Saturday Night YouTube

I'm headed out for the evening, so continuing our nightly YouTube series, this Mike Gravel spot makes me incredibly happy.



The best part is that it's the first in a series.

Post-Debate Notes

Watched the Democratic debate from Iowa between bouts of dozing off today. While I do agree with Sen. Obama that there have been simply too many of these, I do find them to be of passing interest, as the candidates sharpen their messages for the fall. This appeared to be a Biden-Richardson debate, with the frontrunners largely in the background (Hillary in particular seemed barely present today, although she's figured out how to answer the lobbyist question. She says "it's a distinction without a difference" and hits the other candidates for taking money from executives who tell lobbyists what to do. Now, it's a completely absurd answer, because she takes cash from executives AND lobbyists, but in the context of a 60-second answer it sounds plausible).

I thought Edwards had a couple nice moments; one where he took the Hillary mantle away from her and said "the differences (on Iraq) between us are small; the differences between us and the Republicans are enormous. The Republican candidates are like George Bush on steroids," for example. Dodd continued to harp on his pet issues to great effect, although his "experience" angle rings hollow. We got some real back and forth on the "no residual forces" issue, with everyone being given a chance to respond, and Richardson still alone in his belief that everyone must go. I wish he was a better carrier of the message, asking firmly "what the hell are 50,000 troops going to do that 160,000 troops can't," but it's good to have this debate out in the open. Which is something Obama gets credit for saying, that the American people have a right to know what their government's foreign policy ideas are rather than hiding them away and leaving it to self-appointed experts.

I also think Gravel serves an important function, and that is to make Dennis Kucinich look reasonable and sane, and the consequences of that are to shift the entire debate more to the left, so I support his inclusion.

Overall Richardson helped himself because the questions were tailored toward his strengths and he never said "I'm a pro-growth Democrat" or some such nonsense.

UPDATE: The debate also had the appalling question "do you think prayer could have stopped Hurricane Katrina," which was seen as so deeply serious that every candidate was given the opportunity to answer it. Edwards and Biden had the courage to say, "Um, no," and Obama attacked it in a good way too, saying that, you know, levees that worked could have stopped the impact of Hurricane Katrina, investing in infrastructure could have stopped a bridge from collapsing, not holding hands in a prayer circle and willing magic into being.

Yearly Kos: 3-Day Late Debateblogging

Everyone's kind of said what's needed to be said about the Yearly Kos Convention's Presidential Leadership Forum, so I'll confine myself to some quick remarks.

• The format: Less Matt Bai and more Mcjoan would have helped (the questions she didn't ask were excellent. But overall, the candidates appeared looser in front of a live audience that wasn't forced to sit on their hands. The instant feedback was interesting because it forced follow-up questions and justifications. And it was nice to see a debate without the so-called "hot button" (read: meaningless) isues. The "raise your hand" crap still got in there, though; I'll never forgive Wolf Blitzer for entering that into political discourse.

• Richardson: He did better than some of the other debates. People were right to boo his call for a Balanced Budget Amendment, though I guess he cleaned it up in his breakout session by saying it could be suspended in a fiscal emergency, making it more of a "Balanced Budget Suggestion." But right after that, he called for eliminating corporate welfare, which was unexpected for this so-called "pro-business Democrat" to say. He was also very strong on election reform, calling for same-day registration, paper ballots, and an end to voter suppression. And he was adamant about the "no residual forces" in Iraq with a 6-month pullout, citing actual examples of moving that number of troops and equipment in that time. This was a good job.

• Gravel: He actually claimed that his proposal for a "fair tax" on all goods wasn't important because Congress wouldn't enact it anyway. "Vote for me... my priorities aren't possible!" He really is the Get Off My Lawn candidate. Not much else to say.

• Kucinich: His new slogan of "strength through peace" certainly has a point of view that is diametrically opposed to wingnut neoconism. The rest was familiar: single-payer, impeaching Cheney, no additional funding in Iraq. He thought he got a zinger in when asking Edwards not to take money from hedge-fund managers, but considering that Edwards has called for raising their taxes by treating their income as earned and not through investment, I don't get the quid pro quo there.

• Dodd: Chris Dodd now has a more compelling reason to run - protecting the Constitution. Without the Constitution "we're a trade association, and who wants to be President of a trade association?" he said in an interview with Glenn Greenwald. And in the debate, he was very strong on the subject. His first answer sucked, another "I was duped by the Bush Administration" line about Judge Roberts; if you've been duped by Bush, are you to be trusted in the world? But the rest of his performance was execellent. He railed against Rupert Murdoch's purchase of the Wall Street Journal in the context of media consolidation, he defended bloggers against Bill O'Reilly, he stood on principle on Iraq ("I'd rather have 25 votes for something meaningful than 50 votes for something toothless"), and how he would restore the Constitution in a variety of ways (habeas being the most notable). I think he gained the most from the community.

• Obama: He did have pretty much the same tone as other debates, not kicking it up a notch. But he was still very impressive, and when he needed to hit hard, he did. The particular takeaways were on the Clinton lobbyist flap: "Pharmaceutical and health insurance companies spend billions of dollars, they don't do that in the public interest." I think his use of the phrase "We must end the occupation of Iraq" was significant as well, a reframing of the whole exercise. You can't win an occupation the way you can win a war. He said "we believe in two-way fair trade" with respect to China. I believe Obama has progressive principles that he tries to wrap in a universal language. Obama's call to double foreign aid mirrors Edwards' anti-poverty proposals as a means to fight the conditions that create terror.

• Clinton: I agree with Matt Stoller; she really screwed this one up. While I admire her attendance, her depth of knowledge, and her willingness to answer honestly, she really let her slip show with that "lobbyists are people too" comment. That's a little much for this progressive to swallow. And she continued her "safer but not yet safe" garbage, as if taking your shoes off at TSA is an expression of safety. There's a way to answer that now that the 9/11 Commission recommendations have been implemented, but her way is not the way. Until those answers, which were near the end of the debate, she was sailing. But those missteps, combined with blaming Al Gore for the Telecommunications Act in her breakout session, showed the cracks in the armor. Clinton wanted to be booed, I think (she said "I've been waiting for this" the first time she was) but the way she spun the key lobbyist answer was awful. And she's already taking a lot of heat for it. There are optics here, and Clinton is losing the emotional argument by tying herself to big business.

• Edwards: Which brings us to the debate's winner. I didn't appreciate Edwards' canned answers to the first couple questions, which revealed an obvious "people vs. the powerful" pre-written agenda. Love the message, the approach not so much. But Edwards hit hard on the lobbyist issue and I think it will benefit him. When he disavows the unitary executive approach to government in specific terms (close Gitmo, no warrantless wiretapping, no torture); when he says "government belong to you"; when he says "Less allies, more terrorists"; when he calls for universal education as a way to dry up the madrassas in Pakistan and moderate the society; when he decries the rigged system and calls for a grassroots reform movement to effect real change; I am ever more convinced that he is the right man to lead the country. He called for Elizabeth Edwards to be his official White House blogger, too. The lobbyist issue is a real nice way to take a small idea and make it symbolic of the big idea of transformational change. He needs to keep hitting this.

If you want to see crappy debate blogging, by the way, go to Swampland and keep scrolling.

Slaying Giants

I had heard that the increasingly pathetic John McCain had given a speech on the Senate floor talking about all the progress and the ponies to be found in Iraq, but I didn't know that he took on the greatest force in liberal politics today:

"I've seen this movie before from the liberal left in America, who share no responsibility for what happened in Cambodia when we said no," said McCain, whose campaign has lost support partly because of his advocacy of the war. He singled out Mike Gravel, a Vietnam War-era senator from Alaska who strongly opposed that mission and is waging a long-shot antiwar candidacy for the 2008 Democratic nomination.

Biden jumped in. "Give me a break! Quoting Gravel as the voice of the left?" he exclaimed.

When the only person you can manage to pick on is Mike Gravel, you're, in a word, irrelevant.

By the way, Gravel released a statement in response:



Incidentally, what McCain is babbling about with regard to Cambodia is that the Senate cut off funds for troops there in 1970... because, you know, we weren't at war with Cambodia at the time. Also, we ended up bombing the crap out of them the next year. And we installed a puppet government led by Prince Lon Nol in 1970, one that proved completely unpopular and led to the Khmer Rouge's rise. In other words, it was our meddling in foreign affairs that CAUSED the Cambodian genocide, not our isolation. And who ended up invading Cambodia and stopping the violence? COMMUNIST VIETNAM.

This is a familiar right-wing lament, that our leaving Vietnam caused millions of dead. It's the stabbed-in-the-back routine. I'm completely unsurprised that John "What you gonna do about it, Mike Gravel" McCain is employing it. Pathetic.

Aguirre, The Wrath Of God

These are the craziest political ads I've ever seen. I think I'm on the Gravel train now just because of my penchant for German art films.





I really don't know what to say. These make the "moment of Zen" look like 10 minutes of MTV.

I think we've finally found a political campaign that speaks to disaffected film-school dropouts everywhere. David Lynch at his weirdest was never this profoundly odd.

Just that Gravel would allow this to be his campaign message is absurdly brilliant. He has to be President so he can shoot a sequel to Empire in the White House.

Random Debate Thoughts

I think CNN should be credited for holding a substantive discussion of the issues between the Democrats, that occasionally waded into the waters of actually being a debate. Brian Williams should be hanging his head in shame. There was not one bullshit gotcha question about haircuts, tell-all books, middle names, and what have you. Wolf Blitzer takes a lot of abuse from the left, but he should be commended.

Hillary Clinton's strategy is to blur the lines on Iraq. She wants the voters to believe that every Democratic candidate is completely united, and that if that's the case, you might as well pick Brand Clinton, giving that everyone's the same. Edwards and Richardson did try to push back against that, particularly Edwards. But it's clear that's the strategy. I was also, frankly, amazed that Clinton used the phrase "we're safer, but not yet safe" when talking about the threat of terrorism. That's the EXACT same phrasing George Bush used in 2004 to defend his policies. It's insulting to try to fearmonger as well as defend policy in the same way.

Edwards did try to tell a lot of truths tonight. He occasionally got muddled, and sometimes the truth forced him to praise his opponents. But he was more interested in articulating leadership through accountability and honesty.

Obama I thought did very well - though, like Chinese food, I cannot really remember a heck of a lot of it 30 minutes later.

They should play a drinking game with Richardson about what four-word resume epithet he'll start each answer with. "I'm a governor." "I'm from the West." "I've been to Darfur." "I was US ambassdor." It's annoying, and it makes it seem like he's lying to me.

Dodd gave the most concise, most reasoned, most substantive, and best answers out of virtually everyone up there. His answer that the top priority in the first 100 days is to restore Constitutional rights endears him to me greatly.

Joe Biden was forceful on Darfur and it stood out. When Blitzer asked everyone if they supported military action in Darfur everyone started asking for parameters. I am glad that both Clinton and Obama rejected the very premise of hypothetical questions. That's important. Other than that, Biden still buys into right-wing frames about de-funding the troops rather than the war.

I think Kucinich was lucid on all of the issues, didn't veer off into kumbaya territory, and I think it's very important to have him on that stage, to articulate in favor of single-payer and the tragedy of NAFTA, for example.

Gravel is an example of how you should never answer a question in a Presidential debate with "I get my meds from..."

more reasoned stuff later. Good debate.

On The Second Tier

Richardson keeps saying things like he thinks it's wrong to raise taxes, but that he'll take all that Iraq war money that's going overseas and use it for domestic issues. That is a tax raise. The war is off budget, and every supplemental bill just increases the debt. If you're going to use that money, you're endorsing deficit spending. Is that what Richardson really wants to convey, or does he not want people to think about it too much? He's off my list.

Biden didn't care enough to come to California, probably because he knows that the party rank and file know about his vicious sellout to credit card and banking interests on the bankruptcy bill. He's out.

Gravel wants a national sales tax. Apparently this level of inequality isn't enough. He's out.

Kucinich's Department of Peace infringes upon all sorts of other government agencies' jurisdictions and would be a bureaucratic nightmare on par with the Department of Homeland Security. He couldn't run Cleveland, and even if it was because the energy companies outflanked him, I don't want them to be able to outflank a President. No.

Dodd dated Bianca Jagger. He's in. (Plus there's a sweet picture of me with him, which I'll put up when I can get it off my computer.)

...found one...



(me with the dude who dated the girl who bagged Mick Jagger. This makes me a rock star.)

I Can Horse-Race Too

Let me briefly give you my impressions of how the candidates performed at the CDP Convention. I'm going to rank the candidates in order of accomplishment. Let me say first that there wasn't the massive change in the dynamic at this convention, the way there was in 2003 with Howard Dean's "What I Want To Know" speech. Ultimately the weekend did not change the race fundamentally. And because of the lack of regional changes in state polling, I think that California's new presence in the primary election is still outsized. Nevertheless, I suspect this is how it may go around the country, so here goes:

1. Edwards. And this was the only speech that I missed, the only candidate I didn't see the entire convention. But this is a good recap of his speech and its effects on the delegates. There were less people in attendance on Sunday than Saturday, but those who were there got the most specifics, the most progressive policies, and the most truth. He's willing to cross the third rail by admitting that he may have to hike taxes and not focus so insistently on the deficit.

Democratic presidential contender John Edwards said Sunday he would consider raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy to fund programs such as universal health care.

Edwards has long said he wants to repeal the tax cuts on upper-income earners enacted during the Bush presidency, but Sunday he seemed to go further, by saying he was open to raising them higher than they were before George W. Bush took office. He also said he would consider taxes on “excess profits,” including those made by oil companies.

Edwards said it was more important to level with voters than to worry about the political consequences of advocating higher taxes.

“It’s just the truth,” Edwards said during a news conference following his speech to the California Democratic Party convention. “It’s the only way to fund the things that need to be done.”

I think people appreciate honesty after the past 6 years. And they appreciate someone unafraid enough to take a real stand. And I know I appreciate his call to send the President the same emergency supplemental bill over and over again until teh President gets it. He's internalized the entire critique I've been making about how the President is the one defunding the troops by vetoing the bill. Edwards is of course great on health care and poverty as well. Edwards bringing up grassroots supporters to stand behind him on stage, as opposed to Obama and Clinton having electeds there, is symbolically very significant as well. And he privately met with supporters as well, where he affirmed his strong support for clean money. What's not to like? Not much, as so many people on the floor told me that they were converted by his speech.

2. Obama. This is his wheelhouse, giving a high-profile speech and getting a chance to show off his rhetorical talents. He performed to expectations there, even though much of it would have been familiar to anyone who's heard him speak before. Obama was the only one who didn't give a press conference after his speech, which is interesting. And any caucus where he appeared was locked down and closed off. I'm also a little nervous by the fact that his biggest supporter in the state is Steve Westly. I don't mind Westly so much, but I don't want to see his campaign team anywhere near Obama. Sen. Gloria Romero, another supporter, is great, however.

Obama was strong on the war and doesn't have to explain his vote, so as I said before, if 2008 is about Iraq, he has a major leg up. And he offers a new vision of hope to so many young people, many of whom showed up to see him speak and were a major presence inside and outside the convention center.

3. Richardson. I thought he did extremely well in the hall, actually far better than he did in our blogger meeting, where he looked down a lot and failed to really connect. It seemed like he was practicing his speech for us, reeling off a litany of resume stuff and policy proposals. But in the hall, he was more conversational and funny, like when he told the story of telling his mom he was running for President and she said "President of what?" And he hit high notes with his positions on Iraq and immigration. That said, his gaffe in the press room, saying that Whizzer White couldn't have voted on Roe v. Wade because "wasn't he in the 60s? Roe was in the 80s, right," will be a major hurdle in this party. But in the room, people didn't know that.

4. Clinton. I've given my thoughts on her speech, and they stand. Like I said, I think she has more delegate support than everyone believes, but Iraq remains a stumbling block, possibly fatal. And her stance on immigration, that the undocumented should be taken out of the shadows so they can be tracked and watched as potential terrorist subjects, stuck a really bad chord.

5. Kucinich. Had major support in the room. The sing-songy-ness of his speech just was so whacked out; I saw him speak in 2003 and he now seems like a parody of that guy. But he absolutely had the attention of the hard-core progressive crowd, particularly when he focused on his call to impeach the Vice President. However, these are the type of people who tend to scream and yell but don't quite organize as much as other activists.

6. Dodd. Chris Dodd is a serious, experienced, thoughtful lawmaker and I love him. He made a lot of time for us bloggers and he gave a very nice speech. Not that many people saw it, and those that saw it clapped politely. It's unfortunate; he's a good guy who would make a great President.

7. Gravel. He didn't speak on the floor, but at the Chairman's Welcome Reception on Friday night (which had salt-water taffy when I got there and not much else). I ran into a fellow delegate during his speech, a former political science professor and contemporary of Gravel's. He said to me, "I didn't know this guy was still around!"

Enough said.

Incomplete. joe Biden. Didn't show up. Too busy in South Carolina trying to convince them that Delaware was a slave state and that makes him a real-deal Southerner. His booth was pathetic.

John Edwards Pulls a Zachary Taylor

I have to say that this disturbed me too. John Edwards basically said two different things about Iran to two different audiences, a militaristic tone at the Herzliya Conference in Israel, and a more measured tone to Ezra Klein of TAP.

Kevin Drum is correct:

There's nothing new about this. It's standard issue politics. But the internet is making this game harder to play, because every word you speak, at every venue, is now easily accessible to people who aren't quite as jaded about this kind of thing as most political reporters are. People like me. And I'll tell you: I'd sure feel a lot better if even a small part of Edwards' comments to the Prospect had made their way into his speech at Herzliya.

Me too. Zachary Taylor was reputed to do this kind of thing in the election of 1850, completely contradicting himself on the issue of slavery whether he was talking in the North or in the South. Of course, they didn't have the technology to actually notice this for quite a long time.

Many liberal bloggers have been distressed by this idea that Iraq was just a bungled execution rather than an insane policy that should never be repeated. It's best expressed by the ever-present Ezra Klein.

Put it another way: Hillary believes, or appears to believe, that if the weapons had existed and the management had proven more competent, this war would have been a good idea. John Edwards, who recently assured an Israeli conference that "under no circumstances" can Iran go nuclear and "all options are on the table" to stop them, seems to believe the same. During a recent interview, I asked him about the lessons of Iraq. "You shouldn’t assume," he said, "because there’s a consensus about something that it’s accurate. We need to be very skeptical about information that’s not direct about what’s happening." That's a good lesson about intelligence. It isn't necessarily a lesson about the wisdom -- or lack thereof-- of invading other countries.

The lesson I've taken, by contrast, is that toppling Middle Eastern governments, occupying their societies, and trying to impose pluralistic democracy is an almost impossible endeavor, one with far more potential for catastrophe than completion. And it's easy to assume, listening to politicians who have turned against the war, that they've gleaned the same. That isn't necessarily true. Just because they oppose the Iraq War in retrospect, doesn't mean they oppose the theory on which it was based. They may have turned against the lies, or the mismanagement, or the unpopularity. But they may not have substantially raised the bar for the use of force. Given Edwards' recent comments on Iran, he seems comfortable hinting at another war with a more powerful Middle Eastern country over the issue of WMDs. Hillary certainly is. Being anti-war, it seems, is rather different than being anti-this-war.

And I would add that, in doing so, there is a tacit agreement that the Bush Doctrine is not foolhardy, and a tacit release of power to this President to have a free hand in dealing with Iran. This is happening despite the fact that the Administration is already seen to be lying about Iran's involvement in Iraq, as well as about these repeated denials about planning for war (those carrier groups in the Persian Gulf are just a collection of "welcoming ships," I guess).

Edwards was apparently better on Iran yesterday with Tim Russert, but I can't help but think that there's a lack of conviction to what he's saying. He's taken up issues far more on the left in this run for the White House than he did in 2004 or in the Senate. But when speaking in front of a crowd who expects there to be a forcible end to Iran's nuclear program, he can't help himself. I know that AIPAC is an incredibly powerful lobby, even though it doesn't express the mainstream opinion of most American Jews. In fact, I think it'll take a Jewish politician to finally tell them to cram it. But I've always had this sneaking suspicion that Edwards talks a better game than he plays. Democrats need to chart out a definable course on foreign policy, and not be tempted to go along with the most hawkish of ideas in order to rake in some more campaign contributions or avoid public scorn.

This worries me. I generally think Edwards is on our side but that he has a will that can be malleable.

UPDATE: Since I'm the blogging HQ of the Gravel for President campaign (not really, but I actually mentioned him this weekend), I will add this comment of his from the DNC meetings to say that judgment BEFORE the fact is extremely important. You can say that your vote on the war was a mistake, but there were plenty of people who understood that mistake before the first bomb dropped.

Wherein I Show Myself To Be Thoroughly Unconcerned With Pragmatism

I've seen pretty much every speech at the DNC winter meetings, and honestly the only one who talks to people like an adult is Mike Gravel. He's talking about things that nobody else ever mentions. The weaponization of space (!), the use of fear, how American exceptionalism is bullshit, Constitutional powers...

He's an old dude and not the best speaker (clearly reading), but he's smart as a whip, and by being out of the spotlight for 25 years, he's gained a new perspective.

Caveat: his central policy appears to be running initiatives on the national level. I guess he's never been to California to see direct democracy work in practice. But the idea of running a campaign completely based on bringing power to the people is at least interesting.

And I like anyone who was sued by Richard Nixon.