Russ Feingold Is Fine for Re-election, GOP Dreams Not Credible

Madison, Wisconsin—The lone voice in the U.S. Senate voting against the infamous 2001 Patriot Act is Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) whose vote for liberty then, and in support of the Fourth Amendment throughout his career, will help secure his re-election amid growing and groundless shouts that Feingold is in trouble.

Consider RealClear Politics (RPC), a site that takes news-opinion from the mainstream media (mostly dailies and more often from the political right) and presents the aggregation as: Real clear politics.

RPC's foumula for clarity leads predictably to erroneous results which roughly comprises the conventional political wisdom. It's that bad.

RPC 's latest RE Wisconsin is a piece from Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (MJS) columnist Patrick McIlheran that Russ Feingold may be "done" in Wisconsin politics.

I can guarantee you two things: Feingold's people got a laugh out of this one, and McIlheran's analysis such as it is will be taken seriously among those formulating the conventional political wisdom.

As a writer, McIlheran is a bold sign (along with fellow MJS columnist Mike 'send-innocents-to-prison' Nichols) of the decline of the American daily newspaper—ideological and insipid.

McIlheran quotes Feingold's GOP opponent, Terrence Wall who says that "I'll win. ... Feingold's done."

Using data from the discredited Rasmussen polls, and the amazing fact that GOPers bad-mouthed Feingold at listening sessions, McIlheran agrees with Wall that Feingold just may be over, though he also allows that this all depends on former Gov. Tommy Thompson entering the race.

The problem is Thompson has not announced for the September primary; GOP candidate Wall says he's in to stay; and Thompson accepted a job in February as a capital fund advisor after making a lot of money from corporate America—an enterprise that might not present a problem in some campaign seasons but certainly does in this one after that whole economic catastrophe thing.

So though on occasion progressives too are driven to head-shaking by the idiosyncratic ways of Feingold, for example Feingold foolishly voted for the confirmation of John Roberts and against the dismissal of impeachment proceedings against President Clinton, Feingold's people would welcome Thompson as a candidate and I think Thompson and his advisers know it.

What Patrick McIlheran knows is anybody's guess.

Shot Rang Out in the Memphis Sky

RFK announces assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., April 4, 1968. Violence, as King lived and died to tell us, is a betrayal. RFK picked up the torch and was struck down. Do we hear their voices?



From Bob Herbert, We Still Don’t Hear Him

‘I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight,’ said the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., ‘because my conscience leaves me no other choice.’This was on the evening of April 4, 1967, almost exactly 43 years ago. Dr. King told the more than 3,000 people who had crowded into Riverside Church that silence in the face of the horror that was taking place in Vietnam amounted to a ‘betrayal.’

He spoke of both the carnage in the war zone and the toll the war was taking here in the United States. The speech comes to mind now for two reasons: A Tavis Smiley documentary currently airing on PBS revisits the controversy set off by Dr. King’s indictment of ‘the madness of Vietnam.’ And recent news reports show ever-increasing evidence that we have ensnared ourselves in a mad and tragic venture in Afghanistan.

Dr. King spoke of how, in Vietnam, the United States increased its commitment of troops ‘in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support.’

It’s strange, indeed, to read those words more than four decades later as we are increasing our commitment of troops in Afghanistan to fight in support of Hamid Karzai, who remains in power after an election that the world knows was riddled with fraud and whose government is one of the most corrupt and inept on the planet.

If Mr. Karzai is at all grateful for this support, he has a very peculiar way of showing it. He has ignored pleas from President Obama and others to take meaningful steps to rein in the rampant corruption. His brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, the kingpin in southern Afghanistan, is believed by top American officials to be engaged in all manner of nefarious activities, including money-laundering and involvement in the flourishing opium trade.

Hamid Karzai himself pulled off a calculated insult to the U.S. by inviting Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidential palace in Kabul, where Ahmadinejad promptly delivered a fiery anti-American speech. As Dexter Filkins and Mark Landler reported in The Times this week: ‘Even as Mr. Obama pours tens of thousands of additional American troops into the country to help defend Mr. Karzai’s government, Mr. Karzai now often voices the view that his interests and the United States’ no longer coincide.’

Is this what American service members are dying for in Afghanistan? Can you imagine giving up your life, or your child’s life, for that crowd?

In his speech, Dr. King spoke about the damage the Vietnam War was doing to America’s war on poverty, and the way it was undermining other important domestic initiatives. What he wanted from the U.S. was not warfare overseas but a renewed commitment to economic and social justice at home. As he put it: ‘A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.’

Happy Easter Weekend and Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Nicki! [shown somewhere with some fellow crazies]

Happy Birthday Genna! [thinks she's 20!]

Happy Birthday Joanie!

Love, Mikey