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Tool-Trashing Time

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I never liked Joe “The Tool” Lieberman.  If you run that name (nickname included) on the search bar at the upper-right corner of this page, you will find a total of 13 previous entries wherein I discussed him in uncomplimentary terms.  What bugs me most about Lieberman is that so many people consider him as the personification of centrism.  I believe that Lieberman gives centrism a bad name because he is simply an opportunist.    The guy doesn’t really appear to stand for anything in particular – he is simply a tool for whatever lobbyist or other interest group is willing to play his quid pro quo game.  After Lieberman lost the Democratic Primary for his Senate seat in 2006, he chose to run as an Independent and in the process, he betrayed those individuals who contributed to his election campaign, believing that Lieberman would champion the causes he advanced before he had to sell his soul to Bush and Cheney in order to save his political hide.  It was only because Ned Lamont (the man who defeated him in the Democratic Primary) came down with a bad case of  The Smug – spending more time vacationing than campaigning for the November election – that Lieberman managed to win a fourth term as junior Senator from Connecticut.

Needless to say, Emily Bazelon’s recent article for Slate, “Good Riddance, Joe Lieberman – Why I loathe my Connecticut Senator” was a real treat.  It was nice to see that a good number of people were as thrilled as I to hear that The Tool was calling it quits.  While discussing the celebratory outpouring of enthusiasm by anti-Lieberman-ites Ms. Bazelon mentioned this:

Another friend, Judy Chevalier, burned up her iPad tonight when I asked her to enumerate why she hates Joe Lieberman.  She ticked off a half-dozen reasons and then said, “The thing is, I did not come up with most of these myself.  They come from many rounds of playing the peculiar Connecticut liberal cocktail party game ‘I hated Joe Lieberman before you hated Joe Lieberman.’ ”  Longtime Lieberman haters, she says, look all the way back to 1993, when Lieberman led a hedge-fund-friendly charge in the Senate against the Financial Accounting Standards Board, which at the time wanted to close the accounting loophole that let corporations duck the recording of stock options on their balance sheets.

As an aside, the first half of that passage was characterized as “the money quote” by the Red State blog and other far-right commentators, anxious to avenge Sarah Palin since her “crosshairs” SarahPac campaign ad was criticized after the attempted assassination of Representative Gabrielle Giffords.  The magic word, “hate” gave the hard right the opportunity to argue that “liberals hate politicians, too”.  Actually, the real “money quote” can be found by clicking on the highlighted language discussing the fight over the Financial Accounting Standards Board rules:

Corporate America aligned with the accounting industry to fight the FASB proposal, with the result that in 1994, the Senate, led by Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), passed a non-binding resolution condemning the proposal by a vote of 88-to-9.

“It wasn’t an accounting debate,” says Jim Leisenring, the vice chairman of FASB from 1988 to 2000.  “We switched from talking about, ‘Have we accurately measured the option?’ or, ‘Have we expensed the option on the proper date?’ to things like, ‘Western civilization will not exist without stock options,’ or, ‘There won’t be jobs anymore for people without stock options.’ … People tried to take the argument away from the accounting to be just plainly a political argument.”

Does that rhetoric sound familiar?

After his 2006 victory, Lieberman continued to betray the people of Connecticut by abandoning his duties in the Senate to follow John McCain all along the 2008 campaign trail (including McCain’s trip to Afganistan) in the hope of securing a place for himself in the would-be McCain administration.  The Tool knew he would never win a fifth term in the Senate.  His only hope was to latch on to McCain’s pantsleg and hang on for dear life.  In the wake of that fiasco, The Tool’s approval rating continued to slide and by October of 2010, it was down to 31 percent.  A fifth term in the Senate was definitely out of the question.  His campaign war chest could be put to better uses – such as buying “friendships” before beginning a new career as a lobbyist.

Despite Lieberman’s crucial effort in the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask – don’t tell” policy, it is interesting to observe how many gay people are willing to overlook that good deed while celebrating Lieberman’s retirement.  A review of the comments at the joemygod blog exposes these reactions:

Good riddance.  DADT capped an otherwise awful career as a spoiler.

*   *   *

Thanks for DADT, but not terribly sorry you’re leaving the Senate.  And I really didn’t want the anxiety of watching a 3-way race in CT, which might have sent a wingnut from the Right to the Senate.

*   *   *

good riddance to the man who killed the public option to satisfy his insurance industry friends in Connecticut. a terrible person

So much for that legacy thing   .   .   .

Daniela Altimari of The Hartford Courant’s CapitolWatch blog, revealed a wide spectrum of reactions to Lieberman’s announcement.  As one might expect, the remarks from politicians were painfully cordial, polite and not worth our time here.  I’ll provide you with two of the more interesting quotes:

“Joe Lieberman took millions from insurance companies, Wall Street banks, and other corporate interests – and then did their dirty work in Congress, including killing the public option.  As a result, Lieberman’s poll numbers were disastrous in Connecticut.  His decision to quit in the face of assured defeat is a huge victory for the progressive movement and all Americans who want Democrats to put regular families ahead of corporate interests.”

—  Keauna Gregory, Progressive Change Campaign Committee

*   *   *

“Of all the horrible things Joe Lieberman has done in his hideous career, depriving everyone of the joy at seeing him lose is near the top”

—  Glenn Greenwald of Salon (via Twitter)

The Connecticut Mirror provided these reactions:

“It’s the first thing he’s done in 10 years to make Connecticut Democrats completely happy.”

—  Bill Curry, former state comptroller, as quoted in The New York Times

*   *   *

“He couldn’t leave the Senate fast enough as far as I’m concerned. He’s not only driving Democrats nuts down here, but he’s become a right-wing extremist on everything except the environment and gay rights.”

—  Ralph Nader, as quoted in The Hartford Courant

*   *   *

“He will leave behind a long list of achievements, from helping to consolidate the nation’s intelligence gathering services in a way that appears to make it more difficult to gather intelligence, to threatening to filibuster the health care reform act until it had been watered down to suit his own high principles.  You will find it all in my upcoming book, ‘Everything Bad Is Joe Lieberman’s Fault.’ ”

—  Gail Collins, writing in The New York Times

As we approach The Tool’s final days in the Senate, I will be looking forward to similar tributes.


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Demolition Derby

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June 24, 2010

They’re at the starting line, getting ready to trash the economy and turn our “great recession” into a full-on Great Depression II (to steal an expression from Paul Farrell).  Barry Ritholtz calls them the “deficit chicken hawks”.  The Reformed Broker recently wrote a clever piece which incorporated a moniker coined by Mark Thoma, the “Austerians”,  in reference to that same (deficit chicken hawk) group.   The Reformed Broker described them this way:

.  .  .  this gang has found a sudden (upcoming election-related) pang of concern over deficits and our ability to finance them.  Critics say the Austerians’ premature tightness will send the economy off a cliff, a la the 1930’s.

Count me among those who believe that the Austerians are about to send the economy off a cliff – or as I see it:  into a Demolition Derby.  The first smash-up in this derby was to sabotage any potential recovery in the job market.  Economist Scott Brown made this observation at the Seeking Alpha website:

One issue in deficit spending is deciding how much is enough to carry us through.  Removing fiscal stimulus too soon risks derailing the recovery.  Anti-deficit sentiment has already hampered a push for further stimulus to support job growth.  Across the Atlantic, austerity moves threaten to dampen European economic growth in 2011.  Long term, deficit reduction is important, but short term, it’s just foolish.

The second event in the Demolition Derby is to deny the extension of unemployment benefits.  Because the unemployed don’t have any money to bribe legislators, they make a great target.  David Herszenhorn of The New York Times discussed the despair expressed by Senator Patty Murray of Washington after the Senate’s failure to pass legislation extending unemployment compensation:

“This is a critical piece of legislation for thousands of families in our country, who want to know whether their United States Senate and Congress is on their side or is going to turn their back on them, right at a critical time when our economy is just starting to get around the corner,” Mrs. Murray said.

The deficit chicken hawk group isn’t just from the Republican side of the aisle.  You can count Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Joe “The Tool” Lieberman among their ranks.

David Leonhardt of The New York Times lamented Fed chairman Ben Bernanke’s preference for maintaining “the markets’ confidence in Washington” at the expense of the unemployed:

Look around at the American economy today.  Unemployment is 9.7 percent.  Inflation in recent months has been zero.  States are cutting their budgets.  Congress is balking at spending the money to prevent state layoffs.  The Fed is standing pat, too.  Bond investors, fickle as they may be, show no signs of panicking.

Which seems to be the greater risk:  too much action or too little?

The Demolition Derby is not limited to exacerbating the unemployment crisis.  It involves sabotaging the economic recovery as well.  In my last posting, I discussed a recent report by Comstock Partners, highlighting ten reasons why the so-called economic rebound from the financial crisis has been quite weak.  The report’s conclusion emphasized the necessity of additional fiscal stimulus:

The data cited here cover the major indicators of economic activity, and they paint a picture of an economy that has moved up, but only from extremely depressed numbers to a point where they are less depressed.  And keep in mind that this is the result of the most massive monetary and fiscal stimulus ever applied to a major economy.  In our view the ability of the economy to undergo a sustained recovery without continued massive help is still questionable.

In a recent essay, John Mauldin provided a detailed explanation of how premature deficit reduction efforts  can impair economic recovery:

In the US, we must start to get our fiscal house in order.  But if we cut the deficit by 2% of GDP a year, that is going to be a drag on growth in what I think is going to be a slow growth environment to begin with.  If you raise taxes by 1% combined with 1% cuts (of GDP) that will have a minimum effect of reducing GDP by around 2% initially.  And when you combine those cuts at the national level with tax increases and spending cuts of more than 1% of GDP at state and local levels you have even further drags on growth.

Those who accept Robert Prechter’s Elliott Wave Theory for analyzing stock market charts to make predictions of long-term financial trends, already see it coming:  a cataclysmic crash.   As Peter Brimelow recently discussed at MarketWatch, Prechter expects to see the Dow Jones Industrial Average to drop below 1,000:

The clearest statement comes from the Elliott Wave Theorist, discussing a numerological technical theory with which it supplements the Wave Theory’s complex patterns:  “The only way for the developing configuration to satisfy a perfect set of Fibonacci time relationships is for the stock market to fall over the next six years and bottom in 2016.”

*   *   *

There will be a short-term rally at some point, thinks Prechter, but it will be a trap:  “The 7.25-year and 20-year cycles are both scheduled to top in 2012, suggesting that 2012 will mark the last vestiges of self-destructive hope.  Then the final years of decline will usher in capitulation and finally despair.”

So it is written.  The Demolition Derby shall end in disaster.





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Jackass Of The Year Award

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January 1, 2009

At year’s end, we see retrospectives of the most important events, numerous top ten lists and recognitions of achievement in one area or another.  2008 brought a record level of cynicism to the American people because of the economic catastrophe, the Bernie Madoff scandal and the cartoon-like escapades from the Presidential campaign.  Accordingly, it seems only appropriate to pay homage to the biggest Jackass of the Year.  Since I advertise this website as a “Blago-free zone”, the current Governor of Illinois is automatically disqualified from the competition.  So, let’s take a look at some of the runners-up and finally, the winner of the Jackass of the Year Award.

Our first contestant is John Ensign.  He is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, representing the State of Nevada in the United States Senate.  On November 2, 2008 he appeared on the CBS television program, Face The Nation with Bob Schieffer.  Election day was two days away and Ensign found it necessary to blame the likely Republican losses on the economic downturn.  He described the Republicans’ fate in these terms:

“And we were starting to do very, very well, but when the financial crisis hit, that financial crisis really is — has been a — almost a body blow to Republicans.  And unfortunately, it was allowed to be portrayed that this was a result of deregulation, when in fact it was a result of overregulation.”

That’s right.  Ensign Douchebag thought he could convince the public that the economic crisis was the result of over-regulation of the financial system, rather than the deregulation described by everyone else in the world.  That noble statement certainly rates runner-up status for the Jackass of the Year Award.

Our next contestant is Reverend Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ and embarrassment to Barack Obama.  Thank God Reverend Wright’s fifteen minutes of fame are finally over.  Although his infamous sermon with the less-than-patriotic remarks about America was given in 2003, by April of 2008, Rev. Wright made a point of resurrecting the controversy concerning his disappointing association with Barack Obama.   At that time Wright hit the road, appearing on Bill Moyers Journal, speaking before the NAACP and giving a grand performance before the National Press Club.  He made a fool of himself all three times and (perhaps to his disappointment) his bad karma never rubbed off on Barack.  The pastor has also been a disgrace to the name of the Right Reverend Carl Wright (comedic sidekick of Chicago blues maven, Pervis Spann).  Although Jeremiah Wright rated recognition, the competition for the Jackass Award was tough this year.

We cannot overlook the valiant efforts of Joe “The Tool” Lieberman to win this honor.  Although the people of Connecticut elected Joe to represent their state in the Senate, The Tool spent most of 2008 looking like a stray dog, following candidate John McCain around the campaign trial.  You can find my prior rants about Senator Lieberman here, here, here and here.

We must also give consideration to Christopher Cox, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.  John McCain was on to him.  It just wasn’t fair that poor, old Senator McCain took so much heat for pointing out that Cox had to go.  McCain made the mistake of stating that he, as President, would have authority to fire Cox.  Although he was wrong about that, he was right about the notion that Cox had been a problem for the SEC.  On December 16, Jessie Westerbrook of Bloomberg news reported that Cox was blaming his subordinates for the enforcement lapses that allowed the scam, perpetrated by Bernie Madoff, to continue for several years after the SEC should have stopped it.  Cox apparently believes in the doctrine that “the buck stops” several levels below himself on the SEC food chain.  The environment at the SEC, with Cox at the helm, was best summed up in a December 27 article from the Los Angeles Times by Amit Paley and David Hilzenrath.  Here’s what they had to say about the tenure of Chairman Cox and his performance during the economic crisis:

Though Cox speaks of staying calm in the face of financial turmoil, lawmakers across the political spectrum counter that this is actually another way of saying that his agency remained passive during the worst global financial crisis in decades.  And they claim that Cox’s stewardship before this year — focusing on deregulation as the agency’s staff shrank — laid the groundwork for the meltdown.

“The commission in recent years has handcuffed the inspection and enforcement division,” said Arthur Levitt, SEC chairman during the Clinton administration.  “The environment was not conducive to proactive enforcement activity.”

*    *    *

But former officials said enforcement suffered during his tenure.  A pilot program begun last year required enforcement staff to meet with the commissioners before beginning settlement talks in certain cases involving nonfinancial firms.  Some former officials said the change was just one example of new bureaucratic impediments that slowed enforcement work.  The commissioners also made clear that they thought staff members were being too aggressive in some cases, the officials said.

”I think there has been a sentiment communicated to rank-and-file staff, lawyers and accountants that you don’t go after the establishment,” said Ross Albert, a former special counsel in the enforcement division.
*    *    *
An analysis by law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius showed that the SEC’s actions against broker-dealers, who serve as intermediaries in financial trades, dropped about 33%, from about 89 cases in fiscal 2007 to 60 cases in fiscal 2008.

Heckuva’ job, Coxey!   Nevertheless, you have been overshadowed in this year’s competition.

The winner of the 2008 Jackass of the Year Award is a professor from Russia, named Igor Panarin.  He is a former member of the KGB, who is apparently so upset over the breakup of the Soviet Union, that for the past ten years, he has been predicting that the United States would also break up.  On December 29, Andrew Osborn reported in The Wall Street Journal that Panarin has been doing two interviews per day, discussing how “an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S.”  The article explained:

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar.  Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces — with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

Worse yet, the other five parts of the country will supposedly become republics that will be part of or under the influence of Canada, the European Union, Mexico, China or Japan.  Osborn’s article included a picture of Panarin’s map, showing how the various segments of the country would be apportioned.  Panarin’s ideas have brought him quite a bit of publicity  . . . and TheCenterLane.com’s Jackass of the Year Award for 2008!  Congratulations, Jackass!

Because He Is A Tool

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November 13, 2008

The “Tool Watch” continues.  In the days after the historic 2008 Presidential election, intrigue abounds as to the future political career of Joe “The Tool” Lieberman.  Lieberman was re-elected to the Senate in 2006 as an Independent candidate (after having lost the Democratic primary to Ned Lamot).  The Tool realized that his betrayal of the Democrats could result in the loss of his many important appointments, should Obama get elected.  Joe had already “sold his soul” to Bush, Cheney and Rove in his quest for re-election.  At that point, he had no choice but to “go for broke” by endorsing John McCain.  However, The Tool went beyond that.  He spoke ill of Obama at the Republican Convention.  He followed McCain around throughout the Presidential campaign, giving rally speeches himself, in addition to serving as McCain’s “nodder” when McCain would question Obama’s patriotism.  The Tool questioned Obama’s patriotism with his own allegations that Obama placed allegiance to the Democratic Party ahead of his allegiance to the country.  The Tool evoked further outrage from Democrats by campaigning for “down ticket” Republicans, while stumping around the country for McCain and Palin.  Now that Obama has been elected President, many Democrats are hungry to avenge The Tool’s malicious acts by stripping him of the appointments earned while in good standing as a member of the Democratic Party.  The most notable of these is his chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.  President-elect Obama has expressed his desire to see Lieberman remain in the Senate Democratic Caucus.  Obama has said nothing about The Tool’s numerous committee and subcommittee memberships or chairmanships.  In keeping with his “No Drama Obama” image, the President-elect appears to have distanced himself from any “blood feuds” involving Lieberman.

My animosity toward The Tool is based on the fact that he is a pathetic ass-kisser.  He knew that his committee appointments would be in jeopardy in the event of an Obama victory.  Accordingly, he didn’t simply endorse John McCain.  He followed McCain around as a stray dog, looking for a new home.  Those of us with the experience of having worked with such people, know that these individuals don’t deserve much in the way of respect.  One of the reasons we enjoy watching “action movies” is because the “ass-kisser” is usually the first person to get killed (by either the hero or the villain).  It seems as though justice and karma are well-served in these movies, when such cretins get their due.

Many people who consider themselves “liberal Democrats” seem anxious to make The Tool an example for future, would-be defectors.  On November 12, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow expressed her concern that the Lieberman case could set a precedent, regardless of what action the Senate Democrats might take in light of The Tool’s transgressions.  Her November 10 program included an interview with Steve Clemons of The Washington Note website.  Mr. Clemons suggested removing Lieberman from his chairmanship of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs because of the The Tool’s fear mongering on the subject of homeland security throughout the 2008 campaign.  Clemons emphasized the proposition that Lieberman should not be able to use homeland security or national security as a foundation to batter Democrats who want a smarter national security policy.

Rachel Maddow discussed this subject again on November 12, with Indiana Senator Evan Bayh.  Senator Bayh discussed the possibility that Lieberman might be unwilling to suffer the indignity of being stripped of his appointments and thus relegated to the status of backbencher.  Bayh worried that under such circumstances, The Tool  might self-destruct:  resign from the Senate and allow Connecticut’s Republican Governor (Jodi Rell) to appoint a “pure Republican” to replace Lieberman.  To Bayh, this would be a more undesirable alternative than putting up with a traitor.  His logic seems based on the rationale that because Lieberman is such a tool, the Democrats could make him their tool once again.  Bayh suggested a two-part compromise.  First, Lieberman should be allowed to retain his chairmanship of the Committee on Homeland Security with “oversight”.  Bayh pointed out that a committee chairman could be replaced at any time.  If those overseeing The Tool reached the conclusion that he should be ousted, it would only then become appropriate for such action.  The second part of Bayh’s proposed compromise would involve an apology from Lieberman for his antics during the 2008 campaign.  I would like to suggest another alternative.  In the event Lieberman might be unwilling to make such an apology, the Senate Democrats should demand that The Tool have the word “Craftsman” tattooed on his forehead.

Time To Toss The Tool

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November 6, 2008

November 5 (the day after Election Day) left us with a nearly breathless Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball.  His guests included their correspondent, David Schuster, who had attended the election night speech by Barack Obama in Chicago’s Grant Park.  Schuster described the scene in Grant Park, immediately after the west coast results were announced at 11:00 p.m. (Eastern Time).  Strangers were hugging each other and crying.  This could have only happened in Chicago.  I had been in Grant Park on several occasions to celebrate many a Bulls championship, back in the day when Phil Jackson was coach and Michael Jordan defied the laws of gravity.  The post-championship celebration in Grant Park became a rite of summer:  the weather was just getting nice and Fourth of July was right around the corner.  I still return to Grant Park for the annual Independence Day fireworks show (that actually takes place on July 3) even though I now live a long way from there.  The consensual spirit of Chicago’s people brings life to the theories expressed by Carl Jung.  Myth, archetype and symbol hold important places in the collective soul of that community.

Chicago has its own approach to politics, as well.  The city’s history is rich with tales of “back alley” politics, giving rise to legendary figures and laying waste to contenders.  As a result, I can’t keep my mind off the subject of what might be in store for Senator Joe “The Tool” Lieberman of Connecticut.  The remark by Stephen Colbert during Indecision 2008 on Comedy Central, caught my attention.  After the announcement that Obama had won 64 percent of the vote in Connecticut, compared to McCain’s 35 percent, despite McCain’s unfailing support from The Tool, Colbert wondered:  “Where could the people of Connecticut have learned such disloyal behavior?”  As you may recall:  Lieberman was re-elected to the Senate in 2006 as an Independent candidate (after having lost the Democratic primary to Ned Lamot).  Although they were irked by The Tool’s mercenary act to preserve his own political skin, the Democrats struggled to keep Joe in their “Big Tent”.  The Senate Democratic Caucus (or Conference) currently consists of 49 regular Democrats and 2 Independents, one of whom is Joe “The Tool” Lieberman, who calls himself an “Independent Democrat”.  Prior to the 2008 election, the Democrats had been desperate to maintain their 51-percent majority in the Senate, so they did all they could to make sure The Tool was a happy camper.  All that changed when Barack Obama became the presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee.  Many commentators saw in Obama, not only a winner, but one with long enough coattails to bring more Democrats into the Senate.  The Tool realized that his betrayal of the Democrats could result in the loss of his many important appointments, should Obama get elected.  He had already “sold his soul” to Bush, Cheney and Rove in his quest for re-election.  At that point, he had no choice but to “go for broke” by endorsing John McCain.  However, The Tool went beyond that.  He spoke ill of Obama at the Republican Convention.  He followed McCain around throughout the Presidential campaign, giving rally speeches himself, in addition to serving as McCain’s “nodder” when McCain would question Obama’s patriotism.

It is now time for the Senate Democrats to throw The Tool under The Trash Talk Express, before it departs for that great bus barn in the sky.  It has been widely reported that The Tool is scheduled to meet with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, at some point this week.  My familiarity with Chicago politics leads me to believe that on his way to this meeting, The Tool will be alone in a dark alley.  He will reach a spot alongside a blue dumpster and that will be the signal.  Suddenly, Democratic Senators will step out from their positions, in the shadows, to surround him.  The Tool will be cut  … and he will be cut quite thoroughly.  He will be cut from the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.  He will be cut from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (where he is Chairman).  He will be cut from the Senate Armed Services Committee.  He will be cut from the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, including its Subcommittees on: Clean Air and Nuclear Safety, Private Sector and Consumer Solutions to Global Warming and Wildlife Protection (where he is Chairman).  He will also be cut from the Subcommittee on Public Sector Solutions to Global Warming, Oversight, and Children’s Health Protection. He will be left, writhing on the back bench of the Senate.  “Backbenchers” have no influence to peddle  …  or, perhaps I should say:  They have difficulty raising campaign contributions.

The Tool assumed that by joining himself to McCain’s hip, he could secure the Vice-Presidential nomination or a high-level Cabinet appointment.  This must have appeared as his only route to avoid obscurity.  It didn’t work.

The Tool now has a “date with destiny” somewhere in a dark alley   .  .  .

Our Generation Got Old

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October 13, 2008

As John McCain’s Presidential campaign goes swirling down the toilet during the final desperate weeks of its existence, we see its surrogates cling to the non-issue of Obama’s contact with 1960s radical activist, Bill Ayers.  As I said on October 2, McCain missed his chance to take control of this race by opposing the 700-billion-dollar “bailout bill”, which has yet to inspire the confidence of the investing public, foreign markets or the banks.  By reuniting with his old ally from the “campaign finance reform” days, Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, as well as Democratic rising star, Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington, the “Blue Dog” Democrats and the so-called “House Republicans” led by Jeb Hensarling and Mike Pence, McCain could have secured his position as the man who would take the Republican Party into the new century.  Instead, he chose to follow the advice of the lobbyists who run his campaign:  Steve “Skinhead” Schmidt and (Jeffrey Dahmer look-alike) Rick Davis.  These “Guys on the Plane” (if I may steal an expression from Peggy Noonan) have their careers rooted in the negative campaigning strategies created by Lee Atwater and refined by Karl Rove.  These operatives have no other cards to play.  They have no experience in successful reliance upon a strategy, based solely on portraying their own candidate in a positive way.

As the nation’s economic condition becomes more perilous, the McCain campaign leans more heavily on its claim that Obama’s contacts with Bill Ayers should determine the outcome of the 2008 Presidential election.

At this point it’s starting to get funny.  Worse yet  … it is an indicator (to me, at least) of how old I am and how old my generation has become.  Back in my old home town (a place called Chicago) there is a writer for a local paper called the Chicago Tribune.  His name is John Kass.  Kass is an outspoken opponent of Chicago’s current mayor, Richard M. Daley and Kass has a nickname for him, just as I have nicknames for such worthy characters as Senator Joe “The Tool” Lieberman.  On Sunday, October 12, Kass expressed his outrage that Marilyn Katz, Ayers’ fellow member of the 1960s radical group, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), is involved in Obama’s Presidential campaign.  Kass took particular umbrage at the fact that Marilyn Katz now has a successful public relations firm called: MK Communications.  According to Kass, MK Communications now represents the Chicago Police Department, City Colleges of Chicago, the city’s “Law Department” (actually referred to as the Office of the Corporation Counsel for the City of Chicago), and numerous other city departments  … including the venerable “Streets and San”.  Kass seemed like a shoe salesman trying to fit an old foot that was accustomed to the “militant radical” style of the 1960s, into the new, 21st century, “Terrorist” model. It  doesn’t fit.  The militant radicals of the 1960s used small bombs to make political statements.  There is an absence of information about the number of alleged casualties or injuries resulting from such bombings.  Today, “terrorists” use small bombs to take down airplanes and they use airplanes to take down skyscrapers.  The use of the “terrorist” label to a 1960s radical is an obvious stretch.

The rant by the Tribune’s Kass about how former radical, Marilyn Katz, has become a “mainstream” figure in Chicago’s Public Relations business community, reminded me of an old song.  On August 17, 1969, Grace Slick and her band, Jefferson Airplane, woke up the crowd at the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair with what she described as “morning maniac music”: the title song from their upcoming album, Volunteers.  Included among the song’s lyrics was the following passage:

One generation got old.
One generation got soul.
This generation got no destination to hold.

The Marilyn Katz story and the Bill Ayers story tell me that our generation got old.  The former radicals of that era are now playing important roles within what they used to consider an archaic milieu, referred to as “the establishment”.  Nevertheless, many members of this latest “establishment” generation are in a fight to retain the claim of having “soul” by helping to bring an African-American to The White House for the first time in this nation’s history.  The crowds at the McCain and Palin rallies have expressed their fear of what an Obama Administration might bring to America.  These McCain supporters have been able to replace their fears of how they are going to economically survive from day to day and how to fund their retirement plans with the fears conjured up by Schmidt, Davis and their ilk.  The ball is now in the court of the Obama campaign to help establish a legacy for these people and all Americans – by righting the ship capsized by the “perfect storm” of greed, corruption and deregulation.  Another three-pointer would be nice.

McCain Loses His Chance

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October 2, 2008

It was the opportunity for a “game-changing move” in the 2008 Presidential campaign.  Just as John McCain was dropping back in the polls, providing Barack Obama the chance to “close the deal” even more decisively than he did with Hillary Clinton, McCain missed the opportunity to turn the game around.  Last week, he arrived in Washington (after the pseudo-suspension of his campaign) on a mission to save us all from the crisis declared by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.  After McCain arrived, he found a number of both Republican and Democratic members of the House of Representatives opposed to the revised, 110-page, economic “bailout bill” (the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008).  At that point in time, McCain had the opportunity to break with the unpopular Bush Administration and band together with the 133 Republican and 95 Democratic House members (who eventually voted against the bill) to form a “coalition of mavericks” (oxymoron, non-sequitur or both?) resisting this bailout of the big banks and other “fat cats” on Wall Street.  He didn’t.  He chose instead, to copy whatever Barack Obama was doing.  Besides, his move dovetailed well with the pseudo-“bipartisan” duet he had been playing, throughout the entire campaign, with Joe “The Tool” Lieberman.  Had McCain stood with those 133 young Republican members of the House and the 95 Democrats (many of whom consider themselves conservative, “Blue Dog” Democrats) he could have re-ignited his flatulent campaign.  (Is it really safe to do that?  —  Let’s ask Johnny Knoxville.)

Howard Fineman provided an interesting retrospective of this phase in the evolution the economic “bailout bill” at the Newsweek website on September 30:

The Paulson Plan is not great. Some two hundred academic economists have ridiculed it, and so have the House Republicans, by a 2-1 margin.  Public opinion (and not just the angry phone callers) is turning against the measure—to the extent that anybody understands it.

But the consensus is that Washington has to do something, and that the current version is far better than what the lawmakers started with.

McCain made a show of returning to Washington to try to jam the original measure through.  He deserves credit for the instinct. An old Navy motto is: Don’t just stand there, DO something!  That is McCain to the core, and so much the better for it.

But when he got to town, he realized something that no one had bothered to tell him, apparently:  the grassroots of his own party (the grassroots that has never really trusted him) hated the Paulson Plan.  They weren’t about to support it and risk their own necks.  McCain worked the phones, but fell back in the ranks.

When the second revision of this bill (at over 400 pages) finally made it to the Senate floor for the vote on Wednesday, October 1, there were 9 Democrats, 15 Republicans and Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, voting against it.  McCain again missed the opportunity for a truly bipartisan resistance to this measure.  Such an act would have demonstrated genuine leadership.  He could have rejoined his old buddy, Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, as well as Florida Democrat Bill Nelson and rising Democratic star, Maria Cantwell from the State of Washington, all of whom voted against this measure.  Such a move would have emboldened resistance to the “bailout bill” in the House of Representatives, where the term of office lasts only two years.  (The short term results in greater accountability to American voters, who are believed to have notoriously short memory spans.)

Is this bill really necessary?  On the October 1 edition of MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Paul Krugman, Economics Professor at Princeton University, admitted that:

…  it will be relatively ineffective, although rejecting it will cause a big run on the system.  Then we will come back and do it right in January or February  …

When Keith Olbermann asked Krugman about the likelihood that nothing consequential would happen if this bill did not pass, Krugman responded by saying that such possibilities have “shrunk in the past week”.  Krugman went on to claim that “the credit crunch has started to hit Main Street”, using, as an example, the rumor that: “McDonald’s has started to cut credit to its franchisees.”  McDonald’s has issued a press release stating that this was not the case.  What is really happening is that the banks are acting like spoiled children, holding their breath until the government gives them what they want, using the threat of unavailable credit as a gun to the head of Congress.

Public opposition to this bailout was best summed up by Peggy Noonan, when she appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on October 1:

But we are in a real economic crisis and the American political establishment said we must do A, B and C to deal with it and the American people  …  said:  “No.  We don’t trust you to handle this.  We don’t trust you to do the right thing.”

John McCain had the opportunity to stand with those people, as well as the 133 House Republicans and 15 Senate Republicans, to do “the right thing”.  He decided to forego that opportunity.  Barack Obama said, on the Senate floor Wednesday, that it was not worth risking the American economy and the world economy by challenging this bill.  John McCain decided that it was not worth risking his Presidential campaign on such a challenge.  That’s too bad for him.  The gamble probably would have paid off.

Night Of The Glow Stick

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The hour is quickly approaching when Barack Obama will announce his running mate.  Most political commentators expect John McCain to take his time in making his own decision, since the Republican Convention takes place after the Democratic event.  Some believe that Obama’s choice might impact the decision McCain will make in selecting his own, would-be VP.  My theory is that McCain’s primary concern is to avoid selecting anyone taller than himself.  The McCain camp has made a point of limiting his traveling companions to Senator Lindsey Graham and Joe “The Tool” Lieberman.  Both of these men stand at approximately the same height as McCain.  Since “The Tool” is not really a Republican and, worse yet, was Al Gore’s “kiss of death” running mate, I have my money riding on South Carolina Seantor Graham.

As for Obama’s choice, the rumors have it that the Democratic candidate has narrowed the field down to a final three:  Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, Indiana Senator Evan Bayh and Delaware Senator Joe “Glow Stick” Biden.  Early enthusiasm about Governor Kaine began to fade, as critics focused on a “lack of national security experience”.  Once the attention turned to Evan Bayh, there was an outpouring of disgust that a co-sponsor of the Joint Resolution for the Use of Military Force in Iraq would be considered as a viable choice for the VP slot.  Activist Steve Clemons was one of those leading the charge against the selection of Bayh, with his plea that those opposed to Bayh should communicate their opinions to the Obama campaign.  Clemons now reports from his blog, The Washington Note, that his sources from within the Obama campaign have informed him that the “surge of concern” expressed on the Internet about Bayh, has pushed the Indiana Senator out of contention.  As a result, the last of those three, still believed to be standing, is “Glow Stick” Biden.

You may recall Biden’s earlier efforts in the current Presidential campaign.  Immediately after his one-percent showing in the Iowa caucuses, he dropped out of the race and allowed his hair plugs to return to their naturally-white color.  His January 31, 2007 remark, characterizing Barack Obama as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy” became a celebrated gaffe.  That remark confirmed the longstanding diagnosis of his Cerebral Flatulence Disorder  — too many “brain farts”.  This disorder had become apparent during his 1988 bid for the Presidency, when he claimed, in a speech, that his father had worked as a coal miner.  Reporters easily refuted this claim with uncontroverted evidence that, in fact, his father had managed a car dealership.

In 2002, Biden introduced the controversial Reducing Americans’ Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act, also known as the “RAVE Act”.  A notable aspect of this failed piece of legislation was its provision outlawing the use of “glow sticks” which had become popular at “rave” parties and nightclubs.  Perhaps Biden’s sense of cause-and-effect had become altered to the point where he believed that the use of glow sticks was actually causing young people to use the drug, known as “Ecstasy”, at these events.  The absurdity of this proposal motivated Glenn Reynolds from (of all places) Fox News to write an article called “Raving Lunacy” on July 25, 2002.  It is indeed difficult to understand how an individual, who had served as an adjunct professor of Constitutional Law at Widener University Law School, would see no First Amendment problem with this incursion on the rights of glow stick aficionados to express themselves.  I was reminded of that fiasco while watching the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics on August 8.  I could not overlook the irony that in the Communist police state, we saw approximately eighty per cent of the 90,000 people sitting in Beijing’s Bird’s Nest Stadium, waving glow sticks in accordance with the program created by director Zhang Yimou.  I could not help but wonder what Joe Biden thought of this.  If only China had its own counterpart for him – perhaps a Security Enforcer named Cho Bai Den, storming through the Olympic stadium yelling: “No grow stick!”  .  .  .

With Senator Biden on his way to Tbilisi, Georgia, as Obama’s surrogate to offset the efforts of McCain’s Lieberman-Graham duo, we see him emerging as an apparent choice for an important cabinet position in an Obama Administration.  Should he find himself standing before the crowd in Denver’s Pepsi Center as Obama’s Vice-Presidential nominee on August 27 – there could be only one appropriate way for the audience to celebrate:  by waving glow sticks.

A McCain – Edwards Ticket

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August 11, 2008

As mid-August approaches, the Hillarologists are preparing to descend upon Denver to vent their spleens at the Democratic Convention.  We’ve seen videos of them at backyard parties, cheering for their fallen hero, and shouting out for … uhh … catharsis?  As their hearts filled with rage, visions of sexists danced in their heads:  the usual big-mouths who weren’t used to restraining themselves while making on-air comments.  Most of the liberally-inclined men I know, couldn’t understand the charges of sexism in media coverage of the Presidential campaign, as alleged by Clinton’s supporters.  That’s because these men don’t watch Fox News or the likes of Glenn Beck.  Had they watched Keith Olbermann’s Countdown program a while back, they would have been treated to a sampling of some ugly, sexist remarks, as rebroadcast to an audience who, for the most part, tended to avoid the White House echo chamber.

Suddenly, Hillary’s female activists have a big distraction.  John Edwards (age 55) has now admitted to having an affair with a dilettante filmmaker named Rielle Hunter (age 44).  Edwards has admitted to having the affair that began after his wife, Elizabeth (now age 58), had been diagnosed with cancer.  To the Hillarologists, the Edwards caper sounded all too familiar.  It was yet another case of “throw your first wife under the bus” syndrome, with the added feature of doing so while she is in the throes of a medical crisis.  The Clinton supporters must have been reminded of a similar situation involving another candidate in the 2008 Presidential campaign:  John McCain.

Sharon Churcher provided an informative history of McCain’s first marriage in the June 8 issue of Britain’s Daily Mail.  Her article described how McCain (who turns 72 at the end of this month) married the sexy swimwear model named Carol Shepp in 1965.  Carol is only two years younger than John.  Carol had been previously married to one of McCain’s Annapolis classmates, by whom she had two sons: Douglas and Andrew.  When McCain married Carol, he adopted her sons.  During the Christmas season of 1969, while McCain was a prisoner in Viet Nam, Carol was driving to a friend’s house and experienced a horrible automobile accident.  A few hours after the accident, she was found next to the wreckage of her car, having been thrown through the windshield.  Churcher’s article went on to point out that after McCain’s release from the “Hanoi Hilton” and upon his reunion with Carol in 1973, he first learned of Carol’s injuries.  She was no longer the tall model he remembered.  Her doctors “had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone in her legs, taking with it her tall, willowy figure” as Churcher explained.

The Daily Mail article mentioned a man named Ted Sampley, who fought with the Special Forces in Viet Nam.  Mr Sampley was quoted as saying:

“When he came home and saw that Carol was not the beauty he left behind, he started running around on her almost right away. Everybody around him knew it.”

“Eventually he met Cindy and she was young and beautiful and very wealthy. At that point McCain just dumped Carol for something he thought was better.”

The article included the following quote from Carol about McCain’s reason for leaving her:

My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens … it just does.

The disgruntled Hillarologists must be aware of the pattern here: opportunistic male politician strays from his first wife after she sustains a physical setback.  The 2008 Presidential campaign brought us two candidates with the same modus operandi.  The fact that they are from different parties shouldn’t exclude John Edwards as a running mate for John McCain.  After all, non-Republican Joe “The Tool” Lieberman has been vying for that spot for over a year.

The Tool” Picks Up Fear Flag and Gets Shot Down By A Real Soldier

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June 30, 2008

Last week, John McCain’s chief campaign strategist, Charlie Black, caused quite a stir with his invitation for an Al Qaeda attack on the United States, to help improve McCain’s chances for election.  Black was obviously thinking about Osama bin Laden’s last “October Surprise” in which bin Laden released a video right before the 2004 election.  That video was widely considered to have given Bush a crucial “bump”, putting him over the top to defeat John Kerry.  Knowing that Al Qaeda (and other terrorist groups) hate to see moderates get elected, Charlie Black saw fit to remind Al Qaeda that they would have no rallying call if Barack Obama were to become President and pull the U.S. troops out of Iraq.  Al Qaeda’s best chance for maintaining their status quo appears to Black as another terrorist attack in the U.S.  He knows they want McCain to win the election because they wanted Bush to win in 2004.  Four days before Election Day in 2004, bin Laden released an 18-minute videotape taunting George Bush about the events of September 11, 2001 and he claimed credit for directing the 19 hijackers.  Osama’s gambit in helping Bush win seems to have paid off.  The incompetent Bush will likely leave office without having caught bin Laden.

After Charlie Black tried his shot at a self-fulfilling prophecy last week, with his announcement (in an interview with Fortune magazine) that a terrorist attack in the United States would “be a big advantage” to help McCain get elected President, Black was widely scorned and criticized.  Many commentators placed this remark in context with Black’s earlier statement that the assassination of Benazir Bhutto helped McCain in the New Hampshire Primary.  Although McCain attempted to distance himself from Black’s remarks, he has kept Black onboard “The Straight Talk Express”.

Just as criticism of the McCain campaign, for relying on “the politics of fear”, is starting to die down, along comes our old friend, Joe “The Tool” Lieberman.  On June 29, The Tool appeared on the CBS television program, “Face The Nation”.  Looking into his crystal ball (perhaps that should be plural) The Tool predicted a terrorist attack against the United States in 2009.  Out of fear of getting caught at an attempted, self-fulfilling prophecy similar to Black’s, The Tool, speaking with his forked tongue, tried to distinguish his prediction from Black’s wish:

Certainly the implications there I know were not what Charlie intended. And he apologized for it. Senator McCain said he didn’t agree. And, of course, I feel the same way.

Actually, The Tool feels the same way as Charlie Black.  He continued on by picking up Black’s “fear flag” to carry it on to victory for McCain in November:

If we had done what Senator Obama asked us to do for the last couple of years, today Iran and al Qaeda would be in control of Iraq. It would be a terrible defeat for us and our allies in the Middle East and throughout the world. Instead, we’ve got a country that’s defending itself, that’s growing economically, where there’s been genuine political reconciliation, and where Iran and al Qaeda are on the run. And that’s the way it ought to be.

Iraq is “growing economically”?  It has yet to rebuild its infrastructure.  The Tool is obviously talking to those people referred to as “low information voters”.  He is insulting the intelligence of everyone else.  Iraq is “defending itself”?  Tell that to our troops who are stationed there.  If Iraq really is defending itself, then we should be able to leave.  Iran is “on the run”?  I thought they were getting ready to nuke Israel.  The Tool is now so used to telling lies that he can effortlessly spit out a sentence containing three big ones.

On the same program, we heard from someone who, unlike Lieberman, actually has some military experience.  Retired General Wesley Clark told host Bob Schieffer: “I think Joe has it exactly backwards here.”  After comparing the qualities of Obama to those of McCain, General Clark said:

And I think what we need to do, Bob, is we need to stop talking about the old politics of left and right, and we need to pull together and move the country forward.

Both Lieberman and McCain used to pride themselves on being centrists in a highly-partisan Senate.  Both are now singing the same, sorry tune we’ve been hearing from our unpopular President for the last seven years, at a time when we would expect a theme of hope and bipartisan progress.  With Obama singing solo on that theme, the prospects for any Republican candidate this year don’t appear much better than the outlook for the S&P 500.