In the wake of Bill Kristol's "no more tears" gentle lathering of Sarah Palin this week ("The Wright Stuff," viewable here), it seems clear that the New York Times and other leading newspapers are being manipulated by political opportunists.

Palin sniffs at the Times in her stump speeches, sparking mass mockery of a leading newspaper for refusing to political propaganda along, unfiltered. Kristol, representing the hated Times, then passes along, unfiltered, Palin's denunciations of leading newspapers.

I suppose Spiro Agnew would be an MSM personality today if he were still with us. Instead that job falls to Kristol, Karl Rove, Michael Gerson and others. They now happily burnish their own credentials at respected publications, having spent years dividing our nation by condemning the veracity of these same publications. Kristol in particular benefits from the Times' brand while trying to destroy that same brand.

This parasitic arrangement will neither mollify political extremists nor advance the integrity of journalism.

In the first vote for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks, was one of the San Fernando Valley delegation's three holdouts.*

During a House floor speech on Tuesday, Oct. 2, which can be seen in the YouTube video above (found by me at BoingBoing), Sherman criticizes the way the bailout bill was sold to legislators. Specifically, he points to threats that the country would fall under martial law without the bill being passed. I'm not sure who was telling members of Congress that the Dow would drop thousands of points per day, and that martial law would be imposed, but he says that somebody was using these kind of threats to get lawmakers in line.

Here are Sherman's remarks:

"The only way they can pass this bill is by creating and sustaining a panic atmosphere. That atmosphere is not justified.

"Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill, on Monday that the sky would fall, the market would drop 2,000 or 3,000 points the first day, another couple thousand the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no.

"That's what I call fear-mongering — unjustified, proven wrong. We've got a week, we've got two weeks to write a good bill. The only way to write, to pass a bad bill — keep the panic pressure on."

When the powers that be have to threaten the imposition of martial law, it makes the timeworn tradition of using earmarks to sweeten a bill and earn it votes look like the most civilized thing in the world.

In other words, I congratulate Rep. Sherman for hanging tough on this one. His formation of a self-described "skeptics caucus" and heightened media presence could signal his transformation from anonymous Valley congressman to perennial cable-news guest.

I first met Sherman many years ago when, as a member of the state Board of Equalization, he was fighting the snack tax. I always knew he had a little showboat in him, despite his accountant demeanor. This last vote won't endear him to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco. But it seems that he's lived down the JDate incident of 2005.

So, when it comes to the legislative aftermath of the mortgage-banking crisis, how big a role do you think Rep. Sherman will have?

* In the original vote, Reps. Howard Berman, D-Van Nuys, Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, Howard McKeon, R-Santa Clarita voted yes; Sherman, Elton Gallegly, R-Thousand Oaks and Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena voted no. On Friday, Oct. 3's second vote, Schiff voted yes, leaving Sherman and Gallegly as the area's two congressmen who voted no.

Gail-Tzipporah makes the following point:

... [I]f Charlie Sheen were running at this point, he would probably get some votes as well... Either way, Obama has already won. He has broken certain barriers and now sits on the holy order of sainthood.

The funny thing is that many diehard Republicans are now sounding like Dems have sounded for years, "blaming the voter." David Frum here notes how Dems have historically blamed the voter for bad taste rather than blaming their candidates or their policies. He hasn't yet recognized that we have now done a 180.

It reminds me of how many diehard college football fans in "hotspots" like Happy Valley or Lincoln used to mock USC fans for leaving games early or for booing their team. That happened during USC's bad times in the '80s and '90s. "Typical LA weenies," they said. "Where's their loyalty?"

Then USC became strong again, and the other teams fortunes' began to suffer. Yes, the fans in those supposed strongholds began booing and leaving early.

In the same way, Republicans are now booing the American population, and heading for the exits.

And it will get worse in coming years, as the civil war between the religious right and the small-government libertarians begins to escalate.

And I say this, as I always love to point out, as a registered Republican. A "Maverick" Republican.

Point well taken, Rob, but it is not Obama the man I am concerned about, but Obama the politician.

To help clarify thinga at least in my own mind, I've come up with a list of his plusses and minuses.

Plusses:

Nice dresser (Hey, what can I say? Most women are going to notice.)
Excellent Speaker
Uses the parallel structure well
Nice economic plan

Minuses:

Liberal
Bobbing Adam's apple (Sorry, but most women are going to notice that, too.)
Hangs out with the wrong crowd
Could be influenced by them as well.
Wants to send everyone and his cousin to college

It's probably going to be the lesser of two evils for most people, and if Charlie Sheen were running at this point, he would probably get some votes as well. For me it is not about the color of a candidate's skin but about the political action plan. Either way, Obama has already won. He has broken certain barriers and now sits in on the holy order of sainthood.

When I was a student at USC a young medical student, John Betinis, ran for student body president on the platform of eliminating student government. This being the 60s we were accustomed to the Zen contradictions of policy. We burned villages in order to save them, so why not lead student government into oblivion? John campaigned on how wasteful the student government was, how much it raised our fees and misspent our money and how, politically, it was a sham, a farce and a mockery. It had no real power and created only the illusion that the students had a say in the governance of the university. All this was, of course, true.

As I was reviewing this perverse impulse to become the leader of an institution that you say you want to shrink, if not eliminate, I naturally thought of Republicans. The Republican platform has been and still is mired in the same contradiction and irony. And, no, I'm not talking specifically about the present candidates. It's a tradition. There is no acknowledged sense of the cognitive dissonance of running to be the leader of an institution that one holds in low regard. Government, they keep telling us, is the problem and not the solution.

This has been the mantra from Ronald Reagan to George W, from McCain to Palin--and while we're at it, throw in Bob Barr, Phil Gramm and the whole "deregulate and loose the genius of American enterprise" gang. As Dr. Phil rhetorically asks, "So, how's that work'n for ya?" At the moment, not that well.

The more pressing question for all of us is how's this working politically in this season of sleaze and anxiety? Also, not so well. Government got out of the way of the energy business and the genius of American ingenuity created ENRON that manipulated markets, inflated prices, created nothing and lost fortunes. They got out of the way of the airline industry and destroyed competition, while reducing routes and almost eliminating direct trips--and they bankrupted major carriers. They got out of the way of the banking and finance industry--and I don't need to review the mess that unbridled greed and unregulated markets are creating both home and abroad.

They wanted government to get out of the way of Social Security and get people to put their retirement in the stock market. Hmmm. Wonder how far behind they'd be now, had that dream been implemented? McCain wants to do with healthcare what they did for the finance markets and let capitalism and the self-regulating market create healthcare programs--and not the evil, inefficient government. Again without any sense of irony, the government provided for McCain's healthcare from birth, as the child of a military officer, to the present as a senator. Yes, with the exception of his years in captivity.

Under conservative, smaller government, fiscal responsibility Republicans from Reagan to George W, we have grown both government and deficits in numbers truly unprecedented--whether you calculate the numbers on present dollars or on constant dollars. They have done virtually everything they have campaigned against. And they are still campaigning against their own record. How else can "change" be their theme?

Okay, that's a rhetorical question. Change can be their theme because they're changing our dreams into nightmares, changing our IRAs into if not worthless pieces of paper, certainly pieces of paper that are worth less. They are changing our reputation as a nation into ashes and finally leaving us as individuals asking for spare change.

Can this running against their record and against the institution they disparage possibly work for them? Well, it is chastening when I remember that John Betinis won the election on his promise to eliminate student government. Naturally, he did not eliminate it. He grew it. La plus ca change.

In this Reuters article, it's the Brits who call for negotiations with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and it's the Taliban that rejects it.

Refusing to negotiate with the enemy sure sounds patriotic when Bush or McCain boastfully articulate it, but it sure seems like a petty and irrational principle when the enemy articulates it.

In the end, I've found that hawks are pretty much the same, in whichever country you find them. They simply employ their hawkishness based on the accident of where they were born and what they were brought up to love and hate.

Oh, believe me, I'd rather live under Bush's hawkishness than Mullah Omar's. Bush's hawkishness is the lesser of two evils; but I don't pretend that Bush's hawkishness is somehow the greatest virtue found in humanity. As increasing numbers of Americans agree with me, we're seeing the Palins of the world search frantically for new ways to demonize would-be peacemakers.

The Tamil Tigers, a separatist group in Sri Lanka, remind us here that not all suicide bombers are Muslim. As some savvy terrorism experts have noted, suicide bombs tend to be the domain of people protesting an occupation. That's why Palestinians tend to be suiciders but not Iranians, though the latter are even more religious than the former.

Interestingly, the U.S. response involved advice that we would do well to heed ourselves:

The United States condemned Monday's attack, but encouraged the government to find a political solution. "Only a political solution, not further violence, can provide a way forward to ending the country's deadly conflict," the U.S. Embassy said in a statement.

Imagine if we took that more seriously throughout the Mideast and South Asia, rather than posturing about how "talking to enemies" would undercut us.

How fascinating to see our clear-headedness when we are not the ones immediately under threat.

When I stand trembling before G-d on Erev Yom Kippur, as I judge myself and submit to a higher judgment, what will the criteria of judgment be? What will count for me and against me? Which are more important my sins of commission or omission? I am pretty confident that the decree of either heaven or self will not be based primarily on the company I've kept.

Yet this seems to be an important issue during this increasingly nasty presidential campaign. Republicans want to judge Obama by his former minister and a former radical. Democrats want to judge McCain on his lobbyist friends and the Keating Five.
If I apply this standard to my self, I quake indeed. I will confess to you, Dear Reader, my own sins of friendships and social intercourse. Let me know what you think before I have to share this with G-d.

I had lunch with the Rev Jesse Jackson. But I also had dinner with Ehud Olmert. I was friends with Richard Perle of the Reagan Administration and the Carlyle Group. Somewhere there is a picture of me with OJ--our arms on each other shoulders. I was president of a large fundraising organization that supports Israel, and I was buddies with Richard Dreyfus who attended a Peace Now rally 18 years ago. A good friend from USC was indicted in Water Gate.

While in the Peace Corps in Tunisia, I studied Islam with the Imam of Nabeul, and I'm afraid that some of my former students may have turned into radical Islamists. In Berkeley in the 60s I knew people who did lots of drugs and plotted the overthrow of the government--but were mostly too stoned to get up off their beanbag chairs or roll out of their waterbeds to do any harm. I studied at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley with an Episcopal priest who was part of the G-d is dead movement, I hang with a rabbi who said to an atheist that he probably didn't believe in the same G-d the atheist didn't believe in.

In my own family I have to live with the fact that one uncle (at least) was a card-carrying communist, my mother was married to an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for congress and a cousin was married to a Chinese communist-- a real one and not an American of Chinese origins who was a communist, but a member of Mao's government. Another cousin is married to a Muslim. More critically, I must also confess that I have a dear cousin or two who will vote the Republican party-line.

Oh G-d, please forgive me my sins of association and my inability to lead all to the straight path. Please look kindly upon me for not overly judging others. Oh whoops, that's from the Christian Scriptures. It's okay if I reference that, isn't it? Actually, if I remember correctly didn't Jesus hang out with sinners, with tax collectors and publicans? (Note: Publican is not a shortened form of Republican. It refers to people who hang out in pubs) I'm sure this was done with Your approval. I seek the same. Let me be judged by my actions and inaction, by my sins and not those of others. Most of all give me the strength during this coming month of sleight of hand, misdirection and mudslinging to believe, to believe in democracy, the wisdom of the people and the fairness of our elections.

Great to see Gail-Tzipporah get on board with a fascinating post today. I agree that it's time for the GOP to back away from how Obama may feel about radical movements that were active during his childhood.

I point to this fascinating Haaretz column, though, for the sort of perspective we often can only get from our friends who watch us from a distance.

Gail-Tzipporah's questions for Obama are perfectly fair. But I wonder if her fellow Republicans can digest honest answers in the proper spirit. Disdain for Obama will soon exceed Clinton-rage. It already may have, frankly. As Haaretz columnist Bradley Burston sarcastically puts it:

1. Vote against Obama because you fear and loathe Muslims

2. Vote against Obama because you fear and loathe Arabs.

3. Vote against Obama because you've had all you can take of affirmative action, immigrants, names which defy pronunciation, pluralism, and bend-over-backwards tolerance.

4. Vote against Obama because liberal Democrats are hypocritical wimps, not real Christians, and, in fact, closet gays - and deserve to be punished.

5. Vote against Obama because the New York media and Hollywood deserve to be exposed and disgraced.

6.Vote against Obama because in this day and age in America, white people get the short end of the stick.

7. Vote against Obama because the one group facing the worst discrimination is the community of believing Christian Republicans.

8. Vote against Obama because blacks hate whites.

9. Vote against Obama because even though Jews once helped blacks, blacks hate Jews.

10. Vote against Obama because the Left hates America. Because liberals are ruining America's core institutions, schools, the military, the economy.

I know, this will seem to be an unfair and chilling slam of anyone who dares question "The One." Then again, the sorts of insinuations being made about Obama are chilling in and of themselves.

Obama, as a black man, has been sensitive to the underdog. Some of his friends and associates are terribly angry about what has happened to some of our world's underdogs.

The GOP exploits this anger as a wedge issue, in order to comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted. Obama is supposed to cut off all contact with angry people, and his willingness to be friends with an angry person is seen as a secret agenda that binds them all.

Obama may need to do a better job of explaining the nature of his relationships with them, but he does not need to apologize for being a person who's trying to bring different groups together -- even the angry ones. (And let's face it, no one is angrier today than neoconservatives who can never bring themselves to admit the hardships they've caused for millions of innocents; and I don't see McCain cutting all of them off...)

Hello, Lord:

It's me. I'm sure you already know, but I am now a minority. Yes, I am a Republican, but I've come to you to ask you to plant some things in my fellow Republicans' noggins to lead us to greener pastures and so no one will be afraid of walking through any valleys.

First, when they talk about the economy and our hourly bread, make sure they let people know that the whole economic mess started when Bill Clinton deregulated the banks in 1993. Clamp their mouths shut or at the very least send down a lightning bolt when they bring up things that happened when Obama was only eight years old. Make anything before 1970 verboten.

Instead, have them ask him why he voted to excuse gang members from the death penalty in 2001 if they killed someone to help their gang, or why he voted against allowing people to use unregistered handguns in their home to ward off intruders in 2004. Plant it in their cerebellums to ask Barack Obama about his friendship with pro-Palestinian activist, Rashid Khalidi or Reverend Wright. He may have said he didn't know what the reverend's philosophies were, but after twenty years of friendship, they must have talked about more than the aluminum siding and sod. I myself wasn't there, but I think you were.

And while we're at it, help them come up with an economic plan that is not only going to benefit their pals and cronies. I know it's slim pickings this time around, but most of all, give us someone who's going to improve this country all the way around, not just give speeches that would make a hardened criminal cry.

Thank you, amen and over and out.