Month: November 2008

2012? Run Sarah, Run!

Trish

Before you go over this Gallup Poll of the top contenders for the 2012 Republican ticket, we should review the caveat provided by psychics before a reading: This is only what the future looks like if nothing changes from the way things are today. And of course, that never happens.

Republicans and Republican-leaning independents were asked whether they would like to see the following candidates on the ballot in the next presidential election.

Want to see run (%) Don’t want to see run (%) No opinion (%)
Sarah Palin 67 30 3
Mitt Romney 62 32 5
Mike Huckabee 61 33 6
David Petraeus 49 39 12
Rudolph Giuliani 48 47 5
Newt Gingrich 47 48 5
Bobby Jindal 34 36 30
Jeb Bush 31 61 9
Charlie Crist 23 46 31
Lindsey Graham 21 53 25

Scary as the prospect of Palin at the top of the list is, there are two pieces of good news. First, Jeb Bush is way down there. Second, Obama’s administration is looking pretty damn strong so far, and he’s not even in office yet. Whoever runs against him in 2012 will likely be the Bob Dole/John Kerry throw-away.

So, O.K., let’s get Palin over with. Left on her own, she’s bound to screw up like even she hasn’t yet, and to alienate entire new segments of the electorate. Bring her on.

Bush Reveals Inner Whackjob-ness to His Sister

Trish

Just embarrassing

George W. Bush is delusional. That’s the only explanation, short of alternate universes, for his comments on what his legacy will be in an interview conducted by his sister, Dorothy Koch.

The most delusional statement of all has to be Bush’s view of his nation-building invasion and occupation of Iraq

Let’s start with No Child Left Behind.

“I think the No Child Left Behind Act is one of the significant achievements of my administration because we said loud and clear to educators, parents and children that we expect the best for every child, that we believe every child can learn, and that in return for Federal money we expect there to be an accountability system in place to determine whether every child is learning to read, write, and add and subtract,” he said.

Bush said because of his administration’s No Child Left Behind policy, the “achievement gap” between white children and African-American and Latinos is “narrowing.”

“The promise of No Child Left Behind has been fulfilled,” Bush said.

Among its “17 Reasons NCLB Must Go,” NoChildLeft.com lists disappointing educational results, schools labeled as failures despite being underfunded or serving challenged students such as those for whom English is a second language, narrowing of curriculums to accommodate “teaching to the test,” forcing out underachieving students in order to raise school-wide test scores, loss of current and future teachers, and stagnation within the educational system.

So much for No Child Left Behind. What else does Bush want us to remember?

[…]

Serving Those Who Serve: America’s Vet Dogs

Trish

A Vet Dog greets a service member at the airport

If you’re looking for a good cause to help you convert some year-end dollars into a tax deduction, it would be hard to beat America’s Vet Dogs.

The organization, an offshoot of the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind, provides service and guide dogs for use by current and former military personnel. The roles the dogs play are many and varied.

  • Service dogs that provide balance or stability support (usually with a balance harness) for amputees, and who fetch and retrieve dropped items for vets who have difficulty bending
  • Guide dogs for blinded vets
  • Seizure or fall alert assistance dogs, especially for veterans who have suffered traumatic brain injury
  • “K-9 therapists” deployed to the battlefield to help prevent and control the stress of living in a combat zone
  • Greeters who welcome lonely vets as they travel
  • Bridges to the outside world for wounded vets who often otherwise recover in isolation

See what I mean? If you’re a dog lover, you know how much difference a dog can make. Check out America’s Vet Dogs and you’ll see why the dyslectic might have it right.*

* You know, by spelling “god” d-o-g

Now Can We Call It a Mandate?

Trish

Sen. Barack Obama had the largest margin of victory in total votes than any candidate who was not an incumbent. While some results are still not final, right now Obama is showing 9,124,522 more votes than John McCain. By percentage, his victory is less impressive — Obama is only the 13th highest non-incumbent, with 7 percent more votes than his opponent.

Obama had the largest margin of victory than any candidate who was not an incumbent

Then again, vote margins don’t equal greatness. The president who got the highest number of total votes over his challenger ever was…Richard Nixon over Sen. George McGovern in 1972. Nixon got a stunning 17,995,488 more votes and became the only president to resign the office, which he did in 1974.

The highest percentage more than his challenger was Warren Harding in 1920 over Ohio Gov. James Cox. Harding pulled 26.2 percent more votes but died of a heart attack within two years of taking office, in 1923.

Huckabee Cites Lack of Violence in Dismissing Gay Civil Rights Struggle

Jon Ponder

In an appearance on “The View” last week, Mike Huckabee congratulated American voters for electing their first black president, noting how far the country has come since the days of segregation. And then — at 0:55 on the video above — co-host Joy Behar asked him about gay civil rights:

BEHAR: You’re very passionate about [progress on African-American civil rights], I see. But do you feel that way about gay rights, too?

HUCKABEE: It’s a different set of rights. People who are homosexual should have every right in terms of their civil rights to be employed, to do anything they want, but that’s not really the issue … But when we’re talking about a redefinition of an institution, that’s different from individual civil rights. And — you know — we’re never going to convince each other of that…

BEHAR: But segregation was an institution, too, in a way. It was right there in the books.

HUCKABEE: But there’s a difference. Bull Connor was hosing people down in the streets of Alabama. You had John Lewis getting his skull cracked on the bridges of Selma. Look, that’s wrong…

BEHAR: Gay bashing goes on, too.

HUCKABEE: There’s Christian bashing — look what happened to the lady out in California the other day. She’s out there — she’s 69 years old, holding a cross. People come up — violence is wrong. It doesn’t matter who’s behind it.

Huckabee’s scattershot outbursts reveal the flimsiness of the Christian moralists’ rationale against gay civil rights. First he asserts that there is a magic threshold, a tipping point, of violence that gay people must endure before the majority will grant them equal rights. Then he counters the argument that current levels of hate-crime violence against gays, which includes murder and life-threatening assaults, ought to be sufficient, by citing an incident of “Christian bashing” in which an elderly anti-gay protester in Palm Springs was shoved and the cross she had carried to a gay marriage rally was knocked from her hands.

Footage of the Christian bashing incident, which you can see in the video below, backs up the story that Phylliss Burgess, 69, was shuffled around by the crowd and, indeed, someone knocked her cross down.

[…]

Poll: 8% of Prop 8 Supporters Would Change Their Votes

Jon Ponder

Buyers’ Remorse: Prop 8 won by 4 percent and change — 52 percent to 48 percent. In a new poll from SurveyUSA, 8 percent of people who voted for Prop 8, a more than sufficient number to tip the vote the other way, said they had changed their minds:

Of the adults who tell SurveyUSA they voted FOR Prop 8, 90 percent of them told us recent rallies held by “No on Prop 8″ Protesters have not changed their minds about the issue. 8 percent say protesters have changed their minds.

On the status of California’s 20,000 or so gay married couples, 59 percent said their marriages should remain legal. Thirty-four percent said the marriages should be annulled immediately. This is interesting because 34 percent is also roughly the percentage both of California voters who are Republicans and who approve of the job performance of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Oh, and bias alert. The SurveyUSA article on the poll was titled, “No on Prop 8 Protesters Have Not Changed Many Minds in California.” Not “many,” certainly, but “enough” — and that is what counts.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

Some of us — especially those under 60 — have always wondered what it would be like to live through the kind of epochal event one reads about in books. Well, this is it. We’re now living history, suffering one of the greatest financial panics of all time. It compares with the big ones — 1907, 1929 — and we cannot yet know its full consequences for the financial system, the economy or society as a whole.

— Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International

By Voiding Equal Protection, Prop 8 Could Threaten Rights of Minorities Nationwide

Jon Ponder

In their outreach to blacks, Latino, Asians and other minority voters, the conservative operatives behind Proposition 8 neglected to mention a key aspect of the initiative that could contribute to rolling back minority rights for years to come.
Prop 8 stripped gays of the right to marry with 52 percent support — less than is required to approve bond measures.
Prop 8 not only rendered quaint the California Constitution’s equal protection clause — a foundational precept that instructs the state to protect the rights of all citizens equally — it also rescinded the right to marry for California gays. This sets it apart from other states’ anti-gay marriage amendments because it establishes a precedent for conservative efforts to curb minority rights using ballot initiatives and by other means:

California’s gay marriage ban could open the door to legal discrimination against unpopular groups if the state Supreme Court allows the voter-approved measure to stand, blacks, Latinos, Asians and other minorities said…

Legal scholars say the measure, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman, breaks new ground by limiting the courts’ ability to protect minorities.

“They could take away any right from any group,” said University of Southern California Law Professor David Cruz, who filed a brief in favor of gay marriage in an earlier case.

The ban … amended the constitution with 52 percent support — less than is required to approve some state bond measures.

“The entire purpose behind the constitutional principle of equal protection would be subverted if the constitutional protection of unpopular minorities were subject to simple majority rule,” read a brief by black, Asian and Hispanic groups challenging the ban. “This case is not simply about gay and lesbian equality.”

Despite the peril it presents to American social justice, legal experts say that the California Supreme Court is unlikely to overturn the amendment because it was passed within the parameters of existing law.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

I think he’s impatient. I think, my summation: He doesn’t like homework. And homework means reading or getting briefed or having a debate. And part of the presidency, part of governing, particularly in this area, is homework, homework, homework.

— Bob Woodward, reflecting on President Bush’s governing style