Politics

Did you know that our President is a poet? Neither did I — thankfully, CNN gives us a taste of his lyrical genius.

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Oh my, lump in the bed
How I’ve missed you.
Roses are redder
Bluer am I
Seeing you kissed by that charming French guy.
The dogs and the cat, they missed you too
Barney’s still mad you dropped him, he ate your shoe
The distance, my dear, has been such a barrier
Next time you want an adventure, just land on a carrier.

(via sTaRe)

Hmmm — seems like I need to get out of the house and go to some of the local Dean meet-ups at some point. Apparently, they’re the newest hot place to meet singles!

Though Wesley Clark may emerge as the boomer favorite among the Democratic presidential candidates, the hipster choice so far is Howard Dean. It’s not just his rolled-up sleeves or down-home oratory style; over the past three months, his events have developed a reputation as de facto singles mixers for young activists on the make.

Many of the events are set up through Meetup.com, a nonpolitical site that lets users arrange events. Most Dean meet-ups (nicknamed “meat-ups” by some) are in flirt-friendly locales like bars and restaurants. There are so many swinging supporters that they’ve formed a group, Singles for Dean, and the campaign recently launched Deanlink, where users post provocative photos alongside their political interests.

[…]

Straight women, meanwhile, have been spreading the word that Dean guys are passionate and cute. “I want to meet some nice, hunky, liberal-minded boys who aren’t apathetic losers living in their parents’ basements,” says Abigail Gullo, 30, an actress and teacher who has attended two meet-ups and a recent fund-raiser at Avalon. Dean guys, she says, are attractive, if not studly—kind of like the doctor himself. “It’s the dorky-glasses, slightly-thinning-hair-but-I’m-really-not-worried-about-it look. They’re hipsters who have given up the ironic T-shirts and are now in refined primary colors and button-down guayabera shirts. But they’re there! And that immediately puts them leaps and bounds ahead of any guy I’m going to meet on Match.com.”

(via Lane)

From an (admittedly wonderfully written, if one has the brain cells to read between the lines) article about a Wisconsin pro-Bush/anti-Dean rally:

Tom O’Day, chairman of the Republican Party of Dane County, offered a free copy of former Gov. Tommy Thompson’s book, “Power to the People,” and a button to the person who came up with the cleverest anti-Dean poster. The aroma of markers filled the bus, as the students searched aloud for words that rhyme with “Dean.”

[…]

…back on the bus driving through a cold rain, the students were both energized and weary. A good bit into the trip, O’Day stood and said it was time to choose a winner of the anti-Howard Dean poster contest.

“All in favor of, ‘Dean is a Ween, Don’t Bring it to My Bush’?”

No applause.

“Dean Can’t Measure Up, Four More Years”?

Mild applause.

“Dean’s a Queen, Vote Bush”?

Very mild applause.

“I think the queen’s got it,” O’Day said, delivering the Tommy Thompson book to the young woman in the back of the bus who created the poster. She would not reveal her name.

(via Joe Rospars)

Salon has a fascinating article by former counsel to President Nixon John W. Dean, who uses some little-known information about the Watergate scandal to advise Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame to file a civil suit in an attempt to break the current scandal wide open.

I thought I had seen political dirty tricks as foul as they could get, but I was wrong. In blowing the cover of CIA agent Valerie Plame to take political revenge on her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for telling the truth, Bush’s people have out-Nixoned Nixon’s people. And my former colleagues were not amateurs by any means.

[…]

[Nobody] I knew while working at the Nixon White House had the necessary viciousness, or depravity, to attack the wife of a perceived enemy by employing potentially life-threatening tactics.

So let me share a bit of history with Ambassador Wilson and his wife. And, well aware that gratuitous advice is rightfully suspect, let me also offer them a suggestion — drawn from some pages of Watergate history that till now I’ve only had occasion to discuss privately. Long before Congress became involved and a special prosecutor was appointed, Joe Califano, then general counsel to the Democratic National Committee and later a Cabinet officer, persuaded his Democratic colleagues to file a civil suit against the Nixon reelection committee. And that maneuver almost broke the Watergate coverup wide open. In seeking justice from the closed ranks of the Bush White House, Wilson and Plame should follow a similar strategy.

It’s a very interesting look back at Watergate, and forward to where things could go in the near future.

On a side note — does anyone know of a really good book (or books) about the Watergate scandal? While it wasn’t entirely “before my time”, I was extremely young when it happened, and I’d like to know a bit more about it. Recommendations are very welcome.

(via Mediaburn)

While I don’t live up north anymore, I know that about half my readership (mom, dad, Stacy, and Kirsten — yeah, that’s about half) still do. For those of you that might be interested in Dean, if you haven’t found this yet, it appears that there is an Alaskans for Dean Yahoo! group, as well as a Fairbanks for Dean Yahoo! group. Not to mention the Alaska for Dean site, though it’s pretty sparse, unfortunately.

(via Jonathan K-T)

It’s a little unclear, but it looks like Bob Graham is abandoning the Democratic nomination race.

Democrat Bob Graham told a Senate colleague Thursday that he would abandon his struggling presidential bid, a Democratic source said, but in a day filled with mixed signals, aides said he will continue to campaign.

One down…nine to go.

(via Atrios)

Very interesting tidbit in the midst of this MSNBC look at Democratic fundraising:

Taking the party-wide view, [Democratic fund-raiser Simon] Rosenberg pointed to what almost no one else has noticed: Based on the preliminary estimates for the third quarter, the 10-person Democratic field collectively will have outraised the Bush campaign, an indication of how fired up Democratic donors are.

“If Bush is this supposed fund-raising king, then this so-called ‘weak’ Democratic field — to use Karl Rove’s word — is outraising him,” Rosenberg said.

(via Mathew Gross)

I haven’t said much (anything) about the current scandal over the outed CIA operative, but this blew my mind. From an NPR interview between Robert Seigel and Nina Totenberg, as quoted by Atrios:

The White house asked for and got permission earlier this week to wait a day before issuing a directive to preserve all documents and logs which led one seasoned federal prosecutor to wonder why they wanted to wait a day, and who at the justice department told them they could do that, and why?

Why, indeed? Why in the world — in any potential scandal, especially one of this magnitude — would the guilty parties be given 24-hour notice so that they could clean out their e-mail inboxes, fire up the shredders, or do whatever else might need to be done to cover their tracks?

Wow. It looks like I owe the Dean campaign something of an apology. In my Dean/Clark post last Friday, I said this:

…his campaign’s current “5 million in 10 days” fundraising drive struck me as fairly ludicrous when I saw it (even with the fundraising skills they’ve demonstrated, that’s a lot of money in very little time, and if they don’t make their goal, then no matter how much money they do raise, it will be perceived as a “failure” because for the first time, Dean couldn’t meet or break a fundraising goal…they seem to be setting themselves up for bad press)…

While the bat graphic hasn’t been updated since sometime last night, it appears that they pulled it off. Joe Trippi posted a big thank you note last night, with the final count:

Our original goal for this quarter was \$7.6 million — to match what you accomplished last quarter. When we saw that we would surpass that goal we raised the bar to matching the record set by President Clinton. 10 days ago we had raised \$9.7 million and we set the goal of raising \$5 million dollars in just 10 days. You did that. Tonight we sit at \$14.8 million — \$5.1 million over 10 days.

That’s just incredible. Congratulations to the Dean campaign, and to everyone who chipped in to fill those bats. Good work.