"And then we have the President of the United States who won't say he will not pardon somebody who did business with him and might implicate him later on. Where is the outrage in America? Where is the outrage in America? Where has the media gone in America? Where is the outrage in America? So where's the outrage? Where's the outrage? When--when will the voters start to focus? This is serious business. This is serious business--this is about the public trust. Remember the public trust? Well, they never understood the public trust. It was always a game with this White House. It was always a game. How far can you push the envelope? How much can you get away with? What can you do?"

Remind me. Who said those words? Nancy Pelosi? Harry Reid? Hillary Clinton? Bill Clinton? Howard Dean? Barack Obama? Any other guesses?

This will be a short one. I was truly disappointed yesterday when I heard Sen. John Edwards' announcement. I feel sorry for Elizabeth Edwards and the Edwards' family. However, there is a part of me that would have stood up and cheered if Elizabeth Edwards had announced that she was leaving him. Why do politicians keep doing this?

I concern myself with.  Mine, and my partner's.  What other people do with theirs (so long as there is mutual consent), is really of no interest to me.

So, I engage in schadenfreude when the undoings of the Larry Craigs and Elliot Spitzers come to light. Because, you know, it's just so STUPID.

We're in the post Gary Hart era here.

So, why DO they do it?  Follow me below the waist, errrr, fold.

Okay, here's a series of questions that come to mind after watching today's news coverage of the Edwards debacle, and keeping in mind all the crap that's come down the pike in politics in the last 20 years.  Maybe I'm just living in a fantasy world, but I'm getting tired of politicians in general.

21 years age, after having dropped out of law school & gone into debt to be a full time organizer/staffer for him three years before, my candidate Gary Hart was exposed by the Miami Herald & National Enquirer, as a guy who had cheated on his wife & the rest of us.  About a decade later, as a country, we went though the all too fresh partisan impeachment over an episode of sex & lies.  I've seen & lived this story before and my heart really does go out to the hundreds of people who worked so hard for the Edwards Campaign.  My advice is to grieve, cry, live, learn & grow.  Your campaign was not really about John Edwards just as my campaign way back in the 1980's was not about Gary Hart.  

In todays fast paced life we see new examples and names beening applied to individuals and organizations daily. Old definitions are not applicable to todays terminology, and many folks fall behind in the fast paced evolution of our English language. Older examples are how wghat was once "cool" evolved into "rad" or "radical". A 9 that used to be a number to be counted, has since in music been changed to mean a handgun. Promises and commitments made while pursuing elected office were mostly remembered at least for the first couple of years.

Medicine is in some ways been fairly constent in it's terminology as many of the medical terms are based in Latin, an ancient and dead language no longer spoken, even in Catholic Mass. However there appears to be a growing redefining of psychological and in some cases medical terms by our leaders, advisors and pundits. Below, after the fold I present a brief list that I will expand and terms change with updated definitions.

My father has long been fond of saying that human intelligence may not be a “survivable trait.”  The emissions from this weeks “G-8 Summit” of political leaders is pretty good evidence for pessimism.  One the great challenges of our era is to recognize and address the fact that we’re changing the atmosphere of the planet in ways that will make it uninhabitable, if not for the species then at least for civilization.

Unfuckingbelievable.

Three out of five of you are willing to sacrifice your beliefs to elect a politician.

Another one of you is willing to accept a politician for what he is.

What else are you willing to sacrifice? Your career? Your family? Your Constitutional rights?

What else are you willing to accept?

A fundamental discussion has arisen among us, but has actually been present for awhile. Brought to a head by recent actions (Fisa, Clark) by Obama, it has its roots in the conservative movement and in particular George W. Bush.

That discussion is how or whether to politically support a candidate or party who you disagree with on major issues.

For me, that is answered by lines that politicians cross, good lines, and bad.

Follow me after the jump. Which is a kind of line I suppose :).

Why am I such an incurable romantic? Why, oh why, did I give my heart so easily? I should have known. It's happened to me before. I never learn.

My choices are always bad. Liberal politicians. They make you big promises and then let you down. But, oh, they say such sweet and promising things.

How could you Barack. How could you do this. (sob) Please excuse my tears. Sorry for my inability to just suck it up. No stiff upper lip. Not British you know.

Back in the seventies I recall reading a harsh Australian government warning aimed at the Aboriginal population, which at the time was hopelessly mired in chronic alcoholism: "Adapt or Perish!". Although I thought it heartless at the time (since we not only introduced all things boozy to a people who had never tasted alcohol in their previous 60,000 years, their land was also taken from under their feet) it did convey a brutish, unmistakable message of "survivalism or else". That message, regardless of its bluntness, ought to be hammered, no, etched deep into all politicians' consciousness worldwide as we are facing a number of intractable problems, most of them resulting from decades of bad policies fostered on us by inept, possibly corrupt, greedy & non-visionary leaders.

What's more, the writing has been on the wall for quite some time, and as our own bonddad noted today, "the US’ current economic trajectory is unsustainable in the long run". So is the rest of the world. All it takes is a change of behavior.

Bill Clinton had Al Gore in which he ran in 2000 after Clinton's tenure in office ended. VP's usually would run for office after the president is done, which was not true of Dick Cheney. If Obama wants to continue to have a Democrat in the White House for the next 16-20 years, then he has to choose someone who is young as his VP. This means that Biden, Nunn, Clinton, Dodd, Richardson, Webb, and Wes Clark cannot be the VP if Obama wants this. That is because these guys will be too old to have a chance to win.

There's been too much talk lately about the deep (but healing!) divisions the Democratic primary has caused. I'd like to take a moment to step back and talk about the reason why things got that way: we were passionate about someone that inspired us. That's a good thing!

But I wanna know more. Who else inspires you? Who in politics and the media has made you passionate about politics?

Here's my short list (in no particular order, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few):
Bill Moyers
Keith Olbermann
Tony Benn
Dennis Kucinich
George Carlin
Jon Stewart
Arianna Huffington
Barack Obama
Ed Murrow

Update: Just to clarify, I included only people who I have personally seen/heard/read and were inspired by. You need not hold yourself to such strict rules, but that's why there are some obvious, glaring omissions here.

Those are the words of a rarely sung verse of "America the Beautiful." It is my favorite verse –-  since for me, that patriots' dream is even more beautiful than spacious skies and purple mountains'  majesties.

Why is that verse sung so rarely, and why is that verse not the passage that springs first to most Americans' minds when they think about patriotism?

What is patriotism, and what would a "patriotic" President be like?

SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

- Thomas Paine

    Ok, call me crazy but I thought a foreclosure prevention bill is suppose to be designed to help average folks stem off foreclosures. So will someone tell me how a foreclosure prevention bill would contain bail-out money for automakers, airlines, alternative energy producers and other struggling industries? What do these clowns in Washington have to do to prove to the American public where their loyalties lie. Why is it that when average Americans seek help from their government they are treated to: rely on capitalism and the free enterprise system, but when these CEO’s, who get million dollar bonuses whether their companies succeed or not, make bad business decisions it is ok for the government to bail them out. Who says we are capitalist? I guess the poor are, but the rich sure as hell aren’t.

It is surreal to listen to the news media, the pundits on the talking heads shows, and politicians on both sides when they talk about Iraq.  Everybody, and I do mean everybody, is talking in abstracts--how do we draw down the forces, how many years do we stay in Iraq, what's the best way to get out, whose plan is the best, when will we know that we've  achieved "victory," and on and on.  Where is the person who is going to boil this thing down to the important question?  Human sacrifice. Dead people. Wounded people.

Since politicians regularly visit DailyKos.com, I decided today to write a letter to them, expressing just how bizarre the current political situation is.  For the most part, this diary is a link-fest: don't just read the diary itself, check out the links.