Let’s get a few facts out of the way first. Conservatives love to bitch and moan about “big government,” “government interference,” “activist judges,” and “higher taxes”. All code words that really mean, “I’m selfish, I’m a child, I don’t want anyone telling me what to do.” Understandable, perhaps, but a thought-process that has no place in the good governance of a modern-day society.

So, ”big government.” Yes, government has grown. So has the nature and population of the country. Conservatives love capitalism and “free markets”, so let’s look at it from their perspective: When a company grows, it adds layers of management and rules and regulations to help it compete and to help it continue to grow. If it didn’t, it would quickly fall apart, and die. We’ve seen what deregulation of our banking system did to the world economy. We saw what lack of regulation did to our banking system in the 1920s and 30s. We saw what energy deregulation did to California in 2000 – 2001. Suffice it to say, as systems and populations grow, so does the need to regulate them. Anyone who listens to Conservatives on this point is just plain inviting problems of the past to return.

NOW, Mr. Douthat’s column.

“According to calculations by the Harvard law professor Jed Shugerman, the Court has gone from overturning roughly one state law every two years in the pre-Civil War era, to roughly four a year in the later 1800’s, to over 10 a year in the last half-century.”

OK. Well, for one, there are more states now than there were before the Civil War, or than there were in the late 1800’s. In fact, the last state admitted to the Union was Hawaii, on August 21, 1959. In 1861, Kansas was the last state admitted to the Union “pre-Civil War”. Since then, there have been sixteen additional states admitted to the Union. It stands to reason that more states mean more state laws subject to being overturned by the Supreme Court. Also, as America has become increasingly political and lawmakers subject to ever-increasing popular opinion and scrutiny, it stands to reason they would make more (bad) laws to appease their constituents, thus the need for the Supreme Court to examine and probably overturn more laws. Simple math and logic.

“Prior to 1954, the Court had struck down just 77 federal statutes in a century-and-a-half of jurisprudence; in the 50-odd years since, it’s overturned more than 80.”

Same response. More laws are being crafted, by more lawmakers trying to keep their jobs. If the Supreme Court weren’t a lifetime appointment, those jurors would be subject to the same public opinions as the other two co-equal (Yes, Mr. Douthat, co-equal) branches of government.

“In one eight-year period, the University of Michigan’s Evan Caminker has noted, the Court invalidated 16 Congressional statutes by a 5-to-4 vote, something that had happened just 25 times in the previous two centuries.”

The vote of the court, 5-4 , or 6-3, or whatever the margin, has more to do with the makeup of the bench, which is dependent upon Executive and Legislative branch decisions, than by the cases it examines. But as our society becomes more complex, so do rulings on these matters. Were most cases decided by wide margins, one would have to wonder why those cases reached the Court in the first place.

“The right tends to blame the left for the Supreme Court’s expanded ambit, and not unjustly. The modern Court’s most enduringly controversial power grabs — with Roe v. Wade leading the way — were usually the work of liberal justices, and even the more modest liberal theories of jurisprudence tend to depict the Justices as soldiers in the progressive cause, constrained primarily by what the political climate allows them to get away with.”

In reality, our Constitution is hailed as a tool of liberty that has been crafted to allow increasingly wider interpretations. Were it not, slavery would still exist, inter-racial marriage would still be illegal, and women would not be able to vote. As society grows and changes, our laws must also, to reflect the will of the people coupled with inherent rights and responsibilities that come with civilization. Surely Mr. Douthat, you understand that?

“There are bipartisan ways that the Court could be reined in, and the legislative branch reinvigorated. Shugerman, Caminker and others have proposed a supermajority rule, for instance, requiring a 6-to-3 vote to overturn federal legislation. To get conservatives on board, the rule would have to be extended to state legislation as well. This isn’t as crazy as it sounds — versions of the supermajority idea have been batted around by left and right alike since Reconstruction, and merely proposing it might spur the Court toward greater consensus, and perhaps greater modesty as well.”

“Absent such constraints, the best reform would be term limits for the Justices, instead of lifetime tenure. Give them 12 years, rotated on a regular schedule, and then send them on their way.”

As I stated earlier, the Constitution calls for three co-equal branches of government. There is NO reason for the Judicial branch to be “reined in”. All Conservatives want in a “supermajority rule” is to stop the march of progress. That cannot and will not happen. Given the growing disgust by Conservatives of government in general, it’s surprising a Conservative would want to tie the hands of the means to overturn decisions of government. Term limits would be equally disasterous. Why would an esteemed judge of, say, age 50 want a job for ten or fifteen years? What would they do at age 60 or age 65? We would loose great judicial candidates.

A strong Judicial Branch is essential to a strong democracy. To weaken it would be to weaken America. Surely Mr. Douthat, you understand that?

Center for Individual Freedom Uses Extreme Right-Wing Group “Human Events” To Slam Democratic Speaker Pelosi

Today, the following email was sent to me by the Human Events, “Headquarters of the conservative underground”, on behalf of the Center For Individual Freedom. The email is titled, “Breaking Alert: Did Pelosi Condone Torture and Lie About It?”, and sent with the following disclaimer, “Below please find a special message from one of our advertisers, The Center for Individual Freedom. From time to time, we receive opportunities we believe you as a valued customer may want to know about. Please note that the following message does not necessarily reflect the editorial positions of Human Events.”

CFIF portrays itself as “a non-partisan, non-profit organization with the mission to protect and defend individual freedoms and individual rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.” And then, on the same page, lists endorsements by Senator George Allen (R-VA), and former Republican presidential candidate Tommy Thompson. Hardly “non-partisan”. And, teaming up with ”Human Events” just reinforces what a sham orgainzation they are. 

But this message, signed by Jeff Mazzella, President, Center for Individual Freedom, is laughable also, not only because it takes him 2096 words to make his point (who has the time to read emails of 2096 words!) but, NO ONE on the far right has ANY right to point an anti-torture finger at Nancy Pelosi. 

I don’t know what Pelosi did or didn’t do. I don’t know what Pelosi did or didn’t know. But I do know that the Right has no right to call her a hypocrite. That’s about as out-of-bounds as the imagine can fathom. 

Feel free to read the email, or click to read the CFIF email, “Breaking Alert: Did Pelosi Condone Torture and Lie About It?” as a PDF.

Does Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi think the American people are stupid or is she just A LYING HYPOCRITE?

     It is now all but obvious that Pelosi not only knew about the enhanced interrogation techniques being used by U.S. intelligence officials on terrorist detainees in the aftermath of 9-11…

     …but Pelosi seemingly condoned the harsh interrogations as far back as 2002.

     As first reported by The Washington Post back in December 2007, a group of lawmakers, including Pelosi, “was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.”

“Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding. … no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.”

     In the same Post article, one U.S. official present during the early briefings stated:

“[T]here was no objecting, no hand-wringing. The attitude was, ‘We don’t care what you do to those guys as long as you get the information you need to protect the American people.’ “

     Yet Pelosi – who is now second in the Presidential line of succession – continues to try to weasel her way out of public scrutiny as SHE PUTS POLITICS AHEAD OF OUR NATION’S SECURITY.

     As she ramps up calls to investigate, prosecute and even jail Bush Justice Department officials and U.S. intelligence agents who were following orders and working to prevent another terrorist attack on U.S. soil, Pelosi has the audacity to look the American people in the eye and seemingly lie about what she knew and when she knew it.

     Back in April of 2007, Pelosi accused then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales of lying and demanded his RESIGNATION.

“… Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has lost the trust of the American people. The nation cannot have a chief law enforcement officer whose candor and judgment are in serious question. The president should restore credibility to the office of the attorney general. Alberto Gonzales must resign.”

     Pelosi was right about what should happen when the American people lose trust in our nation’s leaders. So to her statement, we would like to add the following:

By her actions, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has lost the trust of the American people. The nation cannot have a Speaker of the House - a person who, by law, stands right behind the Vice-President in the presidential line of succession - whose candor and judgment are in serious question. Credibility must be restored to the House of Representatives. Nancy Pelosi MUST RESIGN.

     PELOSI SET THE STANDARD; SHE MUST NOW SET THE EXAMPLE AND LIVE UP TO IT.

     She cannot credibly join extreme leftists in Congress and call for “investigations” and “hearings” into the aggressive interrogation techniques used against terrorist detainees and jeopardize our national security and potentially put the lives of innocent Americans at risk… now that it is known that she was FULLY BRIEFED and RAISED NO OBJECTIONS MORE THAN 7 YEARS AGO.

     Her lack of “candor” in the matter simply CANNOT be tolerated.

     Nancy Pelosi MUST RESIGN.

Use the button below to send your urgent Blast Faxes to Barack Obama and EACH AND EVERY Member of the Leadership of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. Tell them in no uncertain terms that Nancy Pelosi’s actions go beyond hypocrisy and games of political gotcha.

Tell them that Pelosi’s willingness to compromise national security, potentially ruin the lives of patriotic Americans and place American lives at risk is a betrayal of the American people whom she is duty-bound to serve. Tell them you do not simply want Pelosi investigated… you do not simply want to compel her to testify.

Tell our elected officials that you want Pelosi gone.

If the button above does not work, please use this hyperlink.

Much More Than Simple Hypocrisy… Much More Than A Political Game Of Gotcha’.

     When it was suggested that Pelosi had full knowledge of the enhanced interrogation techniques – including waterboarding – she essentially claimed she knew nothing. She even emphasized the point:

“In that or any other briefing . . . we were not, and I repeat, were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used. What they did tell us is that they had some legislative counsel… opinions that they could be used, but not that they would.”

     FOX News, however, recently issued a report on some National Intelligence memos that paint a completely different picture:

“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was thoroughly briefed in September 2002 that terrorist Abu Zubaydah was being waterboarded by CIA interrogators, according to a report prepared by the Director of National Intelligence’s office and obtained by Fox News and other agencies… . The new revelations completely contradict Pelosi’s repeated assertions that she knew nothing about ‘harsh interrogation’ measures being carried out on enemy combatants.”

     When it comes to releasing secret memos, it might be apt to quote the old adage; “Those who live by the sword, shall die by the sword.” But Pelosi’s actions go far beyond mere hypocrisy.

     Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Porter Goss said:

“For the first time in my experience we’ve crossed the red line of properly protecting our national security in order to gain partisan political advantage.”

     Goss is understating the case.

     If investigations and hearings go forward, our national security, as Goss indicates, will be severely compromised.

     Moreover, the reputations of innocent people, who were only trying to serve their country, will be ruined. And yes… innocent lives could eventually be lost.

     And Pelosi is willing to let that happen… she’s willing to compromise our national security…. she’s willing to place innocent lives in jeopardy… she’s willing to ruin the lives of good people, in pursuit of… well… in pursuit of what?

     Is she flat-out lying in the most calculating of fashions… placing lives at risk… compromising our national security… stepping on the little people as she works her way up the food chain to destroy her political enemies?

     Is she a coward? Did she sincerely believe way back then that the interrogation techniques crossed the line and was simply too afraid to speak up? Or did she sincerely believe the interrogation techniques were permissible and is simply too afraid to speak up against members of her own party NOW?

     Does it really matter? Either way, Nancy Pelosi has got to go.

Use the button below to send your urgent Blast Faxes to Barack Obama and EACH AND EVERY Member of the Leadership of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. Tell them in no uncertain terms that Nancy Pelosi’s actions go beyond hypocrisy and games of political gotcha.

Tell them that Pelosi’s willingness to compromise national security, potentially ruin the lives of patriotic Americans and place American lives at risk is a betrayal of the American people whom she is duty-bound to serve. Tell them you do not simply want Pelosi investigated… you do not simply want to compel her to testify.

Tell our elected officials that you want Pelosi gone.

If the button above does not work, please use this hyperlink.

Where Was Pelosi’s Objection Then… Before It Was Politically Expedient For Her To Do So?

     So how are Pelosi’s fellow liberals reacting? Naturally, they’re coming to her defense.

     House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer offered possibly the lamest excuse, telling reports that Pelosi “was bound by the requirements of secrecy.”

     Hoyer proceeded to accuse “Republicans” of attempting to “distract the debate.”

     Promising to proceed full steam ahead with hearings, Hoyer said; “The issue is not what was said or what was known… the focus ought to be on what was done.”

     These flimsy arguments are an insult to the intelligence of the American people.

     Representative Jane Harman, who like Pelosi and other Members of Congress was fully briefed, wrote the White House years ago and stated her objections. She broke no secrecy in doing so and at least she can credibly say she HAD objections.

     Pelosi has no such luxury. Where’s HER letter?

     She never sent one… she seemingly didn’t object.

     Remember what one U.S. official present during the early briefings stated:

“[T]here was no objecting, no hand-wringing. The attitude was, ‘We don’t care what you do to those guys as long as you get the information you need to protect the American people.’”

Use the button below to send your urgent Blast Faxes to Barack Obama and EACH AND EVERY Member of the Leadership of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. Tell them in no uncertain terms that Nancy Pelosi’s actions go beyond hypocrisy and games of political gotcha.

Tell them that Pelosi’s willingness to compromise national security, potentially ruin the lives of patriotic Americans and place American lives at risk is a betrayal of the American people whom she is duty-bound to serve. Tell them you do not simply want Pelosi investigated… you do not simply want to compel her to testify.

Tell our elected officials that you want Pelosi gone.

If the button above does not work, please use this hyperlink.

Do They Right Thing Speaker Pelosi; Apologize To The American People And Then Resign.

     Hoyer is on record with his comment: “The issue is not what was said or what was known… the focus ought to be on was what was done.”

     Okay Congressman Hoyer… let’s talk about “what was done.”

     Eight months after President George W. Bush took office, America was brutally attacked. Approximately 3,000 innocent Americans perished.

     At the time, all signs and intelligence suggested that more attacks WERE coming… we knew that more Americans WOULD die at the hand of a fanatical enemy… and we had no way of finding out where or when.

     Our only sources of intelligence were the terrorists themselves… enemy combatants that we had captured on the battlefield. We knew we had to take off the gloves, but we also knew that we could only go so far because the United States DOES NOT TORTURE PEOPLE.

     And even though we desperately needed information, we were so concerned about crossing the line that people were specifically tasked with making very difficult and often subjective decisions as to how far our people could go during interrogations.

     We even went so far as to fully brief Members of Congress on exactly what our intelligence people were doing… including Nancy Pelosi.

     And according to former-Vice President Dick Cheney, these aggressive interrogation techniques actually WORKED:

“One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn’t put out the memos that showed the success of the effort… . And there are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity. They have not been declassified.”

     And now Nancy Pelosi and extremists in Congress have the audacity to call for “investigations” and “hearings” into activities they had FULL KNOWLEDGE of over seven years ago… into activities that transpired with their approval, or at least their tacit consent… into activities that saved the lives of innocent Americans?

     Nancy Pelosi owes the American people an apology. She should do it as quickly as possible and then resign while she still has a granule of integrity.

Use the button below to send your urgent Blast Faxes to Barack Obama and EACH AND EVERY Member of the Leadership of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. Tell them in no uncertain terms that Nancy Pelosi’s actions go beyond hypocrisy and games of political gotcha.

Tell them that Pelosi’s willingness to compromise national security, potentially ruin the lives of patriotic Americans and place American lives at risk is a betrayal of the American people whom she is duty-bound to serve. Tell them you do not simply want Pelosi investigated… you do not simply want to compel her to testify.

Tell our elected officials that you want Pelosi gone.

If the button above does not work, please use this hyperlink.

Yours In Freedom,

Jeff Mazzella

President

Barack Obama announced plans Friday to send $1.5 billion to Pakistan every year for the next five years, to build schools and roads and hospitals. That’s $7.5 billion dollars. As far, as we know, the Pakistanis haven’t rejected the funding.

Compare that to South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Texas Governor  Rick Perry, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who are all Republicans and who all have announced plans to refuse Federal stimulus funding on grounds that there are strings attached. Sanford is rejecting $700 million, Palin is rejecting $288 million, Perry, $556 million, Barbour, $56 million, and Jindal, $98 million. That’s a total of almost $1.7 billion. (Perhaps we can just send it over to Pakistan as a sixth-year payment.)

It’s quite possible that at the end of the five years, the children of Pakistan will be more healthy and better-educated and have better prospects for the future than all the children in South Carolina, Alaska, Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

From today’s New York Times’ editorial:

“It would be best, therefore, for Mr. Sanford to find a face-saving way to reverse himself. If he does not, voters should remember that their governor placed politics ahead of schoolchildren and the schools that are struggling to save them.”

Look at these facts:

“Number of South Carolina teachers that a state Republican official estimates will be laid off if the federal stimulus funds are declined: 4,000

Number by which the number of unemployed people grew each day in Louisiana in December: 430″

“Unemployment rate in some counties of Mississippi: 19%”

And then, consider this:

“Number of homeless children in the United States: 1.5 million

Percent of America’s identified homeless children that live in just 11 states: 75

Number of those states in the South: 9

Number of children homeless in Louisiana, the state with the highest percent rate of child homelessness in the nation: 204,053″

Heart-breaking, especially when you consider the role money plays in all of this, and that governors are turning millions of dollars away. Turning away money for schools and teachers and unemployment. Ironically, those 4000 teachers will most likely end up on… yes, that’s right, unemployment. It’s almost as if the governors want to keep their constituents uneducated, unemployed,  and hungry. And they’ll turn around come election time and say, “You think you’re poor now, wait until ‘Joe The Democrat’ becomes Governor and taxes you even more.” And the cycle continues into the next generation, and the next, and the next.

Governor Palin, in a nod to secessionists, said, we won’t “sell our birthright for short-term gain.” I suppose if greater unemployment, more people hungry and on welfare is their birthright, well, so be it.

Turns out, these governors will end up looking like asses, the children of their states will have less-prosperous futures, and be less-healthy and less prepared to know how to deal with all of the world’s additional challenges, all because these five governors have presidential aspirations, fear educated citizens, and just plain care more about an antiquated and erroneous interpretation of principle than the people they were elected to protect.

Calling Obama’s “the most fiscally irresponsible budget in American history,” Mike Pence promised a Republican alternative that would be ”leaner”, “with lower taxes, lower spending, and lower borrowing.” Introducing it as the “Republican Road to Recovery”, Whip Eric Cantor touted the GOP’s budget, stating it would “pull back to the middle” government spending. In advance of Thursday’s press conference, the GOP released this memo Wednesday:

“Given the President’s comments [Tuesday] night that, ‘we haven’t seen a budget out of [Republicans],’ we wanted to make sure to make you all aware [sic] that we are introducing our Republican Budget Alternative tomorrow.”

Saying, “We have a plan, yes, we have ideas”, Cantor took the opportunity yesterday, as they were about to unveil their budget, to further state that Republicans had alternative stimulus and housing plans, promising “we will have a healthcare plan, we will have an energy plan.”

Sounds like they’ve been hard at work. If they have, they haven’t any proof. Cantor, Pence, and Boehner have all been following the “less is more” paradigm. Their promises of delivering a “real budget” are campaign echoes of McCain promising to “find bin Laden” and “end the war in Iraq”. “I know how, my friends.” Cantor delivered an eighteen page budget. Eighteen pages. Some high school papers are longer. Not including footnotes. 

CNN reports:

“But, when pressed for the details on how the GOP plan differed from the President’s, Boehner acknowledged he didn’t have many. “This is a blueprint for where we’re going,” Boehner said.”

The White House’s Press Secretary Robert Gibbs quipped, 

“It’s interesting to have a budget that doesn’t contain any numbers. I think the party of no has become the party of no new ideas.”

Speaking to NBC’s Mike Viqueira, MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer displayed unusual ferocity:

“I am very frustrated Mike, because we were waiting for this, we cut away from the President to hear the big build-up. Republicans have a plan, they have ideas, they’re not the party of no and all I heard in that news conference was what they don’t like about the president’s plan.”

Brewer continued,

“We’ve heard them and today you get us all hyped up and you have our undivided attention and what happens when you get up and repeat the same criticism we’ve already heard. I didn’t hear ideas. I heard the promise of ideas, and we’re going to have more on x, y and z, but I didn’t hear the ideas.”

Time and again the Republicans have promised one thing and, unable to deliver, given us another. “Greeted as liberators!” “Compassionate Conservatism.” “Restore honor to the Oval Office.” “We do not torture.” ”We have a plan, yes, we have ideas.” The American people are tired of the false promises, tired of the “bait and switch”, and wise to the fact that there’s little thought behind all that exhaust.

Right now, the wise Republican would pick and choose his battles. Right now, the wise Republican would pull back, take some time to formulate a real plan, with real numbers, real goals, real ideas. Right now, the wise Republican would let the Democrats battle each other, then drive up, having mapped out a better budget. The problem is, the Republican Road to Recovery is an eighteen page program that leads right back to the distillery of dead-end ideas. The problem is, on a  Republican Road to Recovery, are there any wise Republicans left?

• The top two Senators with the most earmarks are Republicans (Cochran, Wicker).
• Of the top ten earmarkers five are Republicans.
• Louisiana and Mississipi (four Senators, three are Republicans) lead the pack with the most earmarks.

When will Americans realize the Republican Party is a party of disingenuous windbags that are unable to hold to any values except those that are harmful to this country or to the Democratic party?

(Sources: Taxpayers For Common Sense)

On Twitter, I asked Ken Blackwell about this. I suppose he didn’t like the conversation very much. Here it is:

Much was made of Cheney’s group’s membership and activities, including the extreme secrecy surrounding it. An uproar over the taskforce led Congress to investigate and even file a lawsuit to gain more information, although their efforts were unsuccessful. The Washington Post reported,

“One of the first visitors, on Feb. 14 [2001], was James J. Rouse, then vice president of Exxon Mobil and a major donor to the Bush inauguration; a week later, longtime Bush supporter Kenneth L. Lay, then head of Enron Corp., came by for the first of two meetings. On March 5, some of the country’s biggest electric utilities, including Duke Energy and Constellation Energy Group, had an audience with the task force staff.”

“Jack N. Gerard, then with the National Mining Association, had a meeting with Lundquist and other [Energy Task Force] staffers in February. He urged the administration to give the Energy Department responsibility for promoting technology for easing global warming and to keep the issue away from the Environmental Protection Agency, which could issue regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. The administration adopted that position.”

With a administration run by former energy magnates, and advised by and outsourced to corporate America, it is both unsurprising and no coincidence that now, the economy is the worst it has been since the Great Depression of the 1930s, our dependence of foreign energy is at an all-time high, and efforts to fight global warming are all but non-existent. And it is somewhat ironic that today, the same day vice-president Biden announces the creation of his middle-class task force, his predecessor’s beneficiary, ExxonMobil, announces a full-year profit of $45.2 billion, setting a new company and U.S. record.

It took less than eight years for Bush administration policies and ideologies to destroy this nation economically, politically, and morally. President Obama and vice-president Biden have taken appropriate steps on numerous fronts to right the ship of state. It’s time the Right, which is locked in a deep battle for its identity and ideology today, open its eyes and recognize its policies are wrong, and realize it has wrecked America, wounded its people, and begin to apologize.

The punditocracy is swimming in an ocean of its own hysteria, awash with its own failed analysis and prediction, and flailing about now, attempting to make sense of a sea-change in the perception of where the American psyche has landed. Much like a game of “pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey” they are poking the wall, blind-folded. Or, perhaps they imagine themselves as Goldilocks: “Center-Left”? No. Too hot! “Center-Right”? No. Too cold! “Center”? Just right! (Except, it’s not!)

In truth, Americans are far more complex, mired in decades of religious and social branding that has outlived its usefulness, and left us with nameplates that utterly fail and are inconsistent with our current beliefs. Yes, America has changed. Americans have changed. If there’s one thing that America does, it is change. And yet, the Right is tripping over itself today, (and it will be even more tomorrow,) trying desperately to (1) smoke out those it considers to be its inner Benedict Arnolds; (2) stamp out any and all discussion about its failure, and grab this opportunity to immediately move the party as far right as possible; and (3) do what it does best: throw stones at Democrats.

Here we are, one week to the day that America decided not that it wanted a black president, but that it wanted a smart president. After eight years of leadership by the man voted “the guy I’d most like to have a beer with“, America decided this time it would try brains over beer. (We even decided to vote against the husband of a beer-queen!) Every indication, including Obama’s choice of Chief of Staff, his successful first news conference as president-elect, and yesterday’s meeting with outgoing president Bush, says that Obama is on the right track. His team has already put together a plan to undo some of the damage the soon-to-be-former president inflicted on this nation, and his approval ratings are the mirror image of Mr. Bush’s. CNN’s latest poll offers Americans leery of Obama this reassurance:

“So far, Obama seems to be meeting the public’s high expectations. Two-thirds of all Americans have a positive view of what he has done since he was elected president, and three-quarters think he will do a good job as president.”

So, indeed, what does all this say about where we are? Is the a post-partisan period? A post-racial period? Are Americans now officially “Center-Left”? Is, as Pat Buchanan said last week, the Conservative Era dead? Are we, as Bill Kristol seems to still believe, still “Center-Right“? No, to all the above.

The problem America faces is one that manifest destiny began in the 19th century. Back then, we became a big country with not a lot of folks in it. 17.1 million, to be exact. Today, we are a country of 305.6 million, almost eighteen times as many people as we were 170 years ago. And that’s just too many people who are daily flooded with information and mis-information, most of whom are tethered with beliefs about what constitutes “right” and “wrong”, as well as “right” and “left”. And those views and beliefs are, now more than ever, subject to change. 

The question is not “Is America a Center-Right or a Center-Left country?”. The question is, as a country, what parts of those platforms do we want to embrace, and what parts do we want to discard? And then, how do we get there? And finally, who do we choose to make certain we do?

Looking at exit poll data, a composite of the person who voted “yes” to ban same-sex marriage in California is someone who is married (60%), and has children (68%), attends church weekly (84%), does not work full-time (57%), is an Independent or Republican (66%), and voted for Bush in 2004 (80%). This person also is likely to live in the suburbs (59%), and is very worried about another terrorist attack (65%).

None of these results should be surprising. Nor should these, given what we know about voting groups overall. 75% of black women, 54% of latin men, and 51% of white men voted to ban same-sex marriage. Overall, 70% of blacks supported the ban.

Interestingly, by approximately the same 52% to 48% margin, Californians voted that doctors do not have to notify a minor’s parents before performing an abortion. 

Overwhelmingly in both measures, the less-educated were more likely to vote against gay marriage and vote for parental notification. So, it seems Californians trust minors to decide to get an abortion but don’t trust gay adults to marry. Specifically, one could ask, are Californians willing to allow (what they see as) murder more readily than they are willing to allow (what we see as) love and marriage? Where is the logic in that?

Were gay marriage for Californians solely a religious issue, one would have to assume the parental notification ballot would not have passed. Historically we know that notification leads to less abortions, and would therefore be supported by more conservatives and the religious right. 

Unless we’re just willing to say that there were more voters who voted for the marriage ban who have girls at home. Which is possible looking at the numbers. The majority had children, but not, evidently, homosexuals.

Speaking of The New York Times, and Mr. Krugman, his column appears on today’s Op-Ed page, across from William Kristol’s. Mr. Kristol’s column, entitled, Fire the Campaign, offers this observation:

“The McCain campaign, once merely problematic, is now close to being out-and-out dysfunctional. Its combination of strategic incoherence and operational incompetence has become toxic. If the race continues over the next three weeks to be a conventional one, McCain is doomed.”

He is, of course, correct. The McCain campaign, McCain himself, is a picture of erratic ignorance. Senator McCain is not an unintelligent man, but one who consistently makes poor and ill-informed, if not outright uninformed decisions. 

Kristol continues, essentially making the argument against McCain, and stating McCain

“…should tell the truth — we’re in uncharted waters, no one is certain what to do, and no one knows what the situation will be on Jan. 20, 2009. But what we do know is that we could use someone as president who’s shown in his career the kind of sound judgment and strong leadership we’ll need to make it through the crisis.”

As is often the case, Kristol is just wrong (as is evidenced here, here, especially here, and, oh heck, just look here), and now wrong in insisting “no one is certain what to do”. Read (now) Nobel-winning Paul Krugman’s piece, “Gordon Does Good“, in which he writes:

“…the Brown government has shown itself willing to think clearly about the financial crisis, and act quickly on its conclusions. And this combination of clarity and decisiveness hasn’t been matched by any other Western government, least of all our own.”

Right now, the DOW is up almost 600 points, following similar increases in European and Asian markets. The general consensus is that this weekend’s G7 meeting was sufficiently successful, and the huge infusion of capital is calming fears enough to give the markets some stability. Krugman continues:

“At a special European summit meeting on Sunday, the major economies of continental Europe in effect declared themselves ready to follow Britain’s lead, injecting hundreds of billions of dollars into banks while guaranteeing their debts. And whaddya know, Mr. Paulson — after arguably wasting several precious weeks — has also reversed course, and now plans to buy equity stakes rather than bad mortgage securities (although he still seems to be moving with painful slowness).”

Once again, the Right (McCain) and its mired-in-the-mud proponents (Kristol) miss the point, which is this: it takes intelligent leaders who are willing to gather information and informed and intelligent advisors, (such as prime minister Gordon Brown, and as Senator Obama have done,) and consider other perspectives to move the ball forward. And it shouldn’t take a Nobel-winner to see this simple truth. Unfortunately, Senator McCain hasn’t, and most likely never will.