Barack Obama has worked on political reform more than any other issue.... He’s spent much of his career talking about how much he believes in public financing. In January 2007, he told Larry King that the public-financing system works. In February 2007, he challenged Republicans to limit their spending and vowed to do so along with them if he were the nominee. In February 2008, he said he would aggressively pursue spending limits. He answered a Midwest Democracy Network questionnaire by reminding everyone that he has been a longtime advocate of the public-financing system.It's fine with me. I don't like the campaign finance scheme. And I like a practical politician who adjusts to changing circumstances. It's good news that he's not an ideologue. I don't think he's going to lose the people who fell in love with him as a vision of idealism. I think he's going to gain moderate people like me who want an effective, sensible leader.
But Thursday, at the first breath of political inconvenience, Fast Eddie Obama threw public financing under the truck. In so doing, he probably dealt a death-blow to the cause of campaign-finance reform. And the only thing that changed between Thursday and when he lauded the system is that Obama’s got more money now.
ADDED: Here's the video of Obama justifying his decision and making it sound as though McCain is slimy for staying in the system. Here's FactCheck's analysis:
Obama: We face opponents who’ve become masters at gaming this broken system. John McCain’s campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs.
To say that either the McCain campaign or the RNC are "fueled" by money from lobbyists and PACs is an overstatement, to say the least. Such funds make up less than 1.7 percent of McCain's presidential campaign receipts and 1.1 percent of the RNC's income.
McCain – As of the end of April, the McCain campaign had reported receiving $655,576 from lobbyists, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That is less than seven-tenths of 1 percent of his total receipts of $96,654,783. His campaign also took in $960,990 from PACs, amounting to just under 1 percent of total receipts. The two sources combined make up less than 1.7 percent of his total.
RNC – The Republican National Committee has raised $143,298,225, of which only $135,000 has been come from lobbyists, according to the CRP. That's less than one-tenth of 1 percent. It also took in about 1 percent of its receipts from PACs, CRP said. Taken together, that's about 1.1 percent from PACs and lobbyists.
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247 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 247 of 247There was no law broken. The law you are probably citing has been prosecuted once. Ever. It wasn't used by the prosecutor in this case. It's not an important law. Important laws tend to, you know, come into play.
Unless you mean perjury, which was a law broken several thousand times in courtrooms in depositions across the country this week alone. And not prosecuted.
So, yeah, go ahead and continue to rest your case against Bush on Plamegate and your general contempt for him as a human being. That's some sweet reasoning. Besides, Obama is going to change! all of this.
Montana:
If Plame had an ethics issue with her bosses or the nation's foreign policies, she could have chosen to resign.
But she chose to keep the well-paying job, conspire to send her husband on the Niger trip (an assignment for whish he was not qualified)to undermine the nation's policies and then when it blew up in her face, she screamed foul.
I call that poetic justice.
One more thing. CIA people call themselves officers. If you want to sound like you know something about this, at least get the terminology right. It's half the battle.
I feel that he dealt with pressures that W. could only dream of. I also feel he took his job a bit more seriously. I also feel he had a better excuse for the debt. Like that fact that it hadn't become an entrenched "nuisance" by then.
So, he gets a "bye" for creating the problem in the first place? Interesting.
"At some point it's a reflection of not thinking about the long-term.
Sounds good. But doesn't really point to specifics."
So what?
My mistake. I thought you were trying to say something meaningful. The implication is that the Bush administration doesn't think about the long-term. That's patently false. You could make that argument (sorta) about the Clinton administration and the first Bush administration, but this administration has been very far-sighted.
That's not necessarily a good thing. FDR was far-sighted as well.
That's nice. But I sure do hold up to whatever "cred" I get from a bachelor of science and doctorate by bringing this up, as well as by addressing angles that you're completely neglecting.
I'm only addressing one angle: The President (whom I did not vote for and disagree with in almost every single particular) is being unjustly demonized. And despite your cries of non-partisanship, your speech is identical to those of anti-Bush partisans.
Which to me says that you're either, in fact, a partisan or just not very critical about what one side says and very dismissive about what the other side is saying. Which, come to think of it, would make you a partisan. Heh.
I seem to understand the significance of something called a "limited resource"
That's a theory, amigo. There's another theory that says the planet makes it. Anyway, the problem doesn't seem to be that we're running out of oil, but that we're not drilling--or even looking!--where we suspect it to be.
and the signficance of carbon dioxide's low heat capacity, though.
Oh, lord, I thought we were being serious. Right there you've accepted four left-wing talking points: That Global Warming exists, that it's a problem, that Man causes it to a significant degree, and that limitng CO2 is the way to solve it.
Even if I agreed with you on the first three points, the last is preposterous. The first may have been true for the 20th century (ending in 1998). Mark my words, there will soon come a time when we long for global warming.
Which is a meaningless point to debate at a much more urgent time. Like now, for instance.
Only if the situation is going to get less urgent in the coming years. That seems unlikely, even if the current inflation is the result of a bubble.
Who argued that? And unless you show some kind of geologist's cred, this statement is as meaningful to me as any other argument from personal observation, ubiquitous in cyberspace and meaningless as a credible solution.
OK, then forget what I said about Global Warming. Let me just dismiss you completely because you're not a climatologist.
Of course there are ways to do better. The first way is by discussing it in a serious manner.
We did that. Carter was President. All the great and innovative products that didn't use gasoline were confiscated by Big Oil, and the inventors bought off or killed.
"In the meantime, forget the funding MidEast dictatorships meme when it comes to the role of a limited resource controlled by cartels.
OK, but that's pretty much been policy for--what--ever?"
Again, not an argument.
Well, I thought were talking about how extra-special bad Bush was. So faulting him for doing what everyone before him has done doesn't add to your case. Indeed, that can be said of a lot of accusations leveled against him. Many policies were put in place by Clinton, by Bush I, by Reagan, going back into the sands of time.
If they're bad policies (and many of them are), they don't really indicate anything special about Bush.
Check out their website. Honda FCX Clarity. Or GOOGLE "Honda Hydrogen". It's really not hard. And it would improve your credentials when it comes to basic research methods.
It was a joke, man. As I said, the only thing that makes this sort of conversation bearable is a sense of humor. But there's a difference between us, I think: I'm trying to have a conversation and you're trying to score points.
In any event, the energy has to come from somewhere. My understanding of hydrogen is that it's a storage medium, not a fuel (for the purpose of these batteries; if Honda's invented a a mobile fusion reactor, then huzzah!). If it's plug-in, that means it comes from whatever your local power plant uses: Nuclear, coal, water and, of course, oil.
I think I am.
Well, of course you do. I haven't seen any evidence of Obama's prowess. What I do see is a lot of hand-waving about him, as though no issues were important if they reflect badly on him.
One reason he might be better than McCain is that he could conceivably totally ineffectual.
I don't know why some people see so much of this. I'm willing to listen to why. I just don't see where they get that from. It does seem that either one of them would be more competent, though - which could surely, and not unjustifiably, correlate to self-righteousness given the comparative quality of their predecessors.
Two guys who have never run so much as Rhode Island, and they're going to run the country?
See, the way I see it, Bush has gotten a lot done. I don't like it much, but he has. That's executive experience at work. In fact, I sort of like to think that whichever of the two is elected, neither of them has the chops to get anything done. That works for me.
"Do something" almost invariably means "make government bigger".
Oh, and Blake, I think I'm going to have to take back my willingness to accept your assertion that Bush was blameless. I'm wondering what axe Scott McLellan had to grind in "suggesting that both President Bush and Vice President Cheney discussed the CIA identity of Valerie Plame prior to leaks to the press". I mean, I know Dana Perino's explanation that, hey he was just disgruntled, it's "sad", etc. is a really credible explanation. But something tells me the guy was shocked at the abuses of power he describes. Imagine that. A loyal Republican. All out for the authoritarian cause. Until he saw it for what it was.
Machos discredits his own argument by stating that "no law" was "broken", and then referring to the protection afforded Plame, in law, from Bush's actions as a law in the very next sentence. Actually, he says "The law you are probably citing..." He uses it's low rate of prosecution as evidence for it not being important. Actually I think the low incidence of prosecuting based on the fact that no administration was likely to have stooped so low, so brazenly. But hey, that's just me.
Perjury, you say? What was Lewis Libby convicted of?
Obama's credibility when it comes to the prospect of helping to rid Washington of the culture that condones these unethical shenanigans is highlighted by the transparency bill he co-sponsored w/Tom Coburn.
AJ Lynch is Exhibit A for why matters of justice are not decided by self-described poets.
Listen, you guys like corruption. You see a heavy dose of self-righteousness reflected back when administrations you defend resort to such corruption. Don't expect there to not be heavy backlash against it. And don't expect that insulting the intelligence of a democracy for their natural reaction to such corruption does you any favors politically, or that it does any favors to the perception of your own intelligence. You've already let the ethical case for the administration go undefended. Just leave it at that.
Gosh. What ax could Scott McClellan ever have to grind? The mind truly does grasp for answers on that one.
He uses it's low rate of prosecution as evidence for it not being important.
I'm just not sure how to respond to that. To me, it's like saying: he uses the fact that there was a birth as evidence that sex occurred.
Blake, the fact that you accept the Republican war against science shows me who's being partisan. There's an epistemological disconnect here. Scientists are not anti-Republican. Republicans have positioned themselves as anti-science. If you want to have a discussion on science then keep it apolitical.
Who said that? They had their day(s) in court. As well as tons of days trying to prove that going to court was something beneath them.
They had their days in court--which mostly exonerated them, if that's our metric--because they acted. Had they not acted, the contradictions between Joe Wilson's Congressional testimony and his NYT story might have just slid by.
Plame was a partisan operative? She was a CIA agent. It's not a partisan job. And what evidence do you have for Wilson's alleged "lies"?
What he said under oath didn't match what he said in the press. That's not just a lie, that's an agenda.
Right. They should have violated their solemn obligations, jeopardized national security, and outed her status. No other options.
Actually, I'm pretty sure what was outed was "His wife sent him on that trip," not "his wife is a secret agent". It doesn't even make sense. Sloppy? I suppose, but I imagine a very common and hardly treasonous situation.
Ok. If you aren't into objective reality, or deny it exists or that that it's not worth having discussions with that as a goal, then nothing matters - including this conversation.
Well, yeah, if your reality insists on everything being deadly serious, that's just as well.
Which is certainly what I, and many others, have done.
Curiously, your judgments exactly mirror those of left-wing partisans.
Quite a coincidence.
I'm not surprised you're not sure how to respond to that. You totally missed the point.
And yeah, the administration's dismissal of McLellan's claims are so very credible. Either he has a reason to be disgruntled - i.e. personally angry with them (which they would have known about) or he doesn't. To claim ignorance on why he would be disgruntled (again, their claim, not his) is not credible. If Perino claims he's pissed at them, why doesn't she say why?
Umm... because she's grasping at straws?
This is the Republican version of Hillary's "kitchen sink" strategy.
Dude, never mind.
You're not even trying any more.
I'll be honest: I've been skipping reading your comments since shortly after you got here because I thought you were just another leftist hack.
But then you said something in this thread that made me think otherwise, so I tried to engage you. But you've increasingly fallen back on the same arguments I've been hearing for seven years.
I mean, really, Scott McLellan?
The popularly held belief in global warming is completely accurate down to the policy level? (When has that ever happened in history?)
Forget it. We're past the 200 mark, and I'm going to do something productive with my time. Like watch "The Doomsday Machine" by Cinematic Titanic.
Ciao, bella.
Right Blake. Every Republican is in lock-step authoritarian agreement with the absolute righteousness of Bush et al's actions in re Plamegate.
Right Blake. Every Republican is in lock-step authoritarian agreement with the absolute righteousness of Bush et al's actions in re Plamegate.
I don't even know what you're talking about any more. Is that sarcasm? Are you referring to me--who specifically allowed that evil intentions may have been at work?
Never mind. I'm outta here.
the Republican war against science
All the Fisking in the world won't help, Blake. He's just a silly, silly person.
It's always terrible when pragmatism makes a politician abandon his principles, thus disappointing a columnist:
http://www.nationalreview.com/daily/nrprint042000.html
4/20/00 3:15 p.m.
Palmetto Pandering
Sincerity didn't have a seat on the Straight-Talk Express.
By NR's Ramesh Ponnuru & John J. Miller
So the man who promised never to lie to us has admitted to lying. John McCain's confession in South Carolina yesterday that he really believes the Confederate flag should come down shows that he can still be a thorn in the side of George W. Bush, this time by re-opening at the national level a debate that unites Democrats and divides Republicans.
During the primaries, both men said that South Carolinians should decide for themselves what to do with the flag. Now McCain says sincerity didn't have a seat on the Straight-Talk Express: "I [McCain] feared that if I answered honestly, I could not win the South Carolina primary. So I chose to compromise my principles. I broke my promise to always tell the truth."
Obama and McCain are both shitty liars. Yes. Next.
Blake, maybe it was you that did something different in deciding to think about something without having to identify it as somehow being either "right-wing" or "left-wing" first.
No one with any serious understanding of science regardless of party affiliation takes the backlash against climate change arguments seriously. Even McCain doesn't. That should tell you something.
FLS--
Oh, totally! I remember 2000 and thinking--"Jesus, the man was umpteen years in a Vietnamese POW camp but six weeks on the campaign trail and he crumbles."
I remember thinking there's something really, really wrong with this system.
Montana is not quite a troll but sensible people should ignore him. Cedarford has said a few interesting things. But why bother.
FLS -- This guy makes you look like William Buckley.
It ceased to be "fisking". It revealed some serious epistemological differences as to what the definition of science "is", to paraphrase another person with epistemological grievances.
The Plame interrogation was getting kind of esoteric.
I see machos as the troll. He's either claimed ignorance on or given up on any serious challenge to his points. And then he resorts to name-calling. But I'm the troll. Right.
Here's a silly question 7, just as a challenge. What's the evidence for intelligent design and which political ideology supports think tanks that promote it?
Blake can't just pull some theory out of wherever, say maybe the planet makes oil, and bingo - we'll predicate policy on that basis the next day. It's too impractical. We know how to make renewable energy. Why some people attack the much more practical approach - of working on improving/scaling the economics of that - is what needs to be defended. Just waiting for the next theory to come and change our understanding of the world sounds more like an excuse for not improving on what we already know how to do.
Yes.
P.S.: Sometimes, there is more to a post than meets the eye. Happens a lot here. Lots of good wit and Hemingwayesque tip-of-the-iceberg stuff. I'm not the best at it. You may be the worst. Ever.
P.P.S.: Nice use of the phrase "epistemological grievances." Could have said "we differ on the fact" but that would be like serving Hamburger Helper at the French Laundry.
I have already given you the evidence for intelligent design. It's when people like you who want to sound some smart make grammatical errors (it's instead of its is your best of the evening thus far).
I personally have no idea how to make renewable energy. If you know how, what the hell are you doing here? Start a company. As Sonny would have said, before they got him on the Causeway, there's a lot of money in that renewable energy, Pop.
There is no such thing as human-caused global warming.
"There is no such thing as human-caused global warming."
Since you are so sure of this, then I should have no trouble convincing you of what a waste of your time it is to spend time here when you obviously have a very earth-shattering revelation of a case to make.
I am the only person on earth who believes that humans don't cause change in temperature. I forgot to add that.
I'm not the worst at it. I'm just the best of reminding you of the annoying basics that you think you're too good to consider.
Oh, and some differences have better justifications than others. "Epistemological grievances" was a deliberate phrase. Think of that as something more than met your eye.
Yes, I know you're not the only one. You have millions of scientifically illiterate allies in The War against Physical Constants and the Science of Industrial Processes.
There are alternative theories. But no one serious disputes anthropogenic warming. Ok. Maybe one or two unserious people - which I assume is good enough for you.
Yoda says:- This turned into boring drivel too bad. The plan, that was, I suppose.
Why you not debate abortion, hmm? Yeesssssss.
Funnily enough, shortly after I got into one of these modern midnight conversations some time ago here, I began receiving Portuguese-language spam. Yes, I know.Post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. Could have been anybody, right, CP?
BTW, I like this. Regarding intelligent design:
It's when people like you who want to sound some (sic) smart make grammatical errors (it's instead of its is your best of the evening thus far).
It's getting late. You can try to show me what you want to compensate for not knowing tomorrow, ok?
I never said I was that bright.
1850: no one serious disputes that eugenics will make the world a better place
1940: no one serious disputes that the failure of capitalism is inevitable
2008: no one serious disputes anthropogenic warming
You win some; you lose some.
omg u guyz...go 2 bed!
Montana Urban Legend:
Maybe McCain would have been a better commander-in-chief over the last eight years.
We'll never know. (I'd have voted for him.) I think he would have, but I also have a soft spot for George W. Bush. (Maybe that has to do with our own political differences.)
But McCain was right to advocate for the surge, and he's therefore got a certain advantage over Obama right now (given his position re the surge over the last year-and-a-half).
That's just how it is.
omg u guyz...go 2 bed!
You're not the boss of me!
Ben,
Regardless of whether or not the surge is right or is going successfully, McCain's advantage in that regard is only with people who don't resent Bush's handling of the war. But the war is unpopular with far more people. That is not my opinion of it, but my taking account of a political reality (some people here don't see a difference, but hopefully you do) - a reality in response to which the electorate will react by gravitating toward rewarding Bush's opposing party. They are past the point of listening to abstract military and political details about it that justify it now, and want to go with someone whom they think has credibility for opposing/questioning it when it mattered, i.e. in 2003. If you understand the difference between facts and opinions you will hopefully see what I'm saying - and resist any temptation to attack me for merely stating a fact, but I realize there are a lot of people here who don't. I would think that most people learn of the difference between facts and opinions in grade school, and I do hope you turn out to be one of them.
"1850: no one serious disputes that eugenics will make the world a better place"
You mean, with or without the racism thrown in?
If you're ok with admitting to not being that bright, then why do you get so defensive about admitting to other things you don't know about, like the heat capacity of carbon dioxide, and the futility of assuming that providing 2 examples of historical reversals - (one of which, as I've illustrated above, is a vast oversimplification) - somehow validates your wish for a reversal to occur on a modern phenomenon?
Perhaps you think that science and scientific methodologies have not advanced since 1850.
You know, elsewhere Sir Archy lamented the recent lack of "Lunaticks" around here.
I think he just hasn't looked hard enough.
Hmm. "[V]ision of idealism"?
Idealism must have hit a new low in the 21st century. When did idealism become synonymous with lack of principle?
Or perhaps he just doesn't mistake groupthink for sanity, Theo Boehm.
Simon, Lincoln's election in Nov 1860 precipitated secession (which may have been inevitable). Should Lincoln not have run to "Preserve the Union" that he (unintentionally) divided?
Hey cockroach, break me a fucking give!
I think that anyone who bothered to read through this absurd comment thread, Montana, would agree that I have neither been defensive nor offensive. I have been merely boxing your ears.
I look forward to ignoring you for years to come. Goodbye.
"I think that anyone who bothered to read through this absurd comment thread, Montana, would agree that I have neither been defensive nor offensive."
There is no single standard for judging that. You've obviously been defensive - getting offended any time I had a point that was stronger than yours or that you - gasp - didn't understand. The latter meriting me charges of arrogance. There's no arrogance in having a point that someone debating you doesn't understand. If you find the discussion above your immediate level of comprehension, just ask for some f*$#ing clarification. Oh yeah, and don't do it arrogantly. If you can't be respectful of someone's knowledge, insight or a good argument on their part then there's not much you can ask for, let alone demand, in return. This is the internet, after all. There are few other standards by which to judge the quality of what someone brings to that kind of discourse.
Your first comment to me ever on this site included a gratuitous personal comment - and that said something. The fact that you've never consistently backed down from that tone has said more.
"I have been merely boxing your ears."
See. You admit to needing to feel superior to someone you can't beat in a debate - by proving that you're somehow "punishing" them in other ways. That's not compatible with the "humility" you claimed to endorse earlier.
"I look forward to ignoring you for years to come."
What a relief!
"Goodbye."
Amanda always has the last word. She engages in these windy trolling voyages in the Sea of Althouse, and always returns to port with empty nets but a smile on her deranged face.
'Why' is anyone's guess. Perhaps Mansfield has an answer:
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must go down to the seas again,
to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like
a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.
The trick is so very much over.
I didn't have to get in any "last word". I responded to something that I thought could benefit from a response. That's what commenters who aren't relegated to some type of Statler and Waldorf peanut gallery do. Trust me, I'd have been fine with not commenting. It depends on my mood. It wasn't an exercise in pleasure and it certainly wasn't a "face-saving" measure. But then again, what would you know about that? Whatever face you have is even more hidden than mine. Or should I say that you're just that much more faceless - with a profile that says nothing other than gender and 7 generally boring hobbies that include "handcuffs"?
Of course, I could upload entire stanzas of a poem to fit whatever psychological profile I could ascribe to that, but that would be too elementary. You'll have to engage a bit more (instead of sniping) in order for me to submit the complete psychological work-up on you. But why bother? You either haven't got the guts or the material for that.
Oh. And there's a difference between trolling and flaming someone. Learn the difference.
Last word is yours, loser.
Masks off, everyone! It's midnight!
I'm so very glad you care, Amanda.
Now you know all you need to about me. But there's no doubt about your identity, is there?
You're the famous American feminist blogger, and yet you spend night and day typing turgid nonsense on someone else's blog under a thinly veiled disguise. I am not ashamed of my kinks, at least for their amusement value.
What can possibly explain yours?
Oh goodie! An actual question!
I guess this means I get to respond without that signifying a "need" to get in the... last.... word.
I must admit though, if turgidity vexes you, the anorexic scrawls you post leave me similarly un-sated. Apparently not content with the prospect of being ridiculous for its own sake, you seem intent on using non-sequiturs as a way to hint at a picture of me that is somehow less honest and more bizarre than what you will or won't admit to yourself.
Your one-word kink, much less your explanation of it here, amuses only you.
The reason for it is what is infinitely more amusing - and not in a way that would be flattering to you. Although I suspect you must know that.
Now, you were addressing some sort of unexplored "kink" on my part. What would that be? Explain that without projecting, if you can.
I want to add here that I am not a proponent of eugenics. My point, in fact, was that the consensus of the sophisticated is uncannily wrong most of the time in human history.
No one's knocking "conventional wisdom" or "common sense" either, machos. As long as it's well supported.
What's the running success rate on the value of old-wives' tales? Or, for that matter, popular, mob logic?
FYI - Opposition to eugenics didn't come from conventional wisdom.
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