Photomontage: One of these things is not like the other: Kerry, Stevenson, Humphrey, Dukakis, Mondale, Carter, McGovern, Gore, Obama

click to enlarge

Left to right, top to bottom: John Kerry, Adlai Stevenson, Hubert Humphrey, Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter, George McGovern, Al Gore, Barack Obama.

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Holy S**t!!! McCain pulls ahead of Obama by 5 points in national poll

According to a Reuters/Zogby poll released today, Republican John McCain has opened up a 5-point lead on Barack Obama in the U.S. presidential race. McCain leads Obama among likely U.S. voters by 46 percent to 41 percent, wiping out Obama's solid 7-point advantage in July and taking his first lead in the monthly Reuters/Zogby poll.

"There is no doubt the campaign to discredit Obama is paying off for McCain right now," pollster John Zogby said. "This is a significant ebb for Obama."

I can't tell you how many Democrats have told me over the last few months that this race is in the bag. Unfortunately, it appears to be the air-sickness bag. I remember when McGovern, Humphrey, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry had it "in the bag." Laugh all you want about John McCain. . .he is a threat and the threat will only grow stronger as some degree of Obama fatigue inevitably sets in (and/or he makes his first serious mistakes).
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Seven years ago today, The Supreme Court put the screws to the American people

Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), is the United States Supreme Court case heard on December 11, 2000. Do you remember we had to wait over a month to find out who "won" the election? It only took the court one day to render a decision.

In a per curiam opinion (ed's note: A "per curiam" decision is delivered in an opinion issued in the name of the Court rather than specific justices. In short, I think it means no one personally wants the stink upon themselves of their almost criminally partisan decision) by a vote of 7-2, the Court (to at least one of their rumored later regrets) held that the Florida Supreme Court's scheme for recounting ballots was unconstitutional, and by a vote of 5-4, the Court held that no alternative scheme could be established within the time limits established by Florida Legislature.

The decision ended the whole circus—thousands of lawyers and observers, fixers, and spin-meisters, bagmen, horse-traders, and talking heads flown in to the swampy scene of massive voter fraud and election board malfeasance—and allowed Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris's previous certification of George W. Bush as the winner of Florida's electoral votes to stand. Florida's 25 electoral votes gave Bush, the Republican candidate, 271 Electoral College votes, defeating Democrat Al Gore, who had won the majority of the popular vote. Al Gore went on to become a crusader for the environment, and win the Nobel Peace Prize. George Bush presided over an unpopular war, episodes of criminality in the White House, and numerous domestic disasters, economic setbacks, and an enemy attack on U.S. soil, and will probably be remembered best for the war he fomented, and his cure for all that ails the country, and world—widespread retrenchment of civil liberties.

Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 11, 2000
Decided December 12, 2000

Full case name: George W. Bush and Richard Cheney, Petitioners v. Albert Gore, Jr., et al.
Docket #: 00-949

Citations: 531 U.S. 98; 121 S. Ct. 525; 148 L. Ed. 2d 388; 2000 U.S. LEXIS 8430; 69 U.S.L.W. 4029; 2000 Cal. Daily Op. Service 9879; 2000 Colo. J. C.A.R. 6606; 14 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 26

Prior history: On writ of certiorari to the Florida Supreme Court

Argument: Link to Oral Argument

Holding: "In the circumstances of this case, any manual recount of votes seeking to meet the December 12 “safe harbor” deadline would be unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. "

Court membership: Chief Justice: William Rehnquist; Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer

Concurrence by: Rehnquist
Joined by: Scalia, Thomas
Dissent by: Stevens
Joined by: Ginsburg, Breyer
Dissent by: Souter
Joined by: Breyer; Stevens, Ginsburg (all but part C)
Dissent by: Ginsburg
Joined by: Stevens; Souter, Breyer (part I)
Dissent by: Breyer
Joined by: Stevens, Ginsburg (except part I-A-1); Souter (part I)

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VP Gore: Nobel Laureate

Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.'s climate change panel won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize today for educating folks about climate change and possibly how to fix it, or at least arrest it.

The Prize is normally awarded to peacemakers. Clearly the panel feels what he has done is exceptional, even though it falls outside the traditional Nobel peace prize framework[1]. "We face a true planetary emergency," Gore said. "The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity."

The Nobel committee chairman, Ole Danbolt Mjoes, swears that the prize was not a jab at Presidents Bush and Cheney, who laughed off the Kyoto protocols, and have generally treated global warming like a hippy/fringie delusion.

The prize, of course, re-ignited the Gore-istas who still hold out hope he will run for the Presidency. Two Gore advisers told the Associated Press, on condition of anonymity, because that the award will not make it any more likely that he will seek the presidency in 2008. True. a) He doesn't want to run again; and b) the last time I checked, his numbers were low. Obviously those numbers will soar now, but I don't think that will change Al's mind...

[1] But then, Peace Prize winners Yassir Arafat, Mehachem Begin, and Anwar Sadat weren't exactly peace-freaks, were they?
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Correction: "Does Al Gore Use Twenty Times More Energy Than The Average U.S. Household?" Misstated An Obvious fact

When I posted Does Al Gore Use Twenty Times More Energy Than The Average U.S. Household? on Tuesday, I characterized The Tennessee Center for Policy research as "an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization." Right.

Jeff, a/k/a Dogbowl, a friend, and astute political analyst wrote—without even looking it up—that this was clearly a hit piece. He was, of course, right. They may be nonprofit, but they are indeed partisan—something my defective BS detector should have picked up. They are known for stirring up trouble with the left. The timing alone should have rung my bells.

I stand corrected.

Ed Begley and long time friend Bill Clinton - click to enlarge

That being said, I still have some doubts about people buying green offsets to make everything right. Yeah, I get how it works, but I still have to wonder if it wouldn't be better not to use the energy in the first place.

As a former poor kid, I have a knee-jerk reaction to rich people buying their way out of the various pickles they create. Do you remember from your history of the middle ages how people would pay for "sin-eaters" to erase their sins? Or how at various points and places in history, people were able to buy their way out of military service by paying a poor kid's family to send him in their stead? This has that same sort of vibe for me.

Yes, I get how it works, and how buying offsets helps a great deal. On the other hand, I have to totally admire the likes of Ed Begley, Jr.— about as green as you can be without living in a tent—who has to hop on his electricity generating stationary bicycle and ride a few minutes whenever he wants to make a couple pieces of toast!

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