A fading sheen?

Now that the Democratic nomination has wound down and Obama has emerged as the victor, the main stream media, driven by the hard right (especially the self avowed McCain "surrogate" Faux News) have started attacking Obama's positions. The most common attacks are the blatant lies - the "Obama is a secret Muslim" and "Obama says high gas prices are a good thing." What is more insidious, though, are the attempts to portray Obama's long held positions as "flip-flops."

Julie over at Momocrats has a great series of posts (starting here) addressing a few key issues. As she points out: on the death penalty he has consistently been against killing innocents, but not against capital punishment in general; on gun control - "I think it's important for us to recognize that we've got a tradition of . . . gun ownership . . . We can have reasonable, thoughtful gun control measure that I think respect the Second Amendment."; FISA I will address later in this post.

Other attacks like this include NAFTA - his position has been that we need to renegotiate NAFTA, not drop it completely. His problem with NAFTA has been that there are no environmental protections and no worker protections. This allows manufacturing jobs that paid well and were union jobs here in America to be sent to Mexico and Canada where the workers can be paid less and there are fewer environmental protections. He wants to fix these issues; he does not want to unilaterally drop out.

Then there is Iraq. Obama has, since 2003, been against Iraq. But now you are seeing people attack him saying he doesn't intend to leave and in the same breath attack him for being a "cut and run Democrat." They can't have it both ways. Obama's stance has been "We have to be more careful getting out than we were careless getting in." This means that while he intends to pull most of our troops out in 12-18 months, he is not going to do something stupid that leaves us in a worse position than we already are in.

Just this past weekend we had yet another instance of this. General Wesley Clark said "Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president." On its surface, it's true. However, McCain did serve in the military, achieving the rank of captain. This is a record of service that, as Obama has said for months, deserves our recognition. He has also consistently, even through the primary campaign, been against personal, ad hominem attacks. Thus, when he rejected General Clark's attack, he was not flip-flopping or throwing Clark under the bus, he was staying consistent with his message of bringing politics out of the gutter.

The last of these I want to focus on is the FISA legislation. In general, I am against these reforms. However, I have not read the legislation myself and I don't know all of the reforms it will be implementing. The one that I am most strongly against is the telecom immunity clause that will ensure no one is held responsible for completely ignoring the Constitution during Bush's warrantless wiretapping program. When this came up for vote a few months ago, Obama voted against cloture and co-sponsored an amendment with Sen. Dodd to strip the immunity clause. It has come back up for vote in the Senate and this time Obama did not vote on the cloture vote (neither did McCain or Clinton). He has, however said he will continue to push to remove the immunity. Without having researched this bill better, I can't make a complete judgment on his general support of the bill. As far as whether he has changed his position, that is harder to say; he still is fighting against the immunity, but it appears he has weakened his position on the bill at large.

Now all of this does not mean he hasn't changed position on things. The most talked about change has been his stance on public financing in his campaign. Back in 2007, he did say that as long as his Republican counterpart chose to accept public financing, so would he. This clearly is not happening. To explain this, he has said that with 1.7 million donors nationwide, his campaign is being financed by the public, but that ignores some of the other catches tied in with federal public financing. Personally, I am mixed on this. As an idealist, I would like for the public financing system to work and allow good campaigns. However, the other side is best summed up in a cartoon BAC posted a week ago:

There is also the issue of Israel. Throughout his career he has remained fairly neutral on this. However, after securing the nomination he spoke before AIPAC and came down very strongly pro-Israel. This really disappointed me. It weakens his ability to be a fair arbiter of any peace deal between Israel and Palestine. As of yet, I have not heard him address the issues raised in this speech.

I think Julie's final assessment is very accurate. Obama's positions are much more nuanced than a 10 second sound bite. This is something that draws me to him because it breaks away from the "with us or against us" mentality of the past eight years. But it is much harder to convey to the wider public and can be has been used against him. What should be the MSM's job, conveying the facts of the issues, has now fallen to us, the bloggers and grass roots activists.

McCain's Iraq Plan

1. Be elected president.
2. ???
3. Peace in Iraq.

No questions allowed.

A Picture is Worth

A moving mural by Nico Pitney, national editor of the Huffington Post.

Thanks to Kimy over at Mouse Medicine for sharing this.

Break Down of the Issues - Part 1

Foreign Policy

In this and a series of post following (Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, part 5, part 6 and part 7) I will attempt to detail each leading Democratic candidate's position on a number of topics. For all of the information, I am pulling directly from each candidate's website (where information is available) and links will be provided to the relevant page. Where information is not available, I will pull information from recent (within the past few months) legislative action or speeches made by the candidates.

Hillary Clinton	John Edwards	Barack Obama
Iraq
Link	Link	Link
Troop Involvement
Work with Joint Chiefs of Staff to determine troop draw down rate Start pullout within 60 days Some troops left (unclear where) to deal with Al-Qaeda	40,000 to 50,000 troops removed immediately 100% (almost, see below) withdrawn by January 2010 3,000 to 5,000 left to protect US embassy and humanitarian workers	Withdraw 1 to 2 brigades (1,500 to 7,000 troops) removed per month 100% (from Iraq, see below) by mid 2010 No permanent bases in Iraq Some special forces troops left in Middle East to target Al-Qaeda
Diplomatic Efforts
Form coalition of our allies, other global powers, and Iraq's neighbors to: Keep Iraq's neighbors from interfering with the Iraq civil war Work with the UN to mediate between the Iraqi factions Collect money to rebuild Iraq	Bring all involved nations together to stop sectarian violence Convene a regional peace conference	Press Iraqi leaders to work together by showing we aren't going to stay Work through the UN to secure agreements on Iraqi federalism and oil revenue sharing Work with Iraq's neighbors to secure the borders, reconcile Iraqi factions, and fund rebuilding
Miscellaneous
Fund unspecified agencies to stabilize and rebuild. Get money from the UN to help Iraqi refugees	"Clarify the Lack of Legal Foundation for the War" (to Congress)	Form an international group to get $2 billion to help countries in the region handle the millions of Iraqi refugees and protect them in Iraq.
Iran
No specific information on her site Most direct references on the site only deal with Iranian leaders' anti-semitic comments Recently supported a bill to declare the Iranian National Guard a terrorist organization	Link Speak directly to Iran's leaders while working with a multi-national coalition Increase threat of targeted sanctions Offer incentives to start open talks Direct talks with Russia and China to increase their pressure on Iran	Link Condemns Iran's leadership's anti-semitic stance Stop constant threats against Iran (voted against declaring IRG a terrorist organization) Begin direct talks with Iranian leadership without preconditions Offer incentives for ending the nuclear program, but increase sanctions if they don't
General Diplomacy
Link Long involved in international affairs while in White House and Senate Strongly pro-Israel	Link Strengthen non-proliferation agreements; replace with an even stronger treaty Continue working with North Korea through the six party talks Encourage Russia to work with us on a number of the current international issues Push for UN and NATO intervention in Darfur and Uganda	Link Pushes for a two state solution in Israel/Palestine (Re)Open consulates and embassies worldwide, specifically in Africa Double funding to fight global poverty Strengthen NATO Secure loose nuclear material Strengthen non-proliferation treaties through automatic sanctions

Strength in (lack of) Numbers

So, it's been a year now with the Democrats in power and many of you are wondering where the change is. We are still stuck endlessly in Iraq. A large number of children will soon fall off the rolls of SCHIP and lose their only access to health care that doesn't come by trading electricity for HMO coverage. The few things that made it out of the House of Representatives have quickly disappeared, never to be heard from again. Meanwhile Bush & Co. are sitting (not quite) contentedly getting the funding they request only cut by 50-60%.

It all comes down to one word that the Republicans of a year and a half ago wanted to strike from the lexicon of the Congress. Something they swore was horrible and obstructionist and that no Senator should stoop to. It is also something the Democrats were going to fight to their death to protect. Something so vital to them that they couldn't imagine a Congress without it.

That word: filibuster. From the American Heritage Dictionary "The use of obstructionist tactics, especially prolonged speechmaking, for the purpose of delaying legislative action." This act, available only to senators, requires 60 votes to override and bring a piece of legislation to be voted on. Back in the good old days of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington a senator would actually have to speak for as long as he wanted the filibuster to last. Now, a senator merely has to say he is filibustering the bill to get a vote (call a Cloture vote) and if the vote fails, the Senate just moves on to more important things, like non-binding resolutions...

And do you know what I say about all of this? It's a damn good thing the filibuster exists. Without it, my generation would have lost the safety net that is Social Security. We would have @$$4073s like Bolton as our representative in the UN getting us nowhere (I know he made it there anyway, but everyone in the UN knew he was a fraud at least). And I can't remember what other idiotic things Bush tried to push through Congress but failed because of that minority.

There is also the power one man wields over all of this, and the real cause of the deadlock now going on in Congress. That is the power of the veto. This lets the president throw out bills he doesn't like unless Congress can override him with a 2/3 vote. Thats 218 votes in the House, and a mere 67 votes in the Senate. Only 7 more than what is needed for cloture, but apparently a very difficult 7 to get. This would be great when used to keep oppressive or bad legislation out. It is a very important check on Congressional power. Unfortunately, this time, it was put in the hands of a d1ck who has nothing to lose. He may be a lame duck in that he can't get any new legislation passed to help him (at least nothing he can't convince a large enough portion of the American public is important...), but he can stop anything he wants with impunity.

Normally, this would be where bi-partisanship and negotiation would take over. But if there is one thing this president has shown us, it's that playing the public for fools and making them think that there are only two ways to do something ("My way or no way" isn't it?) has worked to keep that from happening. This is both the strength and the weakness of a liberal majority: liberals are willing to work with other people to push toward some greater good. Bush has shown in numerous business and political ventures that he will do it only his way, and stick his fingers in his ears screaming "LA, LA, LA" as loud as he can when anyone asks him to do anything different.

Now I hear many of you screaming, "Well, if Bush is doing all of this horrible stuff, just impeach him!" This would be great, he hasn't done anything explicitly defined in the Constitution, but so many of the things he has done could definitely be put under "other high crimes" as the clause goes. But, there's a slight problem. Back in the 2006 elections, the Republicans, knowing they wouldn't have much of a chance, pulled a fast one on the Democrats without them quite noticing. Many Republicans in border line states prognosticated and said things along the lines of "If you vote for a Democrat, nothing will get done and all they will do is start endless hearings." The Democratic candidates were quick to counter "That's not what we will do; we have our first hundred days planned out. We are going to make this country better." Unfortunately, the first 100 days are quickly forgotten 600 days later... If they start serious impeachment proceedings against the president now, they won't be able to end by Nov. 4 because guess what ugly number springs up again: 2/3. To impeach a government official, you need two things: a simple majority vote in the House of Representatives; this labels the president officially "impeached" (bonus points for those who know which two (and only two) presidents have been thusly labeled). Then it is tried in the Senate (by the Chief Justice) and falls to a 2/3 majority vote. If you can't get 67 senators to say that children deserve health care, I doubt you will get more than 50 to say yes on an impeachment vote.

And what happens after the Congress fails to even get this done? The Republicans come back to their home districts and say "See! I told you they were do nothing Democrats!" and it's twelve more years of them being in the majority... I find it sad to say this, but with the cards we are dealt right now, we need the Democrats to continue with (most of) what they are doing. Keep fighting for good legislation, let Bush veto it, and throw something else at him. If you can show the Republicans are being obstructionist, and throw their own dirt back at them, we have a good chance of the Democrats picking up a few more seats.

Then it will be time for some real third (fourth and fifth?) party candidates to push forward with agendas Americans really want.

When is 70 billion not enough but 35 billion too much?

When the 70 is to fund the thing killing more than 100 soldiers a month and the 35 is to provide health care for children that can't see a doctor...

Currently Congress is working on a federal budget. This is the annual budget that is going to fund pretty much all of government, except for the military and a few other things. The Pentagon gets funding through a separate budget process. However, Bush has requested $200 billion of extra funding to pour into Iraq.

Now, you and I know the Democrats aren't going to give in to such a foolish demand. Schumer, Polosi, Reed and all the rest told us they wouldn't give Bush any more blank checks for this war. They even said they would make sure we got out of there as soon as possible (some of them).

But surprise, according to CNN the Democrats are close to a deal that would give him only $70 billion for the next six months. They are trying to claim that this is some sort of victory; that giving him more than $200 from every man, woman and child living in the United States at this moment, and six months from now (not to mention just six months ago...) give him more. This is money that is sending our troops into a country we never should have entered in the first place. It has killed almost four thousand American troops and injured almost thirty thousand, devastating countless families.

And what do they call this gutless capitulation? "[A] partial victory." Why you might ask? Because "Bush is likely to get far less money than he originally requested." I'm sure Bush counts only seventy billion as a failure. I'm sure he will turn around and pull us out of Iraq now. You are sure showing him the bravery that the electorate was hoping for after hearing your promises of no new funding for the war. I mean, whats the difference between no new funding and 70 billion dollars, its nothing compared to the difference between 70 and 200 billion. Surely the voters won't notice.

And do you know the worst part? They are probably right. Most of us only have the choice between someone who will write a 200 billion dollar check that my three year old will need to pay off when he is 10 or a 70 billion dollar one. If there were one good alternative per district, you wouldn't see this crap. Even if these alternatives were in just half, maybe even in just a third of the country we might see change. But right now, it's a handicapped horse race. These two parties, who act so set against one another, are far less worried about disappointing their electorate than they are about saying no to a man that less than 35% of the population cares for.

To get to the second half of my headline, Bush has once more vetoed the SCHIP bill, saying it will be too expensive and its not the right thing for America. This bill that is too expensive is $35 billion for five years of funding, just 1.75% of his Iraq request. Just going by the numbers, this means that allowing 818 American soldiers (the six month average) to die is more than 57 times more worthwhile than helping an extra 4 million children who can't afford health care. That equation doesn't look good from any angle. And this doesn't even bring into account the potential wounded or the Iraqi civilian deaths and injuries.

Democrats, get some balls. Help our troops come home, or rather most of them - I'm not one of those who believe we can pull out completely, maybe I'll get into that soon. And you Republicans, tell this president that the children of this country do matter as more than just future cannon fodder for the war you're planning with Iran; get them the health care they need.