Qualifications to be president

Yesterday, on Face the Nation, General Wesley Clark said this about John McCain:

"I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces, as a prisoner of war."

"He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn't held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded — that wasn't a wartime squadron."

"I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president."

Now Republicans and media commentators are either saying or implying that Clark crossed over a line. He said something he shouldn't have said. He actually dared to say that being a fighter pilot, being shot down, and being a POW do not automatically qualify someone to be president. I don't care how long you have been a Republican, or how much you admire McCain for what he endured, you cannot disagree with what Clark said.


So why are some making it such a big deal?


Because this attacks McCain's strength? Perhaps.


Because in this country WAR is a sacrament and you can't criticize the high priests of war? Maybe.



Except....Republicans routinely criticize Democratic war heroes. Remember how John Kerry's service in Vietnam was attacked by the Swift Boat liars? Remember how Vietnam war hero and triple amputee Max Cleland was compared to Osama bin Laden just so he could be defeated in an election?


So does this mean in the sacrament of war, only Republicans are allowed to be high priests? Only Republicans are immune from criticism? Democrats may be war heroes, but unless they join the Republican Party they are only war heroes in their own minds?


Barack Obama is consistent. Whenever he mentions John McCain, he always starts by honoring his service and heroism. Republicans, on the other hand, never speak with respect about Democratic warriors.


So if it takes another war hero, Wesley Clark, to say the obvious - being shot down and being a POW may make you heroic, but it doesn't qualify you to be president - then good for him.


We are choosing a president this year, not a general, not a pilot, not a war hero. Part of the job of the president is to be commander in chief of the armed services, which is a civilian role. And we have never, to my knowledge, elected a former POW as president.


The president is much more than just commander in chief, though, as much as the McCain folks would like you to forget that. The president must oversee the economy, the budget, foreign policy, and internal matters such as education, energy, healthcare, civil rights and urban problems. He must understand the Constitution, the way government works, something about economics, civil rights, agriculture, the environment, and America's relationship with the rest of the world.


Being shot down over Vietnam nearly forty years ago, and being held as a POW, may build a man's character, but it doesn't qualify you to handle any of these issues. Nor, for that matter, does it qualify you to be commander in chief.

Misinformed, uneducated Americans

I have a lovely neighbor across the street with whom I talk occasionally, usually when we are both outside tending to our gardens. She is a woman in her sixties, recently retired and caring for a husband who has begun to have disturbing neurological symptoms which aren't yet diagnosed. As my father sees a neurologist for his degenerative brain disease and as I am familiar with some of the neurologists in this geographical area, I asked who her husband was seeing. She gave me a name I didn't recognize, then said "He is a Muslim, but he seems like a good doctor though I can't understand him very well."

I acknowledged the second part of her statement, the difficulty understanding a foreign doctor, as my dad's doctor has a thick Chinese accent which always reminds me of the character Peter Sellers played in the movie Murder by Death.

What I didn't do, because it didn't connect at first, was ask her how she knew the doctor was a Muslim. As far as I know, most doctors don't advertise their religious affiliation, and I don't think most Muslim professionals do or say anything that would give that away. Did he drop down on a prayer rug while they were there? Did she spot a copy of the Koran in his office? Was his first name Mohammed?

What I think is that she made the same mistake a lot of Americans make when they don't know a lot about Islam or the Arab world. She confused being an Arab with being a Muslim. She may not realize that not all Arabs are Muslims, that many are in fact Christians, and others are atheists.

He may not have even been an Arab. He may have been Indian, or Pakistani, or some other nationality and she simply saw him as "Muslim." As to his religion, he could have been Hindu or Sikh.

I don't think my neighbor is unusual in her confusion regarding religion and nationality. I think more Americans are confused about this than are knowledgable, which is why it is so easy for opponents of Barack Obama to disseminate the lie that he is a Muslim. If all it takes for many Americans to believe someone is a Muslim is for that person to be dark skinned and/or have an unusual "Arab sounding" name, then Barack is an easy target.

I find it amazing that in this day, with the internet, hundreds of cable television channels, newspapers, radio, thousands of political books, and more people attending college than ever, that so many voters in this country still don't understand the difference between being an Arab and and being a Muslim, and don't know that not all Arabs are Muslims and not all Muslims are Arabs.

With such an uneducated populace, and FOX News and right wing radio working overtime to keep them misinformed, it will indeed be a miracle if Obama can overcome the smears and falsehoods, and actually become the next president.

New Feature: Book Recommendations

I used to read a lot more than I do now. Some of that has to do with the amount of time I am spending helping out my parents and some of it is because when I'm home I don't allow myself the luxury of just sitting and enjoying a good read. But this summer I am taking time to read some of the many books I have purchased over the past year, before they catch any more dust on my bookshelves.

I just finished reading Father Joe, by Tony Hendra. It was a book I couldn't put down. I would recommend it to anyone who has grown disgusted with the Catholic Church, or with religion in general. It is so refreshing to read about a truly godly man, a man who dedicated his life to God but never moralized or passed judgment on anyone, who accepted each of the many people who ran to him for spiritual comfort and peace.

Hendra talks about how he first met Father Joe, after he had gotten in some trouble, and how he maintained his friendship with the monk, long after he had ceased attending Mass, until Joe died. It was only then that he found out that this cloistered monk had been friends with hundreds of people, each believing their friendship with Joe was unique. Hendra found it amazing that so many became so close to Joe, none of them knowing of the others, none of them hearing of the others from Joe as he focused so much on the friend who was with him that there was never a mention of anyone else. "Listening," he realized was the key. Father Joe was the world's best and most interested listener.

A second recommendation is Rick Perlstein's Nixonland, which I confess I have not yet finished. It's a long and detailed account of Richard Nixon's political life, told within the context of the culture wars that began just before and during Nixon's presidency. It is a way of explaining how it is that we are still a divided country, and how Nixon's calculated and crass political maneuvers helped divide us. It's a great book for anyone who is interested in the nature of our political and cultural conflicts, how we maintain them all these years after Nixon, and how they continue to harm us.

Gripe of the day

My parents' phone went dead yesterday and I have a lot of complaints about the phone company that provides the service in their area: Verizon.

About mid-morning my mother picked up the phone to call the doctor and noticed no dial tone on any of their phones. She checked with a few neighbors and their phone service was fine. She called verizon on her cell phone, and after being on hold for ten minutes finally reached someone who said to check the box that connects the house lines to the public lines. She couldn't find the box - had no idea what to look for - and so my husband went over and said it seemed the wires in the box were fine.

She called again and was on hold forever, so she tried to find a different number. Since my father is disabled and my mother has a serious illness, and they are both dependent on a working phone, she called a number that was for disabled persons. Then her cell phone went dead and she had to plug it in to charge it.

She called me and I tried to call verizon to get someone out immediately to find the problem and repair it. I couldn't get a breathing human being, but was able to "communicate" with an automated system that scheduled a repairman to come out in two days for a minimum charge of $85 just to show up and $85 for the first hour (which was the minimum amount of time that would be charged).

My mother wasn't happy with that, and neither was I, so she found a private company to come out and check things out. They were out within an hour and said the problem was not in the house but with verizon, and got verizon to agree to send someone out the next day. (They haven't arrived yet.)

Here's the problem with having to wait so long for repairs: my father is incapable of using a telephone because of vision and cognitive problems. As long as my mom is capable of using the cell phone, the cell phone is adequate should an emergency occur. But if my mom should have a medical crisis (she has leukemia) and my dad would have to call for help, he cannot do it. He would even have difficulty reaching a neighbor as he has balance problems and can only walk slowly with a walker, and even then he falls. So we have installed a "medic alert" system where all he has to do is push a large button and help will come. With the phone down, the medic alert system does not work. So this is serious business - life and death business - and having a cell phone is not good enough.

Verizon does not care, or if anyone in the company does care, there is no way to reach them. As with so many companies that are only concerned with the bottom line and not with being "good citizens," there are no provisions for people who have special needs.

There was a time in this country when you could get a human being to help you when you called a company with a problem, but no more. There was a time when we as a society cared about people as they got older and had medical problems, but no more.

We care about money, profit, and ourselves, but with a few exceptions, we don't give a hoot about those less fortunate than ourselves. I don't know if this de-emphasis on good service, human contact, and empathy is the result of the great conservative revolution in this country, the great "self-reliance" cry of the Republicans, and the "gospel of prosperity" preached by evangelical and corporate America, but the blame falls mostly on them. They have made this country much less civilized, and much less caring.

Changing behavior patterns

I went to visit my daughter and grandchildren yesterday.

During the 90 minute drive, there were no slowdowns, which was very unusual. Before gasoline became so expensive, it used to take me anywhere from two to three hours, depending on the time of day, to drive there.

Yesterday, I left at the usual time: 8:00 a.m., a time which in the past always entangled me in some rush hour traffic. Not yesterday. It was smooth 70 m.p.h. driving all the way. And I started home at 6:00 p.m. In the past, if I wanted to avoid stop and go traffic, I had to leave before 3:00 or after 7:00.

Not sure what that might mean except that, perhaps, people really aren't driving unless they absolutely have to.

Arrogant religious groups and intolerant religious leaders do damage to our democracy

One of the most damaging developments in politics over the past two decades has been the effort on the part of religious GROUPS to insert themselves into political ELECTIONS.

I'm not saying that INDIVIDUALS should not vote according to their consciences, nor am I saying religion is destructive when it is part of political discourse. What I do assert is that, in a religiously pluralistic society, it is dangerous to democracy when religious GROUPS insert themselves into ELECTIONS and endorse or condemn candidates, leading their members to believe they can only remain in favor with God if they vote according to their leaders' dictates. It is also extremely dangerous when leaders of one religion imply that America was founded in conformity with, and thus must adhere to, their dogmas.

Religious people have always and will always vote at least partially according to their values, and that is their right. But when religious leaders tell people whom to vote for, either directly or indirectly, or when they smear candidates, or when they blackmail candidates, or raise money for candidates, or falsely accuse candidates of persecuting them, in order to gain political advantage, they are crossing a line that the Founding Fathers did not want crossed.

When Karl Rove harnessed the power of churches and pastors to register voters to vote for a specific candidate, and hand out voting guides that instructed church members for whom to vote, he was crossing a line, as were tax exempt churches which legally must refrain from this sort of thing. When some bishops in the Catholic Church said they would deny communion to candidates who did not want to criminalize abortion, even though those candidates were personally opposed to the practice, and threatened excommunication to voters who voted for those candidates, they were crossing a line as well.

Two years ago, Barack Obama gave a speech in which he reached out to religious voters, but said we must find ways to create policy and agree on issues that go beyond religious arguments, because many American voters will not be receptive to such arguments. He said:

Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what’s possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It’s the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God’s edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing."

These words of Obama reflect something I have been thinking for years. As someone who abhors the huge numbers of abortions in this country, and regrets the casual approach some have to the procedure, I share the values of some "pro-life Christians." But I don't share their solution, which is to overturn Roe V. Wade and criminalize abortion. There are many reasons for that, which I will not belabor now, but what I realize about the abortion debate is that it will not be solved with either the NARAL approach or the "right to life" approach.

Religious people want to argue on the basis of religious beliefs and secular people will never be persuaded by religious arguments. Even if the pro-life movement were to succeed in overturning Roe V. Wade and banning abortion, at least one half of the country would not be convinced. And the fight would continue. Obama is saying we need to find another way to discuss these things, and use both science and reason to find a compromise that will not be perfect, but might be better than continuing this endless animosity the two sides have for each other.

Today, James Dobson is using this two year old speech of Obama's to attack him and say he is "dragging Biblical understanding through the gutter" and has a "fruitcake interpretation" of the Constitution. Dobson is particularly irate about Obama using the example of abortion to call for a different kind of political discourse. Dobson is one of those who will not support a political candidate unless he professes the exact beliefs that Dobson and his followers do. As such, Dobson supported Bush, but abhors McCain. Even though McCain is "pro-life," he isn't conservative enough for Dobson, nor sufficiently anti-abortion. McCain would like to see Roe overturned, but he wants to return the choice of whether abortion should be legal back to the states. This isn't good enough for Dobson, who will not be satisfied until abortion is a crime everywhere.

Obama isn't just being attacked by the "Christian" Dobson, however. Muslim groups are also unhappy with Obama because he has not visited a mosque and is reluctant to publicly embrace Muslim voters. To those of us who have watched as the Republican smear machine, with a little assist from some Hillary supporters, have either pushed the lie that Obama was a Muslim or allowed people to falsely believe it, know how tricky this territory is for Obama. If he visits a mosque, pictures will circulate all over the internet "proving" that Obama is a Muslim.

Those Americans who are rational and educated know Islam is an ancient and honorable religion, but in this post 9/11 world, when millions of people have decided, with help from Dobson and the like, that the religion of Islam (and not just a radical sect of Islam) is an evil force that is responsible for killing Americans, Barack cannot do anything to allow this misunderstanding to continue, no matter how much he respects Muslims and wants them to support him.

Of course, if church and state remained completely separate, this might not be such dangerous territory. Barack's problems with those who drag religion into the public square is not limited to the internet rumor that he is a Muslim, nor critiques of his call for a dialogue that does not cater to fundamentalist Christians. As we have seen today, he is being attacked by a fellow "Christian" not just because some assert he is not the right kind of Christian, but also because he is apparently, not the right kind of American. (Groups like Focus on the Family have intertwined their brand of Christian orthodoxy with their brand of American orthodoxy.) Even though he is a Constitutional law professor, according to Dobson he has a "fruitcake" understanding of the Constitution, whatever that means.

And as we saw just a few months ago, Barack's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, was all the proof that the right wing smear machine needed to prove Barack was the wrong kind of Christian, one who sat in a respected Christian Church whose pastor dared to challenge the morality of some aspects of American governmental policy, a pastor who got a little too worked up, a little too emotional, a little too angry at what has been done to black Americans at the hand of the American government and the many southern "Christians" who used scripture to justify the horrifying treatment of African Americans.

Obama is in a no-win situation here, all because religion has become way too intertwined with politics and too many rigidly orthodox religious leaders don't seem to want to accept Obama's view that Americans of all religions and no religion must learn to talk with each other in a different way. Each religious group wants to be catered to in exactly the way they think they should be catered to. Each religious group believes its tenets alone are the word of God. Each believes America must conform to their interpretation of the Bible, which in turn colors their interpretation of the Constitution.

And herein lies the problem: since America is made up of peoples who profess many different faiths, many different versions of the various faiths, as well as people who profess no faith, all of whom are equal under the law and each of whom can cast only one vote, the citizens of America must learn to speak to each other in a common language, and that language cannot be the language of the Bible, the Torah, the Quran or any other religious text.

Once Obama takes the oath of office next January 20th, I hope he will follow through on the vision he offered in his speech two years ago. I hope his presidency is one in which the radical right religious leaders can be tamed and learn that it will be good for America, and good for them as well, if we can all learn how to speak to each other, not as people of God vs. people of the world, not as religious vs. secular, not as fundamentalists vs. modernists, not as conservatives vs. liberals, but simply as Americans, concerned not about implementing one or another interpretation of the Bible, the Torah, or the Quran in our laws, but about implementing the COMMON GOOD.

In such a world, perhaps we could stop criticizing and attacking each other, stop arrogantly insisting we alone know the real truth, and start finding ways to live in peace, with love and acceptance of all people, and with real "liberty and justice for all," no matter what faith anyone professes, or what anyone believes.

How on earth could God take issue with that?

The military and the cost of gasoline

Gasoline in California costs over $4.50 a gallon now. It's less in other locations, but over $4.00 everywhere. People are beginning to curtail their driving. Demand for hybrids is up. I see fewer Hummers on the road (though I still see some in my town where they used to be everywhere), and truckers are parking their rigs and staying home as they are losing money by working.

For the first time since my first grandchild was born seven and a half years ago, I have to stop and think about whether I can afford to drive the sixty miles to go visit for the day. I'm visiting a lot less than I used to.

No one can claim to know all the reasons for this predicament of oil shortages and high prices, though it is interesting that the much maligned former president Jimmy Carter tried to warn us about this thirty years ago. His proposed solutions may not have been appropriate, but he was smart enough to see a train wreck coming. He ought to get credit for that.

Some say speculators are to blame, others point a finger at the oil companies or oil producers, or the ever-increasing demand from developing countries like India and China. Others say Detroit should have been creating new kinds of cars decades ago, cars that used alternate fuels. All these may be true, but I would like to ask one question that I have not heard asked. Perhaps it is irrelevant, but I want to know how much oil the United States millitary is using in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Surely, those gigantic warships, jet fighters, bombers, Humvees, tanks, etc. are using a lot of gasoline that would not be used had this president not gone to war in Iraq. And now that we know without a doubt we were lied into a war that was completely unnecessary, is anyone angry about the amount of oil that is being wasted there? Could some of this wasted oil be adding to the shortages that are now costing truckers their livelihoods?

Just wondering...

John McCain sells his soul - to big oil

So first John McCain thinks giving a "gas tax holiday" to Americans will be a winner in the presidential campaign. Apparently, he thinks the American people are so stupid that they believe his inauguration will be on July 1st, in time to get a gas tax holiday bill passed so they can drive to the beach, or the Cape, or the Grand Canyon, this summer. He also thinks they don't understand that a gas tax holiday would: a) rob the government of funds needed to repair roads and bridges and thus b) cause hundreds of Americans who work on the nation's highways to lose their jobs and c) probably not save them any money as the oil companies would keep the price high so they can get a bigger profit.

When he realized this idea didn't help Clinton beat Obama, he came up with another brilliant idea, one his buddy Bush also suggested: opening up the coasts of American to even more drilling. (Currently there is a moratorium on new drilling.) Apparently, his estimation of the intelligence of the American people has not changed. He still thinks they will fall for this even though a) the oil companies are not extracting oil in places where they are already allowed to drill; b) it will take ten years or more to extract oil from new locations; and c) the price of a gallon of gas is controlled by far more complicated things than how many oil platforms we can erect in the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Gulf. (Among other things, the oil companies and the oil cartels are gaming the system - anybody remember Enron? - to keep the price of gasoline high.)

McCain is supposed to be the Maverick, the one who bucks the big lobbyists (even though lobbyists are running his campaign), the one who once (but no longer) favored progressive taxation, the one who opposed coastal drilling but has now changed his mind, the one who isn't like Bush, except he is.

McCain is also supposed to be the one Republican who cares about the environment, but this ridiculous proposal, which oilmen Bush and Cheney love, would hurt the environment and the economy in many ways.

It will put America's coasts at risk of oil spills and hazardous waste destroying pristine beaches. This in turn will kill wildlife and destroy tourism, the basis of many coastal economies. And for what? For something that will do nothing to lower the cost of gasoline this year, or next year, or ten years from now?

Even more importantly, though, it will do nothing to get us away from our dependence on oil, and very little to end our dependence on "foreign" oil, which apparently is now all McCain and Bush care about. As long as what McCain is proposing is something that won't have any effect in the short term, as long as it will take a decade or more to get to any of that oil, why doesn't he propose a long term solution that will not only end our dependence on foreign oil, but end our dependence on oil, period? Answer – it would piss off big oil.

Right now, all of our investment should be in renewable and environmentally safe energy, but neither McCain nor Bush are going there with any vigor. Why? Because Bush is an oil man, and McCain is dependent on oil money for his campaign. Once again, all Republicans care about is the giant corporation, because that's the source of the money that gets them into office. They can't depend on millions of people making small donations to their campaign, the way Barack Obama can, because the people will not benefit from a McCain presidency. The giant corporations, especially the big energy companies, will.

McCain is willing to make this pitch to the people because he thinks the people are stupid enough to fall for it. He knows we won't actually do more drilling along the coasts, because his proposal allows the states to make the final decision, and coastal states will not go for it. But by making the proposal, he panders to the oil companies, who will give him more campaign funds, and he thinks he is fooling the people into believing come November, gasoline prices will go down.

I really don't think the people will fall for it this time.

The immorality of the Bush administration

Over at Daily Kos, Hunter addresses the one thing he will remember most about the Bush administration: its complete immorality, even as its leader claims to be in direct contact with God. It's worth reading the entire post, but here's a taste:

I will remember the Bush administration not for any bold speeches, but for an unending sequence of snide, guttural croaks in front of podiums, in which the latest blasphemy against mankind or God is uttered with perfect assurance, or with a dismissive sneer, or with ominous opines on the motivations of those that think differently.

There were those that considered "preemptive" war an abomination; they were considered naive, and dismissed as artifacts of an earlier time with shamefullyrigid thinking.

There were those that thought bombing the cities of Iraq, regardless of the viciousness and corruption of their leader, under the confused banner of maybe al Qaeda or something was too high a price for an uninvolved civilian population to pay, regardless of the actions of that leader. An opinion like that was taken as evidence of secret sympathies for that leader.

There were those that thought the Geneva Conventions should apply; they were dismissed as rubes. There were those who thought those that were turned in to United States forces as terrorists should have, at some point, a trial: the larger voice howled of the danger of giving any voice to those people, whether innocent or not.

There were those that thought that, even casting aside evidence that torture does not work, even casting aside laws against it, even casting aside the impossibility of
separating guilty from innocent in front of the teeth of a barking dog or using water and a rag, torture is immoral; for speaking such thoughts, the speakers become hated.

At the same time, we were lectured on the will of God from those that see hurricanes as divine judgement against tolerance; we were told that intolerance is the moral position. We were told that if there is even "a one percent" chance that someone is a terrorist, granting them doubt or mercy was a fool's game.

We were told, in short, that calculated brutality was a requirement of government. In the end, the greatest condemnation of the Bush administration is not that they believe that, but that they have almost managed to get us to believe it.

If it were merely the war on terrorism, that would be something different, though not necessarily better, but in every aspect of governance we continually have been told that the ethical position is the stupid, foolish one, or that being offended at corruption is the childish position.

No news outlets demanded answers, when the Justice Department was staffed with those loyal to party, not country; it was considered expected. The outing of a CIA agent as payback was politics as normal; the urgings to prosecutors to prosecute Americans differently according to party affiliation was for a long while presumed merely one of the perks of power. The task of rebuilding Iraq was considered secondary to staffing it with die-hard conservatives, even if they had not even the slightest bit of expertise towards the job. Scientific reports by the government were either quashed or the findings changed in order to fit The Approved Version Of Reality; it barely resulted in whimpers. Forget the difficult or controversial decisions, even the most basic ones were reduced to simple equations of party advantage and
ideological loyalty.

Thoughts on the past week

I took the week off last week - mostly because it was my birthday and I felt like paying attention to other things - but a lot happened while I was contemplating my advancing age.

Barack Obama chose not to opt into the public financing system for his campaign and to continue to rely on individual donors to help him win the election. McCain is screaming that this means Obama is untrustworthy and a flip-flopper and therefore shouldn't be allowed to become president. Considering that no one has fip-flopped more than McCain - on the Bush tax cuts, on statements about Iraq, on illegal immigration, etc. - the flip-flopping charge is silly. As for the meaning of Obama's decision - it means one thing: he wants to win, and the more money he has the better his chances. If McCain had the donors Obama does, he would do the same thing. And considering how the Republicans are so fond of smear campaigns, and are threatening an "October surprise," Obama will need all the cash he can get to counter their atacks. He's doing the only thing a responsible Democrat can do - be prepared for the lies, distortions, and smears by having the kind of war chest that will go to battle in every media outlet to defeat these tactics.

Newsweek has Obama up by fifteen points over John McCain. No other poll has him up by this much and as everyone says, it's still a long time until November. But this is a good indication of the mood of the country, and barring another terrorist attack, an effective swiftboating of Obama, or some other unforeseen event that changes the public's mind, it looks like the country wants the change candidate, the younger candidate, the candidate who knows how to use a computer. Of course, the press still isn't focusing a great deal on McCain's mistakes and gaffes, but as the campaign goes on and the stress builds, we are likely to see more of them. The election could be a Democratic blow out.

Large sections of the Midwest are under water and I wonder if scientists believe global warming has something to do with it, as they determined with Katrina and the disaster in New Orleans. Some of the areas that flooded are considered to be prone to flooding every 100 years, but the last time there was severe flooding along the Mississippi was in 1993, just 15 years ago. I heard that new levees are being built each year along the Mississippi, and considering how frequently the river rises in this era of climate change, and how often these levees fail, this seems absurd. When will we humans stop living in areas that are prone to flooding, and stop thinking levees - or God - will protect us?

The House of Representatives passed the "FISA Compromise," Barack Obama released a statement saying he would support it, and the progressive community is pissed. I haven't read the bill and wonder how many in Congress have. I do know that it gives immunity to telecom companies for their cooperation with the Bush administration in its illegal wiretapping program, portions of which the Congress has now agreed to make legal. It does, apparently, give Bush most of what he wants, which to progressives is always a bad thing, as progressives do not think this president does anything unless it helps his buddies or himself, and believe most of what he does violates the spirit if not the letter of the Constitution. I agree, and I wish Obama would have stood up to the president. More than that, I wish the Congress would stand up to the president. Maybe someday we will know the real reason why they didn't. But progressives shouldn't condemn Obama for this decision. As a legislator, he sees the writing on the wall, and knows the bill will most likely pass. As a presidential candidate, he doesn't want to give the Republicans ammunition to call him "soft on terrorism," and as a future president, he wants to have sufficient powers to fight terrorism. We can hope, however, that as a president he won't abuse those powers. The way I see it, the passage of this bill is even more reason to support Obama. Can you imagine a President McCain with these powers?

Tim Russert was buried. I had mixed feelings about Tim Russert as moderator of Meet the Press. Sometimes (mostly when he was grilling someone I didn't respect) I liked him. Other times (when he grilled one of my guys) I didn't. I stopped watching him for a while, especially when he spent a full hour with each of the primary candidates, as I just couldn't listen to an entire hour of spin and deception. When he died a week ago, unexpectedly at the age of 58, while working at the NBC studios, I felt sadness for his family, and after days of tribute, for his colleagues as well. But what struck me most about the tributes I heard is that they painted a picture of a really good man, a man who was always available for his friends, always there to lend a hand, always ready to offer encouragement. More than a great bureau chief, or host of a popular television program, Tim Russert was an example of a really good and decent person, a devout Irish Catholic with a great sense of humor, who loved sports as much as he loved work, but who mostly just loved the people around him, all of whom he considered family. MSNBC was criticized for its non-stop coverage of his death and funeral - which lasted from Friday afternoon until the funeral on Wednesday - but after hearing the stories about how he was always the first to help a friend in need, I can understand why they couldn't stop talking about him. NBC will find a new Washington bureau chief, and a new moderator of Meet the Press - no one is indispensable in that respect - but those close to him will not find a replacement for the great role model and friend they lost.

Gripe of the day: the invisibility of the elderly

I remember once seeing on the cover of Oprah Winfrey's magazine that it was published for women ranging from their twenties to the age of fifty-nine. I remember thinking, as I was approaching sixty, how insulting it was that between the ages of fifty-nine and sixty, something happened to you as a woman that made Oprah's magazine no longer relevant to you. As I have now passed sixty, I see more and more that everything in the popular culture is geared to people under sixty or even fifty: television shows, fashion, music, cars, etc. The older you get, the more invisible you are to advertisers, and in fact, to the culture at large.

However bad it may be for sixty year olds, however, it is worse for octogenarians. My parents are both eighty two, and both in ill health. Nothing except Medicare is geared to them. And even Medicare can't provide them with everything they need. For instance, my dad has difficulty with his vision. I have looked around for good magnifying glasses to help him and they are hard to find. I finally found one with a light on it, but the light it provides is disappointing. I can't imagine that my dad is alone in his need for vision aids, but his needs are not the concern of coroprate America.

Even for those who don't have the severe vision problems of my dad, older Americans have trouble reading the fine print on things, or even reading the print on over the counter medicine bottles. One would think since older Americans use the most medicine, including non-prescription medicines, that the pharmaceutical companies would figure out a way to make the print readable to an older person. But they don't.

The same is true for things like contracts and discount offers from companies. My mom, who orders many things from catalogues because she can't really do much shopping these days, recently got a forty percent off coupon for the Penney's catalogue. She made out her list of items (underwear for my dad, a pair of shoes for her, a nitegown, etc.) and called in the order. She had figured out how much it would cost by deducting the forty percent. When the woman on the phone gave her the total it was a far higher amount. When she reminded the woman of her coupon, she was told that the things she ordered were not included in the coupon offer. "Didn't you read the fine print?" the woman asked. "Honey, I can't read fine print," my mother replied in anger, and then cancelled the entire order. I would imagine a lot of women of my mother's generation shop through the Penney's catalogue. You would think the company might consider helping them out a bit by not sending them misleading offers and making the "fine print" not so fine. But they don't.

My mom has been fighting leukemia. Every aspect of her treatment is controlled by whether or not Medicare will approve payment, but no consideration is given to the fact that she must find transportation (she has been advised not to drive because of her low blood counts) to the lab twice a week, the doctor once a week, and the hospital periodically for transfusions. There is no public transportation system here, so she must find a ride either from me or a neighbor. In addition, there are very few handicapped spaces, and in one instance, they are quite far away from the entrance to the medical building. You would think a medical system that really wanted to help seniors like my mother, might make it easier to access treatment with transportation assistance or at least an adequate and well placed number of handicapped spaces, but they don't.

This consumer oriented, profit motivated world is the world of Oprah - geared to those below sixty who still have good eyesight, are able to read the fine print, can still drive themselves to the store and to their medical treatment. If the over-sixties can survive in an under sixty world, more power to them. If not, too bad. Helping them is not profitable, and in our society, that is the most important measure of what we do and don't do for our citizens.

Ultimately, whether we are talking about Oprah's magazine, Penney's discount offer, or the medical system, we live in a consumer culture where what matters is how corporations can gain access to your money, how they can keep you distracted from what matters by offering you newer and better must-have products. What this consumer culture does not much care about are those who have gotten beyond the prime age of consumers. The health and well being of the elderly does not matter to corporate America, to whom our senior citizens are invisible. This is why we must find a way to protect Medicare, keep Social Security solvent as a government program and not allow it to be privatized.

And it is also one of the many reasons why we ought to begin creating a society in which the bottom line is not always money, but instead the health and well-being, within caring communities, of all of its members, even the ones that are now invisible to the culture.

It's easy to be a Republican

When you step back for a minute and think about it, you realize it's much easier to be a Republican politician than it is to be a Democratic one.

All a Republican has to do is talk about "personal responsibility," as in "anyone who took out one of those sub-prime mortgages should have known better and been more responsible." By making the sub-prime crisis merely a failure of personal responsibility, nothing in the mortgage, banking, and securities industries needs to change. No regulation necessary, no accountability required of big corporations, run by people with multiple college degrees, that preyed on people too uneducated to even understand what was going to happen down the road.

All a Republican has to do is wave the flag, wear a flag pin, and insist that any war America fights is an honest and just war that requires the support of all the American people. No need to question the decision of the president to go to war. No need to question America's foreign policy. Just assume America is always right, and America's enemies are always evil. No need to strain your brain and study a little history, or insist that your leaders tell you the truth.

All a Republican has to do is blame the government for everything that is wrong in America. Taxes are too high and the bureaucracy too big. Elect me and I'll make life better by lowering your taxes, eliminating federal programs, and giving you more freedom to spend your own money. Never mind that I've promised this before and have not delivered. Never mind that Republican administrations always bring on recessions and massively increase federal debt. Never mind that Republicans are even bigger porkers than Democrats. This time will be different. This time, I'll lower taxes, balance the budget, eliminate pork and lower the deficit.

All a Republican politician has to do is say they are "pro-life," which of course means they are against abortion and want fetuses to have legal rights. Saying one is "pro-life" is a great way to seem compassionate and civilized, as well as godly, but still be able to enact all kinds of policies that hurt the living. If one says they protect the life of the fetus, one can be forgiven for not funding programs for the already born like the Children's Health Care Initiative, or refusing to give all citizens access to health care, or sending men and women off to die in an immoral and unnecessary war, or sending those who survive back again and again, pushing many of them to commit suicide, or allowing people to drown in New Orleans, or linger for days in a sports stadium without food or water.

The bottom line is this: Democrats believe in the power of government to assist people with the necessities of life like health care, roads and bridges, retirement security, disaster relief, and schools, especially during tough economic times, or when no matter how hard you work you simply can't make ends meet. Democrats believe that only government can regulate industries so that they don't prey on the citizens and take away their ability to support themselves and get ahead. This kind of governance requires leaders who are wise and thoughtful, who don't view government as evil, and who work hard to get the balance right between personal responsibility and government responsibility.

Republicans don't have to do this. Since Republicans want to reduce the federal government so that all it does is keep a strong military, they don't have to feel bad about not helping hurricane victims, the elderly, the young, or the poor. They can insist people work hard to purchase their own health insurance (even when health insurance has become unaffordable for many), de-fund the public school system by allowing the private sector to make education into a for-profit industry, allow roads and bridges to be the responsibility of state and local governments, which can't afford them, reduce the Social Security trust fund by allowing young workers (whose payments into the system are what allows it to keep going) to opt out and create private accounts, and let private groups, like non-profits including churches, provide meager disaster relief for hurricane victims.

Anyone who suffers as a result of these policies, according to Republicans, have only themselves to blame. Seniors who didn't - or couldn't - save for retirement were foolish. Children whose parents can't afford private schools will be stuck in the remnants of a defunded education system. Homeowners who lose their homes because of deceptive loans, should have read the fine print and known they couldn't afford these loans. And people who get sick and don't have health insurance are just too lazy and irresponsible to earn the money to pay for it.

You don't have to be exceptionally intelligent to be a Republican politician. All you have to do is spout a few talking points about the evils of taxes, abortion, America's enemies, and the federal government and insist your well being, your education, your health care, is totally up to you.

You don't have to be very bright to be a Republican voter. You don't have to think. You can let Rush Limbaugh do your thinking for you. And you can vote for a presidential candidate simply because he says he's "born again," or because he seems like a guy you'd want to have a beer with, or because he claims he's a "maverick," or is considered a "war hero," or likes to call you "my friends."

The only good thing about Republicans is that there don't seem to be as many of them this year.

New feature: Cracking the McCain Code

Today in a town hall meeting, John McCain said:

I do not and will not privatize Social Security. It is a government program and it's necessary ...but I would like younger workers - younger workers only - to have the opportunity to take a few of their tax dollars and maybe put them into an account with their name on it...We will make sure - I will commit - that present day retirees will get the benefits that they have earned.

This is code for:

My goal is to end Social Security by slowly privatizing retirement accounts, but nobody likes that term so I won't use it. By letting younger workers (anyone under retirement age, as I am only committing full benefits to "present day retirees") put some of their money in private accounts, we will soon drain the Social Secuity fund and there will be no choice but to end the program. In other words, I'm not going to "privatize" the government program that exists to help present day retirees, I'm just going to end the program for future retirees.

Losing Republicans always resort to smear campaigns

Election after election, republicans who are trailing their Democratic (or sometimes Republican) rivals - because Republican policies are bankrupt and Republican politicians have no solutions for the horrendous problems facing this country - resort to smear tactics, innuendo, personal attacks and fear-mongering.

Al Gore was attacked in 2000 by the Bush campaign for supposedly lying about "inventing the internet," when that isn't what he claimed, and of wanting to ban the Bible, which was ridiculous. Furthermore, he was connected to the disgraced Bill Clinton at every turn, but what Bush did to Gore was nothing compared to what he did to his primary rival John McCain. Push polls were conducted in South Carolina and fliers distributed that accused McCain of fathering an illegitimate black baby, and of being mentally disturbed because of his time as a POW. His wife was accused of being mentally unstable and a drug addict. Ultimately, Bush had to steal the election, his campaign conducting a smear campaign against Gore for wanting a Florida recount, distributing signs to campaign staffers posing as ordinary citizens holding signs that read "Sore Loserman," which was a play on Gore/Lieberman."

The 2000 elections was child's play compared to the 2004 election, however, when Bush, the war president who escaped going to Vietnam with the help of his father's friends who got him into the Texas Air National Guard, found himself up against the Vietnam War hero John Kerry. Bush was both an empty suit and a coward, so he accused Kerry of being a "Masachusett's liberal" (which has coded racial implications) and smeared Kerry's hero status. The latter task fell to the well funded Swift Boat Veterans for truth who simply made shit up about Kerry's war record. Bush had nothing good to offer the American people, and his wartime behavior could not compare to that of Kerry, so the Bush campaign simply lied, and for good measure, ramped up the fear rhetoric with non-stop terror alerts, which magically ended once Bush won the election.

So here we are in the midst of another presidential election, and the Republicans know they have absolutely nothing to offer except the guy they smeared eight years ago, a 71 year old former POW, married to a millionaire heiress eighteen years younger who appears to be channeling TV moms from the fifties, who fell into the nomination because every other Republican seemed too much like Bush. With an enormously unpopular president, and a recent trouncing in Congressional elections, the Republicans turned to someone whom the press calls a "maverick." He was the only hope they had against either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

It has been obvious since March that Obama would be the nominee, in spite of Hillary Clinton's hopes for a miracle and optimistic speeches to her supporters, and so the Republican smears against the very popular Obama began months ago on talk radio and FOX News. Now that Barack is the official nominee, the attacks have gone nuclear, not only against Obama, but also against his wife.

For weeks now there has been an internet rumor, started by Larry Johnson, that there was a very damaging tape out there with Michelle Obama saying something racist against whites. Johnson promised to produce the tape, or at least more solid information about it, but we have seen nothing. But the Republicans have learned that the rumor is enough to cause problems. The right wing radio shows are smearing Michelle with this rumor, and now FOX News has joined in with its own ugly racist approach.

So now McCain, once the victim of typical Republican smear tactics, is allowing his surrogates to use such attacks against his opponent. Why? Because there is no way he can win against this incredibly popular, intelligent, youthful, and historical candidate unless he makes him completely unacceptable to white America. He has to paint Obama - and if not Obama, then his wife - as a dangerous black person, someone not to be trusted, someone who is not "one of us." McCain is old, increasingly forgetful or confused, and is supporting failed policies and failed wars. Unless he can appeal to the covert racism in many voters, and make Barack and Michelle Obama into suspicious and un-American characters, he will lose. So the wingnuts on FOX and right wing radio are beginning the campaign.

Fortunately, some websites are fighting these smears, including one started by the Obama campaign. Here they are:

Fight the smears

Politifact

Snopes.com

While I and many others in this country are appalled by this tactic of Republicans, and are concerned about the added factor of race that will be used as a weapon against the Obamas, I have a feeling that just maybe the American people (or at least a majority) are tired of this. I think it's possible that all of this will backfire, especially as Americans realize they fell for this nonsense in the last two elections and they ended up with a moron in the White House, who couldn't win on the issues.

We want our country back from the warmongers, liars, cheats, corporatists, and hateful scandalmongers. We want a good and decent country. We want to restore our reputation in the world. We want our soldiers to come home, our gas prices to come down, our home values to go up, and our jobs to pay more. The Republicans cannnot offer any of this to the American people. All they can offer are attacks against a good and decent wife, mother, and career woman who is a stunning example of working hard and achieving the American dream.

I don't think that will be enough this year. I believe the American people have had it!

The power of unconscious bigotry

When the history of this presidential race is written, there will be much said about the influence of both sexism and racism on the outcome.

Already much being is being written and said about sexism in the media and how it may have negatively impacted Senator Clinton's campaign. Certainly, there were sexist comments on the cable shows, and in the blogs, but I'm not sure how much sexism factored into voting. I'm not sure we will ever know, in that the media has not focused on polls that tried to measure the effect of gender on voting. By way of contrast, they have looked at polls that asked primary voters whether race was a factor in their vote.

In one CBS poll of voting in Pennsylvania, voters were asked about both race and gender as possible factors in their voting. The findings:

About one in five voters said the race of the candidates was among the top factors in their vote. About as many said that about the candidates' gender. White voters who said race was a factor supported Clinton over Obama by 3-to-1, while whites who said race wasn't a factor divided between Clinton and Obama more evenly. But race and gender played out as factors in very different ways, with Obama's race apparently a negative for him among white voters, while Clinton's gender was a positive factor for her among men and women who said it contributed to their votes. Those who said gender was a factor actually tended to favor Clinton, while Obama did better among those who said gender was not a factor.

So, according to this poll at least, gender was a strong reason why people voted for Clinton, while race was a strong factor in why white people voted against Obama.

The media, especially the cable outlets, certainly displayed some ugly sexist commentary, and much less (from my observation) blatant racism. But how this plays out in actual influence on voters seems to be a different story. Decent people were mostly repulsed by the sexism they saw on television and the internet, as they would have been, I believe, by blatant racist comments, had they occurred.

We did not see many overt racist comments, however, mainly because they are so swiftly identified and punished, as they were with Don Imus last year. There were, though, covert racist attacks against Obama. For example, the FOX News highlighting of Obama's middle name, and the huge coverage of the outrageous statements of Jeremiah Wright (in contrast to the much briefer coverage of the equally outrageous statements of pastors supporting Senator McCain), are covert ways of scaring voters into rejecting Obama. A black pastor was portrayed as scarier than a white pastor, and an Arabic middle name hinted that Obama must be a Muslim. Combine that rumor with assorted internet rumors about Obama's schooling and family, and the connection of Obama's pastor with Louis Farrakhan, and you are playing guilt by association, and portraying Obama as a black Muslim who is unacceptable to white America – all without ever uttering a racial slur or talking about Obama's skin color.

It seems to me that this kind of coded racist attack on Obama is far more damaging than any boorish sexist comments against Senator Clinton. The sexism of the media may actually have strengthened her image in the electorate, as many people rejected and criticized it. However, the coded attacks on Obama were not attacked as racist by the media or regular voters. Why? Because there are many voters who don't think there's anything unusual or odd about feeling uneasy about a black nominee for president. These people do not consider themselves racist or prejudiced in any way, yet there is something in them that sees African Americans as different, foreign, and not "one of us." Barack Obama spoke to this when he talked about his white grandmother wanting to cross the street when she saw a black man walking towards her.

My elderly mother, one of the kindest and caring people I know, a woman who would help anyone in need, asked me yesterday if I thought a presidential victory by Obama would mean "the blacks would take over everything."

After I picked myself up off the floor, I expressed complete horror at what she said, as I have never known her to express racial prejudice.

She said "Well, they were treated pretty badly by the white people. Maybe they would want to have power over them."

We didn't get into a discussion as we were getting ready to go to the doctor, but I have thought a lot about what she said and wondered whether it was indicative of what a lot of people of her generation are thinking.

I remember a few weeks ago, when Barack Obama was a guest on The Daily Show, John Stewart asked him the following tongue-in-cheek question: "Sir, if you become president will you enslave the white race?" The audience got a good laugh, but what if this is a real fear, not just a joke on The Daily Show?

If my mother is any indication, Barack Obama may have a real problem becoming president. While younger and more educated voters have little problem with Obama's race, older Americans, good and decent people like my mother, even those who would never say or do anything overtly racist, still harbor unconscious negative thoughts and feelings about African Americans that may make them unwilling to vote for Barack Obama.

So while it cannot be denied that overt sexist comments were used against Hillary Clinton, it is also true that covert racist campaigns are being waged against Obama. These campaigns work, in part, because unconscious, irrational fears and negative appraisals of African Americans still lurk in the psyches of many white Americans.

This election will, to some extent, be a test of whether there are enough young and enlightened voters to outnumber those who, whether consciously or only unconsciously, carry the last remnants of our nation's hideous history of racial bigotry.

Gripe of the day

Over the past few months I have mostly written about the primary, which was exciting and maddening and made everything else seem less interesting.

I will still be writing mostly about politics, especially as we get closer to the general election, but I am going to resist the temptation to write only about it, and so will be introducing a handful of new features of the blog over the next few weeks.

Today I am introducing a feature in which I will spout off with a (non-political) "Gripe of the day."

Today's gripe: People using the expression "in regards to."

As a writer and former college instructor, this grates on me. Over the ten years I taught, I saw this expression used with increasing frequency in the papers my students wrote.

It amazes me how this phrase, which I rarely heard ten years ago, has creeped into common usage. Yesterday I got a recorded message from a bank soliciting my interest in signing up for a credit card and the message was: "This is _____calling in regards to _______."

I even hear politicians use this expression. When the Republicans controlled the Congress, I often heard Pat Roberts, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, use the phrase in news interviews. In fact, he would often use it three or four times in a five minute interview. This is particularly humorous in that this statement appears in his biography on his website: "Following graduation from Kansas State University in 1958, Roberts served in the U.S. Marine Corps for four years, then worked as a reporter and editor for several Arizona newspapers." With his experience in the news business, shouldn't he know that the correct expression is either "as regards" or "with regard to?"

The case against Hillary (a final argument)

In addition to seeing Barack Obama as a magnificent candidate, promising to turn the page away from the hysteria of the sixties, and bringing an entirely new approach to politics and governing, I voted for him because I just didn't want the Clintons back in the White House.

I watched Hillary's speech yesterday and it was an admirable one, a gracious one, a historical one. It took grit, courage, dignity and great loyalty to her Party to be able to deliver it. I applaud her for it. If that was all I had ever seen of Hillary, and if she was the only candidate presenting a progressive platform, I would have been as enthusiastic about voting for her as many of her supporters.

But that is not all I know of Hillary, and so I could not support her.

It boiled down to this, really: I did not want the Clintons to return to the White House. I've written about this a lot, and most recently in great detail, but the bottom line is that the damage Bill Clinton did as president, in the long view of history, will be seen as far greater than the good he did.

Yes, he presided over a good economy. Yes, he kept us out of major wars. Yes, the nineties were, on the surface at least, good years. The Clinton administration, however, was supposed to move us away from the conservative hold on government during the previous 12 years, and it did not. Health care reform failed, largely because of Hillary Clinton's poor management of it, and Bill Clinton botched his promise to allow gays to serve openly in the military. As a result of the Clinton arrogance which resulted in this mismangagement, the Republicans took over Congress two years after Bill Clinton was inaugurated and held onto it for 12 years. Then we saw a sharp right turn, with welfare reform and NAFTA two of the highlights.

Bill Clinton's term was full of drama, intrigue, and conspiracy theories by both parties. The Republican noise machine tried desperately to find a scandal with which to tarnish Clinton and they finally did. And even as they discovered Monica's blue dress, Hillary was on television talking about the vast right wing conspiracy. The impeachment, fully the fault of Bill Clinton's libido, though at the time we blamed only the Republicans, cost the country the attention of the president and his party and ended the possibilility of any more help for the people. The Clinton drama also, in great measure, cost Al Gore the presidency as people turned to another Bush to "return dignity to the White House."

The great hope we liberals felt in 1992, with the election of Bill Clinton, turned out to be false hope. After the destructive policies of Reagan-Bush, Bill Clinton should have been able to begin a twenty year liberal dominance of government. But his personal character flaws, starting with his narcissism and recklessness, were at least partly responsible for the presidency of George W. Bush and all the horrors it has inflicted on this country.

Perhaps it is fitting that one of the three men most responsible for Hillary's loss is Bill Clinton himself (the other two are Mark Penn, failed strategist, and Barack Obama, who out campaigned her). With Bill's remarks after South Carolina, his angry outbursts and his attacks on the media, Bill did his wife no favors. He has not changed. He still causes trouble.

Hillary Clinton is a talented politician, a gifted and brilliant woman. But she is still married to the man who is responsible for allowing George W. Bush to inhabit the White House, end what should have been twenty or more years of a progressive hold on the White House, and destroy so much of our democracy, our reputation in the world, and our planet. And if elected president, she would bring that man back to the White House with all the risks that would present.

That was a risk I was unwilling to take.

An astrophysicist makes a final argument for Hillary

Neil Degrasse Tyson is a scientist and host of PBS's Nova Science Now. I have enjoyed his program immensely. However, I was quite disappointed in his op-ed in the New York Times today in which he intimates that Democratic voters are choosing the wrong candidate in Barack Obama. His reason: Statistical analysis and computer modeling of polling data show that if the election were held today Hillary Clinton would win the general election against John McCain and Barack Obama would lose.

The computer model of polling data Tyson refers to was created by two astrophysicists, using data they gathered prior to the 2004 general election. What Tyson, also an astrophysicist, does is apply this model to the primary election. He uses a complicated system which involves the use of polls in states where they are available, and the use of the 2004 election results when there are no polls available.

His premise, analysis, conclusion and question are so absurd that I have to refute each one of them, not from the perspective of an astrophysicist, which I am not, or from the perspective of a political scientist, which none of us are, but from the perspective of an expert in human behavior, which they are not and I am.

Tyson says: "One of the tasks of scientists is to clarify the apparent complexity of the universe by using the language of mathematics." This may be true in the hard sciences, but not the soft sciences, like psychology and political science, where the unpredictability of events and human emotion have profound effects. While some human behavior is predictable, much of it is not, and in politics, as we have observed, unexpected things happen that change a voter's opinion over the months preceding a general election.

Tyson's premise is that we can use statistical analysis of past events to predict future events, not of how the stars and planets behave, but of how humans behave. Since human behavior is always changing, and events humans must respond to are always in flux, this is a false premise.

Tyson's analysis is flawed in that he analyzes data preceding a primary election with a computer model that has been developed for and used prior to a general election. Not only is there a time difference here, in that many events can intervene to affect voters' minds between the primary and the general election, but there is also a different level of attention. Many more people are paying attention to the candidates prior to the general election than they are prior to the primary elections. Furthermore, it is absurd to think that a model used to explain what happened prior to a general election, based on polls preceding that election, can be used to explain what will happen in a future general election, based on polls taken before a primary election. Dr. Tyson is not only comparing apples and oranges, he is taking information about this year's apples and applying it to next year's oranges.

Tyson used "the simple rules established by Professor Gott and Dr. Colley: in states in which a poll has not been taken, you give that state to the party that won it in 2004. You do the same for states where the median poll is a tie." Here there is a flawed assumption, an assumption that nothing much changes in states between elections. Red states stay red and blue states stay blue. Political observers are already seeing a change in the electorate as they characterize more and more states as "purple," meaning more states are up for grabs than ever before. You cannot use the 2000 and 2004 electoral maps and expect that it will be repeated with any certainly, especially considering the work Howard Dean has done in the interim, implementing a 50 state strategy, and the work Obama has done in making inroads into formerly red states.

Finally, with respect to Tyson's analysis, there are factors in this race that have never existed before. We have never seen a president with a 25% approval rating, nor 81% of voters who believe the country is on the wrong track. Nor have we ever had a major party nominee other than a white male. Surely, these factors could confound the results of any computer model.

Since Tyson's premise and analysis are flawed, it stands to reason that his conclusion is flawed. Hillary Clinton would win the election if it were held today, he says. I don't think his mathematical model comes close to proving that, but even if it did, so what? It says absolutely nothing about who will win five months from now, when the public has gotten to know the candidates better. And herein lies another problem with Tyson's analysis. The voters are far more familiar with Clinton and McCain than they are with Obama. That will be different in five months.

What will also be different in five months is how the Republican smear machine will or will not have hurt the Democratic candidate, or will have backfired. Tyson may think the smear machine against Obama would only make a Clinton victory more likely, but he is not considering the smear machine the Republicans would gin up against Clinton. Can he possibly forget the ugliness of the impeachment proceedings against her husband? Can he honestly think the Republicans would not use this against Clinton? Is he unaware of Bill's secret business dealings and undisclosed contributions to his presidential library? The Clintons have baggage, and there is no doubt in my mind that McCain's team would unload on her, lessening her chances for victory.

And while this may seem out of the question to Tyson, it is possible that the more people get to know about McCain's voting record and policy positions, the less they will like him. This long Democratic campaign season has kept the focus off of McCain. Now that we have a Democratic nominee, it is likely the press will finally give some attention to McCain, and the multiple mistakes he has made that have stayed under the radar will start coming to light. McCain's higher poll numbers against Obama are in part a result of his not having much press scrutiny to date. That, of course, will change.

Now to Tyson's question. He asks "what does it say of the Democratic delegate selection system when its winner would lose the presidency if an election were held today, yet its loser would win it?" I can hardly express how ridiculous I believe this question to be, and how inappropriate it is to ask it after the nominee has already been chosen. I have to say it makes the good professor sound like a die-hard Clinton supporter who is disgruntled that the young Obama defeated her. Nevertheless, I am going to attempt to answer his question.

"What does it say"?" It says that Democratic voters cast their ballots on the basis of something other than mathematical models. It says that Democratic voters look at the candidates and vote for the one they want to see in the White House. It says that Democratic voters this year decided they wanted the change candidate more than the candidate who already spent eight years in the White House, married to a man who shamed the Party and the nation. It says that Democratic voters have hope, and believe in the ability of a gifted young politician to win over voters before the general election, just as he had won over voters in all the states in which he vigorously campaigned.

Four years ago, a majority of Democratic voters decided to vote with their heads rather than their hearts. While there was tremendous enthusiasm for both John Edwards and Howard Dean in 2003 and early 2004, by the first caucus in Iowa voters had decided to go with the candidate that they thought could defeat Bush, even though he didn't excite them. They may not have had a statistical model to guide them, but they were sure Kerry's Vietnam War hero bona fides would ensure his victory over Bush, who had been AWOL during part of his service in the Texas Air National Guard, which daddy Bush got him into so he wouldn't have to go to Vietnam. They picked the man they thought was a sure winner, just as Tyson is sure Clinton would be a sure winner. And as we all know, Kerry lost.

This year, the Democrats had two strong candidates, a woman and an African American. Both are the first candidates of their gender and race to get this far, and the candidacy of either one of them, because of that, would confound pollsters and statistical models.

This is a different year. People are looking at an entirely different kind of race than the fifty-four previous ones. We have no idea what might happen. But some of us, those who voted for Obama, are convinced he can overcome the misinformation about him, the prejudice against him, the old red-state, blue-state divide, and the conventional wisdom which guides pundits and even, apparently, astrophysicists.

Would Dr. Tyson really have us vote as robots, using computer models to determine our vote, or would he rather allow this to proceed as a real contest for the hearts and minds of the American people, a process that has a great deal of suspense and uncertainty associated with it? If Democracy means anything at all, it means that we choose our candidates on a number of factors, that we expect our candidates to have a conversation with us to help us choose, and that we are able to make up our own minds. We have five months ahead of us for this process to unfold.

If Dr. Tyson cares at all about this country, he might start by encouraging people to pay attention to the issues as well as the skills of the presidential candidates and not lament that the Democrats did not use a statistical model to choose their nominee. And were he to study disciplines other than astrophysics, he might learn that on this planet, and in human behavior, nothing stays the same. There are unpredictable forces that always upset mathematical models, and one of them is the human will.

The night I became a Democrat

On this, the fortieth anniversary of the death of Bobby Kennedy, I remember the night I became a Democrat:

From my 2007 essay:

I began my journey towards the Democratic Party in the early morning hours of June 6th, 1968, two weeks before my twenty-first birthday. Although I didn't register as a Democrat until many years later, that morning as I listened to the commentary surrounding the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, I began to hear things I had not heard from my Republican family.

I had been married six months, and my husband and I were both in college. We were paying $100 a month for a tiny one bedroom apartment in Los Angeles, furnished with some hand-me-down furniture from my parents and a rented refrigerator. Although Bobby Kennedy was shot in the early morning of June 5th, after winning the California primary, because we could afford neither a telephone nor television, I only heard the news of the shooting when I went to class later that morning. And while I hadn't really followed Bobby Kennedy's campaign, I knew immediately that this event had enormous significance to the country.

Robert Kennedy was gunned down just five years after his brother, President John F. Kennedy, had been assassinated, and just two months after the assassination of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. You could not deny the reality that something was terribly wrong in our country. It was a time of war, of civil unrest, and of enormous challenges to the country, and many voices for change were tragically being silenced. So I interrupted my studies, stayed up all night listening to the radio, and got an education I might otherwise never have gotten.

Throughout the night of June 5th, as the young Senator lingered near death, his words, replayed by radio stations around the country, filled my tiny apartment. I heard the words Kennedy used to calm a crowd after Martin Luther King's death, and learned that he promoted private-public partnerships rather than welfare as the most dignified way to bring people out of poverty, that he sympathized with the plight of low paid farm workers in California, that he had a passionate desire to bring about racial justice and to insert a new idealism into the political discourse.

(Read the rest here)

Why Obama is the one

In the bizarre and obsessed relationship between Hillary Clinton and the media over the last two news cycles, the earth shaking reality of the first African American being nominated for president has been somewhat underplayed.

In the months to come, however, even as Barack Obama wants to run a campaign that rises above race, the reality of Barack's ancestry and how it factors into his success will be looked at from many different directions. So before all the big hitters write stories in the WSJ and the NYT, I want to put in my two cents.

It is no small thing that Barack Obama is not an African American in the sense that we usually define African Americans in this country. Nor is it a mere side issue that he is bi-racial.

Barack is not called "African American" because he is the descendent of slaves who were kidnapped and brought by white men to America from Africa. Barack does not have ancestors who were slaves. Barack is the son of a free black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. Barack was raised, except for a brief time in Indonesia, by a white mother and white grandparents, mainly in Hawaii. Until his college years and especially his time in the South side of Chicago, Barack has little connection to the black American community. In fact, it can be and has been argued that Barack's membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ was, in part, a deliberate attempt to educate himself in black culture so that he could understand a part of America, a part that people saw reflected in his skin color but that had not been part of his upbringing or personal history.

Previous black candidates in the presidential primaries have been African Americans in the traditional sense. Born in this country to black parents, descendents of slaves, and steeped in the culture of the black community and the civil rights movement, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton could not identify with the white community and vice versa. Their presidential runs were important and helpful to the black community and to the cause of equality and justice, but each knew they would not win without the white vote, which they could not get for many reasons, one of which is that they had never been part of the white community.

Barack has been part of that community. It was his earliest community, and while he has made the choice to see himself as black, he embodies and to some extent understands both races. This is the real psychological key to his ability to unify people. He had to unify the reality of two races within himself, in much the same way we hope he can help unify the two races within the country. It was a personal struggle for him, and he understands that it will be a struggle within the country. It is not, however, a struggle he shies away from.

Barack says he is something of a rorschach test; people see in him what they want to see. Blacks see a man who understands them and their struggles. Because of his skin color, he has experienced racism. Because of his participation in Trinity United Church, he can identify with the fear and anger of black members, even as he rejects some of the more outrageous statements and views of the church leadership.

While some whites reject Obama out of the fear, ignorance, and resentment that fuels racism, other whites embrace him because he seems to understand them. He doesn't resent them, nor see them as oppressors nor relate to them as anything but equals. Even his joke about "my cousin Dick Cheney" which he rattles off to amuse his audience, is seen as funny not because Cheney is white and he is black, but because Cheney is a neocon, a Republican, and Obama is anti-war and a Democrat. Race has nothing to do with why we laugh.

Obama often says "we are the ones we have been waiting for" because he knows all of us must renew America. But in a very real sense, Obama is the one - the first potential black president - we have been waiting for. Obama's very identity and heritage - as half black and half white - has at least been partly responsible for his rise to power. Each one of us can see something of ourselves in him and know he can identify with us, regardless of our race. And that makes him, in this year and this time, more electable than someone like Jesse Jackson.

My hope is that this is merely a step towards the day when someone who is considered 100 percent black (I say "considered" because DNA studies are teaching us that none of us is 100 percent anything), or Hispanic, or Asian, or Native American, will be able to rise to the presidency, because race and identity is no longer an issue in a country where everyone is truly equal to everyone else and racism and prejudice no longer exist.

But in the meantime, hopefully, we will have President Barack Obama.

The two men who defeated Hillary

An interesting article on what went wrong in the Clinton campaign. The WSJ says Clinton's loss was largely the result of the power of two men - Bill Clinton and Mark Penn - who vetoed some of the better ideas and caused some of the biggest problems.

Every candidate is different, of course, and needs to run his or her own kind of race, but what Hillary's campaign may teach us is that if a woman wants to run successfully for president, she shouldn't rely primarily on men and male psychology.

Ultimately, it may be two men who are responsible for Hillary's loss, and one of those men is not named Barack Obama.

Healing the family feud

The primary season is finally over and we must move forward and do everything we can to defeat John McCain and put a Democrat back in the White House.

This is where the really hard work begins.

Those of us who argued and fought over who would make the better Democratic candidate were able to argue as family members who know each other too well.

Obama supprters and Clinton supporters remained loyal to their preferred candidate for largely personal reasons that had very little to do with the candidates' policies. We knew these candidates - especially Clinton - and decided we liked them or didn't like them personally. We saw them as symbols, got angry when they competed a little too vigorously or - in our minds - unfairly, and threatened to leave the family if the other one became the favorite. We fought as family members fought - about heirarchy and taking one's turn and being the favorite. We got much more personal than we get with those outside our Party.

That, hopefully, is nearing an end. In time, I hope Clinton's many supporters will decide to stay in the family and realize that no matter how bitter the fight became (and no fights can be more ugly than family fights) this is the family that has always nurtured them and will continue to nurture them.

Now we must adopt a different strategy. We must now turn our attention to John McCain, the real opponent of Senator Obama, and in my opinion, the real opponent of what is best for this country. We must use our influence and powers of persuasion to help Americans see that a McCain presidency would be as much of a disaster as the Bush presidency has been. This will require much more investigation of policy matters, stuff that isn't as easy as simply attacking someone's style or behavior or even identity.

But it is going to require something else as well. This election will require us all to combat the racism that remains in this country, racism that will come in the form of racially coded, dog whistle attacks on Barack Obama by the Republicans. These attacks will include a renewed focus on his former minister and former church, attempts to portray his wife as a scary and aggressive woman, attempts to define him as a foreigner, a Muslim, or not "one of us."

This is one of the reasons why so many of us wanted Senator Clinton to immediately concede on Tuesday night and endorse Obama. Senator Clinton has often said she does not think Obama can be elected, and had hinted that part of the reason she feels this way is because she understands the amount of prejudice that still exists in our nation. However, we Obama supporters don't need Senator Clinton to remind us of this. We are well aware of the racism that remains in certain parts of the country. We don't support Obama because we are naive and think the days of racism are gone. We know the task ahead. We know the odds. We know it will be difficult to overcome the mindset that still exists within too many citizens. We simply think the fight is winnable, and ultimately worth it. We believe the American people can be convinced. We think they can, one by one, overcome their reservations once they a) really get to know Barack Obama and b)remember what John McCain represents - four more years of failed policies.

We also know that the primary campaign, while in many ways a good testing ground for Obama, also wounded him, and Hillary Clinton did some of the wounding. We wanted her to concede, not because we wanted to humiliate her or her supporters, or lord it over her, but because we know how powerful she is, and how crucial her support is to a November victory. We also know there is no time to waste.

Hillary Clinton can do a great deal to help Obama win the election. Her words, if chosen very carefully and delivered sincerely and forcefully, will help her supporters see the importance of letting go of their disappointment and anger. Her actions will be an example for her supporters, who see her as a role model.

It will be a tough fight to elect the nation's first black president. It was tough to elect the first black nominee. He almost lost at the end, partly because of the latent racism that emerged after the Jeremiah Wright controversy. It will take all of us to help him win this campaign.

So it's time to let go of anger and resentment. I am letting go of mine, but know it will be harder for others to let go of theirs. Perhaps it will help to look at what has gone on these past five months as an ugly family feud that now needs to end. I hope Senator Clinton will find the right words to help bring it to an end.

For five months Hillary Clinton has identified herself as a fighter, and she definitely has proven herself to be that. Now she has a different role. Now she must be a healer. Soon, the Party will call on her fighting abilities again, but on Saturday, she needs to put down her sword and her shield and speak the words of reconciliation. With the enormous power she wields, what she does and what she says on Saturday can be as important as anything Barack Obama does or says over the next five months.

I hope her supporters take comfort in the fact that she is now the most powerful woman in the country, even though she is not the nominee for president. And she will remain the most powerful woman in the country, whether or not she becomes the vice presidential nominee. No one can take that away from her.

Random thoughts about winning and losing

Well it seems Hillary is finally going to concede - not today, not tomorrow, not Friday, but on Saturday.

I really hope she gives one hell of a speech because she owes that to Obama, and she certainly has time to write it. She has had the media focused totally on her for 36 hours now, from yesterday morning when it leaked out that she might concede that night, until this evening when she finally was forced to announce that she would concede - after conference calls from Democratic Senators and Representatives. All this media focus took away from the historic victory of Barack Obama, the first ever nomination of an African American for the presidency of the United States.

Everyone knows it's easier to win than to lose, and so we know it was hard for Clinton to admit defeat. But it is even more difficult when you have been living a delusion for months. Ever since Texas and Ohio, when Clinton could not pull off big enough victories to enable her to catch up in delegates, experts have been telling her she did not have the math on her side. It was nearly impossible to win, they said over and over. Yet her supporters, who often accuse Obama supporters of drinking the Kool-Aid, had apparently drunk their own potion, because they would not believe reality.

And thus we read articles like this today, showing just how delusional Clinton's supporters were. Yesterday shouldn't have been the wake up call. That should have happened months ago.

Clinton's supporters also must be disheartened because Hillary had been telling them for months that she was going to convince the superdelegates to be on her side, to give her the nomination even if she was behind Obama in the delegate count. In other words, she was saying she would ignore the will of the people and the rules of the Democratic Party regarding the importance of delegates and rely on party insiders to give her the nomination. Yet now that her plan has backfired and the superdelegates, seeing that he was ahead in delegate count, all ran to Obama on the last day of the primary, she and her supporters are left not only stunned, but convinced they have been robbed.

I have wondered for the duration of this campaign why Hillary has such a hard time playing by the rules, why she attempts to change the rules when she is behind, and why the first serious female presidential candidate in history acts so unsportsmanlike, so contrary to the rules and etiquette of politics, so much like girls and women acted prior to the feminist revolution. And the only answer I can come up with is that she and many of her older supporters never really played team sports. If they had, they would have learned you can't get away with the things she has tried to get away with - not in sports, and not in politics, the greatest sport of all.

Hillary doesn't seem to understand that when you are losing the baseball game at the end of nine full innings, you accept defeat. You don't scream that you closed strong, getting five runs in the last three innings and therefore you should win, even if the other team was ahead by ten runs. You don't insist that the winner should be determined by who got the most hits, not who got the most runs. You don't announce to the crowd at the end of the game that your team has been victorious and that you aren't sure you will accept the results as posted on the scoreboard. And you don't turn your back on a member of the opposing team and refuse to shake hands after they beat you.

If you do those things, one or more of the umpires or some of your teammates will take you aside, introduce you to reality and embarass you in front of an audience. That is what members of the House and Senate did today to Hillary Clinton.

The good news is (although I will only believe it when I actually see and hear it) she has listened to the umpires and her teammates. The bad news is she stepped on a historic moment and she can't take that back.

She has embarassed herself.

Hillary and her supporters do not help the cause of feminism

She's had two chances now - last night at her speech to supporters, and today at the AIPAC conference - and she just won't do it. She won't concede and congratulate Obama.

Some of her supporters have apparently decided to organize a Hillary for President campaign outside of the Democratic Party. Others say she "needs time" to come to grips with reality and to reconcile herself to her loss.

There has never, to my knowledge, been a primary election candidate who after losing was given time to come to grips with his or her loss. Every losing candidate, on the night the nomination is secured with the required number of delegates, calls the winner and graciously concedes.

Why is Hillary allowed to do otherwise? Why is everyone so afraid of her?

Do they really think all 17 million of her supporters will vote for John McCain in the Fall? Really?

More than half of her votes are from women, and will these women really be willing to allow conservative pro-life John McCain to nominate four conservative justices to the Supreme Court? Really?

Will these women, many of them mothers, really be willing to allow this war to continue and kill more of their sons and daughters? Really?

For what great cause are they willing to do this?

Or are they simply doing it out of spite?

Are they really that self-destructive, that masochistic?

Barack Obama has done absolutely nothing to deserve this anger, this spitefulness. No, he didn't "wait his turn," but this isn't hopscotch, this is politics, this is our future, this is the future of the world. Barack Obama truly believed he could transform this country. So did Hillary. He won. Now it is time for her to endorse him and act like a grown-up, and a true feminist who competes equally with rivals.

Obama has always been courteous and gracious to her. He has not used a kitchen sink strategy the way she did, throwing every negative thing at him she could find. He's also not the one who tried to change the rules regarding Michigan and Florida.

Obama outcampaigned her, outstrategized her, and won the nomination. It's as simple as that. If she and her followers refuse to accept that, and are willing to work to deny him victory in November, then they are not true Democrats and they might as well leave the Party now.

Furthermore, they have betrayed the woman's movement. Because the woman's movement was never about giving women an unfair advantage, or making men stand down so women could have "their turn." The woman's movement was about equality for all. I think some women have forgotten that.