An aging Tina Fey impersonator

QOTD, Greg Sargent, finds men thinking with their little buddy:

One other suggestive finding: Palin has significantly higher favorability ratings among men (48%) than among women (39%), and only a third of women think she’s qualified to be the first female president.

QOTD2, Anne Laurie:

The Sarah cut-n-pasting a word salad of political talking points and half-remembered celebrity tropes, seasoned with pageant-queen nods and tics, was not a politician or a writer or even an entertaining racouneur—she was a silly, self-involved, aging Tina Fey impersonator.

DougJ: Shadoobie Shaddegg

Obviously, we can’t hold Congressmen to the same high standards as late night comedians:

On the House floor last night, Media Matters points out, Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) made his case against holding trials for 9/11 suspects in New York City, directing a question to Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

“I saw the mayor of New York said today, ‘We’re tough. We can do it.’ Well, Mayor, how are you going to feel when it’s your daughter that’s kidnapped at school by a terrorist?” Shadegg said.

I’m kind of surprised they haven’t used the “if it was your child strapped to that ticking bomb” argument in favor of torture more, to be honest with you.

• Atrios adds, Grand Old PantsPoopers: There was always a duality to the Republican chest-thumping, but I'm actually missing the days when they all had fantasies of personally thwarting major terrorist attacks with their cheetoguns. Now it's all WAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH.

Smooth Like Remy: "I Don't Care About The Constitution"

Bill O'Reilly finally says what and other right wingers really think about our Constitution.



The more these dumbasses rail against putting KSM and other terrorists on trial here in federal court, the more they are going to reveal the venal cowards that they really are. It will be interesting to see if Bill O'Reilly tries to walk back his denouncement of the document that he and his cohorts claim to be upholding the values of night after night.

Think Progress: ‘Teabagger’ was an Oxford Word of the Year finalist.

In February, when conservatives began protesting against President Obama with tea parties, the Washington Independent’s Dave Weigel photographed a protester carrying a sign that declared, “tea bag the liberal Dems before they tea bag you!!” Soon after, the term “tea bagger” became a ubiquitous and often derogatory handle for right-wing protesters. Now, Mediaite reports that the term “teabagger” was a finalist in consideration to be the New Oxford American Dictionary’s Word of the Year:

In a press release touting “unfriend” as the word of the year, the New Oxford American Dictionary may have unwittingly made a more controversial move than the New Oxford American Dictionary pretty much ever does.

No, it wasn’t another cutesy tech neologism: they included “teabagger” as one of their Word of the Year finalists.

According to the release, they define “teabagger” as “a person who protests President Obama’s tax policies and stimulus package, often through local demonstrations known as ‘Tea Party’ protests (in allusion to the Boston Tea Party of 1773).”

Richard Cohen:

Finally, the Institute for the Study of Sarah Palin will mull what she represents. She has a phenomenal favorability rating among Republicans -- 76 percent -- who have a quite irrational belief that she would not make such a bad president. What they mean is that she will act out their resentments -- take an ax to the people and institutions they hate. The Palin Movement is fueled by high-octane bile, and it is worth watching and studying for these reasons alone.

It may be asking too much of Bush to put his money into something useful instead of the standard presidential monument of self-aggrandizement. This, though, is his chance: Study Sarah Palin. If she's a comer, then we're all goners.

Eugene Robinson:

No force on Earth can stop Sarah Palin from becoming our very own "lite" version of Eva Perón -- a glamorous and tragic legend, minus the tragedy. Eventually, some clever composer will write a blockbuster musical about her life and times. Stage directions will include: "SARAH fires gun. MOOSE dies." [...]

True believers will not mind. Palin's unconventional trajectory and unkempt mind are seen as authentic, in the sense that we all know people who've had ups and downs in their lives and who couldn't point to Kazakhstan on a map. Her success to date represents a triumph of authenticity over accomplishment. In the final analysis, I believe, that's not enough to make her president. But others seeking the 2012 Republican nomination underestimate her at their peril.

Toward the end of her life, Eva Perón gave a famous speech in which she vowed, "I will return, and I will be millions!" Sarah Palin, our Evita, has returned -- and she will make millions.

Another political gamble for Palin Nov. 16: Rachel Maddow reviews highlights of Sarah Palin's interview on "Oprah" in the context of the half-term governor's political trajectory.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Sully: The Odd Lies Of Sarah Palin XI, Ctd: Asking The Girls

This topic has come up before, and is, in fact, Odd Lie XI. But in the unedited version of the Oprah love-fest, we get yet another version of the story about her asking her children if she should run for vice-president. Here's her latest statement broadcast today:

"This time, there wasn't a family vote. Other steps in my political life, I've polled the kids, and I have abided by some of the results of the polls that the kids have partaken in. This time, no."

This is what she said last fall:

"It was a time of asking the girls to vote on it, anyway. And they voted unanimously, yes. Didn't bother asking my son because, you know, he's going to be off doing his thing anyway, so he wouldn't be so impacted by, at least, the campaign period here. So ask the girls what they thought and they're like, absolutely. Let's do this, mom."

I just want to reiterate the details of the first story. We even find the result of the girls' vote: it was unanimous. And we discover that Track was not polled. But none of this happened at all.

This is not a faulty memory, since the event took place very soon before her first lie about it. And a year later, her memory remembers the truth. So it was a delusional fantasy, or something she thought sounded cool, and had done on previous occasions, so she said it because she figured no one would ever know the truth, so why not make it up?

It was demonstrably untrue at the time, mind you, because we had a contemporaneous document giving a full history of events which proved that logically she had to be lying. And no one in the media, apart from the Dish, ever called her on it.

This is why I will not relent. A person who could have been president told lie after lie after lie in a campaign and the media simply let the fantasies stand. We have no way of knowing what is true or false in her series of statements, and she is never questioned by the media to get at these endless inconsistencies and untruths. Since when does a politician get away with this? And what does it say about our democracy if she can?

Think Progress: Sarah Palin Rejects GOP Senate Candidate Mark Kirk’s Plea For An Endorsement

Earlier this month, the Washington Post reported that Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL), a candidate for Senate in 2010, wrote a memo to Sarah Palin requesting that she endorse him during her visit to Chicago for the Oprah Winfrey Show. The Post noted that “Palin’s endorsement [of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman] helped force state Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava (R) from the race” in the NY-23 special election, and that Kirk’s memo is “tangible evidence of the power of Palin’s endorsement in a Republican primary.”

The memo is also tangible evidence of Kirk’s willingness to dramatically switch positions in order to gain political power. Last year, Kirk panned Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) selection of Palin as his running mate, telling the Chicago Tribune, “I would have picked someone different.” Asked about Palin’s qualifications for office, Kirk said, “Quite frankly, I don’t know.”

However, it appears that Palin has rejected Kirk’s request for an endorsement. Recently, Kirk told ThinkProgress that he had been expecting her endorsement once she visited Chicago:

TP: How about Sarah Palin? How close are you to getting her endorsement?

KIRK: We sent a memo detailing the race, and she’ll be coming in to Chicago shortly.

Watch it:

However, Palin visited Chicago last week to tape an interview with Winfrey and made no mention of Kirk. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal noted that Kirk was “unsuccessful” in his bid for an endorsement, despite his detailed memo.

Facing a competitive challenge from businessman Patrick Hughes in the Republican primary, Kirk is attempting to veer to the right. After voting in favor of cap-and-trade clean energy legislation during the summer, Kirk quickly changed his mind and told tea party activists that he would vote against the same bill in the Senate. Speaking to another assembly of conservative supporters in April, Kirk suggested that people should shoot Gov. Pat Quinn (D-IL) for raising taxes.

Sargent: Sarah Palin Tanking Among Moderates, Independents

This isn’t terribly surprising but it’s noteworthy: Whatever successes Sarah Palin is having among Republicans, she’s absolutely tanking among independents and moderates.

The internals of the new ABC News/Washington Post poll find:

* Only 37% of independents think she’s qualified for the presidency, barely more than a third.

* Only 30% of self-described moderates think she’s qualified, less than a third.

* Only 38% of moderates view her favorably, versus 58% who view her unfavorably.

Meanwhile, the new CNN poll finds that only 29% of independents think she’s qualified.

This points to the deepening isolation of Palin Nation — it’s kind of the polling equivalent of her decision to conduct her book tour almost entirely in the Real America.

It also highlights an interesting conundrum she faces as she seeks to maintain a national profile. Palin and her ghostwriters have successfully resorted to the most harsh and lurid attacks on Obama to break through into the national conversation (the death panels being only the most prominent example). But those same tactics are severly complicating her ability to broaden her appeal, to the degree that she even wants to do this in the first place.

One other suggestive finding: Palin has significantly higher favorability ratings among men (48%) than among women (39%), and only a third of women think she’s qualified to be the first female president.

Laurie: Obligatory Sarah Palin

I suspect good progressives are too hip ever to have watched Judging Amy, but the new infotainment-friendly Sarah Palin strikes me as the runaway offspring that Tyne Daly was too embarrassed to tell Amy Brenneman and her siblings about…

Andrew Sullivan complains “She wants to be a celebrity, not a politician. And if she could get to be a politician using the prerogatives of a celebrity – and a propaganda channel like Fox News – she would be happy. That’s what’s at stake here – beneath this farce.” Which is a pretty good summary, assuming that the nouns in the second sentence got swapped in the heat of live-blogging: Palin wants to be a celebrity, and was willing to act out what she understood to be a politician’s role to get the prerogatives of celebrity. When Bill Kristol’s Cruise Ship of Fools Neocons breezed into Juneau, Palin had aged out of the beauty-queen pageantry competitions that seem to have been her formative social training, her unwillingness or inability to handle the tedium of actual governance had her underlings trembling on the edge of revolt, and her attempts to reclaim Modern Supermom status on her own or by proxy weren’t going so well. It was… providential!... that Someone should send unto her a Messenger, trailing clouds of astroturfing calculation, proclaiming that Sarah Palin could be chosen to stand among the Elect. For lo, all her life she had been journaling, recording both the firewood-stacking and the prayers that were the Aleph and Omega of her Real American™ small-town red-state life—and at last her determined piety was rewarded! Prosperity Gospel, unbelievers!

For in her latest incarnation, Sarah Palin represents an American stereotype at least as old as the Chatauqua circuit and as new as the American Idol wannabes who get showcased in the early episodes of each new season for their combination of fervent conviction and utter lack of talent. She wishes—she feels entitled—to be Famous, in the way a thirteen-year-old writing fanfiction understands “famous”: Everyone should know her name, and want to be just like her, and love her not for her talents or her achievements but just because she’s Sarah. After all, God wants her to be happy, and how can she be happy if she’s not famous?

I’m not an Oprah watcher, but I think Ms. Winfrey did a pretty good job of undercutting Palin’s “serious” pretentions here. The Sarah cut-n-pasting a word salad of political talking points and half-remembered celebrity tropes, seasoned with pageant-queen nods and tics, was not a politician or a writer or even an entertaining racouneur—she was a silly, self-involved, aging Tina Fey impersonator. Pathetic, and scary.

Think Progress: O’Reilly warns of a coming ‘tax revolt’: ‘Pelosi will be bobbing up and down in the Boston Harbor.’

Glenn Beck had Fox News host Bill O’Reilly on his radio show today to promote their upcoming “Bold & Fresh Tour,” which will take the two right-wing personalities around the country to preach “the truth — straight up, whether you like it or not.” When Beck brought up Dennis Miller’s appearance on the O’Reilly Factor last week — in which Miller warned of a coming “insurrection“– O’Reilly predicted a “tax revolt” that will “get nasty” and end up with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) “bobbing up and down in the Boston Harbor.”

BECK: Last week, I head you say that — you were on with Dennis Miller. … You two were talking about an insurrection coming.

O’REILLY: Tax revolt.

BECK: He used the word insurrection. And not in a comedic way.

O’REILLY: Yeah, tax revolt. I think people, when they figure out how badly they’re going to get hurt in the next few years, there’s going to be a tea party on taxes and its gonna get nasty. Nancy Pelosi’s going to be bobbing up and down in the Boston Harbor.

This statement appeared to be too much for Beck even, who replied, “Uh, I don’t think that’s necessary.” Listen here:

Benen: AN ODD WAY TO SHOW 'LEADERSHIP'..

It's almost tragic to see what a guy has to do to seek the Republican presidential nomination these days.

In the era of tea-party conservatives, [Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R)] is calculatedly veering to the right. Speaking to the Economist in St. Paul, he recently explained that the Earth might be warming but that it is unclear "to what extent that is the result of natural causes."

Pawlenty obviously knows better. We know he knows better because he has a lengthy, public record on environmental issues that bears no resemblance to his new positions. Lee Fang has a terrific timeline, which makes clear that "over the course of the last three years, Pawlenty has gone from an outspoken proponent of clean energy to a Glenn Beck pandering climate change denier." In late 2006, Pawlenty not only sought to reduce carbon emissions, he even promoted a regional cap-and-trade program. In late 2007, he declared climate change "one of the most important of our time."

That was then. Now Pawlenty opposes his own cap-and-trade plan and claims to question the basics of global warming.

Is winning a primary more important than losing one's self-respect?

Pawlenty was inclined to stay out the special election in New York's 23rd, right up until right-wing bloggers demanded he intervened. He backed the Conservative Party candidate soon after. Pawlenty engaged in grandstanding against ACORN funding that doesn't exist. He validated "death panel" nonsense. He's even dabbled in radical Tenther ideas.

Pawlenty, in other words, still hasn't sought treatment for his Romney-itis. Remember Romney? He was the relatively moderate Republican governor of a reliably "blue" state, who could present himself, with a straight face, as a pragmatic, sane policymaker. That is, until he wanted to be president, and decided to experience some kind of ideological metamorphosis -- sane, moderate pragmatism wouldn't win over the Republican base, so that persona would have to be cast aside. It was painful to watch, and ultimately ineffective.

But that hasn't stopped Pawlenty from trying the identical strategy.

The base demands fealty. Tim Pawlenty hopes to prove to them what a great "leader" he'll be by following their commands and abandoning his own record in the hopes of impressing them.

Benen: QUOTE OF THE DAY..

During the floor debate over health care reform, Rep. John Shadegg (R) of Arizona generated a little attention for himself by bringing a 7-month-old baby to the podium, and pretending to speak on her behalf.

Last night's speech wasn't nearly as adorable. Shadegg spoke from the House floor to rail against a criminal trial for alleged 9/11 conspirators in New York City. In particular, the far-right Arizonan was incensed that NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) believes, "It is fitting that 9/11 suspects face justice near the World Trade Center site where so many New Yorkers were murdered."

As Matt Finkelstein reported, Shadegg doesn't see it quite the same way. "I saw the Mayor of New York said today, 'We're tough. We can do it,'" the Republican congressman said. "Well, Mayor, how are you going to feel when it's your daughter that's kidnapped at school by a terrorist? How are you going to feel when it's some clerk -- some innocent clerk of the court -- whose daughter or son is kidnapped? Or the jailer's little brother or little sister?"

As a matter of decency, Shadegg's little tantrum was vile and unnecessary. If Shadegg has a policy argument to make, fine. But openly speculating on the House floor about imaginary kidnappings of the mayor's daughter is loathsome, even by the standards of congressional Republicans.

And while I'm hesitant to offer any kind of substantive response to such transparent nonsense, I can't help but wonder, where has John Shadegg been? Why didn't he pop off like this during any of the other criminal trials against the hundreds of terrorists who've been put through the federal justice system? If this right-wing lawmaker seriously believes court proceedings lead foreign terrorists to kidnap children on American soil, why has Shadegg remained entirely silent on the point over the last couple of decades?

Economics 101

The utter failure of the Obama administration to reach out or listen to progressive economists - economists who tend to be right on most issues when you can look at them in hindsight - is a big problem.
Aravosis: Nobel economist Joe Stiglitz didn't receive invite to Obama "Jobs Summit" either

I reported the other day that Nobel laureate in economics Paul Krugman had not received an invite to President Obama's "Jobs Summitt" in early December. I now have an update from Anya Schiffrin, Joe Stiglitz's wife, who just emailed me (the email is real, we know each other):

I saw your post mentioning Joe. We never saw an invitation. It is possible they sent one and it didn't get passed on to us, but I am guessing he was not invited.

I wrote the White House a letter:

As a strong supporter of President Obama, I have great difficulty understanding why your administration consistently fails to include world class, progressive economists like Dr. Krugman and Dr. Stiglitz as key outside advisors on economic issues. They tend to be right on the issues, when we are able to look at them in hindsight. For example, they were both right on the need for a larger stimulus plan.

So why in the world are they not invited to your December jobs summit? The last thing I expected of an Obama administration was a tendency to exclude viewpoints that might be politically or ideologically uncomfortable.

Do you really think that behaving like the Bush administration is a good thing?

So why, exactly, is the WH not inviting this guy?
Krugman: It’s the stupidity economy

OK, maybe a more polite way to say it is this: bad ideas are acting as serious constraints on policy.

We’re in a liquidity trap, with interest rates up against the zero bound. This means that conventional monetary policy isn’t sufficient. What should we do?

The first-best answer — that is, the answer that economic models, like my old Japan’s trap analysis, suggest would be optimal — would be to credibly commit to higher inflation, so as to reduce real interest rates.

But the key thing to recognize about this answer is that it’s all about expectations — the central bank only has traction over expected inflation to the extent that it can convince people that it will deliver that inflation after the liquidity trap is over. So to make this policy work you have to (i) convince current policymakers that it’s the right answer (ii) Make that argument persuasive enough that it will guide the actions of future policymakers (iii) Convince investors, consumers, and firms that you have in fact achieved (i) and (ii).

In reality, we haven’t even gotten anywhere near (i): the conventional wisdom is still that any rise in expected inflation above 2 percent is a bad thing, when it’s actually good.

So some readers have asked why I’m not making the same arguments for America now that I was making for Japan a decade ago. The answer is that I don’t think I’ll get anywhere, at least not until or unless the slump goes on for a long time.

OK, so what’s next? The second-best answer would be a really big fiscal expansion, sufficient to mostly close the output gap. The economic case for doing that is really clear. But Washington is caught up in deficit phobia, and there doesn’t seem to be any chance of getting a big enough push.

That’s why, at this point, I’m turning to what I understand perfectly well to be a third-best solution: subsidizing jobs and promoting work-sharing.

Call it constrained optimization, where the constraint comes from the power of bad ideas.

Yglesias: State Budget Deficits

I’m not really sure how the view that ARRA is somehow causing a malign delay in necessary and beneficial structural adjustments can really survive contact with this analysis of federal aid to state budgets from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. As you can see here, there’s pretty clearly an awful lot of adjusting taking place even with the ARRA money pouring in. Looking at this it’s pretty clear that we should have provided a lot more money for FY 2009 and FY 2010 in order to forestall the need for mid-crisis fiscal contractions from state government. That still would have left states facing massive FY 2011 and FY 2012 shortfalls in which any positive things that you may think follow from state budget cuts could have happened.

These details aside, I can’t help but think that it would be really nice to see some work done on clever things the federal government could do on a systematic basis to prevent (or discourage) the boom/bust cycle in state budgeting. I’m not really sure what kind of constitutional limits may exist, but this poor budgetary behavior is a perennial macroeconomic problem. It’s also a kind of serious political problem, since the tendency of boom/bust budgeting is to make anyone who happens to be governor during a boom (see George Pataki or George W. Bush or Charlie Crist) look like a brilliant innovative governor while anyone who governs through a bust (see John Corzine, David Patterson) looks like a fool. The reality is that it’s easy to be a successful pragmatist as long as economic growth lets you cut taxes, hike spending, and then stick someone else with the structural imbalance when the next recession hits.

Krugman: Fiscal perspective

It’s truly amazing, and depressing, how completely deficit-phobia has swept the field in Washington. The economy remains in deeply dire straits: here’s long-term unemployment:

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Yet the respectable thing, all of a sudden, is to claim that we can’t possibly afford to spend any more money on job creation.

History says differently. Here’s a comparison of debt/GDP levels, actual levels for several countries (OECD for Belgium, IMF for the rest), and projected levels (from the IMF) for the United States. (Note that these are for general government, i.e., including state and local, so they’re higher than the numbers you usually read).

OECD, IMF

Yes, we’re going fairly deep into debt. No, it’s not unprecedented. Other advanced countries have been substantially deeper in debt without either defaulting or having runaway inflation — and some of those countries have historically had weak governments (Belgium because of the linguistic divide, and Italy because it’s Italy).

I’d be a little more forgiving of the nonsense if all the people screaming about the deficit were sincere. And some are. But many, if not most, are perfectly happy to incur huge unfunded liabilities for the wars they want to fight, and/or to eliminate inheritance taxes for the heirs of multimillionaires. It’s only deficits incurred to help working Americans that get them all moralistic.

Anyway, the point is that the economy desperately needs more help — and yes, we can afford to provide it.

Chris in Paris (AmBlog): TARP recipients falling behind on payments

Especially in light of the soft touch on Wall Street, this is very troubling. Neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration has had the stomach to be firm with the financial industry despite their deep responsibility for the recession. Maybe it's wishful thinking or perhaps too many have bought into the Wall Street centric view of the world. Wall Street is important for the future growth of the US but we can't overlook the severe damage that they inflicted on everyone else.

To repeat, rescuing the financial industry had to be done. There is little doubt that the recession could have been much more painful without the bailout. The terms were all too often botched, which is why we are seeing failures, more money and a two-tiered financial industry based on the haves and have-nots. (Goldman Sachs, obviously is on the "haves" list.) So will the banks will be treated differently from individuals who can't meet the terms of their agreements. Surely they will, but this round needs to push back against the banks instead of providing a wish list for the banks. As we are seeing from AIG and others, the initial round was about as poorly implemented as possible. Unfortunately, the current team were leading the first bailout so it's hard to imagine any major improvement or lessons learned. Washington Post:

Officials poured about $700 billion into investments in scores of companies, from giants such as the automaker General Motors and the insurer American International Group to smaller regional banks. Of them, 46 had missed required dividend payments to the government as of the end of September, according to the inspector general overseeing the program.

On Nov. 6, United Commercial Bank of San Francisco failed, becoming the first recipient of the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, to collapse. The cost to taxpayers: $299 million.

Analysts expect more bailed-out firms to fail in the months ahead. Others may survive but will struggle to repay the government. Steven Rattner, the former head of the government's efforts to bail out the auto industry, said recently that the full public investment in GM is unlikely to be repaid. Meanwhile, AIG is dismantling itself, selling healthy subsidiaries at what critics say are bargain prices in an all-out effort to get cash to repay the government.

John Cole: Thick as Thieves

More good news about the Goldman boys and Tim Geithner:

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York gave up much of its power in high-pressure negotiations with the American International Group’s trading partners last year, according to a government report made public on Monday.

Just two days before the New York Fed paid A.I.G.’s partners 100 cents on the dollar to tear up their contracts with the insurance giant, one bank volunteered to take a modest haircut — but it never got the chance.

UBS, of Switzerland, alone offered to give a break to the New York Fed in the negotiations last November over how to keep A.I.G. from toppling and taking other banks down with it. It would have accepted 98 cents on the dollar.

But UBS’s good-faith gesture was quickly drowned out by Goldman Sachs and the top French bank regulator. They argued, with others, that it would be improper and perhaps even criminal to force A.I.G.’s trading partners to bear losses outside of bankruptcy court.

The banks and the regulator were confident that the New York Fed was not willing to push A.I.G. into bankruptcy, because earlier in the fall the New York Fed had stepped in with $85 billion to prop up the insurer.

The New York Fed, led then by Timothy F. Geithner, who is now the Treasury secretary, therefore had little leverage in the negotiations, according to a post-mortem of what has emerged as the most inflammatory episode in the rescue of A.I.G.

In the Army, we had a saying called “Fuck up, move up.” Looks like that sure was the case for Geithner. And you just have to love the sense of entitlement from the Goldman boys- it would be illegal for them to not get paid in full! And, because of who they are and where their people are in our government, the gambit worked.

I seriously think Goldman Sachs and the folks like them are the biggest threat to the future of this country, but since they own everyone, they’ll just keep siphoning off the money until the nation collapses.

tristero: 49 Million Americans

I am so glad that Wall Street is on track for such huge bonuses this year. That's because they can use all that money to buy food for the 49 million Americans - 49 million Americans! Jesus! who "lacked consistent access to adequate food" by the end of the Bush administration.

49 million Americans. Shameful. Shameful!

And check this out towards the end:

“Very few of these people are hungry,” said Robert Rector, an analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “When they lose jobs, they constrain the kind of food they buy. That is regrettable, but it’s a far cry from a hunger crisis.”

49 million Americans have been "struggling with hunger" - as the director of the food center who sponsored the study says - and all conservatives can say is, "Hey, that's not so bad."

Jesus.

My God, that anyone takes conservatives seriously on anything simply boggles the mind. 49 million Americans can't eat well on a regular basis - not won't, but can't - and this asshole pooh-poohs the problem. (By the way, you might want to Google "Robert Rector Heritage Foundation" for a good idea of how wrong someone can be. Authoring flawed studies on immigration. Advocating worthless sex education programs. He's one more extreme-right conservative clown clone.)

Let's look closer at the situation. Here's a pdf of the report and and here are a few details from the introduction:

On a given day, the number of households with very low food security was a small fraction of the number that experienced this condition “at some time during the year.” Typically, households classified as having very low food security experienced the condition in 7 or 8 months of the year, for a few days in each of those months. On an average day in late November or early December, 2008, for example, an estimated 1.1 million to 1.4 million households (0.9-1.2 percent of all U.S. households) had members who experienced very low food security, and children experienced these conditions in 86,000 to 111,000 households (0.22 to 0.28 percent of all U.S. households with children).

The report says that a "small fraction" of those with "very low food security" are suffering badly on a given day. That is not cause for celebration or relief. To understand exactly what this statistic means we have to personalize it. There isn't a single person reading this blog who wouldn't be appalled at the prospect, let alone the reality, of "having very low food security... in 7 or 8 months of the year, for a few days in each of those months."

That is what Heritage's Robert Rector dismisses. There is only one appropriate and measured response to him: Fuck you, Rector.

All Americans should be ashamed that this is how low the richest, most powerful nation on earth has sunk. True, Bush and Cheney drove this country off a cliff, but it is our collective country, not theirs alone, and this is simply unacceptable. They caused the economic conditions that caused this, but we must address the food access problems that resulted and do so immediately (and seek criminal charges, where appropriate, against those who caused this misery). To the extent that hunger in America - or "food insecurity," to use the euphemism - is not among the most important of our national issues, that is the extent to which this country has had its moral compass warped by rightwing social ideologies, including the ideology of greed.

And man, of man, 49 million Americans struggling with hunger is damned warped.

The State of Play

The human side of the health care debate, the side the obstructionists don't want us to see. Senator Landrieu (D-LA) refused to show up.
Health reform's human stories Nov. 16: Countdown's Keith Olbermann reads an account by producer Rich Stockwell of the free health clinic held in New Orleans over the weekend, in which over 1,000 people attended.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

A terrific segment on the state of play of health care debate in the Senate.
New challenges to GOP health reform obstruction Nov. 16: Senator Sherrod Brown joins Rachel Maddow to review the internal squabbles tripping up Republican opposition to health reform and the strategy by Senate Democrats to make Republican stall tactics as difficult as possible.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Sargent: White House Talking Points Declare Open War On U.S. Chamber

The White House is seizing on the news of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s planned anti-reform study to declare open war on the organization, circulating talking points on the Hill declaring it an “intentionally skewed” effort to “safeguard the insurance companies’ bottom line at the expense of the American people.”

There is no report yet, but the talking points, sent over by a source, launch a preemptive strike, linking it to the insurance industry’s earlier, widely-criticized anti-reform study:

* This so-called study would be at least the third intentionally skewed report as part of the last-ditch effort to safeguard the insurance companies’ bottom line at the expense of the American people.

* You may recall that last month, the insurance lobby offered an “analysis” that even the company who produced it said was skewed because that’s what the insurance companies paid for.

* And just days after that report, another insurance company produced a similarly flawed study.

* The only difference this time is that the insurance industry’s defenders were caught red-handed before producing their intentionally misleading “study”.

* So whenever we finally see this supposed analysis, we should all take it with a huge grain of salt.

The White House had been treading carefully in its standoff with the Chamber, perhaps not wanting to hand ammo to those portraying the reform proposal as a threat to the private sector. But the Chamber’s planned study has given the White House an opening to put the Chamber on the defensive at a delicate moment for the organization, much as the insurance industry’s study did.

It appears that any fragile peace that may have existed between the Chamber and the White House is off.

Sargent: MoveOn: Over 5,000 Medical Pros Have Called On AMA To Ditch US Chamber

The striking news that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is seeking to fund a “study” undermining the health care reform proposal creates an awkward situation for one of its leading members: The American Medical Association, which is in favor of the reform plan.

Here’s something else that could increase pressure on AMA: I’m told that over 5,300 medical professionals have signed a petition calling on AMA to ditch the Chamber over its opposition to health care reform, as many other members have over its climate change stance.

Ilyse Hogue, a spokesperson for MoveOn, which launched the petition last week, confirms the number.

The AMA, of course, gave the reform proposal a big boost by coming out in support of it, lending it the medical profession’s stamp of credibility. The Chamber, meanwhile, is one of the proposal’s most determined and well funded opponents, sinking big bucks into ads blasting House Dems who voted for it.

The question now is whether the Chamber’s new study — which apparently has the goal of proving that the reform plan is a “job killer” — will increase pressure on AMA to reconsider its membership, as thousands of medical professionals apparently want it to do.

Olberman
The health debate continues. Nov. 16: Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., talks about the Republicans delay tactics to prevent health reform from being passed before the new year.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Weary

It hit me the other day how deeply frustrating the endless, shrieking, right-wing obstructionism must be for the Obama Administration. No matter what they do, short of abdicating, the repubs and their noise machine will scream and shout and yell and lie - and the media will report on the repub actions as if it they are serious. It makes me weary just watching from the sidelines. It fact, it makes me "Tired."

Think Progress:

“Despite a solid Democratic majority in the Senate, Obama is on pace to set a record for the fewest judges confirmed during a president’s first year in the White House.” So far, only six of Obama’s nominees to the lower federal courts have won approval, while President George W. Bush had 28 judges confirmed and President Clinton had 27 confirmed in their respective first years in office.

Benen: THE VOTE ON HAMILTON..

The schedule may change, but it seems likely that Judge David Hamilton, President Obama's nominee to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, will come up for a vote this week. It's even more likely that Hamilton will have more than 60 votes for confirmation.

The question is whether far-right Republicans filibuster anyway. A group of 24 conservative leaders, led in part by former Reagan-era Attorney General Edwin Meese, have demanded GOP senators try to block a vote. Even if it fails, they argue, the obstructionist tactics will "send a signal." (What that "signal" represents remains unclear.)

The conservative activists have proven to be so far gone they've positioned Manuel Miranda to act as the voice of reason.

Manuel Miranda, a former Senate GOP leadership aide and chairman of Third Branch Conference, a coalition of conservative leaders that has taken an active role in several high-profile debates of judicial nominees, has questioned the push to block Hamilton.

"Respectfully, I disagree with this rally to 'vote no on the cloture' for this or any nominee that one would expect a Democratic president to nominate, if the sole purpose is to block or 'stop,' and not merely and genuinely to prolong a debate," Miranda wrote in an e-mail to fellow conservatives.

Miranda's group was formerly known as the National Committee to End the Judicial Filibuster. He was one of scores of conservative leaders who sent a letter in 2005 to Senate GOP leaders demanding they abolish the filibuster of judicial nominees.

Miranda is, of course, best known for stealing over 4,000 memos and documents related to judicial nominees from Democratic computer servers in 2004. Asked to explain his actions, Miranda once famously said, "You have no ethical duty to your opposition."

And now, even he thinks Obama's judicial nominees deserve a debate and a vote.

DougJ: Where did the dithering start?

I did some searchers on “dithering” in the New York Times and Washington Post archives. In the Times, there were eleven uses of the word post-Cheney out of a total of 47 in the past year. In the Post, there were 36 post-Cheney out of a total of 46 in the past 12 months.

Michael Gerson, Jackson Diehl, and David Broder have all accused the president of “dithereing” post-Cheney. Gerson also used the phrase about a week before Cheney’s speech. Ronald Krebs and Dana Milbank also wrote pieces accusing Obama of dithering before Cheney’s speech (Jim Hoagland also wrote a piece, praising the dithering). The phrase seems to have originated with Bob Schieffer on “Face the Nation” on October 4.

It’s interesting how these words take off and I think it’s likely that neocons settled on it and that Krebs, Gerson, and Cheney all using it within a week of each other was no accident (Diehl and Broder fall more in the category of useful idiots).

The word “dithering” appeared only once on the NYT’s editorial page, in a Maureen Dowd piece satirizing Cheney.

Update. This is apropos of John’s last post, for those to whom that isn’t obvious.

Update. Halperin fronts Broder channeling Cheney. The circle is complete. Tinkers to Evers to Chance.

C&L: Cheney Worried About Terrorists Having a 'Public Platform Where They Can Spew Venom'

By Heather Monday Nov 16, 2009 6:00am

This is rich coming from the likes of Liz Cheney. She's worried about the terrorists having "a public platform where they can spew venom". Well the "mainstream media" has given you and your daddy one, so what's the problem? Pat Leahy explained why this fear mongering is utter nonsense on Face the Nation today. What she's worried about are her father's pesky war crimes coming to light. Not that Chris Wallace would ever ask her about that, would you Chrissy?

WALLACE: Liz, what do you worry about most, the security threat to New York, the possible danger that intelligence secrets will be disclosed, the possibility one of these guys will get off, or something else? What's your biggest concern?

CHENEY: You know, I think it is absolutely unconscionable that we are a nation at war and that the president of the United States simultaneously is denying our troops on the ground in Afghanistan the resources that they need to prevail to win that war while he ushers terrorists onto the homeland.

He's going to put these terrorists in a courthouse that is six blocks from where over 2,000 Americans were killed on the worst attack in history on the American homeland.

He's going to give them a public platform where they can spew venom, where they can preach jihad, where they can reach out and recruit other terrorists. And it is totally unnecessary.

When the attorney general says that he's bringing them to justice, he's ignoring the fact that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed asked 11 months ago to be executed for Allah. He asked to plead guilty and be executed. We should have said, "All right, you've got it."

Instead, we're bringing him and his cohorts to America. We're giving them the constitutional rights of American citizens. And the attorney general throughout the day on Friday talked about this as a crime.

He said in that same interview Mara is talking about that this will be treated like any other crime.

WALLACE: But what about...

CHENEY: There's no question but that the Obama administration now has in a completely indefensible way taken us back to a pre-9/11 treatment of terrorism...

WALLACE: But what about the...

CHENEY: ... as a crime.

WALLACE: .. argument that the Bush administration had all of these people for eight years -- they got a total of three convictions in eight years in military commissions.

CHENEY: The Bush administration worked very hard to put together military commissions. The first round of military commissions that they put together, which were based on the precedent of the FDR military commissions -- full constitutional precedent, approved by the Supreme Court in the 1940s -- were rejected by the Supreme Court.

The administration then put together a new set of military commissions approved by Congress, and they have held these guys at Guantanamo now where they are providing -- presenting no threat at all to the United States.

WALLACE: But three convictions in eight years is not much of a record.

CHENEY: You know, but I think that if you ask the family members of these people -- I mean, you saw the family members, for example, of Daniel Pearl. You know, they do not want to see the United States for no -- there's no legal, no national security, no constitutional reason why we should be giving these people a megaphone from which they can recruit future jihadis, from which they can mock the victims of these attacks, and from which they can really put the U.S. government on trial.

They'll ask for access to classified information, and they'll get access to a lot of classified information in the civilian court system.

Benen: CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, CREATING ITS OWN REALITY..

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce hasn't had an especially good year. Its denials of global warming have been embarrassing; the group has lost some high-profile corporate members; its membership numbers have been exposed as exaggerated.

Now that the Chamber has been caught trying to finance a phony study on health care reform, the organization's credibility is poised to reach new lows.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and an assortment of national business groups opposed to President Obama's health-care reform effort are collecting money to finance an economic study that could be used to portray the legislation as a job killer and threat to the nation's economy, according to an e-mail solicitation from a top Chamber official.

The e-mail, written by the Chamber's senior health policy manager and obtained by The Washington Post, proposes spending $50,000 to hire a "respected economist" to study the impact of health-care legislation, which is expected to come to the Senate floor this week, would have on jobs and the economy.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "Maybe," you'll be tempted to argue, "the Chamber and its allies simply wanted to do a legitimate economic study. How do we know the report would be rigged to bolster a preconceived anti-reform narrative?"

The answer, of course, is that the Chamber's memo already points the agreed-upon conclusion of the economic review that does not yet exist. From its email: "The economist will then circulate a sign-on letter to hundreds of other economists saying that the bill will kill jobs and hurt the economy. We will then be able to use this open letter to produce advertisements, and as a powerful lobbying and grass-roots document."

The Chamber's James Gelfand, who wrote the memo, said the proposal for the trumped-up economic study was "suggested by our Congressional allies." It was unclear as to who those "allies" are, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that congressional Republicans asked the Chamber of Commerce to help kill health care reform with this spurious study.

It's not exactly a plan that screams "credible, independent analysis."

If this seems vaguely familiar, it was only a month ago that a dubious study by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) was released, in the hopes of derailing the health care reform effort. It wasn't long before it was exposed as something of a political sham.

White House Deputy Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said the email is "proof positive that the opponents of health reform will not let the facts get in the way of their efforts to defend to the status quo that has been so profitable for the insurance companies."

The AHIP fiasco inspired reform proponents to redouble their efforts against the conservative anti-reform scam. With any luck, the Chamber's mess will do the same.

Think Progress: Rove Attacks Obama For Bowing: He Should Do What All Presidents Have Done And ‘Not Bow To Monarchies’

This morning on Fox & Friends, former Bush adviser Karl Rove appeared on the program to bash President Obama for paying a respectful bow before the Japanese Emperor. Leading into the segment, co-host Steve Doocy claimed that there is a “long-standing precedent going back to the founding” of the U.S. that “American presidents don’t bow to anybody.” Doocy might want to do some research on President Eisenhower.

Calling the bow “inappropriate,” Rove wondered, “what’s that all about?” He added that Obama “simply can’t get it right” and that the bow is part of Obama’s “world-wide apology tour.” Rove concluded his assault with this final jab:

I think it’s best if American presidents do what they have always done — which is to stand for our small “r” republican values and do not bow to monarchies.

Watch it:

It’s true. Unlike Obama, Bush did not have a general policy of showing respect to world leaders. Instead, he opted for a special policy of showing particularly reverent displays of affection toward monarchs he liked. Presumably, Rove would have no complaints had Obama kissed and held hands with the Japanese Emperor:

Wingnuts: WATB Edition

QOTD, Glenn Greenwald:

This is literally true: the Right's reaction to yesterday's announcement -- we're too afraid to allow trials and due process in our country -- is the textbook definition of "surrendering to terrorists." It's the same fear they've been spewing for years. As always, the Right's tough-guy leaders wallow in a combination of pitiful fear and cynical manipulation of the fear of their followers. Indeed, it's hard to find any group of people on the globe who exude this sort of weakness and fear more than the American Right.

Paul Krugman posted this video this morning. Paul Krugman was in a very silly mood: "From this day on, the official language of this blog will be Swedish."

DougJ: I wonder who would publish this economist’s opinion piece

I love stuff like this:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and an assortment of national business groups opposed to President Obama’s health-care reform effort are collecting money to finance an economic study that could be used to portray the legislation as a job killer and threat to the nation’s economy, according to an e-mail solicitation from a top Chamber official.

The e-mail, written by the Chamber’s senior health policy manager and obtained by The Washington Post, proposes spending $50,000 to hire a “respected economist” to study the impact of health-care legislation, which is expected to come to the Senate floor this week, would have on jobs and the economy.

Step two, according to the e-mail, appears to assume the outcome of the economic review: “The economist will then circulate a sign-on letter to hundreds of other economists saying that the bill will kill jobs and hurt the economy. We will then be able to use this open letter to produce advertisements, and as a powerful lobbying and grass-roots document.”

Tristero: What Glenn Said

Greenwald:

This is literally true: the Right's reaction to yesterday's announcement -- we're too afraid to allow trials and due process in our country -- is the textbook definition of "surrendering to terrorists." It's the same fear they've been spewing for years. As always, the Right's tough-guy leaders wallow in a combination of pitiful fear and cynical manipulation of the fear of their followers. Indeed, it's hard to find any group of people on the globe who exude this sort of weakness and fear more than the American Right.

People in capitals all over the world have hosted trials of high-level terrorist suspects using their normal justice system. They didn't allow fear to drive them to build island-prisons or create special commissions to depart from their rules of justice. Spain held an open trial in Madrid for the individuals accused of that country's 2004 train bombings. The British put those accused of perpetrating the London subway bombings on trial right in their normal courthouse in London. Indonesia gave public trials using standard court procedures to the individuals who bombed a nightclub in Bali. India used a Mumbai courtroom to try the sole surviving terrorist who participated in the 2008 massacre of hundreds of residents. In Argentina, the Israelis captured Adolf Eichmann, one of the most notorious Nazi war criminals, and brought him to Jerusalem to stand trial for his crimes.

It's only America's Right that is too scared of the Terrorists -- or which exploits the fears of their followers -- to insist that no regular trials can be held and that "the safety and security of the American people" mean that we cannot even have them in our country to give them trials. As usual, it's the weakest and most frightened among us who rely on the most flamboyant, theatrical displays of "strength" and "courage" to hide what they really are.

This has been another addition of What Glenn Said.

Makes you wonder, why a blogger is first out the gate on this patently obvious response to the craven cowards - sorry, I meant the Republicans. You'd think a top Democrat would have smacked them down immediately. But that would entail a Democratic political leadership that actually felt comfortable about winning elections and leading the country.

Answering some questions:

"But what if the terrorists attack New York again?"

You think they won't if we don't hold trials?

Reality-check, people: Whether it is from the rightwing lunatics who consider bin Laden reality-based or the rightwing lunatics who consider Beck, Palin, et al. reality-based - or some other demented nuts who hate Americans - there will be another terrorist attack, and more Americans will die. The only questions are when, where, and whether it could have been prevented. (In fact, contrary to conventional wisdom, this country has seen some dreadful terrorist attacks since 9/11: the anthrax mailings, probably an attack on LAX on July 4, 2002, and the assassination of Dr. Tiller, for example )

"But politically, another attack would give Republicans a perfect 'I told you so' moment. Why court - literally- such possibilities?"

Whether or not there's a trial, an unambiguous and spectacular attack like 9/11 won't stop Republicans from immediately demanding Obama's resignation. And I mean immediately, as in, "Obama must go now, he failed to keep us safe. Oh, right, I suppose that terrorist attack thingy was not fun for some people. But there's a silver lining to every cloud 'cause now we really have a perfect opportunity to get rid of that commie/nazi you-know-what-I'm-talking-about-wink-wink-but-it's-not-racism-that's-unfair."

TPM Headline:

Giuliani: 9/11 Trials Give Edge To Terrorists, Endanger NYC

Yglesias: Criminals and Warriors

Alongside the various nonsensical efforts to convince people that KSM is too scary to be put in trial, the right objects to bringing him to justice on the grounds that this represents a problematic “law enforcement” approach to terrorism. I think it’s pretty clear that international terrorism has some dimensions that go well-beyond ordinary law enforcement, but if you have to put the whole thing in either the “crime” box or the “war” box, there’s a pretty strong case for erring on the side of crime.

In political terms, the right likes the war idea because it involves taking terrorism more “seriously.” But in doing so, you partake of way too much of the terrorists’ narrative about themselves. It’s their conceit, after all, that blowing up a bomb in a train station and killing a few hundred random commuters is an act of war. And war is a socially sanctioned form of activity, generally held to be a legally and morally acceptable framework in which to kill people. What we want to say, however, is that this sporadic commuter-killing isn’t a kind of war, it’s an act of murder. To be sure, not an ordinary murder—a mass murder—but nonetheless murder. It’s true that if al-Qaeda were something like the “blowing up train stations” arm of a major country with which we were otherwise at war, it might make the most sense to think of al-Qaeda as fitting in with spies and saboteurs; criminal adjuncts to a warrior enterprise.

After all, do we really want to send the message to the world that a self-starting spree killer like Nidal Malik Hasan is actually engaged in some kind of act of holy war? It seems to me that we don’t. A lot of people in the world are interested in glory, and willing to take serious risks with their lives for its sake. Insofar as possible, we want to drain anti-American violence of the aura of glory. And that means by-and-large treating its perpetrators like criminals.

John Cole: Something I Don’t Understand

One of the things I don’t understand about the reaction to trying KSM and others is why people on the right are reacting the way they are. After 9/11, the general attitude was one of defiance- “we’re gonna rebuild the World Trade Center bigger than it was before.” I remember people suggesting we should build the new WTC in the shape of a middle finger to show the terrorists we won’t take it:

And who can forget Michelle Malkin’s ridiculous I am John Doe Manifesto? That was just a couple years ago. What happened to the right wing swagger? When did they turn into such a bunch of scared wimps? When did they go from standing there in the rubble with George Bush and his megaphone to hiding under Dick Cheney’s desk cowering in fear?

Personally, I can’t think of anything more defiant than taking KSM, frog-marching him through Manhattan, giving him a fair trial, and then sending him to prison forever or executing him. That is how you show the terrorists that we aren’t going to be fazed.

For goodness sakes, right wingers. Man up for a change. I honestly think I liked the belligerent cowboy right-wingers better than the diaper-clad bed-wetters we have now.

Attaturk (FDL): Explains so much

Well, this seems ridiculous, though hardly surprising.

But in her new memoir, Going Rogue, Palin apparently writes that she doesn’t believe in evolution. New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani writes:

Elsewhere in this volume, she talks about creationism, saying she “didn’t believe in the theory that human beings — thinking, loving beings — originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea” or from “monkeys who eventually swung down from the trees.”

Palin’s not the only Republican with this ignorant viewpoint. By 2012, it will probably be the espoused viewpoint of every GOP candidate for President.

How is such ignorance tolerated in the body politic?

Ask David Broder:

It is evident from the length of this deliberative process and from the flood of leaks that have emerged from Kabul and Washington that the perfect course of action does not exist. Given that reality, the urgent necessity is to make a decision — whether or not it is right.

One of the two major parties, aided and abetted by the establishment media is decrying actually thinking about things. A-W-E-S-O-M-E!

Our Media

DougJ: Just don’t tell me how the story ends

I hate to burden you with more Broder, but I honestly believe that you can hear a civilization—our civilization—crumbling when you read this:

It is evident from the length of this deliberative process and from the flood of leaks that have emerged from Kabul and Washington that the perfect course of action does not exist. Given that reality, the urgent necessity is to make a decision—whether or not it is right.

I believe we should get the hell out of Afghanistan, the sooner the better. And I hope that is the decision that Obama arrives at, the sooner the better.

But to suggest that it is more important to make a quick decision than to make a correct decision, to suggest that an extra few weeks of reporters’ and civil servants’ time is more important than the the next six months of 40,000 American soldiers’ lives…the fact that a journalist can suggest this and still be taken seriously does not bode well for where we are headed as a country.

It’s all part of the cult of the “tough decision”, the “gut decision”. It’s easy to laugh at that. But I just don’t see all of this stupidity ending in anything other than collapse.

• Steve Benen adds:
  

  What a crock.

  I realize there's been a painful decline in the quality of Broder's analysis in recent years, but this column is a mess. He's effectively calling for President Obama to act and think more like President Bush -- make decisions first, and think through the consequences and implications second.

  Worse, Broder goes so far as to castigate the administration for "all this dithering" -- using Dick Cheney's preferred choice of words.

  The premise of the piece is that a decision is needed immediately. Where did this arbitrary deadline come from? Broder doesn't say; he just warns of the Taliban "coming back in Afghanistan," as if the Taliban hasn't already reclaimed much of the country.

  Thinking back, I don't recall Broder ever showing this kind of Afghanistan-related antagonism towards the Bush administration -- which was, not incidentally, the team that allowed Afghanistan to deteriorate, watched as hard-earned gains slipped away, and never bothered to craft a strategy for the future of U.S. policy in the country.

  Indeed, reading today's Broder piece I get the distinct impression that the columnist had lunch with John McCain at some point this week, and then rushed back to his desk to jot down the senator's criticism. That's a shame. Given the reality, Broder was facing an editorial deadline, and he decided the urgent necessity was to write a column -- whether or not it was right.

DougJ: Very serious people

NYT via Atrios:

Yet both Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Vice President Dick Cheney, Farmer says, provided palpably false versions that touted the military’s readiness to shoot down United 93 before it could hit Washington….Farmer’s verdict: “History should record that whether through unprecedented administrative incompetence or orchestrated mendacity, the American people were misled about the nation’s response to the 9/11 attacks.”

History’s verdict so far is that Dick Cheney should be given unlimited media time to air his lies.

Truth is Like an Onion

It is terribly hard to separate truth from fantasy in the RW mind.

The Onion: Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be

ESCONDIDO, CA—Spurred by an administration he believes to be guilty of numerous transgressions, self-described American patriot Kyle Mortensen, 47, is a vehement defender of ideas he seems to think are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and principles that brave men have fought and died for solely in his head.

Kyle Mortensen would gladly give his life to protect what he says is the Constitution's very clear stance against birth control.

"Our very way of life is under siege," said Mortensen, whose understanding of the Constitution derives not from a close reading of the document but from talk-show pundits, books by television personalities, and the limitless expanse of his own colorful imagination. "It's time for true Americans to stand up and protect the values that make us who we are."

According to Mortensen—an otherwise mild-mannered husband, father, and small-business owner—the most serious threat to his fanciful version of the 222-year-old Constitution is the attempt by far-left "traitors" to strip it of its religious foundation.

"Right there in the preamble, the authors make their priorities clear: 'one nation under God,'" said Mortensen, attributing to the Constitution a line from the Pledge of Allegiance, which itself did not include any reference to a deity until 1954. "Well, there's a reason they put that right at the top."

"Men like Madison and Jefferson were moved by the ideals of Christianity, and wanted the United States to reflect those values as a Christian nation," continued Mortensen, referring to the "Father of the Constitution," James Madison, considered by many historians to be an atheist, and Thomas Jefferson, an Enlightenment-era thinker who rejected the divinity of Christ and was in France at the time the document was written. "The words on the page speak for themselves."

According to sources who have read the nation's charter, the U.S. Constitution and its 27 amendments do not contain the word "God" or "Christ."

Mortensen said his admiration for the loose assemblage of vague half-notions he calls the Constitution has only grown over time. He believes that each detail he has pulled from thin air—from prohibitions on sodomy and flag-burning, to mandatory crackdowns on immigrants, to the right of citizens not to have their hard-earned income confiscated in the form of taxes—has contributed to making it the best framework for governance "since the Ten Commandments."

"And let's not forget that when the Constitution was ratified it brought freedom to every single American," Mortensen said.

Mortensen's passion for safeguarding the elaborate fantasy world in which his conception of the Constitution resides is greatly respected by his likeminded friends and relatives, many of whom have been known to repeat his unfounded assertions verbatim when angered. Still, some friends and family members remain critical.

"Dad's great, but listening to all that talk radio has put some weird ideas into his head," said daughter Samantha, a freshman at Reed College in Portland, OR. "He believes the Constitution allows the government to torture people and ban gay marriage, yet he doesn't even know that it guarantees universal health care."

Mortensen told reporters that he'll fight until the bitter end for what he roughly supposes the Constitution to be. He acknowledged, however, that it might already be too late to win the battle.

"The freedoms our Founding Fathers spilled their blood for are vanishing before our eyes," Mortensen said. "In under a year, a fascist, socialist regime has turned a proud democracy into a totalitarian state that will soon control every facet of American life."

"Don't just take my word for it," Mortensen added. "Try reading a newspaper or watching the news sometime."

A similarly knowledgeable gentleman writes a weekly column in my local paper, a column that inspired the following letter:

Dear Editor,

Last week, in an unusually Unbased Opinion, Dave wrote: ""Immigrants who founded America based that formation on their predominant [religious] beliefs. Immigrants who followed them came knowing this country's origins. If they found it's society incompatible with their particular beliefs then they were free to leave. Those founding fathers realized religious control was impossible, thus they separated considerations of church and state."

There are so many ways one might respond to Dave's essay. But sometimes simple is best.

Here's how a good friend of mine reacted: "When he says 'founding fathers,' my best guess is that he's combined pilgrims with the whole revolutionary-crew. Lovely. I want to put this man in a corner and make him write 'I won't abbreviate history to make it look like important dead people agree with me' 100 times."

That image made me laugh.

And laughter is a good thing.

Kaylyn in Kansas:

"The forums in my local paper are burning up. I posted something to the same tune, about how we do not perceive clearly, in large part because of the pushback static, the impact that Obama has had worldwide. I have been called stupid, slobbering in love with Obama, and other childish slanders. Schoolyard talk. Oh well."

Kaylyn in Kansas:

We had our yearly sink drain issues last weekend. The guy we always call comes to fix it and we chat while the snake thing does its thing. Talk veered to the political and he went off about the tyrrany of the government and the president's total control of the media. And he said a friend of his was at the 9/12 ...rally... and said the crowd numbered FIVE million!! (It keeps growing!!!). I said, no, it was more like 75,000. He said there were photos! I pointed out that the photo used in all the followup press was actually a photo from 1997 rally and that buildings that have been built since then were not in the photo, nor were all of the tents for the Black Family Conference that filled the lower museum mall. His re-spin of the spin? The liberal media photoshopped the image to make it look like it was an old photo...they took out the american indian museum, the tents, the newseum...and made it look like a spring day all in order to...to what???"

DougJ: Who would Jesus assassinate?

I realize this is nut-picking but I was a bit surprised to see a local right-wing blog praying for Obama’s death (via).

Psalm 109:8 – May his days be few; may another take his office.

I guess I don’t get it, in a way, because Joe Biden would just become president then. Maybe they’re concurrently praying for his death.

But that would just make Nancy Pelosi president.

How far down do you have to go in the order of succession before a Republican becomes president?

Update. Via the comments, apparently they need to be praying for the deaths of Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Robert Byrd, Hillary Clinton, and Tim Geithner. That gets you to Robert Gates.

A metaphysical question: can God create a line of succession so long that He cannot kill everyone on it?

Smooth Like Remy: Cenk Goes ... Off On "Morning Joe"

I would add one more thing to this beautiful rant. President Obama announced at his last address to a joint session of Congress that he would get tort reform into the health care reform bill as a concession to Republicans and they STILL gave him their ass to kiss.

Think Progress: McCain urges town hall attendees to cut up their AARP membership cards.

Last week, the AARP, a nonpartisan organization that advocates on behalf of those aged 50 and over, endorsed the House health care bill. “We can say with confidence that it meets our priorities for protecting Medicare, providing more affordable health insurance for 50- to 64-year-olds and reforming our health care system,” AARP vice president Nancy Leamond said. At a town hall meeting in Arizona on Friday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) vowed to “fight with every fiber of my body” to oppose a similar health care reform bill in the Senate. He then claimed that Medicare will actually be “cut” and reportedly urged the town hall attendees to tear up their AARP membership cards:

The 2,000-page bill would mean more regulation and mandates, he said. People wouldn’t be able to keep the coverage they had. It would also increase taxes and the cost of Medicare, he said.

The bill claims to save $500 billion in waste from Medicare, he said.

“I don’t think so,” McCain said. “I think it’s going to cut it.”

He encouraged audience members to cut up their AARP cards and send them back.

Benen: RUDY REVELS IN NEW-FOUND RELEVANCE...

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who left office nearly a decade ago and has no political responsibilities since, was all over the news this morning. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is headed to NYC, and for much of the media, even now, 9/11 = Giuliani.

Here's Giuliani's basic pitch, as he put it to ABC's George Stephanopoulos:

"Our federal system has an enormously protracted process that's going to go on forever. It grants more benefits than a military tribunal will grant. There's always the possibility of acquittal, change of venue... It creates an extra risk that isn't necessary for New York. Now, New York can handle it, there is no question about it, but why add an additional risk when you don't have to do that?

"I'm troubled by the symbolism of it. It seems to me that the Obama administration is getting away from the fact that we're at war with these terrorists. They no longer use the term 'war on terror.' They have been very slow to react to the whole situation with Major Hasan, which was clearly a terrorist act in the name of Islamic terrorism. It would seem to me that this is the worst symbol to send, that this is a civilian matter."

There are some interesting layers to this, so let's unpack it.

First, Giuliani criticizes the federal criminal justice system. That's an odd choice of political strategies -- not only is Giuliani himself a former federal prosecutor, but this same "federal system" that he's dismissive of has proven itself quite effective in trying, convicting, and imprisoning all kinds of terrorists over the last couple of decades.

Second, Giuliani is worried about acquittals. That's not going to happen.

Third, Giuliani went on and on about the "risk" posed by a trial, but he neglected to identify what this "risk" is. I'm genuinely curious -- what does he think will happen? Terrorists might target NYC? Not to put too fine a point on it, but terrorists have already targeted NYC. The city has held other trials for other terrorists, without incident. By Giuliani's reasoning, there should no legal proceedings against terrorists anywhere, because they might be magnets for attacks. In other words, Giuliani thinks we should let fear dictate our justice system. Fortunately, that's just not how the United States operates.

Fourth, Giuliani shifts gears away from actual problems with putting KSM on trial, and complains about "symbolism." That's backwards -- what can have more symbolic value than the United States showing the world the strength of our values and the integrity of our rule of law?

Fifth, Giuliani's convinced that White House is moving away from "war with these terrorists." It's possible that the former mayor doesn't keep up on current events, so here's a quick refresher for him: under Obama's watch, U.S. forces have killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan and Baitullah Mehsud, while taking suspected terrorists Najibullah Zazi, Talib Islam, and Hosam Maher Husein Smadi into custody before they could launched potential attacks.

Giuliani thinks Obama is "getting away from" counter-terrorism? In reality, President Obama is playing by the rules and having great success in counter-terrorism. The administration isn't relying on torture, and is nevertheless stopping, catching, and killing the bad guys -- all while improving the United States' standing in the world and reclaiming America's role as a global leader.

Giuliani thinks that's a record worthy of criticism. Giuliani doesn't know what he's talking about.

Atrios on The Bush Administration

It's like the job recruitment process involved advertising for "the worst people ever born in the history of the universe."

Sullivan was working as an analyst at the Veterans Benefits Administration in Washington in early 2005 when he was called to a meeting with a top political appointee at the VA, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Michael McLendon. McLendon, an intensely focused man in a neatly pressed suit, kept a Bible on his desk at the office. Sullivan explained to McLendon and the other attendees that the rise in benefits claims the VA was noticing was caused partly by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who were suffering from PTSD. “That’s too many,” McLendon said, then hit his hand on the table. “They are too young” to be filing claims, and they are doing it “too soon.” He hit the table again. The claims, he said, are “costing us too much money,” and if the veterans “believed in God and country . . . they would not come home with PTSD.” At that point, he slammed his palm against the table a final time, making a loud smack. Everyone in the room fell silent.

“I was a little bit surprised,” Sullivan said, recalling the incident. “In that one comment, he appeared to be a religious fundamentalist.” For Sullivan, McLendon’s remarks reflected the views of many political appointees in the VA and revealed what was behind their efforts to reduce costs by restricting claims. The backlog of claims was immense, and veterans, often suffering extreme psychological stress, had to wait an average of five months for decisions on their requests.