This is a long post and not about something that generally interests our readership here at Talk Left. But it is the evening and I want to post it. So here goes.

At mydd, Jerome Armstrong criticizes Tom Schaller for his thesis (it is mine too) that Democrats can not shape their message determined to do better in the South. Like Schaller, I thiink it is not the right approach for Democrats. Armstrong writes:

Stoller's argument ends with a point that might charitably be called a caveat: Maybe there's something I don't get about how special the South is. And that serves as a segue into talking about Tom Schaller's book, "Whistling Past Dixie". It's a point to which a southerner might reply as "typical yankee shit". It's a rather remarkable book though, using statistics to make the case that Democrats can win a majority without the south. And that's probably true, but it's Schaller's first recomendation on "The Path to a National Democratic Majority", that Democrats define the south in the most denigrate ways, to run against the south for an enduring majority, that is morally and strategically wrong.

This is misstatement from Armstrong. The strategy is NOT to denigrate the South, it is to NOT kowtow to it. It is to paint the GOP as extreme and unacceptable. Not to paint the South as anything. It is to use the power of negative branding against the GOP, NOT against the South. Armstrong misuderstands the difference between national branding and the 50 state strategy of devolution of power to state parties. He really muddles the entire subject. Not his best by a long shot. I'll explain on the flip.

I was not that engaged with the House Majority Leader battle. Don't get me wrong, I preferred Murtha, both for the unity he has with Speaker-to-be Pelosi but also for his brave stance on Iraq. But if Hoyer was returned to the position, I would not have cried about it. Hoyer has his problems, but we're a Big Tent party.

But this from Fred Hiatt and the WaPo Editorial Board bothered me immensely:

On the merits, Mr. Hoyer is by far the better choice for the job. He is a moderate and highly capable legislator whose selection would reinforce Ms. Pelosi's announced commitment to govern from the center. Mr. Murtha's candidacy is troubling for several reasons, beginning with his position on the war in Iraq. A former Marine, Mr. Murtha deserves credit for sounding an alarm about the deteriorating situation a year ago. But his descriptions of the stakes there have been consistently unrealistic, and his solutions irresponsible.

If this election is going to be about Iraq and WaPo's idea of centrism, then Murtha MUST win. WaPo has been wrong wrong wrong every step of the way on everything. BTW, when has WaPo ever issued endorsements in House leadership races? Never, that's when. Incredibly poor decision by WaPo.

Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, the primary group lodging the Complaint in Germany requesting that war crime charges be filed against Donald Rumsfeld, was on Democracy Now today.
A portion of the transcript (with my emphasis):

AMY GOODMAN: We go first to Michael Ratner, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, joining us now from Berlin. Democracy Now! welcomes you, Michael. Can you explain the lawsuit and the major news conference that you held today? The world, for the first time, really, picking up this story.

MICHAEL RATNER: I think that's right, Amy. This is the first time they're really picking it up. The press conference was well attended. This is news all over the world. I mean, one of the things we noticed wbout this lawsuit was the number of groups willing to join. The Center for Constitutional Rights, we have a major group of human rights organizations under the title FIDH, the International Federation of Human Rights, which has 140 branches. We have Theo Van Boven, the former rapporteur for the United Nations on torture has joined the suit, Nobel Prize winners and others. It's really -- it’s taken off. I think people are tired, really tired and angry over what the United States has perpetrated in the name of fighting the so-called war on terror.

Jessalyn McCurdy of the ACLU testified at today's U.S. Sentencing Commission hearing on the crack-powder cocaine penalties:

A recent ACLU report, Cracks in the System: Twenty Years of the Unjust Federal Crack Cocaine Law, supported the USSC's recommendation that Congress reconsider the 100-to-1 disparity. The report....recommends that federal prosecutions focus on high-level traffickers of both crack and powder cocaine, and supports the elimination of mandatory minimums for crack and powder offenses, especially the mandatory minimum for simple possession.

In her testimony, McCurdy emphasized the report's core finding, that there is no scientific or penological justification for the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity ratio. Although Congress' stated intent was to target high-level cocaine traffickers, the result has been just the opposite - in 2002, a USSC report found that only 15 percent of federal cocaine traffickers can be classified as high-level, while over 70 percent of crack defendants have low-level involvement in drug activity, such as street level dealers, couriers, or lookouts.

U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton, who presides over the Scooter Libby case, testified today at the U.S. Sentencing Commission hearing on crack-powder cocaine penalties.

Judge Walton was a deputy drug czar and top drug policy advisor to President G.H. Bush.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton told the U.S. Sentencing Commission that federal laws requiring dramatically longer sentences for crack cocaine than for cocaine powder were "unconscionable" and contributed to the perception within minority communities that courts are unfair.

"I never thought that the disparity should be as severe as it has become," said Walton, who sits on the bench in Washington, where he previously served as a Superior Court judge, a federal prosecutor and a deputy drug czar.

Larisa at Raw Story reports that Robert Gates, Bush's nominee to succeed Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, may not be the pro-Baker, anti-Cheney, anti-necon candidate after all.

The argument has been made by many pundits and experts that the removal of Rumsfeld and the nomination of Gates, planning for which numerous sources indicate began roughly one month ago, will have the effect of marginalizing Vice President Dick Cheney, seen by most to be the driving force behind US involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Larisa quotes several sources, such as the one below, to posit that Gates and Cheney may be more closely allied than previously thought.

Atrios always finds the good stuff, this time from Eric Boehlert:

"If I were them [Democrats], I'd be scared to death about November's elections."

-- Mark Halperin, director of ABC News' political unit, June 22, 2006

My favorite article from the just-completed campaign season appeared in the October 9 issue of Time, in which Mike Allen and James Carney wrote a detailed piece about why Republicans were not worried about the upcoming elections. "The G.O.P.'s Secret Weapon," read the bold headline. "You think the Republicans are sure to lose big in November? They aren't. Here's why things don't look so bad to them," read the subhead.

The article went on and on about how an "eerie, Zen-like calm" had fallen over GOP operatives who, despite a mountain of public polling data, did not fear big election losses. In fact, they coolly insisted their own prospects were "getting better by the day." Why the tranquility? Lots of reasons, according to Time, including the party's "sophisticated, expensive and largely unnoticed" campaign to identify likely voters. Time also gave the GOP points for playing the expectations game better than Democrats and for having more resources. Time ended on this chipper note: "As long as they [Republicans] end up keeping control of both houses, they still come out the winner on Election Day."

Outstanding reporting no? The Liberal Media is something ain't it?

Media darling Sen. Barak Obama, who says he might consider a 2008 presidential run, has hit a rough spot on personal ethics.

Jane at Firedoglake has some thoughts on this, and says "the bloom is off the rose."

Society does a lousy job of providing mental health care to those who need it most -- those whose mental health problems limit their employability, leaving them without access to the kinds of jobs that come with health insurance. Left untreated, the mentally ill often run afoul of the law. Those who go to prison seldom receive meaningful mental health care, so prisons become warehouses for the mentally ill.

Federal courts have ordered California's prisons to classify and treat mentally ill inmates, but the prisons are overcrowded and the state's efforts to comply with the orders have been insufficient, to put it mildly. Frustrated advocates for inmates have petitioned the courts to cap the prison population on the theory that solving overcrowding will make more resources available for mentally ill inmates.

Finally, someone makes some sense on Howard Dean. The Hotline's Marc Ambinder:

Three years ago, Howard Dean-style politics was too outré for the Democratic Party to bear. Today, arguably, Dean Politics is Democratic politics. Embedded within Dean's campaign theme was a broad critique of the Republican approach to power. Iraq was simply its worst manifestation. But Dean also evinced his distaste with Republican "corruption." He talked about how Democrats - and independents and even Republicans -- were interested in results, not ideology. In his eyes, Americans wanted a fresh approach. He urged, first Democrats, then Americans, to take their country back. . . .

Leave the Internet aside: the architecture of Dean Politics has become the de mode style for the entire party. Dean promoted a vocal, confrontational style of campaigning, one that did not cede an inch to Republicans. His primary campaign was predicated on a 50 state strategy. He urged Democrats to adopt issues that would drive wedges between the Republican base and the party’s weaker adherents (mostly in the suburbs). He rejected the politics of inoculation, pronouncing himself proud to be the talisman of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. He intuited that the party (and voters) wanted the Democrats to be the opposition party.

. . . [G]ive Dean credit for setting the tone and style of Democratic politics. Successful, Democratic politics, that is, in an environment that Dean first detected three years ago.

This is what we were talking about. (I was not a Dean supporter for President, but for DNC Chair.) Opposing. Fighting. Standing up. This is what Dean embodied and what the Netroots urged. Good for Ambinder. H/T atrios.

Sen. Russ Feingold, writing at Huffpo, tells us to beware the lame duck Congressional session.

It would be a huge mistake to overlook the potential for damage in the lame duck session. A lame duck session doesn't sound like anything to worry about, but this lame duck may be a lot more dangerous than people think. We can expect Republicans to try to jam through as much of their agenda as they can while they have the chance.

The biggest threat: Bush's push to legalize his warrantless eavesdropping program.

There are a lot of bad bills that the Republicans may try to ram through, but here's the worst of the worst - a bill to legalize the President's warrantless wiretapping program. The White House is desperate to enact this bill, which allows the government to spy on American citizens, on American soil, without a warrant.

Other bills they will try to push through: tax cuts and trade policy.

Americans who welcome a change of government have reason to be thankful for Tom Noe. At least, they have reason to be thankful that the corrupt coin dealer's trial focused the attention of Ohio voters on Republican corruption. The jury returned a verdict yesterday.

Jurors convicted Noe, 52, a former county chairman who helped raise more than $100,000 in 2004 for the Bush-Cheney ticket, of 29 of 40 counts, including theft, corruption and forgery. He faces at least 10 years in prison for stealing from the state workers' compensation fund and trying to hide his actions. ... Along the way, the investigation touched Gov. Bob Taft ®, who pleaded no contest in August 2005 to accepting secret gifts from Noe and others.

Don Hazen makes the credible argument that Republican corruption was the tipping point in last week's elections.