The Rake Magazine

Ok, I'm a big Keith Olbermann fan. I have been since his Sports Center days when he once said of a baseball highlight clip, "That's 6 to 4 to 3, if you're scoring at home. And if you aren't, try flowers." My son, who was watching with me at the time, turned to me. I turned to him. Then we both fell off the couch laughing. Olbermann was damn near that good every night.

I'm not going to go on much more, except to point you to this, Olbermann's response to the "SpongeBob is gay" controversy. Read the post from his blog, then be sure to click on the link and watch the video of the cartoon rendition of "We are Family" that so offended the Christian right. Be careful, though. As Keith says, watching the video could make you gay, or at least tolerant. And the religious right wouldn't want you to be tolerant, now would they? That wouldn't be Christian.

The New York Times has had two good stories in the last two days illustrating what the Democrats need to do to get back into the good graces of the American voter.

Yesterday a story about Hillary Clinton's appearance Monday in front of abortion rights activists in New York told of Hillary's conciliatory tone toward pro-life partisans. Clinton said, "There is an opportunity for people of good faith to find common ground in this debate."

What was extraordinary about the reactions to this statement was not the expected Republican outcry that she was trying to have it both ways, but the reaction from the pro-choice types, who greeted her overtures to the pro-lifers with silence, and later, thinly veiled admonitions that Hillary better remember where she stands.

In today's op-ed piece, Paul Starr points out an original notion of what when wrong with the Democrats--that, like in Roe v. Wade and the lawsuits to legalize gay marriage in Massachusetts, they have relied too often on the courts to further their agendas by ruling their desired results legal on constitutional grounds, rather than building a consensus of support that would solidify their positions with electoral majorities.

As Starr and many other have pointed out, the judicially-oriented activism on gay marriage resulted in handing the Republicans a huge issue, and in 11 states (including decisive Ohio) the passage of anti-gay marriage referendums.

And, even more damaging to their cause, the Democrats made sure that George W. Bush will be appointing the next generation of federal judges who will be doing the ruling for a long time to come. Oops.

But try to make these conciliatory points sometime, like Hillary did, and the ideolologically pure Democrats are goint to have a hissy fit.

But now the Republicans are even more beholden to an ideological radical wing than the Democrats. The party that can find its way to the middle ground of reason, compromise and consensus building is the one that's going to prevail in the long run.

And one place they should start is this war that Bush, Rice, et al. lied us into, and for which Gonzales wrote the playbook for torture. Kudos to Mark Dayton and the other Democrats who are opposing the nominations of Rice and Gonzales. That's an issue the Democrats need to make their own--that war mongering and torture are inconsistent with the real American "moral values" that Bush ran on. Too bad so many Dems are so unwilling to oppose an African or Hispanic-American nominee that they won't do the right thing and vote against these disgraceful shills for war.

I get a semi-regular newsletter from a guy named Jim Crotty, one of the founders of the ultra hip Monk magazine. The one waiting in my inbox today was titled "Bush Throws Dems a Bone: Will they Fetch."

Crotty argues that the inagural speech "freedom fest" will set the bar pretty high for the Republicans. Bush, Crotty argues, has now committed his administration to a policy that more closely reflects the late pronouncements of Democratic softies like Jimmy Carter, i.e. that the United States should promote democracy and human rights in the world.
When you realize that among our biggest friends these days (at least the biggest friends of the Bush cabal) are such vigorous defenders of Jeffersonian ideals as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and China, you begin to wonder what the hell Bush is really talking about...other that again masterfully co-opting traditional Democratic issues.

Crotty sees Bush's pronouncements as a perfect opportunity for Democrats to call him to task--to actually hold him responsible for what he says vs. what he does. But, if we've learned anything in the past 4 years is that the Dems can't hold anybody responsible for anything. What if, for example, they said something like this: "Bush said we started the war in Iraq because Iraq had WMD. Then he said Iraq sponsored terrorism. Then he said Saddam was a terrible dictator that had to go. Then he said Iraq will be an example to other Middle Eastern dictatorships of what freedom can be. Which is it?" Don't hold your breath.

Why is it that Bush can change his message at will and get away with it, yet the Dems can't even get one message across with any consistency?

Will the Dems hold Bush to his promise for the next four years? All I'd be willing to bet on is that the story will change a lot between now and then, but it will still being the Bushies doing the talking and the Dems wondering what the hell happened to their issue...again.

Forgive me if I've been thinking about this a bit, but the reason I haven't been blogging for the past 9 days is that I've been flattened by a flu-like malady. Believe me, next year, I'm getting the shot. I don't care how many old ladies I have to trample.

But it doesn't seem so bad after reading up a bit on what could be in store for us. Now Forbes, the business magazine that bills itself as the Capitalist Tool, doesn't seem to be high on the list of fear-mongering yellow journals. But this article is pretty damn scary.

According to Michael Osterholm, the University of Minnesota epidemiologist, the avian flu now running around Asia could mutate into a virus that can be transmitted human to human, instead of only bird to human, as it seems to be now. If that happens, millions will die before any vaccine could be developed or distributed. Here's more on that.

So, what can we do in the meantime...other than pray? Well, we could mobilize on research and vaccine creation. But, as Vice President Cheney so aptly pointed out when the regular flu vaccine shortage came to light, "There's no money in that."

If you're wondering what this potential flu pandemic will be worth, though, the insurance companies have done some figuring for you. Here is that info, in case you want to start short selling your insurance stocks.

Anyone who calls himself a journalist had to be embarrased by Dan Rather and the other idiots at CBS News who broadcast that report about the forged documents relating to W's service (if you can call it that) in the National Guard.

Republicans are absolutely right when they say the people involved were blinded by their own ideology into concocting the story. I mean, if they'd stopped for a minute and thought about it, do they think Karl Rove would have been so stupid as to leave behind any specific evidence of the special treatment W received. C'mon...

Anyway, the CBS people behind the broadcast have now been fired. The only reason Rather hasn't been is that he's already resigned.

But, are any of the above-mentioned Republicans upset when their side uses tax dollars to influence the news, as they did in the case of the Department of Education paying TV commentator Armstrong Williams $240,000 to shill for the No Child Left Behind Act?

Hey, at least CBS used their own money to try to blow smoke up our rear ends. And, they admitted their mistake. Any chance of that happening at W's Education Department? Probably about the same chance of W's real records from the National Guard coming to light is my guess.