Soy Blue

Ugghh...A DLC Democrat

I really dislike labeling folks and boxing them into categories in politics or life in general.  Politics and life are complicated and nuanced but there really should be no reason for any Democrat to buy into bush's domestic spying program.

Case in point:  reinforcing bush’s “it’s all about their links to terrorism” talking point in their own speeches and responses.

Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack (D) said that Democrats "risk political backlash if they object to the Bush administration's wiretapping but cannot show that Americans' civil liberties are at risk," the Des Moines Register reports. "The Democratic governor, who is weighing a 2008 presidential bid, said the party will suffer if it continues to be perceived as weaker than Republicans on national security."

Said Vilsack: "I think Democrats are falling into a very, very large political trap."

Aye Dios, the only trap Democrats are falling into is the one that involves Democrats buying into the bush propaganda.  Maybe we should all just go back to the terror alerts, I know they made me feel much safer.

Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.  Maybe Governor Vilisack has polling that tells him that this is the most prudent course of action.  Maybe the 2006 midterms are more like the 2002 midterms where terrorism will dominate the media narrative. 

Or maybe Democrats  should stop reinforcing bush’s “it’s all about their links to terrorism” talking point in their own speeches and responses.

What polling could Governor Vilisack have that tells him that Democrats are falling into a trap?  Maybe he should read the new Zogby Interactive Poll that says that just 43% of Americans said they feel safer with Bush as President, while 53% said they feel less safe."

I wish that Democrats could get on the same page and stop repeating Bush’s talking points and replace it with the facts.  And what are the facts?

(a) Ordinary Americans were spied upon - people that the Government had no probable cause or prior knowledge to solidly associate with terrorists. 

(b) Getting warrants for spying on suspected terrorists would have been easy – and no court or Congress would have prevented the Government from spying on suspected terrorists or their supporters. So, the Bush admin’s spying program was obviously not meant just to secure America – there was some other ulterior motive.

(c) Warrantless spying on ordinary Americans whom the administration did not have probable cause to spy on is illegal and violates the law.

More on this later....

Hmmmm

Key finding from the new ABC News/Washington Post poll: "Americans — by a 16-point margin, 51 to 35 percent — now say the country should go in the direction in which the Democrats want to lead, rather than follow Bush. That's a 10-point drop for the president from a year ago, and the Democrats' first head-to-head majority of his presidency."

In addition, Democrats lead Republicans by 14 points, 51 to 37 percent, "in trust to handle the nation's main problems, the first Democratic majority on this question since 1992. And the Democrats hold a 16-point lead in 2006 congressional election preferences, 54 to 38 percent among registered voters, their best since 1984."

However, "whether this shifts many seats in the elections 10 months off is far from assured. Not only are the powers of incumbency immense, there's also no broad anti-incumbency sentiment in the country; indeed 64 percent approve of their own representative's work."

Joaquin?... - w4m - 32

A buddy of mine emailed me this link today from Washington DC's Craig's List .  I thought it was pretty funny but I wonder what my friend was doing on Craig's List  missed connections. 

A few months ago we met at a happy hour in Chili's... You: Made me almost spit beer out of my nose with a fantastic death defying story about buying ice cream, let me totally be my sarcastic self and asked if I were single.

Me: brunette without makeup on, who you claimed "totally bring[s] it." I was the most action you'd seen in 7 years and all I did was stroke your brow (& your ego) and say poor baby.

I would have snuck out with you to get your number, but I was mid-conversation with the married guy to my left and didn't see you leave.

By the way, YES I am single (still), and I still can't you out of my head. I have even been back to Chili's but I must be going on the wrong nights or something--I hope you email me!!!!

Nope wasn't this Joaquin but it's nice to know that my tocaio has a way with the ladies.  Dude should have waited just a little while longer.

As an aside Craig Newmark -founder of Craig's List- was on Charlie Rose the other night, discussing social networking and the future of the Internet.

Fear and Loathing...Smells of Dirty Tricks

Josh Marshall discovered that a photography company that works at Republican political events recently wiped all photographs of President Bush and Jack Abramoff from its public offerings.

"The woman from Reflections told me that that this sometimes happened when the White House wanted to prevent the public from accessing certain photographs of the president."

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports President Bush said "we live in a world in which those pictures will be used for pure political purposes, and they're not relevant to the investigation."

Oh Really?  Check this photo out!  Compliments to Monk at the Inflatable Dartboard.   Welcome to the weekend!

What Liberal Media

From MarKos

Watch conservatives fret at our efforts to hold the media accountable. But wait -- why should they be worried about our efforts if the media is already as liberal as they claim? Maybe because it's theirs, and they don't want to let go?

You think?  This is has everything to do with Traditional News Opinion Pundits like Chris Mathews repeating republican noise machine talking points, which has everything to do with this new collaborative project

Chris Matthews is a major opinion leader who has repeatedly compared Americans concerned about the war in Iraq to Osama bin Laden, a charge that borders on accusing over half the American public with treason. Matthews is perceived, wrongly, as a responsible and objective mainstream journalist with a reputation for calling it as he sees it. That gives his partisan smears a veneer of credibility that makes them particularly offensive and dangerous in a nation at war. It is wrong for Chris Matthews and MSNBC to politicize the deaths of 3,000 Americans on September 11.

It's kind of amusing because for the past 13 years or so since rush limbaugh started polarizing the country and getting people think that there is a liberal bias in the traditional media the right wing has to push back to keep this fairy tale alive.

On Monday, Rush Limbaugh characterized bin Laden's recently released
audiotape as an echo of Democratic criticisms of President Bush, saying
that Democrats would "eat ... up" bin Laden's message.

A friend of mine noted to me in an email that

When the New York Times covers the violence in Iraq or editorializes about Alito’s threat to the Constitution, it has nothing to do with liberal bias and everything to do with the reality on the ground in Iraq or in the case of Alito, protecting the Constitution.

However when Chris Matthews says Bush is “brilliantly” strategizing to flip the NSA story as an anti-Dem weapon in ’06, the word “brilliantly” is clearly attributable to pro-Bush spin.

And yes, Matthews said that on MSNBC.  Now some may think I'm full of it and trying to do push back on the right but the only point that I'm trying to make is that traditional news personalties repeat the republican noise machine's talking points, narrative's, and bias and then this happens:  Watch it:

On this morning’s Today Show, Katie Couric falsely claimed that Democrats took money from Jack Abramoff. Howard Dean tried to set her straight, but she stuck to the right-wing talking points.

COURIC: Hey, wait a second. Democrats took — Democrats took money from Abramoff too, Mr. Dean.

DEAN: That is absolutely false. That did not happen. Not one dime of money from Jack Abramoff went to any Democrat at any time.

COURIC: Let me just tell you — According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Abramoff and his associates gave $3 million to Republicans and $1.5 million to Democrats, including Sen. Minority Leader Harry Reid.

DEAN: Not one dime of Jack Abramoff money ever went to any Democrat. We can show you the FEC reports, we’d be very happy to do it. There’s a lot of stuff in the press that the Republican National Committee’s been spinning that this is a bipartisan scandal. It is a Republican-financed scandal. Not one dime of money from Jack Abramoff ever went to any Democrat, not one dime.

Katie, this a Republican Coruption Scandal.  Not one dime of Jack Abramoff money ever went to any Democrat.  This is just misplaced balance that is just stupid.

The right has been amazingly successful in its quarter century "attack the liberal media" campaign because it's not only convinced many in the public that the media is liberal, it's convinced the press itself that it must guard against its "natural tendencies."

The press has fully internalized that criticism and works very hard to convince the right that it is "fair"--- by seeing politics through the Republican lens. And now that the political establishment is dominated by Republicans there is also tremendous social pressure to conform --- as in any court, if you want to stay in the King's good graces, you'd better mind your manners.

 

Drinking Liberally in Abq

If you'd like to have a drink or two and share some conversation with other liberally minded folks then please come by Carraro's at 9 pm tonight.  Tonight marks Drinking Liberally - Albuquerque second event in Albuquerque. 

I missed the first one but I'm making tonight's event for sure. 

First Snow of the Year

It's finally snowed!  Drivers in Albuquerque have  a new excuse for their driving but only for today.  I know it's not sticking but the streets are still wet but what amazes me is how fast people drive when the roads are not the most ideal conditions. 

 

Get your SOTO on

Amid the all the hype of Bin Laden this past week and a continuance of the Republican Noise Machine mantra that we are living in a post 9-11 world one point is painfully clear as the world awaits bush's state of the union:

The only reason bin Laden is free is because of Bush's incompetence in the war on terror.

And speaking of a post 9-11 world this is a very prescient satire of the post 9-11 world we live in:

It's sad because it's true.  I can't help but wonder when will the narrative that our rights are systematically being taken away from Americans -just to protect bush's bullshit excuses for taking us to war under false pretenses- will pop up on  the traditional media's radar.

Hell even John McCain has joined the growing list of Republicans who believe bush's domestic spying program may be illegal and needs to be investigated.  McCain stated that he does not believe Bush had the authority to implement such a program.

Saturday night, ABC's Saturday night movie was Enemy of the State  in which Will Smith plays an attorney whose life is turned upside down by the NSA.  At the end of the movie when two of the NSA's spy operatives are being questioned by the police about their surveillance of Will Smith's character they claim that they thought that they were on a training operation.

In a case of art imitating life imitating art Gov. Bill Richardson and then Secretary of state Colin Powell had their call monitored by Michael Bolton (Bolton, as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, was one of the architects of a hard-line approach toward negotiating with North Korea over dismantling its nuclear weapons program.)

Now what was the rationale for listening in on Governor Richardson's private conversation with Colin Powell? 

...Intelligence community "insiders" claim the NSA circumvented a ban on domestic surveillance by asserting that the intercepted calls were part of "training missions."

Some of his phone calls were monitored by a U.S. spy agency and transcripts of them were given to the president's nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton.

Madre Santisima!  Que mas quieres?  Is it me or do you also hear the Twilight Zone music in your head? 

Why it's such a big leap for people to figure out that bush is probably spying on domestic political opposition.  He does consider opposition and dissent a threat to national security.

Atrios had this great commentary on the traditional media attempt to paint the Abramoff-Delay corruption ring as a bi-partisan affair that is also fitting here.

Time and time again those of us who pay attention see how right wing narratives grow to dominate ongoing news stories. Factual errors, distortions, and general misinformation on which those right wing narratives are hung are repeated over and over again both by right wing hacks and mainstream journalists.

Terror sells and falls into the "if it bleeds it leads paradigm."  It's plain disgusting how anyone with a brain and y los huevos to question bush and the republicans can be marginalized as a traitor and providing aid and comfort to the enemy for calling bullshit on bush's lies.   

Democrats will be framed as weak by opposing Bush on NSA spying.  Of course, that's what they said about Iraq.

The day is coming when this administration will be exposed as nothing but a shell corporation (much like Enron) whose sole goal is to rob and plunder the American people for a quick buck on the backs of working Americans.

Just remember a few indisputable facts folks as you listen to bush's SOTU:

republicans have control of the Presidency, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.

The only reason bin Laden is free is because of bush's incompetence in the war on terror.

This is a bush-republican controlled congress they are in the drives seat.

An opposition party opposes.

Update1/26/06
The link to the art imitating life imitating art link is no longer working.