So let it be with Mario Cuomo

The evil that men do lives after them:

He was rendered such a museum piece that the current governor of New York, who only is Mario Cuomo's son, is unrecognizable as his political heir. […]

Now Mario Cuomo is dead, and his absence from our national discussion is being used in some quarters as a cautionary tale to the rising progressive movement within the Democratic party. The same forces that worked to marginalize him will be brought to bear at some point against Elizabeth Warren. (Read Panchito Bruni's love letter to Wall Street Muppet Gina Raimondo in Rhode Island, if you don't believe me. Cut them pensions! "Reform" them entitlements! Third Way!) You can count on that. Now Mario Cuomo is dead, and that seems like little more than confirmation of something we all suspected for decades.

The good is oft interred with their bones:

Cuomo managed to squeak into office then, and continued to stand up for the old-fashioned lunch-bucket Democratic values that pretty much everyone else in his Party was abandoning for third-way, neoliberal bullshit. He wasn't perfect, but he was one of a very few prominent, powerful liberals in the 80s and 90s who hung tough and held the line against the rapid sell-out of the poor and middle-class to the rich. Look at Jacob Weisberg marveling in 1994, "Nor has Cuomo gotten into the spirit of deregulation... Nor has he tried to get rid of rent control..." Weisberg meant these as criticisms, but after decades of asset-stripping by armies of Lehrmans, I see them as badges of honor.

Quote of the day: Lumbering

Here is another difference between the Progressive Era and the present: in those days, journalists revealed publicly what insiders knew privately, and readers were naïve enough—or serious enough about the responsibilities of citizenship—to be outraged by the revelations. If the reining in of capitalist excess depends on this kind of relationship between the press and the public, our second Gilded Age may last much longer than the first.

- Jackson Lears, reviewing The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism, Doris Kearns Goodwin's utterly predictable, centrist-safe, and beltway-insidery history of the progressive movement in the first Gilded Age, a book which he describes as "a lumbering production" and a "thoroughly mediocre book."

Progressivism has had its problems, then and now. With friends like Goodwin, does it need enemies?

Lears' review goes on the p3 Readings list.

It all depends on how you look at things

I remember a time when liberals and lefties were the ones with the reputation for looking at the glass as being half-full.

Has that changed since 1969? At a $30K per plate fundraise this week, Obama says it has:

Democrats, just congenitally, tend to get -- to see the glass as half empty. (Laughter.) If we get an historic health care bill passed -- oh, well, the public option wasn't there. If you get the financial reform bill passed -- then, well, I don't know about this particularly derivatives rule, I'm not sure that I'm satisfied with that. And gosh, we haven't yet brought about world peace and -- (laughter.) I thought that was going to happen quicker. (Laughter.) You know who you are. (Laughter.)

Tin-ear for political metaphor, or simply forgetting the origin of the connection between glasses of water and liberals? Probably the latter.

Glenn Greenwald provides a helpful list of some of the things that conspicuous that have become conspicuous by their absence from the glass these days. (Missing verb. Sorry.)

I guess it really does all depend on how you look at things.

Quote of the day: "They cannot help themselves"

Eric Alterman, in his current Nation article on "why a progressive presidency is impossible, for now," includes this more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger observation:

Obama faces the conundrum of a system that, as currently constructed, gives the minority party no strategic stake in sensible governance. The two parties are demonstrably different in this respect. Democrats, even in the minority, participate in solutions designed to improve governance. They cannot help themselves.

You can decide for yourself whether you think the rest of Alterman's long essay is useful; I'll simply point out that I'm featuring it as a QOTD and not as a recommendation for the Readings list.

Drinking Liberally meetings in Oregon and SW Washington for May -- Plus a word from the progressive infrastructure

First, a word to the sponsors of progressive infrastructure -- that would be you:

Living Liberally -- the parent organization of DL -- has changed the landscape of modern politics by building progressive communities in 350 cities around the country (and around the world). They are a real-life counter to the tea party that will be sustainable over the long-term, rather than just a Fox News-generated flash in the pan.

But these are rough financial times, and LL is facing a budget shortfall over the next six months. This is a time that will include the primary and mid-term elections, Wall Street reform and climate change legislation - all crucial reasons to keep progressives united and connected. To operate at full capacity through the midterm elections, we only need 120 members of our community to come through with $50 each -- $6000 total to meet our shortfall.

LL is joining in this fundraising effort with a vital partner in the progressive netroots, Open Left. Open Left has been a progressive media powerhouse for the last three critical years in our movement. Just as Living Liberally has changed the landscape of modern politics by building a network of aggressive activists, Open Left has done so through efforts like getting every 2008 Senate Democratic challenger to come out in support of net neutrality.

With both organizations facing a budget shortfall in the upcoming year, we've partnered to ask that you support the effort to build a progressive counterpoint to the tea parties and Fox News.

Contribute now to support progressive infrastructure like Drinking Liberally and Open Left.


Now, here's the run-down for Drinking Liberally chapters in Oregon and SW Washington this month, starting with Corvallis, which meets tonight. (Click on the chapter's link to join their email list.)

Corvallis: Next meeting: Thursday, May 6th.
Meetings: First Thursday of each Month, 5pm - 7pm at Squirrels, 100 SW 2nd St.

Vancouver: Next meeting: Tuesday, May 11th.
Meetings: Second and fourth Tuesdays, 7pm, at the Back Alley Bar and Grill, 6503 E. Mill Plain Blvd. (West of Andresen, in a strip mall 1/2 block west of Safeway on the south side of Mill Plain. It's deep in the lot.)

Portland Metro-West: Next meeting: Wednesday, May 11th.
Meetings: Second Wednesday of every month, 7:00pm at Ringo's, 12300 SW Broadway St, (just east of Hall Blvd).

Portland: Next meeting: Thursday, May 13.
Meetings: Second and fourth Thursdays of the month, at the Lucky Lab Brew Hall at 19th and NW Quimby, Thursday at 7pm.
Special Event: Weather permitting, we'll be meeting at the outside tables -- bring your dog!

St. Helens Next meeting: Wednesday, May 11th.
Meetings: Second Wednesday of each month, 6:30 pm, at The Village Inn, 535 S. Columbia River Hwy (We have a room off the bar).

Salem: Next meeting: Thursday, May 20th.
Meetings: Third Thursday of each month, 7:00 pm, at Browns Towne Lounge, 189 Liberty St NE # 112 (Old Sportstop next to Read Opera House)

There are over 300 DL chapters around the country; to find the one near you--or to start one in your neighborhood--go here.)

And if you appreciate Living Liberally promoting progressive action through social interaction--including keeping the whole Drinking Liberally network up and running--consider sending them a little love via Tipping Liberally. Or check with your chapter host about becoming a regular pledge donor.

So wherever you are, join the Drinking Liberally gang for drinks and political conversation.

And remember: DL encourages everyone to drink, and vote, responsibly.

(Cross-posted at Loaded Orygun.)

Drinking Liberally meetings in OR and Southwest WA for March

Here are the regular schedules for the DL chapters in the area. (Click on their link to join their email list. To find the DL chapter near you--there are over 300 hundred of them--go here.)

Vancouver: Next meeting: Tuesday, March 9th.
Meetings: Second and fourth Tuesdays, 7pm, at the Back Alley Bar and Grill, 6503 E. Mill Plain Blvd. (West of Andresen, in a strip mall 1/2 block west of Safeway on the south side of Mill Plain. It's deep in the lot.)

Portland Metro-West: Next meeting: Wednesday, March 10th.
Meetings: Second Wednesday of every month, 7:00pm at Ringo's, 12300 SW Broadway St, (just east of Hall Blvd).

St. Helens Next meeting: Wednesday, March 10th.
Meetings: Second Wednesday of each month, 6:30 pm.

Corvallis: Next meeting: Wednesday, March 10th.
Meetings: Second Wednesday of each Month, 5pm - 7pm at Squirrels, 100 SW 2nd St.

Portland: Next meeting: Thursday, March 11th.
Meetings: Second and fourth Thursdays of the month, at the Lucky Lab Brew Hall at 19th and NW Quimby, Thursday at 7pm.

Salem: Next meeting: Thursday, March 18th.
Meetings: Third Thursday of each month, 7:00 pm, at Browns Towne Lounge, 189 Liberty St NE # 112 (Old Sportstop next to Read Opera House)

And if you appreciate Living Liberally promoting progressive action through social interaction--including keeping the whole Drinking Liberally network up and running--consider sending them a little love via Tipping Liberally. Or check with your chapter host about becoming a regular pledge donor.

So wherever you are, join the Drinking Liberally gang for drinks and political conversation.

And remember: DL encourages everyone to drink, and vote, responsibly.

(Cross-posted at Loaded Orygun.)

Air America Radio: 3/31/04 - 1/25/10

What Goldy said:

I suppose you could call Air America a failure, and from a business perspective it certainly was. It never operated in the black, and seemed to be in the midst of financial and management turmoil since before it launched in April of 2004.

But it helped catapult Al Franken into the U.S. Senate, and launched a then unknown Rachel Maddow on the path toward her own show on MSNBC, and will leave behind dozens of thriving progressive talk stations nationwide. And without the ecosystem that Air America spawned, Ed Schultz and other successful progressive talkers might never have had the opportunity to reach a national audience.

And Air America was also the platform from its Portland affiliate, progressive talk radio station KPOJ was launched and continues to thrive.

I wrote at the time that Air America went live that the question would be this: Is the dreadfully self-pleased know-nothingism of conservative talk radio--and at that point, conservative talk radio was nearly all there was--a function of conservatism as it now exists, or of talk radio? If it's the latter, the pressing need for an Air America wasn't too clear to me.

And yes, Air America programming has had its drudges over the years, but for every Bill Press, cheerfully steering the conversation toward the beltway truism of the week, there were Franken, Rhodes, Seder, and Maddow. (Although, for mixed reasons, only Maddow remained part of Air America's line-up at the end.)

Dispatches: Your brain on politics, opposing indefinite detention, supporting a single-payer plan, and more

Dispatches: Your brain on politics, opposing indefinite detention, supporting a single-payer plan, and more

Items from the p3 inbox:

• This Is Your Brain on Politics, forum on progressive politics featuring Mike Lux, Steve Novick, and Carla Axtman, is this Sunday at the Bipartisan Café. (Facebook)



• Let President Obama know you're opposed to indefinite detention without charge or trial. (ACLU)



• Contact your representative and show your support for real health care reform. (Working Families/AFL-CIO)



• Join Michael Moore in calling for inclusion of the single-payer option in media coverage of health care reform. (FAIR)

Oppositional television in the age of Obama

After the defeat of McCain and Palin in November, a lot of folks wondered aloud if "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" could survive without a Republican in the White House.

I was never worried: The point of satire is to ridicule the excesses, vanities, hypocrisy, and dishonesty of those in power. It's true that Second Age of Bush provided an embarrassment of riches for the two shows' writers to work with. But to imagine that the Obama administration, or any administration, will give them nothing to work with--would be so transparent, modest, self-consistent, unerring, and uniformly benificent that there'll be nothing for satirists to sink their teeth into--is to have a fundamentalist's faith and trust in our government that is almost un-American.

And, of course, the armory of the contemporary American satirist is by no means limited to barbs about the executive branch of the government: There are the antedeluvian minds of the Senate Republicans. There is the endless jockeying of interests and agendas in the House. There's the Supreme Court--why, the continued existence on this earth of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas alone amounts to a Full Employment Program for Comedy Writers. There's Big Banking. Big Media. Big Pharma. And so on.

Anyone who sits at the far end of the gap of mystery and miracle that separates the power elite from the rest of us will always be fair game for satirists. Don't worry for them. If there's enough material out there to keep even Leno going in prime time five nights a week, certainly there's plenty of work for good purveyors of topical humor, too.

If you want to know the fellow whose future I'm more concerned about, it's Keith Olbermann.

He's not really a satirist, of course, although he gets in his share of snark and ridicule in. But when his "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" took off following the first of his "Special Reports" in August of 2006--Rumsfeld had compared opponents of the Iraq war with the "appeasers" of Hitler in the 1930s, and Olbermann went ballistic--he became one of the more highly-positioned voices of opposition in the mainstream media.

A lot of that clout got squandered over the next couple of years, I think. He's often mentioned his worry that airing his first Special Report might cost him his job; as time went on I think that worry was replaced by the worry that not airing Special Reports might cost him his ratings bump. By last spring his Special Reports were too often about ephemera like his objections to how Hillary was campaigning that week.

In part that's because the "Countdown" format and formula call for the rapid descent each night from the important (usually Story #5, presented first) to the silly (the remaining four stories of the evening). As Doctor Beyond pointed out to me last week, by the night before the Obama inauguration, KO was directing his trademark bombast toward the fact that . . . wait for it . . . Obama was going to leave the carpet (famously designed by Laura Bush) in the Oval Office. (In fairness, the Special Report that night was about prosecuting the Bush administration personnel involved in the practice of torture.)

That's why I was especially pleased last week to see "Countdown" break the two-part story of government whistleblower Russell Tice, who revealed that the NSA had been spying on American journalists and news agencies, plus "tens of thousands" of other Americans. (Part 1 is here; Part 2 is here.)

While I'm not worried about the satirists on Comedy Central, I'm waiting to see what happens to Olbermann under a non-Bush administration. "Countdown" format notwithstanding, he's not as liberal (certainly not progressive) as suggested by those "Special Comment" segments; he was, like a lot of Americans, disgusted by the incompetence and dishonesty of Bush and his administration, and unlike the rest of us he had a platform. He was right, of course, but what now? On MSNBC, Maddow will lead the charge to keep Obama pushed to the left as much as possible--but will Olbermann do much more than kibbitz? Will the left be as fond of him when he doesn't have Bush to kick around anymore?

Time will tell. I'd like to see him continue to thrive, if only to keep pushing O'Reilly into gratifyingly foolish outbursts, but time will tell.

It took us 28 years to get this far:

President Ronald Reagan, January 20, 1981:

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

President Bill Clinton, January 27, 1996:

The era of big government is over.

President Barack Obama, January 20, 2009:

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.

Fixing the Constitution: Obama will only go as far left as the left pushes him

Late last week, Digby had a good post on a topic everyone's hot on right now: How far to the left or the right will Obama govern?

The answer, which I consider especially smart even by Digby standards, since I've been saying much the same thing since last spring: Obama will govern just as far to the left as he's pushed into doing by the left itself, and probably not much farther.

In the current political world, I believe that Obama and the Democrats need a strong left wing that is out there agitating in order that we can continue to build popular support and also give them a political excuse to do things that the political establishment finds too liberal. Being cheerleaders all the time, however enjoyable that is, is not going to help them. Leaving them out there with no left wing cripples them.

One of the problems for Democrats has been that there has not been an effective progressive voice pushing the edge of the envelope. Therefore, when they inevitably "go to the middle" as politicians often feel they must do, the middle become further and further right. It is my belief that one of the roles of the progressive movement is to keep pulling the politicians back to the left, which often means that we are not being publicly "supportive," in order that we really do end up in the middle instead of farther to the right than the country actually is. […]

So, everyone needs to relax a little bit about the blogosphere criticizing Obama and the Democrats. We are necessary. If all Obama has is the Villagers and the right defining what change means, then those are the parameters within which he will have to operate. He needs us to "make him do it."

I'm sorry if that's a buzzkill, but things move fast in politics and there's no time to waste. The mandate is being defined as we speak. We can't just sit back and bask in our glory while the villagers are busily narrowing Obama's options.

Don't get me wrong; he's not off to a bad start, at least as far as his talking game goes:

Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team.

That's all good. And he'll also need to hit the ground running on beginning to reverse the economic damage that the Bush administration has inflicted on the nation.

But there's something missing here. Conspicuous by its absence, one could say.

Here's a hint:



We're not America again until our basic Constitutional liberties and the rule of law--over which Bush and Cheney have run roughshod--are restored.

The ACLU has a good starting point, in its agenda for Obama's first day, first 100 days, and first year in office.

Day 1:
1. Stop torture and abuse.
2. Close Guantánamo, and restore the rule of law for detainees
3. End and prohibit the practice of extraordinary rendition.

Those are pretty hard to argue with. Obama's starting to make the right rumblings about closing Guantánamo, but the legal and constitutional pig's breakfast that the Bush administration has made of the Gitmo prisoners' status is not going to make it go as easily as it sounds. There will be plenty of temptation, and plenty of encouragement from tough-on-terrorism wannabes, to drag his feet on this one once the ugly complications become apparent. We can't let him do it. Shut Gitmo down.

First 100 Days:

1. End warrantless spying on US citizens.
2. Rein in ever-expanding and error-ridden watch lists.
3. Rescind the "Ashcroft Doctrine" undermining the Freedom of Information Ac.
4. End government monitoring of political activists.
5. Order the DOJ to resume civil rights enforcement by the Civil Rights Division.
6. Suspend the Real ID Act pending congressional review.
7. Rescind the abortion gag rule on foreign aid.
8. Ban all workplace discrimination against sexual minorities by the federal government and its contractors.
9. Implement a moratorium on the death penalty until the issue of racial disparities has been addressed.
10. End the practice of government-sponsored religious discrimination known as the "faith-based initiatives."

Of these, I'd move #7 up to Day One. The Reagan/Bush era restrictions were rescinded by Clinton on his first day in office. Bush 43 reinstated them again on his first day in office. Obama needs to show he's serious. Day One.

The list of constitutional protections to establish or restore for Obama's first year in office is a long one--too long to include here, so check it out at the ACLU's site. Many of the ACLU's Year One recommendations address the growing encroachment of government and corporate databases--some illegal, some error-ridden, some involving constitutional issues that no one's paying attention to--on our privacy.

Some of these are things Obama can do with the stroke of a pen on an executive order. Many will take the cooperation of Congress, so it can be an early chance for Democratic congressional leadership to take their newly-increased majorities out for a test-drive and see what they can do.

It's great that we've elected Obama. Now we have to make him do what needs to be done, and for that he has to have us in his grillwork. Obama was not elected by the center, and certainly not by the right. We need to make sure, in the famous phrase of Molly Ivins, that he knows he has to dance with them what brung him.


(Image via Mike Luckovich.)

"Barzini is dead. So is Phillip Tattaglia. Moe Green. Stracci. Cuneo."

Last night at Drinking Liberally, The Finest Minds of Our Generation ^[TM] were looking ahead to the election. "How many think Obama will win?" I asked. Most hands went up. (The rest, I assume, were dealing with their food.)

"How many think it'll be an electoral landslide?" I asked. Several hands hesitantly dropped, and most people looked at me like I was waving a 5-iron over my head in an electrical storm.

Here's a conversation I heard playing itself out in slightly different forms at least a half-dozen times during the evening:

"I really want to see a landslide, but I'm afraid if we get overconfident something will happen."

"Yeah, I remember 2004; I don't want to jinx this."

If you subscribe to the "jinx" theory, you might find this post by Kos from yesterday to be of interest. It will either brace your spirits, or turn your knees to jelly.

Because young Markos is all the other way:

[S]imple victory is not enough. If you want a radical departure from the governments we've suffered the last several decades, we must deliver a whipping the likes Republicans haven't seen in ages.

So he's not just hoping Please, Mister, may our candidate win?--he's got a list of targets that reads like the last reel of "The Godfather." He wants to settle all family business. Not just an electoral college landslide, and a veto-proof majority in the Senate, but the crushing, humiliating defeat of every Republican leader, in fact of every Republican who's ever crossed us: McConnell, Dole, Chambliss, Shadegg, and a bunch more, plus California Prop 8 and the Colorado "right to work" measure.

His argument:

So to my fellow movement progressives, embrace that killer instinct and let's finish the job. We've got conservatives demoralized and on the run. They are retrenching around their most important voices. So let's pick off those they've left exposed and go after their best defended leaders as well. Let's get rid of John Shadegg and Mitch McConnell and Liddy Dole and the rest of them. Leave them leaderless, and susceptible to takeover by the Evangelical Right that so freaked out Wall Street conservatives during the primaries (when Huckabee was briefly in the lead).

Let's run up Obama's margins in the Blue states and narrow them in the Red states to give Obama a huge, unmistakable national mandate. Let's win states Bush won by 20 points or so in 2004, like Indiana, Montana and North Dakota, to rub salt in their wounds. Let's keep forcing them to go more and more into debt, so that they emerge from the election with their coffers drained, heavily in debt.

Read the whole thing. I like the sound of it better than worrying about the 2004 "jinx."

Obama and progressivism: What Digby said

Here:

As for whether the [Obama] campaign is comparable to other great movements in American history, it is obvious to me that it is not. That's not to say a progressive movement doesn't exist, but the Obama campaign is a slightly unorthodox political campaign (more orthodox by the day) with an historic candidate, which isn't the same thing. They may merge at some point, depending on how Obama chooses to govern, but at this point, I think the 21st century progressive movement (such as it is) will work outside the administration and on the edges of the Democratic party for some time. The institutional torpor of the party and the internalization of the belief that conservatism is a default setting of the American political soul means that it's going to take more time than I had hoped. If the professionals can't make a strong and creative case for progressive rule after the spectacular Republican meltdown during the Bush years, then it's clear they have a long way to go.

Any Democrat would be at least marginally better than John McCain and Republican hegemony so I'm not particularly moved by the question of whether we are being led by a savior or a disappointment at this point. I just want to ensure that we don't have another psycho running things. I am interested in whether this nascent progressive movement can actually coalesce into something meaningful by gathering enough political power and cultural heft to actually do something. At this point I have no earthly idea if that will happen but I'm fascinated by the prospect.

I'm willing to be proved wrong by events as they come, but I expect that, as a general rule, a President Obama won't take the lead on most progressive agenda items until he's dragged there. My slim hopes for progressive reform increasingly hang on House and Senate races.

Now there's a sobering thought.

Wal-Mart to workers: Fear the Democrats! Fear them!

Thirty years of concerted effort by Republican administrations and Republican Congresses have pretty much guaranteed that, even if corporate behavior like this is still illegal, the law will be weakly enforced or not at all, but as you've probably heard by now, here's what's been going on at Wal-Marts across the country:

In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized.

What's at stake is the Employee Free Choice Act, which allows workers to opt for union representation via check-off card (in much the same way anyone can join the Republican Party by checking a box on a card, as supporters like to note) rather than by secret ballot (which employers know are much easier to influence by intimidation).

The EFCA has been introduced in every Congress for the last several sessions, but Republicans have either successfully bottled it up (when in power) or filibustered it (when not). It will be reintroduced in the next Congress, and the only question--a question that gives Wal-Mart and the US Chamber of Commerce flopsweats--may be whether Democrats will have enough votes in the Senate to stop a Republican filibuster this time.

A second Democratic vote from Oregon in the Senate would be helpful on that score.

Of course, if the EFCA becomes law, that doesn't solve the problem of worker rights in the US; it just moves the contest to the next level. After all, here's how Wal-Mart handled it when a store was on the verge of unionizing in 2005:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. says it will close one of its Canadian stores, just as some 200 workers at the location are near winning the first-ever union contract from the world's largest retailer.

Wal-Mart said it was shuttering the store in Jonquiere, Quebec, in response to unreasonable demands from union negotiators that would make it impossible for the store to sustain itself.

"We were hoping it wouldn't come to this," Andrew Pelletier, a spokesman for Wal-Mart Canada, said Wednesday. "Despite nine days of meetings over three months, we've been unable to reach an agreement with the union that in our view will allow the store to operate efficiently and profitably."

In the middle of the second Bush recession of the decade, the barely implicit threat of a store-closing is a pretty powerful tool for discouraging union votes. The EFCA is designed to combat that. And we can hope that the Justice Department in the Obama administration would be another powerful force against such corporate lawlessness.

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart and its allies will work to make the laughable, counterfactual argument that it's Democrats in Congress that workers should be afraid of, not employers like Wal-Mart.

(And Carla surveys the Oregon angle. When they're willing to spend that much money to defeat a bill, you know that "efficiency" has a lot less to do with it than "profitability.")

What's the difference between Wyden's Healthy Americans Act and Bush's war in Iraq?

Well, for starters, the Healthy Americans Act is expected to pay for itself in its first year, then produce a surplus within a few years. Can't say that about Bush's war.

Wyden, D-Ore, touted the preliminary analysis, by the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation, as demonstrating that it is possible to provide universal health care without large tax increases.

They have told us that all Americans can have quality, affordable health care without breaking the bank," Wyden said after emerging from a closed briefing on the analysis with many of his 13 co-sponsors.

Let's review:

Best single thing about HAA: It doesn't perpetuate the historical accident of employer-based health care. Given that workers entering the job market today will probably change jobs up to 10 times in their working lives, that's a good thing.

Second best thing: Guarantees every American health care at the level currently enjoyed by every federal employee, including members of Congress.

Third best thing: Subsidizes health care up to 400% of the poverty level.

Learn more about the Healthy Americans Act here.


Suggestion to Senator Wyden: Why not tell Gordon Smith he gets no more freebie "bipartisan" photo ops with you to use in his re-election campaign until he signs on as co-sponsor of the HAA?

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Reading: Digby on bloggers, blog readers, and the media

Great piece by Digby, laying out (again*) the reason the lefty blog world is after the mainstream news media--and ruling out the false reasons:

Is it really too much to ask that the relationship between the press and the powerful be based upon healthy mutual skepticism and (even begrudging) respect for each others' jobs rather than boys locker room experiences? It seems to me we should have worked that through after this last round, but apparently the "Bush III" campaign (talk about dynasties) is going to reported in much the same way as Bush II --- hijinx and bar-b-q and assorted useless stupidities substituting for journalism.

Digby's post is going on the sidebar.

*Here's what I mean by again.

Nader's nadir

Bob Herbert is in a generous mood today; perhaps cutting Ralph Nader some slack because it's the latter's birthday, he attributes Nader's insistence on making a public embarrassment of himself late in life to the example set by his father.

Maybe he can’t help himself. If William Manchester is to be believed, Ralph Nader got a fair amount of his exasperating, nonstop, take-no-prisoners-style of proselytizing from his father, Nathra, who owned a restaurant and bakery in the factory town of Winsted, Conn.

The customers, wrote Manchester in his popular history, “The Glory and the Dream,” complained that Nathra would not let them eat their pastries in peace. He was always “lecturing them about the wrongs, the inequities, the injustices of the system.”

It seems Nathra didn’t know when to stop. And neither does Ralph. As he told me Monday: “I’m my father’s son.”

The blame for Nader's recent announcement that he's running for president yet again seems like an unfairly large burden to lay on the elder Nader.

The good Nader did for his country in the 20th Century will be remembered longer than his poor performance in the 21st although, sadly or not, his name may spark fewer and fewer associations with such achievements. He himself might well be remembered more for his self-aggrandizing presidential runs than for his decisive role in transforming consumer protection and citizens' rights in America, from seat-belt laws and other auto safety regulations to combating nuclear power to establishing OSHA, FOIA, and PIRG.

Nader dismisses the idea that he would function as a spoiler in 2008, and he's right--though not because the election will be a blowout for Democrats, but because the infinitesimal percentage he'll draw this year couldn't tip an election for Pervez Musharraf.

Even most members of the Green Party are unlikely to pull his finger this time.

Yes, Nader will use his candidacy to speak about issues of ballot access, corporate crime, health care, administration high crimes and misdemeanors, poverty, and more. All worthy causes. All addressed to an audience that his antics have rendered increasingly small and detached. None of these causes will be helped a whit by being attached to one of the most radioactive figures in left politics. Congratulations.

It's true that he won't get to talk about ballot access on "Meet the Press" if he isn't signed on for another mad run. But is that really the only way Nader can think of to advance a cause? He used to know others.

Al Gore--You remember him? The fellow whose 2000 candidacy Nader said was separated from Bush's only by irrelevant differences? That one?--spent the last 8 years in a nearly single-handed effort to move global climate change onto the public agenda. And he did it very specifically and pointedly without running for office, wisely recognizing that such a run would inevitably draw the focus to him, not to his cause. For Nader, that seems to be the whole point.

Today is Nader's 74th birthday. He would do well to use the occasion to reflect on what he's accomplished in the last eight years, and what he could accomplish in the next eight--and how these vanity campaigns are working against any such possible accomplishments.

Edwards finds the exit

(Update: Full video below.)

John Edwards is pulling out of the presidential primary race. He made the pre-announcement this morning; the announcement will be this afternoon, at a very fitting location for a genuine progressive:

His effort ends where it began 13 months ago -- with the Democrat helping to rebuild a city still struggling after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

The Democratic primary race was better for having him in it:

Edwards has lost races and national attention to his better-funded rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. But his presence has steered debate in the Democratic contest toward progressive ideals such as universal health care, and restricting a lobbyists pull.

And the White House would have been better for it, too.

Let's not forget, as well, that he accepted public financing (in a hardly rewarding campaign financing environment), which is a main reason his rivals were "better funded." (Of course, he never won a primary either. Chicken, meet egg.)

No word yet on what he'll do with his 58 delegates. It's not enough to give leverage at convention time, although in the last week his people had floated such scenarios.

Damn. Damn, damn, damn.

Presidential fun, then and now

Tonight is George W. Bush's last State of the Union address.

(I'm assuming it's his last. If you suspect he might actually suspend the 2008 elections in a desperate gambit to keep his Unitary Executive operating--and out of prison--after January 20, 2009, you have to also figure he'd go the whole hog, including Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution where State of the Union messages in some form are mandated. But I digress.)

I remember watching Bill Clinton's final State of the Union address, January 27, 2000. He wasn't running again, of course, and he knew that the Republican Congress would eat dirt rather than enact a single one of his ideas--they'd been sitting on most of his federal court nominees for years at that point, for example.

Clinton, nevertheless, was in high spirits:

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, honored guests, my fellow Americans: We are fortunate to be alive at this moment in history. Never before has our nation enjoyed, at once, so much prosperity and social progress with so little internal crisis or so few external threats. Never before have we had such a blessed opportunity and, therefore, such a profound obligation to build the more perfect union of our founders' dreams.

We begin the new century with over 20 million new jobs. The fastest economic growth in more than 30 years, the lowest unemployment rates in 30 years, the lowest poverty rates in 20 years, the lowest African-American and Hispanic unemployment rates on record, the first back-to-back budget surpluses in 42 years.

Next month, America will achieve the longest period of economic growth in our entire history. We have built a new economy. Our economic revolution has been matched by a revival of the American spirit: Crime down by 20 percent, to its lowest level in 25 years. Teen births down seven years in a row and adoptions up by 30 percent. Welfare rolls cut in half to their lowest levels in 30 years.

My fellow Americans, the state of our union is the strongest it has ever been.

True, some of the achievements he listed next didn't stand the test of hindsight, and some didn't even sound that great--at least to progressives--at the time. But still, turning the deficit into a surplus, education investment up, crime rate down, Family Leave Act passed--not too shabby:

Eight years ago, it was not so clear to most Americans there would be much to celebrate in the year 2000. Then our nation was gripped by economic distress, social decline, political gridlock. The title of a best-selling book asked: America: What went wrong?

In the best traditions of our nation, Americans determined to set things right. We restored the vital center, replacing outdated ideologies with a new vision anchored in basic, enduring values: opportunity for all, responsibility from all, and a community of all Americans.

We reinvented government, transforming it into a catalyst for new ideas that stress both opportunity and responsibility, and give our people the tools to solve their own problems.

With the smallest federal work force in 40 years, we turned record deficits into record surpluses, and doubled our investment in education. We cut crime: with 100,000 community police and the Brady law, which has kept guns out of the hands of half a million criminals.

We ended welfare as we knew it -- requiring work while protecting health care and nutrition for children, and investing more in child care, transportation, and housing to help their parents go to work. We have helped parents to succeed at work and at home -- with family leave, which 20 million Americans have used to care for a newborn child or a sick loved one. We have engaged 150,000 young Americans in citizen service through AmeriCorps while also helping them earn their way through college.

But what I most vividly remember is what came next:

At the dawn of the last century, Theodore Roosevelt said, "the one characteristic more essential than any other is foresight... It should be the growing nation with a future, which takes the long look ahead."

Tonight let us take our look long ahead and set great goals for our nation.

And what followed was a progressive's letter to Santa Claus: Education. Poverty. Health care. Global warming. Patients bill of rights. Gun-safety laws. Campaign finance reform. Minimum wage increase. Paying down--or off--the national debt.

Most of these, of course, were things he'd already proposed to Congress and watched the GOP gleefully block. So freaking what? Clinton went on:

A billion dollars for Head Start.

Connecting all classrooms to the Internet.

Thirty billion dollars to allow up to $10K in college tuition tax deductible for middle class families.

Expanding S-CHIP.

$400 billion to keep Medicare solvent.

What I remember most about this Grover Norquist nightmare wasn't the particulars--it went on and on, bullet point after bullet point--but rather the way Clinton handled himself. The gleam in his eye. The smile. That biting the lower lip and ticking off his points with that modified thumb's-up that made Darrell Hammond a fairly wealthy man.

The point is, Clinton was a lame duck, with the legislative odds stacked hopelessly against him--and yet he was totally in his element, having a ball throwing ideas out there one after the other.

In fact, it occurred to me as I watched him that it might very well be a long time before Clinton was having as much fun as he was having that night.

I rather doubt if the same could be said of George Bush at tonight's address. Deeply unpopular, resentful of disagreement, his very name anathema to the Republican presidential candidates, standing squarely in the Reagan tradition of "government is the problem," what's he got for the go-forward? Tax breaks for the rich and war in the Middle East. And did I mention further restriction of our civil liberties (speaking of which, the FISA vote comes up in minutes)?

My guess is that tonight's speech is a moment Bush will be happy to have over.

Reading: Krugman on the importance of not playing nice

Great piece by Paul Krugman in Slate today. He begins with the premise that, while it's important to get Bush and his cronies out from behind the driver's wheel, once that happens the car will still be headed for the cliff. And--to prod my metaphor (not Krugman's) a little bit further--the car is still full of movement conservatives who would happy to see the car go over the cliff, and whose advice on navigation should therefore be resisted, not deferred to. (emphasis added):

Here's a thought for progressives: Bush isn't the problem. And the next president should not try to be the anti-Bush.

No, I haven't lost my mind. I'm not saying that we should look kindly on the Worst President Ever; we'll all breathe a sigh of relief when he leaves office 405 days, 2 hours, and 46 minutes from now. (Yes, a friend gave me one of those Bush countdown clocks.) Nor am I suggesting that we should forgive and forget; I very much hope that the next president will open the records and let the full story of the Bush era's outrages be told.

But Bush will soon be gone. What progressives should be focused on now is taking on the political movement that brought Bush to power. In short, what we need right now isn't Bush bashing—what we need is partisanship.[…]

[M]any pundits have attributed last year's Republican defeat to Iraq, with the implication that once the war has receded as an issue, the right will reassert its natural political advantage—in spite of polls that show a large Democratic advantage on just about every domestic issue.[…]

The question, however, is whether Democrats will take advantage of America's new liberalism. To do that, they have to be ready to forcefully make the case that progressive goals are right and conservatives are wrong. They also need to be ready to fight some very nasty political battles.

And that's where the continuing focus of many people on Bush, rather than the movement he represents, has become a problem.[…]

[A]ny attempt to change America's direction, to implement a real progressive agenda, will necessarily be highly polarizing. Proposals for universal health care, in particular, are sure to face a firestorm of partisan opposition. And fundamental change can't be accomplished by a politician who shuns partisanship.

Krugman also includes this remark, which won't please all self-described liberals, but since my guys come out on top I'm willing to play nice about it:

[A] word about terms—specifically, liberal vs. progressive. Everyone seems to have their own definitions; mine involves the distinction between values and action. If you think every American should be guaranteed health insurance, you're a liberal; if you're trying to make universal health care happen, you're a progressive.

And here's the thing: Progressives have an opportunity, because American public opinion has become a lot more liberal.

I doubt if many liberals will agree to Krugman's claim that liberalism is simply the potential for progressive action. Of course it's true that, for a variety of reasons, progressives are more than ready--always have been--to act on certain things that liberals aren't. Campaign finance reform is a good example: Most progressives accept that the American government can't be completely fixed as long as our elections are financed by corporations. Most liberals see the solution to that as making changes to the existing finance laws to mitigate the most obvious bad effects of the status quo without addressing the fundamental question of who owns our elections, and hence our elected officials. The point isn't that the two groups have the same values on this issue, and one is willing to act while the other hangs back; liberals and progressives generally proceed from different values on the matter. Preserving the campaign finance status quo is action from the liberal point of view.

(There's a funny little back-story about Krugman appearing in Slate, by the way; you can read about it here.)

Krugman's piece is going onto the Readings list in the sidebar.