2008 Elections

If you thought that Hillary Clinton's increasingly directionless campaign did not have some further reservoirs of self-immolating malice to draw upon, please disabuse yourself of the notion. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Exhibit A: a new television spot being run in Texas in advance of that state's primary on March 4th. The conventional wisdom is that, simply, Team Hillary needs a clear victory to even stay in the race. So here's the spot, titled "Children":

To place that in context, here's one of the final ads from Team Bush in 2004, "Wolves":

How astonishingly depraved: after eight years of fear-mongering, a leading Democratic candidate embraces the Rovian playbook. They're not even being subtle about it.

Vote for me or your children die.

It was probably inevitable that a major Presidential candidate with an Arabic name would, sooner or later, be confronted with questions about the relationship between the United States and its closest Middle Eastern ally. Equally inevitably, after five years of war in an Arab country and seven after a terrorist attack carried out on this country by an Islamist terror network, that discussion will touch on America's fractured relationship with the Islamic world in general and our posture towards the Jewish state in particular.

A look back is in order. In 1820, New York State's Grand Island was proposed as the location of a new Jewish homeland, understood as a gathering place for Jews before aliyah to Zion became possible. Emma Lazarus, author of The New Colossus, was an agitator for proto-Zionist and proto-feminist ideas in New York's 19th Century Gilded Age. The connection between New York and the idea of Zionism is long and deep.

The United States was one of the first countries to recognize Israel itself, somewhat to the chagrin of the British Empire; and before Washington endorsed the fact of Israel's independence, there had been a bipartisan consensus of sympathy to the Zionist experiment.

President Wilson expressed his support for the Balfour Declaration when he stated on March 3, 1919:

The allied nations with the fullest concurrence of our government and people are agreed that in Palestine shall be laid the foundations of a Jewish Commonwealth.

After Wilson left office, his successors expressed similar support for the Zionist enterprise. "It is impossible for one who has studied at all the services of the Hebrew people to avoid the faith that they will one day be restored to their historic national home and there enter on a new and yet greater phase of their contribution to the advance of humanity," said President Warren Harding.

Calvin Coolidge expressed his "sympathy with the deep and intense longing which finds such fine expression in the Jewish National Homeland in Palestine."

"Palestine which, desolate for centuries, is now renewing its youth and vitality through enthusiasm, hard work, and self-sacrifice of the Jewish pioneers who toil there in a spirit of peace and social justice," observed Herbert Hoover.

Of course, Hoover's observation rested on one glaring error: that the Cis-Jordanian Imperial mandate of Palestine was terra nullius, an empty land awaiting settlement. The land was not empty, and the question of how to reconcile the legitimate claims of competing (and, one could argue, complementary) nationalisms has been contentious and unresolved ever since.

Following independence, the relationship between the United States and the new nation of Israel quickly cooled, responding to the patterns of alignment set in the developing Cold War. A major portion of the weaponry that secured the new state's independence came from Czechoslovakia prior to that country's complete absorption into the Soviet orbit. In 1956, President Eisenhower forced an Anglo-French-Israeli expedition force to retreat from the Suez Canal, recently seized by Egypt's Arab nationalist President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Further frost was added to the bilateral relationship by the conservative Eisenhower administration's distrust of Israel's nascent structure as a socialist economy characterized by strong labor unions, led by the labor coalition Histadrut, and a parallel internal economy of collectivist enterprises in the Kibbutzim. A rapprochement of sorts between the Labour government of Levi Eshkol and the Kennedy/Johnson administration was capped in the 1967 Six Day War, another Cold War proxy battle, when American arms shipments to Israel obviated comparable shipments to Arab combatant states by the Soviet Union and resulted in a stunning Israeli victory.

As a result of that victory, Israel became an occupying power over territories previously belonging, de facto or de iure, to Egypt, Syria and Jordan. It is the fate of these territories that ultimately will decide a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In 2004, the Democratic Party platform embraced the concept of a two-state solution for the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, following in the footsteps of the Clinton administration's developing Middle Eastern policy. The current republican administration embraced the idea of two states for two peoples some time into its first term as well. Despite the overall fraying of the post-war foreign policy consensus along partisan lines, therefore, it can be considered settled American policy that the legitimate national aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians, to live in peace, security, within recognized borders as fully sovereign members of the international community, are an objective of the American national interest. Firmly embedded within that consensus is the assumption that America, due to the kinship between our domestic institutions and Weltanschauung with those of Israel as a Western democracy, will continue to support Israel's security and aid that country's defense.

Barack Obama stands equally firmly within this consensus. So why the controversy?

...we need to talk. I'm worried about this campaign you're running.

Let's start with the basics: I've voted for you three times. The first time, in 2000, with absolute enthusiasm. The second and third times, in 2006, because you were so far superior to your primary and general election opponents that it really wasn't a contest. Sure, I was somewhat disappointed over your lack of desire to really speak out against the Bush administration, but hey, the Senate is a more collegial body than the House. Sure, your war vote was troubling, too, but I figured you'd come around sooner or later.

Now, however, you're doing things that fill me and many others with astonished dismay. Your chief strategist, Mark Penn, is talking about states that don't matter. Now, if there's one thing we've learned in the last seven years - and in the 2006 elections - it's that all states matter in a political contest you're trying to win. That's why we now have Democratic Senators in places like Montana and Virginia. This Fifty State Strategy stuff? It really works.

[Editor's Note: While I am on vacation I am reposting some old articles I consider still relavent. For those who care about truth rather than Republican lies, let's look at the real Rudy Giuliani.]

Rudy Giuliani has just shown that he is as much a lying fearmonger as Karl Rove or any other Bush administration toady. From Politico:

Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.

But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.

“If any Republican is elected president —- and I think obviously I would be the best at this —- we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it,” Giuliani said.

Ummmm...let's review some history, Rudy. Ronald Reagan and the elected Bush both SUPPORTED the Muslim fanatics that evolved into al-Qaeda. Bill Clinton is the one who first recognized them as a threat and tried to get them. The attack he ordered after the bombing of the USS Coles hit the location where bin Laden had JUST LEFT. The Clinton administration PREVENTED the millenium attacks. Clinton was so focused on getting al-Qaeda that the Republicans called him "obsessed" with al-Qaeda and he TOLD Bush that al-Qaeda would be the number one focus of Bush's administration.

...Ralph Nader, who according to Politico is considering yet another run at the Presidency.

Because America, presumably, hasn't suffered enough under the Bush regime he brought into power in the first place.

Who does Ralph Nader consider worthy of praise in the current line-up? Mike Gravel - that's GRA-Velle for those of you who've never heard of the man - and Ron Paul - yes, that Ron Paul, the guy who's against the war and the Patriot Act, but still carries the dubious distinction of otherwise being Texas' most reactionary Congressman. This is political nihilism blended with incoherence.

Ralph Nader is an irrelevancy, still feeding off a time, back when disco was popular, when he had something notable to say. Today, however, with the odium of fathering the Bush administration firmly attached to him, Ralph Nader speaks for nothing and no one other than his own vastly over-inflated sense of self. The tragedy is that he may very well be willing to inflict the price of that towering ego, fed as it is by a sense of his own indispensability - a sense not widely shared beyond the confines of the political ghetto that is the Green Party - on the nation, once again. This because, similar to other cranks, and despite the mountainous evidence piled up, one coffin at time, to the contrary, he still believes that there is no appreciable difference between the two major parties. That's still a fashionable belief, in some narrowly constricted circles; however, it is manifestly, demonstrably, incontestably, untrue, and anyone who believes otherwise, after the abject lessons taught over the last few years, should be committed to a home for the criminally insane.

The current issue of The New Yorker reviews two of the current crop of books about Hillary Clinton; and as is often the case with that magazine, the crown jewel of the New York publishing universe, the review is perhaps more perceptive on its subject than the books likely are themselves. After all, literally dozens of works later, what more is there to know about the most written-about figure on our political stage?

Turns out, a lot. Consider this quote, about her infamous mishandling of health care:

Clinton’s biggest blunder, as Bernstein tells it, was to offend the very legislators whose support she needed most. At a retreat for Democratic senators in the spring of 1993, Clinton was asked whether it was realistic to pursue such an ambitious health-care program, given her husband’s many other legislative initiatives. She responded that the Administration was prepared to “demonize” those who opposed the task force’s recommendations.

“That was it for me in terms of Hillary Clinton,” Senator Bill Bradley, of New Jersey, told Bernstein. “You don’t tell members of the Senate you are going to demonize them. It was obviously so basic to who she is. The arrogance. The assumption that people with questions are enemies. The disdain. The hypocrisy.”

Recently, I wrote about how Bill Richardson, John Edwards and Barack Obama all participated in a Democracy for America (DFA) Q and A session where members ask the candidates questions and the candidates produce a You Tube video in response that is distributed to DFA members. This is, in essence, practically free advertising and a great chance to get your message out to a particularly active group of likely voters. I though Richardson, Edwards and Obama all did well, and if you go to my diary, I have the videos there for you to watch.

Hillary Clinton did not participate. I though this was both stupid and rude of her, particularly given the strong role DFA played in the 2006 elections. Some readers disagreed, suggesting she had no reason to participate. Well, before I cover the LATEST stupid and rude blow off by Clinton, I want to explain why her actions were stupid.

DFA boasts of a membership of well over half a million members. It is safe to say that most of these members are likely voters and, though some may be registered Green, or Working Families Party or Independent, most are Democrats. Of that half a million, about 50,000 are particularly active, organizing or participating in events, doing the footwork for candidates, and donating money...$2.6 million donated to candidates by the end of 2006. DFA's local affiliates cover 98% of America's Congressional districts. THIS is what Hillary Clinton chose to blow off.

Howard Dean in many ways brought the Democratic Party back to life. Although others share in the 2005 and 2006 success stories, Howard Dean in 2004 recreated the Democratic grassroots and since then has forged an alliance between progressives and moderates that has been winning big. He did this not by creating a rival force to the Democratic Party the way Nader did. He created a force WITHIN the party that led him to the head of the DNC. And under him the Democratic Party, with help from Rahm, Pelosi and Schumer, among others, has prospered.

Democracy for America was one piece of Howard Dean's revitalization of the Democratic Party. It brought back into the party thousands of activists who had lost faith with the system. It has focused people not only on national issues, but on LOCAl issues, events and campaigns, revitalizing the grassroots from bottom to top. DFA, along with groups like Progressive Majority and MoveOn.org, has given progressives ways of becoming a part of the political process without having to compromise their independence and ideals.

Three Presidential candidates have recognized the importance of Democracy for America and the new direction it represents. These three candidates are John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson. These three candidates recognize the importance of the grassroots and of more independent, more progressive movements within the Democratic Party. Even Bill Richardson, a moderate on many issues, recognizes the importance of the progressive, more independent grassroots.

Rudy Giuliani has just shown that he is as much a lying fearmonger as Karl Rove or any other Bush administration toady. From Politico:

Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.

But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.

“If any Republican is elected president —- and I think obviously I would be the best at this —- we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it,” Giuliani said.

Ummmm...let's review some history, Rudy. Ronald Reagan and the elected Bush both SUPPORTED the Muslim fanatics that evolved into al-Qaeda. Bill Clinton is the one who first recognized them as a threat and tried to get them. The attack he ordered after the bombing of the USS Coles hit the location where bin Laden had JUST LEFT. The Clinton administration PREVENTED the millenium attacks. Clinton was so focused on getting al-Qaeda that the Republicans called him "obsessed" with al-Qaeda and he TOLD Bush that al-Qaeda would be the number one focus of Bush's administration.

Now let's look at Bush's administration: he ignored the warnings, let 9/11 happened, and he has consistently ignored the continuing al-Qaeda threat and instead invaded Iraq, a nation with absolutely NO TIES to al-Qaeda before we invaded. Experts around the world agree that we are LESS SAFE THAN EVER because of Bush's failed foreign policy.

Hahaha!

From Reuters via the New York Times:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - On the heels of a burst of successful fund-raising, Democratic 2008 presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama has pulled even with frontrunner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a new poll released on Monday found.

Obama, a firs-term [sic] senator from Illinois, has steadily gained on Clinton, a veteran on the national political scene, over the last month and each now polled 32 percent among likely Democratic voters, the survey by Rasmussen Reports found. Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina was third in the poll with 17 percent.

In late March, New York's Clinton held a 12-point lead over Illinois' Obama in the Rasmussen poll.

The survey was the latest sign the former first lady, who now represents New York in the Senate, will have a tough fight ahead to win the Democratic nomination. Obama, who has served two years in the U.S. Senate, earlier this month revealed he raised $25.8 million in the first quarter of 2007, nearly matching the $26 million she raised.

Kucinich, Biden, Richardson, various other has-beens, all register in the single digits, one might point out, leaving this, as it has been for a while, a three-person race.

Perhaps Team Hillary will now begin to rework that inevitability strategy they've been deluding themselves into thinking might work? Democrats don't really do coronations; nor, these days, surprisingly, do republicans, as John McCain can attest to.