This week Joe Klein wrote a post that did not attempt to hide his disdain for his critics. While he showed a willingness to outline his reporting process and address concerns raised in his comments, he did so in an extremely defensive, thin-skinned and condescending tone. He also made the following memorably clueless assertion: “Tell me where I’ve been misled by my sources.” His commenters quickly pointed out his factually challenged reporting on the FISA debate.  Read more 

Considering how much attention mass media has spent on electoral politics it has missed the elephant in the room (pardon the pun): The extreme peril of the Republican Party. Almost all coverage is now on the Democratic primary, and the least likely (and most dramatic) scenarios are getting the most focus. But here is what seems most likely: The candidates fight it out, a winner emerges in the next month or so and emotions peak. Everyone takes the summer off, spends some time at the beach with a good book, and returns at the end of August tanned, rested and ready to crank up an energetic election campaign.  Read more 

Good afternoon.  Happy Friday.

First post, yay!*

One steps away, another steps in.

It’s been a wild week.**   Emotions are running high.  The spin is coming from all angles.***  Read more 

Lambert, I hope you don’t mind me sticking my nose in this, but I just read Sadly, No!’s bashing of your Rameny good post, and I wanted to say a few things in response.  Read more 

Congress can be a frustratingly opaque body, and trying to figure out causes and effects can be largely futile. Analyzing a simple proposition like “Congress has failed to adequately check executive power expansion since 2001” quickly becomes incredibly complex (rest in peace Edward Lorenz). Also, much of its work is done behind closed doors, which is probably for the best. If politicians were constantly on display before the public we would reach toxic levels of grandstanding almost immediately and government would grind to a halt (though in light of our recent experience that might be a benefit).  Read more 

Kos put up a diary today, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/28/…, where he laments about his candidate’s performance on Fox News Sunday.

Sorry Kos, you can only go to the primaries with the Obama you have, rather than the one you wished you had.  Read more 

The war in Iraq refuses to be dismissed. Its ongoing cost in blood and treasure will be at or near the top of our concerns for as long as it lasts. It stays there no matter how much political elites want us to look elsewhere or media elites want to keep from highlighting the painful, ongoing slog. I believe the vast majority of us grieves a little each time we hear the day’s price. If it is nothing more than a dry recitation of the latest handful of dead in the latest attack, if the report is stuck at the end of a segment or broadcast, if it is treated with the same numerical curiosity as a minor fluctuation of the stock market - it still casts a long shadow with us.  Read more 

According to its web site the recently-created National Applications Office (NAO) has its roots in the Civil Applications Committee, an agency created in 1974 that “facilitated requests by civil agencies to make use of space-based imaging and remote sensing capabilities for purposes such as monitoring volcanic activity, environmental and geological changes, hurricanes, and floods.” Presumably that is how it was used; if it had been directed against citizens or for political advantage we would have found out before too long. Either the results of the abuse would have led back to it or someone would have spilled the beans somehow.  Read more 

Every adult in America probably remembers 9/11 in the immediate sense - the first time hearing the news, seeing the images, the confusion, uncertainty and fear of that day - but it seems like our memory of the period immediately after is hazy. For a month or two we were traumatized as a nation and had trouble understanding what had happened, and what should come next. By the end of 2001 the drumbeat for war had begun and it is possible that fixing our attention on how best to attack Iraq served as a psychological crutch by giving us something to focus on. This is not a professional opinion, just an observation based on what I went through and saw others going through.  Read more 

That burning smell this morning came from the Mighty Corrente Building’s side-by-side ears (yes, it’s an unfortunate condition to leave untreated, but would you rather have “socialized medicine”?).

From comments at Eschaton:

the theme that mccain is less dishonest than the other democratic candidate (the one the speaker is not supporting) is pretty common on taylor-marsh and correntewire and i heard it from a wide selection of obama supporters who are not traditional democrats too.  Read more 

I’m sure this may come as a shock to you, but military is hiring bloggers to work as moles, “verbally attack[ing] specific person[s] or promot[ing] a specific message.”

Wait, sorry, wrong link.

Here’s the article.  Read more 

There’s been a question rattling around my brain for a while now: Where have the Second Amendment champions been the last few years? Those in favor of liberal gun ownership laws usually speak about it in abstract terms, most commonly harmony with the land and guarantees of liberty. The first argument hasn’t been seriously challenged, but what are their thoughts these days about checks against a tyrannical government? Shouldn’t the burgeoning surveillance state be anathema to them? Isn’t this the kind of issue they should be up in arms (har) about? I would have thought the massive increases in spying and indiscriminate data sweeps would be an unsupportable infringement of their liberty.  Read more 

I finally finished The Origin of Wealth by Eric D. Beinhocker. It will soon be available in our Brain Food section.Why did I read this book? Well, Matt Stoller mentioned it at OpenLeft and I thought it sounded interesting. And was it ever! Thanks Matt for the tip.

Many of you have heard my ’Theory of Pie’ as it applies to differentiating between progressives and ’conservatives’, at least if you came to the meetings you would have. It goes like this:  Read more 

So I confess I sort of enjoy being a public pedant, and blogging only gives me ample opportunity for that. New People, newer posters and people driven here as refugees from the Hilbama Wars: Quality. Not Quantity. That’s my standard here at Corrente. If you don’t meet it, you’re toast. Capiche?

We are perhaps among the most generous of the “A-List” blogs in our open posting policy. Don’t make us change that. I don’t want to hear about your personal problems, your off-the-cuff rants about the latest SCLM outrage, your late night drunken ramblings. That’s what places like the Crack Den are for; only Senior Fellows have the privilege of acting stoopid on the front page here. Get your own blog if you only want to rant, and not seriously contribute to the progressive narrative. That’s what Corrente does: contribute, not respond. A friend of mine puts it thusly: there are Producers, and Consumers. Producers create, consumers respond.

If you have something to say, take some time, write an essay, make an argument, and for Christ’s sake employ a little elegance and wit. And remember that this site isn’t “the Anti-Obama Club.” We strive for so much more than that, and I’m getting annoyed that some fail to perceive that fact, in taking advantage of our generous policy about posting.

You’ve been warned.

Update: Don’t want to take my word for it? Lady A in the Morning over at Big Blue is on the same page reading the other paragraph. Spooky!

Look people: no one is going to care about all this in a really short time. You know what I’m talking about. In a few months, perhaps even before the election, the saner among us will look back at this moment and say, “wow, why did I get so upset about that?” Brand-wise, nothing is more tired than “My dem candidate is the Best, and yours is the Devil.” Nothing.

I’m making another pledge today. I’m not going to trash other bloggers, except to politely disagree and use logic and fact to explain why. I’ve read some really harsh words about other bloggers; here, around the blogosphere. I don’t like it. I’m not going to make a career of trashing the movement I’ve been working to build up for almost the last 8 years. There are some good, passionate, intelligent people in the blogosphere, lots of slightly unbalanced ones with good hearts, and not a few Freaques. That’s a good thing, and we shouldn’t always agree. I’ll never make a good winger maingly because I enjoy our diversity too much. And I don’t take disagreement over a policy or candidate to be so important, that I’m willing to throw away years of good effort by the person currently acting stupid and wrong.*

Let’s give up bashing each other for a while. It’s tiresome, and stupid. The reputation we’ve finally begun to enjoy is very hard won. Why are we helping the SCLM and our detractors, by acting as Digby says, like 7th graders?  Read more 

So: many of us think, BHO and HRC are the two sides of the same coin. One is peanut butter and one is caramel; one uses a strap-on and one wears corsets; both are likely debased as coin metal. Anyway, if you too understand that the conflict between them is in fact a conflict that is all the product of fantasy and imagination, maliciously twisting an unspoken truth, let me lay this one on you:

CD and Lambert have achieved Unity. Into one being, perhaps as was always true but only understood by enlightened beings in different dimensions of the nearer space-time continuum. Readers should never mind those differences; we speak through Locutus now, so just use that pic when you link to us.*  Read more 

This is totally about blogging and how it can help keep you out of trouble, and not about any particular current topic or issue. So, contrast and compare two comments. A Breathless Intertubes Report! That sort of well, uh, didn’t pan out in the actual polls. I’m not picking on JA, I’m just reminding everyone that it’s easy believe the hype, but if there were a simple way to create a “revolution” at the polls it would’ve been done by now.

A different problem here, one that I think really plagues us as progressives. “Life is unfair!” is not the opening line I use to pick up girls or get jobs. And, it distracts our energies from the issue at hand. You make no friends when you essentially lie about ’how bad’ it is for you, and how hard you have to work, when it’s not and you don’t. Or, you do, but so does everyone else. Life is unfair, and thus women and Democrats must stick to pure truth, because even slight misrepresentation comes back to bite us (and never them) on the ass later.

Again I feel like stressing that this is a banana republic now, and when you take developments that way, it all makes a kind of sense. Schlockmeister King introduced me to the saying long ago, “if you can’t afford the game or the zoo, go see a politician!” America is too broke to entertain itself with elephants and circuses these days, so this is what we get instead. Still, real live baboons and actually talented clowns are more interesting, or at least that seem that way to me.

So who wrote this?

After reading your rant about what you describe as [ ]’s “remarkable legacy of failure,” my first reaction is to suggest that you might want to talk to your doctor about upping your meds.

Nice and shrill, isn’t it? Of course, probably not what one should say if you’re Comm Director for a major advocacy group and certainly not to one of the bigger bloggers in our lil world.

What amazes me is that I still read defenders like this (emp added):

But Matt does invite these sort of things: “That’s simply disgusting and dishonorable and they should be ashamed of themselves.” That wasn’t exactly civil either, and set a poor tone in his original piece.
by: shaej @ Wed Feb 27, 2008 at 08:44  Read more 

I have to do this quickly, but here are some thoughts that spring from this post Paul was gracious enough to inspire.

Only now that Obama has a miniscule lead of 128,736 in the number of votes cast (and that includes assigning all the “uncommitted” votes in Michigan to Obama) has the media focused on total votes cast.

This is the sound of CD blowing a gasket. Not with Paul, but with the whole idea that “uncommitted” must mean Obama. Dammit, does anyone care that Edwards, who came in 2nd in Iowa and at that time that ’meant something’ to primary participants, was not on the ballot? Or that votes for him would not be counted, even write-ins? Why is this no longer a valid question under discussion as the “votes” in MI are or are not counted/alloted? No, I will not “just get over” disenfranchisement, and anyway, you should care that people like me voted in the Republican primary as you ’figure out’ what the Dem primary vote count “means.”  Read more 

This post isn’t about Obama. But I sincerely hope his supporters read it. Not this post per se, but the links contained. First, watch this video, courtesy of Skippy:

Wow, that’s the only word I could come up with, other than a sudden need to vomit into my mouth a little. How do you spell “soulless schmaltz?” Or perhaps better “utterly fake feeling.” How quickly if goes from having “The Feeling!” to the need to express “oh my god, where is the pepto-bismol?” How quickly indeed…

Now, I urge you to take some time to read the following. Each are well worth it, and balanced. Start with Gossip from the Village. For once, it turned out to be useful and somewhat prescient (it was written last month).  Read more 

I was doing some post-Donna is Victorious! reading something and I’ll paraphrase:

It’s sort of like an alcoholic. He may be losing his wife, job, and he may have liver cancer; but until he deals with his alcoholism meaningfully, he won’t be able to truly fix any of his other problems. So it is with progressives, and our “core” issues like ending the war or bringing economic justice to a rapidly expanding underclass; and The Problem of the campaign finance system.

Unless and until we find a way to “own” candidates and elected officials, we’re all just whistling Dixie. If it’s not going to be Revolution, then it has to be by doing to unpopular things inside the system. Raising money (ick), volunteering (snore), and worst of all, pissing off some of our “friends.” I won’t argue which is the best, because I see no reason why some us can’t work on the “50 State” strategy while other work on the “safe district” or “open seat” approaches.  Read more 

I’m sorry.

I wish we could all just let it go, truly, just let it go, sometimes. There are so many better, more worthy targets. Thus: when I’m down, and been in a fight without clear Victory, and feeling blue, I look at kittenz.

Racism and Sexism are stupid. Being a blogger of late, I’ve found the need to look at kittenz, a lot.

D-grrl: I understand. I’m sorry I doubted your decision.  Read more 

I use Safari, and I have my bookmarks organized into groups. Some are blogs I read “Daily”, some are “Important” but not read every day blogs, “Interesting” and “New (to me)” are some other categories I’ve incorporated into my navigation utility. I’m about to move one from the “Important” category into “the long list of blogs that had a couple of good posts which made me think they were going to positively contribute in the progressive movement but have since shown themselves to be mostly a bunch of assholes.” I haven’t yet, I hope not to. But this? Fuck no. Do something similar again soon, and you’re gone, B-town. The author’s CV, if it’s the same guy. You’ll love this:

Hell, Handbaskets, and Government Lawyers: The Duty of Loyalty and Its Limits, 61 Law & Contemp. Prob. 83 (1998).

Is Bill Clinton Unconstitutional? The Case for President Strom Thurmond, 13 Const. Comm. 217 (1996).

No, wait, it gets better.  Read more 

Please read this comment if you’re new here. And know that I, and We, welcome and want you here. We want you to read, we want you to comment, we want you to disagree, and most of all, we want you to Prove Your Work. Think we’re wrong? Say so, and prove it. We can take it, we love it, and we live for rough, incivil, partisan discourse. Really. No, really.

You can never go wrong here by disagreeing. Or speaking your mind. Or telling us we suck. Just do so with links, and reason, and even emotion. This is a truly progressive blog, in every sense of the word. We don’t censor, or ignore, unless you’re trying to hog this space by trying to sell or push something that has nothing to do with the project at hand. Which of course is: Saving our Constitutional Democracy. One blog post at a time.

Thank you for your attention. We’re not writing here because we want consulting jobs, so don’t worry- we take all our readers “seriously.” Of course, you can hit that blue box over to the top and right, and send LB some cash to support our servers if you’ve got it, as it is true that ’free blogging’ isn’t “free.” In our case, it’s 200/mo. Any help is welcome.

They just fade away and start their own blogs.

Friends don’t let friends start new blogs without a modicum of attention and/or links. Sorry it took me so long, TRex. Keep up the good work.