Who's Worse, Fernando Wood Or Joe Crowley-- 2 Of The Worst NYC Democrats In History? Or Grover Norquist?

I'll never know, of course, but I doubt history will contradict me when I say there hasn't been an authentically "great" president in my lifetime. (I haven't given up hope, though, and I'm counting on Elizabeth Warren.) Since I was born, there have just been a series of mediocrities, some worse than others, like the two incredibly awful Bushes, not to mention the utterly clueless Ronald Reagan, all three happy to serve the breathtakingly selfish financial interests of the plutocracy. In retrospect-- severe retrospect-- I'd have to guess the best president we had since I was born was the first, Dwight Eisenhower-- and he wasn't someone beloved in my parents' household. In light of what's come since, he seems like a real paragon of civic virtue.

Saturday I went to see the new film Lincoln and I heartily recommend everyone go see it. All the villains in the film are Democrats-- and, starting with Tammany boss/New York City ex-mayor and Congressman Fernando Wood, villains is a polite way to describe them. Wood wasn't just a racist, he actually tried getting the City Council to secede from the Union during the Civil War. The good guys were the Republicans, particularly Pennsylvania Rep. Thaddeus Stevens, the father of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution, which ended slavery, extended equal protection to all citizens, and granted all male citizens the right to vote. Today his old district is represented by Stevens' polar opposite, a bigoted and reactionary right-wing enemy of working families, Joe Pitts, also a Republican. Also... To make any sense out of Lincoln in terms of current politics, every time the word "Republican" is uttered, the viewer has to think "Democrat" and every time the word "Democrat" is uttered, the viewer has to think "Republican."

That said, there's nothing more that I would love-- as today's Democratic Party sells its soul to corporatism and sells out it's grassroots base in an orgy of shameless and corrupt careerism-- more than to see a transformation of the GOP back to the kind of political party it was when Thaddeus Stevens and Abraham Lincoln defined it. I don't expect to see that happen, but I'm always delighted when I see contemporary Republicans, like William Kristol, come face to face with a chilling reality that should push their party in that direction-- the direction of representing the people while leaving the corporate interests to the Democrats like Steny Hoyer, Steve Israel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Joe Crowley who pursue them so energetically and ruthlessly, while leaving working families to fend for themselves in the jungle the two parties have created. This week Bill Kristol was going through that kind of political self-examination for his tattered party in public.

Is the Grand Old Party in as much disarray as it seems? Yup. For one thing, Republicans are electorally shellshocked. For the past couple of years, they had been confident Barack Obama would lose in November. Many Republicans held that belief going into Election Day. This was the first time since 1948 that Republicans were confident they were going to win a presidential election-- and then lost it. The Republican psyche will take a while to recover from the shock of November 6.

It’s also gradually sunk in that the GOP has lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, and that the GOP has been thumped in three of the last four national contests (2006, 2008, and 2012). Since the end of the Cold War, the Republican party has had only two really good election days, in 1994 and in 2010. Those were both off-year victories in reaction to the mistakes of first-term Democratic presidents, and in neither case proved harbingers of presidential victory two years later.

Well, if the electoral scene isn’t pretty, maybe the legislative one is better? It’s true Republicans still control the House. But this turns out to be at best a mixed blessing. Because they’re in control, House Republicans are supposed to negotiate with the president on the budget and taxes. They’re united in scorning President Obama’s opening proposal. But what’s the GOP proposal for averting the fiscal cliff? There doesn’t seem to be one.

He then blames the Republican disaster on Grover Norquist and, if you look closely enough, on the people who consider themselves bound by his ridiculous and entirely anti-American pledge. Kristol is certainly another on a growing list of Republicans who would very much like to drown Grover Norquist in a bathtub. "Will Republicans in Congress," he asks, "be successful at finding a way out of their current mess? Who knows. This year, the most well-funded Republican candidate in history, with the most professional campaign, supported by the most sophisticated super-PACs, proved unable to find a path to victory-- even though such a path was eminently findable. Republicans in Congress are equally capable of winding up on the losing side of the equation. So 2012 could end up a lost year for the GOP... [which] sure seems to be in a grand old mess. But messes can produce moments of opportunity, lemons can be turned into lemonade, and it’s always darkest before the dawn. Except when it turns pitch black."

Sunday Allen West was reminding his followers, that he's just like Abraham Lincoln. And it doesn't get more discouraging than that.

The Villagers Ask Themselves Who Killed Healthcare Reform And Happily Point At Progressives

Nevermind that Republicans-- one and all and in absolute lockstep-- were in obstructionist mode from even before Obama's 365-173 electoral vote sweep was officially announced. And forget that their spokespersons were talking screaming about hoping he fails and bringing about his Waterloo. And forget that right-of-center corporate Democrats and prima donnas like Evan Bayh, Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Max Baucus, Claire McCaskill, and Tom Carper (not to mention Lieberman) were at all times working against the interests of ordinary working families-- and the Democratic Party-- to promote the narrow corporate interests of the check signers who have financed their miserable political careers. Instead, let's blame the dirty fucking hippies who have bent over backwards and eaten shit to accommodate-- some say far too much-- this pack of craven, selfish criminals.

When I read that Senator Nelson was leading the chorus yesterday, I instantly thought of Senator Ben Nelson, a former Insurance Industry executive who represents his past and future employers far more than the poor schlubs in Nebraska. After all, the Insurance business has lavished $1,259,799 on him, more than any other sitting senator besides McCain, Dodd and Kerry, each of whom was a presidential candidate. Nelson was never that; just their #1 errand boy and political patsy on Capitol Hill. But I wasn't phased in the least to learn it was another reactionary Nelson, Bill denouncing progressives this time. And he's only taken half the bribes from Big Insurance that Ben has! Pushing Obama to "re-think" reforming health care, Nelson pleased the MSM by giving them what they always love most: "I think he's allowed the left wing to pull him too much in that direction."

So far this week, though, the big healthcare story isn't the mean-spirited and self-serving narratives by ConservaDems and Villagers. It's Steve Benen's Memo to the House and Senate Democratic caucuses in the Washington Monthly, The way forward on health care reform in 2010. He has 10 easily digestible explanations of why he thinks the most effective path forward is also the most obvious: the House should approve the legislation that has already passed the Senate, and the Senate should extend assurances to the House on pursuing improvements through the budget reconciliation process. And I really, really suggestion that anyone who isn't already positive they know exactly what needs to be done about healthcare reform, read Benen's memo. I was absolutely fascinated with the historical introduction though, which says little about how to fix the problem but an awful lot about why we're in it.

About 16 years ago, William Kristol crafted a lengthy strategy memo for congressional Republicans, advising them on how best to deal with then-President Clinton's health care reform initiative. At the time, a variety of Republican offices had every intention of presenting alternative reform plans-- in part to help shape the debate, and in part to demonstrate the GOP's interest in addressing a chronic national problem.

Kristol, however, noticed that his party lacked direction, and offered his vision as a way forward. His memo offered a simple and clear response: the GOP had to kill the Clinton reform plan at all costs. The merit of the reform proposal and its ability to improve the lives of Americans was deemed largely irrelevant-- Kristol argued that a successful reform effort would position Democrats as the "protector of middle-class interests," a fate the GOP could not allow. The Republicans' principal goal, Kristol added, should be to focus on handing the White House a "monumental setback." (He declined to use the word "Waterloo," but the sentiment was hardly vague.)

The memo became the basis for the GOP strategy in 1994-- it remains the guiding principle of the Republican Party today-- and was integral in killing what was thought to be the best chance at passing meaningful reform since the days of Truman. Clinton's approval ratings suffered dramatically; Democrats developed a reputation for being unable to deliver on their own agenda; and less than a year later, Democrats lost their congressional majority. Republicans, far from being punished for their obstructionism, reaped the rewards of health care reform's demise. (Indeed, the public blamed the White House and the Democrats for overreaching, grinding on for months, and having little to show for it-- a task made easier when Democrats blamed each other in ways that played into the Republican narrative.)

As the health care system worsened, the issue of comprehensive reform became toxic for Democrats, and it would be nearly two decades before a president with an impressive electoral mandate, working alongside huge Democratic congressional majorities, chose to take on the domestic policy challenge that has burdened the United States for generations.

After grueling, often thankless work, and overcoming seemingly-insurmountable hurdles, the task of fulfilling the promise of reform was all but complete less than two weeks ago. The door that appeared locked forever was finally open, with Democrats poised to make history by crossing the threshold.

As is now well known, there have been recent setbacks that make taking the next step difficult. Some may see the value in leaving the door ajar, or perhaps coming back to it at a later time. Opponents would have lawmakers believe we'd all be better off if they just closed the door and walked away.

It is imperative for the country, the economy, the party, and the Obama presidency that Democrats resist the temptation to let this rare opportunity slip by.

Don't forget to do yourself a favor and read the body of the memo.
Howard Dean, who, as DNC Chair, had 100 times more to do with winning Congress for the Democrats and setting up Obama's lay-up shot than a cageful of Rahm Emanuels and Debbie Wasserman Shultzes came to a similar conclusion from a different perspective, although his healthy contempt for the Village-- and it's absolute delight at making up its own reality-- is a fine jumping off point.

The Massachusetts vote was a populist rebellion by voters on the left, in the middle and on the right, mobilizing against a Washington that they see as both unresponsive to and ignoring their needs.

The American electorate was promised change. So far they have not seen it. The Republicans have skillfully opposed everything, and then blamed the Democrats and the president for failing to deliver. The Republicans can't govern, but they sure are good at opposition. And we play the role of collaborative punching bags all too well. George W. Bush, with an assist from the Supreme Court, gained power because we simply weren't tough enough, and we are seeing it happen again.

Our country cannot afford another Republican government. The last one brought us to near economic collapse.

And what the good doctor prescribes for Obama is... well something to grow a spine is how I'm reading it. He suggests Obama "lead with conviction" and ignore the puffed up, geniuses who have swallowed whole their own carefully cultivated hype-- Rahm Emanuel comes to mind-- and who are trying their own hand at 32 dimensional chess before mastering pick-up sticks.

The populist winds are strong, but they can shift direction quickly. The Republicans have that wind temporarily because Democrats have demoralized our own base, which gave President Barack Obama and our Congress their seats. But the Republicans cannot lead. So far they have only been able to say no, and to obstruct. That cannot make them winners, but it can make us losers. Unfortunately their pathetic strategy works when we fail to stand up to it and stand firmly on our values.

Be bold. That is what we promised. Bold leadership with less attention to politics in Washington and more attention to the desperation of ordinary Americans for real change is what will put Democrats back in the driver's seat where we belong, and which we earned in 2008.

Comedy Tonight: David Fitzsimmons mourns the passing of a princess

[Click to enlarge]

And it was just yesterday that Bill Kristol, declaring himself "aware of some of her limitations" (say, if he'd tell us which limitations he's aware of, maybe we could help him flesh out his list), nevertheless declared his conviction --

that she should have a chance to compete and make her case. In this, I seem to differ from many of my friends in the mainstream media and the Republican establishment. They tend not only to dislike and disdain Palin, they also want to bury her chances now as a presidential possibility. What are they so scared of?

"For psychological and sociological reasons too deep for me to grasp," wrote Bill (a man whose entire "career," for want of a better word, can be seen as a crusade for crowning as the World's All-Time Dumbest Cluck), "a good chunk of elite America hates Sarah Palin and what they've decided she stands for." He concluded, "If you have an anti-mainstream-media and anti-GOP-establishment bone in your body, it's hard not to root for her at least a bit."

Actually, Bill, Princess Sarah's biggest rooters, now turned deepest mourners, are card-carrying members of the mainstream media, not to mention the GOP. The Arizona Daily Star's David Fitzsimmons has gathered a representative sampling of them above.

#

UPDATE: How Many Invitations Is Palin Getting To Campaign For Vulnerable Republicans?

More Republicans are requesting Palin not campaign for them include Lee Terry (R-NE), Frank Wolf (R-VA), Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), Dave Reichert (R-WA).

Several other lawmakers indicated a wariness about accepting help from Palin, but did not want to criticize the GOP’s vice presidential candidate from last year. They said Palin could hurt them by firing up Democrats.

An unnamed GOP lawmaker representing a district that Obama carried in 2008 told The Hill that if Palin came into his district, his opponent would “probably be doing a dance of joy.”

The head of the House Democrats’ campaign arm said he’d welcome Palin’s involvement in the 2010 campaign.

“We hope that she will be part of the future debate on the direction of the country,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).

Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Roy Blunt (R-MO), on the other hand, do want Palin campaigning for them. When asked, Grassley, who is leading GOP efforts against health care reform in the Senate said, "The answer is, if she can raise a lot of money for me, yes... [A]t three events I spent with her in Iowa during the last campaign, she had bigger turnouts than McCain had.” Presumably as long as Grassley keeps Palin in Steve King's western part of the state-- where voters have no problem re-electing a KKK fanatic over and over-- he won't be hurt by Palin's presence... as long as there's no TV coverage.

How Lucky Are Those Damn Democrats?

They're in bed with the same greed-obsessed corporate predators as the Republicans and half of them are, at best, just paying lip-service to wanting to serve the interests of average American working families. Like the Republicans, Democratic elected officials seem so preoccupied with their own career trajectories that their constituents' come way down the priority list-- way down... and only just before an election. That's what makes the House of Representatives marginally better than the House of Lords-- in the lower House an election is almost always right around the corner; the Lords don't have to face the voters for 6 years after being elected or re-elected and even then, the costs of a statewide run by a challenger are so prohibitive that, so long as the incumbent hasn't pissed off all the corporate CEOs, he or she is sure to outraise any opponent fool-hearty enough to give it a try.

On almost any bread and butter issue, if a Democratic member of Congress isn't on the same side as Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont, you can feel safe to bet that he's earning his keep from his corporate financiers-- or in the cases of contemptible sleaze like Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu and Kay Hagan-- earning her keep from her corporate financiers.

Democrats now have 60 votes in the House of Lords-- just what they need to stop any of the knee jerk Republican filibusters which come automatically every single time a Democrat proposes something that actually does try to better the lot of working families. But it isn't the Republicans they need to worry about-- it's the corporate tools, the ultimate bipartisan Insider coalition determined to uphold the status quo. And along with every single Republican, that coalition can claim the loyalty of putative Democrats like Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, Tom Carper, Michael Bennet, Arlen Specter, Blanche Lincoln, Max Baucus, Evan Bayh, Mary Landrieu, Kay Hagan, Mark Pryor... enough, with the help of one or two wafflers like Mark Begich, Claire McCaskill, Mark Udall, Kent Conrad and Tim Johnson, to water down-- if not utterly obliterate-- every single change initiative Obama (or the House) could possible throw their way.

Yes, the Democratic Party is very lucky. They can get away with venality, incompetence, dishonesty, cowardice and all their other trademark qualities because, no matter how you slice it and no matter how you dice it, the Republicans are even more venal, less competent, far more dishonest, just as cowardly and weighted down with a whole grab bag of other heinous qualities (see graphic above) that only serve to make the Democrats look like a quasi-attractive alternative. Before he met his Argentine honey, the right-wing fanatic governor of South Carolina would go away with male buddies and "blow off steam" by picking up random women-- but he never went beyond a quickie blow job until he met the Argentine in Uruguay. The only thing that's keeping him in office now is that the South Carolina GOP doesn't want a gay governor-- not even a closeted one who charms little old ladies who think he's "a devil-may-care bachelor." It isn't even just the legendary GOP backstabbing as much as it is their well earned spate of bad luck. It's pretty much all covered in these paragraphs from today's Politico though-- an example of why the Democrats manage to thrive, primarily a function of any reasonable alternative-- and it starts with GOP extreme right propagandist William Kristol in the pages of a Republican Party throw away he edits:

“In fact, one aide who raised this possibility in the course of trashing Palin’s mental state to others in the McCain-Palin campaign was Steve Schmidt,” Kristol wrote.

Asked about the accusation, Schmidt fired back in an email: “I'm sure John McCain would be president today if only Bill Kristol had been in charge of the campaign.”

“After all, his management of [former Vice President] Dan Quayle’s public image as his chief of staff is still something that takes your breath away,” Schmidt continued. “His attack on me is categorically false.”

Asked directly in a telephone interview if he brought up the prospect of Palin suffering from post-partum depression, Schmidt said: “His allegation that I was defaming Palin by alleging post-partum depression at the campaign headquarters is categorically untrue. In fact, I think it rises to the level of a slander because it’s about the worst thing you can say about somebody who does what I do for a living.”

But Kristol’s charge was seconded by Randy Scheunemann, a longtime foreign policy adviser to McCain who is also close to the Standard editor and was thought to be a Palin ally within the campaign.

“Steve Schmidt has a congenital aversion to the truth,” Scheunemann said. “On two separate and distinct occasions, he speculated about about Governor Palin having post-partum depression, and on the second he threatened that if more negative publicity about the handling of Governor Palin emerged that he would leak his speculation [about post-partum depression] to the press. It was like meeting Tony Soprano.”

Schmidt said Scheunemann’s charges were “categorically untrue.”

“It is inappropriate for me to discuss personnel issues from the campaign,” Schmidt continued. “But suffice it to say Randy is saying these things not because they’re true but because he wants to damage my reputation because of consequences he faced for actions he took.”

Schmidt is alluding, without saying so directly, to the stories that emerged after the campaign that Scheunemann had been fired... Schmidt unloaded in a lengthy telephone interview, suggesting that Kristol was carrying out a personal vendetta based out of anger over the attempt to fire Scheunemann in the final days of the campaign.

In doing so, Schmidt revealed what has been whispered about for months following the campaign: that he and another top aide had ordered a leak hunt in the campaign’s internal email system.

“What this is about is a personal issue that happened late in the campaign relating to a close, personal friend of Bill Kristol and people at the Weekly Standard,” Schmidt said, refusing to use Scheunemann’s name.

“At the end of the campaign there were a series of leaks that were so damaging that it was consuming the 24-hour cable news cycle. Leaks to reporters where Sarah Palin was called all manner of names. [McCain senior adviser] Rick Davis and I jointly felt that was outrageous. So we made an attempt for the first time in the campaign to try to ID who was leaking information that was so damaging and demoralizing to a campaign that was in very difficult circumstances,” Schmidt said, noting that an IT professional executed a system-wide search by keyword.

“What was discovered was an email from a very senior staff member to Bill Kristol that then entered into the news current and continued the negative in-fighting stories for an additional news cycle. I recommended tough medicine for that individual that was carried out,” Schmidt said, again referring to Scheunemann. “Bill Kristol might not have liked that decision, and he might be mad about what happened to his friend, but going all the way back he has been a part of this story and I’ve preserved his confidentiality in that until now. But his use of his public forums to take a personal fight and make character attacks is just simply dishonest and wrong.”

Scheunemann, confirming that his email had been searched, accused Schmidt of “acting in a manner of Iranian secret police” in going to his account.

Yeah, Tony Soprano and the Iranian secret police: today's Republican Party. Just add in the dirty sex. All that remains to be answered is why-- oh why-- a real working-family political party hasn't emerged to balance the class war being waged by the aristocratically-entitled-- and programmed-- zombies of corporate management against the rest of us. You see this kind of thing has nothing whatsoever to do with grassroots Democrats, only with the Inside the Beltway variety.


UPDATE: On The Other Hand, How Lucky Is It Really To Be Burdened With Die-Hard, Unapologetic Enemies Of Working Families?

If you hate working families, why not just join the GOP, whose entire ideological basis is built on that? But, noooooo... Democrats have to get stuck with vampires like Joe Lieberman-- who, bolstered by Inside the Beltway shitheads (like you know who) just refuse to die-- and the 19 putative Democrats who announced they will oppose the public plan unless it becomes an anti-choice bill. We'll come back to that in a moment. First, Lieberputz. Charles Monaco compares him to "a mutant cicada funded by the insurance industry" and reminds us that "Lieberman emerges every 15 years or so to help kill health care. This year is no different than 1994, when CT progressives descended on Lieberman in DC to protest him on health care, even though three years ago he promised CT voters he would do a better job of getting them universal health care than Ned Lamont would. Now, surprise!, he's leading the fight against the public option.

[I]t was all a lie, and a particularly bad one. At the time, it was easy to see that Lieberman's election-year rhetoric on health care was just as mendacious on its face as his claim that "no one wants to end the war in Iraq more than I do", or his promise to help Barack Obama "reach to the stars", or his vow that he would help "elect a Democratic president in 2008" and that it was his primary opponent who would "frustrate and defeat our hopes of doing that".

Now, in 2009, on the cusp of a 60-seat Senate majority and at a
now-or-never moment on heath care reform, Democrats have the old Joe to deal with once again:

"If we create a public option, the public is going to end up
paying for it," Lieberman said following an hour-long confab with public-health experts at the Ashmun Street community center of the Monterey Homes public housing complex. "That's a cost we can't take on."...

Lieberman hopes to help do that through the work of an informal,
but busy, bipartisan group he formed last year with Republican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander [like Lieberman, an entirely owned subsidiary of the Medical-Industrial Complex]...

That common ground, in Lieberman's view, has no room for the public option.

Just six months removed from being saved by political irrelevancy by President Obama, Joe Lieberman has declared that he is now working to kill Obama's health care plan.... almost exactly 15 years after he helped kill Clinton's.

I'm in Asia right now and Jane Hamsher is in Sweden. When I woke up this morning she had sent me a piece in the National Journal talking about 19 of the worst reactionary Democrats in Congress telling Speaker Pelosi that they will oppose health care legislation "unless it explicitly excludes abortion funding from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan." Please remember these names and keep in mind that when you donate to the DCCC part of your money goes towards supporting some of them, namely far right anti-family fanatics Travis Childers, Bobby Bright, Steve Driehaus, and Kathleen Dahlkemper, all of whom would likely fail to win re-election without massive financial help from unsuspecting Democrats from around the country who donate to the DCCC thinking they are promoting a progressive agenda, never suspecting they are supporting corrupt, anti-family Democrats who vote with the GOP again and again.

Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK)
Bart Stupak (D-MI)
Colin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN;
Tim Holden (Blue Dog-PA)
Travis Childers (Blue Dog-MS)
Lincoln Davis (Blue Dog-TN)
Rahm Emanuel's greatest hit, Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC)
Solomon Ortiz (D-TX)
Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC)
Jerry Costello (D-IL)
Gene Taylor (Blue Dog-MS)
James Oberstar (D-MN
Bobby Bright (Blue Dog-AL)
Steve Driehaus (D-OH)
Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) [consider giving her a pass on this because she's so good on everything else]
Charlie Melancon (Blue Dog-LA)
John Murtha (super corrupt D-PA);
Paul Kanjorski (super corrupt D-PA
Kathleen Dahlkemper (D-PA)

Should William Kristol Be Tortured? Wouldn't Treatment In A Mental Hospital Be More Humane?

Neo-fascist father Irving (l) and pied son William Kristol (r)

Earlier this morning we talked about the barbarism of jihad, an integral part of one of the three primitive-- and long outdated, now poisonous-- Abrahamic belief systems. You don't only find this kind of poison, though, among the religionists and their pathetic brain-washed victims. This morning William Kristol, basically secular offspring of severely confused, demented neo-fascist orthodox Jews, Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb-- who would swing from the far left to the far right depending on which paranoid nerve receptor was working on which day. With this kind of mental illness untreated, society winds up with... William Kristol, spewing his hatred and bigotry on the editorial pages of a NY Times that would probably give Josef Goebbels a column in the interest of "balance" and their self-serving conception of "fairness." Kristol the Younger's latest exploration of moral turpitude and mental illness is on display in his less savory outlet, the Weekly Standard. Basically, he wants Bush to pardon all the torturers and wiretappers before he's officially relegated to the garbage heap of history. (Kristol knows he doesn't have to make a plea for the bribers and bribees of whose reign at the top of the Culture of Corruption were the real crowning achievement of decades of GOP misrule. That goes without saying.)

After urging Bush to start at least one more war in the few weeks remaining of his ill-starred term, Kristol expects Bush to suddenly become a communicator.

Bush can explain to Americans just how his administration's detention, interrogation, surveillance, and other counterterrorism policies have helped keep us safe. If he lays out the case for them publicly-- as his appointees are surely doing to their transition counterparts privately-- he'll make it easier for the incoming Obama administration to back off rash promises and continue most of the policies. This would be a real service to the country. It would also force a rethinking, by those capable of rethinking, of the cheap and easy demagoguing on issues like Guantánamo and eavesdropping. Over time, Bush might even get deserved credit for effective conduct of the war on terror.

I can't remember reading such delusional drivel even from a nutcase like Kristol, still raging about keeping Guantánamo open and about how popular Bush's policies are. But, as I said, the real purpose of Kristol's latest screed is to add his (again) to the chorus of fascists demanding all the war criminals and anti-American domestic terrorists be pardoned for their crimes.

Bush should consider pardoning-- and should at least be vociferously praising-- everyone who served in good faith in the war on terror, but whose deeds may now be susceptible to demagogic or politically inspired prosecution by some seeking to score political points. The lawyers can work out if such general or specific preemptive pardons are possible; it may be that the best Bush can or should do is to warn publicly against any such harassment or prosecution. But the idea is this: The CIA agents who waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the NSA officials who listened in on phone calls from Pakistan, should not have to worry about legal bills or public defamation. In fact, Bush might want to give some of these public servants the Medal of Freedom at the same time he bestows the honor on Generals Petraeus and Odierno. They deserve it.

Some think that if the torturers had waterboarded traitors like Kristol and prevented him and his ilk from goading us into a catastrophic war whose flames he's still fanning, they would indeed deserve medals of honor. I'll have to consider that carefully before I endorse it. Old liberal that I am, I tend to think that torture is always wrong, even for someone like William Kristol. Pies in the face on the other hand...