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I’ve been a fan of only a handful of politicians. I was a fan of former Senator William Proxmire, who died today.

Proxmire entered the Senate in 1957, replacing Senator Joseph R. McCarthy after McCarthy’s death. That must number among the finest upgrades in American electoral history.

Proxmire was a Democrat with an independent mind and a strong sense of ethics, which got him a reputation as a political maverick.

He fought for the little guy, and for transparency in government. He was famous for his “Golden Fleece Award,” which called attention to government programs that he considered wasteful of taxpayer money.

One Golden Fleece Award from the 1970s stands out in my memory. It named a research program that was studying how insects walk. The research was being done at the Ohio State University, where I worked at the time. I had read about the project before Proxmire’s award called national attention to it. The researchers believed their work might help in developing robotic vehicles with military uses, for space exploration, and for maneuvering in particularly rugged territory here on earth. It was the first time I’d had a different perspective on one of the Golden Fleece Awards, and I thought the research was probably money well-spent. It was an educational experience for me. Ever since, I’ve been slow to judge when someone with an axe to grind points out some apparently self-evident foolishness. There is always more to the story, and we would be a lot better off if more people understood that.

Even when I disagreed with Senator Proxmire, I knew his vote and his voice were honest. Unlike so many other politicians, William Proxmire was not for sale.

I wish there were more like him.

Thirty-three years ago today was the last time any human being walked on the Moon.

The first time any human being walked on the Moon was thirty-six years ago last July 20th.

Those were three and a half remarkable years. They seemed to show what human ingenuity and initiative could do when we harnessed our energies to solve a difficult problem. I watched the Apollo missions, and felt optimistic that, in my lifetime, we would make the world a better place for everyone.

I was a space nut. I still am. But, to me, the important thing about the Apollo program was not the moon rocks, or the big rockets, or any of the cool hardware. There was something else — something almost spiritual. The important thing was not that we landed on the Moon, but that we did something very hard. We didn’t shy away from the challenge.

The Apollo missions showed us something we keep forgetting: that we are strong, and smart, and resourceful. We don’t need to be weak and powerless in the face of great problems. There is greatness in us. It shows itself when we have the will to confront our problems.

That greatness should not be confined only to history books.

Oh, I just knew the right-wingers had no respect for democracy. From the Washington Post:

Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo obtained by The Washington Post. But senior officials overruled them and approved the plan.

The memo, unanimously endorsed by six lawyers and two analysts in the department’s voting section, said the redistricting plan illegally diluted black and Hispanic voting power in two congressional districts. It also said the plan eliminated several other districts in which minorities had a substantial, though not necessarily decisive, influence in elections.

…

Under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Texas and other states with a history of discriminatory elections are required to submit changes in their voting systems or election maps for approval by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

The Texas case provides another example of conflict between political appointees and many of the division’s career employees. In a separate case, The Post reported last month that a team was overruled when it recommended rejecting a controversial Georgia voter-identification program that was later struck down as unconstitutional by a court.

Mark Posner, a longtime Justice Department lawyer who now teaches law at American University, said it was “highly unusual” for political appointees to overrule a unanimous finding such as the one in the Texas case.

…

DeLay, the former House majority leader, is fighting state felony counts of money laundering and conspiracy — crimes he is charged with committing by unlawfully injecting corporate money into state elections. His campaign efforts were made in preparation for the new congressional map that was the focus of the Justice Department memo.

That’s right — the money laundering for which Tom DeLay is under indictment was done to advance a gerrymandering plan that was itself considered illegal by every lawyer and analyst who studied it in the Justice Department.

To be fair, a lot of right-wingers make no secret of their desire to revoke or gut the Voting Rights Act. It’s part of their program to repeal the entire 20^th century.

When Marine Corps General Peter Pace became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last month, he was interviewed on the NewsHour on PBS. I was impressed. He seemed to be a straight talker and a clear thinker. When interviewer Jim Lehrer asked how many insurgents had been killed in a recent military operation, Pace said this:

GENERAL PETER PACE: I know the answer to that question. But, if you don’t mind, I’m not going to tell you because I truly believe that we do not want the American public or anybody else watching this broadcast to start counting bodies.

This is not the way we count success. We count success and we measure success by the security that we provide in these towns for the Iraqi people. This is not about killing of people. It is about providing security for people.

And if we inadvertently, mistakenly start counting how many of the enemy are killed, we will be sending the wrong messages to our own troops and to the Iraqi people. We want to provide security for them.

JIM LEHRER: And now, General, isn’t that a change — what you just expressed — a change? Because up till this point in time, every time there’s been one of these sweeps, every time there’s been one of these, the U.S. military in Iraq is quick to say how many insurgents have been captured, how many insurgents have been killed and the whole point of the exercise is to destroy the insurgency. You are saying no more?

GENERAL PETER PACE: No. I am saying that anyone who, in the past, has been counting bodies has been presenting the wrong measure of success; that the correct measure of success is how much of this country, how much of Iraq is being controlled by coalition forces to include, and most importantly, to include the Iraqi armed forces themselves, how much security is being provided, and it’s not about death counts. It’s about defining security so that the Iraqi people can live in freedom.

JIM LEHRER: So how do we measure success of this operation?

GENERAL PETER PACE: We measure success of this operation by how quickly we are able to establish Iraqi government control of the area and we measure success by watching as time goes on the ability of the Iraqi armed forces and the Iraqi police to continue to provide that security.

Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank wrote about a recent Pentagon briefing by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pace:

When UPI’s Pam Hess asked about torture by Iraqi authorities, Rumsfeld replied that “obviously, the United States does not have a responsibility” other than to voice disapproval.

But Pace had a different view. “It is the absolute responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene, to stop it,” the general said.

Rumsfeld interjected: “I don’t think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it’s to report it.”

But Pace meant what he said. “If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it,” he said, firmly.

(Crooks and Liars has video.)

So, three cheers for General Pace — not for standing up to Don Rumsfeld, but for standing up for a higher standard of conduct than that proposed by the excuse-makers and corner-cutters of the Bush Administration.

Our uniformed services deserve better civilian leadership.

Somewhere in the universe, a gear in the machinery shifted.

— Eldridge Cleaver, about Rosa Parks

Fifty years ago today, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama city bus to an able-bodied white man. For that act of defiance, she was arrested and fined $14.

The world is very different now, in no small part because Rosa Parks’ small act of defiance inspired millions of additional acts of defiance. Martin Luther King said, “We must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.”

By all the usual metrics, she was a perfectly ordinary person, like you or me. That is why she is remembered today. It would have been so easy to submit once again to one of the smaller injustices of Alabama’s system of segregation and discrimination. But she had had enough, and she would not back down. Because she was just like any one of us, her defiance provided an inspiring example that straightened countless bent backs.

She still provides that inspiration, fifty years later.

Do you ever get the feeling that some people take their devotion to political leaders just a little bit too far?

About a week before Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination, I thought about posting a blog entry that would have said:

Psychic prediction: Harriet Miers will never sit on the Supreme Court.

Actually, there was nothing psychic about it. That evening on television I had seen Republican Arlen Specter and Democrat Patrick Leahy, the ranking members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. They called Miers’ responses to a questionnaire from the committee “inadequate,” “incomplete,” and “insulting.” Also, I’d noticed that Harriet didn’t have a single true champion in the Senate.

I don’t suppose I get any credit at all for posting the prediction after Miers’ withdrawal.

Back in January, I considered posting an entry that would have gone like this:

Psychic prediction: Now that Bush and Cheney have a second term, look for gasoline prices to hit $3.00 per gallon by the end of this year, and $5.00 per gallon by the end of this term.

That one wasn’t psychic, either, but I can’t remember what particular bits of news made me think it might be a good prediction to make. Three-dollar gas has come and, for the moment, gone. Still, I don’t suppose I get any credit for posting the prediction now. Time will tell about five-dollar gas.

I’m going to break with my tradition now, and post a prediction before the event I’m predicting has actually happened. It’s a good one, too.

Psychic prediction: George W. Bush will resign the presidency before the end of this term.

His poll numbers are way down. His dream of fatally wounding Social Security is itself gravely wounded. Because he is weakened, even Republicans aren’t falling into lock step behind his every utterance these days. He’s not going to get his way on Social Security or many other big issues unless he can get an even more strongly right-wing Republican House and Senate in next year’s elections. Right now, that’s not looking very likely.

He could still move parts of his agenda through Congress, but that would require sitting down and negotiating with people who don’t agree with him, and Dubya doesn’t do that. He could accomplish a lot with some give and take, but neither Dubya nor the right-wing leadership in Congress do the “give” thing.

Bush could salvage his presidency by changing the way he operates, but he won’t do that. Every success he has ever had has been handed to him on a silver platter. Bush is almost unique among people at high levels of power in that he has no capacity for adaptation to changing circumstances.

A couple years ago, I read somewhere a very sharp observation about Bush’s handling of 9/11. At the time, the war on terror seemed to be going well. The writer said we had all assumed that Bush had risen to the challenge of history. But perhaps we were mistaken. Perhaps, on 9/11, history had stooped to the simplistic, good-vs.-evil level of George W. Bush. A few years later, that observation seems almost psychic.

Bush can’t change. When he needs to make a bold new mission statement about Iraq for Veterans’ Day, he dusts off some old speeches from last year’s campaign. When he needs people to fill vacancies, he plays musical chairs. He can’t bring in fresh blood. He can’t accept new ideas. He can never, never acknowledge error. He will cling to his myth of infallibility while his presidency swirls down the drain.

Things are bad for Bush now, and unless he changes, they’re only going to get worse. Watch him answer questions sometime. He’s not having any fun. When he accepted responsibility for the government’s failures in response to Hurricane Katrina, he looked like he was being stabbed.

The prediction: Bush is going to get tired of this. He doesn’t have the ability to change, to fix the situation. So, in the words of comedian Bill Maher, he will “lose interest and walk away,” as he has done so many times in the past.

Seriously. You read it here first.

On Election Day, the polling places here open at 6:30 in the morning. Last year, aware that everyone was predicting a record turnout, I went early, arriving at 6:45. There were long lines. The conventional wisdom was that a large turnout would benefit John Kerry. I was happy to see long lines. I was happy to see the lines were even longer when I was done voting.

I waited patiently for about fifty minutes. I overheard a couple of the poll workers talking. One of them wondered why there were fewer voting machines for this record-turnout election than there had been for the previous off-year election. The other said it was probably because the turnout had been so low at the previous election.

At that point, listening in on their conversation, I probably nodded my head. That explanation seemed to make sense. I wasn’t capable of believing what was really happening all across Ohio.

As Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell was responsible for running the election in Ohio. He was also the Ohio chairman of George W. Bush’s election campaign, a job that trumped his obligation to honest democracy for Ohio voters. He presided over a massive voter-suppression effort for the Bush campaign. Long lines at my precinct, which leans toward Democratic candidates, were only a tiny part of his efforts to undermine democracy.

Lines grew longer all day long at Democratic-leaning polling places. Long lines of voters stood in the cold rain outside some polling places until midnight and beyond. When someone suggested using paper ballots for some voters to speed up the lines, Blackwell said voters who didn’t want to wait should just go home.

Well, tomorrow is Election Day again. There are four voter initiatives on the ballot to try to seize power back from the anti-democracy schemers. Of particular interest to me is Issue 5, which “places a bi-partisan Board of Supervisors in charge of Ohio’s elections, instead of a partisan official who backs candidates and takes sides in elections.” Other issues restrict campaign financing, allow Ohioans to vote by mail, and take control of legislative redistricting out of the hands of gerrymandering politicians.

I’m sure Ken Blackwell will be working hard again tomorrow to defeat the will of the voters, if they disagree with him. If I get my way, it will be the last time he’ll have a chance to do that.

I’ve just finished reading Al Franken’s new book, The Truth (with Jokes).

It’s better, I think, than his previous book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, and that book was pretty good.

Franken is not a reporter. He’s not uncovering new Republican scandals. Rather, he takes stories that have already been reported and puts them together very effectively to show the depth of hypocrisy, incompetence, and malice of the Bush administration and its apologists in Congress. Despite the jokes mentioned in the title, it’s a serious book. The jokes aren’t laugh-out-loud funny (although I did laugh out loud a couple times). Mostly they serve as a sort of safety valve. Without them, many readers might collapse sobbing after learning just how bad Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, DeLay, Frist and their ilk really are.

From a chapter about the Iraq war, Franken summarizes:

Let’s face it. You can’t count on them to give you straight information. You can’t count on them to tell us straight why we’re going to war. You can’t count on them to tell us what’s happening over there.

You can’t count on them to do their homework. To keep track of our money. You can’t count on them to punish war profiteers. You can’t count on them to protect our troops.

You can’t rely on them for much of anything. Armor. Veterans’ benefits. You can’t count on them for the true story of how Jessica Lynch was captured, or how Pat Tillman died. Even for how the “Mission Accomplished” sign went up on the USS Abraham Lincoln. They actually lied about that.

You can’t count on them to count terrorist attacks. You can’t count on them to count civilian victims. You can’t count on them to listen to military commanders and send in enough troops, or not to lie about the commanders asking them to send more troops, or to listen to Colin Powell and not torture people, or to not lie about whether the torture policies started at the top.

You can’t trust them to care. About Iraqis. About Americans.

You can’t trust them to do the work of actually signing killed-in-action letters. You can’t trust them not to lie about not signing killed-in-action letters.

You can’t count on them to acknowledge any mistakes whatsoever. You can’t trust them not to lie when confronted with those mistakes.

You can’t trust them not to believe their own propaganda.

You can’t trust them. Period.

…

If you want to know what I think we should do in Iraq, it’s that we should think about what we have to do in America. We have to throw these guys out.

The NewsHour on PBS reported on a memorial service for Rosa Parks:

Julian Bond: Ms. Parks was much, much more than the bus woman. She was much, much more than that. Eldridge Cleaver famously remarked that when she sat down that December day in Montgomery fifty years ago, somewhere in the universe a gear in the machinery had shifted. Rosa Parks shifted the gears of the universe all her life. Now she belongs to the universe.

Oprah Winfrey: That day that you refused to give up your seat on the bus, you, Sister Rosa, changed the trajectory of my life, and the lives of so many other people in the world.

Ted Kennedy: She, too, was our shepherd. She restored our soul. She led us in the paths of righteousness. She walked through the valley of the shadow of death, but she feared no evil, because she knew the Lord was with her. Goodness and mercy followed her all the days of her life, and now — and now — she dwells in the house of the Lord forever.

Since June, I’ve been watching The Al Franken Show on cable TV, on Sundance Channel. The show has provided me with a lot of ideas for blog posts. From Thursday’s show, here’s Canadian journalist Patrick Graham:

Everything in Iraq, for the first year and a half, was run for how it appeared in the States. People talk about Iraqi democracy. Iraqis are voting in large numbers. The problem is American democracy and this debate at home. And everything in Iraq was run, basically, for Bush’s re-election campaign. And you can’t run a war in a complex country — you can’t run a complex country — and an insurgency, when your only real interest is your poll numbers at home. That’s a big problem.

Graham spent a lot of time talking to insurgents in Iraq. He wrote about it in Harper’s magazine, in an article called “Beyond Fallujah.”

Friday night’s Franken Show was the last one that will be carried on Sundance Channel. If this blog is to survive, I may have to start making stuff up.

Rosa Parks has died. From CNN:

Rosa Parks, who helped trigger the civil rights movement in the 1950s, died Monday, her longtime friends told CNN. She was 92.

Parks inspired the civil rights movement when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama in December 1955.

Update: BBC News has photos from the civil rights movement.

A new Kate Bush music video: King Of The Mountain.

Today would have been John Lennon‘s 65^th birthday.

Lennon was killed in 1980, not long after his 40^th birthday. Every year, fans have marked the anniversary of his death with various memorials. His widow, Yoko Ono, has said she would rather have fans observe his birthday, to commemorate his life rather than his death.

Today is the national opening of George Clooney’s new movie, Good Night, and Good Luck. I’ve been looking forward to it for weeks.

But it’s not playing at any theater here in Columbus, Ohio.

Rats.