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October 4, 2008

Springsteen Does an Obama for Obama

Throughout convention week in Denver in August, the word swirled that Bruce Springsteen would appear the final night. It did not happen. And for Democrats, that was a good thing. Barack Obama--accused by foes of being too glamorous--did not need a rock star on the set on his big night (though Sheryl Crow and Stevie Wonder did appear early in the evening). But Springsteen is indeed doing what he can.

On Saturday, Springsteen appeared at an Obama voter registration rally in Philadelphia. Tens of thousands of people were there. He performed a thirty-minute acoustic set. But he also speechified. And he practically outdid Obama in political eloquence:

I am glad to be here today for this voter registration drive and for Barack Obama, the next President of the United States. I've spent 35 years writing about America, its people, and the meaning of the American Promise. The Promise that was handed down to us, right here in this city from our founding fathers, with one instruction: Do your best to make these things real. Opportunity, equality, social and economic justice, a fair shake for all of our citizens, the American idea, as a positive influence, around the world for a more just and peaceful existence. These are the things that give our lives hope, shape, and meaning. They are the ties that bind us together and give us faith in our contract with one another.

I've spent most of my creative life measuring the distance between that American promise and American reality. For many Americans, who are today losing their jobs, their homes, seeing their retirement funds disappear, who have no healthcare, or who have been abandoned in our inner cities. The distance between that promise and that reality has never been greater or more painful.

I believe Senator Obama has taken the measure of that distance in his own life and in his work. I believe he understands, in his heart, the cost of that distance, in blood and suffering, in the lives of everyday Americans. I believe as president, he would work to restore that promise to so many of our fellow citizens who have justifiably lost faith in its meaning. After the disastrous administration of the past 8 years, we need someone to lead us in an American reclamation project. In my job, I travel the world, and occasionally play big stadiums, just like Senator Obama. I've continued to find, wherever I go, America remains a repository of peoples hopes, possibilities, and desires, and that despite the terrible erosion to our standing around the world, accomplished by our recent administration, we remain, for many, a house of dreams. One thousand George Bushes and one thousand Dick Cheneys will never be able to tear that house down.

They will, however, be leaving office, dropping the national tragedies of Katrina, Iraq, and our financial crisis in our laps. Our sacred house of dreams has been abused, looted, and left in a terrible state of disrepair. It needs care; it needs saving, it needs defending against those who would sell it down the river for power or a quick buck. It needs strong arms, hearts, and minds. It needs someone with Senator Obama's understanding, temperateness, deliberativeness, maturity, compassion, toughness, and faith, to help us rebuild our house once again. But most importantly, it needs us. You and me. To build that house with the generosity that is at the heart of the American spirit. A house that is truer and big enough to contain the hopes and dreams of all of our fellow people by our ability to accomplish this task. Now I don't know about you, but I want that dream back, I want my America back, I want my country back.

So now is the time to stand with Barack Obama and Joe Biden, roll up our sleeves, and come on up for the rising.

Springsteen was speaking to an obvious point that sometimes is lost in the immediate fray of campaign: candidates often represent more than themselves--willingly or not. Is the promise of Obama the promise of America? Voters will decide whether Obama will get the chance to answer that question. In the meantime, if Springsteen's day job does not work out, he could have a fine future in political speechwriter.

October 3, 2008

MoJo Audio: Linguist Robin Lakoff Analyzes Sarah Palin's Accent

Last night after the veep debate, my friends and I couldn't stop doing the Sarah Palin accent. But is she the only candidate on the campaign trail who sounds like where she comes from? And does she do it on purpose? I called on Robin Lakoff, a professor of sociolinguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, for some straight talk about the speech patterns of Sarah Palin, Joe Biden, John McCain, and Barack Obama.

In this podcast, Lakoff explains how Obama and McCain's speech have evolved since we talked last year during primary season—and why there's more to Palin's speech than her Wasilla ways.

Visiting "Foreclosure Alley"

If you've got 10 free minutes and a strong stomach, watch this report on a community destroyed by foreclosures. There's video of deserted houses, still filled with TVs, computers, photographs, and other belongings, and an interview with a man who lives on a cul-de-sac of empty homes. He's literally the only one left. Pretty heartbreaking stuff.

Sarah Palin: Not a Charitable Conservative?

On Friday afternoon, the McCain-Palin camp released the last two years of Sarah Palin's taxes. (Only the last two?) The campaign's summary notes that Sarah and Todd Palin had a gross income of $166,080 in 2007, her first year as governor. The couple donated $2500 to charity that year and also made "non-cash" donations of $825. This represented 1.5 percent of their adjusted gross income.

The average American donates about 3.1 percent of his or her income to charity. Many churches recommend tithing 10 percent.

If I Were an Obama Strategist, Here's How I'd Spend the Next Month

Aside from even one word about poverty, minorities, or the underclass in last night's VP debate, I was most waiting to hear Sarah Palin questioned about her "maverick" boss's role in making sure that America neither knew, nor cared, about the fate of its Viet Nam era POWs. If there's ever a better time to delve into exactly how the "party of patriotism" feels about inconvenient soldiers (they were slowing up the peace process), I hope I don't live to see it.

Like most Americans, I existed in a pre-war, pre-Gitmo state of annoyed disbelief whenever some bug-eyed Pinko insisted we'd left soldiers behind when we left Viet Nam. This is America: we don't, we'd never, do such a thing. But since we started extraordinarily rendering folks to places like Egypt and Syria so they could be tortured, since we continue a war aimed largely at enriching companies like KBR and Halliburton, when it's clear that Wall Street will be allowed to do absolutely anything it likes to Main Street (let alone MLK Blvd, as SNL so aptly put it) I no longer roll my eyes when presented with such evidence. Instead, I have to fight bitter tears when my kindergartener comes home proudly reciting the Pledge of Allegiance she's just learned. "With truth and justice for all?" Gets me every time. It makes me so angry and ashamed, I have to look away as I hypocritically applaud her recitation of those increasingly hollow words.

Fearful as I am of what we're becoming, I still don't accept hideous allegations at face value. But I definitely listen, where before I would have been blasé and patronizing. I just don't know anymore what we are, what we've always been capable of, world weary as a formerly working class black chick thought she was. After eight years of Bush and the unbelievable damage he's done to the very meaning of America, I'm like the idiot, half-dressed, half-drunk teenager who just has to go down to the basement and find out what that fiend-from-hell sound is. Now, I study claims I'd have been too "busy" for before, desperately hoping to find no there there. Sadly, I'm all too primed to find yet another horror in every formerly bright corner of my American psyche.

Lately, I'm reading and re-reading Sydney Schanberg's extremely disturbing Nation expose on exactly what role John McCain may have played in not only burying info on our MIAs, but going so far as to abuse and terrorize the families desperate to have their questions answered on a subject which McCain (you may have heard he's a maverick and former POW by now) might well be expected to focus some attention. If he's going to keep mentioning his combat role and POW experience (and I certainly would), then he damn well needs to mention everything else that went with it. The party which so embraced Swift Boating a bona fide hero needs to have its script flipped. Palin claims she wants to speak directly to the American people? OK, let's take that at face value (and not as she really meant it, i.e. that she considers her inability to answer a direct question a virtue): Tell us exactly what role McCain played in settling the question of our MIAs.

According to Schanberg, whose war/defense reporting is impeccable, McCain has used his POW credentials to bury what could be one of America's greatest willful tragedies. Schanberg writes:

John McCain, who has risen to political prominence on his image as a Vietnam POW war hero, has, inexplicably, worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn't return home. Throughout his Senate career, McCain has quietly sponsored and pushed into federal law a set of prohibitions that keep the most revealing information about these men buried as classified documents. Thus the war hero people would logically imagine to be a determined crusader for the interests of POWs and their families became instead the strange champion of hiding the evidence and closing the books.

Almost as striking is the manner in which the mainstream press has shied from reporting the POW story and McCain's role in it, even as McCain has made his military service and POW history the focus of his presidential campaign. Reporters who had covered the Vietnam War have also turned their heads and walked in other directions. McCain doesn't talk about the missing men, and the press never asks him about them.

The sum of the secrets McCain has sought to hide is not small. There exists a telling mass of official documents, radio intercepts, witness depositions, satellite photos of rescue symbols that pilots were trained to use, electronic messages from the ground containing the individual code numbers given to airmen, a rescue mission by a Special Forces unit that was aborted twice by Washington and even sworn testimony by two defense secretaries that "men were left behind." This imposing body of evidence suggests that a large number—probably hundreds—of the US prisoners held in Vietnam were not returned when the peace treaty was signed in January 1973 and Hanoi released 591 men, among them Navy combat pilot John S. McCain.

Read the report. It's explicit and very specific in its well reported charges. I'd like to learn that we didn't bury those men alive for political expediency. I really would. Because by the time my daughter is singing "the land of the free and the home of the brave," I'm going to be in a strait jacket. So, say it ain't so, John. Tell me you didn't do this. Answer Sidney.

Bailout Bill Passes; Leading Dem Skeptic Issues Statement

Republicans got most of the attention (or blame) for stopping the bailout bill when it was first brought up in the House on Monday. But many Democrats, including members of a bipartisan group that called itself the "skeptics caucus," also voted no. Unfortunately for the skeptics, the bill just passed, 263-171. Over 170 Democrats and 90 Republicans voted for the bill, with 108 Republicans and just 63 Democrats voting no (down from 95 on Monday). Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), a no vote who led the skeptics caucus, has issued a statement:

Today, Congress approved the $700 billion Wall Street Bailout Bill. Under the Bill, hundreds of billions of dollars will be used to buy toxic assets currently in safes in London, Shanghai, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Bailed out Wall Street firms will use their bail out money to pay million dollars a month salaries, and to even increase them to two million dollars a month. (For details, see paper at BradSherman.house.gov.)

Our economy will not do well in the months to come, and dropping $700 billion on Wall Street is not going to make things much better. But now Wall Street will use the same fear mongering tactics which were used to pass the Bill, in order to justify the bill.

In order to pass the Bill, Wall Street declared that unless they received $700 billion in unmarked bills, the Dow would drop by 4,000 points and blood would flow in the streets. The passage of the Bill will have little positive economic effect, and the fall and winter will be bad times for our economy. But in the coming weeks, Wall Street will justify the Bill by saying that we averted those very same calamities they had predicted during their successful effort to create panic, and pass the Bill.

The worst abuses of the Bill can be minimized if Congress, and especially the press, begins an unprecedented level of ferocious oversight:

We have to make sure that Paulson spends the money and the orderly rate of less than $50 billion month (as he has promised), not at a frantic pace that spends it all by January 20th, 2009.

We have to make sure that Paulson treats all financial entities fairly, whether they be firms he likes, or firms he doesn’t like. (It will take incredible investigative journalism to see whether the executives of any bailed-out firms are making secret contributions to Section 527 organizations, which are responsible for a big chunk of today’s political advertising).

When a firm receives a billion dollars in bail-out cash, we must report on which of its executives are receiving that cash in the form of salaries in excess of $1 million a year. (The bill allows unlimited salaries to be paid by bailed-out firms, and does not contain a provision preventing the bail-out cash from being used to pay those salaries.)

Each time a U.S.-headquartered entity sells billions of toxic assets to the Treasury, we must ask whether that U.S. entity is just acting as an intermediary. We must ask whether those toxic assets were in foreign safes on September 20th, 2008. We must be aware of the China two-step (described in a paper at BradSherman.house.gov), in which a foreign investor who made bad business decisions can sell toxic assets to a U.S. entity on Monday, and Paulson can buy those toxic assets with taxpayer dollars on Tuesday.

No one will ever be able to prove that the Bailout Bill helped or hurt our economy during the coming fall and winter. Only two things are certain: the bill will provide hundreds of billions of dollars to investors who made bad decisions and Wall Street executives; and our children and grandchildren will now face a national debt that is hundreds of billions of dollars higher.

Mission Creep Dispatch: Mark Selden

As part of our special investigation "Mission Creep: US Military Presence Worldwide," we asked a host of military thinkers to contribute their two cents on topics relating to global Pentagon strategy. (You can access the archive here.)

The following dispatch comes from Mark Selden, coordinator of The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus and a research associate with the East Asia program at Cornell University. His books include War & State Terrorism: The United States, Japan, and the Asia Pacific in the Long Twentieth Century.

Guns Before Butter: Why America Is Losing Clout to Asia

America's domination of the Pacific after World War II hinged on the combination of direct control of Japan, Okinawa, Korea, and the Philippines—and Micronesia in the form of a US trust territory—and the associated network of US military bases. While the bombs had ceased pummeling European cities, Asia remained a critical zone of hot war. After Japan's defeat, the US intervened in the Chinese Civil War in 1947, followed by the Korean and Vietnam wars—both of which directly or indirectly pitted the US against China and the Soviet Union. It was in Asia that the US learned the limits of power, if not the limits of arrogance. Defeated in China and Indochina, it was fought to a standstill in Korea despite overwhelming technological and resource dominance.

These wars revealed that old-style colonial occupation was unsustainable in Asia and elsewhere, even where bolstered by nuclear weapons and a network of military bases. US terror bombing of Korean and Vietnamese cities, the napalming and cluster-bombing of civilians, and the destruction of dams and defoliation of forests inflicted heavy casualties and sent powerful messages to any who might dare to challenge American power. Yet these tactics did not secure victory.

Asia was not merely the center of global warfare in the decades after WWII; it also experienced the most rapid economic development of any continent, starting with Japan, then Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, and, subsequently China and Southeast Asia. Far from an economic miracle or product of US largesse, this growth is best understood as the reconstitution of an East-West economic balance disrupted by European and Japanese colonialism in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The critical moment of transition was not the Soviet collapse in 1990 but the US-China opening of 1970, facilitated by US defeats in Indochina, the collapse of the American dollar, and the end of the postwar world economic boom—together with a shared US-China perception of the Soviet Union as the primary threat.

China's entree into the heart of the capitalist world allowed it to break the post-1950, US-led blockade that had kept it economically isolated, and enabled its transition from state socialism to state capitalism. The opening of relations was also pivotal in East Asia's transition from a region of perpetual war to one of cultural and economic flourishing and relative peace, which further aided China's reemergence as a regional and global power.

Still, US leaders remained deeply divided over China. If Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon facilitated China's coming out, the Bush-Cheney administration targeted the country as a long-term threat to American hegemony. That threat has justified extravagant US military budgets at a time of cutbacks in all other areas; 9/11 led to a shift in the primary zone of engagement from China to the Middle East and Central Asia, though not the dismantling of the US-Japan alliance or the military posture keyed to the China threat.

Just as the Korean and Vietnam wars sapped US global power and credibility, the post-9/11 preoccupation with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has weakened the US globally, undermined a fragile domestic economy, heightened domestic social tensions, and created a situation of permanent warfare. For five decades, the US exercised strong influence over world energy without bases or wars in the oil zone of the Middle East. The 9/11 attacks changed that logic, given the absence of any powerful state rival, and did so with disastrous consequences for the US and the region.

Six years into current wars, with America's global network of bases extended throughout the region and into Russia's immediate periphery, the US is immersed in a permanent "war on terror" that has taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans, displaced more than 5 million and sowed the seeds of permanent discord among ethnic groups in Iraq—with no prospect of American victory. The likely consequences include a US strategy that combines "Iraqization" (the withdrawal of US combat forces) with the attempt to maintain permanent US bases staffed by tens of thousands of soldiers and many more mercenaries.

Given the fears fueled by 9/11, US leaders have chosen military intervention to take direct control of the world's oil, and to assure the security of Israel—goals whose contradictory implications underline the permanent war that the US has embarked on. China, by contrast, has intervened as an investor, recently putting up $3 billion for oil development in Iraq and $3.5 billion for copper development in Afghanistan. These contracts, among the largest in either country, open a new page in the US-China relationship—although the ongoing violence may prevent the deals from being fulfilled any time soon.

Chalmers Johnson's contribution to understanding the nature of American global power lies not so much in his rich documentation of the structure of the US network of bases as in the analysis of the tragic consequences of the permanent militarization of the United States for world stability and American democracy. To this we must add the present administration's undermining of the American economy and the welfare state, both of which contribute to the decline of American global power.

The unwitting beneficiaries of these policy prescriptions could include China and Asian economies if they can escape being dragged down by an American economic meltdown. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the global network of bases and permanent stationing of troops abroad has become the Achilles heel both of American democracy and the nation's global geopolitical supremacy. Only the emergence of powerful new forces in American politics can avert these outcomes.

More Dispatches

Robert Kaplan
Katherine McCaffrey
Winslow Wheeler
Steven Metz
C. Douglas Lummis
Douglas Macgregor
John Nagl
William Hartung
John Lindsay-Poland
John Feffer
Catherine Lutz
Peter Beck
Nick Turse
John Pike

Posted by Mother Jones on 10/03/08 at 11:48 AM | | Comments (0) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape | Google |

GOP Kills Tougher Iran Sanctions Bill

This week, legislation that had passed overwhelmingly in the House, that would have broadened US Iran sanctions to ban US dealings with Iran through foreign subsidiaries, and trade with foreign entities that deal with Iran's energy industry, was set to come for a vote in the Senate. The legislation, supported by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, was opposed by business groups and the Bush administration, which feared it would lead to further fissures in the international coalition the U.S. has tried to assemble to pressure Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program.

But as JTA reports, the legislation was blocked by Senate Republicans. Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Co) "exercised his prerogative Thursday to object to consideration of legislation that had passed overwhelmingly last week in the U.S. House of Representatives," the news service writes.

"Both the White House and business groups were concerned with the extraterritorial aspects of the bill," Washington trade attorney Douglas Jacobson explained. "Business groups were also opposed to the divestment aspects. The White House has threatened to veto similar bills many times on grounds that it interferes with the executive branch's ability to conduct foreign policy."

Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) criticized Republican efforts to derail the measure, which is now considered unlikely to come up for a vote again before Congress completes its session this weekend. “I am disappointed that the Republicans yesterday blocked the Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act of 2008 from moving forward in the Senate," Reid said in a statement.

Posted by Laura Rozen on 10/03/08 at 11:10 AM | | Comments (9) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape | Google |

"Let's Cover This Nation in Prayer For Sarah Palin"

The Internet brings the world to your fingertips. You can buy books, read news, get directions, reserve a table at your favorite restaurant, listen to music, or any number of other things. But did you know that you can also engage in "a spiritual war in the heavenlies... where battles are won or lost?" So says Vicki Garza, a Dallas advertising executive, who launched a new website where you can direct your prayers—online, virtually—to Sarah Palin and her family.

Here's the idea, according to Garza:

Many people are excited about the thought of having a strong believer like Sarah Palin in office but how many of us can say that we pray for her daily? This website is dedicated to doing just that. Whoever would like to make a commitment to pray for Sarah Palin can go to www.prayforsarahpalin.com and enter their zip code. A marker will automatically be placed on the prayer coverage map, which can be viewed live in Google maps. There are approximately 43,000 zip codes in the United States. Our goal is to have people praying for Sarah Palin in every zip code. I believe prayer changes things.

Not a fan a Sarah Palin? No problem. Turns out the Internet is brimming with ways to channel your psychic energy to the politician of your choice. Would you prefer to include McCain in your prayers (I mean, the way things are going for him lately, he could use the help)? Well, visit prayformccainpalin.com. Is Obama more to your liking? Worry not. You can pray for him and his friend Joe here. Oh, and at the risk of "pointing backwards again," as Palin put it at last night's debate, you can also offer up your prayers for President Bush.

I can't speak for the one in the heavenlies, but the spiritual battle online is raging.

Posted by Bruce Falconer on 10/03/08 at 8:39 AM | | Comments (2) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape | Google |

Heavens, Another Must-Watch Palin/Couric Clip

CBS continues its quest to destroy the McCain campaign by releasing another interview clip that makes Sarah Palin look utterly unprepared for the vice presidency. (I was wrong yesterday when I said the can't-name-a-Supreme-Court-decision clip was the final one.) Try to watch this one and not snicker.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Am I crazy or is this the sort of answer Jay Leno might get while questioning a random person in a Jaywalking bit? "Hey buddy, come over here. What's the worse thing Dick Cheney has done in the last eight years?" "Uh, I dunno Jay. I don't really follow the news. He shot that old guy, right? That was pretty bad!"

Posted by Jonathan Stein on 10/03/08 at 7:13 AM | | Comments (14) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape | Google |

Post Debate Snap Polls from CNN Show Little Changes for Palin

Here are some poll numbers CNN aired directly after the debate. Check out the last two.

Who did the best job In the debate?
Biden - 51%
Palin - 36%

Biden did better or worse than expected?
64% - better
14% - worse
20% - same

Palin did better or worse than expected?
84% - better
7% - worse
8% - same

Palin qualified to serve as President?

Before debate:
42% - yes
54% - no

After debate
46% - yes
53% - no

Despite the fact that a vast majority of watchers thought Palin did better than expected in the debate, just 4 percent came away with their minds changed about her qualifications for the presidency. That suggests that the environment is just so poisoned for Palin, or her lack of experience is so thorough and so well-known, that there is simply nothing she can do to convince people she belongs in the game.

Posted by Jonathan Stein on 10/03/08 at 6:58 AM | | Comments (8) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape | Google |

October 2, 2008

Veep Debate: An End to the Sarah Palin Reality TV Show

For the past few weeks, it's seemed as if Sarah Palin has been a contestant in the ultimate version of the reality show America's Toughest Jobs. She passed the first challenge: give a Big Speech. She did fine on the next one: hit the campaign trail. She royally screwed up the third challenge: give a Big Interview. Then came the most difficult one: hold your own in a Big Debate. And she did.

For 90 minutes Governor Palin, who had become a bleeding ulcer for the McCain campaign, stuck to well-crafted talking points, recited them with passion and conviction, and played the part of the spunky, down-home, up-North middle-class-mom-turned-governor well. She did not demonstrate much depth in policy knowledge, but she managed to display treading-water familiarity with the obvious issues of the day. (Media and advocacy group factcheckers will soon be producing the list of her factual misrepresentations.) It helped that moderator Gwen Ifill did not pose questions that might push her off her script. Palin repeated buzz phrases--"greed and corruption of Wall Street," for instance--over and over. (She was obviously coached to use the word maverick repeatedly, former Republican Senator Rick Santorum observed after the debate.) For some viewers, her autopilot replies might be a turnoff. But for conservatives and independents who want to like her, she probably performed well enough--and she probably performed well enough to stop the hemorrhaging she had caused the campaign.

Which means that perhaps John McCain will return to center stage, as Palin--and her uninformed responses to Katie Couric's questions--becomes less of an issue.

There were no grand moments during the debate--and no bad moments for either Palin or Joe Biden, the Other Man of the evening. Palin did what a veep candidate is supposed to do: tout the head of the ticket and attack the person topping the other ticket. She reiterated the McCain's camp's usual attacks on Barack Obama: he wants to raise taxes and lose a war. More important, she sought to sell herself as the Everymom who knows firsthand the concerns of middle-class Americans who fret about their kids, health coverage, and college tuition. But other than talk about tax cuts, tax cuts, and tax cuts, Palin didn't have much to offer such voters policy-wise. When she referred to McCain's health care plan, Biden countered that the campaign's proposal to tax health care benefits would lead to millions losing coverage that costs an average of $12,000 a year and that McCain's proposed $5000 tax credit for health care plans would not make up the gap. "I call that the ultimate Bridge to Nowhere," Biden quipped--in one of his few quippy moments of the evening. And there was that moment Palin seemingly endorsed Dick Cheney's expansive view of the vice presidency. Biden replied that Cheney "has been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history."

What Palin relied on was her style. Her message: I'm like you. And I'm darn feisty. When Biden pointed out she had not responded to his charge that McCain has been a champion deregulator for years and shares part of the blame for the current financial crisis, she shot back: "I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people." At another point, Palin, in an aw-shucks manner, celebrated her status as a non-Washingtonian. It came after Biden noted that he had voted in 2002 to give Bush the authority to attack Iraq but had warned that an invasion without strong ally support would lead to a costly war lasting for years. Palin replied, "Oh, yeah, it's so obvious I'm a Washington outsider. And someone just not used to the way you guys operate. Because here you voted for the war and now you oppose the war. You're one who says, as so many politicians do, I was for it before I was against it or vice-versa." And she played to the voters within the conservative base--who already know she is one of them--by calling Obama's' tax plan a redistribution of wealth and by talking about the need to "fight for our freedoms." She seemed to suggest that if Obama and Biden were elected freedom would take a blow and "we're going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children's children about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free."

After the debate, Santorum commented, "Did she show she had a familiarity with a number of particular policy matters? Not particularly." But, he added, she had come across as "clear and concise" and had managed to convey a positive impression of herself and her views to the American public.

For his part, Biden committed no errors. He obviously knew the issues better. He repeatedly promoted Obama's policy proposals that would benefit the middle class. He portrayed McCain as an extension of the past eight years. ("Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again," Palin countered). He decried McCain as a fan of big tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations, such as ExxonMobile. And for a guy who has been in the Senate for three decades, Biden did a decent enough job of showing his old working-class roots. He teared up when he spoke of the car accident that claimed the life of his first wife and their daughter. Noting that the Bush administration has placed the nation into "a very deep hole," Biden vowed that an Obama administration would offer "fundamental change" in the nations economic and national security policies.

When Biden praised Obama, he praised his ideas, his proposals. When Palin hailed McCain, she hailed him, his personal qualities. Fighter. Maverick. Reformer. The debate, in a way, was a contest between a policy-person and a people-person. A CBS News poll of uncommitted voters found that 46 percent of them scored Biden the winner, over 21 percent who favored Palin. A CNN poll gave Biden a 51-to-36 percent win. Policy triumphing over presentation? Maybe. But Palin clearly had stopped her free-fall. And she is something of a winner because there is--sorry, YouTube-- no videotape footage from the debate that makes her look undeniably like a ninny. What did George W. Bush once say about the bigotry of low expectations? Sometimes they can almost work like an affirmative action program.

With this debate, the Sarah Palin reality TV program may be done. And the spotlight shifts to the main contenders. That may be a mixed blessing for the slipping-in-the-polls McCain.

Posted by David Corn on 10/02/08 at 9:36 PM | | Comments (141) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape | Google |

VP Debate: Working Moms For Palin? Not These 400

Many of the 400 working mothers who watched the VP debate in a San Francisco hotel ballroom live Thursday night grimaced as Sarah Palin leaned awkwardly into Joe Biden onstage, then sailed over to her podium. "After all, this is a historic night for working moms," noted the work/life conference wrangler. Not even the many liberals in attendance wanted her to fail outright. Thus, there was a collective groan at Palin's first response to Gwen Ifill: "You know, I think a good barometer here, as we try to figure out has this been a good time or a bad time in America's economy, is go to a kid's soccer game on Saturday, and turn to any parent there on the sideline and ask them, "How are you feeling about the economy?"

These parents know when they're being pandered to. The faint charms of Palin's mommy group charisma, her overuse of the word 'darn'? Oh, how the shine has worn off. There were catcalls at Palin's use of the phrase "respect for women's rights." Cheers when Biden finally took off the kid gloves.

"I'm a registered Democrat, and I have to admit, the first time I saw her speak I was nervous," said a redhead named Kacy, standing near the open bar and the cupcake table after the first hour of the debate. "She seemed witty and strong." Kacy adjusted the sleeping one-month-old on her shoulder. "But now that I've seen her speak more, I've lost my admiration for her," she said.

A blonde at the book table, by titles "Porn for New Moms" and "The Three-Martini Playdate," planned to watch the recorded debate at home with a Palin Bingo card in hand and another glass of wine. "Really, it's just like any other reality show, isn't it? Two people looking like idiots on TV?"

After an hour of Palin and Biden, star work/life speaker Lisa Belkin took a vote. Option one, "watching the rest of the debate," lost by a few cheers in favor of extended panels on blending life and work. They'd TiVoed it. They knew what they were missing in the Veep debate—and what they weren't.

Posted by Laura McClure on 10/02/08 at 9:12 PM | | Comments (14) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape | Google |

Guest Liveblogging the Debate

I come away with a solid impression that as the dust settles, no one is going to be especially impressed simply because Palin held her own. That should be the very least we should expect of a candidate. Biden scored huge points on 1) actually answering questions, 2) calling lies lies, and changing the frame of the conversation, and 3) pure substance. It comes down to who of these two would be (god forbid) a better president, and the reality of that possibility was on display here. When it boils down to that, there really isn't much competition based on the gravitas shown in St. Louis tonight. Biden by two lengths.

7:35 - Biden going in for the after-debate niceties, perhaps trying to catch her off guard, and not let her decompress...

7:30 - I sadly call it far closer than it ought to have been, and I assume polls tomorrow will reflect a chasm between those who say one or the other won it. Biden wins on facts, Sarah on expectations-beating.

7:29 - Palin's argument that the media made her look bad can't possibly play. She actually argued today that she had been "censored." She must wish she HAD been.

7:27 - One Current watcher notes Biden is winning on substance, Palin on style. Not sure that's entirely true - she's still clearly a lightweight who falls back into beauty pageant tics. But does "Joe Sixpack" care?

7:24 - Watching Hack the Debate on Current. Interesting to see the Tweets pouring in.

7:21 - Will the Biden choke-up help or hurt? I bet the former. Women aren't allowed to cry (see Hillary), so he can make himself accessible with a trembling chin.

7:18 - Nice big target - Cheney - bulls-eyed by Biden.

7:13 - Palin is revving up. The folksy is working. The school shout-out was brilliant.

7:10 - Joe Biden is getting mad. Careful.

7:07 - "McCain knows how to win a war." Which wars has he won?

7:02 - Best 2008 coinage: "Bosniacs." Thanks, Joe!

6:57 - Palin flatly denied that the US has bombed civilians in Afghanistan.

6:55 - Look closely at Palin's lapel - Israeli flag just ABOVE her American flag pin.

6:52 - Apparently McCain-Palin believe Israel is our only ally.

6:49 - There's "NUCULAR," from Palin. Oh lordy.

6:44 - Palin - ohh, bad move putting your confidence in the leader of al Qaeda.

6:42 - Biden - be careful not to get too brainy and wonky.

6:40 - After all these years, I really expected GOP candidates to pronounce "Iraq" properly.

6:37 - Palin is doing remarkably well. Far above expectations from this vantage point.

6:34 - "Drill, baby drill" - but Biden just mentioned the fact that drilling solves nothing for at least 10 years!

6:31 - Alaska feels the effects of climate change more than any other state? Wow, tell that to Louisiana and Texas.

6:29 - Palin unabashedly refuses to answer questions.

6:23 - Palin is hitting her stride. Looking into the camera instead of at the moderator is a lovely touch.

6:21- Biden's strategy now clear - point out foreseeable fudges of the truth as they happen. Simple, elegant, effective.

6:19 - Paying taxes is not patriotic? OK then!

6:17 - Question for Palin - since when do Mayors raise or lower taxes?

6:15 - Wow, Palin is being maverick-y, telling Gwen and Joe, I'm doing it my way. Clever.

6:13 - Palin's argument is that saying we have a bad economy is too depressing, so it's better to lie to the American people for their own good. In fairness, Bush proved that repeated lies become truths, so maybe the magic will work in this fairytale administration too.

6:11 - Clearly Biden's mission is to use McCain against McCain.

6:08 - Biden is holding back, leading with gravitas and substance.

6:06 - Palin is definitely going folksy. I'm going to guess this isn't going to be as charming this time around.

6:00 - "Can I call you Joe?" Clever. He can't call her Sarah without looking sexist.

Greetings, MoJo people! I'm honored to be here to liveblog the vice presidential debate. As a former editor and producer of MotherJones.com, I'm happy to be back where I once wrote a proto-blog called The Bush Files in 2000.

So put your political pants on, friends. If you're playing bingo, may I suggest an extra credit space for every time Biden says "literally"? You will not be sorry.

My expectations here are that this will be underwhelming, and that Palin could well score big tonight.

Posted by Brooke S. Biggs on 10/02/08 at 5:35 PM | | Comments (4) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape | Google |

Bailout's Handouts

Wondering why the Senate version of the bailout passed so easily? Why, sweeteners of course! Good government watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense has broken down the package of tax breaks that were tacked onto the bill (which has ballooned to over 450 pages), and it's clear that at least some of them are being used to placate skittish Senators by handing goodies to their constituents. Examples include a $478 million tax break for movie and TV studios, a $33 million economic development tax credit for businesses in American Samoa, a more favorable depreciation timetable for motor sports race track owners, and an excise tax exemption for manufacturers of wooden arrows meant for children.

Posted by Jonathan Stein on 10/02/08 at 11:45 AM | | Comments (5) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape | Google |

McCain Reportedly Pulling Out of Michigan

As the polls pull away from him in Michigan, John McCain is reportedly pulling all TV ads in the state and moving most staff to more competitive battlegrounds. The move means that McCain is not playing offense in any 2004 Kerry states except New Hampshire, which has just four electoral votes.

Posted by Jonathan Stein on 10/02/08 at 11:36 AM | | Comments (9) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape | Google |

Obama Up in Florida: Local GOPers Meet Secretly To Worry

Four recent polls showing Barack Obama moving ahead of John McCain in the all-important state of Florida--and leading McCain there by 3 to 8 points--have sent Sunshine State GOPers into a (secret) panic. The St. Petersburg Times reports:

Florida Republican leaders hastily convened a top secret meeting this week to grapple with Sen. John McCain's sagging performance in this must-win state.

Their fears were confirmed Wednesday when four new polls showed Sen. Barack Obama leading, a reversal from just a few weeks ago when McCain was opening up an advantage....

With some grass roots organizers complaining about coordination problems with the campaign, Republican Party chairman Jim Greer gathered top officials at the state headquarters in Tallahassee on Tuesday afternoon. He swore the group to secrecy.

When asked about it by the St. Petersburg Times, Greer confirmed the meeting. He largely declined to discuss what was said.

Or what they are planning. Note to Democrats, rent Recount--just in case.

Posted by David Corn on 10/02/08 at 11:04 AM | | Comments (3) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape | Google |

McCain Wants Afghanistan "Surge;" U.S. Commanders Do Not

Let's assume for a minute that the Iraq "surge" was primarily responsible for this year's reduction in violence there. A debatable point, but say it's true. Why shouldn't we just do the same thing in Afghanistan? That's the question on McCain's mind lately. "The same strategy that [Obama] condemned in Iraq," McCain said at last Friday's debate, referring to the Iraq surge, is "going to have to be employed in Afghanistan."

Hey, if it worked in one place, it'll work somewhere else, right? Not quite, say U.S. commanders (here and here). In a comforting departure from the adage that generals are always preparing to fight the last war, new CENTCOM commander General David Petraeus and the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, are warning that things aren't that simple and that lessons learned in Iraq don't necessarily translate.

As Petraeus told the New York Times yesterday, "People often ask, ‘What did you learn from Iraq that might be transferable to Afghanistan?’ The first lesson, the first caution really, is that every situation like this is truly and absolutely unique, and has its own context and specifics and its own texture."

McKiernan seconded the thought with this explanation to the Washington Independent:

[Afghanistan] has very harsh geography. It's very difficult to move around, getting back to our reliance on helicopters. It's a country with very few natural resources, as opposed to the oil revenues that [Iraq] has. There's very little money to be generated in terms of generated in Afghanistan. The literacy rate - you have a literate society in Iraq, you have a society that has a history of producing civil administrators, technocrats, middle class that are able to run the country in Iraq. You do not have that in Afghanistan. So there are a lot of challenges. What I don't think is needed - the word that I don't use in Afghanistan is the word 'surge.' There needs to be a sustained commitment of a variety of military and non-military resources, I believe.

All this said, McKiernan has also asked for more troops. Surge or not, Afghanistan is heating up and the next president will have to figure out how to best to proceed.

Posted by Bruce Falconer on 10/02/08 at 11:03 AM | | Comments (3) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape | Google |

Bill O'Reilly Sees Himself as Proof of God

Or, more accurately, he sees his rise to the top of the media world as proof of God. No joke. From his new book, called A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity:

"Next time you meet an atheist, tell him or her that you know a bold, fresh guy, a barbarian who was raised in a working-class home and retains the lessons he learned there.

"Then mention to that atheist that this guy is now watched and listened to, on a daily basis, by millions of people all over the world and, to boot, sells millions of books.

"Then, while the non-believer is digesting all that, ask him or her if they still don't believe there's a God!"

As if you needed any more proof that this man is a complete egomaniac...

(Via Oxdown Gazette)

Posted by Jonathan Stein on 10/02/08 at 10:56 AM | | Comments (9) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape | Google |

Mission Creep Dispatch: John Pike

As part of our special investigation "Mission Creep: US Military Presence Worldwide" we asked a host of military thinkers to contribute their two cents on topics relating to global Pentagon strategy. (You can access the archive here.)

The following dispatch comes from John Pike, director of the military information website GlobalSecurity.org.

Regarding Bear DNA: Russia and Sarah Palin's Geopolitics

By now we've probably all seen the interview, or at least the spoofs: "As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go?" Sarah Palin asks Katie Couric. "It's Alaska. It's just right over the border....They are right there; they are right next to our state."

She has a point you know. Sometimes it is hard to figure out what it is, given her somewhat mangled syntax. But Ike was kinda hard to follow on more than a few occasions, and the historians have been increasingly kind to him.

Alaska is close to Russia. Heck, Alaska used to be Russia. In 1867, then Secretary of State William Seward paid the Russians $7.2 million for what would eventually become Alaska, a move ridiculed at the time as "Seward's folly." That land was Russian far longer than it has been American.

In any case, it would seem Governor Palin hadn't spent a great deal of time thinking about Russia until a few weeks ago. Nor did she have to. But future governors might.

The bear is back. Or so the Kremlin would have us believe. Following Russia's recent military action in Georgia, there has been a lot of talk about a new Cold War. This time, however, it will be Cold War Lite. At the end of the Cold War, after all, the Soviet Union had a slightly larger population than the United States, but an estimated gross national product of around $2.5 trillion, less than half that of America at the time. It was the Soviet effort to keep up with its wealthy rival that ultimately led to the USSR's dissolution.

In the decades since, that gap has grown substantially. Today, America has more than double Russia's population and a GNP that's 10 times as big—$13 trillion to Russia's $1.3 trillion. Presently, given its more-modest resources, the Russian Federation is beyond its capacity to mount any sustained global challenge to the United States.

But a bellicose Russia could be extremely annoying to its neighbors, and miscalculation could lead to calamity. Unchecked, Russia might conclude that NATO’s guarantees to members that have no American military bases are mere scraps of paper; Russia might be willing to call NATO's bluff, gambling that the whole house of cards would collapse if a Russian invasion of, say, Estonia, wasn't repulsed by force of arms. Whether Europe and America would rally to intervene in a quarrel in a far-away country between people whom we know nothing about might prove a vexing question.

If Russia wants its military not to become a laughingstock, the country must begin to rearm, to end the procurement holiday that started when the Soviet Union collapsed. This requires money, and justifying these increased military expenditures to the Russian people will require an external threat. The Pentagon doesn't have a monopoly on threat-mongering at budget time.

On August 31, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev outlined the five principles guiding his foreign policy. The fifth was that "as is the case of other countries, there are regions in which Russia has privileged interests. These regions are home to countries with which we share special historical relations." Hence Georgia.

The Medvedev Doctrine justifying military action in Georgia is curiously reminiscent of the Brezhnev Doctrine that justified Soviet interventions from East Germany to Afghanistan. But at least with the Brezhnev Doctrine, we knew where the Soviets drew the line, because Soviet and American troops were lined up eyeball to eyeball at the inter-German border. The US bases in Germany today are where they are because that's where Soviet Forces in Germany used to be. Military bases are policies and doctrines written in steel and concrete. And the Soviet Union knew any movement of its tanks into West Germany would bring about immediate war with the United States.

By contrast, we do not know where Medvedev draws the line concerning Russia's privileged interests. Perhaps those interests include former Soviet satellites with substantial ethnic Russian populations—such as Georgia's South Ossetia, Ukraine, and Estonia. Or could he be including the entirety of the former Soviet Union? Or the Warsaw Pact? Or even the former Russian empire, including Finland, and…Alaska?

US military bases in Alaska are one reason Governor Palin had the luxury of not learning much about foreign affairs. The next governor of Alaska should at least become familiar with the Russian term "privileged interests"—if not overly concerned by its application. But Estonia, Ukraine, Poland, Finland, and other of the Czar's former territories have no such luxury. Some are NATO members, but lack the trip-wire presence of American troops and bases that would preclude Russian military intervention. Others lack even the political guarantee of NATO membership. And for all of them, Russia is "just right over the border.... right there."

More Dispatches

Robert Kaplan
Katherine McCaffrey
Winslow Wheeler
Steven Metz
C. Douglas Lummis
Douglas Macgregor
John Nagl
William Hartung
John Lindsay-Poland
John Feffer
Catherine Lutz
Peter Beck
Nick Turse
Mark Selden

Posted by Mother Jones on 10/02/08 at 9:40 AM | | Comments (1) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine | Netscape | Google |

U.S.-India Nuclear Deal Passes Congress

In the midst of debating a bailout package for Wall Street, the Senate took a break last night to vote on a measure that, although buried in the current news cycle, carries real consequence for the future of the world's already troubled nuclear nonproliferation efforts: in a vote of 86-13, the Senate approved the Bush administration's plan to begin supplying India with civilian nuclear reactors, nuclear fuel, and other related technologies. In return, India will open 14 civilian nuclear reactors to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency; 8 more military nuclear sites will remain off limits. The Senate vote followed House approval of the measure last week and a decision last month by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (a consortium of 45 nations involved in nuclear trade) to issue a waiver to India recognizing its status as a nuclear weapons state.

India has been a nuclear weapons pariah since it first exploded an atomic weapon in 1974. (The Nuclear Suppliers Group was established at U.S.-urging after the India test to prevent the country from obtaining additional nuclear capability; it was then aligned with Soviet Union.) Even today India has yet to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and additional nuclear tests in 1998 strengthened international opprobrium and led the Clinton administration to impose economic sanctions.

But all that is now history. Whereas the United States once viewed India through the prism of Cold War politics, it now sees the country as a crucial counterweight in its new power game with China. And the so-called U.S.-India Civil-Nuclear Agreement (known in trade circles as the "123 Agreement") solidifies the new strategic partnership.

The bill passed Congress by comfortable margins in both houses and, given its implications for nonproliferation efforts, has some surprising proponents—among them Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), a leading nonproliferation voice, who told the New York Times that "the national security and economic future of the United States will be enhanced by a strong and enduring partnership with India." He was joined by John McCain, who released a statement this morning congratulating Congress on passing the agreement and suggesting it "allows [India] to become further integrated into the global effort to control proliferation of dangerous technologies," and will enable the country to produce energy "without relying on greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels." (India currently generates only 3 percent of its energy from nuclear power, due in part to the effectiveness of international efforts to restrict its nuclear trade.)

The latter point pales in comparison to what the deal could mean for nonproliferation. Despite claims by McCain and others (Democrats and Republicans) that the agreement will bring India under international safeguards and compel it to comply with inspections, what it really does, say critics, is create a country-specific exemption to nuclear proliferation controls and sets a poor example to other nuclear aspirants, like Iran, as to what can eventually be gained from recalcitrance. As Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, told the Times, "We have said to India with this agreement: 'You can misuse American nuclear technology and secretly develop nuclear weapons.' That's what they did. 'You can test these weapons.' That's what they did. And after testing, 10 years later, all will be forgiven."

Aside from giving China something to think about, the deal is also about money. There's a lot of it to be made in supplying India, the world's second most populous country, with energy. And Washington isn't the only one vying for the job. Just last night, the French government announced that it had inked a deal with India to provide at least two civilian nuclear reactors, to be built by Areva, a French power company. Russia is also interested in joining the bidding. India is in the market to grant up to $27 billion in contracts for 18-20 nuclear reactors, and estimates indicate that contracts could total $175 billion over the next 25 years—not nearly as much as it will take to bail out the U.S. economy, but still, big money. Among the U.S. companies lining up at the trough are General Electric, Westinghouse, and Bechtel.

The consequences of the U.S.-India nuclear deal will show themselves slowly, and perhaps in part for that reason, not much has been made of it in the press or in Congress. Immediately after casting their votes last night, Senators returned to debating the financial industry bailout package, the India deal just another piece of business checked off the list. For a measure so important to the future of the spread of nuclear weapons, said Dorgan, "never has something of such moment and such significance and so much importance been debated in such a short period of time and given such short shrift."

Posted by Bruce Falconer on 10/02/08 at 9:10 AM | | Comments (33) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Newsvine |