JOSEPH STIGLITZ TELLS US HOW THE FINANCIAL MELT-DOWN HAPPENED

Capitalist Fools

Behind the debate over remaking U.S. financial policy will be a debate over who’s to blame. It’s crucial to get the history right, writes a Nobel-laureate economist, identifying five key mistakes—under Reagan, Clinton, and Bush II—and one national delusion.

There will come a moment when the most urgent threats posed by the credit crisis have eased and the larger task before us will be to chart a direction for the economic steps ahead. This will be a dangerous moment. Behind the debates over future policy is a debate over history—a debate over the causes of our current situation. The battle for the past will determine the battle for the present. So it’s crucial to get the history straight.

What were the critical decisions that led to the crisis? Mistakes were made at every fork in the road—we had what engineers call a “system failure,” when not a single decision but a cascade of decisions produce a tragic result. Let’s look at five key moments.

No. 1: Firing the Chairman

In 1987 the Reagan administration decided to remove Paul Volcker as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and appoint Alan Greenspan in his place. Volcker had done what central bankers are supposed to do. On his watch, inflation had been brought down from more than 11 percent to under 4 percent. In the world of central banking, that should have earned him a grade of A+++ and assured his re-appointment. But Volcker also understood that financial markets need to be regulated. Reagan wanted someone who did not believe any such thing, and he found him in a devotee of the objectivist philosopher and free-market zealot Ayn Rand.

Greenspan played a double role. The Fed controls the money spigot, and in the early years of this decade, he turned it on full force. But the Fed is also a regulator. If you appoint an anti-regulator as your enforcer, you know what kind of enforcement you’ll get. A flood of liquidity combined with the failed levees of regulation proved disasterous.

Greenspan presided over not one but two financial bubbles. After the high-tech bubble popped, in 2000–2001, he helped inflate the housing bubble. The first responsibility of a central bank should be to maintain the stability of the financial system. If banks lend on the basis of artificially high asset prices, the result can be a meltdown—as we are seeing now, and as Greenspan should have known. He had many of the tools he needed to cope with the situation. To deal with the high-tech bubble, he could have increased margin requirements (the amount of cash people need to put down to buy stock). To deflate the housing bubble, he could have curbed predatory lending to low-income households and prohibited other insidious practices (the no-documentation—or “liar”—loans, the interest-only loans, and so on). This would have gone a long way toward protecting us. If he didn’t have the tools, he could have gone to Congress and asked for them.

Of course, the current problems with our financial system are not solely the result of bad lending. The banks have made mega-bets with one another through complicated instruments such as derivatives, credit-default swaps, and so forth. With these, one party pays another if certain events happen—for instance, if Bear Stearns goes bankrupt, or if the dollar soars. These instruments were originally created to help manage risk—but they can also be used to gamble. Thus, if you felt confident that the dollar was going to fall, you could make a big bet accordingly, and if the dollar indeed fell, your profits would soar. The problem is that, with this complicated intertwining of bets of great magnitude, no one could be sure of the financial position of anyone else—or even of one’s own position. Not surprisingly, the credit markets froze.

Here too Greenspan played a role. When I was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, during the Clinton administration, I served on a committee of all the major federal financial regulators, a group that included Greenspan and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. Even then, it was clear that derivatives posed a danger. We didn’t put it as memorably as Warren Buffett—who saw derivatives as “financial weapons of mass destruction”—but we took his point. And yet, for all the risk, the deregulators in charge of the financial system—at the Fed, at the Securities and Exchange Commission, and elsewhere—decided to do nothing, worried that any action might interfere with “innovation” in the financial system. But innovation, like “change,” has no inherent value. It can be bad (the “liar” loans are a good example) as well as good.


The rest is here.

SO FAR, PRETTY DAMN GOOD!

Contrary to the blogs that have been beating the birth certificate non-story to death, a majority--a very healthy, large majority of the American people--are pleased with President-elect Obama.

He's on a honeymoon and he isn't even in the White House yet. But, as Bill Schneider remarked, that's because the country is reeling from the disaster that's been in the WH for 8 years.

This high approval rating won't last forever, as we well know, but it sure feels wonderful in an economic season with very little to feel wonderful about.

December 9, 2008
Obama honeymoon continues, poll shows

From CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser

Obama is enjoying a nearly 80 percent approval rating.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – A new national poll suggests that Barack Obama's having one heck of a honeymoon.

Nearly eight in ten Americans questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey out Tuesday morning are giving the president-elect the thumbs up when it comes to his handling of the transition. Seventy-nine percent approve of Obama's performance so far during transition, with 18 percent disapproving.

Obama's approval rating is "14 points higher than the approval rating for president-elect Bush in 2001 and 17 points higher than president-elect Clinton's rating in 1992," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland noted.

The president-elect's current approval rating is also more than 50 points higher than Bush's current approval rating, which now stands at 28 percent, with 71 percent disapproving of the way Bush is handling his job as president.

"An Obama job approval rating of 79 percent! That’s the sort of rating you see when the public rallies around a leader after a national disaster. To many Americans, the Bush Administration was a national disaster," says CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider.

The poll also indicates that 79 percent of the public thinks Obama will do a good job as president. That's up 4 points from last month. Eighteen percent think Obama will do a poor job as president, down 3 points from November.

Seventy-eight percent of those questioned feel Obama will be a uniter, 20 points higher than those who felt the same way 8 years ago about then-president-elect Bush. Twenty percent say Obama will be a divider, 16 points lower than those who said Bush would be a divider.

"Bush came in promising to be a uniter, not a divider. That’s a promise Bush failed to deliver – as he himself acknowledged last week in an interview with ABC news when he said that one of his big disappointments is that the tone in Washington got worse rather than better. Nearly 80 percent describe Obama as a uniter. So far, so good," said Schneider.

Seventy-six percent of those polled have a favorable opinion of Obama.

"And the president-elect is not the only one who is popular right now. Sixty-seven percent have a favorable view of Michelle Obama and 56 percent have a positive view of Vice President-elect Joe Biden ," Holland added.

And the Democratic party continues to be much more popular than the GOP. Six in ten have a favorable view of the Democratic party, while a majority have an unfavorable opinion of the Republican party.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted December 1-2, with 1,096 adult Americans interviewed by telephone. The survey's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

SUPREME COURT JUST SAYS NO!

Court won't review Obama's eligibility to serve
By Tim Jones Tribune correspondent
9:16 AM CST, December 8, 2008

UPDATE: The Supreme Court has turned down an emergency appeal from a New Jersey man who says President-elect Barack Obama is ineligible to be president because he was a British subject at birth.

The court did not comment on its order Monday rejecting the call by Leo Donofrio of East Brunswick, N.J., to intervene in the presidential election. Donofrio says that since Obama had dual nationality at birth -- his mother was American and his Kenyan father at the time was a British subject -- he cannot possibly be a "natural born citizen," one of the requirements the Constitution lists for eligibility to be president.

Donofrio also contends that two other candidates, Republican John McCain and Socialist Workers candidate Roger Calero, also are not natural-born citizens and thus ineligible to be president.At least one other appeal over Obama's citizenship remains at the court. Philip J. Berg of Lafayette Hill, Pa., argues that Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii as Obama says and the Hawaii secretary of state has confirmed. Berg says Obama also may be a citizen of Indonesia, where he lived as a boy. Federal courts in Pennsylvania have dismissed Berg's laws


‘Shut up about the birth certificate’
By Jay Bookman
Monday, December 8, 2008, 05:36 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Conservative writer David Horowitz, writing in the conservative National Review, advises his fellow conservatives to “shut up about the birth certificate,” as the headline on his article puts it.
“The continuing efforts of a fringe group of conservatives to deny Obama his victory and to lay the basis for the claim that he is not a legitimate president is embarrassing and destructive,” Horowitz writes. “The fact that these efforts are being led by Alan Keyes, a demagogue who lost a Senate election to the then-unknown Obama by 42 points, should be a warning in itself….

“It is not conservatism; it is sore loserism and quite radical in its intent,” concludes Horowitz.

“Respect for election results is one of the most durable bulwarks of our unity as a nation. Conservatives need to accept the fact that we lost the election, and get over it; and get on with the important business of reviving our country’s economy and defending its citizens, and — by the way — its Constitution.”

I confess I do have some sympathy for the “birthers,” though. As an outsider, it’s hard to distinguish between the zany arguments that get official approval by the conservative establishment — things like Bill Ayers, Michelle Obama’s infamous “whitey” tape, the claim that Obama is a closet Marxist — and those arguments that are considered beyond the pale. I mean, where does one draw the line between acceptable lunacy and unacceptable lunacy?

Apparently those within the movement have a hard time figuring it out as well, which is why Horowitz had to send out a memo explaining the official ruling.




h/t Illiterate Electorate

A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN

I posted this poem over at A Political Glimpse from Ireland the other day, and thought it would be good for more people to read it, since it is fitting for the recession/depression/hard times we're facing.

The Workmans Friend

When things go wrong and will not come right,
Though you do the best you can,
When life looks black as the hour of night -
A pint of plain is your only man.


When money's tight and hard to get
And your horse has also ran,
When all you have is a heap of debt -
A pint of plain is your only man.


When health is bad and your heart feels strange,
And your face is pale and wan,
When doctors say you need a change,
A pint of plain is your only man.

When food is scarce and your larder bare
And no rashers grease your pan,
When hunger grows as your meals are rare -
A pint of plain is your only man.

In time of trouble and lousey strife,
You have still got a darlint plan
You still can turn to a brighter life -
A pint of plain is your only man.

-- Flann O'Brien (Brian O'Nolan)


The poem was written by Flann O'Brien/Brian O'Nolan, one of my favorite writers.

These are some of the books he's written that I've loved:

At Swim Two Birds
The Third Policeman
The Dalky Archive
The Hard Life
The Poor Mouth

ODETTA, December 31, 1930 - December 2, 2008

She had hoped to sing at President-elect Obama's inauguration. RIP Odetta.

TINY CROWD PRAYS SUPREME COURT WILL INVALIDATE PRES.-ELECT OBAMA'S ELECTION

A small but virulent group of rightwing fanatics is hoping the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Donofrio v. Wells, which argues that Obama's placement on the New Jersey presidential election ballot was invalid because he is not a natural born citizen. The justices are expected to dismiss the case.

Undaunted, this tiny, noisy group of deluded nutcases showed up on the steps of the Supreme Court on Friday to pray that the justices will nullify the election, where 67 million Americans voted to have Barack Obama as their next president.

Certain elements on the right have been at this underhanded villany since they tried to get Bill Clinton thrown out of office and nullify that election as well. And then there's the group of agitators in December 2000 who showed up in Florida and bullied and screamed all during the recount. Rush Limbaugh had suggested that Obama's trip to Hawaii to see his ailing grandmother, who died not long after, was somehow connected to the controversy. Others, like Michael Savage, followed Limbaugh's lead, saying Obama was going to Hawaii to alter the record.

It appears that these people, when they lose an election, need to invalidate it at any cost and by any means. When we see this sort of behavior in third world countries, we are aghast and are thankful for the legal and orderly way we conduct our elections. How have these poor, misguided, misinformed losers become the face of the Republican party?

(And what's up with this "praying" that the Supreme Court will hear the case and invalidate Obama's election? Do these people actually believe GOD will step into American politics and somehow influence the SCOTUS to throw out the election results of Nov. 4? Whew! That is serious crazy.)

The essence of the case being appealed to the Supreme Court, Donofrio v. Wells, is that Obama does not meet the Constitution's requirement that the president be a natural-born citizen because his Kenyan father was a British Citizen when Obama was born in 1961. Plaintiffs argue that Obama would have had dual US and British citizen when he was born, making him ineligible.Roger Bredow, who traveled to Washington from Bethlehem, GA, helped organize the small protest. He said the case rests on an interpretation of Article II of the Constitution and immigration laws written in 1790 and 1795.

He did acknowledge that citizenship laws had been substantially amended in the last two centuries. But, "The reason that you look at those is to determine the intent of the Founding Fathers," he said.To be clear, the questions of Obama's birth have been roundly and convincingly debunked.

More on this from Slate:

The faux controversy isn't going to go away soon. Yes, Obama was born in Hawaii, and yes, he is eligible to be president. But according to several experts in conspiracy theories, and in the psychology of people who believe in conspiracy theories, there's little chance those people who think Obama is barred from the presidency will ever be convinced otherwise. "There's no amount of evidence or data that will change somebody's mind," says Michael Shermer, who is the publisher of Skeptic magazine and a columnist for Scientific American, and who holds an undergraduate and a master's degree in psychology. "The more data you present a person, the more they doubt it ... Once you're committed, especially behaviorally committed or financially committed, the more impossible it becomes to change your mind."

Any inconvenient facts are irrelevant. People who believe in a conspiracy theory "develop a selective perception, their mind refuses to accept contrary evidence," Chip Berlet, a senior analyst with Political Research Associates who studies such theories, says. "As soon as you criticize a conspiracy theory, you become part of the conspiracy."

Evan Harrington, a social psychologist who is an associate professor at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, agrees. "One of the tendencies of the conspiracy notion, the whole appeal, is that a lot of the information the believer has is secret or special," Harrington says. "The real evidence is out there, [and] you can give them all this evidence, but they'll have convenient ways to discredit [it]."

Whatever can't be ignored can be twisted to fit into the narrative; every new disclosure of something that should, by rights, end the controversy only opens up new questions, identifies new plotters. Perhaps the most common argument of those questioning Obama's eligibility is that he should just release his full, original birth certificate, rather than the shorter certification, which is a copy. His failure to do so only proves there is reason to be suspicious, they say, and if the document was released, the issue would go away. But that's unlikely. It was, after all, the Obama campaign's release of the certification this summer that stoked the fever of conspiracy mongers.

For believers, it works like this: So what if Dr. Chiyome Fukino, the director of Hawaii's Department of Health, released a statement saying she has verified that the state has the original birth certificate on record? So what if she said separately that the certification looks identical to one she was issued for her own Hawaii birth certificate? Why didn't her statement specify Obama's birthplace? So what if a Hawaii Health Department spokeswoman later clarified that Fukino meant that Obama was born in Hawaii? So what if researchers for FactCheck.org actually saw the physical copy of the certification and debunked much of the key "evidence" supposedly proving that the image posted online is a forgery? They're not really independent. They're funded by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, and Obama once (with Bill Ayers, no less) ran an entirely unrelated program that happened to be paid for with money donated by Walter Annenberg. And on and on and on.


If the long-form birth certificate were released, with its unequivocal identification of Hawaii as Obama's place of birth, the cycle would almost certainly continue. Rush Limbaugh already suggested that Obama's trip to Hawaii to see his ailing grandmother, who died not long after, was somehow connected to the controversy. Others, like Michael Savage, followed Limbaugh's lead, saying Obama was going to Hawaii to alter the record.

Not surprisingly, almost all of the people who've been most prominent in pushing this story have a history of conspiracist thought. There's Jerome Corsi, who's best known as the co-author of the book that launched the Swift boat vets; he's a chief proponent of the claim that the government is secretly planning to form a "North American Union" with Canada and Mexico.

Philip Berg, who filed the lawsuit that had until now drawn the most public attention, is a 9/11 Truther.

Andy Martin, who's credited with starting the myth that Obama is a Muslim and has been intimately involved in the birth certificate mess as well, was denied admission to the Illinois bar because of a psychiatric evaluation that showed he had "moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character." He also has a long history of anti-Semitism.

Robert Schulz, who's responsible for the ads in the Tribune, is a fairly notorious tax protester. In 2007, a federal judge ordered Schulz to shutter his Web site because he and his organization were, in the words of the Justice Department's Tax Division, using the site to promote "a nationwide tax-fraud scheme."

FESTIVUS* FOR THE REST OF US

Why would Bill-O get angry over a display by Atheists? Doesn't he understand that this is America, and that the government is not supposed to favor one religion or no religion ?

If we nonbelievers go about our business every Christmas and are forced to see public displays of the Christmas story, then why shouldn't nonbelievers be allowed to display their ideas about the winter holiday?

Biblical scholars agree that Jesus wasn't born in December, and that the early Christians encouraged their followers to observe Christ's birth date during the Winter Solstice so that their celebrations would not attract notice during the pagans' celebrations at that time of year.

I have no problem with the celebration of Christmas. I enjoy the season and participate with my family in many aspects of it. It's a great distraction during a very dark and cold time of the year. But make no mistake, a lot of the traditions come directly from paganism. Christmas has always been a blending of Christianity and paganism. Google the traditions of the Christmas tree and mistletoe for example.

And Bill-O is an idiot for making a fuss over this harmless, legal sign. But of course, he needs faux controversy and faux indignation to keep people watching his show on FAUX News.

Estimates now are that 12 to 16% of the American population are nonbelievers. That's huge, and nonbelievers have just as much of a right to display their sentiments during the Winter Solstice as do the Christians who celebrate Christmas, and the Jewish community that displays a menorah--especially if public spaces are involved. This is a big country, and there's room for everyone's way of celebrating this time of year.

Bill-O is a bully; and as he bellows over this noncontroversy, we'll just go about our business and enjoy the season of the Winter Solstice. Evoe!

Atheist billboard in Capitol stirs a storm
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

OLYMPIA -- An anti-religion billboard in the Washington state Capitol has started a firestorm on national television.

Fox News' Bill O'Reilly had an eight-minute segment on his show Tuesday night decrying the inclusion of the atheistic billboard along with a holiday tree and a Christian nativity scene.
Conservative TV personality O'Reilly urged viewers to call Gov. Chris Gregoire's office.
Gregoire spokesman Pearse Edwards says the office has been getting about 200 calls an hour, as well as e-mails.

The Capitol has had a holiday tree, provided by the Association of Washington Business, for 19 years. In 2006, it was joined by a menorah sponsored by a Seattle Jewish group.
That prompted a lawmaker from Spokane to stage a protest at the Capitol, demanding the holiday tree be called a "Christmas tree." It also led a local real estate agent to sue the state to allow the nativity display depicting the birth of Jesus.

Gregoire, a Democrat, and Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna put out a joint statement Wednesday noting that the federal case led the state to create an inclusive policy:

"The U.S. Supreme Court has been consistent and clear that, under the Constitution's First Amendment, once government admits one religious display or viewpoint onto public property, it may not discriminate against the content of other displays, including the viewpoints of nonbelievers."

Source

*Festivus is an annual holiday invented by writer Dan O'Keefe and introduced into popular culture by his son Daniel, a scriptwriter for the TV show Seinfeld.Although the original Festivus took place in February 1966 as a celebration of O'Keefe's first date with his wife, Deborah, most people now celebrate the holiday on December 23, as depicted on the December 18, 1997 Seinfeld episode "The Strike."According to O'Keefe, the name Festivus "just popped into his head." The holiday includes novel practices such as the "Airing of Grievances", in which each person tells everyone else all the ways they have disappointed him or her over the past year. Also, after the Festivus meal, the "Feats of Strength" are performed, involving wrestling the head of the household to the floor, with the holiday only ending if the head of the household is actually pinned. These conventions originated with the TV episode. The original holiday featured far more peculiar practices, as detailed in the younger Daniel O'Keefe's book The Real Festivus, which provides a first-person account of an early version of the Festivus holiday as celebrated by the O'Keefe family, and how O'Keefe amended or replaced details of his father's invention to create the Seinfeld episode.

Some people, influenced or inspired by Seinfeld, now celebrate the holiday in varying degrees of seriousness; some carefully follow rules from the TV show or books, while others humorously invent their own versions.

SENATOR TED KENNEDY

I'm well aware of how those on the right feel about our Senior Senator from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy. I've listened to their pathelogical hatred of this man for years as they continue to bring up his past transgressions. These are the same people who call themselves "religious."

Whether they're Christian or not, they have this in common: They do not forgive and will not forget what happened in 1969.

They have no knowledge of how Senator Kennedy reconciled this awful tragedy with his god--and they certainly don't believe in redemtion and the power of good works as penance for past wrongful behavior. This attitude is in direct contradiction to the teachings of their Personal Savior, Jesus Christ. This spiteful, vindictive posture toward Senator Kennedy says more about them and their galloping hypocrisy and anti-Christian behavior than it does Senator Kennedy.

I salute Senator Kennedy and wish that more people had the courage, humility, and forebearance that he has shown over the years.

James Carroll of the Boston Globe writes this about the unique award Harvard University recently conferred on Senator Kennedy:

Ted Kennedy, the champion
By James Carroll
December 1, 2008

HARVARD UNIVERSITY almost never grants honorary degrees outside the spring commencement ceremony. Rare exceptions have included George Washington, Winston Churchill, and Nelson Mandela. Today, such figures will be joined by Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, as he receives an honorary degree at a special Harvard convocation. An unadorned litany of Kennedy's achievements shows exactly why this honor is fitting, and why he belongs in such historic company.

An early champion of civil rights, Kennedy made his first mark by opening America's door with the Immigration Act of 1965, to which the Globe's Peter S. Canellos points as legislation that made this the multi-racial nation that could elect Barack Obama. Kennedy quickly emerged as a leading voice against the Vietnam War, which sealed his skepticism toward military adventures. His support of the desegregation of Boston Public Schools in the contentious 1970s made him controversial among his own core constituents. His back-channel contacts with leaders of the Soviet Union helped lay groundwork for détente and arms control, on which he became one of the Senate's leading voices.

When the conservative tide rolled in with Ronald Reagan, Kennedy came into his own as a new kind of opposition leader - a firmly liberal but supremely pragmatic legislator. He turned back Republican assaults on Social Security, legal aid, and voting rights. Prophetic critic of the "jellybean economics" that play out to this day; denouncer of "catsup-is-a-vegetable" stinginess ("The poor may be out of political fashion, but they are not without human needs"); first supporter of the nuclear freeze movement; wily obstacle in the path of the Reagan wars in Central America; leader of the sanctions movement against apartheid South Africa; derailer-in-chief of the Bork Supreme Court nomination; rare dissenter to what he called "the feel-good invasion" of Panama; clear-eyed critic of the first Gulf War, warning of consequences that, in fact, followed - again and again, history proved a lonely Kennedy to have been right.

The rest of the article is here.

CHRISTIANS IN ARKANSAS WARN THEIR TOWN ABOUT THE COMING GAY TIDE!!!

Yes, my friends, certain Christians want to spread this video to all corners of the US of A. These people want you to know that teh gaiii will take over your town if you don't watch out!

This is hilarious, except it really isn't.

After you get over your first reaction of disbelief, then hilarity, it's, well, depressing and then terrifying that in this technologically advanced country in the 21st century, we still have people who think that it's perfectly fine to spread lies and misinformation about their fellow Americans.

These people are frightened and grossly uninformed. What a great combination for doing harm to people.

PEGGY NOONAN PRAISES OBAMA'S TRANSITION AND TEAM CHOICES

"The hundred days are happening now. That's the real headline on President-elect Obama's series of news conferences and his announcements of intended administration policy, such as an economic stimulus package. We don't really have to wait till after the inauguration on Jan. 20 for the new administration to begin. What the Obama transition has become is historically unprecedented. He is filling the vacuum created by a collapsed incumbency and an acute economic crisis. He is moving forward with what looks like a high, if ad hoc, awareness of the delicacy of the situation. He can't seem presumptuous or aggressive: "We only have one president at a time." At the same time he can't hide. The White House exhibits chastened generosity, refusing to snipe, mock or attempt to undermine.

"Mr. Obama's cabinet picks and other nominations suggest moderation, also maturity, and his treatment of Joe Lieberman shows forbearance and shrewdness. Politics is a game of addition, take the long view, don't throw anyone out as you try to hit 60. Most of all, leave Mr. Lieberman having to prove every day to the Democratic caucus that he really is a Democrat. There's nothing in being a maverick now. Mr. Obama's preternatural steadiness continues. It's been a while since anyone called him Bambi or compared him to the ambivalent, self-torturing Adlai Stevenson. For all of which—and for the cooperation of the Bush administration, whose desire to be of assistance in what used to be called the transition is classy and a good example—one can be thankful.

"We can be thankful we had an election whose outcome was clear, not murky and a continuing trauma. It is good that 2008 was a seven-point win by someone, and not a 50-50 contest forced into resolution in the courts. Imagine what it would be like now, the general tone and feeling of the country, if at this moment we were arguing over hanging chads and bent ballots. I am thankful that more than half the country is, in at least one area, politics, happy, and that the 46% who voted the other way accepted the outcome as America always has, peacefully and with good-natured resentment. So many are hoping for the best, as if hoping for the best is a function or an expression of patriotism, which to a degree it is."

The rest of the article is here.

W. KRISTOL SUGGESTS BUSH GIVE THE MEDAL OF FREEDOM TO TORTURERS

I've always suspected that Kristol was a bit "funny" in the head. This confirms it. Kristol has been absolutely, completely, embarrassingly wrong on everything. And he's paid by the New York Times to write?

After urging Bush to fight the incoming administration’s desire to close Guantanamo, Kristol concludes with this:


One last thing: Bush should consider pardoning–and should at least be vociferously praising–everyone who served in good faith in the war on terror, but whose deeds may now be susceptible to demagogic or politically inspired prosecution by some seeking to score political points. The lawyers can work out if such general or specific preemptive pardons are possible; it may be that the best Bush can or should do is to warn publicly against any such harassment or prosecution. But the idea is this: The CIA agents who waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the NSA officials who listened in on phone calls from Pakistan, should not have to worry about legal bills or public defamation. In fact, Bush might want to give some of these public servants the Medal of Freedom at the same time he bestows the honor on Generals Petraeus and Odierno. They deserve it.


Source

HAPPY THANKSGIVING.

Off for the holiday. Enjoy your family and friends and your tofu turkey.

Later.

AH, GLORIOUS, GLORIOUS COMPETENCE, HOW WE'VE MISSED YOU!

The Economist, hardly a liberal publication, praises President-elect Barack Obama's competent and wise choice for Treasury Secretary.

Here's what it has to say:

Assuming he is nominated Mr Geithner brings two crucial qualities. First, he represents continuity. From the first days of the crisis last year, he has worked hand in glove with Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, and Mr Paulson. He can continue to do so while awaiting confirmation. If Citigroup, for example, needs federal help, Mr Geithner will be involved. An unknown when he joined the New York Fed in 2003, he is now a familiar face to the most senior executives on Wall Street and to central bankers and finance ministers overseas.

Second, he represents competence. He has spent more time on financial crises, from Mexico and Thailand to Brazil and Argentina, than probably any other policymaker in office today. Mr Geithner understands better than almost anyone that in crises you throw out the forecast and focus on avoiding low probability events with catastrophic consequences. Such judgments are excruciating: do too little, and you undermine confidence and generate a bigger crisis that needs even bigger policy action. Do too much, and you look panicked and invite blowback from Wall Street, Congress and the press. At times during the crisis Mr Geithner would counsel Mr Bernanke on the importance of the right “ratio of drama to effectiveness”.

Ah, glorious, glorious competence. How we've missed you.

Source

THE RUMP PARTY?

"Poll Data: GOP Fast Becoming Rump Party
By Eric Kleefeld -
November 21, 2008, 10:26AM

If some new poll data is to be believed, the Republicans might be in for a long time in the wilderness. Let's take a look at the numbers.


The new Gallup poll shows that the Republican Party as an institution has a 61% unfavorable rating, with only 34% favorable.

And the numbers have only gone downhill since the election -- in October they were at 40% favorable and 53% unfavorable.

But it actually gets worse for the GOP from there.


A separate question in the data set showed 59% of Republicans saying the party needs to be more conservative, compared to only 12% who say the party should be less conservative.


So not only is the pool of Republican voters shrinking, but the ones who remain are really nuts.


We could be seeing the emergence of a pattern common in democracies, when a ruling party is turned out of power in a landslide:


The folks who are left to pick up the pieces are often the most extreme elements, and are in fact the least fit to actually clean things up.

The best examples of this are probably the UK Labour Party after they were beaten by Margaret Thatcher in 1979, the Conservative Party after Tony Blair finally ousted them in 1997, and over here the Democrats when they lost in 1980 and then nominated Walter Mondale in 1984.



Hmm, can anyone say Palin/Bachmann in 2012?"


Source

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA'S USE OF COMPLETE SENTENCES STIRS CONTROVERSY

Stunning Break with Last Eight Years

In the first two weeks since the election, President-elect Barack Obama has broken with a tradition established over the past eight years through his controversial use of complete sentences, political observers say.

Millions of Americans who watched Mr. Obama's appearance on CBS' "Sixty Minutes" on Sunday witnessed the president-elect's unorthodox verbal tick, which had Mr. Obama employing grammatically correct sentences virtually every time he opened his mouth.

But Mr. Obama's decision to use complete sentences in his public pronouncements carries with it certain risks, since after the last eight years many Americans may find his odd speaking style jarring.

According to presidential historian Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota , some Americans might find it "alienating" to have a President who speaks English as if it were his first language.

"Every time Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs are in agreement," says Mr. Logsdon. "If he keeps it up, he is running the risk of sounding like an elitist."

The historian said that if Mr. Obama insists on using complete sentences in his speeches, the public may find itself saying, "Okay, subject, predicate, subject predicate - we get it, stop showing off."

The President-elect's stubborn insistence on using complete sentences has already attracted a rebuke from one of his harshest critics, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska .

"Talking with complete sentences there and also too talking in a way that ordinary Americans like Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder can't really do there, I think needing to do that isn't tapping into what Americans are needing also," she said.

AS MORE VOTES ARE COUNTED, PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA'S LEAD OVER MC CAIN WIDENS

President-elect Obama Now Over 67 Million Votes...

Wed Nov 19, 2008 at 10:54:28 AM PST

...and John McCain under 46%. Here's where the numbers stand right now:

Obama: 67,065,042 (52.7%, 365 EVs)
McCain: 58,420,587 (45.9%, 162 EVs)

Remember how things looked on election night at around midnight ET?

Since then, Barack Obama's margin of victory has grown from 5% to 7% and his vote total has swelled by 12.6 million (compared with 8.5 million for John McCain).

The crazy thing is, it's still growing, bit by bit.

h/t dailykos

TALK RADIO, AND HOW IT HELPED THE REPUBLICANS LOSE

Senator Chuck Hagel:

"We are educated by the great entertainers like Rush Limbaugh," said Hagel, sarcastically referencing the talk radio host who once called him "Senator Betrayus."

"You know, I wish Rush Limbaugh and others like that would run for office. They have so much to contribute and so much leadership and they have an answer for everything. And they would be elected overwhelmingly," he offered. "[The truth is] they try to rip everyone down and make fools of everybody but they don't have any answers."

And...

Kathleen Parker tell us why the Republicans lost:

As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit.

Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D.

I'm bathing in holy water as I type.

To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn't soon cometh.

Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth -- as long as we're setting ourselves free -- is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.

The choir has become absurdly off-key, and many Republicans know it.

But they need those votes!

So it has been for the Grand Old Party since the 1980s or so, as it has become increasingly beholden to an element that used to be relegated to wooden crates on street corners.

Short break as writer ties blindfold and smokes her last cigarette.

Which is to say, the GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows. In the process, the party has alienated its non-base constituents, including other people of faith (those who prefer a more private approach to worship), as well as secularists and conservative-leaning Democrats who otherwise might be tempted to cross the aisle.

Here's the deal, 'pubbies: Howard Dean was right.

Read the rest here.

My friend Patrick over at Sane Political Discourse had some thoughtful posts on what happened to the Republican Party. Unfortunately, every conservative blog I've read, post election, refuses to acknowledge one of the primary reasons the Republican Party lost the 2006 and 2008 elections. The Economist, hardly a liberal publication, takes a good hard look at what conservatives choose to ignore. Here are the main points and a link to the entire article.

Conservatives/Republicans: Ignore this at the risk of becoming a smaller and smaller based political party of backward thinkers.

Ship of fools

Nov 13th 2008
From The Economist

Political parties die from the head down

JOHN STUART MILL once dismissed the British Conservative Party as the stupid party. Today the Conservative Party is run by Oxford-educated high-fliers who have been busy reinventing conservatism for a new era. As Lexington sees it, the title of the “stupid party” now belongs to the Tories’ transatlantic cousins, the Republicans.

There are any number of reasons for the Republican Party’s defeat on November 4th. But high on the list is the fact that the party lost the battle for brains. Barack Obama won college graduates by two points, a group that George Bush won by six points four years ago. He won voters with postgraduate degrees by 18 points. And he won voters with a household income of more than $200,000—many of whom will get thumped by his tax increases—by six points. John McCain did best among uneducated voters in Appalachia and the South.

The Republicans lost the battle of ideas even more comprehensively than they lost the battle for educated votes, marching into the election armed with nothing more than slogans. Energy? Just drill, baby, drill. Global warming? Crack a joke about Ozone Al. Immigration? Send the bums home. Torture and Guantánamo? Wear a T-shirt saying you would rather be water-boarding. Ha ha. During the primary debates, three out of ten Republican candidates admitted that they did not believe in evolution.

The Republican Party’s divorce from the intelligentsia has been a while in the making. The born-again Mr Bush preferred listening to his “heart” rather than his “head”. He also filled the government with incompetent toadies like Michael “heck-of-a-job” Brown, who bungled the response to Hurricane Katrina. Mr McCain, once the chattering classes’ favourite Republican, refused to grapple with the intricacies of the financial meltdown, preferring instead to look for cartoonish villains. And in a desperate attempt to serve boob bait to Bubba, he appointed Sarah Palin to his ticket, a woman who took five years to get a degree in journalism, and who was apparently unaware of some of the most rudimentary facts about international politics.

Republicanism’s anti-intellectual turn is devastating for its future. The party’s electoral success from 1980 onwards was driven by its ability to link brains with brawn. The conservative intelligentsia not only helped to craft a message that resonated with working-class Democrats, a message that emphasised entrepreneurialism, law and order, and American pride. It also provided the party with a sweeping policy agenda. The party’s loss of brains leaves it rudderless, without a compelling agenda.

This is happening at a time when the American population is becoming more educated. More than a quarter of Americans now have university degrees. Twenty per cent of households earn more than $100,000 a year, up from 16% in 1996. Mark Penn, a Democratic pollster, notes that 69% call themselves “professionals”. McKinsey, a management consultancy, argues that the number of jobs requiring “tacit” intellectual skills has increased three times as fast as employment in general. The Republican Party’s current “redneck strategy” will leave it appealing to a shrinking and backward-looking portion of the electorate.


[more...]

Link

Interesting letter in the comments section of The Economist regarding this article:

Sinistar wrote:
November 17, 2008 18:26

Hi all, First time post. This article was dead on and I applaud the Economist for publishing it. I am a long time Republican (Cast my first vote for Reagan in 1984) that has lost patience and tolerance for the Republican party and voted for Mr. Obama this time.

I am one of those Post Graduate degreed individuals that will probably see his taxes go up but still voted Democratic. To be honest I'm willing to give up some of my income in exchange for a return of the Constitution and to defeat the Evil of Willful ignorance.

It seems to me the party of Reagan has been hijacked by the Mitt Romneys and the Dr. Dobbson's that say you can't be a Republican unless you turn your back on Scientific research and exploration ala Stem Cell Research, Evolution, etc.

The Evangelicals wouldn't vote for McCain until he was willing to hold up his right hand and swear alegiance to Life starts at Conception and Marriage is only between a man and a woman.

When the Republican party is ready to accept ideas that don't come straight from the Bible they may get some of us back. But for now I am happy to put as much distance between me and the Evangelical Republicans as possible. Good Riddance!!!

THE OBESE SOUTH

I have no idea why the south is the fattest area in the nation. The south has the mildest weather, compared with, say Boston, where I live. So the population has more opportunities to be outside and moving around: running, walking, playing sports. I don't know why this area of the country has this problem. But I hope the people begin to address this issue.

Huntington, W.Va., home to highest percentage of obese; also tops in diabetes, loss of teeth
By MIKE STOBBE Associated Press 6 hours, 30 minutes ago in Science & Health
As a portly woman plodded ahead of him on the sidewalk, the obese mayor of America's fattest and unhealthiest city explained why health is not a big local issue.

"It doesn't come up," said David Felinton, 5-foot-9 and 233 pounds, as he walked toward City Hall one recent morning. "We've got a lot of economic challenges here in Huntington. That's usually the focus."

Huntington's economy has withered, its poverty rate is worse than the national average, and vagrants haunt a downtown riverfront park. But this city's financial woes are not nearly as bad as its health.

Nearly half the adults in Huntington's five-county metropolitan area are obese _ an astounding percentage, far bigger than the national average in a country with a well-known weight problem.
Huntington leads in a half-dozen other illness measures, too, including heart disease and diabetes. It's even tops in the percentage of elderly people who have lost all their teeth (half of them have).

It's a sad situation, and a potential harbinger of what will happen to other U.S. communities, said Ken Thorpe, an Emory University health policy professor who is working with West Virginia officials on health reform legislation.

"They may be at the very top, but obesity and diabetes trends are very similar" in many other communities, particularly in the South, Thorpe said.
The Huntington area's health problems, cited in a U.S. health report, are a terrible distinction for the city, but the locals barely talk about it. Many don't even know how poorly the city ranks.
Culture and history are at least part of the problem, health officials say.

The rest of the story is here.

YES SHE SHOULD!

Sarah "explains" the media and its bias to you:




I have no idea what she's said. She keeps talking in circles and then contradicts herself at least 4 times in this.



We've heard a lot of speculation over whether or not Sarah Palin will be the Republican nominee for president in 2012, as well as the head of the RNC.

I hope she does both. Yes! Please. I want to hear more from Gov. Palin. More like this, please:

BLITZER: I just want to sort of footnote, was that your idea or did somebody write those lines for you?

PALIN: It was a collaborative effort there in deciding how do we start bringing up some of the associations that perhaps would be impacting on an administration, on the future of America. But again, though, Wolf, knowing that it really -- at this point, I don't want to point fingers backwards and play the blame game, certainly, on anything that took place in terms of strategy or messaging in the campaign.

Now is the time to move forward together, start progressing America.

Oh yes, let's start progressing America! America needs you Gov. Palin.

**********************

She was asked Wednesday about speculation that she is the party's future


"I don't think it's me personally, I think it's what I represent," Palin told reporters. "Everyday hardworking American families _ a woman on the ticket perhaps represents that. It would be good for the ticket. It would be good for the party. I would be happy to get to do whatever is asked of me to help progress this nation."

"Progressing America" or "progress this nation!" Sarah is a progressor! Or is it "progressive?"

You go Sarah.

On that pesky rumor about Africa: Country or Continent?

Palin: "So we discussed what was going on in Africa. And never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or is it a continent. I just don't know about this issue. So I don't know how they took our one discussion on Africa and turned that into what they turned it into.

"I don't know, because I remember the discussion about Africa, my concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue, as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska's investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars, I wanted to make sure that that didn't happen anymore."

Classic Sarah:

Q: You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?


A: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and, on our other side, the land-boundary that we have with Canada. It's funny that a comment like that was kinda mocked, I guess that's the word. Well, it certainly does, because our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of. We have trade missions back and forth, we do. As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there, they are right next to our state.

And on 2012: She'll be plowing through that crack in the door:

On 2012: "I can't predict what's going to happen. I can't predict what's going to happen a day from now, much less four years from now...

"You know, I have -- faith is a very big part of my life. And putting my life in my creator's hands -- this is what I always do. I'm like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door. Show me where the open door is. Even if it's cracked up a little bit, maybe I'll plow right on through that and maybe prematurely plow through it, but don't let me miss an open door. And if there is an open door in '12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I'll plow through that door."


Yes. Please let this woman be the face of the Republican Party, and its nominee for president in 2012.

Get Your War On

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

For more GYWO

OH THE TIMES, THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'

Come gather round people wherever you roam

And admit that the waters around you have grown

And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone

If your time to you is worth saving

Then you'd better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone

For the times, they are a changing

Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pens

And keep your eyes open, the chance won't come again

And don't speak too soon, the wheel's still in spin

And there's no telling who that it's naming

Oh the loser will be later to winFor the times, they are a changing

Come senators, congressmen, please head the call

Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall

For he that gets hurt will be her that has stalled

The battle outside ragging will soon shake your windows

And rattle your hall

For the times, they are a changing

Come mothers and fathers all over this land

And don't criticize what you can't understand

Your sons and your daughter are beyond your command

Your old role is rapidly aging

Please get out of the new one if you can't lend a hand

For the times they are a changing

The line, it is drawn, the curse, it is cast

The slow one will later be fast

And the present now will soon be the past

The order is rapidly fadingThe first one now will later be last

For the times, they are a changing

DOES THE STOCK MARKET DO BETTER UNDER DEMOCRATS THAN UNDER REPUBLICANS?

The data say unequivocally YES!

This post is in response to a new commenter, two dogs, here at Progressive Eruptions who said I was wrong when I made the claim that the stock market historically does better under the Democrats than it does under Republicans. Here are the facts:

Stock Market Returns: Democrats vs. Republicans

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Posted by ei-forum in Investing. trackback

One of the topics that seems to be all over the news is what Presidency will be best for the stock markets.

At fist sight, one would tend to think that the markets would react more positively to a Republican victory:

Generally big money and big businesses in the market tends to be Republican

Republicans are all about capital accumulation and low taxes

Republicans tend to favor growth through economic policy, free markets

Etc….

But it appears that the above is not true… apart from the fact that there is a trend for a more pronounced bounce after a Republican victory, history shows us that the Democrats are better for the markets.

The New York Times has published a really interesting chart/study showing that under a Democratic Presidency the average yearly return is better and that a $10,000 investment in the S&P in 1929 would have grown to $11,733 if invested under Republican presidents only and to $300,671 at a compound rate of 8.9% under Democratic Presidents:

PALIN'S RHETORIC INCITED ASSASSINATION THREATS, ACCORDING TO US SECRET SERVICE

Sarah Palin blamed by the US Secret Service over death threats against Barack Obama


Sarah Palin's attacks on Barack Obama's patriotism provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign.

The Republican vice presidential candidate attracted criticism for accusing Mr Obama of "palling around with terrorists", citing his association with the sixties radical William Ayers.


The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling "terrorist" and "kill him" until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric.
But it has now emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further.



The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin's attacks.


Michelle Obama, the future First Lady, was so upset that she turned to her friend and campaign adviser Valerie Jarrett and said: "Why would they try to make people hate us?"


The revelations, contained in a Newsweek history of the campaign, are likely to further damage Mrs Palin's credentials as a future presidential candidate. She is already a frontrunner, with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, to take on Mr Obama in four years time.


Details of the spike in threats to Mr Obama come as a report last week by security and intelligence analysts Stratfor, warned that he is a high risk target for racist gunmen. It concluded: "Two plots to assassinate Obama were broken up during the campaign season, and several more remain under investigation. We would expect federal authorities to uncover many more plots to attack the president that have been hatched by white supremacist ideologues."


Irate John McCain aides, who blame Mrs Palin for losing the election, claim Mrs Palin took it upon herself to question Mr Obama's patriotism, before the line of attack had been cleared by Mr McCain.

Source

(Remember. This is the woman the conservatives adore and hope will run for office--president?-- in 2012.)

Just what this country needs. A woman who will appeal to the worst in America.

THE RISING IRRELEVANCE OF TALK RADIO

It is no secret that I dislike Rush Limbaugh and the likes of Hannity and Savage. I believe they have done more harm to this country than we can accurately assess. "Ditto Heads" are called that for a reason--they let Rush tell them what to think. When someone with a political agenda has three hours a day, five days a week for decades to tell people that the opposition party are demons and enemies, it's no wonder we have been a divided nation.

But perhaps talk radio's influence is coming to an end. This piece in The Boston Globe spells out the whys and how of Rush's waning days as Demagogue in Chief of the conservatives.




ONE MORE note on the significance of the presidential election of 2008: It's the first one in more than 30 years on which talk radio had no major impact.

Perhaps the Carter-Ford contest in 1976 was the last in which talk radio was so irrelevant to public opinion on candidates and issues. In retrospect, 1979 (the year the Iranian hostage crisis began) and 2004 (the year of George W. Bush's reelection) may well be regarded as bookends of talk radio's greatest influence on American politics.

Consider some of the major stumbles this year by the medium's 800-pound gorilla. Rush Limbaugh vigorously promoted three separate political objectives over the past year, all of which failed: derailing John McCain's quest for the Republican nomination, sabotaging Barack Obama's drive for the Democratic nomination by fomenting Republican crossover votes for Hillary Clinton, and ultimately stopping Obama's march to victory in the general election. Contrast this with the impact talk radio once had on local taxes, the impeachment of Bill Clinton, congressional pay raises, a mandatory seat belt law, etc.

What happened?


Most radio people hate to discuss the primary factor: overall use of their medium is in decline. Although the trend is affecting news and talk (including public radio) less than music programming, it is inexorable.


Alternatives to broadcast radio have proliferated - satellite, netcasts, downloads, blogalogue, iPod entertainment, cellphone updates. As a result, younger listeners largely ignore talk radio, and its existing audience is calcifying.


New ears - even middle-aged or senior ears - are vital to talk radio's influence because they are attached to brains that are available for persuasion, rather than brains that have already made a choice. In other words, if Limbaugh and Michael Savage (not to mention Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz, and other more recent adventurers in talk) fail to attract many new listeners, they end up talking only to those who agree with their opinions, and thus have a smaller chance to affect the ideas of the electorate in general.


Beyond the shift in media usage are three factors of content and style.

First, news-and-comment television has gradually usurped talk radio's position as the destination of choice for freewheeling opinion. Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly are the major faces of the form, but news with an edge now defines the programming on Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN. Talk radio, even when its sounds stimulate imaginary pictures in the minds of listeners, is low-def.


Second, American listeners no longer expect talk-radio hosts to be reasonable - or even rational. Most listeners now assume that when they strike a talk show as they cruise across the dial, the talker will be a (sometimes rabid) promoter of a particular point of view.


Third, talk radio no longer even pretends to be a "town meeting of the air." The telephone call itself, which was a primary reason for the form's wide acceptance, has become an inconvenient appendage to most programs. Hosts, along with the usually inaudible producers, programmers, managers, and owners, ordinarily do not perceive callers' contributions as valuable use of airtime.


Phone calls from listeners once occupied 40 to 50 percent of a typical program. A host would often spend five to 10 minutes, and sometimes much more, with an individual caller, if the caller's ideas warranted it. Past paragons of talk familiar to many Bostonians - hosts like Jerry Williams, Paul Benzaquin, and David Brudnoy - actually argued with their callers. They asked them questions like, "What makes you say that?" or "Why do you feel that way?" This led the majority of listeners, the people who never made calls themselves, to value the medium as a place they could sample the ideas of others - even if they didn't agree with them.


But there's no going back, even if a modern host wanted to try. The American mass audience is dispersing, and talk radio, if it is to survive, will have to adapt to a nichified world.


Steve Elman worked for WBUR for 30 years. Alan Tolz is executive vice president and chief operating officer for Marlin Broadcasting. They are the authors of "Burning Up the Air: Jerry Williams, Talk Radio and the Life in Between."

CHANGE.GOV

Here's a great website that catalogs everything that President-elect Obama and his team is working on during the transition period.

http://www.change.gov/

OUT OF AFRICA, ER, HER MIND, ACTUALLY.

DEAR SARAH,

This is Africa. It is a continent. South Africa is a COUNTRY on the continent of AFRICA.

You're welcome.

It is stunning that a woman who was chosen by the Republican presidential nominee didn't know basic information.

She also didn't know what countries were included in NAFTA.

This is not according to any Liberal blog or any Liberal commentator.

This was reported by FOX NEWS.

DEAR SUFFERING JESUS!

Perhaps one of the most astounding and previously unknown tidbits about Sarah Palin has to do with her already dubious grasp of geography. According to Fox News Chief Political Correspondent Carl Cameron, there was great concern within the McCain campaign that Palin lacked "a degree of knowledgeability necessary to be a running mate, a vice president, a heartbeat away from the presidency," in part because she didn't know which countries were in NAFTA, and she "didn't understand that Africa was a continent, rather than a series, a country just in itself."

Palin was apparently a nightmare for her campaign staff to deal with. She refused preparation help for her interview with Katie Couric and then blamed her staff, specifically Nicole Wallace, when the interview was panned as a disaster. After the Couric interview, Fox News reported, Palin turned nasty with her staff and began to accuse them of mishandling her. Palin would view press clippings of herself in the morning and throw "tantrums" over the negative coverage. There were times when she would be so nasty and angry that her staff was reduced to tears.

Some of my blog friends who adore Sarah Palin will defend this hideous example of her ignorance. Why?

Sigh.

HOPE

A reader from Andrew Sullivan's blog wrote this, and I'm passing it on because it echoes my feelings as well as the feelings of friends and family:

"Nothing in my life has actually changed in the 30 minutes since it was announced Obama will be our next president. I have the same bills, the same amount of money in the bank, my dishwasher is still broken, and my 5 month old beagle won't stop peeing on my carpet. Everything in my life is exactly the same as it was 30 minutes ago; and yet I feel as though everything is different.

I feel so much hope. I feel so much pride. I feel like my one vote was a single drop of water in a great Tsunami of change. I feel like I was one of a million voices screaming in the night, " I love my country and I'm taking it back!" I'm so proud of the country that I love and have so much hope in my heart that we can together heal the wounds that have been such a source of pain and anger to us all.

I know Obama isn't going to fix the economy overnight, I know he won't be able to provide healthcare to all Americans by February '09. I know Obama isn't a Messiah who four years from now will have turned this country into a fabled utopia. But I also know Obama will make moral decisions. I know Obama will try to unite where others try to divide. I know Obama will help to make America the beacon of hope it once was to others. I know that at 27 years of age, I witnessed one of the most important and hopefully glorious chapters in American history.

I know hope."

PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA!

VOTE FOR CHANGE!

Manassas, Virginia: Click on the image for a larger view.

ONE DAY MORE

YES WE CAN!

MC CAIN WAS PALLING AROUND WITH WHO????

– Bad enough for a presidential candidate to pal around with a “lawless radical,” Steve Chapman writes in the Chicago Tribune, but worse to clam up about it even as you blast your opponent for the same thing. That’s exactly where John McCain is over dealings with G. Gordon Liddy, who was convicted for Watergate felonies and since urged radio listeners to kill federal agents.

“This leads us to some inescapable conclusions,” Chapman writes. “The first is that McCain lied when he promised to lay out his relationship with Liddy. The second is that he is hypocritical in demanding something of Obama”—see Bill Ayers—“that he won't do himself. The third is that he is scared to tell Americans the truth because they won't like what they hear.”




McCain stonewalls on radical friend
Steve Chapman
October 23, 2008

There are three things in the world that you should recognize will not happen in this lifetime. You will not become a billionaire. The Cubs will not win the World Series. And John McCain will not explain his warm association with a notorious political criminal.

McCain has attacked Barack Obama for his connection to former Weather Underground member William Ayers, who in McCain's words "was unrepentant over his activities as a member of a terrorist organization." In the final debate, McCain said that "we need to know the full extent of that relationship."

But though he thinks it's terrible for Obama to associate with dangerous militants, he thinks it's fine for him to do the same thing. And he'd rather go back to the Hanoi Hilton than disclose "the full extent of that relationship."

The extremist McCain has befriended is G. Gordon Liddy, who got a 20-year prison sentence for multiple felonies in the Watergate scandal—including burglary, conspiracy and illegal wiretapping.

Finally forced to acknowledge the connection in an interview last week by David Letterman, McCain ducked and dodged before replying, "He went to prison, he paid his debt, as people do. I'm not in any way embarrassed to know Gordon Liddy."

Source