Oooh, nuance!

I just saw this ad from John McCain (h/t to RalphB at TalkLeft). In it, he defines America's new purpose: Energy Security. The announcer intones, "For many years, American technology protected us...We didn't go to the moon because it was easy, but because it was hard."

Holy Jumping Jesus.

I've had various conversations with family members and my spousal unit about how the Democrats need to do EXACTLY what John McCain is doing: Redefine the words "national security" to include getting off our dependence on foreign oil, and re-familiarize Americans with the concept of sacrifice and hard work (without the air quotes a la Monsieur Deciderer). And even more unbelievable, McCain is using John F. Kennedy to do it!

If Jimmy Carter had Senator McCain's marketing team in 1976, we would be a whole different country by now. Carter's plan would have had us almost totally independent of foreign oil. We never would have invaded, oh, so many countries. Our world would not be in the grip of catastrophic climate change. Etc. etc. ad infinitum.

I am nearly speechless because of this incontrovertible fact: While Senator Obama chases the mythical creamy center, which to him appears to be located somewhere between the far and extreme right, John McCain is co-opting Democratic frames and using them to move to Obama's left.

Someone please wake me up from this nightmare.

A little while ago, I posted some thoughts on why Democrats vote. The new FISA drama has made me think again about why right-wing frames (such as "Democrats are weak on National Security!!111!!!") work so well against liberals, and what we can do to change that current reality.

One of the most die-hard of these right-wing frames is that liberals "hate America." Why in the world would conservatives think that, we liberals wonder? We love America. We love America so much that we want her to have the best government possible. Can't these idiotic conservative buttheads understand the difference between hating America and hating America's government and policies?

Well, maybe they can't. And maybe...it's partially our fault, because we do things like this.

You see, we liberals don't choose our symbols wisely. If we are upset with the government, we should not burn a flag. The flag is not Democratic, Republican or Rosicrucian. It is simply a symbol of America itself. Why would we burn a symbol of America...if we don't hate America?

Now, who is the idiot - the one that draws simple conclusions from symbolic acts, or the one that doesn't understand what conclusions will be drawn from these very same acts?

No one understands the power of framing and symbols better than Hillary Clinton, who was re-elected in 2006 with 67% of the popular vote. Senator Clinton took a lot of flak from self-professed "progressives" because she co-sponsored a bill to make it illegal, in certain circumstances, to burn the flag.

Take a look, for example, at this rambling, factually-challenged screed from Markos Moulitsas in 2006. It condemns Hillary for her flag-burning bill, among other things. It's quite the rant. (Apparently Kos has been an unoriginal, power-hungry Hillary Hater for a lot longer than I thought. Who knew?)

In any case, Clinton got it from all sides. She was pandering to conservatives. She was wasting her time on stupid legislation. Etc. etc. etc.

Well, you know what? It worked. Because symbols are IMPORTANT. Why don't we get that?

We don't get that because we don't listen. We arrogantly assume that people who think liberals hate America are stupid, and unworthy of our time and attention. Yes, we do this even to registered Democrats! Hillary listened and she understood. Burning the flag is like burning the Constitution. You can make your point, but make it another way.

And here's another thing Democrats are dumb about: We don't respect our own voters. You will never, NEVER see Republicans publicly sneering at other Republicans and double-dog-daring them to vote for Democrats. In fact, McCain is now openly courting the PUMAs - pointing out how rude Obama's supporters are, meeting with 75 PUMA members privately and reassuring them that he is not the scary neo-con freak he appears to be. And let me emphasize that most PUMAs are - or used to be - registered Democrats.

So why, why, WHY hasn't Barack Obama done the same thing? Why doesn't he acknowledge the very real concerns that we PUMAs have about him? Why doesn't he reassure us that he is not the petty, arrogant, immature, religio-con thug that he appears to be?

I'll tell you why. Because Obama, like a lot of Party Leaders, blames the voters when they don't vote for him. The BitterCling remarks and the boring and oft-repeated cries of racism are just two examples of this phenomenon. Republicans never, never blame their voters for not voting for them. They do everything they can to get every possible vote - including counting votes that aren't even there, a la Ohio in 2004! (I'm not advocating for THAT, of course.)

If we Democrats don't get a clue, very soon, as to why Democrats vote, we will be on our way to Party extinction along with the Republics.

Maybe that's a good thing. Should Hillary not become the nominee, I hope that after the 2009 election of John McCain, she and Bill Clinton use their personal and political clout to push a third party into national prominence. My pick would be the liberal Working Families Party, which is based in New York (perfect for a New York Senator). Then, she could run again in 2012 without all the interference, hamstringing and backstabbing from the Democrats.

I'll bet she'd win in a landslide. Because Hillary understands...why Democrats vote.

(cross-posted at The Confluence)

Why is it seemingly so easy for Democrats to be branded "elitist" by the corporate media? I mean, after all, George W. Bush famously said that the elite were his base while cameras were on. And it's very well-known, after almost eight years of the Worst President Ever, that Republican policies benefit no one but the rich and the very rich.

So why is KKKarl Rove laughing at us as the Democratic Party bigwigs seem to be on the verge of nominating Senator Barack Obama, a man who is already fitting into the elitist suit as if it's been personally tailored?

Well, here's one big problem. We Democrats don't seem to understand that elitism is not about money; it's about class and, to some extent, geographic location.

Every time one of our guys gets sucker-punched with this line of attack, we all whine about how the Republics are rich, too. Of course they are - they're usually far, far richer than the Democrat they're running against. (George W. Bush is from one of the wealthiest families in the country, for example. Al Gore was not even in the same universe in 2000.)

But here's what we don't get (and Bill and Hillary Clinton do). Republics know how to fake it. Why else do we think that George W. Bush, a Connecticut native, put on a Texas drawl and bought a ranch before running for President? He is afraid of horses, you know. Why else did Fred Thompson cruise around in a red pickup truck when running for Senate? Why did John McCain call his bus the "Straight Talk Express"?

Well, as a result of 30 years of right-wing propaganda, northeastern intellectual types are not wanted for President any more. They are elitist. They don't care about ordinary Americans. And it's not whether you are a northeastern intellectual type that matters (George W. Bush went to Yale and Harvard Business School). It's whether you can pretend that you're not. Republics do it by pretending they're dumb hicks. Bill Clinton does it by framing his ideas clearly, concisely and without unnecessary syllabification. And in my opinion, Hillary does it even better than Bill. That's why she is so deadly in a debate against Obama, who uses a lot of high-flown words to say...not a heck of a lot.

Like it or not, our Democratic Presidential nominees have not been good at ditching the elitist label since Bill Clinton was elected. Look at poor Al Gore. He was from Tennessee and far from monetarily endowed, yet he was successfully branded an elitist because couldn't make his arguments in a simple and concise manner. He didn't even win his home state! (Yes, believe me, I know he won the popular vote, but Big Al should have been able to beat the brain-damaged chimp with one frontal lobe tied behind his back. It should not have been close enough for a few thousand votes to matter.)

Unfortunately, Barack Obama is being branded an elitist, too. And it's working. Why else do you think Hillary is getting all those white working-class voters? No, it's not ignorance or racism. It's that he doesn't seem to care about the ordinary American. He has actually stated that Democrats in Ohio and Pennsylvania aren't voting for him because they're bitter and clinging to guns, religion, xenophobia and racism. He can't bowl. He belongs to the church of God D**n America. Are you kidding me with this guy?

Even worse, his campaign seems to be completely and utterly unprepared for any setbacks against them. They seem to expect a coronation (yes, that's elitist) rather than a tough primary fight. (Is this how they'll handle themselves in the GE? How incredibly unimpressive.) The explosive Reverend Wright issue has hurt Obama significantly, and the campaign hasn't defused it despite multiple attempts to do so. Meanwhile, Obama's enablers in Blogistan and the media world were screaming and whining for Hillary to quit before Pennsylvania, rather than trying to fix what was wrong with THEIR approach. (IACF, you know.) It didn't work, and now they're back on their heels, scrambling to make their case.

Meanwhile, Hillary looks tough, smart and approachable. As my hairdresser said to me, "I think it would be good to have a woman President. Hillary is a mother. A mother knows how to take care of her children." We will see how things go in Indiana and North Carolina tomorrow, but it appears that Obama's days of easy victories are gone.

Yes, the elitist label is deadly for Democrats. If Obama doesn't understand this soon (and his latest gaffe appears to show that he still doesn't), and the superdelegates pick him for the nomination, then we are looking at John McCain the Straight Talker versus the elitist Northeastern intellectual.

I'm not optimistic about that matchup. Are you?

John McCain scares the hell out of me, so I've been keeping fairly silent on Barack Obama, and what I believe are his fatal flaws as a candidate in the general election. But I can't let this latest gaffe go by.

By now, Senator Obama's jaw-droppingly tone-deaf remarks in San Francisco have made it to your ears or eyes, I don't doubt. But I just wouldn't be a campaign-obsessed bloggista without making my own commentary, now would I?

Obama's remarks were made as an explanation of why he is not connecting with working-class Democratic voters in Pennsylvania. I'll just let you read them again, and shake your head in amazement.

Our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

First of all, may I just say that I am incredibly sick of Obama's attempts to rewrite history when it comes to the Clinton administration. I was there, Barack. I know how much better it was in those days of peace and prosperity, when our President's biggest failures were private and didn't kill anyone, when we still had a working Constitution and Justice Department, when we actually stopped terrorist attacks before they happened, and when our economy was strong and it was easy to get a job. It was completely different during the Reagan-Bush years, during which I was also alive and conscious and struggling to make it; yet you make it sound as if the economy had steadily downturned from Reagan-Bush, through Clinton, through the Deciderer's reign of error.

In fact, the working class always does better under Democrats. It's one of the real differences between the parties. We know this. And I suspect you may know it too, but you don't seem to care.

Do you really wonder why working-class Democrats over 30 don't vote for you? And why we don't trust you? And why we resent the hell out of you? Here's a clue, Senator - we don't appreciate your smearing the only successful Democratic President we've had since FDR. To put it in terms you might understand, you are destroying our brand for the sake of your own personal ambitions. Gee, you're doing exactly what you and your supporters accuse Hillary of, every second of every day. Projection - it's not just for film booths anymore!

Second, your explanation of why people don't vote for you is nonsensical. I mean, literally - the entire paragraph doesn't make sense. I actually have no idea what you were trying to say when you claimed people are bitter because they can't find work, and then you say that's why they "cling" to God, guns, xenophobia and anti-trade policies? (By the way - that last little bit about anti-trade policies is very interesting. Sounds like you're not so against NAFTA afta all.)

Some Obamans have claimed that Senator Obama was trying to make the "What's the Matter with Kansas?" argument. Well, I've actually read that book, and the argument is not that people cling to their religious beliefs out of bitterness and that's why they vote for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama. Do people not know how to use their brains anymore? Will they accept anything Obama says as gospel, no matter how ridiculous?

The essential argument posited by Thomas Frank, the author of "What's the Matter With Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America" is that movement conservatives (Republicans) have, through a process called "backlash," convinced the working class in places like Kansas to vote against their economic interest and focus their votes on "social" issues like abortion, which Republicans have convinced many people that only they are addressing. He is explaining how states like Kansas went red, when 100 years ago, they were fiery populists and champions of working class values.

Again, this book is about why people vote for REPUBLICANS against their economic interests. Senator Obama was talking about Democratic voters in Pennsylvania and Ohio, right? These are registered Democrats who are voting in the Democratic primary, right? They are voting for Hillary over Obama, choosing between two Democrats, right? So how in any way do his remarks refer to Thomas Frank's thesis? These people WANT TO VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT. They are not voting for Republicans. Grasping at straws much, Obamans?

By the way, Obama's on his millionth "explanation" of his remarks now, with no end in sight.

Sen. Obama on April 13:

Well, first of all, you know, Scripture talks about clinging to what's good... What I was saying is that when economic hardship hits in these communities, what people have is- they've got family, they've got their faith., they've got the traditions that have been passed on to them from generation to generation. Those aren't bad things.

Oh my. Golly gee, Senator, I'm so glad you feel that religion and family traditions aren't bad things. However, that's not remotely what you said, and you know it. You said that people cling to religion and guns because they are bitter and want to explain their economic frustrations. Enough said. After such an inflammatory statement, why in the world didn't Obama just apologize and move on?

Unfortunately, the only explanation I can think of is because he genuinely feels this way about working-class Americans. Obama is showing us that he is, at heart, an elitist Democrat, the kind of Democrat that Left Blogistan accuses Hillary of being; the kind who wants to unify with Republicans and put them in his cabinet; the kind who is more comfortable with Wall Street than Main Street.

However, I must say that Obama is not MY kind of Democrat, and I think most Americans are starting to understand that his promises of "change" are just empty slogans. I'm confident that in the coming primaries, Americans will state their preference loudly and clearly.

Barack Obama and his illusions of inevitability will begin to fade away, starting April 22nd in the Pennsylvania primary. And I hope and pray that the Super Delegates will soon be asking, "What's the matter with Barack Obama?"

My Jeebus, what is it with these Republic operatives? Do they have clones? Are they robots? Why is it that just one is able to accomplish so much destruction with so little effort?

Case in point - the disastrous fall of the tireless Wall Street antagonist, Democratic New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. Like Al Gore and Michael Dukakis, did Spitzer get...Stoned?

We all had suspicions that the FBI's investigation into Governor Spitzer's finances was politically motivated. After all, the history of the Bush Administration and Democratic governors is quite terrifying. Don Siegelman, the popular Democratic ex-Governor of Alabama, could tell you a few stories. (He's serving seven years in federal prison for something he did not even do and which he could not possibly have done given the prosecution's own evidence. Da, Comrade Bush, all our enemies go to gulag!)

But this story seems to show that Roger Stone, GOP operative since the Nixon era, may have had his filthy fingers all over Eliot Spitzer too.

Last November, his lawyer wrote a letter to the FBI. In it, GOP political operative Roger Stone's attorney, Paul Rolf alleged that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer "used the services of high-priced call girls" while in Florida, basing his information on a "social contact."

The letter, dated Nov. 19, said Stone gleaned the information from "a social contact in an adult themed club."

"The governor has paid literally tens of thousands of dollars for these services," Rolf wrote. "It is Mr. Stone's understanding that the governor paid not with credit cards or cash but through some pre-arranged transfer."

It continued, including particular detail -- Stone's lawyer wrote that the governor hadn't taken off his calf-length socks "during the sex act."

It's unclear whether Stone's letter sparked the investigation: court papers say the investigation began "in or about October 2007."

The story then goes on to detail how Stone was a long-time antagonist of the Spitzers, and how Stone predicted Spitzer's downfall in early December of 2007. The final sentence is chilling - Stone has a picture of Richard Nixon tattooed on his neck.

WOW.

My question is this: How in the world could Stone have this information about Spitzer - especially the socks? (Whatever turns you on, Eliot baby.) Let's see, could it be... WARRANTLESS WIRETAPPING?

If the Democrats were any good at framing, they would have made sure they said these words over and over:

"Democrat Surveillance Program."

Get it, media dumbasses who call it the "Terrorist Surveillance Program?" The program was in place prior to 9/11, yet the attacks still happened. Either the program was useless, or it wasn't meant to prevent terrorism at all. Neither choice gives much logical reason for Bush's continuation of this program for seven years.

The program's real name, the "Democrat Surveillance Program" (DSP for short), tells you everything you need to know, doesn't it? No wonder the Democrats in the House have taken a strong stance against Bush's desire to immunize telecom companies from prosecution over their complicity in the DSP.

After all, according to Bush, every Democrat must get...Stoned.

The more this story about the lobbyist and McCain develops, the more it looks like it's directly impacting his narrative.

I had an exchange with the talented Four Legs Good on Eschaton yesterday, in which he implied that Obama's string of primary victories over Hillary had nothing to do with narrative. I respectfully disagreed, and said that in my opinion, every campaign is about narrative. Obama's fresh face, his charisma and his natural campaigning ability, along with his tongue-bathing by the national press and the public support of one of the most worshiped women in America, have allowed him to write his own narrative. He is the big change America needs right now, the great hope of American democracy. It's an extremely powerful narrative after the horrors we have endured under George W. Bush, and it has acquired a momentum that most likely will not be stopped in the primaries.

Hillary's narrative, on the other hand, has already been written by the press - she's a cold, manipulative, ambitious shrew who is only out for power - and she has had an uphill battle trying to overcome it. Her war vote has alienated many on the left, although they forgave John Kerry and John Edwards for theirs, and although Barack Obama himself has said that he doesn't know how he would have voted on the AUMF had he not been fortunate enough to be a Senate outsider at the time. Never mind, she's an evil warmongering bitch and Obama is a sainted hero with superior judgment. I suppose judgment and luck are synonymous to Obamans.

It hasn't helped that the press has cut Senator Clinton no slack whatsoever, painting her and Bill as racists (a charge contradicted by common sense - if they were racists, wouldn't we know after 16 years of intense scrutiny?) when they say anything negative about Obama, while allowing Obama to get away with nasty stunts like this and this, for example, with nary a ding to his halo.

It looks like with Hillary's recent loss in Wisconsin, she has one last stand in Ohio and Texas, and if she doesn't win there, her narrative will have been beaten by Obama's. Although the delegate count will remain close enough to go to the convention, she will be seen as a loser who cannot deliver in November. And so it goes.

As for McCaca's narrative, it has been written by the press too - and it's been overwhelmingly positive. Ignoring his flip-flopping on torture (he was against it, then he voted for it time and again) and public financing (for it, against it, for it, then hoping to be for and against it at the same time), the press routinely calls him a maverick and a straight talker with no evidence whatsoever. David Brock of Media Matters, with excellent timing, has just come out with a new book on the media's incredibly generous treatment of John McCain. I very much look forward to cracking that one open.

I don't think anyone cares too much about the personal angle of the McCain story (except possibly the fundies, who were not going to vote for him in large numbers anyway). No, what's suddenly coming to the fore are more stories about McCaca's loving relationships with lobbyists in general.

John McCain's narrative may be completely derailed by this scandal, and that can only mean good news for Democrats in November.

It's Friday - or as I would call it today, "F-day" - and just as in the "Electric Company" days of my youth, I am honoring the letter "F", which played such a big role in the events of yesterday and this week.

My Friends, as the McMaverick would say, let us begin.

"F" is for FISA, Filibuster, Fearmongering, Fuck You and Finally.

The letter "F" served quintuple duty in Congress this week. FISA loomed large on the horizon, as the Senate, after holding the line for months and staging Filibusters to stop telecom/Bushie immunity from being included, realized that Bush's Fearmongering would make it impossible to keep immunity out of the bill. So, the Senate agreed to pass immunity and allow the House to review the bill.

Now, the House had already passed another bill, the Protect America Act, in August, and that bill did not include telecom/Bushie immunity. That bill expires at midnight tonight, at which point, the old FISA bill takes effect. No immunity in that one either. In a spectacular Fuck You to the Deciderer, Speaker Pelosi and the House decided not only to avoid extending the PAA, which Bush had promised to veto in any case, but to take Congress out of session for the next two weeks. As House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes stated, "We'll be Fine." On the same day, the House also passed criminal contempt charges on Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten, who had illegally ignored their subpoenas to testify before Congress on Bush's orders.

FINALLY! At least for now, Congress is Firmly standing up to the Unitary Executive theory, and reasserting its status as a co-equal branch of government. Let us keep our Fingers crossed, and keep sending those emails and Faxes in support of our newly-vertebrate Congresscritters.

"F" is for Fascist.

In a brilliant Special Comment last night, Keith Olbermann spoke these words to the Cheerleader-In-Chief:

It is bad enough, sir, that you were demanding an ex post facto law that could still clear the AT&Ts and the Verizons from responsibility for their systematic, aggressive and blatant collaboration with your illegal and unjustified spying on Americans under this flimsy guise of looking for any terrorists who are stupid enough to make a collect call or send a mass e-mail.

But when you demanded it again during the State of the Union address, you wouldn’t even confirm that they actually did anything for which they deserved to be cleared.

“The Congress must pass liability protection for companies believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend America.”

Believed? Don’t you know? Don’t you even have the guts Dick Cheney showed in admitting they did collaborate with you? Does this endless presidency of loopholes and fine print extend even here? If you believe in the seamless mutuality of government and big business, come out and say it! There is a dictionary definition, one word that describes that toxic blend.

You’re a fascist — get them to print you a T-shirt with fascist on it! What else is this but fascism?...

In the same comment, Keith also excoriated the Fascists in the House, who, standing up bravely AGAINST the rule of law and Fearlessness, staged a walk-out.

And your minions like John Boehner, your Republican congressional crash dummies who just happen to decide to walk out of Congress when a podium-full of microphones await them, they should just keep walking, out of Congress and, if possible, out of the country.

For they and you, sir, have no place in a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

The lot of you are the symbolic descendants of the despotic middle managers of some banana republic to whom “freedom” is an ironic brand name, a word you reach for when you want to get away with its opposite.

This "Special Comment" was a clarion call, louder and more powerful than ever when backed up by the actions of a suddenly emboldened Congress. In addition, it was a masterpiece of Framing - a strong blow in the battle to Call Things Aright, which the traditional media has not done for a long, long time.

Yes, the "F" reigned supreme this week. May there be more Fearlessness, Finally and Fuck You to come.

There has been a lot of research done about how people vote, and the accepted conclusion appears to be that we vote primarily with our emotions, and not our brains. I don't see that changing too much in the near future, especially not with the current state of media coverage in our beloved country. I saw one of the cable news channels yesterday referring to the primaries as a "political bowl," as if the candidates were competing quarterbacks on the way to the playoffs.

To me, it was quite obvious in 1999 that candidate George W. Bush was not qualified to be President. This was not just a matter of party loyalty - it was also a gut check. I could not stand to either look at or listen to the man, because it was obvious that he was lying, stupid, or both - none of which were desirable qualities in a Deciderer-In-Chief.

At the same time, however, I recognized that if you had a less sensitive gut than mine, George W. Bush was a much better campaigner than Al Gore. He spoke in short, simple sound bytes that the TeeVee could easily digest. His platform had a nice bumper-sticker quality to it, designed to appeal to the maximum amount of people (remember how he was a "compassionate conservative?") while secretly telegraphing his right-wing evangelical credentials to his base. And I bemoaned, as I have done for many years, the seeming inability of intelligent, progressive Democrats like Al Gore to translate their superior governing abilities into superior campaigning abilities; to gather enough votes that even election fraud or an appealing third-party candidate would not matter; and to make their case that they, not the radical right-wing Republics, represent the majority in America. (I understand that authors Drew Westen and Thom Hartmann have recently written excellent books about this phenomenon.)

Well, file those complaints under the "be careful what you wish for" department, because what we got...was Barack Obama. And he is so good at campaigning that he's gone too far: he's grown a cult of personality, and is encouraging it to a dangerous degree.

Look who he took on the campaign trail with him: Oprah Winfrey, one of the most popular figures in American culture, and a woman watched by millions of viewers who hang on her every word. She tells her followers to buy a book, for example, and they do. Obama is exploiting Oprah's power to gain votes based on her enthusiasm, not his qualifications.

Witness the current sniping among the three front-runners, greatly exaggerated by the right-wing noise machine. Bill Clinton was 100% right when he called Obama's anti-war claims a "fairy tale," since Obama himself admitted that had he been in the Senate at the time, he didn't know how he would have voted. Yet the media has chosen to cut, splice and distort everything Bill Clinton said in order to take Obama's side. Nothing will interfere with the narrative of the Anti-War Saint Obama!

And of course, no criticism can be leveled at the Senator without accusations of racism. I'm sorry, but I've been following the Clintons for decades now, since Hillary is my Senator - and I just don't believe that there is any evidence whatsoever that they are racist. Barack Obama's latest statement seems to defuse the racial tension a bit, but nonetheless manages to push his prime narrative that Clinton is a clueless Washington insider and he is an agent of change. Man, is he good at this or what?

If Barack Obama became President, I certainly don't think it would be a disaster for the nation...but I don't think it would be a real change, either. I don't like the fact that he espouses policies that do not go with his impressive rhetorical skills (for example, his health care plan covers fewer people than Edwards' or Clintons'). I don't like that he panders to the anti-gay religious right in the African-American community, and I don't like that he refers to the "Social Security crisis," when there isn't one. Finally, I don't like that he says "can't we all just get along" with the elected Republics, when clearly, we cannot. If we could, they would stop the damn filibustering and let some of the Democratic agenda pass through the Senate; but unlike Democrats, Republics are perfectly content to accomplish nothing in service of their political agenda. Obama does not seem to realize that, and it worries me.

Don't get me wrong. I will vote for Senator Obama, or any Democrat that makes it through the endless primary process. But is it too much to ask for that a Democratic Presidential candidate be both progressive AND a master of campaigning techniques?

Apparently, for now, the answer is yes. But I do have hope that if Barack Obama can be a great campaigner, perhaps someday soon a progressive like Dennis Kucinich or Chris Dodd can be a great campaigner as well...without the attendant cult following. Since no candidate is perfect, we should be able to be enthusiastic about our candidates without worshiping them as if they were the Second Coming.

Won't that be a wonderful day for American democracy?

If you are not an economist, and you want a concise explanation of what Atrios calls "Big Shitpile," let Robert Kuttner of the American Prospect explain it to you. (Thanks, Dad, for bringing this to my attention!)

The article is remarkable not only for its clarity, but for its framing. New Deal good! Free-market fairy tales bad! Amazingly, regulation is not the worst thing that can happen to an economy, and just lowering interest rates does not magically infuse the system with high-value cash. Who woulda thunk it?!

To me, Business as an entity is like a child experiencing its "Terrible Two's." All of a sudden, "NO!" is the only word the child seems to be able to say. Although the Terrible Two's are difficult for parents, they are also a crucial time for setting limits and imposing discipline. Is the child intrinsically bad? Of course not, but it needs to learn morality. Without the proper guidance, it will develop not into a responsible member of society, but instead into a spoiled, selfish brat. (Of course, that may happen despite the best efforts of the parents, but that doesn't mean the parents are excused from trying.)

And that's where conservative economic policy (what Kuttner calls "free market fairy tales") fails us. Business is not intrinsically bad - in fact, it can be very, very good. But Business has no moral compass - it exists purely for profit. Without strong limits and regulation, it will become an anti-societal force, and that's just what has happened.

The conservative movement has been very, very good at selling the idea of unregulated markets by hooking it to the mythos of the American cowboy. He's out on the range, striking out on his own, no one to tell him no, singing "Don't Fence Me In." How oh-so-very-manly! Like Robert Kuttner, we liberals need to re-frame this debate. The free-marketeers are not cowboys. They are the robber barons; the triple-chinned fat cats who light their cigars with $100 bills; the guys who take your hard-earned pension and use it to buy hundred-foot-yachts for their buddies.

Nobody likes those guys.

That's the number of occasions upon which the Fascists in the Senate have used the filibuster.

Fifty.

Seven.

Times.

The Fascists have decided upon a wonderful strategery. They know they were the worst Congress evah. They know they did nothing for six years. By all rights, 2008 should see great Democratic gains in both the House and the Senate and make 2006 look like a 50-50 election.

But not so fast! They also know that the traditional media can be counted on to make them look better, no matter what they do. So their game plan is: Filibuster EVERYTHING. Filibustering makes it impossible for the Democrats to do anything, since it is now clear that not enough Fascists are going to vote with them to get cloture (60 votes).

Once they have paralyzed the Congress, they can then point at the Democrats and say, "See? They suck just as badly as we did! There's no difference between the parties! Stay awaaaaaaaay from the polls! Booga booga booga terra support the troops!"

Up until very recently, the Democrats have not been complaining about Fascist obstructionism, which I believe was a poor choice from a political point of view. Most likely, they felt that it would make them look weak to say that they were being blocked by the opposition party. But today, I heard Senator Bernie Sanders say the words "obstructionism" and "oligarchy" with reference to the Republics. Bravo, Senator!

More like this, please. Americans need to know the source of the gridlock in Washington, and the press isn't telling us. Speak out, Congressional Democrats, and don't be shy. We need to hear your voices.

I was rather wordy yesterday, so here's a short one: To take back our liberal brand and make it positive again, why don't we just start pounding the meme that conservatives are selfish?

Not only is that assertion true to the nth degree, but doesn't every American know that being selfish is wrong?

Just a thought.

Inspired by both Southern Beale's comment on my previous post and Dirk Gently's post yesterday, I'd like to say a few words about framing.

The Republics are fantabulous at framing. One reason is that they are authoritarians, and are thus much more given to groupthink than we rebellious liberal-progressives are. Another is that they still have the biggest microphone in the country. They own most of talk radio, several influential newspapers and this country's Pravda, Fox "News" Channel. But we cannot discount the fact that our elected representatives do not seem to have a clue, in this day and age, as to how to sell their ideas...with which 70%-90% of Americans are in total agreement. Mon dieu!

Being a girl who has some marketing background, I'd love to give our team a little advice. Here goes:

1) Do not play the other team's game. In this case, do not give their words power by leaving them unchallenged.

Case in point: We should not call our economic system the "free market," since the last thing these criminals want is free and fair competition (which might keep them from getting billion-dollar no-bid contracts.) We shouldn't call it privatization, since the word "private" has positive connotations to many Americans. We should call it by its true name: Cronyism. Doesn't that just encapsulate the true nature of the Bushies, especially since yesterday's discovery that the Inspector General who refused to investigate Blackwater has a brother on Blackwater's Advisory Board?

2) Figure out how to phrase your ideas so they make sense to our infantilized populace.

Let's face it. We Murkins have been treated like children so often that we have become children. When Bush told us to go shopping after 9/11, what did we do? Did we scream "What the fuck are you talking about? What kind of soulless monster are you?" No - most of us said, "What a wise and wonderful man he is!" and went about our business.

Democrats keep thinking that intelligence, good ideas and being Not Republican will get them elected. Because of the extraordinary horribleness of today's Fascist party, that worked in 2006 and it will work in 2008. But what about when the new Democratic President and Congress get blamed for four years straight for the mess that Bush and his Cronies and Lackeys have left us? Seriously, Democrats, once you're in power, are you really not expecting the press to cream you day after day, night after night, just for having D's after your names? Where the hell have you been for the past 30 years?

What sells is emotion. What sells is simplicity. Give a little (taxes); get a lot (free education and health care for everyone). Stop the wars. Save the children. Save the earth. Support the troops. Stop Cronyism. Protect our economy. Protect our food. People power. Trickle-up economics. Jeebus fuck, is it that hard?!

If the Democrats don't learn this lesson, and soon, they will risk the rebirth of the Fascists in 2012. And this time, they won't go away without taking us all the way down the road to the Fourth Reich.

The Mukasey confirmation vote in the Senate and the Kucinich Impeachment Resolution of Dick Cheney in the House are both supposed to be put forward today.

Let me be clear about my feelings on Mukasey. I have no doubt that, as Senators Schumer and Feinstein are saying, George W. Bush could recess appoint someone "worse" than Mukasey if the Judge is not confirmed. Indeed, the mind boggles at some of the horrendous Bush cronies that could be foisted upon the American people. Ted Olson, for example. [shudder]

But politically speaking, the American people know that if Bush can't get a nominee past Congress, he has lost. Even though Bush forced John Bolton in as Ambassador to the U.N., Bolton had no credibility because we all knew that even the Fascists did not want him to represent our government. It follows that if the Democrats oppose Bush completely on his nominees for AG, they will have won the war, even if they lose the battle.

Standing up to Bush is a political winner. Period. A President with Nixonian approval ratings should not be seen to have the least bit of support for any of his initiatives from the opposition party. Such support gives the mistaken impression that our representatives agree with Bush and are no different from him. Unfortunate indeed, since the Democrats' very slim majority - and the Fascists' united support of their Dear Leader - often leaves them with only bad or worse choices, such as fighting the semi-rational Mukasey or getting an even more corrupt and enabling AG appointed during recess.

I'm not saying that some of the Democrats aren't Fascist lite - I believe that the ones that vote consistently with Bush, such as, for example, Al Wynn from Maryland - actually are. But don't the majority of Democrats know by now that if they give Bush anything he wants, whatever good intentions they may have, they will be perceived as enablers?

Better to fight the good fight and lose, than to be seen as a Vichy Democrat by your supporters. The Fascists have known this forever. In this one instance, we would be well-advised to learn from our enemies.

UPDATE! Dennis Kucinich's resolution to impeach Dick Cheney has gone to John Conyers and the Judiciary Committee. Stay tuned to the Internets - no coverage will appear on your teevee (unless you watch Keith Olbermann of course...)

I've been listening to Thom Hartmann today, as I do almost every day, and in a rare moment, he said something that upset me.

As a truly fair and balanced guy, Thom always has at least one Fascist on his program. (Recently, he even had the grand-daddy of all neo-cons, Norman Podhoretz, on the show.) After the lunatic du jour had finished foaming at the mouth about SCHIP and how we would be murdering children if it were not vetoed by the Texecutioner, a caller started criticizing the Fascist, and Thom said, "He's a decent guy. I don't want to attack him personally; I just disagree with his policies."

I know that we liberals/progressives are forgiving and tolerant, but there's a serious flaw in this idea, and I think it is one that should be addressed. Unless you are saying that conservative pundits don't believe their own policies and are just spouting right-wing nonsense to get paid (which is bad enough), you are somehow divorcing a person's policies from his/her personality. How in the world does that work?

My personality is optimistic about the nature of humanity. I believe that as a group, we are basically good people, but that we can be misled by propaganda, fear and malignant leaders into supporting policies that are not good for us. Thus, I am a liberal/progressive, and any ideas I have regarding government will come out of those beliefs. In contrast, according to John Dean's excellent book "Conservatives without Conscience," conservatives believe that people are inherently evil, and thus advocate for Big Brother to hold our "bad" impulses (homosexuality being one, terminating a pregnancy another) in check through governmental regulations.

The Fascists understand that attack politics works, and that character does matter, precisely because of this fundamental truth: that a decent person does not advocate against giving health insurance to children, or support bombing Iran for no reason, or say that torture is just dandy, or support the removal of habeas corpus and other Constitutional rights in the name of "security."

Fascist pundits are not decent people. Fascist politicians are not decent people. And if our Democratic leadership would have another "At long last, have you no decency, sir?" moment, it could go a long way towards waking Americans from our long Orwellian nightmare.

Coming into the final, torturous days of the awful reign of the Bush Cabal, I've been thinking that the entire enterprise can be summed up in three words: Bait-and-Switch.

Hasn't every single endeavor they have engaged been a bait-and-switch? Case in point: The "War on Terror."

The Bushies declared war on a feeling, then went into Afghanistan and failed to catch Osama bin Laden. That was the bait. At that point, Americans had accepted the "war on terror" frame, so they simply switched the frame to include Iraq. To this day, you'll hear Bushies and other war defenders claiming that Iraq is a central front in the war on terror.

Same thing with the tax cuts. No president in history has ever cut taxes in a time of war, and there's a good reason - because war costs a lot of money, especially if you're planning to outsource and privatize every aspect of it. (At this point, 40% of our war budget goes to private contractors.) But never mind - the Clintonian surplus was bad, and debt was good. So Bush screamed from the high heavens that he had just made American living so much more easy and beautiful by cutting our taxes. Remember when you got that refund check in the mail? Wow, free money from the government! Bush is teh awesomest preznit evah!

That was the bait. But what Bush and his cabal really did was to switch the true tax cuts to the wealthiest of Americans. It turned out that check in the mail was just an advance on next year's refund - a fact which was quite deliberately obscured by the Administration. Now, in the interminable sixth year of our long national nightmare, the dollar is weaker than the Canadian dollar. Meanwhile, rich Americans are becoming richer, while working Americans are poorer, have less health insurance, and are losing their houses. And as for the Clintonian surplus, well, do the words "Trillion-Dollar Deficit" mean anything to you?

But what is his solution for this economic crisis? Making the tax cuts permanent! As Atrios would say, Wheeeeeeeeee!

It's all in a day's work for the Bait-and-Switch Administration.

I was thinking yesterday about offense versus defense, and trying to figure out why our Congresscritters always seem to be stuck playing D against the incredibly aggressive offense of the Fascists.

Case in point - the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment, which, thanks to our strong defense (thank you, Not-Macaca Senator Webb!), was rendered mostly toothless before it came to a vote today. You have to wonder, however, how the other team always seems to be coming up with more and more outrageous maneuvers that catch our defense off guard. And how are they even bringing these bills to the floor, when Harry Reid can stop them in committee? Guess what - they're not bills, they're AMENDMENTS to bills. There is no procedure that allows him to stop these amendments from coming to a vote. So since there is always a bill to be voted on, they can keep creating havoc until the cows come home, or the Republic becomes the Fourth Reich - whichever comes first.

But then the light dawned. The offense our Congress is playing is this thing called...GOVERNING. You know, making legislation, doing oversight and investigations? Something that the Congress hasn't done for, oh, about 13 years? As they have admitted time after time, the Fascists have zero interest in governing. So what else do they have to do with their time but obstruct, divide and distract with amendments like these ridiculous "Sense of the Senate" resolutions?

One thing I think some Congressional Democrats still don't realize is that there is no way that any Fascists are going to switch sides, at least not on our timetable. For example, Congresswoman Jane Harman, on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night, revealed how the Congress was terrified by falsified reports of an imminent attack on the Capitol into ratifying the overly-broad FISA Amendment last summer before their recess. In her remarks on Countdown, Ms. Harman stated, "I think we can get intelligence right, and I think we can do it in a bipartisan way."

No, Congresswoman. All respect, but we can't do ANYTHING in a bipartisan way, except, apparently, vote that attacking military guys in the press is bad and that Iran is verrry naughty. The only agenda the Fascists now have is to make Democrats look weak, and to hold onto their seats by the skin of their teeth in 2008.

We need to take the offense in another way now: We need to draw a line in the sand. No matter what they do, we need to oppose it, even if we don't have the votes to do so. It doesn't matter if it's a resolution that puppies are cute. Just the fact that it comes from the Fascists means that it's worthless. The sooner our Congresscritters realize this, the sooner the American people will realize that the Democrats understand the true threat to America: Republico-Fascists.

Security. It's a word that has permeated the consciousness of Americans to oversaturation since (say it with me now) Nine Eleven Changed Everything. But what does the word "security" really mean, especially when you combine it with the word "national"?

Security used to mean many things, all of them positive. You got a college degree, you got a good job, you bought a house and had 2.5 kids, and you retired with a nice pension. While all this was happening, you were able to afford gas and food for your family, and could even save money for vacations without re-mortgaging your house. You were never without electricity, and when you drove over a bridge, you didn't worry that it might collapse underneath you.

When you died, you felt secure that your kids would have the same, or an even better, standard of living, because you had faith that your government was doing its job - the job of improving security for its constituents.

Such was the American Dream, until Ronald Reagan and his conservative followers came to destroy the New Deal policies that had strengthened the middle class and allowed the dream to exist.

Poof! Before you could say "The government IS the problem," the economy tanked, we got mired in Afghanistan and created Al Qaeda, the multinationals began conglomerating and our media started to consolidate. News began degenerating into infotainment and propaganda. Think tanks blossomed that told us that the government was bad and corporations were good, and that loving the so-called free market was a substitute for political awareness. Pundits from these thinktanks began appearing on every channel to wage their particular form of class warfare and to demonize liberal ideology. Our manufacturing and service jobs began vanishing overseas, and our pensions suddenly became unsecured, easily lost when unscrupulous, greedy mega-corporations like Enron, WorldCom and many others used the funds to cover their illegal accounting practices.

Given the obvious effect conservative policies have had on national security, it would seem obvious that if you want to feel secure about your life in America, you would make sure to elect liberals like FDR, not conservative Presidents like Reagan and the Bushes, and Congresscritters like Newt Gingrich's class of 1994. But until quite recently, Americans seemed to feel that Republics were "stronger on national security" than Democrats - and even now, the margin of favorability between the two parties is very slim. How in the world did this happen?

One of the worst things the conservatives (especially gifted framers like KKKarl Rove) have done to this country has been their Orwellian destruction of the English language. The word "security" is no exception. When an elected official, pundit or journalist says the words "national security" now, they usually refer to "fighting terrorism by means of endless war". As if the only way our nation can be secure is to go to war against non-state actors who, in reality, are responsible for far fewer deaths than the automobile industry!

The real tragedy for America was not 9/11, but the reaction to it by our benighted Deciderer-in-Chief. Had Al Gore been inaugurated president in 2001, I firmly believe 9/11 would not have happened (the 9/11 Commission agreed that the attack was preventable.) However, had we been attacked by Al Qaeda during a Gore presidency, there is no way that Mr. Gore would have used such an attack as an excuse to terrify the country into accepting more and more egregious erosions of our national security. Among the outrages we have suffered are:

• tax cuts for the wealthy and the corporations, which steal money out of the pockets of the working class;


• destabilization of our infrastructure by refusing to invest in it or regulate its upkeep;


• ignoring real threats to our country and focusing on billion-dollar boondoggles like missile defense (which Condi Rice was set to speak about on 9/11) and the illegal invasion of Iraq;


• deliberate invasions of our privacy and a huge increase in identity theft which oddly seem to go hand in hand;


• allowing the rule of law, which protects Americans against their government, to become almost completely non-existent; and


• allowing predatory lending practices and prohibitive health care costs to bankrupt Americans.

For the sake of national security, it's time to stop accepting the meaningless slogans of Fear and Loathing, Inc., and remember that national security can only be provided by liberals. Conservatives do nothing but lead us down the path to endless war, and there is nothing less secure than that.

Many opinions exist about what the themes of the 2008 election will be. KKKarl thinks it will definitely NOT be about Iraq. Rudy Giuliani appears to be running on the "King of 9/11" platform, lately claiming, in an unbelievable display of hubris, that he was at Ground Zero as much as the rescue workers were (apparently, they were only there 29 hours!). But what if George Bush's disasters in foreign policy and national security are NOT what the American people are most concerned about in 2008? What if it's, once again, the economy?

Certainly there are signs that the plight of ordinary, non-billionaire people is finally trickling up to Wall Street. (I've always thought that economic indicators trickle up, not down, but then, I've got a degree in French and Music, so what do I know?)

Specifically, the practice of predatory lending reached epic proportions in the heady days when Alan Greenspan lowered the federal interest rate to .5% to protect his boy Bush from the consequences of cutting taxes in a time of war. Mortgage companies, seeing that people could not afford to live where they wanted and needed to, took advantage of human greed and lack of education about financing, and approved them for mortgages that could not be paid after the balloon payment, or after the Fed raised interest rates for the umpteenth time to stave off inflation, or many other variations on the same theme.

Unfortunately, even greedier banks bought these "sub-prime" mortgages, and expected that the loans were reality-based. They weren't, and the reverberations are being felt throughout the country.

From Raw Story:

Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. says customers are "running out of money."

Earlier this week, consumer juggernauts Home Depot and Wal-Mart reported softer than expected earnings.

[snip]

In Los Angeles, economic concerns hit close to home.

Anxious customers of Countrywide Bank jammed its phone lines, branches and website after the nation's largest mortgage lender -- which owns the bank -- announced it was facing problems from a credit meltdown.

"Countrywide Financial Corp., the biggest home-loan company in the nation, sought Thursday to assure depositors and the financial industry that both it and its bank were fiscally stable," wrote the LA Times Friday. "And federal regulators said they weren't alarmed by the volume of withdrawals from the bank."

"The rush to withdraw money -- by depositors that included a former Los Angeles Kings star hockey player and an executive of a rival home-loan company -- came a day after fears arose that Countrywide Financial could file for bankruptcy protection because of a worsening credit crunch stemming from the sub-prime mortgage meltdown," the paper continued.

"At Countrywide Bank offices, in a scene rare since the U.S. savings-and-loan crisis ended in the early '90s, so many people showed up to take out some or all of their money that in some cases they had to leave their names," the Times added. "Bill Ashmore drove his Porsche Cayenne to Countrywide's Laguna Niguel office and waited half an hour to cash out $500,000, which he then wired to an account at Bank of America."

"It's because of the fear of the bankruptcy," Ashmore, president of Irvine's Impac Mortgage Holdings, which escaped bankruptcy itself recently by shutting down virtually all its lending and laying off hundreds of employees told the paper. "It's got my wife totally freaked out. I just don't want to deal with it. I don't care about losing 90 days' interest, I don't care if it's FDIC-insured -- I just want it out."

I believe that by the time the Presidential election rolls around, we will be drawing down our forces from Iraq already. Certainly the surge cannot continue at its present levels past April 2008 without serious risk of breaking the Army altogether. And we know that the House has already passed a bill that echoes that deadline, although it requires the troops to be almost completely gone from Iraq by then.

Even if Bush can hold the line until he leaves office, the American people know that every Democrat running has promised to get us out of that quagmire. So really, Iraq may not be the issue in 2008.

As for national security issues, Americans are already favoring Democrats over Republics. After all, 9/11 happened on Bush's watch, and it's quite obvious that his approach to keeping us safe - the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war - is not working in any way, shape or form. Where's Osama bin Laden again?

Yes, it seems very likely that the Clintonian wisdom of the 90's will come into play once again in 2008, but this time with a twist. Maybe this time, Republics will vote their interests, instead of blindly following whomever shouts the loudest about God, Guns and Gays. Maybe America has woken up to the fact that Republics cannot be trusted with their money. And maybe we will finally realize that when we can't put food on the table, when we're working three jobs ("uniquely American!") and never see our families, when we are losing our homes and our health due to unregulated corporate malfeasance and greed...then we cannot be a free society.

Maybe it really is...The Economy, Stupid.

Yes, Newt Gingrich is even more of a slime-sucking ratling than you remember.

Via The Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Tuesday he is "sickened" that President Bush and Congress went on vacation "while young Americans in our cities are massacred" by illegal immigrants.

Gingrich, who is considering a run for the White House, was referring to the recent execution-style murders of three college students on a school playground in Newark, N.J.

One man whom police believe was involved in the murders — Jose Lachira Carranza — is an illegal immigrant from Peru who had been released on bail on charges of raping a child when the murders occurred.

Gingrich said that the "war here at home" against illegal immigrants is "even more deadly than the war in Iraq and Afghanistan."

And there it is. Fear and Loathing, Inc., is chugging along just fine without its CEO, KKKarl Rove. "OMG!!! Bush is right they did follow us home!!!!!1111!!!!!" think the brainwashed 18%.

It's clear to anyone who doesn't have a pencil stuck in his brain that Gingrich has just made an outrageous statement. Hundreds of thousands of people have died in Iraq and Afghanistan - clearly, there aren't massacring hordes of illegal immigrants swarming over the border killing The Master Race - ooooooops, I mean White People.

But you know what? The frames are still there. The frames are:

• "brown people are all scary and all want to kill Murkins" (see: we attacked Iraq instead of capturing Osama Bin Laden but the wingnuts don't care cause Saddam was baaaad);
• "they're stealing our jobs and raping our women" (see: brown is the new black); and finally
• "the proper and manly response to any problem is to declare war" (see "the war on terror").

All the Republics are great at framing, because they all get their talking points from Master KKKarl. On the Democratic side, the only candidate for President that seems to understand it is Hillary Clinton, although Obama shows flashes of brilliance in that regard. John Edwards, although he should be getting as much or more attention as the other two, does not get framing at all, and that's why his campaign is sputtering.

But the other Democrats, including the ones in Congress, had better learn, and very very soon. It's not just that the traditional media is run by the military-industrial complex and overwhelmingly favors Republics and warmongers because of that. It's also that it doesn't matter what the Republics say, as long as it falls within the frame they want to present.

If we don't start challenging the frames, we will never get our country back.

I really, really, don't want to think about this or say it. But playing 'see no evil' with what the Bushies and their neocon enablers like Joe Lieberman are doing with Iran is just not an option.

I went ballistic when I read that the Senate had voted 97-0 to approve Joe Lieberman's non-binding resolution that Iran is really, really naughty and deserves to be spanked. I'm kidding because I'm terrified! Here's what it really said (via firedoglake).

The amendment states that “the murder of members of the United States Armed Forces by a foreign government or its agents is an intolerable act of hostility
against the United States,” and demands the government of Iran “take immediate action” to end all forms of support it is providing to Iraqi militias and insurgents. The amendment also mandates a regular report on Iran’s anti-coalition activity in Iraq.

Of course, there's no such amendment regarding Saudi Arabia, which is responsible for most of the foreign support for the insurgency. Why would there be? They already let us have access to their oil.

Technically, the resolution says nothing about military action. Realistically, it is non-binding. But in terms of the KKKarl Rove frame that engendered it? It's the authorization for making war on Iran, if the Democrats don't wise up - and soon.

Let's face it. The phrase "the war on terror" was never challenged by the Democrats until it had become a part of the mass media echo chamber. I understand that the media would have crucified any Democrat that stood up and said "Hey! You can't make war on a feeling or a tactic! Terrorism cannot be beaten by military action!" In fact, they did so, when John Kerry said as much during his Presidential campaign.

But now, it looks like the Bush Administration is ready to build another case for another war on another country that did not attack us. How will they do it? By declaring a portion of that government's country....terrorists.

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is moving toward blacklisting Iran's
Revolutionary Guard Corps as a "terrorist" organization, subjecting at least part of the entity to financial sanctions in a new move against the Islamic republic, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

A decision has been made in principle to name elements of the corps a "specially designated global terrorist" group, but internal discussions continue over whether it should cover the entire unit or only its main military wing, the Al-Quds force, the official said.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because a decision, which must be approved by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has not yet been made. It was not immediately clear when the designation, first disclosed by The Washington Post, would be made public.

Uh-huh. Like the decision was "not yet made" to invade Iraq until Saddam just wouldn't let the inspectors in, right? (Oh yeah. He DID let the inspectors in and they found no WMD, so Bush pulled them out and invaded because he wanted to. I forgot.)

The decision is made, at least in some circles. Cheney, the neocons and the Zionists are allied in an Axis of Evil, as it were, and they are trying desperately to get Bush to bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran (as John McCain so memorably sang on the campaign trail). And because the Senate Democrats as a group have bought into the frame that the only acceptable response to terrorism is war, they are seemingly bound by their own words to support this invasion.

I say "seemingly", because there is a way out. The Democrats may not want to take the best way, which is of course to challenge the Bush-Rovian doctrine of pre-emptive war (called part of Bush's lasting legacy by Rove in his farewell speech). I really, REALLY want them to do this, because we need to move towards a modern foreign policy that deals with the true challenges of globalization, not keep on with the old Cold War formulation of proxy wars with hostile nations.

BUT - if the Democrats really can't find their spines, they can say this:

"What's the plan, George? We won't give you any money for this war unless you show us the plan."

Instantly the frame breaks. War is chaos without a plan. All the Democrats have to do is point to Iraq and the Invisible War, Afghanistan, to show how terribly the heedless prosecution of war will turn out. And needless to say, invading Iran simply cannot be done successfully. So there is no plan, and thus, there will be no war with Iran.

I will be calling my Senators and telling them that the American people will not accept war with Iran under any circumstances whatsoever. I hope you - and millions of Americans - will do the same. Let's hope it stiffens their spines...or at least, wises them up.