Them reg'ler folks don't get this Obommer feller

The Washington Post has an article about Americans in a place renamed 'Flag City' who live in a blissful sea of willful ignorance and racism.

A quarter of the population will always believe lies when it's convenient, so this doesn't worry me. What gets me is this little paragraph:

Does he trust a local newspaper article that details Obama's Christian faith? Or his friend Leroy Pollard, a devoted family man so convinced Obama is a radical Muslim that he threatened to stop talking to his daughter when he heard she might vote for him?

That's one heck of a "devoted family man," there. In Republicanland, devotion is apparently conditional on your politics.

From the department of "Wait, what?"

Larry Craig and David Vitter are sponsoring a 'Marriage Protection Amendment.'"

Just let that sink in.

Larry Craig, who tried to solicit gay sex in an airport bathroom, and David Vitter, who did solicit prostitutes from "D.C. Madam" Deborah Jane Palfrey, are out to protect marriage.

From the article:

With a Democratic controlled Congress it is unlikely the bill will be brought up for a vote in either the Senate or House of Representatives.

No, but they might take a vote up on whether they should take a few hours to roll on the Capitol floor laughing at it.

I Drew This

Wait a minute. Obama's a politician?

Crooks and Liars becomes peeved at Obama's statement on the Supreme Court death penalty decision.

For some background, the Supreme Court rejected states' death penalty decisions for child rapists. As I'm against the death penalty, I think it's a good decision in general. However, when asked, Obama had this response to reporters:

“I disagree with the decision. I have said repeatedly that I think that the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstances for the most egregious of crimes,” Obama told reporters at a press conference in Chicago.

The expected Democratic nominee said he believed the rape of a child “is a heinous crime” that fits the circumstance...

Hands up, everybody. Who out there thinks that "Oh, a child rapist may be bad, but I don't think he deserves death. Just lock him away without parole!" would be a political winner for a Democrat in a hostile media environment?

Now, while most of the blogs get that, they seem to be believe that Obama's suddenly made a hard right turn in his overall politics. Perhaps so. Perhaps not. Perhaps, in his toughened Chicago political fights, he's seen so much unfettered crime that he takes a hardass approach to punishment. Perhaps this is a part of his "I don't do cowering" philosophy that he recently espoused in Rolling Stone.

Whatever the reason, we should never have expected Obama to agree with us on everything. Ideological purity is almost unattainable in the modern political scene without becoming a fringe personality like Dennis Kucinich. I'm certain to have my own disagreements with him as well, but in these tough times, I can't argue with 80% success. If we were talking 40% success, I'd wonder why he was a Democrat at all and didn't join Joe Lieberman, but so far, Obama has kept to the platform and stood for some solid ideals.

To quote Hawkeye Pierce in the M*A*S*H TV show, we have to stop "looking for a custom fit in an off-the-rack world."

We've lost the gun control issue

The Supreme Court has struck down the gun ban in Washington, D.C.

Justice Scalia, expressing the opinion of the 5-4 majority, invoked the Second Amendment (of course). What "a well-regulated militia" means these days is apparently open to interpretation. I feel it's come to define any yahoo owning a firearm bluntly and openly.

The fact is, however, that not many liberals are willing to fight for gun control anymore. In the last eight years, with the Patriot Act and new FISA regulations pushing the politics of fear, a paranoia has struck the average citizen to the point where they look to any avenue for self-defense. Add those voices to those who already treasure their guns and it's clear that gun control, a nearly moribund issue for some time already, is all but dead now.

As a result, the Democrats no longer will tote it as a part of their platform. With most libertarians hostile towards the Patriot Act, and personalities like Jon Tester whipping up anti-Patriot Act frenzy, the Democrats are more able than ever to seize upon gun ownership as an immutable subsection of basic civil liberties. That's something I don't deny. However, car ownership is also a basic civil liberty as well, and that doesn't mean I want any unlicensed doofus off the street being able to drive a Hummer wherever they want to.

Still, I've had to shrug it off. Gun control was an issue upon which we botched the narrative. Because guns = strength for so many people, we could not hope to counter their defiance and determination with our passion or appeals to reason. And we have a lot of larger issues to deal with, so for now, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Just... be careful with those damn things, okay?

An open letter to R____

Dear R____,

It's okay. You can come out of the closet. You'll be much happier.

I know you're reading this, since you seem oddly fixated on "rebutting" things I write. It mostly seems to consist of half-demented scribblings and drawings of yourself looking like you're about to snap and bite the head off a kitten, which you then post as if you've really shown me a thing or two. I hate to break it to you, but I am not offended, though I am moderately amused, in that way in which watching someone unravel is amusing. I further hate to break it to you, but I am not actually the liberal establishment. Though I am flattered that you seem to think I'm their spokesperson.

My favorite was that one where you called me a "wet-nosed, androgynous little metrosexual." In fact, that's my favorite insult anyone's ever tossed at me. If you were somebody who mattered I'd quote it on my next book jacket. I hate to break it to you, though, that your terminology is wrong. Metrosexuals like girls. The word you were actually looking for was probably "queer" or "tranny." There's a rich tapestry of offensive words that apply to people like me. I'm sure you can do better if you try.

Anyway, the point is, for whatever reason, I seem to have your ear. So I'd like to use that peculiar privilege to say this to you: you aren't fooling anyone who's really paying attention. (I don't know how you've managed to fool anyone at all, but then, you do seem to have fooled a small audience into thinking you're a cartoonist.)

I've been exposed repeatedly to your anti-gay shriekfests for going on a decade, now, dating back to when you used to rant in all-caps on the Ozy and Millie mailing list about how sick and disgusting and unholy and horrible gay people are, sometimes apropos of nothing, and then threaten acts of violence against people who disagreed with you. That isn't normal behavior, though at the time I kind of thought you were just a colossal prick.

But, having a few more years behind me, and having seen the exposure and fall of such fellow ranting homophobes as Ted Haggard and Larry Craig and Jim West, I see it differently.

The pieces all fit. For one thing, you exhibit, and sometimes even admit to, the kind of misery that can only come from intense self-loathing. For another, you exhibit a fixation on homosexuality as a uniquely dark sin that, again, seems to be born most often of intense self-loathing. For yet another, if I understand correctly, you're unmarried and almost twice my age. I mean, big hairy spittle-emitting humorless redneck troglodytes aren't my type, personally, but I'm sure they're someone's. It's a big, overpopulated world out there.

Basically, you act, in every respect, exactly like a textbook tormented, self-hating closet case.

Come on out of the closet. Admit guys turn you on. It's not so awful as all that. God will not drop a piano on your head, I promise. And, the thing about being a tormented closet case is, there's no other kind. If you want to stop being miserable (and inflicting your misery on whoever lacks the good sense to ignore you), you have to start being honest with yourself.

This is the one and only time I'm ever going to address you, R____, but, really, come into the light. Life on the outside has so much more to offer.

Friday cat blogging

Gladys: "Look, I came in the mail!"

Commodity bubble?

Just a quick post; things are going to be kind of slack this week and next because of visiting family.

NPR has a nice Q&A summary about the commodities market and whether there's a bubble going on. The jury is still out, but I think it's particularly sad that part of the reason we don't know what's going on is market deregulation originally lobbied for by Enron. It seems like by this point we should have figured out that if Enron was involved, it probably wasn't a good idea.

What a shocker!

McCain Unlikely to Use Cheney In Campaign.

I don't get it. Why wouldn't he want an old, cranky, evil, low-rated, sneering geezer to help him out? I mean, just being seen with Cheney ought to score some political points with those young people I've been hearing about lately. The best idea would be to bring him to some southwestern state where they're afflicted with drought. The dark stormclouds that automatically form over the vice president's head will give the thirsty residents some hope.

From that article:

In an interview he gave to the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes in 2006... McCain said: “I will strongly assert to you that he has been of enormous help to this president of the United States.”

"They had a goal of bringing down the administration's approval ratings, and by God was he an achiever in that regard."

Asked whether he’d be interested in Cheney had the vice president not already have served under Bush for two terms, McCain said: “I don’t know if I would want him as vice president. He and I have the same strengths. But to serve in other capacities? Hell, yeah.”

"For instance, if there were some kids on the White House lawn making trouble, I'd bring him out on a chain in order to scare them off. If they were poor children, maybe I wouldn't even use the chain."

I Drew This

Friday cat blogging

Gladys: "Ha ha ha, yes, the cat's in the bag. Are you going to make that joke every single time I do this?"

The value of experience

There's a certain argument out there that goes something like this:

"I was for Hillary Clinton, but now that she's out of the race I'll have to vote for John McCain, because he just has more experience than Barack Obama."

I think this is one of those arguments that makes a kind of intuitive sense but disintegrates almost immediately when you think about it for even a couple of minutes.

What is the point of experience, after all? In the case of the presidency, it's improved judgment. Are any Hillary supporters prepared to argue that the judgment McCain has exhibited in recent years, and continues to exhibit today, is superior to Obama's?

McCain supported, and continues to support, the Iraq war. Obama not only opposed it, but in opposing it, predicted basically everything that's gone wrong with it.

One might fairly ask how valuable it actually is to have years of experience being wrong, making mistakes from which you don't learn anything. The presidency isn't a longevity prize, and Obama's judgment on matters of war is plainly superior.

Ah, but isn't the point of "experience" also accumulated knowledge? Having been involved in national politics for decades, isn't John McCain more knowledgeable than a first-term senator like Obama could possibly be?

No.

McCain seems to commit large factual errors almost every day. He claimed we'd drawn troop levels down to pre-surge levels, and when Obama pointed out that we haven't (there are currently 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, 20,000 more than there were in January 2007 before the "surge" started), instead of correcting himself and moving on, McCain dug in his heels and accused the Obama camp of being pedantic and quibbling over "verb tenses." (Seriously, verb tenses? Then what is he claiming he was trying to say? That at some future date we will have drawn down to pre-surge levels? That we were at pre-surge levels in the past, prior to the surge?)

He claimed he'd supported every investigation into the government's failures after Hurricane Katrina, but he'd voted against two of them. He's repeatedly claimed al Qaeda, a sunni organization, is being supported by Shi'ite Iran, and seems not to understand the distinction even after being corrected.

He said he didn't know much about economics, then denied he'd said it, apparently unaware that, you know, stuff gets recorded.

Obama quite simply does not have any kind of similar gaffe habit. When he discusses an issue, he generally demonstrates a clear and consistent knowledge of it. What's more, his policy positions are extremely close to Hillary Clinton's. You'll like what a President Obama will do. You'll hate what a President McCain will do.

And isn't that what democracy is about? Voting for people who will enact policies you'll like? It's not a good citizenship prize or a longevity prize or a personality prize (and anyway, I think McCain could win one of those three at best).

For those who think Obama, out of inexperience, might do something dangerous, I have only this to ask: more dangerous than refusing to engage diplomatically with countries we don't like, instead threatening and bombing them? More dangerous than digging in our heels and continuing to pour money and lives into the pit that is Iraq? More dangerous than continuing George Bush's bankrupting tax cuts and appointing more far-right judges who will roll back the civil rights gains of the last sixty years?

What that Barack Obama could possibly do even in a worst-case scenario would be as bad as John McCain's openly stated policies?

Experience by itself is meaningless. What matters is what, if anything, you actually know.

I Drew This

Obama's got it

And I couldn't be happier. Even though official tallies still have him at 11-12 short, Montana's and South Dakota's appropriations will put him over when their polls close.

Once Hillary Clinton makes the concession (and even if it's not tonight, I predict it will happen within a week) I expect Obama will work overtime to make overtures to her supporters. I don't think Clinton will get the Vice Presidential nod, but I think we can expect her to at least be offered an important spot in his cabinet.

One thing that's made me unusually optimistic: a normally apolitical friend of mine just started gushing about Obama last week. Even though the media's for McCain through and through, by championing personalities over issues, the media has been hoisted on its own petard.

I look forward to the Obama/McCain debates. Imagine the contrast.