Aged liberal luminary Nat Hentoff describes Obama as the flimflam man and compares him to Boston's Mayor Curley (who was reelected by the people once while he was in prison) and not the heroic FDR whom Hentoff and his mother adored. SacBee Article  Hentoff focusses on Obama's rejection of public financing, his support for delivering social services through religious institutions and his decision to support FISA with the retroactive immunity provision still in.  Hentoff is overwrought and his piece is Exhibit 1 of the danger of purists when it comes to political change and leadership.  Nat Hentoff would do well to study the 1932 election when FDR ran to the right of Hoover in some ways to get elected.  In 1932 he was not the liberal savior on a horse but a competent alternative to the failed Republicans who had lost public support.  The New Deal came later.

"Torture is basically subject to perception. If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong."

                                            --CIA Counterterrorism lawyer Jonathan Fredman
                                                 Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, October, 2002
                                                 
 

I want to spend a little time, one on one, telling you who I am and what I would like to know about you, and  hear from you. For as much of a politically aware person as I am, I haven't followed all the small details of your run for Pres.. What I have paid attention to is the damage around me.

 I grew up in the 60's and 70's, a wild child or sorts. I was there when we stood our ground to end the Viet Nam War, and throw Nixon out. Now some 30 plus yrs later we are faced again with choices to make. They almost mirror the choices we made back then yet magnified many times. As we get closer to the Election many of us want to know just how far, if at all, we can count on you ? We have some serious questions, not ones we would expect John to answer, we already know where he stands. Much better known people than me are asking these questions also. If you are curious the questions are below the fold.

A jury in London delivered a verdict of guilty today in the case of the Wrong Man. Jurors imposed a staggering fine upon the Metropolitan Police. It was a bloody crime, if you ask me.

All the police did was get the Wrong Man.

The Wrong Man was an obscure young electrician who for a time lived in London. He may not have been as dark-skinned as the police let on, but he was definitely acting all nervous and twitchy.

Mr Thwaites said a conviction would have the effect of "putting handcuffs on the police". He said the prosecution should never have been brought and that Mr de Menezes was acting like a suicide bomber when he was shot.

A few weeks ago, while -  like many others, I was enthralled, appalled, and otherwise apoplectic concerning the capitulations of Congress on the FISA issue, enraged and perplexed by the appearance in the NY Times Op-Ed page of the Pollack/O’Hanlon piece, obviously named by the Minister of Propaganda, A War We Just Might Win, and the confounding rhetoric of Democrats joining in the mantra of "the surge is working", while following the stories of death and destruction, including the single most deadly attack by factions of the insurgency; Aug. 15, 2007: a coordinated suicide attack on Tuesday, in the town of Qahataniya, 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of Mosul, Iraq; and the collapsed infra-structure of the political, physical, and theoretical reality of Iraq -  I came upon an article about how the poet, Charles Simic, had been named U. S. Poet Laureate.

You Can't Steal a Gift:  Dizzy, Clark, Milt, and Nat by Gene Lees
Lincoln, NE:  Univ of NE Press, 2001
ISBN 0-8032-8034-3

(96)  Phil Woods:  "I was in Birdland, stoned, as I often was in those days.  Dizzy and Art Blakey kidnapped me.  Took me home to Dizzy's and sat me down and said, 'What are you moaning about?  Why don't you get your own band?'

"I tearfully asked them if they thought I was good enough, and one of them said, 'Yeah! If you stop behaving like an asshole!'

"I asked them if a white guy could make it, considering the music was a black invention.  I was getting a lot of flak about stealing not only Bird's music but his wife and family as well [Woods was married to Chan, Charlie Parker's widow, at the time], especially from Mingus.  Miles was always nice to me, very supportive, as was and remains Max Roach.  And Dizzy said, 'You can't steal a gift.  Bird gave the world his music, and if you can hear it you can have it.'"

A few small defensive points:

My particular hatred extends beyond Bush to all Republicans - in fact, anyone - who fails to exercise the basics of decency and humaneness. So I don't hate Bush for who he is (although that's laughable) but for what he does, says or allows to be done or said.

I have the luxury of, unlike many Democrats, already having a pretty low opinion of Nat Hentoff due to his, imo, limited intellect and propensity for falsehood. Now others can see it as well. Via Charles Pierce and Media Matters, we find Hentoff repeating the vile false smear of antisemitism in Lamont supporters - published in the Moonie Paper no less:

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman -- now an insistently independent Democrat -- was pilloried during his losing primary contest with Ned Lamont, not only for his stand on the Iraq war but also because he is a Jew. Being one myself for many years, I was not surprised by the centuries-old persistence of this hatred among several of the fiercely anti-Bush bloggers during the campaign.

The pathetic thing is Hentoff relies exclusively on the thoroughly debunked Lanny Davis tripe for his evidence. Media Matters goes through it again but it is telling that this nonsense will not go away. More.