Friday in Crazy Town

My apologies--It's the "Al Qaeda Seven", not six, who are the DOJ lawyers who defended the detainees. I saw Liz Cheney's vile little ad last night. Rachel Maddow probably had the best attitude--just laugh at it and mock it. But lawyers defending the rights of the accused being attacked as somehow in bed with terrorists is disgusting and not even good McCarthyite theater.

Former President of Notre Dame, Father Hesburgh once told me,"The greatest tragedy in life is that the young must grow up in a world created by 80 year old men." Since Colin Powell threw John McCain under the bus by calling for the repeal of DADT, the elderly McCain held court in the Senate by citing a letter signed by 1,000 former generals and rank officers demanding that DADT not be repealed. The problem with this letter is that the average age of the signatories is 74 years old with many on the list over 90. One general's wife signed his name while the man had Alzheimer's and had not been able to communicate for six years. Another widow signed for a man already dead. And several are now protesting they weren't even asked but they found their names on it anyway. None of the signatories served in the military during the time of DADT.

Not to be outsmarted again by Barack Obama, John McCain and Joe Lieberman are introducing the Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention and Prosecution Act of 2010 ,which will create a "high value detainee" team,made up of the intelligence agencies" to determine how a detainee is to be interrogated and whether that person should be declared "unprivileged enemy belligerents", meaning they would not have constitutional rights and could be detained indefinitely. Both men have serious problems with understanding anything about law. The ACLU is rightfully challenging this mess as unconstitutional. Besides the legal problem, this would ensure that detainees didn't talk to American officials. All those charged under civilian procedures have talked and provided invaluable intelligence to authorities.

Old geezers are complaining that the Coffee Parties I previously wrote about are fronts created by Organizing for America (OFA) at President Obama's behest. Leftwing blogs actually say they are creations of moderate Republicans ,who are too shamed of the tea parties. If its OFA, I say,"Bravo, David Plouffe".

Charlie Cook claims that there is no way the Republicans will not take the House. Anyone predicting anything about the 2010 elections is nuts. We're cranking up to 20 retirements per party and we're looking at a vast amount of primaries, which will determine the face of the general election. The Beltway pundits have not a clue as to what is going on. Republicans have to beat something with something and as yet they have been unable to articulate anything they believe in--let alone anything anyone could believe. In the last ten days, there has been considerable pushback against Republican obstructionism. Jim Bunning has become the poster child of the party, effectively cutting off the unemployment insurance for over 1 million and ending several hundred thousand transport workers.

What will be clear in the next few months will be the shape of the races for the state houses. here it is looking more predictable.

President Obama yesterday read to representatives from the health insurance industry letters he receives from citizens who can no longer afford insurance or who have lost coverage. he and Secretary Sibelius demanded the companies post their rate hikes on the internet and the reasons for these rate increases.

Later in the day he met with progressive Democrats, who were threatening to vote against the health care bill because it lacks a public option. His message was simple and clear: think about the 30 million uninsured who will benefit; and think about how hard it would be to pass anything progressive if this failed. Apparently, the attendees got the message.

Appparently, Bart Stupak from Michigan isn't buying. He is threatening to bring the house down over the abortion issue.

This raises an issue that has been bothering me. The pro-life movement has enormous number of men protesting and agitating, and even killing doctors. Why aren't the men who favor reproductive rights out in the streets in the same way? The campaign against Planned Parenthood is destructive to health care for women. Over 89% of their work has nothing to do with abortions. Yet, we have candidates now running against them, promising to cut their funding as if this old group is ACORN in disguise. And we have states like Utah trying to make miscarriages a capital offense. And these bills are introduced by men. In the whole health care debate, the first people thrown under the bus for some political compromise are women. Those who believe Roe v. Wade finished the issue have to wake up to the steady, consistent erosion of the woman's right to choose.