© Associated Press photo by Byron Rollins

We’ve written before about our hometown newspaper, the Chicago Tribune.

Taken most seriously in its home town.

But proud of its Republican tradition. Its first editor of any distinction, Joseph Medill, was influential in winning the presidency for Abraham Lincoln.

That Republican heritage caused it to be newspaper non grata in my grandparents’ and my parents’ households, and indeed, our household for many years, until its more favored tabloid competitor, the once scrappy and progressive Sun-Times, was eviscerated by Rupert Murdoch, the first of a series of newspaper bandits that have effectively destroyed it. The latest in that series, Conrad Black, is in federal prison, convicted of fraud in connection with his newspaper properties.

But we digress.

The Tribune is <so> Republican that once, the year yr (justifiably) humble svt was born, they allowed wishful thinking to trump reality, resulting in the headline illustrated at the top of this post, a photograph that Wikipedia rightfully describes as one of the most famous ever published.

That was then.

Times, even for the 161 year old Chicago Tribune, have changed.

FROM THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE EDITORIAL BOARD

Tribune endorsement: Barack Obama for president

2:33 PM CDT, October 17, 2008

However this election turns out, it will dramatically advance America’s slow progress toward equality and inclusion. It took Abraham Lincoln’s extraordinary courage in the Civil War to get us here. It took an epic battle to secure women the right to vote. It took the perseverance of the civil rights movement. Now we have an election in which we will choose the first African-American president . . . or the first female vice president.

In recent weeks it has been easy to lose sight of this history in the making. Americans are focused on the greatest threat to the world economic system in 80 years. They feel a personal vulnerability the likes of which they haven’t experienced since Sept. 11, 2001. It’s a different kind of vulnerability. Unlike Sept. 11, the economic threat hasn’t forged a common bond in this nation. It has fed anger, fear and mistrust.

On Nov. 4 we’re going to elect a president to lead us through a perilous time and restore in us a common sense of national purpose.

The strongest candidate to do that is Sen. Barack Obama. The Tribune is proud to endorse him today for president of the United States.

Do you get it yet?

In over 160 years, forty (40!) elections, the Tribune has NEVER endorsed a Democrat for president in a general election.

Until today.

It’s an open question how influential newspapers, and more specifically, their endorsements, are with today’s voters. Newspapers are no longer the king of all media that they were in the days before electronic journalism.

But as a symbol of the utter bankruptcy of the Republican party, its candidates, Mad Capt. McCain and the Redneckette, and indeed, this country after eight years of George III’s misrule, this endorsement of Barack Obama is a telling indictment.

The Republican Party, the party of limited government, has lost its way. The government ran a $237 billion surplus in 2000, the year before Bush took office — and recorded a $455 billion deficit in 2008. The Republicans lost control of the U.S. House and Senate in 2006 because, as we said at the time, they gave the nation rampant spending and Capitol Hill corruption. They abandoned their principles. They paid the price.

We might have counted on John McCain to correct his party’s course. We like McCain. We endorsed him in the Republican primary in Illinois. In part because of his persuasion and resolve, the U.S. stands to win an unconditional victory in Iraq.

It is, though, hard to figure John McCain these days. He argued that President Bush’s tax cuts were fiscally irresponsible, but he now supports them. He promises a balanced budget by the end of his first term, but his tax cut plan would add an estimated $4.2 trillion in debt over 10 years. He has responded to the economic crisis with an angry, populist message and a misguided, $300 billion proposal to buy up bad mortgages.

McCain failed in his most important executive decision. Give him credit for choosing a female running mate–but he passed up any number of supremely qualified Republican women who could have served. Having called Obama not ready to lead, McCain chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. His campaign has tried to stage-manage Palin’s exposure to the public. But it’s clear she is not prepared to step in at a moment’s notice and serve as president. McCain put his campaign before his country.

Tribune endorses Barack Obama for president

Now, I’m sure some of my friends and readers (you, too, Mr. M) will make the obvious connection of the Tribune‘s famous error at the top of this post, and today’s endorsement. “Hey, they’ve been famously wrong before!”

And there’s no denying two other salient facts: Barack Obama is a home town hero; and the Tribune’s new owner is Sam Zell, a billionaire real estate guy, and bottom feeding investor, although his political views hitherto have seemed to lean toward Republican candidates and causes.

The important difference between 1948 and 2008: there’s no wishful thinking in this endorsement.

Just hopeful thinking.

And it’s fun to imagine Col. McCormick spinning in his grave.

It’s it for now. Thanks.

–MUDGE

© Bruno1998 | Dreamstime.com

Away (from blogging — the writing, not the reading) and the economy, and especially the stock markets, continues in free fall.

Everyone is on edge, if not downright frantic, because if you’re too young to be that concerned about your retirement account and pension, you very well might be looking over your shoulder for economy-related pink slips.

The presidential campaign continues its free fall, from idealism and straight talk to Republican distortions and lies, and increasingly strident (and quite rapid, altogether a nice improvement over the “gentlemanly” Kerry debacle) Democratic responses.

And chanting relentlessly about Bill Ayers to mad-dog mobs (did Sarah Palin bring out every last one of this country’s rednecks?) while 401Ks keep decaying and mortgages keep resetting  is making ordinary, moderate people downright angry.

Fiddling while Rome burns, indeed.

My approach to the meltdown? I just don’t look at my funds.

If you’re not spending it tomorrow, why make yourself crazy? If you live long enough, you’ll see the markets come back. And I’m not retiring until my 90th birthday.

Of course those now living off of their pensions and especially their IRAs and 401Ks have a right to be furious with the criminal class of plutocrats running (yeah, and ruining) this country’s biggest financial institutions. And the Republican politicians who made the world safe for their crimes.

I can imagine some really juicy show trials come January.

Meanwhile, I’m reading lots of good stuff, enough so that this past week I find myself rather tongue-tied as a result.

So, rather than fight to get the words out, here’s a laundry list of worthwhile reading.

Jason Buckley at Washington Interns Gone Bad is one progressive political site I check out frequently, either through the good offices of BlogExplosion.com, or better yet, through our blogroll.

A favorite read (also on our blogroll) is Len at First Door on the Left, who seems to find the good stuff first, and apparently has access to the mother lode of political cartooning.

The 12 Angry Men Blog had the most concise rundown of the contents of the ” $700 Billion Wall Street Bailout” (and I saw a funny [rueful] comment somewhere tonight that for Wall St. billionaires it’s a bailout; proposals that would pay off mortgages of average citizens is socialism); another site I just don’t get to frequently enough.

Just found Scott of The Coyote’s Byte in the last week or so, and I’m glad I did. He picked up (and, more to the point, beat yr (justifiably) humble svt to the punch) on McCain’s extraordinary call during Tuesday night’s debate for Meg Whitman, late of (soon to be late?) Ebay as a potential Treasury Secretary. The same week that Ebay announced 10% in personnel layoffs. Like McCain’s pal, Carly Fiorino, lately of (thankfully robust, despite Fiorino’s “best” efforts) HP, these two famous Silicon Valley women have proven themselves to be all hat, no cattle when it comes to running their businesses. I wouldn’t want them coming near running this economy.

Warren Buffett? Now there’s one septuagenarian I would trust with my money, and my country’s fate. Obama, be very persuasive!

Political Realm is one of the most useful comprehensive political sites. Important news and commentary to read and view there, day in and day out.

Finally, TomPaine.common sense sends me a daily newsletter, proving every day that there’s nothing that’s ever been more needed, but is less common and more difficult to find in today’s perilous world, than common sense.

And everyone’s pace, save yours truly, has picked up, reflecting the relentless countdown to what well might be one of, if not the most important of this generation’s tipping points, November 4, 2008.

So, faithful reader, there’s billions of pages to read, even if I haven’t updated in eight days. But thanks for not giving up on me.

And, thanks for voting.

It’s it for now. Thanks

–MUDGE

© Sharon Kennedy | Dreamstime.com

Trying not to feel too guilty about this month’s continuing violations of the blogger’s prime directive: Thou Shalt Blog Daily!

Guilty, your honor, with an excuse.

It’s not like there haven’t been extraordinary events to write about, in the big world out there, and in the not quite silent interior world each of us populate, eternally alone.

Faithful reader will have noted the personal elements that seem to have cost us our creative rhythm.

Complicated, lately, by the recent edition of MUDGElet No. 3′s 50-inch HD plasma television (if the empty nest had to be invaded, at least there’s an extra dividend!), just in time for the football season and the exciting (for Chicagoans, surprisingly exciting) baseball late and post-season.

Football, especially, on the elderly 13-inch conventional TV that sits on a file cabinet in our home office, pales in comparison. And the only laptop in my possession (two, actually, in my custody) belongs to my employer, and it wouldn’t occur to me to blog on those machines. Inappropriate.

So, it’s a tough call, choosing between blogging and high-definition spectator sport, especially in these personally emotionally draining times, and especially on this Sunday evening when the often frustrating home team Bears are giving the Eagles a fight.

Yes, I’m bemused when not scared silly over the financial meltdown that unrestricted greed and years of cynical neocon regulatory neglect have inflicted on the U.S.’s defenseless citizenry.

Yes, we watched every minute of Friday’s debate, and I’m less than humble to reveal that I pronounced it a draw before hearing or reading that informed evaluation from the pundits. Of course McCain looked strong on foreign policy experience; but Obama more than held his own, and seemed calm and presidential. Tie goes to the challenger.

So, thanks for continuing to stop by. We’re healing, I promise.

It’s it for now, thanks.

–MUDGE‘

© Martin Applegate | Dreamstime.com

Just don’t know where to start.

The news is bleak, nearly everywhere one cares to look.

Somehow, John McCain is still taken seriously, even as he escalates the stunts.

First, adopt wholeheartedly with relish the Karl Rove/Swift Boat outrageous Big Lie protocol that obliterated the last nice guy to try to win the White House.

Next, kowtow to the restive Christian wingnuts by selecting for his running mate wingnut magna, herself, Sarah Palin.

Now, clothe his attempt at abject ducking of the first debate in the name of somehow intervening in Congress’s Wall Street bailout negotiations. Senator “Fundamentally Sound” McCain. Whose economic advisor, the next Secretary of the Treasury should this country wake up to a nightmare on Nov. 5 is Phil “Stop Whining” Gramm. Yeah, I’m certain you can guys can be of assistance.

If it wasn’t so serious, it would be laughable.

But these days it’s tough to laugh.

Rather than allowing the greedy pigs of Wall Street choke on their own excess, Henry Paulson, a once and future greedy pig himself, wants to pull off the most outrageous repackaging and securitizing of all time by letting the next 4-5 generations of U.S. citizens save their bacon. And Democrats seem to be going along!

What’s wrong with this picture?

What’s not wrong?

Meanwhile, while our tax obligations, deferred or not, climb, all of the prices of the daily transactions of life will undoubtedly also climb: student loans, mortgages, equity loans, small business loans, large business loans, credit card interest — we’ll soon be complaining about much more than the excessive cost of gasoline (and because when Wall Street sneezes, much of the rest of the world catches pneumonia, we will continue to be gored by that ox).

Overwhelming.

Ugly.

Citizens, you must fight back.

Citizens, elect progressive candidates, starting with Barack Obama, on November 5, and chase the greedy troglodytes and religious wingnuts and knee-jerk NRA fanatics back to the 19th Century, or the stone age, where they belong.

Citizens, it’s seldom been more true: the future well being of you, your family (down to the fifth generation) and your nation is in your hands.

Citizens, the time for waffling is over. Vote progressive, proudly, and win back America.

It’s it for now, thanks.

–MUDGE

© Misty Pfeil | Dreamstime.com

George F. Will is one of the best known conservative commentators writing for a major daily newspaper. And, he makes no bones about his appreciation for the Chicago Cubs, who in the past few days have reached the next milestones in what should, by all rights, be their Brigadoon Year (go ahead, click the link — it’s one of my favorites, and you read it here first!).

Mr. Conservative Pundit George F. Will had some very cogent observations regarding the character of one John S. McCain, Republican presidential candidate. Unexpectedly, at least to this progressive observer, and to others who have picked up on this today, Mr. Will is not happy with Sen. McCain.

McCain Loses His Head

By George F. Will | Tuesday, September 23, 2008; Page A21

Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.

Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked the Wall Street Journal to editorialize that “McCain untethered” — disconnected from knowledge and principle — had made a “false and deeply unfair” attack on Cox that was “unpresidential” and demonstrated that McCain “doesn’t understand what’s happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does.”

Senator, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission regulates the stock-related activities of publicly traded corporations.

It’s the Federal Reserve, and the other regulators of the banking system, as well as legislators charged with that responsibility, SENATOR, who should be castigated for allowing the banks to act so reprehensibly and irresponsibly.

And, Senator, that’s castigated, not decapitated!

George F. Will – McCain Loses His Head – washingtonpost.com

These are calamitous times. Henry Paulson is not content with mortgaging our children and grandchildren — he’s grasping down four or more generations of indebtedness: $2,333 for every living man, woman and child in the U.S, and the meter is still running.

Somebody revoke this man’s license to practice economics!

Meanwhile, the electorate is learning more every day about its candidates (with the glaring exception of Gov. Palin, sealed tight in her protective media-free bubble lest anyone have a chance to learn once and for all that, underneath the gun-toting, Creationist, abstinence teaching — except at home — retro hairdo is … nothing at all).

Will’s bottom line: Obama lacks experience; but a bright Columbia University and Harvard Law graduate has the diplomas to prove that he is educable.

McCain’s shoot-from-the-lip impulsiveness is a dangerously destructive character defect. Bottom of his class at the Naval Academy, indeed. How can that be repaired?

Mr. Will, I, too, am a Cubs fan.

And I, too, am very much a fan of calm, but firm, reason in the face of adversity.

Guess that makes us both Obama fans, too, George?

It’s it for now, thanks.

–MUDGE

© Debra Saucedo | Dreamstime.com

MUDGE’s Musings

Confession: Yr (justifiably) humble svt has been watching these past couple of months of virulent right wing zingers aimed at Barack Obama, that are apparently drawing blood among responders to polls, with more than a little tinge of déjà vu.

The rabid Rovian mudflood machine buried John Kerry last time around, using his war record, and his wealthy wife, as its prime weapons. Now, enough true believers are buying Jerome Corsi’s latest fantasy smearfest to make it a best seller. Uh oh.

However, Obama is facing a war hero with a wife so wealthy that he can’t keep track of how many homes they own. Do the Democrats have the bare knuckled instincts to strike back against McCain’s rabid Rovians? Frank Rich of NYTimes is urging that the time for polite cheek turning is long past.

Last Call for Change We Can Believe In

Op-Ed Columnist | By FRANK RICH | Published: August 23, 2008

AS the real campaign at last begins in Denver this week, this much is certain: It’s time for Barack Obama to dispatch “Change We Can Believe In” to a dignified death.

This isn’t because — OMG! — Obama’s narrow three- to four-percentage-point lead of recent weeks dropped to a statistically indistinguishable one- to three-point margin during his week of vacation. It’s because zero hour is here. As the presidential race finally gains the country’s full attention, the strategy that vanquished Hillary Clinton must be rebooted to take out John McCain.

“Change We Can Believe In” was brilliantly calculated for a Democratic familial brawl where every candidate was promising nearly identical change from George Bush. It branded Obama as the sole contender with the un-Beltway biography, credibility and political talent to link the promise of change to the nation’s onrushing generational turnover in all its cultural (and, yes, racial) manifestations. McCain should be a far easier mark than Clinton if Obama retools his act.

Obama’s message of change needs an update, Rich says, and he makes a strong case.

The argument against Obama’s “going negative” is that it undermines his message of “transcendent politics” and will make him look like an “angry black man.” But pacifistic politics is an oxymoron, and Obama is constitutionally incapable of coming off angrier than McCain. A few more fisticuffs from the former law professor (and many more from his running mate and other surrogates) can only help make him look less skinny (metaphorically if not literally). Obama should go after McCain’s supposedly biggest asset — experience — much as McCain went after Obama’s crowd-drawing celebrity.

Use that rapier wit for more than rhetorical flourishes, Barry.

Op-Ed Columnist – Last Call for Change We Can Believe In – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com

Clueless John McCain has no idea how to effect change in this country, even should he want to, and we all know that he’s perfectly happy to effectively extend George III’s reign another four years. That is simply unacceptable, and most voters know that.

Another four years of bankers getting million dollar bonuses while 3,000,000 home owners abandon houses whose corruptly handled mortgages they can’t afford? Another four years (or 100!) of pointless bloodshed in Iraq? Another four years of watching China, at heart a repressive anti-democratic society wearing glossy Western makeup ascend while the golden beacon of American democracy and justice sputters? Hell, no!

If the Democrats can’t win an election where the parlous state of the economy is the primary concern of voters, than they don’t deserve to win an election for town dog-catcher.

Letting the hate mongers destroy John Kerry’s campaign — shame on them. Letting them get away with it this time — well, shame on us. There’s too much at stake.

The fierce urgency of the 21st century demands Change Before It’s Too Late.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

© Halina Yakushevich | Dreamstime.com

MUDGE’s Musings

Grumpy old men. And women. And the grumpitude is a significant challenge to Barack Obama’s candidacy.

Bill Clinton was younger than Obama is now, in 1992, but that was a different generation of over-65 people.

Clinton spoke to that age group about what they cared about most, Social Security, and in so doing secured their votes.

It was prior to the age of the Internet, and it was a different generation of young voting age kids, who, in the main after growing up in the vacant era of Reagan and George II, were apathetic.

Nobody bothered speaking to that age group, because they simply weren’t paying attention anyway.

Now, the new, “millennial” generation of today’s young people are paying attention, and it’s Sen. Obama to whom they are paying all that attention, to an extent that the current generation of post-65 grumpy voters apparently finds off-putting.

After all, how good can anything or anyone be if kids favor it. I hate their music, their movies, their clothing, their refusal to act their age. So I guess I hate their presidential candidate.

In a Changing Corner of Pa., a Glimpse of Obama’s Age Problem

By Alec MacGillis | Washington Post Staff Writer | Tuesday, August 12, 2008; Page A04

If the senator from Illinois is going to achieve his goal of bridging the nation’s divides, he is going to have to overcome a generation gap with older voters unlike any such split a Democratic presidential nominee has faced in years.

Even as younger voters are showing signs of breaking with years of lackluster turnout to support him, Obama is facing singular resistance from voters over 65. That age group turns out at the highest rate on Election Day and is disproportionately represented in the swing states of Florida and Pennsylvania; Bill Clinton and Al Gore both relied on it in winning the Democrats’ only popular-vote majorities of the past two decades.

With polls showing Obama dominating among those under 40 and running even among middle-aged voters, Republican John McCain‘s lead among those 65 and older is the main reason he remains close overall. His margin is largest among older white voters without a college education, accounting for much of Obama’s problem with the white working class.

The pre-Boomer people the Post illustrate in this anecdotal story are apparently in tune with John McCain’s near Ludditude, or so they say.

But, that’s not all of them. My 81-year old mother, gamely insisting on living alone while dealing with her life threatening disease, tackles the on-line world every day; it’s baffling, but she handles its daffy complexity and accomplishes what she needs to. But, of course, she’s not from Snake’s Navel, Florida.

In a Changing Corner of Pa., a Glimpse of Obama’s Age Problem – washingtonpost.com

So, white haired, occasionally forgetful John McCain is, because of his own rather advanced age, someone the pre-Boomer generation has come to know during his more than25 years in public life.

They believe that they understand him, and, due to his war record, they respect him. Their own memories apparently allow them to gloss over such unpleasantness as alcohol, adultery and savings and loan scandals.

Obama, conversely, is an entirely new phenomenon in American public life, and literally foreign to their experience.

Calling oneself a “citizen of the world” might well play better in Berlin, Germany than in Paris, Pennsylvania.

And, of course, he’s entirely too new.

Too smart.

Too well-liked among young people, many of whose cultural and life choices are so alien to a way of life they treasure, even as it fades away with them.

Probably, although most will be too embarrassed to speak it out loud, too black.

Thus, the challenge for Obama’s campaign. Not his age, but how all of his differences jar the presidential expectations of the pre-Boomer generation, that segment of voters most likely to vote, especially dangerous to his candidacy in states like Pennsylvania and Florida where they make up a large segment of the electorate.

One can only assume, or hope, that Obama’s campaign is working on this challenge, or has factored out that over-65 crowd in their electoral college calculations, in favor of the multitudes of the unapathetic Millennials.

Those enthusiastic multitudes had better put their votes where their voices, and their dollars, have been.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

© Scott Maxwell | Dreamstime.com

MUDGE’s Musings

It may be election year silly season, that interim time before the nominating conventions ignite the run to Election Day, but, as Sara Robinson notes so colorfully below,”McCain’s shooting live rounds; and as usual, the Democrats are refusing to fire back.”

The roots of progressive candidates’ failure to respond in kind to the lying liars of the right can be found in this nation’s earliest history, if the socio-history referenced in Robinson’s blog post has validity.

Why We Don’t Shoot Back

By Sara Robinson | August 5th, 2008 – 6:44pm ET

Drew Westen and Mike Lux both have cogent and persuasive posts up that deftly explain — and raise the alarm about — the timidity that’s recently settled into Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Sen. John McCain’s shooting live rounds now; and, as usual, the Democrats are refusing to fire back. If that doesn’t change — this week, before the Olympics starts — this could all too easily turn into Dukakis-all-over-again. …

We’ve all got our short lists of books that changed the way we look at things forever. One of the ones I keep going back to is Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America, published in 1989 by Brandeis historian David Hackett Fischer. Fischer’s basic argument — which he supports with a weighty and richly researched sociological survey that runs to 700 pages plus another 200 pages of footnotes — is that most of America’s most enduring cultural and political conflicts can be traced back to essential differences between the first four groups of English settlers, who brought four very different worldviews with them, and set deep patterns that continue to influence America’s identity and choices to this day.

D. H. Fischer’s concept, as abstracted by Robinson, is that, many generations later, and hundreds of millions of immigrants and their progeny later, the progressives and conservatives in the U.S. follow behavioral patterns laid down by response to conflicts between the four earliest groups of British immigrants.

Fischer noted that the four groups have radically different approaches to conflict. Cavalier and Borderer cultures are extremely honor-driven. A person’s good name is their most cherished asset. Any challenge to that must be answered. Anyone who is unwilling to defend his or her honor, or to stand up for his or her own kin, or defend his or her principles, reveals his or her essential unworthiness to lead others. A Cavalier will challenge you to a duel. A Borderer will start a fistfight. … You call these folks out, and you are going to have to reckon with some consequences.

In the southern and western areas that were dominated by these two cultures, many people simply don’t understand and won’t accept leaders who shy away when attacked. Strength matters. … Failure to exercise that strength is fatal. People figure that if you’re not even willing to defend your own honor and interests when someone confronts you directly in public, how on earth can we ever count on you to fight for the rest of us on the stuff that really matters?

The northern Puritan and Quaker cultures, on the other hand, have much more measured and careful responses to being challenged. Publicly question the honor of a Boston gentleman, and he probably won’t dignify the challenger with any response at all. … If you ignore ugly, it will go away. Under no circumstances do you take matters into your own hands.

So, this is the issue: the Northeastern, progressive tradition (and regardless of his Kenya-Hawaii-Indonesia-Kansas background, Sen. Obama’s Harvard education has refined his instinctive responses to lowball challenges) simply turns the other cheek, in the spirit of its Quaker and Puritan forebears, rather than stoop to the level of its mudslinging opponents.

Admirable, in the Dukakis and Kerry spirit, but a pathetically losing strategy when dealing with the 44 non-New England states.

It’s a fascinating thesis, and worth your time to read in full.

Why We Don’t Shoot Back | OurFuture.org

So, the prescription to the swift-boating and roving that has already begun is clear.

Hero that he undoubtedly once was, Sen. McCain has a substantial number of dark corners that will, if illuminated effectively, enlighten that part of the electorate that prefers only to see the war hero.

They should learn more about heavy-drinking flyboy (with the Teflon heritage) that flew himself into trouble over North Vietnam; the involvement in the despicable Keating savings and loan scandal; the adultery and quick second marriage after his first wife was severely injured; the life in the back pocket of lobbyists regardless of “straight talk;” and, let’s face it, a seventy-two year old mind that, perhaps exacerbated by the abuses of alcohol and, yes, torture, sometimes behaves like its age or older.

Shoot back, and take no prisoners.

Let’s win this thing.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

© Michaeljung | Dreamstime.com

MUDGE’s Musings

We observe the first anniversary of the tragic collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis (August 1, 2007) with some sadness, and furious anger.

Sadness due to the thirteen lives lost, and 100+ injured.

Anger because the danger embodied in this country’s aging and dilapidated bridges, highways, levees and schools is criminally no closer to alleviation than 366 days ago.

Meanwhile, the economy is faltering: banks are failing, foreclosures are at record highs (three million empty houses!), the ranks of under- and unemployed growing apace.

What is it going to take to repair this country’s infrastructure osteoporosis?

What is it going to take to kick start the economy, to get people working and once again able to meet their mortgage obligations, perhaps even afford that $4.299/gallon gasoline?

It’s going to take a liberal quantity of bold.

I wasn’t there (my parents were young children) but this country faced a disturbingly similar crisis 76 years ago. Banks had failed by the thousands (defenestration became a popular Wall Street exit strategy). Millions of able bodied workers had no work.

The country, whose industrial and military might had tipped the balance and ended the bloody stalemate of the Great War, turned inward, closing off immigration, its historic lifeblood, and barricading trade, sending the entire globe into economic free fall.

The incumbent party (would you be surprised if I revealed that it was the Republican party?) wrung its hands and was the picture of abject futility.

A well-spoken and charismatic graduate of Harvard University stepped forward with some fresh ideas, promising a New Deal for the American people, and declaring that “the only thing to fear is fear itself.”

That New Deal served the country well for nearly 60 years. Hundreds of thousands were put to work to build highways, bridges, schools and dams. Labor and racial justice became the law of the land. Once again, this country’s industrial and military might prevailed in an even larger scale global war, the prelude to an economic and cultural explosion that became the envy of the world.

In many ways, it’s 1932 again. Bankrupted by pointless, and even worse, corruptly mismanaged war; hollowed out by energy policies set in Texas and Saudi Arabia for the benefit of the president’s oilmen sponsors; crumbling because the plutocrats have bamboozled citizens into believing that all taxes are bad, especially the ones that would make the plutocrats pay their fair share.

It’s going to take vision to fix the moral, the physical, the spiritual disrepair.

Hell, it’s going to take vision to recognize the mess in the first place, and vision to reach out for good plans from wherever they come (some of Roosevelt’s first programs, after all, were muscled up continuations of Hoover initiatives).

It’s going to take a liberal quantity of bold.

So, which party has the candidate with vision, who speaks with clarity, and seems to effortlessly engender inspiration and enthusiasm?

And which party has, despite its sober promises, begun swift boating and Rove-ing its way toward November?

So, where should our new president begin on January 20, 2009? That futile war needs to be contained, and ended, but that won’t happen overnight.

Al Gore and Boone Pickens won’t be severing our addiction to Middle Eastern petroleum in an instant, or even soon.

But those deteriorating bridges and roads, schools and levees: that’s an initiative that could begin Day One.

Put people to work, in the spirit of the reNEWed DEAL, rebuilding those highways and bridges.

Put people to work, in the spirit of the reNEWed DEAL, finishing with alacrity what the derelict administration of George III has disgracefully left incomplete, the restoration of New Orleans and its levees.

Put people to work, albeit with some training, in the spirit of the reNEWed DEAL, in those schools with too few teachers and too many underserved students, burying forever the lip service cynicism of “No Child Left Behind” and insisting that our children learn what they need to know, not what they need to pass dumbed down tests.

All this costs. Start by restoring equitable taxation on those of the plutocracy who have had a tax holiday for too many years. Ending that money pit called the Iraq Occupation, and getting smarter about resources and targets in Afghanistan will free up $zillions.

It’s going to take a liberal quantity of bold.

I believe I know from where bold might come from. I absolutely know from where it most definitely won’t.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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MUDGE’S Musings

A bit lost in the top of the week media frenzy: the failure and resulting run on IndyMac Bank; serious troubles at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; extreme umbrage over the satirical The New Yorker cover; a certain presidential candidate delivered a compelling essay on national topic 1a, Iraq.

This pointless and criminally mismanaged war in Iraq was, for several agonizing years, national topic 1, until the not quite official recession took over honors as the new leading source of voter anxiety.

Meanwhile, Senator Obama has taken some heat from what one writer last week described as the “Republic of Portland,” the extreme left wing of his party, concerned about a candidacy that, once the primaries were completed, seemed to veer toward the center.

Time then to begin to flesh out a keystone promise, to “left” the ship, as it were: ending the U.S. war in Iraq.

My Plan for Iraq

Op-Ed Contributor | By BARACK OBAMA | Published: July 14, 2008

CHICAGO — The call by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for a timetable for the removal of American troops from Iraq presents an enormous opportunity. We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated, and that is needed for long-term success in Iraq and the security interests of the United States.

The differences on Iraq in this campaign are deep. Unlike Senator John McCain, I opposed the war in Iraq before it began, and would end it as president. I believed it was a grave mistake to allow ourselves to be distracted from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban by invading a country that posed no imminent threat and had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. Since then, more than 4,000 Americans have died and we have spent nearly $1 trillion. Our military is overstretched. Nearly every threat we face — from Afghanistan to Al Qaeda to Iran — has grown.

In the 18 months since President Bush announced the surge, our troops have performed heroically in bringing down the level of violence. New tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda — greatly weakening its effectiveness.

But the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true. The strain on our military has grown, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated and we’ve spent nearly $200 billion more in Iraq than we had budgeted. Iraq’s leaders have failed to invest tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues in rebuilding their own country, and they have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge.

Senator Obama is no knee-jerk peacenik, unlike many denizens of his party’s extreme left wing. He is open minded enough to recognize that this nation has military responsibilities that require a military response; unfortunately, our involvement in Iraq is impeding our ability to so respond.

So he has a plan, quite different from his opponent in this election campaign, superannuated Senator McCain.

In this campaign, there are honest differences over Iraq, and we should discuss them with the thoroughness they deserve. Unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea, and would redeploy our troops out of Iraq and focus on the broader security challenges that we face. But for far too long, those responsible for the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy have ignored useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender.

If you can tear yourself away from bank failures and umbrage-taking, take a look at the Senator’s specifics.

Op-Ed Contributor – Barack Obama – Op-Ed – My Plan for Iraq – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com

The man makes sense. At the end of the day, that’s what this nation needs, sense, not criminality. Clear thinking and reasoned decisions, not thoughtless attachment to the policies of a defiled administration.

January 20, 2009 can’t come soon enough.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

Barack Obama, the black Will Smith, has been, is and will be in the news permanently, or at least until Nov. 5, 2008 should John McCain’s wet dream (of somehow overcoming the horrendous legacy of his good buddy, George III) become reality.

So there’s no shortage of worthwhile reading on all things Obama. Here are four of the most intriguing.

1) Fundraising expertise

David Brooks has spent some useful time poring over the campaign finance statements.

Obama’s Money Class

Op-Ed Columnist | By DAVID BROOKS | Published: July 1, 2008

Barack Obama sells the Democratic Party short. He talks about his fund-raising success as if his donors were part of a spontaneous movement of small-money enthusiasts who cohered around himself. In fact, Democrats have spent years building their donor network. Obama’s fund-raising base is bigger than John Kerry’s, Howard Dean’s and Al Gore’s, but it’s not different.

As in other recent campaigns, lawyers account for the biggest chunk of Democratic donations. They have donated about $18 million to Obama, compared with about $5 million to John McCain, according to data released on June 2 and available at OpenSecrets.org.

People who work at securities and investment companies have given Obama about $8 million, compared with $4.5 for McCain. People who work in communications and electronics have given Obama about $10 million, compared with $2 million for McCain. Professors and other people who work in education have given Obama roughly $7 million, compared with $700,000 for McCain.

So, Senator Obama, as has every presidential candidate in history, a rhetoric/reality gap.

When he is swept up in rhetorical fervor, Obama occasionally says that his campaign is 90 percent funded by small donors. He has indeed had great success with small donors, but only about 45 percent of his money comes from donations of $200 or less.

The real core of his financial support is something else, the rising class of information age analysts. Once, the wealthy were solidly Republican. But the information age rewards education with money. There are many smart high achievers who grew up in liberal suburbs around San Francisco, L.A. and New York, went to left-leaning universities like Harvard and Berkeley and took their values with them when they became investment bankers, doctors and litigators.

What began as seemingly an exercise in “Ha! Ha! Caught you!” turns out to be a pretty interesting analysis of the source of big money for political ends in the first decade of the third millennium.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Op-Ed Columnist – Obama’s Money Class – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com

Used to be that what was good for General Motors was good for America. Now, with that once great entity in decline (or perhaps I should use the plural?), Brooks feels that one should substitute the name of Goldman Sachs.

Well, when one thinks about it, at least Goldman Sachs knows how to make money without having to convert it from iron ore, coal, rubber, aluminum, copper, silicon, glass, paint, labor, etc.

The perfect captains of industry to steer us in these post-industrial times.

2) Flooded by lies

John Kerry had his Swift Boat. Barack Obama is confronting an entire armada of lies and distortions, and many people are swallowing them without reservations.

In Flag City USA, False Obama Rumors Are Flying

By Eli Saslow | Washington Post Staff Writer | Monday, June 30, 2008 |Page A01

FINDLAY, Ohio — On his corner of College Street, Jim Peterman stares at the four American flags planted in his front lawn and rubs his forehead. Peterman, 74, is a retired worker at Cooper Tire, a father of two, an Air Force veteran and a self-described patriot. He took one trip to Washington in 1989 — best vacation of his life — and bought a statue of the Washington Monument that he still displays in a glass case in his living room.

He believes a smart vote is an American’s greatest responsibility. Which is why his confusion about Barack Obama continues to eat at him.

On the television in his living room, Peterman has watched enough news and campaign advertisements to hear the truth: Sen. Barack Obama, born in Hawaii, is a Christian family man with a track record of public service. But on the Internet, in his grocery store, at his neighbor’s house, at his son’s auto shop, Peterman has also absorbed another version of the Democratic candidate’s background, one that is entirely false: Barack Obama, born in Africa, is a possibly gay Muslim racist who refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

“It’s like you’re hearing about two different men with nothing in common,” Peterman said. “It makes it impossible to figure out what’s true, or what you can believe.”

Here in Findlay, a Rust Belt town of 40,000, false rumors about Obama have built enough word-of-mouth credibility to harden into an alternative biography. Born on the Internet, the rumors now meander freely across the flatlands of northwest Ohio — through bars and baseball fields, retirement homes and restaurants.

Hitler, Goebbels and Karl Rove were/are all committed followers of the principle of the Big Lie. If you repeat it often enough, it must be true. And, if Findlay, Ohio is any template of what’s going on in this country, Sen. Obama’s truth-telling team has its work cut out for it.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

In Flag City USA, False Obama Rumors Are Flying – washingtonpost.com

One strains always for faith in the intelligence and clear-headed thinking process of the great majority of U.S. citizens. Of course, history has taught me repeatedly that such intelligence and clear-headed thinking does not much exist (is there anything more uncommon than common sense?).

He looks different than me or my neighbors. Must be a fraud, if not worse.

3) Saluting his flag

The saga of the flag pin won’t die. Herr Rove and his minions won’t let it (repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat).

So, off went Obama to Independence, Missouri, birthplace and home of veteran and superior (finally, in history’s belated estimation) Democratic president, Harry Truman, to attempt to set the nation straight.

Obama Fiercely Defends His Patriotism

Democrat Also Decries Criticism of Rival McCain on Service to Country

By Jonathan Weisman and Michael D. Shear | Washington Post Staff Writers | Tuesday, July 1, 2008; Page A01

INDEPENDENCE, Mo., June 30 — Dogged by persistent rumors questioning his belief in country, Sen. Barack Obama journeyed to Middle America on Monday to lay out his vision of patriotism, conceding that he has learned in this presidential campaign that “the question of who is — or is not — a patriot all too often poisons our political debate.”

“Throughout my life, I have always taken my deep and abiding love for this country as a given,” Obama said in the 29-minute address to about 1,150 people crowded into a gymnasium at the Truman Memorial Building, named for former president Harry S. Truman. “It was how I was raised. It was what propelled me into public service. It is why I am running for president. And yet at times over the last 16 months, my patriotism has been challenged — at times as a result of my own carelessness, more often as a result of the desire by some to score political points and raise fears about who I am and what I stand for.”

Scholar that he is, Senator Obama gave his audience a history lesson.

Obama’s speech put the issue in a broad historical perspective, speaking of charges that Thomas Jefferson had sold the nation out to the French and that John Adams “was in cahoots with the British.” He also questioned policies enacted in the name of patriotism, including Adams’s Alien and Sedition Acts, Abraham Lincoln‘s suspension of habeas corpus, and Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s internment of Japanese Americans.

“The use of patriotism as a political sword or a political shield is as old as the republic,” Obama said. “Still, what is striking about today’s patriotism debate is the degree to which it remains rooted in the culture wars of the 1960s — in arguments that go back 40 years or more. In the early years of the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War, defenders of the status quo often accused anybody who questioned the wisdom of government policies of being unpatriotic.”

Also Sunday, Wesley Clark, the retired Army general and one-time presidential candidate in is own right, came out criticizing the holiest of holies, John McCain’s war record. Can’t touch that, guys. The man spent five torturous years in a North Vietnam prison camp.

Obama’s speech came on the same day that his rival for the White House, Sen. John McCain, pushed back hard against criticism of his own record as a Navy flier and a prisoner of war. On Sunday, retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark questioned McCain’s qualifications for the White House. “He hasn’t held executive responsibility,” Clark said on CBS‘s “Face the Nation.” “I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.”

More on Gen. Clark’s attack below. Meanwhile, here’s the complete story, with a short video.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Obama Fiercely Defends His Patriotism – washingtonpost.com

Gotta love Gen. Clark. There’s a lot to respect in John McCain, but it’s true, he did get shot down. And there’s very much to be disturbed about Sen. McCain, as we’ve illuminated previously.

But, to the good general.

4) “the grunts hated the flyboys”

Fred Kaplan writes on military matters for Slate.com. As that oddity, a high ranking officer who also is a Democrat, Wesley Clark can’t be faulted for his attempt to defend his party’s candidate. Obama does not have military experience whatsoever, a comparison that John McCain would like to take great advantage of in this time of war. Clark’s background is exemplary. He just went a bit too far on Sunday.

The Grunt vs. the Flyboy

The real reason for Wesley Clark’s ill-advised comments about John McCain’s military record.

By Fred Kaplan | Posted Tuesday, July 1, 2008, at 4:45 PM ET

There are two explanations for Gen. Wesley Clark’s politically tin-eared remark about Sen. John McCain last Sunday.

First, Clark is politically tin-eared. Remember his 2004 presidential campaign?

Second, and more fundamental, Clark was an Army infantry commander during the Vietnam War while McCain was a Navy aviator. As a rule, the grunts hated the flyboys.

Here, as a reminder, is what Clark said when asked about the Republican presidential candidate on the June 29 episode of CBS’s Face the Nation:

I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces as a prisoner of war.

That was where Clark should have zipped his lips. But, as if he couldn’t hold back some raging impulse, he went on:

He hasn’t held executive responsibility. … I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.

In a sense, of course, Clark is right.

Kaplan goes the extra mile, and illustrates Wesley’s shoulder-chip with a brilliant chart of the casualties sustained by the four services in Afghanistan and Iraq. Not unexpectedly, the guys on the ground (Army and Marines) are taking an outsized proportion of deaths and injuries, despite this enlightened era of joint responsibility.

An Army general might want to take the Navy (fly a lot of planes) and the Air Force to task over this, not to speak of what must have been pretty similar experiences in Vietnam.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

The real reason for Wesley Clark’s ill-advised comments about John McCain’s

With this political faux pas, as the media has joyfully played it, Gen. Clark just might have clobbered any possibility of joining Sen. Obama’s ticket as the vice presidential candidate.

But he does get one thinking. John McCain first got famous for getting shot down and taken prisoner. Never commanded a cub scout den so far as we know.

Now, his father, and his grandfather, knew command. Full admirals, the Admirals McCain were distinguished heroes and commanders. A guided missile destroyer, USS John S. McCain DDG56, is named after them.

Yr (justifiably humble svt has actually toured the McCain, since our son, and our future daughter-in-law, served as junior officers on that ship, based in Yokosuka, Japan, some years ago.

Challenging times

The junior senator from Illinois has made history from the moment he stepped into the fray. He has won more primary votes, raised record-setting amounts of money, and beat off a furious charge from the last century’s most fearsome political force.

He should be able to bide his time, take advantage of the summer lull between the last primaries and the convention to replenish and rearm for the battle ahead, a presidential election the Democrats shouldn’t have any trouble winning, based on what a stinking pile of manure the incumbent has deposited on the office.

Barack Obama is just now learning just how tough it’s going to be to win this thing. His foreign name, his race, and of course his intellectual firepower are all unsettling to a large swath of Americans like those in Findlay, who seem to find it easier, egged on by Herr Rove and his hate radio and Fox News colleagues, to focus on those differences as frightening negatives, rather than as simply differences.

So Obama will work very hard 24/7, all summer, and all the way to November 4.

It’s going to continue to be a fascinating campaign.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

Outside the rarefied world of election campaigns, real life grinds on relentlessly.

Big Promises Bump Into Budget Realities

New President Won’t Have an Easy Time Paying for New Initiatives, Fiscal Experts Say

By Lori Montgomery | Washington Post Staff Writer | Saturday, June 21, 2008; Page A01

On the presidential campaign trail, Democrat Barack Obama promises to “completely eliminate” income taxes for millions of Americans, from low-income working families to senior citizens who earn less than $50,000 a year.

Republican John McCain vows to double the exemption for dependents and slash the corporate income tax.

To which the folks who monitor the nation’s financial situation can only say: Good luck. Because, back in Washington, tax collections are slowing, the budget deficit is rising, and the national debt is approaching $10 trillion. Whoever wins the White House this fall, fiscal experts say, is likely to have a tough time enacting expensive new initiatives, be they tax cuts or health care reform. …

President Bush, who seems to be spending his last year in office trying to create a legacy, has already done so, indelibly. He’s going to leave the nation with greater fiscal obligations, and fewer means with which to meet them, mainly due to his Iraq needless nightmare, than ever before.

Former House Budget Committee chairman Leon Panetta, who served as President Bill Clinton‘s first budget director, said the financial situation is “much worse” than it was in 1993, when Clinton was forced to abandon promises of a middle-class tax cut before he took office. Instead, Clinton wound up devoting his first State of the Union address to a plan that aimed to tame rising deficits with one of the largest tax hikes in history.

“It’s worse because there are a huge number of crises out there that are going to confront the new president,” Panetta said, citing costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan alongside the rising cost of Social Security and Medicare. “We’re looking at a $400 billion deficit this year with the economy in recession or near recession. The likelihood is that it’s going to get worse. And the fundamental problem has been that there’s very little willpower by Republicans or Democrats to confront the issue.”

Thus, the promises that the candidates are making about the nation’s future, whether they involve new spending initiatives, or tax relief of any kind, are unlikely to survive a nanosecond beyond January 20, 2009, regardless of the election’s winner.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Big Promises Bump Into Budget Realities – washingtonpost.com

Now, one doesn’t need to be a certified curMUDGEon to know that campaign promises, especially those regarding spending and taxation, are like Monopoly money: they don’t look remotely like reality, and they certainly wouldn’t buy a stick of gum at your corner Kwik-E-Mart.

I think that most voters treat  campaign promises accordingly; we are looking for evidence of character, of underlying substance, of a complementary world view to our own. Specifics are ways to prettify a speech, but are probably not taken too seriously, except for those single-issue voters (“end the war immediately!” “end legalized abortion now!”) who never hear any other issue other than their own monomania.

This is why stories like that in today’s Post are so useful. Election campaigns are best treated as entertainment, especially if one’s favorite is in the lead. Governing is not entertaining at all; it’s grueling, thankless, and Herculean — anybody named Hercules running for office anywhere?

So, when evaluating the candidates for the presidency, yr (justifiably) humble svt‘s advice is to make the effort look beyond specific promises, beyond your single overreaching issue. Examine the character of the person, as exemplified in his deeds as much as in his perhaps pandering words.

Due to the steaming, malodorous pile of excrement that George III has deposited in the Oval Office (and hey, the Hercules reference is even more germane — the White House as Augean Stables), we have the power to hire a man who, due to the thankless nature of the impossible tasks before him, will likely age 2-3 years for every year in office. In that light, it’s a wonder that anyone would want the job, much less the legion who contended in the primaries.

And, understand, courtesy of the economists quoted in the Post, that any specific spending program, or tax relief you might have fixed on, isn’t going to happen any time soon, regardless of who you elect.

Did I pop your idealistic bubble? That’s my job, and my name, after all.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

Barack Obama announced Thursday that he would reject public financing for his campaign, after claiming this primary season that he would follow the lead of his Republican opponent. McCain had already announced (he had no choice, that well is pretty dried up for him) that he would rely on public campaign finance for the general election.

Obama is taking much heat from all sides for this change of position. For example,

The Two Obamas

Op-Ed Columnist | By DAVID BROOKS | Published: June 20, 2008

God, Republicans are saps. They think that they’re running against some academic liberal who wouldn’t wear flag pins on his lapel, whose wife isn’t proud of America and who went to some liberationist church where the pastor damned his own country. They think they’re running against some naïve university-town dreamer, the second coming of Adlai Stevenson….

And then on Thursday, Fast Eddie Obama had his finest hour. Barack Obama has worked on political reform more than any other issue. He aspires to be to political reform what Bono is to fighting disease in Africa. He’s spent much of his career talking about how much he believes in public financing. In January 2007, he told Larry King that the public-financing system works. In February 2007, he challenged Republicans to limit their spending and vowed to do so along with them if he were the nominee. In February 2008, he said he would aggressively pursue spending limits. He answered a Midwest Democracy Network questionnaire by reminding everyone that he has been a longtime advocate of the public-financing system.

But Thursday, at the first breath of political inconvenience, Fast Eddie Obama threw public financing under the truck. In so doing, he probably dealt a death-blow to the cause of campaign-finance reform. And the only thing that changed between Thursday and when he lauded the system is that Obama’s got more money now.

Idealist Democrats have been losing presidential elections since Jimmy Carter’s attempt for a second term in 1980. In the intervening 28 years, only the world’s American champion of pragmatism, not to say political weasalism, Bill Clinton, has won election as a Democrat. Those other guys thought that the playing field was level, that their opponents the Republican party would do the honorable thing. They staked out the moral high ground. And lost. Every last time.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Op-Ed Columnist – The Two Obamas – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com

Now, Barack Obama, Harvard educated, articulate in a way that this country has grown unaccustomed to in its national leadership, just plain smart, has shown that he can play in the political big leagues.

He’s raised unprecedented amounts of campaign funding, through zillions of small, individual contributions. He’s in a position to outspend the Republicans, for the first time in forever. Even now, the Republican National Committee, the covert source of so much of the sleazy campaign initiatives like the Swift Boaters, has $54 million to the Democratic National Committee’s $4 million.

Obama knows that the Republicans will throw up the slander and innuendo in industrial strength quantity, and that the only way to counter this is NOT to ignore it.

In this country, idealists ignore gossip and slander, and lose. Every last time.

Senator Obama will use his funding to do as he’s recently done, establish a web site designed to counteract the worst of the calumnies, and even put up expensive television advertising where necessary to take the battle to the guys who have made an art of serving up the slime.

Already he’s advertising in states in which the Democrats have not for many years nationally advertised, long since having resignedly conceded them to the foe.

Not this year.

So, what changed between primary season and now, where so many hand-wringers are so concerned about the pragmatic about face?

Bunches of campaign $millions changed his mind.

Yr (justifiably) humble svt will concur with another commentator who is pleased with the revelation that a Democrat, indeed any politician of any stripe, is capable of reevaluating a long-held position based on new information.

In this frighteningly fast-changing world, isn’t that a desirable capacity for the leader of his nation? Especially after eight years of an administration that has not let reality change its skewed, distorted and disturbed mind-set one nanometer.

Barry, fund-raise like a demon. Spend like crazy. End. The. Madness.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

…   Actually, it never left.

That’s right, faithful reader, that $3.899/gallon gasoline is still amazingly cheap.

That’s what yr (justifiably) humble svt paid yesterday to put 15 gallons of ExxonMobil’s 87 octane best into his mid-size sedan’s tank. Do the math. A Sunday paper less than $60.

Amazingly cheap, right?

Apparently so.

I’ve seen this argument before; that compared with much of the rest of the world (except places like Mexico and Venezuela, where domestic prices are kept artificially low for political reasons), U.S. residents pay proportionately less to fuel their minivans and SUVs than most.

Gasoline Is Cheap

Four dollars a gallon is outrageous! We should be paying much more.

By Robert Bryce | Posted Thursday, May 15, 2008, at 3:24 PM ET

The next time you have to take out a loan just to fill up your tank, remember this: Four-dollar-per-gallon gasoline is cheap.

There’s no doubt that high fuel prices are hurting low-income consumers, and high energy costs are placing a tax on the economy that is slowing investment while sending billions of dollars overseas. It’s unsurprising that presidential candidates and members of Congress issue new proposals practically every day to lower gas prices: Stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve! Suspend the federal gas tax! Open ANWR to oil drilling!

These proposals are delusions, and Americans are living in a fantasy land when it comes to energy and energy prices. Over the past few years, consumers have been inundated with news stories about the soaring price of gasoline. Invariably, these stories include comments from a motorist who is outraged at the evils of a) Saudi Arabia, b) OPEC, c) Big Oil, d) all of the above.

It’s not outrage I’m feeling. More like bemusement.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Four-dollar-per-gallon gas is cheap! – By Robert Bryce – Slate Magazine

During the formative years of the international automobile business, fuel was dirt cheap in the U.S.; more dear in Europe. Relatively high fuel prices, together with the antiquity of many European central cities with their narrow winding streets, combined to influence the manufacturers in Europe to design smaller, fuel-miserly vehicles.

Such automotive icons as the original VW Bug and Austin/Morris Mini were responses to domestic conditions in Germany and Great Britain respectively. Diesel powered vehicles were developed yielding better kilometers per liter, somewhat less convenient (noisy and even dirtier emissions), but diesel fuel was less refined and thus less expensive.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., Ford, Chrysler and especially General Motors were building larger and larger highway cruisers, with inefficient, dirty V8 engines (probably three or more times larger displacement than the Bug or Mini of the 50s and 60s), because there were wide open spaces to explore, and gasoline was $0.29 / gallon.

And imported VWs and Minis in those years were counter-cultural objects of derision/affection, depending upon one’s age when first encountering them, and most people in the U.S. found those wide open spaces inappropriate for their diminutive size and weight. Today’s Bug and Mini replicars are nostalgia magnets, and are far more conventional in size and weight than the originals.

Well, the wide open spaces are still out there, beyond the suburbs and exurbs that the big cars and cheap gasoline helped colonize, but now gasoline is almost $4/gallon, and we haven’t seen the ceiling. And, the general state of the economy, or the average person’s current perception of it, would indicate an emptier and more wide open space this summer.

However, let’s put 29¢/gallon into perspective. The dollar is worth a whole lot less today than in 1965, so that 29¢ then would be $1.92 today (okay, the end of 2007, according to this useful website). But it felt cheap, and even $4 probably still should also. After all, it’s only double the price of 42 years ago. What other commodity has only doubled in price or value over that span?

So, even $4 is still relatively cheap.

And, Sen. McCain, Sen. Clinton, a fuel tax holiday is still a terribly wrong-headed concept.

The obvious way to sever our dependence on foreign petroleum is to create a federal tax to bring the price up to $6 or $8 or even $10/gallon. Use that windfall to start repairing those crumbling bridges and paying down our $zillion war debts.

Our cars would definitely get smaller in a hurry, even recalcitrant Ford, Chrysler and General Motors would find the trend irresistible and compelling. And our children and grandchildren might have a future less burdened by rusting infrastructure and crushing national debt.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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The more you know about ethanol as a petroleum substitute, the more there is to dislike. This has been a continuing story in this nanocorner of the ‘Sphere©, as you can see:

We have spent some time in this space on the subject of water, and its scarcity.

Now, the two concepts: the wrong-headed use for fuel of a key foodstuff; and the menace of the growing shortage of water in the U.S; come together courtesy of a new member of Left-Handed Complement‘s blogroll, fellow WordPress.com blog Optimal Functioning.

Ethanol and Biodiesel the Great Water Wasters

Optimal Functioning | Posted by Hans Rippel on April 27, 2008

The growing demand for ethanol, especially the soaring demand by the U.S., is an important piece of the food crises puzzle. The increasing amount of corn, soy, and cellulosic used for ethanol production are in part causing a scarcity of food supplies, which is threatening the lives of many in third world countries. Researchers have now found that in addition to ethanol production and its planned supply increases are not only a food problem but potentially an even greater cause of a water shortage problem.

Jan F. Kreider from University of Colorado and engeneer Peter S. Curtiss have found that the production of one gallon of corn based ethanol requires 170 gallons of water from growing it to converting it into ethanol and cellulosic ethanol requires 146 gallons of water. Much worse is soybean based biodiesel, which requires 900 gallons of water per gallon of biodiesel. In comparison, one gallon of regular gasoline requires only 5 gallons of water. Actually, the most water efficient fuel has been shown to be natural gas.

This nation’s farmers have a high priority claim on its water supply, but it’s downright catastrophic to pay them subsidies to deflect grain production from food to fuel, when the further processing required is so extravagantly wasteful of the living world’s one, truly finite resource.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Ethanol and Biodiesel the Great Water Wasters « Optimal Functioning

And, Senators McCain and Clinton want to stimulate fuel demand this summer by temporarily suspending the federal tax on gasoline?

How is that not a egregiously bad idea for everyone?

For example, the U.S. government would be deprived of taxes while continuing to conduct a ruinously expensive “war on terror.”

Consumers, who it appears are finally diminishing their purchases of profligate SUV’s in favor of more efficient vehicles, would suddenly be encouraged to prop up the already obscene price of gasoline by stimulating demand.

A stupendously bad idea for everyone, everyone of course excepting George III’s buddies the oil companies, and those utterly pampered Iowa farmers?

The science makes it clear: ethanol and soy based biodiesel are crimes against the globe’s water supply, and their application for vehicular transportation must be terminated soonest.

The planet can figure out ways to deal with the growing cost of petroleum as fuel, for example, by driving less, and converting to renewable energy sources.

But if there’s no water, there’s no life.

Even the cockroaches would have difficulty managing.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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