This has become a surreal presidency.  Obama supporters of the qualified and caveat-filled type will just have to fend off against an outsized cariacture, selling the steak not the sizzle.  But the lesson of the moment is Norway: More anti-Bush than you.

I find it notable that the Huffingtonposts’s “most viewed” list seems to have moved off from what has historically been its top view getters — item #5 is Hilary Swank Sleeps Naked, Stays Naked In Front Of, and in the past the site has buttressed its hits with – as an example, July 4th weekend’s most viewed was a slideshow of “Top Flag Bikini Moments”.   Or maybe the Obama Nobel Peace Prize has trumped the celebrity / sex matrix.  Wait to see what we get next week.  At the moment, the most popular page at huffingtonpost is “8 Most Outrageous Attacks on Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize”.  Rush Limbaugh pops up twice, unremarkably.  Glenn Beck’s recommendation for the Tea Party Movement gets a mention.  Perhaps John Bolton said something untorrid, but huffingtonpost didn’t bother to place it here — glomming straight to the relatively sensible and defendable decree that he should “turn it down”.

This leaves me hanging at William Kristol.  Kristol points out that after Gorbachev won the Nobel Peace Prize, he was chunkered out of office.
Woo Hoo!
Mikhail Gorbachev won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. A year later, he was out of power and the Soviet Union had dissolved.
Who knows… maybe things can unravel in the United States in just that matter that they unravelled in the Soviet Union?  Are we travaising back to Igor Panin’s chilling vision of a United States eaten up by Outer Empires, or John L Perry’s vision of a Military Coup the type of which supported by Jim DeMint for at least Honduras?
I don’t mean to compare Barack Obama to Gorbachev, who was, whatever his faults, a truly historic and courageous figure.
Sure he doesn’t.
But let’s hope the parallel extends this far: that a year from now the Democrats suffer a major electoral repudiation, and that the New Liberalism goes the way of Reform Communism. And that, beginning in 2013, Obama will have lots of free time to spend hobnobbing with Gorbachev on the international celebrity circuit.

To further run with this analogy, the new Yeltsin would have to be a figure that — at the very least promises — to accelerate further those at one time looking like they were revolutionary but now seems kind of piddling reforms alongside that “New Liberalism” / “Reform Communism” route of the Gorbachev / Obama figure.  And you know what this makes Bush in this equation?  The Old Communist Apparatchiks.

Fascinating.

In other news, the anti-Wilsonites have slid into view, and a few items from their litany of Wilson abuses need to be sorted out.  Woodrow Wilson was not the author of the Treaty of Versailes, and his vision with the League of Nations was severely compromised.  It is interesting to note that the great gap of dearth of winners between 1914 and 1918 which preceed Wilson’s victory — with that clever Red Cross disrupting those war years.  Another great gap followed for 1939 through 1943 — where the Norwegians apparently didn’t even muster the heart to find a Red Cross.

Theodore Roosevelt is another matter.  His brand of Jingoism “War is the Health of the State”  kind of jars here.  But, as head of a major world power he stood there, ready “for his successful mediation to end the Russo-Japanese war and for his interest in arbitration, having provided the Hague arbitration court with its very first case“^.

With the sort of flickering Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, and the more mainstream Jimmy Carter and Al Gore (not terribly controversial choices outside the United States, with some kibatching about strenuous connections for Gore), why oh why isn’t anyone going after Vice President Charles Dawes’s Nobel Peace Prize?

I can do William Kristol one better, though.  Statistically, the receiving of a Nobel Peace Prize for currently residing political leaders, raises… well, Rabin and Sadat and — well, there’s also MLK.

 Then again, one step further than this — we have further evidence for those that believe this sort of thing that Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ of the Book of Revelations.

Hey!  This is interesting.  Were you aware that there was, at one point in time, a thing called the Stalin Peace Prize?  FANTASTIC!  Though, after Kruschev came into power, destalinazation happened, Stalin was thrown out the door, and it was renamed the Lenin Peace Prize  (or, if you must International Lenin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Peoples from International Stalin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Peoples.)

Insane, isn’t it?  But appropriately inappropriate.

Interesting things are afoot in Putin’s Russia, and for the sake of rebrandishing a strong Russian Nationalism, a sort of restalinization process is taking place.

A Moscow court began hearings Thursday in a libel suit brought by Stalin’s grandson against a Russian newspaper that he claims called into question the Soviet dictator’s honor and dignity.

Recent years have seen an escalation in efforts to rehabilitate the dictator who, according to the rights group Memorial, ordered the deaths of at least 724,000 citizens during a series of purges that peaked in the late 1930s.

Earlier this year, Stalin was voted the third-greatest Russian of all time in a television poll. A plaque bearing his name that decades ago vanished from the vestibule of a Moscow metro station was recently restored. And former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev last year denounced efforts to portray Stalin as a ”brilliant manager” rather than a murderous autocrat.

”There are some people in power who want to see the history of the country as entirely glorious, as a step from victory to victory,” said Genri Reznik, Novaya Gazeta’s defense lawyer. The Kremlin’s goal, Reznik said, is that ”nothing must darken the attitudes of our people, and all negativity … plays into the hands of our enemy.”

Plaintiff lawyer Yury Mukhin disagreed.

”Stalin for many people is the symbol of an honest and fair leader,” he said. A victory in the libel case would vindicate that version of history, he said.

Of course, there are old family grudges at work here.

Nina Khrushcheva, the great granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, said she was ”absolutely on the side of Novaya Gazeta.” Her ancestor first exposed Stalin’s crimes and allowed the 1962 publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s ”One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” which told of Stalin’s network of slave labor camps.

Khrushcheva, who teaches in the international affairs program at the New School in New York, told The Associated Press that the lawsuit is evidence that at least some Russian officials are determined to promote what she called the myth of Stalin as a wise if strict leader. ”The fact that in 2009 we’re still unable to separate facts from fiction is mind-boggling,” she said.

So, with Stalin making a comeback, it looks like it’s about time to renew the old Stalin Peace Prize.  The Kremlin is surely taking nominations.  As is the blog “Skull / Bones”.  I have one nomination in mind off the top of my head.

Igor Panin.  Who is Igor Panin?  He made news a few times by predicting the imminent dissolution of the United States along the seemingly nonsensical lines shown here.  Now, you must admit that if that were to happen, that would be catastrophic to the cause of Peace — lives would be lost as the wars that carve out the United States along those lines happens.  Also if you notice, this dissolution has not happened — which can only mean that Igor Panin’s warnings have been heeded, and the necessary steps have been implemented to stop it.

But my guess is the new Stalin Peace Prize will end up going to Vladamir Putin.

The question I want answered from anyone who bemoans Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize a bit muchly.  Who should have won it?  Take your pick from, for instance, these seven individuals:

  Yes, all seven figures in that image are probably are more fitting for a “Nobel Peace Prize”, unless you go ahead and figure the Prize as a “spur for action” and “Symbol” (ie: Good thing Bush is no longer around), but you will search in vain in rolling up and down the am dial of conservative talk radio to hear anything about the people in that montage of images in their diatribes about Obama being awarded the thing.  And these were realistic candidates they should be discussing, as opposed to their Dream of the man who “Liberated Millions of Muslims”, George W Bush.

I know a guy, sort of drearily and pessimistically holds to the view that Obama’s election represents and significant long term break and spiral downward.  “I’m sorry, but Obama was SOLD TO US.”  It is a pretty wide-spread and not altogether unbalanced view, albeit a bit ahistorical.  See, for instance “The Selling of the Presidency”, 1968, Joe McGinnis looks wearily on the campaign of Richard Nixon.  And see too, the “Log Cabin and Hard Cider” election of William Henry Harrison, 1840.
The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama will feed his outlook that the Jig is on.

I also point to the weekly Friday march and vigil that occurs at Pioneer Square.  It’s taken place every Friday for the past eight years.  I have seen as few as four people in it, and as many as several hundred.  The sign that has edged into that mix is “Afghanistan:  Now Obama’s War.”  Unnoticed by just about everyone, when Obama vacationed this summer to Marth’s Vineyard, Cindy Sheehan shadowed him, as she did Bush at Crawford, and was as usual arrested yesterday outside the White House.  And, Code Pink is getting a bit jittery right now, as things roll.

I am a bit curious as to what the demonstrators at Pioneer Square have to say about Obama’s Award.  They should be a bit more coherent and straight-forward than the “Talk Radio” crowd.  A week ago, we heard from The Drudge headline “THE EGO HAS LANDED!” and (I can hear Limbaugh’s voice gloatingly) “The World Has Rejected Obama!”  So, today, to flick over to Limbaugh and then Beck.  Limbaugh:  “Can you imagine how big Obama’s Head is today?” […] “This fully exposes the illusion that is Obama!” […] And a bunch of angst against the “World Elites” and Nowegians.
The comedic bit came in with the “announcement” from the NFL that the Kansas City Chiefs had been declared Superbowl Champions, with the citation of approval for this 0-4 team for starting the Rebuilding Process.  This is an interesting analogy which, following its natural course, would have the logical idea that Obama is doing that tough job of rebuilding after Bush.

Glenn Beck rolled into a phone-in question of “Name the other two sitting presidents who have won the Nobel Peace Prize.”  This would present him with the opportunity to do something he dearly loves to do, which is go on the attack against Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

So the “World Rejects Obama” meme is dead.  I could never understand the point of that line anyways.  And, just to add insult to my general sense of loathing, the National Democratic Party is referencing that debris with “Republicans are siding with the Taliban”, a marker that has me yelling, “Oh, Go to Hell!”

Obama, meanwhile, is a little embarrassed by the win, and if left to his duthers would prefer not to have won it.  It contemplates his road ahead.  But this is the Nobel Prize Committee’s attempt to put pressure on him, and Obama does not get to control external events and decide the world environment with which he works. One upside, Obama now has a ready excuse — meet with a fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner — to meet with the Dalai Lama that he can offer to Hu.

Apparently Leatherstocking has never heard of Webster Tarpley.  Tarpley fans want to strip Tarpley from the roster of Larouche related posts.  Leave Tarpley on it.
In other news, Leatherstocking wants to downplay the most important political work where he’s had a tangibly notable effect on society at large, such as the AIDS crusades, in favor of up-playing his tangibly non-notable Economic Doomsday Cult Forecasts — referenced by hard to figure out what they are foreign sources.  He also wants Jeremiah Duggan to be stripped from the roster of related items, and demands sourcing for proof that Jeremiah Duggan was a member.  And Leatherstocking has submitted the Kenneth Kronberg entry for the second time for consideration of deletion — where the consensus is “Keep” — and, sure enough, he also wanted to delete “Jeemiah Duggan“.

All of this is important in the sense that Wikipedia citations by lay people matter.
…

You want to know something?  I kind of hate this New Republic article about Alex Jones.  I deem too much misdiagnoses with it.  I don’t know if maybe I’m having a problem with the New Republic when it ventures into these fringe political figures — certainly I have to say my problem with this article on Jones is different than my problem with Conor Clarke’s Larouche puff piece of a couple years’ back.  There certainly is a thematic connection to be made between Alex Jones and Glenn Beck, and there are things to be explained on the relationship between Alex Jones and more mainstream politics, but this article fails to do so.  Maybe I’m suffering a problem of vantage points.  Michelle Goldberg apparently heard Alex Jones, or knew of Alex Jones, and thought “Hey!  He sounds like Glenn Beck!”  On the most recent turn of Glenn Beck, I thought “Hey!  He’s moving toward Alex Jones territory.”
Incidentally, the first time I heard Glenn Beck, around 2002, I thought “Rush Limbaugh on ADD”, and “Almost certainly comes from FM morning radio.”  I didn’t have enough interest to look into it, but sure enough, salon recently profiled his biography, and threw this clip out into wider circulation.

“I fear a Reichstag Moment.” — Beck

That fear goes around, swirls around.  Every stupid tragedy becomes that moment.  It is something the Lyndon Larouche organization has an intuitive understanding, and while I take the Larouche organization’s constant references to the Reichstag fire to be something of a (Fantasy, mind you) “Human Cookbook” thing, it does bind into general paranoia hysteria.  Take the path the 9/11 Truth Movement takes with PNAC’s document “Rebuilding American Forces or somehting or other”.

Back around March, the Alex Jones website (I look at prisonplanet on a daily basis) was publishing — seemingly a campaign — on the New Eugenic Program.  Apparently the Global Elite met at their annual Bilderberg meeting, where they discussed plans on wiping out half the Earth’s population.  This is the direction our puppet masters have decided to take.  This line easily submerged into the most paranoid (and auto-pilot) of the opposition to Health Care policies.  Notable too that the National Review had a cover article on “Creeping Eugenics”, and it’s a testament to how hard it is to discuss matters of death that Time had its stupid headline “The Case for Pulling the Plug on Grandma”.

It’s about there that I start with the case that this suppostion of Sigh here — back to Max Blumenthal’s article — is wrong.
Back in August, in The Daily Beast, Max Blumenthal revealed that the Hitler/Obama meme got its impetus from the Lyndon Larouche organization, who began to develop it during the debate over the stimulus package.
I’m just guessing, but I imagine the first Obama Hitler came from about when Obama hit the national stage from an Alan Keyes supporter.  As for where the Obama Anti-Christ came from — I don’t know… From wherever this comes from.

Though, to the degree that it has some validity to it — Lyndon Larouche did nothing.  The brains of the operation seems to be around about Anton Chaitkin.  And you know something a bit odd about Chaitkin?  He occasionally can get out from underneath the “Lyndon Larouche associate” in various media.  I noted that when The Guardian referenced him as just the latest “Right-wing Commentator” to compare the British Health System with Hitler.  No allusion to Larouche.  Funny, huh?  That harks back to the days of, round about 1973, when the New York Times covered his mayoral run (straight-faced) and the Labor Committee’s odd little “Papa Doc Fascism” of the alliance betwwen the Haitian Leader and the White Oppositon’s coalition partnership to divide New York City amongst racial lines so as to keep keep the Working Class down… or thereabouts.  With no reference to Larouche.

Or, to the first Bush administration, and the second Bush Administration, and that book which gets some play — co written by Webster Tarpley (whom Leatherstocking has never heard of).   (Flipping right and left with Bush.)   For what it’s worth.   Warrior Society Radio, an Alex Jones proto Internet radio program: Must-see Video Interview of Historian Anton Chaitkin. Being supervised by Prince Charles. Liverpool Care Pathway overseen by British National Health Service. Head of it is now in US working with AARP and HMO’s .

But I don’t really know what Chaitkin’s agenda is.  Webster Tarpley gets to float his boat on the Alex Jones program.  Chaitkin gets to be mentioned sans reference to Larouche in The Guardian.  And together, they get mentioned on Democratic Underground over the past eight years for writing a book of “revelations” about Bush — the passages that swerve into how Larouche is a “political prisoner” of this Prescott Bush Program conveniently ignored and mentally clipped away.

Larouche?  Other than being compared to whomever the current fringe dweller of the day is for the past four decades, having his followers make attempts at wikipedia to float him as Internationally Respected Economist and downplay more pertinent history, Why, he seems to be mentioned by Keith Olbermann a bit as of late, as I see in searching transcripts for such utterances — for purpose of an attack at Rush Limbaugh:

Runner up, Boss Limbaugh, once again reducing the world to cliches he and dumb people like and can easily understand. The subject this time, the Olympic vote. “Obama cannot win in a fair vote. The only thing missing in that vote over there today was Acorn. If had a Acorn representation stuffing ballot boxes , registering fake IOC members, then maybe Chicago would have had a chance. Obama couldn`t do that. Couldn`t get Acorn over there. See, Obama doesn`t debate people. He clears the field.” Do you know anything about the Olympics? About the fact that the International Olympic Committee and the U.S. Olympic Committee have had more disputes between them than, say, we do with Fox News, that we may not see the U.S. get the games again in our lifetime over fights over TV rights and marketing fees that would still be there even if Lyndon Larouche were president?
I`m tempted to ask you, sir, not to talk about things you don`t understand, but if I did that, your show would be three hours of silence.

Interesting to note, to tell some part of the population exactly what they want to hear — seemingly just to keep their 50 Youth members in line — this is supposedly an Impeachable Offense. (Godlikeproductions went on to cover the October Doomsday prediction.  The economy is bad enough that the 100 Youth Members can be sold some bill of good, I suspect.) [The reference to 100 members caught by xlcer at factnet.)

Wait.  He’s running in 2012? (open secrets link regarding presidential pacs to be posted there when I get some time.) Whatever, This probably explains about half his votes.

In other news:

Quirk #1: For complete whack-a-doos, they’re surprisingly polite. This is not my experience, but whatever.
It almost took me aback the first time I passed by the LaRouche movement’s booth, and spoke with one of their supporters for the first time. While trying all sneaky-like to snap these covert pictures for the True/Slant post I instantly knew I wanted to write, one of the young men handing out information stopped me and asked — with a completely straight face and warm tone of voice — if I had heard our President’s agenda was slowly transforming into that of Adolf Hitler. And that I was welcome to take all the pictures I wanted.

Who are these people? I appreciate your allocation of your valuable time to read this with an open mind. Once you have reviewed this information please let me know, is this likely what I suspect it to be? That is part of the over all British plan for mass murder?

Answer: the same people as these, whether they know it or not.

Back to Glenn Beck to Alex Jones to Lyndon Larouche.  Lyndon Larouche referenced Jones as a g’damned “populist”.  And Jones references Beck as a tool of the Oligarchy, Gate-keeper for the Neo-Cons.  Make of the thematic connections what you will.

Like third graders playing Recess Soccer.  There is a ball out there, it’s being chased and kicked around, it’s generally rolling in the right direction, but the structures of the game are haphazard. What is like this game?

The celebration and hullabo about Obama’s fight to win the Olympic Games for Chicago.  The contortions of Obama’s Republican opposition to fit the unsuccessful sell into a broader narrative about a failed presidency.  This is, to use Charles Krauthammer’s phrase for the last administration, “Obama Derangement Syndrome” at work. That being said, the liberal reaction to the right’s transparent political posturing is off as well.  The taunts do not quite up.  They’re rooting against America.  I do not like the word “Un-American”.

There are several reasons we don’t particularly want the Olympic Games — I suspect the benefit is a bit lower for Chicago and the costs a bit higher than for Rio.  Some problems as expressed by “The Left“.  Some problems expressed by some Libertarians.  There was a Weekly Standard blog post or other which expressed the most crucial part: the Olympic Games should be put in various spots around the globe — the continent South America has yet to have one.  Of course, a liberal blogger charged in and decried some ideological hypocrisy: “Isn’t that a little redistributive?“  Which I found unfair: from a purely business concern, it makes sense for an organization whose image is based on being International to throw themselves into “Emerging Markets”, and I don’t think that’s intellectually inconsistent — unless we’re playing a stupid game of loosely structured Playground Soccer.

I also think Joe Scarborough is playing a bit of a game in his role as “Conservative Critic of the Conservative Movement”.  This strikes me as reaching for the low hanging fruit.  He is free from the testy things of Contrarianism.  I just ducked over to Member of Congress Joseph Cao’s page to see if he posted on it — no, but he did “reach for the low hanging fruit” with posting a press release defending Obama’s right to talk to school children — another recent game of Not Terribly Structured Playground Soccer. A tempest in a teapot.  The real story from that trip to Coppenhagen was that Obama had a long conversation with General General McChrystal about Afghanistan.  That is going to have a bigger impact on US policy than a push for the Olympic Games, and I hope Obama got some other things done on the plane ride to and back as well.

I find international press attempts to explain American cultural items bemusing.  Case in point: David Letterman.

Aussies explain two lingering items.: Under the terms of his contract, Letterman’s quaintly named company Worldwide Pants leases airtime on CBS, so he is not an employee.
The network is believed to be concerned about some sections of its audience with puritanical views.

From Great Britain, and the BBC: How do you relate Letterman to a British audience?:

Some suggested Letterman was less irreverent at 2230 than he had been at 2330, for all his pointedly sarcastic, sometimes prickly brand of humour.
Yet that did not stop him incurring the wrath of a Colombian beauty queen in 2001 whom he suggested had a talent for ingesting heroin balloons.

Not the first thing that pops to my mind in the history of Letterman’s programs.  OR, from the Telegraph, explaining what it is this “late night talk show“, and why it holds any sphere in American pop culture, as against Oprah:

Sharp and pesky, Letterman captures something of the essence of the prevailing American mindset. In a sense, his show, like Oprah Winfrey’s, has helped to fashion the mood of forgiveness-for-all-things of which he is now the beneficiary. Celebrities and politicians sit beside his desk to get things off their chests, but until last week no guest – let alone the host himself – had ever arrived at the studio straight from giving evidence before a grand jury.

And to further describe American geography:
The son of working-class Midwesterners, he was raised in a dreary suburb of Indianapolis – the middle child between two sisters. His father ran a flower shop, and his mother made the fried bologna sandwiches which he still drools over on air. Like many who have made it from America’s sparse heartlands, he appears to harbour a sense of irreducible farm-belt emptiness.

………………………….
There have been certain “landmarks” in the rises and slides of the various late night talk shows.  The history of Jay Leno is that he was being beaten to a pulp by Letterman.  And Jay Leno was a bit lost at sea, until he did a week in New York in a smaller more “comedy club” venue, which refocused his show, and started a march upwards in the ratings.  He cemented a climb above appeared on Jay Leno’s first to promote whatever movie he was promoting at the time of his prostitution bust.  Conan O’brien was getting hammered at his new show, but he found his confidence and bearing when Letterman appeared on his show as a guest.  Or something.

Five years ago, NBC decided they needed to lock in Conan O’brien, so they planned for the future with him as Tonight Show host.  Watching their ratings fall in prime-time, they just “re-invented” television, as it proceeds in an era of “transition” with arbitrary lines falling, by giving him the 10 o’clock hour — cheap to produce, and nothing else was working for them.  The effect was that Letterman was now newly beating The Tonight Show in the ratings.  Until last week, NBC still could hold on to “winning the (marketing friendly) young demographic”.  But then, Letterman’s ratings rose last week to “the highest margin over The Tonight Show since the 1994 Winter Olympics”.
I suppose the “biggest loser” Letterman’s scandal was Conan O’brien, who’ll continue to be beaten badly in the ratings.  Why, this is Letterman’s Hugh Grant Moment!  And, by the time, Letterman retires from Show Business, who knows what the structure of television will be like?

There is one thing that bothers me, and puzzles me a bit, about Letterman: since when is he a partisan figure?  Is it just Palin, or was there something that justifies anything at all with a strong label?  I can’t help but think that’s mostly a signifier against the partisanship of the partisan detractors.
One question that pops to my mind about the would be extortionist, suggested by Letterman himself in his monolouge: Who wants to pay eight dollars to watch a movie about David Letterman having sex?

The “rule for thee but not for me” is the expression that comes to mind with regard to the clamor against Alan Grayson.  Something else popped into mind here.  Kevin Phillips, circa 1975:

Conservative ideolouge Kevin Phillips argues that in 1972, for the first time in recent history, a Republican got a majority of Catholic and blue collar workers, plus the Wallace following.  This is the authentic conservative majority, Mr. Phillips maintains, which President Ford ignores. […]
This line of reasoning sees conservatives as not just upper class or Orange County, Cali voters, but the “productive” people who resent school busing, high taxes, inflation, criminality, the permissive and irreligious, and “non-producers.”

The author of “The Emerging Republican Majority”, who has since sometime in the middle of the Reagan Administration come to wearily take his own work back, made the appeal to aggrieved white working class / blue collar workers by directing their animus at dirty do-nothing (non-productive) hippies and welfare teats.  This came to mind upon hearing this bit of demagoguery, and self-contained hypocrisy.

“[Reference that stupid Newsweek cover, Newsweek by definition “leftist”] It’s the American Left who wants you to die.  They want you to die in the womb, and they want you to die when you’re no longer productive toward the end of your life.  It’s the Democrat Party that’s obsessed with your death.”

One disclaimer, of sorts: Rick Santorum, who follows the likes of Mike Gravels as entertaining a presidential bid after having been shellacked out of a Senate seat, says that his party needs to move beyond talk show hosts.  Surely and whole-heartedly true, but as they are not there yet, when discussing the Republican Party right now, you have to discuss these radio show hosts.  Then again, there we get back to the problem posed by Alan Grayson’s intemperate problem: they have no health care policy, meaning its a defacto support of the status quo, and that is the policy of the Health Care Insurance industry as it knocks people off its rolls with ease in pursuit of the bottom line.

This is a curious little analysis.

After the Republicans got thrashed in the 1964 elections, a GOP senator told columnist Joe Alsop, “That damn Lyndon Johnson hasn’t just grabbed the middle of the road. He’s a bit to the right of center, as well as a bit to the left of center. And with Johnson hogging the whole road — right, left and center — where the devil can we go except into the ditch?”

Well put. So they tried to steer clear of that ditch by claiming what little they could of the center. Republican Senate Whip Tom Kuchel, a moderate, had refused to endorse Barry Goldwater in the fall, and some more conservative members of the caucus called for his ouster. Alsop wrote that California’s “Goldwaterites and John Birch Society members” were clamoring for his head, treating him “as though he were Chief Justice Earl Warren.”

Sure, but the Center could not hold.  I have actually been thinking a bit about Obama with regard to the 1960s and Kennedy / Johnson, interesting because conservative detractors lob him at Carter and liberal detractors lobby some of their animus of Clinton at him.  John Kennedy’s a sort of case of where Obama is right now.  The right-wing Loons were out in full force at the time.  It would take until the end of the decade for the Left-wing Loons to occupy that territory.  In the meantime, we went from the inspiring visage of Kennedy, conciliating through some small bore reforms and tending to straddle something of a middle course in some areas.  Foreign policy wise always brings up that enigma: where was Kennedy heading with Vietnam?  It may be a product of the martrydom that encases what we want to see in him, but the American University speech is frequently viewed as the evidence that this Cold War hawk was, chastined by the Cuban Missile Crisis, moving toward policy thinking that wouldn’t have escalated Vietnam.  So we are today with Obama equivicating on Afghanistan, and in another manner Iraq.  Those dates of decision came and went headed by Johnson, who escalated everything on Kennedy’s plate — for good and bad: escalated civil rights, escalated small bore welfare programs into a “War on Poverty”, and escalated the advisors in Vietnam to that damned war. 

The consensus was a smoldering apparatus over looming political changes.  The Center could not hold.  When confronting the issues of the day, consensi have to be broken apart eventually, and there is no “party hogging the left, center, and right”.  A date with late Johnson era discontent is in the wings unless Obama deals with his host of problems.

Unfortunately for me, I never put this thought online and in writing before someone rolled it to dailykos, but in regards to one Senator whose Center is not holding, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas:  

An emailer has a good theory to explain Blanche Lincoln’s inexplicable behavior, voting against the public option which is extremely popular in her state:
If you were a seriously endangered Arkansas senator, you’d be playing the same game.  It’s simple. She wants a job after she leaves office.
Makes sense. K Street could be lucrative. This is her job audition.

Proud member of the Permanent Government.

I don’t understand.  Yesterday newsmax, a central publication for the “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy” for Scaife and Christopher Ruddy,  published an article which advocated a military coup against President Barack Obama.  With a few weasel words so as not to be actually calling for a military coup against President Barack Obama.   They have removed it.  I have to find the thing in its entirety here (with the “Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy” — such as that is– of David Brocks’s “Media Matters” — some shilling thrown in at some point by George Soros.)  Also available in non pdf version here.  The places that would post it with some approval, free republic for instance, deleted if from their page.

I don’t understand what leads to newsmaxs’s dismissal.  Yesterday, newsmax felt it proper to publish.  Today they don’t.  Surely they realized yesterday that this was controversial yest?  Surely they knew yesterday that it would be picked up by a lot and be cited as signs of extremism yesterday?  Do they assume nobody outside their small sphere is reading them, or apt to read them?

A spokeswoman for Newsmax sent a statement to TPM admitting that the magazine removed the column after several reader complaints:
In a blog posting to Newsmax John Perry wrote about a coup scenario involving the U.S. military. He clearly stated that he was not advocating such a scenario but simply describing one.  Har de har har.

After several reader complaints, Newsmax wanted to insure that this article was not misinterpreted. It was removed after a short period after being posted.

Newsmax strongly believes in the principles of Constitutional government and would never advocate or insinuate any suggestion of an activity that would undermine our democracy or democratic institutions.

… Except that they kind of just did.  One word that might have been put in advisedly: “purposefully”.  Newsmax should get to know its word parsing, as much as John L Perry knew his parsing in not actually advocating this, but wink wink.

Mr. Perry served as a political appointee in the Carter administration in HUD and FEMA. He has no official relationship with Newsmax other than as an unpaid blogger.

No editorial oversight?  Or do they just trust the people they give the keys to to not cross their particular line of inflamatory innuendo and “investigative” hogwash?

The proponents of the “Find the  balance from the Left so we can be up striaht in attacking this target on the right”, the blog “hotair” and The National Review corner, point to Gore Vidal’s rambling doddering midly entertaining rehashing of paranoia he’s evoked for the past decade.  I don’t see it. (Though, give me a second and a mission and I’ll drudge up some comments from somewhere calling on soldiers that they’re duty bound to the Constitution before the Commander-in-Chief.  Published by anyone of note, I can’t say as of yet.)  You will note that Gore Vidal does not seem to think this Coup is a good idea.  But, roll through the comments there.
Adam Russell:  I think a dictatorship is more likely from those who want to end the Obama presidency than from Obama. They are gearing up for something.
I think Adam Russell read the newsmax article yesterday.

The one thing I will give “John L Perry”:
Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation.  Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars.  Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.
I think Gore Vidal would, at various moments in conversation, argue that has happened.  When?  Vidal might just join your Glenn Becks of the world and start some balls rolling at the Progressive Era.  Then pull the thing apart at the dawn of the Cold War.

Anyway, roll throw free republic:

Dick Bachert:
This has been on my mind for some time now as a real possibility.
For an alleged intellectual (which he ain’t!), Obama has been rather stupid in his treatment of and words about the military folks here (active and former — and there are a lot of them).
Emerging tyrants throughout history have either had to coopt the military or, like Stalin and others, eliminate the upper ranks and replace the officer corps with loyalists.
The bad news is that the service academies have been gradually infested with leftists teaching PC, multi-culturalism, internationalist One World crap for several decades. It’s anyone’s guess how these officers still on active duty will respond.
And if such an event does take place, I suspect there will be a division along racial lines but no way to tell what the numbers would look like.
Like the author, I believe it would be a fairly civil affair but, again, now way to be certain. It COULD get ugly before it is resolved.
I HOPE that oath they took to defend the Constitution — which I also took in 1962 — prevails and we can get back to undoing the damage Obama has done and get on with striving to be the America the Founders envisioned.
I’d write more but am off to rent the remake of “Seven Days in May.” The one with the HAPPY ending.

capydick:
I want to see Jeffrey Immelt**, along with Chris Matthews and Keith Olberman frog-marched out of the White House if this happens.

doc10790
Awesome and courageous perspective.

oldcurmudgeon:
That is the stupid kind of post that gives FR a bad name.
I can see it now in the NYT: “FR urges military to depose Obama”.
(I … um… really can’t see that NYT headline.  Call me crazy.)

Red Steel:
The unthinkable could become the thinkable. It all depends on Obama. I know a guy like him has ‘delusions of grandeur’ and wants to rule like a heavy handed authoritarian, but I don’t think he really has the guts to try and go all the way to make his dreams come true. I think he is risk averse when push comes to shove. He will have his 4 year term at the maximum and then bow out.

buccaneer81:
Movie poster of “Seven Days In May”
We need General James Mattoon Scott.

Rome2000:
That ALONE could solve our problems with our non-representing Representatives… though we’d have to make that Amendment 11 so they couldn’t weasel out of it should they become cliquish again.
…………………

That’s enough of that.   Actually the free republic posters are obsessed with pointing out that the author is a “Democrat”.  This is, I guess, the Zell Miller syndrome?

Back to my basic points:  #1: This nation is full of fantasists.  AND… #2: I’d just as soon newsmax have left this page on its website — everyone knows they published it, they can’t retrace their steps here, and I fail to understand how they wouldn’t accept this as controversial from the gate.  I mean, they’ve published these articles!

Senator number 60 is Ben Nelson.  Olympia Snowe.  Nelson perked up and called some shots yesterday:  a “legitimate health bill” will have to garner 65 votes, if you will five Republicans.  At this moment in time, I am hard-pressed to tell you who Senator #62, 63, 64, and 65 are.

The dye is cast right there.  The fix seems to be in before any of those two votes yesterday, as they edge toward a bill that is a defacto “Insurance Industry Protection Act”.  I contemplate our bizarre Senate.  I need to brush up on some Senate history here, but I always thought that from the period of Franklin Roosevelt into Lyndon Johnson, the Filibuster was mostly just the Segregationists’ Trump Card as a last resort, and bills could and indeed did pass with fifty votes — the majority.  Bill Clinton’s marginal tax increase passed with 50 votes, Al Gore the tie breaker.  Was that through the process of Reconciliation, the same course that pulled Bush through his tax cuts in 2001?

In the days where Democrats were on the short end of a 55 to 45 split, the filibuster was being defended whole cloth, Fact Check dot com (or is it org?) was “fact checking” an ad from Democratic Party interest groups using clips from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the GOP was arugring that Federal Judges was a special case and thus unfilibusterable (has that one opposite — Judges are a special case and thus more filibuster-worthy, frankly), there were a few liberals arguring that in the long term, “progressive causes” benefited from simmering the Filibuster away.  Kudos for them on keeping a long term view, I suppose.

So, yesterday we saw that strange spectacle of a couple of “moderate Democrats” — Carper of Delaware and Bill Nelson of Florida, voting for one more fiscally tightened (according to the Congressional Budget Office) and effective public option and for the less fiscally tight one.  The dye is cast.  The Insurance Industry will be fed, gadnabit.  How else do we explain this discreprency of money?

Today, Senator Bacusu hides behide that 60 tile in offing the “Public Option” mechanism.  He’s for it, but to keep at it is to risk no bill.  So he says.  Thus, he votes against the Schumer bill.  And Harry Reid spits out a fund raising letter suggesting that which is keeping us from Health Care Reform is the Republican Obstructionsims.  If true, that is because the system has been set up that way, with everyone from the 50th to 60th number reaching downward for cover (see Baucus) and on down to Ben Nelson’s call for number 65.  The fund raising letter is just that — a call for maintainance of a fund raising system.