Train rolls by

I had to politely give a coworker a smackdown the other day, when he started complaining about the "pork" in the stimulus law, specifically pointing to the so-called Sin Express, the fictional $8 billion earmark supposedly providing for a high speed train from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. Republicans have continued to rant and rave about this to their gullible ideological adherents in order to highlight their newly-rediscovered claim to fiscal responsibility, despite the fact that there is no such earmark.  And the so-called liberal media has continued to report it, assuming that its audience is as intellectually lazy as are its "journalists."

Matt Yglesias has been the go-to guy on this story, pointing out the ongoing dishonesty of the likes of John Boehner and John McCain, and the incompetence of the media's reporting of the issue.

In the face of this nonsense, on Tuesday night I had the misfortune to read Bobby Jindal's ill-fated Republican Response to the non-State of the Union.  Jindal, a former member of Congress and the current Governor of Louisiana, is touted as the Future of the Republican Party, hailed by Republican Party Ayatollah and puppet-master Rush Limbaugh, as "brilliant," "the next Ronald Reagan." 

Along with his now-admitted fictional account about his never-actually-happened experience with a Louisiana sheriff in the midst of Katrina flooding, pretending to have taken the initiative in the face of federal government bureaucracy and incompetence (explain to me again why a Republican wants to remind us of the Bush Administration's response to Katrina), the Future of the Republican Party has hurled himself onto the bogus stimulus-bashing bandwagon. Giving himself the cover of the always useful "such as" - hey, he never said the money was actually being used for that, nudge-nudge, wink-wink - Governor Jindal came up with this little gem:

While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes $300 million to buy new cars for the government, $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a "magnetic levitation" line from Las Vegas to Disneyland, and $140 million for something called "volcano monitoring." Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C.

Which is fantastic in terms of imagery, but patently absurd in terms of reality.  Jindal mocks actual, legitimate and smart spending with real stimulative impact, like the hybrid car purchasing provision and, yes, high-speed rail.  Blind to the obvious comparison of the failure to properly prepare for and respond to the Katrina disaster to other potential natural disasters - in a speech where he witlessly, dishonestly, but expressly reminded us about Katrina, no less - Jindal mocks important safety programs, like volcano monitoring. Yeah, Rush, this guy is brilliant. The next Ronald Reagan, for sure. I mean, sheesh! 

Yet Jindal parades out his most creative outrage for a contemporary program mockingly mischaracterized as a Disney-esque "magnetic levitation" train, an $8 billion boondoggle direct high-speed train route from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, imagineered by the Republicans to offend Main Street. Just to make sure you get the point, the rail line has now morphed into a direct connection to Disneyland. Truly a visit to Fantasyland.

Are you trying to insinuate something? Say no more.

All of which should be ridiculous enough as it is.

As we know, however, dishonesty and silliness is never quite sufficient for the GOP. Today's Republican Party cannot be satisfied unless they can mix in a little bit (or a lot) of hypocrisy. This morning, the New Orleans Times-Picayune has this report (via Yglasias):

Louisiana's transportation department plans to request federal dollars for a New Orleans to Baton Rouge passenger rail service from the same pot of railroad money in the president's economic stimulus package that Gov. Bobby Jindal criticized as unnecessary pork on national television Tuesday night.

So get to the point, Bobby.  You're a man of the world, aren't you?  You've been there.  

What's it like?

Stalwart trapeze artist

Hey Josh, I've got dibs on the Norm-as-a-circus-clown metaphor.  

In his latest post on the inherent ridiculousness of Norm Coleman's ongoing destruction of the American electoral process, Josh says:

I mean, how couldn't you with a race pitting a professional comic against a professional clown?

Don't forget that I spent an entire post - one of my longest and, I have to say, most profound - on the parable of Coleman and his pals at the Republican Jewish Coalition representing the full gamut of circus performers.

Then again, it's not really a metaphor, is it, when the subject is not like a clown, but actually is one. 

It was round about midnight, about half past

Late meeting tonight, but apparently the President had a big speech before a joint session of Congress a bit earlier tonight (technically, yesterday).

Update: Here's some commentary on it. Haven't seen the address yet myself.

Daniels in the lions den

There are several "positive" - the usual sources would characterize them as naive or foolish - stories over the last few days about Iran's Jewish population. I'm not quite sure what to make of them, and may blog on those stories in the future, but wanted to just make mention of it for now.

In the meantime, some other thoughts on Iran.

On a shooting streak

Dwight "Superman" Howard.

A hole you're sinking down deep

I kept my mouth shut last week when our insightful media was heaping praise on Joe Lieberman for his shuttle diplomacy of bringing three moderate Republicans on board to support a stimulus bill that, while better than nothing, provides less stimulus than it should and more poorly-designed tax cuts than it should (again, I'm looking for the explanation of why we're providing a tax break for new car purchases).  Apparently it was all the evidence that was needed to prove that President Obama was right to support Joe Lieberman's effort to retain his chairmanships, and President Obama was now being rewarded with a helping hand from Lieberman.  Or something like that.  (It certainly couldn't be an example of Joe Lieberman grandstanding and making himself out to be indispensable.  Naah.)  

OK, so I'll be fair - it could be both: Joe grandstanding, made possible by Obama's graciousness. Both completely in character.

But I cannot keep silent about Holy Joe's latest foray into international affairs, now that he has traveled to Israel to give credibility to Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the vile Israel Beiteinu party.  Again, completely in character.

Lieberman is an awful, horrible person.  Which one?  You decide.

P.S. Neither one gets a picture.

Turn off the set

And turn on your web browser instead.

In addition to streaming classic episodes of the original Star Trek, CBS.com has a whole lineup of other classic TV to watch on demand - and in HD.  My daughter and I are going to watch The Love Boat tonight, if she finishes her homework.

I'm hoping for an episode with Charo. Cuchie cuchie.

You can also watch last week's episodes of Lost on abc.com, House on fox.com, and Battlestar Galactica on scifi.com.  

Why am I paying for cable?

UPDATE: And now I've discovered hulu, which has the whole NBC/Universal lineup - House, Battlestar Galactica, 30 Rock - plus FOX stuff, too (Simpsons, anyone?).  And The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.  And, oh yeah, Barney Miller, Miami Vice and Mary Tyler Moore, just to scratch the surface. 

The same tired flames burn

Think Progress does an admirable job of taking down Phil Gramm, as well as his dishonest, tired Republican talking points that attempt to shift responsibility for the economic crisis to Democrats by way of the Community Reinvestment Act, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

It's out of your hands anyway

Time and NBC's Today Show are trying to tag Bill Clinton as one of the villains responsible for the current economic recession-qua-depression. Bill will have none of it.

Clinton ushered out the Glass-Steagall Act, which for decades had separated commercial and investment banking, and signed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act — which exempted all derivatives, including the now-notorious credit-default swaps, from federal regulation. His administration also loosened housing rules, which added pressure on banks to lend in low-income neighborhoods.

"None of it was an endorsement of permissive lending and risk-taking," the magazine concluded. "But if you believe deregulation is to blame for our troubles, then Clinton earned a share too."

Time is right, in a way. But you need to apply the same logic that would hold an air traffic controller responsible for setting in motion the events that led to a jet being flown into the side of a mountain by a hijacker that commandeered the cockpit once the plane was in flight.

Perhaps that's an exaggeration, but only a little.

President Clinton trusted - possibly too much - banks and Wall Street to regulate themselves. (As did every single conservative that is trying to shift blame to Clinton from Bush, but that's not relevant, is it?) But to hold President Clinton responsible for the failure of the Bush Administration to concern itself with what was actually happening in the marketplace, to oversee the lenders and the traders, is folly, albeit fairly commonplace in the know-nothing media. Clinton is right to object to the idea that, given the failures of the market to control itself, his Administration would have acted irresponsibly in the manner that Bush and his cronies behaved. Clinton showed again and again his ability to turn on a dime and to reassess issues. Traits that Bush continually failed to exhibit.

Take a look at my post the other day about Alan Grayson questioning Harry Markopolis, the Madoff whistleblower, regarding SEC enforcement actions during Clinton's tenure and Bush's tenure, and the order of magnitude decline in enforcement of the rules under Bush, and tell me again about responsibility.

More important than the speculation about how Bill Clinton's Administration would have dealt with poorly-regulated markets and the collapse of the real estate bubble, is the fact that the Clinton Administration left office in 2001 with a $127 billion budget surplus, and was paying down significant portions of the national debt (despite current Republican arguments to the contrary, which are at best misguided, and most likely flat-out dishonest), drastically reducing the government's interest payments in connection with servicing that debt.

And nobody believes that a properly-installed Gore administration would have acted in a manner as fiscally irresponsible as the Bush Administration. Remember the conservative-and-media ridiculed lock-box, anyone? Thanks for the good job there, too, mighty press.



What type of position would the nation be in right now if the federal government had sufficient economic strength to address the economic slow-down, bolstered by a budget surplus and small debt load?

Sure, Bill Clinton is an extremely flawed man. He's self-absorbed and indulgent, and sensitive to critique. And Clinton's market reforms were imperfect. But so is every decision made on policy matters where results are impossible to determine and human nature is involved. To blame a former president for a possibly flawed decision a decade ago, after the misjudgements and misdeeds of a subsequent administration have intervened in a monumental fashion, is just nonsense. The true test of judgement is to act in a way that assesses and follows those imperfections, makes adjustments, and continually corrects itelf.

Moreover, Clinton's sensitivity highlights even more his different approach from Bush - where Bush was stubborn and oblivious to criticism, Clinton's thin skin would have forced him to address issues that Bush failed to address - or even acknowledge.

Meanwhile, Time magazine, rather than simply reporting Clinton's objection and their characterization of his culpability in this crisis, chose to double-down on its charge, condecending to the former President, trying to make him sound like a petulant child (given, Clinton rarely needs much help with that characterization).

Given the sweep and severity of today's global economic crisis, it would seem there's plenty of blame to go around. But Bill Clinton doesn't think any of it should fall on his shoulders.

Time then takes the next step, by running a reader poll, to be answered yes or no, asking:

"Does Bill Clinton deserve some blame for the global financial crisis?"

Of course, the answer has to be yes, as it also has to be for the idiot down the street from you that took out an interest-only loan on a speculative home purchase, and the owner of the home construction company that built that house and cashed out of his business 30 months ago, and the investors who placed bets on an ever-increasing stock market bubble, and hundreds of thousands of other people who made choices day in and day out, sometimes smart and sometimes foolish, sometimes greedy and selfish and sometimes selfless, sometimes - but certainly not always - honest. Each in his or her own way contributed to where we are now, some in large part and others in not so large part but in the aggregate as part of a flawed economy. There is blame, and then again there is blame. And I have no problem with the former or the later, as long as what we're really talking about isn't actually blame but responsibility, which are concepts that the media often conflate and cannot keep straight.

Yet Time lays its foundation, that noone could disagree that blame should be spread around to anyone who made any decisions at any time, and its trap that obviously Bill Clinton deserves some of the blame as well, and that he has disingenuously and recklessly charged that he bears no responsibility for anything that occurred or was set in motion by his Administration's policies. Which is, unfortunately for Time and its journalistic standards, not what the former President said. Undercutting itself (and providing itself with false cover), the article even acknowledges that Clinton agrees that his adminsitration could have done a better job with respect to regulating the derivatives industry. But Time disregards that fact and swiftly moves forward with its thesis, that Clinton is effectively a sniveling brat, unwilling to accept blame for his blunders. Which, accordingly, makes President Clinton one of the 25 people most responsible for the greatest economic crisis in a generation.

So Time Magazine unwittingly circles back to the question of judgement. But this time, for Time, it's its own.

They say it's the persecuted ones that will find the light

More bad policy news coming out of Israel, as the outgoing Olmert government opened the way for expansion of the Efrat settlement in the West Bank by another 2,500 homes.

The outgoing government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said it reserves the right to keep building in large West Bank settlement blocs that it wants to annex as part of a final peace deal with the Palestinians. Efrat is in one of those blocs.

This has to be seen in light of the recent elections, and an attempt by Olmert's party, Kadima, to garner sufficient support from right-wing parties in order to peel off a few radicals and get enough seats to form a new governing coalition led by Kadima. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and the "centrist" Kadima party (simply by virtue of the fact that they recognize the undeniable demographic fact that without a two state solution, Israel's Jewish population will, sooner or later, represent a minority in the counrty) won the most votes in the recent elections. However, Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party is considered more likely to form the next government because right-leaning parties won the most Knesset seats.

Olmert - a former Likud member himself - appears to be trying to alter the math. But building more housing settlements will do nothing to create mutual trust and establish a platform on which to build a peace settlement.

Just won't last must longer

We arrived at Glamour Shots three hours ago to get a potrait made for my daughter's upcoming bat mitzvah.

They're still doing hair.

No pictures have been taken yet.

I've been to the Apple store twice already.

This ranks among my wife's most poorly thought out ideas.

The bat mizvah girl is now in tears. "This is the worst day of my life." Fun times.

It's all about the good memories!

Fooled again

Over a week ago, I said this:

Unfortunately, the Republicans are not playing by the same rules, or even the same game - their goal is not to move America forward, it is to destroy Obama, and the economic security of Americans is just collateral damage in that struggle.

Yeasteday and today, Andrew Sullivan got on board with what I said, and has he ever gone on the warpath against the GOP, charging (correctly) that they are simply at war with Obama and out to destroy his presidency, no matter the consequences. And unlike my blog, people actually read the Dish.

Yesterday:

This much is now clear. Their clear and open intent is to do all they can, however they can, to sabotage the new administration (and the economy to boot). They want failure. Even now. Even after the last eight years. Even in a recession as steeply dangerous as this one. There are legitimate debates to be had; and then there is the cynicism and surrealism of total political war. We now should have even less doubt about what kind of people they are. And the mountain of partisan vitriol Obama will have to climb every day of the next four or eight years.

And today:

The GOP is not interested in the long term fiscal health of this country. Their reckless stewardship over the last eight years proves that. They are not interested in helping this new president, who has done everything he can to create a civil atmosphere, to use this moment to prevent the worst in the short term and move to improve matters in the long term. Instead, they spin.

I cannot say that I was in favor of the events that followed Judd Gregg's miscarried appointment as Commerce Secretary. I was - and said so here - disturbed that Gregg was going to stay out of the stimulus debate, and that it looked like a Republican was going to be named to fill Gregg's senate seat which was likely to otherwise be filled by a Democrat in the next election cycle upon likely retirement of the incumbent Gregg. But I'm a political stooge like that. At the same time, I understand what President Obama was trying to achieve here, to create goodwill and an emissary, in order bring Republicans on board with his vision of economic reform including, as Sullivan points out, entitlement reform (which is not necessarily one of my leading issues for concern, since I disagree with a number of things Obama says on that issue and don't believe that the problem is with entitlements per se, but that's not my point). Gregg had to have understood that when he sought the position.

But the well has now been poisoned. Whatever the arguments from Gregg's camp that he couldn't be the ambassador for an economic plan that he didn't support, he knew - had to know - what he had volunteered to do. He wanted to be part of this process. But the politics have changed. There is no role to play as an emissary, because there are not two sides seeking peace. Each time the Obama camp makes an offering, the GOP is going to toss a grenade into it.

And so it goes.

On TV

CBS is now streaming classic Star Trek (the original series), remastered and in high definition.

North, South

Today is the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth.

Feel free to post comments with thoughts on America's sixteenth, and arguably greatest, President, who saved and renewed America, both as a single nation and, more importantly, as a principle, a light to the world based on the values she claimed in her constitution that were being denied to her people.

Today is also the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin.

The stars were aligned.

Money for the friend in need

President Obama gets it. Yesterday, he was in Florida making the case for the stimulus package (which enjoys wide public support, even if the chattering class doesn't understand that), where he was joined by Republican Governor Charlie Crist.

And this morning, the Wall Street Journal has this to say in an article on how the Administration seeks to restore stimulus spending cut out of the Senate bill for schools, health insurance and computerizing health records (for which the President already made the case in his press conference on Monday night):

To make room for added spending, the White House, joined by House Democratic leaders, is pressing to scale back certain Senate-passed tax breaks, including measures intended to boost auto and home sales. [Emphasis mine.]

I've been a bit of a broken record on the inanity of those provisions. Good to know I'm not alone.

Meanwhile, over at the Daily Dish, Andy Sullivan points to this quote by Christian Brose, Condoleezza Rice's former speechwriter and policy guru, disingenuously attempting to attack President Obama over his vision of our goal in Afghanistan as prevention of it again becoming a terrorist haven as compared to the neocon goal of turning Afghanistan into a representative democracy:

Furthermore, we should not allow resources to determine strategy, as this study suggests, which was one interpretation I heard for the administration's recent statements walking back U.S. goals: The economy's bad, and we have to do what we can. This gets it backwards. We should determine the optimal outcome we are confident we can accomplish, and then pay for it. After all, we still have a GDP of, what, $12 trillion? If our conception of strategic success is achievable, let's not hide behind tightening budgets.

Which sounds to me a lot like the argument that the GOP needs to listen to with respect to the stimulus bill. The optimal outcome is to put Americans back to work and get the economy back on track, which requires a swift and powerful kick-start from Uncle Sam. Let's not hide behind artificial numbers (which are then hampered by artifical calculations of tax costs which don't belong in a stimulus package in the first instance). Do they want the stimulus to succeed? Maybe that's the real debate.

Got a lotta money but he ain't worth a damn

Executive pay limits are apparently going to be removed from the stimulus bill because a Congressional Budget Office estimate claims that they will result in $10.8 billion in lost tax revenues over ten years, running afoul of Republican demands to limit the overall price of the stimulus.

This is one of the dumbest, most obscene arguments I have seen yet on an aspect of the stimulus bill.

And the argument is almost certainly wrong. For one thing, if those twenty-first century robber barons aren't getting the funds and paying taxes on them, their employers aren't getting the tax deductions on those salaries. If the employers are instead paying those amounts out to other people, those folks are paying the taxes on them. And spare us the fiction that those people are being taxed at a lower rate on that salary, as study after study has shown the reality that the top wage earners pay the lowest effective tax rates. Moreover, the more modestly-paid employees will be more likely to spend the capital, thus providing more benefit to the economy.

So let the GOP parade that complaint in front of the general public. Force them to parade that complaint in front of the general public.

Which is what it appears some savvy Dems plan to do.

"The plan is to take out the executive compensation provisions ... and blame the Republicans for setting out the level [of $800 billion]" for the final version of the stimulus, [Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA)] said.

"The question," he added, "is whether the two senators from Maine, in particular, want to see their insistence on a [maximum] dollar amount [for the stimulus] ... be the reason why the executive compensation stuff comes out of the bill."

I'll believe in this tactic when I see it in action. But if it's true, good for them.

Dreamland

I've already made this point, but for clarity I'm making it again.

The idea of including a tax credit for new home purchases and an interest deduction for new car purchases is both stupid from the perspective of an economic stimulus (there is a not-insignificant percentage of the folks who would get this tax break who would be purchasing homes or cars anyway), and stupid from a policy perspective, by using tax policy to encouraging the reinflation of the housing bubble and encourage the purchase of cars regardless of fuel efficiency and environmental benefit. I have many more objections to it, but that will suffice for now. It's all just flat-out stupid.

And it makes me angry.

Schmucks.

Better times are coming

I probably shouldn't post this - but what the heck. It's funny.

Obama Reads Bush's Letter - watch more funny videos

I'm not sure why the sides of my embedded videos are getting cut off. I need to work on that.

But this guy has the President's mannerisms down pat.

UPDATE: Embed attributes (height, width) issues fixed.

Preening around

Josh Marshall, pointing to a column this morning in the Washington Post, nails Republicans for their mendacity, incoherence and destructive incompetence.

That being said - and I don't necessarily disagree with Josh (see my Tired and Confused post below) - maybe this is part of what "bipartisanship" really means. Parties and politicians have agendas, and we cannot expect them to leave those agendas aside (even when those agendas are destructive). When you stop railroading policies through, like happened in the Bush years, getting to a final bill can be messy. Perhaps that is a necessary element of change. Despite fantasies of kumbaya (starry-eyed optimistic on the far left - though I'm not sure many lefties actually feel that way, and it's mostly just a fiction created by conservatives - and condescending on the far right), remember that in order to achieve bipartisan results, there need to be two partisan positions. Nobody can force good faith upon those partisans in order to reach a bipartisan solution, but hashing out the differences (even if one side is dishonest in its position) is a necessary part of that process.

This does not mean you concede - there are lots of bad ideas on the Republican side, and much of what the group of so-called moderates lead by Senator Collins and Ben Nelson are seeking to cut is actually the real stimulus stuff, rather than the counterproductive tax cuts which should be removed but will end up staying in order to buy-off the grandstanding conservatives.

A big part of me wishes that McConnell and Boehner and McCain (can you explain to me the logic of encouraging buying inefficient cars through tax breaks and giving tax credits to reinflate the housing bubble?) and the rest of the bozos would just go away, but I'm not entirely sure that having a fool for a would-be foil is such a bad thing, nor do I think that all criticism is without merit. If you cannot beat back the nonsense, how can you be expected to get it right?

Moreover, despite cable TV chatter - or in no small part as a result of cable TV chatter - I think people can see where the good faith is, and where it is not. Rabid Republicans may think they are winning this battle, but they're not going to win over the public by leading the economy down the sewer. Long term, they can only rehabilitate their image by being responsible and part of the process, rather than being obstructionist and knuckleheaded. I'm happy to watch the Republicans make the wrong choice, so long as they are not setting the agenda. Despite their characteristic incompetence at gauging the public mood and reporting on facts instead of spin, sooner or later the talking heads on teevee will recognize that, too.

This process may take more time than originally hoped, but a little bit more time is ok. I know - tell it to the people who are losing jobs. But, as President Obama has said about the stimulus plan itself, we're never going to get to perfect, but we do need what is necessary. And what is necessary from a legislative standpoint is a process that has credibility, and thus creates greater confidence in the result.

Despite all of the worrying about the Obama Administration's flat-footed response to the Republican faux outrage and dishonesty that has been a hallmark of the stimulus debate, I think the real Barack Obama - not the fantasy one - understands that, and I think that's why we've seen that, while pushing for a rational stimulus that will actually address our needs as well as a sense of urgency to get it done and get it done well, there is no sense of panic coming from the Administration.

As President Obama has said, this isn't supposed to be easy.

Useless information

Electronic Cerebrectomy has some trouble with tribbles in the upcoming Star Trek movie.

Poor son of a gun

The new Congressman from Orlando, Alan Grayson, questions whistelblower Harry Markopolis about Bernie Madoff (who's under "penthouse arrest").

Green forest full of oaks and pines

Tired and confused, yes I am

Is Republican Senator Judd Gregg really so essential to head the Commerce Department, that a Democratic governor is agreeing to appoint a Republican to fill his seat in a blue state, particularly where the guy has announced that he isn't going to help out the President in getting a stimulus bill passed?

Seems like the only "bipartisanship" is coming from the President.

Explain to me what's going on here, because it seems like ever since Rahm started playing point guard, the Obama Team has started turning the ball over a whole lot. He's stuck in an old gameplan, using the three-corners (triangulation) strategy, which only works for a team that revels in conflict. And that's just not Obama. You've gotta play the game with the players you've got, with everyone playing as a team - and against the players that have come to play on the other side of the court.

Unfortunately, the Republicans are not playing by the same rules, or even the same game - their goal is not to move America forward, it is to destroy Obama, and the economic security of Americans is just collateral damage in that struggle.

This is giving me a headache.

UPDATE: To prove the point.

Like an animal

While looking at the advertising site Pixelpasta, I came across some interesting international advertising campaigns for animal welfare (click each for larger versions).

IndyAct.org. Stop the Carnage: Support our engangered species campaign.

From Australia (Animal Liberation: Mascara): "Every year 6 million animals are killed from cosmetic testing. Please boycott animal-tested products."

From Germany. Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety: "A Hot Planet Would be a Cold Place: UN Climate Change Conference Bali 2007"

Talk of the Town

Awesome Berlitz ad campaign.

The word "Yes" in English, French and Hebrew, read Yes, Oui, Ken, i.e. Yes We Can.

(Hat tip: Pixelpasta)

UPDATE: Not so fast! Apparently, the idea isn't that original - it was created by an Israeli copywriter and used by the Obama campaign already. And he's understandably frustrated.

Voices on my radio

Job cuts all around.

The local Orlando public broadcaster, WMFE-TV and 90.7 WMFE-FM, is cutting 15 emloyees, or 28% of its workforce, along with certain benefits. The cuts include the WMFE-FM music director.

Coming soon

The Star Trek Super Bowl trailer.

Don't let 'em tell you it's gonna be a fair fight

Greenwald has an excellent post on even-handedness in America's approach to the Middle East.

Separately, Jonathan Chait argues in TNR that even-handedness assumes that parties are equally at fault. Chait, like Foxman, is wrong on that count.

Evenhandedness, like bipartisanship, means you start of with a scale that is balanced, but it does not decide where that scale ends up when items are stacked on to each side. We don't have to accept every argument from either side, and split every issue down the middle, to give opposing viewpoints the dignity of being heard. An honest, evenhanded approach will reward stronger and better arguments.

Politics continues to get this all wrong, too, insisting that President Obama's call for bipartisanship means that he must adopt positions that contradict with what he believes in (presently, on the stimulus bill). That's not bipartisanship, it's capitulation. It's not what Barack Obama means by bipartisanship, and it's not what a policy of evenhandedness means in foreign policy.

It's about time we all recognize this.

Scars will heal but the slurs won't

Joe Lieberman strikes again.

"We had hoped Vice President Cheney would be here tonight. I hope it’s not his back injury that’s keeping him away. Apparently, he hurt it moving some things out of his office. Personally, I had no idea that waterboards were so heavy."

Look, I'm not humorless, and can even find humor in horrible circumstances. And many of the people posting reactions to the linked story appear to kind of miss Lieberman's point.

But Joe, let me put this in a way that you can understand. Certain Jewish jokes can be funny when they're made by Jews, but never when they're made by antisemites. Similarly, there may be times when jokes about torture and waterboarding are funny (for example, when Jon Stewart satirizes the practice), but never when made by someone who effectively endorses the practice ("It is not like putting burning coals on people's bodies. The person is in no real danger. The impact is psychological"). You cannot make fun of Cheney as a supporter of torture when you yourself lacked the ethical backbone to stand up for what was right, when you provided a platform for that monster to defend the practice. You are complicit in this tragedy. You cannot pretend to stand above it.

Let me shout this out again: These people do not speak for most of us.