Ari Melber, Obama Network Organizes and Revolts over Spying:

The Wanker-In-Waiting, Keith Olbermann, who has flipped his position to become the defender of Obama now supporting FISA, is expected "to deliver a "Special Comment" on Monday's show to elaborate on his "Obama/FISA" defense."

Now, which tactic works better? The use of BO's tools to organize and send a message from within that pushes for change, or the sycophant use of television by a tool? I guess it depends on what outcome you'd like to see.

What I'd like to see is some investigative reporting down that shows why in the world Obama actually flipped his position to take the lead on supporting the "compromise" FISA bill. Is it really just the "move to the center" that Glenn talks about, or is there something else to it?

I have been bothered by the claim of some on MyDD since Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination, that it is inappropriate to discuss anything negative about either the Democratic nomination process, or our Democratic nominee.  Many members have proclaimed that he is now our nominee, and as a result, we must support him wholeheartedly, and refrain from any criticism, or we are not true Democrats.

Many of us know Glenn Greenwald as the author of the column, Unclaimed Territory, at Salon.com.  Mr. Greenwald has consistently and strongly supported Barack Obama in his column.  However, he is a former constitutional law and civil rights litigator, who is deeply involved in the warrantless wiretapping debate.

Well, today, Mr. Greenwald took Obama to task, warned against blindly supporting him, and asked all of us to take Obama to task, as well.

Join the ACLU of Southern California as it hosts former Nixon White House counsel and bestselling author John Dean for a lively and interesting conference call tomorrow, October 4 from 4-5pm PST (7-8pm EST).

The revelation that the Administration continues to make foreign policy based on misrepresentations and outright lies, with consultants who are actually paid by biased agencies with fixed goals outside the will of the people, has done two things. First, it has given us another reason to praise Glenn Greenwald for keeping us informed as to the corrupt nature of Bush's minions. Second, it affords information which the democratic candidates may be able to use when discussing their own proposed foreign policies.

The problem I see is that very few of them are coming forward to make their understanding of the current situation clear. I don't for the life of me know what Hillary Clinton is trying to do: she has, in the past week, affirmed progress in The Surge, justified the extreme participation of lobbyists in creating government policy by insisting that they represent "the people", and shown support for a very long withdrawal, if any, from Iraq. Since she has done all of this with the usual political language which never touches directly on anything, and has relied on what seems to be a sewn up amount of inside-the-beltway supporters and money is frightening to me.

We have learned in the past six years that if we are not told the truth we are left to bear the consequences. Will the Democrats realize this and give us a forthright statement on Bush's corrupt Iraq policies... or will we suffer the consequences of their hiding the truth?

Under the LobsterScope

Glenn Greenwald:

"If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend this memo from Samantha Power, a Harvard Professor and top foreign policy advisor to Barack Obama. It is one of the best and potentially most important political documents I have read in some time."

How one responds to this depends, I guess, on how much regard one has for Glenn Greenwald's analysis.  I think his writing and analysis are among the very best on the left.  Therefore, I think those who would try to convince us that Barack Obama's foreign policy statements over the last few weeks sound the death knell for his campaign are mistaken.  He may not win the nomination, but it will not be because his judgements are somehow inferior to his opponents. This part of the debate is far from over and I do believe Obama's point of view (the actual one as opposed to the distorted one that is being spun/misrepresented)  is gaining ground and exposure.

The Greenwald post is linked below along with a link to the Powers memo.  I encourage everyone to actually READ them:

Glenn Greenwald's new book, A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency, is doing quite well, especially considering the virtual press blackout on it.  Here's an opportunity to help lift that blackout: A book review that's now available for alternative weeklies to pick up, direct from the website they use for syndication purposes.

The review was just published by the paper I work for, Random Lengths News.  The review (reprinted below the fold) is available on the Altweeklies.com website at this link.  You can find a listing of weeklies here.  It only has phone number, not email addresses. But usually you can get emails from the papers' websites.

A brief email to the editor with the link to the review on the Altweeklies.com website is recommended.  (You should only phone if you already have a relationship with an editor or other staffer.) I've never tried this sort of promotion before. But if folks are sensible, polite and respectful, it should be fine.

So jump over the fold, and see if you'd like your friends and neighbors to read what I've written about the book.

The Bush presidency has fundamentally transformed the way we speak about our country and its responsibilities, entitlements, and role in the world. In reviewing the pre-Iraq "debate" this country had both on television and in print, one of the most striking aspects in retrospect is the casual and even breezy tone with which America collectively discusses and thinks about war as a foreign policy option, standing inconspicuously next to all of the other options. There is really no strong resistance to it, little anguish over it, no sense that it is a supremely horrible and tragic course to undertake - and particularly to start. Gone almost completely from our mainstream political discourse is horror over war. The most hears is some cursory and transparently insincere - almost bored - lip service to it being a "last resort".

A Tragic Legacy, Glenn Greenwald p. 129

I'm working my way through Glenn Greenwald's excellent new book, A Tragic Legacy, on how Bush's good versus evil mentality destroyed his Presidency and fundamentally altered the political system of our country.  I'm not done yet, but I want to note a few things about his account as I'm going through it.  The first few chapters are largely devoted to the rise and fall of Bush's Presidential influence, as well as his relationship with the conservative movement that put him in office.  What's unique about Greenwald's book, and, I suppose, his blog, is how much credit he gives to conservatives, and how he offers so much good faith to their arguments and follows them as far as he can, until they collapse on themselves.  Peggy Noonan's embrace of Bush, and later repudiation, is a kind of delta of how weak and isolated Bush has become.  Greenwald takes people like Noonan seriously, and in doing so, allows them to prove his case all the more strongly.  I often wish I could pay attention to arguments from conservatives as faithfully as Glenn does, as it's really an art form to discredit them.

Reading about Bush's Presidency with some distance is a strange experience, since the events are so clearly etched in my memory.  And yet this book puts distance between the reader and Bush, almost as if he is out of office.  And with that distance, I'm beginning to appreciate just how destructive his Presidency has been, how thoroughly he has corrupted our system of laws and our political fiber.  When put together like Greenwald has done, it sort of feels like another country, only one whose history is very familiar.  Bush is accurately portrayed as a President whose sole motivating ideology is a sure-fire belief that whatever he does is good, and any opposition or disagreement - even by former allies - represents an evil that must be crushed.  The vicious behavior towards enemies is actually a need for enemies, a Manichean culture devouring itself.

I have some disagreements with Greenwald, in that I believe that the sadistic mindset of Bush was no different than that of Reagan, and that the conservative movement has never been moored to any consistent set of principles except a ferocious will to dominate the disempowered, even in 1960 or 1964.  But reasonable people can disagree, and the stunning legacy of Bush and his worldview of inerrancy is important to understand.  We have a lot of work to do, and what Bush did in eight years, and what the conservative movement did in forty, will take many lifetimes to reverse, if we can reverse it at all.  

Anyway, since I am an avid fan of Greenwald's blog, and I think it's a good idea to promote thinkers and writers who have emerged in spite of the establishment and through channels on the internets, I'm going to do a few separate reviews of 'A Tragic Legacy'.  The fight over Bush's Presidency is ongoing, with a possible war with Iran in the cards.  But even if we manage to prevent that war, the 'stabbed in the back' canard, which is extremely powerful, will be used to resurrect the conservative movement nearly instantaneously.  That's why when Bush leaves office, the fight over his legacy will be ongoing, until the movement that put him there is fully discredited.

Yesterday, Glenn Greenwald wrote another insightful column, this time about how the MSM is drooling over the upcoming entrance into the presidential campaign of Fred Thompson.  He painstakingly documents the usual suspects in the MSM pushing how "tough" Fred Thompson is, despite the fact that he has nothing in his life experience that actually demonstrates any toughness.  This is a trend that I am frankly really sick of.  I am tired of Democrats who did wear the uniform being taunted and painted as weak, while a parade of chickenhawks who pretend to be tough, get all of the praise.  We can talk ad nauseum what is wrong with the media, but I am here to argue that we have an opening to obliterate these notions, if we just have the nerve to hit the GOP where they're strongest:  terrorism.