GREAT QUOTES IN POLITICAL HISTORY: Rahmbo Edition

Now that my kids are gone, I can say this: WE FUCKED THEM!

— Rep. Rahm Emmanuel, chair of the 2006 Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, at the victory party

A favor for a friend

I wrote this in response to this bit of crazy.

Sure, point by point, why not:

1. Why in the world wouldn't we want to negotiate with other nations? The United States does generally have a policy of negotiations with other countries -- the only country with which we haven't negotiated with for almost 60 years has been Cuba, and that's been bloody stupid.

But more to the point, we really ought to be engaged with Iran, especially since we don't have any divergent interests from them. Maliki meets with the Iranian leadership as often as he meets with us -- we both support the same guy in the country, for pete's sake! The only people who don't want to negotiate with Iran are people who really like war and are afraid negotiations will succeed.

2. Well, this is just daft: "Barack Obama’s Iraq policy will hand al-Qaeda a victory and undercut our entire position in the Middle East, while at the same time put a huge source of oil in the hands of terrorists." If you think the problem in Iraq is because of Al-Qaeda, as opposed to a homegrown civil war in a country rife with ethnic strife, then you really haven't been paying attention.

Obama's position on Iraq has been consistent and is the only sensible and moral position to take: a careful, quick withdrawal of our occupying army is the best course of action for both our countries, but his team will decide the exact timetable after taking stock of the situation in January. Events on the ground change things, so Obama's been careful to not give too precise a promise with this.

Of course, these loons on the right still think we should be in Vietnam, so sensible and moral options are kind of off the table with them.

3. Obama made a mistake in a speech, which his campaign quickly clarified. WTF is the problem here?

The deal is Obama was saying "I don't want Jerusalem partitioned off like Berlin" and that was interpreted as "I support crazy people's notion to drive the Palestinians out of Jerusalem". So the campaign clarified. Why the fuck does an obscure remark about Israel rank as their third highest mark against him, anyhow? It's almost like these people want the foreign policy of the United States determined by the interests of the state of Israel...

4. Eh, the NAFTA thing was a stupid primary pander. Better men have done worse.

As far as Campaign Finance goes, the problem with money in politics isn't the money, it's the favors. And it's hard to see how Obama's going to be in hock to corporate interests when his donor pool is so large and diverse. This is just opportunistic whining from the other side. To be expected, but not granted any credence.

Of course, John McCain is CURRENTLY BREAKING THE LAW. He signed a LEGAL DOCUMENT to abide by spending limits for the primary, and then used those matching funds to secure a loan for his campaign, and to achieve automatic ballot access for the primaries. The only reason he hasn't been busted by the FEC is because they're currently missing a few members. The DNC is suing the McCain campaign over this, so, we'll see.

5. I think Obama's handling of the Wright situation was superb. He gave a moving speech explaining his inner conflicts -- a lot of the basic sentiments contained in his two books, by the way. When Wright decided to go on a press tour that seemed calculated to embarrass his former congregant, then Obama broke from him. Again, anyone following the story closely could see that he acted in good faith with the American people.

Ayers? Please. He lives in the same neighborhood as Obama and they've seen each other once or twice. Why in the world would you think their political views are similar? He's not on the campaign in any capacity.

Or put another way: Do you want to be responsible for everything that I do, given our long association?

6. Terrorism is criminal behavior, not clash-of-civilizations stuff. Or to put it another way: Al-Qaeda is more like the Mafia than the Soviet Union. The Bush administration's behavior isn't making us any safer, the "whack the hornet's nest" theory of international relations is bloody stupid.

Just go read Richard Clarke's book if you actually care about the subject.

7. Also crazy. Just compare the Clinton administration's job record with Bush's.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/job-creation/

Conservatives have some pretty nutty views about the economy that really haven't changed since Hoover.

8. Midwestern Senator supports ethanol. Also, dog bites man.

Ethanol's kinda stupid, but it's not the worst thing in the world. Lowering the gas tax, on the other hand, is really fucking dumb.

I will give them the windfall profits tax one, though. That is a stupid policy! I even wrote a blog post about it: http://mattschmidt.blogspot.com/2008/06/obamas-bad-idea.html

On the other hand, Obama's support for Cap-and-Trade and investments in metro transportation infrastructure are necessary to bring us into the twentieth century. And save the world.

9. Eh, I'm not familiar with the details of that particular bill, but I suspect some sort of strategic voting. In reality, Obama, like every other Democrat to run for President in our lifetime, is a fairly standard pro-choice liberal.

10. National Journal's rankings are a sham. Here's a better ranking system: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/06/liberal-conservative-rankings-done.html

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Lit 101 Class in Three Lines or Less.

You don't read McSweeney's enough.

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Lit 101 Class in Three Lines or Less.: "1984

WINSTON: Don't tell the Party, but sex is way better than totalitarianism.

EVERYONE: Surprise! We're the Party.

WINSTON: Oh, rats."

I'm pretty sure Weston wrote that.

Bill's New Friends

Nice of them to summarize the indictment...

The Raffaello Follieri Indictment: The Best Bits: "Back in 2005, Raffaello Follieri was introduced to supermarket magnate Ron Burkle by Doug Band, the adviser to former president Bill Clinton. Follieri was very charming and solicitous and he told them all about his plan: He would use his family's v. v. close ties to the Vatican in order to purchase Roman Catholic Church properties in the U.S. at low prices, flip them, and sell them. Everyone thought this sounded like a great idea, and Burkle invested a bunch of money. Follieri was in like Flynn. The former president publicly praised the Follieri Foundation's work vaccinating children in Honduras, and they all even hung out on vacation in the Dominican Republic this one time."

Something that was never brought up in the primary campaign was all the Clinton's dirt.

I mean, everybody with any sense realizes that the Clintonites bitching about the press is total bullshit, because nobody ever brought up Bill's zipper problem (until that Vanity Fair article near the end). This was something we all knew but just sort of decided not to talk about, although you can be sure the Republicans wouldn't have been so nice as the Obama team.

But what most people don't know is that the Clinton's have become very rich only after leaving the White House, and Bill's been living it up. If Hillary had gotten the nomination, stories like this, which highlight Bill's monstrously bad judgement in areas of personal finance, would have been added to the adulterous mix.

We really dodged a bullet.

Question of the Day

I once met a guy selling Communist Party USA Platforms at a protest (SOA, Fort Benning, GA). I'm all like "Hey, neat, a commie", because I've met a few commies in my day, and most of 'em have turned out to be garden variety Democratic Socialists who haven't quite grasped that the USSR ruined the word. But this guy, this guy was something else.

I remember him vividly declaring to me "We need to re-organize this country, based on Maoist Principles!"

I thought to myself, "What, do you want to outlaw modern agriculture so we all starve, or heavy industry to collapse the economy?"

It turned out he wanted all of us to go on a really long march to Washington. Or something.

So my question is: Has anyone else ever met a real, live, Maoist?

I suspect, for some reason, that Mr. Mank has.

New Rolling Stone Interview

Barack Obama: The Stevie Wonder Geek Returns to the Cover of Rolling Stone : Rolling Stone : Rock and Roll Daily: "“If I had one musical hero, it would have to be Stevie Wonder,” says Obama, who grew up on Seventies R&B and rock staples including Earth, Wind and Fire, Elton John and the Rolling Stones. “When I was at that point where you start getting involved in music, Stevie had that run with Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Fulfillingness’ First Finale and Innervisions, and then Songs in the Key of Life. Those are as brilliant a set of five albums as we’ve ever seen.”"

Obama, of course, was the first candidate that Rolling Stone ever endorsed in a primary.

Blast from the past

Man, I was an intemperate youth.

GREAT QUOTES IN POLITICAL HISTORY: VP Edition

This job ain't worth a bucket of warm piss.

—John Nance "Cactus Jack" Garner, FDR's first Vice President

Green Bean Casserole

See, I don't post much on the weekends, because I'm busy going to all of the fabulous Blogger Picnics.

More on our Energy Future

To follow up yesterday's musings on the Volt: Four Billion Cars in 2050?

It seems to me that we could have avoided a lot of present pain if we'd made more serious energy and transportation investments over the past 10-20 years. It seems equally obvious that things are going to get a lot worse in the future.

GREAT QUOTES IN POLITICAL HISTORY: Black Nationalism Edition

So it’s the — it's the ballot or the bullet. Today our people can see that we’re faced with a government conspiracy. This government has failed us. The senators who are filibustering concerning your and my rights, that's the government. Don’t say it’s Southern senators. This is the government; this is a government filibuster. It’s not a segregationist filibuster. It’s a government filibuster. Any kind of activity that takes place on the floor of the Congress or the Senate, that's the government. Any kind of dilly-dallying, that’s the government. Any kind of pussy-footing, that’s the government. Any kind of act that’s designed to delay or deprive you and me right now of getting full rights, that’s the government that's responsible. And any time you find the government involved in a conspiracy to violate the citizenship or the civil rights of a people, then you are wasting your time going to that government expecting redress. Instead, you have to take that government to the World Court and accuse it of genocide and all of the other crimes that it is guilty of today.

— Malcolm X, The Bullet or the Ballot speech, April 12th, 1964; I once mentioned segregation to an old black man in a bar, and he corrected me, "Don't call it that. Call it what it was: White Supremacy."

Add it to the Resume!

So, these days I work in an office staffed primarily by women. A "co-worker" I've spoken to perhaps twice before just came into my office and asked me to open a jar of salsa for her. Matt Schmidt, of girl-handed fame, was able to open it with minimal effort.

By the power of Grayskull...I have the power!

Perspective on the Volt

I hate to piss in the punchbowl, but it doesn't seem like things like the Chevy Volt, GE's proposed electric car, are anything close to a meaningful solution to our energy/transportation problems.

Things like the Volt (and the Prius) fall into the low-end luxury car market. They're too expensive to replace our insane internal combustion society overnight, and the manufacturing costs make any gains negligible. And they're still way more inefficient than a good public transportation network.

The Volt is likely to be a neat toy for the iPhone set, but it doesn't represent serious thinking about energy use for the future.

George Carlin, Dead at 71

America has lost one of its heroes today, but more importantly, it has lost a fountain of good advice:

You know what we don't talk about enough anymore?

Pussy Farts.

— George Carlin, RIP (Rest in Pesci)

GREAT QUOTES IN POLITICAL HISTORY: Gore Edition

Now the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken. Let there be no doubt, while I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it.

— Al Gore, 2000, conceding the election to GWB

The only good thing to come out of this? GoreBeard: