Taken yesterday on Prince Street. . . in SoHo. . . in New York City. . .

. . . in the United States.

Pretty much says all you need to know about what's happened to our economy.

And to New York City.

. . . or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Torture

I’m mixing my movie metaphors, I’m afraid. The headline is a reference to Dr. Strangelove, but an article in today’s New York Times is more reminiscent of The Manchurian Candidate.

Well, part of it, anyway.

The part where the Chinese commandant brainwashes Americans such as Laurence Harvey (never mind that accent) and Frank Sinatra.

In the summer of 2004, protestors wanting to demonstrate against the policies of the Bush Administration during the Republican National Convention’s visit to New York City were denied a permit to gather on Central Park’s Great Lawn. The city, we were told, could not afford the cost of repairing the damage done to the lawn by such a large crowd.

I didn’t buy it—no one really did—but the city could at least point to the $130,000 worth of damage that happened as a result of a 2003 Dave Matthews concert as some sort of object lesson. Concert crowds were bad for the lawn, protest crowds were bad for the lawn, crowds were just bad for the lawn, or so the story went. . .

. . . until Monday. . . .

(updated below)

This post is going to be hard to write, for after a day of reading all of the analysis of, various statements on, and articles about the Hoyer/Bond/Bush FISA revision I’ve got an anger in me that is this close to blowing straight out my fingers and through the intertubes in all kinds of vial and unflattering ways.

For instance, I was tempted to title this piece “Yes we can capitulate!”

But more on that later.

First, the House “compromise” FISA bill was finally allowed to see the light of day on Thursday afternoon. . . and will come to a vote before the full House less than 24 hours later. No reasonable period for members to read the legislation and talk to their districts, no hearings, no time for even a perfunctory national debate ala the Sunday talk shows. This is the insta-vote tactic we’ve come to expect from Republicans during the last—oh, what, wait a minute, what’s that you say? Yes, that’s right, Democrats now control the House of Representatives!

You might want to remind them of that.

Here’s the skinny: When you see the words “Republican” and “compromise” in the same phrase, it should pretty much tell you all you need to know about a piece of pending legislation. Republicans don’t actually believe in compromise; either that, or they don’t understand what it means. The GOP, as it now stands, either gets its way, or, if it doesn’t, demands a recount or a do-over. Politics for this bunch is both blood sport and a zero sum game—they don’t play nice, and they don’t meet you half way. That’s been the case for the better part of the last fifteen years. . . at least.

That’s all you need to know, that’s all Democrats in Congress should need to know, but I’m going to tell you more.

Remember when Hillary Clinton got in trouble for not baking cookies? (Think hard, it was a really long time ago, like practically before time, like 1992.) Well, John McCain might think his wife is a—well. . . you know—but he’s not going to let Cindy get caught without her baked goods.

Even if they have to steal the recipes.

Another crack is showing in the McCain campaign's attempts at crafting a down-home image.

The campaign contributed a recipe to Parents magazine, "Cindy McCain's Oatmeal-Butterscotch Cookies." However, it looks like it was copied directly from the Hershey's site.

The McCain campaign previously got caught copying some other recipes, purportedly from Cindy McCain herself, off of the Food Network's site.

Presidential wannabe John McCain took Bush’s his economic “plan” to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) on Tuesday. McCain wanted to talk about out-of-control government spending, but it just seemed that something was missing. . . .

What could it be, what could it be? A big government boondoggle sucking billions upon billions out of the American economy. . . oh, yeah, that would be Iraq.

I can’t help but be a bit amused by this week’s evaluations of Hillary Clinton’s Saturday speech, in part because they fit a very old pattern, and in part because they fit a brand new one.

I am hearing two themes: 1) It was the best speech she has ever given, and 2) it was the first time she sounded like a feminist.

To the first point, it may or may not have been her best speech (though it was certainly better than her generally underwhelming mean), but it was a speech that struck a different tone. That was to be expected because it was made from a place of concession. Also to be expected, most every pundit and talking head would praise it.

I think it was Hubert Humphrey who said, in the last weeks of his life, as he received a litany of accolades from former friends and enemies alike, that they always praise you once you are no longer seen as a threat. Many of the encomia bestowed upon Saturday’s speech sounded like they would have made Humphrey smile.

Memo to John McCain: Republicans run to the right in the primaries, and to the left in the general.

That would be the usual pattern, anyway, but this is not a usual year, and because John McCain stands for little more than getting himself elected, he is still trying to shore up his rightwing base long after he clinched the Republican nomination. Which leads to articles like this. . .

(I have several things to say about this, but less time than I’d like to say it—so please bear with my drive-by analysis.)

I am mostly on board with the observations of Meghan O’Rourke in her Slate post, “Death of a Saleswoman”. . . mostly.

In the coming days, as Hillary Clinton moves to the sidelines and Barack Obama takes the stage alone, many people will suggest that America just wasn't ready for a female president. This may be true. But we'll never entirely know, because Clinton did not invite us to spend much time contemplating the momentous fact that she was the first female presidential candidate with any chance of occupying that position. Her problem wasn't that she was a feminist. Her problem was that she wasn't feminist enough.

   
Shorter me: It wasn’t just that what HRC did to inoculate herself against the sexism inherent in the system made her seem more like a man—it made her seem more like a Republican.

Fresh off Thursday’s rejection of an additional 0.5 percent pay increase for America’s active military, President George W. Bush has a better idea for how this country might honor our troops: A “moment of remembrance.”

The US Senate passed Jim Webb’s (D-VA) update of the GI Bill yesterday by a vote of 75 – 22. The Math will tell you that three senators did not cast a vote on this measure: one was Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), who was just this week diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor after suffering a seizure, one was Oklahoma’s own Tom Coburn (R)—and, honestly, who knows what’s going on inside his head—and the third? That would be presumptive Republican presidential nominee, part-time Arizona senator, and full-time asshole John W. McCain.

Here’s my biggest problem with Matt Bai’s longwinded window on the mad cow mind of presidential wannabe John W. McCain: it’s complete and utter hogwash.

Robert Rauschenberg, one of America’s most prominent and prolific visual artists of the post-war period, died Tuesday. He was 82.

Much is sure to be written in the coming days and weeks about the work, meaning the artistic work, of Rauschenberg—and that attention is much deserved. But there will likely be much less said of his political work, which, though perhaps less transformational than his art, is certainly worthy of some praise, as well.

Clinton was for economists before she was against them.

As I mentioned yesterday, in the course of pushing her gas-tax holiday, Yale and Wellesley educated anti-elitist Hillary Clinton dismissed economists’ critiques of her plan by saying, “I’m not going to put my lot in with economists.”

Except, of course, when she does. . . .

Take, for example, this February campaign ad touting the Clinton plan for universal health care:

You know it is truly the silliest of silly seasons when journalists get audibly excited (as WNYC’s Brian Lehrer did last week) because they get to take a break from covering Rev. Jeremiah Wright in order to cover what is being called an “actual issue.” I say the silliest of silly because that “issue” is the John McCain/Hillary Clinton proposal for a summertime federal gas-tax “holiday.”

Reading through reports on yesterday’s Supreme Court decision upholding an Indiana voter ID law, and reading about the rules imposed by Indiana’s Republican legislature on potential voters—most notably presentation of a valid, unexpired, Indiana state or US federal government-issued photo ID at the polls before voting—my mind quickly leapt to the image of Seinfeld’s infamous Soup Nazi. That character (based on real-life New York soup-maker and martinet Al Yaganeh) was famous for offering the most coveted cup of soup in the city, but to deal with the long lines that formed at lunchtime, the soup man imposed a set of strictures—know what you want in advance, no questions, substitutions, or special requests, move to the left after ordering, cash only, have your money ready—that it struck fear in the hearts of many customers. If the sense of intimidation lead to hesitation or an inadvertent violation of a rule, the chef would deny service with the shouted admonition, “No soup for you!”

Shorter me:

I just don’t see what Obama could accomplish on Fox that couldn’t be done better somewhere else.

Longer me:

Longer, more nuanced, and below the fold, of course. . . .