Friday, March 28, 2008

¿Details Matter?

HuffPo

A recent Clinton campaign research document charged that Barack Obama was falsely claiming to be a professor:

Sen. Obama consistently and falsely claims that he was a law professor. The Sun-Times reported that, "Several direct-mail pieces issued for Obama's primary [Senate] campaign said he was a law professor at the University of Chicago. He is not. He is a senior lecturer (now on leave) at the school. In academia, there is a vast difference between the two titles.

HRC: "Details matter."

In academia, there's a significant difference: professors have tenure while lecturers do not. [Hotline Blog, 4/9/07; Chicago Sun-Times, 8/8/04]

. . .. ... ..... ........ oOo ........ ..... ... .. . .

Today, the University of Chicago released the following statement:

The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as "Senior Lecturer." From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School's Senior Lecturers have high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Obama in Pennsylvania

Daily Kos: State of the Nation

How Obama could win PA: 2 nonpartisan experts show the way.
Last night gpclay's diary alerted us to an excellent analysis yesterday in Allentown's Morning Call newspaper by Pennsylvania election and polling experts Terry Madonna and Michael Young, in which they describe a realistic roadmap of how Obama could actually pull an upset win in the Keystone State. Ironically, the roadmap is based on the same strategy that was used successfully by Gov. Ed Rendell, Clinton's chief surrogate in Pennsylvania, during his own 2002 primary fight for the governor's seat. I won't repeat gpclay's diary, but would like to focus on something not covered specfically in that diary: Madonna's and Young's list of the three keys of Rendell's 2002 victory that they say Obama must follow closely if he is going to beat Hillary in Pennsylvania, or at least hold down her margin of victory.

...more

McCain versus McCain

The Democratic Party | McCain versus McCain

the tide is turning

Bob Cesca, HuffPo


music by Roger Waters

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

truthbagging

TPM Election Central

This is pretty funny. Hillary spokesperson Phil Singer blasted out an email at 11:23 insisting that Obama release his tax returns for back years,

Exactly two minutes later, at 11:25, Obama spokesperson Tommy Vietor emailed out word that Obama had posted his tax returns for 2000-2006 on his campaign web site. Turns out the Obama camp has been planning this for some time.

You can view them here.

In pure political terms, this will obviously give more political potency to the Obama camp's efforts to make Hillary's failure to release her returns a key issue in the campaign. The Obama camp is now free to beat this drum between now and mid-April, when the Hillary camp has promised to release hers.

Indeed, the Obama campaign is already calling on Hillary to follow suit. “Senator Clinton can’t claim to be vetted until she allows the public the opportunity to see her finances," Obama spokesperson Robert Gibbs says, in a reference to the Hillary camp's frequent claim that Obama has not been thoroughly "vetted" in advance of the general election.

Douglas Kmiec, Conservative Professor, Defends Obama Endorsement

Law Blog - WSJ.com

Yesterday, the Law Blog mentioned that the Pepperdine con law prof, Douglas Kmiec, had endorsed Barack Obama’s bid for the presidency on the Slate Convictions blog – a surprising move for the high-profile Republican who was a lawyer in the Reagan and Bush I administrations.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Number one campaign issue in 2008

Daily Kos

Interview of executive editor SusanG

. . . .
Q:
What is your number-one campaign issue in the '08 election season?

A:
Restoration of constitutional principles [starting with the Rule of Law itself]. From that, all other issue corrections will flow.


Flash Forward: 1.21.2009:
"Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency."

- Barack Obama

see also
TPM; TPM DC; G-Bus

Friday, March 21, 2008

overcoming politics of fear

h/t TPM

Professor Glenn Loury on bloggingheads

bloggingheads.tv

I liked this 6-minute snippet of a diavlog between Glenn Loury and John McWhorter on bloggingheads.tv today. They are discussing Barack Obama's More Perfect Union speech. (Professor Loury is a supporter of Senator Clinton in the 2008 campaign; Professor McWhorter supports Senator Obama.)

Primer: Obama vs. Clinton on the Top 10 Economic Policy Issues

Mother Jones

Interesting

from HuffPo

voices of reason on Fox?

Fox News' very own anchors are speaking out — and walking off — over what they perceive to be "Obama-bashing" on their network.

This morning on "Fox and Friends," Brian Kilmeade walked off the set after a dispute with his co-hosts Gretchen Carlson (she who celebrates deadly floods) and Steve Doocy over Obama's comment that his grandmother is a "typical white person." Kilmeade argued that the remark needed to be taken in context and eventually got so fed up with his co-hosts that he walked off set.

Later, "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace came on the show and railed against "Fox and Friends" for what he called "Obama-bashing."



see clips on HuffPo

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Lessig: Fix Congress First


Change-Congress.org

HuffPo

Though "change" is the dominant rhetoric of this presidential campaign, everyone realizes that fundamental reform can't come from a president alone. If there are problems in the way Congress now works, for example, no president can fix those problems alone. Any fix would require the cooperation of the very institution that needs changing -- Congress.

Not surprisingly, however, not everyone in Congress is eager for change. Whatever they say, and however strongly they may deny it, there are many who have grown used to a system they understand well. And many of those are not about to support radically reforming that system, at least until pushed.

But the 111th Congress will be the freshest that Washington has seen in more than a decade. There are more than 67 "open seats" in this years' election; the last time we were anywhere close to that number was 1996 (62). This fact has led some to think about strategies for getting Congress to take seriously the idea of remaking itself.

At the National Press Club in DC today, with the support of political strategist Joe Trippi and others, I will launch one of those strategies. Change-Congress.org will be a bi-partisan, web-based effort to leverage and amplify the important reform work being done by others. Think of it as a kind of Google-mashup, but applied to politics. Our aim is not to displace primary reform organizations, but rather to complement and feed support back to these organizations. And in the process, we hope to make transparent just how broad and deep the support for fundamental reform is.

Change-Congress.org will develop in three stages. The first layer will give candidates and Members of Congress a simple way to signal their support for any mix of four fundamental planks of reform:

  1. a promise not to accept PAC or lobbyist contributions;

  2. a commitment to abolish "earmarks" permanently;

  3. a commitment to support public financing of public elections; and

  4. a commitment to compel transparency in the functioning of Congress.

Once a candidate or Member selects the planks he or she supports, the site will give the candidate code to embed that pledge on the campaign website. Citizens too will be able to take a similar pledge, promising to support candidates who match their own vision of reform. When they do, they will be linked back to reform organizations that support each plank.

But the real contribution of citizens will reach far beyond simply making a pledge. Beginning in April, we will launch a second stage to the site: in a Wikipedia-inspired manner, wiki-workers will track the reform-related positions of candidates who have not yet taken a pledge. If a candidate, for example, has endorsed Public Campaign's bill for public financing, we will record that fact on our site. The same with a pledge to forgo money from PACS or lobbyists, or any of the other planks in the Change Congress pledge. And once this wiki-army has tracked the positions of all Members of Congress, we will display a map of reform, circa 2008: Each Congressional district will be colored in either (1) dark red, or dark blue, reflecting Republicans or Democrats who have taken a pledge, (2) light red or light blue, tracking Republicans and Democrats who have not taken our pledge, but who have signaled support for planks in the Change-Congress platform, or (3) for those not taking the pledge and not signaling support for a platform of reform, varying shades of sludge, representing the percentage of the Member's campaign contributions that come from PACs or lobbyists.

What this map will reveal, we believe, is something that not many now actually realize: that the support for fundamental reform is broad and deep. That recognition in turn will encourage more to see both the need for reform, and the opportunity that this election gives us to achieve it. Apathy is driven by the feeling that nothing can be done. This Change Congress map will demonstrate that in fact, something substantial can be done. Now.

Finally, the third stage of Change Congress will provide financial support to reform candidates. Following the model of Emily's List, we will recruit contributors to support Change Congress candidates, both Republican and Democratic, who make reform a central platform of their campaign. Individuals will be asked, for example, to contribute $10/month to five Change Congress candidates. That support will make it easier for those candidates to spread the message of reform, and to define at least one central part of their candidacy to be about reform.

The key to this movement will build upon the best of Internet social and community activism, to the end of substantial reform. The web is not simply a replacement for broadcast. It is not simply a cheaper, more interactive political brochure. It is instead a technology which, if architected right, can enable an extraordinary range of citizens to engage -- to speak, to write, to investigate, and to pledge. It is this engagement that turns supporters into soldiers for a cause.

Let the cause of this political cycle be substantial and fundamental reform of Congress. For with an approval rating hovering in the low 20s, no other federal institution needs the renewed confidence of the people more. From the scandals involving outright bribery, to the indirect corruption of earmarks, to the pervasive and persistent skepticism born of the view that too rarely does congressional action track policy sense rather than campaign dollars, this is an institution in desperate need of change. Done right, the Net can leverage the support for that change. And get it done.

Lawrence Lessig will be launching the Change Congress project today (Thurs March 20) at 1:30pm EDT at the National Press Club in DC. The event also will be web cast here.

A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq

http://responsibleplan.com/plan

Executive Summary

The United States invaded Iraq in March 2003. Since then, nearly 4,000 American troops have lost their lives and nearly thirty thousand more have suffered serious injuries, while as many as a million Iraqis may be dead. The financial costs of the war to the U.S. economy will ultimately exceed $3 trillion. More than a year ago, the American public demanded a new direction in Iraq by electing a new Congress, and the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (the Baker-Hamilton Commission) presented a set of recommendations for just such a new direction. President Bush rejected the majority of those recommendations and proceeded - largely unchecked by Congress - on a course explicitly contrary to them.

Since that time, the current administration and its congressional allies have continued to use shifting rationales for extending our military involvement in Iraq with no end in sight. The American public has been presented with a set of false choices: a semi-permanent military occupation of Iraq versus a precipitous and destabilizing withdrawal. There is a deepening public desire for a new path forward and a cohesive military, diplomatic, and economic strategy that will end the war in Iraq while protecting American interests.

There are two strategic questions raised by our current dilemma:

  1. How do we bring American military engagement in Iraq to a responsible end?

    There is no military solution to the problems faced in Iraq: the real progress that can be made requires diplomatic, political, and economic means. We must stop counter-productive military operations by U.S. occupation forces and end our military presence in Iraq.

  2. How do we prevent a repeat of the mistakes we've made?

    The breakdown of checks and balances in our government led to bad decision-making which damaged America's national security. Ending this war and preventing future situations like it requires that we restore these Constitutional checks and balances and fix the ways in which our governmental, military, and civil institutions have failed us.

Discussions of Iraq in the media have focused almost entirely on military operations and issues, but any real solution will require us to look at a broader set of problems. Beyond redeploying our troops, we must place equal importance on applying the full arsenal of non-military tools at our disposal. The American public must also re-engage in the discussions and decision-making about how to proceed.

What follows is a series of objectives that, taken together, refocus our current military involvement in the region while repairing damage to the U.S. to prevent a repeat of our mistakes. We have included some sample legislation currently in Congress to show that these objectives have been identified and can be addressed given sufficient political will. We have also included recommendations that the Baker-Hamilton Commission published in the Iraq Study Group Report. In some cases, no existing legislation or clear recommendations exist and new authorizing legislation plus careful planning would be required.

Supporters of this document have committed to these objectives. The American people do not need to wait for a new Congress and new administration to pursue this agenda: public pressure on our current elected officials to act can help us move in the right direction even before January 2009, when we hope a new presidential administration and a new Congress will avail themselves of the opportunity to address the great challenges we face as a nation. We are aware that facts on the ground will change moving forward, and the legislation is included just to show that a responsible end to the war is possible given the political will.

As circumstances on the ground change, what is required of our response may change as well; consequently, we will be updating information on this and other legislation at www.responsibleplan.com.

End U.S. military action in Iraq:

There is no military solution in Iraq. Our current course unacceptably holds U.S. strategic fortunes hostage to events in Iraq that are beyond our control; we must change course. Using diplomatic, political, and economic power, we can responsibly end the war and removing all of our troops from Iraq.

Using U.S. diplomatic power:

Much of the remaining work to be completed in Iraq requires the effective use of diplomatic power. Many of Iraq's neighbors are currently contributing to instability and need to be persuaded to assist instead in stabilization.

Addressing humanitarian concerns:

The humanitarian crisis caused by Iraq's situation is destabilizing to the region and damaging to America's moral credibility. We must both take responsibility for the Iraqis who are now endangered because of their assistance to the U.S. and begin to address the regional problems of displaced Iraqis.

Restoring our Constitution:

Many mistakes were made in the course of this war, and our systems of checks and balances have failed us at critical moments. To prevent repeating those mistakes, we must repair the underlying Constitutional framework of our republic and provide checks to executive authority. Balance must be restored between the executive and the judicial branch (for instance through the restoration of habeas corpus), between the executive and the legislative branch (for instance through clarifying that the President does not have the Constitutional authority to unilaterally alter legislation through signing statements), and between the executive and the people of the United States (for instance by clarifying that the Fourth Amendment requires probable cause and a warrant for the government to spy on Americans).

Restoring our military:

Repairing the damage done to our military will require reforms in contracting procedures, restoring benefits for members of the military and veterans, and investment in repairing or replacing damaged military equipment.

The need for contracting reform is substantial. Private militias have direct incentives to prolong the conflict rather than resolve it; their use needs to be phased out. Contractors must be legally accountable for their actions. War profiteering must be stopped, and those who have engaged in it need to answer for their actions.

The safety of our men and women in uniform requires that we adhere to international standards with respect to treatment of prisoners. We must also make it clear that the United States does not torture, and that we do not send people to other places to be tortured, either.

The military is having substantial difficulty with recruiting and retention; we could begin to help by delivering on more of the promises the original Montgomery G.I. Bill made and by delivering on our promises regarding healthcare for veterans.

Restoring independence to the media:

The consolidation of our news media into the control of a relatively few corporate entities stifled a full and fair discussion and debate around Iraq. A more robust debate could be encouraged by expanding access to media.

Creating a new, U.S.-centered energy policy:

Finally, we are clearly tied to Iraq through our dependence on oil, which makes us vulnerable. Moving away from that dependence is necessary for strategic, economic, and environmental reasons.

read the plan | endorse the plan | link to the plan | press | videos | about

A project of Responsible Media LLC

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

The DNA of the Obama Campaign

... in a phase-transitioning world, you would expect to start to see more people like this:

From NY Times, 3.17.2008:
... a guy named Mike carrying a video camera came walking by and began peppering [Derrick] Ashong with a series of skeptical and very pointed questions.

“So why are you for Obama?” he asked. It was clear from his approach that he expected a dimwitted answer, an expectation that he was about to talk to another acolyte smitten by Senator Obama’s rock star persona.

But, as it turned out, Mr. Ashong, who was raised in Ghana and elsewhere, was glad to be asked. For almost six minutes — about a century in broadcast television years — Mr. Ashong, who has an immigrant’s love of democracy and the furrowed brow of a Brookings fellow, held forth on universal health care, single-payer approaches and public-private partnerships.

....
On Feb. 2, the interview of Mr. Ashong was posted on a YouTube channel called “The Latest Controversy,” where supporters of both Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Obama are asked very aggressively to justify their choice of candidates. The video blew up, drawing more than 850,000 views. And after that huge response to his policy analysis, Mr. Ashong decided to double down and explain the emotional component of his support for Obama in a follow-up video that was posted Feb. 11 and received 300,000 views.



Taken together, that means a guy who was looking to (anonymously) show a little love for a candidate was able to look into the camera for more than 13 minutes combined and draw in more than a million clicks with an impassioned but reasoned pitch.

At a time when politics and popular culture are still in an awkward mating ritual, Mr. Ashong inadvertently tapped into the youthquake that is shaking up the campaign. While the clip could have been lost among some of the popular rubble at YouTube (“Let me see, do I watch a tutorial on health care or Tori Spelling on ‘Jimmy Kimmel’?”), Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic blogged about it, as did Think on These Things, a political blog. Then The Economist chimed in, which led to an editor at The New York Times hearing about it and — well, you get the idea.



one more:

see takebackthemic.com

more on this story

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Slashdot | The Geometry of Music

Slashdot | The Geometry of Music

An anonymous reader notes a Time.com profile of Princeton University music theorist Dmitri Tymoczko, who has applied some string-theory math to the study of music and found that all possible chordal music can be represented in a higher-dimensional space. His research was published last year in Science — it was the first paper on music theory they ever ran. The paper and background material, including movies, can be viewed at Tymoczko's site.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Passing the DTT



Charles Fried (Harvard Law School) on Obama:
Obama is a lovely person. I do not know him; I have never met him and I have never taught him. But everything I read shows that he has almost perfect pitch. He does not say things that are off key; he doesn't say things that sound phony. And I don't think you can avoid sounding phony as consistently as he does if you really are in your heart of hearts phony. And I think he isn't; I think he's a genuine, very decent, thoughtful, fine person. ...

On Clinton:
... Being honest is not her long suit.

[On the DTT]

Monday, March 10, 2008

Franken Campaign

Daily Kos: MN-Sen: Ciresi drops out

Al Franken is likely our nominee.

Attorney Mike Ciresi announced Monday that he is dropping out of the race for Sen. Norm Coleman’s (R-Minn.) seat, likely clearing the way for comedian Al Franken in the Democratic contest.

“In my judgment, continuing the endorsement race would only lead to an unnecessary floor fight. It is time to step aside,” Ciresi said in a statement.

Franken still faces professor Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer in the race for the nomination, but the peace activist has not raised the kind of money Franken and Ciresi amassed in their campaign coffers.

Daily Kos: State of the Nation

Daily Kos: State of the Nation

Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 04:27:53 PM PDT

Bowers mocks the traditional media as "lagging indicators": While they jabber on and on about how Obama has "lost control of the campaign narrative", fact is, the polls are swinging back his way.

Rasmussen:

On Monday, the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll shows-for the first time in a week--Barack Obama with a slight advantage over Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination. It's Obama 46% Clinton 44%. Yesterday, Clinton was up by two points.

Gallup:

Forty-nine percent of Democratic voters nationally support Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination compared with 44% backing Hillary Clinton, giving Obama a slight but statistically significant five percentage point lead.

For the past week Clinton and Obama had been neck and neck in national Democratic support, but preferences have now returned to where they stood in late February when Gallup Poll Daily tracking found Obama consistently ahead by a 5- to 8-point margin.

This comeback for Obama started prior to his victory in the Wyoming caucuses on Saturday, March 8, thus blunting Clinton's winning streak coming off of the March 4 primaries. Obama has led Clinton on each of the individual days included in today's three-day rolling average, from March 7-9.

The tradmed is a disaster. Flipping through channels last night, I stopped at CNN where the idiot anchor (Rick Sanchez?), talking about Obama's strong internet presence, asked (paraphrased) "Is Obama cheating" because of his online organizing? His guests stared at him incredulously for a seconds while I scrambled for the remote to change the channel.

It's no wonder that the wider public is becoming more and more comfortable making decisions on their own.

Friday, March 07, 2008

Red Rover

David Corn

How can the Clintonites justify tossing questions about Rezko at Obama but decrying his questions about her tax returns, equating his queries with Ken Starr's inquisition into Whitewater and Monicagate? Well, they don't have to justify this absurd contradiction. They can just keep spinning, throwing what they can at Obama and crying foul when anything is tossed their way. Presenting an honest, logical, fair, and consistent argument is not their aim; winning is.

YouTube - A Vision of Students Today

YouTube - A Vision of Students Today

Off-the-Merits Express

from TPM

Here is a good example of an 'off-the-merits' ploy.

McCain is asked about his 2004 conversation with John Kerry re being Kerry's 2004 runningmate (a whole saga unto itself, which is not the point of the current post, so I won't go into the substance here).

In the video below, he displays some classic rhetorical behaviors in his effort to avoid having to answer on the merits. Straight talk indeed!






see Collecting McCain-isms

Saturday, March 01, 2008

E-mail: Microsoft 'botched' dealings with Intel, HP - SiliconValley.com

E-mail: Microsoft 'botched' dealings with Intel, HP - SiliconValley.com:

"An early 2006 exchange of e-mails suggests Microsoft executive Jim Allchin was blindsided by an agreement a colleague made with Intel after Allchin had made commitments to HP.

'We really botched this,' Allchin wrote in an e-mail to eight colleagues. 'I will support it because I trust your thinking through the logic. BUT, you guys have to do a better job with our customers than what was shown here. This was especially true because you put me out on a limb making a commitment. This is not OK.'

Colleague Mike Ybarra replied: 'Jim, I am passionate about this and believe this decision is a mistake. We are caving into Intel. We worked hard the last 18 months to drive the (user) experience. The (computer makers) are behind us here. . . . We are really burning HP.'

Allchin spent 17 years at Microsoft before retiring Jan. 30, 2007 - the same day Windows Vista was released to consumers. He had been a member of Microsoft's senior leadership team, working with founder Bill Gates and Chief Executive Steve Ballmer in guiding the company's direction."