Brad Warthen's Blog

The UnParty's big (hypothetical) opening

Did you see that Ted Pitts might run for lieutenant governor? Do you realize the implications?

Ted Pitts is MY representative. So theoretically, it's time to make my move and run for office on the UnParty ticket. This is my big chance.

Except, of course, I can't. Newspaper editors aren't allowed to run for office, not if they want to keep on being newspaper editors. And I can't sing or dance, so I'll have to put the campaign plans on hold.

Dang.

Rendition we can believe in

Earlier this week I noticed yet another promising sign of continuity we can believe in in the War on Terror. The Obama administration has backed Bush policy in a key court case testing the policy of extraordinary rendition -- sending detainees to countries that have, shall we say, a more relaxed attitude toward certain methods of interrogation.

Here's a NYT story on the subject. And here's the AP version:

By PAUL ELIAS
Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A government lawyer urged an appeals court Monday to toss a lawsuit accusing a Boeing Co. subsidiary of illegally helping the CIA fly suspected terrorists overseas to be tortured, maintaining a Bush administration position that the case would jeopardize national security.
    The American Civil Liberties Union and others had called on the White House to change direction and drop its move to dismiss the suit. The organization filed the lawsuit on behalf of five men swept up in the "extraordinary rendition" program and who are still being held in various prisons around the world.
    The lawsuit claims that San Jose-based Jeppesen DataPlan Inc. should be punished for allegedly providing the CIA airplanes and crew to carry out the program that included torture.
    The U.S. government intervened in the case and a trial court judge last year tossed it out after CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden invoked the government's so-called "state secrets privilege," which lets intelligence agencies bar the use of evidence in court cases that threaten national security.
    U.S. Department of Justice lawyer Douglas Letter on Monday urged a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to uphold the lower court decision. Letter said his position was "thoroughly vetted with the appropriate" administration officials.
    "These are the authorized positions of the administration," Letter said in a response to a question from Judge Mary Schroeder.
    Letter said that he was confident that Schroeder and her two colleagues on the appeals court would toss the suit after they read top secret legal documents the government filed with the court under seal.
    The case presented Obama's Justice Department with one of the first of many policy and legal decisions it faces in countless actions across the country left over from the Bush administration. Legal scholars contend that the prior administration stopped litigation involving the government by invoking state secret claims a record number of times, including in more than 40 legal challenges to the Bush administration's warrantless wiretap program.
    A Department of Justice spokesman in Washington, D.C., said government lawyers were reviewing all such state secret assertions in lawsuits across the country.
    "It's vital that we protect information that if released could jeopardize national security," said Justice spokesman Matt Miller. "But the Justice Department will ensure the privilege is not invoked to hide from the American people information about their government's actions that they have a right to know."
    Outside of court, ACLU executive director Anthony Romero criticized the new president.
    "This is not change," Romero said in a prepared statement. "Candidate Obama ran on a platform that would reform the abuse of state secrets, but President Obama's Justice Department has disappointingly reneged on that important civil liberties issue."

I had meant to post something earlier in the week on this and another example of pragmatism-over-rhetoric on the part of the Obama administration. Right now I'm forgetting what the other example was -- I'll let you know if I remember.

But I was reminded of this one by an editorial in the WSJ today, which said in part:

    President Obama has done a masterful job disguising his Administration's growing antiterror maturity, but this week produced further evidence that he is erring on the side of keeping the country safe rather than appeasing the political left. The Justice Department filed to dismiss a federal appeals case involving rendition, embracing an argument developed by . . . the Bush Administration.
    In other words, the anti-antiterror lobby is being exposed as more radical than its putative banner carrier. As Mr. Obama is learning, the left's exertions to disarm the country's counterterrorism arsenal are as dangerous now as they were prior to his election.

When centrists are wrong

The Paul Krugman column I picked for tomorrow's op-ed page has some things seriously wrong with it, as do most Krugman columns: He trashes Obama for seeking bipartisan support of the stimulus (Krugman HATES bipartisanship), and he demagogues like crazy:

    What do you call someone who eliminates hundreds of thousands of American jobs, deprives millions of adequate health care and nutrition, undermines schools, but offers a $15,000 bonus to affluent people who flip their houses?

In its anti-UnParty sentiment, the column could be said to have precisely the opposite message of my Sunday column. But I chose it anyway, partly because one of the main missions of the op-ed page is to give you opinions other than mine, but also because he raises, in a backhanded way, a good point: Just because someone is a "centrist" doesn't mean he's right (or she's right, in the cases of Susan Collins and Olympia Snow).

In fact, one thing I ran out of room to say in my Sunday column, but had wanted to say, was that in the case of this bill, there are centrists and there are centrists. You'll recall that I ended the column thusly:

    But if the president has a bill that Lindsey Graham and John McCain and Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Susan Collins of Maine all voted for, the nation would have a chance of moving forward together. And together is the only way we can recover.

When she was proofing it Friday, Cindi came into my office to object that John McCain was not a member of the gang of "centrists" negotiating over this legislation. I said yeah, that's right. Neither is Graham. I didn't intend to say they were involed in the Nelson-Collins group. I meant to say that it would have to have even broader support than what it would take to get the Nelsons and Collinses on board.

In fact, as I would have explained if I'd had a couple more inches to work with, that particular group was guided by a principle that I thought was wrong-headed: They simply wanted to cut $100 billion out of the bill, period (or that's the message I got, anyway). Since I was worried that Krugman was right when he said in a previous column that Obama's stimulus proposal wouldn't be enough, I doubted that making it LESS, on principle, was the right thing to do.

I mean, take your pick: Spend $800 billion that you don't have or $900 billion that you don't have. How is the former necessarily better than the latter? Once you've decided that massive deficit spending is what you've gotta do, in for a dime, in for a trillion...

And yet, this press release from Susan Collins seems to indicate that for her at least, reducing the amount was the point:

After days of leading bipartisan negotiations, U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Ben Nelson (D-NE) tonight announced an agreement on an amendment to the Economic Recovery Act currently before the Senate. The Nelson-Collins amendment would reduce the total cost of the package to $780 billion-$110 billion less than the bill that the Senate is currently considering.

"This deal represents a victory for the American people," said Senator Collins... "We've trimmed the fat, fried the bacon, and milked the sacred cows..."

The idea that when it comes to stimulating the economy, less is more, seems unpersuasive to me. So does the DeMint position that all you need is tax cuts. So does the position that all massive spending is good.

So is the idea that just because someone is labeled a "centrist" doesn't mean they're right. (But it sure doesn't mean they're automatically wrong just because they're centrists, as Krugman believes.)

Nobody's got the monopoly on wisdom in this discussion, from what I've seen. There are certain things I think the stimulus ought to do: It should spend money as quickly as possible and spend it on things we'll have something to show for down the line -- such as physical infrastructure that we needed to spend on anyway. I think the tax cuts are going to be pretty useless because they're spread too thin for anyone to feel them. But rather than cut them out, I'd direct that money to shovel-ready, needed infrastructure. I think any cost ceiling anybody tries to place on the plan is fairly arbitrary (such as Obama's own reluctance to go over the magic trillion mark).

But there's only one thing that I think is fairly non-negotiable: This thing needs to transcend the partisan spin cyle. To turn around our economy, we've got to be pulling together. This needs to be something that the overwhelming majority of Congress can go back home and sell, something that leaves the talking heads on 24/7 TV "news" little to natter about. And I believe that goal is worth spending a little more time to achieve.

Worrying about the stimulus

By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor

    “This is your bill; it needs to be America’s bill.”

            — Sen. Lindsey Graham,
         addressing Senate Democrats

What worries me, after all the rhetoric, exhortation, accusations, counter-accusations, fault-finding and blame-laying, is that the stimulus bill that spent the week staggering its way through the U.S. Senate might not work anyway.

     There was always that very good chance. Several weeks back, Paul Krugman — who as a Princeton economist is a Nobel Prize-winner, but as a political columnist is a partisan automaton — said as much. He said it wouldn’t be enough to give the economy the jolt it needs to overcome the lack of activity in the private sector. He made a persuasive case.

    Then, last week, Mr. Krugman wrote that this bill just had to pass, that those blasted Republicans opposing it were “putting the nation’s future at risk.” Obama’s mistake, he now said, was trying “to transcend partisanship” and work with the Republicans at all.

    I believe the exact opposite to be true. I believe the chances of the bill doing any good declined with each step into the thicket of partisanship.

    I never won so much as a Cracker Jack prize for economics, much less a Nobel, but there’s one thing I think I understand: Whatever Washington does in the way of stimulus — and it needs to do something (with the private sector in paralysis, this is a job for the Keynesians) — it won’t work unless America can believe in it.

    Just as Mr. Krugman is right about some things, so is Phil Gramm. Remember how indignant the Democrats got when the McCain adviser said, in mid-campaign, that we were experiencing a “mental recession”? Well, he had a point. While it doesn’t make the real-life pain any less, the mechanisms that get us into a predicament like this have an awful lot to do with what’s going on in our heads.

    When businesses think they have a chance to grow, they invest and create jobs. When they’re scared, they freeze up. When buyers and sellers believe home values will keep appreciating, the real estate market is hot. When they start to doubt values, buying and selling stop. When everyone believes a stock’s value will keep rising, it does keep rising; when they don’t, it crashes. When you think the lousy economy is threatening your job, you stop spending and stuff your earnings, literally or figuratively, into a mattress, and the workers who depended on you to buy what they produce lose their jobs, which of course increases everyone’s pessimism.

    No, it’s not all in our heads. At some point, certain things have real value. But we’re not going to start buying and selling and hiring and investing and taking risks at the levels needed to pull ourselves out of this tail-spin until we reach a consensus that things are getting better, or about to get better.

    You can argue about the specific provisions in the stimulus all you want, and Democrats and Republicans have been doing so enthusiastically. But I don’t think I’ve seen a specific idea yet that couldn’t be argued both ways. Even the worst idea pumps some juice into the economy; even the best one is no silver bullet.

    With private sector leadership — especially on Wall Street — having failed us so spectacularly, we need something intangible from our political leadership every bit as much as we need infrastructure spending and/or tax cuts: We need to look at what Washington is producing and believe that it actually is for the good of the country, and not for the good of the Democrats or the Republicans or this or that politician.

    As he entered office, I thought Barack Obama had what it took to lead us in that direction — to pull us together and help us believe that we can solve our problems. To persuade us, as FDR did, that we had nothing to fear, that we were going to get through this, together.

    I still think he can. But last week, I saw him stumble. I’m not talking about the Tom Daschle business. As the stimulus package faltered, he reverted to campaign mode, blaming Republicans who wanted to cling to those failed policies of the past eight years we heard so much about in 2008.

    Helping him in this counterproductive effort were such Republicans as our own Jim DeMint, who most certainly was clinging to the ideologies that have failed his party and the nation — such as the stubborn idea that tax cuts are the only kind of stimulus anyone needs.

    A far more sensible position was taken by our other senator late Thursday. Lindsey Graham grabbed headlines by saying “this bill stinks,” but he had smarter things to say than that:

    You know, my problem is that I think we need a stimulus bill. I think we need to do more than cut taxes. But the process has been terrible. The House passed this bill without one Republican vote, lost 11 Democrats. Nancy Pelosi said, We won, we write the bill.... (W)e’re not being smart and we’re not working together, and people want us to be smart and work together, and this has been a miserable failure on both fronts.

    As I wrote this column, much remained unsettled. By the time you read it, something may have passed. But as I wrote, I was sure of this: If the Congress gave the president a bill that was pleasing only to the Harry Reids and Nancy Pelosis, it wouldn’t help the president inspire the kind of confidence that the whole nation needs to recover. (The same would be true if Jim DeMint got all he wanted, but there was no danger of that.)

    But if the president has a bill that Lindsey Graham and John McCain and Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Susan Collins of Maine all voted for, the nation would have a chance of moving forward together. And together is the only way we can recover.

For more, please go to thestate.com/bradsblog/.

Now, about that 'zero Republican votes' thing...

The last time they did this, I had no doubts that the Republicans were wrong. When not one of them voted for Clinton's Deficit Reduction Act in 1993, it was about as pure an example as I can recall of partisan mule-headedness and populist demagoguery. Not to mention the fact that they were wrong on the issue. Argue cause and effect all you like, the passage of that legislation WAS followed by dramatic deficit reduction. And the way the GOP went to their home districts and told everybody about how those awful Democrats had raised their taxes was unconscionable. Especially when South Carolina Republicans said it -- most people in S.C. did not see their taxes increase, unless you count the 4-cent rise in gasoline tax. And what importance can you honestly attach to 4 cents a gallon when monthly fluctuations in price are usually far more than that? (Of course, you know what I think about gas taxes.)

I remember actually watching TV news -- something you know I don't often do -- during that vote. Somebody had Al Gore on live, and Al was as stiff and awkward and priggish as only he can be as he talked about how wrong the Republicans were not to support it, with the roll call going on in the background (I'm thinking it was the Senate; in any case not one Republican in Congress voted for it). But he was right.

This time, I'm not as sure. I'd LIKE for our elected representatives to get together on anything as big as spending $819 billion, rather than splitting along partisan lines. I mean, if we're going to do it, let's do it together -- doing it divided increases the chances that it the stimulus will fail. I say that because Phil Gramm had a point -- so much of the economy is psychological. If the country sees this as THE plan that everyone agrees on, the country is more likely to have its confidence boosted. If it sees every member of one of the two major parties (for now) decry it as a waste doomed to fail, we could be looking at some self-fulfilled prophecy.

That said, I don't know but what a Republican -- or UnPartisan, or anyone else -- who says this plan isn't going to do the job doesn't have a point. After all, Paul Krugman says it won't, and he's no Republican.

On the other hand, their reason why this package isn't quite the thing is all bass-ackwards. They complain that only about a third of it is tax cuts. Well, I'm worried that a third of it IS tax cuts, and that those tax cuts will have zero effect on stimulating the economy. I haven't seen figures yet on exactly what the tax cuts will mean to the average American, but as I pointed out before, in an earlier version, the amount we're talking about would have given each worker only about $9 a week -- which is just barely enough to go to a movie. By yourself. If you don't buy popcorn.

If you're going to have a stimulus package, either SPEND enough to really kick-start the economy (and this doesn't appear to be enough), or target tax cuts to where they are likely to stimulate some real activity. Unfortunately, in trying to provide something for everybody -- and then going to woo the GOP in person -- Obama may have produced a solution that doesn't do enough of anything. And then, after all that trouble, you fail to get the bipartisan support that you were trying to buy with that $300 billion in tax cuts.

As for what you will probably hear them yammer about most on TV news (and in the rest of the blogosphere) -- what partisan political effect this vote will have -- I don't have a dog in that fight. Whether the Republicans have cooked their own goose by voting against a plan that will work, or set themselves up to be blamed for it NOT working, or are poised to recapture the House because they were the only ones to see it wouldn't work, or whatever... I don't care. I'd like to see both parties suffer in the next election, just on general UnPartisan principles. Unfortunately, I might get my wish: The stimulus could fail, and both parties be blamed -- but that be the least of the nation's worries. You know what I'd be worried about right now if I were a Republican? I'd worry that my caucus just invested its hopes in economic failure -- just as Harry Reid et al. bet all their chips on our failing in Iraq. That's not a position you want to be in -- your nation having to fail for you to be right. But that's their lookout, not mine.

For my part, I hope the stimulus works. Or that something we do soon works. And as long as it does, I don't care who gets the credit -- even a political party.

Yesterday was a good day, 'cause I got to write about Joe

What with my department being down from four editorial writers (we call 'em "associate editors") to two, I'm having to write more editorials myself these days.

That means more editorials on national and international subjects. It's best for metro subjects to be handled by Warren Bolton, and state topics by Cindi Scoppe. Those are their areas of expertise. That just leaves the rest of the world to me.

It also means you'll read more editorials with UnParty themes, because that's what I'm interested in. Hey, you want editorials from me, I'm going to write them whenever possible on stuff that interests me, Al Franken. Or whoever I am.

Hence today's piece about Joe Lieberman. John McCain robbed me of the chance to write lots about my man Joe during the election when he picked You Know Who from the frozen tundra. Think what a fine time I would have had.

But this week's events gave me the chance to write about Joe anyway. And that's a good thing.

Lieberman lets Democrats keep his vote

That's all I had to say. I just thought I'd offer the alternative interpretation to the standard headline, such as this one on the NYT site, which was "Democrats Let Lieberman Keep Senate Chairmanship."

I wonder if this development had anything to do with the president-elect's meeting yesterday with the other two of the Three Amigos? I don't know, but it's another positive development. I always like to see Joe get what he wants; he deserves it.

The Obama-McCain meeting

Not a lot to emerge from the president-elect's meeting with John McCain (and Lindsey Graham and Rahm Emanuel) today, which is to be expected. Here's the closest thing to substance I've seen, from their joint communique:

We hope to work together in the days and months ahead on critical challenges like solving our financial crisis, creating a new energy economy, and protecting our nation’s security.

Of those items, seems to me the greatest potential for collaboration would be on energy. (But I would think that, wouldn't I?)

Here's a scene-setter from the NYT politics blog:

Senator John McCain and President-elect Barack Obama are sitting down together now and metaphorically smoking a peace pipe in their first face-to-face session since the bruising campaign.

The two are meeting at Mr. Obama’s transition headquarters at a federal building in Chicago, where they just posed for the cameras.

The meeting space has a stagey look, in front of the kind of thick royal blue curtain you see in an auditorium, not the usual campaign-rigged blue backdrop. Flags are strewn throughout, with one planted between the two principals, who are sitting in yellow, Oval-Office-like chairs.

To their sides are their wingmen, Rahm Emanuel on Mr. Obama’s left and Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina on Mr. McCain’s right.

They’re all looking jolly (Mr. Obama and Mr. Emanual the jolliest), and we’ll soon get a read-out on the discussion.

The Obama team is hoping they can smooth any ruffled feathers and build an alliance with the old John McCain — not the one whom the Obama camp called “erratic” during the presidential campaign but the self-styled “maverick” who worked across party lines for various causes that Mr. Obama wants to advance — global warming, immigration, earmark spending among them.

In the brief moment before the cameras, Mr. Obama said: “We’re going to have a good conversation about how we can do some work together to fix up the country, and also to offer thanks to Senator McCain for the outstanding service he’s already rendered.”

Mr. McCain was asked whether he would help Mr. Obama with his administration.

“Obviously,” he said.

Those pesky reporters tried to shout out other queries, like about a possible bail-out for the auto industry, but the pool report says they were “shouted down by the pool sherpas,” and that “Mr. Obama finally said with a smile, ‘You’re incorrigible.’”

The last in-person meeting between Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain took place more than a month ago, at the third and final presidential debate at Hofstra, remembered chiefly as the coming-out party for Joe the Plumber.

Updated | 2:12 p.m.: A joint statement was released from President-elect Barack Obama and Senator John McCain:

“At this defining moment in history, we believe that Americans of all parties want and need their leaders to come together and change the bad habits of Washington so that we can solve the common and urgent challenges of our time. It is in this spirit that we had a productive conversation today about the need to launch a new era of reform where we take on government waste and bitter partisanship in Washington in order to restore trust in government, and bring back prosperity and opportunity for every hardworking American family. We hope to work together in the days and months ahead on critical challenges like solving our financial crisis, creating a new energy economy, and protecting our nation’s security.”

Beyond that, here are versions of the story from:

• The Associated Press (on thestate.com)
• The Chicago Tribune
• The Wall Street Journal (really just an update of their story from this morning's paper)
• The New York Times

Hoping, audaciously

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
BACK IN JANUARY, I said — on video; you can view it on my blog — that this year’s presidential election presented the American people with a no-lose proposition.
    It was the first time in my career when the two candidates we (and I) enthusiastically endorsed for their respective nominations actually made it onto the November ballot. So how could we lose?
    Well, there’s one way — the guy we preferred between the two guys we liked didn’t win on Nov. 4. But now that the other guy has won (and did you ever really think he wouldn’t?), I’m putting that setback behind me and looking forward to what happens next, with Barack Obama as my president.
    You could say I have no choice, but you’d be wrong. Unfortunately, we have before us a plethora of examples of how to have a perfectly rotten, stinking attitude when your preferred candidate loses, from the “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for Bush” bumper stickers that appeared on Republican cars before Bill Clinton was even inaugurated to all that nonsense we’ve heard for eight years from Democrats about how the election was “stolen” in 2000.
    We always have the option of being mean, petty, poor losers. But not me. Call me audacious, but every day I see fresh cause to be hopeful:

• First, there’s Barack Obama himself. Just as John McCain was the best conceivable Republican to unify the country, Sen. Obama offered himself as the one Democrat most likely to put the bitterness of the Clinton/Bush years behind us. As we wrote when we endorsed him in the S.C. primary, “for him, American unity — transcending party — is a core value in itself.” In a column at the time, I cited “his ambition to be a president for all of us — black and white, male and female, Democrat and Republican.” When a guy like that wins an election, nobody loses.
• Sen. McCain’s gracious (and typical, for him) concession speech left his supporters no room for bitterness, as he wished “Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president.”
• Sen. Obama’s promise that same night, in his first flush of victory, “to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn.” He said, “I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your president too.”
• The appointment of Rahm Emanuel as White House chief of staff. He’s been called a partisan attack dog, but he was defended against those who called him that by our own Sen. Lindsey Graham, John McCain’s close friend and ally. Yes, he ran the Democrats’ successful effort to take over Congress in 2006, but he did it by recruiting candidates who appealed to the political center — something his party’s more extreme elements haven’t forgiven him for. In an interview just before he was offered the job, Rep. Emanuel said, “The American people are unbelievably pragmatic. Have confidence in their pragmatism. It’s the operating philosophy of our country.” (The Associated Press says exit polls back that up: “This year 22 percent called themselves liberal, compared with 21 percent in 2004; 44 percent moderate, compared with 45 percent; and 34 percent conservative, same as four years ago.”)
• The image of the Obamas visiting the Bushes at the White House a week after the election. No big deal, you say? It is after the way the current president has been demonized by many Democrats. The presidential election of 1800 proved the miracle of the American system — that power can change hands in a peaceful, civilized manner. That never gets old for me.
• After days in which the more partisan types in the Senate debated just what to do to Joe Lieberman in light of his unpardonable “sin” of supporting Sen. McCain, the president-elect said that of course the senator from Connecticut should still be allowed to caucus with the Democrats.
• The fact that on Monday, Sens. Obama and McCain will sit down at transition headquarters to chart ways to move forward together. “It’s well known that they share an important belief that Americans want and deserve a more effective and efficient government,” said an Obama spokeswoman Friday, adding that the two men “will discuss ways to work together to make that a reality.” They will be joined by Sen. Graham and Rep. Emanuel.

    You’ll notice a certain theme in my points, and just in case I haven’t hit you over the head with it hard enough, I’ll say it again: I draw my hope from signs that this country is ready to move beyond the stupid, pointless, destructive  polarization that has been thrust upon us by the two dominant political parties, their attendant Beltway interest groups, the blogosphere and the mindless yammering of 24/7 shouting-head cable TV “news.”
    You might say that mere nonpartisanship — or bipartisanship, or post-partisanship (or my favorite, UnPartisanship) — is not enough by itself. That’s true. But without it, there’s no hope. Fortunately, I see plenty of cause to believe we’re about to see something new, and better.

Join me in hoping at thestate.com/bradsblog/.

Graham likes Obama's 1st pick

Thought y'all might find this interesting:

Graham Statement on Rahm Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today made this statement on the news Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel has accepted the job as White House Chief of Staff.  Graham spoke by phone with Emanuel earlier today.

Graham said:

“This is a wise choice by President-elect Obama. 

“Rahm knows Capitol Hill and has great political skills.  He can be a tough partisan but also understands the need to work together.  He is well-suited for the position of White House Chief of Staff. 

“I worked closely with him during the presidential debate negotiations which were completed in record time.  When we hit a rough spot, he always looked for a path forward.  I consider Rahm to be a friend and colleague.  He’s tough but fair.  Honest, direct, and candid.  These qualities will serve President-elect Obama well. 

“Rahm understands the challenges facing our nation and will, consistent with the agenda set by President-elect Obama, work to find common ground where it exists.  I look forward to working with him in his new position and will continue to do everything I can to help find a pathway forward on the difficult problems facing our nation.”

            #####

After reading of Mr. Emanuel being a hard-ball operative from Clinton days, and how he was expected to play "bad cop" to Obama's "good cop," I was prepared not to like him. I mean, didn't we choose Obama over Hillary Clinton to get away from that stuff? But if Lindsey likes him, I need to reconsider.

By the way, I'd have included a picture of Graham from our recent interview with him, but MY LAPTOP GOT STOLEN, so all those pictures are gone!

Just in case you didn't know.

UnParty makes its move (better late than never)

Sometimes when I see someone running unopposed -- even someone I like, such as my state Rep., Ted Pitts -- I feel prompted to make silly gestures. I did so today. Yes, I wrote in my own name for House District 69, partly just to try out that function on the electronic machine.

That makes Ted Pitts the first incumbent of either of the dominant parties to feel the wrath of the mighty UnParty machine. Such as it is. Sorry, Ted; I couldn't resist the temptation when it popped into my head. I could have made my empty gesture on one of the other unopposed offices -- but I don't want to be sheriff, for instance. I just didn't vote at all on any of the unopposed slots -- except the House seat.

No, I won't win this impromptu campaign -- I started it just a tad late, even I will admit. But we're looking at this strategically. (Who's "we?" Just me. You may or may not have noticed that candidates often refer to themselves as "we" when they mean "I," and I believe in observing the conventions when they don't violate my principles.)

I'm building name recognition. Sure, we're not liable to win this one. But the experience losing to Ted will help me get ready to lose a last-minute run for governor in 2010. Then, who knows -- I could decide to become an extremely minor obstacle to President Obama's re-election plans.

A lot of quixotic candidates start off losing at the top -- Ralph Nader, for instance. But I think that's just presumptuous. As I keep telling Doug, experience is important. I need to lose races for lower offices before fumbling the brass ring.

Anyway, I gotta run now, and make the last-minute arrangements for my unvictory party....

You, too, can use irony -- no experience required

Wow. As cool as Barack Obama is -- and he IS cool, all the time -- some of his supporters are VERY emotional.

Two of them -- Jennifer and Pam -- got so worked up by my very mild use of irony on this previous post (referring to their guy as "The One") that they mistook me for a Republican. To wit:

I don't understand why Republicans continue to call Senator Obama "The One" - none of his supporters has ever used that term. Why do you rely on mocking the man and spreading lies about him? Is it maybe because you are obviously wrong on the issues? Crawl back into your caves, please, and let us get to work cleaning up another one of your messes.

Posted by: Jennifer Mullen | Oct 29, 2008 9:13:15 PM

_____________________________________

When a party has no good ideas or solutions you slander your opponent. Just like Brad , you know " the one " comment. The consistent theme from the RNC and the McCain campaign is fear and hate . And , this paper's editorial board enforces that theme. Sad to think that some in this state are unable to look to the future .

Posted by: pam,greenwood | Oct 30, 2008 9:58:27 AM

Talk about letting emotion override the higher faculties...

p.m., thanks for pointing out the painfully obvious:

Jennifer, Oprah Winfrey introduced Obama as "The One" years ago. I have seen the videotape. If you would Google it, you could probably find it....

Posted by: p.m. | Oct 29, 2008 10:43:00 PM

Yes, I got the thing about "The One" from that font of Republican bile, Oprah... We "Republicans" always go to her for our marching orders, talking points, swastika armbands, etc.

Folks, where are we when we can't even use the smallest bits of irony in our public discourse without somebody getting all offended?

Come on, folks -- Phillip gets it. He's for Obama, and he can josh about the cheesiness:

Naturally, my biggest complaint was the syrupy Saving-Private-Ryan-ish background music.

Posted by: Phillip | Oct 30, 2008 4:40:54 AM

And I didn't even notice the music -- leave it to Phillip; he's our music guy. I just noticed the cheesy set, which someone was careful to make ALMOST exactly like the Oval Office, but enough unlike it to allow for plausible deniability. I mean, LOOK at it, people. Now that's artistry.

Folks, cheesy is cheesy. Joe the Plumber -- cheesy. Pandering with a gas tax cut -- cheesy. Picking Sarah Palin -- cheesy (although, to quote from the movie Phillip cites, I find myself "strangely attracted..."). Maverick this, maverick that -- cheesy.

Now, you Obama supporters -- make some ironic comments about your guy. Come on, you can do it. Look, this guy's going to be the president, and I just won't be able to stand four years of y'all being so deadly earnest. Loosen up.

McCain's Bob Dole problem

No, I'm not saying Bob Dole personally is causing a problem for John McCain. I'm saying his problem is that in this election, he's playing the Bob Dole part -- and Barack Obama is Bill Clinton (but don't tell him that -- the way he and Bill have been getting along, he's likely to take it as an insult).

You remember Bob Dole -- the other disabled war hero who couldn't win the White House, the one who always referred to himself in the Third Person, by his full name ("Bob Dole doesn't do that! Why would you say Bob Dole does that? Leave Bob Dole alone...") .

Dole ran a lousy campaign, lousy primarily in that it utterly failed to present convincingly why he should have been president. McCain is doing the same thing now.

The big difference between the two, for me, is that I started out liking McCain a whole lot more than I liked the guy that the NYT once called the Dark Prince of Gridlock. Bob Dole was a much more wholehearted partisan warrior than McCain. He was no maverick, not by a long shot. You don't get to lead your party in the Senate by rebelling against it.

So with me, he started off in a hole. And in the end, I still think McCain should be president -- while I no longer thought that of Bob Dole by the end of the 1996 campaign. I had thought it for awhile, though, comparing him and Bill Clinton. I had liked Clinton in 92, but he had disappointed me in a lot of ways by 96. The bottom line was that I just didn't trust the guy anymore, based on a number of things. (I have no dramatic personal story about that, but I know someone who does: Hodding Carter III told me of going to see Bill Clinton with a delegation concerned about Bosnia. I forget what the delegation wanted -- that the U.S. get involved, that the U.S. stay out, whatever -- but whatever it wanted, Clinton promised bald-faced he would do. They left feeling confident. About a week later, Clinton did the exact opposite, and it came out that he had known that was what he was going to do when he met with the delegation. Carter felt personally betrayed by that. It seemed consistent with the impression I had formed by then.)

Early in the campaign, I wrote some columns -- and editorials, too, I think -- that pretty clearly expressed a preference for Dole over Clinton. But when the time approached to do our actual endorsement, I went to then-editor Tom McLean and told him I could not in good conscience write it, because I had become convinced that Dole couldn't govern his way out of a wet paper bag. I knew by then that I couldn't convince the board not to endorse Dole, but I declined the honor of writing it. (Of course, you didn't hear all of this at the time because it was long before I became editor and adopted the policies of extreme transparency that you see today. The board was Old School in those days; you didn't see the man behind the curtain.)

I never got to that point with McCain, but in the last weeks I thought about it. Those of you who insist that this endorsement was fully decided long ago don't understand how much I thought about it. But in the end, for me, John McCain may not be good at communicating via a political campaign that he would be the better president, but I still believe he'd be the better president -- based on Iraq, based on the Gang of 14 and judicial selection, on free trade, on immigration, etc., all that stuff I've already told you.

Now here's a postscript to the story that will cause you to do a double-take: Despite what I'd said to Tom, I voted for Dole in 96. Why? For the exact same reason I voted for McGovern in 72. You probably don't know many people who can say that, but I can. (Never doubt my deep devotion to UnParty unorthodoxy.) And I don't regret either vote.

Essentially, both were protest votes. I thought McGovern would have been a disaster as president. But I wanted to register a protest against Nixon, mainly because of Watergate (even based on what little was known by then). If McGovern had had a chance to win, I'd have held my nose and voted for Nixon, because on the whole I thought the gummint would be in more capable hands that way. And I'd have regretted it forever. But McGovern's hapless candidacy gave me the opportunity to make the gesture.

Same deal in 96. If I'd thought Dole had a prayer, I'd have held my nose and voted for Clinton -- much as I distrusted him by that point, I thought him more competent. (Note that Nixon and Clinton had an advantage with me that Obama lacks -- they had shown their competence in office, as president.) But Dole had no prayer, so I voted for him as a protest. And it felt exactly like voting for McGovern.

By the way, torn as I was, I made both of those decisions in the voting booth. So I can, indeed, identify with Cindi's indecision.

Bipartisan bailout deal reached

Maybe this did turn out to be our fiscal 9/11, pulling Democrats and Republicans together to act in the interests of the country rather than their respective parties. If so, kudos all around. We'll no more later in the day after the historic confab at the White House with congressional leaders and both presidential candidates.

For now, here's what The Wall Street Journal is reporting.

Here's The New York Times version.

And here's AP's:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Key Republicans and Democrats reported agreement Thursday on an outline for a historic $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, but there was still resistance from rank-and-file House Republicans despite warnings of an impending panic.

"I now expect we will, indeed, have a plan that can pass the House, pass the Senate, be signed by the president and bring a sense of certainty to this crisis that is sill roiling in the market," Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, said as members of both parties emerged from a two-hour negotiating session.

Negotiators planned to present the outline at a White House meeting later Thursday with President Bush and the rivals to replace him, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barrack Obama.

"We're very confident that we can act expeditiously," said Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., the Banking Committee chairman.

Not everyone in the closed-door talks was as optimistic. Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, the only House Republican in the bargaining meeting, stopped short of saying he agreed with the other lawmakers on an imminent deal.

"There was progress today," said Bachus, the senior Republican on the House Financial Services panel.

Later, he issued a statement saying he was not empowered to strike any deals and there was "no agreement other than to continue discussions."

Both houses' Republican leaders, Rep. John Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell, also issued statements saying there was no agreement.

Still, the White House called the announcement "a good sign that progress is being made."

"We'll want to hear from (Treasury) Secretary (Henry) Paulson and take a look at the details. We look forward to a good discussion at the meeting this afternoon," said Tony Fratto, the deputy White House press secretary.

A Treasury spokeswoman said the proposal was being reviewed there.

On Wall Street, stock prices were up late in the trading day, but not by as much as earlier in the day.

The core of the plan proposed by the administration just a few days ago envisions the government buying up sour assets of shaky financial firms in a bid to keep them from going under and to stave off a potentially severe recession.

Obama and McCain called for a bipartisan effort to deal with the crisis, little more than five weeks before national elections in which the economy has emerged as the dominant theme.

McCain on Wednesday asked Obama to agree to delay their first debate, scheduled for Friday, to deal with the meltdown. Obama said the debate should go ahead.

Congressional negotiators said Thursday there were few obstacles to a final agreement, although no details of an accord were immediately available.

"There really isn't much of a deadlock to break," said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

But there were fresh signs of trouble in the House Republican Caucus. A group of GOP lawmakers circulated an alternative designed to attract private money back into the credit markets with less government intrusion.

Under that proposal, the government would provide insurance to companies that agree to hold frozen assets, rather than purchase them directly as envisioned under the administration's plan. The firms would have to pay insurance premiums to the Treasury Department for the coverage.

"The taxpayers haven't done anything wrong," said Rep Eric Cantor, R-Va., adding that rather than require them to bear the cost of the bailout, the alternative "pretty much puts the burden on Wall Street over time."

Boehner, R-Ohio, the minority leader, was huddling with McCain on the rescue. When asked whether the GOP presidential nominee could corral restive Republicans to support the plan, Boehner said, "Who knows?"

Bush told the nation in a televised address Wednesday night that passage of the package his administration has proposed was urgently needed to calm the markets and restore confidence in the reeling financial system.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush's agreement with Democrats on limiting pay for executives of bailed-out financial institutions and giving taxpayers an equity stake in the companies cleared a significant hurdle.

It was not immediately clear how lawmakers had resolved differences over how to phase in the unprecedented cost — a step demanded by Democrats and some Republicans who want stronger congressional control over the bailout — without spooking markets. The idea of letting the government take an ownership stake in troubled companies as part of the rescue, rather than just buying bad debt, also has been a topic of intense negotiation.

Frank told The Associated Press Thursday both elements would be included in the legislation.

Bush acknowledged Wednesday night that the bailout would be a "tough vote" for lawmakers. But he said failing to approve it would risk dire consequences for the economy and most Americans.

"Our entire economy is in danger," he said.

Our fiscal 9/11?

Remember when Democrats and Republicans stood on the Capitol steps and sang "God Bless America?" For a moment there, the Washington crowd was stunned by the attacks of 9/11 into forgetting their stupid partisan differences and remembering they were Americans. I made a passing reference to that in a column last week.

This NYT story describes a moment last night when the shock and awe of the scope of this mounting financial crisis had a similar effect on members of Congress. It happened in a briefing Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson gave to congressional leaders:

“When you listened to him describe it you gulped," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.

As Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, put it Friday morning on the ABC program “Good Morning America,” the congressional leaders were told “that we’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system, with all the implications here at home and globally.”

Mr. Schumer added, “History was sort of hanging over it, like this was a moment.”

When Mr. Schumer described the meeting as “somber,” Mr. Dodd cut in. “Somber doesn’t begin to justify the words,” he said. “We have never heard language like this.”

“What you heard last evening,” he added, “is one of those rare moments, certainly rare in my experience here, is Democrats and Republicans deciding we need to work together quickly.”

What an amazing time for a spirit of bipartisan cooperation to emerge -- if that indeed happens (and if it doesn't, we're sunk). Now, on the eve of this too-close-to-call presidential election, the one I worried so much about in another column.

I certainly hope that happens. But you know what? As weird as you may think the fact that 9/11 made me (however briefly) optimistic about the future, here's something you might find harder to fathom: I don't feel that way this time. With the terror attacks of 9/11, I had very clear ideas of what I thought should happen next (short version: fully engage the world), and it was my belief that those things would happen that prompted my optimism.

Now, I'm at a loss. I don't know what it is I want the government to coalesce around. Maybe Bush and Paulson are taking the right steps, but I don't know. To me, a financial mess of this magnitude is more perplexing than terrorist attacks. Not as immediately horrible, but less understandable. And that leaves me uneasy.

Also, the promise of bipartisanship seems shakier here. There is a history of partisans setting aside differences in response to an external threat. But many politicians cut their teeth demagoging economic issues, and happily drawing sharp ideological distinctions about them.

But I hope the potential described above is realized. As uncertain as I am about the way forward, I would feel much better if we'd drop the party games and face it together. That would help a great deal.

What did you think of John McCain's speech?

Well, I'm exhausted. Exhausted from holding my breath through the speech that started -- and finished -- with such promise. In the middle, it let me down several times, such as with that silly litany about "I will do this; Obama will do that." (Yeah, a certain amount of that is called for -- a candidate is obliged to tell us why we should vote for him and not the other guy -- but that bit was contrived.)

This was ... a great speech, delivered by someone who is not a great speaker... with bits and pieces that dragged it back down to mediocrity (and sometimes worse). If he'd cut out about a quarter of it, maybe less (and cut the right parts), it would have been magnificent. In the morning, when I have the full text in front of me, it might be an interesting exercise to see what a little editing can do...

The great parts (or the ones that leap to mind; I'm sure I'm forgetting some; I look forward to reviewing it in the morning):

• He called repeatedly on Americans to come together, to reject the foolishness of partisan estrangement. In those parts he was in touch with his essential Joe-ness, his UnPartisanship.
• He dealt with a heckler by saying the American people want us to come together.
• He spoke unflinchingly of the failings of his own party.
• When he decried the failed policies of the past and taking on the culture of Washington in which he has so often been a misfit, it was clear he was talking about the failures of Republicans AND Democrats.
• He told his story of heroism not in terms of his own achievement, but of how it taught him that radical individualism, his worship of himSELF as opposed to something larger, was a dead end.

Where the speech disappointed was where he extolled the values of that same selfishness, and did it in ways that were downright schizophrenic, from the prattling about tax cuts to that bizarre passage in which he promised private school "choice" in one breath, and promised to fix public schools by encouraging and rewarding good teachers and getting rid of bad ones (two news flashes: America will never pay for both, and education is NOT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S BUSINESS!).

Those bits made the speech sound like it was written in places by a committee, one engaged in a tug of war between vision and cant.

He inspired when he spoke of foreign affair, and he sometimes sounded dangerously naive when speaking of domestic. That sort of makes him and Obama a complementary pair. Yes, that's an oversimplification (if Obama really knew what to do domestically, he'd push for single-payer).

So I was often deeply inspired, and at other times saying, DOH! Why'd he say that?

So I'm exhausted. I'm so glad these conventions are over.

What did y'all think?

The hype on McCain's speech

Minutes before John McCain's speech, I saw a New York Times story, based on excerpts released in advance, that said "McCain Plans to Speak of Dedication to Bipartisanship."

Obviously, this increased my anticipation. That made it sound like he was going to give the speech I had hoped Barack Obama would give last week, but was disappointed.

We'll see. It will be hard to meet the UnParty standard, the way Joe did...

Why do these conventions run so late?

So once again, the only thing of the evening I want to see at the convention is on at 10 p.m. Like waiting for my man Joe last night. These people are keeping me up past my bedtime.

And why is that? It's certainly not for the benefit of the delegates. The state delegations -- South Carolina, anyway -- have their daily meeting at some ungodly hour like 7:30 a.m., and then the next thing worth paying attention to is some speech at 10 p.m., and they all go out afterwards. No way to live, even for a week. It's never made any sense to me.

Do the parties not think that maybe, just maybe, kids ought to be able to watch these things and learn a bit about their country's political system? Yeah, I know, that's a setup for cynical jokes about things not being fit for children's eyes, but seriously -- for good or ill, it's educational.

Anyway, the schedules make no sense to me. But neither do a lot of other things about political parties.

But I'll stay up. Hey, if I hadn't stayed up last night I would have missed Joe, and that was the best speech of either convention so far. No, Joe's no barnburner of a speaker, but it was what he had to say. The partisans in the hall didn't know whether to clap or not at his best lines, because it was an UnParty speech, and not their sort of thing at all. I loved it.

Lieberman Agonistes

Let me admit straight up that that headline wasn't my idea. It's lifted straight from a Wall Street Journal editorial today, which chides both left and right -- especially the right -- for their antagonism toward my man Joe.

The specific occasion is the chatter about Lieberman as running mate for John McCain. While justly dismissing the hysterical reaction such talk generates on the right, the WSJ agrees with me that veep candidate would not be the best role for the independent from Connecticut. More coincidentally, the newspaper suggests a role that I had been thinking of in connection with Mr. Lieberman not an hour before I read the editorial:

    Our own view is that Mr. Lieberman would make a fine Secretary of State, and that, given the political risks, making him vice president would probably be too great an election gamble. But Mr. Lieberman's national security credentials are first-rate...

Good thought, there. Perhaps Mr. McCain should talk it up.

What if such energy were used for Good?

Karl Rove had an op-ed piece in the WSJ today (he writes for them a lot these days) expressing grudging respect for the "brilliant ground game" Barack Obama's put together. For Democrats, of course, this is like receiving an admiring nod from The Devil Himself, especially since the Atwater cohort is saying that Obama is using his -- Karl Rove's -- ideas. An excerpt:

    For starters, Barack Obama's manager admitted to the New York Times that he wanted an "army of persuasion" modeled explicitly on the massive Bush neighbor-to-neighbor "Victory Committee" of '00 and '04. Those efforts deployed millions of volunteers to register, persuade and get-out-the-vote....
    Like Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama has harnessed the Internet for persuasion, communication and self-directed organization. A Bush campaign secret weapon in 2004 was nearly 7.5 million email addresses of supporters, 1.5 million of them volunteers. Some volunteers ran "virtual precincts," using the Web to register, persuade and organize family and friends around the country. Technology has opened even more possibilities for Mr. Obama today.
    The Obama campaign is trying to catch up with the GOP's "microtargeting" program, which uses powerful analytical tools and extensive household consumer information to focus on prospects for conversion and extra turnout help....

All of which emphasized two points: First, people like Karl Rove think this is a "Game," and therefore alternate hitting the opposition as hard as they can with sportsmanlike expressions of admiration when the other side scores a good hit. (Subtext: I'm a professional, not one of this "true-believer" losers.) It's not about trying to accomplish something for the country; it's about playing hard and winning.

Second, it makes me think: Why can't this kind of energy be devoted to accomplishing some good for the country after the hoopla of elections is over? What if we were to enlist millions of motivated and dedicated volunteers to push with all their might for National Health care, or a solution to the coming Social Security crash, or an honest-to-goodness Energy Policy that would improve our economy, our strategic position and the health of the planet?

Or, to think of it another way, what if Mr. Bush, after winning that 2004 election, had put enough boots on the ground in Iraq (the comparison to the army Rove assembled seems apt) to nip the insurgency in its bud, long before he finally agreed to the Surge?

All the money, and all the effort that goes into political campaigns... what a waste, unless an equal or greater effort is mounted after the campaign to accomplish something in office.

But that's not the way the Game is played, is it?

Our Joe cup overfloweth

Y'all saw where I bragged on Joe for his fine piece in the WSJ the other day. Well, today we have a counterpoint from Joe in that same publication, so our cup overfloweth.

OK, for those of you too lazy to follow links, I'm talking Lieberman and Biden, respectively. Both of them are good guys. We endorsed the first Joe in his presidential bid in 2004, and might well have endorsed the other this time around if he hadn't dropped out before the S.C. primary (we went with Obama instead, you'll recall). Both are blessed with essential Joe-ness, as I've explained before.

And although these pieces are set against each other, there is much to love in each of them, infused as they are with Joe-ness. In other words, they are written by rational men who are not entirely enslaved by the idiotic partisan extremes of our times. Joe is much more inclined to support his party's nominee, but that's because he hasn't made the radical break that Joe was forced into. But you still don't find the kind of polarized claptrap that you usually hear from the party faithful on either side.

OK, I'll start using last names, although it sounds unfriendly...

Here's one of the best parts of Mr. Biden's piece. It repeats a point that I've praised him for making in the past, which is that President Bush blew a once-in-a-lifetime chance to lead this nation, and the Western alliance, into a far better place than the sad situation that Joe, I mean Tom, Friedman described the other day. Anyway, here's the Biden excerpt:

    Sen. Lieberman is right: 9/11 was a pivotal moment. History will judge Mr. Bush's reaction less for the mistakes he made than for the opportunities he squandered.
    The president had a historic opportunity to unite Americans and the world in common cause. Instead – by exploiting the politics of fear, instigating an optional war in Iraq before finishing a necessary war in Afghanistan, and instituting policies on torture, detainees and domestic surveillance that fly in the face of our values and interests – Mr. Bush divided Americans from each other and from the world.

As with Lieberman, though, there are weak spots. In particular, there's this contradictory passage:

    Terrorism is a means, not an end, and very different groups and countries are using it toward very different goals. Messrs. Bush and McCain lump together, as a single threat, extremist groups and states more at odds with each other than with us: Sunnis and Shiites, Persians and Arabs, Iraq and Iran, al Qaeda and Shiite militias. If they can't identify the enemy or describe the war we're fighting, it's difficult to see how we will win.
    The results speak for themselves.
    On George Bush's watch, Iran, not freedom, has been on the march: Iran is much closer to the bomb; its influence in Iraq is expanding; its terrorist proxy Hezbollah is ascendant in Lebanon and that country is on the brink of civil war.

The problem is that on the one hand, he feels constrained (since he's still in the party) to state the party line that terrorism is a means, not an end, or even a coherent enemy -- all of which is true, but his litany of all the different contending actors is belied by the truth he later embraces: That through it all, Iran has been on the march, and gaining against us. That would have been an excellent point to make; it's just too bad he weakened it by making the situation seem less coherent than it is two paragraphs before (this incoherence of the enemy is essential to the modern Democratic ideology that Lieberman abhors -- the refusal to clearly see and clearly state the degree to which we face a coherent, albeit complex, enemy).

I refer to another recent Friedman column, which -- thanks to the fact that he isn't carrying anybody's political water -- states how all of these superficially disparate issues are connected, to our nation's great disadvantage (largely due to the Bush failures that Biden refers to):

    The next American president will inherit many foreign policy challenges, but surely one of the biggest will be the cold war. Yes, the next president is going to be a cold-war president — but this cold war is with Iran.
    That is the real umbrella story in the Middle East today — the struggle for influence across the region, with America and its Sunni Arab allies (and Israel) versus Iran, Syria and their non-state allies, Hamas and Hezbollah. As the May 11 editorial in the Iranian daily Kayhan put it, “In the power struggle in the Middle East, there are only two sides: Iran and the U.S.”

Anyway, if the link works for you, I recommend you read this one as well as the last one. Between the two of them, you'll see an intelligent way to debate foreign policy, as opposed to the idiocy of left and right, Democrat and Republican.

Joe laments loss of the party of FDR, Truman, JFK

This is why I like Joe Lieberman so much -- he's always writing stuff that sounds like I wrote it myself, always giving me cause to think, Thank God I'm not alone here...

Specifically, he wrote in an op-ed piece in today's WSJ:

How did the Democratic Party get here? How did the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy drift so far from the foreign policy and national security principles and policies that were at the core of its identity and its purpose?...

This was the Democratic Party that I grew up in – a party that was unhesitatingly and proudly pro-American, a party that was unafraid to make moral judgments about the world beyond our borders. It was a party that understood that either the American people stood united with free nations and freedom fighters against the forces of totalitarianism, or that we would fall divided.

He goes on to lament how this unraveled over Vietnam. He writes wistfully of efforts by such Democrats as himself (remember the Third Way?) to pull the party back from a condition in which it blamed America for all its international troubles, as the party became "prisoner to a foreign policy philosophy that was, in most respects, the antithesis of what Democrats had stood for under Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy."

There are flaws in the piece, admittedly. He uses the inaccurate common terminology, referring to this trend toward self-loathing isolationism as a move "to the left" -- when I would assert that it is the rejection of the kind of idealistic, internationalist liberalism of FDR, JFK and the rest. Isolationism is, if nothing else, a manifestation of conservatism -- and not the better sort of conservatism, either.

But set that aside. He ends strongly, with a quote from "a great Democratic secretary of state," Dean Acheson (who, perhaps not coincidentally, was from Connecticut):

(N)o people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies.

Why do we let THESE people run our country?

How can any Democrat or Republican look in the mirror after the shenanigans in the House Thursday? An excerpt from the WSJ's story today:

WASHINGTON -- The House rejected $163 billion in funding for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- the first time the House has voted against funding for the Iraq war -- as Republicans held back support as a protest against domestic-spending items Democrats added to the legislation.
    Some antiwar Democrats applauded as 132 Republicans voted "present" and the funding failed on a 149-to-141 vote....
    The House passed two other measures during the war debate, one placing restrictions on the Iraq war, including a timeline for troop withdrawal, and another expanding funding for veterans' education benefits by collecting a new surtax from wealthy taxpayers.
    Democratic leaders planned the votes separately to allow their antiwar members to vote against funding operations in Iraq, while still passing a bill. But Republicans didn't vote for the war funding and then accused Democrats of loading up the legislation with spending items "on the backs" of troops....

I propose that when the Grownup Party takes over, we should ride them all out of town on a rail. Or is that a less-than-Grownup, emotional response on my part? Maybe, but somehow making them stand in a corner seems grossly inadequate.

Did Joe Wilson do a brave and smart thing? Critic says he did

A Democrat who wants to oppose U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson in the fall put out this release yesterday:

Beaufort, SC – Today, Democratic Congressional Candidate Rob Miller released the following statement concerning incumbent Joe Wilson's vote yesterday against legislation that could lower gas prices as much as 24 cents a gallon. Wilson was one of only 25 members of Congress to vote against H.R. 6022, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Fill Suspension and Consumer Protection Act. Majorities in both parties voted in favor of this legislation to provide Americans some quick relief from record high gas prices.

     "Joe Wilson owes people back home an explanation on why he sided with big oil and voted against providing families much needed relief at the gas pump. People are struggling simply to pay for the gas that gets them to and from work these days. Joe Wilson seems to be too busy cozying up to oil executives to even notice," Miller said. 
     "This is just another reason I'm running for Congress to bring change to Washington and give the voters of the Second District the representation they deserve."

                ###

I have yet to see a statement from Joe himself on the subject, but Rob Miller is a recent captain in the United States Marine Corps, and they're not trained to lie, so I'm going to take him at his word on this.

Now if Joe were running on the Grownup Party (a.k.a. UnParty, a.k.a. Energy Party) ticket, he'd be bragging about doing this. But since he's a mere Republican, he's not boasting.

But from this account, it sure sounds like he did the right thing.

Act your age: Join the Grownup Party

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
YOU’VE HEARD of the “UnParty” and the “Energy Party” — at least, you have if you’ve kept an eye on this space for any length of time.
    But I have yet another name for my never-ending battle against the foolishness of the Democratic and Republican parties: the Grownup Party.
    What is the Grownup Party? Let’s start with what it isn’t. It isn’t based on age. If it were, John McCain would win the party’s nomination this year, hands down. But John McCain recently proposed something that violated everything the Grownup Party stands for: a summerlong gasoline-tax vacation, which treats the voters of this country like children: You don’t like paying those mean ol’ nasty gas prices? Awww. Here’s a lollipop. Hillary Clinton likewise offended GP sensibilities by endorsing the McCain plan. Barack Obama, the youngest candidate out there, was the only one acting like a Grownup. (Although he did vote for a similar tax holiday as an Illinois state legislator. Presumably, he’s matured since then.)
    Why do Grownups not like the gas tax vacation? Sigh. Because they understand that if it has any effect on the market at all, it will encourage more fuel consumption during the busy summer months, which is bad enough in itself, but even worse in that increased demand leads to higher prices. And that way the money will go to the oil companies (it was reported last week that investors were disappointed because Exxon Mobil made a profit of only $10.9 billion in the first quarter), to petrodictators and to terrorists, instead of into the U.S. Treasury — that is, our treasury.
    Which brings us to something else about Grownups — they understand that in America, the government is us, rather than being some menacing thing out there, and that we’re very fortunate to live in this country at this time rather than in Russia under the czars — or under Vladimir Putin, for that matter. And we’re especially fortunate not to live in a place where there is no government, such as Somalia under the warlords.
    When the government does something we don’t like — which is pretty often, political immaturity being rampant — we don’t stamp our feet and talk about taking our ball (or  taxes, or whatever) and going home. Instead, we take responsibility for it, and try to bring it along. Yes, it’s a thankless task, like picking up after one’s children, or explaining to them why they can’t stay out late with their friends. But someone has to do it.
    The task may seem hopeless as well — but only to the sort who gives up. Grownups know they don’t have that option, so they keep putting forth ideas that make sense, day after day, just like Daddy  going to work.
    Here’s an example: On Friday, I posted an item on my blog headlined, “Free Thomas Ravenel.” Yes, it’s childish to cry out for attention with such misleading stunts, but I did it in the service of a Grownup purpose (and besides, it helped my three-year-old blog reach its millionth page view later that day). That purpose was to raise the question, Why do we want to pay to feed, clothe and house Mr. Ravenel for the next 10 months?
    That’s what we, the taxpayers, are going to do. Ravenel attorney Bart Daniel told the press last week that his client will report to federal prison May 29 to begin serving his sentence for conspiracy to possess cocaine with the intent to distribute.
    Yes, he needs to be punished for flouting our laws (especially since he was our state treasurer at the time), but think about it: Mr. Ravenel is a multi-millionaire. Wouldn’t a multi-million-dollar fine — him paying us — make more sense than us paying for his incarceration? Yes, he was fined $221,000, and had to pay $28,000 in restitution. But we’re going to turn right around and spend a lot of that to keep him locked up over the next few months.
    That’s on the federal level. Closer to home, South Carolina locks up more people per capita than almost any other state, and then refuses to appropriate enough money to run our prisons safely, much less to rehabilitate prisoners so that maybe we won’t have to lock them up again.
    That’s why we advocated Attorney General Henry McMaster’s “middle court” idea in a Wednesday editorial. It would operate in a way similar to drug courts, combining individual attention with certain punishment for anyone who breaks the rules. But as long as offenders followed those rules, we wouldn’t waste money locking them up.
    So far, the boys and girls over in the Legislature have not gone for this idea. That’s bad.
This is good: The city of Columbia is facing up to the fact that it costs money to lock people up for more offenses than Richland County does. The city has finally agreed to start paying a per diem fee for city prisoners housed in the county jail.
    As we said in a Friday editorial, the good news here is that as a result, the city will encourage police officers to lock up fewer offenders who pose no physical threat to the citizenry.
    This is progress. When it comes to nonviolent offenders, the “lock ’em up but don’t pay for guards” position is infantile — all emotion and immediate gratification, without a logical foundation. It’s encouraging to see our capital city moving away from it, however gradually. We await similar signs of progress on the state and federal levels.
    But we’re not holding our breath. That would be childish.

To read past columns about the Grownup Party and more, please proceed at a sedate, dignified pace to
thestate.com/bradsblog/.

The Energy Party Manifesto: Feb. 4, 2007

Since, I'm on my Energy Party kick again, it occurs to me to provide you with something never previously published on the blog: My original Energy Party column from the paper. Since it was based on a blog post to start with, I didn't post it here. Consequently, when I do my obligatory "Energy Party" link, it's always to the incomplete, rough draft version of the party manifesto.

So, if only to give myself something more complete to link to in the future, is the full column version, published in The State on Feb. 4, 2007. Here's a PDF of the original page, and here's the column itself:

THE STATE
JOIN MY PARTY, AND YOUR WILDEST DREAMS WILL COME TRUE. REALLY.
By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
EVERYBODY talks about the weather, which is as boring and pointless as the cliche suggests. So let's do something about it.
    And while we're at it, let's win the war on terror, undermine tyrants around the globe, repair our trade imbalance, make our air more breathable, drastically reduce highway deaths and just generally make the whole world a safer, cleaner place.
    It'll be easy, once we make up our minds to do it. But first, you Democrats and Republicans must throw off the ideological chains that bind you, and we independents must get off the sidelines and into the game.
    In other words, join my new party. No, not the Unparty I've written about in the past. You might say that one lacked focus.
    This one will be the Energy Party. Or the "Responsible Party," "Pragmatic Party" or "Grownup Party." Any will do as far as I'm concerned, but for the sake of convenience, I'm going with "Energy" for now.
    Like weather, everybody talks about Energy, but nobody proposes a comprehensive, hardnosed plan to git 'er done. So let's change that, go all the way, get real, make like we actually know there's a war going on. Do the stuff that neither the GOP nor the Dems would ever do.
    I've made a start on the plan (and mind, I'm not speaking for the editorial board here). Join me, and we'll refine it as we go along:
-- * Jack up CAFE standards. No messing around with Detroit on this one. It's possible to make cars that go 50 miles to the gallon. OK, so maybe your family won't fit in a Prius. Let's play nice and compromise: Set a fleet average of 40 mph within five years.
-- * Raise the price of gasoline permanently to $4. When the price of gas is $2, slap on a $2 tax. When demand slacks off and forces the price down to $1.50, jack the tax up to $2.50. If somebody nukes some oil fields we depend upon, raising the price to $3, the tax drops to $1. Sure, you'll be paying more, but only as long as you keep consuming as much of it as you have been. Which you won't. Or if you do, we'll go to $5.
-- * You say the poor will have trouble with the tax? So will I. Good thing we're going to have public transportation for a change (including my favorite, light rail). That's one thing we'll spend that new tax money on.
-- * Another is a Manhattan project (or Apollo Project, or insert your favorite 20th century Herculean national initiative name) to develop clean, alternative energy. South Carolina can do hydrogen, Iowa can do bio, and the politicians who will freak out about all this can supply the wind power.
-- * Reduce speed limits everywhere to no more than 55 mph. (This must be credited to Samuel Tenenbaum, who bends my ear about it almost daily. He apparently does the same to every presidential wannabe who calls his house looking for him or Inez, bless him.) This will drastically reduce our transportation-related fuel consumption, and have the happy side benefit of saving thousands of lives on our highways. And yes, you can drive 55.
-- * Enforce the blasted speed limits. If states say they can't (and right now, given our shortage of troopers, South Carolina can't), give them the resources out of the gas tax money. No excuses.
-- * Build nuclear power plants as fast as we can (safely, of course). It makes me tired to hear people who are stuck in the 1970s talk about all the dangerous waste from nuke plants. Nuclear waste is compact and containable. Coal waste (just to cite one "safe" alternative) disperses into the atmosphere, contaminates all our lungs and melts the polar ice caps. Yeah, I know; it would be keen if everyone went back to the land and stopped using electricity, but give it up -- it ain't happening.
-- * Either ban SUVs for everyone who can't demonstrate a life-ordeath need to drive one, or tax them at 100 percent of the sales price and throw that into the winthe- war kitty.
-- * If we don't ban SUVs outright, aside from taxing them, launch a huge propaganda campaign along the lines of "Loose Lips Sink Ships." Say, "Hummers are Osama's Panzer Corps." (OK, hot shot, come to my blog and post your own slogan.) Make wasting fuel the next smoking or DUI -- absolutely socially unacceptable.
-- * Because it will be a few years before we can be completely free of petrol, drill the ever-lovin' slush out of the ANWR, explore for oil off Myrtle Beach, and build refinery capacity. But to keep us focused, limit all of these activities to no more than 20 years. Put the limit into the Constitution.
    You get the idea. Respect no one's sacred cows, left or right. Yeah, I know some of this is, um, provocative. But that's what we need. We have to wake up, go allout to win the war and, in the long run, save the Earth. Pretty soon, tyrants from Tehran to Moscow to Caracas will be tumbling down without our saying so much as "boo" to them, and global warming will slow within our lifetimes.
    Then, once we've done all that, we can start insisting upon some common sense on entitlements, and health care. Whatever works, whatever is practical, whatever solves our problems -- no matter whose ox gets gored, or how hard you think it is to do what needs doing. Stop whining and grow up. Leave the ideologues in the dust, while we solve the problems.
    How's that sound? Can any of y'all get behind that? Let me know, because we need to get going on this stuff.

Join the party at my -- I mean, our-- Web Headquarters:  http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/.

A Grownup Party forum

As I mentioned back here, sometimes I call the UnParty the Energy Party (depending on the subject at hand), and once or twice I've referred to the Grownup Party. That kicked off a discussion that I think has a certain relevance to some of the philosophical friction that vexes us these days. Here's the discussion:

Doug, I give you credit for being a consistent anarchist...but don't you support parental "authority"?

Posted by: Randy E | Apr 30, 2008 9:17:05 AM

Not coercive authority... I should be able to influence my children through my words and actions, not by threats or intimidation.

I want a government based on ethics, productivity, and fairness.   We have a government based on lies, inefficiency, and
greed.   

Posted by: Doug Ross | Apr 30, 2008 9:48:46 AM

Actually, whenever I have disputes with libertarians, I do so as a parent. I'm in my 32nd year of being a parent. I have five kids and three grandchildren, and my worldview is that of a parent. Whenever I hear people standing up for their "right" to do something stupid -- such as not wear motorcycle helmets on the public roads -- I hear the voice of a child. By now, it's sort of hard-wired into me.

Lots of people look at laws in terms of "what this means to me" in terms of "what I get to do" or "what gets done to me." I tend to look at society as a whole and think, Is this a good idea overall? or Does this make society safer, or healthier, or wealthier? or Is this the logical way for society to function?

I don't think, Do I want to pay this tax? or Do I think I should have to buckle my seat belt? To me, those are unacceptably self-centered questions. This makes for profound disagreements, because the basic cognitive processes, the entire perspective going in, is very, very different.

Posted by: Brad Warthen | Apr 30, 2008 9:52:30 AM

Brad,

You may not understand this but my view on society is the same as yours: Is this a good idea overall? Does this make society safer, or healthier, or wealthier? Is this the logical way for society to function?

And then I examine the issue using my own personal experience as reference. Take taxes for example... I look at the issue logically based on the taxes I pay and conclude that a) the system is illogical b) the use of tax dollars is inefficient and c) the tax burden is unfairly applied.
I don't want MY taxes to be lower, I want EVERYONE's taxes to be lower... because I believe our economy would be far better off for EVERYONE if we had less government. The same logic applies to my views on Social Security, healthcare, education, etc.

Your world view is what gives us the government we have today. One where we citizens pay people to sit around making crucial decisions like: when can we sell beer and wine on Sunday? what time does a store need to open on Sunday? what tax breaks does a newspaper deserve that other companies do not? should we give people age 785 and over a 1/2% sales tax break? how much of the taxpayers' money should we give to the Okra Strut? and on and on it goes. Completely wasted effort... I want to see that abolished for EVERYONE's benefit, not my own.

Big government types are worse than selfish - they take what isn't theirs.

Posted by: Doug Ross | Apr 30, 2008 10:52:03 AM

And I see those as unrelated questions, not in terms of some sort of overriding conflict between "government" and... what -- "ungovernment?" But you're right in that government in one sense or another is involved in all those decisions. What I wonder about is what you see as the alternative.

Basically, we have this thing called a civilization. But even in the most chaotic, anarchic situations, certain arrangements arise among human beings that determine how they are going to live together (or NOT live together). Such things seem unavoidable in a group of any sort of social animals. With gorillas, you have a whole network of decisions and arrangements that tend to be built around the overriding question of, "Who gets to be the alpha male?"

Things get more complicated with humans because we are a verbalizing race, and think in symbols and abstractions that can't be communicated without language. But everywhere that there are two or more humans together, some sort of arrangement or agreement has to be arrived at in terms of how to interact and arrange things, from the ownership of property to acceptable behavior.

In the closest thing to a state of nature -- a place where government has utterly collapsed, such as in Somalia; or a place where conventional government is not recognized as legitimate, such as Sicily over the centuries -- you have something closer to the "alpha male" model found among other creatures. In Somalia, it's warlords. In Sicily (and sometimes among transplanted communities of Sicilians) you have a system of bosses and underbosses who hold power through the most elemental system of violence-backed "respect."

Now THAT is a system in which somebody is, as you say, taking what isn't theirs.

Actually, through much of human history, the warlord model has held sway, in such disparate settings as pre-communist China and Europe during the middle ages. Europeans called it feudalism. Under such a system, wealth that is coerced from weaker members of the society is used in such capital projects as building fortresses for the warlords. What you don't see in a system such as that is a system of roads. For such infrastructure as that, which might economically benefit the society more broadly, there has to be a different governing system. For well over 1,000 years, Europeans continued to use roads the Romans had built because that was the last time there was a broad government with an overarching concept of acting on behalf of something broader -- in that case, an empire in which the rule of law was only helpful if you were a Roman.

You saw some city-states rise up in Italy, and bands of city states along the Baltic and in other regions, in which councils and other decision-making bodies created infrastructure and regulations that facilitated commerce that created wealth for a somewhat larger group.

Anyway, to speed ahead... in this country we came up with representative democracy as a means for a free people to work out questions of how they would arrange themselves socially and make the decisions that WILL BE MADE one way or another among any group of humans. Once everyone gets a voice like that, all sorts of questions will come up: Do we need a new road? OK, how will we pay for it? Some people will not want to see alcohol sold at all, others will have an opposite view. Perhaps for a time, the community will strike a compromise: OK, we'll allow alcohol to be sold in our community, but not on Sunday, because there is a critical mass in the community that finds such activities on a Sunday beyond the pale, and those who don't feel that way go along to get what they want on the other six days.

Of course, laws governing alcohol get far more complicated than that, with debates over where to draw the lines in terms of operating a car on the PUBLIC roads after drinking, whether minors can drink or even hang out in drinking establishments, and so forth. And all of these are legitimate areas for regulation as long as we, acting through this system of representative democracy, decide they ARE legitimate areas for such.

Government, and politics, are in our system the proper place for deciding where all those lines are.

In our constitutional system, we have in writing certain guarantees to prevent a government answering to a majority doesn't trample certain fundamental rights (life, liberty, and such) of any individuals, including those in political minorities. This does not, of course, mean that individuals can blow off the more general will. You can't commit murder just because it's in keeping with your personal value system. Nor can you take your neighbor's car without his permission, or poison his cat, or engage in insider trading, or sell beer in a community that has legitimately (acting through the proper processes) decided to make that illegal.

This is a great system; it beats the hell out of doing things according to the whim of the local warlord. And everyone -- libertarians, authoritarians, Christians, Wiccans, what have you -- get to make their case in the public square.

Some libertarians, unfortunately, seem to regard the political and governmental decisions that THEY DISAGREE WITH -- a tax they don't want to pay, for instance -- as being illegitimate. But they aren't.

Each and every one of us accepts losing political arguments, and submitting to the resulting regulations or laws or lack thereof -- as the price of living in this (I would argue) highly enlightened system of making social decisions. We accept it rather than go live in a place where only brute force counts.

That doesn't mean we don't make our case for the next election, and so forth.

Is anything I'm saying here making sense to you?

Posted by: Brad Warthen | Apr 30, 2008 11:51:33 AM

Also, Brad, your view of government is what gets us things like rebate checks to stimulate the economy and gas tax holidays.   

McCain claims both of those are great ideas designed to help everybody out when, in reality, he supports them for purely selfish reasons - to dupe voters so he can get elected President. He hasn't got the guts to tell the truth. His own personal ambition means more to him than the truth. Guess he'd make a good libertarian, huh?

Posted by: Doug Ross | Apr 30, 2008 11:56:27 AM

You can't commit murder just because it's in keeping with your personal value system. Nor can you take your neighbor's car without his permission, or poison his cat, or engage in insider trading, or sell beer in a community that has legitimately (acting through the proper processes) decided to make that illegal.
-Brad

Murder or killing the neighbor's cat are issues not in dispute by anyone, libertarians or otherwise. Those are acts that clearly affect other people and clearly must involve intervention by the government. Doug nor anyone else has suggested the legalization of murder. Clearly that is the mother of all non-sequetors.

But selling or buying beer on Sunday is completely different. That is a decision which rightly belongs in a class of activities that can and should best be handled by individuals without interference from the government because it has no affect on others. That is true regardless of who has their say in the public square. If I want to buy beer on Sunday that is a decision that should be made on the basis of my own conscience, religious views and other factors that only I can evaluate. It's no one else's business if I buy beer on Sunday. Same with video poker, pot smoking, what I do with my own body - including who I sleep with. It's no one's damn business, period.

Let's try another example that perhaps Brad can understand. What if some religious extremist came to power and, with the help of Congress, decided that only their religion could be exercised. The majority of the people agree. The folks from the banned religions had their say in the public square but were overruled. Brad could no longer attend the Catholic Church he's been a member of for decades.

Or, let's say that all movies that depict the political process in an unflattering light must now be banned. The Manchurian Candidate can not be shown any longer as a result.

Or, perhaps hitting close to home, what if the only newspaper allowed is the one run by the government. Even though The State has run editorials oppossing this the law passes anyway. The day after the law passes the government troops occupy The State paper's operation and begin publishing their own spin on the world.

According to Brad's world view all of these events are a legitimate intrusion into the way people conduct their lives. 

Posted by: bud | Apr 30, 2008 12:51:57 PM

Right, Bud. I don't want all government abolished, just some of it. I don't want to abolish all taxes, just some of them. I don't want to repeal all laws, just those that intrude on personal rights.

The whole drug issue is a perfect example. Nobody should ever go to jail for using drugs unless they end up doing some harm to another person. We have a society filled with people popping anti-depressants and sleeping pills, abusing alcohol, etc. and yet we have law enforcement people spending time and resources making sure adults don't smoke a joint. This is a case where the moral minority in power feels a need to enforce its will upon people.

Posted by: Doug Ross | Apr 30, 2008 1:27:26 PM

Actually, bud, what you just said is completely inconsistent with what I wrote. So this is a non-argument.

And Doug, come on: When a majority wants cocaine to be legal (again), it will be. I direct you to the Volstead Act and the Eighteenth Amendment, which were followed by the 21st Amendment...

A lot of people (primarily libertarians) point to Prohibition as evidence that such things "don't work." Nonsense. Prohibition went away for the same reason it came in-- the prevailing political will of the time, acting with sufficient force to change the constitution (which is what would be necessary for bud's farcical scenario to work, and good luck that that one, by the way).

In other words, "Prohibition doesn't work" only makes sense when you say, "Prohibition doesn't work if we don't want it."

Doug is using the reasoning of the child -- someone OUT THERE is imposing something on my in contradiction of my sovereign will. With the child, it's the parent; with Doug, it's this alleged "minority in power."

I don't look at the world that way, because I am not alienated from the American political system. Therefore I can say WE decide something, whether it was my idea or not. I don't see the decision-making apparatus as being something OUT THERE.

Posted by: Brad Warthen | Apr 30, 2008 1:43:56 PM

Graham tells veterans they're kicking a**

Thanks to Mike Cakora for pointing out to us this from Politico's The Crypt blog. It's from a Vets for Freedom rally outside the Capitol. John McCain stopped by with his buds Joe and Lindsey. An excerpt:

    “Do not underestimate the contribution you have made on the political battlefield at home,” Lieberman said. “Do we want al Qaeda and Iran to win a victory in Iraq?”
    “No!” the vets screamed.
    Graham added, "More than anything else, we need you to win."
    “You want to know who wants you to come home more than anybody?” Graham continued. “Al Qaeda because you’re kicking their ass.”

I expect bud, among others, will have some thoughts to share on this subject...

An intriguing way out for Hillary

With John McCain beating either Democrat in polls, and the prospect of months of exhausting Democratic Party infighting ahead, an intriguing idea was offered on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal today. It was proposed as a way for Hillary Clinton to save face, and for the party to regain ground lost to the bitter primary campaign. And the power to act lies entirely in the hands of Harry Reid:

    The solution that is within his power is simpler, yet more profound than any of the extraordinary political events America has witnessed this election year. It requires only the rarest of things: an individual willing to set aside his own power and ambition for the good of his party and his country. It is this: Mr. Reid could step aside as leader of the Senate and hand the post to Mrs. Clinton. Only the proffer of this consolation prize would likely persuade Mrs. Clinton to drop her divisive, and now futile, quest for her party's nomination.

Neither Sen. Reid nor Sen. Clinton is likely to actually listen to this advice, for a simple reason: The author of the piece is Richard N. Bond. Since he is a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, he is persona non grata to Democrats.

He would be persona non grata to me, too, as founder of the UnParty. But over the years, I've come to the conclusion that former party chairs can be decents sorts. Look at Henry McMaster and Joe Erwin (and don't look at Dick "Bad Boy" Harpootlian; that would spoil the picture). And besides, it's an important UnParty tenet to be open to good ideas wherever they may come from.

Is this a good idea? I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. Read the whole piece, if the link allows you to, and let me know what you think.

An amusing aside (amusing to me, anyway, as a word guy). Mr. Bond is addressing himself to Democrats -- sort of -- yet he can't help engaging in a linguistic tic that labels him immediately as a partisan Republican: He refers to "Democrat primaries," and "Democrat presidential hopefuls." What makes this stand out particularly is that he was actually trying to write in a neutral fashion, acknowledging the difference between a noun and an adjective. Elsewhere, he refers correctly to "a smashing Democratic win," "Democratic gains," "a dream Democratic year," and even, if you can believe it, "the Democratic Party!"

So he tried hard, but couldn't quite carry it off. He reminds me of Gordon Jackson as Flight Lt. Sandy McDonald, "Big S" in "The Great Escape." Remember how he drilled prospective escapees in their German, and would trip them up by suddenly speaking English, causing them to speak English, and he'd lecture them on not falling for such a cheap trick? Then he fell for it himself during the actual escape. (I couldn't find video of that scene, but as a consolation prize, here's a clip of Steve McQueen's legendary motorcycle chase scene.)

Habitual use or abuse of language carves deep ruts in the brain, and it's hard to keep your tongue out of them, however hard you try.

What took them so long to figure this out?

The New York Times is leading its site with a poll that reports that Barack Obama "is now viewed by most Democrats as the candidate best able to beat Senator John McCain in the general election."

This is news? Maybe so. Maybe Democrats didn't understand until now that Obama was their strongest candidate, the one most able to win in the fall.

I guess this shouldn't be surprising. There are still plenty of Republicans who haven't figured out that John McCain always was the strongest candidate they could put up, even though polls have told them that time and again.

To me, as a swing voter, these things are so obvious -- especially the McCain part, which I've had trouble understanding why everyone didn't see it in 2000. Obama's strength took a little longer to be so self-evident, but it's been beyond a doubt for several weeks now at least. I like McCain. I like Obama. There are millions like me, and we're the ones who decide elections.

When are the partisans going to understand that? Or is it that they understand, and refuse to accept -- to their own great disadvantage. This is the way it's been for a long time.

Until this year. This year, there will be a choice between two candidates who can appeal to independents -- which is two more than we've had in a long time.

Brooks makes case for Obama, whether meaning to or not

David Brooks is the latest media type to espouse This Week's Conventional Wisdom, which is to cast doubt on whether Barack Obama can deliver on all that hope he's been dishing out.

Not that he trashes him or anything. When I first started reading this piece, which will be on tomorrow's op-ed page, I thought it was yet another expression of Mr. Brooks' fondness for Hillary Clinton. But then I read this sentence: "They see that her entire political strategy consists of waiting for primary states as boring as she is." Whoa. Way harsh, huh?

No, Mr. Brooks is just trying to keep us from building ourselves up for a disappointment with our Obamaphoria. And that's a solid, conservative sort of thing to do, in the good, old-fashioned sense of "conservative."

But when he makes this point, he reminds me why I'm glad to be an Obamaniac:

And if he were president now, how would the High Deacon of Unity heal the breach that split the House last week?

You know what I had to do? I had to go down the hall and ask Mike what Mr. Brooks meant by that. (Mike knows stuff like that. Mikey will keep up with anything.)

It was just as I suspected. It was another one of those inside-the-Beltway, partisanship-for-partisanship things that happen to help interest groups raise money and give the blathering heads on 24/7 TV "news" something to blather about.

Mike explained that last week, all the Republicans in the House walked out over something the Democrats did having to do with Harriet Miers. That's all I needed to know! Don't tell me any more! This is obviously one of those things that I will cross the street to avoid knowing about. In fact, I immediately remembered having seen "Harriet Miers" in the headline of one of those hundreds of press releases from partisan warriors -- I'm thinking it was John Boehner --- that I delete without reading. Only Mr. Boehner says it was about something else altogether.

Don't get me wrong, folks. The FISA Act, or the firings of federal prosecutors, or whatever this is purportedly about, is an important matter. But when it devolves into Democrats issuing contempt citations on Republicans, and Republicans trying to embarrass them right back by walking out over it, it just convinces me that ALL of them are wrong, and I wish they would all walk out, and not come back. And take Harriet Miers with you.

It just makes a sensible person want to sweep the board clean and start over.

And folks, that's what we like about Obama. Every time Hillary Clinton speaks of her "35 years of experience," we know she means 35 years of this kind of stuff. And we don't want any more.

In the end, Brooks puts his finger on the source of Obama's appeal with great precision. We don't care whether he's demonstrated he can deliver on all the promises or not (something Hillary can't do, either; think "health care reform"). As Mr. Brooks says, "At least this candidate seems likely to want to head in the right direction."

Put-up or shut-up time for bud

This started as a comment back on this post, but I'm elevating it to post status:

OK, bud, put up or shut up time: So which party is it? I've made it absolutely clear to you over and over that when I use the term "partisan," I don't use it in the sense of "having an opinion about an issue" -- which seems to be your favored sense. I've made it clear that I am speaking of slavish identification with a political party (or the attendant disease of unvarying devotion to the "left" or "right," which increasing means the same thing in this country).

"Partisan," as it is used on this blog and as it is used about 99 percent of the time in this country, refers to sticking up for your party -- and we talking Democrats or Republicans here, since the Libertarians and others aren't really a factor -- at all times, and always denigrating people of the "opposite" party. It means surrendering your ability to think to party platforms. It means thinking it really MATTERS whether someone is a Democrat or a Republican.

So, bud -- what's my party? Democratic? Republican? What's my ideology: Left? Right?

Either state it, and support it, and let the other readers judge your thinking on the matter, or drop this business of taking a relatively esoteric sense of the word and using it for no other purpose whatsoever than to insult me. You know that's what you're doing, and there's no other possible reason to do it than to have that effect. You know that partisanship is loathsome to me, and unless you have a profound reading comprehension problem you know WHY. I'm pretty sure you've never met anyone who has explained his aversion to partisanship more than I have. This means what you are doing is saying, "What does Brad despise most?" and deciding to call me that, which is a form or argument on the intellectual level of "I know you are, but what am I?"

You know that ad hominem attacks are verboten on this blog. You know that in particular, I don't allow it from anonymous commenters. I have bent way the hell over backward for you on both points, mainly because I am the object rather than someone out there.

But I've had enough of it. Either support your assertion of my oh-so-obvious hypocrisy -- and that means showing that I am precisely the sort of partisan that I myself condemn, in the common sense in which I use the term -- or cut it out. Now.

What I do almost every waking level of my life is tell the world exactly what I think and why I think it. I am not going to provide a free forum for someone to repeatedly say that I am a liar about one of my most strongly held positions. Not unless he can back it up. This is his chance. He either does so, or starts addressing the substance of what I say without the name-calling.

McCain-Obama, and other match-ups

As I've expressed a number of times in the last few days -- although it occurs to me it's been on video or live TV mostly, and it's past time I say it in writing if I haven't already -- my fondest wish for the fall is that John McCain will face Barack Obama. It would be a "no-lose proposition for the nation."

In fact, it would be the best choice of my adult lifetime. Yeah, I liked both Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford pretty much. And I had nothing particular against George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton in 92. But this would be the first time I was ever positively enthusiastic about either eventuality. As I've spoken about it in recent days, I've had to stop myself several times from referring to it as a "ticket," and remember to say "on the same BALLOT" instead.

As to which I'd prefer -- well, I don't know which I'd prefer. If I'm to be consistent with my constant thought of the past eight years, McCain is the man. Going into last week, I was pretty sure I still preferred him, Obama (AND Clinton) being so much less experienced. There is also his position on the war, which almost exactly matches my own.

But the excitement of the last few days has made me wonder about that. And if Obama wins the nomination -- with the Super Tuesday odds still against him at this point -- I'll be even more pumped about his ability to lead us into a new kind of politics.

None of that will diminish my deep respect for McCain. But once my dream is realized -- if both are nominees -- I'll be able to compare them more objectively than I can now. Now, I'm just rooting for both of them.

But if only ONE of them is nominated -- say, we end up with Obama vs. Romney, or McCain vs. Clinton -- that makes my own, personal preference for endorsement the easiest I've ever experienced. And I think it would be just as easy for the nation, because the two I prefer are the ONLY ones with appeal among independents and crossover voters.

Then, of course, if NEITHER is nominated... well, that would be what we're used to, wouldn't it: A bitter choice between bad and worse. Surely this country can do better than that, for once.

After what we've seen happen in South Carolina, my hope is higher than ever for a far better choice for the nation than we have seen in many decades.

When party is set aside, things get done

Back on this post, Mike Cakora said there were things we could do to get the economy back on track, but there was a catch:

...it could be that one party develops a comprehensive approach to taxes, healthcare, energy, and the other stuff that ails us. I know you won’t like this, but it’s going to take a party to do so because any comprehensive fix will involve leadership, discipline, and limited horse-trading to deal with the special-interest harpies.

Actually, Mike, it doesn't take a party to act in time of crisis. It takes the opposite; it takes willingness to cast partisan considerations aside. Conveniently, there's an object lesson of this atop today's front page in The Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON -- On Jan. 17, Washington's mad dash to finalize an economic-stimulus plan ran into a wall.

On an afternoon conference call, the two top Democrats in Congress warned President Bush against going public with his own plan. "People will have to come out and criticize it if you put out a plan," Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, said, according to people familiar with the matter. "It will look like you're trying to jam us on this." Mr. Bush said he'd think it over.

Democrats left the call fuming. Some discussed rushing out their own plan to avoid being upstaged. The effort by both sides to keep their partisan instincts under wraps was coming unraveled. Ten minutes later, the president averted a clash by instructing his Treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, to call Capitol Hill leaders and say the White House would keep mum on the details of its plan.

A week later, congressional leaders and the White House announced their boldest attempt yet to address the economic uncertainty that some fear could lead to the deepest U.S. downturn in decades.

Mind you, I'm not saying this stimulus plan is necessarily the right action. But having slept through Ben Stein's class, I can't say I know what the right action is. Considering I have to trust other folks to be smart for me on this, I am WAY more likely to trust a bipartisan consensus action than a partisan one. Yes, that could mean a plan too watered down to do any good even if it moves in the right direction. Right now, I prefer the conservative (and no, folks, I don't mean politically conservative in the popular sense; I'm using the word in a plain English manner) approach. I guess for the time being I'm trusting Brooks' ecology to set the balance right.

Of course, when we get to the bread lines, I might be calling for a New Deal.

But in the meantime, we need Dems and Repubs to act like grownups and think about the good of the nation for a change, instead of scoring points on each other in the nauseating game that they usually play. And Sen. Reid, your people would not "have to come out and criticize," nor would the president's people "have to" do likewise, no matter how compelling your visceral compulsion may seem.

To the contrary, you all have an obligation to the country not to go into knee-jerk partisan fulmination mode, particularly in a time of crisis. Thank you, Sen. Reid and President Bush, for realizing that and managing to overcome that impulse and act appropriately, even if you did it only out of electoral fear of those of us who are sick and tired of your default modes, and even if it's only for this one brief moment.

2008: The good news, the bad news

David Brooks leads his latest column this way:

There is roughly a 100 percent chance that we’re going to spend much of this year talking about the subprime mortgage crisis, the financial markets and the worsening economy. The only question is which narrative is going to prevail, the Greed Narrative or the Ecology Narrative.

And this got me to thinking: 2008 has the potential to be a very good year politically. I might, for the first time in my adult life, have a choice in November between two presidential candidates I actually feel good about. Sure, a lot of obstacles have to be overcome. Obama might not get enough bounce from South Carolina to roll over Hillary Clinton on super-duper-pooper day. John McCain could still slip in Florida on account of the very quality that makes him viable in the fall. (Party orthodoxy types, from Don Fowler to Jim DeMint, can't stand the thought of nominating anybody that swing voters might actually want to vote for in a general election.)

But still, there's a very good chance that this could be the best year ever for the UnParty.

But then comes David Brooks raining on my parade. And I don't mean the Greed Narrative vs. Ecology Narrative. Both are are excruciatingly boring. No, the bad news is that when he says "there is roughly a 100 percent chance that we’re going to spend much of this year talking about the subprime mortgage crisis, the financial markets and the worsening economy," I'm afraid he's right. And this fills me with horror. It would mean a year of reading columns like this one. I normally enjoy Brooks columns, but this one was mind-numbingly boring, and stupid. Really, tell me -- what the hell is the difference between the "Greed Narrative" and the "Ecology Narrative?" Doesn't the ecology one assume greed? ("Everyone seeks wealth while minimizing risk.")

What if I get two candidates I can get excited about -- not just one, which would in itself be an embarrassment of riches going by recent years, but two, a no-lose proposition -- but they spend all their time talking about ... what did he say? Oh, yeah: "complex financial instruments, like globally securitized subprime mortgages."

I get mad just thinking about it. Wall Street is a con game, folks. Take the equities markets (you see? they've already got me saying stuff like "equities"! and I probably used it wrong!) -- analysts con people into overvaluing dot-coms, or undervaluing newspapers, with little regard for reality. And other people have to live and die by the foolish investments made or unmade as a result.

And then there are the folks at the big brokerage houses that invent "products," from which they make billions, when they never produced a damn' thing. They've added value to nothing.

I'm not crazy about having a mortgage to begin with, but if I do make a deal like that with somebody, I want to deal with that same somebody for the full 30 years (or 15, if you refinanced a while back the way I did). It should be like the nearest financial thing to a sacrament. What kind of sense does it make for mortgages to be gathered up like soybeans and bought and sold in bulk... Can you believe I said "in bulk?" A mortgage has no bulk! It's an abstract concept! Like money! When your mortgage gets sold, you have to think, it's not bad enough that I've indentured myself to this institution that made me the loan for the rest of my useful life, but now I'm being sold down the river!

If they're gonna talk about this stuff, I'm liable to haul off and start talking like John Edwards, and that would not be pretty! So back off with the money talk!

Can't we talk about war, or health care, or something I care about? Please. If I had wanted to talk about markets and such, I would have voted for Steve Forbes. Or Pierre "Pete" DuPont. Or Mitt Romney. Or Ben Stein. Same diff.

Anyone? Anyone?

Don Fowler likens us to Lucifer

Well, it took him a day and a half, but Columbian and former Democratic National Committee Chairman Don Fowler managed to draft a response to our endorsement of Barack Obama (I received it at 10:46 a.m. today):

Don Fowler's comments on editorial endorsements by The State
Having The State newspaper render judgments about Democrats is like Lucifer rendering judgments about angels. The crack set of philosopher kings at The State have twice endorsed George Bush and twice endorsed Mark Sanford.  No further comment required. 

Don Fowler

No, that's not an excerpt. That's the whole message, except for his phone number and e-mail address at the end.

Apparently, we didn't endorse Don's preferred candidate. For those of you who don't know Don, you should. At least you should know that his wife, Carol, is the present state party chair. But in his day, Dr. Fowler has operated on a much grander stage.

Over the years, Don and I have disagreed strongly over one thing: He thinks the political parties are a wonderful, essential part of our political system (hence all the time he's spent serving one of them). I see the Republican and Democratic parties as anathema, the ruination of the country, destructive forces that foster intellectual dishonesty and prevent the deliberative process from functioning as the nation's Founders intended. Don is a Democrat, through and through. I am the founder and most ardent proponent of the UnParty.

Given that divide between us, it was pretty much inevitable -- looking at it now in retrospect -- that we would endorse Barack Obama, the one candidate seeking the Democratic nomination with the goal of leading the nation beyond the nauseating polarization that has characterized the Bush-Clinton years. And it was just as inevitable that Don would disagree most vehemently, and in the hyperpartisan terms that he chose.

Don doesn't even see the truth, which is that this newspaper has endorsed slightly more Democrats than Republicans in the years I've been on this editorial board. We haven't done that on purpose; party is not a consideration in our deliberations. I wasn't aware of it until I took the time in 2004 to do a study of the past decade's endorsements. It just worked out that way. (In fact, in 2006 we endorsed 12 Democrats and 5 Republicans -- again, not intentionally. And while that skewed our running average toward Democrats, we sometimes go just as strongly for Republicans, depending on the candidates that year.)

But Don's apparently not a guy who can understand, or forgive, anyone who has backed a Republican ever. And the partisan filter through which he perceives the world is what divides us.

Here's what's wrong with American politics

Here's what's wrong with American politics. The first of our letters to the editor on today's page summed it up pretty neatly:

...(W)hile Sen. Barack Obama is an incredible orator and inspires hope for a post-partisan future, the reality of American politics is partisan. Astute voters realize this and want the candidate who is best suited to fight the Republican Party. Hillary Clinton and her team have gone toe-to-toe with the Republicans and beaten them more often than not.

What's wrong with American politics, of course, is attitudes such as this letter writer's. I say this not to endorse Barack Obama or condemn Hillary Clinton. Nor do I mean that this writer is a bad person. In fact, I think it's a friend of mine (it's a fairly common name, but I didn't bother to check; who wrote it is irrelevant).

The problem is the staggering fatalism set forth in that paragraph, the refusal even to allow the possibility of something better than the madness these parties inflict upon our country: "The reality of American politics is partisan." Well, yeah -- as long as neither you nor anyone else wants to try for anything better.

But the essence of what's wrong is the next sentence: "Astute voters realize this and want the candidate who is best suited to fight the (fill in the blank) Party."

The worst candidates are the Democrats who are all about fighting the Republicans, and Republicans who are all about fighting the Democrats. The very best candidates, whatever their labels, are the ones who can see how pointless most of that fighting is, and have the vision and ability to lead us past it.

We need the UnParty, now more than ever.

Ignore Iowa; watch New Hampshire closely

David Broder's column today reminds me of something I keep meaning to mention:

You know those Iowa caucuses today? You may have heard about them. Well, pay no attention to them if you are watching to see:

• Which candidate has the strongest appeal among Democrats.
• Which candidate has the strongest appeal among Republicans.
• Which candidate has the strongest potential appeal for the general election in November.

Remember that these are caucuses, and only reflect the views of a very small minority in each party who are willing to attend a two-hour meeting and publicly declare, and argue for, their preferred candidate. It's difficult to conceive of most voters being willing to do anything of the kind, and the turnouts at these caucuses have long borne that supposition out.

Who would attend such an event other than a few very vocal partisans, professional advocates of various stripes, and a few bloggers (and among bloggers, we'd be speaking only of those of you who have the guts to comment with your real, full names)?

Anyway, here's an excerpt from what Mr. Broder had to say:

    The maddening thing about the caucus system, for candidates and outside observers as well, is that large and enthusiastic rally crowds tell you almost nothing about the dynamic of the decision-making. I have been dazzled this year, not only by the thousands who filled arenas in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids to see Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama but by the turnouts of hundreds in high school gyms on freezing Friday nights in small towns such as Oelwein.
    Yet getting crowds to a rally or a town meeting is child’s play compared to getting them to caucus. In 2004, 1,506,908 people voted in Iowa in the general election for president. Turnout at the Democratic caucuses that year was estimated at 122,000. The biggest number ever for Republicans was 115,000 in 1980.
    That system empowers the activists and those with built-in organizational ties who can mobilize people to leave their homes for a couple hours on a weeknight and motivate them to declare a public — not private — preference for a candidate.
    On the Republican side, those networks belong principally to conservative Christian groups, anti-abortion organizations, home-school advocates and some economic interests.
On the Democratic side, organized labor and the teachers boast the best existing networks, but the main impulse is a broader populist tradition that tugs the Democratic Party of Iowa to the left...

Of course, you may be tempted to ignore Mr. Broder and me both, seeing as how he and I have a personal beef: Caucuses bar him and me from participating, because the canons of our profession bar us from such public participation in the process.

I was really ticked when I moved home to South Carolina in 1987 and found that in the following election year, only the Republicans were going to afford me a chance to participate in the winnowing process that takes us down to the two candidates left in the fall. That's because the Democrats, probably influenced by the sorts of party purists who don't want independents having a say, were choosing their delegates by caucuses. As the editor in charge (at that time) of The State's political reporters, I couldn't very well turn up at a party caucus and express a preference. So it was that I was disenfranchised.

But this is a much bigger problem than just Broder and me. I've noted over the years -- and had the lesson emphasized by my blogging experience -- that most citizens are extremely reluctant to surrender their anonymity as political participants, for whatever reason. So the caucus process intimidates them out of their franchise. Not to mention braver souls who nevertheless are too fastidious to participate so directly and publicly in a party function.

Primaries are bad enough as it is -- they force us to choose one ballot or the other. Then, once we do, the party in question has the audacity to count us among its adherents as it proudly touts its turnout. I don't know about you, but preference for one party or the other (as an UnParty man, I despise both equally) plays no role in which ballot I choose in a given election cycle. It's purely a matter of which ballot offers a more critical choice, the choice most worth spending my one shot on.

What I just said is pretty straightforward to me, but in case it isn't to you, I'll explain: It may be that I prefer ALL of Party A's candidates to any candidate in Party B. But I know that Party B's nominee is just as likely to  be elected in the fall as Party A's, and one of these people will almost assuredly become president for the next four years. And I have a preference among Party B's candidates -- perhaps a strong preference for one over ALL the others. So of course I will vote in Party B's primary, where I believe I can make the most important difference. In the next election, presented with different candidates, I'm just as likely to choose Party A's ballot, for the very same reasons.

Partisans take that equation and turn it on its head: They claim that people who are not their loyalists only vote in their primary to "sabotage" it, intentionally voting for the weaker candidate. Perhaps there are people who will do that, but I submit that they are as blindly, insanely partisan as their critics, a class of people who in my experience make up a small minority of the electorate. What sane person would cast a ballot for someone who, by virtue of becoming a party's nominee, would have close to an even chance of being elected, if the voter believed that person could not do the job? Maybe they'd do it for dogcatcher, but for president of the United States? If a significant portion of the electorate would do that, we need to scrap this whole system of representative democracy.

Anyway, back to my original assertion: Mr. Broder's right. Pay no attention to what happens in Iowa, unless all you care about is turnout organization (an important political skill, but nothing more than what it is). Watch New Hampshire for a real test of the candidates' appeal among the electorate.

As for what happens in South Carolina, I won't feel fully enfranchised until I'm allowed to vote in both primaries, and neither should you. With eighteen or so candidates running, you shouldn't be forced to choose from among only half of them, as the decision is being made that will leave you with a choice in the fall between just one or the other. And too often, what's left at that point is essentially no real choice for those of us who despise parties.

Lieberman endorsement strikes a blow for the rest of us

By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor

    “In this critical election, no one should let party lines be a barrier to choosing the person we believe is best qualified to lead our nation forward. The problems that confront us are too great... for us to play partisan politics with the Presidency.
    “We desperately need our next President to break through the reflexive partisanship that is poisoning our politics and stopping us from getting things done.”
            — Sen. Joe Lieberman,
            endorsing John McCain

JOHN McCAIN got an early Christmas present up in New Hampshire Monday. So did the UnParty.
    The UnParty, I should explain, is a product of my wishful imagination, an anti-partisan alternative to the foolish, vicious Punch and Judy show that the two parties play out daily on 24/7 TV “news” channels. It has no infrastructure, no declared candidates, and exists mainly on my blog and in gratuitous mentions here that probably mystify more than inform.
    John McCain, however, is far more substantial. He is an actual U.S. senator who is seeking the Republican nomination for president of the United States. You may have heard of him, in spite of what sometimes looks like a conspiracy on the part of major media and poll respondents to make him seem a marginal figure.
    The Christmas present to which I refer was the endorsement of Joe Lieberman, late of the Democratic Party, who strode triumphant over the yammering partisans of his own former faction in last year’s elections and is now perhaps the only major political figure in this country who is really and truly free to endorse whomever he honestly believes is the best candidate. And out of the crowds of candidates seeking the office, he chooses to endorse his friend and colleague John McCain, and parties be damned.
    This is not the only big present Sen. McCain has received early this week. On Sunday, he was endorsed by three newspapers, two of them being The Des Moines Register and The Boston Globe. (The third was the less-well-known Portsmouth Herald in New Hampshire.) Between them, they eclipsed the earlier endorsement he had received from the storied New Hampshire Union Leader.
    (Santa wasn’t quite as generous to other boys and girls. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had to share the loot: Des Moines went for Sen. Clinton; Boston for Sen. Obama.)
    An excerpt from the Globe’s McCain endorsement:

    “Conventional wisdom among political handlers used to hold that a candidate needed to capture the political center. The last two presidential campaigns proved that wrong. The Republicans scraped out victories by pressing just enough buttons and mobilizing just enough voters. But such wins breed political polarization and deprive a president of the political capital needed to ask Americans to sacrifice in difficult times.
    “The antidote to such a toxic political approach is John McCain. The iconoclastic senator from Arizona has earned his reputation for straight talk by actually leveling with voters, even at significant political expense....
    “As a lawmaker and as a candidate, McCain has done more than his share to transcend partisanship and promote an honest discussion of the problems facing the United States....”

    You’ll note a certain resemblance to the quote above from Sen. Lieberman — the emphasis on getting outside the respective comfort zones of the partisans, and having the courage and conviction to make the hard choices that are necessary to further the good of the country. Echoing a John F. Kennedy speech I recently cited here, Sen. Lieberman said Sen. McCain can be trusted to do the right thing “not only when it is easy, but when it is hard.”
    That’s what appeals to me about the Lieberman endorsement. It’s not so much that he endorses McCain as the reasons he gives.
    At this point I should note that this column is not about boosting the candidacy of John McCain. I know better. The fact is, Sen. McCain’s biggest problem in the South Carolina primary may be the fact that he is not seen as “Republican enough” by some, and this endorsement hardly helps. He does work across the aisle — on campaign finance reform, on fighting corporate welfare and global warming, on promoting rational immigration policy. He does take stands on the basis of the greater good, with little regard for personal political consequences. And there are people who don’t like those facts.
    To the extent that there is electoral advantage to be derived, it’s in New Hampshire, where, as The Washington Post notes, the McCain campaign is once again “targeting independents more than it is establishment Republicans.” But even there, the benefit is debatable. It certainly doesn’t pull over any Democrats, to whom Mr. Lieberman is anathema.
    What is most exciting about this endorsement is less the hope it offers the McCain campaign, and more the hope it offers for American politics that something like this can even happen.
    Over here at the UnParty — where anything that confuses both partisan Democrats and partisan Republicans is welcome — the Lieberman endorsement is very encouraging news. Lord knows that these days, in the 16th year of the bloody Bush-Clinton Wars, we don’t get much of that.

Single-payer position should be no surprise

I continue to hear from folks who are:

a) pleased by my advocacy of a single-payer national health plan;
b) surprised by it.

This intrigues me, but I should know that it arises from the same in-the-rut thinking that I'm always ranting against here. Apparently, my position just doesn't fit into the convenient left-vs.-right dichotomy that most folks have, unfortunately accepted as reflecting reality.

Most of the expressions of both a) and b) come from folks of the self-described "liberal" persuasion. I think this is because they have decided recently to divide the world into two portions -- those who demand that our troops get out of Iraq by last year, and everybody else. Since I am definitely in the "everybody else" category, they are befuddled at my health-care position. But... he's a warmonger, so how...?

If only they would try harder to grok the UnParty. I clearly stated my single-payer position in my very first UnParty column, the manifesto itself. Of course, the UnParty doesn't demand adherence to that or any other fixed position. The most fundamental, non-negotiable tenet is"

First, unwavering opposition to fundamental, nonnegotiable tenets. Within our party would be many ideas, and in each situation we would sift through them to find the smartest possible approach to the challenge at hand. Another day, a completely different approach might be best.

But I gave a list of particular positions that I, personally, would bring to the mix as an UnPartisan. Here are items 2 and 3:

• Belief in just war theory, and in America’s obligation to use its strength for good. (Sort of like the Democrats before Vietnam.)
• A single-payer national health care system — for the sake of business and the workers. If liberals and conservatives could stop driving a wedge between labor and capital for about five minutes, we could make this a reality.

So -- no surprises here.

Which Democrat would the UnParty embrace?

Joe Lieberman's endorsement of John McCain dramatizes the Arizonans status as the one Republican most in tune with the UnParty. To quote from Sen. Lieberman's statement:

    "I know that it is unusual for someone who is not a Republican to endorse a Republican candidate for President. And if this were an ordinary time and an ordinary election, I probably would not be here today. But this is no ordinary time -- and this is no ordinary election -- and John McCain is no ordinary candidate.
    "In this critical election, no one should let party lines be a barrier to choosing the person we believe is best qualified to lead our nation forward. The problems that confront us are too great, the threats we face too real, and the opportunities we have too exciting for us to play partisan politics with the Presidency.
    "We desperately need our next President to break through the reflexive partisanship that is poisoning our politics and stopping us from getting things done. We need a President who can reunite our country, restore faith in our government, and rebuild confidence in America's future.
    "My friend John McCain is that candidate, and that is why I am so proud to be standing by his side today..."

Does anyone else on the Republican side have UnPartisan potential? Sure, to differing degrees. Rudy Giuliani has certain appeal across party lines, and one of our commenters had it right when he compared Mike Huckabee to Jimmy Carter (Lee didn't mean it as a compliment, but that doesn't make the comment less true).

But Lieberman definitely gave McCain a big leg up in this regard.

That said, who on the Democratic side is most likely to appeal to UnPartisans? This is a tricky question. David Brooks (who, as you will recall, wrote of the McCain-Lieberman Party last year) framed part of the dilemma well in a column that will run on our op-ed page tomorrow. One the one hand, Hillary Clinton has been a significant bipartisan force as a senator:

    Hillary Clinton has been a much better senator than Barack Obama. She has been a serious, substantive lawmaker who has worked effectively across party lines. Obama has some accomplishments under his belt, but many of his colleagues believe that he has not bothered to master the intricacies of legislation or the maze of Senate rules. He talks about independence, but he has never quite bucked liberal orthodoxy or party discipline.

All very true. On the other hand, Barack Obama is the guy who wants to be president of all of us, while Mrs. Clinton tends to attract those who want to "take back" the White House for their partisan faction:

     Some Americans (Republican or Democrat) believe that the country’s future can only be shaped through a remorseless civil war between the children of light and the children of darkness. Though Tom DeLay couldn’t deliver much for Republicans and Nancy Pelosi, so far, hasn’t been able to deliver much for Democrats, these warriors believe that what’s needed is more partisanship, more toughness and eventual conquest for their side.
    But Obama does not ratchet up hostilities; he restrains them. He does not lash out at perceived enemies, but is aloof from them. In the course of this struggle to discover who he is, Obama clearly learned from the strain of pessimistic optimism that stretches back from Martin Luther King Jr. to Abraham Lincoln. This is a worldview that detests anger as a motivating force, that distrusts easy dichotomies between the parties of good and evil, believing instead that the crucial dichotomy runs between the good and bad within each individual.

Then, of course, there's Joe Biden, who has more experience working effectively across the lines toward pragmatic policies than either of them. Unfortunately, David Brooks isn't writing about Sen. Biden, and too few are thinking about him. But he certainly deserves the UnParty's careful consideration.

I'm sure that's a great comfort to him, don't you think?

The best endorsement of all: Lieberman for McCain

The Boston Globe is nice to have. The Des Moines Register, within the context of this campaign, is even better. But today, John McCain got the best endorsement of all -- that of my main man Joe Lieberman.

This is a big deal, and not because of how it might affect this campaign. It's a big deal because of the hope it offers for this country. For those of us who despise the way the two major parties are tearing our country apart, a figure such as Joe Lieberman, who has shown how the partisan stranglehold can be broken, takes on great significance, auguring a much better future.

For these two to get together is like -- well it's even better than Batman teaming up with Superman. I mean; that's a matchup you expect, right? It's more like Spiderman teaming up with Superman -- a Marvel-DC matching up of separate universes for the sake of truth, justice and the American way. (For you who sneer at pop culture, think Odysseus making common cause with Gilgamesh, or maybe Samson with Hercules.)

It affirms so much of what is right in American politics -- that is, it affirms what can be right about American politics, if only we will recognize the alternative it offers to the sickening Punch and Judy show that Democrats and Republicans stage day after day on 24/7 TV "news."

Maybe we just took a big step forward toward what David Brooks wrote about so promisingly in 2006 -- the formation of the McCain/Lieberman party. Could we be on the verge of actually seeing this party take shape as more than a theory? Will there finally be a real choice for the rest of us?

I have long refused, adamantly, to be identified with Dems or Repubs, left or right. But McCain/Lieberman -- that's my kind of party. You are free to quote me on that.

My handy, all-purpose endorsement of everybody (almost)

    Yes, dear readers, you've read this one before -- probably. I cannibalized a blog post to construct this column -- almost word for word. You'll probably see me doing that more than once before the holidays are over. That's partly because I'll be doing double- and triple-duty with folks out of the office. But it's also in keeping with what I intended when I started this blog; I had always meant to use it as a lab for developing column ideas. I just usually forget to do that.

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
SINCE MY COLUMN advocating a “single-payer” national health plan ran in this space last week, I’ve received a good bit of feedback along these lines:

Dear Mr. Warthen,
    I think your article is right on target and has a very good insight of the realities of the inefficient American health system. However, it is my feeling that by mentioning that [Dennis] Kucinich is the only one talking about single payer, and in the same line that he is not viable and has seen a UFO you are delegitimizing him.... If you think that this country needs a health care reform, why not throw your support to Kucinich...?

Regards, Kethrin Johnson

    Then, my regular blog correspondent Doug Ross wrote:

    Again, I’ll ask you to put your proverbial money where your mouth is. If you think this is an important issue, don’t endorse candidates who don’t support single payer....

    I get this sort of thing a lot, and I think it’s worth pausing to address. Doug was literally right — I think a national health plan is “an important issue.” It’s not the important issue. If there were anything that I would designate as the important issue in a presidential race, it probably wouldn’t be a domestic one. And I’d rather not judge on the basis of any single issue in foreign affairs either, if I can avoid it. (We found ourselves unable to avoid it in 2004, which made for a most distasteful endorsement.)
    Health care is very important; so are other things. If I chose on the basis of one issue only, I would have to endorse everybody at least once. Just off the top of my head, it might go like this:

Health care — Dennis Kucinich in a walk.
Iraq (as a military operation) —John McCain, the only guy who stood up for the “surge,” which was based on the idea that he alone had been pushing for four years, which was that Donald Rumsfeld refused to send enough troops to get the job done.
Iraq (long-term strategy) — Joe Biden, who (along with erstwhile candidate Sam Brownback), has been pushing the federalist approach of transforming the nation into three semi-autonomous political regions with only a loose Baghdad government uniting them.
Immigration — Either Sen. McCain, who took all the heat on the recent failed comprehensive reform effort, or Hillary Clinton, who refused to demagogue on the driver’s license flap.
Afghanistan — Barack Obama, who had the nerve to say he’d go after the Taliban in Pakistan if necessary.
Pakistan — Sen. Biden, for articulating the fact that we needed a Pakistan strategy, not a Pervez Musharraf strategy.
Administrative ability — Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney or Bill Richardson, the only governors.
Most likely to be the UnParty nominee — Tough call, but I see three most able to lead us out of the vicious partisanship of the past 15 years: Mr. Huckabee, who seems to have governed Arkansas pretty effectively with a Democratic majority in the legislature; Sen. Obama, who has made his desire to be the president of all Americans a centerpiece of his campaign; or Sen. McCain, who, from confirming judges to campaign finance reform to immigration to fighting the use of torture, has demonstrated his willingness and ability to work with Democrats time and again. (See my blog for my UnParty Manifesto.)
Abortion — Either Mr. Huckabee or Sen. McCain. The Democrats walk in the door disqualifying themselves on this one (from my point of view; maybe someday a Democrat like Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania will have a shot), and none of the other leading Republicans can be trusted fully in this area.
Most likely to be the Energy Party nominee — Nobody. Sen. McCain has done some good stuff in the Senate (along with Joe Lieberman, who was my pick for the Democratic nomination four years ago), and I like some of the things Sen. Biden has said about a president’s role in leading on this critical strategic issue. But I don’t think anybody goes far enough. (You can also read about the “Energy Party” on the blog.)
Education — Ron Paul almost gets it by wanting to do away with the U.S. Department of Education; the federal government has no business trying to run our local schools. But then he blows it by wanting to give tax credits to pay people to attend private schools, which is none of the government’s business at any level.

    You get the idea. You may notice that I have no scenarios in which I endorse John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, Chris Dodd or Fred Thompson. That’s not to dismiss them completely. I suppose if I dug further into all their positions I’d find some single-issue excuse to endorse each.
    But that’s not how we endorse, and that’s not how voters vote (I hope). Since we can only choose one candidate, practical reality demands that we accept some compromises. The candidate you end up favoring might get just “Bs” and “Cs” on your unique grading scale in most subjects, while someone you reject might be at the top of the class on one issue, but flunk everything else.
    On my own scale, for instance, Mr. Giuliani gets mostly Bs and Cs, with a couple of poor grades on personal deportment. He may not lead the class in anything that comes immediately to mind, but that doesn’t count him out entirely.
    One good thing about primaries is that they force people who might otherwise surrender their thinking to a party to understand that even within a party, there can be great diversity of thought. Such choices compel us to acknowledge the necessity to compromise on some things, unless we’re fooling ourselves. For any thinking voter to find a candidate with whom he agrees on everything would a minor miracle.
    Anyway, back to where we started: Rep. Kucinich gets an A-plus and a gold star on health care in my gradebook. But he flunks national security, which is a required subject.

Here's my handy-dandy, all-purpose endorsement of EVERYbody (almost)

Since Sunday I've received a good bit of feedback along these lines:

Dear Mr. Warthen
    I think your article is right on target and has a very good insight of the realities of the inefficient American health system.
    However, it is my feeling that by mentioning that Kucinich is the only one talking about single payer, and in the same line that he is not viable and has seen a UFO you are delegitimazing him.
So he is not "viable" according to whom? You? The mainstream media? The Democrats?
    If we really want to start a debate about the issues that are important, I think is time to stop supporting candidates in terms of electability, but in terms of what they stand for. Why not vote for our values?
    If you think that this country needs a health care reform, why not throw your support to Kucinich, instead of observing how timid the other candidates are? After all he is the only one walking the talk.
    It's sad to see the state of democracy in this country.

Regards,
Kethrin Johnson

You'll note some puzzlement about how candidates get to be "viable," similar to that which I addressed to the Ron Paul folks back in this column.

Then, our regular Doug wrote this in the very first comment on my Sunday column:

Again, I'll ask you to put your proverbial money where your mouth is. If you think this is an important issue, don't endorse candidates who don't support single payer.
Your man McCain doesn't even come close to your thoughts on this issue - and if I read you column correctly, it is because you think he's afraid to address it.

Well, Doug, you just said it -- I think this is "an important issue." It's not THE important issue. If there were anything that I would designate as THE important issue in a presidential race, it wouldn't be a domestic one. And I'd rather not judge on the basis of any single issue in foreign affairs, if I can avoid it. (We found ourselves unable to avoid it in 2004, which means we made probably the most distasteful endorsement I can recall having made in a presidential race.)

Yes, health care is important. So are other things. If I were to vote on one issue only, I would have many different endorsements. Just off the top of my head, it would probably go like this. If the issue is:

• Health care, then it would be Dennis Kucinich in a walk.
• Iraq (as a military operation), then it would be John McCain, the only guy who stood up for the surge -- which was based on the idea that he alone had been pushing for four years.
• Iraq (long-term strategy) -- Joe Biden, who (along with erstwhile candidate Sam Brownback), has been pushing the federalist approach of three regions with a loose union holding them together.
• Immigration -- Either McCain, who took all the heat on the recent failed reform effort, or Hillary Clinton, who refused to demagogue on the driver's license flap.
• Afghanistan -- Barack Obama, who had the nerve to say he'd go after the Taliban in Pakistan.
• Pakistan (long-term strategy) -- Joe Biden, for articulating the fact that we needed a Pakistan strategy, not a Musharraf strategy.
• Administrative ability -- Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney, the only governors.
• Most likely to be the UnParty nominee -- Tough call, but I see three candidates most able to lead us out of the vicious partisanship of the past 15 years: Huckabee, who seems to have governed Arkansas pretty effectively with a Democratic majority in the legislature; Obama, who has made his desire to be the president of ALL Americans a centerpiece of his campaign; or McCain, who from confirming judges to campaign finance reform to immigration to fighting the use of torture, has demonstrated his willingness and ability to work with Dems time and again.
• Abortion -- Either Huckabee or McCain. The Democrats walk in the door disqualifying themselves on this one (from my point of view), and none of the other leading Republicans can be trusted in this area.
• Most likely to be the Energy Party nominee -- Nobody. McCain has done some good stuff in the Senate, and I like some of the things Biden has said about a president's role in leading on this critical strategic issue, but I don't think anybody goes far enough.
• Education -- Ron Paul almost gets it by wanting to do away with the U.S. Dept. of Ed., but then he blows it by wanting to give tax credits to pay people to attend private schools, which is really none of the government's business at any level. Basically, this issue is moot; the federal government has no business dealing with education at all.

Anyway, I think you get the idea. You may notice that I didn't have any scenarios in which I endorsed John Edwards or Fred Thompson. I'm sure if I spent an hour or so perusing all their positions I'd find some reason to endorse each of them. I just did the things that came to mind first.

Now let us energetically kick the Republicans

Having just passed on this bit of childish game-playing with our future on the part of the Democrats, I turn around and find the Republicans trying to out-stupid them, and doing a fine job of it, too.

Check out the new GOP propaganda effort, "Democrats' War on American Jobs."

Some guy name of John Boehner (no, it has an "e" and an "h" in it) is always sending me partisan claptrap like this. But I have to say that with such an over-the-top attack on such mild, inadequate energy legislation, the guy has outdone himself.

Killing our chance for CAFE standards

House Democrats, in their zeal for gesture over substance, are about to kill any chance of the CAFE increase passing, by chaining it to a tax increase.

Apparently, it would just kill them to see the president actually sign something good into law:

   WASHINGTON (AP) - Defying a threat of a presidential veto, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi intends to push ahead with a $21 billion tax package, including repeal of tax breaks for major oil companies, as part of an energy bill, aides to the speaker said Tuesday.
   Democratic leaders circulated a summary of the legislation that includes the new taxes as well as a requirement for a 40 percent increase in automobile fuel efficiency, a huge increase in the use of ethanol as a motor fuel, and a mandate for utilities to use renewable fuels.
   Republicans earlier this year blocked Senate attempts to pass new energy taxes, contending they would hinder domestic oil and gas production. Democratic supporters of the taxes said that with oil hovering near $90 a barrel and the industry making large profits, the tax breaks aren't needed.
   The White House has said repeatedly that if the energy legislation singles out the oil companies for new taxes, advisers would recommend that President Bush veto the bill.

Folks, please, let us have the higher fuel standards -- please. The country needs this. We can fight about the taxes later.

I don't think I will ever, ever understand partisans -- unless we're talking UnParty. Or Energy Party. As founder, I promise you, the Energy Party would never thus endanger our chance to make U.S. cars more efficient.

Why don’t candidates ask us for more than our votes?

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
    “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win....”
       — John F. Kennedy, 1962

WHAT WOULD we do if one among the horde of candidates seeking to become president of the United States in 2009 challenged us as a nation to do something hard?
    Most Americans alive today can’t remember a president or would-be president doing anything remotely like that. The ones we’re used to are all about what they’re going to do for us, not what we should do for our country. Republicans want to cut our taxes; Democrats want to give us more programs and, to hear them all talk, at no cost to us.
    But I believe that if the cause were worthwhile and the proposal made sense, we’d rise to it. Maybe not all of us, but there’s a critical mass out here who would follow someone courageous enough to ask us to do our part.
    I, for one, am sick of being treated, by people who seek my vote, as some sort of “gimme-gimme” baby, lacking in any sense of responsibility for the world around me. Those of us who are grownups are used to accepting, in our personal lives, challenges that are by no means easy to meet — going to work day after day, paying our bills, raising children. Why would we not understand a president who said, “Here’s a challenge that concerns us all, and here’s what each of us needs to do to rise to it”?
    Young people among us want to pitch in and accomplish difficult things a lot more than we give them credit for. Part of Barack Obama’s appeal among the young is his call to service, his challenge to build a better nation. But unless I’ve missed it, he has not asked us, as a nation, to do anything hard.
    Don’t misunderstand me, as did a colleague who wrote:

    The feeling I get... is that you’re so frustrated that you just want the government to demand SOME SORT OF SACRIFICE, on something, anything. Whether it’s needed or not. Doesn’t really matter what.

    Well, yes and no. Sure, there’s a part of me that just wants to be asked for a change to do something, if only for the novelty: Buy bonds, save scrap metal, whatever.
    But there’s more to it than that. The truth is, our country faces a lot of challenges that demand something or other from all of us, but political “leaders” have a pathological fear of pointing it out to us.
    Back when JFK challenged us to go to the moon because it was hard, we did it — even though there was no practical reason why we needed to do so. Sure, it gave us the creeps to think of “going to sleep by the light of a communist moon,” but it was a symbolic competition, with only marginal applications to the true, deadly competition of the arms race. We couldn’t stand not to be No. 1.
    But today we have very real, very practical challenges that have tangible consequences if we fail to meet them.
    Take just one of them: our dependence on foreign oil.
    Sen. Joe Biden had a great speech a while back about how President Bush missed the golden opportunity to ask us, on Sept. 12, 2001, to do whatever it took to free us from this devil’s bargain whereby we are funding people who want to destroy us and all that we cherish. And yet, his own energy proposals are a tepid combination of expanding alternative fuels (good news to the farmer) and improving fuel efficiency (let’s put the onus on Detroit).
    A broad spectrum of thinkers who are not running for office — from Tom Friedman to Robert Samuelson to Charles Krauthammer — say we must jack up the price of gasoline with a tax increase, to cut demand and fund the search for alternatives. It makes sense. But the next candidate with the guts to ask us to pay more at the pump will be the first.
    My friend Samuel Tenenbaum is on a quixotic quest to build support for restoration of the 55-mph speed limit. It would be hard (for me, anyway), but the benefits are undeniable. It would conserve fuel dramatically, starving petrodictators from Hugo Chavez to Vladimir Putin to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It would save thousands of lives now lost to speed on our highways.
    Samuel pitches his idea to every candidate he can corner. They smile and move away from him as quickly as possible.
    But you know, when I wrote a column a while back proposing the creation of an Energy Party — that would among other things demand that we jack up the gas tax by $2 a gallon (to fund an Apollo-style project on alternatives), institute Samuel’s 55-mph limit, ban SUVs for anyone without a proven “life-or-death need to drive one” and build nuclear power plants as fast as we can — I got a surprising number of positive responses. I think that was less because my respondents thought those were all good ideas. I think they just liked the idea of being asked to do something for a change.
    Energy independence is just the start. Add to it the urgent needs to stop global warming, win the war on terror, make health care affordable while at the same time avoiding the coming entitlements train wreck, and you’ve got a list of things that require a lot more audience involvement — and yes, sacrifice — than our current candidates have been willing to ask us for.
    And while you may not feel the same, I’m dying to be asked. Not because it would be easy, and not even because it would be hard, but because these hard things actually need doing.

Who could be president of ALL of us -- Hillary or Obama?

This is probably not going to change anybody's minds out there, but before Democrats put the tiara on Hillary Clinton and send her down the runway, they really ought to ask themselves: Would anybody besides us vote for her? I realize that a lot of her supporters are likely to be personally offended that someone other than true-blue partisans would get a say in this, but unfortunately, them's the rules.

And time and time again, a key difference between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama emerges: She appeals to the party-warriors who want to refight the polarizing battles of recent years, and he appeals more to people who want consensus government.

It was summed up fairly well last night by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, who had this to say upon endorsing Obama:

“A lot of the Democrats are feeling heady these days -- we’re sensing victory. We feel like we can reach out and grab at the White House again .... But I’m asking you to beware my friends. Beware because this discontent with Republicans is not enough to ensure a Democratic victory, nor should it be. I believe the challenges before us transcend party partisan politics. We don’t just need a Democrat -- we need a leader.”

But the fact remains that plenty of folks just want a Democrat, preferably one who yearns to stick it to the "vast right-wing conspiracy," which apparently refers to the 50 percent of the electorate that says it would never vote for Mrs. Clinton -- while Mr. Obama's negatives in the same poll were only at 37 percent.

As I said, this post probably won't change any Democrats' minds, as those who care about getting the votes of Republicans and independents probably already prefer Obama between the two, and the rest would stick with Sen. Clinton.

But I thought it was time to issue a warning to the Democrats similar to the one I raised to Republicans a few days ago: You really, really need to think about November, people.

And I would add, you really need to think about the next four years. There are a lot of us out here who just aren't going to put up with any more of this incessant red state-vs.-blue state, tit-for-tat, so's-yer-mother, trashing of our shared public life.

Of COURSE we should pay for the war

Only the hyperpartisans of Washington could screw up an issue this badly.

First, opponents of the Iraq war put up a proposal to raise a tax to pay for the war -- but they don't really mean it. Suggesting the tax is just their way of making a point:

WASHINGTON -- Three senior House Democrats, seeking to highlight the costs of the Iraq war, proposed a U.S. income tax surcharge Tuesday to finance the approximately $150 billion (€105.8 billion) spent annually on operations in Iraq.
    The plan's sponsors acknowledged the tax measure is unlikely to pass, but Democrats have been seeking in recent weeks to contrast the approximately $190 billion (€134.1 billion) cost of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars with the $23 billion (€16.2 billion) increase that Democrats want in domestic programs...

Then, being the way they are, Republicans rise to the bait of condemning the tax:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   CONTACT: ROB GODFREY
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2007
Clyburn and Spratt must condemn Democrat bully and his dangerous war tax
Dawson calls Democrat plan disgraceful, dangerous
COLUMBIA, S.C. – The South Carolina Republican Party today called on Jim Clyburn and John Spratt to condemn the disgraceful and dangerous tactics of their colleague, U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, who threatened to raise taxes by as much as 15 percent unless President Bush begins a precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.  (Associated Press, 10/2/2007)...

And I am left disgusted, as usual, with both parties.

The Democrats disgust me because of their assumption that, if we had to pay for it, we would not support maintaining our commitment in Iraq. This is based in the same kind of contempt for citizens (particularly those who disagree on issues) that leads anti-war people to call for a draft -- not because they think people should share in the sacrifice, but because they believe that if asked to share, no one would support the war. Such an assumption turns my stomach.

The Republicans disgust me because they exceed the Democrats' hopes by reacting with supreme irresponsibility -- they are too childish to want to pay for anything.

Of course we should pay for the war, whatever it costs. And public education. And infrastructure. And research into alternative fuels. And all sorts of things that are worth rolling up our sleeves, like grownups, to address together, as a civilized country.

Neither political party believes that you or I have the courage, commitment or sense of responsibility to embrace both a goal and the cost of achieving the goal. And because of that, both parties deserve nothing from us but our contempt.

You know about the UnParty and the Energy Party. As I cast about in my never-ending quest to figure out what we need in this country, yet another one keeps suggesting itself: The Grownup Party. Anybody interested?

Here are two froods who really know where their towels are

This is wonderful. These two guys have come up with a way to unify our fractured country, and everybody can take part:

    It seemed to them that the nation was more divided than ever over the war and politics, not to mention immigration, race and abortion. So the two of them -- Bruce Johnson, a former disc jockey who delivers local fruit and vegetables, and John Maielli, who has a silk-screening and painting business -- came up with a wildly ambitious plan for national reconciliation.
    What the country needs, they thought, was a unifying, rally-like event that would be free from politics and in which everyone could participate. Waving a towel seemed perfect.... "A certain amount of energy is released when you wave a towel," explains Mr. Johnson. It's democratic. It doesn't require skill or money. Wavers feel kinship with fellow wavers.
    As the event was envisioned, millions of Americans across the country would participate in a National Wave, simultaneously twirling above their heads a red, white and blue towel called the "Official Uniting Towel of America." Organizers picked Friday, July 4, 2008, when people are more inclined to feel patriotic. It would take place at 9 p.m. Eastern time, before most local fireworks go off on the East Coast and at a decent hour in the West. To give enough time for stragglers to join in, the National Wave would last 15 minutes.

It's simple, to the point that one could easily call it stupid. But its very simplicity, its utter lack of inherent meaning, makes it a blank slate upon which we can all write our hopes and dreams for the country, and most of all express our desire for brotherhood in spite of all our bitter differences.

I've got my towel, and I know where it is, and I'm more than ready to use it as a means of reuniting my country. With your help, I hope to keep track of this growing movement, and promote it as the chance arises.

Bruce Johnson and John Maielli -- now there's a couple of froods who really know where their towels are.