Sherry Chandler

Reading the Sunday Times

I haven’t done this for a while but with a temperature of 18 °F, snow on the ground, and a time change to deal with, it seems like a good morning to snuggle here in my chair with my fleece and my cat in my lap and read the virtual paper.

Bush Veto of Bill on C.I.A. Tactics Affirms His Legacy.

Boy, ya got that right as far as I’m concerned. The governor of Texas who sneered at Karla Faye Tucker has proved the quality of his humanity as preznent of the United States. But look at this:

Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has been an outspoken opponent of torture, often referring to his own experience as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. In this case he supported the administration’s position, arguing as Mr. Bush did Saturday that the legislation would have limited the C.I.A.’s ability to gather intelligence.

Obama in Senate: Star Power, Minor Role:

Senator Barack Obama stood before Washington’s elite at the spring dinner of the storied Gridiron Club. In self-parody, he ticked off his accomplishments, little more than a year after arriving in town.

“I’ve been very blessed,” Mr. Obama told the crowd assembled in March 2006. “Keynote speaker at the Democratic convention. The cover of Newsweek. My book made the best-seller list. I just won a Grammy for reading it on tape.

“Really, what else is there to do?” he said, his smile now broad. “Well, I guess I could pass a law or something.”

The gist of this article seems to be that Obama was never much interested in being a Senator. To do so would have meant entering the fray, forming alliances, compromising. All of which would have left a record.

So basically, Obama hit the ground running for President. Same thing could possibly be said about Hillary Clinton, though it seems to me that she has actually embraced the Senate process.

But my point here is not to contrast candidates but to point out that the whole of our politics is skewed and disabled by this perpetual race for president.

Obama may make us a wonderful president but he might also have done us some good if he’d held some meetings of his foreign relations committee or passed a law or something.

Democrat Wins Seat Once Held by G.O.P. Speaker. How sweet it is. Let us hope it doesn’t turn into a sort of “we’ll always have Paris” victory. Foster ran on Obama’s coattails, by the way:

CHICAGO — Stunning many who considered the district west of Chicago reliably Republican territory, Bill Foster, a physicist and Democrat, won a special election on Saturday to fill the Congressional seat that J. Dennis Hastert, the former speaker of the House, held for two decades.

Mr. Foster’s success deeply disappointed Republicans, in part for its broader implications: the victory in this early race may buoy Democrats as they look ahead to a string of Republican retirements this fall.

Mr. Hastert was one of the best-known Republican members of Congress and he was elected from what was once a Republican stronghold.

This one is important because, whatever happens in the presidential race, we need to strengthen liberal majorities in the Federal legislature.

Obama and the Bigots:

Likewise, with countless people today spreading scurrilous rumors that Mr. Obama is a Muslim, the most appropriate response is a denial followed by: And so what if he were?

Kristof loses me a little in this op-ed because he buys into the meme that Hillary Clinton is running a racist campaign and I just don’t see that. He also points out that Obama can’t ask this question — so what if I am Muslim? — because it would be political suicide. But what if he did? What if that’s how we all answered?

This one is scary. A Global Need for Grain That Farms Can’t Fill:

Everywhere, the cost of food is rising sharply. Whether the world is in for a long period of continued increases has become one of the most urgent issues in economics.

Many factors are contributing to the rise, but the biggest is runaway demand. In recent years, the world’s developing countries have been growing about 7 percent a year, an unusually rapid rate by historical standards.

The high growth rate means hundreds of millions of people are, for the first time, getting access to the basics of life, including a better diet. That jump in demand is helping to drive up the prices of agricultural commodities.

Farmers the world over are producing flat-out. American agricultural exports are expected to increase 23 percent this year to $101 billion, a record. The world’s grain stockpiles have fallen to the lowest levels in decades.

“Everyone wants to eat like an American on this globe,” said Daniel W. Basse of the AgResource Company, a Chicago consultancy. “But if they do, we’re going to need another two or three globes to grow it all.”

Lot of talk about peak oil. Could we reach peak wheat??

This one is yesterday but still scary, especially if the cost of bread goes sky high. Seeing an End to the Good Times (Such as They Were)

The dismal jobs report released Friday showed overall employment to be lower than it was three months ago. Every time such a slump has occurred since the early 1970s, a recession has followed — or already been under way.

And if the good times have really ended, they were never that good to begin with. Most American households are still not earning as much annually as they did in 1999, once inflation is taken into account. Since the Census Bureau began keeping records in the 1960s, a prolonged expansion has never ended without household income having set a new record.

Jeralyn at TalkLeft has another interesting list of articles from the Sunday papers.

I read a lot of political blogs, or at least I have done, but I think that’s going to change. This last week, after Clinton won Ohio and Texas, has just about convinced me that most political bloggers (and the people who read them and comment) are children and bratty ones at that, who are treating this campaign as though it was a football contest and you get to riot if your team loses.

But there are still some cool heads talking out there, so I’ll leave you with these observations from Parachutes at FireDogLake. It’s what I’ve been saying all along:

So, we have no progressive candidate. We have no Wellstone, no Feingold, no ideologically based movement person. My question is this: which of these candidates is more likely to reveal an inner Lieberman of some form once in power? I don’t have an answer. People can believe what they choose to believe, but both candidates have Liebermanish historical tendencies and both propel narratives reminiscent of Lieberman, the earlier years.

..

I see a lot of right wingy talking points coming from either side over the course of this campaign, to the detriment of any sustainable progressive movement, but I don’t see a lot of people calling out both sides. More bloggers than readers do, but readers, or should I specify, commenters? Very many, and the most passionate ones, are not holding their own side accountable. At all. And they’re working us like they’re working the refs in a sporting event.

The ultimate question I will have for supporters of either candidate during these days of pie fights will be, whoever gets power, what will you hold your winning candidate accountable for once in office, assuming s/he wins? If your winner gets some accountability fire from people who once supported your opponent, will you simply defend your winner, or will you join in for merited criticism?

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