The events of the past week got me thinking about a comment to my piece, "Why were they fired," which appeared here, and on The Huffington Post a few days ago. The commentor agreed that "all the President's men" should be held accountable for their infractions, and subversions, against the Constitution, and democratic process; but how? when Congress appears to have reached a stalemate.
While the meter is running, and the president's term is quickly approaching the finish line, accountability doesn't come with an expiration date. And, with the certain nomination of Senator John McCain to fill his cowboy boots, it's even more important now to consider that George W. Bush isn't just McCain's paradigm for so-called "national security," but he also provides a template for abuse of power.
While I don't profess to have the answer to the commenter's question, it isn't too late to appoint a special prosecutor to hold the Department of Justice liable for obstruction of justice in their failure to enforce subpoenas against Miers and Bolten, as well as to consider holding Attorney General Michael Mukasey in contempt of Congress and, as importantly, to hold the president and vice-president responsible for making a mockery of their oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
This is not just about the attorney-general, sui generis, it is about the attorney-general, in particular, insofar as Mukasey is deliberately following on the coat-tails of his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales, as well as willfully collaborating with the executive branch to impede a congressional investigation. Were the attorney general to be a private citizen, would he not be liable for indictment on charges of obstruction of justice?
More importantly, while the current gang, on Pennsylvania Avenue will be mostly packed, and on their way back to Dodge in January, if the recent elections in Russia and Cuba are any indication of a global trend, if the people and their elected representatives don't speak up now, we may yet have another eight years of Bush redux in the form of President John McCain.
There are those, in this election, who say there is little difference between the positions of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, but consider that Hillary is the candidate who gets a big thumbs-up from both the president and Rush Limbaugh.
Consider, too, that apart from the posturing with respect to being strong on national security, as demonstrated by her red phone ad, Hillary, Bush, and McCain share one common denominator: the desire to prolong the war on terror, and refuse to back down on their wrongheaded assumptions that Saddam Hussein, or the sovereign state of Iraq, had anything to do with the events of 9/11.
Think about the doublespeak inherent in the claim that she will use diplomacy over the military option and, at the same time, call Obama "naive" for suggesting that it might just be possible to get somewhere the old-fashioned way, with round table diplomacy.
So, in the coming weeks, when you hear pundits say that there really is no difference between Barack and Hillary, think about the judgment thing, and think about this, too. There is a difference between the Democrats and Republicans, regardless of who gets the nomination.
For, among other things, the next president will not only decide which battlefield to vacate, and which one to occupy, but who to appoint to the Supreme Court. Consider, too, that we're still suffering from the policies of another Republican president, Ronald Reagan, whose strong suit, like McCain's, wasn't economics.
We have yet to see anything "trickle down" from the economic policies espoused by the great Republican ideologues of the past fifty years, and the only part of our economy that has benefited from their notion of a strong defense are the war contractors like Blackwater and Halliburton. In the month of February alone, this country has lost 63,000 jobs, its greatest loss in half a decade.
We must move past the antiquated notion of divine right of delegates, away from an electoral hierarchy in the form of super delegates, and toward economic equity that is reflected not merely in true representation of the will of the people by popular vote, but in hyper focus not on the horse race that is presidential nomination, but on the underlying issues. It will take a delicate balance to foist the media scrutiny away from the photo op and toward the flawed, rapidly depreciating democratic process.
Similarly, dissembling the apparatus of privilege won't happen overnight, but in the meantime, delegates, pledged and super, must recognize and openly acknowledge the link between obscene corporate wealth and the unnecessary, criminal, cost to human life in Iraq, and elsewhere, as well as how corporate profiteering can only result in the unfair balance of power in this country, and globally.
What's more, no one needs to be reminded that, not since Richard Nixon, have we seen such wanton, reckless abuse of power, and disregard for checks and balances. We need leadership that is not merely willing to talk, but to listen, too.
While it is not readily apparent if either of the Democratic candidates will be ready, on day one, to meet the challenges of an increasingly ominous world, it is clear that it is no more the domain of super delegates than the Supreme Court to decide who is best equipped.
Yet again, we have a presidential candidate who is at risk of getting slammed by back room brokering, and he is the one who now appears closest to winning the popular vote. He is also, importantly, the candidate who best addresses the need to heal the damage arising from the politics of pre-emption, reaffirm bonds with the the international community, and best contain nuclear proliferation through diplomacy.
Moreover, the "domino theory" of Communism appears to apply more to the past half dozen or so presidential elections. We seem to have descended further and further into the abyss of campaign irrelevancy and untruth, as well as abnegating whatever notion the framers may have had about representational democracy. Frankly, I think Thomas Jefferson would be asking for his money back by now.
If it is the will of the people that the nomination go to Obama, then it will be up to the delegates to balance that will against the wrath of the world should the power brokers attempt to wrench it away from him.
http://ladyjaynestahl.blogspot.com
Widely published, poet, playwright, essayist, and screenwriter; member of PEN American Center, and PEN USA.
and one containing some thoughts with which I can agree and some with which I disagree.
I posit that our current system of governance, and I refer to the myth of the two party system, lends itself to a cycle of convervative rule followed by a supposedly liberal haitus, rinse and repeat. I agree that the conduct of the Obama camp and the Clinton camp lends itself to making McCain a stronger candidate than he should be. I have begun to believe that ,while the electorate descends into emotional rather than intellectual decision making, the forces who understand this are able to manipulate with greater ease the voting preferences of those emotional folks.
I vehemntly disagree with the authors contention that the neocons favor a MCCain/Clinton contest, for if they did wouldnt they publically come out for Obama, understanding the anathema the democratic voters have with the words of Limbaugh? I believe that there is plenty of ammunition ready for either eventuality, and, I further believe that this symptomatic suspension of reality is very common to the Obama supporter, regrettably.
Which candidate is the better choice for you Democrats is your problem, thankfully. I see darn little difference between them and much to suspect in them both. The real problem here is not which individual is the better choice but whether or not the electorate is getting a real choice in the first place. I fear we are not.
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2388 comments)
on Saturday, March 8, 2008 at 8:48:03 AM
Thank you for presenting the case which we face. You have written well and stated the case very logically. I would like to see more of your tribe on this site.
Phil.
by
pratliff94 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 940 comments)
on Saturday, March 8, 2008 at 9:54:42 AM
You have a very simple problem. You are an idealist with a blind romantic bent (not the Romanticism of Literature, Art and Philosophy, but in the popular view of being a romantic).
If you wait until there is a multiple party system, I am afraid you are going to go to your grave a forlorn and disappointed man.
Part of your idealism blinds you to the fact that we have multiple choices in primaries and at the local party level if you want to take the time to get involoved. I think about a hundred or more would be Presidents have been weeded out before they made the Primary ticket; whereas I think there were about twenty candidates on both the Parties' tickets and in the debates until we have only three remaining, two for the Democrats and one Republican.
Ardee,
You are a very intelligent bitter idealist, and idealist always end up embittered; however, your being so intelligent amazes me that you can with a straight face say time and again or write time and again that there is no difference between the Democrat Party and the Republican Party. That is not only amazing, it borders on mental illness.
Shall I give you a long list of differences? such as educational programs, military programs, health programs, social programs, class warfare programs and we are in a class warfare, justice and injustice programs, control of SCOTUS programs and it is a program to control the US Supreme Court, environmental progams, international programs such as our reputation outside this country as well as the UN and any other programs you wish to discuss.
You are saying that it made absolutely no difference whether or not Al Gore or George W. Bush was elected in 2000, whether John Kerry or George W. Bush was elected in 2004, whether John Kennedy or Richard Nixon was eleced in 1960, whether Lyndon Johnson or Barry Goldwater was elected in 1964, whether Hubert Humphrey or Richard Nixon was elected in 1968, whether Richard Nixon or George McGovern was elected in 1972 or whether Clinton/Obama or John McCain will be elected this November.
This simply amazes me, and it is very divisive. The reason Humphrey was defeated was the splintering of the Democrats in 1968; it was the same reason that both Gore and Kerry were defeated in 2000 and 2004.
I am afraid you fit well with Ralph Nader. I notice that that egotistical maniac is trying to run against this year as if he has not done enough to destroy first the United States and then the world by helping to elect George W. Bush twice. You do not fit well with him in that aspect, but Nader the Crusader is an embittered old man, an embittered idealist.
Phil.
by
pratliff94 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 940 comments)
on Saturday, March 8, 2008 at 11:05:25 AM
am neither bitter nor an idealist. I have a forty year history of active participation in my local democratic grassroots level organisations. Further I am quite sincere in saying that there is very little difference both in the two remaining democratic candidates and in the history of this nation under Democratic vs. Republican rule, during the period commencing with Reaganism up until now.
Speaking about fifty and sixty or more years in the past is not relevent at all to our current political scenario. You may continue to be blinded by the history of the Democratic Party under FDR, I would rather speak more pertinently to the current make up and thrust of that party and its lack of important action in regard to a panoply of important and constitutionally endangering actions by our current President.
Things change Reverend, and dinosaurs like you who cannot adapt to those changes are doomed to become a part of the fossil record not a part of the future. You ask if Gore would have been a better President than Bush, an absurd question as history has been written and speculation is only that and nothing more. But I will ask you why Gore, and Kerry four years later, capitulated abruptly, displaying little courage of conviction or sense of justice?
You state that the democratic voter had a large choice of candidates and I say nonsense. While Kucinich, Gravel, Richardson et all wrote their names on the forms and campaigned in the states, they were largely ignored by the DLC and DNC and certainly by the press, so where is the real choice there? It was always supposed to be Clinton, Obama's meteroic and mostly emotional drawing card for many voters took the conservative leaders of the Party as much by surprise as he did all of us. Many disclosures since have rather pointedly noted that he is, sans emotion, a Centrist in the mold of his chief rival. That he spoke against the war while a junior state senator is less important than are his repeated votes for the continued funding thereof and his ducking of four very controversial votes since.
Why you ponder my emotional state is a mystery to me but I suspect it stems from your inability mount a real defense of your position on your party thus leaving you no recourse but to attack the messenger. Its fine Reverend, really it is. After my realisation that the Democratic Party no longer represented my values or my vision for the direction of this nation my love of country forced me to think hard on what sort of political actions were open to me. I found the Green Party, in its infancy to be sure, and Ralph Nader, as well and understood immediately several important things.
I found that the Greens represented a potential for circumventing the power of the corporations on our legislative action, on our foreign policies and on our increasing descent into third world status. I found, in Ralph Nader, a kindred spirit, one who was unafraid to face overwhelming odds and speak to what he believed rather than what people wanted to hear.
You see , reverend, real activism requires, not bitterness and idealism, but great optimism and vitality, a real belief that the people of this nation are ultimately worthy of the time and the effort it takes to commence a task you know will not see fruition until I am doing the dirt dance.
What motivates you I wonder to fail to see the abysmal record of your party in Congress? What causes your apparent blindness to the neoconservatism that rules and ruins a once proud poltical force? Why do you support, however indirectly, the forces of fascism that run our government by supporting a party that kowtows to it at every turn?
You may mistakenly call me bitter and an idealist , I call you a hidebound relic of a past that no longer exists. Which I wonder is the better and which the worse fate?
"People are mostly afraid of reason. They should be afraid of stupidity. If only they knew what was really fearful." JW GOETHE
" He that knowest the all but fails to know himself knows nothing."..Jesus ( a Loggia fragment)
"When every star in the heavens grows cold,
and when silence lies once more on the face of the deep,
three things will endure: faith, hope and love.
And the greatest of these is love." First Corinthians, chapter 13.....
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2388 comments)
on Saturday, March 8, 2008 at 1:58:43 PM
Really, my dear, if your argument were defensible, you would not resort to ad hominem attacks which, by the way, are also hyperbole.
Anyone who takes the position now, at this peculiar point in history, that there is no fundamental difference in the worldviews of Democrats and Republicans is flat out wrong. Truth is, if Al Gore had been president, for the past 8 years instead of the Cowboy, we'd be looking at green house gases and not nuclear proliferation, and who to bomb next.
You're right to suggest that neither the Dems nor the Repugs will have an instant exit strategy with respect to Iraq, but you can bet your bottom bloomers that if John McCain wins, in November, we'll see an instant entrance strategy with respect to Iran. Do I think that will be the case with a Barack or Clinton presidency? Nope. That, my dear, you can make book on.
Phil Pratliff is absolutely right---it's not the cynics who threaten this democracy; it's the tortured idealists who barter in polemics that have little more than the illusion of political pragmatism. Vote as you please, but if, as you suggest, you really are a progressive, then accept the consequences when you vote for Ralph Nader, and find a President McCain labels you a "homegrown terrorist," and holds you in detention as George W. Bush now does with thousands of "illegal" immigrants en route to deportation.
by
Jayne Lyn Stahl (163 articles, 1 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 62 comments)
on Saturday, March 8, 2008 at 2:59:32 PM
is still nonsense. Believe what you will, you have obviously been paying little attention to the reprehensible conduct of your beloved party for the last seven plus years.
Blind loyalties do this nation absolutely no good. Blind repetition of a failed strategy is the very defintion of insanity. Continue to vote for whom you choose, continue to castigate those who will not join you on that train wreck. Indulge in your fantasy versions of reality all you wish. Pompous and arrogance make you as responsible for the actions of this nation as are the democrats who gave lip service to opposing Bush but failed to do so, over and over and over and over.
Who the hell are you kidding with that crap Ms. Stahl, only yourself. If you had a case you wouldnt have to indulge in such an attempt to insult . But I dont mind, really, what else have you got, all you poor democratic loyalists, lemmings all.
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2388 comments)
on Saturday, March 8, 2008 at 9:09:22 PM
...if Obama finishes the primaries and caucuses with, say, a 50 delegate advantage, and, lets assume, reasonable estimates of what took place in FL & MI reveal that, were delegates seated, Hillary would end up with a win in both the popular vote and pledged delegates?
What are super-D's to do then?
The most important thing Obama supporters can do is continue to donate money and campaign for Barack, to insure he finishes with a pledged delegate lead well over 100, so that even if you add in theoretical delegates for Florida, there is no plausible scenario for a re-do in Michigan that would net enough pledged delegates for Hillary to overtake Obama. In other words, render the Fl & MI problem mute. In such a case, there is no way the remaining unpledged delegates would break for Hillary.
by
Robert Sargent (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 24 diaries, 299 comments)
on Saturday, March 8, 2008 at 4:59:47 PM
Now let us look at some facts about what I said and not just what you think I said.
You say there is no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans and polities before 1948 and/or 1958 (fifty or sixty years ago) . The tidewater mark of political change in American politics took place in 1932 with the election of FDR. Black folk were over ninety percent Republican until the Great Depression and were over ninety percent Democrat at FDR's death. It helps to know a little history and please quit the argumentum ad hominem. You know better and it is beneath you. Answer the darned argument, even if it is from a dinosaur and quit acting like a jerk by doing that.
Gore and Kerry capitulate because Green Naders like you threw the election to GWB, pure and simple. Take the Greenies' and Nader's money, personnel and energy, throw it into the mix of the 2000 and 2004 elections, they would not have been close. Take Florida or Nevada which Gore and Kerry should have won, but thanks to Nader they did not.
I listed a number of things as did Jayne Stahl in her comment and the differences are glaring. You say nonsense, but it was not always Senator Clinton and Obama. It could have been Al Gore running, it could have been John Edwards and the others just did not have the charisma (Obama) or the organization (Clinton), or were too tame or too radical to win. You cannot get over it, but a lot of Liberal Progressive Democrats like both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama. It is why they are light years ahead of everyone else, and it is your blind idealism getting in the way again of seeing that that is true.
You call it optimism and vitality. I see no optimism in your articles or comments, just a bitter pessimism which is the left over an idealist.Go back and read your comments, take stock of what you say to see how negative you are to ideas and to people.
What motivates me? I love the Lord Jesus Christ and I love people. I have dedicated my life to both of them. As far as my Party in Congress, lets us see, we have a tie in the Senate of 48 Democrats with two Independents who caucus with the Democrat Party and almost a virtual tie in the House of Representatives, a Republican Administration for eight straight years thanks to Ralph Nader and the Green Party, a reactionary right wing Republican Supreme Court thanks to Ralph Nader and the Green Party. With your logic, we will soon have two ultra right wing judges to sit on SCOTUS in place of Stevens and Ginsburg, the most Liberal of the Judges on the Court. I cannot remember who appointed Stevens, but it was President Clinton who appoint Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Nader, in becoming irrelevant, has made the Green Party irrelevant, too. Even without the Paulites and Naderites, the Democrats will probably win in a landslide in the House, the Senate and the President. If the Green Party had joined with the Democrats they would have a strong voice in the coming next eight years; whereas, now they are going to be outside looking in just like the Republicans. That is optimism and optimism that will win something.
I am not casting aspersions at you calling you an idealist. Read your own writings. Your idealism is what removes the word "comprise" from your political vocabulary, and since it is all my way or no way, resulting in never winning, it turns you bitter.
You have a very sharp mind and a drive to see people helped. I do not doubt that, but you need to learn to know how to compromise for that is the political game of all humanity.
Phil.
by
pratliff94 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 940 comments)
on Saturday, March 8, 2008 at 6:56:26 PM
Your first several apragraphs were so poor as to make me quit reading the rest, I doubt I missed much. Where and when did I speak to or about the history of the democratic party? I took great pains to note it was since the Reagan revolution that your party began to dissolve. In the eighties when the DLC was charged with closing the gap in corporate contributions actually. You really have to try harder, Reverend.
Look my friend Pratliff, I care little about your views on Ralph Nader, I think you fly in the face of reality when you chant that stupid mantra about him being a spoiler. When two million voted Nader in 2000 and six million registered democrats voted for Bush you got a lotta nerve posted such silliness. Most political pundits have given the lie to that "spoiler" stuff, its time to give it a rest. Nader, prior to entering the race in 2000, wrote a letter to each of the candidates, Bush and Gore, requesting a meeting to discuss the platforms of each and to suggest some inclusions. Bush refused the meeting and Gore refused to consider an environmental plank (imagine that in the light of the new Al Gore) or a stance on corporate control of governmental processes. Then and only then did Nader feel it necesary to run in order to bring such issues before the public. He did the same again in 2004.
I do not refuse you your choices and I insist upon my own. I find your logic specious and your line of reasoning tiresome, repetitive and wrong headed as well. You skirt issues that you cannot deal with, important issues like your cowardly and complicit party's actions these last seven plus years. Monday the House is probably going to vote for immunity for the Telecom Industry, thats the Democratically controlled House I might add. Yet you continue to beat the same dead horse, a real pity and it does nothing to help our nation, only perpetuate the myth of the two party system.
Sleep well old man, some day we will have third party representation in the Legislature, its time is coming,and the nation will be far better off for it. But then you and I will have passed on, one of us having played a tiny role in bettering his country while you will have...not.
"All our knowledge is a torch of smoky pine that lights the pathway but one step ahead across a void of mystery and dread." George Santayana Sonnet III
"Where men build on false ground, the more they build, the greater is the ruin." Hobbes, Leviathon
"When injustice becomes law resistance becomes duty." Nelson Mandela
"Man has closed himself up until he sees all things through the narrow chinks of his cavern." Willaim Blake
"The only reason to be in politics is to be out there all alone and then be proven right." Edward Muskie
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2388 comments)
on Saturday, March 8, 2008 at 9:34:10 PM
From the Tanakh or Old Testament,a Prophet by the name of Micah,
"And what does the Lord require of you, O Man, but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God."Micah 6:8.
From the Torah,
"Hear, O Yisrael, the Lord thy God is one Lord; and thou shall love the Lord thy God will all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with thy might… AND THOU SHALT LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF."
Jesus the Messiah said that all the commandments hang from these two commands, and there is no greater commandment than these two.
St. Matthew 22:37-40.
by
pratliff94 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 940 comments)
on Saturday, March 8, 2008 at 7:20:09 PM
Tell me rev, does that include love for the followers of Islam? I seem to remember you feeling less than love for all 1.4 billion of them......Im just saying here.....
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2388 comments)
on Saturday, March 8, 2008 at 9:38:02 PM
You ask some very important questions, and I do not think any of us has the answers.
Whoever wins, the other side will be angry and disappointed, but I hope they see the larger picture and get on with what needs to be accomplished in the next eight years.
Phil.
by
pratliff94 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 940 comments)
on Saturday, March 8, 2008 at 7:23:53 PM
