It’s important to know she despised Saddam, yet has found fresh laments, in spite of that.

I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions—they’re always so narrow and boring. I’d rather advance some bigger goals.

When I was a young fellow, and my father was teaching me how to swing a bat, he’d tell me I shouldn’t aim to hit the ball, I should try to swing through it. When he was teaching me how to play football, he’d tell me I shouldn’t aim for the lineman’s chest, I should set the goal of running straight through the guy and a hundred yards downfield. (Of course, there were other words of wisdom from my father, like “you’re a born nerd, boy, and I don’t know why we’re wastin’ time with the sports”). The point still stands, though: if you’re trying to go from here to there, don’t set your sights on there—make your goal an unreachable point far, far beyond there. Never settle for a small piece, always go for everything…and be glad of whatever you can get.

In that spirit, then, here’s what I’d dream of seeing in the next year.

• Every penny spent on this pointless war ought to be immediately redirected out of Halliburton’s hands and straight to social services. Universal healthcare, first thing. Everything else gets poured into education—we need more and better schools at every level, and more teachers, and the teachers need to be paid what they’re worth. Every child born ought to be able to expect to get the same medical care as any other, and every child ought to be able to get the level of education he desires and can handle, not just what her family can afford. If our government can suck up tons of cash and shovel it at a disgraceful foreign expedition, they ought to be able to do the same with something that really matters. And we can pay for it by taxing the bloated and grossly over-pampered rich.
• Let religion expire. I want to see a world where religion is a quirk, the hobby of eccentrics, rather than a prerequisite for high office. Creationism should be the punchline to a joke instead of the focus of serious debate. Let all the churches and synagogues and mosques close, and then reopen, repurposed as centers for secular charities or the arts. Televangelists should be bankrupt (we’ll keep them off the streets with our expanded social services, though), and the more honest preachers should be looking for legitimate work—something other than trading a false authority for handouts from the deluded and fearful. Maybe they can go back to school and learn something useful.
• Let’s get specific: GW Bush, Dick Cheney, and the whole corrupt lot should be impeached, convicted of gross negligence tantamount to treason, and sent to prison for the rest of their lives. The entire Republican party should wither away in shame and disappear. The Democrats should reorganize and stand up for real principles: return to their roots as the party of labor and the working class, for civil rights and equality. Because we do need competing ideas, the other party with some power should be the Greens, who fight for the environment and sustainability. It would be such a joy to be able to go to the polling place and instead of choosing between Evil Greedy Grandpa and Bland Dithering Bureaucrat, I could actually face the pleasant dilemma of having to weigh agendas that matter in a positive way.
• In a development for the long term, lets pull people back into developed enclaves and allow large swathes of the country revert to wilderness; I want plains with herds of bison, I want old growth forests standing pristine and unthreatened, I want sections of coastline where the marine life is allowed to teem untouched. We should treat life as something worth preserving, not to be sacrificed for mere human convenience.
• Those human enclaves? Let them be fed with sustainable agricultural practices and fueled with renewable energy. Tie them together with efficient mass transit and free, open communications technologies.

That’s my dream for this new year. I want all of that, and heck, I want ponies for everyone, too.

OK, I’ll compromise: if we can’t swing the ponies, I won’t cry too much. If it takes two years, rather than one, I’ll cope, anxiously.

But let’s please start aiming much, much higher, and let’s all have a wonderfully progressive new year.

From the AP today:

Poll: Americans see gloom, doom in 2007

WASHINGTON - Another terrorist attack, a warmer planet, death and destruction from a natural disaster. These are among Americans’ grim predictions for the United States in 2007.

Only a minority of people think the U.S. will go to war with Iran or North Korea over those countries’ nuclear ambitions. An overwhelming majority of those surveyed think Congress will raise the federal minimum wage. One-third see hope for a cure to cancer.

These are among the findings of an Associated Press-AOL News poll that asked people in the U.S. to contemplate what 2007 holds for the country.

(snip)

Meanwhile, that same AP also published this today:

AP Poll: Americans Optimistic for 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) — The news from Iraq and other national headlines may be grim, but in Greenville, N.C., John Given has a new baby and his first home, and life is good.

So, too, for Sandra Trowbridge in tiny Magnet Cove, Ark. The situation in Iraq makes her feel pessimistic about the state of the nation, but at home, at least, all is well. Even if nothing special has happened to her family, she says, “we still love each other,” and that’s enough.

And so it goes for most Americans. An AP-AOL News Poll finds that while most Americans said 2006 was a bad year for the country, three-fourths thought it had been a good one for them and their families.

“In a time of war, so little has been asked of us as citizens,” said Given, who teaches ancient Greek at East Carolina University. “We haven’t had to sacrifice anything. We’ve been allowed to live our lives very, very well.”

Looking ahead, optimism reigns.

Seventy-two percent of Americans feel good about what 2007 will bring for the country, and an even larger 89 percent are optimistic about the new year for themselves and their families, according to the poll.

(snip)

The latter comes from an Ipsos poll conducted for AP-AOL from Dec 12-14. The former came from exactly the same poll.

I conducted a poll on Dec 31, discussing this with a random sample of 1,000 of my multiple personalities. The poll indicated that:

1) The funnies findings in both articles were these, from the gloom & doomers:

_25 percent anticipate the second coming of Jesus Christ.

_19 percent think scientists are likely to find evidence of extraterrestrial life.

2) 65% of me believe Jesus Christ qualifies as an extraterrestrial, and hopes he arrives in time to multiply a fish and a bit of bread dough into bagels and lox for everyone.

3) 97% of me thinks AP is goofing on us. But its impact will be negligible because we’re all sufficiently goofy already.

4) 105% of me believes some AP editors have dipped into the New Year’s champagne a bit early.

My poll has no margin of error. But its Mommy dresses it funny.

Barbara O’Brien, at Crooks & Liars, provides a great lesson about war history recycling that provides a look at the past…. and the future.

Eric Blumrich capsulizes a half-century of Iraq-US dealings.

h/t to Juan Cole.

Chawbacon’s “Backards Bible” has much too offal in the mister edification department, specially as pertains chrithsmus carrolls and satch. Thus when I heared of the soaperific whoreslay, short was the time until I was undercome with ‘andy griffens and molecular nuisances the dislikes of witches now under presidential scrutiny. Face it.

Even when they finally gain a qualification for subsidized healthcare, too sickie means no worky. And no worky means shelter costs and assorted minimal costs of living don’t get paid.

A member of the team here at the Street is in that position and has been, for awhile. I’m gonna raise funds from here to June, if necessary, to help ‘em out.

You must have something you can give, don’t you? The PayPal button in the right column is where I’m begging you to go.

Juan Cole defines the meaning of the execution better than any.

I received this from Susie Madrak today:

My site is down…

And until my tech guy gets done fighting with the hosting company, Suburban Guerrilla can be found at my old Blogger site:

www.suburbanguerrilla.blogspot.com

Since this is my last couple of days posting before I start my new job Tuesday, it’s rather frustrating. Arghhh….

I’d really appreciate it if you’d post the info. Thanks!

Susie

Really, email it around and post it on your blogs.

Robert Fisk defines the war crimes of Saddam…. and a few others.

And how much safer everyone will be because the butcher is hanged:

When he was captured in November of 2003, the insurgency against American troops increased in ferocity. After his death, it will redouble in intensity again. Freed from the remotest possibility of Saddam’s return by his execution, the West’s enemies in Iraq have no reason to fear the return of his Baathist regime. Osama bin Laden will certainly rejoice, along with Bush and Blair.

More strategery at the expense of the lives of the expendable classes.

This MarineVet, for example.

January: Jeff Jacoby, serial plagiarist and regular at Clown Hall, argues that gay marriage is the reason for the latest population decline in Massachusetts.

February: Bruce Carroll, aka The Gay Patriot, argues that NBC is calling the site of the Winter Olympics “Torino” rather than “Turin” to conceal the fact that Torino is home to the Shroud of Turin. And Jonah “The Whale” Goldberg claims, with a straight yet pudgy face, that the Great Plains were forests until the Indians burned them down to hunt bison

March: Washington State columnist Adele Ferguson writes a column claiming that slavery was a gift from God. She actually said this:

The pony hidden in slavery is the fact that it was the ticket to America for black people. I have long urged blacks to consider their presence here as the work of God, who wanted to bring them to this raw, new country and used slavery to achieve it.

Also in March, America’s Worst Law Student™ Ben Shapiro writes a column analyzing a Supreme Court opinion and attributes to President John Adams a line that he never said (except as a fictional character in a musical comedy).

April: Cathy Seipp says on her blog that gay marriage should be illegal because Passover and the Jewish New Year are not national holidays. You think I’m kidding, don’t you?

May: Phyllis Schafly writes a column at Clown Hall titled “Violence Against Women Act Abuses the Rights of Men.” Also in May, right-wing radio host and baby lardmuffin Ben Ferguson explained why he supported the Iraq invasion in words but not deeds:

And just because I support something doesn’t mean I have to always go fight. . . . I support the Yankees[; that] doesn’t mean I wear their uniform.

June: The Birmingham News decides that KKK cross-burnings should be called “cross-lighting ceremonies” instead.

July: Representative David Dreier argues on the House floor that if “under God” is removed from the Pledge of Allegiance, all the cities in California will have to be renamed and nobody would be able to find their homes in California.

August: Glenn “Instacracker” Reynolds claims that people are two times more likely to die in America than in Iraq but bravely stays in Tennessee despite that increased risk.

September: Random House announces the publication of a new book, The Enemy at Home, by Dinesh D’Souza in which he claims that gay marriage is the reason that the terrorists hate America.

October: Nathan Tabor once and for all dismisses the possibility that there is any homosexuality in the animal kingdom. What Nathan doesn’t reveal is that this is because no animals drink soy milk which is responsible for more homosexuality than Broadway musicals and old Bette Davis movies combined.

November: Michael Medved reveals that crowd-pleasing movie Happy Feet is nothing more than an animated Brokeback Glacier.

December: Jonah “The Whale” Goldberg concocts a scheme to save polar bears by building artificial ice platforms and claims this makes more sense than reducing greenhouse gas emissions. For that truly wingnuterrific idea and for, earlier in the year, blaming the Great Plains on forest fires set by the Indians, Jonah clearly wins the coveted title of “Wingnut of the Year.”

There’s nothing like a little frontier justice to get the mob juices flowing. A lynching - with or without due process and a functional, objective justice system - always provokes an upswing in fresh murders. That’s been well-researched and documented.

The only proven deterrent factor is that the person lynched will no longer be able to kill, but that same deterrent is achieved by maximum security confinement.

With the lynching of Saddam Hussein, one of the more brutal dictators our government gave aid and comfort to in the past half century, we get the predictable array of partisan responses. Anybody opposed to the hanging is automatically The Left, The Left supports Saddam’s barbaric acts, and more than a few would love to see any representative of The Left plunging through the gallows floor and twitching his last.

For having an opinion rooted in logic, morals, theological belief or emotion.

If opinions are outlawed, only outlaws will wield opinions. And 100% of our population would then be outlaws.

Don’t attempt such logic if you find yourself amid a lynch mob, though. Facts can get you killed.

People who accept the state has a right to kill will often accept all manner of barbarities that are associated with that right, applied. One cannot accept justifications for war without also accepting that the practice will include intentional murders of innocents, torture, rape, suicide and an assortment of cruelties that will haunt many victims and perpetrators for years afterward.

Similarly, the application of capital punishment will unleash copycat killings and a spike in the murder rate. Innocents will ultimately share the noose, chair or gurney of the person the state kills. If you permit capital punishment, you grant approval of the fresh murders it provokes.

I won’t engage in moral relativity. Does Saddam deserve this end more than a killer of one person? If capital punishment were outlawed, such relativity would be a moot point. I prefer to keep it moot, even if societies prefer to err by permitting the inhumane practice.

The US is no safer. Iraq is no safer. Iraq’s neighbors are no safer with Saddam dead. That was achieved with his capture.

The record of his complicity with previous US government officials may never be known now, which is a loss to us in pursuit of a healthy democratic republic, as secrets are the greatest threat to our nation’s undoing that currently exists.

It’s further noteworthy that Moqtada al-Sadr set Saddam’s execution as a precondition to his return to the government coalition, which could explain the sudden rush to get the deed done.

There’s no doubt that millions of Iraqi families of Saddam’s victims will be happy at the news. It will, at least, end the foolish speculation that Iraq’s civil war can be ended with Saddam returned to power. But every step of the process that was necessary to get the deed done was littered with tens of thousands of fresh victims that did not add to the blood on Saddam’s hands, but left it on ours.

And millions of Iraqis would find similar cheer if it was Bush hanging from the gallows.

The popular emotion is not a reliable indicator of justice done or civilization achieved.

As Josh Marshall eloquently noted:

This whole endeavor, from the very start, has been about taking tawdry, cheap acts and dressing them up in a papier-mache grandeur — phony victory celebrations, ersatz democratization, reconstruction headed up by toadies, con artists and grifters. And this is no different. Hanging Saddam is easy. It’s a job, for once, that these folks can actually see through to completion. So this execution, ironically and pathetically, becomes a stand-in for the failures, incompetence and general betrayal of country on every other front that President Bush has brought us.

Try to dress this up as an Iraqi trial and it doesn’t come close to cutting it — the Iraqis only take possession of him for the final act, sort of like the Church always left execution itself to the ’secular arm’. Try pretending it’s a war crimes trial but it’s just more of the pretend mumbojumbo that makes this out to be World War IX or whatever number it is they’re up to now.

The Iraq War has been many things, but for its prime promoters and cheerleaders and now-dwindling body of defenders, the war and all its ideological and literary trappings have always been an exercise in moral-historical dress-up for a crew of folks whose times aren’t grand enough to live up to their own self-regard and whose imaginations are great enough to make up the difference. This is just more play-acting.

These jokers are being dragged kicking and screaming to the realization that the whole thing’s a mess and that they’re going to be remembered for it — defined by it — for decades and centuries. But before we go, we can hang Saddam. Quite a bit of this was about the president’s issues with his dad and the hang-ups he had about finishing Saddam off — so before we go, we can hang the guy as some big cosmic ‘So There!’

Marx might say that this was not tragedy but farce. But I think we need to get way beyond options one and two even to get close to this one — claptrap justice meted out to the former dictator in some puffed-up act of self-justification as the country itself collapses in the hands of the occupying army.

I do not condemn his executioners. I do not condemn supporters of capital punishment. I do not set myself as anyone’s moral superior by stating my moral objection. Nor am I superior for recognizing the practical reasons for ending the practice.

I mourn the cost to the whole of civilization when any bloodletting is viewed as permissible by a state. It is pragmatic to practice armed defense against the aggression of an armed invader It is moral to kill to survive.

But our survival was never in doubt.

The survival of moral legitimacy remains in doubt, in the practices of our old government, and in the practices of Iraq’s new one.

People dedicated to the advance of civilizations, to the belief that the world can coexist peacefully, must always seek fresh ways that our human species can evolve to. This is not fresh, it is not evolution, it is repetition of practices that advance nothing.

We can mock the barbarism and futility of ancient societies that danced around volcanoes and offered human sacrifices to appease the angry gods. The barbarism and futility of this current practice earns like mockery. If nothing is advanced, it remains pointless.

It satisfies a lynch mob. Temporarily. Till the next rabid mob forms in pursuit of fresh meat.

Update from Robert Scheer:

The fact is that Saddam Hussein knew a great deal about the United States’ role in Iraq, including deals made with Bush’s father. This rush to execute him had the feel of a gangster silencing the key witness to a crime.

At Nuremberg in the wake of World War II the U.S. set the bar very high by declaring that even the Nazis, who had committed the most heinous of crimes, should have a fair trial. The U.S. and allies insisted on this not to serve those charged, but to educate the public through a believable accounting. In the case of Saddam, the bar was lowered to the mud, with the proceedings turned into a political circus reminiscent of Stalin’s show trials.

And the graphic summation from Mr. Fish.

The first lemming over the cliff, Jon Swift kicks off the annual ritual.

Calvin & Hobbes, Dec 30, 1995: eerily prescient, yes?

According to the New York Times, Osama Bin Laden was not hanged tonight for his leadership in killing more than 3,000 Americans in the past decade.

Some other fellows were. One was hung after being convicted of killing 148 citizens of the country he ruled, 24 years ago. He was also awaiting trial for killing thousands of others - perhaps as many as 200,000 over the course of his rule - though tens of thousands were active in violent efforts to depose him.

The man, dubbed ‘Not Osama’ by my sources, was last implicated in those killings at least seven years before a massive war was launched by a group of a couple of dozen politicians and political analysts in the US. Their objective to topple his government and capture him was achieved three years ago, at a cost of several hundred lives of mostly US troops and less than 30,000 mostly Iraqi civilians and troops.

My source indicates the US group - led by the son of a US President who previously had supported arming the newly dead guy as late as 1990 - was “terribly sorry so many Iraqi civilians had to die to capture the bad man”, adding “we really didn’t mean to.”

Since the bad man’s capture, the US group spent the next three years provoking civil disorder that led to the deaths of more than 2,000 additional mostly US troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, mostly civilians, including women, children and babies.

The US group, per my unnamed source said “they didn’t mean that either” and they were ‘double-dog sorry” for that.

Efforts to determine where Osama Bin Laden was and why he was not hanged led to repeated “no comments” from every government source I’ve contacted.

When I asked my principal source why the bad man they hanged could not have been done without the torture and slaughter of hundreds of thousands guilty of nothing through the process they’ve dubbed as ‘war’, he replied: “Tradition. Ritual human sacrifice has been both a familial and cultural practice that they honor at least once per decade.”

As to why it was necessary to maintain the ritual slaughter of hundreds of thousands three years after the bad man’s capture, my source explained: “We call it the ‘Betty Ford syndrome.’ When you’ve dealt with a chronic pain for years, you get addicted to the painkillers, even after the pain is gone.”

So will it continue after the bad man is buried?

“Oh sure. That was established three decades ago, when we lost Vietnam. We won every major battle and killed between 1 and 2 million of ‘em, yet they declared themselves victors. We’ve determined that 2.5 million is what it’ll take before all the other bad guys concede that we’re badder than them.”

I asked, “you mean, like Osama?”

He looked at me quizzically: “I’m sorry. Who?”

Update: Martin Lewis adds his hymn to the post-death victory dance.

— Hooshin hom to our regional’s hin and the gander of Hayden. Would ye ken a young stepschuler of psychical chirography, the name of Keven, or (let outers pray) Evan Vaughan, of his Posthorn in the High Street, that was shooing a Guiney gagag, Poulepinter, that found the dogumen number one, I would suggest, an illegible downfumbed by an unelgible?

Of Kevin, of increate God the servant, of the Lord Creator a filial fearer, who, given to the growing grass, took to the tall tim-ber, slippery dick the springy heeler, as we have seen, so we have heard, what we have received, that we have transmitted, thus we shall hope, this we shall pray till, in the search for love of knowledge through the comprehension of the unity in altruism through stupefaction, it may again how it may again, shearing aside the four wethers and passing over the dainty daily dairy and dropping by the way the lapful of live coals and smoothing out Nelly Nettle and her lad of mettle, full of stings, fond of stones, friend of gnewgnawns bones and leaving all the messy messy to look after our douche douche, the miracles, death and life are these.
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Everyone in the country should read Riverbend today. And post it on their blog till the MSM has no choice but to read and report on her latest.

Everyone. Post. It. And email it to everyone.

Please.

Holey Joe Bleederman:

I’ve just spent 10 days traveling in the Middle East and speaking to leaders there, all of which has made one thing clearer to me than ever: While we are naturally focused on Iraq, a larger war is emerging. On one side are extremists and terrorists led and sponsored by Iran, on the other moderates and democrats supported by the United States. Iraq is the most deadly battlefield on which that conflict is being fought. How we end the struggle there will affect not only the region but the worldwide war against the extremists who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001.

Because of the bravery of many Iraqi and coalition military personnel and the recent coming together of moderate political forces in Baghdad, the war is winnable. We and our Iraqi allies must do what is necessary to win it.

Got that? The extremists who attacked us on 9-11 have something to do with Iraq, where Al Qaida incited a civil war (nearly, but not yet) and if we don’t end that struggle by killing lots more people, all the terrorists Iran controls will win, along with Iran.

Joe’s not really that stupid, but he continues to believe that you are. He also believes Connecticut is rural Alabama. And maybe enough folks from Connecticut really are that easily fooled. If so, it’s time they knew Joe’s a Communist spy who thinks Yalies are sissies and insurance companies are capitalist stooges.

One of the last two massacres of Indians occurred in the US.

Medals of Honor were provided.

Things haven’t changed much at all, except fears about Ghost Dancers have been transferred to Muslims.

Justifying mass murder. Still.

Bill Bennett from the craps table:

“The way Ford does it with Woodward, he doesn’t have to defend himself…he simply drops it into Bob Woodward’s tape recorder and let’s the bomb go off when fully out of range, himself. This is not courage, this is not decent. The manly or more decent options are these:

1. Say it to Bush’s or Cheney’s face and allow them and us to engage the point while you’re around, or

2. Far more decently, say nothing critical of Bush will be on the record until his presidency is over. There’s a

3. Don’t say anything critical of George Bush to Bob Woodward at all.

You’re a former President Mr. Ford, show a little more decency to the incumbent who is in a very, very tough place and trying to do the right thing….you may recall those days and positions yourself.”

Lecturing a dead man for not wanting the spotlight in his frail and failing years…. this, then is the ‘courage’ and ‘decency’ Bennett offers to his widow.

In a very, very tough place? Millions of Iraqis and about 140,000 US troops. Bush lives in a bubble, Bennett in front of a mirror that grants no reflection.

(h/t for the item to Josh Marshall)

I’ve said, since first learning she had breast cancer, that I was worried we might be losing a leading liberal voice in the MSM, Molly Ivins. She hasn’t written a column since November 19. Inquiries I made to the Fort Worth Star Telegram drew no reply.

Finally, today, I discovered this week-old news item. If you do nothing else today, please take time to send a word of uplift to one of the last honest and unique voices in the mainstream press.

It’s called snail mail. I trust you can do it, and will want to.

Send care of:

Creators Syndicate
5777 West Century Blvd., Suite 700
Los Angeles, CA 90045

It seems that it’s o.k. for Republicans to criticize the President and even the inconceivably unpopular Iraq war (1) if they’re dead, as in the case of the late President Ford, who strongly opposed the President’s handling of the war (including the decision to have it) according to Bob “Head Courtier” Woodward writing in WaPo; or (2) if their party’s been thrown out of the majority, as in the case of Republican Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon, who gave a rousing speech critical of the Iraq war and its escalation (complete with reference to the word “criminal”).

Smith, of course, voted for the war, along with John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and former TD Darling John Edwards, Joe Biden and others, which, alas, disqualifies him (and them) from having any moral authority on the subject (or most likely from being elected President, another matter entirely; say what you will, but John McCain remains insanely gung ho on the whole war thing, which probably won’t do him any good anyway because the rank and file GOP typical primary voter just doesn’t like him, even if everyone else does… or used to, before he tried to court the rank and file GOP primary voter…)

My point? Oh yes… Gordon… you may be a decent man, but you’re an enabler of very venal, awful people and their extremist policies, which, you have just called “criminal” and I frequently call a lot worse. I didn’t see you lead a filibuster of the repeal of habeas corpus, now did I? You come from a state that has been the coolest (in the good way) on the subject of global warming, and yet you continue to vote and caucus with the party that would prefer that we not even talk about it so we can keep on jacking up oil and coal industry profits, even as we huddle up in hurricane shelters and fight for the world’s last usable water (speaking of which… perhaps the Bush family will be kind enough to invite you in to their new spread in Paraguay… or not…)

After a while, Gordon, I just look at you, and Snowe and Collins of Maine, and the soon to be ex-Senator Chafee, and say… WTF? YOU ARE ENABLING PEOPLE WHO DO THINGS THAT YOU KNOW ARE WRONG. The overhwhelming majority of the time. And you frequently vote with them (though the vote for caucus leader is the only one that counts.)

So… as interesting as the occasional speech you just gave might be, indeed, it might even be refreshing rhetorically, it ultimately means little or nothing, Gordon. And worse, I tend to agree that you are doing this out of conscience, rather than a craven desire to appease your state’s voters. To which I say: BIG DEAL. What you are is an enabler of an extremist party… worse… a party you (and your constituents) mostly disagree with.

So spare us.

(Cross posted to the talking dog.)

My Mom grew up barefoot poor during the Great Depression. She didn’t go hungry because a family farm in the Catskills was present, but there was little margin for error and zero room for waste.

As a result, she still retains many simple tastes in food. She and several of my aunts still love some horrid breakfast repast they call ’souse’ (rhymes with louse), which is mostly floating particles of pork in a vinegar base, heated and poured over pancakes. Puckery sour ick.

I’ll let others pass on such culinary wonders to their masochistic descendants.

But, perhaps because of my paternal side’s Irish heritage, I still love her very basic potato soup. It’s inexpensive, filling and will warm every bone chill on a dreary cold winter’s day. And it’s surprisingly tasty despite its minimalism.

Hers required little more than milk, water, butter, potato, salt, pepper and onion. But I’ve experimented with it to make it a little more flavorful, with a little more color to improve its presentation.

It’s the sort of thing you can make gallons of to feed a crowd of family, neighbors and coworkers, relatively inexpensively. It’s perfect during a post-holiday period when there’s some leftover ham for the starter.

This recipe could provide two bowls to 15 or 20. I’ll leave it to you to figure out how to scale it down to suit fewer mouths to feed, though with a microwave handy, this can be rewarmed for several days to help you through a persistent winter chill.

Major cooking utensils: 2.5 to 3 gallon stockpot, large fry or saute pan.

You’ll need to buy:

Leftover cooked ham, at least 1 lb (up to 3), plus the bone
10 lb bag of potatoes
1-1/2 large sweet onions (WallaWalla, Vidalia, Mayan)
8 stalks of celery
8-10 cloves of garlic
4 yellow and orange bell peppers
2 lbs. mushrooms
fresh basil
fresh rosemary
dried tarragon
salt & pepper
Olive oil
A stick of butter
1 quart Half & half
Brandy or your beverage of choice.

Optional/experimental: I recently tried a variant adding a bag of frozen sweet corn for added flavor and texture, but found its flavor to be lost within the richer flavors of the soup. Next time, I plan to try adding some diced fresh carrots at the same time I add the potatoes, to see if that enhances things further.

Instructions:

Proper setting is critical. Have a snifter of brandy or cognac handy to rinse your palate at regular intervals throughout. Simple as it is, this will likely take you three hours to prepare. Should you prefer a non-alcohol variant, your Irish heritage may be subject to question, but something minty should suffice. Cognac isn’t Irish, either, but it meets the demands of Julia Child inebriates, who will find the result worthy of her standards.

Background music should be warm, light and not somber. Jazz and swing would be too much. Opera requires a different starch. Blues is too depressing for gray winter days. And most pop country should be reserved for recipes calling for corporate pisswater beer.

Folk music (the Guthries, Pete Seeger, etc), fiddle music (bluegrass or Irish) or anything warm and homey or ethereal (James Taylor, Norah Jones, Enya, etc) should set the mood at a nice glow.

Directions:

1) Rinse and swallow a good mouthful of your beverage. Start heating 1-1/2 gallons of water in the stockpot (about 40%-50% full).

2) Dice the ham in chunks about 3/4″ x 3/4″ from slices 1/4″ to 1/2″ thick. Fat can be included initially, but after it’s boiled a bit, should be floating in the water. Skim the fat chunks out before other ingredients get added. Toss the hambone in, too. Bring to a boil. Simmer for 30-45 minutes, while completing numbers 3 to 6, below.

3) Mince fine the garlic cloves and dice the sweet onions. Pour 3-4 tbsp of olive oil in your large saute/fry pan, sufficient to coat the bottom. Add the garlic and onions. Set the heat on high.

4) Dice the celery. Wide stalks should be split in two before dicing. Chunks should be no more than 1/2″ wide, long or thick. By now, the fry/sute pan should be sizzling. Reduce heat to a low-medium and flip the contents so no brown will turn to black. Add the celery. Cover.

5) Another swig of beverage would be apropos at this moment. Think about the Irish potato famine of the 1840s. Curse the British.

6) Peel your potatoes. Eight pounds worth is perfect. Keep one eye on the fry/saute mix and stir intermittently, in pursuit of translucence more than brown. Keep peeling. Don’t complain. Those poor starving Irish folk would gladly take your place.

The peeled potatoes should be set in bowls or pans of water, fully covered, while you peel the balance.

Somewhere in the midst of peeling, your saute mix should be completed. Now’s the time to stop and skim out the ham fat from your stockpot. Taste the water. Add enough salt to make it have a slight saltiness. Now pour in the saute mix and stir, leaving the stockpot on simmer. Set aside the saute/fry pan for further use, as it is.

Keep peeling the spuds, till complete.

7) Core out the stem and seeds from the bell peppers. Slice to 1/2″ or 3/4″ squares. Set aside. Clean and slice the mushrooms. 1/4″ thick slices or slightly less.

Slice 2/3rds a stick of butter into the already oily saute/fry pan. Set on medium heat to begin their melt. Add the peppers and stir.

Dice the fresh basil, chopping fine. There’s a lot of potatoes to flavor so the loose pack of basil ought to fill 5-6 tablespoons.

Dice the fresh rosemary leaves, also fine. 3-4 tablespoons should suffice.

Stir the peppers. Add the mushrooms to the fry/saute pan. Stir in. Slice up the remaining 1/3rd stick of butter and scatter across the mushrooms. Cover.

Add the rosemary and basil to the simmering stockpot. Add 4 tbsp. of dried tarragon, as well.

8) Another swig of beverage is called for at this time. Pity the British, who must content themselves trying to swallow stinky kidney pie. Toast a dead Irish saint. Think impure thoughts about some young Irish lad or lassie (but over 18, because good cooking must be legal).

Keep an eye on the saute/fry mix and stir intermittently. The ideal is barely sauteed, before full degradation. The stockpot will finish that task.

9) Return to those gorgeous waiting piles of potatoes. Split them lengthwise. Smaller ones can be split into halfs; large ones into lengthwise quarters. Your saute mix should be done amidst this slicefest, so turn off the heat when they are.

Now slice all the spudlings, but not thin. 1/4″ or slightly thicker is perfect. The slices require no added rinsing.

10) Remove the hambone from the stockpot. Add all the potatoes. Stir. Add 5 tbsp. black pepper. Stir again. Add the saute mix. Use a spatula to get as much of the butter/oil mix into the pot. Stir again.

Now, avoiding as much of the floating herbs and butterfat as you can, try another spoonful of the stockpot liquid. You’re still after a slight saltiness, and a hint of pepper. Add more of that pair till you achieve it. Make sure there’s enough water to cover all the chunky ingredients, but if the water’s more than an inch above the pile, quickly peel and slice as much of the remaining potatoes as necessary to fill that void.

Turn the heat up to high now till it reaches a boil again. Your finish is not far away.

11) Enjoy your beverage once more, occasionally checking the pot till the boil is reached. Then once again, cover and cook at simmer-to-low. Stir at least once every 5 minutes.

12) The brandy or beverage should have your feet rather warm by now. Remove your shoes, socks and/or stockings. Think of the ‘little people’. Try to impress them with a jig.

After 15 minutes of a low boil or simmer, try a chunk of potato. Ideally, it should be just a tad underdone if you were eating it as a side dish. Now add about 3/4 of that quart of half & half. Stir thoroughly as you don’t want potatoes burning on the bottom.

Increase the heat slightly to bring it all back up to a minimal boil. Then reset to simmer.

Continue your impressive jig in front of the giggling lephrechauns. Take another beverage quaff for courage. Drop trou and moon in the direction of England’s Queen.

After 5 minutes of simmering, if your potatoes are cooked but not disintegrating, your soup is ready. Check once more the salt/pepper flavor and adjust/stir, if need be.

Dish it up. The liquid should be silky, not thick and creamy. The bowls should have more chunkiness than liquid.

Optional: you might add a sprinkle of more fresh basil on top, some grated parmesan or a dollop of sour cream that can be stirred in by your guests. Don’t overdo the presentation ingredients, because the magic’s in the already rich flavor, not the looks.

And know that St. Paddy is blessing you. Queen Elizabeth is looking a bit bewildered. And summer has been restored to your bare feet.

Never speak ill of the dead, except when in trying to praise the departed you are actually slighting him and his achievements and insulting the intelligence of your readers;

Lede on an AP story on Gerald Ford:

Gerald R. Ford was a man of limited ambition who, through bizarre
circumstances never before experienced by the country, achieved an office that others win through the greatest determination and
calculation. The nation’s 38th president, Ford wanted only to become speaker of the House. History had another place for him.

Only Speaker of the House.  Only.

Tell Nancy Pelosi she’s soon to hold a job only the unambitious aspire to.

Tell it to the ghosts of Sam Rayburn and Tip O’Neill.

Only.

And if Speaker of the House is a job for the shy and retiring, what does that make the job Ford held when Nixon tapped him for Vice-President, Minority Leader of the House of Representatives?

And missing from this pretty picture of Gerald Ford as a man of limited ambition forced by history into a role he was too humble to want for himself is the fact that he ran for President in 1976.

You’d think from that paragraph that after serving out the two years of his appointed Presidency he said, "My work here is done," and rode off into the sunset.

This is another version of the pretty story being told over and over by the Media about Gerald Ford, as if it had something to do with the truth:  After the ruthlessly ambitious Nixon was driven from the White House, the country was "healed" by the sunny, cheerful, unambitious, own-toast-making, "amiable" Jerry Ford.

I don’t know if Jerry Ford ever wanted to be President of the United States—before the day in 1974 when he accepted the Vice-Presidency knowing full well that Nixon was not at all likely to serve out his term—he may not have.  But that wouldn’t have made him a man of limited ambition.  It might just have marked him as a man with realistic ambitions.

As a young Congressman, or even as a young military veteran and former college football hero thinking of starting a career in politics, he may have wanted to be President but figured that there was no real chance that he could be and so he decided to channel his ambitions in other directions.

But if he had been ambitious for the Presidency, so what?

Would that have made him any less "amiable?"

Nothing gets done in this world except by people who are ambitious.  Ambition in itself is not a vice.  It depends on what you’re ambitious to do and how far you will go to realize those ambitions.  When we disparage someone as ambitious, when we say Caesar was ambitious, Napoleon was ambitious, that guy in the office who’s determined to make CEO by the time he’s 35 is ambitious and who is lying, cheating, and backstabbing his way to the top is ambitious, we mean it as the ultimate insult, we are saying that those ambitious types are consumed by their ambitions.

We do not mean that the job of CEO should go to a person who has no ambition.

We do not mean that the country should be governed by men and women who don’t want to accomplish much of anything.

Nixon’s flaw wasn’t that he was ambitious.  It was that he was ambitious and vain and angry and insecure and power-hungry and corrupted by power and his own anger and vanity.

The difference between Nixon and Abraham Lincoln is not that Nixon was ambitious and Lincoln wasn’t.

George Washington is revered for his lack of ambition…to be a king.  Unambitious he was not.  Ambition tempered by humility and a strong sense of right and wrong is in fact a desirable quality in a leader.

Nixon was not brought down by the gods.  He was thwarted and finally run out of town by men and women of great ambition, including Gerald Ford.

The AP story pretty much repeats its lede with this graph not very far down:

And so the man who did not covet the presidency, who never had sought national office and who wanted only to become the "head honcho" of the House, became president by chance — unlike many since who have devoted huge amounts of time and money in pursuit of the Oval Office.

I like that "since" in the clause after the dash there.  As if in the Golden Age before Nixon, only the humble and uninterested ever ran for President.

But, again, it’s as if Jimmy Carter had another opponent devoting huge amounts of time and money in pursuit of the Oval Office.

Two pretty stories are being told here.  The first is that once upon a time America and Americans were better than they are now, a land where all the men were strong, all the women were handsome, the children all above average, and nobody was ambitious.

This pretty story is one of the most pernicious in the library of national cliches.  By presenting contemporary America as a corrupt and fallen nation compared to our glorious and innocent past, the teller of the pretty story implies that the way to improvement and salvation is to go backwards.  Reaction is the politics of nostalgia.

The other pretty story is only a little less destructive.  All Presidents, except those named Nixon or Clinton, are good and honorable men who put the best interests of the country ahead of everything, including and especially personal ambition, which is why they have all managed to do wonderful things.

What would have been the result if AP had chosen to write an obituary of the real Gerry Ford?  If instead of the ambiable doofus who became President through "bizarre circumstances"—Watergate is turned into a kind of natural disaster in this phrase, an unlucky accident that befell the country, and Nixon’s bad character is erased from history—we were told about a savvy and ambitious politician who brokered his way into the White House?

We’d then have to tell the story of the real Ford Presidency, which can be at best described as a triumph of mediocrity, in which Ford’s main achievement was mostly a matter of his not doing anything—he didn’t start any wars or let any cities drown or make any determined efforts to undue generations of social progress and justice.

There’d be nothing "great" about Ford’s life to write about, is that it?  All his achievements as a United States Congressman?  Piffle.

What we have here is a story that disparages wanting to be President at the same time it accepts the idea that the only great job is that of President.

But mainly what we have is a perfect example of the reflexive institutional condescension of the Washington Media, the "You can’t handle the truth" dismissive arrogance of the National Press Corps towards ordinary Americans.

We children—we voters, we citizens—have to be spoonfed our pretty stories so we can go about our business in comfortble ignornace, childishly secure in the knowledge that our leaders are all great and noble, smarter than us, wiser than us, better than us.  They don’t need our advice or our energy or our supervision.  We should just go about our business and, as far as the wise men and women of the Washington Media Elite are concerned, our busines is to mind our own business.
______________________________

Atrios has been riding this one hard for the last couple weeks, the arrogance of the wise men and women who think that their having been wrong about everything for the past six years does not disqualify them from telling us how the country should be run over the next six.

Tom Watson assesses Ford the President and finds that he was mostly harmless.

And a little while back, Ezra Klein made the point that the way to figure out what a politician will do in office is to ignore the pretty stories the press corps makes up and then reports on as fact and pay attention to what that politician says he will do and at what he has already done.  From the New York Times obit, here’s Jerry Ford on Jerry Ford’s supposed lack of ambition and his being in the position to become President by chance:

“The harder you work, the luckier you are,” he said once in summarizing his career. “I worked like hell.”

Cross-posted at my place.

Hearing George (I Am Lincoln) Bush laud Jerry (I’m Not a Lincoln, I’m a) Ford, you wonder if Bush hears the echo in the room. If Ford dying is a tragedy for his family and a sadness for the nation, his death must be a disaster for Bush. We will find ourselves reminded again of a president who thought he could do know wrong just because he was president. When it is quiet in the Capitol as Ford rests below the glorious rotunda, the whisper of Nixon will only grow louder.

Ford disagreed with Bush freeing the whole world if it didn’t serve a national interest. And Cheney?

“He was an excellent chief of staff. First class,” Ford said. “But I think Cheney has become much more pugnacious” as vice president. He said he agreed with former secretary of state Colin L. Powell’s assertion that Cheney developed a “fever” about the threat of terrorism and Iraq. “I think that’s probably true.”

Secretive, power driven leaders rarely get sympathy ordinary folk when they screw up. Neither the Harry Truman nor the Abraham Lincoln Bush compares himself to so frequently saw power as a goal, only as a means. The wars they fought were responses. What Bush views as spreading the fire of freedom, the rest of the world sees as aggression and occupation. Leave it to the dreamers to suggest again the world is better without Saddam and a Middle East caught in the wildfire now is somehow far better. Stupidity rarely speaks softly. The daft love nothing more than their own voices.

At some quiet moment in Ford’s funeral, someone will comment on how he was a healer. This will contrast harshly with The Occupant in Chief, The Decider who said he was a Uniter, but has more been a Divider. The nation will remember the last great divider and the last Great Divide. Nixon pacing the White House late at night, Nixon foot steps may be heard again softly then. The memory of Ford will remind us he was not a Lincoln. Some will argue Ford made a mistake pardoning Tricky Dick.

Whatever Ford did then, we were dicked. Or had been dicked. The man who tried a nation’s soul would never go on trial. Ford was in some ways a Lincoln, the Lincoln who saw a divide:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

We yearn for a greater wisdom, we strive for a lasting peace. If Ford was not a Lincoln, Bush isn’t either. But Bush might take the lesson of Ford and make a peace with his countrymen and women. We are in the bind and need a binding of wounds.

Was Ford right to pardon Nixon then? What can Bush do to bind our wounds now?

Jackie Calmes surprises by providing a well-balanced overview of John Edwards’ campaign in the unlikely locale of the Wall Street Journal.

I’ll just add that the housing downturn of last year’s likely to continue in 2007. Gasoline prices should spike again, especially due to the Bush initiatives directed at Iraq and Iran. Alternative biofuels production will add to price elevation of several agricutural crops like corn, provoking inflation in our grocery aisles. And international flight from the US dollar will continue, as well.

All these fctors point to a recession beginning in the second half of 2007. Which points to more reasons the Edwards candidacy will prove more resonant than some now believe.

I’m sticking my neck out early: I support Edwards. I won’t be blind to the potential others may offer and I’ll try to present fair, objective analyses of their chances.

I remain, after all, skeptical of any politician who’s made serious errors, such as early support of the Iraq War. But I’ve seen a very few grow wisdom from error. If Edwards demonstrates that, my support will not flinch.

When Richard Nixon died, I was shocked to hear Bill Clinton’s warm eulogy of the ethically-barren viper. That is, till I understood that intensely competitive politicians often admire intensely competitive political foes who win, because winning, for them, is the most important principle.

I don’t concur.

I’m not so shocked at the predictable eulogizing of Jerry Ford, who earned some merit for his WWII naval service and whose best decision was to marry the woman who proved to be the greatest First Lady we’ve had since Eleanor Roosevelt, because she didn’t act like royalty and openly expressed her views and feelings on matters political and personal, no matter how controversial.

But I’m not buying the crap being sold by GOP and Dem leaders about his supposedly nation-healing pardon of the savage Tricky Dick.

Sure, let us fulfill the tradition of not speaking ill of the dead in the moment of his family’s grief. Unfortunately with Ford, after a sufficient mourning period, no-one’s likely to venture forth with the historical truth about the guy, precisely because he was so bland that they’ll figure no one will care enough to read about him.

The poet-musician Gil Scott-Heron long ago dubbed him ‘Oatmeal Man’ for good reason. Wholesome, colorless, he stood for old-fashioned Puritan virtues. Admittedly, there was some real integrity in many of those, but his sexual prudery, his instinctive revulsion towards liberal civil disobedients and his willingness to bend his ethics for political convenience belied that image of purity.

The Jerry Ford I remember was an apologetic bumbler for the most part, short of most of the skills that mark leadership. Though I think he tended towards good intentions more often than not, his capacity to do damage and retrospectively be dismissive of the actual results made him less an evil entity -like his predescessor- and more simply, a buffoon.

Yes, I seriously mean my condolences to his family, who he served very well. Yet I’ll not hold my tongue in my description of the man because I think it critically important to not overlook his contributions to the evolution of our country to its present-day dysfunctionalities.

Chevy Chase built an entire career almost entirely from his apt mockery of Ford’s physical gaffes. That career faded at a similar pace as Ford did, and together, I’ll always view them with the same affection I felt towards the Vega and the Pinto, mindful, of course, that the Pinto was deadlier.

A former team member blogging for us, who also served as our earliest site administrator, recently was rewarded with a plum job blogging for Foreign Policy magazine’s online blog. There, Blake Hounshell dug up a 10 year old video obit of Ford that perfectly heralds his actual demise, as its real target is broadcast media pundits, with Ford as the convenient foil.

In the pantheon of American leaders, that’s the best summation of Ford: a convenient foil next to the larger story.

Let’s begin with his first big botch when he served on the Warren Commission, investigating JFK’s assassination:

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