Cross your fingers and hope that FEMA, New Orleans, and those levees are ready for this one; last year, serious weaknesses were reported in the levees lining the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet ship channel — the same part of the levee system that broke under Katrina’s onslaught, flooding the Lower 9th Ward.

Image via “American Street“, where updates are promised as the storm approaches.

With all due skepticism about Joe Biden, at least he’s no Sarah Palin, who as far as I can tell has three and only three simple virtues: two X chromosomes, a pulse, and paleolithic political views.

She also appears to have the de rigeur Alaska scandal brewing — a kind of mini-Attorneygate featuring a state police officer she may have tried to improperly force a public safety commissioner to fire (the trooper was in the middle of a messy divorce with her sister). More will doubtless bubble up about this at Talking Points Memo in the days ahead.

A common point being made now is “there goes McCain’s argument about Obama’s lack of experience.” And that’s true enough.

But there’s a deeper, more damaging message Obama and Biden should hammer home mercilessly. It’s that the two leading candidates — after long, secret, and full deliberation — made diametrically opposite calls about who they would tap as their potential replacements: one chose a veteran, the other a tenderfoot. One chose conservatively, the other chose a news cycle bump. One chose to ensure and insure the future of the country, the other chose to risk it.

Biden may not be a “harbinger of change,” as I put it when his nomination was announced. But were he to succeed to the presidency because Obama were incapacitated or dead, people including myself would accept that he would have a good idea of who to talk to, what to say, and what to do. So would any number of other choices, of course, but Biden’s the one, and he’ll do on that score.

By contrast, to be brutally frank, I think about 90 percent of the country would immediately break out in an ice cold sweat if a Vice President Sarah Palin, 44, learned she was to be the next president of the United States.

Having insinuated over and over that Obama isn’t ready for the job, all of a sudden it’s McCain — not Obama — who has chosen to gamble the future of the United States on an unvetted unknown. And it’s McCain — who if elected would be the oldest President ever — who did this as a transparent campaign ploy.

It’s one thing to say Obama doesn’t have enough experience on the national and international stage, and that that matters more than judgment, temperament, and wisdom. Obama knows otherwise, but he also knew he had a responsibility to nominate someone both he and the country knew was a reasonable choice for the job of the Presidency in the event of his death — rather than pull some eccentric stunt to shake up the election campaign.

To put it another way: when they need it and can get it, grownups make different choices about life insurance than gamblers do. Same with vice presidential picks.

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SELECTED REACTIONS: Not too surprised Andrew Sullivan had similar thoughts; quite a bit more surprised that NRO’s David Frum and Rannesh Ponnuru share them, and share them publicly. Ezra Klein, watching the teevee, writes “The base may be happy, but the coverage here is reminiscent of nothing so much as the reception that greeted Harriet Miers.” That didn’t work out so well for Harriet, as I recall. Eagleton II?
EDIT, 8/30: “when they need it and can get it” added.

UPDATE, 9/2: Wow. When I said “unvetted” I meant by the country; now it looks like she was essentially unvetted by the McCain campaign. The New York Times’s Elizabeth Bumiller reports: “A Republican with ties to the campaign said the team assigned to vet Ms. Palin in Alaska had not arrived there until Thursday, a day before Mr. McCain stunned the political world with his vice-presidential choice.” Via hilzoy, who points out that means McCain isn’t just reckless with the country’s interests, he’s reckless with his own — making him an essentially unpredictable man. Talking Points Memo relays an Andrea Mitchell NBC report that more vetting is currently underway — days after the announcement — confirming an Alaska GOP rival’s report forwarded by John Cole.

# http://www.nounverbpow.com/

# Jonathan Schwarz (”A Tiny Revolution”) — “Almost all political conflict, especially in the US, boils down to a fight between the Sane Billionaires and the Insane Billionaires. It generally follows this template:

INSANE BILLIONAIRES: Let’s kill everyone and take their money!
SANE BILLIONAIRES: I like the way you think. I really do. But if we keep everyone alive, and working for us, we’ll make even more money, in the long term.
INSANE BILLIONAIRES: You communist!!!

Works in China, too.

# http://barneysmith2008.com — because we don’t just need a president who puts Barney Smith before Smith Barney, we need a president who IS Barney Smith.

# YouTube Comment Snob “is a Firefox extension that filters out undesirable comments from YouTube comment threads. You can choose to have any of the following rules mark a comment for removal: * More than # spelling mistakes: The number of mistakes is customizable, and the extension uses Firefox’s built-in spell checker. * etc. etc. # All capital letters# No capital letters # Excessive punctuation (!!!! ????)…” etcetera etcetera. Patrick Nielsen Hayden asks the right question: “Can we have this for the entire Internet?”

# Take A Load Off Fannie at “CalculatedRisk”: “The story of Fannie Mae, as narrated by The Band.”

# The Guardian: the whole world’s only source for backup Fafblog. It’s true.

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HAT TIPS: Aviva Othirtytwo (Barney), Andrew H. (Fannie)

Had to admit… no, glad to admit: damn, he’s good. Maybe I’ve missed it before, but Obama gave McCain and the Republican Party a bunch of richly deserved rhetorical punches in the nose I’d begun to think he was too noble to deliver.  From his speech (video here):

“John McCain has voted with George Bush ninety percent of the time. Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than ninety percent of the time? I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to take a ten percent chance on change. [...]

Now, I don’t believe that Senator McCain doesn’t care what’s going on in the lives of Americans.  I just think he doesn’t know.  Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year?  How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than one hundred million Americans?  How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people’s benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement?

It’s not because John McCain doesn’t care.  It’s because John McCain doesn’t get it.  [...]

“In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is - you’re on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps - even if you don’t have boots. You’re on your own.  Well it’s time for them to own their failure.

And the long setup about the sacrifices his grandmother and mother made — followed by

I don’t know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine.

My satisfaction wasn’t completely undimmed.  On issues I’ve tracked, he still speaks of now being “the time to protect Social Security for future generations,” when it seems to me that issue is among the least pressing ones he needs to tackle.  While he spoke of Iran, at least he just spoke of “preventing” that country from getting nuclear weapons, which I suppose can be reconciled with our intelligence services’ best estimates that they’re already not trying to build any.  I wish he’d mentioned his opposition to torture as forcefully as Al Gore and Bill Richardson did in earlier speeches at the stadium.

But he remains an advocate of health care reform, and he remains committed to a time frame for getting out of Iraq.  And I’m relieved to see that he gets that he’s in a fight, that he knows what to do in that fight, and that he gets who he’s fighting for and who he’s fighting against.

For all that I focus on the text of his speech, though, it was seeing his family walk out on stage to thunderous applause when it finally sunk for me how far they’ve come, and maybe how far we’ve all come.  He always had my vote against John McCain.  Tonight, he earned back some less grudging support as well.

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SELECTED REACTIONS:

• eRobin (”fact-esque”) found plenty to be skeptical about, but her lede was still “My first impression, which is the one that matters most, was that this was the first time during the convention that I was able to suspend disbelief.    I heard “We are the party of Roosevelt and Kennedy” and I literally cheered.”
• Avedon Carol (”The Sideshow”): “That was pretty much the speech I’ve been saying he should give, and I believe he made some sales with it.”
• Jim Henley (”Unqualified Offerings”): “I thought Obama’s speech was effective politically, and I thought the schmaltzy intro video was even better. Whoever was in charge of picking out the stills and video clips had the eye of a genius. he/she/they did a masterful job of picking figure arrangements and body language that rebutted the “aloof, elitist” caricature.”
• Thomas Knapp, via Henley: “Make no mistake about it: Barack Obama isn’t running against John McCain, he’s running against George W. Bush. Tonight, he finally and firmly stood McCain next to Bush and stuck an “I’m With Stupid” t-shirt on him.”
• Roy Edroso (”alicublog”): “Everyone expected a strong speech from Obama, but its unexpected and best quality was confidence. He sold the package — traditional Democratic values with a dash of new-generation pizzazz — without any trace of doubt or apology, as if the Republicans hadn’t been going ahead of him for months, doing negative advance work.”
  

I’m trying very hard to get with the program and root for the home team and everything. And in fits and starts, the star attractions at the Democratic Convention in Denver are starting to make the case why I should: McCain has morphed into Bush in both politics and campaign style, and we can’t afford four more years of McSame. Fine, I can buy that. And it looks like between Obama’s nomination, Hillary’s motion to finish up by acclaim, and then Bill Clinton, John Kerry, and Joe Biden last night, the punditocracy and blogocracy are agreeing it was a good day for Democrats, party unity, chances in November, etc.

Over at “Obsidian Wings,” publius is very pleased with Kerry in particular, who made a good impression earlier in the day at a panel on the Middle East and then in the convention with a good stemwinder of a speech. For my part, I liked much of Kerry’s speech, especially the parts contrasting Senator McCain and Candidate McCain.  I’ll leave the campaign play by play of it all to others.  As I commented at Obsidian Wings, two things stood out for me.

First, it was unambiguously great to hear a major American politician say, on prime-time TV,

President Obama and Vice President Biden will shut down Guantanamo, respect the Constitution, and make clear once and for all, the United States of America does not torture, not now, not ever.

Second, it was distinctly less great to hear him claim, 30 seconds or so earlier,

Iran is defiantly chasing [nuclear weapons].

Not according to the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran last December, they’re not. As loyal readers know, this claim is unfortunately also baked right in to the Democratic platform, giving the go-ahead for Senators Evan Bayh and Jay Rockefeller to repeat it as well.

For all that I strongly approved of much of what was said last night, I’m very uneasy about and disappointed with high level, allegedly serious Democrats catapulting the propaganda like this.  If they know something the national intelligence community doesn’t, they should say so.  Meanwhile; it’s insidious in much the same way that the baseless claims about Iraqi WMD were insidious.  As another speaker (and another Iraq AUMF “yea” vote) put it last night, albeit with a different target: that’s not change, that’s more of the same.

Looked pretty darned good to me, considering.  I really hope he’s there at Obama’s inauguration next January.

UPDATE, 8/26: Ezra Klein writes:

In the last few weeks, I’ve spoken to a couple Kennedy aides who all told me the same thing: Health care. Kennedy has told them that this is his final crusade. Aides who work in other legislative areas have been told that their issue areas are going to almost dissolve, and they’ll become something like support staff for the health team. Kennedy means to pass a bill. He means to muster the full force of his legislative talents, his sprawling staff, his longstanding relationships, and even the poignancy of his condition. It will be his legacy. It is his dream. Health care.

I was also reminded of the Silver Spring Democratic platform — developed as input for the draft Democratic platform — that I’ve mentioned a few times:

Universal Health Care is a basic human right…

…Kennedy’s refrain, down the years.

The GetFISARight.net group is at it again, offering a new way for regular citizens — for instance, people who don’t need staff help to count their homes — to have a direct impact on the politics of civil liberties: individual sponsorships of cable TV ads, targeted at the Republican Convention. Thanks to saysme.tv, you can run an ad on all major cable news channels in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area between September 1 and 4 for $103 during daytime hours (9am-4pm), and as little as $324 during evening hours. More information about how you can help get the ad on TV is at http://getfisaright.net/ad.

GetFISARight’s first ad featured a tombstone for the Constitution. The new ad stars the Constitution as the main player, with the visual featuring a pan over founding documents. One version of the ad takes aim at Republican Senators, who voted unanimously to extend the powers of government to listen to Americans’ phone calls and read their emails without a warrant; another highlights John McCain’s strong endorsement of the Bush Administration’s wiretapping policies over the last eight years.

It takes 48 hours from purchase to airtime, so don’t delay. Here’s a way to take a stand for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights that GOP convention-goers can’t avoid: on their TV sets. Please visit http://getfisaright.net/ad today!

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CROSSPOSTED to American Street, DailyKos. SEE ALSO: GetFISARight organizer Jon Pincus’s post on this: “Senate Republicans voted unanimously for the FISA Amendments Act — and (except for Specter) in favor of telecom immunity as well. A majority of Democrats voted against FAA, and only five supported telecom immunity. So there are clearly significant differences between the parties.” Julian Sanchez (Ars Technica): “Get FISA Right turns crowdsourced guns on McCain:“…the group seems to have calculated that they’re more likely to exert influence from within than by taking a “pox on both houses” approach.”

UPDATE, 8/26: WELCOME, “Sideshow” readers! Because I really want outclicks (and pledges, of course), I hope you’ll also click here just to take in the very interesting “fundable.com” mini-pledge drive model we’re using; you may want to give it a try yourself sometime. The pledges are void if the pledge drive goal isn’t reached.

FURTHER UPDATE, 8/26: I’m informed that the “fundable.com” model should only be used for informational, issue-advocacy ads. These are the so-called “FISA Tombstone” and “FISA Constitution 1″ ads. “FISA Constitution 2″ (“John McCain would do the same” — the one above) could be considered a political ad expressly advocating the defeat of a candidate; we’re advised to be cautious and not do any group “fundable.com” purchases for this ad. So I won’t, and pledges will go to the “Constitution 1″ ad.
If you’ve got the money, though, individual purchases of the “Constitution 2″ ad — you, saysme.tv, and $100+ — are strongly encouraged.

UPDATE, 8/29: A total of at least 8 ads have been purchased and will air in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area during the GOP convention.

Sure, Biden voted for the Authorization of Military Force against Iraq. (So did Clinton, McCain, and Bayh.)

Sure, Biden voted against the Levin Amendment, the last, best hope to forestall that war vote and that war. (So did Clinton, McCain, and Bayh.)

Sure, Biden cast both of these votes even though he allegedly did read the 2002 Iraq National Intelligence Estimate. (Bayh and Feinstein were the only other Democrats to pull off this particular stupid trifecta.)

Sure, he voted for the Bankruptcy Bill. (So did Bayh and McCain; Obama voted against it, Clinton wasn’t there –her husband was sick, if I recall correctly.) Sure, he voted for the Patriot Act — who didn’t?

But in fairness, he also voted against the Military Commissions Act. (So did Obama, Bayh, and Clinton, while McCain voted for it.) He voted against the FISA Amendment Act. (So did Clinton. Obama, Bayh, and McCain all voted for it.) He voted against ending debate on the Alito nomination. (So did Clinton, Obama, and Bayh).

And by my admittedly subjective scoring, Biden had the best presidential powers survey score of all the candidates at the time. I gave him slightly better scores than Obama on questions on executive privilege and signing statements, because I think I found them to be briefer(!), more definitive answers. In retrospect, Obama’s curiously passive answer to the warrantless wiretap question (”The Supreme Court has never held that the President has such powers”) should have got him a lower score than Biden’s on this question as well.

So Biden has gotten some big issues wrong that Obama got right, and at least one right — the FISA Amendment Act — that Obama got wrong. Biden may also be a bit more of a voice for reining in the executive branch. On the other hand, his views on the matter won’t be as important as Obama’s — and they may melt away he’s part of that branch, just as Obama’s may have once he was in hailing distance.

Visually and by resume, he’s not exactly a harbinger of change to believe in. But it could have been worse. And at least Delaware’s 3 electoral votes are now all but guaranteed this November.

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SELECTED REACTIONS, 08/24:

• Radley Balko (”The Agitator”), libertarian — disappointed, points to Biden’s support for key measures in the “war on drugs,” the Iraq war (initially), for interventionism generally (Kosovo, Darfur), and for expanding the list of death penalty offenses. “He’s an overly ambitious, elitist, tunnel-visioned, Potomac-fevered Beltway dinosaur, with all the trappings. He may well have been the worst possible pick among congressional Democrats when it comes to the drug war and criminal justice.” (Via Jim Henley, who reports that on the other hand, Biden has an 82% ACLU rating.)
• Bill Day (”Web Undone”), – “Biden has a reputation as a street fighter; and we need a bruiser to sink the Swift Boaters. Hopefully, Biden will not sink himself first.”
• Mick Arran (”fact-esque”) – “So Biden is a corporate slug. What’s important, as all the papers bleated in unison today, is that Biden has foreign policy experience.”
• Andrew Sullivan — “…suggests a serious, adult attitude toward the enormous burden that the next presidency will be, especially in foreign policy.”
• Ezra Klein: “They needed an arguer. Someone able to make the case that the other guy is wrong, and Obama is right. That’s, fundamentally, what Biden represents. Biden doesn’t presuppose belief. He’s a persuader. [...] For progressives, this is encouraging pick. More encouraging than Bayh, or Kaine, or even, in a way, Sebelius. More encouraging than picks who might have been more progressive, but less pugnacious. Elevating Biden suggests that the Obama campaign has decided to have an argument.”

The people at “rejecttorture.org” just e-mailed to let me know that the Republican Party is soliciting input for their national platform at http://www.gopplatform2008.com.

The GOP is thus doing something similar what Obama and the Democrats did with the kind of “Listening to America” event I attended — except they’re apparently doing it all online, and calling that “the most grassroots-driven platform in the history of American politics.” They specify that participants need not be Republican to have a voice in their platform process.

Naturally, the “Reject Torture” people are urging all of us to weigh in with variations on “reject torture” and “no torture, no exceptions.” As they noted in their e-mail, the Democrats actually have “reject torture” in the draft Democratic platform,* as well as rejecting the “legal” processes that have kept torture hidden away for years –

We reject the use of national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. We reject the tracking of citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. We reject torture. We reject sweeping claims of “inherent” presidential power. [...]

…To build a freer and safer world, we will lead in ways that reflect the decency and aspirations of the American people. We will not ship away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, or detain without trial or charge prisoners who can and should be brought to justice for their crimes, or maintain a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law. …

So let’s take the Republican Party organizers at their word and see what happens. There’s a sign-up process - be sure to check the box next to “Attribute Ideas, so your first name and city will appear — followed by a followup e-mail from the site. Once you use the password in the e-mail to log in, you’re presented with the kind of online form similar to those used by many politicians and businesses, in which your comments are categorized by issue. Since none correspond directly to the issue of torture — surprise, surprise — the “Reject Torture” organizers suggest you categorize your anti-torture input as either “Protecting American Values: Other” or “National Security: Human Rights.”

I chose the latter, and wrote:

The United States should never torture anyone under any circumstances. To do so demeans our country as a whole, and ignores what interrogators tell us over and over again: that torture doesn’t work.

There are better ways to get information from those who have it, instead of having to follow up on every desperate lie told by someone just trying to make the pain or torment or degrading treatment stop. And there are costs and risks every time we stoop to torture: every time it happens, our country runs the real risk of making an enemy out of a bystander, loses any ability to try our true enemies fairly, and loses the respect of more of our friends around the world.

It’s time to draw the line and say “no torture, no exceptions” — not for the military services, not for the intelligence services, not for anyone.

I hope you’ll join me in sending messages like this to Minneapolis, to the Republican Party, and to John McCain.

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* EDIT, 8/23: Democratic platform section added. The cited parts can be found on page 49 of the document, p.54 of 56 PDF pages.

Dear Senator Obama, I realize we Internet folks have been asking you NOT to do a lot of stuff. Please don’t vote for telecom immunity. Please don’t make Evan Bayh your VP. Nag, nag, nag… right?

Well, this time we’d like to ask you TO do something. There’s a great independent ad up on youtube, you can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBfngOsvmA0

We think your campaign should get behind it, and buy it some air time on TV! Its a great ad on its own merits, and it would show that you understand the power of user-created media.

So please, Senator, get behind this ad.

(Text and ad via the facebook group named, appropriately enough, “Hey Senator Obama! Why not buy some airtime for this great ad?”)