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By Scott Horton
October 14, 2:44 PM
DOJ Presses Ahead to Keep Cheney’s Secrets

On October 1, federal judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that the Justice Department had to release records of Patrick Fitzgerald’s interview of Vice President Dick Cheney...

But now the Obama Justice Department is signaling that it may appeal the decision to the Court of Appeals....

In 2008, Barack Obama made a pledge of “open government” one of the central pillars of his campaign. He specifically promised to move the Justice Department back to a position of compliance with FOIA legislation, which was routinely violated during the Bush years. But there has been little evidence that the Obama team is keeping this campaign commitment. They have been just as aggressive as their predecessors were in defending the right of the Executive to keep its dealings secret.... [emphasis mine]

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/10/hbc-90005912

Moving right along. Next?

Given the inconsistencies in your position as evidenced by your collected oeuvre, and your apparent ignorance of economics, I decline the opportunity to fisk your response.

If you are inclined to work a bit you might find this helpful in bringing your requisite skills up to speed:

http://delong.typepad.com/files/20091001-115-lecture-10.pdf

I'd say the most likely result is, as you mention, apathy. They simply will drop out of the process. This might tilt an election cycle back over to the R's,...

That's precisely my point.

...but will not fundamentally change our political system.

Never argued that it would. I was responding to this observation you made,

Besides, where are the progressives going to go? Nader? There really isn't any alternative. The Republicans have become so ugly I can't see any progressives defecting to their ranks.

That's correct as far as it goes, but appears to leave out the option of going truly "nowhere." They simply don't vote for anyone. Then, the question becomes which party's voters are more likely to stay home? That's why I suggested watching the metric for unemployment in urban areas. According to Nate Silver, it was urban voters who had the biggest impact on Obama's win.

Remember Thrasher? All that's missing is:

lol,lol,lol

I think there are a lot of voters who really didn't give politics much thought until Bush. They probably voted preferred party lines for most elections, and did their civic duty in that regard but essentially focused on their own lives day-to-day. The aftermath of Bush and Obama as an exemplar of Hope™ did recruit a whole lot of new voters [1] into the mix that probably made his election decisive. The critical question is how many of those new voters will turn out again in 2012.

My guess is Black voters will, even those with reservations/concerns. The youth, suburban white, and some others may be less dependable. Hispanic voters may find sufficient appeasement in Sotomayor's confirmation to SCOTUS to repeat their numbers. But, I think Obama would be a damned fool to count on replicating the sum total of these numbers for re-election, especially, if the economy continues to slide.

The DOW, last I looked, was near 10,000 but the unemployment figures are nudging towards 10% and most economists are hopeful that's as high as they go (operative word is hopeful). So, while Obama is busily re-inflating the bubble on Wall Street, Main Street is still losing jobs and homes. Wall Street may fund his campaigns, but Main Street still pulls levers in the precincts.

All of which is a long way of saying the crushing disillusionment of brand new new voters to the point of apathy is still a real phenomena, and ought to be a real concern. And, that doesn't even touch the old time, reliable voters - like myself - who are beginning to re-think the whole voting project. We may have codified the meme elections have consequences, but we may also be developing a corollary; so do broken promises.

If I were going to watch one metric to the exclusion of all others it would be urban unemployment [2, 3].

[1] http://ezinearticles.com/?Barack-Obama-and-the-Winning-Demographics-of-Election-2008&id=1784390
[2] http://www.esquire.com/features/data/how-obama-won-0209
[3] http://www.bls.gov/web/laummtrk.htm

Link at sig.