The department of backstabbing:

The Bearded Man has been removed from the wedding in case anyone was wondering.

Guuuuuuh.

That is what I have to say.

Hilary?  Whatever, I don’t really care.  Yes, I do care more about Foreign Policy than many of these other subjects but I think HRC will put an Iron Lady face on our FP so that might not be bad.  I’d hate to get in an argument with her.  I mean if she can neuter 42 she can probably take me.

The Auto Industry?  Dunno.  Honestly, I don’t.  Every day I go back and forth. Five days ago I read an article that said let them go into Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  In 11 they can still make cars and yet have the protection of the government that will allow them to renegotiate certain deals.  I was sold.
The next day I read an article that said something to the effect that while bankruptcy might seem like a good idea – it is what we made the airlines do – it won’t work.  See the auto industry works on a loan system which won’t work under bankruptcy protection.  They take out a loan, buy parts they need, build cars, sell cars, repay the loan. (Farmers do much the same thing bytheway.) Since the credit market is screwed though, this all comes to a grinding halt.  If they can’t get loans, they can’t buy parts on credit, build cars, sell cars and even more damaging they take down the parts industry as well.  I was sold – I didn’t like it but I was sold.
The next day I read an article that said no they will be able to survive under bankruptcy protection. Basically, it goes Forth and Back until I toss up my hands.

Instead, I’m going to dabble my toes in the walking-back-expectations pond.  I may talk about this again later, but I wanted to just put it out there that we (on the left) should keep our “America’s going to change” rhetoric to a minimum.  I don’t want to get into it now but changes happen in increments.  One of the issues with America is that we’re screwed up because we expect results. Now.  That’s why Iraq isn’t working like it might have.  We were unwilling or unable to acknowledge initially that it would take a Herculean effort in Afghanistan and that hubris led us to attack Iraq.  It will take forty years for either country to reach where we’d like it to be.  With Team O winning in ‘08, people may think that the left should take what it can and give nothing back.  I’m not one of them.  I think that the goal over the next two years should be an incremental shift of the center, marginalizing the far right by creating distance between it and the dominant center.
Would I like to see radical shifts in the problematic sectors of the government?  Uh, yeah.  But I also think that Obama is going to be farther left personally than his administration will be forced to be.  I’ll let you know at midterms in two years whether he should be going further with the second half.  It is unfortunate but administrations get maybe 16 months before they have to start running again (Midterms).  Then they get less than a year to breath deep and take on the other side.  I want 8, 12, 16 years of smart Democratic rule.  In eight years I’ll have a child I’m sure /gulp.  I will quickly have to start looking out for his future.  These next four mean nothing to me if in the following decade doesn’t go in our favor as well.  I think that if Team O can get through some good looking reforms and gain seats in 2010 then they’ll have license to try to do something more dramatic.

~Forth