Stone Cupid Real

By Penny Coleman
AlterNet

Wednesday 26 March 2008

"There are at least 60,000 of them, but they're not on the DOD's list of soldiers missing in action."
Sgt. Kristofer Shawn Goldsmith was one of the many soldiers and Marines, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, who gave testimony at last weekend's Winter Soldier investigation. They spoke from personal experience about what the American military is doing in those countries. They gave examples of what they had done, what they had been ordered to do, what they had witnessed, how their experiences had wounded them, both physically and psychically, and what kind of care and support they have, or most often have not gotten since coming home. The panel Goldsmith was on was called "The Breakdown of the U.S. Military," so he surprised the audience when he said that he was going to talk about prisoners of war.

He was not, however, going to talk about the three soldiers listed as missing in action on the Department of Defense website. He was referring to those who have been the victims of stop-loss, the device by which the president can, "in the event of war," choose to extend an enlistee's contract "until six months after the war ends." The "War on Terror" is this president's excuse for invoking that clause. Because that war will, by definition, continue as long as we insist that there is a difference between the terror inflicted on our innocents and the terror inflicted on theirs, American soldiers are effectively signing away their freedom indefinitely when they join the military. They are prisoners of an ill-defined and undeclared war on a tactic - terrorism - that dates back to Biblical times and will be with us indefinitely.

According to U.S. News and World Report, there are at least 60,000 of them.

"I was a great soldier once upon a time," Goldsmith says. He graduated at the top of his class in basic training and was on the commandant's list in the Warrior Leadership Course with a 94.6 percent average. He aced every test, mental and physical, received commendations and medals and promotions, but by the end of his first deployment he knew he was in serious trouble. His CSM (command sergeant major) Altman, however, had told his battalion, "If any of you go try to say you're depressed and thinking about killing yourself, you're going to get deployed anyway, and when we get there, you'll get to be my personal I.E.D. (improvised explosive device) kicker!" So he self-medicated; he drank. A lot. "All I wanted to do was black out."

What kept him going was the end that was in sight. He just had to hang on till his contract was up, and then he could go home, go back to school, and finally be a 20-year-old kid. Then days before he was scheduled to get out, his unit was locked down, stop-lossed as part of the surge. He was looking at another 18-month deployment.

At first he thought he was having a heart attack. It turned out to be a panic attack. He was diagnosed with depression, anxiety disorder and adjustment disorder, given a lot of pills and told he'd be fine. Or at least fine enough to go back.

The day before his unit was to deploy, Memorial Day 2007, he went out onto the memorial field at Ft. Stewart, where trees are planted for every soldier from 3rd Infantry Division killed in Iraq. He mixed pills and vodka, and tried to die.

He woke up handcuffed to a gurney and spent a week in a mental ward. His commanding officer tried to rip off his stripes and threatened to prosecute him for malingering, a court martial offense: He had tried to kill a U.S. Army soldier. Ultimately, he was given two Article 15s (nonjudicial punishment), one for malingering and one for missing movement (not deploying on time) and separated from the service with a general discharge stamped in big letters: "misconduct: serious offense." Under a general discharge, he lost all his educational benefits.

Sgt. Goldsmith's story is not necessarily more devastating than others I heard over the course of the four-day gathering. There were many that were told with equal courage and clarity, and that were equally revealing of important issues. But at some point as I listened to him speak, I realized that I was no longer listening as a journalist, I was listening as a mother. In 1971, the original Winter Soldiers were my age. This new generation are my children's. And this young soldier framed everything he had to say with a mother's worst nightmare: the death of a child.

The first picture Goldsmith showed was of a 10-year-old boy in "cammies," with dog tags on a chain around his neck, proudly offering his best boy scout salute. "That boy died in Iraq, " he says.

Another picture flashed on the screen, this time of a young soldier in real military camouflage, leaning out of a jeep and flashing a shit-eating boyish grin. It was a good day, the first day of his deployment to Iraq in 2005. That boy, too, Goldsmith told us, is dead.

Three years after that picture was taken, Sgt. Goldsmith doesn't look any older. In fact, sitting on the speakers' platform between two big Marines, he almost looks fragile. Even the Mohawk haircut doesn't come off as particularly tough. He may be fragile, but there is nothing, absolutely nothing fragile about what he has to say. Or the way he says it.

Read the rest here at AlterNet.

By Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen
The Politico

Friday 21 March 2008

One big fact has largely been lost in the recent coverage of the Democratic presidential race: Hillary Rodham Clinton has virtually no chance of winning.

Her own campaign acknowledges there is no way that she will finish ahead in pledged delegates. That means the only way she wins is if Democratic superdelegates are ready to risk a backlash of historic proportions from the party's most reliable constituency.

Unless Clinton is able to at least win the primary popular vote - which also would take nothing less than an electoral miracle - and use that achievement to pressure superdelegates, she has only one scenario for victory. An African-American opponent and his backers would be told that, even though he won the contest with voters, the prize is going to someone else.

People who think that scenario is even remotely likely are living on another planet.

As it happens, many people inside Clinton's campaign live right here on Earth. One important Clinton adviser estimated to Politico privately that she has no more than a 10 percent chance of winning her race against Barack Obama, an appraisal that was echoed by other operatives.

In other words: The notion of the Democratic contest being a dramatic cliffhanger is a game of make-believe.

The real question is why so many people are playing. The answer has more to do with media psychology than with practical politics.

Journalists have become partners with the Clinton campaign in pretending that the contest is closer than it really is. Most coverage breathlessly portrays the race as a down-to-the-wire sprint between two well-matched candidates, one only slightly better situated than the other to win in August at the national convention in Denver.

One reason is fear of embarrassment. In its zeal to avoid predictive reporting of the sort that embarrassed journalists in New Hampshire, the media - including Politico - have tended to avoid zeroing in on the tough math Clinton faces.

Avoiding predictions based on polls even before voters cast their ballots is wise policy. But that's not the same as drawing sober and well-grounded conclusions about the current state of a race after millions of voters have registered their preferences.

The antidote to last winter's flawed predictions is not to promote a misleading narrative based on the desired but unlikely story line of one candidate.

There are other forces also working to preserve the notion of a contest that is still up for grabs.

One important, if subliminal, reason is self-interest. Reporters and editors love a close race - it's more fun and it's good for business.

The media are also enamored of the almost mystical ability of the Clintons to work their way out of tight jams, as they have done for 16 years at the national level. That explains why some reporters are inclined to believe the Clinton campaign when it talks about how she's going to win on the third ballot at the Democratic National Convention in August.

That's certainly possible - and, to be clear, we'd love to see the race last that long - but it's folly to write about this as if it is likely.

It's also hard to overstate the role the talented Clinton camp plays in shaping the campaign narrative, first by subtly lowering the bar for the performance necessary to remain in the race, and then by keeping the focus on Obama's relationships with a political fixer and a controversial pastor in Illinois.

But even some of Clinton's own advisers now concede that she cannot win unless Obama is hit by a political meteor. Something that merely undermines him won't be enough. It would have to be some development that essentially disqualifies him.

Simple number-crunching has shown the long odds against Clinton for some time.

In the latest Associated Press delegate count, Obama leads with 1,406 pledged delegates to Clinton's 1,249. Obama's lead is likely to grow, as it did with county conventions last weekend in Iowa, as later rounds of delegates are apportioned from caucuses he has already won.

The Democratic Party has 794 superdelegates, the party insiders who get to vote on the nomination in addition to the delegates chosen by voters. According to Politico's latest tally, Clinton has 250 and Obama has 212. That means 261 are uncommitted, and 71 have yet to be named.

An analysis by Politico's Avi Zenilman shows that Clinton's lead in superdelegates has shrunk by about 60 in the past month. And it found Clinton is roughly tied among House members, senators and governors - the party's most powerful elite.

Clinton had not announced a new superdelegate commitment since the March 4 primaries, until the drought was broken recently by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) and West Virginia committeeman Pat Maroney.

Clintonistas continue to talk tough. Phil Singer, the Clinton campaign's deputy communications director, told reporters on a conference call Friday that the Obama campaign "is in hot water" and is "seeing the ground shift away from them."

Mark Penn, the campaign's chief strategist, maintained that it's still "a hard-fought race between two potential nominees" and that other factors could come into play at the convention besides the latest delegate tally - "the popular vote, who will have won more delegates from primaries [as opposed to caucuses], who will be the stronger candidate against McCain."

But let's assume a best-case scenario for Clinton, one where she wins every remaining contest with 60 percent of the vote (an unlikely outcome since she has hit that level in only three states so far - her home state of New York, Rhode Island and Arkansas).

Even then, she would still be behind Obama in delegates.

Read more HERE at t r u t h o u t

By Gary Hart
The Huffington Post

Friday 07 March 2008

It will come as a surprise to many people that there are rules in politics. Most of those rules are unwritten and are based on common understandings, acceptable practices, and the best interest of the political party a candidate seeks to lead. One of those rules is this: Do not provide ammunition to the opposition party that can be used to destroy your party's nominee. This is a hyper-truth where the presidential contest is concerned.

By saying that only she and John McCain are qualified to lead the country, particularly in times of crisis, Hillary Clinton has broken that rule, severely damaged the Democratic candidate who may well be the party's nominee, and, perhaps most ominously, revealed the unlimited lengths to which she will go to achieve power. She has essentially said that the Democratic party deserves to lose unless it nominates her.

As a veteran of red telephone ads and "where's the beef" cleverness, I am keenly aware that sharp elbows get thrown by those trailing in the fourth quarter (and sometimes even earlier). "Politics ain't beanbag," is the old slogan. But that does not mean that it must also be rule-or-ruin, me-first-and-only-me, my way or the highway. That is not politics. That is raw, unrestrained ambition for power that cannot accept the will of the voters.

Senator Obama is right to say the issue is judgment not years in Washington. If Mrs. Clinton loses the nomination, her failure will be traced to the date she voted to empower George W. Bush to invade Iraq. That is not the kind of judgment, or wisdom, required by the leader answering the phone in the night. For her now to claim that Senator Obama is not qualified to answer the crisis phone is the height of irony if not chutzpah, and calls into question whether her primary loyalty is to the Democratic party and the nation or to her own ambition.

By Bob Herbert
The New York Times

Saturday 08 March 2008

The high anxiety in the Obama circles has thrown the campaign off its game.

Samantha Power, one of Senator Barack Obama's senior foreign policy advisers, had to quit Friday after she lost her cool in an interview with a Scottish newspaper and called Senator Hillary Clinton a "monster."

The campaign apologized for the flap. But Mr. Obama himself seems unsure of how to respond to the trash-and-thrash tactics that helped Senator Clinton defeat him in Ohio and Texas this week.

The anger that caused Ms. Power to blurt out the monster comment is widespread inside the Obama camp. But Senator Obama, for a variety of reasons - some of them self-imposed - is sharply constrained in the way that he can respond to provocations.

And if there is one thing the Clinton crowd knows how to do, it's provoke.

On Thursday, Senator Clinton's spokesman, Howard Wolfson, likened Senator Obama to Ken Starr, the independent prosecutor who hounded the Clintons in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Why the Clinton forces would want to inject that poisonous bit of business into the campaign is a mystery.

But there was Mr. Wolfson on Thursday, in response to a call from the Obama campaign for Mrs. Clinton to release her tax returns, asserting: "I, for one, do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president."

More serious was Senator Clinton's assertion that she was qualified to be commander in chief, and that John McCain had also "certainly" crossed that "threshold," but that the jury was still out on Mr. Obama.

In other words, if a choice on national security had to be made today between Senators Obama and McCain, voters - according to Mrs. Clinton's logic - should choose Senator McCain.

That is a low thing for a Democratic presidential candidate to do to a rival in a party primary. Can you imagine John McCain saying that Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney or even the guitar-strumming Mike Huckabee might be less qualified than Hillary Clinton to be commander in chief? It couldn't happen.

But Senator Clinton never gave a second thought to opening the trap door beneath her fellow Democrat.

And then there was Mrs. Clinton on "60 Minutes," being interviewed by Steve Kroft. He had shown a clip on the program of a voter in Ohio who said that he'd heard that Senator Obama didn't know the national anthem, "wouldn't use the Holy Bible," and was a Muslim.

Mr. Kroft asked Senator Clinton if she believed that Senator Obama is a Muslim. In one of the sleaziest moments of the campaign to date, Senator Clinton replied: "No. No. Why would I? No, there is nothing to base that on. As far as I know."

As far as I know.

If she had been asked if she thought President Bush was a Muslim, would her response have included the caveat "as far as I know"? What about Senator McCain? Why, then, with Senator Obama?

In the run-up to the crucial Texas and Ohio primaries, the plan in the Clinton camp, as The Times reported, was to unleash as many lines of attack as possible - a "kitchen sink" fusillade - in the hope that something would work. Senator Obama is still trying to figure out how to respond.

Whatever anger and frustration he may be feeling, he should stick to the high road. He can't win wrestling in the mud with Hillary Clinton. That will not put Barack Obama in the White House.

Mr. Obama's strength was his message of hope and healing, the idea that he could bring disparate groups together to work on the nation's toughest problems. That has gotten him this far, which is much further than almost anyone expected.

He now needs an added dimension. He needs to articulate a vision. He needs to spell out to voters where he wants to take this country over the next few years, how he will alleviate the suffering of millions trapped in vicious economic circumstances and what he will do to restore the honor and prestige of the U.S. around the world.

Political campaigns are not about fairness, but they can often be about vision. Voters want more from Senator Obama.

He may not be able to close the deal with, say, working-class whites, but he more than anyone else has the eloquence to try and make a compelling case. He should go for it.
Read it all at t r u t h o u t.

Hillary's Math Problem
By Jonathan Alter
Newsweek

Tuesday 04 March 2008

Forget tonight. She could win 16 straight and still lose.
Hillary Clinton may be poised for a big night tonight, with wins in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island. Clinton aides say this will be the beginning of her comeback against Barack Obama. There's only one problem with this analysis: they can't count.

I'm no good at math either, but with the help of Slate's Delegate Calculator I've scoped out the rest of the primaries, and even if you assume huge Hillary wins from here on out, the numbers don't look good for Clinton. In order to show how deep a hole she's in, I've given her the benefit of the doubt every week for the rest of the primaries.

So here we go: Let's assume Hillary beats expectations and wins Ohio tonight 55-45, Rhode Island 55-45, Texas, 53-47 and (this is highly improbable), ties in Vermont, 50-50.

Then it's on to Wyoming on Saturday, where, let's say, the momentum of today helps her win 53-47. Next Tuesday in Mississippi - where African-Americans play a big role in the Democratic primary - she shocks the political world by winning 52-48.

Then on April 22, the big one, Pennsylvania - and it's a Hillary blowout, 60-40, with Clinton picking up a whopping 32 delegates. She wins both of Guam's two delegates on May 30, and Indiana's proximity to Illinois does Obama no good on May 6, with the Hoosiers going for Hillary 55-45. The same day brings another huge upset in a heavily African-American state: enough North Carolina blacks desert Obama to give the state to Hillary 52-48, netting her five more delegates.

Suppose May 13 in West Virginia is no kinder to Obama, and he loses by double digits, netting Clinton two delegates. The identical 55-45 result on May 20 in Kentucky nets her five more. The same day brings Oregon, a classic Obama state. Oops! He loses there 52-48. Hillary wins by 10 in Montana and South Dakota on June 3, and primary season ends on June 7 in Puerto Rico with another big Viva Clinton! Hillary pulls off a 60-40 landslide, giving her another 11 delegates. She has enjoyed a string of 16 victories in a row over three months.

So at the end of regulation, Hillary's the nominee, right? Actually, this much-too-generous scenario (which doesn't even account for Texas's weird "pri-caucus" system, which favors Obama in delegate selection) still leaves the pledged-delegate score at 1,634 for Obama to 1,576 for Clinton. That's a 56-delegate lead.

Let's say the Democratic National Committee schedules do-overs in Florida and (heavily African-American) Michigan. Hillary wins big yet again. But the chances of her netting 56 delegates out of those two states would require two more huge margins. (Unfortunately the Slate calculator isn't helping me here.)

So no matter how you cut it, Obama will almost certainly end the primaries with a pledged-delegate lead, courtesy of all those landslides in February. Hillary would then have to convince the uncommitted superdelegates to reverse the will of the people. Even coming off a big Hillary winning streak, few if any superdelegates will be inclined to do so. For politicians to upend what the voters have decided might be a tad, well, suicidal.

For all of those who have been trashing me for saying this thing is over, please feel free to do your own math. Give Hillary 75 percent in Kentucky and Indiana. Give her a blowout in Oregon. You will still have a hard time getting her through the process with a pledged-delegate lead.

The Clintonites can spin to their heart's content about how Obama can't carry any large states besides Illinois. How he can't close the deal. How they've got the Big Mo now.

Tell it to Slate's Delegate Calculator.

I thought this little nugget from the Onion worthy...

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early