America who pose as Democrats (presumably by registering and voting as...Democrats). Not that it needed pointing out, but Atrios notes that Beck literally doesn't know what he's talking about:

You have to be a moron like Beck to not understand that these parts of California are more likely to contain members of his political tribe, not mine.

There weren't many rightwing blogs that came to Beck's defense. To their credit, some took him to task for his comments (sort of). But to their discredit, they criticized him for the wrong thing:

How could Beck be stupid enough to make such an idiotic statement while hundreds of thousands of people were being evacuated? At a time like this, politics should be irrelevant. Normal human beings don't want to see people losing their homes.

That is true, and totally beside the point. Not to be outdone by some rightwing blogger, Beck's producer responded to the controversy and proved he's just as clueless:

A spokesman for Beck expressed surprise that bloggers are seizing on this quotation as an example of incivility. "To most rational people, unfortunately still means unfortunately," (said) Chris Balfe, the show's producer.

This is, of course, incoherent drivel:

According to Beck's producer, telling a national audience that wildfire victims "hate America" is fine, so long as one says it's "unfortunate" for those who hate America to lose their homes. By this logic, one could say, "Unfortunately for Glenn Beck, he appears to have the intelligence of a cardboard box." This isn't an insult, because, to most rational people, unfortunately still means unfortunately.

Yes, unfortunately still means unfortunately. And saying an amorphous mass of people "hate America" because they live in California, which contains Hollywood, so therefore everyone must be a bunch of baby-killing, America-hating libruls, means you're an idiot.

I would also point out that saying, "Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire today." implies it's unfortunate for them, but fortunate for Glenn and those who don't hate America. But that's just quibbling. Glenn proved he's an idiot even without me reading any implications into his statement.

Finally, AMERICAblog asks the only question left worth asking:

And the question remains, why does CNN continue to stand behind this idiot?

CNN. "The most trusted name in news." That should be a question, not a statement.

The AIDS crisis in America - and make no mistake, despite a nation's lack of interest it is STILL a crisis - got as bad as it did because people who were in a position to do something about it (those who weren't inherantly homophobic to begin with, anyway) were either in denial over the severity of the problem, or lacked the courage to do what was necessary. With that in mind, given that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation in California that would provide its inmates with condoms from non-profit health agencies - and the state of California wouldn't have to pay a dime - it's not "unreasonable" to think some denial might be involved:

What part of free-condoms-to-inmates didn't Schwarzenegger understand?...Maybe it's like the abstinence people who fight against condoms in high school - despite evidence to the contrary, they think giving kids condoms will encourage them to have sex.

But Schwarzenegger at least acknowledges that sex - consensual and non - happens in prison, whether it's legal or not, calling the distribution of condoms "not an unreasonable public policy." Which makes his veto all the more confounding. By vetoing the bill, he admits he's being unreasonable. People will pay a price for his lack of courage, and not just the prisoners:

These inmates, once released are practically ticking time bombs. Once they return to society, even if they straighten up their life or not, will continue to engage in sexual activity, being human and all. This makes those inmates further potential threats to society because of the disease they are carrying inside.

Perhaps sensing the illogic of his inaction, Schwarzenegger will run a test program at a single California prison to determine the program's effectiveness. Hooray! Another Blue Ribbon Panel to tell us what we already knew:

The pilot distribution program will confirm what we already know as well as what people have been saying for a long time, "Handing out condoms to their inmates is essential to protect their lives and health of California’s inmates, and of the communities to which they return". Thus, I think that vetoing the bill is a waste of taxpayers money, time and investment as well as has endangered the health of his fellow Californians ; Governor Schwarzenegger should carefully rethink what the impacts will have on his fellow Californians if necessary action is not taken quickly.

They say evil prevails when good men fail to act. Thanks for nothing, Arnold.

Speaking of which...On the campaign trail, a different kind of political cowardice.

Obama Campaign Has Yet To Distance Itself From Antigay Singer At Obama Event

When Obama's campaign said he would defy conventional wisdom and be a consensus builder, I don't think anyone thought this is what he was talking about:

Obama has hitched his string to McClurkin's high flying gay bash kite in part out of religious belief (he purports to be somewhat of an evangelical), in bigger part because he's falling further and further behind Hillary Clinton with the black vote in South Carolina and everywhere else, and in the biggest part of all because he hopes that what worked for Bush's reelection will work for him.

As famous for his ridiculous claims to be able to pray the gay away as he is for his gospel singing, Donnie McClurkin was last seen in the political world helping George W. Bush pander to the anti-gay crowd at the 2004 Republican Convention. Obama says he disagrees with McClurkin's views, but abhorrent views or not, he's barnstorming throught South Carolina with him anyway. Not surprisingly, John Aravosis calls that a huge mistake:

You strongly disagree with the bigot who thinks I need to be cured, and who has declared "war" on me and my people, but you're going to put the guy on stage with you anyway in order to make a few bucks. Nice. I wonder what Obama would say if Hillary invited David Duke to speak at an event but then said, not to worry, she really loves black people - kisses!

If you're afraid to lead, Senator, then maybe you're not the leader we thought you were.

I acknowledge that any political newcomer is going to have to pull out all the stops to make headway against the Clinton machine, but this is one stop that could have stayed in. Couldn't Obama find another popular black gospel singer who wasn't...y'know...crazy? I understand that appealing to religious voters is not a bad thing, and that some religious voters are quietly - and many not-so-quietly - anti-gay. But what about avoiding this easily forseeable bump in the road? Or, forget about avoiding it, what about taking the opportunity to make the most of it and denounce McClurkin's nuttiness? Granted, it's a tall order, and perhaps the political dividends are not worth pissing off South Carolinian religious types. But as Pam Spaulding points out, if not Obama, who?

For Obama to have to take on the entire mantle of addressing the anti-gay rhetoric promoted by the likes of McClurkin and his supporters is a lot to ask, but there are going to be precious few voices in the black community who are going to be willing to call out McClurkin on his bigotry and ex-gay misinformation and do something about it.

Finally, some of Obamas defenders think this is all much ado about nothing:

As far as I know, no one has suggested that Obama has compromised any of his own beliefs in order to get McClurkin to appear at his rally. Instead, he's being tarnished by guilt-by-association. This is the exact thing that people accused Clinton of doing when she suggested it was "naive" of Obama to suggest he'd meet with leaders hostile to the United States.

Fair enough, except I'd point out the difference between meeting Kim Jong Il as an acknowledged adversary and singing a duet with him at your own fundraiser.

Some New York state lawmakers are back in Albany to block Governor Eliot Spitzer's plan to make it possible for illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses.

Assembly Republican leader James Tedisco is calling on assembly Democrats to allow a vote on legislation to negate the plan.

Meanwhile, the Rensselaer County Clerk filed a lawsuit today against the state to prevent implementation of the policy.

Spitzer said his plan would get hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants already in New York and presumably on the roads, into the state database, making streets safer for drivers and reducing auto insurance rates.

Opponents say it's dangerous to give illegal immigrants licenses.

Spitzer's plan has gotten national attention - especially from anti-immigrant host Lou Dobbs who has made it his crusade to attack the plan and the governor.

Hey Lou, who asked you? Who exactly anointed you, a pompous windbag, to be the voice of the New York? You never bothered to learn the facts, but since when did that get in the way of a good story? Last week you called the governor a spoiled rich-kid brat and a coward for not coming to your studio - as if your approval was required to make policy.

I appreciate that the licensing plan is controversial, but too much of this debate is overheated rhetoric from the likes of a plump blowhard who's either delusional or worse. Really Lou, you calling others "rich", "spoiled" and "out of touch" - I’m sure you're struggling to get by as you keep it real with the common man. Dobbs, you see, doesn't have any answers other than deport them all, and no responsible adult thinks that’s possible. So while he waits for 12 million illegals to voluntarily head for the border, he demonizes every town and state that tries to live in the real world.

Osama bin Laden isn't going to get a license at the DMV, don't believe Lou. Instead, security experts believe his plan will actually make us safer. You see Dobbs, knowledge is power, as much as you tell your audience otherwise.

I'm many things people, but a phony is not one of them. You deserve the facts and on this show, unlike his, we believe you can handle them and make up your own mind.

[UPDATE]

After last nights show a viewer asked me what I had against Lou Dobbs. I told him, Dobbs is the kind of talking head who gives guys like me a bad name. We all bring our agendas to a debate, myself included, but this pompous windbag is both a phony and a coward. He twists or ignores facts when it suits him, and lies outright without pause.

He also talks tough when it's just him and a camera, but trust me the macho act would disappear if Spitzer lost his senses and actually showed up on his set. I also told this viewer, I can disagree with someone and still respect them, but only if that person is genuine. Dobbs doesn't even know the word.

Pretending to be an everyman, the faux New Yorker has as much in common with working class America as our president. And the two deserve each other. By pandering fear and selling untruths, he's the worst kind of fraud - the dangerous kind.

So to answer that viewer’s question - I can't stand the jerk because he pretends to care about New York when all he really gives a damn about is his ego.

Good for Joe Torre. Not because $5 million is offensive - please offend me. But because after 12 years he deserved to be treated better, he deserved not to be treated like a piñata, like a back page punching bag. If Steinbrenner and sons didn't want him, they should have said so a week ago. Instead, they dragged it out, made Joe a sympathetic figure and Yankees management the picture of dysfunction.

Even from a fan who remembers all too well when the Yankees making the playoffs was a foreign concept, no manager, not even Joe Torre deserves a lifetime contract. But for a guy who went to the postseason every year, handled a galaxy of stars and egos without incident, handled the New York press and the boss with patience and honesty, he did deserve better.

Amid it all Joe Torre kept his dignity, and he ended just like he began. Face to face he told the boss where he could take his pay cut, and he reportedly did it with a smile. He left on his own terms, and he left with class.

Nothing's worse in Washington than a hypocrite. The moral authorities with a secret life on the side or their hand in the cookie jar - we've certainly had our share of these creeps lately. But hypocrisy can be just as bad when it comes to a voting record.

Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma is Exhibit A. While he's a big supporter of the president's domestic spying program, he's also a big critic of anyone who isn't calling Democrats weak on terror - or even enabling the enemy.

While I think he's an idiot, he's also inconsistent as they come. Privacy matters for Tom Coburn - when it comes to guns. Yesterday the parents of the Virginia Tech victims were in Washington begging lawmakers to close a loophole that allowed a diagnosed deranged madman from buying firearms. It turns out they had a receptive audience. Almost every lawmaker of both parties, the gun lobby and even the NRA supports the measure. Only one person, our hero from Oklahoma, stands in its way. Senator Coburn, it turns out, has privacy concerns that some gun owner may be denied purchase because they’re on a list.

A federal firearms watch list, of course, is not an undue burden on our privacy. But for a guy who once wanted a public registry of anyone with HIV, let alone a blank check for this president to our phone records - let's just say this phony should keep his privacy concerns private.

Congress is working on an extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That law allows for domestic counter-terrorism surveillance-- in some cases with no court warrant. Critics say that violates civil liberties. But this week, President Bush warned Democrats they must strengthen the law-- not weaken it.

Much of this story makes no sense to me. I get why FISA needs to be changed. In the past thirty years a lot has changed with technology and our mode of processing and disseminating it. But here is where this gets sticky. Our president and his administration have made it clear they believe they report to no one - not the courts, not congress, not even the Constitution. Moreover, the only thing that’s matched their arrogance has been their ineptness. They have no clue what they're doing, hurt many good, innocent people in the process, and have left nobody on Capitol Hill confident in their abilities or their respect for the rule of law.

So with that as a backdrop, Democrats still agreed to give the president what he wants with more spying power and few additional checks and balances. Amazingly, that’s not good enough for W. The president - remember his approval rating hovers somewhere near freezing - demands complete immunity for the phone companies who gave up personal information of their unsuspecting customers all without a warrant or the knowledge of any judge or lawmaker. Bush says nothing wrong happened but he won't let congress check and he wants complete immunity for the telcos.

What's wrong with this picture? Why, of all people, does Bush deserve the benefit of the doubt. And where is a hint of a backbone from Democrats? Are they so petrified of looking soft on terror they can't say the emperor has no clothes?

I've had it with an administration that believes transparency only happens when they’re caught breaking the law, and I’ve had it with lawmakers who have the public and justice on their side but not the will to use it.

Ann Coulter has new book to sell; Ann Coulter says something teh outrayyygeous to drum up publicity for said book.

If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.

Speaking of single women voting stupidly...

Now, slamming Ann Coulter for saying something offensive and just...stupid is like shooting comatose fish in s very small barrel. But because she is still embraced by conservatives, her rantings are a telling insight into their mindset (if you want to call it that):

If we were to subscribe to Ms. Coulter's theory - that single women be left out of the political process - and further assume that given the leading GOP presidential candidates decision to skip Hispanic and African American forums, those Americans be left out as well, we could very well believe that conservatives want the elections decided by married white men.

Somewhere, Pat Buchanan is pumping his fist and shouting YESSS!

I tried to find some non-amoeba-level rightwing bloggers to jump on this bandwagon and come to Coulter's defense, but....pppbbbtt!!! Nada. So I had to resort to wingnut radio host Neal Boortz's website for that pre-1900 mentality:

Coulter is exactly right. Don't take her word for it, just read "Freedomnomics" by John Lott. Here we have a renowned economist going all the way back to the late 1980s to see what happens when women get the vote. His findings? In every single case, when women were given the right to vote the cost of government immediately began to rise as women, particularly single women, started voting for the candidates who would create more government spending programs designed to provide women with security. That magic word...security.

Lott found that young single women overwhelmingly vote liberal. When they marry and start a family they start voting more conservatively. That would be because their sense of security is provided by their family, and they don't want government to interfere in their accumulation of wealth. Then, if that very same woman starts to feel that her marriage is threatened ... or if she becomes divorced ... she right back there voting for liberals again. Why? Security .. this time from the government instead of her husband.

Coulter is right. Deal with it.

As Atrios says, "The stupid...it burns"

It's not just that Coulter's statement is inherantly antithetical to very premise of Democracy - she's bent out of shape because she can't force people to agree with her, we all get that. But Coulter is advocating the kind of anti-democratic sentiment that was so popular with Saddam Hussein, who made it illegal to vote for anyone but him, because that was the right way to vote. And since we can't kill people for voting for Democrats 9 yet, anyway, although I'm sure she'd love to talk to Dick Cheney about fixing that), she'll settle for taking away their right to vote.

Who says Republicans want to disenfranchise voters? Only Republicans that actually want to disenfranchise voters.

Actions speak louder than words - or lapel pins. Being patriotic is more important than just looking patriotic, no matter how tightly you wrap yourself in the flag. I can't believe something as meaningless as a flag pin on your lapel is actually a campaign issue. Are we that shallow? Are we that easily fooled by the trappings of patriotism? In short, are we that stupid? Obviously some people are. It's not like Barack Obama defaced his pin, wore it upside down or denounced it. He just decided not to wear it. And THIS is what gets the Right into their latest tizzy? News Flash: Wearing a flag pin don't mean a thing if it ain't got that constitutional swing:

Someone can oppose American civil liberties, prefer to stifle dissent, support un-American policies like torture and the elimination of habeas corpus, but so long as the stars and stripes are on his or her lapel, their patriotism should be considered unimpeachable. What nonsense.

Nonsense indeed. If I wear a t-shirt that says "Los Angeles," does that mean I'm from L.A.? If I wear a Boston Red Sox cap, does that automatically make me a fan? Similarly, if I go to Yankee stadium and don't wear multiple pieces of team merchandise, am I not a fan? And before anyone thinks this is a left vs right issue, it's not. It's substance vs style:

I'd have more respect for Obama if he had just left it at "lapel pins don't solve problems," but this is hardly worth the attention…wearing a flag pin on his lapel wouldn't convince me to vote for Obama, and a bare lapel on a candidate who matches up with my point of view best won't stop my support.

That some people can't grasp this simple equation is frightening. But for some on the right, a love of conformity and authoritarianism cause them to feel superior to those who don't wear their hearts on their sleeve, or the flag on their lapel. And the results are pretty unhinged:

This is how he catches the attention of a media aligned with the terror force? This useful tool won't wear an American flag pin? Talk about pandering to the radical base, he ought to run against Ahmadinejad...What's Obama Hussein's new campaign slogan, "America Sucks!" ?

What Pam Oshry lacks in coherant logic she makes up for in stupidity. But the reaction of Fox's Sean Hannity was the best, explaining we wear pins because...we're under attack! Believe it or not, that's not just a stupid non-sequitor:

And that, my fellow Americans, is what will get you through the dreaded day when you’re faced with an enraged suicide bomber, reaching for the detonator. The knowledge that Sean Hannity stands ready to intercede and spare your life, attacking them with the two inch hat pin that he uses to keep his brain from falling out of his cranium.

So the next time you see Sean Hannity or anyone from FOX News, any of the GOP presidential candidates, or really, any of your neighbors or anyone you see on the street, and they're NOT wearing their flag pin, you know they're a jihadist, terrorist-lovin', anti-American scumbag. You may have them arrested immediately, or if you're in Florida, shot on sight. [/sarcasm]

(Obviously Sean does not love this country)

To paraphrase George Carlin, symbols are for the symbol-minded.

A balanced-budget, anti-war Republican who blames the Bush administration for the erosion of our civil liberties? I know, I didn't think one existed either, but he just raised 5 mil, and has more cash on hand than John McCain. Maybe there's something to this Ron Paul Revolution after all? He certainly seems to have caught some people off-guard:

Oh me of little faith. Ron Paul cannot be dismissed as a gadfly...

The Paul movement is probably one part Buchanan brigade and one part fiscal hawk. It is clearly active in ways that most of us haven't adequately understood? Paul may be in a position to be a giant killer now. Imagine if he finishes second or third in New Hampshire ....

Imagine. Around 70% of Americans oppose the Iraq War, not all of them Democrats and Independents. And when Paul raises 3 times as much from military members as Romney, 4 times more than Giuliani, that ought to say something:

This says as much about the serious trouble the Republican Party finds itself in in regards to the war as it says about anything else. If the lone anti-war Republican is getting more money from the military than the main hawk Giuliani, then clearly there is more anti-war sentiment in the ranks of the party than some are willing to admit.

This is all very informative, but for Paul's sake it's still not enough. This is the Republican presidential nomination he's running for, and the anti-war positions of he and his followers have gotten the attention of the rightwing noise machine. If you read closely into their coded language, you can almost sense their disapproval:

The behavior of the Paulnuts...is a common consequence of pacifism and extreme libertarianism. Both think the state at war is the worst thing in the world. (Extreme libertarians think the state doing most everything else is also bad.) Most—maybe all—libertarians acknowledge a right to self defense...Extreme libertarians do not; therefore they support self defense only in theory.

In any actual situation, the prospect of the state at war is so monstrous that the pacifist/extreme libertarian must prettify or deny the threat...

Ron Paul is a pencil head, leading a jacquerie of wicked idiots.

Extreme...pacifist...pencil head..idiots. Rightwingers really hate this guy. Almost as much as they hate Democrats. But is this kind of abuse warrented for the only GOP candidate that can beat TEH HILLARY???!!!???

When you look at it objectively, there isn’t a single one of the “Big Four” GOP candidates who can beat Hillary Clinton head-to-head. And none of the “second tier” candidates (Huckabee, Brownback, Hunter, Tancredo, et al) have stepped up to the challenge. Really, there is only one remaining viable Republican candidate: You guessed it, Ron Paul.

Only Ron Paul can take advantage of the Internet the way Howard Dean did before he imploded four years ago...

Only Ron Paul can outflank Hillary Clinton both to the left on the war, and to the right on everything else … which is the only winning strategy the Republicans can plausibly employ in 2008.

Only Ron Paul, who is truly pro-family (married to the same woman for over 50 years, with five children and 18 grandchildren - no “trophy wives” here) can motivate the socially conservative base to actually turn out and vote.

I'll say this for Paul's supporters, their hearts are in the right place, and they are passionate.

Nuttier than a squirrel's lunch, but passionate.

This administration has careened from abuse to arrogance to denial, and now it seems to outright lies when it comes to torture. We have all learned in recent years that this White House and its disciples advocated torture. They ignored vocal dissent from within their own Justice Department, they ignored international standards like the Geneva Convention and they lied about it when confronted with the facts.

Even after publicly renouncing torture as abhorrent - they went ahead in then-secret memos saying, “Don't worry, keep waterboarding.”

Forget for a moment that no military man supports torturing the enemy, lest one of their own fall into enemy hands; this administration kept secrets from congress after explicitly promising otherwise. When Alberto Gonzales, George Bush and Dick Cheney decide the law does not apply to them, our nation is in grave danger.

Congress is and should be looking into who knew what and when. No administration should be above the law, especially this one.

He said he would, and he did.

His other three vetoes were given the full photo-op ceremony treatment. He even gave a nationally televised address for one of them. But this time? Eh, not so much. And you can understand why. Vetoing a bill for children's health care 2 days after declaring October 1 to be Child Health Day is not exactly good PR. After all, what would he say to all the "snowflake babies?"

"Glad you're here, every life is precious, but if your family falls on hard times, you're not my problem. Now shove off?"

Veto accomplished, Bush told a Pennsylvania crowd that he's now ready to "compromise" with Congress. There's just one problem with that:

The White House is signaling its willingness to compromise, but the bill Congress sent him was already a compromise. The original House measure was a lot more generous. Bush, meanwhile, continues to tout his own proposal - which, because of its meager funding, would actually result in states forcing kids off the S-CHIP rolls.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) invited Democrats to beat his party over the head with this issue in the upcoming election, and Democrats will do just that. Republicans can argue all they like that this is an issue of fiscal prudence, but when anyone looks at the gobs of cash being spent on Iraq, this sudden attack of stinginess hits all the wrong notes. Opposition to S-CHIP is poison, and they know it. They will be attacked at the polls, and in the courts. Individual states can't get around Bush's restrictive new rules for covering their citizens as they see fit, so they're suing him. So says NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer in the Huffington Post:

The bureaucratic barriers to coverage the Bush administration has imposed are not only fundamentally misguided, but also illegal...

...They conflict with the statute authorizing SCHIP. Moreover, they were issued without the opportunity for public comment, as required by federal law. Accordingly, I have joined Democratic and Republican governors from states across the country to bring a lawsuit challenging these new rules in court.

It didn't have to come to this.

Yes it did. It's in his political DNA:

It's not so much his funding preferences that are at work. Rather, his ideology called for the government to pursue a hopeless war that's killed thousands...but is outraged by the idea of the government helping children attain health coverage. Ah, compassionate conservatism.

And now it's up to Democrats and Republicans of conscience to pressure holdouts in the House to override Bush's veto. One of those holdouts is Dennis Kucinich who, in classic purity troll fashion, voted against S-CHIP because in his view it didn't go as far as his own proposal.

Ahem...

While your insistence on a better bill is admirable, Dennis, your sense of political reality is not. When the alternative to your bill, which doesn't have a chance of passing, is millions of children losing their coverage, it's time to drop the grandstanding and get on board.

Bigwigs of the religious right recently convened their super-secret coalition of "influentials" and decided that if thrice-married, abortion-supporting, gay-tolerating, cross-dressing New York liberal Rudy Giuliani gets the GOP nod, then they're going to shoot the party in the foot, or maybe somewhere higher. This couldn't make some people any happier, and for good reason. Don't Republicans remember Ross Perot? Ralph Nader? Even discounting the anti-Republican mood of the general electorate, the ultra-slim margins of the last two elections should be enough to foretell the results of conservatives splitting their votes.

Or is it just Kabuki?

...everything with these people is, first and foremost, about fundraising. How better to rattle the collection plate than a sham kabuki dance on “principle” that you never intend to really follow through but, instead, will end up settling back into the GOP lockstep line after the primaries, coffers full.

And that's not even the best reason why a third-party split is unlikely to happen. This is:

If these guys get all huffy and persuade, say, Alan Keyes and Judge Roy Moore to run -- no one will vote for them. The reason can be summed in two words: Hillary Clinton. Righties would crawl through ground glass to beat her. Voting for a pro-choice guy in a dress would be nothing.

They may be crazy, but they ain't dumb. What IS likely to happen is some lucky unelectable is going to get their blessing, remain unelectable, but will bloody the heathen frontrunner:

Watch for two things...: one, the religious right may have no choice but to coalesce around a single, credible candidate, if only to block Giuliani. And two, watch for Dobson & Co. to take the gloves off and go after Giuliani relentlessly. These guys don't want to bolt for a third party; they'd much prefer to stay where they are with a nominee they can live with.

Finally...What Digby said:

A significant conservative constituency is actually threatening to run a third party candidate if they don't get their way and yet all we ever hear about is how the Democrats are being led down the path to perdition by the Move-On hippies who are pushing them to respond to the large majority of Americans who want the US to begin withdrawing from Iraq.

I think activists on both sides should stick by their principles and support candidates as they see fit. Let's see who does better next November.

(Pictured L-R: American Public, Media, John McCain)

The Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead.
[a man puts a body on the cart]
Large Man with Dead Body: Here's one.
The Dead Collector: That'll be ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Large Man with Dead Body: Nothing. There's your ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Large Man with Dead Body: Yes he is.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not.
The Dead Collector: He isn't.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm getting better.
Large Man with Dead Body: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.

The reports of John McCain's demise have been greatly exaggerated. With a mini-surge in some polls and less than spectacular fundraising results from his rivals, the Straight Talk Express is off of life support and moving from critical to merely serious condition:

It's a long shot, I grant, but it does make me wonder whether it's really over for McCain. He is ill-suited to being a front runner but makes a brilliant insurgent. Circumstances have forced him back into that role.

When you look at the Republican race and see Rudy Giuliani out in front, you have to calculate that there is at least one shock out there before we get to convention time.

Why not a resurgent McCain?

Insurgent...resurgent... I'm sure John McCain has it in him to Surge! back to mediocrity in the GOP pack. The media's early coronation of McCain, Serious Voice on Iraq, was baffling in its failure to understand both the candidate and the condition of the Republican base. As a candidate, McCain is as gaffe-prone as they come, hardly a week going by without him verbally stepping in it (although Fred Thompson seems determined to give him a run for his money). While his Iraq position is still in line with GOP primary voters, his positions on virtually every other issue are not. And while Mitt Romney will not win the nomination (my opinion), he did articulate where the mood of the base is right now:

"Some people have said we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is we ought to double Guantanamo."

Which is why it was always Rudy Giuliani's race to lose. If you're going to go authoritarian, you're going to go with the real deal.

Which, getting back to the "McCain comeback" meme, is not to say that McCain can't get back to a competitive position. The reality of the Fred Thompson Experience was less ZOMG! AWESOME! than his supporters had imagined, Mitt Romney's top fundraiser, supporter and fan is still Mitt Romney, and Rudy...well, the band's just warming up on him. While he may personify the authoritarian 9/11 9/11 9/11 candidate, both his poersonal and professional backgrounds are, shall we say, target rich environments. Unlike his fellow GOP candidates, McCain has been thoroughly picked over already and has nowhere to go but up.

With the pressure - and added focus - of being the presumptive frontrunner off his shoulders, McCain clearly seems more comfortable with the role of Comeback Kid. Strangely, his campaign is even drawing comparisons to John Kerry's 2004 campaign, when Kerry was presumed to be unable to catch up to surging populist Howard Dean. But that comparison only goes so far:

There is little or no analogy between Howard Dean and Rudy Giuliani, and even if something happened to make Giuliani implode, Republicans would not default to McCain in a panic. So perhaps there is little point in trying to compare Kerry to McCain--except as a reminder that things can change very fast in politics.

Not to mention, of course, that Kerry lost.

If John McCain were a friend of mine, I would counsel him on the coming disaster that is his campaign, and how to most gracefully exit and back another candidate that would best further his ideas and the fortunes of his party. But he's not, and as a political junkie his continued presence is far too entertaining for me. His what-will-he-say-next quality is valuable for its slow-motion-train-wreck fascination. But to the Straight Talker's credit, he has disobeyed Reagan's 11th Commandment early and often, getting in some very pointed criticisms of his rivals. Giuliani being unqualified to conduct foreign policy, for example. Poetic in its irony.

Surge on, McCain, surge on.