Hey Cuz, I Mean Mr. President

Thanks to stumbling on my parents' names in a genealogy online, I discovered for the first time that I've acquired new relatives.

An email exchange to the person who posted it confirms that the daughter of one of my first cousins married into this family.  But in first trying to figure out why my parents were part of this family tree, I followed one of the branches to find some familiar names: George Bush, George W. Bush.  Yeah, those Bushes.

So I am distantly related to the Bushes, which means I am even more distantly related to the Clintons and the Obamas, because they are all related.

So, however distantly, I am related to the last four Presidents of the United States, and maybe the next one.






And not one of them invited me to Thanksgiving dinner.

Towards the Showdown of Delusion?

As Republicans continue to accelerate their noxious nonsense, Democratic leaders are pushing back with some plain talk.

Addressing the recent resurrection of the Republican vampire called Cheney and his allied neocons providing the same insane analysis and policy prescriptions (i.e. war) for Iraq, former President Bill Clinton told NBC News: "If they hadn't gone to war in Iraq, none of this would be happening. Mr. Cheney has been incredibly adroit for the last six years or so attacking the administration for not doing an adequate job of cleaning up the mess that he made. And I think it's unseemly."

Last week Speaker of the House Banal announced the GOPers were going to sue President Obama for some of his executive actions as President.  Josh Marshall is among those who see this as a prequel to an inevitable attempt to impeach the President.

While on a trip to Minnesota (photo above) which included a town hall meeting (the best of the three events), a short speech at a party event held at the residence of an early supporter, President Obama addressed this suit bluntly in a public speech in Minneapolis:

"And, now, some of you may have read -- so we take these actions and then now Republicans are mad at me for taking these actions. They’re not doing anything, and then they’re mad that I’m doing something. I’m not sure which of the things I’ve done they find most offensive, but they’ve decided they’re going to sue me for doing my job."

Though this quote made the news, the President surrounded it with factual statements about what he had done and what Congress had not done, plus one thing they did (vote for more tax breaks for the wealthy.)

But even buried in the middle of a substantive speech, this blunt defense (plus some blunt offense) signals that if Republicans think they can take the stage alone through impeachment, they better think again: President Obama is not going to be passive or above it all.  He's ready to go right at them.

It's hard to credit this impeachment talk, since there isn't anything approaching a real scandal except in the GOP/Fox echo chamber.  They may be looking at the President's marginally dropping approval numbers, but these can be deceptive.  In analyzing dropping approval numbers on his foreign policy while the polls also show that voters actually support Obama's foreign policy actions, Dan Dresner in the Post makes a distinction between "outputs" and "outcomes."  Those surveyed show their unhappiness with the outcomes--that is, the current mess in Iraq for instance--but they agree with the outputs, that is the specific policies.

I think this is true on domestic issues as well (which is why in MN President Obama made sure to describe his attempts to get those policies enacted that he, the Democratic party and the majority of Americans support): voters surveyed register their unhappiness with various outcomes (from the job market to congressional stalemate) more than President Obama's policies (which they largely support) or certainly President Obama himself.

If Republicans don't understand this, they might convince themselves that impeachment is a winning strategy, regardless of whether or not it is an abuse of the Constitution.  But they would be really, really wrong.

Let me put it this way: President Obama's Inaugurals brought several million people to Washington.  Do they want to see how many will assemble in front of the Capitol if they're rash enough to try this, and somebody calls for such a rally?

I didn't make it to either Inaugurals, but if this happens, believe me I'll be there.  And so will a lot of others.  President Obama's core support is deep and wide.  On top of that, there are millions who won't look kindly on such a repulsive political move.

 So GOPers, consider this a not entirely friendly warning.  And let me speak plainly too.  You want to do this?  Go ahead.  Make my day.

A Speech to Remember

On election day in 1992,  I drove from my beloved Pittsburgh apartment to my polling place with "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow" on a loop in my Chevette's cassette player.  And I played it really loud on the way home.  What a day that was.

To that same song--his convention theme song (a mystery until it played after his acceptance speech)--Bill Clinton walked onto the stage at the 2012 Democratic National Convention and gave the speech of his life.

And that's saying something.  There have been a few comparative clunkers through the years--his famous first convention speech (in which he got the biggest applause for the line, "in conclusion...") and his second Inaugural.  But he could make speeches even on the most pedestrian occasions (including ones that a relative handful of people heard, only on C-Span) shine.  And he made some very important ones for himself--especially at his nominating convention but at various times on the big stages throughout his presidency.

As many commentators said--and as I suggested was the golden opportunity waiting to be taken--he gave a detailed policy speech and rebuttal of GOPer lies, contrasting with the GOPers refusal to be specific about anything.  He did it with clarity and charm and some perfect one-liners (which to be fair were scattered in a number of speeches throughout the day--all showing signs of having been at least edited by the same speechwriting team.)  There was something Mark Twain about how he summarized the GOPer argument against Obama: "we left him a perfect mess but he didn't clean it up fast enough, so fire him and hire us back."

He made the key arguments, but more than that he gave them the weight of his own presidency.“No president — no president — not me, not any of my predecessors, no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years,” Clinton said. “He has laid the foundations for a new modern successful economy, a shared prosperity, and if you will renew the president’s contract, you will feel it.”

 I wasn't too crazy about how he handled himself in the 08 primaries, and I disagreed with some of what he did as President (though I usually wound up defending him to friends.) But this brought back fonder memories. Memories also of how he drove the GOP literally crazy. They really hated him.  Now he's got a 69% approval rating, even higher among women.

So two nights, two outstanding, historic speeches.  As Jonathan Bernstein wrote, "Bill Clinton tonight showed them all how it’s done. He gave a master class in how to combine folksy and poetic language, stinging one-liners and policy nuance, empathy and rip-roaring partisanship. It was as good as it gets."  Other commentaries: Joe Klein,  Michael Tomasky, Dan Amira (with a video of the entire 48 minute speech.)

Though Tuesday lacked the freshness of the first day, there were other highlights: Olympic Gold Medalist Gabby Douglas leading the Pledge of Allegiance and Brandon Marsalis playing the national anthem, Planned Parenthood prez Camille Richards (who I didn't know is the daughter of beloved Ann Richards), Sister Simone Campbell (one of the nuns on the bus--I'm not a Catholic anymore, but she made me proud of having been one), Sandra Fluke, Elizabeth Warren.  And remarkably the energy in the hall seemed to stay up all day.

So of course this all leaves everybody wondering how vp Joe Biden and especially President Obama are going to top this or even measure up tomorrow.  Not a bad problem to have.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Have a Nightmare

The new memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington has experienced a number of problems and setbacks.  Some say it is at best an undistinguished likeness, while other castigate the somewhat fake quote that is set there in stone.  There was controversy about how it was built and who built it, with allegations of near slave labor.  And of course, its dedication on the anniversary of Dr. King's March on Washington speech was cancelled due to Hurricane Irene.

But the biggest injury to Dr. King's legacy is happening in state after after across America, where the very voting rights he championed on that hot August 1963 afternoon are being wiped away for many African Americans and for others.

GOPer sponsored changes in state laws to make it harder for minorities to vote have been chronicled by Rachel Maddow for months, and more recently the subject of an excellent Rolling Stone article, and a speech by Bill Clinton quoted in that article:.    "One of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time," Bill Clinton told a group of student activists in July. "Why is all of this going on? This is not rocket science. They are trying to make the 2012 electorate look more like the 2010 electorate than the 2008 electorate" – a reference to the dominance of the Tea Party last year, compared to the millions of students and minorities who turned out for Obama. "There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today."

Almost as disturbing as this blatant injustice is the relative quiet that has greeted it.  There have been some legal challenges, specifically by the Justice Department, but there need to be more, and they need to be a front-burner issue.  I had expected the ACLU to make it a priority, but I see no evidence of that.  There are a lot of important issues to address, but there are also priorities.  This is a real threat to the progress of democracy.  And if successful, along with other machinations and chicanery, could disenfranchise those with the greatest stake in the future.  It is racist in effect and in intent.  It must be stopped.  So forget the monuments, and remember what the struggle was for.  Because it's not over.

Election 2010: The "I" Word, Coming to a Congress Near You?

Here I am, doing exactly what I've accused other blogs of doing too much of: mentioning Christine O'Donnell. But her "I'm you" ad campaign rang a bell in my memory. Wasn't there some other dubious person trying to deflect bad publicity with that phrase: "I'm you?"

Yes, there was. Her name was Linda Tripp.

Linda Tripp was the woman who recorded phone conversations with Monica Lewinsky and passed them on to Ken Starr and his $70 million investigation that led so slowly to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

Up until then, one "scandal" after another proved to be little more than the inflated terms of attack by GOPer zealots. But Linda Tripp gave the torturous investigation new life. The public didn't respond to her well, though. Especially since it looked like she had used multiple deceits to make some money with a book deal. So she hired a PR agent and gave a little press conference, where she asked the question, Who am I? and answered it, "I'm you."

But my thoughts did not follow the path of comparing Linda Tripp to Christine O'Donnell. Instead they fixed on this period that Americans who lived through it have largely blanked from their minds. Months and months of accusations and attacks, culminating in a President being impeached for only the second time in history, on grounds that few constitutional scholars could reconcile with the charge of high crimes and misdemeanors, bearing on the office of the Presidency.

But the GOPers controlled Congress, and they did it, because they could. This--along with the federal government shutdowns--was in fact the Republican Revolution. Notice that at the time, the economy was in great shape, and Clinton was a popular President.

Now consider one more possible ramification of a GOPer majority in 2010, besides frustrating any progressive legislation, or anything and everything that President Obama backs, attempting to reverse, repeal and defund whatever hard-won progress that's been made while proposing to deform the constitution, promote official bigotry and ignore earth-shattering dangers. For some GOPers in high places have already promised government shutdowns--and lots of investigations.

Investigations, ending with what? The attempted impeachment of the first African American U.S. President? You say he isn't giving them the opening that Clinton did, with complicated business deals and personal misconduct. But do you think that really matters? That this would stop them? These folks who deny he was born where he was born, and that his religion is his religion? Many are running on claims that have no basis in fact whatever (Sharia law?). Because they can, and they have the money to make pernicious illusion into consequential reality.

The Obama administration could have pursued investigations and even prosecutions--including impeachment-- into multiple areas of the Bush administration, from politicizing judicial and other appointments, to ordering torture and starting a war by knowingly lying to Congress and the American people. But they didn't. The country was in a terrible economic crisis, brought on by Bush policies. The country was embroiled in complex wars, created and mishandled by the Bushcorpse. Obama put country first.

But immense threats to the future, including the current possibility of another economic crisis, won't stop the GOPers from their sociopathic approach to politics. To their less than subtle class war, they could very well add an open race war, as well as putting the world through another disgusting, depressing and immensely damaging political crisis.

Far-fetched? Is there a standard for that?

Guard the change.

Encouraging Terrorists by Calling Them Patriots

In some ways it's becoming an old story, but we can't approach it that way: the continuing escalation of violent language, along with systematic lying--of asserting pretty much the opposite of what's true--is becoming the most prominent feature of Republican rhetoric. The GOP is becoming little more than the party of of decadent and dangerous demagogues.

Republicans in Congress are flat-out lying about the financial reform bill, both in terms of process and in what it proposes to do. This kind of Nineteen Eighty-Four politics, besides being lethal to democratic decision-making, tends to lend credibility to the extreme rhetoric, which continues to escalate.

It was striking that for a few minutes today, two cable channels (CNN & MSNBC) were covering the explosion in extremism, while two others (FOX & CNBC) were providing living examples of it.

On CNN, Wolf Blitzer was interviewing President Clinton, who talked about parallels between now and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, which is the subject of a revealing documentary on Timothy McVeigh by Rachel Maddow that has been excerpted all week and airs in full on Monday. In terms of threats against President Obama specifically, the former President said "I worry about it." This is the most explicit statement at the highest level of experience indicating we should all be paying attention to it.

Of the anti-government Rabid Right Clinton said: "Some are serious, some are delirious. Some are connected and some are unhinged...We need to be intellectually honest about what some words might do to people who are unstable."

The systematic process now underway encourages domestic terrorists and potential assassins by suggesting they would be patriots--fighting for freedom, "taking out" the "gangsters" of the "totalitarian" federal government, using the guns they are encouraged to proudly carry and display.

The most decadent element of this is that nothing that happens is likely to change it. Even if there is a dramatic violent event--another Oklahoma City or an assassination attempt--this echo chamber of profit-making liars will turn it on its head, and will continue. They will never admit to their responsibility, but now is the time to mark it: if violence happens, they are responsible for fueling it and suggesting that people who engage in it are patriots, and will be praised. Turning terrorists into patriots, after all, is consistent with the GOPer policy of lying outrageously, and asserting the opposite of what is true.

Maybe the only thing that stops or slows it down is electoral rejection, or reflection in the polls. Unfortunately this extremist violent and often racist rhetoric and the systematic lying are apparently being rewarded by poll numbers. It's like the runup to the Iraq war. You know people are going to be sorry after it happens. But they get helplessly fooled, and they do get fooled again.

A Very Dangerous Game in Kennedy Country

The assassination of a young archduke of a European power and his wife by terrorist fanatics of the Black Hand, set off a chain reaction of war that became the Great War, the first world war that killed a generation of young men and led to millions of deaths from disease.

It doesn't always take something as titanic as a presidential election--or the stealing of the presidency--to end up wreaking incredible destruction. This Tuesday it could be a special election in Massachusetts for the U.S. Senate. According to polls and pols, the previously unthinkable could happen--the conservative Republican could win Senator Ted Kennedy's seat--a man who pledges to defeat the universal health care bill, what Kennedy described as the cause of his life. And thanks to the lack of any margin in the Senate, he would do just that.

A defeat of health care, after so much political capital has been spent on it, would be a devastating blow to Democrats and to the Presidency of Barack Obama. That of course is what has Republicans so excited. It's their Tea Party revolution, the functional overthrow of the elected government and the not really American, not white enough President! And it could very well begin a chain reaction that ends any hope for the future.

That may sound like alarmism, but all the dominoes are lined up. With the ability to filibuster and therefore defeat any major legislation, Republicans will kill not only health care but economic reform and stimulus, climate crisis legislation, nuclear weapons treaties, green energy, environmental protection and, in short, anything that Democrats or President Obama propose for the next three years or longer--not even because Republicans oppose it, but because their political enemies are for it. This is the definition of political party fanaticism. All for themselves, not a care for their country.

That's the state of this country right now--while the electorate that elected Obama sleeps, or indulges their frustrated fantasies of instant change, extremists have taken over the GOP with loud voices proclaiming outrageous lies, aided and comforted if not led by racists and cynical fanatics like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck--currently lambasting President Obama for trying to help Haiti's earthquake victims--and the smug ignorance and lies of stealth zealots like Sarah Palin, who don't care about facts or reality but only on imposing religious and political ideology, and making a personal fortune doing it.

You can describe them in various ways. Baby Bushcorps on steroids. Tools of corporations solely interested in feeding more millions to their billionaires. Possessed by ambition and their own unconscious wrath and destructiveness. Their blatant lies and obvious racism is chilling. Whatever you call them and however they are described, if unleashed they will lead the way to the new Dark Ages. And that isn't hyperbole. There is only so much time left to confront our growing problems before they overwhelm us.

The Democrats aren't blameless. The Dem candidate in MA, Martha Coakley, is by many accounts not a very good candidate, though she would be infinitely better as a Senator than her opponent. In general throughout the country, Democrats have not fielded very good candidates or made good appointments for the many vacancies resulting from Obama's election and cabinet appointments. Nor have they responded adequately to the economic pain and disquiet in the country, or to the shameless lies of the Rabid Right.

It's a perilous moment. Former Obama supporters, especially in the blogosphere, are engaged in various civil wars, including progressive contests that seem to be more about ego, marketing and glands than ideology, and more about ideological purity than a better if imperfect future. In Massachusetts as elsewhere, many Obama voters are withdrawn, nursing disappointment that the world hasn't changed in a year, and that Obama has chosen to try to make a real difference rather than go down gloriously in pure self-righteous flames.

But the sins of the Dems don't match the stakes. The stakes couldn't be higher. President Obama needs this election in Massachusetts, he needs the Haiti relief effort to succeed faster, and he needs to get health care done and out of the way. And then he needs to go on the offensive, and confront his opponents and their threats directly. What's going on in Washington now is often not very pretty and at times angers and disgusts us all, but the Republicans have no solutions.

The ugly genius of Republicans since Obama's elections, even more than in the Bush years, is to look into their souls and project their own tendencies onto their chosen enemies. They are fascists with all the respect for the truth that Orwell's Big Brother had, and so they call Obama and the Democrats fascists and Big Brother. They are racists who shout that they are the victims of racism, and they compare to the Holocaust a health care bill more modest than most civilized countries in the world, that gives some government control over a wasteful, unjust and inhumane private health care system that is wrecking small and large businesses as well as countless lives--as well as help for those who will otherwise suffer and die without minimum health care. That these people are even taken seriously demonstrates in chilling fashion our society's decadence and lack of maturity. That they are this close to effectively reversing the last election and taking power again, with a single election in a single state, is beyond frightening.

Few if any in America, and not many in Europe, knew anything about the Archduke Ferdinand. Europe was a well-armed tinderbox, but a world war wasn't inevitable. Most historians would probably now agree that World War II was mostly an extension of the Great War, and the Cold War was a result of World War II. It was a chain reaction that mauled the future of generations.

Now once again, what happens in a single state, in a special election nobody was paying much attention to until recently, on a single day, the day after a holiday, may lead to immense damage and suffering for generations, and possibly more than that.

The Democrats have woken up. President Clinton, very popular in the Commonwealth, is there. President Obama will go. Mrs. Edward Kennedy is more visible and audible there. I hope more of the Kennedy family joins her there as well. But the last word comes from the voters of Massachusetts. They can't afford to "send a message" or think it doesn't matter who wins.

That's the kind of non-thinking that got G.W. Bush so close to the White House that he could steal it. The divided progressives, the start-over/new face/ bright new product consumerist approach to elections, it's the same formula. And all we got then was at best a lost decade, the treasury raided by arms merchants and oil companies, a surplus to help prepare for the future turned into a deficit to cripple the future, one of the longest and most costly and unjustifiable wars in American history, official federal corruption including partisan political rule over the judiciary and the outing of our own intelligence agent working on terrorism, torture as a national policy, an attitude of let people die in New Orleans because they're black and Democrats, plans for more nuclear weapons and refusal to ratify nuclear proliferation and Climate Crisis treaties... and the list goes on.

Thanks to that little tremor in the national electorate in 2000, we'll be lucky to get out of this century alive. Another little tremor in Massachusetts on Tuesday will most probably set us on a course of foaming conflict that makes that getting-out-alive prospect considerably more remote.

But we can still come out of this, if Massachusetts steps up. Once the health care bill is a done deal, President Obama's State of the Union could be the time we turn the corner, and renew the focus and the hope that flowered last November, and--hard as it is to believe--only a year ago next week at the Inaugural in Washington.

The Truth Is Out There

So: a one day Climate Summit at the UN on Tuesday. New hope or more of the same?

In the UK, where the Climate Crisis is covered more consistently and prominently, the BBC led its story: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says a one-day climate change summit in New York has given fresh impetus to efforts to tackle global warming. He says the momentum has shifted in favour of reaching a deal at December's crucial climate meeting in Copenhagen."

Also in the UK, the Guardian led on a positive note with China: The world inched closer to an elusive deal to combat climate change yesterday, when China, the world's biggest polluter, made its most substantial commitment yet to curb its carbon emissions and invest in clean energy."

But in the US, the New York Times (which also published a CC denial piece filled with bad science, according to Climate Progress) had a much more dour approach: World leaders gathered here for a global summit meeting on climate change made modest proposals on Tuesday for combating the problem, underscoring the way domestic political battles still trump what United Nations officials had hoped would be a sense of global urgency."

When you get right down to the nitty gritty, the reports in the Guardian and the NY Times aren't that far apart, but the difference in tone says volumes. Even though what China has actually proposed falls short of what climate experts say is needed at minimum, there is good news in that China (and India) are officially recognizing the problem and the urgency. That alone makes it a bit easier for the US and Europe to move forward, since one common objection has been that their efforts would be useless without China and India. But the US in particular should be squirming as well, because if China actually commits to greenhouse gas reduction and especially clean energy, then the economic as well as environmental leadership of the 21st century goes to them.

President Obama is trying to keep the US in the game. "The threat from climate change is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing. Our generation's response to this challenge will be judged by history, for if we fail to meet it - boldly, swiftly, and together - we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe," he said. After acknowledging that the US has been lax until now, he added: "But this is a new day. It is a new era. And I am proud to say that the United States has done more to promote clean energy and reduce carbon pollution in the last eight months than at any other time in our history."

That's certainly true, but we're far from critical mass--it's still an uphill climb to get the US to really commit to clean energy and addressing the Climate Crisis. The first critical test are Copenhagen and the climate bill now in Congress.

Anyone who cares about the survival of our planet should start praying that Barack Obama gets his way on reforming US healthcare, writes Jonathan Freedland in Worldchanging. The reason is political: this insane health care debate, that (as President Obama said on Letterman Monday night) other advanced nations can barely comprehend since they all have universal healthcare, is taking all the time, energy and attention, while the climate legislation languishes. Moreover, if Obama can't win on healthcare, he is unlikely to prevail on climate. And that's the key to Copenhagen. Freeland continues:

The science is now clear that if we do not manage to keep the increase in the earth's temperature below 2C, we risk facing the effects of catastrophic climate change – with all the flooding, drought, mass migration and human suffering that it would entail. The experts tell us that the only way to stay below that 2C limit is for global emissions to peak in 2015 – and then start falling. In other words, we have set ourselves up at a nice corner table in the last chance saloon. Copenhagen is that last chance. "

While no one really can foretell when the "last chance" will be--or if it has already gone by--it's certainly close to that. And here's another possible last chance: Not for the first time, the fate of the world rests in the hands of US domestic politics, Freedland writes. But if the US doesn't take leadership and China is prepared to do so, it could be the last time. It will be a long time before the US is irrelevant, but it is in danger of moving in that direction.

Failing to truly solve the multiple problems of health care more than signals a steep decline, which probably has already begin. The incredible ignorance demonstrated by the visible opposition (as opposed to the insurance companies who are orchestrating both the public and behind the scenes machinations) is just one clear manifestation. Here's another, according to former President Bill Clinton: "In the last eight years, we went from first to tenth in terms of the percentage of 25 to 34 year olds holding a bachelor's degree. That's the most important unknown statistic out there... We are headed into long-term economic decline if we don't do something about it."

Though once again big money from vested interests is fueling and inciting opposition to not only measures to address the Climate Crisis, but to acknowledging that the crisis exists, that opposition is characterized not by clever and deceptive arguments, but once again by lies and loudly proclaimed ignorance.

And while we roil in this poisonous nonsense, the facts and scientific studies delineate a Climate Crisis that is worse than previously believed. New research indicates that the world will warm 150% faster in just the next five years than the UN climate panel last predicted. Yet another Pentagon report warns that the Climate Crisis will pose significant strategic challenges, including the possibility of resource wars.

One of the largest glaciers in Antarctica is thinning four times faster than it was 10 years ago. But a lot of attention is being drawn to the Arctic. New research there strongly suggests that greenhouse gas pollution from the start of the Industrial Age reversed a cooling trend and started the Arctic warming. Arctic ice continues to thin, melting both from above and below. The effects of global heating, felt most strongly so far in the Arctic Circle, are already being widely felt, disrupting animal and plant life for thousands of miles. This isn't speculation. It's observation.

Once again the fires in California and the obvious drought conditions in Texas and the Southwest are not only accumulating problems, but supporting predictions of what the Climate Crisis would look like. New CC models see drought impact eventually hitting the American Midwest the hardest.

The truth is out there, and so are the blind and the ignorant. The willfully ignorant, blinded by ideology, prejudice and fear.

President Obama did announce some concrete steps on Tuesday, as reported in American Progress: a first ever program to track the amount of greenhouse gas pollution emitted throughout the country and the United States will propose a phase out of fossil fuel subsidies at the G-20 meeting later this week in Pittsburgh, PA. But these, along with green energy initiatives, will probably stall unless the Congress passes some minimal Climate Crisis bill that at least doesn't do the wrong things and does do some things right, and unless the US can help forge a global agreement in Copenhagen.

The West Wing: The Fake Debate

The President of Projection is what I used to call Bill Clinton, when I heard people getting mad at him for not pushing more of the liberal agenda, and this was at the beginning of his first term when he was trying, and getting smacked down in Washington for the effort. In fact, the presidency is a job that an actual person has to perform, and the executive branch is a collection of lots of people who all have the same 24 hour day as the rest of us.

But it can't be ignored that the presidency is symbolically much more than that. People will always project their hopes and dreams, their standards and expectations, however unrealistic, on the single figure who all Americans are eligible to vote for. We need that symbol of our sense of ourselves.

So to many people, including me, the real President for the last six years has been Jeb Bartlett, played by Martin Sheen on The West Wing. If for no other reason that he has better writers. He was able, through word and deed, to articulate what many of us would hope our President would be.

Now The West Wing is changing administrations. This season so far has been largely devoted to the campaign between Democrat Rep. Matt Santos (played by Jimmy Smits) and Republican Senator Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda.) To add the breathing room of fantasy to its "ripped from the headlines" topicality, it's Santos who is from Texas (a Latino liberal) and Vinick who is from California (conservative but not far right.)

Sunday night was the Sweeps gimmick: a show almost entirely given over to a scripted candidate debate, done live twice (for eastern and western time zones) and shot much like a network presidential debate (although the director had an uncanny habit of knowing exactly which one was going to say something important, and having the camera on him as he said it.)

Today the reviews are coming in. Tom Shales of the Washington Post and Doug Elfman of the Chicago Sun Times were underwhelmed. The Associated Press reported that the faux debate was seen by an estimated 9.6 million viewers, up from the 8.2 million that followed the show to its early Sunday night slot from its accustomed 9p Wednesday this season. Several stories criticized the use of the NBC News logo, which was kept on the screen while TV newsman Forrest Sawyer acted the part of a TV newsman running the debate---and could get a supporting actor nomination, while demonstrating just how much the oncamera news role is acting rather than reporting.

As a piece of theatre, script author Lawrence O'Donnell (a Clinton White House vet who does political consulting when he's not producing TV) immediately opened the possibilities for real drama by having Senator Vinick suggest that the stifling rules of non-engagement be loosened and the candidates really debate. When Santos agreed, the participants were free to ramble, ask each other sharp questions, interupt and argue.

O'Donnell mixed in some reminicent moments---Santos explaining his "I voted for it before I voted against it" statement, Vinick pulling a fountain pen from his pocket to emphasize his intent to veto something, just as Bill Clinton during a State of the Union message, when he thought opponent might spoil his supposedly popular health care plan by making it less than universal. They did that, all right.

There were the West Wing moments we've come to know and love when we finally hear someone articulately and cogently express a position the way we've been waiting for, as when Santos defends the title of "liberal." People who watched the whole debate learned things from "both candidates," like the hyper-efficiency of Medicare compared to corporate health care, or the burden of heavy taxation in Africa.

But my overwhelming impression of the debate content was that it's Lawrence O'Donnell, a pragmatic middle of the road liberal, talking to himself. There was some edge to Santos and Vinick, but not much. I'll bet a social evening with O'Donnell would result in the same basic mix of sensible and provocative opinions.

In terms of performance (West Coast version), Alda seemed much more at ease with the live format, and he owned the stage. Smits had his moments, but he didn't seem at home in this form.

To further confuse realities, Zogby, the real polling firm, has been polling on voter/viewer preferences as if this is a real race, although the electorate is restricted to West Wing viewers. They even did a snap poll after the debate. As reported by MSNBC, Santos/Smits won it, 54 percent to 38 percent, but Vinick/Alda gained in overall preference: in the pre-debate poll, 59 percent favored Santos to 29% for Vinick.

It shouldn't be too surprising that West Wing fans favor the Democrat. While the producers are tempted by the dramatic possibilities of switching to a Republican administration, they would risk losing a chunk of the show's core viewers (including me. One Republican President at a time is more than enough.) Clues to a Santos victory are found less in the substance of debate issues than in the fact that supporting characters in the Vinick campaign are less well developed than among the Dems. Plus a Vinick victory would likely mean an instant and near total change in the cast, several of whom are involved enough in the Santos campaign to make the transition. TV dramas seldom replace a cast wholesale except as a last ditch effort to cut costs and win a new audience.

So President Bartlett will be gone, and that alone will be a tough change for this series to weather. Of course, there's the possibility that this is the show's last season, though that's not yet part of the buzz. I shudder to think what the next three years would be like with George Bush as the only President of the U.S.

Although if her show can weather its own creative storms and survive the season, there could be Geena Davis.

Clinton in New York

Clinton Steps It Up

"Clinton Levels Sharp Criticism at the President's Relief Effort "
The New York Times [excerpts, emphasis added}

By PHILIP SHENON

Former President Bill Clinton, asked by President Bush to help raise money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, offered harsh criticism of the administration's disaster-relief effort on Sunday, saying "you can't have an emergency plan that works if it only affects middle-class people up."

Mr. Clinton's comments in an interview on the ABC News program "This Week" could prove awkward for the White House, given President Bush's eagerness to involve his Democratic predecessor in a high-profile role to raise money for the hurricane's victims. His remarks came days after the president gave a televised speech from New Orleans, trying to seize the momentum amid other attacks on the administration's performance.

The White House has been under siege from critics, assailed first for the effectiveness of its response to the storm, and challenged more recently by questions about the long-term fiscal implications of its plans for rebuilding in the Gulf states.

"This is a matter of public policy," he said. "And whether it's race-based or not, if you give your tax cuts to the rich and hope everything works out all right, and poverty goes up and it disproportionately affects black and brown people, that's a consequence of the action made. That's what they did in the 80's; that's what they've done in this decade. In the middle, we had a different policy."

Noting statistics that showed a significant drop in poverty during his presidency, Mr. Clinton said, "You can't have an emergency plan that works if it only affects middle-class people up, and when you tell people to go do something they don't have the means to do, you're going to leave the poor out."

Mr. Clinton has reunited with President Bush's father, former President George H. W. Bush, in a fund-raising campaign for Katrina victims, much as they worked together to raise millions of dollars for relief efforts after the Asian tsunami last year. Mr. Clinton said the two had raised $90 million to $100 million so far for hurricane victims.

Mr. Clinton drew a sharp distinction between the performance of the government's disaster-relief agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, in his administration and today. "I think we did a good job of disaster management," he said.

While not using the name of Michael D. Brown, the FEMA director who resigned last Monday after criticism of his performance in the Katrina disaster, Mr. Clinton praised the performance of his FEMA director, James Lee Witt, and said Mr. Witt had been especially sensitive to the needs of low-income people because "both of us came out of environments with a disproportionate number of poor people."

Bill Clinton's Global Initiative in New York attracted international movers and shakers from world leaders, major US pols and CEOs to Oprah and Brad Pitt. Clinton also proposed this week that the Bush tax cuts for the super rich be repealed to pay for Katrina zone relief and reconstruction.