Ms. Clinton--

I'm hoping you can do me a favor within the next couple of days. You have it within your power, in a unique kind of way.

I want you to cause me to lose my job.  

Please?

So, from the other room I hear my 6 year old and my 9 year old having some kind of discussion. These words float from the mouth of my youngest, who is in kindergarten:

"George Bush is a big fat liar. He lied."

OK, I agree. But I'm kind of curious to know a little more about my youngest child's take on geopolitics and the nature of presidential mendacity.

So, I ask him to come over and tell me what he knows.

His explanation below the fold.

So my preacher, as a matter of course, asks our congregation to pray for our leaders. It's not that I go to a conservative church--quite the opposite. Our preacher rails against the war from the pulpit. He critiques the administration's response to poverty, social welfare, etc. But he always asks us to pray for our leaders.

I've been pondering that, and have settled on my prayer. Here is it:

Dear God:

What the fuck?

I know it's alot to digest in one day, but during my morning spin through the news, I came across the following items that point to more ways in which John McCain is going to show his maverick colors.

This comes on the heels of news that McCain intends to use the free media to get his message across. Which, as we know, nobody's ever done before.

Just a warning, the transcriptions were hurried, because I wanted to get this news out. Apologies for the minor errors in copying.

So, a few weeks ago I had an open thread on "What is Liberalism?"

This diary gives us a chance to think about and discuss the other side of the coin.

Yesterday I read a column by Jonathan Chait at the New Republic. I sometimes amble over that way, curious to know what the dunderheads are crowing about. Every once in a while there's an acorn.

And sometimes there's a real jewel. Yesterday was one of the beauties. Chait, in defining the difference between liberalism and conservatives, hit this one out of the park. I couldn't agree more with his opinion on liberalism. Except it's not a weakness, it's a strength.

More below the fold.

So, tonight I got a call from a pollster. My wife rolls her eyes, because I love it when pollsters call.

I love to give my opinion, and I love the process by which the opinions of ordinary folks like me "go national," as it were.

Boy was I horrified by this pollster.

More below the fold

OK, so the numbers are out for fundraising for March.

As expected, Obama raised more than Clinton did for the month. Many had predicted that.

But did anyone expect the numbers to be quite so lopsided?

Below

I wrote a diary yesterday on a WaPo article about "accusations" that Barack Obama is a liberal.

The diary generated some very interesting [to several of us] discussion on exactly what was the meaning of liberalism. As a historian I find the classical roots of modern liberalism interesting, and several other people chimed in.

I learned alot.

One thing that came out of the discussion was the idea that maybe an open thread on liberalism might generate some light.

Today the Washington Post has a story on the front page of the online post with the title of, when I checked it at 5:30am CST, "Obama Tagged With the L-Word." The front page title immediately piqued my interest. "Obama's a lesbian? He's a Lilliputian? A Liger (pretty much the coolest animal)?" I had to find out.

I mention the time along with the title because the Post Online has a bizarre habit of using a rotating set of title online in order, I suppose, to get people to click on the story more than once. In this case, though, the front-page title more accurately reflected the tone of the piece.

Anyway, once I got inside, it turned out that the was a more benign "In Obama's New Message, Some Foes See Old Liberalism."

Stop the presses folks, Obama's a liberal. The Washington Post has the story.

More below the fold.

One of the more bizarre arguments to come out of the supposedly conservative, supposedly Republican Bush administration was the line that and international court had the power to, through BushCo, command a US state court to reopen a death penalty case.

SCOTUS begs to differ.

More below the fold . . .

OK, so, in the next week I will have the chance to meet with Senator John Warner on business related to my profession. My profession is not related at all to international politics or anything broadly political. My profession has nothing to do with that.

Still and all . . . .

Given that McCain has locked up the Repug nomination--and since they have nothing better to say about him--the press has begun to speculate as to who will fill his vice presidential slot.

In describing the long list of possibilities, Hendrik Hertzberg waxes in the March 11 New Yorker:

What shines through this list of names is the banality of the calculations behind it. All are off-the-shelf conservatives, ranging from the socially mild (Crist) to the fiscally rabid (Sanford, who labels himself "a right-wing nut"). All are white males. All, as governors or ex-governors, compensate for McCain’s dearth of administrative experience.

The solution to all their problems is below the fold.

OK, I'm as fed up as anyone about the tone of Sen. Clinton's campaign. I've written to the DNC and the DLCC, and urge others to do the same. Unfortunately, the Senators in Kentucky are both horse's asses, as is my lo cal House Rep (KY-02).

My letter below the fold.

[Another Not a Candidate Diary]
Thinking about so-called "compassionate conservatism," the role of religion in electoral politics, and the way that the right uses Christianity as a hammer with which to scare voters, I started to think about what it meant to be a Christian nation. Alot of this is influenced by a book I read a few months ago called The Myth of a Christian Nation.

Now, I would in no way call myself a good Christian. I believe in god, but I'm more of a Taoist than anything else.

(This is another Not A Candidate Diary)

So, yesterday my lo-cal newspaper ran Jonah Goldberg's recent column in which he celebrated the use of torture in the war on terror.

As I am wont to do, I decided to write a letter in response. Our lo-cal paper is still family-owned, which is great. That the family makes Goldberg look liberal is, in my opinion, not. Their regular op-ed columnists are Goldberg, falafel-man, Michael Reagan, and a few other wingnuts. I once wrote to them pleading that if they were going to run that kind of stuff, at least carry George Will. So much for the liberal media. Anyway . . .

Nevertheless, I was unprepared for what followed my letter. About an hour after I had sent the letter, I received a call from the guy who edits the opinion section [he's also the son of the owner of the paper]. He spent 10 minutes on the phone haranguing me about being a leftist, about spewing "Nancy Pelosi talking points," and about making assertions without evidence.

Eh? More below the fold.

This is another "Not a Candidate Diary."

I just thought that amid all the braying for our beloved candidates that we ought to remember why we, as Democrats, see this election as so important.

And so I thought it more appropriate than ever to note that while our brother and sister Democrats went to the polls in record numbers in Wisconsin and Hawai'i yesterday, three more U.S. soldiers died in Iraq.

OK, this is Not a Candidate Diary [feel free to borrow that header any time you want].

I want to spend a few moments talking about Cuba, Castro's Cuba, and Cuba after Castro, which are three different things.

Since 1999 I have traveled to Cuba nearly 10 times. As a historian I have gone there on a variety of projects. The first was for my dissertation-cum-monograph on the history of West Florida from 1785-1810. I've also traveled there for a preservation project with which I am associated, called "Ecclesiastical Sources in Slave Societies" project, which seeks to preserve records related to slavery in the circum-Caribbean. Finally, my most recent project is a coffee-table book on the history and culture of people living in Havana Viejo, the old part of the city.

During my visits there I spent a great deal of time walking around the Old  City, walking the neighborhoods, the Malecon, visiting with and talking to people, sitting in non-tourist bars, and generally getting to know a small segment of the Cuban population. I know a great many people there who I would call friends.