I don't find this election campaign exciting at all. The parameters of change have already been decided, in exactly the terms the Post outlines, by both the remaining Dem candidates. If a Dem is elected, he or she will lean over backwards to accomodate the Right Wing. If McCain is elected, **** anyone but the Right Wing. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, however you look at it.

Obama's campaign in particular would be an out and out joke were it not for the color of his skin and the MLK-like roll of his voice (something he supposedly absorbed in Chicago - it was in the water on the South Side, I guess. It couldn't have been a calculated move, since we all know that Obama would never do anything calculated, since he is above all criticism.). Gee, vote for ME, Dems, because Republicans like me!

The only way for the Progressive Movement to go forward and to get away from the partisan bickering is to simply go around it. Ad Populist to Progressive and you will find yourself squarely in the mainstream of the population. No, not in the political center, as defined by the NYC-DC cocktail party circuit (Charlie Rose is a pretty reliable indicator for that), which relies heavily on corporate patronage in various forms, but in the actual center as defined by the population.

See, all the political partisan bickering is irrelevant. It's a distraction from the increasingly glaring fact that the majority of Americans are populist progressives, though some might not know it yet.

I HAD thought that Dean understood this, but he seems to have drifted into the NYC-DC cocktail party ciruit miasma.

I reccomend folks read the last debate between Clinton and Obama, and pay special attention to the part where they fawn over Israel.

This Israel:

"Israel's deputy war minister has threatened Palestinians with a 'bigger holocaust' if rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip continue.

"The more Qassam (rocket) fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust because we will use all our might to defend ourselves," Matan Vilnai told the Army Radio on Friday. "
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=45235§ionid=351020202

Apparently the actual word he used was "shoah".

Sho·ah (shō'ə) Pronunciation Key
n. The mass murder of European Jews by the Nazis during World

http://dictionary.reference.com/

That puts some intersting historical perspective on the Middle East situation, doesn't it?

re: transformational

Damn, my turn to use it was going to be next week!

In other news (from the comments):
“Now one of Clinton’s laws of politics is this: If one candidate’s trying to scare you and the other one’s trying to get you to think, if one candidate’s appealing to your fears and the other one’s appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope.”

-Bill Clinton, 2004

No one can doubt that Obama is trying to appeal to people's hopes, but so was Reagan. What he ISN'T doing is appealling to people's ability to think. Hope without thought is a lot like fear, just as fear WITH thought is a lot like hope.

Also, while I don't trust the National Review, I don't trust Obama either and this report sounds legit to me:

"
Within the last month, a top staff member for Obama's campaign telephoned Michael Wilson, Canada's ambassador to the United States, and warned him that Obama would speak out against NAFTA, according to Canadian sources.

The staff member reassured Wilson that the criticisms would only be campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value."

http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmViOTA0MzUyOTc2NjdhMTVmYjBmNGFkMDJiNzdiZDc=

There have been denials all around - for what that's worth. As we know, Obama is Our Savior, the Champion of Progressive Causes, better than JFK, MLK, Reagan(!) and Lincoln put together and an absolutely staunch opponent of Nafta...

"
Obama is the first presidential candidate to officially declare his/her support for the NAFTA expansion moving through the Congress. His announcement is not necessarily surprising, considering he was the keynote speaker at the launch of the Hamilton Project -- a Wall Street front group working to drive a wedge between Democrats and organized labor on globalization issues. His announcement comes just days after a Wall Street Journal poll found strong bipartisan opposition to lobbyist-written NAFTA-style trade policies."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/breaking-obama-says-he-w_b_67780.html

...when it suits him politically.

I don't actually see his stated position and the purported communications to be in conflict: our serious issues with NAFTA aren't with Canada, which has all the environmental, worker and legal protections we could wish for (more than we've got, anyway!), so Obama and Clinton can say without hypocrisy that they'd seek to renegotiate NAFTA or even withdraw from it while assuring Canada that it would not affect our trading relationship.

I'm splitting hairs a bit here, perhaps, but I also am sick and tired of unnuanced gotcha politics. Hypocrisy is sometimes necessary; the question is whether leaders are willing to be hypocritical for political gain or in the interests of their constituencies?

A tribute to a national failure William F Buckley



By: Jesse Hemingway



I can not let the failed conservative philosophy of William F Buckley drift away in the night with out recognizing the misery he rationalized and implemented on mankind. As you peel back the hydrocarbon veneer you will understand his real being just another pseudo intellectual minted by the Ivy League. He served as fascist novice with in the bowls of the Eisenhower cabinet under the direction of the likes of the Dulles brothers, Richard Nixon and Thomas Dewey this is the reason he was fundamentally and intellectually unsound. He was recruited to preserve, protect and defend the interests of the oil industrial complex. He was used to invert the core foundation of the United States of America to become those of the oil industrial complex and corporate unrestrained behavior.



He was only an American by birth he chose the neocon principles of brutal exploitation as the measuring stick for the next rationalized corporate expansion through out the world. A few years back (2006) he made a pathetic attempt to distance himself from the manifestation of the neocon fantasy which in reality was his life’s work. He came to terms with his failed life yet like the most common bond among all neocons is their intrinsic cowardliness. They can design and wholesale the mechanisms of the façade of global corporate development as patriotic American virtues but lack the first rule of sales that is actual blood on your hands believing in your product.



William F Buckley in my opinion is the greatest American failure of all times. He was able to fool the foolish he spent his life pretending to be something he was not. Just a pawn in murderous escapade to control resources of other nations he would look his deceived followers in their eyes; as jesters have done through history he would entertain the pedestrian crowds. William F Buckley act’s was impressive to the dimwits and challenging. George Orwell in his book 1984 clearly warned us all of the corporate slavery as the ultimate destination William F Buckley had steered his fellow Americans too.

Actually, I used it long before Digby and on this blog and have used it several times since to frame differences between Clinton and Obama--all before Digby--AND with credit given to those who pioneered the use of the term, literature which Digby apparently has not read nor understands.

Just thought I would mention it.

Well, ahistoricity, I think I can say I've never seen a post from you with which I disagree more. First of all, my comment had nothing to do with "gotcha" politics. In fact, that phrase is little more than media hype. Consistency is important in politics, though it is not pre-eminently important (if it were, of course politics would be the realm of closed minds, which it too often is already). Hypocrisy and blatant out-and-out pandering have no place whatever in politics, EVEN THOUGH they dominate politics today. Now, if you like your politicians to lie to your face about what's important to them and about what they'll do, then by all means, seek out such politicians. They sure aren't hard to find these days. "Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies..."

If the report from CTV is legit, then Obama was out and out lying to our faces about Nafta. His record is consistent with such an interpretation.

Also, as you indirectly point out, apparently without realizing it, the very way Clinton and Obama framed the discussion about Nafta shows, with sickening obviousness, that neither of them has a clue about the real issues regarding Nafta, yet another indication that they are lying through their teeth to try to mollify the progressive lemmings who love their "sweet little lies". They spoke about Nafta as if it were a treaty forced on the US by Canada and Mexico. But as you indirectly point out, apparently without realizing it, the shoe has always been on the other foot. It is the US that has pushed for Nafta - obviously, neither Mexico nor Canada has the muscle to push a treaty on the US.

Nuance is crucial to politics, hand in hand with honesty. Put those two things together and you don't ever need to be a hypocrite in politics. But what we are stuck with, largely because of our constant leastworsting in my opinion, is politicians who are strangers to both nuance and honesty.

Anonymous, as an Ivy-leaguer, I believe you are exactly right about Buckley and the Ivy League. It grinds out faux intellectuals like hamburger, who then spend their lifetimes beguiling the nation. To me, Obama is just another one of these. Yet many are so beguiled by his Reaganesque guise of Super-Optimism, that even his cynicism somehow counts as optimism...isn't it cute? He's lying, but he's lying FOR US!! Cause he just loves us ordinary folks!

I read an interesting passage in his book, Dreams of My Fathers, where he talks about how he rallied the waning optimism of his volunteers in a Chicago project by telling them that he didn't have to be there working with them, that he could be making beaucoup bucks in his law career (as of course he did go on to do), implying the kind of noblesse oblige that is the stamp of the Ivy League. 'Aren't you poor folks who HAVE to live in squalor just sooooo lucky to have me using you as a rung on my career ladder?!'