Grayson's Victory

CNN interviewed me about Alan Grayson and his health care speech:

"What happened was his floor speech and the fact that he didn't back down set a new standard for how Democrats deal with Republican hissy fits," said David Dayen, a liberal blogger who often writes on the Daily Kos Web site. "He's been a hero to Democrats since his term started, but now he's a hero on health care."

To be sure, Grayson already had shown he was a different kind of freshman congressman before the "die quickly" speech, having forcefully taken Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to task in what was an instant YouTube moment at a House Committee hearing less than a month into the job.

He also held up a vote on global warming legislation until he secured a $50 million hurricane research center in his district -- a move more characteristic of the chamber's longtime lawmakers. And he's won liberal support for his steadfast support of ACORN, even as many Democrats voted to defund the community organizing group, and for his forceful anti-war stance.

But it was the late-night diatribe last week -- presumably seen by no more than a few dozen C-SPAN viewers before going viral -- that netted Grayson more than $500,000 from 5,000 donors around the country. It's also garnered a media tour worthy of a national celebrity peddling a tell-all book, appearing on a bevy of cable and national news programs to amplify his attacks on Republicans.

The writer goes on to add the concern trolling from Republicans that Grayson's honesty won't play in his swing district. That seems to miss the point that Grayson has pretty much always been an outspoken leader, and it didn't just start up during that health care speech. This is the ad that won him election in that swing district.



That's not a meek, mushy message. You can find 10 Democrats to touch war profiteering, maybe. It's an issue that can open a politician up to "you don't support our troops" or "you don't want to protect America" or any number of attack. And he carried this to victory, because it was a truthful message and a populist one.

Grayson won, by the way. The Republicans smelled blood in the water, ramped up their hissy fit, and then had to back down. They did so because they knew it wouldn't be successful. Alan Grayson backed up his words. And so they had nothing. The boasts of how they're going to beat him in November are also just words. They have nothing for that either, not even a candidate.

How Alan Grayson Changed The Debate On Health Care

Many of us already knew that Alan Grayson was a fearless champion against the rich and powerful. His notoriety this week for comments about the Republican plan for health care therefore did not come as a shock. His floor speech and his unwillingness to back down afterward have set a new standard for how Democrats deal with Republican hissy fits, where they get all offended by some comment or another and demand an apology and ritual humiliation. Their goal is to control the narrative and put any Democratic use of moral language out of the bounds of acceptable political debate, a standard that doesn't apply to them.

Grayson DEMOLISHED this tactic. And he did so by continuing to tell the truth and never backing down. And by the end of the week, many were joining him. Yes, they said: why does the GOP have no plan for health care? Why have they allowed thousands to die for a lack of coverage for years without articulating any strategy to deal with the crisis? Why would Republicans try to make an example of Grayson when their members have been using vile language for months, slandering the health care legislation with lies about "death panels" and rationing and people "being put to death by their government," in the words of Virginia Foxx? How could Republicans think there is no crisis in health care when so many are dying?

In a second, this has become the narrative of the week on health care. And Alan Grayson led the way. He just might lead the Congress to a better bill.

Brave New Films celebrates Alan Grayson's contribution to the debate with this video.



Let Rep. Grayson know you have his back. And join the I heart Grayson Facebook group. He really deserves the attention he's getting.

Defusing A Bomb

Republicans, worried that their ass was being kicked a bit too much, decided to back down and not introduce any resolution condemning Alan Grayson for his accurate remarks about the Republican health care plan. His repeated beat-downs once Republicans decided to try and make an issue out of the speech clearly showed his resolve. So the GOP, not wanting to give him a platform any more, shut their mouths.

Hopefully the Democrats can take a lesson from this. Grayson raised nearly $100,000 yesterday out of the deal, by saying what the base wanted to hear, and more importantly, not backing down after saying it. And the Republicans, not getting what they wanted out of it, blinked.

That's how you stop a hissy fit cold in its tracks.

How It's Done

Republicans seriously don't know who they're dealing with when it comes to Alan Grayson.



This just does not compute for Republicans, who are supposed to wail and moan and collect their scalp for their hissy fit. They don't understand a Democrat taking ownership of his actions and throwing it right back at them. Incidentally, most of the Democrats I've seen today, including members of Congress, haven't backed away from his remarks even a little bit.

Teaching Democrats how to neutralize a hissy fit is all the more reason to support Alan Grayson.

...by the way, media idiots, he didn't compare health care death to the Holocaust, he compared it to a holocaust. That's the definition of the word - "an act of mass destruction and loss of life." What else would you call the needless deaths of 45,000 Americans every year due to lack of health insurance, while political leaders stand mute?

Get His Back

The Republicans are in all-out hissy fit mode and it doesn't have to make sense. After months of their side talking about death panels, death books, scaring seniors and openly stating that Democratic health care bills "put seniors to death by their government" and "tells seniors to drop dead", they want to collect Alan Grayson's scalp for accurately stating that the Republican health care plan is to "not get sick, and if you do, die quickly."

Republicans have been bullies for so long that they cannot imagine being on the other side of an insult like this. Tough. What they do in this situation is rally around their own. Democrats typically do not, so we have to make sure Alan Grayson knows he has allies in the grassroots.

Here's an ActBlue page raising money for Grayson. It's early yet, but so far it's at around $1,200 bucks. Support the effort if you can.

...There is no chance Grayson will apologize.

Rep. Alan Grayson isn't backing down from his claim that Republicans "want you to die quickly."

"I stand by what I said," Grayson told reporters on Wednesday.

"I didn't violate any House rules. I didn't do anything inappropriate," he said. "I'm not under any pressure at all." [...]

Asked if he was worried about his re-election in an Orlando-based swing district, Grayson said his chances of winning are better.

"It improves them," he said. "People like elected officials with guts who say what they mean."

Damn straight.

...Alan Grayson is truly fantastic:

After speaking extensively to the press, Grayson came to the floor with an apology, but not for the Republican Party.

“I would like to apologize,” he said. “I would like to apologize to the dead.”

Citing a statistic that 44,789 Americans die each year because they don’t have health insurance, Grayson said, “That is more than ten times the number of Americans who died in the war in Iraq, it’s more than ten times the number of Americans who died on 9/11. …It happens every year.”

Grayson added in another apparent dig at the GOP, “We should care about people even after they are born.”

Grayson apologized one last time.

“I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner,” he said.

...Grayson has a diary up at Daily Kos. He's right in saying that Republicans aren't used to Democrats telling the truth about them.

The Republicans are serious about getting rid of me, because they are scared. They have already set up a site to attack me. And the reason is simple; they don't want my tough attitude to rub off on other Democrats. And the Democrats aren't sure what to think about this new, I don't know what you call it, truthtelling? But you can help make it clear that when I spoke the truth, I was speaking for you. And you can show them that I was speaking for you. Today is the end of the fundraising quarter, which means everyone is going to be watching fundraising totals.

Help me speak truth. You've already set up a bunch of fundraising pages and I can't thank you enough for getting my back. If you haven't already, I hope you'll go to one of these pages and help out today. I'm at $20,956 so far. Let's see where we can go from here.

They Can't Even Muster A Decent Hissy Fit

The House is taking up a "resolution of disapproval" for Joe Wilson today, carefully writing it so nobody thinks they actually disapprove - just a technical rules violation is all - and the Republicans are cleaning their clocks with it on the House floor.

In a clear sign that Republicans intend to turn the disapproval vote against Joe Wilson into a rallying cry for their own base, far more Republicans than Democrats have been speaking during the floor debate on the resolution.

The subject of their talk: That the American people are done with this and don't want to talk about it anymore. The message here is that the Dems are wasting time with the proceeding, and abusing their power to persecute Wilson.

"There is definitely a sense that House Republicans aren't dealing with the same hot potato they were dealing with on Thursday morning after the president's speech," a GOP leadership aide just told me. "The president's acceptance of Joe Wilson's apology has left the Democrats looking petty and possibly on the verge of overreach. The fact that White House has now adopted some of Wilson's policy proposals is evidence that this is no longer the political loser Democrats once thought it would be just a few days ago."

The highlighted portion above took any teeth completely out of the hissy fit, and partisan Republicans used it as a rallying cry. The resolution passed 240-179, BTW, with a whopping seven Republicans crossing the aisle to vote yes (12 Democrats voted no and 5 "present").

The point is not whether or not Wilson's outburst represented some violation. The point is that Democrats gradually made a decision to try and beat up Republicans over a universally despised high-profile action, and they managed to blow it. And get the policy wrong by tailoring it to the universally despised person. Who's also a serial liar (Just throwing that in because I think it's funny. You can literally say anything as a Republican and never get called on it).

If you can't even pull off the hissy fit, about the easiest two-step in politics, particularly in this day and age when the cable news channels might as well rename themselves "Umbrage 1," "Umbrage 2" and "Republican Umbrage 3", then really, it's time to get a new batch of consultants.

John Harwood Can Never Work In The White House

He just called Murcans stupid!

MONICA NOVOTNY: John, what about this controversy over opposition to Obama’s speech to school children?

JOHN HARWOOD: I gotta’ tell you Monica, I’ve been watching politics for a long time, and this one is really over-the-top. What is shows you is there are a lot of cynical people who try to fan controversy, and let’s face it, in a country of 300 million people, there are a lot of stupid people too, because if you believe that it’s somehow unhealthy for kids, for the president to say "work hard and stay in school," you’re stupid. In fact, I’m worried for some of those kids of those parents who are upset — I’m not sure they are smart enough to raise those kids.

He probably has all kinds of Marxist-Leninist art in his house, too.

Harwood, or rather the editorial staffs at networks and newspapers, have another option besides calling fauxtrage stupid - they don't have to cover it at all.

...This is another way to do it: fight a hissy fit with a hissy fit.

“What this absurd episode shows is that the GOP can in fact come up with new ideas. For example, it’s now clear that the new Republican education platform will argue against personal responsibility, hard work and staying in school.”

Now, get every single Democratic operative to say on television that Republicans clearly oppose hard work and staying in school. They don't want their kids to get an education. Just do it over and over and put Republicans on the defensive.

Why Do Hissy Fits Succeed?

Dishonest morons motivated purely by ideology have decided to throw a scream-fest over a proposed "stay in school" speech from the President to children.

President Obama wants to deliver a message to students next week emphasizing hard work, encouraging young people to do their best in school. The temper tantrum the right is throwing in response only helps reinforce how far gone 21st-century conservatives really are.

This is no small, isolated fit, thrown by random nutjobs. The New York Times, Washington Post,LA Times, AP, and others all ran stories this morning about the coordinated national effort to either keep children at home so they can't hear their president's pro-education message, or demanding that local schools block the message altogether.

The people organizing this protest and the people mad about the President daring to "indoctrinate" their children are the people who said nothing when Ronald Reagan talked favorably about tax cuts to schoolkids, when George Bush sat in a classroom on 9/11, and when they waged campaign to put PRAYER in American schools. It's OK, then, to indoctrinate your children to almighty God, but not for them to hear a speech about hard work from the elected President of the United States.

And yes, we were told for a while, under a Rpeublican President, that criticizing him was a form of treason.

But the award for lack of self-awareness has to go to NBC News, which asks today:

Finally, here’s one more thought about the entire controversy over Obama’s education speech on Tuesday: Since the White House has said the text of the speech will be available for 24 hours before he delivers it and since they altered the lesson plan language, why is this still a controversy? The ability of the conservative media machine to generate a controversy for this White House is amazing. In fact, this is an example of a story that percolates where it becomes harder and harder for some to claim there's some knee-jerk liberal media bias. (Does anyone remember these kinds of controversies in the summer of 2001?) The ability of some conservatives to create media firestorms is still much greater than liberals these days.

Now, at least they admit that it's impossible to claim liberal media bias, meaning they understand who's to blame here. But do they really have to say "The ability of the conservative media machine to generate a controversy for this White House is amazing"? Isn't the answer that the non-conservative media will simply blindly follow whatever conservative media decides to gun up? Don't media types privilege conservative mini-controversies and hissy fits? Isn't there literally no way they could lay off something like this? Isn't that the problem?

Conservatives have cracked the code: yell real loud about some invented outrage, and watch the media chase the soccer ball. They actually don't have to cover it.

Give A Wingnut An Inch, He'll Take A Mile

Republicans have gotten increasingly crazy. Ideas that would have been laughed out of a Birch Society meeting now get the full treatment on cable and throughout the media. The "Nancy Pelosi is trying to feminize America by taking the patriotic music off the Capitol hold music!!!1!" non-story springs to mind. But this is all being driven by success. How it works is:

1) Wingnuts throw a hissy fit
2) Democrats try to be reasonable by offering a concession
3) Repeat

To wit:

The President is giving a national address to schoolchildren on September 8, the first day of school. It will stress the virtues of hard work. The wingnuts think he's recruiting a Hitler youth brigade. They point to some supplementary materials containing the suggestion to kids to "Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president," clearly pointed at helping him realize their own goals, since the speech is about kids working hard and bettering themselves. Off that thin strand we have this confab:

Gordon directed me to the official teaching materials that the Department of Education has posted. Gordon especially took exception to this part of the materials: "Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals." I pointed out that this item came from a list of bullet points headed "Extension of the Speech," which clearly means it's in the context of the speech on personal responsibility and academic goals.

But Gordon begged to differ. "Why are you willing to accept that in good faith, the Obama administration is asking them to write a letter in the context of the speech," said Gordon, "but you're not willing to accept in our release, where we're saying there's no guidelines that it has to be in the context of the speech?" [...]

"Our point is that there are some questions about this address that need to be answered, and parents need to be given the option to choose whether or not their children who are students are going to be expected to watch this propaganda in a public school," Gordon later explained. "Students can't pray in school, but they can discuss new ideas and actions that the President is challenging them to think about. Well, I know that a lot of the President's ideas don't reflect my values and don't reflect the values that I would be teaching my children. And to be quite honest, there are a lot of the President's ideas that I wouldn't want my children discussing in a public school. It's not appropriate, the place for that is in the home."

I asked Gordon how this is any different from presidents routinely visiting classrooms, or the President's Challenge in gym classes (which I certainly hated, being the non-athletic nerd that I am). "This is different than trying to make sure that you have a good level of physical fitness," she said. "It would be a different if President Obama were going into a particular classroom on the first day of school and encouraging students to work hard and achieve academic goals. It's diff from sending out a blanket set of guidelines for a specific address that is supposed to be shown in every school, talking about how you can help the President advance his new ideas."

That's just plain crazy.

And so the Department of Education responded by altering their supplementary materials, in essence admitting that they were wrong in the first place.

If this is a bar fight primary, the Democrats are spitting up blood in preparation to spit up more blood. So conservatives learn that the way to win is to freak out in the craziest way possible and watch Democrats try to placate you.

Meanwhile a report shows that gun shows are the leading source of violent crimes in North America, and 2/3 of the vendors are unlicensed, but I see a hissy fit neither here, there, or anywhere...

Cave-Ins Upon Cave-Ins

I'm fairly livid at my party right now. First we had the President withholding the release of prisoner abuse photos. Then the Department of Homeland Security responded to conservative whiners and pulled the report on right-wing extremism, which I'm sure will be a great comfort to everyone during the next Ruby Ridge or Pittsburgh cop shooter. And then...

A bill by Senate Democrats would fund the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but it would block the transfer of any of the detainees to the United States.

The move is aimed at sidestepping a political minefield that President Obama has confronted in his promise to close the military prison during his first year in office. Lawmakers of both parties have bristled at the notion of bringing Guantanamo terrorism suspects to detention facilities in the United States [...]

The administration has yet to produce a plan for dealing with the approximately 240 Guantanamo detainees, but Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has said that between 50 and 100 would end up in U.S. facilities.

The $96.7-billion measure headed for a House vote today contains no funds to transfer the Guantanamo detainees, though the Pentagon retains the ability to seek informal approval to move funds from other accounts.

So they appropriate money to close Gitmo, but not transfer the prisoners. That floating island of plastic must be looking pretty good right about now.

I think the main reason here is that the White House has not presented a formal plan for transfer. But we all know what this looks like - Democrats caved to the patently ridiculous charge that dangerous terrorists will be let loose in America to shop at Wal-Mart and play in your corporate softball game, instead of leaving the prisoners among the nice tropical breezes of Guantanamo. I thought the era of paying attention to ridiculous wingnut hissy fits had ended, but clearly not in Washington. They're still acting like the good neutered puppies Grover Norquist always wanted them to be.

American Journalism

Many expected the giant freak-out today over an ill-worded joke in the middle of a longish interview focused on finance and macroeconomics, despite the White House's immediate apology and regret. It's the stuff of partisan food fights, so let the mashed potatoes fly. Whatever, and Obama shouldn't have said it. But the episode has been instructive for, if nothing else, revealing what a massive tool Jake Tapper is:

Everything you need to know about the DC journo establishment, from ABC News White House correspondent Jake Tapper's Twitter feed:

Breaking- PrezObama on Leno jokes about being a bad bowler- says it's "like the Special Olympics or something" http://tinyurl.com/bholeno about 12 hours ago from TwitterBerry

Am trying to imagine the reaction if President Bush joked that his bowling skills recalled the Special Olympics. 3 am- we just landed in dc about 6 hours ago from TwitterBerry

Preparing for day of hypocrisy: conservs who would normally defend the SpecOlymp joke acting offended, liberals saying lighten up. Sigh about 3 hours ago from TwitterBerry

Moments after David Kurtz posted that writing of the script of the day before it happens, Tapper blocked him from reading his Twitter feed. And then he blocked Adam Serwer. And then, after the heat rose, he unblocked Kurtz. You can read the whole extended whine at Tapper's feed, claiming somehow that "rudeness" ruins his nice conversation with his Twitter compatriots... which is not the point, since he was responding to journalists slagging him on their blogs by cutting them off.

Favorite comment on this sorry affair: "Arguing on the internet is like working for ABC News. Even if you win, you're still Jake Tapper."

Twitter is kind of a useless tool anyway, perfect for media types who can't think beyond 140 characters, but the pissiness it's bringing to the fore is most amusing.

The Rise Of Bad Post-Partisan Obama

It was a good week, with a lot of progress packed into it, and hopefully that will be the pattern of this next Administration. However, there's enough data to map out an alternate scenario, one where President Obama tries to keep his personal approval ratings high by placating Republicans and stiffing Democrats.

First we have the pre-compromised stimulus package, which is about to get more compromised thanks to a GOP hissy fit.

House Democrats are likely to jettison family planning funds for the low-income from an $825 billion economic stimulus bill, officials said late Monday, following a personal appeal from President Barack Obama at a time the administration is courting Republican critics of the legislation.

Several officials said a final decision was expected on Tuesday, coinciding with Obama's scheduled visit to the Capitol for separate meetings with House and Senate Republicans.

The provision has emerged as a point of contention among Republicans, who criticize it as an example of wasteful spending that would neither create jobs nor otherwise improve the economy.

The report is that Obama personally called Henry Waxman, who has jurisdiction over the provision, and told him to ditch it. So now we're listening to Republicans who have no imagination and don't understand the economy. Family planning is a demand-based service that requires staffing. That means jobs. Jobs that now won't be created or will be eliminated by the states because it makes Republicans feel icky.

Then there's the mortgage provisions which Democrats would like to put in the stimulus bill that would allow homeowners to get their principle reduced by a bankruptcy judge, but which Obama wants out of it because big business and their Republican puppets might get mad at him. And once again, the President is prevailing.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the chief Senate sponsor of the bill, said Obama persuaded him in a White House meeting Friday to remove the bankruptcy proposal from an economic recovery package -- to ensure it doesn't jeopardize the stimulus bill. But Obama pledged his support for the bankruptcy solution, Durbin said.

Obama said he would work with Durbin to attach the proposal to other ''must pass'' legislation -- with the hope that supporters of the overall bill would not vote against it because of the bankruptcy provisions.

Right, and then that "must pass" bill, like the stimulus, runs into trouble because of the cram-down provision, so it's removed, and on, and on, and on... Chris Bowers notes that future passage of cram-down is not going to be easy, considering that 11 Democrats voted against it the last time it came up. So hundreds of billions of dollars for financial interests, but no sensible reform which would actually clarify their balance sheets and keep people from going homeless. All in the name of bipartisanship.

And then there are lingering concerns, like the ineffective corporate tax breaks still embedded in the bill.

At least $23.8 billion in corporate tax breaks have been included in the $825 billion economic recovery package in order to win backing from key business groups and their Congressional allies, even though the team that put the legislation together believes the breaks have little value in stimulating the economy and creating jobs.

Top beneficiaries include banks, telecommunication companies, railroads and oil, hotels, casinos, and both commercial and residential real estate firms.

"Everyone knows these provisions are not going to do much, but some members of Congress need to be able to say 'the bill has a business tax cut.' So we put them in," said an Obama transition team architect, adding that the corporate breaks were carefully written to be temporary so that the drain on the treasury will be brief. According to another source: "This is just one of those things that you do to get a bill passed. It may not be pretty. We are talking about billions, but in reality it's only a tiny fraction of the whole bill."

That's a bit of honesty there. They're including ineffective giveaways to industry for no reason but to seem bipartisan. By the way that bipartisan support won't be coming, leaving a bunch of tax breaks in there for no reason. And there is a cost. By contrast, mass transit and rail spending really IS a tiny fraction of the whole bill, in fact pathetically tiny, at a time when ridership is up but funds are down.

The dramatic spike in gas prices that began in 2005 sent Americans flocking to trains, buses and subways, a trend that appears to have held up even as gas prices have dipped. But 2009 could be a year of crisis for the agencies that run them -- a time of more riders but much less money.

Some new funding could come as part of House Democrats' proposed $825-billion stimulus package, which, in its current form, sets aside $9 billion for public transportation. But all of that money would be used for new capital projects, not operating costs. And it is operating budgets -- the money agencies need to run the systems they have now -- that are getting hammered.

If service cuts or increased fares become widespread, transit operators around the country fear they will drive away the new converts they picked up when gas prices were high.

Operating existing transit and rail lines keep jobs intact and reduce carbon emissions, as well as regularize mass transit as a factor in people's lives.

The stimulus isn't a horrible bill, and there's a lot to like in there, particularly in the energy and health care provisions. But it's certainly Chamber of Commerce-friendly at a time when their member organizations are laying off tens of thousands. Obama has maintained this sugar plum fairy vision of bipartisanship, yet his bill manifestly does NOT value "what works" over ideology. Quite the opposite. It makes room for ideology, conservative ideology, and pre-empts provisions that would work much better in bringing back the economy. Despite a mandate for major new social and economic programs from the public, Obama is still playing small ball. He's responding to Republican hissy fits and teaching them that all they have to do to wring a concession is scream for a day or so and let their media allies whip up a frenzy. He's offering half-measures when they won't do the job.

If this bill is a blueprint for the next four years, it's going to be a missed opportunity. Also painful.

UPDATE: Good thing all that nastiness was taken out and those nice corporate tax breaks put in. It's really seemed to bring everyone together.

President Barack Obama is coming to the Capitol this afternoon to curry favor with congressional Republicans. But it appears GOP leaders have already made up their minds to oppose his $825 billion stimulus plan.

House Republican Leader John A. Boehner and his No. 2, Whip Eric Cantor, told their rank-and-file members Tuesday morning during a closed-door meeting to oppose the bill when it comes to the floor Wednesday, according to an aide familiar with the discussion. Boehner told members that he's voting against the stimulus, and Cantor told the assembled Republicans that there wasn't any reason for them to support the measure, according to another person in the room. Cantor and his whip team are going to urge GOP members to oppose it.

Ahh, post-partisanship.

Registered Voter By Birth

As the last of the lawsuits against ACORN gets laughed out of court, and as Republican Secretaries of State grumble about having to reinstate voters to the rolls, it's clear that, no matter what happens in the election, this insanity around voter registration and zombie lies about voter fraud has to stop. Exhibit A is the fact that John McCain's own head of his "Honest And Open Election Committee" can't name any evidence of voter fraud.

But Ronald Michaelson, a veteran election administrator and member of the McCain-Palin Honest and Open Election Committee, said in an interview that he could not name a single instance in which this had occurred.

“Do we have a documented instance of voting fraud that resulted from a phony registration form? No, I can’t cite one, chapter and verse,” he said [...]

Asked for specifics about the dangers of fake registration, Ben Porritt, a spokesman for the McCain campaign, provided links to 13 news clips and a 2003 Missouri state auditor’s report. Eleven of the cases did not involve registration fraud. Two recounted how felons appeared to have cast illegal votes under their own names. The lone example of a forged registration leading to an illegitimate vote comes from The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund, who in April 2006 wrote that a community organizer had improperly registered a noncitizen, and “someone eventually voted in [the noncitizen’s] name.”

Michaelson, who served for 27 years as executive director of the Illinois Board of Elections, said the sharp exchanges over registration fraud have undermined voters’ confidence in the electoral system.

“The fact that so many of these illegal registrations are being made public raises a perception in the minds of people,’’ he said. “That’s more of a general concern. You don’t want to perpetuate the idea that our election process is lacking integrity.”

Asked whether his own party was responsible for fostering that perception, Michaelson said, “Well, it doesn’t help. It has captured the attention of a lot of people.” Why do it, then? “Maybe it’s because there’s nothing else to talk about,” he said.

Boy, he is part of a committee with the word "honest" in it, isn't he?

This is one of those "problems" that actually has a solution, a very smart and nonpartisan solution that would be simple to implement and would eliminate a lot of unnecessary labor. Rick Hasen asks for America to nationalize voter registration.

The solution is to take the job of voter registration for federal elections out of the hands of third parties (and out of the hands of the counties and states) and give it to the federal government. The Constitution grants Congress wide authority over congressional elections. The next president should propose legislation to have the Census Bureau, when it conducts the 2010 census, also register all eligible voters who wish to be registered for future federal elections. High-school seniors could be signed up as well so that they would be registered to vote on their 18th birthday. When people submit change-of-address cards to the post office, election officials would also change their registration information.

This change would eliminate most voter registration fraud. Government employees would not have an incentive to pad registration lists with additional people in order to keep their jobs. The system would also eliminate the need for matches between state databases, a problem that has proved so troublesome because of the bad quality of the data. The federal government could assign each person a unique voter-identification number, which would remain the same regardless of where the voter moves. The unique ID would prevent people from voting in two jurisdictions, such as snowbirds who might be tempted to vote in Florida and New York. States would not have to use the system for their state and local elections, but most would choose to do so because of the cost savings.

There's something in this for both Democrats and Republicans. Democrats talk about wanting to expand the franchise, and there's no better way to do it than the way most mature democracies do it: by having the government register voters. For Republicans serious about ballot integrity, this should be a winner as well. No more ACORN registration drives, and no more concerns about Democratic secretaries of state not aggressively matching voters enough to motor vehicle databases.

Finally, universal voter registration is good for the country, not only because it will make it easier for those who wish to vote to do so, but because it should end controversy over ballot integrity that threatens to undermine the legitimacy of our election process. If President McCain or Obama makes this a priority, we can have the system ready in time for the president's re-election.

Of course, Republicans aren't serious about ballot integrity, and their opposition to this would prove it. They just want something to carp about and undermine confidence in elections. In addition, there's a credible concern, given how the current government has politicized the Department of Justice and the General Services Administration, that giving over voter registration to them might have dangerous consequences.

But of course, there are Republican Secretaries of State doing that politicization right now. And wouldn't it be nice to create an election system where people don't have to turn in a form or remember to vote at an old precinct if they missed the cutoff, a system designed to make voting easier instead of harder?

This is but one possible innovation in elections (like expanding early voting access, making Election Day a weekend or a holiday, instant runoff voting, a mandate for paper ballots, abolishing the Electoral College, etc., etc.), but it certainly would help to defuse this massive hissy fit we hear every four years like clockwork. I'd love to see Republicans oppose the concept of registering every American to vote.

Andrew Malcolm Is A Lying Hack

Here's LA Times blogger Andrew Malcolm, who was Laura Bush's press secretary in 1999-2000, trying to make something out of nothing and playing John McCain's POW card for him:

As part of its effort to show the 72-year-old Republican Sen. John McCain as old and out of touch, the Democratic Party's hip campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, which frequently says it honors the former POW's military service to his country, Friday released a new ad.

As noted Friday by our blogging colleagues over at the Technology blog here, the ad says, among other things: "1982, John McCain goes to Washington. Things have changed in the last 26 years, but McCain hasn't.

"He admits he doesn't know how to use a computer, can't send an e-mail."

Like many of his generation, McCain does not like to talk details a lot about his wartime experiences, certainly not about any lingering physical symptoms. To be honest, it could sound like complaining and, as he's ruefully noted, unlike many others, McCain did come home [...]

Here's a passage from a lengthy Boston Globe profile on McCain that was published the last time he ran for president. It was headlined "McCain character loyal to a fault." It was written by Mary Leonard.

And it was printed more than eight years ago, on March 4, 2000.

It is available online, where Jonah Goldberg of The Corner blog at the National Review found it.

"McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain's encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He's an avid fan -- Ted Williams is his hero -- but he can't raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball."

OK, it's a nice story, but here's John McCain using a Blackberry.

Here's an article from HuffPo about his learning to use Internet:

BRZEZINSKI: Does John McCain, does he use the internet? Does he use email? [...]

DAVIS: He actually is, he always is grabbing people's Blackberrys on the bus. In fact, no reporter's Blackberry is safe from his prying eyes. He loves to tool around on the internet, he especially loves the videos that get produced that usually poke fun at him. I think that's his most entertaining part of the internet.

Now, maybe his thumbs work and his fingers don't, but considering that he said in the same article that he's learning to get on the Internet by himself, I highly doubt the veracity of this. Oh, and here's Tucker Bounds claiming he travels with a laptop:

“John McCain travels with a laptop,” said McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds. “This is a senseless tactic from Obama’s campaign because they’re struggling with the realization that the American people understand he is not equipped to deliver change because his record has no bipartisanship or significant legislative accomplishment in it.”

This had the makings of another hissy fit, but it's transparent nonsense.

I hate the stupid season.

The Next Hissy Fit

Guys, here's what the traditional media is going to be talking about for the next day. We have to be prepared for it and know how to respond to it.

Today at an event in Virginia, Barack Obama mocked the McCain-Palin ticket's notion that they will change Washington. He didn't refer specifically to Gov. Palin, he didn't refer to the line she used in her convention speech about hockey moms and pit bulls. He simply used a common idiom.

"That's not change," Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said of what Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is offering. "You know, you can put lipstick on a pig," Obama said, "but it's still a pig."

The McCain campaign is going to try to frame this as a sexist remark.

Jake Tapper decided to make the connection for everyone, no doubt prodded by the McCain spin machine. He specifically connected the "lipstick on a pig" remark to Palin, despite it being an expression. Later in the same riff, Obama says that "You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called 'change,' but it's still gonna stink after eight years." Is that anti-marine life?

Ben Smith picked up on this too, claiming that "The crowd apparently took the "lipstick" line as a reference to Palin," because I'm sure he asked them all. The crowd certainly wasn't cheering simply because it was an accurate line, that McCain and Palin are a couple of liars, and that's a common phrase used to show someone trying to put a veneer over their true beliefs. Marc Ambinder has pushed back a bit on this, asking incredulously, "Suddenly, common analogies are sexist?" He also found instances of Obama using the phrase in other contexts. And there's also this:

McCain criticized Democratic contenders for offering what he called costly universal health-care proposals that require too much government regulation. While he said he had not studied Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's plan, he said it was "eerily reminiscent" of the failed plan she offered as first lady in the 1990s.

"I think they put some lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig," he said of her proposal.

Not to mention the fact that McCain has made notoriously sexist remarks in the past.

But the die is cast. If you don't think this will go large, please note that the Malkinites have already started in.

There's no doubt that this is going to turn into some giant controversy, and it's COMPLETELY MANUFACTURED. Robert Gibbs has already responded to Tapper by saying "That's an old expression," which it is. Believe me, if there was a sexist remark made by Obama or one of his surrogates, I'd be the first person to jump on it. This ain't it.

The goal here is not to badger the McCain campaign off of this: they have no honor and no shame, and will try to ram this down everyone's throat. The goal here ought to be telling the traditional media that they should give this exactly the attention it deserves, which is none. This is the kind of tailor-made manufactured story for the daytime talking heads to cackle over. We have to demand that this is removed from our politics.

UPDATE: Obama has responded to this hissy fit:

"Enough is enough The McCain campaign's attack tonight is a pathetic attempt to play the gender card about the use of a common analogy – the same analogy that Senator McCain himself used about Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's health care plan just last year. This phony lecture on gender sensitivity is the height of cynicism and lays bare the increasingly dishonorable campaign John McCain has chosen to run," said Obama campaign senior advisor Anita Dunn.

Dishonor appears to be a theme that the Obama campaign is trying to push. More on that in a bit.

We're Getting There

Barack Obama was asked about the persistent attacks on community organizing at the RNC last night, and he eventually gets to a good response.



I thought the open was a bit defensive ("I've done a lot of things!") but then he found the nut:

I would argue that doing work in the community, to try to create jobs, to bring people together, to rejeuvenate communities that have fallen on hard times, to set up job training programs in areas that have been hard-hit when the steel plants close, that that's relevant only in understanding where I'm coming from, who I believe in, who I'm fighting for, and why I'm in this race. And the question I have for them is, why would that kind of work be ridiculous? Who are they fighting for? What are they advocating for? Do they think that the lives of those folks who are struggling each and every day, that working with them to try to improve their lives is somehow not relevant to the Presidency? I think maybe that's the problem. That's part of why they're out of touch and they don't get it, because they haven't spent much time working on behalf of those folks.

You combine this with an uproar over the "uppity" remarks, and we have the makings of a hissy fit.

I should remind you that John McCain, who talks about serving a cause greater than himself, today cancelled a Habitat for Humanity event because, I guess, that sight of people actually helping their communities would be too blinding for him. Either that or he just wanted to offer up one of his 12 homes instead of doing the work of building one, I don't know.

...Credo gets it. From their email:

In her acceptance speech last night at the Republican National Convention, Vice Presidential nominee and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin said, "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a `community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."

Nominally, her words were an assault on Barack Obama's early career as a community organizer on Chicago's south side. But the impact reaches farther than that and is a direct affront to the thousands who have dedicated their lives to making America great.

Community organizing is the heart and soul of American democracy. We are privileged to live in a country where people with the energy and passion to dream of a better world can put in the sweat and shoe leather to build social movements from the ground up. Indeed, if it weren't for the sacrifice of organizers, we wouldn't have many of the opportunities we take for granted today — from the 40-hour work week and the minimum wage to protections for a woman's right to choose and the right of African Americans to vote.

This is ridiculous. Tell Governor Palin to quit bashing community organizers.

UPDATE: Some great responses here. My favorite:

Community Organizers of America: The last thing we need is for Republican officials to mock us on television when we’re trying to rebuild the neighborhoods they have destroyed. Maybe if everyone had more houses than they can count, we wouldn’t need community organizers. But I work with people who are getting evicted from their only home. If John McCain and the Republicans understood that, maybe they wouldn’t be so quick to make fun of community organizers like me.

I would also accept Chris Hayes' take:

But this kind of hits me where I live, since my dad is a community organizer, so lemme spell this out: the difference between a community organizer and a politician is that a community organizer can't tell anyone what to do. They have to listen. So they can't order books banned from a library to indulge their own religious sensibilities. They can't fire someone because they didn't follow orders to fire an estranged family member. They can't ram through a $15 million dollar sports complex that leaves their local town groaning underneath the debt. Unlike politicians, they don't have any power other than the power of people who want to see something changed.

Decades ago, before the ADA and a raft of other legislation, schools had essentially no requirements to provide decent education for special needs children. Then a movement of parents, engaging in - gasp - community organizing changed that. And they continue to fight day in and day out for educational equity for children like Sarah Palin's.

Too bad Sarah Palin just spit in their faces.

Thank You Sarah Palin

This is the right tone.



In a nation ripped asunder by right-wing policies, community organizers are often the last line of defense. Leaders of this nation like Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Susan B. Anthony, even Thomas Paine and Sam Adams, were community organizers. As this fellow writes today, Jesus was a community organizer and Pilate was a governor.

The question, of course, is whether or not this indignation can be sustained and loud enough. There are a lot of factors working against this, like the no liberals on the teevee rule.

But a speech designed for the backlash, for the Orthogonians, can be turned right around if there's a sufficient amount of political will. And by the way, the reaction among the country wasn't universally positive, so there's an opening here.

Off The Reservation

The McCain campaign is going to war today, trying to throw a hissy fit over the coverage of their VP pick, claiming that the librul media and the "angry left" (ah, what a joy to have that back in the lexicon) is being unrepentantly sexist in their reactions, turning Sarah Palin into a martyr. The conservative base, whipped into a frenzy over the selection, loves nothing more than being permanently aggrieved, the persecuted minority, and so this will play very well with them. So will attacking the press, which is a common tool in their toolkit. Joe Klein describes this fairly well, actually.

Steve Schmidt has decided, for tactical reasons, to slime the press. He wants the public to believe that there is an unfair--sexist (you gotta love it)--personal assault going on against Palin and her family. This is a smokescreen, intended to divert attention from the fact the very real and responsible vetting that is taking place in the media--about the substance of Palin's record as mayor and governor. Sure, there are a few outliers--and the tabloid press--who have fixed on baby stories. That was inevitable....the flip side of the personal stories that the McCain team thought would work to their advantage--Palin's moose-hunting and wolf-shooting, and her admirable decision to have a Down Syndrome baby. And yes, when we all fix on the same story, whether it's a hurricane or a little-known politician, a zoo ensues. But the media coverage of the Palin story has been well within the bounds of responsibility. Schmidt is trying to make it seem otherwise, a desperate tactic.

There is a tendency in the media to kick ourselves, cringe and withdraw, when we are criticized. But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is "a task from God." The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme.

The problem the McCain campaign is coming up against is that some of their minions are either uncomfortable with or unaware of the new talking points, leading to Meg Whitman calling the media reaction completely fair. And then there's this delightful bit of off-mike, off-message fun from none other than Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy.



The first rule of throwing a hissy fit is that everyone actually knows about it and stays on message. McCain's campaign is so erratic and flailing that they can't even pull off the one thing Republicans know how to do in their sleep.

No Brains At All

The wingnut hissy fit has been found! It's Barack Obama's staging! How dare he use a backdrop looking like the Lincoln Memorial on the 45th anniversary of MLK's I Have A Dream speech! How dare Obama use Greek columns the way Bush did in 2004!

Really, sometimes I hate being alive because of these people.

Hang Her High

This is ridiculous, and while I know that Democrats are generally disinclined to hissy fits, they ought to show some backbone and rally behind their Speaker on this one, simply to change the conversation.

Responding to questions over whether Pelosi could call a special session - which Democrats insist won’t happen - and vote on other issues that Republicans may not want to face, such as an expansion of childrens’ [sic] health insurance programs, which President Bush and GOP congressional leaders have opposed.

“She’s gonna bring us back and not deal with it? The American people are gonna hang her,” Boehner said. When pressed further, Boehner said it would “be fine, as long as we get a vote on our bill.”

Reps. Miller and Markey have released statements, but of course the difference between the Republican hissy fit and the Democratic hissy fit is that the media reports on the Republican one. The hope here is to discredit these stammering GOP fits from now on.

Look, occasionally political figures and officials are going to say intemperate things. They’ll generate criticism, which is often deserved. But since being relegated to minority status, Republicans, most notably Boehner himself, have been in high dudgeon at the drop of a hat, as if their delicate sensibilities and virgin ears can’t bear to hear a Democrat say a discouraging word.

Given this, Boehner can’t be too surprised if the umbrage wars start moving in his direction — he did, after all, talk publicly (albeit metaphorically) about violence towards the House Speaker.

IOKIYAR is a defense, but it’s not a compelling one given Boehner’s repeated hysterical fits every time he hears a Dem say something that sends him looking for a feinting couch.

A lot of the problem with Democrats in Washington is that they're unwilling to be as stupid as media coverage demands. My preference is that they run this on a loop on the House floor but unfortunately it's a better bet that screaming "the Minority Leader called for the hanging of the Speaker" will be a squeakier wheel to get the grease.