Mr. End of History Endorses Obama

Former darling of every conservative Francis Fukuyama writes this at AmCon:

I’m voting for Barack Obama this November for a very simple reason. It is hard to imagine a more disastrous presidency than that of George W. Bush. It was bad enough that he launched an unnecessary war and undermined the standing of the United States throughout the world in his first term. But in the waning days of his administration, he is presiding over a collapse of the American financial system and broader economy that will have consequences for years to come. As a general rule, democracies don’t work well if voters do not hold political parties accountable for failure. While John McCain is trying desperately to pretend that he never had anything to do with the Republican Party, I think it would a travesty to reward the Republicans for failure on such a grand scale.

McCain’s appeal was always that he could think for himself, but as the campaign has progressed, he has seemed simply erratic and hotheaded. His choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate was highly irresponsible; we have suffered under the current president who entered office without much knowledge of the world and was easily captured by the wrong advisers. McCain’s lurching from Reaganite free- marketer to populist tribune makes one wonder whether he has any underlying principles at all.

America has been living in a dream world for the past few years, losing its basic values of thrift and prudence and living far beyond its means, even as it has lectured the rest of the world to follow its model. At a time when the U.S. government has just nationalized a good part of the banking sector, we need to rethink a lot of the Reaganite verities of the past generation regarding taxes and regulation. Important as they were back in the 1980s and ’90s, they just won’t cut it for the period we are now entering. Obama is much better positioned to reinvent the American model and will certainly present a very different and more positive face of America to the rest of the world.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Socialism? I think not.

I've been pretty under the weather the last couple days, but I was cheered up yesterday when, while I was watching an Obama speech live on CNN, he came out with this brilliant riposte to the ludicrous "socialist" attacks.



For whatever reason, I can't help but laugh every time I watch it. I suspect it has more than a little to do with the fact that I can actually picture McCain making such an absurd argument.

And speaking of socialism, I'd like to echo this question, asked by Andrew Sullivan:

A simple question. I'm a flat taxer, because I don't believe the government has any business punishing people for getting richer. But I don't think that people who support the kind of punitive taxation that Obama does or Cameron does in Britain or Reagan did in 1986 is a "socialist." Is it now the McCain campaign's assertion that anyone who isn't for a flat tax is socialist? I should add that if Obama is a socialist, Richard Nixon must have been a commie.

Now, unlike Sullivan, I don't like the idea of a flat tax. We already have one of those: It's called the Sales Tax, and it tends to function very regressively (that doesn't mean I'm against the Sales Tax). With a flat income tax, lower income families would probably get taxed more because those with more money would have an easier time finding loopholes, meaning they would actually pay less. But Sullivan is exactly on point when he asks if this is the new position of the McCain Campaign. Are they seriously contending that anyone who disfavors the flat tax - which, until recently, has only been favored by paleoconservatives like Steve Forbes or hair-on-fire populists like Mike Huckabee (even though a flat tax really seems to fly in the face of populism, since one would expect a true populist to fall into the "soak the rich" crowd) - is now a Marxist?

And this business about "redistributionism" is malarkey on its face. The government, by its very nature, redistributes money. This is nothing new. For example, the government takes your tax dollars (and mine), and then pays those dollars to (among many, many, many, many other things) defense contractors to build weapons to be used for the national defense. So, in a way, our tax dollars are paying the salary of executives and workers at defense companies. Behold, redistribution!

Now, some of you may protest, "But Obama wants to raise taxes on the rich and give the middle class a tax break. Redistribution from the high to the low is a tenet of Marxism!" First of all, since when was Bill Clinton a communist? Because that's fundamentally what we're talking about: Going back to Clinton era tax rates (an era in which, in case you forgot, we experienced unprecedented economic growth) seems like a good idea to me.

This seems a lot like Reductio ad Marxium to me. Just because Marx said it doesn't mean that our doing it puts us on the way to socialism or "godless communism." I don't hear anyone calling for the proletariat to rise up and overthrow the bourgeoisie, or for factory workers to throw off their shackles and revolt. No one is singing "L'internationale," or reading Pravda. Obama is not the candidate of the Workers World Party, and he is not going to make us start chanting "Four legs good, two legs bad!" or "Napoleon is always right," so let's all calm down a little.

More fundamentally, however, I have to ask the same question of McCain's tax policy that I have asked of Bush's: Under what circumstances is it ever a good idea to raise taxes? Because, according to Bush and McCain, the following is true:

-We can't raise taxes when the economy is expanding and our budget is in surplus, because, despite our national debt, that money actually has to be given back to taxpayers (So I guess this means conservatives are against paying off debt?).

-We can't raise taxes when the economy is contracting and we're in deficit, because it will kill business, despite all evidence to the contrary.

-We can't raise taxes when we're at war, because the truly patriotic thing to do when your country is fighting two wars overseas isn't to contribute to the cause (Conservatives think the Greatest Generation was overrated, I guess?), but instead to - wait for it - GO SHOPPING! Rosie the Rivetter, stand aside and make way for Susie the Super-Patriotic Shopper! "Attention K-Mart Shoppers! Buy more stuff, or your country will lose the war! Wallet a little light? Layaway for freedom!" Utter nonsense, but the end-point of this argument was, of course, that raising taxes stops people from shopping as much, ergo taxes = bad!

Detecting a pattern yet? In order for a position held to be pragmatic (rather than dogmatic), it needs to be contingent. That is, there have to be some circumstances in which you might do differently. Effectively saying that there is never any time in which it is appropriate to raise taxes isn't policy - it is an ideological position in search of a rationale.

But there's an even simpler aspect to this that's being missed: John McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts, and now, when the chickens of Bush's crappy economic policy have come home to roost, McCain suddenly thinks they were such a stroke of genius that anyone who favors repealing them is a socialist? So, by his own definition, John McCain was a socialist eight years ago. Of course he wasn't, but that's where this argument ends up going.

So can we please stop bandying the socialism charge about and start talking about things that matter?

Caution: Flying Kitchen Sinks

The link is broken, but Sullivan quoted this critique of the McCain campaign that I found hilarious, but also quite pertinent:

...once you’ve made a narrative choice, you do have to stick with it - you can’t just keep bouncing around, or people become confused. If you are telling the story of a scary vampire, you can’t decide in chapter 2 that he’s also 500 feet tall and radioactive and bent on destroying Tokyo, in chapter 3 that he is actually a giant man-eating shark, and in chapter 4 that he is all this and a super-terrorist trying to plant a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles. All of these things are, indeed, scary, but taken together they add up to a muddle.

This is the problem. It’s not just the McCain campaign’s problem - although their inability to pick a narrative and stick to it is a special kind of inexcusable - it’s a problem for the entire wingnut noise machine. Obama is a Marxist Muslim Arab Jesus Black White Terrorist Technocrat Racist Do-Gooder Liberal FDR Stalin Hilter Commie Fascist Gay Womanizing Naive Cynical Insider Noob Boring Radical Unaccomplished Elite Slick Gaffe-Prone Pedophile Pedophile-Seducing Liberation Theology Atheist Etc. & Anti-Etc. with a bunch of scary friends from - wait for it! - the Nineteen Hundred And Sixties. It makes no sense. It’s a jumble sale of fears and scary associations from 50 years of wingnut witch hunts and smear campaigns, a flea market of pre-owned and antique resentments, and if one does detect a semi-consistent 1960’s motif running through it all, that’s because that’s when most of these ideas were coined.

Heh. And it'd be even funnier if it weren't also true.

Surprise, surprise!

Senator Ted Stevens guilty on all counts.

In the words of a famous board game, "Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass 'Go.' Do not collect $200."

Buh-bye.

World's Most Disgusting Obama Smear

As pointed out by Andrew Sullivan, Kim Crawford actually posted this (and be warned, there's lots of crude language):

Did I mention this man hates me? You and me? Yes he does. Why? Because he can. Yes He Can. Beneath that cool persona is a megalomaniac. Cool? Like Stalin after a purge, emotionally and sexually spent. Like Saddam after a torture session, dozing in his chair with someone's genitals curled in his fist. Like Pol Pot after a petit mal seizure, mumbling a litany of the dead. Cool that way.

Wow. I really don't know what to say to a person who seriously compares Barack Obama to a veritable who's-who of the world's most evil men, except to suggest that, A) They are living in Fantasy Land, and B) They are completely out of their freaking mind.

And Crawford doesn't spare the conservatives backing Obama, either.

The inevitability of Barack Obama has rendered the sane lycanthropic, the skeptical bemused, the disputatious fearful. It is no coincidence that formerly reliable conservative pundits are jumping the McCain ship like bilge rats in a galley fire. Most people attribute this craven capitulation to elitism. Noonan, Frum, Chris Buckley, that dithering Converse finishing school twit Kathleen Parker, they're elitists! No, they're not. Or that's not what is compelling them. They are f[***]ing afraid. Afraid to be the last dissenting voice in the face of the Hope and Change juggernaut. The Chinese kid versus the tanks in Tiannamen they are not. They are elitists, but they are cowards first and foremost. We don't need them. And, unfortunately for them, Obama doesn't need them. Therefore I will speak their names no more.

Censorship mine. Notice, however, how dissing Sarah Palin is taken as sexist to conservatives, but calling Kathleen Parker a "dithering Converse finishing school twit" is completely not sexist. Please. And notice how Crawford again compares Obama to an evil regime by mentioning the Tienanmen Massacre. Man, this post is just a rip-roaring, logical, incisive critique of Barack Obama. (Epic sarcasm!)

So, congratulations to Kim Crawford for posting the most hateful, nonsensical, mean-spirited non sequitur of a blog post I have ever seen. The fact that any blogger with a brain would even consider posting this trash is truly a strike against the medium itself.

Lieberman Backpedals

Courtesy of TPM:

In a conference call with Connecticut reporters on Friday, Lieberman bristled at the media's coverage of the McCain campaign's negativity. "You guys are going down a road, you have contributed to the demeaning of our politics by this kind of focus," Lieberman said. "I mean, give me a break. Have any of you been out listening to me?"

"When I go out, I say, 'I have a lot of respect for Sen. Obama. He's bright. He's eloquent.' Someday, I might even support him for president," Lieberman told a conference call of Connecticut reporters. "But now in the midst of this series of crises, John McCain is simply so much better prepared that that's who I am proud to support."

Lieberman also said that if McCain doesn't, "I'm going to do everything I can to be bringing people ... together across party lines to support the new president so he can succeed."

Honestly, Joe, you gave the keynote at John McCain's nominating convention, and now you're trying to walk it back? I'm guessing he sees the writing on the wall, and TPM goes on to tally up all the things he's said about Obama before now:

For context, it's worth looking at some other things Joe has said this campaign season:

• In an interview with the right-wing site NewsMax a little over two weeks ago, Lieberman endorsed GOP attacks against Obama over Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright: "And one of the things you want to know is who have they associated with, because it may help you know who they'll listen to when they get into office."

• In the same interview, he left the door open on switching parties: "Well, I've thought about it. But this term is about over, so i'll take up this question again."

• During his speech at the Republican Convention, Lieberman repeated the smear that Obama "was voting to cut off funding for our troops on the ground."

• While campaigning for McCain back in August, Lieberman said that Obama does not "put the country first."

My suggestion is the obvious one: Obama is ahead in all the polls, and Lieberman doesn't want to be a total pariah during an Obama administration. Obama seems like a gracious, politically-savvy guy, so this is probably a smart move to make, because I think Obama will let bygones be bygones. I, however, would not be so generous. Personally, I appreciated that when Zell Miller gave the Keynote at the 2004 GOP Convention, he at least had the decency to do it right before he was retiring anyway, and after he'd become a Republican. Lieberman can't become a full-blown Republican, because they don't elect Republican senators in Connecticut, even if your name is Joe Lieberman. So, my suggestion to Harry Reid, should Obama be elected, would be this: Strip Lieberman of his Committee Chairmanships and keep him out of any Democratic Senate Caucus meetings he still attends.

I wasn't wholly unsympathetic to Lieberman's cause when Ned Lamont ran against him. His support for the Iraq War, in and of itself, probably wasn't the best reason on which to base a primary challenge to a former Vice Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. His fanatical support of John McCain is another story. In doing so, Lieberman has essentially stated that no issues matter but the war, and therefore anyone loyal to the country should vote McCain. That sort of insinuation (that it is treasonous to support the other candidate) is exactly the sort of crap that needs to be exercised from American politics wherever it appears. To allow Lieberman to return to his post in the Senate free of consequence after sliming Obama so grievously throughout this lengthy campaign cycle does nothing to further that goal.

Further, this "I respect Obama" business is proof that Lieberman lacks the courage of his convictions. If Obama didn't put country first then, how could he be worthy of Lieberman's respect now? Wouldn't Lieberman himself then be failing the "putting country first" test? A more sensible solution to this conundrum would be that Lieberman believes neither, and the whole thing has been Lieberman looking out for Lieberman. As the saying goes, "Garbage in, garbage out."

But more basically, this is a matter of practical politics. When you back the losing horse, you get to be on the outs for a while. That's how it works. If you want to hold a caucus together, you have to send a message that disloyalty (no matter how principled), and especially disloyalty to extent that Lieberman has taken it and in such a crucial election, has consequences.

I know this cuts somewhat against my earlier complaints about people in different camps not being able to talk to each other, but here's the difference: Lieberman jumped ship from his party and said that anyone not willing to do likewise isn't "putting country first." That's exactly the sort of garbage I have a problem with. Bipartisanship in the guise of questioning your own party's patriotism isn't bipartisan at all, but simply a cheap, cynical grab at attention and power by hook or by crook, not to mention a failed attempt to become the first man in modern history to be nominated for Vice President by both major political parties.

In other words, Lieberman needs to be taught a lesson, plain and simple. And I don't think this half-hearted B.S. about "respecting" Obama should get him any credit, or do anything to stop Harry Reid from lowering the boom come January.

Palin on Wardrobe: "If only people knew how frugal we are."

This is rich:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin insisted in an interview with the Tribune on Thursday that she did not accept $150,000 worth of designer clothes from the Republican Party and "that is not who we are."

"That whole thing is just, bad!" she said. "Oh, if people only knew how frugal we are.

"It's kind of painful to be criticized for something when all the facts are not out there and are not reported," said Palin, saying the clothes are not worth $150,000 and were bought for the Republican National Convention. Still, she has been wearing pricey clothes at campaign events this fall. She said they will be given back, auctioned off or sent to charity. Most of them, she said, haven't even left the belly of her campaign plane.

What? The clothes have been sitting in the plane? I've been hearing rumblings about GOP donors not at all happy that their donations are going to the Clothe-the-Palins fund, but how much more ticked would they be if it turned out that she did not even use the clothes in question? Besides the fact that I'm sure someone can fact-check whether or not this claim by Palin is even true.

H/T: Talking Points Memo.

What we're up against

I've never understood this sort of irrational religious zealotry:



"The Lord will provide." Wow. If that's the case, hasn't she ever wondered where He's been the last eight years? And this business about "that Christianity" (stated to be heretical and subversive) versus "this Christianity" (stated to have sole possession of truth and virtue) is truly appalling stuff.

Just another reason I desperately want Obama to win.

H/T: Sullivan.

Hate Speech: Alive and Well Outside a John McCain Rally

You know, McCain tried to claim it was just a few of his supporters going too far and yelling things like "kill him," "traitor," and "terrorist." Watch this video of a crowd waiting to go inside a McCain rally in Ohio and tell me that's true. The guy with the Curious George doll wearing an Obama sticker (he named it "Little Hussein," because he's sooooooo clever) is particularly revolting, and might want to just come out with it and wear his white robe and hood next time. Seriously.



Just disgusting. I'd like to hear some Republicans tell me how much they regret this sort of thing, and preferably rather soon. And I hope someone shows this to John McCain, because I can't imagine he wants to look like he tolerates this. Or does he care anymore?

Like they say, "You gotta do what you gotta do." Ugh.

Why the long face, Johnny Mac?

Could've seen this coming a mile away:



Seriously, I don't want someone who gets that riled up at a debate getting anywhere near the nuclear football, let alone with his finger poised over the button.

Obama Smear E-mailer: Too Crazy to Join the Bar

The New York Times profiles Andy Martin, the man behind the endless parade of "Obama is a Muslim, run for your lives!" e-mails. Seriously, this is rich:

He is a law school graduate, but his admission to the Illinois bar was blocked in the 1970s after a psychiatric finding of “moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character.”

In case you're curious, that's all psychiatrist-speak for, "He's a paranoid psychotic with delusions of grandeur." That sounds about right. But honestly, how crazy do you have to be to be denied entry into the Bar?

But wait! It gets better:

The CBS News program “48 Hours” in 1993 devoted an hourlong program to what it called his prolific filing of frivolous lawsuits. He has filed so many lawsuits that a judge barred him from doing so in any federal court without preliminary approval.

He prepared to run as a Democrat for Congress in Connecticut, where paperwork for one of his campaign committees listed as one purpose “to exterminate Jew power.” He ran as a Republican for the Florida State Senate and the United States Senate in Illinois. When running for president in 1999, he aired a television advertisement in New Hampshire that accused George W. Bush of using cocaine.

In the 1990s, Mr. Martin was jailed in a case in Florida involving a physical altercation.

So, to review, he's an anti-Semitic paranoid psychotic with delusions of grandeur who has filed enough lawsuits to make a federal judge bar him from doing so without permission from a grown-up, and gone to jail for some sort of fight. Sounds like just the sort of guy to spam e-mail the entire country about how Obama is a Muslim who will kill us all.

But Sean Hannity didn't bother to question him when he said Obama trained to overthrow the government. I guess that just goes to show what sort of unsavory types Hannity is willing to climb into bed with to help his candidate win.

In sum, I'm hardly surprised.

Westboro Baptist "Church" to Protest at Hamilton High School

Have they run out of soldiers' funerals to desecrate?

I won't dignify the hate-mongers with anymore space on this blog.

McCain's New Strategies: Incitement and Mockery?

I've had several telephone conversations with my dad over the last week about the ever-worsening negativity of the McCain campaign, and my dad made a pretty salient point: Since when was it considered acceptable, let alone a good idea, to give speeches that are essentially inciting a crowd? At the very least, shouldn't the McCain campaign reproach supporters who yell things like "Kill him," "Terrorist," "Treason," or "Off with his head" in reference to Obama? Wouldn't it normally be considered unseemly at the very least to appear to be allowing your supporters to seriously entertain the notion of Barack Obama being killed? Even if the supporters yelling these things are total whack jobs, their exclamations were clearly audible. Doesn't whoever is at the podium have a duty to put an end to such things, lest they appear to be condoning threats against their opponents' life?

My dad (who used to be as big a McCain fan as I was until he abandoned his principles and adopted the campaign strategy and strategist who smeared him in South Carolina) even wondered aloud if these McCain and Palin speeches weren't essentially inciting the crowd. I'm not sure about that, but it seems unwise nonetheless, and unpatriotic when you think about it. How is it unpatriotic? One of these candidates is eventually going to become president. Essentially accusing one of being a terrorist sympathizer, or a terrorist himself, is laying the foundation for a situation in which there is a percentage of the country which never, ever recognizes that man as a legitimate president, but instead sees him as "dangerous," perhaps to the point that he must be stopped. Maybe that was inevitable anyway because of Obama's race and the unfortunate number of racists in the United States, but surely John McCain doesn't have to throw fuel on the fire by seriously suggesting that "Barack Obama hearts terrorism and terrorists," which seems to be the message du jour, thus making it harder for Obama to lead the country if he were to become president.

Moreover, this strategy is likewise short-sighted if McCain becomes president. Even if McCain were to get elected, all indications are that the Democrats are going to expand their majorities in Congress by a goodly amount. A McCain administration would need a lot of friends on the other side of the aisle to get things done. Before McCain decided that he'd rather lose his last speck of honor than lose an election, he had plenty of friends in the Democratic Caucus, and I'm sure those Democrats would have been willing to work with McCain on a range of issues. Now that McCain has spun his partisanship dial up to maximum, run all kinds of ads mocking "Congressional liberals," and adopted the aforementioned strategy of Barack Obama hearts terrorism and terrorists," I don't imagine there will be too many Democrats willing to do many favors for a McCain White House. If a McCain-Palin administration would be all about "getting things done," as they insist, they seem to be off to a crummy start, unless the real way to get politicians in a mood to help you is by pissing them off and calling the leader of their party a terrorist.

Meanwhile, the party of "fiscal conservatism" (when it suits them) is supporting the candidate who wants to buy every bad mortgage in the country. Go figure.

A (Brief) Open Letter to Gov. Palin

Dear Governor Palin,

Pay your taxes!

Sincerely,

Mav

A Rhetorical Question

I know I haven't blogged in a while (schoolwork has kept me pretty busy), but a thought occurred to me today that I found distressing. Much has been made of how divided our country is. The "Red America/Blue America" dichotomy has been made into a veritable cliche by now. But, listening to people just talking about it in one area versus people talking in another area, I can't help thinking that we're not dealing with two countries, we're dealing with parallel universes. In each universe, one side is always right and has sole possession of the truth, which of course means that the other side is always mistaken at best, and downright evil at worst.

For example, I saw in Sarah Palin's performance last night an unimpressive woman, long on style and extremely short on substance. Her nonsensical answer on nuclear proliferation (don't even get me started on how she pronounces it "nuculer" just like President Bush) was proof of that. Yet I hear people around town saying that she said everything they wanted to hear and gave a masterful performance. My only response was, "Huh?" I don't claim to have sole possession of logic or truth, but clearly one of us is closer to the truth than the other, but never the twain shall meet.

What I find disturbing about this phenomenon is this: Is there really any way to bridge that divide? Are there any circumstances under which the Palin lover and the Obama supporter could even begin to talk on the same wavelength? Because, to hear some conservatives describe Obama, you'd think he was going to completely destroy the country. I would respond that eight years of a Republican president have taken us pretty far down that path, so I really don't understand on what basis such claims are made. But I hear liberals describe McCain in the same terms. Look, do I think McCain would be worse for America than Obama? Yes, that's why I'm voting for Obama. Do I disagree with McCain on a whole lot of issues? You betcha (as Sarah Palin would say). Have I lost a huge amount of respect for McCain, who was once one of my heroes? Absolutely. Do I think John McCain is evil and will destroy the country? I do not.

But I'm beginning to wonder if America isn't so completely divided that escalating partisanship isn't in the cards for the foreseeable future, because I just don't see a way out, and that's bad for all Americans. And I'd love for someone to prove me wrong.