Brawl in Beantown

My two favorite sports writers, and Boston natives to boot, Bill Simmons and Charles Pierce are in a nasty little spat. Given that I stumbled upon them independently of each other and enjoy both of their takes on sports I was saddened to learn of their animosity for one and other. Here is a summary from the Huffington Post about the most recent spat and here is Charles Pierces retort:

Quote from Huffington Post:

Author and ESPN writer Bill Simmons lashed out at writer Charles P. Pierce today on twitter, citing why he changed part of his book, "The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to The Sports Guy."

"Hey CPP: took you out of TBOB cuz you trashed it without ever mentioning that you used to email me all the time until I told you to eff off," Simmons tweeted.

Pierce wrote a review, which was posted on Deadspin, blasting Simmons' book in Nov. 2009.

Simmons also tweeted that he thought Pierce's review was dishonest and that he "came off like a spurned lover."

Pierce responded to the tweets in his blog, calling Simmons a "mendacious, whiny little thin-skinned bag of breeze."

Quote from Pierce:

We started an e-correspondence that was perfectly amiable. Then, at one point, right around Lebron's first year in the league, he fired off a pig-ignorant crack about Lebron's mother and the circumstances of Lebron's birth. This Blog sent him an e-mail saying, essentially, wow, that seemed a bit harsh. He replied with some snarkery and This Blog replied by telling him to "stay out of the deep end of the pool" until he'd actually learned how to report something. That was the last e-mail we ever exchanged.

Since then, he's been trafficking in the notion that he told This Blog to intercourse off because he was resisting its attempts to "mentor" him. (That's what he sold Whitlock. Pimp Hand, give us a call, man!) This is all my granny. This Blog had no intention of "mentoring" him because, to his credit, he was making his name in a new medium with which This Blog was not familiar, and because, if This Blog were going to mentor someone, it would pick someone with more intellectual integrity who was a helluva lot tougher. This Blog would be perfectly willing to explain this all to his face, including its genuine admiration for much of what he's accomplished, but, given his history in such matters, it fears it may die an unfulfilled blog in this regard.

I'm torn since I have affection for both but the giveaway is Bill Simmons' insult of Charles Pierce's career. Either Pierce doesn't care about how people perceive his career and Simmons' insult is futile and lame or he does care and Simmons' is gloating and being ungracious in light of his success. Either way Simmons is acting like a baby.

Lewinsky, Assange and Feminism

Feminist solidarity seems to be fracturing over the rape allegations against Julian Assange much the same way they did against Monica Lewinsky during the Clinton impeachment brouhaha. Writing in Salon.com, Kate Harding attempts to apply the brakes to the efforts to smear Assange's accusers:

Quote:

As of today, even Naomi Wolf -- Naomi Effin' Wolf! -- has taken a public swipe at Assange's accusers, using her status as a "longtime feminist" to underscore the absurdity of "the alleged victims ... using feminist-inspired rhetoric and law to assuage what appears to be personal injured feelings."

Wow. Admittedly, I don't have as much experience being a feminist as Wolf has, but when I see a swarm of people with exactly zero direct access to the facts of a rape case loudly insisting that the accusation has no merit, I usually start to wonder about their credibility. And their sources.

Why would a prominent feminist be leading the charge to discredit a potential victim of sexual abuse? Like Bill Clinton, Julian Assange's political activities are cheered by the left but when the champions of these leftist causes are accused of abusing women, feminists are put in an uncomfortable spot. Do they stand with the powerful man who has the opportunity to use his power to advance their political agenda or do they stand with the women who accuse them of sexual crimes?

This question was addressed by Professor Juliet A. Williams of the University of California at Santa Barbara in her paper The Personal is Political: Thinking Through the Clinton/Lewinsky/Starr Affair:

Quote:

Still, there is something to the point that feminists did not participate as fully in the public discourse on this issue as they might have. This reflects, in part, a self-conscious decision, made early on by organizations like NOW, the Black Leadership Forum, and many others, to treat the Clinton/Lewinsky/Starr matter as an inappropriate subject for public scrutiny given that the core concern was a private affair between two consenting adults. In other words, they concluded that as long as Clinton’s sexual dalliances fell short of the high legal standards set for showing sexual harassment or rape, the details of his social life should remain sheltered from public scrutiny. The general opinion seemed to be that real progress for women is best ensured by having a “pro-woman” president like Clinton in office, however disappointing his personal choices might be.

For reasons both principled and strategic, then, many feminists deemed it unwise to use the Clinton–Lewinsky affair as an occasion to push the feminist agenda forward on issues like workplace harassment and sex discrimination. But how wise was their retreat to the privacy defense of Clinton? More generally, what is lost when feminists abstain in principled silence from public discourse? Answers to these questions bears on the meaning of politics, the status of women, and the contribution feminism can make to people interested in transforming gender relations in this country.

Monica Lewinsky, unlike the women in the Julian Assange case, did not claim to be sexually assaulted or raped, but I find it hard to believe that if President Clinton had been a Republican feminist groups would not have led the charge down Pennsylvania Avenue and stormed the gates of the White House.

Returning to the Assange case, Harding concludes in her Salon.com article:

Quote:

Public evidence, as the Times noted, is scarce. So, it's heartening to see that in the absence of same, my fellow liberal bloggers are so eager to abandon any pretense of healthy skepticism and rush to discredit an alleged rape victim based on some tabloid articles and a feverish post by someone who is perhaps not the most trustworthy source. Well done, friends! What a fantastic show of research, critical thinking and, as always, respect for women.

Assange may or may not be guilty. There is plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the charges levied against him but do feminists really need to be leading the charge on his behalf against the women making the accusations? Feminists' default should always be to side with the women. Sexual assault and rape accusations are woefully underreported as is. It is likely that there is a recent victim of sexual assault or rape watching these events unfold and noting the fact that feminists like Wolf are trashing Assange's accusers. What conclusion should she reach when deciding whether or not to go to the police?

The defense of Assange would be best if it was left to others.

Massachusetts' Miracle?

Noam Sheiber at The New Republic identifies Governor Deval Patrick's 2010 campaign as the model Obama and his aides are hoping will lead to his re-election in 2012. Interesting:

Barack Obama, Tax Cuts, 2012, And David Axelrod: Inside A Divided White House | The New Republic

Quote:

Of all the historical analogies urged on Obama following November’s drubbing—Truman in ’48, Reagan after ’82, Clinton after ’94—the one the White House has opted for is easily the most obscure. That would be Patrick in ’10—as in Deval Patrick, the recently re-elected governor of Massachusetts. Months after Patrick signed the state’s first sales-tax hike in 33 years, political chatterers gave him little chance of surviving to a second term. Not only did he face the same foul, anti-incumbent mood that elected Scott Brown, he’d drawn an attractive GOP candidate in businessman Charlie Baker.

Patrick’s handlers recommended that he distance himself from liberals in the state legislature—and, above all, downplay the tax increase. The governor overruled them. His first commercialhighlighted the “combination of deep cuts and new revenue” he’d accepted to close the state’s budget shortfall. “He all but said, ‘I raised taxes.’ Jesus Christ,” recalls one still-traumatized adviser. “He thought the way to do it was to be true to what he ran on [in 2006]”—the belief that voters will support someone who levels with them, even if they don’t love every decision. In the end, Patrick and his “politics of conviction” won by a comfortable seven-point margin.

Obama's Deal: A Huge Win (Or Maybe A Major Defeat) | The New Republic

Jonathan Chait's reflections on the tax cut deal here:

Obama's Deal: A Huge Win (Or Maybe A Major Defeat) | The New Republic:

Quote:

"How did Democrats get a deal like that? Ezra Klein's source confirms what I speculated without any information -- Republicans love them some rich folk. They're willing to bargain away a lot to help the very rich:

For one thing, the things [Republicans] wanted were things they really, really wanted. A number of sources with direct knowledge of the negotiations have fingered the estate tax as the major player in the size of the deal. 'Republicans were extremely eager to get benefits for the top tenth of a percent of Americans,' says one senior administration official."

Wikileaks' raison d'etre

Here is a fantastic article on Julian Assange's philosophy, if there is one.

Quote:

For Assange in 2006, then, the public benefit of leaked information is not the first-order good of the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world (free information is its own reward), nor is it the second-order good of the muckrakers* (free information will lead the people to demand change). What Assange asks of leaked information is that it supply a third-order public good: he wants it to demonstrate that secrets cannot be securely held, and he wants it to do this so that the currency of all secrets will be debased. He wants governments-cum-conspiracies to be rendered paranoid by the leaks and therefore be left with little energy to pursue its externally focused aims. In his words, “We can marginalise a conspiracy’s ability to act by decreasing total conspiratorial power until it is no longer able to understand, and hence respond effectively to, its environment.”

The 19th Amendment maybe?

Andrew Sullivan links to this interview with PJ O'Rourke:

Anna Blundy interviews P J O’Rourke. One of her questions prompts a rant on government interference:

My grandmother was able to keep people from smoking indoors with one cold stare. Why would laws and parliaments and police powers and courts and all sorts of annoying and ugly signs everywhere be necessary? All this expense and exercise of power of one group of people over another – why is all this needed to achieve what my grandmother could achieve with one cold stare?

He offers the counterexample of spittons:

[U]p until some time in the 1920s or so, virtually every American male chewed tobacco and spat constantly. It went away because women put their foot down and said: ‘That’s disgusting!’ I suppose that all had to do with the changing role of women but there didn’t have to be any politician around to think of taking the credit for that, though I’m sure they would have been glad to.

I'm a little stunned that O'Rourke would throw out the date 1920's without thinking about what changed about women's role in society in that decade. If read a certain way it seems like O'Rourke is arguing that the entry of women into the formal political process has enabled the dreaded nanny state. However, unlike O'Rourke I do not pine for the days when women, like his grandmother, held no political power and had to rely on informal social shaming to accomplish their goals.

I also resent the implication that smoking bans represent "all this expense and exercise of power of one group of people over another..."

Let us please not forget that before all these bans smokers were forcefully exercising their power over us and our children by smoking in the workplace, on planes and in restaurants. If they want to kill themselves they can do it in the privacy of their own homes or outdoors but I'm not going down that path with them just because I want to grab a bite to eat or want to visit friends in California.

The Grinch Who Stole McCain

Many people are scratching their heads wondering what happened to John McCain as he falls on his sword to keep gays out of the military and in the closet. See this Daily Show takedown of McCain and his brazen hypocricy and then Andrew Sullivan and James Fallows observations:

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Andrew Sullivan linking James Fallows:

Moneyquote:

I wish I understood McCain. I thought I did once, but it seems increasingly clear that he is a man of near-suicidal vanity and misjudgment (remember suspending his entire campaign to deal with Lehman Brothers, or the insanely reckless selection of an unvetted Palin) and defined by grudges. Much of his shift to the center in 2000 and after was, it now seems obvious, an attempt to sabotage the man who defeated him, George W. Bush. His conduct in the last two years seems very similar with respect to Obama, despite Obama's early attempts to persuade and coopt him.

Sigh....

Jullian Assange: Blofeld or Bond?

Here's a great article from Salon thinking about the Wikileaks affair in comparison to the James Bond narrative:

The Bond universe's "the government is always looking out for us" conceit is a big part of what made the stories so staggeringly profitable. By inventing fabulously wealthy and powerful outsider foes whose destabilizing force rivaled that of governments, Bond's masters -- original author Ian Fleming and his posthumous replacements, the Broccoli family of producers that have controlled the film series since the '60s -- freed the stories of specifics that might stop residents of any nation from feeling that Bond wasn't on their side. As flamboyantly and shamelessly entertaining as Bond stories often are, they're ultimately ads for the unquestioned authority of the state over the individual. No hero backed by the full faith and credit of the entire Western world could ever be considered an underdog, yet that's how Bond is presented, and we buy it because the stories are clever, amusing power fantasies with smatterings of sex and luxury. When Matt Damon, star of the "Bourne" franchise, called Bond "an imperialist, misogynist sociopath who goes around bedding women and swilling martinis and killing people," he pissed off a lot of Bond fans, but he wasn't wrong. He was cutting to the heart of the myth and insisting fans admit what Bond really was: an emblem of authoritarian power and male entitlement, transformed by movie magic, star glamour, and narrative deck-stacking into an underdog hero that even a powerless, penniless wage slave could root for.

The Lord can make you tumble - Charles Pierce Blog - Boston sports news - Boston.com

I just recently discovered Charles Pierce's blog. He may be challenging Bill Simmons as my favorite source for sports/culture commentary. His take on Lebron's return to Cleveland is an example why:

The Lord can make you tumble - Charles Pierce Blog - Boston sports news - Boston.com: "Times are hard in Cleveland, largely because of an economic collapse engineered by the cupidity of our financial Masters of The Universe -- And is it time again to point out that the poor, put-upon Cavs are owned by a guy who got rich in mortgage services during the years when that business was a swindler's paradise? Thought so. --  all of whom are getting fat again while unemployment hits 10 percent and our national outrage is focused on a basketball player who changed jobs. Eyes on the ball, people."

Gaypocalypse Now...Priceless

John McCain is making the Daily Show writers' jobs way too easy.

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The Curious Case of Barack Obama

A friend of mine wondered on Facebook whether the Republicans feel bad for the beating they are administering to Obama right now. If this were Little League we might have to enforce the mercy rule.

I always imagined I would be Obama's last defender. It still frustrates me that the left has not embraced the immense challenge and accomplishment the passage of health care reform was and is.

However the current debate over tax cuts and unemployment compensation has me contemplating whether or not to jump ship. I remarked to my friend that Obama's skills as a politician seem to be regressing as he gains more experience. He appears to be the Benjamin Button of politicians.

Thinking back to the primary against Hillary Clinton it is still shocking that Obama was able to defeat the most popular, powerful and effective political family in modern Democratic politics. It seemed that it was Bill and Hillary, especially Bill, who seemed to stumble and bungle the politics of the primary. Who can forget Bill's attempted racial belittling of Obama's victory in South Carolina. It seemed the old pro had lost his touch and a new superstar was born.

But Obama's current weakness started to become apparent during the stimulus debate at the beginning of his term. After much publicized wining and dining of conservatives Obama began the debate over the stimulus bill with a good faith nod to Republicans by including $350 billion in tax cuts and credits in the $900 billion stimulus plan. He was rewarded with an astonishing zero Republican votes in the House and three in the Senate. One of those three, Arlen Specter, was driven out of his party as a result.

This one-way negotiation strategy continued into the health care debate which was nearly derailed when Obama and Senate Democrats let the infamous "Gang of Six" drag negotiations on for an entire summer while Tea Party activists sabotaged the debate in town halls throughout the country. Obama's decision to go all in after the devastating Scott Brown election is still maybe his finest moment and may make all his smaller failures moot in the long run.

Now after the midterm elections Obama appears to letting Republicans fight to protect tax cuts for millionaires while simultaneously cutting off benefits for the those struggling with unemployment. Obama's response? A pathetic attempt at pandering to the deficit hawks with an unsollicited proposal to freeze federal employee pay. A proposal that gets him nothing in return from the Republcians, will fail as a public relations ploy, and will actually do nothing to address the deficit.

When is he going to take a stand? When is he going to pick a fight to illustrate the differences between his priorities and Republican priorities? If the contrast between tax cuts and unemployment insurance does not provide this opportunity I'm not sure what will.

Ted Strickland, former governor of Ohio, and Paul Begala, former aide to President Clinton, agree.

Ted Strickland:

But his frustration was evident as the discussion progressed. Talking, unprompted, about the debate over the expiring Bush tax cuts, Strickland said he was dumbfounded at the party's inability to sell the idea that the rates for the wealthy should be allowed to expire.

"I mean, if we can't win that argument we might as well just fold up," he said. "These people are saying we are going to insist on tax cuts for the richest people in the country and we don't care if they are paid for, and we don't think it is a problem if it contributes to the deficit, but we are not going to vote to extend unemployment benefits to working people if they aren't paid for because they contribute to the deficit. I mean, what is wrong with that? How can it be more clear?"

Here is Paul Begala begging Obama to stop making unilateral concessions to Republicans. The impetus for his comments here was Obama's announcement he would be freezing federal workers pay.

My only hope is that Obama is playing rope-a-dope with the Republicans, feigning weakness to entice the GOP to overreach, and then using their aggression to his advantage. The confluence of the tax cuts/unemployment insurance debates is the time to start fighting back.

The Promise Of A Democratic Iran - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Andrew Sullivan links to an interesting paradox concerning Iran that is revealed by the new Wikileaks documents.

The Promise Of A Democratic Iran - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan:

"Karim Sadjadpour made an important point in yesterday's FT:

The WikiLeaks revelations make clear that Arab officials believe Iran to be inherently dishonest and dangerous. The feeling is probably mutual. But they hide perhaps a more interesting issue, namely what type of Iranian government would actually best serve Gulf Arab interests.

President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad and the Islamic Republic may be loathed, but equally the advent of a more progressive, democratic Iran would enable Tehran to emerge from its largely self-inflicted isolation and begin to realise its enormous potential. In the zero-sum game of Middle Eastern politics, a democratic Iran would pose huge challenges to Persian Gulf sheikhdoms."

Next stop Wall Street

Jack Shafer explains why Wikileaks is extremely valuable:

I love WikiLeaks for restoring distrust in our most important institutions. - By Jack Shafer - Slate Magazine:

Moneyquote:

"he idea of WikiLeaks is scarier than anything the organization has leaked or anything Assange has done because it restores our distrust in the institutions that control our lives. It reminds people that at any given time, a criminal dossier worth exposing is squirreled away in a database someplace in the Pentagon or at Foggy Bottom. Assange's next stop appears to be Wall Street."

After the past three years a Wikileaks dump of Wall Street documents will be manna from heaven.

Asterisks Abound

2007's Spygate has roared back in to the headlines with the revelation that Bill Belichik's disciple Josh McDaniels and the Denver Broncos have been punished for taping an opposing team's practice.

Unlike many New England Patriot diehards I have not buried my head in the sand in order to pretend that Spygate does not matter. I recognize the reality that the rest of the country continues to associate the Patriots with cheating. Those are the facts, and as much as I might like to, I can't shake the disappointment that this incident tarnishes the team's accomplishments over the last decade. This why the loss in Super Bowl 42 and missing out on the undefeated season, post Spygate, is even more difficult to swallow. An undefeated season after the Spygate fiasco would have shut up all of Belichick's detractors who argue he only won because he cheated.

I am particularly annoyed by those who argue the "everyone did it" defense. This argument is used so often in the defense of wrong doing that it didn't seem worth engaging. However I have been convinced that this argument may have some merit while I was arguing these points with another Patriots fan who actually backed up the "everyone does it" argument with facts. Although it does not exonerate the Patriots, it may provide needed context to the severity of the Patriots' crimes.

Jimmy Johnson:

"Oh in a heartbeat, yeah. Yes I did," Johnson said, before confirming it was done via video."Oh yeah, I did it with video and so did a lot of other teams in the league," Johnson continued. "Just to make sure that you could study it and take your time, because you're going to play the other team the second time around. But a lot of coaches did it, this was commonplace."

He then detailed how he learned: "I was saying one of Marty Schottenheimers scouts, Mark Hatley, who has passed away now, Mark told me that's how they did it, and Howard Mudd their offensive line coach with Kansas City, who now coaches for Tony Dungy, he was the best in the entire league at stealing signals."And his methods: "My guy was up with my camera crew in the press box. So you'd just put an extra camera up with your camera crew in the press box who zoomed in on the signal callers. That's the best way to do it, but anyway you can't always do that because the press box camera crew might be on the same side as the opposing team. If they're on the same side as the opposing team that's when you need to do it from the sideline."

Mike Shannahan:

"Our guy keeps a pair of binoculars on their signal-callers every game," says Broncos coach Mike Shanahan. "With any luck, we have their defensive signals figured out by halftime. Sometimes, by the end of the first quarter."

I'll put an asterisk next to the Patriots' Super Bowls as soon as the Denver and Dallas fans agree to do the same.

It's the Economy Stupid

The handwringing over the results of the midterm elections continues unabated. Every pundit is offering their analysis and advice to President Obama on how to turn around his Presidency. Pundits recommend that he needs to demonstrate "leadership" or be "bipartisan" or "connect" to the American people. And right wing pundits of course demand that he adopt a conservative ideology.

People seem determined to ignore the one variable that explains it all, the performance of the economy. Probably because that explanation is boring and can't fill up the 24 hours of blathering that is required for FOX and MSNBC programming.

My conviction that the economy explains almost everything in our current political environment was confirmed when I read the Wikipedia summary of the final chapter of CNN's Cold War documentary while preparing for my World History class. This statement about President George H.W. Bush really struck me:

"The Soviet Union ends on 25 December 1991, and in his Christmas Day address Bush announces the Cold War is over."

George Bush presided over the country when it's mortal ideological enemy of 50 years fell AND managed the armed forces to a total and convincing victory over Iraq, the first major successful military operation since Vietnam, and he still convincingly lost the 1992 election to Bill Clinton. When I think about that election result it is a stunning event? Of course Bill Clinton's most famous slogan from the '92 campaign says it best, "It's the economy, stupid."

Political scientist have convincingly demonstrated the overwhelming relationship between the economy and Presidential re-election rates. It just seems pundits don't want political scientists to reveal that all the endless white noise on TV is useless and wrong.

So when someone suggests that Obama needs to do this or that to win back the American people remember that that person is probably just advancing their own personal agenda by disguising it as sincere advice designed to help the President.

Hammer Time!

Quite possibly my least favorite politician during my time in Washington was Tom DeLay (thankfully Sarah Palin was just a mayor of a small town in Alaska). So you can imagine my glee that "The Hammer" was just found guilty by a jury of his peers for money laundering.

But this quote was almost too much:

"I still maintain that I am innocent, that the criminalization of politics undermines our very system, and I'm very disappointed in the outcome. But you know, it is what it is, and we will carry on and maybe we can get it before people who understand the law."

I guess DeLay can drop the faux man of people schtick that he and his GOP cohorts continually trumpet now that he is no longer running for office. His contempt for the people on the jury is mixed with an elitism that would make even a sociology professor from Harvard blush.

Well if there is one thing the policies of DeLay and his Texas GOP allies have supported it is the state's prisons. Now he'll get to reap the benefits of his ardent advocacy for a robust and active criminal justice...Texas style.

The Midterms

This about sums up my feelings about the upcoming elections (saw via Jon Chait at TNR.com):

And down the stretch they come...

Here is my finally plea to my fellow townspeople to vote for Mac D'Alessandro over anti-health care Democratic incumbent Stephen Lynch (MA-09). The primary is Tuesday, September 14th.

To the Editor:

This September 14th, Democrats and Independents in Walpole will cast an important vote for either incumbent Stephen Lynch or challenger Mac D’Alessandro to represent us in the U.S. House of Representatives. We can stick with the same politicians who avoid debates, utter untruths when asked to explain controversial votes, and rely on their million dollar war chests funded by Wall Street bankers, or we can give a fresh new voice the chance to represent us in Washington. The last two editions of the Walpole Times have captured the choice perfectly.

Two weeks ago, two different articles concerning Mac D’Alessandro and Stephen Lynch unintentionally illustrated all you need to know about the two candidates vying to be Walpole’s Democratic nominee for Congress. Mac D’Alessandro is meeting with real voters in Walpole: senior citizens, local small business owners and residents shopping at the farmer’s market. Stephen Lynch is pictured with a big name national Democrat, Bill Clinton, focusing on cashing in on his Hilary Clinton endorsement and padding his existing $1.5 million dollar campaign war chest.

In last week’s Walpole Times, Stephen Lynch defended himself against charges that he is out of touch with communities in his district, arguing “he attends many Town Meetings.” Coming to Town Meeting is hardly staying in touch with the district. The Congressman gets the privilege to come and speak at the beginning of the meeting, spins his justification for his votes and actions, takes no questions, and then leaves. This is hardly staying in touch with the citizens of Walpole.

Lynch’s campaign theme is that he is not afraid to take a stand. This is surprising because Lynch has waited over two weeks to respond to Mac D’Alessandro’s invitation to debate “anywhere, anytime.” Lynch has yet to respond. This is a time-honored tradition of arrogant incumbents who can’t be bothered to defend their positions for fear that their challenger will receive positive attention. No doubt Congressman Lynch will finally get around to agreeing to a debate at the very last moment, when as few people as possible will have a chance to see, hear or read about it; taking a stand indeed.

When the Congressman had the opportunity to stand with people with pre-existing conditions or people kicked off their insurance because their treatment became too expensive, Congressman Lynch stood instead with the insurance companies. When challenged to defend his vote, Congressman Lynch said he opposed health insurance reform because it did not contain a public option. This argument is laughable. Of all the members of the Massachusetts Congressional Delegation, Congressman Lynch was the least supportive of the public option throughout the entire health care debate. That is why he was booed off the stage at the Labor breakfast for the Democratic nominees vying to replace Ted Kennedy.

Lynch says he stands for us, but he gladly lines his campaign fund with contributions from the CEO’s of the big banks who drove our economy into a ditch. Mac D’Alessandro refuses to take their money and will be accountable to us, not big Wall Street bankers.

If you want Washington to continue functioning the way it has, Stephen Lynch is your man. He has the money, the big name endorsements, and the power of incumbency. But if you are fed up with the current government and yearn for a fresh voice in Washington who will speak up for working families in Walpole, please support Mac D’Alessandro. Mac D’Alessandro is the underdog in this race. But if we want things to change in Washington D.C., we need to vote for underdogs and send a message that business as usual is no longer accepted.

I humbly ask for your support of Mac D’Alessandro over Stephen Lynch on September 14^th.

Sincerely,

Sean O’Reilly

Hemlock Street

Obama is Frodo

Continuing the theme from my last post, Glenn Greenwald links to this Daily Show clip today about Obama's reversal on many of his civil rights campaign promises.

Jon Stewart is right Mr. President, "Throw the ring into the fires of Modor, you think you can handle the power but you can't."

Here is the Daily Show clip:

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Conspiracy Theories

I am currently showing my AP Government juniors Bill Moyer's documentary on Iran-Contra and the CIA's role in Latin America during the Cold War called "The Secret Government." The premise of the documentary is that there has been a nefarious secret government, controlled by the CIA, acting on behalf of the American people without their knowledge. The implication of the documentary is that there would be outrage if people knew about these actions by our government.

One average citizen interviewed in the documentary concludes that he now assumes that this type of criminality is going on all the time and the only difference about Iran-Contra is that they actually got caught. This may not be an unreasonable conclusion but I believe the really scary conclusion is that the types of outrageous crimes that used to be done in secret that Moyer's documents are now simply done out in the open. So what is the reaction of the American people? It seems to be a collective yawn.

The evidence of the crimes that are carried out in our names, the modern equivelents of Iran-Contra or the overthrow of Mossedeq in Iran or the overthrow of in Guatemala, are right in front of our noses such as:

1) The United States has admitted to torturing people, over 100 in total, to their death (see also Glenn Greenwald's post on the topic):

More than 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody in Guantánamo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The U.S. military itself called 34 of these confirmed or suspected homicides. This is one of them: a 47 year-old Iraqi man whose autopsy report concludes “The severe blunt force injuries, the hanging position, the obstruction of the oral cavity with a gag contributed to this individual's death. The manner of death is homicide.”

2) Rendition of people to other countries to be tortured:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

3) The elimination of habeas corpus, the basis of English Common Law:


Luckily the Supreme Court stopped this particular egregious power grab in the case Boumediene v. Bush:



4) The killing of civilians by unmaned drones controlled by the military and CIA:

Some of you might be inclined to dismiss this as an abberation of the American goverment which only occured because of weak leadership by George W. Bush that allowed rogue advisers such as Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Wolfowitz, etc to run roughshod over the Constitution. Unfortunately it appears President Obama is continuing many of these crimes in the name of the American people:

Glenn Greenwald captures the disappointment with Obama's continuation of Bush anti civil liberties record despite campaign promises to the contrary:

Here's how the NYT describes the article on its front page:

The opening paragraph of this Washington Post article today says much the same thing:

As a candidate for president, Barack Obama offered himself as a clear alternative to Bush-era anti-terrorism policies. Governing has proven muddier.

Both articles quote the hardest-core Bush supporters as heaping praise on Obama for what he has done in the area of "national security," terrorism and civil liberties ("Pete Wehner, a member of Karl Rove’s staff in the Bush White House [and a current National Review writer] applauded several of Mr. Obama’s decisions this week"). Indeed, all week long, and even before that, the greatest enthusiasm for Obama's decisions on so-called "terrorism policies" and civil liberties (with some important exceptions) has been found in the pages of The Weekly Standard and National Review.

For Conservatives Thankfully the Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree

The Republican right has long been associated with the principle of meritocracy. Like it's devotion to limited government, one might be sympathetic to their cause if they actually upheld these principles in reality as opposed to simply championing them rhetorically. (See this article for conservatives self-serving and selective embrace of federalism to illustrate their limited government hypocricy.)

The bench of A-List conservative celebrities who have demonstrated little value other than serendipitous genetic lineage is long and sad:

I'm not the first person to point out this irony.

Glenn Greenwald, summoning all the righteous anger he is known for, writes (see this post and this post as well):

Just to underscore a very important, related point: all of the above-listed people (Jenna Bush Hager, Luke Russert, Liz Cheney, Megan McCain and Jonah Goldberg, Chris Wallace Lisa Murkowski, Evan Bayh, Jeb Bush, Bob Casey, Mark Pryor, Jay Rockefeller, Dan Lipinksi, and Harold Ford, Jr. Bill Kristol, Tucker Carlson and John Podhoretz, and Liz Cheney) are examples of America's Great Meritocracy, having achieved what they have solely on the basis of their talent, skill and hard work -- The American Way. By contrast, Sonia Sotomayor -- who grew up in a Puerto Rican family in Bronx housing projects; whose father had a third-grade education, did not speak English and died when she was 9; whose mother worked as a telephone operator and a nurse; and who then became valedictorian of her high school, summa cum laude at Princeton, a graduate of Yale Law School, and ultimately a Supreme Court Justice -- is someone who had a whole litany of unfair advantages handed to her and is the poster child for un-American, merit-less advancement.

I just want to make sure that's clear.

This topic inspired a blog post after I read a typical vapid, conventional wisdom peddling mush of an article from the tragically unaccomplished Megan McCain who has, for obvious and downright depressing reasons been given the perch of contributing author to the ultimate nexus of Hollywood and politics, The Daily Beast.

Matthew Ylgesias captures the disappointment many of us feel that someone like Meghan McCain has been given a microphone to pontificate on the issues of the day:

So instead I’ll just say that the fact that Meghan McCain is, apparently successfully, launching a career as a political pundit capable of garnering a book deal worth hundreds of thousands of dollars all based on being the daughter of a failed presidential candidate should give people pause about the meritocratic nature of American capitalism. I mean, more power to her. But I’d sleep better at night knowing she’s going to pay a very high tax rate on that book deal, and the money could be put to use giving Pell Grants and health insurance to kids who don’t have multi-millionaire celebrity dads.

But some of you might be inclined to give Meghan the benefit of the doubt so let's go to the record, in this case her article entitled "Obama's Oil Spill Insanity."

In the article we get piercing insights such as:

As we push Day 50 of this oil spill, I find myself questioning why it has taken so long for the mainstream media, aside from James Carville and Chris Matthews, to start putting extreme pressure on the president. I wonder whether the media, or the American public, for that matter, would be reacting to this oil disaster differently if a Republican were in office right now.

What would this "extreme pressure" accomplish? Is it in BP's interest to slow walk a solution? When the company is losing 25% of it's share price I would say that the company is probably already experiencing "extreme pressure" from its shareholders. Meghan's desire for the President to engage in some histrionics stems from the naive belief that the executive holds mythical powers to solve all problems.

This is in stark contrast to the Katrina disaster which the government saw coming and supposedly planned for. Only after did we learn that Bush had installed his crony, Brownie, whose previous experience was managing thoroughbred horses, to prepare our disaster response.

I grew up vacationing in Destin, Florida, and to hear that the oil has now reached that area is heartbreaking. Anyone who has been to Destin knows how spectacular its white beaches are and how tragic the idea of them covered in oil is. I am scared, I am upset, and I am angry that the media and the American public aren’t putting more pressure on the president. Yes, it is just as much BP’s problem, and the company should be held equally accountable. I also don’t begin to understand the extreme bureaucracy involved with a British oil company in the context of this oil leak. But what I need right now is more intense leadership from my president. And I need more emotion. Maybe these are things he is incapable of doing or his administration doesn’t think is a smart idea. I no longer care.

This paragraph is almost too rich to tackle, but I'll attempt to translate:

I grew up vacationing in Destin, Florida, and to hear that the oil has now reached that area is heartbreaking. Anyone who has been to Destin knows how spectacular its white beaches are and how tragic the idea of them covered in oil is.

Translation:

I grew up rich and privileged and had the opportunity to vacation in Florida unlike most of you sorry, middle class saps. Now that my conspicuous carbon consuming habits have finally affected me in a tangible and obvious way it is now clear to me our dependency on oil has tragic consequences.

Please pay no attention to the fact that my father, facing a challenge from the Tea Baggers, has abandoned all of his principled stances on global warming and limiting greenhouse gases.

I am scared, I am upset, and I am angry that the media and the American public aren’t putting more pressure on the president.

Translation:

Eager to reinforce the stereotype of my generation as grown up children, when confronted with adult problems I get scared, upset and angry like I used to get when I was six years old and I yearn for a father figure to take care of these overwhelming and perplexing problems.

Speaking of perplexing...

I also don’t begin to understand the extreme bureaucracy involved with a British oil company in the context of this oil leak. But what I need right now is more intense leadership from my president.

Translation:

Well here I can't really translate, just comment. If you can't begin to understand an important aspect of the issue maybe you should refrain from pontificating about it on the pages of a prominent website. And I can't even begin, or possibly I don't want to begin wondering what in the hell she means when she says she wants "more intense leadership from my president." Intense? Really? Just a bizzare choice of adjective.

Here is someone else who couldn't begin to understand the ways of the modern world. Although unlike Meghan this character knew all to well the ways of the modern world and was simply trying to pull a fast one on the guillable American public:



Here is another classic:

Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer @ Yahoo! Video

Maybe these are things he is incapable of doing or his administration doesn’t think is a smart idea. I no longer care.

Translation:

I am not going to think about this problem any longer. I'm just going to sit around and pout and sip Cosmopolitans at elite, night clubs none of you could ever dream of gaining entrance to until my emotional pain is salved.

Meghan concludes with:

The idea of waiting until August for this leak to be stopped is infuriating. I do believe Obama is working as hard as possible, but his problem is that he is not conveying this to the American public. I want him to show me how angry he is. Because at this point, it seems as if his trips to Louisiana are things he is doing in between hanging out with rock stars.

So she concedes that she has no problem with anything Obama is doing she just really needs him to show he cares. So I'm at a loss as to what is the whole point of this article. If she knows that Obama is working as hard as possible why is she so distraught? It seems as if she is just lashing out like spoiled brat teenager. Maybe this is not as it seems but simply what it actually is.

Meghan McCain follows in the ineffectual footsteps of her nepotistic brothers and sisters. The only unique flair she adds to this well worn path is that she throws a temper tantrum while she does it.