John Kerry's Quote Of The Day

++To Isaac Herzog,the Zionist Union," No one listens to Netanyahu anymore."

President Obama Most Admired American

++President Obama was the most admired person this year for the 6th straight year. Hillary Clinton again was the top-ranked woman,making this list for 18 years.

++While John McCain said that you shouldn't count as talented a man as Obama out, referring to his poll numbers,the Right has proclaimed a plan called Operation American Spring with the goal of toppling the government in nice weather and bringing Obama to trial before a tribunal of Anthony West and people with the same principles as Darryl Issa. They warn their followers that many "patriots" might be killed.

++Afghanistan,according to a CNN poll,has become the least popular war in American history as support has dropped to 17% and a majority want us to leave before next December.

++The Guardian reports that Prince Bandar threatened the UK with making it easier for terrorists to attack the UK if they pursued the corruption investigation into Saudi Arabia.

++The voluminous correspondence between Tony Blair and George W. Bush prior to the Iraq invasion will be published in the UK.

++Michael Tomasky predicts at the Daily Beast that Obama will challenge impeachment by raising the debt ceiling himself in March,the budget will again reach January 15, and that there will be a deal on Iran.

++Israel has released the Palestinian prisoners as part of the pre-conditions of the peace talks.

Israel's Big Fail

Where to begin with Israel's attack on the Gaza flotilla? I'm getting old and soft. I don't believe you get anywhere by starving out your adversaries. The embargo against Gaza, contrary to the pundits in the Beltway, has created a humanitarian crisis as documented by every international aid agency. And there is no evidence that it has lessened the hold of Hamas on the area. In fact, the constant impoverishing of the population makes it certain that an alternative will not arise anytime soon.

I spent the last two days watching videos from the activists and the Israeli government accounts. Israel is real lucky that the Holocaust survivor who wanted to come had to stay behind in Crete because of illness. Can you imagine the PR disaster of a Holocaust survivor being killed by Israeli commandos? The optics of this whole enterprise was an unmitigated disaster for Israel with a break with their ally, Turkey, almost inevitable.

Apparently, within the controlled media world in Israel, no one has heard of YouTube or instant communications. The Israeli television claimed that the flotilla was being funded and organized by Islamists. Israeli peace activists had the Turkish charity on the phone responding simulatenously to these charges. The charity in question is linked to the governing party of Turkey, which as of yesterday was aligned with Israel. Although to be frank, it probably is islamist. Israeli officials maintained that they feared the ship contained arms only to be refuted by the Turkish customs officials who explained how and why the government inspected the ship to ensure there would be no arms. The Israeli version was widely broadcast in the United States. David Frum claimed that Hamas could use the cement on the ship for military purposes. (Like building catapults to sling cement slabs across the border.)

Then the use of force, Objective observers claimed that the Israeli should have just escorted the boat to Gaza and then mounted it. Originally, Israeli officials claimed that the commandos were just using paint guns on the activists until they were shot upon. Unfortunately, the guns found were Israeli handguns activists took away from the commandos. This morning, Israeli diplomats admitted the government decided to use force because the ship was too big. American tabloids like the New York Post claimed terrorists were at the helm and were trying to lynch the commandos. The attack weapons seemed to be wrenches and pipes against automatic weapons, hardly the material for overkill.

The first real problem Israel faced in the optics department were the actual activists on board. Now they say several dozen were jihadists, which may ultimately prove to be true. But the first interviews we got to see were former Ambassador Peck calmly describing being waken at 4am by israeli commandos in full combat gear and calling the seizure of the ship an act of piracy. Only hours before Al Jazeera interviewed a former woman Colonel in the American military and former State Department official who was on board talking about the humanitarian mission to Gaza. Next we heard from two German MPs, who were shaken and claimed there were no weapons on board and none of the passengers or organizers fired any weapons. Then, lo and behold, an Israeli MP waltzes off the ship to denounce the whole operation. So far Israeli Foreign MinisterAvrigdor Lieberman's claim Al Qaeda was on board didn't materialize and even the Israeli press laughed at him. Oh, yes, there was a US naval veteran who had survived the Israeli attack and sinking of the U.S.S. Liberty in 1967. Quite a collection.

Even pro-Israeli websites Stratfor and Debka questioned why the Israelis, knowing the flotilla was a provocative act, fell right into the trap. From Israel, the decision to seize the ship was made by the full cabinet a week before but as the Israeli press noted, the "inner cabinet" or the war cabinet never made the decision as required by protocol. Stratfor went on to say that the Israelis actually gave the Palestinians an Exodus moment, after the legendary tale of the ship Exodus immortalized in film.

For those of us who remember Entebbe, this was not it. The vaunted Israeli commandos blew this operation in ways the world has not seen before. There seems to be a new level of Israeli incompetence we have not seen before. Previously, Israeli agents assassinated an Hamas leader in Dubai. American conservatives gleefully sent me the videos but the situation was actually disturbing. The agents were all caught on surveillance cameras and they used real European passports, which sparked public diplomatic inquiries. Either the Israelis wanted to be blatant about the hit or were incredibly clumsy and stupid. I opt for the latter. These were no Steven Spielberg Mossad agents.

The flotilla incident immediately sparked off some fascinating debates on international law. For instance, the ship was flying a Turkish flag, hence it was a ship of a NATO country. Under Article 5 of NATO, an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all. NATO naturally had to meet to confer on the issue, something any Israeli strategist should avoid at any cost.

Then we have the issue of piracy. Remember the bad joke,"What do you call the P.L.O.? Push Leon Overboard. The seizure of a passenger ship at sea by the PLO and their throwing wheelchair bound Leon Klinghoffer overboard prompted the international community to re-write the laws on piracy, which would make the Israeli actions violations of the very laws they proposed. Israeli cabinet members seemed to be channeling their inner Dick Cheney by saying Israel could do whatever it felt necessary on the high seas.

We also had the Irish Prime Minister immediately weigh in claiming the Israelis had kidnapped an Irish national when they seized the ship. And of course, a spate of demonstrations erupted throughout the world against Israeli embassies.

Meanwhile Hillary Clinton was on the phone 24/7 to heads of state to dial down the anti-Israeli rhetoric only to comment later, "People are just furious." Robert Gibbs tried to put out an anodyne statement, only admitting under questioning, "We're the only ones that believe the Israelis." Bibi Netanyahu's visit from Canada to kiss and make up with Barack Obama was cancelled by the Administration. The visit was to coincide with the resumption of proximity talks with Palestinians.

After the initial support of Israel by columnists, breaks have occurred in the punditry recognizing this event was a pure disaster for Israel. The Weekly Standard lamely tried to cover its behind with a statement from Sarah Palin about the lamestream media and Obama strengthening the enemies of Israel. While the neo-cons marched together with Israel, non-ideological Jewish commentators lamented the situation and urged, at best, it was too soon to judge. Ken Adelman actually urged a time-out and invoked the Hebrew term for a period of "self-reflection" for both Americans and Israelis. The commentary today now concerned how do you handle it when your ally screws up royally.

Jimmy Carter was soundly criticized when he talked about the Israeli-Palestinian problem using the loaded word "apartheid". Strangely, this episode reminds me of the waning days of the apartheid regime in South Africa--not the content but the feel. Here you have a situation where on the northern border of Israel Syria has replenished the Hezbollah with thousands of Scud missiles and Iran barks about wiping the country off the map and Israel blunders by reinforcing its disproportionate response to the Palestinians. The country has literally only one friend left--the United States--and is globally isolated. This was only superficially true before because they enjoyed covert relations with most of the Arab states and polite relations with Europe. In South Africa, after the usual braggadocio, they understood they could not withstand the isolation. They had to change.

Back up to Joe Biden's trip to Israel earlier in the year. Biden wanted Bibi to suspend the settlements on the West Bank and in Jerusalem. If Israel returned to proximity talks with the Palestinians, they would receive simultaneous recognition by all the Arab states. That's just for talking. Instead, strengthened by visiting right-wing visitors from the United States, Bibi stiffed the Vice President. Now today,after the Gaza flotilla incident,that opportunity may have been lost for some time to come.

The timing of this event couldn't have been worse. The United States had rounded up the Security Council to vote for stiffened sanctions against Iran. On this , they stiffed Barzil and Turkey on their negotiated settlement with Iran. I'm actually convinced by the Administration on the inadequacies of this deal. The Non-Proliferation Treaty group singles out both Iran and Israel. Israel claims that none of this pertains to them since they are not signatories. This was dutifully reported cheerfully by our neocons--who should have left the issue alone. At some point, more people are going to question the issue of Iran possessing enough enriched uranium for two bombs but Israel actually possessing over 250 real bombs. It didn't help that Israeli papers reported that there were three submarines with nuclear-tipped cruise missles off Iran today. Remember the Israeli nuclear arsenal is supposed to be secret.

Meanwhile the doctrine of Israeli exceptionalism seems to me to have a limited lifespan. American diplomats are quietly talking with Hamas. Hamas has said they would recognize Israel if it kept to its 1967 borders. This too one can take with a grain of salt. Yasir Arafat was offered 90% of all his demands at the Wye Plantation Conference under Clinton but simply could not seal the deal.

But the big change in all this is that Palestinians and Israeli peace activists are changing their tactics. By embracing ostensibly non-violent actions--despite their show of self-defense on the high seas--this increases the pressure on Israel. That's why the emergence of pro-Israeli groups like J Street will player a great role in shaping American public opinion. At some point, Israel will have to embrace more forward-thinking strategies to cope with their present problems. The old AIPAC fulminations have a limted shelf-life.

Friday Coffee--Zimbabwe

It may be the day Curtis Le May cried. The United States and Russia reached their first major arms deal in 20 years. They announced 1/3rd cuts in nuclear arsenals, leaving each side with 1,550--still enough to blow up the world several times. President Obama and Medevev will sign the treaty in Prague and I am sure it will not be passed by the Senate.

Bin Laden released one of his lamest radio tapes yet. He warned the United States he would kill any American Al Qaeda captures if any of the 9/11 plotters are executed. At the present, he doesn't have any Americans in captivity. Gone are the old days of promising Armageddon but maybe he's also aware of Tan Man Boehner and can't think to top that rhetoric. I take his message as a sign his gang is seriously depleted.

Bibi didn't make out so well on his trip to Washington. Yes, he received a standing ovation at AIPAC but he was told by Obama "here's your hat, what's your hurry." as the President opted for dinner with his wife and children rather than to hear Bibi stonewall him. Apparently, Bibi didn't bring the promised concessions and only wanted bunker-buster bombs to drop on Iran. He also reiterated in his meetings here his commitment to building more Levittowns in Jerusalem. He is doing this for the big bankroller of the Likud Party, Miami-based billionaire Irving Moskowitz. He and Mr. Edelman, the billionaire casino ower in Las Vegas, are the two encouraging new settlements from the outside.

The issue here is actually serious. The Arab League is meeting and the pro-American Arab states are being confronted by the pro-Tehran countries on the issue of Iran's nuclear facilities. The lack of progress on the Middle East Peace Talks isn't helping the pro-American states on the issue of further sanctions.

David Frum's wife has weighed in on the AEI firing saying that the conservative movement has become like the doctrinaire Left it used to mock. The intolerance of dissent has been dubbed "the closing of the conservative mind".

As a way of apology for cancelling his Indonesian trip until June, President Obama gave an interview with an Indonesian journalist, where he reminisced about his childhood experiences there. He admitted to breaking a boy's arm in a bicycle accident. He said he didn't tell a teacher he wanted to be president, instead he wanted to be a fireman. I'm sure conservatives can make hay out of the interview because he spoke Indonesian and even admitted he once had been fluent.

Bill Clinton was wrong. He said that Obama's ratings would jump 10% with the passage of health care. According to RS2000, they only jumped 5 points and his negatives fell. The same poll saw the enthusiasm gap narrow between Democrats and Republicans. 55% of Dems are enthusiastic about going to the polls; 62% of Republicans.

In a piece I posted last week, I noted that teabaggers e-mailed the home address of Virginia congressman Tom Perriello, who voted for healthcare. And they got it wrong. But what has transpired is that the address was his brother's who found that his propane gas lines had been cut. The FBI is investgating as a serious attempt to kill the congressman. Two more members of Congress have also reported death threats today.

The next big item to solve is social security. It appears that with so many taking early retirement because of the recession social security will now run out of funds in 2016. Given my financial situation, this is just my luck. As I have said too many times, the solution to this is rather easy if people get over their tax phobia. President Obama is supposed to receive the recommendations on this matter from his debt commission in early December. Erskine Bowles, one of the Democrats on the commission, told a North Carolina business meeting that the commission will recommend cuts in Medicare and Social Security.

If Congress begged off any more serious reforms this year, who could blame them? Having been in session for much of the year and meeting around the clock, there is a high burnout rate among the staff. But look for bank reform to be debated after the break and the first run made at immigration reform. Republicans would rather opt for naming more people to appear on postage stamps.

Whenever the world seems to be turning elsewhere, the North Koreans always make a play for attention. Today it looks like they torpedoed a South Korean naval vessel with 100 aboard. It seems they used up all their rockets for another test to see whether they can reach Hawaii.

The King of Derivatives, former Senator Phil Gramm, writing in the Wall Street Journal, says that the healthcare debate is not over yet, by any means. Senator Gramm was the one who said during the collapse of the economy in the fall of 2008 that Americans were just whiners. Speaking of the Wall Street Journal, they are going to charge for reading them on line. So now they become like the Financial Times, another newspaper I no longer read.

Working on something work related, I was reviewing a list of projects being conducted by USAID in various countries abroad. All worthwhile. But in looking them over, an awful thought occurred to me-- virtually none of these programs would be allowed by the New Republican Party as government programs in the United States. The commonsense consensus that has been created over the years about development and democracy would not be tolerated by the new authoritarians. And many of these programs were initiated by the last administration.

Si se Puede--Saturday Coffee on Route 66

This morning starts with the war in the Rules Committee. The vote is scheduled tomorrow at 6pm. Yesterday saw undecided Democrats moving to the yes column. Now if the GOP didn't buy the CBO report--Michael Steele called it a bunch of lies--they just made their own up. Tan Man Boehner's staff handed out a forged memo claiming it was an internal Democratic leadership memo saying that ,despite the CBO report, the Medicare Fix will make the bill increase the deficit. The memo was dutifully posted on Politico,Drudge and the Breibart websites. Like most things coming from the GOP these days it was a real lie, not like the CBO report.

Yesterday afternoon gave me a good insight into the difference between the Obama people and the Republicans. David Plouffe sent an e-mail to me saying as someone who runs a small business I should contact my representative. He supplied the phone numbers, including the local office. I called the local office; a human being responded and took my plea that our congressman vote for the health care bill and said he was committed to it. During the same period, the RNC, the Republican Congressional Committee and a right-wing group sent me e-mails--asking for money so that in November they can repeal. They didn't even pretend that voters should call Congress. Fox News was doing that for them. So, cash is King. Having received years of these e-mails, I'm beginning to believe the conservative political enterprise is the last great bastion of capitalism--with a slight exception, you give money and get no product. Caveat Emptor.

Canadian Mark Levin, noted conservative, is going to sue Barack Obama, Eric Holder and anyone else if health care reform passes. This is the new rallying cry. It's against the Constitution--which I wonder whether Canadian Levin has read. But I'm frankly glad conservatives have found the constitution; they ignored it rather vigorously for the past eight years.

The first challenge to health care will be brought on the "deem and pass" proposition. Used several dozen times by both parties but primarily Republicans, critics argue it violates Article 1. Sect.7 of the Constitution, which specifies that votes must be determined by yeas and neas and the names of the congresspeople must be enumerated. Why people think it applies here is that the House will vote on their fix of the Senate bill, which will be attached. So it's claimed that the House will not have voted on the Senate bill. That really doesn't wash because you are voting simultaneously for both and that's understood.

Jonathan Turley of George Washington University on his legal blog points out that it's going to be a rough road for Republicans to get this pass the District Courts. He points out that in a Supreme Court case of Marshall Field and Co. versus Clark, that the Supreme Court ruled that the judiciary has to take the statements of both the presiding officers of the House and the Senate as "conclusive evidence that a bill has passed Congress." But, in light of the last Supreme Court decision, there is an escape clause,that the Court " does retain authority to review the constitutionality of congressional enactments."

Turley claims the first hurdle for the challengers will be to establish the legal standing of the litigants, who will have to show a recognizable injury. Any such litigant will be challenged by the Democrats. Turley believes this is too heavy of a lift.

He cites the Democrats challenge to the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. Republicans just brushed over the clear conflict between the House and Senate versions. The House had a 36 month extension for Medicare and the Senate version only 12. They were clearly two separate bills. But the Democrats lost the case.

The GOP would have to go to the case they lost the 1998 decision in Clinton versus New York, which struck down the line-item veto. Justice Stevens wrote in deciding this case and another regulatory case that each house has to approve the same text and bill in order to receive a Presidential signature. Turley concludes his analysis saying the weight of law favors the Democrats on the issue of " deem and pass".

Now where the Republicans plan to ambush the healthcare bill is in the Senate. Both parties are now combing through the bills to try and neutralize each other's parliamentary maneuvers. There is no policy substance at this stage of the same. Mitch McConnell has organized a team to find a single line in the bill so he can call for a parliamentarian ruling. Remember the Republicans have been attacking the parliamentarian for the last two weeks to soften him up. The Senate bill would have to be identical to the House or risk being sent back to the House if the parliamentarian rules for the GOP. Or the Democrats would have to come up with 60 votes to override the objection. If the parliamentarian rules for the GOP on any one point, the only way to overcome a complete institutional metldown would be for Joe Biden to override the parliamentarian.

Turley thinks this would be even more egregrious than the "deem and pass". I totally disagree.

In other legal news, Orly Taitz is suing that her Republican primary opponent for Secretary of State in California is not eligible to run as a Republican, claiming he hasn't been in the party long enough. Besides, he's black. The California Bar Association has finally got around to reviewing Ms. Taitz mail-order legal license and may revoke it, particularly in light of her recent fine for filing frivolous suits.

Our neighbor Maryland is trying to secede from the South. Maryland is part of the Southern States' association and want to move to the Eastern States. They argue they have more in common with Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Their motivating factor is the rise in Virginia of Attorney-General Cuccinelli, who is trying to outlaw gay rights. The quest here is to secure the new headquarters of Northrup-Grunman, which Virginia seemed on the verge of winning. But Northrup-Grunman actually has an outstanding record of gays and lesbian rights for their employees. So, Maryland is trying to dramatize to the country that Virginia is for Lepers. And hope Northrup-Grunman cares about their image.

John McCain and Joe Lieberman want to "disappear" me and ,eventually, you, too. These two staunch anti-constitutionalists have introduced "The Enemy Belligerant Interrogation, Detention and Prosecution Act of 2010". The President on his sole authority as Commander-in-Chief can order the arrest, interrogation and imprisonment of anyone, including an American citizen,living anywhere on Planet Earth, indefinitely on the sole suspicion that he or she is affiliated with a terrorist group or said to be facilitating terrorist activities. Now since I have and continue to work with people who have and some continue to engage in armed struggle, it only takes a slip of a bureaucrat's pen to declare these people terrorists and any one affiliated with them as "facilitating terrorist activities."

And with the Patriot Act, the United States Government can strip me of my citizenship. This would be troublesome since my maternal side came to the States in 1670 to Delaware on the ship "Lydia". Cue in Groucho--Lydia, Oh, Lydia, Lydia, the Tattooed Lady. Luckily, I have taken prevenntive measures during the Bush Administration and secured the promise of a political haven from several Indian nations.

Oh Boy, Jon Voight is the guest speaker at the anti-health care rally this afternoon along with an alleged cousin of Barack Obama, a medical doctor who says the healthcare bill is another plot of his cousin's to bring socialism to the United States. They should have invited his other relative--Dick Cheney.

Tonight at 6pm eastern, Fox News will be showing a "documentary" on Barack Obama documenting his hard-left roots and associates. It will delve into his past--his Communist mentor in Hawaii, his far-left college associates, his long relationship with Jeremiah Wright, and --drumroll, Bill Ayres, the man who blew up the Pentagon's toilets during Vietnam. This show will reveal the dark ambitions of a politician who can read, write and speak. A definite menace to America.

Virginia may not be for lovers anymore but the Senate sure is. The Grand jury investiations into Senator Ensign and his financial dealings with the Republican Senate Committee have come under scrutiny. Staff members are helping authorities with their investigations because they feel they've gotten burned and are tainted by any associations with him. There is also a parallel Senate Ethics Committee investigation, which will only be concluded in a year.

Poor Representative Cao from Louisiana. A Republican stuck in a district once represented by Congressman Jefferson, he wants to vote for healthcare but the Tan Man and his goons keep pressuring him. Yesterday, he went from "yes", to "maybe" , to "no", back to "maybe". Stay strong, Mr. Congressman. Vote your conscience.

Mr. Sunshine, Bibi is coming to town for meeting with Hillary Clinton and then with President Obama. I'm not sure he's gotten the message. The Cafferty File on CNN presented e-mails from viewers on the flap, almost all negative toward Israel, which made Wolf Blitzer blanche. The only one positive e-mail was from a man who said that he wanted Israel to conquer all of the Middle East because we're at war with Muslims. The one e-mail, which would worry me if I were the Israeli Ambassador, was the one from Minnesota which said that the United States was right to assist Israel when it was founded but its should be able to survive without our assistance at this date. Others invoked the domestic economic crisis, saying we can not afford aid now. On the Republican side of the aisle, they have to worry about this because neo-isolationism has reared its ugly head again.

Born on a Mountaintop in Tennessee

A NATION MOURNS. Fess Parker, the TV figure "Davy Crockett", died at the age of 85 in his home in Santa Ynez Valley. How will we go on?

Radio Free America continues undetected by the authorities. The midwest-based radio show has recruited new "listening cells" in Boston, Baltimore, Princeton,Washington,D.C. and southern Virginia. Wednesday's show highlighted the Buzzcocks, the Stooges and the Dead Boys. And, yes, local high school students have caught on to the music.

Just don't tell Glenn Beck. Jim Wallis of the Sojourners wrote an extremely polite letter to Mr. Beck requesting a sitdown to explain to him the Christian view of "social justice". This man is extremely tolerant, polite and kindly. He comes off as a gentle soul. So what was the response of Glenn Beck? He could have accepted; he could have turned the request down. No, he unleashed FOX NEWS to investigate everything Wallis has ever done, all his writings and his "associates"as if Wallis is the "opposition". So be prepared to have a man who looks like Santa Claus attacked regularly on television. Even Joe McCarthy never had such a wide audience to broadcast witch-hunts.

Yesterday Glenn Beck had the Christian revisionist historian on Fox to show a letter by Thomas Jefferson signed in the "Year of our Lord Jesus Christ". While I always thought this was just a customary sign off from an older age. Historians claim this letter--which Mr. Barton claims is an original--is a forgery and that there is absolutely no historical record that Thomas Jefferson ever signed any such letter and certainly not with such a slogan. They also point out that the extensive record of Jefferson's correspondance reveals he never wrote such a letter. Yet, Beck is on the air deliberately spreading malicious lies. He didn't tell his audience that Thomas Jefferson has been expunged from Texas history books because he advocated a separation of church and state.

The Free Republic crowd has announced there are holding a Second Continental Congress --this time in Dallas, Texas. They sent a letter to Homeland Security, claiming they have no intention to overthrow the government but want to form a parallel structure and hope to co-exist. In their release, they advocate adopting the same Constitution, minus the Amendments adopted immediately after the Civil War providing for equal protection and the rights of black Americans. If you didn't know what you were looking at, you would miss that this Constitution is the project of the white nationalist movement and has been hanging around for years.

It goes back to the sovereign citizen notion. Because I am white, I have all natural rights. Anyone given rights "artifically" by the constitution are truly second-class citizens. Therefore, Barack Obama is not a legitimate President of the United States. This really is the argument of Moldova-born Orly Taitz, Queen of the Birthers, concerning Obama's eligibility. Our Free Republic crowd realised one slight problem--the rights of women--so they accepted their right to vote.

Rep Broun of Georgia lambasted the "Yankee aggression against the South during the Civil War" in a speech yesterday in the House, ostensibly about healthcare reform.

This debate now has become the civil rights struggle all over again. Chris Matthews had the head of Americans for Prosperity on Hardball and told him that over 30,000 Americans would receive health insurance for the first time. The response--"Why are we wrecking the finest health care system in the world for those people". Those people are not African-Americans as the conservatives suggest and want people to believe, but predominantly,white middle class people as Obama has pointed out. By and large,the poor are taken care of through Medicare.

Last week, the Republicans attacked the Senate parliamentarian--who they themselves appointed; this week it's the Congressional Budget Office. When the CBO figures showed the healthreform bill more than paid for itself, Republicans attacked the CBO as lying and unreliable. They also claimed that the healthcare bill didn't cut the deficit enough. The CBO has put out figures on some of the Republicans major initiatives in the past. The lowering of the top income tax bracket would increase the national deficit by $1.5 trillion; Medicare Plan D increase the deficit for $385 billion the first year; and the first Bush tax cut by another $380 billion the first year. All the current Republicans in both the Senate and the House voted for all of these well aware of the CBO's findings.

The most problematic for everyone is the attack on the CBO by Republican Pat Ryan, whom I've mentioned before. The CBO has cost out his Republican budget proposal and found it running huge deficits for ten years and destroying Scoail Security and Medicare. If--God forbid-- the Republicans take over the House anytime soon, it is Ryan's budget that the GOP will pass. From yesterday's performance, it's quite clear the GOP will attack the CBO and its findings. It is extremely important that people be aware of the fatal dangers the Ryan Plan poses for the future of the country--that is no exaggeration.

"Tan Man" Boehner reiterated the GOP's "commonsense health plan". This would involve getting rid of malpractice suits, having insurance sold cross state borders, and the usual pap. The CBO actually costed this one out and found that it increased the deficit and only enlarged the number of insured by 2 million. And, besides, most of the key points are already in the bill.

Barack Obama poured it on at George Mason today to a joyous crowd.In addition to the usual arguments for his plan, he tried to invoke our "better angels" and a vision for the greater good. But he put some knives in also--he referred to the healthcare plan as the largest middle class tax cut in history and the largest deficit reduction bill since the 1990s. A little ju-jitsu on his Republican opponents.

His tactic is now reminding me of the days leading up to securing the nomination. Hour by hour they are leaking out more "yes' votes from the undecided Democrats. Sort of like the release of the superdelegates during the primary process. Finally, he seems to be choreographing the events the way he used to.

When the CBO figures came out yesterday, 200 advocacy groups and medical associations jumped into endorse the plan. These are groups with real living and breathing individuals as members as opposed to the corporate front groups.

The Republican madness continues. Senator Tom Coburn threatened that he would put a hold on any Democrat who is defeated this November , who voted for healthcare reform, and is appointed to a federal position. Tom, you might be in jail by then. Coburn is part of the whole Senator Ensign scandal, which has moved into the Grand Jury stage, and Tom was the guy who negotiated the pay-off to the cuckholded husband.

The hysterical lying by the Republicans has caused me to wonder if they will ever pay a price for this. Judd Gregg, whom I always thought was at least honest, has simply lied and lied repeatedly about the reconciliation process, which he advocated on C-Span for years. The constant lies--everyday and around the clock--by almost every elected Republican have to be factored in this fall elections. If the Democrats don't pounce on this, they are missing a golden opportunity. Why vote for this guy, you can't trust him because he's a liar. Deficit reduction--who can believe him? Just pick an issue. Health Care Repeal--how would that affect the deficit?

Is this having any effect? A recent poll in Florida indicates there may be some movement caused by this tea bag, obstructionist, lunatic nonsense. The Democratic candidate for Senate is one Kendrick Meek, whose campaign so far mirrors his last name. He is extraordinarily weak. He will be running against the young darling of the teabag movement and conservatives, Cuban Marco Rubio. Rubio is crushing Charlie Crist in the Republican primary. But polls show the Meek-Rubio contest is almost a toss-up. Maybe there is hope that there will be a backlash against politicians who both lie like crazy and are obstructionists.

Back to the issue of Israel. Netanyahu's brother-in-law called Obama an anti-semite and a threat to Israel on their army radio. Bibi himself is a Facebook friend of Orly Taitz, the birther Queen. Shimon Peres actually came out and critized the Israeli government for jeopardizing the relationship with the United States. What do Israelis themselves actually believe? Three polls done in the aftermath of Biden's visit and Bibi dissing the Vice President show that 70% and some actually higher believe that Obama has taken a "fair and balanced" approach to Israel.

For the record, it would truly be strange if Obama were anti-semitic since he kicked off his political career at the Southside Chicago home of a rabbi. The rabbi was a neighbor and Barack would teach classes at the Synagogue. This is contrary to the urban myth that he declared his candidacy for Senate at the home of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorhn. But you never know because as Bibi said, David Axelrod is another "self-hating Jew". And David didn't serve in the UDF.

Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League must have heard the Bibi's dog whistle and attacked General Petraeus for his "dangerous" remarks on Israel before the Senate Armed Forces Committee. Politico speculates that the Jewish community will vote against Democrats this fall to "punish" the administration. Now how real is that? Abe Foxman himself warned in an ADL report that the teabaggers were infiltrated by neo-nazis, anti-semites and white supremacists. Now the Jewish community is going to run to embrace that?

Meanwhile Bibi has called Hillary to kiss and make up. Bibi is flying to Washington for a meeting and says he's preparing some initiatives to re-start talks with the Palestinians. Let's hope but I believe this little fracture can lead to bigger problems for Israel down the line.

Well, the last great tea party rally this weekend may have some problems capturing air time. the March for Justice will be happening the same time. This is the march for immigration reform. I hope they turn the corner and march into the teaparty gang, who will flee to avoid contamination with immigrants. Also, there is the first spring anti-war rally. I wonder which Fox will cover?

Meanwhile I wait for the new one from Johnny Lang. If you haven't listened to him before, just find Lie To Me,which is one of the finest rock albums ever.

Get The Exorcist

Texas congressman Louis Gohmert told a crowd of about 100 tebaggers that the capitol building had been invaded by "demons". The teabaggers showed up with signs saying the RNC paid for them--crossed out in black. Republicans told the teabaggers that Nancy Pelosi had the votes to pass the bill. Iowa's congressman Steve King called for massive street uprisings in the U.S. to overthrow the government. He said there were alot of similarities to Czechoslovakia and called for a new "Velvet Revolution". Why? Because "the government is nationalizing liberty". I thought that was a good thing.

The worse constitutional crisis since the "civil war" and "Watergate". The GOP has given up the fight on healthcare reform. Now it's a war over the process. They have been puttng out the disinformation that the House Democrats can pass the bill without ever voting on it. This is hitting the little political press like Politico, the Hill and now the Washington Post. Actually they could, according to House rules, which the Republicans have used several more times than the Democrats. The odds are Democrats will not use this process. But the Republicans have introduced a bill to prevent the Speaker from using the so-called Slaughter motion, which calls for the use of this arcane maneuver. The rules for this procedure were written by none other than Republican congressman from California David Dreier.

While the Republicans are playing a rearguard action, Democrats themselves are raising questions about their sanity. The Ed Schultz show claims 38 Democrats oppose and only 200 are for. Steny Hoyer is quoted as saying the Democrats don't have the votes yet. The Whip is muttering something about postponing this past Easter and calling on the President to postpone his trip again.

But Lindsey Graham, who has been real classy as late, says Nancy Pelosi has the House Democrats "all ,liquored up" and ready to "commit suicide". The Democrats have already printed out the talking points for when the bill is passed. There are an impressive number of reforms that occur the minute the bill is signed. I doubt the average voter will care whether Mary Landrieux got something for Louisiana if health insurance companies can't drop me and my son can be covered until he's twenty-five.

In the classy department, conservatives are complaining about Natoma Campbell, the women who wrote President Obama about her lack of health insurance and who now suffers from leukemia. Lucianne. com and Drudge are claiming she probably will not lose her house as the President claims and that there will be financial help for her treatments. I say wait until she loses her house for sure to pass healthcare. Are we also supposed to write the sitting President and if he reads by chance our plea, then we can wait to receive financial aid? Isn't that like a King reading pleas from his peasants? Is that the way healthcare is supposed to work? Beg the nearest powerful or wealthy person? See it's not so bad--the women didn't even lose her house; what's she complaining about?

Eric Cantor called Rahm Emmanuel to tell him to back off on Israel. FLASHBACK: Moshe Dayan, he of the same eyepatch as me, would be delighted, over-joyed to know that the chief of staff of the President of the United States was a veteran of the UDF. But Mr. Sunshine, the BIBI called Rahm Emmanuel " a self-hating Jew" right at the start of this administration. I would love to hear Rahm's response to Eric the Weasel.

Meanwhile, instead of seeking to patch things up with the United States, Bibi is coming to Washington to speak only to the Jewish members of Congress. Not great optics for politics. But the usual gang of Republican Senators blasted the Obama Administration for criticising a "strategic ally" openly. For instance, you should never say "Old Europe" and "New Europe" and openly criticize allies such as Germany, France and England. It's sort of like that.

Can you imagine Golda Meir's approach to Vice President Biden's visit? Even though Joe is a gasbag and a klutz, he is known as a lifelong friend of Israel. So now, he's Vice President of the United States, the only ally you have. She would have insisted he stay at her home and she would have made breakfast for him. She would have mothered him with health tips.

Old hawk Ariel Sharon was no dummy in terms of geopolitics. If he had a chance of getting 22 Arab nations to recognize Israel, he would start talking again to the Palestinians even if he was bluffing.

Hillary Clinton, another long-time backer of Israel, just sent a list of demands to Israel basically asking Bibi to back down from his plans for Levittown in Palestine and making sincere gestures toward a peace process.

Oh, where is Abba Eben when we need him?

Representative Gohmert's mention of "demons" made me think they is a compromise on the torture issue. Since Christianity, Islam and Buddhism recognize the devil, we should contract out exorcists from the Vatican to train CIA personnel to "exorcise" terrorist detainees. This should satisfy the torture advocates.

The Calm Before the Storm--The Big Fade

The noise level has dropped dramatically. The Tea Baggers have one last go at it today by storming the Hill and button-holing members. Took me a long time to get an e-mail to our Congressman Jim Moran last night because the anti-health care folks are mass e-mailing Congress. Citizens United--those Citizens United--are robocalling against health care reform.

But I get a sense the air has gone from the fight. Bob Corker appearing on Charlie Rose looked like a defeated man when he admitted Health Care would pass. Jim DeMint, who thought this was Obama's Waterloo and vowed to break the President, says he's not sure it's going to end up that way. Teabagger-in-Chief, Dick Armey held a press conference yesterday, saying it would pass and that members of Congress are spineless and Nancy Pelosi isn't tough enough. I guess she's a girlie-girlie. 'Though I like Dick's Tony Lama boots. Americans for Prosperity will be driving around the District offices of congresscritters beeping their horns. Since it's the NCAA basketball tournament period, don't you think the message will be confused. You know it's over when World News Daily, the extreme right forum alerts everyone that healthcare reform will pass.

So the last burning question is whether Dennis "The Menace" is going to vote for it since his arm was twisted by the President while going and coming from Ohio yesterday.

What will be interesting to watch is whether Republican Senators have the stomach to submit amendments after amendments to prolong the fight. Democrats have already signed on to round-the-clock voting in the Senate. So, it might get interesting.

Lindsey Graham pouted that if health care passes , it will be much more difficult for the President to get any cooperation to pass anything else. Doug Brooks went off his meds today claiming the reconciliation process damages the "humanizing effect of the Senate". Doug, they are all dead there. The Senate reminds me of old Red Smith columns in the sporting section of the New York Times. The line was,"He only writes about famous dead people."

Our august Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia has distanced himself again from his hand-picked Attorney-General's embrace of the birther cause. And the mother of birthers, Orly Taitz, candidate for Secretary of State in California, received another blow--the court upheld her $20,000 fine for wasting their time. You will recall Orly petitioned the UN Human Rights Council to protect her from recriminations by the Obama Administration. Moldovan-born Orly is a Gsa-Gsa Gabor look-alike.

Arizona's own J.D. Hayworth is against same sex marriage because a man could marry a horse. John McCain is against same sex marriage because he doesn't believe marriage should be between two people who love each other. Great primary to watch. Cindy McCain has gone off to Africa for charity work while the two hombres shoot it out.

Sean Wilentz wrote a defense of my son's ancestor Ulysses S. Grant in the Sunday Times. He wanted to explain why Grant deserves to remain on the $50 bill and not be replaced by Ronald Reagan as proposed by southern congresscritter Patrick Henry. He said all the slanders against Grant and his Presidency were manufactured by " pro-South revisionists", who hated Grant's reconstructionist policies. Sounds similar to today.

The great state of Oklahoma has removed the picture of the President of the United States from the legislature. Apparently, it incensed to many representatives.

The FCC unveiled their internet plans today. It was a real snoozefest. All the attendees dozed off. I'm glad because it is as radical and meaningful as I said yesterday. This one will just pass through without anyone thinking about it. President Obama got the initiative off the ground through a downpayment hidden in the stimulus package. The FCC aims for 90% connectivity.

Progressives are complaining that President Obama is missing the opportunity to salt the courts with liberals. Not true--his nominees are now being quietly confirmed and they are from moderate-left to liberal. The problem will come when Justice Stevens needs to be replaced. he claims he will retire within three years. I think he will after the mid-terms if the Democrats maintain a decent majority in the Senate. But I bet President Obama will appoint a Sotomayor moderate on the bench so that the Court will tilt even more right than it is today. I would support Laurence Tribe and force the issue in the Senate about who knows the constitution and who doesn't.

My thanks to President Obama for the college tuition tax credit. This is the type of thing that he has been sprinkling around that really makes a difference. I am not sure people realize this. For an average American family, the enlargement of the credit allows you to send a son or daughter or even yourself to state universities for very little money. Here in Virginia, with the tax credit, the University of Virginia, an Ivy-League quality school, would cost you about $10K per year. And our knucklehead Governor will not be able to destroy the Virginia university system in the remaining three years of his term. For snobs like me, the tuition credit doesn't do as much good but it helps. This small act does alot for the future of education.

I am very ambivalent about President Obama's larger educational policy. I'll blog in later days some of the fall-out from this policy on our own local school system. And, having lived through the privatization of everything from prisons to our national seurity, I am very wary about Arne Duncan's plans to privatize charter schools.

The Israel flap will not go away. George Mitchell has cancelled his trip to the region. President Obama spent an hour on the phone to Bibi. The best thing that could happen now for Israel is Germany to release the Eichman files. Apparently, the files reveal that Germany smuggled Eichman to Argentina. These might remind everyone how we got Israel in the first place. Friends of Israel should call Tel Aviv and remind Bibi he isn't the mayor of Levittown. The actual background of this latest snafu is actually quite distressing and brings in some of the characters from our right whom I've been writing about.

Now when President Obama flies to Indonesia and all hell breaks out in the Senate, is the House bill he signed the law of the land? In other words, if the Senate can't get its act together, will the House bill remain as law? We know the minute he leaves the country, the Republicans will start some new nonsense. I have no idea.

(Note: I've consulted our in-house parliamentarian, Dr. Vinnie Boom-Bah, and he says it is the law of the land because the House passes the Senate version. So let the food fight begin.)

Other people are getting wise to Rep. Pat Ryan's Roadmap to Future Ruin. Several think-tanks have their analyses out and I'll share them with you as I digest them. In short--everyone earning up to $200,000 will have their taxes massively increased; the very wealthy will be earning upwards to $500,000 additional tax credits and the whole plan will basically run enormous deficits that can never be corrected. In policy language, all these think-tanks agree that the Ryan Plan is a conscious effort to de-develop the country and make us a third-world country. No wonder Tom Davis doesn't want Republicans to debate governance this year!

Batten Down the Hatches--The Final Offensive

The House bill cleared the Finance Committee today by party-line vote. At this point, any discussion on votes is psyops.

The Chamber of Commerce has $25 million to spend this week on some 40 Democratic representatives in a last attempt to stop it. Millions more are coming through front organizations. Fox News has a little graph up of the so-called kickbacks--most of which get pulled from the bill. One was particularly interesting--they still insist on $10 billion to Vermont. This is Senator Sanders' little earmark for a nation-wide network of health care clinics. The best earmark I have ever seen.

My colleague here in the office says that, despite the noise level and the talking heads, he notices the Republicans have stopped lying about the Bill. When press secretary Gibbs appeared on Fox News and declared that by next weekend health care reform would be the law of the land, the comment section exploded not with attacks on President Obama but on Republicans for failing to kill it. Republicans in their Sunday appearances spoke as if the bill would pass.

Progressive networks and the labor unions are pulling a full-court press. Labor is explicitly telling Democrats that vote against it they can expect absolutely no support in the mid-terms. The White House itself has put members on notice about this--financial assistance in 2010 depends on cooperation is passing health reform.

The President went out to Cleveland today and gave his final healthcare rally with about five congresspeople there. It was his usual barnburner of a speech.

The Sunday New York Times printed an article about what it means for Obama if healthcare fails. Let's ask another question--What does it mean for lobbyists if the bill passes? Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent for over a year to kill this bill. What do you say to your clients when you fail? If you are a corporation looking at a tax bill, would you not think twice about hiring thse guys?

Relatively sane Republican former Tom Davis says that Republicans have an open field in 2010. But he warns Republicans not to be provocative or else they will draw out Obama's surge voters. Also, he cautioned candidates not to get into a debate on governance so the voter can compare. That is precisely what Democrats need to do--get down and force the comparisons.

Virginia's Attorney-General is not just a homophobe but he is also a brither and discussed how to challenge Obama's eligibility legally. We have our own Orly Taitz, one of the Republican candidates for Secretary of State in California. Also speaking of wingnuts, Michelle Bachman obviously thinks the health care bill will pass because now she is saying that voters just won't obey it and refuse to pay taxes. This is a women who took an oath of office to uphold the Constitution.

Tomorrow the FCC unveils its plans to increase American internet speeds by 25 times and to increase broadband in rural areas. A real Zedfest. I happen to think this is as big as FDR rural electrification plans in the New Deal. And it plays into Obama's overall plan to transform the United States so it can be competitive again in the foreign arena. We are now limping along about 15th in the world in terms of speed and interconnectivity. In healthcare we are 37th and dropping down to our nearest competitor Cuba. Thank God, we're still number 1 in persons incarcerated and spending on national security.

Tan Man Boehner talked on the Sunday shows about not closing Gitmo. How yesterday! Let's close it and give the facility to the Richard Cheney Vice Presidential Library. Marc Thiessen can be the administrative director, welcoming tourists to this great monument to American strength.

The US-Israel flap is serious. AIPAC, Eric Cantor and Joe Lieberman attacked the Administraion for their criticism of Israel in its plans to erect more condos on Palestinian land. Hillary Clinton gave Bibi a 43 minute earful about the decision and the treatment of Joe Biden. Now friends of Israel say Bibi apologized and is reconsidering the decision so enough is enough. Sounds good but what was at stake was serious. The Obama Admiistration gave Israel its largest increase in aid in years. At the same time, State Department envoys were rounding up Arab states to recognize Israel the minute it agreed to open talks again with the Palestinians. Just open up talks. 22 countries signed on. So the State Department was reacting to the fact that Bibi caved to an extreme-right member of his coalition at precisely the time the Vice President was there to start the talks again and trigger the multiple recognition. Bibi lit an exploding cigar, which he will regret, not the Obama Administration.

Also, rumors are rushing around the Middle East that Honi Mubarack is dead after surgery in Germany. I don't how true but it will happen sooner rather than later. He's 81 and in poor health. That triggers a fight between his family and the Muslim Brotherhood, which is picking up more support because of the issues in Gaza.

More later when I get up to date.

The Conservative Crack-Up

While in Ethiopia, I received an e-mail with a large Black Face with Red Lips crying ,"It's all Bush's fault" from one of the many conservatives I know. This was a cartoon with commentary on the president's State of the Union address. My response was that Obama basically took and owns the entire Republican vocabulary on tax cuts for small businesses and the middle class, while leaving the Republicans to defend the banks, the rich and propose cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Throw in torture, Gitmo and endless wars and I'm not so sure I would want to defend the Republican positions on anything. While on-line in Addis, I watched as Obama slaughtered the Republican House members at their retreat in Baltimore. But none of my right-wing correspondents will acknowledge this, even cherry-picking a response where they thought one representative got the better of Obama (in the full context the guy looked like a fool.) I've concluded long ago that Republicans, conservatives and their tea bag allies have never listened to a single Obama speech or policy proposal. The President is deluding himself when he just invited the Republicans to debate health care at the White House this month.

While at the African Union heads of state meeting in Ethiopia, I noticed their agenda consisted of the topics of peace and security; maintaining constitutional government; and the role of IT in development. Having dealt with these issues for decades I thought I would find them just the same old same old. But today I find them refreshing. Whoever the African leaders might be and how little political will they may possess to implement what they discussed, the fact of the matter is that their discussion was rational and modern, a bracing change from the insanity of our own political discussions in the United States.

Yes, terrorism is a problem for them as they showed concern about developments in Somalia but it was discussed without the hysteria we now find in the United States. I found it amusing that the plane from Germany had a stop-over in Yemen, where a considerable number of German tourists were heading for just that--tourism.

Reviewing television news coverage of global events while in Africa it dawned on me that the United States was not that much of a story or even a factor political pundits even discussed. While this would seem parochial in the past, it comes across now that the United States is not "the indispensable country" Charles Krauthammer argued in 2000. Developments in alternative energy sources and new methods of manufacturing were covered by examining the role of Asian and European countries. In the dozens of shows I watched nothing innovative shown was of American origin. At most we received a tangential reference as a country warring here and there. The coverage of political causes around the world showed hundreds of voices from a variety of non-governmental organizations, few of whom had support from America.

The tone I picked up at the African Union was a fond remembrance of America as it existed decades ago and a certain support for Barack Obama, a son of Africa but more importantly as a leader of a developing country. The delegations at the African Union dealt with their own agenda as dictated by their own needs. A healthy development after all these years but somewhat disconcerting to an American, who now really stands outside their development priorities.

This all brings me back to the collapse of conservative thought in the United States and the shards of right-wing protests and rage. Since Woodrow Wilson, American exceptionalism had an intellectual content and policy implications. Now with the implosion of conservatives, it has taken a darker, some would say, sinister tone. The European and Asian communities still look toward the United States for leadership on a host of issues, particularly on the global financial crisis. They assume a fairly pragmatic leadership aimed at stabilizing the world's economy and putting in place a regulatory regime to prevent another fiscal meltdown. In return, they afford us forebearance on the issue of Afghanistan and perhaps even Iran. They have welcomed a new Administration, which is not prone to act unilaterally on issues and to bully former allies into compliance. But all that would change if the radical right ever see power in the United States.

Upon my return I was treated to the Teabag Convention in Nashville, which drew a whopping 600 members. For an historical footnote, the Unitarian Universalist Church held a convention in the same place in the late 1990s with over 1,500 delegates from different churches. the UUs are a very minor religion in the United States. They did not receive wall-to-wall coverage by our networks. The same will apply to the netroots convention in Las vegas later this year, which will outdraw even the UUs but will receive no media attention.

The Teabag Convention brought to a national audience Tom Tancredo, a second generation Italian-American, who raged against immigrants, called for literacy tests for voting and criticized voters who didn't speak English. He even called for all non-Christians to be expelled from the country. The entrepeneur Joseph Farah of World Net Daily spent a good amount of his address on the issue of whether Barack Obama was born in the United States, although anyone reading this blog knows this is irrelevant to anything other than to denounce the "other". The Queen of the Birthers Orly Taitz was there to drum up more funding for her futile attempts to make Obama's birth certificate a legal issue. When was the last time an American President was ever asked for his birth certificate?

The star of the show was Sarah Palin, who received a speaking fee of $100,000 for the gig. Deliberately eschewing a teleprompter in a criticism of Obama's eloquence, she fumbled through notecards and delivered a speech in her imitation hillbilly voice. She wore a US-Israeli flag pin since her religious beliefs call for the return of Jesus to Israel after a global war and the resurrection of the believers in "rapture". For this to occur, Jews must return to Israel and Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands must be extended if there is to be enough room. Of course, in the end days the Jews all get exterminated. Why Israel plays with these people is still beyond me.

One could dismiss this all if the polls of Republicans demonstrated any rationality. The Reseaarch 2000 poll of 2,000 Republicans showed that 65% believe Obama is a socialist; a plurality believe he should be impeached, about a half either believe he wasn't born in the United States or have doubts, and a majority believe Sarah Palin is more qualified than Obama to be President. That's not a serious party.

The conservative paradigm has failed and the religious right is filling it. One of the discussions at the Teabag Conventions was encouraging the end of the separation between Church and State. What we see now is that cultural conservatives are deliberating dividing the middle class, playing on the old wedge issues of abortion, gays and guns. The fact that many of these teabaggers actually share critics of government and the economy not unlike the Democrats is being diverted by all these peripheral issues.

The economic Republicans are no longer for the middle class or small businesses. They are in full tilt support of large corporations and the wealthiest of us. This is simply no sympathy for the vanishing Middle Class. The Middle Class is supposed to be kept in line by cultural conservatives, especially the religious right.

Neoconservatives have been trying to make a comeback through critiques of Obama's foreign policy, which in private they can not find much to disagree with. However, married to whatever emerges in Republican circles they will just be reduced to a position of bellicosity in the Middle East, which will satisfy the Religious Right.

But I noticed another e-mail from a former colleague who is running for the House as a Republican in Michigan. He is running against the stimulus package, for smaller government, for constitutional government, against closing Gitmo and giving terrorists Miranda rights. I have not had the heart to ask him whether smaller government means dismantling the $1 trillion military-terrorist complex. But when you look at all the anti-government proposals and spending cut rhetoric you have an argument to dismantle the entire social welfare system in the United States. The House Republican budget plan of privatizing Social Security and ending Medicare only flag the return of the 1920s economic theories of the Republicans.

Today, 30% of Americans are now in poverty--which these people would like to believe are the black underclass and Hispanics but the vast majority are white. The Middle Class in the United States has lost income steadily for twenty years and its quality of life is vanishing. In many ways, the teabaggers are a delayed reaction to the economic disaster of the Bush-Cheney years. That also explains why corporate interests are heavily funding parts of their organizations so that they can channel this anger at the Obama Administration. A few teabaggers did recoil at the Supreme Court's ruling on corporate giving to political campaigns but not the majority of their spokespeople.

The political answer for these people is a pugnacious nationalism based on the perceived grievances of the white middle-class. If you are not white,Christian and heterosexual, you are the "other" that is bringing the country down. We see this in the arguments of the anti-gay lawyers for Prop 8, arguing from books and studies written in the 1950s, wishing that Ozzie and Harriet were the model parental unit. The scree by Tom Tancredo brings back the anti-immigrant rhetoric found in many populist movements but also the longing to return to an America pre-civil rights.

No sober assessment will come from the conservative circles--they have become a conservative nomenklatura--the conservative foundation welfare queens. These people who control talk radio, Fox News and a myriad of think-tanks in Washington and elsewhere simply can not think questions anew. They are stuck in the Old Think. They still believe after a generation of Reagan that they are the minority pitted against the liberal media and secular culture of America. They fervantly believe despite their six-figure salaries they are the intellectually oppressed, who face ridicule for their beliefs.

This is also a theme being picked up by the Religious Right--somehow their freedom of religion is being jeopardized as their control over certain segments of the society slip away. We have seen that in the health reform debate when Catholics and evangelicals protested over the ability for women to choose. We see this in the whole anti-gay debate that gay marriage would be an imposition on the churches and their religious teaching. And we see this everyday in the attacks on science at the school board levels.

Personally, I resent like hell that the Religious Right dominates the parameters of the whole discussion on religion in this society. I have just come back from a society who has practiced Christianity since 330 and in every diocese of their church is an administrative unit that deals with poverty because they believe that is essential to Christianity. Across the street from the major Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Addis is Lucy, our primitive ancestor, along with other examples of pre-Homo Sapiens. There are no religious protestors here. There are no attacks on evolution or the insistance on creationism in what is still and underdeveloped country. Just a week away from our own neurosis allows one to get a perspective on how far down a wrong path we have gone.

The pattern emerging is the bleeding of radical extremes from white and Christian nationalism into the discourse of conservatives. There is a deliberate and frontal assault on the separation of church and state. There is the age-old recurrence of anti-immigration rhetoric we know from the Know-Nothings. In a situation where we seem to have lost control, there is a desire for law and order as well as social control. Because we Americans really believe we may win the lottery or get rich someday, these people do not want to tax the wealthy, large corporations or the banks because they have been conditioned to believe that they or their children might luck out.

Certainly, there is some reason to believe this. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are college dropouts who make over $50 million each and Sarah Palin has become a millionaire, despite quitting as elected Governor of Alaska and needing four colleges and five years to get a B.A. This has coarsened our debate.

But it has also led to a more dangerous situation--the denigration of education or anyone who is educated. What is fascinating to me is that neoconservatives prided themselves in the beginning on their elitism and their education. Irving Kristol was an accomplished social scientist, who believed that rational analysis would support policy arguments. Instead, now we have corporate funded think-tanks attacking everything from climate change to evolution. During the beginning of the Iraq War, the Pentagon hired a free-lance journalist to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq, while all the people with linguistic skills, regional expertise and religious understanding who concluded the opposite were cast aside. It will take a few more years of the Obama Administration before we can unravel the nonsense of the past in our fight against terrorism.

I believe the pattern of the right represents a incipient fascism. But let's say this does not fully mature. If these people return to power, what major power in the world will deal with the United States. The current climate on the right makes George W. Bush look like a moderate. No responsible economic power in the world could deal with a Palin or a Huckabee. The only ally the United States would have is Israel and only as long as the Likud and the far-right parties are in power. No one in their right mind would buy US Treasuries. We would automatically cease to be a major country on the world stage. This would indeed be American exceptionalism but not for the good.

And what about the "common good"--will there exist such a thing. Our own constitutional government is deeply threatened not only from the radical right but by the Supreme Court itself. The discovery by the Right of our Constitution goes back to the Christian Nationalist movement and their belief in full citizens and those after the civil war. Imagine having a woman married to a secessionist (Sarah Plain) extolling the virtues of the 14th amendment? You could not have made that up a few years ago without getting a laugh.

As I have written before, America's economic fate might be grim but it is essential that the idea of America be kept alive because even when we are dead people around the world can take solace and draw strength on the idea of America. Let's not be the instrument to kill the idea.