While some see only bitterness in the final days of the Democratic primary season, I figure the party will re-coalesce behind the eventual winner. In fact, this extended season had benefits, e.g. energetic grassroots movements that should merge impressively for the general election.
As I write this, Barack Obama seems the likely nominee, in which case recent battle bruises may have taught him valuable lessons. With flexibility, when reconfiguring his messages for a nationwide audience, I hope he'll ponder the importance of three issues: National Security, Science and the Plight of the Professionals.
(See below for unusual perspectives on all three.)
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The first of these three issues - national security - is crucial, especially with the not-negligible possibility of some kind of emergency or dire drama occurring, between now and November. (A little advance positioning could help immensely, if tragic events do happen upon us, coincidentally, during that period. Indeed, there could be nothing more crucial.)
More generally, Democrats must overcome a reflex discomfort re: security matters. Instead, demonstrating historical acumen, they might choose to “own” this issue, the way FDR, Truman and JFK did.
National Security is the one area where the public might feel justifiably nervous about Barack Obama’s lack of experience. Democrats should remember that the man Obama is most often compared-to, John F. Kennedy, served in wartime and experienced the grim pain of battle, first-hand. At an early age, JFK wrote a best-selling book about - of all topics - national security and the dangers of allowing a lapse in readiness. If (and only if) Obama were to choose a VP nominee with very credible credentials in this area, then Democrats could make a potent issue of the GOP’s systematic demolition of our readiness, our reserves, our armed forces, our alliances, our moral high-ground, our prestige and our position of leadership in the world.
Those rushing to compare Barack to JFK should remember that this issue was a winner for Kennedy. He wasn’t just all-about the Peace Corps and Civil Rights. He defeated Richard Nixon in large part by preventing the Republican from seizing National Security as his personal property. (I’ll return with more about this, below.)
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The second subject is a hard sell, I’ll admit. Political consultants and pollsters consistently warn candidates against raising matters of science and technology, which the pundits call “almost as boring process issues.”
Nothing could show how reflexively-low politicians rate such matters than the way Congress has lolligagged over re-establishing its own scientific and technical advisory apparatus, which the Republicans tore down way back in 1995, at the start of the Neocon era. In my “Suggestions to the New Congress” I listed several quick and easy ways the Democrats, under Nancy Pelosi, might show themselves staking ground as champions of reason. Indeed, many of those recommended steps President Bush could neither obstruct nor veto! Alas, they have done nothing.
Still, every year, an ever-growing (and disproportionately influential) layer of educated people complain about one aspect of this - and every - flawed U.S. election. How absurd it is for an advanced nation, a purported leader of civilization, to choose new leaders without ever debating issues of technology and science. Sure, consultants shrug this aside as the fixation of a narrow interest group - a pointy-headed, over-educated, boffin elite.
Except let’s note: that same patronizing, know-nothing attitude has been a key attribute of the Republican veer into the dark side. The role of science and technology in decision-making has proved crucial - by its glaring absence from consideration during the Bush Administration’s misgoverning of America.
Indeed, despite still being the party supported by the poor, the Democrats have surged ahead of the GOP in average education levels, a shift that merits close attention. The well-educated in America are forming an ever larger pool (one that has especially come out for Obama, this year). It is a massive group, demographically similar (for the Democrats) to the fundamentalist Christian community (for Republicans). If the fundamentalists can gat at least lip service from GOP office-seekers, then should not educated America get - and demand - the same thing from Democrats?
There is a third reason to boost this issue toward at least a middle burner. A matter of simple self-identity. America did better, as a nation, when it thought of itself as a nation of science. When it took pride in its leadership in forward thinking. When it considered the quest something very close to sacred. I have been promoting this issue for quite some time. Now have a look at -- Making Science a Presidential Priority: “Science Debate 2008” wants to put scientific issues front and center in the Presidential race by hosting a debate among candidates.
Not to say that it is an entirely invisible topic. Every current and recent candidate for president made a stop, during the last year, at Google to be interviewed and create a YouTube event. (See my own Google Tech Talk.) Among all of these events, the one that seemed the least perfunctory was Barack Obama’s, in which he (perhaps with a little pre-coaching) answered the CEO’s routine question about how to perform a massive sort-search, in a fashion that was both impressive and funny.
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As for my third suggested top-issue, well, I confess (as any scientist should) that all the evidence points to my being obsessive and even (possibly) delusional. How else to explain why no other person (to my knowledge) has raised it? Even once? Perhaps my raising the Bushite War Against the Professionals may seem an obsession. Yet, I continue to view it as the most powerful win-win issue of all. A way to highlight the true agenda of the Bush Cabal, a way to win over a million or so pivotal members of society...
...and to turn innumerable silent victims into eager (and skilled) whistleblowers, during a half-year when some brave revelations might decide our nationa’s destiny.
Sure, we hear about “The Republican War on Science.” and a fair number of folks have followed me in denouncing the Bushite “war against the U.S. military Officer Corps.” (Name one person who was earlier.)
There have been glimmers and articles about the active suppression of our civil servants in various departments, quashed relentlessly by political hacks who were appointed in order to prevent our government from fucnctioning well, or according to law. Inspectors General have been harrassed, fired, diverted or suborned. The intelligence community, that we all rely upon to seek out and prevent foreign machinations against the republic, appears to have its morale down around its ankles. And yet, nobody seems interested in tying it all together, into an over arching theme.
Well, nobody but me. And I have to admit, it gets pretty lonely trying to persuade folks to see the forest for the trees.
So I won’t do it here. Not in detail. Except to reiterate. This general pattern -- the general pattern of the entire Bush Administration -- has been aimed at eliminating the United States Civil Service, and other professional services, as credible centers for shining light and accountability throughout our civilization. The top and most blatant outcome, the theft - with apparent impunity - of somewhere toward a trillion dollars, would not have seemed credible if written in a cheap thriller novel! And yet, it stands in front of us, as blatant (and invisible to most) as Banquo’s ghost.
It could be the issue of the election, of the decade. It could turn a millions professionals from brutalized victims into fiercely effective allies, in the restoration of our republic.
But, then, that may be just more paranoid yattering, from the over-active pattern-recognition systems of a... well... an author of thriller novels. Alas.
.
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Addenda on National Security and the “art of waking ostriches...
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Under the category of ostrich ammo - ("What would you Limbaugh dittoheads have said, if Bill Clinton tried 1% of this #%#$@#!?") - try the following on for size:
Since our national guard units are in Iraq, President Bush wants the Canadian military to put down rebellions in the U.S.: "In a ceremony that received virtually no attention in the American media, the United States and Canada signed a military agreement Feb. 14 allowing the armed forces from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation during a domestic civil emergency, even one that does not involve a cross-border crisis. The agreement, defined as a Civil Assistance Plan, was not submitted to Congress for approval, nor did Congress pass any law or treaty specifically authorizing this military agreement to combine the operations of the armed forces of the United States and Canada in the event of a wide range of domestic civil disturbances ranging from violent storms, to health epidemics, to civil riots or terrorist attacks."
Want another “ostrich addendum”? Of the many factors contributing to the reduction of U.S. casualties in Iraq, none has been more critical than the decision to pay more than 80,000 of Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgents a quarter of a billion dollars a year not to shoot at U.S. forces. Say what? What ever happened to “Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute”? Is it even remotely possible for ostriches to picture what they’d have said if Bill Clinton had engaged in such a practice? Lavishly bribing enemies to (briefly) not shoot at us? Oh, they’ll make excuses. But would they have made the same ones for a Democrat?
And this... The FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database of people's physical characteristics, all part of an effort the bureau says to better identify criminals and terrorists.
...and... Presidential Directive No. 12, issued by the Department of Homeland Security, directed federal agencies to adopt a uniform badge that could be used by employees and contractors to gain access to government facilities. In order to issue the badges, the government demanded that the scientists employed by Caltech who work at the Jet Propulsion Lab fill out questionnaires on their personal lives and waive the privacy of their financial, medical and psychiatric records. The government also wanted permission to gather information about them by interviewing third parties. In other words, as the price of keeping their jobs, many of America's finest space scientists were being asked to give the feds virtually blanket permission to snoop and spy and collect even malicious gossip about them from God knows who.
And now rumors (passed to me by one or more of you out there) come trickling in that the US Air Force has apparently issued directives that USAF personnel are no longer to discuss, or even mention, Blackwater Security Services, the ultra-secret, ultra-politicized private army that (at lavish public expense) has lured countless serving officers and noncoms into a private mercenary force, accountable to no one except powerful elites. If this is true (help track this down) then it fits with the image of the USAF as by far the most politicized and suborned of our services. (Oh, Democrats, wake up to your duty to save the Army and National Guard. And God bless the Navy.)
Seriously... confront your ostriches and ask them “what will you do if President Hillary does this? If she does anything even remotely like any of this?
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On the other hand...
Want to feel a sense of pride for a change? See a retired military officer talking about how many of our currently-serving men and women have refused to follow the shameful example set by their national leaders, and have instead tried to live up to the proper codes of conduct, maintaining the honor of the United States Armed Services, under almost impossible circumstances.
Of course, this is just one of many, many attempts by both retired and serving members of our nation’s defense community, to help stave off a new dark age that’s been spread across the land, by those at the very top. It takes some savvy to tell just how hard these folks have worked for us. Most people cannot read the signs, but take my word for it that the recent ascent of Admiral Mike Mullen, to the office of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the strongest evidence, to date, of a counter-attack against Bushite insanity, by the U.S. Officer Corps. In some ways, it seems more significance than even the forced departure of Donald Rumsfeld.
Again, the democrats will be utter fools not to make a front-burner issue of the Republican War Against the U.S. Military... the utter demolition of our alliances, our world stature, our state of readiness, and the steady degradation of the brave men and women of the armed forces? It is a matter of paramount importance and incredible potency...
...though it can be best made if the Democratic presidential nominee has the brains to pick a VP candidate who’s credible. One who can make this attack in the face of John McCain’s war-hero image.
There are two prominent democrats who can do this! Jim Webb of Virginia and General Wesley Clark. One can hope.
95 comments:
As regards the Bush-Harper deal allowing each nation's troops to cross the border onto the other's soil: I've noticed, given the recent troubles with natural disasters in both our nations, that there's a legitimate case to be made for mutual assistance being expedited...although I'd have thought that agreements such as NORAD or NATO treaties would've been more than sufficient to that end and long in place to boot.
More as I consider it...
It may further interest you to know that the Canadian news services were not informed by the Harper government of this pact, but had to get word from the US Defence Department to learn that it even existed.
The US government was willing to tell anyone in the world who cared to ask, but not the one in Ottawa.
> "Most people cannot read the signs"
How do *you* read the signs, anyways? This stuff seems utterly opaque to me; how does one find out about it?
Best regards,
the Canadian news services were not informed by the Harper government of this pact
All part of the way Harper operates, I'm afraid. Man's a control freak, and his backroom team are the ones who advised the Ontario Tories for years. They have a record for secrecy, as well as a record for making up facts to suit themselves.
Be a bit careful about your Ostrich ammo since covert payments have been part of the repertoire for all sides for a long time. The Afghan War Plan you say Bush inherited from Clinton called for payments to warlords to join in or at least stay neutral. Trouble is if you stop paying them they stop being neutral and often become part of the enemy.
I don't know if I can bring myself to trust Wesley Clark, after the Priština International Airport incident. I know, I know, he still handled Kosovo better than Iraq, but that seems like a cheap defense to me. You can't call it 'just one mistake' when you're talking about pissing off a nuclear power, because just one mistake is all it really takes.
Zechariah, in the fog of war, you judge by overall (if messy) outcomes and by what a nation/military tries hard to be like, knowing there will be glaring failures.
The overall outcome in the Balkans was a European continent spanned by peace and law and at least some (flawed) level of democracy, for the first time in 4,000 years. America's popularity (except in Serbia and parts of Russia) soared, even in the Muslim world. Our reputations were high and costs were mostly low.
Judge such things realistically.
Tintinaus, I know that bribery can be a useful tool in such situations... and I don't mind brief uses, if it saves our soldiers while advancing genuine strategic goals. But we have to hit ostrich hypocrisy hard. And we all know how they would have howled, if Clinton had bought off a single Serbian gunman, let alone gushed half a billion $ a year into the pockets of people who BY DEFINITION are enemies, because they must be bribed into now killing our boys and girls.
Personally, I think Webb is the go-to guy, the perfect running mate for a guy like Obama...in any other year.
Clinton has run a scorched earth campaign, with her surragates making repeated claims of sexism (He pull out her chair at the debate! What a beast!) and even going so far as to scream about a leftist media bent on killing her "moderate" candidacy.
I don't know if Obama can win without a woman on the ticket. It's a nasty snarl to be in, I'm sure.
Webb would almost certainly deliver Virginia. That alone would virtually cinch the election...any other year.
'Nam vet, Marine, Reagans Secretary of the Navy, Son in Iraq, Southern Senator, Author of "Born Fighting -How the Scots-Irish Shaped America" and descended from a family which has served in every American war, married to a Vietnamese-American and SPEAKS Vietnamese, Lettered in Boxing at Annapolis, all around Mans Man, life-long hunter, healthy, handsome but not pretty, smart but not egg-heady, great speaker, feet planted solidly on the ground...I repeat myself, I know.
Silver star, two bronze stars, two purple hearts, and the Navy Cross. From 77-81 he worked pro-bono as a Veterans lawyer. He won an Emmy for his PBS documentary on Marines in Beirut.
He opposed the war from the start. He drafted the ammendment to the decleration on Iran which stated that the President still had to come back for congressional authority if he wished to attack.
It just doesn't get any better.
The question is, has Clinton managed to stir up the Ire of enough women who haven't burned their NOW cards yet to make a female VP mandatory?
I dunno. I'm sure there are internal polls.
David
As always, you set the table with way too many dishes...not sure where to offer an entree of my own!
Regards educational levels of Dem vs Rep, has anyone ever done the more realistic comparison of Dem vs Rep vs Independent? I suppose the latter could either be self described or by some objective standard such as having cast their votes no more than 70% for one party in the last few elections.
This is not a trivial question, as the Indie vote is what swings most national elections in this day and age. And I think it would be interesting.
As a conservative I am enjoying the current political process to no end, and not just to see the Clintons take a few deserved lumps.
You just gotta like the pundits being wrong so consistently. Barring darker conspiracy stuff I see the will of the people actually making things happen.
And if the election turns out in some fashion other than that I personally pull the lever for, well, I have considerable faith in checks and balances.
Cheers
Tacitus2
Spam is not protected under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. While this is a good thing in some ways... I do have to wonder if we'll have spurious arrests for "spam" of political literature and the like. It's looking more and more like the anonymity of the Net is becoming an endangered species (though I'm safe, seeing that I sign my real name to most of my posts already!).
Not that it really matters, when it comes down to it. People associate articles with the blog's owner, not the writer. I've had guest articles on my own review site where despite the fact the article is signed by someone else... and I state that the opinions expressed are not necessarily my own (or of my internet host's) the readers just attribute it to me.
Back on topic, I suspect most people (in the U.S.) wouldn't care for the loss of some 1st Amendment Rights if it resulted in the elimination of spam. And that's a sad commentary about Americans these days. A happy medium between the two extremes has yet to be found, unfortunately.
Robert A. Howard, Tangents Reviews
Taciutus & Robert, I will defend you both... and you know I'll get the axe before either of you. So consider me your canary in the coal mine.
Tacitus, I spoke much as you did, during the Reagan years. Checks & balances. Shoo be doo- don't you know it's gonna be... all right.
This is different. Our kids now owe three $trillion while Pax Americana has been systematically destroyed, leaving us friendless and without even an army, in a dangerous world.
Our institutions and freedoms are shriveling and our nation is being raped on so many levels that it borders on no longer even being a metaphor.
This is not politics. It is something else, that none of us alive have ever seen, before. Not in North America. But there IS a political implication.
Conservatism needs to contemplate how it will reuild out of this wreckage. And if America does not see conservatism HELPING to turn this tide, then the movement itself - at all levels and interpretations - will bear the brunt of blame.
Oh, I very much doubt I'd ever get the axe, at least not before the country descends into a dictatorship ruled by Emergency Powers to keep the Shrub and his cronies in office past 2008 (even then I suspect that the Canadian military would be too busy putting down armed revolts in the U.S. soil for anyone to care about a writer/reviewer who occasionally talks politics).
I must admit I'm of two minds about the whole anonymity issue. First, I've witnessed firsthand the abuses of anonymity in blogs and forums when people become total and utter jerks when they believe they can say whatever they want without anyone knowing who they are. Arguments descend into personal attacks and baseless distortions of comments and the like. I myself have noticed I occasionally backslide into less-than-polite commentary when talking online. Add in the existence of hate-forums and hate-blogs (ranging from racial or religious hatred to such inanities as raving against webcomics and fanfiction) and I could easily see the excuse to eliminate anonymity on the internet.
Imagine for a moment that a spammer is immediately identified no matter what spambot he uses... and that people could even learn where he or she lives. It could result in deaths considering how much hatred there is against spam and malware. It would be a most effective method of forcing accountability on those people who abuse the internet.
But.
The consequences of the loss of anonymity are profound. If the Swiss bank that recently tried to shut down Wikileaks had access to who sent Wikileaks those documents, then they would go after that person specifically with lawsuits or even worse. People would be reluctant for a far greater part to be whistleblowers. The transparency of governments and corporations would decrease, allowing for further abuses of our own civil and human rights.
Oh, there'd still be whistleblowers. But after a few "accidents" that couldn't be proven otherwise, and only the most extreme situations would lead to people using sites like Wikileaks and the like to stop government and corporate abuses.
In addition, the use of malware and the like allows hackers to utilize other people's e-mail addresses and computers in the dissemination of viruses, Trojans, and spam. It would not be much more difficult for the spammers to find a way to shift the electronic finger to the victims of these programs while avoiding the public's eye.
Again, a happy medium is needed. How this could be achieved is beyond me, though I've not the technical background to handle such coding in any event.
Rob H.
And on another note, I just had a curious thought on how the Republican party could wage a negative campaign against Senator Obama without actively sullying their own hands: taking Senator Clinton's own recent comments about Obama's lack of experience and the like, using quotes from her, and sound-bites from her in various commercials and then summing up with "if Barack Obama's own party has such misgivings about him, do you want to risk him in the Oval Office?"
Basically, it's using comments by Democrats against Obama to muddy the waters and then claiming a veneer of respectability since they aren't responsible for the comments. Instead, Senator Clinton (and her husband) were. If they do manage this, and if the Obama campaign doesn't find a means of efficiently shooting down these allegations, then we could see the Republicans win the White House and continue the Bush/Cheney policies for another four years.
(I don't even think that if Clinton were to refute her own words after the fact that it would help... instead, it risks destroying her own credibility at the same time as her words return to haunt Obama.)
Rob H.
I don't see the Pax Canadia option going anywhere.
How many Canadian troops would willingly accept being sent into America to put down rebellions, especially on the pretext of a 'secret' deal? (How many troops does Canada have, anyway?)
It would look very strange, and it would highlight the decrepit state of US forces.
wrt USAF personnel forbidden from commenting on Blackwater: Wikileaks is their friend.
robert said:
"If the Swiss bank that recently tried to shut down Wikileaks had access to who sent Wikileaks those documents, then they would go after that person specifically with lawsuits or even worse."
Actually, he did not release the information anonymously, and in fact the documents had been released to courts in different countries. He asserts that problem was that since the documents had been kept secret from the public, it allowed the bank to harass him and his family. Wikileaks provided the service of releasing the documents publicly in order to stop intimidation tactics.
Read the letter the whistleblower wrote at Wikileaks.
Dr. Brin, I have not yet read the Transparent Society, but it is interesting to me in this case that transparency actually protects the whistleblower, whereas partial anonymity (at least from the public) harmed him.
Tony, I agree that we will likely never see Canadian troops on American streets. And even so, Id’ prefer them over Blackwater... or the Legions of the Righteous Lord of Revelations.
No, I raise the issue simply because it shows, again, the towering hypocrisy of ostriches... and the ostrich hypnotizers, especially... who accept, blithely, from the Cheneykleps, things that would have made them howl, if Bill Clinton had done 1%.
Robert, there are vastly more bad things said by Republicans about McCain. It will happen. But it worries me less than other things... like Obama mis handling the issues of patriotism and security. See my next posting.
Steveo, this case does seem to be a perfect example of safety through transparency. What I am waiting for, though, is for someone like George Soros to realize that THIS is how less than a billion bucks could decisively and permanently transform civilization. A foundation dedicated to super-sizing Project Witness and Wikileaks -- augmenting them with my “Henchman’s Prize” -- could produce a tsunami of revelations that end all possibility of aristarchy and putting transparency in place. Whistleblower momentum is the one thing that would ensure the Open Society from its enemies.
Alas, all my billionaire chums like my sci fi... but none of them will follow me into territory like this.
David
For Robert's sake and mine, please stay vigorously healthy. I notice you do not comment on my suspicion that independents might have higher educational achievement than straight ticket voters of either stripe.
Of course, as host you have the prerogative to ignore that which you find either uninteresting or Inconvenient.
Tacitus2
Nothing deliberate. Just swamped. I have everyexpectation that indies average much higher, simply because they probably lack anywhere as big a "bottom" as either the dems or the gops. In fact, without subtracting the poor and the rednecks, you simply won't be making a fair comparison.
After making that subtraction, my gut tells me sure, indies would officially rank high among the educated, simply because such people resist being pegged. Nevertheless, the dems have a towering advantage among those with degrees beyond masters.
And official party affiliation isn't all that important this year. Heck, military officers tend to be VERY smart and highly educated... and often officially republicans. But they'll be voting for personal and national survival, this year.
What is truly disturbing about the Bush administration is how they have laid all the groundwork for a future president to stage a takeover. The EO's and laws to sweep aside any pretense of constitutional law, the creation of organizations like InfraGuard, the politicization and discrediting of the mechanisms of internal control intended to prevent abuse of authority, just every single bulletpoint you have to hit is in place.
Bush himself couldn't do it, the military rank and file and the officer corps below flag grade hates him intensely, at least outside the Air Force. But the dangers he's created will just lay there, handles for some future potential dictator to grasp.
That was really the root of my support for Obama. A former constitutional law professor seems like our best hope of fixing that before it gets enshrined.
--Dave
Obama has to declare a whole set of recisions, as soon as he enters office.
As "Mr. Transparency" I do NOT insist that he blind the FBI etc, withdrawing their new powers of sight and surveillance! That really isn't necessary, at all.
The restoration of the Republic does not require that our professional protectors be limited in what they see. It requires that WE be empowered to look back. Fiercely and thoroughly and effectively empowered. The key word is accountability.
Yes, I am repetitious. But I'll stop sounding like a broken record when it seems that the Good Guys get this one point. Otherwise, they will step into traps and quicksand, even when, with good intentions, they try to restore our rights.
I must admit, my libertarian roots are showing. I feel that these new powers should be rescinded and that the government should be trimmed back. This will free up resources for much more important programs (such as the EPA, NASA, science development, infrastructure, etc.) that will help make America a better place to live in time.
As for Blackwater... I could see a Blackwater-assisted takeover of the U.S. government, especially if either the families of the lower-level soldiers in Blackwater are used as collateral for these people doing what they're told, or the more scifi approach of implanted explosives that will go off if a signal stops transmitting (so to keep them from turning on their own higher-ups). But this is likely more fodder for scifi conspiracy stories than for real life events.
Assuming nothing keeps Senator Obama from getting into office (or Senator Clinton if she manages to get the recent Canadian gaff to stick to Obama), I think the first thing he should do is order the disbanding of Blackwater. It's not needed and indeed should be illegal. Further, it's dangerous. Of course, the truly conspiracy-minded would see this as part of a larger plan... break this group apart, spread them across America, let them build hundreds of small military cells across the nation, and then rise up in eight years or so to seize control of the U.S. for the Neocons. Which just goes to show I've a vivid imagination.
Rob H.
The nightmare I have been having lately is:
Obama wins the nomination,
Sometime in September or October he gets assassinated. His supporters get filled with rage, some riots occur and some reprisal murders of right wing pundits and elected Republicans happen. The country freaks out and the culture war gets hot and a state of emergency is declared.
The R'oil's goal is achieved, a greatly weakened and divided America with little hope of confronting the challenges of the21st century.
occams comic,
I worry about an Obama assassination at any time (before or after the election, the way the economy has been going.). The democrats need to pick a Veep that can take the hit and keep running. America has a long history of rallying around wounded parties (widows getting elected, etc.).
With a good Veep, I'm sure the Democrats will be able to pull it off.
If it happens before the nomination is finalized, then I see Senator Clinton trumpeting Senator Obama's causes (even if she doesn't believe in them and won't support them once President). I also see the Republicans accusing her of capitalizing on the situation and calling her all sorts of unpleasant things (such as "ghoul").
If it happens before the final election? I honestly don't know what would happen. Would the elections be postponed? Would Senator Clinton be offered the baton to carry on? I suspect that Obama worries about this; he asked for Secret Service protection earliest of the candidates (though technically I suppose Clinton had it all along).
I don't see a plot to pull this off however. If Obama is killed, then he becomes a martyr along the lines of JFK, Bobby Kennedy, and Lincoln. The Republicans would rather do everything in their power to destroy Obama should he get into office and "show" that he's all talk and no substance... and also point the finger at the Democrats for "ruining the country" (despite the fact the Shrub is mostly responsible for that).
The only people liable to go after Obama are sociopaths, anarchists, and terrorists. I very much doubt it would be a part of a greater plot.
Rob H.
Robert,
We may be heading into a Depression-like economy. The last time that happened, an armed coup was attempted.
Yes, the proximate cause would be crazy fanatics. But they may have backers...
If that was genuine (and historians question if it was a genuine plot or just supposition on Butler's part) then it was more to eliminate FDR's "New Deal" and anti-monopoly sentiments than something more subversive. Of course, assuming the plot was real and the businessmen managed to pull off the coup d'etat, then it's possible they'd have allowed that power to corrupt them further and turn the U.S. into a Oligarchy.
The problem is that even if there were businessmen willing to do this and even if they had the backing of mercenary groups such as Blackwater, the U.S. public itself would rise up and slaughter the people involved. Considering the number of people with guns, some of them fairly high power, in the country... and the probability of a sympathetic U.S. Military (who might be forced to accede to the demands of the new Oligarchs but who would no doubt chafe at it)... and I cannot see it lasting.
Of course, it would also tear the country apart, and we might not be able to pull the pieces back together. Having pulled down a corrupt dictatorship, would the disparate elements of this country want to just reinstate the U.S. Constitution? Or would they want to create something different? Armed conflicts between differing groups who want different things would risk ripping the country into various segments. While the U.S. military at that point could step in and declare martial law... they might see that as encouraging further violence. It's a rather interesting scenario.
It's in the businessmen's best interests to let the U.S. government stay as is. A dictatorship would not last for long in the U.S., and the struggle to destroy said dictatorship would be very bad for business. So outside of fiction and conspiracy theorists, it's not going to happen.
Rob H.
I doubt they'd have planned to do anything so obvious as install a dictatorship; more likely, they would simply take steps to undermine the democratic functioning of the government so that the real power would be vested with "the right people" -- rather like the for-show democracy we seem to have lately.
Which is not to say that I think the current situation is a result of the Butler conspiracy having actually taken place; more likely (and this is perhaps my Inner Paranoid Conspiracy Nut talking) it's the result of behind-the-scenes machinations related to 9/11.
When concocting thriller scenarios, you really have a wide variety to choose from.
For example, the Manchurian Scenario posits that the conspiracy is operated by those with a direct aim of undermining America, the West and the Enlightenment altogether. In that case, you'd use your shills to demolish the constituent parts of Pax Americana -- the military, its alliances, its world stature/popularity, its financial and technological health and its social cohesion.
(The fact that all of these have been accomplished with systematic consistency and great energy, by the Bushites does not necessarily prove the Manchurian explanation. But it suggests that is should not be dismissed, with blithe shrugs, as even most Bush opponents routinely do.)
The Manchurian gambit does have sub-categories, of course. If the plan is long-term, the backers might sacrifice some immediate harms in order to retain some power to keep on wreaking harm, after an electoral setback. If i is opportunistic and ill-planned, then they would accelerate their harm agenda, during the run-up to elections, simply getting as much hurt in as possible, heedless of the consequences to their shills.
One might peer at signs like oil prices in this light. The rise in price won't help the GOP, but it will fill pockets during the long span before a new administration can begin our process of energy recovery.
Naturally, there are other scenarios. The Great Klepto Raid differs from the one called Voracious Predators only in the degree to which a master plan lies behind the theft of hundreds of billions from the US commonwealth. Under the second of these, venality and opportunism are the drivers. Under the former, this has been a detailed and systematic program.
Both of these can overlap with Manchurian scenarios. But with some inevitable tension. For example, homegrown kleptocrats might want to undermine American systems of accountability, and perhaps see Pax Americana power and cohesion eroded. But they might balk at a blatant killing of the golden goose. GAR/FIBM rationalizations will only go so far, if they observe their homeland actually being destroyed. (One could unite these two classes of betrayal a bit closer with liberal use of blackmail.)
Note that none of these cover the Butler Conspiracy, which was (if anything) a simple case of aristocratic self-hypnosis that something had to be done, to prevent communism/socialism from taking over America. Their stupidity was clear on so many levels, e.g. not recognizing that FDR himself WAS the anodyne, preventing a socialist calamity.
Which leaves us with social/psychological patterns for treason or civil war. Certainly Deep Red America has been egged-on by cynical manipulators to the degree that a wing of that movement considers urban Americans barely human. When dems resurge into power, you can be sure that some of our terrorism will return to being homegrown, a la Timothy McVeigh -- bolstered by furloughed Blackwaterites who, even now, must be stockpiling and caching and setting up cells.
Argh!
This means there'll be pressure for them to unite as Pres and veep. Which means she'll be on the ballot either way. Which means a million extra Republican voters.
Does ANYBODY know a singing/art group that'd love to get famous on YouTube?
OK now I'm depressed. Bracing myself for what I can no longer see as anything but inevitable: President McCain, four (probably eight) more years of rightwing gloating, fearmongering, anti-Otherness, and a likely war with Iran. Oh, and a return to widespread disinterest among the populace, as they tune out the din of reality and into many more seasons of American Idol. The murmurings of cultural awakening are quelled once again.
So. Do you think Canada's government meddled in the elections with their memorandum that basically put forth the image of Obama as a double-speaking traditional politician? If Obama loses the primary, I have a strong suspicion a lot of people will blame Canada.
This doesn't look good.
Rob H.
Robert,
If Obama loses the primary now, I will blame the Democratic machine in the United States. His entire campaign is a walking advertisement for how his presidency will run.
Hillary will not be on the ticket. I believe this deep in my heart -- because there are better choices out there!
Yes, we can have a woman Governor on the ticket, someone active in recruiting sane Republicans into the Democratic Party (Sibelius, from Kansas).
Or we could have Clark, who is firmly in Clinton's debt and a wonderful strategic thinker.
The campaign should be over before Pennsylvania (movement behind the scenes from superdelegates)
Folks.
As Enlightend types you should all be suspicious of a Messiah with sketchy credentials. In fact, I could cook up a counterpoint to David's imaginative scenarios. Oh, something about a telegenic, malleable young pol put forward by a dubious Chicago political machine...Really, a close look at Obama's three electoral "victories" prior to running for Pres has a distinct odor of fish past its prime.
Which is not to say he won't be the nominee, and not even to say that he might not turn out well as Pres. Truman came out of a machine politics background and did well.
Organizations falter and sometimes fail when they forget what they are supposed to be. The Neocon perversion of the GOP is an odiferous example. The DFL insists on an aggressively egalitarian selection process. So be it. It will all work out in the end.
btw, David, I have decided that we disagree on some matters because of our relative focus. You as a Scifi writer are focused on future events, which are infinitely varied. My interest is history, which is hardly cast in stone in the eyes of later interpreters, but decidedly has a different range of possibilities.
Still enjoying the visible workings of Democracy. Still worrying a little about the invisible ones.
Tacitus2
So perhaps the best bet for Senator Obama to reinvigorate his campaign (which must be smarting over this loss, though they seem to have expected it near the end) is for Obama to select a running mate... and that being a female governor that will leech away the female vote from Senator Clinton? The good news is that via delegates and popular vote, Obama is still winning.
If Clinton were to get in, it would give a strong smell of the Bush Presidency in 2000, which despite losing the popular vote managed to pull off an electoral victory. If Clinton pulls that off, then there will be a lot of very angry voters who will vote against Clinton. And the truly sad thing is, Clinton is blind to the damage she's causing to the Democratic party. She is determined to win no matter what the cost. Her attempts to smear Obama's name (and I count her constant pushing of the Rezko real estate deal as one such example, along with waving the Canada memo and all-but-saying "this is the dirt I've been looking for!") alienated the Obama voters from her.
Think of it. If she'd been strategic she would have made sure Senator McCain got ahold of the memo. McCain would have trumpeted the memo without any reservations. Thus McCain would have been the bad guy, and she would have smelled less like fertilizer. Of course, having thought of that scenario, I seriously want to get drunk now. I don't like to see myself in that devious frame of mind.
However, I don't see Clinton out before Pennsylvania. I see her dragging the party through the muck for the next three months, screaming and kicking and insisting she deserves this. Well, not screaming and kicking precisely... but still very insistent and probably pulling more behind-the-scenes tricks to try and force Obama out.
Gods, I detest her and her husband. *sigh* Yes, it's a part of the democratic process and we shouldn't slight any part of it, but there is something about her that just gets under the skin and makes me want to turn my back on politics. I don't care what Obama's experience is. I see him as a catalyst for change. He will bring a new generation of politicians into the fold, people inspired by him. Clinton? Is just more of the same old same old that we've been struggling against for the past thirty years.
Rob H.
Clinton built his organization from the bottom up. DC pols hated Clinton -- and thought Gore would be a better president.
That said, don't hate Clinton... she's not in the race now for herself, but for Carville and all the other odious folks that have served the Clintons loyally.
Today's news belongs to Clinton, it appears. Wait until Tomorrow, and you'll see what Obama has to bring to the table (did I hear something about fifty superdelegates?).
Dr. Brin: An Obama/Clinton ticket is detrimental for Obama's chances to get elected president. However, the converse (a Clinton/Obama ticket) is perhaps essential for her chances to get in. Without Obama and the interest he brings out in voters (and his money-making machine), Clinton has little chance of defeating McCain (who has managed to distance himself from the use of negative campaigning, something Clinton no longer can claim). I think she knows that.
The Democratic party is best served with her as a Senator as the Republicans get her seat should she win the Primary. What's more, if she were to lose the general election (which seems quite possible), then it also hands the White House to the Republicans... giving them significantly more power in the Senate and control of the Executive branch. This is a bad scenario for the needed changes to the Republican party.
I truly hope the Democratic higher-ups get together with Clinton and explain the facts to her. She won't win. It is far better for the Democratic Party for her to bow out now, rather than drag this campaign on. I just doubt she'll listen.
Rob H.
Folks, do not despair. Wyoming and MIssissippi will help. The superdelegates will notice something. Most of HRC’s wins were in (1) states the dems take for granted or (2) states where latino votes surged her past the post (but that are largely hopeless in the general election. I mean, Texas?) Obama has a big chance of winning in many traditionally GOP states.
Actually, while here negative stuff has irritated me, in fact, Obama and his peoplre needed to show they could take some rough stuff! I don’t really mind making him prove he can take some punches. What I mind is the growing talk of a combined ticket! Take this:
”Clinton, in particular, projected confidence on the day after her candidacy-saving victories, suggesting she might want Obama as her vice presidential running mate. "That may be where this is headed, but of course we have to decide who is on the top of ticket. I think the people of Ohio very clearly said that it should be me," she said on CBS.”
Ooog. Did you read that closely? My wife said “Hillary would never take the #2 spot.” But that passage above suggests strongly she would! Oh, lordy....
And yet, guys, don’t over-react! She ain’t Satan. Note dennis: I still think Hillary can beat McCain. But what’s depressing is that she can only do so narrowly. The million extra GOP voters that she pulls to the polls will protect hundreds of troglodyte congressfolk, state assemblymen and so on. And She would enter office dooming us to eight more years of total culture war. (Hear Limbaugh and Fox clapping with glee.) Do not get me wrong! I will fight like hell for her. Well, not for her, but for a Democrat who will replace 5,000 corrupt shills with 5,000 skilled professionals, unleashing the civil servants and other officers to do their jobs. But...
I am disappointed in many feminists who say this is “the one chance to see a woman president in my lifetime.” Hell! I am far more of a feminist than that! We Californians have had two self-made senators for many years. Yipes, ladies. Have some perspective and faith.
tacitus: bring the smally fish out, now. Please, we had “he smells fishy” from you guys, about the Clintons, for fifteen years! And not a single thing was ever shown to be true. Not one. That self-hypnosis-delusional stuff has no credibility. But if you know something, spill it now.
(I do share your sub-flesh tremors, though, about a guy we know so little about. My thriller-plot side can conjure a millions worrisome conjectures. But please, Unlike the Bush/Manchurian plot, these fantasy scenarios have NO correlation with known reality... yet. What we DO have is a guy who is the least beholden to anybody since Teddy Roosevelt.)
Tacitus, interesting perspective re our foci. Yes, I am future-oriented. But all SF authors are history junkies and my only SAT 800 was in EuroHistory. I may be a physicist, but history is where I am an infuriating, konw-it-all gourmand. It is the manure out of which our tree grows.
I remember talking to a gaming store owner some fifteen years ago, asking him what fiction he read. He replied he didn't read fiction, because he found history to be far more fascinating. The more I've read into history, the more I see storyline after storyline that was at times lifted whole-scale from the history books and presented as science fiction or science fantasy. Truly, history is more varied and imaginative than fiction... the problem lies with the presentation.
Back to politics for one moment: I'll amend what I said about a Obama/Clinton ticket. While Clinton would draw some significant negative baggage with her to the campaign, it would be not as severe as if she were the presidential candidate. If she were to agree to this sooner rather than later and dropped out of the running within the next week or two in exchange for being Obama's running mate, it would significantly lessen the damage that an Obama/Clinton ticket offers should she fight all the way 'til the very end. Heck, they could even seat Florida and Michigan in that case, with her agreement that they'll toss their votes in for Obama.
The cynic in me sees it as the best chance to stop the damage that will come with Obama launching salvos back at Clinton (with her tossing her hands up in the air and saying she's a victim, oh woe is her!) and he himself being portrayed as a negative campaigner. What's more, Clinton herself could use her ire against McCain while Obama takes the high road.
You know, I really dislike this dark cynical side of myself at times. Especially as it tries to relabel itself as a "realist" instead.
Rob H.
McCain has recently uncovered his own disdain for the scientific process.
Incidence of autism is on the rise. The various causes for this are being vigorously debated (the current leader is a change in diagnostic criteria, but this could change at any moment). The first cause proposed, however, was the use of thimerosal, a mercury derivative, as a stabilizer in vaccines.
Subsequent long-term studies carried out by the US, the UK, the Netherlands, the CDC, and the WHO, have repeatedly shown absolutely no correlation between thimerosal and autism. In point of fact, the Netherlands removed thimerosal from virtually all vaccines in 1997 (the state of California followed suit in 2001); autism rates continued to rise, keeping pace with rising rates in the rest of the world.
A few days ago, speaking in Texas, McCain said that there was "strong evidence" that linked thimerosal and autism. Apparently, he had not done even the most cursory review of the available studies before announcing this conclusion.
I don't know what I will do, should we be faced with another four years of deliberate, willful ignorance...
Look, I am tired of being a jinx. I felt so sure Kerry would save us in 04... despite being pissed off that he chose the useless Edwards.
Clearly Hillary is positioning herself to be the one offering a joint candidacy. Obama as her veep would help her. But she neglects to note that SHE does not help Obama... except by donating her organization, which she should do anyway, veep or not.
Promise her Secretary of State. (BTW, isn't Eliot Spitzer governor of New York? He'd appoint a democrat.... and then accept the post of US Attorney General. Oh, please. Oh, how he'd go get em...)
Wyoming & Mississippi. Who'd a thunk they'd matter so much.
Even Texas is hopping mad:
To quote Kos, "With 99% of the votes in, it looks as though the number of votes in the Texas Democratic primary will match-or slightly exceed-John Kerry's Texas vote total for the 2004 general election."
Wowsa. And judging from the reports up on StreetProphets, most Texans are having a hard time deciding between Hillary and Obama (and like 'em both).
As the day wears on, is declaration of Clinton victory in Texas premature? Sure she won the primary by a 51-48 margin (65-61 delegates), but the caucus results are only 39% reported, and Obama has a substantial lead there (56-44). At least, according to CNN's website at 4pm EST. If that margin holds up, and if I haven't fat-fingered my calculator, that gives him an 8 delegate lead in the caucus and a 4 delegate lead for the state. He could yet pull out a Texas win.
DB, while she's no Satan, she's no Gabriel. I agree with your analysis of what a narrow Clinton win would bring, I just don't see that she can pull it off - the trogs are too passionately against her and as we've observed repeatedly over the last 14 years, highly motivated and active.
Yes, but the trogs are astronomically unpopular with a big majority of Americans. The diff is that a landslide could force millions of them to re-examine. But a slim HRC victory would only reinforce their post-CivilWar irredentism and lay seeds for McVeigh-style insurrection.
And yes, winning in states like Texas IS THE DREAM. It is the real victory condition. In a true landslide, the Texas legislature could change hands. The dems would go into a frenzy of re-gerrymandering...
...and thus on that issue, they'd become the Evil Empire and suddenly the GOP would be the party of the people! What a swerve! (on just one issue.) And I don't mind the irony one bit. We, the people, would get a chance to redress a horrid class-crime.
The ironic thing would be if the Dems see gerrymandering as a big evil and instead of using it for their own end... work to fairly partition the states so that each district has an actual chance of going either way, thus allowing for more representational democracy. Of course, once the Repubs get back in charge they'll undo that good work... but it would make the Repubs look bad in that case.
Sorry, I'm a fiction writer. I'm used to writing about fantasies. ;)
Rob H.
Glad to oblige.
If I err, perhaps posters from IL can comment. (I am from next door WI.)
But as I understand it, Obama's IL State Sen. primary was effectively decided when defects were discovered in the petitions of all of his opponents. And in a safe DFL district, that's the ball game.
Perhaps you recall that in his US Senate run both his primary opponent and subsequent GOP opponent had messy divorce files unsealed, presumably by judges not unaware of the political impact. The suggestions that the Obama campaign was involved are all "off the record".
Having said all that I would observe that:
A: There is no illegality in any of this. I have not alleged any.
B. this is about par for the course in Illinois politics, and..
C. anybody who treated Seven of Nine so shoddily absolutely deserved political obliteration. And probably Assimilation as well!
I actually have a sincere admiration for Obama as a person(don't know enough yet about his policies). But he is a product of Chicago politics not immaculate conception.
Tacitus2
Tacitus: It doesn't matter.
If he can win the presidency via a "clean" campaign, that's all that matters.
Because that means candidates are going to imitate him in the future...
... and that's a win for all of us.
Micheal
No argument. This appears to be his first campaign in which he has faced significant opposition. And he is running it both cleanly and effectively. His past is worth noting, but I do not hold it against him.
I outline it only at the prompting of Our Host.
Tacitus2
"The more I've read into history, the more I see storyline after storyline that was at times lifted whole-scale from the history books and presented as science fiction or science fantasy."
Does this mean that those sf writers who *do* learn the lessons of history are doomed to re-write them?
Tacitus, considering the perspectives of history and future you refer to, you and David might appreciate a brief riff from Pink Floyd:
they flutter behind you your possible pasts
some brighteyed and crazy some frightened and lost
a warning to anyone still in command
of their possible future to take care
...as I'm sure you do.
wrt McCain and mudslinging. I don't think he has needed to yet. He has never been seriously threatened by Huckabee. So, see how he goes when he is finally faced with the dem victor. (Hopefully not a pyrrhic victor! Competition works at selecting the most fit. I know it does! But why does it have to be so inefficient?)
Actually, Tacitus, those stories show a rough but legal willingness to use transparency as a weapon. I'll not quibble... for now.
I do find his general lack of past traumas and defeats slightly troubling, in which case his recent battle with HRC may actually be confidence-building for all of us.
But the flip side of that is something astonishing. A list of political IOUs that is probably the shortest of any presidential candidate in a century. Perhaps ever.
Yes, the dark imagination reminds us that all it takes is ONE IOU to be a calamity, if it is big enough and wrong enough. e.g. the blackmail/manchurian scenario. But really, if the masters are THAT smart... to be able to follow Bush-Cheney with something so deeply-secret-clever-insidious... well, then they are already Orson Scott Card demigods. We might as well give it up.
I'll sleep with one eye cracked open just a slit. But the rest of me will be filled with hope.
Well, Obama carried the TX caucus, keeping him at about a 100 delegate lead (NY Times count).
I'm happy to see he took Vermont too, although not surprised. By the way, if you ever want to see direct democracy in the U.S., go to a VT town meeting - basically everybody yells at each other until they reach a consensus, it's a beautiful thing.
If we tried that here in NJ, people'd get shot.
New England town meetings had a huge impact on western political philosophy. When de Tocqueville saw tradesmen and blacksmiths and farmers wrangling, he had an epiphany and adored it. When the romantic movement saw the same thing, they were appalled and ended their brief love affair with democracy, plunging back into elitism and hatred of rationality.
Alas, HRC's supporters will cry foul over the Tx Caucuses. Don't forget, it means she's winning the "popular vote". They'll raise that...
...even tho his caucus victories show the passionate movement he has lit up. The people who will go after ostriches all summer long. Again, the diff tween squeaking a victory in a long culture war and ENDING it with a tsunami.
Go here. And then read this, for some perspectives on the job of the superdelegates and an excellent distillation, Platonic-dialogue style, of the Obama/Clinton arguments post March-4.
--
I think Clinton's disdain for the caucus process is an emergent, not ideological: She isn't winning at caucus, therefore it is a bad way to nominate. In spite of the fact that nobody has really contested the idea for at least my entire lifetime.
Yes, I'm accusing her of fallacy. I cannot yet detect much of that in Obama's position about the contest which appears much more honest.
And I detect far less insanity on the Republican side with McCain than David alleges. For one thing he's shown he can have an open mind about things.
All this doom and gloom. From the math I've seen, Obama has the nomination locked up, and according to the Huffington Post, Obama already has 50 superdelegates as well as a sizable lead in pledged delegates. I haven't verified the math in detail, but right now it looks like it's game over for Hillary.
Amazing that someone as savvy as Dr. Brin could be so out of touch with the zeitgeist right now. This election cycle shows that national security has become completely unimportant as an issue. Giulinai's total failure proved that. Americans don't give a damn about national security anymore. They're seen through that. They're tired of the fearmongering.
The big issues in this election cycle are the economy, bringing back the rule of law and the constitution, and the other 2 issues Dr. brin hit on, removing ourselves from the dark ages with a return to a respect for science and rationality, and resotring accountability. Dr. Brin calls the latter "the war against professionals," which, while technically accurate, just doesn't have a rally-round-the-flag ring to it. I'd prefer to call it "the war against reality and the rule of law." It's the same thing Stalin did when the 1933 annual census showed a drop in the population of the USSR because of the mass murder of the kulaks and the collapse of Soviet agriculture under Trofim Lysenko -- Stalin disbanded the census bureau. Testing claims against reality and forcing people to face up to the consequences of their actions are crucial.
My sense is that the American people are sick of hatemongering, tired of fear, tired of lawlessness at the highest levels, sick of incompetence and crony c(r)apitalism, sick of lies and divisiveness and religious fanaticism. When McCain futilely tries to play the national security card, my guess is that the American people will give the same reaction they did to Giulinai.
The big problem with our grotesquely outsized military right now is twofold: [1] "capabilities create intentions," as the U.S. Army War College likes to point out. Spending more on the American military than all other countries in the world do on arms combined creates an enormous temptation to use that great big shiny toy to do insanely stupid and destructive things. In fact, that's clearly what happened with Iraq. The obscenely oversized U.S. military functioned like a great big shiny gasoline can and a book of matches with WARNING: DO NOT TOUCH placed in front of a six-year-old. Anybody knows what's going to happen under those circumstances.
[2] But the second problem with our grotesquely bloated U.S. military is even more sinister. When you constantly escalate the military budget, more and more of America's society and industry becomes devoted to the military...and this has the effect of militarizing America, down to the lowest levels. As the militarization trickles down, the constitution goes away. The police become militarized and gradually they no longer need to follow the fourth amendement (no-knock warrants, phoney "confidential informants" used as an excuse) and the sixth amendment (people's property can now be arrested, and since property isn't a person, no trial is required to confiscate people's life savings) and the eighth amendement (cruel and unusual punishment is now standard operating procedure, with police tasering seventh-graders and having their insanely outrageous lawlenessness sanctified as "appropriate behavior"). Unless we start downsizing the U.S. military, there won't be a constitution left, because it's militarizing society.
Right now the biggest threat to the national security of America is the out-of-control army of muggers with badges who can taser, strip naked and assault, rape, torture, and callously sadistically and gleefully murder any innocent child or woman or unarmed man anywhere, with no consequences, for no reason. I'm now a lot more afraid of TSA goons or DHS goons or the muggers wearing police uniforms than I am of any islamic terrorists.
Sorry, Zorgon, but you are completely and diametrically, 100% wrong in this case.
Under Bill Clinton we had the same size military. It did not beg to be used. The Officer Corps despised being "used" in anything but extremely careful, prudent and adult ways. As they despise the Iraq War.
Your caricature of these men and women show that you simply do not know any of them. You attribute to them motives and goals opposite to those they live by, and thus make the Bushites' main victims into enemies... at the very time when we need to end this silly, Vietnam era leftover split between the left and those who serve.
The VAST increase in military spending has not gone to weapons makers (much) but to "service contractors" who gorge on hundreds of billions while "providing" for the troops and "rebuilding" Iraq. The classic Military-Industrial complex was just as happy building advanced systems during peace as they are doing it during war.. And the military itself was MUCH happier.
And dig it, the world was vastly safer during Clinton. And the reputation of a totally unbeatable US military was, indeed, part of it. The unipolar world of the nineties was better. It was.
Not as good as the era to come, when sanity prevails and militaries diminish and wither out of sheer atrophy of non-use! But a unilaterally weak America is NOT how you'll get there.
Anyway, I want Obama to pick a "strength" veep (who is great in other ways too) because this must be a tsunami. And a guy like Webb will scotch McCain's war cries with simple images of a more mature style of strength.
Howard Dean weighs in on Michigan and Florida
"...out of respect for the presidential campaigns and the states that did not violate party rules, we are not going to change the rules in the middle of the game."
Which basically torpedoes Clinton's chances of finagling a deal to win the nomination. I honestly have to wonder what she thinks she can prove by continuing her efforts. Is she trying to get Obama to sign her on as VP? Or does she think that she can win the election if she gets the primary through a backroom deal?
I honestly don't know what to think at this point. It's doubtful she can win back the popular vote, and the consequences of pulling a Shrub are horrific. Why then not back out now and save face? Does she not want to let down her supporters? Maybe she feels she owes it to them, even though they're not enough on their own to give her the nomination?
Rob H.
The main reason I see McCain as near inevitable is that this week's Clinton victories have given her a blood-taste for negative campaigning. I expect she'll now put all her eggs in that basket, and in so doing drag Obama into the pit with her and derail his high-road express. Meanwhile, McCain can sit back, watch the fireworks, and count the money he doesn't have to spend yet.
On a different tangent, I'd like to throw this notion out there to see how it bounces:
Obama/Gore.
Whatever attack Hillary uses today will lose its shock value before November. Could a strongly negative campaign against Obama now actually be beneficial to him if he wins the nomination?
You were mentioned..
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2008/03/securitymatters_0306
And the conspiracy-minded - er, I mean overactively imaginative part of myself now ponders if this is part of Clinton's strategy. Air as much of Obama's history as she can as early as she can so that it'll be old cake and uninteresting to the voters when McCain drags it out in the fall.
Meanwhile, Europe seems to consider Obama to be the best overall candidate among the U.S. choices (though McCain is also considered a decent choice by them), embodying the greatest chance of significant change from the Shrub Presidency.
Rob H.
As distasteful as it is to debunk David's flagrantly false faux-factoids and wanton distortions on the subject of military spending and the allegedly "peaceful" 90s, refusing to do would run the risk of appearing to agree with his systematic misstatement of the facts.
Brin claim #1: Under Bill Clinton we had the same size military.
Factually False.
From the New York Times, 4 February 2008:
"The Pentagon’s proposed budget, for instance, is $515.4 billion