This touches upon one of the benefits of last Tuesday’s election that I’ll most enjoy:
I now have the luxury of debating only thoughtful, sane conservatives who argue in good faith, and I intend to enjoy it.
There’s much more to it than that, though. Go read the rest.
From today’s WSJ:
President-elect Barack Obama is unlikely to radically overhaul controversial Bush administration intelligence policies, advisers say, an approach that is almost certain to create tension within the Democratic Party.
This is likely just an opening salvo from one (of many sides) in a war over the future of our government, but this should serve as a wake-up call to those Obama supporters who are willing to just sit back and “trust him” on most everything. Who’s driving this particular story?
Mr. Obama is being advised largely by a group of intelligence professionals, including some who have supported Republicans, and centrist former officials in the Clinton administration.
That is to say, largely those that have a vested interest in the status quo, and a future interest in the contractors that support it. Add them together with Obama’s demonstrated cautious nature, and the inevitable bias towards keeping power that has already accured to the office, and we’ve got a problem. He may yet surprise and please. But it’s something to watch carefully.
Looks like the ACLU is on the job, planning to run a full page ad in the New York Times reminding everyone of Obama’s promise to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prision system. There are years upon years of damage inflicted by the Bush Administration that an Obama Administration will have to carefully unravel. Much of that will take time and care to ensure that good work isn’t destroyed, and other parts will take money that simply doesn’t exist right now. Shutting down Guantanamo, however, is rather simple and should occur almost immediately. There will be no shortage of politicians who will urge Obama to keep it open, and will find excuses to delay the shutdown.  It’s good to see the ACLU step out in front with a reminder of a promise that Obama can make good on right away.
While I don’t often write about it, I’ve always been interested in the hows and whys of the food that arrives at my table.  My grandfather was a stockyard worker, and it was early in my life that I followed a pig from the stockyard to the back of his truck to the slaughterhouse to the butchering table to my dinner plate. It was a good lesson in the costs, choices, and implications of what I ate then, and has remained something of a framework in my choices about what I eat now. I’ve never been particularly evangelical about my food choices, and my interest in the ethics of food production and consumption have generally been limited to wanting to ensure that my own choices were consistent with my values. But the recent reemergence of food supply as a political issue (if you’re in the US or Europe, you might not have noticed it, but it’s definitely becoming a problem) has heightened my interest in food policy and supply. I’ve encountered some difficulty in getting useful and interesting analysis, though. This subject area tends to attract a lot of what I call “true believer” authors who are steadfastly dedicated to their cause (organic farming, local sourcing, etc.) to the exclusion of all other perspectives. While these folks occasionally produce an interesting read, I don’t come away feeling like I’ve got any better understanding of the bigger issues.
Enter Ethicurean. I only recently discovered it when a regular read linked this summary of Obama’s various food policy-related positions. I found it well written, and as I poked around the site for a bit more, I found a good mix of big picture policy pieces and this-cheese-shop-is-great bits. Despite multiple authors, it’s got a consistently informed tone that I quite appreciate. Maybe you will, too. Give it a read.
Wednesday was for finally getting some sleep. Thursday was for tracking down all the things I’ve left undone of late. And today is for actually getting them done (or getting started on that, anyway). So things have been a little light. If you want to see a lot of what I *would* have been writing about, if I’d have been more adept at multi-tasking, check out my friend Karen’s posts from the past few days.
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Love this photo. Everybody wins.
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With the defeat of Carol Schwartz, the DC city council is now a Republican-Free Zone. Good job screwing yourselves with Patrick Mara, guys. And it wasn’t just the GOP that got screwed here – it was DC. Schwartz was a positive influence on the council, and now she’s gone.
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Good video report of the Obamalleycat I was involved with last Saturday.
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Question 2 passed in Maryland, adding slot machines to specific locations around the state. The state will now be balancing (well, attempting to) its budget on the backs of its poorest citizens.  I’m theoretically in favor of legalized gambling, but the practical impact in the communities in which it is concentrated is stomach-turning. Good luck, Maryland.
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Atrios pointed to this WaPo story about a black couple that worked in the White House over three decades, starting in the Truman Administration. It’s not just a personal interest piece, but a good review of history. And, as Atrios asks, stick with it until the end.
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Vegan Soul Power has an interesting guest post about eating on the road with the Obama campaign.
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Marijuana-friendly ballot iniatives across the country nearly run the board. Interesting.
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Krugman spoke the truth, here:
What I mean by that is that for the past 14 years America’s political life has been largely dominated by, well, monsters. Monsters like Tom DeLay, who suggested that the shootings at Columbine happened because schools teach students the theory of evolution. Monsters like Karl Rove, who declared that liberals wanted to offer “therapy and understanding” to terrorists. Monsters like Dick Cheney, who saw 9/11 as an opportunity to start torturing people.
And in our national discourse, we pretended that these monsters were reasonable, respectable people. To point out that the monsters were, in fact, monsters, was “shrill.”
We’re not through with them, either.
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I’m only half kidding when I say that I’d contribute to a Palin ’12 effort, but Adam Bonin thinks that a Palin ’16 effort is something to keep in mind.
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Is Charlie Crist still engaged?
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Tom Perriello’s actually going to win, isn’t he? I never would have thought that would happen. How sweet it is to be wrong.
Yes, yes, we’re all tired of Joe the Plumber stories. But this one just so neatly illustrates the rank dishonesty and hypocrisy of his kind that I just couldn’t leave it to chance that you’d not see it:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7x0YyLDono[/youtube]
As Jed @ dKos puts it:
turns out that when Plumber Joe was a child, he was on welfare, not once, but twice, and he credits it with helping his family ultimately lead a middle-class life style. He defends having received welfare by saying that he’s subsequently paid into the system.
In other words, well-designed taxpayer-funded social assistance programs are fine because ultimately they will pay for themselves.
Ding.
(And hopefully that will be the last time we ever see Joe the Plumber on these pages.)
Speculation over the shape the new Democratic power structure will take is mostly focused on the various Obama Admin cabinet possibilities, but I think it’s worth taking a look at the legislative side, too. Joe Lieberman out as chairman of anything but his own one man party should be a given, of course. On the House side, I’d like to see Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) succeed in his bid to take the Energy and Commerce Committee chairmanship from Rep. John Dingell (D-MI).  Rep. Dingell is, to be sure, an extremely smart, talented, and principled legislator. He is also, I think, entirely too grounded in the Detroit manufacturing industry. Those ties will stand in the way of truly transformative energy policy, I’m afraid, and Waxman’s demonstrated aggressiveness will be an asset in the Committee’s oversight roles. I don’t know if Waxman’s willingness to be open with this effort will bring other challenges out into the open, but I think a bit of competition for these chairmanships can be healthy.
Also, I think that we should expect to see a fundamental change in the way that goverment operates. Sure, the Democrat in the White House and the Democrats in the Senate and House share a lot of common policy goals, and should be expected to work together to achieve them. But they are in two fundamentally different branches of government. I don’t think it will take long before we see House Dems reassert the power they have as a seperate and co-equal branch of government. This, of course, will be cheered on by the Republicans, who will welcome it as a sign of Democratic weakness. I think the public, however, should see it as a sign of the strength of the American system of government. Checks and balances are healthy, and lead to more durable legislation and policy.
(If you’re interested in the origin of the current system of Party First, check out this interview with former Congressman Mickey Edwards (R-OK).  In it, he describes Gingrich’s reshaping of the Republicans in Congress from a seperate institutional power to a supporting cast for President George H.W. Bush, and how that eventually led to this idea that it’s entirely about party, rather than insitution, country, or Constitution. I found it very interesting. It’s about 18 minutes long.)
Update: An informative take on the process of selecting the committee chairs.
There remain many things to be said about the politics that resulted in yesterday’s massive vote for change. And I’ll get to them. But taking everything in is leaving me rather circumspect, at the moment. Further, I’m very much looking forward to spending less time on politics, and more time on governing. We placed an enormous amount of hope on Barack Obama last night, and now it’s time to make sure he delivers. His election was not an end in and of itself. It is – if we all do our part – a means to a better country and a better world.
The Flex Your Rights Foundation has put together a handy guide to how to refuse the ridiculous searches that Metro recently announced.
(Even if you’re not in DC, check out the site in general. I heartily approve of their mission.)
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