Notes On An Inauguration Eve

Today is not only the observance of Martin Luther King Day, or the eve of the inauguration of our 44th President. It happens to be the 1-year anniversary of the Nevada caucus, and I only remember that because Democrats Work was passing out a shirt that read "Make 1.19.08 more than a one-night stand." As today was a national day of service, with thousands of Americans participating in service projects, that proved fairly prophetic. But 1.19.08 was also the one moment during the primary campaign when it looked like Obama wouldn't win the election. I was in Vegas that day, and after an insane caucus at The Wynn, literally one of the craziest political moments I've ever seen in my life, which looked like Halloween with people yelling "HIL-A-RY" and "O-BA-MA" at each other, I went to the main center for the counting and watched Sen. Clinton win. And this was in the age before anyone paid much attention to delegate counts and the fact that Obama probably got more delegates out of the state. Just a few weeks before that age, but in the age. The takeaway I had from that day was that Obama's vaunted organization wasn't enough to break through the Clinton machine, and since nobody knew yet that Clinton was essentially disregarding the other caucuses, I thought that she'd probably be able to do something similar on Super Tuesday. This was also before the Nate Silver boomlet and the fact that the February calendar looked really strong for Obama. He had just lost two states in a row, and with all the griping coming out of his camp about intimidation at Nevada caucus sites and disenfranchisement, there was at least a hint that he would go into heavily black South Carolina and accuse the Clintons of taking away voting rights, leading to all kinds of ugly racial politics. We had those, but not in the same way and not led by the Obama camp, to their credit.

A year ago today, then, was a time when a Clinton restoration looked inevitable. The cynic could say that the past two months of Obama cabinet appointments confirmed it. But the Obama machine was smarter and sharper than most gave them credit for being, and they eventually pushed forward to tomorrow, and something fairly rare in our politics - a man making a meteoric rise from the State Senate to President in four years, without major connections or a family name. And the fact that people with the same skin color as he were forced through slavery to build the Mall where onlookers will watch his swearing-in tomorrow.

There's probably a lesson there, from Nevada to today, about Obama adapting to circumstances, dealing with pressure, and ultimately succeeding. But ultimately, the lesson is that people wanted to get as far away from the narrow cynicism of a George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, a symbol of a new cultural shift, of a more hopeful tomorrow, of an optimistic future, was exactly that character. People seem to really like Obama, and they believe a politician - after years of being shamed by and wanting to forget politicians - can lead again. They are even willing to wait months, if not years (though that's talk and we'll see if the actions match) for the young President's policies to work and his leadership to actually turn us around from the deep hole in which we find ourselves.

There's of course the hard work of governing to come, and as I alluded to, the patience people are willing to extend to Obama today will be harder to see two and three years down the road if unemployment remains high and nobody can get a car loan and big problems like health care and the environment linger. Obama made politics cool again to many - but only in the context of elections, in the choosing of winners and losers that is easily accessible to any sports fan. And so much of that was a reaction to a reviled President who spends his last night in the White House sleeping like a baby, untroubled by the shame he has brought on a nation. So the question is whether there will be any change, to use an overused word, beyond the cultural symbolism.

It was inevitable that the campaign, victory and inauguration of Barack Obama would be juxtaposed against the life and activism of the Rev. Martin Luther King, but the confluence of events that seem to intersect time and again is downright creepy. 2008 was the 40th anniversary of King's death. Obama's nomination speech at the DNC fell on the 45th anniversary of the March on Washington. And the Inauguration is the day after the observed holiday of Dr. King, celebrating the 80th year of his birth. The parallels almost suggest that King is watching over Obama. But I think anyone who believes that this would represent the fulfillment of King's hopes hasn't paid a lot of attention to King's words. Ideologically speaking, King would probably have been much happier to see the candidacy of Cynthia McKinney this year; this is someone who was far more radical than the narrow confines of allowable ideology in Washington. He preached nonviolence not only in activism but in foreign policy, and he talked of how "America may go to hell" for what it has done in Vietnam. To his great credit, even Obama recognized that King and he may be linked by skin color, but that doesn't mean they would have been linked in all they do. That's not how King operated. From a January 2008 debate:

BLITZER: We are completely out of time, but we have time for one final question that I'd like to ask all three of you to respond and, if possible, within one minute or less, and it's an important question on this important day... If Dr. Martin Luther King were alive today, unfortunately, he's not, but if he were alive today, why do you think he would or why should he endorse you?

OBAMA: Well, I don't think Dr. King would endorse any of us. I think what he would call upon the American people to do is to hold us accountable, and this goes to the core differences, I think, in this campaign. I believe change does not happen from the top down. It happens from the bottom up. Dr. King understood that. (APPLAUSE) It was those women who were willing to walk instead of ride the bus, union workers who are willing to take on violence and intimidation to get the right to organize. It was women who decided, "I'm as smart as my husband. I'd better get the right to vote," them arguing, mobilizing, agitating, and ultimately forcing elected officials to be accountable, I think that's the key.

So that has been a hallmark of my career, transparency and accountability, getting the American people involved. That's how we're going to bring about change. That's why I want to be president of the United States, to respect the power of the American people to bring about change.

The two things I have noticed about Obama over these last two years are this. One, he is unfailingly honest. He has told America exactly how he will govern and he will seek to carry out the policies he expressed, engage with his foes perhaps even more than his friends, and basically institute a somewhat cautious brand of good-government technocracy. The other observation is that Obama is more willing to listen than most politicians, and if the case is made he has no problem changing course. If you put those together and look at the above quote, you can synthesize that Obama is perfectly willing to respond to criticism, to go where those who activate their communities and engage the public demand he take them, and respect the power vested in him by the people to act in the interests of the people. It means that tomorrow, Americans of all stripes will have a unique opportunity to petition their government. There is no real excuse for this. The tools are available.

I don't think the current set of policies that Obama has fleshed out are likely to work right now. The economic recovery isn't big enough. The health care reform won't control costs enough. The war policies continue to hold to a myth that Afghanistan needs more troops to maintain security instead of a regional framework. The policies as a whole reflect an incrementalism that is insufficient for the time. The success of this new President depends not on whether or not these steps succeed but how he reacts should they fail. While Obama's greatest supporters tend to recast everything he does as a self-evidently remarkable step forward (which it isn't), his greatest detractors tend to believe that his entire Presidency would be static, and that the outcomes of events would not inform the newly reset policies to react to them. There is no roadmap for the Presidency, but a mindset of honesty and receptiveness is one that has the greatest capacity to involve people in their government again. And at this moment, a return to civics is the very best we can hope for.

Great Stuff Around The Web About Dr. King

These are all must-reads.

Kai Wright on Dr. King's forgotten legacy as a radical who pushed an economic and political agenda that was stridently antiwar and opposed to the demons of "racism, materialism, and militarism". Actually I don't know how lost this radical vision was, at least today. Even on the usually vapid cable news, you heard about economic justice and saw quotes from bystanders at McCain's ill-received speech saying "He's a war guy, Dr. King was all about peace." CNN ran a pretty powerful piece about the Memphis sanitation workers, and they aired copious excerpts from black radio that was really revealing. I think a lot of these concepts have become internalized, and kind of exploded today.

Maybe that's because Dr. King's ideas, including his 1967 speech protesting the Vietnam War at a time when it was uncomfortable to do so, was so evergreen, and could be applied to this very day.

See also Rick Perlstein, pushing back on the painted-over history that conservatives try to use to forget their incendiary hatred of the civil rights leader.

Martin Luther King was shuttling in and out of Memphis in support of striking garbage workers. Or, as Governor Buford Ellington put it, "training 3,000 people to start riots." 500 Tennessee citizens signed a complaint asking a U.S. district judge to suspend Governor Ellington's frightening plans for National Guard training exercises that would simulate riots in black neighborhoods. Ellington huffed in return: "When we say we are going to train the guard to protect the lives of people and their property, there is a big hullabaloo about it" from "people who would like to see riots." A third of the New York Times's dispatch on the controversy focused on the fact that one of the 500 petitioners had been arrested for possession of marijuana.

The 1968 civil rights bill moved to the House. Minority leader Gerald Ford announced he would fight the open housing provision. Southern governors, ignoring outright a 1967 decision of the Fifth Circuit articulating an "affirmative duty...to bring about an integrated, unitary school system in which there are no Negro schools and no white schools--just schools," were served a deadline by the dreaded Harold Howe II: comply by September of 1969, or else. The California Democratic Council adopted a pro-Gene McCarthy resolution at their annual convention. The keynote speaker--Martin Luther King--refused to indicate a preference for McCarthy or RFK, but made it clear he opposed the incumbent: "Flame throwers in Vietnam fan the flames in our cities--I don't think the two matters can be separated."

The next morning, a Saturday, the President popped around to the Sheraton Park Hotel for a breakfast speech to the National Alliance of Businessmen that all but accused his critics [like King] of being against the troops:

"Earlier this week in the East Room of the White House, I awarded the Medal of Honor to two of our bravest fighting Marines....

"As your President, I want to say this to you today: We must meet our commitments in the world and in Vietnam. We shall and we are going to win.

"To meet the needs of these fighting men, we shall do whatever is required."

Maybe the finest historian on the conservative agenda. That's a REAL must-read.

Early Morning, April 4

(bumped. Also see Beyond the Mountaintop, a study of economic and poverty issues 40 years after the death of Dr. King.)

... shot rings out, in a Memphis sky,
free at last, they took you alive
but they could not take your pride...

And then I got into Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.

And I don't mind.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

And so I'm happy, tonight.

I'm not worried about anything.

I'm not fearing any man!

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!

Just to contextualize, Martin Luther King was in Memphis working with striking sanitation workers who wanted a fair contract from the city. He was a civil rights leader but understood civil rights as an economic justice issue, as an issue of equality, not just of humanity but opportunity. The workers were threatened and attacked and kept on marching for their rights. King's fight was for freedom of assembly, for equal protection, for justice in all its forms. To me, this was actually the most powerful portion of that speech:

Now the other thing we'll have to do is this: Always anchor our external direct action with the power of economic withdrawal. Now, we are poor people. Individually, we are poor when you compare us with white society in America. We are poor. Never stop and forget that collectively -- that means all of us together -- collectively we are richer than all the nations in the world, with the exception of nine. Did you ever think about that? After you leave the United States, Soviet Russia, Great Britain, West Germany, France, and I could name the others, the American Negro collectively is richer than most nations of the world. We have an annual income of more than thirty billion dollars a year, which is more than all of the exports of the United States, and more than the national budget of Canada. Did you know that? That's power right there, if we know how to pool it.

We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottles. We don't need any Molotov cocktails. We just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, "God sent us by here, to say to you that you're not treating his children right. And we've come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda fair treatment, where God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you."

And so, as a result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy -- what is the other bread? -- Wonder Bread. And what is the other bread company, Jesse? Tell them not to buy Hart's bread. As Jesse Jackson has said, up to now, only the garbage men have been feeling pain; now we must kind of redistribute the pain. We are choosing these companies because they haven't been fair in their hiring policies; and we are choosing them because they can begin the process of saying they are going to support the needs and the rights of these men who are on strike. And then they can move on town -- downtown and tell Mayor Loeb to do what is right.

The power of collective action. The power of bottom-up organizing. The power of seeing a world where everyone is in it together, where everyone has a stake in one another. The power of fighting for justice and fairness and right, and moving mountains just by walking together. We get cynical in this medium a lot, and maybe we have a right to; after all, forty years ago they shot Dr. King for leading such a movement. But the legacy lives on, and I believe in his aphorism that "the long arc of history bends toward justice." This movement, this place where we've all gravitated, is but a small kernel of that legacy. But it's growing, and regardless of the President or the Congress or whoever it will continue to move forward. And one day, we will get there.


...oh yeah, just so you know, and want to tell a friend, John McCain voted against making Martin Luther King's birthday a holiday in 1983.

UPDATE: I guess people are killing Sen. Obama for not being in Memphis today, but I don't know, isn't it a measure of Dr. King's legacy that on this day, a black man is running for President in NORTH DAKOTA? Content of their character?

McCain On King

Color of Change:

McCain Voted Against Creating Martin Luther King Holiday. In 1983, McCain voted against a motion to suspend the rules and pass a bill to designate the third Monday of every January as a federal holiday in honor of the late civil rights leader, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The motion passed 89-77. [HR 3706, Vote 289, 8/2/83; CQ 1983]

McCain Said His Position Has ‘Evolved.’ During a 2000 interview, McCain compared his evolution on this issue to former Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater. "I believe that Barry Goldwater, to start with, regretted his vote on the 1964 Civil Rights Act," McCain said. "I think that Barry grew, like all of us grow and evolve. In 1983, when I was brand-new in the Congress, I voted against the recognition of Dr. Martin Luther King. That was a mistake, OK? And later I had the chance to ... help fight for ... the recognition of Dr. Martin Luther King as a holiday in my state." [ www.salon.com 4/18/00; Accessed 4/2/08]

Arizona Governor Rescinded Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In 1987, One of newly elected Governor Evan Mecham’s first acts in office was to rescind Arizona’s recognition of the Martin Luther King Holiday. “Mecham strikes many voters as a simpleminded ideologue who is giving a bad name to the nation's second-fastest-growing state. After rescinding the Jan. 19 holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr., Mecham defended the use of the term "pickaninnies" for blacks.” [Time 11/9/87]

McCain Said He Thought Governor Was Correct in His Decision According to the Huffington Post, “In 1983, McCain voted against passing a bill to designate the third Monday of every January as a federal holiday in honor of King. Four years later, then-Arizona Governor Evan Mecham rescinded Martin Luther King Day as a state holiday, saying it had been established through an illegal executive order by his Democratic predecessor. McCain said he thought Mecham was correct in his decision.” [Sam Stein, Huffington Post, 4/1/08]

McCain Consistently Voted Against The Civil Rights Act Of 1990. In 1990, McCain voted against a bill designed to address employer discrimination at least 4 times. According to the Washington Post, the “Civil Rights Act of 1990 is designed to overturn several recent Supreme Court rulings that made it much more difficult for individual employees to prove discrimination. The legislation, being fought by business, also would impose new penalties on employers convicted of job discrimination.” [S 2104, Vote #304, 10/24/90; Vote #276, Vote #275, 10/16/90; Vote #161, 7/18/90; Washington Post, 7/9/90]

McCain Avoided Directly Answering Question on Affirmative Action, Finally Said He Opposed Quotas. While appearing on Hardball, McCain was asked about his views on affirmative action. After criticizing teachers’ unions, McCain said, “I want to test voucher programs. Cindy and I have chosen to send our 15-year-old daughter to a Catholic school, because we think that's the best.” He added that he’d ensure that, “Every school and library in America is being wired to the Internet… But, no, I do not support quotas, and have seen the results of it.” [NBC, “Hardball,” 2/9/00]

McCain Would Not Support Affirmative Action for College Admissions. In a 2004 questionnaire, Senator McCain indicated he would not support affirmative action policies in public college admissions. [2004 National Political Awareness Test- Senator McCain]

McCain Voted Against Addressing The Disproportionate Number Of Minority Children In Prison. In 1999, McCain voted to table an amendment that required States to address juvenile delinquency prevention efforts and system improvement efforts designed to reduce, without numerical standards or quotas, disproportionate number of juvenile members of 'racial minority groups' who come in contact with juvenile justice system. The motion to table passed 52-48. [S 254, Vote #130, 5/19/99]

I don't think McCain is some kind of racist (though defending his vote rejecting the King holiday by saying there weren't a lot of black people in Arizona is pretty ignorant). I don't much think he cares. It's not "his" issue... which of course means that inequality isn't his issue, economic justice isn't his issue, dignity for the downtrodden isn't his issue.

This speech he's giving right now is very poorly received. It's in the rain and the umbrellas are obscuring his head on the live shot. People are yelling at him about being too late to recognize the King holiday. I don't think most of them are even listening. He sounds like he's mad at King. He has no idea how to give an inspiring speech, and there's kind of a value in that. They're yelling at him and booing him at the end. Wow. Jesse Jackson is being too gracious.

UPDATE: Think Progress has the video. I guess CNN had a better live shot. Meanwhile, Obama's speech in Fort Wayne, Indiana was typically superlative.

The Maverick's History

Just to add on to Digby's post about the true history of the conservative movement with respect to MLK, it should be noted that one of the two candidates most likely to get their Presidential nomination, John McCain, voted against making today a national holiday in 1983, and is spending today among some interesting company:

Nearly 24 years after voting against creating a holiday honoring Martin Luther King, John McCain is spending today at the inauguration of Alabama Governor Bob Riley who is a member of an organization that has been criticized for excluding African Americans. The "Grand Master" of the Grand Lodge of Alabama admits he knows of no African American members among the groups 30,000 plus membership. [AP, 9/30/2006] [...]

In past efforts to pander to a far right base that doesn’t trust him, McCain campaigned in Alabama for George Wallace Jr., a popular speaker at a white supremacist hate group, continues to employ a strategist who denounced the creation of a Federal holiday honoring Dr. King as "vicious" and "profane," and even hired the man responsible for the racist ads against Harold Ford in the Senate race in Tennessee in 2006. [New York Times, 4/20/00, San Diego Union Tribune, 1/18/00; Associated Press, 11/17/05, Southern Poverty Law Center, Intelligence Report, Summer 2005; AP, 6/6/05; New York Times, 10/27/06; New York Times, 10/26/06; Union Leader, 12/8/06]

Here's a little more about Bob Riley and this secretive Masonic organization known as the Grand Lodge of Alabama, which has quite a ring to it, no?

"This is not rocket science: Bob Riley is the Governor of Alabama and is running for re-election. The President of the United States came to Birmingham, yesterday, September 28th, to help raise more money for Riley's re-election campaign.

However, that which the mainstream media fails to address or conveniently chooses to ignore is that Bob Riley is a Mason; a member of the Grand Lodge of Alabama. So far so good. No big deal. Lots of well-known people are Masons. But, when we learned and then exposed on our former morning drive radio talk show that Governor Bob Riley's Grand Masonic Lodge discriminates against African Americans, by formal resolution that they will not allow a black man to become a member we knew that his affiliation ­ because he is the governor and wants to be the governor for four more years ­ was and is 100% wrong."

(Incidentally, Russ and Dee Fine, two conservatives who have a radio show in Birmingham, publicized this heavily in the fall of 2006, and were then fired in the middle of their show shortly thereafter.)

So that's who Mr. Straight Talk is consorting with today. Is it a Reagan-style dogwhistle? You be the judge.

UPDATE: I am completely sorry. This happened a year ago on Martin Luther King day. I was sent the link today and mistakenly assumed it was current. The fact that there's a primary in Alabama on Feb. 5 added to it. McCain's in Florida today.

Mr. Straight Talk's history remains accurate, however.

Dr. King

I can point you to a lot of good profiles of Martin Luther King today. Here's one. Here's another. Here's the letter from a Birmingham jail.

And yesterday, I mentioned Barack Obama's speech, about our empathy deficit and how unity is the great need of the hour. Not a unity where Republicans and Democrats hold hands and sing together, which is unrealistic, but a unity of those struggling to achieve something better for themselves and their children. It's a unity that strives for us all to engage so we can prevail over special interests and ideological callousness.

I watched the speech on C-SPAN last night and couldn't believe it was the same person who I saw two days earlier fumble through a lackluster speech in Las Vegas. Obama need not hide this side of himself. This is the Obama that can rally a country. This is a person with clarity. This is a person with resolve.

I honestly don't know why that person only shows up every once in a while. If he stuck around this wouldn't even be a contest. But it was a fitting tribute to the legacy of Dr. King. And we can all renew ourselves to the cause of justice no matter who leads from the halls of power. We have the ability to make the change we need all by ourselves.

I Sang On "Rapper's Delight" With The Sugar Hill Gang

Man, this Mitt Romney thing is getting worse and worse:

Romney has repeated the story of his father marching with King in some of his most prominent presidential campaign appearances, including the "Tonight" show with Jay Leno in May, his address on faith and politics Dec. 6 in Texas, and on NBC's "Meet The Press" on Sunday, when he was questioned about the Mormon Church's ban on full participation by black members. He said that he had cried in his car in 1978 when he heard the ban had ended, and added, "My father marched with Martin Luther King."

Mitt Romney went a step further in a 1978 interview with the Boston Herald. Talking about the Mormon Church and racial discrimination, he said: "My father and I marched with Martin Luther King Jr. through the streets of Detroit."

Yesterday, Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom acknowledged that was not true. "Mitt Romney did not march with Martin Luther King," he said in an e-mail statement to the Globe.

But only if you mean "march with Martin Luther King" in the sense of being on the same street with Martin Luther King at the same time. And that's pretty abstract.

I was going to do a series of other things Mitt Romney has done "for the cause of his brothers and sisters" in his life, but TBogg beat me to it:

August 23, 1963: Convinces Martin Luther King to conclude his "I Have A Dream" speech with "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!", instead of "I'm going to Disneyland!".

December 14, 1966: Tells Ron Karenga that Kwanzaa sounds "less gay" than "First Fruits Festival".

October 16, 1968: Offers Tommie Smith John Carlos his black socks to wear on their fists on the medal stand at the Olympics.

July 14, 1970; Plays congas on The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

November 19, 1970: Nails Angela Davis. Nine months later, Tagg Romney is born.

June 13, 1982: Convinces Michael Jackson that he thinks he would look "really swell" as a white woman.

March 3, 1991: Forgets that he is Rodney King's designated driver and King is forced to drive himself home.

March 9, 1997: Kills Biggie Smalls for "disrespecting" him.

May 13, 2005: Double-dog dares Michael Vick to top strapping a dog to the top of a station wagon.

Not the first time I wished I wrote something that TBogg wrote.

It Depends On What Your Definition of "Together" Is

Yesterday, the Boston Phoenix investigated this claim from Mitt Romney that his father "walked together with Martin Luther King" in favor of civil rights. Turns out he, um, didn't. Here's the Romney campaign's explanation:

A spokesperson for Mitt Romney now tells the Boston Phoenix that George W. Romney and Martin Luther King Jr. marched together in June, 1963 -- although possibly not on the same day or in the same city.

Romney, according to one piece of written source material provided by the campaign, made a “surprise” appearance at a small march in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, in late June -- several days after King led a much larger march in Detroit. Romney spokesperson Eric Fehrnstrom suggests that these two were part of the same “series” of events, co-sponsored by King and the NAACP, and is thus consistent with Romney’s claim that “I saw my father march with Martin Luther King.”

“The record is convincing and clear – George Romney marched with Martin Luther King and other civil rights demonstrators,” Fehrnstrom wrote in an email.

Yes, it's perfectly clear: George Romney knew how to walk, Martin Luther King walked in the state of Michigan once: that means they were best friends!

Now, when Al Gore made statements that were clumsy, they were taken completely out of context and put into the worst possible light to make him appear like a "serial exaggerator." Yet here we have Romney, and really not just him on the Republican side, lying over and over again, changing their stories, endlessly parsing their own statements.

So will we seem the same media narrative placed on them?