More Patakis

I sometimes hear Democrats grumbing about George Pataki having moved so far to the left that he's getting support from unions and other groups that normally align themselves with Democrats. In fact he's become almost indistinguishable on most issues from his Democratic challenger, Carl MCCall (really indistinguishable, not the faux-indistinguishable muddying the waters that we get in many other races). He's even provoked a real conservative into running against him as an independent. Lots of proggressives are treating this as a bad thing, since it hurts McCall's chance at election. What the fuck are they thinking?

This isn't a sports league in which I want my team to win no matter what, but where winning or losing doesn't have much of a real world effect. This is the real world, and I only care about winning because political decisions affect real people. I want the policies I favor put into place, and I couldn't care less who does it. If the Monster Raving Loony Party took over the White House and pushed through an increase in the minimum wage, a steeply progressive tax code, relaxed drug laws, and starting building high speed rail, I'd be all for it. The policies are what matter, not the labels attached to them.

Progressives should cheer like mad when a formerly conservative Governor (and Pataki was first elected as a conservative) starts governing like a liberal in order to get reelected. That's really good news. We should welcome anyone who wants to support our causes, regardless of their affiliation.

Of course, this only goes for people willing to actually push for legislation and vote the right way at crunch time, rather than just mouth the proper words at election time. I couldn't give a shit how moderate Gordon Smith, Lamar Alexander, and Susan Collins claim to be, they'll still be voting to make Trent Lott the Majority Leader and they'll still support the wingnuts in the leadership on any close votes. They're not really supporting the things they claim to care about. Lincoln Chafee is a different case, because he votes the right way on most close votes. He walks the walk. Now, if he'd just stop voting for Trent Lott as Majority Leader.......

The Smoking Gun

found via See the Forest

Board was told of risks before Bush stock sale

One week before George W. Bush's now-famous sale of stock in Harken Energy Corp. in 1990, Harken was warned by its lawyers that Bush and other members of the troubled oil company's board faced possible insider trading risks if they unloaded their shares.

and

The Globe contacted four former SEC officials who worked on the Bush case; none of them recalled seeing the memo in question. None would speak about the case on the record, but a July 1991 memo from the SEC investigators to their boss reveals that they were having difficulty securing documents from Bush, who was holding many items back, saying they were private correspondence between him and his lawyer.

''Bush has produced a small amount of additional documents, which provide little insight as to what Harken nonpublic information he knew and when he knew it,'' the memo said.

The SEC nevertheless cleared Bush on Aug. 21, 1991. One day later Bush's lawyer - Robert Jordan, now the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia - turned over the legal memorandum outlining concerns about insider trading. The nine-page memo, dated June 15, 1990, was titled ''Liability for Insider Trading and Short-Term Swing Profits'' and addressed the possibility that Harken board members might know more about the spinoff plan, which included a stock rights offering, than the general public did.

The memo, did not instruct the board members whether to sell. One week after the memo was written, Bush sold his stock. In the following six months, the stock price dropped from $4 per share to $1.25 per share, although the price later recovered.

and

The crucial question is whether Bush was motivated to sell when he did by information he learned at the special meeting of Harken directors on May 17, five weeks before he sold his stock. The meeting was held at a moment of crisis for the company, which was expected to run out of cash within three days, according to internal documents. One Harken memo related to the rights offering says the company had ''no other source of immediate financing'' if the deal was not completed.

Given the front page of the NY Times, screaming pundits on TV, 24/7 shoutfest treatment that Whitewater (in which the Clinton's actually lost money) got, why does this have so little attention paid to it?

Bush went to a meeting that laid out a pretty bad future for his company, was warned that selling stock would be considered insider trading, sold it anyway, stalled investigators until they dropped the case, and only then released evidence that he'd known he was doing wrong. Where's the outrage?

Oh, and his Dad was President (and, hence, boss of every at the SEC) at the time.

Reading

For more on the below, check out America's Forgotten Majority: Why the White Working Class Still Matters and The Emerging Democratic Majority by Joel Rogers and Ruy Teixeira, They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Will Dominate the Next Political Era by EJ Dionne, and The Politics of Rich and Poor: Wealth and the American Electorate in the Reagan Aftermath by Kevin Phillips (check out the reviews by all the pissed off Reaganistas).

I haven't read The Conscience of a Liberal: Reclaiming the Compassionate Agenda by Paul Wellstone, but I've just ordered it.

2004

Was scouting through 2000 election returns looking for patterns, found one. Eleven states were won with under 50% of the vote. Other than Florida and New Mexico, they were all states in which the white working class is the dominant vote.

Gore won Florida (yes, Florida) Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Oregon, New Mexico, and Maine with less than 50%. Florida is a special case, with its odd mix of retired ethnic Yankees, Cubans, blacks, and crackers. New Mexico is a state in which the policies that appeal to white rural voters (specifically those concerning guns and farm policy) will likely appeal to rural Hispanics also. The others all have rural and urban working class whites as the critical swing votes.

Bush won Ohio, New Hampshire, Missouri with less than 50% of the vote. They also have rural and urban working class whites as the critical swing votes.

Bush also won Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Tennessee, and Virginia with less than 52% of the vote. Gore won Vermont, Washington, Michigan, and Pennsylvania with less than 52% of the vote. All these have rural and urban white working class voters as the critical swing vote.

Maybe, just maybe, we could stop pandering to the donor class and the fickle wired workers long enough to pay attention to the people who actually decide elections one way or the other. I'm not saying we should try to out pander the Christian Coalition and the NRA on social issues (ain't gonna happen, wouldn't be a good idea even if it could). But we could easily switch the emphasis in elections to things that make good policy and good politics at the same time.

Examples

Tax Policy:
Instead of fighting Bush's slanting of the tax policy towards the rich with the status quo, we should slant the fucker back in his face. Propose freezing Bush's tax cuts that go to the top brackets, combined with lifting the current cap on Social Security payments. Eliminate the lower tax rates for capital gains.

Use the money gained to make Social Security tax deductible and double the personal deduction. A couple hundred million people will save billions in taxes (pretty much anyone making less than 200k/family). A few million will pay billions more in taxes. Good trade.

Education
Dump stupid ideas like making college tuition tax deductible (if you can afford the tuition, you don't need the help as much as other people), and stop giving so many grants to private universities where the costs are especialy high.

Pump tons of money into underperforming schools, especially those in poor urban and rural areas. Hire a shitload more teachers (put a hiring freeze on administrators, we've already got enough of those) and pay them better (better pay lets you be pickier about who you hire and who you keep around). Use the increases in staffing and pay to negotiate a deal with the unions to make it easier to dump dead wood.

Dump race based Affirmative Action in college admissions and replace it with preferences based on socioeconomic and educational level of the parents.

These would help the majority of struggling people (of any race) while harming the people at the top who need the least help. The press and Republicans, of course, would scream boody murder. But we don't need their votes. FDR didn't become the most beloved President in history by pandering to the people who already disliked him, he did it by helping the people who needed help even if it meant pissing off the rich and powerful.

Better to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted than the reverse.

Questions

If Trent Lott getting booed at Paul Wellstone's memorial service shows a complete lack of class on the part of some Minnesota Democrats (which I think it does), why didn't Hillary Clinton getting booed at a memorial service for lost firefighters in New York last year say the same thing about New York Republicans?

I remember at the time it was being used as an example of how much ordinary people disliked Hillary (ignoring, of course, the fact that she carried upstate New York in her Senate campaign). None of the talking heads ever made a peep about how unbelievably tacky it is to boo someone at a memorial service then. Why is it suddenly a problem now.

Are things that would otherwise be completely unacceptable just fucking peachy if aimed at a Clinton?

On a related note, why doesn't Andrew Sullivan ever complain about gay-baiting directed towards Democrats who really are gay (like Barney Frank) or against ones who aren't (like Hillary Clinton)? Is calling Hillary a dyke okay since she's a Clinton? And is calling Frank Barney Fag okay since he's a Democrat?

Why don't the few Democrats allowed to be talking heads (other than a certain lizard-headed Cajun) ever point shit like this out?

Saw My First Race-Baiting TV Ad Of The Season

The 4th Congressional District in Tennessee is largely rural, largely white, Democratic-leaning, and vacant because the current wingnut incumbent (swept in on the Republican tide of '94) is busy panderi running for Governor.

The favorite in the race is State Senator Lincoln Davis a rural, white good-ole-boy who fits the distrcit pretty well. This is a problem for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which apparently doesn't think that white distrcits should be represented by Democrats. They decided to fix this by pointing out that Davis is supported by Yankee negroes with funny hair.

Since the bizarrely shaped 4th District is partially in Nashville's viewing area, I see an ad for that race every once in a while. So far they've been a pretty standard split of Lincoln Davis is a great guy and will personally end the stalemate in Washington if elected and Lincoln Davis is a tax and spend liberal who wants to socialize healthcare and make abortions mandatory. For some reason, I've yet to see a single positive ad for the Republican candidate, whatever her name is.

Yesterday I saw a new ad from the NRCC. Along with the surprising news that Grover Norquist's front group doesn't think much of Democrats, we find that, low and behold, Lincoln Davis got a contribution from New York liberal Charlie Rangel, complete with a picture of Rangel and his carefully ironed hair. Lincoln Davis has raised several hundred thousand dollars from thousands of people, but they chose to single out the one well know black guy in the bunch in an ad for an overwhelmingly white district. Coincidence?

Wellstone Had More Class Than That

I really don't like Trent Lott. I think he's a hypocritical shitbag who happily sells out needy kids in favor of fatcat contributors. He's also got a silly hairpiece.

That said, I was really pissed off to find out that Lott got booed at Paul Wellstone's memorial service in Minnesota. He was going to the funeral of a coworker he liked personally, even if he disagreed with him professionally. It's not as if he showed up at the Democratic Convention expecting a warm welcome. He was going to the funeral of a coworker he liked personally. Shouldn't he have been allowed to do so without being singled out for derision?

You can be damned sure that Paul Wellstone would never have booed anyone at the memorial service of a coworker, no matter how much he disliked the guy or disagreed with him politically. He had too much class for that. I'm sorry to hear that some of his supporters don't.

Backlash?

Since the House of Saud has refused to allow us use of Saudi bases to launch an attack on Iraq, we've been shifting forces to Qatar, a smaller and more moderate Gulf state. Unfortunately, Qatari tolerance of the US military appears to have provoked an attempted coup, led by foreign born (mostly Pakistani and Yemeni) military officers and a few disaffected members of the Royal Family. According to the Agonist, the coup was put down partly by plain clothed US military forces. Hundreds have been arrested. Lean Left, Counterspin, and the Christian Science Monitor also are on the story, but the Agonist was the first to realize what a truly big deal this could have been (and may well turn out to be).

The mainstream US press was presumably too busy interviewing the Son of Sam to be bothered with something as trivial as an attempted coup inspired by militant Islam against one of our closest allies in a region where we may soon be at war. After all, it's not as if losing a close ally (or even getting close to doing so) would make us look like weaklings who can't protect our friends right as we're trying to persuade other countries (some of which are less stable than Qatar) to take major risks in backing our play. Or as if we would find it almost impossible to invade Iraq without bases in Qatar. Nope. None of that matters. Guess we should get back to our regularly scheduled Nation of Islam, assault weapon, and dangerous loner speculation hour.

The Reagan Myth

I've noticed something getting dangerously close to a commonly accepted American myth. Most recently, Matthew Yglesias (who's a really good blogger and, in his defense, isn't old enough to remember the 80's very well) fell victim to it, and so have a whole lot of other people of the center-left. Lately, it's been thrown into columns as a way of showing evenhandedness (See, I can say good things about Republicans, so you know I'm being honest). It's time to nip this fucker in the bud.

The myth goes something like this:
Ronald Reagan saw that drastically increasing American defense spending and funding anti-communist rebellions around the world would bankrupt the Soviets and lead to the inevitable collapse of their Communist empire.
There's only one problem: It didn't happen.

Reagan used the strength of the Soviets to justify his defense buildup, not their weakness. He argued that we would be swamped by the Communist juggernaut if we didn't go on our massive spending spree. No one thought it would lead to the fall of the Soviet Union. I'm not saying Only a few people. I'm saying No one. Their collapse was completely unanticipated, and it's anticipation was never a factor in American military or foreign policy strategy. The whole Reagan saw what would happen line was made up after the fact by people who wanted to score political points off an event that no one in the US planned for or caused.

In fact, we had trouble accepting the Soviet collapse even as we watched it on CNN. A lot of neo-conservatives refused to accept that things had fundamentally changed even after the Berlin Wall came down, and even as Gorbachev himself was liberalizing the Soviet system. Some of them were even arguing that we should prop up the Soviets (but not their empire) to ensure stability in the region.

But, even if Reagan didn't do it intentionally, doesn't he deserve the credit for bringing down the Soviet Union (even unintentionally) through his military buildup? The short answer is No. The long answer is: A little, but just for continuing the post-war policies of his predecessors.

First off, American military spending did not bring down the Soviet Union. It collapsed from its own internal corruption and systemic rot, not from any outside threat. In fact, some people have speculated that Reagan's belligerant posture actually delayed the Soviet collapse, as they were united in their fear of what he would do if they showed any weakness.

Most of the credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union, its empire, and its command economy has to go to Josef Stalin and the other monkeys who designed the piece of shit in the first place. They put together an untenable economic system with absolutely no chance of competing with Western market economies, a social system which was far less attractive than the freedom of the West, and an unstable mix of nationalities which all resented like hell being dominated by Russians. It was destined for collapse the moment it was created, and Papa Joe gets most of the credit for that.

In the West, I would credit Harry Truman, Dean Acheson, and George Marshall above all else. While the Republicans in Congress were urging that we resume our pre-war isolationism and our allies were attempting to reestablish their pre-war empires, these men put into motion things which would make it difficult for the Soviets to expand by conquest and almost impossible for them to expand any other way.

The Marshall Plan, in which the United States donated billions of doallrs to rebuild a shattered Europe, did more for American prestige worldwide and did more to secure Western Europe to our side than any action ever taken. Not only did we have the grattitude of millions of American-loving Europeans, but we also gave them an attractive alternative to communism. Once market economies and basic feedoms were established across Western Europe, there was no way they would voluntarily trade them in for the Soviet model. It just didn't have the appeal of our system. Without the Marshall Plan communism would have had much more of a draw, as a shitty command economy is still preferable to starving to death.

The system of containment, in which we essentially hemmed in the Soviets and limited their ability to expand through force, also played a major part. Creation of NATO, the basing of American troops in Germany, and our intervention in Korea (with an honorable mention to the Berlin Airlift) all served to limit Soviet expansionism. They also ensured that there would be prosperous market economies right next to the Soviet Union and its puppet states, which would cause them massive headaches down the road.

Of course, dissent within the Soviet empire played a big part in its eventual collapse. Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, and uncounted others made it very hard for the Soviets to rule over Eastern Europe unimpeded. These braves souls, who risked far more than any American, reminded all of the oppressed people that they had strength in numbers and could continue to struggle for a better life. Without them, the Soviet empire would be standing today.

Let's not forget Gorby. I'm sure that the Soviet Union would have evetually collapsed no matter what its leaders did, but it could easily have doddered on for decades more while slowly squeezing the life out of its victims (see Korea, North; also Mets, NY). Its evetual collapse could have been very, very bloody and may even have provoked a nuclear war (if not with the US, then with China, or even internally). Gorbachev had the sense to see that things had to change, which he tried to do gradually. When the train got out of his control, he let it go on without him instead of instituting the kind of repression that would've been needed to stop it.

Finally, I'd like a big shout out to human nature. As workers and managers in command economies figured out that hard work doesn't bring any real benefits and less work could usually be gotten away with, they slowed down or stopped work entirely. As Eastern Europeans fled to a better life in the West, they forced the Soviets to put massive resources into keeping them in. As East German viewers saw the lavish lifestyle depicted on West German television, they became harder to keep happy in the East. It's natural to want comfort, freedom ,and material plenty. Since the West could provide them and the East couldn't, it became very hard for the East to keep its people in line.

As you can see, there are a whole lot of people who should get credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union, but no one person who should be thought of as having brought it down. I know many out there love their single causation theories and others just want an excuse to deify the guy who brought us the Laffer Curve and quadrupled the National Debt. But Reagan doesn't get this one, he didn't bring down the Soviet Union. Shit, he wasn't even in office when the Berlin Wall came down. He was busy making speeches for seven figures. You know what......I was still in uniform. Why not give me the credit? At least I was still in the fight, and it's not any sillier than giving sole credit to Saint Ron. Yeah, that's the ticket. Fuck those other guys, I brought down the Soviet Union. Sure I did.

Mike Huckabee Is An Asshole

The whole sordid tale is here, but I'll give you the short version:
Two women are dead because Mike Huckabee bought into a bunch of anti-Clinton bullshit.

A high school student was raped by a guy named Wayne Dumond. Dumond, who had several prior arrests and had once plea-bargained his way out of a murder rap by testifying for the prosecution, was convicted and sent to jail for a long time. This would ordinarily have been the end of the matter, but politics intervened.

Unfortunately for everyone involved except Dumond, the victim was a distant relation of Bill Clinton. The Clinton-haters in Arkansas, led by an idiot named Jay Cole who happens to be good friends with Mike Huckabee, started insisting that Dumond was railroaded by Clinton (who'd recused himself from the case) and his cronies. This neatly tied in with all their Clinton conspiracy theories (See what happens when you cross one of his relatives!).

The Clinton-haters kept up the drumbeat of disinformation until, once Bubba was in the White House, they attracted the attention of some cocksucker named Steve Dunleavy. He wrote several columns for the NY Post not only insisting that Dumond was innocent and that the victim was a liar, but that there was DNA evidence exonerating Dumond (there wasn't). I doubt Dunleavy bothered to investigate the accuracy of the information he was being fed, and I doubt he cared. It was just more anti-Clinton filth to spread around.

Mike Huckabee, being one of the hard-core Clinton-haters himself, bought into all this bullshit being spread around about this poor Vietnam Vet railroaded by the Clintoons. When he became Governor, he immediately announced that he was going to commute Dumond's sentence to time served. Unexpectedly, he caught a lot of shit for this (it's amazing how many of the haters think everyone agrees with them). Not only did the victims whole small town raise hell, but so did the statewide law enforcement organizations. Meeting with the victims family, Huckabee obviously had gotten almost all his information from the NY Post and his buddies, not from the actual police files, and didn't know what the hell he was talking about.

Wanting to free Dumond without provoking any further backlash. Huckabee had Dumond transferred to another jail (where he could have another hearing after being turned down for parole at his old one), then leaned on the parole board (in an illegal closed-door session) to let him go. The board, which had just voted not to free Dumond, reversed itself and paroled him.

A short time later, Wayne Dumond apparently raped and killed a woman in Missouri, for which he will stand trial soon. He's a suspect in another rape-murder, also in Missouri.

Huckabee has since lied about his role in Dumond's release and has attempted to shift the blame elsewhere. Unfortunately for him, evidence has come up and people have testified to his role in the freeing of a rapist who went on to become and murderer.

I Always Hated That Guy

In a two part series, Dwight Meredith has George W Bush pegged. He's not Poppy, he's not Ronnie, He's Eddie fucking Haskell:

Eddie Haskell of Leave it to Beaver fame is an American icon. Everyone knows a kid like Eddie. When the parents are around, Eddie is pure sweetness and light: “Yes, Mrs. Cleaver; No, Mrs. Cleaver; You’re looking particularly lovely today, Mrs. Cleaver.” When the parents are not watching, however, Eddie is full of disrespect and mischief making.

George W. Bush is a lot like Eddie Haskell. When a political issue is in the national spotlight, he is all sweetness and light. When the television lights fade, however, his position changes.

We saw that aspect of Mr. Bush’s personality during the campaign. As he smiled and waved at the crowd, unaware that the microphone was on, Mr. Bush said that a New York Times reporter was a “major league a**hole.” “Big time,” replied Eddie’s friend, Lumpy. That attitude has carried over to the White House...........

........... One can almost hear the public, like the parents of Eddie’s friends, say, “What a nice young man the President is. He saw the problem of corporate fraud and now he has solved it.”

Iraq, elections and snipers diverted the public’s attention. The television lights went out. Then George Bush, like Eddie Haskell, changed his tone.

It's been pointed out by others that you can actually predict what Bush is going to cut by where he visits. If he shows up at a Head Start center, you know the axe is gonna fall on Head Start. If he goes to a senior center, then senior centers are getting the knife. If Bush visits a National Park, then Smokie's gonna take it up the ass.

Like Eddie telling Mrs Cleaver I'll make sure no one picks on Beaver while you're away, he's actually telling you what he's planning. Karl Rove is probably doing this on purpose. The theory is that when Bush's actual plans provoke howls of outrage, he'll be partially inoculated against damage since everyone saw him hugging a tree/kid/senior on television. It probably works, too.

This extends, of course, to Bush's personal relationships with people. He strikes me as the sort of smarmy frat guy who would excel at sucking up to the parents, as he's been so adept at doing to others. The most famous example was his vaunted ability to charm the press during the campaign. Like Eddie, he would say and do anything to get people do to what he wanted, while being his normal asshole self behind their backs. He told Frank Bruni that he loved him, for chrissakes. How could anyone not see that for the sycophantic, Eddie Haskel suck-up move it so obviously was? Are people that blind when they're being complimented? Was Candy Crowley so smitten that she couldn't tell she was exactly the kind of girl Bush made fun of back at Yale? Is the American public as big a sucker as June Cleaver?

I knew suck-ups in high school, I knew suck-up's in the Navy, I've known suck-up's in the working world, and I've hated every fucking one of them. I wasn't raised to suck up to people and I haven't raised my son to, either. I guess I'll have to just go on hating the insincere Eddie Haskells of the world, and hope that people start to see through them.

Viking Kittens!

found via Antidotal

Now It's Time To Freak Out

I come in 7th out of 198,466 hits for murdered young journalist.

Ken Layne comes in 3rd.

And Now For Something Completely Different

I was pleasantly surprised by the sincerity of conservatives like Peggy Noonan who genuinely liked and respected Paul Wellstone. They echoed what I'd been reading from others who disagreed with him on some issues, but knew that he came about his positions honestly. Unfortunately, they alone do not speak for conservatives in America. If you want to hear what many of them really feel, you have to go to where they talk amongst themselves. Remembering the outpouring of hate I saw directed at Mel Carnahan on the same site two years ago, I knew Wellstone would be no different.

I waited until the news of his loss had sunk in enough that I could read without losing my temper and destroying things, then I browsed through a few threads devoted to Wellstone. Most of them were started by people who felt about him the way Noonan did (one posted her entire column), but were quickly infested by people who thought differently. While there were a significant minority more respectful than these, the haters were in the definite majority. I could think of no greater insult to them than to post their own words (and this is just a sample):

My eulogy: Good riddance you Commie dog!

He chose to align himself with the folks who are tearing this country apart. Good riddance.

May he rest in pieces
He finally made a positive impact on the country, pun intended. Good riddance to the commie.

It's just a shame the plane wasn't larger and filled with more traitorous leftists like this scumbag. Good riddance!

Wellstones' beliefs were of the most disturbing in the Democratic Party. He was a traitor to the US Constitution. He made his living off the poor in this country by exploiting their plight and KEEPING THEM DOWN.
I applaud the powers-that-be that caused his plane to go down. I see it almost as divine intervention. I am only crying because Ted Kennedy was not with him at the time.

His tightly held liberal views of Marxism don't make me feel that we have lost someone special. His "democratic idea" of tax-spend is morally equivalent to robbery.

The guy was a fruit-loop... a proud socialist and physically/mentally ill.

He was a nice guy...for a communist

Nothing like a socialist with convictions
A thief is a thief whether it is called socialism or whatever

He was a TRAITOR to this country and I will never praise him.
Let the sheeple be herded into feeling bad for a guy who died in a plane crash - while campaigning to get re-elected after he let a known rapist and traitor go free.

I hate to spit vitriol, but it's good that the wife was with him at the time of death.
So often when you die you are alone.
Too bad Teddy Kennedy wasn't there with him also.

Wellstone was a poster boy for the left wing commie socialist fear mongering Democrats
He spewed nothing but typical left wing garbage lies and misinformation

Well, the GOP could depress the enviromental vote by pointing out the fact that Wellstone cut down a lot of trees his last day in office.

One less far left liberal Senator. Cha Ching!

Unlike some of my colleagues here, let me say a positve note about Wellstone, "may he enternally swim with his commie mentor Joe Stalin and others of that ilk in hell's burning lakes of sulpher and suffer the perpetual damnation due all those who would destroy this Republic from within."
Comrade Paulie's passing is proof, yet again, that God DOES bless America. NO AMERICAN SHOULD MOURN THE PASSING OUT WHAT WELLSTONE REPRESENTED!!!

What are 8 dead liberals in a plane crash? A good start as far as I'm concerned.

Well, he definitely made an impact on Minnesota. About 200 feet long and 3 feet deep.

Had I been around, I wouldn't have shed a tear over Benidict Arnold, Hitler, or Stalin, and I certainly won't shed a tear over their brother under the skin Wellstone.

Wellstone was one of, if not THE most socialistic members of the federal govenment. Which means that he believes he has a divine right to my (our) time, effort and ability. Which makes him (in my mind) something just above a slaveholder.

Who did more damage to the nation, Paul Wellstone or John Muhammad? Good riddance.

Sad to say, he may have gone to Washington thinking he was a socialist Jimmy Stewart but I believe, in the end, he simply became another Marxist Jimmy Swaggert.

Imagine every vile leftist plank in their sick, repulsive, and demented platform come true, then imagine you have a couple of the kids who will be among the "objects" of their repulsive and contemptible intents, scary enough, as a dad it dam sure has me alarmed! So as far as I`m concerned, any edge we can get is one I will gratefully eccept! My condolence does go out for the daughter god rest her innocent soul, but good riddance to a die hard leftist!

Conservatives are making a mistake by honoring this communist traitor!

Paul "Welfare" Wellstone was an evil upon America. If you believe that lying, slandering, scaring and stealing is 'honorable' in a politician, then I guess he is 'honorable'.
Lest you forget, Paul Wellstone Obstructed Justice for the Liar in Chief William Clinton Blythe, and he also suggested Bush "stole the election".
The country is a better place without Paul "Commie-Pig" Wellstone.

Darn, God DOES bless America!

I also found a blog that Jim Henley thinks might be parody (but I don't, since he's apparently a poster on Free Republic also) which had this to say:

Good Riddance To A Traitor!!!

The leftist media don't want you to hear this but all real Americans should be glad that Paul Wellstone is dead.. The man was a traitor and a communist through and through. He didn't favor attacking Iraq back in 1990 and he doesn't favor it now.

He wanted you and me to die at the hands of Islamofascists like Ossama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein so it is more than fitting that he has died. His deserves this fate. Real Americans do not deserve to die at the hands of the scum that he worked so hard to help!

As much as some of us would like to live in a country and a world not full of hatred, bigotry, and bile, we don't. We have to live with the world we're given, and this is it. If we want to honor the memory of Paul Wellstone, we should remember that he came out of the Ivory Tower to battle for justice in the real world. There are a lot of bad people around, and someone's got to keep them at bay.

From The People Who Knew Him Best

Pioneer Press:

In fact, if you've lived here for any length of time, there's a good chance you have your own memories of the man himself. Maybe you met him while he shouted cheerfully at visitors at the State Fair. Maybe he came to talk to your school, and surprised the teachers he'd met there years before by remembering their names. Maybe you heard him shouting from his bullhorn on Election Day.

I remember him on Mother's Day 2000, a bright spring day in D.C., as he worked his way through the crowds at the Million Mom March on the Capitol Mall. He arrived without fanfare or entourage, wearing a T-shirt and tennis shoes and carrying a cup of coffee. As he shook hands with the moms, many of whom were road-weary from driving all night on buses, he would say, "I'm so glad you're here," with the emphasis on the "you." The exhaustion would drain from their faces, as Wellstone energized them again with the simple idea that one by one, people with passion actually can make a difference.......

.......it was Wellstone, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, reared in the suburbs of D.C., who carried on the real legacy of this state's almost forgotten history of progressive, idealistic politics. Look at the people who wept for him this weekend — battered women, immigrants, military veterans, young families, gays and lesbians, family farmers and every other underdog group. Then look at the people who won't — that race-baiting talk radio demagogue who recently wished Wellstone would "drop dead.'' It wasn't Wellstone who was the extremist..........

............Critics painted him as some throwback from the 60s, but I think instead, he was a sign of things to come. His populism sometimes seemed out of step with the economic boom of the 90s. But now, when fear of terrorism and talk of war overrides the protections of our personal freedoms, now when a wounded economy makes regular people worry about their Social Security, health care, and the cost of retirement, it seems that Paul Wellstone's issues were about to come back into fashion. In fact, in the final weeks before his death, his poll numbers were up — especially with the constituencies he served so tirelessly; women, immigrants and the elderly. Whether their support would have carried him into office again we'll never know.

But Wellstone's values will be carried on by another generation of liberals who aren't afraid to wear that label. I know former Carleton students whose whole lives changed because they took his class. I know social workers and teachers who felt renewed in their purpose because he told them how important their work was to the rest of us. I have a friend who hardly paid attention to politics prior to this Senate race, but whose growing indignation about child poverty and corporate welfare inspired her to attend her first political event last month, a fund-raiser for Wellstone.

As another rabble-rouser once said, Don't mourn, boys, organize!

A Writer Gets It

Peggy Noonan on Paul Wellstone:

Democracy requires warriors. It requires leaders. It requires people who will go out there and fight for their vision of a better country in a better world. It requires men and women who will go into politics, and who will, in going into politics, in a way lose their lives. Or lose the relaxed enjoyment of daily life.

Politicians live lives of constant movement and effort, lives in which days are broken up into pieces that don't always cohere--up at 5, first breakfast at 6:30, run all day, on the plane, on the bus, into the van, to the fund-raiser, to the speech, to the dinner for the union supporter, to the late-night meeting with reporters; and don't forget to sound confident, to have the facts, to seem engaged. The exhaustion of constant extroverting; the fatigue of the modern politician. The only good reason to live like that is the desire to pull forward and push into being your vision of How Things Ought to Be. Those who do it for other reasons--well, as George Orwell said, they wind up with the faces they deserve.

It takes commitment and hunger to live a political life. But when the person living it brings other qualities--a sincerity, a seriousness of purpose, a respect for the meaning of things--and when it is accompanied by a personal style of natural modesty twinned with political confidence, well, it's a moving thing to see. It's inspiring. It reminds you that there are good people in politics. And modern democracies need all the reminders they can get.

When conservatives disagree with liberals, and they're certain the liberal they're disagreeing with is merely cynical, merely playing the numbers, merely playing politics, it's a souring experience. When liberals disagree with conservatives and they're sure the conservative they're disagreeing with is motivated by meanness or malice, it's an embittering experience. But when you disagree with someone on politics and you know the person you're disagreeing with isn't cynical or mean but well meaning and ardent and serious--well, that isn't souring or embittering. That's democracy, the best of democracy, what democracy ought to be about.........

........Senators ain't sissies. They can be one cold crew. But Wellstone touched them in a way that was special, and that I think had something to do with democracy, and those who grace it.

It's sad to lose a good man. Good for America for raising him; good for Minnesota for raising him to the Senate; good for Wellstone for being motivated by belief and the desire to make our country better.

Paul Wellstone was what we need far more of in America, a man who had convictions and worked his ass off to put them into practice. He entered politics because he thought he could affect lives for the better, not out of personal aggrandizement, or to line his own pockets, or because he didn't know what else to do with his life after making a bagload of money. Paul Wellstone genuinely cared, and that's something that's all too lacking in American politics. Not only did he care, but everyone knew it. They could just tell that he was an honest man giving his honest opinion, and you don't see that every day in Washington D.C.

You could tell that Paul Wellstone acted out of personal belief and deep reflection, not out of cold calculation or reckless impulse. I know that, on the occasions I disagreed with him, the knowledge that an intelligent and caring man thought I was wrong made me pause to think through my beliefs. Having a man in public life like Paul Wellstone makes us all better. If we learn from his example, we'll make sure that what we want is the right thing to do, not just the convenient thing or the thing which would help us personally. We don't have to come to the same conclusions as Wellstone, but we should put the same thought into what we think as he did into what he thought, and we should make sure we're deciding out of love for America and our fellow man, not just out of venal self-interest. If we all do that, Paul Wellstone will have made us into better people, and with that, America into a place worthy of his memory.

Where's The Outrage?

Everytime an innocent Palestinian is killed by an Israeli operation, there are always certain people ready to raise hell over the loss of innocent life, even if it was unintentional. But a fact sure not to be reported anywhere near you is that even more Palestinians are killed by other Palestinians. Where's the outrage when something like this happens?

A Palestinian woman suspected of collaborating with Israel was shot and killed today and her sister wounded by a group of armed Palestinians in the northern West Bank town of Nablus.

Witnesses said the 39-year-old mother was dragged with her sister from their house in Nablus onto the street outside, where she was shot dead.

The killing was claimed jointly by two groups linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement -- the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the Al-Awda Brigades -- in telephone calls to AFP.

Over and over, Arafat's people kill suspects for things which aren't even technically crimes, yet the international press gives them a pass. Why?

Clarification: By even more Palestinians are killed by other Palestinians , I'm referring to killing for all reasons, political or not. The PA has a horrendous murder rate (as would be expected in a place of high poverty, high unemployment, little law enforcement, and an expectattion that disputes will be settled by violence). It's probably impossible to figure out which of those murders are of so-called collaborators and which aren't. Alos remember that a lot of press reports of the number of Palestinians who've died in the last two years include both suicide bombers and their Palestinian victims who, obviously, were not themselves the victims of Israeli violence and Palestinians caught in a crossfire, some of whom probably died from Palestinian bullets (not that it matters to them once they're dead).

Not That This Means Anything

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What the fuck is going on here?