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Programs such as the Peace Corps being an exception, and a successful one at that.

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Whatever is done, it must be done openly without any pretense, or as much as is possible, and done internationally.

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I have a problem with intervention in Darfur, which is the same problem I had with intervention in Rwanda. That problem is that there are limits to what military force can accomplish, and I am not at all sure that military force would do much in Darfur beyond killing more people. The battles are to amorphous, and hit and run, and there are too many targets, for a military force to stop, even if a tremendous number of people were involved.

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It is sad to have so many people suffering and not be able to do anything military to stop it, but I think that is probably the case. Unfortunately, the campaigns to stop the killing in Darfur are failing to say what should be done, and how.

Dave_LF said:

Wal-Mart is holding special employee meetings at which they strongly suggest not voting for Obama or other Democrats (while carefully stopping short of telling anyone not to):

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121755649066303381.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news

They say they're worried about unions. I suppose I would be too if I treated my employees the way they do.

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I've been asked again and again for my response to the now infamous McCain celebrity ad. I actually have three responses. It is a complete waste of the money John McCain's contributors have donated to his campaign. It is a complete waste of the country's time and attention at the very moment when millions of people are losing their homes and their jobs. And it is a completely frivolous way to choose the next President of the United States.

Iorlas said:



Your link is to a story about Obama's position on offshore drilling. It doesn't say anything about a windfall profits tax. But if he really is proposing that, it's the same faulty logic as the gas tax rebate that McCain wants. The price of gas will rise until profits are maximized for the oil companies, irregardless of what taxes are imposed or lifted.

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Obama ad calls for return of windfall profits tax By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer
1 minute ago



Barack Obama's campaign unveiled a television ad Monday that attacks Republican John McCain's energy policies.

"After one president in the pocket of big oil we can't afford another," says the ad, referring to President Bush's previous work in the oil industry.

Obama hoped to emphasize energy and the economy in campaign stops this week in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, beginning with a speech Monday in Lansing, Mich. Gas prices over $4 a gallon have become a top issue in the presidential contest.

Obama's spot trumpets his proposal to revive a windfall profits tax on energy companies and asserts that McCain favors tax breaks for the oil industry.

"A windfall profits tax on big oil to give families a thousand-dollar rebate," an announcer in the ad says.

Obama has pushed for such a tax to fund $1,000 emergency rebate checks for consumers besieged by high energy costs.

Congress enacted a windfall profits tax in 1980, during an earlier era of high oil prices, but repealed it in 1988 amid concerns the tax was discouraging domestic oil development. Last year, the House approved $18 billion in new taxes on the largest oil companies, but they were blocked by Republicans in the Senate.

The new Obama ad opens with a driver pumping gas. The announcer says, "Every time you fill your tank, the oil companies fill their pockets."

Republicans were quick to pounce.

"Barack Obama's latest attack ads shows his celebrity is matched only by his hypocrisy," said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds. "After all it was Senator Obama, not John McCain, who voted for the Bush-Cheney energy bill that was a sweetheart deal for oil companies. Also not mentioned is the $400,000 from big oil contributors that Barack Obama has already pocketed in this election."

Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said Michigan Republicans planned to go to Obama's Lansing event to pass out tire gauges engraved with "Obama's Energy Plan." That pokes fun at the part of Obama's energy plan calling for people to inflate their tires to the highest correct pressure to help conserve fuel.

Obama aides said the new ad began running on Monday in markets around the country.

Obama has said recently that he would reluctantly consider accepting some new offshore oil drilling. Obama previously opposed any offshore drilling.

Lately, however, he has cited "very constructive" talks between Senate Republicans and Democrats on this issue. He praised a plan unveiled by a group of Republican and Democratic senators to permit drilling while supporting an effort to convert most vehicles to alternative fuels in 20 years.

McCain's campaign accused the Democrat of flip-flopping. However, the Arizona Democrat recently reversed his own former opposition to drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf.

Both candidates have energy proposals to reduce U.S. dependence on oil. Obama's was first, and its centerpiece is a 10-year, $150 billion spending plan focusing on clean coal technology, further development of plug-in hybrid cars, commercialization of wind and solar power and other measures.

McCain's, which is called the Lexington Project, includes building 45 new nuclear power plants; offering a $300 million prize for major advancement of low-cost, plug-in hybrid or electric car technology; and "encouraging the market" in wind, hydroelectric and solar power. Both he and Obama would cut use of fossil fuels to combat climate change.

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I misread McCain. On the night of the 2000 South Carolina primary, I was in his hotel suite and watched Cindy weeping over what Rove and his goons did. Her husband was plenty mad, too. Now he's got Rove's protégé, Steve Schmidt, running his campaign. Eight years ago, McCain profusely apologized for playing racial politics in South Carolina by backing efforts to fly the Confederate flag at the state capital. Now he's content to see race crowd out the economy in the battle for precious media oxygen. McCain argues that Obama opened himself up to attack by saying, "They're gonna say he doesn't look like those other presidents on the dollar bills." But if his campaign hadn't leaped on that Obama comment, it would have been another. Accusing the other guy of playing the race card is a not terribly subtle form of, well, playing the race card—and the victim.

The real question is what all of this might mean for a McCain presidency. The list of troubling portents is growing long: repeated campaign staff upheavals reflecting poor management skills; abrupt reversals on big issues like tax cuts and relations with Russia (where he was superhawk one day and superdove the next); shameless pandering on a gas-tax holiday that even his own economic advisers think is a joke; confused handling of Social Security that annoys all sides of the debate; bogus charges (e.g., Obama is causing high gas prices, Obama didn't visit wounded soldiers because he couldn't take the press) that undermine his integrity; and an angry, bunker mentality among aides that one GOP operative, fearing excommunication from Team McCain if identified, describes as "lacking only a Luger and a cyanide pill."

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But I have watched enough television during incarceration to have a few points to make about the McCain campaign's new anti-Obama "celebrity" ad.

1) Obama looks so cool, upbeat, and confident in the ad that his smiling, waving, striding presence provides a "lift" that doesn't simply contradict the admonitory tone of the voiceover text, but visually drowns it out through sheer pow of personality. It'd be like trying to warn teenagers in the fifties about the dangers of rock and roll, then showing concert footage of Elvis at his most charismatic--great way to create converts, guys!

2) Regardless of the racial-sexual subtext being purveyed, referencing Britney Spears and Paris Hilton seems a bit tired and dated, the older generation scolding the younger. Picking on Spears in a political ad seems like poor sportsmanship (she's hardly done the harm to the culture that Ann Coulter has), and in her wealth, privilege, and lathed blondness, Paris Hilton resembles a younger version of Cindy McCain--there's an almost daughterly resemblance, an enjoined twirl of ruling class DNA. So using her as an object of derision doesn't quite gel.

3) The closing profile shot of McCain, head tilted as if basking in the soft heavenly glow of Reagan above, is not only corner and kitschy but reduces the candidate to a postage stamp--this, after portraying Obama as a fully engaged energy packet.

4) America is a country based on celebrity, a country where nearly everybody wants to be a celebrity, an American Idol, and decrying the cult of celebrity is an empty exercise in moralizing. After JFK, Reagan, and Bill Clinton, the candidate as glamour figure is already wired into our collective psyches, and Fred Thompson's celebrity status didn't seem to trouble Republicans when he looked like a contender, until they realized his gravitas was indistinguishable from indigestion.

5) The real message of the McCain ad is that they're envious of Obama's elan vital, and are reduced to mocking what they covet, Envy makes a person look petty, and a petty, peevish John McCain will be indistinguishable from the Bob Dole of 1996 if he doesn't "big up." Right now his campaign is making Obama look like the mature one, which may explain why at least one longtime McCain loyalist is barking from the shadows.

Lord_Morningstar said:

Latest bizarre news memo – Barack Obama is too thin to be President .

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Not only are things not deteriorating, Obama is actually doing a good job of campaigning without throwing too much mud. This is a remarkably civil campaign.