Huntsman resigns, 2012 speculation goes wild

By Michael J.W. Stickings

President Obama's (Republican) ambassador to China, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, resigned today. The CW speculation is that he'll run for president, hoping to challenge his former boss, or at least that he'll explore a run.

He may well do that, the latter if not necessarily the former, and, to be sure, as I wrote recently, he would be a formidable Republican opponent for Obama.

It's possible that he'll end up being the surprise McCain of 2012, an establishment Republican with solid conservative bona fides but also a maverick streak that sets him apart, often to his detriment within the party.

Which is to say, should he run, he could win the nomination if the moderates and establishment conservatives, those who actually want to try to win, get behind him and the right fails to figure out a unifying candidate of its own. He'd have to get by the likes of Romney and Pawlenty, as well as Huckabee and whoever ends up running under the Tea Party banner, but he'd certainly have a good shot at it.

But as I also wrote, it just isn't going to happen. He won't end up running against Obama because he won't win the Republican nomination. As Ezra Klein asks:

Can someone sketch me out an even moderately plausible scenario in which a moderate Republican governor who broke with his party on civil unions and cap-and-trade and then joined the Obama administration wins both the GOP nomination and the presidential election in 2012? 

Well, no -- not unless the GOP completely changes course and rejects its own right-wing mainstream (along with the Tea Party). And, again, that ain't gonna happen.

It's just not his time to lead the party that for the most part has left him behind as it descends ever further into madness.

Thoughts on Egypt: Hillary Clinton, U.S. foreign policy, and the transition to freedom and democracy

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I think President Obama has done an extremely good job so far handling the situation in Egypt, walking the fine line between supporting Mubarak, a close U.S. ally in the region, and embracing Mohamed ElBaradei and the admirable reform movement that has taken to the streets. Yes, of course, I know that the U.S. has supported an authoritarian regime, that the U.S. has helped prop up Mubarak over the years, that oppression has been central to the perpetuation of that regime, but the situation isn't black-and-white, the forces of liberty struggling against a tyrannical foe, and the U.S. needs to be careful, not least because the outcome of the uprising isn't yet known.

Now, I agree with ElBaradei that the U.S. needs to "let go of Mubarak," and certainly the U.S., and Obama in particular, can't be seen as pro-Mubarak in the event Mubarak's regime falls. Alternatively, the U.S. can't be seen as explicitly pro-reform if reform turns out to be Islamist rule, as in Iran after the 1979 revolution, or, generally, something unstable and in opposition to U.S. interests in the region, or if Mubarak ends up staying in power. That's just how it works. It's called being realistic. You need to keep your options open.

I'm hardly an expert on Egyptian politics, but it doesn't appear to me, from what I can tell, that the country is about to turn into another Iran or, generally, that post-Mubarak Egypt would be fundamentally anti-American. More likely, it would experience the growing pangs of youthful democracy as it transitions away from authoritarianism. Sure, the Muslim Brotherhood would be part of that, in some way, but, contrary to conservative propaganda, it would not necessarily dominate the political landscape and turn the country Islamist. Egypt has a long history of being a secular, modern Muslim state, and there are forces there, ElBaradei among them, who do not want it to move in that direction and who will do everything they can to build a sustainable democratic system.

While Obama is being necessarily cautious, his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, has articulated a significantly more ambitious pro-reform position, and it's one I think should be the main U.S. response to the current crisis:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday urged Egyptians to take up a national dialogue that would lead to free and fair elections this fall and, while not explicitly distancing the United States from the embattled President Hosni Mubarak, said that the United States stood "ready to help with the kind of transition that will lead to greater political and economic freedom."

She issued a strong endorsement of key groups working to exert their influence on the chaotic Egyptian protests – the military, civil society groups and, perhaps most importantly, the nation's people – but carefully avoided any specific commitment to Mr. Mubarak.

Her phrasing seemed to imply an eventual end to Mr. Mubarak's 30 years in power. But when asked whether the United States was backing away from Mr. Mubarak and whether he could survive the protests, the secretary chose her words carefully. His political future, she said, "is going to be up to the Egyptian people."

Making the rounds of the Sunday television talk shows, Mrs. Clinton urged the government in Cairo to respond in a "clear, unambiguous way" to the people's demands and to do so "immediately" by initiating a national dialogue. At the same time, she was supportive of the Egyptian military, calling it "a respected institution in Egyptian society, and we know they have delicate line to walk." 

This is realism with a pro-democratic core. The U.S. has been closely involved with Mubarak, but it cannot now appear to be overly interventionist. And so Clinton is right that while reform is needed, and desirable, the Egyptian people themselves need to be the engine of meaningful change.

Mubarak may very well be done, and I hope he is, but the future is cloudy. The U.S. will have a role to play, and it can help in the transition to "real democracy," but for now it must advance its interests, and its support for reform, with care.

But it can also help not just by calling for a national dialogue but by signalling, as Clinton did, that it stands for something other than realpolitik, that it stands with the reform movement and the people of Egypt, and that it stands by its own principles and ideals.

**********

You can watch Clinton on ABC's This Week here. Here's part of the interview:

MJWS @ C&L

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I wanted to let you know that I'm doing "Mike's Blog Round Up" over at Crooks and Liars this week, through Super Bowl Sunday. (I'm not "Mike," I'm just filling in for him.) It's my third time with the gig -- the last time was back in November for two weeks -- and it's a great pleasure to be involved with such an important blog, one of the essential destinations of the political blogosphere.

My first post went up this morning -- just head on over to C&L to find it. Check out the great links, all of them to excellent posts on the situation in Egypt.

Feel free to e-mail tips/links to me at mjwstickings AT yahoo DOT ca. I won't be able to put everything up, of course, but I'll do my best to recognize some smaller blogs that deserve more attention.

Balk Like An Egyptian

By Carl

 

For the life of me, I'm not sure what to make of the whole situation in Egypt.

 

As a freedom-loving American who wants to spread the gospel of liberty, the uprising to me is a good thing. And as Jon Stewart pointed out, we managed to foment regime change without firing a shot or spreading shockandawwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

 

As a student of world history, the unrest in Egypt seems like the kind of fuse-lighting, like the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. That there's this spreading sense of empowerment across the region--Yemen, in particular-- speaks to me that there may be a bit more here than meets the eye. It's a little hard to swallow the party line, that the fall of a Tunisian strongman has fomented this kind of unrest in Egypt.

 

There is precedent, of course. One need look no further than our own American revolution and the influences it had in bringing down the King of France. You'll note, however, there was more than a decade between the two events.

 

Whatever one makes of the differences in communications, and the instantaneity of information now as opposed to the 18th Century, people are still people and emotions are still emotions.

 

Still, as has been said often, no nation is more than three meals away from a revolution.

 

To flesh that out, starve a country and you will get pockets of revolution and starve them long enough, you will get a full-blown uprising. And for sure, Egypt has had problems feeding its people. And keeping the lights on.

 

And finding jobs for youth. And suppressing wages. You Republicans might want to keep a close eye on this.

 

Indeed, Egypt itself and Mubarak in particular have been a Petri dish for civil uprising, having survived the Bread Riots of 1977.

 

Obviously, the American government has had to tread carefully. I like the measured words that both Obama and Hillary Clinton have used over the past few days, and this measured response has not seemed to anger the people of Egypt unduly. I think they recognize that the Americans support more freedom but also have to contend with an ally who has now become troublesome.

 

Indeed, Mubarak's cabinet shuffle seems more about the US pressure than the upward pressure from the people he governs. That Mohammed El-Baradei's name has been bandied about as a successor to Mubarak speaks to me of an American wish expressed in backdoor channels. That particular linkage would go a long way toward res-establishing America's foreign policy credentials in the Middle East. El-Baradei, you might remember, was the UN weapons inspector who the Bush administration all but laughed at when he reported there were no WMDs in Iraq.

 

That he's being named so prominently in the US media (as opposed to, say, Boutros Boutros-Ghali) speaks to me of an encouragement to Baradei and a warning to Mubarak, but also as a signal that America has regrets over the shabby treatment Baradei received.

 

But...

 

The fly in the ointment, and wherever there is unrest, you should always look to the fly in the ointment, is the Muslim Brotherhood. So far, this transnational Islamist movement has made small noises in Egypt, mostly humanitarian gestures to primp its public image, like handing out food and water. Make no mistake, its agenda is to instill Sharia law as firmly as possible in Arab and other Muslim nations, and that they have expressed support for El-Baradei should be looked on with mild alarm.

 

I mean, really, how often are the US and the Muslim Brotherhood going to be on the same side of anything? Someone's being either misinformed or disingenuous.

 

(crossposted to Simply Left Behind)

Elephant Dung #11: The Tea Party prepares for 2012 takeover of GOP

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.)

To an extent, the Republican Party and the Tea Party are the same thing.

The latter isn't politically independent, even if a small minority of its members are, it's solidly Republican. And the Tea Party has become such a major part of the Republican Party that it's hard to tell the two apart.

To be sure, there are a number of Republicans, mostly in what has been the party "establishment," who aren't Teabaggers, but that number, and their power, appears to be in decline.

To put it another way, the Republican Party and the Tea Party (which, again, is mostly Republican anyway) have embraced each other. Now, another word for "embrace," in this context, is "co-opt," as each sees the other as its vehicle for electoral success. The Tea Party needs the Republican Party, and vice versa.

But, hugging notwithstanding, the relationship is not always amicable, not least with the Tea Party trying not just to co-opt the Republican Party but to take it over and control it. The Tea Party doesn't just want to be one of the Republican Party's main components but its dominant force. It doesn't want the Republican Party to be an umbrella party (like the Democratic Party) with multiple perspectives and policy positions within it, but a rigid ideological party of Tea Party dogma.

It wants the Republican Party, that is, to be the party of Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, and the rest of the Teabaggers who ran last year to varying success. And, to that end, and drunk on delusion, it's gearing up for 2012:

Leaders of more than 70 Tea Party groups in Indiana gathered last weekend to sign a proclamation saying they would all support one candidate — as yet undetermined — in a primary challenge to Senator Richard G. Lugar, the Republican who has represented the state since 1977.

They are organizing early, they say, to prevent what happened last year, when several Tea Party candidates split the vote in Republican Senate primaries, allowing the most establishment of the candidates to win with less than 40 percent.

The meeting in Sharpsville was hardly the exception. Just three months after the midterm elections, Tea Party organizers are preparing to challenge some of the longest-serving Republican incumbents in 2012.

In Maine, there is already one candidate running on a Tea Party platform against Senator Olympia J. Snowe. Supporters there are seeking others to run, declaring that they, too, will back the person they view as the strongest candidate to avoid splitting their vote. In Utah, the same people who ousted Senator Robert F. Bennett at the state’s Republican convention last spring are now looking at a challenge to Senator Orrin G. Hatch.

The early moves suggest that the pattern of the last elections, in which primaries were more fiercely contested than the general election in several states, may be repeated.

They also show how much the Tea Party has changed the definition of who qualifies as a conservative. While Ms. Snowe is widely considered a moderate Republican, Mr. Hatch is not. Mr. Lugar, similarly, defines himself as a conservative.

Ah, but that's not good enough anymore.

You can't just be a "conservative," you have to be a Tea Party conservative, a right-wing extremist like Rand, Angle, and O'Donnell, predominantly on economic issues (where the insane views of Ayn Rand are standard fare) but also on social ones (the Tea Party may be known best for its views on "limited" government, but it's extremely conservative, if not generally theocratic, on social issues as well, even allowing for hyper-libertarian exceptions like Rand).

And if even an Orrin Hatch isn't good enough, well, you know just how far to the right the Tea Party is -- and would like the Republican Party to be.

So are we headed for an ugly, internally divisive Republican primary season, with Teabaggers challenging any and all Republicans who don't meet their far-right standards, including established conservatives like Hatch?

Hopefully. Let's see what these Teabaggers are made off -- and let's watch the Republican Party reap what it has sown. 

Bring it on.

Domestic terrorist targets Detroit-area mosque

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As The Detroit News is reporting, a 63-year old California man, an Army vet, has been "charged with one count of a false report or threat of terrorism and one count of explosives-possession of bombs with unlawful intent after Dearborn police arrested him Monday outside the Islamic Center of America, one the largest mosques in North America."

The news media won't do it, but it's pretty easy to connect the dots here, isn't it? The right has stirred up an enormous amount of anti-Muslim sentiment in recent years. (Just think back to the Park51 or "Ground Zero mosque" nonsense, with leading conservatives like Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin agitating for bigotry and a willing mob of bigots targeting not just that community center but all Muslims collectively.) And here we have Roger Stockham explaining himself on his MySpace page:

Proud of my kids. Happy with how much I've lived. Ready for it to be over, but have a policy I contend with often: So long as I am alive, I can't play dead.

And preparing to commit an act of terrorism against a significant Islamic target.

As with Jared Lee Loughner, I'm sure the right will claim that this guy's insane and that there's no connection whatsoever between its anti-Muslim rhetoric (and activity) and this planned act of terrorism.

And I'm sure the media will treat this as an isolated event. Just keep moving. Nothing to see. Mind your own business.

But we know better, don't we? It hardly takes an expert in string theory to figure this out.

I'm Pat f***king Tillman — why are you shooting at me?

By Edward Copeland 

That post title is the last words the former NFL star turned Army Ranger said before he was killed in Afghanistan by his own troops in 2004.

We are living in the Golden Age of Nonfiction. I thought it silly when the Oscars expanded best picture to 10 nominees, but I could live with them doubling the number of documentary feature nominees because documentaries get better and better. I have a difficult time cutting it down to five. I've only seen one 2010 documentary that I've given a negative review. More importantly, this meant that Oscar finalist The Tillman Story didn't make the final cut and it's the second-best 2010 documentary I've seen (so far).

For the Bush Administration, the wars in Afghanistan and later in Iraq weren't just campaigns for whatever reason they chose to give on any particular day, they also were part of a re-election strategy and whenever there was a chance to sell a positive story to the lazy eager-to-echo-anything press, they took it. So, when Pat Tillman, who earned millions in the NFL for the Arizona Cardinals, decided to give up his football career to join the fight against terrorism after 9/11, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told his subordinates to keep special watch on him. This was an American hero in the making that would make for great P.R.

Things didn't turn out that way exactly, though the government and high-ranking Pentagon officials did their best to keep their heroic scenario when Tillman was killed April 22, 2004, the initial story was the he died from enemy fire in an ambush, going so far as to credit him for saving the lives of some of his fellow soldiers and Gen. Stanley McChrystal awarded him the Silver Star posthumously. Just one problem: That was all a lie. Tillman died as a result of friendly fire and it took years and the persistence of his family to get at the truth.

Director Amir Bar-Lev gives a detailed portrait of who Tillman was both before and after his enlistment and with testimony from others who served with him, evokes a sense of outrage at the coverup, misguided accusations and fall guys the government used because their desired tailor-made American hero failed to pan out the way they envisioned. Ironically, during his unit's Iraq deployment Tillman was even there to witness the lengths they went in setting up the false tale of Pvt. Jessica Lynch's rescue. They were kept waiting 24 hours before retrieving Lynch to allow time for the camera crew to arrive. During his time in Iraq, Tillman also turned against Bush and the war effort, commenting to fellow soldiers that the Iraq war was "so fucking illegal." Bar-Lev keeps the focus moving with complete clarity and this documentary is quite a change-of-pace from his previous one, 2007's My Kid Could Paint That.

Narrated by Josh Brolin, The Tillman Story shows the true Pat Tillman, one that defied all stereotypes one would lump on the star athlete. He was a well-read man (Chomsky and Emerson; most religious texts, despite his atheism) who graduated from Arizona State with a 3.8 G.P.A. While the administration and the media were eager to wrap Tillman's decision to forgo his lucrative NFL career with a simple patriotic motive, Tillman himself refused interviews on the subject.

Even though both he and his very close younger brother Kevin joined up as Army Rangers, Tillman was determined to keep his reasons private. However, before he'd ever made the decision to enlist, various NFL players were filmed giving reactions to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and this footage was usurped by the Pentagon in their P.R. efforts to define Tillman's motive, be it true or not.

The entire Tillman family could be viewed somewhat as iconoclasts, compared to most Americans, so as far as I'm concerned that's what endears them to me all the more. When his family first learns of his death, they were given the false story of the ambush and the enemy fire. Still, even at the large, made-for-television memorial service Washington assembled (despite the fact that on his enlistment papers Pat Tillman specifically said he wanted no military funeral. Military officials even tried to take advantage of his grieving wife Marie to get Pat buried at Arlington.), while speakers spoke of God's blessings, etc., ignoring Pat's quite vocal status, like most of his family, as an atheist, his youngest brother Rich thanked the previous speakers for their thoughts but said, "Pat isn't with God. He's fucking dead."

Once soldiers on the scene spoke out and the Pentagon was forced to admit that Tillman was a victim of friendly fire, D.C. realized they picked the wrong family to screw with as his mom began a years-long campaign to get at the truth about the coverup. The story as told proves both inspiring and frustrating, as the Army drops so many documents, most redacted, upon Dannie Tillman, that she and another veteran start approaching them like some sort of crossword puzzle to decipher what names and words are blacked out.

In one of the most infuriating incidents, Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, who Tillman served under in Afghanistan, went on ESPN and made comments to the effect that the reason the Tillman family wouldn't let it go and just accept the Army's story was that because they were atheists and didn't believe in God, it would be hard for them to accept any truths. Eventually, after they finally got a congressional inquiry, Kauzlarich was demoted in retirement and remains the only person who received any sanction for the coverup.

On the other hand, the soldiers who did speak to the truth, were all punished in other ways for essentially being whistle-blowers.

Credit for the excellence of The Tillman Story should also be given to Mark Monroe for compiling this massive amount of information into a workable script for Bar-Lev to direct into such a coherent, compelling and, yes, chilling film. It almost makes me want to synopsize the entire documentary, but it's better to see it for yourself.

The ultimate irony about Pat Tillman is that the Bush Administration wanted to mold him into a hero for their own cynical, political purposes but by the covering up of the way he died, it enabled us to see who the real Pat Tillman was and he was more patriotic and a hero on a far grander scale than any P.R. flaks could have dreamed up. It's tragic that he died the way he did, but it's reassuring to know that men like him still exist in the first place.

(Cross-posted at Edward Copeland on Film.)

Book of the Dead

By Capt. Fogg 

I've had a lifelong fascination with ancient Egypt and try to keep abreast of exiting new discoveries being made all the time. Although the feisty Zahi Hawass seems to have done a great job of demanding and usually getting the great treasures of Egypt returned from exile all over the world, I've never been entirely comfortable that they would be as safe in Cairo as they are in London and New York. Egypt has, under his leadership, also done a great deal to excavate the vast number of sites still available for scientific study, using Egyptian resources and the power of an autocratic government to overcome obstacles. It has been apparent that the value to science as well as to tourism has been taken into account, but apparently the defenses and security of the 109 year old Cairo Museum, which houses the most precious and fragile objects are not adequate.

I was horrified to learn, and I'm sure the archaeological community of the world is horrified as well to learn that the museum was broken into by what the US media are calling a democratic revolution and that two more pharaohs have now returned unto their dust: two more of the gods of Egypt are now just names carved on walls.

Looters broke in, ransacked the ticket office, and destroyed two royal mummies Friday night, said Zahi Hawass, chairman of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, yesterday: 

I felt deeply sorry today when I came this morning to the Egyptian Museum and found that some had tried to raid the museum by force last night.

Hawass is a man not known for understatement or for being reluctant to speak his mind. Associates call him the Pharaoh and that word carries a multitude of sentiments. Of course his position with the Mubarak government makes him vulnerable and the location of the museum, next door to the National Democratic Party headquarters which was set on fire and was still smoking as of yesterday, is unfortunate.

Both private citizens and members of the tourism police attempted to defend the cultural patrimony of Egypt, but weren't entirely successful. Of course this doesn't quite equal the extent of the rape of the Baghdad Museum in 2003, but the struggle isn't over with and the long term outcome is unknown.

The heart of this uprising is still being weighed in the balance and so far, it's not lighter than the feather of Ma'at against which souls are measured. But I do have a certain level of confidence in a few things having to do with revolutions and mass uprisings: They're always a mixed blessing, they all come at great cost and they often open the door to worse things than were just tossed out the window. As much as I respect the right of countries to own their cultural patrimony, I'm quite certain that for the moment, treasures like the copies of the Book of the Dead now on display at the British Museum until March are quite a bit safer than anything of value in Cairo.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Truth in Comics

By Creature


If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.

LOOKING THROUGH SOME PHOTOGRAPHS I FOUND INSIDE A DRAWER

I was taken by a photograph of you.

SATURDAY IS FOR CLEANUP

Craziest Republican of the Day: Jack Kingston

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Republican Party is indeed the anti-science party, and Steve Benen today offers yet more evidence of that:

"Real Time" host Bill Maher asked Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) a fairly straightforward question: "Do you believe in evolution?" Kingston not only said rejects the foundation of modern biology, he explained it this way: "I believe I came from God, not from a monkey." He added, "If it happened over millions and millions of years, there should be lots of fossil evidence."

Seriously, that's what he said.

Let's pause to appreciate the fact that it's the 21st century -- and Jack Kingston is a 10-term congressman who helps oversee federal funding on the Food and Drug Administration.

*****

In the larger context, there's a renewed push underway for the United States to value and appreciate science in the 21st century -- our future depends on it. And while this push is underway, Republican leaders are more comfortable walking a bridge to the 18th century.

What an embarrassment.

It's an embarrassment, yes, but Steve is actually being too kind. They're not walking a bridge to the 18th century, a century of Enlightenment, but so, oh, say, the 14th, before even the Renaissance got underway.

Of course, when it comes to evolution, and the denial thereof, we've heard all this before (including from Christine O'Donnell last year). But that's only because such views are commonplace among conservatives and widespread within the GOP, where creationism is almost as big as voodoo economics.

And, again, what's concerning is not so much that these views exist but that they are very much a part of the Republican mainstream. It would be one thing if such willful ignorance, rooted in Christian fundamentalism, were merely to be found on the distant far-right fringe. It's another thing entirely that such crazy extremism dominates the majority party in the House.

Here's the clip:

Be careful which enemies you make

By Edward Copeland 

In Charles Ferguson's outstanding documentary on the financial meltdown, Inside Job, one of his interview subjects is former N.Y. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who'd been known as the Sheriff of Wall Street for going after shady business practices long before the collapse. Toward the end of Inside Job, it makes the point that none of the financial firms ever faced investigations for their traders writing off high-priced escort services as business expenses, but the Justice Department did pursue Spitzer when it was discovered after he was governor that he used an escort service. The work that Spitzer did and the promise he held as a gifted politician that came crashing down because of his personal weakness are detailed well in another excellent documentary from the prolific filmmaker Alex Gibney, Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer.

Gibney also made the great 2010 documentary Casino Jack and the United States of Money as well as the similarly outstanding Taxi to Dark Side and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the World. He also served in producing capacities on Ferguson's excellent No End in Sight and the brilliant Who Killed the Electric Car?

While Client 9 definitely makes the case that the political downfall of Spitzer may have been an orchestrated hit by his enemies in the business community and the Republican Party, Gibney doesn't try to downplay Spitzer's faults beyond the weakness that led him to seek high-priced sexual companionship in the first place. The film paints a broader portrait of the man's achievements and his hubris, which include a superiority complex and an approach that makes him come off as a bully, even if what he was trying to do was right.

As with the best documentaries, Client 9 teaches you things that you didn't know. It seems as if so many of the recent outstanding documentaries, no matter what their subject may be, show how spoonfed the U.S. media are, regurgitating "facts" that get handed to them while seldom checking their veracity. As far as I knew (and I imagine this to be the case with most people who heard about Spitzer and the call girl), his preferred escort was "Kristen" aka Ashley DuPre, who then turned herself into another of those freak celebrities, who ended up with a job at Rupert Murdoch's New York Post as a love and sex columnist.

Client 9, through interviews with one of the owners of The Emperors Club escort service, reveals that Spitzer saw "Kristen" maybe once but mainly went out with a woman who went by the name Angelica. Gibney interviewed her, but she didn't want her face or voice revealed, so an actress plays her part and reads the transcript of her interviews. Ironically, she's now a commodities day trader.

Where Spitzer really might have earned the enemies who were determined to stop him was when as attorney general he went after the head of AIG, Hank Greenberg, for the crooked financial games that company was playing, long before that company's collapse became a major cause of the world financial collapse and cost U.S. taxpayers billions in not one, but two bailouts. Greenberg was not at the helm by then, having been removed by his own board for violating company rules, but the methods AIG employed while Greenberg ran it were still going on and led to AIG's implosion.

U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia prevented Spitzer's pursuit of Greenberg prior to that by claiming the Justice Department was building a case against Greenberg, which they never filed. However, this same Garcia intercepted wire transfers Spitzer made and started looking into escort services that led to leaks that got Spitzer's sexual habits revealed. This also came at the time the Bush Administration was firing U.S. attorneys who weren't prosecuting enough Democrats.

Needless to say, when prosecutors go after prostitution rings, they rarely go after the clients, just the owners and the prostitutes. In contrast, around the same time, the D.C. Madam case surfaced and they only pursued the madam there, even though it was revealed that two of her clients were high-profile Republicans, including Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, who was just re-elected. He faced no legal inquiries.

Many believed that Spitzer had a good shot at being the country's first Jewish president. I just wonder if he'd been able to keep after Wall Street as he was doing, whether some of the mess that happened could have been prevented since no regulatory fixes have really been put in place to stop it since. Government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations shall not perish from the United States and we the little people always will be the ones paying the price. Thank goodness we have documentary filmmakers such as Alex Gibney to do the job that journalists have long since abandoned or forgotten how to do.

(Cross-posted at Edward Copeland on Film.)

Obama silences the critics, steals the GOP’s thunder

By Nicholas Wilbur

It's easy to analyze the less-than-harsh criticisms of the president's State of the Union address as the result of some new political awakening, a nod of acknowledgment to the consequences of vitriolic political rhetoric, and a realization – spurred by the tragic shootings in Tucson – that there is an obvious link between violent language and violence itself.

It's possible.

It's also possible that President Obama's address was so flawless that it left no room for genuine criticism; that he silenced any potential critiques by not only agreeing with Republican concerns about the debt, about spending, and about jobs, but by then countering the fears of America's economic decline by proposing practical policies against which even his staunchest opponents couldn't argue.

Obama didn't merely steal the thunder of the Republican Party Tuesday night. He marched into the ideological fortress of the demagoguing demigods and ripped the lightening bolt right out of their hands – then beat them over the head with it as every member of Congress in the House chamber stood and cheered him on.

In outlining his plan to increase innovation, accelerate education, and improve infrastructure in the ever-competitive race toward global dominance, Obama balanced his rhetoric with specific goals to achieve them.

And Republicans ate it up.

He plastered dueling expressions of fear and wonder, guarded revelry and God-fearing awe, skepticism and – if I may say so – "hope" onto the faces of every Republican member of Congress. And he did it by using their own values, their own talking points, and their own campaign goals against them.

His call for a five-year spending freeze; his appeal to colleges to allow military recruiters back on campus; his confession that the health-care law has flaws that necessitate bipartisan fine-tuning; and his devotion to eliminating wasteful spending both within and outside of the non-discretionary portion of the federal budget – these all prompted Democrats and Republicans alike to throw bouquet after bouquet of red-palmed applause toward the president's lectern as he spoke.

The exhilaration of seeing the Elocutionist in Chief in action eventually wears off, but one must wonder how deeply Obama's words cut considering that it was members of the opposition party who were wiping tears from their eyes and droplets of spittle from their heavy chins as the president spoke.

Obama piqued their patriotic interests and massaged their narcissism by using their own doomsday rhetoric to highlight the nation's current economic decline, but then the president took the fearmongering a step further by adding a prologue to the GOP's playbook that turned the apocalyptic forecasts of the right into a lead-in to his own new world order from the left, advocating intelligence and innovation in industry and advances in education.

If only out of amazement and reserved admiration, nobody could argue.

This was evident in The Wall Street Journal's editorial, "The Great Misallocators," which focused on the GM bailout. It's why the New York Post editorial board wrote a piece titled "Obama, Pacified," talking about his attempt to "shed his image as a liberal activist." It's why The Washington Times' editorial, titled "Obama's Spaced Out Speech," was dedicated to the president's failure to take into account the context of Communism in his Sputnik reference. It's why The Washington Post ran an editorial titled "A Disappointing State of the Union Address," which talked in hypotheticals about what can and cannot be accomplished over the next two years.

That was it. The conservative mainstream reacted to the address by focusing on General Motors, liberalism, and Communism, not the content of the speech itself, not the goal of generating jobs, not the push to invest in the future, not the rally call to once again retun America as a global economic superpower that reigns not merely from its size, but from its ingenuity.

A skeptic who sees political maneuvering in every gesture of every politician will say that Obama was merely playing it safe and appealing to the masses in hopes of strengthening his 2012 re-election prospects. Perhaps he was. He avoided the controversial topics of Social Security and gun regulation. He failed to flesh out the historical context to Sputnik. And he ignored the potential for America to be the leader in robotic flying cars, time travel, and inter-personal alien language translation.

But he did deliver a non-partisan speech that every American – whether liberal, conservative, or apolitical – could understand, accept, and support. The plans he outlined proved beyond criticism, as he turned the surface-level talking points about victory, success, and global dominance into logical (and necessary) reasons for investing in America's future.

The only thing that is left to be seen is how successful Obama will be in realizing these goals. Having checked off nearly every initiative he proposed during his 2010 state of the union address – health-care reform, financial reform, and repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," among others – no one should doubt the abilities of an ambitious and dogged yet practical and ever-popular president like Obama.

Rather than dwelling on the apocalyptic anxieties of the masses, Obama has proposed common-sense policies that both quell the fears and fix the problems.

The era of violent rhetoric most likely has not passed with the Tucson shootings, but after this speech, maybe Republicans will begin to back their demagoguery with real solutions.

Talking problems to death is a luxury awarded only to the minority party. With Republicans now in control of the lower branch of Congress, they no longer are regarded as windbag obstructionists. They are actual lawmakers – the presumption and expectation being that they will now make laws.

They will keep the vitriolic rhetoric, as it is their only tool of influence over the masses anymore, but I bet that if we all sent hopes and prayers and meditations and curses and petitions and criticisms of the absence of any action behind all that anti-leftist tantrums, then perhaps Republicans at least might try to achieve a balance between the two.

(Cross-posted from Muddy Politics.) 

If I were Obama, I'd be worried about Huntsman

By Michael J.W. Stickings

According to the WaPo's Chris Cillizza, former Republican Utah Gov. and current U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman "appears to be leaning toward a run for president in 2012 and a team of political operatives and fundraisers have begun informal talks and outreach to ensure he could rapidly ramp up if he decides to run."

Huntsman doesn't have the wide national name of a Palin or Romney or a Gingrich or a Barbour or even a Pawlenty, but he's just the sort of sensible, non-ideological conservative who should worry Obama. Here's what I wrote about him back in May '09:

I tend to agree with Obama campaign guru David Plouffe that Utah Governor Jon Huntsman (who makes Plouffe a "wee bit queasy") could be a formidable Republican presidential candidate in 2012. Bucking the rightward shift of his party, and avoiding its drive for ideological purification, Huntsman is actually something of an independent-minded figure, a moderate, relatively speaking (that is, by Utah standards), with potentially broad appeal beyond Dear Leader Rush and the right-wing echo chamber. (I have previously posted on his admirable support for gay civil unions and his admirable dismissal of Congressional Republicans.)

But I also wrote this:

Huntsman may make us all a little queasy, but, thankfully, Republicans are just too stupid to know what's good for them.

That's right, however formidable he may be, or could be on the national stage, he just isn't what Republicans are looking for these days, which is someone well to his right, someone rigidly ideological (like, say, DeMint). As Hot Air's Allahpundit puts it, dismissing Huntsman altogether, "he's going to try to be an even more sensible 'sensible centrist' alternative to Romney, Daniels, and the rest of the moderates in the field." Yes, to conservatives, Huntsman, like Romney and Daniels, is moderate and therefore un-Republican. And it's much worse in Huntsman's case because he actually worked for Obama. No matter that he's appealing and electable, and hardly a liberal.

If I were Obama, I'd be worried about Huntsman -- if he won the Republican nomination. But he won't. And so there's really no need to worry.

**********

I would just note that there may be nothing, or little, to this. My May '09 post was a response to Cillizza, just as this one is, and so this could just be Cillizza pushing Huntsman or Huntsman using Cillizza to float his future ambitions. I would suspect the latter, as Huntsman certainly seems to have an impressive roster of advisors in his corner, but does he really think he has a shot? Maybe, if he positions himself as the McCain of '12, that is, as an establishment figure with a maverick streak, but '12 won't be like '08, what with the power and influence of the Tea Party within the GOP. Huntsman may not be a RINO, as Allahpundit alleges, but it's not his time to lead the party that for the most part has left him behind as it descends ever further into madness.

(photo)

Craziest Republican of the Day: Mike Lee

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Think Progress:

There's three things Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) likes in a sentence: a noun, a verb, and "unconstitutional." Indeed, Lee has recently claimed that federal child labor laws, FEMA, food stamps, the FDA, Medicaid, income assistance for the poor, and even Medicare and Social Security violate the Constitution. Yet Senate Republicans have inexplicably chosen to put Lee on the very Senate committee that has jurisdiction over constitutional questions and the judiciary...

Placing Mike Lee in charge of overseeing the Constitution is a bit like putting Dick Cheney in charge of hunting and gun safety, yet the Senate GOP was so eager to put this radical tenther on the Judiciary Committee that it waived a rule prohibiting both of a state’s senators from serving on Judiciary in order to ensure Lee's membership.

That's right, this Teabagging Republican -- one of the four members of the Senate's Tea Party Caucus -- thinks that child labor laws, along with food/drug regulation, federal emergency management, and social assistance programs for the poor, are unconstitutional.

Which means, one must presume, that he's fine with child labor (and, of course, screwing the poor).

And far from being on the fringe of the GOP, he and his views are being empowered, literally, as he takes on a significant position on constitutional matters.

As crazy as he is, the party that enables him (and celebrates him) is crazier still.

(photo)

Pence passes on presidential pursuit

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Right-wing Republican Rep. Mike Pence, trickle-down conservative, theocratic authoritarian, Tea Party fave, and one of the GOP's craziest and most outspoken leaders in the House, announced last night -- to the sort of triumphal fanfare usually reserved for ticker-taped astronauts (no, not really) -- that he will not (repeat: not) be running for president in 2012 and instead may run for governor of Indiana:

Pence's decision not to seek national office in favor of a likely run for governor of Indiana is a major blow to conservative activists and tea party leaders, who saw Pence as someone who could unite the traditional GOP base -- evangelical and social conservatives -- with the tea party's fiscal hawks.

And it's left a major opening for someone in a heavily crowded GOP presidential field: At the Value Voters Summit last year, Pence won the straw poll for both president and vice president, beating better-known candidates like Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin.

Pence has a fair amount of support on the right, that is, in the mainstream of an increasingly far-right GOP, and his departure from a race that hasn't even started yet does indeed open the door for a Huckabee or a Gingrich (not likely) or a Palin (also not likely) to carry the conservative banner against Romney (trying so hard to be a conservative but not succeeding), Giuliani (a conservative on national security but with far too much moderate baggage from his New York past), and Pawlenty (presenting himself as a conservative but more midwestern pragmatist than right-wing ideologue).

But I look at it another way. I didn't think he could win, but his departure means we're that much closer to what is undeniably the dream Republican ticket for 2012:

Barbour-Bachmann!

It's just so perfect. And more Republicans wannabes who drop out, the more likely it'll be the reality we all want.

The return of Rahm (or, so much for my schadenfreude)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Alas, that didn't last long.

Earlier this week, an Illinois Appellate Court panel booted ex-Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel off the Chicago mayoral ballot, ruling that he didn't meet residency requirements, but yesterday the Illinois Supreme Court put him back on again:

The unanimous decision brought a close to months of legal debate over whether Mr. Emanuel qualified for the ballot, specifically whether his time in Washington as President Obama's chief of staff meant that he had given up his residency status in Chicago, where he was born.

By Illinois state code, candidates for mayor are required to have resided in Chicago for at least one year before Election Day. Mr. Emanuel left the White House in October, and the election is Feb. 22, but Mr. Emanuel argued that he was still a Chicago resident because he owned a house here, paid taxes here, voted here, and left his most cherished possessions in the basement of his house here. 

Well, so much for my schadenfreude.

tatyana ali early life and career

Tatyana Marisol Ali born January 24, 1979 is an American actress and R&B singer, best known for her role as Ashley Banks in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
Contents
* 1 Early life
* 2 Career
* 3 Personal life
* 4 Filmography
* 5 Discography
* 6 Awards and nominations
* 7 References
* 8 External links
early life
Ali was born in Long Island, New York. Her mother Sonia was a nurse and is of Afro-Panamanian descent. Her father Sheriff Ali is of Indo-Trinidadian descent. She has two younger sisters, Anastasia and Kimberly. She attended Saw Mill Road Elementary School and Grand Avenue Junior High School in Bellmore, New York, Marymount High School in West Los Angeles, California, and The Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles. In 2002, she graduated with a bachelor's degree in political science and African American studies from Harvard University.
Career
By the age of six, Ali had begun her acting career. She was a regular child performer on Sesame Street starting in 1985, even appearing with Herbie Hancock in a musical number. She also appeared on Star Search two times. She made her breakthrough when she was cast as Ashley Banks for the television sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 1990. She sang on various episodes of the show, including a heavily altered Aretha Franklin's "Respect" and the original song "Make Up Your Mind" produced by Robert Jerald of N'Spyre Music Productions. Will Smith asked her if she seriously considered pursuing a musical career. Despite her singing ability, she concentrated on her acting career on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air the next few years.
In the final season of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 1995–1996, Ali began preparing herself for her musical debut. The result was the album Kiss The Sky, which was certified gold in early 1999. The album spawned the hit song "Daydreamin'", produced by Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins, which peaked at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and on the UK Singles Chart. The album spawned two further UK hits, "Boy You Knock Me Out", featuring Will Smith, which peaked at #3 and is her biggest hit to date; and "Everytime", which was her third top 20 hit in the UK, peaking at #20. She made an appearance in Smith's album Willennium for the track "Who Am I" with MC Lyte.
Along with her musical career, she kept acting in many films. She had the chance to work with recognized film directors such as Takeshi Kitano (Brother), Rodrigo Garcia (Mother and Child), among others.
In 2005, she completed work on the film Glory Road and starred in the music video for Nick Cannon and Anthony Hamilton's "Can I Live?" as Cannon's mother.
In early 2008, she performed on the song “Yes We Can,” a Will.i.am project supporting Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. She also appeared in the subsequent music video which gained coverage on the "What the Buzz" segment of ABC’s World News Now.
She is currently preparing to release her second album, which she describes as "an independent effort" The album is titled "The Light". Much of the album's production was being handled by famed Tupac Shakur's producer Johnny "J".
She also performed the title song,"Sunny Valentine" along with Terrence Quaites for indie film,"Rockin' Meera" directed by Param gill in 2007.
She is also producing and starring in the BET web show, Buppies.
She is currently on recurring status on the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless as Roxanne.
Ali currently can be seen in Love That Girl! on TV One as the lead character.
life
Ali dated the actor Jonathan Brandis before his death.
Ali traveled the United States as a spokesperson for Barack Obama's 2008 Presidential Campaign. Ali headed voter registration drives at college campuses.
Filmography
Film Year↓ Title↓ Role↓ Notes
1987 Eddie Murphy Raw Eddie's Sister Sketch Segment
1988 Crocodile Dundee II Park Girl
1988 Wow, You're a Cartoonist! Child Cartoonist Short film
Direct-to-Video Release
1997 Fakin' da Funk Karyn
1997 Kiss the Girls Janell Cross
1998 The Clown at Midnight Monica
1999 Jawbreaker Brenda
2000 Brother Latifa
2001 The Brothers Cherie Smith
2003 National Lampoon Presents Dorm Daze Claire
2004 Nora's Hair Salon Lilleana
2005 Back in the Day Alicia Packer
2005 Domino One Laeticia Richards
2006 Glory Road Tina Malichi
2006 A Warm Place Clair Andrews Short film
2007 The List Cynthia
2008 Down & Out Short film
2008 Nora's Hair Salon 2: A Cut Above Lilleana
2008 Hotel California Jessie
2009 Mother and Child Maria
2010 Love That Girl! Tyana
2010 Privileged Talia awaiting release
2010 Locker 13 Lucy awaiting release
2010 The Misguided Adventures of Dating in Hollywood Troi pre-production
Television Year↓ Title↓ Role↓ Notes
1985,
1990 Sesame Street Tatyana 4 episodes
1989 Wally and the Valentines Jamaica Valentine TV-Special
1989 A Man Called Hawk Michelle Episode: Life After Death
1989 The Cosby Show Girl Episode: Shall We Dance?
1990–
1996 The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Ashley Banks 133 episodes
1993 Getting By Nicole Alexander Episode: Turnabout Dance
1994 Are You Afraid of the Dark? Laura Turner/Connie Turner Episode: The Tale of the Quicksilver
1994 TV's Funniest Families Host TV-Special
1995 In the House Ashley Banks Episode: Dog Catchers
1996 Living Single Stephanie James Episode: Whatever Happened to Baby Sister?
1996 Kidz in the Wood Rita TV-Movie
1996 Fall Into Darkness Sharon McKay TV-Movie
1997 413 Hope St. Kai Episode: Heartbeat
2002 Fastlane Shelly Episode: Girls Own Juice
2003 Half & Half Olivia Episode: The Big Condom-nation Episode
2007 On the Lot Girl Episode: 11 Cut to 10 & 10 Directors Compete
Segment: First Sight
2007–
present The Young and the Restless Roxanne
2010 Love that Girl
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