At the guru's lotus feet

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McCain may not be as inept and clueless as he seems. Strapped as he is for cash, by falling so far behind in the polls and without spending a dime he has turned Obama, not Bush, into the "incumbent" and the focus is now on Obama and not on Bush.

Did he plan this or, more likely, has he just stumbled upon it? However he managed to find it, it may be the only path he could have ever taken to victory.

The question for flat broke McCain is to keep the focus on Obama and build up doubts among the "low information voters" (LIVs) who, with the World Series finished are just tuning into the presidential campaign. And of course the essential challenge is to keep that focus on Obama with out spending any money.

The "low information voters" (LIVs) who are just now tuning into the election are only really hearing about Obama for the first time. At this point rumors about girl friends and wealth redistribution can really catch the attention of the LIVs. All this focus on Obama is a force multiplier for McCain's meager dollars.

Perhaps someone who can make a dollar go such a long way as McCain can would do well during a severe economic crisis. Certainly Obama's spending four to one and not having everything sewn by now up does smell a little bit of the classic "tax and spend" Democrat that Republicans love to portray.

Another thing bothers me quite a bit: there seem to be many stories about Obama that never get followed up in the press.

It is very striking how any trivial story about any other candidate that I can remember has always been considered legitimate news, but stories about Obama are considered off limits.

Like everyone else, I really know very little about Obama, but I am coming to know quite a lot about his supporters and I find quite a few of them frankly sinister.

Somehow, someone that has appeared literally "out of the blue" is infused with some sort of holy aura. What it most reminds me of from my dirty hippie days of yore, is of "ashrama", the hot house climate of an Indian ashram, where the guru's every nose picking becomes a cause for worship, is treasured, celebrated and collected.

I can't get a clear view of what Obama is, was, what he wants (besides power) or what he will do if elected. If after so much money has been spent over so many months and the candidate still appears all things to all men, then I don't think that this is by chance: I think that that this is the general idea, the effect desired.

What astonishes and offends me is how people are painting in the empty spaces with their own fantasies and dreams. It reminds me of previous "great awakenings" where Americans sold everything and sat in fields waiting for the second coming.

Next comes the "Great Hangover". DS

Obama's challenge and McCain's last, small, chance

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Most probably Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States and if elected his major problem may very well be to control the "left wing infantilism" of some of his supporters who are going to confuse a virtual victory by default with a sea change in American politics, however for the same reason the presence of these supporters means that John McCain still has a real, if at this date almost infinitesimal, chance to pull off an upset.

The present political situation is more than marked, it is deformed by George W. Bush. He has practically amputated one of the legs America's two party system stands on.

Readers of my blog will be aware that rather than stupid or simply incompetent I consider him deeply insane. Within the framework of his insanity I consider him successful. He has achieved all that the darker recesses of his personality could have ever desired.

Psychobabble warning: Although surely he professes love for all of the following, actions speak louder than words, and I believe that Bush's actions prove that he hates his father, hates his talented younger brother, hates his political party and hates his country too... he has nearly destroyed them all.

Bush is said to love Jesus, and knowing that, if I were Jesus, I would watch my back.

If the Democrats win by the margins they are expected to win by it won't be because of any clear and ringing, Reagan-like, "good morning America", message they are sending, or a social-democratic epiphany in Middle America or any clear mandate to do anything but "change", which is something which can mean anything from " to make radically different" to a handful of small coins.

The Democrats will win enormously, simply because their opponents have been destroyed by George W. Bush. They are living the famous quote of Woody Allen's, "eighty percent of success is just showing up".

The Democratic coalition, as it stands today, more than a cohesive party of interest groups, presents itself and has for the last 30 years or so as what the British army would call a collection of "odds and sods", a flag of convenience, little more than a grab bag of assorted and heterogeneous entitlements. A disparate troop whose principal agglutinate seems to be a certain vague hostility to white, Protestant men whose last names end in consonants. Ronald Reagan played on this incoherence like a mighty Wagnaerian tenor with his jolly mixture of positive thinking, hand shaking xenophobia, sanctified selfishness and the "racism of low expectations": a mixture that still suits many Americans just fine.

However, Wagner, if played on the kazoo, would morph into a grotesque and comic caricature; and while not for one moment comparing Ronald Reagan's pablum to Wagner, George W. Bush's rendition of the Gipper's cheery arias has similarly deformed it. There is no reason to think that the great mass of Americans, those who have voted that message over and over again since 1981 don't like the message anymore... they just don't like failure and they don't like Bush. It would be dangerous to take winning, because the other team doesn't show up, as a mandate to do anything other then not look or sound like Bush.

If there is a real depression, then and only then will it be possible to talk to members of the American middle class about "income redistribution" or about "spreading the wealth around".

What is a real depression? Here is an example: my mother's father was running a steel mill in 1929... a year later he was selling shirts from door to door... When FDR died my grandfather cried like a baby. That is a depression.

If a Democratic dominated congress begins to move before America's middle class feels the fear my granddad felt in '29, the Republicans will take congress back in 2010 with a vengance.

That in a nutshell is Barack Obama's major problem if, as it looks almost sure at this late date, he wins the election.

And a dawning realization that precisely that might be the dynamic of his administration may give just a glimmer of a hope for John McCain to recover the votes that gave Bush the presidency in 2000 and 2004. DS

PS. Here is a wonky article from Salon, that illustrates obliquely some of the points I've been making:

Bill Greener: Why Obama has to stay above 50 percent - Salon
Abstract: I think John McCain really does have a decent shot at winning, and that's not just because I'm a longtime Republican political operative. Despite what the polls seem to be saying, a closer look at the numbers shows that a Democratic victory is not a foregone conclusion. Why? Because if history is any guide, Barack Obama, as an African-American candidate for political office, needs to be polling consistently above 50 percent to win. And in crucial battleground states, he isn't.(...) There's an old rule in politics that an incumbent candidate is always in danger when he dips under 50 percent, even if he is leading his opponent in the polls. It's all about the undecideds. In a race with an incumbent candidate and a challenger, on Election Day the undecideds tend to break for the challenger, at rates as high as 4 to 1. If an incumbent is polling at, say, 47 to 45 percent with 8 percent undecided, there's a good chance he's going to wind up losing 49 to 51. As it's sometimes expressed, if you're an incumbent, what you see is what you get. The same pattern seems to be true for African-American candidates in much of the country. If you're a black candidate running against a white candidate, what you see is what you get. And it doesn't matter whether you're an incumbent or a challenger. If you're not polling above 50 percent, you should be worried. As of this writing, Barack Obama is not polling consistently above 50 percent in a number of electoral-vote-rich swing states, including Ohio and Florida. He should be worried. Read it all

"W" and post "W"

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Many (most?) people think that George W. Bush is stupid. I don't.

On the contrary, I think that he is highly intelligent, but I also think that he is seriously insane.

I wont indulge in psychobabble trying to diagnose his disease: crazy is as crazy does.

It is his intelligence that makes his particular insanity so perverse. If he were stupid, his insanity would have come to little, we would never even have heard of him. It is the rest of us that are stupid... certainly not Bush.

George W. Bush is an alcoholic who has cold turkeyed the booze and then taken the implicit self destructiveness and self hatred of alcoholism and channeled and projected it universally. Few leaders in history, drunk or sober, have had such a canvas of destruction to paint upon as he has.

Considering the power he has had and how crazily destructive he is, we have come off lightly. He hasn't used the atomic bomb... yet.

A dramatically abridged list of the damage he has done to himself, the environment and humanity follows:

He has destroyed his own reputation: from being the governor of an important state to being a universal pariah.

He has destroyed the reputation of his family name, a family that has given the United States of America senators, governors and two presidents... Now even the humble rosebush would probably like to change its name to rosesmith or rosejones.

George W. Bush has destroyed his own political party as a instrument of power: a party that is one of the two legs on which American democracy stands. He has surpassed even Nixon in leading the party that once was the home of Abraham Lincoln, Robert Taft and Dwight Eisenhower into the swamps of neofascist populism.

Iraq, Afghanistan, habeas corpus, Kyoto, New Orleans and the economy: what hasn't he withered with his touch?

The power and influence of the United States in in tatters. Its core skills, which are the heart of its rise to preeminence: its military, organizational and financial abilities, have been degraded out of recognition.

However, I maintain that George W. Bush himself is not a root cause of any of this. At bottom he is only a symptom of a systemic malfunction.

Bush is merely the product of a malfunction that begins with the political parties and how they finance themselves. This is a corrupt alchemy abetted and echoed by a media of tardo-Roman frivolity that permits that someone as damaged as Bush can be selected as a candidate and treated as a serious one in the first place.

But also, and perhaps most gravely, this is a malfunction that includes the American people themselves. It was they who finally elected George W. Bush President of the United States: basically because his first opponent was boring and sighed during debates and then reelected him, basically because his second opponent spoke French and enjoyed wind surfing.

Now this same corrupt system, this same defective process and this same air headed American electorate have selected and are preparing to entrust the atomic bomb and the keys to the skeleton closets containing America's darkest secrets... plus the enhanced executive powers that Cheney has procured for Bush... and his successors, either to an aging and disorganized torture victim or to the hero of a book, "Dreams From my Father", who, for all we know, may turn out to be a fictional character himself.

We shan't begin to know until the big piñata is finally broken open on January 20th, 2009.

The piñata is filled with poisoned sweets.

Bush leaves behind him a damaged, if not crippled economy, with a debt so huge, that it reduces his successor's options at precisely the moment when decisive action must be taken.

To give an idea of what is in store, here are two brief quotes from two important articles which I recommend reading in full. They are by Nobel Prize winning New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman and by Phillip Stephens, associate editor of the Financial Times, who is considered close to Britain's New Labour:

Krugman: If Barack Obama becomes president, he won’t have (McCain's) knee-jerk opposition to spending. But he will face a chorus of inside-the-Beltway types telling him that he has to be responsible, that the big deficits the government will run next year if it does the right thing are unacceptable. He should ignore that chorus. The responsible thing, right now, is to give the economy the help it needs. Now is not the time to worry about the deficit.

Stephens: Mr Obama’s many tax and spending pledges can scarcely be reconciled with the grim reality of the burgeoning budget deficit. The rising protectionist tone of his pledges to protect American jobs jars with the promise to restore the nation’s standing in the world. That said, his speeches carry a professional sheen applied by a phalanx of economic advisers from the Clinton years.(...) Even before the cost of the bail-out of the banks and the stimulus programmes promised by the candidates are added to the accounts, next year’s US budget deficit is forecast to top $500bn. It could turn out to be twice that very large number. I have heard supporters of Mr Obama say “no matter”. Once he has won, he can declare that things are a lot worse than they seemed. A Democratic Congress will trim its ambitions. Even putting aside the political cynicism, this misses the scale of the challenge. Fixing the economy – persuading voters to consume less and save more and redirecting spending into investment in the nation’s crumbling infrastructure – will demand a huge reservoir of moral authority. What will voters say when Mr Obama, if he wins, tells them that his health plan is unaffordable?

The need for strong, social democratic measures is clear. What to do and how to do it no mystery. As I've said before, the plans are all there, all you have to do is translate them from Swedish.

The problem is that Bush's insane binge of selfhating destruction and the implosion of the economy has bent the American political map out of shape. This could be a dangerous mirage.

Over decades, in election after election, the country has proven itself to be leaning to the right. Only four years ago the voters endorsed Bush's program and goals. They have turned against him because of the results of his disastrous execution of those policies, not because of some ideological epiphany. It could be fatally unwise to confuse a victory by default with a "movement". There is going to be no mandate, only an opportunity.

Therefore in a moment that requires swift, even radical action there will be many who urge caution.

It is dangerous to do too little, it is dangerous to do too much... it is dangerous.

If, as it now appears nearly certain, Barack Obama is elected president and is given a filibuster proof Democratic majority, in great part he will have received all this solely because Bush's binge of destruction has momentarily gelded the Republican Party.

If the economy doesn't get better very fast, the same destructive and bitter forces that Nixon called up from the depths of America's psyche can quickly turn on the Democrats; in fact this may be the only path the Republican remnant can take.

No less an authority on these forces: one of the men who most contributed to creating Nixon's racist, neofascist, Southern Strategy, Pat Buchanan, gives a venom laded version of Philip Stephens' conundrum:

This center-right country is about to vastly strengthen a liberal Congress whose approval rating is 10 percent and implant in Washington a regime further to the left than any in U.S. history.(...) Headed for the White House is the most left-wing member of the Senate, according to the National Journal. To the vice president's mansion is headed Joe Biden, third most liberal as ranked by the National Journal, ahead of No. 4, Vermont Socialist Bernie Sanders. What will this mean to America? An administration that is either at war with its base or at war with the nation.(...) Obama knows Middle America harbors deep suspicions of him. Thus, he has jettisoned the rhetoric about the "fierce urgency of now," and "We are the people we've been waiting for," even as he has jettisoned position after position to make himself acceptable. Flip-flopping reveals the prime meridian of presidential politics. If an analyst will collate all the positions to which all the candidates move, he will find himself close to the true center of national politics. (...) No Democrat has ever come out of the far left of his party to win the presidency. McGovern, the furthest left, stayed true to his convictions and lost 49 states.(...) One question remains: Will a President Obama, with his party in absolute control of both Houses, revert to the politics and policies of the Left that brought him the nomination, or resist his ex-comrades' demands that he seize the hour and impose the agenda ACORN, Ayers, Jesse, and Wright have long dreamed of? Whichever way he decides, he will be at war with them, or at war with us. If Barack wins, a backlash is coming.

So this campaign, no matter who wins it, is probably only the beginning of an enormous conflict... a hopefully dry, second American Civil War.

Bush in his own tortured, private hell can be content. He has left a mess that will take decades to sort out and may tear the country apart. He has taken his revenge in full. Revenge for what? What did we ever do to him to deserve such punishment?

We will probably never know. DS

It is all very simple

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It is all very simple.

The economy is going belly up.

Many people are going to suffer... suffer a lot.

Every day that passes they will become more aware of how much they are going to suffer.

They are afraid today and they will be more afraid with each passing day.

Fear is the mother of anger.

Anger will grow stronger with each passing day as the gravity of the crisis sinks in.

Its normal target would be the Republicans, they have been in power for eight years. Although this catastrophe is not just something the Republicans have done by themselves, but rather is the product of a consensus of the entire American establishment, the meltdown has happened on the Republican watch and logically they should carry the can.

Their loss should be one of historic proportions, the ruin of dozens of careers. The ruin of hard men and hard women, people who have struggled hard to be where they are. It would be disingenuous to imagine that there is any limit to what they would do to avoid that ruin.

So, it is all very simple.

The only possible chance that the Republicans have of winning, the only possible chance, is to somehow redirect all this hysterical anger toward Barack Obama. To do this they must let all of America's demons off their leash.

That is what they are trying to do... and they can't stop.

To think that they might desist in this tactic is like asking a drowning man to stop treading water.

McCain himself might want to stop, and may try to stop this process as he realizes that through this loosing of the demons he may very well both lose the election and something else of great importance to him, his establishment credentials, his membership in polite society.

As much as you might dislike him John McCain is not Richard Milhous Nixon

But the ghost of Richard Nixon and the shadow of Willy Horton are walking the land and we can only witness what may turn out to be the most nauseating three weeks in American history.

It's all very simple. DS

Some post-debate analysis

"Although Obama is winning, neither he nor McCain seems to have a genuine grasp of how grave our economic situation is, how stark the prospect of a looming possible Depression. You'd never know from this evening that 5000 Dow points have been lopped since the previous debate and that those retired or near retirement have seen their portfolios crushed and have no hopes of recouping those losses in their nonproductive years. Not to mention all the job losses that the Wall Street plummet portends." James Wolcott - Vanity Fair

"Though both candidates spent a while (and it felt like longer) on the economic emergency, I didn’t feel that either’s comments advanced the discussion, or seemed equal to the gravity of the situation. Almost the first words out of McCain’s mouth were “energy independence”; almost the first words out of Obama’s were “blame deregulation”. We know, we know. Neither gave much indication that the crisis was leading them to think things through afresh; one wonders what it would take to do that." Clive Crook - Financial Times

“These days, you have to struggle,” she said. “As a kid, I used to be able to go to the movies or to the zoo. Now you can’t take your children to the zoo or go to the movies, because you’ve got to think how you’re going to put food on the table.” Snodgrass’s parents had raised four children on two modest incomes, without the ceaseless stress that she was enduring. But the two-parent family was now available only to the “very privileged.” She said that she had ten good friends; eight of them were childless or, like her, unmarried with kids. “That’s who’s middle-class now,” she said. “Two parents, two kids? That’s over. People looked out for me. These kids nowadays don’t have nobody to look out for them. You’re one week away from (a) losing your job, or (b) not having a paycheck.” George Packer - New Yorker

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Americans are so used to suffering privately in a general climate of cheerful banality, and have so little knowledge of history, that they may not realize what a potentially perilous moment we are living in.

With the world economy in spitting distance of collapsing, the lame duck President of the United States, in the process of losing two wars, has approval ratings of under thirty percent, and in an exclusively two party system, with no other alternative possible, the Congress, controlled by the opposition, has approval ratings of under twenty percent.

At this juncture, one of the objectively gravest in US history, the American people are being asked to choose for their new leader between two political dwarfs who have not managed put forward any major ideas or to suggest any meaningful, much less inspiring, path out of the situation.

This is as close to systemic failure as I can imagine.

In many extremely civilized countries this would guarantee millions of sullen, if not violent, demonstrators in the streets demanding action.

With much less cause, many countries have suffered coup d'etats.

The question would be: is inane banality and a fundamental lack of seriousness, America's fatal curse or its saving grace? DS

The Debate: the last civilized moment

“Events, dear boy, events”

British Prime Harold Macmillan, when asked what is most likely to blow governments off course.

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Handicappers beware: most of what will decide this election in the coming days will happen when neither candidate is on the screen.

At this moment the Republican Party is on what Sun Tzu called "Death Ground", which is defined as when an army is cornered, outnumbered and facing certain annihilation and have nothing left to lose by fighting to the death.

There could be no better description of the Republican Party's present predicament.

Sun Tzu considered confronting a cornered enemy on Death Ground hazardous in the extreme.

Make no mistake, the Republicans could lose the election because of the war(s) and live to fight another day, they could lose the election because of a circumstantial downturn in the economy, as when Clinton defeated the militarily victorious father Bush and come back quickly, but that is not what they are facing today.

The systemic failure of the barely regulated financial structure signals the end of the "Conservative Revolution" sired by Milton Friedman out of Ayn Rand.... the exhumation and desecration of Barry Goldwater, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, the death and transfiguration of Alan Greenspan and Grover Norquist and a host of other calamities.

If the Republicans lose both houses of Congress and the White House this year, they will be simply passive spectators at their own ideological, social, political and financial funeral.

No time to gloat: if, after eight years of Bush, you still have not caught on, the Republicans are armed and dangerous.

Ayers/ACORN and Reverend Wright’s supposed book or the adventures of Osama bin Laden could derail Obama just as the meltdown of the economy is in the process of destroying McCain…. and above it all hovers a dark angel, the fell spirit of Tom Bradley’s effect.

Certainly, even if McCain refuses to use these tactics personally, the "independent" conservative groups are going to go atomic, stop at nothing and call up all of America's demons from the depths of the national subconscious and so muddy the well that even a probable Obama victory will leave a nauseating, bitter, aftertaste.

The post victory climate could be so vile, that unless things go very well for President Obama very quickly, (and it's hard to imagine they will in the present world situation), we will experience an un-breathable, Balkan like political climate in the coming years as all those who have invested their entire lives and fortunes in the Conservative Revolution literally fight for their survival.

This foreboding is why I have always felt that by nominating Barack Obama, in this, their year of years, the Democrats have jumped the shark, have tragically engaged in "look ma, no hands" showboating and have unnecessarily opened a cosmic can of worms.

Al Gore: Ora pro Nobis! DS

Walking on water or rolling in the mud?

Staying on message

Obama’s Keating offensive comes after McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, spent two days telling voters, donors and reporters that Obama showed poor judgment in his relationship with the former radical William Ayers. McCain’s campaign has vowed to make a major issue of Obama’s Chicago relationships in coming days, with a senior McCain official telling Politico that they are “the vehicle that allows us to question Obama’s truthfulness about his past and his plans for the future.” The McCain campaign also plans to invoke money launderer Tony Rezko. Officials say they will not bring up Obama's former minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, because McCain has forbidden his campaign from using that as an attack. But the officials said outside groups supporting McCain might highlight Wright. Responding to the Keating blast from the past, a Republican official said the Obama team seemed "frantic" at "the mere mention of the word 'Ayers.'" - Politico

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Now the Republicans are taking the only path they have left, which is to attack the personality of Barack Obama, and I think Obama is making a mistake to use the Keating affair to attack McCain. This is very old news, it would be like attacking Hillary Clinton at this stage of the game, by asking, "when Bill was playing with his cigar, what did Hillary know and when did she know it?".

Obama should stick to (quoting Bill) "the economy stupid". Getting down in the mud with the Republicans, Obama has everything to lose and nothing to gain.

As to the economy it is now China's move. Here is an excerpt from an interesting article by analyst M R Venkatesh:

It may be noted that the Chinese, unlike the others, have always questioned the global order with the US at the helm of affairs. And the Chinese accumulation of forex reserves is surely a strategy that perhaps has an ominous side to it. All this is not pure economics as it is made out to be. Rather, it was and remains a well-planned economic, political and military strategy of the Chinese. And in a way it is the mirror image of the Star Wars programme that the then US President Reagan unleashed on the erstwhile USSR in the early eighties that eventually bankrupted the later within a few years as it engaged in competitive arms build-up with the former. Statecraft is all about engaging other countries at one's own terms, pace, time and cost. This is what the US did to the USSR in the eighties and succeeded in dynamiting that country. And that is what China could do to a vulnerable US in the coming months. Crucially, if it doesn't, from the Chinese perspective it might well rue this moment forever.

Anyone who reads Sun Tzu and Mao could tell for some time that China's objective, after the fall of the Soviet Union left them facing America alone, has been to get the USA by the short and curlies... and that seems to be just what they have done. They hold the US economy in the palm of their hand. They have a police state with which to control civil disturbance in a great economic upheaval and they could ride it out to be "the last man standing"... as the article says, if they don't do it, they may live to regret it.

So, in the next few days, we may see breathtaking things on the world economic front, an undreamed of humiliation of America's brand and Obama cannot afford to get off message: ES (economy stupid) ES, ES, ES and ES.

Leave the mud to the Republicans because they have had all of what they are going to spring in the next few days prepared for months. It will be impossible to match it smear for smear. What we are going to see very shortly is every old girlfriend, every old tape, every old dossier: the objective being to be in Bradley distance of Barack Obama in the key states on election day.

This is the time for Obama to be noble, inspiring, nonpartisan and reassuring. His message to the American people as they drive through the car wash with their windows down should be in essence "don't cry, come sit on daddy's lap and let him kiss it and make it well".

This is the time for Obama to be his most emulsifant, emulgent, effulgent and indulgent. If he wants to win this thing he must bring reassurance and comfort to the voters... not get caught in a shit tossing contest.

The next few days in the world of reality, what I call the "car wash", are going to be dreadful, horrible, terrifying...

The one who can communicate to the voters calm, strength and comfort to all that labor and are heavy laden, and give them rest... will win this thing.

If Obama can manage to do that, he might even get my vote. DS

Will McCain move to the populist right?

Photo: Geraint Smith

It is astonishing what an unsteerable ship a US presidential campaign is, how little impression has been made by a crisis that has been under way for weeks now. This is a sign that the interests involved are well entrenched. It leads to the troubling suspicion that the US might be darn unreformable. Christopher Caldwell - Financial Times

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At this point there are only two ways I can see for the Republicans to win in November. One would be something very big from Al Qaeda to occur or a Republican move to the hard, hard right.

You don't think they are there already?

In fact they, or at least John McCain, have quite a bit of distance yet to travel. Read this from Nixon's former speech writer and arch, paleo-conservative, Pat Buchanan:

Philosophically and culturally, we are a divided people. Across the spectrum there are us-versus-them folks who see politics as a zero-sum game between Middle America and a global elite. Below the upper-income brackets and along the center-right are the folks the late columnist Sam Francis, citing sociologist Donald Warren's 1976 study, called Middle American Radicals.(...) In recent years, we have seen the MARs rise again and again in roaring rebellion. But, invariably, when these rebellions occur, John McCain may be found inside the castle walls. In 2007, McCain rushed to Washington to support George Bush, Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post in the drive to grant amnesty to 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens. A national firestorm killed the bill and almost killed McCain's campaign. A year earlier, a MARs uprising killed the Dubai ports deal. The power elite was stunned by the explosion of outrage over the leasing of six U.S. ports to Arab sheiks. Nationalism remains a more potent force than globalism, and not only in America.(...) These Democrats can still win this race for John McCain. Many admire his war record. But not only is he not one of them, he has taken pride and pleasure in having been their great antagonist. Could McCain win them back in five weeks? Perhaps. Is he willing to do what is necessary to win them back? Probably not. It would go against his instincts and his image of himself. The issues that move these folks are not just the $700 billion bailout of Gordon Gekko's comrades, but the invasion of America from Mexico, the export of their jobs, factories and future to Asia, and the gnawing fear that the country they grew up in is being sacrificed for the benefit of an internationalist elite. In Clinton's first term, McCain stood with the establishment for NAFTA, GATT, the WTO and the Mexican bailout. Middle America opposed them all. In the past decade, the MARs have opposed free-trade deals, and lost, but won virtually every referendum on gay marriage, affirmative action or welfare for illegal aliens. Invariably, the MARs are portrayed as bigots, nativists, xenophobes, protectionists and isolationists, and their leaders as demagogues. In McCain's words from 2000, they are "agents of intolerance." This is fine if you wish to be beloved in this city, but it may be a fatal impediment if you want to be president.

Buchanan's text, with a few names changed, would read exactly like a text by any European neo-fascist like Jean Marie Le Pen, Gianfranco Fini or Jörg Haider. It is the same toxic cocktail.

This is the path that much of the European right has been taking in the last few years in France, Italy, Austria and Belgium... even in Germany and it has been paying them huge dividends.

I think a clearer and more tempting recipe for turning McCain's campaign around would be hard to find. Certainly Sarah Palin would be no impediment. Buchanan's former boss, Richard Nixon, would have done it without even blinking, but will John McCain?

All the elements of nationalist humiliation: fear of immigration, subliminal or not so subliminal racism, religious/ethnic fanaticism and you name it are there. If you add that right now, just before the election, the economy appears to be melting down... This is dry straw soaked in gasoline. If McCain doesn't strike the match and light this mess and just meekly goes down to defeat rather than call up America's evil spirits, I would have to take off my hat to him... he would be a true patriot. DS

Handicapping

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If the economic crisis doesn't open up a significant lead for Barack Obama, then I think nothing will.

Perhaps if McCain became confused or wet himself during the debates... but short of that...

At this moment the polls are hardly moving and we still see masses of undecided voters. What are they so undecided about? McCain has been around for donkey's years, the Republicans have failed at everything they have turned their hands to since Bush stole the election in 2000.

Obviously they are undecided about Obama.

Is this racism?

In some cases, yes, of course, but for that to be a fair question, to cry "racism" for sure, you would have to have an African-American candidate with the credentials of a Colin Powell sputtering in the polls, despite his party's huge generic advantage.

I always liked the Hillaryite appraisal that a woman with a CV as thin as Obama's would never be taken seriously, and I would venture to say that a white man with so little on his stick wouldn't be either.

In the specific case of Obama, I think race has been an essential part of his appeal, his package... what they call now his "story" and it has protected him from a lot of aggressive questioning.

Still, a decisive percentage of potential voters don't seem to feel they "know" him yet and suddenly all of this is getting deadly serious. There is a whiff of panic, a whiff of the Great Depression

So now, with the economy seemingly melting down, are the undecided going to choose the unknown?

They might, if Obama showed the quality that he claimed as his own at the beginning, that of bringing the people together, "uniting" them, above partisanship, to enthusiastically contribute, selflessly, to a common project. However, it is reasonable to say that if he were showing much of that quality these days, he would have broken 50% long ago, be leading by over ten points and he would be drawing the crowds and enthusiasm he drew in the early primary season. That obviously isn't happening.

If Obama doesn't go over 50%, with at least a seven point lead over McCain this weekend, I would say, no, the undecided won't choose the unknown. Most of the undecideds, in my opinion, are people who are not going to vote for Obama, but don't want the poll taker to think they are racists. On Monday we'll know a lot more. DS

PS. For me, the joker in the deck is that pollsters don't call people with cellphones. That is the variable that could blindside all us wiseguys. There is an entire generation of potential voters that don't use landlines very much, and although they don't usually vote, they are said to be wild about Obama. But, if these people never get phoned, how do the pollsters know they like Obama so much?

Hand of God?

David Seaton's News Links

“I was just thinking, this Gustav is proof that there is a God in heaven,” (Michael) Moore said, laughing. “To have it planned at the same time – that it would actually be on its way to New Orleans for day one of the Republican Convention, up in the Twin Cities – at the top of the Mississippi River.” Business & Media Institute

That's one way of looking at it, but I just read this over on CNN:

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney will not attend the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, because of Hurricane Gustav, White House press secretary Dana Perino said Sunday.(...) A senior McCain source said Saturday that officials were considering turning the convention into a massive telethon to raise money for the Red Cross and other agencies to help with hurricane aid. "He wants to do something service oriented if and when the storm hits and it's as bad as it's expected to be now," the McCain source said. They are also hoping to get McCain himself to a storm-affected area as soon as possible. McCain had suggested to a Fox News interviewer that the convention could be suspended if it seemed that a festive gathering was inappropriate in light of the destruction the storm may bring.

So, it turns out that the hand of God will keep both Bush and Cheney from attending the convention... Don't you think that keeping those two politically poisonous individuals away from the convention is something McCain would have been down on his knees praying for?

You bet!

And wouldn't you say having the entire media fixed both on Gustav and the Republican convention 24/7, that this is a God given opportunity for McCain be all over the news cycle and to look, proactive, competent, compassionate and presidential?

A chance for McCain at the scene of one of Bush's greatest disasters, to be "McDifferent" and not McSame?

If I were an Evangelical, which thank God I'm not, I would gather from all this that our Father in heaven is mightily pleased with McCain's Veep pick. DS

Failing to rewind

David Seaton's News Links

People are all like, "whaddya, whaddya?"

"David, are you endorsing John McCain?"

No, not really.

I thought that the best possible candidate for president this year was Al Gore.... and I still think so.

First, because I consider him the "President in Exile". He won and we were all robbed.

Gore was against the war in Iraq and probably he would have paid attention to the CIA report on Bin-Laden that Condi and Dubya ignored. Much of what has been bad in these eight years, including stiffing Kyoto and torturing prisoners, would surely have been avoided had Gore been installed in the White House in January 2001.

To top it off, Gore is now a Nobel Prize winner. He is universally recognized as a person of "vision" with real live, clearly stated, well known, credible, unflipfloppable positions on some of the most important issues of our time.

Electing him president this year would have been the closest thing to rewinding history I can think of and a true, unmistakable message to the world of the repudiation of George W. Bush and all his works.

Al Gore shouldn't have had to even run for the nomination this year. He should have been drafted at the convention in an act of acclamation with everybody applauding everybody like the sort of thing that the Bulgarian Communist Party used to be famous for.

I understand that some people find Al Gore dull. To those people I suggest they buy a video game and press the buttons till they grow hair on their palms.

As to Barack Obama.

When the Democratic field was narrowed down to Hillary and Obama I had trouble believing how decadent it all was. A "dynastic wife", like Sonia Gandhi or Cristina Kirchner running against a fairy tale. The winner to run against a semi-crippled, septuagenarian of questionable temperament.

This in a country of 300,000,000 people, the richest, most powerful nation on earth, a country that thinks itself "a light unto the nations", a nation of fabled ice-cream.

This is not to deny Barack Obama's talent. Not since Ferdinand Waldo Demara has anyone gone farther with less reality to back him up.

If he had ever been the successful governor of an important state or even the mayor of a big town or done something difficult and dangerous in his short time in the Senate I could buy this. But no.

Who knows, Obama might have made a good Veep on Gore's ticket and after eight years in that office, he would have had an easy, natural shot at the presidency. As it is, if he loses this year simply because people don't want to vote for a "question mark", it is going to set back race relations in the USA by decades. There won't be a black person in America that will ever believe that Obama lost for any other reason than because he was black.

But, that is still no reason to put the atomic bomb in the hands of a "question mark".

So, no, I am not a big fan of McCain's, but he seems real to me.. "The last man left standing". I don't think Dennis Kucinich is going to get elected in a write-in campaign, so I guess that leaves John McCain. DS

Barack Edsel?

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that Barack Obama’s Berlin bounce is fading. Obama now attracts 45% of the vote while John McCain earns 42%. When "leaners" are included, it’s Obama 48% and McCain 45%. Both Obama and McCain are viewed favorably by 56% of voters.(...) Obama enjoyed two very strong nights of polling on Thursday and Friday. His lead grew to six-points for results released on Saturday (see recent daily results). However, polling on Saturday and Sunday showed the candidates much closer with single-day results similar to polling from before the Berlin speech. Obama earns the vote from 77% of Democrats, McCain is supported by 82% of Republicans. Unaffiliated voters are evenly divided.

David Seaton's News Links

It simply isn't happening.

Barack Obama was received like a movie star in Europe and John McCain has had what everyone considered his worst week ever, chock full with fluffs and nonevents. Bloomberg's description is perfect:

Obama's eight-day trip to the Middle East war zones and Europe was almost perfect. The Democratic candidate looked and sounded presidential and reassuring, while avoiding missteps.

The contrasts, often unfairly, with McCain at home were stunning. One looking vigorous in a helicopter over Iraq, the other in a golf cart with former President George H. W. Bush -- 155 years of age between them.

...and yet the polls aren't moving.

I titled this post "Barack Edsel", because I'm actually old enough to remember the Ford "Edsel".

It was the classic, textbook case of an enormous marketing blitz designed to sweep the nation, that didn't sweep.

The father of a friend of mine bought one, neither he nor his kid ever lived it down.

For those of you too young to recall the Edsel fiasco, this is how Wikipedia describes it:

The Edsel was introduced amidst considerable publicity on "E Day"—September 4, 1957. It was promoted by a top-rated television special, The Edsel Show on October 13, but it was not enough to counter the adverse public reaction to the car's styling and conventional build. For months Ford had been circulating rumours that led consumers to expect an entirely new kind of car when in reality the Edsel shared its bodywork with other Ford models.

My reading is that at this time, with the economy in the tank, two wars going badly and Maliki shilling for him, Obama should be at least 20 points ahead of McCain.

I saw the other day, that at this point, Jimmy Carter had a 30 percent lead on Gerald Ford. Obama, on the contrary, has the slimmest of leads and hasn't broken the 50% barrier. (cough, sputter, putt, putt)

Contrary to what many think, I believe that the "undecideds" are looking for the merest excuse to swing to McCain. He can fumble and flub all he wants and it doesn't touch his numbers, but any serious gaffe or "October surprise" will sink Barack Obama like a stone.

It seems to me that McCain would have to be found wandering around Washington confused and unable to find his way home to lose this one. DS

Afghanistan/Pakistan: the new "Vietnam"?

Pashtun tribesman - photo by Thomas Cole

David Seaton's News Links
As a blogger and as a columnist, I'd love to always be original or be a huge expert on a specific subject, but I am what is known as a "generalist", a jack of all themes and a master of none.

If I pride myself on anything, it is on my taste in experts and guides. I have learned who to ask, what to ask, and who to trust and when to trust them and when not and to all of this and all of them, I owe my living.

I happily stand on the shoulders of giants and every now and then, they put me in range of a slam dunk.

Two of my all time favorite experts, William Pfaff and Juan Cole, have both written about Barack Obama's strategy for the war in Afghanistan. A strategy which might be defined as "out of the frying pan (Iraq) and into the fire (Afghanistan). Briefly, to take troops from Iraq and take them to Afghanistan to "fight Al Qaeda".

Pfaff and Cole both coincide in their advice: Bad idea, don't do it.

Please read the quotes below with great care.

Age before beauty, first at bat, William Pfaff:

Barack Obama has announced his intention to commit himself to another disaster in the making. As president, he would dispatch reinforcements “to fight Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan.” During the campaign has repeatedly attacked George Bush for going to war against the wrong enemy, Iraq, in the guise of fighting Al Qaeda. Now he will reinforce the fight against the Taliban, once again in the guise of fighting Al Qaeda. The Taliban are not Al Qaeda, any more than the Iraqis were. There is a civil war going on in Afghanistan. There may soon be a civil war in northern Pakistan. The Taliban are involved in both, and the United States has every interest in staying out of both.(...) At one point in their tangled history they afforded hospitality to their fellow-traditionalist Muslim, the Saudi Arabian Osama ben-Ladin. That was their big mistake. The Bush administration made the bigger mistake of becoming entangled with them, for which the United States will eventually be sorry. Barack Obama should think again about what he proposes to do.

Now for Juan Cole:

If the Afghanistan gambit is sincere, I don't think it is good geostrategy. Afghanistan is far more unwinnable even than Iraq. If playing it up is politics, then it is dangerous politics. Presidents can become captive of their own record and end up having to commit to things because they made strong representations about them to the public.(...) We who admire him don't want Afghanistan to become an albatross around the neck of a President Obama. I am old enough to remember one of the things that nearly killed the Democratic Party as a presidential party in the US, which was the way Lyndon Johnson let himself gradually get roped into ramping up the US troop presence in Vietnam from a small force to 500,000, and then still not win. Afghan tribes are fractious. They feud. Their territory is vast and rugged, and they know it like the back of their hands. Afghans are Jeffersonians in the sense that they want a light touch from the central government, and heavy handedness drives them into rebellion. Stand up Karzai's army and air force and give him some billions to bribe the tribal chiefs, and let him apply carrot and stick himself. We need to get out of there. "Al-Qaeda" was always Bin Laden's hype. He wanted to get us on the ground there so that the Mujahideen could bleed us the way they did the Soviets. It is a trap.

Both Cole and Pfaff coincide that Osama bin Laden is not really the issue. I myself believe that Tora Bora was the unique chance to get him and the US blew it. After that the USA has "taken the bait" and fallen into Bin Laden's trap and should extract itself forthwith.

In the middle of the above extract Juan makes, for me, the most important point:

We who admire him don't want Afghanistan to become an albatross around the neck of a President Obama. I am old enough to remember one of the things that nearly killed the Democratic Party as a presidential party in the US, which was the way Lyndon Johnson let himself gradually get roped into ramping up the US troop presence in Vietnam from a small force to 500,000, and then still not win.

Why is this so important?

Two important premises that I argue from after reading Pfaff and Cole:

• If Barack Obama is sworn in a President of the United States, his first objective, as it is the objective of every young man who has ever been elected president, will be to get reelected president. 2012 will loom before him like a chimera and will color his every thought, his every word and his every action.
  

• Democrats with no military experience are obsessed with not being viewed as wimps (Republicans like Bush and Cheney are too, but the Republicans don't attack them). President Obama, not the world's most mannish boy to begin with, will want to prove beyond a doubt to everyone here and abroad that he has big, big, big, cojones.
  

That need to prove his masculinity was what broke Lyndon Baines Johnson, perhaps the only potentially great president after Roosevelt and cost a million dead Vietnamese and 50,000 dead Americans.

Lyndon Baines Johnson was one of the smartest, big hearted, can do, practical and experienced men to ever sit in the White House. Barack Obama is not worthy to tie LBJ's sandal, or at least nothing in his brief public life would give him any right to presume so. Therefore I think Obama would be much more vulnerable than Johnson to prove he had the "right stuff". That is the formula for disaster, because, don't kid yourself, to "win the war" would finally lead, escalation by escalation into an invasion and dismemberment of Pakistan and that is the abyss, the bottomless pit of America's self destruction if ever there was one.

Quite reasonably you could point out that McCain is also in favor of "winning".

Sure he is. The only thing he has going for him is that people may doubt his health, sanity and temper, but nobody, but nobody, anywhere, is ever going to doubt John McCain's cojones. Which means that if it becomes obvious to military experts that America has to pull out of Afghanistan or suffer the same fate there as the Soviets did, McCain will be able do it without anybody (especially the "Republican attack machine") calling him a wimp or doubting for one moment his patriotism. He has that credit, which would be vital in this situation.

As to Iraq: finally the US will have to content itself with the "legacy" of having removed Saddam Hussein and created a freely elected government in Baghdad. Drawing the line under that would allow Americans to still think that they are somehow "special" and save another few trillion dollars and God knows how many lives.

As Pfaff says,

Barack Obama calls the Iraq prime minister’s demand for an American troop withdrawal schedule “an enormous opportunity.” He is right, and it must be accepted. This is what the majority of the American public voted for, but didn’t get, from the midterm American election of 2006.

Instead the Bush government gave Americans the surge. The surge has resulted in Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s demand for a phased American withdrawal from Iraq. Bush expected the surge to produce victory, whatever that might mean, and the right to dictate the terms on which the United States would stay in Iraq, not leave.

Those terms were made known earlier this year: total American exemption from Iraqi law (meaning extra-territorial legal status), veto over Iraqi government decisions, control over Iraqi military and police operations, authority to arrest and imprison Iraqi citizens and foreigners, immunity for American contractors from Iraqi law, and control of Iraq’s airspace.

The surge did the opposite. It created the conditions for Maliki’s demand that the U.S. and its allies leave. General David Petraeus built cement walls in cities to separate Sunnis from Shi’ites. This meant reciprocal ethnic cleansing in sensitive areas, to suppress conflict.

Petraeus paid Sunni tribal groups to fight foreigners – the self-named “al Qaeda in Mesopotamia” – and to keep order in their areas. He encouraged the Maliki government to impose its authority on the radical militia controlled by the young Shi’ite leader, Moqtada al-Sadr.

This created the conditions in which rival power groups, as in Basra, provisionally settled the power issues at stake between them, which would have (and possibly will again) produce conflict when the occupation ends.

The surge segregated groups, imposed truces, and made provisional arrangements to buy peace between factions. It thus created conditions in which the Iraqis want the occupation to end.

Some in Washington don’t want this because the Pentagon has built bases throughout Iraq it certainly does not want to give up, and the State Department has built in the Green Zone the world’s biggest American embassy, complete with tennis courts, swimming pools, leaking roofs and flooding toilets, and a fast-food shopping mall complete with blast shelters, just for Americans, and is anxious to move in and run Iraq. Is all this to be sacrificed to an unwelcome Iraqi sovereignty?

No one knows; but it begins to look that way, as according to the latest reports, American and Iraqi officials have now abandoned negotiations, leaving it to a new American president to take up the matter.

Barack Obama, if elected, would do well to immediately accept the Maliki demand, and leave no U.S. forces behind that could pull Americans back into Iraq. Give the Iraq government what it wants, and leave the disaster of the past six years totally on the account of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney

Who knows, if the US did that, maybe someday, when today's dead have turned to dust, the Iraqis might even feel grateful.

But to use that retreat to up the ante in Afghanistan, thus ignoring the experience of both the British and the Russians there, would be the height of folly and lead to disasters that would turn the Vietnam horror into a dry footnote in the theses of future Chinese historians. DS

Huckabee speaks... about Obama

``Don't underestimate the extraordinary, substantive moment that Barack Obama's nomination represents in our country.'' Mike Huckabee

David Seaton's News Links
Many long time News Links readers will remember my interest in the former governor of Arkansas, the "give Hope another chance" man, the right Reverend Mike Huckabee

I have to confess that of all the candidates I have seen this year, the one whose natural talent impresses me most is Mike Huckabee.

I find him by far the smartest, all round politician of the lot. A southern populist without being racist, a social conservative with more nuances than a Japanese trying to say no.

After the color of Obama's skin, I find Huckabee's ways the most original political cross dressing in contemporary US politics.

Here is this from Bloomberg.

Former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee warned members of his party that any attempt to undermine presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama by ``demonizing'' him would backfire.

``The Republicans will make a fundamental, if not fatal mistake, if they seek to win the election by demonizing Barrack Obama,'' Huckabee told reporters in Tokyo. ``Don't underestimate the extraordinary, substantive moment that Barack Obama's nomination represents in our country.''

How many Republicans do you know, beginning with Karl Rove, who could say that, or even think that?

Republicans certainly don't feel very comfortable with Huckabee, because he is a populist. And it was Huckabee that took the wind out of Romney, who was by far the favorite of the GOP establishment.

Huckabee is a master politician, he knocked Mitt Romney, who spent millions out the race, and did it on a shoestring.

He probably won't be McCain's choice for veep, at this point I think that Mayor Bloomberg (and his money) are what McCain needs most.

For some Michael Huckabee is a joke.

Many disqualify Huckabee for serious consideration because he doesn't believe in evolution.

As to evolution, if the Democrats want to win southern white people or even a lot of evangelical black people, they had better not put evolution at the center of their program, More than religious, this is a cultural thing. Poor people never have liked Darwinism very much... think about it. What does "survival of the fittest" hold for them? What is their role in "the devil take the hindmost"? Jesus offers a far better deal.

Religion and populism go hand in hand. "Religion is the opium of the people" in the same sense that "opium is the opium of the cancer patient". At issue is pain, if you propose no real cure for the disease, why begrudge the palliative drug?

Don't, repeat don't, write Mike Huckabee off, if the economic crisis deepens and widens, he is going to make his presence heavily felt. DS

What exactly makes a horse race?

David Seaton's News Links
The "photo finish" above expresses all the excitement of horse racing. One horse is beating another by "a nose".

This excitement generates cash.

A tight race, with an exciting finish that brings the fans to their feet is what horse racing is all about.

The excitement and the doubt about which horse is going to win stimulates betting and fills the race course with regular, paying customers.

For those who organize horse races a photo finish like the one above is the preferred result in every single race. If the results of horse races were preordained, no one would ever broadcast them and no one would ever write about them in the newspapers. Therefore preordained horse race winners would generate no advertising revenues.

Since, unavoidably, some horses are much faster than others, something must be done to "even the odds": a horse racing term if ever there was one.

The track official in charge of doing this is called the "handicapper" and his profession is called "handicapping".

Many readers may have only heard the term, "handicapped" as the politically incorrect version of "physically challenged", the politically correct version takes longer to say, but actually means the same thing as the incorrect version.

In the handicapper's ideal race all the horses would cross the finish line at exactly the same time. To make this happen he "physically challenges" or "handicaps" them by putting lead weights in the faster horses's saddles to make them run more slowly. This is why you see pictures of the tiny jockeys being weighed along with their saddles before the race; to ensure that the total weight that was calculated by the official handicapper is what finally goes on the horse at the starting gate.

The prospective wagerer out to "have a flutter", seeing the handicappers handiwork thinks, "'Flying Dog Food' is by far the best horse today, he's won every race he's ever been entered in, but he's never carried this much weight before and besides, last night it rained and the track will be slow" and thus the punter takes more interest in the race... and maybe bets against 'Flying Dog Food". More action and more commissions for the bookies, excitement, photo finishes, money... Horse racing.

Which brings us to the coming election.

Professor Immanuel Wallerstein encapsulates most, if not all, of the present commentary when he writes:

Barack Obama(...) is going to sweep the elections with a large majority of the Electoral College and a considerable increase in Democratic strength in both houses of the Congress. (...) If one analyzes the situation in detail, state by state, the only state that voted Democratic in 2004 in which McCain seems to be competitive today is Michigan. The states that Bush won in 2004 in which Obama is competitive are numerous - Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia, and maybe Nevada, North Carolina, and Montana. He's even doing well enough in Mississippi that Republicans will have to invest money and time campaigning there. If Obama won all the competitive states except Michigan, he'd have 310-333 electoral votes. He needs 270.

Not much of a race at this point, is it? All over but the shouting, don't you think? Wake me up when it's over, no?

If you compare the present race between Obama and McCain to Obama and Hillary's battle to the wire, or even McCain's home stretch gallop out of the crowded Republican pack, it all looks pretty boring, doesn't it? ... And it's only June! Finished before it began.

Think of how many people were glued to their TVs as Hillary battled on, how many advertisements those people had to sit through to hear all the pundit's expert drivel... The Obama vs. McCain race is not going to sell much stuff is it?

A real money loser, something that the media have to cover, but nobody much wants to watch.

Think how much more money everybody concerned would make if the two candidates raced neck and neck, through the summer and into the fall.

This race is begging to be handicapped.

A photo finish is the desired result. A cliff hanger all the way down to the wire with everybody glued to their TV sets till the break of dawn on election night... sitting through all those ads.

Remember, in handicapping, the fastest horse has to carry the heaviest weights.

Barack Obama has peaked way too soon. His superiority is beginning to bore. It looks more like a coronation than a race.

Or more like Jesus' Palm Sunday ride into Jerusalem on a donkey than the Kentucky Derby.

Without any particular malice aforethought the media is going to begin to pick Obama's story apart, just to keep the public's attention from drifting off. They really have nothing better to do.

They have to make a new story out of this.

In the next weeks we are going to see if Obama has what horse racing fans call "heart" or "class". DS

Si non è vero

Scene from a capea

David Seaton's News Links
The other day I posted a version of my News Links post, "The Sword of Damocles" over at TPMCafe. "The Sword of Damocles" was a speculation about the famous/infamous, true/false, existent/inexistent, Michelle "tape/dvd".

I was gratified by the tremendous response I received. The TPM forum is a unique opportunity to take the pulse of any issue and anyone who earns his bread and cheese in political speculation has to be grateful for the opportunity.

That said, I really had to dodge the flung dung.

They called me everything but pretty.

I am pleased to share with my readers some of the choicest stuff that that was tossed my way over the "Sword" and a follow up post to it, which I'll reprise below. Enjoy.

God, Seaton, you're a fucking idiot. I NEVER call people that.

From one Obama supporter: Fuck off!

I've suspected for quite a while that you're an intellectually dishonest jackass.

This crap is just wacky with no entertainment value. Except for the freakshow.

Toss him a chicken, see what he does with it.

Seaton, I don't wish to put too fine a point on it but you, sir, are a fool.

David, you are a weasel, and either phony or demented.

Are there any DVD/Videos rumored to be out there which reveal that David Seaton is a convicted pedophile, who can not return to the USA.

So much for the "new politics".

If you are a friend, please don't be upset by any of this, I'm certainly not. "Sticks and stones," as we used to chant as tots. The Obamites haven't gotten to sticks and stones yet... but, only time will tell.

In fact, the above abuse is music to my ears. It means that my probing has connected solidly with an exposed nerve and that a fruitful path of investigation has been revealed to me.

In fact, the reaction I received to my post convinces me more than anything else that there is something to this rumor.

Or perhaps I should say that it proves that there is a tremendous fear among Obamites that there is something out there of equal caliber and destructiveness.

There is a famous Italian saying about certain rumors; "Si non e vero, e ben trovato", it means: if it isn't true, it's well made up. It sounds true because it is made up of many elements that are probable in themselves.

For example if we were going to invent scurrilous rumors about John McCain, we would probably invent things like his having incipient Alzheimer or wearing diapers. Because of his great age, some people might believe it.

However, if we spread it about that he was a shoe fetishist or a child molester or that he took drugs, or often missed his naps, very few would find that credible, again because of his great age.

I really can't imagine either McCain or his supporters mobilizing masses of people to refute any of these inventions, either the credible or the incredible.

In the case of Michelle Obama, this tape rumor is either true or it isn't.... and if it isn't, it will die a natural death, certainly long before November.

However, the hysterical reaction of the Obama campaign and the Obamites in general makes me smell a rat. It proves that as Maureen Dowd writes in the NYT.

“Michelle,” as one political observer puts it, “is a target-rich environment.”

The Obamite reaction will certainly prove to the Rovian, neo-Swiftboaters that they are close to pay dirt.

To anyone with insight, I think it is perfectly obvious that Barack Obama is Hawaii's answer to Tony Blair... a phony: a faux-progressive manipulator. I am sure that Obama's role models are Blair and Reagan... passed through Dick Daley.

The way Barack Obama needlessly sold out the Palestinians the other day at AIPAC proves to me that he'll do the same on health or anything else. He makes John Kerry's "flip flopping" look Gibraltar-like in its steadiness. Except for bare faced Blairian spin, like his race speech, I have yet to see even one moment of genuine political courage in his entire career.

Every day as the campaign intensifies more people are going to be catching on to this and as sympathetic (dog like?) as the media has been up till now in their treatment of Obama, some will be tempted to hold his feet to the fire and obviously the Obama campaign wants to intimidate them. The Spanish call this "curing yourself in health" or "applying a bandage before you are cut".

Noemi Klein writes in the Guardian:

Barack Obama waited just three days after Hillary Clinton pulled out of the race to declare, on CNBC: "Look. I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I love the market." Demonstrating that this is no mere spring fling, he has appointed the 37-year-old Jason Furman, one of Wal-Mart's most prominent defenders, to head his economic team. On the campaign trail, Obama blasted Clinton for sitting on the Wal-Mart board and pledged: "I won't shop there." For Furman, however, Wal-Mart's critics are the real threat: the "efforts to get Wal-Mart to raise its wages and benefits" are creating "collateral damage" that is "way too enormous and damaging to working people and the economy ... for me to sit by idly and sing Kum Ba Ya in the interests of progressive harmony".

She was immediately brought to book by an Obamite calling him/herself, "Watching You", citing chapter and verse of "The Audacity of Hope" and warning Ms. Klein to "be careful".

I'm beginning to wish Obama does win, just for the fun I'll have taking the piss out of his starry eyed supporters as he triangulates the conservatives on every issue in true, Clinton (Bill)/Blair fashion and slows down and dilutes every transformational initiative from the left of the Democratic Congress and Senate.

I am beginning to think that I might have as much fun with Obama as I have had with Bush.

If McCain wins, I know I will disagree with him most of the time, but I don't think I'll feel the sort of contempt I feel for Bush or Blair... or Obama.

Back to the rumorology and its effect on the election.

This election is about Barack Obama. How he wins it or how he loses it.

In a certain sense McCain is an "innocent" bystander.

The center of my thesis is that while McCain can't "win", Obama can lose it and the weakest link he has is his wife Michelle. That is because she is a real person, with real opinions, who has spoken her mind without calculating the effect her words might have years later on her husband's fortunes.

She is also a person who belongs to what, in the United States at least, might be called the left.... and the USA is a solidly right wing country by world standards.

With much media complicity, Obama has been able to distance himself from embarrassing associations... up till now. Obama can throw Wright, Trinity, Johnson or the Palestinian people under the bus, but if he tries to throw Michelle Robinson under the bus, she'll cut his effing heart out.

As to the rumor itself... there is one detail that is either true, or the work of master rumor monger: that is the bit about Michelle's denouncing Bill Clinton's inaction on the Rwanda genocide. That is a story that surfaced a couple of months before her supposed speech to the Rainbow/Push conference in 2004 and which quickly dropped out of the public eye, it is a political junky's collector's item, it is certainly something too old and too obscure for a crude forger to either understand or use today. DS