Chomsky on the 2008 US Election (from October)

Chomsky actually surprised me a bit here by stating quite clearly that there IS a difference between Democrats and Republicans. While he stopped well short of a whole-hearted endorsement of Obama, he still urged people to vote against McCain. He cites the difference on health care in particular, and makes some excellent points about the marked differences between 2004 and 2008.

Newsweek Tidbits and Thoughts on The Day After

Obviously pleased with the outcome last night. I started to post something last night, but couldn't come up with anything profound... not surprising, I suppose. I'm a little more reassured about living in the United States now. Turns out that the majority of us can ignore idiotic implications about "past radical associations" and the laughable charges about being a socialist.

Just because a Democrat has been elected does not mean that I think all is right with the world, everything will be fine, and that I will be happy with everything that the Obama Administration does. I'm cautiously optimistic, but there will be the inevitable disappointments.

The early indications are that Rahm Emanuel will be offered the position of Chief of Staff. I'm willing to be persuaded, but this might be his first mistake. Emanuel worked for Bill Clinton's White House and was responsible for pushing NAFTA and other not-so-liberal policies. Not a great sign. He knows the House of Representatives well and would push back against Pelosi if needed, but I guess we'll just have to see.

Many people have said that Larry Summers will be picked as the new Treasury Secretary, and I'm not so sure about that either. I'd favor Bob Reich, former Secretary of Labor, but he probably won't get it. I don't think it would ever be offered to someone like economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman - whose columns I often link to here - although I don't really see why not.

Like many others, I'm very curious what the first priorities will be, or whether there will be a flurry of activity on all fronts. The wheels are certainly greased with the expanded Democratic majority, so hopefully the right things will get done quickly. Congressional Dems want to pass a stimulus package, but I don't think we need more small checks mailed to everyone. I think they should work on the infrastructure improvements that Obama promised - upgrading roads and bridges, hopefully a focus on a better and broader rail system that isn't so confined to the east coast, as well as broadband lines for rural communities.

I'm not overly encouraged about the prospects of any kind of education reform/progress. The rhetoric seemed in line with the status quo during the campaign. This has become more obvious to me as a vital issue since I've decided to enter the field.

Environmental initiatives need to be put into place within the first year - otherwise everything could conceivably fall back with a Republican congressional victory in 2010. Things are only getting further and further out of hand, and I haven't seen much to demonstrate Obama's focus on the issue. Perhaps he simply wasn't spending much time on it because it wasn't big issue with voters, but climate change is likely the most pressing crisis... it's just that the pace of the pressing is too slow for people to notice when their minds are on the economic downturn.

Obama's main interest seems to be in foreign policy. I don't recall hearing much from Obama on the subject of missle defense, but I'm very interested to see how he feels about what the Russian president had to say today/yesterday on the subject. His first statement about the Russian/Georgian situation was much more measured and careful than McCain's simplistic (and wrong) posturing, but then Obama came nearer to the ignorance of McCain/Scheunemann's position (that it was all 'Russian aggression'). Hopefully he'll be able to back off from that now that he's not campaigning (he was obviously worried about being seen as weak or "appeasing" Russia). Most people who have read anything about the conflict know that it's a hell of a lot more complicated than what McCain was telling Americans, especially his "We're all Georgians today" load of crap.

Pakistan and Afghanistan will be the most problematic, and could overshadow everything else if there is another attack in this country. If you want to know what the US faces, I would recommend reading this or watching this as an introduction.

I'd love to play analyst for a bit longer, but I have so much work that I've neglected... and now I have to get ready for class.

I congratulate Barack Obama and wish him the best of luck.

Rolling Stone: McCain as "Make-Believe Maverick" (By Tim Dickinson)

This is a devastating article that will doubtless be dismissed by McCain supporters and surrogates as character assassination (if it is talked about at all and not dismissed out of hand as just a production of the 'left-wing media'). However, I would like to see some of the more salient points refuted with facts rather than simply shooting at the messenger, which is what is more likely to occur.

The article is lengthy and not all of you will read it in its entirety, but to give you a flavor of it, here are some excerpts:

"In its broad strokes, McCain's life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers' powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives' evangelical churches.

In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot."

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"He was a huge screw-off," recalls Butler. "He was always on probation. The only reason he graduated was because of his father and his grandfather — they couldn't exactly get rid of him."

McCain's self-described "four-year course of insubordination" ended with him graduating fifth from the bottom — 894th out of a class of 899. It was a record of mediocrity he would continue as a pilot.

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Even those in the military who celebrate McCain's patriotism and sacrifice question why his POW experience has been elevated as his top qualification to be commander in chief. "It took guts to go through that and to come out reasonably intact and able to pick up the pieces of your life and move on," says Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, who has known McCain since the 1980s. "It is unquestionably a demonstration of the character of the man. But I don't think that it is a special qualification for being president of the United States. In some respects, I'm not sure that's the kind of character I want sitting in the Oval Office. I'm not sure that much time in a prisoner-of-war status doesn't do something to you. Doesn't do something to you psychologically, doesn't do something to you that might make you a little more volatile, a little less apt to listen to reason, a little more inclined to be volcanic in your temperament."

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Following his failed presidential bid in 2000, McCain needed a vehicle to keep his brand alive. He founded the Reform Institute, which he set up as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit — a tax status that barred it from explicit political activity. McCain proceeded to staff the institute with his campaign manager, Rick Davis, as well as the fundraising chief, legal counsel and communications chief from his 2000 campaign.

There is no small irony that the Reform Institute — founded to bolster McCain's crusade to rid politics of unregulated soft money — itself took in huge sums of unregulated soft money from companies with interests before McCain's committee. EchoStar got in on the ground floor with a donation of $100,000. A charity funded by the CEO of Univision gave another $100,000. Cablevision gave $200,000 to the Reform Institute in 2003 and 2004 — just as its officials were testifying before the commerce committee. McCain urged approval of the cable company's proposed pricing plan. As Bradley Smith, the former chair of the Federal Election Commission, wrote at the time: "Appearance of corruption, anyone?"

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McCain is sensitive about his physical appearance, especially his height. The candidate is only five-feet-nine, making him the shortest party nominee since Michael Dukakis. On the night he was elected senator in 1986, McCain exploded after discovering that the stage setup for his victory speech was too low; television viewers saw his head bobbing at the bottom of the screen, his chin frequently cropped from view. Enraged, McCain tracked down the young Republican who had set up the podium, prodding the volunteer in the chest while screaming that he was an "incompetent little shit." Jon Hinz, the director of the Arizona GOP, separated the senator from the young man, promising to get him a milk crate to stand on for his next public appearance.

During his 1992 campaign, at the end of a long day, McCain's wife, Cindy, mussed his receding hair and needled him playfully that he was "getting a little thin up there." McCain reportedly blew his top, cutting his wife down with the kind of language that had gotten him hauled into court as a high schooler: "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." Even though the incident was witnessed by three reporters, the McCain campaign denies it took place.

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In September 2002, McCain assured Americans that the war would be "fairly easy" with an "overwhelming victory in a very short period of time." On the eve of the invasion, Hardball host Chris Matthews asked McCain, "Are you one of those who holds up an optimistic view of the postwar scene? Do you believe that the people of Iraq, or at least a large number of them, will treat us as liberators?"

McCain was emphatic: "Absolutely. Absolutely."

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TPMtv: The Dog Ate My Debate Prep