Clinton, McCain, & Obama: We Stand United on Darfur

This welcome and valuable joint statement was posted Wednesday on the Save Darfur website.

As we campaign for President of the United States over the next several months, we expect there to be significant focus on the many differences between us. [....]

As we engage in this process, we are fully aware that friend and foe around the globe are watching and sometimes reacting based on their own analysis of the latest developments in the campaign.

It is with this awareness that we are taking the uncommon step of issuing a joint statement about an issue.

After more than five years of genocide, the Sudanese government and its proxies continue to commit atrocities against civilians in Darfur. This is unacceptable to the American people and to the world community. [....]

Today, we wish to make clear to the Sudanese government that on this moral issue of tremendous importance, there is no divide between us. [....]

It would be a huge mistake for the Khartoum regime to think that it will benefit by running out the clock on the Bush Administration. If peace and security for the people of Sudan are not in place when one of us is inaugurated as President on January 20, 2009, we pledge that the next Administration will pursue these goals with unstinting resolve.

All three of these candidates, by the way, have long been outspoken on the need for serious action to stop the ongoing genocide in Darfur. For just a few random examples, see HERE & HERE & HERE

--Jeff Weintraub

P.S. You can thank these three Presidential candidates for standing together on Darfur HERE.
==============================



Posted on Wednesday, 05/28/08 - 1:39 pm

WE STAND UNITED ON SUDAN

As we campaign for President of the United States over the next several months, we expect there to be significant focus on the many differences between us. After all, elections are about choices in a free society. We have had a spirited contest so far and fully expect a robust debate about issues foreign and domestic right up to Election Day.

As we engage in this process, we are fully aware that friend and foe around the globe are watching and sometimes reacting based on their own analysis of the latest developments in the campaign.

It is with this awareness that we are taking the uncommon step of issuing a joint statement about an issue.

After more than five years of genocide, the Sudanese government and its proxies continue to commit atrocities against civilians in Darfur. This is unacceptable to the American people and to the world community.

We deplore all violence against the people of Darfur. There can be no doubt that the Sudanese government is chiefly responsible for the violence and is able to end it. We condemn the Sudanese government’s consistent efforts to undermine peace and security, including its repeated attacks against its own people and the multiple barriers it has put up to the swift and effective deployment of the United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force. We further condemn the Sudanese government’s refusal to adhere to the terms of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the conflict in southern Sudan.

Today, we wish to make clear to the Sudanese government that on this moral issue of tremendous importance, there is no divide between us. We stand united and demand that the genocide and violence in Darfur be brought to an end and that the CPA be fully implemented. Even as we campaign for the presidency, we will use our standing as Senators to press for the steps needed to ensure that the United States honors, in practice and in deed, its commitment to the cause of peace and protection of Darfur’s innocent citizenry. We will continue to keep a close watch on events in Sudan and speak out for its marginalized peoples. It would be a huge mistake for the Khartoum regime to think that it will benefit by running out the clock on the Bush Administration. If peace and security for the people of Sudan are not in place when one of us is inaugurated as President on January 20, 2009, we pledge that the next Administration will pursue these goals with unstinting resolve.

An Iraqi in Israel (Najem Wali)

Via Gadgie at the admirable group blog Drink-Soaked Trotskyite Popinjays for War:

----------------------------------------
An Iraqi in Israel
by Gadgie, 23 May 2008

When I travelled through Israel in 2007, it dawned on me why the Arab states are so reluctant to let their countrymen cross over into Israel. They fear that the traveller might make comparisons – between the civil rights in Israel and those in their homeland, for example … he might suddenly see the injustice, the betrayal, to which the Arabs in his homeland have had a lifetime’s exposure in the name of “occupied Palestine”.

Najem Wali pleads for peace - and for freedom for Arab peoples as part of the realisation of the dream of the Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz, in a 1978 letter to the Israeli Sasson Somekh:

“I dream of the day when, thanks to the collaboration among us, this region will become a home overflowing with the light of learning and science, and blessed by the highest principles of heaven.”

----------------------------------------

Let's be clear that this piece by the exiled Iraqi Najem Wali is not arguing against sympathy and solidarity with the Palestinian people. But he asks his audience to face up to the absurdity of the belief, as widespread as taken-for-granted as it is patently delusional, that Israel and "Zionism" are somehow responsible for the problems of the Arab world--not just for the Palestinians' problems, but for the problems of the Arab world as a whole. (If you think I'm making that up, just read this for a start.) As Najem Wali puts it (and those are his boldings:

But even as a child I found the rhetoric didn't add up. How could this somehow "all-powerful" country so successfully "let the Arab nations sink into lethargy", as the official speeches would have us believe? And why, at the same time, were they so confident that the "small state of Zionist gangs" would inevitably "disappear from the map"? I never found a convincing answer. [....]

The sustained absence of economic recovery, the drop in education levels, the spread of fundamentalist ideology are all linked with a lack of democracy and the corrupt ruling families, with their pompousness and contempt for their peoples – not with Israel. There are plenty of raw materials and human resources to kickstart the Arab economy. But what are we seeing? A political stranglehold on personal freedom which is eroding the middle classes. Bribery and favouritism force the virtuous and the educated to emigrate. What has Israel got to do with this? [....]

Why do our leaders fear this truth? They are scared that their countrymen would recognise that the only link between the standstill and devastation of Arab societies and the Arab-Israeli conflict is this: peace with Israel would bring an end to the opium high with which Arab leaders keep their nations in a state of inertia. This is the cause of the problems for which Israel is being blamed. [....]

Alas, it's too simple to blame this exclusively on Arab rulers and their propaganda machinery. It's a much deeper, broader, and more pervasive phenomenon. But Najem Wali's fundamental points are right and important. You can read his piece below.

Yours for reality-based discourse,
Jeff Weintraub

[P.S. For a follow-up, see Some Arab reactions to the Olmert corruption investigation.]
===================================
signandsight.com (Let's talk European)
May 21, 2008
A journey into the heart of the enemy

Exiled Iraqi writer Najem Wali travelled to Israel to uncover some uncomfortable truths about the Arab leaders

When a child is born in Israel or to us in the Arab world, the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict is flowing in its umbilical cord. Since the declaration of the state of Israel on May 14 1948, Israel has been the official enemy number one for the Arab states.

But even as a child I found the rhetoric didn't add up. How could this somehow "all-powerful" country so successfully "let the Arab nations sink into lethargy", as the official speeches would have us believe? And why, at the same time, were they so confident that the "small state of Zionist gangs" would inevitably "disappear from the map"? I never found a convincing answer. Nor did I ever make the connection between the "Jew question" and the "Palestine question", between the victims of the Holocaust and the victims of Israel's foundation.

Maybe I needed to wait for French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre to visit Israel before I could discover his key existentialist principle: get to know the other before you form an opinion of him! Did following this path not involve more than honouring the call to recognise Israel? Did it not mean accepting the other and welcoming him as a partner? This would mean acknowledging the fact that Jews and Arabs live side by side in Palestine and both are obliged to find a solution which is acceptable to both peoples, without third-party intervention. There can be no peace without talking directly with the other side and learning about their way of life.

Why do our leaders fear this truth? They are scared that their countrymen would recognise that the only link between the standstill and devastation of Arab societies and the Arab-Israeli conflict is this: peace with Israel would bring an end to the opium high with which Arab leaders keep their nations in a state of inertia. This is the cause of the problems for which Israel is being blamed.

The sustained absence of economic recovery, the drop in education levels, the spread of fundamentalist ideology are all linked with a lack of democracy and the corrupt ruling families, with their pompousness and contempt for their peoples – not with Israel. There are plenty of raw materials and human resources to kickstart the Arab economy. But what are we seeing? A political stranglehold on personal freedom which is eroding the middle classes. Bribery and favouritism force the virtuous and the educated to emigrate. What has Israel got to do with this?

In the meantime Israel, which is embroiled in the same conflict as the Arabs, has built up a modern society of astounding scientific and economic strength. Yes there is militarism in Israel. Its brutal policy of occupation must be addressed. But I will leave this to the Israeli intellectuals. They should fight for peace, just as some Arab intellectuals are starting to do.

When I travelled through Israel in 2007, it dawned on me why the Arab states are so reluctant to let their countrymen cross over into Israel. They fear that the traveller might make comparisons – between the civil rights in Israel and those in their homeland, for example. He might meet the "Arabs of '48", the Palestinians whom Israel's army was unable to drive out. He would see that these Palestinians basically enjoy the same rights as all other citizens. That they are allowed to express their views and live their traditions without fear of imprisonment. He would meet Palestinians who are allowed to vote for their representatives and found their own political parties. When the traveller compares the situation of these people with his own, or with the situation of the Palestinians who live in his country – he might suddenly see the injustice, the betrayal, to which the Arabs in his homeland have had a lifetime's exposure in the name of "occupied Palestine".

Israel has not overturned democracy even under the pressure of war. But the citizens in Arab countries are worth nothing to their leaders.

My "journey into the heart of the enemy" was an attempt to pursue the direction which Egyptian literary Nobel Prize laureate, Naguib Mahfouz, laid out in 1978 in a letter to his Israeli colleague Sasson Somekh: "I dream of the day when, thanks to the collaboration among us, this region will become a home overflowing with the light of learning and science, and blessed by the highest principles of heaven."

He didn't live to see his dream fulfilled. Naguib Mahfouz died in 2006. In 1994 he survived an Islamist assassination attempt. A year later Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli premier, was murdered by an Israeli extremist for his contribution to the peace process.

I hope people on both sides will continue to defy intimidation, risking their lives in the unrelenting fight for peace. Sixty years after the founding of Israel, I want to believe in Mahfouz's vision.

---------------
This article originally appeared in Imke Ahlf-Wien's Arabic-German translation in the Kölner Stadt Anzeigeron May 13, 2008.

Najem Wali was born in Basra in 1956 and fled Saddam Hussein's regime in 1980. Today he lives in Hamburg. His novel "Jussifs Gesichter" (Jussif's faces) was published by Hanser Verlag in February. For Israel's 60th celebration he undertook a "Journey into the Heart of the Enemy" which is also the title of his forthcoming book which will be translated into German (Hanser), English (MacAdamCage), and Hebrew (Hakibbutz Hameuchad).

Read our other feature by Najem Wali: "The dictator's orphans"
Translation: lp

Barack Obama and American exceptionalism

Back in December 2007, when Barack Obama's campaign for the Democratic nomination still looked like a very long shot, my friends Jerry Karabel and Andy Markovits wrote a piece for the Huffington Post making an argument in support of his candidacy ("Restoring Respect for America"). Right now I just want to highlight one interesting point about comparative politics in their discussion:

Obama's multi-cultural background is well-known: Kenyan father, Kansan mother, multi-racial Hawaiian upbringing, and four formative years in Indonesia. Less well-known is the fact that while some economically advanced Western countries have elected a woman as prime minister or president, not one has ever elected a non-white to the nation's highest office. For many people in the developing world, the image of a black man--and one with Hussein as his middle name--in the White House would be electrifying.

The qualification "economically advanced" was presumably meant to exclude countries like Mexico, where the full-blooded Indian Benito Juárez was (remarkably) President for several terms between 1858 and 1872, as well as some other Latin American countries since then. But as far as I know, nothing like this has happened yet in Europe or Canada. So in that sense they're right--if Obama becomes President, he will be the first non-white elected as head of government or head of state in any rich western society.

Obama's not quite in the White House yet, of course. But just the fact that someone with Obama's background could emerge as a major candidate, and probably the candidate with the best shot at becoming President in this year's general election, is already a historic milestone--and a cause for great satisfaction, whichever candidate you support.

=> That same month another friend of mine, the British journalist and author Adam LeBor, spoke in a similar vein while explaining why he thought a President Barack Obama would be good for the US and good for the world ("Why I'm Betting on Barack"):

I'm not usually a gambling man. I'm hopeless at poker because I can't keep the smirk off my face when I get a good hand. (Which makes me a popular player.) My horses are usually running on the wrong courses.

But if I'm useless at gambling I do think, or at least hope, I know something about politics. So I've had a punt on Barack Obama to win the US presidential election. Enough for a decent dinner for two. Yup, Barack. A candidate without much experience, whose surname rhymes with the first name of America's enemy number one, who may even be a Muslim at least according to Islamic law, and who is not even 50 yet. (in fact he was born just one day before me).

Why? The main reason is because what many people in Europe, especially our friends on the hysterical anti-American left, just don't get, is that for Americans, America is not just a country, but is an ideal, a dream if you like. There is no greater example among the presidential candidates of the American dream than Barack Obama. I won't start recounting his biography here, but I do think his life story has resonance beyond the east and west coast liberals and can also appeal to middle America as well. [....]

Looks like a good bet so far (some caveats notwithstanding).

=> Of course, not everyone feels this way. As Andy and I pointed out in our Huffington Post piece on Wednesday ("Obama and the Progressives: A Curious Paradox"):

Obama is popular around the world, but it's no accident that he drives some hard-core anti-Americans up the wall. For example, the Australian/British journalist John Pilger dismissed Obama as "a glossy Uncle Tom" who believes, along with Clinton and McCain, that "the US is not subject to the rules of human behaviour, because it is 'a city upon a hill'"--whereas in reality it is just "a monstrous bully.")

Can't please everyone, I guess.

Yours for democracy,
Jeff Weintraub

Markovits & Weintraub - "Obama and the Progressives: A Curious Paradox"

Back in January, discussing the remarkable speech that Obama gave in Atlanta just before Martin Luther King day (Barack Obama on solidarity, citizenship, anti-semitism, & the legacy of Martin Luther King), I noted that this speech highlighted one of the most striking and significant features of Obama's whole campaign:

Its central message emphasizes what I think is one of Obama's greatest strengths--namely, that he is not afraid to appeal to a politics of solidarity, national community, and the common good. This aspect of Obama's approach is precisely what makes some people uneasy, and perhaps they have good reasons for feeling that way in Obama's case, but rejecting this kind of message out of hand is a very damaging mistake.

For decades, too many alleged "progressives" have shied away from thinking or talking in terms of community and the common good in the pseudo-sophisticated but entirely misleading belief that only interest-group politics is "realistic," or the alternative belief that only the most balkanized forms of "identity politics" are progressive, or odd combinations of the two. In the process, they have unilaterally surrendered a central animating principle of active democratic citizenship and, at the same time, foolishly allowed Reagan and other Republicans to hijack the political language of the common good.

Of course, it is true that the rhetoric of solidarity and the common good can be bogus, self-indulgent, and ideologically mystifying--if it is empty of practical content, uncritical, and undemanding. But Obama understands that, too. [....]

In terms of the contrasting political styles of the Clinton and Obama campaigns, I think it is fair to say that Clinton has mostly cast herself as the candidate of interest-group liberalism, while Obama has cast himself as the candidate of republican virtue and national community. In doing so, whether or not Obama ultimately wins the Democratic nomination, he has added a valuable and exciting dimension to the political discussion. [....]

=> But one further implication of all this is that there is something a little puzzling, perhaps even paradoxical, about the excitement and enthusiasm that Obama and his message have generated among so many of his progressive supporters. Over the past four months this paradox has struck me as increasingly odd and intriguing. For example, a few weeks ago I attended an academic conference at which it was clear that most of the speakers supported Obama--but the arguments that most of them made in their papers rejected, in effect, the central defining themes of Obama's political message in one way or another. That's typical, not unusual.

This kind of disconnection is obvious once one notices it--at least, it seems obvious to me--but I don't think it's been sufficiently noticed or appreciated, and it might be enlightening to give it some consideration and reflection.

=> My friend Andy Markovits (who, unlike me, has been an unequivocal Obama supporter since 2007) has also been struck by this curious incongruity, and he proposed that we write something about it. Our piece (from the Huffington Post) is below.

Yours for democracy,
Jeff Weintraub
==============================
Huffington Post
May 28, 2008
Obama and the Progressives: A Curious Paradox
By Andrei Markovits & Jeff Weintraub

For millions of Americans, Barack Obama and his message have inspired intense support, enthusiasm, and even exhilaration. But there's something paradoxical about Obama's appeal to an important segment of his supporters.

Aside from African-Americans, Barack Obama's strongest support has come from affluent whites with college degrees or beyond, especially younger voters. Upscale middle-class progressives have been the core social and cultural constituency for the post-1960s "new politics" wing of the Democratic Party. In contrast to Obama's disproportionate support among professionals, academics, college students, and the like (not to mention political journalists and pundits), the core of Hillary Clinton's support turned out to be in constituencies at the heart of the classic pre-1968 New Deal coalition, above all white working-class voters (supplemented by Clinton's greater appeal to Hispanics and to middle-aged and older women). That's a compressed and incomplete picture, but few would deny that it captures a lot of the story.

These two wings of the Democratic Party's base have cohabited with varying success for the past four decades. This year they polarized fairly sharply between Clinton and Obama.

Clinton and Obama don't differ substantially in terms of specific issues and programs. But their campaigns have been organized around different orienting visions of politics and political leadership. Clinton based her campaign on the well-established model of interest-group liberalism, which she used effectively to mobilize the New Deal wing of the Democratic Party. The fact that this familiar message resonated with her supporters in tone and content isn't mysterious.

But Obama's appeal to so many upscale white progressives does have a puzzling aspect. People often talk about Obama's soaring rhetoric, but what's the content of that rhetoric? To put it in terms that the Founders would have understood immediately, Obama has made civic patriotism and republican virtue central to the message of his whole campaign. He has consistently championed a politics of solidarity, active citizenship, national community, and the common good. Like Lincoln, Obama portrays the United States as a nation defined by certain constitutive ideals and charged with the project of imperfectly but continually striving to achieve, extend, and enrich these ideals in concrete ways ("in order to form a more perfect union"). Furthermore, Obama affirms and celebrates "the promise of America" (adding that "I know the promise of America because I have lived it"), while insisting that to fulfill that promise requires constant effort, civic engagement, shared sacrifices, and conflict as well as cooperation.

The most crucial requirement ("the great need of the hour," in a formulation borrowed from Martin Luther King) is active moral and political solidarity -- not only to empower oppressed and underprivileged groups, but to bind together and revitalize a more comprehensive national community.

(Obama is popular around the world, but it's no accident that he drives some hard-core anti-Americans up the wall. For example, the Australian/British journalist John Pilger dismissed Obama as "a glossy Uncle Tom" who believes, along with Clinton and McCain, that "the US is not subject to the rules of human behaviour, because it is 'a city upon a hill'"--whereas in reality it is just "a monstrous bully.")

Historically, those themes have often been prominent in American politics, including progressive, reformist, and radical politics. (Let's not forget that the Pledge of Allegiance, which Obama has pointedly quoted, was originally written by a Christian socialist.) But in recent decades they have become increasingly unfashionable in some quarters--including those that have produced many of Obama's most passionate supporters.

Nowadays many (not all) self-styled progressives distrust any patriotic talk and regard appeals to solidarity and the common good as mystifying bunk or dangerous propaganda. Instead, serious discussion of politics is supposed to focus exclusively on competing interests, and much allegedly progressive discourse has gone beyond valuing diversity to supporting an irreducibly fragmented "identity politics" based on fetishizing "difference." (The main alternatives to balkanizing ultra-"multiculturalism"--more accurately termed "plural monoculturalism," as Amartya Sen points out--are often varieties of abstract legalism or cosmopolitanism equally allergic to the notion of national community.) From this perspective, Obama's invocations of "the American people's desire to no longer be defined by our differences," and his expressed conviction that "this nation is more than the sum of its parts--that out of many, we are truly one," should sound heretical. Ditto for his insistence that we have and must pursue "common hopes" that reach across our differences, aiming for more inclusive solidarity and effective recognition of the "larger responsibility we have to one another as Americans."

Put bluntly, the core of Obama's message would appear to be completely incompatible with the proclaimed beliefs of many of his most ardent progressive supporters. (And we haven't even mentioned the religious imagery of compassion, covenant, and redemption--analyzed thoughtfully and provocatively by Philip Gorski--with which Obama sometimes links his political message.) So what gives?

Three partial explanations, not mutually exclusive, strike us as plausible. First, the fact that Obama is African-American probably helps to make his appeals to American civic patriotism (along with his religious imagery) more acceptable in progressive circles than they would be coming from a white candidate. Second, some of Obama's supporters--and critics--probably assume that all this stuff is just empty campaign rhetoric that Obama doesn't really believe himself. We suspect they're wrong about that.

But the most interesting fact is that many of Obama's progressive supporters don't simply accept or tolerate his message. They are moved, thrilled, and inspired by it. As Gorski perceptively noted, this response suggests that Obama's message speaks to profound hopes, concerns, and emotions that--for good or ill--run deeper than explicit beliefs and positions. We hope so. For decades progressive politics in America has too often crippled itself by unilaterally surrendering the discourse of national community and the common good--and, with it, some of the key animating principles of active democratic citizenship. (Todd Gitlin and others have rightly decried this folly.) If Obama can help make these notions respectable again for self-styled progressives, that alone would be a valuable contribution.

Andrei S. Markovits teaches political science, sociology, and German studies at the University of Michigan. His most recent book, on European anti-Americanism, is Uncouth Nation: Why Europe Dislikes America (Princeton University Press, 2007).
Jeff Weintraub teaches social and political theory and political sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. He also blogs at: http://jeffweintraub.blogspot.com/

Two political satires - One for Hillary-haters & one for CDS-haters

As the Democratic nomination contest moves into its final phase ... here are two satirical items that approach Hillary Clinton's campaign from different directions. Satire can be cruel, of course, so these may not be suitable for the faint of heart or the easily offended.

=> For all you Hillary-haters out there, HERE is a savage parody of Clinton's arguments for why she should be nominated, from Saturday Night Live. (Perhaps it is intended, in part, to compensate for the Hillary-friendly sketch that SNL ran on March 1, 2008.)

Depending on your perspective, you may find it penetrating & hilarious or unfair & defamatory to the point of being semi-deranged ... or maybe a bit of both. It does do a good job of capturing some key themes in the current discussion.

=> And for all you fed-up Clinton supporters, THIS CARTOON offers a nice satirical take-down of CDS in the news coverage of the campaign.

Yours for democracy,
Jeff Weintraub

Obama's Jewish problem?

As Matt Yglesias correctly pointed out, the message of the most recent Gallup poll on the subject is that Obama doesn't have a significant Jewish problem--at least, not against McCain, which is where it really counts. (Obama Beats McCain Among Jewish Voters)

Overall, Jewish voters do seem to prefer Clinton over Obama, though not by a huge margin (50%-43%). But they prefer either Democratic candidate over McCain by very large margins:

Clinton: 66%
McCain: 27%

Obama: 61%
McCain: 32%

=> OK, let's add a small qualification. The 61% figure estimated here does not match the proportions of the Jewish vote that have gone for the Democratic candidate in the most recent Presidential elections.

According to standard estimates, the last Presidential election in which the Republican candidate carried a plurality of the Jewish vote was in 1920 (not even a majority, since a lot of Jews voted Socialist that year), so for political aficionados the relevant question is not whether the Democratic candidate commands a Jewish majority but whether it is an overwhelming majority.

Normally, one would consider a roughly 2-1 majority pretty overwhelming. But Kennedy in 1960, Johnson in 1964, and even Humphrey in 1968 all got over 80% of the Jewish vote. McGovern, Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis fared less well (and so did Adlai Stevenson, sad to say). But then Bill Clinton got just under 80% in both 1992 & 1996, and Kerry's percentage in 2004 was in the mid-70s. That puts Obama's estimated 61% down in so-so territory (with Adlai Stevenson).

=> However, the fact remains that Obama commands a very solid majority among Jewish voters--and, as usual, his level of support among Jews is dramatically higher than his support in the overall electorate (see below). One should also bear in mind that the polling on which these figures are based was done in April, which was a difficult month for Obama and for the Democrats. And Jewish Democrats who support Clinton, like other Democrats who support Clinton, are likely to rally around the party's candidate once the dust has settled.

Of course, we shouldn't make too much of any one poll, and the final results will depend on how the general election campaign works out. But my guess is that this 61% will turn out to represent a floor for Obama's Jewish support, not a ceiling.

Meanwhile, some highlights from the Gallup report are below.

--Jeff Weintraub

Republican panic in Mississippi (Dick Polman)

In today's special election for "Mississippi's deeply Republican 1st Congressional District," Democrat Travis Childers defeated Republican Greg Davis by a stunning margin of 54%-46%.

Why is this a big deal?

Political reporter Dick Polman of the Philadelphia Inquirer explained it earlier today:

The hottest election tonight is not taking place in West Virginia (a state that hasn't staged a truly consequential presidential primary since 1960, when Jack Kennedy knocked out Hubert Humphrey, reputedly with some help from mob money). Rather, you'd be better advised tonight to keep an eye on the northernmost congressional district in the state of Mississippi.

That's where you can best gauge the woeful status of the Republican party in the dying days of the Bush era.

Consider what's going on tonight in Mississippi's First Congressional District. A special election is in the works, a competition between Republican Greg Davis (a local mayor) and Democrat Travis Childers (a chancery clerk and businessman) to replace Roger Wicker, who was recently elevated to the U.S. Senate, replacing the retired Trent Lott.

Big deal, right? In normal times, this kind of musical chairs would be a slam dunk for the GOP; in normal times, Republican candidate Greg Davis would win this special election in a yawn. After all, Wicker won his seat seven straight times, with never less than 63 percent of the vote. President Bush carried this Mississippi district four years ago with 62 percent of the vote. The district has been a safe Republican seat ever since the heady days of the Newt Gingrich conservative revolution. [....]

And yet, the GOP has felt compelled to treat even this race as if it was a four-alarm fire. [....] What worries Republicans is that the Mississippi situation so closely mirrors recent special congressional elections in Louisiana and Illinois - both of which were embarrassments to the GOP. [JW: See here & here.]

[....]

So watch this race. A Republican loss in Mississippi would be devastating; a win would be a massive relief, although the party should never have to expend so much money and manpower to salvage a seat on its home turf. To paraphrase Frank Sinatra: If they can't make it there, can they make it anywhere?

Well, they lost.

--Jeff Weintraub
=========================
Philadelphia Inquirer
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Republican panic in Mississippi
By Dick Polman

The hottest election tonight is not taking place in West Virginia (a state that hasn't staged a truly consequential presidential primary since 1960, when Jack Kennedy knocked out Hubert Humphrey, reputedly with some help from mob money). Rather, you'd be better advised tonight to keep an eye on the northernmost congressional district in the state of Mississippi.

That's where you can best gauge the woeful status of the Republican party in the dying days of the Bush era.

Consider what's going on tonight in Mississippi's First Congressional District. A special election is in the works, a competition between Republican Greg Davis (a local mayor) and Democrat Travis Childers (a chancery clerk and businessman) to replace Roger Wicker, who was recently elevated to the U.S. Senate, replacing the retired Trent Lott.

Big deal, right? In normal times, this kind of musical chairs would be a slam dunk for the GOP; in normal times, Republican candidate Greg Davis would win this special election in a yawn. After all, Wicker won his seat seven straight times, with never less than 63 percent of the vote. President Bush carried this Mississippi district four years ago with 62 percent of the vote. The district has been a safe Republican seat ever since the heady days of the Newt Gingrich conservative revolution.

And yet, the GOP has felt compelled to treat even this race as if it was a four-alarm fire. Lott and Wicker and Mike Huckabee have all been flooding the zone. So has Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, Barbour's lieutenant governor, senior Mississippi senator Thad Cochran, and even Dick Cheney (this is presumably one of the few congressional districts in America where Cheney actually might be an asset). Meanwhile, back in Washington, the GOP's cash-strapped House campaign committee has felt compelled to spend in excess of $1.3 million on direct mail and TV ads, just to prop up Davis.

If the Republicans need to scramble this way, to save an ostensibly safe congressional seat in a deeply-red southern district, consider what this says about the prevailing national mood - and about the GOP's dim November prospects for trimming their current House minority status (199 Rs, 235 Ds).

They have reason to feel a tad panicky. Childers, a Democrat with conservative values, has been showing a lot of strength. Under Mississippi rules, there was already a first-round special election last month; Childers finished on top, beating Davis and some minor candidates - a stunning result in itself - and nearly attracted 50 percent of the total vote. If the Democrat had hit 50 percent (he came within 400 votes), he would have won the seat outright, with no need for tonight's runoff with the number-two finisher.

What worries Republicans is that the Mississippi situation so closely mirrors recent special congressional elections in Louisiana and Illinois - both of which were embarrassments to the GOP. Ten days ago, Democrat Don Cazayoux won a Louisiana congressional seat that had been held by the Republicans for 20 years, in a district that had supported Bush with 59 percent of the vote in 2004 and 55 percent of the vote in 2000. And back on March 8, as I have previously noted, Democrat Bill Foster won the Illinois congressional seat formerly held for two decades by departed GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert, and by two Republicans prior to him. [JW: See here & here.]

Some Republican spinners have come up with excuses for the losses in Louisiana and Illinois - the GOP candidates in those races were flawed, it's all their fault, and thus the defeats are no barometer of the national party's fortunes - but the fact is, those two seats are normally so safe that any Republican with functioning brain cells should be able to win them.

Yet the task proved difficult, because of the political landscape. Bush is an albatross, the war is a drag, the economy is a burden, and Republicans are still viewed as somewhat lacking on the ethics front (latest example: "family values" conservative congressman Vito Fossella of Staten Island has been outed for having two families). It's instructive right now that, in the congressional matchups for November as measured in the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, a generic Democratic candidate beats a generic Republican candidate by roughly 15 percentage points - roughly the same spread that pollsters recorded on the eve of the November '06 elections, when the GOP wound up losing both chambers.

And special congressional elections typically foreshadow the main event in November; this happened in 1974, when some early Republican losses turned out to be a portent of massive party losses in the immediate aftermath of the Watergate scandal. And it happened early in 1994, this time to the other party, when Bill Clinton's Democrats coughed up a few safe seats in special elections that foreshadowed the Gingrich revolution in November.

What also bears watching tonight is whether the GOP's tactic for retaining the Mississippi seat turns out to be effective. Lacking much of anything good to say, the Republicans are falling back on their old reliable: painting Democrat Childers as a stooge of the liberals...and, in this case, casting Barack Obama in the role of bogeyman. Childers has actually never met Obama, or sought his help, but linking the pair might be the GOP's best option in this conservative district - unless the tactic winds up energizing African-Americans, who reportedly comprise 26 percent of the district's population. It should be noted that, two weeks ago in Louisiana, the GOP tried to tie Cazayoux to Obama - and Cazayoux won anyway.

So watch this race. A Republican loss in Mississippi would be devastating; a win would be a massive relief, although the party should never have to expend so much money and manpower to salvage a seat on its home turf. To paraphrase Frank Sinatra: If they can't make it there, can they make it anywhere?

Chris Matthews: "We're not sociologists, we're Americans."

A new milestone in buffoonery by the TV blowhard and alleged political journalist Chris Matthews.

Throughout the Democratic nomination race, in which there has been a good deal of nonsense from journalists and political pundits, Chris Matthews of MSNBC has distinguished himself for commentary blending frequent absurdity with out-of-control Clinton Derangement Syndrome. Matthews also played a fairly significant role in introducing the race-card theme into coverage of the campaign--and, in the process, into the campaign itself.

I had more or less decided to ignore Matthews, but tonight he really outdid himself.

=> Matthews, we should note, has always made a habit of talking about "working class" people (along with the standard pseudo-populist disparagement of "elitist" Democrats). On his April 1 "Hardball" show, for example, Matthews had an exchange with Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, an Obama supporter, and his introductory remarks were fairly typical in this respect:

Obama — that’s Senator Obama — has taken a different tone in Pennsylvania, where I’m at right now. He faces an aging blue-collar electorate, one of the oldest states. I think it’s the second oldest state, in terms of demographics. People want details about how he plans to improve their lives, keep their kids from moving out of the state, and creating jobs down the road for their grandkids. Can he win over working-class voters here in Pennsylvania? Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri is an Obama supporter. Senator McCaskill, did you advise Obama to go out and try to bowl the other day?

And this rather bizarre question that he then went on to ask is also par for the course with Matthews:

Let me ask you about how he — how’s he connect with regular people? Does he? Or does he only appeal to people who come from the African-American community and from the people who have college or advanced degrees?

(Apparently, neither African-Americans nor people with college degrees are "regular people". Whom does that leave? Well, no doubt that's not exactly what he meant to say....)

=> Tonight, Matthews suddenly decided that even mentioning class and race in connection with elections is for "sociologists," not "Americans." Using phrases like "blue-collar" is "elitist talk." And simply by talking about "white working-class voters," Hillary Clinton is almost "like the Al Sharpton of white people."

If you think I'm making all that up, watch this video.



--Jeff Weintraub

P.S. As for the line from Matthews contrasting "sociologists" with "Americans" (yes, that's a direct quotation), I guess I should feel reassured by John DiIulio's insistence that even sociologists are "entitled to all the rights of citizenship." On the other hand, as I pointed out in that connection,

even if believing sociologists are entitled to the same legal rights as other Americans, I do think it would be very difficult for a self-confessed sociologist to get elected President of the US.

Why should we be in a rush to use up all our oil?

According to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit, back in the 1970s Malcolm Forbes--publisher of Forbes magazine and father of the economic flat-earther and two-time Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes--made a very sensible point about this matter which is still worth paying attention to:

LOOKING FOR more oil.

Complaints about the drilling bans in ANWR and offshore are a staple of right-wing talk radio. But I remember Malcolm S. Forbes, back in the 1970s, saying that we should drill as little domestic oil as possible. Pump the Arabs' oil as long as it lasts, then -- when oil has become really scarce and valuable -- we'll be the only ones with any left!

OK, "as little domestic oil as possible" is a bit exaggerated (and I gather that some expansion of refining capacity might be useful, which is a different but related point). But the basic idea, however chauvinistically expressed, makes good sense.

A more sensible immediate priority would be to focus on dramatically improving the efficiency with which we use oil. Just for a start, this would include raising fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks, investing in better and more extensive mass-transit systems, and the like. Unlike drilling in ANWR, steps like these could begin to yield significant results in the fairly short term, as well as being valuable both economically and environmentally in the long term. (We should also be working on the development of viable alternative sources of energy, but my guess is that this solution will take a while before it begins to pay off significantly, so that's a more medium- to long-term solution.)

Just a passing thought ...

--Jeff Weintraub

Will Hutton argues that America is not ready for history's scrap-heap just yet

The Decline of the West is a perennial theme, with intermittent moments of plausibility. Odd as it may now seem, for example, the Soviet Union and world Communism were once widely seen as serious challengers riding the wave of the future while the western model sank (for good or ill) into terminal crisis and decline. As late as 1976 Raymond Aron felt moved to write a book entitled, only half-ironically, In Defense of Decadent Europe--and a fair number of activists and intellectuals, believe it or not, looked to Chairman Mao for inspiration.

During the 63 years since the end of World War II, the US in particular has been the object of recurrent waves of declinist talk. Whether in hope or alarm, these describe the US as a country going downhill both in its own terms and with respect to various competitors. (I have a memory from the summer of 1967 of reading a piece by a British journalists touring the US who gleefully described 1967 as "the year of the great American crack-up." Well, it did look that way to a lot of people at the time.) Leaving aside the periodic re-emergence of the Soviet Threat, remember the mid-to-late 1980s, when Japan was going to take over the world and sweep by the US with its stagnating economy, its collapsing educational system, its ever-rising crime rates & other social pathologies, etc.?

Or maybe Europe, in its post-nationalist EU version, will have the last laugh? There are still currents of declinist self-analysis in various European countries, of course. But there have been countervailing tendencies, especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union, which often include (mild or intense) anti-American overtones. Or, at least, they involve self-congratulatory comparisons between Europe and the US and try to use a contrast between putative "European" and "American" models as part of an effort to forge (or claim, or define) a common European identity. In this type of discourse, "Europe" represents the superior model--more advanced, enlightened, humane, egalitarian, cosmopolitan, post-nationalist, post-militarist, and so on--while the US remains trapped in an increasingly outdated socio-economic, political, and ideological model that makes it increasingly unattractive, internally dysfunctional, and threatening to the rest of the world. Of course, these European discourses of US dysfunction and decline--nicely delineated by Andy Markovits and others--have been matched by various anti-European declinist narratives emanating from sectors of American public discussion.

At some point, these assessments of imminent US (or western) decline are bound to be correct. But according to this cheerfully argumentative piece by Will Hutton, at the moment they remain premature.

Hutton, for those of you who don't immediately recognize the name, is a prominent British social-democratic intellectual whose best-known work is probably still his influential 1995 anti-Thatcherite polemic, The State We're In. Not everyone who fits that general profile is feeling well-disposed to the US these days. But Hutton argues that, contrary to some appearances and a good deal of commentary, American society remains dynamic, resilient, and in important ways even inspiring. Some highlights:

The more I visit the US the more I think the pundits predicting the US's imminent economic and political decline hugely overstate their case. Rather, the next 50 years will be as dominated by the US as the last 50. The US will widen its technological and scientific dominance, sustain its military hegemony, launch a period of reindustrialisation and continue to define modernity both in culture and industry.

The fashionable view is that the American economy is a busted flush, a hollowed-out, deindustrialised shell housed in decaying infrastructure that delivers McJobs and has survived courtesy only of a ramped-up housing market and the willingness of foreigners to hold trillions of dollars of American debts.

China and India are set to overtake it in the foreseeable future. At best, the US will have to get used to living in a multipolar world it cannot dominate. At worst, it will have to accept, along with the West, that the new economic and political heart of the world is Asia. [....]

What counts is the strength of a country's universities, research base, commitment to information and communications technology and new technologies along with a network of institutions that supports new enterprise. Here, the US is so far ahead of the rest of the world it is painful. [....] Of the world's top 50 companies ranked by R&D, 20 are American. Fifty-two of the world's top 100 brands are American. Half the world's new patents are registered by American companies.

This year, American exports have grown by 13 per cent, helped by the falling dollar, so that the US has reclaimed its position as the world's number one exporter. Moreover, and little remarked on, two-thirds of America's imports come from affiliates of American companies that determinedly keep most of the value added in the US.

[....] There is a dynamic readiness to fix things in a tight economic corner, irrespective of ideology, that can only be admired.

It is a dynamism that infects the political process. I was in the US on the day Indiana and North Carolina went to the polls in the Democratic primaries. The conventional wisdom is that Obama and Clinton's fight is self-defeating and it would be better if Clinton had stood down earlier. I disagree. It has brought politics alive. Democrats are enrolling to vote in their hundreds of thousands because their vote and opinion now count. They will stay enrolled and vote in November. [....]

It is this strange cocktail of argument, of plural institutions that check and balance, of investing in knowledge and of a belief that no problem can't be fixed that underpins American strength. China is the only country in the world with a similar continental-scale economy and bigger population that conceivably could mount a challenge, but it has none of these institutions and processes. Despite its size, it has only three universities in the top 100, not one brand in the top 100, not one company in the world top 50 ranked by R&D and it registers virtually no patents.

China has no tradition of public argument, nor independent judiciary. Unless and until its institutions change, it will always trail the US in the 21st century knowledge economy and experience upheaval and possible revolution along the way. India, a democracy with the right institutions, is much better placed - but with income per head 2 or 3 per cent of that in the US, a challenge will take centuries rather than decades.

It is the maligned EU that has the institutions and economic prowess to emerge as a genuine knowledge economy counterweight to America.

Sure, the US has problems. [....] But none of those problems can't be fixed and the US is about to elect a President who will promise to try, in a world in which it remains the indispensable power. [....] The greatest danger is that we start believing the pessimism. The United States is - and remains - formidable. Which is just as well for all of us.

Well, maybe. Parts of this account strike me as possibly over-enthusiastic and over-optimistic (or maybe even too good to be true). But overall, and with appropriate qualfications, Hutton's diagnosis strikes me as basically right, and many of his prognoses strike me as at least plausible.

We do have a lot of very serious problems, pathologies, and dilemmas to face here in the US. Many of these were building up for some time, but they've been dramatically exacerbated by the disastrous consequences of the Bush/Cheney administration, so in 2009 we'll have to begin by trying to repair a daunting mass of accumulated damage. However, it's too early to throw in the towel.

(Perhaps this would be the point to insert: "Yes we can!")

--Jeff Weintraub
==============================
The Observer (London)
Sunday May 11 2008
Forget the naysayers - America remains an inspiration to us all
By Will Hutton

Browsing through an American bookshop does not lift the spirits. Books that chart the end of American supremacy, predict wars over finite natural resources, study the squeezed middle class or the catastrophic Bush presidency proliferate. The United States is going through a period of introspection and the Boston bookshelves, at which I spent part of last week, heave with the results.

In one respect, it is hardly surprising. Iraq, Afghanistan and the rise of China. The credit crunch. The $124 a barrel oil price. The unbelievable unfairness of Bush's tax cuts. The racism and violence that still pockmark American life. Yet the pessimism is overdone. The more I visit the US the more I think the pundits predicting the US's imminent economic and political decline hugely overstate their case. Rather, the next 50 years will be as dominated by the US as the last 50. The US will widen its technological and scientific dominance, sustain its military hegemony, launch a period of reindustrialisation and continue to define modernity both in culture and industry.

The fashionable view is that the American economy is a busted flush, a hollowed-out, deindustrialised shell housed in decaying infrastructure that delivers McJobs and has survived courtesy only of a ramped-up housing market and the willingness of foreigners to hold trillions of dollars of American debts.

China and India are set to overtake it in the foreseeable future. At best, the US will have to get used to living in a multipolar world it cannot dominate. At worst, it will have to accept, along with the West, that the new economic and political heart of the world is Asia.

The US economy is certainly in transition, made vastly more difficult by the spreading impact of the credit crunch. But the underlying story is much stronger. The country is developing the prototypical knowledge economy of the 21st century, an economy in which the division between manufacturing and services becomes less clear cut, in a world where the deployment of knowledge, brain power and problem-solving are the sources of wealth generation.

What counts is the strength of a country's universities, research base, commitment to information and communications technology and new technologies along with a network of institutions that supports new enterprise. Here, the US is so far ahead of the rest of the world it is painful.

The figures make your head spin. Of the world's top 100 universities, 37 are American. The country spends more proportionately on research and design, universities and software than any other, including Sweden and Japan. Of the world's top 50 companies ranked by R&D, 20 are American. Fifty-two of the world's top 100 brands are American. Half the world's new patents are registered by American companies.

This year, American exports have grown by 13 per cent, helped by the falling dollar, so that the US has reclaimed its position as the world's number one exporter. Moreover, and little remarked on, two-thirds of America's imports come from affiliates of American companies that determinedly keep most of the value added in the US. The US certainly has a trade deficit, but importantly it is largely with itself.

The US will recover from the credit crunch. Already there is an aggression and activism about how to respond that makes the British look limp in comparison. Four-fifths of new mortgages are underwritten by public mortgage banks, interest rates have been slashed and a bank bail-out was launched instantly. More activism is planned. There is a dynamic readiness to fix things in a tight economic corner, irrespective of ideology, that can only be admired.

It is a dynamism that infects the political process. I was in the US on the day Indiana and North Carolina went to the polls in the Democratic primaries. The conventional wisdom is that Obama and Clinton's fight is self-defeating and it would be better if Clinton had stood down earlier. I disagree. It has brought politics alive. Democrats are enrolling to vote in their hundreds of thousands because their vote and opinion now count. They will stay enrolled and vote in November.

There is also a great maturity about the process. It is a political argument that necessarily demands respect for your opponent because if you win you will need their support in November. Americans do public argument well. The tradition might have corrupted since de Tocqueville made the same observation in 1835, but it lives on. And it is a vital underpinning of American success.

It is this strange cocktail of argument, of plural institutions that check and balance, of investing in knowledge and of a belief that no problem can't be fixed that underpins American strength. China is the only country in the world with a similar continental-scale economy and bigger population that conceivably could mount a challenge, but it has none of these institutions and processes. Despite its size, it has only three universities in the top 100, not one brand in the top 100, not one company in the world top 50 ranked by R&D and it registers virtually no patents.

China has no tradition of public argument, nor independent judiciary. Unless and until its institutions change, it will always trail the US in the 21st century knowledge economy and experience upheaval and possible revolution along the way. India, a democracy with the right institutions, is much better placed - but with income per head 2 or 3 per cent of that in the US, a challenge will take centuries rather than decades.

It is the maligned EU that has the institutions and economic prowess to emerge as a genuine knowledge economy counterweight to America.

Sure, the US has problems. It runs its financial system like a casino. It is a grossly unfair society. Its road and rail systems have been neglected for decades. University entrance has become too expensive. It has fetishised deregulation. Money corrupts its political process. To compromise the rule of law in order to 'win' the war on terror was stupid. But none of those problems can't be fixed and the US is about to elect a President who will promise to try, in a world in which it remains the indispensable power.

Anybody who would prefer China's communists needs to see their doctor. The greatest danger is that we start believing the pessimism. The United States is - and remains - formidable. Which is just as well for all of us.

"At least he admits it" ...

... was the heading used by Instapundit, from whom item this is borrowed.

The bit of dialogue captured here was a semi-digression during an exchange between two pundits, Jonathan Alter and Mickey Kaus. They had just been talking about Hillary Clinton's ill-fated gas-tax holiday proposal (a bad idea which Alter described, with wild exaggeration, as "the worst pander ever in modern politics").

Let me make it clear that I am re-posting this snippet purely for comic relief, and not to make any grand point that isn't already obvious. I guess it also has curiosity value. Mickey Kaus (the pundit on the right) is so rarely right about anything that one shouldn't miss one of those rare moments when he happens to be on-target.

To find out what I'm talking about, watch this VIDEO.



--Jeff Weintraub

Should Clinton drop out now? - Some pros & cons from Marc Ambinder

Since Tuesday's primaries, as we know, the buzzards have been circling around Hillary Clinton's campaign. A consensus is settling in that there is no longer any reasonable hope for Clinton to win the nomination. And once this consensus does harden, it will become self-fulfilling anyway.

On the assumption that this assessment is correct--which it probably is--does that mean that Clinton should drop out of the race right now, before the remaining primaries have been held? A number of people (not exclusively Obama supporters) would say that if you grant the premise, then the correct answer is obviously yes. But that conclusion is actually not quite so self-evident as it might seem.

No, really, it's not. Earlier today Marc Ambinder, in his political blog at The Atlantic, dashed off two nice posts spelling out 7 reasons why Clinton should drop out and 7 reasons why she shouldn't, both starting from the premise that her chance of winning the nomination is almost certainly over. Some of you might find them, at the very least, intriguing and thought-provoking to consider ... while we wait to find out what actually happens.

--Jeff Weintraub

P.S. For some updates, speculation. and insider scuttlebutt about what the Clinton campaign is actually planning to do, see Clinton's Next Moves.
==============================
TheAtlantic.com
Marc Ambinder's Blog
May 7, 2008

7 Reasons Why Clinton Should Stay In The Race**

**One is perfectly capable of acknowledging that the identity of the nominee is no longer in dispute and still find that, aside from morbid speculation and existential unknowability, there are reasons for her to postpone any plans for a concession. Some of these reasons may be unpalatable for Democrats and for Obama, but they are not entirely irrational.

1. Florida and Michigan. Clinton, not Obama, is identified with the cause of seating those delegations. Since FL and MI won't decide the nomination now, Clinton has every reason to push for a negotiated settlement. It way well be that Clinton refuses to officially drop out until she is satisfied that the voices of Florida and Michigan are heard.

2. Her voters. Almost half of those voting in the Democratic primaries chose Clinton. Certain parts of her support base -- older women, for example -- are as fervently in her corner as Obama as college kids are in Obama's corner. For these women, Clinton has succeeded in convincing them that her candidacy is just as historic as Obama's. Forget about the nomination: Clinton has a much deeper political base than when she started to campaign for the presidency. She needs to tend to this base whether she continues to represent New York, becomes Senate Majority Leader, becomes the vice presidential nominee, or runs in 2012.

3. Embarrassment. If she drops out tomorrow and winds up winning in West Virginia and Kentucky, Obama will be mightily embarrassed. Having her in the race gives him an excuse for losing those two states. (I ran this by an Obama adviser who said, "We'll take our chances.")

4. The Ask. Does Clinton want to be Obama's vice president? Who knows? But does Clinton want to be asked whether she wants to be his vice president and this be in a position to decline it? Surely. The more Obama is reminded that Clinton cannot not be dispensed with, the more pressure he will feel to at least solicit her views on the subject of the vice presidency.

5. The Party. David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, said again this morning that he is confident that the entire party will unify around Obama. If that's the case, then giving Democrats in the remaining states the chance to exercise their vote -- and by exercise, I mean it in the conventional sense -- to practice voting -- will be a boon for Democrats in the fall. 1.5 million Democrats voting in Indiana is spectacular; the primaries are serving as a dry-run of sorts for the entire party. It wouldn't hurt to extend those dress rehearsals to West Virginia and Kentucky either, not to mention Oregon and Montana.

6. Superdelegates. If they're so eager to end the race, they can end the race. They haven't.

7. Unity. If Clinton campaigns appropriately, she can help Obama begin to help heal the party.

--------------------
7 Reasons Why Clinton Should Quit, Now

1. It's over. Forget the sideshows and the hypotheticals. Once the party has its nominee, and only then, can the process of healing begin. The longer Clinton stays in the race, the more she postpones the point at which the party comes together.

2. The reality principle. "Anything is possible," is what campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said today. Well, no. Something things are impossible; many others are highly improbable.

3. Her legacy. In many quarters, it's been damaged by the presidential race. The sooner she exits, the more gracefully she exists, the better the chance is for her to shake off this presidential race and resume her Senate career.

4. Bill's legacy. In many quarters, it's been irrevocably (and perhaps unfairly) damaged by this presidential race.

5. Obama. Even if there are plausible, selfish reasons for her to stay in, her duty to her party should trump them. She should devote herself fully to the service of Obama.

6. Her staff. They are tired and many are demoralized, even as they love and lionize their boss. Give them a rest.

7. Florida and Michigan. The sooner she drops out, the sooner those states will find their delegations seated.

What did yesterday's primaries mean? (Josh Marshall)

I have some thoughts on this matter, which I may share soon. Essentially, I share the widespread perception that the results marked the end of the road for Clinton, or at least the beginning of the end. She may or may not continue to stay in the race through June--and if she does she may well win several more primaries in West Virginia, Kentucky, and possibly Puerto Rico. But in terms of the ultimate outcome, Tuesday's primaries were probably decisive. Or so it seems to me ...

Meanwhile, this VIDEO by Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo, recorded at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, offers a compact roundup and analysis that strike me as intelligent, illuminating, and probably right.

--Jeff Weintraub

What will today's Democratic primaries mean?

Hard to say, really. It's a good bet that the results won't be decisive, but then who knows?

The official results won't be announced until tonight. But in the meantime, here is a useful overview of the main possibilities from Adam Nagourney in the New York Times. Some highlights:

It’s almost over.

Well, not quite. But the Democratic presidential primaries taking place on Tuesday in North Carolina and Indiana have more delegates up for grabs than any of the remaining contests. For political, demographic and mathematical reasons, those states have the potential to reshape the competition between Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

It will be an opportunity for Mrs. Clinton to make the case that Democratic sentiment is swinging in her favor, and to slice into Mr. Obama’s lead in pledged delegates and in the popular vote (putting aside the disputed contests in Florida and Michigan). For Mr. Obama, it is a chance to tamp down talk that Mrs. Clinton has exposed him as a flawed general election candidate.

[....] But to say that both sides are anxious would be an understatement, and with that in mind, here are three possible outcomes to watch for Tuesday, in no particular order: Mrs. Clinton wins both states, Mr. Obama does, or they split:

1) Mrs. Clinton wins Indiana and North Carolina.

Given the obstacles that face her, a sweep by Mrs. Clinton on Tuesday is one outcome that could, to borrow a phrase from Mr. Obama, change the world, or at least begin to. [....]

2) Mr. Obama wins North Carolina and Indiana.

A double Obama victory would almost certainly mean lights out for the Clinton campaign. [....]

3) A split decision.

The most likely split would be Mrs. Clinton winning Indiana and Mr. Obama winning North Carolina. That would almost surely mean the race would go on.

But it would not be easy for Mrs. Clinton to fight on if she cannot use Tuesday to make some progress in the battle for pledged delegates and the popular vote. Her own advisers say her best hope of getting superdelegates to vote against pledged delegates is if, after the final primaries on June 3, she is close to Mr. Obama in pledged delegates and ahead in the popular vote. [....]

It is not impossible for Mrs. Clinton to catch up, but it would require a series of lopsided victories — or a successful effort by the Clinton campaign to convince superdelegates and the party at large that the popular vote totals in Florida and Michigan should count in determining the will of the people, even though Mr. Obama’s name did not appear on the ballot in Michigan and neither candidate actively campaigned in either state. (If Florida and Michigan are counted, Mrs. Clinton has a slim lead in the popular vote by some calculations.)

“The math still favors Senator Obama, no matter what happens Tuesday,” Mr. Klain said.

But then he offered a caveat that could work in Mrs. Clinton’s favor. ‘This is the ultimate what-have-you-done-for-me-lately business,” he said, “and the more recent victories are going to count in people’s mind more than those older victories.”

Stay tuned. The rest is below.

--Jeff Weintraub
==============================
New York Times
May 6, 2008
For Primaries in 2 States, a Variety of Scenarios
By Adam Nagourney

It’s almost over.

Well, not quite. But the Democratic presidential primaries taking place on Tuesday in North Carolina and Indiana have more delegates up for grabs than any of the remaining contests. For political, demographic and mathematical reasons, those states have the potential to reshape the competition between Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

It will be an opportunity for Mrs. Clinton to make the case that Democratic sentiment is swinging in her favor, and to slice into Mr. Obama’s lead in pledged delegates and in the popular vote (putting aside the disputed contests in Florida and Michigan). For Mr. Obama, it is a chance to tamp down talk that Mrs. Clinton has exposed him as a flawed general election candidate.

You can tell where Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama think they have their best shot by where they will be on Tuesday night: Mrs. Clinton has a hotel ballroom in Indianapolis, and Mr. Obama, after some last-minute debate, finally decided on a rally at a coliseum in Raleigh, N.C. But to say that both sides are anxious would be an understatement, and with that in mind, here are three possible outcomes to watch for Tuesday, in no particular order: Mrs. Clinton wins both states, Mr. Obama does, or they split:

1) Mrs. Clinton wins Indiana and North Carolina.

Given the obstacles that face her, a sweep by Mrs. Clinton on Tuesday is one outcome that could, to borrow a phrase from Mr. Obama, change the world, or at least begin to.

“That’s a sign that she is gaining momentum in the race,” said Ron Klain, a Democratic consultant who has not taken sides. How much such a result would change the race would depend on the contours of her victories.

A month ago, Indiana was considered relatively even, with perhaps a slight edge to Mr. Obama, of Illinois.

“Indiana is the first state that borders Illinois, and 25 percent of our primary electorate get their television news out of Chicago,” said Dan Parker, the Indiana Democratic chairman, who is backing Mrs. Clinton.

By contrast, Mr. Obama seemed to hold such an advantage in North Carolina that Mrs. Clinton’s aides debated making only a token effort there.

Now, though, both campaigns see both states as highly competitive, as evidenced by the amount of time Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have spent there in recent days. Mrs. Clinton has said she expects to win in Indiana; candidates do not normally do that.

If Mr. Obama loses in Indiana because of white blue-collar support for Mrs. Clinton it would be the third time in a row, after Ohio and Pennsylvania, that he has lost a big state because of an inability to win over enough of those kinds of voters.

Mrs. Clinton has argued that those losses in a primary augur poorly for Mr. Obama in the fall; historically that is debatable, but another defeat at the hands of middle-class white voters in Indiana would add to the perception that he could lose in the general election.

And should Mrs. Clinton win North Carolina, or come close, with white support for her overwhelming Mr. Obama’s presumed strength among blacks there, that would fuel the argument that he has been hurt by his ties to his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

Steve Jarding, a Democratic consultant who has not taken sides in the race, said, “If he loses both — and don’t forget he had a 25-point lead in North Carolina — then you’ve got to look at what has happened over the past four weeks, and Reverend Wright comes to the fore.”

The race at this point is at least as much about superdelegates as it is about voters in the remaining primary states, and a double Clinton victory could bolster her argument to superdelegates that Mr. Obama may struggle in November against Senator John McCain, the likely Republican nominee.

Whether that is enough to get them to make the leap of voting for Mrs. Clinton if Mr. Obama leads her after June 3 in the overall popular vote and pledged delegates is another question, which is why her campaign has renewed efforts to get Florida and Michigan delegates, elected in primaries carried out in defiance of the Democratic Party rules, seated at the convention.

One thing to keep in mind: the next contest is a week from Tuesday in West Virginia, another state where the demographics would seem to favor Mrs. Clinton.

2) Mr. Obama wins North Carolina and Indiana.

A double Obama victory would almost certainly mean lights out for the Clinton campaign.

“That would signal the end of the Clinton campaign,” said Jerry Meek, the chairman of the North Carolina Democratic Party, who has not endorsed anyone in the race. “I don’t see how she could continue.” He added, “She’d be fighting a losing battle.”

The ever-tenacious Mrs. Clinton has proven so eager to keep fighting that she might try to soldier on. It could be a tough, lonely road. Several of her advisers have said they would counsel her to quit the race if she lost both.

Even if she resisted, twin victories by Mr. Obama would go a long way to addressing concerns about the damage Mr. Wright inflicted on him, as well as his ability to “close the deal,” as Mrs. Clinton likes to say.

It is difficult to envision what her argument would be to stay in the race should that happen. More than that, Mr. Obama would no doubt encourage superdelegates, many of whom have been holding back to see how the voting plays out, to rally around him and bring the race to a close. And if there ever was a moment for the party’s big leaders to step forward, this would be it.

Matthew Dowd, the senior strategist for President Bush’s campaign in 2004, said, “It makes it almost impossible for her to win the Democratic nomination.”

3) A split decision.

The most likely split would be Mrs. Clinton winning Indiana and Mr. Obama winning North Carolina. That would almost surely mean the race would go on.

But it would not be easy for Mrs. Clinton to fight on if she cannot use Tuesday to make some progress in the battle for pledged delegates and the popular vote. Her own advisers say her best hope of getting superdelegates to vote against pledged delegates is if, after the final primaries on June 3, she is close to Mr. Obama in pledged delegates and ahead in the popular vote.

Mrs. Clinton now has 1,338 pledged delegates, according to a count and projection by The New York Times, compared with 1,493 for Mr. Obama. On Tuesday, another 187 delegates will be chosen, and after that, there are only 217 left. Under Democratic delegate allocation rules, Mrs. Clinton would have to win most of the remaining states by huge margins in order to chip into Mr. Obama’s delegate lead.

Mr. Obama’s total popular vote, including projections from the caucuses, is 14.8 million, compared with 14.2 million to Mrs. Clinton, not counting the votes in Florida or Michigan (his lead is slightly smaller if the caucus states are excluded).

It is not impossible for Mrs. Clinton to catch up, but it would require a series of lopsided victories — or a successful effort by the Clinton campaign to convince superdelegates and the party at large that the popular vote totals in Florida and Michigan should count in determining the will of the people, even though Mr. Obama’s name did not appear on the ballot in Michigan and neither candidate actively campaigned in either state. (If Florida and Michigan are counted, Mrs. Clinton has a slim lead in the popular vote by some calculations.)

“The math still favors Senator Obama, no matter what happens Tuesday,” Mr. Klain said.

But then he offered a caveat that could work in Mrs. Clinton’s favor. ‘This is the ultimate what-have-you-done-for-me-lately business,” he said, “and the more recent victories are going to count in people’s mind more than those older victories.”

Al-Qaeda's complaint: How dare those Shiites accuse us of not being mass murderers? (BBC News)

Ever since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, there have been widespread anti-Zionist (or straightforwardly anti-semitic) conspiracy theories claiming that those attacks were carried out by Israel. The people who really carried out this act of mega-terrorist mass murder, al-Qaeda, are understandably indignant about the suggestion that they were not responsible. Al-Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, recently denounced this slander and characterized it (a bit tendentiously) as malicious Shiite propaganda.

Al-Qaeda's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has blamed Iran for spreading the theory that Israel was behind the 11 September 2001 attacks.

In an audio tape posted on the internet, Zawahiri insisted al-Qaeda had carried out the attacks on the US.

He accused Iran, and its Hezbollah allies, of trying to discredit Osama Bin Laden's network. [....]

In response to a question about persistent rumours in the Middle East that Israel was involved in the 9/11 attacks, Zawahiri said the rumour had begun on the Hezbollah television station, Al-Manar.

[JW: According to reports by Snopes.com and others, Al-Manar does seem to have been the original source for the widely disseminated myth that 4,000 Israelis--or, in other versions of this fantasy, 4,000 Jews--who worked in the World Trade Center were warned to stay away on September 11, 2001.]

"The purpose of this lie is clear - [to suggest] that there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no-one else did in history, he said.

=> Among its various interesting aspects, this statement by al-Zawahiri represents one more step in the evolution of al-Qaeda's public-relations strategy concerning the September 11 attacks.

For a while, bin Laden maintained a studied ambiguity about whether or not he was responsible for those attacks--hinting strongly that he was, but not saying so explicitly. This ambiguity allowed a great many people to argue that there was no real proof that bin Laden or al-Qaeda had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks. And throughout the Middle East and the wider Islamic world, there was a pervasive tendency simultaneously (a) to express admiration for bin Laden for carrying out the 9/11 attacks, and (b) to deny that he (or any other Muslim) had anything to do with them.

Over time, various secondary figures in al-Qaeda gradually acknowledged, directly or indirectly, that al-Qaeda was indeed behind the attacks. And then in a November 2004 video bin Laden himself explicitly admitted (or boasted) that he was responsible. Curiously enough, as I noted at the time, the fact that bin Laden had just made a detailed and explicit confession of having planned and ordered the crime of the century got remarkably little attention.

And in many quarters, it's almost as though he had never confessed. According to international public opinion polls (for example, the 2006 Pew Global Attitudes Survey), solid majorities of Muslims around the world have continued to deny that bin Laden & al-Qaeda had anything to do with the September 11, 2001 attacks--not only Muslims in Muslim-majority countries, but Muslims in most western European countries as well. Those denials might seem a bit bizarre, especially after bin Laden himself has already admitted having done the deed ... but we all know that when the will to believe or disbelieve is strong enough, no amount of evidence can overcome it.

It would appear that, for various reasons about which we can only speculate, bin Laden and al-Zawahiri increasingly view this kind of ambiguity and semi-denial as a problem that needs to be addressed. So now al-Zawahiri is not just insisting on al-Qaeda's responsibility, but complaining that any suggestions to the contrary are malicious slander.

Aside from the fact that al-Qaeda is engaged in a struggle for prestige with Shiite Islamist radicals like Hizbullah (not to mention the fact that they genuinely hate Shiites and regard them as dangerous heretics), one other factor might be a growing realization among Muslims that the great majority of the victims murdered by al-Qaeda and related terrorist groups are ... Muslims. So it's important for al-Zawahiri & Co. to insist on the fact that they have also carried out mass murders of non-Muslims, and specifically of Americans.

(Jews too, naturally. According to other reports, some questioners have tried to needle al-Zawahiri by asking pointedly why al-Qaeda isn't out murdering more Jews. Al-Zawahiri responded, a bit defensively, that al-Qaeda has destroyed "the synagogue in Jerba in Tunisia, attacked a group of Jewish tourists in Mombasa in Kenya, and launched missiles against the Israeli El-Al airline," to mention only some of its anti-Jewish exploits. Furthermore: "We promise our Muslim brothers that we will do our utmost to strike Jews in Israel and abroad with help and guidance from God.")

Of course, despite all the efforts of bin Laden and al-Zawahiri to set the record straight, there are still plenty of people in western countries--and not just Muslims--who continue to deny that al-Qaeda was responsible for 9/11, or who at least pretend that their involvement remains an open question. (What about those 4,000 Jews who didn't turn up at the World Trade Center, for example?) Life is tough all around, and sometimes mass murderers just can't get the recognition & respect they deserve.

--Jeff Weintraub
=========================
BBC News
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Al-Qaeda accuses Iran of 9/11 lie

Al-Qaeda's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has blamed Iran for spreading the theory that Israel was behind the 11 September 2001 attacks.

In an audio tape posted on the internet, Zawahiri insisted al-Qaeda had carried out the attacks on the US.

He accused Iran, and its Hezbollah allies, of trying to discredit Osama Bin Laden's network.

Correspondents say the comments underline al-Qaeda's increasing public hostility towards Iran.

In a two-hour audiotape posted on an Islamist website, Osama Bin Laden's chief deputy responded to questions posted by al-Qaeda sympathisers.

In response to a question about persistent rumours in the Middle East that Israel was involved in the 9/11 attacks, Zawahiri said the rumour had begun on the Hezbollah television station, Al-Manar.

"The purpose of this lie is clear - [to suggest] that there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no-one else did in history, he said.

"Iranian media snapped up this lie and repeated it."

Sunni fears

Zawahiri went on to criticise Iran for co-operating with the US in its 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, that helped to oust the Taleban.

"Iran's aim here is also clear - to cover up its involvement with America in invading the homes of Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq," he said.

This is the second verbal attack on Iran, a predominantly Shia Muslim country.

Earlier this month, in an audiotape marking the fifth anniversary of the fall of Iraq's leader Saddam Hussein, the al-Qaeda deputy accused Iran of planning to annexe southern Iraq and the eastern part of the Arabian peninsula.

BBC security correspondent Rob Watson says such messages appear designed to play on Sunni fears throughout the region of growing Iranian influence, and to present al-Qaeda as the best bulwark against Tehran.