Saturday, January 12, 2008

12 Jan 2008 08:43 pm

Moneygami

Or fun with Bills. The Lincoln latte is a classic.

12 Jan 2008 07:23 pm

Obama On Roberts II

An interesting link to Obama's full statement on his Roberts nay-vote. Money quote:

The bottom line is this: I will be voting against John Roberts' nomination. I do so with considerable reticence. I hope that I am wrong. I hope that this reticence on my part proves unjustified and that Judge Roberts will show himself to not only be an outstanding legal thinker but also someone who upholds the Court's historic role as a check on the majoritarian impulses of the executive branch and the legislative branch. I hope that he will recognize who the weak are and who the strong are in our society. I hope that his jurisprudence is one that stands up to the bullies of all ideological stripes.

Notice the positive tone. Tone matters. More context here.

12 Jan 2008 07:07 pm

Polarization And The Democrats

A reader writes:

Ann Rice, in her endorsement of Hillary, called her "prophetic" for her health care reform efforts in 1993. Well, if derailing the viability of health care reform for a generation is prophetic, sure. Now she promises to repeat the same mistake. No matter how hard she works, does anyone think she'll convince Mitch McConnell to create a new welfare state program? Doesn't she remember Bill Kristol's memo calling for all out opposition. Sorry, but six years of keeping her head down in the Senate to rebuild her reputation is hardly the experience that will be needed.

Polarization's a bitch for liberals. Even if it's a "roll of the dice", Obama is our only shot at building a movement than can defeat polarization. He's doing it the old-fashioned way, asking people to work for change. It's hardly a sure thing. But, as Oscar Wilde wrote,

"A practical scheme is either a scheme that is already in existence, or a scheme that could be carried out under existing conditions. But it is exactly the existing conditions that one objects to; and any scheme that could accept these conditions is wrong and foolish."

We don't need to to change the leadership of polarized Washington, for which Hillary is no doubt the best suited of the Democratic candidates. We need to end polarization, and that requires a Democratic landslide that only Obama might achieve. So let's roll the dice.

12 Jan 2008 06:05 pm

The Many Masks Of Clinton

Whatever works:

Like the tears, her victory speech suggested that Clinton is resolved to inhabit a new persona, at least as long as she needs to. Instead of her usual power suit, she wore a flowery brocade jacket that oozed femininity. She gushed about her "full heart," and how she had "found my own voice."

Sixty years old, with all that massive experience in the work of transforming the nation, and she's just now finding her voice? More likely, she's just found a new way to disguise her essential self.

12 Jan 2008 05:02 pm

"I Hear All The Voices Of America."

Clinton pitches herself as the practical, working class, base Democrat candidate. Obama needs to do more of the same: more specifics, more policy, ore beer-track focus. He has the others. His poetry needs more campaign trail prose. And more door-to-door engagement with regular Democrats.

12 Jan 2008 04:49 pm

Clinton's Berlusconi-ism

A really original and insightful column by Chris Caldwell in the FT on the melodrama of Clinton's very public, and very scripted emotional "breakdown" before the NH primary:

The recent histrionics bring to mind the closing days of the Italian campaign of 2006, when Mr Berlusconi ruminated on his rapport with his nation’s telephone sex workers and stormed into a meeting of Confindustria to denounce the assembled businessmen for having “skeletons in their closet”. Mr Berlusconi’s 11th-hour antics brought him a political comeback as spectacular as Mrs Clinton’s on Tuesday. He narrowed a double-digit poll deficit to a few thousand votes and nearly won.

She'll try anything. A blogger dissents here.

12 Jan 2008 04:28 pm

Face Of The Day

US Senator Barack Obama's step-grandmother Sarah Obama stands in her house on January 12, 2008 in Kogelo, western Kenya. Barack Hussein Obama, father of US presidential candidate hopeful Obama, was born and raised in Kogelo. He died in a car accident in 1982. Senator Barack Obama's parents separated when he was young. By Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images.

12 Jan 2008 04:20 pm

Red Staters For Obama

Nebraska's Ben Nelson is the latest to endorse. Kos compares Clinton's and Obama's endorsers here.

12 Jan 2008 04:19 pm

Obama and Roberts

Some dissents from this dissent:

Perhaps Obama simply recoiled at the quid pro quo implied by Roberts' meeting with Bush on July 15 2005 - the same day he overturned the Hamdan verdict - not to mention all that had gone before. Most people would regard it as unethical for a judge to have a private meeting with a plaintiff during a hearing, but Roberts thought nothing of meeting with Cheney, Miers, Rove and Gonzales during the arguments and deliberations of Hamdan.

And another:

I'm a lawyer, an economic & foreign policy conservative/social liberal (is that a "pragmatic liberal" or "libertarian conservative"?), who would have voted against Roberts in the Senate. Unlike your dissenter, I have probably voted for Republicans and Democrats equally. Roberts' credentials are stellar, but his equivocal, perhaps ambiguous, answers at the hearings combined with features of his career in private practice sent up red flags.

Continue reading "Obama and Roberts" »

12 Jan 2008 03:28 pm

"A Statist, Not A Racist"

Reihan explores Senator Clinton's views of Martin Luther King Jr and Lyndon Johnson.

12 Jan 2008 03:23 pm

"This Could Go On For A While"

A very helpful summary of the challenges all the leading candidates face on both sides from Ron Brownstein.

12 Jan 2008 02:19 pm

Dissent Of The Day

A reader writes:

You write that Obama is "a pragmatic liberal," that "his judgments in the past have been largely practical and reasonable," and that he is neither "an ideologue" nor "an excessive partisan." And I, too, really want to believe this. But then I always come back to the John Roberts vote. Roberts was clearly an outstanding candidate, perhaps one of the best ever nominated. He had nearly universal support from the legal academy, including from two of Obama's most liberal colleagues from the UC Law faculty, Cass Sunsetin and Geoffrey Stone. And he received "Yea" votes from both "pragmatic" Democrats like Lieberman, Jeffords, and Dodd, as well as principled liberals like Leahy, Feingold, Levin, and Kohl. Only the rank partisans cast "no" votes, and Obama was in that camp.

Continue reading "Dissent Of The Day" »

12 Jan 2008 01:16 pm

Obama and the Right

A fascinating quote from Republican South Carolina governor, Mark Sanford:

"What is happening in the initial success of his candidacy should not escape us. Within many of our own lifetimes, a man who looked like Barack Obama had a difficult time even using the public restrooms in our state. What is happening may well say a lot about America, and I do think as an early primary state we should earnestly shoulder our responsibility in determining how this part of history is ultimately written."

12 Jan 2008 12:45 pm

Suppressing The Obama Vote In Las Vegas?

A Clinton-allied teachers' union files a law-suit against voting in the coming Democratic caucus in nine Vegas Strip hotels. It would hamper the Culinary workers in supporting Obama. The usual campaign hardball, but a little strange for a candidate recently bemoaning "disenfranchisement."

12 Jan 2008 12:34 pm

The Black-Latino Split

You want to know why Clinton is suddenly talking guacamole and chips? One of her pollsters, Sergio Bendixen, tells Ryan Lizza:

"Hillary’s fire wall would be Hispanic voters in the largest states, such as California and New York. It's one group where going back to the past really works. All you need to say in focus groups is 'Let's go back to the nineties.'... The Hispanic voter—and I want to say this very carefully—has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates."

So Clinton may now find herself pivoting her campaign on Latino racism. Lovely.

12 Jan 2008 12:34 pm

"Top Down" Clinton

12 Jan 2008 11:21 am

Red State Dems For Obama

12 Jan 2008 11:18 am

Fox vs Obama

12 Jan 2008 10:45 am

"The View" Gets Even Dumber

12 Jan 2008 09:53 am

Leave Ron Paul ALONE!

12 Jan 2008 09:45 am

Clinton, Back-Loaded

A reader writes:

We have all been witnessing some Clinton campaign carping about the Democratic nominating process since this became a political horserace rather than a coronation.  According to the campaign principals and surrogates, the Iowa caucuses were disenfranchising (notwithstanding record participation fueled by the Obama campaign message), the New Hampshire primary (when it didn't look good for team Clinton) followed Iowa too closely and allowed, gasp, independents to participate (notwithstanding desperate party-building needs for Democrats), and now the Nevada caucuses (now that the Culinary Workers have had their say) are disenfranchising.

If I recall correctly, over the past four years, Clinton allies -- including Terry McAuliffe and Alexis Herman -- were largely responsible for the front-loaded primary calendar.  To be fair, Terry McAuliffe started the stampede under pressure from anti-NH and IA supremacy constituencies (i.e., populous states) and legitimate concerns about minority participation.  Harry Reid and the House of Labor pushed for NV's slot.  Also, Clinton ally Harold Ickes fought against SC's continued enhanced status -- on John Edwards, not Barack Obama grounds -- but lost to Jim Clyburn's forces. 

But the overriding conventional wisdom in Clinton circles was that a front-loaded primary and super-duper Tuesday would make it cost- and time-prohibitive for anyone to challenge the Clinton political machine.  I guess that's a new spin on the old political chestnut, "you've gotta dance with the one that brung ya."

12 Jan 2008 09:42 am

The View From Your Window

12 Jan 2008 09:42 am

Mental Health Break

12 Jan 2008 08:37 am

A Degree In Creationism?

Friday, January 11, 2008

11 Jan 2008 09:37 pm

Email Of The Day

11 Jan 2008 08:33 pm

The Onion For Evangelicals

Hey: Huckabee isn't the only holy roller with a sense of humor.

11 Jan 2008 07:29 pm

Vive La Resistance

"Americans are a religious people and, Christopher Hitchens notwithstanding, that is a good thing. Religion has fostered empathy and instilled social responsibility among many believers. But while we are a religious people, we are a secular nation. To equate American leadership with a commitment to any single religion is a dangerous departure from the constitutional principles which underlie not only American law but American conservatism," - Mickey Edwards, national chairman of the American Conservative Union.

11 Jan 2008 07:04 pm

The Rudy Implosion

Ambers:

Giuliani's national finance chair, Roy Bailey, no longer has that position with the campaign. Bailey was not only Giuliani's finance chair, he was one of the founding partners of Giuliani's consulting firm.

11 Jan 2008 07:02 pm

A Huckabee Fallacy

Deep thoughts from Matt Yglesias.

11 Jan 2008 06:51 pm

It's Been That Kind Of Week

A baby plays with a cobra. All resemblances to the Obama-Clinton fight are accidental:

11 Jan 2008 05:58 pm

Quote For The Day

"If you have a social need, you're with Hillary. If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you're young and you have no social needs, then he's cool," - a "Clinton adviser" to Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland.

11 Jan 2008 05:57 pm

The View From Your Window

11 Jan 2008 05:55 pm

Hewitt's "Ancient Mariner"

A reader writes:

How inept of Hewitt to depict McCain as the Ancient Mariner.  The Mariner, however ancient, was devastatingly effective.  He transfixed the attention of the Wedding Guest, made him listen to all of the story: "The Mariner hath his will."

11 Jan 2008 05:48 pm

McCain's National Surge

Pretty stunning in a race already crammed with surprises. Giuliani appears to be imploding. And that is a good thing. After Paul, who obviously faces impossible odds, McCain is easily the best Republican. And he would remove the stain of torture from this country's reputation. And that is an indispensable thing.

11 Jan 2008 05:45 pm

The Ten Best Bookshops In The World

11 Jan 2008 05:33 pm

Embryonic Stem-Cells

11 Jan 2008 05:10 pm

On The Road

11 Jan 2008 04:47 pm

McCain On Iraq

11 Jan 2008 04:42 pm

Boomer Women For Clinton

11 Jan 2008 04:25 pm

"Jew Hating Bigot"

11 Jan 2008 04:10 pm

Rove and Clinton

11 Jan 2008 03:56 pm

Face of The Day

11 Jan 2008 03:49 pm

Huckabee In Georgia

A 13 point lead over McCain. Uh-oh.

11 Jan 2008 03:38 pm

Ad Hominem On McCain

11 Jan 2008 03:29 pm

Clinton's Goodie Bag

11 Jan 2008 03:11 pm

The Latest Clinton Attack

11 Jan 2008 02:56 pm

The Vital Questions

11 Jan 2008 02:45 pm

Pimp My Coffin

11 Jan 2008 02:33 pm

Bear-Wear Update

11 Jan 2008 02:32 pm

Clinton's Nevada Pre-Spin