Reformation Sunday

Cleaner than I suspect they actually were.

So it's Halloween, is it just too trite to comment on the up coming election and Halloween like terrors it holds? Yeah, I guess so, but then I already have haven't I?

Out today and into Columbus for the ordination of a guy who was the visiting pastor at my wife's church. Very nasty fights at that church over the direction this specific church is going. The congregation, on the whole, loved the guy, but the elders hated him and wanted their own. So this guy was out and they gave the "call" to the one the elders wanted and he turned them down.

We drove up, but there was also a bus from the church taking about 50 people. Very interesting, most of the big money people were there and the elders can't figure out what is happening and why they are unable to make their budget currently. Still it is just so much like what is going on at a national level that I am kind of amazed at the similarities.

In the last several years my wife's church has had several pastors (they call them in the Missouri Synod as opposed to ministers in the Presbyterian, where I grew up). One whose wife was into heavy metal and goth and writing about the congregation by name on the Internet. Then one who wouldn't baptise a kid because he was a bastard (the kid, not technically the pastor), one who didn't want to move out to our town and who didn't like visiting sick people and wanted not to do the Christmas service because it was a time for him to be with his family. They have really been without a pastor for several years. One also announced from the pulpit that if people didn't vote for George Bush they were violating God's laws. Him they didn't fire, but he left to go full time as a military pastor.

I hear this stuff from my wife and I find it very interesting. Particularly since it doesn't affect me at all as this is the first time I have been in a church (unless attending a wedding or funeral) in probably ten years. Don't figure that there is much there that is worth much so why go. Never was much interested not from since I was a kid. Don't care.

I was brought up in the Presbyterian church, as I said and just last week at a funeral, I found out why Presbyterians say "forgive our debt as we forgive our debtors" instead of trespass in the Lords Prayer. According to the minister it is because the Scots are more interested in money than land.

Oh yeah, in addition to it being Halloween it is also Reformation Day the day that Luther nailed his thesis to the church door. A big deal for Lutherans I guess.

I Loves Me the Moral Absolutes of the Democrats

So I guess that this is some of what I mean by soft fascism as perpetrated by our government. They (our client states) "employ" children as soldiers and we respond by giving them more money with which they will buy our weapons to give to the children so that they can kill, it turns out, other children. It is necessary, you see, to protect us.

I guess that an old skin head stomping a woman's head to the curb is a hard fascist, but then that may only be because the perp. and vic. are good white Americans much like ourselves. Plus of course, it is closer and we get to see it on our teevees and computers and cell phones. The other not so much although those kids are dying just as surely as I sit here typing this. I remember a long time ago National Lampoon (when it was funny) producing an entire Sunday Dacron Daily News. The headline was: "Dacron Woman Killed on Trip to Japan" the sub headline was: "Japanese Islands Submerged in Title Wave."

So you seen that I also can see the woman stomped and see a real threat to us all here in this lovely and exceptional land of the free, but then I start to think about just who we are killing both directly and indirectly, and I am brought back to .... what just. I do like living here and being able to write and say these things out loud without worrying about being assaulted by the government (unless of course I more or less threaten an office holder or indicate my support for a group that may be on some sort of terrorist list). And in the end that may be the final definition for our time at least, of what makes a not-fascist nation. It won't last, because it always has to be ratcheted up.

As Greenwald pointed out today, many on the right are calling for the assassination of Assange. Think about that for a minute, is that not the essence of fascism and probably a hard fascim at that, stoping just short of carrying out the deed. For what? For revealing the past acts of a government lieing to a people to get them into a colonial (and in the case of Iraq, perhaps a personal) war.

So that is where we are right now. So you will want to vote democratic so that you can rest assured that Obama will continue to ...... well not continue to protect our liberties. But at any rate he will be better than the alternative, which is probably true, but a some point it is a choice between death by hanging and death by firing squad. Take your pick.

Your Duty As An American Blah Blah Blah

Voted today. Did vote for the Socialist candidate for senate. I'm sure that will have a major effect on the election out come. My wife told me that she also voted socialist so that will give the guy two votes from this county. I am told however that the (kind of) lesser of two evils, the democrat has already thrown in the hat. That would be Lee Fischer the guy who has been beaten and beaten again by about every republican in the state so of course he was the guy who was backed by the party machine in the primary this time.

Jennifer Brunner who is the current secretary of state and would have had a much better chance in the general election lost to him in the primary. Of course, this might be a good thing for her in the long run since I suspect that it would be very difficult for any democrat to win in this election, especially one who openly backs Obama as both of them do.

My pretty much pointless vote was me doing my civic duty. Voted for my congressman because of what he promised on Social Security and voted to the governor because I hate Kaisch with a passion that knows no bounds.

Voting is a habit with me, but I had a hard time doing it at all this year. I really do believe that if the democrats win they will learn nothing, and if the democrats lose they will learn nothing.

Well on that cheery note, I'll leave you all (both of you).

Soft Fascism Vs. Hard Fascism, You Choose

As frantic as I am about work and stuff, and the fact that I am reading (listening really while I drive back and forth to work) a mystery book called Beautiful Lies the goal of which seems to be to create the most irritating main charater ever in a book. I think the author is succeeding so that if that is what you are looking for go out and buy it.

Let's see where was I? Oh yes, politics. Liberal and democratic (definately not the same thing) blogs are becoming more and more agitated as the election becomes more and more imminant and is looking more and more like the Titanic about fifteen seconds before hitting the little piece of ice. It is a little too late to be thinking about turning that wheel or that perhaps we should have veered to the left a little sooner than we have. Actually it is almost like Capt. Smith ordering an increase in speed and aiming directly at that berg (stop that metaphore).

Obama and his people have doubled down (a phrase I am growing to love) on their opposition to DADT and DOMA at the same time telling the LGBT community that they really are working with their best interests at heart, they just don't understand the politics in all this.

They have come out opposed to a foreclosure moratorium, or Cram Down which would permit bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages, at the same time they are telling those who owe the mortgages that they are working with their best interests at heart, by apparently attempting to re-inflate the housing bubble.

They have decided that their job is to protect torturers and those who violated the various amendments to the constitution concerning cruel and unusual punishments (it's only a punishment if you've been convicted after all and if we hold you for decades without trying you then you haven't been convicted and aren't being punished, right), the sanctity of the home and privacy and well just all the stuff that you learned about in school (oh, you didn't?), after all he is a constitution law scholar, trust him. They not only want to protect those people, but they want to expand on the various constitutional (no caps) violations until their is no privacy left. But hey, if you have nothing to hide than why worry, right?

On top of all this is something else I've been thinking about: Obama is increasing the size of the private armies we have working for us right now in the field C.A.C.I., Blackwater/Xe etc. Well we know how well that worked for the Romans or the Germans, don't we?

Which brings me to my new concept (or maybe I stole it from someone else, I don't remember). The idea of soft fascism vs. hard fascism. Clearly the republicans like those in Kentucky who stomp a woman's head into the curb and then demand an apology from her, or the ones in Alaska who are active duty military personnel and employed by the senatorial candidate who arrest a reporter for asking questions are real hard fascists. You don't agree? Then fuck you, you are an ass hole.

But then we look over at the kinder gentler democrats. As I say above they go along and go forward with the same programs increasing the size of the security state while decreasing the various "protections" provided by the Constitution, but they do this incrementally. At the same time working with an amazing energy to destroy what is left of the middle class, a group that existed in this country in large numbers from around the late 1930s until a couple of years ago. Moving to place all real power (if it hasn't already happened) in the hands of a few plutocrats or oligarchs, whatever you want to call them. Not only do the democrats appear to be unable to change this arc, they do not seem to want to.

Hard fascism/soft fascism; sooner rather than later. My position should be I guess, given my age that we should push it as far into the future as possible with any luck I won't be around.

Wikileaks

All clean what we get to see.

What Wikileaks and the rest of the world sees.

I predict that the effect of the latest round of Wikileaks leaks will be to cause the U.S.of A. to double down on more or less (with the accent on less) accurate drone attacks that will continue to kill the number 2 (or is that number 3, I never can remember) man in the Taliban or Al Quada or whatever, plus of course, various innocent civilians who will be with any luck children so we don't have to deal with them when they grow up.

The later information concerning the kids will not of course be known here in America because the "citizens" just don't want to hear it and our rulers don't want us to know, so the vast (as in really vast) majority of us won't take the time or trouble to go look it up by clicking on foreign news sources, so there will be no need to do any real censorship.

In addition, all the people involved with Wikileaks will be charged with multiple sex crimes in many different countries (all of this will be extensively reported to the American public).

Finally, many very serious people, who were completely convinced that there were WMD in Iraq and who are now convinced that Iran is just a breath away from a nuclear bomb which they will drop on D.C. because then American won't retaliate will tell us that there is nothing new here, we already knew this and therefore we should pay no attention to it. Anyway these leaks will cause if they haven't already caused more death an destruction than all America's military and CIA attacks have caused in the last ten or twenty or thirty years.

Oh yeah, lookie lookie lookie at what CNN did to their "interview" with Assange who walked off the set when they refused to speak with him about the facts raised by the latest leaks. Instead they kept trying to do an interview about his personal life. He left their interviewer looking like the dork she was.

So there, take that you unserious dirty hippies when we don't want you to see it we make sure you don't.

I'm Drowning Here

Mental illness affects more than just those with the disease. This may seem like a simple concept and it is until you've got someone next to you who is having a serious break down. In a small office of three people two of whom have to be popping in and out several times a day to go to court and to check things at the clerk's office, when one of those two has a serious break down then the other has to more than double up.

It becomes even more difficult when the alleged professional who is treating the sick one, decides that that person can come back to the office and work half a day, but can't got to court and needs to be carefully monitored by the others in the office. The tension, to coin a phrase, could be cut with a knife.

I am simply exhausted, I nearly pass out every night at 8:00 p.m. and my gout has started to act up again. I had my first experience with it about three or four years ago when I was going through another period of intense and unusual emotional turmoil (that time of my own making). If you haven't had gout it is lovely. Imagine that one large strong man holds one of your feet up and another one smashes the large toe repeatedly with a sledge hammer for about two hours.

Right now the mentally ill person is driving the narrative and is completely controlling the play. I cannot for the life of me figure the position of the doctor, does she not under stand how a law office functions, particularly a law office where the attorneys are both trial lawyers and got to court frequently? I suspect not. Most everyone is in denial to a greater or lesser degree, including me who just hopes it will go away.

Trying to do much of anything is nearly impossible.

I Live In The World You Deserve

I'm drifting around and around today and I've been as I said earlier reading and watching about the upcoming elections. As usual things are getting more and more frantic as we come closer and closer to the actual election day.

Greenwald today and Ehrenstein yesterday both touch on issues that directly affect the LGTB community. Greeenwald writing about Obama's defense of DOMA and Ehrenstein writing about, well his general disgust with Obama and the democrats, which mirrors mine or visa versa.

I find it interesting that Obama argues (without a lot of real legal support) that he is required to defend any law (in this case both DOMA and DADT) passed by congress (something that no other president in recent history has argued carte blanch). Assuming for the sake of argument that is true, then why does he insist on appealing when he loses and why does he feel the need to fight to stay the lower court orders?

If one jumps to the various I do too believe in fairies and Obama blogs one sees the ability of the easily led or the true believers or the ones who are part of the tribe and proud of it writers defending both the laws' defenses and the appeals and even the battles over the stays. Obama as best I can figure out is just the poor president who has so little power himself that he must to the death apparently (well at least to the death of the party he suposeldy is the leader of) defend laws he really really really wants to just go away, please.

Depressing Elections

I am not a happy camper. Work is like not good at all at this point. When I became a lawyer I really didn't know that I would also need a degree in psychology. Stuff has been happening with clients and with others in the office so that I am at a point where my small ability to suffer fools gladly (one of the reasons I thought it would not be a good idea to go into the health care field[s?]) has shrunk to an area that just might be viewable on a neutron microscope, perhaps.

Drifting over the news today, oh boy. Some stuff is interesting to me in the "This is news?" kind of way that I so often get any more. Crooks and Liars has a story about Mitch McConnel admitting that the republicans only want to break Obama and the democrats. Firedoglake has a similar essay.

Although, I did say that what interested me more were the groups who continue to support Obama after he has screwed them over, still I really wonder about what is going on in the mind of the democratic politicans who run the party. Did they not see what happened to Clinton? Was it not clear to anyone with a brain who watched how things started to play out after the first couple of months after the inauguration? Still, these are the people who tell us that they really did believe Bush about the WMDs in Iraq and those are the major pundits and the people who are running the democratic party right now, speaking of mental illness.

I'm watching the hysterical wrap up of an two year election cycle where the democrats did nearly everything wrong and the republicans are poised to take advantage. Now I'm not prepared to suggest that the republicans did everything right, in fact their successes might not be as impressive as they would other wise be simply because the people they have nominated in so many races are so dangerously crazy that people might vote against them rather than for the democrat, but the out come would be the same.

David Ehrenstein makes the point that no one in the LGBT community should be voting for the democrats because they will simply enable the people who want to screw that community. I'd say the same argument holds true for the rest of us progressives/liberals.

Well as I say I do remember who came after Weimar, and that certainly looks like those are the people (those who came next I mean) who are lining up to take advantage of the democrat's complete sell out. Never in the history of American politics has a political party accomplished what the Obama democrats have accomplished in so little time.

Decline And Fall

I have always found the death of empires and states (and I guess people when I think about it) more interesting that their birth or growth. Spain after the Armada rather than England during the same years, for instance.

I do try to keep reminding myself of Gore Vidal's warning to middle aged writers that they try not confuse their own personal mental and physical decline with that of the nation's. But I'm becoming fairly certain that that isn't the case here, I'm passed middle age at any rate. I find myself comparing today with my younger days and wondering just when I stopped being cool, though.

I look around and see decline and fall every where with little or no apparent desire to move us in a different direction. States replacing asphalt covered roads with gravel roads because they are easier and cheaper to maintain, raising the costs of going to college so that the lower economic classes (and in time, probably a short time the middle classes) presidents looking around and deciding that we have to cut benefits and "safety nets" in the middle of the second greatest economic down turn we have ever experienced in the face of all intelligent economic recommendations. The very people who drove the country to this drop off, being given positions of authority to continue to direct the nation: Geither, Paulson, Sumner. Listening to the war monger neo-liberals who got us where we are in two wars we seem to be unable to either win or end, or for that matter want to end and maybe not even want to win.

Then the nearly complete co-option of liberal groups (including unions) and liberal commentators by a clearly conservative (not moderate) democratic party and president. People who seem to be totally unself aware of what they did to get us where we are and what needs to be done to get us back from the brink (oh hell perhaps we are really past the brink now and in free fall, who knows) are in charge.

Jeremiah (without god).

Oh yeah, I started this four days ago and I can't make it copy or move the date so it will go up as if it has been here for four days.

History Lesson

I've been thinking about writing this for a couple of days. I've been on some of the blogs I mentioned in the previous posts, ones that support Obama no matter which one of his supporters he and the rest of the democratic party screws today. I leave comments and engage in, oh I don't know, spirited exchanges with other commentators.

There are a few points that seem to come up repeatedly. First, I would have attacked both FDR and LBJ because they weren't pure enough, in particular FDR and his treatment of African Americans and LBJ and Vietnam. Second, neither FDR or LBJ accomplished much during in the first few months of taking office.

The first arguments is sort of personal and I would have to say that I would hope that I would not have engaged in pointless snipping at either of those presidents. On the other hand I would hope that I would have opposed FDR and the conservative politics he adopted in his first weeks of office before he turned hard left and I would hope that I would have opposed his Internment policies during WWII. As far as LBJ is concerned when I got back from Southeast Asia I did become part of the anti-war movement and did participate in anti-war activities, although not as much as I should have.

The second point is one that shows an amazing ignorance of Twentieth Century American History. My undergraduate areas of concentration were Twentieth Century American History, Political Science, and Literature (which is why I am now a lawyer). It was almost a truism that if a president was going to get major programs through it would have to be within his first two years. Now that didn't work for FDR, he had his first and second New Deals, but the most famous period in American legislative history is FDR's "First One Hundred Days."

As far as Johnson is concerned, I remember being in Washington D.C. in the summer of 1964 on a trip after my graduation. This would have been about seven months after LBJ took office and watching the leadership of the senate announce the filibuster had been broken. Now one can argue that this was legislative, but anyone who is aware of history knows the influence LBJ had on the senate at that time and the fact that he did lead (and push and threaten and cajole and use his power and popularity) in getting this through the senate. The elections of that fall swept the democrats into power and immediately most of the last major social and civil rights legislation was passed, before the 1966 elections when the democrats lost big time.

A couple of good reads on FDR are Eric Rauchway's The Great Depression & The New Deal: A very short history, and for a longer read one could do worse than Arthur Schlesinger's three volume The Age of Roosevelt.

Of course these complaints are coupled with: Just you see how much Obama has accomplished this is more (in the case of HCR it is argued) than any other president has ever been able to accomplish. It is really difficult for me to take this argument seriously, given what the out come was and how what was done was done. In particular how Obama and the "leadership?" of the democratic party aborted the most popular parts of reform and sought to stifle any popular support for the bill there by letting the right wing get control of the narrative as they did. The rest, money for bankers, fumbling (on purpose) chard check, not providing real help for people whose homes are being foreclosed on, and on, and on, and on. History will tell, but I think that I know already what history will tell and as I've said before it will compare Obama more closely with Hoover than with FDR, although I'm beginning to think that it may be Buchanan he most closely resembles.

The final point is that I am simply too pure to understand how politics really operates and that is why I take these kind of positions. Kind of difficult for a person who has voted for the lesser of two evils all my adult life (starting with Hubert Humphrey) and who was the president of two small local unions to take these criticisms very seriously.

I'm Just Confused

Reading around the blogs today, I see quite a few defenses of Obama still from people who claim to be "progressive" (whatever that means any more). Defenses of his appeal of the DADT case and attempts to stay the enactment of the court's order.

Let's see: he's got to act like Jackie Robinson, he's required by law to appeal, if he doesn't appeal then whenever the republicans get power back they will be able not to appeal decisions they like, if he appeals then it will force the congress to get rid of it, he is just appealing to keep the case from being decided until after the elections when the senate will pass the repeal. All of the foregoing being bullshit, of course.

I'm not so sure that I much care what Obama's reasons are, his actions in this thing are in keeping with who he is and who he is isn't very nice or very smart. One would think one would try to be one or the other wouldn't one?

Nope, what I am more interested in are the people who write the articles and essays and comments attempting to justify what Obama is doing at the same time they are claiming that they are for repeal and that Obama is for repeal. It is just you know, that he has got to go against everything he believes in here, and health care, and Afghanistan, and torture, and TARP, and, HAMP, and abortion rights, and well whatever he does to screw the people who worked and voted for him. I cannot figure out how they are able to continue to delude themselves into believing that Obama is in any way even moderately liberal or progressive (sorry liberal is a bad word now isn't it?).

Now I understand about the so called liberal columnists who supported Bush's Iraq adventure, because they are simply part of the most corrupt ruling class we have ever had, and if they do not follow the approved script they will lose their place at the table (no matter how far below the salt they are).

The various different liberal lobbing groups are a little harder to understand (Veal Pen inhabitants though they may be), HRC being the most obvious today, although the others seem to be fighting for pride of place on any given day by trying to not ask (as opposed to demand like the NRA) for too much so they won't be disliked and they will still get their invites to those parties, I guess.

The hardest to understand are the regular people who put time, effort, and money into those groups and into the campaigns of Obama and other democrats. Not the bosses or the people who think they are the bosses at any rate. I would think that if you give a couple of spare hours or a few spare bucks to some advocacy group or politician then you would be the kind of person who would read and search out independent information and question why the people you gave that time and that money to aren't able to do diddly for you or the interests you hold dear. But hey that is just me. Watch out there's a scary republican over there who will take away that right to ........ oh never mind we just gave it freely to the democrat so we won't have to worry about it.

And yet out there they go. Aw hell.

Maybe Not A Horse Race After All

Thanks for the image Susan, I think.

I've been wondering for a long time why the republicans are so crazy about Obama. Now I understand that he is Black, but still it is the same way they acted about Clinton. I was an adult when Clinton was first elected and the insanity thrown at him amazed me at the time. I couldn't figure it out, and to be honest I still can't. Not that he was a great president, but that he was a complete corporate shill as were his people (like Rham). NAFTA, GATT, cutting welfare, weakening unions. Still the left fought for him beyond all reason.and the right attacked him far beyond all reason. I cannot for the life of me figure it out. I only know that because of Clinton and his relatively incompetant politics and policies we got a good 20 years of republican control of the congress and eight years of the worst president since at least Hoover and perhaps Buchanan.

Now we seem to be back in the same place and we seem to be repeating history. I'm not sure what Marx would make of it since the first time certainly wasn't tragedy, it was more like farce, god knows what that would make it this time.

I'm thinking that the general democratic campaign sloganthis year is: Vote For Me, Things Could Get Worse. I am sure that they can, but I have confidence in the democrats and believe that they can make things worse all by themselves.

The combination of the apparent cluelessness of the administration in matters political (leaving aside for the minute their actual competence, or rather lack of, at really governing) seems to be matched by the large liberal "independent" advocacy groups, like for today HRC. Of course that is just for today. The unions are out carrying water for the democrats even though, the issue that should have been make or break for unions was card check, and we all know that is going no where.

When the old Romans fought each other for the throne at least the supporters of the winner could expect to get some spoils out of it. We have I guess progressed beyond that as the supporters of the winner (at least if that winner is a democrat can expect nothing, except more promises).

The question I have is what are these people fighting for? The answer I have is that it is really nothing except money for nearly all of them, except for the craziest of the tea baggers. I had originally written personal power, but now that I think of it they have no real power that power resides in the corporations that own them.

So why the incredible amount of money spent of these elections? Damned if I know, unless the spoils really are distributed to different corporations depending on who holds the offices. And of course it is sort of bread and circuses for the rest of us (with out the bread of course).

Writers

Off posting for a week and seem to be overwhelmed by work again. A couple of permanent custody cases coming up soon and just after that a client who didn't, stab her ex-husband at a seriously drunken party involving a couple of 17 year olds and significantly faulty memories decreased by alcohol and other things. There is no chance that this last case is going to do anything other than go to a jury trial. I got the client off probation last month early because she couldn't stop using. There is no way she will agree to go back on in some kind of a deal.

Today went to a writer's conference here in town. My wife had started this writers group about eight years ago and about three years ago they started to put on this conference. She decided that she didn't want to be in charge after the conference last year (too much politics and it interfered too much with her writing), but we still went today. It is kind of nice to go to one of these things when they are put on fairly well. And this one is put on quite well given that we are in a rather small city and pay the presenters no money.

The first year there was no money except the money we put in ourselves for our own registration. We discovered something very interesting: Writers (for the most part, not the big boys and girls, but those a little farther down the food chain) will travel quite a distance for free for a table to hustle their books from, throw in a free lunch and they are more than willing to talk for an hour about how it is done.

There isn't a lot of quality control, but some are very good. You can never tell before hand, last year the one with the biggest rep. was the weakest presenter.

One of the presenters today told my wife (who is very short and handicapped) that he hoped that she would meet some people here and possible she might even begin to try to write some little something. My wife has both solid aluminum crutches and a temper, I generally try to move out of the range of those things when discussions of this sort start. But for some reason she decided to respond with a: "Why, thank you kind sir, I shall do my best." I'm not sure the guy picked up on it, but I thought it was a remarkable show of restraint. Otherwise the thing went off without a hitch and a good time was had by all.

Deep Thoughts

I wonder just how well the democrats are going to do this November. The people who are running as republicans in the high profile races seem to be very crazy and very scary so that it is just possible that there will be enough democratic voters to prevent the landslide that looks to be coming. If that is so then that will, of course, prove to the powers that be that their policies are right and that they need to stay the course. Which will move us a little closer to the perfect oligarchy/plutocracy of their dreams.

If democratic voters don't turn out and the crazies do get elected it will prove to the powers that be that the DFHs have taken over the base of the democrats and the average democratic voter just doesn't understand what is going on and what needs to be done. And that the party leaders need to stay the course to let things work out. In the mean time the crazies will be accepted and will turn out, in the eyes of the media not to be so crazy. Moving us a little closer to the perfect oligarchy/plutocracy of their dreams.

It is a good thing I'm not even a D list blogger and no one reads me because I think that is probably necessary that the democratic party as it is currently configured get it's ass handed to it on a platter. Then it might be possible to start building from more or less the ground up. The real question is whether or not it would be possible to build from the ground up or whether it is already too late.

Horse Race

I have been coming into work a little late and have been listening to the Diane Rehm show on NPR.

Horse race talk for the last couple of days. Today it was some folks, Mark Helprin was one, who were talking about the campaign and discussing ways for the democrats and Obama to pull out of the very bad hole they are in. They were commenting on how surprised the White House has been that people hate so much of what they've done. I think that there is no better definition of living in a bubble, if these people really are surprised that most people don't like most of HCR,
TARP, the stimulus and other things (I know that the bank bailout happened under Bush, but Obama completely supported it and supported the way it happened). I thought that these people (that is the people who got Obama in) were supposed to be brilliant political operatives, and say what you will about Obama's opponents all being weak sisters (and I have) still he is Black and he is president.

I was thinking that there might be some explanation as to why the White House so miss-read the electorate, but there wasn't. Just the bland statement that the people in power had no idea that those who vote would be so pissed. Since, that conclusion (the the White House had no clue) is fairly obvious to anyone with a TV or a computer or radio or I-Phone, I'm not sure what the purpose of the discussion was.

A thought I had was that when Clinton managed to screw up Health Care and force through NAFTA and GATT it was a disaster for America and for the democrats, but the people in charge never got hurt at all. Rham is once again in power and Clinton is incredibly popular. I suspect that if Obama gets reelected and Rham becomes mayor of Chicago both he and Rham will be congratulating themselves on their brilliance, and wondering who could possibly think that they are not the most brilliant of politicians.

So Obama is more or less out and more or less exciting the base. Apparently, cutting back on their former tack of insulting the base, although time will tell. The commentators seemed to be surprised that he waited until so late in the game, but isn't this his modus operandi? Coming in late with a couple of pretty good speeches, I think so.