3
Dec
In my umpteenth attempt to re-launch this site, I decided on a new theme. What do you think? Is it cool? Does it blow?
So I downloaded this flock browser. It’s extremely handy. I wrote this post from within it.
Blogged with the Flock Browser
16
May
I tried writing this nice conciliatory post about how silver the lining to this awful election loss really is, but I keep coming across little anecdotal snippets of people who waited in line for 10 hours in Ohio, 6 hours in Florida, and 4 hours in VA (my brother and sister-in-law) and I can’t quite get over the sneaking suspicion that the election was stolen. I just cannot believe that people would wait in line for a whole damned day to vote for the status quo. How many people could truly be that afraid of gay people getting married or whatever “moral values” means? Of course, like I said, these stories are all anecdotal and therefore don’t, include verifiable evidence of fraud. I still wonder why Kerry folded so fast. I think he should have waited the 11 days for the provisional count in Ohio and had his legal team kick over as many stones as possible in the interim. I think he failed us there, but there is nothing any of us can do about that, and I can’t hold it against him.
On top of that I heard Bush’s press conference this morning and I almost had a stroke. His arrogance goes to 11.
At this moment, my political feelings can best be summed up by the chorus to the Bloodhound Gang’s “The Roof is on Fire”. It’s probably not constructive to feel that way, but that’s the way it is.
I don’t have any answers. I don’t know what the Democratic Party is supposed to do now. I don’t know who should lead it. I don’t know if they should swing right or left or spin around in circles. I do think there is a lot of entrenchment and inertia in the party hierarchy on all levels and somehow that needs to be cleaned out. Of course I don’t have a clue about how to do it
My gut tells me that some really bad things are going to happen in the next 4 years. I hope to God that’s not the case, but, if the far right really is allowed to fulfill its agenda, I hope it wakes people up to the fact that the most pressing social problem in the nation is not gay marriage.
There are a few slivers of silver, I guess. On a personal level, I have made a lot of friends and gotten to know people I would never have met had I not become involved in the political process. Those friendships will carry on. We’ll need each other for moral support.
On a larger, less personal level, we on the left have some nascent institutions that weren’t there in 2000. We now have groups like the Center for American Progress, Media Matters for America, MoveOn, ACT, the New Democrat Network, and Democracy for America. We have a new media outlet in Air America that will continue to grow. We have an online community that has real power when it is united (see Dean and Sinclair). We need to support all of this stuff and probably more so than the party apparatus. If I had to guess, I would say these new institutions are where our success lies and our new leadership and direction should come from.
For now, I am going to take a step back from activism in the purely political realm. For the immediate future, I’m going to focus my energy on getting involved in my community. Initially I have chosen to volunteer with an organization that mentors kids in inner-city public schools. I feel that I can make a difference there, and Lord knows public school kids will need all the help they can get in the shadow of No Child Left Behind. I think a lot of Democrats who don’t know what to do next would do well to try the same. It can only be good for the soul after this awful, brutal campaign. On top of that, secular non-profits are really hurting right now. They need help and they are surely not going to get it from this faith-based administration.
As for this blog, all I know right now is that I have no desire to spend the next four years posting articles about Bush Administration atrocities. Others can do that. Additionally, as much as I enjoy it, I will probably not post many articles about process. I think that was part of the problem with the Democratic effort this time. Many of us, myself included, got too focused on polls and strategy and electability and just being anti-Bush. Somewhere in all that mess we lost our message, or at least allowed it to be diffused. The truth is I don’t want to be solely against something anymore. That sucks up too much energy. I want to be for something. Maybe I can use this blog to figure out what that should be. At the very least it will be a convenient place to post pictures of my cats and dogs.
So that’s it for now. It’s over. And it sucks. But we are still here and we have to move forward.
12
Oct
This morning, as Mrs. get donkey! was leaving for the day, I noticed that I had a flat tire. I have changed a lot of flats in my day, but never on this vehicle. I went about assembling all the tools and the jack and all. When I tried to loosen the lug nuts, however, I soon noticed that the lug wrench was too shallow for the rounded lug nuts on the wheel. I huffed and puffed for a good hour, but finally, I had to give up. I ended up calling roadside assistance. They promised that someone would arrive in a bout 30-40 minutes. That was about an hour ago. I am now told it will be another 30 minutes or so. At least this all happened in my driveway, and I am stranded at home and not on the side of I-45 or something. It is kind of embarrassing to have roadside assistance come to your house, however.
14
Sep
23
Jul
Thank you to Marc, who emailed me the finest piece of political journalism you will see this year.
It’s a piece by Jon Stewart describing how GOP talking points pervade the news without any question or research. I don’t want to say anything else about it. If you haven’t seen it yet, got watch it now.
Here’s the link (requires Real Player)
22
Jun
At 1PM this afternoon, my local Pacifica station (KPFT 90.1) broadcast a special show hosted by HCDP chair Gerry Binberg with special guest the Hon. Chris Bell. The topic, of course, was Bells ethics complaint filing against House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. About five minutes into the show, after Rep. Bell briefly laid out the substance of his complaint, Gerry started to take calls, and who should call in by Rep John Culberson, a Republican and backer of Tom DeLay. Hilarity ensued.
Of course instead of engaging Bell on the substance of his complaint John Culberson employed the time-honored GOP defense style of attacking the messenger personally. The two main thrusts of Culbersons “defense” of DeLay were that Bell was a “pathetic loser” and that the complaints were based on things that happened at least a year ago. Culberson also dismissed the alleged ethics violations as “garbage” simply because Tom DeLay himself said they were untrue and Tom DeLay, to paraphrase, is an honest man with nothing but the interest of his constituents in his heart. Any time Bell tried to speak to the substance of the alleged violations, Culberson called him a sad loser that was trying to talk over him. In reality, the only person that came across as laughable and pathetic was Culberson.
There was also a caller that first tried to represent herself as a disinterested party that didnt care about things like campaign contributions to Tom DeLay. When Bell tried to explain to her why there was more to it than that, she immediately began attacking his motives and revealed herself as a GOP partisan (after, of course, whining that the show was partisan which was laughable since it was being broadcast on a radio station that is unabashedly liberal). It was great radio.
Now, Bell did try explain that the reason why this complaint is coming out now was that it had taken time for his office to build their case against Delay and there were delays (NPI) in their investigation due to Bells attention being focused on his own primary campaign. He said that it didnt matter when he filed the complaint, because he would have been criticized whether he won his primary election or not. He also said that if in the unlikely event it turns out that there is nothing to his complaint, he will gladly take his lumps.
The news out of the show was that the House Ethics committee, from what I understood, had ruled that there was enough to Bells complaint to examine it further and not dismiss it. This news is good. Bell pointed out that this committee is actually balanced in the ratio of Democrats to Republicans, so it will be harder for DeLays cronies to simply brush this matter under the rug.
Again, it was a great show. Hopefully KPFT will either re-broadcast it or at least put an audio file of it up on their website. If so, be sure to listen.
28
May
Via the comments on an Atrios post, Here is a link to Charles Pierce’s fantastic Eqsuire write-up on John Kerry:
The Misunderestimation of John Kerry
It’s long, but it’s worth your time.
Chicago Tribune public editor, Don Wycliff pens a piece about how the press protects President Bush.
Here is a sample:
Why is the Democrat-loving, Republican-hating, pond scum-swilling, lower-than-the-rug-on-the-floor, biased, liberal [curl upper lip when pronouncing] press protecting George W. Bush?
You don’t believe it’s happening? Well, then, tell me about the furor over W’s speech last week to a joint meeting in Washington of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Newspaper Association of America.
You didn’t hear about it?
That’s the proof.
If the press were not protecting Bush, you’d have read in your Chicago Tribune–or Washington Post or New York Times or Wall Street Journal or USA Today–that he delivered one of the most confusing, inarticulate public addresses since … well, some people would say since his press conference a week earlier.
As it was, those hopelessly biased reporters who cover Bush overlooked the mangled syntax, penetrated the rhetorical fog and extracted some usable lines from the dross and manufactured stories that had the president sounding, if not quite statesmanlike, then at least intelligible.
The New York Times’ Elisabeth Bumiller led with Bush’s response to a poll that showed the majority of Americans expect another terrorist attack in the U.S. before the November election. “Well, I understand why they think they’re going to get hit again,” Bush was quoted as saying. “This is a hard country to defend.”
The Washington Post focused on his remarks about Iran’s effort to acquire nukes. “The Iranians need to feel the pressure from the world that any nuclear weapons program will be uniformly condemned–it’s essential that they hear that message,” the president was quoted.
Neither The Wall Street Journal nor the Tribune carried a story about the speech per se, although the Tribune carried an Associated Press story that wove one quote from the speech into a story on the unexpectedly high costs of the Iraqi excursion. “The Iraqi people are looking at Americans and saying, `Are we going to cut and run again?’” the quote ran. “And we’re not going to cut and run if I’m in the Oval Office.”
I hope we start to see more columns like this.
20
Apr
I am getting old and cranky.
I am reading through the Kerry-bashing comments on the Kos, and the first thing that keeps popping into my head is “silly kids”. Its really starting to annoy me.
I know Kerry isn’t being real exciting right now, but he certainly knows the politics. It would be silly for him to be constantly throwing red-meat at the left now that we are in the general election. I think some people forget that not even half the people in this country are liberal. Kerry needs to win some of the more centrist people over, and it’s going to take a while to do it. A lot of people are still in a haze over everything this country has been through in the last 3 years. Not everyone has been paying as close attention as the average left-wing blogger. Kerry needs to be careful not to alienate people by appearing in any way extreme.
That’s not to say that Kerry is above criticism, but we Dems who have been choking on our outrage for the last three years should give him a bit of slack while he tries to fine-tune his message and bring the rest of the country up to speed. We still have a long way to go until November 2. A lot can and will happen.
Anyway, how anyone could be upset that an incumbent wartime President who was polling in the high 60’s and 70’s less than a year ago is now polling even with a challenger that hardly anyone in middle-America knows anything about is beyond me. Back on April 20, 2003, I would never have dreamed we Democrats would have been in as good of shape as we are now.
Look at how much has changed in the political landscape just since the beginning of just this year. It’s unreal.
You know what? I’m not cranky, I’m pretty darn happy.
BTW, for another heaping helping of perspective, check out this other Kos post
Not seen this weekend on a Volvo S40 driven by a sullen, Birkenstock-wearing, Latte swiller…
“Widowed by Dean, Flirted with Edwards, Slowly Coming to Accept the Crushing Reality of an Arranged Marriage to Kerry.”
The pulsing bass-line and pounding drumbeat of The White Stripes “Seven Nation Army” when juxtaposed with the tender lilt of Diana Krall’s take on the time-honored chestnut, “Let’s Fall in Love”, engorges you with the throbbing pangs of teenage lust, yet also leaves you longing for the warm, loving arms of Estelle, your wife of sixty years. It is a feeling at once titillating and strangely disquieting, so much so that you experience the need to scoop a dollop of it atop fresh strawberries and devour it followed by a snifter of fishhooks.
Is There a Case for a Two-Man Race?
John Edwards’ close second in the Wisconsin primary could possibly create a speed bump in John Kerry’s road to the Democratic nomination. Now that Dean is done, the media seems to be itching for a two-man race. Should Democrats give them one?- full story
