My Dad

My father died almost 16 years ago. We had a very stormy relationship for most of the time he was alive. Last night, I had the strangest dream. My father came back for 24 hours. I took him to my sister's and he met my 9 year old niece, his only grandchild, who was born after he died. He was so sweet with her. Before he left again, he said he was sorry for not being a better father. I feel such a sense of peace today, it's quite extraordinary. Maybe I've finally forgiven him.

From Glen Greenwald's Salon Column

Things I learned over the last 48 hours

* It's possible to eliminate recreational activities that people have engaged in privately for thousands of years simply by making it illegal and then imprisoning the people who do it. Thus, we criminalize prostitution and drugs to ensure that nobody does those things.

* People who work at an unpleasant job in order to support themselves, rather than because they enjoy it, are the functional equivalent of brutalized, exploited slaves and therefore should be barred by others from choosing that job -- when the job in question is prostitution, but not when it's factory work or fast food cashier or large corporate law firm associate or massage therapist or porn actor.

* Sometimes, adults make choices for their own lives that other adults perceive to be bad choices. When that happens, the adults who know better have the right to step in, pass laws to restrict the bad choices, and even make the bad choices criminal -- all for the good of the adults who don't know what's good for them.

* People who respect the judgments which adult women make about their own lives and believe in their right to choose for themselves how they live are sexist and even misogynistic. People who believe that adult women don't really know what's good for them and need to have choices made for them by others are the people who respect women.

* The way you protect someone who is doing things you don't like is to turn them into criminals and force them to do it underground.

* Among liberals, Barney Frank is one of America's most admired and respectable public servants, despite this. Among many in the same group, Eliot Spitzer is a lowly piece of trash not fit for decent company.

* Among conservatives, David Vitter is someone who should be applauded and supported. Among the same group, Eliot Spitzer is dirt that needs to be throw away.

* All decent people agree that what Eliot Spitzer did is repulsive, morally disgusting and totally nauseating -- which is why it's so important to learn about and report on every last titillating detail about what he did, the kind of sex he had, with whom he had it, how many times he had it, and what his partners looked like -- because it's all so completely appalling that it's critical that we stay fully informed.

* Because Eliot Spitzer is a wretched hypocrite who mercilessly and cruelly prosecuted others for the very acts in which he himself engaged, and because he's so very sleazy, there's no reason to question the vast, extraordinary law enforcement resources expended -- under highly unusual circumstances -- by the Bush DOJ and FBI to investigate a crime that the Federal Government almost never prosecutes. Therefore, here's what we should ignore in order to focus on the much more important matters of Spitzer' sex life and his relationship with his wife (which is very much our concern), from today's The Wall St. Journal:

It isn't clear why the FBI sought the wiretap warrant. Federal prostitution probes are exceedingly rare, lawyers say, except in cases involving organized-crime leaders or child abuse. Federal wiretaps are seldom used to make these cases; search warrants usually suffice. Wiretap applications generally are reserved for serious crimes, such as drug, weapons and terrorism-related cases. There typically are no more than 1,400 wiretaps in use nationwide at any given time.

* Governors who hire adult prostitutes must resign immediately lest the public trust be forever sullied. Presidents who break the law by spying on Americans with no warrants, who torture people in violation of multiple treaties and statutes, who start hideously destructive wars based on false pretenses, who repeatedly proclaim the power to ignore laws, and who imprison people -- including Americans -- with no charges of any kind, should remain in office for as long as they want. Anyone who suggests otherwise is an irresponsible, shrill, partisan radical.

Interesting Contrast

When Al Gore (most say inadvertantly) made some fund-raising calls from the VP's office, he was almost investigated and the media went wild. However, John McCain gets all the pomp and circumstance of a Presidential endorsement, AT THE WHITE HOUSE! However, I'm sure the media will jump on this as well .....

Bush to Endorse John McCain

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 12:11 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's not good to keep President Bush waiting. But John McCain did on Wednesday.

Bush joked with reporters and laughed and turned left and right as he waited for the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting to show up at the White House for a promised endorsement.

McCain finally showed up and the two men went inside for lunch. ''He's going to win,'' Bush said. He shook hands with McCain and kissed his wife, Cindy, on the cheek.

McCain was getting a formal welcome at the North Portico, followed by lunch in Bush's private dining room and an endorsement in the Rose Garden.

In recent weeks, Bush has gone out of his way to defend the senator's conservative credentials, saying criticism of the Arizona senator has been grossly unfair. The two were bitter rivals in 2000.

''The president has said he looks forward to vigorously campaigning for the GOP and tonight it has become clear that the GOP nominee will be Sen. John McCain,'' White House press secretary Dana Perino said Tuesday night. ''Of course the president is going to endorse the GOP nominee, which is going to be Senator John McCain.''

Bush made morning phone calls to McCain's former rivals Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson to congratulate them on their primary campaigns. He intends to call Rudy Giuliani later.

''He said he appreciated their ability to keep their sense of humor and that he looks forward to working them in the '08 election,'' Perino said.

Asked about McCain's past disagreements with Bush, she said: ''The point of these elections is for the candidate to run as their own person. Elections are about change and going forward, and one of the most attractive things about Senator McCain to the Republican Party is that he has been his own person. He has blazed his own trail and he will have to make the case as to why voters should vote for him.''

This is the Ad Hillary Should Have Run

Does Huckabee Know Something We Don't?

February 28, 2008 (NYTimes)

McCain’s Canal Zone Birth Prompts Queries About Whether That Rules Him Out

By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON — The question has nagged at the parents of Americans born outside the continental United States for generations: Dare their children aspire to grow up and become president? In the case of Senator John McCain of Arizona, the issue is becoming more than a matter of parental daydreaming.

Mr. McCain’s likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a “natural-born citizen” can hold the nation’s highest office.

Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation, their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states.

“There are powerful arguments that Senator McCain or anyone else in this position is constitutionally qualified, but there is certainly no precedent,” said Sarah H. Duggin, an associate professor of law at Catholic University who has studied the issue extensively. “It is not a slam-dunk situation.”

Mr. McCain was born on a military installation in the Canal Zone, where his mother and father, a Navy officer, were stationed. His campaign advisers say they are comfortable that Mr. McCain meets the requirement and note that the question was researched for his first presidential bid in 1999 and reviewed again this time around.

But given mounting interest, the campaign recently asked Theodore B. Olson, a former solicitor general now advising Mr. McCain, to prepare a detailed legal analysis. “I don’t have much doubt about it,” said Mr. Olson, who added, though, that he still needed to finish his research.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and one of Mr. McCain’s closest allies, said it would be incomprehensible to him if the son of a military member born in a military station could not run for president.

“He was posted there on orders from the United States government,” Mr. Graham said of Mr. McCain’s father. “If that becomes a problem, we need to tell every military family that your kid can’t be president if they take an overseas assignment.”

The phrase “natural born” was in early drafts of the Constitution. Scholars say notes of the Constitutional Convention give away little of the intent of the framers. Its origin may be traced to a letter from John Jay to George Washington, with Jay suggesting that to prevent foreigners from becoming commander in chief, the Constitution needed to “declare expressly” that only a natural-born citizen could be president.

Ms. Duggin and others who have explored the arcane subject in depth say legal argument and basic fairness may indeed be on the side of Mr. McCain, a longtime member of Congress from Arizona. But multiple experts and scholarly reviews say the issue has never been definitively resolved by either Congress or the Supreme Court.

Ms. Duggin favors a constitutional amendment to settle the matter. Others have called on Congress to guarantee that Americans born outside the national boundaries can legitimately see themselves as potential contenders for the Oval Office.

“They ought to have the same rights,” said Don Nickles, a former Republican senator from Oklahoma who in 2004 introduced legislation that would have established that children born abroad to American citizens could harbor presidential ambitions without a legal cloud over their hopes. “There is some ambiguity because there has never been a court case on what ‘natural-born citizen’ means.”

Mr. McCain’s situation is different from those of the current governors of California and Michigan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jennifer M. Granholm, who were born in other countries and were first citizens of those nations, rendering them naturalized Americans ineligible under current interpretations. The conflict that could conceivably ensnare Mr. McCain goes more to the interpretation of “natural born” when weighed against intent and decades of immigration law.

Mr. McCain is not the first person to find himself in these circumstances. The last Arizona Republican to be a presidential nominee, Barry Goldwater, faced the issue. He was born in the Arizona territory in 1909, three years before it became a state. But Goldwater did not win, and the view at the time was that since he was born in a continental territory that later became a state, he probably met the standard.

It also surfaced in the 1968 candidacy of George Romney, who was born in Mexico, but again was not tested. The former Connecticut politician Lowell P. Weicker Jr., born in Paris, sought a legal analysis when considering the presidency, an aide said, and was assured he was eligible. Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. was once viewed as a potential successor to his father, but was seen by some as ineligible since he had been born on Campobello Island in Canada. The 21st president, Chester A. Arthur, whose birthplace is Vermont, was rumored to have actually been born in Canada, prompting some to question his eligibility.

Quickly recognizing confusion over the evolving nature of citizenship, the First Congress in 1790 passed a measure that did define children of citizens “born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States to be natural born.” But that law is still seen as potentially unconstitutional and was overtaken by subsequent legislation that omitted the “natural-born” phrase.

Mr. McCain’s citizenship was established by statutes covering the offspring of Americans abroad and laws specific to the Canal Zone as Congress realized that Americans would be living and working in the area for extended periods. But whether he qualifies as natural-born has been a topic of Internet buzz for months, with some declaring him ineligible while others assert that he meets all the basic constitutional qualifications — a natural-born citizen at least 35 years of age with 14 years of residence.

“I don’t think he has any problem whatsoever,” said Mr. Nickles, a McCain supporter. “But I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if somebody is going to try to make an issue out of it. If it goes to court, I think he will win.”

Lawyers who have examined the topic say there is not just confusion about the provision itself, but uncertainty about who would have the legal standing to challenge a candidate on such grounds, what form a challenge could take and whether it would have to wait until after the election or could be made at any time.

In a paper written 20 years ago for the Yale Law Journal on the natural-born enigma, Jill Pryor, now a lawyer in Atlanta, said that any legal challenge to a presidential candidate born outside national boundaries would be “unpredictable and unsatisfactory.”

“If I were on the Supreme Court, I would decide for John McCain,” Ms. Pryor said in a recent interview. “But it is certainly not a frivolous issue.”

Ralph Nader Drives Me Crazy!

The Truth About Hillary and Healthcare Reform

I'm always amazed by the virulent hatred of Hillary Clinton. I mean, I guess I can understand it a little bit because my lip automatically curls whenever I hear Bush's voice, someone says his name, I read an article about him, I see a bush, someone says "I love you a bushel and a peck", you get the picture.

It's somewhat similar with the Hillary haters, but they hate her already, before she's even elected. They hate her laugh, she's too smart in an a smarty-pants kind of way, her hairdos are ugly, she's bug-eyed, she dresses badly, whatever. Do these people have Mommy issues and Hillary is their overbearing Mama surrogate? Sadly, she's a very smart, capable woman who can't seem to win no matter what she does. People don't want substance, they want vague rhetoric about hope and transcending the political process. Look at history people, when has that worked? Remember Bush's (my lip is curling) promises to work with Republicans and Democrats and usher in an era of "Compassionate Comservatism", how did that work out? When things are in the crapper like they are now, we need a strong leader with experience who can surround herself with good people and get things moving on day one.

Now that you've made it through my rant, let's get to the point. One thing about Hillary that does seem to stick in peoples' craws is that she screwed up healthcare reform. Read this long, but very interesting article, and you'll see she got a bum rap. And maybe you'll take another look at my choice for the next President. Oh course, nobody actually reads this blog, but you never know ;-)