X-posted at Economists for Obama
You've really got to wonder if the ugly Ferraro spectacle isn't deliberate as Will Bunch suggests.

As I was ruminating about the motivations that might have led the Hillary campaign to let Ferraro loose, one thought that occurred to me was that with North Carolina's primary still to go, who can forget this raw appeal to white people's worst fears about a black candidate...that he'll protect his own first:

(X-posted at Economists for Obama)

Now let's see, what oh what will Maureen Dowd find to write about this Sunday? I'd think its a sure bet that the name "Iseman" will feature in there. Maybe some reference to the golden dress she's wearing in the photo that's all over the news. Some references to Cindy's hair?

First he plagiarizes Deval Patrick, now it turns out that Obama has stolen an idea from Gandhi.

Of course Obama in an attempt to be clever did not steal the line verbatim.

Obama has been saying

"We are the change we have been waiting for"

whereas Gandhi said:

"We need to be the change we wish to see in the world"

This changeup on the original line tripped up Charles Krauthammer who thought it was all "rhetorical nonsense"...but the cultists got the desired message!

Tricky...next thing you know he might start plagiarizing Martin Luther King or something.

/end snark

Crossposted at Economists for Obama

Hillary's campaign is so desperate that they quoted a McCain advisor, Kevin Hassett to attack Obama's economic plan as just a copy of Hillary's.

First of all shame on Hillary for using Republican talking points.

Second of all...KEVIN HASSETT...all you need to know is two words "Dow 36000", a book co-authored by Hassett in 1999 predicting that the Dow would be three times higher than its current 12000 level.

(Cross-posted at Economists for Obama)

The other night McCain said:

To encourage a country with only rhetoric rather than sound and proven ideas that trust in the strength and courage of free people is not a promise of hope. It is a platitude.

So I thought I'd mosey over to the McCain website to see his "sound and proven ideas" on healthcare reform.  What I found instead is what you might call a series of trite and banal statements...in other words "platitudes".

Take a load of some of these bullet points taken from the website:

In the euphoria of yesterday's results we should not forget about the NRCC robocall scandal.  This might have influenced some of the close races we lost like Duckworth in Illinois that weakened our majority.

I understand the need to project responsible mature leadership but it is essential that the Democrats fight back on this HARD, (even if its behind the scenes so as not to upset the delicate sensibilities of the Candy Crowley's of the world).  It would be absolutely unconscionable if in 2008 we have to deal with this crap again!

more after the fold...

Today is the third anniversary of this lovely essay by Richard Perle advising us to sit back and enjoy what we are experiencing in Iraq.

This should be thrown back in Perle's face until he no longer has the audacity to show his face in public.  Click the link or read below:

From start to finish, President Bush has led the United States and its coalition partners to the most important military victory since World War II. And like the allied victory over the axis powers, the liberation of Iraq is more than the end of a brutal dictatorship: It is the foundation for a decent, humane government that will represent all the people of Iraq.
...
Iraqis are freer today and we are safer. Relax and enjoy it.

x-posted at Kauitlyan

Today's Wall Street Journal reports that veteran Republican congressman Doug Bereuter has broken with his party and now calls the Iraq war a mistake.  I guess he's not feeling safer today.  Since Bereuter's retiring I guess he's immune from Bush's brass knuckles.  (By the way is anyone ever going to write the piece saying that Dean was right?)

Here's an excerpt:

 

x-posted at Kautilyan

(and emailed to Daniel Okrent)

I knew Jodi Wilgoren was up to no good when she started her front page article with:

"Forty-eight minutes into a rambling speech about education, health care, jobs and equal opportunity here the other morning, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts..."

(my emphasis)

x-posted at Kautilyan

Recently I posted on the Rovian tactics that have been used at the FDA to stifle unwanted scientific findings regarding anti-deppressant use.  The Wall Street Journal now reports that there has also been politicization regarding emergency contraceptive use.  This latter example of FDA shenaningans ought to be receiving much more coverage than it has.  This account was buried on page B4 of the Journal and as far as I am aware has not been brought up as a new source of embarassment for the Administration.  This issue ought to be exploited by the Kerry campaign as a major issue to rally women voters.  Aside from politics the misuse of science for political gain should be considered beyond the pale.  

x-posted at Kautilyan

This had to be one of the more pathetic political articles I've read in a while.  Adam Nagourney and Richard Stevenson of the Times basically do a puff piece on Cheney describing his decisiveness during 9/11 and his great partnership with W.  All of the sources are from the White House or are such impartial observers like Mary Matalin and Newt Gingrich.  Its almost as if they had to write this article as a counterweight to the NYT recent sharp criticism of Bush and Cheney's manipulation of tying Iraq to 9/11
   

x posted at Kautilyan

In the latest outrage, the Wall Street Journal reports that the Administration used career officials at treasury to attack the Kerry plan:

The Treasury tapped civil servants to calculate the cost of Sen. John Kerry's tax plan and then posted the analysis on the Treasury Web site. A federal law bars career government officials from working on political campaigns.

The Treasury analysis doesn't mention Mr. Kerry by name. Rather it sketches out the potential cost of a tax plan that rolls back tax reductions for taxpayers with incomes above $200,000 -- the nub of the Democratic presidential candidate's plan. The result, the Treasury said in the analysis posted March 22, would be a tax increase of as much as $477 billion over 10 years on "hardworking individuals and married couples." The same day, the Republican National Committee issued a press release in which it unveiled what it called its "John Kerry $pendometer," and cited the same $477 billion figure as the cost of "raising taxes on the top income bracket."

...John "Buck" Chapoton, who headed Treasury's tax office under Ronald Reagan, said career tax officials "are supposed to be objective. It's important that they are thought of as not being influenced or used for political purposes."

x posted at Kautilyan

The only thing close to a clear political demand from Al Qaeda before 9/11 that the US could easily address was that we remove our military presence from Saudi Arabia.  Starting with the Persian Gulf war in 1991 to April 2003, the U.S. had about 5000 troops stationed in the country as part of the ongoing operations against Iraq.  

This is how CNN covered our decision to pull out of Saudi Arabia:

Posted at Economists for Dean

By Lerxst

Nicholas Kristof writes:

Compared with Mr. Bush, John Kerry and most other Democratic presidential candidates are paragons of responsibility -- but only compared with Mr. Bush. The reality is that promises by Democrats like Mr. Kerry to start new health care programs, keep some of the tax cuts and restore black ink are nonsense. But it's less nonsense to say 2 + 2 = 5 (Mr. Kerry) than to say 2 + 2 = 22 (Mr. Bush).

Mr. Clinton lied about sex, and he was sleazy in other respects as well, but he was willing to tell America the unpleasant truth about trade and about budgets. I wish Mr. Bush and his Democratic challengers would be half as honest with the American public as Mr. Clinton was.  

Its too bad that Kristof chooses to ignore Dean's position on the budget which I have been on a mini-crusade about (e.g. here and here) trying to point out is the only honest one.   In an earlier post I pointed out how Michael Kinsley and Kristoff (to a lesser extent) deliberately distorted Dean's views on trade.  Now it looks like the easier strategy is to simply pretend he doesn't exist.

To some extent this is Dean's own fault...at a time when the budget issue is at the forefront, Dean seems unwilling to emphasize this message.  That's too bad, because it is a simple honest message that doesn't require impugning any one else's character --its the truth plain and simple.  I can't imagine that he's worried about being a deficit hawk, he already occupies that ground and given his position now, what has he got to lose?  What do you guys think?  

My own thought is that Dean should lay out a detailed budget that would force the other candidates to show their hands so that the lazy journalists wouldn't have any more excuses for ignoring Dean.  

I imagine Kristof thinks that given that Kerry is the front runner, he should focus only on him.  But isn't it interesting that Kristof didn't write about the honesty about deficits (as far as I am aware) when DEAN WAS THE FRONTRUNNER?

Posted at Economists for Dean

By Lerxst

Paul Krugman writes:

Many Democrats have called for a partial rollback of the Bush tax cuts, preserving the "middle class" cuts -- those that convey at least some benefit to the 77 percent of taxpayers in the 15 percent tax bracket or below. Such a partial rollback would have reduced this year's budget deficit by about $180 billion; that would help, but one hopes politicians realize that it's not enough.

As far as I can tell from the Kerry website, the only part of the Bush tax cuts that he wants to eliminate is "Bush's special tax breaks for Americans who make more than $200,000."

That is certainly not the "middle class" (15% tax bracket) that Krugman is talking about.  Dean's expressed approach of reforming the regressive payroll tax for lower and middle class workers --if we can afford it-- sounds more like what Krugman has in mind.  

Posted at Economists for Dean

By Lerxst

I recently posted about a report by the Center for Media and Public affairs that showed clear evidence of blatant bias against Dean in media coverage.

The New York Times in an article about Dean's media coverage, somehow manages to ignore this inconvenient fact but still selectively use the watchdog group's report to suggest only that Dean got more coverage...not more negative coverage.:

Underscoring complaints that the coverage has been lopsided, the three evening newscasts had a total of 64 reports about Dr. Dean's campaign last year, according to the Center for Media and Public affairs, a research group in Washington. The second-most-covered candidate was Mr. Kerry, with 31 reports. Mr. Gephardt had 19; Mr. Edwards, 17; General Clark, 16; Mr. Lieberman, 12.

It is clear that the media has been busted...and thats what prompted this article.  But rather than simply come clean...we have to hear their nauseating rationalizations and hand wringing.  To top it all off they end with a quote from Chris Lehane...blaming the victim.

Posted at Economists for Dean

Rooting for Success in Iraq and Probabilistic Thinking

By Lerxst

I've been wanting to write a piece about the decision making behind the Iraq war for sometime and I think today's piece by James Traub on the Democrats and foreign policy gives me some more motivation to write this.  In particular I have in mind this excerpt:

When I pointed out to Dean that he was depending heavily on continued failure in Iraq, he said, ''I'm not betting on it, and I'm hoping against it, but there's no indication that I should be expecting anything else.''

I think whether we like to admit it or not there is sometimes a tension between how we feel about whether or not the decision to go to war in Iraq was a good one, and how the war and the occupation actually plays out in reality.  

Posted at Economists for Dean

By Lerxst

The Washington Post reports that Bush is planning to propose an overhaul of immigration policy:

President Bush plans to kick off his reelection year by proposing a program that would make it easier for immigrants to work legally in the United States, in what would constitute the most significant changes to immigration law in 18 years, Republican officials said yesterday.

Lobbyists working with the White House said Bush is developing a plan that would allow immigrants to cross the border legally if jobs are waiting for them. The sources said the administration also wants to provide a way for some undocumented workers in the United States to move toward legal status.