Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Klein pursues an ardent establishment line that to veer to the left of the Democratic Leadership Conference will doom the party's candidates.  In this instance, particularly when both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama voted the same way that Harman ultimately did, Klein wrote that the presidential aspirants "had changed their positions against the funding for the worst possible reason: presidential politics."

What Klein overlooks in his analysis is where the nation's voters stand.  According to a recent NBC-Wall Street Journal Poll George Bush's support level was 27 percent.  In the case of Congress the rating was even lower, 16 percent, and there was a basic reason why voters were fighting mad at the legislative branches of the federal government.

The American people have registered opposition to the Iraq War and want the troops home, something that Klein and other mainstream adherents of the global new world order either fail to understand or deliberately pretend not to grasp.  In this and other articles Klein makes the case that to take an anti-war position is to invite disaster at the polls in 2008.

In seeking to make his case Klein falls into the same pattern as the Bush Administration, equating anti-war votes to removing all funding from America's troops and leaving them vulnerably exposed.  

Dennis Kucinich and other anti-war figures in Congress have pointed out that to vote no on a war authorization bill is not the same thing as refusing to grant the troops money with which to defend themselves from attack while in Iraq.

Through special appropriations legislation earmarked for the troops such funding can and would be supplied.  No member of either branch of Congress would consider voting against any funding whatsoever for America's troops.  The stickler involves the steady perpetuation of the war by Administration spokespersons accusing anyone voting against any war measure of abandoning the nation's troops to enemy forces.

In warning his readers against the damage strident Internet bloggers can do to the Democratic Party, Klein reminds them that he had earlier written that Bush would be remembered as one of the worst presidents in history.  

He later takes a leap forward and states, "The left-liberals in the blogosphere are merely aping the odious, disdainful - and politically successful - tone that right-wing radio talk- show hosts like Rush Limbaugh pioneered."

Klein then reveals an understanding of what drove these individuals of the left to this point:

"They are also justifiably furious at a Bush White House that has specialized in big lies and smear tactics."

Klein is certainly accurate on the aforementioned point.  As someone who functions in an establishment world he interacts with colleagues of a like level as well as other shakers and movers of the Washington political scene.  This makes him more isolated.  That makes him less likely to understand current developments in the turbulent world extending beyond the Beltway.

Joe, as Bob Dylan said, the times, they are changing.  Americans are working longer hours and receiving less pay when measured against earlier periods of the nation's history after allowing for inflation and other cost of living adjustments.  

Joe, the last year when Americans actually gained in real income was way back in 1971 when Richard Nixon was in office.  This was also a period when most married women, if they worked at all, did so on a part time basis.  Ah, and what did it cost to put the kids through college, Joe, compared to now?

Also, Joe, remember that little guy with the jug ears and the Texas accent who showed up in 1992 and made the presidential race more interesting?  Sure, Ross Perot might have been bizarre, but a lot of Americans came out of the woodwork and became energized by the campaign because he was there and shook up the political scene.

A lot of those average citizens had stopped voting before that, convinced that their votes made no difference in a huge and indifferent corporate oligopoly masquerading as a democratic political system.

As eccentric as so many Washington establishment figures believed Ross Perot to be, it was amazing how much traction he got out of that line when he said that NAFTA, our so-called free trade agreement, would result in a "huge sucking sound" representing jobs leaving America.

While we were assured by the two major party candidates, President George Bush the Elder and his opponent, then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, that this would not come to pass, the last time these folks out in mainstream America checked there were all kinds of jobs being lost as companies sent them to third world nations.

Then there are all of those folks without any health care, Joe.  Many of them are looking beyond the nuanced rhetoric of establishment acceptable types sanctioned by the Democratic Leadership Council to fill their needs.

Last but far from least, Joe, there is that war in Iraq.  The same Administration that is stridently shouting that it would be wrong to "abandon our troops" by advocating bringing them home put them out there in the field without body armor.  To play down deaths it was considered wrong to show their coffins, film their funeral services or even show their photos.

The great self-esteemed patriot George W. Bush saw fit not to attend funeral services.  It was better strategy under the Karl Rove playbook to not call attention to their deaths since that might alert people to the fact that "mission accomplished" was no more than Rove rhetoric and empty speechifying as the war continued with no letup in sight.  

The times are changing, Joe.  The old reassurances and appeals to centrist sloganeering are lost in a world where powerful unelected forces such as Halliburton, the Carlyle Group and Bechtel secretively hold sway in Washington and globally, dictating policy, determining when and where America's military forces will be deployed.

Many of these angry and upset citizens are convinced that they have been badly misrepresented by some glib political operatives dressed in Brooks Brothers finery who march to the tune of lobbyists and multinationals and in the process ignore people like themselves, except at election time when they plead for their votes.  

These people, Joe, especially the ones who have lost family members and friends in an Iraq foray launched on a lie involving a deceitful claim of "weapons of mass destruction" are angry and becoming increasingly angrier.  

Those angry e-mails you received are just a sample of what lies ahead, Joe, if fundamental political change is not forthcoming and voters' needs are not promptly addressed amid the steady demolition of democracy.