Epistemic Ingemination

Just a few notes to the right-winger talking heads on TV:

• The country is not “center right.” It never was. Unfortunately for you, the country appears to have finally become immune to fear-mongering. Kind of nullifies your playbook, doesn’t it?
• The Republican party is not conservative in any true ideological sense of the word. If anything, it’s rankly exploitative. It has also repeatedly proven that it is incapable of responsibly governing this country.
• The Democrats out-raised the Republicans this year by breathtaking margins. Obama alone, taking no Federal funds in the general election, and taking no money from lobbyists, raised over $500 million dollars, from 6.5 million donors. That’s about $79 per donor. You wanted campaign finance reform? The Dems delivered it to you. Stop complaining.
• Republican approval ratings are at 34% — an all time low.
• The Republican party has botched everything that it has touched for more than a decade now. It will take us generations to get things back on track. The American public has noticed.
• If you take the time to analyze the election results, it is apparent that the Republican Party has become the party of uneducated Southern fundamentalists. Good luck with that.

Let’s work on those talking points, shall we?

Tonight is my Super Sunday. Blood sport. Game Night.

I am… cautiously optimistic that my candidates will win. More soon.

…

7:45 – The majors call Pennsylvania for Obama. Pretty huge; this was a must-do McCain strategy cornerstone.

8:03 – Udall gets New Mexico Senatorial; 55:45 dems so far in the US Senate…

8:10 – Wisconsin and Michigan, Obama. Like kicking crutches away from an old broke-leg guy.

8:13 – Georgia goes McCain. Thought we might’ve caught that one, but not a swing state in any sense; not unexpected, no worries.

8:39 – Obama gets Ohio. That’s that. McCain needs Florida and everything else at this point.

8:51: – Obama takes New Mexico. Thanks, Bill.

9:08 – The Republican Party has now apparently lost all of its US Congressional Representatives in New England.

9:13 – Obama takes 60% in Orange County, Florida??

9:32 – Even Fox is doing a postmortem on McCain now.

We Won.

Tomorrow we shall discuss.

I understand that there’s some kind of political competition on Tuesday. Must do some research…

My friend Kristi just forwarded a link to Andrew Sullivan’s “The Top Ten Reasons Conservatives Should Vote For Obama.” I read Sullivan regularly, but hadn’t seen this one yet.

It’s very good, and is a nice piece of welcome thoughtful conservatism at a time when our non-left political discourse has devolved into right-winger’s neanderthal grunting and feces-flinging.

This proud liberal is happy to report that there are still rational conservatives in this world, and I am happy to state my opinion that this world is a better place for it.

(And, BTW, I disagree with some of this, most notably his premise that Islamic Terrorism is the greatest threat to the West. While I agree 100% that Al Queda must be taken out, and I have supported police action in Afghanistan, I believe that the greatest threat to the world is religion-based fundamentalist thought of any kind. The “boomer culture war” is nowhere near over. But that post is for another day and time.)

Enjoy this nonetheless. It is a fine piece of work, and I hope that it might serve to illustrate some of the difference between conservatism and “right wing.”

10. A body blow to racial identity politics. An end to the era of Jesse Jackson in black America.

9. Less debt. Yes, Obama will raise taxes on those earning over a quarter of a million. And he will spend on healthcare, Iraq, Afghanistan and the environment. But so will McCain. He plans more spending on health, the environment and won’t touch defense of entitlements. And his refusal to touch taxes means an extra $4 trillion in debt over the massive increase presided over by Bush. And the CBO estimates that McCain’s plans will add more to the debt over four years than Obama’s. Fiscal conservatives have a clear choice.

8. A return to realism and prudence in foreign policy. Obama has consistently cited the foreign policy of George H. W. Bush as his inspiration. McCain’s knee-jerk reaction to the Georgian conflict, his commitment to stay in Iraq indefinitely, and his brinksmanship over Iran’s nuclear ambitions make him a far riskier choice for conservatives. The choice between Obama and McCain is like the choice between George H.W. Bush’s first term and George W.’s.

7. An ability to understand the difference between listening to generals and delegating foreign policy to them.

6. Temperament. Obama has the coolest, calmest demeanor of any president since Eisenhower. Conservatism values that kind of constancy, especially compared with the hot-headed, irrational impulsiveness of McCain.

5. Faith. Obama’s fusion of Christianity and reason, his non-fundamentalist faith, is a critical bridge between the new atheism and the new Christianism.

4. A truce in the culture war. Obama takes us past the debilitating boomer warfare that has raged since the 1960s. Nothing has distorted our politics so gravely; nothing has made a rational politics more elusive.

3. Two words: President Palin.

2. Conservative reform. Until conservatism can get a distance from the big-spending, privacy-busting, debt-ridden, crony-laden, fundamentalist, intolerant, incompetent and arrogant faux conservatism of the Bush-Cheney years, it will never regain a coherent message to actually govern this country again. The survival of conservatism requires a temporary eclipse of today’s Republicanism. Losing would be the best thing to happen to conservatism since 1964. Back then, conservatives lost in a landslide for the right reasons. Now, Republicans are losing in a landslide for the wrong reasons.

1. The War Against Islamist terror. The strategy deployed by Bush and Cheney has failed. It has failed to destroy al Qaeda, except in a country, Iraq, where their presence was minimal before the US invasion. It has failed to bring any of the terrorists to justice, instead creating the excrescence of Gitmo, torture, secret sites, and the collapse of America’s reputation abroad. It has empowered Iran, allowed al Qaeda to regroup in Pakistan, made the next vast generation of Muslims loathe America, and imperiled our alliances. We need smarter leadership of the war: balancing force with diplomacy, hard power with better p.r., deploying strategy rather than mere tactics, and self-confidence rather than a bunker mentality.

Those conservatives who remain convinced, as I do, that Islamist terror remains the greatest threat to the West cannot risk a perpetuation of the failed Manichean worldview of the past eight years, and cannot risk the possibility of McCain making rash decisions in the middle of a potentially catastrophic global conflict. If you are serious about the war on terror and believe it is a war we have to win, the only serious candidate is Barack Obama.

This is just… stupefying. An example of everything that I’ve been writing about recently. The right wing of this country is truly, completely off their rocker. Behold a local Orlando TV station:

No long lines, got right in at the Shriner Hall across from Sun Harvest in North Austin. A steady stream of early voters, probably one every two or three minutes. Obama bumper stickers outnumbered McCain stickers in the parking lot 14 to 3.

Since I would’ve had an Obama sticker too if I weren’t in a rental car, and based upon this obviously random statistical sample, I am prepared to make a Rigorous Unassailable Big Science Prediction that Obama wins this thing with 83.3% of the vote. You heard it here first. Heh.

(Actually, based upon early numbers, the Travis County Clerk is predicting up to an 80% voter turnout for this election. That is astounding. Good for Us!)

This is a really interesting time, a time for national reassessment. Atrios linked a Village Voice link to a post last night from a fellow in New England at the Wake Up America blog. His name is Roger W. Gardner. I know nothing about him, other than that he is a talented writer and has quite different political philosophies than I do.

It’s a beautiful description of an autumn New England day. But. Then it starts to devolve into a “don’t they know we’re on the eve of destruction” motif. Then Mr. Gardner pens a moment that really strikes me as telling:

Then I see another little sign, tacked up on a telephone pole. An innocuous little sign, weather beaten and torn at the edges — it’s been up there for quite a while now. “No room in this town for hate” it reads. And I shudder to myself. This is the sign that advertises our vulnerabilities and our weaknesses. This is what makes this beautiful little town of mine so friendly and pleasant and so blind to the steady encroachment of that other less friendly reality. We have no room here for hate.

That these words could be legitimately put forth by an obviously intelligent, articulate and concerned citizen of this country speaks volumes about our political discourse. And I think that it illustrates our “here and now” quite nicely. Here we have a citizen who espouses that it is a necessity, for the preservation of our society, to be able to hate.

I think that our right-wing has now constructed a complete information ecosystem for themselves in which they can be comfortable in their fear while they nourish themselves with a positive-feedback loop of their hatred for Otherness. As I wrote below: “You sat in your Barcalounger, and watched Fox News, and cursed liberals, and voted Republican, and ignored any real-world information that conflicted with the world-view narrative that you were being fed.”

This is what we are seeing at the moment; the fruits of this mindset. From “Obama Bucks” to the McCain campaign’s talking points, to sitting US Representatives calling for an investigative panel to find out who in Congress is “Pro-America” or not. They’ve been so isolated from different points of view, and for such a long time, that it has become impossible to entertain a competing idea without this whole worldview crashing down upon itself. There can be no longer be any preaching at all if it’s not preaching to the choir.

McCain can’t construct a clear argument to ask for your vote because his campaign can’t understand that there is an entire world outside of Fox News and the Free Republic hall of mirrors. They frantically argue ‘otherness,’ and ‘socialism,’ and ‘consorting with domestic terrrists,’ and ‘redistribution of wealth,’ and ‘cultural decay,’ and ‘Obama might be a Muslim,’ and being in ‘Real America.’ On and on and on — and it drives the right-wingers bat-shit rabid with political red-meat glee, internally reinforcing the idea that they are on some kind of valid message.

(My absolute favorite tagline of the moment is the whole “redistribution of wealth” meme. It is a fine illustration of how out of touch these folks really are. I’d wager that three quarters of the country thinks that some “redistribution of the wealth” is a pretty darned good idea right about now. Keep punching that one hard, guys.)

None of this stuff gains traction out here in the real world, because all of it is divisive nonsense. The overwhelming theme of America is (and has always been) diversity. E Pluribus Unum. “Out of many, One.” It is very telling (and quite beautiful) that the two most measured and sane voices of the moment, Barack Obama and Colin Powell, are each a genetically diverse, multicultural son of immigrants.

People out here in the Real America value religious diversity. They value cultural diversity. They eat Japanese cuisine and listen to Jamaican music and wear Indian clothing and study epic Middle-Eastern poetry in high school. Real Americans have their Kosher morning bagel with lox, drinking their coffee made through Turkish brewing techniques, while wearing their Mexican vaquero “cowboy” boots as they listen to “country” clawhammer banjo music that echos directly from the African banza. The Real Americans see the peaceful call of Christianity, and of the Jewish faith, and of Islam and Hinduism and Sufism, and of the Buddha and the Tao, and of the other “isms of Faith” — and they notice that each the other all counsel against hate, above all else.

The Real Americans value a marketplace in ideas. They believe that education is how you improve this world, and that the free flow of factual information is critical to the process of good and informed citizenship.

Our right-wingers are so far gone into their mirror ball of jingoistic tribalism that they’ve lost their bearings in the Real America. Hate? It clouds judgment. It wastes energy. It closes your mind to useful information. It is a strategic dead-end and a tactical catastrophe. It exposes your vulnerabilities and teaches your adversary about your motivations. And, incidentally, it reveals your fears and makes you controllable.

It’s how Bin Laden has been making you dance like a puppet. He has accomplished his goals beyond his fondest dreams.

That’s how we got here, to this state of our nation. The propaganda apparatus of the Republican party stoking the fires of fear and hatred, and innuendo and guilt-by-association, and all of the other teapot tempests, solely in service of gaining political power.

Here is a bit of news for the Roger W. Gardners of the world: If you reject fear, it is impossible to hate. As a result, you may have a chance to make rational decisions based upon facts. Your rallying cause is called “terrorism” for a reason, and you’ve bought into it hook, line, and sinker. It can’t exist without your participation. Terrorism without the “terror” becomes criminal behavior, and is approached much more successfully as a law enforcement issue.

The most impressive thing about Barack Obama is that all of these attacks are water off a duck’s back. No effect at all upon his eye-on-the-prize steadiness. The Real Americans see his calm response and his intelligent, measured ability to make sense of what really matters. It is clearly illustrated to them that the right-wing mindset is both false and divisive, and that it is detrimental to our nation.

That is true leadership. Obama is reminding our country that we love diversity, and moreover, he is teaching us, as a nation, how to deal with the right-wing mindset. It is a wonderful thing to behold.

Let McCain continue. Let the attack dogs have one good last run. Let them be so consumed by their fear and their hatred that they end up shattering their twisted worldview against a wall of reality. Let the right-wingers teach “Real Americans” more about themselves. It is their moment in the spotlight, and I hope that they feel the impetus to show us their whole toolkit.

I think that sports metaphors are pretty stupid — so let’s use one. My right-wing friends, you’re up to bat. Try to hit one out of the park against this pitcher.

Real Americans will be watching, and we’ll study, taking notes from Barack Obama, Ph.D., professor of constitutional law, as he illustrates to the World Classroom how to dismantle your insanity and evaporate your power.

And a beaut it is:

I’m not much of a fan of Colin Powell; I once was, but he obliterated all of his political capital with me on February 6th, 2003 at the United Nations. He gambled his credibility on lies, and he lost it with me on major foreign policy issues of the future. As I said at the time, I had better intelligence sources than he did — a newspaper. You don’t give people a do-over when their lapse in judgment is such that it costs trillions of dollars and results in millions of lives lost, with families destroyed for generations.

I can’t let bygones be bygones on that one.

This said, I think that the above video documents one of the more remarkable moments in our political history. Powell’s extraordinary endorsement isn’t going to change anyone’s mind on the far right of the political spectrum in this climate. But is it a powerful, centrist call for some sanity and some common sense in a sea of slime and lunacy from the far right and John McCain, a man that Powell has worked with for a quarter century.

If anyone has standing to make that argument here and now, Colin Powell does, and it is one of the most significant endorsements in the history of this country. I suspect that it will move many a voter to Obama’s column.

The sheer sane eloquence and power of his words do much to rehabilitate Colin Powell, former loyal Secretary of State to the most corrupt and malevolent administration in our history.

[Addendum]: Powell interviewed, a few minutes later outside the studio:

Not wholly unexpected, but it is amazing that these misanthropes think that they can hide in this day and age.

[In] the October newsletter by the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated says if Obama is elected his image will appear on food stamps — instead of dollar bills like other presidents. The statement is followed by an illustration of “Obama Bucks” — a phony $10 bill featuring Obama’s face on a donkey’s body, labeled “United States Food Stamps.”

It’s got everything you could ask for — Donkey ears, watermelon, ribs, fried chicken, Kool-Aid, food stamps.

This came from Ronald Reagan Territory — Chaffee, Ca., about 60 miles up the road from the Great Communicator’s home in Bel Air.

I wonder if our right-wingers are proud of the improvements that they’ve made to this country in their quarter century of culture war and pillage?

Okay gang. If you get all of your information from the Faux News Network, you no doubt think that there is massive voter fraud taking place in this election. There may be. But not the kind they’re telling you, and not by ACORN. Here is some factual information for you.

• ACORN is a community organizer that primary does advocacy for poor and middle-income families. Some of that is voter registration work.
• ACORN sometimes pays people to register voters by the registration, and many organizations of this type do, across the political spectrum.
• Some of those hired people are dishonest and make up false registrations to get paid more.
• ACORN is required by law to turn in ALL of the registrations that it receives, even the ones that have “Bullwinkle J. Moose” as the registrant. If they didn’t, they would be guilty of election manipulation. They flag registrations that they think are suspect, but they still must turn in every one of them.

There is no “voter fraud” happening here. There may be an occasional fictional registration that manages to pass inspection by both ACORN and the county clerk’s office. But Bullwinkle J. Moose isn’t going to be showing up to vote on election day. No vote fraud exists. Registration fraud exists.

Seen?

Now, why is this bogus nonsense such a big deal? Because it allows Republican operatives a talking point as they attempt to purge real voters from the rolls, like they did in Florida in 2000, and in Ohio in 2004. This was the whole issue behind the firings of US attorneys that took Alberto Gonzales down. The White House wanted the ACORNs of the world prosecuted for “Voter Fraud.” No such crime existed, and the ACORNs of the world were not even guilty of the registration fraud; they were required by law to turn in every one that they received.

Even now, though, it continues. Purging legitimate voters in close battleground states has won the Republicans two national elections now. It is a proven tool in their toolkit — they’re not about to stop.

Make sure that your registration is valid before election day. If you’ve been purged, get it fixed before election day.

CNN is replaying the debate in about 25 minutes. Since I haven’t seen it yet, I’m going to do an experiment and blog as I watch it. If I turn out to be really lame at it, I can always delete it, and we’ll pretend you never saw this, okay? Oh – and I am going to do it in chronological order, not reverse order like everyone else who does this. Harrumph.

I will say one thing up front. I saw a few moments of the debate last night on a Hi-Def television at Threadgill’s. McCain’s makeup was not only visible, it was obvious that his eyebrows had been slightly darkened and his eyes were pretty well pancaked. I’ve read that Hi-Def is killing the retail pornography industry, which I think is hilarious. I understand why now.

9:00 – Heh. McCain really doesn’t like Obama. The handshake was as stiff as a board and the smile as false as a snake’s.

9:03: McCain: Fanny & “Freddy Mae?” McCain wants to buy bad mortgages and renegotiate ‘em. Yeh! That’s it! Let’s use the money to eliminate bad decisions. Great.

9:05: Obama’s natural cadence is kind of start-and-stop. You’re going to hear eight years of impersonators taking this to the bank…

9:07: Nice zing by Obama. “We both want to cut taxes. The difference is who we want to cut taxes for.” McCain’s answer? Obama wants to “spread the wealth around.” Socialism!

9:11: McCain: 35% business tax rates! He neglects to mention that the number of deductions brings it down to right around the average world tax rate.

9:15: At least we have two candidates who can pronounce “nuclear.” (Of course, Palin says “nukular.”)

9:17: McCain wants a line-item veto. Obama doesn’t jump on it, and should.
Obama addresses the “earmarks” bugaboo. 1/2 of one percent of the budget. Good perspective.

9:19: Oooo. John-boy gets Snippy. “I am not president Bush. If you wanted to run against Bush, you should’ve run four years ago.” This oughta be good. Obama: If I mistake your policies for George Bush, it’s because you’ve supported them.

Man. McCain is getting mad. He’s blinking two or three times a second and has a pasted on grimace that’s supposed to be a smile…

9:24: McCain still won’t tell Obama anything to his face, even when invited to do so. “We will run a truthful campaign.” Yeah, right.
Obama: (looking McCain in the eye) “100% of your ads have been negative. 100%.” Nice jujitsu. McCain has steam coming out of his ears.

9:29: What is it with Joe the plumber again? If Joe the plumber wants to buy a business, of course he’s going to be exposed to more taxes. He also gets a wheelbarrow full of deductions. Every business owner does. He also gets a chance to make a buttload of money. Let it go, for cripes sake.

9:30: Obama looks at McCain and says “People are saying ‘terrorist’ and ‘kill him’ about me at your running-mates rallies.” Very, very good. McCain completely goes off the tracks, spewing about patriotic veterans at his rallies and how they are being impugned. Obama wisely lets it lay there like the merde that it is and takes it back to issues.

9:35: Obama laughs out loud at McCain’s characterization of ACORN as “voter fraud.” Good. Points out that it is voter registration fraud perpetrated upon ACORN. McCain still pushes it. Bad move. Obama wins this one hands down. McCain: “My campaign is about getting this economy back on track.” Obama laughs again. Seems to work, even if it’s a but disrespectful.

9:42: “Why would your running mate make a better president than your opponents?” This oughta be good. Obama lists Biden’s CV quite nicely.
McCain: “Americans have gotten to know Sarah Palin: she’s a model for the women of America. A reformer through and through.” And she has a kid who has Special Needs. Puhl-eeze.

Heh. Sweet and subtle moment. Schieffer calls time on McCain, but Obama indicates that McCain should be allowed to keep talking. Let him keep on digging deeper, please Bob.

9:50: McCain: 45 New Nuclear Plants will save the country! Drill baby drill! Obama: we have 4% of the reserves and we use 25% of the oil. Gut check. McCain: Drill drill drill. Free trade with Columbia! Obama: labor leaders are being assassinated in Columbia. Let’s stop that first.

9:57: Obama: retool auto plants for fuel efficient vehicles, and help auto makers do that. McCain: Obama doesn’t want free trade with Columbia and wants to kiss Hugo Chavez and North Korea and Iran and everybody bad everywhere….

Man. Every time CNN does a split screen, looking at McCain is like looking at Ilie Năstase play tennis in the old days. You wonder when he’s going to blow. McCain is, quite simply, a schoolyard bully. I feel that I know exactly what this guy is about; that’s the only thing that I see here.

10:02: McCain: Joe the plumber again. Obama: Joe the Plumber — here’s what it costs you: Zero. Nada. Nit. McNăstase blinks at a rate of four times a second. Obama: McCain taxes your health care for the first time, ever. “This is your plan, John.”

BlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlink. McCain says “spread the wealth” again. Right-wing code talking for socialism, I presume. John: a hint — you’re not talking just to the wingnuts here, and ‘spreading the wealth’ around looks pretty damned good to the rest of the country right about now.

10:11: Roe v Wade. Obama: personal decision, and the constitution has a right to privacy, not subject to state legislation. Ballsy, and very good. McCain: we have to change the culture of America. Another hint for ya, John-boy: No, you need to join the culture of America.

10:15: McCain: Obama voted “present” on abortion in Illinois. Not a bad little hit. Obama: There was already a law on the books, and many republicans and democrats voted against or “present” on that one. I support a ban on late term abortions, except where the mother’s life is endangered and that was the sticking point. That’s why I voted “present.” McCain: I adopted kids.

10:19: Education. Obama: invest in early education. A pennies on the dollar investment. We need an army of new math and science teachers. McCain: BlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlink. McCain: education is the “civil rights issue of the 21st century.” Wow. I agree 100%. Good for him. McCain: vouchers vouchers vouchers. Let ex military people teach in our schools without having to be certified. (What?!?)

10:23: Obama: “No child left behind is a start, but unfortunately they left the money behind.” Nice little zinger there. If teachers can’t hack it, get rid of ‘em. “Youth are not an interest group. They are our future.” Nice. McCain: D.C. parents want vouchers! Reform Head Start! My running mate will fund autism! Obama: McCain wants to increase vouchers in D.C. by 2000. There are fifty other states.

10:29: Closing statements. McCain: America needs a new direction. (Doesn’t he realize that this is an absurd thing to come out of his mouth?) Can you trust Obama? I’ve spent my entire life in public service.

Obama: We have to invest in the people of this country. We all have to come together to tackle this. I ask for your vote. I’ll work on your behalf.

McCain: BlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlink
BlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlinkBlink

…

This was fun; I doubt that I’ll ever do it again. I think Obama not only won; Obama mopped the floor with McCain. I think McCain proved beyond a doubt to more people than me that he does not have the temperament to be President. He is a very angry man.

…

Final thought: Anyone who is an “undecided voter” at this point is an unserious person who should be ignored as unworthy; they certainly don’t deserve any attention whatsoever from the engaged citizens of this nation.

This is an open letter to my right-wing friends.

We are now in, perhaps, the strangest and scariest time that I’ve ever seen. Like watching a train wreck in slow motion. And we haven’t even started the wreck yet. The Dow is down 39% in the last year (23% in the last month), and the really bad numbers are not even rolling in as yet. The start of the Big Panic comes when people get their 401k statements, as they are doing right now. In a few days, it’ll be time to start nationalizing banks. Literally. We’ve arrived at that point.

I’m sorry, but it’s time to point out the elephant in the room. And let’s start with a foundational observation: being affiliated with the current political right-wing ideology in this country has virtually nothing to do with conservatism. I am not addressing this to thoughtful, informed political conservatives, a group for whom I have an enormous amount of respect.

All of this — every bit of it — was predictable, was predicted, and could (and would) have been avoided. The “Decider”, your President, who has been hiding behind the flag, and patriotism, and “terrrism” for seven years — this poor excuse for a man has been revealed to be the same AWOL incompetent that he’s proven to be so many times previously over the course of his privileged lifetime. Where’s that “Strong Leadership” now? All you have left over is an impotent deer-in-the-headlights shell of a marketing image. The ultimate Peter Principle poster boy.

A couple of you have said to me that the “values” of the Republican party have been abandoned. I say to you, no. The Republican marketing plan has been abandoned, its work now done. That’s all.

You were owned (and, yes, you were sold out) the second that you decided to vote Republican, and folks much smarter and better than me have been patiently pointing this out to you for 15 years — while you listened to Newt Gingrich, and Tom Delay, and Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly, and frothed at the mouth over “Liberals” just like a good little automaton. You sat in your Barcalounger, and watched Fox News, and cursed liberals, and voted Republican, and ignored any real-world information that conflicted with the world-view narrative that you were being fed. And because of this, they got what they needed from you. They got the keys to the safe.

Several multiples of the existing contents of your public treasury have been transferred to them, five trillion dollars in eight years. That money — our money, generations into the future — is gone now, and you’ve been discarded now. You don’t even get a receipt out of the deal.

And, yes: I Tried To Tell You Too, all the way through it. You sneered and called me names, said I was anti-business and a coward, a peacenik and a socialist and a person who hates America. You’re still calling me these things.

The guy that you have running for President now? In my opinion, he is a dangerously unstable septuagenarian with no discernible ethics, possessing serious clinical anger management issues — whose campaign is being run by the leftover “B” and “C” team of attack dogs. They’ve just proposed his ‘solution’ to this crisis: Allow investment mortgages to be restructured during bankruptcy proceedings. So if you own 13 houses, yeah, you get help. If you own only one, you’re S.O.L. [Update: this "plan" was pulled and disavowed one day later. Did I mention "unstable?"]

And the attacks have begun in earnest now. As Digby notes:

[...]what we are really seeing is the beginning of a right wing story line about the next president of the United States — he is a drug user, a foreigner, a terrorist and a traitor. And the importance of that is that it gives permission to the right wing machine to do anything and everything to destroy him.

These guys are about a fingernail’s width away from calling Barack Obama a Nigger — and they aren’t going to help you to keep your house or protect your retirement, either. But I bet that you’ll vote for them again. Or perhaps you’ll convert into the True Blue, Red-Blooded Libertarian that you now fancy yourself to Have Always Been, come election day. Either way, you’re in the penalty box. Probably for a generation or more, and rightfully so.

I know that, as a good right-winger, you have no interest in the opinions of a guy like me, who has been speaking out against your actions and your mindset for most of my adult life. But I am going to point out two things that can help you through the coming tough times.

First, the obvious: If the Republicans hadn’t been in power, this would not have happened. Let me say this another way: if the Democrats had been in power, this would not have happened. To any of us, including you.

Second: I submit to you that you don’t have a monopoly on what is “Right” and “True.” There are as many ways to live a “Good” life as there are human souls, and you have been demonizing every one of them that is Not Like You for a quarter century now, ever since “Morning In America.” I would respectfully suggest that you find within yourself a measure of tolerance and humility, and that you find it now. Because nobody likes your attitude, and neither you nor anyone else is going to get through these coming hard times alone.

I’ve always found it interesting that you can have this hateful attitude on the one hand, while on the other hand, you worship the most influential liberal philosopher that this planet has ever seen. Jesus of Nazareth had some really good ideas. Peace. Tolerance. Charity towards all. Looking out for the greater good instead of monomaniacal self-interest. You might try taking a look with freshened eyes next Sunday; perhaps you’ll find some interesting insights to ponder. Remember: What you do to the least of us, you do to Him.

I’ve never questioned your motives or your patriotism — even while you have questioned mine repeatedly. I’ve just tried to point out to you the obvious contradictions and consequences of your ideology, and I’ve asked that you stop demonizing those who don’t share it.

I am not asking anymore. I’m now telling you, as are several hundred million other folks. This is a serious time that demands serious people, capable of making level-headed, well informed and intelligent policy decisions. Your judgment has proven to be profoundly flawed. We need people who live in the real world to fix this.

You are welcome to join us.

That, my friends, is change we can believe in.

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old Texas rancher whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Sarah Palin and her bid to be a heartbeat away from being President.

The old rancher said ‘Well, you know, Palin is a post turtle.’ Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a post turtle is. The old rancher said, ‘When you’re driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a post turtle.’

The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor’s face, so he continued to explain… ‘You know she didn’t get up there by herself, you know she doesn’t belong up there, she doesn’t know what to do while she is up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put her up there to begin with.’

Monday is the last day to register for the presidential election in Texas. Take the time to make sure that you are registered – you may not be.

Check the validity of your registration anywhere in Texas here.

If you’ve moved within your county in Texas and just need to update your new address, this is the place.

Hugh Hewett, conservative radio wingnut, interviews Palin. (I guess that they didn’t have such a great track record with genuine journalists. Or even Katie Couric.)

You don’t even have to read the answers. The questions suffice:

HH: Governor Sarah Palin, welcome to the Hugh Hewitt Show. Great to have you.

…

HH: Governor, your candidacy has ignited extreme hostility, even some hatred on the left and in some parts of the media. Are you surprised? And what do you attribute this reaction to?

…

HH: Now Governor, the Gibson and the Couric interview struck many as sort of pop quizzes designed to embarrass you as opposed to interviews. Do you share that opinion?

…

HH: Have you followed the attacks on you, say, via Drudge or the blogs? Some of them are just made up and out of left field, others are just mocking. Do you follow those?

…

HH: Governor, you mentioned the people who are struggling right now. Have you and your husband, Todd, ever faced tough economic times where you had to sit around a kitchen table and make tough choices?

…

HH: Governor, when you say things are tight right now, is that simply because of Todd being off not working? Or is it because of extraordinary demands on the fiscal resources of the Palin family? What’s the situation there?

…

HH: Governor, let’s turn to a couple of issues that the MSM’s not going to pick up. You’re pro-life, and how much of the virulent opposition to you on the left do you attribute to your pro-life position, and maybe even to the birth of, your decision, your and Todd’s decision to have Trig?

…

HH: Do you think the mainstream media and the left understands your religious faith, Governor Palin?

…

HH: Governor, let’s close with some foreign affairs. It is reported that you had an Israeli flag in your governor’s office. You wore an Israeli flag pin occasionally. One, is that true? And two, why your support for Israel?

…

HH: Last question, Governor. Have you and Todd heard from your son? And how is it on your nerves having your son deployed?

…

HH: Governor Sarah Palin, look forward to talking to you again, good luck on Thursday night.

From a protest outside of the New York Stock Exchange on Friday…

I was working last night, so I had to watch reruns this morning. I’m kind of surprised that polls give it handily to Obama; it didn’t seem like a slam dunk to me. Obama certainly takes it on social grace, though; he talked into the camera and directly to McCain. McCain didn’t even look at Obama for the entire debate, and he spoke to the audience, not the folks in their living rooms. And he spent the first half hour blinking like his head was going to explode from the repressed rage.

No huge gaffes on either side, or at least none that are going to resonate with voters. McCain said that Pakistan was a “failed state” when Musharraf took over; that’s not true. But I don’t think that that one has any legs.

So, according to the polls (and, I guess, me too) Obama won, and on McCain’s strongest turf, Foreign Policy. That’s very bad news for McCain. The next debate is an open forum town hall, where McCain and Obama are equally adept — and Obama thinks much more quickly and clearly, and has more factual information at his fingertips to illustrate his arguments.

The third debate will focus on domestic and economic policy, and it’s likely to be where Obama shines with down-home kitchen-table wonkery. I wouldn’t be surprised if Obama closes the deal in the third debate, and it’ll be the last impression before the election.

The fun one? The Vice Presidential debate on Thursday. It could be anything from a yawner to a bloodbath — and all of that depends upon how Biden decides to approach it. I hope that he relentlessly exposes Palin as the Pentacostal right-wing policy-free know-nothing wingnut that she is, gallantry be damned. We are not talking about a pretty hockey mommy from Alaska. We’re talking about a manifestly unqualified candidate for Vice President, and Vice President to a man who only has a statistical slightly-better-than-even chance of surviving the next five years.

Don’t be surprised if you hear the new “Conservative” talking point espousing that the current financial crisis is due to a Carter-era law called the “Community Reinvestment Act.” Translation: “They made us loan money to white trash and niggers and spics, and they took the economy down.”

Nonsense. Pure fiction at face value. The CRA worked just fine for a quarter century without creating a housing bubble or markedly increasing subprime defaults on mortgages and small business loans. It is a good program that has brought millions of economically disadvantaged people of all kinds into the middle class.

So, what changed? How about Republican free-market arch maniac wingnut Phil Gramm’s “Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act?” The law that allowed banks, securities firms and insurance companies to get into each other’s lines of business?

I’ve been following this for a while. Check here, and here, and read this from 2004.

Look, this economy has been running on borrowed money for most of the decade. Alan Greenspan kept interest rates artificially low; the Republicans assured a cash party by reducing taxes on capital gains, allowing Fannie and Freddy to have unheard of debt-to-liquid ratios, and making sure that there would be no genuine regulation by decimating regulatory agencies and installing cronies. Hell, Greenspan knew what was happening as early as 2003 — he actually Officially Recommended that people refinance their fixed rate mortgages into adjustable rate mortgages. Why? To keep the country running on credit, to keep the money churning back & forth. Greenspan wanted to be able to control and adjust the interest rate on every home in America whenever he chose to do so. But I digress.

Anyway, these newly-minted “Financial Services” companies (read: BankerRealtorInsurerBrokers) responded by loaning money like rats in heat, rolling those notes (in-house) into a new derivative called “Mortgage Backed Securities” and selling them (in-house) as investment grade paper similar to bonds.

Pretty straightforward. You put on your Realtor hat and find a buyer for some property. You then put on your banker hat and make a loan, making sure that it’s insured by Fannie or Freddy, and remembering to take out your closing cost and realtor fees. Then you put on your insurance hat and insure that property, remembering to take your underwriters fee. Then you put on your Broker’s hat and sell a piece of the expected profit on the mortgage and insurance to someone, remembering of course, to take out your brokers fee. Then, finally, you wrap the mortgage and it’s derivatives into a wholly different entity and try to sell the whole thing to someone else at a very favorable discount, noting that it’s an insured mortgage. They now own the mortgage and you have a nice little chunk of cash in hand.

Now, multiply this transaction by hundreds of millions of finances and refinances and secondary mortgages and derivative transactions. Since these were done in-house, there was absolutely no incentive to follow standard practices and due diligence. Just shovel ‘em in the front door and out the back, as fast as you can.

Nouriel Roubini, who knows more about this than just about anyone, explains it for real:

First, you take a bunch of shaky and risky subprime mortgages and
repackage them into residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS);
then you repackage these RMBS in different (equity, mezzanine, senior)
tranches of cash CDOs that receive a misleading investment grade
rating by the credit rating agencies; then you create synthetic CDOs
out of the same underlying RMBS; then you create CDOs of CDOs (or
squared CDOs) out of these CDOs; and then you create CDOs of CDOs of
CDOs (or cubed CDOs) out of the same murky securities; then you stuff
some of these RMBS and CDO tranches into SIV (structured investment
vehicles) or into ABCP (Asset Backed Commercial Paper) or into money
market funds. Then no wonder that eventually people panic and run – as
they did yesterday on an apparently safe money market fund such as
Sentinel. That toxic waste of unpriceable and uncertain junk and
zombie corpses is now emerging in the most unlikely places in the
financial markets.

Second example: today any wealthy individual can take $1 million and
go to a prime broker and leverage this amount three times; then the
resulting $4 million ($1 equity and $3 debt) can be invested in a fund
of funds that will in turn leverage these $4 millions three or four
times and invest them in a hedge fund; then the hedge fund will take
these funds and leverage them three or four times and buy some very
junior tranche of a CDO that is itself levered nine or ten times. At
the end of this credit chain, the initial $1 million of equity becomes
a $100 million investment out of which $99 million is debt (leverage)
and only $1 million is equity. So we got an overall leverage ratio of
100 to 1. Then, even a small 1% fall in the price of the final
investment (CDO) wipes out the initial capital and creates a chain of
margin calls that unravel this debt house of cards. This unraveling of
a Minskian Ponzi credit scheme is exactly what is happening right now
in financial markets.

By the time that these derivatives of derivatives of derivatives made their way into otherwise legitimate investment portfolios worldwide, the bubble started to burst. Everywhere, we began to see unprecedented default rates, which in retrospect was wholly predictable.

Paper turned into what it always had the potential to be: paper. Not only a zero return on investment, a 100% loss of everything. No value there at all to salvage. Poof. And these are going bust at a potential ratio of 100 dollars to every one dollar of the base-line of that expected profit, now nonexistent. It is that simple.

You, citizen, are now being asked to pay for a huge Ponzi scheme gone bust, after all of the money is long gone. The flim-flam man left town in the middle of the night, long ago.

But just remember: Poor li’l Jimmy Carter had nothing to do with it. And what of the one person who did the most to facilitate this catastrophe? His name is William Philip “Phil” Gramm, and he is the primary economic adviser to John McCain, the Republican nominee for President in this election.

Finally. From one of our own.

James K. Galbraith – A Bailout We Don’t Need

Boy. Deer, meet headlights. This is a person that promotes a calm trust, through his sheer power and maturity in a time of crisis, innit? (I’ve added a caption that CNN inadvertently left out.)

Just reading a post article. McCain is shameless. I wish that we had the right to append footnotes… hmm…

“Look, have no doubt about it, the capabilities of Senator Obama to a debate — I mean, he’s very, very good^[1],” McCain said. “He was able to beat Senator Hillary Clinton, who, as we all know, is very accomplished, very accomplished.”

McCain said that Obama “was able to, I think, with his eloquence inspire a great number of Americans.^[2] So these are going to be tough debates.”

“But I believe that on the substance, on the substance, I can convince the American people that I can reform government^[3], restore prosperity^[4] and keep the peace^[5],” he said.

[1] “I’m running scared, and must downplay expectations.”
[2] “And I don’t.”
[3] “Although I haven’t done anything towards this goal in my 26 years as a Representative and Senator, except co-sponsor campaign reforms that I am currently violating.”
[4] “Because, being one of the Keating five and having been at the center of the S&L meltdown, I know a little something about bailouts.”
[5] “By being in a permanent state of war.”

Wow.

A new American Research Group poll shows that “[n]o Americans say that the national economy is getting better,” while 82 percent say it is getting much worse. Only 17 percent approve of President Bush’s handling of the economy, with 78 percent disapproving. Even among Republicans, more disapprove of his economic performance than approve: (…)

Overnight, the last two big investment banks turned into bank holding companies.

Where are you, all of my pseudo-libertarian free-market capitalist friends? You seem to be awfully quiet this weekend.

I’ve been listening to your Ethically Pure economic drool and spittle for decades. “Let the market determine things! Don’t hamper our brave Capitalists as they Create Wealth for All Of Us! Cutting taxes raises revenue! A rising tide lifts all boats! The only problem with our economy is over-regulation! Anything other than this leads to — dear God — socialism!!”

Where are you now, my deep-thinking brave capitalist dittoheads?

Were you cheering the market on as you watched your 401k lose 20% of its value last week? Were you proudly beaming, holding your copy of the Cliff Notes of “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” to your bosom, as the big five investment banks went to four, and then three, and then two? Do you have tears of joy and unfettered capitalist pride watching your home’s value drop below its mortgage payoff balance?

Or could it be that you’re exactly the kind of person that you’ve always accused others of being on this subject, and now we — the sane ones — are supposed to, once more, bail you out and clean up your messes?

Where’s your copy of Ayn Rand this weekend? You don’t seem to have it with you anymore.

Do you still have enough working independent brain cells to see that in your brand of “capitalism,” you have no problem with keeping your profits — but the minute that your judgement is eclipsed by your greed (as it always will be) you expect that your losses should be — dear God — socialized?

How does it feel to have the “Invisible Hand” slap you upside the head?

I have some better ideas. We can start with something called “regulation.”

Let’s see. How do I illustrate?

I presume that you would refuse to give a loaded handgun and a bottle of tequila to your teenage son along with the car keys on a Saturday night. Because of all of the damage that he could cause to both your interests and, especially, innocents.

Similar to that, but more tailored to your specific insanities.

Robert Reich has some good ideas on how to structure a bailout. I’m reproducing it here in its entirety:

The frame has been set, the dye cast. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, presumably representing the Bush administration but indirectly representing Wall Street, and Fed Chief Ben Bernanke, want a blank check from Congress for $700 billion or possibly a trillion dollars or more to take bad debt off Wall Street’s balance sheets. Never before in the history of American capitalism has so much been asked of so many for (at least in the first instance) so few.

Put yourself in the shoes of a member of Congress, including our two presidential candidates. The Treasury Secretary and Fed Chair have told you this is necessary to save the economy. If you don’t agree, you risk a meltdown of the entire global financial system. Your own constituents’ savings could go down with it. An election is six weeks away. Besides, in the last two days of trading, since rumors spread that the Treasury and the Fed were planning something of this sort, stock prices revived.

Now – quick — what do you do? You have no choice but to say yes.

But you might also set some conditions on Wall Street.

The public doesn’t like a blank check. They think this whole bailout idea is nuts. They see fat cats on Wall Street who have raked in zillions for years, now extorting in effect $2,000 to $5,000 from every American family to make up for their own nonfeasance, malfeasance, greed, and just plain stupidity. Wall Street’s request for a blank check comes at the same time most of the public is worried about their jobs and declining wages, and having enough money to pay for gas and food and health insurance, meet their car payments and mortgage payments, and save for their retirement and childrens’ college education. And so the public is asking: Why should Wall Street get bailed out by me when I’m getting screwed?

So if you are a member of Congress, you just might be in a position to demand from Wall Street certain conditions in return for the blank check.

My five nominees:

1. The government (i.e. taxpayers) gets an equity stake in every Wall Street financial company proportional to the amount of bad debt that company shoves onto the public. So when and if Wall Street shares rise, taxpayers are rewarded for accepting so much risk.

2. Wall Street executives and directors of Wall Street firms relinquish their current stock options and this year’s other forms of compensation, and agree to future compensation linked to a rolling five-year average of firm profitability. Why should taxpayers feather their already amply-feathered nests?

3. All Wall Street executives immediately cease making campaign contributions to any candidate for public office in this election cycle or next, all Wall Street PACs be closed, and Wall Street lobbyists curtail their activities unless specifically asked for information by policymakers. Why should taxpayers finance Wall Street’s outsized political power – especially when that power is being exercised to get favorable terms from taxpayers?

4. Wall Street firms agree to comply with new regulations over disclosure, capital requirements, conflicts of interest, and market manipulation. The regulations will emerge in ninety days from a bi-partisan working group, to be convened immediately. After all, inadequate regulation and lack of oversight got us into this mess.

5. Wall Street agrees to give bankruptcy judges the authority to modify the terms of primary mortgages, so homeowners have a fighting chance to keep their homes. Why should distressed homeowners lose their homes when Wall Streeters receive taxpayer money that helps them keep their fancy ones?

Wall Streeters may not like these conditions. Well, you should tell them that the public doesn’t like the idea of bailing out Wall Street. So if Wall Street doesn’t accept these conditions, it doesn’t get the blank check.

Okay. If we’ve learned anything over the last eight years, we’ve learned that legislation that is proposed by the Bush administration and rushed through congress as an emergency measure, is going to contain trojan horses.

So now we have the fast-track plan. Here are a few choice quotes from the article (emphasis mine):

The Bush administration on Saturday formally proposed to Congress what could become the largest financial bailout in United States history, requesting unfettered authority for the Treasury Department to buy up to $700 billion in mortgage-related assets.

The proposal, not quite three pages long, was stunning for its stark simplicity. It would raise the national debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion. And it would place no restrictions on the administration other than requiring semiannual reports to Congress, granting the Treasury secretary unprecedented power to buy and resell mortgage debt.

…

Mr. Bush also sought to portray the plan as benefiting every American. “The government needed to send a clear signal that we understood the instability could ripple throughout and affect the working people and the average family, and we weren’t going to let that happen.”

Key Democratic lawmakers have made clear that they want to include in the legislation at least some assurance that the administration would use its new role, as the owner of large amounts of mortgage debt, to move aggressively to help hundreds of thousands of troubled borrowers at risk of foreclosure.

…

Some Congressional Republicans warned Democrats not to overreach. “The administration has put forward a plan to help the American people and it is now incumbent on Congress to work together to solve this crisis,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader.

Mr. Boehner added: “Efforts to exploit this crisis for political leverage or partisan quid pro quo will only delay the economic stability that families, seniors, and small businesses deserve.”

Okay, there we have it.

“It’s good for the regular guy,” says Bush. “Cool. Let’s make sure that we write that into it,” says the Democrats. And the leader of the Republicans immediately says “Emergency! Emergency! You’re holding things up and endangering the economy!”

Okay, guys. All of you. Pull it on over. Let’s take a look at this thing.

Ahh. Here it is:

Sec. 8. Review.

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

These corrupt greedhead traitors want you to give the biggest blank check in the history of the known universe to Henry Paulson: Former aide to John Ehrlichman in the Nixon white house, former co-head of Investment Banking, and then, Chief Operating Officer, and then Chief Executive Officer for Goldman Sachs. And how he uses that $700 BILLION dollar blank check “may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”

It is beyond chutzpah; this is naked greed and power on a scale never before seen on this planet. This isn’t just letting the fox into the henhouse. This is signing over the title to the farm to the foxes with no exchange of value whatsoever.

So here we have it. The final Bush crowd end run. On a Saturday morning, out of the news cycle. The last trick. This is where they get to raid the treasury in whatever manner that they choose, give it to whomever they want, and do it without any oversight whatsoever.

Are you happy with the government you elected eight years ago?

Are you better off today than you were in 2000?

And if you voted for Bush, are you aware of how egregiously you have failed this country in your duties as a citizen?

Sunday update: I’m pleased to report that this is now being recognized for exactly what it is.

One obvious thing that I didn’t mention above should be said: this is unlike any “bailout” in history. With the S&Ls in the 80′s or banking in the 30′s, the govenment seized and closed the institutions in question to protect the taxpayers interests. Only after taxpayers were covered were any remaining assets liquidated. The institutions in question simply ceased to be, as it should be.

This one is wholly different. This is simply buying bad investments from the institutions that made those bad investments, so that they can continue to turn a profit.

I don’t recall a constitutional guarantee for a profit to corporations.

Finally, banks and other financial institutions have weighed in on this plan. They really like it a lot. But they have concerns:

“We’re opposed to adding provisions that will affect [or] undermine the deal substantively,” said Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government affairs at the Financial Services Roundtable, whose members include the nation’s largest banks, securities firms and insurers.

I sure you are, Mr Talbott.

In my wandering through news sites and political blogs and such, I increasingly see well known republicans fretting about the damage done to the republican “brand” over the last eight years.

As if governing is a question of appropriate marketing.

It’s very telling, and it is now apparently so infused into their thought patterns that it is no longer distinguishable from reality in their minds.

This is the same mindset that gave us that most unpatriotic “PATRIOT Act.” Gave us the “Clear Skies Act” that guts pollution control regulation. Gave us the “No Child Left Behind Act” that has resulted in a 50% dropout rate in Hispanic and African American neighborhoods.

This country needs to get wise to the fact that these people are interested only in themselves, and that they are incapable of governing this country. Virtually every time that they come into power, they loot the treasury and give it to their friends, declare open season on labor and create more poor people as a policy, get us into a war, dismantle regulation of the powerful, run the economy into a ditch, break the law and pardon any of their own who get caught — while they question the patriotism of anyone who points out their corruption and incompetence.

“Lipstick on a pig” indeed.

The damage over the last eight years was done to the people of the United States of America. And that damage was done by elected human beings belonging the Republican Party, not a “brand.”

History repeats; 1932 is still clear in the personal memory of millions. Maybe the republicans will have another generation out of power to think about the quality of their “brand.” If we’re lucky, they’ll have so egregiously miscalculated this time around that theirs will soon have the same marketing strength as that other famous one: the Whigs.

Well, maybe not so much of a “chuckle”… it’d be great satire if it wasn’t all true. But it’s brilliant.

From “Bill in Portland Maine” over on DailyKos: his imaginary interview w/ Charlie Gibson.

In what respect, Charlie?

What do you interpret it to be?

Well, Charlie, that’s tough.  Is it the Bush doctrine that says you can go back on your promise to cut global emissions as soon as you take office?  Or the one that says ignore PDBs that warn of an imminent attack on the United States?  Perhaps you’re speaking of the Bush doctrine of sticking the government’s nose into private family health decisions?  Or the one that says you can spy on any American at any time for any reason?  Or maybe the one that says, hey, let’s politicize the Department of Justice!  How about the one where you can divert resources from the war on terror to invade a country because its leader once tried to kill your daddy?  Or ignore congressional subpoenas at will?  Or change laws anytime with signing statements?  That doctrine?  Am I close?

Well, I was thinking…

Wait, I know!  Is it the Bush doctrine that says torture is okay and that the writ of habeas corpus is “quaint?”  Or the Bush doctrine that says the free market will regulate itself and bring us endless prosperity?  Is it the doctrine that says deficits don’t matter?  Or the one that says cronies are competent stewards of the nation’s safety?  Maybe it’s the doctrine of thinking that cutting taxes in the middle of two wars is smart?  Or the doctrine that says government commissions—like the Iraq Study Group—should be taken seriously until they release their report, after which they should be ignored?  Then there’s this one: no matter how much people beg for relief, don’t lift a finger to fix the health care mess in this country, but do pass major legislation that increases the profits of drug companies.  How about the doctrine that says any country that doesn’t make themselves over in America’s image should be mocked and ridiculed and even invaded?  Hey, here’s a great doctrine: running the Iraq war “off the books” so it looks like it’s not costing us anything.  Brilliant!  Are these doctrines ringin’ any bells, Charlie?

Err…um…

Is it the Bush doctrine that says you should commute the sentence of a top White House official who committed perjury to help cover up the fact that you outed a covert CIA operative as an act of political revenge?  Or the one that says vote for me because I’m a CEO and I know what I’m doing?  That is, unless it’s the one that says vote for me because I’m an oilman and I’ll keep gas prices low?  How about the one that says let’s privatize Social Security by putting it into the hands of companies like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers?  Maybe it’s the doctrine that says it’s a good idea to taunt terrorists by sneering, “Bring ‘em on!”  Wait a minute!  It must be the Bush doctrine of raising the terror threat level when it’s politically expedient!  Oh, wait…it could be the doctrine of spending more time on vacation than any other president in history.  Actually, it might be the doctrine that says let’s fuck up the country as much as possible and then blame it on the Democrats.

Tell me, Charlie: which Bush doctrine are you referring to?

The Bush Doctrine as I understand it is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense.  That we have the right of a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us.  Do you agree with that?

Hell, I dunno.  Ask the lady over there beating her ex-brother-in-law with a moose antler.

Oooh, yeah. Game On, Gloves Off.

Earlier today:

John McCain’s new found support for regulation bears no resemblance to his scornful attitude towards oversight and enforcement. John McCain cannot be trusted to reestablish proper oversight of our financial markets for one simple reason: he has shown time and again that he does not believe in it.

…

This morning, instead of offering up concrete plans to solve these issues, Senator McCain offered up the oldest Washington stunt in the book — you pass the buck to a commission to study the problem. But here’s the thing — this isn’t 9/11. We know how we got into this mess. What we need now is leadership that gets us out. I’ll provide it, John McCain won’t, and that’s the choice for Americans in this election.

Finally! You’ll want to be watching this…