Office of the Independent Blogger

This LA Times article refers to the NRA as a “victim of its own success” and argues that its political clout is on the decline, but I wouldn’t be so sure. Coupled with Obama’s crack about “bitter” voters, his votes will be beneficial to pro-gun Republicans in the fall, and they will be especially useful for fundraising purposes. In that capacity they will be most useful to McCain, and I am always hesitant to declare that one of the most important organizations of recent times is in decline. Just like I’m not sure that Roy Oswalt is done, even if he is having a bad year.

More interesting might be this article about whether or not McCain and Obama are “serious” about global warming:

Late in the afternoon of June 5, the Senate was debating the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which is to say the Senate chamber was almost empty, and the strongest global-warming bill ever to move in Congress was almost dead. Both sides were trying to whip the vote for a make-or-break procedural motion while the bill’s leading opponent, James “Global Warming Is a Hoax” Inhofe, was rasping out a floor speech full of arguments for inaction. Across the aisle, the bill’s floor manager, Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., shuffled papers at her desk, doing her best to ignore Inhofe.

That’s when Boxer’s chief of staff hurried over and whispered in her ear. Boxer ducked into the cloakroom, picked up a phone, and had a quick talk with Sen. Barack Obama. When Boxer returned to the floor, she announced that Obama would enter a statement saying that “if he were able to be present,” he would be voting in support of the bill. For those who have been waiting anxiously for Washington to take action on the climate crisis, this is what passes for presidential leadership these days: a candidate phoning it in on the most important global-warming vote of the year.

How disgusting is that? McCain is “change you deserve,” and Obama is “change you can believe in.” I am “an appalled citizen.”

Buried in this article about McCain asking that the public treat his wife and Obama’s “with respect” is the news that Obama’s campaign rejected McCain’s town-hall proposals.

McCain has called for 10 unmoderated town hall meetings between now and August. The Obama campaign, however, rejected the proposal. McCain’s campaign recently sent a letter to the Obama campaign urging the debates after receiving invitations by the Ronald Reagan and Lyndon B. Johnson presidential libraries to hold joint town hall meetings.

In a response to the letter Friday, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate offered to meet McCain at five joint appearances between “now and Election Day.” The appearances would include three traditional debates, “plus a joint town hall on the economy in July and an in-depth debate on foreign policy in August.”

This is what “change we can believe in” looks like, right? Let’s get this situation straight: Obama is afraid of stumbling in a face-to-face with McCain and wants to exploit his financial advantage in the coming months, so he won’t meet McCain in unmoderated settings to debate the issues at length without any nonsense from journalists involved simply because he doesn’t want to give him any free air-time or gaffe. This makes sense, and is a perfectly fine strategy if you are indeed just another politician, but Barack Obama is supposed to be the Messiah, he’s supposed to be what George McGovern dreamed of being, yet he won’t buck traditional politics for political reasons. “Change we can believe in.” Right.

Tim Russert died today of a heart attack. I’d just like to record my sorrow over this, as he was a fine journalist and moderator.

The Supreme Court ruled today that our detainees at Guantanamo Bay have constitutional rights, and can challenge their detentions in American courts if they are not charged with a crime. I worry very much that we will have trouble detaining some prisoners who very much deserve to be detained for the rest of their lives as a result of this ruling, but ultimately it is an easy decision: the American government does not have the right to detain anyone indefinitely without charging them with a single crime. President Bush said that he will stand by the ruling, and I hope that he does, but the hard decision does not come with the ruling: it comes with the enforcement. I believe that it would be for the best if the legislature and the executive could get together to pass legislation that would make sure terrorists aren’t let out into the open because of the traditional, stringent burden of proof. By all means, we should be able to give evidence that a man has committed grave crimes before we incarcerate them for the rest of their Earthly existence, but the proof shouldn’t have to be as air-tight as your typical federal case, as these are people captured on the battlefield and typical evidence-gathering methods are not suited for such cases.

More from Fox news: during a segment, they captioned Michelle Obama as Obama’s “baby momma” today. Want to know what the general election is going to look like? That’s it. Everyone likes to compare this election to 1968, or 1960, or 1992, but it looks like it’s going to be 1988 all over again. Race and patriotism.

Fox News seriously asked if Barack Obama fist-bumping his wife was a terrorist fist-jab. I’ve never been more disillusioned with the state of our media.

For people interested in how history will chronicle George W. Bush’s life, today might be a day credited as the beginning of a public transformation of the President from no-regrets warrior to a man who regrets his rhetoric and the perceptions people have of him around the world. I think the ascension of John McCain to “Republican Party electoral leader” is the first event to illustrate to Bush that his time is nearing an end, and it appears that he’s got his legacy in mind now as his term winds down and he gets to work on diplomatic matters with Iran and Palestine. It’s interesting how much his personal tone has softened of late, and how reflective he has been. I just wonder if he ever thinks the war was a mistake.

Here’s an article worth reading about the Texas Governor’s Mansion which caught fire and is being investigated to determine whether it was arson or an accident. (The article argues that it was an accident, and it makes a strong case about the nature of most arson cases.) The other article I would recommend this evening is this one about the global “food summit” going on as we speak. For the record, I agree that it is foolish to use food in place of oil when there are people who could use the food in place of hunger.

Now that Hillary Clinton has conceded and given a strong endorsement of Barack Obama can we stop accusing her of being evil for being the very first candidate to ever contest a primary until it was actually over?

Mark DeMoss is a conservative leader who most often works with Evangelicals. In an interview with Belief.net, he was asked if he thinks Barack Obama can gain Evangelical support. He answers:

If one third of white evangelicals voted for Bill Clinton the second time, at the height of Monica Lewinsky mess—that’s a statistic I didn’t believe at first but I double and triple checked it—I would not be surprised if that many or more voted for Barack Obama in this election. You’re seeing some movement among evangelicals as the term [evangelical] has become more pejorative. There’s a reaction among some evangelicals to swing out to the left in an effort to prove that evangelicals are really not that right wing. There’s some concern that maybe Republicans haven’t done that well. And there’s this fascination with Barack Obama. So I will not be surprised if he gets one third of the evangelical vote. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was 40-percent.

First I would note that there are significant differences between Barack Obama and Bill Clinton which make it a different sort of challenge for Obama to gain Evangelical support over Clinton (for instance, Obama does not have a strong religious tradition, especially not now that he dumped his pastor and his church, and Clinton talks about religion and Christ far more often than any politician of our age except maybe George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, and that’s just an introduction). But beyond that, I’m flustered by his claim that he “double and tripled checked” that voters voted for Clinton “the second time,” during the “height” of the “Lewinsky mess.” The Lewinsky scandal did not erupt until significantly after the election, so it certainly wasn’t at its “height” during the election cycle. Maybe a fourth check might’ve done him good? (In fact, in 1996 some people believed it was almost impossible logistically for the President to have an affair, but that’s just an aside. The greater point is that he didn’t “double and triple check” a damn thing.)

I do not know how Evangelicals will vote when it comes to McCain in the fall, but I doubt Obama gets forty percent of them for a variety of reasons. The greatest might well be that he disowned his church, and DeMoss talks about McCain being critical of the Religious Right but that will pale in comparison to the fact that Obama left his church for political purposes. Besides, I think it’s incredibly foolish to expect Evangelicals to vote for a Democrat when there are so many aging Supreme Court Justices on the bench waiting to retire.

John McCain challenged Barack Obama to hold a series of town-hall meetings between now and the Democratic National Convention. Obama’s people are now working it out with McCain’s people. I hope they hammer out the details soon and hold the events shortly after, because it would make an unbearably long campaign much better for the average voter, reporter and independent blogger. Obama better be careful, though, because he’s giving free air-time to McCain and putting himself in a position where he might be upstaged by contrast. Of course, some people worry that that’ll happen to McCain because of their difference in age, so who knows?

Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan, who has in the past confessed to spreading nuclear technology to rogue nations, is recanting his confession.

He explained in an interview with ABC News that the Pakistani government and President Pervez Musharraf forced him to be a “scapegoat” for the “national interest.” He also denies ever traveling to Iran or Libya and said that North Korea’s nuclear program was well advanced before his visit. When asked whether Musharraf would admit this, Khan told CNN: “It is his business. Whatever he has been telling people in the country. Whatever he says is up to them. But I can tell you that the man on the street is more knowledgeable than the man on the street in the United States.”

In a further twist, the normally placid Switzerland announced on May 23 that it had secretly destroyed highly technical blueprints for producing nuclear weapons.

The information was seized from the home of Urs Tinner, a 43-year-old Swiss engineer who has been in custody for almost four years as a key suspect in the nuclear smuggling ring allegedly run by Khan. At a news conference, Swiss President Pascal Couchepin said the documents had been shredded to prevent them from falling into terrorists’ hands. “The information contained in these papers presented a considerable risk to the security of Switzerland and the international community as a whole,” he said.

What a strange series of events these are.

Barack Obama officially has the delegates he needs to win the nomination for the Presidency. Hillary Clinton didn’t concede, but I imagine that she’s going to soon enough. It’ll be interesting to watch the campaigns unfold from here, but I have little to say tonight as I just got back from a ballgame and have a few more obligations this evening. I’ll be back tomorrow.

Vanity Fair ran an article about Bill Clinton’s business dealings since he left the Oval Office, and I found it to be a revelation about the President’s behavior since he left the White House. I certainly do not approve of his globetrotting with billionaires, as I think it cheapens the Presidency, and that goes for George H.W. Bush, too. It is interesting that this is how the Hillary Clinton campaign for President is going to end, with her husband’s most recent controversy overshadowing her presumed knockout in this race. I personally expect Hillary to hang on for a couple of days, but this race is over, so while we wait and see what Hillary has to say tomorrow let’s take a look at this article about Clinton’s criticisms of the Vanity Fair article.

Since when do individual stories have to be “balanced”? I blame the “fair and balanced” Fox News Channel for popularizing the idea that reporters must strive for some sort of Platonic equilibrium or they’re not producing proper journalism. Such comprehensive coverage is neither possible nor desirable (”Mr. Hitler, who was responsible for the unnecessary deaths of millions, loved children”), and the testimonies of the 1.3 million people whose lives President Clinton has “helped save” don’t really have any bearing on Purdum’s thesis that Clinton’s post-presidential personal behavior, personal associations, and financial dealings all suggest conduct not becoming the spouse of a U.S. senator who is running for president.

The rest is worth a read as well.

Now that it’s become clearer that Barack Obama is going to be our nominee for President, there is heightened speculation about what sort of exit strategy Hillary Clinton is going to employ. This idea is the worst.

Hillary Clinton will be offered a dignified exit from the presidential race and the prospect of a place in Barack Obama’s cabinet under plans for a “negotiated surrender” of her White House ambitions being drawn up by Senator Obama’s aides. The former First Lady would get the chance to pilot Mr Obama’s reforms of the American healthcare system if she agrees to clear the path to his nomination as Democratic presidential candidate.

Because we all know how that turned out the last time it happened, right? I don’t doubt that Clinton is capable of crafting sensible, effective healthcare reform but I have no doubt that she would not be able to push her plan through this time anymore than she was able to last time. Worse for Obama might be the possibility that Clinton sabotages his healthcare reforms in the Senate like Bob Kerrey did to Bill Clinton in the early-1990s because of problems caused by the primary. It might become a matter of Obama offering her the Vice Presidency before all is said and done.