I am fired up about the Constitution, and perhaps my reverence for it qualifies as a secular religion, and as such might cast haze over my eyes when it comes to more immediate, pressing considerations in the realpolitik of American politics in general and advancing the progressive agenda in detail.

I have, sometimes nicely, received this hint from quite a few persons the past few weeks.

The short form: CSK, you need to look at the big picture.

I answered, not always nicely, that what was bigger than the Constitution?

Let me be up front and apologize for that belligerence. Sorry, guys.

So I took the advice and revisited my thoughts on this election for the past several months...and here is what I came up with.

The Constitution is a framework for resolving domestic political contests in a peaceful, lawful and orderly fashion even among the most diametrically opposed of ideological factions.

In fact, the Constitution thrives in this circumstance.

The Constitution prevails when compromise is made strenuous and unjustifiable deviation from the wishes of one's constituents is made political perilous to the representative of the people who forgets his or her duty - to represent their will, not her or his own.

There is no intellectually, morally or political honest conflation of support for the Constitution and self-destructive ideological zeal.

In occurred to me over the weekend that the Framers of the Constitution would not have been surprised by the current FISA debate at all.

The basic doctrine of the constitution is that human nature is largely constant, and certain assumptions can be made of the behavior of ambitious persons.

In a nutshell, that it is not in the nature of politicians of any stripe to honor the law, where it does not honor their ambition.

Which is why constitutionalist appeals fall on deaf ears when those ears either hold great power or are in the midst of a contest for same.

Back in the day, back in the political wilderness, liberals and progressives were free to imagine the Democratic leadership to be different, better creatures.

Granted, they are sufficiently different and better in their choices and public policy proposals to merit preference over the alternatives.

However, they are not significantly different and better by their nature and their adherence to higher principle.

The same standard holds for all politicians: they will not honor the law, where it does not honor their ambition.

And right now, honoring the Constitution is just not good politics.

Every week it's time to do the DIDS...to crow about what perfectly ordinary little victory we or someone we care about or know about has wrested from the grubby fingers of mundance workaday existence.

Sure, we could blog about the 2008 election..or the latest race to build a better battery....but why?

We want to write about our achievements. They rock!

This is the week I get to guard the house while the family is off in Michigan.

One thing I know for sure -

I sure as heck ain't selling rights to it for $300 million, given it would solve a lot of the problems associated with hybrid cars.

So, I think we are talking, oh, something worth about $8,000 in energy savings per new super-hybrid vehicle less the cost of the battery packet. Hmm.. let's sell those at $6,000 per unit...yes, a bit more than the usual $5,000 per engine (manufacturers currently eat most of this cost).

More below

As of this moment, the top ranked diary calls the Constitution a piece of toilet paper, that the erosion of liberties and rule of law that privileged technocrats enjoy is something that persons of color have dealt with all their lives and long before. That, in so many words, it's a war, an ideological struggle, with the latest insult being hand-wringing over a bill that amends a piece of toilet paper.

I will set aside the transparent retort that such bills ended slavery and gave women the vote, among other valuable public goods, because the same author demanded but one thing in answer - are you with the Blue Prince, or do you stand against him? For she is with him, and she will not have her time wasted with the likes of fools and villains who do not raise their guns and cry loudly their oaths of fealty to the new champion.

She says it's war.

So be it.

War it is.

And so it has come to this: The bipartisan consensus that the Constitution is negotiable.

We now make pragmatic decisions on when it should and should not apply to those who hold power in the name of the people...or act on the behalf of the powerful as a few corporations have done in the past several years.

And we now applaud it when our leaders qualify when the laws apply to some and not to others, starting with themselves.

You dared promise good leadership in the name of the American people. You have failed us, have moved us onto a fast track to more certain and unambiguous failure.

So be it. See what you have sown, and what you shall reap.

In honor of the Democratic Congressional leadership's ratification of the Enabling Act of 2008, I have decided to illustrate how much of an impact on simple phrase --

...except when the President writes a memo saying otherwise...

is about to have on all of your lives.

I'd call this snark...but it's just not so.

Following the break is the Constitutution of the United States of America...which just one little phrase added to each major point of basic law.

....except when the President writes a memo saying otherwise...

The FISA capitulation isn't a little thing. It changes everything.

Early last year, I posted a comment about the two neighborhood girls who became for all intents and purpose my sisters.

Well... my mom just called.

One of them died of pneumonia, complications from a pair of broken ribs (cause unspecified but not likely for any reason worse than a fall) and not going to a hospital for it. Per my mother's account, she went into a coma, and all her organs started shutting down one after the other. She did go to the hospital at last, on Sunday. Ironically, my mom was there getting her leg tended too at the same time, had no idea this was going on.

More below the break...

Every so often (almost always on a Tuesday) we get a DIDS going. What's that? An excuse to chitter chatter about the little victories that make the waking world a little better and ourselves a little prouder. Not all of us can win the mightiest Democratic primary in, like, forever. Some of us have to take our victory laps after, well, running a few laps. Or packing away some pictures. But there are heroic moments, and sad, noble struggles. Life is not always joy and sound bites. Sometimes, life can well and truly suck.

But on enough occasions it is bright, and it is hopeful and when you have friends to share the little victories with, it is a life full of love.

And that, I suppose is, what the DIDS is all about.

So let's get on with it. :)

A year ago, I was admonishing any and all who would listen that the then-extant plan to wait out the clock on the Bush Administration is an utterly dangerous thing to do, not because Bush is dangerous, but because a future President with at least twice his current approval ratings.

And all of Bush's acquired powers and asserted (without effective contest) precedents.

And were that soon-to-be president tempted to do anything of a similar sort, they would do it to the sound of madly cheering crowds.

I said that it would never be easier to remedy the Praetorian Presidency than while it was in the hands of a 28% approval rating president.

No one seemed to mind very much. After all, the presidency was going to be "theirs", that is, in the possession of some faction that won it. And once they had it, they would have all of Bush's powers and a fresh set of ambitions to exercise with them.

And that is why the primary season has proceeded as it has.

The prize of the Oval Office is not so rich that anyone can risk anything to achieve it, but for a very few, with significant organization and backing, fighting to the very end is very much worth their while.

Most of my ancestors are Scots-Irish, some are English but that is heavily diluted over the several centuries since the Kendricks arrived in the middle colonies in the late 1600s and my branch migrated slowly down through the Piedmont and into the Carolinas. On the other side, it's all about the hillbillies, folks who came down from the mountains after multigenerational sojourn to meet other folks and then decide to produce a branch of the family tree that includes the likes of me.

Point is, the sudden and uncomfortable prominence of Appalachia in politics hits close to home for me. These are my mountains, too. I grew up in sight of them, spent considerable time visiting there, and for me it really does feel like home. But it also feels out of time, in both senses; a part of the country the rest of us (and that is the proper term; I'm an outsider for sure) never waited for as we rushed westward and future-ward.

And now the hills have cleared their throat and been given a chance to pay back the rest of the country for progressing without its permission by having a unprecedented influence in the Democratic presidential primary race, after long being largely ignored in politics and if the mine safety issue is any indication, being ignored by the protections of the law as well.

What follows are some thoughts based on a conversation with a colleague yesterday, who was explaining to me the plight of his extremely intelligent daughter who, alas, has some devastating emotional issues.

Sharing much of that talk is not appropriate. However, what I can share are my friend's reflections on the overlapping conceptual worlds in which we exist and how each of them -- the self, the material and the spiritual (I use his term here) -- are essential components of not just abstract understanding of human potential but critical to the realization of it.

His interest in this discussion was highly focused on his daughter's immense abilities and constructing an actionable understanding of these worlds and how to utilize this knowledge to liberate a truly special mind from the burdens of alienation and despair and set it on a constructive path to attain the dream that intellect already sees twenty years in her future.

It is a message of inspiration, of reason, of love. It is a message of education most of all.

I'm sorry. I can't help it. I'm a bit punchy today.

Then I noticed that one Friedman from now is Election Day.

So, in honor of The One True Tom, He of the Global Brain according to Chris Matthews, I will discuss this most, most important time in American politics, in all its complex nuance, in the simplest possible terms.

Those of Tom Friedman himself. :)

props to Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting for the original work on this, oh so long ago...

I'm winding down here at the office in downtown Charlotte, looking westward out across the multi-purpose low-rises of Gateway and the vast green canopy of oak trees that covers one of the largest metropolitian areas in the country. Of course, it's well spread-out. "Metrolina" goes out thirty miles in all directions -- north to lakeside luxury of Lake Norman, south to Fort Mill, west to Gastonia, southeast to Monroe and northeast to Concord. And it is here that the electoral fate of the Democratic party may well hang in the balance.

Officially, Charlotte (and Mecklenburg County) is Obama country, but Senator Clinton has made quite a few visits and the Democrats of this city skew strongly pragmatic, which in the Red South means they are both receptive to hearing and having themselves heard using talking points more commonly associated with yesterday visitor to Charlotte, Senator McCain.

And yet this ancient battleground of the Civil Rights struggle, segregated buses and schools and all, full of deeply ingrained institutional (but not personal!) animus between the races ...it never ceases to amaze me.

I believe that in Barack Obama we have something special, one of a series of noble Democratic candidates but unfortunately in a time where it is not difficult to equate taking the high road with failure.

Carter (2nd try). Mondale. Dukakis.... then Bill Clinton.

Gore. Kerry. Obama....now we must deal with Hillary Clinton clearing her throat, very loudly. Having her surrogates clear their throats very loudly.

It's been 32 years (Carter in 1976) since an honorable person won the presidency on either side of the aisle.

The Clintons feel there is an important message in this. Their supporters do too. That politic is a dirty game. You need to get fired up and in a fighting way to win. You have to counterpunch, hard. You have to prove in ways first safe then serious that you are capable of deceit, with getting away with murder because at the end of the day every President has to make the call to do just that during their term. It comes with the job. Homicide, justifiable or not. You have to show you can kill if you must, go on smiling because you must.

That is their view of what America has been for the past many decades, what America will remain, and what by default America should remain.

Why do they believe this? (below fold)

I have to believe that many Clinton supporters feel in good conscience that now is clearly not the time to test the wider American electorate on their willingness to see an African-American in the White House and feel that testing this now, no matter how excellent the candidate, is a death sentence to a wide range of long-valued progressive objectives among them preserving Roe v. Wade.

And a lot of Obama supporters would abide Clinton's candidacy were she to somehow grab the nomination, for this one reason.

And others can excuse a lot of distasteful activities when they hold the bigger objective of preserving their agenda in mind, in this particular frame...that if it takes tossing African-American voters off the voter rolls, if it takes maligning a traditional core demographic to see this through, they are going to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty and not lose a moment's sleep about it.

I couldn't help it. I just had to write a comment over at the Washington Post.

Text in full:

I am not sure if Clinton and McCain really want to play the guilt-by-association game.

The first has a lot of explaining where that $109 million in income came from. And how about those Jack Abramoff ties? And who was that guy from China?

The second looked real cute hugging George W Bush, and he better get used to seeing that picture up all over the place from now on. Oh. And the one of him eating birthday cake with George W Bush while the city of New Orleans drowned? That's a classic, too.

You guys set the standard.

Guilt by association comes for you next.

That is all. :)