On being right vs. winning

People have long said that one of the great flaws of the passionate is that they would rather be right than win. I understand that dilemma when I hear Barack Obama discuss our need to overcome our "partisan" divide. "Our" partisan divide isn't so equal. The supreme failure of the conservative movement over the past three decades to acutally improve the lives of the majority of Americans is stunning; and their reliance on distraction and thugish politics to win is disgusting. And yet here is a L-I-B-E-R-A-L politician, perhaps the greatest orator of his generation, talking about overcoming "partisan bickering," instead of assigning credit where credit is due, to the conservative movement that has destoryed the commons.

The conservative movement has used lies, innuendos, racist and sexist coded language, and disasters (natural, terrorist, and constructed) to implement a radical neoliberal agenda of deregulation and privitization that has gutted the public sphere. Thirty years of conservative movement politics has given us a polarized public discourse, massive media consolidation, financial ruin, legalized public corruption, crumbling public infrastructure, crumbling public schools, and crumbling public housing. They have mounted a full-throttle attack against the entire notion of the "public." The prefer the "private." The "private" meaning an ideological legitimization of a policy of disinvestment and inequality.

I understand that offering this counter-narrative to the "Age of Markets" and Neo-Liberalism doesn't win elections, but if you want to enact a progressive agenda making "conservative" a dirty word might be necessary. That is why I pray for a full-telling of the crimes of the Age of Markets, and a Obama "You're God-Damned Right I'm a Progressive" moment. But all I do is pray, and say while I wait, "it's more important to win, than to be right." But that's what we all said with Bill Clinton, and Al Gore, and John Kerry. Maybe it's time to be right.

Be Brave. Be Wise. Be Forgiving.

Meditating on Obama

I support Barack Obama. Let's get that out of the way. I'll get to why some other time, but right now I am more interested on understanding Obama and America's reaction to him.

Barack Obama's win in Iowa was historic. Proving that a black man can be embraced by a large group of whites in a white primary. His close, second place finish in New Hampshire, following a week of polling where he was up by double digits, is reason to give us pause. Most pundits argue that the polls ended two days too early, that there was a late swing that was uncaptured by the polls. A ten point swing? If true, it's unprecedented and shows just how finicky and undecided much of the electorate is (which I think it is), but I remain unconvinced. The supposed swing isn't evident in polling of late deciders, who broke pretty evenly for Obama and Clinton (39% for Clinton and 36% for Obama). The swing was said to come from white women, especially middle aged white women. This narrative makes sense, Obama's unthoughtful and misygonist comment of "your likable enough" as well as the debate moderator's insulting questioning of how being unlikable makes Ms. Clinton feel, I am sure resonated with a lot of women. As did her attempt to fight back tears when talking about the pressures she is coping with on the campaign trail. This reminded me of an interview given by Frank Luntz on Now, "The number one thing that matters to them [30-45 year old women] is that they don't have the time that they want for their job, for their kids, for their spouse, for themselves, for their friends. The issue of time matters to them more than anything else in life." And Hillary tapped into that with her talk of the struggle of multi-tasking her campaign. Of course, being the cynic that I am, I thought it instructive that her first tears in 17 years in the public eye came not at some horrible atrocity in the Sudan, at Hurricane Katrina, or the murder of Palestinians, but at the prospect that she might lose. It was all about her.

Truth is, I think race had a lot to do with the shift. It had a lot to do with the shallowness of Obama support, and it had a might have swung the electorate. As one Obama supporter wrote, "The exit polls in New Hampshire were accurate for the Republicans and for the second tier Democrats. The only miscalculation was the amount of support for Obama. That miscalculation is about race. Iowa caucus goers stood by Barack, in part, because when voting with their bodies, in front of their neighbors, Iowans are held accountable. In the quiet, solitary space of the voting booth, some New Hampshire voters abandoned Barack." Now, there is some evidence that this isn't true. The so-called Bradley Effect (also called the Dinkins Effect and the Wilder Effect) is usually a factor in general elections, not primaries. Also, if race were the motivating factor, why not a swing among white males away from Barack? But Andrew Kohut, the dean of American opinion polling thinks it's a matter of race, as he wrote in the New York Times:

"another possible explanation cannot be ignored — the longstanding pattern of pre-election polls overstating support for black candidates among white voters, particularly white voters who are poor.

In exploring this factor, it is useful to look closely at the nature of the constituencies for the two candidates in New Hampshire, which were divided along socio-economic lines.

Mrs. Clinton beat Mr. Obama by 12 points (47 percent to 35 percent) among those with family incomes below $50,000. By contrast, Mr. Obama beat Mrs. Clinton by five points (40 percent to 35 percent) among those earning more than $50,000.

There was an education gap, too. College graduates voted for Mr. Obama 39 percent to 34 percent; Mrs. Clinton won among those who had never attended college, 43 percent to 35 percent.

Of course these are not the only patterns in Mrs. Clinton’s support in New Hampshire. Women rallied to her (something they did not do in Iowa), while men leaned to Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton also got stronger support from older voters, while Mr. Obama pulled in more support among younger voters. But gender and age patterns tend not to be as confounding to pollsters as race, which to my mind was a key reason the polls got New Hampshire so wrong.

Poorer, less well-educated white people refuse surveys more often than affluent, better-educated whites. Polls generally adjust their samples for this tendency. But here’s the problem: these whites who do not respond to surveys tend to have more unfavorable views of blacks than respondents who do the interviews.

I’ve experienced this myself. In 1989, as a Gallup pollster, I overestimated the support for David Dinkins in his first race for New York City mayor against Rudolph Giuliani; Mr. Dinkins was elected, but with a two percentage point margin of victory, not the 15 I had predicted. I concluded, eventually, that I got it wrong not so much because respondents were lying to our interviewers but because poorer, less well-educated voters were less likely to agree to answer our questions. That was a decisive factor in my miscall.

Certainly, we live in a different world today. The Pew Research Center has conducted analyses of elections between candidates of different races in 2006 and found that polls now do a much better job estimating the support for black candidates than they did in the past. However, the difficulties in interviewing the poor and the less well-educated persist.

Why didn’t this problem come up in Iowa? My guess is that Mr. Obama may have posed less of a threat to white voters in Iowa because he wasn’t yet the front-runner."

Race in this election is going to be a central issue, will whites support Obama? Will blacks?

The white, corporate media has often framed the question of Obama's support amongst blacks as a question of his racial authenticity. "Is he really black?" "Is he black enough?" This, I think, misrepresents the dominant questions about Obama within the black community, and misconstrues the "black community" as a monolith, as Shelby Steele says, "in black America, identity has become almost totalitarian... You [must] subscribe to the idea that the essence of blackness is grounded in grievance, and if you vary from that you are letting whites off the hook."

Obama's "blackness" isn't the central question. Steele argues that it is. In his new book, A Bound Man: Why we are Excited about Obama and Why he can't Win, he argues that Obama is essentially betraying black interest by not expressly advocating for a politics of racial grievance. Steele argues that there are two types of black political leaders, the challenger and the bargainer. The question that I had was, "is this a reformulation of the "field negro" vs. "house negro" that Malcolm talked about in his speech, Message to the Grass Roots?" There he wrote:

you have to go back to what [the] young brother here referred to as the house Negro and the field Negro -- back during slavery. There was two kinds of slaves. There was the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negroes - they lived in the house with master, they dressed pretty good, they ate good 'cause they ate his food -- what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near the master; and they loved their master more than the master loved himself. They would give their life to save the master's house quicker than the master would. The house Negro, if the master said, "We got a good house here," the house Negro would say, "Yeah, we got a good house here." Whenever the master said "we," he said "we." That's how you can tell a house Negro.

If the master's house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house Negro would say, "What's the matter, boss, we sick?" We sick! He identified himself with his master more than his master identified with himself. And if you came to the house Negro and said, "Let's run away, let's escape, let's separate," the house Negro would look at you and say, "Man, you crazy. What you mean, separate? Where is there a better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat better food than this?" That was that house Negro. In those days he was called a "house nigger." And that's what we call him today, because we've still got some house niggers running around here.

This modern house Negro loves his master. He wants to live near him. He'll pay three times as much as the house is worth just to live near his master, and then brag about "I'm the only Negro out here." "I'm the only one on my job." "I'm the only one in this school." You're nothing but a house Negro. And if someone comes to you right now and says, "Let's separate," you say the same thing that the house Negro said on the plantation. "What you mean, separate? From America? This good white man? Where you going to get a better job than you get here?" I mean, this is what you say. "I ain't left nothing in Africa," that's what you say. Why, you left your mind in Africa.

On that same plantation, there was the field Negro. The field Negro -- those were the masses. There were always more Negroes in the field than there was Negroes in the house. The Negro in the field caught hell. He ate leftovers. In the house they ate high up on the hog. The Negro in the field didn't get nothing but what was left of the insides of the hog. They call 'em "chitt'lin'" nowadays. In those days they called them what they were: guts. That's what you were -- a gut-eater. And some of you all still gut-eaters.

The field Negro was beaten from morning to night. He lived in a shack, in a hut; He wore old, castoff clothes. He hated his master. I say he hated his master. He was intelligent. That house Negro loved his master. But that field Negro -- remember, they were in the majority, and they hated the master. When the house caught on fire, he didn't try and put it out; that field Negro prayed for a wind, for a breeze. When the master got sick, the field Negro prayed that he'd die. If someone come [sic] to the field Negro and said, "Let's separate, let's run," he didn't say "Where we going?" He'd say, "Any place is better than here." You've got field Negroes in America today. I'm a field Negro. The masses are the field Negroes. When they see this man's house on fire, you don't hear these little Negroes talking about "our government is in trouble." They say, "The government is in trouble." Imagine a Negro: "Our government"! I even heard one say "our astronauts." They won't even let him near the plant -- and "our astronauts"! "Our Navy" -- that's a Negro that's out of his mind. That's a Negro that's out of his mind.

Just as the slavemaster of that day used Tom, the house Negro, to keep the field Negroes in check, the same old slavemaster today has Negroes who are nothing but modern Uncle Toms, 20th century Uncle Toms, to keep you and me in check, keep us under control, keep us passive and peaceful and nonviolent. That's Tom making you nonviolent. It's like when you go to the dentist, and the man's going to take your tooth. You're going to fight him when he starts pulling. So he squirts some stuff in your jaw called novocaine, to make you think they're not doing anything to you. So you sit there and 'cause you've got all of that novocaine in your jaw, you suffer peacefully. Blood running all down your jaw, and you don't know what's happening. 'Cause someone has taught you to suffer -- peacefully.

Steele's challenger and bargainer are simple reformulations of this age-old dichotomy. Steele states, "Challengers... say, I presume that you, this institution, this society, is racist until it proves otherwise by giving me some concrete form of racial preference." And, "A bargainer is a black who enters the American, the white American mainstream by saying to whites in effect, in some code form, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. I'm not going to rub the shame of American history in your face if you will not hold my race against me. Whites then respond with enormous gratitude. And bargainers are usually extremely popular people. Oprah Winfrey, Bill Cosby, Sidney Poitier back in the Sixties and so forth. Because they give whites this benefit of the doubt. That you can be with these people and not feel that you're going to be charged with racism at any instant. And so they tend to be very successful, very popular."

Obama's background ensures that he cannot be too much of a challenger. He was raised by white folks who, we presume, loved him very much. The question of bargainer and challenger, while understood in racial terms, is about group interest. Will the bargainer represent the interest of the black community? Will Obama? Black folks are understandably nervous when a large number of white folks embrace a black man, cause the only time that happens is when that black man, whether he be Ward Connerly, Colin Powell, Bill Cosby, or Sidney Poitier doesn't overtly threaten white privilege and therefore doesn't truly represent the black community. So, why doesn't Obama challenge the white community? My arguement is that he does, just not in the easy to disregard rhetoric of racial grievance. Rather, he addresses it as a question of our individual morality and our collective interests. Much in the same way that Dr. King did, Mr. Obama talks of "all of us" or "one America" which are coded references to race-blindness, but not in the way a Ward Connerly would use it. Obama avoids racial reasoning and racial grievance and explores the territory of "prophetic moral reasoning" as Dr. Cornell West explains, "If claims to black authenticity are political and ethical conceptions of the relation of black interests, individuals, and communities, then any attempt to confine black authenticity to black nationalist politics or black male interests warrants suspicion." Here, Dr. West is throwing out the notions of black authenticity that maintain racial grievance and black nationalism or misygony as their guiding principles, he is rejecting the simplistic "challenger" vs. "bargainer" dichotomy, and with it, the house Negro vs. field Negro of Malcolm X. Dr. West is adding a new category, that of prophetic moral reasoner, and this is where Obama can possibly even realign the national political landscape. Just as Dr. King or President Lincoln did, Mr. Obama can call upon our "better angels" and help to ask us to create that "beloved community." I know I may be sounding naive, but isn't that the same rhetoric of Obama? And the same criticism, so perhaps it's not that I am being naive about Obama, or that Obama is being naive about American politics, but that everyone is being too cynical about our capacity as human beings to listen to those better angels, to create that beloved community.

I do understand the nervousness Obama creates within the black community. If there even is a "black community" the media portrays it as a monolith, but as Angela Davis once wrote,

There is often as much heterogeneity within a black community, or more heterogeneity, than in cross-racial communities. An African-American woman might find it much easier to work together with a Chicana than with another black woman whose politics of race, class, gender, and sexuality would place her in an entirely different community. What is problematic is the degree to which nationalism has become a paradigm for our community-building processes. We need to move away form such arguments as "Well, she's not really black." "She comes from such-and-such a place." "Her hair is..." "She doesn't listen to 'our' music," and so forth. What counts as black is not so important as our political commitment to engage in anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-homophobic work.

So, the real question isn't Obama's racial autheniticity, but his "political commitment to engage in anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-homophobic work." This complex understanding of the question of racial authenticity will likely go unexplored by the white, corporate media which will continue to frame Obama's support amongst blacks as something akin to the "Is he really black?" question.

The question of Obama's dedication to anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-homophobic work, is one that deserves a moment of meditation. Obama has always been someone who listens to everyone and forges alliances in unlikely places. As David Brooks wrote,

Obama’s great skill is his ability to perceive and forge bonds with other people. Everybody who’s dealt with him has a story about a time when they felt Obama profoundly listened to them and understood them. One of mine came a few years ago.

I was writing columns criticizing the Republican Congress, but each time I’d throw in a few sentences slamming the Democrats, subconsciously trying to make myself feel good. One morning I got an e-mail message from Obama that roughly said: David, if you want to critique us, fine. But you’re just throwing in those stray sentences to make yourself feel good.

I felt like a bug pinned down in a display case.

Out of that perceptiveness comes a distinct way of seeing the world. Obama emphasizes the connections between people, the networks and the webs of influence. These sorts of links are invisible to some of his rivals, but Obama is a communitarian. He believes you can only make profound political changes if you first change the spirit of the community. In his speeches, he says that if one person stands up, then another will stand up and another and another and you’ll get a nation standing up (McCain and Obama).

Praise from David Brooks isn't a good sign for a person who is dedicated to anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-homophobic work (to this one might add, pro-democratic, pro-social justice, etc.). Obama has raised close to $90 million dollars so far in this primary, that's unbelievable. It's hard to believe that corporations like Excelon ($194,750 donated to the B.O. campaign through the first three quarters of 2007), Goldman Sachs ($369,078), Lehman Brothers ($229,090), JP Morgan Chase ($216,759), or Citigroup ($180,650) donate to Obama because of his dedication to "anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-homophobic work". So, why are they donating so much money? In fact, why do white people respond so well to Obama in general?

Corporations are betting on a winner, and most of those corporations have donated to Hillary Clinton as well, and will donate to whatever Republican seems to have momentum. It also helps that Obama has promised these corporations a "place at the table" in an Obama Administration. What this "place at the table" means is open for debate, and hasn't been defined by the purposefully vague Obama. However, Obama seems to be everything to everyone, which isn't a bad thing to be when running for President, however, when the real Obama begins to emerge he'll have to contend with the inevitable backlash. A backlash made more potent because of the psychic investments made by whites. There is a tremendous investment whites make in blacks who they think do not suspect them of racism, they project onto these blacks a lot of their own hopes and aspirations, and this isn't necessarily a bad thing. However, this also means a substantial investment within themselves, blacks like Obama reinforce whites' own best hopes for themselves and therefore there is a strong link between whites and these candidates, but also a huge and powerful potential for disappointment and backlash. Like the black guy at the office who you think likes you and doesn't think of you as racist, even when you make "innocent" references or jokes, the moment of reckoning when you find out his "real" opinions about your dumb racist ass is a moment of betrayal that rips at the white mans sense of self and leaves him feeling angrier than he would if that black man had simply told him to not tell dumb racist jokes from the beginning. This is the backlash that Obama may have to deal with. The day that Oprah begins talking openly about her feelings on racism and whites, is the day whites feel a sense of personal betrayal that one cannot predict or quantify. The vagueness of Obama makes this a possibility. As Shelby Steele states,

one of the iron clad rules for bargainers is they can never tell you what they actually think and feel. They can never reveal their deep abiding convictions. Because the minute they do that, they're no longer an empty projection screen. They become an individual. And whites begin to say, well, I didn't know you felt that way. I didn't know you believed that. And the aura dissipates. If Barack Obama starts to say, you know, I really think there's a value to racial preferences even though it conflicts with equality under the law, people are, you know, that that's a little too-- that's a little too revealing of who he might really be (Bill Moyers Journal).

Let's take a moment to examine who the "real" Obama is. He is a politician who supports the Hamilton Project, a think tank within the Brookings Insitution, founded by Bob Rubin and other "wall street Democrats" to give intellectual support to Rubinomics (aka Clintonomics). His support for Rubinomics (aka neoliberalism) suggests a possible reason for Wall Street's support of his candidacy. He refused to support a filibuster against Samuel Alito, the justice that turned the court hard right and led to a series of catastrophic decisions, such as Morse vs. Frederick (Bong hits for Jesus), PARENTS INVOLVED IN COMMUNITY SCHOOLS v. SEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 et al. (this ended legal integration schemes in public schools), or Ledbetter vs. Goodyear (this gutted discriminatory pay policies). He also supported Joe Lieberman over Ned Lamont, Lieberman isn't returning the favor though, he's supporting and campaigning for Mr. John 'Surge' McCain. He even asked that Lieberman be assigned his Senate "mentor". He also refused to cap credit card interest rates at 30%. He also voted for the notorious "Tort Reform" bill out of the Senate. He refused to support a censure against President Bush for the illegal wiretapping program, and he voted to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act.

On the other hand, as a State Senator in Illinois Barack Obama spoke at an anti-war rally saying, "Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors." He has maintained that position even as the public moved into triumphal mode after the fall of Baghdad. He did, however, give unconditional funding support to the War in Iraq in 2005 and 2006 and voted to confirm Condoleezza Rice for Secretary of State even after her false testimony to Congress. He has been a quiet opponent of the war since that anti-war protest in Chicago back in 2003. Perhaps that's just smart, especially in a war situation where the unpredicatable reigns, being "quotable" means that one day's accurate assessment can become tomorrow's flight of fantasy or dour, defeatist forecast. His position toward Palestine has been the most disappointed "flip-flop" of his career. He was once a regular supporter of the Palestinian cause, but now has taken increasingly hard-line pro-zionist positions. This too could be excused for "smart politics" but what that argument forgets is that the campaign is when you explain and build support for your agenda, that which doesn't appear in a campaign, one doesn't claim a mandate for, so one has a hard time building support within the White House, especially on something as controversial as Palestine. There are numerous occasions where Obama's positions give lie to his vague message of "change". Is this smart politics or the kind of moderate Clintonian triangulation that we'll see from a Obama Administration? I do not know.

The inherent moderation of Obama's politics might explain the support he generates amongst whites. However, this is likely only a small part of his appeal. Where I think Shelby Steele makes a valuable point is in his discussion of white support for Obama. The vagueness of his politics and the lack of racial grievance makes whites feel less white than they would in front of Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, however, I wouldn't characterize this as "selling-out" or abandoning a politics that includes the interests of the majority of the black community. Instead of color-blindness, which is what many whites see and hope for, and why they feel so good supporting his candidacy, I would argue his core message is racial transcendence. His message of the common good and American destiny appeals to whites not because it lets them off the hook (though many probably feel that way) but because it makes them a core part of the collective work of building a nonracist society. They are not the guilty party but a part of the beloved community. They are, in fact, as Steele argues, given the benefit of the doubt, at least in rhetoric.

The truth is electing Obama will not solve the problems facing America or the problems facing black America. He will have to be held to task as any politician would, but with an Obama Administration there would certainly be a more sympathetic ear, and his rhetoric could make him the Reagan of a new Democratic majority and usher in a new political realignment. Regardless of all this, the conversation within America about race makes this candidacy incredibly important to America understanding itself.

Be Brave. Be Wise. Be Forgiving.

Kenneth Foster is Going to Die

"A person is criminally responsible for an offense committed by the conduct of another if, in the attempt to carry out a conspiracy to commit one felony, another felony is committed by one of the conspirators; [then] all conspirators are guilty of the felony actually committed, though having no intent to commit it, [or] if the offense was committed in furtherance of the unlawful purpose and was one that should have been anticipated as a result of the carrying out of the conspiracy."
--Law of Parties, 1974

"When they said the truth would set you free, that didn't mean these doors would pop open and you'd walk out. You better start to recognize this thing called the soul. Although to me this is just a small part of this reality. Believe me; I've got more. Start to look through the fabrications and distorted truths. Truth is like light; you must be accustomed to it gradually. Otherwise, it dazzles you. There are no new truths in what I speak, only truths that have not yet been recognized."
--Kenneth Foster

On August 15, 1996, 19-year-old Kenneth Foster and three friends were driving around San Antonio. One of the friends, Mauriceo Brown, was carrying a gun, and he and another passenger robbed two people at gunpoint, despite Foster's misgivings. Later that night, Mauriceo gets into a shouting match with a woman and her boyfriend. Mauriceo gets out of the car and argues with the man, Michael LaHood Jr. He then shot and killed LaHood in self-defense, he said.

"Eighty feet away, Foster heard the gunshot and began to drive away, but his other friends convinced him to wait for Brown, according to testimonies. Brown then re-entered Foster's car, and they left the scene, only to be apprehended later that night.

Foster was tried alongside Brown for the murder of LaHood, thanks to the Law of Parties. He was sentenced to death in 1997, and his execution date is set for Aug. 30 (Viewpoint: Stop Kenneth Foster's execution)."

The Law of Parties states that if, in the course of committing or even knowing about a potential felony, another felony is committed, then everyone who knew about the original crime is guilty of both crimes. Imagine a bank robbery, someone is killed, everyone robbing the bank is guilty. It's a common law, can't imagine how it applies here, but in less than a month an innocent man is going to be killed.

The situation is compounded by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which was passed by Clinton after the Oklahoma City bombing. The law makes it incredibly difficult for individuals on death row to appeal their cases to federal courts. It was passed by "triangulation" Bill as he ran for re-election and it's a bad law. "The act reduced the statute of limitations for convicts to file federal writs of habeas corpus to six months after their state appeals ran out, effectively sealing off the possibility of extensive investigation or inquiry into misconduct by lawyers and law enforcement. The AEDPA also weakens the ability for federal courts to hear state cases: For instance, a district court must issue a "certificate of appealability" for a federal judge to hear the case. In essence, the state judges have to assert their colleagues' ineptitude to assure a federal appeal for a prisoner (Viewpoint: Stop Kenneth Foster's execution)."

This execution must not happen check out these websites to find out how to help.
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Texas Moratorium Network

Be Brave. Be Wise. Be Compassionate.

Al Qaeda in Iraq

Interesting piece by the Public Editor in NYTimes. Points out that the US has been disproportionately IDing Al Qaedea as the perpetrators of violence in Iraq in an effort to boost support for the war.

As domestic support for the war in Iraq continues to melt away, President Bush and the United States military in Baghdad are increasingly pointing to a single villain on the battlefield: Al Qaeda.

Bush mentioned the terrorist group 27 times in a recent speech on Iraq at the Naval War College... The Associated Press reported last month that although some 30 groups have claimed credit for attacks on United States and Iraqi government targets, press releases from the American military focus overwhelmingly on Al Qaeda.

Why Bush and the military are emphasizing Al Qaeda to the virtual exclusion of other sources of violence in Iraq is an important story. So is the question of how well their version of events squares with the facts of a murky and rapidly changing situation on the ground (Seeing Al Qaeda Around Every Corner).

The article goes on to, quite rightly, point out that the "Al Qadea" that the Bush Administration identifies in Iraq is not, and has never been, the Osama bin Laden "Al Qaeda" that attacked the US on 9-11. The Iraq Al Qaeda didn't exist before the war, it was created by the war and is more-or-less independent of Bin Laden's Al Qaeda.

And in using the language of the administration, the newspaper has also failed at times to distinguish between Al Qaeda, the group that attacked the United States on Sept. 11, and Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, an Iraqi group that didn’t even exist until after the American invasion.

There is plenty of evidence that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is but one of the challenges facing the United States military and that overemphasizing it distorts the true picture of what is happening there. While a president running out of time and policy options may want to talk about a single enemy that Americans hate and fear in the hope of uniting the country behind him, journalists have the obligation to ask tough questions about the accuracy of his statements.

Middle East experts with whom I talked in recent days said that the heavy focus on Al Qaeda obscures a much more complicated situation on the ground — and perhaps a much more dangerous one around the world (Seeing Al Qaeda Around Every Corner).

And all this in the context of the President's description of Al Qaeda as the "smallest" threat in Iraq (President Outlines Strategy for Victory in Iraq).

The New Cold War

"I was able to get a sense of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country."

This is a statement that George W. Bush made in 2001 after his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Slovenia. They used to say that the Republicans wouldn't allow Newt Gingrich to meet with Bill Clinton alone when Gingrich was Speaker and Clinton was President because no matter how dedicated Gingrich was to opposing the President a single hour alone with Mr. Clinton could leave Gingrich happily agreeing to whatever the President proposed. Clinton was smarter than Gingrich. When I first read the above quote the first thing that lept to mind was, Putin is smarter than Bush. Not much of a revelation, but it's something to think about as I consider the last 6 years since that meeting.

Putin is stepping down, there will be a new election in 2008, and that is the impetus of this reflection. Viktor Gerashchenko, a banker and former chairman of Yukos oil company, has become the voice of the opposition, however, that oppposition is so fractured that barring a miracle Putin's pick will likely succeed him as President. Who that heir might be is anyone's guess, remember that Yelstin picked Putin out of the blue, to the surprise of nearly everyone.

Putin becamse President of Russia on December 31, 1999, before that he was the head of the KGB-esque Federal Security Service (FSB). Putin wasn't the head of the FSB very long at all, in fact he was appointed in July of 1998 when Yeltsin fired Nikolai Kovalyov for no apparent reason. Before being named to head the FSB, Putin served a five year term in East Berlin for the KGB from 1985 to 1990. After the break-up of the Soviet Union he returned to his native St. Petersburg and worked primarily as an advisor to the mayor, Anatoly A. Sobchak. Sobchak was Putin's law school professor and leader of the early Russian democracy movement. Putin served as Deputy Mayor and First Vice Mayor and was placed in charge of international relations. As the New York Times describes, Putin "reportedly became known as the city administration's 'gray cardinal,' an indispensable adviser regarded with respect and a touch of fear (Gray Eminence Compels Respect and Even Fear). Putin was a supporter of Yeltsin and went to Moscow where he worked with Anatoly B. Chubais (one-time head of Russia's privitization program, this was the guy who make billionaires out of thugs) and headed an internal auditing department that was in charge of dealing with Russia's 89 regions. He became part of Yeltsin's inner circle which included Gen. Aleksandr I. Lebed, financier Boris A. Berezovsky, and Minister of the Interior Sergei V. Stepashin. Then in 1998 he was named to head the FSB.

Shortly after being named to head the FSB, Yeltsin supporter, oil tycoon, and head of the largest TV station, Boris A. Berezovsky claimed that the FSB had tried to assassinate him. Berezovsky was an outspoken proponent of market liberalization and supported both Yeltsin and Putin for president. Berezovsky was forced into exile because he was charged with corruption, but likely has more to do with his growing opposition to the state taking over all Russian media (Russian Billionaire's Bitter Feud With Putin A Plot Line in Poisoning). However, The Times reported that Putin secretly visited Berezovsky illegally while he was in exile and vacationing in Spain (Leader's Secret Holidays to Spain). Since then he has become a business partner of Neil Bush (George W. Bush's little brother), claimed to be organizing a revolution from exile in London ('I am Plotting a New Russian Revolution'), and has become a central character in the Ludlum-esque political scandal involving the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210 (Russian Billionaire's Bitter Feud With Putin A Plot Line in Poisoning). Berezovsky claimed that Litvinenko saved his life during an assassination attempt in the 1990s, and saw Litvinenko the day he became ill (November 1). Police reportedly found radiation in Berezovsky's office. Berezovsky claimed that Putin murdered his old friend. Putin's administration claims Berezovsky poisoned him in an attempt to smear Putin in order to engineer his "new Russian revolution". Berezovsky claims he became disillusioned by Putin's autocratic policies, and Putin's representatives claim that Berezovsky was angry that Putin refused to be his 'puppet'. Litvinenko was a former FSB operative who accused the FSB of engineering the Moscow apartment bombings in 1999 that killed 300 people and were blamed on Chechen radicals. These bombings led the Russians into the Second Chechen War and helped bring Putin to power (he was named head of the FSB in July of 1998, the bombings happened in August and September 1999, and Putin was named Prime Minister in August 1999 and replaced Yeltsin in December). Litvinenko also claimed that Putin ordered him to assassinate Berezovsky. The Washington Post describes the feud between Putin and Berezovsky as having grown to "shakesperean proportions" and notes that "he is the only one in London who appears to have tighter security than the royal family" (Russian Billionaire's Bitter Feud With Putin A Plot Line in Poisoning).

Did Putin orchestrate the assassination of Litvinenko? Was he killed to send a message to Berezovsky? Was Litvinenko correct in his accusation that Putin orchestrated the bombings of the two apartment buildings in Moscow to serve as a pretense for the Second Chechen War? Or, did Berezovsky orchestrate the elaborate death of Litvinenko to smear Putin as part of his "new Russian revolution"? I don't know, but what I do know is that under Putin military expenditures has tripled (Russia Plans Sharp Military Spending Hike). And, Russia has recently announced a $200 billion investment in their military over 8 years with the stated goal of exceeding the Soviet army in combat readiness (Big rise in Russian military spending raises fears of new challenge to west). According to Moscow, the jump in military spending is in response to the Bush administration's investment in deep penetration low-yield nuclear weapons, aka "bunker busters", which could target Russian missile control centers located in mountains, and their investment in US missile defense. Russian planners are also building up their offensive military capabilities with regard to space warfare. In response to America's development of the reusable Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle (HCV), Russia is now attempting to develop it's own stratospheric military arsenal. You might say, US missile defense doesn't work and the HCV isn't much more than a drawing and a dream, well, both China and Russia, like the US operate on the assumption that the possible is real and you should create deterrants and contingency plans accordingly, so as the Bush administration broke the bank funding his flights of fantasy he created an arms race the scale of which has been absent since Reagan. And, maybe that's appropriate, as the '80s become vintage and retro recalls the depths of that decade, perhaps it's fitting that our foreign policy seem similar yet slightly less-than, like a copy of a copy. Bush fancies himself a "Reagan-esque" president. Reagan was never an anyone-esque president, neither was Roosevelt or Lincoln. Bush is just a sad retro throw-back, too bad he's become the single biggest threat to our future.

Be Brave. Be Loud. Be Outspoken.

F*ck Those Guys

Maybe you've heard about Lilly Ledbetter, as in Ledbetter v. Goodyear. You see, Lilly Ledbetter was a supervisor at the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Gadsden, Alabama. When she was hired her pay was in line with her male colleagues, but over the years the smaller raises that she ALWAYS received created a significant pay gap, and in case you're saying "so what?" pay gaps are illegal, not to mention sexist and immoral. After years of the discriminatory pay, Ms. Ledbetter discovered her employer's duplicitousness and filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). A jury sided with Ms. Ledbetter and found that Goodyear had violated her civil rights. This decision was upheld by the court of appeals and was recently decided upon by the Supreme Court you know the one, the gender and racially conscious body made up of 7 white men and one woman and one black guy (it's Clarence Thomas, so I'm not sure he even counts).

Goodyear and it's supporters in such justice-oriented organization as the National Federation of Independent Business Legal Foundation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce believed that the complaint with the EEOC and the subsequent jury award had violated the statute of limitations since her last discriminatory raise was before the 180 day limit. In previous cases the EEOC, the Courts of Appeal, and the Supreme Court ruled that each pay check based on discrimination violates the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Well, not any more, thanks to your favorite five male Justices (Kennedy, Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts) a long standing precedent of civil rights law has been destroyed and an important protection for all of us has disappeared.

As the nation debated when life began, very few people actually saw that the Supreme Court rules on more than abortion cases (although they also upheld an amazingly offensive Partial-Birth Abortion Ban). Perhaps it's fitting that the last defender (ok, the last quasi-sometimes-defender) of our rights has been turned into a political arm of the ultra-conservative Republican Party. We are living in a time of unprecedented corporate power, a new Gilded Age, and now we have our Gilded Age Supreme Court.

However, the decision was 5-4, and that means there were 4 sane voices. These four voices were represented in the oral dissent of Justice Ginsburg, the court's only female. This was Justice Ginsburg's second oral dissent this year, which marks the first time in her career that she gave to oral dissents in one year. She is often regarded as a collegial member who is often focused more on etiquette and backroom chats than the spectacle of oral dissents (oral dissents are regarded as theatrical indulgences and are rarely used). Justice Ginsburg's new found boldness is profiled in the New York Times, Oral Dissents Give Ginsburg a New Voice on Court.

Newt Gingrich Thinks He Can Be President

So, Newt Gingrich thinks he can be President. Newt Gingrich is out of his mind.

First, let's get one thing straight, 1994 was not a revolution. The midterm elections saw a paltry 38.8% nationwide turnout, and the Republicans only received 19% of the eligible vote. The number of Dems voting declined across much of the nation, while Republican turnout increased. The nation saw a 21% drop in the reported participation rates of those with incomes of $15,000 and lower, while there was a 33% increase in the share of the vote cast by those whose incomes were $50,000 and over. African Americans turnout saw a decline of 2 percentage points and turnout among young people declined to 14.5% of eligible voters. And men only slightly increased their share of the electorate (disproving the "angry white guy" myth). The 54 seat pickup for Republicans in the House and 8 seat pickup in the Senate has been seen as the culmination of a decades long realignment in the states of the old Confederacy. Even as Democrats had a significant registration advantage (37.8% to 22.4%) the region had been voting for Republican Presidential candidates since Nixon. This "realignment" has often been cast as a revolt at the base of the Democratic Party because of the "race issue," i.e. the Democratic support of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act which essentially destroyed much of the legal infrastructure of Jim Crow. This "southern strategy" mythology has been widely discredited, in fact there was little or no significant shift at the bottom rungs of the socio-economic ladder from support for the Dems to the GOP. Once again, the myth of the disaffected, poor, angry white man was true in anecdote only. The real "realignment" happened much further up the economic ladder. Which makes it not much of a realignment since Americans with upper incomes typically vote Republican. The depressed turnout among Democratic loyalists (the poor, the young, and black folks) accounts for the 1994 turnout. The questions that remain are: 1. What drove down Democratic turnout? 2. What drove up Republican voter turnout? and 3. How many registered Democrats voted for Republicans? Gingrich likes to sell his "revolution" narrative over the "realignment" narrative and the "turnout" narrative, because it portrays him as savior of the Republican Party. The fact that the Republican majority lasted from 1994 to 2006 has as much to do with the privileges of incumbency and gerrymandering as a lasting electoral realignment, let alone a revolution. The presidential and congressional elections of 1996 demonstrate that the post-World War II southern economic development revitalized a southern Republican party, but still didn't signal a "revolution" by any means. The Presidential vote in Kentucky, Virginia, and Georgia were all within 2 percentage points. The 1998 House elections saw a nation wide pick-up of 5 seats for the Democrats (reaction against the "overreaching" by Congressional Republicans during impeachment, likely because they began believing their own "revolution" mythology). The 1998 Senate remained unchanged, divided 55 to 45 in the hands of Republicans. The 2000 election once again saw a South that was closely divided, and in that way more similar to the nation as a whole than different. The South is not an ideologically distinct and homogeneous region, at least not any more.

If anything was revolutionary about 1994 it was the revolutionary nature of the new Congressional Republicans, especially the leadership. 1994 saw the elevation of Newt Gingrich to the Speaker's chair and Tom DeLay to Majority Whip. Under their leadership the power of committee/subcommittee chairs was dramatically weakened and centralized power under their leadership. A six-year chairmanship limit was imposed on the committees, and the 1970 "subcommittee bill of rights" was repealed. Gingrich also bypassed the system of seniority appointments to chairmanships by appointing Gingrich loyalists to chair the influential Appropriations, Judiciary, and Commerce Committees (Appropriations is all about money and Judiciary and Commerce are all about regulations, these are the money committees).

Gingrich likes to sell himself as a savior but is not a savior. He is a strange little man. He likes to write obnoxious historical "what-if" fiction. The whole genre is annoying speculations about different historical possibilities. For example, in his 1995 novel, 1945, Gingrich imagines that Hitler was in a plane crash and spent several months in a coma. So, he never attacked the US and is now set out to attack post-Churchill England and cripple the US by attacking Oak Ridge, the location of the development of the atomic bomb. More recently he wrote Gettysburg, which imagines a Civil War where the Confederacy wins the battle of Gettysburg, and strangely portrays the Confederacy as a group of disciplined citizen-soldiers led by wise and honorable gentlemen and the Union as a bunch of ruffians led by "hot-tempered and vindictive" leaders.

Perhaps his most bizarre public speech, his videotaped "Renewing American Civilization." Names the five pillars of American civilization as 1. The Historic Lessons of American Civilization, 2. Personal Strength, 3. Entrepreneurial Free Enterprise, 4. The Spirit of Invention and Discovery, and 5. Quality as Defined by Deming. How 1-4 are not lessons of American Civilization is beyond me, and how he came up with these 5 still baffles me. Gingrich likes enumerated lists, like when he lists the 5 reasons to study American history: 1. History is a Collective History, 2. American History is the History of our Civilization (REALLY???), 3. There is an American Exceptionalism that can be Best Understood Through History, 4. History is a Resource to be Learned from and Used, and 5. There are Techniques that can help you Learn Problem-Solving from Historical Experience. As Joan Didion states, "the attempt to track from one to five... leaves the tracker fretful, uneasy, uncertain just whose synapses are misfiring." Gingrich's writing abounds with enumerated lists, just as he did on a recent episode of Meet the Press where he enumerated the six (yes, only six) steps to save Iraq.

MR. RUSSERT: But specifically, how would you win the war in Iraq militarily?

MR. GINGRICH: First of all, you, you would empower General Petraeus. You’d pass the supplemental immediately. You’d give him the money. Second, you would encourage the Iraqis to triple the size of their regular army. Third, you would, you would encourage the development of a, of a military tribunal system to lock people up the way Abraham Lincoln would’ve done it. Fourth, you would establish a nationwide ID card with biometrics so you can actually track everybody in the country. Fifth, you would make sure that the State Department actually staffed the embassy with people in favor of winning the war and you actually had your fully, fully equipped intelligence and economic development teams. Six, you would say to the Iranians, “If you don’t cut off everything you’re doing, we’ll begin to bring enormous pressure to bear with you,” if necessary, blockading the flow of gasoline into Iran, which has to import 40 percent of its gasoline because it only has one refinery in the entire country.

To describe Gingrich's thinking as schematic is an understatement as he declares there to be "Seven key aspects" and "nine vision-level principles" of his second pillar of American Civilization, "Personal Strength." There are also "five core principles" of "Quality as defined by Deming" (Pillar 5). There are "three big concepts" of Pillar Three (Entrepreneurial Free Enterprise) as well as "five enemies of entrepreneurial free enterprise." And finally, the "seven welfare state cripplers of progress" under Pillar Four (Spirit of Invention and Discovery), one of which is simply described as "Ignorance." Then in his Window of Opportunity, he gives us the truly astounding list of the "great force changing our world is a synergism of essentially six parts." Only six, not seven, not five, six. When discussing health care he described the "eight areas of necessary change," on arms control, he gives us the "seven imperatives that will help the free world survive in the age of nuclear weapons." Then there are two initiatives, "three broad strategic options for the next generation," and finally, "six realistic goals which would increase our children's chances of living in a world without nuclear war." There is also Gingrich's most famous list, the Contract with America. On the first day of the session Gingrich promised to pass eight reforms and to in the following 100 days to bring another ten bills to a vote.

So what? I can hear you ask, he likes lists, who doesn't? It's an easy way to organize information and it shows that he is an action oriented person. This list-making reflects the memo-world of management with it's enumerated "action items" and other jargon-laden garbage. Not only does it show a lack of big-picture holistic thinking, they do nothing to advance discussions on the most important issues facing our nation and sometimes they slide into nonsense. For example, in To Renew America, he proposes several interesting questions like, "Why not aspire to build a real Jurassic Park?" Then he waxes poetic on the possibilities of space honeymoons, actually saying "imagine weightlessness and its effects and you will understand some of the attractions." What does that even mean? Earlier in Window of Opportunity, he writes, "one reason I am convinced space travel will be a growth industry is because I represent the Atlanta airport, which provides 35,000 aviation-related jobs in the Atlanta area."

His two early political screeds, Window of Opportunity and To Renew America are filled with these lackluster enumerated lists and flights of fantasy and seem to make sense when we consider that Mr. Gingrich manages his days by breaking them into 15 minute increments (I seriously wonder if Gingrich himself isn't some sort of Nick Hornby character, think "top fives" from High Fidelity and Will from About a Boy who states, "I find the key is to think of a day as units of time, each unit consisting of no more than thirty minutes. Full hours can be a little bit intimidating and most activities take about half an hour.") The truth is Mr. Gingrich got the idea of 15-minute activity blocks from Peter Drucker's The Effective Executive. His favorite thing to do in an activity block? Read biographies, the bottom rung of the history ladder, no wonder he imagines himself to be a savior and revolutionary, he still thinks history is made by "great men" who have biographies written about them which tend to ignore the social and economic forces that shape history.

Let's just get this straight, Newt Gingrich has lost his damn mind. According to Mr. Gingrich, Forrest Gump proved that "the counterculture destroys human beings and basic values." I always thought that it simply proved that life was a lot like a box of chocolates. Then last month in a speech to the National Federation of Republican Women he argued that English should be the official language of the United States, beating out such aspirants as Esperanto and Tagalog. In this speech he called Spanish the "language of the ghetto." Then in his non-apology he blaimed his "word choice was poor" and that he had been taking Spanish classes for some time. The man is insane. At a recent event hosted by the Federalist Leadership Center and the Lincoln Club of Orange County Mr. Gingrich estimated that he had around 25 ideas a minute. A journalist covering the event for the Red County Magazine believed him and wrote an article calling him a one man think-tank. In the ensuing interview Newt once again turns to his favorite past-time, enumerated lists. Citing three lessons from history that are important for us all to think about; 1. Intelligence can fail, 2. You may not understand the culture of your opponent, and 3. Technology matters (for what isn't clear). Then he outlines his four critical components of healthcare reform, which he says should be visualized as a box with four quadrants (WTF?!). The first quadrant is financing. Another quadrant focuses on "the need for individual responsibility" (like for not getting sick? like not working in a coal mine?). The third quadrant addresses "issues related to society and culture" (I don't know what that means, oh wait, I bet he's talking about the sexual habits of non-whites, how silly of me). The fourth quadrant addresses "the healthcare system itself" (now my brain hurts). On immigration he suggests a two fold enumerated list (sorry, no awesome boxes with quadrants this time) that is comprised of the visionary suggestions: Control the Border and Enforce the Law. Holy shit, he's done it, he's solved the immigration "problem". From there he follows with an another list that includes among other things national id cards with biometrics that will be organized and managed by credit card companies. Up until now I kind of thought Mr. Gingrich was like that adorably idiotic uncle that everyone humors, but now I realize he's simply the stupidest man alive.