Enriching Liberty

Almost a year ago Senator Joseph Biden wrote a very brief article for the Atlantic that I had not seen till this morning. Anyone who has visited The Limb knows that his words are in perfect harmony with mine. My greatest disappointment in the Bush/McCain Republicans has been their readiness to do for the Islamic extremists what the bad guys could not do for themselves. Reading this little piece reassured me that Barack Obama has made an excellent decision in tapping Biden as his prospective Vice President.

We don’t have to diminish the American idea in order to save it. Indeed, the only way to prevail in the struggle between freedom and fundamentalism is to enrich that idea in the face of threats.

--

Like the choice of Gore in 1992, Biden's VP choice does not add specific electoral vote possibilities, but does give a prospective new President better foreign policy credentials and a congressional tie that will help him accomplish his legislative goals.

The Republican response has been typical Rovian childishness: playing gotcha with Obama's word slip -- immediately corrected -- in introducing his running mate. Then, of course, all the standard ads noting the words of Biden and Clinton during the primaries. There is no traction in any of those arguments. The fact is Barack Obama made a very mature, even "Presidential", choice in the most important decision he has made as a candidate. Virtually everyone agrees that Joseph Biden is ready to be President if, God forbid, he has to fulfill the ultimate Vice Presidential duty. Obama and Biden will make a great team. No one who has watched Obama can believe there is any question about who will be the President if the team is elected. Good job, Barack!

"You have to decide..."

Several times since the Republican misadventure in Iraq turned sour, I have been told by a few defenders of the decision to invade that "even Bill Clinton believed Saddam had WMD". These folks seem to think that means he also supported the invasion.

I have known that was not true. I am glad, now, to be able to give chapter and verse. A transcript of President Clinton's remarks of March 14, 2003 -- less than a week before the invasion -- has been posted at the Hillary Clinton website. Here are some excerpts:

"... you have to decide if it matters whether we bend over backwards to try to disarm him in a way that strengthens rather than divides the world community. If you don’t think it matters, then you’re with a lot of the people in the current administration...

[Saddam]'s finally destroying his missiles, so let’s give him a certain date in which, in this time, he has to destroy the missiles, reconcile the discrepancies in what we believe is the truth on chemical weapons, reconcile the discrepancies on biological weapons, reconcile the issue of the Drones, and offer up 150 scientists who can travel outside of Iraq with their families for interviews. ... I’m for regime change too, but there’s more than one way to do it. We don’t invade everybody whose regime we want to change..."

I, like President Clinton, believed President Bush was acting foolishly in the months leading up to March of 2003. I was quite vociferous about that, despite the ridicule of a whole gaggle of my Republican friends. I saw an administration hyping the case for preemptive war. They may have believed some of what they said about WMD, but they blatently hyped it. They knew Saddam was not an immediate threat to the US and they knew Saddam was unconnected to the terrorist attacks of 2001 (and never SAID he was, as they are quick to point out) but blatently lied about the first and actively promoted the second impression, and those misconceptions became majority assumptions in the US. The Machiavellian neo-cons viewed war as an exercise of the unique power of the world's only remaining superpower. It was an opportunity, the neo-cons seemed to think, that the US should not pass up. From slimy politics, to slippery slope, to free fall.

What a different and better world this would be today if the election of 2000 had not been compromised.

What a difference it will make for our country if in 2008 we can elect a statesman (or woman) to repair the tragic mistakes of the Republicans. I will be thrilled to support Edwards, Biden, Clinton, Obama, or Dodd.

Midweek Classic - 2/06: Why I am a Democrat

This is my first Midweek Classic Post. Mid-week is a tough time to come up with a post -- and keep my job. And I'd like to have a chance to repost a few of my early posts that got even less readership than current posts. So how about a rerun.

This was first posted on St. Valentine's Day in 2006.
It still applies.

Still Democratic After All These Years

My party is held in a big tent with no burly security guards at the flap. I am a Democrat because my party looks like America. It is not crowded with one race, ethnic group, religion, etc. You don't need an expensive ticket to get in. Everyone's invited. There are some there I won't ask to dance. There are some who are a little too wild for my tastes. There are some who dance with Democrats but, you can tell, are really just slumming: they'll sip champagne with the fat cats next week. There are some who begin as the life of the party but end up hogging the hors d'oeuvres or even robbing the cloakroom... er, the table in the corner piled with coats and purses. But I find the revelers here, in general, more congenial to my beliefs and inclinations than those corvorting at the country clubs. And ours are much better dancers.

Admittedly, I have some negative reasons for my party choice. I am a Democrat because I believe there are, among the other guys, more politicians who are rotten guys. McCarthy, Atwater, Schlafly, Limbaugh, Nixon, Agnew, Bush, Cheney, Starr, Rove, Ashcroft, Coulter, Robertson, Chambliss, Delay, Falwell. Those who look to the worst in human nature. Those who are greedy and arrogant. Those who see themselves as intellectually superior and therefore more deserving. Those who think that those worse off than themselves are deservedly so. Those who are dismissive of, unconcerned for, arrogant toward people of lesser wealth, lesser ability, lesser intelligence. Those who have little or no respect for honest laborers. Those who trust the free enterprise system to cure all ills. Those who demand self-sufficiency from the poor but welcome government perks themselves. There are, of course, many at the other party who do not fit those negative stereotypes.

My choice is primarily a positive one, though. I am a Democrat because I believe my party has, over the the years, most closely supported my political ideals: civil rights and equality of rights, collective stewardship of the environment, strong public schools, separation of church and state, a role for the government in promoting the general welfare of all its citizens, a strong, sensible, diplomatic foreign policy.

I am a Democrat because, as I review my life, I find that my votes have proven right much more often than not. My party adopted the civil rights movement that is accepted as the correct position by almost everyone now, even some who fought it tooth and nail 40 years ago. It was primarily members of my party who led opposition to the Vietnam war and virtually all Americans eventually came to see that war as the mistake that it was. Democrats saw Richard Nixon for the fraud he was when he was the darling of the Republicans. My party opposed Ronald Reagan’s economic policies and those policies nearly bankrupted our nation. Many in my party told America that George W. Bush was the blustering little bully he has turned out to be. They told America his policies would divide us, derail our economy, lose us our allies, and make the world a more dangerous place. They were right.

I am a Democrat because I revere so many of our party leaders of the past and present: Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, J.Q. Adams, Jackson (blemished though he was), Cleveland, Wilson (warts and all), FDR, Eleanor Roosevelt, Truman, Stevenson, Marshall,
Humphrey, JFK, LBJ, (despite Vietnam)

Russell (warts and all),

Ellis Arnall,

Charles Weltner, Fulbright, Scoop Jackson, Robert Byrd, John Lewis, RFK,
McGovern, Nunn, Carter,
Andrew Young, Christopher, Mondale,
Wyche Fowler, Kerry,
Al Gore, Bill Clinton (warts and all),
Hillary Clinton, Allbright,
John Edwards,
Obama, Warner,
Bayh, Bo Ginn
(despite the mistakes of his last years),
Rockefeller, Cleland,

Buddy Childers,
Mildred Greear...

Not that our Democratic heroes don’t have faults. We have our share of charlatans and lechers. But in general I prefer our flaws to those of the opposition. I recognized Bill Clinton as the blemished genius he is. I was not surprised that he disappointed us in his personal life (he is a member of the sexually undisciplined baby boom), but his public decisions and appointments were right on target. It seems that, in our history, those who make the most show of public piety often turn out to be rats, while those who acknowledge their sinful natures often have the most saintly public records. I’ll take Cleveland over Blaine. And I’ll take the lustful Clinton over the surface piety of Bush any day.

It seems to me that our forefathers understood that it is perfectly legitimate for us to covenant together as a society to do things for the common welfare. My party understands that. These days it is in our interest as a nation for all our citizens have good opportunities for education and good medical care. We need to have opera, art, folk music, storytelling, serious and civilized radio and TV discussion: none of which will survive a “free-market” that prefers sentimental, or sexy, or “reality”, or flamboyant programming. It is important to have a reasonably intact passenger rail capability, even if the market won’t support it in the short term. It is in our national interest that big business be regulated; that laborers receive a fair wage; that the difference between the rich and the poor not be so extreme that it foments hatred and revolution. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet deserve to make good profits from their hard work, and smart investments and should not be so severely taxed that they do not want to keep building the economy; but no one “deserves” the money those guys make as long as poverty exists in the world. A progressive tax is NOT unfair to those of us in the top twenty percent of the household income scale. We are incredibly fortunate to have been born with the brains, energy, health, sanity, emotional stability, connections, and luck to have climbed over more than 80% of the population.

I chose my party carefully and I have never been sorry for the choice. The choice has never been clearer. It is the right one for me. I am clearly, proudly, plainly, undeniably, comfortably, to my yellow-dog marrow, a Democrat.

Postscript:
I would argue that most, if not all, the views I have expressed are majority opinions in the United States. On the Liberal Quotient scale, I couldn't be more than one standard deviation above the norm. Maybe a 115 L.Q. or so. (I realize that there are those among my readers who would prefer to express this as 85 C.Q.) Therefore I will continue to lay claim to the label of moderate. I have liberal friends whom I admire, and there is no disgrace in that label, but I don’t think I qualify for it. But I’ll save that discussion for another post. By the way, here is the thesaurus's take on "liberal". So if liberal is the label you, dear reader, want me to don, I'll wear it with pride.

Covering Posteriors

An old story that deserves retelling:

When shortly before the terrorist attacks of 2001, President Bush was presented with evidence that a terrorist attack on our country was likely being planned, he asked no questions, directed no action, called no further meetings. Instead he ended the meeting in a typically cavalier manner. He said to the presenter: "All right. You've covered your ass now."

Try as I might, I cannot imagine Bill Clinton, George Bush, Sr., Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, John Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower, or Harry Truman responding so flippantly. Those are the Presidents of my lifetime. Neither can I imagine John Kerry, or Al Gore failing to take such a briefing seriously. Can you imagine Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama, or any of the other current candidates for president behaving so?

That is just one of the multitude of evidences of the shallow, coarse, arrogant, cluelessness of this fraternity-boy President. Ladies and gentlemen, the current occupant of our White House is the least competent President in the history of our country. He is worse than Nixon. Worse than do-nothing Buchanan. We still have a chance to survive his presidency better than we did Buchanan's. But it's far from a sure thing.

Speak up.

Al Gore, a true patriot, delivered an important speech back in January. I re-read it today. He discusses fear and our founders.

Fear drives out reason. Fear suppresses the politics of discourse and opens the door to the politics of destruction. Justice Brandeis once wrote: “Men feared witches and burnt women.”


The founders of our country faced dire threats. If they failed in their endeavors, they would have been hung as traitors. The very existence of our country was at risk.

Yet, in the teeth of those dangers, they insisted on establishing the Bill of Rights.

Is our Congress today in more danger than were their predecessors when the British army was marching on the Capitol? Is the world more dangerous than when we faced an ideological enemy with tens of thousands of missiles poised to be launched against us and annihilate our country at a moment’s notice? Is America in more danger now than when we faced worldwide fascism on the march—when our fathers fought and won two World Wars simultaneously?

It is simply an insult to those who came before us and sacrificed so much on our behalf to imply that we have more to be fearful of than they. Yet they faithfully protected our freedoms and now it is up to us to do the same.

The Democratic Party is imperfect. We have our charlatans. We, too, are beholden to special interests too often. But at this moment in our history it is critical to put the brakes on the the Republican juggernaut. Gerrymandered Congressional Districts make incumbancy more powerful than ever. Radical Republicans control all three branches of the government. The Executive Branch has unprecedented power and Congress is exercising virtually no oversight. It is time to take our country back from the fearmongers. It is time to reclaim our freedoms. Vote Democratic. Work for Democratic candidates. Send contributions to Democratic candidates. Speak up.

Pop Culture Wins Again!

It has become obvious that my virtual life has taken a backseat to the real thing. So I think I'll just blatantly steal other folks' stuff for a while. (Later note: Didn't work. I couldn't stop myself from commenting.)

My friend the Rev. Frank Logue (I'll never get used to that title!) at King of Peace Episcopal Church in St. Marys GA has posted the following essential information from Reuters. Check out Frank's blog for some thoughtful writing and to confirm whether you also know this stuff.

20.5% of us know who wrote The Iliad and The Odyssey.
60% know Bart's daddy of the same name.

37% can name the planet closest to the sun.
60% know the planet that was Superman's first home.

42% can name the three branches of our governmenrt.
74% can name the Three Stooges.

11% can name the Supreme Court Justice confirmed in January 2006.
23% can name the most recent "American Idol".

--------------
Now, what I'd like to know, out here on my limb, is:
What percentage of Americans still "know" there were major WMD in Iraq in 2003?
How many "know" Saddam was associated with Al Qaeda?
How many "know" Al Gore claimed to have "invented the internet"?
How many "know" Democrats voted "for the Iraq war" or "beleived there was WMD" and therefore have no right to oppose Bush's preemptive war.?
I suspect if you can come up with the answers to those questions they will match closely Bush's current approval numbers.

Well, I just can't help myself --I couldn't keep from thinking of the many Americans who not only don't know important information, but who make matters worse by "knowing " a lot of misinformation.

An Inconvenient Truth

Saddening reminders at the movies

We've read most of it before, in bits and pieces over many years. We know the planet is warming. Those of us who look at evidence instead of listening to the bloviaters on Fox News or talk radio have known for years that humans are at least exacerbating the problem with our emissions and deforestation. The service that Al Gore has performed for us is to put together the facts, graphs, evidence, and pictures into a coherant whole. The movie makers have taken Gore's brillant work and made it into a fascinating - and terrifying - story.

It is saddening, even shocking, to actually see pictures of the changes in Antarctica, the Arctic Ocean, Greenland, Mount Kilmanjaro and many more locations on the earth. (Sheila and I saw the shrunken glaciers in Montana in 1979 and pics of the larger ones from earlier in the century)

It is saddening to see ice cores and graphs that illustrate irrefutably the absurdity of the Limbaughs of the world who dismiss the warming as part of a natural cycle.

It is saddening to have driven home, again, the stark tragedy of the 2000 election.

The movie should win awards for the creative storytellng, but more importantly it will bring attention to possibly the most critical issue of our time.

You owe it to yourself and our posterity to see this movie.

Why I am A Democrat

Still Democratic After All These Years

My party is held in a big tent with no burly security guards at the flap. I am a Democrat because my party looks like America. It is not crowded with one race, ethnic group, religion, etc. You don't need an expensive ticket to get in. Everyone's invited. There are some there I won't ask to dance. There are some who are a little too wild for my tastes. There are some who dance with Democrats but, you can tell, are really just slumming: they'll sip champagne with the fat cats next week. There are some who begin as the life of the party but end up hogging the hors d'oeuvres or even robbing the cloakroom... er, the table in the corner piled with coats and purses. But I find the revelers here, in general, more congenial to my beliefs and inclinations than those corvorting at the country clubs. And ours are much better dancers.

Admittedly, I have some negative reasons for my party choice. I am a Democrat because I believe there are, among the other guys, more politicians who are rotten guys. McCarthy, Atwater, Schlafly, Limbaugh, Nixon, Agnew, Bush, Cheney, Starr, Rove, Ashcroft, Coulter, Robertson, Chambliss, Delay, Falwell. Those who look to the worst in human nature. Those who are greedy and arrogant. Those who see themselves as intellectually superior and therefore more deserving. Those who think that those worse off than themselves are deservedly so. Those who are dismissive of, unconcerned for, arrogant toward people of lesser wealth, lesser ability, lesser intelligence. Those who have little or no respect for honest laborers. Those who trust the free enterprise system to cure all ills. Those who demand self-sufficiency from the poor but welcome government perks themselves. There are, of course, many at the other party who do not fit those negative stereotypes.

My choice is primarily a positive one, though. I am a Democrat because I believe my party has, over the the years, most closely supported my political ideals: civil rights and equality of rights, collective stewardship of the environment, strong public schools, separation of church and state, a role for the government in promoting the general welfare of all its citizens, a strong, sensible, diplomatic foreign policy.

I am a Democrat because, as I review my life, I find that my votes have proven right much more often than not. My party adopted the civil rights movement that is accepted as the correct position by almost everyone now, even some who fought it tooth and nail 40 years ago. It was primarily members of my party who led opposition to the Vietnam war and virtually all Americans eventually came to see that war as the mistake that it was. Democrats saw Richard Nixon for the fraud he was when he was the darling of the Republicans. My party opposed Ronald Reagan’s economic policies and those policies nearly bankrupted our nation. Many in my party told America that George W. Bush was the blustering little bully he has turned out to be. They told America his policies would divide us, derail our economy, lose us our allies, and make the world a more dangerous place. They were right.

I am a Democrat because I revere so many of our party leaders of the past and present: Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, J.Q. Adams, Jackson (blemished though he was), Cleveland, Wilson (warts and all), FDR, Eleanor Roosevelt, Truman, Stevenson, Marshall,
Humphrey, JFK, LBJ, (despite Vietnam)

Russell (warts and all),

Ellis Arnall,

Charles Weltner, Fulbright, Scoop Jackson, Robert Byrd, John Lewis, RFK,
McGovern, Nunn, Carter,
Andrew Young, Christopher, Mondale,
Wyche Fowler, Kerry,
Al Gore, Bill Clinton (warts and all),
Hillary Clinton, Allbright,
John Edwards,
Obama, Warner,
Bayh, Bo Ginn
(despite the mistakes of his last years),
Rockefeller, Cleland,

Buddy Childers,
Mildred Greear...

Not that our Democratic heroes don’t have faults. We have our share of charlatans and lechers. But in general I prefer our flaws to those of the opposition. I recognized Bill Clinton as the blemished genius he is. I was not surprised that he disappointed us in his personal life (he is a member of the sexually undisciplined baby boom), but his public decisions and appointments were right on target. It seems that, in our history, those who make the most show of public piety often turn out to be rats, while those who acknowledge their sinful natures often have the most saintly public records. I’ll take Cleveland over Blaine. And I’ll take the lustful Clinton over the surface piety of Bush any day.

It seems to me that our forefathers understood that it is perfectly legitimate for us to covenant together as a society to do things for the common welfare. My party understands that. These days it is in our interest as a nation for all our citizens have good opportunities for education and good medical care. We need to have opera, art, folk music, storytelling, serious and civilized radio and TV discussion: none of which will survive a “free-market” that prefers sentimental, or sexy, or “reality”, or flamboyant programming. It is important to have a reasonably intact passenger rail capability, even if the market won’t support it in the short term. It is in our national interest that big business be regulated; that laborers receive a fair wage; that the difference between the rich and the poor not be so extreme that it foments hatred and revolution. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet deserve to make good profits from their hard work, and smart investments and should not be so severely taxed that they do not want to keep building the economy; but no one “deserves” the money those guys make as long as poverty exists in the world. A progressive tax is NOT unfair to those of us in the top twenty percent of the household income scale. We are incredibly fortunate to have been born with the brains, energy, health, sanity, emotional stability, connections, and luck to have climbed over more than 80% of the population.

I chose my party carefully and I have never been sorry for the choice. The choice has never been clearer. It is the right one for me. I am clearly, proudly, plainly, undeniably, comfortably, to my yellow-dog marrow, a Democrat.

Postscript:
I would argue that most, if not all, the views I have expressed are majority opinions in the United States. On the Liberal Quotient scale, I couldn't be more than one standard deviation above the norm. Maybe a 115 L.Q. or so. (I realize that there are those among my readers who would prefer to express this as 85 C.Q.) Therefore I will continue to lay claim to the label of moderate. I have liberal friends whom I admire, and there is no disgrace in that label, but I don’t think I qualify for it. But I’ll save that discussion for another post. By the way, here is the thesaurus's take on "liberal". So if liberal is the label you, dear reader, want me to don, I'll wear it with pride.

Rant Time

What if it were President Gore?

Can you imagine how quickly articles of impeachment would have been drawn up by Congressional Republicans if President Gore had authorized domestic spying WITHOUT EVEN the available RETROACTIVE WARRANT and in direct contravention of expressly written law?

Well, it's my country, too, and even I have to get serious sometimes. W., Karl, Tom, Dick, Alberto, et al ignore the law and the truth and basic American principles when it serves their purposes.

Feel free to reply with your arguments, O Disciples of Shrub, but if you want my respect, don't you set up strawmen by saying things that indicate those of us who oppose Bush on this issue are not concerned about terrorism. We believe Bush has the tools to monitor the communication he SAYS he is motivated to monitor. We are not so stupid as to trust this miscreant, however, with dictatorial power and, even if you do trust this little man -- the guy who told Mr. Dirty Politics, Lee Atwater, to get dirtier; the guy who made thousands of "push-poll" phone calls in SC to label John McCain a race-mixer; the saint who panders to the evangelicals with same mouth that gushes obscenities elsewhere -- he will only be President for 1080 more days (barring another coup), you certainly should not trust his unknown successor.

Is there a reader who does not know in his/her heart and mind, with absolute certainty, that the present Republican Congress WOULD draw up articles of impeachment if a President Gore authorized domestic spying WITHOUT EVEN the available RETROACTIVE WARRANT and in direct contravention of expressly written law?

The Republicans are the strict constructionists? Give me a break.