Rush’s blind spot

Steve Kornacki on the dangers of Rush Limbaugh getting carried away with Obama’s polling woes:: 

Salon

Does Rush not remember that Republicans were gloating in 1994 about how independents and even some Democrats were abandoning Clinton just like they’re gloating about Obama today? And just like Democrats in 1982 and 1983 were crowing that independents and even some Republicans were fleeing Reagan?

The Clinton and Reagan comebacks provide very important lessons for those who would write Obama off right now — and for those who would read the GOP’s bright 2010 prospects as much more than a predictable reaction to double-digit unemployment and single-party control of the White House and Congress.  (I wrote much more about the parallels between ‘82, ‘94 and the present day — and why they portend well for Obama’s ‘12 prospects — here.)

New episode of “so it goes…” is up: Boss

So against all odds, Jack and I finally managed to get together and record another episode of our so it goes… podcast. It took me a week to edit (such is my life/time management skills), so ignore Jack’s ignorance to the whole Letterman creepiness.

So in this episode we discuss Obama and healthcare (again), Letterman’s sexy indiscretions and what it means for his career, a future [*spits*] Tory government, and the good (and bad) bosses we’ve worked under.

“Boss” can be listened to at the Mevio site here, or you can subscribe via iTunes, here.

Obama swats fly like Sensei

A fight’s a fight

You’ve probably heard all about Sonia Sotomayor by now. She’s the Bronx-rasied hispanic judge who Obama has nominated as his first appointee to the Supreme Court.

If like me you first read about her in The New York Times, you may also know that — from the comments posted there by liberal readers — the left aren’t particularly taken with her. The grassroots left, whose activism had propelled the young Chicagoan outsider to the presidency, were hoping for a nominee who would be guaranteed to further their cause (not to mention piss off the GOP).

Sotomayor isn’t an activist judge. She’s a champion of judicial process. To the polarised partisan her judgements might appear ambiguous (and so could be “shaped” to fit any desired narrative), but this is because they’re nuanced. A judge shouldn’t seek to push an agenda.

This doesn’t mean Sotomayor won’t be a liberal judge. No one is completely objective (even if, invariably, prejudiced myopia is a conservative trait). But it may mean that she will be a floating vote on close judgements. And surely, this is what we should really expect from Obama. He’s never claimed to be an activist liberal, he has always championed merit, fairness and common-sense.

To me Sotomayor is the perfect Obama choice. She has risen from humble origins to the brink of the highest court in The United States. She is smart — she graduated second in her Princeton class, and was an editor of the school’s law review. And Sotomayor appears to put reason and pragmatism ahead of culture-war politics.

Of course just because Sotomayor isn’t a rabid baby-eating liberal, it doesn’t mean that the Republicans will accept her with fair-minded acquiescence. In reality, the GOP is probably livid that they don’t have an activist judge they can easily paint as a “jackbooted feminazi”.

The Republican Party is in complete disarray. Rovian conservatism is built on the politicisation of religion. The GOP needs a Supreme Court fight to energise and unite its base — not to mention invigorate its fund-raising efforts.

The right thing for the Republicans to do would be to take the high-ground and embrace the new political atmosphere. Obama could have nominated a much more threatening judge (or Democrat politician) to the SCOTUS. He didn’t. But to a desperate GOP a fight’s a fight, and boy do they want a fight.

Rightwing nutjob Beck, advocates secession.

So you thought Fox News’ resident mentalist, Glenn Beck, couldn’t get more unhinged.

You were wrong. So very wrong.

You know the Republicans are going down the toilet faster than an aerodynamically sculptured turd, don’t you? Heh. Good.

Cui bono?

Further to this piece by Tom Griffin, over at LC, on the connections between the “decent left” (*spits*) and the Islamophobia movement, I read a piece in this week’s Time Europe, about the survival of NATO in spite of the collapse of the USSR. How it’s actually got stronger, despite all other alliances collapsing soon after mutual goals had been achieved.

Alliances die when they win. Take away the enemy, and you take away the glue that holds a coalition together.

[…]

Yet instead of taking its final bow, NATO expanded. In 1994, the alliance sent out invitations to the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland; five years later, all three were in. Sixty years ago, NATO started out with 12 members; today it has 26. Not bad for an outfit that, according to theory, should have breathed its last once the Soviet Union had capitulated.

One wonders, when these characters are so committed to a continued American hegemony, if they haven’t got a vested interest in the continued threat of radical Islam?*

*rhetorical question

Craig Murray: I will accuse Jack Straw on Torture

From Craig’s blog ::

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has agreed to hear my evidence on torture on Tuesday 28 April at 1.45pm. Many thanks to everyone who helped lobby for this.

I am delighted, as I have been trying for over four years to lay the truth about British torture policy before Parliament. I will testify that as British Ambassador I was told there is a very definite policy to accept intelligence from torture abroad, and that the policy was instituted and approved by Jack Straw when Foreign Secretary. I will tell them that as Ambassador I protested formally three times in writing to Jack Straw, and that the Foreign Office told me in reply to my protests that this was perfectly legal.

I will prove my evidence with documentation….

Read more…

Hat-tip Jennie (email), who wonders whether the MSM will run with this significant story? We’ll see. If the blogosphere makes a big deal, then I would imagine The Guardian will pick it up.

The “united” left… seriously?

From the GOP blog, RedState.Com on the party’s rudderless journey onto the rocks ::

Why do Republicans break out the pitch forks and light the torches every time there is perceived impurity around them in the party? Why do we enclave so well and why don’t we do “join” well? Even more to the point, why do Democrats seem to avoid this problem?

Really? The Democrats – you do mean the lefies, right? – are more unified and disciplined than the right?

The defining characteristics of left-wing politics are its gargantuan schisms. Personally I’d rather share a taxi with a moderate Tory, than I would many of the authoritarian lefty apologists who frequent some of the left’s more odious blogs.

Let’s be honest for a second. The GOP has been one of the most organised and “on-message” political organisations ever. For years it’s been standard practice for talking points to be filtered down from party mandarins to the foot soldiers. Not since Obama’s run for the DNC nomination have the American left seen such a savvy network.

The politicians. The rightwing media. The GOP activists and henchmen. They’re all in on it, and for a while, it worked.

4-years ago, the permanent Republican majority looked a real possibility, as the Republicans controlled the political agenda and set its tone.

Now, with the Rovian dream of conservative dynastical rule in tatters, a leadership vacuum has led to various warring factions vying control of the Republican Party.

Let’s hope it’s a bloody war of attrition.

Bill Hicks :: Rush Limbaugh is a scat-muncher

Seriously, NSFW.

Our managers must look beyond America…

Stefan Stern at the FT ::

“[The American Business Model] remains the working hypothesis of most business people and consultants,” [John] Kay writes. But, he argues, it is mistaken in its core belief that greed can be a benign and sustainable force. He cites the economists Ken Arrow and Frank Hahn, who asked in 1971: “What will an economy motivated by greed and controlled by a very large number of different agents look like?” The economists answered their own question: “There will be chaos.”

Read on…

The good times are over. Glutton is gone. Lean is back in vogue.

If there is one thing that will be our ultimate undoing, it will be our ignorance and our arrogance. Our business leaders love nothing more than criticising our governments, yet in reality, many of them are unaware of their own inadequacies and shortcomings (even if they do work incredibly hard).

We do have professional bodies that work to propagate best-practice, but they also enforce age-old Anglo-Saxon business techniques that in many cases have become outdated. If we are to return to a level of effectiveness that will equip us to compete in a tight global market, we have to open our eyes to techniques from other cultures.

The top-down, greed is always good ethos has been vanquished. Markets have not failed, we have failed them. And the fallout – the toxicity of American economic calamity – is poisoning global industry. We need to become more than what we have been.

It’s time for British managers to visit the world. Not as travelling titans, but as humble students. To share and learn.

We have some excellent companies and some brilliant managers, no doubt. But in the main, we suffer institutional stagnation in many of our businesses, a culture of unjustified remuneration for executives, and a chronic lack of appreciation for investing in training.

I have worked in industry for over a decade, within the much-derided manufacturing sector in fact. Contemporary management theory, in many cases, is non-existant and formal training is viewed as a waste of time and money (not only by senior managers, but by the junior-level managers themselves).

In a new post-crash global economy, skills and education will become more and more necessary as fat is trimmed – only the smartest businesses will survive. We need to start with our children, but we must not forget education when people leave formal education.

Blair once made a commitment to “Education. Education. Education.” Yet, despite over a decade in power, and “improving” exam results, our economy is still strangled by a lack of basic numeracy, literacy and the capacity of our young people to adapt to industry.

The reinvention of Labour – if it is to reinvent itself in this parliament – must be a commitment to lead the country in a national project to reform education and skills. We need not only investment, but a leadership with the charisma to inspire change.

If not, we must be prepared to rot on the vine, and say good-bye to any ideas of global economic leadership.