Catching Up on Digby...

The PoMo President

Bush is less worried about his standing with history, telling aides that George Washington's legacy is still being debated two centuries later. But he understands that losing one chamber of Congress will cripple his lame duck-weakened final two years.

Here's how he put it a couple of years ago:

“After the second interview with him on Dec. 11, we got up and walked over to one of the doors. There are all of these doors in the Oval Office that lead outside. And he had his hands in his pocket, and I just asked, ‘Well, how is history likely to judge your Iraq war,’” says Woodward.

SOS

One of the things we all must be thinking about (if not talking about) as we go into the mid-term elections is whether the voting machines, both in the literal and metaphorical sense, are going to thwart an honest outcome. There is no doubt that in the last two presidential elections, the state voting apparatuses in Ohio and Florida made the difference between Democrats winning or losing.

Faithful Republicans

It is taken as an article of faith (pardon the pun) that the evangelical base of the GOP is upset about this Foley scandal and will fail to turn up at the polls this November as a result. I wonder.

This article in the NY Times asks the question and finds that evangelicals don't hold the Republican party responsible:

“This is Foley’s lifestyle,” said Ron Gwaltney, a home builder, as he waited with his family outside a Christian rock concert last Thursday in Norfolk. “He tried to keep it quiet from his family and his voters. He is responsible for what he did. He is paying a price for what he did. I am not sure how much farther it needs to go.”

The Democratic Party is “the party that is tolerant of, maybe more so than Republicans, that lifestyle,” Mr. Gwaltney said, referring to homosexuality.

Frozen Punditry

Jane Hamsher says I have a monkey named Chris Matthews on my back and I need serious help. Yes, my name is digby and I am a Hardball addict.

There's a reason for it. Chris Matthews, to me, is the perfect embodiment of the delusional, millionaire DC courtier who thinks he is channeling the common man. The beltway is full of those guys apparently, but Tweety has a very special perch from which he dispenses all kinds of what he thinks are folksy observations about "Real Americans" but which are actually 50's cartoon characters along the lines of Fred and Wilma Flintstone. He's a fascinating case study in how the dysfunctional DC political media are completely immersed in rightwing bias and don't even know it.

St John Tthe Anointed

I just love watching St. John McCain sticking it to the Democrats with everything he's got after they spent the month of September anointing him as the premiere national leader on security and military affairs. This looks pretty stupid now, doesn't it?

Dear God

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.

The estimate, produced by interviewing residents during a random sampling of households throughout the country, is far higher than ones produced by other groups, including Iraq's government.

A Man's Gotta Make A Living

All this lying McCainiac finger-pointing about Clinton being at fault for North Korea having nukes is par for the course. That's the GOP game -- if it wasn't Clinton it would have been Carter --- or Truman --- or Woodrow Wilson. It's never their fault. Here's Rich Lowry explaining it to us from their perspective:

The Clinton administration dealt directly with the North, producing the Agreed Framework, a sham that the North Koreans began cheating on, in the words of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, "as the ink was drying." The North agreed to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for two light-water nuclear reactors and fuel deliveries. Immediately, however, it set up a secret uranium-enrichment program and obstructed inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency. When the U.S. called the North on it in 2002, the North confessed, expelled IAEA inspectors, withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and accelerated its nuclear quest.

Short Term Death

Reading this article by Jacob Weisberg on the subject of Bush's creation of the Axis of Evil, I realized that one of the most frustrating aspects of right wing hawkish thinking is their belief that it is useless to have any kind of short-term solution to a problem unless it can be guaranteed to result in a long term resolution. Indeed, they even think of truces and ceasefires as weakness.

Don't Ask Don't Tell

The Republicans really, really need to deal with their latent sexual issues because this is getting ridiculous. I just flipped over to FoxNews and saw two scantily clad young men (with very unmilitary looking mop-tops) sitting across the desk of a giggling and blushing Neil Cavuto, flogging a Marine Hunk beefcake calendar. I'm not kidding.

Cogs In The Machine

One of the most hyped tales of political wizardry in recent years is the story of how Karl Rove energized the evangelical base and created an army of Republican GOTV foot soldiers. The facts are that the targeting of the evangelicals goes back much farther than Rove and can be attributed to earlier GOP grassroots strategists:

"With Paul M. Weyrich and Richard Viguerie, Blackwell met with Jerry Falwell to found the Moral Majority. 'Finally, on the verge of realizing his right-wing utopia, Weyrich harvested what his friend Morton Blackwell termed the greatest track of virgin timber on the political landscape: evangelicals. Out there is what you might call a moral majority, he told Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg, Pennsylvania, in 1979. That's it, Falwell exclaimed. That's the name of the organization.' [David Grann, "Robespierre of the Right," New Republic, October 27, 1997]

Finally

The grown-ups have awakened from their stupors and have decided to save us:

MATTHEWS: The real grown-ups, gentlemen, and Margaret -- is that the best critics of this war are the Republicans. [Sen.] John Warner [R-VA], the chairman of the Armed Services [Committee] -- it's not the lefties, it's not Jack Murtha out there even. It's the smart, grown-up Republicans who are questioning this policy and calling for a change.

Scone Eating Surrender General

In America, it would be the equivalent of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Peter Pace, saying this

The head of the Army is calling for British troops to withdraw from Iraq "soon" or risk catastophic consequences for both Iraq and British society.

In a devastating broadside at Tony Blair's foreign policy, General Sir Richard Dannatt stated explicitly that the continuing presence of British troops "exacerbates the security problems" in Iraq.

Undaunted

We all know that before 9/11 the neocons didn't give a damn about terrorism (and still don't, really.) But what were they obsessed with? Saddam, yes. Israel, yes. But they reserved a whole bunch of their firepower for the great yellow peril, the Chi-Coms, whom they are anxious to blame for the North Korean nuclear threat today. They apparently don't feel we have enough problems, we need to start poking China in the eye too.

Sex Ring Republicans

I guess I've been living in some sort of dreamworld here in the wholesome Hollywood heartland, but I am honestly shocked at the degree of depravity and sadism that Republicans across the board seem to find normal. I don't consider myself a prude, but damn.

The original Limbaugh reaction to Abu Ghraib was pretty telling, but I figured he just represented the rich, S&M portion of the GOP constituency. And while I was a bit surprised that there was no outcry among the conservative moralists I figured it was just because they were being good soldiers in the GWOT. The Mark Foley thing has proven that they just don't much give a damn about sexual depravity or morals at all if it threatens their political power. The House leadership in charge looked the other way but the moralists are lining up to blame a fictitious gay cabal they believe has infiltrated "their" party. Talk about moral relativism.

It Doesn't Bother Him Politically

More dispatches from the GOP Freakshow:

MJ Rosenberg over at TPM Cafe makes note of religious conservative Dennis Prager's strong moral stand on Larry King last night. It's quite inspiring:

KING: ... Does the Foley matter bother you?

PRAGER: The matter bothers me but not politically. A congressman is given a page to nurture and take care of and not to try to have an affair with, with same-sex or opposite sex, so that bothers me. There's no question about it and a great deal in fact but, it doesn't bother me politically.

Do it For The Constitution

Glenn Greenwald's blog Unclaimed Territory sort of took the blogosphere by storm this past year or so and for good reason. He is fearless in taking on the right wing --- from the crazed harpy wingnut vloggers to the Wall Street Journal editorial page. And he makes such well-reasoned yet passionate arguments they are forced to engage him. His blog is does what the best lefty blogs have to do -- entertain, inform and... kick rightwing ass.

"Jesus will not ride into town on an elephant"

I would become a believer myself if this happened:

Dear Dr. Dobson and Friends

I write this letter to you as an admirer, and as one who is eternally grateful for all that you have done to fight for Christian values in America. Although fine Americans such as Don Wildmon, Dr. D. James Kennedy, Tony Perkins, Phyllis Schlafly, The Arlington Group and others have fought the fight as well, you more than anyone, are the face of the pro-family movement. You have the scars to prove it and I consider you an American hero.

But Dr. Dobson, it is time to build an ark. It is time to leave the Republican Party. Jesus will not ride into town on an elephant.