Having failed in their previous wars—the war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on anything not right wing crazy, the Rethugs have launched a new one—the war on empathy. The rallying point is, of course, President Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the US Supreme Court. The gauntlet was thrown down by Obama when he announced that he considers, as an essential ingredient for in his selection of a Supreme Court justice:

…that quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people’s hopes and struggles…

Naturally, appealing to something so radical as a cognitive function selected by evolution over hundreds of thousands of years sent the wingnuts into a frenzy. The complex neurological networking of the brain’s prefrontal cortex that enables us to mirror another’s state of mind, to feel what they’re feeling (be it aggression, fear, or openness) has obvious survival value, both for the individual and the larger societal tribe to which he or she belongs.

The inability to reduce this essential part of the human experience into a handy sound bite caused our intellectually challenged media to focus instead on the histrionics of wingers like Karl Rove,  who in a WSJ op-ed last week claimed that empathy is just code for “liberal activism.”

Having participated in the selection of justices Samuel Alito and John Roberts, Rove should know something about “activist judges.” A study published by Yale Law School Professor Paul Gewirtz in 2005, before Alito and Roberts were even seated, shows the conservative wing of the court overturned Congressional laws far more often than their “liberal” counterparts.

Empathy comes from life experience, and Sotomayor, like Sandra Day O’Connor, Clarence Thomas and  Samuel Alito before her, acknowledges that her personal background as a bootstrapping Latina is a factor in how she approaches her job. For the wingers, however, life experience is a good thing only when it serves their survival of the fittest, social darwinist political agenda.

As a student at Princeton University (where she won the Pyne Prize, the university’s top undergraduate academic award in 1976) Sotomayor was very active in trying to bring more diversity to the faculty there, which at the time had no members of either Puerto Rican or Mexican descent. She also spoke out against gay discrimination and police abuse.

No doubt these activities will be cited by the wingers as proof that she’s a dangerous radical and shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the Supreme Court, notwithstanding that her prodigious judicial record shows no sign of her advancing a “racist” agenda, as the doughy white boy duo of Rush Limpbot and Newt Gingrich have alleged.

Glenn Beck had also made the same charge early last week but walked it back. Former Rethug congressman Tom Tancredo raised the ante by comparing her membership in the largest Hispanic advocacy group, the four decade old La Raza, to being a member of the KKK. Meanwhile, radio talk show host and convicted felon G.Gordon Liddy cited the dangers of her deciding cases while she’s– wait for it–  menstruating.

What I think the wingers really fear is Sotomayer’s ability to persuade her fellow justices, particularly Anthony Kennedy, to see things from a different perspective as Thurgood Marshall did with Sandra Day O’Connor, as recounted last week in the NY Times by Linda Greenhouse:

After Justice Thurgood Marshall retired in 1991, Justice O’Connor published a tribute describing him as the embodiment of “moral truth” and recounting the experience of listening to his stories during the decade that they served together, stories that “would, by and by, perhaps change the way I see the world.”

That was a striking statement from a justice who was on the opposite side from Thurgood Marshall in nearly every civil rights case and whose jurisprudence appeared unmarked by his influence. But it turned out to be Justice O’Connor who wrote the majority opinion in 2003 that upheld affirmative action in admission to the University of Michigan Law School. The way she saw the world in the interval had clearly changed, whatever the cause.

As for the role that empathy plays in the rendering of justice, it would be nice to see the media cover it as if it weren’t part of a false dichotomy– impartiality and empathy are not mutually exclusive.  Laws that once permitted slavery and discrimination were “impartially” applied for decades. But I have to believe that it was empathy for the victims’ suffering that  contributed to the Supreme Court’s decision to ultimately strike such laws down as unjust.

As above, so below.

The High Commissioners begin their service on the planets as race commissioners. In this capacity they interpret the viewpoints and portray the needs of the various human races. They are supremely devoted to the welfare of the mortal races whose spokesmen they are, ever seeking to obtain for them mercy, justice, and fair treatment in all relationships with other peoples. Race commissioners function in an endless series of planetary crises and serve as the articulate expression of whole groups of struggling mortals. -The Urantia Book

Update 1:  Gingrich recants calling Sotomayer a racist:

My initial reaction was strong and direct — perhaps too strong and too direct. The sentiment struck me as racist and I said so….The word “racist” should not have been applied to Judge Sotomayor as a person, even if her words themselves are unacceptable…

Original Bush Liebrary sculpture garden. Click it; click it good.

May 5, 2009

DALLAS [C.U. News]  An urgent fund raising letter sent to current and prospective donors to the George W. Bush Presidential Liebrary has met with an overwhelming response, yielding over $100 million since the Bush Administration left office.

“Dear Donor,” the letter begins. “No doubt you are aware of the non-stop media coverage afforded to the stab-in-the-back decision by the Obama Administration to betray confidential legal discussions held during Dear Leader’s heroic attempt to protect the country after the attacks of 9/11.

“This blatantly political maneuver has caused us to revise our architectural plans, even to the extent of optioning additional land to accommodate the expanded the size of The Library. Now that the details of the Bush Administration’s enhanced interrogation program are emerging, we find it necessary to expand our original sculpture garden and add an entire new wing to the building’s original design.”

Adding to the urgency was last week’s US Supreme Court’s Jeppesen decision striking down a presumed state’s secret privilege (also supported by the Obama Administration) that would have prevented civil court cases and their evidentiary discovery procedures from revealing further Bush Administration atrocities.

The letter explained that a new alcove (with expanded water drainage capacity for live enhanced interrogation demonstrations) had to be added; as well as a large cupola to accommodate a custom engineered carousel to spin hitherto unpublished revelations like the one reported yesterday in the NY Times: Interrogation Debate Sharply Divided Bush White House.

The letter concludes: “As staunch supporter’s of Forty Three’s legacy, we have complete confidence that you will rise to the challenge, guaranteeing his place in the pantheon of exceptional US presidents, if not the most brilliant of all time.”

It is signed by Dick Cheney, David Addington,Donald Rumsfeld, Doug Feith, Jay Bybee, John Yoo, Steven Bradbury, Alberto Gonzalez, Karl Rove, Ari Fleischer, Condi Rice, and George Tenet.

Geithner & Summers manning the oars after Bush decided to empty the boat’s bilges by drilling a hole in its bottom

Bush sinks the economic ship of state. Obama launches the life rafts, piloted by Wall Street insiders Timmeh Geithner and Larry Summers. But the sharks (hedge funds, private equity firms) are circling and there’s lots of stormy weather ahead.

Optimists claim that Obama’s economic officers have the right navigational charts and claim to see land on the horizon. Rather than the safe and sunny shores of Obama’s Hawaii, I fear what they’re seeing is the island of the poorly scripted Lost, whose story arc lurches improbably from one week to the next.

A belief shared by prestigious economists like Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, and Nouriel Roubini.

The assessment of Obama’s first hundred days by veteran reporter and author Chris Hedges is summed up in the title of his post today on Truthdig: Obama Has Missed His Moment:

Barack Obama has squandered his presidency. He had a fleeting moment to challenge the casino capitalism and financial recklessness of our economic and political elite. He could have orchestrated a state socialism that would have provided a safety net for tens of millions of Americans faced with dislocation and misery. The sums he has doled out to Wall Street could have been used to force companies to keep workers on the job or create new banks to open up credit. But he lacked the foresight and the courage to challenge entrenched power. And now we are headed down one of two frightening roads—massive deflation or hyperinflation. Neither will be pleasant.

Robert Kuttner, Co-Founder and Co-Editor of The American Prospect, hit a similar note in his HufffPo post today titled: “Obama’s First 100 Days: What’s a Presidency For?”

A severe economic crisis coupled with the election of a new progressive president is an opportunity for a dramatic break with the old order. But that process doesn’t just happen spontaneously. It takes exceptional presidential resolve and leadership. And there are three huge obstacles to President Obama seizing the moment to produce fundamental change, two of them systemic and one self-inflicted.

The first systemic obstacle is the lingering political power of the old order….We see this every day in the relentless lobbying by the financial industry against new regulations. We see it in the ongoing power of the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries to block comprehensive health reform, and in the efforts of corporate America generally to resist sweeping changes in corporate governance and executive compensation…

A second systemic obstacle, for now anyway, is the absence of a popular movement to put wind at a progressive president’s back……

And the self-inflicted wound?

…Obama repeatedly declared during the campaign that he would govern as a consensus builder. He wasn’t lying. However, there are two ways of achieving consensus. One is to split the difference with your political enemies and the forces obstructing reform. The other is to use presidential leadership to transform the political center and alter the political dynamics. In his first hundred days, Obama has done a little of both, but he defaults to the politics of accommodation.

The enemies of reform are both partisan and corporate. They include the Republican opposition in Congress and the financial elite on Wall Street. Obama’s early gestures on behalf of bipartisanship were rebuffed with defiant opposition. To cultivate some Republican support for the stimulus package, he agreed that more than one-third of it would be tax cuts rather than public investment. He was rewarded with not a single Republican House vote….

If Obama needed a karmically stellar example of what it means to trade principle for consensus, he need look no further than his capitulation on his stimulus bill to Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) who, following the advice of Karl Rove, insisted that the price for their votes was slashing $870 million from a fund to prevent flu pandemics. (Bad timing, that. The argument is that it didn’t belong in the stimulus bill but in an omnibus bill ignores the fact that it would insure against a recession from becoming a depression.)

Kutner makes what should be an obvious point:

In policy terms, it is inconceivable that a health reform law that enjoyed both Republican support and industry buy-in would be worth having.

Exactly. Accommodating Rethuglican rejectionists is a  sure-fire route to political failure.  It may be too early to offer a poli-psy profile of Obama of the sort that the CIA routinely does on world leaders through its Center for the Analysis of Personality and Personal Behavior division (see, e.g., The Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders by the Center’s founder, Jerrold M. Post, M.D.)

But consider the profile of past presidents. George W. Bush’s Oedipal issues lead us straight into the quicksands of Iraq. Bill Clinton’s abusive father likely contributed to his ‘triangulation” strategy to win the approval of  the Rethugs’ leader, Speaker Newt Gingrich (pioneer of the “just say no” to everything approach to bi-partianship).

Obama only met his father once, for one day (Christmas) in his entire life. And while I’m all for matriarchal inspired leadership of the kind provided by his mother and grandmother, some people (i.e. rump Rethugs) just don’t seem neurologically wired for compromise. Better to treat them as the hostile force they so pride themselves on being.

That said, I still find myself in disagreement with Obama’ on his Afghanistan/Pakistan policy; his Iraq strategy; his  Wall Street accommodation policy; his reluctance to bring Bush criminals to justice;  and his eschewing of a single payer health care system.

Going forward, I would hope that he responds directly to Rethuglican obstructionism by making recess appointments for important, even critical,  administrative personnel;  use executive orders when absolutely necessary; and support Pelosi and Reid’s use of the budget reconciliation process to avoid filibusters.

(p.s. Mea culpa. The Freudian undertones in the picture’s caption was intentional.)

Michelle Bachmann bravely reporting from behind enemy lines

Over the last thirty years, the Ruling Class has funded right wing Republican think tanks to perfect the art of political propaganda. Ronald “the Great Communicator” Reagan was the perfect choice to kick off this new media era. During his acting career, Ronnie use to broadcast fake-live baseball games by reading ticker tape stat counts at the end of each inning and and then make up a narrative– a routine pop fly would be turned into a dramatic diving catch– to hold his audience and please his sponsors.  (One can imagine the perfect product pitch man adding: “Bucky’s wife gonna need a ton of Tide to get out those grass stains, I’ll tell ya.”)

Political strategists like Lee Atwater and Karl Rove were hired to run political campaigns while apparatchiks like Grover Norquist and Brent Bozell’s Media Reasearch Center labored behind the scenes to reverse engineer the agenda of their money masters into public policy positions, among them: lowering or eliminating nominal tax rates, capital gains and inheritance taxes for the rich; keeping labor costs stagnant, pocketing large productivity gains for themselves; and hamstringing every effort towards eliminating campaign contribution limits.

As part of that grand strategy, talking point memos are distributed daily to right wing talk show radio hosts, conservative rags like the Washington Times, and of course cable news anchors like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. A perfect example of how this operation works was on full, naked display last week when retiring Fox anchor Britt Hume accepted the Media Research Center’s William F. Buckley Jr. Award for Media Excellence, saying this:

“I want to say a word, however, of thanks to Brent and to the team at the Media Research Center and all of the contributors who make that work there possible. Not just for this wonderfully, this wonderfully fine award in the name of someone who, as I say, I admire so much — but also for the tremendous amount of material that the Media Research Center provided me for so many years when I was anchoring Special Report. I don’t know what we would’ve done  without them. It was a daily, sort of, buffet of material to work from, and we certainly made tremendous use of it.“

But alas and alack, so poor is the quality of electable politicians in the Republican party these days that they have to increasingly rely on dingbats like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann to carry the message. Take Bachmann (Please!).  Recall that during the last election she suggested that sitting congress critters take loyalty oaths, only to deny, two weeks later, that she didn’t, calling it “an urban legend.”

This week she told Sean Hannity that she felt like “ a foreign correspondent, reporting from enemy lines.” And warned that

““We are headed down the lane of economic Marxism. More quickly, Sean, than anyone could have possibly imagined. It’s difficult for us to even keep up with it day to day.”

And then this modern day Paula Revere warned:

“We are at the point, Sean, of revolution. And by that, what I mean, an orderly revolution — where the people of this country wake up get up and make a decision that this is not going to happen on their watch. It won’t be our children and grandchildren that are in debt. It is we who are in debt, we who will be bankrupting this country, inside ten years, if we don’t get a grip. And we can’t let the Democrats achieve their ends any longer.‘

Leading the charge to Marxism is, of course, Obama’s Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who to most observers is working around the clock to rescue a broken capitalist financial system.

Never one to sweat the actual facts of the winger talking points (distorted as they typically are), Bachmann instead charges blindly ahead, latching onto and magnifying the nuttier parts of narrative used to package them. For instance, she says this about suggestions by China, Russia and others that a new reserve currency be considered to replace the dollar’s role as same.

“If Tim Geithner is successful under President Obama, and they move us to an international currency. Then we have no hope of standing on our own as a sovereign nation with our own economic system. It’s over. We can’t do that.“

She even sponsored a resolution in the House that

“would bar the dollar from being replaced by any foreign currency.”

Bachmann obviously doesn’t know what a reserve currency is– a financial instrument for the settling of international accounts and contracts, like oil pricing and bank reserves. In her mind (caveat: assumes a fact not in evidence), this equates to the evil new world order telling the US that it has to abandon the dollar inside the US.

Again, she warns:

“Economics works equally in any country. Where freedom is tried, the people rejoice. But where tyranny is enforced upon the people, as Barack Obama is doing, the people suffer and mourn.”

It’s what remains of the Republican party that has every reason to suffer and mourn.

Michelle– you go, girl!

Apparently, disgraced former president George W. Bush is being given a $7 million dollar advance to write a memoir of his disastrous eight years in office, titled Decision Points.

Two suggestions for W.

First, since you have no credibility outside your small circle of narcissist enablers, you should consider a subtitle that has at least has an air of truth to it. Something along the lines of:

Twelve Things Dick and Karl Told Me To Do To Screw Up The World.

And second, make sure you have plenty of crayons around the house. Writing is hard work.

•

THE WHITE DOG HOUSE — The annual revelation that a little black scottie dog runs the White House was again met with shock and anger by too few normal human beings.
“Barney,” aka “Bushmaster,” was again portrayed as merely the driving force behind the White House Christmas celebration by a cloying gaggle of the Bush family, gathered around the fireplace.

The disturbing video, produced by “Barney Productions,” was leaked to an eager lapdog press core that took turns slobbering over surreal segments of the Bushes, their children, and new in-law Henry Hager talking to Barney, the obsequious Miss Beasley, and a cat named “Willard,” amid poorly produced visions of grandeur of Barney winning several aquatic Olympic events.

Barney’s paper-thin veneer of social dogitude was apparently stretched to the breaking point recently when he attempted to violently amputate a few digits of Reuters reporter, Jon Decker.  This latest rupture of his genteel facade pales when compared to his attack on liberal Boston Celtics public relations director, Heather Walker on September 19th, 2008, who was savagely bitten on the wrist, elbows, knees, ear, nose, and throat, and lost several pints of blood before being ferreted off to an undisclosed location.  The incident was brushed under the rug until the Decker mauling brought several previous attacks to national attention, exposing a pattern of unprovoked attacks on random dweebs.

The reason Bush sounds as dumb as a hound.

A rift between Barney and Karl Rove became public shortly after Rove’s resignation, when Rove publicly lashed out at the terrier, calling him “a lump.” Back-channel reports said that was coded talk by Rove, that alluded to the fact that Barney used Rove’s White House office as his toilet of choice.

Perhaps the most controversial of Barney’s run-ins with politicos is his public spat with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who publicly ridiculed Barney as a “smaller breed,” unworthy of real world leaders.  Barney responded by challenging Putin’s “mutt” to a no-holes-barred dog fight.  Putin’s black bitch labrador, Koni, was said to have been amused by the challenge, but only said, “Драка с чем? Тот маленький приклад-smeller? Отсутствие fucking путя.”*

•

•

*”Vight wit vhat? Dot little butt-smeller?  No voocking vhay.”

Rod Blagardjerkavitch with smarter friends in 1974;  the hair shows early-onset of P.D. had already taken control.

CHICAGO — The early-onset of Pompadour Dementia is being blamed for Illinois Governor Milorad “Rod” R. Blagojevich’s Bluto-Behavior recently exposed by federal prosecutors. The disease is a variant in the family of tic disorders, and is sometimes referred to as Noggin’ Turrets, due to the victim’s propensities to demonstrate totally insane behaviors despite unusually successful careers. The exact cause of Pompadour Dementia remains unknown, but it is well established that both genetic and environmental factors are involved.

Elvis Presley, after whose “pompadour” the disorder was named, is the most famous of all early examples of Noggin’ Turrets (Pompadour Dementia).  The voluminous hair is often associated with physical spasms of a unique character which are often considered displays of talent.

The disorder was named “Pomadour” after the disorder’s main indicator of combing abnormally voluminous hair back in the manner of Elvis Presley, (an early undiagnosed victim) or conversely, after the fashion of “Potsie” (i.e., the “Potsie” variant) on the long running series, “Happy Days.”  Remarkably, another lead character, “The Fonz,” was also afflicted with the condition;  this happenstance set clinicians searching for other examples of multiple cases in close working associations;  (see Fox exemplars, below). The disease is not thought to be contagious, although anecdotal evidence has been shown to exist.

Remarkably, most sufferers of the disorder are quite quickly affected mentally, believing the profusion of hair to be an attractive facet of their uniqueness, and become oblivious to any social stigmatization that may be directed at them from disaffected fans, paparazzi, etc.

Warren “Potsie”  Weber showing advanced-onset.

The “Fonz” displaying the “Elvis” variant.

The CLUSTER FACTOR

On occasion the disorder does produce unfortunate deviations. These deviant exemplars invariably demonstrate the “cluster factor,” often finding employment in similar fields or even the same company. One such famous example: Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, both are exemplars of early-onset deviations, and are currently employed by Fox News.

Bill O’Reilly of Fox News shows the heart-breaking and rare “Loofa” deviation.

Sean Hannity of Fox News;  confirmed exemplar of the “Slimey Bastard” deviation.

Other Exemplars of Famous
Pompadour Dementia

Karl Rove;  very early “Slimey Bastard” deviation.

Samuel L. Jackson; only known photograph of full-blown symptom, Jackson often shaved his head to hide the disorder;  the movie Pulp Fiction was rare exception.

The Ronettes were all early examples of the Cluster Factor in women.

Amy Whinehose in advanced stage of Beehive deviation; actually thinking it looks cool is the beginning of the end.

Sarah Palin, Beehive Variant with unusual “Grizzly” deviation.
Critics of her recently revealed hairdresser expenses are largely unaware of her disorder, which requires daily pruning.

Unknown exemplar of advanced Beehive deviation.

In one of the more surreal moments of an already surreal campaign, John McCain got into the spirit of the holiday by appearing in an amazingly creepy “Underdog” costume, while standing next to someone else dressed as Underdog.

WASHINGTON — As we stagger through the final hours of Halloween this election cycle, John McCain and Barack Obama are pulling out all the stops in their efforts to sway comatose “undecided” voters.

Barack Obama is blanketing Tee Vee Land with his main message, that the United States must change the ruinous course we’re on.  John McCain continues to slander Barack Obama with everything vile and foamy in the Karl Rove Book ‘o Slime, and to his eternal disgrace, McCain has saved the Wright Stuff for last.

Dressed in a bizarre “UnderDog“ costume for some stupid fucking reason, Halloween, McCain howled to several hundred people,

“The pundints [sic] have written us off, just as they’ve done several times before. We’re a few points down, but we’re coming back.”

“My friends, My opponent, Barack Obama, is urging Americans to “share the wealth” tonight, by giving candy to strangers. When I’m president, we’re not going to let that happen.”

Although momentarily stunned, the crowd eventually cheered wildly, breaking into a chant of “Socialist! Socialist!”  McCain then pantomimed flying in a circle, supposedly as a grounded, waddling Underdog might; the other Underdog joined in by running circles around John “Underdog” McCain.

However, the latest CBS-NY Times national poll has Obama-Biden at 52 percent, McUnderdog-Palin at 39 percent.  Other national polls show Obama with a substantial lead nationwide.

Meanwhile, McCain’s trick or treat robocalls continue to pummel Americans across the battleground states, including Obama’s home state of Illinois, in McCain’s continuing efforts to link Obama with convicted felon Tony Resco, or anything that anyone might consider scary or questionable. (No such calls linking McCain to convicted felon and nutball, G. Gordon Liddy, have been made by anyone.)  One McCain robo-message claims Obama dresses up as a Druid at least once a year, and roams Chicago neighborhoods looking to cast spells over innocent men, women, and children.

Ex-president Bush shakes hands with ex-president McCain, who was officially replaced as president today, after a stroke left him with the communication skills of a very bright rutabaga, (a cross between a cabbage and a turnip.)  McCain’s wicked shiner was not explained.

Excerpts from Mark Crispin Miller:  (my emphasis)

The choice of Sarah Palin has been widely and repeatedly assailed as evidence of John McCain’s “bad judgement.” Certainly that choice was very bad. Indeed, it may prove to be catastrophic. But to take it as a sign of John McCain’s mere recklessness is probably a big mistake. First of all, there is no reason to believe that the decision really was McCain’s, since Karl Rove’s minions are in charge of his campaign, which means that Rove himself is running it (as he evidently has been from the start). And while it surely was a rotten choice in moral and/or civic terms, it certainly was not an instance of “bad judgement” in Rove’s moral universe, where winning is the only thing that counts; and Sarah Palin was selected so that (she and) John McCain could “win”—and, even more important, get away with it.

They picked Palin not because she is a woman, and might therefore appeal to diehard Hillary supporters. They picked Palin because she is a theocratic true believer, who has the Christianists all swooning at the prospect of her reign (which will commence as soon as Jesus answers all their prayers for John McCain’s quick death). To get some sense of their millennial excitement, read this excerpt from an email recently sent out by one of them, to others of her kind:

I believe you are aware that Dutch Sheets [http://www.dutchsheets.org/] was used by the Lord to call prayer before the 2000 election that was so close. He said this morning that this election is perhaps even more critical than 2000 because of the Supreme Court. If the right political posture is not elected, we stand to lose decades of progress and the results could be enormous. Last year Chuck Pierce and Greg Hood prophesied that in 2008 we would not be electing a president but a vice president. Dutch said he could get no release in his heart to back Huckab[ee] even though he was pressured by many in the body of Christ. Huckab[ee] is a good man and a strong believer, but he was not God’s choice. Dutch also told us that he knows a man who gave McCain a prophetic word that McCain had made a vow to God when he was at the bottom during his POW days and now God was calling in that vow. McCain was visibly moved by this word. Dutch was traveling to Texas on Friday and when he landed in the airport his wife called and told him to get to the TV asap. He watched McCain introduce Governor Palin and he said he began to weep, even though he knew nothing about her. He asked God, “What is the significance of this 44-year-old woman?” And he saw the clock said 4:44. He asked the Lord what that was all about and the Lord said, “Ezekiel 44:4.” “He brought me by way of the north gate to the front of the temple; so I looked, and behold, the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD; and I fell on my face. NKJV ….. North gate representing Alaska [sic].

And so on.

We could take his arrant fetishism in a positive light, and reason ourselves lucky he didn’t take all those 44’s to mean a 44 caliber Peacemaker to blow the toes off McCaint or even sister Sarah; sometimes these things can go every which way.

Such fervor, which now unifies the Christianist community, was not stoked merely by the sight of Palin’s glowing kisser on TV. More importantly, the governor became the instant darling of the Christianist far right once all the top dogs of the theocratic movement looked at her, and pronounced her good. To some extent, she was their choice—and so it’s wrong to claim, as some indignant pundits have, that Sarah Palin “was not vetted.” The governor was vetted by the Council for National Policy, the secretive and highly influential steering committee of the Christianist far right, which seeks to junk the Constitution and replace it with Leviticus and other flights of Holy Writ.

[Palin's] reckless policies derive from an apocalyptic wish to see the planet die, so that Lord Jesus will come back here, and start kicking ass and taking names. [Read more →]

The karma principle of causality continuity is, again, very close to the truth of the repercussional synthesis of all time-space actions in the Deity presence of the Supreme. – The Urantia Book

Looks like the pray for rain camapaign by Focus On the Family, aimed at dousing Obama’s acceptence speech in Denver last night, may have triggered a karmic backfire.

You just can’t make this stuff up.

GOP Considers Delaying Convention

Tropical Storm Obama Gustav Is Forecast to Hit U.S. Next Week as Hurricane

By Dan Eggen and Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 29, 2008; A21

Republican officials said yesterday that they are considering delaying the start of the GOP convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul because of Tropical Storm Gustav, which is on track to hit the Gulf Coast, and possibly New Orleans, as a full-force hurricane early next week.

The threat is serious enough that White House officials are also debating whether President Bush should cancel his scheduled convention appearance on Monday, the first day of the convention, according to administration officials and others familiar with the discussion.

For Bush and Republican presidential candidate John McCain, Gustav threatens to provide an untimely reminder of Hurricane Katrina. A new major storm along the Gulf Coast would renew memories of one of the low points of the Bush administration, while pulling public attention away from McCain’s formal coronation as the GOP presidential nominee.

Senior Republicans said images of political celebration in the Twin Cities while thousands of Americans flee a hurricane could be dubious. “Senator McCain has always been sensitive to national crisis,” said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds, noting that the senator postponed announcing his presidential candidacy in 2000 because of the war in the Balkans. “We are monitoring the situation very closely.” [...]

Staging a convention during a major natural disaster would be a public relations challenge for either political party. But GOP officials say the burden could be especially heavy for their party, whose reputation was tarred by the Bush administration’s bungling of Katrina and its aftermath in 2005.

A hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico could also cast unwelcome attention on the offshore oil rigs that McCain has championed as a solution to rising gasoline prices — they are now being evacuated in the face of the coming storm. [...]

“You would have to dramatically change the nature of what you do. Much less partisan. Much less political,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because internal discussions are ongoing. He added that all the speakers would have to retool their addresses to reflect the storm and its impact. “Otherwise, it’s the elephant in the room.” [...]

White House press secretary Dana Perino said yesterday that it was “premature to say” whether the storm might have an impact on Bush’s scheduled appearance Monday night. [...]

Some Republicans bemoaned an apparent GOP curse when it comes to summer storms and noted the contrast between the approach of Gustav and the sunny weather in Denver for the Democrats. “The Republicans can’t seem to catch a break when it comes to August and when it comes to the weather,” said Karl Rove, a former Bush adviser, on Fox News yesterday.

Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida as a Category 5 storm in August 1992, and the sluggish federal response was castigated by state leaders as well as then-candidate Bill Clinton in his successful bid to defeat President George H.W. Bush that fall. …

I was at the gym yesterday when I saw the live broadcast of John McSame’s press conference, during which he made his risible pronouncement that:

[I]n the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations.

In my subsequent blog, I missed this angle mentioned by Greg Sargent over at TPM (so many hard bodies to ogle, so little time):

At a press conference just now, John McCain redoubled his efforts to thrust himself into a leadership role on the Russia-Georgia crisis front, announcing that two top campaign surrogates, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, are going on a visit to Georgia.

Hunter at Daily Kos picks up the ball and runs with it:

So if merely giving a speech in Germany is “presumptuous”, how freakin’ “presumptuous” is it for a candidate to send their own diplomatic team into a foreign conflict? Isn’t that, you know, a job for the President, not a candidate?

Why no outrage on this? I think it’s safe to say that if another candidate did this, conservatives would burst into flames from fury, and the talking heads would be beside themselves talking about how unprecedented it was for a candidate to inject themselves into an international crisis — politics should stop at the water’s edge, and all that. Instead, McCain is using a shooting war to buff his credentials? Seriously? And nobody in Washington sees a problem with that?

Indeed. Why is our corporatist media, who were all over Barack Obama for daring to even look presidential during his recent trip abroad, not covering this angle?

Perhaps because it would expose a fundamental flaw in their narrative of St. John, that lobbyist slaying maverick, and the role that lobbyists and registered foreign agents like Randy Scheunemann are playing in his campaign for the White House. On Tuesday, WAPO noted that:

Sen. John McCain’s top foreign policy adviser prepped his boss for an April 17 phone call with the president of Georgia and then helped the presumptive Repubican presidential nominee prepare a strong statement of support for the fledgling republic.

The day of the call, a lobbying firm partly owned by the adviser, Randy Scheunemann, signed a $200,000 contract to continue providing strategic advice to the Georgian government in Washington.

Randi Rhodes reports that he has received an additional $600,,000 more. Recall that Scheunemann was the President of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq and a board member of Project for the New American Century (PNAC), responsible for pushing the country into the ruinous ruinous Iraq war and occupation.

McSame’s media enabled hypocrisy is bad enough, but more important is how such relationships work out in the real world. Case in point: emptywheel over at Firedoglake wonders whether Georgia’s aggression in South Ossetia was arranged beforehand between the White House and the McCain Campaign, using Karl Rove as the go-between. Rove was in Yalta at a conference attended by Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili a few days after Secretary of State Condolezza Rice’s [Georgia] visit:

I mean, given that Rove was talking about the upcoming election as Saakashvili was walking in the room, it sure does make you wonder whether Rove said anything to Saakashvili about how a firmer hand in South Ossetia might help Georgia ensure its strong relationship with the US going forward…

I’ll say this: the Administration is even more desperate to push back against claims that they encouraged Georgia’s initial crackdown than you’d think they would be (compare, for example, their response to claims we gave Israel the go-ahead to invade Lebanon in 2006 or bomb Syria in 2007, and their response to claims that we encouraged Maliki to crack down on Basra). There’s something going on–and given Karl Rove’s presence close to the scene of the crime, I’ve got my suspicions.

“Scene of the crime” has an additional meaning— Rove was on the lam at the time, ducking a Congressional subpoena. But I digress. Hunter gets the last word:

Honestly. Take all the worst things about the Bush administration, double them, then add Joe Lieberman. A McCain administration would be the presidential equivalent of a slasher flick.

John McCain lives in a very special world. . .

. . . A very special world where hecklers are hustled off in a heartbeat, so the duffer doesn’t have to put up with their opinions long enough that he forgets what he was talking about; a world where the “third estate” is a fun-to-be-with bunch of sycophantic barbecue junkies; a world where a man with a kazillion monies and a dozen houses he calls home can ridicule a political opponent as elitist; a world where “Victory with Honor” can become a reality by simply saying that it’s our goal.

Commander-in-Cheese John “Peter Quincy Taggart” McCain says he will “Never surrender” his fantasy world, where first Dick Joe Lieberman, head Toadie Lindsay Graham, Master Dick Karl Rove, economic Dick Phil Graham, and main squeezebot Cindy Creamcheese flounce around in his power vacuum, looking for ways to bolster his authoritieh to rule the planet. Note the unretouched universal pasty-whiteness of his crew.

“Our American troops will come home with victory and with honor; and that’s my message, my friends.” Yeah. Except those that continue to come home with missing limbs, with devastating life-changing brain injuries, or come home in flag-draped containers. McWar’s “victory with honor” fantasy is a vestigial figment of the last century’s misunderstanding of the value of war, a discredited and backward looking philosophy that believes minds can be changed by blowing them apart.

Our next Commander-in-Chief of our country will have to be a forward looking man of peace. That can never be John McCain, who’s “vision” of global politics is based on taking on smaller nations and beating them into submission; sort of like Vladimir Putin is attempting to do in Georgia.

Since Chimpy is busy flag-waving pool-side in Beijing, it will be instructive to see how Mr. Never Surrender frames the conflagration burning out of control in Georgia. Will it be another affront to his teevee show bravura? or simply another opportunity to crank up the factual gaffe after gaffe machine as he wrestles Karl Rove’s talking points to the ground in front of hand-picked MSM drones.

Meanwhile, Senator Obama has said there “is no possible justification for these attacks,” and called for a high-level international mediator, and an international peace-keeping force, adding the United States, Europe, and all other concerned countries must stand united in condemning this aggression while seeking a peaceful resolution to this crisis.

[McCrew image by Terry Kruger]