Dear Mr. Douthat,

You write,

I find it hard to believe that you’d be seeing this level of right-of-center enthusiasm if Obama had postponed cap-and-trade, avoided taking over GM, compromised more significantly on the stimulus, and taken the incremental route to health insurance expansion that Reihan Salam discusses here.

Really? Are you sure, Mr. Douthat? Because considering the amount of "Obama is gleefully bringing us to the end of the world!1!11!!1!!" expressed in some corners of the cable news channels and in the blogosphere, and how that has continually happened since the man first began making real headway in the polls en route to becoming president, I call bullshite on this. I'm not going to say that all of the right-of-center enthusiasm is due to race; I think a lot of it is due to fear of The Other - the same thing that made John Kennedy a suspicious figure in 1960.

In other words, what is energizing the Right and the Far Far On the Fringes Right isn't the fact that Obama is a liberal. It is that they perceive him to be an Ultra Liberal, one step behind being a socialist, Marxist, atheist; the truth of the matter is that Obama is left-of-center, but far more interested in reaching centrist solutions than he is in making the world in his Liberal image. The man is a compromiser. That is the reason the single payer proponents didn't even get a seat at the table when the healthcare discussion began. That is the reason he has tried to woo people like Chuck Grassley and Olympia Snowe. That is the reason he chose to simply bail out the banks, instead of using their teetering as the reason to break them into smaller entities; or initializing a government take over as liberaler economists like Simon Johnson (formerly of the IMF and current blogger at The Baseline Scenario) said was the only solution not guaranteed to fail (he later admitted his error on This American Life, after being called on it by one Adam Davidson). This could just be a crafty political move; but in truth, I think Obama hangs by the adage that the best solution is the one that leaves everyone at the table a bit grouchy.

So, what is energizing the Right isn't Obama, but the specter of an Obama that doesn't truly exist. For a long time now, I've pretty much thought that since Obama is going to be seen as Liberaller than the Liberalist Liberal by swaths of those on the right and those who just don't like him very much (unless the reason for not liking him lies in the fact that he isn't, actually, Liberaller than the Liberalist Liberal), he should have just gone hog wild and been that liberal hero of which the left has often dreamt. But that just isn't who he is; or, at the very least, it isn't how he has chosen to govern. And really, Mr. Douthat, if you think that Obama's liberalish impulses are what is causing the huge upswell on the Right, how do you explain this:

What’s really killing the Democrats, and what’s likely to hurt them the most come next November, is the growing enthusiasm gap — and its implications for candidate recruitment, fundraising, turnout, and all the rest.

If Obama really was the liberal candidate the left had dreamed of and the Right is using as a boogeyman, then there would be no enthusiasm gap. The progressive base would be just as enthusiastic about getting out the vote as the right is now. The problem is, again, that Obama just isn't that guy. He was never that guy. He is a capable guy; an inspiring guy; a guy who has acted as a change agent just by being elected, due to his heritage. I'll bet dollars to donuts he's going to be a great president. But he isn't the liberal's dream. And so, the liberal, knowing this, isn't too excited. The progressive isn't going to get comprehensive banking reform; isn't going to get a Public Option; isn't going to get a dismantling of a broken healthcare system; isn't going to get supports for the middle class; isn't going to get a bill that doesn't start out already compromised; is upset by the Stupack-Pitts Amendment; and is pissed that Don't Ask, Don't Tell still has not been repealed.

Obama's problem isn't that he is too liberal or isn't liberal enough - though I would definitely prefer if the man were to enact policies that were inherently more liberal, myself. It is how the world perceived him, and how part of that world perceives him still.

Obama's problem isn't that he is too liberal and if he'd only moved incrementally, he wouldn't have a backlash. It is that people like Sarah Palin are the idols of the Right; and their prescriptions tend to be, "Do nothing. Wait. Repeat".

Obama's problem is that the only people who seem to be riding high right now are those in banking, when the conventional wisdom is that banking is what brought the world to its economic knees, when banks are still foreclosing on houses and turning ordinary people out into the streets.

Mr. Douthat, you say,

I think it would behoove liberals to give serious consideration to the more direct explanation — namely, that some of the anti-Obama backlash has to do with Americans discovering, after an enormous Democratic sweep, that they preferred liberalism much more in theory than in practice.

I say, helping maintain the status quo, in terms of the banks especially, isn't a particularly liberal philosophy. You say some of the anti-Obama backlash is due to people figuring out they don't really like liberalism. I say the anti-Obama backlash is because the guy didn't turn out to be the messiah. I say, the anti-Obama backlash is because ordinary people still don't feel as if their interests are being served, and yet they see bankers walking away with million dollar bonuses. And what they see is the status quo in politics, the status quo on Wall Street, and the status quo in the big firms where the hot shots make the money. And the only people who are not reaching that status quo is what they see as the ordinary citizen.

Democrats were swept into Congress as much because they weren't Republicans as because they were Democrats. Democrats had to prove, and prove quickly, they were different than the Republicans, that they weren't beholden to the same moneyed interests, that they could make a difference and that they would make a difference for the average citizen. Democrats are, I'm sad to say, failing that test. More than not liking big proposals, I'm willing to wager the ordinary American citizen doesn't like big proposals that dawdle in the halls of Congress, not getting passed and then becoming progressively worse until they pass with absolutely no one happy, or just fade away.

But really, Obama's real problem, the real reason there is an enthusiasm gap, is because it is frickin' hard to govern. Especially when the other side won't play. And so, it is infinitely easier to work up enthusiasm when your side is out of power - because you don't have to make compromises and can tell tales about how much better your side would be handling things without having to offer proof. Meanwhile, the other side is stuck actively making and eating the head cheese. Which, honestly, is much, much harder to be happy about.

Double Standards, And Their Absence

I'm not going to go into Senator Harry Reid's comments regarding the electability of then-Senator Barack Obama. But what I am going to talk about is the "double standard" talk emanating from some members of the GOP.

There is no damned double standard. Why? Well, for one, in order for it to truly be a double standard, the parties would have to be on equal footing. Guess what? They're not.

There is a long-standing tradition within the GOP to use dog-whistles, in their ads and in their robocalls. Like the Willie Horton ad, used against Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election. Like the poll calls in 2000 asking South Carolina voters if they would be less likely to vote for John McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate African-American child, based partially on the fact McCain and his wife had adopted a little girl from Bangladesh. Ronald Reagan used the specter of the "welfare queen" in order to win the support of white America.

Then there is this: the person Harry Reid is being most compared to on an individual level within the GOP camp is Trent Lott. Lott, who said that had Strom Thurman been elected president, the country would be in a better place, that we wouldn't have all the problems we have now. Some nice remarks for an elder statesman's birthday? Perhaps. But the question becomes, better for whom? For the African-Americans who were left out of Thurman's America? No. It would not be better for them at all.

And that's what it comes down to - policy decisions and reaching out to a minority community. I'm not going to say that the Dems don't house racists. I'm not going to say that the GOP is totally bad on issues of race and the Dems are totally wonderful. What I am going to say is that the GOP has continually made a home for itself in the high places, and have perpetually attacked policies that are designed to help minorities in our nation. Sometimes, out of a sense of political theory, but just as often it seems that it happens out of bad faith.

So, they don't get the benefit of the doubt when one of their members runs his mouth. So, they don't get the cushion that comes with having an amiable history with the community in question. So, they get hammered harder because there is no trust there. There is no sense that these guys are trying to do right, that they've stumbled and fallen because they're idiots and not because they just don't care.

That's why there is no double standard. Because, in general, the GOP and the Democratic Party start from two entirely different ledges. And to wipe that clean in an effort to win some scant political support is from the preschool pool of political wisdom.

You's A Dick

Not you. Well, maybe you. It kind of depends on who you are.

But definitely these people in the first act of This American Life's most recent episode Bait & Switch.

Here's the accompanying article.

I'm, to put it mildly, not exactly happy with the idea of bait cars. I understand the impetus to make those criminally minded think twice about taking a car that looks like the perfect target. At the same time, I don't see how this isn't entrapment. And, possibly owing to my own admitted ambivalence toward the police and their authority, I see this as a potential conflict of interest.

In the article, there's one quote that stands out to me as particularly problematic.

"Let me ask you something: If you see a car with the keys in it, would you take it?" Tate said. "There are hundreds of people walking by these cars, and they make the choice to keep walking. The bottom line is this: If you see a car that doesn't belong to you, don't take it."

And sure, that is the bottom line. But that bottom line gets blurred when the person leaving the car open and inviting to be stolen is the person who is responsible for catching those who steal cars. The car would not have been there if the cops didn't think they could lure someone into taking said car.

And so, here we have a crime (or, in the case of Mark Ledford and Asia Ward, not even that) facilitated by the officers in question.

The same sort of morally grey case building has been highlighted before by This American Life, notably in Arms Trader 2009. That case had all the hallmarks of this one, had the same moral questions of setting someone up, of giving them all of the opportunities to commit a crime they otherwise may have never had the inclination to commit, and then arresting them and trying them for that crime. Another case highlighted in Act II by the This American Life episode Turncoat discussed Brandon Darby, a radical activist-turned-FBI informant who pushed two fellow (and fledgling) activists into more extreme actions than they otherwise would have participated in.

The moral implications of a nation whose policy it was to facilitate fake terrorist actions in order to smoke out people who would or could potentially turn to terrorism disturbed me. I would really rather not have a government goading people who perhaps do have some inklings or some potential to do some pretty bad shit, who have the potential to become arms dealers or crazed lefties throwing homemade bombs at Republican National Conventions, but who would very probably never get to that point on their own.

And in that comment by Sgt. Oliver Tate, it becomes clear as to why. No one should steal a car, or try to smuggle weapons to enemies of America or make plans to bomb places; but there is no moral high ground in creating the perfect storm effect, to push all of the buttons, on those people you suspect may have the want to steal a car or smuggle weapons or make bombs but who - without your help - would have none of the know-how or drive to do so.

What makes the case involving Mark Ledford and Asia Ward all the more abhorrent is what it demonstrates about the people who do plant the necessary buttons, who create those perfect crime-doing scenarios. It is that they don't care about the motivations. Mark Ledford called the car in to the police. He confirmed with a neighbor that she, too, called the car's presence in. And after he got no indication anything was going to be done, he decided to do something about the car himself. Smart? No. Criminal? Not in the least. And instead of admitting that they fucked up, instead of looking over their records and seeing what they could have done differently, instead of looking at the whole "bait" car itself and wondering if leaving a car unattended in a neighborhood may do more to unsettle the neighbors than it would ever accomplish in catching the criminally-minded-but-lazy, the police decided to leave out several salient details and set about bringing a case against Ledford and Ward. Instead of working to make the streets safer, the cops then were just being dicks.

And that's the problem with this "greater good" strategy. It gives too much power to those in authority. It trusts that those in authority are somehow more moral than the average person on the street. It trusts that in the event the authority is proven wrong, the authority will humbly admit to its mistake and take the necessary steps to correct it. And it does not allow for the formation of a crime independent of the entity responsible for stopping said crime. It makes the organization a facilitator in the crime it gets rewarded for preventing. And that? Is pretty heady. It is also possibly among the worst solutions to the problem.

Gaining Rights

So, the run down for minorities gaining the rights the majority enjoys seems to be this:

Exist.

Find some people, and justify your right to exist with the same rights as the majority.

Hopefully, this will end with some of those people deciding that you're right, and you do have the right to exist with the same rights as the majority.

Some of these people will now become allies.

You and your allies find some more people, and justify your right to exist with the same rights as the majority.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

The whole premise is based upon needing to demonstrate why you should be allowed to be something more than a second-class citizen, until the good people of the majority grow comfortable enough with you to grant you the rights denied to your predecessors.

The whole premise is based upon making it clear to those around you that you deserve to have access to the same rights and liberties as those who have never had to justify their existence in this kind of instance.

Or, in other words, the minority has to prove that its members are just as good, as human, as full of citizeny goodness as the majority.

Here's my problem with this whole deal. Chances are, large swaths of the majority have had to go through this song and dance themselves. There is only a small sliver of the population who has never had to justify themselves in the "I'm as good as you" way. And yet, we all just keep on dancing.

Here's my other problem with the whole deal. The problem with democracies is that the democratic process does not translate into justice, or equality, or the pursuit of happiness. All it means is that the majority gets their way; and the majority can be, at times, a bunch of assholes. Even when whole huge swaths of said majority also belong to any number of minority groups as well. I love my democratically elected republic government, and I would not trade it for any other form. But a pure democracy (or democratic republic) isn't the sole basis for the just or free society. For that, there need to be safe-guards.

I don't truly know how to articulate it; but luckily, someone else did (in talking about women's rights):

Rights are for all. When only some people have them, they're just privileges. And privileges can be taken away.

Those who don't have to rationally discuss whether or not they should have the right to wed are privileged. That privilege will probably never be taken away. And yet, it isn't a right. Because what those for marriage equality want aren't special rights, but rights to the same damn thing. And the thing standing in their way isn't anything more or less than other people's prejudices. Those prejudices aren't based in justice, aren't based in the philosophy of the American way. They are based in the undemocratic, anti-justice stance that just because this privilege of mine has rarely been challenged or questioned and is simply accepted as matter-of-fact that I have an intrinsic right to decide whether or not you get the same consideration.

That isn't to say that we shouldn't fight injustices by trying to convince other people that our path is the best. But it is to say this: democracy and justice don't just go hand in hand. Sometimes, the democratic process is used to deny justice to groups of people. Sometimes our judicial system does the same thing. But often in American history, it isn't the will of the majority that pushes forward the cause of justice, of equality, of a more perfect union. It is the actions of the few. They are the actions of presidents, of courts, of those who push the unwilling masses forward - because the balance between the will of the majority and the rights of the minority is a tenuous one, and one that must be guarded jealously.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the Shit

Seriously. Read the New York Times interview with her. It is friggin' amazing.

Also, I should probably not watch Juno again for a while...

I Have A Secret

I'm kind of in love with the First Family. I love how the president is going off to town hall type meetings and meeting with people, even going to places and meeting people who didn't vote for him. I love Michelle Obama going around to D.C. public schools and talking about her own high school experience. I love President Obama utilizing his army of supporters in order to garner more support for his legislation. I love his somewhat understated wit. I love his constant speeches, even though I do worry about the whole "over saturated" aspect of the whole thing. And I absolutely adore that there is going to be an organic White House garden on the South Lawn with 55 different kinds of vegetables, and even some bee hives for honey. And unlike Jimmy Carter donning a sweater in order to convey to the American people that it might be in all of our best interests to get a little colder during the winter months instead of spending money on fuel, the Obamas actually make caring look cool. And that's what we need; yes, we need solutions to the complex problems of the day. But having people who are earnestly, actively out there, trying to make the world better and doing it themselves? People who are gardening and talking and generally engaged and intelligent? That is beyond awesome. 

Ideology And Change

Something occurred to me after I responded to a friend's comments (and this friend is probably sick of his comments being turned into blog posts, but he's the most incendiary commenter I've got, so to him I say, "Tough"), and that is that no matter how good a friend you are with someone, no matter how many conversations you have with them, assumptions about their reactions to things or their beliefs can go horribly awry. This friend wrote,

"What if John McCain had come into power and his remedy for the country was continued deregulation of the private sector and broad-based cuts in entitlement spending?

I'm sure you wouldn't think this plan would help our country out of the financial crisis. But I'd imagine you also wouldn't want it to work because it would justify further deregulation and encourage the government to make fewer transfer payments in the future. That doesn't mean you wouldn't want the economy to improve necessarily. You simply wouldn't want our recovery to be connected with policies you believe are ultimately bad for the country."

Here's where he's right: I wouldn't believe that McCain's plan would work. Here's where he's wrong: if the plan was put in place to lift us out of an economic recession and the economic community had reached a broad (though not unanimous) consensus that this is what it would take to do it, I wouldn't hope for its failure. Because although I have an ideology, it has one strong basis and that is what is ultimately good for the people. If something that goes against the grain of my ideology actually is ultimately good for the people, if something that goes against the core of what I think is right and good saves jobs and homes and makes our world better, then it is my ideology that needs to change to reflect that. If this plan worked, then I would have to reassess whether or not those policies I disagree with were ultimately bad for the country, or if I was wrong about them and their application. I would be remiss not to; I would be foolhardy to cling desperately to a belief system meant to make America better if an alternate system proved to do the same thing.

Here's also where my friend is wrong: I may have an ideology, but on economic matters I'm not to the far left; I'm more of a slightly-left-of-center person than anything else on economic fronts. I am a capitalist. I believe in markets. And although I'm more of a Keynesian than anything else, that has more to do with the negative impact a truly self-correcting market economy would have on the "little" people (and some bigger ones) than a hard and fast ideology about economic theory. I tend to think we do economics wrong in America; I tend to think that our regulatory practices are too influenced by lawmakers' interests in terms of making the lobbyists and the campaign contributers happy. I tend to think that doesn't work so well. But then, although I'm mostly ambivalent, I do still think that in many ways, our economic system - like our political system - is the worst, except all of the others that have been tried. For my part, my economic ideology is driven by the more pragmatic "will it work?" than anything else. For my part, I don't think that what we've been doing lo these past 8 years (and if you really want to think about it, more) really has. For my part, I think it means something, something bad, when the disparity between the wealthy and the really not is as large as it is; as Bill Moyers points out, "In 1960, the gap in wealth between the top 20% of our country and the bottom 20% was thirty fold. Now it is 75 fold." For my part, I'm outraged by the amount of Americans living below the poverty line. For my part, I'm dismayed by the amount of Americans who don't have access to quality and affordable health insurance. My belief in economic theory and what is best for the economy is somewhat mitigated by my worry over the average American. So if deregulation worked, then I would have to rethink my casual faith in Keynes' work and go more for Milton Friedman.

Those people being crushed by the economic downturn right now are why I'm not willing to give those who hope for Obama's failure any leeway. Because ideology comes second to making those people's lives better; because an ideological win means less when American citizens are jobless and homeless and feeling hopeless. On a strictly ideological level, I'm not really for bailing out banks, or the auto industry. Those people make a lot of money, and they've squandered a lot of capital - both monetary and political. But on the other side of that is that if the banks fail, then a whole mess of people who haven't squandered a lot of capital - who don't have a lot of capital to squander - end up pretty royally screwed by the system they bought into. So, from a pragmatic standpoint, I'd rather save the banks because to do anything else would be to cut off my nose to spite my country's face. And above it all, above political ideology and economic ideology and social ideology, I'm really very patriotic. Seriously. I tear up when I hear the Star Spangled Banner, and the reason why I give money to political organizations and the reason I write letters and the reason why I am interested in following the political scene and talking about the political scene and writing about the political scene is that not only do I love my country but I think my country can do better. I think we can reach higher and accomplish more and do better by our citizens, especially those who are too often left on the side of the road during public discourse. And because of that, my ideology in some regards is fairly flexible. And this is one of those times when my beliefs are.

Presidential Motivations

Last night, I got to sit down and watch The Countdown. I know all the cool kids like Rachel Maddow better, but I love Keith Olbermann. It may have something to do with the fact that they tend to cover the same topics, and Keith is on first and after that first run I get a little bored of the topics they discuss. I was all excited, because it was 8 o'clock, I was home, and no one else was home who had the power to take the remote away from me by virtue of being the person who actually pays the cable bill. And at the end of "Bushed", Keith Olbermann posed this question:

"I'm going to ask you something, and it's going to sound like a joke but I'm serious. In those quiet moments when you contemplate this extraordinary administration - without anger, without bitterness, just with a kind of centered awe - do you ever wonder if Mr. Bush's goal was to become president so he could spend eight years doing as much damage to this country as time and his own energies would allow?"

And to that I say - actually, no. I take a different view, either kinder or even more damning, depending upon one's perspective. 

One thing I flash on whenever Bush does something indescribably indefensible is Roger Mudd's question to Ted Kennedy - that being, "Why do you want to be president?" Kennedy froze, and was unable to give a straightforward answer even though he had a ready-made one in that whole "My brother John was president, and was assassinated before his grand vision could be enacted. My brother Robert was running for president because he saw the continued injustices present in the world, and was assassinated before the primaries were over. I want to carry their vision of a better America to fruition" thing. In those moments when Bush does something incredibly stupid or short sighted, or when his verbal ticks really start to bother me, I wonder what his answer would have been to that question - because I honestly don't think he had any other reason for running for president other than to be president. [As an aside, I give Ted the benefit of the doubt there; I assume he had visions of his brothers, both dead in the course of being or becoming president, and decided that maybe that whole 'president' thing just wasn't for him - and that he would be happier in a crowd of 99 other people.]

I tend to think that in order to even run for president, a person must have either an incredible, indefectible ego - or craves the recognition of the presidency as a way to inflate his ego. I also tend to think that two motivations more than any other come into play, those being believing one can do great and glorious things with the presidency and wanting the grand and glorious stature of the presidency. Generally, there is a grand interplay between the two. John F. Kennedy ran for president because it was his father's dream to see his oldest (living) son to be president. He was a good president because he not only embodied the dreams and visions of America and her citizens in his Camelot White House, but because he had the gravitas necessary to recognize the good he could achieve once he was president. Lincoln seems to encompass much of the first motivation and less of the second, though the second is still present; same thing with George Washington. And being more in tune with the first motivation instead of the second does not ensure a good president; Jimmy Carter is a perfect example of that. As would Herbert Hoover. Being more in tune with the second motivation does not ensure a bad president; Teddy Roosevelt was definitely someone who wanted the stature of the presidency. But what is needed is some sort of underlying understanding of the world no matter which motivation is more present - a philosophical undertaking, and the finesse to bring that philosophy into legislation. It takes intelligence; it takes gravitas; it takes a curiosity, a pragmatism, and an ability to know when to hold 'em and to know when to fold them. And I don't think George Bush really had any of that. The problem with number 43 is that he didn't seek to do damage to the country or the world. It just - in oddly sitcomish fashion - happened that way. 

If he had intended to create half of the chaos he has, then that would be at least something. After all, I don't agree with much of Reagan's philosophy or many of his policies, but I respect that he was a good president because he had that knowledge of when to be pragmatic and when to push for the conservative ideologies he believed in. He was able to enact the change he wanted to see; I don't think George W. Bush can say the same. And that is what made him a particularly bad president.

Poor Tom Brokaw

Well, I think Barack Obama came off as cool and confident and on point tonight. Chris Matthews is right that he is blessed with an engaging and open and friendly smile. John McCain didn't come off too badly either. I think he is fundamentally wrong on a majority of the issues; but I don't think he was flailing or that he suffered a definitive loss. Unfortunately for his campaign, he didn't land a knock out punch either. And considering Obama's continued momentum in swing states and overall, McCain really needed something to turn this ship around. I do think Obama won; that being said, I don't think he had a knock out.

John McCain had some gaffes tonight; although it didn't bother me, there has been a big kerfuffle about McCain's pointing at Obama and saying "That one" in regard to voting on an energy bill put forth by Bush and Cheney and that contained perks ("goodies") for the oil companies. CBS brought it up and according to Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, it is one of the more pressing points in the spin room. Which kind of bothers me, because that is very much a cosmetic item. My biggest complaint is this idea that Big Government=bad, that Barack Obama=Big Government, that the roll of government should be to get out of people's ways - but that government should buy up all of the bad mortgages in order to shore up our economy. I'm not really entirely sure about that plan, but the plan itself is not the problem I have. The problem I have is the same problem (well, one out of many) I had with Sarah Palin in the VP debate; I find it completely disingenuous to paint Obama with a Big Government brush and claim to be the opposite, and then put forth the contrary idea that government should step in and have it be something other than Big Government. The total disconnect of the two sides of McCain's and Palin's argument strike me as being simply a political ploy to undermine Obama's stance on the issues as simply being a bureaucratic nightmare while simultaneously recognizing that telling voters they're on their own on a majority of these issues is not a way to win an election.

And with that, I will go on to a more cosmetic issue. McCain's constant phrases ("my friends", "thank you for that question") bothered me. It seemed rehearsed and too forced. McCain likes to consider himself a straight talker and that is more than acceptable; the problem I have is that I feel so much more condescended to when McCain speaks than when Obama does. Obama, and it seems strange to type this, has an odd bit of unforced folksy charm. Whereas Sarah Palin seems to suffer from "stage folksy charm", Obama's seems natural and completely real and simply a part of his personality. "Green behind the ears"... "High on the hog"... He even, at times, dropped his g's from the ends of words. And yet, it didn't seem like it was something he was doing in order to prove his normalcy, or as a way to connect to us "ordinary folk", those "Joe Six-Packs" and "Hockey Moms". Obama did at times take on a professorial role, and I personally liked it. It was balanced and measured, but not unemotional. It was calm and informative without being dictatorial. Obama has been, as Newsweek called him, Mr. Cool, and it served him well tonight.

There were some other aspects of the debate tonight that I cheered for and that I disliked. I practically jumped out of my seat when McCain referenced Theodore Roosevelt's "Talk softly and carry a big stick", and said that he was astounded that Barack Obama would say that he would attack another nation and how McCain himself would never telegraph his punches. I desperately wanted Obama to hit him with the "Bomb bomb bomb Iran" bit, and expected him not to. I was pleasantly surprised when Obama did reference that. I also loved Obama saying that the Straight Talk Express seemed to have lost a wheel. What I would have also enjoyed hearing, in response to McCain's criticism of sitting down with antagonistic governments without any preconditions, would be a historical context for such a move. Kennedy opened channels to talk to the Soviet Union; and although it did nothing to alleviate the Cold War it did provide an opportunity to better understand the Soviet Union and to negotiate with them during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Obama plainly stated that there was no guarantee that sitting down with rival nations would work, and there is no guarantee that it would. But it could; and even if it does not it allows us opportunities that we otherwise may not have had.

I also wonder, and this may stem into a separate post after further examining the issue, how well economic sanctions work against nations. Cuba has been subject to our economic sanctions for decades. Iraq had economic sanctions against it as well. And yet, leadership did not change in either of those two nations. And in some cases, possibly many cases, the economic sanctions did not hurt those at the top but rather adversely influenced those at the bottom. Do we really want to work at improving our image in the world by imposing economic sanctions instead of working on diplomatic solutions?

At the end of this, I have to say that I felt badly for Tom Brokaw. The man was clearly upset that the two candidates did not stick to the agreed debate format. I kind of liked his snarky comment about the lights the candidates could see being indicators for how much time they had to talk, as if neither one of them had ever been part of a formal debate before.

Good for Google

From the Google blog:

As an Internet company, Google is an active participant in policy debates surrounding information access, technology and energy. Because our company has a great diversity of people and opinions -- Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, all religions and no religion, straight and gay -- we do not generally take a position on issues outside of our field, especially not social issues. So when Proposition 8 appeared on the California ballot, it was an unlikely question for Google to take an official company position on.

However, while there are many objections to this proposition -- further government encroachment on personal lives, ambiguously written text -- it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8. While we respect the strongly-held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality. We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8 -- we should not eliminate anyone's fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love.

I think the title of the post sums up how I feel about this. I like how the tone of the piece is measured, and also how it explains why at this juncture Google is getting into the act of speaking out about social issues.

I also like this video on the matter:

It is an incredible well done piece.

Fuck Anti-Intellectualism

I'm becoming ever-more foul-mouthed, and it would bother me more if there weren't so many reasons to be very, almost indescribably, angry. Anti-intellectualism has become a way of life. Anti-intellectualism goes to the core of the idea that you have to be likable and someone we'd all like to grab a beer with rather than some snooty guy who actually understands the basic principles of things like economic policy, global warming, and that pesky thing called The Constitution when running for president of the United States. And I hate it. There are some intellectuals who are elitist. There are some intellectuals who are divorced from reality. But there are just as many -if not more- people who are not intellectuals (one of whom that is coming to mind being the 43rd president of the United States) who are also divorced from reality. And now we've got McDonalds ads telling us to be less intellectual (and seeming to claim that all or most intellectual are pseudo-intellectuals any). Because apparently, being dumb and eating french fries is so much more freeing than actually contemplating global ramifications of our actions and knowing where Paraguay is -or even what Paraguay is:

This commercial and this one as well:

are products of a culture for whom thinking is apparently too hard, and something that should garner resentment if tried by others. We're living in a time in which Thomas Jefferson would have probably never made it to the White House (well, he wouldn't have made it for a variety of reasons, one of them being his crippling shyness and another being possible sex scandals, but let's ignore those for a second) because apparently being an excellent writer, admiring the French, and being not only a first class mind but a true Renaissance Man is a detriment when running for the highest office in the land.

I'm tired of it. Being an intellectual, being someone who is aware of the outside world and who is studied and learned, should be something we aspire to. It should not be the realm of just liberals. Liberals should not be attacked for being of the Ivies. We should be celebrating people who are smart enough and dedicated enough and talented enough and lucky enough to get such a chance as to go to an Ivy league school. And as Aaron Sorkin says (through Sam Seaborn), as today is his day, "...can you tell me what's wrong with the Ivy League? Should we be discouraging parents from hoping their kids get into Princeton and Yale and Dartmouth?" I want a president with gravitas. I want a president who can lead both by intellect and instinct, and I don't think we should have to choose between the two. I want a public that is proud of the brilliance of our public officials. I want a country where education and getting one is not something to be mocked. I want a world similar to Aaron Sorkin's, where being the smartest person in the room is an asset. I want the world to resemble Joss Whedon's, where intellect can take many forms rather than just the pure, straight up intellectual and where all those forms are acknowledged and praised and utilized.

But what I really want is for people to stop scoffing at the idea that being smart and being learned is something to take pride in. I want people to stop assuming that because you read a couple of books on a subject, you're just as much an authority as a person who wrote one of the books. We're a country of dichotomy. We believe that every single person is created equal; we also have people who are in positions of authority, intellectual and otherwise. We have to recognize that there isn't a contradiction there. That we have to keep striving for the land where all are equal, and we have to strive for the land where wanting to better oneself through education isn't a bad. We have two learned candidates right now; Obama was president of the Harvard Law Review. McCain read For Whom The Bell Tolls at age 12. He is a consummate reader and rereader. These two should be emphasizing that aspect of their candidacy, that they are both educated, smart, capable individuals; and the fact that is a strength and not a weakness.

I also see an anti-intellectual bent in this whole idea of "not blinking". Sarah Palin brought it up in her interview with Charlie Gibson:

 I want a president who will blink. Not in the face of danger or terror, or from making the hard choices. But I want a president who will assess which path to take, and then assess how successful that path was and whether or not it would be better to change course. I want a president who will do so willingly, instead of one -like the one we have now- who will do it obstinately and under duress. I want a president who will measure his actions and consider their continued trajectory. The idea that not blinking, that not 'flip flopping', that not reevaluating situations, is the greatest measure of a presidential candidate (or in this case, vice-presidential candidate) scares the daylights out of me. All of the great presidents reevaluated their situations and their beliefs. The Louisiana Purchase went against Jefferson's core principles about the federal government (and was very probably unconstitutional besides). Lincoln was forever reevaluating and reassessing his side's tactics in the Civil War. Great presidents do that, for the good of the nation. And it is utterly depressing to see one of the greatest skills, the skill to look beyond one's own beliefs and decide what will truly be helpful, being portrayed as an act of cowardice and vulnerability.

For the record, though, that second commercial with the men is a great deal funnier than the first. For one, it allows for the idea that these guys aren't idiots but would like to discuss football. And I did like the line at the end about the glasses: "I do need mine. They're very real". I still scowl at the idea that intellectuals don't know how to get down and discuss the sports or movie-movies (I enjoy doing both), but it does less to remove every vestige of intelligence than the ad featuring the women.

Community Organizing

Kevin at A Slant Truth is writing about being a community organizer tomorrow, and wants other bloggers who have been community organizers to do the same thing on the same day (found via Feministing). So for anyone out there who has done some community organizing and is appalled that Sarah Palin denigrated every one of you, please write a post about your experiences. Says Kevin:

"I'm not interested in stories meant to score political points (although I'm pissed at the political cynicism that would attack community organizing). I'm interested in stories about the grassroots, the community organizers out there that are doing their thing via blogs, social networking, real life organizing that doesn't have a (D) or (R) following it. That's what I'd love to hear about. Since community organizing has been brought into the limelight, I would love to hear how those involved are working for progress and transformation. Progress and transformation from the ground up."

If you're up to the challenge and got all fired up about being dismissed by Governor Palin, write down your experiences and then leave a link the comments section. Happy writing!

"Were You In This Campaign Just For Me?"

Where PUMAs (Party Unity My Ass, for those not in the know) falter is the fact that they are summarily dismissing their chosen candidate's policies and goals and lifelong (presumed) voting record in order to feed their own narcissism and anger. I understand that anger. I understand feeling dismissed and undervalued. I understand wanting to punish those people who may have contributed to those feelings. What I don't understand is allowing those instincts to override one's own self-preservation, which is what Clinton Democrats who vote for McCain would be doing. I understand not voting for Barack Obama come November; I understand feeling underwhelmed by an electoral candidate (though not really feeling underwhelmed in regard to this one). I understand voting for a third party candidate if one was once a Hillary supporter who feels abandoned by Obama and his camp and who feels like they are being treated derisively because the prevailing powers that be believe there is no other place for women who care about issues like equal pay, women's rights, children's rights, ending the war in Iraq, and protecting Roe v. Wade to go. I pretty much think that the attitude right now toward women voters -that those who voted for Hillary Clinton in the primaries will come back to the pack without much (or any) wooing- is kind of demeaning, because it refuses to acknowledge that the Democratic Party needs those women voters just as much -if not more- than those women voters need the Democratic Party.

But a vote for McCain is one I absolutely cannot understand, and it is a vote that only furthers the idea of the woman scorned. Which, let's not go there again, okay? Let's not give more ammunition to political pundits, men, other women, and society at large to use against women. Let's not pretend that McCain is a viable choice for a woman who is concerned with the issues Hillary Clinton was concerned about. Let's not pretend that McCain will protect the pro-choice agenda. Let's not pretend that John McCain is good on gay rights. Let's not pretend that McCain's experience will really go far into creating new green collar jobs. Let's not pretend that McCain will do much for the middle class. Let's not pretend that John McCain is similar in many ways to Hillary Clinton other than in the pigment of their skin. John McCain won't be much of a help on health care. McCain won't be much of a help in weening our nation off of our love of fossil fuels. And McCain will absolutely not protect women's rights in our society, because his voting record shows that is not a priority. I like McCain. I'm sure he's a swell guy. But if PUMAs think that they aren't cutting off their nose to spite their face, then they are idiots.

And now, they would have to be publicly defying the candidate they swore their allegiance to. Which is infuriating as well. Hillary Clinton has thrown her support behind Barack Obama, and while her supporters don't have to fall in line, it would seem pretty disrespectful to cast their vote for a man Hillary Clinton herself deemed, "No way, no how". It is at the very precipice of being kind of insane. Clinton's speech last night should go a long way to convincing PUMAs and those who are yet to make up their minds to vote for Obama by placing the emphasis where the emphasis should be -on the issues. And if these voters will vote against Obama for a behavior he did not contribute to on top of having Hillary Clinton emphasis the need for a Democrat in the White House, then I don't know what could possibly convince them.

But I'm not really convinced that this is a really large contingency of Hillary Democrats. I'm sure there are some, but I honestly -perhaps naively- cannot believe that these women aren't going to come back to the fold in November and vote for Barack Obama or for a third party candidate. I'm not convinced that PUMA influence hasn't been exaggerated by the media. It is a good story, the "woman scorned" story. It has been a part of our history for a long, long time. Hera, in jealousy over Zeus' infidelity, drove his son Hercules into killing his children. That story comes from pretty far back, and deals with the totality of destruction potentially wrought by women. It sucks, but there it is. And if PUMAs really are there, really are intent on destroying Obama's campaign, then they are at the bottom of the pool of acceptable women. If a woman actually and honestly wants to vote for McCain due to political beliefs, I can't see what that same woman would have been doing voting for Hillary Clinton -ever. And so voting for McCain after Hillary becomes something else, a punishment that will reverberate back upon the voter and cast onto women throughout the next decade or so. Let's not do that, okay? If Obama isn't your guy and you voted for Hillary, go third party. The stakes are too high -for the nation, for the Democratic Party, for women in general- otherwise.

What Bush Got Right

Fareed Zakaria wrote an article entitled, "What Bush Got Right"; and when Fareed Zakaria writes, I read. And so should you. The basic premise is that after his first term, Bush and his team seemed to realize that their policies weren't really working out too well, and so dialed back from an extreme conservative response to a more moderate take on issues like intergovernmental conversations and war. I still contend that the man was potentially the worst president we've ever had in American history bar none, because at least Nixon got us panda bears. But it is good to see some signs that the man is not completely devoid of working brain cells. I also like Zakaria's point that whoever wins the presidential election in November will have to avoid the mistake Bush made coming in by throwing out all of his predecessor's policies through enormous hubris. Even if we all despise Bush, we do need to take a serious look at what he's done that worked -and luckily for the next guy, that is an incredibly short list.

I do wonder at those %32 of the population that still approve of the job Bush has done though. Who are they? What world are they living in? I suppose they could have looked at the same facts Zakaria did and decided that it washed in the end, but seriously. I am still incredibly surprised that anyone would ever publicly support this man any more. I bet it is all those people who were in Jesus Camp.

In a complete non sequitur, I'm also incredibly excited for Nick And Nora's Infinite Playlist. I think I may be developing a slight crush on Michael Cera, but it is hard to tell for sure. I'm also pretty psyched about Eagle Eye, because I definitely have a crush on Shia LaBeouf.

Earth First

Gas prices have finally hit and surpassed four dollars on national average, and our president is going on his final European tour to remind everyone that we "are all too dependent on hydrocarbons" (and seriously, who would blame a European leader -any of them- for responding to that gem with a solid punch to Bush's nose?). So let's talk about energy, the crisis, and the affect the whole deal will have on our economy. First, I must say that I am incredibly angry that we Americans had to wait until gas prices became unbearable economically to have a majority of us -and our government- seriously consider alternative fuel sources. Prior to this, it was Willie Nelson riding around in an ethanol powered bus and Prius owners who seemed to actually be taking steps forward -and the Prius people were doing so partially because the car became synonymous with "cool". The rest of us? Well, we killed the electric car early on in that model's lifetime; and although many companies were paying lipservice to finding alternate fuel sources (I can't open my Newsweek without seeing bp advertising that "There's energy security in energy diversity"), it seemed more like a PR campaign than a real attempt at change. Kind of like Phillip Morris sponsoring anti-smoking campaigns. There just seemed to be something incredibly disingenuous about the whole thing.

We have been told for quite a while "we have reached our peak oil production and some oil geologists [believe] that 90 percent of the world's oilfields have been tapped". But America kept on gobbling up energy resources, kept on buying SUVs, and kept our collective head under a rock. Because as long as it wasn't affecting us economically right that second, then we could deny any validity to claims that it would adversely affect us in the future. We could believe that some solution would magically appear at the right moment without us having put money, time, or energy into finding it. And we are paying for our short-sighted idiocy: "When gasoline was selling closer to $1 at the start of the decade, American households were spending some $300 billion each year to drive their cars and heat and cool their homes. They are now spending some $700 billion a year on energy. Household gasoline bills in the coming year will rise about $100 billion -even if the national gas prices stay near $4 a gallon through 2008". And gas prices staying at $4 a gallon now seems unlikely.

Meanwhile, the gas prices "are threatening everything from summer vacations to Meals on Wheels deliveries" and are also responsible for the ingredients that make those meals becoming more and more expensive as well. What Americans forgot, or never learned, or didn't find relevant, is that "oil goes into making virtually everything, including steel, aluminum, plastics, rubber, fabrics, transportation ...and food. People don't generally associate food and petroleum, but petroleum is used to make fertilizers and in vehicles used for planting and harvesting, storage and processing, and the trip to the market for the final sale from the freezer in store to the freezer in a home". Great.

I can't blame everything on ordinary Americans' spending habits though; I can blame some of it on their voting habits. Republicans blocked even discussion of a tax bill aimed for oil companies who were making "unreasonable profits". By the way, Exxon made $10.89 billion profit in the first three months of this year. I can definitely see where taxing them -or even talking about taxing them- is a bad thing. And in the past, our government has apparently "created a disincentive for new technologies and new ideas" by doing things like "mandating that so much ethanol is made and that it has to come from corn sugar" thus diminishing the exploration of creative solutions. Doesn't that just take the biscuit?

Now Americans are finally getting into the swing of things, doing things like trading in their SUVs and carpooling to work, and possibly even thinking about buying a hybrid. We drove 11 billion less miles in March 2008 than in March 2007. And maybe -maybe- we've learned our lesson. Because if we had been investing in and investigating alternative fuel and energy options seriously, we probably would not have gotten to the point where food and gas prices are rising to the further detriment of our economy. If we had been serious about voting people into office who would have fought to have the automobile makers actually work toward more fuel efficient vehicles; who wouldn't have made "light trucks" exempt from such laws; or went after automobile companies who began designing other vehicles to fit the "light truck" definition in order to circumvent the regulations for higher fuel efficiency, we would be farther away from this position today. If we begin to cultivate a mindset recognizing how potential negative effects of our actions that may accumulate in our future are important to consider and work to prevent, maybe our current situation will not have been for naught. Unfortunately, I don't believe it has. I think we will do our best to get ourselves out of this situation in the short term, and then continue along with the mindset we have always embraced and has best been summed up by a bumper sticker my father had three cars ago: "Earth First: We'll Strip Mine The Other Planets Later".