Ezra Klein explains why attempts by the Clinton campaign to seat Michigan and Florida delegates is self-serving and, btw, hypocritical:

When the Democratic National Committee decided to impose order on an out-of-control primary process by stripping Florida and Michigan of their delegates if they refused to return their primaries to their original dates, there were three individuals who could have restored the franchise to those states. Howard Dean, the Chairman of the DNC, could have changed his mind, or changed his proposed penalty. Even in the face of his intransigence, however, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama could have simply refused his entreaty to avoid the offending states. A declaration by either that they disagreed with the DNC's decision and would instruct their delegates to alter the rules at the convention and seat Florida and Michigan would have forced all the other candidates to do the same, and the DNC's prohibition would have collapsed. The voters in Florida and Michigan would have attended speeches, and seen ads, and hosted a debate, and been able to make an informed choice

That didn't happen. Clinton's campaign manager backing the DNC, said, "We believe Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina play a unique and special role in the nominating process, and we believe the DNC's rules and its calendar provide the necessary structure to respect and honor that role." So Florida and Michigan didn't get their primaries. They didn't get campaigns. They didn't have serious Get Out The Vote efforts. And now, they're being cynically used, the language of democracy revisited and dusted off in service of a power play for additional delegates. Where, rightly or wrongly, the campaigns agreed to deny them a primary, now Clinton's campaign, which in Michigan won because they were the only campaign on the ballot and in Florida won because no one contested their lead, is demanding they be seated. The intervention did not come in time to give Florida and Michigan a full role in the democratic process, only in time to let the Clinton campaign benefit from their essential disenfranchisement.

Lawyers, Guns & Money has been having a rowdy debate about what the 1.6 million vote turnout in the Florida Democratic primary actually means. One thing I have not seen addressed is the impact of absentee ballots. A month or so ago, several Floridian Democrats sent in their ballots - how many were from Clinton supporters, how many from Obama? How does that compare to the breakdown of people who went to the polls on primary day? For that matter, how many voters would have actually bothered to show up had they seen real campaigns and get-out-the-vote drives, and had their delegates counted? Maybe we'll never know. But I'm in the camp of people who feel disenfranchising Michigan and Florida could be a costly mistake for Democrats come November.

After learning that Mitt Romney has managed to survive another primary round, I was heartened to see this on YouTube:

Democrats of Michigan, on January 15th you have a unique and wonderful opportunity to screw over the Republican Party.

For more on why voting for Romney in your primary--however counterintuitive it may be to vote for that flip-flopping, say-anything-to-get-elected, neocon-of-convenience hack--isn't such a crazy idea, check out:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/10/2713/87225

Lest there be any confusion, showing Romney's old stances as a less-than-diehard conservative in Massachusetts is intended to emphasize his ubercynical ability to shape-shift into desirable forms, not to suggest he's a somehow tolerable closet moderate who is simply pretending to be a detestable right wing nut. I don't mean to suggest he should be given the benefit of any doubt in that direction--that's by no means the reason Michigan Dems should cast their vote for him January 15th.

In the rough and real world of politics, Progressives can't afford for voting to be an emotional act of personal expression. It has to be pragmatic, strategic, and effective. So, just this weird once...go Romney. Though it burns my fingers when I type it.

I know Romney's victory owes more to depressed Republican turn-out, family ties to Michigan and being a pandering douchebag. But I will amuse myself to think he's merely the dope of a mass action rope-a-dope strategy. It seems to fit, really.

DailyKos on Joe Klein's erroneous TIME column criticizing Democrats on national security issues (for just how bad, consult Glenn Greenwald's tracking of this issue - Klein and TIME get pretty ridiculous):

Republicans don't live in fear of what the other side will say. They focus on what they think is right or in their self-interest. The reaction of the opposition never enters their calculations.

If only Democrats and its Joe Kleins weren't so fearful. They're terrified! For a gang that likes to talk about "looking tough", they sure piddle in their pants on a regular basis.

Another area where I disagree with Klein is his take on Barak Obama's answer to Wolf Blitzer's asinine question about national security and human rights. As I observed the day after the debate in which the question appeared, Obama was right to note that the two concepts are "complimentary" - or, as I put it, you can't have one without the other. Klein seems to think that the more politically expedient answer is Chris Dodd's, that national security comes before everything else. Yet it's that kind of thinking that had led us to secret detentions, torture, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, warrantless wiretapping, black sites and extradition. We compromise our stated values and our future security by encouraging more anti-Americanism, by living up to the negative images that the rest of the world already has of us. Obama deserves credit for not giving into the baby boomer fears of the "liberal" label, for not "triangulating" and for recognizing the complexity of these issues in a global society.

The Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Tribune are taking Senate Democrats to task for balking to confirm Judge Michael Mukasey as Attorney General. As most y'all know, upon direct questioning from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Mukasey refused to classify waterboarding as torture. He said it was "repugnant" and awful and yucky and beyond the pale, but would not commit to calling it torture. Yet he also testified that torture is unconstitutional and illegal. So the supposed bind he is in is that if he declares waterboarding torture, he therefore classifies the practice as illegal, subjecting the CIA operatives who used the technique and their supervisors to criminal prosecution.

Both the WSJ and the Trib editorials assume such prosecution would be unfair and unrealistic in the context of doing "anything" to prevent another terrorist attack or to realistically fight the War on Terror (TM). And they blame Democrats for playing verbal games with the poor Judge, following President Bush's line that the Senate is treating his nominee "unfairly". The only credible objection the editorials raise is that Mukasey does not want to comment upon a program he has not been authorized to learn the details about. Fair enough.

But otherwise, bollocks. You don't have to be an expert on criminal interrogation to recognize waterboarding as torture. Democrats are (for once) calling a spade a spade. If Mukasey is going to hem and haw about the program, he can't evade history or expert consensus. If our CIA operatives are breaking the law, let the chips fall where they may. As for the WSJ's dubious contention that the use of waterboarding and other harsh techniques on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was necessary to gain information, Phillipp Carter has argued strongly otherwise:

As a nation, we still haven't clearly decided whether it's better to prosecute terrorists or pound them with artillery. But by torturing some of al-Qaida's leaders, we have completely undermined any efforts to do the former and irreversibly committed ourselves to a martial plan of justice. In the long run, this may be counterproductive, and it will show that we have compromised such liberal, democratic ideals like adherence to the rule of law to counter terrorism. Torture and tribunals do not help America show that it believes in the rule of law. But if CIA officials continue to use tactics that will get evidence thrown out of federal court, there will increasingly be no other option. 

Well, add a month. But if current trends hold next year, I would not be surprised if Senator Hillary Clinton wins the Presidential election at the same moment Democrats lose both houses of Congress.

Granted, the Republicans have more seats to lose than Dems, at least in the Senate, so they might hold onto that chamber. Today's failure to override the Bush veto on SCHIP and the concessions on wiretapping, added to increasing public frustration with Congress in general (hurting both parties) regarding Iraq, immigration, health care and spending, makes the Democratic hold on both houses even weaker than it has been so far.

If I'm right, it won't be a "soft on terror" image that brings down Democrats. It's "soft on Bush."

Relevant to my post yesterday regarding the Democratic compromise on continued war funding (aka, "Sacrifice the Troops Bill"), here is a clip from today's NY Times:

In the House, the war money was supported mainly by Republicans on a 280-to-142 vote. A majority of the House Democrats — 140 — voted against it while 86 supported it.

Many House Democrats were dissatisfied with how the dispute with the White House was resolved, and their party leadership was under fire for the concession to the president on a troop withdrawal timetable. But leading Democrats said they had little choice but to send the money to the Pentagon or risk being accused of abandoning troops in the field.

“Like it or not, we ran out of options,” said Representative David R. Obey, Democrat of Wisconsin and chairman of the Appropriations Committee. “There has never been a chance of a snowball in Hades that Congress would cut off those funds to those troops in the field.”

Showing the political implications of the vote, three Senate Democrats seeking the party’s presidential nomination — Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut and Barack Obama of Illinois — were among the 14 Democrats who opposed the war spending bill. Another Democratic candidate, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, supported it.

The article also cites a CBS/Times poll finding that while a majority of Americans hate the war, they also support "continuing to finance the war as long as the Iraqi government met specific goals." Nevertheless, Senator Clinton rejects the idea that her "no" vote will hurt her "support the troops" credentials in the future, although I suspect she is more concerned with her present struggle to convinced primary voters she is credibly "anti-war."

( And regarding Olbermann's special commentary from the other night... )

Well...duh. They failed us in 2002 when they authorized this fiasco. And that's not counting the PATRIOT Act.

That said, I have no substantial disagreement with Olbermann here. Rightly, he takes the Senate Democrats to task for throwing in the towel, especially for giving the President benchmarks he can ignore. The question that nags me is: Given that they cannot muster the votes needed to override the inevitable veto (one of which they have already), what more can they do?

I'm not apologizing for them. I'm pissed off, too. But there is a political—structural—reality here, stipulated by the Constitution. Granted, they could take more time to get Republicans to defect. Yet they still have to guard their flank of so-called Red State Democrats, who were elected not solely to bring the troops home, but narrowly defeated Republican incumbents via a variety of other issues. Those particular Democrats and potential Republican defectors are looking to General Petreas for political cover in September, a gamble I have no faith in. Meanwhile, the Senate Dems are vulnerable to emotional blackmail from President Stubborn Douchebag, whom Olbermann rightly chastises for threatening to expose American soldiers (and, oh yes, those Iraqis we "liberated") to more harm unless he gets his way.

What, really can Dems do about that? What can we do about that? Impeach? Puh-leez. We're stuck with the stupid monkey until 1/09. Until then Congressional Democrats have only two options: 1) force the issue, and 2) play defense when that rhetorical gesture reaches its limits. So far they have mounted as much pressure as they are capable of organizing. Had they not made the benchmarks stipulation so laughably dismissable, I would have more sympathy for their present defensive posture, Rahm Emmanuel's assertion that the President's intransigance is in its last throes. The benchmarks kow-tow means that we need to keep a fire lit under the asses of the candidates for President and, eventually, elect a President who demonstrates better foresight and, oh, backbone perhaps?

I think it's too early to tell what lasting effect Ron Paul's candidacy for President will have on the Republican primaries, but it is obvious that other Republicans are worried about it. John Dickerson reports at Slate that a petition is circulating to prevent Paul from participating in future debates. Apparently Paul's unflinching criticism of the war in Iraq and U.S. foreign policy is making the frontrunners uncomfortable. Dickerson explains why that could be a good thing for the frontrunners and the GOP in general.

Screw the frontrunners and screw the GOP. The same can be said for the Democratic Party frontrunners and their relationship to Dennis Kucinich, who, like Paul, holds the other candidates to account for their previously pro-war positions (though Dennis fucked up by attacking Barak Obama.) The "good thing" should be for the American people and, by extension, for the people in the Middle East, starting with an intellectually honest, historically informed and globally responsible debate on how to resolve the mess Western powers have created in the Middle East. In that respect, does Paul's candidacy help?

Judging from a recent discussion on The View, Paul and Kucinich have more work to do. ( More on this behind the cut )