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Christopher Hayes, The Nation, January 4, 2008

More than three years after John Kerry’s bitter defeat, at the dawn of what looks like a far more promising campaign cycle for the Democrats, the party is still haunted by the specter of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Once upon a time, “Swift boat” denoted an obscure military vessel, but thanks to the activities of this group it has come to represent movement conservatism’s penchant for ruthlessly (and effectively) smearing any and all political opponents, from a sitting senator and war hero to an 11-year-old boy with a cranial fracture.

Research by The Nation into Federal Election Commission records of the group’s top twenty donors reveals that they’ve been remarkably active in this cycle, contributing and bundling nearly $200,000 to presidential candidates. This does not bode well. During the last presidential campaign, the wealthy backers of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth–now rebranded as Swift Vets and POWs for Truth–didn’t do their real dirty work until the general election, where as a tax-exempt 527 group they operated outside the restraints of direct campaign contributions. We may wish we were done with the Swift Boaters, but they aren’t done with us.

In 2004 the top twenty donors all gave (with one exception) at least $50,000 to the group. The top three–Houston home builder Bob Perry, Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens and billionaire drugstore impresario and investor Harold Simmons–gave a combined $9.5 million ($4.45 million, $3 million and $2 million, respectively). Calculating the influence of these and the slightly less wealthy Swift Boat donors during this cycle is a touch more complicated than simply adding up their contributions. Each one exerts far more influence as a bundler, given the federal restrictions on individual giving, which limit donors to a maximum of $4,600 per cycle. So The Nation looked not only at the contributions of the donors themselves but also at those of their family members and employees. It’s an imperfect method, since some employees are clearly contributing of their own volition (such as one employee of a Simmons company who gave money to Hillary Clinton), but it gives a rough estimate of who’s backing whom and to what extent.

The most notable recipient of Swift Boat largesse is John McCain, erstwhile front-runner and Stand Up Guy. When the Swift Boat ads were first unleashed, McCain was alone among his Republican colleagues to condemn them. A fellow Vietnam veteran, a good friend of Kerry’s and a former target of smears about his own service, McCain called the ads “dishonest and dishonorable,” a “cheap stunt,” and he urged Bush to condemn them. But in pursuit of the GOP nomination, McCain ditched the mantle of maverick for that of hack, and his once-floundering, possibly rejuvenated campaign has been aided along the way by $61,650 from Swift Boat donors and their associates. “There is such a thing as dirty money,” said Senator Kerry in a statement, after The Nation informed him of McCain’s FEC records. “I’m surprised that the John McCain I knew who was smeared in 2000 and thought so-called Swift Boating was wrong in 2004 would feel comfortable taking their money after seeing the way it was used to hurt the veterans I know he loves.” (McCain’s office did not return calls for comment.)

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Eugene Robinson, TruthDig, January 4, 2008

WASHINGTON-I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: People in Washington really should get out more.

By “Washington,” I mean not just the city but the state of mind, and by “get out,” I mean spend time surrounded not just by a different geography but by a different demography as well. If we did, the high-blown debates we have here-and by “we,” I mean politicians, lobbyists, advocates, bureaucrats, scholars, journalists and all the rest trapped in the Washington echo chamber-might bear more relation to what people who live outside our bubble think of as reality.

Case in point: When former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated last week, Washington tied itself in knots trying to figure out which presidential candidates on the Democratic and Republican sides would benefit in the Iowa caucuses. This was the kind of shocking event that could prove pivotal, said the conventional wisdom in Washington-with pro forma apologies, of course, for implying that Bhutto’s death would actually be “good,” in terms of political advantage, for one campaign or another.

But when I was in Iowa last weekend, I failed to find Iowans for whom the tragic events in Rawalpindi were a political issue. It’s not that Iowans don’t recognize why instability in Pakistan is important or why it might impact their lives. It’s just that they had put the shocking murder in what they considered its proper context.

Another example: In Washington, it is conventionally wise to think of government gridlock as basically a good thing, even something of which most Americans approve. To have a president from one party and a Congress controlled-or at least reined in-by the other, we tell ourselves, prevents too-abrupt shifts in policy. Gridlock is supposed to force bipartisan consensus, which is held as a kind of Holy Grail, the only way to tackle the nation’s biggest problems.

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Fritz Lanham, The Houston Chronicle, January 2, 2008

Love + Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships,
By David Levy, Harper, 334 pp. $24.95.

If you’re younger than 35, you’ll probably live long enough to put David Levy’s prediction to the test. Levy says that by 2050 we’ll be creating robots so lifelike, so imbued with human-seeming intelligence and emotions, as to be nearly indistinguishable from real people. And we’ll have sex with these robots. Some of us will even marry them. And it will all be good.

Levy lays out his vision of a Brave New Carnal World in Love and Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships, which, despite its extended riffs on sex toys through the ages, is a snigger-free book. Levy’s no Al Goldstein. Rather he’s a 62-year-old British chess master turned artificial-intelligence expert persuaded that robot sex can brighten the lives of many, many unhappy people. “Great sex on tap for everyone, 24/7,” he writes on the final page of the book. What’s not to like?

“Chess” and “sex” aren’t words that normally share the same sentence, but in Levy’s case, the one led to the other. A keen chessman since boyhood, by the time he got to St. Andrews University he played at the international level. At the university he got interested in computers and the challenge of programming machines to play chess. Eventually he earned international recognition for his work on chess-playing computers and natural-language software, and in the mid ’90s headed a team that won the Loebner Prize, widely regarded as the world championship of conversational software. Today he owns a firm that develops electronic hand-held brain games.

Designing computers that talk like humans naturally led to the larger question of how humans interact with robots, which are nothing more than computers with arms and legs and a head. The Japanese have taken the lead in developing “partner robots,” machines that, for example, might do household tasks for elderly people. But if you could invent a robot that serves cocktails, could you not invent a robot that would make a superior bedmate?

It sounds like a mighty tall order. A machine with skin that feels like ours? With our physical dexterity? And, most important, with a mind like ours – imperfectly rational, sometimes emotionally intelligent, sometimes emotionally dumb?

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Volt, Down With Tyranny, January 1, 2008

“Letters, we get letters, we get lots and lots of letters,” a chorus used to chirp each week, introducing a segment on Perry Como’s TV show back in the age of dinosaurs. Our friend Volt seems to have that feeling about e-mail, and definitely got (these) two too many.–Ken

It seems that the corporate flacks at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee think that I just fell off of the turnip wagon from Crawford, Texas.

I opened my e-mail on December 30, 2007, and I see a message from Rahm “Lets Purge the Congress of Progressives” Emanuel telling me that he must have $300,000 before January 31, 2008.

Here is his pitch:

Midnight tomorrow may mark the New Year but it also marks a critical deadline for Democrats.

Our FEC reporting deadline is Midnight tomorrow and we only have $77,378 to go to reach our Million Dollar Year-End Challenge.

House Democrats are so committed to making sure we have the resources we need they are TRIPLING every individual’s gifts today.

Contribute TODAY and House Democrats will TRIPLE your gift.

Groups like Freedom’s Watch and Tom DeLay’s new group Coalition for a Conservative Majority have pledged to spend more than $300 million towards attacking our candidates.

That’s $300 million the Republicans will spend to spin their untruths and distortions. We have to be prepared to fight back.

Everything hinges on us having a strong start to 2008 — it can set the stage for everything that happens next November. House Democrats are so committed that they will TRIPLE your contributions before the deadline.

We need your urgent support to reach our goal of ONE MILLION DOLLARS — we are only $77,378 away. Will you help us?

Contribute TODAY and House Democrats will TRIPLE your gift.

Thank you for your continued support.

Best,

Rahm Emanuel
Democratic Caucus Chair

P.S. There are just two days left before our critical deadline. We need your support to start the New Year right. Contribute TODAY and House Democrats will TRIPLE your gift.

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