Bill Moyers on Wright and Obama

...Behold the double standard: John McCain sought out the endorsement of John Hagee, the war-mongering Catholic-bashing Texas preacher who said the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins. But no one suggests McCain shares Hagee's delusions, or thinks AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a foreign head of state and asked God to remove Supreme Court justices, yet he remains a force in the Republican religious right. After 9/11 Jerry Falwell said the attack was God's judgment on America for having been driven out of our schools and the public square, but when McCain goes after the endorsement of the preacher he once condemned as an agent of intolerance, the press gives him a pass.

Jon Stewart recently played a tape from the Nixon White House in which Billy Graham talks in the oval office about how he has friends who are Jewish, but he knows in his heart that they are undermining America. This is crazy; this is wrong -- white preachers are given leeway in politics that others aren't.

Which means it is all about race, isn't it? Wright's offensive opinions and inflammatory appearances are judged differently. He doesn't fire a shot in anger, put a noose around anyone's neck, call for insurrection, or plant a bomb in a church with children in Sunday school. What he does is to speak his mind in a language and style that unsettle some people, and says some things so outlandish and ill-advised that he finally leaves Obama no choice but to end their friendship. We are often exposed us to the corroding acid of the politics of personal destruction, but I've never seen anything like this ? this wrenching break between pastor and parishioner before our very eyes. Both men no doubt will carry the grief to their graves. All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race. It is the price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, who said "beware the terrible simplifiers".

Borowitz on "The Great Debate"

Gibson Trounces Stephanopolous in Crucial Debate

Asks Twice as Many ‘Gotcha’ Questions as TV Rival

In what many considered a must-win contest for the two ABC News personalities, Charles Gibson handed rival George Stephanopolous a resounding defeat in last night’s televised debate.

With over ten million viewers watching, the stakes were high for the two ABC rivals to see who could pepper the candidates with the most so-called “gotcha” questions.

Gibson drew blood first, smothering the presidential candidates with so many trick questions that he immediately seemed to put Stephanopolous on the defensive.

An aide to Gibson later summed up the secret to the ABC anchor’s decisive victory: “He didn’t let the candidates talk too much, and he made sure that this debate would be about Charles Gibson and nothing but Charles Gibson.”

The clear losers: ABC News and the American public.

More Than 1,000 in Iraq’s Forces Quit Basra Fight

New York Times:
By STEPHEN FARRELL and JAMES GLANZ
Published: April 4, 2008

BAGHDAD — More than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen either refused to fight or simply abandoned their posts during the inconclusive assault against Shiite militias in Basra last week, a senior Iraqi government official said Thursday. Iraqi military officials said the group included dozens of officers, including at least two senior field commanders in the battle."


Time to send Hillary. She, at least, is not a quitter!
Or, for that matter, McCain. He will stay and fight for another 100 years.

Big political news!

For those who think they can handle it:
http://politics1.com/

Barack Obama has gotten past affirmative action. Have we?

By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine:

"Students at the University of Chicago, where Obama later lectured on constitutional law, don't recall him taking a hard line there, either. Erika Walsh, who graduated in 2002 and took Obama's Equal Protection and Due Process class, says she came away with no idea about Obama's personal views on affirmative action or any other hot constitutional issue. 'The way he conducted the class, he wanted you to talk, and he would be provocative,' she says" ...

[out of sequence]:In an interview last May on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos, he was asked whether his own daughters should someday receive preferences in college admissions. His response was unexpected: "I think that my daughters should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged." He added, "I think that we should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and have grown up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed." His comments lit up the blogosphere with speculation that as president he might spearhead a major policy change, shifting the basis of affirmative action from race to class disparities.

The real harm Hillary Clinton inflicted on Bosnia

By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine:

"The punishment visited on Sen. Hillary Clinton for her flagrant, hysterical, repetitive, pathological lying about her visit to Bosnia should be much heavier than it has yet been and should be exacted for much more than just the lying itself. ...

"I can tell you for an absolute certainty that it would be quite impossible to imagine that one had undergone that experience at the airport if one actually had not. Yet Sen. Clinton, given repeated chances to modify her absurd claim to have operated under fire while in the company of her then-16-year-old daughter and a USO entertainment troupe, kept up a stone-faced and self-loving insistence that, yes, she had exposed herself to sniper fire in the cause of gaining moral credit and, perhaps to be banked for the future, national-security "experience." This must mean either a) that she lies without conscience or reflection; or b) that she is subject to fantasies of an illusory past; or c) both of the above. Any of the foregoing would constitute a disqualification for the presidency of the United States."


Hitchens' column is entitled "Fighting Words," and these are. Hitchens has rarely, if ever, been noted for restraint, and not much more often for good taste. I read him critically, and carefully, and with more than a grain of anti-bile. All that said, this column is worth reading.

Joan Walsh on endorsements, and the lack thereof

Joan Walsh - Salon.com:

...But now two months have passed since Edwards dropped out -- tempus fugit! -- and still no endorsement. Why? According to a Democratic strategist unaligned with any campaign but with knowledge of the situation gleaned from all three camps, the answer is simple: Obama blew it. Speaking to Edwards on the day he exited the race, Obama came across as glib and aloof. His response to Edwards's imprecations that he make poverty a central part of his agenda was shallow, perfunctory, pat. Clinton, by contrast, engaged Edwards in a lengthy policy discussion. Her affect was solicitous and respectful. When Clinton met Edwards face-to-face in North Carolina ten days later, her approach continued to impress; she even made headway with Elizabeth. Whereas in his Edwards sit-down, Obama dug himself in deeper, getting into a fight with Elizabeth about health care, insisting that his plan is universal (a position she considers a crock), high-handedly criticizing Clinton’s plan (and by extension Edwards’s) for its insurance mandate.'...

Clearly, I favor Obama, but this is part of the picture, worthy of consideration. Hillary has her strengths--she is bright, articulate, and knows the issues well. I prefer her variant on health care with mandated coverage to Obama's current variant, although I think too much has been made of the difference by Krugman and Hillary's campaign--and I believe that both plans (and Edwards' as well) are substantially inferior to a single-payer "Medicare for All" approach (to which I hope theirs might ultimately lead, even if it sadly can't seem to gain traction in today's enfeebled politics).

I am also sympathetic to Edwards' eloquent focus on poverty and the two Americas. I think Obama gets that in his gut, and will act on it if elected--but I can understand a tactical political judgment (not equally applicable to Hillary, or to Edwards) not to give it centrality in his campaign. This may be Obama's equivalent to Hillary's stress on military toughness, somewhat undermined by her misadventures on the Bosnian (fantasy) battlefields.

Hillary's survival strategy

A Response to Joan Walsh, on Salon:

I too speak as a one-time admirer and supporter of Hillary. That stopped after the multiple fiascos of the early years of the first Clinton Administration.

The current pattern of behavior is, sadly, all too reminiscent of an earlier pattern of dissembling in order to clean up after Bill's numerous sexual escapades. Hillary was all too ready to do in other women, misused and thrown away by Bill, when they threatened the unquenchable Clinton ambition. I've never understood, after this unsisterly behavior, how self-respecting feminists can continue to support her.

I've also profoundly troubled by the way "loyalty" works in Clintonland. If anyone who has previously served the Clintons as a loyal retainer finds appeal in other campaigns, he/she is quickly labelled a "Judas." Yet for the Clintons, loyalty works up, and not down. Recall the Clintons' trashing of Lani Guinier when she became a political liability. Under the bus with her--despite a lifelong friendship.

We've seen too much of such demands for loyalty as the principal virtue in politics (in place of competence and principle, not to speak of obligations to the American people and the Constitution), going back to Nixon and continuing through W. At least W shows a modicum of loyalty back down (see Libby, Scooter).

We deserve better. I think Obama offers our best chance of getting it.--The Wise Bard

Rev. Wright to The NYT, and some thoughts on journalism (and truth?)

Daily Kos posts a copy of an unpublished letter from Rev. Jeremiah Wright to the NYT from about a year ago, with much accompanying commentary. It is worth a look.

There are aspects of Wright's letter that I find distinctly uncomfortable, and I fear these are reflective of some larger issues in his character and outlook. That does not necessarily distinguish him in kind from many other religious leaders who have had inordinate (and in my view deleterious) influence through the media and directly on public officials. American public opinion is considerably more tolerant of some of these figures than of others, and it is hard to avoid the conclusion that race (along with the distinctive/minority position of certain faiths in the American context) has a not inconsiderable impact on how objectionable statements are received by the media and the public.

Wright's letter to The Times raises an additional issue worthy of discussion here. I have been a devout Times reader for more than 35 years, since my college days. It is, I think, the best we have in daily print journalism, although I have long tried to seek supplementation via numerous other sources of news--a task made much easier in this age of the "internets" (tubes, lots of tubes).

I often have occasion to reflect on the disparity in my trust in The Times (or any other news source, mainstream or otherwise--I'm picking on The Times here as exemplary of better news sources) in areas in which I am professionally or otherwise expert, and in areas I know less immediately or in depth.

Today is the 29th anniversary of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. Digging into my deeply repressed past, I then worked for a law firm representing the owner of TMI, and had been involved in some relatively minor regulatory matters regarding the facility. On the morning of the accident, we were packing up for a trip to the facility, for a hearing on issues relating to--are you ready for this--the likelihood and potential consequences of a direct impact by a large airliner on a functioning nuclear facility.

I am mindful of the continuing obligations of confidentiality, but I think it is permissible to say that for the next year and a half, I attended and privately reported on virtually every Washington-based public meeting of regulatory agencies, Congressional committees, and the Presidential (Kemeny) Commission investigating the accident. I was a pretty highly informed listener, with a substantial sense of the overall context of the developing story. Needless to say to those who were alive then, the story got a lot of media attention (which I also followed closely). Suffice it to say, much of the media coverage got events, both large and small, badly wrong, and almost always in a sensationalistic context (even in the most "responsible" press and media). And I don't think this reflect any enormous skew or bias in my own perceptions--my job (and my personal temperament) was to get things right, in as unfiltered a fashion as possible. This included conveying bad news (of which there was a great deal) as accurately as I could, often directly to senior figures.

The experience had a lasting impact on my thinking, reinforcing perceptions dating to press coverage of student protests (including a building occupation) at Harvard in the late 1960s. I was less confident in my own perceptions as a college student, and recognized that I only had one view of the elephant on that occasion. By 1979, that had changed--I had as clear and complete a first-hand view as most anyone in one of the most covered events of its time.

The media got so much of it wrong, sometimes seriously so, with important public consequences.

This has also been an all-too-typical experience on issues in bioethics and law that I have followed closely over the past three decades. At various points, I have had significant interactions with the press, and often do not recognize myself in the published accounts of the conversations. In recent years, I have taken to imposing conditions on the circumstances in which I speak for publication--with the result that I am called for interviews considerably less frequently, which has been okay. My vanity is satisfied in other contexts, or I do without. (Or I blog.)

And here is the crucial piece. Knowing all this from personal experience, sometimes hard earned, when I read The Times (or other sources) on subjects I know less about, and from a less first-hand perspective, I still indulge a presumption that The Times gets it basically right. I do read things more critically than I once did, and am less inclined to take press accounts as any species of holy writ (a subject adverted to at the top of this posting). But there still is a degree of trust, indeed of credulousness, that I cannot fully bring myself to overcome. The problem, at least in part: what is the alternative?

I don't have any overarching theory of press bias. Over past decades, since my TMI experience, I have talked about this general phenomenon with many folks expert in a variety of fields, often with persons whose expertise is of interest to the media and results in many direct contacts. All report more or less the same story, with local variations. None of us fully trust media reporting in the areas of our own expertise. All of us let down our guard, to a greater or lesser degree, when reading the media on subjects we know less about. None of us have found a fully satisfactory alternative, and virtually all of us have other demands on our time, and cannot devote infinite hours to searching the web (or magazines, or other potential sources) on matters less central to our daily concerns.

If this is true of The Times, The Washington Post, The LA Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Globe--how much the more so for cable news outlets (see my recent postings on that subject).

Is there a reality out there? Can we know it? On what can we base consequential decisions on important public matters beyond our first hand experience? Is meaningful democracy possible in such a complex world?

I'd be interested in your experiences, and in your opinions.

Bloggers on Obama/Bloomberg

By Michael Weiss - Slate Magazine:

"Conservative Ed Morrissey at Hot Air wonders if this means the mayor's a VP possibility: 'Obama will need a dynamic, experienced executive as his running mate to convince general-election voters of his substance and ability. Bloomberg has made no secret of his ambitions, and having put aside the presidency, may see a VP run as an entree to something bigger down the road. He could wind up being the economics guru of an Obama administration — and he could potentially keep Hillary voters from defecting to McCain.' Marc Ambinder is thinking along the same lines: '[T]he best way to look at an Obama-Bloomberg ticket is by noticing their complimentary traits. Obama isn't much of an administrator or a details guy by his own admission, while Bloomberg is so concerned about Your Health and Welfare that he studies intently the ins and outs of congestion pricing and trans-fats. He's a prime minister-type -- although he brings an outsider's sense of efficiency to the bureaucracy. Let Obama be the vision guy; Bloomberg could be the brass-tacks administrator.'"

A black and a Jew on a major national ticket together? Who'd have thunk it possible, even to speculate on, semi-seriously?
On a more somber note, it might provide Obama with some additional assassination insurance, at least from right wing hate types--hard to imagine they would go after Obama with a Jew in the wings.

Let's focus on the issues

Barack Obama delivered a major speech on economic policy this morning. (I understand Senator Clinton also spoke this morning, but I was otherwise occupied at the time and can't speak to that here. The same analysis may well apply--this is not an anti-Hillary posting).

As is typical, the various cable news networks hyped and hyperventilated in advance of the speech, which they assured us they would cover live--stay tuned, coming soon, coming up any moment. When Obama arrived, both CNN and MSNBC were there live. (I'm told there may be a third cable network as well, but I'm fairly unbalanced on that topic.) Obama embarked on another of his efforts to talk to his Cooper Union (scene of one of Lincoln's famous speeches) audience as if they were serious and thoughtful adults, invoking Hamilton and Jefferson and debates about the proper role of government in regulating the economy and promoting the common prosperity in the early Republic. He wove together an intricate tapestry, recognizing the importance both of market incentives and of an intelligently guided, visible hand of government in promoting fair competition, transparency, and public trust. He recognized the limits of New Deal-era regulatory approaches in keeping up with a dynamic and globalizing economy and the complex instruments of contemporary finance and capital markets. Having established these themes, he began to move to the specifics...and CNN cut away. Switch to MSNBC (I may have these reversed). Another moment of speech, then another cutaway. To what? A bunch of dimwits, blathering on with insipid commentary, doubting that anything much new had been said, with an inaudible half screen of Obama moving his lips as the dolts continued their voice-overs.
These are, of course, what pass for our main sources of live information--the self-proclaimed best political teams, blah blah. The ones that devote interminable periods to highly self-important but transient and largely content- free nonsense on the horse-race and decontextualized clips from sensationalistic utterings of tertiary campaign figures. One of these networks, indeed, cut way from Obama's live speech on the American economic mess to show us--yes, can it be--yet another in the endless looping replays from the Rev. Wright's collected wit and wisdom. Unbelievable.

It has become fashionable, in these days of cant and mudslinging, to urge that candidates debate the issues. To be honest, I haven't discerned enormous differences on the wonky policy details between Obama and Clinton, and what differences there are cut in opposing directions, at least by my lights. There are differences in personality aplenty, in governing style, in political character (and I'm not referring here to sexual habits). Different Americans will reach differing conclusions on whom they would prefer to listen to over the coming four or eight years.

There has been little enough serious, substantive discussion of many of the difficult, and politically fraught and potentially perilous issues facing our nation and the world--in this campaign or in the several previous ones. Those who have chosen to address some of these issues--folks like Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader, for example--have been on the margins (I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to assess the direction of causality in that relationship).

On those rare occasions when mainstream politicians do venture into serious discussions of real issues--as Obama (and perhaps Clinton) did today, it is a scandal that the so-called news networks cut away for drivel and pap. We as the public generally get what we deserve. It is time we demand better from our journalists, and express our dismay when we do not get it.

I'll try to drown today's sorrows in a repeat of the Daily Show, which is perhaps unique in making this point, day after day. Bravo, Jon Stewart!

Measures of success, Hillary style

Daily Kos: State of the Nation:

Five Ways Clinton Leads Obama

by Cameron Fredman, in Daily Kos

Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 09:39:37 PM PDT

Over the weekend, Senator Evan Bayh suggested we measure the success of the candidates not by delegates earned, but by the electoral votes of the states they’ve won. In the spirit of Senator Bayh, I present you with five additional metrics that I pulled out of my ass. As you’ll see, Hillary Clinton is either winning or tied with Obama in every case....

"Total number of 'New' States

CLINTON: 4

OBAMA:0

Hilllary Clinton has won New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, and New York. By contrast, Obama has failed to win a single state with the word 'New' in its name. Obama’s failure among self-proclaimed new states, raises serious questions about his supposed strength among young voters (new people) and his supposed message of change (new policies).

Average Highest Elevation

CLINTON: 6135 Feet

OBAMA: 6097 Feet

Frankly, I’m surprised that more attention hasn’t been drawn to this. Obama claims to want to elevate the level of discourse, but he has failed in states with the highest elevations. Clinton has won on Mount Whitney (California), Humphreys Peak (Arizona), Boundary Peak (Nevada), and Wheeler Peak (New Mexico). Perhaps more significantly, there are so few peaks left that despite the close margins, Obama has no hope of regaining the altitude vote. Clinton also leads among states with the highest average mean elevation: (Clinton: 1908.8 feet Obama: 1457.7 feet)."...

Sex, drugs &...

Comment on NYT Blog:

[New NY Gov] Paterson has confessed to sex. He has now also confessed to drugs. Once he confesses to rock and roll, can we be done with this and get on with the business of running this state?

— Posted by dyinglikeflies

Gary Hart on "the Democratic party (at its best)"

From Gary hart on Huff Post


... the Democratic party (at its best) is the progressive party, the party of the future, and the Republican party is the party that wishes to hold onto the past. When the Democratic party is truly the party of the future, for change, for experimentation, for adaptation, we win. When we "triangulate," we may create enough confusion to get ourselves elected, but we have no mandate to govern and we sacrifice our identity.

on Yahoo!

The best Democratic leaders, those who succeed as national leaders, are those who define the future and show us how to get there. It shouldn't surprise anyone that those rare leaders, like Barack Obama, also have a "liberal" voting record, especially when, as Senator Obama accurately points out, right-wing ideologues make sure the voting deck is stacked to reflect the old divisive agenda they've perfected. But, as he also points out, "as president, I would be setting the agenda."

Obsessing on rejecting, denouncing, repudiating

O'Reilly Attends Easter Services At Church Lead by Ex-Nazi

From Chris Kelly, Huff Post

The Huffington Post has learned that Bill O'Reilly -- who claims to love America -- spent Sunday at a "church" run by a former Hitler Youth named Joseph Alois Ratzinger. Ratzinger has gone to elaborate ends to hide this connection, including taking on the absurd pseudonym "Pope Benedict XVI." Which, even if it doesn't prove anything, certainly makes you think.

This shocking revelation comes only a week after Barack Obama admitted he attends a church formerly run by Jeremiah Wright, who talks smack about America, although probably less than Goebbels did.

This would all be holy water under the bridge, except for one disturbing and undeniable fact: Bill O'Reilly is a Roman Catholic, and Benedict "Joey Ratz" XVI worked for Hitler, as did Unity Mitford, whose baby sister was Jessica Mitford, who knew Maya Angelou, who knew Betty Shabazz, who was married to Malcolm X, who knew Louis Farrakhan.

Is there any place in our public discourse for men like Bill O'Reilly, who won't even repudiate their links to Louis Farrakhan? I'll give you the last word, and then cut you off in the middle of it: No there isn't. ...

An unanticipated endorsement

Doug Kmiec is a very prominent --and quite conservative--law professor, who has served in senior legal positions in Republican administrations and is a frequent "talking head" representing Republican and conservative positions. This is one of the more surprising endorsements of this topsy-turvy political season. The question, I suppose, is whether this will result in any sober second thoughts in the progressive community. I rather doubt it. I do wonder if this is an unanticipated fruit of Obama's speech on race in America.

Today I endorse Barack Obama for president of the United States. I believe him to be a person of integrity, intelligence and genuine good will. I take him at his word that he wants to move the nation beyond its religious and racial divides and to return United States to that company of nations committed to human rights. I do not know if his earlier life experience is sufficient for the challenges of the presidency that lie ahead. I doubt we know this about any of the men or women we might select. It likely depends upon the serendipity of the events that cannot be foreseen. I do have confidence that the Senator will cast his net widely in search of men and women of diverse, open-minded views and of superior intellectual qualities to assist him in the wide range of responsibilities that he must superintend.

This endorsement may be of little note or consequence, except perhaps that it comes from an unlikely source: namely, a former constitutional legal counsel to two Republican presidents. The endorsement will likely supply no strategic advantage equivalent to that represented by the very helpful accolades the Senator has received from many of high stature and accomplishment, including most recently, from Governor Bill Richardson. Nevertheless, it is important to be said publicly in a public forum in order that it be understood. It is not arrived at without careful thought and some difficulty.

As a Republican, I strongly wish to preserve traditional marriage not as a suspicion or denigration of my homosexual friends, but as recognition of the significance of the procreative family as a building block of society. As a Republican, and as a Catholic, I believe life begins at conception, and it is important for every life to be given sustenance and encouragement. As a Republican, I strongly believe that the Supreme Court of the United States must be fully dedicated to the rule of law, and to the employ of a consistent method of interpretation that keeps the Court within its limited judicial role. As a Republican, I believe problems are best resolved closest to their source and that we should never arrogate to a higher level of government that which can be more effectively and efficiently resolved below. As a Republican, and the constitutional lawyer, I believe religious freedom does not mean religious separation or mindless exclusion from the public square.

In various ways, Senator Barack Obama and I may disagree on aspects of these important fundamentals, but I am convinced based upon his public pronouncements and his personal writing that on each of these questions he is not closed to understanding opposing points of view, and as best as it is humanly possible, he will respect and accommodate them.

No doubt some of my friends will see this as a matter of party or intellectual treachery. I regret that and I respect their disagreement. But they will readily agree that as Republicans, we are first Americans. As Americans, we must voice our concerns for the well-being of our nation without partisanship when decisions that have been made endanger the body politic. Our president has involved our nation in a military engagement without sufficient justification or clear objective. In so doing, he has incurred both tragic loss of life and extraordinary debt jeopardizing the economy and the well-being of the average American citizen. In pursuit of these fatally flawed purposes, the office of the presidency, which it was once my privilege to defend in public office formally, has been distorted beyond its constitutional assignment. Today, I do no more than raise the defense of that important office anew, but as private citizen.

9/11 and the radical Islamic ideology that it represents is a continuing threat to our safety and the next president must have the honesty to recognize that it, as author Paul Berman has written, "draws on totalitarian inspirations from 20th-century Europe and with its double roots, religious and modern, perversely intertwined. . . .wields a lot more power, intellectually speaking, then naïve observers might suppose." Senator Obama needs to address this extremist movement with the same clarity and honesty with which he has addressed the topic of race in America. Effective criticism of the incumbent for diverting us from this task is a good start, but it is incomplete without a forthright outline of a commitment to undertake, with international partners, the formation of a world-wide entity that will track, detain, prosecute, convict, punish, and thereby, stem radical Islam's threat to civil order. I await Senator Obama's more extended thinking upon this vital subject, as he accepts the nomination of his party and engages Senator McCain in the general campaign discussion to come.

Posted Sunday, March 23, 2008 9:18 AM by Doug Kmiec

James Carville: Happy Easter, Bill

First a Tense Talk With Clinton, Then Richardson Backs Obama - New York Times:

"The reaction of some of Mr. Clinton’s allies suggests that might have been a wise decision. “An act of betrayal,” said James Carville, an adviser to Mrs. Clinton and a friend of Mr. Clinton.

“Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic,” Mr. Carville said, referring to Holy Week."

And folks think Obama's friends are objectionable?

What kind of America do you want?

Do we want more of this kind of politics?

Of gaffes and "wha'?"

If, as Michael Kinsley has said, a gaffe is when a politician accidentally tells the truth, what are we to call a lie about a lie about an accidentally-told falsehood?

The Maverick Makes It Up

This week during a trip to the Middle East, McCain severely undermined his frequent claims to be "the one best to address a national security crisis" by repeatedly stating that Iran was supporting al Qaeda in Iraq. McCain claimed that Iranian operatives were "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back." He insisted that it was "common knowledge...that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and coming back into Iraq from Iran." McCain's confusion over Iran and al Qaeda puts him in lockstep with the rest of the Bush administration. As the Washington Post notes, "The last five years have produced ample evidence that American leaders were woefully ill-informed about the country they came to rescue." ... At first, the McCain campaign claimed the senator simply "misspoke." Now the campaign is embracing the remarks, leaving voters all the more unsure about McCain's understanding of foreign policy. ...

WHERE'S THE STRAIGHT TALK?: After press coverage of McCain's gaffe, his campaign issued a statement claiming the senator "misspoke and immediately corrected himself." In an interview, McCain himself insisted that he "corrected it immediately," and that he "just simply misspoke." However, as video proves, it was not until Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) whispered a correction in his ear that McCain corrected his mistake. Moreover, McCain conflated Iran and al Qaeda at least three times, not including another time last month -- hardly a case of "misspeaking." By Thursday the McCain campaign had reversed course, insisting McCain did not misspeak at all. McCain advisor Max Boot asked Thursday, "[W]hat gaffe?" and insisted, "There is copious evidence of Iran supplying and otherwise assisting Al Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni terrorist groups (including Al Qaeda central)."

From "The Progress Report" of the Center for American Progress

Obama's faith in the reasoning abilities of the American public

Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com:

"The entire premise of Barack Obama's candidacy is built upon the opposite assumption -- that Americans are not only able, but eager, to participate in a more elevated and reasoned political discourse, one that moves beyond the boisterous, screeching, simple-minded, ugly, vapid attack-based distractions and patronizing manipulation ... that has dominated our political debates for the last two decades at least.

Nobody actually knows which of these views are right because there hasn't been a serious national campaign in a very long time that has attempted to elevate itself above the Drudgian muck by relying (not entirely, but mostly) upon reasoned discourse and substantive discussions ... Obama's insistence that Americans are hungry for that sort of elevated debate and are able to engage it -- and his willingness to stake his campaign on his being right about that -- has been, in my view, one of the most admirable aspects of his candidacy.

But in Obama's faith in the average American voter lies one of the greatest weaknesses of his campaign. His faith in the ability and willingness of Americans to rise above manipulative political tactics seems drastically to understate both the efficacy of such tactics and the deafening amplification they receive from our establishment press. Even Americans who authentically believe that they want a "new, better politics" may be swayed by the same old Drudgian sewerage because it is powerful and ubiquitous. ...