Obama visited Israel today and made the logical and politically necessary speech of calling a nuclear-armed Iran a "grave threat".  He's right, of course, in the sense that any nuclear-armed country (including Israel and India) are a grave threat.  But still, this sounds a little too reminiscent of Bush's "grave and gathering" alliterative characterization of pre-shitstorm Iraq.

Obama, contrary to the shouting Fox commentators, has always been a centrist.  That's ok with me.  In part, because I think he's the good kind of centrist and not the Joe Lieberman, Tom Friedman neo-liberal kind of centrist.  But I was hoping for a steadier hand in Middle Eastern affairs.  Bush set a very high bar for non-involvement (read: complete capitulation) in Middle Eastern affairs.  So even if Obama manages to eat a falafal or two he'll have greater involvement than Bush.  Nevertheless, we can't have another four years of axis-of-evil nonsense.

We know that a nuclear-armed Iran is a dangerous thing.  But an Iran with nuclear power done in cooperation with French and Russian envoys is not scary at all.  The only logical goal is to bring Iran into the fold.  Help them grow their economy and show them the benefits of living in the 21st century.  The venue for Obama's speech today probably prevented him from saying anything concilliatory about Iran.  But, frankly, I would take silence over another parsed sentence which inevitably leads to more dead civilians.

Talking Points Memo is running a story describing how the Department of Justice is currently running a 10-year backlog on whistleblower cases.  They link this to the fraud and graft going on in Iraq.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.co m/2008/07/todays_must_readof.php

Just think of the goodies tied up in that backlog.  You don't think any of this is intentional, do you?  Do you?  Imagine being a young staffer with the incoming administration and looking through those files.  Shock and awe.

This got me thinking:  What other surprises will await us in 2009 when Bush leaves office?

Viewed through the lens of U.S. political definitions, the Catholic Church is quite paradoxical in its value system.  Staunchly pro-life and holding traditional views toward women and homosexuals, the Catholic Church seems to be a natural fit for the Republican wing of the Republican party in the U.S.  However, the Church is also serious about promoting economic equality, peaceful solutions to world crises, is open to modern scientific thought such as evolution, and welcomes action to prevent climate change.  The Catholic Church is also extremely active in promoting health services (sans abortion) in the Third World.  One could reasonably argue that the Church is actually to the Left of the Progressive wing of the U.S. Democratic Party on these issues.  And so we are left with a paradox.

Even viewed through this seemingly contradictory lens, it was surprising for me to learn that the Vatican is considering developing a collection of environmental thou shall's and thou shall not's known as the "Environmental Ten Commandments".  It was even more surprising to read the Commandments being considered.  They range from mundane to truly radical and would probably not see the light of day even at the most Liberal caucus meeting you could find in the U.S.  Let's have a look.

From the Catholic News Service:

Deep thoughts:

It is fascinating to me that the name "John McCain" lends itself to a more damaging moniker than the name "Barack Obama".  On its face, the name Barack Obama, Barack Hussein Obama no less, would seem to lend itself to a myriad of permutations of Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden or twenty other distinctly alien-sounding Middle Eastern names.  This should be tremendous baggage on Barack Obama.  But so far nothing seems to work.  Sure, all the right-wing blowhards emphasize his middle name.  But, really, that's going to get old, if it hasn't already.

But somehow the moniker "McSame" seems more damaging.  I personally don't care for it.  Nevertheless, it seems to capture the zeitgeist better.  People want change, they want George Bush to disappear from the face of the Earth for good.  Plus, the opening "Mc" gives it a certain low-rent cookie-cutter quality like "McMansion" or "McDonald's".  Yes, I know I am reading way too much into this.

Poblano over at www.fivethirtyeight.com has an interesting post up today examining the frequency of negative hits against the three remaining Presidential candidates, McCain, Clinton, and Obama.  The metric used is press releases by each of the candidates, the DNC and the RNC.  The differences are quite stark with Barack Obama both sustaining the highest total number of negative attacks and delivering the lowest number of negative attacks.

The current tallies, from September 2007 to May 2008 are:  226 attacks on Obama, 196 attacks on McCain, and 56 attacks on Clinton.  Meanwhile Obama has delivered 19 attacks compared to McCain's 27 and Clinton's 144.  But, the real key, I believe is this statement from Pablano:

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsm emo.com/2008/05/hillary_accuses_obama_ca mpaign.php

TPM is reporting that Hillary is not only denying the stories that she has been seeking a VP pick with Obama, but apparently accusing his campaign of being behind these rumors as a way of prematurely ending the nomination contest.

OK, so I'm totally confused.  Granted, gossip has never been a strong suit of mine, but I'll play out a few scenarios until their logical breakdown in my mind.

1)  Hillary is right.  Obama is just saying that Hillary has been asking him for the VP slot.  Why do this?  It just seems to cheese off Clinton supporters at a pretty critical time.  The benefit may be to end this sooner and then let Clinton supporters come back to the fold afterward.  But did he really think this would work without a backlash from Clinton or her campaign?  That is either dumb politics or extremely brave.

I understand that this must be a difficult time for many Clinton supporters.  As an Obama supporter, I can say, quite honestly, that I like and respect Hillary Clinton.  She is a highly qualified leader and someone who could become a very good President.

She was let down by an incompetent campaign staff.  A sin for which she must accept a large share of the blame.  She was also facing something akin to a tidal wave in American politics.  Younger voters, in particular, have come to view the Democratic party as either feckless or perhaps even deceitful.  The Democrats have not been able to capture the discussion for at least eight years.

As a result, many people have sought to give someone new a chance.  This person, Barack Obama, is an untested quantity and could fail spectactularly.  In which case, it'll be a monumental case of "I told you so".  Nevertheless, there are many of us out there who are willing to give him a shot.  We think he can do it.  That's what motivates our vote.  What does not motivate our vote is sexism.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/opinio n/29brooks.html

David Brooks wrote a thoughtful piece in the New York Times yesterday titled "Demography is King" which reiterated many of the same points political junkies like ourselves know already.  Essentially he points out the Clinton wins big among blue-collar "lunchbucket" Democrats while Obama's base is in the black community and among urban, educated white Democrats.

Brooks cites an amazing statistic that Clinton has won 70 % of the least educated counties while Obama has won 90 % of the most educated counties.  This contrast has been starkest in places with a dearth of highly-educated counties such as Pennsylvania and Ohio.  Clinton's path to the nomination, and possibly the presidency, clearly lies in these economically stressed areas.  But how much support will she actually gain in these counties?

A look at one of these counties, Crawford County, PA, where I grew up, offers some insight.  The county boasts approximately 80,000 residents.  Just over 11,000 of these voted in the primary on April 22 and Clinton received about 6,800 of these votes.  McCain, meanwhile received about 4,600 votes that same night.  This county went >60 % for Bush in 2004 and will probably go for McCain by similar margins in 2008.  Neither Clinton nor Obama will do particularly well in this county.