Obama offers a comprehensive energy plan,
& accurately notes keeping tires pumped
saves more than offshore drilling will produce.
The reaction: Conservatives mock conservation.

The Bush team ordered a forged letter
to mislead America into invading Iraq,
deceiving Congress, distorting the press....
In short, Republicans subverted the Republic.

And in a military trial at Guantanamo
secret evidence & closed proceedings
are supposedly the road to justice.
Because the Right-wing opposes Rights.

Anti-conservation conservatives...
anti-rights right-wingers...
anti-Republic Republicans...

At least these lunatics are consistent.

Take a deep breath & enjoy a deep swig
and share deep debate or (light libations)
at your local progressive social club.

DRINKING LIBERALLY
Find - or start - a chapter near you.

1. Wal-Mart's attempts to sway the political attitudes of its employees go horribly awry.

2. n+1's Dark Knight review paints the film as Bush administration propaganda. Tell us, n+1...why so serious?

3. Proof that John McCain doesn't know what bad press looks like.

4. File this one under horrible-but-not-actually-that-surprising: Ron Suskind's revelation that the Bush administration forged a letter linking Iraq and Al-Quaeda.

5. Also, Grandpa got totally drunk at the Buffalo Chip competition and embarrassed New Grandma.

Ed Fallon, the challenger who lost a heartbreaking primary to Bush-Dog Leonard Boswell, endorses the Liberal Card for his own personal reasons.

Tell the world that you are a card-carrying liberal, and get awesome discounts while you're at it!

Get your Liberal Card today at TheLiberalCard.org.

Conservatives in America have perfected a campaigning technique – it's often credited to Karl Rove, but it has roots that go back to his mentor, Lee Atwater.  If there's an issue where they have a severe deficit, they try to convert the strength of their opponent into weakness.  In 2000, the GOP selected a fairly dumb candidate.  So they converted their opponent's intelligence into a weakness by labeling him an elitist intellectual who couldn't be trusted.  In 2004, they faced a veteran with a heroic record, who had the sense to reject the reasons behind both Viet Nam and Iraq.  Their candidate was a coward who went AWOL during his duty, and who was a rank incompetent in prosecuting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  How do you fight that?  By attacking the veteran's war record:  mock his convention salute, wear purple-heart bandaids, fund slimy attacks like those of the Swift Boat liars, etc.

What do they face in 2008?  A very popular black candidate.  How can you attack that?  Well, you attack his popularity by making it seem like a weakness.  When he draws 80,000 people in Portland, you start talking about Obama-bots and his cult status.  When he announces that his acceptance speech will be in a stadium with 75,000 people, or when he draws 200,000 in Berlin, you compare him to Hitler.

The race part is problematic.  You will have a tough time attacking his blackness.  You can try to use side issues to make him seem different, foreign, unAmerican.  By doing that, you have his blackness working for you.  People who are already uneasy about electing a black man will connect all the dots – he's a scary, Muslim black man who hates America.

The other thing you can do is take away the power of the racism accusation.  You can make it impossible for people to accuse you of racism.  That way you pave the way for more nasty racist arguments to be used later.  How do you do that?  By exaggerating what people say into false accusations of racism that look totally absurd and baseless.

I experience that tactic this last week in the IdahoFallsToday.com (formerly IdahoFallz.com) website.  On a thread about the New Yorker cover, I commented (as 'Idahogie') that a small subset of people who forward horrible lies in emails like "Obama is a Muslim" and "Michelle hates America" were just covering for racism.  A poster named Bundy did his part to take a little bit of power out of the racism card by exaggerating that to the extreme:  "I am intentionally calling you on your baloney liberal theories that paint any opposition to Obama as racist."  That is obviously not true.  I did nothing of the sort, and Bundy was just lying.  I corrected him nicely once, but he kept at it, repeating his lie 4 or 5 times.  He even got some defenders to support him.

I don't think that Bundy knew that's what he was doing.  I think your run-of-the-mill right-wingers just pick up these techniques through osmosis and emulation.  But his lie had a purpose – to weaken the racism accusation in general.  If the conservatives do this enough, they will be able to paint any racism claim as just the absurd accusations of politically correct liberals.

There was another example of this tactic from the GOP last weekend on the national scene.  John McCain had badgered Obama about his lack of foreign trips to visit the troops and talk with the commanders for so long that he was faced with a huge problem when he saw Obama's trip going so well.  So he took advantage of a particular incident to smear Obama.  The US Army command at the military base in Landstuhl, Germany, denied Obama permission to visit the base, giving the reason that they didn't want a political event to take place, politicising the troops, etc.  They would have transported Obama there alone, but Obama didn't want to go without his advisor - a retire Air Force officer (and, given that he'd already been ambushed by a lying McCain supporter in Afghanistan, I can understand why he'd want his team with him at all times).  Instead of making a big deal of it, Obama deferred to the Landstuhl commanders.  After his plane left Germany, the Landstuhl commanders also rejected the press's request to accompany him to Landstuhl.  That was a separate request, which was moot at that point anyway.  McCain's campaign then put out as slimy and underhanded an ad as you could concoct.  I'm sure that Karl Rove was proud.

And now, he made time to go to the gym, but cancelled a visit with wounded troops.  Seems the pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras.

Did you see that?  Besides lying through deceptive juxtapositioning of facts, McCain used the wounded troops as a club to attack Obama.  He politicized them, when Obama's decision not to visit was based on avoiding that outcome.  McCain took an Obama strength and tried to make it a weakness.  The good news is that it seems to be backfiring in McCain's face.

This countering tactic is really the only thing the right has.  They certainly can't run on their record (ha!).  Or their basic philosophy – most Americans are liberal on the issues – they support abortion, public education, universal health care, getting out of Iraq, social security, support for the poor, immigration, speaking foreign languages, etc.  So conservatives have to be sneaky to get people to vote against their own best interests, and to defend horrible candidates like Bush and McCain.  They're doing what they have to do.  And people like Bundy fall in line to help them.

Don't fall for it.  This conservative tactic relies on all of us to ignore the deceptions that they are purpetrating.  Call it out when you see it.  When you read someone like Bundy making absurd claims, point it out and tell her that you're not falling for it.  If you have a wingnut friend who forwards stupid emails about Obama, send a correction back in reply, and include every email address from the original.  Don't sit back and say "it's just a he-said/she-said thing – we can all just have our own opinions and agree to disagree."  Show them that deceptive political tactics can't be used to steal power in this country.

While Obama's international tour showed America
that the world may have goodwill towards us yet,
McCain runs ads criticizing Obama's popularity.

While McCain's media buddies give him a pass
-- overlooking Mideast confusions & profanities --
he complains of Obama's coverage that he's left out.

And because artists, scientists & scholars
support Obama, McCain calls him "elitist"...
while McCain wears $500 loafers.

On one hand, a candidate liked by colleagues,
praised by his students, welcomed by the world.

On the other, a man who has run ads
reviving his 1960s war...against Woodstock.

Now...who is out of touch?

Come out tonight for a drink & a think,
share a pint and a pontification
with your local progressive social club.

DRINKING LIBERALLY
Find - or start - a chapter near you.

Street Prophets is an awesome blog. It's great to see so many religious progressives getting together to talk about issues of religion and politics, organize around them and most importantly, build community.

This community building is at the heart of what Living Liberally does. We believe that our political identity should be part of our regular lives. Too often politics is restricted to one day every four years, or to long, uninviting meetings in fluorescent-lit, linoleum-floored rooms.

Through our social networks and events, we promote this kind of social/political engagement.. These networks include over 260 Drinking Liberally, Laughing Liberally, Screening Liberally, Reading Liberally, and Eating Liberally chapters in all 50 states.

Through these happy hours, comedy shows, film screenings, book clubs and meals, we fulfill our key mission of bringing politics into places where we gather, socialize, learn, love and live. One of these places to which we have yet to reach out is the liberal religious community, one that, unfortunately, has found few spaces to gather and organize in person, in public, loud and proud.

For this reason we are developing a brand new Living Liberally network: Praying Liberally!

Like our other chapters, Praying Liberally chapters will have weekly, semi-monthly or monthly meetings of local liberals from a wide range of faiths including, as pastordan so excellently phrases it, "those whose deepest faith is in the conviction that there is no God." At these meetings, faithfully-minded liberals could talk politics, say a collective prayer for "the least of these" in our community, our country and our world, and build community to organize around our common causes.

Also like our other chapters, Praying Liberally chapters will receive a web site, chapter blog, listserv and other online organizing tools and support features from the Living Liberally national network.

Hosting a chapter is fun and EASY! All you have to do is decide on a time and location, anywhere from a local religious space to the neighborhood cafe, and send out a quick e-mail reminder before you meet - that's it. Overall, it's no more difficult than meeting with your spiritually progressive friends to hang out and talk politics.

If you're interested in being one of the first to start a Praying Liberally chapter or know someone who might be interested, email info@livingliberally.org.

It's time to find out what it means to Pray Liberally!

As we said in our last Saving People Liberally post, our two Lincoln, NE DL chapter leaders, Paul and Troy, just left the chapter for a month to help fight the California wild fires as volunteer Helicopter Flight Engineers. Paul sent me an update a couple days ago:

We made it here to CA fine. And are readying the aircraft to start dropping water today on the Northern Area fires.

Just so you know there are National Guard Aircrews from many other states here helping also, ND , NV, OR, WA, UT.

We are currently in Sacramento and working from here, but go where ever they need us, so our location may change as the fires are fought in different areas.

To say that this is the worst set of fires ever in CA would be a big understatement, the fire fighters here (CALFIRE) here readily say they have never seen this many fires or this many big fires ever.

This is why crews from all over are here helping, (including us), in addition to all the CA National Guard aircraft, and Navy, Marine and Air Force Helicopters helping out as well.

I don't know if we will get a chance to, but we will try and hook up with the local chapter of DL / LL where ever we are later these coming weeks.

Great to hear from you guys. We wish you the best of luck. Keep living liberally!

1. Matt Yglesias shows what John McCain's economic proposals can do for you... if you are a big oil company. He also liked Hancock. We did too, more on that later.

2. Salon covers Sebelius's VP prospects. A female Mike Bloomberg?

3. The bible belt really eats liberally.

4. Conservatives "Ready to Battle" McCain thus proving that the enemy of your enemy is not always your friend.

5. Obama will accept the nomination in a 75,000 seat football stadium on the 45th anniversary of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream Speech". Chills. 'Twill be awesome.

6. Need another reason not to attack Iran?

7. Amy Goodman tackles Obama's centrism.

8. It seems that the Iraqi government may set a timetable for withdrawal.

9. Ever wondered why my.barackobama is so much like Facebook?

10. California and New York (in 2010) are requiring new cars to display a "Global Warming Score", showing how "green" the vehicle really is. Apparently this is so people can throw things at cars with low scores.

Talking Liberally Progressive Parley
by Seth Pearce, Living Liberally Blog

Part of Living Liberally's mission has been to promote engagement and collaboration among progressive organizations. To fulfill this goal we at Living Liberally have decided to feature interviews with people involved in different parts of the progressive movement. Hopefully, through these interviews, we can learn about what progressives are working on today, and get a little more in depth about what its like to be a part of the progressive movement.

Our first interviewee, Daniel Mintz, is in Research and Development at progressive powerhouse MoveOn.org Political Action. He currently lives in Brooklyn and every once in a while shows up at the Original Drinking Liberally. Enjoy!

Seth Pearce: So, what did your parents say when your organization was condemned by the US congress?
Daniel Mintz: I think, they, like a lot of people, were just blown away that with so many huge problems to tackle, the US Congress decided to spend so much time talking about a newspaper ad. Just like, whether you agreed or disagreed with the ad, what a manufactured controversy.

SP: What exactly do you do at MoveOn?
DM: Officially, I'm in charge of Research and Development, which is to say that I'm the R&D dept. (we're a pretty tiny shop). What that means in practice is that I get to have my hands in lots of cool stuff that we're trying out.

SP: Stuff John McCain would know how to use?
DM: Not so much.

SP: People think of MoveOn as this big shadowy progressive organization, running some kind of secret progressive world order- what are some specific things that MoveOn is working on right now?
DM: Ha. What are we working on right now?...Let's see...We're getting ready to run a massive get out the vote operation in the fall, hundreds of paid organizers working with tens of thousands of volunteers. We'll be essentially combining our 2004 program, Leave No Voter Behind, where people in swing states canvassed their neighbors, with our 2006 program, Call for Change, where MoveOn members across the country made more than 7 million calls to voters in key House and Senate races.

We're also working on FISA: Right now, we're asking thousands of MoveOn members to call their senators every day to tell them not to cave on the FISA "compromise".

And we're running a National Day of Action for an Oil-Free President at gas stations across the country in a few weeks. McCain is pretty darn tight with Big Oil. Many of the more than 100 lobbyists associated with his campaign are lobbyists for Big Oil. We wanted to highlight those ties and push for our next president to free himself and us of our dependence on foreign oil. So we're holding hundreds of gas station rallies where thousands of MoveOn members will show up at local gas stations to rally and call for a real, progressive solutions to the energy crisis.

Follow across the jump for more fresh Mintz.

Conventional wisdom says that Obama
caved on FISA & talked up faith-based programs
because he's appealing to "Independents."

Who knew independents oppose the Constitution?

Obama HAD to disavow Wes Clark's comments --
though Clark only questioned his experience as leader
& specifically honored his courage and will --
since "dishonoring" McCain would turn off independents.

Who knew independents are so ill-informed?

And McCain keeps saying he's a "maverick"
as he continues his "Straight Talk Express"
because these words appeal to independents.

Who knew independents liked slogans so much?!

If "independent" voters read only the spin,
& don't read the Constitution or the news,
maybe we shouldn't ask them to decide elections.

Or maybe "independent" really means something else.

And maybe "independent" candidates
who shy away from principled stands
aren't what we're looking for either.

It's time we take strong positions,
stop listening to the media's darling tales,
and Declare our Independence...from "Independents."

Celebrate the holiday in the most American way:
sharing an evening of spirited discussion
as you share a few pitchers of liberal libations
at your local progressive social club.

DRINKING LIBERALLY
Find - or start - a chapter near you.

Happy 4th of July!