The annual Operation Support Our Troops - Illinois “Rockin’” Concert is coming up this weekend at Cantigny Park in Wheaton. If you’re free Saturday afternoon and eve donate and stop by to see Beatles cover band American English and Gary Sinise’s Lt. Dan Band.

OSOT-IL has been doing these concerts annually for the last several years and as with other groups dedicated to helping our troops and their families that I’ve highlighted like SALUTE the money or goods you donate will go to a good cause because the OSOT-IL concert is run by grassroots volunteers right here in Illinois and the money and items donated go to supporting our GIs and their families. (Contrast that to the “Freedom Concerts” promoted by Sean Hannity and Ollie North which appear to have a very large portion of the donations going to Hannity and North’s salaries, etc. instead of to our troops.)

Cantigny’s beautiful, we’ll hopefully have good weather and the bands can jam. Enjoy!

Donate: Operation Support Our Troops-Illinois

Get a Ticket: OSOT-IL Rockin’ Concert, Saturday, July 19

According to a press release sent out today, Daniel Biss has now outraised incumbent State Representative Beth Coulson for the third consecutive reporting period. Not only that, but he is cruising past her on several fronts that voters tend to look at when it comes to campaign fundraising. That same release provides these stats:

The reports from the first half of 2008 shows Biss outperformed Coulson by 60 percent in total money raised, more than two-to-one in money raised from individual receipts, more than three-to-one in money raised from within the 17th District, and nearly 50 percent in money raised in low dollar contributions.

Coulson did outperform Biss when it came to PAC contributions - nearly one-third of Coulson’s money came from Political Action Committees compared to Biss’s ten percent.

What jumps out at me is the 3 to 1 in-district rate since donors in-district also tend to be voters.

Mr. Biss is putting in the hard work it takes to run a campaign and stay rooted to his neighbors and community. This, in turn, bodes well for the 17th district should those folks elect him as their new State Rep this autumn.

Progress Illinois has also taken note of Mr. Biss’ work ethic.

Update: The Biss campaign now has the full press release online (PDF).

Welcome to ‘Inside Baseball’ (or should I say ‘Inside the Boxing Ring’)

So now pointing out facts which dispel Mr. Dienhart’s lies are considered “personal attacks” and “diatribes” and “lies” in and of themselves…

No wonder Sen. Obama’s suggestion that we Americans ought to ignore these distractions and instead focus on actually solving the weighty matters before us has led him to a consistent and evermore substantial lead over Sen. McCain since the Democratic nomination process ended.

And little wonder too that Mr. Dienhart’s own updates and comments have devolved into the very things he and his supporters claim of my fact-based presentations: diatribes full of personal attacks on my integrity and lies about both what I’ve written and what Sen. Obama has said.

This entire debate centers on what Mr. Dienhart falsely claims are “flips” in Sen. Obama’s solutions for Iraq (as a sidenote, Mr. Dienhart is aided and abetted by a lazy press which is mistaking detailed plans as “flips” in their effort to create a news story where there is none as they hope to attract more ‘eyeballs’).

As I’ve repeatedly pointed out, but Mr. Dienhart and his comrades stubbornly refuse to acknowledge, there have been no Obama flips on Iraq when one examines the facts that are readily available to everyone (including Mr. Dienhart).

Perhaps Mr. Dienhart’s exercise in futility is really just his attempt to ignore the fact that a majority of Americans believe we ought to take the training wheels off the Iraqis’ bicycle and let that nation stand on its own. Perhaps he’s trying to ignore the fact that even the Iraqi Prime Minister agrees with Sen. Obama in principle that there ought to be a timetable for strategic redeployment. Perhaps Mr. Dienhart is simply trying to promote Sen. John McCain’s presidential bid by trying anything and everything (literally) to tear down Sen. Barack Obama.

Perhaps all of the above.

–

Fact 1

Mr. Dienhart began this week by claiming that Sen. Obama had flipped on his timing for pulling troops out of Iraq. His first post decried the fact that in January of 2008 (at a Democratic debate in Las Vegas) Sen. Obama said his plan for Iraq would bring troops home by 2009 from that point in time but that his recent op-ed column (which was presuming a January 2009 start date, ie, the presidential inauguration) would bring them home by 2010.

In response, I pointed out that Sen. Obama has been utterly and completely consistent about his 16 month Plan for Iraq. I wrote:

Obama’s Plan for Iraq is the same 16 month strategy he first proposed as binding legisl[a]tion in the Senate in January 2007.

• January 2007 (when it was first introduced) + Obama’s 16 Month Strategic Redeployment = March 2008
• January 2008 (when Obama again mentioned it in a Dem debate) + Obama’s 16 Month Strategic Redeployment = March 2009
• January 2009 (when the next president is sworn in) + Obama’s 16 Month Strategic Redeployment (should it be Obama who is elected) = March 2010

…In other words, the Obama Plan for Iraq is exactly the same. The only thing changing is the timing and the obstructionist Republicans — from the filibustering Senate GOP to the veto-ready Republican president — are the ones causing the delays in implementation.

I don’t know how to make it more clear for Mr. Dienhart and his comrades such that they’ll understand this. The Obama Plan for Iraq — bringing 1 to 2 combat brigades home each month — is, was and always has been a 16 month plan. I understand Mr. Dienhart may enjoy using fuzzy math, but really, 16 is 16.

–

Fact 2

Despite the fact his first post, “Flip!“, centered around Mr. Dienhart’s contrived issue of 2009 versus 2010 Mr. Dienhart then posted a new, even more whiney post decrying the fact I pointed out Sen. Obama’s 16 month plan has been the same since he first introduced it in January 2007.

In that second post, Mr. Dienhart then claimed that what he clearly wrote as an afterthought (he even used the words, “Oh, and…” to discuss this point in his original essay) was instead the main point of his first essay, neverminding that the bulk of his first essay quoted and belabored Mr. Dienhart’s problems understanding 2009 vs 2010.

That afterthought dealt with Sen. Obama saying he would leave behind residual forces and this was somehow also a “Flip!” on Sen. Obama’s part.

I then pointed out that the Obama Plan for Iraq has been saying all along — since he first introduced the concept in January of 2007 — that he would leave training forces in Iraq to continue to train the Iraqis as they replace our redeployed combat brigades, among other, smaller numbers of GIs even after our combat troops had been either brought home or redeployed. (As another aside, even Sen. McCain now agrees with Sen. Obama that we ought to redeploy some of our stalwart guys and gals in uniform from Iraq to fight al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, a theater our current commander-in-chief has clearly ignored for too long. This, unfortunately for McCain supporters such as Mr. Dienhart, reflects an actual flip-flop for Sen. McCain who originally lambasted the notion of sending more troops into Afghanistan.

–

Fact 3

And here’s where Mr. Dienhart starts getting truly bizarre. Despite my using facts (facts still are facts in this day and age, right?) to burst Mr. Dienhart’s balloons by illustrating how Sen. Obama’s Plan for Iraq has been utterly and completely consistent since first introduced in 2007, he continued to belabor his assertion that Sen. Obama has somehow flipped those consistent positions by updating his second essay. He threw in a few attacks on my integrity for no reason other than apparently the ol’ “good measure”.

In that update he quotes my clear and concise points about the 16 month plan being the same 16 month plan whether it begins in January 2007, January 2008 or January 2009 (see my own quoted bullet points above) and then compares that apple to his orange with a talking point directly from the Republican National Committee on Sen. Obama discussing troop withdrawals. To be clear, Mr. Dienhart quotes me discussing dates and then falsely claims I wasn’t discussing redeployment (when, in fact, I had also discussed strategic redeployment in that same post).

While it would be more logical on Mr. Dienhart’s part if he would stick to one issue (either his difficulty understanding calendars or his problem reading Obama’s solution for Iraq) when trying to make his hollow points, since both his points are equally invalid (as I’ve demonstrated ad inifinitum) it’s not difficult to debunk either one even if he hops around.

–

In Conclusion

It seems Mr. Dienhart’s entire problem really boils down to Sen. Obama using shorter quotes during debates, speeches and interviews instead of reading off his entire Iraq War strategic redeployment solution every single time the point comes up.

As I noted in an earlier post, even if Sen. Obama really did bore everybody by reading every single line of every single policy proposal every single time such a discussion comes up just to placate the nattering nabobs like Mr. Dienhart partisans like Mr. Dienhart would then start to complain that he’s boring and over-analytical and pretentious and elitist and on and on.

This is the classic partisan Catch-22 gambit. In Mr. Dienhart’s eyes, and because of his clear dislike for Sen. Obama’s values and principles, there is nothing Sen. Obama can do on this front that would please him.

So be it.

It would be more honest of Mr. Dienhart if he got to the meat of the issue — Sen. McCain’s plan for Iraq versus Sen. Obama’s solution for the Iraq War

Now, Sen. McCain’s plan calls for an infinite, ill-defined deployment to continue to act as an Iraqi national police force based on numbers of US troops that simply don’t exist to be followed by permanent bases which would only serve to attract an unending supply of terrorists as we saw in Saudi Arabia when we did the same thing after the Gulf War.

That is a clear contrast to Sen. Obama’s solution for the Iraq War which includes strategic redeployment of combat troops in order to engage the Iraqis toward standing up on their own with a much smaller remaining, but not permanent, training force.

Instead, for some reason, he chooses to try floating lead balloons about 2009 versus 2010 and false claims that Sen. Obama is “flipping” about combat versus training regiments when in reality Sen. Obama has very clearly and very publicly been consistent since he first introduced his overall strategy in 2007.

If his problem is with Sen. Obama’s actual plan Mr. Dienhart should simply say so instead of making up things about non-existent “flips”…

Then we can talk about real issues instead of these needless distractions.

I have no doubt Mr. Dienhart is an honorable man. He served our nation faithfully and bravely as a Marin.

We may not agree on solutions to these very real issues, but at least he may come to realize our goals are the same even if our approaches differ: the security of our great nation; the safety of our amazing military men and women; training the Iraqi security forces so that bruised but bright nation can stand on its own; and destroying the real culprits behind 9/11 and our real enemies in the war against al Qaida and the Taliban 1400 miles away in Afghanistan.

Til then, at least he has admitted in the past his posts at Illinois Review are jokes…

Update: Mr. Dienhart issues a challenge to his fellow cons and readers “need to keep holding people like Rob Nesvacil accountable. Not just here at IR, but also at the polls.”

Likewise, friend, likewise. That’s the beauty of America — partisans such as Mr. Dienhart can take things out of context and ignore facts and folks such as myself can point it out.

And that is a pretty funny screen grab.

Update 2: Fellow Ill Review contributor Matt Gauntt chimes in on Mr. Dienhart’s challenge by quoting Buzz Lightyear to tell me “You are a strange, sad little man!”

Disney/Pixar fans will note that this quote is from a scene in Toy Story when Buzz is still wrapped up in his alternate reality thinking he’s real and not a toy…

Since this entire debate was initiated because Mr. Dienhart refuses to acknowledge the reality that Sen. Obama’s Iraq plan has been the same since January 2007 the quote is more appropriate than Mr. Gauntt may realize. Of course, unlike Woody, I haven’t called anyone a “loony” — though Gauntt’s and Dienhart’s fellow Ill Reviewers have thrown that epithet my way more than once. All in good fun, I’m sure.

Update 3: Minor point, and it could just be an Internet glitch, but it seems that the folks who claim to be open to debate have now taken to blocking even basic trackbacks to their posts. (Trackbacks are simple links between blogs. If they are blocked or deleted, readers at one blog won’t necessarily know another blog is discussing the post.)

Note to Mr. Dienhart: it seems you like to extrapolate simple observations into “complaints”. This is really just an observation and, as I said, a minor one at that since it could just be a snafu on Ill Review’s server.

Must just be a glitch in those Internet tubes… The trackback seems to be trickling in.

This is really, really inside baseball and concerns Mr. Dienhart’s repeated slams against me (see his Update 2) in his increasingly salacious posts making claims about non-existent Obama “flips” on Iraq.

Just clearing the air a bit…

In his “Update 2” and other posts Mr. Dienhart makes some hollow threats and whatnot about my volunteer position as a park commissioner. He has made similar empty threats in the past and he likely will continue to do so. Such is life.

As for any electoral prospects about me that Mr. Dienhart may see in his crystal ball, I’m quite fine with everything I’ve written here since it’s all based on fact. Mr. Dienhart is certainly entitled to his own opinions but as we all know not his own facts.

I’m also more than comfortable with my role in our community. As a group we’re doing some great things and always take the public’s input to heart as we go about them.

I’ve personally received scads of phone calls, emails and even letters over the years concerning the district and always take the time to discuss these matters with constituents. They’re good people with valid concerns and darn good ideas.

I’m not sure what that has to do with me debunking Mr. Dienhart’s fibs, but apparently it’s pretty near and dear to him so he continues to bring it up. It’s abundantly clear his problem is not with the district or my volunteer position with it but rather with me exposing his fallacies — a wholly separate issue.

To the point about unmasking his canards, Mr. Dienhart may not like what these facts that I’ve linked to and discussed are but I cannot change Mr. Dienhart’s understanding of reality for him — only he can decide to start discussing these things honestly. But just as he’s not afraid to land a punch or two (no matter how low, apparently) I’ll stand up straight and won’t pull any punches when calling him out on it.

As for any jokes about Mr. Dienhart’s stalking ways (ie, him calling my office to check up on me “as a courtesy“), it was Mr. Dienhart who admitted to the world last March that Illinois Review posts are actually jokes. If a jester such as Mr. Dienhart can’t take a little ribbing to lighten the mood during heady discussions of war and peace then what has this world come to?

By the way, despite Mr. Dienhart’s repeated lies IP address info has never been public information over at Illinois Review as anyone can see by looking at comments on their blog. Only contributors have ever been able to view them.

Charged with the responsibility of that private (albeit minor) knowledge, Mr. Dienhart was the one who took it upon himself to publish such information on the World Wide Web. (In his petty attempt at some sort of ‘retribution’ he also published my vacation info, essentially announcing to the world the fact I was not home at the time. To their credit, the powers that be at Ill Review did at least remove that info.)

It was his choice to do those things and if he can comfort his conscience with those decisions then that’s his station in life. Doesn’t mean I won’t stop kidding him about how ridiculous his actions were last year.

And I’d be more than happy to have discussions such as these over at their place, but that is up to Ill Review publisher Dennis LaComb and editor Fran Eaton, not me. Facts are facts whether I or others present them here in posts at Illinois Reason or in comments at Illinois Review.

As if his first post in this debate wasn’t fibbing enough, George Dienhart has updated his most recent, very carefully parsed post and — again — cherry-picks out only the parts which fit his narrow, bizarro alternate reality all while continuing to falsely claim that somehow my pointing out facts which negate his fibs are “lies” in and of themselves.

Does Mr. Dienhart not know how to read the entire proposal Sen. Obama originally put forth in January of 2007? Does he not understand that taking only a few bullet points out of my own posts (post 1 and post 2)  debunking his junk while ignoring the conclusions thereof doesn’t make his fibs any more true than before?

Sadly for his readers, this appears to be the case.

Perhaps Mr. Dienhart will bother to actually link to these posts and quotes of which he whines instead of cherry-picking a few lines from them as he fabricates his misinformation.

Only then would his readers be able to judge for themselves who is referring to fact-based info — such as the actual contents of Obama’s plan from 2007 which included references to the residual forces Mr. Dienhart now lies about being a “flip” — and who is, quite frankly, acting like an irritable troll by clipping quotes in convenient places.

Then again, in his partisan fog, perhaps Mr. Dienhart really thinks that Obama is somehow flipping his consistent positions simply because he’s not repeating every single line item of every single policy proposal every single time he mentions said proposals during 30 second debate points and soundbyte interviews… (Of course if he did do that then partisan Obama-haters would start complaining that Obama is overanalytical and elitist… Oh, wait, they’re saying that too. Hard to believe, I know.)

That said, the hypocritical Mr. Dienhart may want to discontinue crying about “partisan talking points”. Everything I’ve linked to was pre-existing information which I simply (and all too easily) referred to shine the light of truth on Mr. Dienhart’s lies.

On the other hand, several points Mr. Dienhart makes come straight from GOP talking points. Here’s but one example… Mr. Dienhart quotes something from what he calls a “Democrat” National Committee meeting (not sure what that is since the actual meeting on that day was the Democratic National Committee).

So right off the bat we know he’s using a unique misspelling. A quick Google search including that typo reveals that Mr. Dienhart pulled “his” talking point from an equally half-witted July 5th Republican talking point memo PDF hosted at GOP.com. GOP.com is, of course, the website of the Republican National Committee (or is it the “Republic” National Committee?).

In attempting to defend his lies about Sen. Obama, Illinois Review whiner George Dienhart continues to parse the finest of lines and blatantly make up baloney. He complains that my earlier post pointing out the facts behind his fibs claiming Sen. Obama has somehow “flipped” his Iraq position missed his intended point and that I should get reading lessons. It seems he needs to look in the mirror.

Readers should know Mr. Deinhart is so enamored with me he once called my office just to check on my whereabouts. I suppose he probably made the trip from beautiful Bull Valley one day and knows all about my ugly green kitchen countertops (a la conservative stalker extraordinaire Michelle Malkin) and he probably even looked up my DMV records and knows all about that junky old green Mazda Protege I got rid of years ago (my first new car, ah memories).

–

First, the Dienhart parsing…

Here’s what he originally wrote:

[...] The latest flip was on the war. It seems that Obama will not pull the troops out . Liberals can now collectively whine about how this isn’t a flip. All done now? Here is the quote from Sen. Obama.

“I have put forward a plan that will get our troops out by the end of 2009. We already saw today reports that the Iraqi minister suggests that we’re going to be in there at least until 2018, a decade-long commitment. Currently, we are spending $9 to $10 billion a month. The notion is that we are going to sustain that at the same time as we’re neglecting what we see happening in Afghanistan right now, where you have a luxury hotel in Kabul blown up by militants and the situation continues to worsen.”

Notice that first sentence? “I have put forward a plan that will get our troops out by the end of 2009.” What did Sen. Obama say in his recent Op/Ed piece in the New York Times? “’We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 - two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces.”

I’ll leave the bizarre, yet historically correct reference to Mesopotamia alone for the moment. Let’s call this what it is- a flip. Oh, and lets just be honest about what he is proposing- the same “residual force” that John McCain was crucified on earlier in the campaign. [...]

(emphasis added for clarity)

Now, my post called Dienhart out on the “Notice that first sentence” bit… not the “Oh, and” bit which took up a much smaller portion of his post.

Again, there is no “flip” here.

Obama’s Plan for Iraq is the same 16 month strategy he first proposed as binding legisltion in the Senate in January 2007.

• January 2007 (when it was first introduced) + Obama’s 16 Month Strategic Redeployment = March 2008
• January 2008 (when Obama again mentioned it in a Dem debate) + Obama’s 16 Month Strategic Redeployment = March 2009
• January 2009 (when the next president is sworn in) + Obama’s 16 Month Strategic Redeployment (should it be Obama who is elected) = March 2010

…In other words, the Obama Plan for Iraq is exactly the same. The only thing changing is the timing and the obstructionist Republicans — from the filibustering Senate GOP to the veto-ready Republican president — are the ones causing the delays in implementation.

Heck, even the Iraqi leadership is now essentially agreeing with Obama on the concept of a strategic timetable.

But, Dienhart’s second post goes on and on about how he wasn’t really talking about the timing (despite what he wrote about 2009 vs 2010). No, instead he now says he was really emphasizing the last few sentences so ignore all the other stuff. To wit, he now writes:

“Ahh, that’s not what the piece was addressed. Quite clearly, I stated that the flip occurred when Obama went from advocating a total pullout from Iraq to leaving behind sixty thousand troops as a “reaction force”.”

As I demonstrated above, Mr. Dienhart wrote about the 2009 vs 2010 timing for the majority of that first diatribe and didn’t really get into discussing the point about residual forces until after he says “Oh, and…”

Bizarre, but it leads to…

–

Second, the Dienhart baloney…

Mr. Dienhart originally wrote, “It seems that Obama will not pull the troops out” and “Oh, and lets just be honest about what he is proposing- the same “residual force” that John McCain was crucified on earlier in the campaign.” (Again, emphasis added.)

This too is not a flip, despite Mr. Dienhart’s deepest partisan wishes.

You see, from the get-go Sen. Obama has said the same thing about having a limited number of troops in country after the strategic redeployment of the combat brigades. Surely Mr. Dienhart, as a military man himself, knows the difference in forces. Obama has never said he would pull out every single GI (our embassies are guarded by Marines after all, would Mr. Dienhart complain about that too?) but that we do need to focus on redeploying the bulk of our battle forces, a point on which the majority of Americans agree with him.

Recall that Sen. Obama first introduced his plan to the Senate in January of 2007. From his Senate website, dated January 30, 2007:

“The plan allows for a limited number of U.S. troops to remain as basic force protection, to engage in counter-terrorism, and to continue the training of Iraqi security forces. If the Iraqis are successful in meeting the thirteen benchmarks for progress laid out by the Bush Administration, this plan also allows for the temporary suspension of the redeployment, provided Congress agrees that the benchmarks have been met and that the suspension is in the national security interest of the United States.”

In other words, there is no “flip” and Dienhart flops again.

Perhaps it is Mr. Dienhart who needs that reading lesson. Or, perhaps he’d like that thinking lesson instead since both his first and second post merely mimic the bogus and hollow yelps of “Flip!” from other partisan conservatives.

–

And some miscellany…

By the by, Dienhart complains that the trackback on the original posts appeared twice. Horrors.

I hadn’t realized the trackback popped up twice on the original Dienhart screed. I’m not sure why that would’ve happened other than I was thinking about posting an update about other cons writing about non-flips so I stopped in on that post’s edit feature later in the day (I ended up not doing the update). I suppose those darn Internets may have taken that as a double-post.

If I could fix the quirk to soothe Mr. Dienhart’s poor feelings I would but really it’s nothing he should worry his pretty little head about though.

As for why I write about Illinois Review contributors… they keep posting malarkey and rational folks like me will keep debunking it. If the Reviewers don’t like that, it’s well within their means to stop writing their spurious essays and start writing honestly. (It’s funny how the non-Ill Review peeps I debunk have the same complaints, as if I’m hurting their egos instead of pointing out facts. Go figure.)

I get that Mr. Dienhart apparently loathes what Sen. Obama has proposed and all the values for which he stands. But does he really need to continue to make up such claptrap? Apparently doing so, just like calling random people just to check in on them, fulfills some sort of desire for him.

To each their own.

PS: Mr. Dienhart may consider the 63% of Americans who say the Iraq War was not worth it as “anti-war” (ABC News Poll, 7/10-13, 2008). But, really, most of us rational Americans are simply anti-lying our way into war and, more importantly, anti-bungled war. Same goes for Democrats or Republicans who worm their way into needless wars — they both tend to get clobbered at the ballot box.

He says the pain is in his neck, but it’s apparently really just a brain cramp from cherry-picking those darn facts.

In his too-cute-by-half post “Flip!” George Dienhart squeals that Sen. Obama has somehow “flipped” on strategic withdrawal from Iraq. The problem for George is that he pulls a quote from January 2008 and removes all context of time from it.

Why does the timing matter? Because Sen. Obama said at the January 15, 2008 Democratic debate in Las Vegas: “I have put forward a plan that will get our troops out by the end of 2009.” (The full quote, which to his credit George picked up directly, is half-way through this debate transcript.)

The Obama Plan on Iraq is based on redeploying one to two brigades out of Iraq every month, which would take about 16 months to get the bulk of our forces out…

Makes sense: 16 months from January 2008 would be in 2009.

George now whines that Obama has flipped because he is — get this — still saying his plan would take about 16 months.

Where’s the flip?

George has to make it up by gurgling that Obama is now stating the redeployment wouldn’t be complete until 2010. That year, 2010, is of course 16 months after Obama would be sworn into the Presidency if he is elected. In fact, his actual plan was introduced to the Senate in early 2007 — with 16 months actually falling in March of 2008 at that point — and was unfortunately DOA given the obstructionist Senate Republicans’ 24/7 filibustering. I wonder why George didn’t get the brilliant idea to make up baloney about that date.

Sen. Obama’s 16 month strategy is still a 16 month strategy — the Republicans’ obstinance keeps pushing the actual implementation date further away.

Why is the Obama Plan on Iraq important and just what is so “strategic” about it? Just read the news reports about Afghanistan and what Obama has to say about concentrating on the real war on terror (in Afghanistan against the Taliban) and focusing on the real culprits behind 9/11 (Osama bin Forgotten and al Qaida).

Now consider that George’s cherry-picked essay is designed to denigrate Obama’s common sense foreign policy and, more importantly, military policy while also essentially promoting John McCain’s presidential ambitions and his desire to stay in Iraq for 100 years or more. (And yes, McCain did say he’d like our troops to stay for 50… 100… 1,000… even a million years after peace has broken out — as if the Taliban and al Qaida did not exist and we had endless numbers of GIs.)

Is this sort of cherry-picked partisan proselytizing what John McCain’s economic adviser (and architect of the current mortgage crisis with his Gramm Act) Phil Gramm had in mind when he complained Americans are whiners? Did he mean to reference criers like George who have to cherry-pick facts and ignore context in order to promote their alternate realities?

Sadly for George his post “Flip!” is nothing but a flop.

I posted the entire Declaration of Independence a year ago, some 11 score and more years after a group of wise men first wrote it using quill and parchment… In this election year, the 8th year of a controversial presidency many believe has set too many ill precedents and reverted back to several of the methods used by that other infamous George from the 1770s, this particular passage seems just as appropriate now as ever:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

And, of course, there are those grievance against King George III which also still resonate… In 2008, we people of these United States are dealing with the fall out from the current George: the suspension of habeus corpus, the illegal domestic spying, the Big Brother information gathering on all of us (not just “targets”), and even the treasonous publicizing of undercover American spies. Here’s what John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and the others had to say of that earlier George:

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Fran Eaton, Illinois Review’s editor, picks up on a speculative post by fellow conservative partisan and her “good friend” Joyce Morrison in a feebly attempt to “debunk” global warming.

You see, oceanographers discovered a series of underwater volcanoes 2 1/2 miles below the Arctic Ocean. They are so deep in fact that these cracks in the earth don’t behave like their counterparts on land because the herculean water pressure distorts lava and gas bubbles and even prevents steam from forming.

Now, one who doesn’t know much about vulcanology and oceanography might leave it to scientists to describe the processes at work here. And indeed, the researchers studying these deep-sea volcanoes depict an alien world of oddly shaped stones and shards of glass-like rock.

To her credit, Ms. Eaton does indeed briefly quote the Science Daily article written about the study.

But she and her good friend Ms. Morrison then jump to a completely illogical and unfounded conclusion that isn’t even mentioned in the article at all: that these few volcanoes, 2 1/2 miles under the ocean surface, might have something to do with the melting polar ice cap.

Is carbon dioxide released in a volcanic eruption? Sure. Just as it has been throughout the earth’s history — but the recent global warming temp spike has happened much more quickly than anything found in any geologic record. Thus it is illogical to think that one volcano (or even three, as in this case) would be the cause for the sudden worldwide jump in temperature seen in the past century-plus.

Is lava hot? You bet. Scientists studying volcanoes have died because magma has burned them to death. It’s real hot stuff. But is the lava produced by three volcanoes which are located 2 1/2 miles underwater going to be hot enough to melt polar ice from Russia to Alaska to Canada to Greenland? No, it’s not — for the same reason that the underwater volcanoes near Hawaii don’t raise the air temperature on those tropical islands. It’s just too deep.

Finally, logic would dictate that if these volcanoes were causing the Arctic ice to melt, then the Antarctic ice would not be melting due to a lack of magic volcanoes. Sadly for this myopic partisan duo of conservativedom, the Antarctic ice is also melting quite rapidly — with entire sheets of ice breaking off the southern continent and floating away to melt. (Such vast quantities of freshwater suddenly melting into saltwater are very likely to disrupt ocean patterns which have stabilized the global climate for millenia, mind you, but far be it from this dynamic duo to care about such things when there’s a funky partisan yarn to spin.)

Maybe Fran and Joyce read that creative Science Daily headline (”Fire Under Arctic Ice: Volcanoes Have Been Blowing Their Tops In The Deep“) and got all hot and bothered thinking they had found the cure for what ails their fellow partisan ostriches who just need to find that one last miracle shred of infopimping that can be twisted just so in order to convince the rest of the globe that reality isn’t really real…

Sadly, they have failed in that regard.

Over the weekend, former NATO Commander Gen. Wesley Clark (Ret.), a Barack Obama supporter, was discussing Sen. John McCain’s qualifications (or lack thereof) for office on CBS’ Sunday morning news show.

Bob Schieffer: Well you, you went so far as to say that you thought John McCain was, quote, and these are your words, “untested and untried,” And I must say I, I had to read that twice, because you’re talking about somebody who was a prisoner of war. He was a squadron commander of the largest squadron in the Navy. He’s been on the Senate Armed Services Committee for lo these many years. How can you say that John McCain is un- untested and untried? General?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Because in the matters of national security policy making, it’s a matter of understanding risk. It’s a matter of gauging your opponents, and it’s a matter of being held accountable. John McCain’s never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in Armed Forces as a prisoner of war. He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron in Air- in the Navy that he commanded, it wasn’t a wartime squadron. He hasn’t been there and ordered the bombs to fall. He hasn’t seen what it’s like when diplomats come in and say, ‘I don’t know whether we’re going to be able to get this point through or not. Do you want to take the risk? What about your reputation? How do we handle it-’

Bob Schieffer: Well-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: ‘ -it publicly.’ He hasn’t made those calls, Bob.

[...]

Bob Schieffer: I have to say, Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down. I mean-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be President.

Unfortunately, in their race to find the lowest common denominator and most sensationalist soap opera soundbite, the media (at the bidding of the faux outraged McCain Campaign [video]) has seen fit to only repeat the very last sentence which, clearly from the entire context, was set up by that most liberal (not) of networks, CBS.

And while the quote, “I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be President,” is technically accurate (note the Republicans said the same of President John F. Kennedy’s boat in WWII) it is “inartful” as Sen. Obama noted in today’s Quote of the Day. (Keep in mind that while Sen. McCain had been shot down and held as a POW, Gen. Clark was carried off the Vietnam battlefield on a stretcher. He’s no stranger to the crucible of combat.)

You see, on Monday Sen. Obama made a speech in which he said that no one should denigrate anyone’s military service. Many folks naturally took that as a repudiation of Gen. Clark’s comments from the day before.

Turns out that that Obama phrase has been part of the working draft of that speech for about two months. So unless Sen. Obama can look into the future, it was simply coincidence that he said that just after Gen. Clark’s off-the-cuff response to CBS’ Bob Schieffer.

And so on to the Quote of the Day, wherein Sen. Obama reminds us that the kerfuffle over Sen. McCain’s military service means little in the face of McCain’s lack of judgment and pandering to the political winds on the key issues facing we Americans. After being asked again about the Clark remarks:

“I guess my question is why, given all the vast numbers of things that we’ve got to work on, that that would be a top priority of mine?” he said. “I think that, you know, right now we’re here to talk about how we can make sure that kids in Zanesville and across Ohio get the kind of support that they need and communities that are impoverished can start to rebuild. I’m happy to have all sorts of conversations about how we deal with Iraq and what happens with Iran, but the fact that somebody on a cable show or on a news show like Gen. Clark said something that was inartful about Sen. McCain I don’t think is probably the thing that is keeping Ohioans up at night.”

While it may be giving McCain’s lobbyist campaign staffers and lying swiftboat backers a touch of insomnia, it’s probably not the thing keeping most other Americans up at night either.

(h/t Bob Sackamento)

Is it ok to produce a graphic that is reminiscent of the presidential seal or isn’t it?

Partisan conservatives like those mocking birds at Illinois Review, among many other nattering nabobs, are downright apoplectic that Obama’s graphic design team came up with a graphic that looks kinda sorta like a presidential seal. (Of course, the Obama campaign had been using an engraved image of an eagle for a while before this non-issue was raised anyway. Why didn’t cons gripe about it before? Must’ve been a slow news weekend.)

Problem is, plenty of Republicans have done the exact same thing — producing graphics that mimic the presidential seal and the seals of other branches of government. In fact, Republicans from local replacement candidate Martin Ozinga to presumptive presidential nominee John McCain have also been mimicking Obama’s other graphics so it’s abundantly clear that conservatives used to be ok with echoing earlier design work.

So which is it? Either it’s ok for all candidates to ‘borrow’ graphic design or it isn’t. Conservative partisans can’t whitewash and ignore instances of their candidates parroting designs but then go bonkers when the presidential front-runner (who also happens to be a Dem) does it.

Which is it, con whiners? Or are the cons perhaps really just upset because McCain didn’t think of it first instead of borrowing a chiseled star from graphics related to the US military?

(And so much for the tattered, faded myth of “liberal” media seeing as how this non-issue seems to be all they can talk about, now that they’ve stopped overanalyzing Michelle Obama’s pantyhose, or lack thereof…)

(h/t Mark Nickolas)

This one’s for you Rich Miller…

–

Update: Pale hose fan Rich Miller is obviously taking the Cubs sweep over the Sox hard and has now opened a bottle of whine to console himself. A 2005 2-buck-upchuck by the smell of it.

Unfortunately for Mark Kirk, when he makes statements over the airwaves they get heard by the public at large. Yesterday, he appeared on conservative radio’s WLS-AM and got caught telling a few whoppers, while apparently being caught up in the partisan vapors.

Progress Illinois recorded the conversation for posterity and noted that Rep. Kirk was infopimping the already debunked “China is drilling off the coast of Cuba” lie that was all the conservative-partisans’ rage last week as the cons tried to push for drilling off the coast of the tourist-dependent Sunshine State. (They ought to talk to the president’s younger brother about why he, smartly, wouldn’t let the rigs drill off his state’s sun-filled shores).

This Cuba lie was so easily and so quickly debunked that even Vice President and former Big Oil CEO Dick Cheney had to eat his words within days. Apparently, Congressman Kirk didn’t get the memo to stop lying.

Now, why a guy who claims to believe in a clean environment and went to town for photo op after photo op when BP Amoco wanted to dump poison in our Lake Michigan drinking water would be advocating for drilling off Florida’s beaches is unclear and not the least bit hypocritical. If he can work to find Federal dollars for solar panels at schools, he ought to also be able to work for alternative fuels instead of mimicking the drill-drill-drill lemmings.

A bit later in that same radio program, Progress Illinois also noted that Mark Kirk repeated the oft-heard ‘mistake’ that seems to plague conservative-partisans: swapping the names of “Osama” and “Obama”.

Rep. Kirk did rightly apologize publicly and to Sen. Obama as soon as the ‘error’ was pointed out, but even worse is the fact that he was bald-faced lying while talking about Obama’s stated positions on Osama bin Laden. To wit (via PI):

DON WADE: In fact, yesterday in a conference call, Barack Obama’s advisers were asked, “If Osama bin Laden were caught, should he get to challenge his detention in U.S. courts?” And the advisers said that — should that right to challenge detention that they get at Gitmo based on the Supreme Court ruling, should that be applied to bin Laden? — and Obama’s advisers said, “Yes.”

KIRK: Yeah, and I would much rather have a policy where if we see Obama there’s a shoot-on-sight order.

That, unfortunately, was only half of what the Obama camp has discussed regarding bin Laden.

The rest of the story actually comes pretty close to precisely what Kirk was advocating. From Nedra Pickler of the AP:

“First of all, I think there is an executive order out on Osama bin Laden’s head,” the Illinois senator said at a news conference. “And if I’m president, and we have the opportunity to capture him, we may not be able to capture him alive.”

Obama’s campaign said he was referring to a classified Memorandum of Notification that President Clinton approved in 1998 - revealed in the 9/11 Commission report - that would allow the CIA to kill bin Laden if capture weren’t feasible.

Obama said he wouldn’t discuss what approach he would take to bring bin Laden to justice if he were apprehended. But he said the Nuremberg trials for the prosecution of Nazi leaders are an inspiration because the victors acted to advance universal principles and set a tone for the creation of an international order.

“What would be important would be for us to do it in a way that allows the entire world to understand the murderous acts that he’s engaged in and not to make him into a martyr, and to assure that the United States government is abiding by basic conventions that would strengthen our hand in the broader battle against terrorism,” Obama said.

It’s unfortunate that the WLS hosts were so ill-informed but hopefully this is clear enough for Rep. Kirk and he’ll stop repeating his fibs and half-truths.

Or does Mark Kirk not believe in Truth, Justice and the American Way?

Adam over at Progress Illinois catches Rep. Mark Kirk bending facts, and toeing the Republican line, while trying to explain his vote against unemployed folks.

Bottom line, Rep. Kirk (and his chief, minority leader John Boehner) are claiming that somebody could subvert the intent of this legislation to try and collect unemployment checks after only working for two weeks. While technically that’s possible, as Adam explains such a person would also have to subsist for nearly 9 months on “income” far below the poverty level.

In other words, they’d have to work at not working, and live off literally a few dollars a month to do it. Yet this is Rep. Kirk’s excuse for voting against unemployed Americans. That’s not what I call being a moderate or standing up for Main Street.

–

Full disclosure: I’ve met Rep. Kirk on occasion. He’s a nice enough fellow but I clearly disagree with several of his positions and his record in Congress. I have volunteered for his challenger Dan Seals in the past and may do so again in the future.

Sen. Barack Obama got down and dirty to pitch in for a bit of moral support as Quincy, Illinois fights back floodwaters, filling not just one or two sandbags but a whole slew of them. He also gave a pep talk to the scores of volunteers working through the pain of their aching arms and backs to do what they can. Several folks have noticed too that for the past many days front and center on his campaign website is a large graphic encouraging folks to do what they can — donate, volunteer, etc.

Isn’t that what people who claim to be “conservative” always say people should do: volunteer to help each other instead of relying on government to “bail them out”… donate their own money at an amount they choose rather than investing tax dollars since “it’s your money”…

So why is it that Sen. Obama is the only candidate doing these things?

Sen. John McCain has been hopping from campaign fundraiser to campaign fundraiser in California (”west coast values”) and will soon head to more in Texas. He has a tiny graphic buried on his campaign’s homepage (at least it’s there) but instead of an immediate, boots on the ground response he’s off wining and dining GOP big-wigs. In a way, it fits the McCain pattern — he has routinely voted against relief and responsibility for Gulf Coast victims of Katrina.

We already knows what happens when a president doesn’t have a clear grasp on a natural disaster; and by their actions large and small our nominees are letting us know which one will change from that legacy and which one will merely continue it.

Natural disasters shouldn’t be a political issue, but how candidates and incumbents respond to them is.

–

Donate if you aren’t able to volunteer. Or, consider other ways to help too.