Dean Didn't Start the Fire

If Howard Dean can do this part right—the courting of the establishment—then the other Democratic candidates don't have a prayer. That he's privately started smooching with Washington while publicly calling her a slut is, in my mind, a very savvy (and very presidential) tactic. Maybe he and Joe Trippi understand the game better than I thought. Still, that he's started courting the establishment doesn't mean he's done it; Clark has a lot of money, the Clintons, and the DLC tied up. (Or so I thought. The WaPo article says that a friend of Hillary's says she's increasely "intrigued" by Dean, for whatever that's worth.)

Well, I'm increasingly "distressed" by Dean. He's further to the right than probably all of his grassroots supporters, and I'm not sure how he'll do a whole heap of good beyond eliminating Bush's tax cuts. I don't believe he'll do badly—anyone but Bush! and all—but I just haven't heard anything that convinces me he's got the right idea when it comes to, say, Medicare or education or the war.

Maybe his lead isn't just momentum begetting momentum, but all I know is that I'm kind of bored with Dean's internet revolution. I mean, he didn't exactly invent the goddamned Internet, he just used it. I do that. His campaign may have been the first to smell the smoke and yell "Fire!" but I'm no longer floored by the fact that he fills up my inbox. I'm just reading today in The American Prospect (print edition) that it wasn't until two-thousand-and-fucking-one that the DLC started taking advantage of computers, so relatively speaking, Howard Dean's internet campaign may well be Zarathustra's dawn. But as Chris Rock says, "That's what you're supposed to do." Dean will have to bring bigger game once the voters start paying attention—which I imagine will coincide with the big establishment players choosing sides—which I think can all still play nicely into Clark's hands.

I'm not so foolish as to not feel Dean's grasp on the horizon, though; wherever his momentum is coming from, and however permanent it is, it's strong now. That said: Anyone think that Clark would abide by a VP slot under Dean, should it come down to that?


Still very much an open court, though.
posted by kriston at 1:17 PM........

Wednesday, December 03, 2003

Show Us Your Bribes

For a conservative columnist, Bob Novak sure is bringing the pain to the GOP. His Nov. 27th column, in which he columnizes that Rep. Nick Smith (R-MI) was offered $100K for his son's congressional campaign for a thumbs-up vote on the Medicare bill, is catching a lot of attention. Courtesy of Josh Marshall, I see that some dare call it bribery on the floor of the House of Representatives. The names are already being bandied back and forth—Dennis Halstert, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson—and so far there's been no word of an investigation from John Ashcroft's office.

This last part confuses me—it's not like John Ashcroft is the Attorney General. He's the boob draper. Boobs have nothing to do with this.


Yet.
posted by kriston at 4:18 PM........

Tuesday, December 02, 2003

The Common Man is So... Common

Courtesy of Charles Kuffner we see that when the Republican National Convention goes down in New York City next summer, Republicans will not actually be staying in New York City, but on a luxury cruise liner that will be docked on the Hudson River. This isn't even going over well with devout New York Republicans. If you use your imagination and focus really hard, you can see how this could be portrayed as on the snobbish side.

When asked about his choice of venue, how it might be perceived by the average New Yorker, and why he personally chose a hotel entirely removed from the City, House majority leader Tom DeLay* responded:

I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals... I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it.

So my guess is he won't be catching a Knicks game while he's in town.


* Tom DeLay, or Agent Smith from The Matrix.
posted by kriston at 4:35 PM........

Holy Shiite

Say, was I asleep when this Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani rose to power? I feel like Iraq is trying to pull some George Lucas bullshit where all of a sudden there's a whole bunch of Darth Whoevers that we didn't know about. I was paying (what I thought was) close attention to the Shi'ite mullahs immediately after the war, because I was afraid that the Pan-Arabist Ba'athist state was only going to fall to be replaced by an Islamicist state. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani is resolute about introducing immediate elections, thereby creating an iron Shiite majority. Encouragingly the emerging powers that be are resisting him:

Council members and officials with the U.S.-led occupation authority said they remained hopeful that Sistani's objections could be overcome with minor revisions to the plan and a more detailed explanation to him of the new transition process, which was crafted in part to address his earlier concerns about how a constitution should be written. But they expressed an unwillingness to bend on the issue of general elections, on the grounds that holding a national ballot would delay an agreed-upon handover of sovereignty, which is to take place no later than June 30.

[...]

Even the country's largest Shiite political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, has sought to distance itself from Sistani's insistence on elections. "When we say 'Iraqis choose' or 'Iraqis elect,' this can take many meanings," said Adel Abdel-Mehdi, director of the party's political bureau. "There is no one way to do that."

[...]

The council's apparent steadfastness stems from a desire among Sunni Arabs, Sunni Kurds and secular Shiites that an ayatollah not be given veto power over political decisions. "We cannot deny there is an attempt to set a precedent on Sistani's side and our side," one member said. "This is more than about elections. It's about whether we will allow one man to dictate the terms of our sovereignty."

That's of course exactly where the galaxy went wrong with Senator Palpatine, so as long as Iraq stays this course I'm hoping that we won't be leaving the place in the hands of the Emperor.

MORE: Little more on Grand Ayatollah Sistani courtesy of Matthew Yglesias, who pointed out that Sistani hosts a website at, reasonably enough, www.sistani.org. Sistani's site has an advice section where he takes questions, mostly about anal and oral sex. There's a long series of questions about "temporary marriages"—a construct that I believe allows for quick, timed marriages, great for an affair—and a funny series of questions from a guy who obviously wants to skip over all the formal/religious temporary marriage stuff and get straight to the benefits. (He gets his wish, too—Sistani says he can give the temp wife a bouquet of flowers as dowry if it's going to be a real temporary marriage. Skip all the music, let's get right tonight, mami.) But here's the gem:

This is how the Sigha (Verbal Contract) should be read by both sides:

First the wife says: MATTA'TUKA NAFSI FIL MUDDATIL MA'LUMA 'ALA AL-MAHRIL MA'LOOM.

Then the man says: QABILTU

Or he can say: ATAZAWWAJOKA FIL AL-MUDDATIL MALOOMA ALA AL-MAHRIL MA'LOOM

The woman says: Qabiltu

You know that man's saying, "The entree ain't as good without somethin on the side."


Yeah, that humor is about as culturally insensitive as I'll publicly admit to being.
posted by kriston at 4:03 PM........

DC—get you some

Sue and Not U has the dibs on DC's new anti-AIDS initiative: free distribution of condoms. Good, good, I say. I think that condoms and RU-486 should be right next to the peppermints on every receptionist's desk in the District. In Coke machines, next to newspaper stands, falling from the sky, running from the faucets: good, good. But as Sue notes, the conservatives who are promulgating this terrible myth that condoms don't work or that research doesn't exist showing precisely how well they work need to cut it out. Such a terrible development for the conservative mythos—the distrust of expertise, the arrogance that dusts empirical truth.


It almost makes me like condoms.
posted by kriston at 3:36 PM........

Welcome to Miami, Bienvenidos a HELL

If you, like me, depend on national media outlets for your news, then you, like me, might've missed reports of rampant police abuse against protesters. That's what weblogs like DIY Media are good for, since the WaPo didn't get around to covering until page E-04, which is kind of far from the front.

Maybe the national media never covers these stories because the details never change: Police stormtroopers vs college students seemingly battling over the efficacy of globalization, which, of course, neither of the clashing elements can influence even slightly. I don't mean to disparage the debate behind the protest, but rather the city of Miami felt it was important to arm its streets with hundred of tazer-carrying, riot-geared cops in tanks. At a free-trade protest? It seems to me that by weaponizing a protest you almost ensure a violent outcome.

It's not just the president of your local university socialist club that's pissed, either: Take a look at AFL-CIO president John Sweeney's scathing statement about the conduct of the Miami police. And for more I'd suggest clicking through DIY Media's numerous links, and certainly this photo gallery. If you've never seen the results of being shot with a rubber bullet, then I highly suggest you click away (and then click "November 20th Pictures"—I'd post it if I could). There's no good reason for that sort of injury.


There's something uniquely juvenile about writing a "cops blow" post, but there you have it.
posted by kriston at 3:18 PM........

A First, a Glorious First

Last night, the Democratic Party picked up my tab. I haven't felt such authentic affection for this city and my party before. Apparently it's not at all rare for a staffer with an expense account to pick up an evening, and I heard something or another about lobbyists "sponsoring" staffers' birthday parties—all I know is that I never want to grow numb to the genuine warmth I felt last night.

WAIT A SEC.. I was courted last night the old-fashioned way, in the grand American tradition—by a lobbyist, not a staffer. And I was treated well enough to forget the difference. On an entirely unrelated note, G.p would like to announce its endorsement for the recently defeated energy bill. It really was wonderful legislation....


What's so bad about ethanol, anyway?
posted by kriston at 1:52 PM........

Maniacs at Mania

Balasubramani is under fire after taking umbrage with this post from extremist Steven Den Beste:

I know my nation. I know my people. We don't want to destroy you all. But if you (I mean "Muslims") place us in a position where only you or us can survive, it's going to be us, and you'll all be dead. We can do that; we've had that capability for a very long time. We don't want to, but we will if we must.

But it would be better, for you and for us, if it did not come to that.

Naturally, Bala's exegesis of Den Beste's—I don't know, thesis? threat?—involves sentiments like "that's fucking nuts," "I'm going to cry," "why is America full of assholes," "I'm crying now," "global politics is not college football," "but UT ought to write something like that to OU," and "I hope that guy lives nowhere near my state." Actually, I wrote all those things, but that's what I gathered from B anyway.

This small ripple in the pond was enough to stir the dreadnaught overlords of the blogosphere, Professor Reynolds and Steven Den Beste. Now Balasubramani's looking at the business end of upwards of 80 right-wing, lunatic comments, as opposed to the single lunatic he choose to upend. So I'm extending Bala an offer of asylum in the hallowed, unfrequented halls of G.p until the fringe passes from his pages on to the next unsuspecting person who is so unpatriotic as to condemn the suggestion of total war between the United States of America and the religion of Islam as literally unbelievable.

ALSO: Norbizness agrees with me, and he did so before I even wrote this post.


There's just something to the notion of a guy, at home, in front of his PC, threatening an entire religion with annihilation, that probably isn't putting the mosques on red alert.
posted by kriston at 12:51 PM........

Monday, December 01, 2003

Redistricting Reneged

The DNC's Kicking Ass reports that the Colorado Supreme Court struck down the state's Republican-led, mid-decade redistricting. Many Texans will agree with me that, after our redistricting maelstrom, it's quaint to think of Colorado having its own legislative imbroglio, or its own Supreme Court. Kicking Ass is confident that this should have an impact on the case against redistricting in Texas, but as Charles Kuffner notes in all his infinite-Texas-legislative wisdom, Texas Dems are suing because the end result of the redistricted map violates the Voting Rights Act, not because the act of redistricting is unconsitutional. Winds of change, maybe; precedent, no.


We'll see if we can ever get Tom DeLay to agree to testify, and then we'll start the betting on the court's decision.
posted by kriston at 4:49 PM........

Thanks for Nothing

I regret my much-maligned equivocation some posts back on the subject of torture when I read that, not only has the two-year imprisonment of some 140 Gitmo prisoners been predicated upon a sham, but the US is waiting for "a politically propitious time to release" these vindicated individuals. If the military can tell ABC that these guys are legit, then it can surely open their cages and send them home. Compensation? Not a dime.

Due process and a debate on forceful interrogation aren't that similar, but if we don't respect due process than we're never going to abide by anything but the most weaponized limits on investigative scope.


The lack of compensation for wrongful imprisonment is not a point to be dismissed—that's 140 new guys who might drive a car of death down my street.
posted by kriston at 4:25 PM........

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