live from #DC, it’s another debate lolblog!

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Rate the Cannidates

Instead of live blogging the debates (in part because i don’t understand their cannidate field as well), this time I’m trying out MSNBC’s experiment. In this interactive feature, you can watch a short video clip of each cannidate talking about the issues and indicate whether you have a positive or negative impression of them.  You can save your results for each cannidate.  Then, after (watching) the debates you can see new clips of the cannidates speaking in the debate and indicate your impression of them, so you can see if it changed. 

Not a bad idea, although it’s not exactly an indcative poll.  I’ll stick my neck out a little bit (please keep in mind that I am a left-leaning independant) and share my picks now, to compare later.  These rating are mostly relative to this field of cannidates, and are not necessarily indicative of how i’d vote in a general election, and I do not plan on voting during my state’s Republican primary.  I promise not to flip-flop by changing my previously stated stances, unlike many of the cannidates on stage tonight.

My Favorability/Republican presidential debates

Key:

“+” = positive impression, (if color is green indicates postive change)

“-” = negative impression (if color is red indicates negative change)

7:37 -  look we all know you hate Hillary, but “she’s not unlikable” Mr Matthews?  you really want to like her the same way a homophobe secretly wants to come out, don’t you ?

7:34 – the same prankster who cut Dennis Kuccinich’s mic seems to want to shut up Chris Matthews now

7:32 – i know this thing is over, but did you spot barrack & his wife talking with DK’s wife afterward?  did you know his wife was hot?  no really now.  do you think they swing?  omgwtflol

7:31 – Brian Williams says “you can now applaud” .  beer me

7:30 – Joe Biden endorses HillDog.  what are you even doing here then? 

7:29 – Hillary Clinton courts the invisible man vote: “you’re invisible” 

7:28 – time’s up JE , time proportional to hair cut fees. spontaneous laughter on words “Senator Clinton”. 

7:27 – John Edwards, i can hear a buzzer in that pause.  time’s up 

7:26 – scratch that.  Mike Gravel is making this a tag team match 

7:25 – Ten Bucks says DK is totally gonna jump BO in the parking lot after this.  way over on time

7:24 – BO is teaching his daughters how to change light bulbs.  i didn’t know he was Polish too

7:23 – Mike is mad as hell, and he’s not gonna take it (terrorists) anymore! 

7:19 – Joe Biden makes a dig on Thomas Friedman that only 1% of the audience gets but didn’t find very funny anyway.  no wonder he said “all kidding aside”.  no kidding

7:17 – no shit!  i got that same pocket-sized constitution copy too! ”we have to protect this constitution”…all i can think about is pocket protectors.  DK, prop comic

7:15 – does hillary think iraq was responsible for 9/11?  well, not anymore.  but seems to think state sponsors should be bombed.  anybody seen khadafi lately? 

7:14 – John Edwards wants to know how 9/11 happened.  someone should sit him down and explain 

7:12 – on Brian William’s reading list – “My Pet Goat”.  he’s wondering if BO is sympathetic to fans of the book and it’s hypnotic effects on its fans. 

7:11 – show of hands!  – hey, who’s the prankster turning off DK’s mic?  he also doesn’t believe in the war on drugs (or the war on terror, as the others raised hands for) 

7:09 -hillary also has recieved the “more gestures” memo.  admitedly, mid-debate tactics

7:05 -  Mike Gravel courting the peacenik highly prized paranoia-mom voters (too bad he’s right on the money).  when i say everyman politician, i mean he sounds like every man i see up at TJ’s diner

7:01 – BO loses the valueable Taiwan-American voting block to Republican again.  it’s the big of rats in the year of the pig all over again 

7:00 - lightening round!..concludes  “no such thing as a single sentance with this crowd”  time is up, now we’re just talking to political junkies

6:59 – uh oh…DK just started speaking in HR #blahblah-age talk

6:57 - sounds like Chris Dodd is totally freaking about that piss test he has to take to get the job

6:55 –  Bill Richardson, @ a loss for words, painfully admits “i’m too aggressive…i’m not perfect”.  that why you’re in politics, lol

6:53 - Mike Gravel can quote somebody else’s debate joke “i won’t hold my opponent’s youth and inexperience again them” .  you hear that chris dodd? – he’s the senior statesman in da house y’all. 

6:51 – local question “NAACP bans South Carolina” .  would they like south carolina to seceed from the union as well?  j/k

6:49 –  Hilldog – “srsly, don’t be nervous.  i knew there was a problem awhile ago.  did you ever know I tried to change healthcare b4?  YA RLY”

6:47 – Barrack Obama cares about black people… and other challenging statements after the jump

6:46 – John Edwards wants to tell you “rhetoric is not enough”.  don’t take my word for it either :B 

6:45 – if you think your going crazy, it’s just cuase everyone is talking mental health.  important – yes.  presidential – yes.  political – no.  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz 

6:44 – show of hands! – who’s packin’ heat?

6:42 – Hillary is pulling a gun control version of Guiliani and 9/11.  elect me and Virginia Tech would not happen 

6:40 – Bill Richardson, SCoTD (Supreme Court of The Dead) 

6:39 –  26 years.  he just can’t get over that.  26 fucking years chris dodd.  just make him president already!  we already have a monarchy, and princes don’t have to wait this long

6:38 – DK (dennis kuccinich) is listening to people, opening up hearts, by speaking loudly at you 

6:36 – o m g, Biden just got Borked.  litmus unnecesary for me - unless a repub will nominate them 

6:35 –  can Barrack Obama get around the question, but still manage to come off as a frsh alternative

6:33 - i think this “is an extraordinarily difficult issue” for John Edwards

6:32 – SRSLY,  E

6:31 – i think mike and denis are totally getting a beer after this debate.  they’re gonna party, and dennis is gonna break the “wild-eyed” talk to let him down real easy

6:30 – Mike Gravel:  vaudeville act  WHOA – nuclear proliferation outta nowhere.  he makes this debate fun

6:29 - Joe Biden: stand up comedian

6:28 - note to Denis, it’s not going to be enough to answer every question tonight with his Iraq policy 

6:26 –  o m g Chris Dodd is reminding us about experience, lol.  and the host wants this to be a round about “personal qualities”.  taking firm stance against unpopular issues  like Campaign finance reform

6:25 – I guess Bill Richardson got the “make lots of gestures to help communicate better” memo, as if he’s trying to impress his boss and win a promotion

6:20 – lost wi-fi connection.  John Edwards wants SC to remember he has been here before…not his last election, but when he was a kid that is 

6:18 – “second phase…may be attached”.  is brian williams about to change strategy in iraq?

6:13 – This is officially the most anyone has heard from Chris Dodd  since his cannidacy was announced.

6:08 – John Edwards thinks it’s important to “restore trust in the white house”.  so why can’t i stop thinking of carter in 76 all of a sudden 

6:04 - Bah!  liuke Hillary wasn’t the obvious first pick for that question 

6:03 – someone shut Brian Williams up.  adults know how these things work

6:00 pm CST – Here goes!

“I said, continuing to do the same thing and expecting to get a different result I believe is the definition of insanity. But when the president comes forward with a new strategy”

While a majority of the interview covers the kind of rhetorical talking points you’d expect the Republican party to tout in the media, one caught my attention: It sounded almost identical to something I said in my last post (at the start of it):

“It is commonly said that “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting different results”. The more things change in Iraq the more they stay the same…”

For a rhettorical way to frame discussion of the president’s change in Iraq strategy (or rather, a lackthereof) that I hadn’t heard anyone else making, the Senator sure seems to have done a little research, eh?  Maybe now would be a good time to remind the office of my representative Senator that I have a few more turns of phrase, or rather a few choice words, for his ear about Iraq as well.

 1.)  Massive Troop Rotations (December 2003-April 2004): As part of a massive rotation of 250,000 troops in the winter and spring of 2004, troop levels in Iraq were raised from 122,000 to 137,000. Yet, the increase did nothing to prevent Muqtada al-Sadr’s Najaf uprising and April of 2004 was the second deadliest month for American forces. [Brookings Institution, 12/21/06. www.icasualties.org. USA Today, 3/4/04
2.)  Constitutional Elections and Fallujah (November 2004-March 2005): As part of an effort to improve counterinsurgency operations after the Fallujah offensive in November 2004 and to increase security before the January 2005 constitutional elections U.S. forces were increased by 12,000 to 150,000. Again there was no long-term security impact. [Brookings Institution, 12/21/06. New York Times, 12/2/04.] 
3.)  Elections and Constitutional Referendum (September-December 2005): In the fall of 2005 the Bush administration increased troop levels by 22,000, making a total of 160,000 American troops in Iraq around the constitutional referendum and parliamentary elections. While the elections went off without major violence these escalations had little long-term impact on quelling sectarian violence or attacks on American troops. [Brookings Institution, 12/21/06. www.icasualties.org] 
4.)  Operation Together Forward, (June-October 2006): In June the Bush administration announced a new plan for securing Baghdad by increasing the presence of Iraqi Security Forces. That plan failed, so in July the White House announced that additional American troops would be sent into Baghdad. By October, a U.S. military spokesman, Gen. William Caldwell, acknowledged that the operation and troop increase was a failure and had “not met our overall expectations of sustaining a reduction in the levels of violence.” [CNN, 12/19/06. Washington Post, 7/26/06. Brookings Institution, 12/21/06.]

The metric by which we win this war has to change, because you can change metrics but not necessarily outcomes.  Tactical changes recommended by the Iraq Study group actually include a reduction of troop levels in Iraq over the next 6 months rather than the surge of troop levels.  Any new tactics ought to be taken on by existing troop levels, so maybe we need an exit strategy…

Maybe I’m the one insane, but I hear echoes of another voice in the room
“I’m not going to be the first American president to lose a war”
…I really oughta stop playing the Nixon tapes on repeat.  THE EMPORER HAS NO CLOTHES!

In the fall of 2006, a solution was finally made – the Military Commissions Act. No longer beleaguered by the right to trial by jury. No longer threatened by the rights of the enemy to the Geneva Conventions. No longer in jeopardy to the whim of another enemy party to prosecute them. No longer in violation of law – the law said they could do what they wanted.

We fell asleep. The American people were either too scared or too deafened by the boy who cried wolf, to do anything more than change the channel. Those in the former category had little to fear – they didn’t speak up so much as follow orders to duck and cover in the endless war. Those who didn’t know any better wanted to know which star could dance the best on television. Either one had given up their rights by not practicing them ages ago. In effect, nothing had changed.

The Military Commissions act, raced through congress in the last few weeks of session before the mid-term elections at the insistence of President Bush, legalizes in broad terms the torture and detention of people who have been deemed guilty of crimes they have not committed. Framed in terms of fighting terrorism, this law legalizes the practice of this administration to extract those termed “enemy combatants” by the administration (which the law does not bother to define) and hold them indefinitely (in detention centers, prison by any other name) without the right to know what for they will be charged. The right to trial by jury for these people deemed threats to the country is negligent, although it also allows that government to torture them in what would otherwise be relegated to war crimes (and was during the Nuremburg Trials).

The congress and Bush administration have suspended the Great Writ – the Writ of Habeas Corpus. In other words, we have betrayed a long legal tradition, not just pre-9/11 but pre-Magna Carta. This tradition, the very foundation of our democratic system, supposes that those held as threats to their fellow citizen must be held with REASON that is self-evident.
It was important enough that people fought a war over it – the American Revolution. It was important enough that it was written in our constitution before the Bill of Rights was. IT was important enough that the Bill of Rights presupposes the Great Writ. It is important enough that we would not even treat the Nazis without the same rights they violated. It was the very foundation of our democratic system, since laws we make would have to be enforced with the right to face these charges over mere suspicion.

WHERE WERE YOU WHEN HABEAS CORPUS WAS SUSPENDED? You might ask yourself again huddled in the corner, asking yourself why you had been detained yourself

…