Gary McCoy, Cagle Cartoons

Some folks have been giving Barack Obama a hard time for his claim that the court’s should serve as a refuge and defender of the oppressed in America. This, they argue, is politics substituting itself for law. They gleefully point to John McCain’s statement on what he’s looking for in a judge — a position that is supposedly non-ideological and apolitical. Conservative judges go where the law takes them. Liberal judges go where they want to go, law be damned.

Tragically, this position is false — and it’s a conservative judge who is pointing it out….

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Those who were waiting for Pope Benedict to issue President Bush a ’slap in the face’ over the Iraq War have been sorely disappointed. In fact, according to Patrik Etschmayer of Switzerland’s Nachrichten newspaper:

“No one should believe that the Iraq War is really that high on the Pope’s agenda. When it came time for the Holy See to endorse a candidate for the last presidential election, the then chief-inquisitor who became today’s Pope found it more important to support the candidate who opposed the legality of abortion than the one who stood against the war. This meant that Bush garnered the support of about a million votes that otherwise would have gone to Kerry. Bush is President, so to speak, due to Benedict’s grace.”

Etschmayer goes on to say, “As Benedict XVI is a Pope of restoration, when he visits the United States during an election year it symbolizes a policy that is anti-liberal and is a sign of support for the only conservative candidate: John McCain. McCain’s talk of remaining in Iraq for even 10,000 years if need be changes nothing. In the end, the fact is that this Pope by far prefers a Christian theocracy that fights bloody wars over a liberal, non-Christian democracy that avoids conflict.”

By Patrik Etschmayer

Translated By Patrik Etschmayer

April 17, 2008

Switzerland - Nachrichten - Original Article (German)

The headlines looked to be rather promising for opponents of Bush: The Pope would give Bush a few verbal slaps in the face, unambiguously criticize him and perhaps the Pontiff would even administer a real beating. But one should not be deluded: Standing on the same foundation, these are two men that think reason and reality should take a back seat to belief in a world as one wishes it to be.

This unity stood out when George W. Bush integrated a core-belief of the Pope into his speech of welcome by stressing that it is important for the nation to heed “the dictatorship of relativism.” Ultimately, this means that both Bush and the Pope stand for an absolute believe in a God that accepts a diversity of faiths only in the sense that there are people left to convert.

It’s perhaps a little ironic then, that the relativism both of these men fight so passionately against exists between themselves, as Bush is a member of a Methodist Church while the Pope is the world’s top Catholic. As far as the Protestants, the Pope has already made his opinion quite clear: When he declared that the Protestant churches were in fact not real churches at all, it triggered considerable consternation among ecumenical [inter-church] organizations.

In this light, the Pope’s criticism of George W. Bush’s Iraq policy is doubly interesting and curious. It’s probably too simplistic to use oil to explain Bush’s drive to invade Iraq. This was certainly a major motivation but there might as well have been the hope of having his “Christian” army plant a flag of victory over the stylized Islamist fanaticism of Saddam Hussein, whose rhetoric certainly contained a religious component. Recall when Bush initially spoke of a crusade, it looked simply as a clumsy choice of words. But who today uses this expression in a military context? It’s quite possible that he actually meant it in a literal sense. A man that continuously stresses doing the Lord’s work will also be drawn into war for his master.

And no one should believe that the Iraq War is really that high on the Pope’s agenda. When it came time for the Holy See to endorse a candidate for the last presidential election, the then chief-inquisitor who became today’s Pope found it more important to support the candidate who opposed the legality of abortion than the one who stood against the war. This meant that Bush garnered the support of about a million votes that otherwise would have gone to Kerry. Bush is President, so to speak, due to Benedict’s grace.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the Pope’s visit to the United States.

For Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton it is definitely not “Thank God it’s Friday” - today was the day when a tape of her surfaced blasting part of the Democratic party’s leftist base — and she got some stunningly bad poll numbers.

The tape creates yet another credibility problem for Clinton since MoveOn.org, the group in question with its millions of activists, was created to defend her husband Bill Clinton against impeachment — and the tape contains an assertion by Clinton about MoveOn.org that the group says is flat-out wrong. Meanwhile, a new poll conflicts with an earlier poll and indicates Clinton’s relentlessly negative campaign against rival Senator Barack Obama has definitely raised the negatives — of Hillary Clinton.

The Huffington Post — which last week unleashed a furor over comments Obama made at a fundraiser saying people in small towns were bitter and clung some traditional values — again got the scoop… a scoop in which Mrs. Clinton sounds bitter:

At a small closed-door fundraiser after Super Tuesday, Sen. Hillary Clinton blamed what she called the “activist base” of the Democratic Party — and MoveOn.org in particular — for many of her electoral defeats, saying activists had “flooded” state caucuses and “intimidated” her supporters, according to an audio recording of the event obtained by The Huffington Post.

And here is the key paragraph that is likely to spur Clinton’s foes to even more get to the polls to get the vote out for Obama:

Moveon.org endorsed [Sen. Barack Obama] — which is like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down,” Clinton said to a meeting of donors. “We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn’t even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that’s what we’re dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of our positions, and it’s primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don’t agree with them. They know I don’t agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me.

What will hurt Clinton is that the group immediately denied that it ever opposed going into Afghanistan. Additionally, this quote has many elements of how Bill and Hillary Clinton have framed the primary season: the caucuses (where Clinton has not done that well) are flawed because they are flooded with activists…and the activists aren’t just there to vote but to intimidate.

Whether you agree with Moveon.Org (and many of us on TMV do NOT) on many issues, this comment is similar to the tone of comments Clinton has made about Obama — on the offensive, seemingly to discredit. There is a pattern now to how Clinton deals with those who oppose her.

How has this fared among activists and blogosphere pundits? It’s not exactly good press:

–My DD’s Jonathan Singer:

This is pretty remarkable audio, Clinton attacking MoveOn — incorrectly, in fact — for purportedly opposing the Afghanistan War when that was not at all the case.

But even more astounding than Clinton’s specific attacks on MoveOn, a grassroots organization founded to defend her husband against the Republican power-grab that was the 1998 impeachment, an organization that is made up of more than three million activists, most of whom are diehard in their loyalty to the Democratic Party, is the fact that Clinton is maligning the Democratic base, specifically those who have been driven to the polls at least in part in response to the Iraq War.

…It could be that there is a valid explanation for these comments, that they were taken out of context, that they don’t really reflect her views of the Democratic base and the netroots, that they were merely the result of the inevitable exhaustion brought on by near-constant campaigning. I’d like to hear it. But until I do, it’s hard not to come away from these comments with the sense that Clinton holds a key part of the Democratic base in contempt.

–The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder notes that the Obama campaign is getting the word out on the Clinton HP comments:

But doesn’t MoveOn.org, which was formed in response to Republican attempts to impeach President Clinton, represent (for Obama) the type of polarized pressure group that Obama seems to decry when he talks about moving beyond the traditional encumberances of Old Politics? (General Betray Us? etc. etc.) Anyway, maybe it’s not that great of a point. What makes this story interesting to me is that the last thing Hillary Clinton needs right now is another credibility question.

–The Daily Kos’ publisher Kos:

In short, Clinton doesn’t like us and doesn’t agree with us….Well, for a campaign that has morphed into nothing but “Republican talking points”, it shouldn’t come as any surprise. I’m curious though, what part of our foreign policy approach doesn’t she agree with? The ending the war in Iraq part? I’d like more details on that one.

–Democratic activist, blogger John Aravosis:

It’s funny. Hillary was a big fan of the online grassroots (or Netroots, as we call it) when ABC was defaming her husband in its fictional account of September 11, “The Path to 9/11.” At that time, we led a ferocious counterattack that put ABC in its place by exposing the serious errors in ABC’s bizarrely inaccurate account of that day’s fateful events. The Clintons didn’t seem to have much of a problem with the Netroots when we came to their rescue. But now that we’re defending Obama against the same biased attacks from ABC, Hillary dismisses us with a wave of her regal palm.

To paraphrase Rev. Martin Niemöller, Hillary has embraced so many right-wing talking points in her campaign, and bashed so many core Democratic constituencies (blacks, gays, gun control advocates, and now the Netroots), that pretty soon she’ll have no more Democrats left to blame. Nor will she have any Democrats left to support what has become a truly pathetic caricature of what was once a great Democratic family.

–TPM Election Central:

Well, this should get anti-war voters angry with Hillary Clinton — and be a real political headache for the home stretch in Pennsylvania.

–Air America’s Sam Seder:

Senator Clinton is now using Karl Rove lies in attacking MoveOn. It’s a bit galling as this is the same MoveOn that was born of a fight to stop impeachment of her husband because he had an affair with an intern. She needs to be rescues from herself. I’d still vote for her over McCain, but she will not be the nominee. And while I and every Dem I know will vote for her over Mccain… I’m starting to have a lot of NY Dems tell me they’ve never been so excited about a primarying a Dem for Senate since Joe Lieberman.

–The Politico’s Ben Smith:

But there’s some irony in the scorn for MoveOn, whom Hillary courted and which was founded, after all, to save her husband from impeachment. What’s striking here is the the “us” and “them” view — the almost cultural scorn — toward a section of the Democratic Party to whom, at times in the White House, Hillary was seen as the ambassador for the more conservative Bill.

–Jane Hamsher:

I defended Hillary Clinton when she refused to bow to right wing pressure and condemn MoveOn over the “General Betrayus” ad (and was sad when she finally capitulated). MoveOn are valuable progressive partners who have been with us on Donna Edwards, net neutrality, trying to bring an end to the war, FISA, and other issues we’ve been fighting for.

They’ve accepted the challenge of organizing the left in the virtual arena and done an amazing job that the right struggles to replicate. They now have 3 million members, of which I’m one. And their skill at online organization and movement building has developed a model that both of the Democratic candidates have been able to copy and learn from, acting as a democratizing influence and making candidates more responsive to the public at large and less to high dollar donors.

…Does Hillary Clinton not want my vote either?

–Bang The Drum:

Clinton’s words to her supporters go beyond the “elitist” charge. They’re outright lies told behind another’s back for the purpose of personal gain. That’s not leadership; it’s liarship.

–Democrats.com:

I like the “intimidate” part. Not long ago, the Clintonistas were calling Obama’s voters “latte drinkers,” but now they’re thugs. Latte-drinking thugs - somehow I’m having trouble conjuring up that image…

I never thought Obama’s “bitter” remark would hurt him because it wasn’t an attack on anyone, just a bad attempt at amateur pop psychology. But I think Hillary’s remark will hurt her, because it is an attack on 3.5 million Moveon members and every Democrat who agrees with them.

Bloggers want clarification: what specifically does she not agree with us on? Getting out of Iraq, perhaps? She has said at least 1,000 times, “I will end the war.” Has she been lying to us about the single most important issue in the campaign? I certainly hope not.

–American Street’s Kevin Hayden:

Here’s the deal, Senator Clinton: you’re not going to win enough pledged delegates. You’re not going to convince the remaining majority of superdelegates. The people who decide these things are us, the party’s base of active primary voters. It will be us who complete the job of defeating your endeavor and you’ve made that a fait accompli with your dishonest remarks that now try to slur all of us who’ve fought against this damnable war in Iraq since well before the first shot was fired. Even a majority of Congrssional Democrats voted against the AUMF while supporting the effort against the Taliban and Al Qaida.

–Raising Kaine:

Needless to say, this (”Clinton Slams Democratic Activists At Private Fundraiser”) was not a good move by Hillary Clinton.

–Political Chase:

I’m shocked. Hillary doesn’t like voters. Especially those that are concerned about national security and foreign policy. It must be a left-wing conspiracy.

–Left Wing Cracker:

Does the junior Senator from New York have a deathwish for her campaign? ….What part of THE BASE DOES NOT WANT YOU have you not figured out, Senator?

THE BOTTOM LINE: Politicians generally try to win votes by aggregating interests. The Clinton campaign in recent weeks has been a medley of negative tactics and statements more aimed at raising Obama’s negatives then making an affirmative argument to vital Superdelegates that she herself can excite voters and win the election. And, in the process, Clinton seems to be aggravating interests.

Clinton’s own negatives have already started going up — and now she has now seemingly thrown down the gauntlet to a key segment of the Democratic party that helps to get out the vote…and fund political campaigns.

What impact is THIS and the likely criticism it will spark — and activist efforts to defeat her in future primaries — going to have on her efforts to move Superdelegates to overturn Obama’s delegate count, if he remains the front-runner at convention time?

Even worse for Clinton: a new Newsweek poll that directly contradicts the latest Gallup tracking poll that showed Clinton’s campaign on the upswing against Obama. If the Newsweek findings prove accurate, they are nearly catastrophic for the Clinton campaign:
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Andrew Sullivan (a fellow Obama admirer/supporter): “I do want to say that this searing, nuanced, gut-wrenching, loyal, and deeply, deeply Christian speech is the most honest speech on race in America in my adult lifetime. It is a speech we have all been waiting for for a generation. Its ability to embrace both the legitimate fears and resentments of whites and the understandable anger and dashed hopes of many blacks was, in my view, unique in recent American history… I have never felt more convinced that this man’s candidacy — not this man, his candidacy — and what he can bring us to achieve — is an historic opportunity.”

Andrew was evidently filtering Obama’s words through his own Christian faith, as well as through his deep and abiding love of America, but, in general, I concur. It was a speech with its own deep roots in Obama’s Christian faith, there is no doubt of that, but I did not find to be a particularly Christian speech. Rather, I found it to be a speech deeply rooted in the meaning, purpose, and promise of America.

To the extent that America is Christian — that is, to the extent that the Founders and their overarching deism were rooted in Christianity — the speech was undeniably Christian. And it may be that I filtered Obama’s words through my own non-Christian beliefs. But, to me, his speech was enlightened and liberal, like the meaning, purpose, and promise of America. It asked us to look back at what America was all about, before the political compromises that made the country so much less than what it was meant to be, a country built in theory on universal egalitarian principles, on Lockean liberalism and the political aspirations of that enlightened and liberationist age, that in practice enabled inequality and the abomination of slavery, and country that tore itself apart in civil war, a country that continued to enable segregation and racist public policy for a century after that war ended and slavery was abolished, a country that, however much progress has been made, and there has been much, continues to be a house divided against itself.

Obama understands this, just as he understands the complexities and nuances that lie at the intersection of race and politics in the United States. His speech yesterday in Philadelphia — and what a fitting location — was truly historic. It is being interpreted by many in terms of how it affects, or will affect, his race with Clinton for the Democratic nomination and, looking ahead, to a possible race with McCain. And that was indeed part of Obama’s intent, to address and diffuse a delicate and damaging campaign issue, the controversial remarks of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and to reassert his message of hope and transcendence, to reinsert it into a campaign — not his but the campaign generally — that has, of late, been playing out in the gutter.
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While the debate in the United States seems to center around whether with Barack Obama, there is any there there, it seems that in some places he is regarded as the Democratic answer to the much vaunted Republican idea machine. Alfredo Toro Hardy of Venezuela’s El Universal writes, ‘Confronted with the flood of proposals from their Republican counterparts, the fonts of Democratic thought seem to have dried up. … As if by magic, these past limitations seem to be disappearing due to the impact of the Obama phenomenon. He has been responsible with offering Democrats and his campaign a ‘vision’ which, combined with his oratory and charisma, offers a solid counterweight to the strong conservative tendency that characterizes the national mood.’

By Alfredo Toro Hardy

Translated By Barbara Howe

March 13, 2008

Venezuela - El Universal - Original Article (Spanish)

Democrats have begun confronting some serious limitations. Their lack of policy proposals and ideas has often played into the hands of Republicans - and at times when the Republicans have been particularly prolific in this regard. It’s from the right-wing side of the political spectrum that the majority of the ideas which have fed the public life of that country have emerged Read the rest of this entry »

I am bemused by the suggestions of bloggers such as Matt Yglesias and various and sundry media pundits that Hillary should just admit that Obama is the better candidate and lie right down in the coffin the media, the right wing, and Obama’s supporters have recently—and gleefully— been knocking together for her. Obama’s supporters in particular need to look beyond their own corner of the party at the still substantial number of Democrats who prefer Hillary. If you believe in polls, here’s one that says that even many Dems who support Obama aren’t ready to see her out of the race. Yglesias thinks it’s because we’re ill-informed. I think otherwise.

I am resigned to having Obama as my candidate, but I hope Hillary will fight on. Hillary is the only one of the three remaining candidates I am absolutely sure is equal to the nasty task of cleaning up Bush’s mess. As anyone who looks at the results across the country can see, despite the groundswell of support for Obama’s magic, a substantial number of Dems just won’t believe in magic or think that all you need is love—at least not for this election cycle.

I can assure my fellow Dems and interested others that I’ve met plenty of Democrats who are as excited about Hillary as some of Obama’s supporters are about him. Her supporters believe in her superior capability. We recognize the fears of some Dems that she might not be ‘electable,’ and our response to this is, “If so, so it must be.”

We have never bought into the right wing’s atavistic Clinton-fear. We’re hurt by, and increasingly resentful, of the way that some of Obama’s supporters have used the Clinton-bashing rhetoric of the far right to undermine a fellow Democrat and powerful Democratic Senator whom Obama, if elected, will certainly need.

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Romney is proving an expert at reinventing himself and reframing his positions as his campaign rolls along. I imagine if he gets the nomination he’ll be an expert in reinventing himself again.

Judging by the number of voters who seem drawn to John McCain, it seems as if he’ll have to moderate his message, however much this might distress the party hardliners who are currently clinging to him as their last best hope against “liberal” John McCain. I don’t fault him for that; I’ve never bought into the notion that so-called “flip-flopping” is a cardinal sin.

After seven years of Bush and his unshakable confidence in his convictions, I have come to the conclusion that an elected official needs to be sufficiently flexible to adapt to changing circumstances. But the media does view it as a cardinal sin. If it were not a cardinal sin, it’s just possible Hillary would unbend and confess, “Yes, oh God yes, my Iraq vote was the worst mistake of my political career!” But she can’t, because it’s a cardinal sin.

You could even say that it takes a special kind of courage to flip flop on issues as much as Romney has had to do to become the favorite son of Republican hardliners. This is the most charitable way to look at the criticisms of Romney, and I am all about being charitable.

Some might argue that Romney has taken flip flopping too far. Not me, though. Instead, I’m just hoping that the best man will win. We can’t afford anything else.

In his present incarnation, Michael Luo says, Romney is leading a “citizen revolution” as the “anti-establishment insurgent.” Hey, it worked for Jimmy “I have never set foot in Washington” Carter, another state governor. (Not with me: I voted for Gerald Ford.) Even so: it worked for Governor Carter. Will it work for Governor Romney?

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I like Hillary Clinton. Although my heart belongs to John Edwards, I voted for her as the candidate most likely to succeed, and even succeed superbly, at the thankless damn task that cleaning up after George W. Bush is likely to prove. After all, it’s not a
job for someone who can’t deal with being hated. But what a lot of people are saying now is that Hillary is too hated generally to make it to the White House; therefore Dems should get behind Obama.

I say that Obama would be much better off if he let Hillary do the cleaning up before he takes the presidency; it’s going to be a nasty, unpalatable job for the most part involving choices between one decision with consequences that are hard to stomach and another that is even worse. But Obama has signified that he would like to be president now. And many of my friends want him simply because they’re sick of the sound of Clinton-bashing. At least with Obama, mused one, we’d hear new, fresh contumely.

And we all know it’s true: Hillary is hated by many-many-many. In fact, she routinely gets reviled by right, left, and center. At The New York Times, Stanley Fish discusses the loathing that Hillary Clinton evokes from her detractors (not all of whom are Republicans), compared to which, he says, " the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry was a model of objectivity."  Fish lists some of the crazier allegations against Hillary.  As he says, when the question presented is  "“Have the Clintons ever murdered anyone?” — and it turns out to be a rhetorical
question like “Is the Pope Catholic?” — you know that you’ve entered cuckooland."" (NYT)

But I’m more interested in the allegations of Hillary-haters who aren’t actually certifiable.  As Fish points out, many of the allegations against her are flat-out contradictory.  She is damned by her detractors (who aren’t limited to Republicans) no matter what she does.

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That’s what Howard Kurtz at WaPo calls it.

First we got Coulter promising with a straight face to campaign for Hillary if McCain wins.  Now Rush Limbaugh is saying that he’d rather see Clinton or Obama win the presidency than John McCain, despite Bob Dole’s plea for sanity on the party’s far right.  Too bad, Bob Dole.  That ship sailed a long time ago.

When it comes to the McCain mutiny, Limbaugh has plenty of company on the right side of the dial. Laura Ingraham endorsed Mitt Romney last week, saying, "There is no way in hell I could pull the lever for John McCain." Sean Hannity, who also endorsed the former Massachusetts governor, regularly rips McCain. Hugh Hewitt is urging the audience for his syndicated radio show to fight for Romney against what he calls a media-generated "McCain resurrection." But with a program heard on 600 stations, including Washington’s WMAL, Limbaugh is the loudest and brashest voice inveighing against the man he derides as "Saint John of Arizona." (New York Times)

Could it be that even some of the dittoheads have noticed that the far right has turned out to be wrong about every single thing it’s said every single time? Doubtful. Clearly, though, a certain number of sane Republicans have noticed.

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by Damozel |  Hurray!  Ann Coulter has semi-endorsed Hillary, sort of!  Ed Morissey asks "Has Ann Coulter jumped the shark?"He wonders if this will finish her off with anyone who still takes her seriously, assuming anyone still does. Jill Miller Zimon has the video right here. Is this the greatest campaign season ever, or what? It’s not exactly fair on Hillary, but I can’t help chortling madly as I watch it again and again and again.

So. Ann too is well and truly infected, as the Captain puts it, with “McCain Derangement Syndrome.”  You might be surprised by her extreme solution to it, but I’m not.  True, from Duncan Hunter to Hillary might strike some as something of a leap, but McCain has the power to drive neocons right over the jagged edge, bless him. This campaign season, liberal is the new conservative!  

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France and the United States could be characterized as two nations separated by their definition of the word ‘liberal.’ This, among other things, can be gleaned by reading this op-ed article from France’s Le Monde newspaper on the this week’s Florida primary.

By Dominique Dhombres

Translated By Kate Davis

January 30, 2008

France - Le Monde - Original Article (French)

The adjective “liberal” is an extremely grave insult on the French left. The same is true among Republican candidates in the race for the White House. This is what one could have learned by watching the Republican primary from Florida on CNN, on Tuesday, January 29. “You’re a liberal,” said Mitt Romney of his rival, John McCain. “No, you’re the liberal!” McCain responded. In fact, in France the word has a nearly the opposite meaning that it has in the United States.

Here [in France] it means being a staunch supporter of the market economy. There [in the U.S.], it means being a defender of a certain amount of government intervention to protect the poorest. Mitt Romney accuses John McCain of not being firm enough in confronting illegal immigration. John McCain tirelessly repeats that Mitt Romney raised taxes when he was governor of Massachusetts. On Tuesday, Republican voters in Florida decisively chose McCain, the former Vietnam soldier, who clearly savored his victory. His was often written off for dead during the primary campaign, but is more present now than ever, he has said. The big loser in Florida was Rudolf Giuliani, Read the rest of this entry »

As Floridians go to the polls today to vote in the state’s Presidential primary a new poll shows Senator John McCain widening his leading over Massachusetts former Gov. Mitt Romney — and suggests news editors should have their political obituaries ready to run about former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani:

Arizona Sen. John McCain’s lead over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is growing wider as the Republican campaign ends and Election Day dawns, the results of a new Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby telephone two-day tracking poll shows.

McCain now has 35% support in Florida and stands four points ahead of Romney. The poll, which surveyed 941 likely Republican voters in Florida on Jan. 27-28, 2008, carries a margin for error of +/-3.3 percentage points.

It is the second consecutive day of upward movement for McCain after his campaign won the endorsement from Republican Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. McCain and Romney were tied in the tracking poll released two days ago. The doubts over whether the maverick Arizona senator could succeed in winning over GOP voters in a state where independent voters are not allowed to vote in the GOP primary election appear on the way to being assuaged.

If McCain wins, it could mean he finally might get enough Big Mo to encourage more and more members of the GOP establishment to get behind him. He has been a major target of denunciation by most top conservative talk show hosts in the country.

[UPDATE: Another poll shows the race in a tie.]

Meanwhile, Giuliani is about to go down in the political science textbooks as someone who ran a flawless campaign…to lose his party’s nomination:
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Arethe boom years freedom over and the forces of democracy in retreat? According to this column by Thomas Klau of Germany’s Financial Times Deutschland, with the world of ‘capital’ migrating toward authoritarian regimes like Russia and China and ‘decoupling’ from the liberal democracies, ‘democracy could be only a matter of an era, and not the end of history.’

“Supporters of a liberal, humanistic respect for basic democratic values now must do battle on many fronts - and their greatest - the USA - now constitutes one of the greatest battle fronts of all.”

By Thomas Klau

Translated by Julian Jacob

November 29, 2007

Germany - Financial Times Deutschland - Original Article (German)

Authoritarian governments are witnessing a renaissance that the democrats of the world must fight – and they must do so forcefully.

Eighteen years have passed since Francis Fukuyama gained worldwide attention and fame with his forecast of the “End of History .”

“What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such, wrote the American intellectual wrote in his essay, published in the revolutionary year of 1989. Mankind may have reached the end of its ideological evolution, namely, “the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”

Fukuyama long ago distanced himself from this analysis, and not a few of his statements now seem like hastily formulated nonsense. Nevertheless, for a long time they had an astonishing resonance. The Soviet dictatorship that competed with the liberal democracies had disintegrated into dust, and the USA was the shining proof that a working democracy and military superiority are compatible. After this experience with the Soviet bloc, the triumph of liberal government seemed imminent in China, Asia and eventually even Africa.

DEMOCRACY ON THE DEFENSIVE

Tempi passati [Italian for Time has past]. Nowadays the hope of democracy’s triumph no longer dominates. Quite the contrary - the fear of a lasting renaissance of authoritarianism now dominates. In Russia as in China, authoritarian central governments enjoy tremendous popular support thanks to strong economic growth; in Latin America, Venezuelan Hugo Chavez demonstrates that in the southern half of the continent, the long-term dominant trend toward more democracy is not at all irreversible. The situation seems even more dismal in the Arab countries, where almost everywhere, free elections would bring to power Islamic disciples of Savonarola , who would usher in democratic rule to achieve Puritanical terror.

In the central organ of the German Zeitgeists, the news magazine Der Spiegel, Dirk Kurbjuweit recently wrote of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s most recent visit to China and of the sense of loneliness on the part of democrats. And he asked a heretical question. “It’s getting exciting to see which side capital will gravitate toward in the future,” Kurbjuweit wrote. “Up to now it was on the side of democracy, since it has always been democratic industrial states which adopted the market economy. The Chinese model could eventually become an alternative. Man sometimes forgets that democracy could be only a matter of an era, and not the end of history.”

A Renaissance of Puritanism, a Renaissance of authoritarianism, and perhaps the decoupling of free-market principles from the principles of democracy - these are the messages heard by people today. And to this we must add the weakening of the fundamental values of democratic humanism, such as the ban on torture and arbitrary imprisonment in the United States. The wind has changed and it’s blowing in the wrong direction.

READ THE REST ON WORDon.US

If I Were Queen of the World:

Look, what do I know?
What does anyone know, really, that isn’t all just made up by somebody somewhere on the backside of a stall door of a gas station louie up in Idaho? One driver reads the porcelain newspaper there, repeats the latest jargon to another driver and pretty soon it’s all over the CB’s where it’s picked up on a police scanner by Fox and CNN and NBC from there, and pretty soon it’s being taught in academia and then discalced and dogmatized by the Roman Buddhalic Church of Oz and Co.

Liberals and Conservatives. Could we just have a little sanity here around these monikers. Reminds me a little of the usage of the F word…. used to mean a delicious nice thing, but then some bright charlie got the idea of using the F word to cast aspersions, meaning to say, but in much fewer syllables, You never should have been born, why don’t you just go drop dead?

Same with the terms liberal and conservative. Used to have meaning. Now used as buffalo chip pies during suburban combat. The wetter the better. The pies, not the combat.

Is it lack of imagination that leads to a weird uni-language that’s not far past using mere grunts to communicate. Ooga, you conservative. Arg, you liberal. Snapfroguz, Are you insulting me? Blaagh, Sure am. Groangrumpfle: Alright you &#$^&# I’ve had it: Let’s rumble.

Here’s what I think is the final say-so about this wooden language that the words conservative and liberal has devolved to, even the wooden language just spalls and warps… and I’m not even going to comment on the ‘neo-Lego-fetty-betty conservativos’ or the ‘green dog hett-up and hallelujah chorus liberalis.’ Geez.

FINAL SAY SO ACCORDING TO BENEFICIA, VIKTORIA, KATERINA, and QUERIDA…. all ancient grandmothers, one’s just like your ancient grandmothers, who have Uncommon Sense and a leetle teeny tiny white mustache, each. These are the names of my grandmothers from the old country. In summers we used to can really really huge pots of plums and peaches to make jam for the winter, the only sweet we’d see for the months of early dark.

Then, in winter, we’d bring up the cold Mason jar of say, peach jam from the cellar. Scraping sound as the leaden gray lid with white porcelain liner came off. A silver knife tip to dislodge the large coin of white paraffin sealing the top of the jam. And all the while knowing, there were a few more jars left in the cellar, and all the while wanting so, to taste that sweet sugar peach taste in the midst of an icy winter. Everyone would be huddled around the table waiting with a slice of bread and a knife, just waiting their turn

One of the parents would inevitably warn, Now don’t take too much. And some other parent would say, Don’t be greedy. And another parent would say, Put some back, you took too much.

But the old women knew just the right combination about Liberal and Conservative. They’d lean in with their faces smelling like laundry day and their hands always smelling like either garlic and fresh baked bread….. they’d lean in and if it wasn’t one, it was the other who’d say, Listen all of you, here’s to LIFE! Take a CONSERVATIVE amount to make it last, but also at the same time take a LIBERAL amount TO MAKE IT TAAAAAAAAAASTE GOOOOOOOOOD.

That’s my final say so too. Political philosophy 101 through to 1,000,001. Use a conservative amount to make it last, and use a liberal amount to satisfy.

OK, just pretend for a sec, that I AM Queen of the World. I’d decree this should be most everyone’s starting philosophical basis …about most everything…. Think about it… enough to make it last, enough to make it really gooooood. Mmmm-mm.

See, new meanings make new ideas possible.

Ok, that part of the world is fixed now for a few seconds.

Back to serf mode.

Next subject.

The underlying conservati/liberati philosophies of various professors has been given some sharp sunshine lately. Inquiries have surfaced about which profs/schools are too much of one and not the other. This has apparently led to a new genre of publishing for parents and students who wish to even more precisely target Universities which carry their own affiliations/ affinities and exclude their opposites.

One of the first forays into a new kind of ‘choice’ in university education, curriculum, professorial political philosophies to match a young person’s politics…is this book…

Choosing the Right College: 2008-2009: The Whole Truth about America’s Top Schools (Choosing the Right College) is a 1000 page paperback by John Zmirak who has edited two books previously about how to choose a college by the politic/ideology of professors and what some would think of as a classical or Great Books curriculum. His previous books are endorsed by Thomas Sowell and Phyllis Shlafly and Laura Schlessinger.

The publicity for the book reads:

“The guide also provides specific advice on which professors to seek out—and which courses and departments to avoid.

“As an exclusive feature, Choosing the Right College advises students which courses they should take at each school to provide themselves with a true core curriculum. This unique build-your-own-core feature is one more reason that Choosing the Right College has become the most valuable and trusted college guide on the market for students seeking a genuine liberal education.

There’s a bit of a clang there, between previous endorsers and the idea of ‘liberal’ education, but I ordered the book. I thought it’d give an interesting snapshot of our current culture changes in higher ed. perhaps… and, at least one man’s ideas about how to categorize it all. I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, I’m wondering about choosing teachers by their personal or public politics and philosophies. I can see how that would be useful if one were studying one’s own affiliated religion, Read the rest of this entry »

A new, comprehensive study of independent voters by the Washington Post in collaboration with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University has bad news for both parties, but better news for the Democrats:

(1) The Republicans continue to lose independent voter support.

(2) Independent voter unhappiness with Washington and both parties could bolster a strong independent, third party candidate.

The details:

The study is a comprehensive examination of a broad segment of the electorate — about three in 10 voters call themselves independents — that is poised to play the role of political power broker in 2008. Independents split their votes between President Bush and Kerry in 2004 but shifted decisively to the Democrats in 2006, providing critical support in the Democratic takeover of the House and the Senate.

The new survey underscores the Republican Party’s problems heading into 2008. Fueled by dissatisfaction with the president and opposition to the Iraq war, independents continue to lean heavily toward the Democrats. Two-thirds said the war is not worth fighting, three in five said they think the United States cannot stabilize Iraq, and three in five believed that the campaign against terrorism can succeed without a clear victory in Iraq.

So can the Democrats breathe a sigh of relief? Not really:

The power of independents could also be felt in other ways next year. The survey found frustration with political combat in Washington and widespread skepticism toward the major parties — perhaps enough to provide the spark for an independent candidacy by New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

Seventy-seven percent of independents said they would seriously consider an independent presidential candidate, and a majority said they would consider supporting Bloomberg, whose recent shift in party registration from Republican to unaffiliated stoked speculation about a possible run in 2008.

Strategists and the media variously describe independents as “swing voters,” “moderates” or “centrists” who populate a sometimes-undefined middle of the political spectrum. That is true for some independents, but the survey revealed a significant range in the attitudes and the behavior of Americans who adopt the label.

Please note that we’ve repeatedly said this about reaction to this site: being a “moderate” or “independent” does NOT mean coming down lockstep on an issue with other moderates. Some may be center, center-left and center right and vary, depending on the issue. And there is not an opinion poll that shows that independent voters and/or moderates think totally alike on any given issue.

The study underscores this diversity of independent and moderate thought as well:

The survey data established five categories of independents: closet partisans on the left and right; ticket-splitters in the middle; those disillusioned with the system but still active politically; ideological straddlers whose positions on issues draw from both left and right; and a final group whose members are mostly disengaged from politics.

What they share is an aversion to party labels. As Adele Starrs, an editor from Columbia, N.J., put it, “I can’t go down either side.”

My personal experience:

I have been in both parties and at different times in my life on the left and on the right. I was recently asked by someone to affiliate with an independent movement. My reply was that at this point, having been in both parties, I’m going to remain independent and won’t even sign up for that. I’ll even remain independent of belonging to an organized independent group.

BUT this doesn’t mean that I look down my snoot at people who ARE Democrats, Republicans, proud liberals and proud conservative.

And there is a TRAP that independents (and moderates fall into).

Jonathan Chait, writing the TRB column called “Bloomsday” in The New Republic, calls this the “partisanship scolds.” They’re people who feel there is an intrinsic value in not affiliating with parties and that it makes them superior to those who belong to parties.

And that is indeed a WRONG and short-sighted attitude: to each his own. Because Democrats, Republicans and independents all see things through their own filter — and each side thinks it’s right. Elections are to sway enough to one side so that one side can prevail.

Chait writes, in part:

Bloomberg has thus become the most prominent example of what you could call partisanship scolds. These are people who believe that disagreement is the central problem in U.S. politics, that both parties are to blame in equal measure, and that rejecting party ties or ideology is synonymous with the demonstration of virtue. While partisanship scolds believe that they stand in bold contrast to Washington, they are probably more heavily represented among the Beltway elite than any other demographic.

Chait is particularly critical of Unity 08. But his more general observations about the “partisanship scolds” includes these:

Unfortunately, when the partisanship scolds get a little more specific, things tend to break down. The first problem is that they can’t agree on whether partisanship is making Washington pay too much attention to public opinion or too little….

He gives some examples and then mentions:

The second problem is that the partisanship scolds are extremely vague about which chunk of Americans is being left out by the growing extremism in Washington. It is true that some broadly popular views are underrepresented in national politics. A detailed political typology released by the Pew Center in 2005 showed that Democratic voters are not as socially liberal as their leaders and Republican voters are not nearly as economically conservative. So there is a sizeable base of socially traditionalist, economically populist voters to be had. Unfortunately, the partisanship scolds invariably cater to exactly the opposite demographic: elites who favor free trade, open immigration, cutting entitlements, and social tolerance.

And then he adds a comment that will make many conservatives who distrust moderates and independents smile a big smile:

Third, in the age of George W. Bush, the substance of the partisanship scold ideology is no longer, by any reasonable definition, centrist. They are moderate Democrats who don’t want to admit it.

He says Bloomberg’s politics are to the left and that he’s “an out-and-out social liberal.” He adds: “But for Bloomberg and his admirers to admit that their views do have a home in a major party would destroy the basis of their self-image. Thus they must maintain at all costs the pretense of transcending ideology.”

He points to the Time Magazine cover hyping Bloomberg and our own California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (who is angering California Republicans now to the point that they are angrily opposing him on many issues).

Partisanship scolds oppose the GOP agenda, but rather than acknowledge and confront those ideological differences, they assume them away.

Indeed, the premise that ideological extremism has left no room in either party for moderates like Bloomberg is belied by Bloomberg himself. There are many things keeping Bloomberg from running on a conventional party ticket, but the alleged extremism of the two parties is not one of them. A longtime Democrat, he switched his affiliation for his initial mayoral run in 2001, but only because running as a Republican offered him a clearer path to the nomination. Bloomberg’s ideology today places him firmly within the Democratic camp.

If Bloomberg took the honest route and switched back to the Democrats to run for president, he’d be condemned as a transparent opportunist. Instead, he disingenuously renounces party altogether and is praised as a visionary.

Fair enough.

But Chait makes an error in his piece, too.

Not all independents and moderates who may criticize parties from time to time are “partisanship scolds.”

Some are people who’ve BEEN THERE, DONE THAT and had once been faithful and trusting Democrats, Republicans, liberals and conservatives. They were bitterly disappointed by their leaders, ashamed by the behaviors of some in their own camp, or concluded that political parties really don’t believe what they say they say they do as much as wanting to claw their way to power.

Some are people who feel BURNED.

So their attitude now is:

Convince me. Prove it to me. Don’t just say “trust me.” Because I don’t anymore.

And do it on the substance of the issues and your arguments, not on how you don’t stink to high heavens as much as the other guy.

But no matter what the study and Chait’s piece point out a fact:

The election won’t be just determined by both parties in 2008. There are others out there.

And they can’t be merely written off.

ALSO READ TMV Assistant Editor Michael van der Galien’s post on this study.