I would have had a hard time believing this if I hadn't heard it. Mike Steele is an obvious dope, and he proves it here.

It's a story from NPR this morning, and I listened to it on my way to work. Steve Inskeep is interviewing Michael Steele about health care, and it's obvious that Steele doesn't understand the leading health care reform proposal, but he knows he doesn't like it.

Among other things, Inskeep pins him down on the clear contradiction between his steadfast opposition to a public option and his demagogic “Old People's Bill of Rights” and its fervent demand that we keep our hands off Medicare.

Probably my favorite part of it, though, was when Steele gets totally irate at having his position described as “nuanced”.

INSKEEP: Mr. Chairman, I respect that you feel that I'm doing a dance here. I just want you to know that as a citizen, I'm a little confused by the positions you take because you're giving me a very nice nuanced position here.

Mr. STEELE: …not reality?

Finally, Steve has to tell him that “nuanced” isn't a bad thing.

INSKEEP: I'm not saying nuanced is a bad thing, sir.

INSKEEP: Maybe we're getting hung up on the word nuance. Maybe I should say complicated. Do you find it challenging to get into this complicated debate and explain things to people in a way that it's honest to the facts and still very clear and doesn't just kind of scare people with soundbites?

This was great work. You really should listen to the whole thing.

Now that Douglas has announced that he isn't running for reelection, do you think we could elect a governor who actually believes in Vermont and the opportunities this beautiful state provides?

Although he was elected on the slogan of Jim=Jobs, he's missed no opportunity to tell potential employers how bad it is to do business in Vermont. I guess that's why he always wants to pay them big bucks to come here.

What we've seen in just the last couple of weeks, though, is that there are employers who actually think this is a good place to do business, and will come to Vermont, or stay here, without being bribed to do it.

Exhibit A is Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. Just to refresh everybody's recollection, the story here is that earlier in the year we had the Douglas Agency of Commerce talking about how GMCR was all set to move out of state, to Tennesee or someplace. Solution? Throw money at them. 

So what happened? We know the story: a couple of weeks ago they announced they're staying in Vermont. 

Then there's Nokian Tires. (By the way, when I started buying their tires they were called “Nokia”. Does anyone know why the change?) In case you missed it, since it didn't get a tremendous amount of coverage, Nokian Tires is moving its U.S. corporate headquarters here to Vermont. 

The move is designed to be “closer to our customers,” Jari Lepisto, president of Nokian Tyres' U.S. operations said in a phone interview Tuesday evening.

“We'd like to be in a place where there is winter,” he said, noting in Tennessee “they only have snow once a year.”

And get this:

Dave Mace, spokesman for the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, said state officials were not involved in bringing Nokian to Vermont. Nokian did not approach the state for tax incentives and none were offered, he said.

In other words, we had a corporation who isn't asking for money, but is interested in the unique advantages of our unique state.

We've discussed it around here before, but it bears repeating: badmouthing the state, so that you have to bribe companies to come here and do business, might not be the best approach to economic development.

Maybe our next Democratic governor will have a better idea of the value of Vermont for its people and businesses.

NPR is required listening for liberals, right? In fact, it's nothing but a liberal sounding board, right?

Maybe it's time to rethink that. Here's an example. Every Monday morning on Morning Edition they call Cokie Roberts and she gets to blather on about her view of what's happening in the news. She actually does it from her house, and she can pretty much say anything she wants.

Today one of her key topics was health care, and Cokie's disquisition included the following statement:

ROBERTS: . . .  The Democrats will shift, think they have something the Republicans will go for, and then the Republicans shift further. And they make a big deal about something that distracts and frightens the voters like those so-called death panels, then the Democrats drop that and Republicans find something else to object to.

Let me just repeat that:

And they make a big deal about something that distracts and frightens the voters like those so-called death panels, then the Democrats drop that . . .

I'm sure she thinks she's being fair and balanced because she said “so-called”, thus imparting a note of skepticism. But this is inadequate. What she said was that the death panels were in the bill until the Republicans made a big deal about them, and then the Democrats dropped them. In other words, the Democrats' plan was to kill your grandmother and Sarah Palin's baby.

How about telling the truth: the Republicans made it all up. There are no death panels, so-called or not. It's all a big lie by the Republicans.

I don't know about you, but I think the job of journalists goes beyond parroting what the various sides say, and extends to actually reporting the facts. Of course, Roberts didn't even do that. She didn't resort to the old reliable, “he said, she said” formulation. If you listened to her commentary, not only would you get no idea of what the truth is you would get no idea of what the Democrats say about the Republican claim about death panels.

And this is what passes for a respected journalist in this country?

Wondering why you can't get state offices to answer their phones on that one odd day in the middle of August?

The Battle of Bennington was a battle of the American Revolutionary War that took place on August 16, 1777, in Walloomsac, New York, about 10 miles (16 km) from its namesake Bennington, Vermont. An American force of 2,000 men, primarily composed of New Hampshire and Massachusetts militiamen, led by General John Stark, and reinforced by men led by Colonel Seth Warner and members of the Green Mountain Boys, decisively defeated a detachment of General John Burgoyne's army led by Lieutenant Colonel Friedrich Baum, and supported by additional men under Lieutenant Colonel Heinrich von Breymann.

After a day of rain, Stark decided on August 16 to send two columns of his troops against Baum's flanks and rear while the remainder assaulted the front. The attack began at 3:00 pm. Many Indians, Canadians and Tories fled or surrendered after the first musket volleys, but the unmounted cavalrymen held position, fighting off the attackers with sabres. Baum himself died in the battle, which Stark would later describe as “one continuous clap of thunder,” which lasted two hours before the hill was finally taken.

What we may have considered inevitable appears to be happening: Obama is selling out real health care reform.

According to this report from NPR, 

Bowing to Republican pressure and an uneasy public, President Obama's administration signaled on Sunday that it is ready to abandon the idea of giving Americans the option of government-run insurance as part of a new health care system.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that a government alternative to private health insurance is “not the essential element” of the administration's health care overhaul. The White House would be open to co-ops, she said, a sign that Democrats want a compromise so they can declare a victory.

I'm sure that most readers of this site will find this utterly unacceptable. President Obama ran on a platfom of delivering health care reform, and the fraudulent package he is apparently willing to accept is a betrayal of all of us who worked so hard to put him in office.

If you agree that health care “reform” without even the watered-down public option is no reform at all, please contact your congressional delegation and ask them to oppose any health care package that does not include the public option.

Senator Patrick Leahy:

199 Main Street, 4th Floor – Burlington, VT 05401 – (802) 863-2525 – 1-800-642-3193

P.O. Box 933 – 87 State Street, Room 338 – Montpelier, VT 05602 – (802) 229-0569

Senator Bernie Sanders:

 Representative Peter Welch:

30 Main Street, Third Floor, Suite 350 – Burlington, VT 05401 – (888) 605-7270 (toll free in VT) – (802) 652-2450

Here's a story that hasn't been in the Times yet, probably because it's a New England centered story. It could be read as just one more petty story of intra-diplomatic intrigue, but it seems to be revealing of one of the main barriers to peace in the Middle East.

Leaders of Boston’s Jewish community yesterday rallied strongly behind Israel’s consul general for New England, Nadav Tamir, who was summoned to Jerusalem this week to explain his controversial memo saying Israel’s handling of its relations with the United States was “causing strategic damage’’ to American public support for Israel.

Here's a quote from the memo: Throughout the years, opinion polls have shown that the two most significant factors in US public support are the perception of a partnership in values and interests, and the perception that Israel seeks to end the conflict with its neighbors (hence the consistent public support of our right to self defense). These two parameters have suffered greatly recently. In many American circles, there is a feeling these days, that while the Obama administration tries to resolve global conflicts, it must deal with the refusal to cooperate by governments in Iran, North Korea, and Israel. Aaron Miller's words, spoken after the Obama-Netanyahu meeting, clearly show this feeling. He said it was a meeting between Obama yes we can and Netanyahu no you won't.

So what's he talking about? How about the fact that after years of international recognition that Israel's settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, and years of politely requesting that Israel stop, the Obama administration is showing signs that it might be serious about it? How about the fact that Netanyahu is continuing to insist on expanding Israel's illegal settlements? How about the fact that Americans are finally starting to catch on that Israel is pursuing a maximalist policy?

Of course, this kind of thing never gets leaked by accident. Whenever you see one of these diplomatic kerfuffles, whether it be the U-2 spy plane case back in the 1960's, the confrontations with Iran in the Persian Gulf a few years ago, or this, you need to think about who's doing the leaking and why.

In this case, it appears to be the hardliners, leaking the memo in order to publicly recall the consul general and undermine his position.

In other words, the opponents of peace with the Palestinians are demonstrating that they have the upper hand. Not surprising considering Netanyahu is on top, is it?

You've probably read our periodic reports encouraging–well, begging–our readers to vote for Green Mountain Daily to win the Daisy Daysie for Vermont's Best Political Blog, right?

Well, you'll be please to know that all our shameless self-promotion has paid off. In the issue of Seven Days on the newsstands today, Green Mountain Daily comes out on top in the category Best Political Blog.

Or should I say shameless self-promotion plus the support of our friend, fellow blogger, and State Senate candidate Philip Baruth?

However you add it up, we appreciate the support of our readers and colleagues.

Thanks, everybody!

SEOUL, South Korea — Former President Bill Clinton left North Korea early Wednesday, the state news agency reported, after securing a pardon for two jailed American journalists from the reclusive North Korean president, Kim Jong-il. It was not immediately known whether the journalists were allowed to leave as well.

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Zhang Binyang/Xinhua, via Associated Press

Former President Bill Clinton shook hands with a North Korean official in Pyongyang. More Photos »

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APTN/Associated Press

Mr. Clinton was greeted with flowers. More Photos >

Yonhap/Associated Press

Euna Lee, top, and Laura Ling. More Photos >

The official Korean Central News Agency issued a brief dispatch, news agencies reported, saying that Mr. Clinton and his party had left by plane.

 I haven't heard anything from the wingers yet, but what does this say about the Republicans as the party that knows how to get things done?

Influential GMD front pager serves as sports consultant for the Boston Globe

This summer across New England we have been afflicted by an unusual agriculture condition, the “late blight”, which has the potential to cause major failures of the tomato and potato crops. It has become commonplace for the news coverage of the late blight to refer to the best known outbreak of late blight, in Ireland in 1845.

It has also been commonplace for news coverage to refer to late blight as the condition “which caused the Irish potato famine in the mid-19th century”. “The crop disease — the same that caused the Irish potato famine — is not unusual, but arrived in the region early this year”.

In fact, there is no question that the blight did not cause the Famine. True, it caused the failure of the Irish potato crop, but the only serious question of the cause of the Famine was whether it was the result of an intentional program of genocide by the English, or was simply caused by a callous indifference to the suffering and starvation that English policies imposed on the subjugated Irish population.

The quote that opens this essay is as good an example as any of the argument in favor of genocide: the very man charged with responsibility for famine relief was contemplating with glee the prospect of the death by starvation of millions of Ireland, with his only regret being that the number of deaths might be insufficient to suit his purposes. In 1996 Francis A. Boyle, a law professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, wrote a report commissioned by the New York-based Irish Famine/Genocide Committee, that concluded “Clearly, during the years 1845 to 1850, the British government pursued a policy of mass starvation in Ireland with intent to destroy in substantial part the national, ethnic and racial group commonly known as the Irish People…. Therefore, during the years 1845 to 1850 the British government knowingly pursued a policy of mass starvation in Ireland that constituted acts of genocide against the Irish people within the meaning of Article II (c) of the 1948 [Hague] Genocide Convention.”

In 1845, Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid declared his intention to send 10,000 sterling to Irish farmers but Queen Victoria requested that the Sultan send only 1,000 sterling, because she had sent only 2,000 sterling. The Sultan sent the 1,000 sterling but also secretly sent 3 ships full of food. The English courts tried to block the ships, but the food arrived at Drogheda harbour and was left there by Ottoman sailors.

On the other hand, historian Cormac Ó Gráda disagreed that the famine was genocide: first, that “genocide includes murderous intent and it must be said that not even the most bigoted and racist commentators of the day sought the extermination of the Irish”; second, that most people in Whitehall “hoped for better times in Ireland” and third, that the claim of genocide overlooks “the enormous challenges facing relief efforts, both central, local, public and private”. Ó Gráda thinks that a case of neglect is easier to sustain than that of genocide.

Given the public statements of those in power in England I find it hard to credit the idea that the Great Hunger was not caused by a deliberate program of genocide. While English imperialists did not create or engineer the blight, they undoubtedly took advantage of the crop failure to reduce what they saw as Irish overpopulation and to restructure the agriculture industry and system of land ownership in Ireland.

Genocide? Whatever your answer, it is clear that it was not the blight that caused the Famine. The American press should know better.