RETURN OF THE "KNOW NOTHINGS"

In today's NY Times Paul Krugman has an interesting take on the G.O.P.'s evolving campaign politics.

In short, we're back to the days of the "Know Nothings." Only this time, instead of the 1850s fear that Irish Catholic immigrants might overwhelm American values, and then claim to "know nothing" about their movement, today's Know Nothings take pride in providing simplistic and ill-thought out approaches to modern problems (you know, kind of like the Know Nothings of the 1850s). Krugman writes:

Now, I don’t mean that G.O.P. politicians are, on average, any dumber than their Democratic counterparts ... What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”

On the positive side at least Know-Nothingism has evolved. Today there is pride in providing simpleton solutions to complex problems ... We don't like you? Let's go to war ... I'm afraid of terrorist monsters! Let's strip the Constitution ... I don't understand your energy policy references? Have a gas gauge.

This explains John McCain's "drill here, drill now" mantra. By pressing to drill for oil here and now, when every expert in the field says doing so will do nothing to solve our energy problems (and may even make it worse by providing a false sense of hope), McCain is demonstrating that he has not moved far from the foolish solutions provided by the Know Nothings of yore.

No wonder many of the Know Nothings of the 1850s gravitated to the Republican Party by the 1860s. Their narrow nativism and religious hostility fit right in with the party that freely embraces fear-mongering and banality as campaign cornerstones.

- Mark

P.S. FYI, here's a copy of political propoganda from the Know Nothing period. Click on the piece if the letters are too small to read.

THE BUSH LEGACY

This is too funny (and via Dailykos).



- Mark

BUSH'S MILITARY TRIBUNAL REBUKED

In what the Miami Herald called "a stunning rebuke" of President Bush's crown jewel case for his military commission tribunal, a six-person jury made up of senior U.S. military officers rejected the Pentagon's request to give Osama bin Laden's driver 30 years for providing "material support" to al Qaeda.

Salim Hamdan, who made news when the United States Supreme Court said he (and others) was entitled to habeus corpus, was sentenced to 66 months in prison. Given credit for being held the past 61 months, Hamdan is scheduled to be released before President Bush leaves office.

What a joke. The Bush administration set the rules with their Military Commissions Act, had a jury full of military officers, and was able to introduce just about any evidence they wanted (including that which was produced under torture) ... and all they got was a conviction for something Hamdan admitted to from the very beginning - that he was bin Laden's driver.

Somebody call the American Bar Association ... these guys deserve a medal.

- Mark

McCAIN'S "BOY ENVY"

When it comes to understanding what's happening with John McCain, and others, as they confront Barack Obama's popularity NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd nails it in her Tuesday Op-Ed piece. Here's a couple of quotes:

Now John McCain is pea-green with envy. That’s the only explanation for why a man who prides himself on honor, a man who vowed not to take the low road in the campaign, having been mugged by W. and Rove in South Carolina in 2000, is engaging in a festival of juvenilia ...

The Arizona senator who built his reputation on being a brave proponent of big solutions is running a schoolyard campaign about tire gauges and Paris Hilton, childishly accusing his opponent of being too serious, too popular and not patriotic enough.

Even his own mother, the magical 96-year-old Roberta McCain, let slip that she thought the Paris Hilton-Britney Spears ad was “kinda stupid.”

Read the entire article yourself. It says much about McCain, and status quo politics.

- Mark

PROJECTED BANK LOSSES ... $1 TRILLION IS A "FLOOR"

From MoneyNews.com ... Noted financial guru Nouriel Roubini is predicting that hundreds of banks will end up closing their doors and says $1 trillion in banking losses "isn't a ceiling, it's a floor."

He points out that so far we have only seen the results of the subprime loan mess. Next up are consumer-credit losses, to be followed by home-equity loan losses. According to Roubini, "The banks are playing all sorts of accounting gimmicks not to recognize them."

And helping to put lipstick on this financial pig are the Federal Reserve and government regulators who Roubini believes should be investigating themselves for their irresponsible actions.

I'll discuss this in more detail on Saturday.

- Mark

UPDATE: I found this after I posted. It fits.


Click on the cartoon if the letters appear too small.

TYRANNY OF LOWERED EXPECTATIONS

Under President Bush our nation has lowered its expectations, and our standards ...

The NY Times is reporting that, with you and me paying well over $4.00 per gallon at the pump, the Iraqi government is projected to have a budget surplus of $79 billion by year’s end. You would think the Iraqis would have started footing the bill for their own reconstruction, right? Think again.

From 2005 through April 2008 Iraq has spent just $3.9 billion on critical infrastructure projects. You, me, and other U.S. taxpayers, however, have spent approximately $48 billion rebuilding Iraq since the beginning of the war in Iraq.

So this is what we have.

You and I put pay through the nose for petro, and Iraq's treasury flourishes. They get to keep it. We, however, must borrow money from the Chinese to pay our bills. We then pay money to rebuild what we destroyed in Iraq ... in a war that didn't need to happen ... with results that have humbled and embarrassed this nation.

We then have a presidential election. John McCain thinks it's appropriate (and presidential) to whine about who's popular, while handing out tire gauges. Republicans, reveling in the comic tragedy and circus atmosphere created by President Bush, laugh it up and applaud McCain's tire gauge antics.

Coming soon: Christians vs. Lions.

- Mark

BUSH'S FORGERY PROBLEM?

Ron Suskind has a new book that tells us George Bush’s White House asked/ordered the CIA to forge documents from the former head of Iraqi intelligence, Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti. The forged documents would be backdated and would essentially say two things: (1) 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had been trained in Iraq, and (2) Saddam Hussein had been seeking Niger yellow-cake (to make WMDs).

Two birds with one stone. How convenient.

How credible are Suskind’s charges? Here’s a link with pretty good review of why Suskind rather than President Bush should be believed.

Interestingly, what’s not being discussed is how the White House not only made the intelligence fit around the policy, but how the White House withheld information from Congress. Consider the following Niger yellow-cake debunking documents the White House had but never shared.

1. A DEFENSE DEPARTMENT REPORT prepared by Four Star Marine General Carleton Fulford, who was in charge of military relations in Africa.

2. Few outside of the intelligence community saw Nigerian Ambassador Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick’s STATE DEPARTMENT REPORT which said there were no efforts by Saddam Hussein to secure yellow-cake.?

3. Then we have Ambassador Joe Wilson’s CIA ASSESSMENT, which said there’s nothing to the yellow-cake story.

Reports from the CIA, the State Department, and the Defense Department saying the Niger yellow-cake claim was bogus … and what does the White House do? It chose to run with the Niger yellow-cake story anyways.

Then we have the long forgotten original yellow-cake forgery story which Italian news sources tell us involved then Deputy National Security Advisor, Stephen Hadley. The documents proved to be so crude and dubious that the Italian media originally refused to run a story on them, while the document’s “mule” now regrets his role in the debacle.

Bush's White House, of course, used the information ...

- Mark

UPDATE: Here's Ronald Suskind, in his own words.

OBAMA: "IT'S LIKE THESE GUYS [McCAIN/GOP] TAKE PRIDE IN BEING IGNORANT ..."

I'm glad to see Obama's fighting back and calling it like it is.

By way of Dailykos, here's Obama going after McCain's campaign, and their childish attempt to discredit Obama's suggestion that ordinary Americans can check their tires to save on gas ...



I especially enjoyed the comment that McCain & the GOP "know they are lying" as they try to discredit Obama's energy policies.

And just because we want to know, how does doing a small thing like checking your tires differ from McCain's suggestion that we "turn off the lights" earlier and not "drive the extra block"?



You have to think that John McCain would know that he's made similar suggestions over the past few months ... Then again, ignorance is bliss when you need to wisecrack and score cheap points on the campaign trail.

Finally, it turns out that GOP VP candidate Mitt Romney can't seem to recall a single legislative accomplishment by John McCain that might help bring energy independence to America in in his 20+ years in Washington ...



Didn't Mitt just finish campaigning against McCain? You would figure that he might be able to dress up some small accomplishment - especially since he wants to be McCain's VP candidate.

Like Obama said, it's like they take pride in being ignorant ...

- Mark

WE DON'T LIVE IN FAIRYTOPIA

Conservatives … Believers in Tinker Bell and Pixie Dust?

Contrary to what many conservatives might want to believe, there are no Infrastructure Fairies, no Public School Fairies, no Public Safety Fairies, no Research Fairies … well, you get the picture.

In our last program I discussed the role the modern state plays in our lives. I argued that many conservatives simply don’t get it. Somebody has to pay for the opportunities, lifestyle, and quality of life that we enjoy, which means paying taxes.

I don’t enjoy paying taxes. Then again, who does? But someone has to pay the piper. The Founding Fathers understood this too (which helps explain why we dropped the Articles of Confederation).

Conservatives, however, have gone on an irresponsible Tax Cut Jihad over the past 28 years. Instead of increasing revenue, with an economic program that George H.W. Bush presciently referred to as "voodoo economics" 28 years ago, successive republican administration policies have increased America’s national debt from about $973 billion in 1980 to well over $9.3 Trillion today.

But I will give the conservatives one thing: They know what sells politically.

They don’t know how to run a country. Nor do they seem capable of grasping what it is to be responsible – as they run the dollar into the ground, and leave successive generations to pay for 2 floundering wars and assorted tax breaks for the rich. Still, they know how to win national elections: A “No Tax” promise resonates with everyone.

This brings me to this presidential election. Is anyone else but me annoyed that the party that claims to be responsible and patriotic seems bent on ignoring real national problems, while drumming up phony issues tied to “elitism” and “race cards”? This, when we’re facing the greatest challenges our nation has faced since the 1970s, and perhaps even the 1940s?

My friends, at the end of the day, Tinker Bell and Pixie Dust won’t build our infrastructures. Nor will blind faith in a failed ideology create a Conservative Neverland where no one ever has to grow up, be responsible, and pay for what makes this country great. We don't live in Fairytopia ...

We’ll talk about this, and more, on Saturday.

- Mark

McCAIN'S "DOUBLE-TALK" EXPRESS ...

I'm back from vacation, and starting to catch up. Here's something from last week that needs to be posted on, again. Straight from McCain's Double-Talk Express ...



- Mark