As I begin to write, shortly after 8:00pmCDT, CNN is telling the world that Barack Obama has amassed sufficient delegates to clinch the Democratic party’s nomination for president of the United States.

As an interested observer of history, notwithstanding whatever personal feelings one might have or not about Obama the candidate, one cannot help but be quietly amazed at this turn of events, once so unlikely and tonight so inevitable.

I was born in 1948. Yeah, okay, old enough to be your grandfather, perhaps. But, take it from me, 1948 was not that long ago.

In 1948 racial segregation was a fact of life for most African Americans. That year, President Harry Truman signed an executive order ending racial segregation in the U.S. armed forces, although it took several more years to take effect throughout the military. Less than a year before I was born, Jackie Robinson became the first African American to play for a major league baseball team. Today, we take for granted our integrated military force, and our integrated sports teams, in fact both would be curiously empty otherwise.

Now, a majority of voters in this endless Democratic primary season that began 18 months ago after the mid-term election of 2006, have chosen an African American candidate to campaign for the U.S. presidency in November.

Senator Obama, who burst upon the national scene when he delivered a rousing address during the 2004 Democratic convention, and who thereafter proved that delivering astoundingly inspirational speeches is one of his consistent talents (positively bracing in this age of the Southwestern mumble-mouthed mis-spokenness that passes for presidential speech these days — you’ll find some of Obama’s best efforts slickly packaged here and unadorned but magnificent here) has out organized, out fund-raised, out campaigned and simply out-inspired every other Democratic candidate, including, ultimately, this season’s other ground-breaking candidate, Sen. Hillary Clinton.

As I’ve written previously, this nation is more than ready for a woman to take office as its president. There are any number of talented women in politics who have the capacity to fill that incredibly demanding position.

But. Not. This. Woman. Too much baggage, not the least of which is her “husband,” former President Bill Clinton.

At 8:37pmCDT, I pause to listen to Sen. Clinton’s speech in New York City, where she had a chance to concede gracefully. And, missed that opportunity.

There’s a school of thought out there that at this point she is holding out for the vice presidential position. There’s another school of thought that she simply is too ornery to bow out gracefully. There’s yet another school of thought that says that anything can happen during the chaos of your typical Democratic convention. All of these may be true.

None of this lessens the historical import of this day, where an African American man, born of an interracial marriage still illegal in many states of the Union at the time he was born, raised by his white single mother and her parents, has, according to the rules of his party, won sufficient delegates to secure the presidential nomination.

Assuming Sen. Clinton is persuaded, or persuades herself, that further blood in the water only provides hope to a reeling Republican party that deserves none, the McCain-Obama battle for the general election should be fun to watch.

And, historic every day.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

Faithful reader (if s/he indeed is faithful) is probably disgusted with this nanocorner of the ‘Sphere© lately, as we’ve been rehashing good old stuff rather than creating good new stuff here.

As I reflect on my lethargic approach to blogging this past week, my analysis finds that it’s partly due to the demands of the bill paying occupation, and partly my failure to extricate from the zillions of new pages popping up every day in said ‘Sphere a nugget of insight upon which to build.

Didn’t really want to write about the Democrats’ Clinton/Obama soap opera. Although, I commend to your attention Eric Zorn of yr (justifiably) humble svt‘s hometown Chicago Tribune on why Sen. Clinton is the wrong running mate for Obama.

So that left me with — what? Reruns, and this during sweeps month, too!

Tonight though, finally, revelation. Christopher Dickey of Newsweek makes a thought connection regarding the cesspool that is our Iraq adventure that makes such great sense that one is tempted to slap oneself, saying “it’s so obvious — why didn’t I think of that?”

I didn’t. Dickey did. Read and learn.

Slaughterhouse Beirut

Lebanon’s chances for meaningful reconstruction are diminishing by the day. And despite Bush’s bravado, it’s going to be the same in Iraq.

Newsweek.com |Christopher Dickey | May 13, 2008 | Updated: May 13, 2008

If you want to know what Iraq will look like 25 years from now, look at Lebanon today. The similarities and differences—but mainly the similarities—raise a lot of painful memories and questions for
Americans.

This fact hit me once again when I was talking to Mike Sheehan, who is one of the more clear-eyed analysts of terrorism and the way we react to it. The subject came up of Beirut as it is now, a bloody mess, and as it was when Mike and I first focused on it a quarter-century ago, when it was even bloodier.

Back then President Ronald Reagan waded into the Levantine quagmire, quickly understood that he had made a big miscalculation, and withdrew. “Some counterterrorism experts argue the Reagan pullout from Lebanon was a mistake and emboldened future terrorists,” says Sheehan. “I never bought this analysis, then or now. I think it was one of the smartest things Reagan did during his tenure—to get out of the Lebanese civil war. To stay in any war to ‘make a statement’ has never made sense to me. You have to have well-defined interests and achievable goals when you put American soldiers in harm’s way; both seemed to be missing in Lebanon. Reagan recognized it and withdrew.”

Aha! Lebanon. Filled with religious factions, armed to the teeth. Filled with proxies of foreign nations with mischief on their minds eager to fill the ever present power vacuum (read: Syria and Iran). And the scene of U.S. intervention, that failed in a bloody and ultimately ignominious fashion.

A dysfunctional “state” for many, many years, and, as Dickey observes, not likely to improve.

And yet, whether the United States stays in Iraq or goes, “Lebanonization” is the most likely result: a foundering half-failed state where neighbors fight proxy battles through sectarian militias and through the many factions in a government that is unable to govern at all. There will be times of war when life seems to go on almost as normal, and times of peace when it seems not to. There will be spurts of investment, maybe even tourism. There will be festivals of democratic excitement. And then sudden storms of savage violence will sweep through the streets of the capital, only to subside, then erupt in smaller cities, and subside. And erupt again. And so it goes, to borrow the old refrain from Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Slaughterhouse Five.” If the world pays any attention at all, the span will be brief. The fighting and the failures to govern will have gone on so long that nothing seems new in that news.

We failed to fix Lebanon; perhaps it is permanently unfixable. Did we learn from that experience, strategically, politically, militarily?

On the day the last Marine combat unit pulled out of Lebanon in 1984, a television interviewer asked then-Secretary of State George Shultz if that meant a victory for the bad guys. He could not but equivocate: “This is a kind of warfare, really, that is something different for us … We have to improve our intelligence capability, and we have to think through how, within the concept of the rule of law, which we hold so dear, we can take a more aggressive posture toward what is a worldwide and very undesirable trend.” That was 24 years ago, and we’re still thinking it through.

Finally! Now it’s possible to understand Iraq.

Religious factions and militias, armed to the teeth, bent on senseless slaughter. Units on the ground that are proxies for mischief making states and anti-Western cells.

And the scene of U.S. intervention that, despite egregious losses of blood and treasure, shows no signs whatsoever that what ails Iraq will ever be permanently fixable.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Dickey: Why Iraq Will End Up Like Lebanon | Newsweek International | Newsweek.com

To all those who say: “you can’t just up and leave!” I can now respond: your great hero Ronald Reagan up and left Lebanon all those years ago.

Lebanon didn’t get better when we arrived; it certainly has gotten worse since we left.

Okay: what have we learned tonight?

1. Iraq is an ugly example of a political entity, artificially created by a European power with arbitrary borders disdainful of hundreds of years of tribal and religious sectionalism, whose creation thus contained the seeds of its own destruction, now playing on a CNN broadcast near you. Doubt this? Take a close look at Lebanon. Some dysfunctional states are unfixable.
2. And, keep an eye out for what’s going on in Africa, filled with nations like Rwanda, Sudan and Zimbabwe, artificially created by a European power with arbitrary borders disdainful of hundreds of years of tribal and religious sectionalism, whose creation thus contained the seeds of its own destruction, now playing on a CNN broadcast near you. Let’s try not to intervene militarily too enthusiastically there, please.
3. Come November, let’s send old 100-year war McCain slinking back to his comfortable Senate seat where his pointlessly dangerous testosterone can be contained.
4. Let’s get our boots out of Iraq’s pointlessly dangerous dust and safely home, soonest.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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Do you feel buffeted by the forces of the post-industrial revolution? How can you not?

The history of technology is a frequent visitor to this nanocorner of the ‘Sphere©, mostly because it has long been of interest to yr (justifiably) humble svt. Also, because the macro changes occurring all around us are, of course, culminations, or at least stops along the way, of trends that began when humans created civilization, perhaps 10,000 years ago.

The ages of human development have long been characterized, and popularized, by the most important attribute of the era. Thus we can cite some of the various ages, stone (which actually predates modern homo sapiens), agriculture, discovery, mercantile, industrial.

Have we moved beyond the industrial age? David Brooks tackled this topic in yesterday’s NYTimes.

The Cognitive Age

Op-Ed Columnist | By DAVID BROOKS | Published: May 2, 2008

If you go into a good library, you will find thousands of books on globalization. Some will laud it. Some will warn about its dangers. But they’ll agree that globalization is the chief process driving our age. Our lives are being transformed by the increasing movement of goods, people and capital across borders….

Hillary Clinton summarized the narrative this week: “They came for the steel companies and nobody said anything. They came for the auto companies and nobody said anything. They came for the office companies, people who did white-collar service jobs, and no one said anything. And they came for the professional jobs that could be outsourced, and nobody said anything.”

The globalization paradigm has turned out to be very convenient for politicians. It allows them to blame foreigners for economic woes. It allows them to pretend that by rewriting trade deals, they can assuage economic anxiety. It allows them to treat economic and social change as a great mercantilist competition, with various teams competing for global supremacy, and with politicians starring as the commanding generals.

But there’s a problem with the way the globalization paradigm has evolved. It doesn’t really explain most of what is happening in the world.

You had to know it wouldn’t be that simple. All those highly paid blue collar jobs, defunct and moved to Mexico, China, Vietnam.

The customer service providers answering your calls, in accented English from boiler rooms in Bengaluru and Manila.

The guys eviscerating the next generation of U.S. technology managers cheaply writing computer code in Bucharest and Kolkata and Sofia.

Those are jobs seeking their own level, from developed, to developing, to the third world. But, if this were really all that was happening, one might imagine unemployment in the U.S. to be far above the current 5%, exacerbated by this latest recession.

The chief force reshaping manufacturing is technological change (hastened by competition with other companies in Canada, Germany or down the street). Thanks to innovation, manufacturing productivity has doubled over two decades. Employers now require fewer but more highly skilled workers. Technological change affects China just as it does the America. William Overholt of the RAND Corporation has noted that between 1994 and 2004 the Chinese shed 25 million manufacturing jobs, 10 times more than the U.S.

The central process driving this is not globalization. It’s the skills revolution. We’re moving into a more demanding cognitive age. In order to thrive, people are compelled to become better at absorbing, processing and combining information. This is happening in localized and globalized sectors, and it would be happening even if you tore up every free trade deal ever inked.

Our politicians have kicked around NAFTA and the WTO and the concept of free trade forever. As if China and India and the Philippines and Romania and Bulgaria were our enemies. [A subject, actually for a whole other post: the actual enemies of the U.S.: Saudi Arabia and the other state or stateless Islamofascists, Iran, North Korea, and once again, Russia.]

In this context, our very real enemy is inertia. A job with one company for life hasn’t existed for a generation.

Better we more effectively inculcate our population with concept of lifelong learning.

No Child Left Behind is a typically Republican mean-spirited joke: our children won’t grow up to compete against standardized tests. Rather, they will compete against increasingly highly educated and technologically sophisticated workforces around the world.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

The Cognitive Age – New York Times

Hiring managers will tell you that the chief value of a newly minted college graduate is not in skills immediately applicable to the job being filled (not with that degree in English literature, certainly, nor even an undergraduate business degree), but rather to certified educability.

HR types have been telling us for years that the best skill we can acquire is the ability to frequently learn new skills. That’s the impact of our hyperlinked age.

If you are over 50 years old, I’m willing to wager that the number of employers you’ve had in your working life exceeds five, and the number of positions, of types of jobs done, is well into double figures.

Or, you’re collecting unemployment benefits, such as they might be, from your union, or your state.

So it’s what’s in our heads, and what capacity we have to add to what’s in our heads, and our children’s and grandchildren’s heads, that will determine our economic success, nay survival, in this new, cognitive, age as Brooks so eloquently labels it.

I hope I’m ready. Are you?

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

A funny thing happened on the way to Barack Obama’s coronation as the Democratic presidential candidate.

That’s if you consider Hillary Clinton funny.

She just keeps winning large elections in important states, the latest, Pennsylvania, the other day. It’s Hillaryus, to borrow an oft-coined a phrase.

Gail Collins in today’s NYTimes has the correctly humorous perspective:

Hillary’s Smackdown

By GAIL COLLINS | Published: April 24, 2008

The clamor for Hillary Clinton to drop out of the presidential race has reached new levels of intensity since the Pennsylvania primary. Of all the things Hillary has done, Obama supporters find her tendency to win large elections in swing states as by far the most irritating. If she beats him in Indiana, they’ll be surrounding her house with torches.

“Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is back!” cried Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter to the cheering crowd at the victory bash on Tuesday.

The smoothly oiled money-raising high-momentum phenomenon that has been the Obama campaign for the past several months keeps running into reality. Her name is Hillary.

Despite organizational dysfunction, in spite of difficulties raising funds, in spite of the prospective First Gentleman, Senator Clinton seems to be more electable in the large population states than her charismatic opponent.

How absolutely galling for Senator Obama and his idealistic supporters!

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Hillary’s Smackdown – New York Times

Technically, Obama has more delegates pledged, but this stubborn issue of electability is likely to keep the pot boiling until the convention. Ms. Clinton has every right to keep jabbing away, and it’s probably an excellent character revealing exercise for those who’ve been starry-eyed when viewing the junior Senator from Illinois.

It is this observer’s prediction that the superdelegates will realize their collective dreams to become, for the first time in more than –what?– 75 years, the sovereign-makers in their (politically correctly smokeless) smoke-filled rooms in Denver this summer.

All this while elderly (and showing it in some unexpected ways) Senator McCain can sit on the sidelines basking in the glow of a once insurmountable Democratic lead brought down to earth. And both of his potential foes are providing him his general election ammunition, free of charge.

But, it’s okay. If the Democratic Party finds a way to lose a historically can’t-lose election to a morally bankrupt Republican party that has chewed up our nation’s present and endangered the globe’s future, then that should be the wake up call that those of us of the liberal persuasion need to finally make the changes that need to be made.

As the Federalists and Whigs could tell us if they were still with us, political parties can look around and suddenly find themselves obsolete. This may be that time for the Democrats, if friendly fire causes the party to lose this can’t lose election.

In the meantime, Barry, if I may be so bold as to call you Barry, please remember a hoary (political) adage, originally uttered by Friedrich Nietzsche:

That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

Here’s some no-charge (and worth every penny) advice for all three candidates.

Probably the most critical personal requirement any potential leader of the free world (as opposed to this era’s two pernicious attributes: to raise $zillions by promising everything to every Daddy Warbucks; and look marvelous on television):

Show us some grace under fire.

Rise above the mud-wrestling. Be a visionary leader. Win this election on merit, rather than simply being the least worst choice.

Right about now, yr (justifiably) humble svt can’t see who would exactly be that least worse choice, much less the most meritorious one. And that’s a most unexpected place to be on April 24th in this confounding election season.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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Thought I was done with Michael Bloomberg.

Not so fast, tiger.

This is all good sport in New York City, where, after all, Bloomberg is the two-term mayor, in a term-limit district. What’s a billionaire to do? Next?

Well, continuing the candidate introduction thing, John McCain was in town last week, so speculation naturally returned to Mike’s potential role on the Republican ticket. You’ll recall he introduced Barack Obama at his memorable Cooper Union appearance a couple of weeks ago, fueling Democratic running mate speculation anew.

Bloomberg Introduces McCain

By Michael Cooper | April 10, 2008, 2:11 pm

Perhaps when Michael R. Bloomberg finishes his term as mayor of New York he could become a professional speculation-fueler.

After all, his decision to leave the Republican Party fueled some pretty heated speculation that he might run for president this year as an independent. Then, after he announced that he would not run, his introduction of Senator Barack Obama at a speech last month at Cooper Union fueled speculation that he might like to be his running mate.

And on Thursday he introduced Senator John McCain, who gave a speech at a window company in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. That seemed sure to fuel speculation that, well, you get the idea by now.

Bloomberg and McCain go way back. And the mayor is always a gracious host. And, he’s a two term mayor in a term-limit town.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Bloomberg Introduces McCain – The Caucus – Politics – New York Times Blog

So, perhaps Mayor Mike planted a seed. After all, McCain has lot’s of time. New York might make a nice balance to Arizona. Of course, if John is not rabid enough for the maniac wing, they’ll be positively frothing at the mouth over the prospect of Bloomberg as VP candidate, especially given McCain’s age, his 96-year-old mother notwithstanding.

A day or so later:

New Bloomberg Job Rumor Is Followed by a Denial

By FERNANDA SANTOS | Published: April 14, 2008

The political future of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has been the subject of relentless speculation for months. First he was said to have been flirting with a presidential bid. Then his name was floated as a possible running mate of Senator Barack Obama.

Now, Mr. Bloomberg is rumored to be eyeing a third mayoral term. And just as with the earlier rumors, City Hall aides have issued firm denials about this one.

“It’s untrue,” Stu Loeser, the mayor’s press secretary, said in an interview on Sunday.

The idea of the mayor’s considering running for a third term in next year’s election was reported by The New York Post on Sunday.

You’ve got to figure, a man doesn’t amass $billions by not having contingencies.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

New Bloomberg Job Rumor Is Followed by a Denial – New York Times

President of the U.S. on an independent ticket: Lot’s of analysis in 2007-8, but, after all is spent and done, not likely. So, no.

Vice President of the U.S. on the Democratic ticket: Hillary – too much NYC. So, no.

Vice President of the U.S. on the Democratic ticket: Obama – possibility, but a black and a Jew on the same ticket: too much NYC. So, no.

Vice President of the U.S. on the Republican ticket: McCain is a man he can do business with. Apparently McCain is a man anyone with sufficient cash can do business with. But, Mike left the Republicans earlier this political season. So, probably not, but…

Mayor of NYC for a third term: Can the term-limit law be changed? There may not be enough $zillions to persuade the speaker of the NY city council, a potential candidate herself, to go for that. So, probably not, but…

Three no’s, two probably no, but’s.

Hey Mr. Bloomberg, one could always retire to banking. I hear that there are some real bargains out there.

Quite a sport, this Mike-watching.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

Can’t help it! It’s like a tennis match, this run-up to the Democratic convention.

Ooh, she hit a good one!

Swack! He got her good on that one!

Etc.

And, the happiest tennis fan in the stadium is John McCain, who sees the Democrats doing the heavy lifting for he and the until recently hapless Republican party. They’ve gotta be figuring that Clinton and Obama are dealing each other unrecoverable blows; they’ll be too exhausted to put up a defense against him come the general election, and McCain and the Republicans must be taking notes on what stroke aimed where is the most effective.

End of the tennis allusion; never my game, actually. (I was left-handed before left-handed tennis was glamorous.) But, you see its appropriateness.

He’s winning; she and her staff are working at fever pitch to stop him. Kind of ugly out there.

And the professional commentariat notices (as, of course, do we modestly talented amateurs):

Hillary or Nobody?

By MAUREEN DOWD | Published: March 26, 2008

While the cool cat’s away, the Hillary mice will play.

As Barack Obama was floating in the pool with his daughters the last few days in St. Thomas, some Clinton disciples were floating the idea of St. Hillary as his vice president.

She can’t win without him, said one Hillary adviser, and he can’t win without her.

They’re stuck with each other.

It’s one of my favorite movie formulas, driving the dynamics in such classics as “A Few Good Men,” “The Big Easy” and “Guys and Dolls”: Charming, glib guy spars and quarrels with no-nonsense, driven girl, until they team up in the last reel. He spices up her life, and she stiffens his spine. And soon they hear the pitter-patter of little superdelegate feet, who are thrilled not to be pulled in two directions anymore.

And everybody’s happy. Or are they?

Dowd sees a downright Machiavellian twist: beat up Obama, let McCain win, and…

Even some Clinton loyalists are wondering aloud if the win-at-all-costs strategy of Hillary and Bill — which continued Tuesday when Hillary tried to drag Rev. Wright back into the spotlight — is designed to rough up Obama so badly and leave the party so riven that Obama will lose in November to John McCain.

If McCain only served one term, Hillary would have one last shot. On Election Day in 2012, she’d be 65.

Plausible, in an “inside the beltway” sort of analysis. Ugly though.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Hillary or Nobody? – New York Times

So, if this was just Maureen Dowd, one could chalk it up to “how am I going to fill the column inches today?” and move on.

Exhibit 2, from the day before:

The Long Defeat

By DAVID BROOKS | Published: March 25, 2008

Hillary Clinton may not realize it yet, but she’s just endured one of the worst weeks of her campaign.

It seems fairly clear from Brooks’ reading of the tea leaves, that Clinton can most likely not gain the nomination. Her chances now?

Last week, an important Clinton adviser told Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen (also of Politico) that Clinton had no more than a 10 percent chance of getting the nomination. Now, she’s probably down to a 5 percent chance.

Five percent.

Let’s take a look at what she’s going to put her party through for the sake of that 5 percent chance: The Democratic Party is probably going to have to endure another three months of daily sniping. For another three months, we’ll have the Carvilles likening the Obamaites to Judas and former generals accusing Clintonites of McCarthyism. For three months, we’ll have the daily round of résumé padding and sulfurous conference calls. We’ll have campaign aides blurting “blue dress” and only-because-he’s-black references as they let slip their private contempt.

And here’s the cruelest quote of all:

When you step back and think about it, she is amazing. She possesses the audacity of hopelessness.

Brooks thinks she should do the right thing, wait for the right moment (but a soon moment), and withdraw.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

The Long Defeat – New York Times

Now to Exhibit 3:

Obama has not only out-campaigned her, she’s also done an excellent job of stabbing herself in the eyeball.

This from one of our favorite writers at Slate, Emily Yoffe, posting in Slate’s “The XX Factor” blog:

Experience?

By Emily Yoffe | Published Thursday, March 27, 2008 1:05 PM

One of Hillary Clinton’s rationales for staying in the race when she was getting battered in a string of defeats was that she was so much more experienced than Barack Obama, that over time his inexperience would cause him to stumble. That would leave Clinton, having been so gruelingly tested over so many years, ultimately victorious. But isn’t it ironic that now a central Clinton claim on the presidency—her experience—is making her look foolish.

One “exaggeration” after another, all that experience. “First Lady” is a very polite title; but it’s not “Vice President” for heaven’s sake!

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

The XX Factor : Experience?

So, let’s put these “mis-remembered” incidents into context. As the video that outed Mrs. Clinton this week shows, there are people who were there, and remember what was happening in Bosnia with, let’s just say, more certain accuracy.

Exhibit 4:

Imagined Snipers, Real Challenges

By ROGER COHEN | Published: March 27, 2008

Here’s some news for Hillary Clinton: the Bosnian war was over in 1996.

Those of us, like myself, who first went to Bosnia at the start of the war in 1992 and then, in 1994 and 1995, endured President Bill Clinton’s circumlocutions as we sat in an encircled Sarajevo watching pregnant women getting blown away by shelling from Serbian gunners, know that…

So, yes, the war was well and truly over when Hillary Clinton arrived in the northeastern Bosnian town of Tuzla on March 25, 1996. It was over, although she recently recalled “landing under sniper fire.” It was over when “we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

So what’s this all about, these lies about experience? Seems straightforward to me: it’s SOP today to distort, or lie outright on one’s résumé. For a journalist to make up quotes if the real ones are too inconvenient to acquire. For autobiographers to totally invent a colorful past. CEO’s invent college credentials. It’s a trend, folks, an ugly trend, and if it’s unseemly for our journalists, our autobiographers, our television stars, it’s absolutely outrageous for this nation’s leaders. Cohen says,

Clinton made up Bosnian sniper fire in an attempt to show that she’s tougher than Barack Obama; that she’s a hardened, seasoned, putative commander in chief ready to respond to crisis when the “red phone” of her fear-mongering ad rings.

John McCain’s own recent “misspeaking” about Iran, placing (Sunni) Al Qaeda in (Shiite) Iran, also smacked of muscle-flexing: he wanted to signal toughness to the mullahs in Tehran, where Obama has suggested he’d seek dialogue.

Cohen’s point: this country needs reflection, not reflexive reaction. This country needs intellect; we’ve had quite enough macho cowboy “shoot first and ask questions later” to last us forever.

The obvious contrast to shrill Hillary, and past his prime McCain? Erudite, reflective, Barack Obama, the anti-cowboy.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Imagined Snipers, Real Challenges – New York Times

Yr (justifiably) humble svt has only written at length regarding Hillary Clinton’s candidacy once before, about six weeks ago before the recent unpleasantness that has put a grin on the face of John McCain and the Republicans, who thought they might never smile again.

Here’s some of what I said then:

mm284: A vote against Hillary is NOT a vote against women in high office

… Thus, I have absolutely no trouble with the concept of a woman ascending to the office of President of the United States of America. Long overdue.

But.

I’ve had trouble from Day 1 with the actuality of the particular woman who seeks that office this year.

And it’s not about her gender whatsoever.

Maureen Dowd in today’s NYTimes finally expressed out loud what many of us of the progressive persuasion have not expressed out loud, although perhaps it has been manifested in polling places for the past six weeks. Because, after all, it doesn’t seem very progressive, or very feminist, to be against a woman running for president.

It’s about this woman….

So, wife, daughter, mothers, bosses, please understand how sincere I am.

This country is more than ready for a strong competent leader.

If that strong competent leader is of a progressive frame of mind, so much the better.

If that progressive strong competent leader happens to be a black man, or Hispanic, or a self-made billionaire mayor, or a woman, well, it’s about time.

But this woman?

Sorry, can’t do it.

Even less now, than then.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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Late start tonight; busy day led to a busy evening.

Did get time to step outside into the crystal clear 13°F night to gander at the lunar eclipse.

Very cool. Cold, actually, but fun to see.

Puts our everyday concerns into perspective, when you get that all too rare chance to slow down, pause and look up to see the cosmos working in its own time and rhythm.

To business.

As part of the NYTimes series of extended coverage of the presidential candidates, they’ve just published the following:

For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk

By JIM RUTENBERG, MARILYN W. THOMPSON, DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and STEPHEN LABATON | Published: February 21, 2008

WASHINGTON — Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.

Stephen Boitano/Getty Images | Vicki Iseman at an awards dinner in 2004.

A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s client, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.

Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.

Straight talk my …

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk – New York Times

I respect the man as a decorated war hero and courageous POW beyond measure.

As a politician, however, regardless of his “straight” talk, McCain’s actions, according to the Times’ writers, don’t match up.

All politicians have baggage. They don’t get to high office (or even dog catcher) without donations from people who expect that their contributions are not altruistic in the slightest.

Republicans specialize in McCain’s kind of lobbyist related baggage, which I imagine most of the country feels is preferable to the kind manifesting itself in men’s rooms and with Congressional pages.

We’ve talked of Ms. Clinton’s baggage.

Mr. Obama, in national politics for a much shorter time, has a smaller briefcase, but baggage all the same.

Baggage comes with the territory.

No wonder so many have been so apathetic about politics as practiced in this country. Especially young people, who have seen it all on CNN and Fox News and have turned away with disgust.

No wonder there’s been such enthusiasm for those candidates and potential candidates who are viewed as outside mainstream politics.

But even the Huckabees and Ron Pauls of this election season come with baggage; they didn’t get invented yesterday, after all.

It’s why this nanocorner of the ‘Sphere© has been so intrigued by Michael Bloomberg. As a self-made billionaire, Bloomberg is by definition impervious to lobbyists and other special interests.

Of course he comes with baggage too. His name, after all, isn’t Blair.

Well, that’s all I’ve got tonight. Read the NYTimes story, all six writers’ worth, and remember that the inspiringly heroic John McCain of the Vietnam era has grown into an entirely conventional politician. With baggage.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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I’m a curmudgeon, but not a dope.

I believe in strong competent leaders. And I have absolutely no trouble with the concept that a strong competent leader is a woman.

The women in my life are strong, competent people. My wife, my daughter, my mother and mother-in-law: not one is a weakling or a coward.

For most of the past decade, by most measures by far the most remunerative in my 40+ years in the workforce [bar inflation, a subject of a future post], my supervisors, managers, directors and even one vice president / corporate officer, are all women. Strong, competent leaders, each of them.

Not all of them easy to work with or for, but that’s equally true of all of the men I have worked for all of these years.

Have I established gender neutrality credentials? Feminist (if a guy of a certain age is permitted to so classify himself) credentials? I hope so, because it’s how I lead my life.

Thus, I have absolutely no trouble with the concept of a woman ascending to the office of President of the United States of America. Long overdue.

But.

I’ve had trouble from Day 1 with the actuality of the particular woman who seeks that office this year.

And it’s not about her gender whatsoever.

Maureen Dowd in today’s NYTimes finally expressed out loud what many of us of the progressive persuasion have not expressed out loud, although perhaps it has been manifested in polling places for the past six weeks. Because, after all, it doesn’t seem very progressive, or very feminist, to be against a woman running for president.

It’s about this woman.

A Flawed Feminist Test

By MAUREEN DOWD | Published: February 13, 2008 | WASHINGTON

… We’re not just in the most vertiginous election of our lives. We’re in another national seminar on gender and race that is teaching us about who we are as we figure out what we want America to be.

It’s not yet clear which prejudice will infect the presidential contest more — misogyny or racism….

…But Hillary is not the best test case for women. We’ll never know how much of the backlash is because she’s a woman or because she’s this woman or because of the ick factor of returning to the old Clinton dysfunction….

Exactly. This woman.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

A Flawed Feminist Test – New York Times

The Obama people who have been running against Bill Clinton’s presidential record have it wrong. Slate did a good job exposing that the other day.

Memo to Obama Fans

Clinton’s presidency was not a failure.

By David Greenberg | Posted Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2008, at 3:34 PM ET

Barack Obama’s upscale white supporters (and those too young to recall the 1970s and 1980s) tend to describe Clinton-ism as a betrayal of liberalism, a sellout to Wall Street, and proof that “the Clintons” won’t bring about change—a view encapsulated in the Daily Kos blog’s visceral aversion to Terry McAuliffe’s mug. Yet while the courting of big donors with stays in the Lincoln Bedroom left a bad odor, as a historical matter, the Clinton years were unquestionably a time of progress, especially on the economy. And it seems that as Obama mania sweeps the educated classes, the party’s struggling lower-income base still prefers Hillary. One reason is that they’re less prone than their better-off party mates to vote out of an enthusiasm for stirring rhetoric or viral videos or a wish to play their part in a grand narrative of racial reconciliation. Having been battered by globalization, rising health care and education costs, and the subprime mortgage disaster, they’re remembering the Clinton years and voting for who they think will help them.

Memo to Obama fans: Clinton-ism was a success. – By David Greenberg – Slate Magazine

So where does this leave us? If it’s all about the pocketbook, then the Clinton years definitely were propitious, especially measured against the myriad failures of commission of the George III reign.

But it’s that man.

The one that so affronted the opposition party, that filled the Republican congressional leadership with such sclerotic fury, they finally impeached him over a serious personal, but governmentally trivial issue, because he was that man, and they could.

And he’s still around. And she’s still married to him.

Back to Dowd:

Instead of carving out a separate identity for herself, she has become more entwined with Bill. She is running bolstered by his record and his muscle. She touts her experience as first lady, even though her judgment during those years on issue after issue was poor. She says she’s learned from her mistakes, but that’s not a compelling pitch.

As a senator, she was not a leading voice on important issues, and her Iraq vote was about her political viability.

So, wife, daughter, mothers, bosses, please understand how sincere I am.

This country is more than ready for a strong competent leader.

If that strong competent leader is of a progressive frame of mind, so much the better.

If that progressive strong competent leader happens to be a black man, or Hispanic, or a self-made billionaire mayor, or a woman, well, it’s about time.

But this woman?

Sorry, can’t do it.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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It’s Slippery Saturday (in these northern climes) following Tsunami Tuesday. And we’re wondering where Michael Bloomberg fits in the election puzzle.

As faithful reader knows, we’ve been following the non-candidacy of Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, since we staked out this nanocorner of the ‘Sphere©. As a review, you might consult the following:

As this has been an eventful week in the endless saga of Campaign 2008 (began the day after the November, 2006 elections), we wondered how Mike’s plans (or non-plans) might be affected by the tumultuous events.

On the one side, the very even positions of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — a delegate count and popular count virtual dead heat after Tsunami Tuesday.

On the other side, Tuesday’s bloodbath ratified the startling reemergence of John McCain, such a front runner that Mitt Romney has departed the field, purportedly $50million in personal funds the lighter for his trouble. Someone on Public Radio’s “Wait, wait don’t tell me” this morning cracked that, when interviewed, Romney angrily denied ever being a candidate.

In a race McCain vs. either Obama or Clinton, is there room for Bloomberg? McCain, after all, is the conservative Republican that even liberals like (and yr (justifiably) humble svt pleads guilty – starts with his answer to “what did you do in the war, Daddy?”). Obama is rather out there, from a conservative’s perspective, but his messages of non-partisanship and reconciliation play surprisingly well in red states. And of course, Ms. Clinton comes from a centrist tradition.

So, if McCain, Obama and/or Clinton are the choices, where would Michael Bloomberg fit. Were the Republican candidate preacher-governor Huckleberry or changeling-Mormon Romney, Bloomberg might have an easier time making a case for a third alternative.

Or, perhaps there’s a better idea. We picked up on Jon Taplin’s proposal for a Obama-Bloomberg ticket several weeks ago.

Now, via the Huffington Post, and published just before Tsunami Tues., is a version of the same tune.

Obama/Bloomberg: A Can’t Miss Ticket?

|Bruce Yaffe | Posted January 31, 2008 | 05:02 PM (EST)

…There is a legitimate option requiring immediate action that significantly increases the likelihood of a Bloomberg presidency. Though Mayor Mike is a CEO kind of guy, it is not unreasonable for him to team up with the other non-polarizing candidate in the race, Barack Obama, forming a real bipartisan coalition. Michael Bloomberg as Barack Obama’s endorser, supporter, and eventual running mate!

Michael Bloomberg is 65-years-old, and his best and perhaps only shot at becoming president of the United States is by being the VP in a successful administration. Mr. Bloomberg would be a ‘most senior advisor’ for eight years, adding significant ‘gravitas’ to the executive branch, providing superior managerial expertise, economic expertise, and a large cadre of intelligent loyalists. He could legally provide enormous campaign funding and prevent the need for President Obama to kowtow to special interests or to waste time fundraising….

What we’ve been thinking for a while, Bruce.

A successful eight year Obama-Bloomberg administration would, at age 74, perfectly position Michael Bloomberg to be the next president of the United States. A viable option for a healthy man with a fully functioning 98-year-old mother.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Huffington Post – Obama / Bloomberg: A Can’t Miss Ticket?

One would have to imagine that, after the bloody primary season results in victory for either Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama, it would be difficult for either to accept the other as a “kiss and make up” running mate. Too much vitriol caught on too many YouTube vids.

But a ticket of Obama-Bloomberg makes such sense: no ugly charges, no further fund-raising problems, and someone to choose from on a ticket with actual managerial experience.

What do you say, Mike?

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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We are all of us under bombardment. If it’s not politics, it’s electronics (the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week).

What’s an overstressed blogger to do? How to choose?

It’s 2008 — politics wins. Actually, it’s been 2008 politically since November, 2006.

From the veritable cascade of information flowing out of the results of the New Hampshire primary Tuesday, as well as germane political news of a more general nature, we’ve put together another in a series we at Left-Handed Complement like to call:

©

As this is our second effort in the past 16 hours or so, we will restrict ourselves to more cursory commentary. These are three stories that faithful reader should read for understanding.

There will be a test!

The New Hampshire results, especially Hillary Clinton’s surprise narrow victory over the sweetheart of Iowa, Barack Obama (a five-day honeymoon — that’s Britney Spears class!), most embarrassed the people who conducted the polls that had everyone, especially Obama’s team, believing in his invincibility.

They Were Misinformed

By Tobin Harshaw | January 9, 2008,  9:33 am

Well, it was a shocking defeat for this group, and today they’re going to have to take a long hard look at what went wrong. No, I don’t mean Team Obama — that crowd can move ahead — I mean the pollsters who were so certain that the Clinton campaign was D.O.A.

We’ll start, as usual, with Mark Blumenthal at Pollster.com, who dissects the final poll by CNN and the University of New Hampshire:

The discrepancy between the last UNH poll and the result seems concentrated in a few key subgroups. I will post the exact numbers tomorrow once the we get a final exit poll tabulations, but virtually all of the difference seems to come from women and college educated voters. For the moment, when comparing the UNH poll to the exit poll, I see a net 17 point gain for Clinton among women compared to a 5 point gain among men, and a 13 point net gain among college educated voters compared to a one point net loss among those with no college degree.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

They Were Misinformed – The Opinionator – Opinion – New York Times Blog

Back to the drawing board, pollsters. And, it’s game on for this political season, as the long-held (okay, five-day-long-held) sureties dissipated in Hillary’s “comeback.”

©

It’s the season, and we’ve been increasingly concerned about vote fraud, most specifically when it involves voting machines (lately here and here).

This past weekend, the NYTimes magazine ran an extended feature on voting machines, and the crises in confidence they’ve caused in many states.

We all know the story of Florida in 2000 (which was a paper based system, in a state that politically gives Myanmar some competition), but disturbing stories are told all over the country.

Can You Count on Voting Machines?

By CLIVE THOMPSON | Published: January 6, 2008

Jane Platten gestured, bleary-eyed, into the secure room filled with voting machines. It was 3 a.m. on Nov. 7, and she had been working for 22 hours straight. “I guess we’ve seen how technology can affect an election,” she said. The electronic voting machines in Cleveland were causing trouble again….

As the primaries start in New Hampshire this week and roll on through the next few months, the erratic behavior of voting technology will once again find itself under a microscope. In the last three election cycles, touch-screen machines have become one of the most mysterious and divisive elements in modern electoral politics. Introduced after the 2000 hanging-chad debacle, the machines were originally intended to add clarity to election results. But in hundreds of instances, the result has been precisely the opposite: they fail unpredictably, and in extremely strange ways; voters report that their choices “flip” from one candidate to another before their eyes; machines crash or begin to count backward; votes simply vanish. (In the 80-person town of Waldenburg, Ark., touch-screen machines tallied zero votes for one mayoral candidate in 2006 — even though he’s pretty sure he voted for himself.) Most famously, in the November 2006 Congressional election in Sarasota, Fla., touch-screen machines recorded an 18,000-person “undervote” for a race decided by fewer than 400 votes.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Voting Machines – Elections – Ballots – Politics – New York Times

We have a lot to worry about, people!

©

Couldn’t resist this one.

A fellow WordPress blogger (there are only a couple of million of us) had the following unique take on two men in the news (and present always, or lately, in this nanocorner of the ‘Sphere©).

Always, Michael Bloomberg:

Lately, Barack Obama (see above, and here, for example).

Why not put them together? asks this distinguished political expert, blogger Jon Taplin.

Obama-Bloomberg?

January 7, 2008 · 7 Comments

With Drudge predicting Hillary’s exit and Barack Obama increasingly building excitement towards locking up the nomination on Feb. 5, I’m thinking about the role Mike Bloomberg could play as Obama’s running mate. The Republican battle could last all the way until a brokered convention in August. Romney has too much money to retire easily, McCain could take New Hampshire, Huckabee wins South Carolina, Rudy wins Florida and the Feb 5 races could be split with no clear winner. That leaves Barack with time to consolidate the Democratic Party, raise money for the general and choose a running mate while the Republicans remain in a squabble, spending their limited resources on the primary.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Obama-Bloomberg? « Jon Taplin’s Blog

What a concept! It’s got legs, brains, $$$.

Would billionaire Mayor Mike settle for being anyone’s second banana?

Don’t you just love political season (except of course that it has apparently become the first true perpetual motion machine)?

And that’s L-HC’s first ever (that we can recall) Political Potpourri. Does anyone doubt that there’ll be more?

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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A news story that just won’t go away: Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee winning the Iowa caucuses; our post, including a distressingly poor quality but nevertheless inspiring video, is here.

The always refreshingly incisive Steve Chapman sheds some light:

Authenticity is the winner in Iowa test

Steve Chapman | January 6, 2008 | Chicago Tribune

Back in the 1990s, Bill Clinton talked a lot about building “a bridge to the 21st Century.” Right now, his wife looks like an unappealing detour back to the 20th.

Having him stand behind her as she addressed supporters after her third-place finish in Iowa didn’t help. She might as well have invited Fleetwood Mac to provide the music. Nostalgia isn’t everything.

The Iowa caucuses, it should be noted, are rarely as decisive as they may appear. Since 1976, only one candidate has won Iowa on the way to becoming president—George W. Bush in 2000. But if you can’t win the election in Iowa, you can certainly put yourself in a solid position to lose it, which is what Clinton and John Edwards accomplished Thursday evening.

The evening was full of surprises. I would not have guessed that Barack Obama would reprise a German slogan chanted upon the fall of the Berlin Wall: “We are one people.” But it was appropriate, since the polarization of the last 15 years has featured everything short of an Iron Curtain between the red states and the blue.

Regarding Huckabee, Chapman warns that a win for “an evangelical darling” in Iowa may not translate in the rest of the U.S.:

His victory was one for “none of the above.” Once voters get to know the newcomer better, he may look worse than the other options.

And as for Romney and Clinton, he believes that their smooth politician’s pandering became transparent to Iowa’s caucusers.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Authenticity is the winner in Iowa test — chicagotribune.com

Faithful reader should know by now what side of the political spectrum yr (justifiably) humble svt usually finds himself, not for nothing is this nanocorner of the ‘Sphere© is called Left-Handed Complement.

And readers of Steve Chapman, in the Tribune as well as Reason have every reason (as it were) to believe they know on which side of the aisle he feels most comfortable.

Yet, both of us are (perhaps unexpectedly, or in spite of our selves) impressed by Obama’s victory this past Thursday night.

The key question remains regarding every candidate: can s(he) govern?

This jury is still out. But, this endless presidential election campaign has certainly become a great deal more compelling.

And our increasing concerns about the dirtiest dirty tricks of all in American politics, outright election fraud, will become a great deal more compelling as Obama’s sizable contingent of young and minority voters find roadblocks to casting their ballots.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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Christopher Hitchens is that guy you love to hate. His best seller, God is Not Great is currently No. 5 on the New York Times list (since one needs an account to access the list, I thought I’d just show you the pix):

This is not some retiring violet – the man does like to pick a fight.

But yet. He does have a way of making sense.

Here he is in Slate yesterday, making sense:

We’re fighting at least three of them.

By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Aug. 27, 2007, at 4:56 PM ET

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki

When people say that they want to end the war in Iraq, I always want to ask them which war they mean. There are currently at least three wars, along with several subconflicts, being fought on Iraqi soil. The first, tragically, is the battle for mastery between Sunni and Shiite. The second is the campaign to isolate and defeat al-Qaida in Mesopotamia. The third is the struggle of Iraq’s Kurdish minority to defend and consolidate its regional government in the north.

The balance of the article is quite concise for Mr. Hitchens. Take a look.

[Per L-HC's reformed process, please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

We’re fighting at least three wars in Iraq. Do you want to end them all? – By Christopher Hitchens – Slate Magazine

So, no wonder the Bush administration is so confounded by Iraq. I’m sure that they have no idea that they’re fighting three different wars there!

And our prospective leaders may have the same trouble:

The ability to distinguish among these different definitions of the “war” is what ought to define the difference between a serious politician and a political opportunist, both in Iraq and in America….

Meanwhile, it is all very well for Sens. Clinton and Levin to denounce the Maliki government and to say that he and his Dawa Party colleagues are not worth fighting for. But what do they say about the other two wars?

Attention, candidates! Please learn already that the USA’s position in the world cannot be summarized in a 20-second sound byte.

What are your substantive thoughts (i.e., body text, not headlines) about the panoply of messes (some we’ve inherited, some we’ve created, some we’re just bemusedly observing) in the world?

Show us your brains, candidates! (And that goes for you putative non-candidates – Michael Bloomberg I mean you!)

Start by telling us what you think of this Christopher Hitchens analysis (I know, you wouldn’t touch his atheistic whatever with a 10-foot whatever so leave his name out of it if you must), but acknowledge that our world is more complex than ABC123.

Wouldn’t it be a wondrous achievement if we elect a president for her/his brains, not his superficialities as showcased through the expenditure of $billions in manipulative advertising and nefarious “swift boaters”?

Will I live that long?

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

Today was collection day here at L-HC. Accumulated enough story ideas for a week at least; of course, if they’re news based, the fish get stale quickly.

Found this courtesy of reddit.com, out-digging Digg once again, and it caused me to toss the fish back, perhaps to catch another day.

This one is too important not to share.

Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane
Published: Tuesday August 28, 2007

The United States has the capacity for and may be prepared to launch without warning a massive assault on Iranian uranium enrichment facilities, as well as government buildings and infrastructure, using long-range bombers and missiles, according to a new analysis.

The paper, “Considering a war with Iran: A discussion paper on WMD in the Middle East” – written by well-respected British scholar and arms expert Dr. Dan Plesch, Director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, and Martin Butcher, a former Director of the British American Security Information Council (BASIC) and former adviser to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament – was exclusively provided to RAW STORY late Friday under embargo.

Well, okay, we know that military strategists are always war-gaming, right?

The study concludes that the US has made military preparations to destroy Iran’s WMD, nuclear energy, regime, armed forces, state apparatus and economic infrastructure within days if not hours of President George W. Bush giving the order. The US is not publicising the scale of these preparations to deter Iran, tending to make confrontation more likely. The US retains the option of avoiding war, but using its forces as part of an overall strategy of shaping Iran’s actions.

Sounds a bit more further advanced than a theoretical game, huh?

It’s lengthy, but now take a look at the original story.

[Per L-HC's reformed process, please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

The Raw Story | Study: US preparing ‘massive’ military attack against Iran

Anyone the least bit concerned about this?

Even-handedly, near the end, the report includes some push-back:

“The report seems to accept without question that US air force and navy bombers could effectively destroy Iran and they seem to ignore the fact that US use of air power in Iraq has failed to destroy all major military, political, economic and transport capabilities,” said Johnson late Monday after the embargo on the study had been lifted.

“But at least in their conclusions they still acknowledge that Iran, if attacked, would be able to retaliate. Yet they are vague in terms of detailing the extent of the damage that the Iran is capable of inflicting on the US and fairly assessing what those risks are.”

Back to the paper:

We should not underestimate the Bush administration’s ability to convince itself that an “Iran of the regions” will emerge from a post-rubble Iran. So, do not be in the least surprised if the United States attacks Iran. Timing is an open question, but it is hard to find convincing arguments that war will be avoided, or at least ones that are convincing in Washington.

Constant reader may already know this about MUDGE: I am not a knee-jerk pacifist peace-nik make love not war child of the sixties.

Like so many of my generation, I artfully dodged the Vietnam draft, in the interests of self-preservation rather than some lofty anti-war principles, I freely, if somewhat shamefacedly admit.

But, carefully reflected upon, carefully conducted war has its place.

My father and father-in-law, both members of the Greatest Generation and now deceased, did their duty, honorably in an honorable cause.

My son, and new daughter-in-law both served multiple tours aboard Naval vessels in the Arabian Gulf enforcing the U.N. sanctions of Iraq in the ’90′s and targeting cruise missiles against the enemy in Afghanistan.

So, it’s not knee-jerk pacifist peace-nik make love not war that is making me feel nauseous as I write this.

Forest fires, after all, are Mother Nature’s way of taking old-growth forests and starting over. Sometimes this same principle may be operative where wrong-headed nations are concerned. Turns out that Smokey the Bear and his fellow peace-loving comrades were both utterly wrong.

Unfortunately, the Muslim states have made no secret of their aim to obliterate Israel, and it’s in reaction to that virulent hatred, and that alone, that causes this observer to think: “Hmm, remove Iran’s capabilities to destroy Tel Aviv and generally make destructive mischief throughout the region? Maybe sooner than later.”

So, I’m concerned. Not because punishing Iran is a bad idea per se. To protect our interests, which include Israel’s right to exist, some punishment may be necessary.

But the gang that can’t shoot straight scares me.

If there’s a way to conduct a preemptive strike against Iran, no matter how good the reasons, we cannot trust George III and his ne’er-do-well minions to correctly consider the geopolitical ramifications, nor direct the military campaign effectively.

So I’m thinking, “Stand down, Pentagon.”

And, all you macho presidential candidates out there (and Hillary, I meant you most of all!), Iran is not the issue with which to flex your warlike muscles. The stakes are way too high for posturing, either by the Bush mis-administration, or by any of you.

This is one initiative that, unless dire reality intrudes, should get put on the shelf until, say, 21-January-2009, the earliest.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

Startling! Take a look:

Barack Obama’s Republican edge

If he can win the Democratic primary, will his fans from the opposing party help take him all the way to the White House?

By Michael Scherer

Aug. 24, 2007 | It was sort of like finding a Christmas tree in a cornfield. In late July and early August, Iowa Republican voters were asked to name their choice for president in a University of Iowa poll. Mitt Romney, who leads most Iowa surveys, got 22 percent of the total. Rudy Giuliani came in second with 10 percent. But third place went to a Democrat, Barack Obama, who got nearly 7 percent — more than Mike Huckabee, John McCain and Sam Brownback combined.

Not to worry: The Obama campaign isn’t likely to join the Grand Old Party, and pollsters are convinced that Obama has exactly zero chance of winning the Republican caucus in Iowa. But something is going on. “I don’t want to make too much of it,” says David Redlawsk, the professor who commissioned the poll. “But I do think that the message Obama is putting out right now is the most likely to reach across party lines.”

There are other signs of Obama’s crossover appeal. Over the last several months, Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster, has been holding focus groups for various media organizations like Fox News to find out what the public thinks of the presidential candidates. “I would ask Republicans, ‘Which Democratic candidate would you accept? Who would you consider to vote for?’” Luntz says. “Obama would get more than everybody else combined. Hillary [Clinton] and [John] Edwards have no crossover voters.”

A recent poll by the Washington Post and ABC News revealed a third data point in Obama’s favor: When asked in July which Democratic candidate has the best chance to defeat a Republican in a general election, Republicans and independents were more likely than Democrats to pick Obama over Clinton. In fact, among Democrats, only 22 percent said Obama was the best general election candidate, while 54 percent flagged Clinton as the best in the general election. But among Republicans, 33 percent said Obama was the best candidate, and 37 percent said Hillary. In other words, Republicans were about 11 points more likely than Democrats to see Obama as the best shot for a Democratic White House.

Any political expert will tell you that polls don’t mean much five months before the first caucus. But a pattern may be emerging. In part because of Clinton’s high negatives among Republicans, it appears Obama is gaining momentum as a fresh candidate with a less divisive approach, by constantly appealing beyond the partisan lines of the last decade. His first television ad buy in Iowa included testimony from a Republican state lawmaker from Illinois talking up Obama and his ability to reach across party lines. As Obama reiterated in an appearance in Iowa last week, “The country is hungry for change. It wants something new. We want to chart a new direction for our nation.”

I find this story confounding, confusing, counterintuitive, and any other “c” word that’s appropriate.

Go ahead and take a look at the rest:

[Per L-HC's reformed process, please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Salon.com News | Barack Obama’s Republican edge

If I hadn’t seen this story in Salon, I might suspect it’s part of a Republican dirty tricks campaign.

It’s a paramount tactic among the Roves of the world to do all that’s necessary to see that the other party nominates the candidate easiest to defeat in the general election. This explains John Kerry.

Because I have to tell you, gals and guys, it is my firmly held belief that what people say to pollsters and what they do in the privacy of the voting booth can differ astonishingly. This explains Harry Truman’s win in 1948.

I think that it’s understood that people tend to tell pollsters an idealized version of their beliefs, or a varnished version, or an aspirational version, and then they go ahead and reelect the (mainly) guys who are, deep down, the most like themselves in all the important ways (i.e., white, male, Christian).

And, I’m ready at all times to be thrilled and impressed with the maturity and intelligence of the U.S. voting public, but I can’t help but be overwhelmed by my curMUDGEonly insistence that the electorate of 2008 will not elect a black man president, nor, to be sure, the particular woman in question.

I’m disappointed with that situation, but here’s the other problem. Whatever those Iowans say, the only chance the Republicans have of having any of their motley crew of candidates win in November 2008 is if the Democrats, whose victory in Congress seems to have led to only (bloody and bloody-minded) business as usual, nominate a candidate sure to galvanize the demoralized Republican troops into the polls in (modern) record numbers.

Call me cynical, but the prospect of staying home and letting a black man, or that woman swear the oath of office on 20-January-2009 might cause even the most dispirited Republican voters to get out and vote for Rudy or Old Man McCain.

And in my opinion, the Democratic center, for all of its brave conversation, has not yet evolved so much further than their Republican counterparts.

Whatever they all say to the pollsters, in the utter privacy of the voting booth, I just can’t see the average citizen doing the right thing.

Finally, none of the candidates have much of a record of executive accomplishment. The more months go by, Rudy’s supposed turnaround of NYC is going to tarnish. Obama and Clinton and many of the rest are lawyers, managers only of assistants and paralegals. A couple of governors might have executive experience, but of small states with tiny local challenges. And Fred Thompson, you’re no Ronald Reagan!

Michael Bloomberg, we’re ready for you!

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

BTW, Patrick Smith of Salon has a new Ask the Pilot column this weekend. Patrick, I don’t want to incur any further fiscal obligations to you and Salon.com, so I won’t excerpt it or comment further here, except to recommend that my fearless reader get over and check it out. Terrific as always.

–MUDGE

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