The Safe Haven Lie

Today on Hardball, Ike Skelton advanced a familiar argument in Washington, not just now but over several decades, about the presumed consequences of failure that are always brought out as an argument for escalating warfare and continued foreign policy intervention:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Well let me ask you about the moral question, Mr. Skelton. The question is, and you're chairman of the (House Armed Services) Committee, and you do make strategy, because we have a co-equal branch that you represent. The question is, we had a moral case to go in there and punish the people who attacked us and to knock them out of power. But today are we fighting the people who attacked us on 9/11? Are the Taliban forces attacking us now the people who attacked us on 9/11?

IKE SKELTON: What will happen if the Taliban regains hold in either part or all of Afghanistan, just bet your bottom dollar, as sure as God made little green apples, the Al Qaeda terrorists will go back in there and have a safe haven from which to plan, plot and attack America and American interests, wherever they may be. And consequently we have to finish the job. The job should have been finished back in 2002, and put the resources there were put into Iraq, and sadly they were not. And now the war really begins as a result of President Obama giving a strategy speech. And hopefully he will listen to the recommendations of his commanders.

This is a lie, and I can prove it.

We know right now that there are no signs of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. As long as we're listening to the commanders, General Petraeus said this back in May, and so has General McChrystal just last month. Both of them maintain that Al Qaeda maintains undefined "links" to insurgents, but they aver as an absolute that Al Qaeda forces are not in the country, having moved to areas of western Pakistan and the border region. Just today, the President said that Al Qaeda has less than 100 core fighters overall and has "lost operational capacity," and that their presence has diminished significantly in Afghanistan.

And yet, we know right now that the Taliban controls as much as 80% of Afghanistan. This report by the International Council on Security and Development from September of this year authoritatively estimated this:

The Taliban now has a permanent presence in 80% of Afghanistan, up from 72% in November 2008, according to a new map released today by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS). According to ICOS, another 17% of Afghanistan is seeing ‘substantial’ Taliban activity. Taken together, these figures show that the Taliban has a significant presence in virtually all of Afghanistan.

“The unrelenting and disturbing return, spread and advance of the Taliban is now without question,” said Norine MacDonald QC, President and Lead Field Researcher for ICOS.

Previous ICOS maps showed a steady increase in the Taliban’s presence throughout Afghanistan. In November 2007, ICOS assessed that the Taliban had a permanent presence in 54% of Afghanistan, and in November 2008, using the same methodology; the result was a finding of a permanent Taliban presence in 72% of the country.

The new map indicates that the Taliban insurgency has continued to expand its influence across Afghanistan. “The dramatic change in the last few months has been the deterioration of the situation in the north of Afghanistan, which was previously one of the most stable parts of Afghanistan. Provinces such as Kunduz and Balkh are now heavily affected by Taliban violence. Across the north of Afghanistan, there has been a dramatic increase in the rate of insurgent attacks against international, Afghan government, and civilian targets“, stated Mr. Alexander Jackson, Policy Analyst at ICOS.

So the Taliban has been in control of at least half the country for at least two years, more than enough time for Al Qaeda to pack up from the border region and reinstall themselves into these safe havens. Skelton stated specifically that if the Taliban regains hold in "all or part of Afghanistan," Al Qaeda would return to plot attack. Well, the Taliban control 80% of the country. But Al Qaeda aren't there. They don't need to be.

This persistent lie about Al Qaeda's aims in the region underpins the entire case for escalation, just the way the domino theory underpinned consistent troop buildup in Vietnam. And yet nobody in the media, up to and including Chris Matthews today, has bothered to challenge this basic falsehood. Nobody has asked the question, "If Al Qaeda is so desperate to find a safe haven, why haven't they returned to Afghanistan now, when the Taliban controls 80% of the country?" It's not like they aren't under as much threat from drone attacks in Pakistan as they would be in Afghanistan.

Will anyone present these basic facts to the "serious foreign policy" dittoheads when they go on and on with a demonstrably false argument about safe havens and how we must send as many troops as possible into danger or we'll all be killed in our beds?

Nicaragua And Abortion

Simply put, this is the kind of world that Chris Matthews privileges when he goes on television and says that we have to get "subsidized abortions" out of the health care bill (there's about 100 ways in which that isn't true, which I've described consistently over the last few weeks, but put that aside for a moment):

Nicaragua's total ban on abortion is a violation of human rights and is killing a growing number of women and children, Amnesty International said Monday in launching a campaign to have the measure repealed.

In a report released in Mexico City, the international human rights organization said Nicaragua's law, which went into effect in late 2006, puts the Central American country among the 3% of the world's nations that do not allow abortion under any circumstance.

Citing statistics from the Nicaraguan Health Ministry, the report says 33 women and girls died from pregnancy complications in the first 19 weeks of this year, compared with 20 in the same period last year. It also says the real numbers are probably much higher.

Nicaragua has one of Latin America's highest rates of sexual violence, with the abuse often perpetrated by fathers, uncles or other relatives.

At least 50% of reported rapes are of girls under the age of 18, and most of those who get pregnant are under 15, the report says.

Women and girls who have been impregnated by rapists or whose lives or health is at risk are not allowed to abort.

Lindsay Beyerstein has more.

Matthews would say that he simply doesn't want to sully the health care debate with all that icky abortion talk. Well, it is icky when women and girls die because they cannot access medical care. But that's not a reason to give in to anti-choice demands. Conservatives don't just want to prevent "government-funded abortions" (again, not true, just using their language), they want any plan inside the insurance exchange, including private plans, not to cover abortion services. That's the entire individual market, under this vision of health care reform. And Medicaid is already banned from covering reproductive rights. And Medicare is irrelevant. So we chip, chip, chip away at reproductive choice, preventing insurance from covering it, making it more expensive, less attractive for doctors to perform to people who may not be able to afford it, and essentially more difficult. The extreme version of where Matthews is being led can be found in Nicaragua, where women are dying for no reason.

Lois Romano Won't Be Invited Back On Hardball Again

Chris Matthews unsurprisingly opened his maw and had Betsy McCaughey spoonfed bullshit into it today, repeating almost word-for-word McCaughey's argument about end-of-life care in the health care bill.

MATTHEWS: Lois, your thoughts about this debate, it's a provision in the Energy and Commerce version of the health care bill, Energy and Commerce Committee. It was put in, this provision by Earl Blumenauer from Oregon, there it stands, it's a provision which allows you to get counseling every five years or so. I wonder what the hell this provision's doing in a bill that's aimed at people who are younger. It's not about Medicare recipients, people over 65. Why are you going to be visited every five years by somebody to talk about how you want to die. I think it's crazy this is in there, but your thoughts.

ROMANO: But it's not in there. I mean basically-

MATTHEWS: It is in there!

(crosstalk)

MATTHEWS: It's in the bill, it's in the-

ROMANO: It's a benefit! First of all, Chris, Chris. First of all, it's an extension of a 1999 bill that was enacted during the Bush Administration, and it's a self-determination, a patient's rights bill. And all it really says is that Medicare will pay if someone wants to go in and have a consultation. It doesn't say you have to have a consultation.

MATTHEWS: It's not about Medicare, Lois, this is, we already have that in Medicare. This is about people under 65, younger people. This is not about Medicare, we've got it in that coverage, you're saying that. This is about a health care bill to help people in their middle years, in their younger years. Why would you have this conversation with them?

I don't know, Chris, because young people don't have a force field around them, and sometimes they get stricken with terminal illness, and sometimes they get in car accidents, and sometimes they get in situations for end-of-life care comes into play, and they should be allowed to have a consultation about those issues covered by their health care plan.

Also fun: Matthews thinks this bill has nothing to do with Medicare, when major provisions include eliminating Medicare Advantage, the private insurers who charge individuals twice as much as the government and offer worse care to seniors; the IMAC provision to look at reimbursement rates in Medicare, Medicare internal cost savings, Medicaid coverage expansion, and about 20 other things to do with Medicare and Medicaid.

This goes on for about five minutes, with Tweety checking his crib sheet for Betsy McCaughey's lies, and Romano fruitlessly trying to debunk them. He talks about "consultations on a recurring basis" and she yells "It's not mandated!" and he says "Well, what's it doing in there," finally deciding that it was put in by a lobbyist (evil!). The Politico bobblehead chimes in with the kind of "teach the controversy" hands-off refereeing, saying that you see conservatives bringing this up because it "offers political fodder." Yes, I imagine lying about the policy does offer political fodder, especially if people like Chris Matthews swallow those lies whole. At the end he demands, "Why is it in this bill!" Because health care policy should not be included in a health care bill. ("You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!") Romano replies, "Why not?" Matthews: "Because we're talking about it."

Mission accomplished, Betsy McCaughey. The 90s are back!

He did the same thing in the role of abortion policy in the health insurance exchanges, where he stumbled into something he knew absolutely nothing about, decided that offering the same reproductive coverage on a public option as is offered in 90% of all private plans was illegal under the Hyde Amendment, even though the public plan is self-sufficient and doesn't access public funds, and decided that dirty liberals were ruining a good bill by throwing a "lefty wish list" into it and driving good solid moderates like him crazy.

Chris Matthews is a deeply stupid person. He knows absolutely nothing about policy, and picks up scraps from The Weekly Standard and people from the Hudson Institute and cocktail parties and fits it into his dishonest everyman pose. For every day he takes down a Birther there are 20 or 30 instances like this where he actively works to deny progress for America.

If most of our media didn't exist, I'd have to say at this point people would be better informed.

Privileging the Opposition

Howard Kurtz finally opened his trap about the Birther movement yesterday on CNN, actually appearing to understand the issue.

On his Reliable Sources show today, CNN’s Howard Kurtz criticized Dobbs and others in the media who have given airtime to the “fringe of the fringe” that is the “birther” crowd. “These are ludicrous claims, there is no factual basis for them,” said Kurtz. “Why give the birthers any airtime?” He then specifically criticized Dobbs for not acting “responsible”:

KURTZ: Callie Crossley, Lou Dobbs on his radio show said, “I believe the president is a citizen of the United States.” But he keeps raising these questions, complaining about criticism from “limp-minded, lily-livered lefties.” Is it responsible for Dobbs and others to go on the air, talk about these claims, demand proof, when we have seen a copy of the birth certificate? When Hawaii officials say that Barack Obama was born there in 1961?

CROSSLEY: It absolutely is not responsible.

"Giving airtime" is precisely the point. The news media, whether legitimizing the Birthers or disputing them, have paid far more attention to them than they ever did the 9-11 Truthers or any other crazy and actually irrelevant conspiracy theorists:

Ask yourself this: What would have happened if, in July of 2002, Lou Dobbs would have conducted respectful interviews with various Truthers, in the course of which Dobbs called on the Bush administration to prove by documentary evidence that the U.S. government hadn’t actually carried out the 9/11 attacks?

The answer is obvious: Dobbs would have been fired before the next morning—which is another way of saying that it’s inconceivable that he or any other mainstream media figure would ever do such a thing. Similarly, it’s equally inconceivable that any Democratic member of Congress would go on a program like Hardball and repeatedly refuse to say whether he rejected the idea that the Bush administration was behind the 9/11 attacks.

The short answer is that conservative media figures and politicians are essentially afraid of and courteous to the craziest part of their right-wing base, while liberal politicians hold them in contempt. This is true even in those cases where the "conspiracy" has a fair bit of evidence, say, in the stolen election in Florida in 2000.

I don't doubt that the Birther issue is a headache for the GOP, but they respond to it seriously, giving it some breathing space, rather than self-loathing Democrats like Collin Peterson, who are so contemptuous of their own citizens that they'd rather cancel all access to their constituents.

Out-party politicians have long had to deal with conspiracy theorists on their side — the people who think that the Clintons killed Vince Foster or that the Bush administration helped orchestrate the Sept. 11 attacks.

“Twenty-five percent of my people believe the Pentagon and Rumsfeld were responsible for taking the twin towers down,” said Rep. Collin Peterson, a Democrat who represents a conservative Republican district in Minnesota. “That’s why I don’t do town meetings.”

Now I don't want to get into an argument about which crazy conspiracy theorists get more respect from official discourse. But this doesn't stop there. It seeps into the mainstream in other ways, on other issues. The best recent example concerns Chris Matthews' harping on abortion funding in the health care bill based on 100% conservative framing, plucked out of The Weekly Standard (by his own admission):

MSNBC's Chris Matthews is illustrative of the approach to the topic some have taken. Matthews, who acknowledges his approach to this topic has been shaped by the conservative Weekly Standard, has made his opposition to coverage for abortion clear, claiming President Obama "says they're going to reduce the number of abortions, and that same week he pushes to subsidize abortion? You can't do that."

On a recent Hardball, Matthews questioned Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin and Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch about the topic, asking leading questions that encouraged them to state their opposition to insurance coverage of abortion. But Matthews didn't ask them -- and hasn't asked any other guest -- one simple question: Why shouldn't abortions be covered, given that the procedure is legal? Nor has he asked if there are any other legal procedures that shouldn't be covered.

Instead, Matthews has adopted the premise that taxpayer funds shouldn't be used to pay for abortions, no matter how indirectly, because some taxpayers believe abortion to be immoral. On Wednesday's Hardball, for example, Matthews asked Obama adviser David Axelrod: "[I]f the federal government spends money on abortions, that means people who believe abortion is evil would be forced to have their tax money go to pay for abortions. How do you justify that?"

That premise is only superficially compelling, and has no business underlying an impartial news report. After all, millions of Americans believe the death penalty and wars of choice are immoral. But the moral beliefs of pacifists and death penalty opponents are not granted the privilege the media grants opposition to legal abortion -- and so you rarely see a news report premised on the idea that taxpayer funding for war or capital punishment is inappropriate.

How the Birther issue has been handled in Washington is a teachable moment, one that shows how the Beltway remains wired for conservatives, no matter how crazy.

Waffling on Abortion In The Public Option

I saw this as well, and David Axelrod was squirming for dear life when Tweety asked him about covering abortion services in the public plan, in alleged contravention of the Hyde Amendment. They haven't figured out talking points for this yet, including the most obvious one, that the public plan authored in the House is self-sufficient and as such doesn't involve public funds. Instead, Axelrod wants nobody to get "bogged down" by this divisive debate. The President said the same thing today.

Katie Couric: Do you favor a government option that would cover abortions?

President Obama: What I think is important, at this stage, is not trying to micromanage what benefits are covered. Because I think we're still trying to get a framework. And my main focus is making sure that people have the options of high quality care at the lowest possible price.

As you know, I'm pro choice. But I think we also have a tradition of, in this town, historically, of not financing abortions as part of government funded health care. Rather than wade into that issue at this point, I think that it's appropriate for us to figure out how to just deliver on the cost savings, and not get distracted by the abortion debate at this station.

People just aren't going to buy that, and they shouldn't. The President and his staff need to say what Bill Clinton said in 1993, that any government-run option should offer the same kind of services that private health insurance plans offer, including reproductive choice. And the Hyde Amendment doesn't apply to services funded by individual insurance premiums. Period.

But they instead hem and haw and really accept the biases of people like Chris Matthews, who are looking at the issue from a narrow perspective, who don't have the facts, and who enable crazies like Todd Tiahrt who say things like Barack Obama's mother under the public plan would have aborted the President. You'd think someone basking in the glory of telling off a stupid Birther about "appeasing the whackos" would have attention to that. But abortion is just icky and nobody in the Village wants to talk about it.

Including the President and his staff. But we're going to have to talk about it. Because a public option without the same kind of coverage as private insurance options will not reach a critical mass. It will discriminate against women, and women won't choose it. And we will have flawed competition between those insurance options. That's what's at stake.

And by the way, let me agree with John Cole:

On Hardball right now, Matthews is grilling Axelrod that abortion may be covered under the potential health plans, and said “what about people who think abortion is immoral.”

Well, screw ‘em. The government is constantly doing things that some people think is immoral. Lots of people think it is immoral to wage war. We got two of ‘em going right now. Lots of people think it is immoral put people in jail for nonviolent drug offenses. Got a few of those folks in jail right now, too. And on and on.

'Xactly. The only time morality comes into play for these media types is when conservatives are screaming about it. Killing brown people with bombs from 30,000 feet never really comes into play in such a moral analysis.

Lunatics

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Chris Matthews highlighted this nutcase birther at a town hall with Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE), questioning Obama's citizenship and forcing a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. It's unfiltered crazy in action. In the 1990s, the media took these fringe scandals regarding Bill Clinton and gave them a platform and some credibility, seeping them into the mainstream. You can draw a through-line from the out-there lies of the extreme right like the alleged murder of Vince Foster and the Clinton impeachment. Some in the media, like Lou Dobbs, continue to do that today, legitimizing the birther movement. And several far-right Congressmen have co-sponsored a bill to require Presidential candidates to provide proof of US citizenship. Today on Hardball, Rep. John Campbell, who thinks Atlas Shrugged is non-fiction, tried to dodge the issue by claiming that this is merely a technical bill to ensure Presidents meet the requirements of office in some official capacity, but Matthews was having none of it. He called it a "crazy proposal" and tried to peg down Campbell on whether or not he believed Obama was an American citizen. It took him all of 10 minutes to finally say he believed Obama was.

MATTHEWS: Congressman, nice try. But what you're doing, it's a nice try, and I'm laughing with you only to this extent, because I know it's a nice try. What you're doing is appeasing the nutcases. As you've just pointed out, this won't prove or disprove whether Barack Obama's a citizen. By the way, let me show you his birth certificate. That's the way to deal with this. Mail this birth certificate to the whacko wing of your party, so they see it and say, "I agree with this, it's over." [...] you're verifying the paranoia out there. You're saying to the people, "That's right, it's a reasonable question whether he's a citizen or not."

Campbell squirmed and shuffled, first saying that Obama was an American citizen "as far as I know," (Matthews responded: "As far as you know? I'm showing you his birth certificate!") and then eventually saying "I believe he is."

Now, I don't remember Matthews being so insistent about "appeasing the nutcases" back in the 1990s, when he had Paula Jones on his shows, and Dan Burton, and the Arkansas State troopers, and every other two-bit huckster peddling juicy gossip about "Slick Willie." But clearly the atmosphere has changed, at least for Tweety. The birther movement has become a bridge too far.

It just shows you how diverged the conversations have become in this country. Democrats are debating how to tackle health care and whether a public option works best and how best to get costs under control, and the right has become fixated on the idea that Barack Obama's family faked his birth certificate 47 years ago, knowing he would run for President eventually and need a cover story.

"Whatever the merits are..."

For the second day in a row, Chris Matthews ranted about the prospect of a potential public health insurance option covering abortion services, and his lineup of talking heads agreed that this was "the last thing Obama needed" and that Obama was a hypocrite because he met the Pope last week.

MATTHEWS: What do you make of the 19 House Democrats who said there can't be any abortion funding in this bill? There can't be any national health insurance payments for abortion. What do you make of that choice? And by the way, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania today voted, yesterday voted with the Republicans to ban any money from this bill that's supposed to be for national health to go for abortions?

NAVARETTE: It's the last thing Obama needs. The issue's complicated and divisive and controversial enough without bringing abortion into it. The American people are giving mixed signals. They say they don't want to pay for the program but they do want to cut costs, and they want to pay for some kind of reform, but don't get in the way of my doctor and the tests he might order. So they're all over the map. Clearly, politicians are trying to be responsive to that. It's a tough enough issue without trying to bring abortion into it. Obama's in a tough spot, I don't think he gets this through.

MATTHEWS: Well, I think he did, I think he will, but he's gonna deal with this thing. What do you think, Roger, because this could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Because when I see it coming, it came from nowhere. I started reading about it this weekend in the Weekly Standard, and I watched Hatch last night on this show stating that he pushed to ban it. The law says, it has said since the 70s, under a Democratic Congress, no federal money pays for abortions. It has been the law of the land, and now they're trying to change it.

SIMON: Whatever the merits are, as Ruben said, as you are saying just now, this is just a fight that President Obama does not need. There are other problems with the health care bill. First of all, what is it going to look like, are you going to have a true public option, how are you going to pay for this trillion dollar program. You don't need to add in a hot-button issue like abortion. To most Americans, abortion is a settled issue.

MATTHEWS: You mean the right to an abortion. But not payment for it.

SIMON: That's right. Safe, legal and rare, and don't bother us about it.

MATTHEWS: By the way, the night he tells the Pope, he goes over to see the Pope and says they're going to reduce the number of abortions, and then that same week he pushes to subsidize abortion? You can't do that!

SIMON: I think last week is a week the White House would like to have back.

I wonder if Tweety came up with that phrase, "subsidize abortions," himself, or whether he read it in his beloved Weekly Standard. I expect we'll hear it a lot in the weeks to come.

And I also want to looks at Roger Simon's "Whatever the merits are," which is a classic pundit phrase, where they don't want to deal with the reality of a situation, so they burrow into the politics. Let me tell you what the "merits" are of including a legal medical service like abortion into a public insurance plan. Actually, let Dana Goldstein tell you.

So when opponents of abortion rights say they'd like to "maintain current policy," what they likely mean is that Hyde should also apply to any potential public health insurance plan, thus maintaining the federal government's ban on abortion funding. This would make a public plan much less attractive to women of reproductive age. A full 90 percent of current private health plans cover abortion services, and 89 percent cover contraception. According to a poll by the Mellman Group on behalf of the National Women's Law Center, 71 percent of Americans support coverage for reproductive health, including contraception, under a public plan. Sixty-six percent support coverage for abortion in a public plan. Americans hope that a public plan will provide services comparable to what they can purchase on the private market. They don't see health reform as grounds for a culture war.

Let's go further than this. 17 states cover abortion under Medicaid by using their portion of state funding to pay for it (another reason why letting the federal government fully fund Medicaid might be a problem). The Matthews/conservative version of a public plan would be worse than Medicaid in those 17 states. In addition, the entire premise of Matthews' critique, ripped from the pages of The Weekly Standard, is just wrong. As the just-released House Tri-Committee bill describes, the public insurance option is completely self-sustaining and pays for everything out of its own premiums. There's public money involved in the sense that the Health and Human Services Secretary would have to hire administrators, but basically this is a self-funded insurance program.

SELF-SUFFICIENCY
Public option must be financially self-sustaining, as private plans are.

Public option will need to build start-up costs and contingency funds into its rates and adjust premiums annually in order to assure its financial viability, as private plans do.

As Goldstein notes, the Hyde Amendment, that law from the 70s that Tweety cites, "is not under threat from any of the proposed House or Senate health reform bills." Meaning that Medicaid and other public health programs will continue to deny legal abortion services as part of their coverage. It's sad that Democrats are already conceding that, but Republicans want more. Not only do they want reproductive choice banned from a self-sustaining public option, they want it banned from any private insurance company that offers coverage inside these "insurance exchanges" designed to provide small businesses and individuals more choice and greater purchasing power to receive health insurance. As said before, 90% of all private insurers include abortion services in their coverage. Anti-choice Republicans don't just want to follow existing law, they want to create new policy that says anyone the federal government does business with cannot offer abortion services as part of their coverage to consumers. The Hyde Amendment already discriminates against poor women who cannot afford health insurance; the anti-choicers would extend that.

Under Tweety Bird's construction, Obama walked into a minefield by trying to "subsidize abortion." That's absurd. And the merits of the policy, contra Roger Simon, are important and shouldn't be set aside because old men consider them icky:

If the public plan does not cover reproductive health services, it will be a weak public plan. And a weak public plan, by failing to attract a constituency, is bad for the overall goals of progressive health reform; it will mean that our employer-based system is not fundamentally transformed. Could this be the true goal of most Congressional Republicans? Hmm....

And since we have a religion-industrial complex telling Democrats constantly to give ground on this issue, and a leadership willing to oblige them, they now have to choose between making their reform bill demonstrably worse and making Chris Matthews uncomfortable. Sadly, I fear they'll opt for the latter. I'm very sorry that the continuing discrimination against women's rights to their own medical choices is a tough policy under which to find middle ground, but that's no reason to disable health care reform by hamstringing it.

By the way, you know who I didn't see in that Hardball discussion? A woman. Funny how that is...

Denying Legitimate Medical Care

I caught a hint of this today too:

Chris Matthews just asked Senators Richard Durbin and Orrin Hatch several questions in a row about the possibility of a public health care plan might include federal funding of abortions.

The question Matthews didn't ask? "Abortions are legal medical procedures. Why shouldn't a public health insurance plan pay for a legal medical procedure?"

Instead, Matthews' questions all seemed to assume that such funding shouldn't be allowed; he ultimately told Hatch "I think it's going to be an issue, Senator. I think your side may win this ultimately."

Later on in the show, Howard Fineman said, "the health care bill's in enough trouble, why would they add this issue into it?

I'm sure Fineman and Tweety will ask the same thing about cancer screening, dialysis, and other legal medical procedures that are available in over 86% of all private insurance plans. Seventeen states fund abortions through Medicaid in spite of the Hyde Amendment limiting participation from the federal government to rape, incest or the life of the mother. I can think of no other legal medical service denied to so many. It's completely unacceptable to continue this denial, no matter how icky it makes old men like Chris Matthews feel. Hopefully the public plan won't cover his Viagra and he can see how the other half lives.

Chris Matthews Hits The Donor State Issue

Wow, this is actual journalism on cable news. Chris Matthews just replayed Tom DeLay's comment that Texas gets back 70 cents for every dollar it gives to the federal government in Texas. Turns out they get back 94 cents. And the top 10 donor states are all blue, while 8 of the 10 states that take more back in taxes than they receive are red. Somehow, these "whiners" (Matthews' words) want to bitch and moan about how much they give to Washington in taxes, when the argument is much stronger among those states like California, New York and New Jersey.

This is almost never brought up on national television, and the wingnut forced to respond decided to change the subject, of course. But the fact is that the blue wealth-creating states have been dragging the asses of the red states for a long time, and it's really about time this gets some proper attention.

Lugubrious Tales Of Woe

Zack Roth catches Chris Matthews mistaking Eric Holder's dismissal of charges in the Ted Stevens case, due to prosecutorial misconduct, with the notion that Stevens was completely innocent and the charges should have never been filed.



It's no surprise that Matthews has no idea how the criminal justice system works. And of course, the rest of the Village establishment has taken up for their pal Ted as well, deliberately misreading yesterday's events and intoning gravely how this honorable man has been "besmirched."

George Stephanopoulos of ABC News (via Twitter): "Whatever your politics, hard not to feel for Ted Stevens."

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL): "This incredible man, he served his country well, he was a power player ... he took care of Alaska."

Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT): "We're delighted that it's been demonstrated that Ted was telling us the truth all along. (Ed: Needless to say, nothing of the sort was demonstrated.) Obviously, we're a little disappointed that this didn't come out before the election....I think he can get his reputation back. I don't know where he goes to get his legal fees back."

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT): "Here's a guy who gave 60 years of service to this country, and he was screwed [by federal prosecutors] ... How does he get his reputation back?"

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ): "That's why we have the presumption of innocence ... I never called for him to step down or resign or anything like that. I think those who did might regret it now."

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK): "[I am] deeply disturbed that the government can ruin a man's career and then say, 'Never mind.'"

Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI): "I didn't tell him this, but, you know, he's really suffered ... I don't want to use the word 'angry,' but I'm just disappointed that prosecutors were involved in that type of misbehavior ... Lawyers' fees are not cheap. He'll have to work the rest of his life."

As Roth notes, the bulk of these quotes appeared in "responsible Beltway publications," without being challenged or balanced with a statement of the plain fact that nothing in the dismissal of the suits admits Stevens' innocence.

For the record I think Holder did the right thing. The prosecutors clearly committed misconduct and that shouldn't go by without consequences. I also hope this is just the beginning of restoring the assault on the rule of law committed at the highest levels of the Justice Department, and Don Siegeleman's phone should be getting a ring shortly.

But this is classic Village behavior. Their friend, the guy they see shopping at the Safeway all the time, gets off on a technicality, and the collective water works come out, and these encomiums, these tales of woe. Meanwhile thousands of people are railroaded all the time in the criminal justice system, a key piece of our failed prison policy. But of course the Village doesn't KNOW those folks.

...and the Alaska GOP thinks we should rerun Stevens' Senate election. Can't wait to see that in Ruth Marcus' column shortly.

Twits

The Politico, seeking to prove its commitment to substantive journalism, had an article today about the 10 most influential DC Twitterers. Enough said on their claims to substance. But they do hit on a mini-phenomenon; unlike blogs, which the Beltway media was slow to accept and embrace, Twitter has become something of a hit. Which makes perfect sense. After all, if you knew nothing about a topic except the barest outlines of the "who's winning/who's losing" dynamic, you'd want to limit yourself to 140 characters, too.

I'm not saying that Twitter is useless: it's a good publishing tool for quick news bytes and reporting from spaces where a computer is impractical. The best information from the California budget standoff came from the few reporters and advocates left in Sacramento updating their Twitter feeds (of course, that says more about California's political media than it does about the medium). However, reading the blurb for Ana Marie Cox' designation on the list, it appears that to them, Twitter has just become Village IM:

The former Wonkette makes the cut for two reasons: productivity and popularity. At 54,000 followers and climbing, Cox’s tweets (sometimes as many as 100 a day) are among the most followed in Washington. With attitude and humor, Cox documents just about everything: White House briefings, her cats, her former employers, her ongoing debate about whether to wear pants around the house — and political sound bites on TV that could pass for bad pickup lines at a bar (“My filibuster lasts all night long”).

Usually DC gets these things 4-6 years after the fact, like my grandparents' rural small-town radio station ("Coming up, music from a hot new band called The Who!"), but Twitter allows the chattering class the double pleasure of maxing out on their Blackberry usage, along with being forcibly constrained by time and space to definitively not talk about anything of import whatsoever. "John Edwards' haircut ZOMG LOLZ" fits the format; an analysis of proposed USDA country-of-origin labeling policy doesn't. And the structure of having "followers" surely appeals to Village types. All in all, it's better than passing notes in junior high! Actually, kind of the same thing!

This is the by-product of a media utterly consumed with self-regard and groupthink, who cannot conceive of talking about politics without sports analogies and scorecards. And the head Twit of them all, Tweety, has been unwittingly exposed by Chuck Todd:

NBC White House Correspondent Chuck Todd has a theory on why MSNBC's Hardball host Chris Matthews begged off from running for the Pennsylvania Senate seat held by Republican Arlen Specter. "Because [Chris] had a really good friend of his say to him, 'What are you going to do when you get there?' and he couldn't answer the question and he realized that, and that's why he didn't run," says Todd. "It was a childhood dream to be a senator, but he didn't know what he was going to do if he got there."

Eric Boehlert is quite rightly astounded.

Matthews, who has been inside the Beltway for going on, what, four decades, who once worked on the Hill and has been commenting, non-stop, about politics for countless years, had no idea what he'd do if he were a senator.

We've said it before and we'll say it again here: The Beltway press doesn't do public policy. It doesn't get it, and it has even less interest in it. So no, we're not surprised Matthews couldn't figure out why he'd do, y'know for other people, if he ever got elected.

Twitter's like a weighty public policy document to this crew.

A Tale Told By An Idiot

I didn't watch one second of Bush's farewell address and I didn't really read much coverage of it either. I heard that he said something like "our air and water is cleaner" and frankly, that's all I need to know about it. I guess when he wasn't lying about his record, the whole theme of the speech was "I tried."

Sorry, not good enough. The Effort Olympics may work for young children, but for leader of the free world I don't think you should get an "also competed" award. Under his tenure, the President crippled our economy at home, sold off much of the country to corporate interests, violated more laws than I thought we had on the books, caused us little but scorn abroad and was directly responsible for the death and suffering of untold millions. That is the work of a sociopath, and a few flowery words written by speechmakers saying "I always tried to do what's right" won't really paper over the pain.

A lot of the derision for Bush focused on his words instead of his actions, which I always found to be a mistake. Yet if there's one example of those words and actions coming together to really explain the character and soul of the man, I'd say it's this:

People asked, "Which moments from the last eight years do you revisit most often?" Bush, after talking about meeting with families of fallen soldiers, replied, "I think about throwing out that pitch at the World Series on [Oct. 30] 2001. My heart was racing when I got to the mound. Didn't want to bounce it. Didn't want to let the fans down. My heart was pumping so hard, I wasn't sure if I could lift my arm. I never felt that anxious any other time during my presidency, curiously enough."

I don't think "curious" begins to explain it.

The other 15 million decisions he had to make during his Presidency, decisions that impacted the lives of practically everyone on the planet, weren't going to affect him one way or the other. He had family money and lived inside the bubble, and if the planet is singed and chaos reigns in the globe's trouble spots, "in 100 years we'll all be dead" so who cares, right? But throwing a baseball in front of a crowd is a deeply signifying event, you see. Because it's just George up on the mound. He has nowhere to hide and nobody to blame it on if things go awry. THAT'S what makes him anxious. Stupid feats of athleticism. The sending soldiers into a zone of death, no problem.

Never let it be forgotten that this was the guy who was practically worshipped by a fawning Establishment that saw his dullness and lack of concern for anyone but himself as an attribute.

MATTHEWS: What's the importance of the president's amazing display of leadership tonight?

[...]

MATTHEWS: What do you make of the actual visual that people will see on TV and probably, as you know, as well as I, will remember a lot longer than words spoken tonight? And that's the president looking very much like a jet, you know, a high-flying jet star. A guy who is a jet pilot. Has been in the past when he was younger, obviously. What does that image mean to the American people, a guy who can actually get into a supersonic plane and actually fly in an unpressurized cabin like an actual jet pilot?

[...]

MATTHEWS: Do you think this role, and I want to talk politically [...], the president deserves everything he's doing tonight in terms of his leadership. He won the war. He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a few critics. Do you think he is defining the office of the presidency, at least for this time, as basically that of commander in chief? That [...] if you're going to run against him, you'd better be ready to take [that] away from him.

[...]

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you, Bob Dornan, you were a congressman all those years. Here's a president who's really nonverbal. He's like Eisenhower. He looks great in a military uniform. He looks great in that cowboy costume he wears when he goes West. I remember him standing at that fence with Colin Powell. Was [that] the best picture in the 2000 campaign?

[...]

MATTHEWS: We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like [former President Bill] Clinton or even like [former Democratic presidential candidates Michael] Dukakis or [Walter] Mondale, all those guys, [George] McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple. We're not like the Brits. We don't want an indoor prime minister type, or the Danes or the Dutch or the Italians, or a [Russian Federation President Vladimir] Putin. Can you imagine Putin getting elected here? We want a guy as president.

...See also.

You're Kidding Me

So the entire "Chris Matthews for Senate" boomlet was an act? A ploy to raise his profile and get a better contract from MSNBC? You mean Chris Matthews, author of "Life Is A Campaign," treated his contract like a political negotiation?

Knock me over with a feather.

Villager Backscratching

Ed Rendell likes him some Chris Matthews for Senate in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell gave Chris Matthews a glowing endorsement for his potential Senate candidacy today, calling the MSNBC host the “strongest Democratic candidate without any doubt” in an interview on Bloomberg TV.

Rendell added that he doesn’t “really know” if Matthews has made a decision to run yet. And he cautioned that Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) would be a formidable opponent because of his strong ties to independents and moderate Democrats.

Rendell's longtime political consultant, Neil Oxman, has been talking with Matthews about running for Specter's seat and is encouraging him to jump in the race.

Not surprising. Tweety has been fellating Rendell for the past year, giving him all kinds of face time, particularly throughout the run-up to the Pennsylvania primary, when he was practically on every day. It's been the most gruesome and blatant suck-up session I've ever seen in public. Here's some of it:

* During the 6 p.m. ET hour of MSNBC's November 4 presidential election coverage, during an interview with Rendell in which Rendell said, "We're doing especially well in the Philadelphia suburbs, which you know have always been a swing area," Matthews replied: "Well, that's the Rendell strength you've just described. That's where you've always done incredibly well: the suburbs of Philly, the city itself, of course, where you were mayor." Matthews later said, "Well, you're the best political analyst in Pennsylvania, Governor."

* During an interview with Rendell on the October 23 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, Matthews prefaced a question by saying, "I want to run this by you because you're the best pol in the state."

* During the April 2 edition of MSNBC's Race for the White House with David Gregory, Matthews said of the Pennsylvania governor: "I think Eddie Rendell is the smartest politician in this state, as we know."

* During an interview with Rendell on the March 31 edition of Hardball, Matthews asked Rendell: "Would you be available ... to be a running mate with [then-Democratic primary rivals Sens.] Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton?" Matthews later went on to say, "I think you'd be a great running -- I understand the situation at home and your responsibilities to the commonwealth. Anyway, I'm here to build you up because I do think you're the best pol around." He added: "[Y]ou're running a hell of a campaign for Hillary Clinton."

* During the opening of the February 13 edition of Hardball, during which he teased an upcoming interview with Rendell, Matthews said: "We'll ask one of the smartest people in politics, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who's on Senator Clinton's side in this fight."

* During the 8 p.m. ET hour of MSNBC's January 8 presidential primary election coverage and during an interview with Rendell in which Rendell and Matthews discussed potential vice-presidential choices for the Democratic ticket, Rendell said: "[T]here are a wealth of good candidates. I mean, if Barack Obama was our candidate for president, I think Joe Biden with his foreign policy and terrorism experience would be perfect. I mean, we've got a whole host of good candidates." Matthews replied: "No, you'd be actually better, because you're very good at slicing up the opposition." He went on to say, "You'd be a great VP running mate."

I don't think Rendell's vain enough to be swayed by simple flattery. But he has a history of playing kingmaker in Pennsylvania since he was mayor of Philadelphia when I lived there, and all the time on the teevee feted as the grand poohbah of politics in one of the most important swing states in the country certainly has a salutary effect for his public profile. And it's rubbed off on him. This week he pontificated on Obama's "mishandling" of the Blagojevich scandal like a good little Villager.

Rendell's got some candid observations here too about President-elect Barack Obama and his mishandling of the state scandal now surrounding his former political ally, Blagojevich.

Rendell's pointed criticism of Obama: Perhaps because the new president has never had any executive-level experience, as with a governorship, he's let the issue of any Blagojevich connection or non-connection with his team hang around way too long.

Could have made it a one-day story by saying: "I never talked to the governor, but, of course, my staff did on this day, this day and that day. But as you can tell from the governor's swearing about me, we were never a part of any dealmaking. Period."

Thanks so much for perpetuating the non-story and demanding the answering of more meaningless "questions," Eddie! You're the best pol in the state!

The Matthews thing is just one Villager paying off another.

P.S. Rendell's such a paragon of honesty himself, and so smooth with the press, he's perfectly qualified on this issue.

Back in the day, when Eddie was America's Mayor, his temper and passion for Philadelphia were spicy hot. Once, after a particularly stressful day, the Mayor encountered Amy Rosenberg, a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer who was brazen enough to ask a question his Honor didn't like. What was she thinking?

Buzz Bissinger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who chronicled Rendell's first mayoral term in his book, A Prayer for the City, described the scene. "Suddenly and impulsively, he threw out his arm and grabbed the reporter by her neck and shoulders as they continued to walk, almost as if he was putting her in a vise. The look on his face, inches from hers, was a lock-jawed grimace, and he spit out his words as he muttered at least one obscenity. He looked frightening."

Yet, here comes the strange part of the story. Ed Rendell, our former D.A., never was charged, never hired an expensive attorney and never endured bad press. He apologized to Amy and later Amy's boss sent Rendell a letter thanking him for the apology but reminding him that the Inquirer still felt it was "inappropriate behavior" to manhandle reporters. Ouch, that must have hurt. "The paper was mercifully kind the next day in its reporting of what had taken place," Bissinger wrote.

Maybe that happened when Rendell didn't have any executive-level experience.

What a jerk.

Frickin' Hilarious

If this is true, I don't know who's sadder, Chris Matthews or NBC News:

TO BE ANNOUNCED TUESDAY, or soon: Chris Matthews signed to a long-term contract at “Hardball.” Last night, he was being affectionately called “Senator” at Linda Douglass’ chic holiday party.

The whole thing was part of a contract negotiation? Public service as a bargaining chip? What a tool. And NBC News fell for it! They actually believe they can't function without him, that his brand of gossip and warmed-over conventional wisdom is vital to the future of the news division. Puh-leeze.

Meanwhile, Rep. Patrick Murphy from my home region of Bucks County is looking at the seat. He's young and has proven to be a good fundraiser. Not to mention his experience as an Iraq war vet. Of course, he immediately joined the Blue Dogs and has a moderate voting record, though not reactionary. With Pennsylvania being a bellweather state we could do a lot worse than Murphy in the Senate.

No Tweety.

Politico writes about Chris Matthews' rumblings about running for US Senate in Pennsylvania. NBC News execs think it's a ploy to get a better deal with his contract (which would be hilarious), but it looks to be pretty serious.

The garrulous host of the show "Hardball with Chris Matthews" has already picked out a home in Philadelphia to establish residency in the state, according to a Democratic operative in discussions with him about a potential candidacy. Over Thanksgiving weekend, at his vacation house in Nantucket, Matthews’ family members gave him their full backing.

As speculation surrounding his potential candidacy heats up, Matthews has also been asking advisers whether to step down from his MSNBC post well before his contract expires in June. At one recent meeting, he was advised that if he truly intends to run, he should resign from the network as soon as possible.

“We talked about the value of doing this now and six months from now. I advocated that he do this as soon as possible,” the operative said. “It’s the MSNBC stuff that’s going to jam him up. I said, 'If you want to be a U.S. senator, step up and get into the race.'”

It's kind of painfully obvious, if you ask me. He's started airing lots of his shows from Philly for no discernible reason. He just hosted a hospital fundraiser in Camden. He had Open Left blogger and Philadelphia ward committeeperson Chris Bowers on his show the other day. And a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party is on the record about discussions.

So how exactly do Pennsylvania Democrats feel about the possibility of Chris Matthews running for Senate?

Abe Amoros, the communications director for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, confirmed to Election Central that Matthews has been talking to Democrats in the state about a run, and says Dems think Matthews could have a real shot.

"It's in its infancy right now," Amoros said. "He's just talking to people. Conversations are going on, obviously. We will know whether or not he's a serious candidate some time early next year."

There's even a poll out there showing Matthews within 3 points of Arlen Specter at 46%-43% in a head-to-head matchup.

Let me be clear: THIS CAN'T HAPPEN. Matthews is a court jester to power and nothing more. When George Bush was riding high he was completely enamored of him, when Obama was the latest flavor a thrill was running up his leg. He has no principles other than what the Village tells him, and the knee-jerk reaction is to punch the hippies. "Everybody sort of likes the President (Bush), except those whack jobs on the left" is a pretty good example.

Digby says it so I don't have to.

Perhaps the" real "Chris Matthews has emerged now that MSNBC has been made safe for progressives. Or, conversely, maybe the real Chris Matthews is actually an opportunistic, hypocritical jackass who should be shunned from any kind of Democratic politics for as long as he lives. Your mileage may vary depending upon whether you think enthusiastically sucking up to the GOP on television for the past decade is something that should be forgotten.

I won't bother to write the book on Matthews again, but as one who has been chronicling his televised rhetorical atrocities for years, let's just say his record speaks for itself. The amount of damage he did, going all the way back to the Clinton years and up until just about five minutes ago is considerable. He is as unacceptable as a Democratic high official as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, perhaps less so because of the fact that he is, by all accounts, a whore who has made millions of dollars a year destroying Democrats, while privately assuring his friends and associates that he doesn't really mean it. At least Rush plays for his own team with everything he's got.

Seriously, this guy is a clown who will make the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania into a laughing stock. Darrell Hammond alone will kill him if Youtube doesn't. It's an insane idea. If you like liberals like Joe Lieberman, you'll love Chris Matthews.

The fact that this is being discussed seriously makes me wonder if there's anybody who has repeatedly and enthusiastically fucked the Democratic party over the past 20 years or so to whom the party leadership aren't giving political amnesty? It would be nice to know so that I don't waste my breath defending them anymore only to be made a fool of when their tormentors are welcomed into the party as if it never happened.

Pennsylvania's a big state with a lot of talented young politicians. Patrick Murphy and Joe Sestak spring to mind. I don't even love all of their politics, but they'd be a damn sight better than a fool like Tweety.

Philadelphia is one of the hubs of the national blogosphere, but I'm not sure about the local blogging scene. Hopefully someone will lead the charge against this lunacy.

UPDATE: What David Sirota said. It's not excerptable. Go read it.

Who Will Save Us, You And I?

I'm typing right now in Pennsylvania. It has a population of 12.4 million. Maybe 7 million of those are over the age of 30 and eligible for the US Senate. There are 4.4 million registered Democrats. Maybe 3.5 million are over 30.

This state can't find ONE better Democrat than Chris Matthews? A guy who believes politics is a game for his amusement and whose sense of history has the depth of a bumper sticker?

Is this the best you can do, PA Democrats?

Tweety Tricked Me!

If you get into an intellectual war of words with Chris Matthews, and you lose, that's a disqualifying event for public life. Michelle Bachmann is just such a loser.

Chris Matthews laid a trap, and I walked into it. […]

Chris Matthews was using the term over and over, and I should not have used it. […]

This was Chris Matthews. I made a big mistake by going on the show. I never should have. […]

I just didn’t recognize — I never watched the Chris Matthews show before. I should have before I went on. I didn’t recognize that he would lay a trap the way that he did.

He laid this trap by allowing you to say what you were saying instead of cutting you off. And by taping it.

The D-Trip has an ad on the air in the district now, hitting her CONTINUED love of deregulation and the Wall Street cash she's taken for her campaign. I'm a little befuddled why they're not hitting the McCarthyism, but maybe the free media is doing that job for them. The idea that "hyper-regulation" caused the crisis is nutty, too. I hear that the NRCC might not save her from this one.

Bye bye Bachmann.

UPDATE: And now, in friendlier media outlets, she's just rearranging the words.

BACHMANN: All I did on Chris Matthews is I questioned Chris Matthews and said, “look, if John McCain had friends like Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers and Father Pfleger, you’d be all over him Chris, but you’ve laid off of Barack Obama.” And so, he was using the word “Anti-American” and I told Chris, what I question are Barack Obama’s views. Because Barack Obama’s views are against America. They won’t be good for our country.

It's all so simple. All she did is say that Obama's views are against America. Now if that makes him anti-American, well, you must be one a' them liberal elitez.

Mad Men

I'm watching this maniac Chris Matthews and his courtiers trying to analyze this upcoming debate, and the consensus seems to be that the winner will be whoever has that "zinger" moment (it's really come to who has the best stand-up writers), and Obama has to act like a regular guy instead of giving these complicated answers that reflect the complex nature of the world. Because he can't be seen as too good or too smart, which would be seen as "elite" and "cool". You know, like Chris Matthews.

I'm not sure I disagree totally with this analysis, but it does reinforce my belief that 1) America has the stupidest system for choosing a President as any in the industrialized world, so mind-bogglingly inane that picking a name from the phone book would be more rigorous; and 2) these so-called pundits should be forced to gag themselves inside the 30-day election window for the good of the country.

Don't Know Much About History

Chris Matthews' brutal takedown of some robotic wingnut yesterday was notable simply for how easy it was. Apparently asking a conservative to define the words coming out of their mouth is a question on par with the final round of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.



Of course, what the wingnut is referring to above is the President's comments yesterday in Israel, trying to stick it to the Democrats by calling them Nazi-appeasers. He used the artful phrase "an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ in discussing the times in 1939, aware but unwilling to admit that he was alluding to Republican isolationist Senator William Borah of Idaho. What he appeared blissfully unaware of was the collaboration of his own grandfather, Prescott Bush, who reaped financial reward for him and his family (including his son Bush 41 and grandson Bush 43) through sitting on boards of companies who did business with the Nazis.

(By the way, this is the biggest gift George Bush could have given the Obama campaign, so much so that I almost believe it had to have been staged.)

But less remarked upon was this amazingly ignorant comment by John McCain in an interview with Matt Bai.

as we talked, I tried to draw out of him some template for knowing when military intervention made sense — an answer, essentially, to the question that has plagued policy makers confronting international crises for the last 20 years. McCain has said that the invasion of Iraq was justified, even absent the weapons of mass destruction he believed were there, because of Hussein’s affront to basic human values. Why then, I asked McCain, shouldn’t we go into Zimbabwe, where, according to that morning’s paper, allies of the despotic president, Robert Mugabe, were rounding up his political opponents and preparing to subvert the results of the country’s recent national election? How about sending soldiers into Myanmar, formerly Burma, where Aung San Suu Kyi remained under house arrest by a military junta?

“I think in the case of Zimbabwe, it’s because of our history in Africa,” McCain said thoughtfully. “Not so much the United States but the Europeans, the colonialist history in Africa. The government of South Africa has obviously not been effective, to say the least, in trying to affect the situation in Zimbabwe, and one reason is that they don’t want to be tarred with the brush of modern colonialism. So that’s a problem I think we will continue to have on the continent of Africa. If you send in Western military forces, then you risk the backlash from the people, from the legacy that was left in Africa because of the era of colonialism.”

Of course, there is no history of colonialism in the Middle East. Except for Algeria. And Jordan. And Iran. And Saudi Arabia. And Yemen. And Bahrain. And Oman. And Qatar. And The United Arab Emirates. And Iraq, whose borders were almost randomly drawn on a British map, which has led us to the instability we see today.

(McCain, by the way, was for talking to Hamas before he was against it, another example of torching the past.)

The worst thing the conservative movement has foisted on the country is a collapse of historical memory. Our civic education here is not so robust, and our civic knowledge of history is worse. This has given wide latitude for conservatives to create their own reality, and jabber away with "facts" that consist of shibboleths and catch phrases, which by now have been ripped of all meaning outside the Manichean "good" and "bad." That's what we saw with that shameful appearance on Hardball. That's what we saw by the President yesterday. That's what we saw from McCain in that interview. And that, sadly, is a part of America. The Poor Man says it best:

It’s all like this. Everything is just like this. Some blank young person who has memorized a 5″x7″ index card of focus group-approved phrases, yelling, yelling, yelling over everyone. And you can say what you want, and be as right as you want, but he’s going to keep yelling, and yelling, and yelling until you get sick of it, and at the end of the day everybody knows that Barack Obama goes to secret Muslim church. Everything is like this. An election won’t fix it. This rules the world.