harikari.com

Hello readers.  You may have gathered from my posts this week that this week has been officially declared Nick Cave week.  So in keeping with this theme, I am here to tell you that Nick Cave is on Fresh Air today, and that you better tune in to your local NPR station and listen. 

There’s a political debate going on tonight too, and I am going to guess that NPR’s coverage of the debate will preempt its broadcast of Fresh Air on the West Coast.  But have no fear; you can listen to it at your leisure on their website.

I would now like to apologize for my lack of coverage of all the political stuff that went down this week:  McCain “suspending” his campaign, how Letterman ripped him a new one for not showing up, Palin’s incredibly horrendous showing in her interview by Katie Couric, how McCain’s campaign said they should move tonight’s debate to next Thursday (happens to be the night scheduled for the VP debate, (McCain trying to buy time for his woeful running mate?  You decide!), and how the debate will go on as scheduled tonight (that will give something to blab about tomorrow.) 

But since since it’s  Nick Cave week and I stayed up way late Tuesday and Wednesday and got up way early anyway (that job thing…) on Wednesday and Thursday, I’ve had mush-brain for a couple days.  So for the in-depth coverage of all these things that are, without a doubt, blogworthy, there are plenty of other blogs you can visit.  (see sidebar)

Now back to my earworms…

“Dig yourself Lazarus, Dig yourself Lazarus, Dig yourself Lazarus, Dig yourself Lazarus.  I want you to DIG!”

Followed by…

“You aren’t supposed to wanna do that… You know you’re not allowed to…That’s the kind of stuff that boys are made out of.  That’s the kind of stuff that girls are made out of.  (you know that) BAD BOYEEEEEEEZ GET SPANKED! “

I know… different songs… different performers.  But that’s how earworms work.  One wormhole leads to another.  “You know that!”

McCain’s camp complained about media coverage of Sarah Palin and claimed that her private life was off limits.

Top McCain advisers said they welcome and expect a review of Palin’s mayoral and gubernatorial record but that the media has crossed that line with its inquiries.

“Certainly, her record deserves scrutiny, but I think we ought to look at her record,” campaign manager Rick Davis told reporters on a conference call. He condemned “the salacious nature” of some news stories designed to “throw dirt at our candidate.” He also lamented a “frenzied” mentality on Palin and urged the media to “dial it back.”

Davis also called for the same level of scrutiny on Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Honestly… What did they THINK would happen when they picked an unknown woman from Alaska with very litte governing experience?  The media is always looking for a story, and McCain handed them a huge one. 

And does anybody recall these guys crying foul when the media fed like rabid jackals on remarks made by Obama’s pastor?

Hillary Clinton is a much better former candidate for president than she was a candidate for president. 

While listening to last night’s speech, I was convinced for the first time that she really would make a good president, and she really does have strong leadership qualities.

I could not help but think that if she had campaigned for herself instead of campaigning against Obama, she could very well have ended up with the nomination.  Her campaign’s mean-spirited attacks against Obama were what brought her down.

But that’s all behind us.  Now she is campaigning as I thought she always should have:  She’s emphasizing the differences between the party platform by pointing out the differences between the Democrats and the Republicans, and attacking John McCain for his wrongheaded support of failed Bush policies, and she’s promoting the better plans that her party supports.

And to all those Hillary supporters who say they’d rather vote for McCain than Obama, I thought she nailed it with:

I want you — I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me, or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him?

Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids?

Were you in it for that young boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage?

Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?

We need leaders once again who can tap into that special blend of American confidence and optimism that has enabled generations before us to meet our toughest challenges, leaders who can help us show ourselves and the world that with our ingenuity, creativity, and innovative spirit, there are no limits to what is possible in America.

…

We don’t have a moment to lose or a vote to spare. Nothing less than the fate of our nation and the future of our children hangs in the balance.

…

That is our mission, Democrats. Let’s elect Barack Obama and Joe Biden for that future worthy of our great country.

She really delivered a great speech, and I am looking forward to hearing more from her during the next couple of months.

He’s so rich that he can’t even keep track of how many houses he and his wife Cindy own.  When asked about it by Poltico.com yesterday, he said:

“I think — I’ll have my staff get to you.  It’s condominiums where — I’ll have them get to you.”

He later told Politico that they have at least four in three states – Arizona, California and Virginia.

The AP reports that:

McCain and his family appear to own at least eight homes: A ranch and two condos in Arizona; three condos in Coronado, Calif.; a condo in La Jolla, Calif.; and another in Arlington, Va. The number of houses is a bit trickier to determine since the ranch has at least four houses and a two-story cabin on it.

This story – this gift to Obama – is what is finally getting people to take a good look at the wealth of the two candidates.  When they read the papers today, they might actually pay attention to this:

McCain earned a Senate salary of $161,708 and royalties of $176,508 last year from his books. His wife earned about $6 million in income from salary, dividends, capital gains and payments from trusts on her 2006 federal tax return.

Cindy McCain’s worth is estimated at as much as $100 million. She is the chairwoman of Hensley & Co., a privately held Phoenix-based distributor of Anheuser-Busch beer that she inherited from her father.

And they might recall that just last weekend when asked by Rick Warren what level of income he would define as “rich,” McCain replied:

“I think if you’re just talking about income, how about $5 million?”

The Arizona Republican quickly added that he was “sure that comment will be distorted,” and his campaign said Sunday that he was joking.

But he didn’t elaborate any further by offering a more reasonable number, whereas Obama’s answer was much more realistic and more direct:

“I would argue that if you are making more than $250,000, then you are in the top 3, 4 percent of this country,” he said. “You are doing well.”

So what’s the point?  Well it has a lot to do with how in touch politicians are with the middle class.  McCain’s wealth puts him far above all but the very few super rich.  Obama isn’t poor by any means.  He’s made a few million from sales of his books, but he’s not so wealthy or so old that he’s lost track of how many houses he owns.

So which one of these guys do you trust to come up with a tax policy to clean up the huge mess that Bush will leave behind?  Paul Krugman has the answer:

Mr. McCain wants to preserve almost all the Bush tax cuts, and add to them by cutting taxes on corporations. Mr. Obama wants to roll back the high-end Bush tax cuts — the cuts in tax rates on the top two income brackets and the cuts in tax rates on income from dividends and capital gains — and use some of that money to reduce taxes lower down the scale.

According to estimates prepared by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, those Obama tax increases would fall overwhelmingly on people with incomes of more than $200,000 a year. Are such people rich? Well, maybe not: some of those Mr. Obama proposes taxing are only denizens of lower Richistan, although the really big tax increases would fall on upper Richistan. But one thing’s for sure: Mr. Obama isn’t planning to raise taxes on the middle class, by any reasonable definition — even that of the Bush administration.

I’m not sure how they’re not being laughed off the set of every news program they appear on, but what gives the Republicans the power to criticize Barrack Obama for all of the things they felt were so pants-wetteningly exciting about Ronald Reagan? He was a fucking movie actor who could speak well to a crowd and they’re coming down on Obama for being a good orator with wide appeal?

And they get away with it. What I wouldn’t give to have the news entertainers stop each one of these dickheads and ask them why it was ok when it was their guy who held Americans in rapt attention to politics when they had practically given up all hope that their country could ever regain their trust, respect, and pride.

/rant

And now, here’s an ad I’d like to see run. The standard res from YouTube really takes a lot away from it, so you should click through and click on “Watch in High Res”.

I’ve been thinking more about that McCain ad that used images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton to attack Obama by insinuating that he is an airhead “celebutante.”

After a low blow like that, one should deliver a quick uppercut to the opponent’s chin.  What would be a formidable blow in this political boxing match?   Well McCain’s strategy is to go after one of Obama’s strengths – his charisma and popularity – and make it appear as a liability by equating him with empty-headed pop-star divas.  I say go after McCain’s weakness – his age.

Hmmm….. I’m trying to think of someone who is popular with conservatives who got old and lost his mind… someone who “couldn’t recall” much of what went on in his administration when forced to testify before a congressional committee…  Oh yeah, Ronald Reagan – the conservative demigod of supply side economics.

How about an Obama ad that questions McCain’s mental faculties by using video of an old Reagan saying “I don’t recall” and then a shot of him in the early stages of Alzheimer’s looking totally lost and unaware of where he is.  Yeah… that would work.  The ad could then show a clip of McCain saying he “doesn’t really understand economics” and then the voiceover could say some things about how his economic and tax policies add up to more huge deficits, low growth rates, and even greater income inequality.  The closer could be John McCain babbling in front of his green background in New Orleans with the announcer asking, “Is he ready to lead?”

I wonder if that would piss off the conservatives.  Perhaps then they could understand our outrage. 

Probably not.  They are cold, mean, nasty brutes….I don’t think they have consciences.

Yes… Rupert Murdoch will indeed destroy The Wall Street Journal.  Want proof?

Today The Wall Street Journal asked the question, is Barack Obama To Fit to Be President?

I know you are dying to read it, so here are a few excerpts:

Speaking to donors at a San Diego fund-raiser last month, Barack Obama reassured the crowd that he wouldn’t give in to Republican tactics to throw his candidacy off track.

“Listen, I’m skinny but I’m tough,” Sen. Obama said.

But in a nation in which 66% of the voting-age population is overweight and 32% is obese, could Sen. Obama’s skinniness be a liability? Despite his visits to waffle houses, ice-cream parlors and greasy-spoon diners around the country, his slim physique just might have some Americans wondering whether he is truly like them.

…

“He’s too new … and he needs to put some meat on his bones,” says Diana Koenig, 42, a housewife in Corpus Christi, Texas, who says she voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.

“I won’t vote for any beanpole guy,” another Clinton supporter wrote last week on a Yahoo politics message board.

Okay I’ve got to stop right here and say something to the former Clinton supporter. 

What?!!!!!!!  You say you supported Clinton.  I may be presumptuous but, by supporting Clinton, I’ll infer that you agreed with her stance on abortion rights, the need for universal healthcare, that the war in Iraq should end, that the huge tax breaks given to very richest Americans should be repealed, and that our country needs to invest in alternative energy sources.

If you agree with those statements, why would you vote for McCain instead of the “beanpole guy” who also believes those things?   McCain’s platform isn’t anywhere close to Hillary’s platform.  Are you going to vote for McCain?  You can’t be serious when you say you won’t vote for Obama because, if you are, you are incredibly stupid.  And you know what I think?  I think maybe we shouldn’t let stupid people like you vote. 

Now, back to that Wall Street Journal article where you’ll find out even more stuff about the candidates’ health and eating habits that should weigh heavily on your minds when you cast your vote in November:

Raised by a Midwestern grandmother, Sen. Obama didn’t begin to slim down until he played basketball regularly in high school.

These days he stays away from junk food and instead snacks on MET-Rx chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and drinks Black Forest Berry Honest Tea, a healthy organic brew. (Sen. McCain is said to have a weakness for Butterfinger candy bars, jelly beans, and coffee and doughnuts from Dunkin’ Donuts.)

Oh, and this article is in the “Editors’ Picks” section.

Dear John,

I used to like you, but now I think you are a punk-ass bitch. 

Years ago the “maverick” label seemed like it fit.  You used to be against giving huge tax breaks to the rich, but now you want to extend Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy, even though Bush’s plan has added trillions to the national debt during the eight years he’s been in office and will result in him handing off the largest budget deficit in history to his successor.

You used to be a moderate on the abortion issue, but now that you’re the nominee, you are letting yourself be controlled by extreme right-wing factions of your party.  You are not a moderate anymore.

You used to be against negative campaigning.  You learned in 2000 that going negative against Bush didn’t work out so well for you.  It worked for Bush though.  Maybe that’s why you recently hired Steve Schmidt who worked under Karl Rove in the extremely mean and nasty Bush campaigns.  The Wall Street Journal reported that Karl Rove “dubbed him ‘The Bullet,’ a reference to both the shape of his shaved head and his lethal impact when deployed against opponents.”

He is obviously behind your latest attack ad that equates Barack Obama with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

Are you out of your mind?  Tell me how they are alike?

Has Obama been arrested for drunk driving?

Has Obama been divorced and denied custody of his children?

Has Obama had videos of him having sex posted on the internet?

Has Obama starred in really stupid TV shows?

Do Spears and Hilton have a law degrees?

Have Spears or Hilton, outside of court ordered punishment, performed any public service?

Have Spears or Hilton ever held public office?

The answer to all of these questions is “NO!”

You are an idiot for hiring a hit man like Steve Schmidt to run your campaign.  You should have listened to Mike Huckabee “who sternly warned the GOP that demonizing Barack Obama won’t work and it would be a big blunder to even try.  Huckabee issued the warning because he’s worried that in going negative against Obama the GOP risks voter backlash.”

You agreed with him then and said that you would run a clean campaign.  Now you look and sound like mean, jealous, grumpy old man. 

The night Obama gave his victory speech after out-polling Clinton, you also gave a speech, and the contrast between the two events was like night and day.  After seeing the videos I commented that about the only way you could run a successful campaign against Obama would be if you conducted your entire campaign from the guest chair of The Daily Show.  There you look comfortable.  There you are likable.  There, even liberals will listen to you and give you some respect.

Those days are over.  I doubt that Jon Stewart will invite you back because he has a policy about not inviting douche bags to appear on his show.

Good luck with your ill-advised, negative campaign.  I think I know how it will turn out.

We have a presumptive nominee for the Democratic nomination for the office of President of the United States of America.  His name is Barack Obama. 

Most of us recognized him as the winner of the Democratic primary contest well over a month ago.  Last night he secured the number of delegates necessary to win the nomination. 

Or did he?  Clinton gave a speech last night but she did not recognize him as the winner and concede.  Instead we heard this:

Who will be ready to take back the White House and take charge as Commander-in-Chief and lead our country to better tomorrows?  People in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the territories, all had a chance to make your voices heard and on Election Day after Election Day, you came out in record numbers to cast your ballots.  Nearly eighteen million of you cast your votes for our campaign, carrying the popular vote with more votes than any primary candidate in history.  Even when the pundits and the naysayers proclaimed week after week that this race was over, you kept on voting.

Followed by a lot of “I,” “I,” “I… ” and finally:

This has been a long campaign, and I will be making no decisions tonight.

Hillary is STILL claiming that that she received more votes than any other primary candidate in history.  The only way she can make that claim is to count only the votes for her in Michigan and not give any of the “other” votes to Obama – a ridiculous assertion that basically says there were no Obama voters in Michigan – and to not count the caucus states’ votes, again… ridiculous.

Go here and you will see that Obama won the popular vote by any reasonable method of counting votes.  More importantly he won more delegates, and that’s what matters.

So why did Hillary spin her tired old yarn in last night’s speech?  I can think of only one reason:  To discredit the winner.

And about that “Who will be ready?” bullshit?  Not her!  She won’t be participating in the general election for president. 

Has anybody told her she lost?  Seriously.  You’ve got to wonder…

There were two other speeches last night.  Here’s what John McCain said in New Orleans:

Pundits and party elders have declared that Senator Obama will be my opponent.  He will be a formidable one. But I’m ready for the challenge and determined to run this race in a way that does credit to our campaign and to the proud, decent and patriotic people I ask to lead.

…

When Americans confront a catastrophe they have a right to expect basic competence from their government… Our disgraceful failure to do so here in New Orleans exposed the incompetence of government at all levels to meet even its most basic responsibilities.

The wrong change looks not to the future but to the past for solutions that have failed us before and will surely fail us again.  I have a few years on my opponent, so I am surprised that a young man has bought in to so many failed ideas. Like others before him, he seems to think government is the answer to every problem; that government should take our resources and make our decisions for us.  That type of change doesn’t trust Americans to know what is right or what is in their own best interests.  It’s the attitude of politicians who are sure of themselves but have little faith in the wisdom, decency and common sense of free people. That attitude created the unresponsive bureaucracies of big government in the first place.  And that’s not change we can believe in.

What?  Hey John!  Do you know what the government is?  It’s “We the People,” and we ARE the ones that have to find solutions to our problems.  We on the Left have chosen Obama as our candidate because we think he best represents OUR ideas for solving the many problems we face today.  When he is elected president, he will be making decisions based on what all Americans think is in their own best interests.  

Mr. McCain, you are being extremely cynical when you say your opponent has “bought in to so many failed ideas.”  You mentioned the “disgraceful” failure of the Bush Administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina.  The government failed because it wasn’t a government of the people headed by a president who represented the people.  It was a government who’s primary mission was to return favors by appointing cronies and giving away billions to the rich people that got him “elected.” 

And what about that twisted first sentence of the second paragraph above:  “The wrong change looks not to the future but to the past for solutions that have failed us before and will surely fail us again.”

Are you suggesting the president should not look to the past?  Are you crazy?  Whoever is elected president must surely look to the past to see what types of policies worked and what types of policies failed.    The successful policies of the past are good starting points fore developing new solutions for today’s problems.  The policies that worked in the past should not be ignored.

Now to the main event.  Obama’s victory speech.  If you missed it, go watch it or read it now. 

Here’s the part of it that I thought was a great response to McCain’s “government is not the answer” bullshit.

So it has been for every generation that faced down the greatest challenges and the most improbable odds to leave their children a world that’s better and kinder and more just.

And so it must be for us.

America, this is our moment.  This is our time, our time to turn the page on the policies of the past, our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face, our time to offer a new direction for this country that we love.

The journey will be difficult. The road will be long.  I face this challenge — I face this challenge with profound humility and knowledge of my own limitations, but I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people.

He needs to keep making these types  of speeches to remind people that he really does represent something different from the status quo, and that it’s not just him that will turn things around, it’s us, and he will lead the way.

There’s a lot of work to do between now and November.  He will be hammered by the mean, nasty, hypocritical R’s.  There will be rough times in the next six months, but when he comes out of them, he needs to return to what he said tonight.  There will be plenty of opportunites to flesh out the details of his platform, and he’ll have to make convincing speeches and win some tough debates to show the Democrats have a better plan.  But now he now has the entire Democratic party behind him (Let’s hope Clinton makes a gracious exit soon… ) so he should be able to tap the best (dare I say elite?) minds of the party, and run an unbeatable campaign.

Barack Hussein Obama is the Democratic candidate for the President of the United States of America.

Jonathan Schwarz thought about that and put up a post on This Modern World:

It’s September 12, 2001. You’re sitting in front of a TV, watching footage of the World Trade Center collapse over and over and over again.

All of a sudden, someone from seven years in the future walks out of a tiny temporal vortex, and tells you: George W. Bush is going to fuck this up so badly that in 2008, the United States of America will likely elect as president a black man whose middle name is Hussein and whose father was Muslim. Oh, and he also admits he’s used cocaine.

I think it would have been easier to convince me of the reality of time travel. “No, no, I believe you really are from the future. But the other stuff, that’s CRAZY.”

Of course Hillary Clinton hasn’t admitted to herself that she’s so far behind now that, even if she is granted her wish to have the “disputed” delegates from Florida and Michigan counted in her favor, she won’t be able to overcome her deficit in both pledged delegates and the popular vote in the remaining primaries.  Phil Singer, one of her own campaign spokesmen, estimates that even in a best-case scenario, she’d still be about 100 delegates behind. 

Clinton will fight on regardless.  She says she’s “staying in this race until there is a nominee,” and has decided to loan another $6,000,000 of her own money to her campaign fund.

So what are going to see from now until the nomination that’s already been decided is decided?  Garbage time.

Yes… Hillary is like a player in an NBA series that is already down three games and is eleven points behind with 14.8 seconds to go.  Intentional fouls are ugly things, but that’s what we’re going to have to watch for the next few weeks.  Obama will fend them off and shoot his free throws in the remaining contests.  If he misses a shot here and there, Hillary might close the gap a little bit, but she’s not going to win.

Hillary will probably continue to hack away at Obama and attempt to prove to the superdelegates that she, in spite of what we voters have decided, is the better candidate for president. 

She’s not the better candidate, but she could be a better opponent.  

All she has to do is look at the bigger picture.  She’s a Democrat and the real battle ahead is with the Republicans.  She could choose to focus her attacks on John McCain while she runs out the clock on her campaign.  She could explain why it would be terribly wrong to vote for a man that wants to appoint more Supreme Court justices like Roberts and Alito; that it’s a bad idea to vote for a man that doesn’t have a plan to end the war in Iraq; that voting for a man who wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent will lead to larger budget deficits and greater income inequality; and that voting for a man that thinks free markets will solve all are problems will not get us on the pat the universal healthcare.

We’ll soon find out how she chooses to play the game.