[From the Frog Pond]

I agree with Matt Stoller's conclusions, although I take a different route to get there.  Stoller is critical of the following three-part line of attack on John McCain, developed by James Vega at the The Democratic Strategist (.pdf):

[From the Frog Pond]

You know, Lanny Davis is right.  Sen. Ted Stevens, like all individuals under federal indictment, is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.  Ted Stevens has been indicted by a grand jury for committing seven felonies.  And last Thursday, in new filings in the case, prosecutors revealed that Ted Stevens turned a $5,000 investment into a $155,000 profit through the use of an $31,000 interest-free loan that was both improper and never disclosed in his senate filings.  

[Brought to you from the Frog Pond]

I'm somewhat encouraged to see an element of realism in the foreign policy Establishment regarding the situation in Georgia.  It appears that people understand that we don't have any good cards in our hand.  In fact, we've overplayed our hand and had our bluff called.  In such a situation, as painful as it may be, the only correct thing to do is to fold.  If we don't fold...if we double down on our bluff, the result might look like this:

[Proudly submitted from the Frog Pond]

Ron Suskind has a new book coming out that reveals, among other things, that the White House authorized the CIA to backdate a forged memo from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein that purported to show that lead-hijacker Mohammed Atta was trained in Iraq in the summer of 2001.  The memo was created by the CIA and leaked to Con Coughlin of the UK Telegraph, who dutifully wrote it up on December 14, 2003, the same day that Saddam Hussein was 'pulled from a spiderhole' near Tikrit.

[From the Frog Pond]

Monica Langley, of the Wall Street Journal, is reporting on the short-lists for vice-presidential nominees:

Obama: "His focus now includes five colleagues in the U.S. Senate — Joseph Biden, Evan Bayh, Chris Dodd, Hillary Clinton and Jack Reed — and two governors, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, according to Democratic operatives, though he could still make a different pick."

McCain: "They include ex-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a rival during the Republican primaries; Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, with whom he has a strong friendship; and former Rep. Rob Portman of the battleground state of Ohio. Republicans also are touting Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, and campaign adviser Carly Fiorina, ex-CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co., among others."

I'm going to make a few observations about these picks.  

[From the Frog Pond]

There are a lot of rumors swirling around that John McCain will announce Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal as his running mate on Thursday.  A lot of it is being driven by Bob Novak, but it is also being driven by the mere fact that McCain is deviating from his swing-state focus to travel to Louisiana that day.  I'm very skeptical of this speculation.  

You know, some of us are really serious about the future of our country and we think our political leadership is going to have the biggest role in whether things continue to deteriorate or they will begin to get better.  We've felt this way for a long time.  And we actually get mad when the candidates for the presidency are reduced to caricatures and punch lines.  Dukakis in a tank?  Dan Quayle can't spell 'potato', Al Gore invented the internet, John Kerry windsurfing?  These are not disqualifying events.  Fodder for comedians?  Sure.  Funny is funny.  But it's not funny if it distorts the electorate's decision about who should be president.  Bill Carter has an article in the New York Times about how hard it is for comics to make jokes about Barack Obama:

[From the Frog Pond]

Some progressives think that we would have the most power in this country if people were just able to gather the facts.  They think that media bias, poor education, and general apathy conspire to keep the public ill-educated, ill-informed, and improperly lacking in a sense of civic duty.  Other progressives acknowledge these systemic obstacles to power and think we can overcome them by the clever use of Lakoffian Framing, or cognitive science.  Still other progressives are so accustomed to being out power and so distrustful of elites (whether political, economic, religious, or academic) that they are too disdainful of power to support anyone who seeks it.  For me, these are the three great errors that prevent progressives for attaining power.  These are three of the four lethal cynicisms.

I think there are probably techniques that you can use to successfully sell dogshit to people.  I'm not sure what those techniques are, but I know that if they exist they will do certain things.  First, they'll successfully convince people that what they're buying is not, in fact, dogshit.  They'll call it something else.  And they'll also have to disguise the trademark smell and overall unappetizing appearance of dogshit.  In any case, I'm pretty sure that John McCain's campaign is very busy trying to master these techniques, but I don't think it is going very well.  

[From the Frog Pond]

Hey, Happy Independence Day everybody.  Do you know what is patriotic?  Sticking up for the Constitution of the United States of America is patriotic.  So, let's review a little history, shall we?  Let me cut and paste a little snippet from the SELECT COMMITTEE TO STUDY GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS WITH RESPECT TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES, better known as the Church Committee:

Want some knowledge?

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." - Sir Winston Churchill

You can quibble about the definition of 'democracy' but the key is the vote.  Without the vote you have guaranteed tyranny.  You can expand the franchise or contract the franchise and your results may vary, but the government must absolutely be accountable to the people.  

"If you don't vote, you've got no right to complain." - Anonymous

Sometimes I am a little harsh with Dennis Kucinich but there's a reason that goes far beyond anything having to do with Dennis.  Progressives have been down for so long, and have been so marginalized in our political culture, that we have no sophistication, we have no experience in governing, and we have almost no bench to staff Barack Obama's administration.  It's almost amusing to watch my progressive brothers and sisters wring their hands everytime Obama's campaign floats the name of a possible member of his cabinet.  It almost inevitably results in accusations that Obama isn't remotely progressive or dislikes progressives or is selling out progressives.  Well...let me ask you.  Who have we allowed to become the face of progressivism?  Dennis Kucinich.  Kucinich has a few wacky positions but he's the one out there talking about single-payer health care, impeachment, and most forcefully advocating an end to the war.  He's a flawed messenger in the exact same way that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have been flawed messengers for the black community.  You may want to defend them because they've at least been talking the talk, but it's never good to have your interests represented by people that are easily marginalized.  Never.

[From the Frog Pond]

If you have ever watched World Cup soccer (better known as football) you've seen the following.  When a player is injured and unable to run up and down the field, the other team will not press their advantage but will kick the ball out of bounds, granting an opportunity for the injured player to be tended to and replaced.  It's called sportsmanship.  In American sports you will occasionally see the same thing happen in basketball and even ice hockey.  

[From the Frog Pond]

I kind of half-watched Charlie Rose's interview last night with Antonin Scalia.  Basically, Scalia explained his way of interpreting the Constitution, which he calls 'Originalism'.  Broken down to brass tacks, Originalism is an effort to interpret what the Constitution meant to the people that wrote it when they wrote it.  I obviously think this is a moronically self-restricting way to interpret the Constitution but it has one merit.  It pays a lot of attention to what the Founding Fathers had to say about things.  And, if there is one really serious shortcoming of the Democratic Party, it is its failure to utilize the wisdom of the Founding Fathers when it goes about justifying its policies.  

[From the Frog Pond]

There's no question that Barack Obama has been riding the wave of a generational zeitgeist, having captured in an elegant form the feelings of disgust and longing and sudden hardship of the younger half of America.  There is no question about that.  But even though that's been the case until now...now, Barack Obama has cracked up on the shoals and rang out a tremendously discordant note.  

[From the Frog Pond]

A strange thing is happening in the South.  When Don Cazayoux and Travis Childers won their special elections in, respectively, Louisiana and Mississippi, the Republicans complained that they they ran as Republicans.  This wasn't strictly true.  They ran as pro-life, anti-gay marriage, anti-immigration candidates.  That made them seem like Republicans.  But they also ran against the war and they ran against corporate welfare, and they ran against free trade agreements.  They ran on increasing federal funding on infrastructure and education, and they ran on nixing No Child Left Behind.  On many issues they were fully in line with the Democratic Party, and on some they were more in line with the Progressives than the Blue Dogs.  

Out of the 81 representatives and 29 senators of the Democratic Party that voted to authorize military force against Iraq, only two can truly be said to have prospered.  Rep. Rod Blagojevich was elected as Governor of Illinois and Sen. Harry Reid was promoted to Majority Leader.  Some other members have since acquired chairmanships or (in Chuck Schumer and Steny Hoyer's cases) leadership positions, but no other pro-war voters have advanced to higher office.  In fact, they have all (save Blagojevich) lost in every single attempt to advance their careers.  Here is the sad state of the pro-war caucus in the House:

[From the Frog Pond]

E.J. Dionne, one of my favorite bigfoot columnists, does another of these columns about the disappointment many women feel about how the Democratic primary turned out.  Dionne focuses on female politicians, especially those that were the first to hold certain offices.  And there are two main complaints he elicits.  The first is that Barack Obama never would have been able to win this nomination with his thin resume if he were a woman.  And the second is anger with how the media (particularly men in the media) has treated Clinton throughout this campaign.  And, to be honest, I basically agree with their gripes.  I can quibble a bit on both scores, but I basically agree.