What Catholic Dems Should Say About Abortion

From Stephen Suh at Cogitamus:

First, church doctrine has no place determining this nation's laws and policies. Even aside from the many American citizens who belong to other religions or none at all, there are many Christian denominations which either fully support a woman's right to choose or temper their abortion stance with the realization that no doctrine or policy can account for every situation.

Second, Democrats are neither "pro" nor "anti" anything as an abstraction. Democrats support the right to choose, full stop. Abortions occur in every nation, and have for all of human history, so obviously women have seen the need for them no matter what laws may be in place. As Democrats we not only want a society in which a woman who needs to terminate a pregnancy can do so safely, but a society in which those women who want to bear a(nother) child can actually choose to do that as well. The Republicans who are so affronted by our stance have been busily making it harder for women to choose to carry their pregnancies to term by opposing attempts to expand healthcare, parental leave and other pro-family policies supported by the Democratic party.

Finally, we're tired of Republicans continually spreading the myth of promiscuous women who, after having unprotected sex with multiple partners, run down to the local clinic for a quickie abortion during their lunch break. For some women, abortion is a difficult decision; for others it is simple and clear. But it is never made lightly. The fact that the Republicans cannot make their argument without painting half the population of the United States as either irredeemably stupid or conniving whores just shows how intellectually and morally bankrupt their position is.

There. That's not so difficult, is it?

Zooey!

"I don't feel very good about the last eight years. And I feel like we're in a place where we really need _ there's a lot of damage that we need to recover from, and we need a very strong and inspirational leader to bring us out of this. It's pretty grim." - Zooey Deschanel in Denver

Grim? Well, not from where we're sitting.

Ready to Defend The Constitution

Ezra Klein highlights Bill Clinton's money quote:

My fellow Democrats, I say to you, Barack Obama is ready to lead America and restore American leadership in the world. Ready to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. Barack Obama is ready to be president."

A somewhat subtle--and important--turn on the ready-to-lead meme. Being "ready" to wage endless war is a different thing than being ready to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the U.S."

Thin Skin

McCain on "honor".

Monkeys Working Around The Clock

Fox "news" gets the scoop on Obama and William Ayers once having had a cup of coffee together. Maybe. John Cole responds.

Arrogant and Dangerous

Clark Stooksbury, via John Cole, on the Greek columns:

I’m not paying close enough attention to know if this whole Obamamessiah business is justified. For all I know, Obama might literally believe himself to be a Greek God; but even if he does, he would still be less arrogant than George Bush and most likely less dangerous than John McCain.

"Arrogant" and "Dangerous" might be good ways to describe the last eight years and what McCain-Rove are promising for the future. It'd be good to see these terms find there way into an ad buy or two.

Bill Clinton: Mailing It In

Josh and Andrew seemed to like it. I thought the Big Dog was all over the place, issue-wise, pretty stiff rhetorically.

And while it was early enough so that most people probably missed it, please don't ever allow Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Rockefeller near a microphone at a Dem convention ever again. Ever.

I guess Biden finished strong, but his opening moments were just nothing much. Very bland stuff.

A lot of people liked Kerry's speech, too. And while the "candidate McCain--Senator McCain" line was pretty good, Kerry also managed to throw in something about what a threat Iran was being, so I don't know where this takes us except into Republican 100-year-wars land.

I think if Obama loses, and someone besides Hillary throws their hat in the ring for '12, they will probably lose their knee-caps. I'm not saying that in support or opposition to a future Hillary candidancy, I'm just saying. Something's missing at this gig, I don't know what. Genuine specifics, maybe? The biggest threat coming from a McCain presidency in my mind is obviously the courts, but I don't know that that point is being made or will be made. In the absence of that, we have our candidates basically agreeing with McCain and Rove that Iran is a Serious Threat That Must Be Delt With. Not sure what the change is we're supposed to be believing in.

Maybe Obama will woo me back tomorrow night. Here's hoping.

But Iran IS "tiny" and DOESN'T "pose a serious threat"

From TPM:

New McCain ad sliming Obama for supposedly saying Iran is "tiny" and "doesn't pose a serious threat" is a comically dishonest distortion of what Obama actually said.

Probably the most infuriating development of the past several years has been--in addition to the fact that the invade-Iraq cheerleaders are still treated like Very Serious People--is the drumbeat to "do something" about that Very Terrible and Exceedingly Dangerous Threat, Iran. Be nice if Obama and the Dems pushed back on this, but unfortunately, in his AIPAC concession speech, Obama largely ceded the ground to the "dangerous threat" forces. And although it is largely water under or over the bridge, so did Hilary (who will certainly be the Party's nominee next time if Obama doesn't win this year).

Defeatists in Iraq

So, who is this Mister Maliki dude-guy and why is he demanding that U.S. troops precipitously withdraw from his country by a fixed date?

Blegh

AT&T cozying with the Bush Dogs at the DNC week in Denver. No media allowed.

Not sure I can watch any of this.

Evolution of a Right Wing Attack Dog

On Joe Lieberman's saying "Obama has not always put his country first", Andrew Sullivan says:

And so the evolution from hawkish Democrat to Republican attack-dog continues. What Lieberman is doing is what a vice-presidential candidate tends to do: savage the opponent. Or more accurately, what Rove Republican vice-presidential candidates have been trained to do: savage the opponent as a traitor. It's funny but I don't recall him ever being so aggressive when he was Gore's running mate.

Yeah, well, 9/11 changed everything, blah, blah, blah.

Death Throes

On Evan Bayh's VP prospects, after the Indiana Senator signed on to the 100-year war in Iraq, only to later admit his vote was a mistake:

"The antiwar people cannot define the Democratic Party,” said Al From, a founder of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, of which Mr. Bayh was chairman for four years. “I think Evan’s real strength is you get someone on the ticket who has a record of being strong on national security, and that is a very important quality to have.”

I know we're close to a deal to give Lieberman to the Repubs. What will it take for the GOP to take the DLC and its head-pubah, Al From, off our hands, too?

2017

Tired of Republican presidential candidates and administrations that pander to the club for growth wing of their party by always clamoring for larger and more frequent tax cuts? Tired of Republican administrations bent on invading and occupying middle eastern countries for hundreds of years?

Then 2017 is the magic number for you to remember. In 2017, the party's over for Republicans always looking to bust the budget and rule the world. In 2017, Social Security income will for the first time in decades fall short of what's needed to pay monthly benefits. This means that beginning in 2017, Republican administrations and Republican congresses won't have the Social Security surpluses to kick around anymore. Or rather, beginning in 2017, when Social Security is no longer running a cash-flow surplus--as it currently does and has done since the 1980's--Republicans bent on wars without end and tax cuts for the rich and famous, won't have any Social Security surpluses to help them out, and they'll have to either borrow the money from outside of the government, or start trying to live within the country's means. In 2017, Republicans, who have always threatened to starve the beast of government but who have in actuality always governed like drunken sailors--will actually have to start cutting back on the military outposts they want to establish around the world and tax cuts they want to enact at home.

2017--When things really start to get fun.

Anthrax (cont.)

David Neiwert:

One thing we do know: Once it became apparent that the phony theory that the anthrax contained bentonite -- which was how the attacks were originally connected to Iraq -- would not hold water, it was also clear that this was a case of pure domestic terrorism, and very likely right-wing terrorism at that. And it was at this point that all interest in solving the case, both on an official level and within the media, evaporated.

I'm not sure I'd go quite as far as Neiwert here. There was, apparently, an ongoing, FBI-led investigation of the matter, which resulted in the events of last week. So there was some official level interest in the case, however questionable its effectiveness or purpose.

But as far as the upper reaches of political officialdom are concerned, all interest certainly evaporated. And obviously all interest evaporated among the media elite as well. And to be truthful, the anthrax-blackout on the part of the administration and media helped suppress interest in the story among liberal bloggers, too.

But the obvious stinkiness of this story should encourage a more widespread diligence, from professional and non-professional investigative sources now. Or not. I've no doubt the professional media would just assume this story go away. And we obviously can't let that happen.

The Anthrax Letters, 9/11, and the Invasion of Iraq

Read today's Greenwald.

A week after 9/11, letters containing the lethal substance Anthrax, are mailed to the offices of Senator's Daschle and Leahy, as well as to NBC anchor Tom Brokaw. The mailings result in the deaths of five people, while scores of others become ill. The letters contain statements purported to be from Muslim "extremists" who want to bring death to America.

ABC news, in the person of Brian Ross, reports--on the basis of four supposedly high up and separate sources at the lab--that tests on the anthrax at a U.S. military lab at Ft. Detrick, Maryland, reveal the presence of bentonite in the anthrax. Bentonite is said to be uniquely associated with Saddam Hussein's anthrax production program in Iraq.

On the basis of the letters and the reports by ABC news, leading columnists, such as Richard Cohen, come out in support of an invasion of Iraq. The neo-conservative journal, The Weekly Standard, also trumpets the ABC news reports of bentonite-laced anthrax letters as a basis for launching an invasion of Iraq. In 2002, the president identifies an "Axis of Evil", consisting of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, with Iraq being included, in part, on the basis of their known production and dissemination of the lethal substance anthrax.

In March 2003, the U.S. invades Iraq, and in the course of the war and occupation, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's are tortured, killed or maimed. The price of oil has skyrocketed, and more than five years after the invasion, more than 150,000 U.S. troops continue to occupy Iraq.

In 2008, a leading suspect in the anthrax letter attacks, a top researcher and 35-year veteran at Ft. Detrick from whence came the ABC news reports of a bentonite-Iraq connection, commits suicide.

Nearly seven years since the anthrax attacks and the highly inflammatory and false ABC news reports, the network and its reporter, Brian Ross, still haven't come clean as to their supposed "sources" at Ft. Detrick.

To sum, anthrax laced letters purported to be from Muslim extremists in Iraq or close to Saddam Hussein, are mailed to U.S. Senators and media anchormen, traumatizing the country immediately after the 9/11 attacks. Highly placed sources in a U.S. military lab reveal to ABC news that tests indicate the presence of a substance uniquely associated with Iraqi anthrax programs. Scores among the political elite draq a connection between the anthrax and Iraq, helping to make the 2003 Iraq invasion publicly and politically palatable. Seven years later, as the investigation purports to center on a U.S. researcher as the source of the attacks, the leading suspect commits suicide. ABC news continues to with-hold the identification of its supposed sources.

How weird and outrageous is all of this?

Is this all they have?

I guess Obama's celebrity status, (a byproduct of the GOP candidate's snarl and lack of charisma I'd say) as opposed to his policy proposals, is to be the dividing factor in this election. This is pretty weak tea, whose only probable impact is to lose the Britney vote. Maybe it will sit well with Middle America. Who knows? But it sounds pretty vapid to me. I thought McCain would be better than this.

Trashin the Place

I can't imagine the McCain campaign or the folks at GOP headquarters were thrilled to wake up this morning and see the Washington Post with an above-the-fold story calling McCain a liar, or the Ruth Marcus op-ed charging the Administration with having "trashed the place"--and Marcus wasn't even referring to the yeoman work of her Post colleague detailing the Administration's hack hiring and staffing of the Iraqi occupation or the Katrina catastrophe and the hack hiring at FEMA--for the hack hiring practices of the Justice Department's Monica Goodling, spawning a new political shorthand for ideology and incompetence in government run-amok--"Goodlings", as in "Goodlings Gone Wild".

(And a pretty good smack-down to boot by Marcus of her other Post colleague, David Broder, for complaining of the Clintons' "trashing the place" a decade ago. Ahhh, the nineties. Them were the days).

Neither can I imagine that seeing headlines and pictures about the Senate's longest reigning Republican, the Hulk Tubester, Ted Stevens, being indicted on corruption charges, doing much to cheer the ranks of more would be hack hirers and government bathtub drowning specialists at RNC headquarters or in the new Minority offices in Congress.

Just another stellar day in the GOP neighborhood.

Obama Should Townhall McCain

I know this is probably against the grain, with McCain liking specially-tailored townhall meeting-style debates and all. But I believe Obama should agree to some townhall style debates and not be overly cautious in restricting the crowd that attends.

If the "Obama is a prima donna candidate more comfortable parading before foreign audiences who can't or won't come down to earth to hobnob with the Regular Americans" meme isn't a constant GOP trope yet, I can guarantee it will be as the campaign goes on.

On top of it, Obama needs to be seen getting his hands dirty, as it were, taking risks, campaigning in relatively unfamiliar terrains and before potentially hostile audiences. I fear he's being too careful, in danger of immitating the overly-assured 1948 Dewey campaign whose candidate once wouldn't come out from inside the train to greet voters while Truman spoke out from "whistlestops" all around the country, helping to pull off the come from behind win.

David Broder: Whiner

The headline--not usually penned by the columnist--is positive, but from the text it's clear Obama's overseas trip has "the dean" pouting [Bulworth comments in italics]:

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It made no sense when Barack Obama left the country on his nine-day overseas tour for some of my fellow columnists to describe it as a high-risk venture. [Really? Why not? Iraq is still a war-zone, and American officials and Iraqi leaders are still bunkered in the Green Zone]

Foreign leaders, who can read the polls as well as anyone, would go out of their way not to embarrass a man who may, six months from now, be president of the United States.

Obama prepares thoroughly for the big occasions. He is almost always well briefed, and he was traveling in sharp company -- with Sens. Jack Reed and Chuck Hagel -- so you knew he would be ready for these meetings. The chance of a major screw-up was minimal. [The dean was disappointed there wasn't]

And as millions of Americans who watched the primary campaign learned, Obama is invariably articulate. There would be no verbal gaffes. [In other words, the dean is saying Obama is "slick"]

So where was the risk? [How about in the fact that he was traveling to Iraq, which is still unsafe enough to require that the specifics of official visits not be announced]

It existed mainly in the minds of some journalists and, perhaps, in the musings of Obama staffers who wanted to hype the journey. [What kind of slap is this? I thought McCain and the Republicans pretty much goaded Obama into taking the trip--but no mention of that here by "the dean"]

Acknowledging all that, it is still the case that Obama is pulling off this trip in great style and thereby has enhanced his Oval Office credentials. [The dean is implying Obama is all style no substance]

What he could not have counted on is the role that luck has played in the events that have surrounded the tour and in the actions of a cast of supporting players. When, on the first day of the trip, Obama stepped onto a basketball court at the air base in Kuwait and sent his first three-point shot cleanly through the basket, you knew that the gods had decided to favor him. [The dean's man, McBush, is so much the underdog, the "gods" are against him]

He could not have known in advance that on the very day he left Chicago, President Bush would suddenly reverse six years of policy and send a high-ranking State Department official off to a meeting with Iranian and European nuclear negotiators.

He could not have guessed that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, eager to promise his constituents that the American occupation would not be endless, would persuade Bush to declare agreement to "a time horizon" for the departure of U.S. troops. [The dean thinks "a time horizon" is ridiculous, and Iraq's puppet ruler is pandering to his "constituents"]

And he could not have assumed that a Maliki spokesman, briefing reporters on the prime minister's meeting with Obama, would volunteer the comment that "the end of 2010 is the appropriate time for the withdrawal" of U.S. troops.

Suddenly, long-standing Obama policies -- direct talks with Iran and a 16-month timetable for withdrawal -- seemed to be ratified by events. [Right. Who knew an invasion of Iraq--which McBush favored and Obama opposed--would necessitate the occupation of Iraq by hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops for decades on end and result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians?]

So it was a confident and contented Obama who faced reporters Tuesday in Jordan for his first news conference of the trip. He handled the expected question about his meeting with Gen. David Petraeus by saying he perfectly understood the U.S. commander's opposition to any timetable that would limit his options, but that as commander in chief, he, Obama, would weigh Iraq's needs against those in Afghanistan -- and also against the interests of the domestic economy.

It was a skillful answer, not rejecting Petraeus's views but asserting a president's own larger responsibility. [To the dean, "skillful" means artful, stylish, but not substantive or Serious]

On the other hand, his saying that there was no way to know what would have happened in Iraq if the United States had followed his advice to start the withdrawal of troops two years ago rather than embarking on the "surge" seemed disingenuous. Obama still has trouble admitting when he is wrong. [The "surge", which the dean favors because McBush and his pals favor it, has solved all Iraq's, and America's problems--but we still can't bring the troops home or tear down the Green Zone. And gas is still $4 a gallon]

But his troubles are minimal compared with those of John McCain, who looks like the odd man out in the ongoing foreign policy debate. Having given steadfast support to the policies of both Maliki and George Bush, he has a legitimate complaint: They owed him more consideration in the way they announced their shifts. As it is, McCain appears isolated from trends in both Baghdad and Washington. [Waaaahh. How come Bush and that Iraqi president guy didn't get McBush's approval for their actions and comments first?]

McCain's frustration at the turn of events is something he cannot conceal. The domestic economy was always going to be a problem for him -- even before gasoline hit $4 a gallon. But he had a credible position to argue on national security issues and a record that was consistent and in some respects prescient. [Right. Who knew the Iraqi invasion and occupation--which McBush favored and Obama opposed--would cost trillions of dollars, cause a religiously-driven civil war among Iraqi's, bond Iraq closer to our other supposed enemy Iran, kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, and require hundreds of thousands of American troops to occupy another Middle Eastern country for decades on end. And that gas would still be $4 a gallon five years after we "liberated" Iraq]

But now the ground has shifted -- and his opponent was right where he needed to be to capture the advantage. July has been a cruel month for McCain. [The dean thinks July has sucked]

----

Easily Broder's worst column in months, if not years.

What About The Green Zone? Part XVIU

The AP:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Tuesday that security in Iraq has improved and that the United States urgently needs to turn its attention to Afghanistan.

I keep wondering about the status of the Green Zone. The article states Obama met local Iraqi leaders in Ramidi, in AnBar Province. But what kind of travel is permitted for most Americans and Iraqi national leaders around, into, and from, the walled Green Zone?

If it's now secure in Baghdad, tear down the Green Zone walls, and start announcing scheduled visits by American officials.

Until then, I'd say not much has changed.