Current affairs

Strange political days have dawned when I turn on my car radio, hear arch-conservative Michael Savage ranting about how awful it would be to give amnesty to twelve million illegal aliens, and say to myself, Right on, Michael! Like I’ve said before, the right is right on immigration reform. And by “right,” I mean the rightest of the right. Not the Arlen Specter sort of Senate moderates, but the fire breathing House Republicans like Dana Rohrabacher who said people should be able to “smell the foul odor that’s coming out of the U.S. Senate.” It is indeed foul when Democrats…

Of all the B.S. that comes out of the Bush administration’s collective mouth, there’s one phrase that deserves the Ultimate Heaping Pile of Crap Award: “Iraq must form a national unity government that governs from the center.” Good god. This comes from a president who has been one of the most divisive in U.S. history. He was elected in 2000 by the narrowest of margins, one Supreme Court vote. He was re-elected in 2004 because of 60,000 votes in Ohio that went his way. The Shiites in Iraq, who number about 60% of the population, have a much more valid…

Let’s get real. Men and women are different. Boys and girls are different. When Debra Lafave was 23 she had sex with a 14 year old boy who was her student. Big deal. She should get a slap on the wrist, not jail time. Which is pretty much what happened. Today the remaining sex charges against Lafave were dropped, leaving her subject just to three years of house arrest and seven years of probation. Good. There’s a lot of people (translation: “guys”) in the blogosphere who think she deserves a medal. I wouldn’t go that far, but when this 57-year-old…

Driving home today, I heard Earl Blumenauer interviewed by Tom Parker on Portland’s KPAM. Congressman Blumenauer described his plan to phase U.S. forces out of Iraq. I don’t see how any rational person could disagree with it (but naturally Parker, a conservative, did). Blumenauer’s bill has the unfortunate title of “First Step to Redeployment Act of 2006.” I wish Democrats would learn the value of pithy evocative phrases, which Rove and company use so well. Anyway, the title is the most awkward aspect of Blumenauer’s plan, the basics of which he described simply and clearly: The Iraqi people don’t want…

I’m not usually a prayerful sort of guy, but I’m falling on my knees for this entreaty: “O blessed Tao, dear God, compassionate Buddha, send us some Democrats with balls. Big ones. Clanging ones. Hurry!”

It was painful, and also hilarious, to watch the Daily Show last night. Paul Hackett, the Iraq war veteran who ran for the House in a solidly Republican district and almost defeated Jean Schmidt in an August 2005 special election, was featured. Hackett has balls.

Thus naturally he was unceremoniously dumped by the Democrats after he announced that he’d challenge incumbent Ohio Senator Mike DeWine. The Daily Show skewered Dem ballslessness by contrasting Hackett’s blunt straight talk with the circumlocutions of a pollster who blathered on about all the reasons Hackett wouldn’t be the best candidate.

I can’t stand it any more, this Democratic reluctance to stand up for anything other than being Republican-lite. A Daily Kos rant I ran across today, “Being Liberal Means Having Balls,” captures my disgust perfectly. I too am ready to vote for anyone with a progressive leaning who has some big ones.

If that means voting for an Independent like Ben Westlund, who’s running for Oregon governor, so be it. If that means voting for a Green party candidate, so be it. If the Democrats aren’t going to run on a ballsy platform—saying it like it is and sticking to their guns—then screw them. They deserve to lose.

As the Daily Show pointed out, that’s just what the Democrats have been doing: losing. Yet their reaction to being a powerless political party is to act even more powerless. They seem to believe that if they do nothing, Bush and the Republicans will self-destruct.

That’s delusional. Karl Rove and company are too smart to let that happen. They’ll pull some balls out of the bag before November and smash the Dems over the head with them. Again.

It’s like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown. Grab the political football, Dems, and kick it as hard as you can. Don’t worry about rules, goalposts, strategy, or playing nice. Just kick the damn thing! For once.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd sounds much the same theme in “What’s Better? His Empty Suit or Her Baggage?” I’ll include it as a continuation to this post for those who don’t belong to Times Select.

I don’t know much about Barack Obama, but on the basis on Dowd’s column I’m willing to place him in the lightly populated “Democrats with balls” group. Hillary Clinton? Nope. She’s ballless. And not because she’s a woman—these sorts of balls aren’t physical.

Like so many Democrats, Clinton moves in whatever direction she senses the political winds are blowing, not where her own moral compass tells her to go. To do that, she’d need balls.

Here’s a classic example of how political talk radio picks up a falsity and then proclaims it as the Gospel Truth to gullible listeners. Yesterday I forced myself to listen to Michael Savage as part of my ongoing effort to understand the workings of the extreme right-wing mind. Savage was ranting on about how former President Bill Clinton had called for the conviction of the publishers of the infamous Mohammed cartoons. That seemed highly unlikely to me, but Savage was reading from a news story and, hey, we all know that you can trust whatever news outlets say, right? Wrong.…

Now that the Supreme Court has said that it is all right to use a hallucinogen to better understand God, I expect that the Church of Reality and Church of the Universe are going to have an upsurge in membership. When marijuana is a sacrament, you’ve got a darn good recruitment tool. Plus, it’s been proven: Jesus used marijuana. But seriously…does it make sense that the Supreme Court has ruled that it is illegal to use medical marijuana for clearly evident health problems, while it is legal to use an otherwise illicit drug to worship an invisible God?

A political groundswell back towards the middle is underway. This is great. May the center not only hold, but expand. Here in Oregon, Ben Westlund has dropped out of the Republican party and is running for governor as an Independent. Moderate presidential candidate Michael Smith wants to go to the Republican National Convention in ’08 and shake up the party’s right wing. Perhaps most significantly, John and Leah Frohnmayer are organizing The Independent Bandwagon that, they hope, will reach voters in every community in Oregon. I learned about this much-needed movement from their recent letter in the Portland Oregonian: Your…

Yesterday I learned that Corvallis resident Michael Smith is running for President of the United States on the Republican ticket. Today we at HinesSight have endorsed Michael, using “we” liberally in the typical blogging sense of “me, myself, and I.” After I saw the Smith for President web site I knew that Michael was my kind of candidate. His official campaign photo shows him holding a tuba! Because, he plays the tuba. As if that isn’t enough of a qualification to become President of the United States, I was taken by the sum total of his “endorsements” page: "Love you…

Here's why the Islamic over-reaction to the publishing of Mohammed cartoons is so ridiculous: Muslims have been depicting the Prophet for centuries. So if it's true that any caricature of Mohammed is blasphemous, Muslims have been some of the worst blasphemers of their own religion and should be boycotting themselves, not Denmark. Check out this archive of Mohammed images, some from the Islamic world and some from Western sources. The creator of the archive says: While the debate rages, an important point has been overlooked: despite the Islamic prohibition against depicting Mohammed under any circumstances, hundreds of paintings, drawings and…

It’s not often that I see eye-to-eye with William Bennett, aptly described as a right-wing “self-appointed moral compass for America.” But his take on Islamic anger over the Mohammed cartoon controversy is right on. Today on CNN I heard him tell Wolf Blitzer: “Look, it just turns out that there are people who are acting in the world, cutting people’s heads off, putting jetliners into buildings, and saying they are doing so in the name of Allah. You know, this is what people say…they’re saying they’re doing this because of the Koran, because of the Prophet. Now, others argue it…

Once again, Karl Rove is kicking the Democrats’ ass. This happens with disturbing regularity, and even though I’m an Independent, I can’t stand it. So how is that the Democrats themselves are fine with the ass-kicking?

“Tell me where I should stand, Mr. Rove, so you can have the best shot at me. Do you want me to look weak, indecisive, or unfocused? If you want all three, no problem. We Democrats have been working hard at honing our political incompetence ever since Clinton left office.”

It sickens me to watch the Democrats lie down in the middle of the road and let the Rove Machine crush them. Then they stay put and Rove turns around to ride over them again. I’d blame this annoyingly repetitive crushing for their lack of backbone, but the sad truth is that Democratic spinelessness is almost entirely their own doing.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd says it a lot better than I can. In the continuation to this post you’ll find “Delusion and Illusion Worthy of Dickens” and “Looking for a Democratic Tough Guy or Girl.” She hits the Dems right where it hurts: on the truth-bone.

Some excerpts follow. Read them and weep (if you’re a progressive). Then read the entire columns and get angry. At Rove and the neo-cons. And also, at the Democrats who allow the party to flounder along without the guidance of their own Karl Rove.

I can’t believe that there isn’t some ruthless political genius out there who the Dems can hire to be the anti-Rove, a countervailing force with not only equal but superior savvy. Until you find him, Howard Dean, and pay him or her whatever exorbitant salary it takes to get this wunderkind on board, I’ll continue to ignore your frequent email messages asking me to sign an online petition.

Karl Rove kicks ass. He doesn’t circulate petitions. Observe and learn, Democrats. Here’s some of what Dowd has to say in her two columns:

The [Democratic] party simply seems incapable of getting the muscular message and riveting messenger needed to dispel the mud, fog, drizzle and soot emanating from Karl Rove’s rag-and-bone shop on Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Dems need to drum up a decent message so they look as if they know what the Dickens they’re doing before the November election. Otherwise, they’ll look like bowed supplicants holding out gruel cups to Karl Rove and pleading, “Please, sir, I want some more.”

To lead, and not just conduct campaigns that parrot the liberal elite’s editorial pages, you have to shape your own identity and political destiny. And ever since the 2000 race, the Democrats have let Republicans caricature them as effeminate. The Democrats have let the G.O.P. give them their shape, and it’s an hourglass.

If the Democrats are like the dithering ”Desperate Housewives,” the Republicans have come across like the counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer on ”24”: fast with a gun, loose with the law, willing to torture in the name of protecting the nation. Except Jack Bauer is competent.

[1/26 update: Courtesy of Liberal Oasis, here’s a good example of Democratic spinelessness–the Alito nomination.]

Now that the Supreme Court has upheld Oregon’s assisted suicide statute, let’s raise a glass of hemlock to a new slogan for our proudly independent state: “Live Free and Die.” This is, of course, a mildly edited version of the New Hampshire state slogan. It is traced to Gen. John Stark, New Hampshire’s most famous Revolutionary War soldier, who in 1809 couldn’t attend an anniversary reunion of those who fought at the Battle of Bennington. So he sent a toast: “Live free or die. Death is not the worst of evils.” No, dying under the thumb of an imperious federal…

It’s been raining here in western Oregon for twenty-four days straight, I think. The bridge over our creek is in danger of being washed away. And so is my usually optimistic progressive mood. Guess I need a latte. A triple. I watched quite a bit of the Alito hearings yesterday. Less today. The outcome, in my opinion, is evident: he’ll be confirmed. He’s too smart and well-coached to make a major blunder. Plus, too many of the Democratic senators are playing into his hands. Biden and Kennedy in particular make long-winded speeches while a split screen shows Alito patiently waiting…