Political and Blogging Rules for the Road

Vivian Paige posted the following rules for enjoying politics, which sound suspiciously like civility and good ethics, something both political activists and bloggers could use. They come from Bob Gibson over at the Daily Progress.

H/T to Waldo too for finding it first over at the Daily Progress.

No. 1: Look for the good in people. There’s usually something you can find.
No. 2: Killing with kindness is much more effective than killing with invective.
No. 3: Agree with people when you can. Common ground often is easier to find than one might think.
No. 4: Tell people when they make a good point. One’s position often is made stronger when acknowledging the strength of another’s position.
No. 5: Politely remind someone of his own previous words when they buttress your current position and he is in conflict with his current position. Nothing disarms a speaker quite as effectively as a polite demonstration of his former wisdom after some people have hastily abandoned it.
No. 6: Use YouTube to creatively and amusingly demonstrate No. 5 as Fairfax County blogger Kenton Ngo did. The teen-ager shows House of Delegates floor remarks of the Northern Virginia delegates who sponsored the original "abusive driver" legislation explaining how it applies to certain misdemeanor driving offenses and how it does not apply to drivers from other states.
No. 7: Stick to the facts as you understand them when trying to make a point. Ask people to explain the facts and go to the source when you do not fully understand them.
No. 8: Watch and listen to people sincerely. Try to understand their motivations and backgrounds in the light in which they see and feel them.
No. 9: Leave your prejudices at the door, or at least be aware of how they limit and shape you.
No. 10: Give people the benefit of the doubt, at least until they act so egregiously that they must forfeit that right.
No. 11: Enjoy the humor of every situation without demeaning or injuring those responsible for it when they do not intentionally cause it.
No. 12: Take yourself less seriously. The sun and the earth do not revolve around you or anyone you know.
No. 13: Take any elected official less seriously, as too many people take them too seriously and this tends to rub off on them.
No. 14: Smile and enjoy the company of serious people.
No. 15: Decide whether you favor the Old Testament admonition, "An eye for an eye and an impeachment for an impeachment," or the New Testament teaching to "Love thy neighbor as thyself."
No. 16: Insert a positive thought into any negative conversation.
No. 17: Apologize sincerely for foot-in-mouth transgressions and for unintended slights.
No. 18: Read, listen and watch before speaking, remembering that God gave us all two ears, one mouth and one YouTube.
No. 19: Remember at all times that no Democrat, no Republican, no independent and no Libertarian has a corner on the truth.
No 20: Try to put things into perspective, be aware of the past and rest assured things could always get worse.

I'm printing this out and posting it right by my computer as a reminder. Again, thanks Mr. Gibson, Vivian and Waldo.

Labor Night at the Ballpark

Last night I had the thrill of my life – something that I’ll probably never get to do again. I was out on the field of a major league baseball team, hanging out on the sidelines watching Screech, the Nationals’ mascot, observing some of the ballplayers’ wives as they were interviewed on TV, and seeing the singer who was going to open the game with the National Anthem prepare for her big moment.

It was the First Annual Labor Night with the Nats, co-sponsored by the Northern Virginia Central Labor Council and the Washington DC Metropolitan Central Labor Council.

So, on a balmy July evening, I got to see my husband, Dan, who is president of the NoVa CLC; Josh Williams, his counterpart on the DC-Metropolitan CLC; and Kathleen McKirchy, Executive Director of the Metropolitan DC AFL-CIO Community Services Agency as all three were awarded the Nationals’ Team Spirit Award. It’s why we were all out on the field.

In addition, somebody from the Ironworkers local threw out the first pitch. And any union local that sold 50 tickets got to see their name on the scoreboard.

The First Annual Labor Night with the Nats was one of the biggest ticket sales programs for the Nationals, with tickets costing six dollars and one dollar of each ticket sale earmarked for donation to the Community Services Agency. That amounted to $5,600 for the charitable arm of the DC Metropolitan Central Labor Council. Union members who attended were also urged to bring unwrapped toys to be donated to Toys for Tots at the game.

I hope to be able to post some pictures of this in a few days.

Then, we joined about 5,600 union fans as they munched on hot dogs, drank beer and cheered on their favorite team. I spotted Delegate Adam Ebbin and Brian Moran shaking hands, chatting with union members and their families and enjoying the game.

In fact, I was sitting next to Brian, in the nose-bleed section, and talking with him when we stopped mid-conversation because it looked like the Nats would turn around a 3 to 1 defeat in the 8th inning. But after a heart-stopping rally, with a man on 1st and another on 3rd, the Nats blew it with a dumb mistake. Unfortunately, Ryan Zimmerman lost count of how many outs the team had and thus assured that the game would end in defeat.

Here’s a sad description from the WaPo of what happened:

Thinking there were two outs in the bottom of the eighth inning, Ryan Zimmerman took off from second base as soon as the ball connected with Austin Kearns's bat. The Washington Nationalswere down by two runs and Ronnie Belliard already was on third. Representing the tying run on a night when runs were precious commodities, Zimmerman knew he could make it home, assuming the ball fell safely.

The ball, though, was caught by Colorado Rockies second baseman Kazuo Matsui. The play would not have been noteworthy but for the fact there was only one out, not two. Matsui fired the ball to shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, and Zimmerman was doubled off to end the inning.

"It was a bad mistake," Zimmerman said. "You can't do anything about it now, but you can't let that stuff happen."

Well, there will be other games. And other labor nights. But on a beautiful mid-summer night a large group of labor folks got to contribute to charity and enjoy a ball game with their families. And they got to see their unions’ names in lights on the scoreboard.

Late Friday Afternoon Musings on a Slow July Day

Have you ever Googled an old friend? Somebody you lost touch with many years ago?

I have several friends like that, people I knew from college days who, like me, wanted to be writers or actors. I’ve always been curious about what happened to them and did they ever achieve their dreams.

It’s gotten easier to research and find the people from our past. I’m not always sure that’s a good thing. What about the girlfriend that doesn’t want to be found by a once over-ardent suitor? Or the guy who didn’t call the next day like he promised? It’s now easier than ever to bring immeasurable embarrassment and discomfort to those from our past who maybe should stay in the past.

Nevertheless, I was curious, on a slow summer day at work, so I began to Google names from my own past. For the most part, I have no plans to actually contact any of these people, though if I did, at least, I could say I was on good terms with all of them when I last saw them. And I was never romantically involved with any of them. They were good friends and people I worked with on creative projects. One was an editor of the same college newspaper that I worked on, also as an editor. Another was somebody with whom I wrote poetry, which we turned into one-man shows. That person, Chuck Stead, first got the idea. So much of his poetry was themed and one poem segued into another in a way that could be turned into a one-act, one man performance. He gathered a few like-minded friends whose work seemed to do the same thing. I was one of them, and so we performed together for a time. He even used several of my pieces in something he created, with others acting out my words.

Being an author and sitting anonymously in the audience was actually scarier than being on stage – and I always had wrenching stage fright, which was why I gave up acting in the end.

But at least as an actor people who might not have loved my work were usually tactful and polite in my presence. When they sat behind me in a darkened theater and heard some shocking line that came from my pen, I saw their unvarnished reactions and they were unedited by tact or politeness because they had no idea that I was the perpetrator of their shock. Pretty scary!

Chuck was the guy who made me take those risks.

And I know he’s continued to work in the genre he created and has stayed true to his roots as a Ramapo Mountain storyteller. I didn’t know, until I read about him, that he also is an adjunct professor who teaches environmental sciences and works with some fairly technical aspects of environmentalism. Back when I knew him, I knew the artist and had no idea he had a solid grasp of, or interest in, hard sciences.

There are other people I’ve Googled because I know they do things that put them in the public eye.

And it’s fun to see what those from our pasts have accomplished. No need to actually contact most of them. There’s just a secret satisfaction in knowing that old friends have done well. I’m happy for those who achieved their aspirations – if not their original dreams of glory, at least dreams that are close enough to it for it to still be satisfying to them. But of all the people I’ve looked up on the Net, Chuck is the one who has stayed truest to his vision even while expanding into things unknown. He’s the one I’ll contact, if only to let him know that he now has a link on a Virginia blog. I think it will tickle him.

When Great Minds Think Alike

First of all, the great mind belongs to Jim Wallis, not me. Wallis, the founder of Sojourners, is a political activist and an Evangelical minister (he’s a Plymouth Brethren). He posted this piece on the Sojourner Website on July 18. He has long been one of my favorite authors, political activists, and religious leaders. He has, in fact, been a huge influence on my own political and religious thought.

What strikes me is that both he and I made the exact same connection between these two New York Times articles. Since these NYT articles appeared on two different days, that connection wasn’t necessarily obvious to a casual reader. I also have to add that I think his post was better written than mine. It was more concise and more focused.

And the fact that he also picked up on it gives me validation that we may be on to something here. Just a thought.

Another Panda Fan

Since I’m personally a huge fan of Tai Shan, the National Zoo’s panda, I’ m linking to William at Weewaw, who obliviously is a fan of Yin, the red panda at the Virginia Zoo. He has a great post about this wiley escape artist. If you want to feel good, go read.

Welcome to the Blogosphere, WeeWaw!

H/t to Vivian, Lowell, and Jim for finding this first.

William Saxman, who is eleven years old, just started a blog, WeeWaw. Yup, they are getting younger all the time. If the last name sounds familiar, his dad is Chris Saxman, one of the classiest people in politics, and William already appears to be taking the high road in blogging. He’s dedicating his blog to reporting on all the positive news. Here's the money quote:

Today I started a blog because I was sick and tired of seeing al the negative news on TV, the newspaper and the internet.

I think all the negative and bad news really makes people unhappy.

So, I will focus on all the good things that are going on because I believe that many good things are going on out there but we never get to see them because that is not what makes headlines.

Welcome to the blogosphere, William. I’m also putting you on my blogroll!

Riding the Crest of Economic Populism

There were a couple of interesting articles in the New York Times, one yesterday, July 16, and one the day before, which provide a study in contrasts.

The first piece, by Louis Utichelli, focused on the new gilded age and the wealthy tycoons, who have been riding the crest of a wave of fabulous wealth and increasing wage inequality the likes of which haven’t been seen since the 1920s.

And if you listen to some of these newly minted moguls, they compare themselves proudly to the robber barons and captains of industry from that era. Here’s what Sanford Weill, founder of Citigroup had to say.

“People can look at the last 25 years and say this is an incredibly unique period of time,” Mr. Weill said. “We didn’t rely on somebody else to build what we built, and we shouldn’t rely on somebody else to provide all the services our society needs.”

And other tycoons back up his assessment and rate themselves as uniquely deserving of extravagant compensation while the wages of their employees remain flat.

Other very wealthy men in the new Gilded Age talk of themselves as having a flair for business not unlike Derek Jeter“unique talent” for baseball, as Leo J. Hindery Jr. put it. “I think there are people, including myself at certain times in my career,” Mr. Hindery said, “who because of their uniqueness warrant whatever the market will bear.”

He counts himself as a talented entrepreneur, having assembled from scratch a cable television sports network, the YES Network, that he sold in 1999 for $200 million. “Jeter makes an unbelievable amount of money,” said Mr. Hindery, who now manages a private equity fund, “but you look at him and you say, ‘Wow, I cannot find another ballplayer with that same set of skills.’ ”

You can almost see and hear the old Saturday Night Live character, the Church Lady, with her crooked smirk, saying, “Well, isn’t that special? We really like ourselves don’t we?”

Pride may goeth before a fall. But skepticism springs eternal at such arrogance and bragging.

Indeed other, equally successful businessmen aren’t buying these self-laudatory assessments of these tycoons with over inflated egos.

A handful of critics among the new elite, or close to it, are scornful of such self-appraisal. “I don’t see a relationship between the extremes of income now and the performance of the economy,” Paul A. Volcker, a former Federal Reserve Board chairman, said in an interview, challenging the contentions of the very rich that they are, more than others, the driving force of a robust economy.

The great fortunes today are largely a result of the long bull market in stocks, Mr. Volcker said. Without rising stock prices, stock options would not have become a major source of riches for financiers and chief executives. Stock prices rise for a lot of reasons, Mr. Volcker said, including ones that have nothing to do with the actions of these people.

“The market did not go up because businessmen got so much smarter,” he said, adding that the 1950s and 1960s, which the new tycoons denigrate as bureaucratic and uninspiring, “were very good economic times and no one was making what they are making now.”

James D. Sinegal, chief executive of Costco, the discount retailer, echoes that sentiment. “Obscene salaries send the wrong message through a company,” he said. “The message is that all brilliance emanates from the top; that the worker on the floor of the store or the factory is insignificant.”

A legendary chief executive from an earlier era is similarly critical. He is Robert L. Crandall, 71, who as president and then chairman and chief executive, led American Airlines through the early years of deregulation and pioneered the development of the hub-and-spoke system for managing airline routes. He retired in 1997, never having made more than $5 million a year, in the days before upper-end incomes really took off.

He is speaking out now, he said, because he no longer has to worry that his “radical views” might damage the reputation of American or that of the companies he served until recently as a director. The nation’s corporate chiefs would be living far less affluent lives, Mr. Crandall said, if fate had put them in, say, Uzbekistan instead of the United States, “where they are the beneficiaries of a market system that rewards a few people in extraordinary ways and leaves others behind.”

“The way our society equalizes incomes,” he argued, “is through much higher taxes than we have today. There is no other way.”

It actually sounds like these older and more down to earth business executives are saying those emperors have no clothes. Or at least they are far less deserving than they think. They've probably sold their boards of directors and stockholders a bill of goods and rigged the market for CEOs in their own favor.

There's another key point that emerges from Louis Utichelle's article.

First, in the 50s and 60s when corporate chiefs didn’t make nearly as much money, the economy was just as robust and so was the economic condition of the average worker. The compensation gap wasn’t as steep and Americans enjoyed a record level of genuine prosperity and financial security that has been unmatched in any other era before or since. Here’s the telling quote (emphasis is mine)

The new tycoons describe a history that gives them a heroic role. The American economy, they acknowledge, did grow more rapidly on average in the decades immediately after World War II than it is growing today. Incomes rose faster than inflation for most Americans and the spread between rich and poor was much less. But the United States was far and away the dominant economy, and government played a strong supporting role

In addition to the historical fact that the economy was actually better when there was less of a gap between the compensation of the top executives and the average worker, the sheer audacity of these vainglorious men’s’ claims that they are somehow so special that they are entitled to the obscene amounts of wealth they are accumulating at both the expense of their workers and their investors does not hold up to the light of examination.

Indeed, just as in the last Gilded Age, the intense concentration of wealth in the hand of a few and the reckless investment risks that they took was the leading edge of disaster.

Such talk alarms Arthur Levitt Jr., a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who started on Wall Street years ago as a partner with Mr. Weill in a stock brokerage firm...

...Mr. Levitt is skeptical. “I view a gilded age as an age in which warning flags are flying and are seen by very few people,” he said, referring to the potential for a Wall Street firm to fail or markets to crash in a world of too much deregulation. “I think this is a time of great prosperity and a time of great danger.”

The simple truth is that all this excess, both the arrogance of these corporate chiefs and the concentration of wealth at the top, benefits neither workers nor investors. It sets up the economy for too great a risk for investors and leads to an extreme class system with a few very wealthy CEOs teetering at the top of a narrow pyramid and too many people sinking from the middle class back into poverty at the broad bottom with not much in between.

The small wealthy class at the pinnacle and a large underclass of underemployed impoverished workers also sets the stage for a destabilized society with a higher crime rate, greater drug and alcohol abuse, child and spouse abuse, and the disintegration of the family. Can we as a society really afford the fall out from the harsh new economy of the Second Gilded Age? Go back and study the novels of Dickens and others to find out what social conditions were really like in Victorian England and America at that time.

Alcoholism, prostitution, lack of stable family was the norm for the working class. Family life, as we know it now, was practically non-existent among the blue collar workers in the an urban environment. It was only with the advent of the middle class that we truly got a large number of people in stable nuclear families, which we now take for granted.

We should be going forward, not sliding back.

But I think a backlash is coming. There is a groundswell of discontent rising from an increasingly anxious middle class, and Democrats are more and more attuned to it.

And that brings me to the second New York Times piece. According to yesterday’s article, Nancy Pelosi has given Democrats their marching orders. As Robin Toner reported, Pelosi gave this blunt assessment, "The American people want to know what we’re doing about their economic security.” So Congress will be taking up economic issues including the negative effects of free trade and globalization on workers and communities.

On Capitol Hill and on the presidential campaign trail, Democrats are increasingly moving toward a full-throated populist critique of the current economy.

Clearly influenced by some of their most successful candidates in last year’s Congressional elections, Democrats are talking more and more about the anemic growth in American wages and the negative effects of trade and a globalized economy on American jobs and communities. They deplore what they call a growing gap between the middle class, which is struggling to adjust to a changing job market, and the affluent elites who have prospered in the new economy. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, calls it “trickle-down economics without the trickle.”

But the latest populist resurgence is deeply rooted in a view that current economic conditions are difficult and deteriorating for many people, analysts say, and it is now framing debates over tax policy, education, trade, energy and health care. Last week, Senate Democrats held hearings on proposals to raise taxes on some of the highest fliers on Wall Street, the people at the top of private equity and hedge fund firms.

An interesting counterpoint to the laissez faire capitalists and anything goes free traders who would drag the middle class backwards for the sake of their own greed.

I think the party that says "enough" to the corporate greed that is bleeding the middle class dry - both investors and workers - will be the one that dominates the elections. The party that speaks to the concerns of the average voter will ride the wave of economic populism into the new century and, hopefully, return us to the prosperity of the fifties and sixties when unions were stronger, corporations felt a sense of loyalty to their workers, and ordinary people were able to sleep securely at night, knowing they and their families were covered by adequate health insurance, they could save for their children's educations and still have enoug left over to retire with dignity and be independent in their last years. Modest ambitions, compared to the robber barons of the new gilded age.

But perhaps that's why we've got to challenge the greedy whose emphasis is on robber, not just baron.

The Window Snapped Shut

The one thing you can say about Pope Benedict XVI is that he is an equal opportunity offender. Last year, he managed to inflame relations with Muslims by quoting 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel Paleologos II from a debate he had with an educated Persian Muslim. Pope Benedict quoted the emperor as saying:

'Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."'

At that time, Evangelicals and conservative Protestants, along with their traditionalist Catholic allies, cheered the pope.

Perhaps they’d like to rethink some of their alliances now that they know what this conservative pope and those traditionalist Catholics really think of them and their religion.

On July 10, the pope declared that other denominations could not be considered churches but ecclesiastical communities. Protestant denominations responded with statements of protest. But basically all the pope did was restate what Domine Iesus had said in 2000. Pope John Paul II signed that document but it was Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, the current Pope Benedict XVI, who wrote it. In Domine Iesus, Protestant denominations were called defective.

This latest slap at Protestant churches came a week after Benedict decided that churches could, at the request of individual parishes, reinstitute the old Latin Mass, which has a passage praying for the conversion of the Jews and saying that they fail to understand the Christian truth. This obviously has put a strain on his relationship with the world-wide Jewish community.

Back in 2000, the current pope also managed to simultaneously insult Jews and Protestants. Then, the issuance of Domine Iesus was proceeded by a storm of controversy surrounding the beatification of Pope Pius IX. He was beatified at the same time that the beloved Pope John XXIII, the initiator of Vatican II, was raised to the status of Blessed, the step before canonization.

Pope John XXIII was fondly remembered, not just by Catholics, but also by people of good will in all faiths, for convening Vatican II with the hope that it would “open a window and let in the fresh air of the Holy Spirit to blow where it will.” In contrast, Pope Pius IX proudly declared himself “the Scourge of Liberalism.”

Vatican watchers believed that pairing the two beatification ceremonies, in 2000, was a way to placate Catholic traditionalists, who have always had trouble accepting much of Vatican II’s liberalizing effects, especially its commitment to ecumenicism.

Pope Pius, however, was about the worst choice for beatification unless you were trying to pick a fight with all but the most conservative Catholics and send everybody else a message that they were no longer welcome in the Catholic Church. It was also a great way to send a message that dialogue with Jews was no longer valued. And Domine Iesus sealed the deal that traditionalist Catholics really felt the same about alliances with Protestants.

Let me tell you why Pope Pius IX was so controversial. Even in his own time, the mid-1800s, he was a divisive figure. But it didn’t start out that way.

He was originally the choice of liberals and moderates from the College of the Cardinals at the papal conclave to replace the arch-conservative Pope Gregory XVI. Pius started out sympathetic to liberalizing trends in Italy and the Church but grew increasingly more conservative after he was deposed from the Papal States in Italy’s revolutions of 1848, which unified that country and turned it into a secular republic.

Pope Pius’s relations with the Jewish community also were ambiguous. Before he was briefly exiled from Rome, he opened the Jewish ghetto, allowed wealthy Jews to move out of it, and repealed laws that forced Jews to attend church four times a year and listen to sermons urging them to convert. He also repealed laws that blocked Jews from entering certain professions. But Jewish testimony remained inadmissible in a court of law, which meant that even if Jews were the victims of a crime, they couldn’t testify against their attackers.

Then after returning to Rome in 1850, he re-instituted the ghetto and many of the harsh laws against the Jews. But the worst transgression against the Jewish community was the kidnapping of a young boy, Edgardo Mortara, which occurred in 1858.

An illiterate young housemaid informally baptized Edgardo Mortara when the child was very ill. The maid, fearing that the boy would die and go to hell, baptized him without the consent of his parents. Indeed, the parents did not even know it. The maid eventually told the story to a priest who reported it to the Inquisition. The Vatican Swiss Guard seized the child and the Pope declared that because he was a Catholic, his Jewish parents could not raise him to be a proper Christian. The parents argued that the child was too young to give informed consent so the baptism should not be considered valid and binding. Indeed, dignitaries and prominent figures from around the world, including Emperor Franz Josef of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, and Napoleon III of France, protested to the pope.

By 1864, Pope Pius IX was firmly opposed to liberalism, democracy, secularism, freedom of religion, and even rationalism. He convened the First Vatican Council, where he decreed the doctrine of Papal Infallibility and the Immaculate Conception of Mary.

Although Pope Pius IX was controversial in life, during a turbulent time in Italy’s – and all of Europe’s – history, few sensible people would fault the modern Catholic Church for its excesses of intolerance in an earlier age when such intolerance was common to most faith traditions.

But the beatification of Pope Pius IX in 2000 brought renewed turmoil and protests from liberal Catholics, from Jewish groups world wide, and from descendants of the Mortara family, who still live in Rome.

Coupled with the issuance of Domine Iesus, a week later, this wasn’t the Church’s finest hour. But it was also no coincidence. Just as it is no coincidence that once again a statement insulting Protestant denominations is paired with a return to the Latin rite, which includes prayers for the conversion of Jews and a reiteration of the belief that Jews are blind to the truth of Christian belief.

Pope Benedict’s fingerprints are all over these couplets, both those of this past week and those of 2000. The Roman Catholic Church is on a retrograde path back into the past at a time when it is losing influence in the West and in Latin America. And that is it’s right, sad as it is to watch.

But don’t look for better interdenominational relationships, greater tolerance, more open ecumenical dialogue, or progressivism any time soon. The few stalwart liberals are gradually dying out, and the window that Pope John XXIII had opened to let in the renewing Holy Spirit has been firmly snapped shut by Benedict.

Down for the Count

Some sad news for me. I am deeply disappointed that I will not be able to go to the Blogs United in Hampton Roads Conference after all. I was really looking forward to it. But I had something of a dental emergency and had to cancel at the last minute. But before I go into that, there is something that I want to make very clear.

Because of all the controversy that has been stirred up recently, the first thing I want to restate is that I support this conference and Jim Hoeft with all my heart. I think he has done a wonderful job of putting this event together. And I am deeply disappointed that I am going to have to miss it and miss meeting some great bloggers from across Virginia.
Unfortunately, my simple little root canal ended up with complications, not the least of which is a very painful case of TMJ, which is getting worse not better.

Before I go any further, I also want everybody to understand that this is unusual. Please, please don’t use me as an example if you are scared of root canal. I was frightened of it for a long time too. The actual procedure IS NOT PAINFUL! I would go through it again without hesitation if I needed it.

My dental problems are longstanding and well documented on this blog. I have a history of tooth grinding, also called bruxism, and TMJ. Bruxism can be caused by stress, but just as often it has physiological causes due to a problem with a person's bite.

And my root canal took two and a half hours – most of them run about an hour to an hour and a half. It took four shots to numb me. They had to take numerous X-rays because the canals were so deep and they also were curved. During this entire time, my mouth had to remain wide open so my jaw muscles were overstretched. That’s in addition to the normal strain I put on my jaw by grinding my teeth all night in my sleep (most bruxism occurs during sleep and those who have the problem aren't even aware they are doing it until their dentist sees the problems - but if you even suspect you grind, tell your dentist and get a dental guard to protect your teeth).

As my dentist said afterward, “you are special.” It wasn’t a compliment. It was a complaint – this procedure exhausted him too.

Anyway, I am so sorry and disappointed that I will not be down at Newport News with all of you bloggers and electeds.

I have to add that two of the classiest electeds are Delegates Kris Amundsen and Chris Saxman, both of whom immediately wrote me back when I emailed to let the others know I wasn’t coming. And Chris Saxman also sent me an e-card that made me laugh just before I left for my dental appointment (they say timing is everything). These are all great people on a human-to-human level. It’s why bloggers conferences and bi-partisan events are so important.

I think it’s possible for us to disagree, fight hard, and then all have a beer together afterward, as Squeaky Wheel, from Bearing Drift, has pointed out. It’s how we should be conducting ourselves. Before we are Democrats and Republicans, we are Virginians, and also Americans. We also are all human beings. There should be more that unites us than divides us in the longer run. This is something that I want to think more about and I’ll probably be writing more about it too.

However, don’t expect me to go soft on Republicans at election time because of it ;)

Meanwhile, to all who will be there, have a great time and lift a glass of whatever your favorite beverage is for me!

There Ain't No Cure for the Summer Time Blues

You know, the lazy woman’s way around actually writing a post is to throw up a picture. Unfortunately, I don’t take pictures so I have to rely on somebody to send them to me, usually a few days after an event. And so, I’ve got my July 4 picture today. It’s me, Dan and the Governor.


It was taken at the Northern Virginia Central Labor Council July 4th cookout at the CLC headquarters in Annandale.

Governor Tim Kaine made a brief stop to meet with labor folks and say a few words to them. Some of the other electeds and candidates whom I saw there included: Kris Amundsen, Creigh Deeds, Brian Moran, Dick Saslaw, Gerry Connolly, Dave Marsden, Cathy Hudgens, Janet Olezak, and Liz Griffin. There were many, many more people there and I hope those I missed accept my apologies, but I didn’t spend a whole lot of time working the crowd because a friend of mine was also there and it was her first time at a public event since her chemo ended. There are priorities and sitting and chatting with her was one of them. So, I spotted whomever I spotted and my profound apologies to those I missed.

If this event wasn’t announced anywhere, there’s also a reason for that. It was for labor people, the rank and file who don’t go to Jefferson Jackson dinners, don’t plunk down $200 a pop and don’t normally get to meet their elected officials or the candidates for whom they will vote. This was their chance to meet and greet dignitaries.

Anyway, there I am, muscling in on a picture with the president of the NoVa Central Labor Council. Seems like the poor guy can’t go anywhere without this crazy, female blogger hanger on horning in on the picture.

It’s hard for Dan. For years, he was the guy who took the pictures and hid behind the camera. He prided himself on being the background guy and he admitted that he hates having to be in the photos. But as president, he can’t hide behind the lens and be the mad flasher any more. Somebody else gets to do that.

Meanwhile, I’ve been wondering why I’m so lacking in any motivation to actually write. It’s not like I have writer’s block. I have the ideas. There are a million things I could write about, things I normally care passionately about. Anybody who reads a newspaper and scans the blogs could come up with plenty of topics to comment on. That’s not the problem.

I just don’t want to.

Then tonight riding home from a quick dinner at Glory Days, some jazz was playing on the car radio. Somebody was noodling a sax. Now saxophone music can be searingly hot, like when Clarence Clemmons plays it, or cool, sweet and mellow. It’s an amazingly versatile instrument. And in this particular set the music evoked a cool, tall gin and tonic on a steamy summer night. Three a.m. in lower Manhattan, just at closing time in the old Village Vanguard on MacDougal Street, in the fifties, just like an old time movie.

And I realized it was the heat, the summer, the ennui of the first heat wave of summer in an urban environment.

By the way, for the next six Mondays don’t count on me to write anything – I’ll be watching the ESPN mini-series “The Bronx is Burning” about the New York Yankees, Billy Martin, George Steinbrenner, and Reggie Jackson.

So, lift a glass for me until a cool spell comes through.

Some Things Are Universally True

Don Worthington, a reporter with the Fayetteville Observer, just kicked off a new blog for his newspaper. It’s called Inside Politics. Worthington has reported on politics, among other topics, for newspapers as far flung as Rhode Island, Alexandria, Louisiana, and the Fairfax Connection papers. He’s also an Annandale native. In the spirit of full disclosure, he’s also my husband’s college roommate and was a groomsman at my wedding.

Besides all that, his first post has this piece of universally good advice for candidates.

As the time to file for Fayetteville City Council races nears, I'm reminded of a young Boston College student who ran for the Cambridge City Council. He campaigned hard, but lost by 160 votes. He started asking his neighbors if they had voted him. He had cut their grass, shoveled their snow. Surely, they had voted him. "No," said neighbor Elizabeth O'Brien, "People like to be asked." Thomas Phillip O'Neill, Jr. -- nicknamed Tip after a popular baseball player -- never forgot that lesson. He never lost another election. People like to be asked.

And he has even better advice for voters.

Candidates will proclaim they are running to give something back to Fayetteville. That they want to improve the area's quality of life, that they want to make things better. It's time to demand more substance from those who want to lead.
I've never met a candidate who wasn't for good schools, a crime-free neighborhood and good jobs. We need to ask them how they want to achieve those goals.

Go read the rest of his first post and let’s begin setting the bar higher in Virginia too. We need more specifics and less platitudes. Sure we want better schools, smart growth, and less road congestion, but how are we really going to get it? And how much money is it really going to cost us? And how much will it cost us not to do it?

We’re all in favor of mom and apple pie. But tell me specifically what ingredients are you putting in that pie before I buy it from you.

Happy July 4!

Update: I can't believe I didn't title this. Oh well, I'll just blame my lapse on the residual effects of the root canal yesterday! Meanwhile, why are you still here reading blogs - go enjoy a beautiful day and celebrate our Independence!


This op-ed piece by Washington Post columnist, Michael Gerson, expresses beautifully the ideals that American progressives hold about the American Dream:

In the Fourth of July, 1829, William Lloyd Garrison-- who looked like a shop clerk and set rhetorical fires like an arsonist -- took the pulpit at the Park Street Church in Boston. Rather than celebrate, he said, Americans should "spike every cannon and haul down every banner" because of the "glaring contradiction" between the Declaration of Independence and the practice of slavery. The grievances of slaves, he argued, made the grievances of the American colonists look like trivial whining. "I am ashamed of my country," he concluded. "I am sick of our unmeaning declamation in praise of liberty and equality; of our hypocritical cant about the unalienable rights of man." ...

...Even across the centuries, his gall is startling. But Garrison laid bare the central contradiction of the American experiment: that the land of the free was actually a prison for millions of its inhabitants...

...Which is why some of us love this holiday so much. It is the day when cynicism is silent. It is the day when Americans recall that "all men are created equal" somehow applies to the Mexican migrant and the Iraqi shopkeeper and the inner-city teenager. And it is the day we honor those who take this fact seriously. Those in our military who fight for the liberty of strangers are noble. Those dissidents who risk much in Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea and China are heroic. Those who work against poverty and injustice in America are patriots -- because patriotism does not require us to live in denial, only to live in hope.

In America we respect, defend and obey the Constitution -- but we change it when it is inconsistent with our ideals. Those ideals are defined by the Declaration of Independence. We have not always lived up to them. But we would not change them for anything on Earth.”

Bolding for emphasis is mine. This is rhetoric any progressive could have written and any modern day conservative would have panned as “bleeding heart liberalism at its worst.”

Yet, ironically, it comes from the man who was Bush’s chief speechwriter and still is a principled conservative. Where did all their idealism go?

Anyway, there are some principles we all hold dear in America. And this is the time, however temporary, to remember what binds us together rather than what separates us.

Happy Independence Day!

New Link and a Shameless Plug

I've just put up a link to The Women's Post. If you go over there and look closely at their list of contributors, you will see that I am now one of them. Vivian Paige very kindly invited me to write for them.

I will be putting up a post there soon. Right now, though, I'm going to go recover from a two hour root canal. It actually wasn't so bad thanks to Novacaine. Unfortunately, the Novacaine is now wearing off and I have a headache from holding my mouth open most of the entire time. It gives all new meaning to the term "flap your jaw."

Right now I'm going to rest mine.

I'm PG-13

It's because I had the word guns 4 times and hurt 4 times. Neither was probably in the same post. Or maybe I wrote getting shot by a gun hurts. Who knows?

Let me see, Ann Coulter is G and I'm PG 13.

I remember when Tipper Gore started a group called the Parents Music Resource Center that wanted to get record companies to rate albums so that parents would have a better idea of what their kids were listening to.

It caused quite a controversy back in the late 80s. I personally opposed it because anything that came from Washington, DC would smack of censorship and would have a chilling influence on artistic freedom. And I noticed that it applied to rock music but nobody was going after all those great country western songs about drinking, riding trains, cheating husbands, cheating wives and sitting in jail for murder.

Anyway, Donny Osmond weighed into the controversy by pointing out that any album labeled G would probably not sell very well. A G-rated pop album would have the kiss of death on it faster than an NC-17 rating. So Osmond declared, "you will never see a G rated Donny Osmond album."

Ok, that kind of makes you want to barf. But just the same, I'd rather be a racy PG-13. And thanks to writing about the Second Amendment and guns, I am.

Go figure.

Lucky Bloggers!

Jaime has a post up at West of Shockoe listing all those lucky bloggers who will get to meet her at the Bloggers United Conference in Norfolk July 13-15. Here’s the list:

Bloggers Registered
· 750 Volts
· Anonymous is a Woman
· Bacon's Rebellion
· Bad Rose
· Bearing Drift
· Black Velvet Bruce Li
· CatHouse Chat
· Chasing Sophia
· Daily Whackjob
· Deo Vindice
· HR Conservative Central
· I'm Not Emeril
· Leslie Carbone
· Madison Thacker
· NoVA Townhall
· Republitarian
· Scott's Morning Brew
· Spank that Donkey
· Spark it up!
· un altro breve rapporto su legge
· Virginian's for Fred Thompson
· Virginia Virtucon
· Vivian Paige
· XRLQ
· Yankee Philip

Jaime raises an excellent point worth considering when you decide whether to come or not. I mean, what about decadent desserts, hospitality suites, cocktail hours, a great dinner, and panel discussions on blogging, the new media, and the chance to meet all of the gubernatorial candidates – both Democratic and Republican – doesn’t make you all want to sign up and join us? Heck, just for the chance to meet the zany crew from Daily Whackjob, it's worth the price.

In addition to meeting other bloggers and candidates from both parties, there will be interesting and useful roundtable discussions on blogging, fair use of other’s material, and technical aspects of blogging. Personally, I can’t wait for the one on technology. I’m in serious danger of breaking my blog every time I try something new.

Anyway, here’s where you go to sign up!

And here’s who will be participating (ripped off from the Blogs United Hampton Road website) and a list of the panel discussions:

Speakers & Panelists
· Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling
· Attorney General Bob McDonnell
· Del. Brian Moran, Chairman, House Democratic Caucus
· Shaun Kenney, Communications Director, Republican Party of Virginia
· Donald Luzzatto, Virginian-Pilot
· Kevin W. Grierson, Esq., Wilcox and Savage P.C.
· David Mastio, Editor, BlogNetNews
· Jack Holt, OSD-PA U.S.Attorney John Brownlee
· Former Representative & State Senator Leslie Byrne
· Former Attorney General Mary Sue Terry
· Forrest M. "Frosty" Landon
· Delegate Chris Saxman
· Chairman DPV Dickie Cranwell
· Jeff Schapiro
· Dan Radmacher
· Conaway Haskins
· Jerry Fuhrman
· Kathryn Wilton
· Jim Hoeft
· Greg Letiecq
· Steve Minor
· Eric Helms Monday
· Steven "Blue Dog" Sisson
· Brian Patton
· Will Vehrs

For July 14, here's what you can expect...

8:00 to 9:00 a.m. Breakfast (available until 10:00 a.m.)

9:00 to 9:30 a.m. Attorney General Bob McDonnell

9:30 to 10:15 a.m. Roundtable on anonymous blogging moderated by Jay Hughes

10:15 to 10:30 a.m. Break

10:30 to 11:30 a.m. Media Panel

11:30 to 11:45 a.m. Lunch served

11:45 to 12:30 p.m. Del. Brian Moran

12:30 to 1:30 p.m. Political Panel

1:30 to 1:45 p.m. Break

1:45 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. Jack Holt, OSD-Public Affairs

2:15 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Fair-use/RSS Feeds Panel

3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Roundtable on technology moderated by Jim Hoeft

4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Break

6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Reception

7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Dinner with Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling and friends

With all that info, I hope you sign up. And I hope to meet all of you bloggers from other parts of the state and across the political spectrum.

Ann Coulter: Mean Girl

She purses her lips provocatively, flashes a half smile, as if she’s sharing a secret, intimate joke with the TV camera, and then there’s that toss of her thick blond mane. Then she slightly lowers her head and tips it to the side as she looks coyly into the camera again.

Of course, she’s wearing the ever-present little black dress hiked thigh high and her legs are crossed as she sits slightly sideways on the stool.

I don’t know why nobody has ever noticed this before, but Ann Coulter’s body language, while lobbing her nasty little bombs of hatred, is that of a barroom skank at a pickup joint at half past three in the morning. Closing time. There’s a slight air of desperation as she flirts, minces, and attempts to seduce the audience and the usually male talk show host.

Closing time at the bar and she’s got to seal the deal. Sell that controversial book she's hawking.

But the statements are getting more outrageous. The little lines around her mouth and eyes are ever so slightly harder than they used to be. The act is wearing thin as the pre-pubescent Young Republican boys who used to lust after her in their adolescent fantasies grow up, find their own wives, have children and actually begin to worry about things like decency and civility and the kind of world they want to leave their children.

Meanwhile, the talk show hosts are starting to get ever more alarmed at her outrageousness and the public's possible blowback. You never know when the audience is going to develop another one of those Imus revulsion moments and sympathize with one of her victims. Bullies, after all, always go too far and cause their own downfall.

When Elizabeth Edwards called in to the Chris Matthews show and challenged Coulter for her dreadful statements, wishing John Edwards had died in 9/11, the audience cheered, not for Ann, but Elizabeth.

What Coulter, like Neal Boortz and others of that ilk do is lob their verbal stink bombs and if anybody tries to hold them accountable, they rear up like a cornered rodent with its back to the wall and scoff that they were just joking. They are bullies who try to intimidate their critics into silence by falling back on the old, tired accusation that their opponents lack a sense of humor or are too “politically correct.”

Nope.

You don’t have to be a dour, politically correct stick in the mud to see that this is simply rudeness. Vicious rudeness. This type of a corrosive battery acid tongue has done more to cause the break down of society than any atheistic statement Christopher Hitchens or Daniel Dennet could have made. Civility is the glue that holds any society together. All the Pat Robertson “decency rallies” won’t cure the indecency and crudeness that the Coulters, Boortzes and Imuses spew.

But the interesting thing about Coulter was that at the end of the Chris Matthews show, when Elizabeth Edwards was dressing her down, Coulter was shifting uncomfortably in her seat. She looked impatient and annoyed. And that’s when it struck me; she’s nothing more than a former sorority deb who feels entitled to be a mean girl because she’s pretty and has always gotten away with it.

Well, it's time to end Coulter's free pass. And it looks like Elizabeth Edwards, a serious woman with depth and brilliance, has done just that. What else to do about Coulter? Don't censor her for goodness sake. Just keep calling in those Coulter dollars. When Democratic candidates start raking in money from those who object to Coulter's behavior, her own fellow Republicans will turn on her. And don't worry about their accusation that we are exploiting her bad behavior.

Yeah, so?

Once she causes us to win a few elections we can take a poll and see who has the lack of sense of humor.

The Political Pork Barrel

Ok, I couldn't resist the awful pun. This is just some housekeeping info. I've added some blogs to my blogroll.


First is Bacon's Rebellion, which should have been there for a while. Jim Bacon has one of the most intelligent righty blogs around, especially for in depth analysis of transportation, land use, and zoning issues - you know, the things that actually affect our daily lives rather than simply wedge issues and inflammatory gossip.


I also wanted to put on a couple of new blogs because I've liked the writings from these bloggers on other sites. They are The Daily Ham (hence my silly pun) and Power Concedes.

Impeach!

Not Bush. The Vice President!

Vice presidents didn’t used to be controversial figures. In fact, the job was something of a booby prize, awarded to an also ran, a promising newcomer whose career the party deemed not quite ready for prime time, or as a reward to an elder statesman.

The main role of the vice president was largely to balance the presidential ticket in a campaign, either geographically or ideologically and, once in office, for the president to have somebody to send to those all-important state funerals and political fundraisers.

Al Gore became known as the first modern vice president to break that mold and to actually be influential on public policy matters. He had Clinton’s ear more than most modern vice presidents and was considered an anomaly.

Then came Dick Cheney and his co-presidency with Bush. You could say, with some understatement, that he certainly has pushed the envelope on the vice president’s role.

Here’s how Dan Quayle described his encounter with Cheney, in an article in today’s Washington Post, the first in a four-part series examining the Vice President's role in the Bush administation. Quayle's recollection highlights how very different the traditional vice presidential role used to be:

In his Park Avenue corner suite at Cerberus Global Investments, Dan Quayle recalled the moment he learned how much his old job had changed. Cheney had just taken the oath of office, and Quayle paid a visit to offer advice from one vice president to another.

"I said, 'Dick, you know, you're going to be doing a lot of this international traveling, you're going to be doing all this political fundraising . . . you'll be going to the funerals,' " Quayle said in an interview earlier this year. "I mean, this is what vice presidents do. I said, 'We've all done it.' "

Cheney "got that little smile," Quayle said, and replied, "I have a different understanding with the president."

"He had the understanding with President Bush that he would be -- I'm just going to use the word 'surrogate chief of staff,' " said Quayle, whose membership on the Defense Policy Board gave him regular occasion to see Cheney privately over the following four years

Indeed, since that fateful meeting, Cheney has pushed the boundaries so far that he’s becoming a threat to the Constitution and a danger to democracy.

As today’s WaPo reports, Bush has signed all kinds of clandestine powers to his vice president, literally in the darkest secrecy.

Just past the Oval Office, in the private dining room overlooking the South Lawn, Vice President Cheney joined President Bush at a round parquet table they shared once a week. Cheney brought a four-page text, written in strict secrecy by his lawyer. He carried it back out with him after lunch.

In less than an hour, the document traversed a West Wing circuit that gave its words the power of command. It changed hands four times, according to witnesses, with emphatic instructions to bypass staff review. When it returned to the Oval Office, in a blue portfolio embossed with the presidential seal, Bush pulled a felt-tip pen from his pocket and signed without sitting down. Almost no one else had seen the text.

Cheney's proposal had become a military order from the commander in chief. Foreign terrorism suspects held by the United States were stripped of access to any court -- civilian or military, domestic or foreign. They could be confined indefinitely without charges and would be tried, if at all, in closed "military commissions."

"What the hell just happened?" Secretary of State Colin L. Powell demanded, a witness said, when CNN announced the order that evening, Nov. 13, 2001. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, incensed, sent an aide to find out. Even witnesses to the Oval Office signing said they did not know the vice president had played any part.

And Cheney has resisted even in the most innocuous of subpoenas to testify about his role in anything. He has claimed executive privilege, and most recently even clashed with executive level agencies alternately claiming that even they have no jurisdiction because he is not part of the executive branch of government but is the president pro temp of the Senate. When it suits him, he cites separation of the various branches of government to keep from being accountable to any governmental branch. Basically, he’s putting himself and the office of vice president above the reach of the law.

Stealth is among Cheney's most effective tools. Man-size Mosler safes, used elsewhere in government for classified secrets, store the workaday business of the office of the vice president. Even talking points for reporters are sometimes stamped "Treated As: Top Secret/SCI." Experts in and out of government said Cheney's office appears to have invented that designation, which alludes to "sensitive compartmented information," the most closely guarded category of government secrets. By adding the words "treated as," they said, Cheney seeks to protect unclassified work as though its disclosure would cause "exceptionally grave damage to national security

And here:

Across the board, the vice president's office goes to unusual lengths to avoid transparency. Cheney declines to disclose the names or even the size of his staff, generally releases no public calendar and ordered the Secret Service to destroy his visitor logs. His general counsel has asserted that "the vice presidency is a unique office that is neither a part of the executive branch nor a part of the legislative branch," and is therefore exempt from rules governing either. Cheney is refusing to observe an executive order on the handling of national security secrets, and he proposed to abolish a federal office that insisted on auditing his compliance.
In the usual business of interagency consultation, proposals and information flow into the vice president's office from around the government, but high-ranking White House officials said in interviews that almost nothing flows out. Close aides to Cheney describe a similar one-way valve inside the office, with information flowing up to the vice president but little or no reaction flowing down.

And this:

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, was astonished to learn that the draft gave the Justice Department no role in choosing which alleged terrorists would be tried in military commissions. Over Veterans Day weekend, on Nov. 10, he took his objections to the White House.

The attorney general found Cheney, not Bush, at the broad conference table in the Roosevelt Room. According to participants, Ashcroft said that he was the president's senior law enforcement officer, supervised the FBI and oversaw terrorism prosecutions nationwide. The Justice Department, he said, had to have a voice in the tribunal process. He was enraged to discover that Yoo, his subordinate, had recommended otherwise -- as part of a strategy to deny jurisdiction to U.S. courts.

Raising his voice, participants said, Ashcroft talked over Addington and brushed aside interjections from Cheney. "The thing I remember about it is how rude, there's no other word for it, the attorney general was to the vice president," said one of those in the room. Asked recently about the confrontation, Ashcroft replied curtly: "I'm just not prepared to comment on that."

This cannot stand!

In a republic with a democratically elected representative government, governed under a constitution, this is unacceptable behavior. No man is above the law. And certainly nobody – not the president or his vice president – should be allowed to wipe away, with the stroke of a pen, the most basic of human rights, the right to a trial. We are a nation of laws. That is our greatest legacy to the world. It's what every soldier, not just in Iraq, but in every war we've ever fought to defend democracy has fought for.

This vice president must not be allowed to subvert that legacy. Dick Cheney must be reined in. He must be held accountable to the American people and made to comply with the rule of the law or he must go.

Michael Bloomberg: Whom Does He Hurt?

I’ve been surfing the blogosphere and the MSM newspapers, especially the New York ones. There are basically two prevailing opinions about who gets hurt most if New York Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who just jumped from the Republican Party to the Independent label, decides to run.

According to David Frum, in National Review on-line, it hurts the Republicans most. Here he writes:

“So far, none of these winners and losers will affect the general outline of the election much. But here's one more prediction: Bloomberg will launch his campaign on the high road, giving worthy speeches about rebuilding US alliance, reforming health care, combating climate change, and other topics designed to win him the approbation of the Manhattan financial and media elite. Favorable publicity may bump him up to 5% or 8% in the polls, just enough to keep him spending money. But after the conventions of the summer of 2008, voters will begin returning to their homes in the two big parties. Bloomberg's numbers will dwindle (as Nader's did). He will then face a stark choice: accept that he's been made a monkey of - or up the ante. Nobody gets to be as rich as Bloomberg if he is not a fierce competitor. So - assuming he has followed the path thus far - he will double down. He will go negative, filling the airwaves with harsh attack ads.

Against whom will those ads be aimed? A lot will ride on that question. Attack ads are dangerous things, because they damage both the attacker and the attackee. Their main effect is not to change votes from D to R or R to D, but to depress turnout among potential supporters of the targeted candidate. Candidates refrain from excess negativity for fear of damaging their own image. But a Bloomberg in the polling basement will feel no such constraint.

The ads will be a free gift to the candidate Bloomberg dislikes less at the expense of the candidate he dislikes more.

And the candidate he dislikes more will almost certainly be the Republican.”

Frum makes some interesting points, but I don’t think Mayor Bloomberg hurts the Republicans more than the Democrats for a several of reasons. First, no really plugged in Republican ever truly believed Michael Bloomberg was one of them. He was a lifelong Democrat who switched parties just to avoid a crowded primary field. And he gives the term RINO all new meaning. From day one, Bloomberg declared that his mission was to remake the Republican Party as a liberal party. It was never going to happen outside of Manhattan’s silk stocking district where the politics are more pro-business, free trade, libertarian, and corporatist than Republican.

So, the other prevailing conventional wisdom, as captured by John Hawkins at Rightwing News is:

The natural issue for a third party candidate would seem to be illegal immigration, but Bloomberg is pro-comprehensive immigration, just like all the top tier Republican and Democratic candidates, other than Fred Thompson. If Fred Thompson or another tough on illegal immigration nominee like Duncan Hunter were to win the nomination, Bloomberg would hurt the Democratic candidate. If both candidates are pro-comprehensive immigration, Bloomberg's entry would probably be a wash.

Bloomberg is pro-abortion. Again, that would probably undercut the Democratic nominee.

Bloomberg is Jewish and since Jews typically vote Democratic 70/30, he would probably draw more of them from the Democratic candidate.

Since Bloomberg is from New York, you'd have to think he would have the potential to draw votes away from the home town girl, Hillary in New York State and perhaps in states like Florida, which have a lot of transplanted New Yorkers living there. If Rudy turns out to be the GOP nominee, this would probably turn out to be a moot issue.

Bloomberg does have a reputation as a fiscal conservative, but he has raised taxes and is not in any way, shape, or form a small government guy. We're talking about a guy who banned trans-fats in restaurants. So, for that reason, he would probably have a lot of difficulty appealing to small government conservatives. Again, this issue would probably be a wash.

Bloomberg hasn't talked a whole lot about foreign policy which isn't surprising, given that he's just a Mayor, but the limited number of things he has said about the issues make him sound more like a Democrat than a Republican. So again, he would probably drain more support from the Democratic candidate.

In fact, if you look at Hawkins' talking points, Bloomberg is your typical slightly left of center candidate, much like the Democratic frontrunners. It’s a general rule of thumb that when two individuals who hold roughly the same moderate to liberal principles run against each other in a three way race against a conservative, the two left center candidates will split the liberal, moderate and independent votes leaving the conservative to slide into an easier victory with a smaller number of dedicated true believers.

I think Bloomberg undercuts any Democratic candidate. He probably won’t be a threat to the very liberal parts of the Democratic base, as Ralph Nader was in 2000, but he will appeal to independents. They are not aligned with any party and Bloomberg’s pragmatic socially liberal, fiscally moderate, pro-business, sympathetic to the poor, not antagonistic to labor platform will appeal to them. And despite his recent foray into Republican politics, their base never thought he was one of them anyway.

Another problem for Democrats is that Bloomberg never cut his ties to some of his most powerful Democratic friends and allies. Indeed, in his last run for mayor, in 2005, he sucked up lots of the money that would have gone to his Democratic opponent because of his longtime friendship with powerful Democratic fundraisers like Toni Goodale. Here’s a quote from Christ Smith at New York Magazine:

Toni Goodale, the socialite, professional fund-raiser, and loyal Democrat, knows Rattner well but wasn’t invited. Yet her long friendship with Bloomberg, a neighbor, was enough to hamper one of his Democratic challengers. “I’ve been supporting Gifford [Miller] since he was a baby,” Goodale says. “I was one of Kerry and Gore’s major, major fund-raisers; I raised hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars for each one. I think Gifford is great, and he could be a terrific mayor—someday. But he knows we’ve been friendly with Bloomberg. My daughter works for the corporation counsel—for Michael Cardozo, who was my kindergarten boyfriend—and in effect for Bloomberg. So when Gifford asked for help with fund-raising, I said no.”

Got that? A major fundraiser who did heavy lifting for Kerry and Gore but threw her considerable financial weight behind Republican (in name only) Bloomberg and not the Democrat Gifford Miller. And despite his more recent dustup with the Transportation Workers Union Local 100 during the transit strike, Bloomberg won the endorsement and cultivated the support of some of the city’s municipal unions:

Frank Ombres is standing on West 34th Street, grinning broadly as thousands of his happy union brothers pour out of the Hammerstein Ballroom after a raucous event that’s part press conference, part TV-commercial shoot, and part union-hall blowout. Moments ago, Mike Bloomberg was onstage, bopping tentatively as “Welcome to the Jungle” screamed from the loudspeakers and carpenters and glaziers chanted “May-uh Mike! May-uh Mike!,” their enthusiasm stoked by the city’s humming economy and an open bar paid for by Bloomberg 2005. Turning his company into an international powerhouse earned Bloomberg the respect of his corporate peers. But nothing satisfies the ego of a pencil-necked plutocrat like soaking in the cheers of a theater full of burly construction workers.

Ombres is secretary-treasurer of Laborers Local 731, and after the rally, he’s telling a story about meeting Bloomberg in a slightly different setting. “He had us over to his house a couple months ago,” Ombres says. “All the union leaders. That was pretty cool. It’s a fancy place, but he’s a regular guy. He put on a good spread. And he’s come through for us. All we want is work and new members, and he’s got construction going for the next 50 years.”

Bloomberg inoculates himself from some of the blame for his role in putting down the transit strike in 2006 because Governor Pataki, not the mayor, appointed the Metropolitan Transit Board that played hardball with the TWU. Although Bloomberg went to court to force the strikers back to work – the judge invoked New York state’s Taylor law to fine the striking union $1 million a day – the mayor actually played no role in the negotiations. So, he was able to lay it at the governor’s feet for appointing an intransigent board.

The Democrat’s only hope of not losing in a three way race where the two liberals split the independent and moderate votes is that Bloomberg keeps saying he’s not going to run. If he keeps his word, that’s the Democrats’ best shot at holding their base and reaching out to moderates and independents disenchanted with the Republican Party.

Hopefully, Michael Bloomberg is simply positioning himself to come back to the Democrats some day and be a player there. Otherwise, we have a long, difficult campaign season that might end in bitter disappointment for both Bloomberg and the Democrats.

Bloomberg probably wouldn’t win. The track record for third party candidates without a party machinery to help get out the vote isn’t very promising. But he sure could keep the Democrats from reaching the White House and he could give victory by default to the very Republicans he supposedly disdains. We can only pray that his much vaunted pragmatism wins out over his ego.

AIAW Unmasked - Sort Of

I am doing something a little bit different for me. I usually don't post pictures or illustrate my posts. The reason for this is simple. I'm not much good at the technology, simple as it is to use. And I would rather write than show photos of myself. But I just got back from visiting my father in Fort Lauderdale for Father's Day, and I'm not really in the mood to do a serious post. And I'm certainly not in the mood for the usual blogger-political warfare that appears to be breaking out across the blogosphere. I don't want to lose the mellow feeling for a few more days at least.

So hopefully, you'll enjoy some pictures of me with some of my union buddies. They were taken at Chuck Caputo's campaign kickoff a few weeks ago. I never really meant to post them. But at a loss for anything else, I thought it would be fun for people to see I'm not really anonymous - it's just the title of a blog.

Karen

L-R: John Niemec, from Fairfax County Firefighter's Union; not-so-Anonymousisawoman, Dan Duncan, President of the Northern Virginia Central Labor Council; and Bob Moses, Vice Chair of the Loudoun County Democratic Committee and fellow AFL-CIO member

L-R Captain Brad Waltrip, Airline Pilots Association; AIAW; Dan Duncan; and Diane Waltrip, Legislative Aide to Del. Chuck Caputo

Congrats to All Our Candidates!

If you go back to my endorsements, you will see that not everybody I wanted won yesterday. I am disappointed. And my heart goes out to those candidates who didn’t win. Running for office takes a leap of courage and a lot of work. Each and every person who does it deserves kudos for putting themselves on the line. They risk disappointment, rejection, embarrassment, and the downright meanness of the general public. When you become a public figure, the public feels it owns you and forgets that there is a human being in there who still has feelings just like they do. So my sympathy and heartfelt appreciation goes out to all those who didn’t make it but chose to take the risk and to subject themselves to that.

And my hearty congratulations to all those who won even if you weren’t my first choice. And that’s important. In a Democratic primary, those who might not have been my first choice are still my candidates now. And I will support them, work for them, and vote for them in November. And I hope to see the rest of you, regardless of who your first choice was, there beside me in the trenches.

Now, I’m heading out to see my dad for Father’s Day.

Primary Endorsements

You know, there’s no primary in my district. That means I get to wake up at my normal time and go to work without detouring to a polling place at 6 a.m. That’s only one of the benefits of having no contested races in my district. The other is that I actually don’t have to make endorsements. There’s wisdom in not going out my way to make enemies.

So, against all commonsense, I’m going to give you my endorsements anyway.

Let’s start with the Greg Galligan-George Barker race.

I have all the respect in the world for George Barker and could absolutely support him against Jay O’Brien if he comes out the victor tomorrow. He has a long resume of public service and has been involved in the community and Democratic politics for years. He’s capable and bright.

But Greg Galligan did the difficult thing last time. When the Republicans were in the ascendancy in public esteem and Democrats couldn’t win certain districts, Greg went out and challenged a popular incumbent. That took courage.

In addition, Greg, in his much shorter career, has proven himself equally capable and bright. He simply hasn’t lived long enough to rack up the credentials that George has. This time, I’m going to choose courage and conviction over experience.

Another reason I’m for Greg is because I think it’s time the Democratic Party started being future oriented and thinking like people who could actually win and leave a legacy. For too long we’ve elected placeholder politicians. Those are officials whose ambition is limited. They run for a local or state office and that’s where they stay.

And we need some of those people who are at exactly where they want to be and who will build up seniority within the system. But we also need a farm team that will move on. We’ve been caught short in races for Congress and the U.S. Senate because we don’t have candidates who have served at the local level and build up their names and their public recognition to run for higher office. We got lucky with Jim Webb but we almost had a vacuum that would have catapulted George Allen into the frontrunner status in the 2008 Presidential race.

Judy Feder, Andy Hurst, Ken Longmeyer were all great candidates. But they went up against Goliaths and they just weren’t Davids. They shouldn’t be expected to be. Sending beginners, with virtually no name recognition and no experience with elective office, into battle against popular incumbents in leadership positions in Congress is not a winning formula.

We need to elect young, ambitious people to local and state offices who will move up a ladder, whether aspiring to higher statewide office or going on to the federal level. We need to nurture and develop the Chap Petersens, David Bulovas, Steve Shannons, and the Greg Galligans. There is nothing wrong with George Barker. But I don’t want more placeholders who played it safe, waited for an opportune time, and whose ambition begins and ends at one office.

So, if you live in 39th District and you are a Democrat, vote your party’s future and vote for Greg Galligan to go against Jay O’Brien for state Senate.

The other race I’m going to make an endorsement in is the Supervisor for Providence District. As with George Barker, I don’t have the same animus as some other bloggers do with Linda Smyth. But I do think Charlie Hall has more of a vision of where to take Providence and Fairfax. We need somebody independent of the developers, more responsive to their constituents, and with a better vision for Fairfax County.

I do think Gerry, Linda and the other Board members are on the right track with the Cool Counties initiative and mixed use, smart growth development around existing Metro stops. But I also think Charlie Hall has more determination to walk the walk and really stand up for things like the tunnel rather than an aerial rail to Dulles.

As for the Margi Vanderhye vs. Rip Sullivan Delegate’s race in the 34th, I think Margi is the better qualified candidate. Here my logic is the reverse of Galligan-Barker race. Margi is a long time activist who has proven herself capable and knowledgeable on the issues. Sullivan is very promising. The difference between him and Galligan is that unlike Greg, who was the Democratic standard bearer and took on a difficult race that nobody else wanted to take on, Sullivan is a newcomer who needs to pay some dues. Although I support Margi, I hope he sticks around.

As for Morris Meyer vs. Rex Simmons races, I have to admit I have no opinion. I thought that it was ridiculous of the Simmons campaign to compare Meyer to George Bush in a flyer that said that like another Texan, he didn’t know much about Virginia.
It was a dumb tactic. But it’s true the Meyer just moved here and his main issue seems to be the environment and Global Warming in general. Can’t fault him for picking the future of the entire world to run on. But I think he does need to spend a little more time in Virginia getting to know the local issues, including the environmental impact of specific projects and developments here at home. I’m going to go with Tip O’Neill’s famous statement “all politics is local.” This is another one where I want to see Meyer active for a few more years and then run again.

Having said all this, I’d like to add that despite all the heat and light generated by the more controversial races, the whole field of Democrats is good. We have bright, capable people who can govern. When this is over, please come together and don’t let sour grapes get in the way of Democratic victories. At some point, we all need to take a deep breath and ask ourselves what matters most. It should be voting for those who most clearly share our principles and values not voting sour grapes and personal resentments.

So, good luck to all our candidates. And after the smoke clears tomorrow, let’s get together and make this a Democratic year again!

Economic Bitter Fruit of an Unfettered Free Market

Note: This is cross posted at Raising Kaine

Republicans like to tout the strong economy as a sign that their conservative, free market philosophy still works and that they are still “the party of ideas.” Indeed, with foreign policy and the war in Iraq in shambles, their economic success is all they’ve really got.

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that ain’t a whole lot. In fact, there are a couple of pieces of just plain rotten news about the economy today.

First, according to former Georgetown economics professor, Alfred Tella, writing in today’s Washington Times, there is a discrepancy between the rosy unemployment numbers that we’ve gotten and what may be a real and troubling trend toward higher unemployment. He writes here:

“Nonfarm payroll employment perked up in May, rising a respectable 157,000, about twice as much as in April. Since the end of 2006, payroll jobs, as measured by the government's employer survey, are up 664,000. The unemployment rate was unchanged in May, and at 4.5 percent, was the same as last December.
In contrast, total employment as measured by household survey (a more comprehensive count that includes the self-employed, agricultural, private household and unpaid family workers, and workers on unpaid leave) has been stagnant so far this year -- a puzzling inconsistency. In the three prior years, both employment series were on a generally rising trend.

According to Tella, the real rate of unemployed Americans may be closer to 4.9% or higher.

You see, the unemployment rate just measures those out of work who are currently looking for a job. But in a bad job market many people get discouraged and stop looking and then they are no longer counted. So a lower rate may not necessarily mean that the country is at full employment or that every able bodied American who wants to work has a job. It could just mean they couldn’t find a job and gave up. It also could mean that while they have dropped out of the labor market they are doing menial chores or “consulting,” i.e., picking up small, piece meal jobs that bring in some income but could hardly be considered real employment. And, of course, people who are consulting don’t have health benefits or pension plans. Consulting is sometimes genuinely lucrative and attractive to entrepreneurial types. But lots of times it’s merely a face saving term for folks just scrapping by after being laid off. But those folks don’t count as part of the unemployment rate.

So on paper the economy looks like it’s stronger than it is. Indeed, what we have is a paper pushers’ good economy. Investors push around paper profits but our country doesn’t manufacture much. CEOs, corporations and large investors are doing fine; but since not much is produced here, workers are losing ground every day.

And there’s more economic bad news on the doorstep today too.

According to this piece in today’s Wall Street Journal (sorry, you gotta pay - they're capitalists), productivity is down significantly and that raises fears amongst both economist and the Federal Reserve about inflation. Here’s the Wall Street Journal quote from Mark Whitehouse:

“New evidence that American companies are having a hard time keeping labor costs under control raised worries about a pickup in inflation, sending stocks tumbling. The Labor Department reported that the sum nonfarm businesses pay their workers for each unit of production rose at an annualized rate of 1.8% in the first quarter, sharply exceeding its initial estimate of 0.6%. The jump in so-called unit labor costs stemmed from a combination of factors: sharper compensation growth, which was revised upward to 2.8% from 2.3%, and lower growth in productivity -- or output per hour -- which was revised down to 1% from 1.7%.”

Of course, what’s bad for one segment of the economy isn’t necessarily grim news for another. While productivity is down, wage growth is up

I’ve been arguing for years that the old formula that higher productivity eventually produces higher wages is wrong. It used to be true that higher productivity led to higher profits, which employers passed on to their workers. The reason for this was that demand for the company's goods grew so they needed more workers to produce more widgets (or whatever it was they manufactured). But that’s not been true for a long time. Instead, higher productivity has been fueled by technology and automation and to a lesser, but significant extent, by outsourcing and off shoring. Because of those factors, even as productivity and profits climbed there was little demand for new workers to produce more goods and services.

Even higher productivity doesn’t eliminate the law of supply and demand. In the “new economy” the demand for labor is lower because of efficiencies that make the production of goods cheaper and less labor intensive, so corporations don’t have to share their profits with workers. Bosses never pass on their profits in the form of wage hikes simply out of the goodness of their heart or out of a sense of noblesse oblige. If businesses don’t have to hire more staff to meet rising demand for their goods, the demand for labor doesn’t rise. And with automation and off shoring, the demand for workers won’t rise even as consumer demand for their goods does. So companies get to keep their profits and they don’t have to share or play nice with workers. That includes not having to provide decent health benefits or pensions to compete for employees.

The only time bosses give raises or offer decent benefits is when they have to do so to retain their workforce. If they don’t need that workforce, then wages will stagnate no matter how high corporate profits climb.

The Washington Post, bless their little free trader hearts, never got that part right. Their business writers spent most of the last seven years assuring readers that higher productivity would trickle down to workers and raise their salaries. Now, though, the Wall Street Journal, a far better business publication that actually understands economics, tells the truth with this explanation:

“While strong growth in jobs and wages is good for workers, it raises the possibility that companies, unable to offset higher labor costs by increasing productivity, will try to pass those costs along to consumers, a trend that could fuel inflation and prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates in response. "Even if economic growth is not gangbusters, the Fed could end up with an inflation problem," said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Greenwich Capital in Greenwich, Conn.

And therein lies the problem. What’s good for workers – higher wages – is bad, not only for business but for investors, because it cuts into profit. Of course, one could question why exorbitant pay and extravagant perks for CEOs doesn’t affect the bottom line or push inflation pressure upward. That, for some reason, seems a reasonable investment in talent. CEOs, basketball stars, and coked out starlets all appear to have "talent" that make them valuable commodities on the free market.

On the other hand, the educators who teach your kids, the cops who protect your life and limb, and the guy who sacks your groceries don’t have value in the marketplace, even though they contribute immeasurably more to your life.

So much for the wisdom of unfettered markets and other ideologies that don't match the reality on the ground.

Meanwhile, look for investors and business types to push the panic button and try to slow growth, especially wage growth in order to put a break on inflation. That’s just one more proof that the interests of the average wage earner are not the same as their boss’s interests. And one more sorry example that the good times passed the American worker by. All those years when the corporate profits were rolling in and CEOs were living extravagantly never trickled down. Only the economic downturns trickle down to workers. It is the bitter fruit of a free market economy indeed.