Whatever Happened to Willie Horton?

While the experts and pundits are still sorting out how important the so-called cultural/moral issues were to the 2004 election outcome, there was one traditional issue of this ilk that was conspicuously missing.

There was abortion, homosexuals, gun control, but...not capital punishment. In fact, there was no "soft on crime" rhetoric, and apparently no penalty exacted on John Kerry for being an opponent of capital punishment.

From the early 1980s until this election, the conventional wisdom was that nobody could win the presidency, or even be nominated, who didn't support capital punishment. King George I and Lee Atwater's most successful smear on Michael Dukakis was "soft on crime," notably with the now-notorious Willie Horton ad. Even in 1992, Governor Bill Clinton had to run back from the primary trail to Arkansas to preside over the execution of an allegedly less than all-there condemned man, or kiss the nomination and election goodbye.

But this year, the subject of crime barely came up. You could say it was because terrorism trumped it as a domestic safety issue, and that's revealingly true, because these issues are more about fear than real risk. But when Kerry announced he was against the death penalty, it didn't seem to raise an eyebrow anywhere.

Could it be that after two decades of bloodthirsty rhetoric and increasingly harsh sentences, and a couple of years of people leaving death row when their innocence was proven, that this issue has run its course? Or is in the declining crime rates, predicted by those who looked at age demographics, and cities that are perceived to be much less dangerous than in the 1980s?

An interesting set of questions...

Good Morning, Iraqnam!

Fifteen political groups in Iraq calling for a six month postponement of January 30 elections (see this story for details:) The New York Times > International > Middle East > 15 Iraqi Political Groups Call for Delaying Elections joins other tragic happenings and portents, as reality rapidly catches up to the fundamental folly of Iraqnam.

Having turned Fallujah into the rubble of a vast charnel house, the U.S. military is reportedly about to request a few thousand more combat troops be sent to Iraqnam. Insurgencies continue to reap havoc in other cities, including Baghdad, and the country remains in chaos. The U.S. appears no closer to success in its Iraqification policy process.

Meanwhile, thanks to the Bushwar costs and the extravagant tax giveaway to the obscenely wealthy and the resulting titanic deficits, the U.S. dollar is falling, taking with it the Bush Empire, even before the Emperor is re-crowned.

Let the last word for now be given to someone who is there, the author of the blog Baghdad Burning, which remains an excellent, heart-breaking, direct source for what's happening there. Her November 4 post reads:
To the red states (and those who voted for Bush): You deserve no better- I couldn't wish worse on you if I tried. He represents you perfectly... and red really is your color. It's the color of the blood of thousands of Iraqis and by the time this four-year catastrophe in the White House is over, thousands of Americans, likely. To the blue states (and those who were thinking when they voted): Condolences. Good luck- you'll need it.

What if?

What if Osama had targeted CIA headquarters? He might have crippled American intelligence- gathering capability for years!

Turns out he didn't have to. Bush is doing it for him.

Two more of the most respected CIA officials have quit because of Bushie political meddling. It wasn't enough that the agency took the hit for the Bush administrations own reprehensible and fatal bumbling that left America unprepared for September 11. They have to continue to, so the Bushies can keep their PR presidency going. Just another attack on America brought to you by Fascism Lite.
Guardian Unlimited Special reports Two more top spies quit troubled CIA

Slipping Away

Commenting on the toothless statement issued by nations concerned with rampant Arctic melting, in deference to the Bushies superstitious belief that global heating isn't happening (more like deference to oil company contributors), Kevin Knobloch, president of Union of Concerned Scientists said, it is "irresponsible in the extreme for the United States not to commmit to an aggressive campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions" in light of the recent scientific findings and the prospect that American companies could reap profits by selling energy-efficient products in overseas markets," according to this Boston Globe story.
Boston.com / News / World / Europe / Arctic nations agree to fight glacial melting


What explains it except denial married to an apocalyptic death wish. Welcome to the moral administration, which will be responsible for the greatest moral crime in human history, the murder of the planet and life as we know it.

Investigate the Vote

At the request of several Democratic Members of Congress, the Government Office of Accounting will investigate the 2004 vote.

As the AP story below says, the GAO has no enforcement powers. But it's a start.

Yahoo! News - GAO to Investigate Voting Irregularies

However, a judge in Ohio has denied a recount before the totals there are official on December 6. Bush led unofficially by only 125,000 votes.

At the moment it looks as if any real efforts will drag on well past the time that would make any difference for the quite possibly stolen 2004 election. The powers that be are much more interested in investigating the Ukraine's election, since the outcome there was not to their liking.

News Cycle

How can we be surprised that the major media aren't covering the voting "irregularities" story? As Eric Alterman wrote in The Nation in late October, "I could not have imagined more irresponsible coverage than the 'Gore's a liar, Bush is a dope'-athon to which we were treated in 2000. But given that most of the mainstream media have been performing like trained seals in a Karl Rove-produced traveling circus, Sam and Cokie's giggling about an Al Gore grimace on This Week four years ago would be the equivalent of Pericles' funeral oration today."

I remember all the soul-searching after 2000 when big media stars mournfully admitted that they'd done an unaccountably poor job covering the 2000 campaign. That followed all the soul-searching after the Ken Starr frenzy, even as far back as the 1988 campaign when the press was flummoxed by the Willy Horton horror show.

"We need to do a better job" they said after 2000. And in 2004 they didn't. They did a worse job. They allowed themselves to be swallowed whole by the Swift Boat Liars and the Rabid Right inflation of the CBS gaffe. They were apparently unable to ask themselves a simple question: which is more important: that CBS was gullible, or that the entire Bush administration lied about Iraq, resulting in more than a hundred thousand deaths, some 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from malnutrition, and the world's tallest mountain of debt, which will likely mean more poverty for the elderly and higher taxes for the unborn?

The big news of 2004 in "the news business" was the rise of the blogs. Not that the media could even get this story right. Finding that they couldn't ignore it, they covered a few of its more prominent practitioners. That's the standard Act I: The Rising Star. We're getting intimations of Act II:The Star Falls in some dark hints that the blogs are overdoing the vote "irregularities" story and when it doesn't pan out, people will stop paying attention to the blogs. If that doesn't work, maybe pretty soon we'll be learning that Josh Marshall is a drug addicted paid agent of the French, and kos is really the Unabomber.

I ran into a local media guy today. Like all media people, he spent most of the conversation complaining about the media, especially management. TV reporters want you to know that it's not their fault they're superficial. I asked him about bloggers and he gave the standard answer about the Internet information: that there are no editors, no gatekeepers, like there are in "professional" media.

The beauty as well as the bane of the Internet is that anybody can say anything. But 2004 has shown that in the political blososphere at least, gatekeeping can be a group process. The bigger political blogs are the focal point for the self-editing of the blogosphere. But more to the point---and more embarrassing--- there's the remarkable phenomenon of bloggers as gatekeepers for the professional media.

There are plenty of weaknesses in the blogosphere. There will be lessons ahead on the perils of celebrity, the bandwagon effect, emotions overriding judgment, and the dangers of speed over substance. But the contrast with major media is striking. The blogs in 2004 were skeptical while the pros were cynical. The blogs were enthusiastic while the pros were gullible. But the blogs thought about what was important, while the pros thought about what would maintain their professional, personal and corporate power. The blogs judged stories by context, while the pros ignored context and cared only about not losing audience to the competition. Sure, the blogs have points of view, but they are liberated by advocacy to tell the facts before evaluating them.

In his next column, Alterman discussed the confessions of the Big Three network anchors that both in the newsroom but mostly in corporate offices, coverage was being affected by the blizzards of emails the Rabid Right sent them if they were displeased. The blogs tried to organize and prod a counter-response this year, which might help take the pressure off the newspeople who want to do the right thing. Those million dollar salaries notwithstanding, it's the lesser paid people who would suffer more from corporate wrath. Still, there's only so much room, or time, for sympathy. It's probably not coincidence that Rather is joining Brokaw in retiring.

But it was cable news rather than the networks that drove coverage in 2004. With a few exceptions,when it comes to professional media, cable news represents the dregs. Never have so many embarrassed themselves so openly in a frenzy to attract so few. They are all about celebrity and advertising. The paid advertising is negligible, so mostly they advertise themselves (or on MSNBC, the "parent" network.) Is that Tim Russert on the Brian Williams show, or Brian Williams on the Chris Matthews show? If you watch CNN for a few hours, you'll see the host of every show interviewing the host of every other show coming up. This is because the function of a news channel is to create celebrities, for as we all know, viewers will only watch celebrities.

Where are the gatekeepers on cable news? With few exceptions, there are none. The words that come out of Chris Matthews' mouth had no prior existence. He says the first thing that occurs to him.

CNN and MSNBC are dying for the audience of Fox News. Last year CNN tried to recapture its former glory by out gung-hoing Fox in Iraq. They sobered up a little this year, but let their Gallup Polls be their guide. MSNBC assembled an utterly laughable panel to comment on the presidential campaign. Apparently Fox and CNN had soaked up all the Rabid Right celebrity commentators, so Matthews had to scoop up lawyer Ben Ginsberg, who continued advocating for his client the Bush administration, and actor Ron Silver, apparently the only first, second or third-rate Hollywood celebrity he could find who was for Bush.

As for Fox, what is there to say? One paragraph from the aforementioned Alterman column says it all: "When the New York Times ran its May 26 admission that it gullibly swallowed the Bush Administration's deception about Iraq's nuclear weapons program," it was reported 38 times in US newspapers and wire reports, and 7 times on cable news in the next 48 hours---except for Fox, which totally ignored it. But Fox was all over the one phony document that CBS cited in its otherwise factual report on GW Bush's dishonorable National Guard non-service, including coverage on every single Fox News program in the 48 hours after CBS admitted its error. It was also reported 57 times on other cable news, and 167 times in print.

There's plenty to say about media that's controlled by a few corporations, and news celebrities who are more than a little cozy with the more powerful of the people they cover. There's plenty to be disappointed about in the sycophantic tendencies of overpaid and merely well-paid media celebrities, managers and reporters. But the worst of it is the aid and comfort it all gives to the enemies of not only the political opposition, but of the news profession.

The base standard of the news profession is fact. But the people they are pandering to now don't care about fact, let alone truth. For there are reporters literally risking their lives to report from the blistered cities of Iraq and the refugee camps of the Sudan. There are news professionals risking their careers on reporting stories they feel are worth that risk.

But what happens when one NBC camera documents a U.S. Marine shooting an unarmed, injured Iraqi? There are Rabid Right blogs that have literally called for the reporter-cameraman's death. A Republican member of the U.S. Congress suggests that this report is reason to stop the practice of embedding reporters in the war zone altogether.

This of course is in the context of a sensationally underreported war. The combination of tight government control, the nearly universal cutbacks in overseas reporting by U.S. media, and U.S. media timidity in reporting possible unpleasantness, has left the vast majority of Americans pretty clueless about what's going on there. They see lots of shooting and explosions, so they can work out for themselves that people must be getting blown up and shot. But they don't see bodies, especially of Iraqi civilians. The media don't even question their own lack of information about wounded Americans or Iraqi casualties.

If the Rabid Right are upset by seeing something that an NBC cameraman stumbled onto, they would really be apoplectic after a few minutes of reporting from Fallujah by the independent journalist featured on Democracy Now radio and TV. He spoke of the stench in the streets of Fallujah, of rotting bodies, of rotting childrens' bodies, left there for days.

There's a lot to work out about how to cover news when there is so much of it, pouring out of so many megaphones, all the time. But it's no use pretending this is the major problem. The sad conundrum of professional news is they're desperately anxious to please people who have nothing but contempt for what news professionals would like to believe they still do.

Maybe the wattage of too many smiles is a lot higher than of their brains. They just aren't equipped to do a better job. The skills of reporting and thinking are less important than of talking while somebody is talking to you in your earpiece. And maybe the pressure, or the opportunity, of gaining readers and power through celebrity is too tempting in print journalism as well.

Journalists like to think that they are essential for our democracy, and they are, but it only works if they have the integrity to do what they say they do: report the facts and exercise judgment. Maybe they think that because we just had an election, democracy is working. And maybe that's why they don't want to hear about people in power who may very well have taken an ax to the integrity of the vote.
---Theron Dash

The Moral Compass

RED STATES

Moral on: Sex, capitalism
Amoral about: politics
What's considered immoral: not being Christian and Republican (i.e. "not sharing our values.")

BLUE STATES

Moral on: equality, individual rights, political process
Amoral about: sex, religion
What's considered immoral: unjustified war, institutionalized prejudice, bad taste.

Why Count the Vote 2004

The various recount and other efforts underway, the efforts that might be mounted, and the calls for investigations into voting irregularities, don't need much justification. If fraud and suppression happened, and we have no doubt the GOPers engaged in both, these crimes against democracy must be exposed. That doesn't guarantee it won't happen again, but unless these efforts and techniques are exposed, they most certainly will be used again, starting with the next election.

But what about this 2004 election? Some argue that the votes that might be recovered won't be enough to change the outcome. But the above argument then pertains: do it for next time, show that people are serious about this.

Others argue that even if there are just enough votes to give Kerry a narrow electoral vote victory, Bush's popular vote majority would cripple a Kerry presidency so badly that it wouldn't be worth it to win.

But Bush's own 2000 selection as President belies that argument, even if you eliminate from consideration the 9-11 moment that transformed his presidency.

Suppose by some improbable series of events, enough votes appeared in Ohio to give Kerry a narrow electoral college victory before the election of Bush becomes official. Suppose nothing else changes, and President Kerry was inaugurated with both houses of Congress firmly GOPer, and Bush retaining a smaller popular vote plurality.

Of course there would be contention, and Kerry would face a hostile Congress and a divided electorate. But he would have one overwhelming advantage. He would be President of the United States. Congress would have to react to him. It would be up to Kerry to realistically push for the most important legislation, and to introduce and fight for legislation that at least would provoke a public political debate, even if it had little chance of being passed by this Congress. Another House and a third of the Senate is elected in two years.

Kerry would find the sources of his power in how he handled the presidency. Our European allies would embrace him and lend their support in the world, so he could reach out to countries in the Middle East. He would use his personal diplomatic knowledge and skills, with the power of the presidency supporting him, to change the calculus for Iraq and our other pressing international problems. With his support of science and technology and understanding of their economic role, he would change the international economic relationship of the U.S.

Kerry would appoint a new cabinet, which in itself would change government and its relationship to corporate special interests. Once Bobby Kennedy Jr. at EPA starts making headlines, the media and the political opposition will have to deal with those issues openly, with their feet kept firmly in the fire by the bloggers and hopefully by environmental organizations that have learned they can’t go to sleep when a Democrat is in office.

And even a politically handicapped President Kerry would be the one appointing Supreme Court justices. The fights would be ugly, and the best candidates might not get in, but neither would the kind of justices and judges we're apt to get from Bush in the next four years.

So we don't buy that the presidency isn't worth winning in this unusual way. It worked for Bush. The Rabid Right would probably be more ferocious and certainly more underhanded in its frenzy to cripple the Kerry presidency, than the opposition to Bush was, but it would still be worth it. It was always a reason that Kerry was the right candidate. He's taken fire before. He can handle it.

Then Kerry would have what we believe gave Bush his principal advantage: four years to make his case, and the power of incumbency in a time of danger. Kerry had a few months, maybe a few weeks of the national attention, which is not very thorough in the short run. And even so, Kerry was gaining in the last months, the last weeks, days and hours. That's one reason repeating the same message over and over works. Apart from giving the groupfeel faithful their talking points, it's a substitute for thought and careful attention for overburdened people trying to limit the time they devote to politics to scanning headlines. Once the electorate got to know President Kerry, and saw what he is about, they could render a better informed verdict in 2008.

We played by the rules in 2000, even if the GOPers cheated in Florida and manipulated the rules with unfair and borderline legal maneuvers in the courts, including the Supreme Court decision making Bush president rendered by Republican partisans with conflicts of interest up the wazoo.

Well, if enough votes exist in Ohio and/or elsewhere exist to make Kerry President, we say do it--- end the immoral war in Iraq as gracefully as possible, prevent the immoral war against Iran now being planned, get America respected in the world again, get a meaningful debate started on a new alternative energy industrial revolution, on global heating, on health care. Things that aren't going to happen with GW in the White House.

Count the Vote 2004

John Kerry' strongly worded support yesterday for efforts to count the votes in the 2004 election may have lacked specifics on what he and his lawyers are going to do, but he's one of the principals involved, so it means something.

This also means something: a statement by the most prestiguous and eldest nonpartisan organization associated with the U.S. electoral process, the League of Women Voters:

"The League of Women Voters is deeply concerned about voting irregularities in the 2004 election. The appropriate officials must fully investigate these concerns through open and public processes. Election officials should look into problems quickly and thoroughly and fix what proves to be wrong. Transparency and a willingness to look into potential problems will strengthen voter confidence and ultimately improve our electoral system.
"It is important to ensure that every properly cast ballot is counted and to make improvements for future elections. Attention must be given to inadequate polling place procedures, problematic voting machines, voter registration system failures, casting and counting of provisional ballots, and absentee voting issues. "

Suppress the Vote 2004

Ohio is turning out to be the Florida of 2004, or it would be, except that Florida is also the Florida of 2004. There are all kinds of irregularities at issue in both states as well as other states. In Ohio, it's wrongly counted or uncounted or wrongly discarded punch-card ballots, e-ballot chicanery, provisional ballots, and the list goes on. It includes suppression of votes by various means, many of which are detailed in testimony just taken in Ohio. These are the accounts of real voters describing what they experienced.

The Free Press -- Independent News Media - Campaign 2004

And let us give our own welcome to the blogosphere to our Canadian cousin Lemmuel, and his new blog:

let me be perfectly clear

Thanks to Skippy the Bush Kangaroo for saying hello to us on his prestiguous blog, which also has a lovely anecdote about the Bush twins in New York City:

skippy the bush kangaroo

The Kerry Message

Today John Kerry issued an email and video statement with three strong messages: first, count the votes in this election (indicating that until this is done, the outcome is still not known); second, stay strong and united in the fight against Bush conservative takeover and in support of values; third, on the first day of the next session of Congress, Senator John Kerry will introduce legislation to guarantee health care for all American children. He asks that the people become the cosponsors of this bill, and attaches a petition that will be part of the bill. The link to sign it is:
Protect Every Child

The timing is apt. Just as a trial balloon floats around indicating the Bushies plans to eliminate business deductions for employee health insurance, potentially more devastating than a huge new tax on working people, Kerry has chosen expanding health care as his issue. Though we at American Dash will not benefit directly, and we are among those millions of Americans who lost health insurance on Bush's watch, we fully support this effort, and have already signed up.

Just as heartening is the call to make certain that an honest vote is once again the most sacred element in the American political canon.

"Regardless of the outcome of this election, once all the votes are counted -- and they will be counted -- we will continue to challenge this administration. This is not a time for Democrats to retreat and accommodate extremists on critical principles -- it is a time to stand firm.

'I will fight for a national standard for federal elections that has both transparency and accountability in our voting system. It's unacceptable in the United States that people still don't have full confidence in the integrity of the voting process. I ask you to join me in this cause.'

'And we must fight not only against George Bush's extreme policies -- we must also uphold our own values. This is why on the first day Congress is in session next year, I will introduce a bill to provide every child in America with health insurance. And, with your help, that legislation will be accompanied by the support of hundreds of thousands of Americans."

Jeb's Job

Gee, you think Jeb got a little rattled when he needed the help of daddy's Supreme Court Justices to deliver his state to his little brother last time? This time, evidence mounts that its more than crayfish smelling up the state of Florida. A Berkeley team says electronic voting discrepancies, all oddly favoring Bush, were very likely intentional. (That is, the chance they are accidental is less than 0.1%) They've called for investigation. I say, call for a damn recount.

Here's the skinny:

Berkeley Media Relations

Governator For Hire

Just as the "Amend for Arnold" movement gets started, to amend the U.S. Constitution so Arnold and other foreign-borns can become President, the San Francisco Chronicle reveals that the Governator, elected as Not a Politician who would sweep away special interest influence (accusing Gray Davis of paying more attention to raising money than to governing) , has been milking those interests for big bucks for his campaign war chest, while bravely supporting everything they want. It's a pretty damning set of opening paragraphs:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, after campaigning as a reformer who would cast special interests out of the Capitol, smashed every fund-raising record in his first year in office with a $26.6 million haul that doubled the amount raised by former Gov. Gray Davis in his first year.

The vast majority of the money came from special interests deeply vested in the outcome of legislative and regulatory decisions in Sacramento, including financial companies, auto dealers and manufacturers and health care concerns. In some cases, the governor, who took office a year ago today, has taken positions that benefited his contributors.

For much of the year, Schwarzenegger used a legal loophole to raise sums greater than a state law's $21,200 limit. And in recent weeks, as a deadline approached to close that loophole, Schwarzenegger stepped up his acceptance of those donations, raking in individual contributions as high as $500,000. "

Here's the full story, by Christian Berthelsen:
Governor sets money-raising record / $26.6 million in his first year -- most of it from special interests

The Moral Hypocracy Continued

Thanks to the Blessed Bush's re-kinging, the Right Wing Reverend Tom DeLay enthused, "We're going to be able to lead this country in the direction we've been dreaming of for years. We're going to put God back in the public square."

Well, hallelujah. But on his way to the public square, God might want to stop at Congress and do a little smiting. Seems the House Republicans have hastily revised their rules so that their Leader can still serve even if he or she has been indicted for a crime (although, come on now, we are talking about a very specific he). Like for instance, numerous violations of several laws in connection with redistricting a swath of Texas to make sure that the GOPers held on to their majority in the 04 alleged elections, engineered by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, for which indictments are rumored to be forthcoming, naming the Right Wing Reverend himself, Tom DeLay.

So the folks who benefit from DeLay's alleged crimes have voted to make sure there are no consequences for their benefactor. Gimme that old time religion!

And hey, Crusaders, besides total war with Democrats and any judges the GOPers don't control, let's get ready for Iran!

The PR Purge

The next member of the Bush cabinet to resign is rumored to be Tom Ridge, Viceroy of Homeland Security, and at the moment his replacement is expected to be even worse, if that's possible. Many see the trend of "moderate" and outsiders being replaced by Rabid Rightist Bush insiders as a consolidation of power. Sure is, but there's a particular intent to it. Loyalty over substance, Yes Sir over presenting unspun fact and alternatives, that's all part of it, but there is this additional effect of the end of massively bad PR generated by the likes of a Richard Clarke or Paul O'Neill.

So no more high profile books from inside the Bush administration that show him to be fixated on Iraq or essentially silly, wily but thin-skinned, devoid of anything approaching curiosity or a sincerely inquiring mind, and dumb as a Texas fence post. The Secretaries of the cabinet will be more like secretaries, taking dictation from the dictators in the White House, which are apt to be Dickhead Cheney and Darth Rove, while GW looks forward to a second term of more faith-based initiatives and more naps and vacations at the ranch.

They've still got a semi-loose cannon in Rumsfeld, but he's useful to draw fire from the White House, especially as Iraq becomes a definitively bloody nightmare. Besides, all these Bush guys got their start with Nixon or Reagan or Bush the First. It's time to start grooming the next generation of subverters of democracy. A stint in the dubya White House should be very helpful.

Recount in Ohio, Challenge in Florida

Word is that the Green and Libertarian candidates have raised the money necessary for an Ohio recount. The media discussions of voting fraud already ongoing will likely mushroom now, if they are ever going to. Meanwhile, the Black Box Voting inquiry into Florida has begun, and so far it isn't pretty. In fact, it's pretty scary. Here's a blow by blow account:
Democratic Underground Forums - Volusia County election records just got put on lockdown

Extreme... or Cautionary?

We call the Bush regime Fascism Lite, which could be defined as fascism with a smirk. Extreme? Bobby Kennedy Jr. doesn't think so, he's been talking about corporate-government fascism, even like on C-Span. And blogger Orcinus makes a careful case for pseudo-fascism.

This link below is the link to the blog; we don't know how to do site to site transport, but we can get you on the ship. The full argument is cataloged at the October 31, 2004 post. But more recent posts elaborate, telling us what we wearily knew would happen: the rabid right is more extreme than ever: arrogantly intolerant, power-mad and vicious, inspiring new waves of hate crimes.

Orcinus

party favors

We've avoided the usual TV and print pundits because of the inevitable trashing Kerry and his campaign would be taking. Who needs the noise. But it is a somewhat dangerous time for Democrats, and we see it in the ascension of Harry Reid to Senate leader. Reid is a conservative Mormon from Utah, and he's the guy who the Dems will depend on to lead the inevitable fight against Bush Supreme Court nominees. He's not pro-choice. He's a legislative technician and a party loyalist, and that seems to be his perceived value, apart from sheer seniority.

At the same time, John Kerry himself is surprising some observers by not moving to France, and not even taking a day off. He convened congressional "party leaders" for a strategy session. He has to keep the elected Democrats from falling into their usual stupor, quaking that if they don't support Bush they won't get reelected. Apart from the demonstrable fact that unless Tom DeLay happens to redistrict their states, incumbency rules for both parties, there is the matter of backbone and the reality that while soul-searching is always a good thing, and improvement in communicating values and positions and what's at stake would be nice, the task is to keep faith with the base and expand from there. People didn't follow Kerry at considerable cost to themselves because they liked his neckties.

Kerry is said to be backing Tom Vilsack of Iowa for DNC chair, while there is considerable support for Howard Dean. While we'd like to see Dean as a prominent Democratic voice in the next several years, the job would limit his political choices. We're not crazy about Vilsack, so somebody associated with Dean and his Internet campaign could be better. The DNC is mostly fundraising organization at this point, but maybe somebody with creative ideas and a public face can transform the job. That would be Dean most probably.

We're not insider enough to say---we don't really know much about Vilsack except that he seems dull---but a Dem swing to the right would be lethal. We aren't talking about politics as usual. There is way too much at stake. There may be nothing anyone can do but voice their opposition strongly, to halt America's slide into one disaster after another, taking the western world with it. But we've got to do at least that much.