Tough CNN Interview, McCain Cancels Larry King Appearance

Today at Thinkprogress.org-- Yesterday, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds appeared on CNN for an interview with Campbell Brown. Brown was tough on Bounds, refusing to let him spout typical campaign talking points. She repeatedly pressed him on Palin’s foreign policy experience and qualifications, asking him to name one decision that she made as commander-in-chief of the Alaskan National Guard. Bounds was unable to do so.Today, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer revealed that because of that tough interview, the McCain campaign has canceled the senator’s appearance on Larry King Live tonight: The McCain campaign said it believed that exchange was over the line and as a result the interview scheduled for Larry King Live with Sen. McCain was pulled. CNN does not believe that Campbell’s interview was over the line. We are committed to fair coverage of both sides of this historic election.CNN also replayed the interview between Brown and Bounds. Watch Blitzer’s announcement and the interview.The McCain campaign has repeatedly tried to intimidate the press. It is now angry about media coverage of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy, calling NBC’s reporting on it “irresponsible journalism.” Campaign staffers “even considered pulling out of one of the three presidential debates because it would be moderated by Tom Brokaw, a former NBC News anchorman.” When Newsweek wrote a cover story in May examining the hardball tactics conservatives might use in the general election, the McCain campaign “threatened to throw the magazine’s reporters off the campaign bus and airplane.”

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The Real Issue: Governor Palin and the Survival of the Republic

Robert Mackey at the Huffington Post, via Digg.com -- This is the nail in the GOP coffin. With Sarah Palin, "the United States is facing a situation where for the first time since 1860, we could end up with an elected official who is in favor of breaking up the Federal Union.'

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Stop the Arrests of Journalists. Sign the Letter.

Police in St. Paul arrested several journalists yesterday, including Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and an AP photographer as they were covering protests of the Republican National Convention. And earlier this weekend, police raided a meeting of the video journalists' group I-Witness.

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McCain’s McGovern Moment

Garry Wills in today's New York Times:

The lesson from George McGovern’s campaign was that a vice-presidential candidate should be thoroughly vetted — a lesson apparently neglected by Senator John McCain.

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I Have Heard it Said

Some quotations. All of them, I think, are from A Word a Day, whose included quotations are usually just as interesting--and sometimes more interesting--than the proffered definition du jour itself.

It was our own moral failure and not any accident of chance, that while preserving the appearance of the Republic we lost its reality. -Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BCE)

History is a vast early warning system. -Norman Cousins, editor and author (1915-1990)

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them. -Patrick Henry, revolutionary (1736-1799)

Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago. -Horace Mann, educational reformer (1796-1859)

The perfection of a clock is not to go fast, but to be accurate. -Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues, moralist and essayist (1715-1747)

It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way. -Rollo May, psychologist (1909-1994)

People like to imagine that because all our mechanical equipment moves so much faster, that we are thinking faster, too. -Christopher Morley, writer (1890-1957)

Too often I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen. -Louis L'Amour, novelist (1908-1988)

There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for. -Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)

Tears are the safety valve of the heart when too much pressure is laid on it. -Albert Richard Smith, author and entertainer (1816-1860)

It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little. -Sydney Smith, writer and clergyman (1771-1845)

Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty. -Stephen King, novelist (b. 1947)

Profits, like sausages... are esteemed most by those who know least about what goes into them. -Alvin Toffler, futurist and author (b. 1928)

To read fast is as bad as to eat in a hurry. -Vilhelm Ekelund, poet (1880-1949)

Roads endure longer than pyramids. -Karol Bunsch, novelist (1898-1987)

To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman. -George Santayana, philosopher (1863-1952)

You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements. -Norman Douglas, novelist (1868-1952)

The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards. -Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)

Lots of times you have to pretend to join a parade in which you're not really interested in order to get where you're going. -Christopher Morley, writer (1890-1957)

The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation. -Ezra Pound, poet (1885-1972)

What's the Subject?

So this is at The Moderate Voice today:

September 2nd, 2008 by CAGLE CARTOONS

Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com

A glance at the comments posted there illustrate to my satisfaction that those who left comments didn't get the cartoon. The comments are largely on two points:

A. She's a girl who made a mistake.

Granted.

B. Everyone should just leave her alone.

Um, the cartoon isn't about her. It's about her mother. Specifically, it's about her mother's blind obedience to the We Know What's Best for You wing of the GOP, that noisy and noisome branch of the party that seems to feel it is its God-given right--nay, duty--to prescribe and proscribe for everybody else, and yet feels no need to be held to its own philosophies. Its members preach what should be done about public education while sending their kids to private schools. Its members are opposed to universal health care for the poor while enjoying broad healthcare coverage for themselves. Its members insist that "abstinence only" is an appropriate program--the only appropriate program--for other people's kids while their own are obviously not practicing it.

It's not about the Palin girl. It's about the Palin girl's mother and the deep hypocrisy that guides her and endears her to the GOP base.

Wisdom from Bill O'Reilly

One thing about Bill O'Reilly and Faux News: They never cease to entertain. Here's this from Daily Kos:

Bill O'Reilly on teen pregnancies
by kos

Tue Sep 02, 2008 at 01:50:28 PM PDT

He was for blaming the parents before he was against it.

On the pinhead front, 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant. The sister of Britney says she is shocked. I bet.

Now most teens are pinheads in some ways. But here the blame falls primarily on the parents of the girl, who obviously have little control over her or even over Britney Spears. Look at the way she behaves.

Last night, O'Reilly was beside himself that anyone would publicly discuss Bristol Palin's pregnancy.

Then again, hypocrite extraordinaire O'Reilly never met a glass house he didn't shatter.

Indeed. One of the great joys of the McCain camp's bizarre selection of Sarah Palin as their VP candidate is watching right-wingnuts trip over themselves to explain away all of the hypocrisy that the selection brings with it. O'Reilly's backpedaling above, for instance. Or various local and national GOP politicians trying to explain that now "experience" doesn't really matter at all...never mind what they've been saying about Barack Obama all these months.

Amazingly, they seem capable of doing all of this with a straight face, which makes me think they've been at it so long that they really don't know what lies, dissembling, hypocrisy, and smears are anymore!

Look Long & Hard At This Photograph, America.

I'm still not wild about the way things post here via Digg.com. But most of the time I'm on the run and need something quick and slick to get the job done, get something fixed that I may or may not return to later for further pithy comment.

But it's a little frustrating when the post in question hinges on a photo, and the photo doesn't post.

Well, anyway...

A post from earlier today: Shaun Mullen in The Moderate Voice, via Digg.com:

Look long and hard at this photograph, America. I mean really long and hard. Because when all is said and done, this is what selecting a vice presidential running mate is all about.

Look long and hard at this photograph, America. I mean really long and hard. Now, squint a little and picture Joe Biden raising his right hand to take the oath of office as a stunned Michelle Obama stands at his left side and Jill Biden at his right. A disturbing thought, but at the same time comforting. Because Biden would be ready to lead.

Look long and hard at this photograph, America. I mean really long and hard. Now, squint a little and picture Sarah Palin raising her right hand to take the oath of office as a stunned Cindy McCain stands at her left side and Todd Palin at her right. Not just a disturbing thought, but a nightmarish one because the Republican nominee-to-be rang up an obscure wingnut with a walk-in closet full of skeletons in a fit of pique.

Long long and hard at this photograph, America. I mean really long and hard. Because this is what selecting a vice presidential running mate is all about. This is not what John McCain is all about. What John McCain is all about is being a worn-out pol who is addled at best, pickled at worst and nothing if impetuous beyond his many years. Unfit to select, let alone lead.


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Experience? Never Mind

Michael Kinsey in the Washington Post, via Digg.com:

It seems like only yesterday that the Republican Party was complaining about Barack Obama's lack of foreign policy "experience." (As a matter of fact, when I started writing this, it actually was yesterday.) Even now, the Republican National Committee's main anti-Obama Web site has the witty address http://www.notready08.com. The contrast in experience, especially foreign policy experience, between John McCain and Obama was supposed to be the central focus of McCain's campaign.

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What McCain's Advisors Tried to Accomplish

Robert Creamer at Huffingtonpost.com, via Digg.com:Of course the final question the Palin appointment raises is McCain's own judgment and administrative ability. McCain had only talked to his new running made twice before he asked her to join the ticket. What was he thinking?

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Paul Krugman: Feeling No Pain

Paul Krugman in today's New York Times, via Digg.com:My first reaction to Bill Clinton’s convention speech was sheer professional jealousy: nobody, but nobody, has his ability to translate economic wonkery into plain, forceful English. In effect, Mr. Clinton provided an executive summary of the new Census report on income, poverty and health insurance — but he did it so eloquently, so seamlessly, that there was no sense that he was giving his audience a lecture.My second reaction was that in Mr. Clinton’s speech — as in the speeches by Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden (this column was filed before Barack Obama spoke on Thursday night) — one heard the fundamental difference between the two parties. Democrats say and, as far as I can tell, really believe that working Americans are getting a raw deal; Republicans, despite occasional attempts to sound sympathetic, basically believe that people have nothing to complain about.As it happens, the numbers support the Democrats. That Census report gives a snapshot of the economic status of American families in 2007 — that is, before the financial crisis started dragging the economy down and the unemployment rate up. It’s a given that 2008 will look much worse, so last year was as good as it will get in the Bush years. Yet working-age Americans had significantly lower median income in 2007 than they did in 2000. (The elderly, whose income is supported by Social Security — the program the Bush administration tried to kill — saw modest gains.) Meanwhile, poverty was up, and health insurance — especially the employment-based insurance on which most middle-class Americans depend — was down.But Republicans, very much including John McCain and his advisers, don’t believe there’s a problem.Former Senator Phil Gramm made headlines, and stepped down as co-chairman of the McCain campaign, after he described America as a “nation of whiners.” But how different was that remark, really, from Mr. McCain’s own declaration that “there’s been great progress economically” — progress that’s mysteriously invisible in the actual data — during the Bush years? And Mr. Gramm, by all accounts, remains a key economic adviser to Mr. McCain.Last week John Goodman, an influential figure in Republican health care circles, explained that we shouldn’t worry about the growing number of Americans without health insurance, because there’s no such thing as being uninsured. After all, you can always get treatment at an emergency room. And Mr. Goodman — he’s the president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, an important conservative think tank, and is often described as the “father of health savings accounts,” a central feature of the Bush administration’s health policy — wants the next president to issue an executive order prohibiting the Census Bureau from classifying anyone as uninsured. “Voilà!” he says. “Problem solved.”The truth, of course, is that visiting the emergency room in a medical crisis is no substitute for regular care. Furthermore, while a hospital will treat you whether or not you can pay, it will also bill you — and the bill won’t be waived unless you’re destitute. As a result, uninsured working Americans avoid visiting emergency rooms if at all possible, because they’re terrified by the potential cost: medical expenses are one of the prime causes of personal bankruptcy.Mr. Goodman has in the past, including in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, described himself as an adviser to the McCain campaign on health policy. The campaign now claims that he is not, in fact, an adviser. But it’s a good bet that Mr. McCain’s inner circle shares Mr. Goodman’s views.You see, Mr. Goodman’s assertion that lack of health insurance is no problem precisely echoed what President Bush said a year ago: “I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.” That’s because both men — like Mr. Gramm — were just saying in public what modern Republicans say when they talk to each other. Despite attempts to feign sympathy, the leaders of today’s G.O.P. fundamentally feel that Americans complaining about their economic and health care difficulties are, well, just a bunch of whiners.And that, ultimately, even more than their policy proposals, is what defines the difference between the parties.It’s true that elected Democrats are often too cautious — and too beholden to major donors — to be as progressive as the party’s activists would like. But even in the face of a Republican Congress, Mr. Clinton succeeded in pushing forward policies, like the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, that did a lot to help working families.And what one sees on the other side is a total lack of empathy for and understanding of the problems working Americans face. Mr. Clinton, famously, felt our pain. Republicans, manifestly, don’t. And it’s hard to fix a problem if you don’t even think it exists.

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Cenk Uygur: Hillary's Best Line: Were You In It For Me?

By Cenk Uygur in the Huffington Post, via Digg.com:This was a night with a lot of great lines. Even Bob Casey, Jr. who is not known as a rhetorical wiz had a couple of zingers. The four more months chant was terrific. And his line that McCain isn't a maverick, he's Bush sidekick was also really well done.I was expecting to be annoyed at how little Mark Warner went after Republicans, but instead I thought he laid out a good case for how Democrats offer every person a real shot at the American Dream. He showed that the Democratic Party wants you to succeed, wants you to be rich -- which is important and a message you hardly hear from Democrats (you often hear that they want you to do better, but aspiring for real wealth has not been a Democratic staple and it is in fact the real American Dream).Deval Patrick borrowed from Barney Frank effectively when he talked about government being an extension of the American people and how that is what we choose to do together. His line about having a stake in one another was great. It gave a sense of a community sticking together, which is what lies at the core of the Democratic Party.But despite all of this, Hillary Clinton stole the night. I have been a vocal critic of Hillary Clinton throughout the primaries and a skeptic of her intentions to unconditionally support the Democratic candidate. But she put all those doubts to rest tonight. She delivered. It was an A+ speech.The Twin Cities line about McCain and Bush being like twins was genuinely funny. And now every time they mention the Twin Cities during the Republican convention I'm going to think of Bush and McCain as twins.I am embarrassed to admit that the Harriet Tubman story actually gave me a chill down my spine (at least it wasn't up my leg). I loved it. I think everyone in the building loved it.But the best line in the speech was buried in the middle. Addressing her supporters, she said, "Were you in it for me?"What a great and poignant question. Did you really think this was all about me and not about the issues? Don't you remember that this was all about getting the people who need help the assistance that they desperately need? Did you forget that we started down this road because we wanted to provide Americans with a hope for a better future? That we wanted to make sure the rules weren't stacked against them? Did you think this was all about me?That is the winning line. That's the one that showed me that she genuinely did her best to actually convince her followers that they had to support Barack Obama. That's not a half-hearted effort. That's a line designed to win people over to her argument not over to her personally. Ironically, that's exactly what it did for me though. At the end of this long, contentious battle, Senator Clinton won me over when she was finally not trying to win me over.

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The News is Broken

From Newsweek.com via Digg.com:Broken NewsJust once during this convention, could the TV pundits get out of the way of the show?Time after time last evening, I flipped from the wall-to-wall coverage on C-Span—which is viewed, I imagine, largely by shut-ins and political completists—to see how CNN or MSNBC or Fox News broadcast a speech or performance. Time and again, they weren't broadcasting it at all. Instead, talking heads were talking to other talking heads about Hillary's dead-enders, or some other overblown story, at self-parodying length. The resulting coverage had about as much connection to what happened onstage last night as NBC's Olympics coverage would have had if Bob Costas had spent two full weeks asking other sportscasters how they feel about the shot put.

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McCain’s Tax Cuts Benefit the Rich Even More Than Bush

From Think Progress, via Digg.com:Examining McCain’s shifts on taxes today, the Wall Street Journal’s Martin Vaughan writes that “an apt description” for McCain’s tax proposals would be to say “that the wealthy would benefit most.” In fact, as the Cato Institute’s Chris Edwards points out, McCain’s proposals are aimed at the wealthy “even more so than Bush’s” ...

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Joe Biden To Show He's Not Afraid To Go After The GOP

From the Huffington Post, via DIgg:With the vice presidential nomination speech tonight by Joe Biden, Democrats will meet Barack Obama's bad cop -- an attacker who will not hesitate to go hard after the Republicans.

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English, or Something, as Official Language

This is hilarious! It's a compilation of images pulled together by kyledeb at Citizen Orange.

---

5 English Lessons From the Anti-Immigrant Movement

By kyledeb on August 8, 2008 8:21 AM

Any nativist will tell you that polls show 1,000% of 'Mericans support speaking only English in the United States of America. It doesn't matter if the U.S. can't even understand the languages of the countries it goes to war with (you don't need to understand people to shoot at them). If people can't speak English like they're supposed to, they're not real 'Mericans.

Using this iron-clad logic, I thought I'd compile a list of five English lessons for those that want to learn to how to be a real 'Merican and speak English.

1. Make English America's Offical Language



2. This is America and Our Only Lanaguage is English.



3. No Mas[!] Illegal Alliens 'R' Fugitives From Justice[!] Go Home[!]



4. We're Not Ra$cists, Your Are Illegal.



5. Get a Brain Morans[!]...Go USA[!]



In conclusion, English is America's Offical Lanaguage! Your 'R' Ra$cist Allien Morans!

Does Psystar have a legit argument in Apple countersuit?

A ZDNET Blog

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The crime that created Superman

On the night of June 2, 1932, the world's first superhero was born — not on the mythical planet of Krypton but from a little-known tragedy on the streets of Cleveland.

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Is this Question Somewhat Stupid, Stupid, Very Stupid...

From one of the online surveys with which I occasionally amuse myself:



Adding to the all-round dumbness of the question ("What is your favorite color, Green or Other?") is the annoying fact that (a) Hispanic and Latino are not universally regarded as the same thing*, and (b) neither Hispanic nor Latino is a race!

Other than that, though, a fine example of the art of the survey.
________________________

* This quoted at Wikipedia ("Hispanic and Latino Americans"):

Some authorities of American English maintain a distinction between the terms Hispanic and Latino:

"Though often used interchangeably in American English, Hispanic and Latino are not identical terms, and in certain contexts the choice between them can be significant. Hispanic, from the Latin word for "Spain," has the broader reference, potentially encompassing all Spanish-speaking peoples in both hemispheres and emphasizing the common denominator of language among communities that sometimes have little else in common. Latino—which in Spanish means "Latin" but which as an English word is probably a shortening of the Spanish word latinoamericano—refers more exclusively to persons or communities of Latin American origin. Of the two, only Hispanic can be used in referring to Spain and its history and culture; a native of Spain residing in the United States is a Hispanic, not a Latino, and one cannot substitute Latino in the phrase the Hispanic influence on native Mexican cultures without garbling the meaning. In practice, however, this distinction is of little significance when referring to residents of the United States, most of whom are of Latin American origin and can theoretically be called by either word."^[17]

17 "American Heritage Dictionary". Retrieved on 2007-03-18.

Is the Earth Quarantined???

Why haven't we met aliens yet? And why aren't we sending rockets all over the solar system? There is only one plausible explanation. Earth is being quarantined! A combination of higher alien civilizations and our own Earth-based military forces are working together to keep the Earth contained and neutralized.

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How The McCains Changed Their Baby Adoption Story Just Before Campaign Began

Mark Nickolas in The Huffington Post:As was pointed out yesterday by the Christian Science Monitor, the McCain campaign was called out for lying about the purported urging of Cindy McCain by Mother Teresa herself to adopt two children at her orphanage back in 1991. Turns out, McCain never met or even spoke with Mother Teresa on that trip.Once confronted by the Monitor about the deception, the campaign quickly erased such claims from the website, as it did with Cindy's family recipes, which were proved to be lifted from the Food Network.

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As Suspected

more animals

Protect Us from Those Who Would Protect Us

This from today's Delancyplace.com excerpt. I have much the same thought in re those who seek to ban abortion. The Law of Unintended Consequence always applies.

In today's encore excerpt--the U.S. outlaws the manufacture, transport, and sale of alcoholic beverages under the Volstead Act (1920-1933), more commonly called Prohibition. Against expectations, Prohibition resulted in even greater levels of alcohol consumption in America and it was repealed in 1933. The backlash that led to Prohibition extended to other areas as well, including banning highly suggestive language such as "the cat's meow":

"When, at the stroke of New Year 1920, the U.S. formally went 'dry,' most revellers would have only experienced the dull ache of their hangovers. It was only as time went by that the realization sunk in of how profoundly Prohibition had altered American life. It would be 1925 before Variety would note that Times Square--between 34th and 52nd streets--boasted 2,500 speakeasies, where before Prohibition there had been only 300 saloons. In the entire country, in 1925, there were estimated to be three million 'booze joints,' where 'pre-Prohibition cafes numbered 177,000.' In other words, a nation of moderate drinkers was turned into a nation of obsessive alcoholics, paying for criminals to build up an immense black market that would affect the nation's economy for decades (and continues to do so in the drug age). There would be fun, gaiety, abandon, dancing, hot-cha-cha, cheers and laughter, and buzzing joints like the Cotton Club and Texas Guinan's cabarets, but also killings, sickness, fraud, repression and the corruption of states and city halls. ...

"The moral guardians, however, continued their march, moving in, as King Booze leered over the city, on 'suggestive' performances and sexual innuendo. In February 1921, the Music Publisher's Protective Association began a 'housecleaning' campaign aimed at banishing 'all 'blue' and double-meaning lyrics' from the market, [stating] all 'indecent material, or songs that are capable of indecent construction' should be banned. ... Vaudeville shows were to be vigorously cleaned up too, 'the latitude allowed shimmy and jazz dancers' was to be curtailed. ... Current slang, like 'Hot Dog,' 'The Cat's Meow,' 'Cat's Pajamas' and 'Hot Cat,' was also on the proscribed list."

Simon Louvish, Mae West, St. Martin's Press, Copyright 2005 by Simon Louvish, pp. 82-83.


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An Un-American Litmus Test

This from Kathleen Parker in today's Washington Post:

Pastor Rick's Test
The Candidates Submit, and a Principle Suffers


By Kathleen Parker
Wednesday, August 20, 2008; A15


At the risk of heresy, let it be said that setting up the two presidential candidates for religious interrogation by an evangelical minister -- no matter how beloved -- is supremely wrong.

It is also un-American.

For the past several days, since mega-pastor Rick Warren interviewed Barack Obama and John McCain at his Saddleback Church, most political debate has focused on who won.

Was it the nuanced, thoughtful Obama, who may have convinced a few more skeptics that he isn't a Muslim? Or was it the direct, confident McCain, who breezes through town-hall-style meetings the way Obama sinks three-pointers from the back court?

The candidates' usual supporters felt validated in their choices. McCain convinced and comforted with characteristic certitude those who are most at ease with certitude; Obama convinced and comforted with his characteristic intellectual ambivalence those who are most at ease with ambivalence.

The winner, of course, was Warren, who has managed to position himself as political arbiter in a nation founded on the separation of church and state.

The loser was America.

Indeed. This is neither the first nor the last time that a candidate for elective office will feel required to unzip and prove he's the bigger "Christian." And to what end? If I can convince you that I'm as "good" a "Christian" as you are, then you'll vote for me? Is this any way to run an election...for water commissioner, let alone president?

She continues:

His format and questions were interesting and the answers more revealing than what the usual debate menu provides. But does it not seem just a little bit odd to have McCain and Obama chatting individually with a preacher in a public forum about their positions on evil and their relationship with Jesus Christ?

The past few decades of public confession and Oprah-style therapy have prepared us perfectly for a televangelist probing politicians about their moral failings. Warren's Q&A wasn't an inquisition exactly, but viewers would be justified in squirming.

Which is precisely why I decided early on to shine it by. What could any of them--Obama, McCain, Warren--possibly have to say that would be of any use to me at all? I do not vote for or against anybody on the basis of religion, and I concluded long ago that the whole "pro-life/pro-choice" dichotomy is a blind developed by people who are too lazy to examine nuances. (You would be just as well off to decide you will support only those candidates whose middle names begin with a letter in the second half of the alphabet...it has just as much relevancy.) I know I will vote for Obama, I will not vote for McCain, and I'm not going to join Warren's church.

Besides, I knew the whole thing was going to be endlessly discussed over the ensuing days and weeks, so even though I watched none of the silly affair, I really feel like I was there in the audience.

That's not a good thing, by the way. When I first heard of the Saddleback Civil Forum, I felt uneasy. I believe strongly in the separation of church and state, and I believe it's in the best interest of both church and state to rigorously maintain that division. And as someone who strives to be something like a Christian, I deeply resent evangelicals' usurping of the term to mean people who think/believe/speak like we do.

So this resonates:

What is the right answer, after all? What happens to the one who gets evil wrong? What's a proper relationship with Jesus? What's next? Interrogations by rabbis, priests and imams? What candidate would dare decline on the basis of mere principle?

Both Obama and McCain gave "good" answers, but that's not the point. They shouldn't have been asked. Is the American electorate now better prepared to cast votes knowing that Obama believes that "Jesus Christ died for my sins and I am redeemed through him," or that McCain feels that he is "saved and forgiven"?

What, indeed, does it mean? Well, it means that we are so narrow and so intellectually slothful that we seek only the right buzzwords--the shibboleth--on which to base our conclusions. "Candidate X failed to acknowledge Jesus as his 'personal savior,' so that means he's not a real Christian."

It's an odd thing about Christianity: I find that the people who go around thumping themselves on the chest and bragging about what fantabulous "Christians" they are are the people who need to be kept an eye on at all times.

And of course such "Christians" invariably confuse religion and spirituality, spirituality and faith, and faith and morality. They insist that "faith" is that which drives an individual's actions, when in fact it's morality that guides us, with or without "faith." Writes Parker,

Warren tried to defuse criticism about staging the interviews in his church by saying that though "we" believe in the separation of church and state, "we" don't believe in the separation of faith and politics. Faith, he said, "is just a worldview, and everybody has some kind of worldview. It's important to know what they are."

In short, it's important to know if they speak "our" code. To "prove" they're "Christian enough" for "us."

It's helpful, perhaps, to remember at this juncture that Article VI of the Constitution of the United States says "...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." [Found at http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Article6]

Parker concludes:

For the moment, let's set aside our curiosity about what Jesus might do in a given circumstance and wonder what our Founding Fathers would have done at Saddleback Church. What would have happened to Thomas Jefferson if he had responded as he wrote in 1781:

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

Would the crowd at Saddleback have applauded and nodded through that one? Doubtful.

By today's new standard of pulpits in the public square, Jefferson -- the great advocate for religious freedom in America -- would have lost.

As have we all, thanks to Pastor Rick and his followers.

Kuttner: Amazon, Barnes & Noble Battle Over My Obama Book

Robert Kuttner in The Huffington Post in re his book Obama's Challenge:

Margo [Baldwin, president of Kuttner's publisher, Chelsea Green Publishers] negotiated a highly creative deal with Amazon, to offer readers the benefits of its new print-on-demand service. You order it, they print, and you get it two days from the time of your order. An Amazon discount coupon will also be in the packets of DNC delegates, alternates, and media. In the meantime, Chelsea Green is rushing out its regular print edition, which will be in bookstores after Labor Day. Or maybe it won't.

When the Amazon agreement was announced, Amazon's retail competitors pushed back big time. Amazon is of course the 800 pound gorilla of bookselling. What was an independent publisher doing in bed with it?

Barnes and Noble canceled its initial order and has decided not to stock the book in any of its stores, making it available only on B&N.com and by special order. Only one independent bookseller did likewise. In an open letter to the bookseller community, Margo appealed for perspective, and argued that the Amazon launch strategy was designed to build interest in the book initially, creating the demand that would result in strong sales in all retail outlets. With an expanded pie, there would be more book sales for everyone. And the market would hardly be exhausted in two weeks.

He concludes:

All innovators take risks. For a small publishing house that depends on the goodwill of booksellers, this was a huge one. The book could have a shelf life of just eight weeks. If Obama loses, this book will be a historic curiosity, and we will have a bonfire of unsold books. If he wins, maybe it will make a difference.
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Hardly makes one feel too much enthusiasm for spending money at Barnes and Noble, though, does it?

The New Evangelical Politics

"The Christian agenda is shifting, and that's good news for Barack Obama."

So, at least, reads the deck on "The New Evangelical Politics" by E. J. Dionne Jr. in today's Washington Post.

Dionne makes a compelling argument, especially for someone (like me) who would like to believe it. He writes:

The notion that Christianity in general and evangelicalism in particular are by nature right-wing creeds has always been wrong. How can a faith built around a commitment to the poor and the vulnerable be seen as leading ineluctably to conservative political conclusions?

And when political commentators talk about "evangelicals," they are almost always talking about white evangelicals, forgetting that millions of African Americans are devout evangelical Christians and are hardly part of the conservative base. The civil rights movement was one of the greatest faith-based mobilizations in American history, even as it also drew on the energies of thousands of secular liberals who walked hand in hand with believers.

He continues:

In 2004, Warren [Rick Warren, pastor of the evangelical Saddleback Church, which last weekend hosted the forum in which the presidential candidates discussed their religious and moral points of view] took the view that Christians should vote on a short list of "nonnegotiable" issues, including abortion. But in 2006, on Fox News, of all places, Warren declared: "Jesus's agenda is far bigger than just one or two issues. . . . We have to care about poverty, we have to care about disease, we have to care about illiteracy, we have to care about corruption in government, sex trafficking." That is the new politics of evangelical Christianity.

None of this means that white evangelicals will convert en masse to the Democratic Party. McCain, who carefully touched every hot button on the control panel of religious conservatism, will certainly get a substantial majority of their votes. The question is whether Obama can cut the Republican margin among white evangelicals by, say, five or 10 points.

"If Obama ever establishes any kind of trust [with evangelicals], there will be a noticeable shift," the Rev. Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church outside of Orlando and a leading evangelical moderate, said in an interview. "It will not be huge, but it will be significant."

Well, that would certainly be nice. And it is indeed refreshing to find that there might after all be some people out there who are waking up to the idea that it isn't all about The One Issue (it would be especially refreshing if more people in my own church would wake up to that important fact, but one learns after awhile to not expect miracles where religion is concerned).

But I'm a little troubled by Dionne's conclusion, in light of some current events. He writes:

For a Democratic nominee four years ago, a meeting at Warren's church would have been an away game -- if it had taken place at all. This time around, Pastor Rick made sure that in a Christian house of worship, there would be no home-court advantage. [read more | digg story]

Really? As several commentators have written--I posted a link to Linda Bergthold's article, "Leaks in McCain's Cone of Silence?," in The Huffington Post a couple of days ago--there's reason to wonder if "Pastor Rick" did indeed make sure there was "no home-court advantage." Indeed, increasingly it seems to me that, despite his protests to the contrary--protests which seem to be constantly changing--the Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency was stacked in McCain's favor. Which doesn't sound like "the Christian agenda" is "shifting" at all.

At least, not in the right direction.

Linda Bergthold: Leaks in McCain's Cone of Silence?

Warren has now given 2 or 3 different versions of which questions he told the candidates about prior to the event. First he said he told them about the orphan question and the abortion question. Then he said he told them about the "wise advisers" question and the "moral failure" question. That's four questions so far. Are there more?

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The Corporate Free Ride

The seeming ease with which corporations escape the taxman compounds a fundamental unfairness in the American economy.

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Mixing Politics and Wal-Mart

The Federal Election Commission should swiftly and aggressively investigate the allegations that Wal-Mart violated election rules.Facing the prospect that union-friendly Democrats could win both the White House and Congress, the retail giant is now turning its attention to this year’s election.

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What's News With You?

I subscribe to several services that purport to bring me breaking news. But what, one wonders, constitutes "news"? What is "breaking"? The following came this morning from France24:



Interestingly, CNN, ABCNews, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and USA Today--none of them--provided me any news, breaking or otherwise, about this burgeoning war on the other side of the world. Not on their radar, evidently. Olympic competition, sure--and I would not argue that that is not news. Ditto for the death of Isaac Hayes. All newsworthy, all even "breaking"-news worthy. But I'm almost certain there's a big world out there, and lots of stuff going on in it, and it's astonishing how US news outlets--even the big, well-regarded ones--tend to overlook it. Yes, you may certainly visit those websites and find coverage of events in Georgia. But it doesn't seem to be considered "breaking" news, and thus it isn't going to be pushed to your inbox. You have to go get it.

(Yes, you can subscribe to their newsfeeds. Still not the same as having them treat a non-US story as important enough to push its distribution to those of us who have expressed an interest in receiving same. There is a difference between having it come to me and my having to go get it, even if the latter means checking my RSS feeds.)

Other breaking news that France24 alerted me to when the others didn't:

PLANE DROPS BOMBS ON TBILISI SUBURB
BOMB ATTACK ON POLICE STATION EAST OF ALGIERS
GEORGIA ANNOUNCES WITHDRAWAL FROM SOUTH OSSETIA
Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish dies at 67

Plus two or three French Olympic victories. And that's just today. Yesterday I got

GEORGIA DECLARES 'STATE OF WAR'
and
RUSSIAN TANKS CONTROL PARTS OF SOUTH OSSETIAN CAPITAL

as well as a "what's new" capsule.

When I was in college, back during an age that I like to call the 1970s, a political science professor and friend exhorted us to not rely on only one or two sources of news...and keep in mind, this was at a time when there were, effectively, three television networks (public television could be pretty spotty) and, in most locations, a single daily newspaper. No internet. So to ferret out stories that were not being covered by CBS, NBC, ABC, and the Omaha World-Herald, one had to, well, ferret out stories. Being on a university campus, that wasn't too tough: you hied on over to the library and read the Times, the Post, the Wall Street Journal, maybe had a glance at the Times of London, perused a couple of news magazines, pawed through the Economist, and came away amazed at all the goings-on in the world that you did not know about!

It was good advice then, and it's good advice now.

For instance, CNN, ABCNews, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and USA Today have failed to deliver me breaking news about events in Georgia and Algiers, or the death of Palestine's leading poet. However, to be fair, they have yet to tell me about Isaac Hayes. Or Bernie Mac.

John McCain, Paris Hilton, and the Politics of Nothing

Arianna Huffington in the Huffington Post, August 6:

With just ninety days left in the election it's come down to this: our energy policy and a good deal of this presidential campaign are being discussed through the lens of Paris Hilton. What a big goof it all is! If you just ignore all the soldiers and civilians dying in the Mideast, and all the millions losing their homes and their jobs at home, you could really see the lighter side of it all.

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The White House's Weak Denials

Dan Froomkin in the Washington Post, Wednesday, August 6:

The allegation in Ron Suskind's new book that the White House ordered the CIA to forge evidence of a link between Iraq and al Qaeda is so incredibly grave that it demands a serious response from the government. If what Suskind writes is true -- or even partially true -- someone at the highest levels of the White House engaged in a criminal conspiracy to deceive the American public. (See yesterday's column for all the details.)

But so far, we've gotten mostly hyperbole, innuendo and narrowly constructed denials.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto's response was a classic non-denial denial: "The notion that the White House directed anyone to forge a letter from [former Iraqi intelligence chief Tahir Jalil] Habbush to Saddam Hussein is absurd," he said. He accused Suskind, a Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative reporter and well-respected chronicler of Bush administration secrets, of engaging in "gutter journalism."

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"Classic" indeed: The current administration, and too much of the GOP establishment, moves immediately to smear anyone who dares so much as question them, let alone point out that they are unclothed. One wonders how long before "real" Republicans, "genuine" Republicans--those of a more moderate bent, conservative but not ideological, engaged but not enraged and motivated by impulses other than sheer hatred for "the other" (and they exist: I know a few of them...although I suppose it's possible that they are the last of their kind)--wake up and realize how Bush, Cheney, McCain, et al., have all but destroyed their own party, and to what end?

Or is it already too late--for them and for the rest of us, too?

Shouldn't the Headline Make Me WANT to Read the Story?

Things are pretty bad when the Humane Society has to give you dining tips...

It's All Very Zenlike, No?

I happened to note this ad at the bottom of a page I have on one of the freebie web-hosting services. It sort of makes sense...

You...You Mean They LIED?!

This at Think Progress, posted by Satyam on Aug 5:

Suskind: White House Ordered Forged, Backdated Letter After Invasion To Concoct Saddam-9/11 Link

A new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind claims that, after the Iraq war began, the White House ordered the CIA to forge a “backdated, handwritten letter” from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein, in an attempt to tie Hussein to the 9/11 attacks. Here’s what Suskind reports:

– Saddam Hussein’s intelligence chief, Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, told U.S. and British officials there was no WMD in Iraq, “intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion.”

– In the fall of 2003, the White House ordered CIA Director George Tenet to forge a “fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001,” Suskind writes. “It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammad Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq” and that Iraq bought yellowcake uranium from Niger with the help of al Qaeda.

– The letter was commissioned “from the highest reaches of the White House.” “It would have to come from the very top,” Suskind told NPR today.

Also this:

Suskind also said he spoke with U.S. intelligence officials who stated that Bush was informed unequivocally in January 2003 that Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction.

And in rebuttal, the usual:

White House press spokesman Tony Fratto attacked Suskind today, stating that he “makes a living from gutter journalism” and calling the book one of Suskind’s “bizarre conspiracy theories.”

Well, I hate to say it, but this begins to shake my faith in the Bush Administration a little...

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File Under "Unintended Consequences"

From the New York Times:

August 6, 2008

Op-Ed Contributor
Dark Meat

By SHMUEL HERZFELD

Washington

ACCORDING to the Jewish calendar we are now in the month of Av, a period of increasingly intense mourning that culminates with a total fast on the Ninth of Av, which this year coincides with Sunday, Aug. 10.

One of the customary practices in these nine days is the avoidance of meat: it’s the way we commemorate the destruction of the Temple, where daily animal sacrifices were once brought.

Refraining from food is symbolic, of course. The idea is not just to avoid meat but to limit ourselves so that we can better focus on the spiritual.

Unfortunately, this year kosher meat has become a different type of symbol, one not of mourning and spiritual devotion but of ridicule, embarrassment and hypocrisy. In May in Postville, Iowa, immigration officials raided Agriprocessors Inc., the largest kosher meatpacking plant in the country.

What began as an immigration sting, however, quickly took on larger dimensions. News reports and government documents have described abusive practices at Agriprocessors against workers, including minors. Children as young as 13 were said to be wielding knives on the killing floor; some teenagers were working 17-hour shifts, six days a week.

This poses a grave problem and calls into question whether the food processed in the plant qualifies as kosher.

You see, there is precedent for declaring something nonkosher on the basis of how employees are treated. Yisroel Salanter, the great 19th-century rabbi, is famously believed to have refused to certify a matzo factory as kosher on the grounds that the workers were being treated unfairly. In addition to the hypocrisy of calling something kosher when it is being sold and produced in an unethical manner, we have to take into account disturbing information about the plant that has come to light.

The affidavit filed in the United States District Court of Northern Iowa, for instance, alleges that an employee was physically abused by a rabbi on the floor of the plant. If true, this calls into question the reliability and judgment of the rabbi in charge of making sure the food was kosher.

What’s more, two workers who oversaw the poultry and beef division were recently arrested for helping illegal immigrants falsify documents. If they were willing to break national immigration laws, one could reasonably ask whether they would be likely to show the same lack of concern for Jewish dietary laws.

Unfortunately, the responses of the leading Orthodox organizations, the Rabbinical Council of America and the Orthodox Union, have, in my opinion, fallen far short of what is needed to be done and have done little to diminish the extent of the desecration of God’s name. I am a member of both groups, but I am dissatisfied with their stance, which asks us to sit back patiently and wait for the results of a federal investigation. On some level, this might be prudent, but on another it is unacceptable.

What is needed is for the Orthodox Union to appoint an independent commission whose members have not in the past been paid by either the Orthodox Union or Agriprocessors. Such a commission would select a team of rabbinic experts to spend an extended period of time at the plant and then make suggestions and recommendations. This independent team would make sure the plant upholds basic standards of kashrut and worker and animal treatment — and that it is in full compliance with the laws of the United States.

Hebrew National used to run a commercial that said: “We answer to a Higher Authority.” Well, we do. We need to express shame and embarrassment about the reports coming out of Iowa, and we need to actively work to change these matters. Then we should ask ourselves if our behavior and our values need improvement. Only if we truly think about these issues will we truly be keeping kosher.

Shmuel Herzfeld, rabbi of Ohev Sholom-The National Synagogue, is a member of the Rabbinical Council of America.

---

Or we could file this under, "Who Watches the Watchers?"

What Other Kind Is There?

This from a "bulletin" today on Ecunet, aka FaithGroups. Emphasis added:

Late yesterday afternoon some Ecunet members may have experienced a service outage of up to an hour while a Spam filter was being updated but then inadvertently caused a system malfunction. The problem has since been fixed and you should now experience a greater degree of Spam protection as a result.

Despite Media Narrative, Obama Leads By Over 100 electoral votes

Mark Nickolas in The Huffington Post:

I realize that it cuts against the media narrative right now to focus on anything that doesn't suggest a dead-heat, but it's quite instructive to see how the independent groups (and even right-leaning ones) currently see the state of the race through the only prism that matters -- the Electoral College:


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Nikolas has this insight as well:

• In Michigan, McCain had not led in any poll since May;
• In Pennsylvania, McCain has not led in any poll April, and a Republican poll released last week showed McCain trailing by 9, in line with the current Pollster.com average;
• In New Hampshire, McCain has not led in any poll since April;
• In Minnesota, while one recent poll showed McCain within the margin of error, no other poll in the past month (including one poll taken more recently) has him within 12 points.

Of course, it could be that Nikolas is all wet, too. Time, as is its habit, will tell.

McCain security ousts reporter | tallahassee.com

This from Tallahassee.com:

Tallahassee Democrat senior writer Stephen Price on Friday was singled out and asked to leave a media area at the Panama City rally of presidential candidate Sen. John McCain.

Price was among at least three other reporters, and the only black reporter, surrounding McCain's campaign bus — Gov. Charlie Crist and his fiancee, Carole Rome, were already aboard — when a member of the Arizona senator's security detail asked the reporter to identify himself. Price had shown his media credentials to enter the area.

Price showed his employee identification as well as his credentials for the Friday event.

"I explained I was with the state press, but the Secret Service man said that didn't matter and that I would have to go," Price said.

When another reporter asked why Price was being removed, she too was led out of the area.

These are dangerous times, comrades.

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G.O.P. Drops in Voting Rolls in Many States

From today's New York Times:

Voting experts say the registration numbers may signal the beginning of a shift that could affect local, state and national politics over several election cycles.

To which I add: Registration is one thing, turnout something else entirely.

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Why Does this Keep Happening to Me??

Well, it's happened again. I knew it was just a matter of time. But still...

Once again a well-meaning but oh-so-gullible friend has forwarded to me (and about 100,000 other people, giving me about six inches' worth of addresses to scroll past before I get to the meat of the message...which contains not only the hideous and distracting " > " in front of every line but also " > " in front of each line as well, making it especially fun to read) a completely sincere "warning" about something that I know darn well is a hoax.

In this case, it's the classic old VERY IMPORTANT - BIG VIRUS COMING - Disquised as a Hallmark Card. I assume a "disquise" must be a portmanteau, perhaps for "disquieting disguise." Not sure. More research needed.

Since I have been "warned" about this BIG VIRUS more than once over the years I no longer need to go to the Urban Legends Reference Pages to look it up. If you want to, you can do so here.

At this point you're wondering what the problem is. After all, I know it's a hoax; I can simply ignore it, no? Well, sure, I could. Except I always feel, in these instances, a responsibility to allay people's fears. The BIG VIRUS COMING is supposed to burn "the whole hard disc C of your computer" if you open the "POSTCARD FROM HALLMARK" attachment that purports to accompany it. (The annoying thing, which the Urban Legends Reference Pages explains, is that there really is a "postcard" virus out there, but it isn't new, and it won't burn holes in anything. But the BIG VIRUS COMING warning is a hoax about something that is real, though less scary than the hoax portrays.) So I have a mental picture of these other 99,000 people to whom my friend forwarded the warning--which of course includes the exhortation to further forward it to everybody they know--living in constant fear of receiving the dreaded POSTCARD FROM HALLMARK that will burn a hole through their C drive and on down to the earth's core.

And so it is more than likely that I will compose a reply that tries very hard to avoid making my friend feel foolish while at the same time setting her straight and encouraging her to be less gullible in the future. (It's the "gullible" and "not feeling foolish" tension that makes such replies tricky.)

Not that it will do much good, probably. Some time back, an acquaintance was in the habit of forwarding every single hoax or gag that went around--viruses, dying kids, exploding gasoline pumps, unlocking your car with your cell phone, you name it. And every time I would kindly explain that this was something else to add to the don't-worry list, or something else that didn't work, or something else that wouldn't happen. And she would thank me...and, two days later, send out the next hoax or e-mail urban legend. One day, however, I noticed that it had been some time since I had heard from her. I would have liked to think I had wised her up, but I checked with a mutual acquaintance and got the information I knew I would.

She had simply dropped me from her mailing list.

McCain's Problem Isn't His Tactics. It's GOP Ideas.

By Greg Anrig, in yesterday's Washington Post.

Anrig writes:

But now, seemingly all of a sudden, conservatives are the ones who are tongue-tied, as demonstrated by Sen. John McCain's limping, message-free presidential campaign. McCain's ongoing difficulties in exciting voters aren't just a tactical problem; his woes stem largely from his long-standing adherence to a set of ideas that simply haven't worked in practice. The belief system and finely crafted policy pitches that enabled the right to dominate the war of ideas for the past 30 years have produced a relentless succession of governing failures, from Iraq to Katrina to the economy to the environment.

Also:

As I listen to leading voices and thinkers on the right pondering the condition of their ideology, it is increasingly clear to me that they face a fundamental dilemma -- one that cannot be resolved anytime soon and that might well leave the conservative movement out to pasture for as long as we progressives have been powerlessly chewing grass. That choice is whether to stick with rhetoric and policies wedded to free markets, limited government and bellicose unilateralism, or to endorse a more robust role for the public sector at home while relying more on diplomacy and international institutions abroad. Either way, conservative Republicans seem destined to have a much harder time winning elections for the foreseeable future. Just ask McCain how much fun he's having.

Me, I think it too early to be ordering the funeral spray. People like to be told what they like to hear--part of the reason I like Anrig's essay!--and are very good at filtering out inconveniences like "doesn't work." As Anrig himself points out. And once people have invested themselves emotionally in an idea, the abandonment of that idea--or ideology--becomes near-unthinkable.

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