So Help Me

You may have heard about the atheist who, for the third time filed a publicity-seeking lawsuit to remove 'So help me God' from the end of the Presidential oath of office, onto which it is traditionally tacked. I'm very much in favor of secular government and church-state separation, but I don't think this lawsuit is doing the cause any favors.

I'm no lawyer, but here's why I think the suit doesn't make sense:

- The words 'so help me God' aren't officially in the oath of office, so it's difficult to imagine a situation where Obama would face legal difficulties over not saying them.

- But it's true that having the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court recite them, and then declining to recite them back is a bit awkward.

- However, there's no rule that it HAS to be the Chief Justice. Calvin Coolidge was sworn in by his father, whose only qualification was that he was a Notary Public. No one batted an eye at that, and anyone can become a notary public. Therefore, anyone can administer the oath. I'd be happy to do it, and would certainly make myself available.

- SO, there's no basis for exercising what amounts to prior restraint in order to prohibit John Roberts from saying 'so help me God'; Barack Obama can request that Roberts say or not say the words; if Roberts feels constrained to do it one way or the other, Obama can get, say, Gore Vidal.

These sort of fights to resecularize government symbols and ceremonies are enough of an uphill battle, without this sort of shaky legal basis. Why doesn't Michael Newdow, after filing this same suit three times in a row, come to share my conclusion? 

Election Returns Open Thread -- OBAMA WINS!

Holy crap, CNN has a holodeck!

Chat in the comments. Things are looking good so far.

UPDATE: Networks call it for Obama! Woo!

New Ideas

Shorter New York Times

Just about everything John McCain said about Obama in today's speech was a lie. Worth reading; it's a shockingly long list. Does McCain think he's going to get away with this? Is he?

Preemptive buzzkill

Because of the fact that Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Fannie, Freddie, and a whole bunch of other companies are crashing and burning, it may happen that fewer students go directly into consulting or i-banking. If this happens, it will not mean that a bunch of students felt idealistic and turned down the big bucks to go fight AIDS or something. It'll mean they couldn't get jobs.

So please, future commencement speakers, just don't mention it. 

Oh John..

This is the source of the Clark kerfuffle?

Apparently this quote is what has disqualified Wesley Clark from consideration as Vice President: " I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president."

Oh heavens! How dare Clark criticize McCain, question his military qualifications? It's a pretty tough criticism, but I think all the indignity is ridiculous, because it's a true statemen.

I like FiveThirtyEight.com's argument for Wes Clark:

A month ago, picking Wesley Clark would have seemed like a fairly safe choice -- someone who allows you to check the "foreign policy" and "liked by Clinton supporters" boxes. It might have seemed, in other words, like a pander. But because of the Face the Nation dust-up, all of the sudden it would send a very different message. It would say: we're going to stand our ground, we're not going to be so worried about being politically correct, and we're taking it right to you. Isn't that a fairly optimal message for Obama to send out given the present narrative?

McCain can only get so much mileage out of Clark's straight-ahead attacks on his military qualifications, and Clark is an effective spokesman, as he's proven again and again on cable.

Here's an example:

Visit ObamaClark.com if you'd like to sign the petition.

Republicans Vote Against Motherhood (Apple Pie Next on Agenda)

This is just too good. The Republicans, led by the Congressman I have the privilege of voting against every two years, Todd Tiahrt, voted against mothers. Not only that, they also voted for it before they voted against it:

It was already shaping up to be a difficult year for congressional Republicans. Now, on the cusp of Mother's Day, comes this: A majority of the House GOP has voted against motherhood.

On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, "Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day," when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.

"Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote," he announced.

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who has two young daughters, moved to table Tiahrt's request, setting up a revote. This time, 178 Republicans cast their votes against mothers.

It has long been the custom to compare a popular piece of legislation to motherhood and apple pie. Evidently, that is no longer the standard.

Things are getting desperate down there in the Republican caucus, it seems, because people are losing it. And if voting against Mother's Day to stall for time wasn't enough, this is perhaps even more pathetic:

...after one of the motions to adjourn, 61 members lined up to change their votes, one by one. Forty-six went from aye to no, while 15 changed from no to aye. The maneuver ate up 28 minutes in all -- and caused an eruption by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who accused the minority of a "filibuster by vote changing." 

Right now this sort of thing is an annoyance, sure, but in the long run it's a recipe for self-destruction. Todd Tiahrt faces a credible opponent in the 2008 election (one who I'll probably volunteer for this summer), and I don't think that this vote is going to help him any--not just the vote in itself, but the whole debacle gives Democrats an incredibly useful way to frame Republican obstructionism. 

Ashcroft is guilty of authorizing torture, and he knows it

I would've posted this in the links side-bar, but I think it's an absolute "Must-Read". A couple of students got the chance to ask Ashcroft some questions, and they did, to put it mildly, a much better job than the media's been doing.

ME: I'm sorry, I was under the impression that we still use the method of putting a cloth over someone's face and pouring water down their throat...

ASHCROFT: (interrupting, red-faced, shouting) Pouring! Pouring! Did you hear what she said? "Putting a cloth over someone's face and pouring water on them." That's not what you said before! Read that again, what you said before!

ME: Sir, other reports of the time say...

ASHCROFT: (shouting) Read what you said before! (cries of "Answer her fucking question!" from the audience) Read it!

ME: (firmly) Mr. Ashcroft, please answer the question.

ASHCROFT: (shouting) Read it back!

ME: "The victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach."

ASHCROFT: (shouting) You hear that? You hear it? "Forced!" If you can't tell the difference between forcing and pouring...does this college have an anatomy class? If you can't tell the difference between forcing and pouring...

ME: (firmly and loudly) Mr. Ashcroft, do you believe that Yukio Asano's sentence was unjust? Answer the question. (pause)

ASHCROFT: (more restrained) It's not a fair question; there's no comparison. Next question! (loud chorus of boos from the audience)

He's guilty and he knows it. Maybe some of these other cretins (Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, etcetera; and probably Bush) don't, but Ashcroft realizes it; reportedly he said "History will not judge us kindly." But of course that doesn't matter, he's as guilty as the rest of the lot. We need to get a commitment out of Barack Obama to pursue prosecution of these people, or it'll poison international relations and domestic discourse for decades to come. Read the full post; there's much more where the above came from...

By the way, I'll have an article on torture in tomorrow's Independent; I'll post the link when it's put up on the site. 

Heh Heh

This from the euphoniously monickered Rabbit Hussein Smorgasboard, over at TPM Cafe:

Fox and NBC are both calling it for Hillary.  

As a result, Obama will go into the remaining primaries with an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates, a strong lead in the popular vote, and a huge advantage in fundraising ability.

I had hoped that Obama could pull off a win here, and go into the remaining primaries with an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates, a strong lead in the popular vote, and a huge advantage in fundraising ability.  

I'm still holding out some hope that the results will be close enough that Obama will go into the remaining primaries with an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates, a strong lead in the popular vote, and a huge advantage in fundraising ability.  

I think that if Hillary wins by less than ten points then Obama will go into the remaining primaries with an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates, a strong lead in the popular vote, and a huge advantage in fundraising ability.

But if Hillary wins by more than ten points, then Obama go into the remaining primaries with an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates, a strong lead in the popular vote, and a huge advantage in fundraising ability.

It's white-knuckle time to be sure.

Bad news for Hillary from the NY Times

The New York Times, which endorsed Hillary but has since shown signs of ambivalence, finally seems to have turned against her:

 It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.

If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction. Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race. It is true that Senator Barack Obama outspent her 2-to-1. But Mrs. Clinton and her advisers should mainly blame themselves, because, as the political operatives say, they went heavily negative and ended up squandering a good part of what was once a 20-point lead.

It looks like Clinton will take PA by 8 or 9 points--just about what we expected, and not enough to dislodge Obama from the lead. And this is about as far as the Times can go in the direction of telling their endorsed candidate to call it quits, it seems to me:

 It is getting to be time for the superdelegates to do what the Democrats had in mind when they created superdelegates: settle a bloody race that cannot be won at the ballot box. Mrs. Clinton once had a big lead among the party elders, but has been steadily losing it, in large part because of her negative campaign. If she is ever to have a hope of persuading these most loyal of Democrats to come back to her side, let alone win over the larger body of voters, she has to call off the dogs.

Losing the NYT Opinion page won't hurt her with voters directly--but it could put off big donors and super delegates.

Just to follow up on Markus's crystal ball theme

From Ben Smith:

Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee at the Park Hyatt in Philadelphia tells reporters:

"There's beginning to be a subtle shift of psychology of a lot of the uncommitted supers," Elleithee said. "[They] are beginning to wonder why Obama has been unable to win this thing despite all the advantages he has," Elleithee said.

"There's a lot of questions that are beginning to surface about him," he said, while superdelegates are learning that "every time she's got her back up against the wall, she delivers."

I can't read this without picturing Mr. Eileithee sitting on the bed in his hotel room, holding his temples, closing his eyes and swaying back and forth. How is Mo supposed to know what this groups subtle psychology is up to?

Debate Live Blog Thread

In the comments, feel free to contribute.

UPDATE: This about sums up my opinion of the debate (h/t Attytood):

Tee-hee

New York Times op-ed titled "Stay in it to Win It" the deck? "Calls for Hillary Clinton to concede now, before the race is lost, are premature."

The author?

Bob Shrum. Tee-hee.

Kristol's latest

From Kristol's NY Times column:

"Both have taken positions appropriate for the Democratic primaries — for a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq, against making it easier for telecommunications companies to cooperate with the government in spying on terrorists, for tax hikes and against a ban on partial-birth abortion — that should cause difficulties in a general election."

The--let me rephrase Kristol's formulation--"making it more difficult for telecom companies to get away with breaking the law" position that Obama and Clinton are taking is unlikely to hurt them in the general. Bill Foster just won Dennis Hastert's speech in a special election, in a pretty red district, and he did so while saying the following:

"The President and his allies in Congress are playing politics with national security, and that’s wrong. Nobody is above the law and telecom companies who engaged in illegal surveillance should be held accountable, not given retroactive immunity. I flatly oppose giving these companies an out for cooperating with Alberto Gonzalez on short-circuiting the FISA courts and the rule of law."

Was that so difficult? Even if people don't fully understand the issues in play here, it's easy to convince voters that the Republicans are full of crap on this if you just make the case. At this point it's easiest just to make a prima facie assumption that Republicans are lying until proven otherwise.

Oh, and by the way, Kristol ends his column in this way:

"But whomever he picks, and whatever issues he emphasizes, McCain should keep following Danton’s injunction: “Il faut de l’audace, encore de l’audace, toujours de l’audace.”

Pompous much?