Someone once described courage as not never being afraid, but going on in spite of the fear. As a nation and as elected officials we seem to be running dangerously low on courage. Oh we have the tough talk down, we have the posturing, but do we really have true courage? Since 9/11 when at least 2,985 people died from the terrorists attacks I think that what has been lost in all the hype is some perspective. While this was surely a tragedy, the population of the United States in the year 2001 was somewhere around 290 million people. Based on those numbers the terrorist attacks killed less than .02% of the population, yet since the attack we have responded by invading sovereign nations, torturing our fellow human beings, and gutting our Constitutional protections.

VYXURj Thank you for your blog article.Really thank you! Much obliged.

I wrote this in response to this diary over at Daily Kos. I usually don't post there, but I was feeling in the mood to put in a few words about Nader as I do from time to time. The comment grew a bit longer than I had realized, so it became a diary here. Also, I hope to be back posting open threads by the 7th. I hope everyone is having a good summer thus far.

I completely empathize with the Florida debacle, but I find the idea that everything was Nader's fault overstating the case.

I'll level with everyone here. Yes, if Ralph Nader didn't run for President (or had at least endorsed Gore in Florida or New Hampshire) Al Gore probably would have won the Electoral College. I say "probably" because public opinion preferences are chaotic.

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Quick reaction cross-posted from The Forvm ; you're welcome to comment there if so inclined

A truly moving, heartfelt, and gracious speech. Senator Clinton opened with stories of her supporters who have given so much to promote her campaign, then passionately called for support of Obama and laid out the reasons we need a Democrat in the White House: for boosting the economy, for reforming health care, for responsibly ending the war in Iraq. Finally, she looked back at how far women in US politics have come, and how her candidacy has helped make the path easier in the future for a woman to become President.

It's been a long and at times bitter primary, but it's also been a historic campaign and I'm proud to be a member of a party that has put forward such qualified and groundbreaking candidates for President.

There has been some confusion this morning, with the AP initially reporting that Clinton was set to concede tonight (citing campaign officials) followed by the Clinton campaign officially denying the report. If you look closely at the wording, the AP said Clinton was set to concede that Obama would have the necessary delegates, while the official statement says she will not concede the nomination. This fits with additional rumors that she will not officially suspend her campaign but will let most staff go and shift her focus to discussing issues such as health care, thus keeping her options open. On the other side, Obama is set to make a victory speech at the RNC convention site in Minnesota tonight in which he is expected to declare either that he will be the nominee or else that he will have the majority of delegates. Supposedly his camp has been pushing the Supers hard behind the scenes so they can hit the magic number with wins in Montana and SD, but many Supers would prefer to give Clinton space to withdraw on her own so it doesn't seem like she is being pushed out. It is possible that what Obama says will depend on what Clinton says in her speech. So, that's the background; below the fold, the speech I would like to see Clinton give tonight in my perfect world.

Hat Tip to Conor subbing at Megan McArdle

The American Conservative has an article up about partisanship and the difference in how it affects views on ideas when presented with or without partisan "cues", which generally are more likely to trigger a predictable answer.

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There are many ways to view the Hillary vs. Obama debate as a perspective voter or supporter.

Pundits and commentators have made much hay out of the demographic trends in the Democratic primaries. This is really to be expected given the candidates and their policy. Never have voters had to choose between a woman and a biracial (yes, Virginia, Obama's mother is white and from Kansas -- it doesn't get much whiter than that) man. Given the haphazard coalition that the Democrats have cobbled together to form a working majority, it would make sense that identity politics would take center stage, especially so in this historic election.

That is the title of this latest entry at The Art of the Possible, a libertarian/liberal fusionist website for deep discussion on the sometimes colliding, sometimes overlapping world views.

As the Democratic primary continues to drag on I am reminded of a book I read a long time ago. The name of the book was, “All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten”. Obviously the candidates and their campaigns didn’t read the book, if they had maybe there would be a lot less of this incessant snipping that has overtaken the issues in this campaign. In the book the author states that the most important lessons in life the Golden Rule, honesty, clean up your own mess, and say you're sorry when you hurt somebody he learned in kindergarten. These valuable lessons would be a welcome change on the campaign trail. For many of us, kindergarten represented our first foray into the social experiment we call society. It was important to learn the ground rules of interpersonal communications to learn how to navigate the many pitfalls that await those who don’t learn them.

One of the things that annoys Obama supporters is how some Clinton backers who previously showed a healthy skepticism for dubious right-wing sources and who previously showed an impressive capability to sniff out bias in a news article have suddenly turned to uncritically quoting sources with an obvious agenda against Obama.

Well, folks, it goes both ways. Time for the Obama backers to stop presenting Clinton bashing as if it were straight news. This extends to unfair criticism of Bill, of which there has been a lot recently.

Here . Card of course is no liberal, so it's interesting to see his take. Certainly feel free to weight the relevance or importance of his view as you see fit. Also I have to admit I'm posting this partially for Ender, since Card is most known as the author of Ender's Game ;-)

On Wright and what it means for Obama, he strongly condemns Wright's statements but agrees with Obama not disowning his friendship with the man:

Clinton and her folks argue that the superdelegates exist to exercise independent judgment, rather than just to rubber stamp whoever leads in pledged delegates, but my sense is that that view is misleading and mostly invalid as she would have it applied to this year's nomination.

GMU economist Peter Boettke is yet another to come out with a mixture of critique and puzzlement about the Obama campaign. Like others who've commented on this before him, particularly of a libertarian bent, he has a great respect for Obama's economic advisers and I'm sure he's referring to chief adviser Austan Goolsbee even though he doesn't mention him by name.

Apparently more than a few northeast Ohio Republicans decided to cross over in the March 4th primary and presumably vote for Hillary Clinton by choosing a Democratic partisan ballot.

We're used to hearing about partisans trying to game the system by voting insincerely for a candidate that they don't support. Democrats attempted exactly the same thing in Michigan by voting for Mitt Romney since they knew their votes for President would not be counted due to DNC rules. But Ohio law is very different from Michigan law regarding the procedure in primary elections.

I found this inter-blog debate in the wake of the Obama's race speech interesting. Allow me to narrate.

First, the provoceurs, Will Wilkinson and Megan McArdle

Will (in a nutshell):

Along with the Spitzer story, the Wright story is one that I've noticed being forced into the role of a big deal and exciting story while personally finding the Celebrity Rehab Reunion far more interesting...and I didn't think that was possible. :)

I really don't care in either case. But I don't pick the news cycles.

Anyway, Ezra Klein stuck a cord of incredible common sense on this matter and asks a good and simple question: (emphasis mine)

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