© Associated Press photo by Byron Rollins

We’ve written before about our hometown newspaper, the Chicago Tribune.

Taken most seriously in its home town.

But proud of its Republican tradition. Its first editor of any distinction, Joseph Medill, was influential in winning the presidency for Abraham Lincoln.

That Republican heritage caused it to be newspaper non grata in my grandparents’ and my parents’ households, and indeed, our household for many years, until its more favored tabloid competitor, the once scrappy and progressive Sun-Times, was eviscerated by Rupert Murdoch, the first of a series of newspaper bandits that have effectively destroyed it. The latest in that series, Conrad Black, is in federal prison, convicted of fraud in connection with his newspaper properties.

But we digress.

The Tribune is <so> Republican that once, the year yr (justifiably) humble svt was born, they allowed wishful thinking to trump reality, resulting in the headline illustrated at the top of this post, a photograph that Wikipedia rightfully describes as one of the most famous ever published.

That was then.

Times, even for the 161 year old Chicago Tribune, have changed.

FROM THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE EDITORIAL BOARD

Tribune endorsement: Barack Obama for president

2:33 PM CDT, October 17, 2008

However this election turns out, it will dramatically advance America’s slow progress toward equality and inclusion. It took Abraham Lincoln’s extraordinary courage in the Civil War to get us here. It took an epic battle to secure women the right to vote. It took the perseverance of the civil rights movement. Now we have an election in which we will choose the first African-American president . . . or the first female vice president.

In recent weeks it has been easy to lose sight of this history in the making. Americans are focused on the greatest threat to the world economic system in 80 years. They feel a personal vulnerability the likes of which they haven’t experienced since Sept. 11, 2001. It’s a different kind of vulnerability. Unlike Sept. 11, the economic threat hasn’t forged a common bond in this nation. It has fed anger, fear and mistrust.

On Nov. 4 we’re going to elect a president to lead us through a perilous time and restore in us a common sense of national purpose.

The strongest candidate to do that is Sen. Barack Obama. The Tribune is proud to endorse him today for president of the United States.

Do you get it yet?

In over 160 years, forty (40!) elections, the Tribune has NEVER endorsed a Democrat for president in a general election.

Until today.

It’s an open question how influential newspapers, and more specifically, their endorsements, are with today’s voters. Newspapers are no longer the king of all media that they were in the days before electronic journalism.

But as a symbol of the utter bankruptcy of the Republican party, its candidates, Mad Capt. McCain and the Redneckette, and indeed, this country after eight years of George III’s misrule, this endorsement of Barack Obama is a telling indictment.

The Republican Party, the party of limited government, has lost its way. The government ran a $237 billion surplus in 2000, the year before Bush took office — and recorded a $455 billion deficit in 2008. The Republicans lost control of the U.S. House and Senate in 2006 because, as we said at the time, they gave the nation rampant spending and Capitol Hill corruption. They abandoned their principles. They paid the price.

We might have counted on John McCain to correct his party’s course. We like McCain. We endorsed him in the Republican primary in Illinois. In part because of his persuasion and resolve, the U.S. stands to win an unconditional victory in Iraq.

It is, though, hard to figure John McCain these days. He argued that President Bush’s tax cuts were fiscally irresponsible, but he now supports them. He promises a balanced budget by the end of his first term, but his tax cut plan would add an estimated $4.2 trillion in debt over 10 years. He has responded to the economic crisis with an angry, populist message and a misguided, $300 billion proposal to buy up bad mortgages.

McCain failed in his most important executive decision. Give him credit for choosing a female running mate–but he passed up any number of supremely qualified Republican women who could have served. Having called Obama not ready to lead, McCain chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. His campaign has tried to stage-manage Palin’s exposure to the public. But it’s clear she is not prepared to step in at a moment’s notice and serve as president. McCain put his campaign before his country.

Tribune endorses Barack Obama for president

Now, I’m sure some of my friends and readers (you, too, Mr. M) will make the obvious connection of the Tribune‘s famous error at the top of this post, and today’s endorsement. “Hey, they’ve been famously wrong before!”

And there’s no denying two other salient facts: Barack Obama is a home town hero; and the Tribune’s new owner is Sam Zell, a billionaire real estate guy, and bottom feeding investor, although his political views hitherto have seemed to lean toward Republican candidates and causes.

The important difference between 1948 and 2008: there’s no wishful thinking in this endorsement.

Just hopeful thinking.

And it’s fun to imagine Col. McCormick spinning in his grave.

It’s it for now. Thanks.

–MUDGE

© Bruno1998 | Dreamstime.com

Away (from blogging — the writing, not the reading) and the economy, and especially the stock markets, continues in free fall.

Everyone is on edge, if not downright frantic, because if you’re too young to be that concerned about your retirement account and pension, you very well might be looking over your shoulder for economy-related pink slips.

The presidential campaign continues its free fall, from idealism and straight talk to Republican distortions and lies, and increasingly strident (and quite rapid, altogether a nice improvement over the “gentlemanly” Kerry debacle) Democratic responses.

And chanting relentlessly about Bill Ayers to mad-dog mobs (did Sarah Palin bring out every last one of this country’s rednecks?) while 401Ks keep decaying and mortgages keep resetting  is making ordinary, moderate people downright angry.

Fiddling while Rome burns, indeed.

My approach to the meltdown? I just don’t look at my funds.

If you’re not spending it tomorrow, why make yourself crazy? If you live long enough, you’ll see the markets come back. And I’m not retiring until my 90th birthday.

Of course those now living off of their pensions and especially their IRAs and 401Ks have a right to be furious with the criminal class of plutocrats running (yeah, and ruining) this country’s biggest financial institutions. And the Republican politicians who made the world safe for their crimes.

I can imagine some really juicy show trials come January.

Meanwhile, I’m reading lots of good stuff, enough so that this past week I find myself rather tongue-tied as a result.

So, rather than fight to get the words out, here’s a laundry list of worthwhile reading.

Jason Buckley at Washington Interns Gone Bad is one progressive political site I check out frequently, either through the good offices of BlogExplosion.com, or better yet, through our blogroll.

A favorite read (also on our blogroll) is Len at First Door on the Left, who seems to find the good stuff first, and apparently has access to the mother lode of political cartooning.

The 12 Angry Men Blog had the most concise rundown of the contents of the ” $700 Billion Wall Street Bailout” (and I saw a funny [rueful] comment somewhere tonight that for Wall St. billionaires it’s a bailout; proposals that would pay off mortgages of average citizens is socialism); another site I just don’t get to frequently enough.

Just found Scott of The Coyote’s Byte in the last week or so, and I’m glad I did. He picked up (and, more to the point, beat yr (justifiably) humble svt to the punch) on McCain’s extraordinary call during Tuesday night’s debate for Meg Whitman, late of (soon to be late?) Ebay as a potential Treasury Secretary. The same week that Ebay announced 10% in personnel layoffs. Like McCain’s pal, Carly Fiorino, lately of (thankfully robust, despite Fiorino’s “best” efforts) HP, these two famous Silicon Valley women have proven themselves to be all hat, no cattle when it comes to running their businesses. I wouldn’t want them coming near running this economy.

Warren Buffett? Now there’s one septuagenarian I would trust with my money, and my country’s fate. Obama, be very persuasive!

Political Realm is one of the most useful comprehensive political sites. Important news and commentary to read and view there, day in and day out.

Finally, TomPaine.common sense sends me a daily newsletter, proving every day that there’s nothing that’s ever been more needed, but is less common and more difficult to find in today’s perilous world, than common sense.

And everyone’s pace, save yours truly, has picked up, reflecting the relentless countdown to what well might be one of, if not the most important of this generation’s tipping points, November 4, 2008.

So, faithful reader, there’s billions of pages to read, even if I haven’t updated in eight days. But thanks for not giving up on me.

And, thanks for voting.

It’s it for now. Thanks

–MUDGE

© Sharon Kennedy | Dreamstime.com

Trying not to feel too guilty about this month’s continuing violations of the blogger’s prime directive: Thou Shalt Blog Daily!

Guilty, your honor, with an excuse.

It’s not like there haven’t been extraordinary events to write about, in the big world out there, and in the not quite silent interior world each of us populate, eternally alone.

Faithful reader will have noted the personal elements that seem to have cost us our creative rhythm.

Complicated, lately, by the recent edition of MUDGElet No. 3′s 50-inch HD plasma television (if the empty nest had to be invaded, at least there’s an extra dividend!), just in time for the football season and the exciting (for Chicagoans, surprisingly exciting) baseball late and post-season.

Football, especially, on the elderly 13-inch conventional TV that sits on a file cabinet in our home office, pales in comparison. And the only laptop in my possession (two, actually, in my custody) belongs to my employer, and it wouldn’t occur to me to blog on those machines. Inappropriate.

So, it’s a tough call, choosing between blogging and high-definition spectator sport, especially in these personally emotionally draining times, and especially on this Sunday evening when the often frustrating home team Bears are giving the Eagles a fight.

Yes, I’m bemused when not scared silly over the financial meltdown that unrestricted greed and years of cynical neocon regulatory neglect have inflicted on the U.S.’s defenseless citizenry.

Yes, we watched every minute of Friday’s debate, and I’m less than humble to reveal that I pronounced it a draw before hearing or reading that informed evaluation from the pundits. Of course McCain looked strong on foreign policy experience; but Obama more than held his own, and seemed calm and presidential. Tie goes to the challenger.

So, thanks for continuing to stop by. We’re healing, I promise.

It’s it for now, thanks.

–MUDGE‘

© Martin Applegate | Dreamstime.com

Just don’t know where to start.

The news is bleak, nearly everywhere one cares to look.

Somehow, John McCain is still taken seriously, even as he escalates the stunts.

First, adopt wholeheartedly with relish the Karl Rove/Swift Boat outrageous Big Lie protocol that obliterated the last nice guy to try to win the White House.

Next, kowtow to the restive Christian wingnuts by selecting for his running mate wingnut magna, herself, Sarah Palin.

Now, clothe his attempt at abject ducking of the first debate in the name of somehow intervening in Congress’s Wall Street bailout negotiations. Senator “Fundamentally Sound” McCain. Whose economic advisor, the next Secretary of the Treasury should this country wake up to a nightmare on Nov. 5 is Phil “Stop Whining” Gramm. Yeah, I’m certain you can guys can be of assistance.

If it wasn’t so serious, it would be laughable.

But these days it’s tough to laugh.

Rather than allowing the greedy pigs of Wall Street choke on their own excess, Henry Paulson, a once and future greedy pig himself, wants to pull off the most outrageous repackaging and securitizing of all time by letting the next 4-5 generations of U.S. citizens save their bacon. And Democrats seem to be going along!

What’s wrong with this picture?

What’s not wrong?

Meanwhile, while our tax obligations, deferred or not, climb, all of the prices of the daily transactions of life will undoubtedly also climb: student loans, mortgages, equity loans, small business loans, large business loans, credit card interest — we’ll soon be complaining about much more than the excessive cost of gasoline (and because when Wall Street sneezes, much of the rest of the world catches pneumonia, we will continue to be gored by that ox).

Overwhelming.

Ugly.

Citizens, you must fight back.

Citizens, elect progressive candidates, starting with Barack Obama, on November 5, and chase the greedy troglodytes and religious wingnuts and knee-jerk NRA fanatics back to the 19th Century, or the stone age, where they belong.

Citizens, it’s seldom been more true: the future well being of you, your family (down to the fifth generation) and your nation is in your hands.

Citizens, the time for waffling is over. Vote progressive, proudly, and win back America.

It’s it for now, thanks.

–MUDGE

© Misty Pfeil | Dreamstime.com

George F. Will is one of the best known conservative commentators writing for a major daily newspaper. And, he makes no bones about his appreciation for the Chicago Cubs, who in the past few days have reached the next milestones in what should, by all rights, be their Brigadoon Year (go ahead, click the link — it’s one of my favorites, and you read it here first!).

Mr. Conservative Pundit George F. Will had some very cogent observations regarding the character of one John S. McCain, Republican presidential candidate. Unexpectedly, at least to this progressive observer, and to others who have picked up on this today, Mr. Will is not happy with Sen. McCain.

McCain Loses His Head

By George F. Will | Tuesday, September 23, 2008; Page A21

Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.

Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked the Wall Street Journal to editorialize that “McCain untethered” — disconnected from knowledge and principle — had made a “false and deeply unfair” attack on Cox that was “unpresidential” and demonstrated that McCain “doesn’t understand what’s happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does.”

Senator, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission regulates the stock-related activities of publicly traded corporations.

It’s the Federal Reserve, and the other regulators of the banking system, as well as legislators charged with that responsibility, SENATOR, who should be castigated for allowing the banks to act so reprehensibly and irresponsibly.

And, Senator, that’s castigated, not decapitated!

George F. Will – McCain Loses His Head – washingtonpost.com

These are calamitous times. Henry Paulson is not content with mortgaging our children and grandchildren — he’s grasping down four or more generations of indebtedness: $2,333 for every living man, woman and child in the U.S, and the meter is still running.

Somebody revoke this man’s license to practice economics!

Meanwhile, the electorate is learning more every day about its candidates (with the glaring exception of Gov. Palin, sealed tight in her protective media-free bubble lest anyone have a chance to learn once and for all that, underneath the gun-toting, Creationist, abstinence teaching — except at home — retro hairdo is … nothing at all).

Will’s bottom line: Obama lacks experience; but a bright Columbia University and Harvard Law graduate has the diplomas to prove that he is educable.

McCain’s shoot-from-the-lip impulsiveness is a dangerously destructive character defect. Bottom of his class at the Naval Academy, indeed. How can that be repaired?

Mr. Will, I, too, am a Cubs fan.

And I, too, am very much a fan of calm, but firm, reason in the face of adversity.

Guess that makes us both Obama fans, too, George?

It’s it for now, thanks.

–MUDGE

© Susy56 | Dreamstime.com

Once again, it’s nearly 9:00pm as I begin to figure out what to say tonight, pretty late for a guy whose alarm goes off at 5:10am, and who lived a full day’s worth already.

The pace and obligations at work are picking up, heading for a crunch. Admittedly, I’ve been coasting a bit, working best, I’ve found after 42 years and counting in the workforce, with do or die deadlines. Well, it’s that time.

Meanwhile, the home front is typically turbulent. Our L.A. daughter is finally (after more than two weeks) home from a hospitalization caused by her continuing battle with Crohn’s disease, a devastating intestinal condition that I have underlying guilt about since it seems to be inherited from my side of the family.

Our youngest, who himself was hospitalized the same day and released two days later, has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, for which, thankfully, there is effective pharmaceutical treatment; unlike, we’ve all been dismayed to learn, my daughter’s Crohn’s; very serious surgery is going to have to be her relief. And, guess what? MUDGElet No. 3′s bipolar disorder? Also from yr (justifiably) humble svt‘s side of the family tree. Oy, the guilt!

He is living here with us (unable as yet to support himself while he recovers from his breakdown), which is a disconcerting alteration in Mrs. MUDGE‘s and my reasonably comfortable empty nest routine, as well as a financial, and emotional burden.

And, speaking of routine, our middle son, and his wife, and our granddog, greet us every day around 6:00am, as their nearby condominium’s one and only bathroom is being rehabbed, and showers before work, for the humans — I do draw the line! — are necessary.

And my dear mother continues to battle her dread disease, acute myeloid leukemia; still living on her own at age 81, but lately causing her family increased anxiety after taking a fall last weekend. That black eye at the top of this post doesn’t do justice to hers.

So that’s why Faithful Reader has seen more than a few of our recycled posts over the past several weeks.

Not for lack of material, however, as the election circus goes into its final stage.

A big election about small things, the man says, and they really must think the electorate is stupid, indeed. Aren’t you tired of that cynicism? That phony outrage? That underqualified stand-in, who is only suitable to be a heartbeat away from Alaska?

This year of all years, it’s time to prove those cynical plutocrats and plutocrat wannabe’s, those religious extremists and science deniers; those manufacturers on a moments notice of flagrantly artificial outrage: it’s time to prove that it’s not their country any longer.

This nation belongs to people who still believe in the promise that 300 years of nation building have cultivated, and 40 years of “conservative” wrong-headedness have blighted. The promise of justice for all, not just white male plutocrats; the promise for a woman’s right to choose what’s best for her reproductive health; the promise for fairly paid employment, with affordable benefits (including quality health care) for anyone, from anywhere, who cares to work for it. This is what’s at risk and at stake.

We, the moderates, the progressives, the gays and Jews and women, we must vote to reclaim our country.

If you’re not registered: do so!

If you know someone who’s not registered: get them to town hall immediately!

When it’s your turn to cast your ballot, remember the 300 years of promise (mainly) delivered, and the 40 years of cynical, Swift-boating blight that must be flushed away.

And remind your neighbors and friends to do the same. Drive them to the polling place if you have to!

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

© Oleksii Sergieiev | Dreamstime.com

This one got me.

But, in recognition of Republican week, I don’t have a problem with having the infamous George III smirk atop this post.

I might have a problem with the thesis, but it’s worth exposing, since it represents a point of view that had never occurred to yr (justifiably) humble svt.

A Truman for our times

The received wisdom is that President Bush has been a foreign policy disaster, and that America is threatened by the rise of Asia. Both claims are wrong—Bush has successfully rolled back jihadism, and the US will benefit from Asian growth

August 2008 | 149 » Cover story » A Truman for our times | Edward Luttwak

That George W Bush’s foreign policy has been a total failure is now taken for granted by so many people that one usually hears it stated as a simple truth that need not be argued at all.

It has happened before. When President Harry S Truman said in March 1952 that he would not seek re-election, most Americans could agree on one thing: that his foreign policy had been a catastrophic failure. In Korea his indecision had invited aggression, and then his incompetence had cost the lives of some 54,000 Americans and millions of Korean civilians in just two years of fighting—on both counts more than ten times the number of casualties in Iraq. Right-wingers reviled Truman for having lost China to communism and for his dismissal of the great General Douglas MacArthur, who had wanted to win it back, with nukes if necessary. Liberals despised Truman because he was the failed shopkeeper who had usurped the patrician Franklin Roosevelt’s White House—liberals always were the snobs of US politics.

Abroad, Truman was widely hated too. The communist accusation that he had waged “bacteriological warfare” to kill Korean children and destroy Chinese crops was believed by many, and was fully endorsed by a 669-page report issued by a commission chaired by the eminent British biochemist Joseph Needham. Even more people believed that Truman was guilty of having started the cold war by trying to intimidate our brave Soviet ally, or at least that he and Stalin were equally to blame.

How did this same Harry Truman come to be universally viewed as a great president, especially for his foreign policy? It is all a question of time perspectives: the Korean war is half forgotten, while everyone now knows that Truman’s strategy of containment was successful and finally ended with the almost peaceful disintegration of the Soviet empire.

For Bush to be recognised as a great president in the Truman mould, the Iraq war too must become half forgotten. The swift removal of the murderous Saddam Hussein was followed by years of expensive violence instead of the instant democracy that had been promised. To confuse the imam-ridden Iraqis with Danes or Norwegians under German occupation, ready to return to democracy as soon as they were liberated, was not a forgivable error: before invading a country, a US president is supposed to know if it is in the middle east or Scandinavia.

Yet the costly Iraq war must also be recognised as a sideshow in the Bush global counteroffensive against Islamist militancy, just as the far more costly Korean war was a sideshow to global cold war containment. For the Bush response to 9/11 was precisely that—a global attack against the ideology of Islamic militancy. While anti-terrorist operations have been successful here and there in a patchy way, and the fate of Afghanistan remains in doubt, the far more important ideological war has ended with a spectacular global victory for President Bush.

First thing you have to do when confronting an essay such as this is to consider the source.

Edward Luttwak is one controversial bloke. Even Luttwak’s biography in Wikipedia is controversial.

I’ve an interest in military history, and I have read more than one of his really fascinating analyses of military strategy throughout history. Luttwak tends toward fresh, offbeat, but well reasoned, looks at well-trod ground. He seems to be taken seriously by professional soldiers.

And yeah, he’s the guy whom, in an opinion piece in the NYTimes this spring, claimed, to much dismay, that Barack Obama, born a Muslim, is still considered one in the Islamic world. This inflammatory opinion has since been debunked by Islamic scholars, but damage was done to Obama’s momentum.

So that brings us to this off the wall piece.

After 9/11, Bush talked tough, and Luttwak says that political leaders in most Muslim countries chose to believe him, and make their streets unsafe for jihadists.

Any towers blow up lately?

Cover story: ‘A Truman for our times’ by Edward Luttwak | Prospect Magazine August 2008 issue 149

Luttwak also gives Bush credit for “denuclearization,” although the returns certainly aren’t all in on that one, as rumors continue to bubble regarding preemptive attacks on Iran emanating from either Israel or U.S. forces, or both.

The, Luttwak really gets my attention.

The denigration of George III’s foreign policy (as opposed to his domestic economic policy — even Luttwak can’t paper over that!), apparently accompanies the conventional wisdom that has America in a state of permanent decline — our century was the last one, and this one is China’s.

Luttwak believes, however, that C.W. has it wrong — Bush’s supposed foreign policy failures are not so, and China is a problem for the U.S., and is also not one. As they hold so much of our paper, one would like to be optimistic about this one.

Anyway, a totally fascinating read.

And, as one of Wikipedia’s “policemen” commented, in regards to what was deemed an overly positive Luttwak bio there, “I read both liberal and conservative journalism, as I don’t wish to live in an echo chamber.”

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

© Debra Saucedo | Dreamstime.com

MUDGE’s Musings

Confession: Yr (justifiably) humble svt has been watching these past couple of months of virulent right wing zingers aimed at Barack Obama, that are apparently drawing blood among responders to polls, with more than a little tinge of déjà vu.

The rabid Rovian mudflood machine buried John Kerry last time around, using his war record, and his wealthy wife, as its prime weapons. Now, enough true believers are buying Jerome Corsi’s latest fantasy smearfest to make it a best seller. Uh oh.

However, Obama is facing a war hero with a wife so wealthy that he can’t keep track of how many homes they own. Do the Democrats have the bare knuckled instincts to strike back against McCain’s rabid Rovians? Frank Rich of NYTimes is urging that the time for polite cheek turning is long past.

Last Call for Change We Can Believe In

Op-Ed Columnist | By FRANK RICH | Published: August 23, 2008

AS the real campaign at last begins in Denver this week, this much is certain: It’s time for Barack Obama to dispatch “Change We Can Believe In” to a dignified death.

This isn’t because — OMG! — Obama’s narrow three- to four-percentage-point lead of recent weeks dropped to a statistically indistinguishable one- to three-point margin during his week of vacation. It’s because zero hour is here. As the presidential race finally gains the country’s full attention, the strategy that vanquished Hillary Clinton must be rebooted to take out John McCain.

“Change We Can Believe In” was brilliantly calculated for a Democratic familial brawl where every candidate was promising nearly identical change from George Bush. It branded Obama as the sole contender with the un-Beltway biography, credibility and political talent to link the promise of change to the nation’s onrushing generational turnover in all its cultural (and, yes, racial) manifestations. McCain should be a far easier mark than Clinton if Obama retools his act.

Obama’s message of change needs an update, Rich says, and he makes a strong case.

The argument against Obama’s “going negative” is that it undermines his message of “transcendent politics” and will make him look like an “angry black man.” But pacifistic politics is an oxymoron, and Obama is constitutionally incapable of coming off angrier than McCain. A few more fisticuffs from the former law professor (and many more from his running mate and other surrogates) can only help make him look less skinny (metaphorically if not literally). Obama should go after McCain’s supposedly biggest asset — experience — much as McCain went after Obama’s crowd-drawing celebrity.

Use that rapier wit for more than rhetorical flourishes, Barry.

Op-Ed Columnist – Last Call for Change We Can Believe In – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com

Clueless John McCain has no idea how to effect change in this country, even should he want to, and we all know that he’s perfectly happy to effectively extend George III’s reign another four years. That is simply unacceptable, and most voters know that.

Another four years of bankers getting million dollar bonuses while 3,000,000 home owners abandon houses whose corruptly handled mortgages they can’t afford? Another four years (or 100!) of pointless bloodshed in Iraq? Another four years of watching China, at heart a repressive anti-democratic society wearing glossy Western makeup ascend while the golden beacon of American democracy and justice sputters? Hell, no!

If the Democrats can’t win an election where the parlous state of the economy is the primary concern of voters, than they don’t deserve to win an election for town dog-catcher.

Letting the hate mongers destroy John Kerry’s campaign — shame on them. Letting them get away with it this time — well, shame on us. There’s too much at stake.

The fierce urgency of the 21st century demands Change Before It’s Too Late.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

© Halina Yakushevich | Dreamstime.com

MUDGE’s Musings

Grumpy old men. And women. And the grumpitude is a significant challenge to Barack Obama’s candidacy.

Bill Clinton was younger than Obama is now, in 1992, but that was a different generation of over-65 people.

Clinton spoke to that age group about what they cared about most, Social Security, and in so doing secured their votes.

It was prior to the age of the Internet, and it was a different generation of young voting age kids, who, in the main after growing up in the vacant era of Reagan and George II, were apathetic.

Nobody bothered speaking to that age group, because they simply weren’t paying attention anyway.

Now, the new, “millennial” generation of today’s young people are paying attention, and it’s Sen. Obama to whom they are paying all that attention, to an extent that the current generation of post-65 grumpy voters apparently finds off-putting.

After all, how good can anything or anyone be if kids favor it. I hate their music, their movies, their clothing, their refusal to act their age. So I guess I hate their presidential candidate.

In a Changing Corner of Pa., a Glimpse of Obama’s Age Problem

By Alec MacGillis | Washington Post Staff Writer | Tuesday, August 12, 2008; Page A04

If the senator from Illinois is going to achieve his goal of bridging the nation’s divides, he is going to have to overcome a generation gap with older voters unlike any such split a Democratic presidential nominee has faced in years.

Even as younger voters are showing signs of breaking with years of lackluster turnout to support him, Obama is facing singular resistance from voters over 65. That age group turns out at the highest rate on Election Day and is disproportionately represented in the swing states of Florida and Pennsylvania; Bill Clinton and Al Gore both relied on it in winning the Democrats’ only popular-vote majorities of the past two decades.

With polls showing Obama dominating among those under 40 and running even among middle-aged voters, Republican John McCain‘s lead among those 65 and older is the main reason he remains close overall. His margin is largest among older white voters without a college education, accounting for much of Obama’s problem with the white working class.

The pre-Boomer people the Post illustrate in this anecdotal story are apparently in tune with John McCain’s near Ludditude, or so they say.

But, that’s not all of them. My 81-year old mother, gamely insisting on living alone while dealing with her life threatening disease, tackles the on-line world every day; it’s baffling, but she handles its daffy complexity and accomplishes what she needs to. But, of course, she’s not from Snake’s Navel, Florida.

In a Changing Corner of Pa., a Glimpse of Obama’s Age Problem – washingtonpost.com

So, white haired, occasionally forgetful John McCain is, because of his own rather advanced age, someone the pre-Boomer generation has come to know during his more than25 years in public life.

They believe that they understand him, and, due to his war record, they respect him. Their own memories apparently allow them to gloss over such unpleasantness as alcohol, adultery and savings and loan scandals.

Obama, conversely, is an entirely new phenomenon in American public life, and literally foreign to their experience.

Calling oneself a “citizen of the world” might well play better in Berlin, Germany than in Paris, Pennsylvania.

And, of course, he’s entirely too new.

Too smart.

Too well-liked among young people, many of whose cultural and life choices are so alien to a way of life they treasure, even as it fades away with them.

Probably, although most will be too embarrassed to speak it out loud, too black.

Thus, the challenge for Obama’s campaign. Not his age, but how all of his differences jar the presidential expectations of the pre-Boomer generation, that segment of voters most likely to vote, especially dangerous to his candidacy in states like Pennsylvania and Florida where they make up a large segment of the electorate.

One can only assume, or hope, that Obama’s campaign is working on this challenge, or has factored out that over-65 crowd in their electoral college calculations, in favor of the multitudes of the unapathetic Millennials.

Those enthusiastic multitudes had better put their votes where their voices, and their dollars, have been.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

© Scott Maxwell | Dreamstime.com

MUDGE’s Musings

It may be election year silly season, that interim time before the nominating conventions ignite the run to Election Day, but, as Sara Robinson notes so colorfully below,”McCain’s shooting live rounds; and as usual, the Democrats are refusing to fire back.”

The roots of progressive candidates’ failure to respond in kind to the lying liars of the right can be found in this nation’s earliest history, if the socio-history referenced in Robinson’s blog post has validity.

Why We Don’t Shoot Back

By Sara Robinson | August 5th, 2008 – 6:44pm ET

Drew Westen and Mike Lux both have cogent and persuasive posts up that deftly explain — and raise the alarm about — the timidity that’s recently settled into Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Sen. John McCain’s shooting live rounds now; and, as usual, the Democrats are refusing to fire back. If that doesn’t change — this week, before the Olympics starts — this could all too easily turn into Dukakis-all-over-again. …

We’ve all got our short lists of books that changed the way we look at things forever. One of the ones I keep going back to is Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America, published in 1989 by Brandeis historian David Hackett Fischer. Fischer’s basic argument — which he supports with a weighty and richly researched sociological survey that runs to 700 pages plus another 200 pages of footnotes — is that most of America’s most enduring cultural and political conflicts can be traced back to essential differences between the first four groups of English settlers, who brought four very different worldviews with them, and set deep patterns that continue to influence America’s identity and choices to this day.

D. H. Fischer’s concept, as abstracted by Robinson, is that, many generations later, and hundreds of millions of immigrants and their progeny later, the progressives and conservatives in the U.S. follow behavioral patterns laid down by response to conflicts between the four earliest groups of British immigrants.

Fischer noted that the four groups have radically different approaches to conflict. Cavalier and Borderer cultures are extremely honor-driven. A person’s good name is their most cherished asset. Any challenge to that must be answered. Anyone who is unwilling to defend his or her honor, or to stand up for his or her own kin, or defend his or her principles, reveals his or her essential unworthiness to lead others. A Cavalier will challenge you to a duel. A Borderer will start a fistfight. … You call these folks out, and you are going to have to reckon with some consequences.

In the southern and western areas that were dominated by these two cultures, many people simply don’t understand and won’t accept leaders who shy away when attacked. Strength matters. … Failure to exercise that strength is fatal. People figure that if you’re not even willing to defend your own honor and interests when someone confronts you directly in public, how on earth can we ever count on you to fight for the rest of us on the stuff that really matters?

The northern Puritan and Quaker cultures, on the other hand, have much more measured and careful responses to being challenged. Publicly question the honor of a Boston gentleman, and he probably won’t dignify the challenger with any response at all. … If you ignore ugly, it will go away. Under no circumstances do you take matters into your own hands.

So, this is the issue: the Northeastern, progressive tradition (and regardless of his Kenya-Hawaii-Indonesia-Kansas background, Sen. Obama’s Harvard education has refined his instinctive responses to lowball challenges) simply turns the other cheek, in the spirit of its Quaker and Puritan forebears, rather than stoop to the level of its mudslinging opponents.

Admirable, in the Dukakis and Kerry spirit, but a pathetically losing strategy when dealing with the 44 non-New England states.

It’s a fascinating thesis, and worth your time to read in full.

Why We Don’t Shoot Back | OurFuture.org

So, the prescription to the swift-boating and roving that has already begun is clear.

Hero that he undoubtedly once was, Sen. McCain has a substantial number of dark corners that will, if illuminated effectively, enlighten that part of the electorate that prefers only to see the war hero.

They should learn more about heavy-drinking flyboy (with the Teflon heritage) that flew himself into trouble over North Vietnam; the involvement in the despicable Keating savings and loan scandal; the adultery and quick second marriage after his first wife was severely injured; the life in the back pocket of lobbyists regardless of “straight talk;” and, let’s face it, a seventy-two year old mind that, perhaps exacerbated by the abuses of alcohol and, yes, torture, sometimes behaves like its age or older.

Shoot back, and take no prisoners.

Let’s win this thing.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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MUDGE’s Musings

Used to be, if you were annoyed by the antics of big business, you’d pick on General Motors, world’s biggest, most arrogant, automobile manufacturer.

Difficult to be anything but sorry for GM these days, as they Hummer their way into business oblivion.

No, these days if you want to vent your spleen regarding unpleasant aspects of big business, Wal-Mart is your most appropriate target.

After all, these are the guys who have rolled back prices so relentlessly that they’ve rolled up entire industries and sent the jobs and our treasure to China, at the expense of zillions of decent paying blue collar jobs in the U.S.

And, as an employer, they are infamous for poor pay, are niggardly with benefits, and have fought an equally relentless battle against unionization, lest their workers have any real means of changing their working conditions.

Those friendly greeters? Just minimum wage retirees who are really posted at the door not to smile weakly at you, but rather to make sure that shoplifters exiting the store are caught.

Just to be certain that their own underpaid and cowed staff stays that way, they have begun a campaign, documented by the Wall Street Journal, no less, to warn their managers and supervisors that a prospective Democratic presidential administration endangers Wal-Mart’s non-union status.

Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win

By ANN ZIMMERMAN and KRIS MAHER | August 1, 2008; Page A1

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they’ll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies — including Wal-Mart.

In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized.

According to about a dozen Wal-Mart employees who attended such meetings in seven states, Wal-Mart executives claim that employees at unionized stores would have to pay hefty union dues while getting nothing in return, and may have to go on strike without compensation. Also, unionization could mean fewer jobs as labor costs rise.

Wal-Mart is far from the only employer that opposes the Employee Free Choice Act (co-sponsored, by the way, by a certain junior senator from Illinois), but as the largest private employer in the U.S. they certainly have the most to lose, and that largest body of private employees in the U.S. has the most to gain.

Wal-Mart’s worries center on a piece of legislation known as the Employee Free Choice Act, which companies say would enable unions to quickly add millions of new members. “We believe EFCA is a bad bill and we have been on record as opposing it for some time,” Mr. Tovar said. “We feel educating our associates about the bill is the right thing to do.”

By “educating” managers, who are salaried, Wal-Mart is obeying the letter of Federal election laws. When they harangue supervisors, who are hourly, they might be in violation.

Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win – WSJ.com

As a resident of a major metropolitan area, I was able to resist the temptation to shop the Wal-Mart experience until just a few years ago, when they completed their mission of sucking the life out of countless rural Main Streets, and had no choice but venture into the evil big city in order to maintain their growth targets.

Thus, I only have set foot in a Wal-Mart store a couple of times over the years, and in their warehouse operation, Sam’s Club, a few more (since that one opened less than a mile from home some years ago), but I find them depressing and dispirited places to do business, and I simply will no longer do business at either.

Their competition for general merchandise, Target, is by way of contrast, a far more cheerful environment, both in the look of the stores, and the demeanor of its employees.

Costco, their warehouse club competition, runs rings around them. Business Week stated years ago that this was easy to explain: Costco pays their workers more (more than double), but gets far more productivity from those well compensated and well trained employees than does Wal-Mart from their poorly paid and trained workers. [As a confirmed shopaholic, I could visit Costco almost daily. My long suffering wife sees that I don't.]

Perhaps Wal-Mart shouldn’t fight so hard against unionization; as their competition has discovered, paying well, and training thoroughly makes for a happier, more productive workplace.

Meanwhile, the government might want to check into the propriety of a corporation electioneering its hourly workers. Oh, wait, George III’s government wouldn’t dream of intervening on the side of the law, if it might be politically disadvantageous to do so.

Wal-Mart is correct: a Democratic presidency might mean some trouble for their take no prisoners human resources practices.

That couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of redneck creeps.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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MUDGE’s Musings

We observe the first anniversary of the tragic collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis (August 1, 2007) with some sadness, and furious anger.

Sadness due to the thirteen lives lost, and 100+ injured.

Anger because the danger embodied in this country’s aging and dilapidated bridges, highways, levees and schools is criminally no closer to alleviation than 366 days ago.

Meanwhile, the economy is faltering: banks are failing, foreclosures are at record highs (three million empty houses!), the ranks of under- and unemployed growing apace.

What is it going to take to repair this country’s infrastructure osteoporosis?

What is it going to take to kick start the economy, to get people working and once again able to meet their mortgage obligations, perhaps even afford that $4.299/gallon gasoline?

It’s going to take a liberal quantity of bold.

I wasn’t there (my parents were young children) but this country faced a disturbingly similar crisis 76 years ago. Banks had failed by the thousands (defenestration became a popular Wall Street exit strategy). Millions of able bodied workers had no work.

The country, whose industrial and military might had tipped the balance and ended the bloody stalemate of the Great War, turned inward, closing off immigration, its historic lifeblood, and barricading trade, sending the entire globe into economic free fall.

The incumbent party (would you be surprised if I revealed that it was the Republican party?) wrung its hands and was the picture of abject futility.

A well-spoken and charismatic graduate of Harvard University stepped forward with some fresh ideas, promising a New Deal for the American people, and declaring that “the only thing to fear is fear itself.”

That New Deal served the country well for nearly 60 years. Hundreds of thousands were put to work to build highways, bridges, schools and dams. Labor and racial justice became the law of the land. Once again, this country’s industrial and military might prevailed in an even larger scale global war, the prelude to an economic and cultural explosion that became the envy of the world.

In many ways, it’s 1932 again. Bankrupted by pointless, and even worse, corruptly mismanaged war; hollowed out by energy policies set in Texas and Saudi Arabia for the benefit of the president’s oilmen sponsors; crumbling because the plutocrats have bamboozled citizens into believing that all taxes are bad, especially the ones that would make the plutocrats pay their fair share.

It’s going to take vision to fix the moral, the physical, the spiritual disrepair.

Hell, it’s going to take vision to recognize the mess in the first place, and vision to reach out for good plans from wherever they come (some of Roosevelt’s first programs, after all, were muscled up continuations of Hoover initiatives).

It’s going to take a liberal quantity of bold.

So, which party has the candidate with vision, who speaks with clarity, and seems to effortlessly engender inspiration and enthusiasm?

And which party has, despite its sober promises, begun swift boating and Rove-ing its way toward November?

So, where should our new president begin on January 20, 2009? That futile war needs to be contained, and ended, but that won’t happen overnight.

Al Gore and Boone Pickens won’t be severing our addiction to Middle Eastern petroleum in an instant, or even soon.

But those deteriorating bridges and roads, schools and levees: that’s an initiative that could begin Day One.

Put people to work, in the spirit of the reNEWed DEAL, rebuilding those highways and bridges.

Put people to work, in the spirit of the reNEWed DEAL, finishing with alacrity what the derelict administration of George III has disgracefully left incomplete, the restoration of New Orleans and its levees.

Put people to work, albeit with some training, in the spirit of the reNEWed DEAL, in those schools with too few teachers and too many underserved students, burying forever the lip service cynicism of “No Child Left Behind” and insisting that our children learn what they need to know, not what they need to pass dumbed down tests.

All this costs. Start by restoring equitable taxation on those of the plutocracy who have had a tax holiday for too many years. Ending that money pit called the Iraq Occupation, and getting smarter about resources and targets in Afghanistan will free up $zillions.

It’s going to take a liberal quantity of bold.

I believe I know from where bold might come from. I absolutely know from where it most definitely won’t.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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MUDGE’S Musings

A bit lost in the top of the week media frenzy: the failure and resulting run on IndyMac Bank; serious troubles at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; extreme umbrage over the satirical The New Yorker cover; a certain presidential candidate delivered a compelling essay on national topic 1a, Iraq.

This pointless and criminally mismanaged war in Iraq was, for several agonizing years, national topic 1, until the not quite official recession took over honors as the new leading source of voter anxiety.

Meanwhile, Senator Obama has taken some heat from what one writer last week described as the “Republic of Portland,” the extreme left wing of his party, concerned about a candidacy that, once the primaries were completed, seemed to veer toward the center.

Time then to begin to flesh out a keystone promise, to “left” the ship, as it were: ending the U.S. war in Iraq.

My Plan for Iraq

Op-Ed Contributor | By BARACK OBAMA | Published: July 14, 2008

CHICAGO — The call by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for a timetable for the removal of American troops from Iraq presents an enormous opportunity. We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated, and that is needed for long-term success in Iraq and the security interests of the United States.

The differences on Iraq in this campaign are deep. Unlike Senator John McCain, I opposed the war in Iraq before it began, and would end it as president. I believed it was a grave mistake to allow ourselves to be distracted from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban by invading a country that posed no imminent threat and had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. Since then, more than 4,000 Americans have died and we have spent nearly $1 trillion. Our military is overstretched. Nearly every threat we face — from Afghanistan to Al Qaeda to Iran — has grown.

In the 18 months since President Bush announced the surge, our troops have performed heroically in bringing down the level of violence. New tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda — greatly weakening its effectiveness.

But the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true. The strain on our military has grown, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated and we’ve spent nearly $200 billion more in Iraq than we had budgeted. Iraq’s leaders have failed to invest tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues in rebuilding their own country, and they have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge.

Senator Obama is no knee-jerk peacenik, unlike many denizens of his party’s extreme left wing. He is open minded enough to recognize that this nation has military responsibilities that require a military response; unfortunately, our involvement in Iraq is impeding our ability to so respond.

So he has a plan, quite different from his opponent in this election campaign, superannuated Senator McCain.

In this campaign, there are honest differences over Iraq, and we should discuss them with the thoroughness they deserve. Unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea, and would redeploy our troops out of Iraq and focus on the broader security challenges that we face. But for far too long, those responsible for the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy have ignored useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender.

If you can tear yourself away from bank failures and umbrage-taking, take a look at the Senator’s specifics.

Op-Ed Contributor – Barack Obama – Op-Ed – My Plan for Iraq – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com

The man makes sense. At the end of the day, that’s what this nation needs, sense, not criminality. Clear thinking and reasoned decisions, not thoughtless attachment to the policies of a defiled administration.

January 20, 2009 can’t come soon enough.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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MUDGE’s Musings

We wrote last post about John McCain’s electoral vulnerability. In the spirit of equal time, we cannot overlook Barack Obama’s slips, slides and stumbles in the month since he triumphed over Hillary Clinton and became his party’s presumptive candidate.

McCain’s crippled party knew what they were getting, and settled. Obama, though, raised up by the multitude of starry-eyed idealists and their grass-roots web sites and donations, has run into an on-line buzz saw as his passionate fans observe him taking positions that seem disappointingly like politics as usual.

So, they’ve struck back.

Obama’s online muscle flexes against him

Fans use his Web site to rip shifts in policy

By John McCormick | Chicago Tribune reporter | 11:48 PM CDT, July 8, 2008

The same Internet-fueled power that led to historic gains in organizing and fundraising for Sen. Barack Obama‘s presidential campaign is now providing a platform for fiery dissent in a most unlikely place: his own Web site.

Amid criticism from the left that he has eased toward the center on a number of issues in recent weeks, the presumptive Democratic nominee has angered some of his most ardent supporters while triggering something of an online mutiny. Thousands are using MyBarackObama.com to angrily organize against him because of a changed position on terrorist wiretap legislation that awaits Senate action as early as Wednesday.

The dispute has forced Obama to respond in ways never before seen in a presidential campaign, demonstrating the Internet’s growing role in the democratic process and the live-by-the-click, die-by-the-click potential it holds for politicians.

The last straw was the vote in the Senate on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which threatens the privacy of millions of innocent citizens in an attempt to expand the government’s ability to monitor suspected terrorists, and indemnify communications carriers from the legal fallout.

While Obama promised to fight against the bill during the primary season, he has changed tack, and joined 68 of his colleagues approving it today.

For many, who bought into the hope for the end to politics as usual, at least from their candidate, this is shockingly disillusioning, and many are not taking it lying down.

Obama’s online muscle flexes against him — chicagotribune.com

Late today, the political blog of the NYTimes, The Caucus quoted chapter and verse.

Blogtalk: Obama’s F.I.S.A. Vote

The Caucus | By Michael Falcone | July 9, 2008,  5:54 pm

It should come as no surprise to Senator Barack Obama that his vote today in favor of expanding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is drawing cries of outrage from many corners of the liberal blogosphere. After all, the senator’s own campaign Web site had become a focal point for his supporters to express their displeasure with Mr. Obama’s stance on the bill.

That was the case again today. Carl from Ft. Worth, Texas, posted a message on Mr. Obama’s Web site this afternoon. The subject line read: “Obama just lost my vote.” He continued:

“I am disgusted. Obama will NOT receive my vote in November, regardless of whether it means McCain wins (at least HE’S being honest with us). Once again, Dems picked the wrong guy in the primaries. Time to leave the party I guess.”

Other comments struck much the same theme. Patrick in Chicago wrote “Can I get my money back this candidate appears to be defective” and Christopher from San Francisco put it simply “Senator Obama, you fail.”

Ouch.

Obama received some support from the blogosphere, where a few noted how tough it is for a candidate to vote against anti-terrorism security measures. But not much.

Blogtalk: Obamas F.I.S.A. Vote – The Caucus – Politics – New York Times Blog

It’s most interesting that much of the outcry has been given voice on Obama’s own web site.

Elections of any kind, from elementary school boards of education to president of the United States, require one to make evaluations of the candidates on a variety of issues. One usually chooses the candidate who makes the most sense on the one issue most important to the chooser.

Over the past 20 years, on the presidential scene, one has finally settled on the least worst candidate, with the expected outcome.

Young voters, and progressives of all ages, found Obama’s campaign so refreshing since he apparently represented a change from business as usual. And they flocked to his campaign, contributed sweat and dollars, and won him the primaries.

It remains to be seen whether the outrage expressed on Sen. Obama’s web site over the past few days will grow into something of substance, seriously weakening his prospects for what should have been a tip-in at the convention in Denver, not to speak of the general election in November.

Yr (justifiably) humble svt believes that, whether one is a delegate in Denver, or a citizen facing the ballot in November, voters will choose Obama regardless.

Because if he doesn’t quite represent their idealistic hopes for change that he originally represented, he certainly will be the least worst choice.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

Barack Obama, the black Will Smith, has been, is and will be in the news permanently, or at least until Nov. 5, 2008 should John McCain’s wet dream (of somehow overcoming the horrendous legacy of his good buddy, George III) become reality.

So there’s no shortage of worthwhile reading on all things Obama. Here are four of the most intriguing.

1) Fundraising expertise

David Brooks has spent some useful time poring over the campaign finance statements.

Obama’s Money Class

Op-Ed Columnist | By DAVID BROOKS | Published: July 1, 2008

Barack Obama sells the Democratic Party short. He talks about his fund-raising success as if his donors were part of a spontaneous movement of small-money enthusiasts who cohered around himself. In fact, Democrats have spent years building their donor network. Obama’s fund-raising base is bigger than John Kerry’s, Howard Dean’s and Al Gore’s, but it’s not different.

As in other recent campaigns, lawyers account for the biggest chunk of Democratic donations. They have donated about $18 million to Obama, compared with about $5 million to John McCain, according to data released on June 2 and available at OpenSecrets.org.

People who work at securities and investment companies have given Obama about $8 million, compared with $4.5 for McCain. People who work in communications and electronics have given Obama about $10 million, compared with $2 million for McCain. Professors and other people who work in education have given Obama roughly $7 million, compared with $700,000 for McCain.

So, Senator Obama, as has every presidential candidate in history, a rhetoric/reality gap.

When he is swept up in rhetorical fervor, Obama occasionally says that his campaign is 90 percent funded by small donors. He has indeed had great success with small donors, but only about 45 percent of his money comes from donations of $200 or less.

The real core of his financial support is something else, the rising class of information age analysts. Once, the wealthy were solidly Republican. But the information age rewards education with money. There are many smart high achievers who grew up in liberal suburbs around San Francisco, L.A. and New York, went to left-leaning universities like Harvard and Berkeley and took their values with them when they became investment bankers, doctors and litigators.

What began as seemingly an exercise in “Ha! Ha! Caught you!” turns out to be a pretty interesting analysis of the source of big money for political ends in the first decade of the third millennium.

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

Op-Ed Columnist – Obama’s Money Class – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com

Used to be that what was good for General Motors was good for America. Now, with that once great entity in decline (or perhaps I should use the plural?), Brooks feels that one should substitute the name of Goldman Sachs.

Well, when one thinks about it, at least Goldman Sachs knows how to make money without having to convert it from iron ore, coal, rubber, aluminum, copper, silicon, glass, paint, labor, etc.

The perfect captains of industry to steer us in these post-industrial times.

2) Flooded by lies

John Kerry had his Swift Boat. Barack Obama is confronting an entire armada of lies and distortions, and many people are swallowing them without reservations.

In Flag City USA, False Obama Rumors Are Flying

By Eli Saslow | Washington Post Staff Writer | Monday, June 30, 2008 |Page A01

FINDLAY, Ohio — On his corner of College Street, Jim Peterman stares at the four American flags planted in his front lawn and rubs his forehead. Peterman, 74, is a retired worker at Cooper Tire, a father of two, an Air Force veteran and a self-described patriot. He took one trip to Washington in 1989 — best vacation of his life — and bought a statue of the Washington Monument that he still displays in a glass case in his living room.

He believes a smart vote is an American’s greatest responsibility. Which is why his confusion about Barack Obama continues to eat at him.

On the television in his living room, Peterman has watched enough news and campaign advertisements to hear the truth: Sen. Barack Obama, born in Hawaii, is a Christian family man with a track record of public service. But on the Internet, in his grocery store, at his neighbor’s house, at his son’s auto shop, Peterman has also absorbed another version of the Democratic candidate’s background, one that is entirely false: Barack Obama, born in Africa, is a possibly gay Muslim racist who refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

“It’s like you’re hearing about two different men with nothing in common,” Peterman said. “It makes it impossible to figure out what’s true, or what you can believe.”

Here in Findlay, a Rust Belt town of 40,000, false rumors about Obama have built enough word-of-mouth credibility to harden into an alternative biography. Born on the Internet, the rumors now meander freely across the flatlands of northwest Ohio — through bars and baseball fields, retirement homes and restaurants.

Hitler, Goebbels and Karl Rove were/are all committed followers of the principle of the Big Lie. If you repeat it often enough, it must be true. And, if Findlay, Ohio is any template of what’s going on in this country, Sen. Obama’s truth-telling team has its work cut out for it.

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

In Flag City USA, False Obama Rumors Are Flying – washingtonpost.com

One strains always for faith in the intelligence and clear-headed thinking process of the great majority of U.S. citizens. Of course, history has taught me repeatedly that such intelligence and clear-headed thinking does not much exist (is there anything more uncommon than common sense?).

He looks different than me or my neighbors. Must be a fraud, if not worse.

3) Saluting his flag

The saga of the flag pin won’t die. Herr Rove and his minions won’t let it (repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat).

So, off went Obama to Independence, Missouri, birthplace and home of veteran and superior (finally, in history’s belated estimation) Democratic president, Harry Truman, to attempt to set the nation straight.

Obama Fiercely Defends His Patriotism

Democrat Also Decries Criticism of Rival McCain on Service to Country

By Jonathan Weisman and Michael D. Shear | Washington Post Staff Writers | Tuesday, July 1, 2008; Page A01

INDEPENDENCE, Mo., June 30 — Dogged by persistent rumors questioning his belief in country, Sen. Barack Obama journeyed to Middle America on Monday to lay out his vision of patriotism, conceding that he has learned in this presidential campaign that “the question of who is — or is not — a patriot all too often poisons our political debate.”

“Throughout my life, I have always taken my deep and abiding love for this country as a given,” Obama said in the 29-minute address to about 1,150 people crowded into a gymnasium at the Truman Memorial Building, named for former president Harry S. Truman. “It was how I was raised. It was what propelled me into public service. It is why I am running for president. And yet at times over the last 16 months, my patriotism has been challenged — at times as a result of my own carelessness, more often as a result of the desire by some to score political points and raise fears about who I am and what I stand for.”

Scholar that he is, Senator Obama gave his audience a history lesson.

Obama’s speech put the issue in a broad historical perspective, speaking of charges that Thomas Jefferson had sold the nation out to the French and that John Adams “was in cahoots with the British.” He also questioned policies enacted in the name of patriotism, including Adams’s Alien and Sedition Acts, Abraham Lincoln‘s suspension of habeas corpus, and Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s internment of Japanese Americans.

“The use of patriotism as a political sword or a political shield is as old as the republic,” Obama said. “Still, what is striking about today’s patriotism debate is the degree to which it remains rooted in the culture wars of the 1960s — in arguments that go back 40 years or more. In the early years of the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War, defenders of the status quo often accused anybody who questioned the wisdom of government policies of being unpatriotic.”

Also Sunday, Wesley Clark, the retired Army general and one-time presidential candidate in is own right, came out criticizing the holiest of holies, John McCain’s war record. Can’t touch that, guys. The man spent five torturous years in a North Vietnam prison camp.

Obama’s speech came on the same day that his rival for the White House, Sen. John McCain, pushed back hard against criticism of his own record as a Navy flier and a prisoner of war. On Sunday, retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark questioned McCain’s qualifications for the White House. “He hasn’t held executive responsibility,” Clark said on CBS‘s “Face the Nation.” “I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.”

More on Gen. Clark’s attack below. Meanwhile, here’s the complete story, with a short video.

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

Obama Fiercely Defends His Patriotism – washingtonpost.com

Gotta love Gen. Clark. There’s a lot to respect in John McCain, but it’s true, he did get shot down. And there’s very much to be disturbed about Sen. McCain, as we’ve illuminated previously.

But, to the good general.

4) “the grunts hated the flyboys”

Fred Kaplan writes on military matters for Slate.com. As that oddity, a high ranking officer who also is a Democrat, Wesley Clark can’t be faulted for his attempt to defend his party’s candidate. Obama does not have military experience whatsoever, a comparison that John McCain would like to take great advantage of in this time of war. Clark’s background is exemplary. He just went a bit too far on Sunday.

The Grunt vs. the Flyboy

The real reason for Wesley Clark’s ill-advised comments about John McCain’s military record.

By Fred Kaplan | Posted Tuesday, July 1, 2008, at 4:45 PM ET

There are two explanations for Gen. Wesley Clark’s politically tin-eared remark about Sen. John McCain last Sunday.

First, Clark is politically tin-eared. Remember his 2004 presidential campaign?

Second, and more fundamental, Clark was an Army infantry commander during the Vietnam War while McCain was a Navy aviator. As a rule, the grunts hated the flyboys.

Here, as a reminder, is what Clark said when asked about the Republican presidential candidate on the June 29 episode of CBS’s Face the Nation:

I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces as a prisoner of war.

That was where Clark should have zipped his lips. But, as if he couldn’t hold back some raging impulse, he went on:

He hasn’t held executive responsibility. … I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.

In a sense, of course, Clark is right.

Kaplan goes the extra mile, and illustrates Wesley’s shoulder-chip with a brilliant chart of the casualties sustained by the four services in Afghanistan and Iraq. Not unexpectedly, the guys on the ground (Army and Marines) are taking an outsized proportion of deaths and injuries, despite this enlightened era of joint responsibility.

An Army general might want to take the Navy (fly a lot of planes) and the Air Force to task over this, not to speak of what must have been pretty similar experiences in Vietnam.

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

The real reason for Wesley Clark’s ill-advised comments about John McCain’s

With this political faux pas, as the media has joyfully played it, Gen. Clark just might have clobbered any possibility of joining Sen. Obama’s ticket as the vice presidential candidate.

But he does get one thinking. John McCain first got famous for getting shot down and taken prisoner. Never commanded a cub scout den so far as we know.

Now, his father, and his grandfather, knew command. Full admirals, the Admirals McCain were distinguished heroes and commanders. A guided missile destroyer, USS John S. McCain DDG56, is named after them.

Yr (justifiably humble svt has actually toured the McCain, since our son, and our future daughter-in-law, served as junior officers on that ship, based in Yokosuka, Japan, some years ago.

Challenging times

The junior senator from Illinois has made history from the moment he stepped into the fray. He has won more primary votes, raised record-setting amounts of money, and beat off a furious charge from the last century’s most fearsome political force.

He should be able to bide his time, take advantage of the summer lull between the last primaries and the convention to replenish and rearm for the battle ahead, a presidential election the Democrats shouldn’t have any trouble winning, based on what a stinking pile of manure the incumbent has deposited on the office.

Barack Obama is just now learning just how tough it’s going to be to win this thing. His foreign name, his race, and of course his intellectual firepower are all unsettling to a large swath of Americans like those in Findlay, who seem to find it easier, egged on by Herr Rove and his hate radio and Fox News colleagues, to focus on those differences as frightening negatives, rather than as simply differences.

So Obama will work very hard 24/7, all summer, and all the way to November 4.

It’s going to continue to be a fascinating campaign.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE