Office of the Independent Blogger

Headline of the day: “Americans voters getting older”. Oh? I would have guessed that they are getting younger!

Best news of the day: al-Qaeda’s number three in command has been killed. Oh! That really is great news.

Most head-scratching news of the day: US Pentagon not ready for nuclear, chemical or biological attacks on American soil. Oh? I guess that’s why we spend so much money on the military and Department of Homeland Security, yes? “Leave it to the cities if there is a tragedy!”

Here is a great little article about the relationship between Mike Huckabee and his wife. It is a fantastic piece that explains much about who they are and what they want to do with this nation, and while they won’t be the First Man and Lady after this election, they might be Vice and Second. Even if they aren’t on the national scene, however, they will continue to be in politics and I genuinely admire them both. I know people are hard on them because they’re Christian Republicans and many of my Liberal friends are opposed to them on principle, but I’m not. I don’t think I’d vote for them first choice or hundredth, but I do find them to be an enchanting couple.

Now that it’s looking like John McCain will be the Republican candidate for President and their Party has abandoned its principles (he is not a “conservative”) can we declare that the steel-toed, hard-nosed Republican Party has truly become the Democratic Party of yesteryear that typically nominates the ironically-losing “electable”? Or should we, instead, note that John McCain was their last serious candidate beaten by Bush but in losing to him he became the anointed frontrunner, no matter how many people (including yours truly) declared him dead, and therefore perpetuated the Republican Party’s love of Old Glories and “Next Turn”s?

Conundrums. We’ll have to see what happens in the General, but I still think it’s true that the Republican, “Conservative” era might be over, and that doesn’t even have to mean that a Republican loses; McCain winning might well be proof of it.

Nothing more to say tonight. I’ve got a significant amount of studying to do and I am tired. The President’s State of the Union can wait.

I am still digesting the State of the Union Address; tomorrow, I will have more thoughts on the speech and what it means for the nation. Let me say this, before I forget it tomorrow (and before you forget it as the pundits all overlook it): we are going to give two billion dollars to aid efforts against global warming. There is still a lot more for our government to do in conjunction with the rest of the world (in fact I adopt his belief that all must be involved, not just all minus China and India) but this is a great step forward, even if it is criticized by some as not doing enough. And make no mistake: this President has not done enough to fight global warming; he has hardly done anything. But this shift is in the right direction and will, hopefully, set a precedent for the next President to follow.

Couple of noteworthy political events have occurred in the last twenty four hours: there’s rumors on the newspapers, and now on this Internets, that John Edwards wants to be Attorney General and is playing to that end. I doubt anybody offers him such a position and if they did, the Justice Department would be in for a world of hurt as Edwards is simply not the right man for such a job and I wouldn’t even recommend him for Solicitor General. Lousy politicians, even if they were good (not great) lawyers don’t make for excellent AGs. The other noteworthy event was Ted Kennedy’s endorsement of Barack Obama followed by the National Organization of Women arguing, in a fury, that he has betrayed women everywhere. Their letter reads like a prank, with exclamations! and rage! everywhere, but my first reaction was simple: it is NOW that betrayed women everywhere when they continued to support Edward Kennedy for years despite the fact that he killed a woman in his car. That isn’t to say that I endorse the NOW’s position that an endorsement of Obama is a betrayal of women everywhere; that is one of the most asinine things that I have ever heard. I just don’t take NOW’s complaint there serious when it has been in bed with Mary Jo Kopechne’s killer for decades only because he supports abortion rights.

By the way — am I the only one who thinks it’s hilarious to see Ted Kennedy attack “old politics” in his endorsement of Barack Obama? Why would it be funny, you ask. He is, after all, the spitting image of youthful and dynamic political life!

I’ve never been a fan of any of the Kennedys and such support cements my preference of Hillary Rodham Clinton who, as I’ve said, is deeply flawed and imperfect as any candidate but is generally, I think, on the right side of history. I also happen to believe her better than her husband and Jack Kennedy, as a person and as a politician.

Hillary Clinton says we should put bloggers into government agencies to promote transparency. It’s an interesting idea, but it has the potential to be used as a vehicle for propaganda and nothing more, although I don’t know all that many bloggers who are simply willing to roll over for someone. Guess that’s why they’d be government bloggers, though, and not independent bloggers. I like the idea, even with the potential for harm it has, but in the event of a Clinton Restoration I volunteer to be the first blogger on the independent investigator’s counsel because you know investigations are going to happen and so I’m calling my shot now!

Moving on, here’s an interesting footnote to this Presidential campaign:

Notorious Republican dirty trickster Roger Stone has launched a 527 political organization called Citizens United Not Timid (aka CUNT) to educate the public about “what Hillary Clinton really is.” The organization’s sole purpose? To sell $25 T-shirts emblazoned with the organization’s charming name and its red, white and blue logo. The logo is supposed to evoke a woman’s crotch, but it looks more like an elephant’s anus (a perfect image for Stone’s role in the Republican Party).

Talking Points Memo has since published the IRS filing for the 527, and a number of blogs, including the the Carpetbagger Report and the Talking Points’ Muckracker, have covered the story. The Washington Times also reported that another, similarly named anti-Hillary organization, Citizens United, has sent a cease-and-desist letter for name infringement.

If an anti-Obama group created an organization whose sole purpose was to call him the N-word, the response would be pure, unmitigated outrage, and, in this sense, it might be a less complicated story. But the analysis around Clinton has become so convoluted that now, any animosity toward her inspires deconstruction. Judging from scores of reader comments on blogs, plenty of people assume the vile T-shirt shilling operation is something more deceptive than simply another rabid expression of Hillary hating and the misogyny that fuels it.

Some are ironically celebrating Stone’s stupidity — expecting that the blowback from his use of the C-word will be so great as to ensure Clinton’s nomination and turn every last Republican soccer mother into a card-carrying feminist. (From the Carpetbagger discussion forum: “If Stone didn’t exist, we’d want to invent him: if there is a single soccer mom left in the Republican party by the time he is through, I’ll be surprised.” From the Muckracker discussion boards: “Way to go, Stone! Nice GOTV effort for the women. LOVE it!”)

In the end, it won’t matter all that much and there’ll be hundreds of factors above and beyond it in deciding the nomination as well as the Presidency, but maybe someday “conventional wisdom” will tell us that this silly and disgusting political stunt was a turning point. Who knows? I am disappointed to see this type of rhetoric put forward but I am not surprised.

Caroline Kennedy has endorsed Barack Obama. She says he’d be a President like her father. That’s what I am afraid of.

Obviously, I am not a fan of John F. Kennedy. Rated as a human being, I him to be worse than Richard Nixon and he is a similar political crook, whose Life and career owe almost all to the Mafia (and he stole the 1960 Presidential election). As a President, he was tentative and unremarkable in most aspects, with his only great success occurring in an event that should’ve never happened. The Cuban Missile Crisis is that to which I refer, and it has been established by certain historians that Khruschev looked at Kennedy as someone he could push around, emboldening him to make a powerplay in the Americas. JFK rose to that challenge, but it is not one that would’ve been posed to another. For it he deserves credit, but not for much else, and I detest the talk of John F. Kennedy as some boone to the young, to The People because he got people energized about politics. Certainly, people admired Kennedy very much and still do, but he had to steal the election and even then it was an incredibly close race. He didn’t set the world on fire (he might well have lost re-election, had he lived) and we only pretend that he did because he was shot.

My criticisms of Kennedy are, I hope, clear: he was not a great President nor was he particularly courageous as a public figure and people pretend that he was because his assassination makes him a martyr; further, he was a pig of a man, affiliated with most of the worst men on Earth. All his life he was handed the world and he didn’t do much with it, whatever some may have you believe. So to that end, I must say it is unfair to compare Barack Obama to him, as Obama has worked hard much of his life. Sure, the Republican Party handed him the Illinois Senate seat by running Alan Keyes against him…but that isn’t the same thing!

What I’m really saying is this: if Obama is to be admired, he should be for his own merits, not because he reminds you of John F. Kennedy. Although I, for one, have alluded to the similarities between Obama and Kennedy in foreign policy and foreign perception, but that is hardly a positive comparison. Someday, maybe we’ll compare Obama to Kennedy in that we’ll have a young President who is largely mediocre but is remembered fondly because the people running the world in twenty years (like, me and my friends) were fond of him (although I’d hope the SS protects him from all assassination).

You know who else endorsed Barack Obama today? South Carolina endorsed Barack Obama today, as he routed Hillary Clinton in the state. This is no surprise: Clinton abandoned that primary because they didn’t think she could win it because all black voters in SC would go to Barack Obama, and they did. You’ve got to wonder what this is going to do to Clinton’s campaign heading into the future, as Obama has got momentum. I’m not sure that’ll factor, as Clinton still leads in delegates and will likely defeat him in many of the big states, but who knows how many young voters will come out. That’s the “wild card”: as they did in Iowa, they could turn the election, but that isn’t likely.

PT Barnum used to say that you’ll never go broke underestimating the public. I say you won’t ever win an election overestimating young voter turnout. That, to me, is Obama’s greatest hope, but that’s all that is. I’d like to be wrong, though, if only to be able to look upon my peers and smile at their turnout. Doubt it’ll be the case, and as I said of Iowa I’ll modify for South Carolina to explain his success in that state: he won’t have young men and women from Illinois all over every state (as he did in Iowa) and he won’t go into an overwhelming black Southern primary in every state, either (as he did in South Carolina). There is a clear racial divide going in these primaries, as well as a youth/old gap, and the establishment appears set on the Senator from New York. In a lot of ways, it’s a shame.

Now that Fox News has settled her lawsuit, Judith Regan is one rich skank! The numbers aren’t out, but I’m sure she’s being paid plenty to not divulge the dirty details of her love affair with Bernard Kerik and whatever dirty laundry she has on the inept and repulsive Rudy Giuliani. I, for one, am disappointed that she hasn’t taken it all the way but I’m not surprised. Money talks and that’s all she was after. Tonight she’ll have dinner with some nasty Republican lawyers and laugh soullessly all the way to the bank. (If you aren’t familiar with her lawsuit, go here.)

Here’s an interesting little puff-piece. Titled, “A Dem is in the attorney general’s office — but only on wall” it is about the Attorney General’s portrait of Robert Jackson, FDR Democrat, on the wall. To me it is interesting because of the comparison it evokes of Jackson to Mukasey and FDR to Bush. On the Presidents: they are both sons of political privelege and wealth who have an affinity for civil liberty violations in the name of security. Now the Attorney Generals are linking to one another from the grave. I find it curious: nothing too terrible to look too far into, but that comparison has always been there to me of Bush and FDR when it comes to civil liberties violations and why I don’t overreact. The President’s reaction is proportional to our challenge, like FDR’s; before you get on Bush for the PATRIOT ACT or whatever other indignation (real or imagined) we should talk about the Japanese, interned.