I'd like to think that our side -- by which I mean Obama supporters, not the larger our side of the Democratic left -- would be above saying the kind of stupid things that their side -- the "their side" of our side, Clinton supporters -- have a habit of saying. If I did think that, I'd be wrong.

Over at HuffPo, Flavia Colgan writes about the recent flap regarding Bill Clinton's shady dealings on behalf of Colombia's neo-fascist government.

I would expect, and even welcome, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton arguing about policy behind closed doors. It can only help the senator form a more informed, wise position on critical issues. [...] At some point, when Sen. Clinton claims she was trying to defeat the Colombian free trade deal, Bill Clinton must have told her that he was planning on making some money to promote the deal, and helping the Colombian president deflect attention from his offensive record. What did Sen. Clinton tell the former president at that point?

Fair enough. It's not a bad thing for the Clintons to disagree, but it is a bad thing if they really do agree and Hillary Clinton is deceiving us. But then Colgan goes off into la-la land.

I don't often diary because I seldom have any topic that I want to rant about at length, at least not without provocation. (Today is actually an exception, but that topic is a guaranteed flamewar, so I'm letting it pass.) But I do often have some simple thing that's bugging me, so I'm going to start posting the one that bugs me most every Sunday.

In the midst of the inherently heated internecine fighting that goes with primary season, I'd like to take a minute to get some honest and hopefully well-reasoned opinions from folks in the Clinton camp about why they support their candidate. Let me start by saying that I'm not looking for a debate nor am I encouraging one -- we have plenty of that going on already. I'm just genuinely curious about the motivations of Clinton supporters.

All the recent talk of Republicans and the religious right and their sex crimes reminded me of something I wanted to do a long time ago and never got around to: create a blog devoted to that very subject.

I keep hoping things will change for the better. I keep voting for things to change for the better. Thing are not, however, changing for the better, and if I am going to be coldly rational about the situation here, I have to seriously consider emigration.

In the latest episode of the ever-popular game of I'm-Not-Really-A-Racist-Asshole, the former chairman of the Roger Williams University, Ralph Papitto board admitted to and apologized for saying "nigger" during a board meeting. (I refuse to use the cutesy "N-word" expression; it's an ugly thing to say, and shouldn't be reported as if it was some kind of baby-talk euphemism.) Papitto stepped down after 40 years on the board, reportedly after being pressured off in response to the remark, which he made while discussing the difficulty of recruiting minorities for the board. Prior to that, several board members were forced out in response to their attempts to remove Papitto.

As everyone knows by now, Harriet Miers, acting under orders from the President, has refused to appear before Congress in defiance of a subpoena. In so doing, she has placed herself completely at the mercy of the House Judiciary committee -- if John Conyers is on the ball, anyway.

In today's news:

Fielding on Thursday explained Bush's position on executive privilege this way: "For the president to perform his constitutional duties, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice and that free and open discussions and deliberations occur among his advisers and between those advisers and others within and outside the Executive Branch."

Really?

I'm going to run against the conventional wisdom on this one. Iraq is not in the midst of a civil war. "Sectarian violence" doesn't describe it well, either. I'm not sure that there is a good term for it, to tell the truth.

It occurred to me, while I was chatting with some of the GOP operatives who work in my office building during a smoke break that this is ultimately not an interparty issue. Forget Hastert's nattering about the liberal media and George Soros (read: Jewish investment bankers, a nod to his Klan base). Democrats really don't have a whole lot of actual interest in this issue. We think it's hysterically funny to watch the GOP implode, but I really doubt this will have much effect on either registered Democrats or independent voters.

As a regular reader of The Guardian, for which you may thank Steve Bell, I am often perplexed by British politics. Some things I understand, like parliamentary democracy, which I wish we had here. Other things, like the unwritten constitution, frankly baffle me. And some times, the slow but sure divergence between British English and American English leaves me flummoxed, as when a headline proclaimed, "Tories angered by yobs' defiance of Asbos," which required me to corner an English friend to explain what "yobs" and "Asbos" were.

Perhaps our British friends are similarly confused by features of American politics, so I thought I would try starting a weekly transatlantic Q&A session so we can satisfy our curiosity about each other. So let's begin with the first installment of WTF: US-UK.

In Tony Blair's England, there is a serious effort to criminalize criticism of religion. In theory, the object of this is to prevent, for example, Muslim clerics from calling for the extermination of Jews. In practice, however, the UK already has laws against the incitement of hatred and violence. The real, effective purpose of the new initiative is to make it impossible for secular critics to attack religion. New Labour, after all, is the UK's answer to the DLC, cynically snuggling up to their own wingnuts.

The UK, however, is not alone. In the religious hothouse of the United States, similar forces are at work.

When John Ashcroft appeared before Congress to deny that the Justice Department engaged in torture, he argued that, not only was torture morally repugnant, it wasn't even effective. Torture victims will, after all, confess to anything just to make the pain stop.

Vice President Cheney and various other GOP politicians and pundits seem unconvinced. For this reason, I'd like to offer an open challenge to them:

From the Guardian:

British families trapped in New Orleans last night claimed that US authorities had refused to evacuate them as Hurricane Katrina approached the city.

Although assistance was offered to US residents, British nationals were told they would have to fend for themselves. According to those who remain stranded in the stricken city, police had visited hotels and guest houses on the eve of the hurricane offering to evacuate Americans, but not Britons.