Maybe he should have thought about how hard the consequences would be on his family before he set out to disenfranchise thousands of other people's families.

Good riddance.

Posted at May 16, 2008 5:53 PM in response to Breaking: Spakovsky Withdraws as FEC Nominee

Not attacking Obama, attacking McCain's base (the pundits) -- sounds good to me!

Posted at May 16, 2008 12:11 PM in response to New Hillary Ad In Oregon Uses Tim Russert As Foil

This was my favorite bit:

David All, a blogger who also runs Slatecard.com, a site that channels online contributions to Republican candidates, said reaching bloggers is not about mass communication, but about reaching opinion leaders who are likely to help shape others' opinions.

That, in a nutshell, is why liberals and Democrats have completely swamped the wingnuts in the blogosphere, no matter how often Time magazine or some other old media outlet declares them "most influential" or "blog of the year." They want blogs to be about "opinion leaders" who tell their sheep what to think, just like Rush and Fox News. And they can be used that way, as the most of the right-wing bloggers do, but it quickly hits a wall in growth and power.

It is about mass communication, but not in the way that Mr. All is thinking. The only two modes he's considering are "broadcast" mass communication and "opinion leader" narrowcasting. The liberal blogosphere is built on a different model, call it massively multiplayer. It's mass communication, but not one-way mass communication.

However, to use that model, you have to be willing to trust people to question, to self-organize, to have their own opinions, to choose their own actions. You can ask them to do things, but not order them to. The conservative movement is all about control, so they'll never be able to take advantage of that.

Posted at May 16, 2008 12:07 PM in response to Election Central Commenters Make News!

Shorter John McCain: It is impossible to negotiate with anyone who has said or done anything you don't like. That's why all wars in history have continued forever, since negotiating a peace agreement between peoples who were killing each other is impossible.

Posted at May 15, 2008 5:09 PM in response to McCain Blasts Obama As Unfit To Defend America

Yes, it's a baldfaced lie. It has been reported innumerable times that it wasn't a proper translation of what he actually said (not to mention the fact that the president is not in charge of the armed forces in Iran), but it's more convenient for warmongers to claim it is. They've never let reality get in their way before.

Posted at May 15, 2008 5:05 PM in response to McCain Blasts Obama As Unfit To Defend America

In the case of Alaska, oil is a big part of the picture. Governments around the world that are heavily financed by a single extraction industry have a strong tendency toward corruption, and you need strong rules and strong principles to resist that tendency (neither of which the GOP believes in.)

Posted at May 15, 2008 12:41 PM in response to Young's Defense Fund Nets $0

It'll be very interesting to see if McCain actually tries to root out campaign staff/lobbyists who have lobbied for oppressive governments in general, or just for oppressive governments that have been in the news and are likely to generate bad PR. So far, there's no evidence it's anything but an effort in damage control.

Of course, in the long run, that cynical approach is likely to hurt him, because there's no way to predict which oppressive foreign governments will be thrust into prominence in the news, and every time a new one is and he's discovered to have lobbyist staffers with ties to that one, too, it'll raise new questions of why they weren't "vetted".

Posted at May 15, 2008 12:38 PM in response to McCain to Vet Aides "More Thoroughly" for Lobbying Ties

I agree completely about the delegate math, but that's not the question. The nomination is just as "over" in June as it is now, and it still doesn't explain why it was in the interests of abortion rights for NARAL to endorse now and piss off half their membership instead of waiting. If they'd done it a couple of months ago, there'd be an argument there, but for a membership organization, the difference between "all over but the shouting" and "all over" is a whole lot of shouting that could have been avoided.

Posted at May 15, 2008 12:29 PM in response to NARAL Affiliates Question Mothership's Endorsement Of Obama

Okay, let me get this straight. McCain said we'd be in Iraq for a hundred years, and when the DNC put out an ad with the video clip, Republicans got all upset alleging it accused him of saying we were going to be at war for a hundred years (even though it didn't, it just showed his statement.)

So then people started asking "all right, if you mean a hundred peaceful years, then how do you plan to get to peace, and what will you do if your predictions of victory (like all the others for the past five years) don't come true?"

And his response is to say, in effect, "fast forward five years: peace has been achieved!"?

Posted at May 15, 2008 12:19 PM in response to McCain Promises Victory In Iraq by 2013

I am a strong Obama supporter, but to me making this endorsement now is in line with the endorsements of Lieberman and other incumbents by NARAL national -- they consistently try to do what is "safe" and preserves their place in the power structure rather than take any chance that might better serve their supposed cause.

While it is certainly true that the primary race is effectively over, it is not actually over, so the argument that this is "just" a general election endorsement doesn't hold water. (Not to mention that the endorsement press release specifically talks about Obama and Clinton, not Obama vs. McCain.) If they'd wanted to make a general election endorsement, they could have easily waited a few weeks.

Both candidates were strong on the organization's issues, and they had to know that a large chunk if not a majority of the membership would be upset about the choice. So why do it now?

To me, it seems clear that they wanted to jump on the bandwagon before it was too late, while they could still grab a small shred of "we supported you back when," rather than being another liberal organization that of course supports the Democrat. Which would be fine if it served their cause, but I don't see that it makes the slightest difference to an Obama administration's support for abortion rights.

They found thin technical grounds for supporting the incumbent Lieberman rather than supporting Lamont, whose election would have made the Senate friendlier to their cause, and risking the loss of a slight amount of organizational influence if he lost. Similarly, this endorsement is all about the national leadership keeping their place at the head table at Washington events, and little to do with advancing the causes their membership supports.

Posted at May 15, 2008 12:08 PM in response to NARAL Affiliates Question Mothership's Endorsement Of Obama