Ralph Nader discusses the possibility of a 2004 run (less if Kucinich or Dean win the Dem nomination), while Wesley Clark’s noncampaign continues to gain steam.
Author: KcM
Fratboy Kissinger, Dean Acheson?
What happened to free trade under Dubya? According to this article, it appears Bush prefers the frat trade approach — help your buddies, stiff everyone else. Also in TNR, political scientist Daniel Drezner examines Dean’s foreign policy, and finds more rigorous thinking than critics have given him credit for.
Rage against the Machine.
Campaign finance reformers, among them McCain, Feingold, Shays, and Meehan, set their sights on the FEC. If nothing else, a commission with an even-number of members seems designed to benefit the status quo.
Return to Sender.
The veiling shadow that glowers in the West takes shape. There is a union now between the Two All-Stars, Payton and Malone. I love the Glove, but, for the League’s sake, at this point I have to hope that one of these two mercenaries turns out to be a locker-room cancer. And, while I’m on the subject of the Lake Show, perhaps I should be glad that the media has taken innocent-until-proven-guilty to heart. Nevertheless, I find it somewhat troubling how the press has circled the wagons around Kobe before all the facts get out. These are the same writers who jump all over Sprewell, Kidd, and/or Iverson, to take just three examples, whenever the rumor mill starts a-churning. What’s good for the gangsta is good for the golden boy.
Resurgent Left Flank.
The Washington Post surveys the revival of the Left. No new ground is broken in this article, and as I’ve said numerous times before, progressives and liberals are not the same creature (Pt. II), but it’s nice to see lefties back in the Democratic equation for the time being…let’s hope it lasts beyond the primaries. The protective camouflage Republican-lite strategy of the DLC may seem like a good battle plan at first, until one realizes that, by embracing the tenets of the right — even as diluted Third Way “centrism” — the Democratic party will be forever fighting on the GOP’s turf.
Moreover, what the DLC consistently fails to understand is that swing voters care more about vision and integrity than they do about the left-right axis…hence McCain’s “Straight Talk” popularity last Presidential cycle. Many voters perceived in 2000 that Gore didn’t stand for much of anything (particularly after his schizophrenic debate performances), and soured on him – Thus, what should have been a Democratic cakewalk instead became close enough to create the conditions for the Bush-Harris-Scalia junta’s coup.
Many people aren’t flocking to Howard Dean right now because he’s a hardcore lefty, because by his own admission, he’s not. They’re flocking to him because, unlike most other Dems right now, he has a clear, consistent vision, and without vision, the people – and the Democratic Party – perish. Whether it be progressive, liberal, libertarian, communitarian, what have you — the vision animating the Democratic party should come from the left, not from the poisoned well of the bigoted, money-gluttonous right.
In sum, the left should not be browbeaten into right-lite submission by pandering DLC political careerists constantly invoking the spectre of George McGovern and 1972 – it’s time to be the party of Franklin Roosevelt and Robert Kennedy again.
Update: Not two hours after I wrote this post, John Judis compares Dean to McGovern in Salon. I agree that Dean’s got some serious problems in the South, but, c’mon, y’all. It’s getting so that George McGovern has become the new Godwin’s Law among Democratic circles.
Inherit the Stars.
NASA discovers a 13-billion-year-old planet in M4, a globular star cluster in Scorpius. I presume it’s where the monoliths came from.
Wicker Man, Stone Woman.
Speaking of ancient rock formations, a former professor of obstetrics and gynecology believes Stonehenge to represent a large vulva, in honor of the fecundity of the Earth Goddess. Sure, I buy it.
Old School Swing.
Sick of corked bats and sausage attacks? The NY Times delves into the return of base ball, circa 1866. I wonder if the Knickerbockers are doing any better in that century…
Walk the Plank.
If you’re looking for a matinee with which to beat the heat, avast what you’re doing and check out Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl – It’s a solid two hours of mindless summer fun. It runs a bit longish, sure, but Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush keep it light as Captain Jack “Keef S. Thompson” Sparrow and the eeeevil Barbarossa respectively. (Of course, neither Orlando Bloom nor Keira Knightley are harsh on the eyes either, depending on your fancy.) And it’s always good to see Sam Lowry out and about in these trying times. All in all, easily as fun as Finding Nemo, if in the end a little more flawed.