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SYNDICATED COLUMN: Is Chicago Burning?

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Ted Rall
Hillary Clinton, Superdelegates, and Playing with Fire Will there be race riots if Barack Obama is denied the Democratic nomination? Despite the continuing fallout over his association with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the Illinois senator has won the most state primaries, the most votes and the most delegates. Polls have him running between one and four percentage points ahead of Clinton. Four centuries after the first blacks came to America in chains, the prospect of seeing one of their own become president is so close that African-Americans can taste it. Will they sit quietly at home and change the channel if white America dashes their hopes? “One big fact has largely been lost in the recent coverage of the Democratic presidential race,” write Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen of Politico.com. “Hillary Rodham Clinton has virtually no chance of winning.”But what if she does? Stars, planets and a bunch of asteroids would have to fall into perfect alignment in order for…
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SYNDICATED COLUMN: Obama/Dukakis 2008

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Ted Rall
Dem Wimp Throws His Truth-Telling Preacher Under the Bus If Americans were represented by an animal, it wouldn’t be an eagle. It would be a tiny shrew, nervous and paranoid and living in constant terror of being attacked by predators. Our national prey mentality doesn’t have much basis in reality. The last attack on U.S. soil took place two-thirds of a century ago; Hawaii wasn’t even a state at the time. Before that, you have to go back to 1846–and we provoked that one. Whatever the historical basis–or lack thereof–for this innate fearfulness, U.S. voters look to their president as a Father Protector figure–someone who, if threatened, will ferociously defend what is now called, stupidly and horribly, das Homeland. Republican candidates win elections in years when national security is a top concern. In 2004, it didn’t matter that John Kerry volunteered for, fought in, and returned with medals from Vietnam. What mattered was that he turned the other cheek to…
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SYNDICATED COLUMN: Eco-Terrorism: There’s No Such Thing

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Ted Rall
Property Rights Extremists Equate McMansions to 9/11 Victims The United States should not build housing. Whole neighborhoods in places like Chicago and Dayton and Oakland and Newark and Memphis are dominated by abandoned houses and apartment buildings. Ten percent of our national housing stock–more than 13 million homes, enough to put roofs over the homeless three times over–are vacant year-round. So why do we let developers bulldoze fields and forests to put up soulless monstrosities? Several “model houses” at a development bearing the typically atrocious name of “Quinn’s Crossing at Yarrowbay Communities” at the edge of Seattle’s creeping suburban sprawl went up in flames, apparently torched by radical environmentalists. I had two reactions. First, I was reminded of my wonder that such things happen so infrequently. Then I laughed. I wasn’t alone. Time magazine bemoaned “a notable lack of sympathy for the fate of the homes” among residents of Washington state. Quinn’s Crossing, says its website, was “dedicated to the…
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SYNDICATED COLUMN: Afghanistan—A War We Can’t Believe In

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Ted Rall
Why Obama’s Favorite War is Less Winnable Than Iraq Five years after the Republicans got us into war against Iraq, Democrats want to double down on a war that’s even more unjustifiable and unwinnable–the one against Afghanistan. By any measure, U.S. troops and their NATO allies are getting their asses kicked in the country that Reagan’s CIA station chief for Pakistan called “the graveyard of empires.” Afghanistan currently produces a record 93 percent of the world’s opium. Suicide bombers are killing more U.S.-aligned troops than ever. Stonings are back. The Taliban and their allies, “defeated” in 2001, control most of the country–and may recapture the capital of Kabul as early as this summer. “So,” asks The New York Times, “has Afghanistan now become a bigger security threat to the United States than Iraq?” Barack Obama’s answer is yes. He spent last year parroting the DNC’s line that Bush “took his eye off the ball” in Afghanistan when we invaded Iraq.…
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SYNDICATED COLUMN: Hope You Can’t Vote For

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Ted Rall
Ralph Nader Appeals to Disenfranchised Liberals “What,” editorializes U.S. News & World Report, “does Ralph Nader bring to the political dialogue this year? Answer: nothing except for his own inflated ego.” Dimestore psychoanalysis was the standard reaction to Nader’s third third-party presidential bid. “An ego-driven spoiler,” the Des Moines Register called him. “He seems to have a pretty high opinion of his own work,” jabbed Barack Obama. You see, other politicians who seek the presidency are like the Dalai Lama, humble and self-effacing. Obama and Hillary? Two sweeties. Not an ounce of ego between them. Even our former colonial masters put in their two pence. Nader’s “egotism and cult of left-wing purity has been an utter disaster for the values he affects to espouse,” railed the UK Independent. Nader’s values would fare better, apparently, were he to shut up and keep them to himself. Is Ralph really a spoiler? To answer “yes,” you have to buy three assumptions: First, that…
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SYNDICATED COLUMN: Talk No, Vote Yes

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Ted Rall
THIS WEEK’S SYNDICATED COLUMN: TALK NO, VOTE YES How do Sleazy Senators Get Away With It? A weird new tactic is highlighting the troubling extent to which the news media fails to hold our elected officials accountable. First, a politician calls a press conference where he issues a strident declaration for or against a bill. Big headlines follow. Then, when the matter comes up for a vote, he votes exactly the opposite of what he had said he would. And no one pays attention. Ten years ago, not even the most outrageous legislator would attempt such brazen perfidy. Back then, “flip-flopping”–changing one’s mind about an issue, voting one way and then the other–was the worst sin a pol could commit. Now he can take to the Senate floor, shout about a proposed law being a threat to mom, God and apple pie–and the next day vote “yes,” secure in the knowledge that no reporter will call him on it. Thus…
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SYNDICATED COLUMN: There Should Be Blood

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Ted Rall
Liberal Democrats Left Out in the Cold“The truly undecided voter is rare, say those who study the psychology of voting,” Joe Garofoli wrote in The San Francisco Chronicle. “Since neuroscientists say 90 percent of thought is unconscious, an undecided voter may have already decided–he just hasn’t revealed his pick to himself yet.” Whether I’m a rare bird or a typical victim of self-denial, I didn’t know how I was going to vote until election day–or, to be more precise, a election minute. Roughly 15 to 20 percent of 2008 primary voters have had similar trouble getting their unconscious to talk to them. Most of the electoral procrastinators are conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats–party loyalists whose influence has been diluted by independents who vote in their primaries. As has been widely discussed, conservatives were unhappy with the entire field of Republican presidential contenders. Less noted but no less significant has been the effect of John Edwards’ departure from the Democratic field.…
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SYNDICATED COLUMN: Integrity Lite

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Ted Rall
Puffing Up John McCain, POW “A proven leader, and a man of integrity,” the New York Post called John McCain in its editorial endorsement. “A naval aviator shot down over North Vietnam and held as a POW, McCain knew that freedom was his for the taking. All he had to do was denounce his country. He refused–and, as a consequence, suffered years of unrelenting torture.” This standard summary of McCain’s five and a half years in the Hanoi Hilton, repeated in thousands of media accounts during his 2000 campaign and again this election year, is the founding myth of his political career. The tale of John McCain, War Hero prompts a lot of people turned off by his politics–liberals and traditional conservatives alike–to support him. Who cares that he “doesn’t really understand economics”? He’s got a great story to tell. Scratch the surface of McCain’s captivity narrative, however, and a funny thing happens: his heroism blows away like the rust…
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SYNDICATED COLUMN: Independents Go Home

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Ted Rall
Open Primaries Are Killing Democracy Check out this political mystery: Liberals, a.k.a. the Democratic base, are angry. They’re so angry that they tried to unseat senior senator and former vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman in 2006, who had become synonymous with bipartisanship. Bipartisanship, hell. They’re in the mood for payback. So why is Barack Obama, a bipartisan accommodationist who promises to appoint Republicans to his cabinet and praises Ronald Reagan, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination? Why is Hillary Clinton, militant centrist of the DLC, running a close second? Mystery #2: Liberal primary voters are obsessed with choosing a nominee who can win the general election in November. And yet, according to a hypothetical head-to-head match-up, neither Obama nor Clinton qualifies. The most electable Democrat, found the most recent CNN/Opinion Research Corp. match-up poll, is John Edwards. “Edwards is the only Democrat who beats all four Republicans, and McCain is the only Republican who beats any of the three Democrats…
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SYNDICATED COLUMN: Who’s Afraid of John Edwards?

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Ted Rall
Media Freezes Out a Threat to Corporate Owners In 2004 Democrats were determined to pick the presidential nominee who had the best chance of defeating George W. Bush in the general election. That man was the feisty former governor of Vermont, Howard Dean. One could easily imagine him mercilessly flaying Bush in debates before trouncing Yale’s least favorite son in November. Primary voters, mistakenly betting that blandness and moderation would be a better sell, chose John Kerry instead. The party of Hubert Humphrey and Michael Dukakis seems poised to make the same mistake again, whether with Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Polls show that two-thirds of Americans think the country is ready for a female or black president. But I’m a glass-third-full guy. When a third of the electorate tells you “we’re” not ready for a woman or an African-American commander-in-chief, they really mean that they won’t vote for one. John Edwards is more likely to beat Romney or McCain…
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