Something Hard For a Saturday Night
Well, Mac screwed my plan for this week’s Saturday night all up. I had a few things planned, but then he tolded me I need to rock, and well, damn it all, I need to tear the roof off this bitch!
So the old plan’s scratched, and today’s finale is a video that requires an effin’ disclaimer!
But first, imagine if death metal had a good, positive, uplifting image.
Having a hard time, yeah, well get a listen on Hatebreed’s “This Is Now”
You’ll want to beat the piss out of something, but you’ll feel empowered doing it:
Hell yeah.
Next up, in part two of asskickery, you know, okay, so they kinda bite off of Helmet, but you know what, they hit sooo much harder, and this song just gets you in ass kickery mode for real!
If that’s not the kinda house party you want to go to, you and I can’t get down.
Okay, finally, for the finally of this triplet of ass kickery is probably one of my favorite songs of all time. It comes from A Perfect Circle, the now defunct side project of Tool front man Maynard Keenan. Now, APC never did a real video for this song, i don’t believe, so what this is is a fan made creation.
That being said, I want to warn you. There is a lot of disturbing imagery in this video, and it deals with the terror attacks of September Eleventh, so please if you are easily offended by controversial perspectives on the terror attacks, I suggest you not watch. Also, I would like to say that the opinions implied in this video do not necessarily reflect those of Comments From Left Field nor any of its writers. I’m just posting it because the song kicks severe ass, and I do agree with SOME of the things implied by the video.
That being said, I present to you, “Pet”
That’s that. Hope that rocked hard enough for you Mac. For the rest of you, good night, see ya monday.
Everything You Wanted To Know About Satan, But Were Too Christian To Ask
(note, sometimes you feel froggy)
Reader Daveinboca recently made this statement in comments:
Now, I was a little perturbed by this, particularly at being called one of Satan’s children. I am not one of his children, no Satan’s children are demons, and I most definitely am human. No, I’m what one might call a “minion.”
I follow the dark lord, I consult with him every night. When I tuck my children into bed, I, playing the part of the dutiful father, make sure they pray to Lucifer to burn God’s people, and they do, and oh, you should hear them in their black acoutraments, and sweet little voices, they sound just adorable.
It’s very wholesome, and that’s why I do it… Well that and if I don’t one of Satan’s real children comes and delivers twenty lashes with a daimond studded whip. But, before you get the wrong idea… These are LOVING lashes, each one delivered with the deepest care and affection.
And who are Satan’s children? Mexicans. Yeah, a whole nation of demons made up to look like human beings. In fact, anyone who knows anything that Mexican is “demon” in the demon language. For example, the phrase, “You wanna get some Mexican,” actually translates to, “I walk in the ranks of demons.”
Oh, Satan’s clever, it’s not a coincidence that you are pledging allegiance to His children every time you get a craving for a burrito.
And see, this makes much more sense when you learn that America is God’s country. Yup, right here. Actually, believe it or not, the sacred ground is located in Anaheim California, beneath a giant castle filled with screaming kids.
This is why the Dark Lord chose Mexico, easy access to God’s Land.
But, you may be wondering, Mexico’s got millions of people, are they all demons? If so, how?
You bet your bible lovin’ buttocks they’re all demons, Satan’s known for his virility, and is a very courteous lover by all accounts. See this is how it works. He usually picks up a pretty hot number at a bar, my man S-dog has game, and takes her back to his place in TJ.
Then it’s on. Candles, Barry White… It’s always Barry White, I tried to open him up to some new stuff, but he insists that nothing works like the late Barry White (whom we managed to get in a really good soul exchange for President Kennedy. Jack got put to hell on a technicality, and Heaven’s been trying to get him for YEARS). So you got the candles, Barry in the background, silk sheets, Satan usually has pretty rough skin, but he’s on a pretty strict moisturizing regime.
And then he copulates with her in an act that absolutely shatters her soul; it’s a very beautiful thing. About twelve months later (demons take a little longer to “cook”), out pop about a couple million demons all named Jose and Juanita, and voila, the population of Mexico.
It’s all part of the master plan, for these millions and millions of demons to stealthily creep into God’s Land, take shit jobs, and slowly corrupt America from within. With the exception of some noise once in a while, it works pretty well, and let me tell ya, the corrupting has been RAMPANT lately.
This is largely due to God’s People in America, and God’s People in the muslim world. See, you all are God’s people, but in a particularly sly move on the Big S’s part, he just made it impossible for you all to notice.
So with the help of us minions, the demon’s have been laying the groundwork for the apocolypse.
Which brings up the question of the Anti-Christ. Everyone wants to know who the Anti-Christ is. Well, it’s not just one person. It changes from generation to generation. There is always an anti-christ around somewhere, and if that particular anti-christ can’t manage to bring about the end of days before his time is up, Satan just picks a new one. With the passing of the last anti-christ not too long ago, I believe Satan’s looking at Paris Hilton to take up the mantle.
Some other things you may want to know. Evolution. Yeah, evolution’s real, and in fact, was in the bible, but being the joker he is, Satan took the original bible and replaced it with a fake that made it impossible to believe in evolution based off of a literal interpretation.
And hooey should you read the original. Imagine the world’s shock when they learn what color Jesus was… and his… or…her gender (and the people of the world are most definitely NOT ready to learn about his true sexual orientation). Also, turns out there was no apple, it was a cumquat, and it wasn’t full of knowledge, just really juicy gossip.
So, yeah, we got the original, real bible, and every time Satan sees Pat Robertson say something stupid on Cspan, he pulls it out and laughs.
Finally, climate change/global warming. I’m sorry to say, but that’s our fault. Hell’s a hot place, what, you think we do that with hellfire? Fuck no. We let about ten million SUV’s idle twenty four seven around here. Oh, speaking of which, you might not want to bother with ANWAR anymore, where do you think we get the gas from to keep the greenhouse gases going?
Well, that’s about it for now. If you have any questions about Satan, feel free to ask. We are looking for new members, so if your bright, cheery, and not opposed to sacrificing your first born child to the Dark Lord Satan, drop me an email, and we’ll welcom you aboard!
Something Light for a Saturday Night - Macswain Version
Since I’m heading out with the family for a night of camping, my submission is early.
Here’s a song and video that takes me back to the days when I was deep into The Specials, The Clash, The Untouchables, The English Beat, etc.
It’s Tim Armstrong (of Rancid) teaming with - WTF? - Skye Sweetnam for Into Action.
Mr. M - the night’s on you. You better rock the house while I’m gone.
al Qaida Lite
al Qaida Lite taste’s great… no it’s less filling
tastes great…
Alright, it’s a bad joke, I admit it, but you try and come up with an interesting way to lead into about the billionth story about El Presidente talking about al Qaida and Iraq (not to be confused with al Qaida in Iraq which will be discussing in a minute here), it gets tricky after a while.
Fact is, al Qaida as a paper tiger isn’t exactly a new one. The first I read about it was over at Political Animal back in late 2004.
The concept’s not all that hard to follow. The terrorist group isn’t nearly as monolithically dangerous as many of us believe, or are led to believe. It’s essentially this boogeyman with questionable organizational skills and ability.
But then, one day, the bookeyman got REAL lucky. Under the direction of Osama bin Laden, the New York skyline was scarred forever, the Pentagon ravaged, and three thousand Americans died. It’s no wonder that the monster under the bed turned into the monster under EVERYONE’S bed, and in the airport, the bus station, the underground, and nearly everywhere you look.
We still suffer from the hypochondriac fear towards swaths of Arabic people, any one of them possibly a terrorist ready to take out the local mall, or a beloved amusement park.
And then Bush used al Qaida to declare war.
It was at this point that the paper tiger crawled up and purred in El Presidente’s lap. Now, don’t take that to mean Bush takes his marching orders from bin Laden, nor that bin Laden is under The Commander Guy’s command. It just means that from the moment the twin towers fell, Bush had a date and a name that he could use like a magic wand to make what he wanted to happen happen.
He used it to justify job loss, a war in Iraq, a struggling economy, deficit spending, and any other countless problems or agenda items where he thought the little paper tiger in his pocket could claw people into submission for him.
After the terrorist attacks of September 11th, all you had to do was say “al Qaida” and you had people’s attention. Throw in a verb and a predicate, and Bush’s paper tiger could conduct millions of people to do a wide array of things, including even vote for him again.
This hits to the very heart of how fundamentally unwise Bush’s approach to terror (and therefore by proxy most of the GOP candidates) really is.
I often times quickly say that it’s bad to make war with terrorists, to give them the political spotlight, but here’s why. You have to think about what’s going on. At the center you have a very small number of people who actually and fully believe what they are doing.
According to Richard Clarke, Osama bin Laden’s aim is to drive the world into a fourteenth century theocracy, one in which fundamentally radical Islam is the ruler of the global state. No actions are considered taboo in the spirit of attaining this, no attack out of bounds, no target off limits.
Think about the implications of that for a moment. That means that it is even perfectly fine to kill your own people of your own faith if it can be justified to bring about the global theocracy.
This is important because it is important to understand that as a bare ideology with no antagonist, and no environmental stressors is not appealing to average people. Without provocation, there are very few people who will support indiscriminate violence, the kind of violence that can result in the death of your neighbors.
But that leaves, as a result, a situation that is unfavorable to the promoter of the ideology. Such an ultimate goal requires recruitment, and therefore a narrative. An antagonist must be employed, and it must be a unifying, monolithic one, one, curiously enough, much like al Qaida for Americans.
For Osama, that’s where the narrative began. A behemoth, one that threatens the very livelihood and culture of the Muslim world that he sought to enlist. He found that great apocolyptic beast in America, a Western culture whose very precepts conflicted with the ultra conservative ways of radical Islam.
But what good is a beast with no claws? What is the threat when there is no proof of carnage? For bin Laden, he didn’t have to do a lot of inventing.
Weeks before the 2004 presidential election, Bush’s paper tiger made a tape, one that outlined the reasons for the September eleventh attacks. He virtually scoffed at the three years of rhetoric that Bush spewed prior, saying that al Qaida didn’t attack America because of its freedoms.
Instead he cited attacks made by the Reagan administration in Lebanon back in the eighties, and by the propensity for the US to bolster Middle East dictatorships for its own interests.
Indeed, we can see how bin Laden’s recruitment begins to take shape if we don’t blindly shrug off his statements, intentionally forcing ourselves to be ignorant on some ill-conceived principle. bin Laden had the cause, the beast that stood in the way, and the claws that threatened the livelihoods of those he sought to recruit.
But this is still not enough. At this point, it’s still just extremists. To accomplish the goal, war needed to wage. To wage a war, the war must be instigated.
9-11 was far from the first terrorist attack. Nor was it the first terrorist attack, but with 9-11 Osama hit the jackpot. He woke the slumbering beast with Bush at its head, and the greatest thing he could have hoped happened.
War.
No narrative was needed any longer as Bush attacked first Afghanistan (which he was correct to do), and then Iraq (not so correct).
The effect was interesting and ironic, each of the adversaries becoming each other’s paper tiger. Bush and his policies provides no end of recruitment material for the head of al Qaida, and any time Bush needs something to happen, particularly when it has anything whatsoever to do with National Security or Foreign Policy, the al Qaida tiger rears its ugly head.
So here we are, six years following that one lucky day for a madman, entrenched in a war in Iraq with little hope for military success, and not much more hope for diplomatic success either. The effects on our country have been staggering, polarizing us, entrenching our own populace on either side of a national debate that has gone far beyond sanity.
And Bush is still trying to use his paper tiger.
You can’t wage an extended war without public support. At best, you get two or four years before people vote out those who are guaranteed to let the war continue in favor of politicians who will put a stop to this. Bush and his people knew this. This is why at the beginning of the war, even through the 2004 elections the Neconservative movement conflagrated a Saddam-bin Laden link long after it had been debunked.
As long as he could get al Qaida worked in there with the efforts in Iraq, enough people will keep up their support. But this alone was not enough, and the administratioin has been carefully and continuously using a carrot and stick with no carrot routine to help keep the support going.
At first it was overthrowing Saddam, then everything will be okay, then it’s catching Saddam, then it’s free elections, and then more free elections, and now it’s the surge, which is really a euphamism for “as soon as we can get the Iraqi’s to talk to each other, we’ll be done.”
But in 2006, enough support had seeped out from under the president to see a shift of majority in both the House and the Senate, and for the first time since it’s inception, Bush’s war was truly threatened.
Earlier this year, Congressional Democrats attempted to put an end to this war. Bush thwarted these attempts in a chicken match that put the funding and therefore well being of the troops at stake.
Enough Democrats weren’t willing to take the risk of leaving the troops unfunded, and backed down. This granted the president some breathing room, but the situation has gotten desperate. With the surge not working as well as Bush needed it to work to win back the confidence of the people, Democratic legislators ready to introduce new proposals without the restriction of troop funding reading to come crashing down on their heads, there was only one thing left to do…
Bring the paper tiger back out of the pocket en masse. But this al Qaida is not your father’s al Qaida.
The group’s official name is al Qaida in Iraq, and Bush has been flogging the terrorist group as though it were the same as plain old al Qaida, which it isn’t.
It is perhaps appropriate that this guise of al Qaida has become Bush’s new paper tiger, it is, after all, partly his creation. al Qaida in Iraq didn’t exist until after we invaded Iraq in 2003, and still doesn’t follow Osama bin Laden’s marching orders even though it has pledged their allegiance to him in 2004, the year after it was created.
But because its name is al Qaida, Bush has found a convenient scape goat, and a comfortable old tool to use to try and drum up support for his war even as it is in its death throes. It’s almost like watching a medical drama where, as a last resort the doctor punches a syringe of atropene into the patience heart to keep him alive just a little longer.
What is even more misleading is while Bush is flaunting this al Qaida Lite as the real enemy, it still only accounts for a small percentage of the violence in Iraq. He has quickly attributed the defacing of a famed Shia mosque to al Qaida, though no group has taken credit, and evidence is inconclusive.
And while most of the fighting in Iraq is still between Sunni and Shiites, the violence is disproportionately being attributed to al Qaida, and if US military news reports are any indicator, this increase in misrepresenting the violence is only likely to increase.
The bottom line is this. There are still some who say that our military could do well there. Perhaps this is true. But not under these conditions. I wrote two days ago that the decision to go to war should be devestating, it should rip you apart. Likewise, the justification of war should never have to be politicked.
The only way that Bush can maintain whatever strangle hold on whatever support he has is through carefully crafted statements, through smoke and mirrors, through the dramatization of ghosts, bogeymen, and monsters under the bed.
If you want dead honesty, we can do no good like this in Iraq. Not when our leader has dug himself into such a hole where he MUST mischaracterize reality in order to keep things on path. What is needed is new leadership, plain and simple. Leadership that is honest, and looks at the situation not from a viewpoint that desperately is trying to scrape up support however possible.
Bush’s credibility is shot to the point where even when he tells the truth it means nothing, which bodes poorly for the war, and any efforts we make in Iraq until he is removed from office.
In short, we can not win, nor wage this war under the false premises of paper tigers, and al Qaida Lite.
Final Analysis: Third Democratic Debate
I know you’ve been biting your nails in anticipation, and it’s finally here, M’s final analysis of the Third Democratic Debate. You can read through our liveblogging thread here in the comments section. And if you missed it completely, you can read the transcript here.
Before I get to the nitty gritty, I also want to thank the lovely Alicia from Last Left Before Hooterville, and author of the upcoming book tentatively titled, Glass Houses, Magic Mirrors and the First Stone-Shattering the Myths of Conservatism for joining me in the commentary. The book should be due out in November, and considering I’ll be getting a signed copy and my name apparently will be in the acknowledgements, you can bet a pretty penny that we’ll be review the book here at Comments pretty shortly after.
I’m going to do this a little differently. Instead of trying to do this as winners and losers, I’m going to list the candidates in ascending order, categorizing them under two categories, Need To Go, and Made The Cut.
The Need to Go category obviously has no real weight. I’m not a king maker, and I can’t say that the Need to Go’s are actually going to go, but they need to. Essentially, these are the candidates that really need to pack it in and clear out some room for the rest of the pack. If someone Made The Cut, conversely, they aren’t necessarily a winner, but I feel they at least get to play for a little while. And remember, ascending order, we’re going to start from worst and finish with the best (just because I like suspense!)
Need To Go
PBS- I know it’s almost cliche to talk about the host of the debate, but I really felt that PBS itself had some issues here that can’t be ignored. For one, technical difficulties. To date, with the exception of the Fox News debate, I’ve had no problem watching the debates online, but when I tried to catch the webcast through PBS.org, I kept getting a screen that informed me the webcast had concluded, even though it hadn’t yet begun. I eventually had to listen to the debate through cspan’s website. But that’s me, whining. The really problem with PBS’s hosting of the debate was that it was easily one of the least informative and most poorly structured we’ve seen. Candidates started out with only sixty seconds, no rebuttals, and as the event continued on, answers had to be clipped to only thirty seconds a piece.
Compared to the veritable romp CNN provided for the last outting, this made the debate almost intolerably limiting and rigid, and on most questions, you got the feel that the candidates were rushing to the finish line, and having a hard time injecting substance. We often bemoan that there is little to learn from a candidate given the amount of time they get to answer a question during a debate, but PBS was particularly bad at this, which was a tragedy considering I LIKED many of the questions. They were tough, hard hitting, and unique, and had the format been different, had the potential to really draw out interesting conversations from the candidates.
Mike Gravel- I wanted Gravel gone after the last debate. The first debate he was somewhat interesting, kinda funny, and said a few things that reverberated. In the second debate, he came off merely as an angry old man who was flogging the Iraq War beyond the limits of sanity. Well, now, my feelings have only soured. He gave up beating the Iraq War horse, but you got the feeling that this was only because he didn’t have enough pulp left to beat and therefore got a new horse, the War on Drugs. The man’s still a one trick pony, he just got himself a new pony.
But what’s more, Mike Gravel was the only person I know(now I was listening to this, not watching, so if I missheard, feel free to correct me) to be booed during any of the debates from either party. Even John McCain, defending his immigration bill, was not booed during the last Republican debate, and those people REALLY didn’t like his bill. The line that did it was the line that closed out the debate:
“You can hear me now? We have to have a president who has moral judgment. Most of the people on this stage with me do not have that judgment, and have proven it by the simple fact of what they’ve done.”
Now, NYT transcript shows laughter, but I heard boos. In either case, this, and this alone is cause enough to politely ask the former senator to please vacate the race. This is absolutely uncalled for, it’s not speaking truth to power, it’s simply being mean, and immature. This is not how an elder statement acts, this is how She Who Must Not Be Named acts, and it the magnitude is only compounded by the cowardice of saying so when he knew no one would be allowed a rebuttal.
Worse, it paints a terrible picture for the Democratic party. The last words were a direct ad hominem against his own colleagues. There’s no room for that kind of thing here, and there’s no room for you, sir.
Governor Bill Richardson- Well, it’s official; it’s not technical difficulties nor a fluke, the man is just not good at debating. Richardson was flat all night, and made a number of glaring mistakes. The first came, when he praised Bush over AIDS funding. First, rule one as a Democratic candidate, you don’t give Bush an inch. I’m sorry, if REPUBLICANS can’t give the sitting president any love, you sure as hell don’t do it as a Democrat. But also, that Bush funding AIDS prevention deal was not nearly as sweet as the administration made it sound, and Bill should have known that.
His second big miss of the night, I would say is his assertion that FEMA should be directly underneath the president, though it’s a policy point. Fema shouldn’t be directly under the president, so much as it should be ran by someone competent. If you have someone competent, you don’t need micromanaging.
But overall, Richardson was flatter than a tire that ran over a spike strip. He may have great ad buys and good organization in early states, but the simple fact is, he’s not going anywhere until he can play with the big boys, and this is his third strike, and it’s time to head to the dugout.
Senator Chris Dodd- I really kinda don’t like doing this because he’s smart, and knows the issues cold. He’s got a lot of knowledge under that white hair of his, but it’s not enough. A lot of his proposals are flat Democratic boiler plate with little innovation to separate him from the crowd, and he just lacks fire. I think Alicia at one point actually just labeled him “Ho Hum”.
He fails to steal the spotlight for his own, and he doesn’t stand up and say, “THIS IS MY JOB! I AM THE PRESIDENT!”
He did try to grab the spotlight once, when answering about HIV and black teens, Tavis Smiley having to try and stop him a couple of times. It was forceful, fiery, insistent, and he even got to share a laugh line with Smiley at the end about Paris Hilton, but then Hillary stole his thunder, and stole it hard.
I hate to do this, but I stand by my assertion from the second debate. The club of Presidents of the United States is a very exclusive club, and one that Chris Dodd will never be a part of.
Made The Cut
Senator Joe Biden- Joltin’ Joe picks up the rear of the made the cut club, and only just barely. The biggest danger that he faces now is that a lot of his comments can be spun as condescending, borderline bigoted towards black people. Indeed I got a kind of civilizing the savages vibe from his words, but I also felt that he himself was furiously trying to avoid this to make some tough, but true points. It was a VERY fine line he was dancing, he didn’t dance it particularly well, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He will not, I promise you, get a second pass.
Also, he seemed considerably flatter than the last debate. Granted his last performance was a hard act to follow, but still, he lacked a lot of the passion that served him well last time.
I still say he makes the cut, though, because he’s still very well versed on most the issues, he still has more fire than many, and he delivered what was one of the best lines of the night in my opinion.
When it was his turn to speak on New Orleans and the after math of Katrina, he gave an impassioned speech that crescendoed with, “THIS IS AN AMERICAN CITY! IT’S AN AMERICAN PROBLEM!”
I got a little misty eyed.
So he makes the cut, but I’m going to say provisionally. If he wants to make the cut in the next debate, he not only has to have a STELLAR performance, he also needs to get some traction going in the polls, something that’s not likely to happen.
Senator John Edwards- Personally, I feel he only marginally made the cut as well. Keep in mind, it was an okay enough performance, I felt that while I wasn’t amped on it, his personal achievements and his history of poverty in his youth reverberated I believe with the audience. It did build a good foundation for his answers, so yeah, he makes the cut.
But, and here’s the thing, he needs to get off the anecdotal. He can’t keep telling us about his childhood and his poor mill worker father. He’s strong and unique on policy, and he needs to put his focus back on that. Also, he needs to find some of that charisma that aided him so well in 2004, it seems to be on sabbatical right now.
John makes the cut with a warning, he’s not going to keep making it if he doesn’t get his act in gear. Also, chalk John Edwards up as another candidate that appeared flat.
Senator Barack Obama- Yet another candidate that often times appeared to be flat, and unfortunately his worst answer of the night was the last one on Darfur. After making it through the night with essentially no major uh’s um’s and uncomfortable pauses, Darfur had Obama flopping and twitching like a fish out of water. He also missed an opportunity to show he is strong on foreign policy and national security, two areas that he desperately needs to shore up if he wants to make a go of it down the stretch.
But he makes the cut because he has improved again. He’s getting more comfortable with debating, and it shows. His answers are more streamlined, and he seems not as tentative to go for the cheap pop; a good laugh line, or an easy applause line.
Undoubtedly, he’ll get one of the better laugh lines out of this. When Biden was going on about HIV, he made a big deal about testing, even saying that he and Obama got tested.
Obama (and some may interpret this as homophobic, I realize. I didn’t even think about it that way, I thought about the following quote as more along the lines of him making sure people didn’t think he was sleeping around on his wife) jumped in and said, “LET ME CLARIFY, I GOT TESTED WITH MICHELLE!”
Lots of laughs. He also scored well on New Orleans saying, “We need a President who’s in touch with New Orleans BEFORE the hurricane happened.” The point being that one of the things that led to the disastrous aftermath was an unrealistic appraisal of the situation on the ground. That not everyone there was rich and of means and had an easy way to evacuate, nor had the proper supplies to wait the storm out. It touched on the state of the levees, and was an overall good respone.
So he makes the cut. He needs to keep improving though, as these debates are gonna get more and more eyeballs on them, and he’s going to need to prove that he can hang with Hillary soon.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich- I bet you thought I forgot about him, didn’t ya? Couldn’t be further from the truth. At the beginning of the debate, I worried which Dennis we were going to see. Was it Intellectual Liberal Dennis, or Hysterical Stand-Offish Dennis? Happily, I can report that it was an all new third Dennis who was working the crowd like a finely tuned Stradivarius.
Dennis knew how to toss the red meat to the liberals in the crowd without sounding as though he was overdoing it. He seemed well versed in every question, and seemed to get the audience to applaud, cheer, or laugh at whim. He was masterful.
It’s really sad that his campaign still won’t go anywhere.
But still, I want Senator Mike Gravel to take note, this is how you speak truth to power. Not with attacks, anger, and shouting, but with intelligent arguments, and charm.
Anyone who listens to the audio, reads the transcripts, or watches the video, can not deny, the man performed admirably, and makes the cut if for no other reason than I have no qualms listening to this version of Dennis for several debates to come. He may be too liberal to have a real shot at anything, but damn if last night’s performance wasn’t great.
Senator Hillary Clinton- I thought her performance during the last debate was nearly flawless… She just got better. She had it all, a perfect blend of style and substance, and the only person in the place that matched Kucinich in working the audience, she may have, in fact, edged him out.
On every question, even the ones that weren’t her best, she was presidential, knowledgable, and unique. Further, she stole everyone’s thunder nearly every time. If she came early in a question, everyone was playing catch up, if she came late, she blew those who went before her out of the water. On Darfur, she yanked the rug right out from under Biden, who’s particularly strong on the subject, by preceding him with a detailed and specific plan powerfully delivered. Biden tried to play catch up, but sounded second rate following Hillary.
When Chris Dodd had his one moment of the night as stated above, Hillary immediately stole it, delivering what will be most likely seen as THE line of the night, “but let me just put this in perspective. If HIV/AIDS were the leading cause of death of white women between the ages of 25 and 34, there would be an outraged outcry in this country. “
The lid came off the joint. I couldn’t see, but I would be willing to bet that there were more than a few people on their feet. And then, like a champion figure skater following up a tricky routine with a triple axel leap, she followed up with the Paris Hilton joke, turning the applause into gales of laughter.
She continues to meet with calls of “inelectability”, and manages to shrug them off as though they were nothing. She is incredibly talented as a politician, and at this point, I think the worst thing any opponent can do in regards to her is underestimate her, she will make you pay for it.
Final summation
Well, that was it. The “winners” the “losers”. It should be noted that while PBS didn’t make the cut, Tavis Smiley did what he could with what he had, and I would probably give him a pass, maybe a better format.
But overall, don’t expect polls to move too terribly much. Those that didn’t do well are for the most part don’t have two percentage points to rub together, so no loss there. And those who did well, well, it was a relatively low publicized debate. Biden’s words could get spun against him, and if so, that’s gonna make for some really tough times for him in the weeks and months to come, and Dennis’ liberal red meat (irony, gotta love it) may not spin well.
But you know the deal, no changes in position here guys. It’s still early, we still got plenty to go. Remember, the value in the debates is not to actually see movement in rankings, it is more along the lines of giving us insight, and a kind of metric to see how candidates are changing from one to the next.
And that’s that. Barring catastrophy, we’ll be liveblogging the next one, which I believe comes on July 23rd, and I hope to see yall there.
Obama Cleans Hillary’s Clock Again!
Okay, no, not in the debates last night. For my full analysis on that, check in later on this evening.
I’m talking about in second quarter fundraising. While the Hillary camp is ecstatic to announce that it has raised $27 million dollars during the second quarter, a record breaking sum, it has also had to cede that Camp Obama will clear that number by a good margin.
As the pundits like to say, polls this early often don’t mean much of anything, hence the reason so much attention is being paid towards fundraising efforts. Obama’s ability to outraise Hillary for the second time in a row (Hillary’s overall warchest was larger in the first quarter, but the side by side comparison put Obama over Hillary when you take into account donations for the primary only, and the fact that Hillary moved money over from her Senate account) points to the possibility that the Illinois Senator’s fate may not be as bad as his polling trend makes it out to be.
Indeed with a third time improved debate performance, it is very possible that by the time the majority of people who will decide the nominee start paying close attention, he will not only be polished up enough to stand toe to toe with the front runner in a Debate setting, but he’ll also have the monetary and ad buy power to make a successful late push in early voting states that could help squeeze him over the top.
Still, while this is all very good news for Camp Obama, Hillary’s campaign is a solid, nigh on flawless machine, her debate performances are close to perfect, and yet still getting better, and she’s got no small amount of cash as well.
And let’s not forget that Obama still has a double digit defecit to make up, no matter how insignificant it is.
Captain Ed ALMOST Gets The Punchline
Yesterday, after the immigration reform bill failed to pass a key Senate vote, I posited: Will conservatives realize they just shot themselves in the foot?
Indeed, I think there’s a better than even chance that the White House and congress will be a little more liberal next time around, and we aren’t seeing any more immigration legislatioin until then. With that taken into account, I think it’s a decent, maybe not great, but a decent bet that the things conservatives were being given (a hefty fine for illegal immigrants, increased border patrol, and the “wall” that I wish you could see me rolling my eyes for) are probably more than they can hope to ask for the next time this debate comes up.
Especially with recent polls suggesting that most Americans have no problems with Illegals being turned into Legals so long as they come over here to work, contribute, and pay their fair share of taxes.
Well, not a day later, Ed Morrissey, almost gets it:
I’ll be expecting the “oops” when Democratic majority in congress grows, and Mrs. Clinton becomes President Clinton.
An Almost Terrorist Attack
The big news of the day appears to be a terrorist attack… in London… that ALMOST happened. A silver Mercedes packed with an explosive device was defused earlier today, causing the likes of CNN et al to launch into continuous terror inducing coverage.
Atrios looks at the silliness of it all.
Indeed this reminds me of the tube attacks on July, 7th 2005 (7-7?). I remember it pretty well, the first person I tried to get in touch with being Cernig, as I know being an ex pat he may have family or friends over there.
At a time when a lot of folks on this side of the water were calling it the British 9-11, I learned something, from Cernig, and from the many Britons in London at the time: Brits are a tough group of SOB’s!
After having to deal with generations of terrorist attacks from the likes of the IRA etc., the British learned to do what we seem to have a hard time doing these days, shrug it off. July 7th, the London underground and a double decker were bombed by terrorists, July 8th, everyone got back up and went back to work.
Which is, in my humble opinion, what you’re supposed to do. The news circus going on around this not even exploded carbomb is what terrorists want. They want you to be scared, they want you to think that they are getting under your skin and changing your life. They WANT you to CHANGE YOUR LIFE around their actions.
But that’s just not how those crazy Brits operate. Just like on July 8th of 2005, tomorrow morning, millions of Londoners are going to wake up, yawn, and shrug it off.
UPDATE: The Cernig mentioned above has a much more in depth analysis of this, the general gist though, is still, shrug it off, and get back to normal.
The Impeachment Fence
I’ve been wanting to impeach Bush for years now. Come on, who’s with me? We were on the impeach this Mo-ron train long before everyone else started to hop on, right?
Lied us into war with Iraq, the warrantless wiretapping, the torture in Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, around the world, Arch Chancelor Dick Cheney, outing Valerie Plame, Swifties, NCLB, suspension of Habeas Corpus, Patriot Act… I mean, the last stalwarts who stand behind this president are so fond of saying, “Oh you just hate Bush.”
Well, we do have a long list of grievances, some are actually even impeachable.
So the whole let’s dump the bastard is kinda old hat for some of us. We liked it before everyone else started liking it and it was cool.
But when asked if he thinks we should impeach Bush, Barack Obama has recently said “no.” This a sentiment that Ron Beasley of the Gun Toting Liberal was none too pleased with.
And it’s hard to disagree. Obama states, “I think you reserve impeachment for grave, grave breeches, and intentional breeches of the president’s authority,” even though he admits to being very put off by by the administrations transgressions.
Meanwhile, Martin writing for Scholars and Rogues, is opposed to Pelosi’s similar stance on the impeachment of Bush, though with a little understanding, and not quite as much dismay.
I must admit, for me it’s a tricky situation. As pointed out in a small article yesterday, there is a serious flaw in the strategy for congressional Democrats to be constantly on the attack against the administration. One backed lyzurgyk writing for PSOTD with a slightly more liberal bent.
In essence, a huge part of the low approvals for both congress and the White House is the severely partisan fighting going on in the nation’s capitol, and further pushes against the administration could only further taint the image of the public, boosting numbers for the dreaded “business as usual” question in many polls.
In other words, getting too lusty in one’s attack of the administration could backfire, and backfire hard. I want Bush gone, but now, with less than two years left to go, it’s becoming a question of patience and prudence. Do I want it now, have Pelosi ascend to the White House, and have the entire Democratic government find itself embattled with the public? Or do I wait, hope the president doesn’t cause too much more damage in the hopes that we can put someone better in the oval office in an environment where they can actually do some good?
It’s a gamble either way, but at least I like Obama’s justification for his decision not to impeach the president:
“I believe if we began impeachment proceedings we will be engulfed in more of the politics that has made Washington dysfunction,” he added. “We would once again, rather than attending to the people’s business, be engaged in a tit-for-tat, back-and-forth, non-stop circus.”
One can’t say what the big issue will be come November of next year what the big issue will be for certain. It looks like it will be Iraq, but with continued Democratic efforts to bring the war to an end, it may not be. It could be immigration, but with the most recent bill being tabled indefinitely, that may not be the case.
No one’s crystal ball is clear enough to know what the defining issue will be. But since Newt Gingrich took over the House and the Gopper movement during Clinton’s presidency, our two parties have been waging a blood thirsty war with each other, one that is pissing the American people off. No one wants a two party system that is totally at peace with each other, even if they say they do. People disagree, and that’s what it is about. But there are such things as limits, and we’ve been beyond those limits for quite some time now.
So whatever the issue is, the candidate who provides the most promise not to divide, but to unite, the one who shows the most potential not to continue the vile bickering that has plagued the capitol, that’s the candidate that has a leg up on winning the prize.
And so, while I’m sitting on the Impeachment Fence, I have to say that for me personally, the side against impeachment is starting to look a little greener.
UPDATE: DAMN GROUP BLOGS! I incorrectly sited PSOTD in the above piece, when the actual post was provided by co-writery lyzurgyk. Sheesh, group bloggers…
No, my fault, so let’s take a look at the REAL PSOTD’s opinion.
I wish I could say otherwise, but I am not impressed with Obama:Obama said he would not back such a move, although he has been distressed by the “loose ethical standards, the secrecy and incompetence” of a “variety of characters” in the administration.
Why in the world would you remove an option before facts are known? Again, first you investigate, if the investigation brings out such crimes that are necessary for further action, then you look at impeachment. What’s most disappointing about Obama’s statement is that it is political, rather than legal, in tone. His approach is about what is expedient rather than keeping an open mind towards what is best for the nation in the long-term. Bleh.
I can hardly disagree with the main point, investigate, and if you find something, go after it. And in comments, PSOTD further clarified his stance as such.
I think the long-term health of this country is dependent on governing standards that stand up over time. Bush and company should be investigated, if evidence of an impeachable crime is found it should be tried. If nothing found, then no impeachment. But it is way premature to stay no impeachment before presentation of evidence. The standard of governance provided over the last six years is not acceptable and therefore not sustainable. If we continue to make governing and political decisions purely for expedience and powergrabbing we’re done as a country, sooner rather than later
Again, very hard to disagree. But here’s perhaps what rebuttal I can give. I think the point is, and this was more the reasoning behind Obama’s statement, that we’ve reached a point where it’s almost impossible to do the right thing as well. Congress hasn’t impeached bush for the first six years of his term because, big surprise, same party, and a lot of them were hoping to ride the coattails.
Bush tanks, Democrats come in, and people have more of a business as usual approach than ever before. I mean, Bush has committed impeachable offenses, we don’t need to wait and see, Carl Bernstein I believe made a great case about two or three years ago, and he’s only done more since then.
But, this is the problem, as lyzurgyk points out, people hate government. They HATE the bickering, they hate the wars. An impeachment of Bush will not be seen as government doing its job, even though that’s exactly what it would be. They would see it as more “business as usual.”
I mean, maybe we are at a constitutional crisis now, because politically, you can’t impeach the president. This is what would happen, and the only way an impeachment would NOT result this way is if we find out he got a blowjob.
You impeach Bush, you HAVE to impeach Cheney. I would intentionally NOT impeach Bush if Cheney was the replacement. So you impeach them both. Public gets pissed, business as usual on steroids. Nancy Pelosi takes over the oval office until the 09 inauguration. Every single human that is not a democrat believes it a coup, huge push to paint Democrats as essentially evil.
Democrats in congress now enjoys the lowest approval rate of history, possibly dipping into single digits. Pelosi does not fair better.
08 elections come, the Right Wing Noise machine will be successful, GOP takes back majority in both congress and takes the White House, and we are right back where we started ideologically, another four years of the same shit we had under Bush… probably worse considering the next guy might not be such a dumbass.
It’s hard for me to fault Democrats for not wanting to impeach the president, and the underlying system may be that the system is broken. It would be seen as a coup and just more political rancor, and since there is not anything close to a third party, nor will there be, that can take the reigns, it will be a situation in which you just hand the keys right back on over to the conservatives.
The Battle Rages On
While our soldiers are waging a tough urban battle against a faceless enemy, no end in sight, no real goals for success laid out, there is another battle being fought up on Capitol Hill.
Congress is currently enjoying, or rather not enjoying, the lowest approval rating it’s had in ages. While some rightwing blowhards see this as an opportunity, and some even misguidedly still believe this is because America stands behind Bush (don’t ask me how, but they’re out there), the logical analysis is simply this: We want our troops out now, Americans saw that the passage of the last Iraq War appropriations bill was a failure to do this, and so the public ire has been brought down upon them.
Many folks believed that was that. Dems went belly up, and there’s no fight left in them. Nothing could be further from the truth.
According to the Politico (h/t memeorandum), you can expect an announcement today that there will be another Democratic effort starting in July.
Among some of the fireworks to look for in upcoming weeks and months:
-Four ammendments, including a withdrawl timeline attached to the Defense Authorization bill in the Senate.
-A freestanding timetable bill in the House, setting a goal for April 1st of next year.
-A “deauthorization” of the Iraq War that could be attached to the House’s version of Defense authorization following the fourth of July.
-A push to prevent permanent military bases in Iraq in the House.
-A readiness bill in the house that prevents soldiers from returning to Iraq until they’ve spent equal time here at home.
And through it all, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have the hardest job of all, whipping together the Out of Iraq caucus who can be tricky in that they have a tendancy to vote down all but the harshest legislation against the Iraq War, and the Blue Dog caucus who are tentative about voting for any Anti Iraq war legislation out of the fear of being seen as too anti military by their local constituents.
A lot of people feel as though congress failed them earlier this year. I know Mikey T. did, I know that a few of the folks over at the Newshoggers did. But the Dem’s didn’t just go belly up. They were put in a tough position, a position that perhaps Biden put best during the second Democratic debate:
BLITZER: Senator Biden, why are you reluctant to say now: They were wrong, and you were right?
BIDEN: Because I don’t want to judge them. I mean, these are my friends. We have worked together. We’ve worked hard to try and end this war. We have people telling everybody: Just stop the war, Congress. We have 50 votes.
We’re busting our neck every single day. So I respect it.
But look, I cannot — as long as there is a single troop in Iraq that I know if I take action by funding them, I increase the prospect they will live or not be injured — I cannot and will not vote no to fund them.
It was a tough play, but the battle is far from over.
Letter From A Soldier’s Mom
Yesterday, I asked you folks to just take a moment out of your day to put politics down for just a moment, and to take a personal look into your own personal feelings towards war. I had a few responses, and I wish to thank everyone who left one. It is very much appreciated.
But I received one in my inbox, one that I would like to now share with you. It comes from Tracey who writes as Soldier Mom over at a relatively new website called Iraqslogger, as well as being the Democratic Party Online Editor for Bella Online. (quick note: Iraqslogger is non partisan… I can’t exactly say the same for Tracey’s slice over at Bella)
Tracy is the mother of a soldier in Iraq, and she wrote this letter to me:
Dear Mr. M,
I want to write and thank you for your wonderful anti-war post that was not anti-military. So often, when I read pieces by progressives, they assume the young men who have chosen to serve out country are stupid, duped by recruiters. I was impressed by your use of “We.” It was clear that you understood that is “Us,” who choose the civilian leadership, which decides when and where our soldiers go to war. I have son currently serving in Iraq. He joined the military after college, during the Clinton administration. He actually believes in things like democracy and duty to ones country. He has enormous faith in the American people, in the ability of ordinary citizens to choose their leaders. When he joined the military, he made the choice to trust in us, that we would choose leaders who would use the military in responsible ways, and never send them into harms ways unnecessarily. He knows that from time to time, we might make mistakes. But he believes that the democratic process provides ways to peacefully rectify those mistakes, and he has great faith that, with time, the American people will rectify the mistakes they make.
My son has expressed to me his concern that so many of the “calmer heads,” those less “gun-ho” to go to war, have left the military, frustrated with this war and its mismanagement. He worries what will happen when we no longer have voices that will speak-up and say wait, when our civilian leadership wants to go to war again, to consider other options, less costly, less deadly. He worries when on the battlefield their won’t be the guy that will speak-up when everyone is angry about their buddy being killed and say wait, “we are the good guys, killing everyone in the village isn’t going to bring him back and it isn’t going to make any of us safer or end this war any sooner.” He worries that the failure of those that believe that war ought to be our last choice to serve, places our country at greater harm than anything else.
The real tragedy of fighting this war, a war that should never had been fought, will be if it leaves us with a military that believes that war should be our first choice and not our last. It was nice to see a progressive who placed responsibility for this war where it belonged, on us.
Best wishes,
Tracey-Kay Caldwell
The letter largely speaks for itself, but I want to reinforce this one idea, an idea that has come out in subsequent emails.
When any person joins our military, there is a very simple pact: They swear to defend this country with their lives, and in return all they ask is that we use them wisely, use them rationally, and help them build a life while in the military and after.
As civillians, no, as citizens, we are the ultimate employers. We are the employers of the Commander in Chief, and the employers of those who hold the purse strings as well. It is OUR duty to ensure that our end of the bargain is honored, because all be damned if the military ain’t holdin’ up their end.
Another Hundred
For the third straight month, coalition troop deaths have exceeded 100.
Who will be July’s 100?
One thing we do know … none will be related to George Bush or Dick Cheney.