National Review's Absurd "Real men Vote for McCain" Column

Friday's online edition of The National Review featured a column by Lou Aguilar with the bold title: "Real Men Vote for McCain: Top 10 Reasons Why. Ripping this laughable magazine is almost as easy as convincing Britney Spears to consume the entire hotel mini bar, so I don't do it often. However, I felt that letting this unvarnished braggadocio unchallenged would be sparing readers insight into exactly how the conservative mind works when it goes about justifying their chosen candidate. Below are each of the 10 reasons, and my mostly pithy rebuttal to each:

1. Barack Obama spent 20 years sitting in church while his preacher and others bad-mouthed the United States of America. Navy pilot John McCain spent five years being tortured in the Hanoi Hilton, and refused a chance to walk out ahead of fellow POWs with more seniority.

Actually, Barack Obama spent parts of his last 20 years working in tough neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago. He wasnt fortunate enough to be able to use nepotism, as John McCain did, to get promoted at the end of his active tenure in the Navy. Obama, on the other hand, had to pay his dues before Harvard. McCain's background is impressive no doubt, but Aguilar's description of Obama's is disingenuous at best

2. Obama wants to cut and run from Iraq regardless of conditions on the ground or future consequences. McCain took on the president and secretary of defense in demanding more troops for Iraq, a policy that is inarguably winning the war. He also has two sons who fought in Iraq.

Right, Lou, the surge is "inarguably winning the war". Apparently he didn't read the progress report issued by the GAO a few weeks back. Even a year and a half after the surge, the only thing Iraqi politicians can agree on is that they don't want to sign a forces agreement with George W. Bush. So much for holding the leaders accountable for their ability to reconcile.

Just because internecine violence has mostly subsided, and MNC's now have free reign to procure lucrative oil contracts doesn't mean we are even close to winning the war. In fact, the war has already been lost, and a "real man" would get American troops out of harm's way instead of pursuing the arrogant, and futile goal of "winning".

3. McCain supports nuclear power.Obama backs wind energy.

This is precious. Aguilar manages to conveniently ignore the fact that extractinguranium pollutes greatly, nuclear power plants emit incredible amount of greenhouse gases, and disposing of nuclear waste is largely untenable. Apparently a "real man" has a wanton disregard for the environment.

4. Obama wants restrictive gun control because only economically depressed middle-Americans “cling to God and guns.” McCain unwaveringly supports the Second Amendment.

Right, Lou. The same "restrictive gun control" that you decry really hindered Seung-Hui Cho from obtaining a firearm. How can a "real man" justify selling weapons to the mentally ill?

5. McCain has deviated from his party’s conservative base on several occasions (McCain-Feingold Bill, Gang of 14, McCain-Kennedy Bill, opposition to torture). Obama has voted the left-wing line every single time, and been designated the most liberal Senator in Congress.

The notion that McCain has consistently deviated from his base is patently illusory. As the FISA bill proved last week, Democrats are more than happy to cave to the pressure from the Administration and abdicate on their principles to endorse the radical GOP agenda.

I hardly call the "gang of 14" bi-partisanship when all the Democrats got out of it was a promise by the Republicans to not disabuse one of the longest serving procedural matters in the Senate. If the Democrats think that allowing the gang of 14 to vote for "cloture" and therefore allow the Samuel Alito nomination to come the floor serves the interests of their constituents, they are more delusional than I thought.

As for Obama "voting the left wing line" every time, Aguilar must have missed his recent votes on FISA, or his proposal for an increase of funding for faith based groups. How convenient.

6. Obama is willing to meet with hostile state leaders like Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez without preconditions. McCain will set conditions first, talk later — maybe.

Aguilar is on solid ground here, given that not talking to Saddam Hussein in a diplomatic context prior to the invasion of Iraq really worked out so well. If anything, the bungled invasion of Iraq epitomizes the contrary of what Aguilar asserts in that aggressive diplomacy should be a sine qua non before every operation.

More over, George W. Bush's arguably only success dealing with hostile nations occurred after a concerted effort to engage the North Korean government through aggressive diplomacy. The struggle was hard, and the North Koreans undoubtedly reneged on certain parts of the agreement, but remaining steadfast through the rough times, and not reflexively abandoning ship after one setback, eventually provided a milieu in which the United States could achieve strategic objectives.

7. Obama is married to a bitter, angry lawyer who became “proud” of her country for the first time this year. McCain’s wife is a beer heiress who founded an organization to provide MASH-style units to disaster-torn world regions. Did I mention that she’s a beer heiress?

It's mind boggling how Aguilar can cast indiscriminate aspersions about Barack's spouse as if there is some empirical basis for it. Given Michelle Obama's slim public record, how can he accuse of her in being "angry and bitter"?

It's also amusing how Aguilar completely glosses over the scandalous background Cindy McCain has. Ever heard of painkillers, Lou?

8. Obama supports higher taxes for a government-run nanny state that will coddle all Americans like babies. McCain trusts people to spend their less-taxed money however they wish.

Unfortunately for most of us, the only people worthy of McCain's trust are the wealthiest of our society. Economic inequality has skyrocketed in the last 8 years, and McCain's plan to enshrine the tax cuts of the Bush Administration would only perpetuate it. A combination of soaring food and energy prices has sapped the disposable income of many working Americans, greatly reducing their spending power.

If, as Aguilar puts it, Obama does indeed want a "government-run nanny state", I doubt that the 47 million Americans who are bereft of health insurance, or the litany of families devastated by no relief from soaring gas prices would complain. The simple difference between the candidates is that McCain wants to enrich the already affluent while Obama wants to buttress the middle class. Offering a windfall for Wall Street barons or providing health coverage to children. You know which one a "real man" would opt for.

9. The name John McCain sounds like “John McClain,” the action hero played by Bruce Willis in the manly Die Hard series. “Barack Obama” sounds like the kind of elitist villain John McClain has to outwit and defeat.

This reasoning is so ridiculous and unfounded that I laughed out loud when I read it. However, for the sake of rebuttal, let's for a second operate in the farcical framework that someones name has any link to their success as President.

In actuality, the name John connotes some of history's most deranged criminals. John Wilkes Boothe assassinated Lincoln. John Hinckley tried to take out Ronald Reagan. Hinckley also made the mistake of stalking and obsessing in a woman who prefers her own kind, Jodie Foster.

The name Barack, on the other hand, conjures little ignominy when compared to the deviants listed above. Take that Lou!

10. McCain is endorsed by Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Obama gets support from Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, and every weenie in Hollywood. Plus, Susan Sarandon has vowed to leave the country if McCain gets elected. Case closed.

Another truly stupid reason to vote for a political candidate. Nonetheless, I will engage.

Recent months have proven Clint Eastwood to be an arrogant patrician. Every moment of Sylvester Stallone's life has shown him to be deficient in brain power (who else would get caught with HGH during a trip abroad?)

On the other hand, Leonardo DiCaprio has worked hard to help raise awareness about global warming. Oprah Winfrey built a school for indigent girls in Africa.

You should be Thankful for Expensive Gas...

Day in, and day out, one can't but hear the rampant caterwauling about the astronomical price of gas. Rising energy prices may be the one issue whose purview extends to nearly all of our society, so I guess it shouldn't be surprising that one hears so much about the problem.

From pro boxer Kelly Pavlik stating that his fan contingent was small at his last fight because they couldn't afford the drive from Youngstown to Atlantic City, to Larry King "breaking the story" about US Airways pressuring their pilots to conserve their prohibitively expensive gas, even at the expense of safety, the negative aspects of pricey energy are omnipresent. Given the disparate nature of the problem, it's unsurprising that these stories thus receive such play in our mainstream media.

This is important, because the utmost lesson to be learned from the present gas prices is ultimately a positive one. Prohibitively high energy prices, as we currently are experiencing, are the only way to finally wean the United States off of oil. The combination of an innate American ethos that embraced "the open road" and the anti-conservation policies (couched in the rhetoric of "individual rights") by Republican politicians and oil company executives (some individuals indubitably served in both capacities, see Cheney, Richard) ensured that any sort of alternative energy source would be squelched in it's infancy.

For the better part of a century, the fact that gas cost a pittance allowed Americans to blithely ignore the environmental degradation that rampant driving causes. In addition, the impetus for energy policy reform, one that would undoubtedly include considerable sacrifices, was nonexistent during the era of cheap oil.

Luckily, 5 dollar gas solves both of those problems. The notion that gas will always be cheap, and therefore, free for excessive use, is proven wholly illusory. On the other hand, the GOP and Exxon Mobil's board of directors decision to put forth the absurd notion that offshore drilling will magically serve as the panacea to high gas prices will be exposed for the sophistry it is in due time. Just like the public rejected the McCain/Clinton plan to both suspend the gas tax or institute a federal gas tax holiday, so too will they ultimately see through the specious reasoning that more drilling leads to lower gas prices.

Some might decry the notion that 5 dollar gas is beneficial as purely elitist and therefore ignorant of the concerns of the "common man", given that millions of lower income families are receiving the brunt of the financial blow.

That reasoning is invalid for two reasons. First of all, 5 dollar gas is not going away anytime soon, and implementing piecemeal solutions, as Republicans who advocate for drilling are ostensibly doing, will have negligible impact on the prices in the short term, and therefore provide hardly any relief for imperiled consumers. Secondly, it will not be the elites of society, but rather the average person whose life will be irreparably changed by the transition from oil to a new energy source, and delaying it in the name of ineffective reforms will only prolong the pain and sacrifice of the overall switch.

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One way to alleviate the angst and trouble associated with the societal upheaval and transformation that will occur as we transition away from oil would be to educate and inform the citizens about the importance of long term thinking. If done properly, the need for arduous policy battles in Washington would be accelerated, and the now anachronistic notion that oil is a part of our future would be vitiated.

It is incumbent on the progressive community to demand that the media confront the general public with the uncomfortable realities of 2008 vis a vis future energy policy. Al Gore took a wonderful first step in doing so with his speech yesterday outlining specific policy goals for becoming fossil fuel free in the next 10 years. It's time to take that a step forward: Making our economy, and by extension, way of life, bereft of fossil fuels in the next 10 year is no longer merely a boutique option reserved for bleeding heart environmentalists. Rather, the ideas enunciated by Gore are imperative if America wants to remain a relevant, vital and prosperous country.

Instilling that sobering reality into the consciousness of the average American is difficult, but the existence of 5 dollar gas has helped greatly to crystallize that notion. We must now take it a step further, find a way to show the benefits to the country, through the media, of instigating the legislation and cooperation needed to make it a reality. The perspicacity that 5 dollar gas "affords" us towards achieving that goal, is why the current high price of gas will ultimately be a saving grace for this country.

Is this Election Proving Definitively that we are a Center-Right Nation?

The result of the 2004 Presidential Election, in which George W. Bush inexplicably, garnered another term in the Oval Office, really buttressed the argument that the United States is undoubtedly a center-right country. How else could Lil Bush have prevailed? His stewardship on the Iraq War was criminally reprehensible, Osama Bin Laden still roamed free in the tribal areas of Afghanistan, and the economy was stagnant, at best. Because of the aforementioned, Bush's approval ratings around the election time were under 50. So, if we went based upon public opinion, Bush should have lost the 2004 election.

How then did he prevail? Part of it, as many progressive writers like Glenn Greenwald have theorized, was the Republicans successfully steering the election away from substantive issues into petty, valence based issues like John Kerry's "elitism", as manifested in his inability to throw a football and his erstwhile propensity for wind surfing. The second reason, one that was a favorite of the right, was that America is inherently a center-right country, and when the candidate for the Democrats is either considered too liberal, or is not a dynamic personality, the tides swing towards the Republican candidate. According to this theory, turning to Bush in this scenario is simply in our blood.

Frankly, at the time, I did not buy the idea that America is intrinsically a "center-right" country. Perhaps it was living in, to a degree, a liberal echo chamber with my friends and family. Maybe I believed in the liberal ideals with such depth that recognition that the contrary position occupied a majority of the general public was impossible. Either way, I was unable to acknowledge that America, through and through, is of a political hue that can only be characterized as "center-right." Well, I finally do believe it, and the present contest unfolding between John McCain and Barack Obama has served as the Zapruder film, if you will.

John McCain is, at best, an unexceptional Presidential candidate. Save his harrowing experience as a POW in Vietnam, and his willingness to battle with entrenched interests over campaign finance reform, McCain's resume is hardly as decorated as his predecessors for President was. The same could easily be said for Barack Obama, but he does not have to use his resume to overcome a distinct polling deficit on issues, as John McCain is forced to do, given how unpopular the Republican brand is at present. Given how the GOP is now regarded nationally with disgust, McCain his resume to serve as a counterweight.

McCain has also run, to this point, what is at best characterized as a haphazard campaign, at worst disastrous. Listing off the faux pas he has made in the last few months exceeds the amount of space present, and also the readers attention span. But, to make the point more clearly, here are a few:

1. McCain has debunked his purported knowledge on foreign affairs with constant verbal gaffes including the absurd allegation that Iran is consorting with Al-Qaeda, to repeatedly referring to the non-existent nation of Czechoslovakia. What should have been his biggest advantage against the inexperienced Obama has been steadily eroded by McCain's continually showing his ineptitude on foreign affairs.

2. To say that his campaign has employed lobbyists, and other unsavory Beltway characters would be a colossal understatement. McCain, in a moment of pure opprobrium, was forced to institute an ethics policy for his staffers. Even with the new found ethics policy, McCain's surrogates still remained a hindrance to his campaign. For example, Charlie Black, one of McCain's chief strategists, and a former lobbyist, was crucified (justifiably so) for suggesting that an al-Qaeda attack would help his candidate. All in all, this claque has done serious damage, most of all to McCain's precious image as a "Maverick" candidate.

3. The past few months have exposed McCain as an individual whose lack of charisma makes Bob Dole look like Martin Luther King Jr. From his shatteringly bad speech behind the horrifying lime green background on the night Obama clinched, to the preponderance of untimely pauses, awkward laughs and non-inflected sentences, John McCain has cemented himself as the antithesis of a candidate for the media age. After 8 years of similar verbal maladroitness at the hands of George W. Bush, voters are not enthused about a candidate who makes Wilford Brimley look like William Shakespeare.

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And despite the aforementioned, McCain runs within a few points of Obama in most major polls. If anything, as McCain's mistakes have piled up, his poll numbers have shot up. Despite nearly all-Americans believing the country is headed in the wrong track, McCain is competitive running on a platform that wishes to continue the very policies that have so depressed and enraged the very same electorate who holds such a bleak view of the country. George W. Bush is the most unpopular President in modern history, and John McCain, has said he will continue the policies of Bush 43, while paradoxically still being able to remain competitive in this race.

While part of this can be attributed to discernible flaws in Barack Obama, from his startling lack of legislative accomplishments, to his craven refusal to fight the FISA bill, McCain's utterly puzzling poll numbers can, I believe, largely be attributed to the inherently center-right disposition of the American people.

It is a thoroughly sobering reality for us progressives. When we oppose wanton drilling on the Continental Shelf as both economically irrelevant, and a malfeasance upon the besieged environment, many Americans instead think of it as a salient solution to solve high gas prices. While we support gay marriage because we value equality and justice for all Americans, they think of it as impugning the sanctity of "traditional marriage." When we decry brazen and counterproductive acts of torture upon detainees, they think of it as the sine qua non towards solving the war on terror.

Time and time again, when we think progress has been made towards our goals, we are rebutted by the majority. A majority that is unfortunately been duped by the right to believe that religion, patriotism and duty can only be epitomized by supporting the Republican party. From the outset of this country, that notion has been instilled into to our political consciousness. Sadly, only the liberals has thus far been able to break out of this false orthodoxy....and we are distinctly smaller compared to the other class of voters in this country. Only as a result of this phenomenon do we see John McCain having any sort of chance in this election. He's run a terrible campaign, and his views on the issues are hardly the panacea to escaping the ills of this national. Only the innate center-right tendencies of American voters has saved him from an inexorable fall into defeat.

Undoubtedly, progress has been made towards obviating the strains of inequality that seep through the policies of this country. However, not enough will be made in the precious few months until the November elections. Barack Obama, however transformative a figure he may be, will not be able to neutralize the genetic tendencies towards center-right policies of our electorate.

So how does Obama overcome this disposition, and win the election? I'll tell you what won't work: Repudiating his past positions, as he did on FISA, to appease the Republican attack machine. George W. Bush exalted himself as a man who you "always knew where he stood", and Barack Obama must copy Bush in this respect. Luckily, Obama has a diametrically opposite set of policies. Policies that, given the turgid climate for the Republicans, are strong enough to overwhelm the center-right proclivity of the hoi polloi. As many pundits have already stated, this is Obama's election to lose. One of the ways he can avoid doing so is by standing, even amidst vitriolic and unrelenting criticism from the GOP, steadfast in support of positions that are exactly what the electorate tells the pollsters they want. Let the electorate vote on the issues, and not on ancillary disputes like the flag pin, or a purported flip flop. Otherwise, that center-right disposition may supersede all rationality, and allow John McCain to steal the Presidency.

Debunking McCain's Myth that Tax Cuts "Create Jobs"

John McCain, while pretending to perpetuate the image of a "maverick", steadfastly hews to the economic orthodoxy of the Republican Party. In fact, he often skews further to the right (at least when it is politically expedient, as it has been during this primary season) on issues of tax cuts, namely the permanent codification into law of George W. Bush's 2003 tax cuts. According to his website, McCain believes tax cuts to be essential because:

"Entrepreneurs are at the heart of American innovation, growth and prosperity. They create the ultimate job security – a new, better opportunity if your current job goes away. Entrepreneurs should not be taxed into submission. "

Essentially, McCain attempts to make the connection that cutting taxes thereby frees up revenue for employers to therefore provide more jobs. The logical opposite is thus that raising taxes saps the resources and impetus for entrepreneurs to provide new jobs. He said as much in a speech in Denver last week:

"He (Obama) will raise estate taxes to 45 percent. I propose to cut them to 15 percent. His plan will hurt the American worker and family. It will hurt the economy and cost us jobs. "

Notwithstanding the specious argument that the average family will be buttressed by a reduction of the estate tax (a tax on the estates of only the very wealthy), McCain, in these two quotes, clearly lays out his economic philosophy: tax cuts create jobs. And McCain, in this context, does not mean merely a McJob, but rather a job with a living wage that provides ample benefits. McCain is correct in literally asserting that tax cuts create jobs. However, his interpretation of the importance of tax cuts in creating sustainable jobs is the one in which we will operate for this analysis, otherwise we can get trapped in the semantics. More over, McCain's definition of tax cuts largely refers to a tariff reduction for the wealthiest Americans, not for the "small businesses, or American families" as his rhetoric might lead you to believe. It is within this framework that we will assess the assertions of John McCain about tax policy.

So do tax cuts for the wealthiest of our citizens, as John McCain often promises, create jobs for the normal member of the electorate, when compared to the economic plans that are not as reliant on tax cuts, as Barack Obama has espoused?

Almost unequivocally, the answer is no.

1. For one, as Paul Krugman mentioned last week in a column in the NY Times, George W. Bush's tax cuts have created a mere 5 million jobs, not even enough to meet the pace of population growth. On the other hand, President Clinton's administration created 22 million jobs, despite an economic policy that did not rely on the mythical tax cuts often espoused by John McCain. In June 2003, according to United for a Fair Economy, George W. Bush's 2003 tax cuts, which the Administration firmly alleged would create at least 5 million jobs, in fact created a mere 2.6 million jobs, 1.6 million less than would have been created naturally in the absence of President Bush's "economic stimulus." McCain's notion that tax cuts are the best way to create jobs, is already debunked given the statistics presented by Paul Krugman.

2. In addition, Clinton achieved the robust job growth without gutting the federal treasury, as Ronald Reagan did during his rash of tax cuts in his first term. Reagan apologists love to claim that "Reagan tax cuts reinvigorated the economy", as Milton Friedman once asserted, but these tax cuts did nothing but aggrandize both the federal budget deficit and enrich those already wealthy at the expense of the working class. McCain's tax policies would only exacerbate the inherent inequality in the Reagan and Bush 43 policies. These facts prove that tax cuts, in contrary to what neo-liberal acolyte McCain likes to tell you, that the negative aspects of indiscriminate tax cuts, far outweigh any of the purported gains.

3. McCain's theory of tax policy also rests on the flimsy logic that once the rich find their pockets bolstered by tax cuts, they thus spend it on creating jobs for their workers. Evidence hardly bears out this theory. In fact, the rich are more likely to place their increased wealth in bonds, stocks or savings accounts, none of which provide direct employment to workers. In fact, the windfall received by the wealthiest hardly lead to a discernible increase in consumption, something that would have a marked impact on job creation. Instead, grants or payouts to beleaguered city organizations would have saved many more jobs than giving Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer a greater tax return.

As Robert H. Frank, a Cornell economist, laid out in a Times editorial back in 2005, the tax cuts did not impel entrepreneurs to make new hires, for simple reasons of math. The business owners, even with the newly instituted tax cuts, did not have ample extemporaneous revenue to justify the costs of paying a new worker. The incoming revenue from said tax cuts did not provide sufficient relief for the implicit costs of bringing on a new workers. Obviously, having more money theoretically would permit owners to hire more employees. But, as Frank points out, the tax cuts do not make doing so profitable. Bush and his cadre don't care to specify the difference, and therefore attempt to play it off as having the requisite money for hiring someone is the same as the ability to make a sustained profit. This is yet another example of how fallacious the argument that tax cuts directly lead to jobs really is.

4. Finally, historical analysis has laid out that tax cuts have led both to job creation, and job loss, thereby vitiating the notion of the McCain campaign that tax cuts have a cogent relationship to job creation. 60 years worth of empirical data analysis vividly illustrates that widespread tax cuts both take and add jobs, but that tax cuts have always been responsible for an increase in societal inequality. That's exactly been the hallmark of the Bush Administration; strafing inequality while enriching those already the most well off. They have attempted to hide their avaricious policies in the misleading connection between tax cuts and increased job creation. John McCain has attempted to navigate the same course, and will do so, no matter the facts laid out above.

Given that the conceit that tax cuts for the rich create jobs has been now thoroughly repudiated, it's time to look at why McCain still pursues this line of rhetoric. In essence, his position is one that advocates inequality, unfairness, and discrimination, and as a result, he must cloud it with rhetoric that renders these patently unfair polices palatable to the American public. In order to protect his friends in the corporate world, McCain must offer deceitful rhetoric that does not, in practice, have any effect on the creation of jobs.

I guess you can't blame him; the facts give him no other choice.

Rudolph Guiliani: The Village Idiot

"I thought I was out.....but then they pulled me back innnnnn....."

I was going to take it easy on American's favorite diminutive ex-mayor. After all, I had previously criticized his conduct on 9/11. Plus, after his pathetic Presidential campaign that saw him go from front runner to feeble also-ran, he seemed too pitiful to draw any more scorn. Lastly, I didn't think I could top Joe Biden's painfully accurate zinger that "Every sentence for Rudy is noun, verb 9/11."

But then, good ole' Rudy had to open his mouth and spew out something so inane and reprehensible that I was literally shocked into silence while watching it. Yesterday, while pontificating on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" about Barack Obama, he offered this sanguine remark:

"This is why he's a popular candidate in Europe, because there is such an anti-
American feeling, and he's sort of capturing that."

What the hell is Giuliani talking about? Factually speaking, there are many reasons that we are unpopular across the pond, and Barack Obama has absolutely nothing to do with perpetuating it. If Rudy was attuned to reality, he would see that the war in Iraq, our support for the death penalty, our arrogant refusal to acquiesce to any global climate change treaties, among numerous other reasons, are why Europe is so disgusted with the United States at present. Barack Obama has nothing to do with feeding, or aggrandizing any sort of anti-American sentiments in Europe, and for Rudy Guiliani to sententiously assert that he does is both deceitful and cowardly.

But, really, what can you expect from Rudy Guiliani, and by extension, the Republican brand that he represents? After 8 putrid years of George W. Bush, the GOP imprimatur has been damaged to the point where, according to a new poll, John McCain won't even be able to carry his home state in November. As a result, since they are ideologically barren, bereft of any real solutions besides tired nostrums like drilling for oil off the Gulf Coast to "solve" our calamitous energy policy, or by instituting more tax cuts for the fabulously wealthy, because otherwise "we can't create jobs" (I'll deal with that hoax at length later this week), Giuliani and his ilk must resort to petty personality based attacks.

Impugning Barack Obama's patriotism is, and will continue to be for the duration of the campaign, one of these paltry attacks. It will be incumbent upon the electorate to see through this duplicitous, counterproductive allegations from Giuliani and his cadre. America is too damaged, both socially, economically and politically, to fall into that canard that they will attempt to propagate. In the end, why do you think gas is $4.50? Why do you think that we consented to a blatantly illegal war? It's because we have been far too preoccupied by valence issues, just like the Republicans would want. Now, it's time to stop that....before it's too late.

What we Learned from the FISA Debate...

Now that the Senate vote is complete, and the immunization of lawbreakers has been solidified into our laws pending a Supreme Court review, time is opportune to analyze what exactly we learned from this debacle:

Barack Obama is hardly the "Candidate of Change": As I documented at length yesterday, Obama punctuated his reputed "move to the center" (embrace GOP positions on gun control, pander to media narratives about "patriotism", plunder 4th Amendment) by totally reversing his course on the FISA bill in a stark display of sheer political calculation. Obama had initially promised to vote against the bill, and also to filibuster if need be; he did neither, and he utilized patently misleading arguments to justify that.

Hopefully progressive realize that the reputed "change" candidate has apparently metamorphosed into the quintessential Beltway politician, one who will eschew both his previous statements and his legion of supporters. Barring another whole scale change, Mr. Obama's conduct of late illustrates his "Change We Can Believe in Mantra" as utter poppycock.

Current Politicians Don't view the 4th Amendment as Important: A hallmark of our Constitution, since it was originally drafted by our Framers, is that citizens could not be spied upon without a warrant from the authorities naming the cause of the intrusion. That is now irrevocably been changed. When Americans communicate with individuals out of the country, they could be spied on by government officials without probable cause. More over, the government will not suffer any recriminations, no matter how brazen, or wanton the spying might be.

This provision is in direct conflict with all case law precedent as well as the 4th Amendment. Strikingly, this argument did not resonate with the large majority of Congress. Instead of respecting our Constitution, they instead chose to kowtow to a President run amok, and institutionalize a program that disenfranchises millions of citizens from attaining their privacy protections that were once viewed as sacrosanct.

Republicans, as a whole, Do not Respect the 4th Amendment: As aforementioned, Congress defected en masse to the dark side, and sanctioned the President's lawless conduct with yesterday's FISA vote. Of particular note: In the Senate, all Republicans voted for the bill, while all but one did so in the House. If this doesn't cement into the voters minds that Republicans disregard the Constitution much like Britney Spears disregards a treadmill, I don't know what will.

When millions of voters go to the ballot box in November, here's to hoping they don't forget what little esteem the Republican party holds our Constitution, namely it's 4th Amendment protections.

A Congress led by the Democrats is Worse than one led by the GOP: As delved into at length at Salon.com by the inimitable, sagacious and courageous Glenn Greenwald, this FISA bill was past at the behest of the Democratic led Congress, after it was shut down just a few years ago when the legislative body was run by Republicans. No wonder Kit Bond and Roy Blunt are practically giddy about the prospect of this bill: never in their wildest dreams could they thought it would have been passed. And yet, inexplicably, the most concerted effort to erode out privacy protections in years has been ratified, and the blood is on the hands of the complicit Democrats.

This is the ultimate insult to Progressive voters who lent their money, and support so vociferously to electing these very same representatives in 2006. Instead of listening to their demands, or at least remaining neutral, the craven leadership of Nancy Pelosi, and specifically Steny Hoyer, instead decided to deliver to the President legislative lagniappe's he never thought would materialize.

That the Democrats would endorse the most radical aspects of the Bush agenda is both baffling and incredibly enraging. It is perhaps the most puzzling development of the entire FISA story. Can these complicit Administration apologists really buy the patently false Beltway myth that, if they don't gut the Constitution, they will portrayed as weak on national security? Are Hoyer and Pelosi that disingenuous to claim that this bill serves as any sort of upgrade on our "protection from terrorists?" Apparently so. Hoyer, Pelosi and their ilk have proven both their cravenness, and their inability to attend to their constituents. Voters take heed.

Their complicity hopefully will be one of the last lessons for the legions of voters who supported these candidates in the hopes that they would reverse Bush's abuses, not reify and endorse them. Perhaps that memory will stay in their consciousness long to provide a silver lining: next time these enables stand in front of the voters, they will be summarily rejected as spineless, partisan hacks, as they have proven themselves dutifully to be during the past few weeks.

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This fight is far from over. The sobering reality that Democrats are just as complicit in propagating the lawless, Imperial presidency as their Republican counterparts has been burned into the consciousness of the legion of Progressive voters. No matter how much the mainstream media tries to rationalize, justify or excuse the behavior of Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and most distressingly Barack Obama, the American people are lucid enough to see through their rhetoric. The American people can see their diaphanous rhetorical veil crumbles in the fact of the facts of this bill. Hopefully, it has enacted a new realization about the two leveled system of justice that pervades our political institutions.

We will fight anew, burnished with the credentials of both our Constitution and the brave few legislators who did not succumb to the fear mongering and distortion at the hands of Imperial Presidency. Yesterday was not the final word on this debate.

Barack Obama helps George Bush Destroy the Fourth Amendment

In one of the most ignominious moments in recent Congressional history, the Senate voted to support the FISA "compromise" legislation which both immunizes law-breaking telecommunications companies from prosecution, but also authorizes retroactively the warrantless spying the Bush Administration has engaged in since at least 2003. For the first time in history, the government, and it's complicit partners in business, will be able to legally spy on communications from outside the country, without any sort of oversight. The FISA court had been conducting said oversight since the inception of the act in 1979, to no reported problems. It's not as if this court had been obstructionist, as some on the right and in the media might lead one to believe. In fact, the court turned down one warrant submission in the last 29 years.

More importantly, as I have mentioned repeatedly in this space, this bill is the antithesis of a "compromise", and in actuality, the Republicans achieved more than even their most delusional members thought possible with this bill.

How did this miraculous bill materialize? At the behest of Tom DeLay in the house and Bill "Terri Schiavo could be cognizant" Frist? With some arcane Senate procedural matter?

No. It was the Democratic led Congress hat permitted this brazenly illegal legislation to codify into our laws. At the forefront of lobbying for this blemish to our nation's Constitution, was Barack Obama. Obama, even after plainly stating he would oppose a bill that granted immunity, and would filibuster the bill if it came to the floor of the Senate, served as a shepherd to passage for this legislation. In fact, Obama both voted for the bill, and in a shocking display of callous political calculation, went against his word, and did not support a filibuster.

After weeks of a crescendo of building towards "centrism", Obama has now thoroughly solidified that notion when he ignored both Constitutional provisions, and rejected statements he made mere months ago, and voted for this turgid, patently illegal piece of legislation.

Does this sound like the sort of centrism that Obama voters envisioned when they voted for him during the primary season that he won by a razor thin margin? (Note: Obama's narrowly vanquished foe, Hillary Clinton, supported our ingrained Constitutional protections and voted against the bill.) Is this the sort of leadership that the Democratic caucus believed that Barack Obama would bring to the Oval Office? A leadership, which at least today, aligns him identically with the Bush Administration.

Yes, I know that Democrats want to win after 8 years of absence in the White House. However, Barack Obama proved today that he, in the interest of political calculation, will blatantly ignore his own constituents wishes. Given that, what would the difference between Barack Obama and John McCain on this issue?

You guessed it, there's isn't one.

Given that, there is no virtue in "winning" if Barack Obama conforms to the nefarious notion that he should "move to the center", and thereby participate in eviscerating our Constitution.