Category: Politics (2007-2008)

“New Dominion” | Under the Big Tent.

“The Old Dominion is now the New Dominion, particularly in the suburban and exurban counties north of the Rappahannock River. Barack Obama could not have carried Virginia as it once was. But he is running even with John McCain in a paradoxical state that was home to the Confederacy’s capital but also gave the nation its first elected African American governor, Doug Wilder, in 1989.” E.J. Dionne takes a look at Obama’s prospects in Virginia. I must say, assuming I’m still here and/or around DC by November, it’ll be nice to vote in an honest-to-goodness swing state for once in my life.

Also, a programming note: I managed to secure a “new media” press pass for the DNC’s “Big Tent” in Denver. (Whether it was due to GitM’s longevity, some Dem name-dropping by yours truly, or they just let everyone who signed up through the gates, I know not.) In any case, I bought a (pricey) flight yesterday and will be on the ground and reporting in from the Mile High City during the Democratic National Convention next month. Should be grand. (And if you’ll be there too, drop me a line.)

The Calm Before the Storm.

“After a set of primaries that felt like they began about the time Sputnik went up, it is strange to be transported to the static battlefield of Obama versus John McCain. The fundamentals are locked in place — and seem unlikely to be dislodged by anything less than a shift in the tectonic plates.” Walter Shapiro briefly surveys the state of the race (as does the inimitable Akbar Jenkins.)

I know it’s been quiet on the electoral front around here of late — That’s partly because my thoughts have been on the 20’s of late and partly because I just can’t muster any outrage about the New Yorker cover, or much else that’s happened on the trail the past week or two. But I’m sure that’ll change in due course.

Scratch Webb Off.

“Last week I communicated to Senator Obama and his presidential campaign my firm intention to remain in the United States Senate, where I believe I am best equipped to serve the people of Virginia and this country.” In the Obama veepstakes, Sen. Webb takes himself out of the running. “Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for Vice President.”

Good Riddance, Jesse.

Our nation’s been waiting with bated breath for years. But, at long last — Happy B-day, America! — Sen. Jesse Helms has shuffled off this mortal coil. (1921-2008) “Ed Feulner, president of conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, hailed Helms as ‘one of the most consequential figures of the 20th century.’ ‘Along with Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, he helped establish the conservative movement and became a powerful voice for free markets and free people,’ Feulner wrote.“

Um, yeah. As with Strom’s passing in 2003, it’s worth rereading Hunter S. Thompson’s Nixon obit right about now. “I beat him like a mad dog with mange every time I got a chance, and I am proud of it. He was scum. Let there be no mistake in the history books about that. Richard Nixon was an evil man…Some people will say that words like scum and rotten are wrong for Objective Journalism — which is true, but they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place.“

Same goes for Helms and the Senate. If, God forbid, the media roll over as they did at Helms’ retirement and try to “Russert-ize” Helms now that the racist, homophobic bastard is finally gone, remember this: He was the worst kind of racebaiting scum and the worst kind of hypocrite. He camouflaged his divisive hatred by slathering it in fake, aw-shucks populism. And he spent his career serving the dictates of the wealthiest and screwing over the good people of North Carolina, white and black. Our nation is a brighter place with his passing. [Helms photo via here.]

232.

A very happy 232nd birthday to our American republic. In the year 2008, frankly, our record is mixed. On one hand, we’ve continued to stand by while our witless joke of a president has assumed many of the dubious royal prerogatives that originally propelled our forefathers toward Independence. On the other, we stand poised to make history this November in a way that would make the founding generation gasp in awe at how far we’ve come.

So, let’s enjoy the 4th, and take a moment not only to remember how precarious the American experiment once was, but also to ponder what we hope to make of it in our own time. For, regardless of how terrible the past eight years — or forty years, for that matter — have been, “we have it in our power to begin the world over again.“

Update: The Muppets are celebrating too. (Via Bitten Tongue/Gideonse Bible.)

Into the Memory Hole. | For the Record.

“‘She’s no longer campaigning for president,’ said Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee. ‘She’s focused on her work in the Senate, campaigning for Senator Obama and other Democrats.’” With the Dems back on the same team, the Clinton campaign scrubs its website of anti-Obama material from the primary era. As such, this seems as good a time as any to definitively put to rest these Penn-inspired primary fictions as well:

  • “Sen. Obama won’t be able to compete in crucial swing states.“: He’s currently up in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as well as Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Colorado, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Iowa, and Virginia…and does Montana count?

  • “Sen. Obama can’t even win the big Dem states“: The most recent polls have Obama up 28 in California and up 20 in New York.

  • “Sen. Obama has a ‘Latino problem’“: Obama currently beats McCain by 30 among Hispanics, 59%-29%. (This is already better than Kerry in 2004.)

    So R.I.P., goofy primary reasoning. You won’t be missed.

    • Temper, Temper.

    “‘McCain was down at the end of the table and we were talking to the head of the guerilla group here at this end of the table and I don’t know what attracted my attention,’ Cochran said. ‘But I saw some kind of quick movement at the bottom of the table and I looked down there and John had reached over and grabbed this guy by the shirt collar and had snatched him up like he was throwing him up out of the chair to tell him what he thought about him or whatever. I don’t know what he was telling him but I thought, good grief, everybody around here has got guns and we were there on a diplomatic mission. I don’t know what had happened to provoke John but he obviously got mad at the guy and he just reached over there and snatched him.”

    Um…ok. Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS), who earlier said the idea of McCain as president “sends a cold chill down my spine,” recalls McCain losing his mind on a diplomatic tour to Nicaragua. And before anyone thinks this makes him a tough guy, “easily baited” is a terrible trait in a negotiator…or a president. Update: McCain denies it.

    The Manchurian Handbook.

    “The military trainers who came to Guantanamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of ‘coercive management techniques’ for possible use on prisoners, including ‘sleep deprivation,’ ‘prolonged constraint,’ and ‘exposure.’ What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners…The only change made in the chart presented at Guantanamo was to drop its original title: ‘Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance.‘”

    How low have we sunk under Dubya? Apparently, under this administration, we’ve actually been plagiarizing Maoist torture techniques for use in the Gitmo gulag. “‘What makes this document doubly stunning is that these were techniques to get false confessions,’ Levin said. ‘People say we need intelligence, and we do. But we don’t need false intelligence.’”

    And don’t forget the Homosexual Nineties.

    “Tyson Homosexual easily won his semifinal for the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials and seemed to save something for the final later Sunday…” The wacko-right American Family Association has a little trouble with their auto-replace software. (It’s been happening for awhile.)

    Obama: Don’t Tread on Me.

    “‘The use of patriotism as a political sword or a political shield is as old as the Republic,’ Obama said. ‘Still, what is striking about today’s patriotism debate is the degree to which it remains rooted in the culture wars of the 1960s — in arguments that go back 40 years or more. In the early years of the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War, defenders of the status quo often accused anybody who questioned the wisdom of government policies of being unpatriotic.’“

    From Unity (NH) to Independence (MO), Sen. Obama — pushing back against the current GOP strategy — delivers a long and eloquent speech on the issue of patriotism. [Transcript.] “His speech put the issue in a sweeping historical perspective, speaking of charges that Thomas Jefferson had sold the nation out to the French and that John Adams was in cahoots with the British. He also questioned policies enacted in the name of patriotism, from Adams’ Alien and Sedition Act, Abraham Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s internment of Japanese Americans…’I give him credit. He is taking this very seriously,’ said presidential historian Robert Dallek.”