Welcome Back, Tom

Plenty of people have been pointing this out. Krugman has been hammering on the 2nd rate health care Americans receive. The wage the I35W bridge collapse brought focus onto people who have been saying for years that the infrastructure of the country is being neglected. The technology infrastructure is falling further and further behind Asia and now Europe. The US is just not as pleasant a place to live, unless you're in the top decile than Europe is.

Why is this? Because in Europe they don't assume that corporations, unregulated and unsupervised will deliver solutions that are in the interests of the citizenry and not their shareholders (or, more properly, their managers).

"Friedman is back from a book leave--and he is excellent on something that most Americans sense, but don't fully realize: that we are falling behind Asia and Europe in terms of research, development, education and infrastructure"

OK, if you agree on this point, Mr. Klein, then lay off with all your snide remarks about teachers and intellectuals.

Joe - thanks for the reinforcement of these editorials. Tom Friedman lets things be as complex as they really are, and still finds the thread that runs through them. I hope he'll find an audience in the next president, and I think it needs to be Barack for that to happen.

Wow, an actual Hagee thread on Swampland. I'm sure we will see 4 or 5 of these a day, for the next 3 months, to try and even things out with Obama.

The "nutballs" and extremists can be found on both sides of the right and left.

However, the REAL difference is in judgment and character choices. One would say, and popular opinion polls clearly show that the vast amount of Americans DO CARE when you have your butt in the pew for over 20 years, and did NOTHING. Then when you are running for President, it makes it politically advantageous to "denouce and reject".

70% of Americans, both Democrat and Republicans believe that in some fashion Obama would not sit in that pew for any length of time let alone 20 years, if he indeed does hold some of the same beliefs as Rev Wright.

Yes Hagee is a miserable thorn in the Republican side, BUT associating John McCain in the same breath you do Obama and Wright is a FAR LEFT LIBERAL talking point attempting to put guilt by association to McCain in the same way that Obama is associated to Wright.

Try again Joe Klein, but you are TOTALLY off base and falling to the MOveOnOrg and Daily Kos (pronounced like chaos), liberal fairytales.

Rev Wright / Obama '08, WRONG for AMERICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The reason the media's run with the Wright story and not the Hagee one is plain out-and-out racism - i.e., crazy black preachers are much more scary than crazy white preachers. Considering they shared the exact same sentiments (Wright: "GD America", Hagee: "America is under God's curse"), the comparison is apt.

Try running with THAT story, Joe. Somehow I doubt you (or the rest of the MSM) will.

I've always hated Friedman -- and Bob Somerby has convinced me to hate Rich as well -- but I agree that these are strong pieces.

Joe, I doubt you'll answer this, but what do you think of the fact that Friedman said we should invade Iraq in order to tell Iraqis to "Suck on this"? If a blogger said something like that, it would be help us as proof of his unseriousness (and rightly so) -- why do Friedman and other A-list pundits get a free pass on this?

"But, by accepting Hagee's impramatur,..."

Joe, that should be "seeking" and/or "soliciting," not just accepting. It's not passive, after-the-fact, but rather an active, premeditated judgment and decision.

...Adding, as always, no credit for you until you write it in the print edition.

There should be no place for such dangerous nutballs--and yes, you can throw in the oleaginous telecharlatan Pat Robertson, too--in presidential politics. They should be rejected, one and all.

Couldn't we just ignore them? I'm afraid that this is a bit like your "which ideology is ore patriotic" debate -- a pointless contest which only distracts from the real issues.

Ah, Steve. Give him a little credit for starting here. one step at a Time.

What's most offensive about Friedman is his on-screen self-presentational style.

Even if you like much of what he writes, on TV he comes off as utterly insufferable: histrionic gestures, endless repetitions of his interlocutors' names, exaggerated vocal emphasis, lame attempts at folksiness or street talk (Suck on this!), and a general air of speaking as if he's the greatest genius to walk the planet since Leonardo da Vinci.

John McCain actively seeks out an anti-Semitic homophobe. That is a direct refection on McCain's character. Another blogger either here on Swampland or at TPMCafe coined the term McCain Stream Media. MSM has a bulit in excuse for McCain's flaws.

Confuse Shiites and Sunnis repeatedly? It's OK if you're John McCain. Pundits will point out that the majority of Americans don't know the difference either. Therefore it's not an important mistake for someone who wants to be Commander in Chief.

Make a statement suggesting that the reason that troops are in Iraq because the US does not have a functional energy plan? It's OK, the McCain Stream Media will come to your aid. McCain merely misspoke according to David Gergen.

The excuses generated by MSM for McCain are a Pavlovian reflex. There is not a nanosecond's delay between the questioning of a McCain position and the MSM generated excuse.

If McCain has an on camera temper meltdown it will be explained away as his time of the month. McCain checks his hip pocket every day to make sure the MSM is still there.

Following the same logic McCain and Clinton have pursued Hagee's hatred of America must put a big question mark around McCain's patriotism.

Joe: "I don't know how politicians, especially those in the midst of a campaign, can make this problem real to people who have real problems..."

I don't know how politicians are going to convince us we have the resources to reverse this. Do we have the resources for nation building here at home? Something has to change our priorities in a radical way, and I don't see it happening for a decade or more.

TomT and Enceladus: Friedman got the war wrong, as did a great many other people. He's been willing to acknowledge that. (And we'll never know if things would have turned out differently if the war were not pursued with such breathtaking incompetence)

Is there really any point to our blogging conversations if we don't think there's value in people listening, learning, and changing?

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/opinion/04friedman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

KathyR: are you a troll? Or are you seriously saying that Friedman's been willing to acknowledge he was wrong about the war?

The next six months in Iraq—which will determine the prospects for democracy-building there—are the most important six months in U.S. foreign policy in a long, long time."
(New York Times, 11/30/03)

"What I absolutely don't understand is just at the moment when we finally have a UN-approved Iraqi-caretaker government made up of—I know a lot of these guys—reasonably decent people and more than reasonably decent people, everyone wants to declare it's over. I don't get it. It might be over in a week, it might be over in a month, it might be over in six months, but what's the rush? Can we let this play out, please?"
(NPR's Fresh Air, 6/3/04)

"What we're gonna find out, Bob, in the next six to nine months is whether we have liberated a country or uncorked a civil war."
(CBS's Face the Nation, 10/3/04)

"Improv time is over. This is crunch time. Iraq will be won or lost in the next few months. But it won't be won with high rhetoric. It will be won on the ground in a war over the last mile."
(New York Times, 11/28/04)

"I think we're in the end game now…. I think we're in a six-month window here where it's going to become very clear and this is all going to pre-empt I think the next congressional election—that's my own feeling— let alone the presidential one."
(NBC's Meet the Press, 9/25/05)

"Maybe the cynical Europeans were right. Maybe this neighborhood is just beyond transformation. That will become clear in the next few months as we see just what kind of minority the Sunnis in Iraq intend to be. If they come around, a decent outcome in Iraq is still possible, and we should stay to help build it. If they won't, then we are wasting our time."
(New York Times, 9/28/05)

"We've teed up this situation for Iraqis, and I think the next six months really are going to determine whether this country is going to collapse into three parts or more or whether it's going to come together."
(CBS's Face the Nation, 12/18/05)

"We're at the beginning of I think the decisive I would say six months in Iraq, OK, because I feel like this election—you know, I felt from the beginning Iraq was going to be ultimately, Charlie, what Iraqis make of it."
(PBS's Charlie Rose Show, 12/20/05)

"The only thing I am certain of is that in the wake of this election, Iraq will be what Iraqis make of it—and the next six months will tell us a lot. I remain guardedly hopeful."
(New York Times, 12/21/05)

"I think that we're going to know after six to nine months whether this project has any chance of succeeding. In which case, I think the American people as a whole will want to play it out or whether it really is a fool's errand."
(Oprah Winfrey Show, 1/23/06)

"I think we're in the end game there, in the next three to six months, Bob. We've got for the first time an Iraqi government elected on the basis of an Iraqi constitution. Either they're going to produce the kind of inclusive consensual government that we aspire to in the near term, in which case America will stick with it, or they're not, in which case I think the bottom's going to fall out."
(CBS, 1/31/06)

"I think we are in the end game. The next six to nine months are going to tell whether we can produce a decent outcome in Iraq."
(NBC's Today, 3/2/06)

"Can Iraqis get this government together? If they do, I think the American public will continue to want to support the effort there to try to produce a decent, stable Iraq. But if they don't, then I think the bottom is going to fall out of public support here for the whole Iraq endeavor. So one way or another, I think we're in the end game in the sense it's going to be decided in the next weeks or months whether there's an Iraq there worth investing in. And that is something only Iraqis can tell us."
(CNN, 4/23/06)

"Well, I think that we're going to find out, Chris, in the next year to six months—probably sooner—whether a decent outcome is possible there, and I think we're going to have to just let this play out."
(MSNBC's Hardball, 5/11/06)

Tom T: Hmmm, you stop giving Friedman's quotes before the column I linked to, in August of 06. I certainly won't quarrel he was late in coming to this. And I don't have any interest, by the way, in playing quote for quote. My point was simply that it's okay to give people the sort of leeway to reassess and change that I, and presumably you, would want for ourselves.

"But the administration now has to admit what anyone — including myself — who believed in the importance of getting Iraq right has to admit: Whether for Bush reasons or Arab reasons, it is not happening, and we can’t throw more good lives after good lives."

Wow, what a guy, Kathy! It only took him four years to admit he was wrong.

My hero!

Joe--

Next time you see Tom, you might mention that the US engagement in its hegemony project may explain why the civilian infrastructure looks increasingly like Soviet infrastructure.

You also might consider writing a column assessing the relative disadvantage the US has wrt other countries because of its huge defense sector. If the US ended all its foreign occupations in this enemy-less world, we might be able to keep our bridges up.

There is a reason Atrios named the endless calls for another six months for the war strategy to work out a Friedman Unit.

The most amazing thing to me is that April was the worst month for some time in Iraq and the focus of campaign coverage is Reverend Wright and an argument over a gas tax removal that has no chance of becoming law.

"that we are falling behind Asia and Europe in terms of research, development, education and infrastructure."

First off....f@ck Thomas Friedman and the horse he rode in on. (see clip below)
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/11/19/thomas-friedman-and-iraq-suck-on-this/

Why would a teenager considering college enter into a field in which the bulk of those jobs have been outsourced or soon will be? I believe I've read a study showing that a college degree is no longer the guarantor of a more financially secure future. Most R & D has been off-shored right? As an avowed elitist, I'm not entirely impressed by the intelligence level of the American people, but there is a dwindling rationale for young people to invest in a college education: increasing costs and decreasing opportunity. Friedman of course makes no mention of the logical consequences of his 'flat earth' approach in his light weight piece, which BTW, wasn't worth reading.

Besides, who wants to be educated when that seems to rule you out as potential Presidential material. Bill Clinton has laid down the gauntlet...it's regular folk vs the elitists, and only elitists get college educations. Joe, apparently Bill Clinton doesn't think much of you or your type, you know, those people who think they're smarter than everyone else who are ruining America? Maybe the reason Bill didn't take up your ideas about Health Care is because he just felt you were some smarty pants latte liberal who hates America and the baby Jesus and thinks he's soooooo smart and knows everything and drives around in some big imported car like a big shot who's too good have a beer w/ regular folk and uses them big words and watches them movies where people sit around and talk talk talk and don't blow nothin' up real good the way down home god fearin' folks like to see. So why would anyone listen to you....you don't even bowl.

You know what would be useful is if Clinton and McCain put out a list of what foods a real American eats and what grade one should drop out of school so as to avoid becoming an elitist.

Tom Friedman lost a lot of his credibility over the Iraq War. His musings about what is happening is Asia is largely simplistic built on a few interviews, talking to his taxi driver and the usual bromides about wtaching out because Asia is overtaking us. Asian writers have been saying this since 1995. But we only give credence to our own purveyors of conventional wisdom. The number of books of substance on the rise of China and India in particular and Asia in general by American authors can be counted on one the fingers on one hand. You need to speak their language to get a feel for their goals, aspirations and the amount of energy they are willing to devote to become serious players on the globe.

I happened to run into Friedman in Bangalore. Typical flying in and out doing a dozen interviews. This becomes a book. And a lot of it superficial stuff. And it ends up the the NYT bestsellers list up there with Ann Coulter, another writer of substance.

More than anything else, the Soviet-Afghanistan War finally broke the back of the old communist system in the Soviet Union and led to Glasnost.

It's chilling to see how many resources have to be diverted from our infrastructure to propping up this pointless war in Iraq.

research, development, education and infrastructure

Oddly when Joe Klein (and Tom Freidman) discuss the decaying status of our research, development, education and infrastructure they relate it to the American desire for instant gratification. I, on the other hand, think of the significant amount of effort that has gone into trying to vote Science out of the classrooms.

The two may be related, but it seems to me that holding up ignorance as a virtue (by calling it faith) and working hard to exploit intellectual laziness by blaming outsiders for all our woes (as is being expertly done by the McCain campaign as he works relentlessly to demonize Iran) all aided and abetted by a media that panders to the absolute lowest common demoninator in the competetion for people's attention strikes me as a perfect recipe for decay and disaster.

Southern Bell got there before I did:
I'd like to see more people pointing out the fact that if we took one month's worth of expenditures in Iraq, or $10 billion, and put it into an incentive for alternative energy technologies, I think we'd have hydrogen cell cars so fast our heads would spin.
Or what have you, I obviously can't predict what 10 billion dollars would cause people to do, but I think the results would be substantial.

Good old Tom is back, eh Joe? Peddling some more of his bromides. Showing us that the Chinese and Indians are doing great things while we are dawdling along. Having been so wrong on Iraq why should we care about yet another book about what is wrong with us. But wait...we will see Tom on all the shows, MTP even, providing us with yet another blueprint to save America.

Meanwhile has anyone seen Cliff Schecter or Gleen Greenwald on the TV circuit being interviewed about their books? I have seen none. But Friedman will be out and about Woodward style.

JK: Should McCain be held to a lesser standard with regard to Hagee? I don't think so.

Joe, it doesn't matter what you think.
It matters what you DO.

Searching time.com for "Obama and Wright":
113 hits

Searching time.com for "McCain and Hagee":
6 hits

So you tell me - is McCain being held to a lesser standard at Time?

JoeK: "by accepting Hagee's impramatur, McCain is giving currency to anti-Catholic, anti-gay and, ultimately, anti-Jewish bilge."

mmm...that's "imprimatur" and an odd choice of words in describing an anti-Catholic to boot.

Still, it's bilge.

They're cut from the same cloth. I can't imagine seeking Hagee's approval for a dog fight or any other dog-related event (see KT) for that matter. So, McCain is either a bigot, a hypocrite, or just plumb iggerant.

Works for me.

That doesn't dismiss Obama from the same charges...20 years is a big clue that's something's amuck in that department. Are we supposed to ignore the 800 pound gorilla in the room?

"No, Hagee is not McCain's pastor." OK, who is McCain's pastor? Mr. Klein? Rustydog? Anybody?

Here is why no one knows: it's not an important issue. What is important is the candidates' own views on the key issues of the day. If the candidates' pastors were important issues, Mr. Klein, Michael Scherer, etc. would be all over the story and would not let it go.

Cliff: "$10 billion, and put it into an incentive for alternative energy technologies, I think we'd have hydrogen cell cars so fast our heads would spin."

I agree, but would the Chinese lend us the money without extracting an agreement to have them built there?

That doesn't dismiss Obama from the same charges...20 years is a big clue that's something's amuck in that department. Are we supposed to ignore the 800 pound gorilla in the room?

I disagree. As Kelefa Sanneh put it in this Charlie Rose interview (second one down), Obama started his relationship with Reverand Wright by disagreeing and sparring with him:

http://www.charlierose.com/keywords/rev-jeremiah-wright

Obama could be a parishioner, and get something from being part of the congregation, and going to the services he went to, and still disagree with his preacher. Who knows how often the kinds of things looped on Fox News were actually said from the pulpit? The GOP oppo researchers probably spent days and days going through everything, trying to find the few choice bits. By no means does that mean they represent Wright's ministry as Obama experienced it.

All three interviews are worth listening to. Joe--you should listen to the last interview where black liberation theology is discussed. I don't think you understand it as well as you think you do.

"If the candidates' pastors were important issues, Mr. Klein, Michael Scherer, etc. would be all over the story and would not let it go."

It should not be an issue. In fact, one could legitimately accuse those who make it an issue of being anti-American, given the principle of the separation of church and state. However, it is a little late now to argue the point since we have been subjected to it day in and day out for what seems like months now. They are still going on about it even today. If the press wants to maintain it's reputation for objectivity and fairness the only course they have is to look into McCain's preachers, and Clinton's preachers to the same extent they have Obama's preacher. As the stats in a few posts above illustrate Time has a long way to go. I can't think of one story they've done on Clinton's secretive, conservative cult yet.

"When asked this morning by ABC News' George Stephanopoulos if she could name a single economist who backs her call for a gas tax holiday this summer, HRC said "I'm not going to put my lot in with economists.”
http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2008/05/hillary-clinton-doesnt-listen-to.html

Nope, not gonna listen to them high and mighty book learnin' fellers. Don't reckon there's a thing I needs ta lern I didn't lern in the Bible alredy I reckon. Time to teach them collage edicated elitists a thing or too. Us hard werkin folks are tired of them thats ruening this hear cuontry!

cap.hill: "I agree, but would the Chinese lend us the money without extracting an agreement to have them built there?"

Hey, thanks for taking the point I was trying to make and focusing on some tiny tangential aspect of it in order to invalidate it. I'm glad you could do that for me.

I was proposing a hypothetical situation to illustrate that the vast amount of resources that we are throwing into a hole in Iraq could be better spent elsewhere.
The actual NUTS and BOLTS of said hypothetical situation are not my concern at this point.

Michael Scheer. By

The news media are so far in the tank for John McCain, many reporters don't bother even trying to pretend that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has faced the level of scrutiny they've given Democrats Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and, when he was in the race, John Edwards.

Last Friday, for example, Time's Michael Scherer wrote a post on the magazine's blog headlined "Hillary Clinton's Errant Attack on McCain's Plans For New Orleans." Scherer devoted 10 paragraphs to debunking criticism of McCain by Clinton and ACORN. McCain had said about New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward: "That is why we need to go back is to have a conversation about what to do --rebuild it, tear it down -- you know, whatever it is." Clinton and ACORN (separately) criticized McCain for, in Clinton's words, saying "he might want to tear down the Ninth Ward instead of rebuilding it."

Scherer branded that charge "errant" and "almost entirely spurious." But Scherer acknowledged he hadn't actually been present for them: "Now I was not on the bus when McCain said that quote, but I was traveling with McCain during this time. And all available evidence suggests that McCain meant something far narrower -- not that he wanted to tear down the Ninth Ward, but that he wanted to speak with the people of the Ninth Ward about how they want to move forward."

And what did Scherer mean by "all available evidence"? Scherer pointed to comments McCain made three days later to prove that it is "spurious" to say that when McCain said "tear it down" he didn't really say "tear it down."

Here are the two relevant quotes again:

John McCain: "That is why we need to go back is to have a conversation about what to do -- rebuild it, tear it down -- you know, whatever it is."

Hillary Clinton: "Senator McCain said he might want to tear down the Ninth Ward instead of rebuilding it."

Hard to see how Clinton's characterization could be considered "spurious" -- but Michael Scherer devoted 10 paragraphs to showing it is, by pointing to comments McCain made three days later.

That isn't journalism; that's spin, plain and simple.

Oh, and among those ex post facto comments Scherer highlighted as evidence of McCain's commitment to rebuilding New Orleans was McCain's endorsement of "the federal plan to rebuild the levees by 2011." Set aside, for a moment, the fact that McCain's support for rebuilding the levees doesn't establish that he wouldn't support tearing down the Lower Ninth Ward. Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005 -- and Michael Scherer sees McCain's endorsement of a plan to rebuild the city's levees within six years of the disaster as evidence of the senator's commitment to the cause.

Scherer concluded:

He was vague the funding levels he would endorse for these efforts, but clearly stated that helping the people of the Lower Ninth was a priority for him. When one resident asked if he would be willing to revise the federal emergency assistance law, he said, "I will reform any legislation that is an impediment to getting people the help necessary in order to restore their lives."

These are not the words of a man who "might want to tear down the Ninth Ward instead of rebuilding it," as Clinton put it.

Got that? McCain was vague about actually funding the efforts he claimed to support -- indeed, every comment of McCain's that Scherer quoted was so vague as to be utterly meaningless. Still, according to Michael Scherer, "These are not the words of a man who 'might want to tear down the Ninth Ward instead of rebuilding it."

Perhaps not. But these are: "That is why we need to go back is to have a conversation about what to do -- rebuild it, tear it down -- you know, whatever it is."

Think about the standard Time's Michael Scherer is setting for criticism of John McCain. Scherer doesn't contest that McCain made the "tear it down" comment. But he argues that it is unfair -- "spurious" and "errant," even -- to criticize McCain for it, because three days later he said something that Scherer claims could be construed as strong support for rebuilding the Lower Ninth.

Scherer doesn't come right out and say it, but the implication is clear as day: By Scherer's logic, it is unfair to criticize anything John McCain says if he ever made a dissimilar comment.

When some politicians -- Democrats, mostly -- make comments that could be seen as inconsistent, the media brand them flip-flops and declare them indicative of a grave character flaw. When John McCain makes disparate comments, Time magazine's Michael Scherer apparently concludes that McCain can't be criticized for either.

By the way, in that 10-paragraph apology for McCain, Scherer didn't reference a single vote McCain has cast in the Senate that is relevant to Hurricane Katrina. It's been nearly three years since the storm hit, and John McCain is a United States senator -- but Scherer doesn't bother to examine what, if anything, McCain has actually done to help the city and its residents ... or to stand in the way of such help.

I'm sure he'll get around to it. Someday.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200805020009?f=h_top

http://www.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUSN0432444020080504

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Sunday dismissed the "elite opinion" of economists who criticized her gas tax proposal, using a term that has dogged rival Barack Obama in recent weeks.

It is now official. 'Elite' is now a synonym for 'not a moron' and 'moron' is now synonymous with 'typical American voter'.

I thought Obama was the one supposedly insulting people's intelligence but Hillary has just won the crown!

Cicinnatus:
Thanks for the link to the Friedman video. I had to shake my head in disbelief. Appalling!

It should not be an issue. In fact, one could legitimately accuse those who make it an issue of being anti-American, given the principle of the separation of church and state. However, it is a little late now to argue the point since we have been subjected to it day in and day out for what seems like months now. They are still going on about it even today. If the press wants to maintain it's reputation for objectivity and fairness the only course they have is to look into McCain's preachers, and Clinton's preachers to the same extent they have Obama's preacher. As the stats in a few posts above illustrate Time has a long way to go. I can't think of one story they've done on Clinton's secretive, conservative cult yet.

I thought I clicked on Daily (Chaos)Kos or Huffingdumb Post by mistake.

This IS an issue and Obama has LOTS of questions yet to be asked!!!

The first question is:
1. How do you explain away your association with a racist, someone who has described Black Liberation Theology as a way to ATTACK all white people "by any means possible"????

2. Are you in favor of the Black Liberation Theology, Mr. Obama?????

Yes we need to get to the bottom of the whole issue Rusty. For example, I'd like to know who hates America more, God, John McCain or John McCain's spiritual advisor John Hagee.

gy--

Please just post a link with a key graf or two.

Derek says: Yes we need to get to the bottom of the whole issue Rusty. For example, I'd like to know who hates America more, God, John McCain or John McCain's spiritual advisor John Hagee. Posted by Derek | May 4, 2008 7:48 PM

I would call up Rev Wright, he seems to be the only one with a chip on his shoulder.

Rev Wright / Obama '08, WRONG for AMERICA!!!!!!!!!!!!

CBS/NY Times: Voters Approve of Obama's handling of Wright, Now Leads McCain by 11

Rusty do you know if McCain thinks the Pope is the anti-Christ, like his spiritual adviser John Hagee?

"Please just post a link with a key graf or two."

Jay: Normal I would do just that. However, I couldn't decide which pieces to post. Anyway its not the entire thing.

Derek and the rest of the SNOBamabots will never understand as they are totally hood-winked by the great "Messiah" for the FAR LEFT LIBERAL EXTREMIST.

You can do all you want to deflect guilt by association, denounce what has been your association for TWENTY YEARS by just saying, "if I'd have known", but American's are not stupid.

A President is voted on because of his character. His or Her ability to determine if his advisors, those he will surround him or her during his Presidency will have the best interests of the citizens of this great land.

Obama DOES NOT have that character. He has nothing but a warped and totally insane pastor to show us exactly what he has believed in for the past TWENTY YEARS.

Character, Judgment, the ability to know WRIGHT from WRONG IS what this election is all about. PERIOD

Rustydog -

"The first question is:
1. How do you explain away your association with a racist, someone who has described Black Liberation Theology as a way to ATTACK all white people "by any means possible"????

2. Are you in favor of the Black Liberation Theology, Mr. Obama?????"

How would McCain and Clinton answer these questions? (I personally don't care but you say it's important.) Are you sure McCain's pastor doesn't support Black Liberation Theology? (Link please).

The answer may be counter-intuitive. In the 60s, there were white northern pastors who were also civil rights activists.

You know what would be useful is if Clinton and McCain put out a list of what foods a real American eats and what grade one should drop out of school so as to avoid becoming an elitist.

A TRUE non-elitist American doesn't go to school, and s/he survives entirely on a diet of M&Ms, which are easy to spell even if you've never been to school.

"You can do all you want to deflect guilt by association"

Is that like trying to paint a red herring blue?

Joe and all the rest of the Swamplander diarists, have any of you read "Free Ride", the book that details the lovey-dovey treatment McCain gets from the MSM?

Posted by Rustydog | May 4, 2008 12:51 PM

Quit spamming every thread. Spammers get banned.

And McCain didn't merely accept the endorsement of this nutcase. He sought it. And when it comes to judgment, let's look at the folks who voted for the war, cause as far as I know, Rev. Wright didn't get over 4000 American troops killed.

Rustydog/Morons 08--Bad for Our Troops, Bad For America

How can you say Clinton was effective selling relief on the stump when yet agains, Bill puts her back in the tank and drives away.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E07E0D7143CF933A05750C0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

Bill Clinton on the gas tax. March 30, 2000.

Q. Mr. President, in light of the fact that OPEC has decided to increase production, do you see it as a mistake for the Senate to proceed with a bill that would suspend the gas tax? And if it reached your desk, would you veto it?

A. Well, I don't expect it to reach my desk because there seems to be bipartisan opposition to it in the House, including among the leadership. But the problem I have with it, apart from what it might do to the Highway Trust Fund and the spending obligations that have already been incurred by the acts of Congress, the budgets, is that I'm not sure that the savings would be passed along to the consumers in addition to that. So I think there are a lot of questions about it. But I don't expect it to pass. I do think, however, we shouldn't minimize the real bind that some Americans have already faced by these high fuel costs. For most people who don't have to drive a long way to work, it may seem an irritant but not a burden. But there are a lot of Americans who do have to drive a long way to work, who work for not very much money. And there are a lot of Americans who are in the trucking business who've been really really hurt by this. So I think we have to just keep our powder dry, keep our options open. But right now I think the prudent thing is to see how quickly these prices can come down with the increase in production and for the House to reauthorize the strategic petroleum reserve. We've got to have that reauthorization of the strategic petroleum reserve. My authority even to use that, even as a possible option, expires on Friday. And it's very very important for that to pass. . . .

Goodnight Hillary.

As a guy in his early 30s with a job, I take offense to this whole "affluenza" notion. We have not lost the values of hard work in this country. I and everyone I know is pretty much at work constantly. And all of these new technologies that help us be more productive put a lot of us on call 24/7 as well. So can we drop the silly notion that people don't work hard in America anymore? We work too hard.

Joe:

Apparently, absolutely every single "liberal hawk" pundit shares in the privilege enjoyed by every neo-conservative "analyst" and "expert":

No matter how ridiculous, no matter how absurd their arguments for starting this war and continuing this occupation, no matter how wrong their predictions, no matter how disastrous the practical outcome of their possessing the power to play out their ideological fantasies, they continue to ply their trade with the kind of authority, credibility and serious consideration that would normally be their due, if none of the past eight years had ever happened.

How is this so?

> We work too hard.

It might be the scope of people you know, and I do, myself, put in way too many hours, sometimes. Even so, your perception, and mine, hardly makes it reality.

But I think the point was, and is, that, at large, as a country, we're "content." It's the antithesis of Arnold's movie, "Stay Hungry." We are not hungry, anymore. We're happy to be spoon-fed intellectual pap through the boob-tube while we recline in our La-Z-Boys, getting ever so not-slim. But we _will_ read Prevention and think about starting a diet.

Look at the youth of today, who would have, in an earlier period, been out on the streets, protesting against this war. The draft, and a dire sense of self-preservation were motivational, to be sure. But, even so, nowadays, it's so much easier to stay inside and play video games. Oh, hey, who got booted off of American Idol last night? I think you get the point.

Here are two examples for you that might or might not illuminate things more clearly:

1) How many different regular posters do you see on this site? Maybe 20; 30 would begin to stretch the bounds. Given the entire population that _could_ post on this site, that's an infinitesimally small number. With a really easy method of staying informed and contributing to the conversation, why don't more people get involved? Eh, too much work. Pass me the remote, would ya? If you're heading out to the kitchen, could ya grab me a beer?

2) I used to serve on a school board of a district with about 8000 people. We'll round it down to, say, 3000 voters, just for the sake of an easy number. Of those voters, can you guess how many people came to board meetings on a regular basis? I'll give you a hint: 2 is 2 too many. The only people there on a regular basis were people who were paid to be there, such as school administrators, or news reporters. Otherwise, we were talking in an echo chamber.

Why? Because people don't care. Why? Because a) they don't have to - someone else will take care of it for them; and b) there's something more interesting going on than watching a school board raise and spend the district's money and decide on policies that will impact their kids.

These, to me, are symptomatic of a sated nation; a nation that is content with how things are, and can't be bothered to get off its duff to change things. In short, we're soft.

So, while you & I might work our butts off, that doesn't begin to cover the rest of this country's population. We - the people you see on this site - are actually anomalies. You might say we're the "elite," except that would put us out of touch with voters and classify us all as Obamabots, which I'm not.

I agree with Mr. Nice Guy. 'Affluenza' doesn't describe so much how people work, as what they do outside of work.

I think the whole 'I work too hard' thing might play into it, too. A lot of people work so hard that they have no energy left over to do anything useful with the rest of their lives.

And then there are the people who do have free time, but spend it all on ATVs and gun collecting and getting new tires for their rides and buying things off of QVC (or what have you). They do this because they can, because in America you can't really tell an adult what to do.

Hmm, very interesting...

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MIkeM,

The claim is not that Americans work too little--they don't; Americans put in more work hours than anyone in the EU. The claim is American citizens don't save any money, and the government doesn't invest in infrastructure.

There's another sub-claim, unstated, that the US market-based implementation of some parts of the infrastructure, like telecommunications and the internet, doesn't work as well as public sector models. Free wifi in Singapore. One-off high priced, slower wifi at JFK. Great hot new cheaper cellphones in Japan. Second and third generation cellphones made expensive and crippled by the seller in the US.

MIkeM,

The claim is not that Americans work too little--they don't; Americans put in more work hours than anyone in the EU. The claim is American citizens don't save any money, and the government doesn't invest in infrastructure.

There's another sub-claim, unstated, that the US market-based implementation of some parts of the infrastructure, like telecommunications and the internet, doesn't work as well as public sector models. Free wifi in Singapore. One-off high priced, slower wifi at JFK. Great hot new cheaper cellphones in Japan. Second and third generation cellphones made expensive and crippled by the seller in the US.

BTW, is the tech staff unaware of the frequency with which a user receives a no permissons and 404 error? Or that there is no response to a submit click, leading to a second click, a second post and that error message?

The great American dream has regrettably been temporarily hi-jacked by corporate interest, be it financial, petroleum, military-technological or whatever.

However, I am convinced that you will take it back from special interest. A pretty good first move is probably electing a thinking man lika Obama as your next president. Then if you could only steer your economy away from fossile fuels...there would be no limit to what you could achieve.

I, for one, would be happy if you did.

Back to Hagee and Wright. Rangel was on with Blitzer yesterday and said:
"I’m probably over the hill but the truth is that you guys know that his beliefs have nothing to do with someone that went to the church, and if we’ve got to get into the Jerry Falwell’s and into the Robertson’s and to the number of people who have what appears to other religions to be bizarre beliefs we’ll never get to the issues that Americans were concerned about. I know that every American is more concerned with who is going to be a better Presidential candidate and a better President more than they are on anything that happens in the church that Senator Obama went to."

I have been watching the Wright/Hagee media coverage disconnect with increasing rage, and would disagree with Rangel on what needs to be covered by our "liberal" msm. I would go beyond just covering the crazy RW preachers. I would make the statements of all the RW media darlings - Limbaugh, Coulter, Hannity, etc. - part of the dialogue. These people routinely say outrageous things, yet are welcome on any teevee, any radio show, at any time, without any question or concern. They are accepted as serious by the media generally. Yet they constantly say things that are certainly no less insane than Wright said at his worst, and are generally far more harmful to productive dialogue in this country than Wright. They are intentionally divisive, they routinely threaten anyone outside of their camp with harm, they never use words to seek an improvement in the national condition - which Wright does. This would be a good time to take them on generally, and tie McCain to what they are unless he forcefully "rejects and renounces."

As for the "liberal" msm, what digby said:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-by-digby.html

Seriously, after "Suck. On. This." how does Tom Friedman continue to write for a major newspaper or show his face in public?

I appreciate Time for expanding not just my working knowledge of the world, but my vocabulary. Sat here scratching my head over this one from the above posting:

--impramatur--

Not old enough to push a youngster in a wheeled conveyance?
Old codger stuck in a buggy?
A not-old pram?

So many Latin/English mash-up possibilities. It must mean SOMEthing!

Well, it doesn't pass the spell-check or dictionary.com tests. Imprimatur does, of course, and fits contextually. Did this one really prance through editorial unchallenged? Being an obscure word to begin with, it looks decidedly sophomoric to misspell such a thing. (Trying to impress without a genuine familiarity with the term. Peeps ARE going to look it up.) Man-O-man did I get in trouble with my English profs trying that tack 25 years ago. Didn't have word processors to spare me the embarrassment back then. You do. Hmmm.

Jayack and Mr.NiceGuy -- good points.

Though I have to disagree with Mr. Nice Guy's point that it somehow reflects badly on society that there are few rgeular commenters here on Swampland -- this is just something we like to do. The preferences of others may differ. I don't think we should pretend that we're doing anything particularly noble or useful by mouthing off here. Our hobbies aren't necessarily the best ones.

crosswaysnet

There is no "editorial." You mean the "copy-editor" actually. IAC, nobody edits blog posts. The benefit of their immediacy comes at the price of a copy-editor.

The etiquette is to point out spelling or grammatical errors so that the poster can correct them, usually with a short comment headed with a phrase like "Typo alert."

My toolbar spell checker does catch that one, and offers the imprimatur.

I think it'll be about 6 months or so before we can truly assess whether Mr. Friedman's return is worth applauding...

"Seriously, after "Suck. On. This." how does Tom Friedman continue to write for a major newspaper..."

A wealthy heiress.

Nice to see Tom making sense. Haven't seen this kind of clarity from him since his Beirut days. Still, he pulled his punches in the second half of the column and engaged in a little of truthyness instead of you know, the truth, by representing the difficulties Congress has on energy bills as a bipartizan problem when in fact it is the result of the hyperpartizan republican minority - filibustering more often than a gang of 1850s southern senators.
Still too timid Tom ...
Hopefully people can read between the lines.
Seems the voters of Louisiana "get it"

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