Open Thread–not 6th CD Related
ArchPundit
Tell me what’s going on out there….
(this is stuck at the top so go down for other new material)
Open Thread 6th CD
Have the flame war hear
(down one more for new stuff
It’s a Zorn Day
Zorn addresses the Stroger situation.
It is sad that John Stroger has a serious stroke and having seen my grandparents after similar events, I feel sympathy for them and as a personal matter, it’s tragic.
However, that shouldn’t obscure the fact that John Stroger, by the doctors’ reports, will never return to actively govern Cook County and he won’t be in a position to run for reelection in the general election. Voting for him is voting for the Central Committee choosing a good candidate. Is that something Democrats trust?
Back to the Undisclosed Location
There’s out of touch and then there’s batshit crazy out of touch
SCHIEFFER: Mr. Vice President, all along the government has been very optimistic. You remain optimistic, but I remember when you were saying we’d be greeted as liberators. You played down the insurgency. Ten months ago you said it was in its last throes. Do you believe that these optimistic
statements may be one of the reasons people seem to be more skeptical in this
country about whether we ought to be in Iraq?Vice Pres. CHENEY: No. I think it’s–it has less to do with statements
we’ve made–which I think were basically accurate and reflect reality–then it
does the fact that there’s a constant sort of perception, if you will, that’s
created because what’s newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad. It’s not all
the work that went on that day in 15 other provinces in terms of making
progress towards rebuilding Iraq.The facts are pretty straightforward. The Iraqis met every single political
deadline that’s been set for them. They haven’t missed a single one. They
took over in terms of sovereignty 21 months ago. They held national elections
the following January. They wrote a constitution, one of the best
constitutions in that part of the world. They held a referendum on it last
October, and last December had turn out of about 78 percent in terms of the
election. And now we’re putting together a government which they’ll have
formed up here shortly on the security front.
‘ “It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. We are losing each day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more.
“If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is.” . . .
Iraq is moving towards the “point of no return”, he said, when the country would fragment.
“It will not only fall apart but sectarianism will spread throughout the region, and even Europe and the US will not be spared the violence that results…,” he said.
Baghdad Bob and Dick Cheney–peas in a pod.
What’s most troubling about this is that as long as Cheney is this delusional there won’t be any effective strategy for Iraq let alone one that might eventually get us out.
1200 Times
George Bush as 1200 pieces of anatomy
He’s still a bigger one than all of them put together
James Hansen’s Minder
60 Minutes investigated the clamp down on NASA scientists including James Hansen, one of the foremost experts on global warming. Watch the video over at Think Progress and notice that Hansen has to have a minder present to talk to the press.
One of the foremost experts on the Earth’s Atmosphere has a minder from the PR department. In America.
The Nastiest Race in Illinois
is probably the GOP primary in IL-08. Salvi and McSweeney are firing wildly at each other with tons of cash. If Churchill had done some serious fundraising, he might have been able to thread the needle while these two battle it out–he still might have a chance with a low enough turnout since he has built in name recognition from being an office holder.
Cal is following the race closely and has a lot of the mail from the race.
Eric Beat Me To It
Oberweis for the Republican Primary
Not for any serious reason—I just want good material and I don’t have to try hard when he’s around.
I’ll be writing columns and blog entries on the gubernatorial campaign for seven months or so, and, as Oberweis continues to show again and again, he’s better copy than any of his opponents.
It is like when I asked whether God could like me enough to really have the Illinois GOP bring in Alan Keyes. It ended up not taking divine intervention, but just a couple crazy State Senators.
Eric predicts an Oberweis victory and I’m not sure he’s wrong. Yesterday I would have said it was possible, but Judy had the upperhand–with a winter storm in spring on the way, the motivation of movement conservatives may be high enough to trump the less committed voters in the center of the spectrum.
I don’t know if AFSCME is phone banking for Judy and Joe, but she is going to need all the help she can get if it is as bad as weather as some of the forecasts suggest.
On a more serious note, I think it is important for the two parties to put up candidates who will hold the other party accountable. Oberweis isn’t that guy. Blagojevich won’t have to paint him as a nut, he is a nut and he’ll be batting practice for Blagojevich who is one of the better campaigners I’ve seen in Illinois. Not so hot at the governing thing, but a hell of a campaigner.
Durbin on Censure Motion
I actually think Feingold’s motion is being handled well by the Party–not worrying about the specific motion and discussing the substance of the President making up bizarre Constitutional Law is a great way to keep that discussion going.
That the Republicans are avoiding having hearings over a serious breach of the separation of powers is mind-boggling.
But They Have Great Services
Kadner offers up one of the classic defenses of corrupt machine politics. It’s not a horrible point in one sense. Individuals do get an efficient mechanism to solve their problems.
But weren’t these argument addressed back in Boss?
Why does the Machine act like it does?
Despite all those safeguards and its lopsided superiority over local opposition, the Machine never fails to run scared. For this reason, or maybe out of habit, it never misses a chance to steal a certain number of votes and trample all over the voting laws
The Machine isn’t the Machine of Royko’s Boss. The Machine has lost a lot, if not most of its power, but the remnants still exist and they still play the same games, just not as successfully. While everyone wants to point to Madigan’s effectiveness as a sign of the Machine, Madigan long ago evolved and created an actual sophisticated political operation and brought in new interests in his own area. One should remember his Ward is relatively well integrated because he’s found ways to make the whites feel comfortable with integration on an economic level.
Others, like Lipinski just kept on playing the same game–planting candidates, burying the opposition, and tricking voters into not having a choice.
Sure, the old man ran paranoid and provided lots of services, but those services come at a price.
20% of the 3rd District is Latino—why aren’t the Lipinski’s at the forefront of issues affecting the Latino community? Is the office that responsive if it ignores a growing base of citizens and voters in the District by clinging to politics of the past? The District is far more progressive than in the past, is a social conservative really the best way to represent them?
Machines put hacks into public positions–so those who don’t know to complain to the right person are stuck in substandard public housing. Or they get a toxic site next to their house, or they get bureaucrats in the proper office too busy with those who went to the Congressman.
Even if you accept Lipinski’s people help people out individually, the patronage and the corruption saps money away from legitimate governmental functions.
And Dan Lipinski understands of all this and that’s why I don’t give him a pass. He’s a good scholar who has done some good political science. To do that, he has to understand democratic theory, and yet he went along with this fundamentally anti-democratic move. He might not seem evil, but his actions undermine the integrity our electoral system and the legitimacy of the political system as a whole. And that hurts us all.