There's been a lot of talk about how Dems should take on McCain. Over at the Wonk Room, Elizabeth Edwards brilliantly demonstrates the way. She's responding to a McCain staffer's charge that she did not understand McCain's so-called health care plan:

I freely admit that I am confused about the role of overnight funding in repurchase markets in the collapse of Bear Stearns. What I am not confused about is John McCain's health care proposal. Apparently Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a senior policy advisor to McCain, thinks I do "not understand the comprehensive nature of the senator's proposal." The problem, Douglas, is that, despite fuzzy language and feel-good lines in the Senator's proposal, I do understand exactly how devastating it will be to people who have the health conditions with which the Senator and I are confronted (melanoma for him, breast cancer for me) but do not have the financial resources we have. In very unconfusing language: they are left outside the clinic doors.

She then proceeds to ask 4 straight questions. Here are the first two:

1. Under your plan, Senator McCain, would any health insurer be required to sell you or me (or those like us with pre-existing conditions) a health insurance policy?

2. You say your plan is going to increase competition to the point that it actually lowers costs. Isn't there competition today among insurance companies? Haven't costs continued to go up despite that competition?

Read the article and pass it along. Get everyone to call and mail the "news" shows asking them to let Elizabeth Edwards ask her questions next time they're giving McCain air time. How do you expose the falsity of McCain's "straight talker" image? Get the media to ask him intelligent questions like these. Elizabeth Edwards is setting the campaign standard that our remaining candidates, and the party as a whole, would do well to learn from and emulate.

I think a significant Obama win in WI today would mark the time for Clinton to start considering what she'd want in exchange for quitting the nomination race. So I got to imagining where she might be an asset to Obama's administration. She's competent, experienced in the ways of DC, and ambitious. She could be a significant asset But doing what?

Turns out to be a harder problem than I first thought. She has focused heavily on child welfare, so maybe Sec of Education. But she seems committed to the oppressive testing program and federal busybodying that characterize NCLB. I think states or other local governments need funding without all the bureaucracy. Would she be willing to make the transition?

Or there's Health and Human Services. But Bill's "welfare reform" makes that seem kind of iffy. And the shadow of her health-care disaster would be a barrier. Still, she could probably be counted on to get the theocracy out of the department's policies, which would be a big step forward from what we have now.

As AG, she'd certainly put a shitload of fear into the hearts of a bunch of Republicans. But where does she balance between civil liberties and the appearance of security? I'd worry that she'd tilt pretty far toward the latter.

Maybe the best spot, to my mind, would be Social Security administrator. Her administrative abilities and committment to SS might bring much-needed retooling. But would that be a visible enough position to interest her?

That's as far as I got. How about you?

Now that the primary tension seems likely to last for months more, maybe it's time for a little recreation. So here's the what-if question for today, while the glow lasts:

What if President Obama decided/had to give all his Dem primary opponents significant roles in his administration? Where would they go? Here's my list:

Dodd -- Attorney General -- civil liberties will be primary.
Edwards -- A new department of Resource Conservation combining Energy, Transportation, and parts of Interior and other agencies
Biden -- Veterans Affairs
Kucinich -- Interior -- he's most likely to stand up to the mining, petroleum, agbiz, timber, and real estate development lobbies.
Gravel -- National Endowment for the Arts -- Gravel is a performance artist. He might enable some really interesting stuff.
Clinton -- Education (except I agree with rightwingers that this Dept. should be shut down.)
Richardson -- State

The experiment indicates that that all the Dems are capable of something useful. Not so much with the other side. In the event that Obama insisted on this "reaching out" nonsense, I could only come up with two possibilities from the GOP Field of Drones:

Paul -- DEA
McCain -- Federal Election Commission

That's what I came up with. How about you?

Nearly half a year ago, Johns Hopkins researchers reported that the Iraq war had cost more than 600,000 civilian deaths. The US and British governments quickly countered with statements dismissing the study's methodology and conclusions. Their cause was helped by the sheer horror of such numbers and much lower estimates by Iraqi government spokespersons and other pro-invasion sources. The US government has steadfastly refused to release casualty figures with the excuse that "We don't do body bags."

Now the British Defence Ministry's chief scientific advisor has concluded that the Hopkins methodology is "robust" and recommends that the British government avoid public criticism of the report:

The British government was advised against publicly criticising a report estimating that 655,000 Iraqis had died due to the war, the BBC has learnt.

Iraqi Health Ministry figures put the toll at less than 10% of the total in the survey, published in the Lancet.

But the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said the survey's methods were "close to best practice" and the study design was "robust".

Another expert agreed the method was "tried and tested".

Apparently the document backing the study's methodology was released only after a BBC Freedom of Information demand, and after a 4-month delay. So the US and British governments knew about the conclusion even while they were trashing the study's methodology.

Just one more sickening example of the kind of lies and disinformation used to keep this murderous disaster going. At this time, no US "news" outlets other than NPR appear to have picked up the story.

Here's mine. What's yours?

Most beautiful sight: CNN's "Races where party control of seat has changed" table with every single entry starting with a "D". (Well, except for the "O" for Lieberman.) Was this a first?

Most pathetic pundit spin: David Brooks frantically explaining that the Dem victory is really evidence of a national move toward the right.

Most gratifying losses: Santorum. Pombo. Allen(?). Too many more to list.

Biggest winner: America's future.

Most painful loss: Duckworth in IL6, done in by unprecedented lies and viciousness by her opponent, the sick animal called Peter Roskam.

Most painful win: The aforementioned Roskam - talk about the smell of sulfur when he walks into a room - he and Bush could team up and preserve apricots just by breathing.

Most bittersweet Rep loss: Chaffee. The last of the decent Republicans. Why didn't he just go Indy?

Most bittersweet Dem win: Lieberman.

Biggest loser of all: Karl Turdblossom Rove. He finally demonstrated for all time that stupid bully sociopath does not = genius.

Unsung (or at least undersung) hero of Election 06: Howard Dean. Without him standing up to the pundits and consultants none of this would have happened. He changed history.

Most awesome national GOTV effort: MoveOn. I think they've proven themselves the natural heirs to leading a left wing of the party without waiting for election years.

Most embarrassing event in my neck of the woods: the total screwup of the new Cook County vote machine system: precincts couldn't transmit the votes, had to bring cartridges to election central offices, near riots fanned by the GOP candidate for County Board president. I guess we get to renew our franchise as poster boys for electoral dubiousness even though we don't come close to FL and OH, among others.

Most embarrassing national correspondent: Katie Couric.

Oddest media error: Listing Lieberman as the Dem while leaving the "independent" slot blank.

Best election count website: CNN.

11,000 top world business leaders who hate our freedom have attacked Bush and the GOP. According to a report by the World Economic Forum, the US has plunged from the world's most competitive economy to number 6, behind Switzerland, three Scandanavian countries, and Singapore.

The Forum attributes America's deteriorating business climate to huge debt and deficit, falling confidence in the nation's leadership, and inadequate health and education support:

Published: September 26, 2006
GENEVA U.S. economic competitiveness fell significantly over the last year, as high budget and trade deficits combined with low health and education standards to worsen America's business environment, according to a survey released Tuesday by the World Economic Forum.

The poor response to Hurricane Katrina, government corruption and a decreasing talent pool for employment due to immigration restrictions were other factors cited by the forum, which moved the United States to sixth in its "global competitiveness index" from the top spot a year ago.

"While strengths in the technological and market efficiency sectors explain the country's overall high rank, the U.S. economy suffers from striking weaknesses," the report said. "There is significant risk to both the country's overall competitiveness and, given the relative size of the U.S., the future of the global economy."

Really, thanks a ton, GOP. You're the party of business, right? You sure did a bang-up job for some other countries, at least. Switzerland thanks you. Finland, Sweden and Norway thank you. Singapore thanks you. What Americans want to know, though, is: are you as good at keeping us safe as you are at keeping us competitive? There's an intelligence report out there that has the sad answer to that one, too.

[Slightly different version at Orange]

ABC's crapumentary "The Path to 9/11" is evidently one of the most blatant political propaganda pieces ever marketed by a major media organization. I think we can use Hollywood's most brilliant propaganda tool, the movie blurb, to put it in its proper context. There are folks around here who would have no problem taking video and audio clips from ABC advertising and adding our own special blurbs. And providing them to the rest of us to spread around the Net and elsewhere as widely as possible. Here are a few choice blurbs to start with:

"It's utterly invented...It's 180 degrees from what happened." -- Former Bush terrorism czar Richard Clarke

"...none of that ever happened" --9/11 Commissioner Tim Roemer

"As we were watching, we were trying to think how they could have misinterpreted the 9/11 Commission's findings the way that they had." -- 9/11 Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste

"They're making things up." -- Unnamed FBI agent hired as an advisor to the film, who then quit.

"the actors, scenes and statements in the series are not found in -- and, indeed, are contradicted by -- our findings." 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick

"Flimsy fiction.... It could not be more amateurish or poorly constructed unless someone had forgotten to light the sets.(zero stars). " -- Doug Elfman, Chicago Sun-Times

"like being led around the world, half-drunk and half-blind." -- Heather Havrilesky, Salon

"fictionalized" -- 911 Commission chair Thomas Kean

"ham-fisted....fails to tell an inherently dramatic story well" Rob Owen, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Tech stuff" tends to get dismissed in the political sphere, but I think phenomena like open-source software and Internet-based communications offer one of the last little hopes in a nation gone wacko. They are working examples of democratic access and cooperative effort. I believe these technologies and the new social patterns they nurture will be models for new ways of working and communicating for the common good.

The openness and uncontrollability of the Internet has been sticking in the throats of the oligarchy for a long time. Now special interests including Verizon, ATT, Comcast, and other carriers are attempting to slam the door on an open net -- the first gambit in privatizing one of the last open commons we still have. They want to create a multi-tier system where sites can pay the carriers extra to get first-class rides on an increasingly clogged internet. That means independent, political, artistic, and nonprofit sites would become 3rd-class passengers on a Net dominated by big money --  sound familiar?

Fortunately, there is political resistance:

NPR has been running an investigative story that managed even now to shock me senseless. Nobody else has touched it among the media or even the blogs, as far as I can see.

One floor of NOLO's Memorial Hospital was leased to a nursing home.

There, doctors and nurses were faced with few options. Conditions were deteriorating rapidly, evacuations were sporadic and security was compromised. Staff agonized whether to attempt to transport critically ill patients who might not survive the arduous evacuation. It appears another choice was considered: whether to end the lives of those who could not be moved. In the court documents reviewed by NPR, none of four key witnesses say they knew who made the decision to administer lethal doses of painkillers to the patients. But all four heard discussions that a decision had been made to end patients' lives. According to the documents, attorneys for LifeCare self-reported all of this to the Louisiana attorney general's office on Sept. 14, 2005.

That patients were killed seems factual. Whether those who made that decision deserve prison or praise is less clear. Listen to the NPR reports and decide for yourself. In all the heartbreaking reports, recriminations, and testimony about Katrina, nothing has shaken me like this story. Nothing has slammed home the horror and the criminal incompetence and indifference that revealed the mighty US of A as a pathetic banana republic like this story. Even after all those TV hours with Katrina, nothing has made me tear my hair and scream "How could this happen?" like this.

Listen to the audio, to the personal stories and interviews. They may change you forever.

The latest poll from Survey USA has Bush now at 37 approve, 60 disapprove. Not too different from what we've been seeing, but these results break down by state, and I think they're breathtaking. They go a long way to explain the sudden seeing of the light by GOP and DINO pols.

According to the survey, Bush gets positive ratings in only 4 states: Idaho, Utah, Mississippi, and Montana -- and even his Mississippi numbers, 48/50, are statistically a dead heat.

Maybe I haven't been paying attention, but I find these numbers absolutely amazing. Bush is way down in places like Indiana (45/53), Texas (44/52)!, and South Dakota (45/53). And take a look at these red state shockers: Nevada, 39/59. Missouri, 38/60. Florida, 37/61. Ohio, 36/63.

These are landslide numbers, and they they are as wide as they are deep. Except for 3 states, GOP incumbents across the country are gonna have to try their damndest to distance from the Regime next year. Nobody should be talking about which congressional seats are in play any more. They all are, and the Dems need to act accordingly.

The current battle over Supreme Court appointments reveals more than just partisan bickering. It spotlights basic flaws in the US judicial system. Among the most obvious questions is the lifelong tenure granted to Supreme Court justices. Roberts, for example, may run the court through the terms of the next 10 presidents.

An excellent article by Ronald Brownstein in the LA Times reports that a growing coalition from the left and right is questioning whether lifetime appointments still serve the purposes intended by the founders:

Justices today, on average, remain on the high court longer and retire at a more advanced age than ever before. Supreme Court justices now routinely serve a quarter-century or more. No justice has retired at an age younger than 75 since 1981 (when Potter Stewart stepped down at 66).

The Soviet Politburo probably turned over faster.

Which is why an informal band of prominent legal thinkers from left and right is challenging the Constitution's grant of lifetime tenure to Supreme Court justices. With life spans lengthening, and the court's members clinging so tenaciously to their robes, these critics want to limit justices to a single fixed term, usually set at 18 years.

So far, no prominent politician has joined them. But the idea seems destined to generate more discussion as frustration in both parties mounts over the process of selecting and confirming Supreme Court nominees.

As far as I know, AP doesn't usually run editorial comment. It made an exception for the handling of the disaster, though, and did a masterful job of summing up the anguish so many Americans feel at what has been allowed to happen. Without rhetoric or direct accusation, it asks the question that cuts right to the bone:

Is this happening in America?

....

But if a reporter can interview a man standing outside a looted drugstore, and record his reluctance at having to go inside and steal pads for incontinence, why couldn't someone get medical supplies to the people huddled at the Superdome or the convention center in time, or the buses promised to evacuate them?

There are more questions than answers, and will be for years to come. That's the nature of disaster, and its aftermath. They expose our fragility, overwhelm our best intentions, mock our attempts to impose the sense of calm and order that prevails when life proceeds according to some rough plan.

Yet, ultimately, that's what is most unsettling about the constant stream of images: The suffering goes on not just for hours, but for days after we should have and could have ended it. And for all the commissions, reports and bravado that passes for preparedness, we didn't. It was a hand we never expected to be dealt.

Here.

There will be time enough, too, to assess blame, for politicians to point fingers, find and fire those deemed accountable. And maybe even to figure out how a handful of Southeast Asian governments, whose economies, armies and emergency resources could all be folded comfortably several times inside those of the United States, responded to a tsunami much larger and fiercer than Hurricane Katrina with swiftness and efficiency, and we could not. And so the frustration builds, not so much over what happened, but what did not.

Here.

The piece deserves reading in its entirety

Cindy Sheehan catches hearts and consciences worldwide with her struggle to transform personal grief and anger into a drive to save other Americans from the fate suffered by her son and herself and her family. She is met with indifference by a president and a GOP whose only interest is "projecting American will".

The tragedy goes beyond Cindy, beyond all the American victims of Bush's crime. We all know that the invasion has killed more than 100,000 Iraqis, most of them innocents. The neoconjobbers tell us it's all worth it because the end will be an Iraq transformed from brutal dictatorship into a shining light of freedom and democracy. Never mind that they didn't ask us to "give" them that gift, nor ever had any say in what price they were willing to pay. Never mind that the US is itself no beacon of freedom or democracy -- how do you "give" what you yourself do not have?

Never mind that we had no right to impose the gift that keeps on gutting. At least we're making things better, right? Iraqis, if there were pollsters with the cahones to ask the question would say, Yes, we're better off now then we were four years ago, right?

No, not even that, judging from the recent spate of gloomy news from Iraqis and journalists. An NYT Week in Review article by Dexter Filkins provides the best short summary I've seen in the mainstream press of what's been accomplished:

In 28 months of war and occupation here, Iraq has always contained two parallel worlds: the world of the Green Zone and the constitution and the rule of law; and the anarchical, unpredictable world outside.

Never have the two worlds seemed so far apart.

From the beginning, the hope here has been that the Iraq outside the Green Zone would grow to resemble the safe and tidy world inside it; that the success of democracy would begin to drain away the anger that pushes the insurgency forward. This may have been what Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was referring to when, in an interview published in Time magazine this month, she said that the insurgency was losing steam and that rather quiet political progress was transforming the country.

But in this third summer of war, the American project in Iraq has never seemed so wilted and sapped of life. It's not just the guerrillas, who are churning away at their relentless pace, attacking American forces about 65 times a day. It is most everything else, too.

Baghdad seems a city transported from the Middle Ages: a scattering of high-walled fortresses, each protected by a group of armed men. The area between the forts is a lawless no man's land, menaced by bandits and brigands. With the daytime temperatures here hovering at around 115 degrees, the electricity in much of the city flows for only about four hours a day.

....

Americans, here and in the United States, wait for the day when the Iraqi police and army will shoulder the burden and let them go home.

One night last month, according to the locals, the Iraqi police and army surrounded the Sunni neighborhood of Sababkar in north Baghdad, and pulled 11 young men from their beds.

Their bodies were found the next day with bullet holes in their temples. The cheeks of some of the men had been punctured by electric drills. One man had been burned by acid. The police denied that they had been involved.

"This isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened," Adnan al-Dulami, a Sunni leader, said.

Tragedy is a terrible thing. Senseless tragedy is even more terrible. "We" have failed miserably to accomplish any good in Iraq at all. Even the solace of good intentions, of an end that justifies, if not the means, at least something worthwhile, is denied Cindy Sheehan and the rest of the Iraqi and American victims of Bush's crimes. If the US were a consultant hired to improve the Iraq company, it would now be bankrupt, disgraced, and facing devastating criminal and civil liability.

All that is left to us now is to get the hell out, make what reparations we can, and place our nation and our "leaders" at the mercy of a world court. Justice will not be done, lives and nations will not be restored, but perhaps we can still obtain a little satisfaction, at least, for the recipients of Bush's deady embrace.

I keep thinking I'm used to it, and then some little thing comes along that gets me agonizing about the death of reality in America. This time it was in the persona of Cheney. An AP report contrasted the little lie with the reality with hilarious (and probably inadvertent) sharpness when Cheney decided to attack Dean:

"I've never been able to understand his appeal. Maybe his mother loved him, but I've never met anybody who does. He's never won anything, as best I can tell," Cheney said in an interview on Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes.

Dean was elected governor of Vermont five times between 1992 and 2000.

So what is it with this bunch? Cheney doesn't know Dean was governor of Vermont, or he thinks governors there are appointed by Jesus or somebody? Or the Bushies are reduced to talking only to their idiot groupies who lack the basic faculties to spot the most in-your-face lie? My guess is that lying is just what this crowd naturally does like dogs naturally dig things up, and
they're so far along in their mutually reinforced WhackoWorld that they can't even put on their clothes for the tourists any more. Or Cheney's just really, honest to god nuts.

Other explanations would be most welcome.