In one of the best moves of the campaign, AP reports that Hillary Clinton , in just the last hour, while in South Bend, Indiana, challenged Barack Obama to a open ‘mano a mano’ debate. Styled after the most substantive debates of all time, the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, she challenged, “Just the two of us, one on one, going for 90 minutes, asking and answering questions, we’ll set whatever rules seem fair,” she said.

According to AP on MSNBC, Obama aides said they were studying the formal letter from HRC.

Update: Obama Refuses: The Obama Communications Director Robert Gibbs said campaign has refused the debate saying, in part,”Over the next 10 days, we believe it’s more important to talk directly to the voters of Indiana and North Carolina about fixing our economy, cutting the cost of health care and ending a war in Iraq that never should have been authorized in the first place.”

Personal Update: Fox News called her offer to debate: “Mano a Mano”. They were right and, in my opinion, Obama can’t stand the potential heat. Too bad Harry Truman isn’t around when you need his pithy comment: “If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen.” I hope HRC repeats his choice to retreat in face of a challenge endlessly in the coming weeks. What candidate, except one afraid of the result, would turn down the opportunity to defeat their opponent? What has he got to hide, if anything? Or is it sheer inability to stand up to a superior opponent? [More on the historical significance follows..]

[apologies to Gilbert for the second article]

Have you ever actually read the Lincoln-Douglas debates? They were perhaps the most substantive debates in American history They may be exceed only by the Federalist Papers, actually a series of 85 articles advocating the ratification of the constitution, and the debates at the constitutional and revolutionary conventions. The Lincoln-Douglas debates were reported, word for word, in most of the papers in the country. It was a seminal event in American political history.

If Obama would only step up to the political plate, which he apparently won’t, this event could be a turning point, not just for this election, but for American political campaigns in general.

Paul Krugman on why John Edwards mattered:

Mr. Edwards, far more than is usual in modern politics, ran a campaign based on ideas. And even as his personal quest for the White House faltered, his ideas triumphed: both candidates left standing are, to a large extent, running on the platform Mr. Edwards built.[...]

If 2008 is different, it will be largely thanks to Mr. Edwards. He made a habit of introducing bold policy proposals — and they were met with such enthusiasm among Democrats that his rivals were more or less forced to follow suit.

It’s hard, in particular, to overstate the importance of the Edwards health care plan, introduced in February.

Before the Edwards plan was unveiled, advocates of universal health care had difficulty getting traction, in part because they were divided over how to get there. Some advocated a single-payer system — a k a Medicare for all — but this was dismissed as politically infeasible. Some advocated reform based on private insurers, but single-payer advocates, aware of the vast inefficiency of the private insurance system, recoiled at the prospect. [...]

But the Edwards plan squared the circle, giving people the choice of staying with private insurers, while also giving everyone the option of buying into government-offered, Medicare-type plans — a form of public-private competition that Mr. Edwards made clear might lead to a single-payer system over time. And he also broke the taboo against calling for tax increases to pay for reform.

Now with Edwards out of the game, we have two candidates who have both benefited from Edwards’ ideas.

Obama, Krugman says, “has tried to work some populist themes into his campaign, but he apparently isn’t all that convincing.” Indeed he’s not because as Krugman points out “the working-class voters Mr. Edwards attracted have tended to favor Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Obama.” Why? Could it be because she’s got a stronger appeal to voters when she tells them, “I am listening.”

I made this argument here a week or so ago, people who are struggling want to hear that someone is listening, they want to know their voices are being heard, and as Hillary Clinton said in the South Carolina debate, “The American people should not have to work so hard to get leaders who will actually help them...”

People want solutions, not platitudes and idealistic visions that fall short when it’s time to shine a light on them. When it comes to health care,  John Edwards set the standard, and as Paul Krugman notes, “it remains true that on the key issue of health care, the Clinton plan is more or less identical to the Edwards plan.”

The Obama plan, which doesn’t actually achieve universal coverage, is considerably weaker.

And when it comes time in the general election for the nominee to go up against the Republican nominee, well Krugman nails it:

Personal appeal won’t do the job: history shows that Republicans are very good at demonizing their opponents as individuals. Mrs. Clinton has already received the full treatment, while Mr. Obama hasn’t — yet. But if he gets the nod, watch how quickly conservative pundits who have praised him discover that he has deep character flaws.

The idea that Barack Obama thinks he’s better equipped to take on John McCain in the general election, because he was “right” on Iraq, is sheer hubris. McCain and the GOP will have a hey day with Obama’s “I was right on Iraq” when throw back at him, that he voted to fund the war once he got elected to the Senate.

I got news for Barack Obama, if being right is criteria for being president, we’d be talking right now about a Kerry re-election campaign on this blog, and not parsing out who’s right or wrong on Iraq. The issue now is to get the hell out there and solve a host of others issues here at home. On everyone of those issues, Obama falls short in my book, because he’s stuck on being “right” which is moot at this point.

Of all of the many reasons to support a Democrat for President of the U.S. in 2008, one of the most vital is to start to bring to a close the reckless bloodbath that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and friends opened up in Iraq. From the safety of our homes we only know the starkest hints, the remote and officially released surfaces of the ongoing violence, the toll on American soldiers, the millions of Iraqi refugees, and the tens of thousands of innocent civilians killed as a result of this course of action. But there should no doubt that the course of this war has taken a terrible, terrible toll.

Ending the war in Iraq will be difficult. Even if we achieve an entirely united and single-minded White House and Congress (which isn’t likely), the foreign policy chess game that will need to be played to get our troops out and hopefully restore some stability in the region is going to be extremely tough. Bosnia and Kosovo will prove to have been a much simpler challenge in historic hindsight. The logistic aspect of drawing down troops and removing civilians without permitting chaotic insurgency to explode and destroy those evacuating will be daunting. And as Senator Joe Biden pointed out several times during his appearances as a Presidential candidate, we will accomplish the wrong thing now if we withdraw irresponsibly and leave a power-vacuum which ends up requiring further and perhaps even more intractable military involvement a decade from now. America cannot simply walk away and pretend Iraq never happened. This is not a simple matter, as much as the bring-them-home-now activists want it to be.

The 2006 congressional elections gave Democrats only the slightest majority in Congress – not enough to override a Presidential veto. If Democrats en masse decided to force their hand by simply cutting off purse strings, let’s be honest: most of them would not be re-elected because there is nothing so spinnable as the apparent treason of refusing to support American troops in harm’s way with adequate funding (never mind that the Rumsfeld model set them up from the start with too few troops, too little equipment and no plan to stabilize the conquered nation). Such a course would set back Democratic party chances and also ensure that the next congress was hawkish enough to wage even more war.

The worst possible outcome of the 2008 election is that we see another militarist Republican in the White House. But this election will not be a cakewalk. While Bush disapproval is high, opinions on matters of security can swing quickly; right now 33% of Americans still believe that Bush is doing a good job. Presumably they all want to stay the course in Iraq and if they haven’t changed their minds by now they never will. So it would only take one-fourth of those currently disapproving to be swayed in the general election into supporting a McCain doctrine or similar, and we’ll be back at a 50/50 split on the war. Also note that it is not only Democrats who are turning out to primaries in record numbers; Republicans are also. I have liberal friends who are incredulous that Democrats could lose in 2008, but the same friends never believed that Bush II would ever occupy the White House, and they were certain that his jig was up in 2004.

For this reason, it was and is alarming to me to see Senator Barack Obama systematically attempt to lay responsibility for the war at the feet of an esteemed fellow Democrat, Senator Hillary Clinton. That was his first explicit talking point against her and it is the one he has reiterated most throughout this campaign, doing so again in last night’s CNN debate in Hollywood. It is irresponsible not only because it mischaracterizes Senator Clinton’s position on the war and on foreign policy; it is also irresponsible because, like so many reiterated inaccurate attacks, it has the potential to weaken a fellow Democrat in the general election against a Republican and even weaken her with her own Democratic base (which is of course his aim – a winner-take-all gamble within the Democratic Party, heedless of what might happen if it works in suppressing her support, but not enough to win him the nomination).

To set the record straight let us look – and not merely glance – at the events that led up to the Iraq war, how the nation overall responded to the administration’s case for war and strong diplomacy, and specifically at Clinton’s actions and attempts to sway policy in the Senate at the time. We should then see whether Obama was right to call her “Bush/Cheney Lite” or whether indeed that was a cheap shot at a strong progressive woman who was in fact using what influence she had to try and achieve a better outcome at the time.

We all remember what happened on September 11, 2001. One year later, the United States was at war in Afghanistan and still looking for the mastermind of the attacks on the World Trade Center. President Bush had commemorated the first official Patriot Day on December 11, 2002. For most of the year Bush’s job approval had been at or above 70% – an extremely high rating. We can point fingers all we want now, but the will of a large majority of the American people was with George W. Bush and the direction he was setting, including a military response to terrorism and other security threats.

On Iraq there was more dissent and a variety of possible courses and opinions. Before its invasion of Kuwait, Iraq had been known to use chemical warfare against Iran and against its own people. Many of these destructive weapons were discovered during the first gulf war, and some have reportedly been discovered since; a condition of the peace was that UN inspectors would be able to ensure that Iraq was not starting new weapons programs, but Iraq had balked and kicked the inspectors out. Of course with the threat of global terrorism made absolutely vivid to the US on September 11, the idea of these weapons being in the hands of a nation hostile to the U.S., and possibly getting into terrorist hands (directly, via the black market, etc.), was a serious one.

There were voices even then urging that Iraq had nothing to do with September 11 and that war was not justified. Some of these voices (mine included) even pointed out that the U.S. had essentially propped up the Hussein regime as a counter to Iran and possibly even helped it obtain some of those weapons initially. Many predicted that full-scale war in Iraq would lead to chaos (Dick Cheney had even argued this in the 1992). But such voices did not prevail in 2002 against the climate of public and political opinion; not just most leaders but most Americans agreed they would rather be safe than sorry on Iraq WMD’s. Into this arena there comes some troubling intelligence. First, there seems to be evidence that Iraq has in fact resumed weapons programs. Second, there may be evidence that Iraq was trying to acquire nuclear fuel. Finally, there was a suggestion that Iraq had harbored terrorists, possibly including some related to Al-Qaeda (though not specifically related to the September 11 attacks). With this evidence – assuming, of course that it was true – the course of some action against Iraq became inevitable, whether that course simply involved forcible inspections, tighter coordination with the UN and allies, etc.

I’m describing all this again so that we can re-conjure the mindset of the times. It is not an issue of opinion polls, but of the mindset of the body politic in America, the frame in which decisions were made and alternatives were proposed. This was not a black-and-white issue and even the authorization itself was not proposed as such; anyone who pretends it could have been is not intellectually honest. September 11 and the Iraq WMD intelligence had a huge affect on how we thought about the security of our nation and the future at that moment. There were many asking valuable questions, and some looking deeply into the intelligence estimates and seeing if they were credible – people like Joseph Wilson – but for the most part this dilemma of a re-arming Iraq was the “reality” that we were all confronted with, and which we expected the federal government to address. And let us note that Barack Obama was not, at the time, a part of that government; as he himself admitted, he did not receive those briefings, he did not hear the debates in Washington, he did not have the luxury of voting one way or the other, or skipping the vote. And how ever much he cares to revise or explain away his own words, he very clearly stated in 2004 that he did not know how he would have voted, only that from his perspective (which was the perspective of State Legislature in Illinois) the “case was not made.” Of course I don’t think the NIE has ever gone to the Illinois State Legislature to make its case.

Hillary Clinton was a part of that government in 2002. It was the close of her second year as a U.S. Senator. So how did Hillary approach the issue? There is no need to conjecture on what she was thinking or what she would have done because we have her own words from the senate floor.

First, we have to note that she, like most concerned with security issues in the Senate, accepted the intelligence at the time; it was the frame of the discussion. We’re now faced with a lot of wolf-crying over the deception, but what if it had all been true, if Iraq had in fact been rebuilding these weapons – what would the correct course have been? This is exactly what Hillary asked at the time:

In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001.

It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security.

Now this much is undisputed. The open questions are: what should we do about it? How, when, and with whom?

What would Barack Obama have done if he were really on the Senate floor at the time? He has suggested that he might unilaterally invade Pakistan if he had intelligence on where Al Qaeda was. I do not think it unreasonable to assume that he also would have supported the resolution just as John Edwards did. However, back to Hilllary; what did she recommend? First, she laid out some options:

Some people favor attacking Saddam Hussein now, with any allies we can muster, in the belief that one more round of weapons inspections would not produce the required disarmament, and that deposing Saddam would be a positive good for the Iraqi people and would create the possibility of a secular democratic state in the Middle East, one which could perhaps move the entire region toward democratic reform.

This view has appeal to some, because it would assure disarmament; because it would right old wrongs after our abandonment of the Shiites and Kurds in 1991, and our support for Saddam Hussein in the 1980’s when he was using chemical weapons and terrorizing his people; and because it would give the Iraqi people a chance to build a future in freedom.

However, this course is fraught with danger. We and our NATO allies did not depose Mr. Milosevic, who was responsible for more than a quarter of a million people being killed in the 1990s. Instead, by stopping his aggression in Bosnia and Kosovo, and keeping on the tough sanctions, we created the conditions in which his own people threw him out and led to his being in the dock being tried for war crimes as we speak.

If we were to attack Iraq now, alone or with few allies, it would set a precedent that could come back to haunt us. In recent days, Russia has talked of an invasion of Georgia to attack Chechen rebels. India has mentioned the possibility of a pre-emptive strike on Pakistan. And what if China were to perceive a threat from Taiwan?

So Mr. President, for all its appeal, a unilateral attack, while it cannot be ruled out, on the present facts is not a good option.

I would like everyone who has bought the lie that Senator Clinton is “Bush/Cheney Lite” to re-read the preceding paragraph. Better yet, memorize it. This is not the voice of a Senator who is propping up the reckless course of the Bush administration and gleefully rushing to war; nor is it the voice of a Senator who is simply ignoring real potential security threats and sticking her head in the ideological sand. She goes on to explore another avenue, relying on the lead of the United Nations:

Others argue that we should work through the United Nations and should only resort to force if and when the United Nations Security Council approves it. This too has great appeal for different reasons. The UN deserves our support. Whenever possible we should work through it and strengthen it, for it enables the world to share the risks and burdens of global security and when it acts, it confers a legitimacy that increases the likelihood of long-term success. The UN can help lead the world into a new era of global cooperation and the United States should support that goal.

But there are problems with this approach as well. The United Nations is an organization that is still growing and maturing. It often lacks the cohesion to enforce its own mandates. And when Security Council members use the veto, on occasion, for reasons of narrow-minded interests, it cannot act. In Kosovo, the Russians did not approve NATO military action because of political, ethnic, and religious ties to the Serbs. The United States therefore could not obtain a Security Council resolution in favor of the action necessary to stop the dislocation and ethnic cleansing of more than a million Kosovar Albanians. However, most of the world was with us because there was a genuine emergency with thousands dead and a million driven from their homes. As soon as the American-led conflict was over, Russia joined the peacekeeping effort that is still underway.

In the case of Iraq, recent comments indicate that one or two Security Council members might never approve force against Saddam Hussein until he has actually used chemical, biological, or God forbid, nuclear weapons.

So what, in that scenario in 2002, was the answer? Senator Clinton goes on to acknowledge that it is a “thorny dilemma”, and…

…while people of good faith and high intelligence can reach diametrically opposed conclusions, I believe the best course is to go to the UN for a strong resolution that scraps the 1998 restrictions on inspections and calls for complete, unlimited inspections with cooperation expected and demanded from Iraq. I know that the Administration wants more, including an explicit authorization to use force, but we may not be able to secure that now, perhaps even later. But if we get a clear requirement for unfettered inspections, I believe the authority to use force to enforce that mandate is inherent in the original 1991 UN resolution…

She further asserts, “I believe international support and legitimacy are crucial. After shots are fired and bombs are dropped, not all consequences are predictable.” She goes on to discuss her position on the vote for the authorization of force. She references President Bush’s earlier speech in Cincinnati – a speech which she claims has reassured her and made her vote easier. Why? Because Bush promised he would not do what he in fact ended up doing. Here was Bush’s promise:

I have asked Congress to authorize the use of America’s military, if it proves necessary, to enforce U.N. Security Council demands. Approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable. The resolution will tell the United Nations, and all nations, that America speaks with one voice and is determined to make the demands of the civilized world mean something. Congress will also be sending a message to the dictator in Iraq: that his only chance — his only choice is full compliance, and the time remaining for that choice is limited.

Again, those that want to blame Hillary for this war, please re-read that paragraph. Those words were President Bush’s contract with the Congress, and with the American people, on the eve of that vote.

I’m going to include now most of the rest of Hillary’s statement on the day she cast her vote for what was to become authorization for war, a war hijacked by a reckless White House. Emphases are mine.

Because bipartisan support for this resolution makes success in the United Nations more likely, and therefore, war less likely, and because a good faith effort by the United States, even if it fails, will bring more allies and legitimacy to our cause, I have concluded, after careful and serious consideration, that a vote for the resolution best serves the security of our nation. If we were to defeat this resolution or pass it with only a few Democrats, I am concerned that those who want to pretend this problem will go way with delay will oppose any UN resolution calling for unrestricted inspections.

This is a very difficult vote. This is probably the hardest decision I have ever had to make — any vote that may lead to war should be hard — but I cast it with conviction.

And perhaps my decision is influenced by my eight years of experience on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue in the White House watching my husband deal with serious challenges to our nation. I want this President, or any future President, to be in the strongest possible position to lead our country in the United Nations or in war. Secondly, I want to insure that Saddam Hussein makes no mistake about our national unity and for our support for the President’s efforts to wage America’s war against terrorists and weapons of mass destruction. And thirdly, I want the men and women in our Armed Forces to know that if they should be called upon to act against Iraq, our country will stand resolutely behind them.

My vote is not, however, a vote for any new doctrine of pre-emption, or for uni-lateralism, or for the arrogance of American power or purpose — all of which carry grave dangers for our nation, for the rule of international law and for the peace and security of people throughout the world.

Over eleven years have passed since the UN called on Saddam Hussein to rid himself of weapons of mass destruction as a condition of returning to the world community. Time and time again he has frustrated and denied these conditions. This matter cannot be left hanging forever with consequences we would all live to regret. War can yet be avoided, but our responsibility to global security and to the integrity of United Nations resolutions protecting it cannot. I urge the President to spare no effort to secure a clear, unambiguous demand by the United Nations for unlimited inspections.

And finally, on another personal note, I come to this decision from the perspective of a Senator from New York who has seen all too closely the consequences of last year’s terrible attacks on our nation. In balancing the risks of action versus inaction, I think New Yorkers who have gone through the fires of hell may be more attuned to the risk of not acting. I know that I am.

Hillary’s action on this issue did not end there. As she noted in last night’s debate, she joined with Senator Byrd the very next day in proposing legislation to ensure that the President would keep his promise to follow up with the UN, and set a one-year limitation on the duration of the use-of-force authorization – a proposal which John Edwards opposed, joining the ranks of the Republicans, Joe Lieberman, and a few other Democrats.

With that I rest my case on this issue and you can decide whether you agree, with Barack Obama, that Hillary Clinton is “Bush/Cheney Lite” or whether she may in fact be a great and principled Democratic Senator who acted with conviction, with reason, and in good faith in the best interests of her country – interests that were betrayed by a rogue White House administration, but which were in themselves the manifestation of sound judgment. My conclusion: the person who made these statements, and not the person who cynically has tried to denounce her for them, is the person best qualified to lead this nation in 2009 and beyond.

Primary Source: Floor Speech of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on S.J. Res. 45, A Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are facing off in a one on one debate here in Los Angeles:

The economy is likely to dominate Thursday’s debate, as both candidates look to appeal to supporters of Edwards and his brand of economic populism.

Clinton and Obama have split victories in their parties’ early-voting states: Obama has won in Iowa and South Carolina, and Clinton has won in New Hampshire, Nevada, Michigan and Florida. But the Michigan and Florida contests awarded no delegates, and all major Democratic presidential candidates pledged to avoid campaigning in those states following national party penalties against them for moving up their contests so early.

The heat is on… this is the final debate before Tsunami Tuesday. Are you watching? This debate was far more toned down than the last, showing some unity between the two candidates once again, including a very warm moment between the two at the end of the debate.

Here’s a clip of Hillary Clinton speaking on her experience that qualifies her to be the next president:

Click here to view the embedded video.

And one more clip: Hillary: We already have a CEO President & look what we got…

Click here to view the embedded video.

UPDATE: Bill Schneider on CNN offers the “The bottom line” on who won the debate:

The audience response was the same as that of Democrats across the country: they’re happy with their choice this year, but they don’t want to have to make it.

I thought overall, his position tonight was still that of the challenger, and she was effectively the incumbent. Barack Obama needed to peel votes away from Clinton. He made some progress on the Iraq issue. But how many Democrats are still more concerned about Iraq than about anything else?

To the extent that the debate was a draw, it helps Clinton.

Why? Because holding his own wasn’t enough. Obama’s task tonight was to make the case that there were huge differences between them. Just holding his own and looking presidential was not enough — he had to convince Democrats who like her that there’s a reason she shouldn’t be the party’s nominee.

Schneider went on to say, Obama “had command on the issue of Iraq,” and “six months ago that would have been enough,” but maybe it isn’t now. Why? Because “Other concerns have come to the forefront.”

In all, it was an unhelpful debate. They minimized their differences. Tonight’s showdown will rally Democrats, no question – but won’t help them make a decision. The biggest applause line of the evening came for the idea of the two of them together.

The debate doesn’t kill momentum for either one. But does it help build any?

The big question of the night seemed to be will Obama’s strong showing early in the debate help Obama enough to “overtake Clinton?” Probably not. Bill Schneider “didn’t see that” and neither did I.

I felt that once again Hillary Clinton showed a far stronger command on the issues and even in the area of the Iraq issue, Obama saying he was right from the being does not prove he’s a better leader. We’ve got other pressing issues in America now like the economy and health care and Clinton, has the advantage in terms of policy on both.

The full transcript of the debate is here. And check out the Candidates on the issues. Mark Halperin scorse both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama with an overall “A-” for the debate.

I know that I said, yesterday, that I am sick to death of politics. No…no, that wasn’t a lie.

You see, the thing is, the main reason I put together this round-up, these days, is not so much for my own pleasure (narcissist, though I may be), but to give SSG Dizzy (currently serving his third rotation in Iraq until Feb. 2009), something to look forward to every day and keep him up on current events, since his schedule, you know, in a war zone, is not conducive to hours and hours of web-surfing, like mine is.

That being said, yesterday’s political news was something of a mixed blessing. We said, “so long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good-bye…”, to that guy with the truly fabulous haircut and that other guy who liked to dress like RuPaul sometimes. Now, the media is crawling all over themselves turning this whole shebang into a three-way horse race between Mr. Clinton’s ol’ lady, that audacious dude and that old guy who thinks he’s one of the Beach Boys. Um…does the media realize that Chuck Norris’ friend is still in the running and that guy who wears funny undergarments still has a whole lotta money to spend and Dr. No and his Democrat twin, old Mike, are still hanging on by the skin of their teeth.

What I’m trying to say, folks, is that the fat lady has barely warmed up, she ain’t singing and this thing ain’t over by a long shot. Heck, the orchestra hasn’t even shown up yet!

Well, while the fat lady is out treating her voice with hot tea and honey, check out this State of the Union address you probably missed. You have to watch it until the end, where you will hear Clinton and Obama give their responses to the SOTU. And, please, be warned that you may want to put your morning cuppa down before watching this (I’m not kidding people…this is a bona fide warning!): Bush Parody: “The State of Our Union Is Not Something I’m Worried About”

I warned you, didn’t I?

Now that your keyboard is all nice and aired out, let’s proceed with today’s Ten Post Round-Up:

1: Apparently, those of us who don’t bother with watching mainstream media news might actually be missing out on some serious um…action…

From the Feed: CNN financial advice leads to…hey now!–23/6-News

2: California tickin’ off conservatives…AGAIN…

Marijuana Being Sold From Vending Machines!–Bring It On!

3: Something else GWB missed in his SOTU address on Monday…

“Young Democracy” in Afghanistan?–Crooks and Liars

4: Obama got another important endorsement…

Style and Substance: Guantanamo Lawyers Back Obama–The Huffington Post

5: Who will step up to the plate, now that Edwards has dropped his bat?…

A two “man” race–Left of Centrist

6: Campaign baseball cards for true political collectors…

Ron Paul is Topps!–Reason Magazine-Hit & Run

7: Homeland Security is preparing to toss some battered immigrants to the wolves…

W Stands for Women–Shakesville

8: Jus’ a quick question: If you are mature enough to die for your country, why can’t you be considered mature enough to drink alcohol?…

South Carolina Rep.: Alcohol for Underage Military–Signs of the Times

9: Guess GWB jus’ forgot to mention this on Monday night…

24 Hours After Touting Clean Coal In SOTU, White House Drops Ambitious Clean Coal Project–Think Progress

10: Rudy’s greatest hits…

The Top 10 Rudy Giuliani 9/11 References In Global History–Wonkette

All I know is, that when the fat lady starts singing, I’m going to be waiting in my hand basket (well, until it lands in you-know-where)…

Peace.

(“Me-me-me-me-mee”…)

 We need to be as ambitious in envisioning political process integrity as John Edwards has been honest in talking about political process corruption. 

For supporters of John Edwards, the end of his 2008 campaign for the presidency should not be spent in either deep gloom or false bravado.  The future of the cause Edwards champions remains open and John Edwards’ influence on the rest of this campaign and perhaps on the next four years is unknown.  We would be mistaken to write him out of our script just because he has bowed out of the race for the presidency.  At the same time, clearly his campaign is lost and what is most appropriate in the face of this political loss is to take stock of the lessons we can learn from it.  They are not Edwards’ lessons to learn alone, but are instructive to the entire nation.

What we learn from the Edwards campaign is that American politics requires from its populist candidates the highest standard of vision:  It requires much more than the ability to see and speak the truth about corruption.  It requires much more than the ability to set forth a ground breaking plan to address our problems.  For a populist candidate to win in America, he or she must ring the bell of our ideals loud and clear.  We need a positive vision of our democracy that is pitch perfect, resounding, and inimitable.  

Back in August when John Edwards began to aggressively challenge the Democratic Party to look honestly at the corruption and inequality in our nation, he promised his campaign would be about “real change,” saying:

“Real change starts with being honest — the system in Washington is rigged and our government is broken. It’s rigged by greedy corporate powers to protect corporate profits.  It’s rigged by the very wealthy to ensure they become even wealthier.  At the end of the day, it’s rigged by all those who benefit from the established order of things. For them, more of the same means more money and more power. They’ll do anything they can to keep things just the way they are — not for the country, but for themselves.”

“[The system is] controlled by big corporations, the lobbyists they hire to protect their bottom line and the politicians who curry their favor and carry their water. And it’s perpetuated by a media that too often fawns over the establishment, but fails to seriously cover the challenges we face or the solutions being proposed. This is the game of American politics and, in this game; the interests of regular Americans don’t stand a chance.”

In response to this speech, I offered the Edwards campaign some advice in a column published at CommonDreams.org.  I said, “If Edwards plans to make his campaign about ‘Real Change,’ he is going to have to raise political process integrity to the first place in his political agenda.  He is going to have to champion an ambitious program to engineer from scratch a political process that can maintain its democratic integrity in the face of technology, corporate power, and global economics.” 

Initially, as the Associated Press observed yesterday, “Edwards burst out of the starting gate with a flurry of progressive policy ideas — he was the first to offer a plan for universal health care, the first to call on Congress to pull funding for the war, and he led the charge that lobbyists have too much power in Washington and need to be reigned in,” but these themes “were eventually adopted by other Democratic presidential candidates — and even a Republican, Mitt Romney, echoed the call for an end to special interest politics in Washington.” 

Ultimately, it’s one thing to offer aggressive populist policy which even a Republican can imitate; it’s another to set an uncompromising standard that forces the other candidates to show their true colors.  When the other candidates caught up with Edwards’ ideas, he had a choice: (1) He could advance an ambitious, courageous, and modern vision of comprehensive political process integrity as the first, necessary step to addressing our nation’s problems, or (2) He could distinguish himself by more honestly and more harshly condemning the forces that are at the root of corruption, dysfunction, and inequality in our society. 

Edwards took the latter choice, and as a result, Barack Obama’s positive, but vague vision of a large, inclusive majority became the most resoundingly positive message being broadcast to the people.  The disadvantage at which this dynamic put the Edwards campaign became undeniable the night of Obama’s victory in South Carolina, Edwards’ home state.  Whereas Obama showed himself to be hitting his stride, Edwards gave a version of his stump speech that was less poised than usual.  Obama’s speech was expansive and his victory added a needed sense of reality to his claim that he was the candidate who could create change merely by uniting the people behind a desire for change.  Edwards, by contrast told anecdotes that focused on the suffering of Americans he had met two years ago and promised that their voices would be heard.  Emphasizing the unspecific positive was demonstrably more effective than personalizing the negative. 

Now, we move forward toward “Monster” Tuesday, the Democratic Convention, and, if the stars align, a Democratic White House.  Like Edwards, both Clinton and Obama have their shortcomings.  Clinton offers the ability to maneuver within the system.  Obama offers the possibility of broad initial support.  Neither candidate, however, has yet shown they have a positive vision of democracy that will restore to the people their power and immunize us against the type of abuses we have suffered over the last eight years.  Both candidates are playing the game of getting elected that our political process has become; they are not honestly engaging with the obvious requirements of democracy we have yet to achieve.  This is not a judgment against them, simply a statement of fact. 

Indeed, we have reason to be optimistic.  Whether it is Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama who wins the nomination, and hopefully, the presidency, both candidates have the opportunity and potential as head of state to become better champions of democracy than they are presently as candidates for office.  Edwards has lost that chance, but he has not lost the chance to be a better champion of democracy in some other capacity. 

Thus, for Edwards, for Obama, for Clinton, and for all of us, the demise of the Edwards campaign has, I think, this very important lesson to teach:  We need to focus on a positive vision of 21^st century democracy. 

We need to be as ambitious in envisioning political process integrity as John Edwards has been honest in talking about political process corruption.   

We are a society of incredible technological and social sophistication.  We do not need to remain victims of a system that is so plainly corrupt and dysfunctional.  We need political leaders with the courage to champion the comprehensive re-engineering of our political process so that it preserves our democratic principles against the modern technology of corruption.  Whether this vision finally adds substance to the euphoria of the Obama campaign or principle to the power of the Clinton machine makes no difference.  It is this vision that the Democratic Party ought to offer America following the Bush presidency.  Anything less is just posturing for power.

Hank Edson is an author, activist and attorney based in San Francisco.  His blog, MP3—My Politics and Progressive Perspective, may be found at: http://hankedson.squarespace.com/ .

The American Mayor… He didn’t have a prayer… “Perhaps he was living an illusion all along.”

John McCain won the Florida primary tonight, and “solidified his status as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.” Rudy barely placed yet again… He’s out:

McCain heads into next week’s 20-plus contests, including mega-delegate states California and New York, with significant momentum after two straight wins and leading former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the delegate count.

Certain to provide another boost, McCain is set to get the endorsement of Rudy Giuliani on Wednesday in California, according to GOP officials who spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the public announcement. The former New York mayor is preparing to quit the race.

AP News reports, “A senior Giuliani official told NBC that he will endorse McCain on Wednesday in California, where Republicans are set to debate at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.”

You can bank on the dynamic duo of McCain and Romney, now known as the “THE “STOP ROMNEY” COALITION,” to pull out all the stops in their attempts to secure the Republican nomination for John McCain.

The recent flap over Barack Obama’s comments on Ronald Reagan speaks volumes about what distinguishes our three democratic presidential candidates.  But what it says is not complementary to either Obama or Clinton.  Instead, once again, it shows us that John Edwards is the real candidate all Democrats should support.

Obama’s Intent

When Obama described Reagan’s Republican Party as the “party of ideas,” his intention was to use Reagan as a sort of yardstick for measuring whether or not a candidate has the mojo to rally a large majority of the nation’s political support.  By invoking the concept of “the Reagan Democrat,” Obama intended to show that the Clintons did not measure up to the Reagan yardstick and to suggest, however, that he would.

Obama was thus casting a Clinton White House as one which would lack a governing majority, one that would only perpetuate an entrenched partisanship the nation would not willingly choose if offered an alternative.  By contrast, an Obama White House, he implied, would, in a Reaganesque manner, make the Democratic Party once again a “Party of Ideas,” capable of maintaining a governing majority.  This governing majority would attract “Obama Republicans” discontented with the Presidency of George W. Bush, who, however, would never vote for a Clinton.To read between the lines here, we have to look at the Reagan mythology a little more closely.  In fact, there are two sides to this mythology: one built on false ideas, the other built on false emotions. 

The Reagan Mythology and the Hard Reality

The false ideas were summed up in Reagan’s claim that “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”[i]  The false emotion was summed up in Reagan’s campaign motto: “It’s morning again in America.” We know the Reagan ideas were false because we have it straight from the horse’s mouth.  At the time, Reagan’s Budget Director, David Stockman, confessed: “None of us really understands what’s going on with all these numbers” and that supply-side economics “was always a Trojan horse to bring down the top [tax] rate.”[ii]  The confession came too late, however, and the ruse worked.  During his presidency Reagan cut the top income tax rate from 70 percent to 28 percent.  Getting rid of the government, it turned out, really meant just getting rid of the societal obligations owed by America’s most wealthy.

We all know the Reagan emotions were also false because we witnessed the havoc the Reagan presidency wrecked upon our nation.  Author Thom Hartmann describes the impact of Reaganomics:  “Our government was suddenly so badly awash in red ink that Reagan doubled the tax paid only by people earning less than $40,000/year (FICA), and then began borrowing from the huge surplus this new tax was accumulating in the Social Security Trust Fund.  Even with that, Reagan had to borrow more money in his 8 years than the sum total of all presidents from George Washington to Jimmy Carter combined.” [iii]  As a result, Hartmann concludes, we stopped investing in our infrastructure, our social safety net, and vital public services.  Night fell on America.

Clinton Co-Opts the Center

Obama was right in his intimations about the limited reach of the ideas in the Clinton presidency, however, in that Bill Clinton won his bid for the presidency, not by railing against the economic injustice inflicted by Reagan, but often by co-opting Republican ideas.  Thus, the centrist “New Democrat”, Bill Clinton famously declared straight out of the Reagan script: “The era of big government is over!” Then he instituted welfare cuts as welfare reform and recast laissez faire economics as the NAFTA free trade agreement.  Corporations got bigger and more powerful and the poor got cast out of the government’s protection.

Thus, when Hillary Clinton twists Obama’s words around to suggest he is a fan of the economic abuses inflicted by Ronald Reagan, she is something like the pot calling the kettle black.  Her political machine may be more in line with those abuses than Obama’s.  If the Clinton machine is not quite as subservient to the interests of the super-rich as is the Reagan-Bush Republican Party, this merely proves Obama’s point.  The Clinton machine did not win power by advancing a slate of ideas that was new, but rather one that was centrist, which is to say, compromised.

Obama Codes His Charisma

But neither does Obama get off well, even for all the validity of his point.  He runs into trouble when he implies that his campaign will make the Democratic Party “the party of ideas” that can control a governing majority.  Obama’s campaign simply is not a campaign of ideas, but a campaign of emotions.  Even Obama’s logo evokes Reagan’s emotive “It’s morning again in America” slogan.

Obama wants to argue that he can rally a governing majority, as Reagan did, with his charm and charisma.  He knows, however, that charm and charisma are not themselves sufficient criteria of merit to earn him the presidency.  Accordingly, he substitutes for “charm and charisma” the code word, “ideas.” 

Meanwhile, Clinton argues that she can rally a governing majority with centrist positions on the economy and foreign policy, even as she berates Obama for recognizing a strength in President Reagan, which she and her husband have conceded they cannot beat, and might therefore just as well join.

It’s just not a very pretty picture. 

After the worst presidency in American history, one would think the Democratic Party could do better than a contest between one candidate who echoes the false emotions of Ronald Reagan and another who echoes the false ideas of Ronald Reagan.

We Can Do Better

Indeed, we can.  There is, after all, the man the media has positively dedicated itself to ignoring.  There is the one candidate who has honestly defined the interests of the great majority of Americans as being in direct conflict with those of the super-rich who have controlled our government through the auspices of the Republican Party.  There is John Edwards.

Unlike Clinton and Obama, Edwards has not built his campaign of carefully balanced positions intended to appease the angry people without losing the sponsorship of corporate America. 

Edwards has not, like Obama, built a campaign on the vague promise that he will be able to bring harmony between the lions and the lambs. 

Edwards has not, like Clinton, built a campaign on a record of working effectively within the system, all the while skirting over the fact that during this time the system has gone from bad to worse, with little to be found anywhere within it that really serves the people.

Thus, what the media, the pundits, the voters, and most of all, the Edwards campaign, ought to be taking away from the flap over Obama’s comments on President Reagan is this:

After eight years of President Bush, what our nation really needs is a Democratic candidate who defines his candidacy as a direct challenge to the Republican Party, not as a strategic emulation of it. 

Whether the emulation be emotional, as in the case of Obama, or substantive, as in the case of Clinton, it is in neither case what the American people need to restore the health of our democracy. 

After eight years of President George Bush, who himself has tried so hard and failed so miserably to attract the political fairy dust that showered on the head of Ronald Reagan, we need a candidate who scorns such fairy dust and shouts hard truths instead.

What the Edwards Campaign Must Do

If anyone in the Edwards campaign is reading this, there is no time to lose to start exposing the Clinton and Obama campaigns as what they really are: attempts to falsely lure a discontented majority into voting, as Obama described Reagan’s success in the recent Florida debate, “against their self-interest.” 

Only John Edwards has identified the conflict of interest between the super-rich who have corrupted our political process and the rest of us who suffer as a result.  Edwards needs to make clear that this conflict of interest is what this election is really about and he needs to force Obama and Clinton into a position where they must openly declare on which side of that conflict it is that they stand. 

If he succeeds in this maneuver, both Obama and Clinton will have to give up their claim to superior merit for neither “charm and charisma” nor “working within the system” are what is required once the battle lines are drawn.

Hank Edson is an author, activist and attorney based in San Francisco.  His blog, “MP3—My Politics and Progressive Perspective,” can be found at: hankedson.squarespace.com. 

Barack Obama thought he was getting in a good dig when he said during the debate Monday night, while I was working on those streets watching those folks see their jobs shift overseas, you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart.”

But Obama clearly did not know the facts behind Clinton’s time on the WalMart board. FactCheck.org provides the facts:

It’s true that Clinton sat on the Wal-Mart board for six years while her husband was governor of Arkansas, where the chain has its corporate headquarters. She was paid about $18,000 a year for doing it. At the time, she worked at the Rose Law Firm, which had represented Wal-Mart in various matters. According to accounts from other board members, Clinton was a thorn in the side of the company’s founder, Sam Walton, on the matter of promoting women, few of whom were in the ranks of managers or executives at the time. She also strongly advocated for more environmentally sound corporate practices, board colleagues and company executives noted. She made limited progress in both areas, but she never voiced any objections to the company’s anti-union stand, they said. But in 2005 she returned a $5,000 contribution to her campaign from Wal-Mart, citing “serious differences” with its “current” practices.

Clinton responded to Obama’s charge with a reminder that he’s had a long standing relationship with Antoin Rezko.

Obama’s Rezko connection could prove to be worrisome for Obama and indeed there must some concern on his part as just last weekend Obama rid himself of another $41,000 in Rezko donations. Obama’s connection to Rezko could utrn out to be more of problem than speculated, “a review by the Los Angeles Times shows that Rezko, a businessman long active in Chicago politics, played a deeper role in Obama’s political and financial biography than the candidate has acknowledged.”

For example, Rezko, his employees and business associates — such as his consultants, lawyers and their families — have provided Obama more than $200,000 in donations since 1995, helping fuel his rapid ascent in Illinois and U.S. politics. Although Rezko is not Obama’s largest bundler, he was there at the start and at critical moments along the way, helping support the candidate when few others were.

Time will tell how troublesome Rezko plays out to be for Barack Obama, but it looks like a much larger issue than Hillary Clinton’s time on the WalMart board that she tried to use constructively in promoting women and the environment.

Anyone who thinks the Republican’s won’t dig deeper into Obama’s Rezko connection is dreaming. In fact they have been hard at work on the issue, Lynn Sweet reports, “For weeks now, the Republican National Committee has been circulating Rezko clips.”

It was primary day in the forest and so Goldilocks told her mother she was going to go vote.  Goldilocks was a democrat and she was terrified at the terrible condition of her country.  Her vote today mattered a great deal to both her and her country. 

She left her home and went down the path to the local library where the voting booths were all set up.  The kind young man at the welcome counter had her sign her name in the register and gave her a voting card to take into the poll booth. 

When Goldilocks had pulled the curtain closed behind her and sat down on the stool in the voting booth, she was surprised at what she saw.  Instead of a computer screen with a touch pad, there was a counter with a slot for her voting card in the side and three porcelain mugs resting on top.  Each mug had the face of a different candidate on it. 

Goldilocks impulsively picked up the Barack Obama mug.  She had heard so much “buzz” about him.  Below his picture were the words, “It’s not about me; it’s about you.”  Goldilocks wondered why, then, it wasn’t her face on the mug.  Then she looked at what was in the mug, and much to her disappointment, the mug was empty.  At the bottom of the empty mug, she read the words, “The people are thirsty for change.”  Goldilocks did not know what to make of this mug.  She was thirsty, but the mug was empty.  She set it down.  “There’s nothing there,” she said to herself.

Then she picked up the mug with Hillary Clinton’s face on it.  Below Hillary’s face were the words, “I have 35 years experience making change!”  Goldilocks twirled her golden tresses absently.  “If that’s so,” she thought, “why have things only gotten worse during that time and why are you only now finding your ‘voice’?”  Goldilocks could feel by the weight of the mug that there was something in this one, but it felt like the same old, same old.  She looked in, hesitant to take a sip.  The mug was filled with murky water, indeed, like it had been sitting around for quite too long.  She could only imagine what it would look like under a microscope.  At the bottom of the mug, she thought she could make out the words, “Paid for by Rupert Murdoch.”  She shuddered and put it quickly down.

What was left?  In the middle was the mug with John Edwards’ face on it.  Below his face were the words, “You can’t play nice with corporations!”  Goldilocks nodded with approval, thinking, “Now that I understand!”  She looked at what was in the mug and to her great relief there was clear sparkling water filling it to the brim.  At the bottom of the mug she could easily read the words, “We have to fight for our democratic principles!”  Without another thought, Goldilocks tipped the mug to her lips and drained it in a single draft.  “Ahhh!” she exclaimed.  “Now that’s just right!”

She set the Edwards mug down and when she did something in the counter punched her ballot for Edwards and a light in the booth signaled to her that her vote had been properly counted.  She exited the voting booth, full of fine thoughts.  She liked this new voting system.

At home, her mother asked her if she enjoyed voting and Goldilocks replied, “Well, the first candidate offered only hot air.  The second candidate offered something stale and impure.  But the third candidate offered his heart, his intelligence, and his integrity, and that flowed clear and cool like a rushing fountain in a country stricken by drought.”

“Goldilocks!” her mother cried, “I didn’t know you had so much sophistication and poetry inside you!” 

“That’s what a real candidate can do for the people, momma,” she said.  “That’s what a real candidate will do.”

“And I thought this was a fairytale,” her mother cried, tears literally coming to her eyes.  “Let me get my coat; I’ve got to go vote for John Edwards!”

Hank Edson is an author, activist and attorney based in San Francisco.  His blog, “MP3—My Politics and Progressive Perspective,” can be found at: hankedson.squarespace.com.

“The American people should not have to work so hard to get leaders who will actually help them...” — Hillary Clinton

Stepping aside from the clash during last night’s debate, I’ve been thinking about the statement above from Hillary Clinton in her closing argument in the debate. American’s are struggling in this ever tumbling economy just to get by. Hillary Clinton gets that. The economy is “the number one issue,” in her campaign because she gets that the economy “is where we live.”

And so, as she said last night “the American people should not have to work so hard to get leaders who will actually help them.” That statement alone resonates with the struggling Americans who can’t pay their bills, who are losing their homes, who can’t afford health care insurance, whose small businesses are experiencing loss instead of growth, who can’t afford to send their kids to college… the list goes on and Hillary Clinton shows voters time and time again that she’s a strong leader who cares about the American people and understands how dire the economic outlook is.

Read the economic news today. The Fed “cut the federal funds rate” today in response to the global concern about our economy. Paul Krugman thinks we could be in for a “deep” and “long” recession. And Hillary Clinton was on top of the issue this morning in Washington, D.C.:

Click here to view the embedded video.

It will take more than a call for “unity” to fix the mess this country is in and again, I can only reiterate once more what Clinton said last night, “the American people should not have to work so hard to get leaders who will actually help them.”

It is noble to call people to march in the streets and get involved, but the bottom-line is this — Struggling Americans don’t have the time or the energy when they are fighting to just get by. They want a leader who knows how to get the job done.

Word has it that Hillary Clinton and John Edwards met for a little private chat last night “in the Edwards campaign green room.”

One of the sources said the meeting happened by chance and the conversation consisted of light chatter. The source added that Clinton did jokingly take a jab at Edwards about his beating up on her during the debate. In fact, the real fireworks were between Clinton and Barack Obama.

And of course this meeting leaves everyone to wonder, “with only two weeks before Super Tuesday — what else was discussed?” The flies on the wall don’t seem to be talking.

Jeffrey Feldman has a post up today asking whether Obama can get “back on message?” (H/T to TM) Feldman says:

Like it or not, the Clinton campaign has knocked the Obama campaign off the core theme of ‘hope and change.’  This change is significant because the ‘hope and change’ theme took over the entire political debate in the 24 hours after the Iowa debate.  That is no longer the case.

Despite trumpeting his ability to bring a ‘new tone’ to politics, last night’s debate showed an Obama who scolded, complained, and pointed fingers.  His performance last night raises a serious question without a clear answer: How can a Presidential candidate bring change if he is so easily thrown off message by his opponents?

Having dominated previous debates with his quick wit and charisma, Obama’s rhetoric and body language last night gave the impression of a candidate stuck–like everyone else–in old-school mud slinging politics.

The ability to throw Obama off his message may be a Pyrrhic victory for Hillary Clinton’s campaign.  In the end, voters not persuaded by Obama’s message of change may jump to Edwards rather than Clinton.  Nonetheless, Clinton has managed to open up a significant chink in Obama’s armor by hitting on the difference between ‘rhetoric and reality.’ 

Indeed, that Obama came off as so defensive last night was a good example of how quickly his central campaign promises have been tripped up by his opponents. 

For their part, both Clinton and Edwards gave solid, but not inspiring debate performances.  As usual, the word that came to mind after watching Clinton’s in last night’s debate was ‘prepared.’  While Obama struggled to get out subtle distinctions in long sentences–Clinton spoke in sharp, clear, if not over-produced talking points.

I think the last two debates have shown a struggling Obama. He’s no match for Clinton’s sharp mind that can rattle off points on policy and issue during a debate without skipping a beat. Her speeches and interviews show a similarly confident and knowledgable candidate. Obama on the other hand seems to have an “inability to keep his campaign message focused across the full range of campaign events.”

In particular,  while disciplined and on message in his campaign speeches, Obama has shown a tendency to wanders off message in press interviews, often bringing in statements that  are vague and even contradictory.

This won’t play well for Obama should he become the nominee. If Hillary Clinton can so easily throw him off message, it will be just as easy for the Republican nominee to do the same.