ON KARL ROVE AND THE DANGERS OF POWER
IN THE ABSENCE OF KNOWLEDGE AND PRINCIPLES

SOMEONE in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office has gotten everybody on this city’s holiday party circuit talking, simply by floating an unlikely Iraq proposal that is worthy of a certain mid-19th century British naturalist with a fascination for natural selection.
We shall call it the Darwin Principle.   NYT ARTICLE

CALCULATION, STRATEGY AND LONG-TERM PLANNING
MAKE HILLARY AND KARL OPPOSITE EQUALS

Today, while reading a New Yorker article about Karl Rove, I had an epiphany.  The very character traits for which Hillary Clinton is most criticized – the calculation, the strategizing, the maneuvering - are precisely the same ones which for so long made Karl Rove so successful at winning elections.  For almost a generation we Democrats have cried in our beer, wishing that we had a political strategist as methodical and cunning as Karl Rove.  Now we do, and her name is Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton!

Will Al Gore dissemble and say whatever is necessary to further his own political career?

Many people have used marijuana, including our most recent two presidents.  But, a willingness to repeatedly dissemble about it raises questions of truthfulness that are much more important than the marijuana use itself.  Because Al Gore’s candidacy is predicated upon his claim that he is a "new man", who is different from the "old Al Gore", an analysis of the character of Al Gore requires us to weigh these questions:

1. Do Al Gore's youth marijuana use and his alleged adult attemps to cover it up raise issues about his forthrightness?

2. Did Al Gore's subsequent failure to finish 2 graduate school programs contribute to an ongoing tendency to discredit himself by embelishing his accomplishments?

3.  Is it fair to other Democrats that we rest our 2008 hopes on the credibility of Al Gore's "new man" premise?

Hiring Diversity Wins Elections

For those who remember when national political campaigns were the exclusive preserve of white men, both as candidates and campaign aides, it is with great joy that we see Hillary breaking the mold as a woman candidate for President and achieving her electoral victories with a Mexican-American woman as her campaign chief.   Senator Clinton's leadership values were rewarded this November, when campaign chief Patti Solis Doyle helped lead the Clinton Senate campaign in a resounding 2-to-1 victory over the Republican opponent.    Results

Al Gore’s Career Success is a Triumph of the American White Male Supremacy Paradigm

Some American insist that they cannot support US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton or Senator Barack Obama for the Presidency because they feel compelled to support the "best man for the job".  Although people who hold this belief may not consider themselves to be "racists", they unwittingly propagate and perpetuate an American White Male Supremacy Paradigm through the practice of "White Male Supremacy Mental Gymnastics".  Readers who disagree may not know all they should about Al Gore and may be willfully ignoring what they know about Senators Clinton and Obama.

But first we pose some trivia questions about Al Gore, to determine how qualified DailyKos readers are to select the "best man for the job of President of the United States:

A Lifelong Journey Began with a Vacation in Chile

When I was ten years-old, attending the Learning Tree free school on the tip of a windswept peninsula in Tiverton, Rhode Island, I met a classmate whose mother was Chilean.  "Mathew" (not his real name) and I became inseparable friends, sleeping at each others houses, baking cakes together, wearing one another’s shirts, laughing at the idiocies of the world and playing chess until three o’clock in the morning.  

When Mathew asked me if I knew where Chile was, I didn’t want to seem ignorant and so I guessed: "It’s in Asia, right?"  Mathew just laughed.  Soon, I learned at first hand about the dictatorship that held Mathew's homeland in its iron fist.

Forty Three Exclusively White Male Presidents in 217 Years

Yesterday, Adam Nagourney’s article in The New York Times posed the (paraphrased) question, "Might the 43 consecutive-term exclusively white male monopoly of the American presidency give way to the participation of women and Blacks in 2008?"  Nagourney said this question will turn not on who has the best resume and qualifications, but rather on the question, "Is America ready to elect a woman or an African- American as president?"

Catastrophic illnesses and accidents sometimes render people unable to work.  Many lawyers and members of the general public are unaware that people who cannot work because they are permanently and totally disabled may be eligible to totally discharge their federally financed student loans.  We at DailyKos can help spread the word to disabled people for whom help may be available.  The process does not involve bankruptcy, does not require filing for SSI, SSDI or need-based income support programs, and may be relatively straightforward for those who are eligible.    Here's how:    And here's a    LINK   for the form that must be submitted, one for each outstanding loan.

White Insistence on Perpetuating the 43-Consecutive Terms Exclusively White Male Presidency is the Epitome of Monopolistic "Identity Politics"

The 43-consecutive term white male monopoly of the American Presidency is an integral party of white male monopoly "identity politics", in which white males denied Blacks and women participation in the governance of America by denying us the right to vote, by enslaving us, and by rendering women little more than chattel at American law.  These historical abominations were part of the practice by white men of "identity politics", in which white men parceled out extra burdens for others while reserving fundamentally important privileges and the most desirable societal participations for themselves.

Why does the Republicans Party have More Black Than DK Does?

Very, very few Blacks are members of the Republican    PARTY,  but even fewer are participants at DailyKos.  Ironically, if Black people want to be in the company of other Blacks, regardless of ideology, we are more likely to find other Blacks in the Republican Party than among the authors of DailyKos stories, diaries and comments.  Here we compare the poor relationship between Blacks and the Republican Party to the even poorer relationship between Blacks and DailyKos and we ask the obvious question:  "Why?"

Lately, I have been troll-rated at DailyKos for saying, in no uncertain terms, that I do not believe Democrats should seek to elect another President of the United States in 2008 whose election perpetuates the 200-year exclusive white male monopoly of the American Presidency.       This white male monopoly was initially enforced with great brutality, including     slavery   and the legal status of women as virtual    chattel, while denying Blacks and women any and all formal participation in American Government.  

How to Beat Republicans by Adopting Their Memes

To win the general election in 2008, the Democrats are going to need a Presidential candidate who is a "Uniter, not a Divisive Divider"!  We lost for one simple reason in 2004:  Republican Party voters didn’t vote for the Democratic Party candidate.  In 2008, we need a candidate who can round up all of the votes that previously went to both parties.  We need a Uniter, Not a Divisive Divider.

The Urban Dictionary offers seven variations on the meaning of the term, "bitch-slap".  A close read of these definitions reveals that a "bitch-slap" is, by definition, an act of cowardice.

How to Avoid Violating the 10 Unwritten Rules of the DailyKos Public Opinion Governance Board (DKPOGB)

I have participated at the DailyKos site for approximately a year, drawn here by the opportunity to support the liberal woman Democrat, Hillary Clinton, in this fiery furnace of Hillary haters and Al Gore lovers that only DailyKos can provide.  Over this time, I have come to learn many of the written and unwritten rules of speech here, and I would like to share particularly the unwritten rules with new users.  

This is especially important at the present time.  I believe there may be an explosion of new users at DailyKos when US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton announces her candidacy for President of the United States, and I would like to help pro-Hillary users to participate in this site without being banned for posting "flame-bate" comments or diaries.  Therefore, aware that to do so is forbidden, I state here, only partially "tongue in check", the ten unwritten speech rules that govern permissible speech at DailyKos:

Senator George Allen apologized for calling a James Webb campaign worker "MACACA".  Will DK Al Gore supporter ---*--- apologize for calling me "monkey" in comments here at DailyKos?    MACACA MOMENT

The Dkosopedia  says in its article on   TROLL RATING   that among types of trolling are "Personal attacks on other site users", while specifically noting that, while "there are times when a little creative incivility is much needed",

Sexist or racist language  . . . is not welcome. TROLL RATING

Why Was Old Al Gore Such a Transparent Hypocrite?

In his Election Year 2000 speech to the Democratic National Convention Vice President Al Gore said,

Getting cigarettes out of the hands of kids before they get hooked is a family value.  (APPLAUSE)  I will crack down on the marketing of tobacco to our children, no matter how hard the tobacco companies lobby and no matter how much they spend.    SPEECH AT 2000 CONVENTION

But, according to the New York Times and the Washington Post,

Six years after Vice President Al Gore's older sister died of lung cancer in 1984, he was still accepting campaign contributions from tobacco interests. NYTIMES HITS AL GORE'S HYPOCRISY

THE "OLD" AL GORE WAS A CORPORATE WHORE

All this talk about the "New Al Gore" inevitably causes one to ask, "What was so wrong with the "old Al Gore"?  Quite a lot, if you believe Robert Reich, the pro-labor economist who worked with Al Gore in the Clinton Administration.  But, who is Robert Reich to question Al Gore’s progressive bona fides and what sources support his accusations?

A new poll by CNN shows that DailyKos participants’s feelings diverge markedly with Democrats overall about who our next Democratic president should be.  Hillary holds a two-to-one lead over her nearest rivals while more than twice as many Democrats don’t want Kerry as those who don’t want Clinton.

Recently re-elected Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York is twice as popular as her nearest Democratic rivals in the 2008 presidential race, according to a new CNN poll.

Clinton was favored by 33 percent of people asked who they were "most likely to support for the Democratic nomination for president in the year 2008."      CNN POLL