“It’s Kirk vs. Spock in Weirdest Presidential Race of 21st Century.”

Leonard Nimoy approves of Barack Obama’s emotional detachment and logical approach to campaigning.

“He is measured and stable,” said Mr. Nimoy, who played Mr. Spock on Star Trek, and who has supported Mr. Obama since they first met about a year and a half ago at a small Los Angeles fund-raiser. “It’s true that he has an intellect that works for him, he handles difficult problems with aplomb. Reliability and stability are very important assets in this race, in these particularly volatile times.”

…. Mr. McCain, of course, is the passionate, emotional and all-too-human candidate who strikes a chord with voters but can often be seen to be doing battle in real time, Kirk-like, with the enemy within.

During the first presidential debate in Mississippi, he persistently avoided eye contact with Mr. Obama despite the moderator’s entreaties for the candidates to engage directly with one another. Mr. McCain’s advisers said afterward that he had done so deliberately in order to avoid becoming enraged.

- Jason Horowitz @ New York Observer: Link.

Via Boing Boing.

Illustration by Drew Friedman.

“A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty.”

Rolling Stone recently published a relentlessly critical biography of John McCain:

When McCain was not shown the pampering to which he was accustomed, he grew petulant — even abusive. He repeatedly blew up in the face of his commanding officer. It was the kind of insubordination that would have gotten any other midshipman kicked out of Annapolis. But his classmates soon realized that McCain was untouchable. Midway though his final year, McCain faced expulsion, about to “bilge out” because of excessive demerits. After his mother intervened, however, the academy’s commandant stepped in. Calling McCain “spoiled” to his face, he nonetheless issued a reprieve, scaling back the demerits. McCain dodged expulsion a second time by convincing another midshipman to take the fall after McCain was caught with contraband.

McCain’s self-described “four-year course of insubordination” ended with him graduating fifth from the bottom — 894th out of a class of 899. It was a record of mediocrity he would continue as a pilot.

- Tim Dickinson @ Rolling Stone: Oct 16, 2008: Link.

“There are no American political parties … because we have none, we have no opposition to those who rule us.”

We don’t have political parties, let’s begin with that. And we’ve never had them since John Adams said “I want a nation of laws, not of men.” Well that’s very lofty, of course, but what he meant was he didn’t want faction. Well, faction is political parties. Now, without faction you don’t have any kind of, well, motion going within the state … we’re suffering from it now.

- Gore Vidal, interview (wmv format) - via The Young Turks

See also:

Wikipedia: What Went Wrong in Ohio by John Conyers.

Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio: Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff (pdf)

Henry Rollins Interviews Gore Vidal @ YouTube

“If anyone expects President Obama to roll back Bush’s illegally-gained dictator powers, they are smoking rope.”
- Mark Frauenfelder

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald reports:

It is absolutely false that the only unconstitutional and destructive provision of this “compromise” bill is the telecom amnesty part. It’s true that most people working to defeat the Cheney/Rockefeller bill viewed opposition to telecom amnesty as the most politically potent way to defeat the bill, but the bill’s expansion of warrantless eavesdropping powers vested in the President, and its evisceration of safeguards against abuses of those powers, is at least as long-lasting and destructive as the telecom amnesty provisions. The bill legalizes many of the warrantless eavesdropping activities George Bush secretly and illegally ordered in 2001. Those warrantless eavesdropping powers violate core Fourth Amendment protections. And Barack Obama now supports all of it, and will vote it into law. Those are just facts.

- Glenn Greenwald @ Salon: Link.

From the comments:

What really rubbed me the wrong way was how Obama in his statement says essentially trust me with these powers, I’ll use them responsibly.

- Hume’s Ghost: Link.

Via Boing Boing: Link.

Speaking of Barack Obama:

“Obama’s campaign, which could spend as much as $500 million ….”

Breaking an earlier vow, Senator Barack Obama announced that he will opt out of the public campaign-finance system, in order to be able to spend unlimited amounts of money in the last two months of his presidential campaign, rather than merely $84 million, the amount to which Senator John McCain will be limited under public-funding laws. “It’ll be like George Steinbrenner’s Yankees in the 90s,” Democratic consultant Chris Lehane said of Obama’s campaign, which could spend as much as $500 million, “against the 90s Kansas City Royals.”

- Harper’s Weekly Review: Link.

Via Boing Boing: Link.

William Frank Buckley, Jr.
November 24, 1925 – February 27, 2008
American author and conservative commentator.

As his smooth genial personality watched over the decades, Buckley observed conservatism in many flavors. There was ultimately nothing unusual about the moment when he called on George Bush to admit the war in Iraq was lost, since Buckley had consistently engaged virtually every social issue in the lifetime that preceded it.

- Lou Cabron @ 10 Zen Monkeys: Link.
February 28th, 2008

William F. Buckley @ Wikipedia

“Anybody who’s half white and half black is considered black anyway. That’s one drop of blood.”

Philip Roth, interviewed by Spiegel:

SPIEGEL: What made you interested in Obama?

Roth: I’m interested in the fact that he’s black. I feel the race issue in this country is more important than the feminist issue. I think that the importance to blacks would be tremendous. He’s an attractive man, he’s smart, he happens to be tremendously articulate. His position in the Democratic Party is more or less okay with me. And I think it would be important to American blacks if he became president.

SPIEGEL: It could change society, couldn’t it?

Roth: Yes, it could. It would say something about this country, and it would be a marvelous thing. I don’t know whether it’s going to happen. I rarely vote for anybody who wins. It’s going to be the kiss of death if you write in your magazine that I’m going to vote for Barack Obama. Then he’s finished!

SPIEGEL: The discussions around Obama remind us of your figure Coleman Silk, the hero of “The Human Stain,” who is black with unusually light skin and then invents a Jewish biography. What we mean is the questions of belonging, of right and wrong behavior. Is Barack Obama black enough?

Roth: I know this discussion goes on, but I think it will disappear if he gets the nomination. The reality of his running will wash that away. Anybody who’s half white and half black is considered black anyway. That’s one drop of blood.

SPIEGEL: For whites to consider him black, yes. But the question is whether the blacks consider him black.

Roth: They will once the election goes on. If he gets the nomination.

- Philip Roth, Spiegel: February 08, 2008: Link.

Via FreeInternetPress.

I Am an Op-Ed Columnist (And So Can You!)
by Stephen Colbert

Look at the moral guidance I offer. On faith: “After Jesus was born, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up.” On gender: “The sooner we accept the basic differences between men and women, the sooner we can stop arguing about it and start having sex.” On race: “While skin and race are often synonymous, skin cleansing is good, race cleansing is bad.” On the elderly: “They look like lizards.”

Our nation is at a Fork in the Road. Some say we should go Left; some say go Right. I say, “Doesn’t this thing have a reverse gear?” Let’s back this country up to a time before there were forks in the road — or even roads. Or forks, for that matter. I want to return to a simpler America where we ate our meat off the end of a sharpened stick.

Let me regurgitate: I know why you want me to run, and I hear your clamor. I share Americans’ nostalgia for an era when you not only could tell a man by the cut of his jib, but the jib industry hadn’t yet fled to Guangdong. And I don’t intend to tease you for weeks the way Newt Gingrich did, saying that if his supporters raised $30 million, he would run for president. I would run for 15 million. Cash.

Nevertheless, I am not ready to announce yet — even though it’s clear that the voters are desperate for a white, male, middle-aged, Jesus-trumpeting alternative.

- Stephen Colbert @ New York Times: Link.

Via Armchair Generalist: Link.

“Wolfowitz’s study of nuclear policy was more than a higher mathematics; it was a kind of mystical Kabbalah …”
- Sidney Blumenthal

He was a good boy, not a rebel. Unlike some neoconservatives who had begun on the left and swerved right, his path was straight. His mathematician father’s only complaint about him was that he had not become a mathematician. Instead, young Wolfowitz fell under the spell of one of his father’s friends, Albert Wohlstetter, an old Trotskyist turned Cold War nuclear theologian. Wolfowitz was a pupil in the most exclusive school. (Richard Perle was another acolyte of Wohlstetter’s.) Wolfowitz’s study of nuclear policy was more than a higher mathematics; it was a kind of mystical Kabbalah …. Wolfowitz’s doctoral thesis was on why Israeli development of a nuclear weapon threatened Middle Eastern and world stability.

Wolfowitz’s recruitment onto the “B Team” in the late 1970s, created under the Ford administration through conservative pressure in order to discredit the CIA’s assessments of the Soviet Union’s nuclear capabilities, signaled his entrance into the sanctum sanctorum of nuclear theologians and Republican policymaking. The factual rebuttal of the B Team’s assertions was not a black mark. Conservatives were on the ascendancy and Wolfowitz was a rare young man among them with a first-class mind and education.

[Sidney Blumenthal: salon.com]

Thanks, EB

Firing the Troublemakers?

The controversy around the firing of several U.S. attorneys in December has dominated the news coming out of Congress this week and Congresspedia’s staff and citizen editors have been busy tracking developments on our thorough page on the subject. Of central importance to the controversy is the issue of why those eight particular U.S. attorneys were fired …. In the case of some of the fired attorneys, it appears that the offense committed may have been their investigations into Republican officials, including members of Congress, in the lead-up to the 2006 congressional elections.

Here is a look at four of the attorneys at issue and their respective corruption investigations:

Carol Lam, U.S. Attorney for the District of San Diego: In 2005, Lam sent Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.) to jail for eight years and eight months for multiple felonies including tax evasion and accepting bribes. Cunningham, a leading Republican member of the Appropriations Committee, had been receiving bribes from Mitchell Wade, a defense contractor who was also convicted by Lam, and allegedly from Brent Wilkes, another defense contractor and huge campaign contributor to President Bush’s 2004 reelection committee. Days before she was forced to resign, Lam brought indictments against Wilkes and his friend, the former #3 at the C.I.A., K. Dusty Foggo, on multiple felony counts including conspiracy and wire fraud. Lam’s investigation into Wilkes was leading her to examine his close relationship with other California Republicans including the powerful former Appropriations Chair Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.). Recent revelations also show that a contract given to Wade by the Office of the Vice President may be connected to a yacht purchased by Wade for Cunningham.

Paul Charlton, U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona: In late October 2006, two liberal blogs revealed — later confirmed by the Associated Press and the Washington Post — that U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton had opened an investigation into a land deal made by Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) and a business partner, James Sandlin. Days after this investigation came to light, the New York Times reported that the Attorney’s office had also opened an investigation into whether Renzi introduced legislation that benefited a military contractor who donated heavily to his campaigns and employs his father.

Daniel Bogden, U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada: On February 15, 2007, the Wall Street Journal reported that Daniel Bogden was investigating the newly elected Governor of Nevada, former-Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.), for allegedly accepting unreported gifts and/or payments from a campaign contributor and earmark recipient, Warren Trepp. The investigation examined the relationship between the former congressman and Trepp between the years 1997-2007. The Journal did not report when the investigation was opened.

Bud Cummins, U.S. Attorney for the District of Arkansas: In January 2006, Cummins opened an investigation into “allegations that Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt had rewarded GOP supporters with lucrative contracts to run the state’s driver’s license offices.” Cummins handled the case because the U.S. Attorneys for Missouri recused themselves over conflict of interest concerns. Cummins stated that he was told he would be fired in June as he was wrapping up the case. Cummins eventually brought no indictments against Gov. Blunt, the son of powerful Republican Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.). Cummins has since questioned whether he was fired for opening an investigation into a powerful Republican in a battleground state.

[Center for Media and Democracy]

See also Bush administration U.S. attorney firings controversy

Fake Congressional Opposition to War
by Stephen Lendman

… Article One, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution gives Congress alone power to declare war so presidents never have sole authority to do it. It’s how the Founders wanted it as James Madison wrote in 1793 that the “fundamental doctrine of the Constitution….to declare war is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature.” And George Mason stated during the constitutional convention the president “is not safely to be trusted with” the power to declare war. Sadly it hasn’t worked out that way. The president and Congress only observed the supreme law of the land five times in the nation’s history, the last being in December, 1941 following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.

Following WW II, Harry Truman criminally broke the law setting a post-war precedent his successors followed, and no Congress intervened to stop them.

… under Johnson and Nixon, Congress reasserted its power of the purse incrementally. It was mostly political posturing in the 1960s, but by June 30, 1970 the Church-Cooper amendment (attached to a supplemental aid bill) passed stipulating no further spending for soldiers, combat assistance, advisors, or bombing operations in Cambodia. It was the first congressional budgetary act limiting funding for the war. Nixon ignored it but others followed leading to the key Church-Clifford Case 1972 Senate amendment attached to foreign aid legislation to end all funding for US military operations in Southeast Asia except for withdrawal subject to the release of prisoners of war. It was the first time either House passed legislation to end all war funding. It was defeated in the House but showed anti-war forces strengthening that in time would prevail.

They finally did in June, 1973 when Congress passed the Church-Case amendment ending all funding after August 15. Congress then overrode a presidential veto passing the War Powers Act (still the law) that year limiting presidential power by requiring the chief executive henceforth to consult Congress before authorizing troop deployments for extended periods. Unlike today, Congress began taking its check and balancing role seriously enough to act, if slowly, to curtail presidential authority and assert its own with the most important power it has - of the purse that forced Richard Nixon to end the Vietnam war. It can do it again today as then but so far shows little inclination or courage with few and rare exceptions, one being a modest effort by Senator Russ Feingold who detailed his position on the Senate floor even though now he’s gone wishy on it.

… Following 9/11, the president rightfully called the attacks acts of terrorism (whoever was responsible) as they are under US law even though international law provides no generally accepted definition of this crime. They weren’t acts of war, and calling them that crossed the line breaking the law as only nations can attack one another, not individuals. No evidence existed then or now Afghanistan was behind them nor did Saddam pose an imminent threat justifying our aggression.

George Bush tried and failed getting legal Security Council cover for both wars. He then tried getting it from Congress, couldn’t get his preferred formal declarations and had to settle for joint-War Powers resolution authorizations to protect the country against international terrorism he chose to do by waging illegal wars against two countries.

[Steve Lendeman]

BoingBoing posted some choice comments on Why everyone wants to invest in Neil Bush’s software company –

Barbara Bush’s donation to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund is going straight to Ignite!, an educational software company owned by Neil Bush, the current administration’s very own “Billy Carter/Roger Clinton” type character. (You may remember Neil as the fellow who headed Silverado Savings & Loan in the 80s. When the bank failed under his watch, he walked away with a mere sanction while taxpayers were forced to clean up his mess by forking over a $1 billion bailout.)

In his Talking Points Memo, Joshua Micah Marshall says Ignite! makes its money by jetting Neil to exotic locales, where he visits “international statesmen, bigwigs and criminals who want to ‘invest’ in Ignite! as a way to curry favor with the brother in the White House.”

It turns out that lots of people besides Barbara Bush believe in her energetic young man: the rich kids of China’s rulers, the United Arab Emirates, and Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky (who has been accused of trying to overthrow Putin’s government to help his company) are all eager investors in Ignite!. Now, who’s to say that the individuals in this rogues’ gallery are only interested in getting the president to think kindly of them? Perhaps they truly want to help children learn.