Posts by Howie Klein

Howie Klein is the creator of the blog Down With Tyranny!

Modern Day GI Bill Passes in the House
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on May 16, 2008 at 3:47 AM.

Although the fight that matters will be in the Senate, the House passed the bill to modernize the GI Bill today, HR 2642, 256-166. Those numbers are pretty overwhelming and the reflect the fact that 32 Republicans crossed the aisle to vote against Bush and their own reactionary leadership and for our military vets. At the same time, the Blue Dog caucus was unable to muster it's own members to bolster their Republican allies. Only 7 of the sleaziest and most Bush-oriented Democrats voted against vets today:

Melissa Bean (IL)

Dan Boren (OK)

Joe Donnelly (IN)

Brad Ellsworth (IN)

Nick Lampson (TX)

Tim Mahoney (FL)

Jim Matheson (UT)

Our newest conservative Democrats, Don Cazayoux (LA) and Bill Foster (IL) both voted with the Democrats on this crucial bill, Foster even stepping away from Bean's apron strings. This bill will allow vets who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq to go to college-- just what it was intended to do. McCain and McConnell have vowed to kill the bill in the Senate.

I took a look at the Blue America House races to see how the Republican opponents of our candidates-- all of whom support the bill-- voted Most of them voted against vets, as they usually do. Joining the dead-end minority today were Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Tim Walberg (R-MI), Scott Garrett (R-NJ), David Dreier (R-CA), Ric Keller (R-FL), Randy Kuhl (R-NY), Michael McCaul (R-TX), Gary Miller (R-CA), Mike Pence (R-IN), Dave Reichert (R-WA), Dana Rohrabacher (R-OH), and Mean Jean Schmidt (R-OH). Heather Wilson (R-NM) is running for Senate and she stuck with Bush, as she usually does. John Doolittle (R-CA) is retiring under a cloud of corruption charges and he also stuck with Bush.

Interestingly, some of the tightest and most competitive races we're following saw die-hard reactionaries abandoning Bush, not because they wanted to or because they suddenly want to help vets, but because they are scared to death that they're about to lose their cushy jobs. John Barrow, a Georgia Blue Dog who almost always supports Bush on these matters is so frightened of the surging state Senator from Savannah, Regina Thomas, that he actually abandoned his usual stance and voted, reluctantly, with the Democrats. Same story in Iowa, where Leonard Boswell's fear of Ed Fallon voters caused him to vote like a Democrat for a change. Republicans Robin Hayes, Chris Shays and Charlie Dent are so worried about the likelihood that they will be defeated by, respectively, Larry Kissell, Jim Himes and Sam Bennett that each switched positions and voted with the Democrats today.

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The Profitable Dismantling of Civil Society
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on May 13, 2008 at 3:54 PM.

Yesterday Scholars & Rogues featured a pretty ominous look at the serious deterioration of basic American infrastructure. The author, Dr. Denny, points out that our otherwise preoccupied government is normally only moved to action by catastrophes-- like the deadly bridge collapse in Minneapolis last year. So that bridge is nearly fixed. They're waiting for a spate of disasters before they do anything preventive. They may not have to wait long and we have far more than "failing bridges to find, fund and fix." Dr. Denny is left cold by the leadership abilities of the current presidential candidates to lead us successfully through a real crisis. Just to keep up, the U.S. would need to spend $225 billion per year for 50 years-- $11 trillion. McCain definitely has a couple wars he'd rather wage. But the country's infrastructure-- not just roads and bridges but also dams, sewage systems, drinking water systems, air traffic control, nuclear plants, electricity transmission lines, levees...-- gets a grade of D. Unfortunately, national politicians don't usually find infrastructure sexy.

Wall Street does, I found out on the radio yesterday. Tens of billions of dollars are coming out of the firms that brought us the real estate and mortgage collapse and going into buying up infrastructure. Alarm bells went off when I heard that the sleazy GOP vulture capital firm Carlisle Group-- whose real estate arm went belly up recently-- is buying up sewer systems and roadways. And they're only one of many.

Republicans want to reduce taxes and let the infrastructure go to hell so that the public supports selling it all off to for-profit companies. Democrats are too cowed to stand up for government functions that have been delegitimized by greed obsessed Republicans (and Blue Dogs and DLC Democrats). So... on to the predators. Today Morgan Stanley-- and I assure you a more unscrupulous and cut throat firm you will never find-- announced that it has raised $4 billion to target investments "that provide public goods or essential services in sectors such as transportation, energy and utilities, social infrastructure and communications." Global Infrastructure Partners (General Electric and Credit Suisse) have capped their infrastructure fund yesterday at $6.5 billion. A new Carlyle subsidiary, Carlyle Infrastructure Partners, formed specifically-- and under heavy political protection-- to rip off American taxpayers and ratepayers is investing $1.5 billion in transportation and water and wastewater facilities, including roads, bridges, tunnels, airport facilities, maritime ports, transit projects and other public benefit infrastructure in the US and Canada. Henderson Investors, CVC Capital Partners, Macquarie (Australia), Rreef, Citigroup, Ferrovial (Spain), Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Alinda are all up to the same thing.

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McCain's Not-So-Straight Talk on the Environment
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on May 12, 2008 at 8:34 AM.

I was just reading some more of Lincoln Chafee's fascinating book, Against The Tide, the chapter about how the Senate dealt with environmental issues in light of Cheney's success in persuading Bush-- if it took much, or even any persuasion-- to do a 180 on his campaign promises to be an environmentally friendly president. When Cheney announced to a gathering of Republican senators that the Regime had decided to throw away all their environmental pledges, the crowd burst out into a chorus of cowboy whoops and cheers. But Chafee-- at least in the part of the chapter I finished over dinner last night-- named McCain as one of the small cadre of Republicans who helped save ANWAR from the oil companies (a passion of Chafee's).

Today's Washington Post gets further into the weeds. Basically McCain is significantly better than Global Warming deniers like Inhofe... but not as good as the worst, most reactionary Democrats, anti-environmental hacks Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, and Max Baucus. There are also 9 Republicans with consistently better environmental voting records than McCain (Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Judd Gregg, Gordon Smith, Arlen Specter, John Thune, John Sununu, Bob Corker, and Norm Coleman-- all of whom have barely mediocre environmental voting records).

The Post makes a point that McCain is "the most unpredictable, erratic" Republican who sometimes support pro-environmental policies.

McCain has made the environment one of the key elements of his presidential bid. He speaks passionately about the issue of climate change on the campaign trail, and he plans to outline his vision for combating global warming in a major speech today in Portland, Ore.

"I'm proud of my record on the environment," he said at a news conference Friday at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City. "As president, I will dedicate myself to addressing the issue of climate change globally."

But an examination of McCain's voting record shows an inconsistent approach to the environment: He champions some "green" causes while casting sometimes contradictory votes on others.

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Bipartisan Majority Defies Bush Over Mortgage Crisis
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on May 9, 2008 at 8:00 AM.

While Republican House leaders wring their hands and rend their clothes fretting over why voters are massively rejecting their candidates and worrying that the GOP minority could easily lose another 2 or 3 dozen House members in November, all they need to do is look in the mirror to figure it out. And blaming hapless schnooks like Vito, Vitter or Larry Craig isn't going to do the trick. They are the party of obstructionism and the party that is standing in the way of progress, preventing an end to the occupation of Iraq, preventing universal health care, preventing sound environmental and energy policies, preventing, in fact, everything that the American people want!

Yesterday their despised leader, George Bush, threatened to veto a foreclosure bill that would attempt to help families and neighborhoods that have been victimized by predatory lenders who have been enabled by out-of-control Republican deregulation mania. Today the House passed the first of two of the bills Bush was railing against, Maxine Waters' Neighborhood Stabilization Act of 2008. Only one Blue Dog, Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) voted with the Republicans. Eleven Republicans-- all of whom are either retiring or in grave danger of losing their re-election bids in November-- abandoned their party's reactionary leadership and voted with the Democrats (even including such inveterate rubber stamps as the Diaz-Balart brothers in Florida and Steven LaTourette of Ohio).

While Bush was eager to shovel hundreds of billions of dollars towards the predatory lenders to shore up their businesses and even to provide irresponsible and possible criminal executive with multimillion dollar bonuses for causing the collapse of the real estate market, he dug in his heels on Water's attempt to "make federal money available in loans and grants for the rehabilitation and eventual sale or rental of blighted properties."

And just moments ago, the House also passed the companion bill, Barney Franks' American Housing Rescue & Foreclosure Prevention Act, a responsible and comprehensive response to the nightmare of the Bush Economic Miracle. It seeks to assist families facing foreclosure keep their homes, help other families avoid foreclosures in the future, and, with Maxine Waters' bill, help the recovery of communities harmed by empty homes caught in the foreclosure process. The bill, which Bush swears he will veto and McConnell vows to obstruct in the Senate, provide mortgage refinancing assistance, which will help keep families from losing their homes and protect neighboring home values. Barney's bill was voted on in 3 parts and dozens of Republicans were too frightened of the constituents to oppose the bill. On Roll Call 302, in fact, 95 Republicans gave Bush and their extremist leaders the finger and joined all the Democrats to pass it overwhelmingly and with a veto-proof majority. In fact only 94 Republicans voted with Bush. It passed 322-94, one of Bush's biggest defeats since he stole the presidency in 2000. Only the most insane kooks and loons-- The Dana Rohrabachers, John Shadeggs, Michael McCauls, Mean Jean Schmidts, and Scott Garretts hung in there with Boehner, Blunt, Cole and Howdy Doody.

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It's Bare Knuckles Time at the Bush EPA
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on May 8, 2008 at 9:03 AM.

As regular DWT readers know, we're big fans of Al Kamen's "In the Loop" column in the Washington Post. (Confusingly, other people also write under the "In the Loop" heading--but if it's Wednesday or Friday, it's really in the loop.) Al and his no doubt gleeful network of spies and informants haunt the back alleys and especially the back channels of D.C. for an often-hilarious view of the way our gummint actually works.

But often what he turns up isn't so hilarious. Often, in the way that a person may be better informed watching The Daily Show than anybody's Evening News, Al's column serves as the primary source for news that should be on every front page. Like this item from today's column, which by the way comes with the urgent recommendation of our go-to webguy on energy and environmental matters, A Siegel (whom we still have to thank for honoring us with a visit and a comment the other day):

Don't Do Any Environment Stuff

Loop Fans know to be highly skeptical of those political announcements that a top administration official is resigning "to spend more time with the family," or maybe to "return to his first love," coin collecting or weight lifting. These phrases are almost always euphemisms for getting the boot or being squeezed out.

But there was even greater skepticism Thursday at the Environmental Protection Agency when deputy administrator Marcus Peacock circulated this e-mail to senior officials at 5:06 p.m. about the resignation of EPA's administrator in the Chicago region.

Subject: Region 5 Personnel Announcement

As of this afternoon, Thursday, May 1, 2008, Mary Gade has resigned her position as Regional Administrator for EPA Region 5. I want to thank Mary for her many years of service to the people and the mission of EPA.

She has worked hard to help protect human health and our environment.

Mary plans to return to private life and spend time with her family.

Bharat Mathur, the Deputy Regional Administrator, will assume the responsibilities of Acting Regional Administrator. I thank Bharat for his continued service and leadership.

Problem was, the e-mail came 1 1/2 hours after the Chicago Tribune posted a story online quoting Gade, who said she had been forced out of her job because of her aggressive stand on dioxin flowing from Dow Chemical's Midland, Mich., plant into Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron.

Gade said two political appointees at headquarters told her to quit or be fired by June 1. The EPA confirmed she was leaving but declined to discuss a personnel matter.

Gade, appointed by President Bush 18 months ago, told the Tribune: "There is no question this is about Dow. I stand behind what I did and what my staff did. I'm proud of what we did."

Gade had been trying to force Dow to clean up several inland hot spots contaminated by the cancer-causing chemical. She told the Tribune that top aides to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson repeatedly questioned her actions against the chemical giant.

Next thing you know, she "plans to return to private life and spend time with her family."

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Bush Rejects McCain's Gas Tax Proposal
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on April 29, 2008 at 2:26 PM.

When I saw the name on the article I thought it was by John McCain's embedded publicist at the Washington Post. Then I realized it was in the NY Times and saw it was John Broder, not the Post's pathetic old hack with the same last name. The story highlights what Broder calls Democratic division over McCain's cynical summer gas tax holiday. As soon as Obama pointed out that it was a bad idea, Hillary jumped in to support their respective campaign's common enemy: the American people.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton lined up with Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, in endorsing a plan to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for the summer travel season. But Senator Barack Obama, Mrs. Clinton’s Democratic rival, spoke out firmly against the proposal, saying it would save consumers little and do nothing to curtail oil consumption and imports.

While Mr. Obama’s view is shared by environmentalists and many independent energy analysts, his position allowed Mrs. Clinton to draw a contrast with her opponent in appealing to the hard-hit middle-class families and older Americans who have proven to be the bedrock of her support. She has accused Mr. Obama of being out of touch with ordinary Americans who are struggling to meet their mortgages and gas up their cars and trucks.

Mrs. Clinton said at a rally on Monday morning in Graham, N.C., that she would introduce legislation to impose a windfall-profits tax on oil companies and use the revenue to suspend the gasoline tax temporarily.

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The Mortgage Industry Fights for Its Right to Party
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on April 28, 2008 at 12:11 PM.

I went to a lovely party this weekend. And there were so many smart people there. Two who I was talking with-- both health care experts-- were absolutely positive than no matter who was elected president, there was absolutely no chance that there would be any transformational change in the way the people of this country receive health care. Gee, I thought that was part of the reason we were electing Democrats in a big way this year. But what do I know?

Today's NY Times has a story in the Business Section that probably belongs on page one. It explains why some things get done and why some things don't. It's only trying to talk about the mortgage industry. But the health care industry is much, much worse. Stephen Labaton, who has decided-- or was assigned-- to tackle the issue begins by mentioning that the mortgage industry is fighting back-- intensively-- against threats of regulation. Societies regulate industry when industry's greed gets out of control and threatens the well being of society. Despite Republicans, meat packing plants had to be regulated because... well, people were dying. The "free market" wasn't quite righting the wrongs fast enough. How many more families need to lose their homes before people start dragging mortgage bank executives out and hanging them from lamp posts? Do you think a jury would find anyone guilty? Not around here.

As the Federal Reserve completes work on rules to root out abuses by lenders, its plan has run into a buzz saw of criticism from bankers, mortgage brokers and other parts of the housing industry. One common industry criticism is that at a time of tight credit, tighter rules could make many mortgages more expensive by creating more paperwork and potentially exposing lenders to more lawsuits.

To the chagrin of consumer groups that have complained that the proposed rules are not strong enough, the industry’s criticism has already prompted the Fed to consider narrowing the scope of the plan so it applies to fewer loans.

The debate over new mortgage standards comes in response to a severe crisis in the housing and financial markets that many economists trace back to overly loose credit and abusive loans. Those practices, combined with low interest rates, led to inflated market values that have declined rapidly in recent months as investors have begun to lose confidence in the financial instruments tied to those loans.

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Will Bush, Cheney and Their Criminal Cronies Face Justice? Maybe
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on April 10, 2008 at 7:38 AM.

A week or so ago we noted Andrew Sullivan's prediction that Bush would one day face a war crimes tribunal. If anyone I know were in charge, he certainly would. But, as we stated then, political realities in the U.S. make it just plain wishful thinking. Still... last night ABC News ran with a story that certainly points precisely towards a trip to the Hague. Short version: the Regime's top operatives-- Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Rumsfeld, Tenet, John Ashcroft, Colin Powell-- sat around the White House discussing and approving clearly illegal torture specifics.

In interview with ABC's Charles Gibson last year, Tenet said: "It was authorized. It was legal, according to the Attorney General of the United States."

But this is the first time sources have disclosed that a handful of the most senior advisers in the White House explicitly approved the details of the program. According to multiple sources, it was members of the Principals Committee that not only discussed specific plans and specific interrogation methods, but approved them.

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Will Bob Barr Be McCain's Very Own Ralph Nader in 2008?
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on April 4, 2008 at 2:07 PM.

How badly will another cranky old right-winger in the presidential race hurt McCain? Looks like we're about to find out. Far right extremist, Georgia ex-Congressman Bob Barr, has been muttering darkly of late about how the Insider GOP Establishment has abandoned conservative principles. He happens to think McCain has morphed into George Bush and agrees that a McCain presidency would basically just be a third term for Bush. He's been talking openly about running for president as an independent and this weekend he is expected to announce his candidacy at the Heartland Libertarian Conference in Kansas City, where he is scheduled to speak.

"There's been a tremendous expressed to me both directly and indirectly on the Internet. I take that support very seriously, and I think it also reflects a great deal of dissatisfaction with the current candidates and the current two-party system. So it is something, to be honest with you, that I'm looking very seriously at... Ron Paul tapped into a great deal of that dissatisfaction and that awareness. Unfortunately, working through the Republican party structure, it became impossible for him to really move forward with his movement. But we have to have ....a rallying point out there to harness that energy, that freedom in this election cycle.

"What we've fallen into in recent years-- not just since 9/11, but particularly since 9/11-- is this notion that, in order to protect ourselves, we have to preemptively go into and-- in the case of Iraq-- occupy another sovereign nation. Simply saying, 'Gee, it's better to fight over in this other nation and destroy another nation, so we're not potentially attacked here, is the height of arrogance."

Today's Moonie Times speculates that a Barr bid could hurt McCain's already slim chances to slip into the White House. He would probably negate whatever benefit McCain would get from Nader's run, although progressives overwhelmingly blame Nader for all the damage Bush has caused and are unlikely to vote for him in any significant way. He's unlikely to break even 1% of the vote anywhere. Barr, an NRA board member and a hero to rabid Clinton-haters, would probably attract far more voters among Republicans than Nader would among Democrats. Most Democrats are happy with either Obama, the likely winner, or Clinton. Many Republicans, especially the dominant conservative wing, are still mistrustful of McCain.

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Would John McCain Institute a Draft in January? Or Would We Wait Until February?
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on April 3, 2008 at 5:11 AM.

Maybe I've just missed it-- perhaps because of all the breathless distractions about Obama's pastor and bowling score-- but I could swear the corporate media isn't informing their audience that a vote for John McCain is a vote for the re-instatement of a military draft. Now, call me naive, but I have to believe that even his barbeque buddies would agree that most voters would be more interested in a discussion of the prospects of a draft-- something McCain's plans absolutely guarantee-- than in Obama's lack of skill on the bowling alley. (John Stewart actually showed a clip of some Fox talking head suggesting he should have "stuck to the hoops.")

Last week I was reminiscing about my very first arrest, which was for protesting against the draft in 1967. If the media is able to mislead voters drastically enough so that McCain actually gets into the White House, there will be many more arrests at many more protests all over America.

McCain's policies-- whatever the meaning about his constant rhetorical stumblings about Iraq and Iran, Sunni and Shi'a, and 100 years in Iraq-- can't be put in place without a military draft. (By the way, when I was protesting in 1967 Nixon was coming up with a strategy about how to make the American people vote for him-- by claiming to have "a plan." McCain also claims to have "a plan"-- to capture Osama bin-Laden-- so one wonders why he doesn't share this with his pals George W. and Cheney.)

Republicans are forever hectoring about how we should just do whatever the generals tell us to. That's typical right wing cynicism since generals don't make policy in the U.S.-- elected officials do-- and since every single general who has spoken out professionally in a way that didn't hew completely to Bush-Cheney dogma has been sacked. So listen to the generals? Which ones? The Bush toadies or the ones who helped Darcy Burner come up with the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq?

Today's Washington Post mentions a hearing yesterday at the Senate Armed Services Committee in which Army Vice Chief of Staff, General Richard Cody, put his career in jeopardy, like so many before him have done, by implicitly criticizing the incompetence of the Bush Regime.

"I've never seen our lack of strategic depth be where it is today," said Cody, who has been the senior Army official in charge of operations and readiness for the past six years and plans to retire this summer.

This morning Brandon Friedman at VetVoice analyzed the session in light of McCain's aggressive military agenda.

Cody laments the "lack of balance" in today's Army, and says the "current demand for our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan exceeds the sustainable supply and limits our ability to provide ready forces for other contingencies... Current operational requirements for forces and insufficient time between deployments require a focus on counterinsurgency training and equipping to the detriment of preparedness for the full range of military missions." The stress on the fighting men and women, their families and the equipment is at dangerous levels.

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Could the Bush Recession Turn Into the Bush Depression?
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on March 23, 2008 at 8:27 AM.

I don't know anyone who thinks we're not in a recession and I don't know anyone who says we're on the brink of a Depression. Most people have no reason to think we won't have a Depression; they just think "it can't happen here" or "now" or "to me." It shouldn't either. Nor should have George Bush. The most unlikely of morons to assume the presidency he's done everything that anyone could do to bring on a financial calamity. This morning's Paul Krugman column, Partying Like It's 1929, gets right to the point: right wing ideology is toxic. The "banking crisis of the 1930s showed that unregulated, unsupervised financial markets can all too easily suffer catastrophic failure." Krugman claims the hard-learned lessons were "forgotten" as the decades passed. I'm less generous.

To the laissez fairies of the extreme right Krugman's carefully regulated and supervised financial markets are communism. Anything that impedes absolute greed and selfishness in pursuit of the general good is treason. And along came Bush and his merry band of agenda-driven Mayberry Machiavellis.

Krugman is so logical and generous in his understanding of how markets work. I don't think he used the words "greed" or "selfishness" once in his column-- or even implied the base instincts behind them. But that is what has driven us to the brink of disaster-- and he knows it. He explains what made a garden variety recession of 1929 into the Great Depression of the 1930s and how society-- or at least the New Deal (imagine only 17 Republicans in the 1937 Senate)-- dealt with it. "And we all lived happily for a while-- but not for ever after."

Wall Street chafed at regulations that limited risk, but also limited potential profits. And little by little it wriggled free-- partly by persuading politicians to relax the rules, but mainly by creating a "shadow banking system" that relied on complex financial arrangements to bypass regulations designed to ensure that banking was safe.

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Obama: Iraq Has Caused Bad Economy
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on March 20, 2008 at 2:14 PM.

The mass media is shying away from the substantive story that has developed all week showing McCain's carefully crafted, though completely baseless, "expertise" in foreign policy disnintegrating. He's as much an "expert" and the perpetually angry old man down the street screaming at the kids to stay off his lawn. Instead, the media jokes around about McCain getting a little confused-- mixing up Purim with Halloween and Iran with al-Qaeda. Purim/Halloween... doesn't mean squat. Iran equals al-Qaeda... that kind of boneheaded ignorance on the part of the entire Bush Regime is what got us into the disastrous situation we're in now. It's more than squat. It should be a disqualifier. He should go back to yelling at kids who walk on his grass and let Mitt Romney run in his place.

I just noticed that Glenn Greenwald decided to go in the same direction I was moving in with this post: the tendency of the corporate media to amplify the McCain hype machine, overlook his incredible shortcomings (and assassinate Democrats the way they did with Howard Dean in 2004 and the way they have been attempting to do this week with Barack Obama). I'll leave it for Glenn and go in a different direction. (First a little of what Glenn wrote in his piece:)

Reporters have already decided that John McCain is a Serious, Knowledgeable Foreign Policy Expert-- and an honorable, truth-telling gentleman-- and therefore there is no reason to tell voters about evidence that demonstrates that he's anything but that. Evidence that reflects poorly on McCain's foreign policy seriousness or character is actually suppressed or concealed because they think it can't be newsworthy, because such evidence just can't be true, by definition.

Amazingly, reporters who have long covered McCain themselves constantly admit that they accord McCain special, favorable treatment and don't even realize the deep corruption they're acknowledging... McCain's simple-minded militarism, his ignorance about national security, and his moronic view that the U.S. should run the world through endless wars ought to be one of the most intensely debated issues in the campaign. But it won't be because-- as Marcus said-- the media has already decided that McCain is a Serious Expert in these matters and that national security is his strength, and evidence to the contrary won't be reported.

The corporate media message is what it is and that includes the relentless, distorted and hysterical mania they are using quite effectively to shipwreck Obama's campaign on the shoals of a radical pastor. They fear Obama's ability to go directly to people without their mediation-- the way they feared the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Paul Wellstone, Howard Dean, all political figures threatening right-wing dominance who were silenced by the right.

This morning Obama moved on from Fox/Limbaugh/Coulter World to part 2 of his critique of Bush's Iraq agenda, policies and failures. I though in some ways it was his best speech yet and at the heart of what a political campaign should actually be about, whether the media wants to give it real consideration or not. (Today they're all excited about and completely preoccupied with finding out how many steps Hillary was from the spot Bill and Monica were doing whatever they were doing. It isn't worth even mentioning they should all lose their broadcast licenses.) Instead, let me excerpt parts of Barack Obama's talk in West Virginia about the economic impact of Bush's war in Iraq.

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Vitter Claims There's 'Enormous Difference'