Various items

Alas, it has been a while since I last posted. I get bursts of posting momentum, and then sputter out. Oh well.

Anyway, I recently joined the Culver City Democratic Club. It's good to be getting together with other active Democrats, just like I did in college. The club has a newsletter that I plan to contribute to, and I will post any articles I write to this blog as well.

I also gave some money to the Chris Dodd presidential campaign. I know he does not have a chance to win the Democratic nomination, but at least he is talking about issues I care about (civil liberties, especially the repeal of the Military Commissions Act and protecting the FISA court from the Bush Administration's attempt to neuter it).

On a related note, I'm starting to thaw in my feelings toward Hillary Clinton. I still find her too calculating for my tastes, and her vote in favor of the Kyl-Lieberman amendment regarding Iran was inexusable, but she explains herself well in interviews and seems like she could respond to Republican attacks better than I thought she would. If I can start to like her, maybe she is not an unelectable as I had previously thought. Her campaign so far had been as close to flawless as is humanly possible.

Democrat of the Week: Patrick J. Murphy

This week's "Democrat of the Week" award goes to Patrick J. Murphy, a U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania. Despite being a freshman congressman from a swing district, Rep. Murphy did not cave in to White House pressure on the FISA amendment - he voted against the bill, and even more than that, was passionately opposed. If only other moderate Democrats had shown the same degree of political courage, we could have fought off this blow to our civil liberties. Make no mistake - not a single Democrat actually thought that the White House version of the surveillance bill was better than the Democratic version. Everyone thought that the White House version gutted the FISA protection and gave too much authority to the Attorney General. Even so, many Democrats feared being called "weak on terror" should they vote against what the White House wanted. Rep. Murphy was not one of them, and has earned great esteem in the eyes of those of us who value our civil liberties.

Dogs and cats, living together...

In shocking news, Cal Thomas has written a column that I agree with almost in its entirety. Competence should be a major issue in the upcoming Presidential race, after the disaster that is the Bush Administration. We need fewer "Brownies" and more Jim Bakers in the next administration.

Competence Above Ideology

Criminals and Enemy Combatants

One more item today: there's a great op-ed in the New York Times today from General Wesley Clark and Kal Raustiala about why terrorists should be considered criminals rather than "enemy combatants," as the Bush Administration has tried to do. Aside from the constitutional questions, Clark and Raustiala raise a great point that enemy combatant status grants greater legitimacy to the terrorist cause, as it affords state-level recognition on a stateless organization. Very interesting reading.

And Wesley Clark would be a good VP choice for Hillary Clinton.

Why Terrorists Aren't Soldiers

Plenty of blame to go around for bridge collapse

It really irritates me when I see big-government types using the Minnesota bridge collapse as proof of the failure of "small-government conservatism." This is nonsensical because (a) small government has not existed in the last 50 years, and (b) it certainly has not existed in Minnesota, one of the bluest of the blue states. Not to mention that those on the left have opposed additional highway maintenance funds over the years because they would rather spend it on useless light-rail projects (and, anyway, spending money on roads just encourages people to drive more and pollute the environment, right?). I freely admit that we are not spending enough on roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects, but that is at least as much the fault of those on the left as those on the right.

The Failure of Antigovernment Conservatism

The false premise in the immigration debate

The entire debate on this summer's immigration debate centered on a false premises set forth by the bills proponents: that it was impossible to enact legislation dealing with border security and interior enforcement of immigration laws without some sort of legalization to the current 12 million or so illegal immigrants present in the country and some sort of guest worker program. Senator Arlen Spector succintly summarizes this view in an op-ed today where he attempts to resurrect the immigration bill:

Certainly the government should implement the provisions it has already
enacted to improve border security and crack down on employers who knowingly
hire illegal immigrants. But the important additions on those subjects contained
in the bill defeated in June will not be enacted without also dealing with the
12 million-plus undocumented immigrants and the guest worker program.

Really? Why is that? There is just no explanation for this statement that has no basis in fact. These are mutually exclusive ideas. Building a border fence, hiring more border patrol agents, conducting more raids on businesses that employ illegal immigrants, and increasing fines on those businesses do not in any way require legalizing the status of existing illegal immigrants or creating a guest worker program. Unfortunately, the addiction many businesses have to cheap labor forces politicians to enact meaningless half-measures and pseudo-amnesty that make a mockery of our existing laws. I have nothing against people trying to make a better life for themselves; I do have a problem with those in power who do nothing to prevent the situation from getting worse.

Democrat of the Week: Senator Chris Dodd

The clip below speaks for itself. The politics of Daily Kos are way to the left of me, but O'Reilly has gone absolutely off the deep end in his histrionic criticism of the "filth" on the site. Has he never used the internet before? Has he never visited a right wing blog before and seen the stuff posted about Hillary?

God forbid people get a little off-color in their passionate advocacy of what they believe politically. If that picture O'Reilly uses offends you in any serious manner, you really need to get out more.

Dodd rips O'Reilly a new one

The clip below is a little older, but I just discovered it. Everytime I see Jim Webb, I think, "He should be the VP nominee." One thing's for sure, he wouldn't be accused of being too timid in the Veep debates.

Jim Webb takes himself off Lindsey Graham's Christmas card list

Give partisanship a chance!

Ah, bipartisanship. It seems like such a good concept. Who can object to legislators setting aside petty differences and working together to find common ground on issues facing our nation?

Unfortunately, as Matthew Yglesias points out in an opinion piece for the LA Times today, "bipartisanship" means something entirely different when politicians use the word. Roughly translated, it means "the other side stops its silly whining and agrees to everything I have to say." According to Republicans, only Democrats need to start acting in a bipartisan manner; Democrats feel the same way about Republicans.

The most egregious offenders these days are Washington elites who are pressing for a "bipartisan" solution on Iraq, when they really mean liberals shutting up about the senselessness of the war (never let the truth stand in the way of a "bipartisan" effort). The administration trots out some phony claims of progress on the ground in Iraq (claims we have heard countless times over the past five years), and all of the sudden we are supposed to forget all that has transpired since the invasion and "give the surge a chance to work." Once the surge fails (and it will, because playing whack-a-mole with the insurgents does not solve the larger issues facing the country), the administration will trot out a new "strategy" and demand that we put aside "partisanship" and give the new strategy a chance.

We blundered into this war on a bipartisan basis, and if it takes partisanship to get us out of it, then I'm all for it. It's time to pull the plug on this disastrous military adventure.

DC wants you to sit down and shut up on Iraq