I Don't Have Words

for how much I miss this woman.

On The Passing Of A Great Man

William Donald Schaefer, one of the Marylanders least likely to be thought of as belonging in an oil painting, has left us.

Old Woman

Today Patti Smith is 63. This is what an old woman looks like. She'll still rock your ass off of the planet. Here's how she does "Because the Night" now.

Update: Her movie, "Patti Smith: Dream of Life" has it's TV premiere tonight on PBS/P.O.V In my neighborhood it is on MPT at 9:30. YMMV. Apparently that PBS station based in Washington DC doesn't think we need to know about Patti Smith because they aren't carrying it.

h/t The Commie Mutt
Photo Contact Music (obviously)

Happy 90th Birthday Mr. Seeger

At a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Rally, Greenwood, MS. 1963

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;
By the relief office, I’d seen my people.
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,
Is this land made for you and me?

Maddow Interviews Cox About Teabagging

wherein they both get mad props for keeping as much of a straight face as they were able.

Where Does Obama Go From Here?

The meme du jour seems to view Barack Hussein Obama as the rightful heir of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as the progenitor of the New New Deal. Franklin Delano Obama is the subject of a Paul Krugman piece that argues for bold economic strokes and audacity. But he is an economist. We would expect no less. Michael Lind writing in Salon is also stuck within the window of his own specialization. Viewing the nation through a lens of broad changes based largely on centralization and decentralizaation, he tells us, in a stunning display of egomanaical fancy, that we hae entered the era of the Fourth Republic.

More often these comparisons seem based on the nature of the presidency that came before the two men then wander into a comparison that, in my view, is based largely on a lack of imagination. Here is George Packer for The New Yorker.

Barack Obama’s decisive defeat of John McCain is the most important victory of a Democratic candidate since 1932. It brings to a close another conservative era, one that rose amid the ashes of the New Deal coalition in the late sixties, consolidated its power with the election of Ronald Reagan, in 1980, and immolated itself during the Presidency of George W. Bush. Obama will enter the White House at a moment of economic crisis worse than anything the nation has seen since the Great Depression; the old assumptions of free-market fundamentalism have, like a charlatan’s incantations, failed to work, and the need for some “new machinery” is painfully obvious.

In spite of the fact that the right from the time of Barry Goldwater on has been doggedly struggling to obliterate all of the social changes created during the new deal I don't see the Roosevelt/Obama comparison as a good fit. Nor do I see the occasional comparison between Reagan and Obama apt, in spite of Obama's obvious admiration for the accomplishments of Reagan.

Listening to the radio the week of the election -- that was just last week, wasn't it? -- I heard someone say that for him the morning after the election was November 23, 1963. The promise that seemed to die with the assasination of John Kennedy seemed alive for him again. That felt exactly right to me.

Which brings me to the appropriate comparison for the Obama presidency -- Lyndon Baines Johnson, an effective yet tragically flawed presidency. If Obama can do the kinds of things that Johnson did, can be legislatively bold while avoiding getting bogged down in a war in Afghanistan or Pakistan or wherever a war seems to beckon him, he could become a great president ushering in an equally great era.

This is a blog entry, not a book chapter, so I'm not going to wade through all of Johnson's accomplishments. Robert Dallek synopsizes some of his major accomplishments

Johnson seized upon the national mood of regard for the fallen president to win passage of his major unrealized legislative initiatives - an $11 billion tax cut, the 1964 civil rights bill, and subsequently, in 1965, the Medicare/Medicaid and federal aid to education laws.

Johnson was not content to simply embrace JFK's proposals. He successfully took up the cudgels for the voting rights, open housing, immigration reform, environmental protections, consumer safety bills, cabinet departments of transportation and housing and urban development, cultural reforms like the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities and the Freedom of Information Act. The War on Poverty also became part of his presidential legacy. Head Start, food stamps, elimination of urban slums, public housing, expanded social security, legal services and expanded welfare to needy citizens added up to an assault on poverty that reduced the percentage of Americans living in penury from roughly 23 percent to 12 percent. Although a number of Johnson's initiatives fell short of what he hoped they might accomplish, his domestic reforms added up to a record of liberal alterations that rivaled FDR's New Deal.
Moreover, Johnson's civil rights actions permanently transformed the South.

I don't know what they teach in schools these days about Johnson but his fatal flaw was his belief in the war in Vietnam. Dallek again

Convinced it was in the country's national interest to combat Communist aggression in Vietnam, believing that a failure to fight a limited war would lead to a larger one with Russia and China, and fearful that losing Vietnam would touch off a right-wing, McCarthyite reaction in the United States, Johnson sent over 500,000 U.S. troops to fight the war.

His assumption that a combination of bombing, ground forces and aid to the Saigon government would assure the independence of South Vietnam proved to be false. Despite repeated assertions that American was winning in Vietnam, Johnson could not convince Americans we were achieving our goals, especially after Tet, the North Vietnamese-Viet Cong offensive early in 1968 that seemed to give the lie to Johnson's assertions about the fighting.

We still bear the cultural scars from these decisions. And from Bush (and McCain's) equally flawed efforts to create an American empire, in spite of those failures. Obama started out with the right impulses, speaking out against an invasion of Iraq. Yet during the campaign he began to speak of a "surge" in Afghanistan. There have been leaks about closing Guantanamo but it is too soon to see whether he has a less militaristic model to take its place. We hear rumors of Mr. Gates staying on as the Secretary of Defense while we hear pleas to cut the defense budget.

President-elect Obama is a smart guy. He is well known for being cool, no drama Obama. If he can keep his head about him, if he can learn from history and hold onto his core, he can become a great president ushering in a great era in United States history. I wish him the best.

Dave Stewart

for the waiting time.

Barack Obama's Acceptance Speech

This was an amazing speech that hit the perfect note. I continue to be surprised at how moved I am by the man, the fact that we have a black candidate who is widely loved, and the possibilities that I thought Mr. Bush had extinguished. If you haven't done so, watch.

Obama/Biden 2008

He wasn't my first choice but it was a solid choice without Hillary involvement. Biden is a white male Roman Catholic who has foreign policy experience coming out of his ears. I'll struggle to put aside my antipathy to his hair transplants.

He can be an attack dog on he campaign trail and I just can't wait to watch him debate Mitt. That alone is worth the price of admission.

But who is going to be Secretary of State now?

Made Me Smile

With a great deal of gratitude I take a moment here to thank the kind person who stapled that bright orange piece of posterboard onto the telephone pole, the one on 2nd Street with the large hand lettered word R A D A R.

You are a fine human being.

Mr. Vice President

I am supporting the Governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer, a genuine rancher and gun toting liberal. He has his own foreign policy.

"Why wouldn’t we create an economic engine that will take us into the next century, and let those sheiks and dictators and rats and crooks from all over the world boil in their own oil?" Schweitzer said at a press conference.

He is 52 years old, takes his dog to work in his official state S.U.V., supports abortion rights, opposes school vouchers, and hates that Real ID crap. And he is a Roman Catholic. Check him out. I think you'll like what you see.

4000

As we pause briefly to remember the 4,000 U.S. soldiers dead in Iraq, the 29,395 additional casualties, and the at least 82,000 Iraqis dead, let us try to remember why it is so important to put an end to this obscene war in Iraq. As we bicker over who would be the best Democrat to lead the nation, let us try to focus on the things that matter the most and get this divisiveness behind us.

Donna Edwards

decisively won the primary fight for MD-4, unseating the long serving incumbent - 8 terms!! -- Al Wynn who was supported by Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel, and Steny Hoyer. YAY! It's a fine morning in spite of the layer of ice on everything. This is not my district but I did everything I could to to help her along. I am more than a little pleased to see a new person serving in that seat.

What is that you say? There is still the election in November? Piffle. This is a Democratic district. The winner of the Republican primary in this district has thus far garnered 3,577 votes. No, I'm not tempting fate. It's a done deal. Welcome Congresswoman Edwards. Life is good.

U.S. House, District 4 Democratic Primary
Candidate Votes %
Donna Edwards 52,861 60
Al Wynn * 30,673 35
Precincts: 76% | Updated: 5:12 AM ET | Source: AP

Obama on the Move

After his two to one massacre of Hillary Clinton in the South Carolina primary, gaining 22 delegates to her 10 as of this hour, and finding that he lead in the total delegate count 62 to 47, we find that Caroline Kennedy endorses Senator Obama in tomorrow's Times saying

OVER the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama.
...

I want a president who understands that his responsibility is to articulate a vision and encourage others to achieve it; who holds himself, and those around him, to the highest ethical standards; who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved.

I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.

Agree or not, she articulates much of the appeal of Senator Obama and why he can easily win in the general election. I wonder how many more such endorsements will be forthcoming.