Avuncular American

Trillion$ To Go: Remember The Iraq Bill

[T]his financial disaster will end the war in Iraq and limit significantly the choices that both Obama and McCain might have before them as President.

Steve Clemons, The Washington Note

Sorry to bring it up at this delicate juncture, but there is the matter of that other bill.  For Iraq.

As Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz ("The Three Trillion Dollar War") reminded Congress earlier this year

Because the administration actually cut taxes as we went to war, when we were already running huge deficits, this war has, effectively, been entirely financed by deficits. The national debt has increased by some $2.5 trillion since the beginning of the war.

There are only so many trillions that a nation can run up in debt and printed paper currency before things start to happen.  Just ask Zimbabwe, where the 40 million percent inflation rate is no joke.  There have been others: people in inter war Germany used wheel barrows to cart their money around.

That's probably not in store for the US - yet - but one thing is for sure: just like having your house repossessed will cramp your shopping style, so too does financial profligacy have a way of delimiting your strategic options.  That is the message of noted national security scholar Andrew Bacevich in his new book, The Limits of Power.

In the blame game that will only get worse, we will hear much about the responsibility for the financial crisis.  Should, as I hope, the Democrats win not only the White House but large Congressional majorities in November, I will make this prediction: Republicans in opposition will rediscover "fiscal responsibility."  The last time the Democrats held the White House, when Republican Sam Brownback had not yet moved from House to Senate, he worried greatly about the national debt: "we're $5 trillion in the hole, so we have to start doing things in a different way."

Now that the - pre-bailout - debt has reached $10.6 trillion, I guess Senator Brownback's party has truly succeeded in "doing things in a different way."  But one thing is for sure: as Steve Clemons has said, America's abysmal financial straits will "limit significantly the choices" for the next president.

Update: In Salon, Gary Kamiya shows us what our money has got us, and reminds us where we are in Iraq today: on the side of Iran's allies.

Officer vs. Gentleman, "Maverick" vs. Leader

Having only seen internet snippets of the first debate between Senators Obama and McCain, I will rely on expert opinion to give a flavor of the atmospherics.  My experts: a former Green Beret officer, a psychoanalyst specializing in anger management, and an eight year old son of a political junkie.  First, Pat Lang, who knows first hand the high standards required of an officer and a gentleman:

Having watched it, I would say that Obama wins on points as a gentleman and McCain loses on coming across as a victim of coaching by brutes ... There will be those ... who will think that McCain's attitude shows him to be a leader.   I think it shows that he was not raised well.  His refusal to look at Obama throughout the debate, his dismissive tone of voice when continually speaking of Obama in the third person as though he were not there, his inability to say anything good about his opponent, all showed him to be a natural bully or someone who has been taught to be a bully.

Now, from Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo, the post-debate comment of a reader in the know:

As a psychotherapist and someone who treats people with anger management problems, we typically try to educate people that anger is often an emotion that masks other emotions. I think it's significant that McCain didn't make much, if any, eye contact because it suggests one of two things to me; he doesn't want to make eye contact because he is prone to losing control of his emotions if he deals directly with the other person, or, his anger masks fear and the eye contact may increase or substantiate the fear.

I noticed him doing the same thing in the Republican primary debates. The perception observers are likely to have is that he is unwilling to acknowledge the opponent's legitimacy and/or is contemptuous of the opponent.

Finally, the precocious political junkie, through his TPM contributor father, John Nall:

Last night Andrew asked me what a debate was and I told him it was like a boxing match with words. He thought that sounded pretty cool so we watched the debate.

He enjoyed the "fight" and I must say out of the mouths of babes come some pretty good analysis. As you might expect much of his reactions were visceral which is a huge part of how many people will react:
    •     "Why is McCain so mad?"
    •     "Why is he so old like Grammy?
    •     "Daddy, when McCain smiles like that ( ie-the smirk) I think he is really mad at Obama".
    •     "I don't like it when he acts like that."
    •     "Why isn't he looking at Obama? Barack looks at him. I think he is trying to be mean."
    •     "Obama looks better"
    •     "When McCain talks it bores me and when Obama talks it excites me."

Like little Andrew Nall, "when Obama talks it excites me."  Might I add, when Obama talks, the world listens.  Perhaps people recognize leadership, and an uncanny ability to capture big thoughts in stirring speeches.  Just the medicine a jumpy world needs right now.

Capturing imaginations, along with Osama Bin Laden, always eluded Bush.  Except for the twisted among us who take delight in his malapropisms and a chance to see the smirk deployed at some inappropriate moment, few even listen to the man anymore.  Bush-Cheney, like McCain-Palin, prefer to appeal to people's fears as an "inspirational" method.

As for McCain, for some reason many foreigners continue to confuse him with Dick Cheney.  It's probably an age thing, though it may be the cranky, bellicose ideology.  I do remember reading something in the European press where people are hard pressed to provide his name.

But of course that's not a reason not to vote for the man.  Here are a few:

• Any politician who gyrates as much as markets did last week, when what was needed was a dose of Obamian Zen, should be gently, but firmly, retired to Phoenix to write his memoirs;
• A candidate who has a religious fundamentalist thrust onto his ticket and then has to explain her inadequacies away, every time she opens her mouth - what's so "maverick" about that?
• When you tout your experience in foreign affairs, but your one solution to world problems appears to be to send in the troops - give me a supposed "neophyte" please.

I could go on - and probably will, right up to November 4! - on why I want an Obama-Biden, Democratic landslide.  For the good of the country.  And for that of the world.  But I'll save that for later.

Latest Brownback Effort To Hamstring Public Diplomacy

He once told a group of businessmen he wanted to be the next Jesse Helms -- "Senator No," who operated as a one-man demolition unit against godlessness, independent of his party.

"God's Senator," Jeff Sharlet, Rolling Stone, January 25, 2006

Matt Armstrong of Mountain Runner has provided an excellent rundown of the many problems with Brownback's S.3456 titled “The Strategic Communications Act of 2008.”  Armstrong humbly says "The problems are such that I do not support this bill in its present form."  Given its author, I would hope that all those who are truly interested in public diplomacy treat this bill like the plague that it is.  Consider its source, one of the Senate's most reactionary members.

Senator Sam Brownback, like his late hero, Jesse Helms, has a long history of wanting to emasculate those charged with managing America's engagement with the world through its public diplomacy programs.  This is from the NYT of July 6, 1995:

Representative Sam Brownback, the Kansas Republican who is a prime sponsor of the Congressional effort to abolish [USIA], insists that the private sector should take over the educational exchanges, Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America: "We have to start doing things in a different way."

So too with his current bill, whose "Center would enlist the support of private, non-profit and non-governmental organizations and would enable the new Center to make grants to representatives of the Center in key countries to implement U.S. national strategy on a local level."  I can see it now: FOX News, Rush Limbaugh, The God Network (I made that one up) lining up for government grants to spread Sam's gospel.

According to his Senate website

His colleagues say he is one of the most sincere people in Congress, and even those who don’t agree with him never doubt his conviction and appreciate the respectful way he debates even the most contentious of issues.

Add perseverance and circular thinking to that list: not content with abolishing USIA a decade ago and moving it into State, he'd rather gut State's PD structures and create a new "National Center for Strategic Communications, an agency similar to the now defunct U.S. Information Agency" (from his press release).  Yep, similar to  the very agency which the good Senator helped make defunct.

Please let me know when there's a serious proposal to help present America's message - whatever that is.

Barack, BYOB: Don't Drink White House Kool-Aid

This afternoon in the Oval Office, it will be 2 against 1.  Two "free market Republicans" (whatever that means these days) who have enabled the unregulated market they now seek to bail out, after its obscene profiteering over the past several years.  Against a Democrat who appears to be gaining in stature as the most trustworthy leader to handle America's first 21st century free market madness moment.  The link between the White House meeting and McCain's unilateral campaign pullout announcement is obvious.  Here's Mark Silva in The Swamp, the Chicago Tribune's Washington bureau blog:

[W]hat better cover for the Republican presidential nominee's bail-out from the campaign and sudden return to Washington than a presidential pardon of sorts, an invitation from the president to both of the presidential candidates to join them all in resolving this crisis together: Bush's personal bail-out.

As Silva points out, it was McCain who requested the meeting, and Bush who graciously acceded to his fellow Republican - anything to move the bill forward.  But neither McCain nor Obama are critical to the vetting of the bailout bill, upon which, Silva notes, negotiators are "close to agreement already."  And Senator Obama is in the unenviable position of having to accept.  What could he say: "sorry, I'm busy campaigning?"

I'm not sure whose campaign will suffer more from a photo op with George W. Bush, who appears to be disliked almost as much in the Republican camp as among Democrats these days.

But let's remember whose "team" was supposed to be in charge here.  Here's what Bush said in 2005 as he nominated former Republican Congressman Chris Cox - who McCain now wants to fire (though he favored his confirmation) - as SEC Chairman:

Chris understands how markets work, and he knows the need for transparency in financial exchanges and in the halls of business. He proved that he can bring people together of diverse opinions to get things done. That kind of leadership will be invaluable as the chairman of the SEC.

Not.

A thoughtful reader had this to say about qualifying for the bailout:

Does this mean that someone who mismanages their small business can get bailed out too, or do we only bail out those who have at least $1 billion in assets, since they are used to being rich?

That is what has to remain paramount in Senator Obama's mind as he sits with the friends of the rich today.  Barack Obama has to represent those who don't qualify for this bailout.

The Bush-McCain "base" - "This is an impressive crowd - the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elites; I call you my base" - qualifies for Bush's no-fault default.  American taxpayers should not expect to see their $700 billion again.  Like the trillions for Bush's wars-of-choice, they are for future generations to deal with.  And for working Americans, the opportunity cost of trillions borrowed from China in their name for war and Wall Street is this: no money for crumbling infrastructure, no money for health care, no money for investments whose "return" is for the whole population - not just for the Bush-McCain "base."

Do turn up today on Pennsylvania Avenue, Senator Obama.  But bring your own beverage - a thermos might strike the right note - and be sure not to imbibe of Republican Kool-Aid.  Yes, the US economy - and that of the rest of the world that is tied to it - must be saved.  But it must not be another golden parachute for people who have already gotten more than their fair share.

November 4: Can Ridicule Trump Race?

"Ridicule," the title of a film that portrayed life in the pre-Revolutionary French court, showed how wit could bring politicians down.  Humor, sarcasm, and irony are tricky weapons, and can sometimes backfire.  I am not advocating that the Obama campaign deploy 18th century French sophistication on an audience more used to soundbites, but I am suggesting that there are reams of material in the McCain, Palin, and Republican campaign that should get them laughed out of the court of public opinion.

Did you hear the one about the sub-prime king who received an $18 million bonus for masterminding billions in “asset repackagings and credit-linked notes” and further billions of “mortgage-backed and other asset-backed” securities?  His name is Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs and current Treasury Secretary, and now he wants to sell Congress $700 billion and says, "trust me."

And then there's McCain himself, who has called Social Security "an absolute disgrace."  He might want to revisit that, now that Social Security might be the only thing left for millions of Americans who just lost their homes, and whose 401 (k) or individual retirement accounts have been wiped out by Wall Street.  And anyway, what can someone who has 7 or 8 houses and 13 cars know about normal people?

And then there's Palin, carrying on the time-dishonored tradition of Bush & Cheney, who so wanted to show how different they were that they gave the Clinton budget surplus away to their cronies - wouldn't those billions be handy now?  But wait, isn't she Governor Thanks But No Thanks?  Not really, but she was mayor tax-and-spend: she came into an office that had paid its bills, but left it $19 million in debt, which for Wasilla's population is about the same per capita debt that Paulson is now tying to ram through Congress.  See above.

But, against all that, we have this: have you heard, Barack Obama is... black?  Factually speaking, his mother was a white American and his father was a Kenyan, where most people are, in fact, black.  Being African, that is.  This, apparently, is the one overwhelming pigmentation problem that many Americans have difficulty overcoming.  We have the Bradley effect or the Wilder effect, which Gary Younge describes in The Guardian.  In which people purport to be open to black candidates, but cannot bring themselves to vote for them on election day.  "So we have racism but no racists," concludes Younge.

I've been getting reports of this from friends in the US.  In Florida, a volunteer campaign worker canvasses a hundred neighbors, but only a handful are for Obama.  In rural Virginia, a friend is appalled at her parents' neighbors' inability to conceive of a black president.  Even in suburban Chicago, a longtime Obama supporter sees her neighbors - professionals in a wealthy neighborhood - sport "Yes She Can" signs on their properties.

Read Brent Staples' excellent piece on race and the presidential race in Sunday's New York Times, and marvel at the utter brazenness of racism in 2008 America:

A blatant example surfaced earlier this month, when a Georgia Republican, Representative Lynn Westmoreland, described the Obamas as “uppity” in response to a reporter’s question.

Or how about this one:

Representative Geoff Davis, Republican of Kentucky, succumbed to the old language earlier this year when describing what he viewed as Mr. Obama’s lack of preparedness to handle nuclear policy. “That boy’s finger does not need to be on the button,” he said.

The only way of countering a culture where elected representatives can still get away with such behavior is to turn them into a minority.  Much of this will depend on the turnout in November, which is itself under threat from racism.  If you doubt that, please read "Obama: The Price of Being Black," by Andrew Hacker in the New York Review of Books.  In which Hacker documents the deliberate effort across the United States to suppress the vote of black citizens.  Says Hacker: "Barack Obama can only become president by mustering a turnout that will surpass the votes he is not going to get."  He then proceeds to outline why that is such a monumental task, given all the barriers.

I take small solace, but solace nonetheless, from a friend in South Carolina, where attitudes on race are - what shall I say? - both blatant and nuanced.  Blatant since you can find raw racism the likes of which you thought was long over.  Nuanced, in that some white people have found in Barack Obama a man of color for whom they can vote.  These people may be racist (or at least racialists), but their racism is directed at those black Americans who have lived in their midst for generations.  In the case of Barack Obama, maybe they apply the same kind of racial typology that used to list people by their degree of non-whiteness: "quadroon" and "octoroon" and such slave-era terminology.

So why are these same people open to voting for Obama?  They agree with his policies, and in their finely-tuned racial consciousness, they make a distinction between this man who they choose to classify as an American of African ancestry, as opposed to an African-American.  Repugnant, and probably ridiculous.  But next to the ridiculousness of voting in a near-depression for the people and policies who brought America to this sorry state...

Americans Abroad: Info For Expatriate Voters

In the interest of getting out the vote from Americans abroad, I have taken the liberty of posting much of a very helpful email from Democrats Abroad.  One helpful site they don't mention - www.VotePoke.org - tells you if you're registered at your Stateside address (if you have one).

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This is a reminder to the millions of Americans around the globe - and anyone who knows one of those Americans - time is running out to request your absentee ballot and vote in November. The process requires voters to mail in a request, receive a ballot by mail, and mail back the completed ballot. That's three rounds of airmail. So, to vote from abroad and help take our country back, take immediate action.

Time is running out. For quick and easy ballot applications, go directly to www.VoteFromAbroad.org. Check fast approaching state deadlines now! [note: a list of deadlines is available at the above link]. Many states allow you to verify your application status online. Use this easy link through our Voter Action Center.

Find your nearest U.S. consulate or embassy at www.usembassy.gov.

Voter Central Hotline: Voting problems? Rejected application? Confusing messages from your local voting official? Please send all your questions to [email protected].

STILL HAVEN'T REGISTERED FOR YOUR ABSENTEE BALLOT?? www.VoteFromAbroad.org

Voter Registration: Deadlines, Alerts and Important Info for the Overseas Citizen:

The overseas electoral system in the US is at best confusing, and frequently impossible to sort out. Federal elections are run by the states, and they do not have uniform rules amongst the states and too frequently even within a state. Local election official frequently have great discretion. The following attempts to provide some clarity on issues relevant to voters in the next month.

Registration Deadlines
•   Earliest Deadlines: No state has a registration deadline before October 6.
•   Meeting the Deadline by Fax: Most states allow the deadline to be met by faxing the original signed FPCA as long as the original hardcopy is mailed and received before the ballots are counted.
     Exceptions: New York, Alabama, and Wyoming do not accept faxes. Alabama has a registration deadline of October 24. New York has a registration deadline of October 10. Wyoming has a registration deadline of October 6. The only way to meet the deadlines for NY, AL, and WY is to ensure that your original FPCA arrives in the local election official’s office by mail no later than the deadline. (New York and Wyoming will also accept them by courier services).
•   Later Deadlines: Some states have a later deadline registration deadline.

Ballot Request Deadlines: How to request a ballot if you are already registered
•   The same FPCA form is also used to request a ballot. No state has a ballot request deadline before October 6.
•   Some states have a later deadline for people who have previously registered as overseas voters.
•   Most states allow the deadline to be met by faxing the original signed FPCA as long as the original hardcopy is mailed and received before the ballots are counted.
•   Some states have a later registration deadline.

Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB)
•   Use this back-up ballot if your state ballot does not arrive in time to return it using your local mail system.
•   If you have not yet sent in your FPCA, you should:
     Fax your FPCA (unless you vote in AL, NY, or WY); and mail the original along with the FWAB. The FWAB must go in a blank envelope that is referred to as a security envelope. The security envelope, the voter declaration and the FPCA should all be mailed together from outside the United States. (If you are in the Uniformed Services or the Merchant Marines you can mail it from within the U.S.).
•   If you have already registered and requested your ballot, only mail the security envelope with the voted ballot inside and the voter declaration.
•   Foreign Postmark: All states will accept a foreign postmark as evidence of submission form outside the U.S.
•   Consular Stamp: All states have been informed by the U.S. State Department that they should accept a consular stamp as evidence of submission from outside the U.S.
•   Commercial Courier: Some states will also accept a commercial courier service waybill as evidence of submission from outside the U.S. Using a courier service should be a last resort. Alabama explicitly refuses to accept materials sent to them by commercial couriers, such as Federal Express and DHL.

U.S. Citizens who never lived in the U.S.
•   Federal law does not require any state to extend voting eligibility to a person who has never resided in that state on the basis that one or both of the person’s parents formerly resided in that state. Many states, however, do.
•   Disenfranchised: Children born abroad to voters otherwise eligible to vote in Alaska, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Virginia are disenfranchised by state law.
•   Enfranchised: Children born abroad to voters eligible to vote in Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wisconsin are specifically enfranchised by state law, i.e. they are allowed to register and vote.
•   All other states are silent on the issue. Voters in this situation should send in an FPCA; if it is rejected, they should notify [email protected].

Visiting the U.S.
•   If you live abroad, but are currently in the U.S., you can call your local election official to find out if there are any additional voting options available.
•   If you are still abroad, but plan to be visiting the US on Election Day, you should mail your Federal Write-In Ballot BEFORE you enter the U.S.

Fax Numbers
•   If the toll free fax number from your country is not working, please use the following number: +1 703 693-5527.
•   The FVAP know that several of these numbers, including the one from China, are not working, and they are investigating.

MYTH: “If I vote, the IRS will hassle me.”
Voting in US Federal elections does not affect the determination of tax liability or tax residence. You will not hear from the IRS because you voted in a Federal election, i.e. President, Senate, or House of Representatives.

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There.  I will not accept any complaints from those who fail to vote and are unhappy with the outcome.

Capitalist Punishment, Toxic Communism

You've been pre-approved for a trillion dollar loan!!!  No credit check!  Not thru banks!!!  Gov't gteed!!!

How appropriate, now that nationwide loan-sharking excesses have metastasized into a "once in a century" event at the planetary scale, that some of the same loosey-goosey "self-regulation" will continue to apply to those masters of the universe who got us into our present pickle.  From the AP article on the Treasury rescue plan unveiled by President Bush:

While the proposal contains no requirement that the government receive anything from banks in return for unloading their bad assets, it would allow the Treasury Department to designate financial institutions as "agents of the government," and mandate that they perform any "reasonable duties" that might entail.

This would be the 21st century equivalent of the fox guarding the hen house. Feathers everywhere, blood on the chicken coop wall, and they say "Nice foxie?"

You may be forgiven if you no longer know what capitalism consists of: wild gyrations of irrational exuberance followed by vertigo in front of unfathomable numbers ending in illions?  Years of "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem" (Reagan, Inaugural address January 1981) which has become "government intervention is not only warranted, it is essential" (Bush, yesterday).

If Bush had been truthful (ahem) or 'umble (sic), he might have paraphrased "government intervention" to say "vastly increased borrowing from our creditors in Communist China."  But that might not have struck the right note.  But just like the Three Trillion Dollar War, it is rare that anything approaching candor applies to our national indebtedness to China.

Update: Here's a notable exception: Helena Cobban, veteran international correspondent who writes about the almost unnoticed visit to the Washington last week of Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan, checking up on his country's almost trillion dollar holdings of T-bills and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt, as well as vast sovereign fund investments in private Wall Street firms.  In her blog Just World News, Cobban quotes extensively from a Washington Post article on the Chinese visit hidden in the business section, including this strategic heart stopper from Andy Xie, formerly Morgan Stanley's chief Asia economist: "If the U.S. is not willing to accept that [U.S. assets must be transferred to other countries' ownership] they will have to print money and the dollar will fall. And we will be headed toward a global financial meltdown."

But it was a bad week for our commie creditors too.  Something about toxic milk and baby formula.  Tends to make Chinese consumers hesitate before buying dairy products.  Not good for that booming economy (not to speak of the toll on your tummy).

Apologies to authentic Communists for my previous crack about "commie creditors."  There is about as much of true communism in the Chinese leadership as there is authentic capitalism among the Wall Street crowd with their hands stretched out to the taxpayer.  A couple of years ago, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday presented their monumental work Mao: The Unknown Story at a Washington bookstore.  I asked Jung Chang how China's leaders, who instituted capitalist excesses that even Upton Sinclair's worst villains might abhor, could still call themselves "Communist?"  What would Mao make of China's new economic hybrid of worker exploitation and conspicuous consumption?

Dr. Chang's answer was illuminating: Mao would feel right at home, because today's Chinese Communist Party exists for control, especially control of information.  Just think Beijing Olympics.  Remember the demonstrations in Tibet.  Think about Chinese censorship of the internet.  Communism is the umbrella, and if capitalist excess can bring in the bucks, it's OK, as long as the new masters of the moneymaking universe don't get any ideas about challenging authority.

If China is "Communist," is the United States "capitalist?"  My reference to Upton Sinclair earlier brings me back to our current day "Jungle" - the sub prime crisis.  If you want to read one thing about how the jungle looks at the Main Street end of Wall Street's crisis, read Paul Reyes' article in the October Harper's "Bleak Houses: Digging Through the Ruins of the Mortgage Crisis."  Here's a link, but you'd do better to buy the issue and keep it on your coffee table as a reminder of capitalism's punishment for those who fall short of "essential government intervention."

Paul Reyes' account of the human cost of the sub prime evictions is breathtaking.  The jungle of Florida returning - literally - to thousands of homes abandoned as if hit by the plague.  The world of "Cash for keys" and "trash-outs."  People on the edge, some trying desperately to hang onto their homes, wretched or not.  And this line, from a man whose home Reyes has just emptied:

Is there anything else they can do to me, as an individual? I know the house is gone...

Reyes doesn't have the heart to tell him that yes, they can come after him if he ever happens to earn any money.  But Reyes doesn't mention another thing that "they can do to him" - rob him of his vote.

Hitting people while they're down.  A toxic time indeed.

Public Diplomacy: Danger Of Protesting Too Much

In a very laudable initiative, the US State Department's Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy James Glassman engaged with bloggers the other day (I was invited, but the conference call machinery didn't succeed in reaching me in Brussels).  The exchange has been covered by others, notably Matt Armstrong of "Mountain Runner," who participated.  The transcript is here.

Prior to the round table, Glassman's office had sent invitees a link to a fascinating exchange between an anonymous State Department person (or persons) from the "Digital Outreach Team," and Ali Akbar Javanfekr, media adviser to Iranian President Ahmadinejad.  As Undersecretary Glassman had told the blogger round table, "we want to be a facilitator, a convener; we want to bring people together."  A noble cause, not terribly different from a Clinton era appointee I once worked for, who was always trying to "triangulate" people from different spheres.

In the case of the State Department - Iranian Presidency dialogue-by-blog, it was more a question of trading accusations.  Mostly cool and polite in the case of the State team, which seemed to increasingly infuriate the Iranian, who was troubled by the lopsided dialogue with nameless American counterpart(s).  When the State person says, "the United States government does not have any blood feuds with the people of any other nation, nor is it in the nature of American society to hold grudges against others," that may sound reasonable in a Stateside context.  Iranians and other Muslims might question the sentiment, especially given calls in some American quarters for "crusade" and "battling Islamo-fascism" in misplaced efforts after September 11, 2001.  To much of the world, it does indeed sound like the US has a blood feud going.

Pat Kushlis of Whirled View, who participated in the Glassman round table, puts her finger on part of the "dialogue" problem in her post on the latest world polls showing massive distrust of the United States.  When the messenger represents a country - or an Administration - that is almost universally disrespected, it is very difficult to "bring people together."

Important as public diplomacy is, of "being a facilitator, bringing people together," it's hard when your country is not a neutral party.  Good offices, shuttle diplomacy, sharing, caring - all the touchy feely sounding accouterments of soft power - come up against the hard steel of the US image in the world.  Matt Armstrong, who speaks of undoing "the voluntary militarization of public diplomacy by the Bush Administration" is on the right track.  So too is Undersecretary Glassman, who gets points for attempting a mighty hard task: convincing the world, despite much evidence to the contrary, that America wants to listen.

Zapatero, Zapatista - They're All Foreign Anyway

Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.

The Manchurian Candidate 1962

I almost entitled this - too cutely, really - "The Manichean Candidate," but that bad pun was already used, perhaps first apropos of Vice President Cheney, who does have a knack for dividing the world into two camps, good and evil.  In any case, Cheney is about to ride off into the sunset, forever guarded in his post-VP bunker in fear of subpoenas or depositions or summons from future seekers of justice.

But I digress.  Manichaeism lives, in the dualistic dogma propagated by Palin and McCain.  Is the latest snafu in strategic communication - McCain's insistent morphing of NATO ally Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero into a liberation movement named after a Mexican revolutionary active a century ago - an example of deliberate messaging or just another example of how scarily out of it Senator McCain is?

Looking at the video (of a radio interview) and helpful on screen transcript provided by Josh Marshall and TPMtv, it's almost possible to feel sorry for the Senator, mixing up Spain and Mexico, Zapatero and Zapatista (that's what Spanish daily El Pais thinks he did, calling it an "affront").  But you're not supposed to feel pity for the man who wants to be President of the United States.  At least not as a reason for voting for him, as much as people may honor his wartime suffering.  But pitiful is what this exchange shows: the man sounds like a robot getting its lines wrong, repeating, as the brainwashed ex-POWs did in the Manchurian Candidate, "Raymond Shaw is the kindest, most wonderful..."

On the tape, it's McCain's droning on about dealings with various Latin American leaders, while the radio host repeats her question about the Spanish PM, that not only belies the McCain campaign spin, but that shows that the man is truly out of touch.  Listen, and hear for yourself.

But it might not matter to his base.  Who cares if our hero slips up on some unpronounceable foreign  names?  What matters is that he's the American Candidate for America... as opposed to that other guy with the unpronounceable foreign name.

Jennifer - Not Condi - Is The Key US Secstate

Jennifer Brunner, that is, Secretary of State of Ohio.  The person whose Number One priority is to

Restore trust to Ohio elections...
We want citizens to have faith that Ohio elections are free, fair, open and honest to encourage the highest level of participation in our democracy.

Secretaries of State, you see, only get public attention every election cycle, usually in hand-wringing stories, after the fact, of elections gone horribly wrong (see Florida 2000; Ohio 2004).  The Secretary of State Project - "Support Secretaries of State who will protect the election" - has a home page picture of one who didn't protect the election: Katherine Harris of Florida, the Cruella of vote suppression.  The Secstate Project supported Jennifer Brunner's election over, as they say, "the Cheney/Bush crony who was on the brink of buying the election."

When Secstate Brunner says she wants to "encourage the highest level of participation in our democracy," please do not dismiss it as a boring mission statement or platitude.  Because that is exactly what the Republican Party in states like Michigan want to prevent:

The Obama campaign yesterday went to court to block what it alleged was an attempt by Republicans in Michigan to stop people who lost their homes in the mortgage crisis from voting in November's election.

The suit, filed in a Michigan court yesterday, is the latest sign of contention over voting procedures. Voting rights activists in several battleground states have reported an aggressive push by Republican elected officials and activists to make it harder to vote.

In Macomb county, Michigan, a swing constituency, Republican officials for the first time tried to use America's housing crisis as a way of striking people off lists, the Obama camp told reporters yesterday. "There is no doubt that there is an immediate threat to the voting rights of citizens in Michigan whose names could appear on a foreclosure list," said Bob Bauer, an Obama lawyer.

The situation came to light last week when the Republican party chairman of Macomb county told a local newspaper he planned to draw on publicly available lists of home foreclosures to bar people from casting their vote.

The blood boils.  As the Secstate Project commented, "it doesn't get much lower than this; lose your house, lose your vote."  The story is in today's London Guardian, datelined Washington by Suzanne Goldenberg.

But, as we saw in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 and several places in 2006, vote suppression doesn't always need nasty Republican Rovians manipulating the lists, ensuring the machines have no paper trail, or disseminating disinformation on the scheduled day or venue for the election (see the excellent film "The Uncounted" for a full accounting of the trickery).  Sometimes, you just need mass confusion.  Consider this, from yesterday's New York Times:

For more than two weeks, Palm Beach County [Florida] voters have watched with dismay as a local election has devolved into a small-scale sequel of the presidential recount eight years ago, with disappearing ballots, lawsuits and confusion over who won and lost.

The big discrepancy: Roughly 3,500 ballots that disappeared between Election Day and the recount, and an additional 176 that do not appear to have been counted at all.

“We felt cursed or jinxed,” said Mary McCarty, a Palm Beach County commissioner for 18 years who served on this latest election’s canvassing board, reviewing and counting ballots. “At least in 2000 we had all our ballots.”

In my diplomatic days, I observed elections in places like Algeria and Egypt, where the stakes are usually high and where simply having parties, NGOs, and interested citizens watchdog the process can sometimes make a difference.  In many technologically advanced countries, ballots are still paper, and are hand counted.  They still manage to have uncontested outcomes that are announced on the election day evening news.  It's not rocket science.  And yet...

I'm glad that the Obama people are standing up for the evicted Michigan citizens who just want to vote.  Maybe, if they can retain their voting rights despite bad luck in receiving a dodgy mortgage, they'll make a connection between the people who want to disenfranchise voters and the party that made their eviction inevitable through dereliction of its regulatory duties.

Which may be why the Republicans want to deprive them of their vote.