America's Might

Just a brief thought about American military might. I can't recall if I've written this recently, so forgive me for repeating myself...

The non-Styx Claim: I've read many people claim that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have emboldened our enemies because it demonstrates that the US is not all-powerful and that sustained guerrilla warfare will undermine the American resolve. The conclusion of these pundits is that the wars have weakened the culture of intimidation that the U.S. needs to maintain in order to scare the world into loving us. Or something like that.

The Styx Response: OK, here's the deal. We need to make a distinction between the way that idiots think and the way that our enemies/allies think. Idiots will believe propaganda, myths, and won't read newspapers. Generally speaking, idiots aren't powerful and don't run countries - this is especially true for autocracies whose leadership are often cruel, canny mobsters. Alas, it's possible that democracies can elect idiots - and this happened to us back in 2004 with Bush (because, it bears repeating, Bush lost the election in 2000, although because he got very close some could say that it matters - and, sadly, this *is* something I repeat over and over and never ask forgiveness despite my polite request at the beginning of this post).

So, yeah, GWBush and his ilk were idiots and did not actually pay attention to the real facts (e.g. they believed there were no difference between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq). And this had real consequences. But generally this is not true and it's wise to behave as if the other countries of the world are led by people who endeavor to know real facts and to plan consequences accordingly. And, I'd posit, the more powerful the country, the more likely the leaders are to know the true facts.

OK, that's my ground-rule to analyzing the above claim about the current two wars.

My conclusion is that the wise, fact-loving countries still fear the United States' might, possibly at the same level they did before these two wars. Why?

(1) We still have enormous numbers of nuclear weapons and as such can destroy every country in the world. This is not the Styx getting all jingo on you and posturing for the mirror, this is part of how the other nations see us. We can destroy them all - many of them without a serious counter-strike.

(2) While #1 is known and cited, the next point is the same one but for conventional forces. I claimed here that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were botched, but I misspoke: the war part of those wars went well, it's the recovery and reconstruction that was botched. This is a big difference, especially if you are an enemy of the U.S. We had the power then, and have the power now, to utterly and unilaterally destroy a foreign government. If we as a nation weren't so moral as to be concerned with rebuilding, if all we wanted to do was destroy another nation, then our wars were successes!

Please remember that: from the standpoint of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, they are no longer in power. And that matters a lot for our enemies. You can ask why we haven't done that more often (e.g. to Cuba, since the fall of the Soviet Union) and I assume it's to maintain the general ability of US military supremacy (which I define, in part, as our ability to act unilaterally).

So the botchedness is from the position of 'nation building' not fear and destruction - which is the whole argument of the above idiots.

(3) While we are definitely hurting because of the two wars - all war is expensive - we haven't raised taxes nor called a draft. As such, from our enemies standpoint, we are running the wars rather easily. Unlike Vietnam, Korea, and especially WWII, these two wars have had comparatively little impact on everyday American lives. Yeah, you know that already, but just apply it logically to the above question: if we know it, other countries know it (because the knowledge is freely available). And even though our economy is in the dumps now, and while I think extricating from Iraq will help alleviate the dumpitude, the one didn't directly cause the other.

(4) Related to point #3 is that just as we are not sacrificing too much to run these wars, our enemies know that if we wanted to we could thus gear up to fight even more wars. Granted, most experts claim that we are at our military's limit right now. The Iraq surge before and the new Afghanistan surge have stretched us to the utmost. But that's within our volunteer-army sacrifice-less guidelines of no draft and no tax. I'm not denying the enormous sacrifices of our military - including the hapless sods who joined the guard many years ago and were thrust by Bush-Cheney into unagreed commitments and stop-loss madness. All true.

But the country hasn't sacrificed for the two wars because Bush-Cheney were trying to steal them. They didn't want us to question how and why the wars were being fought. We were sold lies about Iraq and 9/11, and since we didn't have to pay up front, Congress and the GOP were able to ignore the consequences. This is why the wars are so hated now: because the lies have been exposed.

But were we to face a true existential threat then that would change. So, quiz, based on what I've said above: if the American people were convinced that the only way to stop Iran from becoming a rogue nuclear state hell-bent on destroying America with nukes, then would we be able to fight that third war?

First of all, I need to deal with the cynics who would say: the American people won't believe the threat because of the lies of Cheney and Iraq.
The Styx says: if the threat were credibly stated, and if it were real, then our government would be able to prove the claim without the smoke and mirrors Bush needed to employ to dupe Congress/the Press. So for the purpose of this quiz, the threat is credible and believed.

So the idiots would say: we cannot fight a third war because we're stretched thin!

The Styx would say: of course we could fight a third war. We fought World War II in three major theaters (1. Europe (North Africa to Italy to France), 2. Pacific (Australia to Indonesia to Philippines to Japan), 3. India-China-Burma). We did so because of a draft and rationing at home. And we can do so again if existentially threatened.

Last point: many wags try to compare the current U.S. position/empire to the Romans or the UK. I'd refute the comparisons with two facts: the US is both an isolated island 'empire' (like UK) but with a huge land-size and natural resources. We run contiguously from coast-to-coast. Our borders are with a wussy frozen North and a chaotic developing nation to the South. Running an empire from England was always a stretch because they lacked the internal national resources to conduct their wars; the same for Rome, except they had major border issues as well. We don't. More anon if needed.

To review/conclude: our allies know that we're still the strongest around. Our enemies, because they're run (usually) by intelligent fact-loving despots who want to maintain a hold on their seized wealth, also know that. Our paramount strength has not been undermined by our two wars because (a) we still have the most nukes, (b) we have shown we can act unilaterally and while we may botch nation building we're awesome at government destruction, (c) we're running our wars without a draft or raised taxes, and (d) if we wanted to tax and draft, we'd be even more destructive.

First pic from here, second from here, third pic from the Wiki.

No Bush Pardons?

I predicted here that Bush will give a blanket pardon for his whole administration. Did that happen and I just missed it or did the probable gambit (not indicting Cheney etc to allow future non-GOP prosecution) work?

He has 90 minutes left, maybe it will come. If not, then we all have a chance for prosecution of the war crimes!

Update: Some stories about Bush's (lack of) pardons. SF Chronicle. Toronto Star.

Emmanuel and Axelrod

Marc Ambinder is all over the Rahm Emmanuel selection (about a dozen posts today). But as I asked yesterday, what about David Axelrod, Obama's campaign chief of staff. Let's cut to Ambinder, already in progress:

Though David Axelrod isn't confirming it himself, friends say that Obama has asked him to be an assistant to the president and senior adviser. Assistant to the president is a very coveted post with quasi-institutional prerogatives; assistants can (if the Obama administration chooses to continue the practice) pop in on the president whenever they want, and they're given review privileges over everything that goes out in the president's name.

And, to round out the picture, here's the New Republic's description of him, and note the last line (bold mine) about Axelrod and Emmanuel's relationship:

Obama's chief of staff could be the Dick Cheney of his administration-the heavy with his hands in everything. Like Cheney, Rahmbo is respected, feared, and a formidable wonk. Emanuel might make an attractive chief of staff because of his reputation for fierce loyalty and his ability to corral the House Democrats. Those in Congress who don't owe their jobs to him are terrified of him. That pick, like so much of Obama's world, would bear Axelrod's fingerprints: Ax signed the ketubah at Emanuel's wedding.

Thanks to my brother for pointing out the story and we both agree that the comparison to Cheney is stupid (and mean): "Obama, like Hitler, was elected the head of his country."

Biden v. Palin

When I last commented about Biden it was my claiming that his choice would be a mistake: "I think Biden would be a mistake. While he's a fierce partisan fighter, he's also a gaffe-prone goofball. Nonetheless, it won't be a disaster." And I had no follow up, so here it is: my analysis back in August was on the basis of politics and not governance. Biden is a mistake for politics - he makes gaffes, his state isn't helpful - and all the other choices were for electoral reasons only: Sebelius (woman, Midwest), Bayh (moderate, boring WASP, Midwest), Kaine (governor, swing-state).

But once Obama chose Biden I was quite happy with the choice and because it was the electorally poor choice. It showed me that Obama was (a) confident enough in the election, and in himself, that he was concentrating on being an executive and not the Permanent Campaign (the hallmark of the Clinton and W.Bush years), (b) that Obama chose someone who was fierce, independent and a contrary thinker, emphasizing the 'cabinet of rivals' model of Lincoln, (c) and ultimately, because Biden is the best sitting Democratic senator for both defense issues (chair of Foreign Relations) and Domestic/Legal (chair of Judiciary) it showed that Obama cares more for good governance than good politics.

If Obama had gone for the electoral/politics route - chosen the three above or Hillary Ugh - then I would have accepted the situation as reflective of a weak coalition or a difficult election road. Instead, by choosing Biden, Obama showed confidence, competence, and seriousness. It made me feel better for my support of Obama, presence as a Democrat, and hope for the country.

Then we get Sarah Palin. Who is the exact opposite. Chosen for purely partisan and electoral reasons. My feeling about Biden - which I had talked to people about but alas didn't blog about, so you'll have to believe me - shows the reason why I reacted so negatively towards Palin, even before I knew just how horrible she was.

But if I needed to use a shorthand to describe the difference, it would be Politics or Governance. And the GOP has shown that over the GWB years, they have placed governance and policy as the lowest of priorities, while for teh Democrats it has long been the highest priority - often to our detriment.

This argument about governance/politics is seen in this Sept 14 essay by Alex Massie, about why McCain chose Palin. Massie basically states what did you expect McCain to do? He needed electoral help! He was *forced* to choose an unqualified nutjob!

Massie is wrong about the order, though. McCain's current scorched-earth campaign - and the subsequent trouble he's in - comes as a direct result of the choice of Palin. If McCain chose a moderate (Lieberman, Ridge) or a friendly talented person (Graham, Crist), then McCain would be able to run in 2008 like he did in 2000. However, even through downright cowardice or doddering incompetence, McCain surrendered to the Rove Crew and decided to run like GWB in 2000 & 2004 - through fraud, fear, and polarization.

Can you imagine what a McCain-Lieberman vs. Obama-Biden election would look like? That would have been enviable. The last time we had two decent tickets was 1996 (and before that 1964). But McCain was threatened by the freakazoids of the gnarled GOP base that there'd be a floor-fight if Lieberman - McCain's first choice (whose vibes I somehow intuitively picked up) - were chosen. McCain, when threatened by the GOP base, blinked (in the argot of the GOP chickenhawks). He pooped his pants, he ran away from principles and good judgment and into the waiting arms of the Karl Rove Machine.

Why should McCain fear the floor fight? Because it'd make him look weak? Remind us of 1968 (similar times ya know)? I think it's because ultimately McCain is a weenie who cares more for winning than for honor. He's a disgrace.

But I digress. By choosing Palin, McCain decided on a campaign of fear and intimidation - because she has nothing else to offer but red-meat to the partisans. And any candidate that has to run to the extremes in the general election, is doomed.

Which leads us to the paradigms of VPs. I've discussed this at length, but I think I can make the binary chakira of VPs of Politics (VPP) and VPs of Governance (VPG). And both of these categories are part of the vagaries of how the VP is chosen. As opposed to the old days (pre-12th Amendment) and especially in post-1968 times, the VP is directly chosen by the Presidential nominee. While beforehand he was nominated at the convention just like the President, and as such could reflect a balanced perspective of the party, the modern VP choice is the sole decision of the Presidential nominee. And while the Pres Candidate needed to weather an often expensive, debilitating, pummelling primary campaign, the VP candidate is allowed to just waltz right in. The Pres. candidate needs millions of people to choose him/her, the VP needs only 1.

As such, the VP provides an opportunity not only for the electorate to evaluate the judgement and sagacity of the Pres. nominee, it also gives the nominee (and to some extent the whole party) a chance to nominate someone who could never get past the gauntlet of the primary campaign.

And this is where the Politics/Governance split comes in. Sometimes the VP couldn't get through the primaries because they are talented at governance but have no electoral appeal (cf. George HW Bush in 1980, Lloyd Bentsen in 1988, Al Gore in 1992, Jack Kemp in 1996, Joe Lieberman & Dick Cheney in 2000). Or the VP is a token ethnic/ideology that's to 'out there' to be acceptable by the primary voters, but is considered necessary for the general election (cf. Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, Dan Quayle in 1988, and Sarah Palin in 2008).

This is one reason why the electorate was so angry about Palin... here's a woman who could not survive a month of a primary campaign allowed to just shtup her way into the (second) most powerful job in the world. Dan Quayle in lipstick, as it were. I remember how angry I was, and the country was, after Quayle was chosen. This is worse. Yet this is why I'm happy about Biden and was happy about Lieberman - two men who would be good at governance but who are just too nutty or boring to survive the primaries. So it works both ways.

One thing Massie says that I very much agree with, and felt intuitively, which I will quote in entirety:

there's an argument you can make that the Vice-Presidential candidate needs to be more, not less qualified to be President than the chap at the top of the ticket. Why? Because a VP can only become President in an emergency and so needs to be able to start governing immediately. A President - eg, Clinton - can learn on the job even if this costs capital and credibility; a Veep does not enjoy that luxury. Of course, if Palin were to become President in, say, 2011, that would be one thing, but the potential for her to in the Oval Office next year is quite another. Biden could do the job next year, Palin probably couldn't. That's an unfortunate truth that her boosters just look silly trying to deny

Yes. The reason why most smart people think that the VP should be highly qualified - ironically, even more qualified that the President - is because of this intuitive understanding of the historical role of the VP: to step in when disaster strikes. Moreover, as I explained above, because of the unique opportunity to be able to easily place a person in line for the presidency who has high qualifications but could not otherwise make it through the primary, also depicts the feeling of lost opportunity when it comes to Palin... when Obama had to sneak someone into the White House, it was someone who conceivably could walk in on his own merit. When McCain chose, it was to sneak it some crypto-crazy Christianist hillbilly.

Some Predictions, Part 3: Misc

Other Predictions:

1. The Senate: I have no idea if the Democrats will get 60 seats, but as I've said before, it really shouldn't matter. According to the Wiki, the idea that it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster (or call for cloture, or whatever) is a recent invention. The filibuster itself is kinda disgusting and a constitutional loophole at best. I would strongly argue, and do so no matter who controls congress, that both houses should have a simple majority vote for passing bills. It's disgraceful that we need 60. So anyway, I think that if the Democrats have 55 seats, the cloture rules can be changed to meet that, or eliminated by simple majority, if necessary.
   
   
2. Bush administration officials: Bush will give a blanket pardon to everyone in the White House (except the 'traitors' like McClellan, Powell, etc). My question is whether this can work. I would love to see a constitutional amendment preventing the President from pardoning anyone whose crime was committed while working for the Executive branch. As it is, since most of these yahoos haven't been formally charged yet, so I don't know. His father pardoned a number of straight out scumbags - far worse than anyone by Clinton - but that's the way the press goes; Bill Clinton could do no right, and HWBush got off Scot-free. So I don't know if the pardons will stick. If not, then we can see some wild and woolly persecutions of the former George W Bush white house. And given that he can't pardon himself, well maybe Bush will find some nice prisoner as a new husband.
   
   
3. McCain's fate: How ironic that a man considered to be principled by so many people has run the most despicable campaign in recent memory. Note, Nixon was worse, but only in the dirty tricks department (and who knows what McCain has been trying: it seems clear that Ashley "Backwards B" Todd was a dirty trick run awry and that Joe/Sam the (non) Plumber was probably another McCain plant, but there may be more we haven't discovered yet). What makes McCain worse than Nixon is that all the other slimy accusations made by a one party to other was always done via surrogates; Willie Horton, Swift Boats for Crap, were 527s and untraceable to the campaign. McCain & Palin in 2008 have actually been the mouthpieces for the racist/scummy tactics. That's a big difference. At least GHWB and GWB kept their own dainty fingers out of the mud. Anyway, it may be difficult for McCain to return to the Senate. He may pull a Dole and retire but if not, as I said here, if he tries to run for reelection in 2010 it's likely he'll lose. Same with Palin (see below).
   
   
4. Sarah Palin's fate? I saw the suggestion that if Stevens wins reelection in Alaska, and will be convicted, and not pardoned by Bush, Palin will try for his Senate seat. Maybe. But considering how much she's hated by the GOP establishment in Alaska, and how much dirt has been uncovered in this election, I don't see her having much longer of a legacy. But that leads to the big question:
   
   
5. What will happen to the Republicans? There have been so many moderate Republicans either defecting to the Democrats, endorsing Obama, or cruising for a bruising defeat in '08 that it's unclear who will be left standing. The W/Cheney/Rove legacy is to reduce the Republican party to it's vilest, stupidest nub. Who will vote for McCain-Palin on Tuesday? Three sets of states: (1) The Anti-Government West (Idaho, Wyoming, Oklahoma), (2) The Racist Appalachians (WV, KY, TN, AR), and (3) The Christian States (SD, NE, the South). Even more troubling for the GOP is that the current leadership, and their legion of blogger zombies, have decided to make Sarah Palin the ideological purity test. Most of the conservatives who've come out for Obama (e.g. The Economist, Colin Powell, Fukuyama) cite the choice of Palin as a main reason for their crossing party lines. Yet, support for her appears to be mandatory to the 'leaders' of the GOP (e.g. Kristol, Barnes, National Review, Weekly Standard). Yet Palin is clearly a living-caricature for what is wrong with the Bush/Rove GOP: she's a violent Christian ignoramus. If the GOP insists on keeping her as their symbol - she is pretty much George W Bush without his education or family - then the GOP runs the risk of dying or disappearing.

Yet, is truly possible for the GOP to disappear? We have a few historical models to look at. The longest legacy for party rule in the modern US is McKinley to Hoover, 1896-1932. Yeah, Woodrow Wilson was in the middle, but his election was a fluke (TR sabotaged Taft who would have won handily, and WW almost lost to Hughes - winning by a mere 3800 to get California); yet this dominance was shattered by the Depression. The Democrats then controlled the White House from 1932-1968, with the Wilsonian interregnum of Eisenhower. I know this sounds like I'm being selective with my examples, but Ike was barely a Republican, and he was victorious because he won World War II. The Democrats were defeated in 1968 (and it was close) because of the Vietnam War and as a result were wandering the wilderness from 1968-1992 (and by now you'll excuse the understandable hiccup of Carter). What am I trying to show? That there's a broad pattern of party dominance based on party-led disasters. The Republicans needed to live down the stink of the Depression until 1968; the Democrats had the legacy of the foreign-adventurism of Vietnam but also the mamby-pamby liberal stigma of the anti-Vietnam crowd as well. The question I have is whether the GOP loss in 2008 will be like the Depression or like Vietnam; recognizing, of course, that Bush brought America both!

But there is a third model, that of the death of a party. The Federalists were a historical creation of the Revolution and seemed to be unsustainable past the founding fathers. The whole Democratic-Republican mess is best left unsifted. The only major party who died in any recent times are the Whigs, and they just morphed into the modern Republicans. So, honestly, it's not really plausible to argue that the party will disappear. It's likely that barring massive malfeasance the Republicans will be in the wilderness like the post-Depression/Vietnam backlashes (16-20 years).

Both backlashes occurred because the repudiated parties were dominated by the jokers who got them into the mess in the first place. The Democrats in 1972 were defeated largely because of their association with the pusillanimous anti-war movement and the Democratic establishment kept nominating idiotic liberals (Mondale, Dukakis) that helped the stereotype. If the GOP decides that they're the party of Palin not Powell then they will be - like the liberal-ridden Democrats of the 70-80s - the crazy Christian bumpkin party. The Palin party.

But here's where it gets weird. The Democrats in their wilderness years of the 70s-80s still controlled Congress by a thick margin. And when they lost Congress, there was a moderate Southern Democrat (a.k.a. non-northeastern weenie liberal) as president. In that sense the Democrats were able to keep some power and also a variable nuanced party identity. There were Northeast liberals, as well as Midwest blue-collar 'joes' and Southern populists.

Now imagine if the Democrats only had the anti-war weenie liberals during their wilderness period. It's possible that the Democrats could have been synonymous with what we'd call the Green party today - the radical left. As such, the Democrats could have ceased to exist.

What may happen in 2008 is that if the Republicans decide to go the Way of Palin, then they may end up being the crazy Christian party. The only people left in the House/Senate for them will find the national leadership too crazy and may either defect to the Democrats or - and this is a big if - a plausible third party leader may take them in to form the 'fiscal conservative libertarian' party (maybe call themselves the Federalists, going full circle). In this case, I could see the Republicans ending up like the mirror-image Green party, stuffed with Southern Evangelicals and moonies.

As a Democrat, I will say that Sarah Palin was the best thing to happen to the GOP - she's a living symbol for all that's wrong with the crazy Christian right and for the Republican party. Just the other day I was able to explain - using her as the proof - for what America would look like if her ilk took control: banned books in the library, oil money used to buy sports arenas at the expense of schools and roads, a vigorous antipathy towards science and education, and women being charged for rape kits.

Henry Wallace

As I've been immersing myself in electoral politics, especially in the 20th Century, it's important to look at the decisions made by the major parties and how they won in critical years.

For each party, there's usually one president who embodies the modern party. For Republicans it's Ronald Reagan, and for Democrats it's either JFK or FDR. The two are similar in that they are both charismatic liberals, Machiavellian intellectuals, and defense hawks. Because JFK carries a lot of modern day baggage (his wacky adultery, Vietnam, Bay of Pigs), I prefer looking at FDR as the model Democrat. Not only was he the most successful president (4 wins!) but he created the modern United States as the combination of free-market and state-support, a belief in helping every citizen and also watching out for the world. OK, he should have done more to help my relatives escape the Holocaust, but I doubt Wendell Willkie would have been any better (given that the Republicans in 1940 were pretty happy staying out of the War).

Anyway, the crucial election for understanding FDR's success is 1940 - when he broke with the unwritten rule set up by George Washington that a president should only run for two terms. FDR dropped his VP of the previous two terms, John Garner, who pretty much defined the stereotype of a useless VP. Garner said the immortal phrase about the Vice Presidency "not worth a bucket of warm piss." Tell that to Grand Moff Cheney.

FDR chose Henry A. Wallace as his running mate in 1940 - dumping Garner, a Texas conservative Democrat and former speaker of the house. Wallace had been the secretary of agriculture from 1933-1940. Before that, he was, I think, a farmer. Also a Buhddist. Or something. He was definitely a wacko.

Note, when the 1944 Election came about, the Democratic party bosses insisted that the pro-Communist freaky-deaky Wallace be dropped as VP in favor of someone who could actually, ya know, lead the country in the case that FDR would drop dead (which had been expected at any time by those in the know).

I bring up these footnotes to history in order to understand the present day, especially the choices facing Americans in a wartime election (like 1940 & 1944) in a disastrous economy (like 1932) and with a sick old guy who could die sooner than later (FDR vs. McCain). Specifically, how does FDR's decision to reject Garner, accept Wallace, then reject him for Truman compare to the selection of Palin, Biden and even Quayle. Anon.

John Cole and the Start of the General

Even though Hillary hasn't stopped her machine, the consensus is that she is done. So John Cole, of Balloon-Juice (a daily-read for me) kicks off the general election with this coda for Hillary, praise for Obama, and seething contempt for the GOP. I will intersperse his statements with commentary when appropriate:

At any rate, I feel a profound sense of relief the whole nomination process is finally over.

The Styx is saving relief for when Hillary finally walks off the stage or Obama goes over 2025.

I guess I am just not used to the messy way you all do things here in the Democratic party, but these past few months have been excruciating. The primary, for me at least, was over after March 5th, when she failed to blow him out in the firewall state of Texas, but as a new member of the party I guess I am in the wing where "firewall" and "math" still mean things.

Just to emphasize, this was a new experience for many Democrats and a singular product of Hillary Clinton's psyche. I don't remember anyone quite as disgusting, empty and narcissistic in the party since, uh, since Woodrow Wilson? William Jennigs Bryan? Hmph.

So I endured another month of listening to certain wings of a party (that, again, I am a newcomer to) do their best NRO and Weekly Standard impressions and talk about electability, stealth Muslims, lapel pins, patriotism, new new delegate math, Rev. Wright, and whatever else they could dream up.

Whatever. She threw everything she had at him. He weathered the storm. Consider him vetted. Consider Rev. Wright kicked in the junk. Consider me relieved. Now, can we get to the very serious business of dismantling the GOP? I have a very serious axe to grind, and it is deeply, deeply personal for me. There are a bunch of frauds, crooks, and phonies with whom I have a serious grudge that I want to settle. You see, I still have my “Peace Through Strength” button from when I campaigned for Reagan. I believed in limited government, I believed in a strong national defense, I believed in fiscal restraint and balanced budgets and I believed in personal integrity and individual liberty and personal freedom.

I am pissed. I want the frothing nutters, the fraudulent hucksters, the race-baiters, the anti-science frauds, the anti-intellectuals, the gay-bashers, the big-money cheats, the torture fetishists, the religious nuts, the tax and spenders, the xenophobes, and the phonies to pay. I want payback. I want the people who ruined my former party relegated to permanent minority status. I know I am a newly minted Democrat, and, as such, it is ballsy for me to start telling you what I want from the party, but this is my website and you are just going to have to deal with my opinion.

I am under no illusion I will buy into everything Barack Obama puts forward, but I am damned sure convinced he is a decent man who, at the very least, will restore a sense of competence to the national stage. I am willing to meet most Democrats half-way, and I am already doing everything I can to get this man elected. I think Obama will act in good faith for this nation, and I am responding in kind. His policies are not outlandish or crazy or uber-left- they reflect a rational, and I would argue, a decent and progressive way forward out of the mess I helped to create. I won’t like all of them, and I will not agree with all of them, but there is no chance that I will ever be President, so perfect agreement is never a possibility.

And don’t get me wrong- I am not for Obama because of what I am against. I am for Obama because he is a decent man, a break from the past, and really a once in a lifetime opportunity. He has treated us like adults throughout this primary, and it is time to act like adults. There will be times we feel he lets us all down, but we are not electing a deity. We are electing a leader, and Obama is that leader. It is time to get past the bullshit of the last 20 years, the battles I am really tired of fighting, and time to turn our attention to the really important issues of the day- the economy, the budget, our international presence, our crumbling infrastructure, our military, medicare and medicaid and social security, and on and on and on.

If Barack Obama was not your your preferred candidate, I am sorry that person did not win, but it is time to remember that the target is John McCain and the Bush/Cheney way of doing things. If you can not accept that and help move us forward, please at least get out of the way.

Well done. And, play ball!

But W Was Not in the Room, so it's OK

ABC News reports, as the headline says: "Top Bush Advisors Approved 'Enhanced Interrogation'":

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News. The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said. Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding. The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy. At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

OK, for the record, the Vice President, Secretaries of Defense and State, Attorney General, Head of CIA and the NSA are not 'top advisors'... they are the CABINET. That is the freakin' executive branch. Just leaving the president out of the room, but inviting everyone else, doesn't give him deniability.

Second of all, uh, we've just been told that the VP and top secretaries agreed to torture people. Yup. Now what? Isn't that kinda worse than, I dunno, Watergate or Monica-gate?

Now what? Huh? Now what's going to happen. Put smart money on 'nothing.'

h/t TPM.

Campaigning and Governing

Basically I agree with Sullivan's response to Ross Douthat about Reagan:

Ross's point is well-taken:

Reagan's '80 campaign was badly mismanaged - he fired nearly all his senior staff after losing the Iowa caucuses, remember - yet once in office he was able to run circles around the Congressional Democrats, and match the canny Gorbachev at brinksmanship. George H.W. Bush won the Presidency by playing the hard-nosed partisan on the campaign trail, but he ended up alienating GOP true believers by cutting deals with Democrats from the White House. Bill Clinton ran as a centrist New Democrat in 1992 but tried to govern as a liberal (gays in the military, Hillarycare), before the '94 debacle forced him back to the middle. And George W. Bush ran two campaigns that were notable for their ruthless competence - yet competence of any sort has been strikingly absent from his administration's governance.

Still ... Reagan saw excessive delegation come back to haunt him in Iran-Contra. The first Bush doesn't count - he ran against Dukakis as Reagan's heir, and his pick of veep was an omen of his lack of popular touch. Clinton's campaign was as disorganized and as fly-by-night as his administration - made good by his prodigious talent. W is indeed the counter-example. His campaigns were crude but very efficient. If Cheney had turned out to be for policy what Rove was to gutter politics, it may have worked out well. But Cheney turned out more turd than blossom, didn't he? Delegation depends on the judgment of the delegated-to.

Basically, we have learned from Bush (and even from Reagan who was a disaster, despite the pagan-like worship of Ron by gen-X conservatives) is that delegation is a terrible leadership model. An idiot at the top means idiocy all the way down.

Moreover, we learn from Bush that campaigning and governing are different tasks - one is essentially ABC (always be closing, with the moral bankruptcy that this NSFW link implies) and governing is the task of responsible adults. Something that the GOP lacks now, and probably doesn't want back again soon.

Pic from here, about the Ronald Reagan caricature in Frank Miller's awesome Dark Knight Returns. Backpost finished 2009-11-29.

60 seats in the Senate? (And Response)

This is in response to the idea that Obama may get 60 Democrats in the Senate, an email I sent to Mark Kleiman of the RBC. I've redacted for publication. My argument is that it may not be necessary:

To be honest, all we (Democrats) need are 52 seats. At least according to my theory... Ya see, the reason why 60 is necessary is because of the most recent set of Senate rules that require that arbitrary number to end a filibuster. As we learned back in 2004-2006, the GOP was threatening us with a "nuclear option" that would have removed the filibuster entirely (or at least that's what the Wiki tells me).

Now that we won back the Senate, why don't we just enact the nuclear option? Especially when the rate of filibustering has gone through the roof and the bills being squashed are matters of life and death? Here's where my theory comes in: Senator Lieberman.

Lieberman was on the "gang of 14." And he's the only reason why the Senate is in the Democrats' hands right now. My theory is that if Reid tries to implement the nuclear option, then Lieberman will leave the Democratic caucus and throw the Senate into balance (making Cheney the head) or even start caucusing with the GOP! And because of that 51-49 balance, the 60 supermajority is still needed.

If my theory is correct, then all it would take *right now* to end the filibuster impasses would be for one more defection to the Democrats (Collins? Warner?) But if that doesn't happen, then even without getting 60, as long as we have 52, Reid can use the nuclear option.

Kleiman's Response:

I thought, and think, that the "nuclear option" involves flat-out cheating. I wouldn't want to see the Democrats use it.

Me:

Not even to stop torture? Congress has been squashed by the executive for a long time, a few 'nuclear strikes' by the Senate - just to roll back some of the major excesses - may be in order.

Kleiman:

If the Dems have that much backbone, there's other stuff to do that's fully legal.

Anyway, I expect the executive to change hands. The question is how much legislation we can pass.

Backpost finished 4/11/08, updated 2009-12-15.

Secret Service Code Names

Marc Ambinder (Atlantic's "expert" politics blogger) reports (on February 12, 2008) that McCain doesn't have secret service protection yet [note: yesterday, he agreed to it]. He didn't have it because he's super macho. And, evidently, stupid.

Anyway, Ambiner asks what McCain's nickname would be. To illustrate that, he lists the current & former nicknames: of this list of notables: "To the Secret Service (technically to the WHCA), President Bush is Trailblazer, Laura Bush is Tempo, HRC is Evergreen, Bill Clinton is Eagle, Dick Cheney is Angler, and Barack Obama is Renegade."

Renegade for BHO?! That's so cool. OK, two questions:

1. Marc's: what to call McCain.
   
2. My question: What would you like for yourself?

To answer #1 many commenters suggested 'maverick' (which makes sense both for his persona and for the movie Top Gun.) And I'd put money on that. If not that, maybe "Goldwater" or "Dole" after his two doomed predecessors.

For me? I'd suggest "Styx," "Rabbi" (which was also the nickname of one of the top-gun fliers, Lt. Ben Schneider), "Chumbucket", "Wideload", "Jabba", or "Rover."

Backpost finished 4-8-08. Had link and some commentary.

Mukasey

I read all over the news and the liberal blogs that the Democrats surrendered again by allowing Mukasey to be Attorney General. See Sunday's Frank Rich, and the NYTimes editorials. Schumer, especially, is criticized for capitulating and blah blah blah.

Alas, this is another case of poor analysis and poor priorities. Read Schumer's op-ed on why he voted for Mukasey. Everything he says is plausible and reasonable. Here's the summary:

1. Chuck Schumer (CS) sympathizes with those who want to reject Mukasey over his bad answers.

2. But Bush has threatened that if Mukasey is rejected, there won't be another nominee. Rather a low-level staffer, who has not gone though Senate review, would be acting attorney general until Bush leaves office:

Should we reject Judge Mukasey, President Bush has said he would install an acting, caretaker attorney general who could serve for the rest of his term without the advice and consent of the Senate. To accept such an unaccountable attorney general, I believe, would be to surrender the department to the extreme ideology of Vice President Dick Cheney and his chief of staff, David Addington. All the work we did to pressure Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign would be undone in a moment.

3. Mukasey has said that if the Senate passes a law to clarify the waterboarding issue, Makesey will abide by it, even against the Unitary Executive horse-manure shoveled by Bush & Co.:

On Friday, he personally made clear to me that if the law were in place, the president would have no legal authority to ignore it — not even under some theory of inherent authority granted by Article II of the Constitution, as Vice President Cheney might argue. Nor would the president be able to evade a clear pronouncement on the subject from the courts. Judge Mukasey also pledged to enforce such a law.

4. Schumer felt that rebuilding the Justice department was far more of a serious issue than the ambiguity about waterboarding, especially given the Senate's ability to clarify issues with an actual law.

Yes, it's terribly disturbing that Mukasey isn't up-front about waterboarding as torture, but is the Senate's job to (a) prevent an otherwise important cabinet officer over that issue or (b) to actually make a law saying that waterboarding is torture. Just to remind you viewers at home, the Senate is part of Congress which - until the GOP took both houses over - is the body that makes the laws that govern the executive branch.

Schumer's points are correct: while torture needs to be rejected (and it's unbelievable that we're even talking about it as ambiguous - thank you Bush voters!) it's WAAAAAAY more important to actually clean up the Justice Department. Why? Because of (a) warrant-less wiretaps and (b) the vote-suppression tactics perpetrated by Karl Christian Rove and Alberto Gonzales.

In fact, any partisan Democrat should want Mukasey over some DOJ hack because until the DOJ is cleaned up, there's no way we can trust our own US elections to be held safely... yet another think we need to thank Bush voters for.

Oh, and why was the vote done so swiftly (midnight Thursday)? According to the TPM it's because Sen. Reid made a deal with the GOP:

According to sources inside and outside the Democratic leadership, Harry Reid allowed a vote on Mukasey because in exchange the Republican leadership agreed to allow a vote on the big Defense Appropriations Bill, which contains $459 billion in military spending but doesn't fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And because the Times and other mush-heads don't understand what Reid did, I'll explain. Mukasey was supposed to be a cake-walk for the GOP. Because of Democratic opposition - which still wasn't enough to prevent his confirmation - Reid was able to pass a bill that funded the military WITHOUT FUNDING THE CRAZY WAR.

Reid triumphed; Schumer chose the lesser of the two evils that have been forced upon us by the scumbag Bush crew. And, yet, the Democrats are blamed for rolling over and playing dead.

Why doesn't the GOP get such bad press for all the crap they do? To be honest, because of the liberal bias in newspapers: the journalists *expect* the GOP to be scumbags.

Pakistan Problems

Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister of Pakistan, declared "emergency rule" on Saturday. He dissolved the Supreme Court, and has been arresting people he doesn't like. According to the AP-Wire:

Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup and is also head of Pakistan's army, suspended the constitution on Saturday ahead of a Supreme Court ruling on whether his recent re-election as president was legal. He ousted seven independent-minded Supreme Court judges, put a stranglehold on independent media and granted sweeping powers to authorities to crush dissent.

Here's my cynical take on the situation, based on my earlier analysis of Turkey.

While Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the rest of the so-called neo-cons could be considered non-"realists" in foreign policy (a nice way of calling them morons), I've always felt that Cheney was a realist. Mainly because Cheney, like Nixon and his ilk, couldn't give a good goddam about liberty and freedom. Realists know that the best foreign government isn't a free Democracy; it's a dictatorship that's loyal to US interests.

Allied dictatorships, while being oppressive and against human rights and all that, have the wonderful tendency to do what we want them to do. And I can imagine that Musharraf - seeing the writing on the wall with Bhutto returning - felt that it was time to tighten his reign on power... and asked Cheney for his blessing. And got it.

What's the downside? Pakistan becomes even more able to crush the Islamicist threat, hunt down Osama, and all it takes is for the US to wink at 'em. The only people who lose are Pakistani lawyers. And human rights, yeah, but all kidding aside I'm not sure how well Pakistan was doing before the current power-grab.

In any case, the silver lining to Musharraf's gambit is that we get a better ally in the region. And all due to the realist school of foreign policy. Messy business, this.

Turkey, Israel and American Power

Whenever I worry about the fiasco in Iraq and what it means for the standing of America in the world, I need to remember things like the current situation between Turkey and Kurdistan. Kurdish terrorists have attacked and killed a number of Turkish troops. And the U.S. has asked Turkey not to move their army into Kurdistan (a.k.a. North Iraq)... and Turkey is complying! Whoa. Even though Turkey could tell the U.S. to take a flying leap, they ain't, probably because it's not worth it to get on the wrong side of America in an armed conflict, no matter who you are. And even if we won't go after Turkey militarily, we're still mighty enough that a country will think twice about defending itself when America asks them to.

It reminds me of Israel in the first Gulf War. Israel was getting shot at and America asked them not to respond... and Israel complied. And, to some extent, the Second Lebanon War was the same thing (except that Dick Cheney - high on paint thinner - told Israel to just go ahead and pound Lebanon).

A Moment of Historical Maturity

Are we as a country mature enough in our collective ego and our adherence to justice to admit that our government has perpetrated crimes against humanity, and to bring the criminals to justice?

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Gonzales, Addington, Yoo, Rove etc. They are clearly guilty. Will we do what is right and just?

The next president will need to do that; which candidate will? No republican, for sure. Edwards, maybe. Obama, maybe. Clinton, probably not.

Cheney in 1994

Many people are linking to this clip of an April 15 1994 American Enterprise Institute interview with then ex-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney about what a war in Iraq would wreak.


Editor and Publisher, gives this transcript (but you should also see the clip if you have not done so):

Q: Do you think the U.S., or U.N. forces, should have moved into Baghdad?

A: No.

Q: Why not?

A: Because if we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.

Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it -- eastern Iraq -- the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.

It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.

The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families -- it wasn't a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?

Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.

Analysis
People have wondered - what could have happened to Cheney. If he was 100% correct back then, why was he a moron now? Some have suggested that he changed; either 9/11 profoundly shook up his mental state, making bold irrational moves seem acceptable, or its a physical change - parts of his brain have been destroyed through micro-strokes.

Both answers are possible but I think overstate the case. I don't think he has changed at all. His speech pattern is the same in 1994 as it was in the 2000/2004 VP debates and this great interview from Nov 4 1976 when he was Chief of Staff to Pres. Ford and was beaten by (gag) Jim E. Carter.



I claim that Cheney, the unhinged greed-hound hasn't changed at all. What changed from 1994 and 2000-2007 are two things:

1. In 1994 he was defending a decision he already had made. He was trying to explain the war policies of his employer, Bush Sr. That administration didn't go into Iraq, so he'll do his Cheney Act - using his calm, reasonable, authoritative voice and his steadfast gaze - to defend his behavior as the only smart rational thing to do. I believe that had Bush Sr. decided to attack Iraq then Cheney would say the same things he's saying today.

2. However, one still needs to ask why Bush Sr. didn't go into Iraq and why Cheney in 1994 was saying things that we now know are correct. My theory is that the fact that Bush Sr. was a major loser (proof: Quayle), his war staff was obviously talented. The decision to not go into Iraq was probably made by smart people (like Powell) and Bush Sr. listened to them (possibly, also, since he himself had been in a war he didn't think it was all playtime cowboys and Indians unlike his draft-dodger son). Cheney was the same but the rationale was being provided by someone else.

As we know, nobody has made Bush Sr. look quite as good as his reprobate loser son George Jr. This is the opposite of effective parenting; my job is to make sure my kids have a better life than I have had. The Bushes take the other parenting view, I guess.

Cheney could very well have not been in charge of decisions back in 1991. Either that or his crackpot idiocy was being routinely shot down by smarter people. Or even that Bush Sr. was not quite as much a milquetoast pushover as his son. Or even that almost every human in history has more of an interest in what is done in his name than George W. Bush. He seems to allow the most horrible things to be done in his name whether it's torturing American citizens or shotgunning puppies.

In any case, Cheney hasn't changed. He's always defending his behavior: in 1976 it was to make Ford look good, in 1994 Bush Sr, and 2000-2007 Bush Jr.

Best Moment of April 19 Gonzales Hearing

This is old news now but this short clip, 71 seconds, from the first day of the Judiciary committee testimony of Attorney General Gonzales is the most telling example of why "Fredo" is the epitome of these past 6 years of fiasco.

Some of the fiascoes are Rove created (e.g. the destruction of the wall between Church and State, the insane wedge issues, the ignorance of congressional corruption, the politicization of every nook and cranny of the executive branch), some are Cheney (e.g. every stitch of our disastrous foreign policy). But the most sordid are the Bush ones - because they aren't animated by greed (Cheney), or power (Rove) but from good-ole-boy incompetence.

This clip is from the very beginning of that day's testimony. After the Democratic chair (Sen. Leahy) comes the ranking Republican, Sen. Specter. Theoretically, this should be an ally, but in this clip we see Specter's thin veneer of friendliness to his party's executive branch employee shatter.

Ya see, Specter was just uttering pale bromides to ease General Fredo into the testimony, but Fredo can't resist mouthing off a belligerent self-defense.

Lessons to be Learned

Lesson #1: As far as I'd seen this was the first and last time that Fredo mouthed off. The rest of that day, and all subsequent appearances to the Judiciary, he has been eerily pliant. He's taking a savage ego beating. Over and over he needs to behave as a brain-dead buffoon. Yet commentators have been assuming that he is either (a) said pliant buffoon or (b) a superbly calm professional liar.

Thus, this clip shows that he does truly want to fight back and say, to quote his namesake: "It ain't the way I wanted it! I can handle things! I'm smart! Not like everybody says... like dumb... I'm smart and I want respect! "

Yet the demand for respect was ridiculous and shot down immediately by someone who was supposed to be an ally. I believe that Fredo is a clone-surrogate of Bush - note that they even sound alike, in accent & in whiny idiocy - and that after a token protest of their value they bend over and take their humiliation. I think that in every idiotic act of this administration, Bush puts up a Fredo-like protest, is shot down and shown to be a dolt, and then he swallows his meager bully pride and allows Uncle Dick or Aunt Karl to run the show.

Lesson #2: is that no other news agency pointed out this exchange! I reiterate that I believe it's the most important moment in this whole massive scandal. Oh well.

Backpost started April 19, 2007 finished 8/9/07. All I had was the Youtube link.

Email-Gate Anyone?

Hey, remember Filegate? That was fun. Back in 1996, the rabid Republicans controlled congress and the press was playing along with their every single manufactured scandal against Bill Clinton.

Why? I have my theories. It's likely a mixture of commerce and contempt. Commerce = Bill Clinton was transformed - because of his innate charismatic celebrity, because he was poor white trash and because he was an inveterate horndog - into tabloid fodder. Just as Angelina Jolie can't cross the street without front-page tabloid coverage, so too everything Bill did became celebritous and shocking. He was interesting in all the tabloidy ways and the media stopped caring about journalism and all about selling themselves. Contempt = because Bill was a hillbilly cracker from a broken home and the press corps, even by the 90s, was filled with wannabe cultural elitists. They hated him for the same reason Rush hates blacks.

Anyway, filegate was a hoot. Naturally, there was absolutely no wrongdoing, but that didn't stop the media from flogging this dead horse for a big long while.

My question, though, about that "gate" is: how long did it take for the allegations to surface before the 'gate' was appended it? And, related to that, how many newspapers/cable news shows used the term thereafter?

I ask that especially now because the Bush administration has so many real honest-to-goodness unbelievable-in-this-modern-enlightened-age scandals yet I don't know of a single 'gate.'

True, they tried doing that to the Plame/Libby case (plamegate, libbygate) but not only didn't those names stick, they weren't really widely used. And, if that's all we can dredge up, then that just proves my point. Check out this index page . None of the scandals that should be going on have been bandied about enough to get 'gated.' Torture? WMDs? Katrina? Cheney shooting a guy?!

Well, we have a chance now. If you've been following the news recently, it appears that the White House has misplaced millions of emails that relate to, uh, everything. And it happens to be a big ol' law that the emails be kept. Forever. Not ever to be deleted.

Will this scandal take off? Will the fact that the government has been eliminating evidence of its behavior cause a 'gate' to be appended? Let's see how long it takes, if it even does.

Oh, and just in case you're one of those Rush Limbaugh type listeners who won't believe that Bush would do anything wrong because he's a by-golly tough talkin' Texan born-again Christer, then see this list of all the times Bush's pardners have lost evidence:

Greenwald: The Bush administration's terrible luck with finding documents

Wolfowitz in Trouble

OK, let me get this straight. Paul Wolfowitz, the neo-con know-nothing who was an architect of the debacle in Iraq was rewarded for his incompetence in the standard Bushie way: instead of a prison term and lifelong revulsion for his criminal bungling he was made president of the World Bank.

And because Paul is a brilliant political mastermind, instead of laying low - with a gasping realization that he has avoided the fate he richly deserves - he keeps doing dirty stupid things.

Yeah? Like what? Well, like this:

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz acknowledged Thursday that he erred in helping a close female friend get transferred to a high-paying job, and said he was sorry. […] At issue are the generous compensation and pay raises of a bank employee, Shaha Riza, who has dated Wolfowitz.

This shkutz-bag divorced his wife in 2001 and started dating Shaha Ali Riza - an employee at the world bank - and then when he needed to escape the Bush Administration he got a job in the (wait for it) World Bank! As president! And then he got his shiksa girlfriend a massive raise in a sinecure at the State Department ($193,590 per year, tax-exempt) while still being paid at the World Bank!

Oh, and Shaha's new boss? Liz Cheney. Cough cough cough,

To review: very bad, very dumb man who created our Iraq policy miraculously escapes punishment, lands cushy job, and screws that up in a sex/money scandal.

This would be funny if so many people weren't dying because of this man and his pals in power.

Kurt Vonnegut & Don Imus

Well Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday at 84. This happened the same day that Don Imus was fired by MSNBC (and suspended by CBS) for saying nasty stuff.

The contrast between these two is instructive. Vonnegut was (until yesterday) the most important living American writer - because he was imaginative, knew how to write true satire, and generally he knew right from wrong. He was often compared to Mark Twain - and that's a fine comparison because the two were fine-thinking humorists. As such, even though I often disagreed with Vonnegut's politics, he was a hero to those of us who try to see the world realistically and communicate that realia to others. He was successful while most of us aren't. Hence, a hero.

Seeing Vonnegut a few months ago on The Daily Show was a defining nexus of this moment in time's highest culture. It was like witnessing Einstein meeting Freud (which never happened) or Twain meeting Churchill (which did). True, Jon Stewart and Kurt Vonnegut aren't at the stature of the above four, but we take what we can get.

Then there's Don Imus. I have not listened to the show for any decent length. I first heard of him from a relative, back in the late 80s, who liked the show because Imus told sick, racist jokes. Since that description, I have steered away from anything to do with him. Which was why I was so surprised a couple of years ago when I heard that he was a powerful interviewer of the powerful political elite. Huh? The racist-joke slimeball interviews presidential candidates and NYTimes reporters?!

Naturally, I am happy that Imus has finally been hoisted by his own petard. But the more important question is why he had been able to continue for so very long? Related to that question is: why did this obviously noxious and racist bonehead get caught LAST WEEK for what he has been doing for years?

The same holds true for Ann Coulter. She has been saying unconscionable things for years. Yet she gets smacked down for calling Jon Edwards a bad word. Huh? Especially since, if you've seen the footage, she actually did not call Edwards the fg-word. It was actually a botched joke. [Which, when it's as obvious as it has been in the case of Kerry and Coulter is a valid defense; it also applies to a recent flap over Garrison Keillor and can even apply to Imus's last straw.]

Why does it take so long to catch on to the vile nature of people like Imus and Coulter and why does the tide turn, often, on a small action and not on a grand error?

The same is holding true for the current government, by the way. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc were obviously criminal incompetents from day one. Yet America only figured this out around September 2006. Not after Katrina, not after no WMD, not after the economic policies written by Daddy Warbucks. It was before the Foley scandal, too. It just kinda happened. And the big revulsion - the one that should be in place now - has yet to happen. What I mean is that just as Imus and Coulter are now exposed for being the kind of people I knew they were years ago, so too Bush & Cheney will be exposed... it's this freakish new law of perception... but I don't know how or when it happens.

It does fall under the Tipping Point kind of dynamics, for sure. It's frustrating to me because until the point tips, the slimeball in question is given honor and access. Imus and Coulter were given respect, Bush and Cheney still are, yet when the point tips people will see them and revile them just as I see them and revile them now. Yet my revulsion, before the point tips, is heretical and unacceptable.

This is why it's an irony that Vonnegut dies the day a slimeball is unfrocked. Because Vonnegut saw the truth and was able to tell people about it. Yet his books were often and still are banned and reviled. While people like Imus walked free, Vonnegut's books were even burned. But I, like Twain and Vonnegut, can look at these ironies, inconsistencies and infuriations and find solace in the attempt to tell the truth of it all.