Let’s not gloat

george w bush Colin Powell famously endorsed Barack Obama yesterday. He joins a pretty impressive list conservative leaders who have abandoned McCain over the last few months, notably (to me, anyway) including George Will and Christopher Hitchens.

So, it looks like Obama’s a lock, and some reasonable folks are even talking about a 350 electoral vote sweep. But let’s breathe deeply — it doesn’t matter by how much Obama wins. It doesn’t even matter how great of a president he is. Eventually (read: 2016), Republicans will come back into power. The thing to do now, with the Republican party in the shambles it’s in, is to be reasonable. Don’t make Karl Rove’s mistake and start thinking about a “Permanent Democratic Majority.” Not only is it a fantasy, but it’s the stuff that moronic policy comes from (sorry, Turd Blossom).

The real question we should be asking ourselves (and this goes for Democrats as well as right-minded Republicans) is, “how can we help the Republican party become less dysfunctional.” How can we help them from nominating fools like George W. Bush in the future? There are lots of questions with easy answers floating around these days, but I haven’t heard this one asked yet, much less answered.

Carless in Miami

A recent car accident took out my car, and I’ve been using my parents car, as they were out of the country. They returned on Wednesday, but I’d decided to try living completely without a car. I’ve been commuting mostly by bike for about a year anyway, and this seems like the next step. It’s an ideal time of year to try it. I’ve figured out a lot of the practicalities of getting around on a bike, such as dealing with breakdowns (knock on wood) and hauling moderate loads.

But of course there’s a big difference between getting around mostly on a bike and relying on it as one’s sole transportation. There are rainy days, large packages, and days when you just don’t wanna. But part of the joy of riding is overcoming obstacles, so I’m looking forward to dealing with all of that. Let’s try it for a few months and see how it goes.

What’s up wiht the Daily Show?

daily show news team circa 1990s

Honestly, dealing with the Bush presidency has been a lot easier then it’d otherwise be by the Daily Show. It’s been especially great for the last few months, when the shows are uploaded nightly to their Hulu page, available for convenient and legal watching the next morning, no cable required. The show has been on the air with Jon Stewart since 1998, picking up Emmys, accolades, and scads of viewers — it’s indispensable.

So why the 4-days-a-week, when-we-feel-like-it schedule? Wouldn’t the show benefit from borrowing a slightly less anchor-centric approach from the real news shows, and go on a 7-days a week rotation? It’d give some of the other folks on the show a chance to host once in awhile, which would be interesting in any case. (“John Oliver, sitting in for Jon Stewart.”) A recent New York Times profile reveals that Stewart, “functions as the show’s managing editor and says he thinks of hosting as almost an afterthought,” which is a clue. But come on, after 10 years, there have got to be other folks on staff that can do this stuff. The Daily Show is Comedy Central’s cash cow, so they sure could afford to bring on more writers, put them on 7-day rotations, and get this going. The result would be maybe a little less consistency, but I actually think that would be a cool thing.

It’s interesting that Stewart has been making occasional comments about their scheduling on the air lately. During the crash, he said something about how the show was scheduled to be off the next week, but they decided (graciously) to come in and do it anyway. When Congress was off for Rosh Hashanah, he again pointed out “We’re here — I guarantee you the Daily Show has more Jews then Congress!” Well, I say that the Daily Show has gotten big enough for them to figure out how to do it every day. They need to abandon their fears of being less then perfect without every member of some imagined indispensable core team, and give some other folks a crack.

Recession George


I suggest we assign economic recessions male and female names like we do with hurricanes. It would make each recession more specific and memorable (a la “Hurricane Andrew”, rather than “The big hurricane around 1992”)

A recession is like a hurricane in many ways: It travels a deadly path from one financial sector to another, destroying all profits in its path and affecting the health and wealth of everyone remotely near to it financially. It leaves financial ruin and financial injury (poverty; layoffs) in its wake which take many years to recover from.

— Phundug. Andy says, “Recession George.”

Ex-CIA Operative Discusses Iran

Ex-CIA Operative Discusses Iran. Another essential Fresh Air interview, in which Robert Baer, on who’s autobiography the film Syriana was based, discusses Iran. Extremely credible, he claims that Iran’s intentions are not really counter to the United States’ interest, and highlights some of the opportunities that the future holds once the US gives up on trying to beat “democracy” into the Middle East.

How we will win

Dan is exactly spot on: all the people ranting and raving about how great Barack Obama is, or how terrible McCain/Palin are, are missing the point. Yes, Obama would be much better for the country, but the point here is that this is the responsibility of all of us. (And please to watch also Dan on Jeremiah Wright, where I think he’s actually even more on point, just that the message is a little less timely.)