Dean for Catalyst for America!

Washington Post: "I don't care about being president," he said. Months earlier, as his candidacy was taking off, he told a colleague: "The problem is, I'm now afraid I might win."

...Interviews with more than a dozen Dean advisers -- portions of which were not for attribution because many did not want to be viewed as disloyal to their former boss -- produced a picture far different from the public image of a hip, high-tech operation of dedicated Deaniacs.

It was, instead, a dysfunctional political family, filled with tales of blocking access to the candidate, neutralizing internal rivals, trying to penalize reporters deemed unfriendly. And some of its members just plain despised each other.

Someody who makes gazillions of dollars by knowing which "buttons" people are looking to have pushed offers help...

...Returning to Vermont, O'Connor [Dean's longtime Aide] maintained in a meeting with Hollywood activist Rob Reiner, who had flown in to advise Dean, that people were overreacting to the high-decibel speech and voters didn't care. Reiner was flabbergasted at this attitude -- he wondered whether the staff was "crazy" -- and expressed amazement that they hadn't moved faster to neutralize the issue, two participants said.

Puts the (non-?)method behind the tone-deafness and naivete of Iowa Scream Night into context, doesn't it? Howie Kurtz actually does some reporting. Interesting autopsy, fairly deep and worth a read.

PS: Is there some hidden law that says Candidates with resonance and revolutionary zeal must either commit harakiri or hand the sword to their opponents and the press?

Draft Hate Amendent? Permalink is bloggered. Scroll down 3 posts.

_______________________________

[Update: A reader has had difficulty following my stilted insertion of historical references and quotes below.....helpers added in brackets. \sarcasm off.]

Spartacus resigns. Nobody else says: "I'm Spartacus."
[Spartacus, a 1st Century, B.C. Thracian Gladiator and Rebel leader is finally defeated in battle by Roman Imperium, Crassus. In the 1960 film version Crassus comes for Spartacus, and him only, of the surviving Spartan and Thracian fighters. When asked, "Where is Spartacus?", they each claim to be Spartacus, attempting to take the place of their leader. This is doubtful, but Crassus did round up and crucify 6000 Thracians, lining the Via Appia, all the way north to Rome.]

Horatio, I am dead...:[Wm. Shakespeare; Hamlet's dying words.]

NYT: Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser known for his hawkish views on Iraq, has resigned his membership on the Defense Policy Board, which counsels the secretary of defense on policy issues. ..."I have just published a book that calls for far-reaching reform of government departments responsible for combating terrorism,'' he wrote. "Many of the ideas in that book are controversial and I wish to be free to argue for them without those views or my arguments getting caught up in the [Presidential] campaign.''

Now cracks a noble heart - goodnight, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest...[Horatio's farewell words to a dead Hamlet, his friend.]

"The fact that the Defense Policy Board is not a decision-making body but is simply a forum enabling the secretary of defense to hear a variety of opinions and observations (often opposed to one another) is simply not understood by the general public,'' he wrote.

Hey, nonny, nonny. [... is a 15th & 16th Century nonsense phrase, similar to "La-dee-dah!" used by Shakespeare a lot.] Surely, somewhere, Max Boot's heart is fluttering too--ah, here he is, in Foreign Policy:

“Failure in Iraq Has Discredited the Neocons [?]”

Too early to say. The emerging media consensus that the U.S. occupation has fizzled is ludicrously premature. Sure, there have been a lot of well-publicized problems, such as terrorism, crime, and electricity shortages.

Yes, aside from the iceberg, Captain Smith, I think the voyage is going swimmingly. [Smith was Captain of the Titanic.] Boot flutters some more...

To a large extent, this blame is unfair. Many of the early problems of the occupation were due to the administration’s failure to commit sufficient resources to Iraq. This oversight was largely the fault of policymakers, such as Rumsfeld . . . If neocons had been in control, they would have done far more, far earlier, in both Afghanistan and Iraq, possibly averting some of the postwar problems. But fairly or not, neocons will doubtless be held responsible for the outcome in both countries; their numerous enemies, on both the left and the right, will see to that.

And finally, the Washington Monthly delivers the coup de grace:[french for A deathblow delivered to end the misery of a mortally wounded victim]

Dissent is indeed breaking out inside the neoconservative tent. One of their colleagues, Robert Kagan, recently wrote in The New York Times that the net result of U.S. policy since 9/11 has been that "America, for the first time since World War II, is suffering a crisis of international legitimacy. Americans will find that they cannot ignore this problem."

Indeed... Yet another Neocon treading the path to awareness. Except, now, with seemingly no self-deprecation or blame-shouldering whatsoever, Kagan and fellow neocons are warning Americans against falling into the hole they've dug for us and the World. When cooler heads advised against the demonization of our European and other allies, against the short-term cathartic trap of Hollywood High Noon bluster over coherent, sustainable strategy, they--we--were scoffed at as ignorant amateurs or Pollyannas. In all the online threads of debates over this issue, from Tacitus, to Little Green Footballs to National Review Online, the wreckage of hope over experience along with buckets of leftover spittle aimed at liberals litters the conservative landscape. The mental and rhetorical gymnastics that were merely frustrating then, have morphed into tragically affirmed delusion, enablers delivering us to the net result of U.S. policy since 9/11: The loss of our hard-earned claim to world leadership.

Gee, thanks. What's Second Prize I wonder?

I've never claimed clairvoyance on my resume but will happily own up to learning from the second kick of a mule--one does not exist long in this world without opportunuties to learn that lesson. Neocons, it seems, did not. I suspect they had chances aplenty, but were blinded by their hormones. In much the same way that sensible business-people suspended their knowledge of the basic laws of Finance to swoon over the "New E-economy", many Americans left their common sense at home and went looking for a bat, forgetting that vigilantes were often tossed in the hoosegow, often alongside their captives, for ill-advised action or for lynching the wrong man. There is gulf between action and wise action. And many are re-learning what they inherently knew all along from practical life experience: "leadership" is a personality trait, not a job description. Nor is it the domain of one political ideology. And "Truth", even if you capitalize it, and print it on a banner, doesn't mean it's True. Ditto: Mission Accomplished.

[In case you missed it, I am avowedly anti-Richard Perle, anti-Neocon, and less than convinced that this administration is doing its best in the War on Terror. I'm also against the hate amendment, but that's two posts back and a whole different Kettle of Monkeys. I hereby now declare a moratorium of 1 day on confusing prose and historico-literary references.]

Draft Amendment Number 2 (Once gays are banished and possession of a Liza Minelli CD is a Class-1 felony, of course.)

Kidding on the Square sagely picks up the slack of an adminstration missing a highly egregious Constitutional oversight: "Proper" Religion. He makes it easy for them...

Let's use a fill in the blank form, just to make it easy. Here are a couple of excerpts from shrubigot's amendment speech. I removed the word marriage but whoever the current president is can insert the appropriate term:

In recent months, however, some activist judges and local officials have made an aggressive attempt to redefine [insert personal preference here].

If we're to prevent the meaning of [insert presonal preference here] from being changed forever, our nation must enact a constitutional amendment to protect [insert personal preference here] in America.

He goes on to protect "Religion" in this highly patriotic and, I might note, environmentally concious, Paper Reduction Act-compliant fashion. Commendable. But aren't there equally urgent issues pressing on the nation's conscience?

Pizza. Far too many people get away with claiming store-bought "tastes like delivery" only to let us down once we get the thing out of the oven. We need an Amendment.

Work. There's a groundswell of support for this one. Well-meaning and deep-pocketed parents are having to fund educations of no use in the real world, only to find their 21-year old kids back home, sprawled on the couch, fridge emptied. I'd call this one "The Smithers girl is an Orthodontist with a BMW and a condo in Aspen and you're still trying to "find" yourself, Mr Anthropology Degree?" Amendment.

I'm for the Constitutional Amendment Defending Marriage. Print 'em up! Let's go.

Sure. Let's print up the forms, maybe even "How to amend the constitution" guides. Let's offer a bipartisan confab--seriously--to discuss acceptable language to the Republicans. Heck, we'll even pay for the hors d'oeurves. And we'll schedule a press conference for them--a joint press conference, where Democratic leaders will smilingly stand beside George, or Tom Delay, or Santorum or Whomever as they proudly hold up their shiny document that delineates the characteristics of marriage in America.

I propose the following outline.

-------------------

Whereas Marriage is a fine and sacred institution vital to the fabric of a Democratic Republic and a free and moral society, it is set forth that certain affirmations of consistent understanding be secured: To oversee the fair and effective regulation and disposition of this Amendment to the Constituion of the United States, it is decreed that a Family Integrity Agency (FIA) shall be formed, under the oversight of The Congress. Such dispositive duties and regulations shall consist of:

• Mandatory background checks to determine the purity of Virgin brides and grooms. 1 (one) year's public notice shall be given in advance of proposed weddings. Since high school and college attendance information figures are readily databased and accessible, all students familiar with the intended will notified by internet or postal mail and be allowed to comment on the veracity of claims of purity. Likewise, all current and prior employers and coworkers will be notified and queried. Licence issuance is contingent upon presentation of certified signatures of Approval from Clerics of Offically Recognized Faiths and, of course, the Father of the Female intended.

• No Infidelity. Let us propose also a zero tolerance feature, precisely like the one for drugs, etc: If you cheat, you lose your joint-filing IRS marriage deduction and your drivers license. Similarly, if you file for divorce (see below) as a result of said infidelity, you pay back the difference, plus interest, between 2 single filers and a married couple for the expended duration of the marriage. Documentation of said infidelity remains at the discretion of the Family Integrity Agency investigators. Citizens can file "Suspicion of Infidelity" inquiries with any local office of the Family Integrity Agency. (Efforts are being made to examine online registration of complaints and the submission of tips from parties outside the immediate relationship.) Private investigations must be conducted by licensed companies and only by investigators with forms 1291-A, 1209-8 of showing Marital Fidelity Compliance or Non-Divorced Single Virgin status.

• No Divorce. Our purpose is to secure, once and for all, the sanctity of the most sacred of bonds between a man and a woman. Needless to say "Sacred" until "Sacred" becomes inconvenient or you get bored hardly upholds the Sanctity of the concept of Sanctity. While divorce shall not be outlawed, only in those cases where one spouse can prove actual physical abuse at the hands of the other, will a Second marriage license be permitted. All other divorces shall be deemed, "One strike and you're out." No divorced person may hold public office affecting other married people or their offspring. Neither shall they be allowed to utter the words, Values, Character, Virtue, Morals, Decency, etc (See Appendix iii for complete list ), neither shall they inform public policy nor proselytise on any culturally sensitive issue, without suffixing each oral or written statement with: "the previous is the opinion of a person incapable of maintaining stable relationships."

• Family, defined currently as a man a woman and the offspring resulting from said union, should be a functioning efficient unit. After all, we don't need "families in name only"--people trading on the good grace and reputation of "real" happy families--leeching the societal and financial advantages of "family-ness" while misdirecting quality time owed their children to such other things as work or similar "anti-family" behaviour. State and Local Departments of Child Services and Federal HHS will be phased down, and replaced at a savings with a centralised Federal Family Integrity Agency, with 51 districts encompassing the 50 states and US Territories. Responsibilities will include monitoring interpersonal relations within family units, following the benchmark of the proven "traditional" family dynamic and structure. In this arrangement, it is understood that "Daycare" is a damaging, hurtful convenience merely for selfish parents. Likewise, it is understood that mothers working outside the home constitute a threat to the mental development and physical well being of dependent children and their husbands, if there is a husband present. Parents unable to comply with the 6-month phase out and de-licensing of remote, non-relation supervised childcare shall be placed on a watch list of "endangered families" and subject to supervisory visits by the appropriate FIA Compliance and Commitment Department Case Officers. If the wife is not obeying the husband, the husband is assesed a financial penalty commensurate to 10% of net income, pretax, to be garnished from wages and dividend income by emplyees and relevant finacial institutions under penalty for noncompliance. Under conditions of Maternal non-obeyeance ina two-parent household, the children are damaged by such a dysfunctional "anti-head of the family" situation, so they'll need to be closely supervised by the assigned Family Integrity Agency oversight body and subject to placement in FIA authorised "model family" foster environments for observaton and any necessary character remediation.

-----

There. that's just an outline, and none too soon if you ask me. Once we get this one rolling, I have some ideas on:

• The Why talk about Me when you're so much more Screwed up Amendment
• The Vice pays Homage to Virtue Corporate Governance Is So 20th Century Amendment
• The Lobbying IS Democracy in Action Amendment. (Formerly known as the Billy Tauzin Take this Government Job and shove it, now I'm going to sell my influnce to the highest bidder Act.)
• The If I Go Down With the Ship, Who's Going to Drive the New One? Retroactive and Anticipatory Blanket Pardon for Poobahs and Politcos Amendment
• The It's not Child Abuse if I'm a Priest Amendment
• The It's only a Problem if you Make it a Problem Energy and the Envionment Secrecy Amendment.
• The Republicans don't believe in Deficits and can't be blamed for deficits no matter what the facts are and it's always the Democrats fault anyway Amendment.
• The Look at the Money We'll Save on Stationery by Always Having Presidents named Bush Amendment
• The Presidential Signature, Two-Proofs of Purchase and an enclosed Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope Streamlining the Amending of The Constitution Amendment

Come on, time's a wastin' Let's go!

Elohim? Please pick up. Bush is still holding, and that "Mike Huckabee" guy's on 2. Should I tell him you're "not in" again?

At a speech to Republican Governors at the Washington Convention Center, the President rushed a buggy, beta version of his Fall product to early release on Monday. He took a few half-hearted swings at wishy-washy Democrats and their "lack" of alternative answers to his bungled efforts. But the best part was this...

Akron Beacon Journal
Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who took the stage before Bush, set the tone for the event by pulling out his cell phone for a mock conversation with God about Bush's candidacy.

"We're behind him, yes sir, we sure are," Huckabee said into the phone.

Yes sir. And it got even more cloying than that. So much so, the further the "conversation" progressed, the more Huckabee's intended laugh pauses were filled with, well, uncomfortable laughs, then squirming silence. I caught this on C-Span, trying to find a transcript.

[Update, 2-28: Sharp reader, JJB points us to a transcript of Huckabee's improv at Keith Olbermann's Countdown site. Scroll down halfway or so, it's not to be missed.]

Why does Dana Milbank hate Fuzzy Math? Why does he hate... "Leaders"?

Washington Post
White House Forecasts Often Miss The Mark

By Dana Milbank

...These are not isolated cases. Over three years, the administration has repeatedly and significantly overstated the government's fiscal health and the number of jobs the economy would create, but economists and politicians disagree about why.

The president, though not addressing the predictions directly, regularly points to four events that altered economic expectations: the recession; the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks; the corporate governance scandals; and war in Iraq. "We've been through a lot," Bush said in an economics speech Thursday. "But we acted, here in Washington. I led."

"I led."

Frank Lorenzo led too.

But Lorenzo was lousy on people issues, famously saying, "I'm not paid to be a candy ass" The mid-1980s were a bad time to take that approach. Those were the years when the so-called Japanese model of management, which emphasized cooperation between management and labor, was creating a stir. The Lorenzo model was old school: if the unions give you any trouble, break 'em.

That strategy had worked for him at Continental, where he'd filed Chapter 1 I despite the airline's $60 million in cash reserves, in order to exploit a provision in the Bankruptcy Code allowing him to abrogate his contracts with the unions, But Congress plugged that loophole by the time Lorenzo went to the mat with Charles Bryan, IAM chapter president. Lorenzo might have succeeded in breaking the machinists alone, but when flight attendants and pilots honored the picket lines, he should have known it was time to deal. He didn't.

Instead he tried again for a strategic advantage through the bankruptcy courts, by filing Chapter 1I in the Southern District of New York where bankruptcy judges were believed to be more favorably disposed toward management than in Miami where Eastern was headquartered, Eastern had to hide behind the skirts of its subsidiary, Ionosphere Clubs, Inc., a New York corporation, in order to got into SDNY. Six minutes later, Eastern itself filed in the same court as a related proceeding.

The case was assigned to Judge Burton Lifland, whom Eastern's bankruptcy lawyer, Harvey Miller, knew well, but Lorenzo was mistaken if he believed that serendipitous lottery assignment would be his salvation. Judge Lifland a year later declared Lorenzo unfit to run the airline and appointed Martin Shugrue as trustee.

Two years after Eastern pancaked, Lorenzo tried to start a new airline, "Friendship." The Department of Transportation figured he'd "led" enough. They too, told him to find another line of work.

Leadership is a hinky thing. You lead by doing, by example. You lead by being about more, not less. Building, not cutting. You close gaps, instead of inventing new ones. You understand the tribal relationship between "We" and "Me". You take the hit, even when it's not your fault. You do NOT say things like this:

The president . . . regularly points to four events that altered economic expectations: the recession; the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks; the corporate governance scandals; and war in Iraq.

If you lead by the Coercive model, prettied up with the occasional hackneyed burst of the Authoritative, as Bush does, you have to be whipsmart, 5 squares ahead, and able to wield, on a dime, a grifter's intuitive understanding of human response. A pretty rare package. One absent here. Once you reach the point of saying things like, "...I led," people are buffing resumes and eyeing the exits. You are toast.

Your degree of crispness is determined by several factors: First, the embarassment threshold of your previous benefactors or supporters, be it management committee or party elders. Second, the degree to which your presence becomes an identifiable drag on the organzation, as reflected by the comments and questions of your customers (voters) and the patience and willingness of those charged with providing the answers: Employees. These two factors are the artificial gravity holding you up. Your resume and past success count for naught because, as a rule, loyalty has been generated by "push", not "pull", by job title, not mutual identification. The only option at this point is a viable gesture of sufficient magnitude to replace the artificial support--and quickly--with a tangible, sustainable, coherent narrative. You shoulder blame and put the mess into a salvageable, believeable context--with a defined, grown-up performance penalty tied to you. If you value what's left of your rep, you have two choiices: A very human, but not pitiful mea culpa, followed by a lot of work. Or you leave.

The Observer / The Guardian

Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us

· Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war
· Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years
· Threat to the world is greater than terrorism

New York. 2-22-04. Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'

Lovely. Reminds me of this:

"I don't care what the facts are."
--George Herbert Walker Bush. 8-15-89

this

"I think if you know what you believe, it makes it a lot easier to answer questions. I can't answer your question."
--George W. Bush. 10-4-00

and this:

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself--and you are the easiest person to fool.
--Richard Feynman

certainly this:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. It follows that all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
--George Bernard Shaw

probably this:

Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad with power.
--Charles Beard

And lastly, this:

instead of this:

Which, if you think about it, is really this:

God Bless America.

Shake and Bake^® for a New American Century: The Campaign Management Secrets of Nicolo Machiavelli.

• Keep opponents rocked back on their heels, off balance.
• Apply steady, unrelenting pressure.
• Maintain tension to maintain cohesion within your ranks.
• Infer when you can't declare.
• Plausible association with universal ideals and metaphysical truisms negates the need for explanation.
• States of emergency forgive contingency and flux.
• Question motive and allegiance when you have no coherent or logical response to failure.

Those are what I'd say comprise the operative framing strategies of the past, and the future, of this administration. In an era that calls for Marshall Plans and national cohesion, one side is ramping up for Dresden.

Polls are looking bad. But for some, that's good. Because righteous indignation is fuel--for the fight, and for identity. A polar world is the only one they understand and can comfortably exist in, absent any coherent and resonant alternative. And that's the Catch-22. Any suggestion of an alternative is an attack on the chosen course and forfeits your place in The Bunker. Or on the planet....

Slate: Washington's conservative activists have found a traitor in their midst, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch. The occasion is Memogate.... To them, the Utah Republican has done something "acutely damaging to the struggle to get conservative judges onto the federal bench," as one National Review writer put it this week, in a column widely e-mailed among disgusted activists. Another activist ominously warned in the Washington Post of a "thermonuclear" punishment for Hatch.

Yes. Felonies be damned, this is about principle!

One used to be able to say that "reasonable people can disagree." Well, the reasonable people have found other work. Or retired to Sanibel. Get out your Sun Tzu. And your Kevlar.

link via atrios

Nader, Nadir: "The towering similarities dwarf the dwindling real differences."

Words guaranteed to make you sound like a twit, even IF you live in New Haven, Cambridge, Berkeley or Madison:

Duopoly
Intelligentsia
Hegemony
Patriarchy
Corporate paymaster minion
Corporate pay masters
Corporate-occupied territory
Corporate bidding
Voices and Choices

Sure they all mean something relevant. But can't we do better than a warmed-over Weathermen coffee-klatsch?

"Students, this is Mr. Bin Laden. He'll be teaching Earth Science while Mrs. Philpott is on Maternity leave."

Billings Gazette / AP
Education Secretary Paige calls national teachers union a 'terrorist organization'

WASHINGTON - Education Secretary Rod Paige called the nation's largest teachers union a "terrorist organization" Monday, taking on the 2.7-million-member National Education Association early in the presidential election year.

Paige's comments, made to the nation's governors at a private White House meeting, were denounced by union president Reg Weaver as well as prominent Democrats.

The education secretary's words were "pathetic and they are not a laughing matter," said Weaver, whose union has said it plans to sue the Bush administration over lack of funding for demands included in the "No Child Left Behind" schools law.

Paige said later in an Associated Press interview that his comment was "a bad joke; it was an inappropriate choice of words."

Hilarious.

Making a frustrated comment about security measures while standing in line at the airport can get you detained, strip searched and arrested.

A Presidential Cabinet Secretary can malign public servants he is charged to work with, using the most grisly of American insults available--at an official function, no less--and it's called a faux pas?

Super. Now that I understand the rules:

WORLD EXCLUSIVE:
Rod Paige belongs to NAMBLA!

Inappropriate choice of words? My bad.

___________________


[Update: 2-24-04] Poputonian points out that Paige may have been "Kidding on the Square", which urban dictionary.com tells us is A term coined by Al Franken in his book Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them. And I quote:

Kidding on the Square: Joking, but also meaning it.

e.g.

Person 1: "My husband has a tiny dick."
Person 2: "What!?!"
Person 1: "Oh, I'm just kidding."

In this case, person number one is obviously Mrs. Rod Paige.

___________________

[Update to the Update: 2-25-04] Also, a

WORLD EXCLUSIVE: con la Drudge

SECRETARY PAIGE ISSUES APOLOGY FOR 'TERROR' COMMENT ABOUT TEACHER'S UNION
Mon Feb 23 2004 18:51:54 ET: U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige today issued the following apology for his remarks about the NEA.

"It was an inappropriate choice of words to describe the obstructionist scare tactics the NEA's Washington lobbyists have employed against No Child Left Behind's historic education reforms. I also said, as I have repeatedly, that our nation's teachers, who have dedicated their lives to service in the classroom, are the real soldiers of democracy, whereas the NEA's high-priced Washington lobbyists have made no secret that they will fight against bringing real, rock-solid improvements in the way we educate all our children regardless of skin color, accent or where they live. But, as one who grew up on the receiving end of insensitive remarks, I should have chosen my words better."

X X X X X

[Update: Doh! Wrote this last night, posted this AM, before seeing: Nader to Jump in ... Memo to me: You know better. No betting on sanity returning to washed up do-gooders prone to kamikaze behaviour.]

Will Should Ralph Run?

Going out on a limb here: No. Still No.

Why? His tough-love object lesson of 2000 has not worked in exactly the way he thought. First, there's 9-11. Democrats have been dazed and supine, yes. But....

• $200 million-plus in fundraising
• not a single veto
• Secret Energy Plans
• Clean Skies
• Anti-science
• Invasions
• Occupations
• Intel manipulation and mishandling
• Patriot Acts
• Deficits of astronomic proportions, with the half-life of Plutonium

Bush's "yang" has far exceeded Nader's hypothetical "yin" and guess what Americans are saying: Dude, where's the Jobs? Or, "Shut up, I'm watching Joe Average." Short of tackling the American electorate and force feeding them spinach, what would Ralph's next prescriptive be? More object lessons that don't take? Abdication to a conservative mindset that only thrives in an environment with planes flying into buildings?

Maybe he will say, "Another Presidential run!" But here's the side effect of that medicine: George Bush will be a lame duck with a Republican Majority. A very peevish Republican Majority. That makes him an un-lame duck. You might say this confluence of attitude and rare circumstance makes him an avian predator at the top of the food chain. If Bush wins, Nader running or not, Bush takes that as affirmation of his self-perceived wisdom and leadership. Now, since the odds tell us another major terror attack is a case of when, not if, where does this comedy of errors called an administration take us if it occurs on their watch?

Republicans of late have tended to govern according to their character, not the national one, so I would say it takes us to Patriot Act III³: More centralization of control, or rather, the facsimile of control. The defacto nationalization of certain industries, if not, possibly in fact. This includes aggregation of communications data a la the system sweeps currently used by the National Security Agency's listening apparatus. Total Information Awareness becomes a necessary evil, demanded by "the urgency of the times." Transportation becomes the "weak link" in the nation's security. General Motors' "OnStar" Global Positioning technology becomes licensed and mandated for all vehicles certified for use in the US. Bundled with this technology will be transponders, similar to those used now in aviation. Resident in each vehicle, they will be "pingable" by law enforcement, perhaps just lamely sitting by the side of the road, transmitting the registration and background data of the owner and insured drivers, offering a gateway to accessing all information about the household to wwhich the vehicle belongs. Place of work, place of residence, patterns of travel cross-checked against a financial digital trail of spending wil create a behavior matrix against which your location will be checked. Out of position? Red flag. "What's your business here?"

Since, in times of war, environmental considerations can be easily portrayed as misplaced altruism, corporate regulations will be spun as antithetical to the greater "war effort". Restrictions will be supended if benefits to production can be proven. They can and will be proven, obviously.

Manpower takes on a new importance when battlements represent the face of your determination. Mandatory national service becomes the law. Deferments only on provable religious grounds will be allowed. Approved political and business employment becomes an acceptable means of alternate national service.

In the fight, religion becomes the aid and the enemy. Sanctioned definitions of good and evil are expanded to include "positive" and "negative" influences on national character and character building. These "Uninversal constants" are subject to periodic review and amendment. Religious education becomes paramount in schools because of the lack of "ethical standards" in teaching up to this point. As a virtuous tool, religion must also be refined so as to distill its most useful and beneficial elements and to ensure its quality delivery. To further assure efficiency and minimize misinterpretation, testing becomes the norm, both to teach, and to be a 'qualified" member of approved religious sub-groups.

Finally, in the War on Terror, content becomes key. Integrated communcation strategies, executed through all media channels become the accepted norm. Diversity of viewpoints are fine for select, internal policy and strategic debates, but cumbersome and counterproductive for mobilizing and energizing heterogenous groups of people. Simplicity is efficiency. Clarity is compelling. Repetition is affirmation. "Discontent" must be licensed and approved.

Needless to say, Ralph wouldn't like these things. But Ralph Nader's "Discontent license" application will be lost in the machine. So Ralph is screwed. As are we all. Why? Because Ralph wanted to make a point that imperfect is the same as inconsequential. In this, Ralph breaks bread with Grover Norquist in his petulance and egomania. In his anger at Mars, he destroys Venus. Only in Ralph's bathtub, Democracy and Democrats will have been euthenized. A uniquely American totalitarianism would be rosy-cheeked and entering puberty.

Ralph, just say No. I'm counting on you, Bud.

Conceit. But from whence?

In the post below this one, Pat Buchanan eviscerates Neoconservative arrogance, gainsaying and fumbling, noting "...they are the “neo-Jacobins” [what's a Jacobin?] of modernity whose dominant trait is conceit." He quotes Claes Ryn [HTML of PDF]

Only great conceit could inspire a dream of armed world hegemony....

Oh yeah?

When I read neocon flamers like Kristol the elder, or Leo Strauss, or Perle and Frum, the keening pseudo-American warrior-speak and testosterone spiced superficialities masquerading as grown-up policy mystify me to a certain degree.

Then, I hit myself in the head with a brick, and all is clear again.

Okay, it's a small brick. And sometimes hitting someone else with it does the trick.

Bear with me, there is a point to the example: How do some see so readily what's written on the wall, and others are numbed or blind to the signs? More specifically, and even more bizarrely, how do some see signs that are not there? Perhaps it's not simple conceit, but a pathological narcissism fed by deceit. Can our current mess find a parallel in medicine?

The child is a victim of maltreatment in which an adult falsifies physical and/or psychological signs and/or symptoms in the child causing this child to be regarded as ill or impaired. The perpetrator, who is usually a parent or caregiver intentionally falsifies history, signs, or symptoms in the child to meet their own self-serving psychological needs. Other members of the family may support and participate in the perception. [Definition under consideration by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children.]

Eerie. Substitute country or countrymen for child in that definition and see how it reads. Switch policymaker or guardian of public trust for caregiver or parent. The above definition in this case describes a curious, yet not altogether rare affliction with a name only three decades old: Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy.

Marc D. Feldman, M.D. : Kathleen Bush and Yvonne Eldridge had a lot in common. First, both cared for children with remarkably complex medical problems: Jennifer Bush suffered from constant intestinal problems, and Eldridge's two foster daughters experienced a host of ailments that left them weak and emaciated. Second, both Bush and Eldridge spent most of their time escorting their sickly girls from doctor to doctor: Jennifer was eventually hospitalized 200 times, and all three children had to undergo surgery to place feeding tubes into their stomachs. And third, both parents received the highest praise for their exemplary devotion to their little charges: Bush was lauded by Hillary Clinton at a 1994 White House rally, while Eldridge was named national "Mother of the Year" in 1988 by Nancy Reagan.

[ . . . ]

The term "Munchausen syndrome by proxy" (MSBP) was coined around twenty years ago, and hundreds of reports have appeared since then. In most cases, a mother either claims that her child is sick, or she goes even further to actually make the child sick. This "devoted" parent then continually presents the child for medical treatment, all the while denying any knowledge of the origin of the problem--namely, herself. As a result, MSBP victims may undergo extraordinary numbers of lab tests, medication trials, and even surgical procedures that aren't really needed. For example, by the age of eight, Jennifer Bush had had more than 40 operations, including the removal of much of her intestines. Other children have scarcely experienced a day of their young lives without being brought to the doctor's office or confined to the hospital. In the vast majority of cases, the perpetrator is the mother and the victim an infant or toddler.

The web of deceit the caregiver spins can be buttressed by medical signs and symptoms that mislead the most skillful of physicians. Their acting skills can match those of a veteran performer. For instance, the MSBP perpetrator might induce "apnea" (a cessation of breathing) by suffocating her child to the point of unconsciousness, then frantically display the limp child to the hospital or clinic staff as the tears roll down her cheeks. She may secretly place a drop of blood in the child's urine specimen, then appear aghast at lab results that alarm the unsuspecting physicians and nurses. Behind closed doors, she may scrub the child's skin with oven cleaner to cause a baffling blistering rash that lasts for months. Since it may take many years of illness for doctors finally to arrive at the truth, it should not be surprising that this form of child abuse has a mortality rate of nine percent.

Hey, I'm no psychiatrist. I just look for patterns and cycles in order to better do what I do for a living. In doing so I also discover quite often that very smart people miss very simple things due to innattention or attribution to coincidence. Or often, to an assumption that there must be some logical plan or explanation at work, somehow, somewhere. They think somebody else has it covered, or there would have been a fuss made about it--by somebody else. The Shuttles Challenger and Atlantis blew up for this reason. Companies go belly up for this reason. And yes, children die and grownups follow through on suicide for this reason.

And everybody says, "I had no idea."

As you can tell, I don't buy that, whether the danger is to the life of a child, or to a nation's conscience. I doubt you do either. Once, an accident. Twice, a coincidence. Three times, a pattern.

...and to the Republic Retribution for which it stands...

Love him or hate him, Pat Buchanan is neither thick-headed, nor does he suffer from moral inconsistency. He may be a grump, but he's an American Grump. On the other hand, I have no clue what country it is, exactly, that Neocons think they're from.

The American Conservative

No End to War -- The Frum-Perle prescription would ensnare America in endless conflict.

By Patrick J. Buchanan

On the dust jacket of his book, Richard Perle appends a Washington Post depiction of himself as the “intellectual guru of the hard-line neoconservative movement in foreign policy.”

The guru’s reputation, however, does not survive a reading. Indeed, on putting down Perle’s new book the thought recurs: the neoconservative moment may be over. For they are not only losing their hold on power, they are losing their grip on reality.

An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror opens on a note of hysteria. In the War on Terror, writes Perle, “There is no middle way for Americans: It is victory or holocaust.” “What is new since 9/11 is the chilling realization that the terrorist threat we thought we had contained” now menaces “our survival as a nation.”

[snip]

To suggest Frum and Perle are over the top is not to imply we not take seriously the threat of terror attacks on airliners, in malls, from dirty bombs, or, God forbid, a crude atomic device smuggled in by Ryder truck or container ship. Yet even this will never “overthrow our civilization.”

In the worst of terror attacks, we lost 3,000 people. Horrific. But at Antietam Creek, we lost 7,000 in a day’s battle in a nation that was one-ninth as populous. Three thousand men and boys perished every week for 200 weeks of that Civil War. We Americans did not curl up and die. We did not come all this way because we are made of sugar candy.

In the war we are in, our enemies are weak. That is why they resort to the weapon of the weak—terror. And, as in the Cold War, time is on America’s side. Perseverance and patience are called for, not this panic.

[snip]

Fear is what Perle and his co-author David Frum are peddling to stampede America into serial wars. Just such fear-mongering got us into Iraq, though, we have since discovered, Iraq had no hand in 9/11, no ties to al-Qaeda, no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear program, and no plans to attack us. Iraq was never “the clear and present danger” the authors insist she was.

[snip]

Thus did the neocons get the war they wanted. And after America fought the war for which they had beaten the drums, how do Perle & Co. explain why it did not turn out as they assured us it would?

Answer: any disaster in Iraq, the authors argue, will be due to the venality and cowardice of the State Department, CIA, FBI, retired generals, and ex-ambassadors bought off by the Saudis. “We have offered concrete recommendations equal to the seriousness of the threat, and the softliners have not, because we have wanted to fight and they have not.”

Which brings us back to the point made at the outset: the neocon moment may be passing, for they appear to be losing their grip on reality as well as their influence on policy. Rather than looking for new wars to involve us more deeply in the Middle East, Bush and Rumsfeld seem to be looking for the next exit ramp out of our Mesopotamian morass. “No war in ‘04” is said to be the watchword of Karl Rove.

[snip]

Indeed, it is because Americans cannot see the correlation between the wars the authors demand and security at home that Frum and Perle must resort to fear-mongering about holocausts, the end of civilization, and our demise as a nation.

If it is America we defend, An End to Evil makes no sense. The Perle-Frum prescription for permanent war makes sense only if it is the mission of the armed forces of the United States to make the Middle East safe for Sharon—and here we come to the heart of the quarrel between us.

[snip]

In temperament, too, neoconservatives have revealed themselves as the antithesis of conservative. In the depiction of scholar Claes Ryn, they are the “neo-Jacobins” of modernity whose dominant trait is conceit.

Only great conceit could inspire a dream of armed world hegemony. The ideology of benevolent American empire and global democracy dresses up a voracious appetite for power. It signifies the ascent to power of a new kind of American, one profoundly at odds with that older type who aspired to modesty and self-restraint.

[snip]

But it is always unwise of courtiers to boast of their influence with the prince. And now the neocons have outed themselves. We all know who they are. We all have the coordinates. We all have them bracketed.

With the heady days of the fall of Baghdad behind us and our country ensnared in a Lebanon of our own, neocons seem fearful that it is they who will be made to take the fall if it all turns out badly in Iraq, as McNamara and his Whiz Kids had to take the fall for Vietnam.

And this one they’ve got right.

You go, Pat. 5 by 5.

Are you sitting down? Not drinking milk or anything, right? Okay, read this:

Toronto Star

'Heads should roll' over Iraq
Adviser wants U.S. intelligence chiefs to quit
Cites faulty conclusions on Saddam's weapons

WASHINGTON—Richard Perle, a chief proponent of last year's U.S. invasion of Iraq, yesterday called for the chiefs of the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Defence Intelligence Agency to step down because of their faulty conclusions that Saddam Hussein possessed mass-killing weapons.... "I think, of course, heads should roll," [Perle] said. "When you discover that you have an organization that doesn't get it right time after time, you change the organization, including the people.

Yes

...you change the organization, including the people. We call them elections.

It must be truly fascinating to live in a world where things fall up.

Media : Sun ; Anger : Heat ; Dean : Icarus ; Tiger : Tail

WaPo BURLINGTON, Vt., Feb. 18 -- Howard Dean formally abandoned his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination Wednesday but vowed that his organization is "not going away" and would continue to seek change in the Democratic Party and the nation with the aim of defeating President Bush in the November election.

Oh yeah, I forgot . . . Idea : Execution ; Hope : Prudence

Let's hope Dean games out the next stage more wisely by understanding, and then balancing the righteous and powerful drivers underlaying his appeal: Go here to play around with what you might think that mix is.

BankOne^® + Citi^® = (Bank .0005^® * Bank .0032^® * 14,241 TiniBanks^®) - humans + More crappy service charges³

Seems that after a bit of a lull in the financial services M&A hunt, things are heating up for regionals in response to the newly humongoid BankOne/JP/Chase and BoA/Fleet consolidations in process. Forbes has a nice bit on some of the action in mid-Ohio and the middle Atlantic, handicapping prospects of merely hulking players like Suntrust in Atlanta, Iron City's PNC and Detroit's Comerica. (Curious who the nation's top 20 banks are? Go here. But be quick, it'll be stale by next Wednesday.)

I love these stories if only to see people torturing sports analogies or using terms like "accretive" with a straight face...

North Fork and Greenpoint, however, have thrown a curveball to the merger plate to create a highly accretive deal. The companies are planning to unify their boards, upper management and back-ends but keep both brands--North Fork will continue to focus on small to midsize businesses and Greenpoint will keep its eye on consumers and mortgages. They will be closing 15 out of the combined 270 branches while changing the brand of about 30.

In other words, it's a "smart" deal because a certain lesser number people are going to be issued bigger shovels to swing. It remains to be seen whether "Unify the boards" will find it's way onto WordSpy.com as a synonym for "outplace" or "retired in place". As an aside, I spent some of the last decade toiling for BankOne and the erstwhile Crestar, now Suntrust. For BankOne, the agency had a virtual swat team of transition marketing specialists to keep up with The Big House's voracious march across the Heartland. An acquisition was announced and we were there with friendly "don't worry, this is gonna be great for you" ads packaged and ready to go. The push obviously required a bit of hand-holding and the usual finding of a local, visible goodwill cause, if there wasn't one already, to paste the benevolent happy face on. It's amazing how many bits of stock advernutia you have to churn out and warehouse, ready for stuff like high school football brochures or county fair kissing booths. But every once in a while, you got to do something fun like a life-size backlight diorama for, say, the AmericaWest Center:

I'm just sayin....

American Film Institute’s Top 50 Heroes

1. Atticus Finch in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
2. Indiana Jones in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
3. James Bond in DR. NO
4. Rick Blaine in CASABLANCA
5. Will Kane in HIGH NOON

...like I was sayin' then...

1-20-04 Dean: Well that was ugly

Not the numbers, the speech. The numbers would have been fixable.

[snip]

Edwards by comparison seemed like RFK, or Clinton. Kerry seemed like Kerry, after a B12 shot, but still Kerry.

Youth, poise, message, modulated populist passion mixed with calming bedside manner . . . I'm just sayin', that's all.

6.5 on the Richter Scale. Epicenter: 2.3 km below Bush Country.

US Congress - Kentucky - 6th - Districtwide
(100 % of precincts reporting)

candidate______votes______% votes
Kerr-R . . . . . . . 65,776 . . . . . 42.9
Chandler-D . . . 84,549 . . . . . 55.2
Gailey-L . . . . . . . 2,957 . . . . . .1.9

CBS : In the nation's first federal election of 2004, Chandler became the first Democrat since 1991 to win a Republican-held seat in a special election. The win leaves Republicans with a 228-205 majority in the House, with one vacancy and one independent.

Some Democrats claimed the race in Bluegrass country, home to horse and tobacco farms, had national implications.

No. Ya think?

Onward ho.

Calling Lou Dobbs! Talking point for you, Dude...

Lotsa commenting and posting on outsourcing here lately. Good topic. Jobs are under pressure. All that retraining talk of the late 80s and 90s had rust-belters becoming computer nerds or CSRs and telemarketers only to now find that they've become geeks with student loans facing a dismal job market, again. You can't blame peope for thinking they got sold a pig in the poke by myopic, say-anything-to-get-past-this-situation business people and politicians. But one thing I haven't noticed being raised are the higher level implications of decoupling domestic jobs from corporate health.

C-Level executives are in danger of losing some vital artillery: Politically, companies and industries have used the "apple pie" fig-leaf of job creation to wheedle policy makers into tax cuts, tariff gymnastics, subsidies and free range on a lot of issues like the environment, copyright, safety regs, zoning etc. Viewed this way, Outsourcing has the potential to create the Grange Wars all over again. Don't laugh. If CEOs can only winge and moan about balance sheet health and the abstract need for their companies to survive, yet offer no domestic employment growth benefit to prove their American commitment and cement their standing in society, they're going to get a very rude shock in the next 10 years.

Welcome to the future, Masters of the Universe.


Yes, here at Fouroboros Worldwide we work on how to negate this Hobson's Choice, but hey, we believe in getting paid for our sweat too, eh? (Well, at least until certain Scroogy individuals around here can be convinced to cut loose with some of the good stuff.)

Anger over collateral damage, bitter sectarian violence, mass defection, battle fatigue, a toppling statue. It must suck to be a Conservative these days.

Spent a bit of time being a good listener for a few Republican neighbors this afternoon. It reminded me of something scribbled here back around Halloween, '03:

[10-27-03] Flip Kubler-Ross on her head and you can diagram what happens when parties (yes, of course both) abuse their faithful:

Acceptance: Maybe nukes, and definitely rose petals? Okay, I trust 'em. Not sure, but they're MY guys. I 'll go for that.

Depression: Ahh geez, maybe this wasn't such a good idea. But, ohh, maybe I'm wrong not to trust. Better wait. And see. Ahh geez. . .

Bargaining: Hey look, it's not great but it's the best anyone can do. Roses take time to grow, okay? You try and do better, brainiac.

Denial: We never promised you a rose garden. Roses were your idea. This has nothing to do with plants, you ingrate.

Anger: Those assholes, how could they do this to me? I feel like an idiot. You know, I never really trusted those guys, all that flower talk and what not.

Intelligence of voters has little to do with it, I think. It's purely a group identity thing. If you're not very careful, you mirror the irrationality you paint your opponents with. And if you're holding the stopwatch, it's hard to call yourself on a blown play because, well, because you're "better". I figure we're 1/4 to 1/3 through denial now entering Anger, but what a cost to get here. Tragic.

It sucks to be you (me, anybody) when you're wrong. It's no party even when you're mildly uncertain. But that's nothing compared to the dripping, white knuckled fear that comes from wondering if others can see you sweating. And from that further, self-imposed fear that you'll be revealed a simpleton or a blind zealot. I really believe this, because I see it 9 to 5 almost daily, usually in cases that are nano-scale trivial compared with the stakes McCain's we're all now talking about. I grew up under a parental neutron bomb that used to stop us kids dead in our tracks when we'd evade, dissemble or just plain lie to avoid a preponderance of some fact: Once an accident, twice a coincidence, three times a pattern. I'm old enough that seeing otherwise sensible individuals suspend their healthy skepticism once they've tipped toward an individual or group or idea doesn't surprise me anymore. It's simple self- and self-image preservation. But the risk and the odds that they're willing to stay pat on, now that never ceases to amaze.

It sucks to be a Democrat under these circumstances, too. Because we're all losing the collective rosy bloom of what it once meant to be first, foremost, "an American."

Congressman James Sensenbrenner, (R) WI February 8, 1999:

The news media characterizes the managers as 13 angry men. They are right in that we are angry, but they are dead wrong about what we are angry about. We have not spent long hours poring through the evidence, sacrificed time with our families and subjected ourselves to intense political criticism to further a political vendetta. We have done so because of our love for this country and respect for the Office of the Presidency, regardless of who may hold it. We have done so because of our devotion to the rule of law and our fear that if the President does not suffer the legal and constitutional consequences of his actions, the impact of allowing the President to stand above the law will be felt for generations to come.

Joshua Marshall, Talking Points Memo February 14, 2004 :

I'm waiting to see what journalists are able to make of the president's Friday night military service record document dump. I don't have copies of them. So, like you, I'm waiting to hear what they find.

. . . Now, needless to say, if we were still operating under the rules that prevailed in the mid-1990s, James Carville would have been appointed Independent Counsel in the late summer of 2002 to investigate Halliburton. He'd have had the Intel shenanigans, the Plame matter and the Niger documents added to his brief since then. A cowed AG would have given him the Guard matter around the middle of last week. And in a couple days some FBI agents would be showing up on Calhoun's doorstep ready to squeeze him as silly as any freshly sliced wedge of lime in close proximity to a bottle of Corona.

Lucky for him Dems don't play so rough.

Lucky for us, voters do. When pushed far enough.

Papa was rolling stone.

Ananova:

Saddam's aide says dictator was 'heavily into drugs'

A former senior aide of Saddam Hussein claims the dictator was probably high on drugs when he decided to invade Kuwait in 1990.

Hmmmm. Drugs, lots of premium booze, tacky gilt furniture and lots of tassels, extensive porn collection, ferocious dogs. What we have here are Weapons of Mass Pimpin'.

War in Iraq + War on Drugs. Now THAT'S synergy!

(Of course, this leaves us pondering what these guys are on.)

Ahh, Geez.

First this...



Now this....




Oh, the humanity. Let's see what Mother J. has to say: A chronological timeline of our valiant boys travelling the warrior's way to manhood. One, sailing the elysian Mangrove-lined tributaries of Viet Nam. The other, battling the relentless Anopheles and Spanish Moss of Alabama.

link via Isebrand dot com

In Memoriam

Heraclius. Byzantine Emperor

Born: Carthage, 574

Died: Constantinople, February 11, 641

Son of a Carthaginian Exarch (territorial governor) of the same name, Heraclius liberated Constantinople. As prize, he was crowned emperor and inherited a Byzantine Empire under wide assault by Turks, Persians and Slavs. Heraclius restructured the military and reformed a corrupt public sector. After a dismal first few foreign policy years, losing Jerusalem, Egypt and Damascus, Heraclius took to the field at the head of his troops and succeded in driving the Persians out of Asia Minor. Turning again to domestic issues, as a devout Christian he tried and failed to quell discord between competing christian sects--basically, arguments about whether Christ was a God only, or a man and a God at once. Or something like that. While Heraclius was refereeing this fight, he was being blindsided by the previously fractious and ineffectual Arabs who had now been united and mobilized by Mohammed under "Islam". The Arabs retook Syria, Egypt and Palestine, pushing as far as Paris and reversing most of Heraclius' gains. He died, on this date, in 641, brilliant in battle but a failure at "the big picture," shamed by the destruction of the once mighty Eastern-Roman Empire.

In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Internationalist pro-engagement aware Democratic Presidential candidate of your choice.

[Prompted by an email reminder from the friendly folks at about.medievalhistory]

Blake, over at American Footprint noticed a daisy in the concrete of a New York Times editorial on the Administrations Environmental policy. Namely, the DoE's FutureGen project, announced by President Bush, a year ago thusly:

"Today I am pleased to announce that the United States will sponsor a $1 billion, 10-year demonstration project to create the world's first coal-based, zero-emissions electricity and hydrogen power plant..."

Sounds ginchy. But $1 billion... over 10 years? That covers one week of our extended demonstration project in Iraq. Blake points out that this appears to be the real deal, but projects like this tend to fall into the boondoggle machine and become virtuous-sounding fig leaves for yet more old style, old economy footdragging and pocket lining. Read his interpretation, he's found some great links to testimony from the National Resources Defense Council and others, here.

What we have here is a failure to communicate. And anticipate.

There are a pair of terms we've come to use in our company, terms my partners and I arrived at after seeing management and employee, company and consumer get at ridiculous cross-purposes to each other: Insulated Deciders. Isolated Deliverers.

Salon: [get the day-pass, it's free.]

"The biggest fear people have isn't terrorists," says Don Pellow, a full-bearded, burly former president of the main United Auto Workers union local at the Electrolux plant. "The terror is that they won't have medical care, not getting blown up in a taxi by an Iraqi."

It's not just their own fates at stake, either. If there are no jobs or only Wal-Mart jobs, says union president Carl Hoag, "there won't be any money to run the government .... How you gonna fix the state deficit if people aren't working?" And the impact will ripple further into the community. A local doctor, for example, will soon be forced to move by his health-plan employer. In all, local estimates say, the Electrolux shutdown will cost the economy here 8,000 jobs.

But the reaction of 74-year-old Mayor Walker to his failed effort to save the plant is a little more surprising. "It's a tough time for me," he said, reflecting on his experience in the cozy parlor of his home. "I've been a lifelong Republican. I have never voted for a Democratic president or a Democratic governor, but I think I'm going to change this year. I think NAFTA -- and I supported that -- is just killing the industrial strength of this country. Michigan is being hit especially hard."

(emphasis mine)

With the exception of extremely deep-pocketed organizations, we are seeing in the people who come to us for suggestions on how to get out of the ditch, an unusual, and deeply dispirited, alignment of those insulated deciders and isolated deliverers--management and employee.

While many influentials have focused on "anger" as the emotion du jour, the press, as per usual obsesses on the wrapping paper and not the present inside: Fear. 9-11 brought fear, but time eased the tension, despite overseas adventures and transatlanic distemper. This fear is different. It reminds me of an odd parallel, involving, of all things, cancer patients....

[Continued Here]

From Skippy: look for the union label...somewhere else

as if the ad nauseum repetition of his energizing rallying cry (as some sort of proof he was crazy) wasn't indignity enough, dr. dean suffered the embarrassment of having one of the key labor unions withdraw their support of his candidacy.

He links to the San Francisco Chronicle story on the AFSCME union defection then adds:

we refrain from pouring salt on any of the people-powered howard campaign's wounds. dr. dean did at least energize the democratic grass roots and helped national democrats remember where their spines were. now, if they can just find their balls...

Too true. And a shame really. Had Dean recognized two things he'd still be able to see the brass ring.

1. His pivot point was a month before Iowa zero hour, that's when his heat needed begin shifting to warmth. Base secure outside Iowa, he needed to transition. (Hindsight prophylactic: I said the same in October over at Calpundit). Anyway, I'm half english and I've learned that passion's a dodgy thing in this country, mid-western Americans (I'm married into a gaggle of them--SD, NB, IA, KS) regard it with suspicion, as do many everywhere, especially in business. TV only distorts it, hence,

2. It's Kabuki. I was shocked at Dean's lack of awareness and savvy on scream night. That was his national Star Search moment. No matter how much Dean wanted to change the system, he should have used it. His pre-primary opponent was the press a much as Bush and he didn't co-opt them, he lumped them in with the bad guys. True enough in many cases, but they're reactionaries, not progressives. They view everything win-lose and his novel means of ascension meant their decline in influence. William James:

The most violent revolutions in an individual's beliefs leave most of his old order standing. The point I now urge you to observe particularly is the part played by the older truths . . . their influence is absolutely controlling. Loyalty to them is the first principle; for by far the most usual way of handling phenomena so novel that they would make for a serious rearrangement of our preconceptions is to ignore them altogether, or to abuse those who bear witness for them.

[posted this on skippy's comments also]

More documents surface from Ron Suskind's Paul O'Neill Epic, "The Price of Loyalty."


[click image for larger]
Shocking.

"Bush Files" These documents are presented as they crossed Paul O'Neill's desk; some contain materials other than those used in the book.

Dispatches from the everything-you-know-is-wrong Department.

NYT WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 — President Bush condemned the Massachusetts court ruling on gay marriage on Wednesday, and conservative groups said the White House had informed them that the president would soon endorse efforts to pass an amendment to the United States Constitution defining marriage to be between a man and a woman. . . .

"Marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman," he said.

He just didn't say for how long. Don't have a record you're proud of or can win on? Change the conversation, not your self. Bang the table. This is first taste of what this Fall's campaign is going to be about--at least, from the Republican standpoint. Yes, God, guns and gays. Cubed.

So, who exactly, are we going to be defending Marriage from? Time for some Sunshine: The Barna Research Group:

*Born again Christians are just as likely to get divorced as are non-born again adults. Overall, 33% of all born again individuals who have been married have gone through a divorce, which is statistically identical to the 34% incidence among non-born again adults.

* While college graduates are typically more liberal in their political views and lifestyle than adults who lack such a degree, adults who have a college degree and have been married are comparativ