Republicans
Republicans need to grow up.  I’m so sick of them publicly announcing that they want President Obama to fail.  Seriously.  How patriotic is that?  That is disgusting.  You may not agree with the guy’s policies, but he’s doing what he thinks is best for America and by wishing he fails you are wishing that America fails.  Rush Limbaugh needs to shut the hell up (so does Ann Coulter) and the Republicans actually need to reach out to the other side.  The Dems and Obama have reached out numerous times (even when I wish they hadn’t) but each and every time the hand comes across the aisle the Republicans slap it.  It’s no wonder that the polls are showing that people have a more favorable opinion of the Dems than the Republicans.

Democrats
Grow up.  You are also having problems.  Pay your taxes.  Don’t show up to the big dance with the hot date and then brag the entire time.  Yeah, you have reached across the aisle, but you have done it with a bit of smugness that you don’t really need.  I know, I know, the Republicans were like that when they were in power.  But they aren’t anymore.  There’s a reason for that.  Don’t get to cocky.

President Obama
Mr. President, you’re making some great speeches and getting some things done, but I do have some issues with you.  Stop being so eager to get support from Republicans.  They are just going to burn you.  You’ve gotten a little better lately with not caring what the Republicans think.  You even reversed Bush’s policy on funding for stem cell research, which is a definite “F You” to most Republicans, and that’s good.  Play hardball with them, especially when they aren’t doing anything to give you support and are publicly bashing everything you (and your wife) does.  They aren’t the only ones you need to play hardball with though.  Start playing hardball with Wall Street.  It is time to say no more.  Giving them more and more money isn’t going to help.  They will keep asking for more and more.  Instead, give stop giving to Wall Street and give to the people.  How about a stimulus check please?  Hell, you give me $600-$800, I know I’m going to spend that a lot more wisely than Wall Street bankers.  I’ll do something to stimulate the economy of real people.  Not the economy of corporate jets and retirement packages.

That’s all I got.  It’s a scary time right now and I’m sick of all the right-wing rhetoric being blasted my Limbaugh, Coulter, CNBC, and anyone else who wants to see the President fail.  At least when Bush was in office we didn’t want to see him fail (we knew in the back of our minds that his policies would anyway).

• Then and Now – Bush vs. Obama
• Too much whining ruined whatever points Hillary Clinton scored
• Obama Keeps Winning
• Why I Will Not Vote if Clinton Wins
• Poll: Americans trust Congress over Bush on Iraq

• The Republican Road to Recovery
• A Quick Political Rant
• More Racist Hate from the Republicans
• GOP Trying to Block Voters in Michigan
• McCain Tries to Scare People to Vote for Him by Showing 9/11 Clips

• New Ad Hits McCain on Economy, Palin
• Palin Lies and the People Speak
• Obama-Biden take 8 Point Lead
• McCain Reacts to Party Under Palin
• McCain Losing Ground in Ohio

John McCain needs what Kinky Friedman calls “a checkup from the neck up.”

In choosing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate, he is not thinking “outside the box,” as some have said. More like out of his mind.

Palin a first-term governor of a state with more reindeer than people, will have to put on a few pounds just to be a lightweight. Her personal story is impressive: former fisherman, mother of five. But that hardly qualifies her to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

For a man who is 72 years old and has had four bouts with cancer to have chosen someone so completely unqualified to become president is shockingly irresponsible. Suddenly, McCain’s age and health become central issues in the campaign, as does his judgment.

In choosing this featherweight, McCain passed over Tom Ridge, a decorated combat hero, a Cabinet secretary and the former two-term governor of the large, complex state of Pennsylvania.

He passed over Mitt Romney, who ran a big state, Massachusetts; a big company, Bain Capital; and a big event, the Olympics.

He passed over Kay Bailey Hutchison, the Texas senator who is knowledgeable about the military, good on television and — obviously — a woman.

He passed over Joe Lieberman, his best friend in the Senate and fellow Iraq Kool-Aid drinker.

He passed over former congressman, trade negotiator and budget director Rob Portman.

And he also passed over Mike Huckabee, the governor of Arkansas.

For months, the McCainiacs have said they will run on his judgment and experience. In his first presidential decision, John McCain has shown that he is willing to endanger his country, potentially leaving it in the hands of someone who simply has no business being a heartbeat away from the most powerful, complicated, difficult job in human history.

• McCain Reacts to Party Under Palin
• Obama vs McCain/Palin
• New Ad Hits McCain on Economy, Palin
• McCain Adviser Calls Palin a Whack Job
• Bombing Clinics is not Terrorism According to Palin

You don’t have to love Hillary Clinton to feel her pain. By the end of Tuesday night’s debate, she knew she had failed to change the dynamics of a race slipping away from her. The deflated look on her face telegraphed acceptance, even resignation.

But any sympathy is tempered by the fact she has only herself to blame. Her uneven performance, punctuated by one of the strangest complaints I have ever seen in a presidential debate, likely dashed her last hopes of victory. The self-pity behind the complaint was shocking and unappealing.

She started by being feisty – to a fault. The first 14 minutes were devoted to health care, her signature issue. Yet she was on the defensive and kept interrupting the moderators because Barack Obama skillfully focused on the requirement in her plan that every American purchase health care, whether they want it or not. It is a fair attack because Clinton has never explained how she would enforce that requirement or say what the penalties would be; she didn’t last night, either.

Clearly frustrated by that rocky start, she began her answer to the second question, on NAFTA, with the complaint. “Well, can I just point out that in the last several debates, I seem to get the first question all the time? And I don’t mind,” she said, clearly minding.

Then she made the mistake worse with a foolish rehearsed line: “And if anybody saw ‘Saturday Night Live,’ you know, maybe we should ask Barack if he’s comfortable and needs another pillow.”

Wow. Woe is her. What a blunder. This is political malpractice of the first order.

This bomb was far worse than her “change you can Xerox” line of last week. This was a petulant whine. There was rustling in the audience, but mostly there was an awkward silence of the kind you notice when someone has said something weird or inappropriate. Creating discomfort in voters over your pain is not a traditional formula for victory.

Obviously, Clinton believes the press is biased in favor of Obama. It’s a charge her team has made frequently. Yet her raising it with a victim’s tone came off as a plea for sympathy – not an endearing quality in someone who wants to be President. A President is supposed to feel sympathy for the people, not the other way around.

There was one other noteworthy exchange. Asked about the endorsement he got from Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader who makes frequent anti-Semitic statements, Obama said he had renounced those remarks. He went on to say he was a staunch friend of Israel and cited its “special relationship” with America. He concluded with the touching note that many American Jews were instrumental in the civil rights movement, and that, as President, he hoped to restore what he called a “frayed” bond.

No complaints there. Or here.

Very well said, Mr. Goodwin.

• Obama Keeps Winning
• Why I Will Not Vote if Clinton Wins
• A Quick Political Rant
• Then and Now – Bush vs. Obama
• The Day After

Hillary Clinton will take the Democratic nomination even if she does not win the popular vote, but persuades enough superdelegates to vote for her at the convention, her campaign advisers say.

The New York senator, who lost three primaries Tuesday night, now lags slightly behind her rival, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, in the delegate count. She is even further behind in “pledged” delegates, those assigned by virtue of primaries and caucuses.

So, she’s saying that even though the majority of the people don’t want her to be the nomination, she’s going to stay in it anyway. That is certainly not democratic.

You may ask why I don’t vote for McCain then. That’s simple, while I respect McCain, I think he would be a terrible president and I think he would continue bad policies that have led this country in the wrong direction under Bush. So, if Hillary steals the Democratic nomination, I will not vote. I will watch her lose against McCain. She’s too divisive of a person to beat McCain. I’m in her party and I don’t like her (though, I was a fan of Bill). When McCain wins, the country will be in even more trouble. All because of Hillary.

• Obama Keeps Winning
• Too much whining ruined whatever points Hillary Clinton scored
• Then and Now – Bush vs. Obama
• A Quick Political Rant
• Obama vs McCain/Palin

By Margaret Carlson

Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) — There was a time when politics wasn’t a blood sport.

At the end of the day, Tip O’Neill shared a whiskey with Ronald Reagan, and Senators George Aiken and Mike Mansfield had breakfast daily. Now it’s routine to call your opponent a liar, a coward, or an al-Qaeda operative.

Last week, the public debate hit a new low when radio talk- show host Rush Limbaugh accused actor Michael J. Fox of being a fraud.

Limbaugh claimed that Fox — aka Alex Keaton of the television program “Family Ties” and diagnosed in 1991 with Parkinson’s disease — was faking his symptoms in a series of campaign ads on behalf of candidates who support embryonic stem- cell research. “Either he didn’t take his medication or he’s acting,” Limbaugh said.

In a streaming video from his studio, Limbaugh can be seen faking the symptoms of a Parkinson’s patient as he waves his arms and bobs his head.

Fox’s ads were already getting good play before Limbaugh’s attack. Fox, looking like the boy next door — if the boy next door were being buffeted by an unseen hurricane — quietly asks voters to back candidates who support federal funds for research that might cure him and others.

One ad ran in Missouri, where Republican Senator Jim Talent is locked in an unexpectedly close race with challenger Claire McCaskill and where voters are being asked whether their constitution should be amended to protect embryonic stem-cell research. In the ad, Fox says: “Senator Talent even wanted to criminalize the science that gives us a chance for hope. They say all politics is local, but that’s not always the case. What you do in Missouri matters to millions of Americans — Americans like me.”

For Enjoyment

After Limbaugh suggested that Fox enjoyed being a victim, the ad went global, getting far more air time than a candidate could buy. The spots were rebroadcast on the news and zipped around the Internet. George Stephanopoulos played the ad on ABC’s “Good Morning America” program, while Katie Couric interviewed Fox on “CBS Evening News” on Thursday night.

When it was clear that Limbaugh had hurt himself more than Fox, he made one of those non-apologies beloved by politicians in which he couldn’t resist adding that even if Fox weren’t playing sick, he was still shilling for Democrats and allowing “his illness to be exploited.”

To blunt the backlash, the Republican Party sped up production of an ad that began airing on Tuesday. It features actress Patricia Heaton and James Caviezel — who played Jesus in Mel Gibson’s film “Passion of the Christ” — as well as several sports figures. The ad claims that the Missouri measure would make cloning legal and lead to trafficking in embryos.

Thanks, Rush

Maybe this is the year, for folks like me with a brain- injured loved one, when the issue sways voters. Just before the 2004 presidential election, the death of paralyzed actor Christopher Reeve, who had played the role of Superman, gave the issue a moment of prominence. But that was nothing compared with the attention that Limbaugh’s tirade has generated.

HCD Research Inc. and the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion surveyed 955 people nationally on Tuesday and Wednesday and showed that support for stem-cell research jumped 5 percentage points after they saw Fox’s television ads.

Imagine if Jonas Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine, were deprived of federal funds because a minority of Americans said scientific research was against their religious beliefs. There would still be kids in iron lungs today. Few breakthroughs occur today without some backing from Uncle Sam.

Afraid of Yuppies

If destroying embryos is murder, why can’t the right wing and President George W. Bush, who used his first veto ever to withhold federal funds for stem-cell research, go after yuppies pursuing in vitro fertilization techniques that discard embryos by the thousands? Because they would be crushed at the ballot box. It’s safer to pick on sick people.

Usually a candidate can’t bat down all the negative stuff being flung at him. And it’s not easy to push back against Limbaugh, who claims 20 million listeners per week. But the popular, mild-mannered Fox is the man to do it.

It wouldn’t have been surprising if Fox had retreated from the public eye after his diagnosis. It takes little more than the onset of a double chin for most movie stars to go into hiding or under a surgeon’s knife. Shortly after announcing in 2000 that he was giving up his hit sitcom “Spin City” because he could no longer hide his convulsive movements, Fox set up a foundation and began using his lingering celebrity to fight for patients.

I’m That Guy

One of the tragedies of Parkinson’s disease is that the medication has diminishing returns over time and can bring on the erratic movements it’s supposed to mitigate. Fox knows he’s fair game in this fight. On CBS, Fox told Couric, “If bringing the message means the messenger gets roughed up a bit, I’m happy to be that guy.”

Democrats are no strangers to going negative. But they are pikers compared with Republicans, who have perfected the craft. Think about the infamous Willie Horton ads. Or the one that showed Senator Max Cleland, who lost his legs and an arm in Vietnam, morphing into Osama bin Laden. Or the outsourced campaign by the Swift Boaters to smear decorated Vietnam veteran John Kerry as a braggart and coward.

Limbaugh has gone further this time. When faced with the prospect of losing, people and parties reveal their dark side. Limbaugh isn’t a cruel man, but he was desperate last week.

(Margaret Carlson, author of “Anyone Can Grow Up: How George Bush and I Made It to the White House” and former White House correspondent for Time magazine, is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Margaret Carlson in Washington at mcarlson3@bloomberg.net .
Source

• The Republican Road to Recovery
• A Quick Political Rant
• The Theocracy Party
• More Racist Hate from the Republicans
• GOP Trying to Block Voters in Michigan

The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is the bedrock of our free society. When a society is not free to ?keep and bear arms? then they in effect become slaves of the government. There has been a great deal of debate in the past about what the Amendment means but it is obvious that the phrase ?The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed? means that the people (the citizens of the US) have a right that is not to be taken away. Unfortunately, in the anarchy that followed hurricane Katrina, the government seized firearms belonging to law abiding citizens.

What I find so funny about this is the fact that the Second Amendment is the only amendment that the Right seems to care about. They see no problem in destroying the real amendments that hold this country together, like the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, etc. Heaven forbid the government try to restore order to a place which has seen more chaos than even the South Central riots. It seems the right would rather see mass chaos if it meant preserving the right to their guns.

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We trained and worked at the CIA with Valerie Plame. We presented the following statement at a hearing on Capitol Hill in October 2003. In light of the latest White House sanctioned assault on Valerie Plame and her character, our testimony remains relevant and accurate.

We slogged through the same swamps on patrols, passed clandestine messages to each other, survived a simulated terrorist kidnapping and interrogation, kicked pallets from cargo planes, completed parachute jumps, and literally helped picked ticks off each other after weeks in the woods at a CIA training facility. We knew each other’s secrets. We shared our fears, failures, and successes. We came to rely on each other in a way you do not find in normal civilian life. We understood that a slip of the tongue could end in death for those close to us or for people we didn’t even know. We were trained by the best, to be the best. We were trained by the Central Intelligence Agency. They may not appreciate what they have created.

Our joint training experience forged a bond of trust and a sense of duty that continues some eighteen years later. It is because of this bond of trust that the authors of this piece and two other colleagues, all former intelligence officers, appeared on ABC’s Nightline to speakout on behalf of the wife Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a sensitive undercover operative outed by columnist Robert Novak. The Ambassador’s wife (we decline to use her name) is a friend who went through the same training with us. We acknowledge our obligation to protect each other and the intelligence community and the information we used to do our jobs. We are speaking out because someone in the Bush Administration seemingly does not understand this, although they signed the same oaths of allegiance and confidentiality that we did.

Many of us have moved on into the private sector, where this Agency aspect of our lives means little, but we have not forgotten our initial oaths to support the Constitution, our government, and to protect the secrets we learned and to protect each other. We still have friends who serve. We protect them literally by keeping our mouths shut unless we are speaking amongst ourselves. We understand what this bond or the lack of it means.

Clearly some in the Bush Administration do not understand the requirement to protect and shield national security assets. Based on published information we can only conclude that partisan politics by people in the Bush Administration overrode the moral and legal obligations to protect clandestine officers and security assets.

Beyond supporting Mrs. Wilson with our moral support and prayers we want to send a clear message to the political operatives responsible for this. You are a traitor and you are our enemy. You should lose your job and probably should go to jail for blowing the cover of a clandestine intelligence officer.

You have set a sickening precedent. You have warned all U.S. intelligence officers that you may be compromised if you are providing information the White House does not like. A precedent, as one colleague pointed out during our brief appearances, allows you to build out a case based on previous legal actions and court decisions. It’s a slippery slope if it lowers the bar.

Ambassador Wilson’s political affiliations are irrelevant. Political differences serve as the basis for the give and take of representative government. What is relevant is the damage caused by the exposure that Ambassador Wilson’s wife as a political act intended to undermine Wilson’s view.

It is shameful on one level that the White House uses the news media, its own leaks, and junior Congressmen from Georgia, among others, to levy attacks on Ambassador Wilson. Moreover they discount what he has to say, his value in the Niger investigation, and suggest his wife’s cover is of little value because she was “a low-level CIA employee”. If Wilson’s comments or analysis have no merit, why does the White House feel the need to launch such a coordinated attack? Why drag his wife into it?

Not only have the Bush Administration leakers damaged the career of our friend but they have put many other people potentially in harm’s way. If left unpunished this outing has lowered the bar for official behavior. Further, who in their right mind would ever agree to become a spy for the United States? If we won’t protect our own officers how can we reassure foreigners that we will safeguard them? Better human intelligence could prevent any number of terror incidents in the future, but we are unlikely to get foreign recruits to supply it if their safety cannot be somewhat assured. If more cases like Mrs. Wilson’s occur, assurances of CIA protection will mean nothing to potential spies.

Politicians must not politicize the intelligence community. President Bush has been a decisive leader in the war on terrorism, at least initially. What about decisiveness now? Where is the accountability he promised us in the wake of Clinton Administration scandals? We find it hard to believe the President lacks the wherewithal to get to bottom of this travesty. It is up to the President to restore the bonds of trust with the intelligence community that have been shattered by this tawdry incident.

We joined the CIA to fight against foreign tyrants who used the threat of incarceration, torture, and murder to achieve their ends. They followed the rule of force, not the rule of law. We now find ourselves with an administration in the United States where some of its members have chosen to act like foreign tyrants. As loyal Americans and registered Republicans we implore President Bush to move quickly and decisively against those who, if not apprehended, will leave his Administration with the legacy of being the first to allow political operatives to out clandestine officers. Source: TPM Cafe

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A man who taught with Rove, and considers him a friend, writes that in the Valerie Plame case, Rove is using journalists, and the First Amendment, “to operate without constraint, or to camouflage breaking the law.” That’s why neither reporters Cooper and Miller, nor their publications, should protect Rove (or anyone else) “through an undiscerning, blanket use of the First Amendment that weakens its protections by its gross misuse.”

By Bill Israel

(July 05, 2005) — In 99.9 percent of cases I know, journalists must not break the bonds of appropriate confidentiality, to protect their ability to report, and to defend the First Amendment. I?ve testified in court to that end, and would do so again.

But the Valerie Plame-CIA case that threatens jail time for reporters from Time and The New York Times this week is the exception that shatters the rule. In this case, journalists as a community have been played for patsies by the president?s chief strategist, Karl Rove, and are enabling him to abuse the First Amendment, by their invoking it.

To understand why this case is exceptional, one must grasp the extent of Rove?s political mastery, which became clearer to me by working with him. When we taught “Politics and the Press” together at The University of Texas at Austin seven years ago, Rove showed an amazing disdain for Texas political reporters. At the same time, he actively cultivated national reporters who could help him promote a Bush presidency.

In teaching with him, I learned Rove assumes command over any political enterprise he engages. He insists on absolute discipline from staff: nothing escapes him; no one who works with him moves without his direction. In Texas, though he was called “the prime minister” to Gov. George W. Bush, it might have been “Lord,” as in the divine, for when it came to politics and policy, it was Rove who gave, and Rove who took away.

Little has changed since the Bush presidency; all roads still lead to Rove.

Consequently, when former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson challenged President Bush?s embrace of the British notion that Saddam Hussein sought to import uranium from Niger to produce nuclear weapons, retaliation by Rove was never in doubt. While it is reporters Matthew Cooper of Time and Judith Miller of The New York Times who now face jail time, the retaliation came through Rove-uber-outlet Robert Novak, who blew the cover of Wilson?s wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame.

The problem, as always, in dealing with Rove, is establishing a clear chain of culpability. Rove once described himself as a die-hard Nixonite; he is, like the former president, both student and master of plausible deniability. (This past weekend, in confirming that Rove was indeed a source for Matthew Cooper, Rove’s lawyer said his client “never knowingly disclosed classified information.”) That is precisely why prosecutor Fitzgerald in this case must document the pattern of Rove?s behavior, whether journalists published, or not.

For in this case, Rove, improving on Macchiavelli, has bet that reporters won?t rat their relationship with the administration?s most important political source. How better for him to operate without constraint, or to camouflage breaking the law, than under the cover of journalists and journalism, protected by the First Amendment?

Karl Rove is in my experience with him the brightest and most affable of companions; perhaps I have been coopted, for I genuinely treasure his friendship. But neither charm nor political power should be permitted to subvert the First Amendment, which is intended to insure that reporters and citizens burrow fully and publicly into government, not insulate its players from felony, or reality.

Reporters with a gut fear of breaching confidential sources must fight like tigers to protect them. But neither reporters Cooper nor Miller, nor their publications, nor anyone in journalism should protect the behavior of Rove (or anyone else) through an undiscerning, blanket use of the First Amendment that weakens its protections by its gross misuse. Source

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