They have to know how bad this is for their party -- especially given the shifting demographics in America, and coming on the heels of the GOP xenophobia unleashed by the immigration debate last year. The Hispanic vote was a deciding factor in Obama's win (Hispanics went for Obama over McCain 67 percent to 31 percent), so the last thing the GOP needs is to be alienating Hispanic voters. BUT THEY JUST...]]> Tue, 19 May 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Fri, 15 May 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Tue, 12 May 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Talk about premature exaltation.

I spent last week in New York and Washington, speaking with many erstwhile Masters of the Universe and those charged with cleaning up the mess they've created. And in both cities I was stunned by how many Wall Street and political insiders were ready to break out the champagne. Forgive me if I keep the bubbly on the shelf.

The insider consensus seems to be that the worst of the hard times is behind us and that the economy is back on track. Or at least on track to be back on track.

Not even the latest employment stats showing that another 539,000 Americans had lost their jobs dimmed the enthusiasm. Call it The New Financial...]]> Tue, 12 May 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Talk about premature exaltation.

I spent last week in New York and Washington, speaking with many erstwhile Masters of the Universe and those charged with cleaning up the mess they've created. And in both cities I was stunned by how many Wall Street and political insiders were ready to break out the champagne. Forgive me if I keep the bubbly on the shelf.

The insider consensus seems to be that the worst of the hard times is behind us and that the economy is back on track. Or at least on track to be back on track.

Not even the latest employment stats showing that another 539,000 Americans had lost their jobs dimmed the enthusiasm. Call it The New Financial...]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Mon, 09 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0600 Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0600 He said his Medicare prescription drug plan "is brining peace of mind to seniors." Hardly. It's been widely derided as a poorly conceived, chaotic mess.

He claimed that, on his watch America's "air, water, and lands are measurably cleaner." Who is doing the measuring, the same eco-unfriendly companies to which he handed both his environmental policies and our public lands? This is a man whose administration refused to open emails from its own EPA because they contained information about greenhouse gas emissions that are endangering public health.

In a particularly jaw-dropping moment, Bush asserted that when people "live in freedom, they do not willingly choose leaders who...]]> Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0600 That Dick Cheney still doesn't believe waterboarding is torture.

The thrill going up Chris Matthew's leg.

Ashley Todd, the young college Republican who claimed an Obama supporter had carved a backwards "B" into her cheek. And I would particularly like to forget that so many in the media gave so much play to Ashley's tale.

Sarah Palin's belief that there is a "real America" and "pro-America areas" of America.

The Palin Catch-Phrase Collection: "Palling around with terrorists," "Team of Mavericks," "Just a hockey mom," "I put it on eBay," "Thanks, but no thanks," "You betcha."

Somali pirates.

That George Bush blames the economic meltdown on the fact that...]]> Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0600 Or Gov. Mark Sanford, who told Joe Scarborough he was against bailing out the auto industry because it would "threaten the very market-based system that has created the wealth that this country has enjoyed."

If a politician announced he was running on a platform of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" he would be laughed off the stage. That is also the correct response to anyone who continues to make the case that markets do best when left alone.

It's time to drive the final nail into the coffin of laissez-faire capitalism by treating it like the discredited ideology it inarguably is. If not, the Dr. Frankensteins of the right will surely try to...]]> Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0600 See if this sounds familiar:

An ambitious and risky undertaking carried out with hubris, and featuring the weeding out of anyone who raises alarm bells, little-to-no transparency, an oversight system in which no central authority is accountable, and the deliberate manufacturing of ambiguity and complexity so that if -- when -- it all falls to pieces, the excuse "who could have known?" can be used....

Is it Iraq? Fannie Mae? Citigroup? Bernie Madoff?

The correct answer is: all of the above.

When you look at the elements that were crucial to the creation of each of these debacles, it's amazing how much in common they all have. And not just in how they began but in...]]> Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0600 Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 For the moment, McCain is allowing his high-sticking hockey mom to lead the fear-mongering parade, accusing Obama of "palling around with terrorists" and not seeing America "like you and I see America." For bad measure, Palin also teamed up with her mentor Bill "Henry Higgins" Kristol to re-pry the manhole cover off the Jeremiah Wright sewer.

But Palin's Alaska crude will soon be mixed with McCain's own Maverick mud. At a Colorado town hall last Thursday, McCain was asked, "When are you going to take the gloves off?" His grinning reply: "How about Tuesday night?" So how long into Debate II do you think it will be before McCain brings up Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, or Tony...]]> Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 "Sen. McCain, given the part deregulation played in the current economic crisis and your support of a massive government bailout of the financial industry, are you now ready to break with Ronald Reagan's assessment?"

And, to be even handed: "Sen. Obama, in 1996, Bill Clinton cheerfully announced that 'the era of big government is over.' As the Dow plummets and Wall Street and Main Street turn to Washington for big government bailouts, are you now ready to break with President Clinton's assessment?"

The shift in my own thinking on the role of government was what led to my disillusionment with the Republican Party, and the transformation in my political views. I've always been...]]> Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Even the amount of taxpayer money being bandied about -- $1 trillion -- is similar. Think you got your money's worth for the Iraq war? Congratulations -- you're about to buy another pricey debacle.

We've seen how negligent the Bush administration is with our money -- flushing billions on wasteful, mismanaged Iraq reconstruction and Katrina recovery projects.

Now the same folks who brought us those no-bid, profit-guaranteed, crony-friendly, war-and-disaster-profiteering boondoggles want us to hand them control of a $700 billion Wall Street slush fund -- with no strings attached. How dumb -- or...]]> Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Every second of this campaign not spent talking about the Republican Party's record, and John McCain's role in that record, is a victory for John McCain.

Her critics like to say that Palin hasn't accomplished anything. I disagree: in the space of ten days she's succeeded in distracting the entire country from the horrific Bush record -- and McCain's complicity in it. My friends, that's accomplishment we can believe in.

Just look at the problem John McCain faced. George Bush has a disastrous record, and the country knows it. John McCain -- the current one, not the one who vanished eight years ago -- has no major disagreements with George Bush (and I'm sorry, wanting to fire...]]> Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 He promised to "make this government start working for you again" and to "stop leaving our country's problems for some unluckier generation to fix."

He vowed to "restore the pride and principles of our party. We were elected to change Washington, we let Washington change us. We lost the trust of the American people...when we valued our power over our principles."

He pledged that his administration would "set a new standard for transparency and accountability" and "finally starting getting things done for the people who are counting on us."

According to McCain, "We need to change the way government does almost everything: from the way we protect our security to the way...]]> Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Making matters worse, they've taken this approach while McCain's Rove-trained message mavens have succeeded in turning one of Obama's real strengths into a negative - continuously reframing the fact that Obama is popular as just empty celebrity.

It's absurd, but it's worked. At least for the moment. Meanwhile, the public's perception of McCain as "ready to lead" on national security issues sits there, untouched.

Sure, we can read too much into polling swings, but when poll after poll has McCain with a sizable double-digit edge on security issues and Iraq it shows that the job of undermining this perception has not even begun. Rasmussen has McCain with a 51 percent to 39...]]> Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500 And the media -- and even a number of Democrats -- are swallowing this triumphalist nonsense whole, and washing it down with a pitcher of revisionist Kool-Aid. The result: a collective case of political amnesia. Everyone seems more than happy to forget what the president's own stated goal for the surge was: to create "the breathing space [the Iraqi government] needs to make progress in other critical areas."

But here we are, 18 months later, and McCain and the GOP are being allowed to change the goal. And, surprise, surprise, the retroactive goal they've chosen is remarkably similar to the current situation in Iraq: violence is down while the "progress in other critical areas" is...]]> Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Tue, 27 May 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0500