Posts by Jeff Fecke

Jeff Fecke is a regular blogger for Shakesville.

Post-Pennsylvania Analysis
Posted by Jeff Fecke, Shakesville on April 23, 2008 at 9:39 AM.

So we're finally, mercifully, thankfully past Pennsylvania. Hill's the big winner, Barry's the big loser, Johnny Mac is still angry. But where do the candidates fall if one were to, say, rank them in order of power based on completely arbitrary criteria? Good question!
1. Sen. Barack Obama (Last Rank: 1) ⇓

The fundamentals of the race remain favorable to Obama. He's got the lead in delegates, and a 200,000 popular vote margin even with Florida factored in.* Yes, that's about 200,000 fewer popular votes than he led by yesterday, but Pennsylvania was the last chance for Clinton to significantly narrow the gap; Obama will likely gain a good chunk of that vote back in North Carolina.

Obama is still the front-runner. But.

But Obama hasn't been able to close the deal. He hasn't been able to effectively end the race. He didn't have to win Pennsylvania to do so -- even a narrow loss would have made it tough for Clinton to go on. But if he didn't get blown out in Pennsylvania, it was close -- and that has exposed a possible weakness.

Obama is now in the precarious position of needing to win Indiana to quell doubts about his campaign. If he loses there, especially if he loses big, it will feed into the Clinton camp's argument that he can't win white, working-class Democrats, and therefore can't win in November. Now, I find that argument somewhat unpersuasive, for the same reason I'd find an argument that Hillary Clinton can't win among African-American voters in November unpersuasive.

But the argument isn't going to be met with as much skepticism today as it was last week, and if Clinton can win in Indiana, and then go on to win West Virginia and Kentucky (as she should)...well, it's going to give that argument more and more credence. Enough to topple Obama? I doubt it -- as I said, the fundamentals are in his favor. But the longer this goes on, the more people are going to question whether he can actually win, and the more compelling Clinton's argument becomes. If Obama wins Indiana, I suspect the momentum of the argument will stall, and Obama will get the nomination. But if he loses...well, he'll still be the favorite. But he won't be inevitable.

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Maddow Schools Scarborough on McCain [VIDEO]
Posted by Jeff Fecke, Shakesville on April 3, 2008 at 6:48 AM.

Rachel Maddow completely owns Joe Scarborough. That's, you know, pretty much Platonic truth, but this is a thing of beauty. Give this woman her own show already, MSNBC. Check out the video to your right for more.

Bill Kristol Becomes the Latest White Bigot to Lecture Us on Race
Posted by Jeff Fecke, Shakesville on March 25, 2008 at 5:16 AM.

Bill Kristol, as usual, is wrong about something.

What he's wrong about today is race in America. Now, you, being a sentient human with eyes and/or ears that function to bring information to your brain, may have thought that racism was still a problem in our country. Au contraire! Bill Kristol, you see, thinks that racism isn't a problem at all. At least not one we should talk about:

Racial progress has in fact continued in America. A new national conversation about race isn't necessary to end what Obama calls the "racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years" -- because we're not stuck in such a stalemate. In fact, as Obama himself suggests in the same speech, younger Americans aren't stalemated. They come far closer than their grandparents and parents to routinely obeying Martin Luther King's injunction to judge one another by the content of our character, not the color of our skin.

Over the last several decades, we've done pretty well in overcoming racial barriers and prejudice. Problems remain. But we won't make progress if we now have to endure a din of race talk that will do more to divide us than to unite us, and more to confuse than to clarify.

Never has a quote by a socialist equalitarian been so often misused by plutocraits. Kristol wants to pat everyone on the back for the fact that I am not as overtly racist as my grandparents. Well, I should hope that my generation is more tolerant than a generation of people who were adults during Jim Crow, and didn't move immediately to stop it. Yay us.

But to argue that racism doesn't need to be discussed, despite the fact that "problems remain" -- that's unusually wrong, even for Kristol.

It's easy for Kristol to choose to avoid a discussion of race. How, after all, is Kristol affected by racism? It's not a problem for him! And it can only become a problem if we actually talk about things. Then we might have to hear that racism is a problem for people who are not, in fact, rich and white.

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Obama Condemns His Pastor's Controversial Remarks, Right Wing Bloggers Unconvinced
Posted by Jeff Fecke, Shakesville on March 15, 2008 at 7:17 AM.

In a characteristically eloquent post on HuffPo, Barack Obama blasts Rev. Jeremiah Wright:

I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.

I pause only to note that I hope this means we won't be hearing any more "periodically down" nonsense from you, Barack. At any rate, Obama continues on to explain how he could remain in a church with a minister who sometimes says outlandish things:

As I have written about in my books, I first joined Trinity United Church of Christ nearly twenty years ago. I knew Rev. Wright as someone who served this nation with honor as a United States Marine, as a respected biblical scholar, and as someone who taught or lectured at seminaries across the country, from Union Theological Seminary to the University of Chicago. He also led a diverse congregation that was and still is a pillar of the South Side and the entire city of Chicago. It's a congregation that does not merely preach social justice but acts it out each day, through ministries ranging from housing the homeless to reaching out to those with HIV/AIDS.

Most importantly, Rev. Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life. In other words, he has never been my political advisor; he's been my pastor. And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.

Which makes some sense. Look, I know many of the readers of this blog have wandered from the religious paths we once followed. But having belonged to churches over the years, I can tell you that I didn't always agree with what my minister was saying; still don't, always. Nobody's said anything as outlandish as Wright's anti-Hillary sermon, but I've definitely heard people say things I disagree with, and say them from the pulpit. And criminy, I'm a Unitarian.

I have a good friend who's Catholic, as is his wife. They're also in favor of birth control, pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-women's equality. So why do they remain in the church? Well, it's where they feel most connected spiritually. That doesn't mean there aren't things they disagree with in their church, nor that they weren't disappointed by the selection of the current pope. But they still feel grounded in that church.

So do I tell my friend that he's horrible for staying in a church that sometimes preaches things at odds with what he believes? No, I don't, because I'm quite fine with him finding and staying in a church he feels connected to. And I feel the same way toward my friends who are atheists and agnostics and Lutherans and Methodists...all of us find things we disagree with in our chosen faith traditions, but that doesn't mean we must chuck them all.

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Fox News Demotes Heath Ledger Bashing Bigot John Gibson
Posted by Jeff Fecke, Shakesville on March 14, 2008 at 6:18 AM.

Don't complain that sounds barbaric. We're fighting barbaric:

Fox News Channel, tinkering for the first time in eight years with its popular early evening lineup, is replacing its 5 p.m. news broadcast, “The Big Story,” with an election-theme program for the foreseeable future. The network confirmed this week that “America’s Election HQ,” a program that displaced “The Big Story” temporarily last month, would continue indefinitely. The program’s hosts, Bill Hemmer and Megyn Kelly, also anchor the network’s mid-morning newscast and are seen as rising stars on the channel. The change was first reported by the blog TVNewser.com. John Gibson, the longtime host of “The Big Story,” will continue to have a role on television, the network said, although it appears that his future for now lies mostly on radio.

As Crooks and Liars helpfully reminds us:

Gibby insulted actor Heath Ledger shortly after his death, accused outed CIA operative, Valerie Plame of being part of an anti-Bush cabal within the CIA, introduced the world to the dreaded Oogah Boogah Fever, and finally, who could forget the xenophobic “make more white babies” rant.

All true! But don't forget my favorite! John Gibson posted this beauty right after British police shot a man in a tube station, shortly after the 2005 bombings there:

Meantime, got to admire the cojones of those Brit cops to go after him like that. All of this trumps any of my other complaints that the Brits weren't making the right noises about fighting terror. They like to go about things a bit more quietly than us. Not my style, but okay, fine — as long as they get the five in the noggin of the right bomber boy. They do that and I'm fine.

So for the moment, alls well. Just catch the four bombers. Five in the noggin is fine. Don't complain that sounds barbaric. We're fighting barbaric.

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What's John Edwards Up to These Days?
Posted by Jeff Fecke, Shakesville on February 29, 2008 at 2:15 PM.

After he left the presidential race, one could have forgiven John Edwards if he just wanted to go back home to enjoy a period of semi-retirement. Spend time with his wife and kids, kick back, relax after running for president for pretty much seven years straight.

Fortunately for the rest of us, that's not what John Edwards is doing:

A coalition announced Monday and called Iraq Campaign 2008 seeks to tie anxiety over the faltering economy to anxiety over the duration of the war. Part of its agenda is targeting what it calls "obstructionist" members of Congress--Democrats as well as Republicans--that don't seek a rapid withdrawal from Iraq. The campaign has an attention-getting front-man: former presidential candidate John Edwards. The effort, however, is not without problems--not least of which is the conundrum of whether antiwar activism turns out to be counterproductive to ending a war.

"People don't understand why we're spending $500 billion and counting in Iraq," Edwards said in a Monday conference call, "when at the same time we've got 40-plus million Americans with no health care coverage, 37 million-plus living in poverty. It doesn't make sense to them."

The effort is the brainchild of a group of liberal organizations: MoveOn.org, the Service Employees International Union, the VoteVets progressive veterans network, USAction and the Center for American Progress.

Good for him. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: John Edwards is a talented man, and he deserves a place in whatever Democratic administration comes next. In the meantime, it's nice to see him working to raise awareness of the fact that our economic woes are in no small part tied to the bottomless pit of blood and treasure that we continue to feed.

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Nasty Clinton-Obama Fight Descends to Plagiarism Claims
Posted by Jeff Fecke, Shakesville on February 18, 2008 at 2:10 PM.

The Clinton campaign has a new line of attack on Barack Obama: he's a plagiarist. And it's hard to argue with the video to your right.

Pretty damning, right? Clearly, the Clinton camp has an open-and-shut case.

Well, except for one thing.

The person being plagiarized here is Deval Patrick, now the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Patrick is a strong backer of Obama, and...well, I'm sure you can see where this is heading:

In a telephone interview on Sunday, Mr. Patrick said that he and Mr. Obama first talked about the attacks from their respective rivals last summer, when Mrs. Clinton was raising questions about Mr. Obama's experience, and that they discussed them again last week.

Both men had anticipated that Mr. Obama's rhetorical strength would provide a point of criticism. Mr. Patrick said he told Mr. Obama that he should respond to the criticism, and he shared language from his campaign with Mr. Obama's speechwriters.

Mr. Patrick said he did not believe Mr. Obama should give him credit.

"Who knows who I am? The point is more important than whose argument it is," said Mr. Patrick, who telephoned The New York Times at the request of the Obama campaign. "It's a transcendent argument."

Now, plagiarism is a serious charge, and it's based on failing to attribute words properly. Obama did not, in his speech, say "As Deval Patrick said...", but then again, Deval Patrick himself told Obama to use the line, and not to worry about the credit.

That's not plagiarism. That's speechwriting.

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WGA Declares "Huge Victory" With New Contract
Posted by Jeff Fecke, Shakesville on February 9, 2008 at 1:41 PM.

BREAKING: The strike is now officially over after the WGA voted to approve the agreement reached with the studios.

****

UPDATE: SUNDAY 12:30 PM: At the WGA's news conference today, union leaders declared the new contract is "a huge victory for us". Trumpeted WGAW President Patric Verrone, "This is the first time we actually got a better deal in a new media than previously." Verrone credited News Corp. No. 2 Peter Chernin and Disney chief Bob Iger, and also CBS boss Les Moonves, with "being instrumental in making this deal happen" after the WGA spent 3 months "getting nowhere" with the AMPTP negotiators and lawyers. WGA negotiating committee chief John Bowman added that, "What happened to the Golden Globes was instrumental in getting the CEOs to this table. It was a huge symbol." Bowman said it was "imperative" that the WGA "get in on the ground floor of New Media. Henceforth, we're in from the start. It's 2% of distributor's gross. They can't have a business model without taking that into account."

****

WGA and studios reach a tentative agreement to end the writers' strike:

When they arrived, the strike captains were given a three-page memo describing the details and were encouraged to make public comments about the tentative contract. In addition to discussing the terms, the guild leaders also explained why they are considering lifting the strike as early as Monday--before a vote to ratify the contract has been taken.

"They want to take the temperature of the membership and feel that if the overall membership feels it's a good deal, they'll call off the strike," strike captain Sivert Glarum, an executive producer of CBS' "Rules of Engagement," said today. "And if not, they won't call off the strike. I think that to be expedient they're trying to get everyone back to work and save the TV season because it might be in the best interest of everyone if we all go back to work before the vote is taken."

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Are Men Smarter Than Women? They Sure Seem to Think So
Posted by Jeff Fecke, Shakesville on January 28, 2008 at 12:03 PM.

Here's some news that will stun none of you:

Are men smarter than women? No. But they sure think they are. An analysis of some 30 studies by British researcher Adrian Furnham, a professor of psychology at University College London, shows that men and women are fairly equal overall in terms of IQ. But women, it seems, underestimate their own candlepower (and that of women in general), while men overestimate theirs.

Furnham studies perceived intelligence, and it unsurprisingly shows men overestimate their smarts and underestimate the smarts of women, and women do too. Furnham says, "Men are more confident about their IQ. These studies show that on average, women underestimate their IQ scores by about five points while men overestimate their own IQs. Since these studies were international in scope, the results were essentially the same whether women were from Argentina, America, Britain, Japan or Zimbabwe."

Does this surprise anyone? It shouldn't. Women in most societies spend their lives being told that they are simply not as capable as men, while men spend their lives being told that they are leaders and doers. Of course people think men are smarter than women. It's the definition of prejudice -- people buy into the notion that men are superior at everything except cleaning and taking care of the home and the kids. (Even that notion is meant not to buoy women, but to demean the very difficult and important job of cleaning and taking care of the home and the kids.) This feeds into our warped concepts of gender norms, and causes women and men alike to devalue the ability of women to compete in the workforce. Another big win for the patriarchy.

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Did Huckabee Have His Stomach Stapled?
Posted by Jeff Fecke, Shakesville on December 19, 2007 at 6:04 PM.

In 2005, I came very close to undergoing gastric bypass surgery.

I was enrolled in a bariatric program through a local clinic and had completed my major pre-operative screening. Those tests, however, showed that I was suffering from major depression; while it wasn't disqualifying (I could have had a psychologist sign off on my surgery-worthiness), it stopped me dead in my tracks. I decided to put the process on hold and pursue psychotherapy. After finding a good therapist and finally finding the right selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, I was no longer interested in pursuing bariatric surgery. Don't get me wrong -- I still was, and am, fat. But I didn't think that was the worst thing in the world anymore. And as time went on, I grew more accepting of me -- and realized that I had been insouciant about gastric bypass in no small part because, being depressed, it represented a chance for an "accidental suicide," if you will. It wasn't that I wanted to die, just that, well, I sure could, and that didn't bother me much. Once I was no longer depressed, I no longer thought that death was a minor concern. I'm not afraid of dying, but I'm in no hurry to do so, and I'm certainly not going to undergo major abdominal surgery so I can be thin and unhealthy.

I mention this because, as has been well-documented, fat people aren't exactly beloved these days. Take Mike Huckabee. There's no way he'd even be in this race if he was still the 300-pound governor. A fat president? Horrors! And so, given that he wanted to be president, he had to lose the 110 pounds that he lost. It's understandable.

But what isn't understandable is lying about how he did it. And I think that's exactly what he's doing.

Mike Huckabee claims to have lost his weight via good old-fashioned diet and exercise. And I suppose it's not impossible that he did. But folks, I've lost 50 pounds more times than I can remember, and I can tell you that it's incredibly hard work, and that eventually, the weight comes back. Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery, on the other hand, may not make you healthy -- indeed, it may kill you -- but it will make you thin.

Blogger Plutarch has a pretty devastating rundown of the many pieces of evidence that Mike Huckabee had gastric bypass surgery. The whole piece should be read in full, but this is the part I want to highlight:

Details on Huckabee's diet are found in the numerous human-interest stories his weight loss spawned. He does not eat at banquets and receptions. At events, he will have special food supplied for him from a cooler kept in his car or does not finish his meals. He eats six small meals per day. Avoidance of restaurant-type banquet meals is telling because such meals create difficulties for bariatric surgery patients. These diet peculiarities bear little resemblance to maintence [sic] of weight loss, but tally quite well with characteristic bariatric limitations.

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Ron Paul Competes For the Unabomber Vote
Posted by Jeff Fecke on October 8, 2007 at 12:00 PM.

This post, written by Jeff Fecke, originally appeared on Shakesville

Now, Ron Paul often sounds like the most sane GOP candidate during debates. And who knows? Maybe he is. But that's not so much praise of Ron Paul as damning of the other nuts on the stage with him.

Ron Paul is a wacko. And I don't say that inadvisedly. Yes, there's the nuttiness of the generalized libertarian "eliminate the government/return to the gold standard" rhetoric, but the real kookiness lies in Paul's cozy relationship with the Patriot movement.

Now, you don't hear much about the Patriots anymore; they pretty much reached their peak when Tim McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City. After that they went from being a bunch of nutjobs with guns and anti-government leanings (and, not for nothing, a number of fans in the Republican party) to, well, terrorists. But Paul remained a big supporter of the Patriots over the years, sharing their fears of a global elite seizing America away from the people and placing our nation under UN control.

You may object that the idea of the UN seizing control of America when they can't effectively control their own headquarters is a bit of a silly idea. And it is. But it's the common thread that unites the Patriots, the idea that America is going away, and will soon be in control of the brown hordes, and only good, upstanding, quasi-fascist white Americans can save us.

This is something that Ron Paul believes fervently. In a scrawled, rambling, psychotic-guy-on-the-corner fundraising letter, Paul states his case:

I don't need to tell you that our American way of life is under attack. We see it all around us -- every day -- and it is up to us to save it.

The world's elites are busy forming a North American Union. If they are successful, as they were in forming the European Union, the good 'ol USA will only be a memory. We can't let that happen.

The UN also wants to confiscate our firearms and impose a global tax. The UN elites want to control the world's oceans with the Law of the Sea Treaty. And they want to use our military to police the world.

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