Politics
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Governing from the Center (Updated)
I don’t have a problem with Obama’s moving to the center as an overall strategy in the general election. His job once elected will be to govern from the center, and he has to obtain the confidence of those who live there if he will have any effectiveness once elected. But I think it’s legitimate
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Always Good Reasons for Doing the Wrong Thing
The real danger is that those who defend Obama the Candidate no matter what he does are likely to defend Obama the President no matter what he does, too. If we learn in 2009 that Obama has invoked his claimed Article II powers to spy on Americans outside of even the new FISA law, are
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Dodd’s Speech
This is probably the speech of his career. Best lines: "The compromise between liberty and security remains a difficult one. But dismissing this case at the outset would sacrifice liberty for no apparent enhancement of security. And that ought to be the epitaph of this Administration: “sacrificing liberty for no apparent enhancement of security.” Worse
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Winning at Any Cost (Updates 1 &2)
MJ Rosenberg makes the case at TPM Cafe: No election in my time has been as remotely significant as this. I don't have to explain why to any liberal or progressive except to say that Obama's election is, literally, a matter of life and death for many Americans, not to mention God knows how many
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Integrity and Compromise
I'm not a politician. I have neither the temperament or the kind of drive that is a prerequisite for success as one. But if I was one, I would recognize that I had to pick my fights carefully. I would recognize that sometimes I would have to make choices dictated by political reality that I
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Obama Supports FISA “Compromise” (Updates 1, 2, & 3)
Pretty disappointing. I haven't had time to read a lot on this, but in what substantive sense is this a compromise? Does anybody know of an analysis of what Obama's thinking is on supporting this travesty? Or is it just the normal fear of being seen too left on the issue when he's trying to
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Authoritarian Watch: Title VIII
Title VIII of the so-called "Protect America Act" is called "Protection of Persons Assisting the Government." Greenwald's interpretation: So all the Attorney General has to do is recite those magic words — the President requested this eavesdropping and did it in order to save us from the Terrorists — and the minute he utters those
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Profile of an Obamacan: Andrew Bacevich
From his article "The Right Choice?The conservative case for Barack Obama" in The American Conservative: Barack Obama is no conservative. Yet if he wins the Democratic nomination, come November principled conservatives may well find themselves voting for the senator from Illinois. Given the alternatives—and the state of the conservative movement—they could do worse. Granted, when
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Authoritarian Watch: Democrats Still Craven
Greenwald this morning about the telecom amnesty bill that looks like it will pass soon with Democratic support: Democrats are about to institutionalize a proposition that has been rejected since the Nuremberg Trials — namely, that individuals (or, more accurately, lobbyist-protected corporations) are free to break the law as long as they can claim afterwards
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Guantanamo Ruling
Relieved, but still 5-4? And that it should even come to this? And Roberts is one of the four dissenters. I had no hope for Alito, but I wanted to believe that Roberts was a principled conservative, but he is clearly a rightist. As we see in England, principled conservatives oppose security state-driven thinking that