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- Americans should want nothing more than justice and meaningful democracy for the people of Iran. Yet, for little other than cheap politics, the House GOP wants to take a vote for support of Iran's "dissidents" and thus heighten the chances that the Iranian regime will use the United States as an excuse to come down hard on said dissidents. Meanwhile you've got other responsible Republicans tweeting in favor of regime change, and assorted neocons and conservatives are expressing their contempt for the people of Iran by arguing that we must "do something" over there (never specified), just as the lust for bombing campaigns a few years back were also cited as being on behalf of Iran's people.
- The irony of House Republicans voting against war funding, I think, speaks for itself. Ostensibly the nay vote is premised on inclusion of a $5 billion increase in IMF funding, designed to help struggling economies weather the global recession, but I guess Boehner and Co. could just care less about such things.
- Barack Obama, like most presidents, has denied requests for access to the White House visitors logs, even going so far as to cite the same rationale used by his predecessor. But the reason it's a big deal for Obama is that he has heavily hyped bringing "transparency" and "openness" to "the people's house." CREW is suing the administration to release the logs.
- You could make the case that NBC News and Brian Williams' fluff special "Inside the Obama White House" was little more than soft propaganda for the administration (or an M&M's product placement). Yet when ABC News and Charlie Gibson get a sit-down with the president to talk health care, the right wing flips out and claims this will be like the establishment of some sort of Ministry of Truth because there won't be any Republicans present.
- As with their inability to acknowledge the existence of a right-wing fringe, conservatives also like to deny that there are racists in their midst, and refuse to make a clean break with the casual racism in their ranks. And as for the GOP, I just don't see how they will become a competitive national party again until they publicly denounce efforts to keep the Southern Strategy alive.
- Remainders: Blocking progressive legislation, one stalled administration nominee at a time; foreign debt, not as scary in pie-chart form; and I'm not sure why Marc Ambinder thinks Bill Maher is so important as to warrant a "backlash."
--Mori Dinauer
