Rallying The Troops

President Obama speaks to Democratic lawmakers about the stimulus bill. Apparently leaving the teleprompter behind, he finally stops mincing words and gets to it. Refreshing, to say the least, but in the wake of the Senate Republicans voting 36 of 41 to scrap all stimulus in favor of more massive, Bush style tax cuts, methinks Obama ought to be giving this speech to the obstructionists.

In two parts:

Preserve, protect, and defend

Much has been written about the crimes of the Bush administration, and the emerging Washington consensus, predictably, is to let sleeping criminals lie, and move on. Given how many people who comprise that consensus are complicitly involved in some of the aforementioned crimes, it is little surprise they want the rest of us to forgive, forget, go forward.

Paul Krugman reminds us why we cannot allow that to happen.

Let’s be clear what we’re talking about here. It’s not just torture and illegal wiretapping, whose perpetrators claim, however implausibly, that they were patriots acting to defend the nation’s security. The fact is that the Bush administration’s abuses extended from environmental policy to voting rights. And most of the abuses involved using the power of government to reward political friends and punish political enemies.

Intelligible

It is mind blowing that I find it such an enormous relief that the new president is intelligent, articulate, curious and answers questions directly. The fact that he understands the questions asked instead of responding to an unasked query with a non sequitur talking point is also noted.

Pretty sad commentary on the current resident that these qualities come across as extraordinary in the leader of our country, rather than a prerequisite for the job.

Watch the Obama 60 Minutes interview:


Watch CBS Videos Online

Fired up, Ready To Go!

Great video of Barack Obama speaking in Manasass, VA last night.

Back

Just got back.

Mostly old folks at our polling place. About a ten minute wait - no biggie at all. Rachel waited for almost 30 minutes early this morning.

Heard lots of people saying that it was busier than they could remember ever seeing it - and the election volunteers, some of whom have been doing this a long time said they had more turnout already today at this polling place than in all of 2004. When you consider there was a gay marriage ban amendment on the ballot then, plus the fact that it is just after 2pm here, that is pretty amazing.

Off To Vote

It is a beautiful day here in Green Country - 74 degrees, sunny, with a good 25mph wind. My polling place is a church at the end of my street (about 5 blocks away), and since Rachel voted early this morning and has late meetings tonight, Rufus and I will be walking through the sunshine and drifts of leaves to cast my vote. Despite the fact this is some of the reddest territory in the US and my votes will have little to no impact at all on outcomes, I'm happy to cast them anyway. My way of making sure the door hits those bastards in the behind on the way out.

And, while Barack Obama is not my ideal candidate in purely political terms, he is closer than anything we have had at the national level in a very long time. Add in an ability to think clearly and make rational arguments (even for policies I may ultimately disagree with) and an obvious curiosity about the world around him, and you have the makings of what hopefully will be a very good president. Unlike 2004, I cast this vote as an affirmative act, not a purely defensive one.

Y'all have a great day.

Some Sensible Words

Colin Powell is, in my view, a war criminal. His dishonest performance in front of the United Nations was the final push that a lot of fence sitters needed to agree to invade Iraq. The fact that he knew he was telling a very Big Lie constructed of hundreds of small ones annihilated any credibility he had, in government, and in public life.

On Meet The Press Powell endorsed Obama, a move that had been predicted for months. Turns out his comments just outside the studio were more interesting than those spoken in front of a national TV audience. His comments about taxation are particularly useful, and bear repeating amidst the constant insanity of tax-cutting-because-we-can mania. Too bad he didn't choose to say those on the air.

Hooray For Backwards Stereotypes!

We aren't racist fucktards.

Really, we aren't!

Exactly Right

Frank Rich sums up the McCain/Palin effort to delegitimize Barack Obama as a candidate for president.

All’s fair in politics. John McCain and Sarah Palin have every right to bring up William Ayers, even if his connection to Obama is minor, even if Ayers’s Weather Underground history dates back to Obama’s childhood, even if establishment Republicans and Democrats alike have collaborated with the present-day Ayers in educational reform. But it’s not just the old Joe McCarthyesque guilt-by-association game, however spurious, that’s going on here. Don’t for an instant believe the many mindlessly “even-handed” journalists who keep saying that the McCain campaign’s use of Ayers is the moral or political equivalent of the Obama campaign’s hammering on Charles Keating.

What makes them different, and what has pumped up the Weimar-like rage at McCain-Palin rallies, is the violent escalation in rhetoric, especially (though not exclusively) by Palin. Obama “launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist.” He is “palling around with terrorists” (note the plural noun). Obama is “not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.” Wielding a wildly out-of-context Obama quote, Palin slurs him as an enemy of American troops.

By the time McCain asks the crowd “Who is the real Barack Obama?” it’s no surprise that someone cries out “Terrorist!” The rhetorical conflation of Obama with terrorism is complete. It is stoked further by the repeated invocation of Obama’s middle name by surrogates introducing McCain and Palin at these rallies. This sleight of hand at once synchronizes with the poisonous Obama-is-a-Muslim e-mail blasts and shifts the brand of terrorism from Ayers’s Vietnam-era variety to the radical Islamic threats of today.

That’s a far cry from simply accusing Obama of being a guilty-by-association radical leftist. Obama is being branded as a potential killer and an accessory to past attempts at murder. “Barack Obama’s friend tried to kill my family” was how a McCain press release last week packaged the remembrance of a Weather Underground incident from 1970 — when Obama was 8.

We all know what punishment fits the crime of murder, or even potential murder, if the security of post-9/11 America is at stake. We all know how self-appointed “patriotic” martyrs always justify taking the law into their own hands.

Full article.