deadissue.com

As disinterested as I am in the Presidential races at this point, I do have to get behind this sentiment right here, printed in Time magazine. John Edwards and Barack Obama have both been impressive, but the media’s take on Edwards in particular has been lazy, low-brow and tone deaf in terms of how his message lines up with what Americans are concerned about these days. For the sake of his un-minced words regarding health care and taxes, I’m more impressed with Edwards than any other candidate at this point.

Another challenge is that much of the attention he’s gotten recently has been the unflattering kind, stories that question his sincerity and assail his image as a fighter for the little guy by focusing on his pricey haircuts, huge house and hedge-fund job. These viral attacks, spreading from the Drudge Report and other blogs to newspapers everywhere, make a dumb argument. They assume that someone who’s wealthy can’t be a sincere advocate for poor and working people. By that logic, the healthy can’t speak on behalf of the sick, or whites on behalf of people of color (Al’s comment: Unless they’re a Republican). But in politics, of course, dumb arguments can hurt you, which is why some Edwards aides urged him not to build such a big house. Their effort failed because the Edwardses—having battled cancer and lost a son, Wade, in an automobile accident 11 years ago, when he was 16—wanted to enjoy the luxuries they could afford. “We live our lives,” says Elizabeth. “We’re not pretending to be anything we’re not. People have said, Don’t do this or that. How would it look? But I honestly don’t know how much time I’ve got. So we’re going to live our lives.”

Here’s what would truly be hypocritical: if Edwards spoke out on behalf of the disadvantaged while pushing policies that benefit the rich. This he does not do. He favors boosting the capital-gains tax rate for families earning over $250,000 and closing the loophole that allows fund managers—like those at Fortress Investment Group, where he earned almost $500,000 in 2006—to get taxed at just 15%. “He wants to take money away from the people who paid him,” says deputy campaign manager Jonathan Prince. “That’s not hypocrisy. That’s sincerity.”

If there can be something worse in politics than having no power, it would be to have power, but no clue about what to do with it. Chipping away at the Bush administration via subpoenas and committee hearings is starting to feel like working through endless sheets of bubble-wrap one pop at a time. They’ve insulated themselves with enough inexperienced hacks to last forever it seems. Around the time when Democrats in Congress wise up to the fact that this was part of the design all along – to stock up on sacrificial lambs for the specific purpose of protecting the real players once the testimony started flying – it could be too late. For them and for the American people who lost their taste for these appetizers long ago.

The strategy seems to have been decided on prior to the opening of this session, and in that sense it’s not all that different from the neoconservatives who took office looking to take out Saddam. Much like how 9/11 was said to have “changed everything”, when internally it changed nothing, a USA Today poll that came out this week showing that the portion of Americans who think the surge is “making the situation better” jumped up to 31% from last month’s 22%, and those who say the surge is “not making much difference” dropped to 41% from 51% a month ago.

There’s barely 2 hours of water and electricity per day in 125 degree Baghdad, the initial focal point of the surge. We hear a lot about Anbar and other places, but the strategy was to make it work in Baghdad first and foremost. President Bush even went so far as to reveal the locations of our cooperative police stations in front of an audience, the visual projected up for everyone to see. This strategy was genius and it was led by a genius named Patraeus, who is following the trend himself, having understood that “things are getting better and we’re making good progress” before he even arrived in theatre.

This much you can count on, that while Baghdad is dying of thirst, his schedule is packed solid with trial runs of what he’s going to say in front of Congress, all practiced over right-wing talk radio. McCain, Graham, Lieberman and the Dixie Sound Machine have the general ranked somewhere directly below Zeus, as the days leading up to his testimony will absolutely be an exercise in rewriting the Constitution so that the military alone will make all relevant judgements regarding war. Just disregard that mention of Congress possessing the sole power to wage war. And while we’re at it, let’s pretend from here on out that there is no such thing as the State Department.

And to hell with the Constitution altogether while we’re at it. The Reid-Pelosi-Hoyer brain trust is in favor of that, aren’t they? Well, anyways, they’ll figure it all out. Whatever happens, as long as we never threaten to impeach President Bush, everything will fall into place. Indeed, the voters clearly wanted Democrats to tread water until 2008 and play the Bush administration’s game.