Independent Rant

It was the story in the NYT over the weekend about Bush fundraisers going out one more time to fund the coronation, er, inauguration that got me to thinking: Forty-nine percent of us aren't real happy about Bush II 2 and January 20 could be the perfect time to gather around our kitchen tables to refocus ourselves for the next four years. While W is basking in the glow of the faux mandate, the rest of us can renew our commitment to proper stewardship of the environment, a woman's right to choose, preservation of Social Security, a fair minimum wage, and the other issues that we care about.

In contrast to the champagne-and-caviar spread that is likely to be found throughout Washington, I think the anti-inauguration parties should be more pizza-and-beer affairs. No need for engraved invitations or exclusive guest lists. Black tie is most definitely optional.

The discussions should be recorded, however, and shared through blogs, letters to the editor, letters to various government representatives, and action plans for the months ahead. If we start now we can distill guiding principles that will unite us heading into 2006 and 2008.

One of the the nice things about the four-day Thanksgiving break, aside from sleeping late and eating lots of pie, is that there is ample time to reflect on the good fortunes we enjoy. I have been thinking this morning about just how lucky we are as Americans.

We have not had a war fought on our soil since the mid-19th century.While we have lost many service people and civilians, our nation has not had to endure being physically immersed in the horrors of war since our own Civil War. Even that struggle, with the greatest loss of American lives of any war to date and that is widely credited with being the first modern war in that civilians were considered combatants as much as the military, came before the horror of tanks and aerial bombardment.

We are lucky to have benign neighbors to our north and south. To the east and west we have insulating oceans that have provided insurmountable barriers to potential invaders. Europe, Asia, and Africa have all felt the crushing boots of clashing armies. Bombs have rained down on their cities. Europe in particular, along with the former Soviet Union, saw two generations of men cut down in their prime. We are lucky that our losses were not as great, our sacrifices -- while noble and great -- were not as scarring.

We are lucky to be rich in natural resources. We do not want for food and we have been able to draw upon this rich land to build a great nation. Even in times of economic depression, we have had vast reservoirs to draw upon to fuel our eventual recovery.

We are lucky to have a constitution that has stood the test of time. It has given us a durable framework for moving forward even when we are deeply divided. We have been given the principles that have enabled us to build a free and increasingly just -- though still far from perfect -- society. It helps us to continually evolve and, if not taken for granted or abused, seems well-suited to serve us far into the future.

Color us lucky. And let's be thankful for that.

Cliched though it may be, it is important to take time out to give thanks (more than once a year isn't a bad idea, either). I am grateful for the health of my family and friends and the many advantages we enjoy as Americans. I know that I am lucky to have been born here.

Thank you to all those people who write, read, and comment in the blogosphere (even those with whom I disagree). Freedom to express ourselves is one of our cornerstone rights and it is great to see it in action. Thanks, too, to the journalists and researchers on whose work we often draw for our posts.

Thanks to the people of the Ukraine who are standing up for their right to free and fair elections. I'm grateful that whatever shenanigans may have occured in our elections were minor and that we will have an orderly transition of power in thousands of offices across the country. My thoughts are with those who continue to stand vigil in Kiev demanding that their voices be heard.

Thanks to all those who will be up early this morning to make sure that the birds get in the oven on time and who will continue to keep the food flowing throughout the day. There's a great quote from Alice Waters in the new Worthwhile magazine, Food can "be an experience taht was beautiful and satisfying - and I don't mean rarified and expensive. I mean something that is appealing to our senses. We need to be satisfied at that level. It's what life is about."

Thanks to everyone who remembered people less fortunate than themselves and tried to help in some way.

And thanks to Pedro, Curt, D-lo, Bronson, Mike, Papi, Jason, Doug, Rick, Kevin, Mark, Orlando, Bill, Manny, Johnny, Trot, Gabe, Dave, Pokey, Danny, Tony, Theo, and all of the others who broke the curse.

Amen.

How are things in Iraq? A study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (via Atrios) says not well at all. In six key areas examined, the situation is pitful at best. Much of the blame is laid at the feet of the insurgency. At some point we need to assess our -- and their -- realistic options before the country is damaged to the point that it isn't salvagable. I'm not sure which cliche to apply: "be careful not to bite off more than you can chew;" "the beatings will continue until morale improves;" or "when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging." Perhaps it's time to pull out the ol' tome, Lessons the Soviets Learned in Afganistan.

Meanwhile, back in the moral values department, Nick Kristoff writes about Jews, Catholics, Muslims, and most everyone else burning in Hell. In today's NYT he looks at the "Left Behind" series of books -- the best-selling series of books for adults in the U.S., he says -- from evangelicals Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.

"Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and . . . they tumbled in, howling and screeching." We're having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave...you get the picture. You can be sure they are on the bookshelf at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I wouldn't be surprised if they are passed around at foreign policy briefings.

I find it amazing that these are the best-selling books for adults in the U.S. What happened to sex-filled potboilers and steamy bodice-rippers? The cultural transformation continues with a vengence.

In an unrelated item, David Weinberger will be leading a discussion on "What's Ours on the 'Net" next Wednesday evening at the Berkman Center in Cambridge, MA. Should be fun.

Blogger hates this post. I've put it up four times today, it looks fine, and then later big chunks are missing. Here we go again.

Check out Oliver Wills' outstanding Brand Democrat thread (courtesy of Joho). There are great insights on the work that lies ahead, what the Party can do, and what must be done by those outside of the official apparatus. Let's buy a t-shirt or two and get to it.

The place to start is with ideas. A poll in today's NYT shows that there is great support for the Democratic ideas that, sad to say, isn't translating to enough support for our candidates.

Key findings include:
- A majority say that the country still say that Bush has us heading in the wrong direction;
- A plurality say that invading Iraq was a mistake;
- 51% say Bush is not likely to make sure Social Security benefits are there for them;
- Only 21% say abortion should not be permitted and 64% think Bush will appoint judges who will make it illegal;
- While 32% think the Bush tax cuts have been good for the economy, 19% think they've been bad and 45% don't think they've made much difference. 45% think the 2001 tax cuts should be allowed to expire while 41% want them made permanent;
- 67% say reducing the deficit should be a higher priority than lowering taxes.

And we still couldn't capture the White House? We lost seats in the House (well, we have Tom DeLay to thank for that)? We dropped seats in the Senate? Rebranding is just the first of many steps we need to take. Our issues are America's issues and we need to find candidates who can communicate and connect (at every level from school committee to the White House).

Let's welcome Reluctant Warrior to the discussion.

Ever wonder what it means to be married (and why our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters want in on it)? There a list of the 1,000+ benefits compiled by the GAO courtesy of Atrios.

Looking at the history of social change shows that, ultimately, gay and lesbian marriage will be allowed and that the changes to the institution because of the resistance currently being mounted. First, there is all upside and almost no downside for gays and lesbians who want to marry so they aren't going away. As the idea becomes more common and there is evidence that civilization does not crumble when g & l marry, more and more people will drop their concerns about it.

Second, when people have been denied rights that they feel they deserve, the first step they take is to point it out. They are ready to comply with the "rules," such as they are, and bear the responsibilities along with getting the benefits. As the rights continue to be denied they begin to see the "rules" as part of the problem and so they work to change them. When they triumph (see part 1 above), they will do so in ways that create far more radical change than was the original intention.

Conservatives who want to "preserve" marriage would be far more likely to do so if they would define traditional marriage as a monogomous union of two people who have made a lifetime commitment to each other and not worry so much about the genetalia of the two people involved.

Of course some critics of gay marriage also have problems with the divorced and those who are married but who have chosen not to have children. Talk about anti-choice.

I had pretty much given up on more vote analysis until I read Joe Conason's column in last week's NY Observer. He points out Bush's popular vote victory was largely the result of increased turnout in the red states while blue state turnout was generally flat (tip o' the hat to Mr. Rove on that one). His prescription for the Dems:

"Democrats need to rediscover the kind of language and programs that will appeal to blue-collar voters in the red states, particularly in places like Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Ohio. They must remake the false image foisted on them by Republicans as immoral, Godless elitists. Most of all, they have to create the kind of ideological, communications and organizational infrastructure built by their opponents. That is the only way to thwart Mr. Rove’s plan to repeal the New Deal and return America to the reign of corporate plutocracy. "

Elsewhere in The Observer, Trish Durkin asks, "If Bush is an idiot and he beat you twice, what does that make you?" It's a great wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee column.

Also interesting was a story last week in the NYT that described how the Reps had used superior consumer modeling techniques and data mining to better identify potential Bush voters and focus the efforts of their teams on the ground (I won't link now that it is in the pay-to-see archives). The Dems should look closely at this and take a lesson or two. They should be starting their profiling efforts now so that they can have a kick-ass database for '06 and '08. They ought to be able to get very specific on income, job losses/gains, healthcare coverage, etc. on a district-by-district basis. Both candidates relied on generalities in the campaign with the occassional local stat thrown in; next time around I hope our guys can lauch precision strikes based on real data that will be much harder to refute. The data can also be used to craft more effective emotional messages.

Speaking of kicking ass, my brother Nick had his right wing musings picked up by a newspaper in Dallas and I expect that his hits will jump because of it. I may not agree with many of his positions, but his blog is always fun to read. Here he is in a nutshell, "
Iceman is conservative with a sharp wit - many of the posts are satires - who is more anti-liberal than anti-Democratic Party." No offense meant by the "nut" in "nutshell."

Boys will be Boys:
House Republicans proposed changing their rules Tuesday night to allow members indicted by state grand juries to remain in a leadership post, a move that would benefit Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), according to GOP leaders.

Perhaps being indicted is greater qualification for the job.

Sky Didn't Fall:
The gay marriage anniversary has passed without anyone being turned into a pillar of salt. The sky didn't fall. Children aren't being molested in the streets. But a couple of thousand couples have been able to publicly proclaim their love and devotion to each other along with getting the same rights and privileges as their straight counterparts.

The fights will continue but I have confidence that love will win the day.

Emerging Lights:
TNR takes an interesting look at the second tier of Dem contenders for 2008. For those of us whining about a farm team, this list makes for interesting reading. Because, let's face it, Hilary will get creamed in 2008, a Kerry rerun would be lucky to carry 10 states, and Dean would maybe carry three.

Two momentous (and portentious) events occured in the education world in the past few days: Rod Paige resigned as Secretary of Education and Congress has passed a new special ed law. Paige leaves small shoes to fill but presents an opportunity for W to reassert his commitment to better education; the new law, really an update of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, sets new levels of accountability for spec ed students and teachers.

Although I applaud W's attempt to bring greater accountability to schools (if not the short-shrift funding NCLB has received), we continue to miss the ball on education. While we are still messing around with trying to achieve basic standards, countries like China and India are making massive investments in education. Their schools may not be as good as ours, but they are getting good enough to provide the next generation work force and that may be all that matters.

The new law is a step in the right direction for one segment of the population. We have to challenge ourselves to do better by the rest.

According to Clayton Christensen's theory of disruptive innovation (greatly over-simplified here), insurgents don't need to be better than the incumbent but just "good enough" to meet an unmet need. Insurgents move upmarket and incumbents retreat further upmarket (think "it's OK to lose low end manufacturing because we all do better with high end manufacturing" followed by "it's OK to lose high end manufacturing because we all do better with 'knowledge work," etc.). While the conditions under which the insurgents or incumbents win in the end, the principal lesson to learn is that the game is often over before the incumbent knows what is happening.

We can't let that happen with our schools. While the Global Competitive Report says that we're
#2 in the world (after Finland), that's a picture of today. The most recent PISA survey finds our 15 year-olds are performing smack in the middle of the global pack. We can do better. Here's a few BHAGs (sorry kids, it costs money):

1. Fully fund No Child Left Behind. If wer're going to hold people accountable, let's give them the resources;
2. Fund Advanced Placement in all schools. We can't excel if we can't help the best and the brightest go as far as they can go;
3. Establish a national best practices research center that can validate, document, and diseminate the programs that work. It should provide financial rewards to those schools that develop best-of-breed programs and processes that can be exported successfully to other schools.
4. Engage the NEA in meaningful innovation and experimentation. The teachers' union has been as big an obstacle to reform as have stingy lawmakers and nothing will get done if the NEA doesn't buy in. One first step: provide teachers with long-term incentives such as bonuses based on the number of their students that go on to graduate high school, enter college, and are graduated from college. By making the incentives long-term, we remove the temtation of just teaching for this year's standardized test and add the extra filter of independent, outside evaluation (college admissions and graduation requirements);
5. Encourage high school alumni programs. Many of us owe our success to a good public school education. There should be easy ways to give back to help fund programs and make a connection with the next generation. If I wanted to make a financial donation to my high school, I wouldn't know the first place to start;
6. Add "life skills" to the curriculum. I know that the last thing schools need is one more thing for which to be responsible but there is a crying need for greater financial literacy, better decision-making skills, more understanding of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, and competency in the basics of maintaining a home. Too often practical skills training has only been for non-college track students and this curriculum needs to be updated and expanded so that everyone has a base level around what it takes to function successfully as an adult in today's society.

We have good schools but they aren't as good as they could be. As Jim Collins likes to say, good is the enemy of great. Great should be our goal.

I spent some time with Rosabeth Moss Kanter a couple of weeks back talking about her new book, Confidence. It's about winning streaks and losing streaks -- what causes them, perpetuates them, and ends them. One of the characteristics of leaders of organizations that head into or can't get out of losing streaks is a fear of information. They don't seek out data or contrarian opinions as if what they don't know can't hurt them.

It will be interesting to put this lens on the upcoming Bush cabinet appointments. Certainly the elevation of Condi and Gonzales helps fill the circle with people who buy the W doctrine hook, line, and stinker. The mistakes like the poor post-invasion planning in Iraq, abuses at Abu Ghraib, and abandonment of the Geneva Convention at Gitmo will only continue if all of the people at the top hew to the same line in lockstep. Disagreeing isn't the same as disloyalty and the White House needs to learn that.

Also, reality has a way of catching up with you. Better to try to get a jump on it by getting counsel from a variety of sources.

David Weinberger continues the debate on the

I had heard rumors that Colin Powell was ready to hang around for at least the first year of term two, but now we see how reliable those sources are. I now hear that Powell may have been asked to leave. Wouldn't want to have a voice of dissent in the cabinet as it could make plotting overseas adventures too cumbersome.

Now, before we can even get the old office pool set up, W taps Condi to take his place (they are efficient in this White House. You have to give them that) and the Secretaries of Energy, Agriculture, and Education exit stage left, er, right. Did someone in the cabinet room yell "Fire?"

My bet was on Condi in speculation yesterday though I missed the apparent elevation of Stephen Hadley to Condi's job. Condi, of course, will ensure that the hard line extends all the way from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to Foggy Bottom.

Rice, like Alberto Gonzales, is further evidence that loyalty to W can be the ticket to lifetime employment.

So, who's next? I hear that otherwise invisible Tommy Thompson from Health & Human Services may be looking for the exit (although NYT reports otherwise) along with cigar-store Indian and homeland security apologist Tom Ridge. I'm sure there's a high paying job in, perhaps, the pharma sector for Thompson should he want it. Ridge will likely want some sort of payback for having spent four years as security alert boy -- perhaps a cushy ambassadorial post or envoy to the U.N. if the spot opens up.

Mitt Romney, guv of MA, could be tapped for the homeland job. Lord knows he looks like he ready to get out of the statehouse in Boston after having had most of his legislative candidates go down to defeat on Nov. 2.

Let's gather round the Ouija board and see what spirits foretell.

Although the supposed "moral values" underpinning of W’s victory has already been debunked, it is sure to continue to fire calls for those of us in the endive-eating, gay marrying, liberal loony tune, effete intellectual elite blue states to embrace the “traditional” values of our red brethren. It’s time to tuck the Philip Roth back under the bed and dive into Deuteronomy according to Karl Rove and company.

It’s quickly becoming accepted by mainstream analysts that evangelical values drove only a small fraction of the electorate. However, perceived reality has lately had far more impact than reality itself so watch for the rabid right to demand their “due.” In a small item buried in last Friday’s NYT, John Reed III, president of an epinonymous evangelical college in South Carolina called on W to use his “mandate” to appoint conservative judges and enact legislation in line with the “biblical norm.”

The Dems are poised to elect the conservative Harry Reid as minority leader in the Senate. Is this the beginning of a race to out red the reds – or is it a brilliant “big tent” move to show that a pro-choice party can appoint an anti-choice leader? Only time will tell.

Well I, for one, am having none of the rush to cleanse our so-called sins in the River Jordan. We of the left don’t seek to impose our values on everyone else. We merely believe that individuals should have the freedom to marry whom they please, decide for themselves about surgical procedures on their bodies and, though it almost sounds trivial by comparison, waste the afternoon watching foreign films or indulging in a novel that has the occasional dirty word or two.

The Christian mullahs are far more insistent on prescribing what we can all see, hear, do, and think. As far as I’m concerned, if you aren’t drawn to someone of the same sex, you don’t have to marry one. Find abortion offensive? Don’t have one. Read what you want, drink what you want, and keep your radio permanently tuned to Christian rock if you’d like. NASCAR may not make my motor rev, but I have nothing against those who want to spend a Saturday watching cars zoom around a track. Really.

I may not share your enthusiasms, but I don’t condemn them; I wish that the converse were true. The God-given mission of the evangelicals is to bring us all to Christ and they take that mission seriously. The supposed victims in the culture war are actually the victimizers. When is the last time you heard about someone getting beaten up in a bar for being a redneck?

Do we have any common ground? I think we do. I don’t think adult magazines should be displayed where kids have easy access to them. I find the misogynist and violent lyrics on some CDs revolting. The carpet f-bombing on shows like The Sopranos adds nothing to the quality of the drama. I even think we need to teach religion in schools (it’s impossible to understand history or current events without a basic understanding of the world’s religions so every graduating high school student should have that knowledge – it’s teaching without preaching).

But I’m not going to give an inch to the smug self-designated arbiters of what is good, right, and true.

I have to share this. Credit goes to Donna L. Lavins and Sheldon Cotler

A Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican by Donna L. Lavins and Sheldon Cotler

Joe gets up at 6:00 AM to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot with good, clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised. All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan. Because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too.

He prepares his morning breakfast -- bacon and eggs this day. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry. Joe takes his morning shower, reaching for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount that is contains because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and the breakdown of its contents.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree-hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work; it saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay, medicals benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer meets these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed he'll get worker's compensation or an unemployment check because some liberal didn't think he should loose his home to temporary misfortune.

It's noon time. Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the depression. Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten mortgage and his below market federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to dads; his car is among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety standards.

He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electric until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification (those rural Republican's would still be sitting in the dark).

Joe is happy to see his dad, who is now retired. Joe's dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

After his visit with dad, Joe gets back in his car for the ride home. He turns on a radio talk show. The host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't tell Joe that his beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees, "We don't need those big government liberals ruining our lives. After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."

In the years to come, Joe's life will change dramatically. The U.S. dollar will be devalued as a result of our huge deficit, our living standards demolished, our standing with the world diminished and our social security gone...all because some conservative Republican made sure he could take care of himself and his buddies.

In case you thought you were finished paying for Boston's Big Dig (dismantling the elevated Central Artery and building a new one underground), guess again. A new report finds that the major tunnel has more leaks than a colander and the finger-pointing has begun. Initial estimates say it could take as much as 10 years to repair and who-knows-what cost.

My dad has been spending a couple of days a week chronicling the problems with the Big Dig. He's a retired DPW guy with lots of experience overseeing highway and bridge projects, monitoring contracts, etc. I can't wait to get his download this weekend. He has been predicting that major problems would surface for sometime now as he found that the public oversight agencies had been trimmed back to such an extent that they couldn't do an effective job. There was too much faith, he says, that the contractors would conform to all of the specifications in the contracts. It will be interesting to see the Commonwealth go up against a well-connected behemoth like Bechtel.

Speaking of paying and trusting vendors, calls for investigating the performance of electronic voting machines are surfacing. Regular readers will know that I've been ranting about this for months. Some of what you'll read on the Web is sour grapes or wild-eyed conspiracy theory, but I join the call for a thorough, non-partisan investigation. I don't think the election was stolen but I do want to know if the new machines are all that they are cracked up to be.

Can you imagine any large company that would implement a major new technology in a critical process without thorough pre- and post-performance testing? Can you imagine one that would be satisfied with "it must be OK if the vendor's say it's OK" as their primary assurance? We must hold our voting process to the absolute highest standards.

We don't send an airliner up into the sky without redundant systems. We test our drugs for years before approving final use. Why should we do less for our voting processes? We need to insist on paper or some equally reliable system of validation (redundancy) and subject the machines to a thorough review before the 2006 mid-terms. I also think it is time for national or at least state-by-state standards for voting. The county-by-county system simply makes no sense.

Let your senators and congresspeople know that you care about this issue.

Couldn't resist sharing this quote passed along by a friend:

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more andmore closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

Bush nominates Alberto Gonzales to be the new AG. This is the guy who thinks it's OK to torture prisoners and detain people indefinitely without access to legal counsel. Another great day for civil rights.

Meanwhile CNN reports: "Republican gains in the Senate could give President Bush his best chance yet to achieve his No. 1 energy priority: opening an oil-rich but environmentally sensitive Alaska wildlife refuge to drilling.e

We are entering a dark, dark circle of Hell.

The resignation of Attorney General John Ashcroft and the potential resignation of Chief Justice William Reinquist present two golden opportunities for President Bush to signal whether he intends to fulfill his promise to unite the country in his second term. Alternatively, the appointments he makes could let us know loud-and-clear that we are in for four years of payback to the Evangelical right.

Ashcroft has been among the most divisive figures in the administration. Replacing him with a more moderate conservative would calm the waters in the blue states. It would also, however, like the red states see red. The fight over Alan Specter doesn't bode well in this area. But being a uniter of a divided country is hard work.

The Washington Post says, "Names that have been floated in recent weeks as a possible replacement include Ashcroft's former deputy, Larry Thompson, who would become the first black attorney general. Others include Marc Racicot, who was Bush's campaign manager, and White House general counsel Alberto Gonzales, who would give Bush a notable Hispanic appointment. "

Don't know much about Thompson though a stint in Ashcroft's office doesn't inspire warm feelings. Counterpunch had this to say about Racicot: "When the Florida recount fiasco was in full-throttle, the Bush team called in one of its top fixers to deal with the media and help put the finishing touches on the brusque strategy that helped seal the election. That man was Marc Racicot..."

Gonzales, also reported to be on the short-list for the Supreme Court, is the keen legal advisor who advised W to state that enemy combatants in Afghanistan and Iraq would be expempt from the Geneva Convention so that the admin would be better protected agains being prosecuted for war crimes. His work for W on death penalty cases in Texas was the subject of a scathing report in The Atlantic. According to The Atlantic's Alan Berlow, Gonzales "repeatedly failed to apprise the governor of crucial issues in the cases at hand: ineffective counsel, conflict of interest, mitigating evidence, even actual evidence of innocence."

The Supreme Court is a bit easier. If and when Reinquist resigns move Sandra Day O'Connor into the CJ spot. W will get big points for appointing the first female CJ and O'Connor is centrist enough to not cause heart attacks on either side of the aisle.

Those who are in a healing mood are slobbering all over themselves praising John Perry Barlow's post-election post. Barlow's piece is thoughtful and well-written though perhaps a bit too accepting of the new era of Republican rule. You may think that I've printed it out, rolled some home-grown into it, and smoked after reading the above thoughts on the nominations to come.

Just to prove that I've not gone soft, let me share this informative, fun, and truly nasty dissection of the red states that includes fun facts to know and tell such as that this highest divorce rates in the country are in the moralistic Bible belt and the highest levels of government spending received are in the tax-hating red states.

For the past couple of years the generally eco-friendly residents of Cape Cod have been divided over a large-scale wind farm that has been proposed for Nantucket Sound. It is claimed that its 130 towering turbines will generate up to 75% of the area's electrical power with virtually no air pollution, toxic waste, or noise. It will, however, affect the view from some rather posh seaside property -- including the fabled Kennedy compound in Hyannisport -- sending many Capies on the Sierra Club mailing list railing against the environmentally friendly project.

Yesterday the first draft of an enviromnental impact study was released and it says that the impact will be minimal. Opponents of the farm are saying that aesthetic consderations should also be taken into account. Funny how no one raised that issue with strip mines or nuclear power plants.

Time to put your clean energy principles to the test, kids. Of course that's easy for me to say as my little piece of the Cape is on the bay side (facing the opposite direction from the wind farm). My biggest reservation is that I can't seem to find out how much the developers will be paying to make their money on public land.

Today's the last day that I avoid the news, newspapers, etc. -- most of the post-election gnashing should be over after the Sunday papers and pundit fests have had their say.

Today's the day that I dedicated that big jar in the corner of my bedroom to be the epicenter of "change for change." I know that I can accumulate $400 or so each year painlessly by tossing in pocket change. Instead of buying some nice wine or a couple of dinners out, the change is going to go to congressional candidates in swing states for the next round.

Tomorrow's looking better already.

David Weinberger got me started on this tonight. The press let TAP down this election season. That shouldn't be a surprise as a lapdog mentality has settled into too many newsrooms. Access has trumped the satisfaction of a hard-hitting story. Follow up quesitons seem beyond reporters' reach. Entertainment value has triumphed over news value and the result is journalistic Maypo.

What can we do? First, we need a national, widely available truly liberal wing of the media. The Guardian is coming to the U.S. (still? I hope?) and it can be the vanguard of a vocal, openly progressive media that presses the case of the left. Subscribe as soon as you can (I have no affiliation). What we really need is a daily -- a Progressive USA Today.

Second, a real liberal wing of the media (beyond small circ. outlets like TNR, etc.) will then defang the charges that all non-Fox/Washington Times/AM radio media is liberal. The NYT can do its job as a solid paper with a left-leaning OpEd page (just as the WS J is a solid paper with a right-leaning OpEd page); the networks can limp along as middle-of-the-road purveyors of fairly presented news. Thank goodness for PBS and NPR or all in-depth reporting would vanish from the airwaves.

Third, start holding the media to account. We in the blogosphere can find good reporters doing solid journalism. We need to spread the word far and fast. We can build their reputations and celebrate their efforts. We can build them up (OK, I guess that means I just signed up for that. Watch this space for more.). There are huge stories to be told regarding voter disenfranchisement from this election and those who perpetrated it -- Reps or Dems -- should be held to account. We can demand this kind of coverage.

A personal favorite of mine is the Friday night Beat the Press edition of Greater Boston on WGBH. They do an insightful dissection of the media. If only there was something similar in every market.

Opposition to the war in Iraq fueled a lot of energy leading up to the election. We must remember not to hate the warrior because we hate the war. The following was sent by a friend and I find it both informative and moving.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
1. How many steps does the guard take during his walk across the tomb of the Unknowns and why? 21 steps. It alludes to the twenty-one gun salute, which is the highest
honor given any military or foreign dignitary.

2. How long does he hesitate after his about face to begin his return walk and why? 21 seconds for the same reason as answer number 1.

3. Why are his gloves wet? His gloves are moistened to prevent losing his grip on the rifle.

4. Does he carry his rifle on the same shoulder all the time and if not, why not? He carries the rifle on the shoulder away from the tomb. After his march across the path, he executes an about face and moves the rifle to the outside shoulder.

5. How often are the guards changed? Guards are changed every thirty minutes, twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year.

6. What are the physical traits of the guard limited to? For a person to apply for guard duty at the tomb, he must be between 5' 10" and 6' 2" tall and his waist size cannot exceed 30." Other requirements of the Guard: He must commit 2 years of his life to guard the tomb, live in a barracks under the tomb, and cannot drink any alcohol on or off duty. He cannot swear in public or disgrace the uniform {fighting} or the tomb in any way. After two years, the guard is given a wreath pin that is worn on his lapel, signifying he served as guard of the tomb. There are only 400 presently worn. The guard must obey these rules for the rest of his life or give up the wreath pin.

The shoes are specially made with very thick soles to keep the heat and cold from his feet. There are metal heel plates that extend to the top of the shoe in order to make the loud click as he comes to a halt. There are no wrinkles, folds or lint on the uniform. The guard dresses for duty in front of a full-length mirror.

During the first six months of duty, a guard cannot talk to anyone, nor watch TV. All off duty time is spent studying the 175 notable people laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. A guard must memorize who they are and where they are interred. Among the notables are: President Taft, Joe E. Lewis, the boxer, and Medal of Honor winner Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier of WWII, of Hollywood fame.

Every guard spends five hours a day getting his uniform ready for guard duty.

In 2003 as Hurricane Isabelle was approaching Washington, DC, our US Senate/House took 2 days off with anticipation of the storm. On the ABC evening news, it was reported that because of the dangers from the hurricane, the military members assigned the duty of guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier were given permission to suspend the assignment. They respectfully declined the offer, "No way, Sir!" Soaked to the skin, marching in the pelting rain of a tropical storm, they said that guarding the Tomb was not just an assignment, it was the highest honor that can be afforded to a serviceperson.

The tomb has been patrolled continuously, 24/7, since 1930.

There's a challenge from Peter Beinart in this weeks New Republic:
"The Democratic Party has been in the wilderness before. And it has returned to transform the country. Today's despair is so great it sometimes clouds out intelligent thought. And the fear of political oblivion can produce moral lapses. The challenge is to move from despair to strategy. And win the country back."

There are two levels of work that needs to be done. The first is around ideas. We Dems have fallen too easily into the protection of the status quo. Perhaps it was because Clinton was eviscerated over healthcare reform that scared the bold initiatives from our system but we have to move beyond protecting Social Security, protecting Medicare, protecting affirmative action, and the rest. Social Security is running out of gas, Medicare is becoming intolerably expensive, affirmative action has not kept up with the evolution of society. We need to be looking at how we fulfill the intent of each of these programs and others while adapting them for the world as it is and will be.

The best way for Dems to show up the shortcomings of plans like Bush's privatization folly for Social Security is to have a competing plan that is better thought out, more robust, and that will take better care of the recipients. We have to go head-to-head and we can.

What we cannot do is follow the traditional path of making a list of all of the affected constituencies and then piecing together a plan with a little something for everyone. It never has worked and it never will. We have to connect with people's needs and show how we can better meet them.

The second area that needs work is at the grass roots and the efforts of MoveOn.org and others are a great start. The Reps have been relentless at building an infrastructure from local school boards up through the national candidates. They have a farm team and a strategy for using them. Quick, excluding Barack Obama, name two or three rising stars in the Democratic Party. Chances are you can't and that's a problem -- we need them to run in less than two years.

Perhaps the greatest potential danger after the potential of a Christian theocracy in the wake of Tuesday's election is a backlash against religion itself. It is pretty apparent that Rove's pledge to turn out the evangelical Christian vote was carried through and carried the day. The appeal was both straightforward, Bush is anti-choice; Kerry is pro-choice for example, and cynical -- the vote on a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in Congress that hadn't a prayer of passing and eleven state votes that did pass mobilized the conservative faithful through fear. The evangelicals went to the polls and appear to have made the difference.

I have blogged extensively on the dangers of "God's will"-inspired public policy and continue to believe that a nation governed under strict Christian ideology is different from the Islamic theocracies only in the God's they claim to serve. The Christian mullahs are no more right than their Islamic bretheren so often railed against. As Lincoln said, we cannot know if God is on our side, we can only hope that we are on God's side.

However, we cannot let the displeasure at the religious right running the government turn into a general backlash against religion. We must honor and respect faith in all its forms and preserve the protections that allow each of us to practice our faith of choice even if we choose not to practice at all. Those of us in the blue areas have a special responsibility not to denigrate all people of faith as irrational zealots; those in the red have to realize that opposing prayer in public schools is not the same thing as opposing prayer, that not practicing the Christian faith does not mean that a person is not full of faith.

We cannot let this nation be divided into camps of those who are "saved" and those who are prospects for saving. We on the left have to restake our claim to morality, belief, and faith even as we battle with those who use their own faith to justify actions and policies we deplore. We cannot let God be a captive of the right -- she's too important to all of us.

OK, I was dope-slapped by an anonymous correspondent today and I deserved it. My friend John tells me that one is allowed 24 hours of post-election wallowing and, kids, that has passed. The mid-term elections are less than two years away and it is time to join those who are organizing. The Dems are stronger in MA now than they've been in more than 100 years, but I am going to find ways to get involved in other races.

So, thanks, Anonymous. I only wish you had signed in so I could thank you directly. I also owe a thanks to Halley Suitt who, over lunch today, expressed the same "let's get over it and move on" attitude. We had one of those great, breathless lunches talking about a thousand things and a dozen interesting people so there's lots to look forward to.

And thanks to Betsy Devine for trying to find a bright side.

Democracy for America is having post election meet ups. I'll be in China for the next one in Boston but that shouldn't stop anyone else from attending. I'll be looking into organizing something through Drink Liberally between now and the end of the month.

Criticize the Bushies and get the IRS on your back. This from USA Today:

"The Internal Revenue Service is reviewing the tax-exempt status of the nation's oldest civil rights organization, saying criticism of President Bush at the NAACP's national convention in July may have violated rules against partisan activity."

The reality is beginning to set in. There will be no reprieve from Ohio. They won’t find a crate with a half-million missing votes in Florida. Cheney is using the “mandate” word. Yes, it is four more years.

Karl Rove is the genius they say he is and he should be congratulated. Congratulated, that is, the way you congratulated the old Oakland Raiders – they played rough and they played dirty but you had to admire that they played dirty really, really well. He masterminded a superior campaign that was better executed on the ground. He knew exactly where the Reps strengths and the Dems weaknesses were and he exploited both relentlessly. When you do it as well as he and his team did, you win. Simple as that.

There will be endless dissecting of the Kerry campaign with castigations of blame flying about like shrapnel in the Mekong Delta. Kerry was a less than perfect candidate but can you honestly imagine that any of the others would have done nearly as well?

I find myself returning to a thought that I kept repressing these past months: the Democratic Party is bankrupt, a shell. I actively advocated for Kerry and didn’t support him holding my nose. Almost everyone I know was a Kerry supporter, but I can’t think of one of them who is an active participant in the Democratic Party. We’re all Independents or people who tend to support Dem. candidates and causes.

The Party has become an every four-year refuge for those of us with nowhere else to go but not a place we hang out once an election is over. We don’t help build it. I register as a Democrat so that I can vote in the primary but I have no interest in doing more than that. I find both parties distasteful. They are insiders clubs beholden to special interests. Pork is the main dietary staple on both sides. I’m just more comfortable with a party that sucks the butt of the Sierra Club than licks the dick of Halliburton (scary moment – I spelled Halliburton with one “l” and Word spell check caught it and was able to correct it. Quick – call the corporate conspiracy police!).

The Dems are stuck needing to bow to their usual supporters – unions, trial lawyers, pro-choicers, and various peaceniks, potheads, and other lefties – good people all but many of whom are less valuable in a country where increasingly we work as free agents (and wouldn’t want the work rules and other restrictions of a union), carry concealed weapons, and embrace “traditional values” (this isn’t me, that's the big “them” out there). The Dems are GM to the Reps Nissan, CBS to their Fox, Kmart to their Wal-Mart. Out-maneuvered, out-smarted, and out-muscled.

Worse, the Dems come across talking to people as groups -- buy one there, appease another one here, cave into a third over there. It's an age old problem for the party that we hoped had been overcome by the desire to unseat Bush. The Reps do the same buying, appeasing, and caving -- hey, they never met a "big" anything with a bag of money they didn't like and the religious right says "jump" and they all ask how high -- but they did a better job of talking to the voters as people. Bill Clinton was the true master of this and the Bushies learned while Kerry did not. That and they managed to make evangelicals think W had been hand-picked by the baby Jesus himself which is the ultimate trump card.

I long for the fresh start of a third-party, but that’s suicide (not to mention that you seem to need a well-known ego maniac whacko like Nader or Perot to both get you off the ground and simultaneously doom you to failure). If there’s one issue that can unite Ds and Rs it’s keeping any third party from gaining enough respectability to be a real threat. The rules for getting on the ballot, collecting Federal money, and getting into debates are all skewed to keep it a two-party dance and that’s not going to change.

Is there a way to take down or remake the Dems without giving the Reps more opportunities to put a stranglehold on power for the next 100 years? Someone help me here. I support a socially progressive, fiscally responsible domestic agenda and an internationalist foreign policy -- and I feel like there is nowhere to go.

Well four more years under W isn't the only alternative.

Well, the pundits were right -- Ohio is the new Florida though it looks like the lead Bush has is not nearly as close as what there was in Florida four years ago. I don't have enough info on the inside dope to know how long Kerry should hold out but, barring a miracle, W will be back around for another four years. I guess that makes moot the question of what the opposition bloggers will be doing through 2008.

The difference seems to have been those voters driven by "moral values" as an issue (according to ABC it was the greatest driver of votes -- and those for whom it was the overriding issue voted W 3 - 1). That would be Karl Rove's previously bystanding evangelical Christians I would guess. If that's true it is particularly bad news for Dems as they will have as hard a time claiming the moral high ground in an evangelical-leaning nation as they did with defense in the 70's. We progressives will feel as shut out as the conservative Republicans did when the liberal Dems had a lock on power.


The only bit of hope: it's only two years until the midterm elections and that has traditionally been a time for the opposition to pick up seats. The Dems may need to lose a v. high profile battle - drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Reserve, a Supreme who wants to overturn Roe v. Wade, or something similar in order to bottom out and begin a comeback. Oh, and they should ban Bob Shrum from any future strategy meetings..

I'm sorry to see Tom Daschle go but it was only a matter of time in SD.

I spent sometime in NH this evening as a voluntee for MoveOn.org. It was my first on the ground election involvement and I found it interesting to see the minutiae that is managed at the precinct level. They really were tracking every single vote from a "strong Kerry" supporter.

I arrived at about 4:30 and was paired with Cynthia who had travelled from Providence. After a briefing where we were told that we'd be canvassing Kerry supporters who hadn't yet voted. We were to offer rides, babysitting, whatever it would take to get out the vote without getting arrested.

After our briefing we were dispatched to a precinct leader's house. There we learned that the Kerry supporters we'd be tracking down were people who had started hanging up on the MoveOn callers that afternoon. Does anyone think it's a bad idea to irritate your supporters? Apparently not the big cheeses with more campaign experience than I have.

MoveOn had polling observers who would hang out and try to overhear the names of voters as they checked in. This list was ferried back to the precinct captains to cross-tab against the list of potential Kerry voters. We played voter bingo for about 45 minutes to find "SKs" whose voting had not been confirmed and were then sent out into the night with our list and a map. It was now almost 6:00 p.m. and the polls were to close at 7.

Though Cynthia had a hard time finding reverse a couple of times, we did zip around to contact the eight potential voters on our list (this is not as simple as it sounds). We confirmed five, found two not at home, and one had moved.

Did all of this make a difference? Well, at this point NH is too close to call -- you be the judge.

I've cast my ballot. The lines were longer than I've ever seen them -- about 45 minutes worth at 7:30 a.m. -- which is amazing given that MA is a safely blue state and there are no other hotly contested races or ballot questions this time around.

Greater participation is good no matter how this turns out. My polling place is at a school and I enjoyed listening to the parents who brought their kids with them and were explaining the voting process to them. Three cheers for that effort.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court implications of this election are thrown into the spotlight as it is reported that Reinquist may have inoperable thyroid cancer. He's working from home and doctors not involved in the case say that the info that has been released points to a serious, fast-moving form of the cancer. I don't agree much with the Chief Justice but I wish him the best.

The national polls still show the presidential race as a dead heat so it is time to look to more reliable sources of information. Generals in ancient Greece would sacrifice a goat and look at the entrails -- healthy internal organs signalled victory. Of course they'd keep sacrificing goats until they found what they wanted to see. Goats are a little scarce in my neighborhood so let's look at these other indicators:

The Washington Redskins: For the past 16 presidential elections, the incumbent has won if the Redskins won the Sunday before the vote. If the Skins lost, the challenger won. Yesterday's results -- a 28 - 14 loss to the Packers. Kerry looks good here but with the Skins at 2 - 5 one can wonder how much one game really indicates.

The price of gas: Since 1976, if prices at the pump on the day of the election were lower than at the previous election, the incumbent won. No word on whether there is a cumunative power of this rule that would mean higher prices equal defeat. Prices are up significantly but it is interesting that Googling "gas prices election" gets hits from May and June -- another issue by the wayside.

The stock market: Tradition says that if the market is up on the day of the election, the incumbent wins. We'll have to wait until tomorrow on that one, but a weak July and a strong October in the market tend to favor the incumbent. July started high and finished low; October wasn't so good overall but there was a late month rally. Looks like this one's a draw.

Time to go looking for that goat.

On another note, thanks to Ed Cone for a thoughtful endorsement of Kerry without a shrill word to be found. It is admirable as much for its tone as its content.

If you really can't make up your mind, take a read through the Rolling Stone interview with John Kerry. Here's an excerpt I cribbed from Halley's Comment:

Q. Wenner: Will you communicate to the American people the size of the crisis we face?

A. Kerry: I'm doing it in the course of this campaign. I'm already talking about it -- and I will as president. Look: I'm a person who has always believed that you tell people the truth and they'll make reasonable decisions. Truth is powerful.This administration disrespects the truth, because they have a different credo. The truth unfortunately works against their interests, because their interests are in keeping power and in making money. And so they feed the drug industry, and they feed the oil industry, and they feed the big power companies.And that's the difference between us. I'm fighting for the middle class -- he's fighting for a tax cut for people who earn more than $200,000 a year. He won't raise the minimum wage -- I'm going to raise the minimum wage. He won't give people extended unemployment benefits -- I will. He cut job training -- I'm going to restore job training. He's made it more expensive for kids to go to college -- I'm going to raise the Pell grants and the Perkins loans. He gave the drug industry a windfall profit of $139 billion -- while he was shutting down the ability of people to bring drugs in from Canada and shutting down Medicare's ability to negotiate a lower price for drugs. That's wrong -- morally and economically.

I think that we should require both candidates (next time around) to sit for six substantive, no-holds-barred interviews: two radio, two print, and two television. No negotiating teams from the campaigns setting ground rules. I'd love, for example, to have heard each Bush and Kerry go one-on-one with Terry Gross on Fresh Air or with Charlie Rose. William Safire could give them each a thorough going-over. I'm not sure how we make it come about, but mandating interviews such as these would help restore some civility and forthrightness to our campaigns by putting the candidates in one-on-one situations where it would be difficult to duck and spin.

Well, blogging on the road isn't easy. The Internet connection in Amsterdam was fabulous but where was the time with so much to see and do. Wonderful city. There, as in Paris, many locals wanted to talk about the election once they knew we were from the States and to a person they were anti-Bush. Guess that shouldn't be a surprise as W as dismissed Europe as largely irrelevant. No one likes to be thought of as irrelevant. The U.S. election was the top story on the English-language TV stations.

Here are a small sampling of things the Europeans get right (narrow tourist perspective): the little luggage carts at the airport are free; the cities accomodate bicylcles (in Amsterdam and Munich, for ex., they are the preferred mode of transport); mass transit is embraced; the pastry is consistently superior and widely available.

Of course there are things they don't get right: there's no such thing as a large cup of coffee; they just can't figure out the concept of a shower curtain; there's no such thing as a large cup of coffee; there's no superior service incentive; and did I mention there's no such thing as a large cup of coffee?

We're back now (though the luggage decided to take an extra day) and ready for the final scream to the election. I'll be in NH tomorrow afternoon helping get people to the polls -- anything might make the difference this time.