Column for 21 September, 2008

I Deny Your Reality and Substitute My Own

“They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.”
--Romans 1:25

I don’t really argue politics that much anymore. No, really. As the Republic Party continues to shrink into a smaller and more fanatical core, it’s getting harder and harder to have any kind of realistic political discussion with them. Daniel Patrick Moynihan once famously observed that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but everyone is not entitled to their own facts. But the remnant of the conservative movement has retreated into some kind of bizarre alternate reality, utterly impenetrable to facts, logic or the truth. I first noticed this trend in the 1990’s, when Bill Clinton-haters (and I mean haters, not people who disapproved of his policies, but those who loathed the very mention of his name) insisted that he was guilty of everything from drug-running to murder. There was absolutely no evidence whatsoever to back up these ludicrous fantasies, but it didn’t matter. Republicans would tell me with a straight face, “You can’t prove he didn’t kill all those people!” leaving me to sputter incoherently about logic and not being able to prove a negative. And these weren’t just some fringe weirdoes wearing tin-foil hats, either; Congressman Sam Johnson took to the floor of the House to proclaim that Clinton was a KGB agent because he “felt it in his gut.” At the same time, it became accepted Republican gospel that Ronald Reagan had cut taxes but increased government revenues. You still hear Republicans chanting this mantra, but it simply isn’t true. The numbers do not lie. When Reagan cut the top marginal tax rates, revenues plummeted, causing the deficit to explode. The rapid expansion of Right Wing talk radio, and the utter domination of cable news punditry by ultra-conservatives, has fed this monastic trend, allowing the faithful to live in a hermetically-sealed environment where the only voices they hear are those that reinforce their beliefs. The culmination of Spiro Agnew’s crusade against the “liberal media” also helps, since any news that strays from the latest propaganda bulletins can be dismissed as “biased.” The propaganda ministry regularly cranks out pre-fabricated talking points to be faithfully regurgitated by the Right Wing Howler Monkey Media Chorus. Religious propaganda is handled by the Sanhedrin of tele-Pharisees, Dr. James Dobson, Pat Robertson, the late unlamented Jerry Falwell and others, preying on fears of evil secularists, homosexuals, pro-choice activists and feminists. On the international front, the neo-Conservatives (really just old-fashion priggish Victorian imperialists) could take the (wholly justified) public fear of radical Islamic terrorism to justify an invasion of Iraq based on completely fraudulent grounds. With the rhetorical foundation now in place for ignoring the real world, John McCain and Sarah Palin feel comfortable in running a campaign based pretty much exclusively on lying through the teeth. Palin in particularly lies so much, I’m beginning to wonder if that is in fact her real name. Day in and day out, the Governor repeats the long-since discredited claim that she “told Congress no thank you” on the Bridge to Nowhere. In fact, she campaigned for the Bridge. Republicans decry any criticism of her whatsoever as sexist and have the unmitigated gall to complain that Democrats are launching personal attacks, this from the same crew that continues to promote transparently nasty attacks on Barack Obama’s religious faith, patriotism and loyalty. The McCain campaign states with a straight face that Palin never asked for earmarks, when in fact she sought hundreds of millions in earmarks both as Governor and Mayor. McCain has gotten to the point where he even lies to himself. His public response to the ongoing financial melt-down on Wall Street, the most serious since the Great Depression, is to call for the creation of a “blue-ribbon panel” as though the source of the problem were some unfathomable mystery akin to discovering the Unified Field Theory, as he blasts Wall Street’s “greed.” In reality, of course, we know exactly what happened; McCain, along with that old troglodyte Phil Gramm deregulated the banking industry in 1999 and again in 2000. The result was what always happens when industries are de-regulated—an orgy of fraud and corruption with the taxpayers left holding the bag. He claims he warned about problems with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, when just ten months earlier he claimed no one could have anticipated the sub-prime mortgage crisis. McCain blasts lobbyists when his campaign is run by some of the biggest lobbyists in Washington. He promises to “shake up Washington” as though it was some other John McCain (perhaps an evil twin) who has been comfortably ensconced on the Potomac for the last 25 years. Under those circumstances, where the truth is discarded so casually, how exactly am I going to have a meaningful political discussion with a Republican? Frankly, it’s not my idea of a good time to debate people whose only response is to stick their fingers in their ears and shout “I can’t hear you!” over and over again. To be sure, I am eternally grateful for the Republicans I know who can have a calm and reasoned discussion on the issues of the day, but at this stage in my life, I no longer have the energy or the patience to argue with a fencepost over how deep in the ground it is.

Column for 14 September, 2008

“Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.”
--Psalm 32:9

When John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, my first thought was that he had taken a big gamble that wasn’t likely to pay off; namely, that Hillary Clinton voters would abandon just about every stand Clinton has ever taken on any issue just because another woman says to. My opinion has evolved, or maybe become intelligently designed, over time. Yes, it seems clear that Palin, someone McCain had only met twice briefly, was a last-minute pick. And yes, media coverage at that time was pretty much obsessed with the idea of disgruntled Hillary supporters who would supposedly refuse to support Obama. But why Palin? She is certainly not the most experienced or well-known of Republican women leaders. One simple reason: all of the other Republican women, including Kay Bailey Hutchison, are pro-choice. The GOP would never have tolerated a pro-choice candidate; it is only slightly less likely that a pro-life candidate would ever receive the blessing of a Democratic Convention. And if McCain was going to pick a pro-choice running mate, he would’ve gone with Tom Ridge or his real favorite Joe Lieberman. Thus, Palin; as far to the right as it is possible to be on social issues, which are the only issues that matter to the increasingly dwindling GOP base. Despite all the fluff and hot air, she was never intended to appeal to Hillary voters or Democrats or Independents; Palin’s function is to energize the social conservatives who have, at least until now, been tepid at best in their support of McCain. Energizing the base is the only hope McCain has, because his campaign at least recognizes something that Obama is only just now learning: the electoral map for 2008 will be just about the same as it was in 2004. Put aside all the giddy talk of Obama taking Mississippi; it’s not going to happen, increased African-American turnout or not. If black voter registration and turnout were both at 100%, it wouldn’t shift a single state in the now Republican Solid Deep South. Obama will almost certainly get every electoral vote John Kerry did four years ago (252); he seems likely to pick up Iowa and New Mexico, which brings him up to 264 electoral votes. To win he has to pick off just one of the 2004 battle-ground states, Colorado, Florida, or Ohio, or the only new battleground state Virginia. There are some variables, of course. Ron Paul has qualified for the ballot in Montana on the Constitutional Party line; that could be enough to throw the state to Obama and take him to 267, just three electoral votes shy. It’s also possible that Obama could win Nevada’s five electoral votes. If that’s all he won over Kerry’s total, the result would be a 269 to 269 tie, but such a scenario seems pretty unlikely. Of the battleground states, I would personally rank them in terms of Obama’s chances, from most likely to least likely, as 1) Colorado; 2) Ohio; 3) Florida and 4) Virginia. McCain’s job, therefore, is to prevent Obama from carrying any of these states, a tough job to be sure, but one that would be utterly and completely impossible without the assistance of the religious conservatives who are apparently besotted with Palin. Since the polling margins in all four of these states are tight and they have flopped back and forth several times, a relatively small number of additional voters could be the difference between winning and losing. And so, tossing aside old “reach across the aisle” rhetoric, McCain has sharpened his tongue, attacking the “liberal media” in a shockingly cynical example of biting the hand that feeds. If there’s one thing that can get Republicans all riled up, it’s a good rant about the “liberal” media, a line of attack that dates back to Spiro Agnew and his condemnation of “nattering nabobs of negativism.” Since reality has a well-known liberal bias, any news that contradicts the party line can then be dismissed out of hand as “biased.” This bashing of the media has had the additional strategic benefit of shielding Palin from press scrutiny. Evidently, the governor who has the experience to be commander-in-chief on day one can only handle live questions from a milquetoast apple-polisher like Charlie Gibson. Unfortunately, all this means yet another Culture War campaign, where important issues like America’s long-term environmental and economic health will be pushed off to the sidelines. Republicans will continue to smear Obama’s patriotism. Nitwits like Cong. Lynn Westmoreland will continue to drop thinly-veiled racist code words like “uppity.” Fortunately for the overwhelming majority of Americans who do not in fact want four more years of George W. Bush (only this time less competent), Obama seems to have learned a lesson from his long intense war with Hillary Clinton for the nomination and from John Kerry’s failure: fight back.

Column for 7 September, 2008

“But our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
--Ephesians 6:12

The only thing worse than a bunch of whiny liberals is a bunch of whiny conservatives acting like whiny liberals. In recent years, I’ve noticed the annoying trend of conservatives adopting one of the liberals’ least-appealing characteristics; an overblown sense of victimization. So, for example, after eight years of accusing Bill Clinton of everything up to and including being a drug dealer and a murderer, Republicans complained with a straight face that critics of George W. Bush were “deranged” and “haters.” Perhaps we were supposed to imagine President Bush crying himself to sleep each night because the mean people said nasty things about him. John McCain got into the act, as virtually any criticism of him was loudly denounced as an insult to all veterans. When tweaked for not remembering how many houses he owns, was it really a valid response to refer to his time as a POW? And now, any suggestion that Sarah Palin’s micron-thin resume might not necessarily qualify her to be one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency is “degrading to women?” Please. The slightest hint by Barack Obama supporters than some of the attacks on him were racist (even the ones that pretty obviously were) have been loudly and derisively hooted down by the Right Wing Howler Monkey Media Chorus. Of course, it is sad to see Governor Palin’s children drug into the mess and to be forced to endure self-righteous idiots from both sides of the political spectrum pontificating on whether she is making the “right choices” in how she chooses to care for her infant son. That is sexist; no male candidate would ever be subjected to that kind of questioning. If anything, the father of a special needs child who chose to stay on the campaign trail would likely be praised for his “courage,” much as John Edwards was (generally) praised for continuing to campaign (among other things, as it later turned out) while his wife was undergoing cancer treatment. Palin, governor of an under-populated and remote state might be forgiven for underestimating the level of scrutiny she would face; McCain’s people should certainly have known better or learned better during their perfunctory vetting process. Being surprised that the media is vicious and intrusive is like being surprised that wild dogs will bite you if you rub yourself with pork chops. And, obviously, the GOP would be singing a completely different tune if we were talking about a female Democratic candidate. With all that out of the way, though, picking Sarah Palin represents a pretty gutsy gamble on McCain’s part; trading away his most effective argument against Obama (experience) on the hope that disaffected Hillary Clinton voters will be induced to support positions 180 degrees opposite of hers just because they are presented by a woman (a strategy which, at least so far, appears to be an epic failure). And let’s be honest; the experience debate is over. When your number two candidate admits on live television that she doesn’t really know what the Vice President does and that she doesn’t follow the news in Iraq (which at least gives her something in common with her running mate), and when you are reduced to claiming she has foreign policy experience (despite never having left the country until last year) because “Alaska is right next to Russia,” then yeah, the debate is over. Not even the professional Republican punditocracy can put a happy face on this; despite writing a column promoting the party line that liberals are “scared” of Palin, Peggy Noonan was caught on an open mike proclaiming “it’s over.” And it’s not sexist to point out, experience notwithstanding, Palin’s narrative is a little, to be charitable, inconsistent. McCain touted her opposition to earmarks as a reason for choosing her, but she seemed to have liked them well enough as mayor and McCain himself denounced some of her earmarks in at least three of his annual lists of outrageous pork. It’s not sexist to point out that she did not, in fact, say “no thanks” to Senator Ted Stevens’ infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.” She campaigned for it, and only turned against it months after Congress had already cut the funding. It’s not sexist discuss her atrocious environmental record, something that should concern hunters more than her bag limit of moose, including a belief in the outrageous political fiction that the climate change that threatens her state more than many others is apparently caused by gremlins, not pollution. It’s not sexist to wonder why an ostensibly mainstream politician would as governor lend her voice to a radical fringe group dedicated to the secession of Alaska from the Union and founded by a man who stated, “I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions.” If Obama is to be pilloried for Jeremiah Wright, then surely Palin at least owes us an explanation for collaborating with the Alaskan Independence Party? So let’s have an election. Let’s have a debate, let’s have a bench-clearing political brawl. But enough with the politics of feigned moral outrage. You can dislike McCain without hating veterans or denigrating POWs. You can vote against Barack Obama and not be a racist knuckle-dragger. And you can decide that Sarah Palin is just not up to the task and not be a sexist.

Column for 31 August, 2008

“Then the Lord said to me. ‘The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I have not sent them or appointed them or spoken to them. They are prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries and the delusions of their own minds.’”
--Jeremiah 14:14

Despite the best efforts of John McCain’s swooning cheerleaders in the mainstream media, the Democrats have managed not to screw it up at their convention (of course, they’ve only gotten as far as Joe Biden’s excellent acceptance speech as I type this, so there’s still time). The broadcast and cable network coverage of Denver has consisted pretty much exclusively of trotting out an endless stream of pre-packaged GOP talking points to toss underhand back and forth between insipid “journalists.” What’s the likelihood that liberal pundits will be called upon by CNN and MSNBC (much less FOX) to dissect the Republican convention in Minneapolis? Yeah, I got a full-color, glossy, laser-quality picture of that happening. Hillary Clinton is going to wreck the convention, they breathlessly announced. Then she gave a heartfelt speech endorsing Barack Obama and they said she secretly hated him because of their expert analysis of her “body language.” She personally made the motion to nominate Obama by acclamation and all the punditocracy could chatter about was a handful of embittered delegates whose sense of personal insult is so great they have forgotten their candidate, let alone the issues she champions. I haven’t yet seen the parsing of Bill Clinton’s rip-roaring address, but no doubt the Mainstream Media has secret telepathic evidence that he really wants Obama to lose so he, Michael Moore and Osama bin Laden can seize the White House in 2012. The Media’s fawning obeisance to John McCain has grown to such an astonishing, embarrassing degree that “the Maverick” and his surrogates now feel emboldened to simply lie with impunity, secure in the knowledge that he will never be called on it. “Not a single drop of oil was spilled after Hurricane Katrina,” went one blurb. A lie. Millions of gallons were spilled. Has he been called on it? No. “The troop surge led to the Anbar Awakening,” the McCain Campaign continues to trumpet. No, it did not. The Awakening, a true success story in Iraq, happened months before the surge. McCain is lying. Again, he is not called on it. The media continue to slather McCain with glorious accolades for his “straight talk” and his alleged refusal to change in response to politics, ignoring his wholesale abandonment of virtually every position he held on virtually all issues before he started running for President. McCain went from voting with George W. Bush only 77% of the time in 2005, to a slavish 95% a mere two years later. When Democrats do that, they are called “flip floppers.” McCain has said Obama wants to increase the size of the government by 23%. A lie. He stated that Obama opposes nuclear power and electric cars. Lie. He claimed Obama called for bombing Pakistan. Lie. He stated to Katie Couric that Joe Biden wanted to break Iraq up “into three different countries.” Another lie, and of course Couric failed to call him on it. McCain has said that lobbyists don’t come to his office, when his campaign is run almost exclusively by lobbyists, including a former lobbyist for the Republic of Georgia who opposed efforts to keep guns out of the hands of terrorists. McCain stated that Obama tried to prevent funding for the troops, or funding for the Surge. Both statements are lies. McCain claimed that Obama called Iran a “tiny country” that “doesn’t pose a serious threat.” Another lie. McCain claimed that Obama would raise taxes on “everyone earning more than $42,000 a year.” Lie. I could go on and on. The fact is, the Republic Party is now so morally bankrupt, so devoid of ideas, their strategy to defeat Obama consists of attacking him for being a “celebrity” in Europe—as though it is now somehow un-American to want our allies to like us—and screaming “communist!” and “Muslim!” at every opportunity. It’s gotten so bad, the standard attack talking points, regurgitated in this very newspaper, consist of despicable, cowardly contemptible slanders against Obama’s deceased mother. Is this really what has become of the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan? Pathetic. And it’s only going to go deeper into the gutter from here. The only thing worse than Republicans when they are winning is Republicans when they are losing. McCain would be much better off, at least in terms of preserving what’s left of his dignity, by sticking with the “lack of experience” line, and hope people don’t realize that if “experience” was the criteria, Al Gore would be President.

Column for 17 August, 2008

National Insecurity

“Awake, and rise to my defense! Contend for me, my God and Lord. Vindicate me in your righteousness, O Lord my God; do not let them gloat over me.”
--Psalm 35:23-24

It’s difficult if not impossible to exaggerate just how badly George W. Bush and America have been humiliated by Russia’s intervention in Georgia. An American ally, with an American-trained army and an American-educated democratically-elected president, has been blatantly invaded and forced to accept a permanent Russian military presence within their internationally-recognized borders. Russia’s thuggish strongman, Vladimir Putin, chose to deliberately embarrass Bush by launching an operation that had to have been planned weeks or months in advance, while they were both publicly schmoozing at the Olympics, held in the capital of another brutally repressive regime that Bush unaccountably has chosen to grace with his presence. Georgia, you may recall, is so devoted to President Bush they committed 2,000 troops (out of only 42,000 active duty personnel) to his “catastrophic success” in Iraq. In one of the weirdest utterances of a President who often seems to think he is a Saturday Night Live cast member lampooning the President, Bush famously described how he had looked into Putin’s eyes and seen his soul. Perhaps he didn’t recognize Joseph Stalin staring back at him. In any event, Putin’s soul got exactly what it wanted: a message. Georgia was only the instrument of that message; its’ intended recipients were first and foremost the former Soviet Republics Russia refers to ominously as the “Near Abroad,” especially Ukraine. See, Putin is saying, no one can protect you. It doesn’t matter what deals you may have made with the Americans. We can invade you anytime we want and all the US President will do is stand by impotently and sputter. So watch your step! To America and Europe, the message is: hands off! The Near Abroad is ours; we’ll do whatever we want with them whenever we want. Reasonable minds may differ on whether it was ever a good idea to invite Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, an organization that might have become a true permanent international peacekeeping force but has since been doomed to irrelevancy by the Bush Administration’s sheer bone headedness. It hardly matters now; the future of NATO will be dictated in Moscow, not Brussels and certainly not in Washington, DC. If the abject surrender of Georgia doesn’t make that clear enough, the next crisis, when Russia forces Ukraine to cede the Crimea, will.
Which brings me to my second point; just why is “national security” seen as a winning issue for John McCain? Oh, sure, it’s the only issue where McCain currently and consistently outpolls Barack Obama, but why? Obviously, the mainstream media’s unrequited man-crush on McCain goes a long way towards an explanation. It is also likely that McCain’s years of occupancy in Congress are seen as roughly equivalent to competency. After all, surely he must have learned something relevant after twenty-five years? And yet, for starters, McCain has enthusiastically endorsed America’s greatest foreign policy debacle in the last forty years, Bush’s war in Iraq. Not only has he endorsed it, he’s vowed to continue the quagmire for another century. Much more troubling, however, is the fact that nearly every single time McCain has opened his mouth on foreign policy or national security, he’s been dead wrong, the kind of spectacular wrong that makes you seriously wonder if he has any idea what he’s talking about at all. He doesn’t know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, a distinction critical to understanding Iraq, even after being repeatedly and publicly corrected. He either doesn’t know that the so-called Anbar Awakening (Sunni sheiks in Anbar Province turning against Al Qaeda) started before the Surge, or he’s just continuing to lie about it because he thinks it sounds better that way (reality having a well-known liberal bias). He thinks the Iranians are training members of Al Qaeda in Iraq (an organization, by the way, that did not exist before the US invasion). Demonstrating that geography, too, has a liberal bias, McCain has stated that Iraq and Pakistan share a border, that Darfur is in Somalia and that there is still such a country as Czechoslovakia. With regard to Georgia, McCain was reducing to plagiarizing Wikipedia, a sort of digital MadLib, and clearly fails to grasp that America failed at this crisis before it even began; our credibility is so dissipated after years of Bush’s incompetence that Russia is not even in the slightest deterred by the prospect of angering us. McCain, with his foreign policy advisor and Georgian lobbyist Randy Scheunemann, then went on to blunder right into the problem with increasingly hysterical public pronouncements, accusing Putin of wanting to restore the Czarist empire (Putin wants Alaska?), calling for kicking Russia out of the G-8 (an idea denounced as “impossible” and “dumb” by even the Bush Administration) and restating his loopy plan for a “League of Democracies.” Perhaps Czechoslovakia could be invited to join, along with Siam and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Given all this, I would respectfully suggest that Barack Obama borrow a page from Karl Rove’s playbook and hit his opponent precisely where he is supposedly the strongest. If Rove can attack a decorated war hero on his war record on behalf of a draft-dodger, then surely Obama can remind the electorate that McCain’s foreign policy is Bush’s foreign policy, only not as smart.

Column for 10 August, 2008

Beer and Presidents

“Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock of your inheritance, which lives by itself in a forest, in fertile pasturelands. Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead as in days long ago.”
--Micah 8:14

America has always had a deep anti-intellectual streak. Maybe it’s a product of our revolutionary origins, a reaction against the idea of rule by our “betters.” Maybe it has something to do with America’s Protestant religious heritage. Even today, you can find conservative commentators who sneer at the Enlightenment. Or it could be a function of the cherished national myth that ours is a “classless society” where anyone can rise to greatness based solely on the content of their character. Of course, there’s a fine line between anti-intellectualism and the worship of outright ignorance, and naturally that line tends to get pole-vaulted over in politics. The repulsive Andrew Jackson, despite his fortune made on slaves and stolen Indian land, nevertheless portrayed himself as the hero of the common frontiersman, in contrast to the “stuffed shirt” image of John Quincy Adams. Later, William Henry Harrison, a Virginia aristocrat, used the same tactic against Jackson’s Vice President, Martin Van Buren. While some Presidents like Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy were admired for their intelligence, the 1950’s saw Adlai Stevenson vilified (though, to be fair, he tended to bring it on himself) as an “egghead” and by the late ‘sixties and early ‘seventies, the poster-child for ignorance Spiro Agnew could rail against “pointy-headed liberals” and “East Coast intellectuals” while Richard Nixon smirked beneath a hardhat. The same election that inflicted Nixon upon a hapless nation saw the rise of George Wallace who firmly cemented populism, exuberant ignorance and racism. In 1988, the dour colorless Michael Dukakis was excoriated by the geeky aristocrat George H.W. Bush for advocating a farm plan that called for planting Belgian endive, in contrast one supposes to more mainly crops such as corn or wheat. Of course, none of this is new to Texas, where stupidity has always been trumpeted as a political virtue. Maybe it’s not surprising then that Texas gave the nation (sorry, nation!), George W. Bush, a wealthy son of privilege with an intellect a mile-wide and an inch deep, nevertheless portrayed as a “guy you could have a beer with,” which I suppose is ironic given Dubya’s abstemiousness. Thus, the 2000 election was reduced to a student council race between the captain of the football team and the president of the chess club. Al Gore came across as prissy and nerdy; Bush wore his monumental ignorance on his sleeve. We now know from that little experiment that the guys you drink beer with will, if given half a chance, wreck the economy, trash the Constitution, and embroil the country in a grinding war of attrition based upon half-truths and outright lies. Who knew? Four years later, a decorated war hero with frankly middle class roots was portrayed as a rich, cowardly elitist by a man who used his millionaire family’s political connections to avoid combat service in Vietnam. Al Gore and John Kerry both contributed to their own character assassination by inexplicably refusing to defend themselves until it was too late. Small wonder then that John McCain is using the same tactic against Barack Obama. McCain, who is rich for precisely the same reason John Kerry is rich (marriage), a man with five houses and a private jet considered indispensable for getting around the evidently unpaved wilds of Arizona by his second wife, is trying to paint Obama as Michael Dukakis with a better speaking voice. When Obama made the point that offshore drilling (a position, like many, only recently embraced by McCain) would generate less oil than would be saved by all Americans keeping their cars serviced and their tires properly inflated, the McCain campaign, in a frankly brilliant piece of political judo, turned it into a riff on how dorky Obama is. Real Americans don’t inflate their tires! McCain’s descent into desperate pandering may have reached rock bottom (though that is probably too much to ask) with his recent appearance at the infamous Sturgis, South Dakota motorcycle rally where he (one hopes jokingly) offered his wife in a beauty contest which ESPN genteelly noted is “topless and frequently bottomless.” What’s next? A guest-shot on pro-wrestling? The danger to Obama, of course, is that while he is relatively unknown at the national level, the general public’s residual memories of John McCain are “war hero” and “maverick.” If, as polling suggests, voters are primarily interested in Obama’s qualifications, he cannot afford to allow himself to be indelibly branded as an earnest yet naïve dork. At the same time, McCain can tap into a rich vein of racially-charged subtext that Obama is “uppity.” And such attacks are hard to fight back against. Americans can spot a phony; Obama bowling and Hillary Clinton downing shots looked exactly like what they were—contrived, condescending pandering photo ops. Obama is clearly a very smart guy; he shouldn’t play dumb. He needs to realize that most Americans don’t know him and aren’t likely to read his books. Without claiming he was born in a log cabin on the prairie, he should emphasize his humble roots, growing up with a single mother. Americans do not, I think, insist on having a president who isn’t smarter than them; they do, however, prefer presidents who can relate to their problems. Obama won’t do that by riding in NASCAR. He seems to do well in town-hall settings; he needs more of those to be seen talking to ordinary Americans about the issues actually on their minds-gas prices, mortgages, the economy. And above all, he needs to fight back. While defining himself, he also needs to remind Americans that the “maverick” of 2000 is, in fact, a Republican and has completely subordinated himself to Bush’s agenda, in some instances taking positions that are even more extreme than Bush’s. If as it seems apparent this is Obama’s race to lose, he cannot afford to fight it on McCain’s turf. Or to put it another way, never wrassle a pig. You only get muddy and the pig enjoys it.

Column for 27 July, 2008

“Be strong and be courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them.”
--Joshua 1:6

It is rapidly becoming evident that John McCain is the albatross leading the GOP to what may well be a historic electoral whooping, in spite of the obsequious fawning of the Mainstream Media, which grants him a pass on every misstatement or flat-out lie. When McCain confused Sunnis and Shiites (several times), when he falsely stated that Hurricane Katrina spilled “not one drop” of oil, when he claimed the so-called “Anbar Awakening” was the result of the Surge (it actually began half a year before the Surge), when he forgot that the “Iraq-Pakistan border” is called Iran; in every instance, the supposedly liberal media scurried to cover McCain’s back. CBS even edited its own footage of McCain to cover his Anbar gaffe. To some extent, this media boot-licking is a function of the “man bites dog” meme; to the media, an election isn’t newsworthy unless it’s a horse race. Recent state-by-state polls have given Obama 300+ electoral votes, but the coverage is all about “voter doubts” over Obama. Additionally, the Mainstream Media remains cowed by a systematic and highly successful twenty-five year long conservative campaign to vilify them as “biased liberal elitists.” McCain has tried recently to plug into that tired trope, grousing that the media is spending too much time covering Obama’s triumphal tour through Europe and the Middle East, even though the only reason Obama went in the first place was because McCain taunted him for not going to Iraq. In fact, the Obama World Tour couldn’t have been worse for McCain; first President Bush endorses a “time horizon” for withdrawing troops, thereby undercutting McCain’s position of slavish devotion to a never-ending war, then the wily Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki publicly supports Obama’s plan for a 16 month withdrawal. Obama looked like a world leader and his erstwhile opponent was left to grumble, “It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.” Clearly, the Straight Talk Express is running on flat tires; while the Obama campaign is confidently opening twenty campaign offices in Virginia, Republican congressional candidates like Senator Gordon Smith (R-Oregon) are reduced to lamely claiming that they are Obama’s pals. And, sadly, Republicans are now adopting what may be the most annoying tendency of liberals: thin-skinned whining. Republicans in 2004 openly derided John Kerry’s war record, even mocking the Purple Heart on the floor of their National Convention. Just the other day, I saw one of those “Hanoi John Kerry” bumper stickers on the car of someone who clearly hasn’t read the news in the last eight years. Yet when Wesley Clark, after fulsomely praising McCain as a war hero, made the rather obvious remark that being a war hero doesn’t automatically qualify someone to be president, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth by the Right Wing Howler Monkey Media Chorus that he had smeared all veterans and denigrated McCain. Of course, Obama is susceptible too; the better response to that tacky New Yorker cartoon would’ve been silence or better yet humor. And moving some Muslim women out of the background for a campaign photo was clumsy and stupid; at least he had the good taste to apologize for that one. You cannot help but wonder what’s going on with McCain; he nearly unseated the clear establishment candidate, George W. Bush, in 2000, and he brought his 2008 campaign literally back from the brink of catastrophe. Having secured the nomination, however, it’s been nothing but gaffes, missteps and flailing ever since. Part of it, of course, is beyond McCain’s control. The Republican brand is hopelessly tarnished after years of corruption and incompetence. It is worth noting that despite Congress’ overall single-digit approval ratings, Democrats lead the generic ballot by a staggering 15 percentage points, with the possibility of 239 House members and just shy of 60 Senators. In order to secure the nomination, McCain had to graft himself to a President only slightly more popular than Bird Flu and a war the public has long since wearied of. Still, McCain is also suffering from several self-inflicted wounds. He surrounded himself with troglodytes like Phil Gramm, only to be embarrassed when the Mouth That Roared acted like, well, like Phil Gramm. As the suburban middle class (who will decide this election) grows more and more anxious, calling them “whiners” and having your nominee admit that he doesn’t know much about economics is probably not a very effective strategy. McCain likewise eagerly sought the endorsement of loathsome tele-Pharisees like John Hagee and Rod Paisley, only to backtrack when some of their more repulsive utterances surfaced (finally) in the wake of Obama’s Jeremiah Wright kerfuffle. The ever-shrinking Republican base seems singularly unexcited; on an anecdotal level, I have to meet a Republican who even likes John McCain, much less is committed to his victory. I’m not yet prepared to make hotel reservations for the Obama Inauguration (assuming, of course, I even get invited), but more and more, slowly but surely, the question of this campaign is becoming not whether Obama will win but by how much.

Column for 15 June, 2008

“Give me wisdom and knowledge that I may lead this people, for who is able to govern this great people of Yours?”
--2 Chronicles 1:10

Every two years, the bizarre, unwieldy, contradictory barking mess that is the Texas Democratic Party comes together for a weekend of barely-controlled chaos that is referred to rather hopefully as a “convention.” This year, buoyed by the unprecedented turnout for the presidential primary, some 14,000 delegates, alternates and guests descended on Austin’s Convention Center, which let me just begin by saying is absolutely the worst venue I have ever endured. It’s gigantic, the size of a zeppelin hangar, but laid out in a weird labyrinth color-coded maze of the sort that normally features cheese at the end. There are several banks of elevators, but none of them go to all the floors. Unaccountably, some genius had switched off the escalators, forcing hundreds of delegates to gingerly clamber up and down like an assault on Mount Everest. In order to get to the Native American Caucus, I literally had to climb up the fire escape; I was afraid I would have to rappel down. Only a couple of small double-door entrances were available to the main hall, so getting people in and out was reminiscent of stampeding for the lifeboats on the Titanic. Because of the huge number of people, entrance to the floor had to be strictly limited to those with credentials; otherwise the fire marshal would’ve shut the place down. Ironically, on Saturday just before the voting got underway in earnest, someone pulled a fire alarm and the entire building had to be evacuated. We all jammed the sidewalks, sweltering in the heat and rubbing elbows with the omnipresent Ron Paul and Lyndon LaRouche followers passing out flyers emblazoned with their preferred candidate’s favorite brand of paranoia. By the time everyone got out, the all-clear was given and we dutifully trooped back in. Several people asked if Tom DeLay had an alibi, a joke that is less funny in retrospect after fire gutted the magnificent old mansion that has housed Governors both great (Sam Houston) and pathetic (Rick Perry) for a century-and-a-half. For reasons still unclear to me, I was unanimously elected as chair of our senate district caucus, the kind of thankless job often bestowed on the gullible or those foolish enough to miss a meeting. Senate District 22 was divided almost exactly evenly between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton delegates, but for the most part, things went relatively smoothly. Well, smoothly for Democrats, anyway. Democrats are a lot like Southern Baptists; you can’t put more than two of them in the same room together without them splitting into at least three factions. So, of course, we did have some “drama,” as the kids say, but compared to most of the other senate districts (some of whom were at it past three in the morning), we were a machine of efficiency. Overall, I detected little of the bitterness and rancor the mainstream media has insisted exists between the Obama and Clinton camps. The Clinton delegates were, understandably, heartbroken, and this was only exacerbated by the technical gremlins that kept disrupting the satellite feed of Senator Clinton’s thoughtful and gracious concession speech. There was one delegate, described by a commenter on my blog as a “modern day Jeremiah,” carrying a sign that read, “Religious, gun-owning rural Democrat still bitter over Obama.” And it would be fair to say that several Clinton delegates grumbled that the Obama camp was too enthusiastic in their victory. Anytime you have a situation that requires one side to be generous winners and the other side to be gracious losers, it’s certain that there will be hurt feelings and bruised egos. This was amplified by the huge number of first-time convention-goers and a lack of organization and foresight by the two Presidential campaigns. Once it was clear there wasn’t going to be a fight, it seemed as though both campaigns, but particularly Obama’s, just wrote the whole event off. Senator Clinton sent Chelsea, who was wildly and enthusiastically received; Obama sent Tim Kaine, a governor virtually no one had ever heard of who delivered a speech about as exciting as cooling oatmeal. Of course, at the time the convention was being organized, no one had any way of knowing that it would occur literally at the same time the Democratic presidential race was ending; still, a little effort could’ve gone a long way to promoting the sense of unity that both Clinton and Obama are calling for. For example, if I was in charge of the Obama delegates, I would’ve arranged for a sustained demonstration saluting Hillary Clinton. I think that would’ve been very well received as a gesture of affection and respect. Water under the bridge now. It is possible, though unlikely, that by the time you read this Barack Obama will have announced his running mate. I will predict that whoever it is, it will not be Hillary Clinton, for a couple of reasons, the most important of which being that Hillary Clinton would have to give up far too much power to be vice president. It’s far more likely that she will become Senate Majority Leader, a welcome change from the often feckless Harry Reid. It also seems likely that a President Obama would name her to the first vacancy on the Supreme Court. As for Texas, I think it’s also likely that Obama will campaign here, not because he’s too terribly likely to actually carry the state, but to boost the chances of Democrats like senate candidate Rick Noriega (who is either breathing down John Cornyn’s neck or way behind depending on which Rasmussen poll you believe) and to make the morally and fiscally bankrupt Republicans sweat and spend money here that they would otherwise use in battleground states like Ohio and Michigan. So, are the Democrats “unified”? Well, sure; I mean, for Democrats. You have to keep in mind that Democrats have never and will never achieve the sort of ideological rigidity that has reduced the Republic Party to the sort of brainless cheering minions one often sees at rallies for Robert Mugabe or Hugo Chavez. If the GOP is a group of disparate interests united by fear (of communists, uppity women, brown people, homosexuals and the Enlightenment), then the Democratic Party is best understood as a (very) loose coalition of wildly divergent interests only vaguely united by a sense of outrage, less a electoral guided missile than a stampede or an avalanche; powerful only when pointed in the right direction, an often impossible task. If Barack Obama can use his undeniable powers of charm and persuasion to hold together his own party, then he will be the next President of the United States.

Column for 25 May, 2008

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for He knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust.”
--Psalm 103:13-14

On an occasion such as Memorial Day, I usually find my own meager words inadequate. Others with far more talent have eloquently captured the spirit of this day, and of the sacrifice of those we remember on this day.
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” (Abraham Lincoln, 1863). Perhaps the most famous and familiar American words on the sacrifice of veterans, Lincoln succinctly invoked humility, pride, and inspiration.
“In Flanders fields the poppies blow; Between the crosses, row on row; That mark our place; and in the sky; The larks, still bravely singing, fly; Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the dead. Short days ago; We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved, and were loved, and now we lie; In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe:To you from failing hands we throw; The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow; In Flanders fields.” (John McCrae, 1915). McCrae, a surgeon with Canadian forces during World War One, never returned home from his war; he died of pneumonia in France in 1918.
“They went with songs to the battle, they were young. Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow. They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted, They fell with their faces to the foe. They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them. Lest we forget.” (Laurence Binyon, 1914).

“Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo, Shovel them under and let me work--I am the grass; I cover all. And pile them high at Gettysburg; And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. Shovel them under and let me work. Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor: What place is this? Where are we now? I am the grass. Let me work.” (Carl Sandburg, 1918). One of America’s greatest poets and authors wrote these words, somewhat bitter and perhaps cynical, at the end of what was then grandiosely titled “The Great War to Save Mankind,” a phrase inscribed on a medal presented to my paternal grandfather, Ross Edward Barkman, for his service in that conflict. There is an old photograph of him from that time, wearing his high-collar Army uniform, peering out at me, his features uncannily reflected in the face of my oldest son, the great-grandson he never met. Another portrait, this one in my maternal grandmother’s house in Midland shows my other grandfather in the Navy uniform he wore during World War Two. He preferred not to talk about the things he saw during that time. Now we are engaged in another war, one which has already lasted longer than either of the two world wars my grandfathers fought in. More than 4,000 young men and women have died to date, with some 30,000 officially acknowledged as wounded to varying degrees. In the words of Alexis de Tocqueville, “No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.” Reasonable minds may differ about the necessity or rightness of this war, though most of them do so from the comfort and safety of their air-conditioned homes or studios; surely, though, everyone can agree that we owe more to the veterans, living and dead, and their families, than magnetic yellow ribbons mass-produced in China and sold without irony at gas stations to be affixed to monstrous gas-guzzling SUVs. Surely, if young people are willing to put on uniforms, take up arms, and travel halfway across the world to risk their lives, we at the very least can guarantee to them the best health care in the world for the rest of their lives and the chance for a college education upon their return? Isn’t that the absolute minimum we who have sacrificed virtually nothing can do to honor the memory of those who “gave the last full measure of devotion”?

Column for 17 May, 2008

“A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.”
--Proverbs 29:11

Barring a miracle (or a catastrophe, depending on your point of view), the November presidential election will be between Barack Obama and John McCain. There will be some excitement, at least among the talking heads, over vice presidential picks, but keep two things in mind: first, vice presidential candidates have absolutely no effect whatsoever on the election. Don’t believe me? Two words: Dan Quayle. Second, both candidates’ choices will be driven by internal party politics. McCain will pick a running mate acceptable to the tele-Pharisees, Flat Earth Society members and tin-foil hat-wearing conspiracy-theorists that comprise the shattered remnants of the Republic Party. Mike Huckabee? Maybe, though the Huck seems to be planning ahead for 2012 with the apocalyptic fringe that, according to Robert Novak, are resigned to an Obama presidency as God’s inevitable vengeance on a fallen nation. Yeah, drama much? Obama will pick someone acceptable to the Clinton wing of the party, though very likely not Hillary Clinton. Wesley Clark is a name that springs to mind. Obama may feel pressure to select a running mate with alleged appeal to ethnic Catholic and white rural Rust Belt voters, a constituency where he is notably weak. But, again: Dan Quayle. When Michael Dukakis selected Lloyd Bentsen in a bid for Southern votes, it was remarked that he could be running with Robert E. Lee and still lose everything south of the Mason-Dixon Line. As the real election season heats up, John McCain, who has done everything short of being adopted by George W. Bush in order to secure the nomination, will suddenly be stricken with a form of selective amnesia that obliterates any memory of the man who has been president for the last seven years. Instead, McCain will make a mad dash to the Left, or at least the Center, trying desperately to rekindle his largely media-fabricated image as a “maverick,” while Democrats attempt to hang the politically-toxic Bush around his neck like the proverbial albatross. We’re already seeing the first stages of this makeover, such as McCain’s condescending “whistle stop” tour through “poor America” and his rhetorical, if not actual, discovery of environmentalism. Be prepared for even more fawning, sycophantic “coverage” by the Mainstream Media claiming that McCain is “breaking with the Bush Administration.” Also, be prepared for this election to get real ugly, real fast. Your inboxes will be jammed to overflowing with anonymous emails claiming that Barack Obama is a Muslim or a communist or a homosexual or all of the above. Protestant Evangelical churches will be dutifully flooded with propaganda from James Dobson or other similar troglodytes, “non-partisan” “voting guides” that show in a “non-partisan” manner that Obama is a Muslim, communist homosexual. And also possibly French. Be prepared for repeated instances of minor Republican flunkies making outrageously offensive public pronouncements, only to provide McCain with the opportunity to righteously denounce them. No attempt will be spared to appeal to that nasty, hidden underground strain of our national life that equates “American” with “white.” Rush Limbaugh singing “Barack the Magic Negro” will seem subtle and understated by comparison. Trying to frighten voters with Obama and/or the feckless self-aggrandizing blowhard Jeremiah Wright has failed spectacularly in several recent special Congressional elections, but no matter. And woe be unto anyone who claims that such tactics are “racist”; they will be lambasted and denounced for their “divisiveness” from every television screen, computer and radio in the land, since in Bizarro world it is a far worse sin to accuse someone of racism than to actually be racist. Also, there’s no such thing as racism anymore. And it’s the blacks who are racist anyway. That’s what’s going to pass for political dialogue. That and seeing John McCain covered head-to-toe in American flag lapel pins at every photo op. The Democrats, meanwhile, in addition to pointing out that a McCain Presidency would be like a third term for George W. Bush only without the restraint or competence, will try to subtly suggest that McCain is as old as Methuselah or Dick Clark with the disposition of a cranky rhinoceros in the national china Shoppe. Obama enthusiasts have pushed the case that their man changes the entire electoral landscape, putting states like Virginia or even Texas in play. I remain respectfully skeptical. It could be potentially disastrous for Obama to spend time fighting for Red states in which he has polled reasonably well, such as North and South Carolina, Virginia and Nebraska, to the exclusion of more reliably blue states like Michigan and Wisconsin. Polling in Ohio is incredibly contradictory, with Obama tying McCain but Clinton trouncing him by ten percentage points. Given the fact that nearly every single Republican elected official in Ohio is currently under indictment, I have a hard time seeing those figures as too reliable. In Texas, two recent polls have put Democratic Senate candidate Rick Noriega within striking distance of John Cornyn, who remains only marginally more popular than heat rash. The Rasmussen poll (which tends to skew Republican) shows Obama within five percentage points of McCain. Does this mean Obama could be the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter to carry the state? Probably not, but the mere threat of it could force McCain to expend scarce resources here. I hate to make a habit of agreeing with Karl Rove, if only because his crystal ball has been seriously cracked since 2006, but I tend to think he’s right that the 2008 election will be fought mostly in the same battleground states as 2000 and 2004 (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa) with a possible expansion into Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. Now all we have to do is wait and see just how wrong I turn out to be.

Column for 4 May, 2008

“Yet you ask, ‘Why does the son not share the guilt of his father?’ Since the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep all My decrees, he will surely live.”

--Ezekiel 18:19

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (or FLDS) is a splinter faction of the mainstream Mormon faith, that broke off over the issue of polygamy (actually, technically, polygyny, since only men are allowed to have multiple spouses), a practice that was abolished by the Mormon church in 1890. The FLDS retreated to the margins, living in self-sufficient communities along the Utah-Arizona border. For the most part, authorities left the FLDS alone, with the spectacular exception of a botched raid in 1954 that was roundly condemned across the country for its ham-handedness. In recent years, however, the FLDS came under the leadership of the thoroughly despicable Warren Jeffs, a classic cult-leader in every sense of the word. Ruling as an absolute dictator, with the power to condemn his enemies to eternal damnation, Jeffs decided who got married to whom and when. He even reserved the right to punish men by “reassigning” their wives and children to others. Taking advantage of the traditional communalistic lifestyle, Jeffs looted money from the faithful and used church ownership of all real property to threaten dissenters with instant homelessness. He also apparently, astonishingly, managed to wrangle a multi-million dollar, no-bid defense contract with the United States government. The self-proclaimed “President and Prophet, Seer and Revelator, President of the Priesthood” also presided over “spiritual marriages” of girls as young as 14, and was accused by his own family of sexually assaulting young girls and boys, and of running off teenage boys from the community to reduce competition for extra wives. On November 20, 2007, he was sentenced to ten years to life in prison by a Utah court for being an accomplice to two rapes. Before then, however, his followers purchased a 1,700 acre ranch near Eldorado in Schleicher County, Texas, where a new temple was built and a community established, “Yearning for Zion” or YFZ. As a direct result of the appearance of the FLDS, the Texas Legislature raised the legal age for marriage with parental consent from 14 to 16. Beyond these few established facts, things get rather murky. On March 30, 2008, authorities received a number of hoax telephone calls from a mentally-disturbed woman in Colorado, who claimed to be a sixteen year old girl named “Sarah” living at the YFZ Ranch and abused by her 50-year-old husband, Dale Barlow. Some court testimony and statements by law enforcement suggest that authorities were aware that “Sarah” was a hoax and that Dale Barlow was actually in Arizona. Nevertheless, on April 3, 2008, four days after the authorities were notified of the supposed “emergency,” a search warrant for Dale Barlow was executed by a massive contingent of law-enforcement officers, including armored personnel carriers from the Midland Police Department. In a bizarre reversal of normal Department of Family & Protective Services (DFPS) policy, caseworkers did not remove the alleged abusers (a relatively small number of adult men) but instead removed the victims, some 450 or more children. The exact number varies, as DFPS contends that some of the girls who are claiming to be adults are actually children. In another strange departure, DFPS allowed some of the mothers to go with the children when they were removed. Normally, a child is not removed from the home at all unless it is shown that being around the parents would endanger the child’s physical or emotional health. The women and children were warehoused in Fort Concho, a 140 year old cavalry fort. They were then shuffled off to a football stadium. Then, the mother’s cell phones were seized, allegedly because of fears the women were communicating with their husbands. I have yet to find any authority cited for this government seizure of the private property of private citizens who aren’t even under arrest. Continuing with the confusion, the mothers (at least some of them) were then separated from their children, in what eyewitnesses described as a heart-wrenching scene of hysterical children and nursing infants physically removed from their mothers. Now, DFPS has decided that some nursing mothers may stay with their children, provided the children are no more than 12 months old. Evidently, the State of Texas will now dictate the age at which babies must be weaned. A batallion of volunteer lawyers from all across the state descended on San Angelo, the nearest large city, for a removal hearing that can be charitably described as a farce. The courtroom couldn’t accommodate even most of the attorneys that state law says must be appointed to represent removed children. Hundreds had to watch the proceedings through an impenetrable and often inaudible closed-circuit television link. Rather than addressing the individual situations of the children, or even of discreet categories of children, the judge decided the whole thing en masse. The testimony was confusing, contradictory and at times incoherent. The state’s expert witness admitted under cross examination that all he knew about FLDS was what he had learned through the media. Unsuprisingly, the removal was granted and the children, some of whom seem to be suffering ill-health from their trauma, are being dispersed all across the state. In several instances, the children’s attorneys have no idea where their clients are and have been prevented from seeing them or speaking with them. Press releases from the state now claim that some of the children between the ages of 14 and 17 are either pregnant or have had children themselves. At least one girl, age 18, has given birth since being removed. Again, no legal authority has been cited for allowing the state to detain adults who have not even been accused of a crime, much less arrested. As someone who has represented children and parents in such cases over the last ten years, I have to say I am appalled by how badly the state has bungled this operation from the very start, particularly in terms of the flagrant violation of the constitutional rights of the children. However, the information we have so far indicates to me that DFPS should not shoulder all the blame. This has the look of a law enforcement operation, evidently planned well in advance of the hoax telephone tip according to the Schleicher County Sheriff, and DFPS (which does not have the kind of clout it takes to summon such an army of police) was left to scramble in the aftermath. As a result, adults who may have very well preyed on children could go unpunished while the children suffer the consequences.

Column for 12 April, 2008

“Would your wealth or even all your mighty efforts sustain you so you would not be in distress?”
--Job 36:19

In the midst of all the extensive and vitally important media coverage of Barack Obama’s bowling score, Hillary Clinton’s courage under (imaginary) sniper fire and John McCain’s inability to remember even the most basic facts about the Middle East, there’s one thing you don’t hear about: the economy. True, you hear about the bursting of the housing bubble and arguments about whether or not we are in a recession (a “recession” is when my next-door neighbor loses his job; a “depression” is when I lose mine). And we have heard about the Bush Administration’s generous decision to drive the nation even further into a crippling debt of their own creation with a pittance of a tax rebate; in fact, the best line I heard on that issue was that if you spend your rebate in Wal-Mart, it will go to China; if you spend it buying a computer, it will go to Japan; and if you spend it on gas it will go to Saudi Arabia. Therefore, the only way to spend it on America would be to use it for beer, prostitutes or gambling at an Indian casino, the only businesses left in this country. No, the thing you don’t hear is that, slowly but steadily, the American economy is being dismantled from the inside out. Do a little experiment with me. Look around where you’re sitting at this exact moment and see if you can lay your hands on anything, anything at all, that was made in America. Go on. Give it a try. Give up? Closest thing I could find was a metal yardstick made in Ohio and out in the driveway, my truck made by union autoworkers in St. Louis. The fact is we are very rapidly approaching the point where nothing is “made in America.” Consider this: in 1950, 34% of American jobs were in the manufacturing sector and 59% were in the service sector. By 2002, only 13% remained in manufacturing while a whopping 82% were in services. The number of Americans working in business services (advertising, data processing, credit reporting, etc.) has risen from 656,000 in 1960 to 9,301,000 by 2002. American steel exports in 1969 were valued at $70.9 billion, representing 2.1% of total GDP. By 1998, it was down to $37.6 billion and a mere 0.4% of GDP. Just since January of 2005, when the US abolished quotas on textiles, the textile industry has lost 83,700 jobs, some 20.9% of its total. But that’s okay, right? Free trade and globalization advocates, including Bill Clinton and most of the Republicans, have assured us that these “old economy” jobs would be replaced by new, better and shinier “new economy” jobs in the “information sector.” Actually, you don’t hear nearly as much about the “information economy” since the dotcom bubble imploded. And while it is true that the overall unemployment rate remains relatively low, those high-paying “old economy” jobs where people actually made things, are being replaced by crappier, lower wage jobs. In terms of real wages (that is, adjusted for inflation), the average American has gone from making $302.52 per week in 1964 to $277.57 per week in 2004, and that’s after a brief period of rising wages in the mid to late 1990’s. Now consider this: the US trade deficit (the difference between what we export and what we import) hit a record high of $763.6 billion in 2006. And that national debt I mentioned? All $8.5 TRILLION of it? Every single dime accumulated under George W. Bush’s watch? Fully 25% of that is owned by foreign governments. So, can you still be an economic superpower if you don’t make anything and an increasing share of your of GDP consists of debt owned by other countries? What happens if those countries decide they don’t like us anymore? Remember the oil embargo of the 1970’s? Arab countries who sit on top of much of the world’s oil reserves got angry with America for refusing to allow them to eradicate the State of Israel, so they stopped selling to us. The US economy was hit hard as the price of gasoline skyrocketed and the government was forced to impose price controls and rationing. And we are much more dependent on the goodwill of other countries now than we were then. Worse yet, there are some signs we are approaching Peak Oil, the point at which the world hits maximum oil production (aided by the increasing demands of emerging economies like China and India). If that happens, gas prices won’t come down. Ever. Now, I don’t mean to suggest that American corporations are always worthy of protectionist trade policies; they aren’t. In particular, it’s hard to feel sorry for the automotive industry which grew fat, happy and lazy until it was eclipsed by better built, cheaper and more fuel efficient foreign models. However, the cries of the free trade warriors that free trade and globalization are inevitable and always good for America are starting to sound more and more like old communist propaganda about the triumph of Marxism and about as grounded in reality. Why is it that none of the major presidential candidates, now that John Edwards is out, will talk about this? Other than a few very mild tut-tuts about NAFTA from Clinton and Obama, and only then in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania that have suffered the most, the silence is deafening. If free trade and globalization are so great, why won’t any of the politicians even discuss them? How is the United States helped by lowering trade barriers that give us the choice between dismantling our environmental and worker protections or losing out to countries that don’t have them? Can we really retain our sovereignty if the only jobs available to our people are delivering pizzas and repairing computers made in China? Historically speaking, there is a name for countries that don’t make anything and whose economic fate is almost completely in the hands of others: a colony.

Column for 6 April, 2008

“’I have seen these people,’ the Lord said to Moses, ‘and they are a stiff-necked people.’”
--Exodus 32:9

Last Saturday, live at the Don Smith Performing Arts Center in beautiful Cleburne, Texas, unreported by the media, a remarkable thing happened: the Johnson County Democratic Party had a record turnout for the county convention and everything went pretty smoothly, all things considered. Now, bear in mind that “smoothly” for Democrats usually means “no fist fights and no one called the cops,” but still, after the mainstream media widely predicted “Chaos in Texas,” the convention went off, again for Democrats, like a well-oiled machine. Typically, trying to organize notoriously ornery Texas Democrats is akin to trying to herd cats with a fire hose. Put any two Democrats, like any two Southern Baptists, in the same room together and they will instantly split into at least three factions. On Saturday, delegates from the precinct conventions began arriving by 8:00AM. A dozen folding tables, all manned by volunteers, registered them and confirmed their credentials. Some of the precincts hadn’t turned in all (or in one memorable case, any) of their information; these folks were all referred to the Credentials Committee, where all the hitches were more or less ironed out. True, there were several hours of waiting around while the committees figured out how many delegates had signed in for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, but any well-attended political convention tends to involve a lot of “hurry up and wait.” As it developed, Clinton carried Johnson County by about 70% to Obama’s 30%. Contrary to expectations, most of the new faces (and the overwhelming majority of the delegates had never before attended a county convention) were there for Clinton, though there were of course some motivated by Obama as well. Fears of a Republican takeover at the behest of Rush “Oxycontin” Limbaugh seem to have been groundless. A major newspaper from the urban colossus to our north and east analyzed the statewide vote to see how many voters had merely checked off their presidential preference and ignored the rest of the ballot, on the theory that Republican infiltrators would be unlikely to care about the nominee for Court of Criminal Appeals or Railroad Commission. More than 80% of voters in counties heavily carried by Clinton went on to vote in the US Senate race; only 71% of the voters in the counties heavily carried by Obama did likewise. This suggests that Obama voters, who tend to skew younger than average, were motivated mostly by him and not a general enthusiasm for the Democratic Party as a whole; this also suggests that Rick Noriega has his work cut out for him in persuading these new voters to pay attention to his race against the singularly inept John Cornyn in November. And it suggests that Rush, Ann Coulter and all the rest of the Right Wing Howler Monkey Media Chorus (RWHMMC) have absolutely no influence on the electoral process whatsoever, if they ever did in the first place. For some unknown reason, I was chosen as permanent chairman of the convention. The difficult work was in choosing delegates to the June 5 State Democratic Convention in Austin. In normal years, when Johnson County Democrats could comfortably meet in the backseat of someone’s car, state delegates were whoever bothered to show up. And even then, we usually had to call ten people to fill out our allotment. This year, we had ten people for every delegate slot. After some intense wrangling in the precincts, 36 delegates and 36 alternates were duly selected and a handful of resolutions, dealing with topics from embryonic stem-cell research to the Iraq War, were debated and passed. The whole thing was over by 4:00PM, thanks to the convention defeating a motion to break for lunch. Sure, that seems like a long time but remember, these are Democrats we’re talking about; we’ve spent more hours than that arguing about adopting Robert’s Rules of Order. Now, some might ascribe all this political efficiency to my deft skills at the podium, but in all modesty, I have to say it was due to the fact that, some good-natured ribbing aside, there was no conflict between the Clinton and Obama camps. The more hysterical members of the Mainstream Media have been openly predicting disaster, chaos and ruin for the Democrats in November if the primary season goes on even one day more. I disagree. First, let’s put some things in perspective; hyperbole from both camps aside, this is not, I repeat not, the nastiest political fight in Democratic Party history. Not even close. You want nasty? Mister, I worked on the 1990 Ann Richards/Mark White/Jim Mattox primary. Compared to that, this is an election for president of the chess club. That’s another reason I don’t buy polls saying up to a quarter of Obama or Clinton supporters would vote for John McCain if their candidate doesn’t get the nomination. Hogwash. Second, consider what the situation would be like if Obama or Clinton had wrapped up the nomination months ago, the way it usually works. No one would care about the Texas primary, or the Ohio or Pennsylvania primaries, either. All those millions of new Democrats wouldn’t be brought into the process until the Fall, if ever. Third, by pounding on each other, Clinton and Obama are leveling criticisms that would otherwise not have come out until sprung on an unsuspecting public by Karl Rove. For Obama supporters, when would you prefer the Jeremiah Wright story to have emerged? Now? Or August? For Clinton supporters, when would you rather have had her make that embarrassing comment about dodging snipers in Bosnia? Fourth, while John McCain is certainly popular on a personal level, he has leeched himself onto the most unpopular President since Richard Nixon and the most unpopular policies of that unpopular President. While large majorities of Americans say the country is on the wrong track and they want a President who will go in a different direction, McCain is promising a third term for George W. Bush, only worse. As one Republican put it, McCain offers more war and less jobs. In many respects, he threatens to out-Bush Bush, stating he will keep troops in Iraq for a hundred years and tastelessly joking about “bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb”-ing Iran, when he isn’t making howling gaffes on foreign policy, his supposed strong suite. On the domestic front, McCain is busily running away from his own immigration bill and proposing to do absolutely nothing about the deepening economic slump. So, no, the sky is not falling. The Democrats haven’t blown it. Not yet anyway. And it was a great convention.

Column for 23 March, 2008

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
--Galatians 3:28-29

Let me start out by admitting I made a mistake in my last column. In my eagerness for a clever turn of phrase, I stated that David Paterson of New York was the only sitting black governor. In fact, Deval Patrick has been Governor of Massachusetts since 2006. Mea culpa. In my last column, I also discussed how the battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Presidential Nomination was not about race so much as the complete inability of America to have a grown-up discussion about race. Since then, Barack Obama gave The Speech. Even by already-high Obamanian standards of public speaking, this was an excellent speech. It is a welcome change of pace to hear from a politician who does not speak in sound-bites, is not afraid to sound as intelligent as he is, and refuses to treat his audience as a pack of drooling morons. Obama, of course, condemned some of the inflammatory language used by his former preacher, Jeremiah Wright, in keeping with media standards that only conservative white evangelical preachers (Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, John Hagee, Rod Parsley) are allowed to criticize America in their sermons or suggest that 9-11 or Hurricane Katrina were God’s judgment on a fallen nation. Using this same standard, I eagerly await FOX News’ expose of the Prophet Isaiah as an anti-Semite for his condemnations of Israel. Strikingly, Obama not only declined to condemn Wright the person (as opposed to some of his words), but actively embraced him as a part of his life, a contrast to the frequent Clintonian inclination to toss friends and associates (Zoe Baird, Les Aspin, Lani Guinier, Joycelyn Elder) under the bus at the first sign of trouble. Obama was not afraid to confront unpleasant truths, such as the fact that America was, in fact, founded on contradictory pillars of democracy and racism, from the Declaration of Independence’s reference to “merciless Indian savages,” to the Constitution’s relegation of African-Americans to 3/5ths of a human being each. Tellingly, however, Obama also acknowledged the fears of many white Americans, fears of busing and fears of affirmative action. Whether these fears are rational or not, they are nevertheless very real and no honest conversation on race relations can take place without both sides admitting that they are, in some way, afraid of each other. Whether The Speech will have a positive effect on Obama’s campaign is hard to say. He seems to have gained an uptick in the polls, but the whole episode with Rev. Wright has created a perfect tool for the Right Wing Howler Monkey Media Chorus (RWHMMC) to inject racial prejudice into the campaign without being too blatant about it. Okay, they say, if you don’t believe us that Obama is a communist, atheist, secret Muslim Manchurian Candidate, look at his scary black preacher! Look how he’s yelling! Isn’t that scary? And for those of us from the Baptist tradition, where everyone is supposed to sit very still and not wave your arms or clap lest you be thought a Pentecostal, the sight of people who actually seem to express human emotion in church may well be off-putting, particularly in a predominantly black congregation. Sadly, while many blacks know what services are like in a white church, few whites ever visit black churches, as Sunday morning remains the most segregated hour of the American week. Frankly, though, nothing Barack Obama said would have satiated the RWHMMC; they see in him a real threat, and so we are treated to the spectacle of Bill O’Reilly, a sexual stalker who nonetheless feels qualified to denounce Elliot Spitzer, and a credulous racist blowhard who once expressed astonishment that patrons at a restaurant in Harlem had good table manners, denouncing Obama and Wright for “phony charges of racism.” Because, you see, in the world of many whites, “racism” is just something icky that happened a long time ago. Certainly no one today is a racist. No one white anyway. In this strange parallel dimension, accusing someone of racism is a far worse crime than racism itself. Don Imus and that idiot from “Seinfeld” certainly can’t be racists; after all, they are nice people who do good things. A racist is somebody like, well, like Hitler or those inbred mouth-breathers who murdered James Byrd, Jr. Anything less than that is just “race baiters” trying to impose “political correctness” on everybody. Of course, the handful of actual instances of “political correctness” (such as asinine efforts to ban certain words on college campuses) are far outweighed by the legions of loud-mouthed jerks who feel they can now spout whatever racist, gay-bashing, misogynistic tripe that happens to spring into their empty heads just by preceding it with, “now this might not be ‘politically correct,’ but….” With those simple words, idiots are somehow magically transformed into courageous martyrs to the First Amendment. This is not to say that professional race baiters, both black and white, do not exist. They do. Al Sharpton, a con-man, pathological liar and cynical opportunist, is merely the other side of the coin from David Duke. Both make their fame and fortune from exploiting racial tension and, as a result, both are used as scapegoats to smother any realistic dialogue. Whites can point to Al Sharpton as the reason why black claims of racism cannot be trusted and blacks can refer to David Duke as an example of the Nazi tendencies that all whites allegedly harbor. But in order to come to grips with the issue of race in modern America, we have to ignore nitwits like those and concentrate on reality. For example, whites frequently tell me they are afraid to talk about race or even talk to nonwhites for fear of being “branded” a racist. These kinds of fears are mostly unfounded (and a good example of the “cult of victimization” I mentioned last week); common courtesy is usually enough to avoid giving offense. Stop talking to people of color like you are a 13 year old boy asking a girl to the school dance and you should be okay. A friend of mine, an African American who is a veteran, a college professor, a published author and a PhD, recently went to enroll his young son at a prestigious pre-school. The teacher was showing him around and extolling the virtues of their program, including a music class. We have country music, he was told by this obviously well-meaning but clueless person, and classical music, but I don’t think we’ve ever done hip-hop. Sigh. Maybe I should take my kids there to see if she’ll offer pow-wow dancing. The struggle continues.

Column for 16 March, 2008

“For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”
--Romans 10:12-13

The long, grinding battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic Nomination is not about race or gender. Really. Oh, sure, that’s not what you see or hear in the mainstream media, but that’s mostly because white America talking about race is like adolescent boys talking about sex; a lot of giggling and pointing but not much substance. And yes, lots of people would dearly love for this to be about black versus white or man versus woman. Take Geraldine Ferraro. Please. Her inane statement that Obama only got where he is today because he’s a black man is just about as stupid as they come. If being a black man is the key to political success, why is he the only one in the United States Senate? Why is there exactly one black man serving as a governor today (and only then because an extremely stupid white man couldn’t keep his hands off high-priced hookers)? If not for a multi-million dollar television ad campaign, how easy do you think it would be for Barack Obama to hail a taxi after dark in any major American city? How long could he jog through any gated suburban community before the police stopped him to inquire as to his business? Barack Obama got where he is by being smart, talented and tenacious, not through any sort of political quota system. By the same token, Hillary Clinton certainly gains no benefit from being a woman in a political system that is still overwhelmingly dominated by men. If Hillary Clinton were Harold Clinton, would major cable news channels and national magazines run breathless articles on what he was wearing and whether or not it showed too much skin? Would pundits be discussing whether or not he was sincere when he showed emotion? Would the fact that he was strong and outspoken naturally lead to a whisper campaign that he was gay? While it is true that Senator Clinton has benefited from her power marriage to President Clinton, it is condescending tripe to suggest that she would be nothing without him. Had she never dated a law student from Arkansas and instead remained in Illinois, she could very likely have ended up in Obama’s senate seat. The very fact that Geraldine Ferraro could make such a moronic statement, or that it would touch off such a storm of insipid press “coverage” is yet more indication of the basic fundamental problem with discussing race in America: to the extent white America will discuss race at all, it insists on defining all the terms of the debate. Listening to talk radio today, I heard one caller insist that the fact that 91% of black voters in the Mississippi Primary voted for Obama was proof that “blacks are racist, too.” Excuse me? If that’s true, does the fact that 76% of white Mississippians preferred Clinton mean they are racist? Of course not. And if Barack Obama the black man was Barry O’Bama the white Irishman, would the fact that he got 91% of the Catholic vote mean that all Catholics hate Protestants? Of course not. How do we square that with the fact that Bill Clinton had such strong support among blacks that he was famously referred to as the first African-American president? Surely it couldn’t be that black voters liked Bill but don’t like Hillary? Yet the same white Americans who insist that any organization of non-whites that they feel excluded from (La Raza Unida, the American Indian Movement, black student unions in colleges) are proof of anti-white “reverse racism,” see nothing wrong with Polish-American, Italian-American, Jewish or similarly-formed associations. Why? Because those groupings are almost exclusively white. In the immortal words of Groucho Marx, I refuse to belong to any club that would have me as a member. Likewise, two-hundred years of white male affirmative action in the form of laws that systematically excluded women and people of color are one thing, but thirty years of lukewarm efforts on behalf of non-white males evidently spells the end of civilization as we know it. White pathology about race has gotten so toxic that a privileged young white woman, Margaret Seltzer, felt compelled to pretend that she was a Native American (no doubt her great-great-grandmother was a Cherokee princess) raised by a black family in South Central Los Angeles in a completely fictionalized account of gang life. Were there any oppressed groups she forgot to claim membership in? Perhaps she was also a quadriplegic lesbian? Having helped themselves to land, culture, religion, language and even appearance, must white America now also claim “victimization” itself as some kind of prize? How twisted do you have to be to want to even pretend to be a victim? Is there some visceral thrill in believing you are “oppressed”? Evidently so, since the least oppressed segments in our modern society (white men, rich people, and evangelical Christians) are the ones who most loudly bellow that they are “under attack” on a regular basis. So, to all you white liberals, and those non-white Obama supporters who act as though Hillary Clinton is George Wallace, please do not project your racial fetishes onto this campaign. Either you think Barack Obama would be a good president or you don’t. If you don’t like him, don’t vote for him. It doesn’t make you a racist. Either you think Hillary Clinton would be a good president or you don’t. If you don’t like her, don’t vote for her. It doesn’t make you a sexist. However, if you vote for John McCain, it does make you a masochist.

Column for 9 March, 2008

“If You are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know You and continue to find favor with You. Remember that this nation is Your People.”
--Exodus 33:13

In the immortal words of another (and vastly more talented and funny) Cherokee political commentator, Will Rogers, “I belong to no organized political party; I am a Democrat.” It was certainly a wild night, though all things considered it went relatively smoothly, both in Johnson County and in the rest of the State. At my precinct convention, so many people showed up we had to move to the church sanctuary, which quickly filled up. One older gentleman showed me his voter registration card; when I pointed out that he had voted in the Republican Primary so he couldn’t vote in the Democratic Convention, he gave a bewildered look at the people all around him and asked in a disbelieving voice, “You mean all these are Democrats?” Hillary Clinton carried Johnson County, as she did most counties in Texas, other than the large urban areas which went for Barack Obama by big margins (San Antonio being the sole exception). Three million Texans voted in the Democratic Primary; 1.1 million of them attended the caucuses. Maybe, with a little luck, the final results will be known by the time you read this. So far, it looks as though Clinton won the primary vote by a relatively narrow margin, but Obama may have won most of the caucus delegates. Because of the unique structure of the Texas Democratic system, Obama could very well end up with slightly more pledged delegates than Clinton when it’s all said and done. By “winning” three out of four on Tuesday night, Clinton may not have regained the momentum, but she does seem to have checked the growing perception that her campaign was in free-fall. It just goes to show what long-time political observers should know; Clintons always do best in the clinch. The problem she faces is that we are rapidly approaching the point, if it hasn’t already been reached, where it is mathematically impossible for either candidate to win enough pledged delegates to lock-up the nomination before the national convention. The reasons for this are several, including the fact that support for Obama and Clinton has been and remains relatively closely divided; Michigan and Florida’s votes don’t count (at least so far); and Democrats award delegates by proportion instead of winner-take-all like the Republicans. As a result, you have some pretty silly threats coming out of both camps; some Obama supporters threaten to drop out of the party; the Clinton camp hinting darkly of lawsuits. My advice to both is the same; knock off that kind of idiocy and take a deep breath. Look at the situation realistically. First, there are the super-delegates. The super-delegates came about after the disastrous 1980 brawl between then-President Jimmy Carter and Senator Ted Kennedy. Members of Congress didn’t want to anger their constituents by running for delegate for a candidate who might not have carried their district. It’s since been expanded to include members of the Democratic National Committee, State Party chairs and others. The Obama campaign argues that the super-delegates are somehow morally obligated to vote the same way their state went in the primary. This is wrong for at least two reasons; first, Democratic delegates are awarded in proportion to the vote. Just because Obama narrowly won a state doesn’t mean he should get all of that state’s super-delegates. Second, the super-delegates are not supposed to be like pledged delegates. The whole system was set up so that they could vote their conscience. Lastly, I haven’t seen a breakdown yet, but Obama might want to be careful what he wishes for; Clinton carried California with its’ huge block of super-delegates, and Massachusetts which has prominent Obama supporters Senator John Kerry and Governor Deval Patrick (Obama’s campaign co-chair) as super-delegates. Is Obama really saying Kerry and Patrick should have to vote for Clinton? My suspicion is that long before the convention, the super-delegates will start flocking to whichever candidate is leading the delegate count and the national polls, as Congressman John Lewis did recently when he switched from Clinton to Obama. Then there’s the matter of Michigan and Florida, states that voted early in defiance of Party rules and were punished as a result. It’s hard to feel sorry for Michigan; they knew what was going to happen and changed their primary date anyway. Given the fact that Michigan is a battleground state in the fall, though, it will probably be politically expedient to let them have either a re-vote or a caucus so they can be seated. Florida Democrats, on the other hand, were the victims of a move by Republican Governor Charlie Crist and a Republican Legislature to move the election date up ostensibly to help Rudy Giuliani. Because of this, Florida has a much better case for being allowed to seat its’ delegates when the convention starts in Denver. Allowing Michigan and Florida to participate could solve the problem without having the nominee chosen by the super-delegates, a move that would almost certainly be played up in the media as a “back room deal” that could hurt whoever ultimately wins. Hillary Clinton, though, needs to call off her cadre of attack lawyers. Threatening to sue your own party would be a bone-headed move that could cripple the nominee and end her political career on a sour note. The “common wisdom” seems to be that the longer the Democratic nomination fight goes, and the nastier it gets, the better for the Republicans. I don’t agree. For one thing, there is nothing that Barack Obama can say about Hillary Clinton (or vice versa) that the Republicans won’t use in the Fall. Dragging this out now enables the Democratic nominee to describe it as “old news” when John McCain and the Right Wing Howler Monkey Media Chorus try to recycle it. For another thing, every day this contest goes on, John McCain is pushed off the front pages and everyone is paying attention to the Democrats. That can only help, especially as Clinton and Obama will be trying to stake out positions that distinguish them from the currently politically toxic Republicans. Additionally, most polling shows that (at least for now) the overwhelming majority of Democrats would be comfortable with either candidate leading the ticket and that either candidate could beat John McCain. Republicans are whistling past the graveyard in thinking that Clinton would be easier to beat or that a long nomination fight weakens the Democrats. In state after state and primary after primary, Democratic turnout is swamping Republican turnout at record levels. Some thirty Republican members of Congress are retiring and President Bush’s approval rating is an anemic 19%. And you may rest assured that whoever the Democratic nominee is, they will hang George W. Bush around John McCain’s neck like the proverbial albatross.