Sick Media Pandering to McCain-the-Liar Express

I do my best to avoid television "news" shows. I skim the local paper on a daily basis. I also monitor a number of sites that screen and filter the international media in a way I never could.

I'm nauseated at the sycophancy the North American press shows for John McCain. It is critical that actual thinking people, those who don't simply lap up the swill offered by Matt Lauer, Chris Mathews, Tim Russert, and their ilk, routinely and loudly disseminate honest critique of the McCain misinformation-talking that the press is not. Besides what seem obvious campaign-financing law-breaking, this doofus seems to have no connection to reality in either the domestic or foreign policy spheres. If he was a Democrat, there's no question that the networks would be questioning whether he was mentally fit to run, never mind serve.

Of course a candidate with an "R" who actually did anything resembling military service does cause your eyes to blink, eh? It's ben a long time. Obviously he is also counting on the political-correctness concept that a POW could never be criticized. But what about that PC thing? Didn't the republics reject political correctness as a concept? I'm still trying to get clear how being encarcerated equates to heroism, wrestling again with political uncorrectness. We have a gazillion prisoners these days, right? Many of them actually illegally imprisoned, without representation. So any of them are probably equally "gifted" when it comes to that particular "qualification" for high office, right?

With time short, I will throttle myself in the interests of turning it over to Digby:

I wrote about this before, but I think it's worth reiterating. The "special relationship" between John McCain and the press is particularly dangerous in one respect: he is not held accountable for his words on the stump, (while Democrats' are used against them as if they'd carved them in stone from Mt Rushmore) and he's not held liable for his gross and obvious panders and policy shifts. I'm not sure I've ever seen a politician have this kind of industrial strength teflon before.

Dave Neiwert addressed this the other night over on FDL:

A lot of wags have been chortling about "the McCain Moment," myself included, because it encapsulates so neatly much of what's wrong with John McCain. But not everything.

We also need to deal with the McCain Of The Moment. The guy who said one thing six months ago and says nearly its opposite now. Who knows what he'll say in another six months?

As disturbing as his obvious mental lapses might be, McCain's bizarre policy flip-flops make Daffy Duck look positively stolid in comparison, especially because they have come in many cases in which he has made himself a national reputation. Things like torture and campaign finance ethics.

And this is especially the case with immigration. The co-author of the Kennedy-McCain Immigration Act -- which, comparatively speaking, took a moderate approach to immigration reform -- McCain is now saying that he wouldn't even vote for it today, let alone co-author it.

I think we all remember a fellow who was relentlessly called a "flip-flopper" for much less egregious and far more ancient policy shifts than that. Indeed, one of the truisms about presidential politics until now has been that Senators, particularly those with long legislative records, could not be elected because of votes they've taken in the past which were done for horse trading or positioning or some other reflection of sausage making that isn't easily explained. (You see it in the current Democratic race.)

St. McCain is different. When he makes a policy shift or takes a U-Turn in his rhetoric, or misrepresents his own record, it's excused by his fanboys in the media as something he "had to do." Here's Nick Kristoff on the subject:

... his pride in “straight talk” may arise partly because he is an execrable actor. When he does try double-talk, he looks so guilty and uncomfortable that he convinces nobody.

It’s also striking that Barack Obama is leading a Democratic field in which he has been the candidate who is least-scripted and most willing to annoy primary voters, whether in speaking about Reagan’s impact on history or on the suffering of Palestinians.

All of this is puzzlingly mature on the part of the electorate. A common complaint about President Bush is that he walls himself off from alternative points of view, but the American public has the same management flaw: it normally fires politicians who tell them bad news.

It is true that Mr. McCain sometimes weaves and bobs. With the arrival of the primaries, he has moved to the right on social issues and pretended to be more conservative than he is. On Wednesday, for example, he retreated on his brave stand on torture by voting against a bill that would block the C.I.A. from using physical force in interrogations.

His most famous pander came in 2000, when, after earlier denouncing the onfederate flag as a “symbol of racism,” he embraced it as “a symbol of heritage.” To his credit, Mr. McCain later acknowledged, “I feared that if I answered honestly I could not win the South Carolina primary, so I chose to compromise my principles.”

In short, Mr. McCain truly has principles that he bends or breaks out of desperation and with distaste. That’s preferable to politicians who are congenital invertebrates.

That sentiment is quite common among the punditocrisy and the media fanboys. They have talked themselves into believing that McCain's flip-flops and panders are actually a sign of his integrity and strength because he does them so blatantly. Now that's teflon.

The main thing at play here is a pernicious, primal narrative that's been out there for decades in which liberals are tarred as being sissies who can't stand up for the country. Therefore, when they "flipflop" they do it out of weakness of will and unformed identity. They are always trying to "find themselves." Conservatives have no such issues. They are always on the side of God, Mother, Country (and Wall Street) and don't care who knows it. Unlike those nancy boys on the left, they aren't small, flaccid and flip-flopping --- they are large, hard and straight-up. That's the long standing (ahem) narrative of liberal and conservative politics in the modern era and McCain is the perfect hero of the tale.

This is where all that bonhomie on the old Straight Talk Express really pays off. He can literally say anything and the press will excuse it because they think he's their cynical, postmodern pal --- a Rorschach test for their own beliefs. When he gets "angry" at lobbyists or rightwing ministers he's telling the truth. When he cozies up to lobbyists and seeks the endorsement of rightwing ministers, it's because he *has* to, (and he really, really hates doing it.) John McCain's heart, you see, is always in the right place, and oddly enough, everyone believes it's in the same place as is their own.

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Greenwald: in the Trenches on Our Behalf

Glenn Greenwald, posting these days at Salon (but you know where to find him, right?), has been doing a lot of heavy lifting lately in shining a light on two major impediments to our hope of a return to anything resembling the form of representative government our founders fought for. I.e., a return to a system where the vice (oh so appropriate in this case) - president does not feel he can with impunity answer "so?" when for-once actually confronted with the fact that this administration is in full defiance of the American people's very strong majority opinion.

GG has the badge of honor for me for his unflinching on-going spade-calling over the absolute void of journalism in the mainstream (i.e., fully corporate-co-opted) media these days. Most recently he has been appropriately focused on the amazingly torpid non-journalists spending their time sucking up to McCain. I anticipate upcoming post on a recent Greenwald on that score.

He has also shown remarkable courage in calling out the scabrous, venal tactics of the right wing and their propaganda machine, ever-ready to make a huge fuss and get their brain-dead legion to gin up thousands of angry emails over the most pathetic non-issues. Doubtless he has a spam hit-rate orders of magnitude more numerous (and more nasty by far, I'm sure, though it's the same septic level) than the multitude who somehow imagine I have one organ or another that needs enlargement.

This particular Greenwald post, entitled "Tactics of the right-wing noise machine," is actually a follow-up to a previous GG post (see early link in article). In short, he has spotlighted the sleazy practice, truly the essence of what little there is of a bush administration program, whereby outrageous lies and distortions are linked to, publicized, and repeated ad nauseum (9/11-Iraq!, terrorists want to strike the homeland!), with some faint veneer of detachment allowing for denial of responsibility.

This is a good part of how for a spell these gibbering idiots who can't find a decent bureaucrat to run an agency, for the love of Brownie-the-horsie-boy, had seven people (okay, rounding up) convinced they were much more to be trusted to keep us safe than any Democrat. Of course, the fully-bought-out nonfunctional "media" for a while had themselves convinced we had ten actual citizens (rounding down), hence the soporific Ravel's "Bolero" spoon-feeding of "a majority of US citizens believe the bush administration is far more trustworthy on terrorism than the Democrats."

Of course their real difficulty in finding a bureaucrat who can perform is that there are these secret loyalty-oaths required before you can be nominated. And you know as well as I do that these oaths have nothing to do with serving the American people, doing the job well, or being accountable. As they say, "the reverse is true." I suspect those include things like: "I will never ask a question of the president," "I will never offer an opinion of my own," and "I will never testify under oath to any investigating body." (Should there be any such left.)

To whit, the Never-Accountable Administration.

I give you their admirable gadfly, Mr. Greenwald, in toto:

On Sunday, I wrote about a repulsive racist screed published on the conservative blog, Instapunk -- a blog heavily promoted by right-wing law professor Glenn Reynolds, among others. In response, Reynolds and various other right-wing pundits have spent the last several days in an angry, defensive frenzy, trying to distract from the principal points by attacking the absurd and obvious straw man that one should not be held responsible for a post they did not link to or promote.

As I made explicitly clear, I never suggested anything of the sort. Rather, my post illustrated how the right-wing noise machine functions -- by promoting and courting the most extremist and hateful elements for political gain while trying to keep a safe distance so as to evade responsibility:

The original purpose in pointing out that Instapunk is a favorite blog of Glenn Reynolds was not to suggest that Reynolds is directly responsible for the particular racist screed I quoted, but rather, to demonstrate that I did not select some obscure unread blog nor go searching deep in the comment sections in order to find something inflammatory -- the typical method used to generate almost every liberal blog "controversy" -- but instead had found this written by a principal contributor on one of the most heavily-promoted right-wing blogs.

Nonetheless, the updates [here and here] demonstrate that Reynolds has promoted and himself expressed similar sentiments regarding the Obama/Wright matter, albeit in less explicit form. That's how the right-wing always works. The more respectable venues promote more tepid versions of the filth being spewed by the darker corners of the noise machine, so as to keep a safe distance while simultaneously ensuring that it ends up widely circulated (see e.g., Obama's madrassa education, Bill Clinton's string of rape victims and drug running operations, John McCain's black illegitimate baby, and John Kerry's Swift Boat adventures).

Republicans have done this routinely and successfully for years, actively courting "American-hating" extremists such as Pat Robertson, and even electing to the Senate radicals such as James Inhofe (who suggested the U.S. was to blame for the 9/11 attacks by angering God with insufficient support for Israel). That's precisely why John McCain is able actively to embrace the likes of John Hagee and Rod Parsely with virtually no consequences. I can't be held responsible for all of the views of someone I praise and embrace, declares McCain.

In any event, University of Colorado Law Professor Paul Campos has an Op-Ed in today's Rocky Mountain News which examines the Instapundit/Instapunk matter and highlights exactly the points that actually were being made. While Democrats are constantly forced by manufactured controversies generated by the right-wing noise machine and their media allies to "repudiate" and "renounce" a never ending carousel of "extremists" ranging from the moderate to the irrelevant (Michael Moore, MoveOn, Louis Farrakhan, Ward Churchill, etc. etc.), the GOP establishment for years has tied itself at the hip to hate-mongering extremists along the lines of John Hagee, Rod Parsley, Pat Roberston, Ann Coulter, and all sorts of various Instapunks, with no repercussions or accountability whatsoever.

Grow Up and Get a Clue!

You, like me, know this coming presidential election could well be a watershed event for our country. That's about as low-key and Clark Kent-mild as I could phrase that. I sure wish I had some political karma and/or zeitgeist to fall back on based on exposure to a little tear-gas back in the '60's and some out-of-the-box voting on occasion. That's not going to help here. I don't.

I was young and naive in the '60's, never having a clue what to do with the wild rhetoric of the left, whether SDS, Black Panthers, or others. I knew VietNam was a huge fuck-up and our government through multiple administrations was lying to us. That was the major sad revelation.

I'm sure I'm still naive. But less young.

So, despite the gas, I have mostly just my life-experiences rather than a political history to bring to this sadly huge event. Frankly, it feels like it could be a choice between (hopefully) a very dramatic move back to a system that conforms to the scheme our visionary forebears assembled (that would involve, e.g., elected officials being obeisant to the public and abiding by our laws), or continued motion towards dictatorship, oligarchy, even more extreme corporatocracy, or full-on fascism.

There's little doubt that John McCain is fully-subscribed to those latter dark paths; this man is conspicuously desperate for power and prepared to suspend whatever tawdry code of honor he has left at this point in his life to get what he thinks he wants. Not to disturb your sleep, but please freeze for a moment and contemplate that image of McCain embracing Bush on stage, not all that long after Bush's operatives had savaged McCain. The definition of a Desperate Man. Woe be to them who help to elect this psycho.

Not time to do the linkage here, but there is plentiful evidence that McSame is asininely clueless on foreign affairs, never heard of a war he didn't want to initiate, does not do economics, and, most sadly, he has a free pass with the MSM. The print and video press seem to be more or less bragging that he was so fun last time around that it's okay for him to lie and equivocate, as they will let him get away with shit the other candidates would be strung up for.

Given that, it doesn't take more than avg intelligence to realize that we have a problem. Undoubtedly there are numerous benumbed folks (some to the point of stasis) who have no clue that what they see or hear on their (very narrow, commonly self-chosen) mainstream media bandwidth bears little connection to facts or reality. They are still back in the "trust government" infantile state of development (despite the fact many of them also probably subscribe to the "drown it" program, somehow stupifyingly unaware that they will be early drainees!).

With that as backdrop, those of who believe big-time change is essential need to face a problem. It is thrilling to have both a woman and a person of color as our candidates. Why are we intent on taking ourselves down through petty squabbling? John McCain's politics are absolutely heinous! What sort of low-life venality and pettiness could lead any brain-endowed creature to even consider a voting-box choice that would aid him?

From Josh at Talking Points Memo (TPM):

To follow up on the emails I posted last night, it's worth saying that over the last couple months, during each campaign's moments of extremity, we've had supporters of each candidate (probably in roughly equal quantity) writing in and saying they wouldn't be able to vote for the opponent in the general election. In general I just think that people are deeply invested in the campaign (which is a good thing), and in moments of disappointment and frustration need some outlet, even if only expressed within themselves, to put some contemplated action to their angst. Threatening to upset the applecart in November is the most emotionally satisfying way to do that. Certainly too, when a campaign gets this intense and hard fought, there's just too much cognitive dissonance for people to be on the one hand seething at the other candidate and then also contemplating working for and voting for the same person.

So I see most of these promises as the emotional equivalent of things friends or lovers can say in the midst of heated fights -- the vast number of which they recant later and wish they'd never said.

Clearly though there are some people who really do mean it. A very small fraction I think, but there nonetheless. And there's really no better example of emotional infantilism that some people bring to the political process . One can see it in a case like 1968 perhaps or other years where real and important differences separated the candidates -- or in cases where the differences between the parties on key issues were not so great. But that simply is not the case this year. As much as the two campaign have sought to highlight the differences, the two candidates' positions on almost every issue is extremely close. And the differences that do exist pale into insignificance when compared to Sen. McCain's.

That's not to say that these small differences are reasons to choose one of the candidates over the other. But to threaten either to sit the election or vote for McCain or vote for Nader if your candidate doesn't win the nomination shows as clearly as anything that one's ego-investment in one's candidate far outstrips one's interest in public policy and governance. If this really is one's position after calm second-thought, I see no other way to describe it.

First followup from TPM:

We've gotten a number of very interesting replies to the post below about Democratic primary campaign supporters who won't vote in the general or will vote for McCain if their preferred candidate does not win the nomination. One of the dissonant aspects of reading the emails is hearing from each side's supporters explain how the other candidate has demonstrably crossed the line into political perdition, etc. etc.

But one point has come up enough times that I think it's worth clarifying. A number of people have read what I wrote as saying that because Clinton and Obama basically agree on policy issues, they're interchangeable. So get over it.

But that's not what I'm saying.

Presidential leadership is not simply about policy stands. Certainly that's not the case in how elections actually work. Nor is it how things ought to be. There's a lot about the presidency beyond policy positions. And character does count. The problem is just that in this country we routinely seem to confine it to matters of sexual ethics and whether you happen to say something that can be distorted beyond imagining by sundry right-wing agitprop freaks.

In any case, I'm not saying they're interchangeable. Whichever you prefer, they're actually very different candidates. What I am saying is that no one can run away from the choice every American with the franchise will face in November. The next president will either be John McCain or the Democratic nominee. That's an immovable fact. Not voting or voting for some protest candidate doesn't allow anyone to wash their hands of that choice.

Now one reader, TPM Reader KK, wrote in and said that he supports Obama, isn't a Democrat, actually doesn't agree with a number of Obama's policy positions but believes he could change the tenor of politics in the country and through his election help shift the rest of the world's view of the US. For KK, if Obama doesn't win the nomination, I guess there really might not be any particular reason he'd vote for Clinton over McCain.

But I do not believe this is the case with the great, great majority of readers of TPM who are supporting either of these two candidates. I think most are Democrats or Democrat-leaning independents who ascribe to a series of policies now generally adhered to by members of the Democratic party. People for whom that applies have to decide whether the alleged transgressions of either candidate or their differences in tone, political style and so forth are so grave and substantial that they merit electing John McCain who stands on the other side of basically all of those issues.

I subscribe to the idea that the earlier we have a single Dem candidate the better. Obviously I am not one of those truly poor sports (that's being too kind) who have lost sight of what is going on and are now somehow engaged in a political equivalent of the Idol show or whatever it is, with only one Dem candidate they could possibly support. For them, apparently democracy as so desperately conceived and cobbled together way back in the 18th Century is an irrelevance. "My candidate or nuclear meltdown" seems to be their mantra. Please extract your head from that orifice and renew your patritotic vow.

(From TPM commenter):

TPM Reader PJ shares his most feared scenario ...

Here's the scenario that I'm worried about...

Let's suppose that Hillary has a very good day in Pennsylvania, perhaps a 15-20 point win. If that happens, there is no way the superdelegates are going to move to lock it down for Obama. It's likely that she will also do fairly well in Indiana, West Virginia, and Kentucky, chipping away at Obama's lead. She probably won't overcome his current margin, but she will be close enough to be able to make the case to the superdelegates that she has the momentum, and that the Pastor Wright mess renders Obama unelectable.

Thus, we go into the convention with a bitterly divided Party, with tensions running high, and both of our potential nominees battered and less able to take on McCain in November. The superdelegates will be in the very uncomfortable position of having to risk alienating the newly-inpspired and huge African-American and youth components of the Party if they hand the prize to Hillary Clinton. If they give the nod to Obama, the Clinton faction is going to raise all kinds of hell and may not be supportive of Obama in the general election.

IMHO, we are headed toward a very unhappy ending, and if I were a superdelegate I'd be inclined to slam-dunk it now for Obama. The Clinton camp would have no cause to complain; they started this campaign with 96 committed SD's who didn't even bother to take a look at the other contestants-- they were in Hillary's pocket from the start. It is also worth noting that the Clinton team was saying that they expected to wrap this whole thing up by Super Tuesday, so they are in no position to claim that the Obama SD's acted in haste. At the moment, Obama leads by every conceivable metric-- pledged delegates, popular vote, states won, caucuses won, and yes- primaries won. The uncommitted SD's who have been patient enough to witness 19 debates and 40 primaries could easily justify their decision to line up behind a nominee so we can begin to consolidate support for our general election candidate.

The fact that those superdelegates haven't pulled the trigger yet make me inclined to believe that they are going to let the process run its course, and I'm betting that when we reach July we are all going to wish that they had summoned up the wisdom and the courage to end it back in mid-March.

On the hopeful side, I was interested to hear of this idea of a "mini-convention," with goal of getting the key business done much earlier:

Democrats, looking for a way out, are pondering a new idea: an unprecedented "mini convention" to bring their punishing presidential season to an early close.

The proposal surfaced during another week of pushing and shoving between the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton campaigns and a growing concern that the party may be hurting itself beyond repair.

Without some resolution, they fret, Republican John McCain will win the presidency.

"If we continue down the path we are on, we might as well hand the keys of the White House to John McCain," said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo.

The mini-convention would bring together nearly 800 superdelegates after the last primaries are held in early June.

Given the current math, superdelegates - party officials and elected leaders - will decide the nomination, one way or another.

"There would be a final opportunity for the candidates to make their arguments to these delegates, and then one transparent vote," Tennessee Gov. Philip Bredesen suggested in the New York Times.

Superdelegates, both pledged and unpledged, reacted cautiously to the idea. But they all agreed that something needed to be done to bridge the growing gap between Clinton and Obama supporters.

"We've got to stop the bickering that's going on," said Leila Medley of Jefferson City, Mo., an uncommitted superdelegate. "There's no doubt about that."

"While you trade barbs, McCain is uniting the Republican Party," U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon wrote both campaigns in mid-March. "In the next six weeks, McCain can sit back, amass his war chest, concentrate his base and delight as you deconstruct each other."

That outcome seemed unthinkable just weeks ago, when record voter turnouts, the ongoing Iraq war, a slumping economy and a fat bank account convinced many Democrats they had a clear path to the presidency.

But new polls tell a different story: Some last week showed McCain beating Obama and Clinton, after he trailed both candidates just two weeks ago.

A focus on race and gender hasn't helped. Neither did more name-calling after Florida's Democrats, then Michigan's, failed to reach agreement on a plan to seat their disputed delegates.

And the party still hasn't figured out how its superdelegates should vote - as independent agents or as a reflection of the popular vote.

"It seems to me if we have a nominee come Labor Day with a very deeply divided party and morally exhausted party, I think we have a problem," Bredesen said.

He promised any superdelegate gathering would be "tight" and "businesslike," helping the party avoid "brutal and unnecessary warfare" this summer.

Obama called it "interesting." Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Charles Schumer of New York said the idea might have merit. Clinton, Bredesen said, did not reject the idea.

But several rank-and-file superdelegates in Kansas and Missouri called the trial balloon a lot of hot air.

"I'm sure there are a number of us who would get beat up behind closed doors," Medley said. "I think what we need to do is get the two of them in a room."

Shadow Banking

We were witness today to a recurrent Natural frustration. No sooner does our magnolia tree start to break into bloom than the most malevolent wind in weeks comes up. Today's event was not comparable to last year, as the flowers are still pretty tight and thus losing only selected petals so far. As I recall, something close to half the flower load got stripped last year in a couple days.

I'm doing a rare poutpourri (come to think of it there was a slightly different "pourri" subject not too long back, so maybe "uncommon" is more apt) of domestic and not here tonight.

I'm concerned at how little even vaguely thoughtful attention seems to be paid these days in the media most folks apparently settle for to what seems to be a major economic meltdown. Who better to turn to than Mr. Krugman (under title "Taming the Beast"):

We’re now in the midst of an epic financial crisis, which ought to be at the center of the election debate. But it isn’t.

Now, I don’t expect presidential campaigns to have all the answers to our current crisis — even financial experts are scrambling to keep up with events. But I do think we’re entitled to more answers, and in particular a clearer commitment to financial reform, than we’re getting so far.

In truth, I don’t expect much from John McCain, who has both admitted not knowing much about economics and denied having ever said that. Anyway, lately he’s been busy demonstrating that he doesn’t know much about the Middle East, either.

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On the Democratic side, it’s somewhat disappointing that Barack Obama, whose campaign has understandably made a point of contrasting his early opposition to the Iraq war with Hillary Clinton’s initial support, has tried to score a twofer by suggesting that the war, in addition to all its other costs, is responsible for our economic troubles.

The war is indeed a grotesque waste of resources, which will place huge long-run burdens on the American public. But it’s just wrong to blame the war for our current economic mess: in the short run, wartime spending actually stimulates the economy. Remember, the lowest unemployment rate America has experienced over the last half-century came at the height of the Vietnam War.

Hillary Clinton has not, as far as I can tell, made any comparably problematic economic claims. But she, like Mr. Obama, has been disappointingly quiet about the key issue: the need to reform our out-of-control financial system.

Let me explain.

America came out of the Great Depression with a pretty effective financial safety net, based on a fundamental quid pro quo: the government stood ready to rescue banks if they got in trouble, but only on the condition that those banks accept regulation of the risks they were allowed to take.

Over time, however, many of the roles traditionally filled by regulated banks were taken over by unregulated institutions — the “shadow banking system,” which relied on complex financial arrangements to bypass those safety regulations.

Now, the shadow banking system is facing the 21st-century equivalent of the wave of bank runs that swept America in the early 1930s. And the government is rushing in to help, with hundreds of billions from the Federal Reserve, and hundreds of billions more from government-sponsored institutions like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks.

Given the risks to the economy if the financial system melts down, this rescue mission is justified. But you don’t have to be an economic radical, or even a vocal reformer like Representative Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, to see that what’s happening now is the quid without the quo.

Last week Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary, declared that Mr. Frank is right about the need for expanded regulation. Mr. Rubin put it clearly: If Wall Street companies can count on being rescued like banks, then they need to be regulated like banks.

But will that logic prevail politically?

Not if Mr. McCain makes it to the White House. His chief economic adviser is former Senator Phil Gramm, a fervent advocate of financial deregulation. In fact, I’d argue that aside from Alan Greenspan, nobody did as much as Mr. Gramm to make this crisis possible.

Both Democrats, by contrast, are running more or less populist campaigns. But at least so far, neither Democrat has made a clear commitment to financial reform.

Is that simply an omission? Or is it an ominous omen? Recent history offers reason to worry.

In retrospect, it’s clear that the Clinton administration went along too easily with moves to deregulate the financial industry. And it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that big contributions from Wall Street helped grease the rails.

Last year, there was no question at all about the way Wall Street’s financial contributions to the new Democratic majority in Congress helped preserve, at least for now, the tax loophole that lets hedge fund managers pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries.

Now, the securities and investment industry is pouring money into both Mr. Obama’s and Mrs. Clinton’s coffers. And these donors surely believe that they’re buying something in return.

Let’s hope they’re wrong.

Indeed. Neither Dem candidate has had the courage it seems to me to speak bluntly about how tawdry deregulation, sordid back-room consultations, and flat-out subsidies to the largest corporations, which already have far too much influence and control, have weakened our country. It is truly pathetic that both political parties seem to be addicted to bedding down with a fundamental principle of fascism: business takes priority over people.

It's sickening.

Some of my personal therapy for this nausea-inducement today involved getting short and tall edible-pod peas in the ground. I soaked them overnight, then awoke in horror to wonder if I would have to find a full wetsuit to brave rainfall. I noticed that there was abundant almost cacophonous birdsong even in the midst of tumultuous shower activity - I suppose the feathered friends must get on with their amours and feeding more or less regardless of the short-term meteorology. Fortunately the deluge abated around mid-day. I will be watching impatiently for those delectable green shoots. It always seems to take at least a week more than I expect.

I also got a dozen or so potatoes in the ground. I know there's no point in looking at those for several weeks at minimum, but that will not stop me.

The fruit trees are about as pruned as they're going to get, and buds are almost embarrassing in their state of arousal. There can't be more than a couple neglected unpruned roses out there. Rhubarb is shouldering its' way out of the ground, as is Gunnera.

Spring is here.

And hope.