Gone On Principle

Those of us awake and paying attention when the Soviet Union collapsed may have learned a few things from it. One, it happened without warning; or, more to the point, the warning signs were not broadly seen for what they were. Two, it happened really quickly; one crack - provided by Gorbachev's policy of glaznost, which was mainly an official acknowledgement of how rotten things had become - was all it took. Three, it was pretty thorough.

The imminent implosion of the Republican party, an ongoing process which got underway after Katrina hit, will begin in earnest on election day and should be over in November, 2010. Yeah, I know I'm going out on a limb here, but I've been right about a few things lately and I'm feeling good.

First of all, don't expect TV to bring you any notice of this, well at least for another couple years. The television networks are chock-full of amoral, pay-for-play sociopaths greatly in tune with the way the Repubs have done business for the last ten years. Indeed, later sociologists may find rich territory examining how the image-conscious, poll-driven, self-absorbed values of network TV migrated to the Republican machine after Goldwater's loss. (Say what you will about ol' Barry, he was guilty of none of the above.) No, network TV, all network TV, not just FOX, is a part of the creaking apparatus that is coming down.

How, you might ask, is all this happening? Beyond an unpopular president and the hateful goons around him who prosecuted a pointless war, beyond the hard economic times for most Americans - the school loans and credit card debt, the healthcare costs, the low-paying jobs, the expensive and bad transit systems, the penniless school districts - beyond the corrupt, do-nothing congress; all such torments have been survived in the past, why should things fall apart now?

One, people reliably loyal to the old system, that is those who felt good about Ike as a general and president, who thought Nixon had just the right tone, who watched Ronnie on TV since Death Valley Days die by the thousands every day. They are not being replaced. Two, the corporate contributors to the Republican party no longer employ enough Americans to make the companies' wider interests politically agreeable. When corporations like Ford, U.S. Steel, the Bell System, Burlington mills bought access and contracts in Washington, one could argue that benefits did accrue to the working stiffs who made those companies great. You tell me, Mr. GOP, how many voters can Bechtel, Halliburton, Black Water, the Chase Bank, etc say they directly benefit?

Which brings us to Three, the religious nuts used to mobilize votes. These useful boobs are ultimate poison to a political party; moody, fractious, not-especially-bright in their broad numbers, and - more to the point - utterly intolerant of compromise. When the chips are down, as they are now for the GOP, these people are gimlet-eyed liabilities when it comes to appealing to the broad electorate. If your coalition mainly relies on religious nuts, you are done for.

Finally, what is pressing all this together in a gruesome reaction is Four, the nature of digital media. Events move very fast now, inner lives are more exposed, feelings are more important, individuals have greater visibility. This is a strange, in some ways a more shallow and less private world. But it is where we are now, and all the old political assumptions of the GOP (based on an absurd melange of flinty independence, repressed emotions and blind loyalty) mean less with each passing day.

Now why isn't this happening also to the Democrats? I will address that shortly, I swear.

New York State of Things

I was happy to see that Eric Massa, who like I said is no relation, gained an endorsement last week from John Tonello, the mayor of Elmira, who is (2nd cousin, paternal, once removed). Eliot Spitzer is in a runaway for governor, and Andrew Cuomo's opponent for Attorney General, Janette Pirro, seems to have hammered the last nail in her own coffin.

Spitzer appears to be the Democratic reincarnation of Tom Dewey, without the dumb mustache and boxy suits. He has yet to hit the national radar, but as the country realigns its priorities, he will be one guy to watch. Spitzer's wild success so far can't be explained by his reputation downstate alone. Upstate New York has been GOP territory since before the Lincoln administration, and Spitzer's rather astounding margin, should it hold, I think signals a very big realignment in a very rural and economically hobbled part of the republic, especially if the Dems also pick up the A.G.

I wish I liked Andrew Cuomo more. I expect his heart is in the right place, but he seems to have absorbed much of the bile his amiable father, and utterly charming mother, have managed to live without. I don't know why Mario Cuomo decided not to run for president in 1992, but I cried a little listening to his announcement on the radio, and our politics, let me tell you, have gone downhill ever since.

The press seems stuck on the message that the Dems have no agenda per se. But that ignores the fact that local issues, plant closings, troop deployments, healthcare costs, student loans, infrastructure needs, are the focus this cycle. Dems are making gains in areas that most people can recognize as meaningful to their lives. Repubs, astoundingly, have lost that plot, and are trying to advance on a broad policy of, mainly, pushing other people around: torturing the truculent, deporting the helpless, denying the marginalized.

This is, at heart, a politics of vanity; that is it lacks a collective goal that is neither coercive nor utterly self-absorbed. One outcome of vanity is cynicism, and this is why the Republican party is shuddering to pieces (which, I submit, is just as much a story as the "no agenda" Dems). Rampant cynicism has infected their actions and speech, has made their faces look sick and angry, and has spread to a weary electorate. That voters see a welcome drop in gas prices as just another pre-election move by the creeps in power, does not bode at all well, short term and long, for the GOP.

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Update 9.30: I guess it's not too late to jump on the Vanity meme.

Word War One

I wasn't planning on saying much about Big Bill's perf on FOX. How anyone in the TV business could imagine that Wallace, with the Botox-ed features of an incipient Michael Jackson, right down to the permanent self-satisfied smirk, could look good at all opposite the features of a hungover Zeus which Bill presents is beyond me. (Any of you older cats catch a pronounced LBJ vibe to Bill's body language? I sure did.)

Mostly I thought that anyone watching the show inclined to change their minds would bound to have been swayed by the Big Dog, if only by the passion with which he ticked off his very well collected points. I mean only sincere cement heads could have watched the job Wallace did and cry "Hurray".

Well, clearly even the cement heads were not happy with what FOX wrought, because one of them just opened her speaking tube to, very stupidly, kick the discussion up a notch:

Clinton did not leave plans to fight al Qaeda: Rice

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice strongly disputed a claim by former President Bill Clinton that he left a comprehensive plan to fight al Qaeda when his term ended.

In a heated interview aired on "Fox News Sunday," the former president accused the Bush administration of doing far less that he did to stop al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks.

Clinton said he had "battle plans" drawn to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban and launch a full-scale search for bin Laden.

But Rice, who was national security advisor at the time of the September 11 attacks, strongly disagreed with Clinton's version of events during an interview on Monday with the New York Post.

"We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda," Rice said in a transcript of her comments released by the State Department.

"For instance, big pieces were missing, like an approach to Pakistan that might work, because without Pakistan you weren't going to get Afghanistan," Rice said.

Asked whether she thought Clinton was a liar, Rice replied: "No, I'm just saying that, look, there was a lot of passion in that interview."

Gee, maybe Condi is jealous of the passion part. Note the venue of her remarks (a Murdock organ), and her prissy need for a comprehensive plan. Someone panicked and turned a raw talking point by the ex-Prez into a policy review. I would have advised them not to start a fight they can't win, but those assholes seem to enjoy doing just that.

Dyspepsia Thy Name Is Media

Don't ask me to explain the title, only that it fits my mood this overcast morn on the edge of Lake Michigan. Is it me, or is that squeaking sound coming from the hand-wringing over on the left over how the Dems are conducting the election campaign? No one is in a good mood apparently.

Personally, I'm not in a hand-wringing mood. And if I was it would be over the Mets' two-week-old batting slump, during which the team has hit a remarkable .200 average. The B-squad win the other night was sweet, but they wasted another goodie from Duque last night and one senses a few wheels spinning.

While I think the manager has some influence over a pitching staff, I'd guess there is little he can do about a team batting slump. Funny enough, while I was expecting Lo Duca to slack off after the All-Star break he remained a very consistent bat and was perhaps something of a pillar in the order. Anyway he is missed when he's out of the lineup. The home run by his rather unimpressive replacement, Mike DiFelice (and what is it, btw, about Italians and catching? Yogi, take a bow.) last night may have been a sign that things are turning around, but it was not enough to turn the game. I hate to say it but Cliffie Floyd may have to give up the idea of starting.

But it is hard maintaining a steady strain over the course of a season, which people should keep in mind about the elections as well. The Repubs are cooked, it is only a matter of how much. Yesterday there were more protesters in Rochester than people who ponyed up the dosh to listen to Dick. The local paper's story was predictably bad. (The reporter found plenty of quotes inside the convention center, but got only one from a protester, who was part of some corny-sounding street theater group.) But it did point out there were more people outside than inside. And if progressive pundits are worried the Dems are wasting ammo bitching about the economy, it seems to be what the Repubs are running on, astonishingly, in places like Rochester.

So chill. The people in central and western New York who think the economy is just great are less in number than those who paid to see Dick yesterday. I hate to be the one to break it to the rest of my several readers, but the blowback from this rotten war has yet to creep into the marrow of the vast majority, as it has already crept into ours. It will, but don't ask too many Americans what they think of the waste of lives and treasure in the decay of the national soul, because their means of thinking about such abstractions are pretty limited. This is not a national election coming up, as much as our simmering media portray it as such, and in most of the country, outside the mountain west and Manhattan, times stopped being what you might call good a few years ago.

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Update: I swear I wrote all of the above before seeing today's Chicago Tribune front pager. You Keystone Staters will note the Bristol dateline.

One View of the Falls

The Vice President will be in my hometown tomorrow raising money at the convention center, a steel and glass onament on a dead Main Street. Maybe one of these days I will reminisce here about the decay I witnessed in Rochester over the years, the Before and After memories of just another doomed Rust Belt city that once was pretty special.

Interestingly, what first made Rochester special, a central river, the Genesee, which makes a 300-foot drop inside the city limits on its way to Lake Ontario, is now the only thing that sets the town apart. Part of that drop is a rather impressive 100-foot waterfall right near where ol' Dick will be wagging come Friday. Access to the falls was industrialized way back when this industrialization business was just getting off the ground (indeed the Genesee Brewing Co. is right there), and now the view of the falls is a poignant display of the run down, the antique and the eternal all in one.

The Seneca Indians, who lived on this land before the French and then the English arrived, believed in elf-like beings they called the Great Little People who lived in a cave behind these very falls and spent a good part of their time singing in an incomprehensible language. They mainly liked the Seneca, who were prudent enough to offer them tobacco, pitched into the gorges of the Genesee, just to be on the safe side. For while the Great Little People were no great threat to human beings per se, and were invited to the New Year celebration every winter, one of their duties in this world was to keep the White Buffalo under the earth. Should the White Buffalo escape cataclysms ensue.

While some western tribes revered the White Buffalo as a agent of peace, the Eastern Nations were not so disposed (and, yes, there were plenty of buffalo in the eastern forests once upon a time, where they roamed in small packs rather than in the large herds of the grasslands). If you ask me, the White Buffalo got loose a few years ago and so far the Great Little People have seen no pressing need to round her up.

And, man, if you want to know what the White Buffalo looks and sounds like today, check out ol' Dick. And if you are ever in Rochester you might want to pitch a little tobacco into the Genesee.

Okay, Mets Fans iv

Not much to say, really, besides "Yay!" I missed last week's losses for some traveling. But they allowed the Metsies to clinch at home, a gesture the fans appreciated. I got the feeling that Trachsel was working with some extra dispatch last night as it would be far better for team spirit to take the division with a win rather than the pending Phils loss. And lo, they did.

In the eighth inning Howie Rose remembered Bob Murphy (for out-of-towners: the Mets' radio announcer for 40 years) and Ralphie Kiner (the TV guy), which was very classy. As much as I liked McCarver and Kiner, back in the day - and, yes, kiddies, there was once a time when Tim McCarver was funny, engaging and instructive to listen to - for my money, Murph's voice was baseball in New York.

For some reason the Mets have mostly kept ex-jocks out of the radio booth, filling it in the last quarter century with knowledgeable fans - Rose, Gary Cohen and the new guy Tom McCarthy - who seem to have grown up in the upper deck at Shea. This is altogether to the good, for no one points out the team's shortcomings more ably than a real Mets fan, or, for that matter, is better at admiring the skill of opposing players. Long seasons of miserable play, choked promise and dazzling trade-aways have made the Met faithful connoisseurs of genuine quality as well as world-class complainers.

The season could have gone a little green and furry, what with Pedro's poor return and the sweep in Pittsburgh, if they lost again last night. But if there was any question Willie might not be manager of the year, it was put to rest over the last couple days.

Time Munches On

I see the Wash Post has published another thrilling front-page tell-all book excerpt from one of its writers dealing with the criminal conduct of the Republicanz viz Iraq; this one on the rampant cronyism of the CPA.

This story has been known in its large details for almost three years, but it is its particulars which now induce grave head shaking among the sensible and, in my case, deep laughter from the intellectually mordant. At least one writer (and here let me propose that us bloggers begin calling ourselves what we are, and that is writers) was concerned with a journalism which now proceeds from a widescale view to a summing of the particulars, a reversal from the good old days of investigative reporting. This, apparently, is a help to those in power who, presumably, are never called to account in real time.

Well, I guess. But what has struck me is how quickly these recent books all detailing the Iraq clusterfuck have appeared in the wake of events. Recall that Francis Fitzgerald's Fire in the Lake and David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest, the first historic appraisals of official U.S. conduct of the Vietnam War did not appear until 1972, four years after the Tet Offensive, and seven after escalation began in earnest. It was another sixteen years before A Bright and Shining Lie, which focused deeply on how things went bad on the ground there, appeared.

I should not have to point out that we live in a time of rapid communication. What no one in the brual braintrust figured was how that state of affairs would change people's preception of progress, and appitite for loss. Attention spans may have dwindled, but so has the official media cover those assholes expected would last them through 2008.

Hot Soul Go-Go TV Dance Party

G'gawd!

Powell Outage

Yesterday brought news from an unexpected quarter, that Colin Powell - clearly a man who waits for an opening - finally got his licks in.

More interesting is how Powell's letter utterly cracked the media narrative of that creep's so called rebound. From the Chicago Tribune:

It was a remarkable setback for Bush just as he had seemed to be strengthening his political position in debate over national security policy. Over the last week, Bush had thrown Democrats on the defensive with hard-hitting speeches on terrorism while the president's allies tried to cast doubt about Democrats' toughness in the face of the threat.

Note "seemed to be" and "tried" in the above. And the "remarkable setback" is neither. The fool has been lost for well over a year, in all but the eyes of an institutional press that needs the give and take of the conventional narrative, a conventional narrative that had "us" prevailing in Iraq.

Rudi Will Fail

For years my fondest political wish has been for Rudolph Giuliani to declare himself a candidate for president. That way the rest of the country can discover something New Yorkers have known for years, that "America's Mayor" is a thin-skinned martinet; a rank boob. Any Democrat with a warm smile would have beaten him like a gong.

Alas, I will not get my wish. The EPA/NYC story coming out now, now that the men and women who labored for months in the toxic debris of the World Trade Center are dying from ruined lungs, will zero out any chance that cazzone had for a spot on the GOP ticket.

Juan Gonzalez, the only reason to read the news section of the NY Daily News, has a front page recap of the coverup and official lies; just one more chronicle of block-headed treachery from the GOP. Will this growing tale of injustice intrude on the national mood next week? Probably not. Wounded pride is far easier to deal with, as spectacle, than betrayed rescue workers.

Okay, Mets Fans iii

Nothing like a double-header sweep to put a hitting dry spell away. Yesterday's highlight for me was Julio Franco's unassisted catch-tag double-play at first in the second game. The guy might be older than I am and, according to the radio call, was rocked back a bit catching the ball then took a knee before tapping his mitt on the stranded runner's leg.

Way to go, Julio.

Shawn Green is looking like the perfect late season pick-up and Endie Chavez is now officially My Favorite Met. He thrives wherever he's put in the field and, yesterday, as a pinch hitter.

Anyone miss Pedro? To answer no this late in the season says tons about the staff. And here let me apologize to El Duque. I am now fully convinced the man rope-a-dopes opposing batters, gives them pitches to hit in the first couple innings, then, once their eyes are big, freezes their asses for the next four or five. Word in Chicago is that last year with the White Sox, Duque did a lot to help Jose Contreras, who had a phenomenal season.

So yes, dear friends, the Mets are why your normally dyspeptic correspondent has a song in his heart this sunny Chicago morn; for them and for the news that Tony Blair is crackling toast.

Dotting The Ayes

Those of you who remember yesterday's post might be pleased to find out I have done due diligence on that House race. Eric Massa is the Democrat, and a fighting one too, and the contest is for the New York 29th. Though Eric looks like any number of my paternal cousins, he is no relation that I know. No word on how he handled his here-nameless opponent's dinger, but he strikes one as an ernest bloke.

Let me tell you, a Democratic win here would be a real bellwether, and allow Massa to caucus with his Monroe County neighbor, the terrific Louise Slaughter.

I Dream A Whirl

Last month I was back where I came from, under the dreaming skies of western New York, and saw in the local paper how one local Republican congressman, fresh from a guided tour of Iraq, said things were just great over there. Unfortunately for the idiot, the same edition of the paper carried the story of an especially gloomy forecast of our country's prospects for success in Iraq, given by generals in testimony to Congress. I'm not sure who that jackass is running against, but any Democrat with a pulse will have snatched up that ironic cudgel and should be beating that fool's head in with it still.

Yes, this weekend brings news of what I'd like to think that the most sensible and clear-eyed among us (kaff-kaff) have known all year: the Repux are fucted. And as the MSM now digests this bit of news in all its tedious and self-serving ways, I say it is time for the level-headed among us to consider what to do with the legislative majority.

My short answer? Exterminate the brutes.

The great Gilliard has a post this morning on the interesting subject of the means of dealing with fanatics in the political realm. Steve sez it can't be done, and he's right. He also brings up the possibility of jailing some of these motherfuckers if the need arises, and I've thought for a while now that the need will arise as a few of these amped-up losers are bound to take matters into their own stupid hands.

The other side has decided to run on War and it would behoove several brave Democrats to call them and raise; advocate official cooperation with war crimes tribunals at the Hague, investigations into the office of the VP, the procurement process at the DoD and FEMA; legislation to dismantle goon squad franchises like Blackwater Security, breakup Haliburton and Bechtel. The assholes are going to do nothing but scream for the next four years anyway, so we may as well give them something to scream about.

Okay, Mets Fans ii

Much to like in last night's game. Maine consistently now no-hits the opposition first time through the order. But he still lacks the means to adjust in the fourth inning. Not like he gives up the ranch - he's 5-0, 3.00 and the Mets have won his last eight starts - but Willie had to go out and lecture him last night, trying unsuccessfully get him to last seven. A certain mental toughness is necessary for the post season, and I think with a little polishing, and assuming all are healthy, Maine can be the forth starter (sorry, Duque).

Cliffie doubled and Endie had a sweet catch on the line in right, made all the more difficult as he throws left and has mainly played left field in Cliff's absence. And Beltran... an all-out play to bitch slap the Houston fans who have been riding him for two years. (He'll be fine.) The Metsies have an awfully good outfield platoon, which I think encourages a certain sense of derring-do which we saw displayed last night.

The Metsies have an awfully good relief staff too and a pretty good starting rotation, but I submit that the key to a championship is your third baseman, a guy who can smack the ball and rob extra base hits in close games, a Brooks Robinson or Graig Nettles; a franchise player who bids fair to eclipse both paragons, in other words a David Wright.