From Glenn's original post: Democrats seem to be banking on the fact that the agreement which most Americans have with their policy positions, along with widespread dissatisfaction with the current state of things, will outweigh the effects of this personality war -- a war which they, yet again, have allowed to be one-sided.

What I myself am still trying to wrap my head around is how one can engage in a "personality war" on even ground. The media appears to enjoy the Obama-bashing too much to focus on McCain's lack of personality/policy/sanity. Add to that the abundance of willing proxies and the deck looks more than slightly stacked to one side.

On the other hand, who knows what the GOP's convention is going to look like and what they'll try in the next eight weeks. I wouldn't put it past them to shoot themselves in the foot, and knees, and hand, and head by going really extreme. And gods help them (and the rest of us) if the current Administration decides to attack Iran for whatever reason it concocts.

We've eight weeks to see which direction history goes. Let's try to an active be part of it, eh?

Obama's team edited out a line in the Kucinich speech about "they want four more years, what they deserve is ten to twenty".

The reason for this of course is that Obama has no plans to investigate or pursue justice against lawbreaking in the Bush regime. That would be divisive and we all know Obama is the MUPpet (Magical Unity Pony).

Just look at how the Dems are kissing the boots of the evangelicals, the open religious fervor in the convention has been disquieting to anyone concerned about the separation of church and state.

I told y'all quite a few months back not to trust Obama, I see now when I drop in from time to time that most of you have come to the same conclusion.

To paraphrase Roseanne, we are so screwed that the light from screwed won't reach us for ten billion years.

I didn't expect to get up paged quite so quickly, and I do want to get heard on this one. I posted this on the previous thread a few minutes ago:

OT again

Hi folks, back beating a dead horse.

Human Rights Watch has formally complained about the custody of Aafia Siddiqui's son, a U.S. citizen by birth, by the Afghan Intelligence Directorate. The Pakistani delegation that was sent by the Parliament to ensure her civil rights has arrived in New York in advance of her bail hearing on September 3rd, has visited, and, through the Pakistani ambassador, has again (second time) formally complained to the United Stated government about the policy of strip searching the prisoner before and after all visits, including meeting with counsel. Her lawyers have again complained about lack of medical treatment.

The bail hearing and trial are being held at the U.S. District Court at 500 Pearl St. in New York, less than 1/2 mile from ground zero. Nobody knows how she was extradited, and no investigation of a shooting of a person in custody by a U.S. soldier has been done. How New York is the venue when the grand jury that heard FBI allegations in 2003 (and briefly held her mother as a material witness when she came to the U.S. to ask where her child was) was in Boston is another mystery. Human Rights Watch's complaint lists contraventions of Afghan law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, since the boy is 11 and too young to be held and interrogated legally. It is also not standard policy for the U.S. to separate such a child from their parent, nor is it policy to not place the child in custody of next of kin (her brother lives in the U.S.).

It seems more than a little obvious that this woman has not gotten, nor will get, fair treatment under U.S. and international law unless there is some push back against her treatment and the treatment of her child by Americans. And yet groups like the ACLU have said absolutely nothing about her.

Today, the New York Times published yet another Mark Mazzetti piece about U.S. military detentions. It has substantial errors in it, it fails to mention that not reporting prisoners to the Red Cross is a breach of Geneva, for example, or that international law forbids prisoners giving up their own rights against things like refoulement to countries that practice torture.

I'm sorry to beat dead horses, and I'm sorry to be so off topic. But I don't understand how this country could have lost its ability to discern right from wrong so quickly, and I don't understand the deafening silence not just of the lambs, but of the watchers.

We Dems play this game every four years and then blame it on nasty Republicans who don't play fair. It would seem that after being punched around for years Dem candidates might figure out that the voting public likes their candidates to stop being nice.

Our candidates do indeed mock themselves when they arrive on the election field armed with only polemic "spit balls."

And we will elect the "good man" St. McCain and we will scratch our heads and blame someone.

WHS

Barbara Olshansky once said that the time to ask a candidate whether or not they believe in the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law, whether or not they oppose torture and support habeas corpus is when they are running for PTA president or city council. Because you never know if someday they will go on to be a state Senator, and from there to the U.S. Congress or the state Governor's office, and all of a sudden, there they are, running for president, and you still don't know whether they believe in protecting your liberties. And it's hard to ask them at that point.

has has brought a small increase in the heat on the GOP. But it will take a huge rise in temperature tonight to satisfy me. I do not think it is going to happen.