Should there be a federal political defamation law?

Almost everybody – on the right, on the left, in the center – will probably tell you no. They'll say we shouldn't have libel laws that cover political speech. 

Public figures, you’re likely to hear, are different from you and me. The press has to feel free to cover them without fear of making an unintentional slip. “Vigorous political debate" is the fertile womb from which Democracy springs forth, and all that metaphorical crap.

I used to go along with this, but election season media noise is getting so loud, it’s deafening. You have to wade through a hailstorm of lies if you hope to get past Election Day.

I’m not just talking about mistaken overestimates of the price of preventing the poor from starving to death, or deliberately hyped declarations relating to taxes, or the national deficit, or the national debt, or whether the one percent is really the two-percent, or that the super rich somehow magically create jobs by stashing their cash in the Caymans.

I’m taking about vicious personal attacks, clearly false to anyone who carefully scrutinizes them, clearly deliberate, and clearly orchestrated not only to defame a candidate, but also to mislead you and me and have an unjustified influence on voter behavior.

President Obama has been under such an attack recently. Or rather, under a barrage of these attacks.  They question and falsify his paternity, smear his mother’s morality, falsify the circumstances of his upbringing, attribute non-existant rage to him, and more. You can read about some of it here. 

The claims, ranging from one that his mother was an overweight slut to one that his father-in-law wasn't a Kenyan or a Muslim after all, but an American rabblerousers, have been put together in a so-called “documentary” video disk and is being mass mailed by far right groups in swing states.

There are drawbacks to a political libel law. One of them is the risk of frivolous lawsuits and counter lawsuits, as one side or another tries to bend the law to its own purposes. But a clause in the law could discourage this by guaranteeing triple legal fees to victims of legal frivolity.

I guess you can tell what chance we stand of ever having such a law in our lifetimes.

Yeah. Exactly.

The Iowa Straw Poll, murky political muck, and the magical “Mushiness Index”

So, uh, according to all the news, George Romney won the Iowa straw poll by eight – count ‘em folks, eight! – votes.

Meanwhile, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul are yapping at his heels. Newt Gingrich is grumbling (justifiably) that Romney is a liar who, if you’ll pardon my own awful metaphor, is stabbing him in the back with clubs. Or clubbing him over the head with stilettos. Something like that. And Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry seem about to crawl back into the murky caves from which they emerged and call it a day. Oh wait a second. After crawling into his gave to rethink his candidacy, Perry crawled out again, to lose again another day.

What’s it all mean?

It don’t mean a thing – and not only because all those candidates ain't got that swing.

To explain the mucky murk:

the old “Mushiness Index”

Back in the 1980s, there used to be a polling and market research company called Yankelovich, Skelly and White. It had since disappeared, although it first metastasized into two separate rival companies that are still doing business, one called Yankelovich; the other called DYG, which claimed to have the real Yankelovich as a co-founder. But I’m getting off track here.

A now-deceased woman at Yankelovich, Skelly and White named Florence Skelly invented something called the “Mushiness Index.” This purported to measure not the things or people that individuals like you and me are for, but how intensely we are (or aren’t) for them.

For example? Ask me if I prefer ice cream or chocolate cake and I’ll tell you ice cream. But my preference is really rather “mushy.” At any time I might change my mind, and go for the chocolate cake if I’m in the mood. Or next Wednesday, mindful of my diet, I might say to hell with both the ice cream and the cake and go for jello. Although I've picked a dessert at your request, my preference is anything but firm.

I have a deep, abiding suspicion, that every last candidate in the Iowa Republican Straw Polls, including the one who just shot her own candidacy in the head, has a following that is largely mushy to the point of being downright squishy. Sort of like stepping into eight inches of mud with shoes that only go two inches up your ankles.

Yes, the voters went for Romney over Santorum by something like a mushy 1.0008 to 1 – on Tuesday of this week, at any rate. Next week things might go just the opposite way. Or, as we’ve seen, the votes might instead go to Ron Paul, or Newt Gingrich, or Rick Perry if he doesn't change his mind about running again, or John Huntsman or, for that matter, the man in the moon. Or the troll under the bridge.

Are Democrats "mushy" too?

All this would be good news for the Democrats, if not for the fact that I suspect we Democrats, at least some of us, are furiously mushy ourselves.

President Obama made the mistake of playing diplomat to a bunch of Republican barbarians, preferring “consensus,” or some damn thing like it, to victory. As a result, Republicans walked all over his face. Obama compromised away the public option, leaving forced purchase of commercial health insurance as the key means of covering Americans for health expenses, rather than chancingf “Medicare for all.” Or at least for all who wanted it. The Republicans loved – trust me, loved – the opportunity that this compromise gave them to generate political hysteria. Obama next compromised away environmental safeguards when he opened the gulf to offshore drilling – just in time for the BP disaster.

It goes on. Budget compromises. Limiting how much he really should have demanded to kick start the economy. Laying Social Security and Medicare on the table for negotiations that never happened anyway. And other gross insults to the base who once supported the president.

As we’ve seen, the one time Obama stood firm – on the two month payroll tax-relief and unemployment insurance extension for the middle class – the Republicans folded as quickly as you'd fold a poker hand containing a pair of jokers.

Unfortunately, Mr. Obama learned too late. That’s assuming he learned anything

These days I’m getting bombarded by increasingly desperate-sounding e-mails threatening “deadlines” to cough up three bucks for Obama. Sorry pal, I ain’t coughing. Not even a paltry three bucks. And neither are thousands of other once-devoted Democrats, judging from the frantic tone of the e-mails.

Yes, there is a moral 

The moral is, don’t betray your own base, or they’ll give you as much support as a lump of jello will give a highway bridge.

Does that mean I want any Republican to win? Nope. But neither do I want to go out of my way to support Obama any more, after he betrayed my Democratic ideals and some of the policies he ran on.

So call me mushy, but as far as I’m concerned, Mr. Obama, you’re on your own.  Speaking of which, I’ll have the Boston cream pie. Nope, come to think of it, maybe the banana fudge ice cream. Well, if you don’t have any more banana fudge, do you have any rice pudding? No? 

Well then, is Hillary still around?

“To demonstrate my displeasure with you, President Obama, I’m going to blow my own brains out.”

This evening we may experience yet another example of the limitless capacity of most Americans to vote down their own future.

At issue: a special election for the seat in Congress formerly held by Anthony Weiner, the loose-screw congressman who was fond of e-mailing photographs of his, umm, weiner to young women.

On the right is Tea Party radical Bob Turner who will vote with the Republican congressional roadblock to bring down the president by voting against anything Obama is for, regardless of the consequences. Against: healthcare, Medicare, Social Security, abortion, an infusion of capital into the economy or, if the issue ever comes up, washing your hands after flushing the toilet.

On the other side is a Democratic party stalwart, David Weprin, who will support Social Security, Medicare, programs to get more of us employed, infrastructure repair and improvements, better schools, and a woman’s right to decide whether or not she will bear a child.

The district, I’ve heard, is roughly two-thirds democratic. So who is projected to win?

At this moment, it’s Bob Turner, the Tea Party wing nut.So what’s going on here?

Simple. Lots of democrats, like me, are pissed off at Obama, who has fiddled around attempting to compromise with the uncompromising right wing of Congress while the economy continues to go down in flames.

Add to that, Obama’s position on Israel isn’t quite as pro-Israel as some people in the district would like. So even though Weprin is an orthodox Jew who is as likely to vote against Israel’s interests as Michelle Bachmann is to start shooting gay porno films, the voters in the old Weiner district are going to get even with the President.

The polls show a slight lean toward Turner. To demonstrate to Mr. Obama how mad they are, the democratic district may vote today for a man who will cut their Social Security, destroy their Medicare, jerk the rug out from their school-age and college-age kids, vote to sink the economy, and force their daughters to bear the children of rapists.

That’s like the idiot kids who blow their own brain out to punish their teachers.

Morning After Report: Yep, my fellow Dems did it, last night. They pulled the trigger and blew their own brains out, voting to destroy their future and the future of the kids in order to tell off President Obama. Bob Turner Won.

The New York Times reported:

“I am a registered Democrat, I have always been a registered Democrat, I come from a family of Democrats — and I hate to say this, I voted Republican,” said Linda Goldberg, 61, after casting her ballot in Queens. “I need to send a message to the president that he’s not doing a very good job. Our economy is horrible. People are scared.”

Unfortunately, Linda, you also sent yourself a message. It reads, "I'm mad at Obama, so screw me!"

The Times also reported:

Mr. Turner predicted that voters elsewhere would also rebuke Mr. Obama in the elections next year.

“We have lit one candle today,” he said. “It’s going to be a bonfire pretty soon.”

Nice going, Dems. You've added one more obstreperous Republican to the ranks, one more for the President to "compromise" with.

Is it time for the Democrats to put up an anti-Obama primary candidate?

It’s time to come right out and say it. Barack Obama hasn’t merely disappointed his base. He has betrayed us.

He has put Social Security and Medicare on the table – to him nothing more than chips than he can exchange for some vague Republican promises to fiddle around with tax revenues.

This will “cause some political pain…” I heard him say on TV this morning. Political pain?

How about real human pain? The pain of hunger among many seniors and disabled kids, just for openers. Not to mention the pain felt by all of us over 65, who cheerfully accepted Social Security and Medicare deductions from our page checks for decade after decade – because we knew the money were putting in would tide us over and take care of us when we were ill in our old age.

And now we're being cheated out of delivery of a promise and a lifetime of contributions. The Republicans are raiding Social Security as if it were an abandoned bag full of money. And Obama says, well okay, my own supporters don’t want you to do this, and you do want to do this, so we’ll compromise. You can do it.

He “compromised” this way at least once before, when he bargained away his once staunchly defended “public option”

I don’t know what Obama thinks he’s doing. I don’t even know if he thinks. Some deep personal flaw leads him to turn on the people who put him in office — perhaps assuming that come the next Presidential election, Democrats will have no one to vote for save Obama anyway. If that's his thinking, he is a terribly flawed president indeed.

It’s time for us to turn on him. We need a prominent and thoroughly gutsy United States Senator, former senator or a civil servant with experience on the highest level to prepare pronto to run against Barack Obama in the presidential primaries.

In my heart of hearts I know that Russ Feingold or Barney Frank or Bernie Sanders couldn’t carry a national election, even though if we had one of them in the White House, we'd have a great president. Which leads me to one simple question:

Hillary, where are you when we need you?

What Barack Obama can learn from the experiences of shafted chief marketing officers

Evidently one of the most insecure jobs in the world these days is corporate Chief Marketing Officer.

According to Target Marketing Magazine’s writer Lisa Arthur, who got her information from the Spencer Stewart executive search firm, the poor S.O.B.s who take the marketer-in-chief job typically last less than three years. Well, 34.7 months, to be exact.

Why are they getting canned? And what does this have to do with Barack Obama, his job, and the jobs of the Congressmen and Senators in his party? Plenty.

Suddenly, failed marketers sound like Obama

All you have to do is read the “key risks” (actually key failures) of Chief Marketing Officers, and change a word or two. Suddenly you’re in the Oval Office.

For example?

• “Running marketing tactically,” was one chief marketing officer fault. Kind of the way Obama appears to be running legislation. Tactically it was easier to get Obamacare without a single payer option. And tactically it was easier not to give the economy the megadose of stimulus money ir should have had, instead of just a bank and auto bailout. And tactically, let’s fudge those exit dates in Iraq*. And for the sake of continuity, lets leave foxes like Tim Geithner in the henhouse. And on and on.

• “Failure to build and unite left brain and right brain organizations,” was another. Think of this as “cooly logical” vs. “emotional.” The President ran for office largely on emotion. Remember? Where did "Yes we can!” that emotional rallying cry go now that we need it? Instead of inspiring the American public to demand his programs, he more or less delivers stumbling lectures. His real modus operandi is, “No we can’t with all those Republicans, so let’s settle for second rate.”

• “Forgetting the number one stakeholder: the customer,” was another fatal mistake that Chief Marketing Officers make. Substitute the phrase” “your base” or “the good of the electorate” for “stakeholder” and we have another Obama bummer. The people who supported Obama heard about getting out of Iraq. We heard about a public healthcare option. We heard about immigration reform. And while I’m repeating myself, we heard “Yes, we can!” which was considerably more inspiring than what Hillary seemed to be offering. Now, a great many of us are wondering how bad a mistake we made in not backing Hillary.

• Then there was “Being satisfied with the status quo and not pushing to embrace and drive change in emerging channels and technologies.” Let’s talk about those channels and technologies. We were supposed to have a big alternate energy push, remember? We were going to build new American industries based on clean, green technology. Had we had the equivalent of a space program or a Manhattan Project in energy, we’d be on our way to total energy independence, with new industries hiring researchers, building factories and creating new products. (Remember that the space program built industries as varied as microchips and nonstick frying pans, to name just two out of many.) Instead, we got yet another “compromise” — this time in favor of coastal drilling, just in time for the BP oil spill.

Do I hear an objection?

You may be saying, “But, but, all those Republican obstructionists….!”

Yes, I agree Washington is littered with them. Tea Party manipulators. Lobbyists who create corruption by bribing legislators with campaign contributions. Talk shows baloney artists. Liars. Subject changers. Flimflam artists. People who try to take the focus away from preserving Social Security so you’ll get worked up over a Sufi mosque two blocks (instead of what, six blocks?) from Ground Zero. Or changing the subject from the economy to where Michelle Obama takes her vacation. God damn the Republicans! They are doing more than Al Queda ever did to undermine the United States of America and distract our attention while they bomb the economy.

But they can be overcome with one thing. Which brings me to perhaps the most important reason why Chief Marketing Officers are getting fired:

• “Forgetting that the ‘Chief’ in CMO means you lead.” That’s what Presidents of the United States are also supposed to do, Mr. Obama. Not compromising with obstructionists for whom no compromise is enough. Not attempting to placate those who refuse to be placated. Lead! Inspire! Build an overwhelming demand among the public for programs that would actually create a sound economy, a future for the young, a fair and sensible tax system, better healthcare, secure retirements and an exit from pointless, useless and wasteful wars.

We, the former Obama base, are not getting that from Barack Obama. CMOs who don’t deliver last less than three years. The Obama Presidency ought to have his four years and no more. It’s time for a Democratic primary challenger to enter the party’s primaries and for the Democrats to replace Obama.

Because if we don’t, the Republicans will.

*NOTE: A day after this post appeared, the exit from Iraqof the last of American combat troops was announced. Well hallelujah! Maybe Mr. Obama is trying to keep his promises after all. Or maybe it's pressure from people like me, calling attention to the way he has failed his base, that has moved him. Or maybe it's just the coming elections. Whatever the case, we're still leaving behind noncombat troops and oodles of "private contractors." Why I am suspicious?

It's time to call a Brit a Brit. Got that, Brits?

We've got Brits calling Americans "anti-British" because somebody over here referred to BP by its old name, British Petroleum.

Never mind that, multi-national or not, BP it is British. Never mind that it was founded in Britain. Never mind that a substantial chunk of its stock is held in Britain. Never mind that the entire British pension system is shaky because it has so much invested in BP. Never mind that under British Common Law, if you own a company that creates damage, you as owner are liable for the damage.

No, we Americans are "anti-British" for wanting the owners of BP to pay for the damage.

Do I feel sorry for British pensioners who now will have less to live on, at least for a while? Sure. But I feel sorrier for the entire gulf coast of the United States, which is drowning under British Pet...oh, sorry, BP's mess.

Meanwhile, we've got President Obama sounding more and more like a Professor of Mediation Practice at the Graduate School of Social Work, and less and less like a President who can seize this opportunity, wring money out of a recalcitrant Congress, and apply it to an energy project that would resemble the Manhattan Project of WWII, or the space program of the 1960s.

Instead we get some Republican idiot in Congress, a Republican dunderhead from Texas named Joe Barton, apologizing to BP because we're pressuring it to pay up, and then apologizing for apologizing. And no doubt he'll eventually apologize for apologizing for apologizing.

I could probably go look up the links and put them in here, but I'm too down on current events. I've been down on it for weeks, which is why I'm posting so little lately.

Oh bother! And blah! Everything sucks. I'm going home.

Class vs. No class: The words of Barack Obama and those of far right "Conservative" J.R. Dieckmann

Recently J.R. Dieckmann, a Conservative blogger, resigned from the Republican Party. You might say, he left in a purple snit.

And today, President Obama gave the greatest inauguration address I have heard since John F. Kennedy took the oath of office almost half a century ago.

I thought it might be interesting to contrast the classy language of Obama during his inauguration speech with the no-class language of Dieckmann in his resignation letter. Here goes.

Classy Obama:

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

No-class Dieckmann:

[This is] the first time in history that a majority of American voters have not only elected a black man to POTUS, but also elected an unqualified, no résumé, unaccomplished, radical left, and likely illegal alien, without ever demanding personal history, educational records, health records, military records, or proof of citizenship from this man. He is an absolute zero on qualifications for POTUS.

Classy Obama:

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics. We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

No-class Dieckmann:

You and your Democrat-Lite candidate, John McCain…allowed this illegitimate candidate to usurp the office of the president. McCain’s campaign was pitiful and failed to bring up even the most basic issues of the Obama candidacy. Issues not only of his citizenship, but his dark associations with radicals (other than Bill Ayres, which was a non starter), his empathy with Islamics, his complete lack of understanding of the Constitution, the free marketplace, American history other than black separa

Classy Obama:

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted — for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.
For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.
For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.
For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sanh.

No-class Dieckmann:

Why was George Allen forced out? For daring to call a liberal agitator “macaca” (monkey)? Why have Republicans caved to the liberal agenda of political correctness and the global warming fraud? America used to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. You have simply allowed this America to be trashed by your liberal counterparts with little or no resistance.

Classy Obama:

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.
What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

No-class Dieckmann:

You have allowed liberals to pull the entire country into a socialist cesspool of immorality, atheism, socialist indoctrination masquerading as education, welfare handouts, infanticide, environmental extremism, government dependence, and lack of personal responsibility. These are the very opposites of the American foundation. We expected the Republican party to defend the American experiment, not hand it over to the communists.

Classy Obama:

The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

No-Class Dieckmann:

There can be no compromise between the two opposing forces of liberalism and conservatism; of socialism and capitalism. You have lost sight of what it means to be Republican. You have allowed the socialists to take over the country without a fight.

Classy Obama:

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions.

No-class Dieckmann:

In fact, if you would simply promote conservative American principles, you wouldn’t have to reach out to anyone. They would be reaching out to you. Show some pride in conservatism. That is how it should be, but you just don‘t get it, do you?

Classy Obama:

Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

No-class Dieckmann:

If you really want to rebuild the Republican party, I would suggest to go to the Heritage Foundation and read what Reagan would do. That would be a good start. The course you have chosen now leads to nowhere and it‘s time to abandon ship.

Moral: Trust noble aspirations over mean-spirited aspersions. Trust truth over baseless rumor mongering and outright falsehoods. Trust calls to greatness over calls for pettiness. In short, trust class every time.

"Help, I’m on trial for capital murder! Get me the dumbest representation you can find!"

Actually, none of the people shown above ever came close to a law degree. Which in a way is part of my point. Bear with me through a few hypothetical questions:

If you were in trial for your life on a bogus murder charge, would you want a lawyer who only got into law school because of family connections, and who graduated despite miserable grades — most probably with the help of those same connections?

Yet America has twice “hired” George W. Bush to be President of the United States — a life-and-death matter connected to national security, the economy, the ability of future generations of Americans to survive in this world, and more.

That’s the same George Bush who was a Yale legacy and got a “low pass,” from the Harvard Graduate School of Business, most probably because of who his father and grandfather were, rather than his embarrassingly lackluster showing.

Suppose you needed brain surgery. Would you say, “Hey, this is a matter of life or death. Get me a surgeon who was such an irresponsibly wildass student that he graduated fifth from the bottom of his class in medical school?”

Well, if you wanted someone who “knows” national security, economic policy and diplomacy — matters arguably as important to your health and future safety as good brain surgeon — would you ask for the guy who graduated fifth from the bottom of his class at the United States Naval Academy? That would be John McCain.

McCain's grades at Annapolis were "marginal." He drew so many demerits for breaking curfew and other disciplinary issues that he graduated fifth from the bottom of the Naval Academy class of 1958. Despite his low class standing, and no doubt because of the legacy of his family of famous Admirals, McCain was leap-frogged ahead of more qualified applicants and granted a coveted slot to be trained as a navy pilot.

Suppose your house for mysterious reasons suddenly was in danger of collapse. Would you pick up the phone and call for a house engineer, insisting on one who had to go to five different second and third-rate colleges to get a degree — in a subject other than engineering?

Well, the economy is collapsing and if John McCain gets elected President at the age of 72 and anything happens this cancer survivor who isn’t making full disclosure of his medical records, your President will be Sarah Palin.

Palin attended such highly regarded (ahem) institutions as Matanuska-Susitna College (one term); North Idaho College (three terms) Hawaii Pacific University (one term) and the so-so University of Idaho (total of five terms) before she finally got her degree in journalism. Perhaps that helped her get a job as a sportscaster, but she surely didn’t learn very much in her journalism classes about international relations and policy, or economics, or history, or even — odd, somehow for a journalism major — the name of a single newspaper.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, attended highly-regarded Occidental college for two years and then earned his B.A. from prestigious Columbia University, where he majored in International Relations.

He received his Juris Doctor law degree from Harvard University, where he also had the prestigious job of Editor of the Harvard Law Review. (Ask any practicing lawyer.) And he graduated magna cum laude — the highest honor for scholarship in his class.

He got this education without any legacy or family connections.

He is the author of two books on government policy and his own personality history. He taught law at the prestigious University of Chicago law school.

So, with the economy and national security hanging in the balance, with your ability to make a living hanging in the balance, with your 401(k) hanging in the balance, with your ability to keep your health insurance hanging in the balance — with all that, do you once again want to hire the dumbest guys in the room?

Or will you wise up and vote for somebody with the smarts to save this nation from disaster — Barack Obama?

Barack, dude: If you want to win this one don't get sidetracked by an Alaskan barracuda

Dude, I know it isn't easy, what with the Republicans trying to refocus attention from the real issues in this campaign to their nomination of a "hockey mom" who's evidently under some kind of criminal investigation for abuse of power in office. 

I know that raises questions as to whether McCain and the people around him have either the integrity or the competence to vet a cow in a milking barn, much less a vice-presidential candidate who's a heartbeat away from a doddering old dude with a history of cancer.

But when it comes down to pulling that lever for you (or making an x, or stabbing a chad, or touch-screening your name) only one thing matters.

As a Democrat who built a successful economy before the Republicans wrecked it kept reminding himself, "It's the economy, stupid."

So dude, keep reminding people that with or without Barracuda Sarah (who evidently, in violation of the law, fires civil servants if they're not political hacks) the Republicans want to kill Social Security. The Republicans want to kill Medicare. The Republicans want to kill your job, your income and your future.

The Republicans want to screw over the average American by cutting taxes for the rich again and meanwhile running up an even bigger national debt for our children – all this while the rest of America tries to hang on to our houses, pay off our mortgages and college loans, and hang on to our jobs (if we still have a job that hasn't been "outsourced" to India or China.)

Dump McCain by voting for Barack and we also get to dump the war that's draining your tax money and pouring it into that leaky sieve called Iraq instead of into medical care and infrastructure and job creation for America.

Dump McCain and America has a chance. And that hockey mom will be free to go back to Alaska and ask the criminal lawyer she's hired to defend her how her case is going. 

Hey man, I've just got back from almost three weeks of vacation. And whaddya know? I'm still cranky.

Carrots, sticks, homicide, love, politics, assault weapons, Michael Bloomberg, Jack Kennedy and Barak Obama

Ignored, overlooked, or feeling unloved, once or twice a year in this country a student grabs a firearm and blows away some of his schoolmates.

Why do I think it isn’t such a huge leap from berserk students to the kind of people who grow up to be politicians?

Love, yearning, bullets and ballot boxes

Think about it. Running for office is a way of trying to make people love you. Or at least of trying to make them support you. Political candidacy often satisfies just the kind of yearning for attention and power you’d feel if you finally got so hungry for it that you grabbed an assault weapon and shot up the school.

What about people who don’t support you for election, or who try to siphon away to other candidates the love you feel you’re owed? You can get even with them if you’re a successful politician.

You can slime them. You can smear them. You can lie about them. Or you can employ a political “operative” (a fancy term for thug) like Karl Rove to do it for you. You can run for prosecutor in New York and then after you’re elected indict people and make them do the perp walk like Rudi Giuliani and Elliott Spitzer did. Just make sure, as former New York Attorney General and then New York Governor Elliott Spitzer didn’t, that if you’re stirring the public pot you don’t also have a little something cooking on the side.

In other words, running for office in the United States is, as often as not, a symbolic way of whacking people over the head with a stick, or blowing their heads off.

Ya gotta be nuts!

There’s an increasingly popular notion that you have to be slightly twisted to want to be President of the United States. My own theory, to state it in another way, is that most politicians – there are exceptions, as you’ll see – are a heartbeat away from being serial killers and that elective office is mass murder by other means.

For all I know some politicians like George Bush who so far has gotten over 4,000 Americans plus who-knows-how-many Iraqis killed during his Presidency may be even further along than that.

Which brings me to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. No, I don’t think he’s as ham-handed a gunslinger or stick swinger as George Bush. But for a while the people around Mayor Bloomberg seemed to be mumbling something about a Bloomberg third party candidacy for President. More lately he seems to be flirting with a McCain endorsement, which – who knows? – might lead to the vice-presidential nomination on the Republican ticket.

However, right now, the Bloomberg approach to problem solving – a kind of business executive top-down management style – seems to have hit a concrete wall at racetrack speed.

Congestion pricing gets all jammed up

The legacy item of Bloomberg’s administration was supposed to be congestion pricing – a rule that would have charged motorists $8 each time then drove in and out of mid-to-lower Manhattan on weekdays.

Bloomberg promised a bunch of carrots to New York Citizens in return. New York would get some money from the Federal government. Traffic would move more smoothly.

The problem is, the representatives of most New Yorkers didn’t buy it. First of all, precious few of us drive to work in this town. You’d have to be crazy. Forget the stick of $8 congestion pricing. A garage for the day can easily set you back over $30. Park your car on the street and it’s likely to get hauled away, while you get stuck not only with a fine, but also commercial towing and garaging charges until you rescue your vehicle.

The secret tax

Congestion pricing was really a hidden tax that probably would have raised the cost of everything from a plumbing repair bill to real carrots, since plumbers have to bring their trucks to the job, and carrots don’t make the trek from rural America to midtown Manhattan on roller skates.

So Manhattan residents would have been doubly screwed. They’d pay to use their own cars (if they have them) to get out of town on weekends and home on Sunday nights. And they’d pay even if they don’t drive every time the sink leaked or they got a yearning for carrot soup (or anything else edible.)

Meanwhile, city employees get thousands of free parking permits and the mayor, who says he uses the subway, admits taking a chauffeured limousine to get to the subway from his Upper East Side townhouse. So why support anti-congestion measures that he doesn’t support himself?

What real leadership means

Mayor Bloomberg, like Elliott Spitzer, like most politicians, forgot what real leadership is all about. You don’t get people to follow by dangling a carrot in front of them and threatening a stick if they don’t follow you.

In fact, here in New York, a good many of us feel most of the time as if we’re chewing on a stick while the Mayor beats us over the head with a bunch of carrots.

What is real leadership?

You lead as a few exceptional people have. In my lifetime there have been two of those. One was the late President Jack Kennedy, whom I’ve missed since some frustrated politician named Lee Harvey Osald blew him away from a perch in a Dallas schoolbook warehouse.

The other is Barack Obama.

Watch (in early 1960s film clips or the evening television reports today) how they do it. They do not dangle carrots and tell us about shining cities on hills. They do not brandish sticks and tell us Al Quaida is coming, so we’d better be good, we’d better not pout. Instead, they inspire us to join them in great and urgent work.

John McCain waves a stick at me, warning that I’d better agree with him or Osama Bin Laden will magically emerge from under my bed and destroy me. Hillary Clinton keeps warning me with her waving stick that if the phone rings at 3 AM in the White House (for what? A man at the door with a late night pizza delivery?) she’ll know what to do. Or maybe she’ll just have a $2 tip handy for the delivery man.

Leading by inspiration

It’s time for our politicians to act like the leaders they’re supposed to be. No carrots. No sticks. Just inspiration – inspiring all of us to pull together for the common good, and then giving us programs we can pull for.

So far as I can see, the only political candidate for anything in the United States who leads by inspiration is Barack Obama.

“Well, I will if you will. But if you won’t I won’t. But if you will and I’m not nominated, or if I’m nominated and you’re not nominated, or…

Politico.com reports that John McCain has taken a step toward accepting public financing in the general election.

The Politico article also reports:

Last year, McCain pledged to participate in the public financing system if he won his party’s nomination and the Democratic nominee did the same. 

The vow came in response to similar positioning by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. The Illinois senator subsequently has backed away from committing to the program, however, as it has become clear his record-setting fundraising operation likely will be able to bring in significantly more than $84 million for the November general election.

There are more potential eye-crossing, headache-inducing permutations inherent in this one than I care to shake a rattlestick at. For example: Barack wins the Democratic nomination, and then backs off from campaign financing because he realizes he has more dough in the till than McCain and can beat McCain’s pants off by using contributed money...

Or Barack accepts campaign financing, but then McCain gets a huge infusion of mega-cash from panicked corporate donors who fear Obama might lower the boom on their predatory ways of doing business...

Or both accept campaign financing, but then so-called “independent” advertisers start supporting the candidates with so-called “issue ads.” You know the kind of thing I’m talking about: “Don’t stand for it. Tell Barack Obama to stop oppressing one-eyed widows who want to wear water wings...”

Or Hillary beats Obama in the primaries and lobs so much money at McCain that he’s crushed by a tidal wave of meaningless emotional advertising...

Or vice-versa. Or the other vice-versa

Or the Dems go into a deadlocked convention and the delegates pick Biden or Edwards as their presidential candidate, totally bollixing up the Republican plans for a negative advertising campaign aimed at Obama or Clinton...

Or…

Please stop me. I’m giving myself a headache.

Hillary Clinton’s amazingly unwitting acknowledgement of the Clinton-can’t-win prophecy

Listen gang, I hate – absolutely hate – to come down on any Democrat who’s a Presidential candidate.

Let it also be said that even Hillary Clinton would be better in the White House than any Republican I can think of, most especially better than Terrible Tempered Rudy or Fibbing John McCain.

That said, it seems apparent that Hillary just shot herself in the foot – well, maybe also in the arm and the nose and the earlobe and the kneecap – in a flap over Hollywood mogul David Geffen’s fund raising efforts for Barack Obama.

It all started when, in addition to abandoning the Clinton camp to raise funds for Obama, Geffen told New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd in an interview that Hillary is a polarizing figure who’d have trouble getting elected. He pointed to her stubborn refusal to admit she was wrong about Iraq: “It’s not a very big thing to say, ‘I made a mistake’ on the war, and typical of Hillary Clinton that she can’t.”

And then he added that while “everybody in politics lies,” the Clintons “do it with such ease, it’s troubling.”

Had she been a smarter and less polarizing candidate, Hillary might simply have told her campaign people to ignore the remark and, if asked by the press, say that "Mr. Geffen is entitled to his opinions, with which we disagree." She would have looked like a big, bring-us-together kind of person.

Instead, foul temper conquored all. Clinton campaign headquarters turned on the high voltage revenge machine. They came out with a demand that Obama denounce Geffen’s statement and give him back the money he’d raised for them.

Fat chance, and Hillary knew it. She’d never do any such thing herself. And then, as if to prove Geffen’s point about lying, the Clinton team lied and said Geffen was Obama’s finance chairman. That job is held by a woman named Penny Pritzker.

So let me see here: A private citizen switches his alliance from Hillary to Barack. Hillary’s enraged people immediately revv up for bloodlust, making an impossible and angry demand, followed by a lie.

Obama, of course, is firing back out of self-defense, though not nearly as viciously.

But you don’t even have to read between the lines to see that Hillary is every bit as polarizing and fork-tongued as Geffen said.

Speculative call: If Hillary brings down Obama, she’ll bring herself down as well, leaving the field open to John Edwards. Which wouldn’t be all bad, much as I like Obama.

For more entertaining dirt on Hillary’s explosion check out these:
http://www.slate.com/id/2159182/
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/wp/2007/02/22/2179
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/team-hillary-shoots-back-_b_41763.html