MEMO

To: John McCain

From: Nowhere Man

Subject: Campaign Theme Songs

Hey, John -- I was sorry to hear of your misfortune over Running On Empty, with Jackson Browne suing you for unlicensed usage of the song.

I must confess that I was surprised by your choice of the song. I mean, the title doesn't seem to make a great marketing pitch for your campaign. But then I understood the genius behind it: Nothing shows leadership like being a maverick. And nothing makes you a maverick more than telling the truth. And nothing rings truer right now than saying that your campaign is Running On Empty. So, by revealing your own weaknesses, you build up your image as a leader.

But you can't stop now. You need more songs with that certain something -- the Fact Augmenting Image of Leadership, or FAIL for short.

Over the fold, I offer more ways that you can keep the FAILs coming.

Earlier today, we saw a Rec Listed diary focused around a very specific charge: that an eminent psychologist, Martin Seligman, was directly involved in the development of techniques that are being used by the CIA and other government agencies.

To be sure, this charge may be true. However, the charge hasn't been substantiated by a lot of solid evidence. To the contrary, most of the "evidence" that was presented here was been based on hearsay and inference.

There may be more in the balance than just the reputation of a possibly innocent man. The book from which these charges are being drawn, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals, has the potential to get the issue of U.S. sponsored torture back onto the front pages (and, we can hope, into the hearing rooms and courtrooms.) Names, dates, and deeds are spelled out in some detail (or so -- ahem -- we hear.)

But if we start chasing after wrong man, we could easily lose the chance to nab the ones we really need to nab.

There was a diary on the rec list that did what some might consider unthinkable: it portrayed a late member of and apologist for the bush administration as a (gasp) human being. Not surprisingly, some of the comment threads in the diary devolved into flame wars.

Can we pause our flaming for just a moment to remember this one vital truth: We are all human. Remembering this won't put an end to the disputes -- I wouldn't want it to -- but it just might change the tone for the better.

Not ten weeks ago, we were witnesses to a speech that spoke deeply to us all. Part of that speech is well worth remembering right now:

We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time."

Barack is right. It is time for change.

And change begins at home.

To show my disapproval of disapproval diaries, I'm not even going to write a full diary post. You won't find any facts here. You won't find even a single link to give you some much-needed context. No, this diary is simple, elegant, and 100% content-free.

And it's dead certain to make the rec list. I disapprove of that. Please rec if you agree.

We've gone from fighting the swift boaters to biting the tip floaters. From political discussions to belittling distractions. From paper trails at the polls to paper trails at molehills (that we've turned into mountains o'er meals at soda fountains.)

We've gone from the tip jar to the tip war. From the the pie fights to the burger fights. From the keylime to the ridiculous.

Hot on the heals of Nancy Pelosi claiming Executive Privilege, a clerk in the Snarkotics division of the Drug Enforcement Agency has filed a suit in the DOJ's Civil Rights division seeking to win the right to legislate.

"It's really about fairness," said the clerk, Morton T. Throckmorton, who, as his colleagues were shocked to learn, has worked at the Department for at least five years.  "It seems like everyone else in the Federal Government has had the opportunity to craft their own laws. I think it's my turn now."

Yesterday's Boston Globe included an article that I almost missed, buried as it was on the back page of the Ideas section.  It's one of the best critiques I've seen yet of Bush's failures in Iraq, even though 90% of the content isn't about Iraq or America. It's about Germany and Rome.

The article, written by Cullen Murphy, is 'Give me back my legions'. The parallels that it illustrates between historic Rome and modern America are indeed legion. An excerpt:

On its mental map Rome pictured itself as all-important, all-knowing, all-powerful. The inevitable corollary to this perspective was a view of outsiders as lesser beings: often unfathomable, certainly inferior, and in any event rarely worth the bother of trying to understand. Such an outlook is typical of empires. And for Rome, much of the time, an oblivious frame of mind did not really matter: Roman power was overwhelming, and the fear it instilled could prove as effective as actual force.

More after the flip...

Warning: this diary is not for the squeamish.

I saw death last week. I saw a young man lying nearly still. And I heard a voice I could recognize calling desperately to him:

You're OK. You'll be fine. Just keep breathing!

I remember, and with these memories other thoughts come as well.

First, a hat tip to bink for posting the diary that pointed me to today's blog post from Glenn Greenwald.

Greenwald's essay  concerns Rod Dreher,  yet another conservative who's starting to see the light.

Dreher's conversion isn't such news; increasingly, intelligent conservatives (and yes, there are some) are starting to see the truth about the Bush Administration. What caught my eye were some casual comments he made that seem to offer a look at the soul of the conservative, and perhaps help us understand what they choose to scorn, and why.

Let us make toast of it.

Four years ago, Bush's generals asked for more troops for Iraq, and were denied. Four years ago, America believed Bush when he said that this war was necessary. Four years later, only 12% agree that sending more troops is the right decision. And in those four years, we have seen the country all but destroyed, thousands of American lives lost, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives lost, and mistake after mistake after misjudgement after lie after mistake come from the pen, the mouth, and the alleged mind of the Decider.

And now, he wants to send more. Now, four years on, when his generals say it's far too late for more troops to be put to good use. Does Bush think he knows something that the rest of us -- including his generals -- don't? Does he truly believe that this is the right course for America?

There's one way to find out...

Does anyone see a problem with unauthorized access to a computer that's used to store confidential information? Even if that computer had a "back door" that had been inadvertantly left open?

How about browsing a publicly-accessible web server that's owned by a state government?

Take a quick guess about who can get away with the first scenario, and who catches hell for the second one.

Last night's open thread contained this bullet item from Kos:

GOP efforts to run Nancy Pelosi through the mud [have failed miserably have failed miserably. ]

The mydd article that it links to doesn't convince me that the Republicans have failed.  In fact, the suggestion of complacency on our side is downright frightening.

There's more under the fold, but if you've read any George Lakoff -- or have even read a summary of his recent books -- you can probably figure out where I'm heading with this.

I'm at a loss for words to describe my reaction to this.

The headline says it all, but I'll try to add a bit more after the jump:

Accused skinhead avoids prison time, but must visit museums

It could never be said that Grandma was afraid of a word. Indeed, she chose her words in much the way a master blacksmith might select his tools, appreciating the heft of one, the feel of another in his hand, anticipating the blow he might make with a third.

No, Grandma never shied away from speaking her mind. When she was in her early 20's, home from college on a break, she noticed that her parents had a lamp whose cord was frayed. She started to replace it, but her mother objected: Shouldn't she wait until her father came home from work, so that he could do the job?

Grandma's reply was priceless:

Via Huffington Post, I found this AP article about the foreword that Rick Santorum has written for book "honoring" one of the founders of the "intelligent design" movement, Phillip Johnson.

The prospect of one lawyer praising another lawyer for his work on science sends a chill down my spine. If this gem is any indication, this book would keep me chilled through a long, hot summer...

A story recently posted on the New York Times web site shows that the Bush administration's story about PortGate has more holes in it than the Albert Hall.

I'm writing this with very little time, so I'll gloss over the contradictions about what and when Bush knew about the deal, and focus on one revealing quote.

No one seems to have diaried this here yet, which is a bit surprising. I'll delete the diary if it turns out I'm not the first.

Yesterday's Chicago Sun-Times had a column by Religion writer Cathleen Falsani that goes where this column has apparently never gone before: To the door of the White House. It's a good read.