Sarah Barra-journalist

Somebody at the Competitive Enterprise Institute wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post and slapped Sarah Palin's name on it. We learn that God, not Nikolaus August Otto or Karl Benz, invented the internal combustion engine:

We must move in a new direction. We are ripe for economic growth and energy independence if we responsibly tap the resources that God created right underfoot on American soil. Just as important, we have more desire and ability to protect the environment than any foreign nation from which we purchase energy today.

With that, we get a rehash of Drill Baby Drill over "cap and tax." You've heard it all before, and so has the public. And they voted last November.

But Fred Hiatt just had to have his Golden Girl splashed across his op-ed page. Well, at least we know now what newspapers Palin reads.

This amused me, by the way:

In late March, a senior official from the Republican Governors Association headed for Alaska on a secret mission. Sarah Palin was beset by such political and personal turmoil that some powerful supporters determined an intervention was needed to pull her governorship, and her national future, back from the brink.

The official, the association’s executive director, Nick Ayers, arrived with a memorandum containing firm counsel, according to several people who know its details: Make a long-term schedule and stick to it, have staff members set aside ample and inviolable family time to replenish your spirits, and build a coherent home-state agenda that creates jobs and ensures re-election.

Like so much of the advice sent Ms. Palin’s way by influential supporters, it appeared to be happily received and then largely discarded, barely slowing what was, in retrospect, an inexorable march toward the resignation she announced 10 days ago.

And A Child Shall Lead Them

Don Rumsfeld never struck me as the religious type, and the assumption being made about this GQ article and his use of Bible quotes in intelligence briefings prepared for George Bush is that he played upon his boss' evangelicism to present the war in Iraq in a language well-understood to the then-President, the way a father would appease a son by playing a game of peek-a-boo. In the article, Robert Draper assigns the impetus for these cover sheets as a Major General working in intelligence for Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Richard Myers, and according to him "my seniors ... appreciated the cover pages."

That clever bureaucrat, Rummy, always winning the battles inside the corridors of power, or at least making appearances to that end. Except this desire to work the system to his advantage crashed on the rocks of his own obstinacy during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina:

"In many ways," says one of Bush’s national-security advisers, "Rumsfeld was more interested in being perceived to be in charge than actually being in charge." When I repeated this quote to an administration official privy to Rumsfeld’s war efforts, this person’s eyes lit up. “One of the most fateful, knock-down-drag-outs was over postwar reconstruction,” says this official. “It was the question of who’d take charge, State or DoD. Rumsfeld made a presentation about chain of command. ‘If State takes over here, are you saying Tommy Franks is going to report to a State official? Mr. President, that’s not in the Constitution!’ ” [...]

A final story of Rumsfeld’s intransigence begins on Wednesday, August 31, 2005. Two days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans—and the same day that Bush viewed the damage on a flyover from his Crawford, Texas, retreat back to Washington—a White House advance team toured the devastation in an Air Force helicopter. Noticing that their chopper was outfitted with a search-and-rescue lift, one of the advance men said to the pilot, “We’re not taking you away from grabbing people off of rooftops, are we?”

“No, sir,” said the pilot. He explained that he was from Florida’s Hurlburt Field Air Force base—roughly 200 miles from New Orleans—which contained an entire fleet of search-and-rescue helicopters. “I’m just here because you’re here,” the pilot added. “My whole unit’s sitting back at Hurlburt, wondering why we’re not being used.”

The search-and-rescue helicopters were not being used because Donald Rumsfeld had not yet approved their deployment—even though, as Lieutenant General Russ Honoré, the cigar-chomping commander of Joint Task Force Katrina, would later tell me, “that Wednesday, we needed to evacuate people. The few helicopters we had in there were busy, and we were trying to deploy more.” [...]

The next day, three days after landfall, word of disorder in New Orleans had reached a fever pitch. According to sources familiar with the conversation, DHS secretary Michael Chertoff called Rumsfeld that morning and said, “You’re going to need several thousand troops.”

“Well, I disagree,” said the SecDef. “And I’m going to tell the president we don’t need any more than the National Guard.”

The problem was that the Guard deployment (which would eventually reach 15,000 troops) had not arrived—at least not in sufficient numbers, and not where it needed to be. And though much of the chaos was being overstated by the media, the very suggestion of a state of anarchy was enough to dissuade other relief workers from entering the city. Having only recently come to grips with the roiling disaster, Bush convened a meeting in the Situation Room on Friday morning. According to several who were present, the president was agitated. Turning to the man seated at his immediate left, Bush barked, “Rumsfeld, what the hell is going on there? Are you watching what’s on television? Is that the United States of America or some Third World nation I’m watching? What the hell are you doing?”

Rumsfeld replied by trotting out the ongoing National Guard deployments and suggesting that sending active-duty troops would create “unity of command” issues. Visibly impatient, Bush turned away from Rumsfeld and began to direct his inquiries at Lieutenant General Honoré on the video screen. “From then on, it was a Bush-Honoré dialogue,” remembers another participant. “The president cut Rumsfeld to pieces. I just wish it had happened earlier in the week.”

And through this we learn who was the ACTUAL child in the White House. Bush may have been the boy king but at least he had a spark of recognition, if only about his own legacy, that kicked in four days late every once in a while. Rumsfeld simply had an insatiable desire not to control everything, but to make it appear like he controlled everything. He wanted to strut around as the main gatekeeper in the White House, and such gatekeeping mattered far more than. This report almost makes the turf wars sound like a game, like a child protecting his blocks at playtime in kindergarten. And this need for control, this petty outmaneuvering without regard for the real-world implications of the actions, permeates the entire neocon thought process, the entire way they relate to the world.

Rumsfeld comes off like the most insecure bastard that ever lived. And I came away learning far more than I expected about the ideological project with which he associates himself.

Go-To Source

I know that whenever I seek guidance on whether a policy is Catholic or anti-Catholic, I hit up the twice-divorced guy who was committing adultery while chastising the President for doing the same, thus breaking two of the Ten Commandments at the same time.

I mean, he seems like the best judge to me. After all, he's going to become a Catholic on Saturday, meaning it's all fresh in his head.

I apologize in advance for giving a crap what Newt Gingrich says or thinks.

God Wants Me To Go Through A Four-Month Long Recount And Court Process... He's Testing Me

If God is Norm Coleman's co-pilot, he's got a funny way of showing it:

Coleman is adept, somewhat too adept, his critics might say, at skillfully tailoring his message to his audience, and that skill set was on full display Friday.

On Friday, Coleman made the media rounds with radio interviews that included conservative nationally syndicated radio talk show host Mike Gallagher. Gallagher, an unyielding fiscal and religious conservative, who hosts one of the Top 10 rated talk shows in the country, has been an outspoken critic of the Congressional stimulus legislation. When Gallagher asked Coleman what he thought of the stimulus bill, Coleman replied that he would not sign it. Coleman did not, however, offer any thoughts as to whether a stimulus bill of some kind would be a good thing for the country and the state of Minnesota (no doubt because Gallagher, and perhaps a large share of his 4 million weekly listeners, is opposed to any sort of government ‘bailout’ - of industries or state governments).

When asked about the recount and how it is affecting him personally, Coleman said he starts every day with a prayer and that he knows “God wants me to serve.” Coleman did later temper those rather immodest remarks by adding that he “is not indispensable” and that others can serve as well. Coleman closed the interview with an appeal to Gallagher’s listeners for contributions to his campaign website.

Wouldn't God have a better way of endorsing Coleman's service than by having him lose the recount and then scrounge for votes one-by-one before the Minnesota Supreme Court? He does work in mysterious ways, then again...

Compare/Contrast

I guess the Obama people must feel like they got what they wanted out of the Rick Warren invocation, but from my vantage point it was a wooden and erratic address. Outside of the parts where he was quoting Scripture, it was hard to even understand his point half the time. When he started rambling about how God was "compassionate and merciful to everyone... and you are loving to everyone" it didn't even seem like it was written or thought out at all, despite the fact that he read the whole thing without making eye contact with the crowd. He looked hurried and rattled, and I have to think that the mass outcry against his appearance had to play a part in that. Either that or he's a star on a small stage who didn't translate to the step up in class.

For comparison's sake, check out the amazing work of the Rev. Joseph Lowery, who spoke of justice and charity and aid for the least among us. I'd say it was no contest.

And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.

And as we leave this mountaintop, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family. Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques, or wherever we seek your will.

Bless President Barack, First Lady Michelle. Look over our little, angelic Sasha and Malia.

We go now to walk together, children, pledging that we won't get weary in the difficult days ahead. We know you will not leave us alone, with your hands of power and your heart of love.

Help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid; when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around -- (laughter) -- when yellow will be mellow -- (laughter) -- when the red man can get ahead, man -- (laughter) -- and when white will embrace what is right.

Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen.

The point that those who Digby refers to as the Religion Industrial Complex want to avoid is that there's no need to reinvent the liberal relationship to faith. It already exists in the application of many religious teachings, in the notions of peace and justice and equality and tolerance, and in the common effort seen in the civil rights and the global peace movements. The religious right has hijacked these principles for the purposes of authoritarian extremism, and what is sometimes depicted as the "religious left" would rather accommodate those extremist views. It's a false choice.

And it didn't hurt to here a little nod to non-believers up on that platform today. For a second I actually thought I lived in a country where church and state were separate. Not bad.

A Blessing

While in exile I missed the whole controversy about HBO blacking out the invocation from gay bishop Gene Robinson at the Inaugural concert on Sunday, but Robinson's words are worth reproducing, especially considering that we're going to hear a bunch of drivel from Rick Warren today that cannot possibly measure up.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

I'm not a religious man, but I can say AMEN to that.

...and he's not wrong.

Ahmadinejad brings Christmas greetings.

LONDON, Dec. 24 -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is offering season's greetings to Christians in a British TV address and suggesting that if Jesus were alive he would oppose "bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers" -- an apparent reference to the United States and its allies [...]

According to a transcript released in advance, Ahmadinejad says most of the world's problems stem from leaders who have turned against religion. The Muslim president doesn't refer to rival nations or leaders by name or mention Israel, despite his past calls to wipe it out.

"If Christ were on earth today, undoubtedly he would hoist the banner of justice and love for humanity to oppose warmongers, occupiers, terrorists and bullies the world over," Ahmadinejad said, according to the English translation of the Farsi-language speech. The broadcast will air with subtitles.

Not that the President of Iran is the greatest messenger - his country just took human rights advocate Shirin Ebadi into custody - but the teachings of Christ that this Jew is aware of do reject war, violence and intimidation. But Ahmadinejad is wrong that the world's problems stem from "leaders who have turned against religion." Indeed, most of these leaders use religion to further their own expansionist ends, and whether or not they are perverting religion in the process, this dynamic has repeated itself enough to make the "true meaning" of religion as it relates to the state to be indistinguishable.

And a Merry Christmas to you.

Hoping For A Bank Shot

We're at the part in the Rick Warren controversy where some "good liberals" like E.J. Dionne come out of the woodwork to defend the mistaken decision because, I guess, Warren and his cadres might spontaneously alter their own deeply held beliefs, and then how awesome will everything be?

Liberals who see Warren as a garden-variety conservative evangelical defined primarily by his opposition to gay marriage accuse Obama of selling them out. Gays and lesbians enraged by Warren's strong opposition to gay marriage in last month's California referendum charge Obama with pandering to white evangelicals and fear the president-elect has gone out of his way to offend them in order to curry favor with straight conservatives.

But a more benign view on parts of the religious left casts Warren as the evangelical best positioned to lead moderately conservative white Protestants toward a greater engagement with the issues of poverty and social justice, and away from a relentless focus on abortion and gay marriage.

I mean, this is just a fantasy. I know that Dionne thinks Democrats can crack this Da Vinci Code and get evangelicals to focus on different issues than they historically have, and that may be true at the margins, but for the most part, religious white Protestants care about gay marriage and abortion because that's been the sum total of their political engagement for decades. To ask them to subsume that is to ask them to subsume their personal ideology, and in some respects their morality. I just think it's very naive to believe that will change. Yesterday the Pope called fighting homosexuality as consequential as protecting the rainforest. The E.J. Dionnes of the world would say that I should be thrilled that the Pope cares about the rainforest.

The major political issue that Warren has involved himself over the past half-decade is Prop. 8. That's just a fact. He spent no political capital on extending unemployment benefits or increasing the minimum wage. I appreciate the thought, expressed by Melissa Etheridge, that if gay people just talk to someone like Warren, they can open his eyes, but while I think that is true with the vast apolitical or low-information sections of the country, it's not likely to work with an evangelical leader or his flock.

I fall more along the lines of Katha Pollitt:

To understand how angry and disappointed many Democrats are that Barack Obama has invited evangelical preacher Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inaugural, imagine if a President-elect John McCain had offered this unique honor to the Rev. Al Sharpton -- or the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. I know, it's hard to picture: John McCain would never do that in a million years. Republicans respect their base even when, as in McCain's case, it doesn't really return the favor.

Only Democrats, it seems, reward their most loyal supporters -- feminists, gays, liberals, opponents of the war, members of the reality-based community -- by elbowing them aside to embrace their opponents instead [...]

In a news conference Thursday, Obama defended the choice of Warren: "It is important for the country to come together even though we may have disagreements on certain social issues." That's all very well, but excuse me if I don't feel all warm and fuzzy. Obama won thanks to the strenuous efforts of people who've spent the last eight years appalled by the Bush administration's wars and violations of human rights, its attacks on gays and women, its denigration of science, its general pandering to bigotry and ignorance in the name of God.

I'm all for building bridges, but honoring Warren, who insults Obama's base as perverts and murderers, is definitely a bridge too far.

Hear hear.

Why Invoke?

We're in the phase of the Rick Warren scandal where people dutifully collect all the soundbites of things he's said over the years. And while sometimes this tends to take people out of context, I don't think the media had a problem applying that standard to Jeremiah Wright, so here goes. Warren thinks that gay people are just immature and lack character and if they could only sublimate their desire like, say, a rapist who doesn't assault every woman who walks down the street (which he compares to HIMSELF), or a violent man who doesn't punch everyone he sees, then they could join civil society. As a result, Warren BANS unrepentant gays from membership at his church. And he's apparently sponsored ex-gay "recovery" sessions at Saddleback. And there are probably a dozen other things, but these are the ones that struck me.

Now, the idea that liberals have to accommodate someone like this at the inauguration because we have to be "inclusive," but Rick Warren doesn't need to accommodate a damn thing, is obviously disappointing and maybe shows you where the Obama campaign's head is at. I also understand that this is that thing called politics, and plenty of other execrable fellows are going to be traipsing in and out of Obama's White House, although unlike The Editors, I think you can answer the question of whether this will help Obama with white evangelicals (hell to the no; he got 25% in 2008 after appearing with Warren on stage, offering expanded faith-based initiatives and creating a whole "Matthew 25" movement. This is tribal. It ain't happening).

However, the comment over the last couple days with which I identify the most is clearly from bmaz.

Why is any of this, Warren, Lowery, or any other religious figure, an official part of the inauguration? If a religious aspect is desired for private parties later etc., fine, but why should overt religion be sanctioned as part of the official initiation of a Presidency? No matter how it is configured, it is going to be offensive to many groups inherently; i.e. those whose religions are snubbed, and those such as the LGBT community, for instance in relation to Warren. Probably some groups somewhere will be similarly put off by Joe Lowery; and, of course, the non-believers and/or atheists don't like any of it.

"America" should not have a preacher. If individuals wish to consider religion vis a vis their government, that is most excellent, but it should be and by individual choice only. God is not for a nation to possess, nor claim the mantle of; that is the province of the individuals in the nation to do, or not do, on their own.

Seven percent of the country does not believe in God. They aren't organized or a political force by any means, but they are Americans, and they are certainly not "included" in this civil ceremony inaugurating a President. What's more, 17% of Americans say that religion is "not very important" in their life, and 57% don't attend church weekly. Are they factored into this inclusive inauguration, with its opening invocation and closing benediction? I see absolutely no reason for this to be part of a Constitutional handover of power.

But I'm probably in the minority. However, doesn't that mean that I should be given a platform and that others will have to "agree to disagree" with me?

Meanwhile, the Courage Campaign is proposing a debate between Warren and Reverend Eric Lee of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Todd Beeton has the details:

We can not ignore Rick Warren's fervent support for Proposition 8 or his mobilization of thousands of evangelical Christians to enshrine discrimination into our state constitution.

Harvey Milk did not ignore John Briggs in 1978, when Briggs sought to pass Proposition 6 -- the infamous "Briggs Initiative" that attempted to ban gay and lesbian teachers, and anyone who supported them, from our California's public schools. Milk challenged Briggs to debates across the state.

Sign the petition. Let's have a debate. Maybe they'll even put an atheist on the stage!

Neither Kinder Nor Gentler

The news that anti-gay bigot Rick Warren will be delivering the invocation at the inauguration of Barack Obama really sucks. Not necessarily because I think the invocation is such a great platform - quick, name the last ten people to do it! - but because of the likelihood that Warren will be tapped for other responsibilities when Obama becomes President, and will subsequently become the face of religion in America. And while I don't have a problem working with pastors, even those in the evangelical movement, on the common ground issues like AIDS prevention and poverty, Warren is not the one that Democrats should be elevating. He's a snake charmer who is just as extreme as a Falwell or a Robertson. Here's PFAW's release:

Pastor Warren, while enjoying a reputation as a moderate based on his affable personality and his church's engagement on issues like AIDS in Africa, has said that the real difference between James Dobson and himself is one of tone rather than substance. He has recently compared marriage by loving and committed same-sex couples to incest and pedophilia. He has repeated the Religious Right's big lie that supporters of equality for gay Americans are out to silence pastors. He has called Christians who advance a social gospel Marxists. He is adamantly opposed to women having a legal right to choose an abortion.

I'm sure that Warren's supporters will portray his selection as an appeal to unity by a president who is committed to reaching across traditional divides. Others may explain it as a response to Warren inviting then-Senator Obama to speak on AIDS and candidate Obama to appear at a forum, both at his church. But the sad truth is that this decision further elevates someone who has in recent weeks actively promoted legalized discrimination and denigrated the lives and relationships of millions of Americans.

Liberals just aren't going to see eye to eye with Rick Warren. There's no compromise to be made. This is a guy who recently agreed that Iran needs to be "taken out" in language that is not discernible from a mullah. This guy does not need to be made the kinder, gentler face of the evangelical movement, in a cynical play for support that will not be forthcoming. It's a big mistake.

Senate Picture

Here's what we're looking at heading into GOTV weekend. Virginia, New Mexico and Colorado are going to be walks - score two for the Udall family in the US Senate. New Hampshire and Alaska look good - I'm still worried about a Stevens backlash, but the polls are showing strong late movement against the convicted felon. Oregon is moving away from Gordon Smith, and I think Jeff Merkley's going to take that race.

So that's six seats, with 9 needed - really 10 due to the Lieberman factor - to get to the magic 60 votes (which isn't all that magic, as I've explained). There's North Carolina, where Elizabeth Dole has debased herself by releasing a second ad harping on Kay Hagan's fundraiser with "Godless Americans". It's really absurd, but she's going with it. And it appears to be backfiring.

As Elizabeth Dole released her second attack ad trying to use Kay Hagan’s faith to attack her, it’s clear that North Carolinians are not buying it. Every major newspaper in the state (listed below), her fellow Republicans and the North Carolina Council of Churches (letter below) agree – Elizabeth Dole’s ads are “indecent,” a “gross misrepresentation,” “worse than dishonest,” and “beyond the bounds of acceptable political disagreement.”

“The overwhelming reaction to this ad has been disgust – directed at Senator Dole – for stooping to this low and attacking a fellow Christian,” said Hagan Campaign Communications Director Colleen Flanagan. “Senator Dole knows Kay is a strong Christian, a former Sunday school teacher and a member of Greensboro’s First Presbyterian Church, and she knows that her advertisements are lies. But what North Carolinians know is that these kind of political attacks won’t create one good job or help turn our economy back around. These are the issues folks here are concerned about and looking for leadership on, and these are the issues that will decide this election.”

Yesterday the North Carolina Council of Churches sent a letter to Senator Dole asking her to remove her ad, saying, “As you no doubt know, Sen. Hagan is a faithful and active member and leader in the First Presbyterian Church of Greensboro. To say or even to suggest that that outstanding congregation has chosen a lay leader who doesn’t believe in God is appalling and should be offensive to churches and church leaders throughout the state.

I think this is going to hurt Dole enough to put a nail in her coffin.

Then there's Minnesota, which has had a crazy last week. Norm Coleman sued Al Franken for defamation of character (Hagan actually did the same to Dole over the "Godless" ad), while court documents showed that a CEO was pressured to give $75,000 to Coleman and his family. Coleman has shows flashes of being fabulously corrupt in this campaign (having his DC rent, his utilities, and his suits paid for by lobbyists and contributors), and this is part and parcel. There's more evidence on this particular case here. The presence of former Sen. Dean Barkley (he was appointed by Jesse Ventura to replace the late Paul Wellstone for his final two months in office) on the ticket as an independent makes this completely unpredictable. This is going to be the closest race of the night.

And finally, we have the race in Georgia, where a huge African-American turnout would appear to help progressive Democrat Jim Martin. But Saxby Chambliss says that can be a rallying cry.

The Republican is outwardly confident, but there's urgency in his voice as he tours North Georgia, trying to boost turnout in his predominately white base: "The other folks are voting," he bluntly tells supporters.

Just in case anyone was confused about who those "other folks" are, Chambliss gave this quote to the New York Times:

The development is not lost on Mr. Chambliss. "There has always been a rush to the polls by African-Americans early," he said at the square in Covington, a quick stop on a bus tour as the campaign entered its final week. He predicted the crowds of early voters would motivate Republicans to turn out. "It has also got our side energized, they see what is happening," he said.

Nice to see a sitting United States Senator all but yell "race war!"

The thing about Georgia is that the winner must get past 50% or there's a runoff. With a Libertarian and a couple minor-party candidates on the ballot, that's entirely possible. So we could have an election between Martin and Chambliss in December, with the prize of 60 votes in the Senate hanging in the balance.

Kentucky, Nebraska, Maine and Texas may also surprise, but it's unlikely. I think the above represents the top level of competitiveness.

...regarding Kentucky, this is disgusting and sleazy and I hope it backfires, even though Mitch McConnell is a scumbag in his own right.

[ Find Your Polling Place | Voting Info For Your State | Know Your Voting Rights | Report Voting Problems ]

Mainstreaming Hate

Amanda Marcotte's Religious review laments that the filmmakers opted for a caricature view of Islam instead of teasing out the internal contradictions common to all religions. It would be better if liberals set an example here. We know how the other side reacts - using "mosques" as a stand-in for "sleeper cells" and trying to frighten real Murcans with tales of the Mooslims coming to take over the gummint and force burqas on our wife and kids. John McCain's boilerplate salute to the Feast of Eid is another example.

But if we don't preach tolerance and associate all Muslims with murderers, then we incite more stuff like this:

A 10-year-old girl sprayed in the face with a chemical Friday, Sept. 26, while at a local Islamic mosque was not the victim of a hate crime, police Chief Richard Biehl said.

The girl was watching children whose parents and relatives had gathered at the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, 26 Josie St., to celebrate Ramadan when she noticed two men standing outside a basement window about 9:40 p.m., according to police.

One of the men then sprayed something through the open window and into the girl's face from a white can with a red top, according to a police report. The girl said she immediately felt burning on her face and felt "sick to her stomach," the report stated.

Other children and a woman in the room felt affects from the chemical and the mosque was evacuated.

Right, it wasn't a hate crime at all.

There's a lot worse out there, like this needlessly provocative "Obsession" DVD showing up in people's newspapers. But someone has to set an example. I appreciate Bill Maher's work to demystify religion but lazy demonization is going to lead to the mainstreaming of hate. It's going to be bad enough in an Obama Administration to get through all the crap thrown at "the other."

The Growing Coalition Against Prop. 8

It seems like every day, there's a list of new opponents to Prop. 8, which would eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry. One day it's Google. The next day it's Steven Spielberg. Then Mary Cheney. And The New York Times editorial board. And Levi-Strauss. And Brad Pitt. And Republicans Against 8, who managed to come up with the most singularly odd revisionist ad announcing their opposition ("Democrats are the only hope for freedom!"). And, appropriate to mention on Rosh Hashanah morning, the Board of Rabbis of Southern California.

The board — a collection of leaders from the Reconstructionist, Reform, Conservative and Orthodox movements — this week declared its opposition to the measure, which would amend the California Constitution to define marriage as only between a man and a woman. Leaders of the board said they wanted protect the civil rights of gay and lesbian couples.

“For many rabbis, it speaks on a personal level in terms of people they deal with whose lives have been impacted over the issue,” said Rabbi Stewart Vogel of Temple Aliyah in Woodland Hills and the board’s president.

The board has more than 290 members. Roughly 120 took part in Wednesday’s vote, the largest number of rabbis to weigh in on such an issue in recent memory. Vogel said Friday that 93% of those who cast votes supported the resolution.

Good Yom Tov!

Calitics is a part of this coalition through our Counter-Fast For Equality. We're giving thousands of supporters the opportunity to sign on to stop the elimination of marriage equality, and donate through the Fast4Equality ActBlue page. We also have a Twitter feed set up. If you send a tweet with the #fast4equality hashtag, it'll appear on our site. So sign up today!

2012 Campaign Begins

The Man Called Petraeus puts out his first dogwhistle:

Gen. David Petraeus is used to controversy surrounding the war in Iraq, but his publicized thoughts on an Army chaplain's book for Soldiers put him squarely in the middle of the ongoing conflict over religious proselytizing in the U.S. military.

The book is "Under Orders: A Spiritual Handbook for Military Personnel," by Army Chaplain (Lt. Col.) William McCoy, and according to Petraeus' published endorsement of the work, "it should be in every rucksack for those times when soldiers need spiritual energy."

But the endorsement - which has spurred a demand by a watchdog group for Petraeus' dismissal and court martial on the grounds of establishing a religious requirement on troops - was a personal view never intended for publication, the book's author now says.

"In the process of securing … comments for recommending the book I believe there was a basic misunderstanding on my part that the comments were publishable," McCoy said in an Aug. 19 email to Military.com. "This was my mistake."

This endorsement has been on the book for close to a year. Petraeus must have been starting to worry that nobody would find out about it!

Can't you hear the theocon right, musing, "I knew that Gen. Petraeus was a good Christian man! If only he were our guy instead of this McCain fellow. I'll bet Petraeus wouldn't consider one a' them baby killers for his Vice President..."

McCain's doing his best to keep the fundies in the tent this time around, but in their heart, they want the guy who writes blurbs on the "Jesus in the foxhole" book.

Protecting Expert Bloggers

David Appell thinks the blogosphere sucks because sometimes bloggers have opinions about which they are not complete experts. Horrors! While there is no substitute for experience, this is probably a pretty common lament of those self-described "experts" who are horrified that the rabble is thinking on their own rather than feeding on expert information like birds. Chris Bowers deals with this nicely, but I would add that there are plenty of bloggers who ARE experts in their respective fields, be it the numbers of politics, the environment, health care, foreign policy, Iraq, what have you, and who do offer insight that you would only find in obscure academic journals, and they can make it accessible and edifying, and help those of us dilettantes with working out these issues. For instance, without someone like Pam Spaulding, who gets a nice profile from her local newspaper in Raleigh, I would lose a crucial perspective on LGBT issues and would find it more difficult to work out my own opinions on that subject, which is virtually uncovered in major media.

Another one of these experts is the science blogger PZ Myers, who has roiled professional outrage specialist William Donohue of the Catholic League by calling a Eucharist a cracker. No, really.

Here's a story that will destroy your hopes for a reasonable humanity.

"Webster Cook says he smuggled a Eucharist, a small bread wafer that to Catholics symbolic of the Body of Christ after a priest blesses it, out of mass, didn't eat it as he was supposed to do, but instead walked with it."

This isn't the stupid part yet. He walked off with a cracker that was put in his mouth, and people in the church fought with him to get it back. It is just a cracker! [...]

Would you believe this isn't hyperbole? People around the world are actually extremely angry about this — Webster Cook has been sent death threats over his cracker.

He then asked his readers to send him a Eucharist wafer so he could do rude things with it on YouTube, which I think is where Donohue's head exploded. They're now trying to bully Myers and are demanding that he be fired. He needs some help:

So far today, I have received 39 pieces of personal hate mail of varying degrees of literacy, all because I was rude to a cracker. Four of them have included death threats, a personal one day record. Thirty-four of them have demanded that I be fired. Twenty-five of them have told me to desecrate a copy of the Koran, instead, or in some similar way offend Muslims, because — in a multiplicity of ironic cluelessness — apparently only some religious icons must be protected, and I would only offend Catholics because they are all so nice that none of them would wish me harm. I even have one email that says I should be fired, that the author would like to kill me, and that I only criticize because Catholics are so gentle and kind.

Oh, and of course, the university president's office has also received lots of mail demanding my immediate ouster (keep in mind, though…Catholics are no threat to anyone at all.) I don't know how much, but since Donohue published the president's email address and not mine, I imagine it's much greater than what I've seen. Those lovely Dark Age fanatics at the Catholic League have started a write-in campaign to start up an inquisition.

So no poll-crashing today. Instead, I would appreciate it if you would write a short note to President Robert Bruininks in support (he's going to hate me for this). I have to ask for a few constraints, though: only do so if you are willing to sign a real name to it — most of the complaint mail I'm getting uses fake names, making it much less persuasive — and that, unlike the religious screeds I'm seeing, you take the time to proofread and send him something that at least looks like a high school graduate wrote it, which will put you way above the level of the hate mail. Be polite and rational, too!

You can email him at: bruin001-at-umn-dot-edu. Myers is a really good science blogger who has the gift of lucidity, and he doesn't deserve this kind of harassment.

AP: Bullying Bloggers And Lying About Democrats!

It shouldn't be too surprising that Barack Obama, who started his community organizing career working for a local church helping displaced steelworkers, would see some value in faith-based initiatives. And Bush's iteration of this policy was to talk about faith-based anti-poverty policies and then hand out cash to rich megachurches who did no such thing, so if money would legitimately be channeled to fight poverty I don't really care about the conduit. Where I drew the line is if Obama supported the ability for churches to fire workers based on their faith, as this AP article asserts.

According to Obama's own speech, that's not true:

"Now, make no mistake, as someone who used to teach constitutional law, I believe deeply in the separation of church and state, but I don't believe this partnership will endanger that idea - so long as we follow a few basic principles. First, if you get a federal grant, you can't use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can't discriminate against them - or against the people you hire - on the basis of their religion. Second, federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples, and mosques can only be used on secular programs. And we'll also ensure that taxpayer dollars only go to those programs that actually work."

Churches already have a place in many communities, so they're an efficient conduit for these types of programs. Soup kitchens are often in church basements, and even as a secular humanist that doesn't make me jittery. If Obama is true to his word here, he's showing a respect for those church organizations who work to improve the lives of those in their community, as well as respecting the letter of the law.

The AP isn't getting their facts right. I know the blogosphere is in a mode where they assume the worst about Obama, and certainly it's merited in some cases. But while you can argue with this policy, he's not allowing discrimination.

UPDATE: Digby disagrees. I understand that she considers tax-exempt status to be a quid-pro-quo relationship for charity work. My preference would be to either codify that or to eliminate the tax exemption, something we'll never see. I don't know, this just doesn't bug me all that much.

UPDATE II: And now Steve Benen, who worked on this issue for Americans United Against the Separation of Church and State, weighs in. If he thought it was problematic he'd have no problem saying it. The first paragraph is notable:

The notion of the government contracting with religious ministries to provide social services is not, on its face, scandalous or unconstitutional. Groups like Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services have partnered with public officials for decades, almost always without incident. There have always been safeguards in place to protect church-state separation, the integrity of the ministry, and the rights of those who receive the benefits.

If Catholic Charities is truly prosyletizing and threatening to end their charity work if they're not allowed to hire only Catholics, that's one thing. But it's important to note that legally, there's not much recourse. The Supreme Court ruled 15 years ago that discrimination in the withholding of funds based on religion is unconstitutional. Government has to remain neutral in funding non-religious activities between secular and religious organizations. Some of it might be creative accounting, but that happens to be the law.

Good Timing

Somebody knows how to pull off a news dump.

(CNN) — Barack Obama resigned Saturday from his Chicago church — where controversial sermons by his former pastor and other ministers had created repeated political headaches for the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination — his campaign confirmed.

The resignation comes days after the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a visiting Catholic priest, mocked Obama's Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, for crying in New Hampshire during the runup to the primary there.

I hope this starts to spell the demise of this messy marriage between religion and politics. So far we've had four pastors and one church renounced and rejected between the top two candidates. Maybe the rhetorical flourish of religion doesn't match with politics, and maybe we should keep rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and maybe the "your pastor is more radical than my pastor" stuff is extremely unhelpful and irrelevant at a time of soaring commodity prices, health care costs, multiple wars of occupation and a planet in peril. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea for Democrats to ape Republicans by wearing their religion on their sleeve. Maybe it's time to keep the two separate. Can we?

The War On Wright

Well, the freakout over Rev. Wright today kind of caught me by surprise. Forgetting the fact that the Wright controversy did very little to Obama's chances in Pennsylvania, forgetting Obama's speech on race in America, forgetting that the revelation in Wright's weekend remarks was that the media misinterpreted practically everything he said, forgetting just about everything and taking the position that any appearance of the former Trinity Church pastor is simply incedniary regardless of content, the cable news was pretty much an uninterrupted parade of concern trolls warning that this independent individual's public appearances would be like death to Obama's presidential campaign. The Bill Moyers interview did not really have such an impact, but today's speech was at the National Press Club in Washington so it became real for the Village. He came to the center of THEIR universe, so of course the whole country was paying attention. Also, Wright went after the media, which offended them. So they were all too happy to give him hours of coverage today, and strictly on the terms of how any utterance of his would hurt Obama, not bothering to engage with the material in any way. The Clinton campaign is trying to move on because they don't have to do anything, as the media is carrying the ball for them, and also even they understand that propagating these stereotypes won't help any Democrats, including her, in the future.

Hardball was of particular note today. Tweety was breathing fire, jumping on these appearances, talking about how damaging they were without even really referring to them, asserting bluntly that Wright is now "the lead surrogate for the Obama campaign." He even brought on black minister Rev. Eugene Rivers, without of course mentioning that he's been working with George Bush for the past two terms and wants to be the new voice of the African-American community of faith (he got particularly incensed when Wright deemed the attack on him as "an attack on the black church" - that's of course his role to speak for all black people of faith).

After about 45 minutes of this, Ryan Lizza finally spoke up with a point that I've seen Ezra Klein make (can't find the link right now):

LIZZA: There should be a principle in these cases in this campaign. There is no guilt by association. This guy has one set of views, Obama has another set of views. If the views match up, then it's fair game. But the guy's been in politics since the mid-90s. He has a record in the State Senate in Illinois. He has a record in the US Senate. He's laid out an agenda as a presidential candidate. Where do his views match up with Jeremiah Wright's? And why as journalists are we confusing the two? It seems to me totally unfair that this guy is getting smeared with the views of someone just because he's his former pastor.

This whole time there's this shit-eating grin on Tweety's face, as if to say, "Oh, you dear boy." Tweety of course thinks Lizza is being naive, but he's making the very simple point that journalists shouldn't keep pretending Obama and Wright are somehow the same person given that they've charted vastly different visions and worldviews.

Then Tweety goes on to do just that, opening with one of his typically unintentionally hilarious moments:

MATTHEWS: Let me give you the proper way of putting it in literary terms. It's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde... who was the bad guy, Dr. Jekyll was the good guy, Mr. Hyde was the bad guy, right?

LIZZA: I'll trust you on that...

MATTHEWS: I think so.

Mr. Literary Allusion, Tweety is. Not that he knows anything ABOUT Jekyll and Hyde other than some snippet he saw on late-night cable after coming in from yet another cocktail party, but he's so urbane, no?

MATTHEWS: So every time you have a problem with Barack, because you don't really know him and he seems a little foreign to you, you think of him as both these guys. They're different faces of the same guy. Jeremiah Wright to a lot of people is Barack Obama. They've become the same Chicago character running for President. One is the good doctor, the other is the monster that shows up at night.

LIZZA: Look, I think there's a danger of that happening. But as journalists I think there's a responsibility to make it clear...

MATTHEWS: OK, carve it apart, separate the two. Try.

LIZZA: This guy went to a church. This guy is the pastor of that church. Now one of those guys is running for President and has laid out a vision that is radically different than anything his left-wing pastor had to say. Yes, it tells you something about who he is, it tells you something about the community where he came from. But it doesn't tell you anything, and nobody should confuse one with--

MATTHEWS: Do you think it might be hurting a good man like Mitt Romney and his family, and good members of the LDS Church, that they're being embarrassed by this breakaway group down in Texas in the last couple weeks? You don't think that story hurts Mitt Romney's chances of being on the ticket? Yes it does. So I'm saying, these associations, fair or unfair, birds of a feather, it's the way people think.

My favorite passage. "Fair or unfair." In other words, I know I'm talking bullshit, but this is my impression of what the unwashed masses think, so, you know, I'm going with it.

Jill Zuckman chimed in, calling Lizza "a little high-minded," Tweety went on to call "GOD DAMN AMERICA" one of the greatest quotes in history, and it went on from there. Lizza, of course, kept his Village standing by calling Wright a "doctrinaire left-winger." And then Matthews launched into his defense of his profession for continuing to harp on meaningless trivialities - it's apparently the Democrats' fault.

MATTHEWS: For years the Democratic politicians have been lambasting Republicans for hanging around with Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. And now they're going after Pastor Hagee. This is the way politics is played, you get the guy's associates.

The difference, of course, is right inside Lizza's original comment - Falwell and Robertson's policy prescriptions did indeed "match up" with the conservative Republicans who associated with them, whereas in the case of Obama, he's charted his own policy course. There's also the fact that Falwell/Robertson associations never got more than a half-hour's worth of coverage on something like Hardball at all, and never without a spokesman rebutting anything negative (remember, Falwell guest-HOSTED Crossfire back in the day). Wright is some "character from Chicago" (there's an obvious racial component there) but Falwell and Robertson were media members in good standing.

AND, Lizza was of course talking about media responsibility, which is of course non-existent in this primary.

Matthews closed the discussion with this line:

Matthews: This is Hardball, we talk politics, Ryan.

Actually, I'd LIKE a show that talked politics. You talk nonsense and gossip about which people are mean to you and your friends. You decide who helps and hurts candidates and use that initial impression to color every future activity. You actually don't know a thing - or care - about politics. Or the people who would benefit from political discussion.

Rev. Wright is in an unwinnable situation, but I've noted throughout the year that anyone who gets that far under the skin of the traditional media is probably just fine.

Wright on Right (and Wrong)

I actually did catch most of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's interview with Bill Moyers over the weekend, and I found him to be articulate, with a deep knowledge of history and Scripture, whose message is really not as it is has been caricatured in the media (of course). Moyers took the time to give full context to the snippets of his sermons we were treated to for weeks on end, and it revealed some interesting results. For example, that "America's chickens are coming home to roost" line was not Wright's, but him quoting some "ambassador" on Fox News a few days after the 9-11 attacks. He was describing someone else's viewpoint, and it was ascribed to him, as if that were his immediate reaction to the fall of the Twin Towers. Wright also has as many harsh words to say about African-American men who fail to live up to their responsibilities as he does for selected actions of the government. He understands that when you love someone, you want them to do the right thing, and when they don't you express your disappointment or frustration to nudge them in the right direction. It's as true with a person as it is with a country, and that value of dissent is one value on which this country was built. So yes, Mr. Stephanopoulos, I think Rev. Wright loves this country as much as I do. And I think we both love it more than you.

Here is a very difficult but enlightening concept discussed on the program:

BILL MOYERS: Hermeneutic?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Hermeneutic is an interpretation, it's the window from which you're looking is your hermeneutic. And when you don't realize that I've been framed- this whole thing has been framed through this window, there's another world out here that I'm not looking at or taking into account, it gives you a perspective that-- that is-- that is informed by and limited by your hermeneutic. Dr. James Cone put it this way. The God of the people who riding on the decks of the slave ship is not the God of the people who are riding underneath the decks as slaves in chains. If the God you're praying to, "Bless our slavery" is not the God to whom these people are praying, saying, "God, get us out of slavery." And it's not like Notre Dame playing Michigan. You're saying flip a coin; hope God blesses the winning team, no. That the perception of God who allows slavery, who allows rape, who allows misogyny, who allows sodomy, who allows murder of a people, lynching, that's not the God of the people being lynched and sodomized and raped, and carried away into a foreign country. Same thing you find in Psalm 137. That those people who are carried away into slavery have a very different concept of what it means to be the people of God than the ones who carried them away.

BILL MOYERS: And they say, "How can we sing the song of the Lord of a foreign land?"

REVEREND WRIGHT: Correct.

BILL MOYERS: That chapter ends up with some very brutal words.

REVEREND WRIGHT: It does. And--

BILL MOYERS: You used them in one of your sermons--

REVEREND WRIGHT: Yes, I did. I was trying to show how people- how the anger- and we felt anger. I felt anger. I felt hurt. I felt pain. In fact, September 11th, I was in Newark. September 11th, I was trapped in Newark 'cause when they shut down the air system I couldn't get back to Chicago. September 11th, I looked out the window and saw the second plane hit from my hotel window. Alright, I had members who lost loved ones both at the Pentagon and at the World Trade Center. So, I know the pain. And I had to preach to them Sunday. I had to preach. They came to church wanting to know where is God in this. And so, I had to show them using that Psalm 137, how the people who were carried away into slavery were very angry, very bitter, moved and in their anger from wanting revenge against the armies that had carried them away to slavery, to the babies. That Psalm ends up sayin' "Let's kill the baby-let's bash their heads against the stone." So, now you move from revolt and revulsion as to what has happened to you, to you want revenge. You move from anger with the military to taking it out on the innocents. You wanna kill babies. That's what's going on in Psalm 137. And that's exactly where we are. We want revenge. They wanted revenge. God doesn't wanna leave you there, however. God wants redemption. God wants wholeness. And that's the context, the biblical context I used to try to get people sitting again, in that sanctuary on that Sunday following 9/11, who wanted to know where is God in this? What is God saying? What is God saying? Because I want revenge.

REVEREND WRIGHT: The people of faith have moved from the hatred of armed enemies, these soldiers who captured the king, those soldiers who slaughtered his son and put his eyes out, the soldiers who sacked the city, burned the towns, burned the temples, burned the towers, and moved from the hatred for armed enemies to the hatred of unarmed innocents, the babies, the babies . "Blessed are they who dash your baby's brains against a rock." And that my beloved is a dangerous place to be. Yet, that is where the people of faith are in 551 BC and that is where far too many people of faith are in 2001 AD. We have moved from the hatred of armed enemies to the hatred of unarmed innocents. We want revenge. We want paybacks and we don't care who gets hurt in the process.

This of course is why a Fox News anchor said on Sunday "I fell asleep midway through, Moyers blew it!" As Pastor Dan says, this is a stunning level of discourse for the soundbite culture to grasp, and one that's easy to rip from context. He's basically saying that we must pause at responding to a cycle of violence with more violence and try to determine the moral course, the one that offers redemption and wholeness, while acknowledging our imperfections and rushes of emotion. If you want Rev. Wright to stand in for Barack Obama, I would say this speaks extremely WELL of him. Pastor Dan gets this right:

One of the best things to happen to the media in the past twenty-five years was the emergence of conservative advocates who condensed the Christian faith to two simple talking points: abortion and homosexuality. It gave them a nice handle on the Christian story: churches comforted their flocks and sang nice songs on Christmas and Easter, and to the extent that they were political, they cared about these two issues and only these two issues. Everybody else was a dangerous radical.

It's the same story we keep hearing about any number of issues today. The corporate media has drawn the boundaries for acceptable discourse on religion with a decidedly conservative tilt. You can be against abortion and homosexuality, or you can be quiet about your political applications of your faith. Otherwise, you're part of the "fringe," and therefore suspect.

Wright threatens that consensus. He knows that the Bible has plenty to say about today's headlines, and he's not afraid to articulate it. As if that weren't bad enough, he's had the bad taste to teach the next president of the United States that Christianity might be relevant.

I'm not a Christian but I accept and embrace any religion that has a moral obligation to connect the faith to the issues of the day, to man's inhumanity to man, to the constant struggle for survival, to hope and justice and human rights. The Dobsons of the world use religion as a spear; Wright uses it as a clarion call. It's easily misunderstood.

Wright continued his public appearances by speaking at the Detroit NAACP and this morning at the National Press Club on the "invisibility" of black church traditions in mainstream American life. He could have been talking about the moral and spiritual center of religion.

People are going to continue to attack Obama on this issue, even, I see today, John McCain, who used some favorable interpretation of an Obama comment to get his licks in.

But McCain noted that Obama said on Sunday on Fox News that Wright was an issue, seemingly opening a door for McCain to connect the Democrat to his former pastor.

"I saw yesterday some additional comments that have been revealed by Pastor Wright, one of them comparing the United States Marine Corps with Roman Legionnaires who were responsible for the death of our Savior, I mean being involved in that. It's beyond belief..." McCain said.

"I can understand why Americans, when viewing these kinds of comments, are angry and upset," McCain said.

Jeremiah Wright was a Marine. His comment had nothing to do with the crucifixion and everything to do with America's role as a world superpower.

These are intentional misundertandings and discolorations. I'd like to believe that there is a simple power in Wright's point of view that can transcend his first impression created by the media but we all know that's not true. And yes this will be an issue until November. However, having heard his pastor I believe Obama has more wisdom and sense of justice than I previously thought possible in a Presidential candidate. In other words I found it to be a dog whistle for me.

UPDATE: I'm assuming that Atrios is referring to Wright:

There's this guy on my teevee talking about how our government supported Apartheid and the peasant-killing Contras using money gained by selling arms to Iran. Oh and 4000+ US troops died in Iraq over a lie.

What can be said about Wright is that he has a memory and he doesn't repaint our national picture by touching up the edges. His portrait is real and honest and informs the future. That's much too gray and shaded for the black-and-white robotic Republicans.

I Support Obama Because I Choose Not To Be Afraid

I've witnessed this latest effort at molehill politics with a fair amount of anger. It's infuriating to see John McCain, who owns eight houses, try to characterize anyone as an elitist. And really everyone who's had a voice in this controversy is an elitist by definition, either a media star or a rich politician, and frankly what's most condescending is these elites presuming to know what those "rubes" they clearly think less of will find offensive. Not that anyone's asked those with an annual pay grade below seven figures, but they would surely tell you that they could give a crap about these manufactured controversies. They're far more concerned about the decades of neglect in their own communities, and phony politicians coming to them and pretending to hear their concerns and leaving without any meaningful action put in place. They're concerned about a broken system in Washington that shuts them out and offers no accountability. They're upset over a country that no longer works.

The idea that Republicans use wedge issues to distract from them failing rural and small-town communities economically is fairly straightforward; it takes an army of spinmeisters and consultants to twist that into a demeaning commentary on those same small-town folk. But the best commentary I've heard on this issue, bar none, is from publius at Obsidian Wings. This is an issue about how so many Democrats, as typified in this case by Hillary Clinton, are afraid of their own beliefs.

More specifically, I think far too many liberals — particularly those in positions with political or journalistic influence — have deeply internalized conservative criticisms. I suppose these criticisms go back a long way (e.g., Adlai Stevenson), but they seem to have gained greater resonance in the past twenty-five years or so with the rise of Reagan and the 1994 election.

As a result, far too many liberals — particularly circa 2002-03 — had internalized the view that they were snobby, that they were elitist, that they were too anti-religion, or that they were insufficiently patriotic in the eyes of the American public. It’s not so much that they actually were any of these things (at least in any great number). It’s that they feared (deeply feared) being perceived in this way by the American public. To borrow from Dylan, a lot of issues came and went, but the Great Dirty Hippie never escaped their mind [...]

Turning back to Obama, this same dynamic explains the intense reaction to his words. Among liberals, there’s this ever-present fear that Obama — record-setting, charismatic Obama — is always teetering on the edge of collapse. To you, I say “chill out.” He’s a tough, resilient candidate as he’s shown again and again. But among always-nervous guilty liberals, Obama’s inartful wording portends not merely a bad press cycle or two, but electoral collapse because it fulfills the elitist stereotypes they live in mortal terror of.

Clinton Democrats think, in short, that conservatives are right. They think that they actually are snobbish and elitist and they're desperate not to have anyone find out. They think that conservatives can simply snap their fingers and create some kind of magic piece of advertising to convince the public that the narratives they've used for the past 30 years on Democrats are substantially correct. The GOP would have painted Obama as an effete intellectual egghead - and Clinton too - no matter what he says or does.

This critique operates in a complete vacuum and is wedded to the politics of the past. They fail to take into account the fact that 81% of Americans feel that the country is on the wrong track, that 4 in 5 think the health care system is broken, that 65-70% think the Iraq war is a mistake and want our troops to come home. They think that none of that matters, that Republican wedge-issue politics are always successful, that we have to cloak our true beliefs and act like Republican-lites in order to win. Hillary Clinton has as much as said this. She thinks Obama can't win because of perception and not reality.

I choose not to be afraid. First of all, it's the constant fear, the defensive crouch, that invites all of these political attacks to begin with. As publius notes:

And the reason that weapon often works is because it’s abundantly clear that liberals are affected by it. In short, conservatives can smell the fear. And so when liberal candidates (or anyone) obsequiously beg for forgiveness for, say, enjoying steamed milk and espresso, it simply reinforces the efficacy of this line of attack. For this reason, the more one tries to avoid looking too liberal, the more one will -- ironically enough -- be subject to the attacks. The fear invites future attacks.

The historical moment simply doesn't match the need for this constant fear. Democrats have been playing everywhere and winning for the past three years, actually, winning in so-called Red America and so-called Blue America. People are pretty much dying for a President who doesn't authorize torture out of the White House, doesn't start unnecessary pre-emptive wars, doesn't leave the whole country in an economic ditch. People all over the country are smart enough to get this, and Republican fearmongering and character attacks will fall on deaf ears. The reason there's such an uproar right now is that nexus between Clinton and McCain making the same arguments, loud enough for nobody to ignore.

But it's all based on fear. Clinton Democrats think that this is a conservative country and we have to patronizingly cowtow to conservative interests and issues in order to win. Obama Democrats know that this is a progressive country and have faith in all Americans that they are ready for change. I'm proud to be a Democrat and I'm not going to act afraid or deceive anyone about it. Unconventional times do not call for conventional thinking.

This is about the past versus the future in the Democratic Party. The spinners and media elites who want to intentionally miss the point are welcome to think otherwise. But this is about whether we can hold our head up high and trust the public or hold our heads low and try to deceive them. The progressive movement in recent years has always been about breaking these narratives to which skittish Democrats thoughtlessly cling. The Obama campaign is poised to do the same.