There is a conservative mindset that jobs are manna from the corporate heavens, and that we workers should be grateful for the lavish and philanthropic beneficence of businesses to grace us with jobs, as if it were a special favor they were doing us.

Let’s get this straight: employment is a two-way bargain which benefits both sides, hopefully equally–but all too often more to the benefit of the corporation. A company does no more a favor to a person by hiring them than the person does to the company by doing work for them. It is an exchange of currency for labor, plain and simple.

A company needs people working for it just as much as the workers need the jobs. Neither can survive without the other. But because there are usually more workers than there are jobs, businesses tend to be at an advantage and demand obeisance from the worker (who calls whom “sir”?), and often abuses that power. A company is rarely cowed by an employee’s threat to quit, but employers commonly cow workers with threats of firings. More than once I have been thoroughly rogered by an employer which understood very well that I would suffer a great deal before surrendering my job, and used that to steal from me (no exaggeration–I once had an employer literally steal $700 from me, and another I had to sue to get them to cough up more than $500 in unpaid wages). In the first case, I was threatened with termination if I complained too much; in the second, I had already quit. (This is why I like where I work presently; I am well taken care of by my employer back in the U.S., a not-for-profit institution.)

When a business hires an employee, it is by no means an act of munificence. For-profit employers, as a rule, try to get as much as they can from an employee for as little as they can get away with paying. They do their hardest to hire the best talent they can manage, and pay only what they know they have to, by law or by the standard minimally expected to attract the required talent.

But generous? Forget it. The laws requiring a minimum wage, labor laws about working hours and conditions, rules and regulations protecting employees from fraud or abuse are there for an excellent reason: left unchecked, businesses will abuse their employees. If businesses were so kind to their workers, none of these checks would be necessary. This is simply the nature of a corporation: it wants money, its chief goal and reason for existence. A few liberal corporations will treat their workers well under the philosophy of enlightened self-interest, knowing that if they treat their workers well, their workers will perform well. But Wall Street frowns on this, castigating firms which it feels are too generous to the worker at the immediate cost of the almighty shareholder in their never-ending quest to wring every last dollar of short-term profit out of a business.

So let’s abandon the conservative myth that somehow corporations are gracing us with their altruistic, magnanimous charity by allowing us the great privilege of working for them so they can collect a profit from our labor.

A “special comment,” if you will.

I have just become one of the crowd that is now firmly planted in the territory of forced partisanship. This has simply gone too far. If the Republicans have gone so thoroughly into the territory of anything-goes, balls-to-the-wall lying, fear-mongering and terrorizing, even resorting to thuggish mob shock-troop fear and intimidation, then they no longer deserve to be listened to.

From the very beginning, Obama tried–sincerely–to be bipartisan. Beginning with his first big initiative, the stimulus (which, by the way, now seems to be working), he bent way over backwards trying to include and appease the conservatives. He called them in for special White House meetings that even their Democratic colleagues did not enjoy. He integrated a large number of their demands into the bill, altering a great deal of the shape and form of the package until his own supporters started getting angry at how much was being given away. And then the Republicans voted, en masse, against the proposal and stabbed Obama in the back, accusing him of not being bipartisan.

The right wing and its propaganda arm Fox “News” began a steady drumbeat of vile, filthy smears that only heightened and heightened until you thought it could go no higher than its current crescendo, until it broke through into a whole new plane of insanely hateful rhetoric, until today accusations of Obama being a new Hitler, of forming death squads and death camps and death panels, of being a socialist, communist, terrorist, and worse have become so commonplace that they almost fade into the background of demented shrieking from the right wing of American discourse.

When it comes to the level that not only Sarah Palin, but a large number of prominent Republicans and incumbent politicians on the right begin a steady drone of bald-faced lies, like euthanizing grandma or forming death panels, lies proven to be lies beyond any shadow of a doubt and yet senators are stoking up fear and anger in crowds with these very lies–things have gone too far.

When the right wing creates such vehement anger and fear to the point where they start organizing angry mobs to overcome public meetings for the opposition, shouting down other Americans and their representatives, even to the point of coming to these meetings armed, things have gone much too far.

And when it becomes a celebrated act among the right for a man to wear a loaded weapon to a presidential event, holding a sign that declares that “tyrants” must be killed, and he clearly sees the president as a tyrant–when armed protesters bearing signs advocating the assassination of the president start populating presidential events, things have gone so far beyond the pale that it staggers the mind.

There is no chance for bipartisanship when one side goes to such hideous extremes. There can be no reasonable compromise. There in fact can be no respect for the contentions of such a sociopathic, toxic, lying, amoral movement so bought and owned by corporate interests that they would shred the very fabric of Democracy itself and promote violent extremism so as to prevent reasonable health care to pass to the great benefit of the people.

They. Have. Gone. Too. Far.

So, to hell with them. If no compromise is what they want, then give them exactly that. Do what we know is right and let them fester in their own cesspool of dark, twisted fantasy. They deserve no credence or respect.

A few months ago, Rush Limbaugh gave a speech to a fawning, cheering crowd of right-wingers in which he defined “bipartisanship” to mean Democrats “being forced to agree with us after we politically have cleaned their clocks and beaten them”; in a demonstration of Freudian projection, he then stated that this is what Democrats want to do to Republicans, and used that image to spur conservatives to fight like hell against any attempt at bipartisanship.

This warped, perverted view of how Democracy worked repulsed me. At the time, I could only imagine that I would never endorse such a horribly one-sided philosophy of governing. And I still don’t want to, which is why I have resisted for so long. A few months back, I hinted at this kind of idea, but it was more of a “wouldn’t it be nice if we could do this” fantasy, like wishing that Obama could be as dictatorial and aggressive as Bush, and not an actual, stubborn determination. But now there seems to be no choice–either we must forge ahead alone, or succumb to the madness which has engulfed the right wing. I feel sad, like part of the America I love has died–no, has been smothered by those seeking power and money.

But that’s the way it is. We pass the health care reform as it should be, no compromises, no concessions, and then just wait for the anger to (hopefully) peter out. Use what influence has been accrued to pass all the other things we know will work to repair the country and bring it back to a place where it might regain its former pedestal of esteem in the world as a leader of liberty, progress, and wealth.

Eventually, as the economy (hopefully) continues to improve, as health care gets better, as the state of the nation in general begins to recover, and as the nation becomes more used to these laws being not just acceptable but in fact productive and true to the American ideal, maybe we can head out of this darkness and come back to a place where actual bipartisanship is again an achievable goal instead of a hope dashed by an extremist right wing unwilling to even consider any form of cooperation. Maybe, someday, this demented nightmare of right-wing extremism will fade away as an embarrassing chapter of American politics.

I want my America back, indeed.

There’s been a bit of noise concerning Charles Krauthammer’s assertion that Clinton must have paid a hefty ransom for the release of the two imprisoned reporters, despite the fact that North Korea’s desire for attention explains their move more than suitably enough, and that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that anything aside from attention was paid.

Many are scratching their heads over Krauthammer’s accusation–where could this come from, how could he seriously suggest this?

What needs to be remembered is that a common neurosis among conservatives is projection: one frequently sees right-wingers assuming that liberals will act exactly the way conservatives act, especially when it’s a questionable or objectionable action. Conservatives would let their bias bleed all over their reporting, and so assume liberals do the same; many conservatives would decide their vote regarding a black man because of the color of his skin, and so they assume liberals would have the same motivations; conservatives easily use the ends to justify the means, as in election fraud, so they just assume liberals do so too; conservatives would object to a woman or Hispanic nominee on the basis of gender and race, and so believe that’s the only reason that liberals would object; conservatives rewrite history with abandon, and so have trouble believing that liberals don’t as well. Conservative projection is easily observed in all areas of political discourse.

Krauthammer believes that Clinton paid a high price simply because that’s how a conservative would approach the situation if a direct use of force were not available. Look at how Reagan handled hostages in Iran.

True, it’s possible that Krauthammer is just making this up so he can attack Clinton and claim that an accomplishment by a liberal was in fact a scandalous failure, but the same principle of projection applies with the story made up about how Clinton is supposed to have failed; a conservative’s mindset makes a straight line to that solution.

Projection amongst conservatives can be seen very clearly among conservative Christians, in many ways. Take moral behavior as one example. They act in a way they believe if ‘moral’ for the primary reason that they believe god will punish them horrifically if they do not; as a result, they assume that atheists must be utterly immoral, because they don’t fear divine punishment for misbehavior. They project their own mechanism for morality on those different from them and can’t understand why it doesn’t apply. The same goes for religious belief itself; such people will puzzle over atheists not believing in god, asking the question, “what do you believe in?”–not comprehending that it is possible to go through life without believing in some kind of supreme being in the universe.

When trying to understand the views of conservatives regarding liberals, if you keep this fact in mind, a lot becomes much clearer and easier to understand.

When the memo came out among tea-baggers entailing how open, public town-hall meetings led by Democrats could be disrupted, I disregarded it. I wanted to be indignant at what asses these people were, but I concluded that it was some probably just some small-time staffer throwing out an idea that never would come to anything. Maybe I just did not want to believe that things had come to this.

Boy, was I wrong. Here’s a sample, from a town hall given by Senator Arlen Specter and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius:

The memo (scanned here), in short, gives a number of strategies for right-wingers to follow so they can infiltrate and disrupt meetings between Democratic politicians and their constituents, and to do so in such a way that it appears that their own people are against them. The activists are encouraged to find as many participants as they can, coordinate their agenda, distribute talking points so that aggressive questions can be hurled at the politician. Among the tactics: spread out amongst the audience so it looks like there are more of you; yell out and challenge the politician at every opportunity. Don’t wait until the audience is invited to participate–“the goal is to rattle him,” shouting stuff and then sitting down throughout the meeting.

And they’re doing it, in larger and larger numbers. Some of the events that were disrupted, detailed here: Saturday, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) was dogged by tea-baggers, while Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA) found himself confronted by a mob of right-wingers when he tried to have a scheduled meeting with constituents; Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) stopped giving town halls a month and a half ago because of them; a month ago, Rep. Dan Maffei (D-NY) stopped holding town halls because right-wingers disrupted any gathering he held; and Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) was forced to leave a picnic event when a crowd of right-wingers started shouting the Pledge of Allegiance through bullhorns.

To me, this is even scarier than a lot of the disturbing stuff that right-wingers are doing. This is not just plain old dirty tricks, this goes against the very principles of Democracy. This is shock-troops stuff. Disrupt the Democratic process, don’t let the people hear and participate if you don’t like the message. Don’t just debate the opposition, shut them down. I hate making extreme charges, but I feel that this well warrants it. Because it cannot be easily countered or stopped, and because it deprives the public a chance to interact with their representatives, it is essentially an assault on Democracy itself.

When you match this with the Republican tendency to have members-only town hall meetings, to carefully screen the audience and only allow the faithful in, you begin to see the difference between conservatives and liberals today.

Republicans have started to leave the idea of true Democracy and are quickly devolving into the kind of party that should frighten you if it doesn’t already:

• Using extreme pejoratives: opponents are no longer “my colleague,” or “my respected opponent,” but are instead now tagged as “unpatriotic,” “un-American,” “socialist,” “communist,” “terrorist”;
• Appealing to fear, hurling hysterical accusations based on nothing but political opposition: the other side is “destroying America,” they want to “euthanize the elderly,” and so on;
• Appealing to hate: racial hatred, gender hatred, class hatred–Democrats are racist because they didn’t approve extremist Hispanic nominees, they’re sexist because they opposed an extremist woman nominee, they’re not from “Real America”;
• Whipping crowds into a frenzy: remember McCain and Palin last year, pouring on the invective so thick that participants in their crowds started shouting death threats against the opposition candidate?
• Appealing to the opposite of reason: the conservative side is more and more relying on fabrications, misleading insinuations, and outright lies to forward their case; Sarah Palin, for example, can hardly open her mouth without lying, and she was virtually idolized for it;
• Obstruction and disruption: block everything the opposition does, try to shut them down, don’t let them get a word in edgewise, as we see in the memo outlined above;
• Control the media: accuse it of having an imaginary left-wing bias so that in defense, it will show more right-wing bias to shunt the criticism, then pour money into creating right-wing media of your own, drowning the airwaves with propaganda;
• Control perception: make your opponents’ very name a pejorative, and carefully use language to define issues to your liking–see Newt Gingrich’s memo from the 1996 on this.

This is not a list of baseless charges–note the examples for each point, and you can probably think of many more for each case.

I am probably leaving out a few more key elements, but that’s a fair list right there. These are the characteristic strategies of the Republican party and of right-wing politics in general as of the past few decades–and the decline is only accelerating. More and more we are seeing this stuff, and it is only getting stronger and stronger. How far down the road before the violence we see in right-wing culture–the shooting of abortion doctors, the extremist, paranoid gun advocates going on violent sprees–become one more element in the arsenal of right-wing politics? Encourage the people at the fringe to commit acts of violence against the opposition and then sit back and claim you have nothing to do with it? How long before the mobs they send to meetings devolve into violence?

I truly hope I am over-reacting to all this, but I don’t think I am. The right wing of this country is starting to get seriously scary.

Nate Silver has a very good read on this one:

Palin is the most Bushlike of all the Republicans who have emerged as contenders for the national ticket: the smirkiness, the smugness, the regional accent (although Palin’s, I assume, is not feigned), the malapropisms, the contempt for media (both the people who cover it and their mediums), the express deference to religious faith, the occasionally undeniably likable moments of joviality and regular guy/gal-ness, the tendency toward self-dealing, the bulldog/barracuda mentality, the comfort in one’s own skin (Palin was crippled when she lost hers late in the campaign), the (apparent) preference for isolation in [Wasilla, Crawford], and last but not least, the no-holds-barred, no-apologies conservatism.

However, Nate missed perhaps one of the biggest similarities between the two: the lack of competence. When we first heard of Palin, the first reaction was, what are her qualifications? The answer turned out to be, almost none. That started the uneasiness–that a cancer-surviving septuagenarian candidate was choosing a running mate with little more than mayoral experience to be a heartbeat away from world leadership. And the more we saw of Palin, the more this initial impression was reinforced. She said she had good credentials in foreign policy because you can see a part of Russia from a part of Alaska? Because Putin flies over her state sometimes? She said that? It didn’t take long to realize that this person was not only unqualified for the presidency, she was dangerously unqualified. Silver’s likening Palin to Bush is most relevant in this regard; after eight years of a moron running the country, we recoiled at the thought of another moron taking his place. That she shared so many of the other qualities Bush had only cemented that feeling.

Silver’s analysis was sparked by a quote from Hot Air’s Allahpundit (the key sentence emphasized by Silver), who held that we despise her because of the

sheer contempt they have for her intellect. To the left, I think, she embodies a sort of comfort with ignorance that they think characterizes most/all conservatives. Why they’ve come to see her that way is complicated (part of it’s probably educational pedigree, part of it’s her affinity for rural pastimes like hunting, part of it’s the Katie Couric interview and the canned answers she gave at the debate with Biden), but I think it’s a mistake to assume that their antipathy is rooted in nothing but fear and defensiveness.

The part Silver highlighted is a good quote, to be sure, but it’s worth noting the reason Allahpundit ascribes to the liberal discomfort with her intellect. He seems to think we see her as ignorant because (a) she’s not a graduate of some elitist ivy-league university, (b) she’s from rural America, and (c) because she gave bad answers in an interview and at a debate.

The first idea, that her education was not good enough, is laughable. I don’t think that anyone paid much attention to that. Does anyone remember what school she went to? I don’t, and frankly I don’t care. I don’t recall anyone on the left criticizing her education, save for possible references to which major she had–but even that was rarely mentioned. The second idea, that we think she’s ignorant because she’s from the sticks, is a knee-jerk conservative response: those elitist coastal liberals hate the “real” America. All one has to do is remember Bill Clinton to realize that this is patently false. And the third idea is flawed only because it is far too limited in scope. Sure, canned answers were not a good thing–they revealed that she could not answer substantive questions on her own–but to say that liberals got the idea that she’s ignorant just from that is like saying that the entirety of conservatives’ dislike for Obama stems from the flag lapel-pin issue.

Allahpundit seems to actually believe that Palin is not ignorant, which we can ascribe to bias; but what is more interesting is the blindness as to why liberals see Palin as ignorant. Either he is not aware of the real reason, or he is uncomfortable mentioning it–perhaps because the reason is so salient. We see Palin as ignorant because she has amply demonstrated that she is. She is clearly an intellectual lightweight–not because she’s a woman, not because she’s from a rural area, but because she has demonstrated it, again and again.

The “I can see Alaska from my house” issue is emblematic: here is a person who seems to actually believe she has strong foreign policy credentials because the farthest reaches of the state she comes from is in viewing distance from the outermost reaches of another country which is controlled from a city 3,700 miles from that border. And she wasn’t joking. She repeated it. She genuinely seemed to believe it.

Did this not worry anyone on the right? Did they not see the problem with someone who could look you square in the eye and make this claim? There are only two possibilities with a statement like that: either she is an unbelievable moron, or she thinks that you are.

Next to her lack of intelligence, the next greatest concern liberals have with Palin–also similar to Bush–is her mendacity. The fact that she could lie–not only lie, but lie so constantly, and lie so transparently–was immensely troubling. The reason so many liberals liked McCain back in 2000 was that we felt he was being truthful. His policies were out of whack with ours, but at least we felt that he was giving us a straight deal, that he respected us and was willing to put it all down on the table and be straight. McCain eventually reversed himself and became a politician’s politician, but even then he tried to capitalize on this image with his whole “straight talk” campaign.

Palin epitomized the antithesis to that image. It seemed that every other word out of her mouth was not only a lie, but a really bad lie. As I mentioned above, it smacked of smug contempt: “I think that you’re so stupid that you’ll believe this incredibly idiotic line I’m feeding you.” And that’s the generous reading–the not-so-generous reading was that she wasn’t lying, but actually believed the lies she was telling.

So yes, we think Palin is ignorant, or worse. And yes, we are uncomfortable because she reminds us in many ways of Bush. But Nate Silver doesn’t reach far back enough in his comparisons. For as much as Palin resembles Bush, Palin and Bush resemble Reagan. And that gets to a more root cause of our discomfort with all of them: smug, amiable dunces who take the rugged-outdoorsmen pose, claim piety, lie indiscriminately, and are unapologetically hard-line right-wingers who allow extremist neocons to run the show behind the scenes. It’s as if the right-wing has found its perfect genotype, and keeps pushing it into leadership roles. And that’s what scares the crap out of us liberals–because we can see all too clearly the incredible damage such people have done to our country.

So, why did Palin resign? There are several different theories:

1. She was telling the truth. Just from her record alone, we can pretty easily dismiss this one outright. Palin is, for the most part, congenitally incapable of telling the truth where her record and policies are concerned.

But truthfully: the media hounding her and political enemies calling for investigations? Please. Even if we accept Palin’s worldview and ignore the fact that she has personally invited every single jab in the media and every single investigation into her wrongdoings, either by making a huge deal of herself or by literally welcoming scrutiny, then what this says about her is that she can’t take the heat. If she is so weak a politician that she can’t stand up to the media, how can we believe that she’ll be capable of standing up to a serious opponent? How would she deal with North Korea? Resign from office because they’re being so mean?

2. She wants freedom to run for president in 2012. If this is true, then Palin is even more of a schizophrenic moron than I thought she was. Nothing says “presidential material” more than quitting in mid-term because you just can’t take all that negativity from the media and the ethics investigators.

She may just as well tattooed the word “QUITTER” on her forehead, because that’s what every opponent–especially her fellow Republicans–will label her as if she tries to run against anybody from now on.

But she might actually believe that this is the right move: that by doing this, she will be a victim (which played very well for her in the Letterman affair), a martyr who sacrificed herself for the people, the party, and her cause. She may actually believe that her speech defused the whole “quitter” stigma just because she tried to call “quitting” “winning.”

If this scenario is true, then she’s in for a bit of a disappointment.

3. Something Big is coming. There is a huge scandal that we haven’t heard about yet, and Palin resigned so as to avoid the worst of its consequences.

This seems to be the best theory because nothing else makes sense; the other two theories are so lacking in credibility that it is commonly assumed that this must be the real reason. We just haven’t seen the other shoe drop yet.

This makes sense on many fronts. First of all, Palin not only lies, steals, and breaks the law, but she has done it so transparently that it defies belief. As we just found out in Vanity Fair:

After one meeting between the governor and legislators in 2007, Lyda Green, then the president of the state senate, returned to her office to catch up on some paperwork. She caught Palin on the news. “And she comes on TV and says, ‘I want to once again confirm that neither I nor my staff ever holds closed-door meetings.’ Well, we had just been in a closed-door meeting for an hour and a half!”

That Palin does this suggests that she may simply have no “ethical filter,” that she simply cannot tell right from wrong, or truth from lie–or else is so blindingly arrogant that she just believes she can get away with anything without even trying to hide it. Either way, it makes it much easier to find her guilty of something. And that may be what happened: that she did something so illegal or unethical that it’s coming to bite her in the ass.

Second, the way she resigned seems tailor-made for pre-emption. She set the stage by making multiple claims that her political enemies were out to get her with false accusations, wasting all that taxpayer money. She’s a victim, she’s trying to tell us–so that when charges come out, she can say, “See! Just what I was talking about, what a coincidence!” and pretend like it’s just another false charge that her enemies have trumped up.

Third, if she quits before charges are made, she removes the scrutiny of being an office-holder. If a huge scandal erupts while you’re governor, then being in office is a liability. If you’re an ex-governor, then it’s old news. She can claim that all of that is behind her, hope that people forget it, and then run for office after it’s all gone away. And let’s face it, you can get away with murder while in office–all you have to do is resign and suddenly investigations collapse. [Edit: in retrospect, this claim is a bit much–criminal investigations can certainly follow you out of office. But it is also true that prosecutors will often stop following a case after the office-holder has left office, that being commonly considered ‘punishment enough.’ A sitting governor who took a bribe is far more of a threat to society than an ex-governor who can no longer cause any harm.]

Sure, quitting and then having a damaging scandal revealed aren’t exactly career-builders, but it may be that she simply has no choice–that staying on as governor would be far worse. If there’s a big scandal coming, then this could be Palin’s best chance to salvage her career.

Of course, there are two more theories:

4. Palin is a total wimp. This is an alternate reading of theory #1, above. Maybe she just can’t take it any more. In which case she doesn’t belong in politics. Or:

5. Palin is batshit insane. This could simply be the act of a completely stupid and crazy person doing things for reasons that only make sense to her. We certainly cannot rule out that possibility. Crazy people don’t need good reasons.

Any other theories?

Late thought: I forgot to mention something that had been rolling through my mind: the timing. Palin announced this on “Take Out the Trash Day,” Friday before a holiday weekend. If this was a push where she really wanted to ride the wave of publicity, she would not have made the statement on a day perfect for burying news stories, a day famous for killing the momentum of news stories.

Another reason not to buy into the idea that she is “gearing up” and “reloading both chambers” for a new political offensive–unless, of course we return to the “crazy” or “stupid” scenarios, in which Palin is showing extremely bad judgment.

Later Update: The Brad Blog is following the stories that the “iceberg scandal” is the reason why Palin resigned, and that it has to do with upcoming federal indictments for embezzlement. Short version: Palin is in trouble for her relationship with the building contractor, Spenard Building Supplies, which has been under investigation by federal authorities. The Wasilla Sports Center and the Palins’ home are both part of the focus. These reports have been circulating for a while, but nothing solid has come out about it yet. Keep in mind, this could just be baseless speculation–people searching for a ‘scandal,’ latching on to an investigation that may or may not be going anywhere, that may or may not even involve Palin herself.

If it is what pushed Palin out, then I have another prediction: seconds after the official announcement is made, the Right Wing will explode in conspiracy theories about how Obama directed the FBI to sabotage the career of his most likely rival in 2012.

I could be wrong; any takers on that bet?

For the time being, the right-wing blogs are speculating on much friendlier theories, like ‘she wants to spend more time with her family,’ or ‘there is a grave illness, and won’t those nasty liberals feel like crap when it comes out.’ Other are still on the ‘brilliant political play’ theory that she’s getting ready for 2012.

This is what I get for reading the news last. I get up every morning and check out batches of web sites–the computer batch, the entertainment batch, the blogs batch, and the news & commentary batch. Sometimes I check the non-news sites first, but when there’s a big story, it gets referenced elsewhere and I find out about it second-hand, as if it’s already old news. I found out about Jackson’s death on Gizmodo, and today read about Palin’s resignation on Pharyngula. PZ Myers did a nice Monty Python “Brave Sir Robin” sendoff, and for a minute I thought he was making the “Palin resigned” story up.

But no, Palin did resign, as I’m sure you know by now. What’s very interesting is to read her official statement, as originally posted, with all the quirky formatting bits.

Right from the beginning, she sets the tone, using the story of Alaska’s purchase by the United States. In essay writing, this is known as an introduction technique, an anecdote that is supposed to be interesting and which (in this case revealingly) supports the thesis statement:

But [then Secretary of State Seward] endured such ridicule and mocking for his vision for Alaska, remember the adversaries scoffed, calling this “Seward’s Folly”. Seward withstood such disdain as he chose the uncomfortable, unconventional, but RIGHT path to secure Alaska, so Alaska could help secure the United States.

Palin, from the start, sets out to define herself as an Alaskan and American hero unjustly maligned by fools. It’s worthy of note that Palin identified Seward as “a member of President Abe Lincoln’s cabinet,” despite the fact that he arranged the purchase two years after Lincoln’s assassination. No good conservative could fail to throw in a Lincoln reference somehow to add oomph to their Republican creds. Palin continues:

People who know me know that besides faith and family, nothing’s more important to me than our beloved Alaska.

So, I’m quitting.

So to serve the state is a humbling responsibility…

So humbling that I’m quitting.

My administration’s accomplishments speak for themselves. We work tirelessly for Alaskans.

Right up until we quit!

Palin then drones on about her masterful achievements, including some of her classic whoppers:

And we made common sense conservative choices to eliminate personal luxuries like the jet, the chef, the junkets… the entourage.

The jet that she (didn’t) sell on eBay (for a $600,000 loss)? Oh, and the chef who was “eliminated” first to a make-work job, and then to cook for the legislative lounge (because Palin moved to Wasilla and didn’t need a full-time chef anymore), saving Alaska nothing. And the “junkets”? They must have been ginormous under her predecessor for Palin’s to claim that she “eliminated” them; As of 2008, Palin had made 72 trips including cross-country travel to places like Texas and New York (and let’s not forget Kosovo), and even had the state pay for her children traveling with her on ten of those trips. Alaska paid $43,490 for Palin’s husband and children to travel, and Palin herself claimed $16,951 in “per diem” payments she was not entitled to for “travel” which was actually her just staying at home in Wasilla. As for frugality, shall we even get in to the $150,000 wardrobe? The RNC paid for that, but it kind of made a joke of the whole “we’re frugal” business.

And the Lt. Governor and I said “no” to our pay raises.

Like the 46% pay raise she got her first day in office? She said “no” to that? Funny, there’s no record of her turning that down, and indeed that was her salary.

Actually, Palin is talking about another pay raise that was suggested by a panel whose members she hand-picked. A cheap stunt–get a panel to recommend a big pay raise right after you got a huge pay raise so you can turn down the smaller one and act like you’re being “frugal.” Not to mention that Palin tried to get that money by other means, like the per diems.

Palin then proceeded to her central thesis:

But you don’t hear much of the good stuff in the press anymore, do you?

That awful “Liberal Media™” taking a fantastic governor down just because of a few dozen scandals, several violations of law, multiple abuses of power, and dozens and dozens of brazen, bald-faced lies. How dare they!

She then blabs on about how she’s been victimized by evildoers; here’s the distilled version:

Political operatives descended digging for dirt, their weapon of choice, frivolous ethics violations dismissed. We’ve won! State has wasted THOUSANDS of hours of YOUR time and shelled out some two million of YOUR dollars to respond to “opposition research” – political absurdity, the “politics of personal destruction” … these silly accusations? Spending other peoples’ money in their game, pretty insane – I promised no more “politics as usual.”

Palin then edges toward her surprise:

If I have learned one thing: LIFE is about choices!

Like quitting!

Here’s the money quote, the one everyone has been talking about–where Palin goes up-is-down and white-is-black:

Life is too short to compromise time and resources… it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: “Sit down and shut up”, but that’s the worthless, easy path; that’s a quitter’s way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just hunker down and “go with the flow.”

Nah, only dead fish “go with the flow”.

Or, as Josh Marshall quipped, “Quitters stick to it. Winners quit.”

The most sympathetic reading of that statement I can come up with is, “I have been taking a horrible, undeserved beating from my political enemies who want me to just sit there and take it; I won’t quit the fight by staying on as governor and letting them keep using me as a piñata, so instead I am resigning so I can fight those bastards without having my hands tied by public office.” Which is pretty absurd, when you think about it–why can’t she fight back as governor?

But no, she has to leave, which, for another few paragraphs, she explains as being what is RIGHT to HELP people in a PROUD and INSPIRED manner (using LOTS of CAPITALIZED words JUST like in the BIBLE when referring to the LORD!).

She also takes some time explaining, in a rather meandering way, how she decided to leave office at the end of her term, but didn’t want to be a lame duck, so she decided instead to leave right away. Um, yeah.

But the essence of what she’s saying is this:

My choice is to take a stand and effect change – not hit our heads against the wall and watch valuable state time and money, millions of your dollars, go down the drain in this new environment.

She’s going to fight, but not from the governor’s office, where she can’t do anything. That makes sense. Governors are pretty powerless and ineffective.

Of course, she’s claiming that she can’t do anything because of the environment, that being the damned Liberal Media™ dogging her every move and making it impossible for her to get anything done.

So… what’s the real reason? Analysis in my next post.

Are there any high-level Republican politicians who are not having an affair? OK, just a few right now–but expand the question to high-level Republicans who are not and have not been in an adulterous affair, and the question becomes less funny. Or more so, depending.

Another one: at which point do Republicans lose all credibility in opposing gay marriage on the strength of their dedication to respect and preserve the institution of marriage?

Third: for how long will “Hiking the Appalachian Trail” be a common metaphor for marital infidelity? My guess is that it’ll be an instant classic–it’s a doozy.

While George W. Bush is taking the presidential high road and quietly retiring, allowing Obama to have his time, Dick Cheney is doing no such thing. As time goes on, more and more becomes clear about how Cheney was the actual power behind the throne, at least where it mattered. When we get to the key issues, a lot leads back to him. Valerie Plame led back to Cheney’s office. Torture led back to Cheney’s office. Who orchestrated Big Oil’s design of the nation’s energy policy? Cheney. Who had a history of planning the Iraq War even before the 2000 election? Cheney. Halliburton? Cheney. The list goes on. So the fact that Bush is not out there clamoring for attention is not too significant; the real voice of power and influence in the prior administration, namely Dick Cheney, is railing against the current administration–something considered a huge political no-no. But then Cheney is not the type to adhere to standards or worry about insignificant crap like protocol.

In a way, all of this was pretty much what you’d expect from Cheney. His actions have been at the very least questionable, and certainly by many standards riddled with illegality. But as long as it stayed all political and ideological, it was hard to do much more than accuse him of being a criminal on political and ideological grounds. It wasn’t for self-gain. Even his graft was aimed at profiting others, not himself.

But now we hear the news that Cheney is out there trying to sell a book deal for $2 million. Not accepting offers, but actively seeking them. Not even asking a market price, but setting a figure, demanding it. Doesn’t seem too bad in a way, in that many retiring political figures sell book deals–but few actively hawk for them.

What is much more inappropriate about this, however, is the timing. In the past few weeks, Cheney has been more vocal than ever, taking issue with the new president head-on, even to the point of dueling speeches. Direct criticism, attacks, denunciations. Cheney has thrust himself in the spotlight.

Were this purely because Cheney was troubled with the new administration’s policies and actions, that would be one thing, however contrary to political etiquette. But to make this protest, and then at the peak of visibility, to start advertising a book deal–that smacks of agitating for the sake of personal profit.

Again, not a shocker. Frankly, if we discovered that Cheney had imprisoned little children and had them chained to treadmills to power his home, I don’t think many would be very surprised. But the book deal hawking, however insignificant it may seem, is something solid that can be traced directly to the heart of Cheney’s personal corruption, and provides strong doubt as to his integrity when he speaks. That counts for something.

In looking at this however, one gets a fresh tour of all the crime that this man is responsible for, and you have to start asking the question, why is this man not in prison? Seriously. Now, in this country, we have something of a tradition of not arresting or trying presidents. But Cheney was not, at least technically, president. Hell, he himself argued that he was not even in the executive branch of government.

With the Republicans now openly stating that an official prosecution of Nancy Pelosi is something that is acceptable, the door is open for the Democrats to start an official prosecution into the entire torture deal. And that will lead straight back to Cheney and one of his many criminal offenses.

Obama may not want to open the partisan can of worms that would result from revealing Cheney’s crimes, but many others do. And hell, maybe even Republicans would be OK with it if it focused primarily on Cheney–as with Bush, it would allow them to blame many or even most of the party’s evils on one man, so they could claim the rest of the party were innocent bystanders. Not something that should be allowed to pass without challenge, but it might motivate the right-wingers to go along with an official prosecution, removing one of the key obstacles to such a process.

Whatever it takes, let’s frog-march the evil snarling bastard.

As I have noted a few times recently, Republican Kit Bond is railing against Pelosi for have the utter temerity to claim that our “terror-fighters” in the CIA might be capable of fibbing.

But look a few years back, and you can find Bond himself calling a CIA operative, one responsible for hunting down WMD in fact, a liar. This actual terror-fighter’s name was Valerie Plame, and Bond thought she was fair game. He even called this CIA operative a liar because he claimed (falsely, as it turned out) that CIA documents contradicted her–the exact same claim Pelosi is making when she calls for the documentation of the briefings to be declassified to prove her true.

Of course, I have never held that Republicans are guilty of the vice of consistency.

Fer cryin’ out loud. Ninety–Ninety voted against funding to shut down Gitmo because of Republican scare tactics about terrorists being released on the streets of America? When Kit Bond (yes, the same guy who held that the CIA could never lie) claimed that closing Gitmo would lead to terrorists put in halfway-houses in Missouri where they would then walk the streets and slaughter Americans, I thought that this was such an example of rank alarmist stupidity that it would bolster the case against the Republican scare tactics. Anyone who was a real terror suspect would be tried and if guilty would be detained in SuperMax facilities (where we already hold many big-time terrorists like Ramzi Yousef), anyone else would not be allowed into the U.S.

But at least 47 Democrats, despite their near-supermajority in the Senate and the moral high ground, caved utterly to not just Republican scare tactics, but stupid Republican scare tactics. If the White House has not coordinated the details yet, then make it mandatory to work out the details–but don’t strip the funding and give such credence and respect for the rank idiocy and scaremongering spouted by the GOP.

What’s next? Will the Democrats rename themselves the “Democrat Socialist Party”? Frankly, at this point, that wouldn’t surprise me much. Even after the GOP abandoned the idea of rebranding the Dems with that name themselves–noting, rather chillingly, that the publicity on their proposal had “educated” Americans to be “properly fearful.”

The GOP at work, making you scared.

It is more than just alarming to note how far some right-wingers are going in their protest against the mostly-imagined threat from the Oval Office.

Ranks of tea-baggers (stop that giggling) railing against what are in fact the lowest tax rates in decades, and the possibility that taxes for the richest people may be raised slightly.

Gun owners and advocates reeling in horror at the prospect of Obama sending jack-booted thugs to break into their homes and strip them of their weapons despite no indication whatsoever of any such intent–indeed, the Supreme Court recently ruled most favorably toward gun rights.

Daily cries of “socialist!” and “communist!” and even “fascist!” government because of the feeblest of demands on corrupt bank executives who brought the economy crashing down. (Glenn Beck actually went on a “First they came for the bankers” rant, equating the Obama administration to the Nazis committing the Holocaust. Yes, he’s a certifiable loon, but he’s got a show that millions of other loons watch.)

And the continuous chant of rebellion against the supposedly unlimited and irresponsible spending spree (mostly on quite responsible infrastructure in efforts to prevent economic disaster) of this new president–though the same people were virtually mute and unprotesting when the previous president (whom they deemed a responsible patriot) spent far, far more money in rash, uncontrolled, and undocumented giveaways to corporations and the rich.

Despite their mocking dismissal as “unpatriotic” and even “treasonous” of many Americans who protested eight years of Bush-Cheney, this same bunch have gone completely off their nut after just a few months of the other party controlling things. They are now raising louder and louder cries to actually secede from the union.

Maybe I’ve got the wrong spin on what “patriotism” is, but if I am not mistaken, forsaking the United States of America and wanting to smash it into tiny little pieces after four months of Democratic leadership and psychotic ravings by the likes of Hannity, Cavuto, and Beck… well, it is slightly less than patriotic.

And this is not exactly just a fringe element we’re talking about. As many as 12% of Republicans think they’d be better off seceding from the country, and 9% would actively approve of it. And it’s not limited to loons on the Beck show or radical wingnuts; prominent Republican politicians, especially at the state level and especially in the South, have not only openly advocated secession but have started actually passing laws which pave the way for an eventual departure from the union.

Texas Governor Rick Perry’s statements were among the early prominent calls for secession. While he carefully stated that he was not calling for secession, he nonetheless threatened exactly that:

Perry told reporters following his speech that Texans might get so frustrated with the government they would want to secede from the union.

“There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that.”

He and others have started to refer to the Tenth Amendment (reserving to states powers not delegated to Congress) as code for secession, or at least for some form of rebellion. While he carefully stopped short of open approval, the context and thinly veiled intent made the statements rather shocking, even for the governor of Texas.

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay supported Perry’s idea and laid out a manner in which Texas could secede. If you watch the video, note DeLay’s reference to the “usurpation of power,” which suggest that there is something nefarious and threatening about the Democrats being elected by the people of the United States and then actually daring to take power as a result–something which DeLay says is threatening the sovereignty of the state of Texas. Apparently, Democrats being lawfully elected is such a horrific fate that Texas is right and just to protect itself by seceding.

Then we have the state legislature in Georgia actually passing a resolution in which they lay the groundwork for secession:

In the waning days of this year’s state legislative session, members of the Georgia Senate reached near-unanimous consent on the terms under which they believe Georgia can secede from the United States, and under which the United States itself can be dissolved. …

Beyond that, the resolution contends there are circumstances under which the federal government can overreach its authority to the point that it nullifies the Constitution, presumably bringing an end to the United States. Among the circumstances under which the federal government can nullify the Constitution is prohibition of any kind of arms or ammunition, meaning presumably that a federal ban on the sale of assault rifles would be sufficient cause to tear the country asunder.

What this leads me to conclude is that a fair number of right-wingers, perhaps the 10% core, are not patriots at all, but instead resemble fair-weather baseball fans who love their team only when it’s winning–otherwise, they’re a bunch of bums who can go to hell. Call them “PatriNots,” people who drape themselves in the flag, claim to love their country no matter what and rail madly at those whom they call “traitors”–but as soon as their party falls out of favor, America is a rotting dung heap from which they cannot wait to bolt.

These people are not patriots, they are loyal only to their political worldview and nothing else. They don’t love America, they love their party, and would just as soon burn the Constitution and throw America into the trash bin.

They say, “America, love it or leave it.” And now they want to leave it. Goes to show.

Wow. Republicans are set to pass a resolution to rename the Democratic Party the “Democrat Socialist Party.” Seriously. Since we are now unilaterally renaming other parties, can the Democrats rename the Republican Party the “Whining Dumbass Party”?

Michael Steele, in an uncharacteristic bout of non-idiocy, is actually against the resolution:

Steele wrote a memo last month opposing the resolution. Steele said that while he believes Democrats “are indeed marching America toward European-style socialism,” he also said in a (rare) flash of insight that officially referring to them as the Democrat Socialist Party “will accomplish little than to give the media and our opponents the opportunity to mischaracterize Republicans.”

Maybe I am unclear on the language, but if Republicans act like whining dumbasses and the Democrats point this out, then how exactly is this “mischaracterizing” them?

On a side note, it is good to see that the Republicans are continuing their drive to generate new ideas to solve the nation’s many problems.

A conservative makes some pretty mild charges about Democrats concerning the reaction to Obama speaking at Notre Dame–relatively mild considering that they are coming from a conservative, at this point in time:

They may see one of America’s leading religious conservatives repudiating the moral legitimacy of the president of the United States.

There was too much of that in the past eight years. …

I fear our side is becoming like the leftists we used to mock. We refuse to recognize the American president as our president. And we reduce our politics to a single issue, showing no tolerance or desire for engagement with our opponents, including those who dissent within our own ranks.

In the coming four years, all conservatives will have cause to oppose and fight the Obama administration on many, many fronts. But let’s not imitate the past eight years of political opposition. We are better than that. And we should—we must—be willing to share a platform with our elected President.

Yes, we liberals were so unreasonable to object to Bush and his policies over the past eight years. We should have done what many conservatives did, which was to wait eight years for Bush to shred the country to pieces, and then disown his administration whilst urging that stuff like committing torture is not worthy of prosecutions–after all, it’s not like it was a blow job happening or anything. Let’s face it, it was the Democrats who were such jerks all this time, and we should not lower ourselves to their depths.

I am beginning to come to the conclusion that so many conservatives are not being disingenuous at all–that they actually believe that they have been the calm, fair-minded, consistent voices of reason over the past few decades. And that’s scary.

David Frum encourages this commentator’s point of view:

A large part of the secret of President Obama’s political success is his self-presentation as calm, judicious, and fair-minded – and his ability to depict his opponents as intemperate and extreme. You’d think by now that Obama’s opponents would have figured out this trick. You want to beat him? Great. Be more calm, more judicious, and more fair-minded. Don’t be provoked. Don’t throw wild allegations. Don’t boycott. Don’t lose your temper.

Instead, we get Anger Theater. It’s not smart. And it’s not working.

Of course, the interesting thing here is that the comment he is presenting as one of reason and common sense is one who thought it was just to mock Democrats for opposing the Bush administration, for arguing that it wasn’t moral. The voice of reason. Let’s not get into the details of the charges–that Dems were the ones not willing to debate, that Dems were unwilling to allow dissenting voices. I disagree strongly with those assertions, especially from a relative standpoint. Instead, the main point here is that these people are throwing around all kinds of wild charges about Democrats, rather strongly biased and clearly so, admitting to mocking your opponents–and at the same time saying that the debate must become more civilized, and they themselves must be more “fair-minded” and should not “throw wild allegations.”

That aside, has Frum checked recently and noted about whom he is speaking? Very, very few notable voices on the right are anywhere close to toning it down.

And, lest the point not be noted, Obama actually is of that temperament. Frum and his colleague are asking conservatives to change to mimic it. A point to be made there. But at least they are on the right track, even if it has to be faked.

Greta Van Susteren interviewing Newt Gingrich:

Van Susteren: Well, you know, Fox News Channel got, quote, punished — Fox News Channel didn’t get a question the other night — Major Garrett, our White House correspondent — because the Fox broadcast, not the Fox News Channel, but the Fox broadcast decided not to air the press conference.

Gingrich: Right. Which should tell all of you about the abuse of power inherent in this administration. They now control General Motors, they basically control Chrysler, they control Citibank, they control AIG, and they are prepared to punish people.

I think that’s very dangerous, to have a president who thinks he should get up in the morning and punish Americans. You know, appease foreigners, bow to the Saudi king, embrace the Venezuelan dictator, and punish Americans? I think that’s a very dangerous attitude.

Wow. I mean, I have heard that Fox News people have been going ballistic for the past few days over this, but this is a bit much.

Let’s leave aside the idea that Fox News is, from a fully objective and 100% factual standpoint, a political propaganda machine of an opposition party. Leave aside for the sake of this argument the fact that Fox News has been close to the edge of insanity in its virtually non-stop, hysterical, fear-mongering, sleazy smear-fest of this president even before he got elected. Forget for the moment that during the Bush administration, reporters were often frozen out, not just for one press conference, but for long periods of time, because of their political orientation (witness Helen Thomas). And set aside for now the fact that Obama has respected Fox News in the past far more than Bush or McCain did for similarly biased newscasts–after all, Obama actually had the guts and fortitude to appear on Bill O’Reilly’s show–did Bush or McCain ever even think of coming on Keith Olbermann’s show? Hell no. And let’s ignore Newt’s reference to wingnut blathering about bowing to Saudi Princes (as opposed to holding hands) and all that other unhinged nonsense.

Set all of that aside for a moment. How the hell can you say that failing to call on a news network a single time is equal to “punishing Americans” every morning? I would hardly call it “punishing Fox News,” but to call it “punishing Americans” is to presume such status for Fox News, that they somehow hold such an honored, beloved and revered place in the hearts of all Americans that a snub to them is a snub to the whole country–well, I mean, wow.

And “abuse of power”? Really? How is not calling on Fox News an “abuse of power”?

And “they” (who are “they” exactly?) somehow “control” GM, Chrysler, Citibank and AIG? I used to think that Gingrich was relatively reasonable, but this is on par with some of the more paranoid rantings of people like Glenn Beck. The administration, in exchange for bailout money, was able to negotiate some concessions from these corporations necessary to the health of the American economy, but not nearly enough to even come close to being called in “control” of them, and certainly not so the president could wake up in the morning and decide to incur his wrath on the American people by calling the corporations up and, well, doing what exactly with them?

To make the jump from the president failing to call on a news network dedicated to destroying him for a single news conference, to the conclusion that the President of the United States has absolute control over major corporations and uses them in an iron-fisted manner to attack all of the American people while in obeisance to foreign powers–that’s deeply into heavy schizophrenic-delusion territory.

When you add this to all of the crazy stuff being said by so many on the right, including state governors openly suggesting secession and stuff like that, one has to reflect on the fact that Obama has been president for less than four months and then wonder where this will all lead to, eventually. The mind boggles at the inability of conservatives to tolerate even the smallest amount of power in the hands of someone aside from themselves. Frankly, it is more than just a bit worrying.

Wow. I take an international flight and when I come back, Arlen Specter’s a Democrat.

I knew it might happen, but did not expect it to happen so soon. The Dems may now have their super-majority, some 21 months ahead of schedule. When Norm Coleman and/or Tim Pawlenty stop being asses and let Minnesotans have the senator they voted for, the Democrats will have the magic 60. Already, Democrats may now have enough to stop a filibuster, if they can get everybody on their caucus to vote for cloture on their bills.

One has to wonder why he did it now. Was he bargaining with the Dems for a powerful position and only now the deal came through? Was he negotiating with the GOP and they got far too tough with him? Or maybe both of those?

A big part of this, however, seems less about the GOP making threats to get Specter to toe the line and more about Specter realizing that he’s on a sinking ship. A new poll finds that while Democratic Party identification remains strong at 35%, only 21% of voters self-identify as Republicans, a low point for the party. “Independent” Americans now number 38%. Specter himself noted that 200,000 Republican Pennsylvanians had switched from Republicans to Democrats in the past year, a remark which has many saying that Specter is being quite open about this being more about winning an election and less about values and principles.

But Specter more clearly stated that it was about the GOP leaving moderates behind; it was about the party shifting too far to the right, making the Democrats more palatable to moderates. Whatever the strategic reasons Specter had, his point about the party leaving him behind is valid–in fact, that’s exactly why he no longer was a viable Republican candidate. Is it principled to hang on to a party which is increasingly alienating you and will likely vote you out of office in the primaries?

What has been said about the Republican Death Spiral seems to be coming true. The GOP’s solution is not to go big-tent, but to close the tent even tighter around the extremists–thus making more and more moderates leave the party, which makes the party more extremist still, which forces out more moderates. Remembering back to the 90’s, conservatives tried to make “liberal” a dirty word; today, they are trying to do the same with the “Democrat” Party. And while they have had some success, they have inadvertently made their own party’s name far more unpalatable simply by acting like enormous jerks.

The question is, is the GOP actually dying? How far does the party have to sink before it stops being viable? It might not be so bad for the GOP, because despite people not wanting to call themselves “Republican,” given only two choices, they may very well, more often than not, choose the Republican candidate. Hobson’s choice and all that. Look at McCain, how much of the vote that he got despite party identification being almost half of the percentage of actual votes he got. True, a lot of those votes were won with plain old smear tactics and the fact that there was a grizzled veteran war hero running against an inexperienced black guy. But I believe that a lot of people who voted for McCain were IINO–Independents In Name Only, Independents who used to be Republicans and simply could not bring themselves to vote for a Democrat. They may not identify as Republicans any more, but they still vote that way.

What I am waiting for is for someone to realize that there are probably now more conservatives out of the GOP than in it, and to fill that power vacuum occupying moderate Republicans and centrists. Right now there is no one because everyone still sees the GOP as monolithic, and another party leaning to the right might split the vote and get a Democrat elected. But if an “Independent Party” (better yet, an “Independence Party”) could address the voters from left-of-extremist Republicans to moderate Democrats, they might get enough of a vote that they could supplant the former Republican Party and marginalize them. In fact, such a move might be the only way that segment of the political spectrum can become credible again.

In a way, I hope they don’t–I hope the GOP continues to spiral into irrelevancy and disorder, putting more and more radical and laughable candidates up for the Democrats to shoot down. But if they do form a new party, maybe within say 2 or 3 election cycles they could become tenable enough to gain more Congressional seats than the GOP. They might even have a chance to win the presidency. I would not feel quite as bad about that relative to a present-day Republican taking office. Imagine John McCain as he was in 2000 winning. He was still conservative, but you at least felt that he would speak more truth and work across the aisle, instead of being just another GOP sock puppet, like he was this time around.

Of course, the formation of a new party might be hindered by the GOP, which, while dying, still would be a monolithic force with a massive support base, a force to be reckoned with. They will feel entitled to be the voice of the right wing, and those still inhabiting the party will not give up power so easily.

There are some who are still trying to bring the old party around. Interestingly, Olympia Snowe–one of three moderate Republicans, who, along with Specter, has come under fire from an increasingly hard-core and frightened GOP–wrote an editorial which urged the party to learn from this like they should have learned from the Jeffords defection. In short, stop moving even further to the right, and return to more moderate, Reaganesque big-tent roots that gained the party the power it squandered under Bush. The real question, however, is what Snowe is trying to say to her party. Is she hinting at and laying the groundwork for the potential that she too may defect if the GOP continues to radicalize itself and marginalize her? Or did she write the op-ed in the voice of a Reagan-era Republican in an attempt to immunize herself from the GOP panicking, lest they try to apply the thumbscrews to her even harder? Either way, one has to wonder if she really believes that the GOP is in fact capable at this point of moving back to the center; it is becoming increasingly difficult to see them doing so.

As a side note, here’s a thought: Obama may be garnering his Obama Republicans, just not the same way Reagan got his Democrats. Instead of working with the other party, pols who might otherwise have been Republicans are now joining the Democratic Party. As the GOP has shrunk to its core, the Democratic Party has expanded to include the middle (with Republicans at least claiming that they happily cede the traitorous wretches). The Democrats have Lieberman, Jeffords, and Specter now, along with a passel of “Blue Dog” Democrats. With a super-majority, Obama will be busy enough dealing with them. The GOP made it explicitly clear to Obama: “Our prime mission is to oppose you as a united front and try our best to make you fail.” No amount of bipartisanship can penetrate that; as the old saying goes, it takes two to Tango. The GOP has refused Obama’s invitation. But Obama can instead gain bipartisanship within his own party, in that there exist within it conservative Democrats who will hold Obama to a more centrist course.

Ironically, the Democrats have been criticized for taking in “anyone who looked capable of winning an election, beliefs be hanged.” First, the Republicans are the ones who abandoned their beliefs to gain power; that’s one of the main reasons they are in this fix now. Second, the Dems are not surrendering their beliefs, they are taking on the Reagan “big tent” strategy–including people in the center and dealing with them, as opposed to shutting them out. Again, another major reason Dems are gaining so much more. I have the feeling that if Republicans did this, nobody but the extremists would be accusing them of ditching their beliefs. Reagan was lauded for this; Obama is being criticized.

Of course, a lot of Democrats don’t appreciate being dragged more to the center, and protest when compromises are made to satisfy the more conservative elements of the party. But at least those compromises are being made in fact due to principles or at least voter pressure, and not because of political gamesmanship. Which means that the in-party wrangling going on is, ironically, the true bipartisanship.

This opinion is given on what we should do about torture:

“The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment.”

Is it too easy to guess who said this?

In case it’s not, the answer is below the fold. Read more…

Right-wingers have consistently held that Bush’s war on terror was a ‘success’ based on the sole fact that, aside from 9/11 and the ensuing anthrax attacks, there were no major foreign terrorist attacks within the United States. Bush “kept us safe” for seven years.

Aside from the rather salient point that Clinton had at least as good a record (after the WTC bombing in ’93, there were no major foreign terrorist attacks within the United States until the end of his term also), one has to note that Bush faced no major threats to thwart. (Clinton faced the Millennium threat, and it was thwarted; conservatives go to great lengths to deny Clinton credit for that, despite giving Bush more credit for doing less.)

The lack of an attempt obviously means that al Qaeda didn’t try to attack us at home.

Doesn’t that come across as strange? Certainly they didn’t hold off because our borders are so secure, or Bush’s anti-terror methods were so air-tight; they weren’t. They didn’t hold off because they were so busy killing our troops in Iraq; Bush’s war increased their recruited base so much they could easily have spared the manpower.

Has anyone considered the idea that al Qaeda didn’t attack us because Bush was doing exactly what they wanted him to do? And they didn’t want to interfere with that?

Did you hear? Obama is a socialist fascist, a new Hitler, who is trying to take away your guns and tax you out of existence. If you watch Fox News, this is probably old hat by now. But here’s the thing: you have a popular news network that seems dedicated to spreading not only lies, but ridiculously transparent lies about the president of the United States, while elected Republicans call for their supporters to be “armed and dangerous” (only later specified as dangerous politically as they are armed with “facts”) and that there should be a “revolution” (again, later qualified as a political revolution). There is even a whole movement, the followers of which, in comic obliviousness, call themselves “teabaggers,” dedicated to fighting a tax rebellion despite the fact that no taxes have been hiked yet, and the only ones promised are aimed at a small percentage of wealthy people.

In true ultraconservative style, a fictional ‘reality’ has been constructed for the public to consume and react to. The thing is, it is so absurdly ludicrous that only the idiot loons on the fringe are really buying into it. Unfortunately, there are a lot of idiot loons who will accept anything Fox spoon-feeds them. Percentage-wise, very small, but you don’t need double-digits to get followers numbering in the millions.

On the one hand, it all becomes somewhat comical, as these people are, let’s face it, stupid. So they wind up doing a lot of stupid things, like ordering a million teabags to dump somewhere, but forgetting to arrange for a place to symbolically dump them. You get people following the drumbeat without the faintest idea why they are doing it, so when they are asked “Why do you say that the President of the United States is a fascist?” the answer comes back, “Because he is!” Another anti-tax protester admonishes the president for not being more like Lincoln, without the slightest clue that Lincoln grew and empowered the government and instituted the first federal income tax.

On the other hand, we know all too well what happens when you instigate the lunatic fringe: some of them fall over the edge and start killing. That’s one reason that three police officers got killed–a fringe nutjob heard the Fox Noise drumbeat that Obama is going to ban guns, and reacted accordingly. With Fox broadcasting the socialist, fascist, Hitler, tax-hiker, gun-grabber rant as much as it is, that will most likely not be the last such incident. These are fringe wingnuts, but they are aggressive and well-armed lunatic wingnuts who respond well to calls for action.

Just a few years after right-wingers claimed that even mild dissent was a form of treason, the same (or a very similar) crowd is at the gates of the White House causing a lockdown while shouting death threats at the president, based on farcical charges that fall apart under even the slightest examination. You have people who cheered as Bush incurred ten trillion dollars in debt but now want blood and talk about “enslaving our children” and seceding from the union when Obama spends only a tenth as much debt for a far more focused and reasonable purpose. Most of the nation is letting it slide past, but the lunatic fringe is only becoming more and more inflamed and ready to act.

Question: at what point does this go beyond free speech and wander into the minefield of sedition? When “news” organizations spread easily disproved lies, equate their government to a horrific dictatorship, and tell the people to revolt, leading to violent acts, is that really not going beyond the “shouting fire in a movie house” standard?

A popular conservative smear tactic is to send false rumors out as email messages, knowing that the faithful will spread them across the nation; this harkens back to the days when Nixon-era dirty-tricks specialists rode elevators up and down all day chatting about fake rumors smearing the opposition candidates. During the last election, there were several rather nasty and racist emails spread to try to smear Barack Obama. One in particular showed an Obama extended-family portrait, with the warning “The Clintons and Rodhams were bad, but wait until this bunch starts running around the White House.” The caption then gave the people in the photo fake names and designations, including “dead,” “jail,” “crack addict,” “fugitive,” and “gay porn star.”

Well, irony has its compensations. Just recently, yet another Palin family member was caught in a rather embarrassing incident (burglarizing a house twice in one week), adding to the long list of rather tawdry soap-opera misadventures which seem endemic to the Palin clan. Let’s see what we have:

• Todd Palin: Sarah’s husband; member of secessionist party, illicitly pressured Public Safety Commissioner to fire Sarah’s sister’s ex-husband, has DUI charge on his criminal record.
• Diana Palin: Todd’s half-sister; arrested on felony charges of first-degree burglary and misdemeanor charges of criminal trespass and theft.
• Track Palin: Sarah’s son; rumors of drug addiction and joining the military to avoid legal implications.
• Bristol Palin: Sarah’s daughter; raised on Sarah Palin’s abstinence-only education, she gets knocked up out of wedlock at the age of 17. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, she later told Greta Van Susteren that abstinence-only education is “not realistic.” Ya don’t say.) Planned marriage to Levi, father of her baby, fell through and Bristol is now an unwed teenage mother.
• Levi Johnston: the high school football player who knocked up Bristol; declared on his MySpace page that he’s a “f***in’ redneck,” that if “Ya f*** with me I’ll kick ass,” and “I don’t want kids.”
• Sherry Johnston: mother of Levi; arrested for drug possession, charged with six felony counts of misconduct involving a controlled substance.
• Mercede Johnston: Levi’s sister; claimed that the Palins considered the Johnstons “white trash” and won’t let them near the baby. (Levi says that he is “allowed” to see his son but can’t “take him anywhere.”)

By the way, Sarah Palin has now denounced the Johnstons for being on a “quest for fame, attention, and fortune.” And we know that that is simply not the Palin Way. I guess that this means that if Palin runs for and wins the presidency in 2012, the Johnstons, at least, wouldn’t be “running around the White House.” Alas, the Palins would be.

Suffice it to say that were even half this stuff true about Obama’s family, right-wingers would claim that he would be totally unfit for office. Just the fact that one of Obama’s aunts whom he has barely met over the years overstayed her visa in the U.S. and lives in public housing has Republicans on a tear. But as for who is “running around the White House,” what we have are two beautiful little girls and their school-kid friends. The closest we have to criminal scandals is that Obama may have violated copyright law when giving the Queen of England an iPod, and Michelle may have violated protocol by touching the Queen uninvited.

Irony bonus: despite all of the Palin family drama–and the fifty or so scandals around the former VP candidate herself–Sarah Palin is still a popular choice among Republicans as the party’s presidential candidate for 2012. Yay for consistency!