Secretary Gates said that we have no leverage on Iran, and that they have all kinds of leverage on us.

In other words -- he's implying that the US is at Iran's mercy.

Posted at May 15, 2008 2:58 PM in response to President Bush's Despicable Attack on Barack Obama

Perhaps you might consider that there's something of a difference between:

1) a minority turning out to enthusiastically support one of their own as a credible Presidential candidate, after centuries of systematic legal and social bias against them. It is something to be celebrated. And,

2) a majority being against a minority candidate, because they are afraid of him.

Posted at May 12, 2008 9:55 AM in response to Poll: Obama Losing West Virginia Primary By More Than Two To One

While it's beneficial that discrimiation based on sexual orientation is a prohibited practice, note that a mere prohibited practice means that, if it is practiced, the only remedy is reinstatement, and the only punitive result is removal of the responsibile official.

While the attorney who was fired may desire reinstatement, Goodling's gone, so there's no punitive result.

Goodling stood to get into bigger legal trouble by smoking in the DOJ hallways than firing a person who is gay.

Posted at April 3, 2008 8:05 AM in response to DoJ Investigators Probing Whether Goodling Fired Lawyer Due to Gay Rumors

Brazille mis-spoke on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Clearly, she misunderstood, because her words indicated that she thought that there are precisely 3 Credential Committee members per state, and because Obama has more states, his selections will dominate the committee.

In other news: while the DNC "Call" specifies that the CC members from each state will be chosen by the elected delegates of each state, it goes on to say that the CC members should be in proportion to the Presidential Preference of the elected delegates. However, it does not specify a means to ascertain the Presidential Preferences of prospective CC members, nor does it specify how to insure that the proportionality of the Presiential Preference of CC members.

So, there's a nice ambiguity, prime for manipulation: Hilary has many of the big states with the most CC members. If her delegates in those states take control of the CC process -- say, demanding 1 vote per delegate per possible seat on the CC committee -- they can elect 100% of the Credential Committee from each of those states, and freeze Obama out.

And the only reason they wouldn't is that apparently nobody has thought to do that before.

Posted at March 31, 2008 7:10 PM in response to What Is This Thing Called The Credentials Committee?

Leaving aside historical (however relevant) objections to Feinstein's votes in office, most comments here which show contempt for her writing a letter in response to the FBI's shutting down the LA Public Corruption section of the USA's office, fail to appreciate the limited power of a Senator.

She's not a single-handed manager who can shut off Mukasey's funding spigot. Basically, she's got a public microphone with which she can compel testimony from Mukasey. On the basis of that testimony she can do nothing, at all, alone. She can contribute to action by the entire senate which, at this point, can't do but cut his funding.

So, snarky comments about how ineffectual she is have nothing to do with her being Diane Feinstein, and everything to do with the fact that Senators don't have much power.

Posted at March 27, 2008 3:29 PM in response to Feinstein Questions Mukasey on Disbanding of LA Public Corruption Unit

The old republican playbook: talk about how the opposition makes you feel, using words like "fear", "scary", "angry". Just by saying these words, their constituents go into sympathetic overdrive, and feel fear, fear, fear too.

Posted at February 18, 2008 9:49 AM in response to Republicans Gearing Up To Attack Obama