Is the "it does not cover criminal prosecutions" meme a smokescreen? The Dog hates to stir this pot some more (there seem to be plenty of Kossacks at the stove on this already) but he has been thinking about Mr. John Dean’s and Keith Olberman’s assertions (which the Dog takes to be correct) that the horrible, terrible, very bad FISA bill immunity for telecoms does in fact not protect them from criminal prosecution. While that is a good thing, how much of a good thing it really is really a subject of debate.

We have a problem as a country and it is not one that is going to go away, nor is it likely to be solved. The Dog knows, you’re out there asking, so why bring it up? That is a good question; the answer is that while we might not be able to solve it, we should at least think about it, so we can try to communicate around it. What is this nemesis the Dog is talking about? It is the inability of humans to hold truly large numbers in our heads.

The Dog tries to never piggyback a front page diary, but Kos’s conservative mind got the old pooch thinking. Is there a difference between fearing something for itself or fearing it because you are ignorant of it? Let the Dog give you an example; when the Dog was younger he was afraid of chainsaws. What is not to fear? A portable machine that spins a sharp chain fast enough to chew through wood like butter, who would not be afraid of that. Then add in an uncle that took him to see Texas Chainsaw Massacre at far too young an age, you get yourself a nice reasonable phobia. However, when the Dog had a chance to handle and use on in a controlled setting, well, hell, it is just another tool you have to take reasonable precautions with. There was really nothing to be scared of about chainsaws but carelessness.  

We (being the left side of the Dems, and the netroots and especially those here on Kos) need to be ready to be unhappy with our nominee for president over the next few months. It was inevitable (finally we get to use that word again!) that this would happen. Everyone who runs for president has two jobs to do; first, they need to lock up their base, which means as a Dem you run to the left, as a Repug (gawd, who would be one by choice?) runs to the right. Then when you have the nomination and your party locked up you run to the middle (or the perceived middle, which is not always the same thing) in order to make sure you scoop up enough so-called independents and maybe peel a few of the more moderate of the other party off.

Is there a political jujitsu move happening in the Obama campaign involving Muslims and the extremely loud whispering campaign that he is a Muslim happening in front of our eyes? We know that the Obama campaign is concerned about this perception as it may give some closet race-biased (if not racist, at least in their own minds) the space to vote against him. While those of us in the liberal community find this a very small fig leaf, if that is not countered it could rob us of some votes that could potentially make the difference in November. We have also seen the recent problem in Detroit where two women in head scarves were asked to move from behind the stage at the Gore endorsement. Sen. Obama did apologize for the actions of his volunteers, as he should, but the Dog is wondering if there is more going on than meets the eye at first glance.

The Dog knows that this is an issue that some of his fellow Kossacks might put in the "after we win" pile, but the Dog has never been one to believe in thinking things through in a rush. While we do need to put a strong focus on putting our nominee in the White House (yes, we fracking can!) it is also important that we hit the ground running and know what to do about all the steaming piles of shit the criminal Bush and his henchmen have left all over our Federal Government.

So, here is the deal, it is your democracy and it is only ever going to be as good as you require it to be. If you don’t care about being spied on, about having your e-mail read or about having all this data go into a giant data base that will be used in ways you will never know forever, do nothing.

If on the other hand you care about these things, if you care that huge companies will never be accountable for the actions they illegally took, if you care that the criminal Bush and his henchmen will never be held accountable for this blatant breaking of the laws of our country, get off your ass and do something about it!

Today the Dog is going to talk about a couple of things that are making him pretty damn happy. The first is a little anecdotal evidence of the problems that Sen. McCain is to have here in the beautiful West, and the other is the great move forward in the granting of full civil rights to all citizens in the great state of California. The Dog knows that it is not great writing style to combine these to divers topics into one essay, but hey, he only gets one diary a day and neither of them is that long (as any half way regular reader of the Dog knows, he just can’t be satisfied if the diary is less than 1000 words!).

Torture is the Dog’s primary issue. Yesterday, the Dog wrote about impeachment, asking why it was that some of his fellow Kossacks were so fired up about the prospect of going for impeachment, since it seems that structurally we will fight this and then lose. However, as the Dog started to think about this diary he realized that there was a similarity between himself and these Kossacks. They feel that action on the President’s high crimes and misdemeanors is required for the health of the country. That it will be nearly impossible to achieve has no bearing on the attempt. The Dog feels exactly the same on the issue of torture.

The Dog is confused (yeah, I know, what else is new?) by all the recent talk about impeachment. The Dog understands what Rep. Kucinich is doing when he gets his 35 articles read into the Congressional record and forces a vote on them. It makes perfect sense from a procedure point of view for someone with oversight responsibilities to get this on the official record, so that future administrations do not have the argument that since no one objected to the actions that the Bush criminal crew has taken so they are acceptable.

And Kos for that matter?

Josh Marshall over at the redoubtable Talking Points Memo has an essay up about the differences in the early general campaigns of Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain that makes a pretty good case for it.

We (meaning some of the folks that supported Sen. Clinton) made the argument that her bare knuckle tactics in the primary season were a net good, as some of these issues and an (ahem) problems with Sen. Obama would be brought up in the general, were he to become our nominee. Now, the Dog was not part of that, as he does not generally make excuses that he thinks are weak, even in support of his candidate (yeah, the Dog was for Sen. Clinton before he was against her).

Wow, the Dog got his first hate mail this week. At least I think it is hate mail. You can be the judge:

send the body count to the FUCKING KRONGREZZ. they are the fucker that went home with out sending $$$ to the troops in the field?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 ifi were there i would fiucking riot and take the officer corp down l8ike we did during the nam. the fucking kongrezz is the proble, assshole, so send the shit there. and send all  the old lady walking fartz to the poulouzie swi so she can burn it for fuel;;;METHANE. FUCK YOU AND YOUR ASSSHOLE BLOG. THE OMLY PEOPLE THAT CONSIDER YOU ARE THE ASSHOLES THAT THINK THE TALE WAGZ THE DOG.A dempo=krapforbrainz. WHERE ARE YOUR KIDREN??? yours in christ/god bless america.

It is Thursday and as it is traditional the Dog is going to ask a question (after all, dogs are nothing if not creatures of habit, eh?). So, the Dog is wondering, have we (meaning Dems) been played a little this primary cycle? Have we been encouraged to our worst natures, pushed along by those that have no interest in a positive outcome for our party?

At first blush the Dog was disinclined to believe this is possible, but after a little thought there are, at the very least, the structural elements that would be needed to make this kind of subtle trick work very well. Stick with the Dog for a minute here and he’ll detail them for you.

If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles. Sun Tzu.

The Dog has been thinking about this quote and Sen. McCain the last couple of days. Ol’ Sun Tzu is right we do need to know our enemy if we are to be able to defeat him. I have written some diaries about his policy (and like the other Kossacks that did so, got a huge yawn, apparently there was some kind of nomination fight going on in the Democratic party, who knew?) and will again, but the first thing we need to understand is John McCain the man. This is where the Dog has a little insight to offer his fellow Kossacks.

This is a repost, but as the process is ending today, the Dog thinks that it is worthwhile to start thinking about this. After all, we do not want to live through this broken process again.

The Dog thinks that he can say without too much contradiction that there is pretty broad agreement that our system of nominating our Presidential candidate is... broken. The Dog is a process improvement project manager (6 Sigma Black Belt, for the process nerds out there) and when I say that a system is broken I mean something very specific. This system is not fulfilling the needs of the Party and it is creating its own problems and unexpected results.

Okay, we have had our Rules and Bylaws decision, Porto Rico has voted (don’t ask this Dog why) and the last two states are going to do so tomorrow. We have seen the venting diaries from Bink and Altruista and we have all made our statements about that. It is time, gentle readers, to gear up for the general election. We are going to have some problems and it is time to get serious about them, or we will find ourselves in a world of shit come election day.

Sure, the Dog knows that Sen. McCain (Grandpa, AZ) is on the wrong side of all of the issues as far as public opinion is concerned. Yet, things in Iraq are showing modest improvements, there will be Gitmo trails right after the Repug convention, and there is a major difference between winning a contest inside the Democratic Party and in the nation in general.

As we get into the general election cycle it is time to start thinking about the kinds of things that we in the blog-sphere (why a sphere? Why not a dodecahedron?) can do to support Sen. Obama without coordinating with his campaign. This leads the Dog to one of his Dad’s favorite things, putting a new meme into the common usage. Pop was a litigator first, last and middle. As a result he loved our post-Norman tongue (a naughty sounding way of saying English) with in a fairly obsessive way. The old man used to find a moderately obscure word and then see if by constant use he could get it into the common lexicon of folks in our hometown. He would always claim more success than the Dog could credit one person with, but it is a valid concept when applied by a large group of motivated people.

The Dog needs your help Kossacks! (What? No, I don’t need a lift to the lunatic asylum, why do you ask?) What the Dog is proposing is to put together a list of the things that we have received from our fabulous Bush administration.

I know it seems like old news, but stick with the Dog a little on this. We all know that Sen. McCain (Great-Grandpa, AZ) is setting his sights on being more Bush than Bush (Bush squared? Bush-Bush? Junior Jr.? ) if he somehow manages to win, beg or steal the election this fall. So, to help with our argument against this, the Dog thought we should put together a "Rage List" of all the crap that has gone down in our name.