Obama's Image Problem

Obama's image problem boils down to this.

"In Your Face" leadership responds to everything and doesn't accomplish much other than mobilizing opponents. George Bush is testimony to that.

But "In Your Face" is addicting.

People on the left want it just as much as people on the right.

HuffPost wants it just as much as Sarah Palin.

In that context, Obama's "Not In Your Face" leadership looks like "unengaged" and the right is beginning to pounce on it.

Theda Skocpol Hits Nail on the Head

Harvard sociology great Theda Skocpol on the efforts of Congressional Republicans to undercut the economic recovery as a way to better position themselves for 2010 election.

Ghana Wins!

So, the Ghanaian team elimates the U. S. 2-1 in overtime. That's twice in a row that Ghana has eliminated the American team. But the U. S. played pretty much according to its world rankings. If we want out soccer teams to play better in the World Cup, we'll have to become a better soccer nation.

Bin Laden Hunter Gary Faulker as New Hero on the Right?

It might be that the right wing is developing a new hero in Gary Faulkner, the guy who went to Pakistan on his own to hunt Osama bin Laden.

CNN reporter Jim Spellman certainly slobbers all over him.

Keep the Idiot McChrystal

Let's play the "you get to be president" game. Here's the scenario: your top military commander in your hopeless war grants a rolling interview with a popular music magazine.

That's stupid enough.

I mean, what exactly was the chance that Rolling Stone would come out with a positive story about the war in Afghanistan?

Then, it turns out that the idiot four-star general lets the Rolling Stone reporter see him and his ten man in full rap star mode, with his whole ten-man posse of "killers, spies, geniuses, patriots, political operators and outright maniacs" letting their hair down. Everybody's in full wise-guy mode. They're wise guys. They're "completely shitfaced" at an American bar in Paris. They're belligerent. They're t0tal assholes. McChrystal's posse doesn't just dump on President Obama in McChrystal's name. They make sure they name the name of every civilian official they don't like and why--including Joe Biden, Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke, Ambassador Karl Eichenberry, and National Security Adviser James Jones.

Wait a minute! They forgot to dump on Jones' secretary. Well, thank God for that.

But they do like Hillary Clinton because she's for giving McChrystal everything he wants.

Then, to make matters worse, General Stan and his posse proceed to dump on the war he's supposed to be winning. It turns out that the General doesn't think he's winning and doesn't think the war can be won.

And of course, McChrystal's interview with Rolling Stone also provides an occasion for all the highly placed opponents of the war in Afghanistan to have their say and for all the opponents to look extremely reasonable because the general himself pretty much agrees with them.

Talk about stupid!

So, if you're president, do you keep General Stan in his job or do you fire him for being a belligerent asshole and a fucking idiot?

My considered opinion is that Obama should keep the idiot, but that he should force the idiot to replace every last person on his posse--er, staff--who talked for the Rolling Stone interview.

Every last one one of them.

The case for firing McChrystal is that he's another "idiot general" in the vein of Douglas MacArthur and that he's a threat to civilian authority over the military.

I don't think so.

McChrystal didn't make the derogatory comments about Obama himself and is not defying Obama's orders. That takes McChrystal out of MacArthur territory right there. McChrystal wasn't quoted as criticizing the president's strategy for the Afghanistan War either. In relation to McChrystal, the main problem with the interview is that he let the Rolling Stone reporter see the normal ups and downs of communication with people like Richard Holbrooke.

That's stupid, but it's not betraying the Constitution.

The other big problem is that his staff people are clueless about just about everything except fighting the war on the ground.

But the article doesn't make McChrystal and his staff look that bad in terms of fighting the war on the ground.

(to be continued)








Did I mention that McChrystal and his staff were total assholes?



It's

The Answer is No

The New Yorker asks whether Mike Huckabee is Is the wayward Republican Mike Huckabee now his party’s best hope? The answer to that question is No! Mike Huckabee is a second tier candidate behind Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney. Huckabee has no sizzle in his personality. Likewise, Huckabee has no steak in his record. Even worse, he pardoned somebody who ended up killing cops in Seattle. Huckabee's well-enough known to score well in the polls two years out, but isn't going to be competitive with Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney.

Problems with State Pension Funds

No surprise here. The New York Times has an article on the problems of state pension funds and the efforts of state governments to cut back benefits. It wouldn't hurt to detach pension funds from Wall Street either.

Plenty of states are talking about extending the retirement age to 67. By the time I'm 67 in 11 years, people will be working till their 70 and I'll be one of them.

Touchdown Jesus Burns--Church Refuses to Take Hint

The famous statue of Jesus along I-75 in Ohio--Touchdown Jesus--burned down as a result of being struck by lightning last evening.

The famous King of Kings statue at the Solid Rock Church in Monroe is no longer after a fire destroyed the popular landmark Monday night.

The 62-foot tall statue of Jesus constructed out of styrofoam, wood and fiberglass resin caught on fire after the right hand of the statue was struck by lightning during the severe thunderstorms around 11:15 p.m.

If I were a member of Solid Rock Church, I would be interpreting the destruction of the statue as a sign of God's disfavor. It's hard not to notice the parallel between Touchdown Jesus and the destruction of Sodom and Gommorah, or the destruction that Jesus forecast for Jerusalem in the Gospel of St. Matthew.

But instead, the church seems intend on rebuilding.

King of Kings was constructed in 2004 at a cost of $250,000. It was designed by a Knoxville, Tennessee, artist, built in Jacksonville, Florida, and transported to Monroe for assembly. Leaders of the 4,000 member congregation said they saw the statute as a way to give people hope, not just impress them.
Church officials say the statue will be rebuilt and they will go forward with their July 4 celebration in a makeshift manner.

Of course, if the Solid Rock Church wants to continue down the road to ruin, they shouldn't just settle for rebuilding the statue. Why not create a multi-piece Jesus installation and add a "Dunking Jesus" in honor of the NBA, "Rapping Eminem Jesus" in honor or popular music, and an "NRA Jesus" wearing camouflage gear and carrying an AR 15.

That would really get the attention of everybody driving down I-75.

It would get God's attention as well.

That is, if there's a God.

Sarah Palin: Hating Feminists, Shooting Mama Grizzlies

The "Sarah Palin wants to own feminism" story doesn't want to go away. Ross Douthat claimed in a Sunday Times column that Sarah Palin and the recent surge of primary victories for Republican women are a "happy consequence" of feminist progress. But the whole idea that Sarah Palin can claim to be a feminist annoys Amanda Marcotte to no end. As Marcotte points out, Palin is part of a long line of wealthy, white conservative women who have vociferously opposed feminism while still taking advantage of progress for women.

In my mind, the problem with Palin goes further than that. Palin gave her "Mama Grizzlies" talk to a group of anti-abortion activists and was emphatic about uncompromising opposition to abortion rights.

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin told a group of women who oppose abortion rights that they are responsible for an "emerging, conservative, feminist identity" and have the power to shape politics and elections around the issue of life.

Speaking to a breakfast gathering Friday of the Susan B. Anthony List in downtown Washington, Palin urged more than 500 audience members to back only those candidates for public office who are uncompromisingly opposed to abortion.

Palin might also have said that she's opposed to equal pay for equal work, laws against sexual violence, and opposition to the beauty culture and the attendant eating disorders, plastic surgery, and the like. Like most conservatives, Sarah Palin is opposed to almost everything associated with feminism and probably hates most feminists even as she claims to be a feminist.

Of course, Palin wouldn't have any trouble shooting "mama grizzlies" even as she claims to be one.

Four Radical Theses on Sports Devolution

So, Texas is staying in the Big 12 and the American sports-pocalypse has been put off for another day.

Still, American sports needs radical change and American society needs to change because American sports is a reflection of the larger problems of American society.

Here's five radical ideas for sports devolution.

1. Admit to Ourselves That Baseball Never Existed. I was watching the Cardinals pound Seattle the other night at Locus Street Rendezvous when I had an itch in my ear. Scratching deep, I pulled out a little chip and suddenly the game went off. That's when I realized that the game wasn't real, that baseball as a sport never existed, and that all my memories of baseball had been implanted by Big Brother, Global Government, the One World Conspiracy, or whatever you call it. My baseball memories were as much an implant as Heidi Montag's breasts. As Americans, we need to free ourselves from the monotonous tyranny of "our national pastime" and open ourselves up to better sports alternatives. Confession is good for the soul. Let's admit that there was never any such thing as baseball.

2. Cede the Big Ten States to Canada. Sure the states from Iowa to Pennsylvania have a lot of people, but American sports would be better off without them. So would America as a whole. Big Ten football and Big Ten basketball have to be the two most boring sports on the planet now that we've owned up to the fictional character of baseball. Sports Illustrated congratulates Tom Izzo on forging "a signature style, basketball in pads, that befits the conference in which his team plays." Anybody who watched March Madness this spring knows that most amphetamine addicts get their start as a way to counter-act the downer effect of Big Ten basketball. Of course, the problem with Big Ten basketball is "three yards and a cloud of carpet" Big Ten football and the problem with Big Ten football is that Big Ten states have become "three yards and a cloud of carpet" states. Ultimately, the only way to solve the Big Ten problem is to get rid of the Big Ten states. So I propose that the United States pay Canada to take Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania off our hands. From the Canadian perspective, it will be like gaining a tropical paradise.

3. Justice to Mexico. Sports devolution isn't just a matter of giving away the North Central part of the country. The United States also needs to return California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas to Mexico. We also should throw in Oklahoma as a bonus. That way, our country can rid ourselves of three of the major blights on American sports ethics, the football programs at the University of Southern California, University of Texas, and University of Oklahoma. As an added bonus, that pretty much solves the illegal immigration problem in what's left of the United States.

4. A New French Commonwealth. Of course, the other big problem with American sports is that the U. S. is such a mediocre soccer country. Yeah, we tied England. Big deal. We only scored because of a monumental screw up by the English goalie. We're in the same situation as we were in when that Columbian defender helped us win by scoring an own goal. Why should somebody have to die (the Columbian player was shot and killed later) so the U. S. can win a World Cup game. Of course, we used to be a really lousy soccer country, but there's no reason why the U. S. should be a third tier soccer power while we have so many great athletes growing up here. What we need to realize though is that there's no solution to this problem as long as we're running our own country. So, I propose that the U. S. work out a deal with France where we transfer sovereignty over Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississipi, and Louisiana to the French for about 50 years or however long it takes for these states to fully acclimate themselves to soccer as their no. 1 sport. Then, they can all be transferred back to America. Of course, that's if they decide they want to come back.

That's it. The only solution to the sports crisis in the United States is to break up the country. The U. S. was probably too big anyway.

Limbaugh: The First Step Toward His Fourth Divorce

I wish Rush Limbaugh well in his fourth marriage to Kathryn Rogers, age 33 and blonde. But given that news reports focused much more on Elton John's singing than the bride, the signs don't look too auspicious.

Oh well--no fourth divorce without a fourth marriage.

John Wooden Died Too Young

At least that's what I imagine my 93 year old mother-in-law is thinking.

Paging John Yoo--Israel Needs You

I disagree with TPM's take on Bradley Burston's Haaretz op-ed about today's Israeli raid on the peace activist flotilla headed toward Gaza. Burston writes in response to the botched raid that the Israelis "don't know themselves" and that Hamas and the Iranians know Israel better than the Israelis.

There was a time, when it could be said that we knew ourselves only in wartime. No longer. Now we know nothing. Yet another problem with refraining from talks with Hamas and Iran: They know us so much better than we know ourselves.

They know, as the song about the Lebanon War suggested ("Lo Yachol La'atzor Et Zeh") that we, unable to see ourselves in any clarity, are no longer capable of stopping ourselves.

But that's all nonsense and not just because it has a whiny tone about it.

In fact, the Israelis know that they're an aggressive imperialist state that is swallowing up as much Palestinian territory as their American patrons will allow. The Israelis also know that their government is committed to dealing with their Muslim opponents in a bullying fashion. The fantasy seems to be that if the Palestinians might never resist again if only they get beaten up one more time.

Not that self-knowledge means unity. The Israeli right celebrates the Israeli Defense Force's imperial elan. The Israeli left deplores it. But everybody in Israel knows what Israel's about. So does the Arab world and the Europeans for that matter.

As for the current dilemma of the Israeli government, they might as well hire famous American torture lawyer John Yoo to represent their case. Certainly, their current arguments aren't going to hold much water. The Israelis claim that their soldiers were "attacked" after they repelled onto the ship. Well, "duh." Everybody has a right to self-defense, including peace activists. If hostile troops landed on my ship, I would attack them myself if I had any chance of being effective. The largely Turkish peace activists never took a Gandi-esque vow of non-violence. They had just as much right to defend themselves as anyone else.

But this is where John Yoo comes in. Yoo's argument in defense of torture was that the American president has the authority to lawfully ignore provisions of the Constitution, American law, and international law if he believes the U. S. is under threat.

And the U. S. is always under threat. So, the Yoo Doctrine was that the American president could torture anybody anytime he wanted.

That argument is a significant part of what made the U. S. the most powerful rogue nation in the world under the Bush administration. Now that the Israelis are coming under criticism for their human rights abuses in attacking the Gaza flotilla, they also need someone like Yoo to tell the world that Israel can do anything it wants as well.

Paging John Yoo.

Longer Than Expected

Actor-director Dennis Hopper died today at the age of 74. Given all the booze and drugs he consumed, Hopper must have had a strong constitution to live that long. Good for him.

Don't Ask Don't Tell: The Demonization Begins

Under the No Surprise Here category. The Obama administration announced a compromise on Don't Ask/Don't Tell on Tuesday and it only took one day for GOP constituency groups like the Family Research Council to start painting gays in the military as a chamber of horrors.

Here's how the Family Research Council envisions things going if Don't Ask, Don't Tell is repealed: first, more straight soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines will be fellated in their sleep against their will. Then, commanders afraid of being labeled homophobes will refuse to do anything about it. Eventually, the straight service members will quit out of fear.

The Family Research Council is one of the most important groups on the religious right and their leadership is just as much a part of the Republican elite as Dick Cheney.

No doubt other GOP groups will be rolling out this kind of stuff in the coming days. John McCain and other Republican senators have also threatened to filibuster the defense bill if it contains language repealing Don't Ask/Don't Tell.

If Rush Limbaugh is an Army of One, he's an Army of One for the Party of Hate.

Perhaps the GOP Should Try "Language Deafness"

NBC News' First Notes has an interesting analysis of declining Hispanic support for Republicans--no surprise in the wake of the onslaught of anti-Hispanic legislation sponsored by Republican politicians in Arizona.

The conservative response to the association of the Republican Party with racism was to advocate the idiotic and ultimately racist ideology of "color-blindness."

If the American right is anything, it's a creative ideological force. Maybe they'll respond to the link between the GOP and anti-Hispanic bigotry by developing an agenda of "language-deafness."

Here's three sentences for future William Bennetts: "I don't hear English. I don't hear Spanish. All I hear is character."

Short Summer Reading List

For any students of political theory who might catch this, here's a short summer reading list. Amazon url's are in parentheses. I also have online url's for some of the classics. No particular order of preference.

Enjoy!

1. Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings. http://www.amazon.com/Jean-Baudrillard-Selected-Writings-Second/dp/0804742731/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274931155&sr=1-1.

2. Michel Foucault, A History of Sexuality, vol 1. (http://www.amazon.com/Jean-Baudrillard-Selected-Writings-Second/dp/0804742731/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274931155&sr=1-1)

3. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127096506).

4. Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, http://www.amazon.com/Cosmopolitanism-Ethics-World-Strangers-Issues/dp/039332933X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274931605&sr=1-1

5. Carol Smart, Law, Crime, and Sexuality: Essays in Feminism, (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Carol+Smart%2C+law)

6. Slavoj Zizek, Living in the End Times, (http://www.amazon.com/Living-End-Times-Slavoj-Zizek/dp/184467598X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274931993&sr=1-1)

7. Karl Marx, The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, online at http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/wages.htm

8. Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, online at http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince00.htm

9. Shakespeare, Hamlet, online at http://books.google.com/books?id=rORGgTWnAXEC&dq=Shakespeare,+Hamlet&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=Eez9S5TuG4H88Aamh9jYDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=falseFriedrich

10. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, http://books.google.com/books?id=p2h1jVM6WJ4C&dq=nietzsche+thus+spoke+zarathustra&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=gOz9S727IYL58AbTmJniDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=falsebell

11. hooks, Killing Rage: Ending Racism (http://www.amazon.com/killing-rage-Ending-bell-hooks/dp/0805050272)

12. bell hooks, Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery, http://www.amazon.com/Sisters-Yam-Black-Self-Recovery-Classics/dp/0896087336/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274932523&sr=1-1

13. Plato, Republic, Books XIII and IX, online at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html

Not Much There There on Rush

Either Zev Chavetz, the author of Rush Limbaugh: An Army of One, decided not to reveal much during his interview with NPR or he doesn't have much to reveal beyond what any informed person could have gathered by following the media.

I rather suspect its the latter.

It looks like Limbaugh gave Chavetz interviews because he knew Chavetz would write a mildly favorable book that wouldn't try to plumb the deep depths of Rush Limbaugh.

And Chavetz delivered.

Three quick points:

One, Limbaugh conservatism is no longer the cutting edge of the right-wing populism. That prize goes to Glenn Beck and the Tea Baggers.

Two, Rush Limbaugh has been good for the left because he's a dynamic opponent who has forced the left to raise its game.

Three, Limbaugh is a good redemption story of someone who kept plugging away in the radio wilderness until he found a proper outlet for his talents and energy. I don't agree with much of anything Limbaugh says, but he's still an excellent example of the virtues of patience and perseverance.

Rand Paul: Conservative, Libertarian, Segregationist

Yesterday, NPR was sniffing around the question of whether Rand Paul would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 if he had been in the Senate.

That's a significant and uncomfortable question for any libertarian-inspired, small government conservative. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 made every lunch at the local diner and every trip to Woolworths into a federal matter because it banned racial discrimination in relation to serving customers, hiring workers and management, promoting people to new positions, and just about every matter connected to the conduct of private business.

If you like the Civil Rights Act of 1964, you see the federal government acting with real heroism to overturn a monstrous system of segregation that made the American South an evil place of racial hate, intimidation, violence, and deprivation. I read about the fight over the Civil Rights Act every day for months when I was a 9 and 10 year old kid. I'm proud to say that I've always supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 even though I'm embarrassed to say that the legislation was so desperately needed in my country and I'm doubly embarrassed to say that because I'm white and people like my relatives were enforcing segregation in the South and more silently discriminating in the North.

But if you're a libertarian conservative, you would be more likely to see the federal government acting in a completely illegitimate and unconstitutional manner to force private businesses to serve African-American customers, hire African-American employees, and promote African-American employees when hired. If you're a libertarian conservative, you value the freedom of white employers to serve, hire, promote, and fire who they want over the freedom of African-Americans to shop, work, and receive recognition for their efforts.

Moreover, the Civil Rights Act violated libertarian/conservative principles of federalism because it represented a massive expansion of the power of the federal government in relation to the states. In many ways, the Civil Rights Act was even worse the New Deal from a "federalist" point of view. Where the New Deal offended federalist sensabilities by establishing a number of new federal programs and regulations, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 overturned a vast web of state laws pertaining to race in the South. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only vastly increased the power of the federal government, it curtailed the power of Southern state governments in the area of their highest priority--race relations.

These were the reasons why Barry Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and these are the reasons that Rand Paul would vote against the Civil Rights Act if it were brought back up for a vote today.

Paul explained [to the Louisville Courier-Journal] that he backed the portion of the Civil Rights Act banning discrimination in public places and institutions, but that he thinks private businesses should be permitted to discriminate by race.

In an ideal world, Rand Paul would take the country back to the period before 1964 when private businesses were free to discriminate against African-Americans in any way they wanted.
To be fair, Paul should get credit for his honesty on the issue. Even though the Republican Party has been the party of conservative white racial backlash against Civil Rights ever since Goldwater's candidacy in 1964, few if any Republicans have acknowledged their opposition to what they have to view as one of the "original sins" of big government in Civil Rights legislation.

But that honesty doesn't make him qualified to be a U. S. Senator from Kentucky.

Or anywhere else.

RSI Sends Money to Conway

Jack Conway won a close primary over Dan Mongiardo yesterday evening. A couple hours later, RSI sent him $25 and will volunteer to make phone calls after another donation. The fall campaign for Kentucky's open Senate seat will be a tough but winnable battle for Conway. RSI urges everyone to help as much as possible.