The Hollywood Liberal

Late Late Nite FDL: These United States
These United States “Get Yourself Home”

These United States  “Get Yourself Home”

Sometimes it’s best to sit back and let the band speak for themselves.

These United States is the songs of Jesse Elliott, flipped, forged, phased, and fermented; stolen, re-taken, elongated and elevated, beaten and bruised, occasionally imbued, by an ever-battling band of music-mad robber-barons, enthused aesthetic thieves of the long and winding subway tunnels and underground railroads of our cacophonous nation.

These United States are also members of a band collective known as The Federal Reserve.

What’s on your mind tonight?

Forget the Gas Pump — Heating Bills May Be the Killer This Winter
Rising oil and natural gas prices may be devastating this winter. But there is something we can do about it.

Wall Street’s Meltdown: How America Caught Speculative Fever
To fix the U.S. economy, we don’t need a bailout that rescues the rich. We need a bailout that soaks them.

McCain To Be In German Restaurant While Obama Gives Berlin Speech
Not sure what to make of this. While Obama gives his historic speech in Berlin today, John McCain will be lunching in a German restaurant in Ohio. Farah Hice, a hostess at Schmidt’s Restaurant and Sausage Haus in Columbus, just…

Bush Administration Wants To Block ACLU From Wiretapping Law Litigation
Should federal judges interpreting the new U.S. wiretapping law be able to hear and consider legal arguments from outside parties like the American Civil Liberties Union? The Bush administration says no. The Department of Justice filed court papers yesterday seeking…

A Stupid Strategy Sputters Out

Over at National Review’s The Corner, there was distress and disappointment that Sen. John McCain didn’t raise the scurillious guilt-by-association attacks that his campaign recently recycled.

One lamented, “Obama comes off as just your average Center-Left politician … You helped portray Obama as a clearly qualified presidential candidate who would fight terrorists.”

Here’s their problem. Obama is a clearly qualified, mainstream “center-left” politician who would fight terrorists.

Anyone who watched Obama during the primaries would know that any attempt to portray Obama as a radical subversive was bound to fail.

Once the majority of the voting public tuned into the debates, it was utterly predictable that Obama would not do anything that would feed such a caricature — the way Gore’s minor flubs could be spun into being a serial exaggerator, or Kerry’s windsurfing was spun into being an elitist. In turn,the attacks would seem completely out of sync.

Furthermore, it should have been expected in a major “town hall” debate with questions screened by a moderator that no smears would be embedded in any question. And there would be little opportunity to bring up any smears directly without it backfiring miserably. Starting a smear campaign two days before such a debate was foolish.

But that’s a side point. Fundamentally, the strategy was silly. If there was any doubt, the positive reaction to Obama in the first debate should have dispelled it.

McCain can’t get back in this race by running against a fictional character. He has to run against Obama, and make a case that he has a better strategy than Obama for getting the economy back on track.

But that would require having a strategy. And he’s running out of time to come up with one.

FLASHBACK: In 2000, McCain Said U.S. Troops Were ?Killing Innocent Civilians? And ?Dropping Bombs?
In August 2007, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) was asked whether he would move U.S. troops out of Iraq and deploy them elsewhere. Obama replied that more troops were needed in Afghanistan: We’ve got to get the job done there, and that requires us to have enough troops so that we’re not just air-raiding villages and […]

In August 2007, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) was asked whether he would move U.S. troops out of Iraq and deploy them elsewhere. Obama replied that more troops were needed in Afghanistan:

We’ve got to get the job done there, and that requires us to have enough troops so that we’re not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there.

In recent days, the McCain campaign has been taking these remarks out of context to criticize Obama. For example, during the recent vice presidential debate, Palin claimed, “Obama has said that all we’re doing in Afghanistan is ‘air raiding villages’ and ‘killing civilians.’” She called said his comment was “reckless” and “hurts our cause.” Similarly, the McCain campaign released an ad this week branding Obama’s remarks “dishonorable.” Watch it:

But as the Washington Times reports today, McCain himself made virtually identical remarks about the U.S. military during his 2000 presidential bid:

MCCAIN: In the most obscene chapter in recent American history is the conduct of the Kosovo conflict when the president of the United States refused to prepare for ground operations, refused to have air power used effectively because he wanted them flying — he had them flying at 15,000 feet where they killed innocent civilians because they were dropping bombs from such — in high altitude.

The Trail
The author of an unflattering book about Barack Obama was arrested and deported from Kenya on Tuesday.

Obama, McCain Enter Second Debate With Economy Dominant

Catholics & Abortion (Again)
In recent elections when a high-profile Roman Catholic Democrat seeks high, or higher office, the issue of abortion surfaces. As the pro-choice, non-Catholic Barack Obama makes a play for evangelical voters, conservative Catholics are asking their fellow believers to take seriously the church’s teaching on abortion and not cast their vote for Obama and Catholic Joe Biden. The split in Democratic ranks is along political as well as theological lines. Liberal Catholics claim that government programs advocated by Democrats more accurately reflect the teachings of Jesus about the poor and the weak. More “observant” Catholics, some of whom support anti-poverty government programs, point out that no program can help someone who is not given the right to live. Liberals want Catholics to look beyond abortion. Would they have been comfortable 50 years ago with appeals for Catholics to look beyond the racism of Southern Democratic senators? Probably not.

Media Gives Palin a Pass
Reading William Kristol’s column in The New York Times, I discover that Sarah Palin and I have something in common. Kristol, who was once Dan Quayle’s chief of staff and therefore, shall we say, has a Mister Rogers approach to certain politicians, got Palin on the phone and reported Monday that she does not “have a very high opinion of the mainstream media.” This is where we are in agreement. On account of Palin, neither do I. In the debate, she mischaracterized Barack Obama’s tax plan and his offer to meet with foreign adversaries. She found whole new powers for the vice president by misreading the Constitution, if she ever read it at all. She called one moment for the federal government to virtually disappear and a moment later lamented the lack of its oversight of the financial markets. She asserted that she “may not answer the questions the way that either the moderator or you (Biden) want to hear” because, apparently, the rules don’t apply to her on account of her being a soccer mom. Fer sure.