Obama still isn’t president in the south

Denying the Obamas American birth is just another form of racism
Andrew Sullivan

A naive person might believe that Barack Hussein Obama was born, as he has long said he was, in Hawaii to a young American mother and a distant father from Kenya. There are notices in two local papers and the certification of birth is filed in the state of Hawaii’s records.

An independent body — FactCheck.org — part of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, asked to see a copy of the original during last year’s campaign. FactCheck is non-partisan and takes all sorts of politicians’ claims to task. Here’s its take on Obama’s birth certificate: “FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving US citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. . . Our conclusion: Obama was born in the USA just as he has always said.”

You may be persuaded. Once I’d seen the short-form certificate online, verified by independent journalists and vouched for by state authorities, I was, too. But staggering numbers of Americans remain sceptical. In fact, a majority of Republican voters — 58% — either do not believe or are unsure that Obama is a natural-born American citizen. That means most Republicans believe Obama is constitutionally illegitimate in the presidency because the constitution reserves it for those born in America. The scepticism is — surprise! — concentrated in the south. In Virginia, a southern state that backed Obama last year, only 53% are sure Obama is legitimately president and 70% of Virginia Republicans either don’t believe he is an American or aren’t sure. A poll last week also found that many Republicans believe this issue has not received enough media attention.

What do they believe? The most common theory is that Obama was born in Kenya while his mother was visiting his father. The Hawaiian birth certificate exists, the sceptics claim, because Hawaii recognises as natural-born citizens those born to American mothers temporarily outside the United States. The only problem with that theory is the certificate would mention that fact and it doesn’t.

So Obama was born where all the evidence says he was: Honolulu. Why would a woman in her last month of pregnancy travel halfway around the world to deliver a child in a developing country and then bring him back home, even though he wouldn’t have had a passport? How would she get him into the United States unless someone at the border was in cahoots? “You couldn’t sell this script in Hollywood,” Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, told reporters last week.

Why does this story stay alive? Some, like me, didn’t understand the Hawaiian intricacies at first: we thought there was a single long-form certificate that could resolve the question. But, as FactCheck notes: “The Hawaii Department of Health’s birth record request form does not give the option to request a photocopy of your long-form birth certificate, but their short form has enough information to be acceptable to the State Department.” So Obama did all he could to make this go away.

Yet the conspiracists have only become more adamant. A slew of radio show hosts have fixated on the question; Lou Dobbs, CNN’s resident crank, broadcast several segments expressing doubt about Obama’s birthplace. Sean Hannity, a Fox News pundit, ran two reports on a soldier who refused to follow orders from Obama because he doubted his eligibility to be president. When Major Stefan Cook’s orders to deploy to Afghanistan were revoked, he and his lawyer took it as an admission on the part of the military that the president is not, in fact, a legitimate citizen by birth.

On cue, as Obama turned 48 last week, a Kenyan birth certificate popped up on the web. It was immediately exposed as a forgery based on a 1959 Australian birth certificate, but the pressure hasn’t let up. Obama’s legitimacy as president has been challenged in five lawsuits, all dismissed.

WorldNetDaily, the far-right website, has run countless editorials, letter-writing campaigns and billboard advertisements on the question. WND is a fringe web publication — but its fringe has, by some estimates, about 2m visitors a month.

Rush Limbaugh, the mega-chat show host, has raised the issue and Michael Savage, the rabid rightist, has said: “We’re getting ready for the communist takeover of America with a non-citizen at the helm.” Other, calmer Republican activists have denounced the so-called “birthers”. The cannier ones have argued that this issue has been drummed up by Democrats to discredit the Good Old Party (and it has). But it’s hard to accept that explains everything.

The bolder rightwingers have condemned the whole thing: radio star Michael Medved has called the birthers “crazy, nutburger, demagogue, money-hungry, exploitative, irresponsible, filthy conservative imposters”. But leading Republican politicians, aware of how powerful the conspiracy theory is among their supporters, have tried to avoid the issue. The Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, for example, told a town hall meeting last February: “Well, his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii but I haven’t seen any birth certificate”, even though a resolution on July 27 — issued on the 50th anniversary of Hawaii’s statehood — declared Obama a citizen unanimously (with some Republican abstentions).

This is the silly season. But this silly story seems to me an indication of something more ominous. The demographics tell the basic story: a black man is president and a large majority of white southerners cannot accept that, even in 2009. They grasp conspiracy theories to wish Obama — and the America he represents — away.

Since white southerners comprise an increasing proportion of the 22% of Americans who still describe themselves as Republican, the GOP can neither dismiss the crankery nor move past it. The fringe defines what’s left of the Republican center.

The chilling implication is that a large number of Americans believe the president has no right to be in office and has fraudulently maneuvered himself there.

I hope the secret service is on alert. If we thought racial panic had ended with Obama’s election, the resilience of this story in key parts of the country is a helpful wake-up call.

GOP Civil War

Colin Powell fires back at tin soldiers Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh on the Sunday news shows. Powell a decorated Vietnam Veteran has been under malicious attack by two of the most infamous Chicken Hawks in American History.

New York Daily News writer Mike Lupica adds a fiery column of his own today, reminding the GOP you are in danger of shrinking your "base" to a tiny rigid fascist core thereby assuring the destruction of an American Political Party. The war for the Future of the GOP continues and in my personal opinion it is already lost.

Leave the ashes to Limbaugh and Cheney the GOP the DO Nothing Party deserves its coming OBLIVION!

GOP led by toy soldiers - Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh - insulting heroes like Gen Colin Powell

Mike Lupica
Monday, May 25th 2009, 4:00 AM

This was at 166th St. and Boston Road in the Bronx Sunday morning, in front of the amazing old building that was still called Morris High School when Gen. Colin Powell graduated from there more than 50 years ago and began a life of service to his country.

This was an hour before Powell would appear on "Face the Nation" to discuss comments made about him by former Vice President Dick Cheney, whose most famous moment carrying a gun came when shooting a lawyer once instead of quail.

These days there are now five smaller schools on the Morris campus. Once, though, this was the first high school in the Bronx. And even with a lot of construction going on, the place is still something to see.

"Like a castle," Michael Moran, 42, from the neighborhood, said.

"Colin Powell went here," he was told.

"You think we don't know that up here?" Moran said.

A week ago Cheney - whose idea of a foxhole is Fox News - went on "Face the Nation" and said he assumed Powell had left the Republican Party after endorsing Barack Obama. Then Cheney said if he had to choose between Powell and Rush Limbaugh to lead the Republicans, he would go with Limbaugh.

But that really is the current Republican Party, isn't it? Angry old white men like Cheney and Limbaugh talking to each other. Two toy soldiers who enjoy insulting a real one like Powell. Trying to convince the country that if you don't believe in torture, you don't want to keep it safe.

Only here was Powell, who came out of Morris High to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs and secretary of state, telling the real truth about his party Sunday, and about the old men who think they speak for everyone in it.

"In every demographic ... the Republican Party is losing," Powell said.

Of course Dick Cheney wants to talk about torture now. It's all he's got. He doesn't want to talk about the soldiers he sent off to die in Iraq. He doesn't want to talk about all the wounded soldiers from that war, or the trips he didn't make to Walter Reed while he was still vice president.

He doesn't want to talk about how the Republicans lost both houses of Congress and finally the White House while he was vice president, as millions left his party on the dead run. And he certainly doesn't want to talk about what kind of country he left to President Obama, and to the rest of us.

So he talks about the potential danger of closing Guantanamo and puts it all on Obama, failing to mention that his own boss, Bush, also wanted to close the place. It is completely gutless of Cheney, and completely predictable. He continues to live in a weird parallel world, accepting no blame or responsibility for Sept. 11, but making it clear that if anything happens again it's all Obama's fault.

In a quiet voice Sunday, Colin Powell pointed out the obvious about Guantanamo to Bob Schieffer:

"[Cheney is] disagreeing with President Bush's policy."

Then Powell said Obama wasn't closing down Guantanamo to appease the intellectuals of Europe, as Cheney snarkily suggested, "but to reassure people all around the world that we're a country of law."

Understand: Powell is not some kind of perfect American hero; he will always have to live with the appearance he made at the United Nations when he was helping Bush and Cheney sell their intelligence about weapons of mass destruction, reluctantly playing the good soldier to the end.

He is still better than the people to whom he was forced to respond Sunday. He has still led a great American life and served his country more honorably than Cheney ever has or ever will. At the end of his time on television Sunday, on the eve of Memorial Day, he praised the young men and women fighting Cheney's war in Iraq as "another greatest generation."

"This is a time when we reflect on the privileges we've had because we had other citizens put their lives on the line," he said.

Maybe Dick Cheney should do some reflecting, take a good look around this Memorial Day. Or just take in the kind of parade in which he'll never be asked to march. Maybe Cheney could then think about devoting the rest of his life finding ways to help the soldiers he sent off to war, instead of finding ways to keep pinning medals on himself.

It is worth remembering today that guys like Colin Powell, Morris High '54, put their own lives on the line. Cheney always did it with somebody else's.

GOP Spurns the Young

"locked in the dogmas of their quiet past, unable to think and therefore act anew."

Excellent article from this mornings Los Angeles Times sure to be ignored by Republican Politicos, unthinking,uncomprehending and on the path to Partycide.








The Republican Party ignores young 'millennials' at its peril

The new generation of voters is unified, committed and, for the foreseeable future, overwhelmingly Democratic.
By Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais
May 10, 2009

If the Republican Party thinks it has problems now, just wait. The party's incredibly poor performance among young voters in the 2008 election raises questions about the long-term competitiveness of the GOP.

The "millennials" -- the generation of Americans born between 1982 and 2003 -- now identify as Democrats by a ratio of 2 to 1. They are the first in four generations to contain more self-perceived liberals than conservatives.

And a recent Daily Kos tracking poll should send shudders down the spine of any Republican who understands how powerful a voting bloc this generation could become over the next decade.

Only 9% of millennials polled expressed a favorable opinion of the Republican Party. Only 7% were positive about the GOP's congressional leaders. By contrast, 65% of millennials had a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, and a majority also approved of congressional Democrats. Though many people question the political sophistication of the millennials, they have been instilled with egalitarian and participatory values by their parents since birth.

This child-rearing produced a generation that was wide open to the personal appeal and message of Barack Obama and his party. Moving forward, the initial preference of millennials for President Obama and the Democrats will remain in place for a lifetime unless Republicans can quickly adapt their message and find a messenger who can speak to this powerful new force in American politics.

Only 41% of all millennials were eligible to vote in 2008, yet their overwhelming support for Obama transformed his win from what would have been a squeaker into a solid victory. Obama's popular-vote margin over John McCain was about 9.5 million nationally; millennials accounted for nearly 7.6 million of those votes.

In the 2010 off-year election, half of millennials will be eligible to vote, representing about a fifth of the overall electorate. By 2012, 60% will be eligible to vote, and they could make up about a quarter of the American electorate when Obama runs for reelection. By 2020, when virtually all millennials will be over 18, they will represent 36% of the electorate and will completely dominate elections and the political agenda of America.

And it seems likely that this civic generation, like its "Greatest Generation" great-grandparents, will vote in big numbers. Turnout among voters under 30 has been rising steadily since millennials began to replace the alienated and more cynical Gen-Xers in this age group. From a low of 37% in 1996, turnout increased to 53% of all eligible millennials, and 59% in the key battleground states in 2008.

Their unity of opinion and their numbers will make millennials' preferences for economic activism, a non-intrusive approach to social issues by government at any level and a multilateral interventionism by America in foreign affairs the policy paths to political success during the next decade.

It is simply inconceivable that the Republican Party can craft a winning strategy between now and then that doesn't accommodate these ideas.

But so far, Republicans appear to be tone-deaf on the issues that millennials care about.

Millennials have been reared with a desire to serve their community, and the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act provides them an opportunity to do just that, while at the same time dealing with their single biggest financial worry -- the high cost of a college education. Unfortunately, all but 25 House Republicans voted against the bill, despite its co-sponsorship by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).

Millennials also are experiencing higher levels of unemployment than any other generation. They expect the federal government to take an active role in fixing that problem and support redistributing income if necessary. But the almost-unanimous Republican opposition to the "recovery" act helped convince millennials that only one party actually understood their problems and was prepared to act in accordance with their beliefs.

Polls consistently show millennials are more committed to environmental protection than any generation in American history, willing to sacrifice economic growth or endure higher prices in order to save the planet. Given the millennials' overwhelming concern with the environment, House Minority Leader John Boehner's comments recently that carbon dioxide isn't a real threat because "we all breathe it out" and, besides, "cows give out a lot of gas too," went beyond inanity into the realm of political suicide.

The only tentative Republican gesture to millennial power to date is the GOP's sudden fascination with a new social network platform, Twitter. By choosing Twitter -- with its limitations on content -- to connect to millennials, Republicans are actually demonstrating how little they know about this generation's commitment to engaging in the content-rich challenges of rebuilding the nation's civic institutions and national unification.

Republicans will need to find a new message and much better messengers than their last presidential ticket or their current congressional leaders if they want to truly connect with today's young voters. Failure to do so will leave Republicans, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, "locked in the dogmas of their quiet past, unable to think and therefore act anew."
Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais are fellows of the think tanks NDN and the New Policy Institute and the coauthors of "Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics."








Former GOP Congressman Micky Edwards has almost the same point of view as the above article, and explains why McCain and the GOP's debacle in November was far worse and more damaging than Barry Goldwater's 1964 rout. DH

The Nation NEEDS a Better GOP!
or a new party of the opposition.

Republicans have to put a leash on attack-dog tactics and engage in a constructive manner to deal with serious problems facing the country.

By Mickey Edwards
May 10, 2009

There are optimists within the Republican Party. They look at the wreckage left behind after last year's elections, and recall 1964. That was the year that Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee for president, was so badly trounced that pundits proclaimed the GOP dead. But it was also the year that a new breed of conservative activists, myself among them, brought a new energy to the party that eventually reshaped it and led to years of Republican domination of the executive branch.

The whistle-past-the-graveyard crowd imagines that this year's doomsayers have simply forgotten history: Four years after the 1964 disaster, they remind us, Republicans won the presidency. We'll just do it again, they say. But the Republicans' defeat last year was far different from their 1964 loss -- and it will be a lot harder to come back from.

In 1964, Goldwater was seen as an anomaly. He was not representative of his own party, and, to a large extent, was rejected by it. The conservatives voters so soundly rejected in 2008 are seen not as anomalous but as representative of the larger party.

The Richard Nixon who won the presidency in 1968 had been vice president under Dwight Eisenhower, who left the White House with his popularity intact. The GOP candidate in 2012 will have to overcome the nation's memory of the previous Republican in that office, George W. Bush, who was less popular in most of America than the New York Yankees are in Boston. There will be no "glorious days of Republican leadership" to hark back to unless the party's candidates continue to dredge up memories of Ronald Reagan, who left Washington two decades ago, before a good many younger voters were born.

When Republicans rebounded in 1968, they were a national party, helped to victory by strong support in areas where, today, the party wanders in a political wilderness.

There are now large chunks of the country almost without a Republican presence. Draw a map of the east side of the U.S., from the tip of Florida to the Canadian border, and see how many Republican senators or governors you find. In 1969, by contrast, the GOP held both Senate seats in New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Vermont; there were Republican senators from New Jersey, Michigan, Maryland, even Massachusetts. In the House, Republicans held three of the six Connecticut seats, five of 12 in Massachusetts, both in New Hampshire, 15 in New York, seven of 10 in Wisconsin. You get the idea.

What can you say about the Republican Party in 2009? That it has Alabama locked up? Well, that's not even true: Democrats are far more competitive in the South than Republicans are in much of the country.

It's certainly true that to some degree Arlen Specter's defection from the Republican Party was opportunism. Specter, after all, became a Republican in the first place not because of any particular political point of view but because, in 1966, when both Republicans and Democrats were trying to recruit him to run for district attorney in Philadelphia, the GOP promised more support. Specter himself has said that he's now a Democrat because that's the best way to get elected again. To Specter, party has never mattered much.

But there's more to the story. While Specter will not march in lock step with Democrats any more than he did with Republicans, he will vote with them on many procedural issues, and in the Senate, that's no small matter. So the loss matters. And that's why Republicans need to take seriously the fact that Specter was not so much seduced by Democrats as driven away by a GOP that has become increasingly intolerant of disagreement within its ranks and seemingly incapable of putting forth an appealing platform.

At one point, Republicans put forth a coherent, idealistic vision of America, one that summoned it to greatness. There was a profound belief in the dignity of the individual, a reverence for the Constitution and the founders who proposed it, a belief in doing whatever it took (including spending tax dollars to build a military second to none) to preserve the peace. Republican platforms preached prudence and the virtues of small business.

Today, the Republican belief system has degenerated into an embarrassing hodgepodge that worships political victory more than ideas; supports massive deficits; plunges the nation into "just-in-case" wars without adequate troops, supplies or armor; dismisses constitutional strictures; and campaigns on a platform of turning national problem-solving over to "Joe the Plumber." It's hard to see how all that points the way to a reawakening of voters to trust in the GOP.

This may suggest, of course, that the party should just toss in the towel, accept its designated role as the Whigs of the 21st century and leave governance to its betters. But American freedom depends on power checking power. If Democrats control the legislative and executive branches without meaningful opposition, the country will be the weaker for it. Some of President Obama's initiatives would dramatically shift the boundaries between public and private, reshape the relationship between citizens and government and alter the lens through which America views its international commitments. These are serious matters and deserve serious, and constructive, engagement.

Merely attacking administration proposals and labeling Obama a "socialist" will only ensure that instead of rebounding, as the GOP did in 1968, the party will slip even further into irrelevance. And that will not be good for America.

Mickey Edwards is a former U.S. congressman, a lecturer at Princeton University and the author of "Reclaiming Conservatism."

The GOP Defends Torture

On a day when Sen Arlen Spector abandons a flailing GOP former VP Cheney wont shut up about his love of Torture. Who knew ole Dick Cheney was a Masochist? Or Sado-Masochist with the duress he is inflicting on the Republican Party!

Well you know what they say the party that plays well together stays together,, to the bitter end!

Cheney demands a Torture Commission
by Robert M Shum Tuesday, April 28, 2009

The Republicans finally think they’ve found an issue: They’re in favor of torture. Republican House Leader John Boehner channeled the party’s will when he spoke up for the torturers’ cause at a White House meeting with President Obama. But his voice was drowned out (metaphorically) by someone who had previously left the White House for an undisclosed location in suburban Virginia.

Dick Cheney, the avatar of the nonexistent threat of weapons of mass destruction, hastened onto the public stage to blast the President for endangering the national security. Obama’s crime? Releasing memos depicting waterboarding and other techniques borrowed from enemies like the Communist Chinese. It wasn’t Cheney’s first assault on Obama, but it captured singular attention because Cheney plainly was the Bush Administration’s driving force in this wholesale violation of national and international law.

From a Democratic perspective, the emergence of Cheney as the face of the Republican Party is a consummation devoutly to be wished. GOP strategists generally yearn to see Cheney just go away; the last thing they want is for Americans to see the former Vice-President, an antonym for public appeal, become a synonym for their party.

On the merits, Cheney doesn’t even argue half the case—whether torture is wrong in principle, wrong legally, or wrong for American foreign policy. Instead he insists that it worked to some unspecified extent. Secretary of State Clinton pungently understated the obvious when she dismissed him as not “a particularly reliable source.” In fact, last year FBI Director Robert Mueller, a Bush holdover, was asked by an interviewer whether any attacks had been foiled by what Cheney and his acolytes whitewashed as “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Mueller was “reluctant to answer,” but then conceded: “I don’t believe that has been the case.” As early as 2002, a Pentagon study warned that torture would elicit “unreliable information.”

So what can torture’s apologists claim? For a while, their prime example was a plot to crash a plane into the tallest building in downtown Los Angeles. They pointed to information supposedly coerced from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a top al Qaida operative, who we now know was waterboarded 183 times. It’s a scenario right out of the television show “24”; appropriately it’s also fictional. The plot was derailed in 2002; KSM, as government memos refer to the Sheikh, wasn’t even captured until 2003.

Cheney, seldom daunted by the inconvenient truth, is now demanding the selective declassification of two documents allegedly “proving” the effectiveness of torture—although, of course, he refuses to call it that. (Imagine hoping to be remembered in history as the “waterboarding Vice-President.”) The difficulty, as Bush State Department Counselor Philip Zelikow points out, is that the release of these documents “would only raise questions that would have to be answered with still more disclosures.”

In other words, Cheney hasn’t thought it through—perhaps no surprise from the official who propelled us into the folly of the Iraq War—but in effect he is demanding a Torture Commission to review all the documents and decisions on the dark engine he fired up. That would be the only way to make a definitive judgment on his claims.

The President has resisted the creation of such a commission, to the consternation of many of his own supporters. It’s ironic, to say the least, that Cheney has stumbled into agreement with them by insisting that “the American people [should] have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was.” But how can they do that without a through and independent inquiry?

I doubt Obama will take Cheney’s advice. The President has sought to navigate a fine line on this issue. Those who disagree with his decision to rule out the prosecution of CIA agents who engaged in torture have a point. Do we really want to validate a defense that pleads: “I was only following the memos”? At least why not prosecute the officials who authorized torture and the lawyers who rationalized it? Leave aside the reality that it would be difficult to convict them; the government would have to prove that the legal advice was intentionally and knowingly flawed (as opposed to merely adhering to the Bush norm of gross incompetence). The President’s real reason for resisting criminal cases—or a commission—is a belief that America can’t afford a wave of recrimination and bitter division about the past when we should be concentrating on the urgent business of saving our future.

Obama’s fine line also seems to me to be finely calculated. I think he recognizes that history, too, has its claims, and that the truth will out over time, as it did with Richard Nixon and Watergate. In releasing the memos, he’s sent a clear message of deterrence—that American operatives in the future can’t rely on legal camouflage to justify torture. Indeed what has been too little noted is how the FBI and the Pentagon refused to participate in the Bush-Cheney reign of torture.

The line Obama has drawn is likely to endure. There’s no guarantee, but there wouldn’t be even if the culprits found themselves in court or under inquisitorial klieg lights. And I doubt any subsequent administration would risk a repeat of this dark chapter in our history.

And that’s where Cheney will be left—to history—unless, that is, he inadvertently aids and abets the creation of a Torture Commission. That would only seal his ultimate disgrace; we might even discover, as some allege, that the real object of waterboarding was to extract false confessions endorsing Cheney’s concocted connections between Saddam Hussein and al Qaida.

In the meantime, as we end the First 100 Days, which have marked not just an historic success for Obama but an ideological and political dead end for the Republicans, maybe the GOP will at last disclaim their former Vice-President. They’re already dumping on George W. Bush for the bailouts and “big spending.” Isn’t the betrayal of our laws, our reputation and our core values a graver offense? But if instead the party of “No” lets itself become the party of Cheney, well, in that case they’ll just keep torturing themselves.

source The Week.com
- ROBERT M. SHRUM has been a senior adviser to the Gore 2000 presidential campaign, the campaign of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and the British Labour Party. In addition to being the chief strategist for the 2004 Kerry-Edwards campaign, Shrum has advised thirty winning U.S. Senate campaigns; eight winning campaigns for governor; mayors of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other major cities; and the Democratic Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. Shrum's writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times , The New York Times , The New Republic , Slate , and other publications. The author of No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner (Simon and Schuster), he is currently a Senior Fellow at New York University's Wagner School of Public Service.

"Old School" Republicans Are "Scared Shitless"

Good speech but in my opinion a waste of time. The GOP seems adrift and about to ground itself on those jagged rocks of irrelevancy.

The party represents only One Political Thought: Failure they embrace it!

The No Nothing, Do Nothing Party!



April 18, 2009 09:46 PM

Speaking to an affectionate crowd of Log Cabin Republicans on Saturday evening, Meghan McCain ridiculed the party her father headed this past election, declaring that "old school Republicans" were "scared shitless" of the changing landscape.

The Senator's daughter, who has quickly become something of an iconic figure in the gay conservative community since the end of the election, took repeated shots at the GOP for its antiquated mores.

"I feel too many Republicans want to cling to past successes," said McCain. "There are those who think we can win the White House and Congress back by being 'more' conservative. Worse, there are those who think we can win by changing nothing at all about what our party has become. They just want to wait for the other side to be perceived as worse than us. I think we're seeing a war brewing in the Republican Party. But it is not between us and Democrats. It is not between us and liberals. It is between the future and the past."

Later, she called out those officials in the Republican tent who insist that tactical improvements, technology and brass-knuckle politicking are the path back to relevance.

"Simply embracing technology isn't going to fix our problem," she said. "Republicans using Twitter and Facebook isn't going to miraculously make people think we're cool again. Breaking free from obsolete positions and providing real solutions that don't divide our nation further will. That's why some in our party are scared. They sense the world around them is changing and they are unable to take the risk to jump free of what's keeping our party down."

The remarks, delivered at the Log Cabin Republican's national convention in Washington D.C., drew healthy applause and the occasional high-pitched whistling. McCain, at one point, declared herself a proud member of the GOP. But her pot shots at the Republican Party and its flashier figures were not thinly veiled. Describing her public tiff with Ann Coulter as non-delicate, she went on to refer to the brash conservative talker as "overly partisan and divisive." Later in the speech she insisted that "most of our nation wants our nation to succeed" - a pretty clear dig at the now-infamous remarks of talk radio host Rush Limbaugh.

As for the GOP establishment, McCain described it as a "party that was thriving at one point on a few singular issues" but could no longer "see long-term success."

"We've seen how it has contributed to some serious problems in our nation and world," McCain said, in an apparent reference to the government under GOP control. "Let me blunt, you can't assume you're electing the right leaders to handle all the problems facing our nation when you make your choice based on one issue. More and more people are finally getting that."

American Demagogue

Rush Limbaugh Calls for Obama to Fail, Conservatives Applaud!

Yes in other words they WANT a worldwide Depression and the Collapse of the United States, Traitors and demagogues every last one.

Where is our American Tarpeian Rock?

When will American Politcos come to the realiztion this toxic man is a 21st century Joseph McCarthy? An Oxy Contin swilling, Viagra by the gross,sexual tourist who is a pompous overinflated gas bag.

Rush represents intellectual vigor in the Conservative movement?
Ane Rand and William F Buckley were Conservatives ideological and philosophical trailblazers.

Any wonder Conservative ideology is so discredited?

Rush Limbaugh Calls for Obama to Fail, Conservatives React

byJonas Oliver
Appearing as the keynote speaker on the third and final day of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh rallied conservatives with a pointed attacks on the Obama administration, not the least of which was his explanation of why he hoped Barack Obama would fail.

"Let me add a caveat here. My friends, I know what's going on. I know what's going on. We're in the aspects here of an historic presidency. I know that. But let me be honest again. I got over the historical aspects of this in November. President Obama is our president. President Obama stands for certain things. I don't care, he could be a Martian. He could be from Michigan, I don't know -- just kidding.

Doesn't matter to me what his race is. It doesn't matter. He's liberal is what matters to me. And his articulated -- his articulated plans scare me. Now, I understand we can't say we want the President to fail, Mr. Limbaugh. That's like saying -- this is the voice of the New Castrati, by the way, guys who have lost their guts. You can't say Mr. Limbaugh that you want the President to fail because that's like saying you want the country to fail. It's the opposite. I want the country to survive. I want the country to succeed," Limbaugh ranted to wild applause and cheers on Sunday night.

Addressing Limbaugh's comments over the weekend, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation that Rush Limbaugh has become the voice of the Republican party.

"He is the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican party. He has been up front about what he views and hasn't stepped back from that which is he hopes for failure. He said it. I compliment him for his honesty but that's their philosophy that is enunciated by Rush Limbaugh. I think that's the wrong philosophy for America."

On Monday however, RNC Chairman Michael Steele took a different tack with respect to Limbaugh's role within the GOP.

According to U.S. News & World Report, when Steele appeared on D.L. Hughley's CNN program on Saturday night the RNC chairman addressed Limbaugh's stated desire that Barack Obama fail, saying: "So let's put it into context here. Let's put it into context here. Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh, his whole thing is entertainment. Yes, it's incendiary. Yes, it's ugly."

Steele's comments were echoed by House Republican Whip Eric Cantor who also sought to distance the party faithful from Limbaugh's comments, by saying"Nobody-no Republican, no Democrat-wants this president to fail, nor do they want this country to fail or the economy to fail," reports U.S. News and World Report.

DeWayne here no folks Rush Limbaugh is not an entertainer, he is an American Demagogue!

Bipartisanship? Hell No!

Franklin Roosevelt didn't get it or want it! Then as now Republican obstructionists and zealots were willing to sacrifice the middle class to serve their corporatist masters. President Obama needs to learn to use his power and that of a Democratic Congress to enact his mandate.

If George Bush could impose a 6 year one party Dictatorship of the plutocracy despite failing to win the popular vote in 2000, Barrack Obama can certainly claim MANDATE and tell the Republicans,,
Go away and eat your young its ALL YOUR GOOD FOR!
DH

Bipartisanship No, Working Majority Yes

From the Intrepid Liberal Journal
14 Feb 2009 12:05 PM CST

In the grown up world, honorable and reasonable people may initially disagree but eventually compromise upon a collective review of empirical evidence. It was in this spirit, that the nascent Obama administration reached out to Republicans with respect to their proposed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which finally passed both houses of congress yesterday.

Unfortunately, most Republican politicians are neither honorable nor reasonable. Instead, most Republican politicians are predatory conservatives dedicated to establishing a permanent corporate theocratic plutocracy. As far as they’re concerned, the 2008 election is merely a temporary setback and attempting bipartisanship with this crowd resulted in legislation far less bold than most economists hoped for.

Hence, it is in the spirit of admiration and support that I urge this new administration to absorb the following lesson: Bipartisanship No, Working Majority Yes. President Obama is a quick study and has likely absorbed this lesson for himself. Indeed, I recall him often using the phrase “working majority” during the campaign. Nonetheless, it is instructive for both liberal activists as well his administration to always keep this simple phrase on the front lobes of our brains. Repeat after me: Bipartisanship No, Working Majority Yes.

This phrase is especially pertinent to the United States Senate. Senators are divas with parochial interests, outsized ambitions and a Constitution that empowers their narcissism. Hence, the only language these people truly understand is leverage with a proper dosage of ego massage. They know that any one of them has the power to hold any piece of proposed legislation hostage to their whims.

Indeed, senators sometimes behave as if they have the power of little Anthony Freemont in the classic Twilight Zone episode “It’s A Good Life.” Like that little boy, one can just imagine Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell, fantasizing about wishing supporters of universal healthcare into a cornfield never to be seen or heard from again. That is the mentality we’re dealing with.

The upside however is there will always be enough politicians prepared to bargain in order to elevate their own importance, demonstrate independence and serve the interests of their constituents. With respect to the stimulus legislation the three so-called Republican moderate senators were Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter and Maine’s Olympia Snow and Susan Collins. Connecticut’s “Independent” Republican patsy Joe Lieberman and conservative Nebraska Democrat, Ben Nelson, also joined those three in bargaining with the Obama administration, the Senate majority and the House of Representatives.

Had President Obama initially proposed legislation far bolder they still would have bargained, a filibuster majority still would have been achieved and the end result would have been far superior to the legislation that ultimately passed. Next time around it may be a different group of Republican senators and recalcitrant Democrats doing the bargaining, perhaps related to geographic interests. As long as President Obama’s political standing remains high, it will always be possible to cut deals on favorable terms with a rotating group of senators because their relevance depends upon it.

Hence, a working majority will always be ripe for plucking even without a filibuster proof majority. And even if we had sixty Democratic senators a few of them would threaten denying a filibuster proof majority to promote their independence and get what they want. At the end of the day, bipartisanship has nothing to with it. Leverage, enlightened self-interest, service to constituents or contributors and political survival are everything. There is no love in politics. Only leverage, respect and fear.

The appropriate posture is to treat reluctant politicians with symbolic respect, bargain hard for every penny and compromise from a position of strength. That is the best way to maximize potential of a working majority going forward while simultaneously maintaining broad public support. Sometimes, operating a working majority will require President Obama to demonstrate toughness, walk away and threaten vetoes if a few senators opt to behave like Anthony Freemont in the name of bipartisanship.

Barack Obama is an impressive human being with many admirable qualities. Indeed, Obama represents an ennobling change of pace after George W. Bush’s insipid indecency. He is learning however that governing is delicate balance requiring the dual personalities of Mahtatma Ghandi and Don Vito Corleone. If anyone can achieve that delicate balance it’s this president. Nonetheless, we must remain vigilant and toughen his hide.

Bipartisanship No, Working Majority Yes.

Repost from Robert Ellman

GOP Whining, Bitching and Moaning

Krugman really hits this one squarely in the Elephants trunk! Instead of examining the cause of Barack Obamas landslide win and the repudiation of the GOP in Congress, the GOP pundidts and nabobs have been busy...

Whining,bitching and moaning about their and our countries lot, as if the voters made a mistake in November! As if the entire global financial meltdown has not exposed the Great LIE's our Western Capitalist society has been built on!

Right...

Which means the all important task of tearing down and rebuilding the GOP awaits another day.

I have a suggestion, just disband and allow a new party to develop with fresh ideas.

It's time for GOP to stop whining

PAUL KRUGMAN It was a grand ride for a while, but in the end the Southern strategy led the GOP into a cul-de-sac.
Posted: 01/03/2009 01:40:50 AM PST

As the new Democratic majority prepares to take power, Republicans have become, as Phil Gramm might put it, a party of whiners.

Some of the whining almost defies belief. Did Alberto Gonzales, the former attorney general, really say, "I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror"? Did Rush Limbaugh really suggest that the financial crisis was the result of a conspiracy, masterminded by that evil genius Chuck Schumer?

But most of the whining takes the form of claims that the Bush administration's failure was simply a matter of bad luck — either the bad luck of President Bush himself, who just happened to have disasters happen on his watch, or the bad luck of the GOP, which just happened to send the wrong man to the White House.

The fault, however, lies not in Republicans' stars but in themselves. Forty years ago the GOP decided, in effect, to make itself the party of racial backlash. And everything that has happened in recent years, from the choice of Bush as the party's champion, to the Bush administration's pervasive incompetence, to the party's shrinking base, is a consequence of that decision.

If the Bush administration became a byword for policy bungles, for government by the unqualified, well, it was just following the advice of leading conservative think tanks: After the 2000 election the Heritage Foundation specifically urged the new team to "make appointments based on loyalty first and expertise second."

Contempt
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for expertise, in turn, rested on contempt for government in general. "Government is not the solution to our problem," declared Ronald Reagan. "Government is the problem." So why worry about governing well?

Where did this hostility to government come from? In 1981, Lee Atwater, the famed Republican political consultant, explained the evolution of the GOP's "Southern strategy," which originally focused on opposition to the Voting Rights Act but eventually took a more coded form: "You're getting so abstract now you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites." In other words, government is the problem because it takes your money and gives it to Those People.

Oh, and the racial element isn't all that abstract, even now: Chip Saltsman, a candidate for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, sent committee members a CD including a song titled "Barack the Magic Negro" — and according to some reports, the controversy over his action has actually helped his chances.

So the reign of George W. Bush, the first true Southern Republican president since Reconstruction, was the culmination of a long process. And despite the claims of some on the right that Bush betrayed conservatism, the truth is that he faithfully carried out both his party's divisive tactics — long before Sarah Palin, Bush declared that he visited his ranch to "stay in touch with real Americans" — and its governing philosophy.

That's why the soon-to-be-gone administration's failure is bigger than Bush himself: It represents the end of the line for a political strategy that dominated the scene for more than a generation.

The reality of this strategy's collapse has not, I believe, fully sunk in with some observers. Thus, some commentators warning President-elect Barack Obama against bold action have held up Bill Clinton's political failures in his first two years as a cautionary tale.

But America in 1993 was a very different country — not just a country that had yet to see what happens when conservatives control all three branches of government, but also a country in which Democratic control of Congress depended on the votes of Southern conservatives. Today, Republicans have taken away almost all those Southern votes — and lost the rest of the country. It was a grand ride for a while, but in the end the Southern strategy led the GOP into a cul-de-sac.

Obama therefore has room to be bold. If Republicans try a 1993-style strategy of attacking him for promoting big government, they'll learn two things: Not only has the financial crisis discredited their economic theories, the racial subtext of anti-government rhetoric doesn't play the way it used to.

Will the Republicans eventually stage a comeback? Yes, of course. But barring some huge missteps by Obama, that will not happen until they stop whining and look at what really went wrong. And when they do, they will discover that they need to get in touch with the real "real America," a country that is more diverse, more tolerant, and more demanding of effective government than is dreamt of in their political philosophy.

Paul Krugman, recent winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, writes for The New York Times.

The GOP Goes South

By David S. Broder

Sunday, December 28, 2008; Page B07

As a rule, a new president's choice of a secretary of transportation makes few headlines, even when the appointee is a member of the opposition. In 2001, George W. Bush decided to name as transportation secretary Norman Mineta, a former representative from California, to be the token Democrat in his Cabinet, and no one noticed. And no one except for Mark Shields, who lavishly praised the appointment, paid much attention last week when Barack Obama made Ray LaHood, the retiring representative from Peoria, Ill., the second Republican in his Cabinet.

This one, however, is loaded with meaning because LaHood is no ordinary member of Congress. He has been, as Shields pointed out, one of the most widely respected members of the House; a leader in the uphill struggle for comity between the parties; and a throwback to the days of his old boss Bob Michel, the minority leader who resisted the scorched-earth tactics of Newt Gingrich. Such was LaHood's reputation for fairness that he was the natural choice to preside over the House during the explosive impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton.

The significance of his accepting Obama's offer goes beyond the signal it sends of the new president's seriousness about outreach to moderate Republicans. As transportation secretary, LaHood will be at the center of the road and bridge construction projects Obama plans to make the highlight of his almost trillion-dollar stimulus program.

All the signs are that the stimulus spending will be opposed by congressional Republicans, whose shrunken ranks are increasingly dominated by right-wing Southerners who care not what their stance does to harm the party's national image.

The spectacle of LaHood facing off in congressional testimony against those naysayers will dramatize a split that is crippling the GOP.

The danger became apparent as far back as 2007. With Bush weakened by the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina and the midterm election losses of 2006, a Southern-led revolt killed his immigration reform bill. Junior senators such as Jim DeMint of South Carolina directed the rebellion, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, unable to stem the insurgency, joined it.

The price was paid in the 2008 presidential campaign. Despite his personal credentials as a sponsor of comprehensive immigration reform, John McCain was caught in the backlash of anti-GOP voting by Hispanics. It contributed to his loss of Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Florida and other states.

The same thing happened this year when Bush supported a bailout for the Big Three auto companies. Led by Republican senators from Southern states where there are many foreign-owned auto plants, the Senate refused to cut off a filibuster against the bill to provide bridge loans to General Motors and Chrysler. This time, the opposition was led by Bob Corker of Tennessee and Richard Shelby of Alabama. When the Senate failed by eight votes to cut off debate, Southern and border-state Republicans voted 16 to 2 against the measure. On a similar vote on the 2007 immigration bill, the Southerners split 17 to 3 against.

Even though Bush later used his authority to provide the loan, the defeat of this legislation at Republican hands will not be forgotten when GOP senators run for reelection in 2010 in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania. It will also echo in industrial states such as Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, California, New York and New Jersey, when Republicans try to challenge for Senate and House seats.

The Southern domination of the congressional Republican Party has become more complete with each and every election. This year, Republicans suffered a net loss of two Senate and three House seats in the South, but they lost five Senate seats and 18 House seats in other sections. No Republican House members are left in New England, and they have become ever scarcer in New York and Pennsylvania and across the Midwest.

LaHood, who witnessed but did not welcome the Gingrich "revolution" in the House, has watched with growing alarm the decimation of the GOP in Illinois and surrounding states. As point man for Obama's stimulus spending, he now poses the dilemma for his own party in the sharpest possible terms: Will congressional Republicans again sacrifice their political interest to satisfy their Southern-baked ideological imperatives?

Oops is that Mic still on?

You would think a brilliant women like Peggy Noonan (Reagan's speech writer) would know how modern technology works. That just because you are off the air does not mean someone's mic is not still transmitting.

Yes She and Mike Murphy got caught providing a rarity in political spin, some true thoughts and opinions. Something you just NEVER NEVER Do!

Honesty in Politics gets you NO WHERE FAST!





Republican insiders caught by hot mic: Race is over
By Jimmy Orr | 09.03.08

Don’t expect Republican strategist Michael Murphy and Wall Street Journalist column Peggy Noonan to receive Christmas cards from the John McCain and Sarah Palin campaign this year.

On the most critical night of the year so far for the McCain-Palin ticket, the two Republican insiders were talking with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd about the Palin VP selection. The segment wraps up. End of story.

Not so fast.

The problem? They kept talking. The mics were still on, and they didn’t know it.

So what do they think when not spouting the made-for-TV talking points?

“It’s not going to work,” Murphy said.

Noonan said the race was over, and that Palin was not the most qualified woman for the job.

What would be most interesting is to hear what they said before they thought they were off the air.

Watch the video here.

Here’s the transcript of the exchange - thanks to Talking Points Memo

Chuck Todd: Mike Murphy, lots of free advice, we’ll see if Steve Schmidt and the boys were watching. We’ll find out on your blackberry. Tonight voters will get their chance to hear from Sarah Palin and she will get the chance to show voters she’s the right woman for the job Up next, one man who’s already convinced and he’ll us why Gov. Jon Huntsman.

(cut away)

Peggy Noonan: Yeah.

Mike Murphy: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys — this is how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it’s not gonna work. And –

PN: It’s over.

MM: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

CT: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.

PN: Saw Kay this morning.

CT: Yeah, she’s never looked comfortable about this –

MM: They’re all bummed out.

CT: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

PN: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this — excuse me– political bull**** about narratives –

CT: Yeah they went to a narrative.

MM: I totally agree.

PN: Every time the Republicans do that, because that’s not where they live and it’s not what they’re good at, they blow it.

MM: You know what’s really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.

CT: This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.

MM: Yeah.

***Updated 8:43pm. Peggy Noonan has since provided an explanation for her statement “it’s over” on her column at the Wall Street Journal.

source The Christian Science Monitor

What Is up with the GOP? The party of closeted Homo's!

UPDATE 3 September 1,2007 Sen Larry Craig resigned today under pressure form his former friends now political enemies in Boise (Bloomberg) with of course his family there for a final photo op! Slate has a great article here about why closeted men do the bafroom thang!

So Many Men's Rooms, So Little Time

Craig is Gone, Leaving GOP Bruised

By Jay Newton-Small
The only regret the GOP is likely to feel about the end of Idaho Senator Larry Craig's 27-year congressional career is that it didn't happen two days earlier. Craig's announcement, Saturday, that he intends to resign effective Sept. 30 comes amid the traditional Labor Day weekend campaign launches for the 2008 election cycle. And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had not envisioned starting the weekend with the news media dominated by speculation over whether Craig is gay, and why he pled guilty to disorderly conduct on Aug. 8 when accused of soliciting sex from an undercover cop in the men's bathroom of a Minneapolis Airport,,,continued at Time Link

Dewayne here; I have no intention of turning my Blog into a CrimeBlotter for repressed Republican Homosexuals! But this story is making a splash and cannot be ignored First Marc Foley,then Taggert, The Florida Triple Murder, now Senator Craig! The Dishonorable Senator screams "I am Not Gay and I NEVER have been Gay!" Which is a Pathetic Lament in and of itself, but if the Senator were not so Homophobic and closeted he might have a chance at finding a fulfilling , loving relationship, something he will Not find in a stall in a Mens Bathroom!

I find all of these men to be pitiable and tragic figures, the closet really is stuffy and confining. Why do otherwise intelligent men find this such an acceptable existence?

By TODD DVORAK, Associated Press Writer August 28,2007

BOISE, Idaho - Under fire from leaders of his own party, Idaho Sen. Larry Craig on Tuesday the only thing he had done wrong was to plead guilty after a police complaint of lewd conduct in a men's room. He declared, "I am not gay. I never have been gay."

"I did nothing wrong at the Minneapolis airport," he said at a news conference with his wife, Suzanne, at his side.

Craig's defiant stance came as Senate Republican leaders in Washington called for an ethics committee review into his involvement in a police sting operation this summer in the airport men's room.

"In the meantime, the leadership is examining other aspects of the case to see if additional action is required," Sen. Mitch McConnell and other top GOP lawmakers said in a written statement.

A private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, also filed a complaint with the ethics committee seeking an investigation into whether Craig violated Senate rules by engaging in disorderly conduct.

Craig entered his plea several weeks after an undercover police officer in the airport arrested him and issued a complaint that said the three-term senator had engaged in actions "often used by persons communicating a desire to engage in sexual conduct."

Craig said he has hired a lawyer and will ask him to review the case.

The airport incident occurred June 11. Craig signed his plea papers on Aug. 1, and word of the events surfaced Monday. The senator issued a statement Monday night that said, "In hindsight, I should have pled not guilty."

He repeated that assertion at the Idaho news conference. "In June, I overreacted and made a poor decision," he said. "I chose to plead guilty to a lesser charge in hopes of making it go away."

Craig was at times defiant, at others apologetic on Tuesday.

"Please let me apologize to my family, friends and staff and fellow Idahoans for the cloud placed over Idaho," he said. "I did nothing wrong at the Minneapolis airport. I did nothing wrong, and I regret the decision to plead guilty and the sadness that decision has brought on my wife, on my family, friends, staff and fellow Idahoans."

The conservative three-term senator, who has represented Idaho in Congress for more than a quarter-century, is up for re-election next year. He said he would announce next month whether he would run again and suggested he still considers himself a politician with a future.

"Over the years, I have accomplished a lot for Idaho, and I hope Idahoans will allow me to continue to do that. There are still goals I would like to accomplish. And I believe I can still be an effective leader for our state," he said.

Craig, who has voted against gay marriage, finds his political future in doubt because of the case, which has drawn national attention.

Craig, 62, has faced rumors about his sexuality since the 1980s, but allegations that he had engaged in gay sex have never been substantiated. Craig has denied the assertions.

Trying to put his actions "in context," Craig lashed out at the Idaho Statesman, which published a lengthy article Tuesday on its investigation into the senator's actions.

The scandal had already taken a political toll. On Monday, Craig resigned from a prominent role with Republican Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. He had been one of Romney's top Senate supporters, serving as a liaison for the campaign since February.

Asked about Craig, Romney said, "He's disappointed the American people."

"Yeah, I think it reminds us of Mark Foley and Bill Clinton. I think it reminds us of the fact that people who are elected to public office continue to disappoint, and they somehow think that if they vote the right way on issues of significance or they can speak a good game, that we'll just forgive and forget," Romney said on CNBC's "Kudlow & Company."

Foley is a former Republican lawmaker who resigned nearly a year ago after being confronted with the computer messages he sent to male teenage pages who had worked on Capitol Hill. Clinton is the former president accused in congressional impeachment proceedings of lying about an affair with a White House intern.

According to a Hennepin County, Minn., court docket, Craig pleaded guilty to a disorderly conduct charge on Aug. 8, with the court dismissing a charge of gross misdemeanor interference to privacy.

The court docket said Craig paid $575 in fines and fees and was put on unsupervised probation for a year. A sentence of 10 days in the county workhouse was stayed.

According to the prosecutor's complaint, obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, airport police Sgt. Dave Karsnia, who was investigating allegations of sexual conduct in airport restrooms, went into a stall shortly after noon on June 11 and closed the door.

Minutes later, the officer said he saw Craig gazing into his stall through the crack between the door and the frame.

After a man in the adjacent stall left, Craig entered it and put his roller bag against the front of the stall door, "which Sgt. Karsnia's experience has indicated is used to attempt to conceal sexual conduct by blocking the view from the front of the stall," said the complaint, which was dated June 25.

The complaint said Craig then tapped his right foot several times and moved it closer to Karsnia's stall and then moved it to where it touched Karsnia's foot. Karsnia recognized that "as a signal often used by persons communicating a desire to engage in sexual conduct," the complaint said.

Craig then passed his left hand under the stall divider into Karsnia's stall with his palms up and guided it along the divider toward the front of the stall three times, the complaint said.

The officer then showed his police identification under the divider and pointed toward the exit "at which time the defendant exclaimed `No!'" the complaint said.

The Aug. 8 police report says that Craig had handed the arresting officer a business card that identified him as a member of the Senate.

"What do you think about that?" Craig is alleged to have said, according to the report.

While Craig said he had made a mistake in not getting a lawyer before pleading guilty, a police report says he returned to where he was booked 11 days after his June 11 arrest — and more than a month before he entered a plea — and said he needed a "contact so his lawyer can speak to someone."

The officer at the booking station connected him with Karsnia who provided him with the name and phone number of the government attorney handling the case, police said.

UPDATE; Idaho Statesmen

The revealing paragraph's from todays Idaho Statesmen;

In an interview on May 14, Craig told the Idaho Statesman he'd never engaged in sex with a man or solicited sex with a man. The Craig interview was the culmination of a Statesman investigation that began after a blogger accused Craig of homosexual sex in October. Over five months, the Statesman examined rumors about Craig dating to his college days and his 1982 pre-emptive denial that he had sex with underage congressional pages.

The most serious finding by the Statesman was the report by a professional man with close ties to Republican officials. The 40-year-old man reported having oral sex with Craig at Washington's Union Station, probably in 2004. The Statesman also spoke with a man who said Craig made a sexual advance toward him at the University of Idaho in 1967 and a man who said Craig "cruised" him for sex in 1994 at the REI store in Boise. The Statesman also explored dozens of allegations that proved untrue, unclear or unverifiable.

Dewayne here Ok 2 observations, why in this day and age are Police still doing theses little Sting operations in Public bathrooms? As a Gay man I observe theses little rituals all the time and ignore them, indeed the only guys who seem to initiate or participate in Stall Sex are the guys with a Wife & kiddies at home! Who gives a Flying Fuck what happens in a Public bathroom!

Oh and Senator Craig producing his Senate card How Rich and ENTITLED can you get?
Did he think he was coming on to an Intern in the Senate Washroom? How Pathetic can you get?

Picture Note; Is this a cheap shot? I found this pic on Google News search and it seems legit and typical of the distortion common in a telephoto lens. If I get a consensus that it is in poor taste i will remove it, but for now it seems sadly illustrative. Of what? Sex in inappropriate places and circumstances brought on by sexually repressed desire!