Digging the grave

by Liberal Beagle

You know the old murder mystery clichŽ. The dying elder patriarch is about to kick off, and his anxiously hungry relatives are all sitting around his bed, wondering who he'll write in and/or out of their will. Or who will take control of the family once the old man is gone. The relatives have all but buried him in their minds; all that matters to them is gaining the reins and taking over.

If you confronted a person with that mindset, they'd probably only tell you that they were being practical. Just thinking ahead. I mean, it's a done deal that the man is going to die, isn't it?

Certainly the media showed its true colors when Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota had to be rushed to the hospital. The average person certainly found out about the thin balance of power the Democrats had. Some outlets were willing to assume Harry Reid would be sent packing, that South Dakota senator Mike Rounds was cracking his knuckles in wait to reset the balance of power in Congress to the way it should be -- that is, with it split down the middle and Dick Cheney gallumphing into break any ties.

Um, folks. The man isn't dead yet. In fact, there was no reason to assume the worst right from the gate, considering how other political leaders have survived worse and still stayed active in their fields.

Why were the shovels and picks not brought out when Craig Thomas was diagnosed with leukemia? Could it be that Wyoming's governor was a Democrat and it wasn't that gleefully exciting to think of who he could appoint as a replacement? And let's not even bring up 100-year-old Strom Thurmond, barely aware of his surroundings, who spent a great deal of his last term hospitalized.

Yet the media, drool dripping from their lips, sought a scenario where Rounds replaced Johnson because he was incapacitated. This isn't even in accordance with constitutional law. As much as it hurts the far right to realize this, Johnson would have to resign before anyone could replace him, and that would be his decision. Not CNN's, not Mitch McConnell's, not Mike Rounds', not Fox News' and not Dick Cheney's.

If I were Tim Johnson right now, I would stay focused on recovery for its own sake, which is all anyone should be focused on now. Even us liberals, increasingly on edge about maintaining the majority, need to step back from the political angle. Yes, there's a lot at stake. But this isn't what we're here for. We're here for the humanity. And we've seen the corporate media's lack thereof in full flower. There was never a better way to define ourselves in terms of opposites.

(Oh, and by the way, this is my first blog entry, so thank yous go to Liberal Eagle and Liberal Seagull for allowing a dog in their midst.)

Weeeeeee are the chaaaaaampiooooons, my frieeeeeeeeeend...

by Liberal Eagle

In the final undecided congressional election of 2006, in TX-23, Democrat Ciro Rodriguez has decisively knocked off GOP incumbent Henry Bonilla.

That brings the Democratic pickup in the House to an even 30 seats.

In the "Republican revolution" of 1994, they picked up 29. That was good enough to make Speaker-to-be Gingrich the toast of the political world.

If Time's person of the year is someone other than Nancy Pelosi, and if I don't hear the phrase "Democratic revolution" in the media some time soon, I may conclude that our liberal media plot ain't working so good.

Botox redux

by Liberal Eagle

CNN's Jeff Greenfield clucks that the way Barack Obama likes to dress--suit coat, no tie--reminds him of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

I find this a little bit dispiriting. In 2000, Al Gore lost at least in part because the media covered the way he dressed as if it had enormous significance, all of it a negative reflection on his character. In 2004, John Kerry had to deflect questions about whether he'd had botox.

I've been saying that, at least at this early stage, Obama is my favorite for the Democratic nomination in 2008, not because I necessarily like his policies better than anyone else's, or think he'd necessarily be the best president (though he'd look like Lincoln after what we've got at the moment), but because the press seems to love him. The Republicans will, likely as not, nominate John McCain, a man who the press, some recent negative coverage notwithstanding, generally treats as if he's a saint.

Elections can be won and lost on how the press covers you--I remain convinced that Gore lost because the press slimed him constantly and gave Bush a pass, and Kerry lost at least partly because the press gave the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth more legitimacy than they deserved. If the Republicans are going to run St. McCain, and we run someone who the press will smear (like, say, Hillary Clinton), it won't be a fair fight.

In general, the press has always treated Obama as a rock star. So I think he's the guy.

And Greenfield is just one idiot who said one thing, and I know I shouldn't make more of this than it really is, but I do worry that this may be an early sign that no democrat, not even Barack Obama, can overcome the middle-school-cool-kid-clique way the media treats democrats.

If it drinks like a duck and drives like a duck

by Liberal Eagle

"Mallard Fillmore" creator Edward Bruce Tinsley arrested for DUI:

Hoosier Edward Bruce Tinsley, creator of the conservative comic strip Mallard Fillmore, was arrested in Columbus Dec. 4 and charged with operating a vehicle under the influence -- his second alcohol-related arrest in less that four months, according to the Bartholomew County Sheriff's Department.

Tinsley, 48, who lives in Columbus, had a blood-alcohol level of 0.14 -- almost twice the level at which an Indiana driver is considered intoxicated. He posted $755 bond.

On Aug. 26, Tinsley was arrested for public intoxication, according to the sheriff's department.

You know Tinsley. He's the conservative "cartoonist" who pretended that the parody of his strip that appeared in the Daily Show's America: The Book was actually an attempt to pass a fake strip off as his actual work, then drew Jon Stewart, who is Jewish, with a huge hooked nose, which is not actually what Jon looks like.

While there is nothing funny about drunk driving, there is also nothing funny about Mallard Fillmore.

EDIT: Via Tom Tomorrow, I see that Tinsley is, in fact, also a monumental hypocrite:

Kids who pull wings off flies

by Liberal Eagle

Jonathan Schwarz notes that George W. Bush, apparently, asked no questions of the Iraq study group, and was remarkably uninquisitive about the finer details of Iraq before he invaded it.

But, he further notes, Bush is, according to Ron Suskind, very interested in every last sordid detail of how we're torturing prisoners:

ÒHe was interested in a very specific, granular way all the time. He was constantly asking folks inside of CIA, ÔWhatÕs happening with interrogations? Are these techniques working? Can we trust what we get?Õ The president É is involved Ñ some people say too involved Ñ in the granular day-to-day grit of this war on terror.Ó

Schwarz concludes, depressingly and I think correctly, that "Not only is the president of the United States an eight year-old, heÕs an unpleasant eight year-old, the kind youÕd want the guidance counselors to keep an eye on."

This is something I've always hated about George Bush. I've never understood why so many people found him a "decent" and "likable" guy. To me he's just always come off as a smirking, macho frat boy, a rich kid who thinks the world should kiss his butt, a spoiled brat who's been shielded from the consequences of his actions and from any experience that might have made him a better person. Basically, Bush reminds me of any number of people I've loathed over the years.

Above, see George Bush, illegally sucker-punching a guy in the face for no discernible reason, in a Yale rugby match.

The fact that this aspect of his personality was underreported in both his campaigns, in which reporters behaved like those horrible little toadies who suck up to mean jocks in school, is the press's lasting shame. That George Bush has reached the age of 60 without becoming a better person than this, still fascinated with torture and bored by the lives and deaths of people his policies affect, is his lasting shame.

That we as a country would allow him two terms, when it was in our power to at least hold him to one, is our lasting shame.

The war on Christmas

by Liberal Seagull

Seatac Airport has removed its Christmas trees.

I mention this because I'm sure it will be cited by Bill O'Reilly and his ilk as part of the liberal "War on Christmas" -- in spite of the fact that the complaint that caused their removal came not from an atheist, but from a rabbi who was unhappy that there was no Jewish religious icon on display.

Hearts and minds

by Liberal Seagull

While the discussion goes on about how to win hearts and minds in the Iraqi Muslim community, it seems we're having a bit of trouble treating Muslims here decently.

Case in point: Katy, Texas, a suburb of Houston, is up in arms about a group that plans to build a mosque. A neighbor of the building site has put up a website protesting the plan, and has declared that he will hold weekly pig races on his property. (Apparently he doesn't realize that Muslims don't dislike pigs, they just don't eat them.) The County Commissioner has gotten letters protesting the mosque, including one that declared it a security risk and asked "Would you and your family safely and comfortably live next to this 11-acre Muslim mosque and facilities?"

Not only is this kind of bigotry distasteful, it's also counterproductive when it comes to national security. It's much easier to find criminals within a population that's integrated with society than it is to find them in a population that's been pushed into the shadows. In dozens of ways we've made it clear we, as a society, don't trust Muslims. This hardly encourages them to step forward and provide law enforcement with information about the small minority who might be up to no good.

This kind of treatment also breeds resentment that can eventually become civil unrest. The riots France experienced a year ago are an example of what can happen if you create a group of people who feel like oppressed, second-class citizens. Those riots were not so much about Islam as they were about unemployment, poor living conditions, and social discrimination.

We need to stop regarding Muslims as terrorist sympathizers and start treating them as real Americans.

Liberal Eagle's weekly top five

5. Kings of Convenience, "Surprise Ice"
4. Pete Yorn, "Ice Age"
3. Calexico and Iron & Wine, "Burn That Broken Bed"
2. Tenacious D, "Tribute"
1. Sting, "Consider Me Gone"

The Saturday morning worldview

by Liberal Eagle

"I wish you understood that there are people who want to kill us."

I hear this from war hawks all the time. Usually at the end of arguments, as if it's their trump card.

It's a little bit tempting to dismiss it as just a more sophisticated version of "yeah, well, you're a pootyhead." Do they really think those of us who were never for invading Iraq, want to stop occupying it now, don't want habeas corpus suspended, don't want to be wiretapped, etc., are walking around going "la la la la, nobody wants to kill Americans," and if the information that some people do want to kill Americans would just penetrate our thick skulls, we would suddely love Bush and want to blow up as many brown people as possible?

To believe that anyone who doesn't support the worst excesses of the Bush administration "doesn't understand that there are people who want to kill us" requires one to believe that because some brown people want to kill Americans, it is a logical response, in fact the logical response, to go to war in a country that had nothing at all to do with it, but is populated by other brown people with roughly the same religious beliefs, because, eh, one of 'em's the same as any other.

It seems not to occur to them that perhaps we think "someone somewhere, given the opportunity, would like to kill Americans" is not enough information, that we ought to also try to grasp why and how they would like to do so, whether they have the opportunity, what would be most likely either to prevent their doing so or to diminish their desire to do so, etc. I mean, sure, there are small clusters of radical ideologues all over the world who want all sorts of insane things. We should take them seriously, but just knowing that someone somewhere wants something extreme is not enough information, and failure to support the (disastrous) current policy is not a failure to grasp it.

I can already hear the gears grinding in some rightie's head. "But they already did kill some of us, dumbass! It was called 9/11!" This is the other response I always get. Well, yes, 9/11 was very bad. There are many things we could have done, could still do, that would decrease the chances of 9/11 happening again. Ramp up port security. Having invaded Afghanistan (which I supported doing), put our resources into rebuilding its institutions and infrastructure so it will no longer be a breeding ground for violent extremism. Actually catch Osama bin Laden (I think this would have been a lot more effective if we could go back and do it five years ago at Tora Bora, but ah well). The list goes on, but the point is it's mostly small stuff.

And I guess they wanted a big grand gesture, these people who think I don't understand that there are people who want to kill me. Little stuff just wouldn't make us feel like we were fighting The Terrorists. I hate that. Referring to everyone engaged in any kind of anti-American violence as The Terrorists makes them sound like some monolithic group, and they're not. Al Qaeda was a small band of guys training in the mountains in Afghanistan. Now it's more like a brand name you apply to yourself if you want jihadist street cred, so it's ridiculous to pretend that even the self-described members of al Qaeda who are blowing things up in Iraq have any connection to 9/11. And the insurgency there is home grown. It has a specific political objective: it wants the occupation to end. We are not preventing another 9/11 in any way, shape or form by fighting them; if anything, we're radicalizing more and more people and possibly causing one.

This is not terribly complicated stuff, but it's too complicated for Republicans (who are, in this day and age, kind of the Cult of Bush). Bush stands up there and declares, in a way that suggests he might actually think it, that Iraq is the central front in our battle with al Qaeda or The Terrorists or whatever group name he's using for "them" that day, and his followers run around talking like that too. And I just keep thinking, you could substitute the name "Cobra" or "The Decepticons" or "Skeletor's gang" (I'm sure I'll get letters telling me the name of Skeletor's group) and it would not sound at all out of place. This is not an adult view of the world. It's a Saturday morning cartoon view of the world. It's the Good Guys, us, vs. the Bad Guys, them. So, any time the Bad Guys attack you, the logical thing to do is go and attack the Bad Guys somewhere else, and it really makes no difference which Bad Guys as long as they look sort of the same, because the whole world is divided into the Good Team and the Bad Team.

Yes, I understand that there are people who want to kill Americans.

Do you understand anything else?

Sign of the times: too many churches

by Liberal Seagull

According to a recent Christian Science Monitor article, some communities are starting to face the problem of too many churches. Churches are federally exempt from property taxes and from any local zoning regulations that would create an "undue burden," and they can create budget problems for small towns by using city services while not providing revenue. "Megachurches," in particular, can create significant traffic problems and require upgrades to water and sewage service. Underlying the debate is the question of whether religions organizations should be getting special treatment that exempts them from regulations that prevent other types of development.

Liberal Eagle's quote of the day

Bob Cesca, in the Huffington Post.

Looking back at the last five years, I can't help but to compare our recent history to a time travel movie in which the time-space continuum has skewed into an alternate reality and the events that should've happened after 9/11... simply never existed. In other words, September 11 should have initiated an era of peace and collective world unity. But through the president's incompetence, stubbornness, ambition and greed, the polar opposite has occurred. For five years, we've existed along a false timeline in which Biff Tannen is a wealthy gambling kingpin -- his pearl-handled revolver aimed at Michael J. Fox's head.

The walrus was John

We won't have John Bolton to kick around anymore.

The Worst Diplomat in the World, unable to get the Senate to confirm him even in these last Republican days (despite the fact that, apparently, that enormous wanker Joe Lieberman supported him), has stepped down as of the end of his current term (he got in on a presidential recess appointment last time, and apparently the president can't do that twice).

Elections matter. Elections determine who sits on the supreme court, who oversees our air and water regulations, and yes, who represents us at the U.N. Technically Bush didn't have the votes because Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee said he would vote no--but Chafee's stated reason for that was that the Democratic victory signaled voter opposition to Bush's foreign policy.

So, look, people, you did good this time. Keep it up. Vote for the people who will do things you agree with. Don't let the punditry con you into voting for whoever would be more fun to have a beer with (funny how that's always the Republican, too, even when the Republican is both a teetotaler and a former obnoxious alcoholic).