McCain knew the difference, but said opposite
September 15

In a way it's reassuring about McCain to find he knew how bad Iraq must be if that walk through a market with 100 bodyguards, snipers, and body armor was the safest situation in Iraq. I've long called him delusional on Iraq, and his claim after visiting the Shorja market was exhibit A. So I'm glad he was only saying things were going well and in fact knew better.

On the other hand, we now know for sure that McCain will say in public the exact opposite of what he thinks and says in private. So about his pronouncements on Iraq getting so much better...

Sarah Palin, meet Francis Urquhart
September 14

Since her acceptance speech at the Republican convention, Sarah Palin has reminded me of Francis Urquhart in "House of Cards". I'm not suggesting she murdered anybody to seize power. I'm thinking more of the nastiness evident in her speech, and the vindictiveness in the way she governed as governor and mayor. For those who don't know or remember "House of Cards", very briefly, was about a high ranking leader of the British Conservative Party who wasn't included in the cabinet when his party took power. Who grabbed power by threatening to expose the scandals of the people above, lying, planting evidence and even resorting to murder. Urquhart had this pleasant, un-Palin demeanor, but it's the apparent willingness to remove political opponents by devious means that struck. Many of the anecdotes of Palin carrying out vendettas are compiled in this thorough article in yesterday's New York Times. Some I've heard before, but some are new to me, and it seems almost daily that new ones keep breaking. I'm thinking particularly of how she campaigned against the incumbent mayor she defeated for her first term by running on 3G issues, and polished that off by saying she was the first Christian mayor. It sounds like the prior mayor was caught completely off-guard. Then, when she was on the state Oil commission, she brought ethics charges against another commissioner, who was also the state Republican chairman, for conducting campaign business on state time. She did exactly the same thing herself, but in Urquhart style, having the dirt on someone who was in her way, she used it and that is the crux of her image as a reformer. Yes, she has bucked her party leadership, but she also had the party get directly involved in making her the mayor, so her party loyalty has fluctuated according to her political needs at the time.

The scandal that doesn't just look tawdry or personally vindictive is the one dubbed "troopergate". It fits the pattern where she allegedly used the power of the governor to harass someone against whom she had a grudge. In this case, her sister had a messy divorce from a state trooper, and she is accused of doing everything in her power to make her ex-brother-in-law's life miserable. As governor, she appears to have pressured the commissioner of public safety to fire her brother-in-law and when he didn't, she fired the commissioner. She promised to fully cooperate with a legislative probe and has done everything but cooperate. As so often with ongoing scandals, the best place to keep up with developments is TPMMuckraker, which has a page of updates to the troopergate developments. The latest development was the decision to issue subpoenas in reaction to the sudden refusal of eight witnesses to talk. It's looking like Palin's husband thought he could act like a part of the administration himself, since he was included in official e-mails. It also appears Palin and her staff used personal e-mail for state business in a deliberate effort to avoid archiving and disclosure laws.

Haven't we too much of this constant drip drip drip of Republican scandals throughout this decade? Why does anyone even consider keeping them in power?

Double standards, stealing flags, and Obama as Sambo
September 7

I'm not really surprised they would resort to this. The Republicans stole flags from Invesco Field in Denver that had been used for the last night of the Democratic convention, then distributed them at their own rally and told the crowd and the press that the Democrats had put them in the trash. Fox reported this story with only anonymous sources for attribution, but that hasn't stopped the conservative media passing on the story uncritically, judging by what I heard yesterday on Northern Alliance. Mainstream media are passing along the story too. The Democrats deny they were being thrown out and charges they were stolen. This raises two issues: whether this story could be right, and the double standard regarding what hurts Obama and what hurts McCain.

In terms of just this story, it seems like nonsense on the face of it. The DNC spent a bunch of money on those flags, which are easily reusable. Surely they would now how throw flags in the trash would play politically. Meanwhile Fox doesn't even claim a first-hand source. The said, "McCain supporters said the flags were discovered by a vendor at Denver's Invesco Field after the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention. The vendor supposedly found trash bags full of flags in and near garbage bins, and turned them over to the McCain campaign." Who is the vendor? Who knows? Who even knows if the vendor exists. The "McCain supporters" are also not identified. I'm not saying the story shouldn't have been reported since the McCain campaign was giving out these flags and claiming they were found in the trash, but the story should have stressed that McCain failed to corroborate the story or identify the vendor.

If the same standard was being applied to stories that affect the McCain campaign, the country would by now be thinking Sarah Palin said, "Sambo beat the bitch," in regard to Obama winning the nomination over Clinton. Personally I believe she did say it, because it fits my understanding of her, but that isn't proof. Just like the flag story, there is only one anonymous source. This story on LA Progressive by Charley James has gotten some attention around the blogosphere. They should have mentioned that the story is a reprint from the writer's blog. The source claiming Palin made that quote is a single source named "Lucille", supposedly a waitress serving the table where Palin was sitting when she said it. In fairness to James, this was a blog entry, not a news article, so the standard is different. He's free to write something along the lines of "this is what I was told by an unnamed source". To have this repeated by actual news organizations, he would need to show the editors who the source is, why he finds her believable (like being corroborated by a second source), and why anonymity is needed. Properly speaking, it should not be passed on as news, but then again, Fox is being allowed to get away with not identifying the vendor. In fairness, the news media should report both charges or neither charge. Unless by some bizarre chance some idiot at the DNC did throw out the flags, I'd love to see the Obama campaign make a big deal out of this. Make it show what depths McCain and his party will sink to. At the same time, gain some insulation for the next time they raise some flag and patriotism related charge.

Hurrah for Anita Dunn
September 6

Anita Dunn is a senior campaign advisor to Barack Obama who replied very effectively to Republican lies about Obama, particularly the charge he never works with Republicans. Finally, a Democrat who isn't a talk show host or blogger let Joe Lieberman have it with both barrels, and specifically for the reason I got angry with him, lying about Obama during his convention speech. I actually could forgive Lieberman voting the wrong way on invading Iraq since so many Democrats did, and it's OK to agree with conservatives on a key issue since elected officials have to able to vote their consciences. I might even be able to get past speaking at the opposing party's convention, but lying about Obama to help the opposing party crossed a line. That was Lieberman's Rubicon, and may explain why for the first time prominent Democrats are attacking him, as Dunn did on behalf of Obama.

Seeing Dunn respond to lieberman, and call Palin on lying about her support for the bridge to nowhere, was refreshing because right before seeing the linked video, I saw a panel on Almanac where the two DFLers couldn't have been less effective. Dee Long and Ember Reichcott Junge let the Republicans repeat the lie about Obama's legislative record without a word, even though they spoke next. They didn't respond to the charge Obama voted present 130 times in the State Senate. They seem to be examples of Democrats who still can't figure out what sort of people we're up against. Their opponents were Sarah Janacek and Brian Sullivan, who are examples what Republicans are willing to do.

War is safe, peace is risky
September 3

During tonight's Republican convention, Mike Huckabee said something that gives an insight into the conservative mindset: "Maybe the most dangerous threat of an Obama presidency is that he would continue to give madmen the benefit of the doubt. If he's wrong just once, we will pay a heavy price." It's hardly unique observation that Americans assume all leaders of hostile nations are madmen. Either that or they're all Hitler, which are synonyms in American politics. The interesting part of Huckabee's statement however is that talking to "madmen" is risky. War, apparently, is not risky. You read that right. In the conservative mind, war is safe, but peace is risky. Doing something nasty to someone else is safe. To do otherwise is to take the risk of someone doing something nasty to you.

Palin think founders wrote Pledge of Allegiance
September 2

A conservative blogger asked candidates for governor of Alaska in 2006 whether they were offended by the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Sarah Palin revealed her belief that the founding fathers wrote it. Other liberal blogs have been repeating this story and linking to this conservative blog. The blogger took down the page, presumably to stop liberals from using it against Palin. This just makes Eagle Forum Alaska look silly, because the page was saved on the web archive. This was the question and answer:

11. Are you offended by the phrase "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?

SP [Sarah Palin]: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I'll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.

March on the RNC part
September 1

Amy Goodman was arrested in St.Paul late this afternoon. Video of her arrest has been posted along with the story on Democracy Now!. Goodman is the host and according to the article, she was trying to get two of her producers released. The idea that she was a threat is just nuts. In the video, we don't see what happened before the arrest, she's clearly trying to speak to a police officer who handles her roughly, first pushing her back towards a sidewalk and then pulling her back.

Is this the Twin Cities? I'm feeling a dashed sense of "It Can't happen here". Great impression we're making.

March on the RNC part
September 1

Wow. I'm feeling a little more sympathetic to the police after reading about the lawlessness outside the main march. Though I'd wish it didn't need stating, I think it does need to be said that press of course focused on the violent demonstrators, the ones who confronted the police. I guess I'm showing my liberalism when I try to see the police perspective on this. It was obvious to me in the main march that those weren't people who were going to do anything illegal --- in fact, lawlessness is part of what we were protesting against. Maybe the police couldn't tell. I still think they should have waited for threatening gestures from the marchers before trying their best to intimidate. I don't back off at all from what I said about the raids on houses being what pushed me to join the peaceful march today. I have trouble buying the 10,000 estimate for the number of marchers because I could see that many just with my own eyes.

Nonetheless, I see that the police on the streets had reasonable cause for concern since some people did come to cause trouble. News reports indicate the people who caused problems covered their faces, which sounds like a dead giveaway they planned to cause problems.

One person quoted in the linked article justified the disruptions on the grounds that Republicans have caused such terrible disruptions for Iraqis and residents of New Orleans, that the disruption today was nothing. That's true. It is indeed an indication of misplaced priorities that we're more concerned with broken windows than the lawlessness of the government. Nonetheless, the violence just undermines what peaceful protestors try to accomplish. At the same time, preemptive police action just provokes what they're trying to stop.

March on the RNC
September 1

I was in the march this afternoon through downtown St.Paul to protest Republican policies in Iraq. Obviously as happens when anyone can show up, the protest was broader than just Iraq, including the attempt to gin up a war with Iran, and Bush's gulags. I don't know how big it was, and it's difficult to tell from inside, but I can say that when I was at the top of the hill where the capitol is located and looking down Cedar Av. into downtown, there were people as far as I could see. The capitol mall was full of people. Certainly it was the biggest political event I've ever attended in person, and I'm will to guess it's the biggest demonstration anywhere in the Twin Cities in a long time. The predictions I heard before the march were for 50,000 people, and I'll guess it was that big. However many people were deterred by the raids on houses were protestors were staying or living was probably balanced off by people who came just to show they couldn't be intimidated. Certainly the raids were what pushed me to go. I wasn't sure about going since I'm not the rally and marching sort. I'm more the blog and research sort, as is I hope apparent.

The police were out in full riot gear, with their sticks held at the ready. Some police looked more relaxed, like they were told to stand there, but many held their sticks (clubs? what's the proper term?) with an attitude that suggested to me that they were hoping for an excuse to bang heads. I lost a little respect for the St.Paul police today. The photo below was taken with my phone. Forgive the poor quality. My wife was a bit nervous about me taking our nice camera out there since the police have been cracking down on journalists, and cameras seem like something that can set them off.

So what was the real reason for the raids? Though coordinated across agencies, they seem to have been led by Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher, who showed of collected "evidence" to the press and managed to get his photo taken with buckets of urine. The photo below is, I strongly suspect, why those raids happened:

Technically using this photo might be copyright infringement rather than fair use, but I consider it a protest against the press letting itself be used like this. The accompanying article however is quite good actually including both sides of the story. Seriously, are we supposed to be so dumb that we'll believe a few people thought they would stop the convention with a bucket of urine, a map, and something to stick in tires? This was intimidation, and I went to today's march partly to protest against Fletcher and the abuse of police power.