Politically Correct as in Post-Clinton

Donna Brazile's revelations* didn't come as a surprise. Everybody knew that the Clintons sank the party they helped reform a quarter of a century earlier. Well we knew for the political part, but the financial dimension is so much engrained in their fabric that this latest scandal makes perfect sense.

I don't feel sorry for Bernie Sanders, who would have lost anyway, but for a country that should never have lost its most vital institutions to its worst enemies.

I'm glad this comes out now. Not as a distraction to the Russia probe, but to silence Hillary, who hijacked the conversation thanks to her book tour, poisoning minds with the notion that the DNC remains totally under her spell. 

We badly need different voices. Obama yes, but only on rare occasions, and on essential issues. We don't need grandparents in the Pelosi - Biden - Sanders variety (if they're over 65, make them fun listening to, like Liz Warren or Al Franken - what a 2020 ticket!). We need fresh, new voices, like Kamala Harris, Chris Murphy, or better Deval Patrick, should he return to politics. And the Democratic Party must totally reform itself. Otherwise, the Barry Sanderses, Oprah Winfreys, or Mark Zuckerbergs will dance on its grave.

Can Al Franken draw the US electoral map as well?

Of course, same goes for Republicans, who must step into the post-Trump era before DJT destroys what's left of it. For the moment, the GOP's soul relies on a 81 year-old with brain cancer (John McCain), two senators on the way out (Jeff Flake with a better potential than filpflop Bob Corker), and the one cool guy who could change it all, Ben Sasse.


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* "Inside Hillary Clinton’s Secret Takeover of the DNC" - Politico 20171102 exceprts from her book

GOPgle - Don't Be Evil

A few quotes of the week :

Rush Limbaugh to Sean Hannity on FOXnews about Barack Obama : "So I shamelessly say, no, I want him to fail".
Michael Steele to CNN about that bout : "Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh's whole thing is entertainment. (...) Yes, it is incendiary. Yes, it is ugly."
Michael Steele to Politico.com a little later : "My intent was not to go after Rush - I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh. (...) I was maybe a little bit inarticulate".

Well, you WERE articulate, Mike.

And you were RIGHT :

- First, Limbaugh IS an entertainer. In the same interview, he managed to smack this pearl of wisdom well over the fence : "I'm a thinker. A lot of people, I guess, aren't - People are emotional and they react emotionally to things". Or to credit FDR for Hoover's failure, and to consider WWIII as the solution to our problems : "The new deal didn't work. You know, Hoover was president through the depression for one year. FDR prolonged the new deal for seven or eight years, and yet he's given credit for ending the depression. Didn't happen. World War II ended it. "

- Second, yes, what Rush says is both ugly and incendiary. Not his wishing for a failure of "socialism" (what he actually meant), but his venomous speech about race throughout the interview, the typical way he's denying racism while fueling it - something Steele must have felt even more acutely than I did.

Steele first reacted as a sound leader for the good of his party, his country, and mankind. I don't think this man will manage to kick fundamentalists out of the GOP*, but I like his early-Googlish "Don't Be Evil" approach. Republicans must redefine themselves and if they keep positioning themselves AGAINST things or people, they are bound to remain at least one step behind things and people.

Yes, Steele did make a few political concessions to his right afterwards, but unlike Rahm Emanuel (who deliberately fueled Limbaugh's fire a little bit earlier), he did the right thing in the first place.

Bobby Jindal obviously didn't the right thing in his first major speech as the top contender to a match up with Obama in 2012**. "Being compared to Mister Rogers is better than some of the other comparisons we've had here in the past" - in very deed, Piyush : you should be glad not to have been compared to Fred Rogers' coathanger instead.

Anyway, forever lost in his own angry Limbo, Rush won't be seen singing "Won't You Be My Neighbor ?" anytime soon.

This great self-proclaimed "thinker" probably never dared consider that "Love Thy Neighbor" could mean anything beyond "Be a good Amerikan : get your gun and join my Neighborhood Watch".


* remember ? "GOP : Time to Split" !
** or rather 2016 - see "GOP Primaries 2012 Kick-off - Charlie Crist's Second Coming"

Vice Senators, Vicious Governors, Virtuous Circles

Time to hatchet the Burris ?

So Roland Burris lied. He did have a chat with Rod Blagojevich's brother regarding Obama's seat in the US Senate.

Big deal.

As if anyone doubted there was anything fishy. Democrats badly needed someone ASAP to vote for the bailout-recovery-stimulus-hail-mary Obama plan, and they couldn't wait for impeachment. So be it.

This plan by no means perfect. Bullet trains make sense in California, but the LA-LV axis doesn't seem an environmental priority... unless you go all the way to Denver, Saint Louis and Chicago, that is (not to say hello to Burris, but to pave the way for a major nationwide network).

But even if it only manages to succeed halfway, this plan will have been worth it. Provided the political will to change remains strong ; I do hope the lack of details was only a trick to pass the bill quickly, and that the Obama Administration will seize the opportunity to set the pace for a new global framework, a more balanced order (see "This is not a financial crisis").

The Burris incident proves that change has not totally come to DC (not to mention Chicago). But when Politico's Arena raises the question : "Should the Constitution require elections to fill Senate vacancies?", I'm not sure that's the kind of changes needed.

French politics are president-driven. "Dissolving" the national assembly is a national pastime, and reducing the Presidential mandate from 7 to 5 years (same as a MP) undermined the balance between the executive and legislative powers. Chirac should have either picked 6 years or reducing national assembly cycles to 4 years.

American politics are calendar-driven. You do elect Vice-Presidents but not Vice Senators, and that's OK, untill you get a Governor with one Vice too many.

US politics have their flaws, but the priority seems to make sure federal elections are fair. One nation, one president, one process. And not one of the 305,833,705 members of the US population (05:16 GMT (EST+5) Feb 17, 2009) left behind*.


* BTW : I don't like the idea of Rahm Emanuel's Executive Office of the President controlling the US Census Bureau, but it didn't certainly belong to the Commerce Department in the first place. I would put it in the OMB (Office of Management and Budget).

So help me Rick Warren

The key question is not "Does it matter that Rick Warren will give the inaugural invocation ?"¹ but "Does it matter that a supposedly model democracy performs inaugurations with invocations, swearings on the Bible, and the final words 'so help me God' ?"

I don't consider myself an atheist and I understand the value of traditions, but these symbols are a clear statement against the separation of church and state at the most critical moment : when the power is handed to the very person who will defend the U.S. Constitution.

I know I'm repeating myself ("Universal Declaration of Independence From Fundamentalism"), but even religious Spain understood that this century and moreover this post-9/11 World demanded clear messages from democracies. Zapatero swore with his right hand on the Spanish Constitution.

Barack Obama can't afford this now, and his poor choice of Rick Warren proves to those who doubted that he won't ignite any divisive war during his mandate.

But I have this dream : President Obama casually swearing on the U.S. Constitution for his second term.

In doing so, Barack Hussein Obama will also defuse many mines for successors who are bound to break, sooner or later, that other glass ceiling.

1 - see today's Politico Arena.

Fox News executes Sarah Palin

If you haven't seen this cult O'Reilly Factor video yet, here's Carl Cameron exposing to Bill O'Reilly what kind of Veep John McCain would have offered America.

It beats all those SNL videos : Palin unable to list NAFTA countries (nor even the countries in North America !), Palin thinking Africa was a country and South Africa a region of this country, Palin refusing to rehearse before the Couric interview and blaming the staff for her failure afterwards, Palin clashing with everybody, Palin on shopping frenzies... it only lasts five minutes but you know that waiting behind, there will be enough Palin bashing books to fill up the Library of Congress by Christmas Eve :



O'Reilly had to apologise the next day to his outraged viewers.

Bonus video - Politico's wrap up of the day following the elections (Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, David Lettterman...) :



Addendum 200811: the "Africa" part proved to be a hoax by the Yes Men. Anyway, the Pranked in Chief award goes to Sarah.