Explode baby, Explode!

Drill baby, drill! w00t!

CNN:

A 1-by-5-mile sheen of crude oil mix has spread across the Gulf of Mexico's surface around the area where an oil rig exploded and sank, according to the Coast Guard.

"This is a rainbow sheen with a dark center," Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry told reporters.

Officials do not know whether oil or fuel are leaking from the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig and the well below, but BP Vice President David Rainey said "it certainly has the potential to be a major spill."

The good news is that, as I write, MSNBC is reporting that the rig is not leaking from the well, so -- for now at least -- all the environmental damage seems to be done. The reporters seem positively giddy about this, but we've still got a 1-by-5-mile oil slick to deal with. Seems to me that's still pretty bad. 11 are missing and, at this point, presumed dead. So no happy news there, either.





Was it just 2008 when we were all told this could never, ever happen? Not only was it something that we shouldn't worry about, but people who did worry about it got well-earned mockery.

Yup, them crazy fish, they love those oil rigs... Except when they explode and leave an oil slick measured in miles. I'm guessing the fish don't like that much. And China was never looking at drilling off Cuba. That was just a wingnut rumor that served McCain's argument -- so he didn't shoot it down, as an honest man would've, he perpetuated it.

And how safe did McCain actually believe offshore oil rigs were? Well, when it was his ass on the line, not very.

Politico:

Just over an hour after finalizing plans to visit an oil rig tomorrow, the McCain campaign has cancelled the visit.

"The meeting with Governor Jindal has been postponed and we are canceling the trip to the rig due to weather," said spokesman Michael Goldfarb.

Of course, there's President Obama's reversal on offshore drilling. After taking a rational stand on the issue during the campaign, Obama caved into the irrational arguments of the pro-drilling crowd. And they attacked him for it.

What we learn here is that, when it comes to environmental concerns, you should never, ever, ever give a crap what Republicans say. Your default position on this should be "they are wrong," until they prove otherwise -- which they'll almost never be able to do. Some may see this a little unfair, but I'm just saying that when you look at their track record, it bears out. We can save a little time in any debate by going with the odds.

We also learn that -- as I always say -- meeting someone who's crazy halfway is halfway crazy. Fewer rigs than Republicans would like may mean a smaller risk, but it's still an unnecessary risk of potentially devastating consequence.

And, finally, we learn that you can't make Republicans happy. Not if you're a Democrat. It simply cannot be done. Obama could suggest that a 100-foot gold statue of Ronald Reagan be built next to the Washington Monument and Republicans would pretend to be insulted that he didn't go for 150 and snubbed the Lincoln Memorial.

So my advice, which I have no hope that the White House will ever take, is screw Republicans. Screw them all. Every last one of them. And throw Joe Lieberman in there for good measure. They don't know what they're talking about and you can't make them happy. They've taken the position -- either by design or default -- of opinionated ignoramuses. No matter what you do, they'll oppose it as the biggest outrage ever imposed on the American people in the history of big outrages.

So do whatever the hell you want. The reaction from the right will be no different whether you're 180 degrees off their position or just one degree. Repeat after me; "bipartisanship is dead." If you want an idea of what a Republican "good idea" looks like, as well as what an attempted compromise with them looks like, take a gander at that big, flaming wreck off the Gulf coast.

-Wisco


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Not an End, but a Beginning

Like anyone who followed the 2008 election closely, the inauguration of Barack Obama tomorrow seems as much like the end as it does the beginning. If this were a movie, the audience attending the inauguration would applaud wildly as the new president takes the oath of office -- hugs and tears and hats in the air and swelling music -- Barack would look at Michelle and say, "We did it," she'd cry and laugh, and the credits would roll. If it were an especially bad movie, a frustrated John McCain would get tangled up in the bunting and fall off something.

But this isn't Hollywood. History continues endlessly, the credits never roll, the audience never shuffles out of the theater, inspired and made wiser by schmaltzy lessons learned. We're in for four years at least where Barack Obama will both disappoint us and give us reason to celebrate. The movie would end where the presidency begins because the promise of perfection is plausible, depictions of perfection are not. Barack Obama will disappoint -- that's an absolute guarantee -- but it's not unreasonable to hope that the balance of his presidency will lean toward wisdom.

Today, Obama is still "the future president" and all that promise is already showing a ding or two. The choice of Rick Warren to give the convocation is disappointing to many -- myself included. There are some aisles which you shouldn't reach across. Getting this particular wizard to shake the medicine rattle over the proceedings can't be seen as anything other than a mistake. He's homophobic now and he'll always be a homophobe. I always say that meeting someone who's crazy halfway is halfway crazy. There are some compromises you should never make and some prejudices you should never forgive. While you pull them up in prominence, they drag you down with their idiocy.





Then again, I suppose those prejudices are hard to kill. Like racism, homophobia is illogical and irrational. As a result, it's more a matter of faith than a matter of fact. When the best argument you have for your position is "God doesn't like it," you don't actually have an argument. And weak arguments eventually die.

This is the case with the Mississippi paper, the Meridian Star. Yesterday -- two days before Obama's inaugural and on the eve of the Martin Luther King jr. holiday -- the paper apologized for serving the prejudices of the region more than truth during King's campaign for equality.

There was a time when this newspaper -- and many others across the south -- acted with gross neglect by largely ignoring the unfairness of segregated schools, buses, restaurants, washrooms, theaters and other public places.

We did it through omission, by not recording for our readers many of the most important civil rights activities that happened in our midst, including protests and sit-ins. That was wrong. We should have loudly protested segregation and the efforts to block voter registration of black East Mississippians.

Current management understands while we can't go back and undo some past wrongs, we can offer our sincere apology -- and promise never again to neglect our responsibility to inform you, our readers, about the human rights and dignity every individual is entitled to in America -- no matter their religion, their ethnic background or the color of their skin.

Change has come.

The election of Barack Obama was never really about race for me. He was just the best person for the job. While the fact that he'd be the first African-American president hasn't come as a surprise for me, it was always just gravy. But that distinction is significant and "looking beyond race" in this situation would mean overlooking the tremendous accomplishment -- at one time in our recent history unthinkable -- this inaugural represents. It'll be a black hand on that Bible tomorrow and that means something all on its own.

Today we celebrate the 80th anniversary of Martin Luther King jr's birth. It's no more or less significant that the 79th or 81st, but humans seem to like nice, round numbers. 80 seems more important, so it is. That Obama will be sworn in tomorrow after this nice, round number is celebrated is coincidental. But no one could've planned it better.

But it's there that coincidence ends. You have to believe that this was something King foresaw and that this was something he worked for. Not the election of Barack Obama specifically, of course, but a nation where someone like him could be elected. Racism is by no means dead, but it has been mortally wounded. History moves, as it always does, away from superstition (and racism, like homophobia, is superstition) and toward reason. The move from hatred toward tolerance is as much a triumph for rationality as it is for equality. If wisdom could be measured, then the sum total of wisdom in America would be increased. Tomorrow, we'll all -- as a whole -- become a little bit saner.

But, since "a little bit saner" doesn't necessarily mean "fully sane," we're not done. Racism still exists and, as Rick Warren demonstrates, other foolish prejudices exist as well. We're not done because we're never done. The world is constantly changing and with each new change comes new decisions. Some will always take the wrong road. American society and -- for that matter -- humanity, is a work in constant progress, never finished before it's changed forever.

This isn't the end of the Barack Obama movie, but the beginning. Change -- the word of the day -- has come.

-Wisco

2008 All Over Again

Last night, I wrote that I hate year-end lists. I knew this would somehow come back to bite me, but in my defense, I don't give myself a lot of space to explain myself in the roundups. What I meant was the typical news media lists, which almost always consist of pop culture fluff bound to be completely forgotten as early as the very next year. The other kind of list is the Roster of the Fallen. I hate these, too. Yes, it's sad that we lost people like Studs Terkel and Paul Newman, but their memories are polluted when we pretend that Paul Weyrich was a wonderful and loving lamb of God and that Charlton Heston was anything other than an actor with his emotional meter pegged at "histrionic" and his volume cranked up to eleven.

That said, here's my year end list of things during the presidential campaign that are actually noteworthy. Besides, it's pretty short. As year-end lists go, this one isn't much work for the reader.





Worst presidential candidate
A man so bad that you probably forgot he ran -- if you even knew he ran. No, I'm not talking about some third party lunatic, but a major party candidate. A former Governor of a fairly consequential state. I'm talking about Wisconsin's Tommy Thompson -- not to be confused with sleepy actor Fred Thompson.

Thompson put all his chips on Iowa, hoping to win that contest and launch himself to national prominence. But, as a former Bush administration official (Thompson headed Health and Human Services), Tommy already had one strike against him. Those strikes started piling up fast. First, in a speech to the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Thompson congratulated Jews on being good at making money; "I'm in the private sector and for the first time in my life I'm earning money. You know that's sort of part of the Jewish tradition, and I do not find anything wrong with that. I enjoy that."

According to that report, "The remark caused some murmurs and disbelief in the room, according to some who were present." He ended his speech, someone talked to him, and he returned to the podium to apologize. He did it poorly.

"I just want to clarify something because I didn't in any means want to infer or imply anything about Jews and finances and things," he said. "What I was referring to, ladies and gentlemen, is the accomplishments of the Jewish religion and the Jewish people. You have been outstanding businesspeople and I compliment you for that and if anybody took what I said wrong, I apologize. I may have mischaracterized it. You are very successful. I applaud you for that."

Congrats on being Jewish stereotypes! That's just awesome...

Thompson further blundered when he answered in a debate that, yes, he it would be fine for an employer to fire someone for being gay. As governor, Thompson had signed a first-in-the-nation anti-discrimination law that included gays. He later retracted the answer and blamed it on "a dead hearing aid and an urgent need to use the bathroom."

In the end, not a single person voted for Thompson. He dropped out after a poor showing in the Iowa straw poll and never even made it to the caucuses.

Runner up: Alan "I'll draft myself to run" Keyes.


Worst political ad
"Obama wants to teach sex ed to kindergarden students." This McCain ad mischaracterized a vote for a common sense, anti-predator bill that would require schools teach the difference between "good touching" and "bad touching" to kids and tell kids who to report pedophiles to. The McCain ad included this quote; "Learning about sex before learning to read? Barack Obama. Wrong on education. Wrong for your family."

It was an awful, awful lie. Awful because, as TIME's Joe Klein put it, "[McCain] is responsible for one of the sleaziest ads I've ever seen in presidential politics." But double-awful because it's a bad lie -- why on Earth would anyone want to teach sex ed to kindergardners? Just to be evil, I guess. Otherwise, what the hell would be the point? All in all, this sucked on many different levels -- including its eventual ineffectiveness. Only gullible morons believed it.

Runner up: Barack Obama wants babies to be hit by trains.


Biggest political surprise
Sarah Palin. No one guessed that McCain would select the Mayor of Santa's Village to become his running mate. She re-energized the Republican base, but quickly was exposed as an intellectual lightweight, a political opportunist, and a complete demagogue. McCain got a quick bounce in the polls after the selection -- at one point leading Obama slightly -- but it all went to hell when McCain's response to the economic crisis was to run around like a chicken with his head cut off, while Palin toured the country trying to convince everyone that Barack Obama was a terrorist.

Despite her popularity among Republican diehards -- Pat Buchanan, for example, has an almost literal hardon for her -- she quickly alienated everyone but the conspiracy theorists and racists she attracted. Some on the right believe she's the best hope for the glorious rebirth of the GOP and lefties everywhere can be thankful for that.

Runner up: Obama chooses Clinton as Secretary of State. Seriously, you would've never guessed that just months earlier.


Biggest relief
George W. Bush will really go away soon.

Seriously, do I have to explain this one?

Runner up: Dick Cheney will really go away soon.


Dead president of the year
Ronald Reagan. During the Republican primaries, candidates went to ridiculous lengths to out-Reagan each other -- going so far as staging one of the debates at Reagan's grave.

This turned out to be a bad idea when the market crash could be traced back to the philosophy of deregulation and Ronald Reagan became the only president to die twice; first as a man, then as an economic theory.

Runner(s) up (tie): Kennedy, Lincoln.


That's it. There are many more of these I could write, but it's hard to boil these down to just blurbs and neither of us wants to sit here all day. So long, 2008. It'll be hard to miss you.

-Wisco

The Terrorist Candidate

During the election campaign, it definitely got out of hand. Losing and desperate, the McCain campaign tried to capitalize on Barack Obama's weak connection to '60s radical William Ayers. That people confused this attack with a separate email smear campaign saying that Obama was a Muslim and, perhaps, a terrorist himself was probably less than coincidental. Barack Obama was the "soft on terrorism" candidate, which in turn became the "terrorist candidate" in many people's minds. The far right and the racist crowd aren't known for their deep intellect. I know that most people immediately suspect claims that are too good to be true, but I'll never understand how people can fall for claims that seem too bad to be true. If a claim about a candidate is so bizarre that it seems absurd, then guess what? It probably is.

Still, as I said, there are always plenty of dopes who'll fall for anything and it's probably safe to assume that most of those people voted McCain-Palin. But the McCain campaign needed every vote they could get and they weren't extremely picky about where they came from. If someone would cast a ballot for McCain-Palin because they were terrified that Barack Obama was going to sell out America to al Qaeda, then so what? A vote's a vote.

But they were playing with fire. Stupid people can be brutal people and gullible people are about 90% stupid people. The decision to believe that Barack Obama was an actual, honest to goodness terrorist betrays a bad decision-making impulse that goes farther than just that one choice. That decision led to other decisions and those decisions were just as idiotic. Earlier this month, the Telegraph reported that, as the William Ayers talk increased on the stump, there were entirely predictable consequences.

Sarah Palin's attacks on Barack Obama's patriotism provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign.

The Republican vice presidential candidate attracted criticism for accusing Mr Obama of "palling around with terrorists", citing his association with the sixties radical William Ayers.

The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling "terrorist" and "kill him" until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric.

It got so bad that Michelle Obama asked a campaign aide, "Why would they try to make people hate us?"





The answer is simple -- that's just what Republicans do. They can't win the debate if it's based on policy, so they make it about personality. Listen to right wing talk radio any day of the week and you'll hear it. They don't just misrepresent facts, they make stuff up. During the campaign, Team McCain tried to paint Obama as a supporter of infanticide. Again, the concept of "too bad to be true" is completely foreign to many minds. They believed that Barack Obama was a secret Muslim terrorist who supported killing babies without reason. There is no lower limit as to how stupid and gullible some people are willing to be. Al Qaeda openly hoped McCain, not Obama, would win. But that didn't bother these chumps, who couldn't possibly have been paying attention to the real world.

So it's more than a little ironic that and a lot less than surprising that al Qaeda came out with an attack against the President-Elect.

In a propaganda salvo by Al Qaeda aimed at undercutting the enthusiasm of Muslims worldwide about the American election, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy condemned President-elect Barack Obama as a “house Negro” who would continue a campaign against Islam that Al Qaeda’s leaders said was begun by President Bush.

Appealing to the “weak and oppressed” around the world, the Qaeda deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, said in a video released Wednesday that the “new face” of America only masked a “heart full of hate.”

It's less than surprising, because al Qaeda would've launched a propaganda attack against any of the candidates. But it's ironic because Barack Obama -- painted as the "terrorist candidate" -- turns out to be al Qaeda's worst nightmare.

"While it’s a bit irritating to have an atavistic mass murderer presume to dictate appropriate politics for a black American, Zawahiri’s diatribe is good news," writes the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Cynthia Tucker. "In fact, it may be the best news we’ve gotten in the struggle against al Qaeda since the so-called Sunni awakening in Iraq. Zawahiri and his fellow jihadists are clearly worried both about the symbolic power of an Obama presidency and about the smarter strategy against terrorism that Obama has laid out."

Bush's strategy in fighting terrorism has been idiotic. Invading Iraq was a pointless distraction and treating al Qaeda as a military problem, rather than a criminal problem, is using the wrong tool for the job. We've been treating a loose association of religious nutjobs like a foreign power. Tucker describes these actions as "a gift to al Qaeda and its recruiting efforts."

"They allowed bin Laden and Zawahiri to paint the U.S. government as an imperial power bent on a 21st-century crusade against Islam," Tucker writes, "However, that’s a more difficult argument to make when the Oval Office is occupied by a black man whose Kenyan grandfather was Muslim and who played with Muslim friends during his childhood years in Indonesia."

The things we were all supposed to be suspicious of are the things that makes him a huge problem for terrorists. It was easy to accuse Bush of prosecuting a racist crusade to wipe out Islam, but Barack Obama? Yeah, that doesn't fit as well. They're reduced to racism.

Of course, the people who fell for the "Obama's a secret terrorist" lie are no dumber than those who care what al Qaeda thinks. But it's the broader message that causes them trouble and the lie is much harder to swallow this time around. Obama's plan to withdraw from Iraq doesn't help any, either. Al Qaeda wanted McCain because they could count on him to foolishly continue the occupation until time stopped, if that's how long he thought it would take. Nothing would make terrorists happier. The United States' greatest military victory may have been a war with two fronts, but it's the sort of thing you want to do only if you absolutely have to. Many in al Qaeda see Afghanistan as being what brought the USSR down -- the expense of the invasion bankrupting the invaders. This was their greatest victory and they probably hope to be able to use the same strategy twice -- keep the enemy shooting until they can't afford bullets anymore.

But they know Barack Obama won't fall for that. So they try to provoke him with taunts worthy of a racist schoolyard bully. Sadly, this sort of thing probably worked with Bush, but "no drama Obama" is a leveler head. He won't be insulted into making a stupid decision to prove his tough guy bona fides. The days of having a reliably violent fool in the White House are nearly over.

Likewise, closing Guantanamo will be a blow against terrorism. Ending torture will be a blow against terrorism. Restoring justice and constitutional principles will be a blow against terrorism. Everything Bush argued we absolutely had to do to fight terrorism was an overreaction. You don't have to commit crimes to fight criminals. If the United States once again becomes a just nation, it's a lot harder to convince people that we're evil. It's a lot harder to convince people we're crazy when our approach to fighting international criminals is rational and measured.

It may be that there was no more crippling blow to terrorism than the election of the "terrorist candidate."

-Wisco

The White Christian Party

The religious right are crazy. That was the big news broken by conservative columnist Kathleen Parker yesterday. For those of us who've been watching the right wing evangelical movement for decades, this revelation didn't come as much of a shock. In her column, Parker called the religious fanatics on the Republican side of the aisle "the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP."

"Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party," she wrote. "And, the truth -- as long as we're setting ourselves free -- is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that."

But this is a party that has made intellectualism a criminal offense called "elitism." Deep thinkers are not welcome, mostly because they tell uncomfortable truths. The party has made heroes of reactionary dopes who do a "gut check" to make their decisions -- George W. Bush and Sarah Palin both come to mind. The GOP has become a party of high-concept thinkers; if the explanation for a position won't fit on a bumpersticker, it's too complicated. Smarty-pants know-it-alls are not welcome. This has gone beyond anti-intellectualism and has become anti-intellect.

"[T]he GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows," said Parker. "In the process, the party has alienated its non-base constituents, including other people of faith (those who prefer a more private approach to worship), as well as secularists and conservative-leaning Democrats who otherwise might be tempted to cross the aisle."





The Republican party has bent over backwards to please the religious nuts, especially during the Bush years. And this super-service of the white Christian base has alienated other bases. In 2000, Bush owned the Muslim vote -- a traditionally conservative demographic that responds well to family-centered messaging. But the religious right has made a habit of demonizing Islam and away went the Muslim vote.

In the end, if you're not a white evangelical, you're not a real Republican. In fact, you're not even a real American. All that Sarah Palin campaign talk about a "Real America" had a basis. That's who the Republican party represents -- to the exclusion of all others -- and that's the problem. As America becomes more diverse, the political power of this bloc of voters declines.

Alan Abramowitz, the Alben W. Barkley Professor of Political Science at Emory University, explains the problem in a very wonky piece.

The decline in the proportion of married white Christians in the American electorate has been going on for a long time. Moreover, the large generational difference in the prevalence of married white Christians in the contemporary electorate suggests that this trend is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. What cannot be predicted as confidently is how party leaders will respond to this trend. Right now, Democrats appear likely to benefit from a continued decline in the proportion of married white Christians in the electorate because this group has strongly supported Republican candidates in recent elections while voters who are not married white Christians have strongly supported Democratic candidates.

As America becomes more diverse, the percentage of the population that makes up the Republican base has nosedived. Where married white Christians made up nearly 80% of the adult population in the '50s, it's declined to less than 50% today. Meanwhile, the demographics of the GOP have gone in the opposite direction. In the '50s, married white Christians made up just over 40% of all Republicans -- today they make up more than 60%. As the nation becomes less white and less Christian, the Republican party becomes more white and more Christian. I ran the numbers myself a couple of years ago and determined that Christians as a whole will become a minority religion (i.e., less than 50% of the total population) by 2030, if current demographic trends continue. By that year, there will be no majority religion in the United States.

Meanwhile, the Republican party has become the party of intolerance. Defined mainly by what they oppose, they're seen as seawall against this rising heathen tide. They may not know the numbers, but they see it happening around them. America is changing and they don't like it. What do you think all that "America is a Christian nation" stuff is about anyway? If you can't save your dominance any other way, you can try to launch some sort of revisionist narrative that makes your dominance traditional. If you can use this newly invented tradition as leverage to write your religious beliefs into law, all the better. And, when you believe that your way of life is the only possible way to be a good person, the idea of being just another minority is terrifying.

As the population changes, the Republican party becomes more homogeneous -- more white, more Christian -- as the United States becomes less white and less Christian. Being the party of white evangelicals may have worked once, but it's now making them a party of minority grievance, a regional party of the white south. Even the mountain states are bluer now.

The right is busy freaking out over Kathleen Parker's column. They should be freaking out about their future -- at least, more realistically and constructively than they have been. In August, Democratic party head Howard Dean caused a minor flap when he slipped up and referred to the Republican party as the "white party." He may have misspoken (or, more likely, unintentionally said what he was thinking), but the statement is becoming truer and truer with each election cycle.

A party based on white majority can't survive into the future. The party of religious majority can't exist in a nation of diversity. The Republican party is hampered by their reliance on those "oogedy-boogedy" white evangelicals. They may not like being told that, but it's true.

The lessons of 2006 and 2008 are clear; start losing the "party of the majority" mentality or keep losing elections.

-Wisco

Rebuilding the Republican Party

After Tuesday's rout, the Republican party finds itself in pretty bad shape. Beaten and bloodied, rejected and discredited, the task for them is to make the party viable again. The swings states have swung blue and Democratic party head Howard Dean's fifty state strategy saw many of the reddest states turn a little more purple. In John McCain's home state of Arizona, Republicans saw Barack Obama come within shouting distance of winning. At the end, the battleground states weren't the midwest, but in traditionally conservative states. Republicans could take nearly nothing for granted.

So today, top Republicans are meeting to sort out what to do. Rebuilding the party is going to be a long, hard slog, but rebuild it they will try to do.

Jonathan Martin, Politico, Oct. 28:

Two days after next week’s election, top conservatives will gather at the Virginia weekend home of one of the movement’s most prominent members to begin a conversation about their role in the GOP and how best to revive a party that may be out of power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue next year.

The meeting will include a "who’s who of conservative leaders -- economic, national security and social," said one attendee, who shared initial word of the secret session only on the basis of anonymity and with some details about the host and location redacted.

The decision to waste no time in plotting their moves in the post-Bush era reflects the widely-held view among many on the right, and elsewhere, that the GOP is heading toward major losses next week.

Nothing better than to get all the people who screwed everything up in the first place together to find a way to straighten it all out. So far, their band-aid solution has been to repeat that the US is a "center-right" country ad nauseum. Barack Obama -- formerly accused by these same people of being Marxist -- has supposedly won the election by running as a conservative. This new line is everywhere on cable and op-ed pages.

If this is any indication of what they'll come up with from their strategy meeting, then we can expect them to assume that their previous line of BS wasn't any good; they need a new line of BS.





If we look at some of the attendees of the big GOP strategy summit, we see a list of old dogs unlikely to learn new tricks. The meeting will be at the Virginia home of long time rightie Brent Bozell, a full-time BS artist. Arranging the meeting is "longtime GOP strategsist and conservative PR executive Greg Mueller." Those names alone cement my assessment that the meeting will only produce new lies.

And a more recent piece by Martin gives us glimpse of how the old Republican party is seeking only to rebrand itself:

In addition to Mueller and Bozell, other conservatives attending the private session will be: Leonard Leo, executive vice preident of the conservative Federalist Society, and a leading figure in the movement on judicial and Catholic issues; Grover Norquist, the anti-tax crusader who heads Americans for Tax Reform; and Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Center and one of the most high-profile social conservatives.

In other words, the nuts who screwed everything up in the first place. You've got two religious right figures and a de facto anarchist. In fact, anti-government activist Norquist is a figure in the Abramoff money-laundering scheme.

These guys, being what's wrong with the Republican party, are getting together to figure out what's wrong with the Republican party. How do you think that'll pan out?

Meanwhile, a coalition of younger conservatives are organizing a coalition to rebuild the GOP in a saner image. Erick Erickson, the managing editor of RedState.com, Patrick Ruffini, a former RNC eCampaign director, Justin Sayfie, a former spokesperson for Jeb Bush, and others have launched a website to generate ideas -- RebuildTheParty.com.

The coalition's mission statement has some bad news for people like Sarah Palin. "[W]aiting for a political savior to materialize out of thin air is not an option," they write. "Eventually, strong new leaders will emerge. And when they do, they must inherit a party stronger than the one in its current state."

In my opinion, job one for a new GOP should be to drop the anti-intellectualism. Appealing to the lowest common denominator worked for a while, but eventually the message of "don't trust smart people" brought dopes to power and they wound up with candidates like George W. Bush and Sarah Palin. Driving the brainiacs away wasn't the wisest long-term strategy.

This being a new-media movement, the coalition has launched an interactive site -- Ideas.RebuildTheParty.com -- where users can vote up what they believe are good suggestions. Some of these ideas are just stupid. One genius suggests they get all Christian; "Christians need to realize that the Democratic stance is almost entirely un-Christian," they suggest. This is a new message how? They tried that and they failed.

Another is pretty vacuous; get "cool." "Build an exciting, inspiring and charismatic party that captures young hearts and minds and reminds them why it's 'cool' to be Republican and people can proudly say we are Republican AND educated AND informed AND caring AND diverse AND forward-thinking," this rebuilder writes. A little detail would be helpful here. Why not just suggest "win more?"

But some of the most popular suggestions are damned good ideas. "Realize that the biggest problem with the Republican party is that it is no longer about personal freedom, but about trying to dictate one perfect way of life..." writes one. "The Republican party turned into stricter government. This is not good."

"The party must return to its roots of small government and personal freedom," writes another. "The current platform of exclusion and moralism is unacceptable and will result in the destruction of the party."

"Keep the religious right in a position of power and you will continue to lose people like me; pure moderates who are fed up and disgusted with the Republican party -- whom I used to identify and vote with," one GOPer says. "I will never support a Republican candidate who pledges to keep marriage from gays or overturn Roe v. Wade. The government has no vested interest in defining social norms, and as long as the dogma continues to trend towards Talibanesque doctrine, I won't come back to the party."

Looking through the top ideas, we see bad news for that brain trust in Virginia; lose the religious right, stop being dicks about everything, stop being the authoritarian party. The good news for Democrats is that Republican party leadership isn't going to go for any of this stuff. The bad news is that they don't have to. If the coalition gets some traction, they'll rebuild the party on their own.

For myself, I'm looking forward to a future where the differences between Democrat and Republican are policy based. I'm looking forward to a future where speculation about "what would Jesus do?" isn't part of the national dialogue. I'm looking forward to a time when Republicans aren't spending all their time representing the worst of Americans -- the bigoted, the willfully ignorant, and the authoritarian.

It's an open question as to whether the Republican party can be sane anymore and still survive -- they've been home to nuts for far too long -- but I'd sure like to see them try.

-Wisco

Creating a New Mandate

I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.
-Franklin Roosevelt, comment to reformers

Yesterday, I wrote that the winners of the 2008 election were the people and that the winners shouldn't go home. We can count on Obama to work on the agenda he spelled out on the campaign trail, but there is still a place for activism after your guy wins. While the right is trying to launch an "Obama doesn't have a mandate" narrative, this seems doomed to failure to me, since it requires you to believe BS about what it is you want. I kind of think you're the expert there. You really don't need some jerk explaining to you what you think. As spin jobs go, this one seems a little pointless.

But Obama only has a mandate to do what he proposed in his presidential campaign; restoring tax fairness, reforming health care, rebuilding the economy, getting out of Iraq, investing in infrastructure and green energy, etc. These are the things we can expect the new president to address in his first term.

But there are issues that weren't brought up on the campaign trail. In discussing the president-elect, we tend to forget the sitting president. George W. Bush hid out during the campaign, an invisible president who avoided the public spotlight the way a vampire avoids sunlight. One big issue was fairly successfully avoided by John McCain and that was what the hell to do about George W. Bush and company.





A mandate isn't only given at the ballot box. When the people demand that something be done, that becomes an instruction to the government. "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny," Thomas Jefferson once said, "When the government fears the people, there is liberty." Government should be responsive to the people, not the other way around. The fact that we've been running this whole thing backwards needs to be addressed. Future executives must know that running the country like a dictatorship won't be without consequence, that the Constitution actually means something, that we are a government of laws.

Which brings us to a remedy proposed by my own congress member, Rep. Tammy Baldwin:

Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin has introduced the Executive Branch Accountability Act of 2008, calling on the next President to reverse the damaging and illegal actions taken by the Bush/Cheney Administration and to collaborate with Congress to proactively prevent any further abuses of executive branch power.

“Over the past several years, serious questions have been raised about the conduct of high ranking Bush/Cheney Administration officials in relation to some of the most basic elements of our democracy: respect for the rule of law, the principle of checks and balances, and the fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights,” said Baldwin. “The list of abuses of executive branch power is long, as are the Administration’s attempts to impede congressional oversight.

The act would:

-Ensure that any Bush/Cheney administration official guilty of a war crime is prosecuted under the War Crimes Act and the Anti-Torture Act.

-Affirm that it is the sole legal right of Congress to declare war.


-Restore the writ of habeas corpus as an essential principle of our democracy.


-Ensure that torture and rendition are uniformly prohibited under United States law.


-Immediately close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp.


-Ensure that Americans can bring claims against their government.


-Immediately take affirmative steps to protect all documents from the Bush/Cheney Administration and publicly reaffirm that the Office of the Vice President is indeed part of the executive branch.


-Publicly review potential abuses of the presidential pardon process.


-Reform the use of presidential signing statements.

"On January 20, 2009, the next President of the United States will stand before the American people and take an oath of office to '...preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.' Along with this oath, it is my fervent hope that he will take the decisive actions detailed in this legislation to restore our democracy," Baldwin says.

"On the surface, this may seen like a last jab at Bush and Cheney, and surely the portions of this proposal that address holding the former president and vice president, and members of their administration, to account will not sit well with those who would prefer to forgive and forget," says Baldwin constituent and writer for The Nation John Nichols. "But the real focus of the Executive Accountability Act is on the next presidency and the next Congress."

In a sane world, all of the provisions of the Executive Branch Accountability Act would be seen as redundant. But the validity of the Constitution of the United States of America has become a partisan issue, with the right seeming only to give a damn about the Second Amendment. I've joke that the Republican view of the Constitution can be summed up as "You can't take our guns. Praise Jesus. The End." Everything else is just crap we can all go ahead and ignore.

But without that founding document, this nation is nothing. There is no core, no guiding principles. And, if we allow a president to ignore the Constitution whenever the law becomes inconvenient, then we don't actually have one. It becomes meaningless and when someone actually cites constitutional requirements, it becomes a mere technicality that only nitpickers and anal retentive types care about. As a result, the president exists in a virtually lawless world which, as we all know now, leads to disaster for the nation.

Whether or not Baldwin's legislation actually goes anywhere is an open question. But if a fight is worth winning, then it's worth fighting regardless. I'd lose a thousand battles in a war for the right thing. I'd imagine that Barack Obama would probably be resistant to the idea, but as FDR pointed out, we can make the president we need.

We've got at least four years to pull this off and -- even if it only keeps Bush and Cheney from sleeping soundly at night -- it'd be worth the effort. Law without consequence is not law.

-Wisco

Yes We Did

The world is celebrating this morning. In Kenya, there's dancing in the street and a national holiday. In Japan, the toast of the day is "President Obama, Banzai!" (I say we take that one). But it's Chicago that's the temporary center of the universe and they were cheering last night as Barack Obama and Joe Biden lost the title "Senator" and became "President-Elect" and "Vice President-Elect."

The fight didn't last very long -- when Ohio went Obama, it was over. He had more than 200 electoral votes in his pocket at that point and a solid 77 west coast votes in the bank. When Virginia went blue, the extremely improbable became the all-but impossible. AP gave Obama Florida, McCain conceded, and it was over.





In his victory speech, President-Elect Obama praised his supporters, his detractors, his opponent, his staff, his family, his running mate, and democracy.

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer...

It’s the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

"There will be setbacks and false starts," he said. "There are many who won’t agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government can’t solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it’s been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years – block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand."

I'm tempted to go looking through the right wing blogosphere for sour grapes, but we've got four years -- at least -- to talk about that. Those "many who won’t agree" have already decided they hate Obama. Convinced he'll raise everyone's taxes, give all that money to Africa and terrorists, institute communism, and destroy America, they're beyond reason. The right used to talk about "Bush derangement syndrome" -- wait until you get an eyeful of anti-Obama delusion. All those people who believe he really is a terrorist, a Marxist, and the anti-Christ weren't shocked back to sanity last night. They won't be any time soon, either. They're completely insane and happy with that.

When all is said and done, we did this. You and me and everyone else who stood in line, who made phone calls, who kept up the fight. The voters who had a hard time and the voters, like me, who got in and out no problem.

And all those nuts, they did it too. With every cry of "KILL HIM!" and every dumbass who insisted a black man couldn't be allowed in the White House, another ten, twenty, one hundred votes went to Obama. Hate and paranoia aren't an attractive platform. Division, racism, and lies aren't the most appealing vision of the future. In their panic to avoid an Obama presidency, they practically guaranteed it. The thrashing of the drowning man exhausted him and he went under. The nuts on the other side did a lot to elect Obama, but we don't have to thank them for it. We only need to acknowledge it.

This isn't done. Not by a long shot. None of those people are going away and they'll fight the new president every step of the way, neutered as they are. When the battle's won, the winners tend to go home, but the losers are still ready to fight. Don't go home. In democracy, there is no decisive victory and, if that seems like bad news to you right now, remember the last eight years. That was the good news then. Nothing is irreversible in America. If you can't lose hope when things seem hopeless, then neither can you quit while you're ahead. This whole nation is a work in progress, never finished, never unchangeable, and never safely in the right hands. Victory is temporary, just as defeat is fleeting.

But right now, take five. Take a moment to remember what you did and where you are. "Yes we can" becomes "Yes we did." It's not over, but take a breather and pretend it is. You've earned it. Pour a glass of your favorite drink and make the toast of the 21st century.

President Obama, Bonzai!

-Wisco

What Did You Do Today?

It's one of those election day traditions. Every four years, a bunch of media remote trucks show up at Dixville Notch, New Hampshire to report the earliest election results in the nation. The polls open at midnight and everyone in town casts their votes right away. The results? Barack Obama by a nearly three to one margin. Every single Dixville Notchian -- or whatever the hell you call them -- has voted and the results of this 100% turnout is McCain 6, Obama 15. It's the first time in forty years that the town has chosen a Democrat. Only a gazillion more votes to go.

Dixville Notch always has 100% turnout -- I think if you don't show, the Children of the Corn come by your house and stone you. The media gods must be appeased. Nationwide, many have already cast their ballots in early voting. Voice of America reports that "more than 28 million people in 34 of the 50 states" have already voted. The turnout for election day is expected to be even bigger.

"We have statistics that we can point to right now that suggest that 28.8 million people have so far voted in this election," Michael McDonald, an elections expert at George Mason University in Virginia told VOA. "We are expecting 40 million people when all the numbers are compiled. And that will be about 30 percent of the 136 million people that we are expecting to vote." If that 136 million figure is correct, that would represent a turnout of 64% of all eligible voters.

"We may quite literally see turnout of a magnitude that we have not seen in a century of American politics," he said.





All that early voting has gone heavily for Obama -- 60% -- which helps explain why Team McCain didn't vigorously break out a new attack on Obama over the weekend. For as much as a third of voters, it would've come too late to make a difference. Instead, both campaigns have spent the last few days oiling the gears of the get out the vote machines.

While some of the early voting had unreasonably long lines, McDonald says this was the nature of the early voting mechanism in most municipalities. "What's happening here is that local election officials only have a limited number of polling places available for early voting in person," he said. "And those polling places seem to be completely overwhelmed. As we look from state to state where they do have these polling places, in many places they have had to extend hours. They have had to open up additional polling places to accommodate the demand for early voting."

Here in Madison, Wisconsin, for example, long lines for early voting had been reported. But this was because early ballots had to be cast at the city clerk's office. One polling place for an entire city means long lines. If there have been reports of hours long lines in your area, don't expect them to be nearly as long today.

I guess what I'm saying is don't let a long wait scare you off. Ask yourself this question; how long would you have waited in line in 2000 if you knew you could avoid what happened over the last eight years? If you're really worried, bring a headset, a book, and a lunch. If you're lucky, you'll have time to eat the lunch on the way home.

If you're in line when the polls close, you get to vote. Don't let them send you away. If you need another incentive to stick it out and vote, remember, George W. Bush is voting today and for once you get a chance to veto him. Cast a ballot to cancel out the vote of your least favorite rightwinger; Cheney, Bush, Bill Kristol, Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, etc. Sponsor a nut and cancel out their vote.

If you have any problems voting, call 1-866-OUR-VOTE. Report it, get advice from volunteer election lawyers, and protect your right to vote. Anyone who would deny you that right, anyone who stands in the way of democracy, is not a friend of this nation and our principles. Don't let them get away with it. Write that number down and take it with you -- 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

I'm going to do what I always do on election day, take a nice autumn walk to the polls at the nearby high school. It's an unbelievable beautiful day here -- an indian summer day very late in the season. I'll vote, go home, and watch the returns all damned night -- I don't think the presidential race will remain undecided that long, but I want to see how Prop. 8 turns out in California.

It's all over now. The endless polls, the stupid, distracting non-issues, and the crappy media obsession with those stupid, distracting non-issues. With any luck, we'll soon stop hearing about made-up demographics like "hockey moms" and "Joe Six-Pack." It'll go on for a while, as the pundits either try to explain why they were wrong or capitalize on the fact that they were right. But there will be two speeches tonight; one a concession and the other a victory speech. We decide which is which.

But only if we go vote. I'm an atheist, so whenever I'm asked for my religion, I say "none." But if someone really pinned me down and required me to state some sort of religious belief, I'd have to say "democracy."

You're going to remember this day for the rest of your life and you're going to remember what you did today. If you haven't voted already, you can take your place in history or you can polish that chair your sitting in with your ass. There are no other chances, there are no more days. You're choice today isn't just between the candidates, school funding, amendments to state constitutions. Your choice today is between the most basic of all democratic actions and undemocratic inaction.

Which do you want to remember doing today?

-Wisco

The Right's Stealth Campaign

The final USA Today/Gallup poll is out today and Barack Obama holds a national lead of 11 points. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll puts it closer, with an 8-point lead for the Democrat, 51% to 43%. Gallup also gives it to Obama by a pretty wide margin, 55% to 44%. We can pretty safely say that the consensus is that Obama's walking away with this thing tomorrow. In fact, networks will probably call it for Obama before the Mountain Time zone polls close. But, just between you and me, you can write McCain off if he loses Virginia. If that happens, the race is over early for most of the nation -- 8 p.m. Eastern at the latest. And it's looking like that's the way it's going to go.

For Republicans and rightwingers in general, looking for good news will mean looking elsewhere -- the national race is all but officially over. Where might they find these little rays of sunshine? In statewide victories for Republican Jesus. Down ticket races seem to be trending Democrat, so they're prepared for big congressional losses as well as the big one in the electoral college. They can't lose every race, but the wins will be nearly meaningless, given the lopsided nature of the next Congress.

No, the wins for the right will come in ballot initiatives. The stealth campaign for control of the nation comes in the form of control of the states through direct democracy. If they can't rule by elected office, they can rule by referendum. The highest profile referendum is Proposition 8 in California, which would amend the state's Constitution to ban same sex marriage. The good news there is that the proposition looks to be headed for a loss. The bad news is that it exists at all and that the loss looks to be a narrow one.

Los Angeles Times:

The Field Poll of 966 likely voters, conducted between Oct. 18 and 28, shows 49% opposed to the measure, 44% in favor and 7% undecided. The race is narrowing. A September Field poll showed the measure trailing by 14 points, 52% to 38%.

The new poll also found that "significant proportions" of voters on both sides are conflicted about the issue.

Women are more likely to oppose Proposition 8 than men, the poll reports; 51% of women and 47% of men surveyed oppose the measure. It also found that respondents who said they personally knew a gay person were more likely to be opposed than respondents who said they did not.

The problem here is that this ballot initiative, like similar discriminatory referenda, isn't only designed to change California's Constitution -- it's also an organizational tool. All those petitions become mailing lists, all those volunteer canvassers and phone bankers don't go away after they lose. They'll be told they'll keep up the fight and that Jesus will eventually prevail in California's battle with the Homosexual Menace. If they win -- which is still a very real possibility -- then they'll use that energy to move forward with other "pro-family" issues.





But the fact is that a loss is almost better than a win -- at least in terms of organizing. When the battle's over, people on the winning side tend to go home. When the culture war continues, the culture warriors fight on. This is where the Republican base will rebuild -- not around failed candidates, but around wedge issue ballot measures.

Arizona and Florida will both be voting on referenda similar to California's Prop. 8. In Florida, it seems close. Although polling shows the voters approving the ban 56% to 37%, Florida requires a super-majority of voters -- 60% -- to pass such a measure. This one's a nailbiter, but leaning the right way. Organizing after losing this one will be a pretty simple matter, since they can use that majority to claim "mainstream" status and because Florida conservatives tend to be pretty insane anyway (see Katherine Harris).

To give you an idea of how powerful these referenda become as organizing tools, we can look at Arizona. In 2006, Arizona became the first state to defeat an anti-marriage equality measure. The groups opposing marriage kept working, turned their petitions into mailing lists, and now a second attempt looks likely to pass -- 49% to 42%.

In Arkansas, voters will be asked to bar gays from adoption or foster parenthood. Thankfully, this looks like a big loser -- 55% oppose the measure, while 38% support it.

Don't get the idea that the right's stealth campaign is all about hating on the gays. It's just mostly that way. In South Dakota, it's about hating on the women. An initiative there asks voters to make abortion illegal in almost every circumstance. A similar ban lost last time around, but these people aren't taking no for an answer. Where the original ban had almost no exceptions, the current measure would include "limited exceptions for rape, incest and the health of the pregnant woman." That brought it much closer to winning. In fact, it's a tie -- 44% to 44%.

The S. Dakota measure is certainly unconstitutional and is meant only to challenge Roe v. Wade. There's absolutely no guarantee that it'll ever make it all the way to the Supreme Court, but it's all about the PR anyway. They're building the groundwork for a propaganda campaign to energize the crazies.

Want a reason to vote? There you go. And it's important to remember that these don't represent the right going away next year -- so neither should you. That's the danger of a successful presidential campaign, people go away. In a democracy, the fight is never over, by design. Wins must be defended.

No matter what's on your ballot, vote. But remember, democracy doesn't end on November 5. The religious right isn't going away on that day, so neither should you. We've got to win the big one and keep fighting the other ones. Democracy means that the fight never, ever ends.

-Wisco

Vote or be Dicked

Some endorsements mean more than others. For example, I don't know who Jay Leno is voting for and that's probably because I'm just like everyone else -- I don't care. Celebrity endorsements don't mean too much, because anyone who looks to celebrities for guidance is probably not going to vote. Other endorsements may help a little, because it bumps the candidate up in the news rotation. The more a candidate is mentioned in a positive light, the better.

But some endorsements can't possibly be seen positively. For example, John McCain scored the less than coveted al Qaeda endorsement. Turns out that having the US dumping money and blood down the drain in Iraq is pretty much exactly what the terrorists want. "Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election," reads an internet posting from the organization. "[We] will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda then will succeed in exhausting America."

But it seems that Americans are done with giving a damn what terrorists want. Good on us. They're freakin' insane. We should've stopped making decisions based on what crazy people want or don't want a long time ago. Al Qaeda's endorsement probably didn't do much to change anyone's mind. In fact, most media sources reported it as a "News of the Weird" piece, if at all. It wasn't the sort of thing that anyone really took seriously.





But another endorsement may be the final nail in McCain's electoral coffin. Yesterday, a certain Vice President made this statement:

I believe the right leader for this moment in history is Sen. John McCain. John is a man who understands the danger facing America. He's a man who has looked into the face of evil and not flinched.

Mr. Helpful also had nice things to say about Sarah Palin, saying McCain had "chosen a running mate with executive talent, toughness and common sense, our next vice president, Sarah Palin." The McCain campaign will not be sending a thank you note to Dick Cheney's office. In fact, this endorsement -- and its timing -- are widely seen as so damaging that many are openly wondering why Cheney hates McCain. There's no law that says the Vice President can't just shut the hell up, not endorse anyone, and hope everyone forgets about him.

Oddly -- but not surprisingly -- Cheney's endorsement is getting a bigger negative reaction than al Qaeda's. And Obama was quick to jump on it:

That endorsement didn’t come easy. Senator McCain had to vote with George Bush 90 percent of the time and agree with Dick Cheney to get it.

George Bush may be in an undisclosed location now, but Dick Cheney’s out there on the campaign trail because he’d be delighted to pass the baton to John McCain.

He knows that with John McCain you get a twofer: George Bush’s economic policy and Dick Cheney’s foreign policy – and that is a risk that the American people cannot afford to take.

Obama said that McCain deserved Cheney's endorsement, because he "really earned it." Ouch.

Dick's the heart of the neocon wing of the White House. Dick's the dark stain that will color our national self-perception for decades. The head liar, the chief crook, the author of torture, the despiser of law, the tapper of phones. Dick Cheney is everything that brought the GOP to this point in history, reviled and discredited, ruined and wrong.

Does Dick Cheney want McCain to lose? I doubt it. He doesn't really strike me as a big fan of hope and optimism, so Obama's not his guy. But, at this point, it's pretty clear McCain's screwed regardless, so Cheney couldn't resist the sadistic impulse to sucker punch Bush's old rival just one last time, in public, while he's already down. Of Obama and McCain, there really shouldn't be any doubt who he would've preferred, but America's Blofeld doesn't allow failure, so McCain must be thrown into the shark tank.

But McCain isn't without hope himself. And that hope is that you think this thing's in the bag, stay home, and don't vote. Whatever motive Cheney had for endorsing McCain, we can safely assume that he wanted him to win. After all, Bush endorsed him as soon as he was the presumptive nominee.

So let's look at some of John McCain's endorsements; George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and al Qaeda. If that doesn't get you up off your ass before the polls close Tuesday, nothing will.

-Wisco

All the Smart Kids Vote

I said I was going to continue to post reasons to vote until election day and that includes the weekend. I'm not going to knock myself out with a real long post, but I'm putting aside my writer's sabbath nonetheless.

So, here's today's good reason to vote -- you're not stupid.

ABC News:

Early voting and absentee ballots are a hot topic this political season, but scientists say some folks are laying the groundwork for voting really early -- say from kindergarten.

"Little is known about the association between measured intelligence and how people participate in democratic processes," says a current Intelligence journal study led by Ian Deary of Scotland's University of Edinburgh, in a wee bit of an understatement. "There is debate about the importance of intelligence in relation to whether people vote in elections, and there is currently little information on how people with different levels of intelligence choose to vote in elections," according to the report.

So Deary and company took a look at a decades long study of 17,200 people born in 1970. According to the article, "The researchers check up on them every few years and included intelligence tests at age 5 and 10, as well as voting affiliation and occupation at age 34."





Turns out that those who are the smartest vote most often. The average IQ is 100 and, for every 15 points above the average, a person is 35% more likely to vote. "People who took part in a political meeting or rally in the last year, those who took part in a public demonstration, those who signed a petition, and those who were fairly or very interested in politics had higher mean intelligence test scores at age 10," the study found.

So voting doesn't actually make you smart, but it's what smart people do. Turns out that being politically active doesn't hurt any either. So who's the smarter voter, the leftie or the rightie?

"Childhood intelligence is associated with how and how much people engage in the democratic processes, and with support for political ideologies that are based on ecological sustainability and social liberalism," the study found. Let me translate that for McCain voters -- not you. All those smartypants kids grow up to be fancypants liberal elitists.

And does the fact that the study was based on UK politics, not American politics mean anything? Not really, say the authors. "Although these data apply to one country's political system, there are broad similarities in political parties across Western democracies, and so these data might have wider relevance beyond the UK." That means you, commie Obama backers. You're the brainiacs.

Now go out and prove it.

VOTE!

-Wisco

The Other Side of the Story

Let's take a look at the economic situation. Never mind the naysayers, the gloom-and-doomers, the glass-half-empty types, some of us are doing just fine. If you look hard enough and long enough, you can find good, simple, hard-working Americans who are managing to get along. Good people, with good, honest values, who know the value of a dollar because they've got a boatload of them:

Associated Press:

Riding record oil prices in the third quarter, Exxon Mobil Corp. on Thursday posted the biggest quarterly profit ever for a U.S. company: $14.83 billion, or about $112,000 a minute.

The results, amounting to $2.86 a share, beat the Irving, Texas, company's previous record and shattered analysts' average expectation of $2.38 a share, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

Consumer groups and politicians saw reason for anger in those numbers.

"Our economy is suffering from many factors, but one of them is the price of oil and our nation's dependence on it," said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

Markey said that "investments in renewable energy continue to lag with the world's most profitable company, and as an industry as a whole."

"Consumers got credit card debt and empty wallets, while Exxon got double-digit billions," says Judy Dugan of Consumer Watchdog. "Citizens deserve to be mad. They should demand that government get back in the business of protecting them from corporate greed."

Those simple country folk with their good ol' fashioned common sense and small town values continue to make more money than any company in history, quarter after quarter, year after year. Yay for them!





Meanwhile, liberal whiners in Galveston, Texas complain that government isn't coming to hold their hands. "Boo hoo!" these cityslickers say, "Hurricane Ike wiped us out and we're not getting any help! Boo-hoo-hoo!"

"Things are far from normal in Galveston. Take a drive in Channelview or Bayou Shore Drive or the middle-class neighborhoods north and south of Offatts Bayou. Take a drive through the war zone formerly known as downtown Galveston," writes Dolph Tillotson for the Galveston Daily News. "Our town is under siege to destruction, loss and collapse, and middle-class families are wondering whether to return and if they can return."

Tillotson writes that Galveston "needs help, and lots of it, from the Texas Senate and House delegations." That's right, go crying to Washington. Didn't Dolph and the people of Galveston get the memo? Big gummint is bad -- and they should applaud the fact that it's off their backs. No one's taking wealth from other states to redistribute it in Texas; after all, that's socialism. They should build lean-tos from the roofs of ruined buildings and live in those. That's the American way. If they're really lucky, George W. Bush will come by in an armored Ford Escalade and hand out little flags on wooden dowels! Nothing lifts the spirits more than a photo op display of hollow patriotism. Make sure you wave them real hard!

Of course, government understands that some good Americans do need help. Compassionate conservatism and all... That's why we're doling out tax dollars hand over fist to bail out banks. See, banks need to be able to loan money to get the economy back on track, so the government gave them $700 billion to loan out.

Except the banks, with their brilliant business sense, aren't using that money to make loans. They're using that money to buy other banks. So, when you get turned down for a loan, it's because the bank has taken all that money and used it for a merger.

This practice isn't without it's predictable critics -- Democrats want to make sure the money is used to make loans, since that was the whole purpose of the bailout, but they're just liberal whiners. They probably don't even have little flags on wooden dowels. And big government bureaucrats in Washington don't like it either.

"The capital is there both to be lent and to make them stronger, so counterparties will have more confidence in them and lend to them more freely," said Treasury Department regulator John Dugan. Typically, he thinks Washington should decide how to use your money, not humble country bumpkins in corporate suites.

In fact, some believe that government should pay attention to all the tax money they hand out to small town family-values types in limos. For example, the US has paid $6 billion (or more) to private contractors in Iraq. What did taxpayers get for that money? None of your bees' wax, that's what.

The U.S. has spent about $6 billion on private security contractors and related services in Iraq, although the real tally remains unknown because the government has failed to track security costs, according to an audit from Iraq released Thursday.

Since the war began, the U.S has hired some 77 private security firms to provide armed guards to protect U.S. and Iraqi government officials, supplies and buildings in the middle of the war zone, said the audit by the Special Inspector General for the Reconstruction of Iraq.

Another 230 companies have provided related "security services" that range from intelligence gathering for private corporations in Iraq to protecting computer networks from hackers, according to the audit and interviews.

We don't know exactly how much we paid to get... well, no one really knows what. But it's totally worth it, because small business owners like the multi-billion dollar Blackwater USA say it is. Big government not only isn't going to tell them what to do with all that money, but it's not even exactly sure what we've hired them to do. Seriously, what are they doing with that money? No one knows, because big government is off their backs and paying no attention at all. Good for them -- give them little flags on wooden dowels. Maybe they can hand them out in Iraq.

These are the sort of common sense solutions brought to you by the Republican Party. If all of this seems like the best goddam way to run a railroad, then vote for John McCain.

However, if you're a liberal, commie treehugger who thinks none of this makes any damned sense at all, maybe you should just stay home. President McCain will thank you. In fact, maybe he'll drive by your house in a big armored Ford Escalade and give you a little flag on a wooden dowel.

Golly, but wouldn't that be fine?

-WIsco

The Fight After the Fight

I've decided to spend the remaining days until the election coming up with reasons to vote. But the best laid plans yada-yada-yada... I started out writing this as another post about why you should vote, but after editing, it turned out to be more about after the election. Still, you go vote. We've got to win the big one before we take on the following little battles. So vote to take the grand prize and here's a little preview of what'll happen afterward.

The right isn't going away after Tuesday. They're going to work to rebuild their movement and to tear down Barack Obama. A lot of people think that Obama's ad last night was overkill -- after all, he's far enough ahead in the polls that he can just run out the clock and do fine. But a big part of Obama's continued campaigning isn't about November 4, but November 5 and beyond.

The good news is that the most recent example we have of the right's attempts to discredit a president didn't work at all. Bill Clinton was supposedly everything from a serial killer to a cocaine smuggler. In the end, the right managed only to inoculate the public against BS and instill skepticism in the electorate. When Clinton was finally impeached for a crime with all the seriousness of an unpaid traffic ticket, his approval rating actually increased. Most disapproved of the impeachment effort.

So that's the good news; Republicans suck at this stuff. The bad news is that it's 100% guaranteed that they'll make the effort anyway. William Ayers isn't going away either. Nor is Rev. Wright. The Republican party will go into full damage control mode -- which usually means that, rather than build themselves up again, they'll try to damage Obama to an equal extent and level the playing field that way.





Will John McCain go away? Probably. Losing candidates tend not to stick around in the limelight. Maybe he'll retire or maybe he'll be like John Kerry -- he'll go back to work and leave all the headlines behind. Either way, we're probably done with John McCain.

But not Sarah Palin. She'll get a PR rep and a makeover. She's ambitious and she's had a taste of the big time. She's not going anywhere. And the base -- both leaders and the flock -- don't want her to.

New York Times:

“She’s dynamite,” said Morton C. Blackwell, who was President Ronald Reagan’s liaison to the conservative movement. Mr. Blackwell described vying to get close to Ms. Palin at a fund-raiser in Virginia, lamenting that he could get only within four feet.

“I made a major effort to position myself at this reception,” he said, adding that he is eager to sit down with her after the election to discuss the future. Asked if the weeks of unflattering revelations and damaging interviews had tarnished her among conservatives, he replied, “Not a bit.”

Brent Bozell, a so-called "conservative media critic," says it's a "top order of business" to figure out how to use Palin to rebuild. "Conservatives have been looking for leadership, and she has proven that she can electrify the grass roots like few people have in the last 20 years," he told the NYT. "No matter what she decides to do, there will be a small mother lode of financial support behind her." As I said, Bozell bills himself as a media watchdog, but he's actually a one man PR firm and attacks the media for not buying into Republican spin. If he has his eyes on Palin, it means he has a post-election BS campaign in mind. That's what he does for a living.

And those "grassroots" who wil be "electrified?" Here's what they look like:

FiveThirtyEight.com:

After [a Florida McCain] rally, we witnessed a near-street riot involving the exiting McCain crowd and two Cuban-American Obama supporters. Tony Garcia, 63, and Raul Sorando, 31, were suddenly surrounded by an angry mob. There is a moment in a crowd when something goes from mere yelling to a feeling of danger, and that's what we witnessed. As photographers and police raced to the scene, the crowd elevated from stable to fast-moving scrum, and the two men were surrounded on all sides as we raced to the circle.

The event maybe lasted a minute, two at the most, before police competently managed to hustle the two away from the scene and out of the danger zone. Only FiveThirtyEight tracked the two men down for comment, a quarter mile down the street.

"People were screaming 'Terrorist!' 'Communist!' 'Socialist!'" Sorando said when we caught up with him. "I had a guy tell me he was gonna kill me."

Asked what had precipitated the event, "We were just chanting 'Obama!' and holding our signs. That was it. And the crowd suddenly got crazy."

A man Garcia described as "a big stocky man wearing a tweed jacket" threatened him, telling him "I'm gonna beat you up the next time I see you." For daring to support Obama. These people don't oppose, these people hate. They seem incapable of anything other than extremism -- blind support for their candidate of choice, mindless anger toward those who support anyone else. Attacking Garcia and Sorando wouldn't have accomplished anything, it wouldn't have made McCain any more likely to win Florida -- in fact, it probably would've made it less likely. But it would've felt good to these nuts who are motivated solely by passion. The right -- who are constantly complaining about "feel good" politics -- are all about doing what feels good. If what feels good works, all the better. But if what works doesn't feel good, they ain't gonna do it. And, if what feels good doesn't work, they'll try to convince you that it does.

But when did McCain rallies turn this ugly? After McCain chose Sarah Palin, of course. Anti-evolution, anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-sex ed, Sarah Palin is their kind of folks. People who define themselves by what they oppose like the governor who does the same. Racist, ignorant, and pigheaded, they'll follow anyone who says the magic words earnestly enough. If she's an intellectual piece of fluff, so what? So are they.

But if these people think they can bully the rest of us into believing what they do -- and they do, that's what right wing media is all about -- then they've got another thing coming. Tony Garcia has a message for the big moron who threatened him at the rally.

"You tell that guy he can find Tony Garcia down at the West Dade library every day from 7 to 7 helping people early vote. I'll be there from 1 to 5 on Saturday and Sunday," he told FiveThirtyEight.com. "You tell him if he wants to kick my ass that's where he can find me. Come beat me up."

The bad news is that the right is ready to pull the sore loser gambit and try to destroy the next president. The good news is that they're cowards and we're ready for them. You want to try to kick our asses?

Here we are, punks.

-Wisco