Radical Republican Steve King

While in retrospect, I think comparing anyone who questions Barack Obama getting a pre-emptive Nobel Peace Prize today to the Taliban or terrorists is a pretty low road, I did appreciate the newfound aggressiveness from the DNC. Maybe they've hired some staffers from the RNC or something. And this latest project seems not only within bounds but a very canny way of painting Republicans with the beyond-the-pale extremist brush.



"Radical Republican Steve King" is repeated five times throughout the 1:15 piece. Surely this treatment will be given to some of the other figures of the GOP. And then GOP challengers will be forced to comment on these Radical Republicans.

You always want to take the lead in defining your opponent, and this campaign certainly does so. The more the GOP is the party of Limbaugh, Beck and Radical Republican Steve King, the more difficult it becomes for independents to embrace them.

Meanwhile, Steve King isn't exactly trimming his sails after the release of this video:

The hate crimes amendment attached to a defense authorization bill is Orwellian and provides protection to "sexual idiosyncrasies," Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) asserted Friday.

King, a conservative Republican lawmaker, also charged that the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, which provided some impetus for hate crimes legislation, was not motivated out of hate against Shepard, who was gay [...]

King said that the hate crimes bill results in a "pedophile protection act," and is meant to create "thought crimes" and protect "sexual idiosyncrasies."

Once a Radical Republican, always a Radical Republican.

Hate Crimes Bill Should Be Just The Beginning

Nobel Prize winner Barack Obama is speaking at a gay rights dinner this weekend. He at least might have some tangible progress to discuss.

The House voted Thursday to make it a federal crime to assault people because of their sexual orientation, significantly expanding the hate crimes law enacted in the days after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in 1968.
With expected passage by the Senate, federal prosecutors will for the first time be able to intervene in cases of violence perpetrated against gays.

Civil rights groups and their Democratic allies have been trying for more than a decade to broaden the reach of hate crimes law. This time it appears they will succeed. The measure is attached to a must-pass $680 billion defense policy bill and President Barack Obama — unlike President George W. Bush — is a strong supporter. The House passed the defense bill 281-146, with 15 Democrats and 131 Republicans in opposition.

"It's a very exciting day for us here in the Capitol," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., saying hate crimes legislation was on her agenda when she first entered Congress 22 years ago.

More from the Speaker's blog. Getting 130 Republicans to vote against a defense bill because of their hatred of the ghey is quite a feat. I guess "support the troops" doesn't mean all that much anymore.

That said, this shouldn't be seen as any kind of great victory for the President in terms of getting right with the gay community. They are angry, and justified in that anger.



If the President wants to live up to his Nobel (I have a feeling this will be a familiar refrain), he would preach tolerance and acceptance through deeds.

...John Aravosis has similar thoughts.

...Jon Stewart had a good bit on DADT this week.

Caution

All I'm going to say about this is I don't have the first clue why this Census worker was found dead with the word "fed" scrawled on his chest. I hear that this is an area of Kentucky with a lot of meth labs and it's just as plausible an explanation that he was thought to be a narc. There's obviously a heightened sense of outrage these days, but I'm not biting until there's further information.

If at that time the worst fears are realized and this was motivated by anti-government hate, I'll have something to say.

P.S. I was a Census enumerator in 1990, and I well remember having a gun pulled on me when I tried to count the residents in a house. So cranks are certainly out there. But this story needs some verification yet.

Gates on the F-22

Remember, this is Robert Gates, who served under a Republican President both at the CIA and the Defense Department, arguing in the most explicit language I've seen from a public official against the dictates of the military-industrial complex:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates made an impassioned case Thursday for terminating the F-22 program after production of 187 planes, as the Obama administration sought to blunt a bipartisan push to add money to the defense budget for the fighter jet.

"If we can't bring ourselves to make this tough but straightforward decision -- reflecting the judgment of two very different presidents, two different secretaries of defense, two chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the current Air Force secretary and chief of staff -- where do we draw the line?" he said in a speech at the Economic Club of Chicago. "If we can't get this right, what on earth can we get right?" [...]

The normally staid Gates became especially animated Thursday describing his frustration with lawmakers' efforts to keep building F-22s. "The more they buy of stuff we don't need, the less we have available for the stuff we do need," he told reporters, his voice rising. "It is just as simple as that. It ain't a complicated problem."

Even if Congress acquiesces on the F-22, Gates warned, the Pentagon has to do a better job of setting realistic goals for its weapons programs.

"We must break the old habit of adding layer upon layer of cost, complexity and delay to systems that are so expensive and so elaborate that only a small number can be built and are usable in only a narrow range of low-probability scenarios," he said.

Jack Murtha seems to think there won't be a veto. I actually hope that the White House doesn't compromise on this. If they do, there will be no political will to go up against the MIC again, at least for a while. However, now that the defense bill has become a legislative vehicle for the bill expanding hate crimes legislation to sexual orientation, which passed the Senate with 63 votes yesterday, it does need to go through. But the President has the upper hand here - the defense bill is must-pass, and Congress doesn't exactly inspire fear in anyone.

Hopefully the Senate can vote this out of the bill next week. It'll be close.

F-22 Intrigue

The debate in the Senate over additional funding for the F-22 (even if this funding is cut, we'll have 187 of the fighters available) took a turn last night.

Senator Levin for some reason withdraws his amendment to strike funding for the F-22 fighter that the President wants discontinued and over which he threatens a veto of the bill. And hate crimes legislation finally finds a legislative vehicle to be attached to. Only it's... the bill the President threatens to veto if the F-22 money isn't struck. That ain't gonna go over well, if anyone's looking. I don't know if there's any other effort underway besides Levin's to strike that F-22 funding. We'll see. Meanwhile, Senator Reid has done what needs doing to clear the decks for a vote on the hate crimes amendment. He's filled the amendment tree and filed for cloture [...]

I'd hate to see them stay until one in the morning on Friday to get this done, only to attach it to a doomed bill. But maybe it's not so doomed if this is attached. Maybe that's the thinking. To trade the president the hate crimes salve he promised the LGBT community after the DOMA brief fiasco in exchange for his letting the F-22 authorization escape the veto. Slick!

The White House appears serious enough about removing the additional F-22 funding that I suspect the amendment will return in some form, if not in conference committee. Peter Orszag also objects to $438.9 million in funding for a new engine for the Joint Strike Fighter, which has a perfectly good engine already. And the F-22 funding is being assailed in print media, both in this NYT op-ed:

The plane, the most expensive jet fighter ever built, was designed for cold war aerial combat. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has repeatedly argued that the Pentagon needs to phase out such high-cost, outdated programs so it can buy the kinds of weapons that American troops desperately need to complete their mission in Iraq and defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

The F-22 has not been used in either war. Buying more would only make it harder for the Air Force to shift money into aircraft like unmanned intelligence drones and the more adaptable, cheaper-to-fly F-35 fighter, which is set to begin production in 2012 [...]

Providing for America’s real defense needs is expensive enough without making the military budget double as a make-work jobs program. Capping the F-22 program at 187, as the Pentagon wants, would keep production lines intact for years to come, well beyond the immediate need for stimulus-related job creation.

Not to mention this reported piece in WaPo (h/t Hilzoy why the hell are you leaving blogging!!!), detailing all the failures of the F-22 as a vehicle:

"The United States' top fighter jet, the Lockheed Martin F-22, has recently required more than 30 hours of maintenance for every hour in the skies, pushing its hourly cost of flying to more than $44,000, a far higher figure than for the warplane it replaces, confidential Pentagon test results show. (...)

"It is a disgrace that you can fly a plane [an average of] only 1.7 hours before it gets a critical failure" that jeopardizes success of the aircraft's mission, said a Defense Department critic of the plane who is not authorized to speak on the record. Other skeptics inside the Pentagon note that the planes, designed 30 years ago to combat a Cold War adversary, have cost an average of $350 million apiece and say they are not a priority in the age of small wars and terrorist threats.

The plane is literally "vulnerable to rain." And we spend $1.7 billion a piece for them.

So I think the F-22 funding will come out, by hook or by crook. But here's the really interesting part of the defense bill:

The Obama administration has objected to a provision in the 2010 defense funding bill currently before the Senate that would bar the military's use of contractors to interrogate detainees.

The provision, strongly backed by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), describes interrogations as an "inherently governmental function" that "cannot be transferred to contractor personnel." It would give the Defense Department one year from the bill's enactment to ensure that the military had the resources to comply with it.

A White House policy statement yesterday signaled "many areas of agreement" with the bill that emerged from Levin's committee late last month but said the administration has "serious concerns" about some provisions. The statement repeated Obama's threat to veto the $680 billion bill unless $1.75 billion to fund an additional seven F-22 fighter aircraft is removed.

The more that we privatize interrogation, the more likelihood that those less accountable contractors sully America through torture. We can absolutely meet the needs of intelligence gathering without using CACI or other contractors, and it's sad to see the Obama Administration fight this provision.

Basically, there's a whole lot tied up in this bill at the moment. I could see nothing passing and defense funded under last year's agreement. Which would be a net loss and a missed opportunity at reform, not to mention a loss for the hate crimes bill.

Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines

Not hard to picture the reaction of an unbalanced person to this daily drumbeat.



Apparently, Billo will "address" the subject on his program tonight. But only tonight, I suspect. Then he'll find another enemy to demonize. And then feign shock when that person gets gunned down, too.

Dobson Cries Poor

I don't really trust anything James Dobson says, and his extended whine that the liberals have run roughshod over the country and nobody can stop it doesn't ring true either. Sure the hate-crimes bill will likely pass into law, but Dobson has something of a larger game here. On other culture-war issues, Dobson and his religious right cohorts have a plan.

If President Obama nominates Judge Diane P. Wood to the Supreme Court, conservatives plan to attack her as an “outspoken” supporter of “abortion, including partial-birth abortion.”

If he nominates Judge Sonia Sotomayor, they plan to accuse her of being “willing to expand constitutional rights beyond the text of the Constitution.”

And if he nominates Kathleen M. Sullivan, a law professor at Stanford, they plan to denounce her as a “prominent supporter of homosexual marriage.”

Preparing to oppose the confirmation of Mr. Obama’s eventual choice to succeed Justice David H. Souter, who is retiring, conservative groups are working together to stockpile ammunition. Ten memorandums summarizing their research, obtained by The New York Times, provide a window onto how they hope to frame the coming debate.

This is not a strategy to defeat the nominee - Republicans have basically given up on that. This is a strategy to demonize an eventual sitting Supreme Court Justice. Right now the religious right lacks a lightning rod, and of the ones they use, the President is too popular and the rest of the Democratic leadership to unknown. They need to raise the profile of an enemy, and claim that they are powerless to stop this enemy's rise to prominence. The culture wars feed off of a sense of powerlessness. It made no sense when Republicans sat in every seat of power in Washington. But the reversal puts things back in the natural state for those on the right with a siege mentality. Armed with a new enemy, only THEN will Dobson and his charges fight back.

Now, I do believe these issues have lost their salience. That abortion poll floating around is flawed, and even if it weren't, the emphasis has waned.

Essentially, Democrats shouldn't take this bait. The religious right will always claim that they are being forcibly pushed out of the country, regardless of the concessions made or common ground sought. I don't mind President Obama's Notre Dame speech as a rhetorical instrument and an olive branch to moderates. On policy, however, the theocons will always claim they are under siege, whether true or not. Might as well give them their enemy and make some positive change in the meantime.

Still Bringing The Hate

The House passed the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act today; here's the roll call. 18 Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the bill, which would help fund state and local law enforcement in the prevention and prosecution of hate crimes. It expands the definition of hate crimes to include "gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability." This is fairly sensible legislation with little controversy. It's the inclusion of gays and lesbians that drives theocrats batty.

So Virginia Foxx (R-NC) went on the House floor today, misinterpreted Glenn Greenwald's words to falsely assert that he supported her position, and then she let loose with this:

If you didn't vote for this bill -- against this bill and against this rule for anything else, you could vote against it because we are spending additional money. i also would like to point out that there was a bill -- the hate crimes bill that's called the Matthew Sheppard bill is named afte a very unfortunate incident that happened where a young man was killed, but we know that that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. it wasn't because he was gay. this -- the bill was named for him, hate crimes bill was named for him, but it's really a hoax that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills.

That's a complete lie, perpetrated by bigots to sow continued hate on the late Matthew Sheppard. It's totally disgusting. Here are the office numbers for Virginia Foxx. Let her know what you think of her smears against a dead gay man. Maybe you can tell her that gay bashing doesn't work anymore.

Phone: (202) 225-2071
Phone: (336) 778-0211
Phone: (828) 265-0240

...The New Hampshire legislature just passed marriage equality, we'll see if the Governor signs it. But another state may join the four who offer full rights to same-sex couples.

When Messages Of Hate Find Willing Participants

I wrote last July about the shooting at the Unitarian Universalist church in Knoxville, Tennessee by Jim Adkisson, which appeared to be a domestic terrorist incident motivated by "hatred of the liberal movement." Sara Robinson at Orcinus points us to Adkisson's "manifesto":

"Know this if nothing else: This was a hate crime. I hate the damn left-wing liberals. There is a vast left-wing conspiracy in this country & these liberals are working together to attack every decent & honorable institution in the nation, trying to turn this country into a communist state. Shame on them....

"This was a symbolic killing. Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book. I'd like to kill everyone in the mainstream media. But I know those people were inaccessible to me. I couldn't get to the generals & high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chickenshit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Someone had to get the ball rolling. I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It's the only way we can rid America of this cancerous pestilence."

"I thought I'd do something good for this Country Kill Democrats til the cops kill me....Liberals are a pest like termites. Millions of them Each little bite contributes to the downfall of this great nation. The only way we can rid ourselves of this evil is to kill them in the streets. Kill them where they gather. I'd like to encourage other like minded people to do what I've done. If life aint worth living anymore don't just kill yourself. do something for your Country before you go. Go Kill Liberals.

As Robinson notes, this is the fruit of a conservative movement which wraps its attacks on Democrats and liberals all too frequently in the language of eliminationism, preying on resentment ("Liberals are taking your hard-earned money for nothing") and fear of the other to cast the opposition party as an enemy to be fought, physically if necessary. With the economy sure to be on the skids for a while, it won't be long until the anger from the right builds, and seeks blame in their opponents. And obviously, this can lead to the kind of incidents we see with Jim Adkisson, who specifically cited conservative media for giving him a road map to channel his anger. Robinson closes:

A significant part of this country's media infrastructure is thoroughly devoted to inciting people to commit horrific acts of violence against us -- and now, we know for a fact that people are acting on those incitements. It's time to start taking this far more seriously. What goes out across our airwaves these days isn't all that different from what went out over Radio Rwanda a decade ago, spurring that country to genocide. At this point, it's only a difference of degree [...]

Adkisson's "manifesto" should end any doubts we ever had about how virulent and dangerous hate talk is, or whether or not that talk will eventually translate into action.

Politically, it's probably a good thing for Democrats if Rush Limbaugh becomes the voice of the opposition. But there are unintended consequences as well.

Who Didn't See This Coming?

The two yahoos who decided they could kill Obama didn't really think it through:

Two white supremacists charged with plotting to behead blacks across the country and assassinate Barack Obama while wearing white top hats and tuxes were likely too disorganized to carry out the plot, authorities said, and their planning was riddled with blunders.

Paul Schlesselman, 18, of Helena-West Helena, Ark., and Daniel Cowart, 20, of Bells are accused of dreaming up the plan. While authorities say they had guns capable of creating carnage, documents show they never got close to getting off the ground.

Among the blunders: They drew attention to themselves by etching swastikas on a car with sidewalk chalk, only knew each other for a month, couldn't even pull off a house robbery, and a friend ratted them out to authorities.

This is not to say that you don't take threats like this seriously - good work by the Secret Service. But there's a lot more sophistication to their efforts nowadays, and two idiots with a Hitler locket and a dream aren't going to be successful by accident.

That said, let's take a long look at hate crime laws over the next couple years.

Militia Watch

I think that the bit about an Obama assassination should be taken out of this neo-Nazi plot to target African-Americans. Clearly they had already plotted a significant portion of the effort to rob a gun store and shoot up a couple predominantly black high schools in Tennessee. But the Obama part of the deal was more like a "I know, and then we'll get in our cars and drive to Obama's house" kind of thing. Still serious, and I'm glad law enforcement worked in this case and they were caught, but the assassination part feels more aspirational than anything.

This is an example of the ever-present prospect of violence around race in America. I'm undecided on whether an Obama election would help or hurt.

Party Of Hate

Another "lone wacko" says exactly the same thing at a McCain-Palin rally as the other "lone wacko." Funny how it seems so coordinated, like it's an expected response to fearmongering and incitement.

There were no incendiary outbursts from the crowd about Mr. Obama during Mrs. Palin's speech, as there have been during other recent McCain-Palin rallies.

However, someone did shout out, "Kill him!" during Republican congressional candidate Chris Hackett's remarks before Mrs. Palin took the stage.

The outburst came during a round of booing from the crowd after Mr. Hackett said Mr. Obama should come to Pennsylvania and learn what the state's values are.

I think we have to be clear where this is all going. We've seen this kind of hate before in America - it's a part of our legacy. And by running their campaign in this way, McCain and Palin aren't making it more likely they will win - the attacks are simply driving up their unfavorables. They are making it more likely that their supporters will be angry and resentful and hold the grudge long after Election Day - and more likely that they will take matters into their own hands.

Color of Change and Brave New Films put this together to show the accumulation of these remarks, and words can become action without much effort.



I mean, I suppose I could go ahead and mention that the guy running McCain's transition team lobbied for Saddam Hussein, and that means John McCain himself murdered our troops and gassed the Kurds. And if I were Barack Obama I could run an entire campaign based on that, suggesting that McCain was a risk because he's associated with radical figures. And he bombed the South Africa rugby team (man, I thought I kept up on all these Obama rumors and even I missed that one).

But that would be horrible for America, you see. It would debase the office to which I was trying to ascend. It would make it impossible for my supporters to accept my opponent if he were to win. It would debilitate the country.

There's nothing wrong with a politics of contrast on the issues; in fact, it's vital. The politics that tries to win through scare tactics and causing riots, for all intents and purposes, is beneath contempt.

(on a related note, what got into Campbell Brown?

...I guess Keith Olbermann was thinking the same thing tonight.

Mainstreaming Hate

Amanda Marcotte's Religious review laments that the filmmakers opted for a caricature view of Islam instead of teasing out the internal contradictions common to all religions. It would be better if liberals set an example here. We know how the other side reacts - using "mosques" as a stand-in for "sleeper cells" and trying to frighten real Murcans with tales of the Mooslims coming to take over the gummint and force burqas on our wife and kids. John McCain's boilerplate salute to the Feast of Eid is another example.

But if we don't preach tolerance and associate all Muslims with murderers, then we incite more stuff like this:

A 10-year-old girl sprayed in the face with a chemical Friday, Sept. 26, while at a local Islamic mosque was not the victim of a hate crime, police Chief Richard Biehl said.

The girl was watching children whose parents and relatives had gathered at the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, 26 Josie St., to celebrate Ramadan when she noticed two men standing outside a basement window about 9:40 p.m., according to police.

One of the men then sprayed something through the open window and into the girl's face from a white can with a red top, according to a police report. The girl said she immediately felt burning on her face and felt "sick to her stomach," the report stated.

Other children and a woman in the room felt affects from the chemical and the mosque was evacuated.

Right, it wasn't a hate crime at all.

There's a lot worse out there, like this needlessly provocative "Obsession" DVD showing up in people's newspapers. But someone has to set an example. I appreciate Bill Maher's work to demystify religion but lazy demonization is going to lead to the mainstreaming of hate. It's going to be bad enough in an Obama Administration to get through all the crap thrown at "the other."

Turning The New Yorker Cover Around

Barack Obama went on Larry King's show tonight and did a very smart thing.

KING: Considering that, though, there's a lot of e-mails going around. It gets rather terrible. A "Newsweek" poll shows that 12 percent of America believes that you're a Muslim, and 26 believe -- 26 percent believe you were raised in a Muslim home. A lot of misinformation.

How do you fight that?

OBAMA: Well, you know, by getting on "Larry King" and telling everybody I'm a Christian and I wasn't raised in a Muslim home. And pledge allegiance to the flag. And, you know, all the things that have been reported in these e-mails are completely untrue and have been debunked again and again and again. So, all you can do is just tell the truth and trust in the American people that over time, they're going to know what the truth is.

One last point I want to -- I do want to make about these e-mails, though. And I think this has an impact on this "New Yorker" cover.

You know, this is actually an insult against Muslim-Americans, something that we don't spend a lot of time talking about. And sometimes I've been derelict in pointing that out.

You know, there are wonderful Muslim-Americans all across the country who are doing wonderful things. And for this to be used as sort of an insult, or to raise suspicions about me, I think is unfortunate. And it's not what America's all about.

Whether the right wing is trying to tar Obama as a terrorist or a black militant, it's clear to me that this is not dissimilar to a hate crime. With Obama having to yell "I'm not a Muslim, I'm not a Muslim" every two seconds, and with all the sensitivities surrounding associating him with Muslims (like the two women in Michigan who were removed from the sight lines of an Obama event because they had head scarves), it was extremely necessary that he say this. It's a fine line between distancing yourself from Muslims and another form of demonization, as if the worst thing in the world to be is a Muslim. So bravo to Sen. Obama for that one.

I also think that this is the gift of the New Yorker cover, to make the intangible tangible, to force the whisper campaign out of the shadows and give it sunlight. It's a lot harder to debunk an email forward than it is a major magazine cover. Now it's out there, and smart Democratic strategists would follow Obama here and use it as an opportunity to call this demonization and hatred by its name.

See also this New York Times article about Obama and comedy generally. I think everyone's way too politically correct in this country when it comes to comedy, but it's true that there's not much to satirize yet. I think Stewart had the right idea at the start by mocking the culture of deification AROUND Obama. But what the New Yorker did was thoroughly inside the boundaries. To wit:

Mr. Stewart, who is also an executive producer of “The Colbert Report,” said the Obama campaign’s reaction to the New Yorker cover seemed part of what is now almost a pro forma cycle in political campaigns. “Nothing can occur without the candidate responding,” he said.

Bill Maher, who is host of a politically oriented late-night show on HBO, said, “If you can’t do irony on the cover of The New Yorker, where can you do it?”

If I was still doing comedy, I'm sure I'd run up against this. Still, there is a bias among audiences that only a black guy can joke about black people, only a Jew can joke about Jews, etc. As David Alan Grier says in the article, "They’ve had 200 years of presidential jokes. It’s our time.”

Obama's Bind

I guess that the "Obama is a Muslim" issue came up among voters in Southern Ohio in last night's 60 Minutes report. Now, I don't have much to say about Sen. Clinton's answer about this, which offered a little bit of wiggle room in print, but if you listen to it she pretty quickly dismisses it. What I want to hone in on is Obama's remarks:

"I have never been a Muslim, am not a Muslim. These emails are obviously not just offensive to me, as somebody who's a devout Christian, who's been going to the same church for the last 20 years, but it's also offensive to Muslims because it plays into a certain fearmongering there."

This is better than what he's said in the past, but Obama's of course in a real bind. I'm worried about these denunciations of anyone daring to suggest that someone is a Muslim, as if being a Muslim is the worst thing you can be. I recognize the political realities here, but it's troubling to buy into the demonization of a whole class of people based on religion and/or ethnicity. Obama at least acknowledged that to an extent, although I'd much rather see him say "I'm not a Muslim, but if I was that would not have any impact on my governing ability, and it's offensive for anyone to suggest otherwise. I know he can't actually say that, so this is about as close as we're going to get.

But it should be noted that there are plenty of Muslim American voters that might not be altogether happy with this constant distancing. In fact, a substantial amount of Muslims live in the swing state of Michigan. And they are speaking out about this, and you really can't blame them:

The Muslim faith group also finds itself politically isolated. Though candidates have been courting voters in this tight race, none of the three top contenders has met with major Muslim groups. Neither, they say, have major interfaith groups and politicians rallied around them to loudly condemn the anti-Islamic strategies.

"It would be good if the president and leaders of both parties would say: 'Enough. We're better than this,' " said Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. "It's disconcerting to me they haven't."

In addition, the immediate denunciation of the photo of Obama in Somali garb that surfaced last week risks the potential for a backlash. Kenyans don't believe Obama did anything wrong, and indeed he didn't. The Obama campaign has to thread the needle between denouncing anyone who brings these things up and alienating Muslims or Africans who may understand that any association with them has become politically toxic.

I believe that Barack Obama is a committed civili libertarian (that Jeffrey Rosen article is a must-read) who has a strong belief in equality for everyone under the law. Indeed he would be a positive President for those who are subject to increased hate crimes, like Muslims. But he really has to walk a fine line here.

The Truth About Those Liberal Fascists

Reading the screen caps of the jacket copy of Jonah Goldberg's lame-ass book, it's clear that conservatives really, REALLY don't like teachers.

The quintessential liberal fascist isn't an SS stormtrooper. It is a female grade-school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.

This is basically a non sequitur: "The real fascist isn't an iron-fisted despotic ruler, but a plumber with a drinking problem." But the stab at teachers is familiar. This weekend, Tony Snow told students at Old Dominion University that "The average Iranian is more pro-American than virtually any college faculty in this country." There's a real antipathy here.

These are the same faculty members, by the way, who came rushing to this Princeton student's aid when he claimed to have been a victim of a physical attack for trying to instill conservative values among undergrads on campus. In particular, Robert George, a jurisprudence professor, vigorously defended the student.

Turns out he made the whole thing up, and in fact inflicted the wounds upon himself. He made up a death threat against himself in high school, too. And here's the reality about the Princeton campus:

With an active Republicans Club, a pro-life club, three major Evangelical groups, and the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions that is led by Professor George, Princeton University is considered one of the Ivy League's more conservative campuses.

But it wasn't enough just to be the persecuted majority, the student had to feel like he was the hunted majority. And this professor played right into it.

Somehow, despite all this, it's educators on the LEFT described as belonging to hate groups, as liberal fascists, and as anti-American.

You figure it out.

Bad Days In The Congress

I thought that the very progressive energy bill's defeat in the Senate was actually a positive thing until I saw the roll call. To break the Republican filibuster, we need 60 votes. We got 53, with five not voting. I assumed that the Presidentials were all out on the road, with 4 Democratic votes out there. But actually, 5 Republicans didn't vote for this, preferring to opt out of a tough vote and shield themselves from criticism.

There were 5 Republicans that voted with the majority of Democrats on this bill (Smith, Snowe, Collins, Coleman, Thune), along with Joe Lieberman. This suggests that we have a decent shot at getting a less progressive energy bill passed if certain provisions are stripped out of it. Grist suggests what will go.

Republican leaders in the Senate now hope to strip out two key provisions of the bill: a Renewable Portfolio Standard mandating that utilities produce 15 percent of their energy from renewables by 2020, and a provision that would cut tax breaks and subsidies for oil companies. President Bush wants those components out of the bill too, and has said he would veto the bill if they're not removed. If the Senate does change the bill, it will need to return to the House for another vote, where advocates for clean energy won't be happy with a watered-down version.

That's depressing, but the fuel economy standards would be a step forward, and hopefully they can at least salvage the renewable energy standard, which would be a major job creator, and would make America a leader in renewable energy.

Unfortunately, this is about the best thing that the Congress has managed the last couple days. Senate leaders nixed the hate crimes bill because it included gay and transgender Americans. The House passed - by a vote of 409 to 2 - a bill that would fine anyone with an open WiFi connection up to $300,000 if illegal images are accessed through their service. And the Senate, in one of the most irresponsible votes I've ever seen, voted to repeal the AMT without using Paygo rules, essentially removing $50 billion in revenue without replacing it, pushing even more of a burden on to the next generation.

It's pretty depressing when the BEST thing the Congress has done lately is lose a filibuster fight by only 7 votes.

Just Curious

Why did the story that African-American protesters surrounded the Justice Department on Friday to get them to increase their prosecution of hate crimes get more attention in the media? I caught some of the speeches on C-SPAN and they were stirring, particuarly Al Sharpton, who called the dodge that states must handle issues of this nature "a return to state's rights" and the issues over which the Civil War was fought. The scene at the DoJ was dramatic. Yet, very little beyond a blurb here or there.

I'm trying to figure out if this is because of a bias against African-American issues in the traditional media, or that protests as a whole don't work anymore because they don't focus attention. Both of those are undercut by the extensive coverage of the march on Jena, Louisiana, of which this protest was a kind of sequel.

A Look Back At The Career Of Larry Craig

In the aftermath of Larry Craig's resignation from the Senate on this day, September 30, let's have a flashback and look at the best moments of... what's this now? He's not resigning today? Hm, OK... well, apparently Republicans are going to try and force him into some kind of retirement by airing all his dirty laundry in public.

Worried that the disgraced lawmaker intends to remain in the Senate indefinitely, they are threatening to notch up the public humiliation by seeking an open ethics hearing on the restroom scandal that enveloped Craig last month.

The Senate hearing would examine the original charges in Craig’s case, including the allegation of “interference with privacy,” for peeping into the bathroom stall occupied by an undercover police officer. One senior Republican aide imagined “witnesses, documents, all in front of the klieg lights.” The committee also could look for “a pattern of conduct” — which means combing court records in other locales to discover whether Craig had prior arrests that haven’t come to light.

These are the people that want to keep the government out of your lives, remember. Yet they're perfectly happy with humiliating a guy who's been a loyal soldier for 30 years, because they fear that just this one person will blow their moral integrity, not the other dozens over the past few years. I have no real love for Larry Craig, a closeted gay man who has made life miserable for homosexuals through his votes right until the end: he voted against expanding hate crime laws to cover homosexuals just last week. But clearly, the way the knives have come out against him is extremely telling. The Republican Party is vicious, heartless and downright mean.

The Jena Six And Race In America

I have been remiss in writing about the Jena Six, and with today's expected protest it seems like a good news peg to do so. The story is a keen reminder that we're not yet the society we believe ourselves to be; that the ugliness of racism still permeates too many elements of our lives.

The outlines of the story are this: last year a black student in Jena, Louisiana sat under a tree "traditionally reserved for whites" at a public high school (That alone should tell you everything you need to know). The next day, white students hung a noose over the tree, evoking the sad legacy of lynching. Three white students were suspended for a couple days. Later that year, six black students beat up a white schoolmate outside the gym. The white kid left the hospital immediately and hung out at a class ring ceremony that night. The black kids were charged with attempted murder.

Although the charges were eventually reduced, and even the one conviction on battery made thus far was tossed out, the story highlighted the issue of equal justice and the continuing treatment of blacks in the South. Today's march will shine a spotlight on this persistent problem.

Today, thousands of protesters from across the country are expected to march through Jena (pronounced JEE-nuh), dwarfing its population of about 3,000. Not even the organizers know how many people to expect, but some say it could become a major civil rights march.

"Again, we come to the South to raise new hope, not to condemn," Sharpton told reporters outside the courthouse. "This is not a march against Jena."

Yet with predictions ranging from 1,000 to 60,000 protesters, many locals are apprehensive. The march has been publicized on talk radio and Internet blogs.

Jena High School and LaSalle Parish Library will close for the day. Most local business owners planned to close their stores too. Activists, they noted, vowed they would not spend money in Jena.

There's more context here. You can add in the other sickening hate crime, where 6 white West Virginians kidnapped a young black woman and repeatedly raped and tortured her for weeks, while one of them said "that's what we do to niggers around here."

We have a long way to go before we reach the goal of a truly color-blind society. And awareness is the first big step.