The Spencerian

Representatives Gone Wild! Katherine Harris Insanity Watch Vigil Continues

Okay, so you already know our feelings on Representative Katherine Harris.  But there's no way you can read this story from the Orlando Sentinel and not think that, you know, maybe we were on to something.  (Read it here:link.)  Besides, you know that if we can quote a Member of the House of Representatives as saying, "That would be a big 'No,'" we're totally going to do it. 

And indeed, that is exactly what Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in response to Harris' wild claim that there are Democrats (Florida Democrats, no less) who are actually rooting for her to beat Senator Bill Nelson in November.   

As Jim Stratton correctly noted, that claim was "startling."

At a Republican dinner in Putnam County last weekend, Rep. Katherine Harris said some very unlikely people were supporting her campaign for U.S. Senate.

Harris said several House Democrats from Florida want her to defeat Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson this fall. 

"You'll do so much more for us if you're there," Harris said they told her. "We hope you win."

Oh, sweet mercy. 

A brief side note on political strategy.  Wouldn't you think it a lousy idea to make comments about how Democrats support you at a Republican event?  It's just a thought.      

Mr. Stratton continues with the mangled train wreckage that we just cannot look away from.

But all seven House Democrats from Florida told the Orlando Sentinel they never expressed any support for Harris. Responses from two -- Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Alcee Hastings -- were typical.

"That would be a big 'No,' " Wasserman Schultz said.

We had to run that quote again.

"Under no circumstances, in any way, shape or form am I supporting Katherine Harris, nor do I know anybody in the delegation who is."

Asked about the Democrats' universal denials, Harris' spokesman Chris Ingram said his boss is sticking by her account. He said she won't identify the mystery Democrats because they offered their support in confidence.

Ingram said Harris was "taking the high road" by protecting their identity. He did not respond to an e-mail asking for the names of others who might corroborate Harris' account.

Okay, two questions.  One, is Chris Ingram working on his resume, because he really should be.  And maybe a legal name-change.  Because this is gonna hurt.  The other is, when he says Harris is "taking the high road," does he mean Harris is "taking the crazy road?"   

Like every other Katherine Harris story, you only think you've heard the best part.  Wait.  It totally gets better.  God, someone give this guy Stratton the Pulitzer.  Fantastic stuff, Mr. Stratton, absolutely fantastic.   

Former Harris campaign manager Jim Dornan is convinced Harris invented the story. 

Dornan said she told her senior staff the same thing last year. But she would not name names.

"I just figured it had never happened," said Dornan, who has become a critic of Harris since leaving the campaign late last year.

"It was all too weird."

The incident is another in a list of curious episodes regarding Harris.

Yes, "curious episodes."  Like, oh, taking bribes from a defense contractor.  Or saying that terrorists were going to blow up a power grid when they weren't.  Or stealing a national election.  You know.  Curious. 

Indeed, the whole thing is "all too weird."  But believe it or not, Jim Dornan only gets the silver for Best Quote of the Story.  The gold goes to the Nelson Campaign's own long-suffering Chad Clanton.   

"If we went around chasing every Katherine Harris tale," he said, "we wouldn't have time for anything else."

Amen to that, brother.

You know you've crossed a very, very dark line when the part of the story about your weirdness tops the part about how a crooked defense contractor gave you illegal campaign donations.  Good news for Mitchell Wade.  Bad news for you.  Or bad news for your mental health, anyway.

As usual, we urge you to support Senator Nelson's Campaign however you can.  Remember: he's the sane candidate.  Visit his site here:link. ts

Crazy Editor Man is Way Totally Wrong About John Edwards and Poverty. Waaaaay Wrong.

Since we've moved to Florida -- which is totally awesome, by the way -- we've taken to reading what is commonly known as the best paper in Florida: The St. Petersburg Times.   It really is the best paper around. 

However, we were troubled by a piece in the paper recently by "Editor of Editorials" Philip Gailey.  His piece, entitled "Edward's issue won't resonate," is wrong.  Totally, totally wrong.   Read the whole thing here:link. 

Phil gets in to the meat of the thing a couple of paragraphs in:

The issue of poverty hasn't been on Democrats' agenda since LBJ promised a Great Society. Edwards is promising a "Working Society" that links government assistance to personal responsibility. As John Kerry's vice-presidential running-mate in 2004, Edwards dwelt on the growing divide between rich and poor - his "Two Americas" theme. Now he is staking his presidential hopes on making poverty a major issue in the 2008 political debate.

That would be a huge challenge even in peacetime. It's not an issue that resonates with most voters these days. Edwards can talk his head off about poverty, but if U.S. forces are still bogged down in Iraq, which they well could be, the war quagmire is likely to be at the white-hot center of a presidential campaign debate that could be payback time for Democrats who supported President Bush's bugle call to war.

Wrong.  Mr. Gailey is wrong.  He would've been right if he'd written this before the 2004 election, but a lot has happened since then.  For example, there's been an increase of over a million people living below the poverty line, and that trend is continuing.  Wages haven't gone up, thanks to the mean-spirited Republicans in the U.S. Senate.  Gas prices are staying high, and people are feeling more tenuous about things at home than they have in a long, long time.

Gailey misses the point, but the political genius of Edwards' answer is staring him in the face.   

He believes we could end poverty in the United States over the next three decades at a cost of $15-billion to $20-billion a year. We've already poured more than $300-billion into the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, with no end in sight.

The North Carolina populist believes we could cut poverty by a third in a decade, pulling 12- million Americans out an economic ditch for about half what we've already spent on the war.

So, what is it that Philip Gailey doesn't get?  Look America, John Edwards is saying, for a fraction of what we've spent in a war that a whole lot of people have questions about -- including me -- for the price of what you, the taxpayer, has spent trying to make life better for Iraqis, we can make life better here for all Americans.  How that is a political dud except for anyone but neoconservative, Bush-slobbering Republicans is beyond us.   

Edwards emphasizes to audiences that he is not talking about another massive welfare program. "This not about pumping money into a broken government program," he e-mailed his supporters recently. "It's about finding ways to help everyone who works hard and makes responsible choices get ahead. It's about creating a new kind of social contract that I call the 'Working Society.' "

...No one would get a free ride. Everyone who benefitted would be expected to hold a job and make responsible choices in their lives, Edwards says. To help pay for his antipoverty program, he would try to roll back Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

Again, this is not big government, it's smart govornment.  It's solutions-based government.  How's that not politically savvy?  "No one would get a free ride?"  That's tough stuff, the kind of stuff middle-of-the-road voters like to hear.  How's that not politically savvy?   

Edwards' idealism is admirable, even if the idea of ending poverty strikes some of us as farfetched. The issue belongs on our national agenda, but it is not likely to override the war and the threat of terrorism as the central concerns of most Americans. The issue is security, stupid.

Again, Phil, you've missed the point.  Edwards, we don't think, was ever trying to put poverty over the war.  Unlike a certain Editor of Editorials we know, he's not stupid, and he's not going to assume the American people are stupid enough to only be able to grapple with -- or vote on -- one issue alone. ts

John Edwards: "We need to restore the dream that is America."

"Poverty is the great moral issue of our time, and we all have an obligation to do something about it.

Not just alleviate some of the symptoms...

Not just find ways to help some of the people...

But end it."

You know us.   We're not usually one to comment on big stories of the day, but this one caught our eye for two reasons.  One, we really like John Edwards, and two, we think this is the kind of big-vision message that local and national Democrats should be adopting for the upcoming mid-term elections as well as the 2008 presidential race.   

Someone -- we don't really know who -- keeps saying that Americans don't care about poverty.  Horse shit.  The only people that don't care about poverty are the wingnut conservative Republicans in the Capitol Hill echo chamber.  Voting down a minimum wage increase was an atrocity.  But we digress.

We won't post Senator Edwards' entire speech, but you should read it: here:link.

This is not only an issue worth following, folks, this is a politician worth taking very, very seriously.   As Zack Exley points out over at the Huffingtonpost, Edwards might be the first modern politician to get the whole "podcasting" thing right.  Read Zack's glowing post here:link.

As we said, this speech got some play -- including making the major leagues over at DailyKos.    We agree with him that this is what Democratic leadership (finally) looks like.  Read his post here:link.

You can be assured that we'll be watching Senator Edwards very closely over the next few months as he details his plan to eliminate poverty over the course of the next 30 years.  You should, too.  ts 

Raise the Minimum Wage. Today.

Congress is busy debating a lot of issues this election season.   However, there is one that directly affects more than 12 million Americans, and could affect many more, including you.  It's an domestic economic issue as well as a profoundly moral issue.  It's about the federal minimum wage, and today, 73% of Americans support raising it.

Former Senator and Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards tells us about a national disgrace.  An obscenity, really.  37 million Americans live below the poverty line.  37 million.  Imagine if every single person in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago lived below the poverty line.  Want to go a little more "red state?"  Try the entire populations of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida and Indiana.  And, as if to add insult to injury, that 37 million figure (from 2004) is a 1.1 million increase from 2003.         

Ten years ago, President Clinton raised the minimum wage.  But, as his Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, tells us:

"Almost all the 1996 increase has been eroded by inflation. Democrats should propose increasing it to at least $7 an hour. Force Republicans to vote on it. If they refuse to, or they vote it down, make it a big issue in the fall campaign."

What a great idea.  Every single Democrat running for office -- no matter what office -- should make this an issue.  Why?  Because not allowing Americans to fall in to poverty should be at the heart of what being a Democrat is about.  Aren't Democrats supposed to be going through an identity crisis right now?

Senator Edwards gives us further reason.  As if we needed it:
 
"Some Americans are more likely to live in poverty just because of their gender, age or color of their skin. African Americans only earn 62% as much income as white Americans, and women only earn 77% as much income as men for comparable work. 1 in 4 African Americans lives in poverty, and more than 1 in 5 Hispanic Americans live in poverty.

Female-householder families with no husband are the most likely families to live in poverty — a staggering 28.4% of them are impoverished. Children are more likely to live in poverty than adults."

Children.   Children.  America, we don't know where we went wrong, but we know this isn't right.  Stop this assault on America's children.  Stop it today. 

Find out about the minimum wage laws in your state.  Click here:link. 

Sign the One America Committee petition to support Senator Kennedy's bill and raise the minimum wage: Click here:link. 

Take Action!  Write the President, your Senators and Members of Congress today:  Click here:link. ts

The Senate Fails Us: Update on the Minimum Wage

The United States Senate has failed us. 

As we noted in our previous post, 37 million Americans live below the poverty line, and the minimum wage hasn't been increased in ten years.  Senator Kennedy put forth a bill that would do just that, and today it was voted down, 52 to 46, eight votes shy of the 60 it needed to pass. 

Who's to blame?  Republicans, of course.  You might ask which Republicans?  Fair enough:

Alexander (R-TN)

Allard (R-CO)

Allen (R-VA)

Bennett (R-UT)

Bond (R-MO)

Brownback (R-KS)

Bunning (R-KY)

Burns (R-MT)

Burr (R-NC)

Chambliss (R-GA)

Coburn (R-OK)

Cochran (R-MS)

Cornyn (R-TX)

Craig (R-ID)

Crapo (R-ID)

DeMint (R-SC)

Dole (R-NC)

Domenici (R-NM)

Ensign (R-NV)

Enzi (R-WY)

Frist (R-TN)

Graham (R-SC)

Grassley (R-IA)

Gregg (R-NH)

Hagel (R-NE)

Hatch (R-UT)

Hutchison (R-TX)

Inhofe (R-OK)

Isakson (R-GA)

Kyl (R-AZ)

Lott (R-MS)

Martinez

(R-FL) 

McCain (R-AZ)

McConnell (R-KY)

Murkowski (R-AK)

Roberts (R-KS)

Santorum (R-PA)

Sessions (R-AL)

Smith (R-OR)

Stevens (R-AK)

Sununu (R-NH)

Talent (R-MO)

Thomas (R-WY)

Thune (R-SD)

Vitter (R-LA)

Voinovich (R-OH)

We feel obliged -- somewhat -- to name the Republicans who did the right thing and voted "Yes," for America's working poor:

Warner (R-VA)

Specter (R-PA)

Snowe (R-ME)

Lugar (R-IN)

DeWine (R-OH)

Collins (R-ME)

Coleman (R-MN)

Chafee (R-RI)

Senator Shelby (R-AL) didn't vote, but then again, neither did Rockefeller (D-WV).   We counted a few Republicans in the "no" column who are considering a run for President of the United States.  Make sure that they don't forget this vote when they're on the campaign trail.

Did your Senator vote "no?"  Let them know you're disappointed.  And if they did the right thing and voted "yes," thank them.  Click here:link.  ts 

President Bush Does The Right Thing in Naming Hawaii National Monument

Now if we could just get him to do the right thing on Iraq, on the economy, on the environment, the deficit, energy policy, massive corruption....

But we have to give credit where credit is due, especially after his environmentally crooked brother screwed the manatees, as we noted in our previous post.  That's right -- we're crazy and liberal (or progressive, or whatever anyone is calling it these days), and we are praising President Bush.  There's just no getting around it.  He did the right thing (read the whole deal courtesy our friends at NPR here:link.)  We'll give you the teaser:

A vast chain of remote Hawaiian islands, teeming with endangered sea life, has become the nation's newest national monument -- and the largest patch of protected ocean on earth.

President Bush bestowed monumnet status on the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, which span 1,200 nautical miles, on Thursday.

Look, no one would like to beat up on the President Bush's crummy policies more than us.  But in this instance, it's hard to find a reason to quibble with the man.

Now, we're not idiots.  The man is still remarkably low in the polls here in America.  His stature -- and that of the country -- is even lower around the globe.  We're stuck in a pretty lousy war in Iraq, and his party is in real trouble here at home.  He had to do something, and this is a good thing to do.  Plenty of pictures of sea turtles and other life, happily dwelling in their new protected area, all 1,200 nautical miles of it.  It's enough to warm even the most cynical of hearts.  So we say, heck of a job, Bushie.  Even if the original idea was started in, well, let's just say a different administration.  ts

Politicians to Manatees: Screw You!

Great.  The Jeb Bush-appointed Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission unanimously voted to downgrade the status of the manatee from "endangered" to "threatened." 

As the people over at the Save The Manatee Club (visit their site here:link) said: 

Seventeen conservation, animal welfare, and public interest groups from Florida and around the nation have filed a legal petition with the FWC, urging the state to revise its imperiled species classification system and also asking the agency to delay any species’ reclassifications, like the manatee’s, that recommended a lesser status of imperilment.

The action of the FWC may prevent the actual recovery of the manatee population and the conservation community fears that the same fate may await other at-risk species in Florida like the northern right whale, Florida panther, and Florida black bear.

Of course, this is nothing but a back-room deal to help Florida developers.  Florida native, Miami Herald columnist and fantastic author Carl Hiaasen explains it a lot better than we could:

So far, the only ones rejoicing over the panel's decision are waterfront developers, marina builders and representatives of the marine industry, who or five years have been waging an expensive political campaign to get the manatee ``downlisted.''

They were miffed by strict rules imposed in some places while manatees were on the state's endangered list. Speed zones were established that inconvenienced fishermen and weekend boaters, while restrictions were imposed on permits for new docks and marinas in certain areas.

As adorable as they might be, the sea cows had become a nuisance. They were getting in the way of big plans by people with big bucks.

The more slips that you can cram into a marina, the fatter your profit margins. And the larger the marina is, the more boats will be sold to fill it.

Everybody makes out dandy except for the near-sighted manatees, which tend to gather and breed in the same quiet waters along which developers like to build their projects.

So, heavyweight lobbyists such as Wade Hopping were hired to promote the notion that manatees are doing just great. Last week the seven FWCC commissioners, all appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush, agreed.

Read the whole article here:link.   We'll admit it: we're new here to the Sunshine State.  But downlisting this poor creature, whose numbers remain around 3,000 or so, seems simply irresponsible.  Unless you're a developer. 

So help out our new friends at the Save the Manatee Club.   And help out the manatees.  ts

photo courtesy of the

Save the Manatee Club

$5.5 Million Well Spent: All Aboard the Universal Health Care Train!

We can't all be as healthy or as crazy as Pat Robertson.  Two stories about health caught our eye today.  It's very likely that both will be eclipsed by the good news out of Iraq that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in an airstrike. 

At any rate, our old friend Pat Robertson is at it again, this time claiming that he can leg press a ton.  You know he's, like, nine-hundred years old, right?

A spokeswoman recently released a photo she said showed Robertson leg-pressing 2,000 pounds on February 1, 2003.  Robertson had surgery to remove a cancerous prostate gland later that month and turned 73 that March.

"I did it one time, one rep, but I had built up to it for about three years," Robertson insisted, sounding not unlike an unreasonably insistent, exaggerating teenager.  Every time one of Robertson's "spokespeople" says something, we wonder just who is unfortunate enough to have that lousy job, and we're so glad it's not us.  Anyway, here's the picture of God's buddy, Pat, looking all buff and cool.  He's so ripped:

Or at least that's the picture we would've released.  With apologies to the good folks over at The Simpsons.

Of course, it's easy to laugh at Pat Robertson because, well, it's kind of funny to laugh at crazy old people.  What's not so funny is the number of people without health insurance in this country.  In 2004, it hit an all-time high.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of uninsured Americans was 45.8 million.  Pretty hefty.  Something tells us that those 45.8 million Americans won't be guzzling Pat's Diet Shake and subsequently leg-pressing 2,000 pounds.

Robert Greenstein, the executive director of the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities (visit their website here:link) tends to agree:

"These findings are disappointing, as they follow three years of successive deterioration in health insurance coverage.  Once again, Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program played a pivotal role in keeping the number of uninsured Americans from being even higher."

One of these days, we ought of have universal health care coverage for every American.  And whadda ya know!  Something like every single American agrees with us!  We love it when we're right. 

It turns out that Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) got together and had an outside-the-beltway committee make some recommendations about healthcare in America.  What a remarkably reasonable thing to do, considering just how far apart these guys are on the political spectrum.  That study cost an astonishingly low $5.5 million dollars.  The AP story (read the whole thing here:link) starts out with the good news:

The federal government should guarantee that all Americans have basic health insurance coverage, says a committee set up by Congress to find out what people want when it comes to health care.

"Assuring health care is a shared social responsibility," says the interim report of the Citizens' Health Care Working Group, a 14-member committee that went to 50 communities and heard from 23,000 people.

That's fantastic.  Do you think Karl Rove will wake up and utilize this to the president's political advantage, not to mention America's ultimate well-being?

The concept of government-guaranteed coverage runs counter to the Bush administration's position that consumers should bear more responsibility for their initial medical expenses.

Oh, that's right -- we forgot.  President Bush is an asshole.

Even though these recommendations must be reviewed by at least five congressional committees, and even though it may take some time for the Washington bureacracy to wake up and smell the coffee, to us this smells like the Will of the People.  And brother, does it smell good.  ts

The Outrageous Comments of Ann Coulter on 'The Today Show' -- A Follow-Up

You know us.  We're not big on following up on previous stories, unless it involves our favorite whipping girl.  But our post about Ann Coulter yesterday really stuck with us.  It bothered us.  A lot.  What she had to say about the 9/11 widows in her book was just so... mean.   And ultimately indefensible.  We felt bad even posting it, because most people have a mechanism or a means to offer a rebuttal or some sort of a reply.   

Well, the good folks over at crooksandliars.com got in touch with the September 11th Advocates and they put out a statement.  We have reposted the entire thing below.   It's a reasoned, rational response to someone who is obviously neither, and it is well worth reading.

Statement of September 11th Advocates Response to “Godless”

We did not choose to become widowed on September 11, 2001. The attack, which tore our families apart and destroyed our former lives, caused us to ask some serious questions regarding the systems that our country has in place to protect its citizens. Through our constant research, we came to learn how the protocols were supposed to have worked. Thus, we asked for an independent commission to investigate the loopholes which obviously existed and allowed us to be so utterly vulnerable to terrorists. Our only motivation ever was to make our Nation safer. Could we learn from this tragedy so that it would not be repeated?

We are forced to respond to Ms. Coulter’s accusations to set the record straight because we have been slandered.

Contrary to Ms. Coulter’s statements, there was no joy in watching men that we loved burn alive. There was no happiness in telling our children that their fathers were never coming home again. We adored these men and miss them every day.

It is in their honor and memory, that we will once again refocus the Nation’s attention to the real issues at hand: our lack of security, leadership and progress in the five years since 9/11.

We are continuously reminded that we are still a nation at risk. Therefore, the following is a partial list of areas still desperately in need of attention and public outcry. We should continuously be holding the feet of our elected officials to the fire to fix these shortcomings.

1. Homeland Security Funding based on risk. Inattention to this area causes police officers, firefighters and other emergency/first responder personnel to be ill equipped in emergencies. Fixing this will save lives on the day of the next attack.

2. Intelligence Community Oversight. Without proper oversight, there exists no one joint, bicameral intelligence panel with power to both authorize and appropriate funding for intelligence activities. Without such funding we are unable to capitalize on all intelligence community resources and abilities to thwart potential terrorist attacks. Fixing this will save lives on the day of the next attack.

 3. Transportation Security. There has been no concerted effort to harden mass transportation security. Our planes, buses, subways, and railways remain under-protected and highly vulnerable. These are all identifiable soft targets of potential terrorist attack. The terror attacks in Spain and London  attest to this fact.  Fixing our transportation systems may save lives on the day of the next attack.

4. Information Sharing among Intelligence Agencies. Information sharing among intelligence agencies has not improved since 9/11. The attacks on 9/11 could have been prevented had information been shared among intelligence agencies. On the day of the next attack, more lives may be saved if our intelligence agencies work together.

5. Loose Nukes. A concerted effort has not been made to secure the thousands of loose nukes scattered around the world – particularly in the former Soviet Union.

Securing these loose nukes could make it less likely for a terrorist group to use this method in an attack, thereby saving lives.

6. Security at Chemical Plants, Nuclear Plants, Ports. We must, as a nation, secure these known and identifiable soft targets of Terrorism. Doing so will save many lives.

7. Border Security. We continue to have porous borders and INS and Customs systems in shambles. We need a concerted effort to integrate our border security into the larger national security apparatus.

8. Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Given the President’s NSA Surveillance Program and the re-instatement of the Patriot Act, this Nation is in dire need of a Civil Liberties Oversight Board to insure that a proper balance is found between national security versus the protection of our constitutional rights.

###

666... Wow, it Really IS the Number of the Beast

Hey, whadda ya know: 666 really IS the Number of the Beast.  In fact, they had the Beast as a guest on "The Today Show" this morning.  Here's the link to one of the weirdest interviews we've ever seen.  Seriously, someone buy Matt Lauer a beer. 

You know, we just can't decide: is Ann Coulter actually nuts, or does she just pretend to be nuts to sell books?  If it's the former, that's too bad, because really, even if you are hateful and mean-spirited, it's always a shame when anyone goes bananas.  If it's the latter, then it's certainly an intriguing business model.   

We have a sneaking suspicion it's a little from column A, a little from column B with Ann.  That she's just crazy enough to try to sell her books by any means necessary.  Imagine how those conversations with her editor go:

Ann:  I know what I'll do!  I'll say that Liberalism is the opposition party to God! 

Editor:  Great!  You'll be on the bestseller list for weeks!

Ann:  Any chance this'll distract from the felony I committed in Florida?

Of course, it's all fun and games with Ann until she takes it too far, which is where we ultimately take issue with her evil ramblings.  You probably noticed that a fair number of the families of the victims of 9/11 decided to speak out against their government which had failed them so terribly.   They've done so with dignity and courage.  They have not always agreed with politicians, or even with each other, but don't you think we can all agree that these folks have as much right to speak out against their government as anyone?  Surely their families have sacrificed more on behalf of the failure of their government than anyone. 

Apparently Ann Coulter doesn't think so, or at least doesn't care.  Matt read these offensive lines straight from her book... and she defended them.

"9/11 widows... these self-obsessed women... believe the entire country is required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony... These broad are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by greiferatzis.  I've never seen people enjoying their husband's deaths so much."

Look, we like political discourse and debate probably more than the next guy, but this stopped being political discourse a long time ago.  As the widows of 9/11 have every right to air grievances about the dramatic failure of their government, so does Ann Coulter have her right to air grievances about them.

Look, gang, this isn't about freedom of speech, or the First Amendment or any of that.  It's about simple decency.  It's about a courtesy, about recognizing victims not just of a familial tragedy, but a national tragedy and standing a little closer together because of it.   And standing closer together takes courage.

What the widows of 9/11 are saying, we believe, is that the legacy of the Bush Administration is instead of standing closer together, we are further apart.  Much further apart.  Ann Coulter's pathetic book sure seems like unfortunate proof of that. ts

Cabinetry 101

By far and away, our favorite Clinton cabinet member is Labor Secretary Robert Reich.  There are a couple of reasons for this.  First, one of our earliest political mentors went to work for Reich at the Labor Department.  It was fun to watch their success from afar, from our own, frankly less interesting place in the Administration.  (Eh.  It was a living.)  And successful he was.  Secretary Reich managed to implement the Family and Medical Leave Act, a shiny gold star on the record of the Clinton Adminstration, fight to increase the minimum wage and honcho the School-to-Work Act, among many other things.  We liked him so much then because he helped embody what Clinton ran on in 1992: Putting People First.

We like him today because he is an outspoken advocate of working families everywhere, still pretty liberal, and still remarkably articulate.  He has a post on the electronic version of the magazine he founded, the American Prospect, and it couldn't be more on the money.  Here's the sort of general theme of it:

"Quick: Name a single cabinet officer other than Condoleeza Rice or Donald Rumsfeld.  Of all the cabinets I have known, the Bush administration's is by far the quietest."

Good grief -- he's right.  Read the whole article here:link.  It's worth it.  In fact, Secretary Reich has covered the topic over at his blog, giving us by far the best scatalogical/political line we've seen in a very long time:

"Why is this cabinet so invisible?  Because they've been cowed by a White House that has imposed extraordinary discipline.  All policy pronouncements must flow through Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.  Everyone else is out of the loop because there is no other loop.  The result is the loopiness we've seen again and again, such as the Medicare drug benefit's "doughnut hole" that hist seniors after they receive the first $2,250 in drug benefits, or Bush's silly band aid of one-year extension of relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax.  It's policy doo-doo.  Moral: When you try to run everything out of the White House you end up with the runs."

Read the post over at his blog here:link.  Fantastic stuff.  Keep it up, Mr. Secretary. ts