This is what is passing for journalism at Newsweek's web site... a whopping "concern troll on steroids" of an article, as their Top Story.
  It is penned by Evan Thomas as an 'open letter' to Obama about the 'serious racial issues' he will be facing and includes a reference to DailyKos... and the excellent in-depth analysis of the how Appalachia has a unique history and mindset in racial sensibilities that have been chronicled here.  Thomas then proceeds to create a laundry list of smarmy ideas to win over white America, including:

Throwing a grand ole Fourth of July barbecue also sends the right message.

  Or, uh, "Be more like McCain?  Is that what you're saying, Mr Thomas?
  But the real headshaker in this article is the creation, by Newsweek, of this "Racial Resentment Index" and their use of it as a tool to analyze polling  data.

  As I was watching Chris Matthews tear Kevin James a new... well, the man's all @sshole to begin with, so it really didn't leave a discernable mark... Tweety got me thinking about the nature of appeasement.  He specifically got me thinking about appeasement in the sense of giving terrorists what they want.  Especially since that rat bastard was shouting so loudly about 9-11 being all Clinton's fault.
  Matthews salient point to James (beside the obvious one that he was clueless) was that there is a distinction between diplomacy and appeasement.  Others have diaried about many other important factors here, from the Bush administration's actual diplomatic contacts with our enemies, to Israel's actual diplomatic contacts with its enemies, to Bush's family's alleged collusion with the real Nazis.  But I do not recall anything said about the catalytic event that brought the modern terroristic attack to its unholy birth.  For that, we have to return to the bygone era of Saint President Reagan, when an unnamed group, possibly the nascent Hezbollah, chased the US out of Beirut, Lebanon with two deadly suicide bombs.

  It's almost noon on Saturday...  and I sit here thinking how Barack Obama threw down a mighty big gauntlet in the Texas primary debate with Hillary.  It was not over health care, who'll be at the starting line first, or any of the other intra-party issues.  This time, Barack took level aim and fired a shot directly over the military's bow.  And the whole world is holding its breath to see what happens.  
  Holding their breath, of course, in a metaphorical sense.  Actually pundits are blowing hard to skew the direction this one will fall in their favor.  There is going to be a long and bitter battle over this: it goes to the heart of what the military's purpose is in a broad societal sense, and it could be the kind of litmus test the conservatives have been trying to cook up to smear Obama.  Most importantly, the top brass in the Pentagon are putting on their dress uniforms, girding for battle, and riding their horses into the fray.
 

  Even though my primary vote might actually count this year.  I live in Pennsylvania.  We won't be voting until the 22nd of April.  This year, it might actually come down to us... so be nice to me!  I honestly can see myself voting for either candidate.  But it'll probably be

  I was perusing the rescued diaries when I came across a quote from G W in GenWhy's excellent diary :

Bush said "all options are on the table" to protect U.S. ships. He said the Iranian boats "were very provocative and it was a dangerous gesture on their part. ... And they know our position, and that is: There will be serious consequences if they attack our ships, pure and simple. And my advice to them is don't do it."

 It made me wonder about the moral and/or hypocritical nature of such statements.  I suppose the flip side would be "unconditional surrender," when a conquering force claims the wisdom, right, and need to dispose of an opposing force as it sees fit to restore civil, humane, and ethical order to a society.  Perhaps that is why I've had a nagging fear of "shock and awe" warfare.  Doesn't the ability to dispose of a government without diplomatic opposition efface the need to create a civil, humane, and ethical framework to support society after the tanks roll in?
 G W is really very fond of blanket statements that leave all options open.  So I want to pose one simple question...

 Ths will be a short diary... I'm playing hooky this morning.  Much like our Democratic leadership.  My dereliction of duty is simply to explore the questions of where the unitary executive is burying the bodies, and who are they enjoining to dig the graves?
 Were I Dick Cheney, I would be pondering along these lines.  How far off is the next presidential election?  What kind of President will it be?  How about Congress... will it turn a deeper, madder shade of blue?  The midterms showed that Karl could not bluff his way with America ad infinitum (there went the permanent majority!).  So, what to do with 6 years of activities that might be something less than legal when the law dogs might sweep into town?  Is the Court sufficiently bullet-proofed?
  Who can I turn to in this time of need and uncertainty?

 There are two ways to influence decisions, right?  Besides giving advice...   The carrot and the stick.  Our government needs to use both here and abroad to further our goals and purposes.  The problem is that Bush and Cheney are currently wrecking our capabilities in both areas.  We have a budget and a military that are in a two-way stampede to being way, way waaaayyyyyy overextended.
  Before you wrinkle your brow and say, "Yeah, duh!" consider this: rather than collateral damage, this may be the intentional process of the Bush White House.  What, after all, would further the Neoconservative dream further than a broken, drifting Washington, DC in the midst of an increasingly hostile world... with the citizens willing to sign our tax paying souls over in blood to any major corporation willing to rake us over the coals.  We're all so on-the-ropes from the difficulties of the past 6 years it's been impossible to muster the focus to stop the hemmorhaging, especially since its principal architects are committed to it, with all the powers of the Executive Branch behind them.
  Forget drowning the government in the bathtub when they're done with it.  It'll probably commit suicide in its own tears.

    Jim Zumbo is in big trouble.  An avid outdoorsman, hunter, and 40 year member of the NRA, he recently had the misfortune of posting against the use of assault weapons by the hunting community, or their use in general.  The wording of his original post shows a man reacting to the seeming unsports-person-like conduct of varmint hunters using assault weapons against prarie dogs.  He also emanates a pathos concerning the militarization of politics versus the hunter's ethic.
  This may seem like a curiosity occuring within the hunting/gun ownership rights community, but it is generating a large wave that will inform the debate for years.  Jim should represent the true spirit of gun owners in this country, but he is being tarred and feathered by them and run out of town on a rail.
The NRA's 'lobbying arm':

The ensuing wave of grassroots response in support of the Second Amendment is a clear indication that America’s gun owners will act swiftly and decisively to counter falsehoods or misrepresentations perpetuated by any member of the media – whether it is one of the major networks or a fellow gun owner.

 I am not one given to warrantless flights of fancy, and I deeply distrust analysis that insists on finding hidden motives behind major tragedies and catastrophes.. but our ongoing debacle in the Middle East won't let my mind be.  So I'm sitting down to put down a few thoughts and musings because I wonder if anyone here has any feedback on the direction my thoughts are taking.
  First a few random thoughts have been sloshing around in my head.   I believe the general consensus is that Bushco were determined to attack in Iraq from day 1 of their administration.  We know they had secret meetings on energy policy that they fought tooth and nail to keep secret.  We know they leapt at the chance to invade Iraq after 9-11, that they protected the oil infrastructure and allowed the rest of the country to slide into chaos.  This is usually ascribed to incompetence and lack of planning.
  What if everything in Iraq so far has gone according to plan?  
 

  With a showdown looming between the Bush Administration and the newly minted Democratic-led Congress over policy in Iraq, I forward a simple idea.  The House should hold hearings to draw together the best ideas from elected officials, focus groups, and the military, and then budget accordingly.  There should be a signing-statement-proof statement included that there is no other money available for operations in Iraq, and then let Bush go out and put his case to the people, who can choose which course is best.  Too simple?  Of questionable legality?  All good questions.  I say a clear approach is best, and hopefuly it will lead to more and more clarity.

   Fall is beautiful in Pennsylvania.  The warm autumn colors belie the crispness in the air, you can find fresh apple cider at roadside stands, and frost and woodsmoke portend the coming bitter weather and short days.  The old diesel truck is a little louder when it turns over and it lets off some smoke as it warms up.  Some day I'll trade it in on a hybrid that burns biodiesel... As the seasons change, life turns inward and it's good to head home to get inside where it's warm and comfortable with our dogs and my wife and a little boy about to turn one year old.

  The Bush White House, with its draconian stance on stem cell research is accomplishing something that hasn't gotten a lot of discussion.  They are not merely kowtowing to a special interest and allowing a religious perspective to direct public policy; nor are they simply holding back the progress of scientific and medical research.  They are handcuffing America's medical researchers in the pursuit of technological advances and patents that will define the next technological revolution.
 

  Do you ever wonder how America was transformed from the crushed economy of the 1930's to the baby-booming suburban frontierists of the post WWII era?  I know I do.  I'm no economist, but it is sobering to wonder and reflect on where we're heading with this current round of WWTerror defecit spending.  Are there any similarities to the amazing post WWII prosperity and the current twin spectres of military involvement and enormous national debt?  

  I remember where I was when I stopped being afraid of "foreigners" in this post 9-11 world.  It was in a Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru.  It's maddening to write those sentences, they seem to mock and condemn me as a redneck half-wit. That's probably only half true.  But this isn't about intellectual understanding.  It's about who I am, and how I feel in this world around me.  

  Well, NATO is taking over the last vestiges of American control of the multinational forces in Afghanistan.  I guess this frees the White House and the Pentagon to to focus on Iraq, the "main front in the War on Terror."  I'm not the best person on the nuts and bolts of exactly what has been happening over there, but the intensive al Queda activities in Iraq are clearly in addition to Afghanistan's situation and almost exclusively due to our presence there.  Afghanistan, however, is the movement's home turf and it's a very dangerous approach to relegate operations there to an international skeleton crew barely capable of maintaining the peace.

    more:    

   This is quoted from MSNBC's "Foley e-mails an open secret in D.C.?"

  "The House leaders said it is their duty to ensure House pages are safe. They said they are creating a toll-free hot line for pages and their families to call to confidentially report any incidents, and will consider adopting new rules on communications between lawmakers and pages."
   Who is the confidentiality designed to protect?  Surely they're planning to make whatever panel or committee reviewing this problem at least bipartisan, if not independent?
    Reporting other instances of abuse directly to those most interested in squelching them is depraved nonsense.  They've abdicated their responsibility, they can't just take it back so they can abuse it and us some more.

  Everybody thinks they are basically right, that's human nature.  Everyone is a centrist within their own world view... that's just common sense.  There's supposedly a bell curve that describes us also.  Right or left, conservative or liberal, on all those continuums, most of us fall close to the middle.  That old, fabled "middle of the road" is supposed to be a place of comfort.  You know it's safe, you know how to get where you need to go, you have your regular job and you can raise your 2.5 kids there.  Reform was not supposed to ever challenge that comfort or safety, but to expand that privelege and freedom to a greater number of people.     (more below)

   Nationalism has been a key player in some of history's big international "conflicts," and I'd have to say that Bush & Co's real legacy to the future may just be an exponential heightening of nationalist sentiment.  Now, to be sure, any man who is willing to stroll hand-in-hand with a Saudi prince is hardly an old-school "batten down the hatches" style isolationist.  No, they're more of the "insulation breeds power" types, feeding the fires in much the way current feeds an electrical capacitor.