Republicans' Self-Destruction

Yesterday's dramatic defeat of the bailout bill on the House floor shot shivers down my spine and made me really worried about the future of our (and world's) economy. But, a small moment of gratification came when I realized that by defeating the bill, the House Republicans were self-destructing.

First, they threw McCain under the bus. In the past 2 weeks, McCain proceeded to "put the country first" by dramatically suspending his campaign, running around the Capitol Hill, pretending to frantically call people from his D.C. campaign headquarters, and railed against Obama's supposed exploitation of the situation for political purposes. He returned to the campaign trail yesterday, triumphantly claiming nothing less than a Napoleonic victory in rallying the Republican support for the bill. Literally, an hour later, the traders on the stock-market and millions of Americans watched the bill go down in one of the most memorable moments on the floor of the American House of Representatives. The market proceeded to lose more than 7% of its value, marking the greatest one day plummet in the history of capitalism. Thanks McCain for your wonderful and effective leadership. I guess experience does count.

More than wrecking McCain's campaign, the House Republicans probably destroyed the Republican party for years to come. While they voted NO primarily with their re-election chances in mind (and taking into account the anger from their constituents regarding the bailout bill) it is certain that their vote plunged the economy even further into the abyss. The fact that many of them justified voting NO by clinging to the right-wing narrow-minded ideology of Reagan that sees any regulation as the ultimate evil--the very ideology that got us to where we are--ensured that it would be the Republicans who would be blamed for the failure of the bill and the continuing deterioration of our collective economy health.

Yes, it is true that many Democrats also voted NO, but let's remember that the Democratic leadership lived up to its end of the bargain and delivered more than 60% of its caucus. Thus, once the voters realize just how necessary this bailout had been they will swiftly turn around and blame their representatives for furthering wrecking their daily lives. Voters are fickle. While many of them don't support the bailout right now, the polls show that most of them are simply confused about the details of it. Had the Republicans had the political courage and principles to stand in front of the American people and explain why this was necessary after the Bush Republican Party wrecked our economy, they might have gotten some political benefit out of it. This way they will be blamed for putting their re-election bids ahead of the country's interests.

David Brooks rarely says anything I agree with, but I couldn't agree with him more this morning when he said in his NYT editorial: "House Republicans led the way and will get most of the blame. It has been interesting to watch them on their single-minded mission to destroy the Republican Party." No amount of spin can save them from a devastating defeat in November.

Tina Fey as Sarah Palin--Hillarious

McCain is Unfit for Presidency

Friday night's debate between John McCain and Barack Obama showed once again that John McCain is as unqualified to run this country as Sarah Palin. His demeanor on that stage is just not worthy of a leader of a country that has had to endure 8 years of Bushies.

Consistently, Obama showed his deference to this supposed veteran of foreign affairs, but McCain could not conceal his contempt for Obama: not once, did he look at him, and every time Obama spoke, McCain smirked, grinned, and uttered incomprehensible sighs, shifting from foot to foot (but this might have been his exhaustion after having to stand for more than 10 minutes). McCain exhibited all the characteristics that the American people hate to see in their potential leaders: grouchiness, sense of self entitlement to the Presidency, contempt for your opponent as if he/she doesn't have as much right to be on that stage as you, and just overall sense of dread and pessimism. McCain was Reagan stripped of any optimism or good-natured humor.

The debate once again showed that Obama would probably be one of the best presidents we have had in a while. His answers were crisp and precise, but yet extremely thoughtful. This man is deliberate always weighing all possible perspectives before coming down with his own opinion. His hope in the good nature of the American people is genuine and it really comes across through his demeanor, especially his smile. At the risk of sounding superficial, Obama's smile alone would do so much to improve our standing in the world. Compare that to McCain's smirk that never leaves his face.

On Friday night, we had a chance to see two faces of America. I think the polls increasingly show which face the Americans want to present to the world after 8 agonizing years of W.

Proud to be a Liberal--West-Wing style

Courtesy of my friend's blog, here is a little stimulant for all those discouraged liberals out there.

Hitting back hard

Another response to Republican lies from the Democrats....

Why We Are in Trouble!

Watching parts of Sarah Palin's first interview with Charles Gibson from last night, I realized that we--the Democrats, liberals, independent-minded Republicans, and all thoughtful citizens of this country--are really in trouble.

Her answers consisted of moral certitudes, unflinching self-righteousness, and knee-jerk aggressiveness all of which belied the deeply seated intellectual insecurity. But it is exactly these traits that tap into the never-ending reservoir of the average voter who probably changes the channel while Obama attempts to give thoughtful answers on complicated issues, such as the role of Iran and Russia in today's world. There was not a hint of any sort of deliberation to Sarah Palin's worldview: she knows that there is evil in the world and she would help McCain rid the world of it. Her confused look after Gibson asked her if she believed in Bush's pre-emptive strike doctrine reveals that this woman has never even questioned this man's dangerous and reckless black-and-white vision of the world. But it is exactly this certainty that appeals to many voters, and it is exactly this certainty that is undermining Obama's message.

The recent shift in McCain's strategy has been marked by an all out assault on anything Obama does, has done, or will do, without any regards for the so-called "facts" or the "truth." The result has been a complete chaos in both campaigns' messages, which is exactly what the McCain campaign wants. They have successfully thrown Obama off his message and tapped into the voters' fear that everything that politicians say will be a lie. They are fine with that because they have no issues to run on.

As Paul Krugman noted in his op-ed this morning, the way the McCain campaign has been run shows what kind of president he would be. Bush's 2000 campaign also muddled the facts, but you had to have a handle on arithmetic to understand that their tax policy was a big deception. This time around, McCain's campaign does not even attempt to hide their lies underneath a semi-truthful cover--they just simply lie and repeat it over and over again. Given the fact that Bush's 2000 campaign strategy in selling the tax policy later morphed into his strategy of selling the Iraq war, can you imagine what kind of policies McCain would employ, given the tactics of his campaign?

It is simply too scary to think about. But to quote George Bernard Shaw, "Democracy is a device that insures that we shall be governed no better than we deserve." And I am more convinced every day that this country does not deserve Barack Obama.

Obama Hits Back

Time for an all out Offensive

In the last few days I realized once again how overly optimistic I can get about the American voter. I actually hoped that most voters vote on issues, that they follow the campaign, and that they care about the specific plans the candidates are offering in improving their lives. Well, the Palin effect and McCain's bounce shows once again, as many of my friends (even on this blog) have noted, that many voters respond in a very superficial way. Despite Obama's outline of his specific policies during his acceptance speech, and the actual FACTS that are emerging about our economy (the abysmal unemployment rate, declining productivity, increasing rates of poverty), the so-called "independents" seem to be swinging McCain's way and are finding his sudden message of "change" (I wonder where he got that from) appealing. This can be explained by two factors. These voters (including many white women) are either completely and utterly uninformed or they hide behind Palin in justifying voting against an African-American candidate. There is no third explanation.

The fact that the issues and the actually state of our REALITY stands on the side of the Democrats and yet, the Republicans are rapidly gaining ground because Sarah Palin "makes us think like anyone can be President" really confirms my belief from 2004 that this democracy is in serious trouble. The fact that the Republicans at the convention treated the American people with such contempt--cynically adopting the change mantra, uttering blatant lies about the American people, denigrating the working class--and yet, they seem to have gained a considerable advantage tells me that many of our fellow voters are either completely uninformed, disinterested in what actually happens to this country, or simply stupid. Many of my Democrat friends have accused me of elitism for this observation, but I just don't know how you can explain this otherwise.

So, what are the Democrats to do? Obama has run a stellar campaign and has been on the message 100% of the time. He needs to keep doing what he has been doing so well: articulating in simplest terms possible how he will improve the lives of the American people. But at the same time, they have to release the so-called 527s. These independent organizations should serve as attack dogs who lower themselves to the level of superficiality that the Republicans are operating on (with a considerable success). They should flood the channels with TV Ads showing: 1) Sarah Palin's pastor saying that Israel deserves attacks because of God's judgment for not accepting Jesus; 2) the clip of Sarah Palin herself telling us that we are in Iraq on God's mission, and that the believers in her church should pray for the pipeline in Alaska that enriched her and her family; 3) emails need to be circulated outlining her record in Alaska while a small town mayor showing her to be an utterly incompetent mayor who drove the city's budget into a deficit, wasted millions of dollars, increased taxes, and tried to ban library books (all of these are true by the way).

Simultaneously, the Congressional Democrats have to go on a legislative offensive against the Republicans in Congress, the Bush administration, and McCain himself. How do they do this? By bringing to the floor of both the House and the Senate bills that are going to appeal to the American people (on health-care, energy independence, equal pay for women, etc), and forcing the Republicans to vote NO.

This is why for the life of me, I cannot figure out why the Congressional Democratic leadership walked away yesterday from the bill that would expand health-care for children. The Pelosi-Reid coalition has been a great disappointment in this regard. Their justification for walking away from the bill was that the Republicans would never support it and the President would veto it. Exactly!!! They should have brought that bill on the floor of both the House and the Senate, and Obama should have come to the Senate floor and invite John McCain to stand in front of the American people and vote NO on a bill that would expand health-care coverage for millions of American children. Another bill would be equal pay for women, the bill that McCain voted AGAINST in the past. Forcing the MCcain-Palin ticket to vote NO on one of the most important issues for the women of this country would destroy any possibility of Palin appealing to a single woman let alone Hillary supporters.

Then the 527s and local Democratic party headquarters should run ads against all those who voted against those bills, equating them with George Bush, and on the national level, the Obama campaign should run an ad showing McCain voting NO. And this should be inserted into the loop of Cable news on a daily basis.

But it strikes me that the Democrats have never been very good at using the little power leverage they do have on the Hill. The Congress can be pretty ineffective in forcing policy, but it is an extremely effective public relations machine that can cower the Republicans into submission or an outright defeat. Come on, Democrats! Show some frigging backbone here! And let's not have a repeat of 2004!

The Two Americas

The press needs to do its job this election and hammer the Republicans on their blatant hypocrisy that was displayed so cynically during their agonizingly long convention. For a party that accuses the Democrats on a daily basis of being "out of touch" with the ordinary people and their economic and cultural realities, the Republicans certainly displayed such contempt for the working class of this country that I think they are not fit to serve in any public office until they collectively apologize.

First all, a speaker after speaker uttered blatant lies against Obama. Guliani said (while twisting his already twisted face into an unexplainable grimace) that Obama "looks down" on small towns because they are not cosmopolitan enough. For a man who was a mayor of New York City and who, following his divorce, lived with a gay couple in a posh-part of Manhattan, to play the populist-cultural warrior card is not only transparent but is insulting to the intelligence of the American voter. Is it is possible that there are people out there who actually believe anything that comes out of that man's mouth?

Mitt Romney really topped the evening when he said that indeed change was necessary, but that we needed to change a "liberal Washington" to a conservative Washington. Another insult to the intelligence of the American people who, Mitt assumes, would not realize that it was the Republicans who had been in office for the past 8 years. His speech was also the most blatantly plagiarized version of Obama's change mantra.

But the climax came with Sarah Palin. This "pit-bull with lipstick" (her words) spent the most of her time denigrating the lives of millions of hardship-struck Americans. In particular, she (like Guliani) denigrated Obama's grassroots organizing in the South side Chicago showing blatant disrespect to hundreds of thousands of organizers who wake up every day to go to their low-paying jobs and try to be forces of change in their poverty-stricken communities. Her cynical, blatantly deceitful, and insulting behavior on that stage, should disqualify Sarah Palin from running a local Wal-mart let alone our troubled country.

Watching the sea of whiteness and oldness in that Republican crowd, I was reminded once again that in this election, the two parties do represent two different Americas. Of course, there are more than two Americas, but the demographic and ideological fault-line of this complicated country falls along the party lines. The Republicans have finally taken off their cloak of populism (despite still professing it) and came out for what they are: a party of business and corporate interests who deeply believes that working peoples' struggles are of their own making and that they should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. This is also the party that has maintained its hold on power since the Civil Rights movement often due to its cynical and chauvinistic manipulation of the race card and still continues to do so (hence the uninterrupted whiteness of the crowd). The Democrats, on the other hand, are indeed a much more inclusive party, a characteristic that makes it less disciplined and less attuned to cut-throat manipulation of reality in order to attain power. They are the party that unites the lunch-box workers, latte-drinking professionals, gay/lesbian/ally activists, civil rights veterans, among other demographics (excuse my boxing in of peoples' identities here, but I do think it helps us see the complex reality in a more comprehensive way).

I have nothing in common with the Republican America. This is an America that looks at the world through its own self-definition and expects it to conform to its own idea of what it should look like. This is an America that believes that blue-collar workers like my parents should be left on their own and should not necessarily be guaranteed decent retirement. This is an America that believes that my gay and lesbian friends should not be allowed to visit each other in hospitals when, God forbid, something happens; or that they should be allowed to adopt children from under-funded and often abusive foster homes. This is an intolerant America that in its religious self-righteousness, puritanism, and ideological fanaticism despises any hint of intellectual curiosity and expects absolute conformity to its views.

The Democratic America is a more playful America. It is an America that is more self-critical, more intellectually curious, and more open to advice from other countries. It is an America that due to its diversity cannot maintain any ideological or religious homogeneity over its followers. As a result, the Democratic America not only encourages, but often insists on questionings what are often seen as the founding tenants of American life: values, family, religion, war on terror, etc. It is an America that is impatient with certainties, knowing that these result in tyranny.

I feel like I came to this country in search of the Democratic America and in the past eight years I have felt like this America has been under a continuous assault by the Republican America.

This is why there is so much at stake for me in this election.

The Obama Narrative

An excellently crafted video biography of Barack.

Why They Support Sarah Palin

When asked why she supports Sarah Palin for VP, a Republican supporter said:

"Well I love Sarah because she makes us feel like anyone can be President!"

This pretty much sums up the collective IQ of the Sarah Palin voting base.