COVER/Michael Lind
The Newer Deal: Path to Dem Supermajority
EDITORIAL
No way. No how. No McCain; Fire and ice ...
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
DISPATCHES
‘Justice’ missed mortgage fraud warnings;
McCain's sleeping pills raise questions;
McCain's scorned sis-in-law surfaces;
How many McCain homes?
Just a gigolo;
Fair trade victory;
Corn growers back Obama;
Politicizing Petraeus;
China beating us on green tech;
Iraq selling ‘our oil’;
Court cuts DeLay a break;
Dems see Senate gains;
McCain wants Western water redo;
GOP: Rich counties doing well;
New Census data--same reality;
TV 'news' makes you stupid;
McCain 'forgets' about missed votes;
McCain plans to tax health benefits;
Kucinich scores at DNC;
Taxpayers subsidize exec perks;
Press bureaus clear out
...
BOB BURNETT
It’s the water, stupid!
JOHN BUELL
Torture and security
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
Bedroom certitudes
SAM URETSKY
Get the windsock blowing left
WAYNE O’LEARY
The two Obamas
GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet
Questions of life and death
ART CULLEN
The truth about oil
N. GUNASEKARAN
Price anger roils developing world
ROB PATTERSON
Pols are fair game for tabloids
and more ...
(9/1/08)
Amy Goodman, 2 News Producers, Arrested at RNC
UPDATED 11:52 p.m. CT
Glenn Greenwald reports that at least 50 people were arrested Monday in St. Paul, Minn., including Amy Goodman, who has been working journalist for more than 20 years (and whose column is carried in The Progressive Populist). A police spokesman later said she was involved in unspecified criminal activity.
"Beginning last night, St. Paul was the most militarized I have ever seen an American city be, even more so than Manhattan in the week of 9/11 -- with troops of federal, state and local law enforcement agents marching around with riot gear, machine guns, and tear gas cannisters, shouting military chants and marching in military formations. Humvees and law enforcement officers with rifles were posted on various buildings and balconies. Numerous protesters and observers were tear gassed and injured," Greenwald said.
See video of her arrest.
Democracy Now! -- the Pacifica radio/TV program that Goodman hosts -- reports that the Goodman was arrested while attempting to free two Democracy Now! producers who were being unlawfuly detained. They are Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. Kouddous and Salazar were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. "Goodman’s crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press," the statement said.
Ramsey County Sherrif Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were being arrested on suspicion of rioting. They are currently being held at the Ramsey County jail in St. Paul.
(UPDATE: Democracy Now! announced that Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar were released Monday night.)
It isn't the first time Goodman has run afoul of authorities during times of unrest. In 1991, covering the independence movement in East Timor, Goodman and fellow journalist Allan Nairn were badly beaten by Indonesian soldiers after they witnessed a mass killing of Timorese demonstrators in what became known as the Dili Massacre.
Goodman has received dozens of awards for her work, including the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and the George Polk Award. In 2001, she declined to accept the Overseas Press Club Award, in protest of the group's pledge not to ask questions of keynote speaker Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and because the OPC was honoring Indonesia for their improved treatment of journalists despite the fact that they had recently beaten and killed reporters in occupied East Timor.
Democracy Now! is a nationally-syndicated public TV and radio program that airs on over 700 radio and TV stations across the US and the globe.
UPDATE: The Washington Post has details on arrests of the Democracy Now! crew:
"I was down on the convention floor interviewing delegates when I heard that two of our producers had been arrested," said Goodman. "I ran down to Jackson and 7th Street, where the police had moved in."
Goodman said that when she ran up to find out what was going on, she was also arrested.
"They seriously manhandled me and handcuffed my hands behind my back. The top ID [at the convention] is to get on the floor and the Secret Service ripped that off me. I had my Democracy Now! ID too. I was clearly a reporter."
Goodman, who was released after being charged with a misdemeanor, said that Salazar had been hurt in the face, while Kouddous had been thrown up against a wall and hurt his elbow.
"Nicole told me that as they moved in on three sides, she asked them 'How do I get away from this?' and they jumped on her."
In addition, Glenn Greenwald noted that a photographer for Associated Press was also arrested today while covering the protests. An AP spokesman said of the arrest: "covering news is constitutionally protected, and photographers should not be detained for covering breaking news." Democratic strategist and CNN commentator Donna Brazile was hit by pepper spray on her way into the Xcel Center.
(8/31/08)
Constitutional Rights Set Aside as Feds Involved in Pre-Emptive Raids on RNC Protesters
Protesters in Minneapolis were targeted by a series of police raids across the city, involving teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets, Glenn Greewald reported at Salon.com. Friday night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff's department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than "fire code violations," and early Saturday morning, the Sheriff's department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying.
Greenwald was at two of those homes Saturday morning -- one which had just been raided and one which was in the process of being raided. Each of the raided houses is known by neighbors as a "hippie house," where 5-10 college-aged individuals live in a communal setting, and everyone he spoke with said that there had never been any problems of any kind in those houses, that they were filled with "peaceful kids" who are politically active but entirely unthreatening and friendly. (See the story for a video of the scene, including various interviews, which convey a very clear sense of what is actually going on here.)
In the house that had just been raided, those inside described how a team of roughly 25 officers had barged into their homes with masks and black swat gear, holding large semi-automatic rifles, and ordered them to lie on the floor, where they were handcuffed and ordered not to move. The officers refused to state why they were there and, until the very end, refused to show whether they had a search warrant. They were forced to remain on the floor for 45 minutes while the officers took away the laptops, computers, individual journals, and political materials kept in the house. One of the individuals renting the house, an 18-year-old woman, was extremely shaken as she and others described how the officers were deliberately making intimidating statements such as "Do you have Terminator ready?" as they lay on the floor in handcuffs. The 10 or so individuals in the house all said that though they found the experience very jarring, they still intended to protest against the GOP Convention, and several said that being subjected to raids of that sort made them more emboldened than ever to do so.
As the police attacks on protesters continued Sunday, Greenwald reported that it appeared increasingly clear that Federal authorities were directing the intimidation campaign.
Minnesota Public Radio reported Saturrday that "the searches were led by the Ramsey County Sheriff's office. Deputies coordinated searches with the Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments and the Federal Bureau of Investigation."
The Minneapolis Star Tribune Sunday added that the raids were specifically "aided by informants planted in protest groups." Back in May, Marcy Wheeler presciently noted that the Minneapolis Joint Terrorist Task Force -- an inter-agency group of federal, state and local law enforcement led by the FBI -- was actively recruiting Minneapolis residents to serve as plants, to infiltrate "vegan groups" and other left-wing activist groups and report back to the Task Force about what they were doing.
"So here we have a massive assault led by Federal Government law enforcement agencies on left-wing dissidents and protesters who have committed no acts of violence or illegality whatsoever, preceded by months-long espionage efforts to track what they do," wrote Greenwald, a constitutional lawyer with experience in civil rights law. "And as extraordinary as that conduct is, more extraordinary is the fact that they have received virtually no attention from the national media and little outcry from anyone. And it's not difficult to see why. As the recent 'overhaul' of the 30-year-old FISA law illustrated -- preceded by the endless expansion of surveillance state powers, justified first by the War on Drugs and then the War on Terror -- we've essentially decided that we want our Government to spy on us without limits. There is literally no police power that the state can exercise that will cause much protest from the political and media class and, therefore, from the citizenry."
During the Olympics just weeks ago, Greenwald noted, there was endless hand-wringing over the efforts by the Chinese Government to squelch dissent and incarcerate protesters. On August 21, The Washington Post fretted:
Six Americans detained by police this week could be held for 10 days, according to Chinese authorities, who appear to be intensifying their efforts to shut down any public demonstrations during the final days of the Olympic Games. . . .
Chinese Olympic officials announced last month that Beijing would set up zones where people could protest during the Games, as long as they had received permission. None of the 77 applications submitted was approved, however, and several other would-be protesters were stopped from even applying.
On August 2, The Post gravely warned:
Behind the gray walls and barbed wire of the prison here, eight Chinese farmers with a grievance against the government have been consigned to Olympic limbo.
Their indefinite detainment, relatives and neighbors said, is the price they are paying for stirring up trouble as China prepares to host the Beijing Games. Trouble, the Communist Party has made clear, will not be permitted.
Greenwald asked, "Would The Washington Post ever use such dark and accusatory tones to describe what the U.S. Government does? Of course it wouldn't. Yet how is our own Government's behavior in Minnesota any different than what the Chinese did to its protesters during the Olympics (other than the fact that we actually have a Constitution that prohibits such behavior)? And where are all the self-righteous Freedom Crusaders in our nation's establishment organs who were so flamboyantly criticizing the actions of a Government on the other side of the globe as our own Government engages in the same tyrannical, protest-squelching conduct with exactly the same motives?"
Greenwald noted that over the weekend homes of college-aid protesters were raided by rifle-wielding police forces. Journalists were forcibly detained at gun point. Lawyers on the scene to represent the detainees were handcuffed. Computers, laptops, journals, diaries, and political pamphlets were seized from people's homes. "And all of this occurred against U.S. citizens, without a single act of violence having taken place, and nothing more serious than traffic blockage even alleged by authorities to have been planned." And the detainees have been told that police have 36 hours to charge her, but the clock doesn't start until after the Labor Day holiday, so they may be held without charge until Wednesday.
No Editorial Bouquets from Those Who Know Palin Best
Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher magazine noted at HuffingtonPost.com that the two leading newspapers in Alaska -- the Anchorage Daily News and the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner -- have been raising all sorts of questions about Sarah Palin's fitness to be vice president.
The Anchorage Daily News editorialized that "it's stunning that someone with so little national and international experience might be heartbeat away from the presidency."
The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner editorialized that "Most people would acknowledge that, regardless of her charm and good intentions, Palin is not ready for the top job. McCain seems to have put his political interests ahead of the nation's when he created the possibility that she might fill it."
Mitchell adds the comments of some other Alaska journalists:
A reporter for the Anchorage daily, Gregg Erickson, even did an online chat with the Washington Post, in which he revealed that Palin's approval rating in the state was not the much-touted 80%, but 65% and sinking -- and that among journalists who followed her it might be in the "teens." He added: "I have a hard time seeing how her qualifications stack up against the duties and responsibilities of being president.... I expect her to stick with simple truths. When asked about continued American troop presence in Iraq, she said she knows only one thing about that (I paraphrase): no one has attacked the American homeland since George Bush took the war to Iraq."
His paper found a number of leading Republican officeholders in the state who mocked Palin's qualifications. "She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?" said Lyda Green, the president of the State Senate, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla. "Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"
Another top Republican, John Harris, the speaker of the House, when asked about her qualifications for Veep, replied with this: "She's old enough. She's a U.S. citizen."
Dermot Cole, a columnist for the Fairbanks paper, observed that he thinks highly of Palin as a person but "in no way does her year-and-a-half as governor of Alaska qualify her to be vice president or president of the United States.
"One of the strange things Friday was that so many commentators and politicians did not know how to pronounce her name and had no clue about what she has actually done in Alaska....I may be proven wrong, but the decision announced by McCain strikes me as reckless. She is not prepared to be the next president should something happen to McCain."
Mitchell also noted that on Sunday the top story on the Anchorage paper's site carried the headline, "Palin touts stance on 'Bridge to Nowhere,' doesn't note flip-flop." The Fairbanks paper has an article by the Associated Press and a column by Dermot Cole on the same theme.
The Bridge to Nowhere
Sarah Palin was for it before she was against it.
Be Careful What You Pray For
Scout Finch at DailyKos.com noted that Stuart Shepard of Focus on the Family prayed before the Democratic convention for torrential rains "of Biblical proportions" to wash out Barack Obama's speech at Invesco Field last Thursday night. "Would it be wrong to pray for rain?" Shepard asked, in what apparently was supposed to be a humorous video.
Well, we don't believe God takes sides in political races, and we also doubt that He aims precipitation in response to jakeleg preachers' politically-motivated requests, but we note that the weather for Obama's speech was perfect but news coverage of the opening of the Republican convention Monday is likely to be disrupted by the arrival of Hurricane Gustav -- with its reminder of the Bush administration's disastrously inept response to Hurricane Katrina's devastation of the Gulf Coast three years ago.
If Shepard wanted to practice some Christianity, he might spend some time joining New Orleans residents who are praying that the levees that were hurriedly rebuilt by the US Army Corps of Engineers will hold this time. -- JMC.
Unacceptable Risk Taker
John McCain’s surprise announcement of Sarah Palin as his running mate on Friday managed to take the attention away from Barack Obama’s acceptance speech the previous night -- but getting attention isn’t necessary a good thing.
The McCain campaign is trying to knock down the suspicion that Palin was a last-minute choice who was not fully vetted to find problems in her background. But there is evidence that the McCain campaign did not look very closely at Palin, a protegé of indicted Sen. Ted Stevens who has been governor of Alaska for 20 months after serving as part-time mayor of a town of less than 9,000 population. Josh Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo.com noted that "there's good reason to doubt these claims that Palin received an extensive vetting," including the Anchorage Daily News' report:
Former House Speaker Gail Phillips, a Republican political leader who has clashed with Palin in the past, was shocked when she heard the news Friday morning with her husband, Walt.
"I said to Walt, 'This can't be happening, because his advance team didn't come to Alaska to check her out," Phillips said.
Phillips has been active in the Ted Stevens re-election steering committee and remains in close touch with Sen. Lisa Murkowski and other party leaders, and she said nobody had heard anything about McCain's people doing research on his prospective running mate.
"We're not a very big state. People I talk to would have heard something."
"Perhaps she's just a hostile or isn't as plugged in as she thinks," Marshall says. But the biggest question about Palin is the ethics investigation into possible abuse of power in her firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan in a dispute over the governor's attempts to fire her former brother in law, a state trooper, who had been involved in a bitter custody dispute with Palin's sister. "I can see possible reasons why the McCain camp would hesitate to make contact with Monegan. But with credible claims that she abused her office and subsequently lied about her actions, I would think the McCain camp would want to understand that case inside and out. But according to another article in the ADN, Monegan says that no one from the McCain campaign ever contacted him about Palin.
TalkingPointsMemo.com has been reporting on the Palin case since the second week in August, well before she became a national figure.
Marshall noted that some people are claiming that bringing up Palin's conduct in the troopergate scandal is tantamount to making a victim of or defending what they believe to be a slimeball ex-brother-in-law. He reviews the facts as known and concluded:
We rely on elected officials not to use the power of their office to pursue personal agendas or vendettas. It's called an abuse of power. There is ample evidence that Palin used her power as governor to get her ex-brother-in-law fired. When his boss refused to fire him, she fired him. She first denied Monegan's claims of pressure to fire Wooten and then had to amend her story when evidence proved otherwise. The available evidence now suggests that she 1) tried to have an ex-relative fired from his job for personal reasons, something that was clearly inappropriate, and perhaps illegal, though possibly understandable in human terms, 2) fired a state official for not himself acting inappropriately by firing the relative, 3) lied to the public about what happened and 4) continues to lie about what happened.
These are, to put it mildly, not the traits or temperament you want in someone who could hold the executive power of the federal government.
We agree. Sarah Palin may be a charismatic governor of a frontier state but she is untested on the national stage and there are plenty of policy reasons to oppose her nomination as vice president. And it looks like one of her first acts as governor was to pursue a personal vendetta that pretty much shatters the "reform" image the McCain campaign is trying to portray. In July, when her name came up as a possible vice presidential choice, she said that she was not sure what the vice president does, but her conduct in the trooper scandal shows she apparently shares some unattractive traits with Dick Cheney.
It doesn't speak well for McCain that he chose Palin in haste, without checking out her background. If he chose her knowing about the Troopergate scandal but disregarding it, it speaks even worse for his judgment. -- JMC
UPDATE: Paul Rosenberg at OpenLeft.com reports on another branch of the Troopergate investigation:
After Monegan was fired, Palin hired Chuck Kopp, who lasted a full two weeks before stepping down when it turned out he'd lied about a previous sexual harrasment complaint being dismissed. Kopp received a $10,000 payment as part of his severance agreement -- $1,000 for every day on the job -- while Monegan recieved not a dime. In fact, this payment was, apparently, orginally done in secret, and was brought to light by blogger Andrew Halcro (a former state representative, who recently got his own talk show) ...
Now, even if Troopergate weren't a scandal, one has to ask, what is Palin doing giving a $10,000 severance package to someone who served 10 days who lied to her in the process of getting the job in the first place? And, of course, one has to wonder what kind of vetting process Palin herself uses if she didn't even bother to check out his claim that the sexual harrasment complaint had been dismissed.
Rosenberg also discusses allegations that the governor's office may be tampering with witnesses.
-- JMC
(8/30/08)
McCain Picks Palin: A Grateful Nation Asks “Wha?”
We all know that Palin is about as far away from Progressive or Populist as one can get. I won’t belabor that point because many others will do it for me. But I would like to point out that this settles the argument—once and for all—about Republicans and why they do what they do. There was a time, I’m told, when Republicans simply disagreed with Democrats on how to run the country. They wanted things to go well, they wanted peace and prosperity, they just thought they were right and we were wrong. The selection of Palin signals that time has passed. They do not care. It’s all about winning. The selection of Palin is simple calculation. Nobody thinks Palin’s capable of being President (a role she may have to fill), nor does anyone I’ve spoken to think she’s capable of being VP. This is a simple political trap for Democrats. Mock Palin and you’re being mean to an attractive, hardworking mother, who still finds time to be Governor of her great, wild state. The temptation make fun of her is like an alcoholic being offered a lifetime supply of free scotch. So far Obama is doing the right thing; staying away from the issue and allowing the media to do his dirty work for him. If he wants to get Rovian (weakness is strength, strength weakness) he should have surrogates go nuts over the fact that many, many more qualified Republican women were passed over for a former beauty queen. Palin’s only strength, other than being an evangelical nut, is her sex. Turn that against her and the election is over. -- Charles Cullen
(8/29/08)
Why “I’m not George Bush” Will Work, This Time
I was there, not 25 feet away when John Kerry “reported for duty.” And that was the first time I knew he was going to lose. As soon as Kerry popped that phony salute, I knew we were doomed. The knowledge announced itself as simple panic and dread; feelings I kept trying to put behind me by telling myself that I was a worrywart, that we were right, and that the American people were just too damned smart to elect George Bush honestly. I remember joking with the head of this august publication about what would happen to his readership after Kerry was elected. Even then I knew. But Obama is no Kerry, and this is not 2004. With that in mind, these are the reasons you can expect to see a Black Man sworn in.
1) Even in good times the Electorate gets restless. Historically it’s unusual for a single party to get three terms in the White House. These are awful times.
2) Obama is a better politician than either Kerry or Gore by orders of magnitude. Gore suffered from two fatal problems: he thought he had to distance himself from Clinton, and that meant losing one of the most politically talented staffs in modern political history. It also meant hiring people like the unendingly moronic Donna Brazile (a mistake Kerry made as well). Gore simply, and rightly, thought that he was running against some rich idiot and that there was no way to lose the election. You can see it in his behavior during debates, his relatively easy schedule, and his glacier-like responses to Bush’s outrages attacks. Plus, the American people were bored and the media was pushing the “both parties are the same,” narrative like their collective lives depended on it. Kerry suffered from the same disease as Gore (intelligence) but he did an even poorer job controlling it. He actually tried to explain his policies to the American people as one would explain something complex and just assumed they would pay attention. He also responded extremely slowly to the outrageous attacks leveled against him.
3) McCain has picked Sarah Palin, Palin as a running mate. This isn’t 1999, folks. It’s 2008 and people are scared out of their minds. McCain will be the oldest President ever sworn in (assuming he’s sworn in; an event that will precipitate my hasty retreat to Costa Rica), and he is running with the most inexperienced, and least ready VP in living memory.
4) McCain has now thrown his most effective line of attack out the window. Anytime he tries to bring up Obama’s experience, a reporter will ask about Palin. If McCain counters that she isn’t running for POTUS, someone will bring up the question of McCain’s age.
5) This is already being reported as a Hail Mary, and even the most pro-Hillary blogs are writing that McCain probably handed Obama the election. The ONE THING Biden can’t do is get mean with Palin during a debate. That’s it. That’s the only thing this pick gets McCain. -- Charles Cullen
(8/28/08)
OBAMA'S SPEECH. Wow. Even Pat Buchanan on MSNBC praised it as one of the best convention speeches ever.
David Sirota calls it "probably the most populist national speech Obama has given."
Charles Babington of the Associated Press, parting from what appeared to be a growing consensus, wrote that it was not specific enough.
'DREAM' LIVES ON. See Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" speech on the 45th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Notes on convention coverage ...
Due to our production schedule, we were unable to attend the Democratic National Convention for the first time in six elections. We’re sorry to miss the parties and sideshows, but as far as the business of the convention, we probably were better able to follow the floor action on good ole C-SPAN.
TV critic David Bianculli has done a good job of monitoring the coverage and marking which events the various “news” channels have ignored.
In summary, C-SPAN is the only network with gavel-to-gavel coverage. If you want to follow the convention, stick to C-SPAN. PBS does the next best job, presenting the major speakers during the evening sessions. The other “news” channels made curious choices and all too often broke away from speakers to focus on pundits bloviating and speculating about the latest Republican talking points.
For example, on Monday, Bianculli noted that “CNN presented the Jimmy Carter video and appearance and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg's introduction to Ted Kennedy and endorsement of Barack Obama -- but didn't run the Ted Kennedy tribute film co-created by Ken Burns. CNN also ignored the opening speech by Nancy Pelosi, but did televise remarks, in the same opening prime-time hour, by Jesse Jackson, Jr.
“MSNBC, on the other hand, showed the Pelosi speech and the Kennedy video, which CNN skipped, but ignored the Carter tribute video and Jackson, which CNN showed.
“And over on Fox News, the entire first hour of DNC material was ignored completely -- no Pelosi, no Carter, no Jackson. But Fox News, unlike CNN, did show the Kennedy tribute film, rather than spend the time with its own correspondents.”
When the commercial broadcast networks began their hour of coverage at 9 p.m. CT, only ABC presented Ted Kennedy’s stirring, unscheduled speech intact. CBS and NBC only played snippets as they looked toward Michelle Obama’s speech.
On Tuesday. the networks focused on Hillary Clinton’s speech, which ran over the 10 p.m. CT prime-time limit, pushing into the local news.
The best political analysis came from Comedy Central, as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report commented on events from the previous day. Bianculli singled out Comedy Central's Daily Show as “perfect. I absolutely adored John Oliver's report on the angry Hillary supporters who refused to back Barack Obama. He sought the help of a child psychologist, who said, ‘Sometimes children just aren't group-ready,’ and suggested therapeutic games and songs to help them along.”
On Wednesday Bianculli noted that two of Wednesday’s most anticipated dramatic and historic events -- Obama being nominated by acclamation by Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton’s supportive speech -- occurred when CBS, NBC and ABC weren’t televising the convention.
Bianculli noted that CNN was the only channel (other than C-SPAN) to televise Melissa Etheridge’s musical medley, which included “Give Peace a Chance” and “Born in the USA.” CNN and PBS were the only ones that showed Steven Spielberg’s video about war veterans, which was narrated by Tom Hanks. Fox News and MSNBC ignored both Etheridge and the Spielberg film and also ignored the prime-time speech by John Kerry. CNN showed part of Kerry’s address while PBS showed all of it.
One of the speeches that was overlooked on the opening night of the Democratic convention was delivered by Jim Leach (see the video on Youtube and the text at the DNC website). Leach served 30 years as a moderate Republican congressman from eastern Iowa before his constituents in 2006 no longer could abide with his role in helping to form a Republican majority.
While he remains a Republican, Leach endorsed Obama, saying “today’s Republican Party has broken with its conservative heritage. The party that once emphasized individual rights has gravitated in recent years toward regulating values. The party of military responsibility has taken us to war with a country that did not attack us. The party that formerly led the world in arms control has moved to undercut treaties crucial to the defense of the earth. The party that prides itself on conservation has abdicated its responsibilities in the face of global warming. And the party historically anchored in fiscal restraint has nearly doubled the national debt, squandering our precious resources in an undisciplined and unprecedented effort to finance a war with tax cuts.”
He concluded, “This is not a time for politics as usual, or for run of the mill politicians ... America needs new ideas, new energy and a new generation of leadership.” He credited the Democrats with “nominating a transcending candidate, an individual whom I am convinced will recapture the American dream and be a truly great president: the senator from Abraham Lincoln's state--Barack Obama.”
Speakers that were overlooked by the networks on Tuesday included US Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who urged the crowd to “Wake Up America” see the video or the text); Sen. Bob Casey, who noted that McCain voted with Bush 95% of the time last year and commented, “That’s not a maverick, that’s a sidekick” (see the video or the text); and Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who was a hit in his blazer, blue jeans, bolo tie and cowboy boots, kicked some butt on Republican one-shot energy policy and brought the convention to its feet as he endorsed Obama's comprehensive energy policy and engaged the audience in a call and response:
“Can we afford four more years?” he asked. “No!” came the reply.
“Is it time for change?” “Yes!”
“When do we need it?” “Now!”
"Who's going to lead us there, as the next president of the United States?" "Barack Obama."
(see the video or the text).
(Jimmy Orr of the Christian Science Monitor blogged, "Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer did the equivalent of summiting Everest for the first time yesterday, getting the crowd to roar while discussing renewable energy.")
Speakers that were overlooked Wednesday included retir Army Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy, the military intelligence chief who was the first woman to achieve the rank of three-star general and said “In Barack Obama, our troops will have a commander-in-chief who has the judgment to use them wisely, sending them into harm’s way as a last resort, not a first resort; who listens to intelligence, doesn’t exaggerate it; who will bring our troops home from Iraq responsibly, not keep them there indefinitely; who knows that torture is not only morally repugnant, it’s militarily ineffective” (see text); retired Rear Admiral John Hutson, who told why he switched from Republican to Democrat: "Because the Republican Party I once knew has become something different, something I no longer recognize. The “Grand Old Party” is no longer grand. It’s just old" (see text); and Tammy Duckworth, a former Army helicopter pilot who lost both her legs and suffered damage to her right arm while on duty in Iraq. She said McCain wants to ration health care to veterans while Barack Obama fought for a new GI Bill and wants to improve VA health programs as well as general health care. She also noted, “I met him when he visited me and other wounded troops at Walter Reed. He came without reporters. He wasn’t looking for credit. He just cared about how we were doing. He knew that wherever you stand on the war, you must love the warrior, and he does” (see text).
You can find text of speeches delivered at the convention at the Democratic National Convention website.
2008
2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August
2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 16-31, 2005
January 1-15, 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
