Category Archives: Out There

Tea Party pressing Graham over Kagan

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Not that he’s asked them what they want, since he thinks of the Tea Party pretty much the way I do.

Anyway, here’s their TV ad on the subject.

I’m guessing they’re NOT releasing an ad today aimed at Jim DeMint. Because they don’t have to worry about him. He won’t think about his vote. You can count on that. So to me, this ad is a tribute to Lindsey Graham for being someone who can be lobbied and courted, because he will consider each nominee. He’s the fair judge in this. He’s the thinking senator. So it’s fitting that interest groups would work to influence his thinking.

Sorry I haven’t been posting today; just busy. Among other things I had lunch with ex-Mayor Bob today over at the Townhouse. And in a few minutes I’m going over to meet with his successor in his new office. Maybe I’ll get something to file out of it; we’ll see. Then at 6, I’ll be on that Sirius radio show. If you have access, it will be at Sirius 112 / XM 157, they tell me.

Catch you later…

Ron Paul inching toward another run?

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We all have our little cheap tricks for driving traffic to our blogs. One local blogger posts cheesecake pictures and claims to have had sex with a candidate for governor. I occasionally put “Ron Paul” in a headline. The Paulistas come running in droves from across the country, for items such as this:

Last month’s trip to Iowa was his third to the state since November 2009, so it begs the question: Is Paul trying to lay the groundwork for a 2012 White House run?
“I am very serious about thinking about it all the time,” Paul said about his possible presidential aspirations. “My answer is always the same thing: You know I haven’t ruled it out, but I have no plans to do it.”
For now, Paul will continue to travel the country to promote his philosophy, while his 2008 presidential campaign operation has morphed into the Campaign for Liberty, a 500,000-member organization that promotes libertarian views.

Apparently he’s thinking of running as a Republican again this time. Don’t know why he doesn’t go back to running as a Libertarian. It was a closer fit (despite the GOP’s moves in that direction), and his chances would have been just as good. If I were a Libertarian, I’d feel abandoned — soon as the guy gets some notoriety, he leaves. Perhaps the emergence of Sanfordistas such as Nikki Haley encourages him that he’s making progress. Of course, I wouldn’t call it progress, but he would.

“It’s not a joke,” says Greene of his “GI Alvin” plan

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Lest you be dismissive of the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, first check out his plan for bringing jobs back to South Carolina, as reported by The Guardian (which, last time I checked, was not part of the SC MSM that should be covering this election):

“Another thing we can do for jobs is make toys of me, especially for the holidays. Little dolls. Me. Like maybe little action dolls. Me in an army uniform, air force uniform, and me in my suit. They can make toys of me and my vehicle, especially for the holidays and Christmas for the kids. That’s something that would create jobs. So you see I think out of the box like that. It’s not something a typical person would bring up. That’s something that could happen, that makes sense. It’s not a joke.”

No, I’m not making this up. It’s not a joke. A new twist on GI Joe. That’s his plan. You know, as a guy who was unemployed for a really long time, I’m resenting the picture he’s presenting to the world of guys like us. And for the record, I have NOT shown any dirty pictures to co-eds.

But as a Mad Man, I think I smell a tagline in the making. He could build his whole campaign around it: “It’s not a joke!”

And you know what, it isn’t. Not a funny one, anyway.

Backup tagline: “It’s not something a typical person would bring up.”

And as I could tell the client in all honesty, there are plenty more where those two came from…

Peach Festival: Politicians and fringe types (oops, was that redundant?)

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Someone wondered the other day whether my having a job would cut into my blogging. Well, maybe at some point. For instance, I was busy all last week and couldn’t get to the Virtual Front Page late in the day. But folks, I’ve been at ADCO since February. Have you noticed me slacking off here?

Actually, the partners at ADCO dig the blog. In fact, I sometimes have to suggest that they stop sending me cool stuff for the blog so I can get some Mad Man work done. Some days, this falls on deaf ears.

Such as today. Today, Partner and VP of Marketing Lora Prill demonstrated that she is apparently a frustrated reporter. She had told me that she and her husband were taking their little boy to the Peach Festival parade today, and that if she saw anything interesting, she’d send me a picture. Cool.

Well, today, she sent me SEVEN e-mails and SIX pictures. Here are some of them.

The picture of Nikki above was taken “seconds after being heckled by the Oathkeepers.  They are yelling at everyone–even the band and clowns–spoiling the fun for everyone in the vicinity.” Except Alan Wilson, whom they apparently liked, for whatever reason. Apparently, Oathkeepers is a bunch of guys in uniform — which is slightly disturbing — who have taken it upon themselves to protect the Constitution as they read it. Yeah, one of those groups. Because, you know, the Constitution is under siege and all. Interestingly, if you read their concerns, they’re a mishmash of threats that liberals perceive to the Constitution (Patriot Act stuff) and ones that concern the extreme right. What a bunch of worrywarts.

And they weren’t really yelling AT the candidates so much as they were yelling. When I asked why they were pestering Nikki, she amended her earlier bulletin (an editor has to really cross-examine a reporter to get the straight dope — oh, the burdens we bear!):

They were not really heckling anyone, they were just yelling out things about protecting the Constitution, something about the FDA, something about some sort of digital ID (they shouted that at Joe’s group), etc. They yelled out a lot about the FDA and food actually.  When Alan Wilson went by they lauded him as a protector of the Constitution. Probably referring to his military service.

Maybe they were hungry, and that’s what got them on food. I don’t know.

Anyway, that’s our report from the Peach Festival.

The Fix lists Top Five nastiest SC races ever

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We are truly legendary, to the point that political junkies sit around up in Washington dreaming up Top Five lists about us, a laHigh Fidelity, such as “The five nastiest South Carolina races ever.”

At least, Chris Cillizza at the WashPost‘s The Fix does.

And it’s a pretty good list even though it’s awfully heavy on stuff that happened during my own career. He does, to give him credit, give a mention to the legendary Preston Brooks, but the Top Five are all 1978 or later.

Given that limitation, it’s a good list. He counts them down thusly:

5. 2002 Republican governors runoff: This is the one I wrote about yesterday (at least, I wrote about the GOP effort to come together AFTER this nasty battle), between Mark Sanford and Bob Peeler. Peeler’s campaign, run by party regulars, was inexcusable, as Cillizza correctly recalls: “In one particularly memorable Peeler ad, a Sanford look-alike is shown stripping a soldier down to his underwear to illustrate Sanford’s alleged attitude toward military funding.” Yep. I remember it well.
4. 1978 4th district race: The abominable campaign against Max Heller, featuring anti-Semitic push-polling by Carroll Campbell’s pollster. I was in Tennessee at the time covering Lamar Alexander and Jake Butcher, but I’ve heard plenty about this from my good friend Samuel Tenenbaum over the years.
3. 1980 2nd district race: Also before I came home to SC, but I knew the players later: Lee Atwater, on behalf of Floyd Spence, told the press that Tom Turnipseed had been hooked up to “jumper cables” — a reference to shock treatments he had received for depression as a teenager.
2. 2010 Republican governors primary: That’s the one we just lived through. Or rather, are still living through. If we live.
1. 2000 Republican presidential primary: The filthy tricks that George W. Bush’s campaign used against John McCain to stop his candidacy and give Bush the momentum to go on and win the presidency. Not sure this was necessarily the nastiest by SC standards, but it certainly had the most profound impact on the world. I firmly believe that otherwise John McCain would have been our president on 9/11 and thereafter, which would have been better for us all. That knowledge of how South Carolina let the world down was very much on my mind when we pushed for McCain’s victory in the 2008 primary. (I also felt responsible because the newspaper — over my strong objections — endorsed Bush over McCain in 2000.)
They keep talking about us. And they will continue to do so, until we turn our backs on all this stuff. Which is why I’m rooting for Vincent Sheheen.

What’s the difference between ugly good ol’ boy populism and Palin/Haley populism? Lipstick.

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Sorry not to be forthcoming with a post on the Sarah Palin/Nikki Haley event last evening. I’ve been too busy — my baby granddaughter spent the night with us last night, my youngest daughter came home from Charlotte and my wife and I had a lot of errands to run this morning (including, alas, taking her car in for several hundred dollars worth of repairs).

So I was living life instead of blogging. But I should add that I was glad I couldn’t post right away, because I’ve been… depressed… since that event. As I’ve turned over what to say about it in my minds (I almost corrected that to the singular after typing the S, but then realized that plural is correct; I am of several minds on all this), I’ve been unable to think of anything constructive to say. And even when I’m going to be scathingly critical of something, I want it to be for a purpose. I want there to be a constructive point in mind, something to add to a conversation that would help us all move forward somehow.

But I haven’t arrived. Instead, I’m feeling a level of alienation that would make Benjamin Braddock and Holden Caulfield seem happy and well-adjusted.

Part of it, but just a small part, is this problem I’ve been wrestling with of my increased sense of alienation from Republicans in general. I don’t like it; it runs against my grain. To react with constant negativity to Republicans and all their works suggest partisanship, an affinity for Democrats, to most people. Not to me — Lord knows, I still find the Democrats off-putting enough, and am still pleased not to identify with them either — but to other people. And when you write a blog, how you are perceived by others matters. But I can’t help it. While the Dems are merely no more irritating than usual these days, the Republicans have so aggressively, actively offended my sense of propriety and my intelligence as they have flailed about since the 2008 election, that even tiny things set me off now. I no longer have to see one of those maddening TV commercials — like the two I saw last night, Andre Bauer talking first and foremost about the need for smaller government (as if THAT were the main problem facing a state that’s laying off teachers left and right) and Henry McMaster talking about the “radicals” running Washington (as if that were any less crazy than the claims of the birthers). Now, just small things send me deeper into my funk. This morning I saw a sign for a candidate who had only one thing to say about himself, that he was a “Rock Solid… Republican” — as though that identification were sufficient, that reassurance that I am not one of them; I’m one of us. The sheer, obnoxious, impervious smugness of it…

(If I were a Democrat, I wouldn’t worry about this. They can console themselves with the fantasy that all they have to do is win the election, and their troubles are over. I’m always conscious of the fact that as many as 40 percent of voters would still be Republicans — just as between 30 and 40 percent are Democrats now, even with a Republican governing majority — and you’d still have to deal with them and reason with them if you really want to move our state forward. Especially in our Legislative State, you sort of have to build consensus to get things done. So when either party seems to be trying to drift beyond reason — say, when Dems were in the grips of Bush Derangement Syndrome — that worries me.)

But the alienation I’m feeling standing in that crowd of Haley and Palin supporters is different. Partly because these women aren’t positioning themselves as Republicans. On the contrary, they are relishing their animosity toward the people in their party who already hold a majority of public offices in this state. They are proud to antagonize and run against those Republicans with greater experience and understanding than they have. They turn their inexperience and lack up understanding of issues from a weakness into a virtue. Their fans cheer loudest when they hold up their naivete as a battle flag.

A little over a year ago, Nikki Haley was just an idealistic sophomore legislator who was touchingly frustrated that her seniors in her party didn’t roll over and do what she wanted them to do when she wanted them to do it. It didn’t really worry me when I would try to explain to her how inadequate such bumper sticker nostrums as “run government like a business” were (based in a lack of understanding of the essential natures not only of government, but of business, the thing she professes to know so well), and she would shake her head and smile and be unmoved. That was OK. Time and experience would take care of that, I thought. She was very young, and had experienced little. Understanding would come, and I felt that on the whole she was still a young lawmaker with potential.

I reckoned without this — this impatient, populist, drive for power BASED in the appeal of simplistic, demagogic opposition to experience itself. It’s an ugly thing, this sort of anti-intellectualism of which Sarah Palin has become a national symbol. This attitude that causes her to smile a condescending, confident smile (after all, the crowd there is on HER side) at protesters — protesters I didn’t even notice until she called attention to them — and tell them that they should stick around and maybe they would learn something. If a 65-year-old male intellectual with a distinguished public career said that to a crowd, everyone would understand it was ugly and contemptuous. But Sarah is so charming about it, so disarming! How could it be ugly?

Her evocations — echoed by Nikki — of traditional, plain values (and complementary exhibition of contempt for anyone who disagrees) seem so positive and good and right to the crowd that cheers such lines as Nikki’s about how good it is that traditional politicians are “afraid” (which, coming from different lips, would send a chill down spines). They don’t see the ugliness. After all, see how lovely the package is! See how they smile!

The thing is, I probably agree with these people about so much that they are FOR — traditional moral values, hard work, family, patriotism. And mine isn’t your left-handed liberal kind of patriotism (you know, as in “I oppose the war and criticize my country because I’m a REAL patriot,” etc.). No, in fact, my own kind of patriotism is probably even more martial and militaristic than that of these folks, if that’s possible, given my background. And I would never take a back seat to any of them in my belief in American exceptionalism. I may not like the smug way they talk about these things, but the values are there.

It’s the stuff that they’re AGAINST that leaves me cold. Paying taxes. Government itself. Moderation. Patience with people who disagree. Experience. Deep understanding of issues. They are hostile  to these things.

And their certainty, their smugness, is off-putting in the extreme.

But as I stood there in that crowd and listened to the cheers at almost every questionable statement those smiling ladies muttered, I despaired of ever being able to explain any of this to these folks, of ever having a meeting of the minds. It’s THEIR alienation that makes me feel so alienated…

And that’s what has me down. I hope it will pass. But it wasn’t a good way to spend a Friday evening.

Ah, Jeez, Edith! Now it’s a competition…

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No sooner does Nikki Haley announce that she’s sewn up the backing of the goddess of the Tea Party movement than Henry McMaster has to weigh in with a “Me, too!”…

McMaster earns Upstate Tea Party endorsement

May 13th, 2010
Conservative group says attorney general is candidate Tea Party can trust
COLUMBIA, S.C. – One of South Carolina’s largest conservative grassroots organizations, the Boiling Springs Tea Party, today endorsed Henry McMaster for Governor. The Boiling Springs Tea Party has organized a network of thousands of Upstate conservatives since its founding last year and will encourage them to turn out voters for Henry McMaster in the June 8 Republican gubernatorial primary.

In a press release, the group praised McMaster’s “outstanding character, judgment, experience, Christian conservative values, understanding of the state’s needs and proven dedication to accountable public service.”

Boiling Springs Tea Party organizer Maria Brady said in part, “Our search for a gubernatorial candidate with conservative Christian values grounded in the Constitution led us toward Henry because he embodies the ideals of our Founding Fathers. [H]e is clearly a candidate Tea Party patriots can trust to fight President Obama” and “stop bailout-peddling Washington politicians…”

Oh, but get this next part:

Attorney General McMaster thanked the group for the endorsement. “Washington radicals threaten our very way of life,” he said. [boldface emphasis mine]

And to thing I was wringing my hands over whether I was engaging in extreme rhetoric. Guess I can relax, huh? I’m the very soul of self-restraint, by comparison.

Ah, Henry, we hardly knew ye…

Sarah Palin coming to SC to back Nikki Haley

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OK, just in case you didn’t have enough reasons to worry about Nikki Haley — the Sanford endorsement, all that Sanford cabal money buying ads in her behalf, and so forth, here’s one more for ya, courtesy of our ol’ buddy Peter Hamby:

(CNN) – Sarah Palin will be in Columbia, South Carolina on Friday to endorse state Rep. Nikki Haley for governor.

This will mark the former Alaska governor’s first political visit to the early primary state. Jenny Sanford, ex-wife of current Republican Gov. Mark Sanford, will also campaign with Haley on Friday…

“It is a tremendous honor to receive Governor Palin’s endorsement,” Haley said Thursday in a statement. “Sarah Palin has energized the conservative movement like few others in our generation.”Palin’s endorsement of Haley puts her at odds with her running mate in the 2008 presidential election, Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona.

McCain has backed McMaster in the primary. McMaster chaired McCain’s South Carolina campaign in 2008.

Man-oh-man … like we didn’t have enough Crazy in South Carolina, we need to start importing it…

Hey, all that pandering to the Tea Party crowd Nikki’s been doing has paid off, huh?

Folks, I have a feeling that the GOP contest for the gubernatorial nomination just became an ideological knife fight. This is NOT going to be pretty.

On the bright side, this should be a settler for those ugly nativists who tried to trash Nikki in her first election — from whom I defended her, back in the days before she started going after the nativist vote (the only conclusion I can draw from her embrace of the TPs). Now they’ll have to face that she MUST be a “real American” — or else the self-appointed final arbiter of such things wouldn’t be coming to endorse her.

Nullification: Are we going to do it again?

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Michael Rodgers over at "Take Down The Flag" is worried that we are, with S.C. House bill 3509, which seeks a concurrent resolution. And you know, you can easily see why he would think that, given such language as this:

Whereas, the South Carolina General Assembly declares that the people
of this State have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves
as a free, sovereign, and independent State, and shall exercise and
enjoy every power, jurisdiction, and right pertaining thereto, which is
not expressly delegated by them to the United States of America in the
congress assembled; and
…

I found that "sole and exclusive right" bit interesting, with the way it seemed to brush aside the federalist notion of shared sovereignty. That language seems to go beyond the purpose stated in the summary, which is:

TO AFFIRM THE RIGHTS OF ALL STATES INCLUDING SOUTH CAROLINA BASED ON
THE PROVISIONS OF THE NINTH AND TENTH AMENDMENTS TO THE UNITED STATES
CONSTITUTION.

The point being, of course, that since we do HAVE the Ninth and 10th amendments, every word of this resolution is superfluous unless it means to negate federal authority in some way not currently set out in law.

And a certain neo-Confederate sensibility is suggested with the very first example of the sort of action on the part of the federal government that would constitute an abridgement of the Constitution under this resolution:

(1)    establishing martial law or a state of emergency within one of
the states comprising the United States of America without the consent
of the legislature of that state;…

As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up: The bill's sponsors are indeed suggesting that this resolution is needed to declare that we won't let Reconstruction be reinstituted.

Because, you know, that Obama is such a clear and present danger. Or something. I guess.

Of course, not everyone is shocked, appalled or amused at the notion of a new nullification movement. Check out this op-ed piece we recently ran online, about Mark Sanford and nullification.

ANOTHER social networking site? ARRGGGHHH!

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Just got this press release:

Hi Brad,

I hope you are doing well. I wanted to let you know about a unique social news service that just launched – BUUUZ.com.

Have you ever wanted access to a community of people who have the same interests as you? Where you can share artistic visions, muses and styles? Many people find social websites like Facebook and MySpace invasive and difficult to navigate. At BUUUZ registration is simple and members create virtual "islands" based on subjects of interest (islands are populated with news from websites across the internet as well as BUUUZ community discussion). Creating an "island" for a topic is as easy as picking a few keywords that best describe your interests.

As an example, if you love to oil paint like I do, you can use favorite artists, museums, etc. as island keywords to be alerted on stories and member conversations mentioning them. Then you instantly become a part of a worldwide conversation through this new service, where you can find and interact with new friends who have the same interests.

In light of the Facebook Terms of Service uproar from last week I wanted to mention:

– BUUUZ's subscription revenue model, makes it so they do not have to "fight" with the users about owning their data.
– At BUUUZ, when a user deletes their account, and their data is completely deleted
– BUUUZ has also set up automatic deletion of old messages

Please feel free to take a look at the service at BUUUZ.com and reach out if you would like images or have questions.

Best Regards,
Brent

Brent Bucci
FortyThree PR

… to which I can only say, "ARRGGHHH!" Or, perhaps, "AIIIEEEE!!!" Or somewhat more sedately, "Please; not another freaking social networking site."

Since I did that column over the holidays about Facebook, I have had even MORE "friend requests," and some of them have been from being I actually felt obliged to say "yes" to, so as not to hurt anyone's feelings. (And yes, some of them were people I'd actually like to maintain connections with, but not all…) And some of them were … a tad… weird. Like, if I thought myself a target for such things, I'd think "stalker." Which is not a good feeling.

Who's got time for all this socializing? Hey, you've got time on your hands, go read a newspaper. And then, go to the mall and buy something, and tell the merchant to buy some ads. Make yourself useful.

How dumb can an unfunded mandate get?

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I've never compiled an All-Time, Top Five List of Dumbest Unfunded Mandates Ever, but if I did, Robert Ford's "idea" (I'm using the word loosely, hence the quote marks) to require local gummints to take off on Confederate Memorial Day would certainly make the list. There's nothing new about it, of course — he's pushed this one before — but hey, a classic is a classic.

I find myself wondering whether Sen. Ford and Glenn McConnell are going to go back on the TV circuit with their Separate Heritages act — you know, McConnell in full Confederate dress-up; Ford in dashiki talking Black Liberation — or maybe they already have done that again in this cause, and (mercifully) I missed it.

In case you know not whereof I speak, the two Charlestonians, in a determined effort to show us all that there IS something odd in the water down there, went about in costume a few years back emphasizing that black and white South Carolinians should be encouraged in celebrating their very separate heritages — as though we have naught in common. Brilliant.

Alternative versions of me keep cropping up in WSJ — which is freaky

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A week or two ago I noticed something in The Wall Street Journal that gave me a start. Then this morning, I saw something else in that same publication that took things to a whole new level of seeming impossibility, prompting me to write this e-mail this morning to one Ben Worthen:

Just recently noticed your byline in the WSJ, and it was sort of startling. When I first went to work for my college paper in the early 70s, my editor told me I had a good "byline name," a bit of undeserved praise I've always cherished, and believed.

And I always thought it was unique. Then I see yours, which is SO close to mine it's freaky.

Then, to complete the trifecta, this morning your paper had on the front page a story featuring a line drawing of a guy named "Bill Worthen:"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123309302911621329.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

Something very odd is happening in the universe. I sense a disturbance in the force.

Anyway, we're probably cousins or something, like those people you occasionally run into named "Wathen" or "Worthin" or whatever…

So, hey.

Unless you are a Warthen — and unless you are a member of my immediate family, it's reasonably safe to assume that you are not — you have no idea how extremely rare it is to run into anyone with your name, even with an alternative spelling. (And for those who don't know, "Warthen" is pronounced the way "Worthen" is spelled. For those who have trouble remembering, I say it's pronounced as the two words "war" and "then," assuming you pronounce "war" the way most English-speakers do, and not the way Bob Dylan does. If I want blank stares, I say, "Think of 1945: First there was the war, then it was over.")

When I lived in Memphis in the 70s, there was a pitcher with the local minor league team, who later went to the Show and then coached in the majors, named "Dan Warthen," which was particularly weird, because my Dad's name is Don. His name frequently appeared in stories on the sports page. That stands still as the most prominent stranger I've run across with the name, and I'm 55 years old.

And now this, which is very startling. "Ben Worthen" and "Bill Worthen" are so close to my own name, right down to the monosyllabic nickname starting with a "B," that they sound like me in an alternative universe, or what a writer of fiction who based a character on me might use as the thinnest of fig leaves to be able to deny that it was me.

Whoa.

Looks like Blago’s pick WILL be seated now

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It appears that now the Senate leadership is bending over backwards to seat Roland Burris. What a mess. There is, of course, no good and honorable way out of this for any of us, given the following absurd facts:

  • The ridiculous person who is STILL governor of Illinois is utterly devoid of anything remotely resembling shame, or honor. There was a time (I think — or am I just romanticizing?) when anyone caught in a wringer this way would bow his head and disappear (in ancient Rome, he'd have sliced himself open in a hot tub — which I am NOT advocating here, I'm just noting the contrast). Not now. Not Blago.
  • The fact that Mr. Burris had no more pride than to stand up and accept the appointment. That was my first reaction when I heard about this over my vacation: Who would accept this under these circumstances? The answer: Mr. Burris would. This guy has no particular big strikes against him, they say. But this is a pretty big strike all by its lonesome. What's in the water up there?
  • The fact that this jerk is still the governor, and hasn't even been indicted, and we've got this "innocent until proven guilty" shtick in this country. Situations like this can make you hanker after the Napoleonic Code.

I figure that's enough to get y'all started on the subject. Fire away.

The failed hyperbole of the past 8 years

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Quick, who said this?

"Americans have watched in horror as President Bush has trampled on the Bill of Rights and the balance of power."

I’ll give you hints:

A. Oliver Stone
B. MoveOn.org
C. John Kerry, writing for the DSCC
D. The New York Times

Yes, I’m sorry to say that overwrought purple prose is the LEAD SENTENCE in the lead Sunday editorial of the paper I was so recently congratulating for having the good sense to back the Columbia Free Trade Agreement.

You know, I’ve got people over at the governor’s office all ticked off (see tomorrow’s letters to the editor) because of the mean, nasty, ugly things I supposedly said in my Sunday column about the gov, and I challenge to you go find ANYthing that I said that comes anywhere near the unsupported, gross hyperbole of "watched in horror" or "trampled on the Bill of Rights."

So does W. get all excited and whip off a letter to protest to the NYT? I doubt it. Nah, he just swallows his pride and works with Barack Obama as though he were already in office, as though they were co-presidents (which is exactly what he should be doing, under the circumstances). Which makes me wonder: Come January, will someone look back on the Bush/Obama hybrid interregnum and speak of "The failed policies of the past eight weeks?"

Democrats are thrilled that at long last, in January, Bush will no longer be in office. Me, too. But I’m even more thrilled that after January, I won’t have to listen to any more semi-deranged yammering about the guy. You know that I never liked him — he’s the guy who did in MY guy in the 2000 S.C. primary. But I have never, ever understood why some hate him SO much. The Bush haters can’t simply say, "I disagree with Mr. Bush and here’s why." Instead, they have to go way beyond reason in condemning him ABSOLUTELY in terms that render him utterly illegitimate and beyond the pale.

Get a grip, people. It’ll be over soon.

(Oh, and for those of you who will say, "But the NYT went on to explain its outrageous statement," let me say now — I read it. They failed to back up that sentence. Sorry, folks, but his playing fast and loose with FISA, to cite but one example given, just doesn’t amount to "trampling on the Bill of Rights." He should have worked to change the law rather than skirting it, but he did nothing to instill "horror" in a rational person. You "watch in horror" as a gang of thugs rape and murder an old lady — you merely DISAGREE WITH something so bloodless as scanning through telecommunications without proper authorization.)

Parties got souls?

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OK, after this one I won’t pick on the parties any more today. But I have to tell ya this release from something called NetRight Nation grabbed my attention with the headline, "The GOP: Losing its Own Soul?"

First, I had to deal with the concept: Parties got souls? You couldn’t tell by me. Then there was the specific hand-wringing about the soul of this particular party… you know why the author thought the GOP was in danger? Because McCain and Graham met with Obama Monday. I kid you not. The very sort of thing that gives me hope for the country, this guy equates with damnation. A sample:

Unfortunately, the GOP didn’t get off to a very good start in Chicago yesterday, where President-elect Obama and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) met to “seek common ground” and “move on” from the past election season, according to an article in TheState.com. Alongside Mr. McCain was close friend, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). According to the report, Mr. McCain and company intended to bring a more bi-partisan tone to the Republican platform.

Now, no shock there, Mr. Graham mentions that there are “areas of bi-partisan solutions [that] are needed.” And there goes the ballgame.

Earth to Mr. Graham: To the Democrats, “bi-partisan” is a code word for “vivisection.” Republicans must not buy into the narrative that their political adversaries have written for them, which is little more than a preemptive obituary.

When Republicans win, the Democrats launch holy war. There is no insult, attack or underhanded assault that could possibly be considered out of bounds. But when the Democrats and liberals win, both parties are supposed to join hands and sing kumbayah. Sure, the Democrats want to bury the hatchet—right in the Republicans’ backs. This is a prescription for disaster and a generation of irrelevance. Mr. Obama should be challenged and fought every step of the way.

Did you notice the reference to thestate.com? So did I. So there’s a South Carolina connection here somewhere. But back to the topic, there’s something else you may have noticed. Yep, it’s that language about "When Republicans win, the Democrats launch holy war. There is no
insult, attack or underhanded assault that could possibly be considered
out of bounds…"

Sound familiar? It should. It’s the mirror image of the stuff I’ve been passing on from the DSCC. Each party says it HAS to engage in partisan warfare because the OTHER side is so mean and nasty. And so it is that the two sides prop each other up and "justify" each other in their efforts to tear the country apart.

They are so unified in that purpose, I don’t even distinguish them any more. Sometimes I get briefly confused, and have to think for a second which brand the more virulent practitioners are advocating. You know it has to get confusing, say, at the Carville-Matalin household. They’re both in the family business; they just have different clients.

One thing I do know, though: I’m against all of ’em.

Apparently, Pure Evil never sleeps

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Here I though all the tomfoolery was behind us, but apparently the Axis of Evil is still at work. I speak here of the Axis of Evil that the Democrats are always going on about: the G, the O, and the P. This came in this morning:

Dear Brad,

Triple your impact. Contribute today and your gift will be tripled.

Sadly, the power of well-funded lies can be hard to overcome with the
underfunded truth. 

Six years ago, Saxby Chambliss won his Senate seat
by running a TV commercial pairing my picture with Osama bin Laden’s.

But with Chambliss now in a runoff against Democrat Jim Martin
scheduled for December 2 in Georgia, we are closer than ever to Martin
winning.  It’s all part of finishing the job started with Barack Obama’s
historic election. 

Beyond Georgia, there are still two other
outstanding Senate races – in Alaska and Minnesota.  President-elect Obama will
need every last legislative vote to change this country.   

The DSCC
never takes a day off and will keep right on working to make certain the makeup
of the Senate fully reflects the will of the people.  But keeping pace with
the GOP will take all of us doing our part to raise $100,000 before midnight
Friday. We’re all so committed to winning these extra seats that a group of
our Democratic senators will triple every gift made before the deadline….

This note is "signed" by Max Cleland, a guy I don’t really know much about other than the fact that he is one of the Foremost Victims of the GOP’s mean, nasty ugliness, according to these releases I receive all the time. To partisan Democrats, he’s sort of what St. Stephen is to Christians.

Not that I think Mr. Cleland wrote the message. There’s a sameness in these DSCC releases that suggest the hand of a common ghostwriter. Although the recent Kerry one did seem to top the others in vehemence, so maybe the putative authors DO have some say over the messages. But even if they do, they try their best to speak as though they had but One Mind, which of course is what political parties are all about — surrendering one’s thought processes to the Party. They all certainly seem to be universally aggrieved, at the very least. And only one thing can assuage their pain: Your money.

Hey, don’t blame Kerry

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This is just to make sure that no one thinks John Kerry is some sort of anomaly out there with the overheated rhetoric.

This companion piece came to me this morning, from Paul Begala, under the headline "Voter Intimidation":

Dear Brad,

Everywhere I go, people ask me: "Are the Republicans going to steal another election?"

They’re right to worry.  With the Mississippi governor challenging new voters and angry crowds intimidating early voters in North Carolina, they’re trying to do what they’ve done before.

It doesn’t have to be like this.  If you give the DSCC the resources they need, they know exactly how to fight the dirty tricks over the last four days and make sure every vote counts. 

We have a team of experienced lawyers and trained poll watchers, ready to jump at any sign of trouble.  And we’re getting every last voter to the polls to win these Senate races by so many votes that this election can’t be stolen….

You know what really cracks me up about this? That it is an article of faith among Democrats that Republicans are "fear-mongers," while Democrats just make up stuff to be afraid of, all in the cause of raising money.

Let me ask you something, however you plan to vote: Do you feel intimidated? Do you know anyone who feels intimidated, as a voter? One more: To quote Ferris Bueller’s garage attendant, "What country do you think this is?" Haiti? Russia? Get a life.

John McCain and Russ Feingold were exactly right to try to limit the impact of money on our politics, and George Will is full of baloney on the subject, with his "money equals speech" spiel.

Kerry calls GOP ‘depraved’ and ‘sickening;’ I call Kerry ‘overexcited’

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Folks, Barack Obama is the most flush candidate in the history of the world. Surely, he can lend some to his party’s senatorial campaign, so they can stop it with the hysterical, slavering begging. Such as this e-mail I just got from our ol’ buddy John Kerry:

Dear Brad,
It is sickening.  But not surprising.

Today’s Republican Party is so depraved that they’re running ads in Florida trying to connect a Democratic candidate to 9/11 attacker Mohammed Atta.  They’re in North Carolina attacking Democratic Senate candidate Kay Hagan’s faith and character.  And in Colorado, Democratic Senate candidate Mark Udall is the target of a GOP robocall campaign making the insane accusation that he supports human cloning.

It’s the same political strategy of fear and resentment we’ve seen for 30 years. 

But this year they will fail miserably.  Because our side has the answers America is looking for.  And no two-bit attack ads will change that reality.

Our job in the hours and days ahead is to make sure our Senate candidates have every resource they need to rise above the attacks.  We need more ads, more phone calls, and more voter-to-voter contact….

Yadda, yadda, you know the drill. The Republicans are evil incarnate, so we must do absolutely anything and everything we can to crush them, drive them before us, hear the lamentations of their women, etc.

These people would probably do this stuff even if they had the kind of cash on hand that Barack Obama has. This is what political parties do — they demonize the opposition, without let-up, on and on and on. I have a mental picture of the kind of donor who actually responds positively to this sort of appeal: He’s wild-eyed, half his hair is torn out, and he’s muttering like the proverbial deranged street person as he writes his check, "Those rassenfratzin’, mother-grabbing @*&^%!!! … THIS’ll show ’em!"

This is one of the main reasons I hate political parties. Equally.

I gotta say, though, that lately the Democrats — except Barack Obama, who is always cool — have seemed more hysterical than the opposition. Maybe that’s what it takes to win in this insane system.

It use to not be that way. Back in Lee Atwater’s day, the Republicans actually WERE as bad as Kerry’s e-mail implies. Well, I take that back — nobody’s THAT bad. But just discount the keening hyperbole a bit, and you’ve got an accurate picture. Not necessarily "depraved." Just very bad. And the Democrats just sort of took the punishment, seeming dazed and confused.

But along about 1998, the Democrats caught up with them. Something just sort of snapped along about the time of the Clinton impeachment. Democrats started screaming, and once W. was elected, they turned up the volume to 11, and if Obama were to lose next week’s vote, they’d turn it up even higher — so it’s probably a good thing that he’s going to win, right? For our ears, if nothing else.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are pretty quiet, by comparison. If anybody’s getting mainstream, official-party e-mails from the GOP as crazy as this one from Kerry, I’d like to see ’em. Well, I wouldn’t LIKE to see ’em, but I probably should in the line of duty. But I think the GOPpers aren’t nearly this pumped up this year. These "atrocities" that Kerry cite may very well be real. But the national GOP’s not sending me stuff like this, and the Dems are.

Anyway, whoever’s doing it — Democrats, Republicans, Federalists — it’s really, really off-putting. I would say let’s get next week over with, but I know that won’t end it. I’ll keep getting e-mails like this one. They never stop coming, because for these people, the campaign is forever.

That ‘unrepentant’ Colin Powell

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You may recall that recently, I made the argument that William Ayers should not have been paid to come to a public university in South Carolina, that in fact he should be considered persona non grata in our fair state.

The crux of my argument was the fact that Ayers, by his own account, is an unrepentant terrorist.

So you can imagine my great sense of irony when someone on the anti-war left objected to Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama on the grounds that the general himself is "unrepentant:"

As CNN reported yesterday, Powell remains totally unrepentant both about his own critical role pushing us to war. For instance, he claims to have tried to stop the war, five years after giving the single most important (and discredited) speech in building the public case for war. He now claims he wants to see the war end, but it’s difficult to trust the integrity of a man who denies even the most basic facts of his public involvement in creating the crisis in the first place. That Obama now seems to reflexively trust Powell suggests not foreign policy prudence from the Democratic nominee, but knee-jerk ignorance — and worse, a potential to abdicate the very antiwar themes he’s run on for so long.

So what do you make of that?

While the two groups by no means correspond precisely, I imagine that there is a significant overlap between people who are untroubled by Ayers being unrepentant for plotting to bomb the Pentagon and those who ARE troubled that Gen. Powell is "unrepentant" about his role in the run-up to Iraq. In fact, some of our friends here on the blog may reside in that overlap.

But perhaps I’m wrong about that. I hope I am.

Speaking of which, I thought the general did a good job in his endorsement of Sen. Obama. It was better reasoned than the Tribune‘s.

Well, at least it’s ELECTED

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Just in case you didn’t have enough to worry about with Wall Street collapsing and otherwise sensible Democrats on the verge of losing it if Obama loses, way, WAY out there in Amerika, there are people come up with new worries for you:

U.S. FACES “MOST SERIOUS CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS,” LEADING POLITICAL SCIENTISTS TELLS CONFERENCE THAT SEEKS WAR CRIMES PROSECUTIONS OF BUSH, HIGH AIDES.
ANDOVER , MASS. (Sept. 13)— President Bush’s conduct in office has precipitated a “most serious constitutional crisis,” “one that has already transformed the U.S. from a constitutional republic to an elected monarchy,” a noted political scientist told a conference on seeking prosecution of high Bush administration officials for war crimes.   “We need to revers[e] a fifty-year trend towards unaccountable secret government, which can commit crimes with impunity,” said Professor Christopher Pyle of Mount Holyoke College.

Wel-l-l… at least OUR monarchy is elected, unlike the monarchies in some of those Commie countries out there…

Betcha didn’t even know there was such a thing out there as the Justice Robert  H. Jackson Conference on Planning For the Prosecution of High
Level American War Criminals. Well, now you know.