Wednesday Roundup: Clinton Remix, Cheney's Disappearing Email, Another Obama Endorsement

Here's a fun mashup of Hillary Clinton's hypocritical "Shame on You" blowup:



And, it turns out Dick Cheney knows how to press "delete": When Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald wanted to find out what was going on inside Vice President Dick Cheney's office, the prosecutor in the CIA leak probe made a logical move. He dropped a grand jury subpoena on the White House for all the relevant e-mail. One problem: Even though White House computer technicians hunted high and low, an entire week's worth of e-mail from Cheney's office was missing.

A civil rights leader and superdelegate switched from Clinton to Obama: "Something's happening in America, something some of us did not see coming. Barack Obama has tapped into something that is extraordinary," said Georgia Democratic Rep. John Lewis.

Obama and McCain are already going at it over Iraq: "John McCain may like to say he wants to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell, but so far all he's done is follow George Bush into a misguided war in Iraq that's cost us thousands of lives and billions of dollars."

Seven Things Hillary Clinton Can Do To Win My Vote in the March 4th Primary

Yesterday, scientists announced that Prozac doesn't really work. That's too bad, because Hillary Clinton's desperation level is making me feel pretty sad for her lately. In order to help restore some of the woman's long-lost dignity before she sabotages the entire democratic process, I am offering up my March 4th primary vote to Mrs. Clinton if she agrees to meet the following conditions.

Take note, oh hideously desperate lady of politics:

1. Admit your mistakes. This is the first step in any recovery, but it's such a long list for you that we'll have to chop it down. You can start by admitting that your campaign is attempting to portray your opponent as a Muslim because you think Americans hate Muslims. Go ahead, admit you are trying to turn Americans of different religions against each other just so you can win votes from the working-class people you look down upon in Ohio (a tactic you learned from your Republican friends). You can then admit that you voted for the Iraq war because it was the politically safe stance at the time and then switched your stance when it became unpopular. Admit you screwed Ohioans out of their jobs by pushing NAFTA and are now pretending you didn't so that you can get those poor people to vote for you now that you need them. Perhaps we can shorten this one down to: Admit you don't stand for anything and will do whatever is necessary to get elected.

2. Renounce your unfair claim to the Florida and Michigan delegates. Show a shred of decency and agree to abide by the rules that you said you would abide by instead of trying to cheat the system. Announce it today, and we'll knock an extra item off this list since it will make you seem much less repugnant.

3. Stop campaigning against hope. Whoever told you to give speeches criticizing your opponent for offering hope does not deserve the hundreds of thousands of dollars you're paying them to make decisions for you. Fire them and start talking about your own brand of hope instead of coming off like a school teacher who wants to cancel recess.

4. Come up with a real universal health care plan. You claim 35 years of experience but somehow have never come close to getting universal health care passed. Now you insist you've got a better plan, but even Michael Moore says it's crap. Try coming up with a plan that doesn't unfairly garnish my wages.

5. Show a little consistency. Start by maybe trying to be the same person for five minutes. Then try working on an hour, and possibly move on to a day. I'm sick of reading about all the different personalities and stances you're taking out of desperation to try to revive your sinking campaign. You go from shaking Obama's hand to telling him "Shame on you" and accusing him of being like Karl Rove and George W. Bush when, um, No, he's not.

6. Stop calling the kettle black. This has multiple meanings, but we'll overlook your husband's race baiting for now. What I'm talking about here is your recent attempt to portray Obama as someone who is running a dirty campaign and who somehow takes after the neocons. I know that your political advisors are telling you this is a solid strategy because that's the traditional neocon wisdom on which you're basing your flailing campaign. But get a clue: Obama's strategy is constructed to exploit this tactic. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the majority of Democrats think you're making an idiot of yourself by attacking Obama for doing the very things you are doing. After all, you're basically just spending a lot of lobbyist money and hot air trying to convince everyone he's just as corrupt as you. Good luck with that.

7. Stop crying on the eve of election nights. I didn't see you cry when you gave George W. Bush the right to launch an illegal, borderline genocidal war in Iraq. Nor did I catch any tears on your face when the towers went down on 9/11. But now suddenly you get all choked up for the cameras when telling people how hard it is to run for president? After spending millions of dollars and countless hours campaigning, you've made one thing abundantly clear: the only person you care about is Hillary Clinton.

So, there it is, Hill. Seven steps to get my vote. All would be reasonably attainable for a person of substance and would cost much less than the campaign you're waging.

But then again, what would you know about responsible spending?

Ralph Nader Attacks Democrats For Not Being Named Ralph Nader

Amidst the nearly unprecedented interest in the Democratic primaries and an unusually high satisfaction with the remaining left-wing presidential hopefuls, Ralph Nader sees something very wrong. The problem: None of the candidates are named Ralph Nader.

Nader, who turns 74 later this month, apparently views the whopping 0.3% of the vote he earned in the 2004 presidential election as a mandate to squander more time, energy, and ballot ink on another campaign in '08.

He once again based his decision to run on a few convoluted reasons (electoral reform, corporate greed) that completely disregard the actual, wide-ranging job description of president (uniting and leading people, building coalitions, creating jobs, running the military).

When you think about it, Ralph Nader's about as suited to control the most powerful nation in the world as I am suited to run General Motors. Just because I can idealistically point out some of the flaws in GM doesn't mean I am fit to be its CEO. As a matter of fact, maybe I'll send off an email to GM right now just to defend my right to apply for executive-level jobs. I'll attack all the experienced candidates as being "automotive-industry insiders beholden to corporate interests" and tout my ability to run an online literary magazine as somehow relevant to automobile manufacturing. I'll cry foul if they don't interview me, claiming that their system is corrupt. Maybe if I tell everyone about it, my name will appear in all the news wires. People will take note of my altruistic audacity and idealism. I will be famous, and people will say, "That Matt Borondy is morally superior to everyone else. He really should be in charge of a major car company."

During Nader's announcement, he sounded like a true John McCain supporter in attacking the most progressive of the remaining candidates, Barack Obama, implying the young Illinois senator's very successful campaign of hope "lacks substance."

"(Obama's) leaned, if anything, toward the pro-corporate side of policy-making," complained Nader, who in the year 2000 owned $3 million worth of stock in corporations.

Barack Obama, the current favorite to earn the Democratic nomination, responded: "My sense is that Mr. Nader is somebody who, if you don't listen and adopt all of his policies, thinks you're not substantive...He seems to have a pretty high opinion of his own work."

Both Nader and Obama rely on the energy and idealism of young people for support. However, Nader is nearly thirty years older and far less charismatic than Obama, so he has little hope of attracting their attention. Perhaps he could lecture them by saying, "I was fighting for consumer rights before you were even born."

So, why is he entering the race?

Maybe he really does care about the rights of marginal, extremely unqualified candidates (can you picture Ralph Nader as commander-in-chief?) to get their names on the ballot. Or perhaps he plans to pull a Hillary Clinton and blow his supporters' hard-earned cash in a Vegas casino.

Either way, conservative nutjob Mike Huckabee, who knows a thing or two about futile, self-promotional campaigns, fully endorses the run.

"Naturally, Republicans would welcome his entry into the race," said the shameless exploiter of religious people.

Green For All: fighting poverty and pollution

Green For All is an organization advocating for a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. We've heard the presidential candidates talk about green-collar jobs; click here to read what exactly a green-collared job is.

With an increasingly urgent need to think of new ways to counter our two most daunting problems: poverty and pollution, Green For All is a great campaign to support and learn more about. Make sure to check out the Clinton-Obama comparison article on green jobs, and resources on green service opportunities.

Restoring checks and balances

How do we fix the current trend of wireless wiretapping, illegal torture, suspension of habeas corpus, and other monarchical prerogatives imposed by the Bush administration? Aziz Huq, Director of the Liberty and National Security Project at the Brennan Center, outlines twelve steps to restore constitutional balance:

For the President and Presidential candidates: Mr. Huq asks the President and candidates for executive office to renounce the theory of the monarchical presidency (first offered by then Rep. Dick Cheney in the minority report on the Iran-Contra scandal), renounce the use of signing statements to circumvent the law, and agree to disclose past legal opinions that have influenced the President's use of national security powers.

For Congress: Mr. Huq proposes an immediate, articulated official end to government-sanctioned torture, restoration of habeas corpus, greater Congressional oversight of intelligence activities and the Inspector General system, increased regulation of claims of executive privilege, reformation of the Office of Legal Counsel, and, enactment of new laws to limit excessive secrecy and the use of the state secrets privilege. The last step of the proposal calls for the creation of a new "Church Committee" to conduct a "thorough accounting of national security policy and its systemic flaws."

(Read the full report here.)

Another Reason to Love Ben & Jerry's

Ice cream gods Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield have not only launched a new ice cream -- "Cherries for Change" -- in support of presidential hopeful Barack Obama, they've also just unveiled two new Honda Elements they're calling "ObamaMobiles" that they are loaning to his campaign.

The reason for the endorsement of B&J? "If there was ever a need for real change, and if there ever was a candidate to inspire us and make that happen, it's now," said Ben Cohen. It's something that truly resonates with the duo, who opened their ice cream shop 30 years ago in Burlington by doing things differently, "instead of copying the 'tired ways' of doing business."

Hope they have some of that ice cream at the ballot boxes on March 4. Read more here.

Yes, you (we) can: Identity Theory endorses Obama

We at Identity Theory are excited to finally--for the first time in our lives--have a major-party presidential candidate who is truly presidential. A candidate who, for once, runs a dignified campaign brimming with inspiration rather than desperation. A candidate whom we trust to make wise decisions based on moral courage rather than rapacious greed. A candidate who, unlike our current administration, will neither use religion as a tool of manipulation nor use fear as a tool of spiritual oppression.

We believe Barack Obama can provide leadership that will unite people from all backgrounds, which his current opponent (Hillary Clinton) and probable future opponent (John McCain) decidedly cannot. We believe Mr. Obama can provide much-needed hope for a nation teetering on the brink of a depression and stuck in a misguided war. We are certain that he is the only candidate capable of making the decisions necessary to pull our country from the grips of the Rovian, faux-Christian machine of corporate fascism that has torn the country apart for the past seven-plus years.

The George W. Bush era will be the worst of any American's lifetime. At least, we hope it doesn't get any more terrible than this. He has torn up the Constitution and stripped us of our basic rights to privacy in the name of freedom. He has saddled us with an illegal and immoral war (in the name of peace) that has set in motion a near-certain economic depression (in the name of prosperity). He has, at many times, made us feel embarrassed to be Americans.

If we are ever to overcome the decisions of the worst president in American history, we will need to elect someone who has the chance to be one of the greatest presidents in American history--a head of state blessed with the kind of leadership that younger generations have only been able to read about in history books: a speaker who can move people the way Martin Luther King, Jr., moved people, rather than scare people out of their rights the way our current so-called leader tries to scare people. Listen to Obama speak, and you will see his potential to be the type of president MLK would endorse.

We trust Mr. Obama's intellect and integrity above any of his current opponents and indeed, any other candidates for the highest office in recent memory. We feel he can restore dignity to the White House and offer a presidency that will cause people to rally rather than cringe. For that reason, we hope you don't mess this up, Democratic Party. Don't hand the nomination over to the more divisive and corporate-controlled candidate. For, in addition to lacking Mr. Obama's leadership skills and aura of hope, Mrs. Clinton also lacks his ability to win the presidency this November.

You can do it, Democratic Party. You can do it, America. Yes, you (we) can.

Obama's Campaign More than "Just Words"

Obama shows again why he is far and away the best major-party presidential candidate America has produced in the past 40 years.

2016: Waving Goodbye to Hegemony

Super Tuesday is stressful and to stop myself from nervously checking the news every two minutes, I've been immersed in a great essay by Parag Khanna from his upcoming book The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order. It's quite appropriate for this moment, since it never hurts to have some overall perspective on where America stands:


Turn on the TV today, and you could be forgiven for thinking it's 1999. Democrats and Republicans are bickering about where and how to intervene, whether to do it alone or with allies and what kind of world America should lead. Democrats believe they can hit a reset button, and Republicans believe muscular moralism is the way to go. It's as if the first decade of the 21st century didn't happen—and almost as if history itself doesn't happen. But the distribution of power in the world has fundamentally altered over the two presidential terms of George W. Bush, both because of his policies and, more significant, despite them. Maybe the best way to understand how quickly history happens is to look just a bit ahead.

[...] At best, America's unipolar moment lasted through the 1990s, but that was also a decade adrift. The post-cold-war "peace dividend" was never converted into a global liberal order under American leadership. So now, rather than bestriding the globe, we are competing—and losing—in a geopolitical marketplace alongside the world's other superpowers: the European Union and China. This is geopolitics in the 21st century: the new Big Three. Not Russia, an increasingly depopulated expanse run by Gazprom.gov; not an incoherent Islam embroiled in internal wars; and not India, lagging decades behind China in both development and strategic appetite. The Big Three make the rules—their own rules—without any one of them dominating. And the others are left to choose their suitors in this post-American world.