Frank Rich, The New York Times, November 4, 2007 When President Bush started making noises about World War III, he only confirmed what has been a Democratic article of faith all year: Between now and Election Day he and Dick Cheney, cheered on by the mob of neocon dead-enders, are going to bomb Iran. But what happens if President Bush does not bomb Iran? That is good news for the world, but potentially terrible news for the Democrats. If we do go to war in Iran, the election will indeed be a referendum on the results, which the Republican Party will own no matter whom it nominates for president. But if we don’t, the Democratic standard-bearer will have to take a clear stand on the defining issue of the race. As we saw once again at Tuesday night’s debate, the front-runner, Hillary Clinton, does not have one. The reason so many Democrats believe war with Iran is inevitable, of course, is that the administration is so flagrantly rerunning the sales campaign that gave us Iraq. The same old scare tactic — a Middle East Hitler plotting a nuclear holocaust — has been recycled with a fresh arsenal of hyped, loosey-goosey intelligence and outright falsehoods that are sometimes regurgitated without corroboration by the press. Mr. Bush has gone so far as to accuse Iran of shipping arms to its Sunni antagonists in the Taliban, a stretch Newsweek finally slapped down last week. Back in the reality-based community, it is Mr. Bush who has most conspicuously enabled the Taliban’s resurgence by dropping the ball as it regrouped in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Administration policy also opened the door to Iran’s lethal involvement in Iraq. The Iraqi “unity government” that our troops are dying to prop up has more allies in its Shiite counterpart in Tehran than it does in Washington. Yet 2002 history may not literally repeat itself. Mr. Cheney doesn’t necessarily rule in the post-Rumsfeld second Bush term. There are saner military minds afoot now: the defense secretary Robert Gates, the Joint Chiefs chairman Mike Mullen, the Central Command chief William Fallon. They know that a clean, surgical military strike at Iran could precipitate even more blowback than our “cakewalk” in Iraq. The Economist tallied up the risks of a potential Shock and Awe II this summer: “Iran could fire hundreds of missiles at Israel, attack American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, organize terrorist attacks in the West or choke off tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s oil windpipe.” Read More Here

President Musharraf of Pakistan has done what many leaders like him have dreamed of doing, he has declared a state of emergency and suspended the Constitution. George W. ,must he smiling. Musharraf has apparently made this move because the Supreme Court of Pakistan was set to rule that he must step down as head of the army if he is to continue as president. Musharraf and his supporters have said all along that Musharraf was unwilling to step down from the army, his power base, at a time of continued unrest. Musharraf faces problems from his political rivals like Benazir Bhutto and from hard line Islamists that favor the Taliban and Al Queda. A few months ago Musharraf tried to remove the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court but lost the battle and the justice was reinstated. With the court poised to rule against Musharraf again, the General made his move. Can't you just see George W. Bush fantasizing about doing to America what Musharraf has done to Pakistan. Remove the Congress and the Courts, something the neocons behind Bush salivate about, and you have absolute control. One can laugh all one wants but if the US were to suffer a catastrophic terrorist attack our mindless leader could see his chance to join his buddy Musharraf as dictator. Combine that with a national media and general public that behave like sheep you can actually see this happen. Bush has one year to go and his backers know that the US public is looking for a change at the top. Short of a Musharraf like move, Bush and his benefactors are gone and all that they have created will be destroyed. Call me paranoid or a conspiracy theorist or whatever, but it sure is fun watching George and his little friend fuck around with the world. I just hope they don't crap on it too much more before we get rid of them.

Personally, I don't remember a Clinton/Ali analogy, either, but MaryMac didn't make up the bit about Kyl-Lieberman.  Those who opposed it did so based on the history of this White House to torture logic in any way necessary to make up equal down, etc.  Edwards actually said during the debate that (I'm paraphrasing) we know that if you give this White House an inch, they'll take a mile.  The charge is, Kyl-Lieberman can be used as authorization to invade Iran and with this White House, if it CAN be, it WILL be. Hillary voted for it but insisted she did it as a matter of diplomacy.  I believe she even indicated she hadn't read it but she voted for it.  I've read it.  It includes little tidbits like:

"it should be the policy of the United States to combat, (emphasis mine) contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies;"

and:

"that the United States should designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization...and place the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists"

Hillary's stump rhetoric is one thing.  Her actual VOTES are aiding and abetting...

Dear Church of Reality Members, I just got back from my reception with the Big Dog and I think the Church of Reality has a new member. As you know from my previous emails Bill Clinton came to Oakland tonight for a political fund raiser for Hillary. I paid the big bucks so I have the chance to get my picture taken with him. I had hoped to get 30 seconds to talk to him but only got about 10 seconds, which wasn't enough to get him hooked on the idea, and the secret service people made it clear that I wasn't allowed to hand him anything. So at first I didn't think I had achieved what I had hoped to. After the picture taking we all went downstairs where there were a few hundred others who paid only $500 to get in. Clinton came down and gave one of his incredible speeches. Oh how I miss having a president who actually thinks things through and is full of ideas. If that speech is online somewhere I'll send you a link to it. After the speech Clinton came down to the rope line and started shaking hands and talking to people. He saw me in the crowd. I was the only one there wearing a bright yellow t-shirt that said Church of Reality on the front. So I yelled to him to make the campaign about reality, talk about reality. And he stopped and listened and then he started to tell a story about reality. He was saying something about Cheney and the Bush team making comments about how they were above reality and considered themselves more powerful than the reality culture. The was before they started losing the war. I don't remember everything he said because I was trying to listen and think about what I was going to say next to hook him on the idea, but he rambled on about reality for about 3 to 5 minutes. I think we really connected and I think I got it into his mind in a way that he's going to go home and tell Hillary about it. I'm hoping that I'm not being too optimistic here but I think I accomplished far more than I had hoped to accomplish. We will see in the future if I'm right about this. Interestingly enough - I almost didn't make it to the reception. This is the part of the story that only a few people know about. A few weeks ago when I signed up I sent an email to the contact person and I had noticed some names of people who were called "hosts". So I asked what it takes to be a host and they said all I had to do was find 2 other people to come and I'm a host. So I said that I knew a few people and would give it a try, They said that if I were going to be a host that they would have to do a background check on me. So I said sure, no problem. Well two days ago I get a call from the campaign and they said that they didn't like what they found in my background check and that I couldn't go at all. They said they were refunding my money. I asked why and they were evasive but mentioned 3 things. The main issue was they didn't like one of my web sites. The also thought I had a criminal past but it turns other that I'm not the only Marc Perkel on the planet and there's someone out there abusing my name. However that person was born in 1988 and although I look young for my age I'm definitely not going to pass for 19 anymore. So after many phone calls getting no where I send an overnight letter to the campaign headquarters and in the letter I talked about my long political history, that I had run for Congress as a Democrat myself back in 1998 and that between the Church of Reality membership and various political blogs there were some ten thousand people who know I'm supposed to be there and asked how I was going to explain to these people why it was that I was being turned away. And apparently y letter ended up in the hands of some smart person who decided that yes in deed they had made a mistake, apologized, and said they hoped that I would still attend. My response was - right answer! What I think they were upset about most was some writing I did called the "Men's guide to Escort Services" which is a state of the art how to guide for men who want to hire a prostitute. The article was a huge hit 10 years ago when I wrote it and I was invited to an event called the International Conference on Prostitution (ICOP) where, as I pointed out to the Clinton staff, that the keynote speaker at the event was Dr. Jocelyn Elders, Clinton's Surgeon General. Anyhow - also pointed out that this is San Francisco and if they aren't used to strange people that they should stay out of California. So the good news is that I got to go. And I had to keep reminding myself about the new Sacred Principle I came up with recently about Patience and Persistence because I was really angry and was ready to be stupid. But I controlled myself and I didn't give up and as a result I might have started a process that will change the future. I intend to follow up on this. I'm going to send another overnight letter to the Hillary campaign and try to get them hooked on the reality idea. So if you hear the Clintons talking about reality as a theme, you heard it here first. So - hopefully I'm not basking in self delusion here but sometime I have to celebrate the victories before you find out it was all in my imagination. And I'm really glad that Hillary has some smart people on her staff because getting people to change their mind after they've been stupid is a rarity these days. Anyhow - that's the big story. I'm excited about this election. I think we can make a difference and I'm hoping that you all will be as interested in changing the future as I am. Marc Perkel First One Church of Reality "Even Bush can't stand up to Reality" as Clinton put it.

The Pampered Ex-Mayor, His Misleading Health Care Ad, and My Friend Mike Paul Krugman recently wrote about it, Keith Olbermann named Rudy his Worst Person in the World due to it, but they didn't cover the whole sordid story of Giuliani's 'socialized medicine' radio ad, and that it plainly demonstrates how out of touch the elitist Republican presidential candidate is with 'Ground Zero' America, and what an unrepentant liar he truly is.

"I had prostate cancer, five, six years ago. My chance of surviving prostate cancer -- and thank God I was cured of it -- in the United States, 82%. My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England, only 44% under socialized medicine." -- Rudy Giuliani, from his "Chances" radio ad released October 29, 2007.

When I first heard this ad on MSNBC earlier in the week it struck me that the figures were suspect. Republicans these days are factually-challenged to begin with, and it's proved doubly true with the Giuliani campaign. It took me all of 30 seconds 'on the Google' to refute Rudy's 'statistics.' As Julie Bosman wrote at the New York Times' The Caucus Blog:

"Not so, according to the Office of National Statistics in Britain, which puts the five-year survival rate from prostate cancer, among men, at 74.4 percent."

Add to this the fact that the statistics on prostate cancer are compiled and calculated differently in this country than in the UK, and, as Bosman notes, this 44% statistic was provided by Giuliani adviser David Gratzer, who quoted it from a seven-year-old Commonwealth Fund study that was described as "crude." The Commonwealth Fund quickly repudiated Giuliani's misleading use of their numbers: "Five-year survival rates cannot be calculated from incidence and mortality rates, as any good epidemiologist knows." But good Rudy-robot Gratzer, incredibly, dismissed his own source, accusing the Commonwealth Fund of "an ideological bias." Never fear, though, as Giuliani campaign aide Maria Comella, who issued the ad's press release, has assured us that Rudy will continue to run the ad, facts be damned. Habitual GOP inaccuracy and sleaze aside, this ad irritated me for another reason. I have a good friend I'll call Mike, a man about the same age as Giuliani, who has had stomach cancer for over seven years. While Mayor Rudy was being chauffeured by limousine to see his doctors for treatment, my friend Mike had to take a long hour-and-a-half, 14-mile bus and train ride from the north to the south side of Chicago to see his doctor. That's right, a three-hour, 28-mile round trip, for a man on a cane and weakened by cancer, and occasionally he had to make this trip three times a week. (Retired and on a fixed income, Mike can't afford the luxury of a car.) While the spoiled 'America's Mayor' saw the finest doctors in the country and never had to wait in line, Mike had to settle for whoever would treat him at Cook County Hospital -- the only 'free' public hospital left in Chicago thanks to our profit-hungry health care system -- and would sometimes have to sit for hours, gut churning in pain, waiting to see his doctor. (He was lucky that he happened to get a decent doctor.) You see, unlike Giuliani, Mike made the mistake of spending most of his life as a bartender, a job that pays well only if you get large enough tips. It wasn't that he didn't have the smarts to be a lawyer such as Rudy -- he just didn't have the dearth of conscience it takes to be a member of that bar. Instead, he served drinks to lawyers, as well as people from all walks of life, and met the famous and infamous along the way. He even became friends with a recently-deceased award-winning writer, and a raft of popular musicians. Mike could talk intelligently to anyone, regardless of the color of their collar or their skin. If I had to choose someone who actually understood how folks live in this country and what needs to be done to help them have better lives, I'd pick Mike's opinion in a heartbeat over any politician running for president from either party, but especially that thick-skulled, stone-hearted egotist Rudy. At any rate, out here in the real America the pampered ex-mayor knows nothing about, Mike never got any fringe benefits as a bartender -- no pension, no health care, no perks except a few free drinks at the end of the night, and only the kind of savings that can be quickly wiped out by a disaster such as stomach cancer. Mike was divorced and had no kids or close living relatives, so there was no family to help support him; when he was unable to tend bar anymore, he did part-time electrical contracting work for as long as he was physically able, but these jobs also came without health benefits. These days, as Rudy cuts these misleading 'socialized medicine' ads, my friend Mike relies on his Social Security check, Medicare, and subsidized rent to get by, and his finances are still tight. While his cancer is currently in remission and he can still get around with a cane, it's been in remission before and reemerged. He's walking a tightrope, and not making any long-term plans. That's right, my friend owes his life to three programs that the Republicans have fumed over as 'socialist' and sought to eliminate or privatize out of existence: Social Security, Medicare, and subsidized housing. Right about now, from my long experience of dealing with pecksniff neocons, I can hear the imperious dismissal that it's Mike's responsibility for the position he's in -- he should have planned better for his future when he was younger. (They only believe in personal responsibility, of course, when it's someone who's poor and not Republican; those who start stupid wars, lie under oath, ignore our laws, and cause ruinous debt are never to be held accountable.) Wipe that cheese-puff dust from around your mouth and listen up, you little weasel: Mike's in his 60s; when he was a young man, he didn't have the luxury of pretending to be self-reliant while he tapped out obnoxious neocon idiocy on a keyboard at his Mom's house -- he actually had to go out and earn a living to support himself, and no one, when they're young, plans to end up with cancer. Aside from that, Mike paid plenty of Social Security taxes during his working years -- contrary to what you've heard, it is basically an insurance program -- so he's just using what he's already paid into. Furthermore, I have yet to meet a Republican, carping about socialism, who has turned down a Social Security check, Medicare, or any other public service when they needed it. "No, I have my principles -- I'd rather be sick than use socialized medicine!" I'd like to see any of the Republican candidates for president go through what Mike has to go through every month to fight his cancer and come out on the other end bleating about the horrors of socialized medicine. One 28-mile round trip on the bus and train in pain should be enough to convince them that the nearest hospital should be available to every patient for long-term care; counting out dimes to pay for your cancer medication should be enough to cure them of their opposition to low-cost drugs such as Canadians are allowed to buy, but Americans aren't. Later in his misleading ad, Giuliani chirped, "We have the best health care system in the world." To paraphrase a quote by Abraham Lincoln, I'd like to see it tried on him personally, not as the celebrated ex-mayor of New York City, but as an average guy like Mike.

Mark Perkel wrote:

I watched the Democratic debate Tuesday and I'm not impressed with candidates who use personal and phony attacks. I think Edwards in particular and Obama to a lesser extent are behaving more like Republicans than Democrats. If a candidate can't win on the merits of their position and their record then they shouldn't win. When candidates go negative and do it in a dishonest way all you get is a dishonest politician. I used to like Edwards and Obama. Now, not so much.

Could you be a little less specific, please? I watched the debate as well (that makes two of us) and I didn't notice any "personal attacks". It seemed to me Edwards and Obama were simply trying to highlight the differences in platforms and one accomplishes that by saying, "my opponent's position is this and my position is that". Nobody forced Hillary to say she supported a program to issue drivers licenses to illegal immigrants before she said she didn't say that. Was it wrong of the other candidates to point out both of her answers? Is that a personal attack? As for me, I oppose the candidate that will be most beholden to mega-corporations and special interests...but it's nothing personal...

While the cost of oil in this country has been going through the roof, it has remained stable in other countries. Why? Greedy oil companies? Nope. Increasing demand by the Communist Chinese and India? Nope. I’ve been screaming about this for years now. How many different ways can one say fiat money is a shitty way to run an economy? How many times can one repeat that we need govt reform including the FairTax? So why has oil been going through the roof in just this country? Read the below! OVERLOOKED FACTOR IN OIL HIKE: FALLING DOLLAR By Richard C. Leone and Bernard Wasow NEW YORK – Gasoline and heating-oil prices in the US are at an all-time high and rising. But it may surprise Americans to learn that in Europe, they've essentially remained steady. Why the cost difference? Experts have a lot of good reasons to explain it, among them unrest in the Middle East, gas-guzzling cars, and greed among oil-producing nations. But there is another culprit that is being ignored and that is making the problem far, far worse in the US: the decline in the value of the dollar. While the cost of oil Between the end of February 2002 and the end of February 2004, the price of oil in dollars rose by 51 percent (from $20 a barrel in 2002 to more than $35 a barrel today), but it rose by only 4 percent in euros. Over the same two-year period, the US currency plunged from 1.16 euros per dollar to 0.80 euros per dollar. In this situation, it is perfectly rational for foreign suppliers of oil to charge more dollars. While remedies such as encouraging more efficient use of energy are good, they won't negate the fact that a declining US dollar is an important cause of the run-up in oil prices. And the Bush administration is doing little about it. It may seem like a stretch to blame the price of oil on fiscal mismanagement, but the rise is closely tied to the falling dollar, which, in turn, is the result of flagging confidence in federal tax and budget policies. The dollar is falling, among other reasons, because of the prospect of too many US Treasury bonds on the market - and that is made necessary by the enormous deficits generated by tax cuts, spending increases, and sluggish economic performance. Thanks to the unbalanced policies of the past few years, the US will be pumping out trillions of dollars in new federal debt. Financial markets - and oil producers - are afraid that a future glut of bonds will drive down their value and, sooner or later, drive up US interest rates. The prospects of falling Treasury bond prices and a weak dollar have depressed European demand for US Treasury bonds, so the value of the euro has risen further relative to the dollar. Dollars today simply do not possess the same purchasing power that they did a few years ago - a situation that will persist as long as it is painfully obvious that the administration has no plan to reduce the deficit. As the value of the dollar falls, of course, OPEC raises the dollar price of oil. So as Americans flinch when they pump ever more expensive fuel into their tanks, they might reflect on the decline in international confidence in the dollar. It is more proof of the adage, "there's no such thing as a free lunch." In terms of today's relationship between the weak dollar and oil prices, the political version of a free lunch is a buffet of tax cuts, big deficits, high gasoline prices, and blameless officials. Officeholders can claim credit for cutting taxes while blaming mysterious international market forces for increases in oil prices - but the bill still must be paid. • Richard C. Leone is president of the New York-based Century Foundation, where Bernard Wasow is a senior fellow. This commentary originally appeared in The Los Angeles Times. ©2004 The Los Angeles Times.