The end is nigh!

By Carl

Lemme see... that gives me 51 days to drink...

Photo of the Day

By Carl

(Courtesy of Bad Astronomy.)

The decline of the Tea Party and the return to sanity (let's hope)

By R.K. Barry

Well, this is interesting. It seems support for the Tea Party isn't what it used to be:

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday indicates that 32 percent of the public has a favorable view of the two year old anti-tax movement, which also calls for less government spending and a more limited role for the federal government in our lives. The 32 percent favorable rating is down five points from December. 

47 percent of people questioned say they have an unfavorable view of the tea party, up four points from December and an increase of 21 points from January 2010.

So the Tea Party movement may be losing steam, or, what is more likely, as Nate Silver cautions:

It’s not clear, on the other hand, that favorable views are decreasing; they’ve never been much higher than the low 30s, and that’s roughly where they remain today. Instead, this is almost certainly a case of Americans who had ambivalent views about the tea party before now coming to a more negative impression.

But what I find most interesting is the profile of those who may be going from an ambivalent to a more critical view. As CNN reports:

The tea party movement's unfavorable rating rose 15 points since October among lower-income Americans, compared to only five points among those making more than $50,000.

As the pollster postulates:

It's possible the drop among lower income Americans is a reaction to the tea party's push for large cuts in government programs that help lower-income Americans, although there are certainly other factors at work.

I’m afraid this is one of the oldest political dynamics in the book. If you ask people a general question about whether government should be smaller or taxes should be lowered, a large number will certainly agree.

If you start to put content into that abstract concept, a surprising number will start to reconsider, reasoning that they didn’t mean that programs that directly benefit them should be cut or that taxes should be lowered if it adversely impacts delivery of programs on which they depend.

Republican candidates in the last campaign knew this would happen which is why they almost comically refused to provide details about what they would cut to make government smaller. They knew their support was based on keeping the concept of reducing the size of the public sector as abstract as possible.

It’s a common sleight of hand by conservatives and too many voters fall for it. Convince them you can get it done by cutting unnecessary spending and creating efficiencies and punishing fat cat public employees. Convince them that you can cut government programs that only benefit “other people,” people not as deserving. And then when they realize that the only way to cut budgets to promised levels is to gut important public services that they rely on, many unsuspecting folks may come to understand that they have been duped.

They seem to be figuring this out in Wisconsin and Ohio and Michigan and Florida if a tad too late.

As I infer from Nate Silver’s comments, much of the support for Republicans in 2010 may have come from those who were ambivalent but decided to give them a shot. 

Let’s hope these latest numbers suggest that many are indeed waking up and that the metaphorical coffee is in fact being smelled. 

(Cross-posted from Lippmann's Ghost.)

MAC BOOK DECALS

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J.CREW FALL 2011 PRESENTATION

Your call has been disconnected

By Carl 

Well, this is good news, right?

Fewer Americans filed applications for unemployment benefits last week, a sign the labor market is firming heading into the second quarter.

Jobless claims fell by 6,000 to 388,000 in the week ended March 26, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The government also issued its annual revisions to the seasonal- adjustment factors, which caused a “mild upward shift” in the number of applications, an agency spokesman said as the figures were released to reporters.

A slowdown in firings and growing payrolls may bolster further gains in consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of the world’s largest economy. Companies added 210,000 jobs in March, while the unemployment rate held at 8.9 percent, economists project a Labor Department report to show tomorrow. 

A sidenote: there is some reason for concern for the Obama camp, in that high unemployment is usually a harbinger of defeat in an election. The latest number, 8.9%, is notably down from the near-10% of this time last year, but more has to be done. Fortunately, these things have a way of gaining momentum.

Employment is like Sisyphus' boulder: once it starts up the hill, it becomes easier and faster, but when it falls, it plummets.

Americans getting jobs. Sounds like a sign of a healthy economy. 

You'd think.

As  I write this, the markets have just opened for the day. Mind you, nearly every index is up for the year at or near record paces not seen since the tech bubble of 1998, but today, when finally it looks good for an American middle class worker, the toilet lid flies up and the markets sink. The Dow is off 13 points, and S&P 500 and NASDAQ are both struggling to stay even.

What is it with corporate America that they can't sync up with Main Street Americans?

In a nutshell, there is no more Corporate America any more than there are American cars. So many companies have become multinational conglomerates that their fortunes no longer rise or fall along with those of you and I here in the USA.

It used to be "what was good for GM was good for America," but that's no longer the case. GM got bailed out. Americans got HAMPered, the plug having been pulled on the only sensible bailout program in the recession, the one that helped Americans keep their homes.

But I forgot. That program wasn't going to turn a profit for the US. Or a bigger one for the banks. My error.

Just like full employment means the banks can't hold your feet to the fire in interest and late payment charges.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

The Hairy Watcher

While having coffee at Dolomiti with my two good friends, Marissa and Nicki, watching us in front is a man's best friend. He's staring and wondering maybe because of our gesture, language or our black hair. Whatever it is, our eye connection makes me missed our powerpuff shitzu girls back home.

The Hairy Watcher

While having coffee at Dolomiti with my two good friends, Marissa and Nicki, watching us in front is a man's best friend. He's staring and wondering maybe because of our gesture, language or our black hair. Whatever it is, our eye connection makes me missed our powerpuff shitzu girls back home.

An open letter to Newt Gingrich

By Michael J.W. Stickings

"Dear" Newt:

How exactly could you have "a secular atheist country... dominated by radical Islamists"?

Do you not see the contradiction? Or are you just so deranged that you can't see anything clearly anymore, if you ever could?

And yet it's hardly surprising that you continue to sink into the morass of anti-Muslim bigotry. You were there fearmongering over the Park51 community center, and, like many in your party (e.g., Peter King) you choose to scapegoat Muslims as the dangerous anti-American Other.

But this isn't just anti-Muslim bigotry that you're tapping into. You said this at John Hagee's church in Texas. Back in 2008, John McCain refused Hagee's endorsement because of ugly remarks the extremist evangelist made about God sending Hitler to hunt the Jews.

"Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them," McCain said at the time. And yet you, Newt, happily appear at Hagee's side, praising him profusely for his inspiration and "dedication to serve."

Did you, do you, find Hagee's remarks offensive? What about Hagee's many other similar remarks? Or has your bigotry, directed mostly at Muslims, overtaken you?

Just wondering -- you know, because you may be running for president and are widely considered, including by the media, to be a leading Republican.

Rather insincerely,

Michael Stickings

Libya is not Iraq. Liberal interventionism is not neoconservatism.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

One of our former contributors, Jim Arkedis, has an excellent piece up at Foreign Policy responding to the assertion, notably by Stephen Walt, that neoconservatism and liberal interventionism are essentially the same, and that the intervention in Libya is essentially the same as the invasion of Iraq.

If you've read this blog recently, you'll know that I side with Jim on this -- and that I'm a liberal interventionist who supports the intervention in Libya (albeit with reservations). Indeed, I argued yesterday that the "war" in Libya is decidedly not a neocon war.

I encourage you to read Jim's piece. (Instead of calling them (or us) liberal interventionists or liberal hawks, he uses "progressive internationalists." My sense is that "internationalism" is too broad, but it suggests that war is an option but not the preferred option, as it would seem to be for the neocons, so it's not a bad term to use.) Here's a taste:

Progressive internationalists recognize that U.S. foreign policy is now aholistic enterprise that must first summon all sources of national power todeal with what goes on within states as well as between them -- direct andmultilateral diplomacy, development aid to build infrastructure and civilsociety, trade to promote growth, intelligence collection, and law enforcement,to name a few -- and only then turn to force as the final guarantor of peaceand stability.

Neocons, however, disdain multilateral diplomacy and overestimate theefficacy of military force. Their lopsided preoccupation with "hard power"creates an imposing facade of strength, but in fact saps the economic,political, and moral sources of American influence. By overspending on themilitary and allowing the other levers of American power to atrophy, neoconsmisallocate precious U.S.national resources in two ways -- leaving the UnitedStates with too little of the "smart power" capacitiesdesperately needed in war zones like Afghanistan and an overabundanceof "hard power" capacities it will never use. The trick is to carefullycultivate both, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State HillaryClinton, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen havechampioned since Obama took power.

I think that's right, and I said much the same thing, if less elaborately, yesterday:

Libya isn't a neocon war. It isn't about American hegemony, American unilateral aggression, or American national self-interest (say, in terms of oil). It's a "war," or whatever you want to call it, sanctioned by the U.N. and the Arab League, that is, a war not waged by a U.S.-led "coalition of the willing" alienating even close allies but a war effectively waged by the international community. And it is largely a humanitarian war, a war to protect innocent civilians from being slaughtered and to provide cover to rebels seeking to bring down one of the must ruthless dictators in the world.

[Bill] Kristol may be cheering it on, but it isn't his war, and in fact it is a war that is decidedly the antithesis of what he generally purports to support. It's up to him to support it or not, of course, but the success of this war, and he does think "we will" win, would only mean a further defeat for neocon ideology, the refutation of all that he stands for.

It is essential, I think, that we not let all military intervention be understood in neocon terms and that those of us who support intervention, usually as a last resort in extreme cases, defend the principles that guide us from the attacks of those who would lump all intervention, and all war, together. 

Instead of being driven by the reckless pursuit of global American hegemony, after all, nor even by a purely realist sense of national self-interest, we are motivated by internationalism and humanitarianism. And, to me, there's something fundamentally noble about that.

Boy, talk about a rock and a hard place

By Carl

Reason Magazine tries to argue that America will be either an Islamofascist or Christofascist nation soon.

Just not sure which, but don't worry! One of them will prevail!

There's a phrase here... what is it?... oh right! Epic Fail, Reason.

Donald Trump joins the Birther cult

By R.K. Barry

So Donald Trump has jumped onto the birther bandwagon. Yes, he too is questioning the fact that President Obama was born in America. If you haven't seen his latest, which I would find hard to believe, you can get a sense of his idiocy from the clip below from his appearance on The View.

Typically I pay no attention to this blowhard, but it is getting a lot of coverage so I suppose we have a responsibility to think a little about what it all means.

One possibility is that in America we seem to pay way too much attention to what rich people think simply because they are rich. We assume that because they found a way to make themselves a lot of money, what they think about any number of topics unrelated to their particular expertise must be of value. I don't know why Americans think this, but they do. Perhaps the simplest reason is that because there is no commonly accepted standard of judgment that can be used to gauge the intrinsic worth of human beings, we use money as a proxy. I find this sad, but it does seem to be true.

Another sad but true fact is that fame is also a currency we use to determine the worth of people and the value of the things they say.

Lucky him, Donald Trump is both rich and famous, so we pay attention. Charlie Sheen is also rich and famous. Gee, I wonder where he thinks Obama was born?

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

The Squirmish in Libya

By Michael J.W. Stickings

You might have seen Jon Stewart make fun of this last night. It certainly belongs among Sarah Palin's "greatest" hits.

What If He's Right?

By Carl

 

Now, I'm not suggesting that this is anything but the ravings of a delusional tyrant trying to put on a brave face for his people and the rest of the Arab world, but, what if Assad's charges are true?

"There is a plot to break Syria apart," Assad claimed. "It began with incitement on the internet and on Facebook, and moved on to the media and the street. We were able to stop the American-Israeli plot."

"Whoever is part of the Syrian nation always stands tall," Assad added. "Our enemies act every day in an organized and public matter in order to harm Syria."

Assaid said the protesters are "smart in their timing, but stupid by choosing a country that will not be defeated by any step."

You see what I mean about a "brave front". Kind of like Bush in the days of Osama: Dead Or Alive. But I digress...

 

Is this that far-fetched a charge? I don't think it is. After all, Obama has struck me as the kind of man who plays his cards close to the vest, and wouldn't hesitate to proffer a back-door way of deconstructing tyranny that does not involve violence unless it's absolutely necessary.

 

It sure would explain his curious "hands off" approaches to Tanzania and Egypt, as well as his wisely delayed decision to attack Libya and only with UN support (however you may feel about the attacks, and I oppose violence flat out, the delay is what I'm focused on here.)

 

And it really can't be denied that there's a certain apparent orchestration to events as they've unfolded across the Middle East and North Africa: first Tanzania, then Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and soon perhaps, Iran.

 

Too, it's not the sort of strategy you'd want to telegraph, whether Israel is involved or not. And they may or may not be, that's not the point. The point is they benefit from these changes, assuming the regimes and governments that rise in these nations are democratic and populist.

 

I say "populist," because I think the Arab street is just tired of fighting Israel's existence and are willing, however grudgingly, to leave them be.

 

Meanwhile, Israel has been preparing what Ehud Barak calls a "diplomatic tsunami" behind the scenes. Break Syria, and you break the attacks from Lebanon and Hamas. Mostly. There's still Iran to deal with but without a strong Syria to partner with, they'd have to expose their hand in attacking Israel. That's something I think the Iranian people would be upset about. A lot of rhetoric against Israel comes from Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollahs, not a lot from the people, who have stirred the pot in the past against their regime.

 

It's possible Obama may have earned his Nobel after all.

 

(crossposted to Simply Left Behind)

My first sekin of a PED.

Well I had some free time and nothing to do in a shit PC so I decided to make a reskin in of a Ped in honor of an old game called "BLACK" that I played in xbox. THIS IS THE REAL BLACK OP!

I made this reskin wiht Paint, in windows XP.
I don't know the author of the model, the only thing I did is a reskin.
Download Link: http://www.mediafire.com/?4ugtxaj9qy3okjo

American acceptionalism

By Carl 

(Pun intended.) 

So here's President Obama, talking about America's role in the world last night:

For generations, the United States of America has played a unique role as an anchor of global security and advocate for human freedom. To allow a slaughter in Benghazi would have been to "brush aside America's responsibility as a leader and... would have been a betrayal of who we are.

For ten years, we've been endlessly reminded of America's "special" place in world affairs. America is the world's biggest economy, has the world's biggest armed forces, is the policeman to the world... yet can't hunt down one skinny sick Saudi in a small region that straddles the border of two of the most desolate regions in the world.

Even the strongest have limitations.

Now, none of this is to say that America shouldn't throw its weight around when necessary, and Obama alluded to this last night in the negative:

We must always measure our interests against the need for action.

Again, fair enough. When our interests are at stake, we ought to be prepared to take measures to protect ourselves.

But what threat does Qaddafi pose to us? After all, he voluntarily shut down his nuclear program (although given the level of interest the Bush administration had in him, and their effectiveness in addressing terrorism, one has to wonder if indeed this ever happened) and cozied up to the previous administration. No one has claimed that he has had aspirations against us, and if anything, he's presented a face of reconciliation for Africa, offering his aid to the situations in Somalia, Darfur, and Zimbabwe.

Again, there's no judging his sincerity on these, either.

The slaughter in Benghazi is certainly a legitimate concern of Obama's, and the world's, and it was nice that Obama put on the veneer of legitimacy by asking for the U.N.'s blessings on this mission, and did so without sending his secretary of state in to do a snake-oil presentation complete with vials of white powder. Too, Qaddafi suffers from his own world image, one that seemingly did not endear him to any of the Security Council who could have vetoed the action (China and Russia abstained).

Of particular interest to me, however, was the curious lack of invitation to powers-to-be to assist in patrolling the world now. Nations like China, Brazil, and India, with their steaming-hot economies and massive expansion of trade and influence, are living off our military dime. It's about time they started ponying up. China has a strongly vested interest in North and Central Africa. Brazil certainly by dint of its location will look to Africa as a trade partner, and India with its billions of people must have some eye on Africa and its enormous resources and access to Europe and the Americas.

So the question I want to ask Mr. Obama is, Why not China? Why not India? Why not Brazil? I accept that it had to be us in the past, but why now? Have we gotten so locked into the old Cold War thinking that, if America doesn't do it, this will not hold? That it will turn socialist/Islamist/terrorist without American intervention?

It's a new century. You're a new-age man. Surely it's time to think outside of the box.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Things Republicans say about job creation that aren't true

By R.K. Barry 

Yesterday I wrote that no matter how tired progressives get saying the same things over and over again, no matter how tired they get refuting the lies of Republicans, they should carry on and fight the good fight because many people, who perhaps don't always pay enough attention, need to hear the the truth as often as possible.

Recently I have become a big fan of former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who has a teaching gig at UC Berkeley these days and also blogs on political and economic issues. I find Reich the consummate teacher in the way he lays out his arguments and exposes nonsense for what it is.

One of the greater challenges in politics, I find, is that economic theory is so hard for most people to understand, and some theories that seem to make sense are flat out wrong, things like, if we just slash taxes on corporations, that will necessarily create more jobs. Yeah, well, not so much. Not if there isn't enough demand out there because people don't have sufficient income to buy stuff. Anyway, I'll let the good professor explain.

Here are a few untruths Republicans like to trot out, with rejoinders supplied by Professor Reich:

• "Cutting taxes on the rich creates jobs." Nope. Trickle-down economics has been tried for thirty years and hasn't worked. After George W. Bush cut taxes on the rich, far fewer jobs were created than after Bill Clinton raised them in the 1990s.

• "Cutting corporate income taxes creates jobs." Baloney. American corporations don't need tax cuts. They're sitting on over $1.5 trillion of cash right now. They won't invest it in additional capacity or jobs because they don't see enough customers out there with enough money in their pockets to buy what the additional capacity would produce.

• "Cuts in wages and benefits create jobs." Congressional Republicans and their state counterparts repeat this lie incessantly. It also lies behind corporate America's incessant demand for wage and benefit concessions – and corporate and state battles against unions. But it's dead wrong. Meager wages and benefits are reducing the spending power of tens of millions of American workers, which is prolonging the jobs recession.

• "Regulations kill job." Congressional Republicans are using this whopper to justify their attempts to defund regulatory agencies. Regulations whose costs to business exceed their benefits to the public are unwarranted, of course, but reasonable regulation is necessary to avoid everything from nuclear meltdowns to oil spills to mine disasters to food contamination – all of which we've sadly witnessed. Here again, we're hearing little from the President or Democratic leaders.

If cutting taxes on rich people, cutting corporate income taxes, cutting wages and benefits, and deregulation don't create jobs, then a lot of middle class people are probably going to be voting against their own best interests come 2012 and in the interests of others who don't really need the help. Just sayin'.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Killing in Afghanistan

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Our must-read of the day is "The Kill Team" by Mark Boal, posted the other day at Rolling Stone. What's it about?

How U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses – and how their officers failed to stop them.

It's disturbing, but it's important. Take the time.

LITTLE KIDS CAN SOMETIMES BE ADORABLE

Obama, Kristol, Libya: The new American military doctrine

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It troubles me greatly that I'm on the same side as Bill Kristol with respect to the Libyan intervention, as I've generally come around to supporting it (with severe reservations). As Kristol writes:

The president was unapologetic, freedom-agenda-embracing, and didn't shrink from defending the use of force or from appealing to American values and interests. Furthermore, the president seems to understand we have to win in Libya.

But of course Libya isn't a neocon war. It isn't about American hegemony, American unilateral aggression, or American national self-interest (say, in terms of oil). It's a "war," or whatever you want to call it, sanctioned by the U.N. and the Arab League, that is, a war not waged by a U.S.-led "coalition of the willing" alienating even close allies but a war effectively waged by the international community. And it is largely a humanitarian war, a war to protect innocent civilians from being slaughtered and to provide cover to rebels seeking to bring down one of the must ruthless dictators in the world.

Kristol may be cheering it on, but it isn't his war, and in fact it is a war that is decidedly the antithesis of what he generally purports to support. It's up to him to support it or not, of course, but the success of this war, and he does think "we will" win, would only mean a further defeat for neocon ideology, the refutation of all that he stands for.

Yes, okay, he supposedly stands for "freedom," but does he really? Yes, to a point, but what he really stands for is American imperial univeralism, for the imposition of American values or more specifically neocon values on the rest of world at the point of a sword.

For all the reservations we may have about the intervention in Libya, this is not that -- Libya is not Iraq, nor is it what the neocons want generally, which is for the U.S. to act according to its narrow interests even in direct opposition to the international community. Thankfully, Obama thinks differently:

"We knew that if we waited one more day, Benghazi, a city nearly the size of Charlotte, could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world," Obama said in a speech at the National Defense University in Washington.

"It was not in our national interest to let that happen. I refused to let that happen."

Obama articulated a broader – if not easily explained — vision of U.S. involvement in future actions, reserving the right to act in the nation's "interests and values" and arguing that Americans "should not be afraid to act." But he also cautioned against unilateral action that would result in bloody, protracted conflict and pronounced the country's days as the world's police force to be over.

He added:

It is true that America cannot use our military wherever repression occurs. And given the costs and risks of intervention, we must always measure our interests against the need for action. But that cannot be an argument for never acting on behalf of what's right.

In this particular country – Libya; at this particular moment, we were faced with the prospect of violence on a horrific scale... To brush aside America's responsibility as a leader and – more profoundly – our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are. Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different.

As president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.

I would disagree with one point: The U.S. is not as exceptional as Obama suggests. A lot of countries do not "turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries," and not intervening in Libya does not mean approving of such atrocities.

Otherwise, though, I think he's right -- and was right to act. And is right to be ushering in a new era of military intervention that rejects neocon unilateralism in the pursuit of global hegemony on the one side and pacifism on the other.

War is not a desirable option, but it is unfortunately a necessary one in some circumstances. And, in this case, it has been redefined and taken away from those on the right who have used it to advance their own interests, and who have destroyed America's standing in the world as a force for good.

Maybe this is the Obama Doctrine: a careful balance of self-interest and capacity on one side and the need to act for humanitarian reasons on the other. Whatever it is, it's certainly an improvement on what came before it, and, in Libya, where there has been significant success so far, it would appear to be taking shape.

Philippine TV Series

We've been back for a month already here and i havent seen most of my friends yet. They are sending messages at FB and my reply was the most used words, "I'm still busy". When i borrowed from Joy the complete 9 cd's of a Filipino teleserye "Magkaribal", i promised to myself that i will just look at it once in a while. But the moment i started the tv series, i become hooked to it and very excited to know what happened next. One cd is more than four hours and you can just imagine my small eyes focused on the screen, eating dinner in front of the television and its good that the toilet is just next door. Aside from the compilation, i also watched everyday the delayed episode of TV5's new teleserye, Babaeng Hampaslupa and Nagbabagang Bulaklak.

Philippine TV Series

We've been back for a month already here and i havent seen most of my friends yet. They are sending messages at FB and my reply was the most used words, "I'm still busy". When i borrowed from Joy the complete 9 cd's of a Filipino teleserye "Magkaribal", i promised to myself that i will just look at it once in a while. But the moment i started the tv series, i become hooked to it and very excited to know what happened next. One cd is more than four hours and you can just imagine my small eyes focused on the screen, eating dinner in front of the television and its good that the toilet is just next door. Aside from the compilation, i also watched everyday the delayed episode of TV5's new teleserye, Babaeng Hampaslupa and Nagbabagang Bulaklak.

Are conservatives really this stupid? (Bill Ayers sarcastically claims authorship of Obama book and the right goes nuts.)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

A whole whack of 'em, yes.

Here's what happened:

Ex-radical Bill Ayers (of Weather Underground fame/infamy) spoke last week at Montclair State University and claimed -- gasp! -- that he wrote President Obama's bestseller, Dreams from My Father.

For conservative conspiracy-mongers... jackpot! (It might as well have been the State of Hawaii stating with all the documentation at its disposal that, no, Obama was not born there.)

The clip appeared at various right-wing websites, including today at American Thinker (apparently the most ironic name in the blogosphere). The blogger there, one Jack Cashill, took Ayers's claim at face value, saying that he was not just telling the truth but that he "retaliating" against Obama over Libya.

Don't believe me? Well, let me quote Cashill himself:

Barack Obama knows what I know and what the people who have read my book, "Deconstructing Obama," know: Bill Ayers is the principal craftsman behind Dreams. The evidence is overwhelming.

Ayers also established, as I have contended from the beginning, that he is not the author of Audacity of Hope. Although Obama claims unique authorship of this book too, it was, as Ayers suggests, a disingenuous feint to the center written by committee.

Worse for Obama still, Ayers knows that the story he and Obama contrived in Dreams is false in many key details. The fact that Donald Trump has proved willing to challenge that story has got to make the White House even more apprehensive.

As was obvious in his speech at Montclair, Ayers does not like the application of force in Libya, and this may have been his own way of retaliating. Consider it a shot across Obama's bow. The White House will.

Need I even mention that Ayers was being... sarcastic? That he was making fun of the conspiracy-mongers? Apparently that possibility escaped not just Cashill but many others on the right. The clip went viral, sparking mouth-frothing excitement across the conservative blogosphere.

I'm not even sure how to describe such abject stupidity. It's willful ignorance combined with wish fulfillment fantasies and ideological derangement. Or something like that.

It was so stupid, in fact, that conservative blogger Rick Moran, the blog editor at American Thinker, took to his blog Right Wing Nut House to explain the situation:

What is perhaps even more bothersome than the wholesale acceptance of this theme by so many on the right is the embrace of the video linked in the AT blog post above by many who appear to have suspended critical analysis in lieu of wishful thinking. Ayers does indeed admit to writing Dreams but in such an obviously sarcastic manner that the question isn't whether Ayers was serious but how in God's name so many conservative bloggers failed to see the taunting sarcasm used in his "confession."

But even that wasn't enough to quell the delusional enthusiasm (among bloggers and commenters alike). Nor was a similar dose of reality from another leading conservative blogger, John Hawkins:

Not only is Ayers making a joke, he's making a joke at the expense of the people who claim he wrote the book. Granted, interpretations may differ, especially since Ayers' delivery was very dry, but it's a mistake to take that as some sort of confession.

Oh, but this has nothing to do with interpretation. Yes, Ayers delivered the joke very well -- see the clip for yourselves, below -- but you have to be pretty far gone, way over on the insane fringe of right-wing politics, to think that he was actually being serious.

The problem, of course, is that the insane fringe appears to be very much the mainstream nowadays. Indeed, this whole ridiculous episode tells you a great deal about the state not just of the conservative blogosphere -- which is, to put it mildly, an embarrassment to humanity -- but of conservatism more generally, which has lost its bearings, whatever bearings it may once have had, in a sea of extremism, delusion, ignorance, and stupidity beyond even what one might usually expect from the right.

For more sensible reaction to this madness, see Balloon Juice, The Daily Dish, Lawyers, Guns & Money, and No More Mister Nice Blog -- the last noting that the story was picked up by Fox News, which only added a question mark (as if to suggest that it might be true), as well as NewsBusters, a major right-wing site, and Gateway Pundit, a popular right-wing blog, among many others, both of which accept without question that Ayers was being serious.

Yes, conservatives -- a lot of 'em -- really are that stupid.

Four things I think I know about politics

By R.K. Barry

There are four things about politics that I have learned over the years. There may be more, but these are the ones I am thinking about today.

None of them are original, but they are all, I believe, important. I am also reasonably sure they are obvious to anyone who cares to pay attention.

The first one I believe comes from legendary Democratic strategist James Carville and it concerns the relative lack of interest most people have in politics. It's about political messaging and it goes like this: "When you want voters to know something about your position on an issue or about your platform, you first have to tell them what that thing is and then tell them again and finally tell them you told them. About the moment when you are absolutely sick and tired of saying the same thing over and over and over again, some people will start to listen."

The second is the sad observation that no matter how stupid or untenable a statement, someone, probably many people, will believe and repeat it. They may believe the idiotic statement because they are predisposed to believe it or it might be that they think, foolishly, that anything that has been picked up by the media might have some truth to it. And, what's more, most people like to have something to say at the water cooler or wherever it is they converse with other human beings. Most of us do like to think that we are somewhat well-informed or at least not clueless. I can't say how many times I have heard someone opine that despite what most people believe about "x," they have also heard that "y" could be true. Think here about climate change, birtherism, Obama's religion. Put it out there and someone will repeat it. I'm not counselling dishonestly, only what can happen.

The third thing is that political campaigns matter because that's when a lot of people who are generally only vaguely interested in politics, if at all, start to pay attention. As for point #1, during campaigns all your telling and re-telling may finally start to stick with people. And as for point #2, by the time things get serious there is a lot of bad information that has already become part of the landscape for all sorts of nefarious or just ignorant reasons.

So here is my fourth point, which may only be a corollary of points above but it's this: those of us concerned about the truth should never weary of saying the same things over and over again -- the same things that may have become tiresome and obvious to us -- because there will come a time when people start to pay attention and you don't want the purveyors of bullshit to have a leg up when things get real.

More than anything, politics is a battle of attrition. Let's just make sure that our truth outlasts their lies.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

So you think the Tea Party GOP isn't a cesspool of bigotry?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Add this to all the evidence that's accumulated so far:

As the Republican presidential nomination process begins, one GOP candidate is making a name for himself as the Islamophobia candidate: Herman Cain.

Earlier this week, Cain gave an interview to Christianity Today in which he declared that, "based upon the little knowledge that I have of the Muslim religion, you know, they have an objective to convert all infidels or kill them."

ThinkProgress caught up with the former CEO of Godfather's Pizza [on Saturday] at the Conservative Principles Conference in Des Moines, Iowa, to discuss his comments further. We asked him, in light of his statements on Islam, would he be comfortable appointing any Muslims in his administration. Rather than skirting the question or hedging his answer, as most presidential aspirants are wont to do, Cain was definitive: "No, I would not."

You'll note that Cain won a fairly significant Tea Party straw poll last month, is a major figure in the Tea Party, and is one of those on the right for whom the Tea Party and the Republican Party should be one and the same.

And now he's on record exposing himself as a bigot -- and as someone who apparently has no regard for the Constitution, which states that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

Much of the anti-Muslim bigotry within high-profile Republican circles -- say, among the likes of Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich -- is carefully constructed so as to appear not to be bigotry. (Consider, for example, the flap over the Park51 community center near Ground Zero.)

At least Cain is being honest with us.

Success in Libya (cont'd)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

We may still not know quite what the objectives of the "war" are, nor how far the allies are willing to go, but there's no denying that the intervention thus far has proven to be successful in preventing mass murder and providing the rebels with the cover they need to fight back against Qaddafi's mercenaries:

American and European bombs battered Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's most important bastion of support in his tribal homeland of Surt on Sunday night, as rebels seeking his ouster capitalized on the damage from the Western airstrikes to erase their recent losses and return to the city’s doorstep.

Their swift return, recapturing two important oil refineries and a strategic port within 20 hours, set the stage for a battle in Surt that could help decide the war. 

No, nothing has been "won" yet, and there is still much that could go wrong. But would we really want the opposite to have happened -- Qaddafi crushing the rebels, slaughtering innocent and helpless civilians, and reinstating his tyrannical rule with an iron fist?

(And, no, this doesn't mean the U.S. now has to go into, say, Syria. It's quite possible to treat the need for, and justification of, military intervention on a case-by-case basis. In this sense, bombing Burma makes little sense but using diplomacy to try to get India and China to put pressure on that country's military junta could help a great deal. Bombing Iran would likely be a disaster, but working with the international community to apply sanctions could work if not to bring down the regime at least to force it to reconsider it's objectives.)

I quoted him recently and I'll quote him again. Here's Juan Cole:

I am unabashedly cheering the liberation movement on, and glad that the UNSC-authorized intervention has saved them from being crushed. I can still remember when I was a teenager how disappointed I was that Soviet tanks were allowed to put down the Prague Spring and extirpate socialism with a human face. Our multilateral world has more spaces in it for successful change and defiance of totalitarianism than did the old bipolar world of the Cold War, where the US and the USSR often deferred to each other's sphere of influence...

Some have charged that the Libya action has a Neoconservative political odor. But the Neoconservatives hate the United Nations and wanted to destroy it. They went to war on Iraq despite the lack of UNSC authorization, in a way that clearly contravened the UN Charter... The Libya action, in contrast, observes all the norms of international law and multilateral consultation that the Neoconservatives despise...

The intervention in Libya was done in a legal way. It was provoked by a vote of the Arab League, including the newly liberated Egyptian and Tunisian governments. It was urged by a United Nations Security Council resolution, the gold standard for military intervention...

Many are crying hypocrisy, citing other places an intervention could be staged or worrying that Libya sets a precedent. I don't find those arguments persuasive. Military intervention is always selective, depending on a constellation of political will, military ability, international legitimacy and practical constraints. The humanitarian situation in Libya was fairly unique. You had a set of tank brigades willing to attack dissidents, and responsible for thousands of casualties and with the prospect of more thousands to come, where aerial intervention by the world community could make a quick and effective difference.

These are just some of the highlight's of Cole's "open letter to the left on Libya." Whatever your views of the intervention, you should read it in its entirety.