Resignation

Cindy Sheehan has dumped the anti-war movement, evidently as part of a greater frustration with Americans' refusal to wake up and smell the colossally unnecessary waste of human life. I have to say, I don't quite get this. I mean, I get why she's frustrated -- it must be incredibly painful, etc. But the fact is, I don't really see what Democrats are supposed to do about it, nor really the public. Look, if the war is polling with negatives in the 70's, that means only the absolute ideological dead-enders are still behind it. And yet, in the Senate, the votes simply are not there to force Bush to pull out. All the Dems could have done would have been to refuse to pass much of anything, and to starve the military into the summer. And, I assure you, there is every probability Bush would have stuck to his guns. Personally, I'd have liked to have seen Dems take it to one more vote, suck it up through the holiday and take the bad press and push the brinksmanship a little farther, but this would only have served the interest of forcing senate Republicans to one more damaging vote; it wouldn't have ended the war.

Just as only a political solution will change the situation in Iraq (and one isn't going to happen without a civil, sectarian, internecine, and every other kind of war), so only a political solution here will end the war in Iraq. And while conventional wisdom, on every TV show and op-ed in the country, has it that the Dems pussed out last week on the appropriations bill, if you don't have the votes you don't have the votes. Republicans are going to have to break. And that's why the only thing to think about is really sticking to the September gut-check. And that's when it will be clear if Dems are a bunch of pussies. Because, as is evident, Petraeus and co. are going to say that the surge needs more time. And they need to be bent over a barrel.

By the way, I'm sure you heard that the Iraqi military we're so meticulously training is using that training in attacks on our troops?

September. If nothing gives then, I'll join Cindy Sheehan in total misanthropy. But unfortunately, I don't see how you manage a pullout before the '08 election. If in September the votes somehow materialize (which is hard to envision -- that means 17 Republicans are going to have to flip), it still is not responsible to talk about just bringing everyone home. An anti-war movement that suggests simply packing up and leaving, with no discussion of redeployment or political negotiation, is every bit as irresponsible as a pro-war movement that wants to stay forever in the absence of any real progress. This was long my major qualm about Cindy Sheehan; it remains my major qualm about the anti-war movement now.

Debate Liveblogging, Concluding With A Sense Of Deep Regret And An Abrupt Endorsement, One Which May Well Be Retracted Upon More Reflection

Well, I made a bacon, avocado and swiss cheese sandwich, and sat down with it, and thought, "You know, this is a pretty decadent dinner. I should probably offset this with some self-punishment." So I'm going to watch the Republican debate. Care to join me? Here we go!

What the HELL is with the stats next to the candidates -- Religion, Family, blah blah. Especially if Giuliani is going to be credited with a wife and two kids, as though there were no more to the story. Shouldn't number of divorces be included?

Ooh -- no guarantees that I'm going to put the right names to these people; they're not putting their names under them while they talk, and they all look the same (except for the visibly crazy ones) (which brings us to):

McCain's arms always look way too short for his body.

The fact that Tommy Thompson looks like an adult Chucky has surely struck others, yes?

I literally have nothing to say about these guys' statements on getting out of Iraq. It's all the usual crap -- Rudy says they'll follow us home; Romney says not only that, but they want to create a caliphate over there, too; Tancredo says we're staying there forever, but not like this; I say we're FUCKED. Whoah -- Ron Paul is kind of making sense: maybe 77% of Republicans are against timelines for withdrawal, but who cares because there are fewer Republicans than there used to be precisely because of Iraq, so 77% of what? NICE.

Duncan Hunter is off his fucking rocker. Apparently, he didn't read the multiple reports about how we're no longer training the Iraqi forces; so that's his plan: go back to the old plan.

Oh, god. Surely the tax/economics discussion is going to be even more mind-numbing than the terrorism conversation. Here's the thing: why bother to line these idiots up and ask them which tax they hate most? Isn't the question really: "How can you possibly justify cutting taxes at a moment when the country is at war, Americans are clamoring for health insurance, and it has been clearly demonstrated that any effort to touch social security is an act of political suicide?"

John McCain needs to SHUT UP about the family farms. This has been soooooo debunked.

Rudy defends his spending record. He suggests Washington is easier to deal with than NYC. Perhaps he underestimates the role of knowing every corrupt bureau chief on a close, personal level to the efficient management of government.

Seriously, I am so fucking scared of Tommy Thompson. LOOK AT HIS EARS!!

Whoops, Ron Paul wants to get rid of Education, Energy, Homeland Security (actually, that one I'll grant him) -- basically every department in the government. I realize this is the libertarian line -- but Education? Really??

I swear they've snuck an extra candidate in here. Who the hell is that guy? How is anyone supposed to tell apart 10 bland white guys, all but 2 and 1/2 of whom speak with fake southern accents?

Break time! Take my advice, and mix yourself a BIG cocktail. This can only get uglier.

Oh, hell. It's back. Ok, Gilmore? I think? is going after Rudy, Romney and McCain for not being conservatives. Isn't it funny how only conservatives do this? After all that branding of "conservative good" and "liberal bad", now they're burning each other with their own label. Anyway, Rudy is going to prove he's conservative by going after Hillary. Sigh. Ok -- Rudy wants to have fewer abortions and more adoptions, but he supports a woman's right to choose. Even though he's stealing Hillary's line mere moments after bashing her, I'll go ahead and grant that that wasn't the least courageous thing I've ever seen.

Mitt is anti-assault weapons, anti-gay bashing, anti-gay marriage. His claim: If I can make Massachusetts swallow this shit, I can get anyone to do it. And maybe he's right.

Yuck. Reagan praise talk.

Here we go: Abortion talk!! Stem cells are promising, says Tommy Thompson. Maybe they can cure whatever the hell is WRONG WITH HIS HEAD. Dear god, it is so scary.

Rudy on abortion: people of good conscience reach different decisions, and government should stay out of people's private business. That works for me.

But it doesn't work for Huckabee. He thinks we value every individual life in this country. I dare him to tell that to one of the many, many people currently dying, right here in this life-loving shithole of a country, simply because they don't happen to have health insurance. I fucking dare him.

Willie Horton question of the night: Hey, Brownback, how do you tell a pro-choice rape victim that she's got to carry the enemy seed to term? Brownback: Sucks to be you.

Tancredo goes after McCain on immigration; McCain looks tired, and like he borrowed someone else's arms. Brownback thinks it's a serious proposition to send all the illegals home. Methinks he needs to come spend a week in California, and get disabused of that notion.

Oh, shit. Rudy's on about the national ID cards and the databases again. Reader poll: which would you sign away first, your right to an abortion, or every single solitary one of your other civil rights? Because it may come to that.

Shorter Ron Paul: US out of everywhere. And some smart talk about Bin Laden being overjoyed that we're in Iraq. Which is UNDOUBTEDLY true. Giuliani is, naturally, outraged, and gets a giant round of applause. We are so screwed -- these idiots are determined not to know what the clearly stated position of "the enemy" actually is.

Ha! Whole panel coming unglued because Ron Paul won't back down! AWESOME!!

Confederate flag talk. Should the flag of the bigots be flown proudly over the state capitol of S.C.? McCain says no, despite prior waffling; suggests moving on (a most un-conservative opinion -- can we just move on on abortion and the putative "War on Terror" as well?). Do we really have nothing better to talk about in this country? How about my expiring health insurance? Could someone maybe make a suggestion about THAT?

I actually kind of checked out during the "three simultaneous terrorist attacks" question, because I think it's so lame, but McCain's answer was weak. I didn't hear it, but I could tell even with mute on. Mute's off, and now Giuliani wants to torture people. Quelle surprise, coming from the fascist candidate. Romney's hair is greeeeaaaaaas-y! Damn. Anyway, he wants intelligence. And believe me, I want that for him. Ha! ANYHOO, he wants to lock up "the terrorists" overseas and use "enhanced interrogation tactics." That's nuts-in-a-vise to you and me.

AACK! Tommy Thompson. It can't be said enough: SO FRIGHTENING. He wants to invade some motherfuckers, and make it snappy. Brownback is now hypothesizing about responding to terrorist attacks....

Yeah, that does it. I quit. I just had that moment of clarity, when you suddenly notice how terribly, terribly debased the quality of discourse in this shitty country has become. None of these guys is saying anything worth hearing, and everything they are saying is a bunch of unrealistic, juvenile posturing. Serious discussion about poverty, the vanishing middle class, the collapsing housing market, and HEALTH CARE -- the shit that actually matters, as opposed to a hypothetical simultaneous attack on, for Christ's sake, shopping malls -- nary a word. Is there no one to ask these numbnuts to engage with the real world? Will no one press them??? The only thing to be concluded from this debate is that we have got to win this thing, whichever one of these chuckleheads they nominate, and that means I'm throwing my support behind John Edwards.

Update: National Review Online declares Rudy the winner. May God save us all.

Buh-Bye

Wow. The Republican presidential field is coming totally unglued, and all over good old abortion. Tomorrow Rudy Giuliani is going to start making a series of coordinated appearances announcing his support for Roe, and testing the notion that you have to be anti-abortion to get the Republican nomination. This is so exciting that it totally wiped Mitt Romney's wife's donations to Planned Parenthood right off the blogs.

I'd have said, before this abortion thing blew up, that Giuliani had a very decent shot at getting the Republican nomination, and a great shot at winning a general election, entirely because most Americans know one thing about him (9/11), and are not ever going to find out anything else, facts including but not limited to: a) that one thing isn't even really true (like, putting his command center in the WTC was against policy and really bloody stupid), and b) he's a megalomaniacal authoritarian nutbag.

But I think they're going to be hearing about this abortion business, because it's just so incredibly novel -- a Republican who's pro-choice! Who doesn't want to hear about that? Paradoxically, of course, this fact almost certainly makes Giuliani dead in the water for the primaries, and yet more electable in the general. But it's hard to parse, I think. I absolutely would not under any circumstances vote for a forced pregnancy candidate for president. How many Republicans feel the same?

The Times, reporting on this story, includes the following statistics:

In a New York Times/CBS News poll in March, 41 percent of Republicans thought abortions should be prohibited, compared with 23 percent of Americans in general; in addition, 53 percent of Republicans said they wanted a Republican presidential nominee who would make abortions more difficult to get.

I find those numbers somewhat surprising; don't they imply that 59% of Republicans would support a candidate who would back parental consent laws, etc, while keeping abortion legal?

I suppose the conventional wisdom is that only the rabid base turn out for primaries, and so that 59% isn't relevant. Or, that that insane 41% is sufficient to ruin a primary bid, although maybe not given the Republican winner-takes-all primary system (for discussion of the ins and outs of this, see Matt Yglesias). You do wonder though whether this is right; how many Republicans really vote on this issue. For instance, I suspect the lack of discussion of abortion among the left's candidates has less to do with Democratic small-tent politics than it does with the fact that, as that 77% of pro-at-least-some-choice Americans indicates, it's increasingly only crackpots who oppose all abortions. Well, crackpots, the President, half of congress, and four ninths of the Supreme Court. All of whom were, directly or indirectly, the work of the base.

Right. See ya, Rudy. Don't let the screen door hit ya where the good lord split ya.

Debate This

I tried to watch the Republican debates tonight. I really did. But I'm going to a conference tomorrow to say wise things about sodomy in the 16th century, and I haven't packed. And anyway, it was all 9/11 blah blah, abortion blah blah. McCain is stiff, Giuliani is inarticulate and shifty, Romney is a phony, Tancredo is certifiable. And all of them seem to be very, very worried about Hillary Clinton, which makes me very worried in general. But mostly, I sat there and thought that Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone was investigating one of the universe's great existential questions when he demanded, "Why does Chris Matthews always look like he just had a giant cock in his mouth?"

So true. So true.