Reliving Recount, Thanks, HBO

Jonathan Chait has been a favorite writer over at The New Republic ever since he penned, Go Already!, explaining why she didn't have a chance after Texas and Ohio, and which I wrote about here (on my birthday - mid-March).

Now he engages in a discussion the producer and writer of Recount, airing tonight on HBO at 9 pm. (Subtitle is The future of the nation was hanging by a chad). Two radio segments over at NPR here, the second, longer (14 1/2 minutes) one is much better.

What a thing to remember on Memorial Day weekend....That fall saw the onset of my illness, and though bedridden, I vividly remember being riveted by the news, legal arguments and politics of those 36 days. I remember being grateful at least something of import and interest was on the cable news channels.

Here is Chait's best insight:

The recount was the moment when the Republican Party fully realized that, beneath the still-imposing edifice, the old institutions had rotted away and could be brought down with a few swift blows.

Yet the Democrats still believed in the power of the establishment and its ideals. This is a major theme of Recount. Al Gore and his lieutenants agonized about their reputation, their duty, and winning the approval of The New York Times, while Republicans saw the episode as a pure street fight. The Republicans were teeming with rage and paranoia, well-captured in the movie by the "Brooks Brothers Riot" and the bitter commentaries of GOP recount lawyer Ben Ginsburg. This was the political culture of the moment. Liberal editorial pages studiously urged both sides to fight fair, while conservative organs like the Wall Street Journal and the Weekly Standard printed deranged conspiracy theories and urged Bush to do whatever it took to win.

His one criticism of the film:

How did you not include the scene where John Bolton burst into a Tallahassee library and announced, "I'm with the Bush-Cheney team, and I'm here to stop the count!"? That always struck me as the most cinematic moment of the whole episode.

Here's Director Jay Roach's money quote:

Late in pre-production, Danny Strong and I went to Washington, D.C., and interviewed Brad Blakeman, a very charming, intelligent spinmeister in Florida depicted in the film. He was, by his own account, the man at least partly behind "Sore Loserman," "Surrender Gorethy," "The Gorinch Who Stole the Election," and other demonstration characters and stunts that appeared at rallies outside the Florida Supreme Court and outside counting centers throughout the 36 days of the recount...Blakemean also said he helped organize the edgier "Brooks Brothers Riot" from his roving RV office in Florida...this protest..succeeded in intimidating the canvassing board, who shut down the recount right after the protests, even though the board had approved the counting earlier.

Fascinatingly for me, Blakeman told us there was a very deliberate effort by the Republicans in Florida to "act more like Democrats," and to take a page out of the book written by the left-wing protestors in the '60s who used protests and street theater to inject turmoil and chaos into established political processes to make them look flawed, corrupt, or ridiculous...to "preserve the victory," the Republicans this time had to preemptively take to the streets and make the recount seem messy, chaotic, and even dangerous to the country. The hope was to prevent the recount from flipping the victory to Gore, and if it did, to make the recount's results seem illegitimate.

Screenwriter Danny Strong cites A Lion in Winter as inspiration:

A strong argument against any sort of comic tone is that this film chronicles too important an event in American history for any levity. It is a reasonable argument, but ultimately I felt this approach would diminish the power of the film. My personal feeling is that comedy enriches drama. By creating a contrasting tone, drama becomes more fully realized because comedy gives the drama a deeper hole to be mined from. A great example of this is the film/play The Lion in Winter, by James Goldman. It is an historical drama documenting the power struggle between Henry II and his scheming sons for his throne. Brimming with wit, the film is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen, and by maintaining a witty tone, it makes the drama sing with raw emotion and intensity. This is what I was hoping to achieve with the Recount screenplay.

To read the full text of Roach and Strong's response, click here.

'til 9 pm, then.

The Man Who Got Away

Lyrics from a song sung by Judy Garland in A Star is Born.

The night is bitter,
The stars have lost their glitter;
The winds grow colder
And suddenly you're older -
And all because of the man that got away.

No more his eager call,
The writing's on the wall;
The dreams you dreamed have all
Gone astray.

The man that won you
Has gone off and undone you.
That great beginning
Has seen the final inning.
Don't know what happened. It's all a crazy game!

No more that all-time thrill,
For you've been through the mill -
And never a new love will
Be the same.

Good riddance, good-bye!
Ev'ry trick of his you're on to.
But, fools will be fools -
And where's he gone to?

The road gets rougher,
It's lonelier and tougher.
With hope you burn up -
Tomorrow he may turn up.
There's just no letup the live-long night and day!

Ever since this world began
There is nothing sadder than
A one-man woman looking for
The man that got away...
The man that got away.

Obama Uses FDR's 4 Freedoms To Outline Latin American Policy

Two Venezuelans called me last night, excited about Obama's speech on the Americas. One is a close friend for whom I have the utmost respect, and who has been very kind and patient with me, regularly engaging me in my favorite pastime: political debate.

Of the many voids created by my mother's death, her silence on the politics of the day is one of the most acute for me. I miss debating and discussing politics with her. My Venezuelan friend spends much time engaging me and fills some of that void for me and I adore her for that, among other reasons.

My friend was a long time Clinton supporter. I got her to see Obama's virtues - an endeavor I admit was likely aided by our failed attempt to get into the rally in January when Sen. Edward Kennedy endorsed Obama at my law school alma mater, American University. I'd already had my ticket for days and scheduled to go, when I agreed to help her that morning - but I said I had to be done by 10 am. Then the news broke that Kennedy would be there. I knew the crowd would be even more insane. the line to get in even longer, but I'd committed to her. So we'd been up since before dawn, packing a container to be shipped to Venezuela, and as a result were late getting on the line. We were later than we should have been for the crowd that day; later than I knew we should have been once I heard Kennedy was going to be there. My ticket was worthless. We missed the door closing by about 50 people. And she felt awful.

By March she'd started to come around. Obama's Philadelphia speech on race impressed her. Yet legitimate concerns continued to nag her and linger, especially in the area of foreign policy.

She feared that Obama would be weak and give Chavez stature by meeting with him. She feared Obama was weak. She feared Obama was naive. She feared Obama was too inexperienced to understand foreign policy.

Hearing from the other Venezuelan what Obama had said, she had to call me. It was a fun call! I was on speaker phone and talking to them both. And I warmly chided her for her lack of confidence in Obama's intelligence.

And then I looked up the speech. Because of her, I understand what has been going on in Venezuela with Chavez and Columbia with terrorists. And I am familiar with Brazil. Because of the personal background she's provided me, I could see why Obama's words carried such import.

First, I must say it's a brilliant speech, not just for its substance but for its structure. He uses FDR's Four Freedoms to provide the framework of his remarks.

What all of us strive for is freedom as FDR described it. Political freedom. Religious freedom. But also freedom from want, and freedom from fear. At our best, the United States has been a force for these four freedoms in the Americas. But if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that at times we’ve failed to engage the people of the region with the respect owed to a partner.

Most of the mainstream media coverage (and actually even the internet coverage I've seen) has been about his words and policy regarding Cuba. But he also had forceful words regarding Columbia, Brazil and Venezuela.

Here are parts that struck me.

Regarding Hugo Chavez:

No wonder, then, that demagogues like Hugo Chavez have stepped into this vacuum. His predictable yet perilous mix of anti-American rhetoric, authoritarian government, and checkbook diplomacy offers the same false promise as the tried and failed ideologies of the past. But the United States is so alienated from the rest of the Americas that this stale vision has gone unchallenged, and has even made inroads from Bolivia to Nicaragua. And Chavez and his allies are not the only ones filling the vacuum. While the United States fails to address the changing realities in the Americas, others from Europe and Asia – notably China – have stepped up their own engagement. Iran has drawn closer to Venezuela, and just the other day Tehran and Caracas launched a joint bank with their windfall oil profits.

Also this:

And we know that freedom across our hemisphere must go beyond elections. In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez is a democratically elected leader. But we also know that he does not govern democratically. He talks of the people, but his actions just serve his own power. Yet the Bush Administration's blustery condemnations and clumsy attempts to undermine Chavez have only strengthened his hand.

Regarding Colombia:

For the people of Colombia – who have suffered at the hands of killers of every sort – that means battling all sources of violence. When I am President, we will continue the Andean Counter-Drug Program, and update it to meet evolving challenges. We will fully support Colombia’s fight against the FARC. We’ll work with the government to end the reign of terror from right wing paramilitaries. We will support Colombia’s right to strike terrorists who seek safe-haven across its borders. And we will shine a light on any support for the FARC that comes from neighboring governments. This behavior must be exposed to international condemnation, regional isolation, and – if need be – strong sanctions. It must not stand.

Regarding Brazil (which brought to mind William Langewiesche's riveting "City of Fear: Letter from São Paulo" from Vanity Fair last April 2007)

That begins with understanding what’s changed in Latin America, and what hasn’t. Enormous wealth has been created, and financial markets are far stronger than a decade ago. Brazil’s economy has grown by leaps and bounds, and perhaps the second richest person in the world is a Mexican. Yet while there has been great economic progress, there is still back-breaking inequality. Despite a growing middle class, 100 million people live on less than two dollars a day, and 40 percent of Latin Americans live in poverty. This feeds everything from drugs, to migration, to support for leaders that appeal to the poor without delivering on their promises.

Regarding "freedom from fear":

Because if we’ve learned anything in our history in the Americas, it’s that true security cannot come from force alone. Not as long as there are towns in Mexico where drug kingpins are more powerful than judges. Not as long as there are children who grow up afraid of the police. Not as long as drugs and gangs move north across our border, while guns and cash move south in return.

This nexus is a danger to every country in the region – including our own. Thousands of Central American gang members have been arrested across the United States, including here in south Florida. There are national emergencies facing Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. Mexican drug cartels are terrorizing cities and towns. President Calderon was right to say that enough is enough. We must support Mexico’s effort to crack down. But we must stand for more than force – we must support the rule of law from the bottom up. That means more investments in prevention and prosecutors; in community policing and an independent judiciary.

Freedom from want:

For two hundred years, the United States has made it clear that we won’t stand for foreign intervention in our hemisphere. But every day, all across the Americas, there is a different kind of struggle – not against foreign armies, but against the deadly threat of hunger and thirst, disease and despair. That is not a future that we have to accept – not for the child in Port au Prince or the family in the highlands of Peru. We can do better. We must do better.

We cannot ignore suffering to our south, nor stand for the globalization of the empty stomach. Responsibility rests with governments in the region, but we must do our part...It’s time for the United States to once again be a beacon of hope and a helping hand.

And then his finish:

At a time when our leadership has suffered, I have no doubts about whether we can succeed. If the United States makes its case; if we meet those who doubt us or deride us head-on; if we draw on our best tradition of standing up for those Four Freedoms – then we can shape our future instead of being shaped by it. We can renew our leadership in the hemisphere. We can win the support not just of governments, but of the people of the Americas. But only if we leave the bluster behind. Only if we are strong and steadfast; confident and consistent.

Jose Marti once wrote. “It is not enough to come to the defense of freedom with epic and intermittent efforts when it is threatened at moments that appear critical. Every moment is critical for the defense of freedom.”

Every moment is critical. And this must be our moment. Freedom. Opportunity. Dignity. These are not just the values of the United States – they are the values of the Americas. They were the cause of Washington’s infantry and Bolivar’s cavalry; of Marti’s pen and Hidalgo’s church bells.

That legacy is our inheritance. That must be our cause. And now must be the time that we turn the page to a new chapter in the story of the Americas.

Obama's speech is not just descriptive but prescriptive. He lays out specifically what he will do. Full text here. You can watch here (about 30 minutes):


Cool! Go Obama!

UPDATE: This morning, the same good aforementioned friend wrote me this: I just finished hearing this speech and it was JUST BRILLIANT!!!

We did not confer when coming up with that adjective. As usual, she broadened my horizons. She also sent me the official link from the Obama campaign web site which hosts the video of the speech along with six helpful bullet points that outline what Obama will do. From there I found a link to Obama's full Latin American plan (It's 13 pages).

Thanks, girl!~

As Democrats Come Alive, Conservatives Die?

George Packer has a piece, The Fall of Conservatism, in The New Yorker this week that opens with this:

The era of American politics that has been dying before our eyes was born in 1966. That January, a twenty-seven-year-old editorial writer for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat named Patrick Buchanan went to work for Richard Nixon, who was just beginning the most improbable political comeback in American history. Having served as Vice-President in the Eisenhower Administration, Nixon had lost the Presidency by a whisker to John F. Kennedy, in 1960, and had been humiliated in a 1962 bid for the California governorship. But he saw that he could propel himself back to power on the strength of a new feeling among Americans who, appalled by the chaos of the cities, the moral heedlessness of the young, and the insults to national pride in Vietnam, were ready to blame it all on the liberalism of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Right-wing populism was bubbling up from below; it needed to be guided by a leader who understood its resentments because he felt them, too.

“From Day One, Nixon and I talked about creating a new majority,” Buchanan told me recently.

All I could think of was that 1966 was the year I was born. Apparently I came into the world the same year that saw the sunset of the New Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society.

Maybe that's why I have such an aversion to the convulsions of the 60s and 70s. Look at what it wrought:

• 1980.
• Ronald Reagan National Airport.
• Grover Norquist.
• Fox News.
• Streets blocked off in my beloved city. You can no longer drive by the White House or the Capital as you could when I first came to DC in 1986.
  

Well, we've been spared the Reagan dime. And yeah, Clinton was in there for 8 years, but I'm thinking of him as more and more as a sell out in contrast to Obama's courage and ability to change the playing field. Listening to Obama - not just speeches, but his press conferences where, for example, he slammed Bush for pushing too early for elections in Gaza. He called Republicans naive in foreign policy. And put them on the defensive. It was breath taking.

Rather than responding in a tone of outrage, flaming the rhetoric, Obama got out there and ridiculed Bush, with a tone of bemusement over how he could be so stupid, over his policies.

From last week, Obama's response to the Bush's speech in Isreal:

"If George Bush and John McCain want to have a debate about protecting the United States of America, that is a debate that I'm happy to have any time, any place, and that is a debate that I will win because George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for," Obama said in a campaign speech in South Dakota.

"They've got to answer for the fact that Iran is the greatest strategic beneficiary of our invasion of Iraq. It made Iran stronger, George Bush's policies," he said.

"They're going to have to explain why Hamas now controls Gaza, Hamas that was strengthened because the United States insisted that we should have democratic elections in the Palestinian Authority."

"That's the Bush-McCain record on protecting this country," he added. "Those are the failed policies that John McCain wants to double down on."

Wow. I so wish my mom were alive to witness this.

Maybe because of the ascendancy and mastery of conservativism's grip on power, if not the arguments, over my lifetime is why the Kennedys - all of them - their ideals, their speeches, their call to public service and belief in government hold such allure and inspire such nostalgia in me. The awful news of Sen. Ted Kennedy's diagnosis hit me hard on Tuesday. His speech in 1980 is what moved me to get involved with politics.

I worked on Gary Hart's campaign in 84, came to DC in 1988 to work for Dukasis. I did not work for Bill Clinton, either time. I never liked him. In 2000, my aversion to the Clintons kept me from working or even voting for Gore (living in DC, I could afford my principles and did not have to consider the implications of voting for Nader, which I did). But I was back at it for Kerry and again this year.

And over those decades, amid my love of politics instilled by a speech by a Kennedy, the conservatives were in their ascendancy, which culminating in the, to me astonishing, re-election of George Bush in 2004.

And then to read this quote from Grover Norquist just days after in the Washington Post (I still have the clipping on my bulletin board):

Certain animals run around and are unpleasant, but when they've been fixed, then they are happy and sedate.

That was his prescription for Democrats here in DC. He thought "the city might become less bitter and fractious now that the Democrats had been more or less neutered." Nice, eh? Obama cites that quote in The Audicity of Hope too. (For more about Norquist, click here.)

I don't mind fair disagreements on policy. I love debate. But that's not what's been going on in public life since I've been of age. I'm hungry for change. Starving.

Well, maybe Packer is right. Maybe this is the beginning of the end. And finally in my lifetime, the values of this country that I so love will represent patriotism and will manifest in my city and our country.

Busted: Blogging, Bloggers and Blog Readers

James Wolcott was dead wrong about the popularity of Sex and the City, but he strikes me as dead on when describing the community of the left site Daily Kos. It could be applied to any number of blogs (and I felt a disconcerting slight recognition):

a community with a shared history (initial enthusiasm over Howard Dean, shock and grief over George Bush’s re-election in 2004, jubilation over the 2006 midterm elections) that is populated by individuals who, because they spend so much time hunched over a computer taking politics personally and living intensely inside their heads, are on constant hyper-aware alert—sensitive to slights, prone to excitations, and susceptible to a hair-trigger impulse to dramatize their thoughts and feelings with words loaded into a rocket launcher.

Okay, maybe some of that applies to me, but I want to note that I didn't support Howard Dean at all in 2004. I supported John Kerry from 2003. So my history is not shared, mayhap my present is also distinct, and I don't spend so much (too much!) time hunched over a computer taking politics personally....etc., etc. etc. Ow!

In When Democrats Go Post-al, Wolcott describes the civil war over at the Daily Kos between Clinton and Obama supporters and provides an overview of all the blogs I regularly view.

Wolcott also defines "concern trolls" - which I admit was news to me:

A new leaner, meaner cut of Democrat, Markos (founder of Daily Kos) spurned the classic liberal temptation to make nice and salve the bruised feelings of the angered and offended, something conservative opponents such as Ann Coulter and Limbaugh never bothered doing. The gibe used to be that a liberal was somebody so fair-minded that he wouldn’t even take his own side in an argument, and in the blog world the term for such namby-pambies is “concern troll.” A concern troll is someone perennially anxious about going too far and doing more harm than good by alienating moderates.

There is something thrilling about Obama's full throated defense of liberal principles (as opposed to Hillary's triangulation or selling out). He's changing the argument, challenging assumptions, hitting aggressively back not just responding. I so wish my mother was here to enjoy this. It feels like forever in coming.

This part intrigues, especially in context of Josh Green's convincing piece over at The Atlantic Monthly, which I wrote about last week.

The Clinton campaign was culturally disadvantaged at Daily Kos. Despite hiring Peter Daou, a well-respected blogger at Salon and the former director of blogging operations for the John Kerry campaign, as her Internet director, Hillary lacked the blog cred of Barack Obama, John Edwards, and others. She earned a reputation for snippy elitism when, alone among the contenders, she skipped the first Yearly Kos convention, in 2006; she attended the second, only to be booed for her refusal to spurn lobbyist money. The impression, fair or not, was that her campaign’s interest in the online sphere was solely as a fund-raising reservoir: lower vacuum attachment into databases, flick on power switch, and hose up contributions.

The whole Wolcott piece was fun for me to read. It's all admittedly very insular. He highlights

the Huffington Post, where even a notable progressive such as Barbara Ehrenreich tried to tar Hillary with fascist associations.

I laughed out loud. I just blogged about Barbara Ehrenreich's view this morning, though I'd read her Nation piece back in March (never saw it on HuffPost, as the Huffington Post is known). Maybe now that the book on The Family is finally being published, it'll get some traction.

NY Times Examines Hillary's VP Hopes

The New York Times today examines the VP rumors. It's disheartening to read but had this:

Yet anyone who knows the Clintons is well aware that, at times, they come to politics with different motivations. Both of them want to return to the White House; Mrs. Clinton, of New York, also enjoys being a senator, while Mr. Clinton, according to associates, sees the vice presidency as perhaps her best path to becoming president someday if she loses the nominating fight. And Mr. Clinton has his own ideas about his wife’s best interests — even if she sometimes does not share them.

And this from Obama:

“Two weeks from now, we will know who wins the Democratic nomination,” Mr. Obama replied. “I don’t want to jump the gun. I will tell you though that my goal is to have the best possible government — and that means me winning. So I am very practical-minded guy.”

Well, I hope he's practical enough to see a. he doesn't need Hillary to win and b. once he does Bill will be a nightmare.

Congress FINALLY Asserts Some Authority

This is refreshing. Rep. John Conyers is going after Rove.



Will we get answers about the firings of the 6 US Attorneys?

Hillary's Religious Elitest Cult to be Revealed

Back in March, Barbara Ehrenreich published a piece in The Nation, Hillary's Nasty Pastorate, regarding Hillary Clinton's religious cult known as The Family. A book about the group, which takes issue with Christianity's premise that the poor shall inherit the earth, and maintains instead that it's the rich and powerful (elites!).

The Fmily avoids the word Christian but worships Jesus, though not the Jesus who promised the earth to the "meek." They believe that, in mass societies, it's only the elites who matter, the political leaders who can build God's "dominion" on earth.

Regarding how Clinton got involved with the group, best publicly known for the National Prayer Breakfast held every February in Washington.

Clinton fell in with The Family in 1993, when she joined a Bible study group composed of wives of conservative leaders like Jack Kemp and James Baker. When she ascended to the Senate, she was promoted to what Sharlet calls the Family's "most elite cell," the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast, which included, until his downfall, Virginia's notoriously racist Senator George Allen. This has not been a casual connection for Clinton. She has written of Doug Coe, The Family's publicity-averse leader, that he is "a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."

Why Hillary?

What drew Clinton into the sinister heart of the international right? Maybe it was just a phase in her tormented search for identity, marked by ever-changing hairstyles and names: Hillary Rodham, Mrs. Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton and now Hillary Clinton. She reached out to many potential spiritual mentors during her White House days, including New Age guru Marianne Williamson and the liberal rabbi Michael Lerner. But it was the Family association that stuck.

Why am I highlighting this now? Because The Family is about to be published. And Bloggingheads.tv does an interview with the author, Jeff Sharlet.

My oh my.

No Way, No VP Slot for Hillary

This has been a pretty frightening day. After Hillary's strange delusions yesterday, Karen Tumulty of Time posted this story: What Does Hillary Want?,

The money quote - surprise - Bill:

What will Clinton's terms of surrender turn out to be? Her husband, for one, seems to have a pretty clear idea what he thinks she should get as a consolation prize. In Bill Clinton's view, she has earned nothing short of an offer to be Obama's running mate, according to some who are close to the former President. Bill "is pushing real hard for this to happen," says a friend.

Well, that caused some ripples through the blogosphere. Here's the ending of the Tulmuty's Time piece, hinting at Hillary fighting all the way to the convention:

What role will she be permitted to play at the convention? She has earned by effort alone a chance to speak there. Several party officials believe she is likely to insist that her name be placed in nomination on the first ballot, opening up all the divisions once again. Whether and how Clinton and Obama can work their way through the terms of surrender will tell voters a lot about both of them. And it could help determine whether a Democrat is elected in November.

Well, then this report provided a sigh of relief, from The Field (worth the click to read the whole thing):

The Field can now confirm, based on multiple sources, something that both campaigns publicly deny: that Senator Clinton has directly told Senator Obama that she wants to be his vice presidential nominee, and that Senator Obama politely but straightforwardly and irrevocably said “no.” Obama is going to pick his own running mate based on his own criteria and vetting process.

(The Clinton campaign was asked about this report and gave a denial, according to Talkleft.com).

And Time also reported that Obama has already began that vetting process and appointed ex-Fannie Mae executive Jim Johnson (who performed the same service to Mondale and Kerry) Politico noted "He's not a risk to pull a Dick Cheney and select himself." Interesting timing, that leak.

The Field suggests that the rejection of her offer could account for some bizarre comparisons Hillary offered yesterday - all in one day - which is what made it all even more peculiar. She equated the situation of FL and MI to -

1. Zimbabwe (from CBS News)

Desperate to get attention for her cause to seat Florida and Michigan delegates, Hillary Clinton compared the plight of Zimbabweans in their recent fraudulent election to the uncounted votes of Michigan and Florida voters saying it is wrong when “people go through the motions of an election only to have them discarded and disregarded.”

“We’re seeing that right now in Zimbabwe," Clinton explained. "Tragically, an election was held, the president lost, they refused to abide by the will of the people,” Clinton told the crowd of senior citizens at a retirement community in south Florida.

2. the 2000 FL recount (from MSNBC's First Read)

Clinton, speaking with WMJI radio in Cleveland, Ohio, this morning before flying to Florida, referred to the upcoming HBO movie about the 2000 recount and said she has heard that it “makes a very strong case” for seating the state’s delegates today.

“The lesson is if you can discern the clear intent of the voter, why would you punish the voter?” she said. “We are turning this into a major battle that I think is really ill serving the party.”

3. The Civil Rights Movement (via Politico)

Clinton, at times sounding like a modern history professor, praised the abolitionists, suffragettes and civil rights pioneers and talked about her own efforts to fight legislative redistricting and voter identification initiatives that she said dilute minority voting power.

"This work to extend the franchise to all of our citizens is a core mission of the modern Democratic party," she said. "From signing the Voting Rights Act and fighting racial discrimination at the ballot box to lowering the voting age so those old enough to fight and die in war would have the right to choose their commander in chief, to fighting for multi-lingual ballots so you can make your voice heard no matter what language you speak."

That was all in one day!

As many have noted, Clinton herself as well as her aides Harold Ickes and Clinton campaign Chairman Terry McAuliffe supported sanction against states that broke the DNC agreement. Harold Ickes this morning accounted for the apparent cognitive dissonance (shall we shall unprincipled views?) between his support for punishing FL and MI when he was a DNC member and his now held view that the delegations should only be seated at 100%.

Mark Halperin, who assembles and reports on Time's blog, The Page, also notes that Clinton supporters are planning to swarm the DNC on May 31st (the date for the Rules Committee meeting when there will be, hopefully, some resolution) and that DNC members are being sent oranges painted with "Count Florida's Votes."

Hillary Clinton is FULLY responsible for stoking this fire and should put a stop to this immediately. Otherwise, we will all go down in flames together and have to endure another 4 years.

As Jeffrey Toobin noted in The New Yorker this week, for the Supreme Court much is at stake in November. One vote - one man - Justice Kennedy is all that stand between us and a Supreme Court that would as do much destruction as the court of the 1930s. Toobin provides context and unfolded the meaning of John McCain's May 6th speech about the future of the Court. And Toobin repeated a quote from the reporting he did for his excellent book, The Nine:

It’s difficult to quarrel with Justice Stephen Breyer’s assessment of his new colleagues: “It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much.”

Back to Hillary and her quixotic quest, it is also worth noting that in the very recent past - last week her husband and two weeks ago McAuliffe - her campaign posited that seating both MI and FL at 50% would be acceptable.

That is a position Obama himself claimed was "a reasonable solution" in an interview with the St. Petersburg Times. Also reported:

"In all these races if I didn't campaign at all and this had just been a referendum on name recognition, Sen. Clinton would be the nominee,'' Obama told the Times during his first campaign trip to Florida in eight months. "It's pretty hard to make an argument that somehow you winning what is essentially a name recognition contest in Florida was a good measure of electoral strength there."

This week ABC News notes the harder line on this matter that has evolved from Clinton's campaign - it's 100% or nothing. Hmmm - is that change due to Obama saying no way, Hosea - no VP slot?

Jonanthan Chait, writing Clinton's Shocking Florida Gambit over at The New Republic, does not mince words:

But this episode is very revealing about Clinton's character. I try not to make moralistic characterological judgments about politicians, because all politicians compromise their ideals in the pursuit of power. There are no angels in this business. Clinton's gambit, however, truly is breathtaking.

If she's consciously lying, it's a shockingly cynical move. I don't think she's lying. I think she's so convinced of her own morality and historical importance that she can whip herself into a moralistic fervor to support nearly any position that might benefit her, however crass and sleazy. It's not just that she's convinced herself it's okay to try to steal the nomination, she has also appropriated the most sacred legacies of liberalism for her effort to do so. She is proving herself temperamentally unfit for the presidency.

Maybe Ellen Ladowsky was right. Two weeks ago I wrote about Ladowsky's view (put forth at Bloggingheads.tv and at The Huffington Post) that Hillary's inner reality is not accurate, not based on facts. Her analysis was in the context of Hillary's Bosnia lie, which similarly to Chait, Ladowsky assessed that Hillary believed she was telling the truth about ducking sniper fire. And Ladowsky hinted that it didn't bode well for her to see the writing on the wall when the time came to drop out. And her irritation and anger at being proved wrong (and pushed out of her physic reality) also does not bode well for her going gracefully off stage right.

As any one familiar with very helpful Slate's delegate counter knew, after March 5th, Hillary could not win. She has not only been deluding herself but most of America not paying attention. The media went along as their ratings are ripe and healthy.

Think of all those people who donated $22 million dollars to her campaign in April. For what? A pipe dream? Her ego?

Notwithstanding The Field's report, I won't feel safe that she really gone until she's gone - out of the race and with another announced as VP.

Hamilton Jordan, RIP

Hamilton Jordan died.

Back in late February I highlighted a Newsweek article Hamilton Jordon wrote offering Obama advice,

he lays out some pretty specific advice for Obama including what role Mayor Mike Bloomberg, former Senator Sam Nunn and Senator Chuck Hagel should play in an Obama presidency.

Interesting now given that Sam Nunn has endorsed Obama and Chuck Hagel is saying such nice things about Obama.

TPM Calls Hillary Toxic

To catch up on other views regarding Hillary's Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo also opined about the trouble Hillary stirred up last week in FL in post titled Toxic.

I've always assumed, as I think most people have, that once the nomination is settled the Florida and Michigan delegates will be seated. And I can see if Sen. Clinton wants to embrace this issue to claim a moral victory even while coming short of her goal of the nomination. As things currently stand, seating them would still leave Sen. Clinton behind in delegates.

But Sen. Clinton is doing much more than this. She is embarking on a gambit that is uncertain in its result and simply breathtaking in its cynicism.

On Hillary's "principles":

The evidence is simply overwhelming that Sen. Clinton didn't think this was a problem at all -- until it became a vehicle to provide a rationale for her continued campaign. Now, that's politics. One day you're on one side of an issue, the next you're on the other, all depending on the tactical necessities of the moment. But that's not what Clinton is doing. She's elevating it to a level of principle -- first principles -- on par with the great voting rights struggles of history.

And the lasting harm to the Democratic Party:

What she's doing is not securing her the nomination. Rather, she's gunning up a lot of her supporters to believe that the nomination was stolen from her -- a belief many won't soon abandon. And that on the basis of rationales and arguments there's every reason to think she doesn't even believe in.

Shame on her.

Prominent Republicans Side with Obama

On the current substantive debate about foreign policy (wow, how refreshing), two prominent Republicans have sided with Obama, openly.

First James Baker -

"Diplomacy involves talking to your enemies. You don't reward your enemies necessarily by talking to them if you are tough and you know what you are doing. You don't appease them. Talking to an enemy is not in my view appeasement."

He made 19 trips to Syria when he was Secretary of State, when Syria was on the list of state-sponsors of terrorism. Here's the video.



Also Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) accuses his colleague, Sen. John McCain, of being too political and unprinicipaled. It's worth noting that Hagel is the top ranking Republican of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

From The Huffington Post's Sam Stein:

"We know from past campaigns that presidential candidates will say many things," Hagel said of some of McCain's recent rhetoric, namely his policy on talking to Iran. "But once they have the responsibility to govern the country and lead the world, that difference between what they said and what responsibilities they have to fulfill are vastly different. I'm very upset with John with some of the things he's been saying. And I can't get into the psychoanalysis of it. But I believe that John is smarter than some of the things he is saying. He is, he understands it more. John is a man who reads a lot, he's been around the world. I want him to get above that and maybe when he gets into the general election, and becomes the general election candidate he will have a higher-level discourse on these things."

Hagel, speaking to a small gathering at the residence of the Italian ambassador, took umbrage with several positions taken by the McCain campaign, including the Arizona Senator's criticism of Obama for pledging to engage with Iran. Engagement is not, and should not be confused for, capitulation, he argued.

"I never understand how anyone in any realm of civilized discourse could sort through the big issues and challenges and threats and figure out how to deal with those without engaging in some way...."

Hagel then offered a wry tweak of his GOP colleague. "I am confident that if Obama is elected president that is the approach we will take. And my friend John McCain said some other things about that. We'll see, but in my opinion it has to be done. It is essential."

Hagel, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, went on to belittle the tendency for some within his own party to disparage those who tout diplomacy. "You take some risks in talking about this," he said, "especially in the Congress, because you can immediately be branded as an appeaser."

Hagel is also widely thought to be under consideration by Obama for VP. One Washington Post columnist argued for Hagel on Sunday.

Hillary As Amputated Knight

The video below, which is a recasting of a very funny Monty Python scene, reminded me of the opening of a Maureen Dowd column back from March (which I seem to recall was in the aftermath Samantha Power's calling Hillary Clinton a "monster"). Note that this column is from nearly two months ago - March 23rd. At that point already, Hillary could not mathematically win.

Here's Dowd's opening:

It is a tribute to Hillary Clinton that even though, rationally, political soothsayers think she can no longer win, irrationally, they wonder how she will pull it off.

It’s impossible to imagine The Terminator, as a former aide calls her, giving up. Unless every circuit is out, she’ll regenerate enough to claw her way out of the grave, crawl through the Rezko Memorial Lawn and up Obama’s wall, hurl her torso into the house and brutally haunt his dreams.

“It’s like one of those movies where you think you know the end, but then you watch with your fingers over your eyes,” said one leading Democrat.

Read the rest of Haunting Obama's Dreams.

And here's the very funny, frightening video:

NY Times Sex & The City Crossword

This was fun.

Soon!

Hitchens Imagines Parliamentary-Style Grilling for President

Well, actually, McCain suggested he'd adopt the practice in his speech on the 15th. But Christopher Hitchens, being Hitchens and being British, does a pretty fascinating job at examining the implications in a piece posted over at Slate. He posits both what might have been and what could be.

As a C-Span fan myself, this nugget of McCain's speech perked my ear up too.

"I will ask Congress," said the presumptive Republican nominee, "to grant me the privilege of coming before both houses to take questions, and address criticism, much the same as the prime minister of Great Britain appears regularly before the House of Commons."

In Hitchen's views -

There's no script. The handlers can't come in there with you. There's no warning of the real question, because the topic can easily be concealed inside an ostensible or pretext question. There's no defense against a crisply worded follow-up. Nobody can become prime minister, or continue as prime minister, who cannot stand up to it.

Hitchens reviews the historical points in the past when such a practice was considered here.

And it should be noted that this practice would be very un-Bush.

Half in Ten: Why My Mom Loved Edwards

My mom liked Edwards a lot. She appreciated his focus on poverty. My aunt, her sister, favors and admires Edwards too.

So of course I thought of both my mother and my aunt when Edwards launched his poverty campaign Half in Ten, the goal of which is to reduce poverty in the US by 50% in 10 years. Edwards is working with representatives of the community organizing group ACORN, the Center for American Progress, Coalition on Human Needs, and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

The goal of the campaign is to:

1. Elevate and sustain a focus on the situations facing the poor and middle class today
2. Build and strengthen an effective constituency to demand legislative action on poverty and economic mobility
3. Advance specific legislative and policy proposals that will deliver real benefits to struggling American families

Peter Drier, over at The Huffington Post, notes the near entire media black out on the effort in his essay, Edwards Poverty Campaign Met With Media Blackout, which goes right to the campaign's first goal.

Drier relays some important facts that need highlighting:

Few media stories point out that among the world's affluent nations (primarily Canada, Japan, Australia, and the countries of Western Europe), the U.S. has the highest poverty rate (more than twice that of many European countries) and by far the widest gap between the rich and poor.

And my mother would have admired this:

When he announced his campaign for president, he did so in an impoverished area of New Orleans, a neighborhood hard hit by Hurricane Katrina. During his presidential campaign, which ended nearly four months ago, he tried to shine a spotlight on poverty. As one of the leading candidates for his party's nomination, Edwards was able in July to get reporters to follow him on a three-day, eight-state, 1,800-mile poverty tour that included stops in New Orleans, Kentucky, Mississippi, Cleveland and elsewhere.

Many of the stories that came out of that tour focused on the human side of poverty, and on the candidate's policy ideas. But others reflected journalistic cynicism, viewing Edwards' anti-poverty crusade as simply a political gambit to grab attention. They failed to mention that none of the eight states on Edwards' poverty tour were among the key early primary states that would make or break his bid for the White House.

So, it's with interest I saw this over at Talking Points Memo's Election Central: Edwards Secured Private Commitment From Obama That He'd Go On Poverty Tour as Nominee

"Edwards was trying to think of ways to specifically hold them accountable," said another former top Edwards adviser. "It's easy for a Democrat to say, `Sure, I'll make poverty central to my campaign.' A poverty tour was something he felt would be really powerful with the spotlight of the general election, and it was a tangible, real thing he could ask them to commit to."

(snip)

Another of the advisers said that Edwards had secured a commitment that he'd accompany the tour. "It was a specific number of days on the road together, putting poverty front and center -- it would be with him," this adviser said. "He got them both to agree to this. He was really excited."

Yes, their estimation seems warranted. This guy is committed. Such a tour with Obama could generate needed media attention.

50 Billion to Private Industry to Spy and Secure

Investigative journalist Tim Shorrock wrote a book, Spies for Hire, which details the 50 billion dollar private industry to do the things that our government used to do, such as spy for the US, secure the US, train the military. It's appalling. He was interviewed yesterday on NPR's Fresh Air and the link includes the introduction from his book. I've excerpted a few money clips below.

This horrifying state of affairs is a direct result of 30 years of bad-mouthing government and Bill Clinton's selling out to that premise. Private services cost more (the employees make 3x what a soldier makes) and private companies are less accountable (Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, which is address here because private contractors are directly responsible for what happened there, and the particular one has been rewarded with more business).

And all this reporting is aside from Blackwater and Halliburton. And perhaps bigger.

Here's Shorrock's riveting opening:

On May 9, 2006, John Humphrey, a former CIA officer making his way up the management ladder of one of the nation's largest intelligence contractors, made a stunning disclosure to Intelcon, a national intelligence conference and exhibition at a hotel in Bethesda, Maryland. Outsourcing, Humphrey declared, was out of control. Contractors deployed in Iraq and other hotspots overseas were making decisions and handling documents that, in earlier times, had been the sole responsibility of U.S. military and intelligence officers. This had caused a "paradigm shift" in the relationship between government and the private sector, and left companies like his in an untenable position.

Five years ago, "you'd never have a contractor supporting an operation on the field where they're making a recommendation to an officer," said Humphrey. Nor would you find a contractor "making little contributions here and there" in the reports intelligence officers sent back to Washington. "This concerns me a lot, the way these lines are blurring," he went on. "We shouldn't be involved in some of these intelligence operations, or the planning, or the interrogations and what have you." Unless government started taking more responsibility in the field, he warned, the "blowback" for the contracting industry could be profound.

He notes that the conference where Humphrey spoke was overflowing with people who were getting fat on the hog of terror and fear.

His warning brought to mind a front page article from The New York Times, from last September: In Turnaround, Industries Seek U.S. Regulations

After years of favoring the hands-off doctrine of the Bush administration, some of the nation’s biggest industries are pushing for something they have long resisted: new federal regulations.

For toys and cars, antifreeze and fireworks, popcorn and produce and cigarettes and light bulbs, among other products, industry groups or major manufacturers are calling for federal health, safety and environmental mandates. Some of those industries are abandoning years of efforts to block such measures, often in alliance with the Bush administration, which pledged to ease what it views as costly, unnecessary rules.

Some of that was motivated by a desire to have rules favorable to industry in place before Democrats took over in 2009. But it was a remarkable sign that industry values the liability cover of regulation.

Back to spies, Shorrock supports Barack Obama's claim that the Clinton administration, was a continuation of bad Republican policies. Shorrock outlines the ways that is true in key aspects of our national security. I've long believed, did then, that Clinton bought the Republican bill of goods when it came to the role of government. Bill was the one who declared "The era of big government is over." Now we all are reaping what he sowed.

To wit:

Next, we'll turn to the history of outsourcing in intelligence, focusing primarily on how contracting advanced during the administration of Bill Clinton and the reign of former CIA director George J. Tenet over national intelligence.

Shocking fact (and why this is important):

In 2006, the year Humphrey delivered his comments, the cost of America's spying and surveillance activities outsourced to contractors reached $42 billion, or about 70 percent of the estimated $60 billion the government spends every year on foreign and domestic intelligence.

Listen to the interview.

Oh the Stupidity of (some?) Conservatives

Obama is going to respond today to Bush’s “appeasement” remark to the Israeli parliament yesterday. At 11 am EST, in a town hall meeting in OR.

If you want a laugh check out Chris Matthews publicly humiliate a conservative talk show host, Kevin James KLRA of Los Angeles, for his profound ignorance.

Matthews even throws in a dig Dana Perino (WH Press Secretary) for admitting that she didn’t know what the Cuban Missile crisis was - which she did on an NPR radio news quiz show called, Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. I was listening that day too! It was last December 7th, 2007. If you want to listen for yourself, click here. It's the segment called "Not My Job." My jaw dropped in shock, actually.

Matthews basically exposes the basic lack of knowledge, facts, by the Republicans. That’s what happens when you disdain knowledge, “elites” I was screaming at the television, Czechoslovakia! Czechoslovakia! Czechoslovakia! I felt a little sorry for the guy, but he was just spewing lies.

The clip is 9 ½ minutes long, but move the cursor ahead to the fun part which starts at 4:13 with the question from what did Chamberlain do wrong? What did he do?

James says appeasement, “his actions”.
Matthews: so what did Chamberlain do in 1938? What did he do? Matthews get pissed! James: “You’re not going to fox me in, Chris?”
Matthews: “You don’t know what he did.” “You are bsing me”
Mark Green (the other guest): "Can I answer?"
Matthews: “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Kevin.”

At about minute 6:40 Kevin admits he doesn’t know. Matthew explains that there’s a difference between talking to Hitler and giving him of half of Czechoslovakia in '38. Appeasement is giving away something to the enemy, not talking, Matthews explains. See what Vaclav Havel said 60 years after The Munich Agreement. (The 70th anniversary is coming up this September)

Matthews: “I’ve got to go to with some body who knows some history. This is pathetic!" Mark Green steps in: "Kevin, when you in a hole stop digging. It’s rhetoric not reality."

The humiliation ends at about minute 8:22. Then Kevin says, I kid you not, that 9/11 happened because Clinton didn’t do anything when we were attacked in the African embassies (which Clinton did respond to with bombings in Afghanistan, but never mind the facts) and the US Cole, which happened in October 2000, and it was George Bush who didn’t respond once the evidence came in.

Mark Green very properly suggests Kevin James read Richard Clarke's book, Against All Enemies. I was thinking the very same thing because in the first 50 pages Clarke dispels the myth that its the Democrats who have sat on their hands and he notes all the examples where Democrats did react strongly, militarily, while Republicans did nothing. He starts with Reagan and the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 who did nothing but pull out and invade Grenada as a distraction.

Enjoy!

I love Joe Biden

Always have - back in 1988 when he ran for president the first time. And he had the best line in all of the 22 endless Democratic primary debates - you know, that one about that former mayor of New York having only 3 things in a sentence - noun, verb and 9/11.

Bush's speech in Isreal to the Knesset included an outrageous line. This is what Bush said:

“some people” believe the United States “should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along."

"We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

I saw the clip, it's more outrageous coming out of that man's mouth, and even the CNN reporter noted that Bush's own Secretary of Defense Gates and his former Secretary of State Powell believes talking with our enemies is a good idea and have publicly said so. (Oh, and so has Bush 41's National Security Adviser Brent Scrowcroft)

This is what Secretary Gates said YESTERDAY, regarding Iran:

"We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage . . . and then sit down and talk with them," Gates said. "If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us."

Bush is being heavily criticized for his remark - prepared remark it should be noted - especially since he is speaking in a foreign country.

Biden, though, is my favorite (with Rahm Emmanuel a close second). Biden (via Politico)

“This is bullshit, this is malarkey. This is outrageous, for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, to sit in the Knesset ... and make this kind of ridiculous statement."

and

“He is the guy who has weakened us,” he said. “He has increased the number of terrorists in the world. It is his policies that have produced this vulnerability that the U.S. has. It’s his [own] intelligence community [that] has pointed this out, not me.”

Biden noted that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have both suggested that the United States ought to find a way to talk more with its enemies.

"If he thinks this is appeasement, is he going to come back and fire his own cabinet?” Biden asked. “Is he going to fire Condi Rice?”

And here's Rahm Emmanuel (the highest ranking Jewish Democrat in the House):

The tradition has always been that when a U.S. President is overseas, partisan politics stops at the water's edge. President Bush has now taken that principle and turned it on its head: for this White House, partisan politics now begins at the water's edge, no matter the seriousness and gravity of the occasion. Does the president have no shame?

No, this US President has no shame. None.

Here's Obama's response (some have perceived Bush's remarks to be aimed at Obama. Indeed, The Huffington Post's headline is Obama v. Bush).

"It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 6Oth anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack. It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel."

"Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power -- including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy -- to pressure countries like Iran and Syria. George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the President's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel."

UPDATE from Politico regarding Biden's use of the word bullshit:

In a conference call with reporters later in the afternoon, Biden said his initial word choice was "not very eloquent" and said he should have just stuck with the word "malarkey." Biden said he "reacted viscerally" when asked about Bush's speech after stepping off an elevator.

However, Biden again did not mince words when discussing Bush's remarks, accusing the president of engaging in "long-distance swiftboating" with his speech in Israel. Biden also cited numerous examples of the Bush Administration reaching out to unfriendly regimes in Libya, North Korea and Iran, arguing that Bush's insinuation that the Democrats were soft on terrorism was "truly delusional ... and truly disgraceful."

Biden would be a GREAT vice president.

How Obama's Harnessing of the Internet Might Change Government

Okay, so I love it when a reporter’s mind went where mine went (and I find it) and he’s thought carefully about the question, provides historical and contemporary context, raises drawbacks – and answers the question. So what does Josh Green’s reporting on Obama’s revolutionary campaign mean for governing? What happens when he wins?

In the same June issue of The Atlantic, Marc Ambinder (another whose blog I check every day), answers in a one-page piece called “HisSpace” (And I swear I’m not kidding, there’s a cartoon of Obama and hands extended taking pictures with an Ipod phone!)

The historical context mapping presidencies to change in communication technologies is particularly striking and very cool: Jackson (post office) Lincoln (newspapers), FDR (radio), JFK (television). Next up: Obama (internet). The contemporary context is to the British government's use of the web.

I wish the piece were longer and that Ambinder had explored the significance of open source software and thinking as well as the implications in the internet, electronic communication and development. I wish he'd then explored the value-added and the pitfalls in the commercial computer industry. And then tried to extrapolate that information into implications for governing. He could have talked further with the likes of smart guys like Lawrence Lessig (whom Green quotes) to pick his brain about how governing and democracy could change as a result of that new paradigm beyond the superficial changes that technology, its speed and ease, might bring.

I remember Obama writing in his book that no one, Republican or Democrat, rich or poor, black or white, likes to wait on a lengthy line at the DMV while they see government employees yaking it up, in the back, while only one window is open. Governmental inefficiency hurts and affects us all.

If you've not read his book, The Audacity of Hope, please do. In his prologue he delineates the topic of his book: "how we might begin the process of changing our politics and our civic life." p. 9 And yes, that includes all the ways that we interact with our government. Check out this blog entry on a piece from The New Republic called The Audacity of Data, which includes what an automatic tax return would be like.

The money quote from Ambinder's piece HisSpace:

Obama clearly intends to use the Web, if he is elected president, to transform governance just as he has transformed campaigning. Notably, he has spoken of conducting “online fireside chats” as president. And when one imagines how Obama’s political army, presumably intact, might be mobilized to lobby for major legislation with just a few keystrokes, it becomes possible, for a moment at least, to imagine that he might change the political culture of Washington simply by overwhelming it.

What Obama seems to promise is, at its outer limits, a participatory democracy in which the opportunities for participation have been radically expanded. He proposes creating a public, Google-like database of every federal dollar spent. He aims to post every piece of non-emergency legislation online for five days before he signs it so that Americans can comment. A White House blog—also with comments—would be a near certainty. Overseeing this new apparatus would be a chief technology officer.

My knees go weak at the prospect of internet fireside chats. Mostly because the mainstream media (MSM), since the 1980s, have completely abdicated on their moral and civic duty to keep the public informed. News departments are ruled by ratings and money. We don't need freedom of the press from just government - as the First Amendment, so elegantly set on the front of the new Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue here in DC, reminds passers-by. We need freedom of the press from stockholders and the likes of Les Moonves.

When FDR did his chats and asked people to buy maps so that they could follow his discussions of the fronts in the war, maps were sold out in this country. It's the bully pulpit exponentially. Obama already does some of this in his rally, encouraging personal responsibility, civic involvement.

And if those internet fireside chats, Obama decides to talk for a week about the importance of carpooling or riding our bikes or fixing our rail systems in this country - it won't matter that the hosts of the Today Show are playing volleyball or doing obstacle courses on Rockefeller Plaza. If Obama talks of the history of the Middle East, it won't matter that NBC "news" is marrying brides on Rockefeller Plaza. If Obama outlines the plan for health care and goes through what we each need to do preventively, responsibly - for love our country as well as ourselves, well then, the entertainment and celebrity promotions that fill the news won't matter much either. If the president is doing it, the MSM will cover it, and maybe even expand on the efforts, provide counterpoint, do more to fulfill their civic duty. At least there'll be conversation, exchange of ideas, the possibility of getting things done.

Changing the politics of campaigning is just the beginning. Behold the possibility of changing our civic life. Obama's prologue again:

"What I offer is something more modest [than a unifying theory of American government, manifestos for action, commissions, 10 point plans]: personal reflections on those values and ideas that have led me to public life, some thoughts on the ways that our current political discourse unnecessarily divides us, and my own best assessment - based on my experience as a senator and a lawyer, husband and father, Christian and skeptic - of the ways we can ground our politics in the notion of a common good." (emphasis added). p. 9

Well, we shall see. We hope.